Some Correlates of Local Group Rank among the Southern Kwakiutl

Abstract

The has long occupied a prominent place in Northwest Coast ethnological literature and, at least since Mauss' Essai sur le don, it has had a significance in anthropology beyond importance to the regional ethnology. Recently there has been particularly active interest in the potlatch, focusing primarily on the question of whether or not there is any connection between the and the nature of the Northwest Coast resource base. Some writers (Suttles I96o, I962, I968; Vayda I96i; Piddocke 1965) argue that the is, at least in part, a mechanism for adjusting to resource variation-particularly to unpredicted fluctuations in such resources as salmon. Others (Drucker and Heizer I967; Rosman and Rubel I97I) maintain that there are no important connections between such resources and the potlatch. The latter position perpetuates a picture of Northwest Coast environmental abundance offered by Boas and other early ethnographers who viewed the area as one with such overwhelming natural riches that there seemed little need to consider the possibility of resource fluctuation or scarcity. In this debate the has been considered a single, if complex, phenomenon that needs explanation. We hold that although it is possible to view the in a particular ethnic unit as a complex whole, analysis can be taken further if the is divided into variables capable of more precise definition. For this paper we have selected one such variable: local group precedence. Among several Northwest Coast tribes, groups who resided together in a common winter village and controlled access to the resources of a well defined territory regularly potlatched other such local groups within their tribal unit. All of the local groups within such a potlatch circle were ranked as to precedence. Potlatching was carried out between other types of social units in addition to local groups, and more than precedence was involved in the behavior; nevertheless, the idea of ranked units participating in regular, formalized encounters called potlatches is basic to the phenomenon. Northwest Coast resource variability is also complex, as Suttles (I960, 1962) has suggested. We chose to reduce the complexity initially by restricting attention to salmon (obviously the most important single food re-

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