Practice question · Put in order
Order Mauss’s cycle as one gift moves between two lineages.
- Time passes: the debt hangs, binding the parties
- The exchange renews: the relationship, not the goods, is the point
- Lineage A presents a gift, refusal would mean hostility
- Lineage B returns a counter-gift of at least equal weight
- Lineage B receives it, accepting the relationship
Hints
- The cycle has three obligations, with a delay in the middle.
- Instant settlement would end the relationship rather than sustain it.
Show the answer
- Lineage A presents a gift, refusal would mean hostility
- Lineage B receives it, accepting the relationship
- Time passes: the debt hangs, binding the parties
- Lineage B returns a counter-gift of at least equal weight
- The exchange renews: the relationship, not the goods, is the point
Why
Give, receive, repay, with the fertile pause in the middle. The hanging debt is the social bond; instant settlement would end the relationship, not honor it.
Practise Economic Anthropology and Reciprocity
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Economic Anthropology and Reciprocity
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