The music for "The Potlatch Tickle (A Seattle Rag)" was composed by Donald A. Robertson, arranged by Carl A. Weber, and published by the Empire Music Publishing Company of Seattle. A native of Germany, Carl Alfred Weber (1863-1929) came to Seattle about 1910 and opened a music studio where he taught and arranged music. Donald Alexander Robertson (1888-1934) was a member of the Seattle Fire Department from 1915 until his death. He was born near Cowlitz, like his mother, Soulange (Chappelier) Westphal Robertson (1863-1923), whose father, Marcel Chappelier (1829-1872), settled in Washington Territory about 1857, and who "for years was captain of the scouts working among the Indians of the Northwest."
The Tilikums of Elttaes were a fraternal, civic organization composed primarily of influential white Seattle area businessmen, who used Native American imagery to promote tourism and the economic development of the city. In July 1911 the Tilikums ("Friends" in Chinook Jargon; Elttaes is Seattle spelled backward) organized the first Golden Potlatch celebration. The Golden Potlatch was a city-wide festival held in July organized by civic boosters hoping to capitalize on the success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. The event continued for each of the next three summers before being suspended during wartime, and then was started up again as the Potlatch Festival from 1934 to 1941.
The name “Golden Potlatch” appropriates a Chinook Jargon word describing local Indigenous people's ceremonies of celebration and gift giving. It also reflects the importance of the Klondike gold rush to Seattle’s growth. Many organizers and participants in the Golden Potlatch dressed in stereotyped imitations of traditional Indigenous attire, as part of a created Potlatch myth. The appropriation of Indigenous culture in order to market products or events was one common example of discrimination and marginalization faced by Indigenous peoples in the United States.
Caption information source: "The Seattle Daily Times," June 7, 1911, p. 5; September 19, 1918, p. 6; and November 16, 1924, p. 20.
Physical Description: 1 score (6 p.) ; 10.25 x 13.75 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
