Gifts to Men and Gifts to God: Gift Exchange and Capital Accumulation in Contemporary Papua Author(s): C. A. Gregory Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp. 626-652 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801537 . Accessed: 09/12/2014 16:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Man. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014 16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Gifts to Men and Gifts to God: Gift Exchange and Capital
Accumulation in Contemporary PapuaGifts to Men and Gifts to God:
Gift Exchange and Capital Accumulation in Contemporary Papua
Author(s): C. A. Gregory Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 4
(Dec., 1980), pp. 626-652 Published by: Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801537 .
Accessed: 09/12/2014 16:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the
Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Man.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
IN CONTEMPORARY PAPUA
C. A. GREGORY
University of Cambridge
Boas's thesis that potlatch gift exchange is governed by the
principle of interest has been accepted by many people as the
general principle underlying all competitive gift exchange systems.
In the Melanesian context some have argued that 'traditional
thriftiness' has 'preconditioned' Melanesians to capital
accumulation in the context of a modern economy aimed at
development. This article develops a theoretical and empirical
critique of that argument. The principle of interest does not
underlie competitive gifts-to-men systems and, paradoxically, it is
the principle of destruction inherent in a gifts-to-god system that
offers the greatest potential for capital accumulation. Competitive
gift exchange flourishes and develops under the impact of
money.
Among the first group of beings with whom men must have made
contracts were the spirits of the dead and the gods. They are in
fact the real owners of the world's wealth (Mauss I925: I3).
Men say that gift-exchange brings abundance of wealth (Mauss I925:
I2).
What distinguishes the Kwakiutl potlatch from other competitive
gift exchange systems is that it involves 'gifts to god' as well as
'gifts to men' (Mauss I925: I2). As Mauss notes, 'It is not simply
to show power and wealth and unselfishness that a man puts his
slaves to death, burns his precious oil, throws coppers into the
sea, and sets his house on fire. In doing this he is also
sacrificing to the gods and spirits, who appear incarnate in the
men who are at once their namesakes and ritual allies' (I925: I4).
It is this gifts-to-god element, and the destruction of wealth
involved, that sets the potlatch apart from most other systems.
Competitive gift exchange systems that culminate in the destruction
of wealth are extremely rare. However, as a gifts-to-men system,
potlatch has much in common with the exchange systems of Melanesia
and elsewhere. Indeed, Boas's description and analysis of the
gifts-to-men potlatch has had a profound effect on the description
and analysis of Melanesian exchange. According to Boas, the ideal
operation of the gifts-to-men potlatch is as follows: A gives I0
blankets to B; after an interval of time B gives 20 blankets to A;
after a further interval of time A gives 40 blankets to B, and so
it goes on with the number of blankets being given increasing at a
geometric rate 8o,
Man (N.S.) I5, 626-52.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 627
i6o, 320, 640, and so on. It was this perception of potlatch that
led Boas to argue that 'The underlying principle is that of
interest-bearing investment of property' (I897: 77).
This principle has been accepted by many as generally underlying
all competitive gifts-to-men systems. For example Pospisil (I963)
discovered that it operates in the Kapauku Papuan economy, and
Epstein (I968) in Tolai. For both it was proof that Melanesians
were 'primitive capitalists'. For Epstein this fact was the key to
understanding Tolai economic development. Tolai big- men, argues
Epstein, were 'primitive capitalists ... who displayed an
overruling passion for accumulation' (I968: 27). 'This traditional
thriftiness,' she continues, 'preconditioned them to capital
accumulation in the context of a modern cash economy aimed at
development' (I968: 34). A similar argument has been put forward by
Finney. 'Gorokan society,' he argues, 'was preadapted for economic
change, ... traditional values and institutions were positive
assets rather than liabilities in the adoption of cash cropping and
commerce' (I973: x).
This article develops a critique of this type of argument by
presenting data on a gifts-to-man/gifts-to-god system that operates
in contemporary Papua, and by contrasting the principles of this
system with those of potlatch. It is argued that the principle of
interest does not underlie gifts-to-men systems, and that,
paradoxically, it is rather the principle of destruction inherent
in a gifts- to-god system that offers greatest potential for
capital accumulation in the context of a 'modern cash economy aimed
at development'. Pace the Bohannans (I968) and others, gift
exchange systems have flourished and developed under the impact of
western money and western gods.
The contemporary Papuan gifts-to-god/gifts-to-men system is first
described. It is then analysed in comparison with the potlatch and
other systems. In this second part the various theories of gift
exchange are critically examined, and an alternative theory put
forward.
Description Gifts to god in Papua There is perhaps no village in
Papua New Guinea that has been more affected by the impact of
colonisation than Poreporena (Hanuabada as it is popularly but
incorrectly known-see fig. i). Situated in the middle of the
capital city, the social structure of the village has been
transformed by the impact of money and missionaries. The story to
I95I has been told by Groves (I954) and Belshaw (I957). What
follows briefly summarises their accounts and brings them up to
date.
In pre-colonial times people survived by fishing, hunting,
cultivating yams and trading. It is the latter for which they are
most famous. The arid land that surrounded their village was
incapable of producing sufficient food and they were forced to
engage in long trading expeditions westwards across the Gulf of
Papua.' This economy is no more. Some women still cultivate
gardens, but almost all the men have been absorbed into the Port
Moresby workforce. The weekly wage is now the primary source of
subsistence. In I950 82 per cent. of
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
628 C. A. GREGORY
all men from Hanuabada village were employed, almost all of these
in skilled or semi-skilled jobs. Since the I95 o'S there has been
an increase in the number of women employed in the workforce and an
increase in the number of unemployed, especially those of
school-leaver age.
In spite of these changes in the village, the kinship system does
not appear to have changed very much, in that the traditional
'clan' (iduhu)2 structure is still very strong. Today, there are
about thirty iduhu in Poreporena. Most are now Christian and the
structure of these Christian iduhu is shown in fig. i. It can be
seen that Poreporena is thought of as divided into three village
districts, Elevala, Tanobada and Hanuabada, and the latter two
districts further subdivided into five groupings. These groupings
have little social significance. Of much more importance are the
iduhu and sub-iduhu groups. In I979 there
VILLAGE VILLAGE DISTRICTS IDUHU CODE
Tupa -Taurama a Hohodae Geakone }a
Dubara
-Gunina h -Lahara -Vahoi }
Tanobada -Abisiri 1 -Gunina j
-Kuriu Gaibudubu/Kaevaga }
Gunina Hagwaipi p -Elevala -Gunina Hoboimo q
-Botai Idibana r -Botai Laurina s
Vahoi t
FIGURE I. Clan structure of Poreporena village, I 979.
Note: This is constructed from a I 979 Poreporena Church handout
and therefore excludes non- Christian iduhu.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 629
were 54 sub-iduhu with an average of I04 people in each. As these
sub-iduhu are roughly equal in size, the larger iduhu tend to have
more subdivisions. For example, Hanuabada Gunina is the largest
iduhu and has eight subdivisions, whereas Tupa, being one of the
smallest iduhu, has only one subdivision.
Members of these iduhu still live in a line of houses running out
from the beach to the sea and it is possible to identify each line
of houses with a particular iduhu.3 Elevala, for example, consists
of 96 houses, most attached to one of the eleven piers belonging to
seven iduhu.
The iduhu is not necessarily an exogamous group. You can marry
within an iduhu so long as the person you marry is not your
taihuna. The latter is a cognatic kindred group that includes third
cousins.4 Marriage involves a complex system of gift giving between
the bride's and the groom's families. The net flow is in the
direction of the bride's parents and as such it can be called
'bridewealth'. A large number of items is included in the
bridewealth payment today and the quantity and value of this
payment has risen dramatically since colonisation. For example, in
I904 a bridewealth transfer consisting of 43 armshells, 3 pigs, and
IOO dogs' teeth was recorded (Seligman I9Io: 77); whereas in I975
one bridewealth transfer consisted of K3, 245,5 67 bags of rice, I4
hands of bananas, 836 armshells, and 3 I bags of sugar (Pacific
Islands Monthly, 20 June, I975). Some indication of the relative
size. of the monetary component of this bridewealth payment can be
gauged from the fact that it was 2,5 times the annual income of a
minimum wage earner in that year. Such high bridewealth payments
effectively prevent outsiders marrying into this village;6 it also
means that the young men become heavily indebted to their clansmen
for they have no hope of raising such a sum independently of
them.
The principal significance of the iduhu comes from the role it
plays in the exchange system: it is the basic unit of competitive
gift exchange. There has been a profound change in the form of gift
exchange practised in Poreporena and it is necessary to begin with
a brief summary of Groves's account of the traditional
system.
