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goods, names, and selves: rethinking the Tsimshian potlatch
Author(s) -
Roth Christopher F.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2002.29.1.123
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , reproduction , alienation , exchange value , social reproduction , sociology , hierarchy , value (mathematics) , politics , economy , anthropology , law , social science , political science , economics , commodity , market economy , social capital , biology , ecology , machine learning , computer science
I reexamine the Tsimshian (Northwest Coast) potlatch as a ritual circulation of wealth in which successors to vacated name‐titles assume political and social agency. At mortuary potlatches the payment of witnesses with household articles monetarily indexes the value of territorial and heraldic privileges thereby recognized as retained by the host lineage. This ritual equation of alienable and inalienable wealth is the crucible of the reproduction of Tsimshian society as a hierarchy of embodied names. [Northwest Coast, potlatch, social reproduction, exchange, agency, inalienable wealth, naming practices]