The Spirit of the Gift

Marcel Mauss's famous Essay on the Gift becomes his own gift to the ages. Apparently completely lucid, with no secrets even for the novice, it remains a source of an unending ponderation for the anthropologist du metier, compelled as if by the hau of the thing to come back to it again and again, perhaps to discover some new and unsuspected value, perhaps to enter into a dialogue which seems to impute some meaning of the reader's but in fact only renders the due of the original. This chapter is an idiosyncratic venture of the latter kind, unjustified moreover by any special study of the Maori or of the philosophers (Hobbes and Rousseau especially) invoked along the way. Yet in thinking the particular thesis of the Maori hau and the general theme of social contract reiterated throughout the Essay, one appreciates in another light certain fundamental qualities of primitive economy and polity, mention of which may forgive the following overextended commentary.

"Explication de Texte"

The master concept of the Essai sur le don is the indigenous Maori idea hau, introduced by Mauss as "the spirit of things and in partic­ular of the forest and the game it contains . . ." (1966, p. 158).¹

1. An English translation of L 'Essai sur le don has been prepared by Ian Cunnison, and published as The Gift (London: Cohen and West, 1954).

The Maori before any other archaic society, and the idea of hau above all similar notions, responded to the central question of the Essay, the only one Mauss proposed to examine "a fond": "What is the principle of right and interest which, in societies of primitive or archaic type, requires that the gift received must be repaid? What force is there in the thing given which compels the recipient to make a return?"(p. 148). The hau is that force. Not only is it the spirit of the foyer, but of the donor of the gift; so that even as it seeks to return to its origin unless replaced, it gives the donor a mystic and dangerous hold over the recipient.

Logically, the hau explains only why gifts are repaid. It does not of itself address the other imperatives into which Mauss decomposed the process of reciprocity: the obligation to give in the first place, and the obligation to receive. Yet by comparison with the obligation to recip­rocate, these aspects Mauss treated only summarily, and even then in ways not always detached from the hau; "This rigorous combination of symmetrical and opposed rights and duties ceases to appear contra­dictory if one realizes that it consists above all of a melange of spiritual bonds between things which are in some degree souls, and individuals and groups which interact in some degree as things" (p. 163).

Meanwhile, the Maori hau is raised to the status of a general expla­nation: the prototypical principle of reciprocity in Melanesia, Polyne­sia, and the American northwest coast, the binding quality of the Roman traditio, the key to gifts of cattle in Hindu India—"What you are, I am; become on this day of your essence, in giving you I give myself (p. 248).

Everything depends then on the "texte capitale" collected by Elsdon Best (1909) from the Maori sage, Tamati Ranapiri of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe. The great role played by the hau in the Essay on the Gift—and the repute it has enjoyed since in anthropological eco­nomics—stems almost entirely from this passage. Here Ranapiri ex­plained the hau of taonga, that is, goods of the higher spheres of exchange, valuables. I append Best's translation of the Maori text (which he also published in the original), as well as Mauss's rendering in French.

Mauss complained about Best's abbreviation of a certain portion of the original Maori. To make sure that we would miss nothing of this critical document, and in the hope further meanings might be gleaned from it, I asked Professor Bruce Biggs, distinguished student of the Maori, to prepare a new interlinear translation, leaving the term "hau," however, in the original. To this request he responded most kindly and promptly with the following version, undertaken without consulting Best's translation:²

Na, mo te hau o te ngaaherehere. Taua mea te hau, ehara i te mea

Now, concerning the hau of the forest. This hau is not the hau

ko te hau e pupuhi nei. Kaaore. Maaku e aata whaka maarama ki a koe.

that blows (the wind). No. I will explain it carefully to you.

Na, he taonga toou ka hoomai ekoe mooku. Kaaore aa taaua whakaritenga

Now, you have something valuable which you give to me. We have no

uto mo too taonga. Na, ka hoatu hoki e ahau mo teetehi atu tangata, aa,

agreement about payment. Now, I give it to someone else, and,

ka roapeaa te waa, aa, ka mahara taua tangata kei a ia raa taug taonga

a long time passes, and that man thinks he has the valuable,

kia hoomai he utu ki a au, aa, ka hoomai e ia. Na, ko taua taonga

he should give some repayment to me, and so he does so. Now, that

/ hoomai nei ki a au, ko te hau teenaa o te taonga i hoomai ra ki a au

valuable which was given to me, that is the hau of the valuable which was

i mua. Ko taua taonga me hoatu e ahau ki a koe. E kore given to me before.

I must give it to you. It would not

rawa e tika kia kaiponutia e ahau mooku; ahakoa taonga pai rawa, taonga

be correct for me to keep it for myself, whether it be something very good,

kino raanei, me tae rawa taua taonga i a au ki a koe. No te mea he

hau or bad, that valuable must be given to you from me. Because that valuable

no te taonga teenaa taonga na. Ki te mea kai kaiponutia e ahau taua taonga

is a hau of the other valuable. If I should hang onto that valuable

mooku, ka mate ahau. Koina te hau, hau taonga

for myself, I will become mate. So that is the hau—hau of valuables,

hau ngaaherehere. Kaata eenaa.

hau of the forest. So much for that.

2. Hereinafter, I will use the Biggs version except where the argument about Mauss's interpretation requires that one cite only the documents available to him. I take this opportunity to thank Professor Biggs for his generous help.

Concerning the text as Best recorded it, Mauss commented that— despite marks of that "esprit theologique et juridique encore impre-cis" characteristic of Maori—"it offers but one obscurity: the inter­vention of a third person." But even this difficulty he forthwith clarified with a light gloss:

But in order to rightly understand this Maori jurist, it suffices to say: "Taonga and all strictly personal property have a hau. a spiritual power. You give me a taonga, I give it to a third party, the latter gives me another in return, because he is forced to do so by the hau of my present; and I am obliged to give you this thing, for I must give back to you what is in reality the product of the hau of your taonga (1966, p. 159).

Embodying the person of its giver and the hau of its forest, the gift itself, on Mauss's reading, obliges repayment. The receiver is beholden by the spirit of the donor; the hau of a taonga seeks always to return to its homeland, inexorably, even after being transferred hand to hand through a series of transactions. Upon repaying, the original recipient assumes power in turn over the first donor; hence, "la circulation obligatoire des richesses, tributs et dons" in Samoa and New Zealand. In sum:

... it is clear that inMaoricustom.thebondof law, bond by way of things, is a bond of souls, because the thing itself has a soul, is soul. From this it follows that to present something to someone is to present something of oneself. ... It is clear that in this system of ideas it is necessary to return unto another what is in reality part of his nature and substance; for, to accept something from someone is to accept something of his spiritual essence, of his soul; the retention of this thing would be dangerous and mortal, not simply because it would be illicit, but also because this thing which comes from a person, not only morally but physically and spiritual­ly—this essence, this food, these goods, movable or immovable, these women or these offspring, these rites or these communions—give a magical and religious hold over you. Finally, this thing given is not inert. Animate, often personified, it seeks to return to what Hertz called its "foyer d'ori-gine" or to produce for the clan and the earth from which it came some equivalent to take its place (op. cit., p. 161).

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 1023