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In November 1969, a group of Native activists sailed across San Francisco Bay and occupied Alcatraz Island, home to the infamous prison that had closed in 1963. The occupation lasted until the summer of 1971, when federal authorities besieged the island by cutting off the electricity and water supply before government agents and local police removed the dozen or so remaining inhabitants. The year 1969 also saw the publication of the pamphlet “Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Process,” written collaboratively by Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee), Rolland Meinholtz (Cherokee), and students at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It called for the combination of contemporary theater practices with performative and ritual aspects of Native societies in an effort to bring marginalized Native stories and cultural forms to a reimagined stage.
The large survey exhibition “Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969,” curated by Candice Hopkins (Carcross / Tagish First Nation) at the Hessel Museum of Art, opens with archival documents in vitrines highlighting these two historical moments. Pages of “Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Process” are given pride of place at the entrance next to undated, grainy black-and-white videos of Native performances in dialogue with its ideas. The pamphlet’s spirit continues in another early gallery that projects videos of full-length performances by the New York City–based Spiderwoman Theater, founded in 1976 and currently the longest-running female Native performance troupe. Various printed materials pertaining to the group accompany the videos, which present adaptations of Aristophanes and cabaret.
For millennia, Native artistic expression has been sewn into the activities and objects of everyday life, and while societies and cultural practices constantly change, the emphasis throughout “Indian Theater” on performance would seem to be a way of activating the works on display and not have them exist as static artworks fastened to a wall, plinth, or floor. Nearly all of the exhibition’s painted and sculptural works feature objects that are always in close proximity to a body: shirts, shoes, gloves, condoms, masks, earrings, etc. Bob Boyer (Métis) painted geometric Native designs on blankets, while Dyani White Hawk’s (Sičangu Lakota) conjoined abstract panels are inspired by Lakota beadwork and quillwork.
Sometimes the Native body is on display, as in James Luna’s (Payómkawichum / Ipai / Mexican) video The Artifact Piece (1987), in which he rests motionless on his back in a display case wearing only a loincloth as museumgoers gawk. Dana Claxton (Lakota) takes the nearly opposite approach with four LED fireboxes (2018–19) that feature photographic portraits of individual figures with their faces and torsos covered by beaded objects, which the wall text notes are gifts and inheritances from friends and family. This is the subject as constituted by relation and literally embedded in social and cultural formations. In Claxton’s illuminated images, the sitters are hidden and effaced while simultaneously enhanced in being scaffolded and supported by the largesse bequeathed to them by the living and the dead.
This “right to opacity,” as Édouard Glissant terms it, takes a significant twist in “Indian Theater,” albeit perhaps unfortunately tucked away in the didactics. Labels for both Beau Dick’s (Kwakwaka’wakw, Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation) mask Yagis (ca. 2005) and a display case of vinyl recordings of Native songs and music discuss work not meant for general consumption. In 2012, Dick took forty of his masks from his commercial gallery and ceremonially burned them; three LPs of field recordings made by ethnomusicologist Ida Halpern contain songs that were not intended to be heard by people outside of the community where they were performed, although other recordings of Native songs were made available for museumgoers to play on a turntable.
Emphasizing performance, as “Indian Theater” insistently does, is a way of keeping the works on display open-ended and in conceptual flux for audiences viewing the show. The exhibition also features an extensive set of Native performances throughout its duration. When Native activists took over Alcatraz Island, they read an at-times-sardonic proclamation addressed “To the Great White Father and All His People.” Documentary footage of its recitation appears in Sky Hopinka’s (Ho-Chunk Nation / Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) video Sunflower Siege Engine (2022) along with landscapes shot in what feels like a 1970s, blissed-out Super 8 mm film aesthetic. Self-determination as a performative mode need not be dour and severe, as Sunflower Siege Engine in particular and “Indian Theater” in general affirm.
“We are losing our ways,” said Ty Smith, project director for Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio (NAICCO).
