Class formation among Pacific Northwest Indians

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 09:46:12 -0700 (MST),
ermadog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>Joan: What kind of class formation did you have
>in mind, exactly, and how does it differ from
>the caste societies of the Tlingit, Gitskaan,
>Nisga'a, Tsimpshian, Nootka, Bella Coola,
>Saanich, Salish, Squamish, - all of whom also
>made war clubs and conducted slave raids?

Eleanor Leacock and Nancy Oestreich Lurie, "North American Indians in
Historical Perspective":

By the time Europeans first appeared in the region, the Indians of
the coast lived in permanent winter villages of large wood-plank
communal houses, which they left for summer camps during the fishing
season. Summer fishing provided the Indians with a staple food
supply. Salmon, which could be caught in great numbers during the
fish runs, was the mainstay of the Pacific coast Indians, but they
also caught large quantities of cod, halibut, and olachen. The oil
extracted from the last was the main oil product in their diet. The
hunting of sea and land animals and the gathering of berries and
roots, while important, were supplementary. The yearly calendar of
the Indians was determined by the fish runs. It was divided into two
main seasons: the summer season of active work, producing the means
of subsistence, and the winter season of handicraft, trade, and
ceremonial activities.

The Indians of the Northwest coast attained a high level of
technological development. They adapted a wide variety of fishing
techniques- weirs, traps, nets, hooks, spears, rakes, and hoop
nets-to the habits and routes of the salmon and the ecology of the
region. The Indians also attained a fine mastery in the art of
constructing large dugout canoes from big cedar trees. Canoes were
essential for trade and travel, and varying sizes were made to
accommodate to use in rivers, shallow bays, and channels, and in the
open sea.

Early explorers of the coast reported fish to be taken in vast
quantities. Actual estimates of the size of the salmon catch are
lacking, but given the numbers of fish visiting the rivers and
coastal banks, the efficiency of the fishing technology, and the
experience of the fishermen themselves, one can assume that the catch
was heavy and that a surplus was produced. Evidently here was an
example of the conditions of production referred to by Engels when he
pointed out that "at a fairly early stage in the development of
production, human labor-power obtains the capacity of producing a
considerably greater product than is required for the maintenance of
the producers" (Engels, 1963, 160). The possibility of producing a
surplus product had fundamental social implications, for thereby was
created the basis for the development of crafts, barter, accumulation
of wealth, and the exploitation of man by man.

The production of surplus is usually connected with the development
of horticulture. However, the level of socioeconomic development of
the Northwest coast Indians is comparable to that of horticultural
tribes. As "sedentary gatherers" the Northwest coast Indians present
an example of another line of the evolutionary process. On the basis
of developing a highly specialized fishing-hunting (so-called
gathering) economy they approached the stage of transition from
primitive communism to a society based on exploitation of man by man.

The same was true of the fishing-hunting tribes of northern Eurasia,
of the people of Keltelminar culture of the Aral sea region in middle
Asia in the fourth century B.C., and of some fishing tribes of
Africa. All these peoples reached the last stage of primitive
communal organization on the basis of a "gathering economy." By this
it is meant that the norms of a clan community were being dissolved
and incipient norms of class society were maturing. Summing up the
general characteristics of this stage of primitive communal society,
Engels wrote:

". . . within this structure of society based on kinship groups the
productivity of labour increasingly develops, and with it private
property and exchange, differences of wealth, the possibility of
utilising the labour power of others and hence the basis of class
antagonisms . . . "

This statement characterizes well the society of the Northwest coast
Indians of the precontact and early contact periods. On the basis of
existing knowledge about these tribes one can trace the processes
whereby economic inequalities within an as yet clan-organized society
were yielding to the norms of a class society.

The study of this transition is of great theoretical importance,
because the concrete historical investigation of the processes
characteristic of that period in human history disproves any
conception that classes, private property, exploitation of man by
man, or acquisitive individualism and competition have always
existed. Instead, the data support Marx's contention that "The
existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical
phases in the development of production" (Marx and Engels, 1968,
679).

