Local totem poles carved with ancient techniques
July 23, 2009
By Laura Geggel
North Bend artist Bob Antone is keeping traditional American Indian carving techniques alive, mainly by learning from experienced tribal carvers one log at a time.
When Mercer Island resident Bruce Leven asked Antone to make him a totem pole, Antone called Alaskan carver Ralph Bennett, from the Haida tribe.
Together, Bennett and Antone carved a 15-foot contemporary Northern Haida totem pole.
The three-month long project incorporated more than just wood shavings. Bennett learned carving from his grandfather and father as a child, and has since taught on the Lummi Reservation near Bellingham, showing students traditional carving methods.
“When we carved the pole here, we didn’t just hurry up and do it,” Antone said. “There was a lot of ceremony that went with it.”
Bennett explained the process.
“We have to ask the wood for permission to use its body, and we do that through song and reverence,” Bennett said. “Of course, it’s not going to say no, but it’s a way of humbling oneself before the wood.”
The artists also used traditional tools when carving the totem pole. Many costal Alaskan tribes found metal from shipwrecks and made them into carving knives called adzes and d-adzes, said Antone, who is also the owner of The Spotted Owl Gallery on North Bend Way.
At the pole’s top, a thunderbird spreads its wings and, at the bottom, a grizzly bear crouches, teeth bared.
The thunderbird is a spiritual creature, and the bear is seen as a bringer of medicine.
“The bear, it doesn’t have a Ph.D. and it doesn’t have access to the Internet, but it knows how to find the medicine in the forest,” Bennett said. “In the legends, the bear would bring the medicine to the people.”
The carvers etched a truth seeker on the thunderbird’s breast.
“That’s the focal point of the pole,” Antone said. “The native teaching of the truth seeker is the facing of one’s fears. Every one of us in our lives has to, at one point or another, look into ourselves and face the truth.”
Facing the truth can be painful. The thunderbird’s wings symbolize the opposing winds of the cold north and the warm south. The meeting of hot and cold can spark lightning and thunder — a symbolic storm for a troubled introspective person.
“Once you face the truth, you come in contact with the truth seeker and the thunder and lightning becomes peaceful,” Antone said.
They carved the totem pole out of white cedar log, donated to them by Dennis Fury of North Bend’s Fury Construction. Three months later, when the carving was complete, the two men highlighted the totem pole with red, black and white paint. Bennett described how the different tribes used to make and trade paint colors.
“Today, I just go down to Daniel Smith and pick up the pigment,” Bennett said. “And I don’t have to go out and kill a bunch of sharks to get oil.”
Antone thanked members of the Snoqualmie tribe, as well as Bennett for passing their teachings onto him.
Bennett said he was happy to participate in the project. Totem poles are like books; they are not tradition in themselves, but they convey oral traditions passed down from generation to generation, he said.
With this totem pole completed, Antone is ready to work on another totem pole and teach his newfound skills to the client’s 12-year-old son to keep the skill alive for another generation to come.
Reach reporter Laura Geggel at 392-6434 .221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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