A few excerpts from the tremendous text.
“These peoples [Melanesian tribes] possess an extra domestic economy and a very developed system of exchange that throbs with life more intensely and more precipitantly perhaps than the one that our peasants or the fishing villages along our coasts were familiar with maybe not even a hundred years ago. They have an extensive economic life, going beyond the confines of the islands and their dialects, which represents a considerable trade. Through gifts made and reciprocated they have robustly replaced a system of buying and selling.”
“Each of these precious things, these signs of wealth possesses — as in the
Trobriand Islands — its individuality, its name, it’s qualities, its power.
The large abalone shells, the shields that are covered with these shells, the
belts and the blankets that are decorated with them, the blankets themsevles
that also bear emblems covered with faces, eyes, and animal and human figures
that are woven and embroidered on them — all are living beings. The houses,
the beams, and the decorated walls are also beings. Everything speaks — the
roof, the fire, the carvings, the paintings — for the magical house is built,
not only by the chief or his people, or the people of the opposing phratry, but
also by one’s gods and ancestors. It is the house that both accepts and rejects
the spirits and the youthful initiatives.
Each one of these precious things possesses, moreover, productive power itself.
It is not a mere sign and pledge; it is also a sign and a pledge of wealth, the
magical and religious symbol of rank and plenty. The dishes and spoons used
solemnly for eating, and decorated, carved, and emblazoned with the clan’s totem
or the totem of rank, are animate things. They are replicas of the
inexhaustible instruments, the creators of food, that the spirits gave to one’s
ancestors. They are themselves deemed to have fairylike qualities. Thus things
are mixed up with spirits, their originators, and eating instruments with food.
The dishes of the Kwakiutl and the spoons of the Haida are essential items that
circulate according to very strict rules and are meticulously shared out among
the clans and the families of the chiefs.”
“It is in the nature of food to be shared out. Not to share it with others is to ‘killits essence’, it is to destroy it both for oneself and for others. This is the interpretation, both materialist and idealist, that Brahminism has given to charity and hospitality. Wealth is made to be given away. If there were no Brahminds to recieve it, ‘vain would be the riches of the rich’. ‘He who eats without knowledge kills the food, and once it is eaten, it kills him.’ Avarice breaks the circle of the law; rewards and foods are perpetually reborn from one another.”
“It is possible to extend these observations to our own societies. A
considerable part of our morality and our lives themsevles are still permeated
with this same atmosphere of the gift, where obligation and liberty intermingle.
Fortunately, everything is still not wholly categorized in terms of buying and
selling. Things till have have sentimental as well as venal value, assuming
values merely of this kind exist. We possess more than a tradesman morality.
There still remain people and classes that keep to the morality of former times,
and we almost all observe it, at least at certain times of the year or on
certain occasions. The unreciprocated gift still makes the person who has
accepted it inferior, particularly when it has been accepted with no thought of
returning it. We are still in the field of Germanic morality when we recall the
curious essay by Emerson entitled ‘Gifts’. Charity is still wounding for him who
has accepted it, and the whole tendency of our morality is to strive to do away
with the unconscious and injurious patronage of the rich almsgiver.
The invitation must be returned, just as ‘courtesies’ must. Surprisingly, here
are to be seen traces of the old, traditional, moral basis, that of the ancient
aristocratic potlatches. Here we also see come to the surface these fundamental
motives for human activity: emulation between individuals of the same sex, that
‘basic imperialism’ of human beings. On the one hand, it is the social basis, on
the other the animal and psychological basis, that appears. In that separate
existence that constitutes our social life, we ourselves cannot ’lag behind’, as
the expression still goes.”
“….In short, they would like the cost of security for the worker and his defence against being out of work to become part of the general expenses of each individual industry. All such morality and legislation corresponds in our opinion, not to any upheaval in the law, but a return to it.”
“In ancient systems of morality of the most epicurean kind it is the good and pleasurable that is sought after, and not material utility. The victory of rationalism and mercantilism was needed before the notions of profit and the individual, raised to the level of principles, were introduced. One can almost date—since Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees— the triumph of the notion of individual interest.”
“The producer who carries on exchange feels once more—he has always felt it, but this time he does so acutely—that he is exchanging more than a product of hours of working time, but that he is giving something of himself—his time, his life. Thus he wishes to be rewarded, even if only moderately, for this gift. To refuse him this reward is to make him become idle or less productive.”
“Perhaps by studying these obscure aspects of social life we shall succeed in throwing a little light upon the path that our nations must follow, both in their morality and in their economy.”
“It is by considering the whole entity that we could percieve what is essential, the way everything moves, the living aspect, the fleeting moment when society, or men, become sentimentally aware of themselves and of their situation in relation to others.”
“Moreover, within these groups, individuals, even those with strong characteristics, were less sad, less serious, less miserly, and less personal than we are. Externally at least, they were or are more generous, more liable to give than we are. The law of friendship and contracts, with the gods, came to ensure ‘peace’ within ‘markets’ and towns. This occurred when groups paid visits to one another at tribal festivals and at ceremonies where clans confronted one another and families allied themselves or began ‘initiations’ with one another. It happened even in more advanced societies when the ‘law of hospitality’ had been developed. Over a considerable period of time and in a considerable number of societies, men approached one another in a curious frame of mind, one of fear and exaggerated hostility, and of generosity that was likewise exaggerated, but such traits only appear insane to our eyes. In all the societies that have immediately preceded our own, and still exist around us, and even in numerous customs extant in our popular morality, there is no middle way: one trusts completely, or one mistrusts completely; one lays down one’s arms and gives up magic, or one gives everything, from fleeting acts of hospitality to one’s daughter and one’s goods.”
“Societies have progressed in so far as they themselves, their subgroups, and lastly, the individuals in them, have succeeded in stabilizing relationships, giving, receiving, and finally, giving in return. To trade, the first condition was to be able to lay aside the spear.”
“In certain cases, one can study the whole of human behaviour, and social life in its entirety. One can also see how this concrete study can lead not only to a science of customs, to a partial social science but even to moral conclusions, or rather, to adopt once more the old word, ‘civility’, or ‘civics’, as it is called nowadays. Studies of this kind indeed allow us to perceive, measure, and weigh up the various aesthetic, moral, religious, and economic motivations, the diverse material and demographic factors, the sum total of which are the basis of society and constitute our common life, the conscious direction of which is the supreme art, Politics, in the Socratic sense of the word.”