“Tlingit Technology”
Photo by Scott Hamilton taken in Sitka, AK at the Totem National Park.
By Scott Hamilton
I came back from a trip to Alaska last week and was amazed by some of the things I saw on my journey. Among the most impressive was the wood working of the Tlingit tribes. I remember making totem poles as a cub scout back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We learned a lot about the symbols and their meaning, much of which I have forgotten, and worked throughout the summer to carve and paint our magnificent totem poles. Ours were carved from West Virginia white pine poles around eight inches in diameter and about eight feet tall. I remember thinking how big they were and how amazed I was at creating them with my friends, then I visited Alaska and saw the real native totem poles.
The Tlingit people built massive totem poles that are over 50 feet tall and have a diameter of around six feet, making my childhood totem poles look like toys. If you ever get a chance you should take a trip to Sitka, Alaska, and see them for yourself. The totem poles in the park are replicas of the originals, that are in climate controlled storage to prevent them being lost forever. The original poles traveled from the Tlinglit people in Alaska to the St. Louis World’s fair in 1904, and then back to the park. If you want more information on the totems at “Totem Park” you can visit the National Parks Service website at http://alturl.com/zbkej.
Seeing these massive totem poles made me want to look into the tools that they used to carve such amazing works for art and faith. So I decided to do some research into the Tlinglit tools. We all hear about the amazing technology of the Mayan people, but you rarely hear anything about the Tlinglit or Northern tribes, but as you begin to dig you find that while the Mayan people showed amazing skills with stone, steel, and gold, the Tlinglit people had much more advanced technology for stone working and metallurgy.
While the rest of the world was just entering the iron age, the Tlinglit people had developed advanced methods of treating copper. Some parts of the Tlinglit history were in conflict with the history of the Russian settlers in Alaska, who claimed to have brought the first copper to Alaska in trade for furs. However, recent advancements in the study of Tlinglit artifacts have revealed a different story. We discover as we begin to look at the copper tools from the area that there is a distinguishable property difference that can be seen at a glance when comparing the original Tlinglit copper object prior to the introduction of the Russian copper and those afterward.
The Tlinglit copper treatment methods left the copper in its most natural state; they did not utilize and stress hardening techniques, hammering, or annealing. There is barely any penetration of oxidation below the surface of the native copper tools. Basically this means that all the green coating that shows up on copper items as they are exposed to oxygen are only on the surface. Even modern copper tooling methods leave voids in the copper that allow this oxidation to reach below the surface. The Tlinglit native copper almost appears to have been lab grown copper crystal rather than copper that has been formed into shape.
The Tlinglit people mastered utilizing the crystalline structure of copper in the design of their tools, keeping the trapezoidal cross-section of the copper crystals and conserving the elemental features of the metal. This made their tools less susceptible to deterioration from the elements, and though a bit softer than copper that was heat treated, their blades remained sharp because the crystalline structure was not compromised. The cuts they made to create their tools match the cuts we make today to study the internal structure of the metals, which leads us to believe the Tlinglit people understood the basic structure of the metal way more than any other culture.
The Tlinglit people applied what they knew about stone cutting techniques to the formation of their metal tools. They had discovered that stone cut easier along the crystal structure and was more solid against the grain of the crystals, and were likely the first to discover the same in the natural metals. While the rest of the world was melting, hammering, and even pouring metal tools in molds, the Tlinglit people were cutting and carving their copper tools just like they did with the stone. It was with these copper tools they worked the mighty cedar trees into the magnificent totem poles we see replicas of today. Until next week stay safe and learn something new.
Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@te**********.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.
