Sharing the box of treasures.

• Author: Wyels, Joyce Gregory

ELABORATELY CARVED masks occupy a place of honor at the U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, British Columbia. Worn by dancers during traditional potlatch ceremonies, the masks evoke denizens of land, air, and sea: wolf and bear, raven and eagle, salmon and whale. Great-beaked cannibal birds embellished with shredded cedar bark, and enigmatic creatures like Dzunuk'wa--a woman who scoops up errant children only to let them escape when site nods off--speak of legends passed down across generations.

But collectively, these masks have another story to tell: a true-life narrative no less dramatic than the mythical personages they portray. It was their central role in the potlatch--a ceremony rooted in ancient traditions and marked by extraordinary generosity--that launched the masks and other artifacts on an epic journey. Set off by a clash of belief systems and abetted by official skulduggery, the story of the Potlatch Collection is skill being played out today.

The saga originates in the labyrinth of straits, passages, bays, and inlets that splinter the North American continent's north Pacific coast into a mosaic of islands large and small. The confluence of land and water ensured a bountiful food supply for the inhabitants, who fished for salmon, halibut, cod, and the small, oily fish known as eulachon. Along the shores they harvested seaweed and shellfish, and in the forested mountains they hunted deer and gathered berries. Great cedar trees, the "tree of life," supplied wood for dwellings, canoes, tools, and ritual items such as totem poles, talking sticks, and masks.

This is the traditional home of the Kwakwaka'wakw, Kwak'wala-speaking people of whom some eighteen groups survive, among them the Kwakiutl of Fort Rupert, the 'Namgis of Alert Bay, and the Weiwaikum of Campbell River. (Anthropologists for a time applied the name "Kwakiutl," or "Kwagiulth," to all Kwakwaka'wakw'wakw.)

Along with the Coast Salish and other northwestern tribal groups, the Kwakwaka'wakw parlayed the abundance of Cite region into great ritual feasts, celebrated in a Big House that was warned by a central fire and by the comforting presence of successive generations of family members. There the speeches and rites of the potlatch impressed on their memories the particulars of important milestones: marriages, births, deaths, naming of children, the transfer of rights and privileges, or the raising of a totem pole.

"The ceremony is also referred to as a wintering ceremony," says Lillian Hunt of the U'mista Cultural Centre. "As you can imagine, our ancestors would be using the rest of the year for food gathering and shelter building, and what better time to potlatch and get people together than the cold winter time around a roaring fire to celebrate their history?"

More than the feasting or the guests who arrived in great dugout canoes or even the ritual songs and dances, it was the giving of gifts that stamped the celebration as a pot latch. Chiefs maintained their prestige by demonstrating their largesse to their guests, who served as witnesses to important transactions in this preliterate but complex society. Gifts might consist of foodstuffs, goat-hair blankets, canoes, and the prized grease from the eulachon. In fact, the very name "potlatch," from the Chinook trading language used along the coast, means "to give." The end result was the redistribution of wealth in such a way that no leader could abuse his power to amass riches.

Also emblematic of the potlatch were the "coppers"--shield-shaped symbols of wealth made of native copper, each individually named and imbued with its own history. As a copper changed hands it increased in value, in amounts denoted by hundreds or thousands of blankets. "Some of the coppers were broken," says Hunt, "usually in disagreement at a decision being made at a potlatch." In his autobiography Guests Never Leave Hungry, Chief James Sewid illustrates the worth of a copper: "My grandfather aim his uncle were so strong that...