The Kwakiutl Culture

Benedict described the Kwakiutl as a Dionysian culture and focused on their competitive giving in the potlatch. Even their shamans competed like chiefs or nobles. Describe the types of competitive giving found in the Kwakiutl culture and especially the potlatch and how it functions for them allowing them to use wealth as a weapon. Why did they say, “We do not fight with weapons. We fight with property.” (p. 189)

There are several kinds of potlatch in the Kwakiutl culture. These include potlatches thrown as a coming-of-age celebration, marriage potlatches, and the more extravagant potlatches of chiefs giving away their possessions, both with the promise that they’d be repaid with steep interest, and that it would bring prestige if they couldn’t

The Kwakiutl practiced bride-price, a practice which according to Kottak was “a gift [that] compensates the bride’s group for the loss of her companionship and labour.” The more the bride-price was, then the more prestige the groom and his clan would earn through the marriage. This prestige then had to be repaid with a potlatch thrown for the father of the bride after the first child was born. Fathers of brides would transfer titles and property to their new sons-in-law through lavish potlatches, but unlike in a strictly patrilineal society, the son-in-law wouldn’t control these titles or property; they were held for the daughter’s children when they came of age, making for an interesting blend of both patrilineal and matrilineal trends. Once the first child had been born to a couple, the bride-price repayment potlatch was thrown, with steep interest, and the wife could “[Stay] in the house {of her husband} for nothing.” In order to keep his bride, the husband would make another payment/potlatch to the father-in-law, and the father-in-law repaid him with more wealth. According to Benedict, “In this way all through life, at the birth or maturity of offspring, the father-in-law transferred his prerogatives and wealth to the husband of his daughter for the children who were the issue of the