Potlatch Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Potlatch - Essay ExampleMauss sees this gift exchange as a system of total services that combines both sacrifice and visit and this cycle continues, until it exhausts itself into destruction. Thus for Mauss, the potlatch is driven more by the spirit of destruction rather than generosity. Therefore, he is more interested in exploring a totally contrasting aspect of gift giving that is outside the dominant moral code of the capitalist and consumerist society of the West.The Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian have been studied for this aspect of religious exchange or sacrifice that resembles the phenomenon of potlatch. The potlatch, which is a gift, therefore becomes a symbol of sacrifice and demands an equal sacrifice, whose debt is not automatically cancelled always but may produce forth a fresh demand for exchange of gift and so forth. Thus Mauss says that by exchanging gifts that are symbols of power and status a kind of peaceful offset is maintained and it is dangerous to not involve on eself in this sacrifice if gifts.The Indian tribes of the North-West America, again, practice the potlatch system, consisting in two tribes or chiefs engaging in a competition of prodigality whoever is the richer gives the most and destroys his possessions if necessary. All this, however, in order that he himself may prosper, since in this manner he shows that he has power2 However, in Arguing with Anthropology, Karen Margaret Skyes argues that the economies of sacrifice seem to be a misnomer for the depth and crux of the issues that potlatch raises perhaps because Potlatch shakes the common sense of the capitalist ideology, which expresses the angst it expresses by the sheer generosity it shows finished the exchange of warring gifts by displaying how much one can give to the other. It therefore stands for the total system of social status without which the ethnographic groups have no identity Therefore, to gather social respect they agree to endanger their well being. Potlatch pro bably conjures up the fantasy of modern power, which combines luxurious self-destruction - an obsessive and let up yet megalomaniac suicide of a society on the whole and shatters the myth of progression towards the capitalist future. Or is it somewhat similar to where we as westerners are headed It is an dry similarity - potlatch, self-destruction and capitalist consumerist philosophy converge at a point - buy at all cost and death by excess. Potlatch has been variously criticized as giving beyond reason - but is the capitalist economy reasonable Does presenting an island to a friend any less extravagant or any less unreasonable than a potlatch One can argue that it does not dangerously bind the recipient into any form of obligation to give tush a gift of equal proportion. Yes, it may not - but in a capitalist society excess of ceremony is also a semipolitical game that fascinates and horrifies at the same time - it is an excessive display of power or a counterpower to somethi ng that already exists. Thus, festivities are always a symbol of putridness of power, and it is a separate display of power that already exists or which is seeking to overthrow the existing power and seek prominence. Let us also insure the exchange of gift that happens in the Indian society, which is also called dowry, is another