The “Idiot Sticks”: Kwakwaka'wakw Carving and Cultural Resistance in Commercial Art Production on the Northwest Coast

Abstract

Between 1884 and 1951 a ban on potlatching prohibited Indigenous communities of British Columbia from practicing traditional economic, ceremonial, and political activities, restricting them to state-sanctioned gatherings and celebrations. Unable to perform traditional dances and wear the associated regalia, Native artistic practices, in particular carving, began to fall into disuse as demand dried up. Restricted to only a few artistic forms permitted by

Indigenizing Urban Landscapes: Northwest Coast Artists and Cities in the Late Twentieth Century

“…47 Moreover, more subtle political commentary was a feature of earlier generations of Northwest Coast artists, including those who worked producing art for tourists during the years of the Potlatch Ban. 48 Yuxweluptun and others, however, by the 1980s and into the next decades, came to be much more explicit social critics. They drew upon a legacy of Northwest Coast art, took inspiration from the innovations pioneered by their predecessors, and developed their own styles that took Northwest Coast art in still new and reorienting directions by directly challenging urban, regional, and national narratives of progress and asserting the authority and relevance of Indigenous perspectives.…”