(Ghostly wail)
(Drumming)
(Chanting and drumming)
Totem poles. The crests and symbols of the Indians of the north... west coast of America.
I'm in British Columbia,
in a small remote island
in the near... freezing waters of the Northern Pacific.
In part of the territory of the Haida tribe.
It's one of the few places where these magnificent ancient poles
still survive standing in any numbers.
The village has now been deserted for almost a century
but when Europeans first came here less than 200 years ago,
this was the home of one of the most important Haida chiefs.
The Europeans, British and Spanish and American,
came here in search of fur,
and particularly the fur of the sea otter.
And in response to the demand,
the Indians hunted the sea otter to such effect
that it's now virtually extinct in this part of the world.
And they hunted throughout the year,
except for the bleakest parts of the winter
when they took refuge and shelter in huge communal houses.
And the remains of one of those lies just at the back here.
These huge timbers
were the beams of the house
and they stood on those house posts there
ten feet above the ground.
Clearly, putting them up was a major feat of engineering.
Up to 40 people would live in a house like this.
There'd be a fire in the centre there
and on the balconies around the side the individual families lived.
The timber is red cedar.
It's a superb tree that grows over 200 feet tall
and it was that tree that the Indians used for their totem poles,
which are among the largest wooden sculptures
ever made by men anywhere.
(Chanting)
Some of them were 60 feet high
and they stood in magnificent lines along the front of the villages.
The sight was so spectacular that from the early days of the camera,
in the 1870s and 1880s,
photographers trekked across America to the Pacific Coast
to take pictures like these.
(Drumming)
The pioneer cameramen between them assembled an archive
which preserves for us a marvellous image of the coastal people
at a time when the land seemed to them to be still theirs
and the white men were strangers.
(Drum beating and singing)
These vivid, moving portraits were taken on the coast by Edward Curtis.
He worked there between 1912 and 1914
and produced the most complete photographic record of all up to that time.
Curtis had brought with him one of the first hand... cranked movie cameras.
Even at this time, things were changing fast,
but he was able to assemble people
who remembered the way things were before the white man came
and who could dance on their great canoes in the way that they used to do
when they paid ceremonial visits to their neighbours or set out for war.
(Singing)
The land remains. It is beautiful and harsh.
Its waters are so cold that in winter a man falling into them
would be chilled to death within minutes.
The forests of fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock are vast and tractless
and even the most experienced woodsman can lose himself.
But it is a rich land.
There is meat for the hunter
and some of the most sumptuous, warming furs in the world
to be gathered by the skilful trapper.
But its greatest wealth lies in its waters.
The rivers teem with fish.
In the summer and autumn,
salmon swarm upstream in such extravagant numbers
that they're easily caught by any of the inhabitants of the forest
who might relish a feast of fish.
The methods have changed but this river, like many another,
is still a traditional tribal fishing ground
reserved by law for members of the tribe who have always fished here.
Today the skill is not to throw a fish spear with force and accuracy
but to spot a shoal of migrating salmon on their way upriver
and rapidly to encircle them with a seine net.
If it's done with skill and luck,
one setting might bring in 50 full... grown salmon.
Steelhead, Sockeye, Coho, Spring and Dog salmon.
Some people have their favourites but they all taste good
split and spitted between sticks of red cedar
and roasted in front of an open fire.
The forest trees provided not only timber but bark.
Birch bark could be made into baskets,
cedar bark shredded and woven into textiles.
Beneath the trees grow bushes that yield abundant food
to those who know how to take it.
Strawberries, wild rhubarb, huckleberries,
soap berries that will whip into a froth.
With such abundance, the people had no need either to cultivate crops
or to keep any domestic animals.
But the forest which provided them with so much,
and on which they relied so heavily,
is also dark, mysterious and filled with echoing noises.
It's scarcely surprising that it became in the minds of the people
a brooding force populated by a host of powerful beings
both visible and invisible.
