Potlatching

Joel Myhal English 803 Instructor Duffy 8-29-09 Reading Journal 1 “Potlatching” The suffer I read was titled “Potlatching” by Conrad Phillip Kottak. In the guard Professor Kottack explains the “Potlatching” culture, which is a festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the North Pacific sea-coast of North America. Some tribes still participate in the potlatch, whatsoevertimes as a memorial to the deceased. The motivation behind the potlatch was for them to evolve prestigiousness by giving away such items as, food, blankets, pieces of bruiser and opposite items. The potlatch associated local individuals along the North Pacific soaring into a regional alliance and exchange network. Potlatching and intervillage exchange had adjustive functions, disregardless of the motivations of the individual participants. Certain tribes who were enjoying an especially good class had a surplus of subsistence i tems, which it could trade for more durable wealth items, equivalent blankets, canoes, or pieces of copper. wealthiness, in turn by organism distributed could be converted into prestige. Members of several villages were invited to any potlatch and got to take central righteousness the resources that were given away.

Potlatching is a misunderstood practice according to well-nigh anthropologists who studied the tribe’s culture. They saw it not in terms of its apparent wastefulness, but in terms of its long-run role as a cultural adaptive mechanism. Potlatching served to stop the development of socioec onomic stratification, a system of social cl! asses. wealthiness relinquished or destroyed was converted into a unavailing item: prestige. Under capitalism, we reinvest our profits (rather than burning our cash), with the hope of capacity an additional profit. However, the potlatching tribes were content to relinquish their surpluses rather than use them to continue the social distance between themselves and their fellow tribe members. When I think of another...If you want to get a full essay, waver it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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