Trail of the Whispering Giants

(Update February 2, 2015) The Trail of the Whispering Giants is an ongoing project and much of the material here especially the chart below is out of date and too extensive to edit fully this article. A traveler, David Schumaker, went on a quest to identify all the Whispering Giant statues and has documented 57 existing statues and identified 12 that are now missing or destroyed since Peter Wolf Toth began this project in 1972. Schumaker has documented his information on the WEB site Peter Wolf Toth which has the most current information on the Whispering Giants and messages from the artist himself.[8]

The 74 Whispering Giants range from 15 to 40 feet (4.6 to 12.2 m) in height,[4] and all resemble natives of the region in which they are located. Toth always donates the Whispering Giant he creates to the town he carved it in, and never charges a fee for his time. He does require that the raw materials (a large log between 8 and 10 feet (2.4 and 3.0 m) in diameter) be provided, as well as lodging and living expenses.[4] The carvings have been appraised at a quarter of a million dollars each.[4]

Toth uses a hammer and a chisel as the basic tools to create the Whispering Giants, but on occasion will use a mallet and an axe, or rarely power tools.[9] Before starting work on a Whispering Giant, Toth confers with local Native American tribes and local lawmakers.[9] The sculpture that is created is a composite of all the physical characteristics, especially facial features, of the local tribe or tribes, as well as their stories and histories.[9] Toth dismisses the notion that the Whispering Giant sculptures are totem poles or represent Native American art, and has further stated that it would be inappropriate to carve totems because they were traditionally carved by Northwestern Indian tribes and had religious significance, where his carvings are intended as sculptures of Native American people.[10]

"I don't know a thing about carving totem poles, never made one nor expect to. My monument depicts an Indian, not copies of Indian art."[2]

— Peter Wolf Toth, 1974

Currently Peter Toth resides in Edgewater, Florida, where he has a small studio where he carves small wooden statues to raise money to create more Whispering Giants.[5] He travels around America to repair Whispering Giants he carved in the past that have not been kept up, as well as to carve new ones.[5] The latest Whispering Giant carved was in Vincennes, Indiana, in 2009 out of Black Oak, but there are still eight more statues planned to be built.[3]

While Toth intends for his sculptures to be a tribute to Native Americans that honors the injustices Native Americans have experienced, some critics view the statues as inauthentic and being based on caricatures and stereotypes of Native Americans.[11] The statues are seen by some critics as anachronistic or racist. The columnist Maurice Switzer has condemned the statues as "ridiculous, offensive" and "lame-brained".[12]

• Media related to Whispering Giants (Peter Wolf Toth) at Wikimedia Commons
• Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) Art Inventories Catalog: Peter Toth inventory