When the bitter winter came, the people sheltered in their houses,
abundantly provisioned with smoked fish and the wild harvests of the summer.
Now there was time for music, dancing and drama.
(Ghostly wail)
(Wild animal sounds)
(Animals howl)
(Birds squawk)
The people had a genius for the theatrical.
Some masks were made with changeable mouth parts
so that a dancer who turned away for a moment could turn back transformed.
All sorts of spectacular illusions were invented.
Maidens were locked in chests, burnt to ashes in a fire,
and then miraculously brought to life again.
And spirits were conjured out of boxes and made to gesture on command.
(Man shouts)
This is Crooked Beak of Heaven,
a gigantic cannibal bird
which appears in one of the most powerful of the traditional dramas.
With him comes Hothokw,
a creature which cracks men's skulls with its long beak
to feast upon their brains.
The third spirit in this horrifying trio
is a creature which plucks out men's eyeballs, a supernatural raven.
(Squawking)
Tribal legends tell of a hunter who wandered into an unknown part of a forest
and there met an animal
which miraculously spoke to him with a human voice.
In some versions, it's a bear, in others a raven.
After many adventures together, the two formed an alliance
and the animal gave the man the right to hunt over its land.
When the hunter returned to his people,
he commemorated that alliance and his rights
by adopting the animal as his heraldic crest
and carving its image on his totem pole.
And each year, during the winter dances, his descendants renew that right.
(Drum beating)
(Woman sings)
The art of carving masks and totem poles was nearly lost,
but today there is a new surge of interest among the Indians.
Walter Harris is a hereditary chief of the Gitxsan tribe.
He used to be a building contractor in a town on the coast.
Today he carves totem poles
in a style that conforms to the traditions of his tribe
and yet is identifiably his own.
His poles are in great demand.
Californian millionaires commission them for their gardens,
Canadian municipalities want them for their parks.
This one is neither an extravagant souvenir
nor a piece of official town planning.
This Walter Harris designed at the request of a lady of his own tribe
who wants to honour her ancestors
and proclaim her own lineage and entitlements
by putting up a pole just as they did in the old days.
The pole is to be erected in the little settlement of Kispiox,
in the tribal lands of the Gitxsan.
They are one of the most northerly of the Indian groups
and live within 100 miles of the Alaskan border.
The method they use to haul up these several tons of timber
is exactly the same as that employed in traditional times.
It requires no more than ropes, spars and manpower.
(Shouts)
The pole joins others belonging to the village,
most of them between 50 and 100 years old.
The owner of the new pole is Mary Johnson.
This pole's name is Geelast.
That means one great big fireweed.
That's one... horned goat.
That's his horn. He only got one horn. That's all he got.
And why is he at the top of the pole?
Because it's our crest. It's very valuable.
Yeah. It's our inheritage.
- Yes. - Yeah.
- I... - And it will...
And many thousands of years ago, it passed on to generation
from generation to generation.
Below the one... horned goat are four views of a grizzly bear man
with an abalone shell necklace.
Below that, a white killer whale,
with its dorsal fin, a blowhole just in front,
the eyes and the toothed grinning mouth.
And finally a weeping, starving woman clutching a grouse.
All of them jealously... guarded crests that declare Mary Johnson's ancestry.
(Chanting)
Ksan, where Walter Harris carves poles,
is a centre of the revival of Gitxsan arts.
Not only is there wood carving, masks and boxes as well as poles,
but ceremonial blankets are being woven once more,
house fronts are being painted with new versions of old designs.
Silver engraving might seem to be a new craft for the Gitxsan
but in fact it has a considerable antiquity.
For people here wore splendid sliver bracelets over a century ago,
and embellished them with just such patterns as the ones on this box.
(Drumming and chanting)
Indian designs are often based on animal forms
which at first are difficult to recognise.
But in fact they are stylised according to very strict rules.
And once you know those, the designs are a little easier to decipher.
