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Totem pole
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Traditional Kwakwaka'wakw longhouse with a large, bold indigenous face design painted on the front, next to a tall, colorful totem pole at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia. Several brightly painted totem poles from various British Columbia First Nations stand on grassy ground surrounded by dense green trees at Brockton Point in Stanley Park, Vancouver. Totem poles at Saxman Totem Park, near Ketchikan, Alaska, U.S. Tall, colorful Tlingit totem pole with carved figures stands beside a forested trail in Sitka National Historic Park, Alaska. Dense trees and greenery surround the pole. Tlingit totem pole
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Traditional Kwakwaka'wakw longhouse with a large, bold indigenous face design painted on the front, next to a tall, colorful totem pole at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia.
totem pole, British Columbia Totem pole, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Totem pole

sculpture
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•History

Totem pole, carved and painted log, mounted vertically, constructed by the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast of the United States and Canada. There are seven principal kinds of totem poles: memorial, or heraldic, poles, erected when a house changes hands to commemorate the past owner and to identify the present one; grave markers (tombstones); house posts, which support the roof; portal poles, which have a hole through which a person enters the house; welcoming...

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