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'Mimkwamlis Potlatch (Memkumlis Raid)
On 25 December 1921, a Potlatch ceremony was held in the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw village of ‘Mimkwamlis (also spelled Memkumlis, and also known as Village Island). The Potlatch ceremony was illegal at the time. Officers of the federal government’s Department of Indian Affairs (see Federal Departments of Indigenous and Northern Affairs), as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and, according to some sources, the British Columbia provincial police learned of this Potlatch. They arrested 45 people for participating in the Potlatch. Approximately half of the people were sent to prison for periods ranging from two to three months. Hundreds of precious Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw ceremonial objects were confiscated. Some of these items were sold to collectors and wound up in museums without the consent of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw people. The arrests related to the ‘Mimkwamlis Potlatch of 1921 were an example of police and government abuse of Indigenous Peoples. It is a further example of the attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous Peoples in Canada (see Genocide and Indigenous Peoples in Canada).