THE ALKATCHO CARRIER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 355

sadeku. This group often lived in isolation during the fall trap-
ping season, so that children learned very quickly the distinction
between own and social sibling. Children also inherited names
and social position from their own parents as well as from other
sadeku members.

A fundamental characteristic of Alkatcho Carrier kinship struc-
ture is the cleavage between the sadeku and the line of affinals.
A man’s relations with his wife’s family were formalized under
the rules of bride-service and gift exchange; but relations were
immediately disrupted either at divorce or death. In the latter
event the essential solidarity of blood kin over affinal outsiders
was demonstrated most vividly in the hostility already described
with which the surviving spouse was treated.

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Three social classes were recognized—the meotih, ‘chiefs’;
the telen, “poor men’; and the Elna, “slaves.” ‘The distinctions
drawn between detsa, “first one,” the sadeku headman, and meo-
tth, and between the latter and tcuindEn, “rich men,” are un-
doubtedly reflections of the pre-Coast culture period. Social
stratification was based, not upon any fundamental differences
in relationship to the means of production, but in theory at least
upon genealogical distinction as on the Coast. Theoretically, the
handing down of noble titles through the line of primogeniture,
younger children and descendants of their lines thus being de-
prived of titles of nobility, was the backbone of the class system.
But inasmuch as in practice no individual wealthy enough to
potlatch was deprived of noble prerogatives, social stratification
was effectively based upon wealth distinctions. The internal
structure of the sadeku tended, however, to foster social inequali-
ties. Only a first-born son received “legal” title to a trap-line,
younger siblings remaining economically dependent upon him
and obligated to assist him economically in property distribu-
tions. Each noble, though, attempted to elevate as many of his
children as possible to nobility, those closest to the line of first-
born of first-born, etc., having the greatest success in that en-
deavor. ‘The discussion of property relations will make this clear.