“Unfortunately, as each generation passes, the less and less of our identity is there and exists as it once did. We’re even at a point in time where you know we talk about putting our elders to rest with tears in their eyes. And those tears represent their concern as to what’s going to happen, what’s going to become of the next generations to follow,” Smith continued. “And [the elders] see so much in terms of how native people have conformed to mainstream society, how we’ve become more and more assimilated, how the campaigns of ‘kill the Indian and save the man’ have actually been successful and are still playing themselves out today. And it becomes very concerning.”
As a means of preserving these ways, in 2019 NAICCO launched a Land Back fundraising campaign aimed at purchasing property it could call its own. At the time, leadership stressed the importance of having a home, which would allow the organization to strengthen its programming and maintain a greater sense of ownership over its future. “What our people have talked about is how awesome it would be to call a place home, here in Central Ohio. A place where we could gather, where we could be ourselves, and where we can be open to expressing the parts of our lives that are important to us,” Smith told Matter News in 2022.
In the run up to Native Heritage Month, which continues through the end of November, NAICCO’s Land Back campaign surpassed the $250,000 goal set by organizers. The center has continued to fundraise, though, with an aim of purchasing at least 20 acres of land as a home base centered on conservation and the preservation of Native traditions. These traditions, Smith said, are essential to preserving Native culture, and Indigenous people have “put everything on the line – even their own lives – to make sure that these ways [are] carried on.”
The term “Land Back” emerged about a decade ago, according to Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective. First used by Indigenous artists, the mantra has since evolved into a wider anti-colonial stance and a call for Native sovereignty. Its roots, however, run far deeper, stretching back centuries to when Natives were first forced off of ancestral lands. “Our people have been fighting … to reclaim lands since colonization,” Krystal Two Bulls, director of NDN Collective’s Land Back campaign, said in a 2021 interview with Teen Vogue.
But Smith said the Land Back NAICCO campaign differs from the broader movement both in scale and approach. “We can’t operate like a nation. We aren’t a tribe. We’re a humble little, non-profit, urban Indian center in Columbus. And so, everything that we’re going to do is by way of our own hand,” he said.
Smith said that what’s most meaningful to the organization is continuing to write a new, successful chapter so that urban Native people in Ohio can feel a deeper connection to their cultural roots, while also building a greater sense of inter-tribal community.
“Some people will think, originally, Land Back is about just that in itself. And a big part is that it is about reparations – now, rightfully so. There are nations that live in their ancestral homelands, and they have all the right and reason to seek Land Back to these sacred sites, these ceremonial grounds and places that have been there since time and memorial,” Smith said. “We understand that we have to live in a modern way. It’s been about planting seeds. Seeds are traditions and culture. What we’re really saying is that we’re investing in our youth. This is us putting our best foot forward, all of the strength of our energy forward to try and create this space that they can call home. It allows and lends itself for them to hang on to who they are.”
November 21, 2023
Annual Native American Holiday Market
Collinsville, IL
November 24-25, 2023
Join in for the most unique shopping experience of the holidays. Meeting the artists from around the United States that have hand-made these one-of-a-kind items for your precious gift-giving ideas. This annual event will take place at the Gateway Convention Center opening to the public at 9:00 a.m. both days. Some are traditional, and some are contemporary pieces brought to you by artists from the Navajo, Cherokee, Ho-Chunk Zuni, Hopi, and Santo Domingo tribal affiliations, just to name a few.
Native American Heritage Day: Honoring the Jingle Dress Dance
Washington, DC
November 24, 2023
This Native American Heritage Day, learn about the origin and significance of the jingle dress and Jingle Dress Dance with dancers Misty Solorio (Brokenhead Ojibway First Nation/Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation), Jennifer Night Bird Miller (Red River Métis), and Nathan Solorio (Brokenhead Ojibway First Nation/Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation). Performances: 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Native American Music and Arts Festival
Tucson, AZ
November 24, 2023
The brainchild of celebrated Yaqui artist Gabriel Ayala, the first annual Native American Arts and Music Festival commemorates the cultural impact of Native Americans in southern Arizona. The festival will be held, fittingly, the day after Thanksgiving and will showcase several noted Native American artists, artisans and musicians. The Native American Artist and Music Festival will take place on the Hotel Congress plaza from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and will include food, vendors, craftsmen, indigenous music, and more.
