War, peace and Northwest Coast complex hunter-gatherers
| Pages | 240-254 |
| Date | 07 October 2014 |
| Published date | 07 October 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-03-2014-0113 |
| Author | Richard H. Daly |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Aggression, conflict & peace |
War, peace and Northwest Coast complex
hunter-gatherers
Richard H. Daly
Dr Richard H. Daly is an
Aboriginal Rights Researcher,
based at Oslo, Norway.
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to question the assumptions behind the aggressive competitive
image of Northwest Coast (NWC) forager societies, given that their most reflective descendants emphasize
sharing and paying back as constant peacemaking actions through history. Also to seek data that help
ascertain whether this contemporary view might predate today’s sensibilities colored by life as post-foragers
encapsulated in nation states.
Design/methodology/approach – Historical, ethnographic and ethnohistorical documentary sources are
studied, together with regional archeological findings. These are considered against the author’s own
ethnographic work among various foragers on the edge of, but integrated with higher profile coastal
peoples. Some historical context for regional war and peace is provided.
Findings – The archeology indicates that evidence for violent warlike activity appears clearly about three
times in 10,000 years, the most extensive being contiguous with Europe’s economic and political influence
on the continent in the past half millennium. Even in this latter period, extended family foragers managed
and sought to control aggression/competition by social sharing and cooperation between like units and by
upholding established peacemaking processes and protocols.
Research limitations/implications – Since the region and its literature are vast, this theme requires
extensive long-term investigation. Findings given here from a limited number of locations are tentative
and require detail from other parts of the region; however, they do suggest an existing ethic of sharing and
peacemaking reflected back in time through oral history and archeology.
Practical implications – The literature of the NWC’sbellicosity, its slavery,war-making and agonistic giving
is based on events reported from a very short span of contact history. If these conditions had been endemic
over time, there would have been insufficient peace to allow these foragers to hunt, gather, fish, barter and
prepare foods and goods with which to survive between annual growing and spawning seasons.
Social implications – Instead of finding ways to cooperate with each other to seek better living conditions,
some NWC post-foragers now assume competition and aggression to be endemic features of their relations
with each other. Suchpersons, perhaps from a sense of inferiority engendered by history, cite the bellicose
literature and the glories of the fur trade period as more typical of their heritage than the wisdom and
peaceful teachings of their own elders about the past, the future, human relations and the natural world.
Originality/value – The findings from the NWC suggest analogies in the emphasis on sharing as a mechanism
for making and maintaining peace in the broader comparative context of hunter-gatherer studies. Sharing
remains central whether one examines complex hunter-gathers or their more egalitarian colleagues.
Keywords Reciprocity, Complex hunter-gatherers,Potlatch, Gitksan, Wet’suwet’en,
Coast and Interior Salish, Northwest Coast, Tribal zone, Diachronic study
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The prevailing image of hunters and gatherers on the northeast coast of the Pacific Ocean and
the adjacent Cordillera was established by the ethnographic work of Franz Boas, his colleagues
and students (e.g. Boas, 1894, 1898, 1902, 1909, 1910, 1925, 1927, 1966; Boas and Hunt,
1902-1905, 1906; Codere, 1950, 1956, 1966; Smith, 1900, 1903, 1907; Swanton, 1905; Teit,
1900, 1906, 1909, 1912; Teitand Boas, 1930). This body of work provided ethnographic evidence
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JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH
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VOL. 6 NO. 4 2014, pp. 240-254, CEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599 DOI 10.1108/JACPR-03-2014-0113
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