CIRCULATING

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Thunderbird; First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.197.6896; http://mcu.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/9/2/183.pdf

First Nations designs and motifs derived from crest imagery have proliferated over the last two decades in urban British Columbia. Their circulation through public and private spaces is, however, subject to limitations, variously perceptible. The notion of figuration is used to consider the ways in which this material is apprehended. Non-natives through whose hands this material circulates, typically exercising what they think of as their rights to freedom of access, are led towards more intractable forms of ‘evidence’ for aboriginality. First Nations, equally implicated in its circulation, exercising their sovereign rights, monitor the ‘trivia ’ in such a way that it becomes, not without an ironic readjustment of power relations, a line of defence against further encroachment. In this sense the most ephemeral, apparently valueless, items are characterized by keeping-while-giving and are declarations of the inalienable. It is suggested that inalienability derives from the idea of mutual embodiment as between humans and non-humans figured in the crests. Key Words ◆ aboriginality ◆ circulation ◆ embodiment ◆ figuration ◆ Northwest Coast Your purchase is wrapped in glistening, copper-coloured tissue paper, the package is sealed with a sticker embossed with a stylized thunderbird. The crashing of this huge creature’s mighty wings brings the thunder, and his flashing eyes the lightning. Without needing to decide whether thunderbird should therefore be designated ‘mythological ’ or ‘real’, his outstretched wings, feathers hanging vertically, and proud horned head constitute one of the crests of the major kin group of the