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The Medicine Fight: An Instrument of Political Process among the Beaver Indians 1
Author(s) -
RIDINGTON ROBIN
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00090
Subject(s) - politics , beaver , causation , competition (biology) , power (physics) , style (visual arts) , subject (documents) , process (computing) , environmental ethics , sociology , social psychology , psychology , political science , history , law , ecology , archaeology , biology , computer science , operating system , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , library science
The paper describes political process among the Beaver Indians of northeastern British Columbia, and analyzes the medicine fight as a style of discourse that defines the roles assumed in Beaver competition for the validation of supernatural power. It suggests that the medicine fight is related to the ecological imperatives that make success in hunting unpredictable and relatively infrequent: conditions opting for a projection of causation onto others rather than acceptance of guilt. It concludes that complementary theories of explanation are held by members of the same society and that the theory an individual will use is dependent on the needs of the political role he is playing. The roles played are in turn determined by an individual's success or failure relative to others; and success or failure is unpredictable and subject to chance.