This is another killer whale but drawn by an artist
from the Gitxsan's neighbours, the Haida.
It has a large dorsal fin like the one on Mary Johnson's pole,
prominent ferocious teeth and on its back a spouting blowhole.
It's the work of Bill Reed.
- What's this one? - This is a little more difficult.
But again, if you are familiar with the actual creature, it becomes much more apparent.
This is a dogfish which is a small shark, about four feet long.
And it's seen from the underside.
So this is a typical downturned shark mouth.
Erm... These two circles at the top are the nostrils.
But they've added an anthropomorphic nose here,
which gives it this somewhat human face.
There's a face in the middle of its back. What's that doing there?
That's really a stomach but...
All right, a face in the middle of its stomach.
Er... In all the complicated designs, when you had a space which needed filling,
it was generally filled with something that resembled a face.
And all these creatures were thought of
as having both human and animal characteristics.
Because this is not a picture of a real dogfish,
this is a picture of a mythological dogfish which figures in some legends.
You've also taken these particular styles and made them into different things.
You've got some beautiful gold things down there. What sort of box is that?
Well, it's an adaptation of an old form.
It was a food dish, actually, for serving food at feasts and so on.
And was made out of wood. And this is in the form of a beaver,
which is identifiable by his two big incisor teeth.
It's interesting what they did with these designs.
What I tried to reproduce in this one is that they played tricks all the time.
You know, in... jokes were a big thing in the art.
One of the in... jokes was to make the two sides of a box like this,
so that they appeared, as you turned the box, to be symmetrical.
But in fact they're different in every element.
- You can see... - They've got faces...
It's got a face on this side, a face on this side.
But the two faces are different so you have to keep looking back.
It's kind of a surprise when you find that these elements are different.
And the same with the little border round the top of the lid here,
which looks as though it's just a symmetrical geometric border.
In actual fact, every corner is different from every other corner.
One of the great impulses behind the art of the northwest coast,
I think, was to give as, achieve as much variety and difference as possible
within the limitations,
and the artist was always pushing against the limitations
to make an individual statement,
in spite of the restrictions which were put on him.
So that it was essential that he had rules against which to press, as it were.
Yes, I think this is the thing
that probably makes the northwest coast art as appealing today as it is,
is the enormous tensions which lie within the designs
and part of that tension does come from the rigid rules
which the artist was always pushing against.
And I think this is a very tense, almost anxious, art form, in some ways.
I think there were tensions, contradictions, anxieties,
which had to be released in some way.
And I think this enormous production of art
was a device which they evolved to take care of this situation.
Cos it could be that the northwest coast
was one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world
and they had worked out a pretty stable way of life.
And the art must have been tremendously important to them
because they devoted so much of their time and energy
to the production of these things.
Both the Haida and the Gitxsan
carved poles and left the wood plain and unpainted.
This, one of the most ancient still standing,
represents wolves which surround a bear.
The bear has been disembowelled. Its stomach and intestines lie below it.
At the bottom, forest spirits encircle a hole
which once served as an entrance to a great house.
But this pole is very different.
Powerfully carved in three dimensions and brilliantly painted.
And it's different because we've come 300 miles south to a different country.
The land of the Kwakiutl people.
This is Alert Bay,
almost the only place on the entire northwest coast
where the old traditions of carving and music and dancing
have remained unbroken since early times.
And this pole is itself an indication of that continuity of tradition.
It's certainly one of the finest poles still extant
and yet it was carved in comparatively recent times, sometime in the '20s,
by Willie Seaweed, one of the greatest of the Kwakiutl carvers.
It represents a Dzunuk'wa, the wild woman of the forest,
her red lips pouting as she hoots a noise
which they say you can still hear in the forest sometimes.
And on her head, another impressive emblem figure,
the Thunderbird.
The Kwakiutl have produced some of the most flamboyant sculpture on the coast.
