Pre-European Political and Economic Organizations of the First Nations and Inuit People

The peoples of the Northwest Coast lived a sedentary life along the shores of the Pacific Ocean. This pattern of settlement is associated with chiefdoms, social hierarchies, and work specialization. The chief led over 150 to 200 people within his clan. The clan included a core family, extended family, adopted members, and slaves. Hereditary nobles held the highest social position. Lower on the scale were commoners specializing in hunting, gathering, artisan work, and trade. The keeping of slaves was practiced in Northwest Coast societies, and these slaves were subject to the control of the higher classes. Appointment of leaders occurred through the matrilineal line, which means the chief's oldest sister's son (or eldest nephew) would be the next chief. A war chief and a town chief ruled the clan. Each clan member was born into a caste system, which was unique to this region. Social ranking followed a line of chiefs, nobles, commoners, and slaves with specific grading within these classes. The status of slave was also inherited. A slave was a captured enemy or an individual who has lost status due to debt. Slaves had no civil rights and could legally be put to death by a master. Status or lineage was inherited and provided entitlement to resources, fishing spots, hunting or collecting areas, and house sites. This political system developed approximately 3,000 to 2,500 years ago. The chief's immediate family controlled and distributed goods of lineage property, which was often adorned with family symbols indicating entitlement.

The potlatch, an intricate part of the political and economic patterns of the Northwest cultures, was a gathering of invited guests who feasted and danced. In addition to annual celebrations, the appointment of a leader, the death of a family member, a marriage celebration, or a victory over an enemy were some of the reasons to hold a potlatch. The tradition of potlatch was also enjoyed as a social function and family gathering. The major event of a chief's lifetime was the raising of his family's totem and the building of his family's house.

The number of goods and territory he was able to give away at a potlatch celebration measured a chief's power. When high-ranking guests returned the favour by holding their own potlatches, they were expected to give even more lavishly. Otherwise, they would be shamed. A chief who impoverished himself through lavish potlatch giving and feasting could, therefore, count on this wealth being returned, and even increased when he attended subsequent potlatches as a guest. But the distribution of material wealth was only one element in the potlatch ceremony. The main reason for every potlatch was to confirm in public that an individual's social status had changed. A chief might, therefore, give a potlatch when his daughter came of age, or when his heir assumed one of the ancestral hereditary titles. Attending and accepting a gift at a funeral potlatch meant that guests accepted the succession of power. The potlatch system was a means of rising on the social scale and re-distributing wealth. The system ensured no free person of the clan starved or lived without essential goods.

Aggressive warfare was used to obtain greater social ranking, new hunting territories, or slaves. Although the potlatch served as a forum for peaceful meditations so as to avoid feuding or warfare, conflicts between competing groups were common. Raids on enemy villages were often conducted from the sea. Warriors, armed with war clubs and lances, attacked from decorated war canoes. They protected themselves with body armour fashioned out of wood and hide materials. Wooden slat breast plates protected warriors during battle, as did coats made from the thick hides of sea lions or layers of elk skin. A round wooden helmet with a visor completed the battle gear. These warriors fought in the name of their ancestral families and for the clan chief.

Hierarchical leaders controlled the ownership of agricultural goods and resources and the means of transportation. A surplus of these goods precipitated the desire to exchange raw materials for finished goods. The Haidan peoples of Haida Gwaii were proficient artisans and a system evolved in which the Tsimshian on the mainland exchanged raw materials, such as goat's wool, for the finished work of Haidan artisans, such as blankets.

Trade networks along the Northwest Coast were active from at least 4,000 years ago. One common trade item was eulachon oil, the production of which took about three weeks. The fish were left a few days to ripen in wooden chests. Once the fish oil began to appear at the top of the decaying mass, hot stones would be applied to hasten the extraction process. Traditionally, the women pressed the oil by squeezing the rotting fish against their chests and letting it run into bags made from the intestines of sea mammals. Eulachon oil was traded along the Pacific Coast region where the diversity of languages made it necessary to adopt a universally-understood trade language called Chinook Jargon. Individuals who specialized in trade and understood the language traveled "grease trails," or trade routes, from village to village.