In Search of the Hamatsa A Tale of Headhunting

The Hamatsa or Cannibal Dance is the most importantand highly representedceremony of the Kwakwakawakw Kwakiutl people of British Columbia This film traces the history of anthropological depictions of the dance and through the return of archival materials to a First Nations community presents some of the ways in which diverse attitudes toward this history inform current performances of the Hamatsa With a secondary focus on the filmmakers fieldwork experience the film also attends specifically to the ethics of ethnographic representation and to the renegotiation of relationships between anthropologists and their research partners