- Funding for Tale of a Totem was made possible in part by a grant from the Lily Endowment.

- How you - Ho ho these old polls that were collected by Brady back at the turn of the century, many of them are still in existence up at Sitka.

The fact that there was one that ended up in Indianapolis and nobody knew about and that was sort of brought to light, is a pretty amazing story.

- It's a story about life, death, resurrection, a new beginning.

And that's, and that's basically where Native and Native Americans are today.

- And I think it brings all of us together somehow.

Native American, Midwesterners, Hoosiers, Alaskans, we all share in a common heritage.

And when it stands at the Al Jordan Museum, it'll have a connection here with Sitka National Historic Park.

And the Brady Collection will be whole again.

I feel very good about that.

Well, I'm Richard Feldman.

I'm a, a physician here in Indianapolis, a family doctor involved in academic medicine.

And I moved to the Indianapolis neighborhood of Golden Hill in 1985 and we bought a home on Totem Lane.

And from my very first contact with this neighborhood, I, I understood that this was a very, very enchanting special place with a wonderful history.

And I started asking my older neighbors, people who have been here a while, why I lived on Totem Line, because I thought it was a quite an unusual name for a street in Indianapolis.

And some of the old people told me that indeed there was a authentic Alaskan totem pole that stood on totem lane.

And I became intrigued that an authentic Alaskan totem pole actually stood on totem lane.

And that began my search for the Golden Hill totem pole.

I had some very modest goals in the beginning.

I really just wanted to find a photograph of the pole to see if it looked authentic and old, maybe just to hang in my house.

And I never dreamed that it would grow to the proportions that it did, or that it would take me on a journey all across the United States.

- Can I have a - Picture, Priscilla?

Oh, can you see my hand over?

Here's Matt.

You don't want, you want somebody pretty and young.

Oh, you look good.

Except the rope line.

You just hang on.

Oh my goodness.

Gonna be awful.

Want this whole hair say, gee St.

Cheese.

Always.

Why isn't that interesting to me?

Once you think, what do you think about this today?

Oh, I think it's wonderful.

Why?

Yes, we see I used to climb the old totem pole.

They clear.

So that's it right here.

- The old people told me that this Alaskan toll bolt coal came from the World's Fair of 1904.

And it was given to David McLean Perry, who's a state once encompassed the neighborhood in Golden Hill.

And that's all that was known about the coal.

Well, that was enough to get me started because I have a, a natural interest in Native American culture.

- Governor Brady was in charge of the district of Alaska in 1903, the district of Alaska.

There was a problem with, with how many people were coming to Alaska, they wanted to increase the immigration so that they could bump it up to territorial status and then onto statehood.

So he put together what he viewed to be the best and most magnificent presentation Alaska could put together.

It involved going around Prince of Wales Island to villages around Prince of Wales Island where he had friends who were native people.

- Well, it was a surprise to me to find out that Brady actually was a Hoosier, and I didn't know that for a number of years.

And he was an orphan from New York.

Came here on the orphan train and was raised on a farm near Tipton, Indiana.

He was a school teacher near Sharpsville and studied for the ministry near Crawfordsville, and then went off to Yale to finish his education.

And was later was appointed governor of Alaska by William McKinley.

And gained the respect of Native Alaskans through his missionary work and as governor.

And that's why when he felt that their totem poles that spoke to with such dignity to their past were merely rotting away in the acidic humidity of the Alaskan rainforest, they gave those polls to him when others failed to buy them from the same natives that actually later gave the same polls to Brady, the - Governmental influence and the missionary influences very strong to eliminate these things.

Really, really direct e direct efforts on the, the part of these people to, to get the native people to give it up.

They felt that it was holding them back.

These ideas of, of clan, the ideas of ceremonial, the ceremonial function of the clan, they just thought, that's all bad stuff.

We get rid of it.

And they, they really made a great effort to do it.

And they came very nearly succeeding.

- There was a certain part of a forced acculturation, a lot of pressure.

