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.These relations differed in great specifics:4 land, hunting and fishing territories, berry patches, beach areas suitable for5 coastal collecting, and salmon rivers and creeks were found simultaneously6 among the properties of both the clan group and its chief.The property was7 split, divided, incomplete.On the one hand, the clan or its subdivision owned8 these territories, and this was reflected in the right of each kinsman to use9 them relatively freely.On the other hand, the heads of the kinship groups were10 seen as custodians of the group s property (Averkieva 1974:139 140; Semenov11 1993:2:335).This was manifested, for example, in the fact that young men of12 a household, if they hunted individually, were obliged to give large pieces of[43], (29)13 their game to the chief (Oberg 1973:31).It was the chief who opened hunting14 season, indicating to his kinsmen where, how, and how many animals eachLines: 36215 hunter could procure.Finally, only the chief could permit members of other16 clans to use his clan s territories (De Laguna 1972:1:464).He even received 17 payment for this from outsiders (Garfield 1947:440).0pt Pg 18 The individualization of the possession of usable territories may have arisenNormal Pag19 in Tlingit society before Europeans arrived.In any case, R.L.Olson (1967:12)PgEnds: TEX20 reported that some salmon creeks and small rivers became the property of21 individual people, usually the household chiefs.V.E.Garfield and L.A.Forrest22 described the totem pole of Tuxekan, which was erected to acknowledge the[43], (29)23 right of the chief to one of the salmon creeks: on the top of the pole the24 chief was shown warding off a wolf (the symbol of the Wolf moiety of his25 kinsmen) from the mouth of the creek (symbolically rendered as a face) and26 depicted below carved illustrations of salmon swimming toward it (Garfield27 and Forrest 1961:109 111).These data are only from the end of the 19th century,28 when the process of individualization of ownership rights was occurring under29 the influence of American capitalistic colonization.30 In the traditional economy of the Tlingit, the chief was the proprietor31 manager of the primary means of production.But inasmuch as the clan ap-32 peared as the owner, the chief was obliged to share the means of production33 with the clan, supporting and helping poor and infirm kinsmen in particular.34 However, the latter usually received significantly less game, catch, or products35 of collecting than the chief received as custodian of clan territories from other36 members of the clan.The chief s income, which substantially exceeded his37 expenditures, suggests exploitation.As Semenov notes, this form of exploita-38 tion was based on the chief s individual use areas.The chief was the owner39 by virtue of being head of the clan or its subdivision.According to SemenovTlingit Indians before Contact with Europeans 43 1 (1993:2:335), The described part of the property was not personal or private,2 [but] rather official and titular.It was connected not with a person or a group3 of individuals, [but] rather with a definite office. Khazanov pointed out even4 earlier that one of the most important functions of the chief was to protect5 and regulate property rights for the most important vital resources (Khazanov6 1979:152).7 In traditional Tlingit society land was not owned by the individual but could8 be parceled out by the leader.This was a special form of exploitation that9 can be called redistributive.A man exploited his kinsmen only while serving10 as the chief.Once deprived of his office, he ceased receiving surplus goods11 from his kinsmen.The redistributive method of exploitation, which arose in a12 natural way within the framework of late indigenous society was, in Semenov s[44], (3013 opinion, the first method of exploitation in the history of human society14 (Semenov 1993:2:307; see also Khazanov 1979:130, 158 163).This method ofLines: 3615 exploitation later changed into a mode of exploitation when the chief s property16 became supreme and the community s property subordinate.In the process of 17 social evolution, the chief s supreme property was transformed into supreme 0.0pt 18 state private property and the chief into a czar, pharaoh, emperor, or the like.Normal19 In this way the first human antagonistic class formation (a type of society)PgEnds:20 in history arose, among which the clearest members are the ancient civiliza-21 tions of Egypt, Assyria, China, and Early Peru.Semenov proposed calling22 this formation politarism (from the Greek word politiia state ).Underlying[44], (3023 politaristic societies was the supreme property of the state, which was based on24 the fundamental means of production (primarily land) and on the individual25 as the direct producer.All this was the combined official and private property26 of the bureaucrats and the communal village property of the peasant societies.27 The primary mode of exploitation in these societies was state redistribution (in28 Ancient Rus [Russia] it bore the name poliud e).It can be noted that politarism29 was very widely represented in various forms throughout the course of human30 history (Grinev 1996b).31 Besides the redistributive form of exploitation in Tlingit society there existed32 (though rare) servitude in which impoverished people and orphans worked33 for the chief for food (Semenov 1993:2:337).The Tlingit scornfully called these34 degraded kinsmen, who depended on the mercy of others, slaves of dried35 fish. However, wealthy relatives could redeem such a person from his almost36 slavelike state (De Laguna 1972:1:468 469).In addition, there existed among37 the Tlingit marriage servitude, the exploitation of wives by husbands without38 equivalent compensation for their work, as well as slavery, war plunder, and39 intermediate trade.44 Tlingit Indians before Contact with Europeans 1 On the whole, as has been repeatedly mentioned in Russian historiogra-2 phy, economic relations among the Tlingit were complex and contradictory,3 typifying societies on the threshold of class formation (Averkieva 1974:1544 170; Grinev 1991:62; Mauss 1996:169; Semenov 1993:2:340).Along with the5 emerging relationship between private property and exploitation, the eco-6 nomic relations of the Indians also had several archaic features that reflected7 the contradictory, dual character of property.Thus, in Tlingit society there8 simultaneously existed distribution by need (sharing relations), distribution by9 work, and distribution by property.This whole complex gamut of economic10 relations made a profound imprint on all sides of life in Tlingit society.114.2.Potlatch12[45], (31)13 The clearest manifestation of the prestige economy among the Tlingit, as well14 as among other Indians of the Northwest Coast, was the potlatch (whichLines: 37215 translates as to give a gift in the Nootka language), a well-known ritual16 that has been studied by several generations of ethnographers.At its core the 17 potlatch was the act of prestige gift exchange, which usually occurred between 0.0pt Pg 18 two or more intermarried clans.This was the mechanism that guaranteed theNormal Pag19 circulation of excess and surplus goods created in Tlingit society.Besides thePgEnds: TEX20 potlatch, the Tlingit had other festivals, ceremonies, and feasts.And though21 they also were a manifestation of a prestige economy, they bore a narrower,22 individual character
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