Making wood speak, Making Men Dance : history and Ethnography of Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw Carving and of its Players : British Columbia, Canada

Les peuples de la côte nord-ouest, de la baie de Puget à la baie de Yakutat, sont réputés pour leur travail du bois et la pratique du potlatch. les kwakwaka'wakw du nord-est de l'île de Vancouver en Colombie-Britannique (canada) ont connu une pratique artistique et cérémonielle ininterrompue du xixe siècle à nos jours, malgré l'opposition des autorités coloniales et missionnaires. Ce travail s'intéresse aux sculpteurs kwakwaka'wakw nés dans la seconde moitié du xixe siècle, de la création du poste de commerce de fort rupert jusqu'en 1900. Souvent identifiables, ces artistes ont effectué leur apprentissage avant la période noire de la répression du potlatch (années 1920). dans des collections muséales et privées, leurs œuvres cérémonielles continuent d'inspirer les artistes kwakwaka'wakw contemporains. en plus de biographies et de l'édification de corpus d'œuvres cérémonielles sur la base de documents d'archives et d'analyses stylistiques, l'accent sera porté sur les mécanismes de transmission des savoirs et savoir-faire d'une génération à l'autre et leur corollaire, la notion d'école stylistique.The Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia, Canada, who have occupied northeastern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland inlets since time immemorial, have had their artistic and ceremonial practice greatly disrupted by the Euro-Canadian colonization that began in the mid-19th Century. This thesis, “Making Wood Speak, Making Men Dance,” seeks to offer a global history of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw sculpture from the mid-19th Century to the early 21st Century, based on field visits conducted since 2000, on the constitution of a large corpus of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artworks from institutions around the world, and on the mining of archival data, some of which have never been published. The aim of this work is to understand the exogenous factors and internal mechanisms that affected the dynamics at work in Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw art throughout this period.From an art form that became flamboyant in the context of a potlatch competition intensified by colonization, Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw sculpture experienced a major decline in the first half of the 20th Century, driven by the enforcement of the potlatch ban and then by mandatory residential schooling. Miniature poles and souvenirs served as an alternative outlet, but condemned the tradition to a loss of craftsmanship in the absence of a demand for quality work. A close study of the art this period, however, reveals attempts at revitalization that attest to early forms of commodification and call for a rehabilitation of these works.The second half of the 20th Century, on the other hand, saw the resurgence of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw art, in the form of a neo-traditional art that was inseparable from the revival of potlatch practice. The main artistic lineage from which the resurgence of the 1970’s-1990’s emerged originated in the person of Mungo Martin, an elderly carver invited by provincial museum authorities to reproduce heraldic poles. The reappropriation of the pole as a symbol of provincial and national identity led to an institutional demand for full-scale heraldic pole, but the carving of masks and miniature poles remained primarily associated with the souvenir market. As carving in the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw communities faltered despite the onset of a potlatch resurgence, the conditions for the emergence of a Northwest Coast art market were established in the urban centers of Vancouver and Victoria, through a conjoined efforts to educate the Canadian public and to train a new generation of carvers, before spreading back to the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw communities. Other artistic lineages perpetuated, meanwhile, often through hybridization.Dominant for several decades, neo-traditional art is increasingly contested by more modernist or even post-modernist approaches, which challenged the definition of Northwest Coast art as a community art. Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw artists are not the best prepared for these market transformations, and few are taking a leading role. While the panel now defeated the mask as the epitome of Northwest Coast art, this art is also being challenged in its definition as a fine craft by new, commodified or computer-assisted art forms. In the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw country, however, the artistic demand does not weaken, as a result of an ever more assertive claim for indigenous sovereignty