But I think Brady had a, a, my sense of Brady is that he had a different sense and he understood and respected native culture in their traditions and how important it was to maintain those in some, in some respect.

And that's why he wanted those totem poles preserved.

'cause he saw them being acculturated and that whole tradition could have been lost.

And he felt very strongly at that ought to be preserved.

Louisiana Centennial Exposition, the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904 was, was the showcase of modern technology in the early 20th century.

And there were spectacles of all types.

It was a large fair.

And Brady felt that he wanted the Alaska Pavilion to stand out from all the other spectacles and exhibits.

And he thought if he had, if he could bring these 15 totem poles down to the fair that he had collected for preservation to put outside the Alaska Pavilion to attract fair visitors, it could make his goals for economic development and immigration to Alaska.

A reality.

- Brady had about five or six native craftsmen come down from the territory around Tlingit, Haida country in Queen Charlotte Islands took they, he had them come down to the St. Louis World's Fair where they trimmed up the rotten wood and, and patched up the poles and repainted them.

But before they even hit the ground, they, they walked into the ground.

And the teamsters down there, the fellas who were responsible for the St. Louis part of setting up the exposition, said, no, no, don't, you don't have to put these poles in the ground because we're going to put them in there for you.

Go on home and take a rest and come on back tomorrow morning, we'll have set the poles up in the ground for you.

Well, the native craftsmen went back to their hotel room and came back the next morning.

And here the, the teamsters had put the poles in upside down.

You can imagine how to, to the native eye, they know exactly what a poll should look like.

And here are these poles setting upside down in the ground, how, how amusing and horrific they must it must have been.

- So we wanted to a track for visitors.

And I have every indication that although he didn't gain much in terms of statehood or immigration to Alaska at the time, that it was a very popular exhibit.

And it did attract very, at, attract many affair visitors.

- There's a V shape on the pole there, and that's the, the trap that caught the monster.

And he caught it and he killed it.

And he, he was able to skin the monster, dry the skin, and he was able to climb into the skin of the monster, the Wasco poles and the Wasco stories.

Wasco and Haida, the similar story.

And Flink it people would be the Gade story.

They're all very close.

And you see a lot of the Gade stories and it's, the story's basically about this young man, this high cast man who marries into this family.

And in short, the young man is, is having mother-in-law trouble.

And the mother-in-law doesn't really care for the son-in-law too much.

- The man worked very, very hard, but he never gained respect.

And one day he had enough and thought he would go out and prove himself.

And he went down to a lake that led to the sea.

And a magical woman met him and said, I understand what you've been going through and I will help you.

And she instructed him on how to slay the Wasco, the sea monster, and instructed him on how to put on this skin and to have magical powers.

David Perry was one of the most prominent and influential men in America at the turn of the century.

And he's all but forgotten now.

He was president of the National Association of Manufacturers from 1902 to 1906, and he was the founder and president of the Perry Manufacturing Company here in Indianapolis.

And at the time of the turn of the century, it was the largest wagon and buggy works in the world.

And he was also one of America's early manufacturers of the automobile, the overland, the Pathfinder, and the Perry automobiles.

I guess with every piece of historical work research, there's dead ends.

And I virtually had a dead end with every aspect of the research trying to find the initial photograph of the poll, finding information in local archives concerning the poll, almost trying to link the poll to Governor Brady of Alaska, finding exactly who and for what reasons.

Somebody gave this poll to David Perry.

But there were breakthroughs, the first photograph of the poll here locally.

It took me several years to find that.

And one day I was in the doctor's lounge at St. Francis Hospital and a surgeon overheard me talking about Golden Hill and my totem pole project.

And he came up to me and started telling me the whole history of Golden Hill.

And he knew all about my totem pole.

He knew actually it actually stood on totem warning.

I said, John, how, how in the world do you know all this?

And he said, oh, well, my uncle George McDougall was a landscape architect for the Perrys and later for the neighborhood of Golden Hill.

And his mother, who's now a hundred years old, lived near Golden Hill and walked through it occasionally.

And he said, well, I'll look through my old family photographs and I'll see if I can find you a picture of what you need.