The Motu residents distinguished between an 'elder' (kwarana) and a
'big man' (lohia). More often than not the iduhu kwarana was the
iduhu lohia but this was not always the case. They had two major
feast-and-dance cycles, hekara and turia. Hekara was a competitive
gift exchange system not unlike the Highlands moka, and turia was
held to honour the memory of a deceased kinsman.
By means of the hekara, and indirectly by means of the turia,
powerful men fought for social supremacy.... A hekara was fought
out until one man had no further food to distribute. Success thus
depended on the wealth, talent, range of acquaintance, ancestral
power, and magical resources (or luck) of the sponsor and his
iduhu. Like the Kwakiutl potlatch, the Motu dance was a device for
adjusting social standing; it was part of a battle that never ended
(Groves I954: 8).
An old man explained the principles of hekara to me in the
following terms: Suppose Vahoi and Hoboimo iduhu decide to make
hekara. Hoboimo will go to their gardens and collect 40 bundles of
bananas and place them between the two clans. Vahoi will then dance
around the bananas and take them back to their clan. Then Vahoi go
to their gardens and collect 5o bundles of bananas. The big-man of
Vahoi says to the big-man of Hoboimo, 'Here are 50 bananas'.
Hoboimo dance around them and take them back to their clan.
This
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
630 C. A. GREGORY
goes on until they decide to end it by having a big celebration.
Both clans go to their gardens and bring back 500 bundles of
bananas each. These are placed on display and both clans dance
around them. At the conclusion of this both big-men say to each
other 'We are equals now'.
The happy ending aside,7 it is clear that this system embodies the
principle of what A. Strathern has called 'alternating
disequilibrium' (I97I: 222). After the first gift Hoboimo is
dominant, after the second Vahoi, after the third Hoboimo, and so
on.
This gifts-to-men system has been replaced by a gifts-to-god system
of the classic potlatch type with the difference that the gifts
take the form of money and are appropriated by the church instead
of being destroyed. The replacement of one system by another was
the product of a long conflict between missionaries and big-men.
The missionaries emerged as the eventual victors8 and thereby
succeeded in completely transforming the political structure of the
village. Nowadays big-men are no longer. They have been replaced by
the church deacons, the 'neo-big-men' of the new gift exchange
system. It was the rise of these men that saved the iduhu system
from collapsing. As Groves reported in I954, 'the iduhu structure
... has persisted most effectively ... in the election of church
deacons, whose power in the village draws much of its force from
the iduhu structure' (I954: I 3). These deacons compete with each
other for status in a system called boubou, established in I948.
After the war a locally trained pastor was appointed to replace an
expatriate as head of the Poreporena church. Faced with the problem
of raising money for his church, he designed a flag called Boubou
Kwalim Toana (collection-winner-sign) and arranged for the deacons
to compete for it in an annual gift-giving competition. The iduhu
that raised the most money was given the flag to fly. In I950 the
church raised 38 per cent. of its money by this method, Since then
the system has 'taken off'. In I950 K736 was raised in this way
(table i). This compares with K45, I37 in I974 and K70,090 in I979.
This last figure was 95 per cent. of the church income for that
year. It is clear then that the system has grown enormously both in
relative and absolute terms. Its organisation has evolved too.
Nowadays two cross-cutting competitions are held-one at iduhu
level, the other at sub-iduhu level between deacons.
Results of the I974 competition are shown in table 2. Gunina iduhu
(h) was the clear leader in I974, and two of its sub-iduhu heads,
Areni Tutura, and Morea Hila, came second and third in the deacons'
competition. The money collected is not used to improve the general
conditions of health, sanitation and such. 'It is a gift', the
people say, 'and it is wrong that we should benefit from it'. What
is not earmarked for the financial development of the church is
donated to some cause. In I973, for example, a large gift was made
to the Darwin Relief Fund to help the victims of the cyclone that
devastated that city. Some of the young university-educated
villagers are less than happy with this arrangement and are
pressing for changes in the way the money is distributed.
A special day is set aside each year for the actual ceremony of
handing over the money. This is a great festive occasion and
villagers look forward to it with excitement. At the I974 ceremony
I attended, the atmosphere in the church was that of a carnival.
Everybody was dressed up for the occasion. The men were in
outrageous fancy dress: one deacon wore a woman's dress;
another
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
TABLE i. Gifts to Poreporena church, Central District, PNG,
I950.
K
Hohodae iduhu 4905 Tupa Dubara 22-40 Taurama I4-50 Geakone I2
I5
Poreporena iduhu 495'9I Kahanomona 55*35 Mavara Kwaradubuna 5I 25
Tubumaga 6I*2I Apau 32-30 Vahoi 28-20 Botai I40o88 Gunina I22'20
Geavana 4 52
Elevala village I9I 49
Grand Total I,9I 0I5
Allocation LMS* general funds 400-00 Pastor's pocket money 30-00
Hanuabada mission teachers 56 oo Church building fund I,354-22
Unknown 69-93
Total I,9I 0I5
Source: Belshaw I957: I84 *London Missionary Society
wore odd shoes, odd long socks, a white lap-lap cloth, ten belts of
different size, shape and colour, face paint, a fancy head-dress
and had a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. The women, on
the other hand, were very soberly dressed. They wore the uniform of
their iduhu: a simple cotton dress of a standard design. The
striking feature of their appearance was their makeup. They had
applied liberal doses of powder to the face and painted their
cheeks rosy red. The ceremony began with prayers and hymns and
ended with the handing over of the money. The various sporting
clubs and other organisations gave first. After this was finished,
the names of the iduhu were called out. A representative of the
iduhu called then danced up to the altar carrying a huge
multi-coloured cotton swag containing the money-notes and
coins-that the iduhu was able to raise during the year. On the
outside of the swag was a tag displaying the iduhu's name and the
amount of money inside the swag. This tag is kept well concealed by
the carrier and is only for the public eye after the event. Secrecy
has been heightened in recent years following an event in the early
I970's. On that occasion, the amount of money collected by the
iduhu that usually wins, Gunina (h) of Hanuabada, was leaked to
another iduhu. This
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
TABLE 2. Gifts to Poreporena church, Central District, PNG,
I974.
Iduhu Deacon Amount (K) Ranking
Iduhu Deacon
a. Hohodae Udu Hedu I,507 64 Auie Sarahu 650o50 Nou Igo 939-50
Daera Ganiga III I 8 I I 4,2 I 5 75
b. Kahanamona Reva Lou 476-60 476&60
c. Mavara Reva Boge Vagi Douna Douna Manoka Ruma Vai f
2,786&73
d. Kwaradubuna Rei Vagi 9690oo Dai Guba I,I II I00 2,080o00
e. Tubumaga Nou Sisia Kora Lohia Lakani Oala Nou Heni
I,455-56
f Vahoi/Apau Paulo Toua I,293 89 Lohia Roni 662-5o Tau Vagi 668-20
Daroa Boga 527-60 3,I521I9
g. Botai Ikupu Ovia 86195 Mea Hila 6o6&oo Gavera Mea
502-20
Oape Heagi I,28o0o f 3IP50 Boa Arua { I,224-40 4,46I-05 THIRD
h. Gunina Morea Hila 2,I I 3 00 THIRD Dago Morea I,523 03 Areni
Tutara 2,2 I I *20 SECOND Rarua Tau I,820o00 Lahui Ako 577-60
Mahuru Morea 4380oo 8,682-83 FIRST
i. Kuriu Kore Auie 37-20 Gudu Idau 68-oo I05-20
j. Gunina Vai Igua 553'50 552'50
k. Botai Idibana Kamea Dikana 4,3I7.47 4,3I7.47 FIRST
1. Abisiri Ravini Daure IJ,3785 IJ,3785
m. Botai Laurina Tom Taru 354.39 354.39
n. Gunina Pore Idibana Raho Misi 752-64 752-64
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
o. Gunina Pore Avaki Bani I,02I*89 Laurina Sioa Vani
p. Gunina Lou Bau 454136 Hagwaipi
Keni Heni 256&oo Kakuna Raha so6&oo I,2i6'36
q. Hoboimo Ganiga Darai Doura Raka'ani 5,509-75 SECOND Raho Pipi
)
r. Botai Idibana Maraga Boe 8o5 oo s. Botai Laurina Morea Doura
I42'59 t. Vahoi Morea Mea I,910i56
Total 45,I36&9i Other 995-58 Grand Total 46,I32-49
Source: Poreporena church handout.
iduhu had a last minute fund raising drive and managed to beat
Gunina (h) by just a few Kina. The event caused much argument. This
bit of history explains, perhaps, the mode in which Gunina (h)
presented its money in I 974. Their bag was carried by Morea Raka
who was preceded by a woman carrying a large sign showing the
amount of money that the bag contained. She waved this sign around
and poked it under the noses of the members of competing iduhu. But
this was a deliberate tease because the sign was in Japanese! The
sign was made by Morea just back from a short study course inJapan.
