ABSTRACT
The confrontation between traditional social structures and a modern economy has consequences which are revealed at very different levels of generality and complexity. The most common observations deal with the rapid decline of those economies is called subsistence economies: they are expressed in global schemas similar to those presented by G. and M. Wilson and based on researches carried out in Central Africa. The major system of relations, which is to be found right at the core of Kongo society and culture, is that which involves clan land, lineages, and the ancestors; they constitute a system of relationship intense in nature and highly esteemed, which is articulated into a wider pattern through alliances deriving from matrimonial exchanges. In its traditional role, the malaki provided a kind of 'backdrop' to economic relations. All kinds of goods and partners were more or less involved in a system of multiple and ambivalent manifestations: co-operation and affinity did not exclude prestige rivalry and challenge.
