Editing Potlatch (section)

==Overview==
[[File:Speaker Figure, 19th century, 05.588.7418.jpg|thumbnail|Speaker Figure, 19th century, [[Brooklyn Museum]], the figure represents a speaker at a potlatch. An orator standing behind the figure would have spoken through its mouth, announcing the names of arriving guests.]]
A potlatch was held on the occasion of births, deaths, adoptions, weddings, and other major events.  Typically the potlatch was practiced more in the winter seasons as historically the warmer months were for procuring wealth for the family, clan, or village, then coming home and sharing that with neighbors and friends. The event was hosted by a ''numaym'',  or '[[House society|House]]', in [[Kwakwaka'wakw]] culture. A ''numaym'' was a complex [[cognatic]] kin group usually headed by aristocrats, but including commoners and occasional slaves. It had about one hundred members and several would be grouped together into a nation. The House drew its identity from its ancestral founder, usually a mythical animal who descended to earth and removed his animal mask, thus becoming human. The mask became a family heirloom passed from father to son along with the name of the ancestor himself. This made him the leader of the ''numaym'', considered the living incarnation of the founder.<ref name="graeber">{{cite book|last=Graeber|first=David|title=Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of our own Dreams|year=2001|publisher=Palgrave|location=New York}}</ref>{{rp|192}}

Only rich people could host a potlatch. Tribal slaves were not allowed to attend a potlatch as a host or a guest. In some instances, it was possible to have multiple hosts at one potlatch ceremony (although when this occurred the hosts generally tended to be from the same family). If a member of a nation had suffered an injury or indignity, hosting a potlatch could help to heal their tarnished reputation (or "cover his shame", as anthropologist H.  G. Barnett worded it).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Barnett|first=H. G.|date=1938 |title=The Nature of the Potlatch |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=40|issue=3|pages=349–358|doi=10.1525/aa.1938.40.3.02a00010|doi-access=free}}</ref>  The potlatch was the occasion on which titles associated with masks and other objects were "fastened on" to a new office holder. Two kinds of titles were transferred on these occasions. Firstly, each ''numaym'' had a number of named positions of ranked "seats" (which gave them a seat at potlatches) transferred within itself. These ranked titles granted rights to hunting, fishing and berrying territories.{{r|graeber|p=198}} Secondly, there were a number of titles that would be passed between numayma, usually to in-laws, which included feast names that gave one a role in the Winter Ceremonial.{{r|graeber|p=194}} Aristocrats felt safe giving these titles to their out-marrying daughter's children because this daughter and her children would later be rejoined with her natal numaym and the titles returned with them.{{r|graeber|p=201}} Any one individual might have several "seats" which allowed them to sit, in rank order, according to their title, as the host displayed and distributed wealth and made speeches. Besides the transfer of titles at a potlatch, the event was given "weight" by the distribution of other less important objects such as [[Chilkat weaving|Chilkat blankets]], animal skins (later Hudson Bay blankets) and ornamental "coppers". It is the distribution of large numbers of [[Hudson's Bay point blanket|Hudson Bay blankets]], and the destruction of valued coppers that first drew government attention (and censure) to the potlatch.{{r|graeber|p=205}} On occasion, preserved food was also given as a gift during a potlatch ceremony. Gifts known as ''sta-bigs'' consisted of preserved food that was wrapped in a mat or contained in a storage basket.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Snyder|first=Sally|date=April 1975|title=Quest for the Sacred in Northern Puget Sound: An Interpretation of Potlatch|journal=Ethnology|volume=14|issue=2|pages=149–161|doi=10.2307/3773086|jstor=3773086}}</ref>

Dorothy Johansen describes the dynamic: "In the ''potlatch'', the host in effect challenged a guest chieftain to exceed him in his 'power' to give away or to destroy goods.  If the guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his 'power' was diminished."<ref>Dorothy O. Johansen, ''Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest'', 2nd ed., (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 7–8.</ref> Hierarchical relations within and between clans, villages, and nations, were observed and reinforced through the distribution or sometimes destruction of wealth, dance performances, and other ceremonies. The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources. The hosts demonstrate their wealth and prominence through giving away goods.

Potlatch ceremonies were also used as coming-of-age rituals. When children were born, they would be given their first name at the time of their birth (which was usually associated with the location of their birthplace). About a year later, the child's family would hold a potlatch and give gifts to the guests in attendance on behalf of the child. During this potlatch, the family would give the child their second name. Once the child reached about 12 years of age, they were expected to hold a potlatch of their own by giving out small gifts that they had collected to their family and people, at which point they would be able to receive their third name.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Indians of the North Pacific Coast|last=McFeat|first=Tom|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|year=1978|pages=72–80}}</ref>

For some cultures, such as Kwakwaka'wakw, elaborate and theatrical dances are performed reflecting the hosts' genealogy and cultural wealth. Many of these dances are also sacred ceremonies of secret societies like the hamatsa, or display of family origin from [[supernatural]] creatures such as the [[dzunukwa]]. 
[[File:Edward S. Curtis, Kwakiutl bridal group, British Columbia, 1914 (published version).jpg|thumb|[[Edward S. Curtis|Edward Curtis]] photo of a [[Kwakwaka'wakw]] potlatch with dancers and singers]]
Chief O'wax̱a̱laga̱lis of the [[Kwagu'ł]] describes the potlatch in his famous speech to anthropologist [[Franz Boas]],
{{blockquote|We will dance when our laws command us to dance, we will feast when our hearts desire to feast. Do we ask the white man, 'Do as the Indian does'? No, we do not. Why, then, will you ask us, 'Do as the white man does'? It is a strict law that bids us to dance. It is a strict law that bids us to distribute our property among our friends and neighbors. It is a good law. Let the white man observe his law; we shall observe ours. And now, if you are come to forbid us to dance, begone; if not, you will be welcome to us.<ref>Franz Boas, "The Indians of British Columbia," [https://books.google.com/books?id=pc4WAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA631 ''The Popular Science Monthly''], March 1888 (vol. 32), p. 631.</ref>}}

Among the various First Nations groups which inhabited the region along the coast, a variety of differences existed in regards to practises relating to the potlatch ceremony. Each nation, community, and sometimes clan maintained its own way of practicing the potlatch with diverse presentation and meaning. The Tlingit and Kwakiutl nations of the Pacific Northwest, for example, held potlatch ceremonies for different occasions. The Tlingit potlatches occurred for succession (the granting of tribal titles or land) and funerals. The Kwakiutl potlatches, on the other hand, occurred for marriages and incorporating new people into the nation (i.e., the birth of a new member of the nation.)<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rosman|first=Abraham|date=1972|title=The Potlatch: A Structural Analysis 1|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=74|issue=3|pages=658–671|doi=10.1525/aa.1972.74.3.02a00280}}</ref> The potlatch, as an overarching term, is quite general, since some cultures have many words in their language for various specific types of gatherings. It is important to keep this variation in mind as most of our detailed knowledge of the potlatch was acquired from the Kwakwaka'wakw around Fort Rupert on Vancouver Island in the period 1849 to 1925, a period of great social transition in which many aspects of the potlatch became exacerbated in reaction to efforts by the [[Government of Canada|Canadian government]] to [[Cultural assimilation|culturally assimilate]] First Nations communities into the dominant white culture.{{r|graeber|p=188–208}}