Potlatch-level Indigenous Artists and Artisans gather on the Pacific Coast of Canada

Potlatch Presentation: The artisans and members of Homatsa prepare to host the Pat Alfred Memorial Potlatch, April 2011, Alert Bay, BC

Indigenous recorded history written for all to see

Potlatch business was recorded in images

Before the birth of 'Industrial Nations' in the late 1800s, before the end of the Mercantile Trade and Barter economy as happened in the mid 1800s, before Napoleon freed European Jews from the ghettos in 1802, the people of the North West Coast conducted a thriving economy complete with complex international trade protocols and records.

This complex arrangement must have fascinated close observers who came in to the territory, in the wake of Captain Cook's arrival in 1778, said a carver, one evening amid all the wood chips. They came in ever-increasing numbers and whatever else the new arrivals observed, they soon came to believe this potlatch 'business' had to be stopped dead in its tracks. And this they both said and did.

This potlatch business must have been awful scary to the new arrivals because they took over and made it illegal in 1884 by a Canadian government decree that resulted in the next 50 years dragging 'evidence' into fires and re-educatiing the adherents to the system.

So when they looked at masks and grand images of the Pacific North West coast that evoked such terror and opposition, were they looking at art?

Or was there more to it than meets the eye?

Is it possible they were looking at a written language that they could not begin to understand? Is it possible the new arrivals were looking at the terms and conditions of agreements drawn between governments regarding distribution of nationally- generated wealth?

What if the compendium of so-called 'clan art' found within and on a Hereditary Chief’s Big House was a highly evolved record of economic development and propriety, replete with ‘corporate’ symbols and advanced accounting? Since the potlatch included a highly developed government-to-government based international trade system, then it follows the system must have required elaborate and intricate accounting.

What did the usurping authority (Canadian government) find in potlatch that was so objectionable it had to be utterly destroyed? The international trade of the region comprised a vast complex of economic drivers, including everything from clothing to masks, to mats inlaid with family crests, to hats, also inlaid with crests, to all manner of household products, everything inlaid with intricate crests and art work. Everything was manufactured and traded on an annual basis between more than half-a-dozen nations. Within each nation, autonomous villages had specialties, whether it was canoe manufacture or paddles or fishing apparatus or clothing or jewellry, ad infinitum.

The carver who was speaking, a natural born historian, was quick to agree that nations where rich potlatch culture developed were incidentally the very nations where these elaborate art forms are the most intricate and detailed. These symbols practically bend the mind trying to figure them out.

Look at the last-gasp photographic evidence of the wealth of chiefs, photos containing panoramic images of house fronts, totem poles, bighouse screens, clothing, hats, and masks, so many Clan House Chiefs had these pictures done, found all the way from the northern-most Tlingit Nation to the southern-most Kwakwaka'wakw. They all insisted in having their pictures taken standing amid this vast array of wealth.

Add to this incredible tableau the intricate and absorbing detail of the Chilkat blanket, and add to that the minute detail of several family crests etched perfectly into an ivory spoon. Add to that the intricacy and detail generated in trade-based economics. The potlatch system was essentially an economic engine run by Clan Chiefs who had hereditary jurisdiction over lands, waters, resources (natural, manufactured, and human labour), and all matters of protocol in delivering goods and services.

The potlatch was engineered to be the conduct of trade between nations, says the carver. Potlatch-oriented economics accommodated international relations from the top of the North American Pacific coast, between Haida, Tlingit, Nisga'a, Tsimshian, Gikxsan, Bella Coola, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Nuu Chah Nulth nations, all the way to the bottom of Vancouver Island, and past the strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Coast Salish nation was noticeably absent from the system, a nation thriving in a form of self-sufficiency, and potlatch trading protocols went no further south, but the complex potlatch protocols defied all the usual barriers to trade within the Pacific North West. It was an international operation working throughout several government entities and could only be trusted if economic order was preserved.

This wealth was preserved and fell along the lines of nobles, people of standing, and this wealth and ownership was recorded in forensic detail. These were rich nations led by rich people. The complexities of this formerly immense system are yet to be recovered and understood, the meaning of the written language was extinguished, all of it disappeared except the well-known family crests, which are the only remaining code in the key to potlatch economics.

