This is about the Pacific Coast Indian sculpture very prevalent in the areas of West Canada, British Colombia, and Vancouver, etc. I'm very much into carving cedar items featuring animals, such as in the Kwakiutle and Salish works up there (I live in Florida, USA) I love animals such as the bear, deer, whales, etc. and I'm enthralled by the way the imaginative way Indians carved them on totem poles, on furniture, or just as statues. So, I have a problem about the religious part.

I know the Indians there regard these sculptures as a kind of spiritualheraldry, and as gods they worship, or did worship. Now, I've always just appreciated them as artworks, not as having religious meaning. I never even knew they were symbolic until recently. So, as a Christian, am I insulting God by copying the indian sculptures? As Christians, do any of you have problems with their sculptures? This is important to me, as i spend days working on my cedar carvings, and don't want to be doing wrong.

I may not a Western Canadian, however, I am going to respond to Restin's post.

Here is a comparable question.

What does the Bible say about food that was sacraficed to idols? Is it OK, or not OK to eat it?

The answer to those questions should also answer Restin's question.

Daryl, i've been going on the premise that the Pacific Coast Indian carving is not harming me or others who do not see it as religious, but just regard it as a creative art form.

I do see your point. If i were a Kwakiutl indian converted from worshipping a Sea Raven to worshipping Jesus, it would be a mistake to make more pictures of my past totem "god". But i havn't been so sure of my "purity' about this at all times. I wouldn't want to carve a statue of Bhuddah, nor of the Catholic's, Mary. To be on the safe side of right, maybe I will choose Indian style animals, not do actual totem poles.