After all the money was presented the winners were announced and
they held celebrations that lasted several days, at which they
drank many gallons of beer.
Details of the growth of the system over the period I974 to I979
are shown in Table 3. K45,I36 was raised in I974, compared with
K70,09o in I979, an increase of 5 5 per cent. This increase was
unevenly distributed throughout the various iduhu. Four iduhu were
unable to match their I974 level, but the rest all managed to
surpass it, some by considerable margins. The differential
performance of the various iduhu affected their relative rankings.
Hanuabada Gunina (h) was top in I974 and in I979, increasing its
annual gift by K9,I 7I over the period. No other iduhu was able
even to approach the KI7,85 3 it raised in I979. Thus the top
position has been stable. However, the next two places are far less
so. About eight iduhu compete for these places and there is quite a
bit of movement up and down the ladder here. For example Hoboimo
(q) came second in I974 but had dropped by three places to fifth by
I979. Botai (g) moved up one place to take second position and
Mavara (c) moved up four places to take up the third position. At
the other end of the ladder Kuriu (i) is consistently last.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
TABLE 3. Gifts to Poreporena church, I974 and I 979.
Iduhu I974 I979 Change Rank K Rank K Rank K
a. Hohodae sth 4,2I5'75 8th 4,39005 -3 I74'30 b. Kahanomona I7th
476&60 I4th I,054-86 +3 578 26 c. Mavara 7th 2,786&73 3rd
6,056I2 +4 3,269-39 d. Kwaradubuna 8th 2,080o00 4th 5,369oo +4
3,289oo e. Tubumaga ioth I,455 56 6th 4,5360oo +4 3,o80o44 f.
Vahoi/Apau 6th 3,I521I9 7th 4,398 94 -I I,246&75 g. Botai 3rd
4,46I05 2nd 7,I83 34 + I 2,722-29 h. Gunina Hanuabada Ist 8,682-83
Ist I7,853-96 0 9,I7I I3 i. Kuriu 20th I05 20 20th 573 52 0 468-32
j. GuninaTanobada i6th 552'50 I2th I,2II o0 +4 658-5o k. Botai
Idibana 4th 4,3I7'47 gth 3,2I3 06 -5 -I,J044I 1. Abisiri I2th I,J37
85 igth 648-97 -7 -488 88
m. Botai Laurina i8th 354 39 i8th 732'3I 0 377'92 n. Pore Idibana
Isth 752 64 Isth I,022-95 0 270-3I o. Pore Laurina I 3th I,02I89
I7th 926o90 -4 -9499 p. Hagwaipi i ith I,26136 i ith I,845-89 0 629
53 q. Hoboimo 2nd 5,509'75 sth 5,00057I -3 -509'04 r. Botai Idibana
I4th 8050 ?? 3th i,iI6i8 +I 3IIi8 s. Botai Laurina igth I42'59 i6th
944 42 + 3 8oI83 t. Vahoi gth I,9Io 56 i oth 2,0I2 44 -I
ioI88
45,I36 9I 70,090-62 +24,953 7I
Source: Poreporena church handouts I974 and I979.
The position of a deacon is by no means stable either. They are
elected every four years by means of a secret ballot among the
members of a sub-iduhu. Only thirty-one of the men who were deacons
in I974 were deacons in I979. Thus seventeen of the forty-eight
deacons of I974 failed to secure re-election. The number of deacons
also increased by six over the five year period to 1979, reflecting
increase in the population and change in the internal structure of
the iduhu.
This system is not restricted to Poreporena village. The United
Church has colonised a large number of villages up and down the
coast where similar gift exchange systems are operating. Large sums
of money, by Papua New Guinean standards, are raised in these
villages too. Boera, for example, is a small village consisting of
about 700 people and I 3 iduhu. In November I979 they managed to
raise Ki I,487.
The new exchange system is similar to the old in that it
establishes a ranking of the iduhu and the sub-iduhu leaders. It
differs in that it is a gift-to-god system rather than a
gift-to-men system, a modern variation of the classic potlatch. The
nature and significance of this variation is analysed below.
Gifts to men in Papua The traditional gifts-to-men system that
operated among the Motu and Koita people of Papua was the hekara.
This, as already explained, was suppressed by the Church and
replaced by a gifts-to-god system. To my knowledge no
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 635
detailed study of this former system exists and it is not possible
to elaborate on what has been said above. However, bananas seem to
have been the principal instrument of gift exchange and they were
consumed by the clan members at the end of the contest. In this
respect it invites comparison with Highlands systems where pigs
were slaughtered at the end of an exchange cycle. One must assume
that the 'banana cycle' was inevitably shorter than the 'pig
cycle'.
However, while traditional hekara no longer exists, a new
gifts-to-men system did emerge in the early I970's. Impressed by
the success of the United Church at raising money by the gift
exchange system, a young university- educated Papuan set up a
village Development Corporation and tried to raise money in the
same way. Every fortnight the fourteen villages9 of the Hiri Local
Government Council would get together for a Moale hebou, gaukara
hebou, ani hebou (fun-work-food gathering). The villages would take
it in turns to host the occasion, the primary aim of which was to
raise money by competitive gift giving between them.
At the ceremony I attended on I5 September I 974, in Roku village,
KI,427-50 was raised. Ten of the fourteen villages were in
attendance.10 The meeting was chaired by the village pastor who
opened it with prayers and a hymn. The fun then started. A
blackboard with the names of all the villages was placed on a table
in the centre of the gathering. As the name of each village was
called out the members of this village would move forward and place
their contribution on the table. This was duly counted and recorded
on the blackboard. The presentation of the money was done with
great ceremony: the donors would congregate together and slowly
move towards the table singing traditional songs and waving their
paper money contributions in the air. At the end of the first round
the host village, Roku, had raised the greatest amount, K447.
Second was Boera with Ki 65 5o and third Papa with KI 550 IO. Papa
then decided to try to beat Boera to second place by making another
contribution. This raised K27-52 to bring their total to Ki82-62.
Boera responded to this challenge by giving another K3 I7i, raising
their total to Ki97-2i and thereby consolidating their second
position. Roku, whose position of supremacy was never in doubt,
then decided to show off by making a second contribution too. This
added another K6o08o to their contribution, bringing their total to
K507 8o and the combined total to KI,427-50.
All the money collected belonged to the host village. They decided
how it should be distributed. In this case most went to the village
Development Corporation in the form of share capital. Roku become
indebted to the other villages to the extent of their contribution
less what Roku contributed to the other villages when it attended
their hebou.
This system never 'took off. It had a very short life and was
non-existent in I979 when I returned for a visit. The Development
Corporation was still going, but only just. Some of its businesses
had closed down and others were floundering. It is beyond the scope
of this article to consider the details of the rise and fall of the
Development Corporation. It is sufficient to note that whereas the
Church received a money gift with no strings attached, the
Development Corporation did not. The gift exchange system
facilitated the raising of some capital in the form of share
capital. This did not harm the
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
636 C. A. GREGORY
running of the Corporation, but it did not help it much either. The
Corporation obtained most of its capital from the Development Bank
in the form of an interest-bearing loan. However, the unprofitable
nature of the Development Corporation was probably a contributing
factor in the downfall of the gift exchange system for reasons that
will be analysed below.
Analysis The theoretical problem addressed here is the relationship
between gift exchange and capital accumulation in the contemporary
historical context. The aim is to determine the general principles
that govern competitive gift exchange. This requires that the
Papuan system be compared with the potlatch and other systems as
they have existed in different places at different times, for it is
only by noting the apparent differences between the various gift
exchange systems that the essential similarities can be discovered.
This necessarily involves a discussion of ideas, for the facts of a
case do not have an existence independent of the theory used to
describe it. This is especially so with potlatch because much of
the so-called ethnographic 'fact' on potlatch transactions is of a
hypothetical nature and therefore itself theory.
Gifts to men If the underlying principle of competitive gift
exchange were, as Boas claimed, that of 'interest-bearing
investment of property', and the aim of a gift transactor was to
accumulate, then the lender would be motivated to raise the
interest rate as high as possible and the borrower to keep it as
low as possible. In other words, the motivation of any individual
transactor would be to maximise net incomings. However, the
motivation of a gift transactor is precisely the opposite: it is to
maximise net outgoings. This aim implies an altogether different
'underlying principle'. But before this principle is stated it is
necessary to establish empirically that the aim of a gift
transactor is indeed to maximise net outgoings; if so, the
underlying principle of gift exchange is not that of
interest.
