Potlatch

The Potlatch Prior to European Contact

Potlatches were a way of life among the Northwest First People, and were carried on along the Pacific Coast of Alaska to Oregon. They created the impetus for daily activity; they were the economy, the basis for the flow of wealth, and the standard of the class system. Etiquette was not only observed in the [Page 1918]potlatch, but in everyday life, as Stanley Walens reveals in Feasting with Cannibals, and was strictly enforced. This ceremony is more famously known through the First People from Southeast Alaska to British Columbia; in particular among the Tlingit, Haida, Bella Bella, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl. Potlatching was also practiced in the Washington and Oregon coastal villages of the Chinooks, Nootka, Salish, Lummi, and other surrounding tribal neighbors, as well as on the Bering Sea, along the Aleutian Islands and interior of Alaska, by the Aleuts, Athabascans, and Inupiat. These are the peoples who would congregate, feast, and dance, while royally attired in regalia displaying their crests, which were passed down to them from their mother's clan (for those of matriarchal societies) from time immemorial. This took the form of dancing and singing of ancient encounters, as in Pamela Rae Huteson's Legends in Wood: Stories of the Totems, which give examples of encounters of transforming beings of the air and land, which could take off their coat of feathers or fur, and appear as human as any of “The People.” Culture bearers also brought these accounts through speeches, and even through puppetry during the weeklong celebrations. Secret Societies of Dog Eaters and Hamatsa Cannibal Dancers became infamous for their rituals. Those with higher rank utilized the potlatch to keep their standing, since castes were fluid, and it was easier to move down in rank than up.

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