This figure has been given a hat with a bucket for a crown,
and a motor tyre for a brim.
And whilst other tribes have favoured austere unpainted wood,
the Kwakiutl, particularly in recent times,
have delighted in vivid colour.
Tradition is strong in Alert Bay.
The people have recently built a new ceremonial house
and there are still people here who took part
in Edward Curtis's film of the spectacular dramas
that were held in such places.
(Chanting and drumming)
(Shouting)
Wealth on the coast was much the same thing as importance
and big chiefs went out of their way at such feasts
to show how rich they were.
0ne of the most prized foods was a certain kind of fish oil
and people would drink it from giant ladles
and take pride in spilling it carelessly all over themselves.
(Singing)
There were some feasts called potlatches,
at which new rights or a new rank or standard was conferred on a chief.
The people who came to witness such investitures
not only shared in the feast but were given extravagant presents.
All kinds of goods were handed out.
Pots and pans, trade blankets by the 100,
bags of flour by the ton,
furniture, banknotes, even canoes.
Giving away one's wealth publicly, of course,
is not unknown in Europe or elsewhere,
as a way of gaining prestige and a place in the aristocracy.
And it was the same here.
A potlatch was also the occasion
when a chief displayed his most impressive heirlooms.
Masks, carvings of all kinds,
and these extraordinary objects, coppers.
They are made from sheet copper.
Some of them have designs painted on them like this.
Some are plain. All are extremely valuable.
And the display of a copper might form the climax of a potlatch.
Indeed, coppers became more valuable,
the greater the number of potlatches at which they were displayed.
Sometimes a chief would offer a copper for sale to a rival,
who had to buy that copper at the price that was last paid for it, plus a bit more,
or else be shamed.
And so some coppers became worth literally thousands of dollars.
They're a bit like banknotes.
In themselves, they are worthless
but they represent huge sums of money.
At the end of the last century,
wealth was flooding on to the coast of northwest America
in unprecedented scale.
And great chiefs assembled around the white man's trading posts
and bitter rivalries developed between them
as they competed for the lion's share of the wealth.
A rivalry that was expressed
not only in the magnificence and extravagance of the potlatches
but also in the destruction of goods.
At potlatches they would smash pots and pans,
they would burn banknotes, destroy blankets and even break a copper.
And when a man did that, he would take the worthless fragments
and hand them contemptuously to his rival.
Who then, if he were not to be shamed,
would have to destroy wealth of his own to the value of that copper
plus a bit more.
I know of a woman, she was from Village Island.
She was one of the higher rank ladies.
Lucy Brown remembers those competitive potlatches very well indeed.
Yeah. I think she took her brother's standard.
She lost the brother that had the standard.
And I watched her as a little girl.
She was a relation of mine.
And I asked her, "What are you doing?" I said to her.
She had this copper and she was hammering away at this.
And she had her face all black
and I said, "What are you doing?"
She says, "I just want to make that loose
"so I won't have a hard time when I start breaking it inside."
So she unbraided her hair and walked in with this copper.
They all have names.
I know a copper called Lubixil.
- What does that mean? - That means...
The whole thing is emptied out from the guy that has it.
- (Laughs) - He's got nothing left, you know.
He's given everything he had to that copper, to have that copper.
The government decided that these events must be stopped.
Potlatching was outlawed.
But the Kwakiutl clung doggedly to their traditions
and in 1921, in spite of the ban,
a huge potlatch was held in a secluded village.
Just after it finished, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived.
30 people were arrested,
and some 800 masks and pieces of regalia were confiscated.
The anger of people at this suppression was intense
and they've been campaigning for the restitution
of their traditional rights and heirlooms.
Potlatching is no longer forbidden
but the precious objects have still not been returned.
The people have now made a film of their own to make their case in public.
They're even building a museum to house the heirlooms when they are returned.
But at least potlatches can now be held openly once more
as an honourable way of acquiring and proclaiming one's rank and position.
