a gift without repayment; mapula being the general term for return gifts, and retributions, economic as well as otherwise. The natives undoubtedly would not think of free gifts as forming one class, as being all of the same nature. The acts of liberality on the part of the chief, the sharing of tobacco and betel-nut by anybody who has some to spare, would be taken as a matter of course. Gifts by a husband to a wife are considered also as rooted in the nature of this relationship. They have as a matter of fact a very coarse and direct way of formulating that such gifts are the mapula (payment) for matrimonial relations, a conception in harmony with the ideas underlying another type of gift, of which I shall speak presently, that given in return for sexual intercourse. Economically the two are entirely different, since those of husband to wife are casual gifts within a permanent relationship, whereas the others are definite payment for favours given on special occasions.
The most remarkable fact, however, is that the same explanation is given for the free gifts given by the father to his children; that is to say, a gift given by a father to his son is said to be a repayment for the man’s relationship to the son’s mother. According to the matrilineal set of ideas about kinship, mother and son are one, but the father is a stranger (tomakava) to his son, an expression often used when these matters are discussed. There is no doubt, however, that the state of affairs is much more complex, for there is a very strong direct emotional attitude between father and child. The father wants always to give things to his child, as I have said, (compare Chapter II, Division VI), and this is very well realised by the natives themselves.
As a matter of fact, the psychology underlying these conditions is this: normally a man is emotionally attached to his wife, and has a very strong personal affection towards his children, and expresses these feelings by gifts, and more especially by trying to endow his children with as much of his wealth and position as he can. This, however, runs counter to the matrilineal principle as well as to the general rule that all gifts require repayment, and so these gifts are explained away by the natives in a manner that agrees with these rules. The above crude explanation of the natives by reference to sex payment is a document, which in a very illuminating manner shows up the conflict between the matrilineal theory and the actual sentiments of the natives, and also how necessary it is to check the explicit statements of natives, and the views contained in their terms and phraseology by direct observation of full-blooded life, in which we see man not only laying down rules and theories, but behaving under the impulse of instinct and emotion.
- Customary payments, re-paid irregularly, and without strict equivalence.—The most important of these are the annual payments received at harvest time by a man from his wife’s brothers (cf. Chapter II, Divisions IV and V). These regular and unfailing gifts are so substantial, that they form the bulk of a man’s income in food. Sociologically, they are perhaps the strongest strand in the fabric of the Trobriands tribal constitution. They entail a life-long obligation of every man to work for his kinswomen and their families. When a boy begins to garden, he does it for his mother. When his sisters grow up and marry, he works for them. If he has neither mother