The potlatch feast practiced by British Columbia’s coastal first nations was an elaborate sharing ceremony where months or even years worth of accumulated goods were given away over just a few days or weeks.

It’s ironic, then, that it was items confiscated from these gift-giving ceremonies that first raised the issue of native artifact repatriation in Canada.

Starting in the late 1800s, when the potlatch was banned in Canada, a large number of ceremonial items were taken by Canadian authorities. Many were not returned to their rightful native owners for a hundred years or more.

Among the confiscated items were a number of ceremonial masks, sacred items that found their way into museums and private collections in Canada and abroad.

One of the most famous cases occurred in 1978 when the Museum of Civilization returned confiscated potlatch artifacts to the communities of Alert Bay and Cape Mudge, where the federal government financed construction of two museums. This event shone the light not just on repatriation, but on native determination in how their cultural items are displayed and interpreted.

Since the late 1980s, most artifact repatriation negotiations have been part of broader land claims agreements. In fact, the protection of ancestral lands is at the heart of the Coast Salish mask’s survival, says Brian Thom, an anthropologist who negotiates treaty rights on behalf of the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group. "It’s a bit of a crisis," says Thom, "they don’t have access to the secluded natural places that these masks derive their power from."