ABSTRACT
Authentic descriptions of Indian societies then began to have value in their own right. But these descriptions also served speculative social theory, by then mainly full blown reconstructions of "stages" of social evolution. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes. In summary, the archaeological evidence strongly suggests a long history of social stratification and privilege in southeastern societies and there is strong ethnohistoric evidence for at least two stratified societies at the time of contact. In summary, traditional Northwest Coast societies were the antithesis of the egalitarianism that dominates the orthodox image of the native societies of North America.
