Spotlight on Students: Potlatching Assignment

The following posts are guest posts from my students.  Several students did very well on their assignments in my Anth 101 class, and with their permission, I am posting their work here.  Their assignment focused on Northwest Coast Potlatching traditions and the comparison of them with modern American economic practices.

The first post is by Erika Madera-Falcon:

          The potlatches given by tribes in the North Pacific Coast show a great similarity to modern day affluent neighborhoods. Although potlatches are given to help those neighboring tribes who are going through hard times they serve more as a purpose to show publicly the wealth and status of those who are hosting the potlatch.

            Living less than a block away from larger and newer houses, it is not hard to see that the accumulations of material things are all for show. People can tell roughly how much money a person has based on the house they own. Most people would choose a larger house over a smaller house that could comfortably house each person if they had the money to do so. Then comes the cars they drive, the brand of clothes they wear, the unnecessary things they have, and the leisure they can afford. If other people cannot see how much money a person has, then there is no point in them having it. There is always a need to flaunt wealth, and it is apparent that this is no new concept of the 21^st century. Tribes hosting potlatches knew what prestige would be places upon them (or the chief) for publicly showing their generosity (or rather abundance) to host such an event and give goods to other tribes.

            In modern day, having money and not sharing it with others in need (publicly, of course) would make people think that the person does not care about others and is stingy with their money, or maybe it could be that they are afraid to give out money because they do not have a way of regaining it quickly as it may appear to be. Of course, none of them would want that thought of them. There are people who give money to charities or donate items to shelters and second hand stores because, like those North Pacific Coast tribes, they have the ability and wealth to do so. They could do it because they are genuinely generous, but that is not believed if they flaunt their good deeds to other people.

            There is not much other reasoning for the deeds that wealthy people do. Without actually sitting down and talking to a person of that status it is hard to see their actions in any other way. When wealthy parents donate large amounts of money to their children’s school they only use it as a topic of conversation at the next Parent Teacher Association meeting as they compare their generosity with that of the other parents. Their children also brag about the money their parents can afford to donate to the school to other students. Then with all the money they receive they can have a nice school with new textbooks and new equipment for sports teams. This gives the school prestige because they do not have to rely on the school budgets that other schools located in less wealthy communities have to.

A good example of that in our community is the difference between SSHS and SHS. SSHS is located in a very wealthy community, so they have money to get top of the line things for their relatively new school. SHS relies solely on the money they receive from the state, which is not nearly enough needed simply for repairs of the 100-year-old school. The neighborhood it is surrounded by does not have the money to be donating to the school like SSHS does. The parents from those neighborhoods could be legitimately generous and donate to SHS as the school could use the money tremendously, but they rather keep up the prestige of the school and keep the separation of those who have the money, and those who do not.

It appears that people who have the power to help and change things in the community, because money gives power, decide to use it poorly. They favor the prestige in the community over the possibility of helping those who need the money a great deal. They do donate to those who are less fortunate than most of the community, it is true, but some of the other money they donate is helping a cause that has already been solved.

This second post is written by Danielle Langum:

Potlatching was a ceremony practiced by Native American groups. The ceremony consisted of sponsors giving away material capitals or services while creating prestige for themselves.  Men, women, and children all participated in the potlatches. One obvious advantage of the potlatch was, “As it operates on the Northwest Coast, this institution, the potlatch, enables the individual to assemble an appreciative and purposeful audience outside his immediate localized kinship group” (Barnett 351). Parties of high and low status both benefited from the potlatching.

The activity in modern economic life that I would consider to be most comparative to Northwest Coast potlatching would be charities. A group of prestigious people are usually the founders and biggest contributors to charities. That being said everyone is invited to participate in charities, and wealth and services are being shared and spread around. The difference between charities, though, is that they are usually specific types of services for a specific type of cause. A comparative characteristic is the founder and biggest contributors of charities get recognition and prestige for their efforts and donations like the host of the potlatches do.  As stated in our hand out potlatching “affords an opportunity for participation by all classes and degrees of property owners accounting to their means” as the same with charities (Barnett 351).  Charities also put on big events and celebrations in efforts to spread the knowledge and wealth of a cause and its founders as potlatching also offers big efforts and parties to spread wealth and services.

In the average life of my wealthy family friends I do not see the generosity and spread of wealth among them toward others.  We were asked the question, “What roles might huge mansions/homes, lavish parties, and luxury cars, for example, have other than flaunting wealth?” In these situations I see the rich as more of a community and they are sharing resources among each other. Other than donations and charity, there is not much being done to help outside their wealthy community. The mansions, parties, and luxurious life style is used to distinguish them from others and let their wealth be known to others. Their wealth is used to contribute to their own happiness. The social clubs and political and economic networks that they belong to are again in their own wealthy community. You see the wealthy class society at the county club, not the local public gym. Money is power in our society and is not distributed without justified cause or returned favors or recognition. The commonality in this between the wealthy community and potlatching is that potlatching brought more prestige onto the host as does when the wealthy contribute outside their community through things such as charities.

 I think the idea that the middle class is growing smaller and that there has grown more separation between the rich and the poor shows that Americans may favor competition and social prestige at the expense of society’s overall social and environmental well-being. I do think charities are a great way of distributing wealth to the needy, but I think it should be a more common practice to be a continual distribution of wealth. If more and more wealthy people and people even in just a comfortable life style gave to charities and donated more time and efforts to those in desperate need for your efforts, there would be less people in desperate need.  If the charities were less about the person promoting them and more about the actual cause and gaining more involvement I thing they would be more effective.

By having money more evenly dispersed instead of the rich getting richer and the poor growing poorer I think our society would be more effective. More people would be able to contribute to our society and in turn our economy would be able to grow in its efforts.