Kwakiutl

Member of an American Indian people who live on both sides of the entrance to Queen Charlotte Strait in British Columbia, Canada. They number about 3,200 (1996) and their language belongs to the Wakashan family.

Kwakiutl economy was based on salmon fishing. They lived in a highly stratified society where rank was hereditary. Families owned the rights to certain ceremonial symbols and songs. Their most important festival was the potlatch that involved lavish consumption and even destruction of goods and celebrated such important life events as birth, death, and marriage, and which also served as a means to raise one's rank.