A diving eagle carved on this totem pole represents nature’s bounty and repaying native people for kindness to the Earth: Glynn Wilson

Editor’s Note: How can we open up the eyes and ears, hearts and minds of human beings to face facts and help deal with humanity’s most pressing problems, like wearing masks and getting vaccines to avoid infection from the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and to prevent spreading the virus to others, or realizing that global warming and climate change are real and that everyone must join in the effort to reverse the worst effects for the sake of not just human survival, but to preserve everyones’ quality of life on planet Earth? Some people may rather listen to religious teachers, while others trust doctors and listen to scientists. We have a long history of transmitting information through narrative stories, which is where writing and journalism come in. There is also art and the imagination, sense perception, emotion, intuition and reason. When the internet and the World Wide Web were new a quarter century ago, there was great hope of spreading knowledge and solving problems. But just like every form of communication before, television, radio, the printing press, spoken language and drums, some bad actors abused the means of communication for malfeasance and to profit economically and politically from the spread of misinformation. Nowhere is this more true than social media, the dominant form of media of this time. All we can do is look for, find and tell the stories that might inform the moment and open up the eyes and ears of people. Only you can help spread these stories by sharing.

Master carver Jewell “Praying Wolf” James being interviewed on the “Red Road to D.C.”

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jewell “Praying Wolf” James and his brother Douglas use art, spirituality and the ancient form of communicating stories and messages through carved totem poles to try to reach people through their heads and hearts.

Citizens of the Lummi Nation in northwestern Washington state, the brothers started carving poles from western red cedar more than 20 years ago, and became known for traditional healing poles for the families who lost loved ones in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the flight that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

They call themselves the House of Tears carvers, and just arrived in the nation’s capital last week with their latest creation, a totem pole calling for humans to be accountable for the world around them carved from a 400-year-old western red cedar. It’s a 24 feet, eight inches tall story pole which weighs about 5,000 pounds, and weaves a story through the symbols of a moon, a diving eagle, two Chinook salmon, a sea wolf, a sea bear and a grandmother with her granddaughter behind her.

A group of supporters and volunteers from his tribe hauled the pole on a flatbed truck more than 20,000 miles along the West Coast and across the Midwest before arriving in Washington, D.C. last week, where it was welcomed by the new Secretary of the Interior and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian as part of a campaign to protect sacred tribal lands and get people to accept accountability to Mother Earth, the primary message behind the new pole.

“We use the totem poles because people really like to come out and see what it looks like,” Jewell James said in an interview along the route. “They like to touch it and enjoy it. We hope to awaken within them something they already know. For most of us, it’s common sense. Don’t contaminate your own bed or the bed your children live within.”

“We look at our children and our heart aches because, how do we stop the devastation of what’s happening to our mother?” Douglas James said. “What are we going to leave our children when we’re dust? What kind of lifestyle are they going to go through?”

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, the practice of Native religion was outlawed in the United States, and traditional indigenous cultural practices were also strongly discouraged by Christian missionaries. This included the carving of totem poles.

But it is legal and accepted now. Maybe it will wake some people up.

In addition to highlighting the environmental crisis of global warming and climate change and the heat waves, droughts and wild fires out west, Jewell James has also pointed out to some press along the way that the U.S. Forest Service will be considering new forest management practices in the fall. So they are also trying to raise public awareness about clear cutting, strip mining, oil pipelines, burning coal for energy and inappropriately storing coal ash to protect the waters of the Pacific Northwest Salish Sea and other sacred lands of Native Americans.

For the James brothers, the human figures on the pole also represent another human struggle.

“Many grandmothers are raising their granddaughter as their daughter because the mother is missing in action,” Jewell James said. “Either she got abused by a husband and ran and disappeared for her own safety or she got caught up into drugs, or she’s missing and murdered.”

The pole features recognizable red hands on the moon and on the figure of the grandmother: Glynn Wilson

The pole features recognizable red hands on the moon and on the figure of the grandmother.

“That stands for the murdered and missing indigenous women,” Jewell James said. “It’s a nationwide crisis in Canada and the United States.

“We here in the United States, we like to dream that we have a perfect relationship, but the fact is the United Nations, the United States, the state of Washington, the Lummi Tribe, Whatcom County, the City of Bellingham, everybody has to enact laws to tell the men, ‘quit beating the women.’

“Leave the women alone,” he said. “Stop it or we’ll imprison you. It’s sad that we have to have the law tell us it’s wrong. It’s a reflection of our attitude and the way we treat the female in the home and in the family is how we treat the earth. The scars are permanent.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the nation’s first Native American Cabinet secretary — blessed the pole at a ceremony on the National Mall last Thursday, saying many of the nation’s policies originally were “intended to exclude” Native Americans.

“We’re working hard to undo so many consequences of those actions,” Haaland said, adding that the country is in a “new era” of “truth, healing and growth.”

The brothers and supporters are looking for a permanent home for the totem pole in Washington, D.C. It was too big and heavy to fit in the Smithsonian’s museum, so it is temporarily housed in Rawlins Park near the White House, which is where we caught up with it on Sunday.

Considering the history of Native Americans traveling to Washington and camping in Greenbelt National Park just north of the D.C. line in Maryland, I suggested placing the totem pole in Greenbelt Park. It would make a great attraction for the newly renovated park — where many people visiting D.C. could see it and receive its message — which is slated to reopen perhaps in September. I was told the idea is being “run up the pole of the chain of command.”

Related Coverage: Native American Longest Walk History Remembered in Washington and Greenbelt National Park

More Photos

A new story totem pole rests in Rawlins Park after making it to D.C. from the Pacific Northwest last week: Glynn Wilson

An exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian features information on the Lummi Nation totem pole carvers: Glynn Wilson

This slide tells the story of the role of the bald eagle in native culture: Glynn Wilson

Part of the mission of the exhibit is to show the environmental dangers of coal ash stored on the banks of rivers: Glynn Wilson

Part of the mission of the exhibit is to show the environmental dangers of coal ash stored on the banks of rivers: Glynn Wilson

A view of the U.S. Capitol from the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian: Glynn Wilson

A bronze statue of a Native American warrior outside the Smithsonian Museum: Glynn Wilson

External Links

Lummis call for accountability on Red Road to D.C.

A 25-foot Native American totem pole arrives in D.C. after a journey to sacred lands across U.S.

Ten Things You Need To Know About the Lummi Nation

About the Artist

More Related Coverage

Explore Washington, D.C. from Greenbelt National Park’s Campground

Red Road to DC: Lummi Nation to Transport Climate Change Totem Poll from Washington State to Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian Opens ‘Nation to Nation’ Treaty Exhibit in National Museum of the American Indian

Setting the Record Straight on the Lewis and Clark Expedition