Re-thinking Thanksgiving: A Native American Perspective
Hornell, NY
November 25, 2023
This lively, content-based presentation will give an overview of the history of this very misunderstood holiday. Based on the only primary source document that chronicles the “First Thanksgiving” and using a quiz-style format, participants will learn accurate and culturally appropriate information about the English settlers at Plymouth and the Wampanoag, the Native people who inhabited that area. This presentation is suited for all adults and families with children in 4th grade or higher.
Portland Indigenous Marketplace
Portland, OR
November 24, 2023
Explore creations from Indigenous and Black artists and entrepreneurs at the Portland Indigenous Marketplace. The event supports creators by providing barrier-free, culturally respectful spaces to grow their small businesses and educating the public about their ancestry.
Native American Heritage Month Celebration Exhibition
Abilene, TX
November 22-23, 2023
The Grace Museum is collaborating with Abilene Christian University’s Introduction to Public History: Interpreting American Pasts course to create monthly exhibitions that coincide with different cultural heritage months throughout the year. These exhibitions highlight the narratives of various cultural groups that are integral to Abilene’s history while weaving these stories into the broader historical fabric of the United States.
Cabazon Indio Powwow
Indio, CA
November 24-26, 2023
The 40th annual celebration includes Native American dance contests for all ages, bird singing, and drum contests. A wide variety of traditional Native American food, hand-crafted jewelry, dream catchers, and other arts and crafts will also be available.
Native American Heritage Poetry & Art Slam
New York, NY
November 25, 2023
Join us in person at the Hamilton Grange Library for a Poetry Slam in celebration of Native American Heritage Month. You can either select your favorite poem from an Indigenous American writer or read your own material.
Native Made Market
Rochester, NY
November 25, 2023
On Small Business Saturday, shop local, shop small, shop “Native Made”. The Native Made Market gathering brings Native creatives, entrepreneurs, and educators from various Nations, as well as activists, advocates, and allies, together to immerse folks into Native culture in an engaging, meaningful, and impactful way. The market is free and open to the public and will include presenters such as storytellers, Perry Ground, and opportunities for guests to shop Native-made apparel and accessories, bead art, paintings, sculptures, and more.
2023 Annual Native American Feast
Glen Cove, NY
November 26, 2023
Demonstrations & hands-on activities will be ongoing, including pottery-making, authentic native food displays with sampling, medicinal plant displays, primitive tools & artifacts, corn-grinding, face painting with natural rock, using an atlatl, fire-building without matches & on-site cooking; plus, help make 12-foot long dugout canoe. Films on Native American culture/legends will be shown throughout the day.
American Indian Heritage Month Social & Craft Market
Tucson, AZ
November 24, 2023
Experience the life and history of several nations in this annual Native American Indian Heritage Month Social and Craft Market event to keep our 10,000-year-old culture alive for the 21st century and beyond. Here, you will find authentic artwork, crafts, demonstrations of their songs, and dances to expand your knowledge of American Indian ways. Come for the blessing. Visit the information booth and shop for holiday gifts.
Teejop & Beyond: The Seven Fires Prophecies
Madison, WI
November 28, 2023
Dawn Moneyhan, an enrolled member of The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, will tell the story of the Seven Fires Prophecies recorded by many Indigenous tribes & elders over many generations. These prophecies tell the story of Turtle Island, covering the past, present, and future. They speak of the colonization of this land and warn of the many crises we face today, offering us much-needed information to make our choices for tomorrow. The Seven Fires Prophecies speak of the need for everyone to come together, reconnect with Mother Earth and each other, and light the 8th and final fire that will lead to generations of peace.
Native American Dance and Music
Las Vegas, NV
November 28, 2023
Dance has been the defining element of Derrick Suwaima Davis’ life. A master at maneuvering five rattan hoops around his body, he is the only adult seven-time Hoop Dance World Champion. He conveys the Hopi story of creation through his hoops — creating intricate patterns while keeping time to the singing and drumming of Ryon Polyquaptewa.
