Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
A Potlatch ceremony. Image retrieved from: <firstnationsrituals.blogspot.com/p/the-potlatch-ceremony.html>.
Today’s post looks at the 66 year-long ban on the Potlatch, a spiritual and legal ceremony vital to coastal First Nations traditions.
The word “Potlatch” derives from Chinook, a trade jargon used along the Pacific coast, and simply means, “to give.”[1] Potlatches mark important events, including marriages, births, and deaths. The purpose of the Potlatch is manifold: it is used to redistribute wealth; establish social status; trace family lineages; pass on ceremonial names and hereditary positions; recognize rights and privileges; and, inter alia, fulfil social obligations. The ceremony itself is performed with dancing, singing, and the use of elaborate regalia.[2]
However, to white settlers in the late 1800s, the Potlatch seemed “wasteful and excessive"; in opposition to “the Protestant work ethic[s] [of] industry and sobriety.”[3] Indeed, the Potlatch “ritual was symbolic of the savagery and depravity of Indians.”[4] Christian missionaries and Indian agents lobbied the federal government to outlaw the Potlatch in order to assimilate the Indigenous population into a capitalist, settler culture.[5] In response, an 1884 amendment to the Indian Act criminalized the Potlatch. The legislation stated:
Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the “Potlach” or in the Indian dance known as the “Tamanawas” is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than six nor less than two months in any gaol 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 the same is guilty of a like offence, and shall be liable to the same punishment.[6]
The provision would not come into force until January 1, 1885.[7]
In 1889, four years after the ban’s implementation, the British Columbia Supreme Court would hear the appeal of a Kwakwaka’wakw man, Hemasak, charged with potlatching. Justice Begbie ruled that, because “Potlatch” was not defined, the Court could not determine whether the defendant had actually committed the prohibited act. Accordingly, the conviction was quashed.[8]
In 1895, the newly amended Indian Act addressed this ambiguity. The legislation specified that any Indians who take part in “any Indian festival, dance or other ceremony of which the giving away or paying or giving back of money, goods or articles of any sort forms a part, or is a feature” are guilty of an indictable offence, subject to the same punishment as before (i.e., up to 6 months imprisonment).[9] This also included “any celebration or dance of which the wounding or mutilation of the dead or living body of any human being or animal forms a part or is a feature” but did not apply to agricultural shows or exhibits that awarded prizes.[10]
In 1914, the Act was changed to limit the wearing of Indigenous regalia during ceremonies outside of reserve lands. It declared that any Indian in the western provinces or territories “who participates in any Indian dance outside the bounds of his own reserve, or who participates in any show, exhibition, performance, stampede or pageant in aboriginal costumes without the consent of the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs or his authorized agent” is liable to a month in prison, a $25 penalty, or both.[11] In 1918, as part of a campaign to crackdown on Potlatches, the offence became punishable by summary conviction.[12] As a result, 135 individuals were charged between the years of 1918 and 1922 (a record number) for violating the provision.[13]
In 1921, ‘Namgis Chief Dan Cranmer held the largest Potlatch recorded on the Northwest coast for his Kwakwaka’wakw community in Alert Bay.[14] Police shut down the Potlatch and arrested participants. 58 charges were laid. Of those, only nine were dismissed while 49 convictions proceeded. Of those convictions, 22 Alert Bay Indians were sentenced to two months imprisonment, four were given six months, and 23 received suspended sentences, but only after agreeing to give up their ceremonial regalia to an Indian agent. The 450 pieces of regalia, mostly consisting of cedar masks, were confiscated and placed into museum collections until they were eventually reclaimed decades later.[15] It was not until 1951 that the Potlatch ban was formally repealed.[16] One year later, Chief Mungo Martin held the first legal Potlatch in Victoria, BC.[17]
Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum, a nehiyaw (Cree) activist and co-founder of the Idle No More movement, argues that the Potlatch ban and similar provisions of the Indian Act have contributed to the exclusion of women in Indigenous ceremonies. She notes that, prior to treaty, Indigenous women held ceremonies and were doctors and healers within their communities. Specifically, the medicine lodges, law lodges, and clan mother’s sundance lodges were spaces in which women held considerable power. Today, Saysewahum’s community, Big River Nation, has yet to elect a woman for chief or band council member. According to Saysewahum, colonial laws, like the Potlatch ban, brought about a dominating patriarchal culture and internalized sexism in Indigenous societies. She cites the ban as having a direct effect on the continued ongoing oppression of Indigenous women.[18]
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking at a G20 Conference, stated, “for nearly 150 years [Canada’s] had the same political system without any social breakdown [or] political upheaval ... We also have no history of colonialism.”[19] This speech came only a year after the Canadian government’s 2008 formal apology for Residential Schools, which recognized the injustices of assimilationist policies.[20] To whitewash Canada’s past is to ignore colonialism as it is currently experienced. As we have seen above, the social breakdown and political upheaval of the Potlatch ban is still felt today.
Yet, the resiliency of Indigenous peoples remains stronger than the evils of colonialism. Barb Cranmer (Chief Dan Cranmer’s granddaughter), in acknowledging that the Potlatch is being reclaimed and revitalized, reminds us that her peoples’ “connection to the past is unbroken.”[21]
Until next time,
Team ReconciliAction YEG
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[1] Tina Loo, “Dan Cranmer’s Potlatch: Law as Coercion, Symbol, and Rhetoric in British Columbia, 1884-1951” (1992) 73:2 Can Historical Rev 125 at 137.
[2] “Potlatch” (no date), online: Living Tradition: The Kwakwaka’wakw Potlatch of the Northwest Coast <umistapotlatch.ca/potlatch-eng.php>.
[3] Loo, supra note 1 at 143.
[4] Ibid at 128-129.
[5] Ibid at 129.
[6] An Act further to amend “The Indian Act, 1880”, SC 1884, c 27, s 3.
[7] Ibid s 25.
[8] Loo, supra note 1 at 141.
[9] An Act further to amend the Indian Act, SC 1895, c 35, s 6.
[10] Ibid.
[11] An Act to amend the Indian Act, SC 1914, c 35, s 8.
[12] An Act to amend the Indian Act, SC 1918, c 26, s 7.
[13] Loo, supra note 1 at 147.
[14] “Potlatch Ban” (no date), online: Living Tradition: The Kwakwaka’wakw Potlatch of the Northwest Coast <umistapotlatch.ca/potlatch_interdire-potlatch_ban-eng.php> [Living Tradition: Potlatch Ban].
[15] Loo, supra note 1 at 128.
[16] An Act respecting Indians, SC 1951, c 29, s 123(2).
[17] “Potlatch Ban: Abolishment of First Nations Ceremony” (16 October 2012), online (blog): Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. <www.ictinc.ca/the-potlatch-ban-abolishment-of-first-nations-ceremonies>.
[18] Lenard Monkman, “Historical Ban on Potlatch Ceremony has Lingering Effects for Indigenous Women, Author Says”, CBC News (updated 25 March 2017), online: <www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/historical-ban-spirituality-felt-indigenous-women-today-1.4036528>.
[19] Aaron Wherry, “What He Was Talking About When He Talked About Colonialism”, Maclean’s Magazine (1 October 2009), online: <www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/what-he-was-talking-about-when-he-talked-about-colonialism/>.
[20] Government of Canada, Office of the Prime Minister, Statement of Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools, (11 June 2008), online (pdf): <www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-INTER-HQ/STAGING/texte-text/rqpi_apo_pdf_1322167347706_eng.pdf>.
[21] Living Tradition: Potlatch Ban, supra note 14.
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