5.The Canadian government banned the potluck ceremony in 1884. Resistance and changing attitudes resulted in the band being lifted in 1951. The potlatch fortunately remains a part of tribal life today.
6.A potlatch is when clans and nations come togetherfor the purposes of feasting and conducting businesslike a chief being inaugurated, or a person receiving a name or a death or a marriage.
7.They said Shak-shak had the disease of greed; that to cure it he must give a great potlatch, divide his riches with the poorer ones, share them with the old, the sick, the foodless.
8.And during our potlatch, we shared in our songs and our stories, in our language and in our art, in our traditions and in our deep relationship with our lands and waters.
9.Or what I assume were the unintended consequencesof smallpox and tuberculosis, our potlatch bans, residential schools, the burning of our masks and poles as firewood, or the collectors who came and ransacked the villagesthat we were forced to abandon?
10.It was a normal part of their lives, but it was a cause of trouble to the American and Canadian governments in their minds in addition to causing water and slavery, the potlatch ceremony itself was regarded as wasteful.