History Main / TipisAndTotemPoles

Not only is the combination of Tipis and Totem Poles culturally incorrect, it also just plain doesn't make any sense. The whole point of tipis is that they are easy to put up and take down, useful for people who are on the move, hence a settlement full of them is likely a camp. Whereas you only put up a totem pole if you're planning on staying in one place. Especially in older works. the tipis may be called "wigwams", which is a different structure entirely.

Not only is the combination of Tipis and Totem Poles culturally incorrect, it also just plain doesn't make any sense. The whole point of tipis is that they are easy to put up and take down, useful for people who are on the move, hence a settlement full of them is likely a camp. Whereas you only put up a totem pole if you're planning on staying in one place.

* ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', and [[StealthPun how]]! The Indians are made to resemble cliché stereotypes of Native Americans prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries and have both teepees and totem poles. They also sing a song called "What Made the Red Man Red", which uses terms such as "red man" (naturally), "Injun", and the suggestive term for Indigenous women "squaw".

->I'd like to live in a wigwam and dance 'round the totem pole …
-->--'''Music/CatStevens'''

A subtrope of InjunCountry. Also see BraidsBeadsAndBuckskins, HollywoodNatives and MagicalNativeAmerican, which are often found in this setting. TontoTalk is likely to be heard. Also compare {{Mayincatec}}, which is basically this trope applied to the indigenous groups of the Americas south of the Rio Grande.

In fiction, though, they're all the same: Essentially, like summer camps. Much like CultureChopSuey and {{Spexico}}, HollywoodGeography strikes again. Note that other indigenous groups may be portrayed this ''exact same way'', which can be considered CriticalResearchFailure.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheIndianInTheCupboard''. Omri assumes Little Bear lives in a teepee, but he's an Iroquois (who are from the East Coast, not the Great Plains) and actually lives in a longhouse. He ends up living in Omri's toy teepee because that's all he has at the moment. Later on, he builds his own longhouse. There's also a bit where he's offered a horse to ride, which he turns down, because again, that's a Plains Nations thing. Iroquois walk.
* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' has the Quileute wearing animal skins in a flashback. It's called UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest for a reason, people!

Not only is the combination of Tipis and Totem Poles culturally incorrect, it also just plain doesn't make any sense. The whole point of tipis is that they are easy to put up and take down, useful for people who are on the move. Whereas you only put up a totem pole if you're planning on staying in one place.

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

* ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', and [[StealthPun how]]! The Indians are made to resemble cliché stereotypes of Native Americans prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and have both teepees and totem poles. They also sing a song called "What Made the Red Man Red" which uses terms such as "Injun", “red man”, and the suggestive term for Indigenous women "squaw".

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]

* The state of Washington has both the interior (east of the Cascade Ranges) Pacific Northwest tipis, and the Pacific Northwest coast totem poles. They are not both in the same region of said state, however.

* ''Peter Pan'''s usage of this is explained in ''[[Fanfic/{{Destiny}} Destiny's Kiss]]''. Tiger Lily was sent to a Native American boarding school and doesn't know much about even her tribe's culture. In her DyingDream, she mixes up elements of different tribes because she doesn't know any better.

* Averted in ''Literature/TheIndianInTheCupboard''. Omri assumes Little Bear lives in a teepee, but he's an Iroquois (which are from the East Coast, not the Great Plains) who actually lives in a longhouse. He ends up living in Omri's toy teepee because that's all he has at the moment. Later on, he builds his own longhouse.
** There's also a bit where he's offered a horse to ride, which he turns down, because again, that's a Plains Nations thing. Iroquois walk.

* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': Just about every Indian tribe lives in tipis and ties prisoners to totem poles, a result of the series being influenced by American Westerns. Later stories have the Indians break out of the stereotypes somewhat (such as one tribe selling General Custer's saddle blanket to tourists), ut the tipis and totem poles stay.

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[[folder:Anime]]

* ''Anime/{{Gigantor}}'' featured some aborigines treated in this way. Even worse when you consider that this was set in the twentieth century or later.

* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'': In ''Recap/AsterixAndTheGreatCrossing'', Asterix and Obelix accidently end up in America. They are implied to have landed near the modern day location of New York City (the fact that Asterix's signal to the Vikings pays homage to the Statue of Liberty indicates that he and Obelix landed on Liberty Island after fleeing the native village). So why the local indigenous people live in tipis (generally only used by Great Plains tribes) and build totem poles (an artistic medium specific to tribes of the Pacific Northwest) is anyone's guess.

[[folder:{{Film}} - Animated]]
%%* ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', and [[StealthPun how]]!

[[folder:{{Film}} - Live Action]]

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' has the Quileute wearing animal skins in a flashback. It's called UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest for a reason, people!

* [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Angel Grove]] is in California. In Tommy's part of the Zeo Crystal arc, he's living among plains Indians, who are implied to be his ancestors, something explicitly confirmed in another episode, when one of them, from a reservation just outside Angel Grove, is his brother. There's even an arrowhead to contain some EldritchAbomination.

* ''Myths of the World: Spirit Wolf'': The "Center for Native Cultures" is in the middle of a desert (and despite the plural, is presented as showing the history of a single tribe), with prominent totem poles and a palisade around the "village" that's either Wild West movie fort or Woodlands [[note]]northeastern US[[/note]] tribal. The hint button is a Plains eagle-feather bonnet. To be fair, Eipix Entertainment is a Serbian company, so they're probably getting their information on Native Americans from Hollywood.

* In modern times, native North American groups who live far apart have in fact borrowed aspects of culture from each other--including totem poles. [[https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/peace-and-reconciliation-totem-pole-at-algonquin/ One was carved by an Algonquin elder from 2013-2015]] and raised by his community in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park.

* [[Franchise/MortalKombat Nightwolf]] has been Hopi (in the film) and Lakota (in the games), has had BraidsBeadsAndBuckskins, and has had a number of stereotypical powers that, if not autochthonous to Western stereotypes, are based on one culture or another. In the cartoon, he has a wolf named Kiva.

[[quoteright:350:[[Disney/PeterPan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/peter_pan_disney_1953_redskins.png]]]]

* ''Disney/PeterPan'', and [[StealthPun how]]!

* The state of Washington has both the interior (east of the Cascade Ranges) Pacific Northwest tipis and tipis, and the Pacific Northwest coast totem poles. They are not both in the same region of said state, however.

The trope name comes from two particularly common tropes of this: Plains Indian tipis, and Pacific Northwest totem poles. The two are socially organized quite differently; also, the Great Plains tend to be drier than UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest.

* ''ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}}'' is set in the original 13 colonies during the American War of Independence, yet many of the tribes shown have totem poles, a Pacific West Coat tradition.

* ''WesternAnimation/AsterixConquersAmerica''