Transcript: Totem Pole Symbols

Jewell James

Totem poles are about symbols, and the symbol is usually tied to stories, legends, myth, folklore. It ties to some of the traditional knowledge within a native community.

The bottom of the pole, we have a female being symbolized with a gathering basket that she had made. Well, a lot of the medicines were gathered by women, and they knew where the plants grew and what time of the year to pick them what time of the moon to pick them, what season to pick them. They knew which part of the plant to use whether it’s the leaves, the stalk, or the root or maybe the bark off it. It all depends on its use – right – and the knowledge tied to it. And so there’s a lot of knowledge symbolized by a woman and a basket.

Just above the female – a tree of life, you know, and it has its roots exposed. Those roots represent the ancestry of all peoples, that we all come from somebody, and the four roots represent the four directions so red, black, white, and yellow are the colors of the four directions, which are also the colors of the four people. And then it spreads out into a tree that’s growing outward and upward, and all around the world we have these myths about the great cosmic tree – okay – it gives us that connection that there’s a creator being. There’s something bigger than us, something planned greater than us, and we’re just a part of it.

Finally, we get to the top image, and it’s a full moon, but it’s an image of an Indian woman in the moon and one day she realized she didn’t know something, and that thing she didn’t know was when would the world end. So she went out into the wilderness to pray and meditate, and eventually the Great Spirit sent a manito down to tell her that that is too dangerous for anybody to know. And she started to pack her stuff up and go back. Then she realized that the Great Spirit hears me – I’m going to keep praying. I’m going to keep meditating. So she went back to her prayer circle, and she began to meditate. Finally, the Great Spirit sent the manito back – said tell her it’s too dangerous for people to know and she’ll have to hide away where no one could overhear the answer, and I’ll tell her in my time. So she went to the moon, and there she sits weaving headbands waiting for her porridge to cook, cat combing her hair with her walking stick ready. When the Great Spirit tells her, she’ll come home, but the Great Spirit said, “I’ll tell her in my time.”