Totem Poles

Totem Poles often display a family's origins, supernatural experiences, achievements, wealth, status, exploits, acquisitions, and territories. There are seven principal types of totem poles: memorial poles, erected when a house changes hands to commemorate the past owner and to identify the present one, house posts, which support the roof, portal poles, which have a hole through which a person enters the house, welcoming poles, often placed at the edge of a territory or a body of water to identify the owner, mortuary poles, grave markers, and ridicule or shaming poles, on which an important individual who had failed in some way had his likeness carved and depicted in a belittling way.