Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
Form of gift economy.
Highlights
id856418639
gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,[1] among whom it is traditionally the primary governmental institution, legislative body, and economic system.[clarification needed][2] This includes the Heiltsuk, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit,[3] Makah, Tsimshian,[4] Nuu-chah-nulth,[5] Kwakwaka’wakw,[2] and Coast Salish cultures
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A potlatch involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to demonstrate a leader’s wealth and power
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reaffirmation of family, clan, and international connections, and the human connection with the supernatural world
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Potlatch also serves as a strict resource management regime, where coastal peoples discuss, negotiate, and affirm rights to and uses of specific territories and resources
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The House drew its identity from its ancestral founder, usually a mythical animal who descended to earth and removed his animal mask, thus becoming human. The mask became a family heirloom passed from father to son along with the name of the ancestor himself. This made him the leader of the numaym, considered the living incarnation of the founder.
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In the potlatch, the host in effect challenged a guest chieftain to exceed him in his ‘power’ to give away or to destroy goods. If the guest did not return 100 percent on the gifts received and destroy even more wealth in a bigger and better bonfire, he and his people lost face and so his ‘power’ was diminished.”
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The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources.
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Potlatch ceremonies were also used as coming-of-age rituals. When children were born, they would be given their first name at the time of their birth (which was usually associated with the location of their birthplace). About a year later, the child’s family would hold a potlatch and give gifts to the guests in attendance on behalf of the child. During this potlatch, the family would give the child their second name. Once the child reached about 12 years of age, they were expected to hold a potlatch of their own by giving out small gifts that they had collected to their family and people, at which point they would be able to receive their third name
✏️ A person would gain three names over the course of their early life. One at birth, one at their 1-year potlatch, and one at 12 years old, when they do their own potlatch. 🔗 View Highlight
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gifts included storable food (oolichan, or candlefish, oil or dried food), canoes, slaves, and ornamental “coppers” among aristocrats, but not resource-generating assets such as hunting, fishing and berrying territories.
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Coppers were sheets of beaten copper, shield-like in appearance; they were about two feet long, wider on top, cruciform frame and schematic face on the top half. None of the copper used was ever of Indigenous metal. A copper was considered the equivalent of a slave. They were only ever owned by individual aristocrats, and never by numaym, hence could circulate between groups.
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Potlatching was made illegal in Canada in 1884 in an amendment to the Indian Act,[21]. To some extent, this was at the urging of missionaries and government agents who considered it “a worse than useless custom” that was seen as wasteful, unproductive, and contrary to ‘civilized values’ of accumulation.[22] The Potlatch was seen as a key target in assimilation policies and agendas. Missionary William Duncan wrote in 1875 that the potlatch was “by far the most formidable of all obstacles in the way of Indians becoming Christians, or even civilized”
✏️ Less than subtle subtext: This is not how capitalism works, and that’s the law of the land now. 🔗 View Highlight
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It is the great desire of every chief and even of every man to collect a large amount of property, and then to give a great potlatch, a feast in which all is distributed among his friends, and, if possible, among the neighboring tribes. These feasts are so closely connected with the religious ideas of the natives, and regulate their mode of life to such an extent, that the Christian tribes near Victoria have not given them up. Every present received at a potlatch has to be returned at another potlatch, and a man who would not give his feast in due time would be considered as not paying his debts.