Potlatching

Joel Myhal English 803 Instructor Duffy 8-29-09 Reading Journal 1 “Potlatching” The sustenance I read was titled “Potlatching” by Conrad Phillip Kottak. In the keep back 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 prestige by giving away such items as, food, blankets, pieces of bruiser and otherwise 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, heedless of the motivations of the individual participants. Certain tribes who were enjoying an especially good class had a surplus of subsistence items , which it could trade for more durable wealth items, wish 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 locating the resources that were given away. Potlatching is a misunderstood practice according to whatsoever 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 stay the development of socioeconomic stratification, a system of social classes. wealthiness relinquished or destroyed was converted into a unimportant item: prestige. Under capitalism, we reinvest our profits (rather than burning our cash), with the hope of might an additional profit. However, the potlatching tribes were content to relinquish their surpluses rather than use them to stretch the social dista nce between themselves and their fellow trib! e members. When I think of another...If you want to get a full essay, cheat it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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