The Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast (head flattening)

1. The Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast (head flattening) 組員:張育綺 蕭雅薇 何宜軒 巫紹偉 指導老師:呂佩穎

2. Brief introduction for The Kwakiutl • Location: TheKwakiutl are a group of Native Americans historically centered on the coast ofBritish Columbia. • Tribe : There are only about 700 living kakiutls.  Like other Pacific Northwest tribes, they are known for the potlatch, a ritual gift-giving ceremony.(head flattening)

3. The Origin of the Name ‘’Kwakiutl’’ : The term Kwakiutl for the Kwakwaka'wakw, popularized by anthropologist Franz Boas, was widely used into the 1980s. It comes from one of the Kwakwaka‘wakwtribes, the Kwagu’ł, at Fort Rupert , with whom Franz Boas did most of his anthropological work and whose Indian Act band government is the Kwakiutl First Nation. The term was also misapplied to mean all the tribes who spoke Kwak‘wala, as well as three other indigenous peoples whose language is a part of the Wakashanlinguistical group, but whose language is not Kwak’wala. These peoples, incorrectly known as the Northern Kwakiutl, were the Haisla , Wuilinuxv , and Heiltsuk .

4. Special customs: The Kwakiutls participated in dances in which people would wear masks and costumes and tell ancient stories. At one time, if you even got the smallest portion of one of these dances wrong, they would chop off your head. Therefore, only the bravest competed in these performances.

5. Kwagu'ł girl, wearing abalone shell earrings. Abalone shell earrings were a sign of obility and only worn by members of this class. Man with copper piece, hammered in the characteristic “T” shape. Photo taken by Edward Curtis.

6. Head flattening • Head flattening was considered a beautifying processfrom the northern Kwakiutl region to the central Oregon coast, as well as among some of the neighboring Plateau Indians. This painless, gradual procedure involved binding a newborn child‘s head to a cradle board in such a way as to produce a long subconical form, a strong slope from the eyebrows back, or a distinctive wedge shape in which the back of the skull was flattened. In the Northwest Coast culture area, head flattening was practiced only on relatively high-status infants, although the capture and enslavement of children from neighboring tribes that also undertook this modification meant that a shapely head was no guarantee of an individual’s current status. See alsobody modifications and mutilations .