The Vexed Truths of the Lincoln Totem

• Published in: Gradhiva
• Main Author: Menut, Nicolas
• Other Authors: Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (MQBJC)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2010
• Subjects: Alaska; debt; first contact; Lincoln; slavery; Tlingit; Totem; dette; esclavage; premiers contacts; [SHS.ART]Humanities and Social Sciences/Art and art history; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; Indian; tlingit
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02194205; https://doi.org/10.4000/gradhiva.1674

International audience During the 1870s, a Tlingit totem was erected in the village of Tongass in Alaska. At its crown was the likeness of the American president, Abraham Lincoln. Since then, anthropologists, government administrators and Tlingit themselves have put forward varying interpretations of his incongruous presence at the summit of an Indian totem pole. Initially understood as symbolising the great liberator, he was later interpreted as the first white man, before finally being seen as the great debtor. This progression is closely linked to Tlingit Indians reappropriation of the meaning of their own history and of the complex nature of their relationships with white men. Au cours des années 1870 dans le village de Tongass, en Alaska, est érigé un totem tlingit au sommet duquel trône la figure du président américain Abraham Lincoln. Depuis lors, anthropologues, administrateurs gouvernementaux et Tlingit ont avancé des interprétations divergentes afin d’expliquer cette présence incongrue au faîte d’un totem indien. Tour à tour associé à la figure du Grand Émancipateur, puis du premier homme blanc avant d’être finalement ramené au rôle de Grand Débiteur, le mât Lincoln est indissociable de la réappropriation par les Indiens tlingit du sens de leur propre histoire et des contacts complexes qu’ils entretinrent avec les hommes blancs.