342 ACCULTURATION IN SEVEN AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES

performed the function of middlemen between the Europeans and
the natives of the interior. However, at least two considerations
point to the probability that not until White trade became impor-
tant did coast culture make its strong imprint upon the Alkatcho
Carrier. The suggestions as to the probable chronology of the
potlatch-rank complex integration at Alkatcho and its correlation
with the growth of the fur trade have already been indicated. This
alone would lend fair credibility to the assumption that the dif-
fusion and adaptation of Bella Coola cultural elements followed
not upon aboriginal trade, but upon rapidly expanding White
fur trade.

Trade relations alone could hardly account for the acceptance
of a system of social stratification, and the potlatch with its conse-
quent economic strain; but intermarriage between the Carrier and
Bella Coola, as will be seen, makes inevitable the acceptance of
the potlatch-rank complex. But why should the Bella Coola, whose .
chief concern in negotiating a marriage was to increase the quan-
tity and quality of honorific prerogatives within the family line,
seek alliances with the Carrier whom they admittedly despised,
and who could offer no such advantages? Further, the Bella Coola,
in order to preserve within the ancestral family honorific names
and prerogatives, encouraged endogamy to the point where oc-
curred symbolic marriages between a man and one of his limbs.
‘Thus, Bella Coola-Carrier matches could be accounted for on two
possible grounds, either the Carrier married only within the com-
moner families at Bella Coola, or the Carrier had other advantages
to offer in compensation for their lack of genealogical distinction.
An examination of Bella Coola derived names among the Carrier
disposes of the first possibility. These names are derived from noble
families mainly.

Once the Alkatcho Carrier became important as a source of
wealth, however, they might very well be welcomed within the
Bella Coola lineages. For though social status at Bella Coola de-
pended upon genealogical distinction, vertical nobility within the
caste structure depended primarily upon wealth. Where honorific
names and prerogatives could be derived bilaterally from a num-
ber of family lines any individual possessing enough wealth to
potlatch could easily assume the titles of nobility. In contrast to