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Native Americans of the Pacific coast who saw bountiful years more often than not also engaged in rituals of conspicuous consumption, typically by burning the e
by washadjeffmad 5y ago
Native Americans of the Pacific coast who saw bountiful years more often than not also engaged in rituals of conspicuous consumption, typically by burning the excess.
This is something that would have been taught to anyone taking an anthropology class in college from at least the 1960s, and if you've seen these displays in person, they're fairly impactful.
That's what I've always associated Burning Man with. It's an effigy and totem of our ephemeral human-ness, enabled in a harsh and hostile environment by the excesses we've accumulated over the whole of human history. We pause briefly to remember that how we live now is not the only way and reflect on the loss of our common pasts, and that one day this too will not exist.
The human sacrifice angle feels like the kind of contrived pop-culture interpretation someone who's watched Temple of Doom too many times and hasn't read enough local history would convince themself of.
- mullingitover 5y ago> Native Americans of the Pacific coast who saw bountiful years more often than not also engaged in rituals of conspicuous consumption, typically by burning the excess. Burning Man definitely feels like white people 'discovering' potlatch. The actual burning of the man is mostly a hood ornament for the event. The festival itself and its culture revolve around creating a community and your rank in that community mainly comes from how much you give away. That's really the thing that keeps people coming back, not the fancy bonfire.
- throwaway984393 5y ago> and your rank in that community mainly comes from how much you give away really it's how much perceived value and social power you have, which is not necessarily related to gifting. you can have elevated rank if you run a theme camp, if you organize big art, if you're the head of a department, if you can get a lot of tickets, if you run a turn-key camp, or if people just really really like you. technically none of that implies gifting.
- UncleOxidant 5y agoI once read (I believe it was in [1]) that the indigenous tribes of the PNW especially along the coast had one of the highest standards of living on earth at the time Lewis & Clark arrived. Food (salmon, berries, shellfish) was exceedingly abundant as was wood for building and fuel. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18085481-astoria https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18085481-astoria
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- dghlsakjg 5y agoThis is a little outside your point, but the arrival of Lewis and Clark was kind of an irrelevant point for the PNW nations. Russia had been trading with the northwest since 1740, numerous other expeditions had been out there, and there had already been massive changes caused by contact.
- UncleOxidant 5y agoThere was also pretty widespread trade between tribes up and down the West coast from what is now BC all the way down through the what is now the Baja.