The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

225 Pages·2002·1.21 MB·English

by  Marcel Mauss

The Gift

‘The teaching of Marcel Mauss was one to which few can be
compared. No acknowledgment of him can be proportionate
to our debt.’
Claude Lévi-Strauss

‘Marcel Mauss’s famous Essay on the Gift becomes his own
gift to the ages. Apparently completely lucid, with no secrets
even for the novice, it remains a source of an unending
ponderation…’
Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics

‘One could go so far as to say that a work as monumental as
Marcel Mauss’s The Gift speaks of everything but the gift: It
deals with economy, exchange, contract (do et des), it speaks
of raising the stakes, sacrifice, gift and countergift—in short,

everything that in the thing itself impels the gift and the
annulment of the gift.’
Jacques Derrida, Given Time

Marcel
Mauss

The Gift

The form and reason for exchange
in archaic societies

With a foreword by Mary Douglas
London and New York
Essai sur le don first published 1950 by Presses
Universitaires de France in Sociologie et
Anthropologie

English edition first published 1954
by Cohen & West
This translation first published 1990 by Routledge

First published in Routledge Classics 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Translation © 1990 W.D.Halls
Foreword © 1990 Mary Douglas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0-203-40744-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-71568-3 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–26748–X (hbk)

ISBN 0–415–26749–8 (pbk)
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL NOTE vii
FOREWORD BY MARY DOUGLAS ix
Introduction 1
1 The Exchange of Gifts and the Obligation to
Reciprocate (Polynesia) 10
2 The Extension of this System
Liberality, Honour, Money 24
3 Survivals of these Principles in Ancient
Systems of Law and Ancient Economies 60
4 Conclusion 83
NOTES 108
NAME INDEX 192
SUBJECT INDEX 196

EDITORIAL NOTE
The North American Indian term ‘potlatch’ has been
retained in the translation. Various definitions of it are given
in the text: ‘system for the exchange of gifts’, (as a verb)
‘to feed, to consume’, ‘place of being satiated’ [Boas]. As
elaborated by Mauss, it consists of a festival where goods
and services of all kinds are exchanged. Gifts are made and
reciprocated with interest. There is a dominant idea of
rivalry and competition between the tribe or tribes
assembled for the festival, coupled occasionally with
conspicuous consumption.
The French terms ‘prestations’ and ‘contre-prestations’
have no direct English equivalents. They represent, in the
context in which they are used by Mauss, respectively the
actual act of exchange of gifts and rendering of services,
and the reciprocating or return of these gifts and services.
Normally they have been referred to in the translation for
brevity’s sake, as ‘total services’ and ‘total counter-
services’.
viii EDITORIAL NOTE
It has not proved possible to reinstate the original English of
the 170 quotations from English-language works, or presumed
as such, used by Mauss. These works are from British, American,
and Commonwealth sources and are often unidentifiable from
the references given in the footnotes.
FOREWORD

No free gifts
Mary Douglas
Charity is meant to be a free gift, a voluntary, unrequited
surrender of resources. Though we laud charity as a Christian
virtue we know that it wounds. I worked for some years in a
charitable foundation that annually was required to give away
large sums as the condition of tax exemption. Newcomers to
the office quickly learnt that the recipient does not like the giver,
however cheerful he be. This book explains the lack of gratitude
by saying that the foundations should not confuse their
donations with gifts. It is not merely that there are no free gifts
in a particular place, Melanesia or Chicago for instance; it is

that the whole idea of a free gift is based on a misunderstanding.
There should not be any free gifts. What is wrong with the so-
called free gift is the donor’s intention to be exempt from return
gifts coming from the recipient. Refusing requital puts the act
of giving outside any mutual ties. Once given, the free gift entails
no further claims from the recipient. The public is not deceived
by free gift vouchers. For all the ongoing commitment the free-