The Makah, with their whale-hunting tradition and their access to the outer coast fisheries, were producers of whale oil and dried marine products that were valued by interior and northern communities.

In exchange, they received goods from other ecological zones that their immediate territory did not provide: specific types of stone for tools, products of the river fisheries of the interior, and the social alliances that trade relationships reinforced and sustained.

The potlatch system was a critical institutional mechanism for managing this exchange network.

Potlatches were occasions for the display and distribution of wealth, for the validation of social status and formal titles, and for the conduct of various formal ceremonies and agreements.

They were also occasions for trade, where the gathering of multiple communities created conditions for the exchange of goods and the reinforcement of the trade relationships that connected those communities.