Definition of "potlach"

That night there was a grand wedding and a potlach; so that for two days to follow there was no fishing done by the village.

1900 April 7, Jack London, “The Wife of a King”, in The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], page 162

The chief was permitted to meet his many creditors and return the goods he had received at previous feasts on the distinct understanding, however, that no gifts were to be "potlached" i.e., donated with the usual custom of having them returned.

1885 November 2, I[srael] W[ood] Powell, “[Report on Indian Affairs in the Province of British Columbia]”, in Dominion of Canada: Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31st December, 1885. […], Ottawa: […] Maclean, Roger & Co., […], published 1886, page 120

After giving them a feed and potlaching some grub for their back trip, we paid the Indians off, after making arrangements with them to return at a certain date.

1908 February, F. M. Kelly, “Over the Backbone of Vancouver Island”, in Frank H. Mayer, editor, Western Field: The Sportsman’s Magazine of the West, volume 12, number 1, San Francisco, Calif.: The Western Field Company, page 37, column 1

Natives were potlaching during the best of the run. No occasion here for any shortage if no salmon were caught, as the Nulato River has a big run of trout and whitefish.

1920 May 4, Charles Steinhauser (witness), To Prohibit Fishing for Salmon in the Yukon River. Part 2: Hearings before the United States House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Subcommittee on Fish and Fish Hatcheries, Sixty-Sixth Congress, Second Session, on May 4, 1920, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 20

While girls are married as soon as they mature, the men marry much later, for custom dictates that a man to be eligible for marriage must have potlached at least once and preferably three times. This rule is gradually breaking down, but even now public opinion frowns on early marriage by young men.

1959, Robert A. McKennan, The Upper Tanana Indians (Yale Publications in Anthropology; no. 55), New Haven, Conn.: Department of Anthropology, Yale University, page 118; quoted in Marie-Françoise Guédon, “Life Cycle”, in People of Tetlin, Why are You Singing? (Mercury Series, Ethnology Division Paper; no. 9), Ottawa: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1974, page 186

When they describe, for example, payment of cattle for a bride in East Africa, offering a gift in India to earn spiritual merit, exchanging favors between compadres in Middle America, giving a ceremonial necklace in return for an arm shell in the Trobriand kula ring, and potlaching each other by Kwakiutl chiefs, ethnographers are assuming the operation of some reciprocal principle.

1980, Harumi Befu, “Structural and Motivational Approaches to Social Exchange”, in Kenneth J. Gergen, Martin S. Greenberg, Richard H. Willis, editors, Social Exchange: Advances in Theory and Research, New York, N.Y.: Plenum Press, Springer Science+Business Media, published 2012