Gift economy
Potlatch is a celebration of native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. During the celebration, there is a ritual exchange of gifts. The value of the gifts demonstrates the wealth, power and influience of the person giving the gifts. Marcel Mauss saw this an example of a ruinous competition: The gifts often caused the ruin of the person giving them, or his tribe. That way, Potlatch was outlwawed in Canada, in late 19th century. There was a push to re-introduce the tradition in the 1950s.