Mamalilaculla:
Village of the "Last Potlatch"
On Village Island, in Johnstone
Strait's Broughton Archipelago
at the mouth of coastal British
Columbia's Knight Inlet, weathered
posts and toppled house poles
provide tangible evidence of the
Kwakwaka'wakw community that inhabited
the island until local schools
were closed during the 1960's.
The village of Mamalilculla (also
known as Meem Quam Leese) was
the site of a large, gift-giving
ceremonial Kwakwaka'wakw potlatch
in December of 1921, during which
45 participants were charged under
Section 149 of the Indian Act,
as passed in 1884. According to
the legislation, the participants'
offences included making speeches,
dancing, arranging articles to
be given away, and carrying gifts
to recipients. Of those charged,
22 were sentenced to 2 - 6 month
terms in Oakalla Prison. Following
the raid, ceremonial artifacts,
including coppers, masks, rattles
and whistles, were seized by the
Alert Bay Indian Agent and distributed
to several museums and private
collections in Canada and the
United States. Today, visitors
can travel by water or air to
Village Island to learn more about
the significance of the potlatch,
its prohibition and subsequent
revival.
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The Kwakwaka'wakw:
New Pride in the Potlatch
For the First Nations of British Columbia's
Northwest Coast - and many of those in the
province's interior - the potlatch was the
ultimate ceremonial occasion. It combined
every aspect of daily life - economic, political,
social, and religious. The giving of food
and gifts, including engraved metal "coppers,"
and performing of traditional dances and
dramas, such as the hamatsa, or cannibal
dance, was a ritual that accompanied many
life passages, including marriage, naming
of children, transferring of rights and
privileges, or mourning of the dead.
Potlatch guests were given gifts in exchange
for their role in publicly witnessing a
milestone or momentous event. The potlatch-givers
gained prestige through their generosity,
and took pride in displaying their collection
of ceremonial masks, instruments and theatrical
presentations. Although some went so far
as to give away most of their possessions,
they could depend on the potlatch principle
of reciprocity to ensure that they would
someday take their turns as gift recipients.
The potlatch was a system based on the belief
that giving - not getting - was the key
to wealth and status. To the non-natives
who were colonizing the British Columbian
coast in the 19th century, this was a confusing,
topsy-turvy concept that appeared to impoverish
potlatch-givers and threaten the prevailing
economic order. In 1884, responding to pressure
from missionaries and Indian agents, the
Canadian federal government passed legislation
banning the potlatch and its related rituals
and dances.
Kwakwaka'wakw Culture: The lower
Klinaklini River and Knight Inlet areas
of the Pacific coast are associated with
several Kwak'wala-speaking groups collectively
known as the Kwakwaka'wakw. Like other British
Columbian coastal tribes such as the Nootka
to the south, and the Bella Coola, Haisla
and Tsimshian to the north, and the Carrier
to the east, the Kwakwaka'wakw practiced
potlatching as their fundamental means of
economic and social organization.
Driven Underground: When more than
20 Kwakwaka'wakw nobles were convicted and
imprisoned following a raid on a 1921 potlatch
on Village Island, near the Knight Inlet,
coastal tribes were forced to continue the
potlatching tradition in secret. One of
the most fundamental cultural traditions
of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast
became a clandestine and risky underground
practice.
Recovery and Repatriation: Following
the removal of the potlatch prohibition
from the federal Indian Act in 1951, Kwakwaka'wakw
First Nations began to lobby for the return
of the ceremonial potlatch artifacts that
had been seized by Indian Agents many years
earlier. Lengthy negotiations with several
museums led to the return of the artifacts,
and the construction of new cultural facilities
in Cape Mudge (Quadra Island), and Alert
Bay, on Cormorant Island in the Queen Charlotte
Strait. At Alert Bay's U'Mista Cultural
Centre, a permanent exhibition known as
"The Potlatch Collection" now
features repatriated Kwakwaka'wakw artifacts.
