Argonauts of the Western Pacific - Bronisław Malinowski (darmowa biblioteka online .TXT) 📖

and also how necessary it is to check the explicit statements of natives, and the views contained in their terms and phraseology by direct observation of full-blooded life, in which we see man not only laying down rules and theories, but behaving under the impulse of instinct and emotion.

2. Customary payments, re-paid irregularly, and without strict equivalence. — The most important of these are the annual payments received at harvest time by a man from his wife’s brothers (cf. Chapter II, Divisions IV and V). These regular and unfailing gifts are so substantial, that they form the bulk of a man’s income in food. Sociologically, they are perhaps the strongest strand in the fabric of the Trobriands tribal constitution. They entail a life-long obligation of every man to work for his kinswomen and their families. When a boy begins to garden, he does it for his mother. When his sisters grow up and marry, he works for them. If he has neither mother nor sisters, his nearest female blood relation will claim the proceeds of his labour68.

The reciprocity in these gifts never amounts to their full value, but the recipient is supposed to give a valuable (vaygu’a) or a pig to his wife’s brother from time to time. Again if he summons his wife’s kinsmen to do communal work for him, according to the kabutu system, he pays them in food. In this case also the payments are not the full equivalent of the services rendered. Thus we see that the relationship between a man and his wife’s kinsmen is full of mutual gifts and services, in which repayment, however, by the husband, is not equivalent and regular, but spasmodic and smaller in value than his own share; and even if for some reason or other it ever fails, this does not relieve the others from their obligations. In the case of a chief, the duties of his numerous relatives-in-law have to be much more stringently observed; that is, they have to give him much bigger harvest gifts, and they also have to keep pigs, and grow betel and coco-nut palms for him. For all this, they are rewarded by correspondingly large presents of valuables, which again, however, do not fully repay them for their contributions.

The tributes given by vassal village communities to a chief and usually repaid by small counter-gifts, also belong to this class. Besides these, there are the contributions given by one kinsman to another, when this latter has to carry out a mortuary distribution (sagali). Such contributions are sometimes, but irregularly and spasmodically, repaid by objects of small value.

The natives do not embrace this class under one term, but the word urigubu, which designates harvest gifts from the wife’s brothers, stands for one of the most important conceptions of native sociology and economics. They have quite a clear idea about the many characteristics of the urigubu duties, which have have been described here, and about their far-reaching importance. The occasional counter gifts given by the husband to his wife’s kinsmen are called youlo. The chief’s tributes which we have put in this category are called pokala. The placing of these two types of payment in one category is justified both by the similar mechanism, and by the close resemblance between the urigubu gifts, when given to a chief, and the pokala received by him. There are even resemblances in the actual ceremonial, which, however, would require too much of a detailed description to be more than mentioned here. The word pokala is a general term for the chief’s tributes, and there are several other expressions which cover gifts of first fruit, gifts at the main harvest, and some other sub-divisions. There are also terms describing the various counter-gifts given by a chief to those who pay him tribute, according to whether they consist of pig’s flesh or yams or fruit. I am not mentioning all these native words, in order not to overload the account with details, which would be irrelevant here.

3. Payment for services rendered. — This class differs from the foregoing one in that here the payment is within limits defined by custom. It has to be given each time the service is performed, but we cannot speak here of direct economic equivalence, since one of the terms of the equation consists of a service, the value of which cannot be assessed, except by conventional estimates. All services done by specialists for individuals or for the community, belong here. The most important of these are undoubtedly the services of the magician. The garden magician, for instance, receives definite gifts from the community and from certain individuals. The sorcerer is paid by the man who asks him to kill or who desires to be healed. The presents given for magic of rain and fair weather are very considerable. I have already described the payments given to a canoe-builder. I shall have to speak later on of those received by the specialists who make the various types of vaygu’a.

Here also belong the payments, always associated with love intrigues. Disinterested love is quite unknown among these people of great sexual laxity. Every time a girl favours her lover, some small gift has to be given immediately. This is the case in the normal intrigues, going on every night in the village between unmarried girls and boys, and also in more ceremonial cases of indulgence, like the katuyausi custom, or the mortuary consolations, mentioned in Chapter II, Division II. A few areca-nuts, some betel pepper, a bit of tobacco, some turtle-shell rings, or spondylus discs, such are the small tokens of gratitude and appreciation never omitted by the youth. An attractive girl need never go unprovided with the small luxuries of life.

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