The Aesthetics of Polynesian Gift
The discussions about Marcel Mauss’s The Gift have largely continued to feed into the anthropological reflection on economic exchanges over the past decades. Key concepts of his work (“gift”, “counter-gift”, “reciprocity”) are nowadays criticized as barriers to thinking about exchange rather than heuristic tools. Based on the study of Tongan ceremonies of exchange (South Pacific), this article examines the scope of the term “total prestation systems” to refer to these events. The discussion is based in particular on an analysis of the place of dance and music in these ceremonies, a dimension that is sometimes neglected in these types of prestation.