Ancient wisdom
Feb. 5th, 2002 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleI have never found a man so generous and hospitable that he would not receive a present, nor one so liberal with his money that he would dislike a reward if he could get one.
Friends should rejoice each others hearts with gifts of weapons and raiment, that is clear from ones own experience. That friendship lasts longest--if there is a chance of its being a success--in which friends both give and receive gifts.
A man ought to be a friend to his friend and repay gift with gift. People should meet smiles with smiles and lies with treachery.
Havamal (part of the Elder Edda), VV, 39, 41, 42, as quoted by Marcel Mauss as preface to his 1925 book "The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in ancient societies."
Friends should rejoice each others hearts with gifts of weapons and raiment, that is clear from ones own experience. That friendship lasts longest--if there is a chance of its being a success--in which friends both give and receive gifts.
A man ought to be a friend to his friend and repay gift with gift. People should meet smiles with smiles and lies with treachery.
Havamal (part of the Elder Edda), VV, 39, 41, 42, as quoted by Marcel Mauss as preface to his 1925 book "The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in ancient societies."
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no subject
Date: 2002-02-05 09:53 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-02-05 10:03 am (UTC)Mauss seems to be arguing that property rights and other economic concerns that we handle through cash payments, contract and inheritance law, exchange rates, and concepts like 'buying' and 'selling' as distinct from 'giving' and 'receiving', are handled in other cultures as exchanges of goods, services, family members, tokens, status symbols, land... i.e. "gifts".