[
278 ] Notes on Sources
der—and he is perfectly well aware of it" (Malinowski,
Crime and Custom in Sav-
age Society, 1926, pp. 40-41):
Competition: "Competition is keen, performance, though uniform in aim, is
varied in excellence.... A scramble for excellence in reproducing patterns"
(Goldenweiser, "Loose Ends of Theory on the Individual, Pattern, and Involution
in Primitive Society," in
Essays in Anthropology, 1936, p. 99). "Men vie with one an-
other in their speed, in their thoroughness, and in the weights they can lift, when
bringing big poles to the garden, or in carrying away the harvested yams" (Mali-
nowski,
Argonauts, p. 61).
Joy of work: "Work for its own sake is a constant characteristic of Maori indus-
try" (Firth, "Some Features of Primitive Industry,"
E. J., Vol. I, p. 17). "Much time
and labour is given up to aesthetic purposes, to making the gardens tidy, clean,
cleared of all debris; to building fine, solid fences, to providing specially strong
and big yam-poles. All these things are, to some extent, required for the growth of
the plant; but there can be no doubt that the natives push their conscientiousness
far beyond the limit of the purely necessary" (Malinowski,
op. cit., p. 59).
Social approbation: "Perfection in gardening is the general index to the social
value of a person" (Malinowski,
Coral Gardens and Their Magic, Vol. II, 1935, p.
124). "Every person in the community is expected to show a normal measure of
application" (Firth,
Primitive Polynesian Economy, 1939, p. 161). "The Andaman
Islanders regard laziness as an antisocial behaviour" (Ratcliffe-Brown,
The Anda-
man Islanders), "To put one's labour at the command of another is a social service,
not merely an economic service" (Firth,
op. cit., p. 303).
(e) Man the same down the ages.
Linton in his
Study of Man advises caution against the psychological theories
of personality determination, and asserts that "general observations lead to the
conclusion that the total range of these types is much the same in all societies....
In other words, as soon as he [the observer] penetrates the screen of cultural
difference, he finds that these people are fundamentally like ourselves" (p. 484).
Thurnwald stresses the similarity of men at all stages of their development:
"Primitive economics as studied in the preceding pages is not distinguished from
any other form of economics, as far as human relations are concerned, and rests
on the same general principles of social life"
(Economics, p. 288). "Some collective
emotions of an elemental nature are essentially the same with all human beings
and account for the recurrence of similar configurations in their social existence"
("Sozialpsychische Ablaufe im Volkerleben," in
Essays in Anthropology, p. 383).
Ruth Benedict's
Patterns of Culture ultimately is based on a similar assumption: "I
have spoken as if human temperament were fairly constant in the world, as if in
every society a roughly similar distribution were potentially available, and, as if
the culture selected from these, according to its traditional patterns, had moulded
the vast majority of individuals into conformity. Trance experience, for example,
according to this interpretation, is a potentiality of a certain number of individu-
Notes on Sources
[279]
als in any population. When it is honoured and rewarded, a considerable propor-
tion will achieve or simulate i t . . . . " (p. 233). Malinowski consistently maintained
the same position in his works.
(f) Economic systems, as a rule, are embedded in social relations;
distribution of material goods is ensured by noneconomic motives.
Primitive economy is "a social affair, dealing with a number of persons as parts
of an interlocking whole" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. xii). This is equally true of
wealth, work, and barter. "Primitive wealth is not of an economic but of a social
nature"
{ibid.). Labor is capable of "effective work," because it is
"integrated into
an organized effort by social forces" (Malinowski,
Argonauts, p. 157). "Barter of
goods and services is carried on mostly within a standing partnership, or associ-
ated with definite social ties or coupled with a mutuality in non-economic mat-
ters" (Malinowski,
Crime and Custom, p. 39).
The two main principles which govern economic behavior appear to be
reci-
procity and
storage-cum-redistribution:
"The whole tribal life is permeated by a constant give and take" (Malinowski,
Argonauts, p. 167). "To-day's giving will be recompensed by to-morrow's taking.
This is the outcome of the principle of reciprocity which pervades every relation
of primitive life...." (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. 106). In order to make such reci-
procity possible, a certain "duality" of institutions or "symmetry of structure will
be found in every savage society, as the indispensable basis of reciprocal obliga-
tions" (Malinowski,
Crime and Custom, p. 25). "The symmetrical partition of
their chambers of spirits is based with the Banaro on the structure of their society,
which is similarly symmetrical" (Thurnwald,
Die Gemeinde der Banaro, 1921,
P-378).
Thurnwald discovered that apart from, and sometimes combined with, such
reciprocating behavior, the practice of storage and redistribution was of the most
general application from the primitive hunting tribe to the largest empires.
Goods were centrally collected and then distributed to the members of the com-
munity, in a great variety of ways. Among Micronesian and Polynesian peoples,
for instance, "the kings as the representatives of the first clan, receive the revenue,
redistributing it later in the form of largesse among the population" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. xii). This distributive function is a prime source of the political
power of central agencies
(ibid., p. 107).
(g) Individual food collection for the use of his own person and family does
not form part of early man's life.
The classics assumed that pre-economic man had to take care of himself and
his family. This assumption was revived by Karl Bucher in his pioneering work
around the turn of the century and gained wide currency. Recent research has
unanimously corrected Bucher on this point. (Firth,
Primitive Economics of the