Tlingit Home Decoration - Part Four

The Tlingit peoples lived communally through the winter months in large shelters housing about 40 people.  They are dark inside with a large fenced sunken area in the center for cooking and an open fire for warmth.  I have taken pictures of the inside decorations, hope you can see them! (Lights are for tourists, but our eyes still had to adjust.)

Notice that the house pillars are also carved.

Fence around the cooking/fire area

picture of native celebration and dress

Gunalcheesh!

"Thank you" for following this totem series!

P.S.  If you enjoyed this series and it was good, 

please leave a comment and say, Yak' ei, meaning "good" 

Totem Pole ART - Part Two

The art of totem pole making was fascinating!  Here we go, for all you creatives out there!
(Part two of a four part series.)

You can see the size of this pole, inside of the rustic building built to house the artists work. Even the building is interesting! There are two totem poles in this building, one nearly finished after a two year process and one in a raw form (barely seen in the bottom left of the picture.)

Trees are meticulously sought from dense forested areas.  This is because the native carvers want trees of a certain size that do not have branches on the lower portion of the tree.  Trees that have had plenty of competition, have grown tall to reach the sun before putting out many branches, therefore the branches are higher up on the trunk.  Branches leave knot holes and are not the best fodder for a totem pole.  You can see two rather large knot holes in the side of the pole in the picture below. These were up near the top of the pole.

Native peoples waste nothing.  Here the inner bark has been stripped off and is waiting to be stripped into smaller pieces for weaving baskets etc.

Primitive tools are still used, some from whale bones or a horse jaw bone, as in the top shelf of this tool case.

Another picture for size of the pole. Our guide is standing between the finished and the unfinished poles:

This raw design is starting to take shape.  Eagles and ravens are important to the Tlingit people.  Not sure which this will be.

Look closely to see two circles, hand drawn, makings ready to guide the carver in the next section of his work.

I think that is enough for this post.  Next post will be about totem pole stories and decorations.

Stay with me, ax xoonie (my friend)! 

P.S. Tomorrow we will take a "rabbit" trail in Potlatch Park,  before returning to totem poles posts on Thursday!

Native Art - Part One

Art is found in many places. 

(Part one of a four part series)

Recently I found some interesting art.  On a shore trip on our Alaskan cruise, we visited Potlatch Park, in Ketchikan. We were able to see the making of totem poles, up close.  (But I will share more about totem pole art in my next post.)

I was impressed with a hand carved boat that was lying out in the park, almost forgotten.  It had been carved from a single log and I was intrigued with its simple decoration.

An eagle adorns the front of the boat

close-up of the eagle wing carving on the side of the boat

There was so much about Potlatch Park that we enjoyed, so in my next couple of posts, I will share information and several pictures of the totem pole making process, for all you artists and wood carvers. 

Stay with me "ax xooni".  

(Translation in next post.)