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Gift Assignment PDF

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Sofanias Hadgu
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34 views

Gift Assignment PDF

Uploaded by

Sofanias Hadgu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE EXCHANGE OF GIFTS AND

THE OBLIGATION TO
RECIPROCATE (POLYNESIA)
First, this system of contractual gifts in Samoa extends far
beyond marriage. Such gifts accompany the following events: the
birth of a child,2 circumcision,3 sickness,4 a daughter’s arrival at
puberty,5 funeral rites,6 trade.7
Next, two essential elements in potlatch proper can be
clearly distinguished here: the honour, prestige, and mana
conferred by wealth;8 and the absolute obligation to
reciprocate these gifts under pain of losing that mana, that
authority—the talisman and source of wealth that is authority
itself.9
THE SPIRIT OF THE THING GIVEN (MAORI)

When interpreted in this way the idea not only becomes clear,
but emerges as one of the key ideas of Maori law. What imposes
obligation in the present received and exchanged, is the fact
that the thing received is not inactive. Even when it has been
abandoned by the giver, it still possesses something of him.
For the time being, however, it
is clear that in Maori law, the legal tie, a tie occurring through
things, is one between souls, because the thing itself possesses
a soul, is of the soul. Hence it follows that to make a gift of
something to someone is to make a present of some part of oneself.
Next, in this way we can better account for the very
nature of exchange through gifts, of everything that we call
‘total services’, and among these, potlatch. In this system of
ideas one clearly and logically realizes that one must give back
to another person what is really part and parcel of his nature
and substance, because to accept something from somebody
is to accept some part of his spiritual essence, of his soul. To
retain that thing would be dangerous and mortal, not only
because it would be against law and morality, but also because
that thing coming from the person not only morally, but
physically and spiritually, that essence, that food,33 those goods,
whether movable or immovable, those women or those
descendants, those rituals or those acts of communion—all
exert a magical or religious hold over you. Finally, the thing
given is not inactive. Invested with life, often possessing
individuality, it seeks to return to what Hertz called its ‘place
of origin’ or to produce, on behalf of the clan and the native
from which it sprang, an equivalent to replace it.
III
OTHER THEMES: THE OBLIGATION TO GIVE,
THE OBLIGATION TO RECEIVE

The institution of ‘total services’ does not merely carry with it


the obligation to reciprocate presents received. It also supposes
two other obligations just as important: the obligation, on the
one hand, to give presents, and on the other, to receive them.
The obligation to give is no less important; a study of it might
enable us to understand how people have become exchangers of
goods and services. We can only point out a few facts. To refuse to
give,37 to fail to invite, just as to refuse to accept,38 is tantamount
to declaring war; it is to reject the bond of alliance and
commonality.39In all this there is a succession of rights and
duties to consume and reciprocate, corresponding to rights and
duties to offer and accept.
IV
NOTE: THE PRESENT MADE TO HUMANS, AND
THE PRESENT MADE TO THE GODS
IV
NOTE: THE PRESENT MADE TO HUMANS, AND
THE PRESENT MADE TO THE GODS
A fourth theme plays a part in this system and moral code relating
to presents: it is that of the gift made to men in the sight of the
gods and nature. We have not undertaken the general study that
would be necessary to bring out its importance.
The relationships that exist between these contracts and
exchanges among humans and those between men and the
gods throw light on a whole aspect of the theory of sacrifice.
First, they are perfectly understood, particularly in those
societies in which, although contractual and economic rituals
are practised between men, these men are the masked
incarnations, often Shaman priest-sorcerers, possessed by the
spirit whose name they bear. In reality, they merely act as
representatives of the spirits,58 because these exchanges and
contracts not only bear people and things along in their wake,
but also the sacred beings that, to a greater or lesser extent,
are associated with them.59 This is very clearly the case in the
Tlingit potlatch, in one of the two kinds of Haïda potlatch,
and in the Eskimo potlatch.

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