VII

It is easy to see that almost all the categories of gifts, which I have classified according to economic principles, are also based on some sociological relationship. Thus the first type of gifts, that is, the free gifts, take place in the relationship between husband and wife, and in that between parents and children. Again, the second class of gifts, that is, the obligatory ones, given without systematic repayment, are associated with relationship-in-law, mainly, though the chief’s tributes also belong to this class.

If we drew up a scheme of sociological relations, each type of them would be defined by a special class of economic duties. There would be some parallelism between such a sociological classification of payments and presents, and the one given above. But such parallelism is only approximate. It will be therefore interesting to draw up a scheme of exchanges, classified according to the social relationship, to which they correspond. This will give us good insight into the economics of Trobriand sociology, as well as another view of the subject of payments and presents.

Going over the sociological outline in Chapter II, Divisions V and VI, we see that the family, the clan and sub-clan, the village community, the district and the tribe are the main social divisions of the Trobriands. To these groupings correspond definite bonds of social relationship. Thus, to the family, there correspond no less than three distinct types of relationship, according to native ideas. First of all there is the matrilineal kinship (veyola) which embraces people, who can trace common descent through their mothers. This is, to the natives, the blood relationship, the identity of flesh, and the real kinship. The marriage relation comprises that between husband and wife, and father and children. Finally, the relationship between the husband and the wife’s matrilineal kinsmen forms the third class of personal ties corresponding to family. These three types of personal bonds are clearly distinguished in terminology, in the current linguistic usage, in custom, and in explicitly formulated ideas.

To the grouping into clans and sub-clans, there pertain the ties existing between clansmen and more especially between members of the same sub-clan, and on the other hand, the relationship between a man and members of different clans. Membership in the same sub-clan is a kind of extended kinship. The relationship to other clans is most important, where it assumes the form of special friendship called luba’i. The grouping into village communities results in the very important feature of fellow membership in the same village community. The distinction of rank associated with clanship, the division into village communities and districts, result, in the manner sketched out in Chapter II, in the subordination of commoners to chiefs. Finally, the general fact of membership in the tribe creates the bonds which unite every tribesman with another and which in olden days allowed of a free though not unlimited intercourse, and therefore of commercial relations. We have, therefore, eight types of personal relationship to distinguish. In the following table we see them enumerated with a short survey of their economic characteristics.

1. Matrilineal kinship.—The underlying idea that this means identity of blood and of substance is by no means forcibly expressed on its economic side. The right of inheritance, the common participation in certain titles of ownership, and a limited right to use one another’s implements and objects of daily use are often restricted in practice by private jealousies and animosities. In economic gifts more especially, we find here the remarkable custom of purchasing during lifetime, by instalments, the titles to garden plots and trees and the knowledge of magic, which by right ought to pass at death from the older to the younger generation of matrilineal kinsmen. The economic identity of matrilineal kinsmen comes into prominence at the tribal distributions—sagali—where all of them have to share in the responsibilities of providing food.

2. Marriage ties.—(Husband and wife; and derived from that, father and children). It is enough to tabulate this type of relationship here, and to remind the reader that it is characterised by free gifts, as has been minutely described in the foregoing classification of gifts, under (1).

3. Relationship-in-law.—These ties are in their economic aspect not reciprocal or symmetrical. That is, one side in it, the husband of the woman, is the economically favoured recipient, while the wife’s brothers receive from him gifts of smaller value in the aggregate. As we know, this relationship is economically defined by the regular and substantial harvest gifts, by which the husband’s storehouse is filled every year by his wife’s brothers. They also have to perform certain services for him. For all this, they receive a gift of vaygu’a (valuables) from time to time, and some food in payment for services rendered.

4. Clanship.—The main economic identification of this group takes place during the sagali, although the responsibility for the food rests only with those actually related by blood with the deceased man. All the members of the sub-clan, and to a smaller extent members of the same clan within a village community, have to contribute by small presents given to the organisers of the sagali.

5. The Relationship of Personal Friendship.—Two men thus bound as a rule will carry on Kula between themselves, and, if they belong to an inland and Lagoon village respectively, they will be partners in the exchange of fish and vegetables (wasi).

