For years I have enjoyed the art of the Northwest Indian tribes. Mainly the images that cought my imagination were the red and black images of the Haida tribe. These animals are not just simple drawings for artistic purposes. The animals hold meaning and the art often tells about the place it stands in, the family it was made for, the tribe or of a great event.

In the early months of 2003 I started to do more than just admire this art form. I started to reproduce it myself. At first my attempts were very low quality. I hope to continue improving over time because I do enjoy the process and the end result a great deal.

Because I wanted to understand more about what the animals ment I started reading about the Northwest Indian tribes and the totams they use in their art. I learned a great deal about why totam poles are created, what the animals and shapes mean and I gained a great respect for the art form in general.

In July 2003 I had an idea. I wanted to learn what animal best fit my character. I was hoping it would be the Eagle because it is a very cool image and a powerful symbol. But lets be real, I am just not an Eagle. I had my friends and family take a survey. None of them knew what they were answering the questions for. I only displayed a list of the meanings and I let everyone pick a few that they thought represented my personality. Behind the scenes, the descriptions were reconnected to the symbols and it turns out I am the Wolf with the ??? coming in a close second.

After seeing the results, I realized they are very accurate animals for me. The Wolf is "Intelligence & Leadership - Strong Sense of Family" and the Beaver is "Creative, Artistic & Determined". You can see in the graph below the full results of the survey. It was quite an interesting experiment and I greatly enjoyed the process. To see the meanings for each of the symbols, you can visit our Haida Indian Symbols page where each symbol is represented along with a description. If you would like your friends and family to take a survey about you, simply visit our Haida Survey page and follow the instructions.