And two weeks later he called me with very exciting news.

And there it was a, not a very good photograph, but a photograph of the pole as it stood in Golden Hill in 1914.

And it was with that photograph that I could compare it to the many photographs of World Fair totem poles in St. Louis.

And I was able to make the connection match up the photos.

And that was the link that I needed to go further with the research until I found that one picture and could figure out which pole it was in St. Louis.

I could go no further.

Well, the Perry family has told me that, well, this was not an object that he liked and it was an unwelcome gift in the beginning.

But because of his son, his eldest son, max, who, who was absolutely fascinated and taken to the poll, he erected it on his estate in 1905, I got to know Max very, very well, even though he died a lifetime ago.

And he was the perfect person to be intrigued by a totem pole because he was a very romantic person who loved all kinds of things and had a very adventurous and romantic and a very talented life.

He was the oldest son of David Perry.

He went to Yale and studied drama and theater and was probably a very, very fine actor and had many opportunities to become a fine actor with some of the biggest producers in America.

But he wanted to be a playwright.

And I've termed him Indiana's forgotten playwright.

And in the words of Booth Tarkenton, he would've become one of America's great playwrights if he hadn't died in World War I.

He flew in the first pursuit group with Quentin Roosevelt and Eddie Rickenbacker.

And in July of 1918, he was shot down over Chateau Tierre and is buried in France, a highly decorated World War I aviator While the, the poll stood on the Perry Estate from 1905 to about 1914, he was really, there, was very little known in the, in the community about it.

'cause it was a, a private estate.

It was guarded 24 hours a day.

But once it was opened up to the public and subdivided in 19 14, 19 15, just about the time of David Perry's death, the public came through the neighborhood and and saw the poll and some of the early advertisements that the Perry family put in the Indianapolis papers advertising lots for sale in a park-like setting the neighborhood of Golden Hill under the great totem pole.

So it figured prominently in the identity of the new neighborhood, and it became a landmark and it stood as a landmark greeting visitors to Golden Hill until it fell on a storm rotten with weather termites and years of exposure in 1939, face down.

And what was left of the pole was hauled off to the Children's Museum with the help of Indiana Bell telephone in their truck, I guess for preservation and display, but for reasons that are unknown, the pole was never restored.

It was never displayed.

And sometime after 1940 was quietly discarded and no piece of the tone pole is known to exist today.

- It was early spring and the village was running out of food.

So what the young man did, he had climb into the skin of the monster at night, swim down the river, go out into the channel.

And the first evening he caught a nice spring king salmon, real juicy spring king salmon.

He brought it back to and placed it in front of his mother-in-law's house.

And the mother-in-law comes out and behold, here's a nice big salmon for her.

And she, she's pleased and she's thinking that the spirits had brought it to her.

So she was acting like she knew what was happening and she, she was kind of acting like a, a shaman and she was predicting that, okay, the following morning we're gonna have two seals on our beach.

You know, she's going to the village people and she's requesting that her husband give her some regalia of a shaman now rattles and hats.

And, and so lo and behold, yes, the two seals were put on the beach the following morning.

And the young man, he told his wife about this what was happening.

He said he, he's, he's the one providing this.

And so he had spent all his evening night hours gathering this food for the village, but he told her that he had to come back and be out of his suit before the Raven.

Cause - Are you are the story about the Golden Hill poll included an in Brady's documentation included a large poll that Chief TSI had, had donated it, it had fallen on the ground, broken into three pieces and ended up in Golden Hill.

- Well, I, of course was, I was working alone for a number of years on the research.

And so many times in this project something happened that was so fortunate for me and John McDougall finding the photograph for me, Jill Sherman at the Missouri Historical Society.

He has an afterthought, found another photograph of totem poles at the World's Fair that turned out to be the one that was the Golden Hill Pole.

If she hadn't given me that photograph, maybe my research would've ended after a few months.

And then Judy came along right out of the blue, 3000 miles away.

Judy Sheer calls me from Sitka, Alaska with some very important information that enabled me with her help to trace the pole back to the Tati family.

