The Jamestown totem poles

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Growing up in North Carolina, J has visited numerous historic sites, including Jamestown, where the first permanent English settlement was established in Virginia. He remembered seeing a totem pole there, but totem poles originated in the Pacific Northwest, especially the area around Vancouver, B.C. So I investigated. Most likely whatever he saw was put there some time ago and removed more recently as inappropriate, but I didn’t find anything about that. However, they do have poles at the Jamestown recreation of a Powhatan village, and the poles are totems, each featuring a carved face, and they’re arranged in a circle. A search for “Jamestown totem poles” finds them (along with the totem poles in a place named “Jamestown” in British Columbia). I wondered whether they were authentic or fanciful, so it was very interesting to learn that a Captain John White, sent to see what had happened to the lost Roanoke colony, was also a skilled painter and made the painting on which the current exhibit is based, in about 1585. The painting shows the poles and Native dancers together, so they’re obviously not much more than 6-7’ tall, and they are in a sense totem poles – although nothing like the ones found north of us here, about which the English knew nothing for nearly two more centuries. So interesting!

Today’s exhibit

The John White painting