ABSTRACT
It is to the reversibility of exchange-rather than to the unilateral, selfinterested trifling gifts-that this book will investigate. This exchange is, of course, familiar to many Filipinos and is clustered around the notion of the sacrificial, an idiom of exchange that cannot be said to be utilitarian nor about a circulation of disembodied gifts that do not acknowledge the person as the most important element in the gift giving performativity. This sacrifice deals with inner beings of person (lo-ob), that Will given to oneself or another during times of great need and crisis (e.g., as in the devotional contract with saints as a form of "promise" or Cebuano sa-aran in exchange for health, success, and so on).
