Potlatches - to be clear - were also about wealth and power although not in the way westerners typically understand these terms. These were events where various rich folks competed to give away as many valuable items as they could - just to prove how wealthy and powerful they were. It was about accumulating favours by making others obligated to you through gift-giving. If you think of the way the word “arigato” (thank you) in Japanese encompasses feelings of irritation at having incurred an obligation, you start to understand some of the subtlties at play here.

Anyways, if football was used as a cover for First Nations to congregate, that says more about the game’s dominance among white British Columbians than about its inherent attractiveness to First Nations. Outside BC (and within it, I would have thought), First Nations’ main sporting passion is ice hockey followed - in eastern Canada, at least - by lacrosse. Football would be a telescope-distance third, if that.