A 20-foot-tall Healing Totem pole is making its way across Indian Country.

Jewell Praying Wolf James, a member of the Lummi Nation of Washington, carved the pole from a 500-year-old red cedar. It will be installed as part of the "Native Voices: : Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness" exhibit at the National Library of Medicine near Washington, D.C.

“It was amazing to see it,” Shieleen Omen, assistant to Cankdeska Cikana Community College President Cynthia Lindquist, told The Grand Forks Herald. “It’s too large to erect and display (as it travels), but you are able to see it and touch it. My heart was in it, big time.”

The totem was blessed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Monday and the Spirit Lake Dakotah Nation on Tuesday. James is bringing it to the White Earth Nation in Minnesota today and the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin on Thursday.

The exhibit opens October 6.

Get the Story:
Old growth, old ways: 'Healing totem' carved from western red cedar makes its way east (The Grand Forks Herald 9/21)

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