Celebrate Native American Heritage Month
Decorah, IA
November 28, 2023
Join in for a meet and greet and presentation by Bill Quackenbush of the Ho-Chunk Nation titled, “Ho-Chunk History & Presence in Iowa: The Neutral Grounds,” from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Dahl Centennial Union, Nobel Room at Luther College.
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November is celebrated as “Native American Heritage Month.” At Native News Online, we amplify Native voices and share our relatives’ unique perspectives every day of the year. We believe every month should celebrate Native American heritage.
If you appreciate our commitment to Native voices and our mission to tell stories that connect us to our roots and inspire understanding and respect, we hope you will consider making a donation this month to support our work. For those who commit to a recurring donation of $12 per month or more, or make a one-time donation of $150 or greater, we’re excited to offer you a copy of our upcoming Indian Boarding School publication and access to our quarterly Founder’s Circle meetings and newsletter.
Amy Denet Deal is happy. I may not have been sitting directly across from the founder of 4Kinship in her Santa Fe store, but I felt her sheer joy — even from my Brooklyn living room, from where I hopped on our recent Zoom call. And it’s no wonder she was radiating positivity: The creative finally feels at home with her Diné tribe after having no connection to her Native American culture until a few years ago. Adopted by a non-native family and raised in rural Indiana, the creative, who spent the majority of her career working in Los Angeles at activewear giants like Puma and Reebok, has come to understand herself in a new way since moving to New Mexico. “It’s really exciting as a designer to use my creativity in a completely new way,” she says. “[I’m] living my best life up here.”
While rediscovering her native roots, Denet Deal is bolstering her fellow New Mexico-based creatives in the process. She allows local artists from Southwestern indigenous tribes to sell at 4Kinship, helping them get their foot in the door. “It’s basically my way of doing what the city’s not doing, creating a design incubator,” she tells me with a look of frustration. She notes there’s a real lack of representation in the area, adding that the city doesn’t offer grants or programs for native residents. Thus, Denet Deal’s mission is to create a safe place for her community to explore their cultural identity.
Denet’s road to professional and personal fulfillment was not always an easy one. A graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, she had build an impressive resume taking on high-level positions at some of the biggest sports brands in the world. But deep down, Denet Deal says she often felt like something was missing. The creative adds that she didn’t quite identify as a Diné woman while working in corporate fashion. “At that time, I was fighting so hard just to be a woman in the industry.”
In 2015, she left the corporate world and launched Orenda Tribe (now 4Kinship), an online store focused on upcycled vintage pieces. But she knew once her daughter — who is currently pursuing a career in fashion at the prestigious Central Saint Martins — graduated high school, the only way to truly connect with her Indigenous roots was to leave everything behind. Therefore, in 2019, Denet Deal bid farewell to California and relocated to New Mexico. There, she opened 4Kinship’s store in Albuquerque, which moved to Santa Fe’s Canyon Road last year. “It was my reintroduction into my culture,” she says about the experience, adding that while switching gears was difficult, it was a necessary process.
Read on to hear everything Denet Deal has accomplished since opening 4Kinship and how she’s making a positive impact in Santa Fe.
Denet Deal collaborates with young emerging artists (around 10 at the moment), helping them to someday secure a store of their own. Once a week or so, they pop into 4Kinship to restock their products, which they receive 100% of profits back on. “It’s a curated artwork store for native people to explore their indignity in whatever way they want,” she says, summarizing the shop’s ethos. When I inquired about some of the designers who sell in her shop, Denet Deal’s face immediately lit up with excitement, a sign she’s forged close bonds with her fellow artists. She first mentions namesake designer Lehi ThunderVoice Eagle, who runs his Long Beach-based luxury hat brand. Denet Deal then brings up emerging jewelry designer Josh Tafoya, who is from the Taos Pueblo area.
