Argonauts of the Western Pacific

by Bronisław Malinowski

The big mortuary distributions of food, sagali, have already been mentioned several times. On their economic side, these distributions are payments for funerary services. The deceased man’s nearest maternal kinsman has to give food gifts to all the villagers for their assuming mourning, that is to say, for blackening their faces and cutting their hair. He pays some other special people for wailing and grave digging; a still smaller group for cutting out the dead man’s ulna and using it as a lime spoon; and the widow or widower for the prolonged and scrupulously to be observed period of strict mourning.

All these details show how universal and strict is the idea that every social obligation or duty, though it may not on any account be evaded, has yet to be re-paid by a ceremonial gift. The function of these ceremonial re-payments is, on the surface of it, to thicken the social ties from which arise the obligations.

The similarity of the gifts and payments which we have put into this category is expressed by the native use of the word mapula (repayment, equivalent) in connection with all these gifts. Thus in giving the reason why a certain present is made to a magician, or why a share is allotted to a man at the sagali (distribution), or why some valuable object is given to a specialist, they would say: „This is the mapula for what he has done”. Another interesting identification contained in linguistic usage is the calling of both magical payments and payments to specialists : a „restorative” or, literally, a „poultice”. Certain extra fees given to a magician are described as „katuwarina kaykela” or „poultice for his leg”; as the magician, especially he of the garden or the sorcerer, has to take long walks in connection with his magic. The expression „poultice of my back” will be used by a canoe-builder who has been bending over his work, or „poultice of my hand” by a carver or stone-polisher. But the identity of these gifts is not in any way expressed in the detailed terminology. In fact, there is a list of words describing the various payments for magic, the gifts given to specialists, love payments, and the numerous types of gifts distinguished at the sagali. Thus a magical payment, of which a small part would be offered to ancestral spirits, is called ula’ula; a substantial magical gift is called sousula; a gift to a sorcerer is described by the verb ibudipeta, and there are many more special names. The gifts to the specialists are called vewoulo — the initial gift; yomelu — a gift of food given after the object has been ceremonially handed over to the owner; karibudaboda — a substantial gift of yams given at the next harvest. The gifts of food, made while the work is in progress are called vakapula; but this latter term has much wider application, as it covers all the presents of cooked or raw food given to workers by the man, for whom they work. The sexual gifts are called buwana or sebuwana. I shall not enumerate the various terminological distinctions of sagali gifts, as this would be impossible to do, without entering upon the enormous subject of mortuary duties and distributions.

The classification of love gifts and sagali gifts in the same category with gifts to magicians and specialists, is a generalisation in which the natives would not be able to follow us. For them, the gifts given at sagali form a class in themselves and so do the love gifts. We may say that, from the economic point of view, we were correct in classing all these gifts together, because they all represent a definite type of equivalence; also they correspond to the native idea that every service has to be paid for, an idea documented by the linguistic use of the word mapula. But within this class, the sub- divisions corresponding to native terminology represent important distinctions made by the natives between the three sub-classes; love gifts, sagali gifts, and gifts for magical and professional services.

4. Gifts returned in economically equivalent form. — We are enumerating the various types of exchange, as they gradually assume the appearance of trade. In this fourth class have been put such gifts as must be re-paid with almost strict equivalence. But it must be stressed that strict equivalence of two gifts does not assimilate them to trade altogether. There can be no more perfect equivalence between gift and counter-gift, than when A gives to B an object, and B on the same day returns the very same object to A. At a certain stage of the mortuary proceedings, such a gift is given and received back again by a deceased man’s kinsmen and his widow’s brothers. Yet it is obvious at once that no transaction could be further removed from trade. The above described gifts at the presentation of new canoes (kabigidoya) belong to this class. So do also numerous presents given to one community by another, on visits which are going to be returned soon. Payments for the lease of a garden plot are at least in certain districts of the Trobriands returned by a gift of equivalent value.

Sociologically, this class of gifts is characteristic of the relationship between friends (luba’i). Thus the kabigidoya takes place between friends, the Kula takes place between overseas partners and inland friends, but of course relations- in-law also belong par excellence to this category.

Other types of equivalent gifts which have to be mentioned here shortly, are the presents given by one household to another, at the milamala, the festive period associated with the return of the ancestral spirits to their villages. Offerings of cooked food are ceremonially exposed in houses for the use of the spirits, and after these have consumed the spiritual substance, the material one is given to a neighbouring household. These gifts are always reciprocal.

Again, a series of mutual gifts exchanged immediately after marriage between a man and his wife’s father (not matrilineal kinsman in this case), have to be put into this category.

The economic similarity of these gifts is not expressed in terminology or even in linguistic use. All the gifts I have enumerated have their own special names, which I shall not adduce here, so as not to multiply irrelevant details of infor- mation. The natives have no comprehensive idea that such a class as I have spoken of exists. My generalisation is based upon the very interesting fact, that all through the tribal life we find scattered cases of direct exchange of equivalent gifts. Nothing perhaps could show up so clearly, how much the natives value the give and take of presents for its own sake.

5. Exchange of Material Goods against Privileges, Titles and non-material Possessions. — Under this heading, I class transactions which approach trade, in so far as two owners, each possessing something they value highly, exchange it for something they value still more. The equivalence here is not so strict, at any rate not so measurable, as in the previous class, because in this one, one of the terms is usually a non-material possession, such as the knowledge of magic, the privilege to execute a dance, or the title to a garden plot, which latter very often is a mere title only. But in spite of this smaller measure of equivalence, their character of trade is more marked, just because of the element of mutual desire to carry out the transaction and of the mutual advantage.