DCHP-1 Online
totem post 
among certain West Coast Indian tribes, a pole, often a standing tree trunk, which has been carved and painted with the family crests, personal exploits, etc. of the owner.
See also: totem pole
- 1882 (1888) The door is usually an oval hole cut in the base of the grotesquely covered post, forty or fifty feet high, which we may call the totem post, but which to the Haidas is known askechen.
- 1897 . . . the village is marked by several totem-posts curiously carved.
- 1882 (1888) The door is usually an oval hole cut in the base of the grotesquely covered post, forty or fifty feet high, which we may call the totem post, but which to the Haidas is known askechen.