Potlatch

In 1884, the Canadian government enacted a ban on the potlatch, the foundational ceremony of the Haida people. The tradition, which determined social structure, transmitted cultural knowledge, and redistributed wealth, was seen as a cultural impediment to the government’s aim of assimilation. The tradition did not die, however; the knowledge of the ceremony was kept alive by the Elders through other events until the ban was lifted. In 1969, a potlatch was held. The occasion: the raising of a totem pole carved by Robert Davidson, the first the community had seen in close to 80 years. From then on, the community publicly reclaimed, from the Elders who remained to share it, the knowledge that has almost been lost. Sara Florence Davidson, Robert’s daughter, would become an educator. Over the course of her own education, she came to see how the traditions of the Haida practiced by her father—holistic, built on relationships, practical, and continuous—could be integrated into contemporary educational practices. From this realization came the roots for this book.

Among the Northwest Coast Indians (Tlingit, Haida, and others), potlatches traditionally are lavish community gatherings marking important events, such as funerals or marriages. In celebrations that often last many days, sumptuous meals are served; legends about clans and ancestors are sung and enacted with dances, masks, costumes, and drums; totem poles are often raised; and gifts are presented to all guests. Through this custom, cultural ties are renewed and strengthened. Using details from historical potlatches, and skillfully weaving in legends about animals and spirits revered by Natives—Raven, Grizzly Bear, Salmon, Frog—Mary Beck creates a compelling account of the potlatch ceremony and its place in a community's celebration of life, death, and continuity.

Variously described as an exchange of gifts, a destruction of property, a system of banking, and a struggle for prestige, the potlatch is considered one of the founding concepts of anthropology. However, the author here dismisses such a theory, arguing the concept was invented by 19th-century Canadian law for the purpose of control. 9 halftones.

William Beynon was born in 1888 in Victoria to a Welsh father and a Tsimshian mother. He was an accomplished ethnographer and had a long career documenting the traditions of the Tsimshian, Nisga'a, and Gitksan. In 1945 he attended and actively participated in five days of potlatches and totem pole raisings at Gitksan village of Gitsegukla. There he compiled four notebooks containing detailed and often verbatim information about the events he witnessed. For over 50 years these notebooks have seen limited circulation among specialists, who have long recognized them as the most perceptive and complete account of potlatching ever recorded.

This is an enhanced ebook with a read-along function. In 1935, a nine-year-old boy's family held a forbidden Potlatch in faraway Kingcome Inlet. Watl'kina slipped from his bed to bear witness. In the Big House masked figures danced by firelight to the beat of the drum. And there, he saw a figure he knew. Aboriginal elder Alfred Scow and award-winning author Andrea Spalding collaborate to tell the story, to tell the secret of the dance.

The magnificent collection of art made by the Kwakiutl Indians of essays, place the ceremonial regalia in context. 101/2x10 British Columbia, assembled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the American Museum of Natural History by Franz Boas and George Hunt, lies at the heart of this catalogue conceived to accompany an exhibition which will tour the US and Canada from 1992-1994. More than 100 pieces, selected from this collection and those of other museums, are illustrated in color. Extended captions incorporating information from members of the Kwakiutl community describe their history and acquisition, and over 80 historical photographs, as well as six Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR