Introduction

This chapter grows out of the confluence of a number of different factors. The first was an epistemological problem, the others were more fortuitous, though they stemmed from the encounter over a period of years of a group of scholars who have patiently pooled their data on various societies, their analytical efforts and their theoretical insights. Certain observers sought to unearth in traditional societies a fascinating egalitarian primitive communism. The chapter simply wishes to call attention to two points: the violence done here to the absolute distinction between subject and object; and the explicit recourse had to a consideration of values. It examines the vocabulary used in relation to exchanges in each society and offers a preliminary comparison of this data. Thereafter, the exchanges of each of the four are analysed in the ‘movement of the whole’ of the society, to use Mauss’ expression.