Studio News
Why We Are Called “Potlatch”
Date:
March 22, 2024
Have you ever wondered why we are called “Potlatch”? Our name is an homage to the potlatch tradition celebrated by various Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States.
Have you ever wondered why we are called “Potlatch”? Our name is an homage to the potlatch tradition celebrated by various Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States.
A potlatch (from the Chinook word Patshatl) is a lavish ceremonial feast and gift-giving ceremony, in which the hosts give away significant amounts of wealth, food, and valuable items in celebration of important events. This gift-giving redistributes wealth throughout the community while emphasising the hosts’ generosity and elevated social status. The more elaborate and generous the potlatch, the higher the prestige of the host.
In some potlaches, the hosts destroy their valuable goods as a way of emphasising their status, wealth and power, the act of destruction demonstrating that they can afford to part with valuable possessions without suffering a loss. The destruction of goods can also symbolise a break with the past, a transition into a new phase of life, or the recognition that material wealth is impermanent.
This destructive element of the ceremony was deeply misunderstood by many European colonisers and missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries, who considered the destruction of wealth as wasteful, and the potlatch tradition “unproductive and contrary to ‘civilised values’ of accumulation.” In an act of suppression, hosting potlatches was thus made illegal in Canada in 1884 through an amendment to the Indian Act.
The criminalisation of potlatches lasted until the ban was repealed in 1951. Since then, many Indigenous peoples have revived their potlatch traditions, and today, potlatches are celebrated by the Heiltsuk, Haida, Nuxalk, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures, among many others.
In the potlatch tradition, we see luxury and everything it can symbolise in society: wealth, status, power, prestige, generosity, and noble values.
Photographs by Edward Curtis, and watercolour painting by James G. Swan, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
