Affinal Ties, Subsistence, and Prestige among the Coast Salish1

Abstract

THE nature of Northwest Coast social stratification and the nature of the institution most intimately related to it, the potlatch, are problems of widely recognized importance. Yet attempts at solving these problems have not been wholly satisfactory. Generalizations about social stratification have been betrayed by failure to give sufficient weight to all of the differences in social structure that existed among the various Northwest Coast tribes. Explanations of the potlatch have been only partial ones, finding its function in the expression of the individual's drive for high status or in the fulfillment of society's need for solidarity. Relating these functions to man's other requirements for survival has often been inhibited by an assumption that the satisfaction of alimentary needs through the food quest and the satisfaction of psychological needs through the manipulation of wealth form two separate systems, the and the economy. Or if a relationship between the two is hypothesized, the hypothesis usually makes the dependent upon the economy; it is assumed that a rich habitat provides an abundance of food which in turn supports the prestige economy which in turn maintains social stratification. I believe, however, that it is more reasonable to assume that, for a population to have survived in a given environment for any length of time, its subsistence activities and prestige-gaining activities are likely to form a single integrated system by which that population has adapted to its environment. I will try to show how this may be true of one group of Northwest Coast tribes, the Coast Salish of Southern Georgia Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca,2 and in particular I will try to show that in the socio-economic system of these a role of crucial importance was played by the ties established through intercommunity marriage. Native social organization in this area was characterized by a seeming looseness. Kinship was reckoned bilaterally. Residence was usually, but not always, patrilocal. The nuclear families of brothers, cousins, and brothers-inlaw formed extended families (x?anacellwam), occupying great cedar-plank houses and claiming rights to certain local resources and to certain inherited privileges. One or more such extended families formed a village or community. The community was linked through ties of marriage and kinship with other communities and these with still others to form a social network with no very clear boundaries. Groups of villages like the Lummi and Cowichan were linked by common dialect and traditions as tribes but in recent generations these village groupings were certainly not separate societies.