Spiritual Support
A gift economy is a system of exchange based on gift giving.
Valuables are given without explicit agreement of future rewards between individuals, or within a contained community of people.
Gift economies have a few key qualities. They are...
Loosely and informally tracked - it is bad form to calculate the exact value of gifts you receive, or keep an obsessive log of it the way we do with business finances. I was talking to Krysta the other day about how many of our ancestors didn't have numerical systems. There was no counting. No keeping track.
Indirect - it is not always two individuals giving back and forth. Instead gifting is generalised to a whole community where you may give to people who have not given directly to you
Delayed - we do not reciprocate gifts the minute we receive them," rather, we have faith that our needs will be met when they arise, because we have done our part in the gifting system
The emphasis in a gift exchange is on strengthening the bond between the givers and receivers.
It creates a kind of "positive debt," where two people or groups are now tied to one another - one party will always owe the other something. It's a purposeful way of entwining lives and communities together."
Most importantly, these gifts are not limited to luxuries and novelties.
These gifts are what care for all of our needs, and the needs of others - human people, animal people, plant people, spirits, gods, etc.
You need a shirt. I make shirts. You come to me, and I give you a shirt because you need it. We hug it out. Goodwill inserted into the Gift Economy Jar.
I need water. my other neighbor has a well. I walk over and ask if I may have some water from their well. They say yes, because I am in need. Goodwill inserted into the Gift economy jar.
My other neighbord needs pumpkin seeds. Someone else in the community is the seed keeper, the garden expert. They walk over and ask for a few pumpkin seeds. The Seed keeper neighbor happily offers them. More goodwill inserted into the gift economy jar.
A bunny hops into the seed keeper's garden and munches on a few roots. The seed keeper does not shoe them away, because bunny people need nourishment too. The seed keeper intentionally leaves part of the garden accessible to animals who wish to come and eat, leaves water for the birds and bees to come and drink.
Our seed keeper would like to create a feast for the community. They would like to cook salmon, but we don't have direct access to it. Our neighboring community does. We go and ask for abit of salmon for our community meal. They offer it happily, adding more goodwill into the gift economy jar.
And so it goes, forever and ever.
This is the ideal world. The garden planet. The kingdom of heaven incarnate.
It will take many steps before we get back here. It will get worse before it gets better. The land will need to be returned to indigenous stewards. But it will get better.
Further Resources
Gift Economy: New World Encyclopedia
**Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer**