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Preferred term

totem poles  

Definition

  • from the Totempolar Region, the mountain-bordered coastline from southeast Alaska to coastal Washington, the indigenous Northwest Peoples—the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka'wakw, Bella Coola, Salish, and others—carved their legacies in columned sculptures of cedar. The iconographie symbols of their sophisticated abstract art, later to be known as “form line,” were visual documentations, a primal form of “written” language for communicating significant cultural and historical events. [Source: Encyclopedia of Time: Science, Philosophy, Theology, & Culture; Totem Poles]

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URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/totem_poles

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