Though a good bit of her shelf space is reserved for local creatives, Denet Deal also sells her own hand-dyed and upcycled pieces. Made consciously in small batches, her bold, colorful creations are a feast for the eyes. (Our favorite looks online are the military jacket and fringy denim maxi skirt.) “My hands are normally just all shades of color,” she says, showing me her stained fingers during our Zoom call. “Something I dreamt of all those years working in fashion was to be the one creating things. [Now,] I get to be an artist at the end of my career.”
Her design inspiration at the moment? The snowy storm clouds in New Mexico. “Everything I’m doing right now is grays and purples,” she says. “That’s the beauty of living in my homeland, to have my feet on the ground where my ancestors walked. Each piece is an art form; I see things and reflect all this beautiful nature in New Mexico.” Denet Deal doesn’t follow a strict fashion calendar — she makes clothing on her own terms. “[It depends on] how much time I have. I didn’t have much time this fall because I was doing work out on Navajo nations.” Though her past collections have been rather small, 75 pieces just dropped this month (if you’re in the area, go check them out).
The designer says her real reintroduction to her heritage was through service. “I realized how important that was for my healing coming home,” she shares. As such, Denet Deal has spearheaded countless community programs. Last April, for instance, she started the Diné Skate Garden project, which opened with an appearance from none other than Tony Hawk. “You know that guy? He came out [for it,]” she jokes. As part of the program, they’re mentoring Diné skaters to teach kids how to skateboard while also giving out 5,000 skateboards to youth in the area. “I guess you could say I’m an auntie,” she says about her role fostering young Indigenous individuals.
Inside the shop, 4Kinship constantly hosts events, like its fashion show in January. The upcoming gathering is in partnership with the International Museum of Dance, with local dancers modeling the looks. In an effort to keep the wealth reinvested back into her community, Denet Deal says they hire native contractors at these get-togethers.
As she was rattling off everything on her plate, I couldn’t help but wonder: How does she squeeze so much into her work day? “I wake up about an hour before sunrise,” she tells me. “I do a lot of my ideation in the morning when my brain’s really good.” She also does most of her non-profit work before tackling other projects. “The middle of the day is when I’m dyeing stuff or working at the store with artists.” And because she’s a one-woman team, she then spends time on 4Kinship’s social assets. “Towards the very end [of the day], I’m mostly doing organizational things that help me get started for the next day.”
Despite everything she’s taken on since moving to New Mexico, Denet Deal has aspirations to expand 4Kinship’s reach. One goal of hers? To acquire as many vacant spaces as possible so more artists can showcase their hand-made pieces. In fact, during our conversation, one of the first things she brought up was 4Kinship’s new gallery, which opened up earlier this month. The location aims to amplify the voices of local indigenous artists through showcases. To kick off the spot, 4Kinship hosted a sustainable artwear-focused exhibit, “WE BELONG HERE,” on Nov. 4.
Because she’s nearing the end of her career, Denet Deal has promising plans to help shape the creative scene when she’s gone. At the top of her list is teaching folks about the importance of community service. “Things like the Diné Skate Garden project or the outreach we do through 4Kinship Indigenous Futures Fund, [which is a non-profit that raises money for emerging artists], will have continuance because there will be a whole army of young people running it,” she says. “ It simply starts with creating tools and opportunities.”
A work incorporating tree bark by Native American artist Pat Kruse greets visitors to “Indigenous Artists of the Upper Midwest: Intersections of Art and Healing” at Marzen art gallery in Madison. Jason Levy, general manager of Integrated Art Group, the local art firm that runs the gallery, said the response from the public has been overwhelmingly positive.
Inside Marzen, a quaint fine art showroom on Atwood Avenue, contemporary Indigenous artwork covers the walls, from beaded quilts to portraits to paintings that depict vivid landscapes.
The art is part of an exhibition featuring the work of 17 Indigenous artists from across the Upper Midwest, including some nationally acclaimed artists such as Tom Jones and Leah Yellowbird.
“Many of the artists that are located here are already in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” said Jason Levy, general manager of Integrated Art Group, the local art firm that runs Marzen. “They just happen to be in a small, neighborhood gallery.”
Images by Ho-Chunk Nation photographer Tom Jones are displayed as part of an exhibit at Marzen art gallery in Madison.