- I was surprised when Bertina first first told me about this totem pole.

Now that we have heard about this and we are so honored, that was quite a surprise.

- When Brady first collected the polls in 1903, as soon as Brady collected those polls, they became known as the Brady Collection.

They became known as an artifact or an art collection.

They were separated from the context of their native culture and tradition.

They became known as Brady was a white man.

So they became known as the Brady Polls.

- And she was working in Sitka, researching the Brady Collection poll with the original donor and, and rac all the totem poles back to the original native donors and villages.

And she got ahold of a earlier copy of one of my manuscripts that was sent to the curator of collections at the, the Alaska State Museum.

And he had sent it to Sitka.

And she looked at this research and realized our two projects were related and called me and gave me some vital information.

And we worked together for the last 18 months of the research and traced it back to the TSI family in southeast Alaska and proved it was one of the Brady polls.

- It was a very odd experience.

I never talked to someone for two hours at a stretch before and, and actually accomplished as much as we did.

It was so exciting to, to continue on with my research, dealing with all 15 poles and yet follow along the trail, connecting information from Indianapolis back into St. Louis.

- When John McDougall gave me my first photograph of the poll, I immediately went to all my world's fair photographs that were given to me by the Missouri Historical Society.

And I immediately went to the Alaska Pavilion with all the poles standing around the pavilion.

And I looked at each one and tried to compare 'em and no match.

And then I remembered that Jill Sherman had sent me another photograph as an afterthought 'cause she had come across it several weeks later after she sent me the other photographs.

And it was the one on the Eskimo village.

And I looked at that and it took about two seconds to realize this is the same pole.

And that was a very important moment because I realized after several years of research, indeed this was an authentic appearing old hide a pole, and indeed an artifact from the world's fair of 1904.

And I thought indeed, the missing pole from the Brady Collection.

Well, after Judy called me, I had, I found that I had made a very important error.

I had made an erroneous assumption that the Alaska Pavilion and the Eskimo Village and where the totem pole stood were part of the same exhibit.

And Judy called me and said that, well, no, these were two separate exhibits.

The Eskimo village was entirely separate.

It was on the midway called the Pike at the fair.

We started researching the president and manager of the Eskimo Village, Dick Crane, in hopes of finding some connection between Governor Brady and Crane and the totem pole that he had to prove it was one of the Brady Collective poles.

And what we ran into was one of the most fascinating and romantic characters of the whole story.

Dick Crane was an adventurer.

He was described in fair material as a typical westerner, an explorer adventurer.

He spent many years in Alaska hunting, trapping, mining, running a trading post, Dick's Last Chance Trading post during the Klondike Gold Rush.

He was a steamship operator, a stern wheeler operator on the Yukon and had many Alaska adventures and traded with the natives.

And after his adventures, he gathered a troop of Native Americans and traveled the world as a showman.

And he brought his troop of Alaskan natives to various world's fairs through the Eskimo exhibit, the Charleston Exhibition, the Pan-American Exhibit Exhibition in Buffalo, New York.

And then finally the world's fair of 1904.

And it turned out that the poll was in such bad condition and it had broken apart when it was collected.

And the native crew that had come down to fix repair and recurve portions of these old totem poles thought it was beyond repair and they just merely piled it up in a heap on one side of the Alaska Pavilion.

Well, Dick Crane saw it and thought that he could maybe repair it and use it for his exhibit.

And in this letter it's documented that Governor Brady let him have this on loan during the fair.

Brady had 15 poles and he sold two of them.

And my guess is because of the condition of the pole and because he may have been tight for money, these were very expensive to ship.

And I know he was on a very tight budget.

And it may have been those two motivations that he saw fit to sell two of the poles that may maybe would not make it back in good condition.

When he left the fair and he sold the Indianapolis Pole to the banner buggy company, Russell Lee Gardner, who was presently owner.

And for reasons that are fairly unclear, he gave it as a gift to David Perry.

And we know that he was given the gift because he was president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

And it was a gift to honor him.

