Unique Totem, unusual shapes and colors

Picked this up today hiding on a pipe in the basement of a home. Maybe good reason for being stuck down there. Don’t think much here but may as well see. Unlike most totems these segments don’t resemble animals directly. The paint colors aren’t what I’m used to seeing either. My guess is it’s Alaskan but it’s only a guess. May just be nodding to an NA totem and not connected at all. I know someone here will know something.

 

Cub Scout project, perhaps.

 

Better than what I could have done in cub scouts! Maybe they gave them ore formed blanks lol.

 

calling this a totem pole would be a stretch...

 

It is typical of "totems" made in Taiwan or such, imported in the 1960s to the present; sold sometimes at "trading posts" or reservations; but not native. This one perhaps 1960s-70s, but really could be almost anytime. I've got one somewhere with the import label still attached. The carved lines are machine-made, or done with a grinding wheel.
Not a scout project; too many identical copies around for that to be the case.

 

You mean it was lying on top of a pipe, just blending in?

 

likely a kid or a cat placed it there....

 

Probably a cat!

 

G

Great info thanks! Thought it seemed a little too neatly done to be a kids product. I like mysteries. Worth a shot at whatever I paid which would probably be a quarter or less.

 

Overcrowded basement of an old Victorian home. A few random objects were stuck up in the pipes and on different gauges and whatnot. I actually did the same thing in my parents basement when I was young. I would stick my pine box derby cars and other little things up in the rafters and pipes of the basement. Little surprises for if you happen to be admiring the pipes one day lol.

 

This little pole was made by Anishinaabe people from Michigan and adjacent Canada in the 1950s/60s for tourists. Taiwan poles look similar but are more squarish and tend to have different style faces.