Each of these precious objects and tokens of wealth has,
as amongst the Trobrianders, its name, quality and power. The large abalone
shells, the shields covered with them, the decorated blankets with faces,
eyes, and animal and human figures embroidered and woven into them, are
all personalities. The houses and decorated beams are themselves beings.
Everything speaks – roof, fire, carvings and paintings; for the magical
house is built not only by the chief and his people and those of the opposing
phratry but also by the gods and ancestors; spirits and young initiates
are welcomed and cast out by the house in person. Each of these precious things has, moreover, a productive
capacity within it. Each, as well as being a sign and surety of life,
is also a sign and surety of wealth, a magic-religious guarantee of rank
and prosperity. Ceremonial dishes and spoons decorated and carved with
the clan totem or sign of rank, are animate things. They are replicas
of the never-ending supply of tools, the creators of food, which the spirits
gave to the ancestors. They are supposedly miraculous. Objects are confounded
with the spirits who made them, and eating utensils with food. Thus Kwakiutl
dishes and Haida spoons are essential goods with a strict circulation
and are carefully shared out between the families and clans of the chiefs.
Mauss, Marcel. 1923-24 [1970]. The Gift: Forms and
functions of exchange in archaic societies. London: Cohen and West,
p.42-43. |