Kula (ritual)

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A soulava necklace

As Kula or Kula ring the designated Anthropology (Ethnology), a ritual gift exchange system with delayed reciprocity among the inhabitants of the Pacific Trobriand Islands . These Melanesian islands are arranged almost in a circle, between them soulava , necklaces made of small red mussel plates, are exchanged clockwise . In the other direction, counterclockwise (in the mill direction), mwali are exchanged, bracelets made from a white shell ring. The individual chains and maturities have a sacred character, each with its own orally transmitted story. All gifts must be exchanged after a while.

Four mwali bracelets

The word kula means a ritual object of exchange and prestige without any direct use for the recipient. Receiving a gift involves the obligation to give something appropriate to the giver within a certain period of time. The social function of this complex, non-profit exchange trading is the social links between the domination freely interconnected Trobrianders to strengthen and accompany real barter ritual. Giver and recipient are in a constant (inheritable) position of hospitality to one another.

The Polish social anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski described the Kula system in detail in his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific in 1922 and made it known in European social sciences . Malinowski's realization that there are also economies without profit orientation influenced the entire economic ethnology , but also Western economic thinking . In 1924, the French ethnologist Marcel Mauss dealt with this complex topic in more detail in his work Die Gabe and made intercultural comparisons about the exchange of gifts (see also the gift economy ).

The German ethnologist Susanne Kuehling examined the practice of kula exchange on the D'Entrecasteaux Islands .

See also

  • Hxaro (mutual exchange system of the South African ǃKung-San)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Susanne Kuehling : The name of the gift: ethics of exchange on Dobu Iceland. PhD thesis Australian National University 1998 (English; download page ).