Consider the potlatch. Boas's account of potlatch transactions are
all hypothetical, which makes it impossible to demonstrate from his
data that his theory was wrong. However, it is possible to raise
questions about his analysis by highlighting the contradictions in
it. He says, for example, that 'Possession of wealth is considered
honorable, and it is the endeavor of each Indian to acquire a
fortune' (i 897: 79), a statement consistent with his claim that
gift exchange is about capital accumulation. But in the next
sentence he adds, 'But is not as much the possession of wealth as
the ability to give great festivals which makes wealth a desirable
object to the Indian'. Here Boas is saying that an Indian
accumulates so that he can de-accumulate, which is to say that in
some transactions the aim of the transactor is to maximise net
outgoings while in others the aim is to maximise net incomings. The
implication is that there is not one underlying principle but two,
yet this seems wrong. I would argue
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 637
that there can only be one underlying principle of potlatch, and
this is the one that generates the aim to maximise net outgoings.
This point can be substantiated by examining the evidence of other
anthropologists who have worked in north-west America.
Curtis's study, first published in I9I 5, sharply contradicts
certain of Boas's propositions:
It has been said of the potlatch that 'the underlying principle is
that of interest-bearing investment of property'. This is
impossible. The potlatch and the lending of property at interest
are two entirely distinct proceedings. Property distributed in a
potlatch is freely given, bears no interest, cannot be collected on
demand, and need not be repaid at all if the one who received it
does not for any reason wish to regulate the gift (I9I5:
I43).
Further support for Curtis's interpretation can be found in
Barnett's account:
Potlatch presents are not capital investments... They may be
considered as prestige investment; but their more immediate
character is that of a gift, a favour unconditionally bestowed.
This soon becomes apparent to anyone attempting an inventory of a
series of reciprocating potlatches (I 93 8: 3 5 3).
Drucker writes:
Internal evidence from detailed descriptions of potlatches and data
from informants of groups who potlatched until recent days agree
that the loans at interest were quite apart from potlatch gifts.
The amount of each potlatch gift had no relation to any previous
gift except in the general sense that a potlatch gift should be
adequate, not niggardly (I965: 486).
This empirical evidence contrary to the 'interest principle' thesis
is so overwhelming that it is difficult to comprehend how such a
misunderstanding has managed to stay in circulation for so long.
One reason is that while these authors have told us what the
principle of potlatch is not, they have not substituted a
satisfactory account of what the underlying principle is. Another
reason is that Boas's data have been rationalised through a series
of ingenious but fallacious hypotheses by Codere (I950). It is her
theories, rather than the empirical evidence of Curtis et al., that
have influenced the thinking of many anthropologists. A landmark in
the development of an alternative theoretical perspective on
potlatch is Drucker and Heizer's reexamination of the Southern
Kwakiutl potlatch (I967). This book is a sustained empirical and
theoretical critique of the Boas/Codere position and demolishes it.
The book is less successful in constructing a viable alternative
because of its lack of comparative perspective; but it does lay the
necessary foundation stones.
The question to be confronted now is that of the underlying
principle of potlatch and other gifts-to-men systems. The answer
must specify a relationship between a gift given at one point in
time (call it G,) and a counter-gift given at some later time (call
it G't+). According to the Boas/Codere theory the relationship is
G'+. = (i + i)n Gt, where i is the rate of interest and n the
number of years. According to this formula 2 blankets given today
at ioo per cent. interest requires 4 blankets to be returned after
one year, 8 after two years, i6 after three, and so on. But if this
is the incorrect relationship then what is the correct one? The
clue is to be found in A. Strathern's discussion of moka:
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
638 C. A. GREGORY
The theoretical progression in the size of the gift, at least as
some informants explain the matter, is X, 2X, 4x, 8x, and so on;
but in practice smaller increments are added. The increment alone
is taken as the debt for the next gift, so that the situation is
controlled, as can be seen from the following scheme:
A gives x to B B gives 2X to A Thus A owes x to B Next A gives 2X
to B And B owes x to A Next B gives 2X to A and so on (A. Strathern
I97I: 98).
This sequence implies the following relationship between a gift and
a counter- gift: G+1= G+1 + G, where G,+1 is the new gift, the
increment that is taken as debt for the next gift. If A gives 2
blankets and B makes a counter-gift of 4 blankets then a new debt
(Gt+1) of 2 blankets is created and the sequence starts again. This
process creates an 'alternating disequilibrium' in the status of
the transactors: now A is debtor, now B, now A. But for this to
happen the counter-gift must exceed the last increment. If it does
not the debt relation between the transactors is unchanged and the
giver loses status. The ideal sequence, then, is not a series of
gifts but a series of counter-gifts.
A counter-gift exchange sequence can rise, fall or remain stable
(as in Strathern's hypothetical example). The variable that
determines rise or fall in the sequence is abundance or scarcity of
the instruments of gift exchange. The ideal instruments are scarce
and durable, such as the coppers used in potlatch or the pigs and
shells in moka. If the gift transactors lose control over the
supply of these things the sequence will show an inflationary
tendency. If the over- supply becomes too great then a different
instrument, whose supply can be controlled, will be substituted.
This is precisely what happened in the Highlands. In pre-colonial
times shells were used. These found their way up to the Highlands
via the traditional trade routes. Colonisation enabled large
numbers of shells to enter the Highlands by alternative routes.
Inflation followed and the shells were eventually replaced with
money (A. Strathern I97I: I06-IiI).
The accumulation of capital, whether in the form of pigs, blankets
or money, is not the aim of a gift transactor. To the extent that
gift transactors accumulate at all it is in the form of
gift-credit. The big-man is the one with the most gift-credit for
he has been able to maximise net-outgoings.12 Pospisil's data on
transactions among the Kapauku demonstrate this point. Table 4
summarises the net credit position of the sixteen households of
Enona clan, Botukebo village, as at August I955. Household 6, the
big-man's household, has the largest net credit position. This
household gave away I340 shells during the period under review and
received only I 30 in return, giving a net credit of I2 I0.13 Data
collected by Meggitt (I974: I86) on Enga te transactions tells a
similar story. A 'complete big-man' had a net credit of 27 pigs, a
'little big-man' a net credit of- 2, a married man a net credit of
4, and a bachelor a net credit of o. But Meggitt has a different
interpretation of these data. In the Boas/Codere tradition he
argues that the 'shrewd man is the one who can adjust all his
transactions to parity or, better, to profit [i.e. negative net
credit]
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 639
TABLE 4. Net credit position of Enona clan with other clans as at
August I955.
Household Outgoings Incomings Net outgoings (credits) (debits) (net
credits)
I 60 I30 70 2 I2I I I20
3 I I 60 49 4 60 - 60 5 76 22 54 6 I340 I30 I2I0
7 I20 I05 I 5 8 20 - 20
9 6o 6i -I Io I 64 - 63 II 2I 60 -39 I2 20 - 20
I3 I33 6 I27 I4 365 6o 305 I 5 65 65 i6 i65 6o I05
Total 2638 759 I879
Note: This table only records the credits created by the
traditional cowrie shells, the top ranked gift. Pospisil (I963:
table 46) gives details of the net credit created by the other
instruments.
Source: Constructed from the data in Pospisil I963: table 3 I
.
over the long run' (I974: I86). This formulation of a big-man's
aims contradicts the data he collected, and he explains the
contradiction in terms of the 'selective amnesia' (I974: I 86, f
38) of his informants. However I would suggest that it is Meggitt's
theory that is wrong, not his data.
It is necessary to enquire into the nature of the obligations
created by gift- credit. This can be done by contrasting
gift-credit (debt) with commodity- credit (debt). By
commodity-credit is meant those obligations created by the lending
and borrowing of interest-bearing capital. To distinguish between
these different types of obligation it is necessary to focus on the
social context of the transactors rather than on the physical
nature of the objects transacted. This is because things such as
coppers and paper-money are symbols. They can be used to symbolise
either commodity-credit or gift-credit wvith equal ease. As
Godelier correctly notes (I 973: I28), things are now gifts, now
commodities depending upon the social context. The tendency for
gift-credits to be expressed in terms of paper-money today changes
the nature of gift-credit not one iota.
The first difference between gift-debt and commodity-debt is that
the latter grows exponentially over time whereas the former does
not. For example, if
1io is given as a loan at a rate of interest of io per cent, /?i i
must be returned at the end of the year in order to cancel the
commodity-debt; but ?io given as a gift only requires ?io to be
returned after a year in order to cancel the debt, and if ? i i is
returned a new debt of Li is created and the relationship between
the transactors continues. The very definition of moka is a
particularly
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
640 C. A. GREGORY
good illustration of this: 'It is the increment, strictly, which
can be referred to as moka; the rest is there simply to meet
"debt"' (A. Strathern I97I: I0).
