BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 09:10 PM

Thr Russians, New England and other traders were responsible for the potlatch, according to Barbeau and some other ethnologists and historians. Trade, especially with the Russians, led to an 'embarrassment of riches' for some chiefs and groups, and the potlatch evolved to place some of the material gains in the hands of the tribe members. The custom may not have existed prior to trade with Europeans.
Ritual complexities developed as the potlatch became institutionalized.
In the 1780s, portable, uniform goods were especially in demand, including the 'potlatch coppers', sheets of copper up to five feet in length intended for hull sheathing, which were made into extraordinary shields; symbols of authority. Cotton cloth, muskets, blankets and ornamental goods also were in high demand. The explosion in the carving of totem poles was another consequence of the trade for furs. Timber cut by the tribes was sold to Hawai'i by trading vessels. Sale of slaves (many Salish) increased.

The reason potlatch was so violently opposed and suppressed is 'its very basis denied the important principle of private property'. -
Robert J. Surtees, 'Canadian Indian Policies', article in "Handbook of North American Indians," vol. 4, "History of Indian-White Relations," and James R. Gibson, "The Maritime Trade of the North Pacific Coast," article also in Vol. 4, ed. by Whitcomb E. Washburn, 1988, 838 pp., Smithsonian Institution.

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: GUEST,Dave'sWife again
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 06:44 PM

here's a really great article about Rev. Billy - worth reading. he's not all theater.


Rev. Billy in Santa Cruz

Reading his webiste made me immediately ashamed of some of my own recent purchases. Good for him!

On his website you can see some photos of the Mall of America event

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: GUEST,Dave'sWife sans cookie
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 06:17 PM

Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping can be found here:

http://www.revbilly.com/


The blickifier no worky right now - sorry

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: open mike
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 01:25 AM

hmmm reverend billy cannot be found today...
suppose he pissed off someone's bottom line?

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 01:11 AM

If they aren't the same guy, they seem to have a lot in common. I see Rev. Billy C. Wirtz has a song called WILL THERE BE A SHOPPING MALL IN HEAVEN?

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From:
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 08:26 PM

This person is not to be confused with the Reverend Billy C. Wirtz of The House of Polyester Worship and Horizontal Throbbing Teenage Desire at www.reverendbilly.com
-- just thought you'd like to know!

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Peace
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 10:42 PM

Encyclopedia of North American Indians

Potlatch

Throughout native North America, gift giving is a central feature of social life. In the Pacific Northwest of the United States and British Columbia in Canada, this tradition is known as the potlatch. Within the tribal groups of these areas, individuals hosting a potlatch give away most, if not all, of their wealth and material goods to show goodwill to the rest of the tribal members and to maintain their social status. Tribes that traditionally practice the potlatch include the Haidas, Kwakiutls, Makahs, Nootkas, Tlingits, and Tsimshians. Gifts often included blankets, pelts, furs, weapons, and slaves during the nineteenth century, and jewelry, money, and appliances in the twentieth.

The potlatch was central to the maintenance of tribal hierarchy, even as it allowed a certain social fluidity for individuals who could amass enough material wealth to take part in the ritual. The potlatch probably originated in marriage gift exchanges, inheritance rites, and death rituals and grew into a system of redistribution that maintained social harmony within and between tribes.

When Canadian law prohibited the potlatch in 1884, tribes in British Columbia lost a central and unifying ceremony. Their despair was mirrored by the tribes of the Pacific Northwest when the U.S. government outlawed the potlatch in the early part of the twentieth century. With the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 in the United States and the Canadian Indian Act of 1951, the potlatch was resumed legally. It remains a central feature of Pacific Northwest Indian life today.

SRS has given a good description. Just added the above for the heck of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 10:05 PM

A Potlatch is a Northwest Coast Indian ceremony. Washington, British Columbia, possibly Oregon and up to Alaska. A lot of it happened in the Puget Sound area. It's Salish in origin.

They're tricky, not a simple gift exchange at all. The British and later the Americans who colonized the area banned the Potlatch because it could be very destructive.

If someone does a Potlatch, they give gifts to people in their community. They can give away so much that they are beggared for the rest of the year. It could mean the destruction of property (canoes, for example) and the death of slaves as well. But the NEXT YEAR, everyone who had received a gift had to give a gift back of greater value. So the original giver was back where they started PLUS more stuff. It was an important ceremony, resulting in a lot of transfer of wealth and resources, and I've explained it in the scantest of terms.

SRS
(whose father lived at Potlatch Beach on the Tulalip Res for a while)

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 08:32 PM

Can you give us - or point to the Parodies, please?

Subject: RE: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 07:18 PM

Replace Christmas with a potlatch.

Subject: BS: Rev Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Dec 05 - 06:45 PM

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

I haven't heard this guy myself, but my wife took part in one of his "happenings" and came back with a favorable report. Reverend Billy is a sort of pseudo-evangelist. His message is that malls and chain stores, especially big-box stores, like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc., are bad for you. He presents his message with lots of humor and satire.

Last weekend's event began with a sort of pep rally at a community center in Minneapolis, after which they passed out choir robes to anyone who wanted to join them in a demonstration at the Mall of America. (This part was not mentioned in the advance publicity.) Chartered buses were standing by to transport the believers to the Mall. The "choir" filed in, and security guards ignored them, assuming they were really a church choir that had been invited by the management to sing Christmas carols. They did sing, but they sang parodies: "Pack the Malls" instead of "Deck the Halls." It took the management a long time to figure out they were victims of a prank. Finally they were asked to leave, and they did leave, peacefully, having made their statement. A good time was had by all.