The dissertation is in two parts. The first part develops
a largely conjectural reconstruction of the social history of the
Carrier Indians of north-central B.C. in three stages. The history
commences with the Carrier in what is believed to be their original
setting amid fellow Athapaskan-speakers of the Yukon-Mackenzie woodlands.
A hypothetical system of composite bands is ascribed to the
Carrier at this stage, as the underlying social form out of which more
recent forms have arisen. Following their move to their present location in the salmon-spawning headwaters of the Skeena and Fraser systems,
a salmon-promoted segmentary elaboration of the bands (termed
the sept system) is envisioned. The sept stage is then succeeded by
a system involving the overlaying of the sept structure, to a considerable
extent under the impetus of the burgeoning fur-trade at the
turn of the 18th Century, by a system of coast-derived, territory-claiming, matrilineal crest-divisions, classes, ranks, and a potlatch
cycle which ceremonially articulate these various categories of social
structure. This last stage, designated the sept/phratry stage, represents
the Carrier social structure described by a number of research
scholars who have worked among the Carrier from the turn of the 19th
Century (the Oblate missionary-scholar Father A.G. Morice) to the present
(notably Jenness, Goldman, Hackler and myself).
The second part of the essay is a close analysis of the seating
and prestation-distribution orders of the protocols of the Carrier potlatch. The central thesis of Part II is that the ceremonial seating
and distribution arrangement of the major parameters of Carrier
society (chiefs, nobles, commons, clans, phratries, septs) is motivated
in consideration of the epi-ceremonial connotations of these categories;
especially by connotations proper to the diachronic perspective, i.e.,
by both ideologies of continuity, and folk-historic aspects of social
structure. The spatial/temporal arrangements of the potlatch are
treated, following the linguistic model, as "surface" structures which
manifest meanings out of principles of motivated syntax operating at
"deep" (i.e., unconscious) levels of structure. The "deep" level principles of space/time syntax are expressed as simple analogies, and it
is suggested that the motivation behind these patterns may derive from
certain givens of perceptual experience.
Thus, inasmuch as seating and prestation distribution s render
a symbolic expression of both historic and synchronic aspects of
epi-ceremonial social structure, Part I of the essay provides a foundation
for Part II by representing current Carrier social structure in
light of its reconstructed historic sources.
The conclusion discusses some of the mechanisms, elucidated
by the dissertation, which contribute to the cybernetic relations between
ritual and social structure. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/41267 |
| Date | January 1973 |
| Creators | Kobrinsky, Vernon Harris |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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