Potlatch

A potlatch (also potlatch potlatch or ) is a celebration of American Indians of the Pacific Northwest. With him in ritual fashion gifts will be distributed or exchanged. The more valuable and exquisite turn the gereichten gifts, the more important the position and line of descent is true of him who had awarded the gifts.

From 1884 to the 1950s, the potlatch in Canada was forbidden. Since then, attempts to revive the original essence of the Potlatch new in contemporary form.

The Feast of Giving

The Potlatch is well known among Indian companies in the coastal regions of northwestern America as the " festival of giving ". Although it was common practice that even with ordinary feasts of the host chief guests plenty entertained and freely gave her gifts, but this was its rooted in the Indian culture 's general duty owed ​​as host and was regularly reciprocated by the other chiefs and their village groups. A potlatch, however, took place only rarely and had a profound religious and ritual significance. Many chiefs held down her entire life, but one or two.

Also, the potlatch was not spread everywhere in the Pacific Northwest. So he was not committed in the coastal Salish on Puget Sound in Washington.

The ritual significance

In order to hold a potlatch, it required a special occasion, because a central meaning of the festival was the disclosure and use of inherited within the descent group chief names, titles and privileges. These had to be witnessed to high-ranking guests and cemented by the gift of rich gifts, the ranking and position of the person receiving this gift to guests was to be strictly observed, because this also their social and ritual status was recognized and strengthened. The reason for such a ceremony could be the birth of the first-born son, the death of a senior relative or the establishment of a totem pole. The more valuable and exquisite turned out that this gereichten gifts, the more significant was the result of the position and lineage of the one who had given the Potlatch. In the Indian society, the classification in the number of ancestors was essential, but these were seen as ever-present part of the real world. If a potlatch thus won great honor honored then this is also the ancestors and contributed in this way help to secure the order and the existence of the world.

The social significance

The gereichten at a potlatch gifts were able to reach an enormous by the standards of the encoder and its social environment value. It happened that the heirs of a high-ranking dead all their inherited economic assets indulged in the context of such a festival to pay homage to their ancestors enough to get the benefit of his benevolence and take one of their descent corresponding rank in the spiritual and ritual appreciation of their contemporaries to be able to. For the social balance of the Indian society, this meant that it could cause permanent accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals or family branches only rarely.

The prohibition of potlatch

During the 19th century, this system came through contact with European traders and values ​​from the joints. Through contact with Europeans and an increased because of introduced diseases mortality important positions in the communities were vacant more often. This led to an increase in Potlatch, campaigned with the young chiefs for recognition. The riches exposed by European immigrants made ​​it possible for young chiefs also to enter into a real competition for the holding of Potlatch - a struggle in which so many of young chiefs entrusted to him tribal group drove himself and to ruin.

In Canada Potlatch was eventually banned by amending the Indian Act, the end of the 19th century in the USA. The ban came mainly at the urging of missionaries and government officials to pass, looked at the Potlatch as wasteful, unproductive and contrary to civilized values ​​standing.

Potlatch moved into the focus of assimilation efforts of governments and church. The missionary William Duncan wrote in 1875, Potlatch is " by far the greatest of all obstacles in the way of the Indians to Christianity, or even civilized behavior ". 1884 was then added to the prohibition of potlatch of the Indian Act in Canada.

Even the officials who were entrusted with the enforcement, but often felt the law as too hard and completed it often does not. They assumed that Potlatch will disappear by itself as soon as a younger, more educated and " more advanced " generation will grow. There are also reports that the ban was circumvented by some communities by celebrating Potlatch around Christmas and it thus disguised.

The ban was up in the 50s of the 20th century. In Canada, the corresponding Paragraph, which forbade the organization of Potlatch was in 1951 removed from the Indian Act and thus de facto decriminalized. The inauguration of the public created by the Kwakwaka'wakw artist Mungo Martin Wawadit'la in Thunderbird Park at the Royal British Columbia Museum in 1953 was the first legal public potlatch ceremony, which took place in British Columbia for 70 years. Since then, attempts to revive the original nature of the potlatch new in contemporary form.