Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (87 page)

 

But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise,
its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brainchild of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in managing so diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in an amazingly short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.

 

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely
every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.

 

The secretary of war,
who has kept in personal touch with all phases of the project, will immediately make public a statement giving further details. His statement will give facts concerning the sites at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and at Richland, Washington, and an installation near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the workers at the sites have been making materials to be used in producing the greatest destructive force in history, they have not themselves been in danger, for the utmost care has been taken of their safety.

 

The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era
in man’s understanding of nature’s forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced on a basis to compete with them commercially. Before that comes there must be a long period of intensive research.

 

It has never been the habit of the scientists
of this country or the policy of this government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public. But under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of production or all the military applications, pending further examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of sudden destruction.

 

I shall recommend
that the Congress of the United States consider prompt establishment of an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make further recommendations as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.

Even in a quarrel, leave room for reconciliation.

Forget what you think you know about totem poles. They’re not idols, they’re not ancient, and they’re not particularly rare. Totem poles are an art form created by the indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest, and the name comes from the Ojibwe word
odoodeman
, meaning “the mark of my kinship group.” Because totems were made in a close collaboration of artist and buyer, they have traditionally portrayed animals, plants, birds, fish, or anything else for which the patron felt an affinity. They were meant to make an impression, and they do: Towering, intricately carved, and brightly painted, they’re hard to ignore.

There’s evidence that the Haida people of British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands were the first to carve totem poles. With time, the practice spread northward to the Tlingit of southern Alaska and westward to the Tsimshian. Totem styles evolved as the practice moved south down the coast and was adopted by the Heiltsuk, Nuxalk, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and finally the Makah, Quin-ault and Salish peoples of lower British Columbia and Washington. The northern grouping of tribes largely used pigments of red, black and turquoise on their poles. The southern tribes often included a spread-winged thunderbird at the totem’s top and a wider color palette of black, white, red, green, yellow, and turquoise.

There aren’t any ancient totem poles around. In fact, there are comparatively few from before 1900. Reasons for this:

• They’re made of wood, which is biodegradable, especially so in the rain forests of the Northwest.

• Few stand-alone totem poles were even carved before the 1800s. Before contact with Europeans, totem poles were generally just support posts used to decorate the interiors of homes.

• Christian missionaries, thinking the poles were some sort of idols, encouraged new converts to destroy their totems and refrain from building new ones. In truth, totem poles were not worshiped. Nor were they believed to ward off evil spirits or tell the future. Nor were human-sacrifice victims buried below them. Instead, most totem poles were erected for a much less lofty, much more human reason: as a status symbol.

In 1741 Russian explorers became the first Europeans to arrive on the North American Pacific coast. Impressed with the quality of North American furs, Russian traders began traveling the coast, buying up pelts from the coastal tribes, which brought the natives great wealth. With wealth, the people could afford to pay artists to beautify their surroundings. The wood carvings inside homes became more elaborate, and the stand-alone totems were moved outside where friends, neighbors, and rivals could see them.

The flip side of that new-found wealth was that it also led to competition between neighbors. In this case, it inspired a “totem race” among leaders of clans and rival tribes, each wanting to illustrate the superiority and affluence of its members. Totem poles, traditionally indoor decorations of modest size, became bigger, taller, and more elaborate through the 1800s. Originally small enough to be carried by two men, the poles of the era began looming as high as 40 feet and weighing many tons.

A totem pole starts as the trunk of a Western red cedar, an evergreen found in great abundance along the coast from southern Alaska to northern California. The trees’ habitat can range from a few feet above sea level to about 3,000 feet up the coastal mountains. The red cedar can live 800–1,000 years, growing as high as 180–200 feet and as wide as 9–10 feet. Its trunk is tall and straight, and its wood is comparatively soft and easy to carve.

Totem images are richly varied. They can include seemingly random combinations of faces or full figures, animals, fish, birds, legendary creatures, plants, and abstract designs, all carved vertically on a single log, and usually painted with striking colors.

