Why does the totem pole depict?

Answer 1

"Totem" is a native word from the eastern woodlands region of North America that was taken into English and incorrectlyapplied by white people to the "totem poles" made by natives on the Pacific north-west coast.

In the Natick language of Massachusetts, the word wuhtotae or wuhtotu means a native group, a clan or local inhabitants of a place. The related Ojibwe word odoodeman means "his group, his siblings, his kin" and was also applied to specific markings or signs referring to a particular family or clan.

Europeans adopted this word as "totem" by the mid-18th century and applied it to any native sign for a family or clan.

In the early 19th century, American and Canadian settlers began to use this word for the carved poles they saw among the Haida, Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian and other native people of Alaska, British Columbia, Vancouver Island and the coast of Washington state.

Naturally the native people of these areas did not use the English word totem; the Haida phrase meaning "It is a totem pole" looks like this: Gyáa'aang uu íijang. In Kwakiutl, the word for totem pole is kalakuyuwish (pole that holds up the sky).

Answer 2

a totem pole depicts what tribe the native americans are in.