“Indigenous Artists of the Upper Midwest: Intersections of Art and Healing,” is on view at Marzen through Dec. 15. The group exhibition, which focuses on the theme of healing, features artists who come from a variety of Native nations, including Ho-Chunk, Menominee and Ojibwe. It’s a collaboration between Integrated Art Group and the Rabbit, Bird and Bear gallery in Duluth, Minnesota, founded by Michelle LeBeau and Avery Makes Room For Them.
Indigenous artists “have been overseen for so long, and so it’s been really empowering for both Michelle and I to bring Indigenous artwork into places where it’s never really been seen before,” Makes Room For Them said. “We’ve heard from multiple people that Madison is lacking Indigenous art and very few galleries focus on Native art.”
One of several drawings by artist Ninipet Landsem is displayed as part of an exhibit featuring Indigenous artists.
Chris Sweet, a Ho-Chunk and Ojibwe artist from Lyndon Station, is one of the exhibition’s featured artists. By being a part of the exhibition, Sweet’s work is being celebrated alongside artwork from both emerging and award-winning Indigenous artists.
“The format of artists sharing that one space, with so many different stories and visions, that’s just an awesome feeling,” Sweet said.
One of Sweet’s featured pieces in the exhibition is “Generational Resilience,” a collaboration with Makes Room For Them that addressed the strength of their ancestors and the vibrancy of their culture through both a painting and a poem. For those who visit the exhibition, Sweet is optimistic that they will be able to connect to artwork, regardless of their background.
“My focus is on unity and healing,” Sweet said. “So I’m hoping that people will take all the emotion from each artist and walk away with a feeling of a connection, of closeness.”
So far, the public’s response to the exhibition has been overwhelmingly positive, Levy said. During the opening reception, there was a line out the door and around the corner and some attendees drove from Minnesota or Chicago to attend. Since the opening, there has still been consistent interest in the exhibition, and several pieces have already been sold.
“It’s truly harboring to see how many people from the neighborhood just walk in every day,” Levy said. “There’s definitely affordable, authentic, Indigenous originals down here.”
The exhibition is a prime opportunity for anyone to see and celebrate work from Indigenous artists who are constantly pushing the envelope, and breaking stereotypes of what Indigenous artwork should look like, exhibition organizers said.
Works by Native American artists are displayed as part of the continuing exhibit “Indigenous Artists of the Upper Midwest: Intersections of Art and Healing,” at Marzen art gallery in Madison.
“Everyone was so excited to be on board with this project and it was great to give everyone exposure,” Makes Room For Them said. “We wanted people to know that there’s still contemporary artists, Native artists, evolving.”
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Editor’s note: This week’s edition of Time & Again explores the history of Indigenous art in the region, and how the region’s Coast Salish artistic identity is being reclaimed.
Otis and Mary Baxter lived on Vashon Island in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mary was Makah, and Otis claimed to be a nephew of a Makah leader and identified his grandmother as Seminole.
Mary was a well-known and highly respected weaver, and Otis carved totem poles and art works in the Northern style for Tillicum Village and other commissions around the Puget Sound.
Otis, trained as a carver at the Makah Reservation, carved the pole that was located at the top of Vashon Heights at Top O’ the Isle Realty along Vashon Highway from the 1950s to 1970s.
That pole was one of the first things visitors saw when they came to the Island, but it helped misrepresent the Indigenous people of Vashon.
Later, in the early 1960s, Otis was commissioned to carve two Northern style 16-foot poles and a 22-foot crosspiece for the newly constructed Ye Olde Curiosity Shop building on Pier 51 in downtown Seattle.
The poles and crosspiece were delivered in early 1963 and formed the entrance to the shop until they were taken down as part of the Coleman Dock remodel in 2020. The poles and cross-piece were stored outdoors in Seattle, until they were going to be demolished and taken to a land fill in 2022.
Alex Kostelnix contacted the Vashon Heritage Museum to see if the Museum would preserve the poles until an appropriate location for them could be found. The Museum agreed, and last year took possession of the poles.
