ANTH 3220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Atlantic Slave Trade, Debt Bondage, Aro Confederacy
23 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Concerned not with the accumulation of wealth, but with the creation, destruction, and rearranging of human beings . Purpose is to establish, maintain, and repair human social relations. Examples of how they do this - establish gift exchanges (peace, friendship), marriage and movement of people, transgressions and murder (head off feuds), negotiate treaties: kula gift exchange. Establish peace and friendly relations between islands. (elite) gifting relationships - not about economic gain but relations and status. Human relations - creating and maintaining: social currencies (social money) Sometimes called primitive money but this is problematic for us (evolutionary) Social money usually useful for adornment of person. Examples: necklaces, bracelets, cloth, cosmetic materials: marriage. A way of recognizing that existence of debts that cannot possibly be repaid . There are standards of exchange depending on the bene t or burden (not buying": blood" debts. Acknowledgement/payment avoids feuds (more killing) - killing revenge, uncommon for destruction.
