Potlatch

In America, it is understood that one exchanges their time and labor for money, and the amount of money they receive it for determines their status in society. Many people believe that all other economies are moving toward this capitalist economy because they are under the impression that such an economy is the most advanced a nation could possibly become. A popular type of economy that currently coexists with capitalism is a gift-giving economy. Though now they exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship, someday, capitalism or some other similar type of market economy will eventually take over, simply so that the people and their economy can better interact with the rest of the world on a global level. In Western culture, it is usually believed that the person who has the most material possessions, such as money, is the most prominent and influential. Therefore, it is interesting that gift-giving based economies have turned this idea on its head as the giver is the one who gains influence; the bigger the gift, the more influence he gains. An example of such an economy is presented in the film Ongka’s Big Moka. It follows Ongka, a Papua New Guinea “chieftain,” who is preparing a huge gift, a moka, for a neighboring tribe. Ongka is not really a chief, as he does not actually hold any power over the others in his tribe; instead he must rely on persuasion to get what he wants from them. He is planning a huge moka to give to another tribe, because they gave his tribe a large gift…

The Northwest Indian Tribes were bustling about preparing for a potlatch. They were cooking meats, smoke rising out of the baskets in which they cooked. You could hear the, "Cha, cha,cha" of the lusciously dressed dancers practicing. They were all waiting for you to finish their totem pole. What is a potlatch? Potlatches are big ceremonial parties, that took a lot of money, and time to plan. In a potlatch,…

Douglas Cole wrote an article called “Underground Potlatch.” The main purpose of the article was to enlighten people about a custom that because of cultural differences was banned under Canadian law. In the article, Dan Cranmer had a ceremony which is called a potlatch for his Nimkish Kwakiutl family that was a distinguished tradition for them. This particular potlatch was made famous not only because of the items that were exchanged during the celebration but because of all of the criminal…

I determined that the central theme of this weeks reading is the Potlatch within the Natives of the Northwest Coast community. The reading addressed Potlatch, which was associated with most celebrations of the Northwest Coast communities. The name Potlatch it originated from the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe meaning to give. This ceremony would take more than year to plan this change normally associated with a persons change in status, such as, death, birth, marriage and coming of age. Some potlatch’s…

their society. We mostly learned about the similarity and difference between the Kwakiutl’s and Makah’s potlatch rituals. Well, we will start off with Benedict’s view of the Kwakiutl tribe. The Northwest Coast Natives themselves were pretty smart. They lived along the seacoast from Alaska to Puget Sound. Their culture had no common order, but Benedict did say (page 173) “They were a people of great possessions as primitive people go.” They relied on goods, inexhaustible, and obtained without…

In the article “The Church of Baseball, the Fetish of Coca-Cola, and the Potlatch of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, David Chidester discusses the similarities between religion and popular culture. Chidester demonstrates that through a particular set of lenses, popular culture can actually exist as religion by using three points of comparison such as the “church”, the “fetish” and “potlatch”. In Chidester’s article, for each of the three points of comparisons, he uses baseball, Coca-Cola and Rock ‘n’ Roll as…

to spread quickly when Quebec produced a lot of lawyers, priests and politicians instead of business people, engineers or scientists. So this time was very influential on the opinions of the Quebecoise and caused many of them to want to be separate from Canada rather. This widened the rift between Canadians and pushed them further apart using the strong sense of cultural preservation the Quebecoise had. (Animal and bird dancers, on a canoe, announcing a potlatch) Ban of the Potlatch repealed…

In addition to the potlatch, Mausse also looks at the concept of the hau in Polynesia. Hau is the Maori word, which refers to the involvement of spirit, soul and belief in the process of exchanging gifts. It is believed that when the receiver accepts the gift, he or she must accept the soul of the giver in addition to the physical item part of the gift. In other words, hau is a type of spirit that is passed on to the receiver from the giver with the gift. The spirit is believed to be inherent in…

with an ethnographer. An informant is used more for qualitative research. A respondent differentiates from an informant. It is based on someone who answers survey questions. The respondent’s identity is kept private for unbiased data. Respondents correspond more with quantitative research. 6) Potlatch is a type of gathering which involves a feast and resources that are exchanged among a social group. There are some similarities between a Potlatch and modern American Society. For example,…

Some families, called clans, were higher in power than others which caused a riff throughout the tribes. Status was an important part of the Pacific Northwest tribes, so everyone wanted the higher status. When the first Europeans made contact with the Pacific Northwest Indians, the tribes already had complex and developed political and economic systems, which gave certain Native Americans a higher status. (Malinowski, Sheets, Schmittroth, 1999). The Pacific Northwest Indians started public…