Slavery, Surplus, and Stratification on the Northwest Coast: The Ethnoenergetics of an Incipient Stratification System

According to the prevalent interpretation of aboriginal cultures of the Northwest Coast, nobles may think they are nobles, but they are not, and slaves may think they are slaves, but they are not. Topsyturvy as this may seem,it can be explained in ecological and evolutionary terms. The natives, it is argued, are quite literally thinking their way into a better adjustment with their environment; and, on a larger canvas, it was through similar mental feats that other cultures thought their way onto the path leading to social stratification and the state. This paper attempts to correct this interpretation by viewing social stratification in thermodynamic terms, as a process in which economic suplus is pumped out of the direct producers and into a ruling class. Evidence is presented in support of the view that there was an aboriginal ruling class on the Northwest Coast which obtained its wealth and privileges through definite exploitative techniques-slavery, rent or taxation, and the potlatch-and supported its rule through an incipient State-Church organization. Accordingly, the rank system and the potlatch are to be understood not in terms of the population as a whole adapting to its environment, but in terms of the sociocultural design of an exploitative, class society.