False kings and imagined protestants: why schismogenesis does not explain variation in inequality among Indigenous societies of the Pacific Coast

Indigenous societies along the temperate Pacific coast of North America embody diverse cultural institutions. This variation is conventionally classified into two distinct cultural areas: the Northwest Coast (NWC) and California (CAL). Discussion of the environmental, material, social, and ideological variation in these societies has a long and continuing history in anthropology. In the last few years, two divergent accounts of this variation have appeared. One, proposed by Wengrow and Graeber, drawing on the concept of schismogenesis – ‘progressive differentiation’ at points of culture contact – posits a sharp contrast between Northwest Coast ‘Fisher‐kings’ and Californian ‘Protestant foragers’. The second views variation across the region as more continuous, focusing on how differential resource control and patron‐client dynamics can generate asymmetries in wealth and power. Our review of Wengrow and Graeber's proposal identifies several flaws: it portrays NWC culture in an over‐simplified and reductive manner, exaggerates the differences between CAL and NWC societies (particularly in the boundary region), and fails to provide convincing evidence that those differences result from oppositional differentiation (schismogenesis). We then explain why we believe opportunities for resource control offer a more empirically valid and theoretically coherent explanation for variation in political economy across these two culture areas.