The apparent randomness of images up and down a totem pole has inspired assumptions about their significance. It’s easy to think that, like Egyptian hieroglyphics, there’s some sort of recognizable story that can be read from the presence and position of each character. For example, there’s a common belief that the least important symbols are at the bottom and the most important at the top, as illustrated by the phrase about being “the low man on the totem pole.” Others assume that the most important figure is the bottom one, holding all the others up. Analysis of many poles, though, shows no apparent significant meaning in positioning. The most important character appears sometimes at the bottom, sometimes at the top, and sometimes in between.

There’s a similar lack of uniformity in the meanings of the totem’s individual icons. True, the characteristics of certain animals have obvious symbolic meaning: a dog signifying loyalty, a bear signifying strength, etc. But the patrons usually determined the images and what significance, if any, they suggested. Artists, too, were often given a lot of latitude in what to include and where to place it. What can be surprising is how much humor is built into traditional designs. Figures can appear with intentionally comic postures and facial expressions. Even the person who commissioned the pole can’t expect to be spared: they may be portrayed hanging upside down or embarrassingly naked somewhere in the design.

Not all totem poles were status symbols. Some were meant as memorials and markers, as reminders of history and lineage, or as illustrations for well-known stories and legends. Some were carved to put to rest or memorialize unpleasant intra-tribal conflict: murders, feuds, and other traumatic events. Perhaps the most expressive totems are “shame poles,” small poles carved specifically to shame or ridicule someone. If somebody owes you a substantial amount of money and refuses to pay, you might commission an unflattering totem caricature showing the world what a crook he is and post it in a public place until he repays you.

A modern example: In 2007 Native Alaskan artist Mike Webber erected a seven-foot shame pole after the Exxon oil company
refused to pay billions of dollars in court-ordered damages for the Valdez oil spill 18 years earlier. Installed in hard-hit Cordova, Webber’s pole depicted the face of Exxon CEO Lee Raymond with dollar signs for eyes, a Pinocchio nose, and an oil slick pouring from his mouth. Around the face he carved the reassuring words from an Exxon official at the time: “We will make you whole.” Unfortunately, the power of a shame pole has its limits: A 2009 Supreme Court ruling cut Exxon’s liability from $5 billion to $500 million.

Only a few totems were built during the first half of the 20th century, when Indian culture seemed on the verge of dwindling away to nothing. But the civil rights and ethnic pride movements of the 1960s and ’70s brought renewed interest among Native Americans about their own culture, and since then totem pole carving has thrived.

Although totem-building tools were once bone and flint, nowadays modern hand tools such as saws, axes, chisels, and gouges make up a basic totem-carving tool kit. A scout knife is the tool most used in the process of detailing and fine carving. Before placing the totem into the ground, the artist would traditionally singe its base to provide some resistance to bugs and rot. But they don’t do that anymore.

Let’s say your clan has owned a totem pole for a few generations. What are the odds that it will still be around for your great-grandchildren to see? Not too good. Totem poles will stand only as long as they remain in good shape. At some point, usually after 60 to 80 years, weather and rot gang up with gravity, and the totem meets its end with a mighty crash. This often happens during windstorms, or is done deliberately to avoid tragedy when a weakened totem begins leaning ominously.

Perhaps that natural decay and death is as it should be. But old totems are valuable, not only to their communities and to those who appreciate their history, art, and culture, but to hotels, shopping centers, and museums, as well. (Even modern, freshly carved totems are expensive—a rule of thumb is roughly $500 per
foot for a new totem pole hand carved by a native artist with traditional tools; $125 per foot for a machine-assisted version.) So a lot of research has gone into preserving and rehabilitating them. Rather than letting totems rot back into the ground, current state-of-the-art methods turn them into weatherproofed, plasticized artifacts, installed by a derrick and cemented into a concrete base.

Totem poles began as status symbols, and the tradition continues. Several towns along the Northwest coast proudly claim to have the world’s largest totem pole. The
tallest
appears to be a 173-foot pole in Alert Bay, British Columbia. The
widest
, measuring more than six feet in diameter, decorates Duncan, British Columbia. These are records likely to stand for a while, since it’s gotten progressively harder to obtain red cedar logs anywhere near that size.