And it was known that Perry was a world traveler and, and had many unusual artifacts from all over the world.

And my guess is that the prominent businessmen who wish to honor him in St. Louis decided this would be an unusual gift for him, for his estate.

We traced his life, we lost track of him after the world's Fair of 1904, but picked up his life later on in 1935 in Bellingham, Washington, an eccentric old man used running a used furniture store and died in Bellingham in 1949, an obscure old man.

And I often wonder this eccentric with lots of stories.

I wonder if anybody believed the stories that he told.

He was a very colorful figure.

And I think of him now as the Buffalo Bill Cody of the northwest, the woman, the mother-in-law in the story got the, the idea that it was, she was responsible for it.

And every day she would come out with her sha and headdress and rattles and announce what the next morning, what animal would be on shore for the village to eat.

And then she, in instructed him to bring back a killer whale, Manny went out and brought back the killer whale.

And the next day she, she said that there'll be two killer whales.

- So he, he had a great big struggle getting the two killer whales back into the shore in time before the Raven Co and before he was able to get the second one up to the Raven Cod.

And he died.

- And the next morning they found him in the dr in the Wasco skin and realized it all along.

He was responsible for bringing food to the village and not the mother-in-law.

And the mother-in-law died in shame.

And he died a very great man.

- The totem pole really was an emblem of the, of the rank and the, the noble background and the mythical background of the family.

The figures represented on the pole belonged to the traditions of specific family groups.

And they, by raising this pole with these emblems on it, you advertise that you, you have that tradition and you are proud of it.

And you are strong enough to be able to raise all the wherewithal to be able to put this pole up and hold up your, your tradition traditions.

- After the fair was done, Brady sold one pole.

It is known to the Milwaukee Museum where it stands today.

The original pole.

Another pole had arrived down in St. Louis in three pieces it was lent to Dick Crane.

And then from then on, you know where it ended up, it ended up in Indianapolis.

The other 13 of the original 15 poles that had been collected were, were taken down from the presentation around the building, put on box cars and shipped on rail across the country where they were displayed around the Alaska building in Portland, Oregon in 1905 at the Lewis and Clark Exposition.

After 1905, they were shipped back up to Sitka here in Sitka, which had become a governmental tar park.

And they were displayed a lot.

They were put up along the trailways around here in the park and displayed by the time the totem poles arrived back here in Sitka in 1906 and were set along the trailways as you see them today, most of the poles were 50 to 70 years old.

That's 1906 in the nine.

By the time the depression came in, civilian conservation corps days, those poles were close to a hundred years old, many of them in a bad state of decay.

So they were taken down and laid upon the ground, another long cedar log laid right up beside them.

And they were carefully reproduced and recarved so that the same crest images on those poles that were newly carved were set back up in the old poles place.

Another re carving effort took place in the 1970s as well.

So most of the poles, just about all the poles that you see as you walk along the trailways here in the park are reproductions of the original poles.

- And I would walk by that little grassy triangle between the roads and walk by there.

And I remember having the feeling how sad this is that such a magnificent work of art, such an important object in the Indianapolis community is now forgotten and gone and people drive by every day and don't real, they don't realize what was there.

And I think recreating that was for me, recreating history and, and making that live.

Again.

One of the school teachers at Nora Elementary School on the north side of Indianapolis saw it in the paper and decided to do a fundraiser for the totem pole project.

And the kids got really excited about it.

They had been doing their unit on Native American history and here was a piece of Native American history right here in Indianapolis.

And over a two year period, they raised over $2,000 through walk-a-thons for the project.

And people saw that they were impressed that school children here in Indianapolis were involved in the project.

And I think the school children, that was a crucial point in the fundraising, their support.

- Most of the totem poles that we know of and probably probably all that are still in existence were carved steel tools.

But at one time people used stone and stone tools and shell tools and tools made of beaver teeth to make the same kinds of carvings.

Those northwest coast carvers were never shy about using the best equipment that they could get.

And it's interesting that today many people complain that carvers use chainsaw, but the chainsaw was nothing like the advantage that the steel tool was over stone tools.