Alert Bay is a wealthy community
with a thriving fishing fleet run by men of substance
who respect and support the aristocratic structure of their tribe.
The Skalu... the name means "whale"...
is owned and skippered by Arthur Dick,
the head of one of Alert Bay's important families.
A family that is also a great upholder of Kwakiutl custom.
Like nearly everyone in the bay, Arthur's fortunes are founded on fish.
When we go out,
you... you've got to know where to go and the right time,
otherwise you not good fisherman.
Right time. You've got to have the right spot and the right time.
And I tell you the fish come in and they show up on exactly the right time.
Cos I got it in my log book.
Every year I got in my... Exactly the right time. You will never go wrong.
If you become a fisherman, I give you my book.
- You'll never go wrong. - Well, thanks!
Every year, exactly the same day.
(David) I know that you're going to have a potlatch.
Potlatch really means respect.
I just want to say this to you.
Respect. You highly honour your... oldest.
That's what it really means.
But you give away a lot of... a lot of goods, don't you?
You give away a lot of things, yeah.
When a person calls a potlatch,
everybody come, they... everybody come.
The guys that didn't come, he's got no respect for you.
While Arthur goes off on a tour round the islands
to make sure that his guests do come,
preparations continue in his house back in Alert Bay.
There's lots of stories of people going to potlatch.
Ron Hamilton, one of the guests, has been recruited to paint a screen,
for he's an artist with a considerable reputation.
You just hear that someone needs a certain kind of mask.
They knock that mask out in a day.
Knock it out in a couple of hours.
I've heard stories where people sat on beaches
and carve a mask or paint a screen.
Screens are all painted overnight, one night, that's all they were allowed.
(David) So in past times, just as today, there were great artists, who everybody knew.
Oh, yeah.
And so presumably there was competition to get them to do
things for particular ceremonials.
There was competition between them, for sure.
There's lots of cooperation too. There is competition.
As sure as shooting.
While Ron works, the womenfolk are sewing white ermine fur
onto plaited red cedar bark headbands.
A hat, worn before on many ritual occasions,
must be refurbished with iridescent shell.
(Speaks Kwak'wala)
And the old ladies retell stories of potlatches of their youth
and of the reckless, splendid extravagance of the great chiefs of the past.
(Speaks Kwak'wala)
And in a back room, Crooked Beak of Heaven awaits.
Do you think there's more of this sort of activity going on now
than there was when you were younger?
The time when it's against the law, when people are scared to do it,
the time when I guess you could say
it was not a good thing to be an Indian, is over with now.
Things are getting better. People are starting to accept Indians a little bit more.
The law against potlatching's over.
Indian children are going to school and their teachers are white people.
By saying "Your people got beautiful art, your people got beautiful dancers,
"your people got beautiful songs and beautiful houses.
"They got everything that's nice."
And I guess hearing it come from a stranger,
it makes you maybe believe it more,
than if you just hear it from your own family.
I guess it's another thing too, embarrassment, you know.
I know one of my nieces went to school and they were talking.
"What are you? ' 'I'm an Indian."
"Oh. You got an Indian name?"
"No."
"Oh. You talk Indian language?" "No."
"You live in an Indian house?" "No."
"You got Indian dress?" "No."
"How come you're Indian? What makes you Indian?" See? That's embarrassing.
So maybe the Indians just want to know more about their own lifestyle, I guess.
(David) Arthur Dick need have had no worries about the number of guests
who would come to his potlatch.
The big house is crowded to capacity.
(Drumming and chanting)
Arthur's son is dressed as a Hamatsa,
a man possessed by the great cannibal spirit of the forest
and in a frenzy for the taste of human flesh.
In former times, men could only dance this
if they had undergone an arduous initiation,
living alone in the forest for months
and becoming totally wild and uncontrollable
as the spirit took hold of them.
Such a dance is a most valuable prerogative belonging to the Dick family.
