The Kwakwaka’Wakw Indian Tribes of Canada, Essay Example

The Kwakwaka’wakw Indian tribes of Canada were noted foragers.  They were equally recognised as being cultivators and gardeners, particularly root crops that were maintained through cultivation, weeding, harvesting and creation of root crops in mounds.  The Indians also were involved with “potlatch” which involved lavish feasts and ceremonies. These were normally for weddings or rights of accession where the tribal chief demonstrated his degree of wealth.  The potlatch could be very competitive and in addition to demonstrating wealth by feasts could equally involve destruction of expensive goods as a show of superiority i.e. I am wealthy enough not to miss these expensive goods.  This saw the natives featuring fairly high on the continuum of Production.

In modern Society the most evidential example of gift exchange is during the Christian religious festival of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ.  Exchange of gifts started inn early Scandinavian society and were seen as a voluntary exercise but expected that a similar gift would be given in return as a sign of goodwill. A pure gift is one which makes no tangible ties or obligations between parties. In North Indian terms this is referred to by the word “dan” and really means a gift with no reciprocal ties.  Paradoxically this does not seem to be the case in religious beliefs where a deity may love is people but conditional on the love being reciprocated by worship.  In fact in some religions it is punitive with the concept of damnation for non believers.