And some carvers call those chainsaws Haida saws because they have to hide 'em when the tourists come.

- Yeah, certainly it's, it's really been a, a change in, in, in my attitude towards a project in the past several years, I've been doing what I call generic northwest coast carving.

It's combining simien, Haida and Tlingit style in my, in my past work.

And so with this, this present project here, it's clearly classic Haida style.

And and so going back through my, my forefathers were all haida carvers.

I just had this feeling inside of, of just enthusiasm.

And I think going to the fact that the original pole could have very well been carved by one of my, my relatives, - Well another charmed aspect of this project, a very fitting end years ago, I asked Bill Holm very noted scholar in the northwest and northwest Native American art to help me on various aspects of the research.

And I asked him, can you find me a carver, a haida carver to carve this pole for the auto drug museum?

And, and Bill came up with a name Lee Wallace.

He's the fifth generation Haida Carver and you know, a very nice individual who I thought he thought I could work with quite easily.

And years went by and we found evidence through photo photographs that told us that Lee's great-grandfather, Dwight Wallace, carved a very similar pole identified by Bill Holm as being carved undoubtedly by the same carver that carved the Indianapolis pole.

Well Judy took that, that photograph and found that indeed that mate pole we call the Tati mate pole, was owned by the same native as the Indianapolis Pole.

And indeed found documentation that proved that Lee's great-grandfather carved the mate pole as well.

And because Bill feels that the same artist probably carved both poles, it turns out that Lee Wallace is car re carving his great grandfather.

It was really a pilgrimage, it seemed like Becky, my wife and my kids, we all went and to meet all these people that I had talked over the phone, you know, I talked to Judy Sheer for hours over the phone about the project and now I was going to be able to meet her, my partner in research and certainly Lee and his family.

So it was a pilgrimage in a way.

And visiting Sitka National Park and seeing all of the rest of the, the Brady Collection.

It was a, a wonderful experience meeting all the individuals involved in this project, a continent a way.

And Lee actually was kind enough to save me a little portion at the top.

He knew I couldn't do any damage up there and let me hack away between the two watchmen figures.

And I think Lee felt it was nice to get me involved in the carving.

So I could always say that I helped carve that pole.

You could have been a carver in your past life, you know, think so.

I'm getting pretty good at this retire Lee.

As we talked about, we were gonna make some changes in this pole as it appeared in, in Indianapolis.

And because in, in St. Louis, they, they altered the pole because it was in poor repair and there was several parts of the pole that were damaged.

So the first thing they did apparently was put two ears on top of the top figure.

And rather than the two watchman figures that we've decided to replace, 'cause we felt that that was original to the pole that stood in in Alaska.

So we got the two sentinel figures and then the next figure, - It's gonna be a, a challenge for me just looking at the, the intricacy of the poll.

And I guess it's, for one thing, it's, it's, it's really an honor to, to knowing that, that there was some people before me that actually did this and for me to do it.

And I'm almost, you know, speechless about it.

Really kind of a great grateful that, you know, I I certainly chose this as a profession and have no regrets and just keep on carving and carving and learning.

- What's really interesting about it is that it's kind of parallel with what's happening to Native Americans today.

It's a story about life, death, resurrection, a new beginning.

And that's, and that's basically where native native Americans are today.

We've just gone through several hundred years of, of somebody trying to turn us into somebody else and we're in the process of trying to get back on our feet, trying to find ourselves.

And it's, it's, it's a story very much like that.

So there are a lot of parallels that with contemporary Native Americans, I think, - I think it's, I don't know, it's kind of nice to know that my dad's carrying on part of all part of our culture.

Well, there's a lot of things that are happening to our culture where it's starting to die out.

And having my dad carved just kind of helps keep it alive.

- I started carving about eight or seven and I carve all things and sometimes I help my dad.

If I become a carver, I'll become the sixth generation carver.

- Somebody asked me a question, he said, he said, well, I'm gonna be better carver than my dad.

Certainly with my children growing up around it daily, on a daily basis, my two youngest children, my son and my, my youngest daughter, they expressed interest in saying they're gonna be carvers.

