Kwakiutal

The Kwakuital were a confederation of Native American tribes who lived in British Columbia along the pacific shores and on the Queen Charlotte Islands and northern Vancouver Islands. These tribes were known in historic times and were the subject of Franz Boas' extensive and definitive ethnography. The Kwakuital were speakers of a branch of the Wakashan linguistic family. These tribes were primarily dependent upon fishing, hunting and gathering and never needed to develop agriculture in an environment of rich resources.

The Kwakuital lived in large rectangular cedar planked homes. These had elaborately painted wooden carvings including totem poles depicting individual family heritage. Kwakuital society was highly ranked and complex. Secret societies composed of high status members controlled and regulated tribal and confederate affairs. Social rank was conferred by a complex system of hereditary family names and specific hereditary privileges. Social status was independent but indirectly related to rank and was a measured by personal wealth. Wealth was accounted in terms of possession of copper plates, blankets, carved boxes, shell bead and copper ornaments, boats, cedar house planks, and a host of other items.

The conspicuous display of wealth was a prominent feature of fierce status rivalries and aggressive status competition. Potlatch ceremonies were a central feature of Kwakuital life. The potlatch was a ceremony where status was conferred by giving away vast quantities of status goods to others and sometimes demonstrating superior status by insulting the recipient as the gifts were given. In addition, status was gained by wanton destruction of personal goods demonstrating their small relative value to the owner. Later the recipients of gifts would be obligated to return equal or greater valued goods at another potlatch or lose status. The Kwakuital population was hard hit by the introduction of smallpox and other European diseases. Kwakuital culture was further disrupted by first regulation and eventual banning of the potlatch by Canadian authorities.

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