Top Highlights

• The "formline" is the primary design element on which Northwest Coast art depends,
• Formlines are continuous, flowing, curvilinear lines that turn, swell and diminish in a prescribed manner. They are used for figure outlines, internal design elements and in abstract compositions.
• special objects were and are still made for the purpose of displaying the inherited privileges and rights of their owners. Although ways of reckoning kinship vary between groups, people claiming common descent also claim rights to ancestrally derived territories, spirit powers, names, songs, dances, crests and other "properties" that both contain a...
• Potlatches are events of great pomp and formality arranged to celebrate the handing down of names, rights and privileges from one generation to the next. These privileges, together with the associated artifacts, are publicly displayed and their transfer committed to the collective memory of the potlatching community.
• Acceptance of gifts constitutes validation by the guests that the host group is transferring its inheritance in the approved manner.

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