Seattle "Potlatch" Mug ID help requested

Hey Seattle TC (and other collectors). I found a small (shotglass size) mug that is very interesting. It is NW Indian style with a scowling face on three toed feet, sort of like a sphinx. It is glazed a sort of mustard yellow. On the back it reads: POTLATCH SEATTLE AD CLUB PACA 1938. Isn't Potlatch an event like a feast or meeting? Any info would be appreciated.

I've got relatives in Lake City, Wa, a 'burb of Seattle. I remember a tavern called the Potlach there. Not sure if its still open though.

Hiya mrtikibar. Yep, potlatch is a feast. It's an old Chinook Jargon word (Native words mispronounced and garbled by white tongues, mixed with English - a pidgin vocabulary used in trading) used to describe the tradition held by many Northwest Coast peoples of having a big gathering where the host(ess) gives away masses of gifts and food to all the attendees, for a variety of reasons, but often just to share the wealth. This tradition is still very much alive and well here in many parts of British Columbia, don't know much about it "south of the border". Sounds like a nice little mug.

best, emspace.

Hey Emspace,
Yes, this little mug must have been a commemorative goody from a big potlatch. I hope to find out what the AD Club was or is in Seattle.

I googled on "seattle ad club" and found that there is a pamphlet about Seattle from the 1910s by the Seattle Ad Club in the Wester Washington University pamphlet collection (woo hoo! now that is a party school!). There wasn't much else.

There's a Seattle historian who does regular pieces for the Times, and he's put out a couple of books, it wouldn't hurt to ask him where to look next for info. His name is Paul Dorpat. He is a contributor to a website of Seattle history: http://www.historylink.org/. You could asking through them.

Thanks Humuhumu,
Hey, I hope you can get set up in SoCal before the NW drizzle settles in. It's been a great summer but November is out there waiting to happen.
TikiRider Five-0. Potlatch Tavern is a possibility but I think, probably, they would have written "tavern" on the thing. It is awfully small so maybe thet were saving space.

[ Edited by: mrtikibar on 2003-09-03 15:24 ]

On 2003-09-03 15:19, mrtikibar wrote:
Thanks Humuhumu,
Hey, I hope you can get set up in SoCal before the NW drizzle settles in. It's been a great summer but November is out there waiting to happen.

I'm working on it -- right now I'm aiming to move down in the first week of November. Seattle has tried to trick me into staying by having the longest, warmest, most beautiful summer in its history -- but I'm not falling for it. I know it'll get miserably yucky soon, and I want to be well outta Dodge by then. I'm crossing my fingers!

In the process of purchasing this early American mug from TennesseeTiki (whose mug photos appear below), I found a bit more information about the origins of this figure, which as it turns out, is an Anglo interpretation of a Northwest Coast Indian totemic interpretation, and was referred to as "The Potlatch Bug."

Here is a condensed extract of the longer essay (linked at the end)...

“Seattle’s Potlatch was first organized in 1911 to celebrate the city’s booming prosperity and capitalize on the popularity of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Potlatch was the brainchild of Seattle’s biggest downtown promoters: the Chamber of Commerce, both major newspapers, the Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times, and the brand-new Seattle Advertising Club.

“The Potlatch Bug was the festival’s ubiquitous emblem: a “grotesque from a totem pole,” as the Ad Club put it, “[that] grins and grins and grins, yet always with good nature.” The Bug was produced as an automobile emblem, made of enameled brass, and as a lapel pin, identifying the wearer as a Potlatch Booster. The Bug image appeared on stationery, posters, postcards, and banners -- even on local candy and coffee labels.

“Under the rubric, “Get the Bug,” members of Seattle’s Knights of Columbus were encouraged to meet the Bug High Priest for initiation “into the mysteries of the ancient and honorable order of Potlatch Bugs.” The initiation was a mock injection of “the Sacred Virus of the Great Bug,” administered by an Ad Club member who attended the meeting in full regalia.

“The 1913 Potlatch didn’t turn out to be a very “good time,” as a violent and destructive riot* swept the city after the parade. But the Potlatch Bug and the adapted Native American iconography that it represents reflect an interesting period in Seattle’s urban history, when the bustling, modernizing city sought to characterize its summer festival with misappropriated Indian motifs, seen as romantic, exotic, picturesque, and distinctly Northwest.

By Lorraine McConaghy, July 11, 2007

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8213

The Potlatch of 1938, from whence this mug originates, was marred by its beauty queen's discovery that her husband was a bigamist...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19390320&id=kU8hAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RYMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6657,3071219

In the spirit of diversity, the Seattle Chinese community was represented in the Potlatch parade of 1938, a photo of which can be found here...

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/imlsmohai&CISOPTR=3849

*The riot was sparked by a confrontation between anarchists/leftists and some soldiers & their supporters: see here...

http://radsearem.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/july-17-1913-the-potlatch-riots/

[ Edited by: White Devil 2013-06-21 12:37 ]

That's a Hottentot Potentate!

Here's a toast to "misappropriated motifs"!

Wow, very cool! Clearly a case of Pre-Tiki Pop Primitivism!