goods, names, and selves: rethinking the Tsimshian potlatch
I reexamine the Tsimshian (Northwest Coast) potlatch as a ritual circulation of wealth in which successors to vacated name‐titles assume political and social agency. At mortuary potlatches the payment of witnesses with household articles monetarily indexes the value of territorial and heraldic privi...
| Published in: | American Ethnologist |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2002
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ae.2002.29.1.123 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1525%2Fae.2002.29.1.123 https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ae.2002.29.1.123 |
| Summary: | I reexamine the Tsimshian (Northwest Coast) potlatch as a ritual circulation of wealth in which successors to vacated name‐titles assume political and social agency. At mortuary potlatches the payment of witnesses with household articles monetarily indexes the value of territorial and heraldic privileges thereby recognized as retained by the host lineage. This ritual equation of alienable and inalienable wealth is the crucible of the reproduction of Tsimshian society as a hierarchy of embodied names. [Northwest Coast, potlatch, social reproduction, exchange, agency, inalienable wealth, naming practices] |
|---|