The second difference between gift-debt and commodity-debt is that
the former can be cancelled only in terms of the instrument that
created it whereas the latter can be cancelled in terms of any
instrument. In other words, a gift- debt created by the giving of
pigs can only be cancelled by giving pigs in return. Consider
Hill's discussion of the biki gift transaction of Hausaland for
example: 'Contributions are not necessarily in cash, but may take
such forms as clothes, threshed grain, bundles of grain, small
livestock, food together with money, or enamelware; but like must
always be "exchanged" for like, so that, e.g. a donor of threshed
grain must be given such produce in return' (Hill I972: 2I i). This
like-for-like principle also extends metaphorically to bridewealth
and other gift transactions that have the appearance of commodity
purchases.
In moka, pigs and shells are exchanged for each other, but ideally
a reversal of the initial transaction should effect an eventual
transfer of pigs for pigs and shells for shells. In the same way,
while at each marriage bridewealth is given for a woman, a second
woman should ultimately be given in return for the first, and thus
bridewealth for bridewealth (M. Strathern I972: 73).
The implication of this is that gift-debt cannot be reduced to a
single measure.14 Every gift is its own numeraire and thus there is
a distinct sphere of exchange for every rank of gift.15
The third difference between gift-debt and commodity-debt is that
the latter is created by the exchange of alienable objects between
transactors who are in a state of reciprocal independence, whereas
gift-debt is created by an exchange of inalienable objects between
people in a state of reciprocal dependence. This distinction was
first hinted at by Marx in his discussion of the social
pre-conditions for commodity exchange:
Objects in themselves are external to man, and consequently
alienable by him. In order that this alienation may be reciprocal
it is only necessary for men, by tacit understanding, to treat each
other as private owners of those alienable objects, and by
implication as independent individuals. But such a state of
reciprocal independence has no existence in a primitive society
based on property in common (Marx I867: 9I)
The implication is that in a 'primitive' (i.e. gift) economy things
are inalienable and people are in a state of reciprocal dependence.
This is a principal theme of Mauss's The gift (I925). He
repeatedly16 refers to the 'indissoluble bond of a thing with its
original owner' (I925: 62). A gift is like a tennis ball with an
elastic band attached to it. The owner of the ball may lose
possession of it for a time but the ball will spring back to its
owner if the elastic band is given a jerk. Among the Kachin,
The best way to acquire notoriety as the owner (ruler) of an object
is publicly to give possession of it to someone else. The recipient
... then has the object, but you retain sovereignty over it since
you make yourself the owner (madu) of a debt (Leach I954:
I42).
The inalienability of a kula gift is captured by the term kitomu
(or kitoum, Damon I980). As Munn notes: 'Men emphasize that kitomu
are personal possessions, sometimes describing them metaphorically
as "naval" (pwasora) to
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 64I
emphasize their inalienability from their owners' (Munn I977: 46).
It is also interesting to note that kula canoes, even though they
may be permanently separated from their producers, are never
alienated from them (Munn I977: 45). Thus when kula canoes are
traded they are exchanged as gifts rather than commodities.
The inalienability of pigs used in the te (or tee) gift exchange
system of Highlands Papua New Guinea is captured
linguistically:
Tombema [an Enga group] make a distinction between pigs produced at
home, and those received through exchange channels. Home raised
pigs are called mena palo anda, 'pigs of the house sleeping stall',
while those coming via tee partners are called tee kaila mena,
'pigs on tee roads' or simply 'other pigs'. Pigs that come from
other sources have in most cases been financed from elsewhere, so
that while they may be in transit at a given place, or in a
person's temporary possession, their ultimate destination is to
another place. They are being held, not owned. But pigs raised at
home are 'owned' by the woman whose labour produced them (Feil
I978: 222).
It follows, of course, that the 'pigs on tee roads' are the
inalienable property of other women who have lost possession of the
pigs but not control. But the key fact that this example brings out
is that inalienability is to be understood in terms of the social
relationship between a product and the labour17 that produced it.18
In a commodity economy the worker's product is alienated from him
or her by the capitalist employer; in a gift economy there is no
wage-labour/capital relation and the labourer's product is not, in
general, so alienated. To anticipate later discussion on this
crucial point: alienation is a pre- condition for accumulation, and
while alienation is impossible in a gifts-to- man system, it is the
very basis of a gifts-to-god system-which means that the potential
for accumulation exists in a such a system.
It needs to be emphasised that the relationship between producer
and produced is not necessarily restricted to one between people
and things. Where the producer is a clan and the produced are
people, the inalienable gifts are people. This point is the essence
of Levi-Strauss's argument that women are the 'supreme gift' (I949:
65). Women as gifts are the inalienable property of the clan that
produced them. Many such examples exist. Among the Motu, for
example, a proverb expresses the proprietary interest of the iduhu
in the women born to it: 'You can buy our sister's body, but you
cannot buy her bones' (Groves I963: 28).
A fourth difference between gift-debt and commodity-debt is that
while the former must be explained with reference to the social
conditions of the reproduction ofpeople, the latter must be
explained with reference to the social conditions of the
reproduction of things. In other words, gift-debt must be explained
with reference, for example, to clan structure and the principles
governing kinship organisation, while commodity debt must be
explained with reference to class structure and the principles
governing factory organisation. Furthermore, the different types of
gift-debt must in turn be explained in terms of the different types
of kinship systems. For example, marriage systems based on the
exchange of 'sisters' cannot support a big-man system with
incremental gift exchange.19 A marriage system involving
bridewealth is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for
incremental gift
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
642 C. A. GREGORY
exchange, that is incremental gift exchange implies bridewealth but
the opposite is not necessarily true. However, a discussion of
these issues takes us far beyond the scope of this article.20
In the light of the above comments it is now possible to analyse
the Papuan gifts-to-men system. To understand its workings,
consider a simplified and idealised version. Suppose that there
were only three villages involved-A, B and C-and that at the first
meeting at A's village B gave Kio to A, and that C gave K20 to A.
These transactions can be represented graphically as follows:
A -- B
C
Thus K30 is raised and A owes B Kio and C K20. Suppose that the
second meeting was at B's village and that A gave B K20
and C gave B K30. In this case B has K5o but owes C K3o and A
Kio.
A 20 B
C
Suppose now that at the third meeting at C's village B gave C K4o
and A gave C K40. The situation is as follows:
20 A
C
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 643
C raises K8o but has a debt of K20 to A and Kio to B. In other
words A and B are now his creditors whereas before the exchange
they were his debtors. The gifts can keep going on like this
forever without any accumulation taking place because the system is
a three-person zero-sum game21. In this case total debt is Ki6o and
this equals total credit as shown in Diagram 3. As such it is
nothing more than a complicated variation of moka-type exchanges.
This can be seen by focussing on the relationship between A and B.
After the first round (Diagram i) A owes B Kio. After the second
round (Diagram 2) the situation is reversed when A gives B K2o
because this creates new debt of KIO. If in a third round (not
shown) B gives A more than Kio the situation will be reversed yet
again, and so on. This is the principle of'alternating
disequilibrium'. What distinguishes this system from other
gifts-to-men systems such as moka, is that in moka the transactors
link up to form a 'rope',22 e.g.
A B C D- E F
whereas here (supposing there are six transactors now) they link up
to form a cobweb', e.g.
A
D
Another difference, of course, has been in the role of the
Development Corporation. In order to analyse the role of the
Development Corporation in the system it is useful to refer back to
round one (Diagram i). After the meeting A has K3o but gift-debt of
the same amount. Suppose that this K30 were given to the
Development Corporation as share capital. This transaction differs
from the others in that it represents an investment in
interest-bearing property. In other words, from A's perspective, it
creates a commodity-credit and A expects a return each year on the
investment in the form of dividends. A also expects the return of
the original capital of K3o some time in the future too. This can
only be returned when A sells its shares in the Development
Corporation. However, because the K3 o is risk capital there can be
no certainty that the original amount will be returned. It will
depend upon the profitability
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
644 C. A. GREGORY
of the Corporation. The annual dividend will also more or less
depend upon the profitability of the Corporation. The impact of the
Development Corporation on the system, then, was to siphon off
capital from the gift exchange system and to return smaller amounts
of money in the form of dividends in the event of making a profit.
Thus the net effect was to siphon off money and to create a complex
interlocking of commodity-credit and gift- debt with a single
instrument of circulation, money. This required money to change its
social form when it ceased to mediate relations between villages
and came to mediate relations between the villages and the
Development Corporation. There is no evidence at all that people
found this ambiguous role of money confusing. They knew exactly
what type of obligations were being created in the different
transactions. It is very confusing for the outsider though.
Blankets circulated among the Kwakiutl in the same ambiguous way.
Sometimes they were lent as interest-bearing capital, sometimes
they were given as gifts in a potlatch transaction. Failure to
perceive this distinction has led to much confusion.
