Long known as the Cannibal Dance, the Hamat̓sa is among the most important hereditary prerogatives of the Kwakwa̱ka̱ꞌwakw of British Columbia. In the late nineteenth century, as anthropologists arrived to document the practice, colonial agents were pursuing its eradication and Kwakwa̱ka̱ꞌwakw were adapting it to endure. In the process, the dance – with dramatic choreography, magnificent bird masks, and an aura of cannibalism – entered a vast library of ethnographic texts.Writin...