But yeah, we'll just see what the Lord has intended for them.

Just that it's gonna be one of the harder pieces to kinda let go and chip off.

And I think it's something that can be appreciated here in the local area.

Let, the husband had told his wife that if that should happen, he would, she, he was to take his body up by this large cedar tree up by the lake and also take the skin of the monster and place it by the base of this large red cedar tree.

And she did his, she was instructed and, and the young young man was resurrected.

So he took his, his wife and his family and the live under the lake to this day.

And so there was some sayings that if you ever see Wasco, that you will be blessed.

And if you ever seen any of the children of the Wasco, the woman at the head of the creek that you will be blessed to.

So that's kind of the, the basic story of, of Wasco - Brady actually was a Hoosier and he brought the poles down to St. Louis and the Indianapolis Pole never went back.

And of course here I am a Hoosier researching the pole and actually brought it back to the community and to actually the native community in Alaska.

And I guess that's all I can say is I guess that's fitting.

And just another remarkable aspect of the project, so many aspects of this project have comes full circle.

- This is a western red cedar.

I say, oh certainly finishing the, the poll here on location is just to give the residents of Indianapolis a chance to see something they more likely haven't seen before.

And so it just gives a opportunity for, for me to share part of my culture and my, my art form with this part of the country, which is the - Midwest.

The more I realized the information that I gained from my research and more, I realized that this was of not just, of local interest and that this was possibly the missing pole from the most famous collection, the most well studied collection of totem poles anywhere in the world.

The Brady Collection of sca, national Historical Park.

- As I spent the seven months of blood, sweat, and tears on the project, I, I got close to the, to the story itself and to the pole like I usually do.

And, but I think it was probably more of a special story 'cause of all the poles that I shipped off.

It was, it was really kind of emotional for them.

Once, once the pole left, the carving shed, and I guess I get kind of emotional about it, just - Talking about it again.

I dunno, I just felt like an archeologist in, in many ways unearthing history.

And it's just, that's the adventure, the excitement of discovery, the putting the, the mystery together, solving the mysteries of the golden hill totem pole, a modern day adventure and so many people shared in that passion and that adventure.

I feel very privileged.

Hello?

Hi.

Welcome to the Feldman Home.

Hi, I'm Becky Fel talking to Lee and his family in Alaska.

I realized the importance of a traditional pole raising.

We could just take, haul this pole down from Alaska and we could just erect it one day, but it wouldn't have the meaning, it wouldn't be the cultural exchange.

I thought it was important because this poll means so much to the Haida community in Alaska that they ought to come to present it to the Indianapolis community.

And the dancers and the elders and the blessings were all an important aspect of making that a presentation and doing it the right way in a traditional - Way.

- Well, from tomorrow when they start the morning, I guess they're gonna be, when they start raising a pole or even before they start, they tie it to the top, towards the top to where it'll balance out.

And when they tighten up the line, all that says, ha you hoop.

That's when I hit the drum.

And years, years back when we used to do that, we used to have a prince underneath the pole so that we don't make any mistakes.

And if there's a mistake, did that per prince, our person would be killed.

So nowadays things are so modern and new, we don't have a prince, but we do have ties underneath the pole, so it'll be a safety deal for our people.

Also, what it'll be seen down here is very interesting, I think to everybody.

It'll be happy to see how we do it in Alaska.

- Yeah, we're gonna need all, all that rope over here, all that rope in the wagon or whatever.

Yeah, we'll probably tie it out here.

We're gonna get the ropes already string one that way and one that way.

And this guy's moving over zero, I think.

Okay.

I'll go - Get the ropes and I'll say how you, and it comes up again, you don't pull hard, just steady, just hold it steady.

- Well, this is where the frontier began when America became a country at the end of the revolution.

This was the frontier.

This is where the frontier started.

And, and maybe it's kind of symbolic that it's something that can start here again, a new way of looking at ourselves at the frontier and that whole process that we have all experienced that is - God.

Because - I'm emotional today.

