[Story Poles], John W. Thompson, State Library Photograph Collection, 1851-1990, Washington State Archives.

In 1912, William Shelton carved the first Tulalip story pole. The carving measured four feet in diameter and stretched sixty feet into the sky, a powerful representation of place and culture. An intentional adaptation of Alaskan Native totem traditions and his people’s traditional cedar carvings, the result was a new artform that sought to preserve elders’ stories from the Tulalip Tribes.

William Shelton (1868-1938) of Snohomish, part Skay-whah-mish, Puyallup and Wenatchee tribes, grew up on the Tulalip Reservation outside of Marysville, Washington. Shelton remained concerned with the place of Indigenous cultural memory amid the expanding society of white settlers. After running away from home at 17 to learn English, Shelton believed that long-term survival for his people could only come through multicultural education across the native and white worlds.

Later in his life, around the age of 45, Shelton began to channel his ambitions of cultural preservation and cultural exchange into the medium of art. He created the story pole as a way to revive Tulalip elders’ stories-- each carved figure represented something like a beat in a story, read like a chapter from a book. In his auto-biography, written in 1913 to interpret his first story pole for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Shelton describes his work:

That is how you can see the [story pole] that I carved out with the courage of the older Indians that are living, to show our young children that are now in school who never saw anything like that before, for these totems and medicine men have been dropped for several years. They are never seen, for the Indians thought that the best they could do was to drop all their ways or else never get along with the white people. That was their belief. But I am glad that we have a little of the Indian history and have carved it out on the pole to show a little of the Indian belief.

During his lifetime, William Shelton carved 16 story poles, including one that stood on the Capitol campus in Olympia. Shelton also wrote two books that shared the knowledge of his people countless times over. While most of the Shelton poles deteriorated naturally over time or have since been removed, his legacy is continued through the generations of Tulalip carvers who continue to create new story poles.

References:

Valdillez, Kalvin. “Tulalip poles preserve and continue ancestral teachings.” Tulalip News. 20 Nov. 2019.https://tulalipnews.com/2019/11/20/tulalip-poles-preserve-and-continue-ancestral-teachings/

“About Us.” Tulalip Tribes. Tulalip Tribes. https://www.tulaliptribes-nsn.gov/WhoWeAre/AboutUs