First Nations. Arts and Cultures of the Northwest of America

Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, 37, quai Jacques Chirac

On a coastline of about 1,800 kilometers and through some forty languages, the Northwest American First Nations have turned their art into a sacred language, peopled with spirits and totemic figures. The Northwest First Nations developed, without agriculture or writing, complex sedentary societies founded on an abundance of natural resources: salmon, candlefish, marine mammals and vast cedar forests. This wealth enabled an elaborate way of life and original thinking. Their art, deeply linked to their worldview, puts on stage…