クワクワカワクゥはいかに漁業に参入したか

――企業家の誕生、活動と戦略――

抄録

  Focusing on the entrepreneurs among the Kwakwaka’wakw, indigenous ethnic group of Pacific coast of Canada(Northwest Coast), this essay is intended to analyze how the entrepreneurs were born during the period of Canada’s colonialism (1849-), what they actually did, and what strategy they elaborated for success in their enterprise and their “political” dimension.

  Kwakwaka’wakw entrepreneurs are defined as “brokers” in this essay. Unlike the “go-betweens”, they positively tried to manipulate relationship between two groups or structures, by introducing new values. The most important events for the birth of these entrepreneur-brokers on the Northwest Coast were the introduction and development of salmon commercial fishery, and a purchase of seine boats by the Kwakwaka’wakw skippers. These events were important, because the purchase of seine boats could be regarded as an industrial investment for salmon commercial fishery. Thus shifting their status from skippers to captains and becoming entrepreneurs, they expanded their business by using the “resources” such as amassed wage, technology and knowledge of business acquired from fishing business, and went into a relationship of transaction with the Kwakwaka’wakw in general, providing the “resources” to it.

  For entrepreneurs, “political” success meant a kind of an introduction of social change, acceptance from the Kwakwaka’wakw in general of what the entrepreneurs intended to introduce. They needed strategy for this purpose; a transaction. Contrary to the go-betweens such as Indian agent and RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), these entrepreneur-brokers who could not exercise any political force, needed a transactional activity with the Kwakwaka’wakw in general in order to make it accept their intention and value of the “resources” they introduced. The social arena in which entrepreneurs could bring adout change was limited to a great extent to the range of their transactions.