Maslow travelled to study the social dynamics of the Blackfoot Tribe in the summer of 1938.
Practitoners are familiar with Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs as a way of seeing people in relationship to their lives.

In fact the study reverses the familiar triangle of self actualisation at the top of the pyramid (being yourself) as the Blackfoot tribe saw self actualisation as a basis for life: not a goal.
The Blackfoot Tribe gave value and status to the members who gave everything away to those more in need. Wealth is owning nothing.

People in the tribe who are deviant are not excluded from the tribe. If they changed their behaviour they are redeemed. Children are treated permissively but listen to adults and elders from an early age. All members are seen as valuable through a system of community actualisation. There is no word for poverty as the community provides the basics for living.The nearest idea to poverty is the loss of family. There is a strong relationship to place and people. If you spend your whole life in the same place with the same people it is preferable to be generous and trusting.

Maslow could not fully embrace his findings against the thinking of an individualistic society. Humans needs are interdependent not heirarchical was too much against the western way of being!

Maslow like Freud with the Viennese Medical Establisment & many other luminaries throughout history with opposing ideas could not publish what they found or believed in for fear of rejection & dismissal.

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