Masks and Gifts Seized from a Potlatch in 1922

A valuable copper.

Watercolor by James G. Swan depicting the Klallam people of chief Chetzemoka at Port Townsend.Klallam

Why did the Government and missionaries want to ban potlatches? While you are reading and discussing, think about: did the Government and missionaries understand the importance of potlatches? what didn’t the Government and missionaries like about potlatches? what did the Government and missionaries wish the people did instead of potlatches? What did the Government and missionaries do to enforce the ban on potlatches? While you are reading and discussing, think about: were laws passed? were certain people put in charge of enforcing the law? is there still a ban on potlatches?

Why did First Nations people want to keep holding potlatches? While you are reading and discussing, think about: why were potlatches important to individual people? why were potlatches important to families or communities? What changed in First Nations cultures because the potlatches were banned? While you are reading and discussing, think about: what couldn’t happen in communities because the potlatches were banned? how might a First Nations person feel towards the Government and missionaries? how might the Government and missionaries feel about the First Nations people?

Government and Missionaries #1 The Kwakwaka’wakw community was too large for the Government to enforce the law properly. A man named Duncan Campbell Scott convinced Parliament to change the offense from criminal to summary, which meant ‘the agents, as justice of the peace, could try a case, convict, and sentence.” This provided agents enough power to enforce the potlatch law without the need of other police or judges. In 1885 the first piece of legislation (a law) would be introduced to make the potlatch illegal. It was the 1885 Indian Act. The legislation said: “Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the "Potlatch" or the Indian dance known as the "Tamanawas" is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not more than six or less than two months in a jail or other place of confinement; and, any Indian or other person who encourages, either directly or indirectly an Indian or Indians to get up such a festival or dance, or to celebrate the same, or who shall assist in the celebration of same is guilty of a like offence, and shall be liable to the same punishment.”

Government and Missionaries #2 The potlatch involves accumulating wealth in order be given away rather than kept to increase one’s own wealth. This was opposite to the ideas about wealth and money that the other settlers had. In general, the settlers believed that collecting and showing items of wealth would increase their status. For First Nations people, gathering and redistributing wealth was the form of showing their social status. This notion was deeply problematic to Western settlers, and lead to the potlatch ban lasting from 1884 to Firstly, white settlers worried about health violations produced in potlatches from the close quarters and gathering of mass people lead to the spread of disease. Secondly, they thought that potlatches were backwards. Whites perceived potlatches as taking time away from First Nations doing economic activities such as farming and hunting. This prevented Canada from growing into a rich country like the the ones in Europe. Ultimately, the reason behind the banning of potlatches can be found in the idea that it was a way to keep the community from interacting and reconnecting with each other. By banning potlatches, the social fabric of First Nations people would be broken, making it easier for natives to assimilate into white culture. This was the goal of many missionaries such as William Duncun and Sheldon Jackson who set up residential schools to physically separate natives from one another and to convert them to Christianity.

First Nations #1 It wasn't until I was eighteen, in 1951, that the potlatch ban was omitted from a revised Indian Act in response to intensive lobbying efforts of Native leaders. The ban on political organizing was also dropped. Finally, it seemed possible to openly create our art and to practise our culture once again. Our art began to come out of hiding. Thanks to parents and grandparents like mine, who kept knowledge of our art and culture alive against such enormous odds, we could begin again making the art that functions as part of a complex whole. For our painting and sculpture, our performance, oratory and song are our history, law, political and philosophical discourse, sacred ceremony and land registry. – Doreen Jensen There was a raid in 1921 on a potlatch hosted by Chief Dan Cranmer. “They were charged with really criminal things like dancing, giving speeches and distributing gifts,” said Ms. Cranmer Webster, a former director of the U’mista Cultural Center in the family’s home town of Alert Bay, Canada, which is on an island about 180 miles northwest of Vancouver. “They were given a choice: if they gave up all their treasures, their masks and regalia, they wouldn’t have to go jail.”

First Nations #2 Even with “the end of enforcement, the potlatch declined, victim to alterations of the structure of the fishing industry, to the Depression, to the Anglican persuasion and Pentecostal evangelization, and to the lack of interest among the young people.” The Kwakwaka’wakw were faced with a tough choice: join Canadian society and forget about their history or rebuild and work to save the precious knowledge that remained with the few elders still alive in the communities. The Potlatch law split families, expropriated sacred cultural possessions, criminalized traditional leaders and undermined Kwakwaka’wakw self-governance. The ban produced a variety of results. While it formally outlawed potlatches, many were still performed in secret and some tribes adapted to it by changing its form. For example, the Nuu-chah-nulth∞ tribe traditionally used cedar boards to display their family crests. However, to be more discreet and efficient, crests were produced on muslin curtains making them easier to hide.Nuu-chah-nulth