Chiefly Feasts

The magnificent collection of art made by the Kwakiutl Indians of northern Vancouver Island and the nearby mainland, assembled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for the American Museum of Natural History, lies at the heart of 'Chiefly Feasts.' More than one hundred objects from the American Museum and other collections are illustrated in full color, and extended captions incorporating information provided by many members of the Kwakiutl community describe their history and acquisition.

In this book, Brian Hayden provides the first comprehensive, theoretical work on the history of feasting in societies ranging from the prehistoric to the modern.

A collection of art (masks, head-dresses, blankets, coppers, feast dishes, and other Kwakiutl ceremonial objects) made by the Kwakiutl Indians of northern Vancouver Island and the nearby mainland.

The years between 1922 and 1961, often referred to as the “Dark Ages of Northwest Coast art,” have largely been ignored by art historians, and dismissed as a period of artistic decline. Tales of Ghosts compellingly reclaims this era, arguing that it was instead a critical period during which the art played an important role in public discourses on the status of First Nations people in Canadian society. Hawker’s insightful examination focuses on the complex functions that Northwest Coast objects, such as the ubiquitous totem pole, played during the period. He demonstrates how these objects asserted the integrity and meaningfulness of First Nations identities, while simultaneously resisting the intent and effects of assimilation enforced by the Canadian government’s denial of land claims, its ban of the potlatch, and its support of assimilationist education. Those with an interest in First Nations and Canadian history and art history, anthropology, museology, and post-colonial studies will be delighted by the publication of this major contribution to their fields.

Anthropologists of the senses have long argued that cultures differ in their sensory registers. This groundbreaking volume applies this idea to material culture and the social practices that endow objects with meanings in both colonial and postcolonial relationships. It challenges the privileged position of the sense of vision in the analysis of material culture. Contributors argue that vision can only be understood in relation to the other senses. In this they present another challenge to the assumed western five-sense model, and show how our understanding of material culture in both historical and contemporary contexts might be reconfigured if we consider the role of smell, taste, feel and sound, as well as sight, in making meanings about objects.