This particular arrangement helped the Development Corporation in
that the gift exchange system provided it with capital with which
to operate, but the existence of the Development Corporation
hindered the operation of the gift exchange system. Consider
Diagram i once again. At the end of round one A had K30. In round
two A gives away K20, and after the third meeting, (Diagram 3) K40,
a total of K6o. Thus before the intervention of the Development
Corporation A only has to find K3o. But if the Development
Corporation intervenes and siphons off the original K3o A has to
find K6o. A similar problem develops for the other villages too,
and the fact that the Development Corporation did not pay any
dividends was a further complication. None of these problems
existed in the relationship that the Church had with the gift
exchange system that it created, as will now be seen.
Gifts to god A distinction must be drawn between the idiom in which
a direct relationship between the giver and god predominates and
the idiom in which the relation of giver to god is manifestly a
vehicle for the expression of relations between men. In discussing
competitive gift exchange in the Papuan context, it will be seen
that only the latter idiom is directly relevant, since it is used
very explicitly as a means to an end-the attainment of prestige and
rank. Gifts of this latter type occur among the Kwakiutl and many
useful insights can be obtained by comparing and contrasting the
mode of giving gifts to god in this society with the Papuan system
described here.
Among the Kwakiutl 'rivalry between chiefs and clans finds its
strongest expression in the destruction of property. A chief will
burn blankets, a canoe, or break a copper, thus indicating his
disregard of the amount of property destroyed and showing that his
mind is stronger, his power greater, than that of his rival' (Boas
I897: 93). Mauss (I925: I4) was justified in describing this
destruction as a 'gift to god'. A gift to god is a sacrifice, and a
sacrifice is, in the
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 645
words of the Oxford dictionary, the 'surrender of a possession'.
The surrender of possession involves the transfer of ownership23
(i.e. alienation) of something from a natural person to a
non-natural person ('god'). It is possible for another person to
receive the gift on god's behalf but that intermediary is not
placed in a gift-debt relationship because the gift is alienated
from the original owner. Given that a gift is an inalienable thing,
is clear that what a gift to god accomplishes is the alienation of
the inalienable. In a potlatch the destruction of property results
in the alienation of gifts and in this sense it can be called a
gifts- to-god system.
But what is the purpose of this alienation via destruction? Codere
has developed an ingenious argument that links the potlatch
gifts-to-
men system with the gifts-to-god system. Her argument is as
follows:
Had ten blankets been 'given' in the original potlatch, 4320 would
be required for the potlatch ten years later.... The reason a
collapse did not occur and that potlatching as a financial system
remained meaningful and tied to reality was that the system had as
well developed means for the destruction of credit as it had for
its phenomenal growth (Codere I950: 75).
This argument contains two propositions both of which can be
challenged.24 The first, that gifts to men are governed by the
principle of I00 per cent. interest, has already been critically
examined; the second, that gifts to god 'destroy credit', must now
be examined.
The proposition that gifts to god destroy credit has been shown to
be empirically false by Drucker and Heizer (I967: 68). But the
argument can also be challenged on a priori grounds. Gifts to god
simply reduce the stock of circulating instruments of gift
exchange. No credit of any sort is wiped out when gifts are
destroyed. Credits created in the past will continue to exist.
Gifts to god of this type affect potential credit, not past credit.
By reducing the stock of gifts they make it harder for an opponent
to reply with a bigger and better gift to god. An example can
clarify this point. In one village of i5o people, Boas found that
gift-credit totalled 75,ooo blankets while the actual stock of
blankets circulating as instruments of exchange was only 400. This
phenomenon is common to gift exchange systems all over the world
and simply illustrates the fact that instruments of gift exchange
have an extremely high velocity of circulation.25 The velocity can
be calculated from the following equation: gift-credit =
circulating stock of gifts x velocity. In this example, velocity is
i87 5 (400 times i87 5 equals 75,000).
This equation captures A. Strathern's (i 969) distinction between
'production' and 'finance'. A gift transactor who wants to make a
prestation must obtain some of the circulating stock of gifts and
there are two strategies that he can follow: he can raise the gifts
by getting his family to help him produce them or he can acquire
existing stock by using the exchange network. The first-the
production strategy-raises the stock of gifts and increases total
gift-credit without changing the velocity of circulation. The
second-the finance strategy-raises the velocity of circulation and
increases the total amount of gift-credit without changing the
stock of gifts.
But what happens to the equation when a gift is given to god?
Suppose, for
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
646 C. A. GREGORY
the moment, that in the Kwakiutl village it was impossible to
produce blankets and impossible to import them from neighbouring
villages. In this case the number in circulation would be fixed at
400. If big-man A, in an attempt to outsmart his rival B, destroyed
250 of these blankets, then it is clear that B could never outdo A
for there are only I 5o blankets left in circulation. Thus gifts to
god-the alienation of some of the stock of gifts-is a third
strategy that big-men can employ. It liberates the transactor from
the two limited strategical options logically imposed by the
equation though destroying the equation and thereby opening up a
third option. Before the gift to god the equation is 75,000 = 400 x
I 87 5, and after the destruction of 250 blankets it becomes
75,000$ I50 x i875. Giventhat i5o x i875 =28,I25,itistempting to
argue that gift-credit totalling 46,875 (75,000-28,I25) is
destroyed. This is what Codere argues. However, this is wrong
because the equation before the destruction of the blankets is an
historical summary of the transactions that have occurred over a
certain period of time, and the destruction of some of the blankets
at the end of the time period does not render some of the
transactions null and void.
The above analysis might seem faulty because the assumption that
blankets cannot be produced (or imported) is unrealistic. However,
it is precisely to eliminate the production strategy that gift
exchange systems throughout the world develop scarce durable
symbols such as the potlatch coppers and the pearl shells used in
moka. These things invariably have the top ranking of all the gifts
available because they are so difficult to obtain. Within the class
of these top ranking gifts there is a sub-ranking. For example, in
Boas's time the Ma'xts'6lEm copper was the most sought after, then
the L'a'xolamas copper, and then the LU'peLila (Boas I897: 82). If
the third ranking copper was destroyed a rival could go one up by
destroying the second ranking copper. But the undisputed winner of
the contest is the one who destroys the top ranking copper. Of
course this all presupposes that the rivals have access to the top
ranking gifts. If they are middle level big-men it is most unlikely
that their financial networks would ever be good enough to give
them a chance of obtaining a top ranking gift.
The te system in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea provides an
interesting contrast here. Live pigs are the principal instruments
of gift exhange in this system. Every so often-about every four
years in the ideal case-an exchange cycle culminates in a massive
slaughter. The effect of this is precisely the same as the
destruction of coppers and blankets in a potlatch.26 Indeed,
Meggitt (I974) analyses the nature and significance of this
slaughter in much the same terms as Codere: he argues that the pig
slaughter destroys credit. However,just as the destruction of
blankets in potlatch leaves the stock of gift-credit untouched, so
too does the slaughter of pigs. It merely reduces the current stock
of pigs and limits the potential credit that can be created. The
fact that the pigs are eaten rather than burnt is an important
difference, of course. Cooking a pig does not necessarily 'alienate
the inalienable' because the giving of cooked pigs can create
gift-credit in some circumstances. (A. Strathern I97I: I23).
However, cooking a pig does definitely destroy its durability as a
gift and thus places an upper limit on its potential velocity of
circulation.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 647
The Highlands pig slaughter invites a comparison with the banana
ceremonial that used to be practised in the Papuan hekara. However
the lack of data on this now defunct system precludes any
systematic analysis.
The problem now is to fit the Papuan gifts-to-god system described
above into the scheme of things. At one level of analysis it is
identical to potlatch in that its primary purpose is to achieve the
ranking of clans and men. In both cases a sacrifice is made whose
religious significance is secondary. The gifts are not given with
the aim of trying to elicit a counter-gift from the gods, in the
form of good weather for crops, or some such similar benefit that
involves getting the gods to control the uncontrollable. It is
inter-clan rivalry that primarily motivates the giving of gifts in
both cases. The potlatch and the Papuan system are also alike in
that the gifts to god involve alienation of top ranking items. They
constitute real sacrifices to the givers because having given, for
example, the money they never see it again. The sacrifices are also
real in that they do not put other people in debt. However, the
Papuan gifts are symbolic in so far as the intermediary is
concerned. In the potlatch case the intermediary is fire and this
destroys the gifts; but in the Papuan case the intermediary is the
Church and it symbolically destroys the money by ensuring that it
does not get back to the donors. Thus the Church, by modifying the
traditional gift exchange system, has perpetuated a ranking system
of clans and men that enables it to accumulate assets for the
Church without incurring liabilities, that is, to accumulate
capital. Paradoxically it is the 'destruction' element of a
gifts-to-god system that enables this accumulation to take place.
The potlatch also has this potential for accumulation. If some
intermediary were developed for removing all the items sacrificed
from the system, accumulation could take place outside this system,
and the internal principles governing the system would not be
affected. It is the ranking achieved by the alienation that is
important, not the mode of alienation, and it is a difference in
the latter that distinguishes the potlatch from the Papuan
system.