These Olde Curiosity Shop poles, and Otis Baxter’s other carvings, are part of a much larger, complex, and nuanced story about how Seattle, Tacoma, and the Puget Sound Basin, traditional lands of Coast Salish Indigenous people, became identified with Northern style totem poles from British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, while Coast Salish art and carvings were dismissed and ignored for over a century.
Theft and appropriation
Northern-style totem poles were used by commercial interests to “sell” Seattle and Tacoma as the gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s. In 1899, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce removed a 60-foot pole from the Tlingit village of Tongass in Southeast Alaska, without the knowledge or consent of the owner, the Kinninook family.
The pole was erected in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle in 1899, and thereafter became a symbol of the City of Seattle, whose businessmen were promoting the city as a gateway to Alaska. The 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle used the Seattle totem pole as part of its promotional efforts, making it a symbol of the fair as well as the city. Models of this totem pole were sold in large numbers as souvenirs to tourists.
Not to be outdone by Seattle, a group of Tacoma businessmen commissioned a taller pole (76 feet) to be carved in secret on Vashon Island and erected in front of the Tacoma Hotel, in advance of a 1903 visit by President Theodore Roosevelt. Said to have been carved by “two Alaska or British Columbia Indians” or “Tlingit Kagwantan carvers from Sitka,” there remains a question as to who actually carved the pole.
The price paid for the commission ($3,000) is much higher than the fees Indigenous carvers were paid at the time, and the style of the carving differs in many ways from traditional Northern Style poles. Given that the carvers’ identities were kept secret, it is most likely that non-Indigenous carvers created this pole working from photographs of Northern style poles.
The pole was later moved to Fireman’s Park and was restored several times, In August 2021 this pole was removed, following protests by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians that the pole did not represent the Coast Salish Indigenous people of the area, and replaced by a Coast Salish welcome figure carved by Puyallup artist Sean Peterson.
When the Seattle Seahawks professional football team was formed in 1976, the team’s logo was derived from a picture of a Kwakwaka’wakw transformation mask. After the Seahawks created their rendition of the mask, Native American Seattle artist Marvin Oliver created a refined version of the logo, which better adhered to Northern style Northwest Coast design principles.
Because of these “totem poles” in Seattle and Tacoma, and because of the efforts by these cities to use Northern style art to represent the region, capped off by the 1970s Seattle Seahawks logo, the Puget Sound region became identified by Northern style art instead of by the Indigenous Coast Salish style art of the original inhabitants of the region.
This cultural appropriation of Northern style Indigenous art for commercial reasons led to more than a century of suppressing and ignoring the Coast Salish style art of the region.
Identity and art
Despite this use of Northern style formline art to represent the Salish Sea region, Coast Salish art, while overshadowed, did not disappear. Indigenous Coast Salish artists continued to work in their traditional style.
Beginning in the 1980s, a resurgence of Coast Salish art began as Coast Salish artists including Susan Point (Musqueam), Gerald Bruce Miller (subiyay) (Skokomish), Ron Hilbert (Vadesqidab) (Tulalip/Upper Skagit), Shaun Peterson (Qwalsius) (Puyallup), and many others have fought against decades of underrepresentation and sought to revive and share their unique style of art.
Vashon Center for the Arts presented an exhibit last year titled “Indigenous Art of the Salish Sea” which highlighted how the mainstream art world has long prioritized northern Indigenous art from British Columbia and southeast Alaska over the less well-known Coast Salish art traditions and styles from the Salish Sea.
While this is a complex story about the cultural appropriation of Northern style Indigenous art to represent the Salish Sea for commercial reasons, Coast Salish style art is emerging as the true representative Indigenous art of this region. Preserving the Ye Olde Curiosity poles as a display until an appropriate location for them is found provides a way for the Vashon Heritage Museum to help tell this story.
By telling this story, the museum can help to develop the understanding of how Northern style art came to identify this region and how the struggle of Coast Salish artists to reclaim this region’s true Indigenous identity is beginning to succeed.
Bruce Haulman is an island historian. Terry Donnelly is an island photographer. An expanded version of this article appears online.
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