And it's the first and one of the most important events of the evening.
The cannibal Hamatsa has been tamed and turned into a Kolus,
a creature rather like a young Thunderbird.
The women of his family dance in celebration behind him.
(Singing)
Lucy Brown is dancing with a copper,
one that is so well used that it's lost three of its panels.
The screen, painted by Ron Hamilton, is set up for the first time.
Everyone knows that it's his work
and from now it will be treasured as part of the Dick possessions
to be displayed at all his potlatches.
0ne of Arthur's granddaughters, in her refurbished hat,
dances in front of it.
The privilege to dance in this way was brought to the Dick family
when one of his forebears several generations back
married a woman from the Nutka people, the Kwakiutls' neighbours to the west.
So valuable do the people consider the rights to such dances
that men have been known to take second or third wives,
just for the sake of the prerogatives that they bring with them on marriage.
The children have their own special rights.
These are wearing masks that represent the daylight,
for this is a dance of the dawn.
(Rattles and drums)
The Kwekwaxa'we, men with rattles made of scallop shells.
This dance belonged originally to the Salish people, 200 miles to the south.
Several families among the Kwakiutl have the rights to this,
for there have been several marriages with the Salish over the years.
0ne of Arthur's relatives scatters coins and the children scramble for them.
It's an essential part of the Kwekwaxa'we
and the first distribution of gifts
but a mere hint of what is to come.
(Wailing)
And now comes another Hamatsa.
An old man who was initiated into the Hamatsa rituals many years ago
when the customs were more strictly adhered to than they are now.
He produces slightly nervous laughter from his audience
and just occasionally he freezes a laugh on their lips
as they catch a glimpse of something that they don't quite understand.
(Singing)
(Applause)
Arthur Dick's new honours are now conferred upon him by a high... ranking chief.
For the first time, he wears a chief's mask of the Tsonoqwa spirit,
and all who see him do so
acknowledge and accept that he now has that right.
(Wails)
He is also to receive the copper which Lucy Brown displayed in her dance.
It comes to him because his son recently married,
and the bride's family promised Arthur this copper
as part of the marriage settlement.
But it would not be truly his if the gift were made in private.
It must be handed over during a potlatch so that all may see.
(Speaks Kwak'wala)
A chief from a nearby village speaks.
"I rejoice that Arthur Dick has received from the family of his daughter... in... law
"the copper Caratola.
"I am pleased that he has stood up in the ways of his ancestors
"and that he has done this thing, that he has given this potlatch. "
Now comes the distribution of gifts to all those who have witnessed
Arthur Dick's investiture.
His lavishness and generosity now will be a measure of his greatness.
A validation of his right to new, exalted titles.
Now people may truly judge whether or not he is a great man.
Goods of all kinds and values
are distributed to the several hundred people present.
Important people will get important gifts.
Everybody will get something.
There will be pots and pans and tea towels,
knitted hats and radio sets,
buckets and bowls, and dollar bills.
There are calculating eyes in the audience.
It's clear that Arthur must at this moment
be in the process of distributing several thousand dollars' worth of goods and cash.
By accepting these gifts,
his guests are publicly acknowledging
that they accept his claims to his new rank.
(Laughter)
It's long past midnight.
Dancing and singing has been going on for over eight hours.
The Dick family have done their audience and themselves more than justice.
Their gifts have been generous
and the dances and regalia they have displayed
have been those that befit a great man.
The public ceremonies are over
but the family will go on celebrating their successful potlatch
in their own houses until dawn.
(Singing)
Three days later, Crooked Beak of Heaven is dancing again.
For this is the beginning of the new fishing season.
In celebration, the Skalu, like the rest of the fleet,
is dressed overall, pennants flying form the masts,
dancers parading on the decks.
(Singing)
0nce again, the Kwakiutl will be putting to sea
to fish in the waters that have provided them with such riches
ever since they settled here, on the northwest coast of America.