To understand the relationship between alienation and accumulation
a distinction must be drawn not only between real and symbolic
alienation, but also between alienation in the sphere of production
and alienation in the sphere of exchange. Alienation via the sphere
of exchange, as in a gift-to-god system, merely redistributes
existing wealth. The actual creation of capital requires the
appropriation of a worker's surplus without the generation of debt.
In other words, it requires that a worker's surplus be alienated
from him. This is precisely what the wage-labour/capital
relationship achieves. It enables the employer to accumulate assets
without the accumulation of liabilities. Marx has outlined this
process in detail in Capital and has outlined the social conditions
necessary for its existence: namely, the separation of a producer
from his means of production and the creation of a proletariat
forced to sell their labour-power in order to survive (i 867: Ch.
26).
M. Strathern's account of the plight of Hagen migrants in Port
Moresby contains a number of examples of how Hagen workers perceive
this process of alienation. For example: 'People nowadays speak of
having been tricked by Europeans who "ate" the profits of their
labours, putting aside only a minute proportion for wages' (I 97 5:
3 3). By 'eating' the profits of the worker's labour
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
648 C. A. GREGORY
the employer is alienating the worker's surplus product. The
workers realise that they benefit in the form of wages but
'reiterate the point that however much they as wage-earners
benefit, the owners of the business (employers) benefit more' (I
975: 38, f i). Furthermore, the money they get does not stay on
their 'skins'. 'All our money goes on food and we are fed up', they
complain (I975: I i o). Thus the surplus product of a worker is his
total product minus that which is necessary for his
subsistence.
Some workers, the skilled in particular, are able to win for
themselves a wage in excess of subsistence. They are therefore able
to share in the surplus product of their labours with the employer.
In Port Moresby a sizeable proportion of the skilled workforce is
supplied by men and women from Poreporena village. The money these
people earn is the basis of the gifts-to-god system that the Church
has established in Poreporena. The Church's great achievement,
then, has been to set up a system that enables it to alienate some
of the surplus wages that these workers receive.
The analysis of change The analysis of change raises the question
of the impact of colonisation on gift economies. The principal
agents of change have been foreign churches, foreign states and
foreign capital. These are the basic institutions of the European
capitalist system and their establishment in non-European countries
has been accompanied by the emergence of commodity production and
the development of the wage-labour system.27 Money keeps the wheels
of this system turning. The pound and the dollar epitomise the
power of capitalism. Yet they are only symbols. They have no
intrinsic value nor any predetermined rate of exchange with other
symbols. They acquire objective social validity because of state
power and the power of capital. In those areas outside the
immediate control of the foreign state and foreign capital it is
possible for paper money to change its social form and to function
as an instrument of gift exchange. As a gift, money is governed by
the principles of gift exchange and not the principles of commodity
exchange. This fact is the key to understanding the impact of money
on a gift economy. Some anthropologists have failed to grasp this
point and have argued that the nature of money is such that it
destroys gift economies. However, there is nothing in its nature
that causes money to destroy gift exchange systems. They are
destroyed by the political power of foreign institutions when
conflict emerges. More often than not gift exchange systems
flourish and develop under the impact of such opposition.
Bohannan and Bohannan are among those who argue that money
necessarily destroys a gift economy. They correctly note that a
gift economy is characterised by the existence of ranked spheres of
exchange that cannot be compared one to the other in any
quantitative way. The introduction of money destroys this
multi-centric economy because 'it is in the nature of a general
purpose money that it standardises the exchangeability of all items
on a common scale' (I968: 246). A similar argument was put forward
to explain the predicted demise of the te system of the Enga. The
Enga have five spheres of exchange. Pigs and cassowaries are in the
top sphere, vegetable foods are in
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY 649
the bottom sphere, and various other items in the other spheres.
When money was introduced paper notes were classified as belonging
to the top spheres, silver coins to a middle sphere, and copper
coins to the bottom. This fact, argued Meggitt (I97 i), reduced the
spheres to one.
This argument is persuasive and logical, but fails to explain the
empirical facts. Meggitt himself came to realise this when he
re-visited his fieldwork area. He has now abandoned the attempt to
predict the demise of the te system (Meggitt I 974: I 8 i). So what
is wrong with the theory? What these theorists have failed to
realise, it seems to me, is that when money functions as an
instrument of gift exchange it may function as a qualitative
measure, whereas when it functions as an instrument of commodity
exchange it functions as a quantitative measure. When Melanesians
place paper money in the top sphere, silver coins in a middle
sphere, and copper coins in a bottom sphere, they are using money
as a qualitative measure. This classification of money ensures that
like will be exchanged for like: notes for notes, silver for
silver, and copper for copper. There is no exchange of notes for
silver or of silver for copper when money is classified as a gift
in this way.28 For example, the Siane of the Highlands of Papua New
Guinea for a while classified money in this way, and, as Salisbury
(I962: I26) reports, they did not treat the notes and coins as
interchangeable.29
Such a use of money in no way precludes its use as a quantitative
measure when buying rice at the trade store where notes and coins
are interchangeable. On the other hand there is no a priori reason
why money should function as a gift at all. It only enters the gift
exchange sphere if the transactors decide that it should. It has
not entered the kula gift exchange system for example (see Leach
& Leach in press). The reason is that the big-men in this
Island region did not lose control over the production and
distribution of shells used in gifts, whereas in the Highlands
Districts the big-men did.
Money did not enter the potlatch system either. The establishment,
however, of a canning industry in the area in I 882 led to a rapid
increase in the per capita income of the Kwakiutl, a rapid increase
in the number of blankets that could be purchased, and hence a
rapid increase in the number of blankets given away in potlatch
ceremonies. Before I849 the largest potlatch consisted of 320
blankets, but during the period I930-I949 the largest potlatch
consisted of 33,000 blankets, a hundredfold increase (Codere I 950:
94). This rapid growth in potlatch occurred despite the institution
in I885 of a law prohibiting potlatch (Drucker & Heizer I 967:
47). However, this law, and other influences, did bring about many
qualitative changes in the system. For example, the form of the
ceremonial has changed and coppers are now no longer used (Drucker
& Heizer I967: 47-5 0). But as Drucker and Heizer note,
despite all the variety of outward changes of form connected with
the expansion of the institution and with its going underground,
nowhere is there a suggestion of deviation from the original prime
purpose of the potlatch-the formal presentation of a claim to
hereditary right to a specific social status (I967: 52).
The same could be said of the gifts-to-god system in Papua. The
outward form of the system has changed much in the past one hundred
years, but the essential purpose-the ranking of men and clans-is
still the same.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
NOTES
In writing this article I have been greatly helped by comments from
Frederick Damon, Andrew Strathern and Piers Vitebsky. I should also
like to thank my many friends in Elevala, especially Morea, without
whose help this article could never have been written. I am
responsible for all errors of course.
1 The annual trading expedition was called hiri and is described in
Barton (i 9 Io). 2 The rights and obligations of iduhu membership,
and recruitment norms, are discussed in
Groves (I963). 3 During the second world war the Poreporena people
were evacuated to Manumanu and
their houses were burnt down by the government. After the war they
were rebuilt-by the government. This gave the people the
opportunity to plan their village.
4 Belshaw (I957: 2 i) and Rosentiel (I95 3: I 4) report that the
iduhu are exogamous. This does not accord with what I was told nor
with what Seligman (I9Io: 82) was told; but there may be an overlap
between the taihuna and the iduhu as Seligman notes (IgIo:
82).
5 The Papua New Guinean currency is the kina (K). This was
introduced in I975 and replaced Australian currency. The kina had a
par value with the Australian dollar initially but was
subsequentially revalued.
6 See M. Strathern (I 975: 269) for a discussion of some of the
problems Hagen migrants to Port Moresby have obtaining Papuan
wives.
7 Compare Seligman: 'If the two piles are adjudged even, the
hekarai [hekara] is finished, if not, another hekarai must be held,
and it was stated that a number of hekarai might be held until the
rivals provided an equal number of bananas, when the contest
finished' (I9Io: I45).
8 Groves I954: 2, I I-I2. The former London Missionary Society is
now the United Church. 9 Five of these villages are Motuan (Gaire,
Tuberserea, Boera, Barakau, Lealea), four are Koita
(Kouderika, Gorohu, Papa, Roku) and there are five others (Dagoea,
Manugora, Senunu, Kalaki, Sabua).
10 Absent were Sabua, Barakau, Gorohu and Kalaki. 11 The final
contributions were as follows: Dagoea Ki80oo, Manugora K535o,
Gaire
KIO9-93, Tuberserea Ki58-4I, Kouderika K83y83, Boera KI97-2I, Papa
Ki82-62, Lealea KIoI20, Senunu Ki5oo, Roku K5o78o.
