The Trail of the Whispering Giants

As I mentioned in my "Waokiye" post http://ravenjake.vox.com/library/post/waokiye-and-the-trail-of-the-whispering-giants.html, an artist, Peter Toth, used to drive around the country carving giant Indian heads. He did at least one in each state - including Alaska and Hawaii - and a couple more in Canada. He did this mainly as a way to raise awareness about Native Americans and point out, quite rightly, that we are on Indian land; no matter what state of the Union you're in, an indigenous American was there first.

Now this body of work is collectively called "The Trail of the Whispering Giants." You can check out descriptions of the work in the Smithsonian archives:http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=121763SJ4T822.1551&profile=ariall&uri=link=3100006~!209292~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=Browse&menu=search&ri=2&source=~!siartinventories&term=Toth%2C+Peter%2C+1947-+%2C+sculptor.&index=#focus

And then there are other folks who make it their business to follow the Trail of the Whispering Giants, "collecting" the giants on their travels. David Schumaker http://www.dcschumaker.com/default.html�is one such fellow, Bob Clenandin�ais another and you can also find some waymarkers who are doing a terrific job of pinpointing exactly where these guys are at http://www.waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=8fbd270d-3a97-42ab-8631-b73cf6c32335&wo=True&sg=56bdf13c-28aa-49aa-89bf-14fb69a3a46d�And Flickr has a couple of categories for shutterbugs who can't resist a good-looking model that doesn't move http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Peter%20Toth&w=all

Wolf Toth isn't "done" yet - now that the giants are getting on a bit, they need repairing and Waokiye is slated for some fairly major elective surgery in November 2008. So to that end, over here at the Raven Jake Command Center, where we're very fond of this project, my lovely sidekick has been compiling a Google Map of Whispering Giants. Now this isn't the work of any one researcher - we're shaking the bushes and leaving no stone unturned. The geocatchers have done the best job with finding them, Dave Shumaker takes the best photos of them and the Smithsonian does the best job of describing them - and about 20 other people have picked up the slack and filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle. As more info becomes available, we'll keep updating for the latest on the Whispering Giant circut.

Here are a sampling of photos (that I didn't take) of some of the Whispering Giants:

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