Tour the East Hall of the National Museum After the First Fifty Years

Made from a single log of the yellow cedar, Thuya gigantea. Carved and decorated in colors. Height, 40 feet; breadth, 2 feet 61 inches. Haidah Indians, Queen Charlotte's Islands, British Columbia.

These are posts or pillars erected in front of the houses of the chief or principal men, upon which are carved the family totems or heraldic designs of the family occupying the house; or, if a large wooden lodge capable of containing several families, the carvings may be said to indicate the family names of the different occupants. Sometimes they are from fifty to sixty feet high, elaborately carved with stone and rude iron implements at a cost of hundreds of blankets, the best ones costing several thousand dollars. The backs are hollowed out to reduce the weight when the posts are raised to a perpendicular position. They are deeply and firmly set in the earth directly in front of the lodge, a circular opening near the ground often constituting the door or entrance to the house, though by some tribes they are set a short distance from the front of their houses.

Return to start of the East Hall of the National Museum in 1886