Visit
the U'Mista Cultural Centre in
Alert Bay
Enter stage right, just as traditional
dancers do, to view the ceremonial
objects of the potlatch in the
Big House of the Kwakwaka'wakw
First Nations U'Mista Cultural
Centre in Alert Bay. The Centre,
located on Cormorant Island
(just north of Telegraph Cove
on the northeast coast of Vancouver
Island), houses potlatch artifacts
that have were seized from the
Kwakwaka'wakw people during the
early 1920's, and have now been
returned.
Visitors can experience the
objects in the order of their
appearance at a traditional
potlatch. The first grouping
features "coppers,"
large, flat sheets of beaten
metal that symbolized economic
transactions and documented
important events in the histories
of present and past owners.
(Coppers were an important part
of marriage ceremonies, and
the naming of children; like
investments, they varied in
value as they were exchanged.)
The second grouping includes
a series of masks depicting
natural and supernatural creatures,
and corresponding to ritual
dances such as the hamatsa.
The U'Mista Cultural Centre
also features a display of the
letters, petitions and reports
that led to the repatriation
of "The Potlatch Collection,"
and serves as a creative studio
fostering Kwakwaka'wakw carvings,
sculptures and other arts and
crafts. The Centre distributes
Kwakwaka'wakw artwork worldwide,
and supports participation in
international cultural exchanges
and projects |
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The Tsilhqot'in:
People of the Plateau
At the opposite, upper end of the Klinaklini
watershed, in the British Columbian interior
uplands, the First Nations of the Plateau
lived a very different life than those of
the coastal tribes of the Northwest Coast.
Wild game, both large and small, took the
place of clams, mussels and seals, and temporary,
bark-covered ledges or pit-houses replaced
the cedar plank dwellings of permanent ocean-side
villages.
Historically, the "people of the plateau"
- the southern Thompson, Lillooet, Okanagan
and Kootenay (Kutenai), the central Shuswap
and Tsilhqot'in (Chilcoten), and the northern
Carrier - were a highly diverse group, representing
several cultural and linguistic traditions.
Anthropologists and ethnographers who have
studied plateau heritage and culture have
struggled to identify unifying characteristics
that go beyond a shared geography.
The Tsilhqot'in, whose traditional territories
include the headwater areas of the Klinaklini
River, are an Athapaskan-speaking group,
thought to have migrated from subarctic
lands to the north. As dwellers in the alpine
lake region of the Chilcotin Plateau, they
shared one important resource with the Kwakwaka'wakw
who dwelled near the river's mouth: salmon
was their most important food resource,
and salmon fishing, salmon drying and salmon
trading, controlled the rhythm of their
lives.
Wild berries were also vital to Tsilhqot'in
food stores. Huckleberries, blueberries,
thimbleberries, raspberries and salmonberries
were dried on racks in the sun or over the
fire, then mixed with animal grease to form
long-lasting, calorie-packed and vitamin-rich
berry cakes.
Compared to other Plateau peoples, the
Tsilhqot'in had a strong sense of tribal
identity that united extended families,
bands and village groupings. The practice
of exercising exclusive rights over key
resources, such as salmon-fishing sites
or berry grounds, was more highly developed
among both Plateau and North West Coast
tribes than it was among First Nations of
central and eastern Canada.
Tsilhqot'in society was devastated in the
1860's by a series of smallpox epidemics
that left killed 30% of the First Nations
population of the Plateau. (Fear of further
infection prompted the "Chilcotin War"
in 1864, in which 14 construction workers
were killed by a Tsilhqot'in group trying
to stop an interior-bound wagon route.)
As the Tsilhqot'in population declined,
the Cariboo gold rush brought an influx
of miners, settlers and adventure-seekers.
Although the Tsilhqot'in, on the fringes
of the frenzy were less affected than their
First Nations neighbours to the south and
west, their traditional lifestyle was forever
altered by the ranches, roads and railways
that followed the colonization of the British
Columbian interior.
Tsilhqot'in Today: The contemporary
Tsilhqot'in Nation in British Columbia has
a population of about 6,000 people in 7
communities, including Redstone,
Alexis Creek, Riske Creek, Hanceville,
Alexandria, Anahim Lake and Nemiah
Valley. Logging and ranching are the
Nation's major economic activities, along
with traditional hunting, fishing and trapping.
Salmon, moose, deer, berries and bannock
continue to be important foods of modern-day
Tsilhqot'in. |
