Sea-lion whiskers and spray-crete: the affect of Indigenous status in contemporary British Columbia

Abstract

Two materials, disparate by some reckonings, are considered for the ways in which both are imbricated in contemporary status display. It is suggested that the role of status hierarchies in the public address of the Indigenous societies in British Columbia has been overlooked and that, due to the affective response they invoke, materials that represent these hierarchies are implicated in the contradictory tensions between display and disguise that characterize current status relations.