Curtis Andrews

Ever grateful for the opportunity to visit the Haíɫzaqv territory of Wa̓gḷísḷa (Bella Bella). This is the third potlatch I’ve been privileged to experience there, at the invitation of the house of hereditary chief Frank Brown (I’d spell his actual name here but the character in the First Voices keyboard app is not working!)

The feelings of being there and experiencing this thriving culture are hard to encapsulate. If you know even just the tiniest inkling of the history between this nation-state of Canada and the First People of this land (and if you don’t, you should!!!) you will know how fu@#ed it was and in many ways continues to be. But to see communities like this one thriving, to hear the language being spoken by elders and youth, to see toddlers imitating the dances, to get a glimpse of the depth and context within which the masks we all see at museums around the world that have been sold/stolen actually exist and have ancestral meaning brought to life. And to feel the great warmth and hospitality of the people….and the humor! Words fail, pictures fail.

There is a reason why Canada banned the potlatch for decades, it is in so many ways the cornerstone of the culture. So if the goal was to erase that culture, some cunning colonizer figured it out and convinced the others. Luckily, some people managed to ignore the ban and continued many of these practices in secret until the ban was lifted. Knowing that something like this could have been lost (and was lost in many communities sadly), makes its presence today all the more powerful and poignant.

The day after the potlatch was over a few of us were even more blessed to have Chief Frank Brown takes us out on his boat to experience just a bit of the land, at an old fishing camp that is now a wellness centre. Along the way he pointed out ancient petroglyphs, important cultural sites and insights into the land and his people’s relation to it. We also saw a group of sea lions, a humpback whale, eagles galore, and got to walk by a river with hundreds of salmon flowing through and dozens more recently killed by wolves (who were probably watching us in the trees).

#heiltsuk #potlatch