ABSTRACT
Presenting empirical material from interviews and courts proceedings, this chapter argues that heirlooms carry social relationships in a similar way. Heirlooms given either inter vivos or mortis causa or claimed in a dispute with other heirs establish a bond with past generations and link the holder of the object to a family group that comprises space as well as time. It is the hau of the gift that obliges the recipient to reciprocate it. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines heirloom as a chattel which under a will or by custom is inherited by an heir in the same way as real estate. When people do not receive in inheritance the gifts they had counted on or hoped for, reactions vary; they may consider it an upsetting omission, an offensive insult, an administrative error, or simply something to be forgotten quickly. According to Bourdieu, the gift receives its meaning from the response it produces. Gifts may also misfire.
