File:Top of Funerary Totem Pole (3840567412).jpg

This is the third and final section of the totem pole shown in the previous photo.

At first glance, it may look like a small bird is perched atop the forehead of the topmost figure. On closer examination, it proves to be the profile of a piece of carving that has split from top to bottom. We're seeing the profile: finished top surface, wood interior, bottom finished surface.

There's what looks like the broken-off carving of an eagle's head resting at the base of this totem pole. Perhaps the eagle's head originally capped the totem pole, and the broken wood at the top may be associated with what remains of the base of the eagle's head.

I'm at a loss as how to interpret these two figures. The bottom figure appears to be is seated on the tail of a marine animal. If you look closely, you'll see what look like eyes on the tail. At first blush, that might seem to rule out the tail interpretation. However, I've seen motifs that look like eyes on depictions of whales from Neah Bay to Alert Bay, so I think the "eyes" are an integral part of the way the native people of the Pacific Northwest coast render images of whales. If it were a tail, it might associate the bottom figure itself with water. Additionally, there's something remarkably crablike about the figure's flexed left arm, particularly the forearm, depicted in black.

While the figure has human attributes, the shape of its skull and its facial features make me think it is nonhuman. Frankly, it looks slightly malevolent and ghoulish to me, but that may be my cultural conditioning at work; my reaction to the piece may be irrelevant to what the figure actually means in the 'Namgis First Nation.

As for the top figure, I won't even venture to speculate lest I make a fool of myself in the process. The furthest I'll go is to say the curved design above the figure's mouth looks like half a mustache or like an animal's whiskers.