A ceremonial feast held by some Indians of the northwestern coast of North America (as in celebrating a marriage or a new accession) in which the host gives gifts to tribesmen and others to display his superior wealth (sometimes, formerly, to his own impoverishment)
For a few seasons of my youth I attended summer camp at Sequoyah and Chosatonga in North Carolina. These camps included a lot of Native American themed activities though a potlatch, being so integral a part of genuine tribal culture, would not likely have been one of them.
I have to say, I never quite keyed in to these activities. My mother said I "hated the Indians" (as it was still customary to call native Americans at the time), but I don’t think that’s true. Even as a child I never "hated" anything, though I tried.
In the case of the Native American rituals and customs to which I was exposed I can only say that I simply never connected with them. Like a lot of people I believed the stereotype of Native Americans as a pacific people who weep at the site of garbage strewn along the Interstate, and I think that stereotype made them seem unapproachable.
A few years ago I found myself driving through the Winnebago Indian Reservation in Nebraska. Aside from casinos around Miami I can not remember another time when I was on Native American land. I could not tell you how I arrived at these assumptions but I drove through Winnebago assuming this would be pastoral, beautiful land. It was not.
I may have been in Nebraska when I heard a radio interview in which a Native American author described the practice of running herds of buffalo off of cliffs. I like those stories, too. The earthy tales.
I should learn more about the passages and indignities of the Native Americans. Through most of my school years the references to what our government did to them generally comprised a mere few sentences. I know one history teacher said we "screwed" them, which seemed like a strong choice of word at the time, but the substance of what that teacher meant by "screwed" was not articulated in a way that I remember.
