The Great Potlatch

The potlatch is a ritual festival in indigenous society in western Canada where the gifts are so luxurious they can drive the gift-giver to financial ruin. The potlatch has enormous significance among the indigenous peoples and frequently accompanies important social events, such as the appointment of chieftains or the bestowal of titles and privileges. In 1920 religious groups and the Canadian government succeeded in passing a law which forbid the Kwakwaka’wakw (“Kwakiutl”), a group of indigenous tribes (First Nations) located in modern-day British Columbia, to continue these traditional gift-giving ceremonies.
The gifts of the last great potlatch in Alert Bay (British Columbia) in December 1921 were confiscated by Canadian officials and distributed to large museums in Canada, as well as several private collectors. The gifts included 300-year-old masks, ceremonial instruments and copper plates called “coppers”. Since the collection went on permanent display at a museum in Alert Bay, built especially for this purpose in 1980, and the U’mista Cultural Center opened, renewed attempts have been made to investigate the measures that suppressed and discriminated the indigenous tribes and provide some partial reparation.
The U’mista Cultural Center and the Saxon State Ethnographical Collections (SES) jointly coordinated the exhibition project The Great Potlatch which highlighted the history of the Kwakwaka’wakw potlatch. Both organizations had agreed to exchange numerous pieces from their collections for the exhibition and presented it at both venues simultaneously.
The ritualistic potlatch system in these small cultural circles was compared to gift-giving traditions in European cultures. This directed the exhibition’s focus to global, cross-cultural traditions of gift-giving and prestige, and their purpose in society. The project also investigated whether it is still appropriate to speak of indigenous and classical collections and evaluated the conventional categories of “high” and “primitive” culture which are still often used today.
The project included a trilingual catalogue (German, English, Kwakala), workshops and conferences.

Artistic directors: Andrea Sanborn (CA), Claus Deimel
Curators: Chief Bill Cranmer (CA), William Wasden jr. (CA), Claus Deimel

Venues and schedule:
Canada, U’mista Cultural Center, Alert Bay, British Columbia, 22 Apr. – 28 Aug. 2011
Japanese Palace, Dresden 7 May – 21 Aug. 2011