RANK, WEALTH, AND KINSHIP IN NORTHWEST COAST SOCIETY 1

Abstract

RANK, WEALTH, AND KINSHIP IN NORTHWEST COAST SOCIETY' By PHILIP DRUCKER N ORTHWEST COAST society was organized on no idealistic premises of the equality of man. Each individual had his place in the arbitrarily calibrated social structure of his community. However, the casual designation so often encountered of this social pattern of ranked statuses as a "class" or "caste" system with nobles, commoners, and slaves, is a crude over-simplification, except as regards the division of society into freemen and slaves. It will be the aim of this paper first to show that there were no social classes among the freemen, but rather an unbroken series of graduated statuses, and second, to investigate the principles underlying this gradation of rank.