Etsy - ANDantiquesetc Seattle Kininook Tlingit Totem Pole Spoon in Sterling Silver

Etsy UK £35.00 Go to Etsy UK First seen in Jul 2022

Description

Pioneer Square, Seattle totem pole souvenir spoon probably early 20th Century. Beautifully cast with cleanly modelled figures from the native Alaskan people of the 19th Century. Rather than trying to interpret the history - the following is taken from the Burke Museum in Seattle website. Totem poles are thought of as symbols of Seattle by many residents & visitors, but, in fact, the indigenous people of Washington state, the Coast Salish peoples, did not traditionally carve totems. Instead, these tall multi-figured poles originated much farther north on the Pacific coast & represent the crests of clans & family histories of the indigenous people of Coastal Alaska & Canada. The appropriation of this symbol by Seattle dates to the late 1800s when entrepreneurial civic leaders sought to position Seattle as the Gateway to Alaska by installing an Alaskan pole downtown. in August 1899, a group of Seattle businessmen sailed to Alaska in search of a pole. Their skipper took them to the Tlingit village of Tongass, which appeared abandoned because most of the residents were temporarily away for the summer fishing & cannery season. The Seattle group cut down a 60-foot-tall pole belonging to Chief Kininook's family & towed it to Seattle. The pole was formally presented to the Seattle City Council on October 17, 1899, & raised at Pioneer Place the next day in honor of a woman named Chief-of-all-Women, but became known as the Seattle Totem. Images of the pole were featured on tourist information, & local curio shops began marketing model poles based on it. Seattle Kininook Tlingit Totem Pole Spoon in Sterling Silver