Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century, Second Edition

Decades after its initial publication, Symbolic Immortality retains its status as the most comprehensive analysis of the mortuary practices of the Tlingit Indians of southeastern Alaska--or any other indigenous culture of the Northwest Coast. This updated and expanded edition furthers our understanding of the potlatch (koo.éex') as a total social phenomenon, with emotional and religious as well as economic and sociopolitical dimensions. The result is a major contribution to both Northwest Coast ethnology and theoretical literature on the anthropology of death.

Author: Sergei Kan
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 12/22/2015
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.72lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.06d
ISBN: 9780295995144

About the Author

Sergei Kan is professor of anthropology and Native American studies at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries and A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska, and editor of Sharing Our Knowledge: The Tlingit and Their Coastal Neighbors.