Totem Poles of the North American Northwest Coast Indians
The North American Northwest Coast Indians of the past had no written language. How can we know about them or their past culture if they left no books? All they left behind was their material culture, their artifacts, their things. Yet these artifacts are a great legacy for they tell us as much about the culture as a written record. As Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi stated in his book The Meaning of Things: “Things embody goals, make skills manifest and shape the identities of their users.” Through the study and analysis of artifacts, students can gain valuable knowledge and insight into the, creators and their culture. Objects are visual records of what their makers considered important or significant, and learning occurs through looking at and analyzing the concrete object. Reciprocally, our own culture speaks or expresses itself through our own objects. It is important that students understand that learning and communicating are not limited to reading and writing. Visual perception and awareness also play a part in the learning process.

Totem Poles
are monumental sculptures carved from great trees, typically Western Redcedar, by a number of Native American cultures along the Pacific northwest coast of North America. the center of pole construction was centered around the Haida people of the Queen Charlotte Islands, from whence it spread outward to the Tsimshian and Tlingit and then down the coast to the tribes of British Columbia and northern Washington. The designs themselves are generally considered the property of a particular clan or family group, and this ownership may not be transferred to the owner of a pole (See also Heraldry). As such, pictures, paintings, and other copies of the designs may be an infringement of posessory rights of a certain family or cultural group. Thus it is important that the ownership of the artistic designs represented on a pole are respected as private property to the same extent that the pole itself is property. Public display and sale of pictures and other representations of totem pole designs should be cleared with both the owners of the pole and the cultural group or tribal government associated with the designs on the pole.

Shame Poles
The poles used for public ridicule are usually called "shame poles", and were erected to shame individuals or groups for unpaid debts. Shame poles are today rarely discussed, and their meanings have in many places been forgotten. However they formed an important subset of poles carved throughout the 19th century.
One famous shame pole is the Lincoln Pole in Saxman, Alaska; it was apparently created to shame the U.S. government into repaying the Tlingit people for the value of slaves which were freed after the Emancipation Proclamation. Other explanations for it have arisen as the original reason was forgotten or suppressed, however this meaning is still clearly recounted by a number of Tlingit elders today.