The Potlatch Tradition in Modern Portland Lives On

The coastal and river-living tribal people of the upper Northwest lived in such a superabundant place that they were one of the most materially blessed tribes in North America. They traded with the Russians for textiles and fripparies, caught no end of bounty in seafood, and carved both household goods and immense, totemic art works from fallen cedars and redwoods.  

Pacific Northwest design
representing a Potlatch

Every school child learns about coastal tribes' potlatch ceremonies: a tradition of throwing a big party and giving away one's own overabundant material items, both to secure local relationships and to spiritually challenge the giver to live more authentically with less stuff. It's a way to redistribute wealth.

The inner Southeast neighborhoods are all about living authentically with less. Some folks make an art of it. When my son and I moved here, we grabbed a disco-era oak shelf sitting out by the road, and it was our first piece of furniture before we were able to U-haul the rest of it to Portland. 

A structure outside the hostel on Hawthorne
like those used for give-aways

Settling in, we noticed several cob-style, rounded, covered structures in and around the Hawthorne area, where people leave behind their unwanted gear. The Portland give-away tradition, it is, an unconscious carry over from the native Potlatch, a tradition imprinted on the whole region surviving in its own, modern, transformed way.

Here's what we've found (and taken home!) from our local Potlatch Station:

• a glass jar of apricots canned in the summer, handwritten on romantically in French
• a hardcover book about the river Ganges 
• a shockingly hip olive green dress with a maroon velvet ribbon
• a nearly new snowboard.  You heard me: a snowboard. Right about the time the boy had been wishing to find a way to go try it out with no particular means to do so. That's called magic.
• a child's tatty antique sticker scrapbook about Hawaii
• a sheer, hot pink curtain
• a hemp messenger bag
• a small ivory and black painted wood dresser (wait until you see how I transformed it)
• a stainless steel Dualit toaster (Those things cost a fortune, just ask Williams Sonoma.)
• a whole pound of rich ground coffee, just as I was about to run out
• a guidebook for travelers to Japan--the girl will be visiting there next year!
• a sewing table from the 1920s
• 38 new, flocked clothes hangers--when it was what we most needed
• 2 enormous potatoes

And, we have left plenty behind, as well: flannel shirts and balls of yarn, magazines, and skinny jeans. Nothing quite so costly as a snowboard, though.

This gives a feeling of connection with those who have left something behind, and with those who take my things home. We not only eat and live in this area, but we, even anonymously, leave our mark whether in acquisition or in culling our own plenty. The place has the magical ability to provide things at just the right moment in time. 

The Potlatch Station is one of the pleasures of living in our inner Southeast Portland neighborhood.