ABSTRACT
The gifts offered on the occasion of rites of passage were of great symbolic, economic and emotional value. The gift of hospitality, on the other hand, had a quite different character. Hospitality had a less explicit significance and was of a temporary nature. Whereas objects such as cooking pots and christening gifts could be displayed in the home and be kept for generations, and funerary poetry could be reread whenever the occasion called for it, hospitality disappeared the moment the party was over.
