Highlights of Mauss, Gift

1) Methodologically, Mauss is particularly interested in investigating what he calls the “total social fact,” a social reality that gives expression to all sorts of institutions simultaneously. Gift-exchange events such as the potlatch are “religious, juridical, and moral” and “relate to both politics and the family”; they are “economic” events having to do with “production and consumption, or rather, of performing total services of distribution.” There is even an “aesthetic” dimension to gift-giving (p. 3). He claims that these total social phenomena have the double advantage of generality and of reality, and help sociologists/anthropologists to dodge the charge that they have unrealistically divided the elements of society from each other (pp. 78-83). (For a genealogy and theological critique of the “fait sociale,” see Milbank.)

He describes the dimensions of the potlatch as follows: “It is religious, mythological, and Shamanist, since the chiefs who are involved represent and incarnate the ancestors and the gods, whose names they bear, whose dances they dance and whose spirits possess them. The potlatch is also an economic phenomenon, and we must gauge the value, the importance, the reasons for, and the effect of these transactions, enormous even today, when they are calculated in European values. The potlatch is also a phenomenon of social structure: the gathering together of tribes, clans, and families, even of peoples, brings about a remarkable state of nerviness and excitement. One fraternizes, yet one remains a stranger; one communicates and opposes others in a gigantic act of trade and a constant tournament” (p. 38). He describes the aesthetic dimension as well: “the dances that are carried out in turn, the songs and processes of every kind, the dramatic performances that are given from camp to camp, and by one associate to another; the objects of every sort that are made, used, ornamented, polished, collected, and lovingly passed on, all that is joyfully received and successfully presented, the banquets themselves in which everyone participates; everything, food, objects, and services, even ‘respect’ . . . is a cause of aesthetic emotion, and not only of emotions of a moral order or relating to self-interest” (p. 79).

2) The gift, Mauss famously argued, is a “vehicle” for the spiritual, religious, or magical force of the person or clan who gives it. In some cases, this force is understood as a force of return: The gift wants to return to the owner, and if the recipient fails to return it in some form the power of the original gift will haunt him. Mauss cites the an example from a study of Maori gift exchange: Person A gives a gift to B, who then passes on the gift to C; C reciprocates B’s gift by giving him a gift; it’s expected that that B will return that gift to A, or face serious consequences. The theory is that the gift, even after it leaves A’s hands, still carries his force, and that it’s only fair that he should benefit from any benefit that B might get from his gift. As Mauss says, “even when it has been abandoned by the giver, [the gift] still possesses something of him” (p. 12). The gift represents and somehow contains and communicate the giver’s soul: “to make a gift os something to someone is to make a present of some part of oneself” (p. 12).

3) Mauss describes gift-exchange in terms of a triple obligation: Under certain circumstances and for certain people, there is an obligation to give; there is also an obligation to receive – one cannot refuse a gift without insult, virtually a declaration of war; and there is an obligation to reciprocate the gift with a return gift.

4) Gift-exchange in a religious context shades off into sacrifice. At times, destruction of goods is an ostentatious display of wealth and superiority: I’m such a big man that I can even put my slaves to death, burn up all my oil, cast metal goods into the ocean, or burn my house (p. 16). But the immolation is also religious: Destructive gift-giving “is also in order to sacrifice to the spirits and the gods, indistinguishable from their living embodiments, who bear their titles and are their initiates and allies” (p. 16). In both social and religious contexts, gifts also “service the purpose of buying peace” (p. 17).

5) What distinguishes the North American Indian potlatch from other festivals of gift-exchange is the note of rivalry and contest. The potlatch is agonistic, as each giver attempts to out to the others in generosity and wealth. Honor is the key to the event: “Nowhere is the individual prestige of a chief and that of his clan so closely linked to what is spent and to the meticulous repayment with interest of gifts that have been accepted, so as to transform into persons having an obligation those that have placed you yourself under a similar obligation. Consumption and destruction of goods really go beyond all bounds. In certain kinds of potlatch one must expend all that one has, keeping nothing back. It is a competition to see who is the richest and also the most madly extravagant. Everything is based upon the principles of antagonism and rivalry” (p. 37).

6) Mauss spends a chapter arguing that the practice of gift-exchange lies behind certain institutions of Roman, Hindu, and Germanic law, and in another chapter also suggests ways that gift-exchange could help to renew modern societies.