Page "Potlatch" Paragraph 13

Eventually the potlatch law, as it became known, was amended to be more inclusive and address technicalities that had led to dismissals of prosecutions by the court.

Legislation included guests who participated in the ceremony.

The indigenous people were too large to police and the law too difficult to enforce.

Duncan Campbell Scott convinced Parliament to change the offence from criminal to summary, which meant " the agents, as justice of the peace, could try a case, convict, and sentence.

" Even so, except in a few small areas, the law was generally perceived as harsh and untenable.

Even the Indian agents employed to enforce the legislation considered it unnecessary to prosecute, convinced instead that the potlatch would diminish as younger, educated, and more " advanced " Indians took over from the older Indians, who clung tenaciously to the custom.