The Governor's Totem Pole

Carved by Tlingit carvers Charlic Tagook of Klukwan and William Brown of Saxman, beginning in 1939 and completed in 1940, the Governor's Totem Pole features, from top to bottom, Raven, a man, Guteel the giant cannibal, mosquito, the world, and an old woman, and tells the story of Raven stealing the moon, stars, and sun from Chief Naas shagi y'ei. After learning that the chief's daughter possessed the moon, stars, and sun in separate carved cedar boxes, Raven turned himself into a hemlock needle, fell into her cup, was swallowed when she drank water, became a baby boy inside her, and was loved by the chief as his grandson. The child cried until he was given the cedar boxes; he opened the first two and cast the stars and moon through the chimney hole into the sky, then received the third box holding the sun. When he changed back into Raven and flew up the chimney, the chief threw pitch on the fire, making a thick black smoke that turned Raven black, but Raven escaped and threw the sun into the sky. Frightened beings wearing the fur of land animals fled into the forests, and beings wearing the fur of sea animals fled to the sea, where they have remained ever since. Below Raven, the man represents a short version of man's creation by Raven, who, when lonely, took a piece of driftwood and told it to stand up and help him, and so man was created. Guteel, the giant cannibal, was blamed for hunters disappearing in the forest, and the people captured him by digging a pit lined with sharp stakes and covered with a cedar bark rope net; when he fell in, they piled logs on top and started a fire. Before dying, Guteel warned that he would continue to bite the people, and after his death his ashes turned into mosquitoes that still bite people. The old woman is said to hold up the world and control the tides; when Raven, hungry, asked her to lower the tides so he could get food, she refused and instead let the tide rise and fall twice a day, as it has ever since.

Juneau, Alaska · United States