tribal life. It must be remembered that accidental or spontaneous gifts, such as alms or charities, do not exist, since everybody in need would be maintained by his or her family. Again, there are so many well-defined economic obligations, connected with kinship and relationship-in-law, that anyone wanting a thing or a service would know where to go and ask for it. And then, of course, it would not be a free gift, but one imposed by some social obligation. Moreover, since gifts in the Trobriands are conceived as definite acts with a social meaning, rather than transmissions of objects, it results that where social duties do not directly impose them, gifts are very rare.
The most important type of free gift are the presents characteristic of relations between husband and wife, and parents and children. Among the Trobrianders, husband and wife own their things separately. There are man’s and woman’s possessions, and each of the two partners has a special part of the household goods under control. When one of them dies, his or her relations inherit the things. But though the possessions are not joint, they very often give presents to one another, more especially a husband to his wife.
As to the parents’ gifts to the children, it is clear that in a matrilineal society, where the mother is the nearest of kin to her children in a sense quite different to that in our society, they share in and inherit from her all her possessions. It is more remarkable that the father, who, according to native belief and law, is only the mother’s husband, and not the kinsman of the children, is the only relation from whom free gifts are expected.6 The father will give freely of his valuables to a son, and he will transmit to him his relationships in the Kula, according to the definite rules by which it is done (see Chapter XI, Division II). Also, one of the most valuable and valued possessions, the knowledge of magic, is handed over willingly, and free of any counter-gift, from father to son. The ownership of trees in the village grove and ownership in garden plots is ceded by the father to his son during the lifetime of the former. At his death, it often has to be returned to the man’s rightful heirs, that is, his sister’s children. All the objects of use embraced by the term gugua will be shared with him as a matter of course by a man’s children. Also, any special luxuries in food, or such things as betel-nut or tobacco, he will share with his children as well as with his wife. In all such small articles of indulgence, free distribution will also obtain between the chief or the headman and his vassals, though not in such a generous spirit, as within the family. In fact, everyone who possesses betel-nut or tobacco in excess of what he can actually consume on the spot, would be expected to give it away. This very special rule, which also happens to apply to such articles as are generally used by white men for trade, has largely contributed to the tenacity of the idea of the communistic native. In fact, many a man will carefully conceal any surplus so as to avoid the obligation of sharing it and yet escape the opprobrium attaching to meanness.
There is no comprehensive name for this class of free gifts in native terminology. The verb “to give” (sayki) would simply be used, and on inquiry as to whether there was repayment for such a gift, the natives would directly answer that this was