Police raided Dan Cranmer's 1921 potlatch, and the masks surrendered to keep people out of prison went to museums, a collector and an official's own collection

The potlatch is the ceremony at which names are given, marriages made, the dead mourned, and a chief passes his rights and privileges to his eldest son. The Indian Act banned it from 1885 to 1951. On Christmas Day 1921 Dan Cranmer held a potlatch at Village Island, where his wife's relatives lived, to avoid the Indian agent. At least 300 guests came. Police raided it. 45 people were charged with giving speeches, dancing, and carrying and receiving gifts. Officials offered to suspend sentences if whole tribes surrendered their potlatch regalia; the U'mista Cultural Society calls that agreement illegal. 22 received suspended sentences, and 20 men and women went to Oakalla Prison for two or three months. The Indian agent, Halliday, stored the masks and rattles in the Anglican parish hall at Alert Bay and charged admission. He sold 33 pieces to the New York collector George Heye. Most of the rest went to museums in Ottawa and Toronto, and Deputy Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott chose pieces for his private collection. The Kwakwaka'wakw were paid about $1,400; some Elders said they never saw it. Ottawa agreed to return its share if a museum was built. Cape Mudge opened one in 1979 and U'mista in Alert Bay followed. The Royal Ontario Museum returned its share in 1988, and 16 pieces came back from the National Museum of the American Indian in 2002. Negotiations continue for 24 objects.