“The Totem-Pole” (Weird Tales, August 1939)

​Bloch, Robert. “The Totem-Pole.” Midnight Pleasures, Valancourt Books, 2025.

Arthur Shurm, a museum guard, rushes into the bar where the narrator is passing a quiet evening. He is agitated to the point of frenzy. The alcohol and sedate atmosphere calm him down, and he tells his story to the narrator. He works in the Native American wing of the Public Museum. One of the researchers, Dr. Bailey, brought back a totem pole from his expedition to Alaska that a local artisan made especially for him. The lore says that makers of these carvings imbue each one with the spirits of the deceased. On the research trip, Dr. Bailey’s partner, Dr. Fiske, died suddenly from an illness. As he was working overnight, Shurm heard voices that seemed to be coming from the totem pole. Not only that, the faces on the pole—except for the topmost face—seemed to be becoming more and more clear as the days passed, as if they were changing somehow. Shurm overheard Bailey talking to the pole, addressing it by the names of several Native American men who lost their lives in a dogsled accident during the research trip. An agitated Bailey told Shurm about his responsibility for the dogsled accident and bribed Shurm to keep things quiet. Bailey made plans to destroy the totem pole. Shurm guessed that Bailey was also responsible for the death of Fiske. The next night, the voices were calling for Bailey, taunting him, and Shurm ran to the bar to meet the narrator. they decide to get the police and go back to the museum. They find Bailey crushed against the totem pole, their faces alive and chewing at his corpse. The topmost face—Dr. Fiske’s—has come into sharp and gnawing focus.    

Daniel Robichaud says this about the story:
“The Totem-Pole” is […] a clever gem of a story that posits a supernatural twist on a gift from some indigenous folks to a museum. The gift of the totem pole bears some odd shaping and design, and it may well come alive and speak in the wee hours of the night … or is that just audio hallucinations? The yarn is one of those clever twist ending pieces that EC Comics would do to death a couple of decades after this was published and is an enjoyable entry in the field.” He also says that the introduction that I wrote for the Valancourt edition “does a fine job of not only positioning this book in Bloch’s overall career but giving readers who might not be familiar with the author a solid grounding in the books they ought to seek out for a good look at the prolific author’s short fiction career” (Robichaud). Hey, I like this guy!
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My favorite part of “The Totem-Pole” story comes early. It reminds me of “Unheavenly Twin,” a story I write about a few entries ago. That story featured and outpouring of love and identification for the “freaks” who find community among their fellow performers, a camaraderie and happiness that they would not have been able to find, they think, had they been born average. “The Totem-Pole” the story opens with an ode to regular Joes, the guys whose work life happens anonymously, whose presence is unacknowledged and unappreciated: 

Arthur Shurm belonged to the vast army of the unidentified — that mighty swarm of nonentities which includes street-car conductors, restaurant counter-men, elevator operators, bellboys, theatre ushers, and other public servants wearing uniforms of their professions, One never seems to notice their faces; their garb is a designation of official capacity, and the body within makes no impression on the memory. Arthur Shurm was one of those men.
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To be exact, he was a museum attendant, and surely there is no employment which makes a person less conspicuous. One might perchance take notice of a counterman’s voice when he bellows “Two sunny side up and cuppa cawfee;” it is possible to observe the demeanor of a bellboy as he lingers for a tip; one can perhaps mark the particularly erect subservience of an individual usher as he leads his party down the aisle. But a museum attendant never speaks, it seems. There is nothing about his carriage or manner to impress a visitor. Then too, his personality is totally overshadowed by the background in which he moves — the vast palace of death and decay which is a museum. Of all the unidentified army, the museum attendant is beyond doubt the most self-effacing. 

As I move through these stories one by one, Bloch is revealing his heart. It seems to be filled with generosity for everyone. He never (or rarely) punches down; regular folks are the subject. This inclination serves him well as he begins to redefine the horror genre to take it out of the castles of the Gothic and the other worldly dimensions of Lovecraft. Arthur Shurm is about as mundane a person as he can be. An average person in an extraordinary circumstance. That’s where Bloch is heading. In only twenty years, Norman Bates—the most ordinary guy you’ll ever meet—will make an impression on the genre and the public. The opening section of The Totem-Pole ends with an assertion that even the most invisible among us might be a fine source of scares: “And yet the fact remains that I shall never forget Arthur Shurm. I wish to heaven I could.” A fun story!!