As far as I can judge from what I know of it, Sveltje is right. "Richness" was measured in the amount of presents given to the participants. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Actually, we don't know from which native american language "potlach" comes from, since there had once been several hundred languages, and still there are some, although the number is reduced nowadays. So we cannot say what the word originally means. It might be a mere coincidence (right spelled ?) that it contains the particle "pot".
