Note 1 — Chapter III · The Essentials of the Kula

Thus in the Introduction we called the Kula a “form of trade,” and we ranged it alongside other systems of barter. This is quite correct, if we give the word “trade” a sufficiently wide interpretation, and mean by it any exchange of goods. But the word “trade” is used in current Ethnography and economic literature with so many different implications that a whole lot of misleading, preconceived ideas have to be brushed aside in order to grasp the facts correctly. Thus the aprioric current notion of primitive trade would be that of an exchange of indispensable or useful articles, done without much ceremony or regulation, under stress of dearth or need, in spasmodic, irregular intervals—and this done either by direct barter, everyone looking out sharply not to be done out of his due, or, if the savages were too timid and distrustful to face one another, by some customary arrangement, securing by means of heavy penalties compliance in the obligations incurred or imposed.1 Waiving for the present the question how far this conception is valid or not in general—in my opinion it is quite misleading—we have to realise clearly that the Kula contradicts in almost every point the above definition of “savage trade.” It shows to us primitive exchange in an entirely different light.