Customer Reviews

The Potlatch Papers: A Colonial Case History

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Although I am not an uneducated person, I did not understand large sections of this book. Reading it was like reading a paper in nuclear physics or theoretical linguistics; it is simply not accessible to the layman.

Here is a passage that seems characteristic of the author's arguments. In discussing an apparent transcription error in a government report, in which the word "potlatch" was spelled "potlack", he writes:

"No doubt the mistake was made by chance, but it obeys a necessary law... 'Potlatch' points, in the end, to a 'potlack'. It does not gesture toward an object nor to what is known about that object. Or rather what it refers to is the absence of its referent, and its meaning is that it has no meaning. The word points, in truth, to the truth about the truth: it points to the truth that truth itself is not to be found in the act of pointing."

If this passage makes sense to you, then you'll probably like this book. But if, like me, it leaves you scratching your head, I suggest reading something else!

I don't know whether this is the highly precise language of a specific academic discipline with which I am not familiar, or if it's just a raft of pretentious horse puckey. Either way, I'm obviously not a member of the intended audience. Although I did glean a few new insights from the book, reading it was like beating my head against the wall: a frustrating and largely unrewarding experience.