I'm really touched by this.

But anyway, deep in my heart, I wish everybody well, whoever that was taking part in this whole raising.

And now we shall bow our heads and all pray.

So I had to - Ho, ho, - Ho when that poll stood in, in the early 19th century in that Haida village in southeast Alaska, it represented the Tazi family and it represented family, clan and community.

And when it came to Indianapolis in 1905, in a totally different context, it represented once again family and community, the Perry family and the Indianapolis community of Golden Hill.

And when the new pole arrived and was erected outside the Ile Jordan Museum, it represents family and community again.

And to me this time it also represents the community spirit.

And it represents that day at the museum where thousands of individuals came to celebrate the raising of that pole in friendship and understanding from diverse backgrounds, Alaskan natives and local natives and the, the Indianapolis community from all walks of life came together to raise that pole.

And everyone shared in my dream, they shared my passion and shared in this wonderful adventure, - It went really smooth, really, really remarkably smooth.

So Hoosier really got it going down here.

Well, your first poll raising you guys did real good.

- I guess what I'm doing is today I'm, I'm looking at this and thinking about Governor Brady because I think he would've been very pleased and he would've been very proud that actually this totem pole he wasn't able to take good care of after the fair has come full circle and is replicated and particularly the members of the Tazi family are here today.

- Mary, I want you to meet the Tazi family, the descendants of the original Native family who owned this pole in, in Alaska in the 19th century.

- I think that moment was one of the most important moments during poll raising for me.

And it was a, a wonderful moment that was actually went unnoticed by virtually everyone.

Mrs. Perry Mary, free to Perry's 97 years old and is the last Perry in Indianapolis and the oldest of the Perry family.

And she was one of the individuals that I learned firsthand so much about pole and she's very elderly and not, wasn't feeling well that day and, and promised to come to the pole raising that was very important to her.

And she came, but she wouldn't get out of the car and they were able to park the car fairly near the to pole and realizing she wouldn't get out and and participate.

I I gathered Lee and his family told them about Mrs. Perry.

The dancers came and then Tazi Mary Tazi Swanson and Nora Adams came to the car.

The dancers sang to Mrs. Perry and they made a wonderful connection.

And I remember the tears coming down, Mrs. Perry's face and Mary Swanson presented her with a robe.

And I, and I realized I didn't, I don't know all what was said, but Mrs. Perry said, this means we have a connection, doesn't it?

And I think in that moment I realized that all my efforts were successful because the Azis and the Perrys met and they were accepting of each other.

And they realized that connection with one another after 91 years after the poll was erected in Indianapolis, the great grandson of the carver, the original owners of the Pole, the Azis and the Indianapolis caretakers of, of, of the Pole, the Perrys all met and were all together that day.

And I think that's part of the sense of community and family that pole represents.

And to me that that moment I think will be the much touch, the most touching moment that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

It was the last thing that occurred on Saturday evening of the pole raising.

It was something totally unexpected, but it was a validation, I suppose, of all my efforts when I was adopted by the family, the Azi family, given a a native name Gula stall means the Golden Hill was inducted into the Bear Clan.

And when Mrs. Zi Swanson hugged me and and called me her son, I realized all my efforts were successful.

And I remember Lee coming over to me and hugging me and saying, now you're now my brother.

And that's something I'll always remember and cherish - Away into this lake monster.

And, and tried to catch him.

And he caught him in a v trapp and he skinned him of his, of his high so he could put on this the sea monster outfit and take on the, the sea monster character.

And in the springtime, the village where he and his wife and his wife, - How many individuals have an adventure like I've had over the last nine years.

I've traveled all over the continent.

I've met people from diverse cultures and they've all come together to participate in, in the pole, in the pole raising.

And I've had the excitement of discovery and the new pole stands now outside the outdoor museum as a landmark once again.

And it's been reborn.

And I think that poll raising and what the events that happened that day, evidence of the respect that we now have, again in that rebirth of Native American culture in America, - Funding for Tale of a Totem was made possible in part by a grant from the Lily Endowment.