The Gift

Mauss uses the term potlatch from the Chinook language that means “to feed, to consume” as a simple example of an occasion that demonstrates the exchange of “total services.” These potlatch ceremonies were held to celebrate a wide range of events such as births or marriages. They have at their core a bringing together of food and gifts from people of different tribes or groups. While on the surface this exchange may seem voluntary, it is underpinned by a great deal of economic transaction, and it showcases elements of a struggle for dominance and power between the participating groups. Mauss describes “the principle of rivalry and hostility that prevails in all these practices” (8). The potlatch may also result in violence and destruction, where chiefs and nobles may even have been killed.

Mauss describes the exchange of gifts as a situation whereby participants are both obliged to give gifts and to receive them. Here he introduces the idea that everything that exists in a given social system “is there for passing on, and for balancing accounts” (18). These things may be tangible examples of wealth such as jewelry or land, but they may also be embodied in the people of a society such as wives, children and so forth.