6. Fellow-citizenship in a Village Community.—There are many types of presents given by one community to another. And, economically, the bonds of fellow-citizenship mean the obligation to contribute one’s share to such a present. Again, at the mortuary divisions, sagali, the fellow-villagers of clans, differing from the deceased man’s, receive a series of presents for the performance of mortuary duties.

7. Relationship between Chiefs and Commoners.—The tributes and services given to a chief by his vassals on the one hand, and the small but frequent gifts which he gives them, and the big and important contribution which he makes to all tribal enterprises are characteristic of this relationship.

8. Relationship between any two tribesmen.—This is characterised by payments and presents, by occasional trade between two individuals, and by the sporadic free gifts of tobacco or betel-nut which no man would refuse to another unless they were on terms of hostility.

With this, the survey of gifts and presents is finished. The general importance of give and take to the social fabric of Boyowan society, the great amount of distinctions and sub-divisions of the various gifts can leave no doubt as to the paramount rôle which economic acts and motives play in the life of these natives.

1 Cf. Chapter II, Divisions III and IV, and some of the following Divisions of this Chapter. ↑

2 I am adducing these views not for any controversial purposes, but to justify and make clear why I stress certain general features of Trobriand Economic Sociology. My contentions might run the danger of appearing as gratuitous truisms if not thus justified. The opinion that primitive humanity and savages have no individual property is an old prejudice shared by many modern writers, especially in support of communistic theories, and the so-called materialistic view of history. The “communism of savages” is a phrase very often read, and needs no special quotation. The views of individual search for food and household economy are those of Karl Bücher, and they have directly influenced all the best modern writings on Primitive Economics. Finally, the view that we have done with Primitive Economics if we have described the way in which the natives procure their food, is obviously a fundamental premise of all the naïve, evolutionary theories which construct the successive stages of economic development. This view is summarised in the following sentence: “… In many simple communities, the actual food quest, and operations immediately arising from it, occupy by far the greater part of the people’s time and energy, leaving little opportunity for the satisfaction of any lesser needs.” This sentence, quoted out of “Notes and Queries on Anthropology,” p. 160, article on the “Economics of the Social Group,” represents what may be called the official view of contemporary Ethnology on the subject, and in perusing the rest of the article, it can be easily seen that all the manifold economic problems, with which we are dealing in this book, have been so far more or less neglected. ↑

3 These views had to be adduced at length, although touched upon already in Chapter II, Division IV, because they imply a serious error with regard to human nature in one of its most fundamental aspects. We can show up their fallacy on one example only, that of the Trobriand Society, but even this is enough to shatter their universal validity and show that the problem must be re-stated. The criticised views contain very general propositions, which, however, can be answered only empirically. And it is the duty of the field Ethnographer to answer and correct them. Because a statement is very general, it can none the less be a statement of empirical fact. General views must not be mixed up with hypothetical ones. The latter must be banished from field work; the former cannot receive too much attention. ↑

4 As a matter of fact, this custom is not so prominent in the Trobriands as in other Massim districts and all over the Papuo-Melanesian world, cf. for instance Seligman, op. cit., p. 56 and Plate VI, Fig. 6. ↑

5 Again, in explaining value, I do not wish to trace its possible origins, but I try simply to show what are the actual and observable elements into which the natives’ attitude towards the object valued can be analysed. ↑

6 These natives have no idea of physiological fatherhood. See Chapter II, Division VI. ↑

7 Compare Plate XXXIII, where the yam houses of a headman are filled by his wife’s brothers. ↑

8 This advantage was probably in olden days a mutual one. Nowadays, when the fishermen can earn about ten or twenty times more by diving for pearls than by performing their share of the wasi, the exchange is as a rule a great burden on them. It is one of the most conspicuous examples of the tenacity of native custom that in spite of all the temptation which pearling offers them and in spite of the great pressure exercised upon them by the white traders, the fishermen never try to evade a wasi, and when they have received the inaugurating gift, the first calm day is always given to fishing, and not to pearling. ↑