What this does mean is that a remnant of the former national glory has preserved threads of the 'statements of title' which continue to be understood by a few people who know their family shields. Lest we forget, the potlatch was secretly run by societies blood-loyal to House Chiefs and these societies protected their treasures (recorded the accounts), among other things like protecting borders. A usurping authority designated these societies shamanistic and marked their members for extermination; adding further misery during interceding years about ninety percent of the people in these nations died of disease.

Those who were left had the meaning of paintings, etchings, images, and carvings erased from their minds by a brutal system of residential schools. Adding insult to injury these people are presently denied access to an economic system of their own design, since who was to say theirs was not the prototype design for today’s international trade system in commodities, goods, and services in international trade?

It shall be considered therefore a terrible irony that they can only sit on Indian Reservations observing a close derivative of their creative endeavors governing the world and they are not allowed to participate according to the Indian Act.

Written by Mack McColl

Cedar Bark Weaving Comes From Deep Roots

Kerri-Lynne Emily Dick is a master weaver in the tradition of the Haida, Kwaguilth, Tlingit, and Kootenay peoples. She is the daughter of Beau Dick, Master Carver of the art of the carved and painted wood and stone of the Pacific Northwest.

As Dick describes it, to her cedar weaving, basket making, and other products of the northwest coast comes as naturally as breathing. Dick says basically her whole life has been immersed in the Haida and Kwaguilth culture. "I personally would never call it a cultural revival. It still existed because of strong families and strong lineages."

Cedar weaving was a part of Dick's life from the beginning. "My mother took me out to gather roots. We'd be on the beach and she showed me where to start and how to pull 'the root, and we'd end up with 40 or 60 feet of root."

Then there was cedar bark stripping. "It occurs in the late spring and summer seasons. You strip the bark when it's warm, because the sap is running. In winter it's solid and breaks. We did most of the weaving in the cold months. I remember in the winter that was the big thing. In the winter we potlatch and in the summer collect weaving material.

"The first time I learned to weave I was eight years old living in Prince Rupert." She was introduced to a Tsimshian woman who knew how to make cedar bark baskets. "My mother asked her to teach me." Dick trekked over after school. "I made one basket and she told me 'You have to go out and buy a bunch of cedar and do it yourself.' I thought to myself, 'Buy cedar?'"

Cedar is the Tree of Life. The majesty of Kwakwaka'wakw culture and the all of the rainforest nationalities in North America's Pacific region lives with the history of their incredible horticulture of cedar groves. It is proven they practiced advanced trans-generational management of cedar, creating surplus bark by harvesting the bark from living trees, according to anthropologists.

Dick was a young girl who, "thought it was bizarre that she suggested cedar bark was something you buy." The sacred cedar was something you gather. "When you strip bark from the living tree, you take a hand-width, only as much as your own hands can work with." Her mother moved back to the Queen Charlottes where Dick's learning continued at pace.

"I have to mention my teachers and mentors. Willy White, Primrose Adams, April Churchill, Evelyn Vanderhoof and Donna Cranmer were instrumental in encouraging me to develop the skill." Willy White "is a fast-black-weaver, a member of a society of weavers who have come back from the past," says Dick. "People are born into it. They get the weaver's bug and immerse themselves in it." They enter a supernatural world.

"It is important to be careful about spirit when you weave. I like to push it to a certain point and I know the energy is still in the cedar. I become yolakwamae' and that means entranced or hypnotized in Kwakwala." By the time she was 20 Dick taught cedar bark weaving in Kingcome Inlet. She showed pictures of weavers at work and one young student noticed how closely people worked together. The kids in her class wanted to take their knowledge to another level.

"The kids decided to utilize an old big house and they cleaned it up and cleared out a lot of debris." She had several serious students. "I've always been an immaculate weaver and some people wanted me to keep it a secret, but I wanted to hand it down to the generations. It's not about money, and it's not about popularity.. It's about how many generations this knowledge will extend into the future. To be remembered by my students and family is my payment."

For more information about Kerri-Lynne Emily Dick's cedar bark hat and Chikat blanket weaving at the www.umista.org in Alert Bay, B.C., in the heart of the Kwak'wala speaking nation.

Freelance Writing by Mack McColl