Potlatching among the Kwakuitl
The Kwakiutl are an American Indian tribe that live on the northern shore of Vancouver Island in British Columbia and on the adjacent mainland in a country with a coastline almost as long and inletted per square mile of territory as that of Norway (Bohannon, 1966). The Kwakiutl are significant in that they engage in a very unique form of exchange known as 'potlatching'.A potlatch was a ceremonial given by a chief and his group, as hosts, to guests composed of another chief or chiefs with their respective groups, at which the guests were given wealth goods as gifts (Drucker, 1967). Kottak (1982) defines a potlatch as a festive event where, assisted by other members of their communities, sponsors gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper and other items. In return for this they got prestige. To give a potlatch enhanced a son's reputation and prestige increased with the lavishness of the potlatch and the value of the goods given away with it. Bohannon (1966) offers another definition of the potlatch. The word potlatch is derived from the Chinook language and it means 'gift'. The potlatch is a ceremonial occasion on which one exchanges or gives gifts to one's rival, who is a man occupying a status closest to one's
Potlatching tribes were content to destroy their surpluses rather than use them to widen the socioeconomic distance between themselves and fellow tribesmen (Kottak, 1982). This means that subsistence items themselves do not really enter into the potlatching institutions (Bohannon, 1966). In contrast to most other foragers their environments were not marginal. In addition there was an organisation made up of a number of ranked but heredity officers, each one marked by crests, ceremonial privileges and titles. He arranged for several members of his tribe to give his son a hundred blankets. The living standards of the Kwakiutl are among the highest in the world because there so many resources and large amounts of material necessities available to them. The boy, then, on this occasion had his original hundred blankets, his hundred blankets interest and the hundred blankets that had been given to him. They had access to a wide variety of land and sea resources. They were rare in nature like the nuggets of copper used to make coppers. Probably no other place in the world offers so many riches for so little work (Bohannon, 1966). This act was a challenge; it invited the enemy to match and outdo it by a return gift or a further distribution (Mair, 1965). Potlatching also prevented the development of permanent social stratification.
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