"I'm low man on the totem pole around here."
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. The word totem is derived from the Ojibwe word odoodem, "his kinship group".
History
Since they are made of cedar, which decays eventually in the rainforest environment of the Northwest Coast, few examples of poles carved before 1900 exist. Noteworthy examples include those at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver, BC, dating as far back as 1880. And, while 18th-century accounts of European explorers along the coast indicate that poles existed prior to 1800, they were smaller and few in number.
The freestanding poles seen by the first European explorers were likely preceded by a long history of monumental carving, particularly of interior house posts. The scholar Eddie Malin has proposed that totem poles progressed from house posts, funerary containers, and memorial markers into symbols of clan and family wealth and prestige.
The vertical order of images is widely believed to be a significant representation of importance. This idea is so pervasive that it has entered into common parlance with the phrase "low man on the totem pole." This phrase is indicative of the most common belief of ordering importance, that the higher figures on the pole are more important or prestigious. A counterargument frequently heard is that figures are arranged in a "reverse hierarchy" style, with the most important representations being on the bottom, and the least important being on top. There have never been any restrictions on vertical order[citation needed]; many poles have significant figures on the top, others on the bottom, and some in the middle. Other poles have no vertical arrangement at all, consisting of a lone figure atop an undecorated column.
"I take it that you're aware of the Bermuda Triangle."
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels reportedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Popular culture has attributed these disappearances to the paranormal or activity by extraterrestrial beings. Documented evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the incidents were inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature of disappearances in the region is similar to that in any other area of ocean.
"The Mediterranean Sea has its share.... the Romondo region of the Pacific southeast of Japan has been claiming more ships over the last two centuries..."
The Devil's Sea, also known as the Dragon's Triangle, the Formosa (Taiwan) Triangle and the "Pacific Bermuda Triangle", is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, about 100 km south of Tokyo. The size and area varies with the report (the only reports stem from the 1950s), with various reports placing it 70 miles (110 km) from an unspecified part of Japan's east coast, 300 miles (480 km) from the coast, and even near Iwo Jima, 750 miles (1,210 km) from the coast.
This area is said to be a danger zone on Japanese maps, according to Charles Berlitz's books The Bermuda Triangle (1974) and The Dragon's Triangle (1989). He states that in the peacetime years between 1952-54 Japan lost 5 military vessels with crews lost totalling over 700 people and that Japanese government sent a research vessel boarded by over 100 scientists to study the Devil's Sea, and that this ship too vanished; and finally that the area was officially declared a danger zone.
According to Larry Kusche's investigation, these "military vessels" were fishing vessels, and some of them were lost outside the Devil's Sea, even as far as near Iwo Jima, 1000 km to the south. He also points out that, at that time, hundreds of fishing boats were lost around Japan every year.
The Japanese research vessel that Berlitz named, Kaiyo Maru No 5, had a crew of 31 aboard. While investigating activity of an undersea volcano, Myōjin-shō, about 300 km south of the Devil's Sea, it was destroyed by an eruption on 24 September 1952. Some wreckage was recovered. At least one ship sent an SOS. The other seven boats were small fishing boats lost between April 1949 and October 1953 somewhere between Miyake Island and Iwo Jima, a distance of 750 miles.
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