OO SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



recognition as a full-fledged noble and to make good a title one had 

 to give a large feast, called a potlatch, at which he lavishly bestowed 

 presents on rival nobles. Like our own "social set," the Carrier 

 aristocrats constantly jockeyed for rank by a succession of potlatches 

 at which they sought to prove their superior wealth. The common 

 people were merely auxiliary to this system. They were entitled to 

 hunt on the land of certain noblemen, who were perhaps their own 

 clansmen, but they were always liable to sizable levies when the 

 nobleman needed goods to potlatch. 



The Carrier had changed from a system of bands to one of a 

 stratified society based on wealth without any modifications of their 

 economic basis of life. The first effect of the coming of the white man 

 was an improved economic technology, but the social organization was 

 not affected. The fur trade established in 1806 brought steel 

 traps, guns, tools, and manufactured goods given in exchange 

 for furs. The Carrier nobles became richer and their potlatches more 

 pretentious. 



In the course of time, however, white influence directly and indi- 

 rectly undermined the old Carrier society. The improved technology 

 that at first produced greater wealth soon led to overexploitation of 

 animal resources, with a diminution of wealth and consequent diffi- 

 culty in potlatching. Meanwhile, the Catholic missionaries, who 

 arrived in 1842, effected a remarkably thorough conversion of the 

 Fort St. James people. Clan totems were overthrown, clans fell apart, 

 and potlatching was regarded as a barbarism. The virtue of saving 

 supplanted the glamour of giving presents. Men refused to will their 

 hunting lands to their nephews and divided them equally among their 

 own sons. Titles, formerly inseparable from lands, were confused 

 by this new system of inheritance. Moreover, nobles, lacking wealth 

 with which to potlatch, fell into disrepute. By the beginning of the 

 present century nearly every Carrier had his own land and used it 

 exclusively to support his own family. In 1926 trap lines were reg- 

 istered with the British Columbia Provincial government. 



Today the Carrier Indians continue to live mainly from resources 

 of the forests. As in days of old, they set out each fall with dog sleds 

 or pack dogs to their trap lines. But with steel traps and modern 

 rifles there is constant temptation to overexploit, a matter of no little 

 concern to Provincial officials. In addition to furs, which are ex- 

 changed at the trading posts for manufactured goods, the Carrier 

 sell moccasins and bags of moose hide, prepared and tanned in the 

 native manner (fig. 83). The salmon catch has greatly decreased be- 

 cause the law forbids construction of fish weirs and because down- 



