Barbara J. Pescan
Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific have an elaborate ritual way of passing gifts of necklaces and arm bands made of shells. The shells themselves are nicely wrought into the items that become the gifts. But, it isn’t the intrinsic value of the item that gives the gift its importance. It is the ceremony attached to how the gifts move from island to island, and from person to person.
It is important how the next receiver is chosen to receive the gift. It should be someone who has not had the necklace or arm band for some time. Arm bands get passed one way around the islands, and necklaces move in a circle in the opposite direction. These objects are carried from island to island by canoe. And the journeys take much preparation and take several days and cover hundreds of miles.
The current owner carefully plans when and how he will give the object to someone else. The one who is to receive the object waits and wonders when it will come. The whole thing goes on with great decorum and with particular valences attached to how long one person keeps one of these necklaces before passing it on. People’s reputations are made by how they participate in the giving and receiving ritual. It may take two to ten years for the object to make the rounds of the islands.
The important thing with the Trobriand people is that to possess is to give—“someone who owns a thing is expected to share it, to distribute it, to be its trustee and dispenser.”
In the world of the gift, you not only can have your cake and eat it, too; you can’t have your cake unless you eat it, that is, unless you distribute it, consume it, use it up by giving it to someone else.