12 While the person with the largest net credit is always the
big-man, the person with the largest net debit is not necessarily
the rubbish-man. It may be a big-man who is temporarily down on his
luck. The rubbish-man is the one who has had few, if any,
transactions. His net credit is usually zero.
13 It should be noted that these figures refer to inter-clan
transactions. Intra-clan gift giving is governed by altogether
different principles and their analysis is not the concern of this
article. For example, a gift from a father to a son has a different
social significance from a gift from one big-man to another.
Household 6, in this case, has a net debit of 5 i on intra-clan
account. This net debt can be interpreted as a measure of the
support the big-man gets from his clan. Thus intra-clan credit
(debt) must be sharply distinguished from inter-clan credit (debt)
when trying to get the measure of a big-man.
4 See Leach (I 954: I 46) for a concrete example of this. 15 There
is an extensive literature on this point, a guide to which can be
found in Meggitt
(I97I: I99, fn. I3). 16 See Mauss (I925: 9-IO, II, i8,24, 3I, 42,
46). 17 The sex of the labourer is of crucial importance for
understanding male/female relations
(see Feil I978: 222). 18 Among the Siane any dispute as to who is
the owner (amfonka) of an article is settled by
ascertaining who actually made the object (Salisbury i962: 62). 19
Many of the tribes in the Sepik District of PNG are based on
'sister exchange' and these
tribes provide an illustration of this point. See Gell (I975:
I7-i8, 27) for example. 20 Discussion of some of these issues can
be found in Gregory (in press). 21 The actual system was a I
4-person zero sum game. 22 This is the case with kula too as
Damon's (I980) recent article demonstrates, if only
implicitly. The essence of his argument is that while kula can be
described as 'generalised exchange' from the perspective of the
islands, it is 'restricted exchange' from the perspective of
kitoums (Munn's kitomu (1977)), i.e. it is circular from the
geographical perspective and linear from the social
perspective.
23 The Oxford dictionary defines 'alienation' as the 'transference
of ownership'. 24 Her arithmetic is also wrong. I O compounded at I
00 per cent for I O years returns I 0,240
not 4320. 25 This is especially so in those societies where shells
are used as instruments of gift exchange
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
C. A. GREGORY
(see Armstrong I924). In places where pigs are used the velocity is
lower but, nevertheless, pig- credit still exceeds pig stock
(Salisbury, I962: 93).
26 The Melanesians of Banks' Islands alienated 'shell money' (i.e.
instruments of gift exchange) by scattering them in a deep hole in
a stream when they made sacrifices (see Codrington, I 89 1:
I40-I42, 323-328).
27 For an account of this process in Papua New Guinea see Gregory
I979. 28 Money is not always classified in this way. In Poreporena,
no significance is attached to the
fact that money consists of paper and coins. 29 But Salisbury's
report seems to be somewhat contradictory because he goes on to
note that
money's divisibility destroys the spheres of gift exchange (I962:
I35-7).
REFERENCES
Armstrong, W. E. I924. Rossel Island money: a unique monetary
system. Econ.J. 34, 423-9. Barnett, H. G. I938. The nature of
potlatch. Am. Anthrop. 40, 349-58. Barton, F. R. IgIo. The annual
trading expedition to the Papuan Gulf. In The Melanesians in
British New Guinea by C. G. Seligman. Cambridge: Univ. Press.
Belshaw, C. S. I957. The great village: the economic and social
welfare of Hanuabada, an urban
communtiy in Papua. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Boas, F.
I897. Kwakiutl ethnography (ed.) H. Codere. Chicago: Univ. Press
(i966). Bohannan, P. & L. Bohannan i968. Tiv economy. Evanston:
Northwestern Univ. Press. Codere, H. 950o. Fighting with property.
New York: Augustin. Codrington, R. H. I 891 . The Melanesians. New
York: Dover (I972). Curtis, E. S. I9I 5. The Kwakiutl. In The north
American Indian, vol. IO. New York: Johnson
(I 970). Damon, F. H. ig80. The kula and generalised exchange:
considering some unconsidered aspects
of the elementary structures of kinship. Man (N. S.) 15, 267-92.
Drucker, P. i965. The potlatch. In Tribal andpeasant economies
(ed.) G. Dalton. New York: The
Natural History Press (i967). & R. F. Heizer i967. To make my
name good: a reexamination of the southern Kwakiutl
potlatch. Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press. Epstein, T. S.
i968. Capitalism, primitive and modern: some aspects of Tolai
economic growth.
Canberra: Australian National Univ. Press. Feil, D. K. I 978. Enga
women in the tee exchange. In Trade and exchange in Oceania and
Australia
(eds) J. Specht & J. P. White (Mankind II :3, spec. Issue).
Finney, B. R. I 973. Big-men and business. Honolulu: Univ. Press of
Hawaii. Gell, A. D. I975. Metamorphosis of the cassowaries: Umeda
society, language and ritual. London:
Athlone Press. Godelier, M. I973. Perspecives in Marxist
anthropology. Cambridge: Univ. Press (I 977). Gregory, C. A. I979.
The emergence of commodity production in Papua New Guinea. J.
contemp. Asia 9, 389-409. in press. Gifts and commodities. London:
Academic Press.
Groves, M. I954. Dancing in Poreporena.J. R. anthrop. Inst. 84,
i-i6. i963. Western Motu descent groups. Ethnology 2, I5-30.
Hill, P. I 972. Rural Hausa. Cambridge: Univ. Press. Leach, E. R.
I954. Political systems of highland Burma: a study of Kachin social
structure. London:
Athlone Press. & J. L. Leach in press. New perspectives on the
kula. Cambridge: Univ. Press.
Levi-Strauss, C. I949. The elementary structures of kinship London:
Eyre & Spottiswoode (i969). Marx, K. I 867. Capital. Moscow:
Progress Publishers. Mauss, M. I935. Thegft. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul (i974). Meggitt, M. J. I 97 I. From tribesmen to
peasants: the case of the Mae-Enga of New Guinea. In
Anthropology in Oceania (eds) L. R. Hiatt & C.J.Jayawardena.
Sydney: Angus & Robertson. I 974. 'Pigs are our hearts !'. The
te exchange cycle among the Mae Enga of New Guinea.
Oceania 44, I65-203. Munn, N. I977. Spatiotemporal transformations
of Gawa canoes. J. Soc. Ocean. 54/55:33, 39-
53. Pacific Island Monthly. 20thJune I975. Poreporena Church
handout I974, I979. Stencilled sheets giving the results of the
boubou (gift
giving competition) held in I974 and I979 [in Motu].
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
652 C. A. GREGORY
Pospisil, L. I963. Kapauku Papuan economy (Yale Univ. Publ.
Anthrop. 67). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Rosentiel, A. I 95 3. The Motu of Papua New Guinea: a study of
successful acculturation. Thesis, Univ. of Michigan.
Salisbury, R. F. I962. From stone to steel. Cambridge: Univ. Press.
Seligman, C. G. I9IO. The Melanesians of British New Guinea.
Cambridge: Univ. Press. Strathern, A.J. I969. Finance and
production: two strategies in New Guinea highlands exchange
systems. Oceania 40, 42-67. I97I. The rope of Moka. Cambridge:
Univ. Press. I979. Gender, ideology and money in Mount Hagen. Man
(N. S.), 530-48.
Strathern, A. M. I972. Women in between: female roles in a male
world, Mount Hagen, New Guinea. London, New York: Seminar
Press.
I975. No money on our skins: Hagen migrants in Port Moresby (New
Guinea Res. Bull. 6i). Port Moresby.
This content downloaded from 200.130.19.157 on Tue, 9 Dec 2014
16:01:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Issue Table of Contents
Man, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), pp.
583-760+i-iv
Volume Information [pp. ]
Front Matter [pp. ]
Polyandry in Sri Lanka: A Test Case for Parental Investment Theory
[pp. 583-602]
Rituals of First Menstruation in Sri Lanka [pp. 603-625]
Gifts to Men and Gifts to God: Gift Exchange and Capital
Accumulation in Contemporary Papua [pp. 626-652]
Jealousy Names, Civilised Names: Anthroponomy of the Jlao Kru of
Liberia [pp. 653-664]
Strangers in the Kibbutz: Volunteer Workers in an Israeli Community
[pp. 665-681]
The Twilight of a South Asian Heroic Age: A Rereading of Barth's
Study of Swat [pp. 682-701]
Philanthropy and Science in the 1830's: The British and Foreign
Aborigines' Protection Society [pp. 702-717]
Succession to High Office in Pre-Columbian Circum-Caribbean
Chiefdoms [pp. 718-731]
Correspondence
The Analysis of Ideology [pp. 738]
Keeping the Lower Palaeolithic in Perspective [pp. 738-739]
Book Reviews