Primitive Trade: Its Psychology and Economics

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K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Limited, 1926 - Anthropology - 191 pages
 

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Page 9 - Anyone with a sense for facts soon recognizes that the course of social evolution is not unitary but that different races and different communities of the same race have, in fact, whether they started from the same point or no, diverged early, rapidly, and in many different directions at once.
Page 9 - Anyone with a sense for facts soon recognises that the course of social evolution is not unitary but that different races and different communities of the same race have, in fact, whether they started from the same point or no, diverged early, rapidly, and in many different directions at once. If theorising is easy when facts are treated arbitrarily, a theory which would really grow out of the facts themselves and express their true significance presents the greatest possible difficulties to the...
Page 179 - On the Condition and Characteristics of Some of the Native Tribes of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories.
Page 9 - ... make out a plausible case in support of some general notion of human progress. On the other hand, if theories are easily made, they are also easily confuted by a less friendly use of the same data. That same variety of which we speak is so great that there is hardly any sociological generalisation which does not stumble upon some awkward fact if one takes the trouble to find it. Anyone with a sense for facts soon recognises that the course of social evolution is not unitary but that different...
Page 128 - ... personal to the individuals concerned. We find, however, instances in which it does not cease on the death of the original parties to it. Further, in many cases the stranger is treated by his protector's tribe as its protege; and in this attitude of a community towards an individual, we see the beginning of that public hospitality which forms a marked feature in the life of classic antiquity. Lastly, it is to be observed, that to refuse hospitality is generally regarded by public opinion as blameworthy,...
Page 128 - ... him to the next village, or by protecting him with a token which will ensure his friendly reception. Not infrequently this relation is indicated by an exchange of names, or by some ceremony as that of blood-brotherhood. At first it seems to have been strictly personal to the individuals concerned. We find, however, instances in which it does not cease on the death of the original parties to it. Further, in many cases the stranger is treated by his protector's tribe as its protege...
Page 125 - ... form. In the lower stages it is in fact not very easy to distinguish between private retaliation when exercised by a kinsfolk or a body of friends, and a war which is perhaps organised by a leader chosen for the occasion, followed by a party of volunteers. Strictly, we take it that external retaliation means a quarrel exercised by a part of a community only upon members of another community, while war means an operation conducted in the name of the community as a whole.
Page 122 - On our arrival we first, according to custom, sing and dance, after which we barter all our things, and then some of us go with some of the coast people in their boats in order to witness their skill at spearing, we meanwhile being seated in the bottom of the boats. The rest of us accompany their friends among the coast people at pig-hunting. " After a few days we pack up the things we have received in exchange from the coast people, such as pig-arrows, iron, knives, adzes, bottles, red paint made...
Page 87 - ... the essential causes of the backward state of monetary theory. The theory of money necessarily presupposes a theory of the saleableness of goods. If we grasp this, we shall be able to understand how the almost unlimited saleableness of money is only a special case, — presenting only a difference of degree — of a generic phenomenon of economic life — namely, the difference in the saleableness of commodities in general. IV. COMMODITIES AS MORE OR LESS SALEABLE It is an error in economics,...
Page 130 - Trobriands; namely, that the whole tribal life is permeated by a constant give and take; that every ceremony, every legal and customary act is done to the accompaniment of material gift and counter gift; that wealth, given and taken, is one of the main instruments of social organization, of the power of the chief, of the bonds of kinship, and of relationships in law.

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