ABSTRACT
No analysis of economic organization can be complete without some reference to problems of value. Material from Maori sources is somewhat scarce here, but an attempt must be made to indicate at least the broad outlines of the subject. This will serve at the same time to suggest a number of points for further investigation by field-workers, while involving also the discussion of some general propositions of economic anthropology. In the last resort, every aspect of the economic life, the effort of work, the accumulation of goods and preservation of them, the mechanism of apportionment and exchange, is bound up with a process of valuation. Economic value represents only a specific instance of the general concept, which is, in the widest sense, a subjective appreciation or judgment based upon the functional interrelation between a person and an object of interest.
