Tlingit art is beautiful. It's dramatic. It speaks of a fascinating mythopoeia.
Of course, cultures are complex. For a long time, the Tlingit were both a warlike and a slave-keeping society. Of course that's not who they are anymore. But it's a reminder that you have to take the bitter with the sweet. This is true across cultures.
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The other major tribe in the Pacific Northwest is the Haida who inhabit the islands previously known as the Queen Charlottes - now Haida Gwaii. The Tlingit and the Haida shared both trade and warfare and both have long been famous for the totem poles that told the family histories to the neighbors. Like so many others of the indigenous tribes they were badly treated by the white settlers to North America, after nearly 90% of tribes had already perished from European diseases before any settlers, traders, explorers, or fur traders arrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haida_people
The totem pole at Beacon Hill Park was the world's tallest for a number of years. Now that it's number 2 it's still very impressive - people have to walk a long way off to get a picture and then it looks like a stick. I did take a good photo of one of the eagles who like to perch on top.
https://www.fbhp.ca/Totem-Pole
The Tlingit and the Haida are indeed close neighbors. Both have populations divided between Alaska and British Columbia, although the Tlingit are mostly in the former and the Haida are more in the latter. One thing that Jared Diamond got right is that Europeans who ventured off to the Americas had built up their immune systems through close city living much more so than the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. So in some cases they made the natives ill without any intention to do so. In other cases there was intent, or it's a grey area. The good news is that the survivors did eventually arrive at an equilibrium, in terms of immunity.
There actually seems to still be a lot of contention. The one at Beacon Hill Park is very striking. It must have been painted by someone with very good color sense. The perching eagle really kind of completes it.
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