The Crime of Giving

The Potlatch Principle

What is a potlatch?

In Western culture, when you have a big party, your invited guests will bring you a token of gratitiude. This can range from anything to a bag of Doritos to a bottle of Dom Perignon, depending on your social status.

But what if you threw a party where the goal was to give ALL your stuff to your guests? And if the success of the party was judged by how much of your stuff you gave away? Such is the nature of the Potlatch.

The Potlatch is a ceremony conducted by Native communities on the west coast of Canada. Sadly, the concept of giving freely so threatened the "taking freely" mindset of the colonials that the Potlatch ceremony was made illegal.

Think about that for a moment. I invite you to my house, I give away everything I own so that I may be held in high regard in my community and the government is so disturbed by this activity that they criminalize it.

The government of British Columbia actually did this, and they imprisoned native people in British Columbia for doing this as late as the 1970's. If you ever get to Alert Bay, check out the museum, as it chronicles the criminalization of giving.