By the time of colonization, Northwest coast society was no longer a
clan society, and clan organization already belonged to a former
periodin the history of these peoples. By the end of the eighteenth
century the matrilineal clan as the economic unit had already given
way to the big family community and, together with the appearance of
private wealth and slavery, patriarchal forms were developing.
Patrilocal marriage was already common, coexisting with matrilocality
and avunculocality. The tendency to patrilineality was also well
defined. Territorial ties were becoming important. First disguised as
fictitious kin relationships, they later appeared in their pure form.
Multi-clan village communities appeared, the structure of which can
be compared to the village communities of horticulturalists. However,
the society of the Northwest coast Indians was not yet a class
society as such. Private property was developing within a society
where communal ownership of the main means of production
predominated.

Internal contradictions were characteristic of all social
institutions during the period of transformation of clan to class
society. That it was a prolonged period is attested to by the fact
that slavery, a direct negation of the norms of clan society, had
existed long enough to become hereditary. Following Marx and Engels,
one can define the type of slavery found in the Northwest coast as
"patriarchal slavery," as distinguished from slavery as the basic
mode of production and plantation slavery (Marx, 1962, 326).
Appearing within the limits of clan society during the last stage of
its existence, patriarchal slavery was the earliest form of social
cleavage along class lines. Widespread ethnographic data indicate it
to be universal during the transitional stage from pre-class to class
society.

Commencing with the temporary enslavement of war captives,
patriarchal slavery slowly became transformed into hereditary
slavery, its most developed form.

There are few known instances where patriarchal slavery grew into
slavery as the basic mode of production as it did in ancient Greece
and Rome. In the majority of cases patriarchal slavery existed
parallel to the transformation of common people into a lower class,
but the slaves did not become the principal source of labor.
Patriarchal slavery is found in economic systems where the ownership
of resources is basically communal in character and where the
activity of the slaves is mainly "de-voted to the production of
immediate means of subsistence," by contrast with slavery as the
basic mode of production, where it is aimed at creating surplus value
(Marx, 1962, 326-327).

The colonization of the Northwest coast, which drew the Indians into
the sphere of capitalistic productive modes, put an end to their
independent historical development. It is hard to say what course
they would have followed without European intrusion. In any case, the
patriarchs slavery they practiced was altogether different from
plantation slavery, which was part of a capitalistic system oriented
toward a world market.

Such were the general trends in the development of Northwest coast
Indian society. However, while sharing these fundamental aspects of
technology and social life, each tribe had unique cultural traits.
These distinguishing traits were due to diversities in the natural
environment and to a tribe's origins, its specific history of
contacts with other peoples, and elaboration of its own cultural
traditions. On the basis of these differences, the Northwest coast
tribes form three distinct cultural groups: northern (Tlingit,
Tsimsian, and Haida), central (Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Bella-Coola),
and southern (Coast Salish and Chinook). At the time of colonization
general socioeconomic trends were at different stages of, development
among these groups. This has led some investigators to the conclusion
that, although their economic basis was similar, the social relations
of the three groups were developing along different lines, and the
tribes of this small region therefore give a vivid picture of
"multilinear evolution," or the lack of general or consistent trends
in man's history. The tribes of the northern group (which includes
the Tlingit) were considered to be developing along the lines of
matrilineal clan organization; the southern tribes were said to have
always had clanless patriarchal institutions; while the central group
was seen as an example of a transitional stage from patriarchal
family organization to matri-lineality. Since slavery and the
potlatch, or giveaway feast, were recognized as common to all three
groups, it seemed that matrilineal clan organization coexisted with
slavery and economic inequality. The present author disagrees with
this position and feels Lewis Henry Morgan was correct in positing
matrilineal clan organization as early in human social life and as
coordinate with communal forms.


--
Louis Proyect, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx on 01/13/2002

Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org



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