What Abundance Built · Episode 2 of 8 · 51 min
How a Salmon Coast Built Totem Poles — and a Society That Gave Its Wealth Away
On the Pacific Northwest coast, salmon runs so thick that a few weeks of fishing fed a community for a year bought winters of free time. The Haida, Tlingit, Kwakwaka'wakw and neighbors spent it carving totem poles, weaving robes and staging dances, in a potlatch economy where status came from giving wealth away. The same salmon funded a ranked society that held slaves and a culture Canada outlawed from 1885 to 1951.
Who's who
- Dan Cranmer'Namgis chief who hosted the 1921 Village Island potlatch
- William HallidayIndian agent at Alert Bay who pressed the 1921 prosecutions
- Mungo MartinTwentieth-century carver who helped revive the art forms
- Bill ReidTwentieth-century artist who helped revive the art forms
- Robert DavidsonHaida artist who helped revive the art forms
Where it happens
- Haida Gwaii, British Columbia+1 more episodeIsland home of the Haida, renowned carvers and canoe builders
- Southeast AlaskaTlingit homeland and weaving region
- Alert Bay, British ColumbiaKwakwaka'wakw community where the 1921 raid was centered
- Village Island, British ColumbiaSite of Cranmer's 1921 potlatch
- Skeena and Nass river country, British ColumbiaTsimshian, Nisga'a and Gitxsan homeland
Timeline
- 1741Russian voyages make sustained European contact with the Tlingit coast
- 1867United States purchases Alaska from Russia
- 1884-1885Canada amends the Indian Act to ban the potlatch, in force January 1885
- December 1921Cranmer's potlatch leads to about 45 charged
- 1951Canada drops the anti-potlatch provisions
- 1979-1980Repatriated potlatch regalia housed in two new cultural centers
Still debated
Estimates that up to a quarter or a third of people were enslaved are scholarly ranges, not a census. Historians also debate whether European trade created competitive potlatching or only inflated it, and note that missionary accounts of slave killing came from observers with a stake.