388 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Astrolabe Bay. They exchange presents, however, when different 

 tribes visit each other, somewhat as among the New Zealanders, each 

 party giving the other what they have to spare ; but no one article 

 seems ever to be exchanged for another of supposed equivalent value. &quot; 

 Confirmation is yielded by the account D Albertis gives of 

 certain natives from the interior of New Guinea. Concern 

 ing one who came on board he says: 



&quot;I asked him for the belt he wore round his waist, in exchange for 

 some glass beads, but he did not seem to understand the proposal, 

 which I had to make in pantomime instead of vocal language. He 

 spoke a few words with his people, and then he took off his belt, and 

 received in exchange the beads and a looking-glass, in w T hich he seemed 

 afraid to look at himself. When, however, he was on the point of re 

 turning to shore, he wanted to have his belt back, and it was impossible 

 to make him understand that he had sold it, and that if he did not wish 

 to part with it he must return the articles he had received in exchange.&quot; 

 Another instance, somewhat different in its aspect, comes 

 to us from Samoa. Turner says that at a burial &quot; everyone 

 brought a present, and the day after the funeral these pres 

 ents were all so distributed again as that everyone went 

 away with something in return for what he brought. 77 Of a 

 remote people, the tribes of Xootka Sound, we read as fol 

 lows in Bancroft: 



&quot;They manifest much shrewdness in their exchanges; even their 

 system of presents is a species of trade, the full value of each gift be 

 ing confidently expected in a return present on the next festive occa 

 sion.&quot; 



A different phase of the process occurs in Africa. Describ 

 ing the Bihenos, Capello and Ivens tell us: 



&quot; Following the vicious system in operation throughout Africa of not 

 selling anything to the European, but making him a present of it, they 

 extort from him in turn all his goods and effects, bit by bit, until the 

 unhappy man finds himself under the necessity of refusing all pres 

 ents.&quot; 



Thus the very idea of exchange, without which there can 

 not begin commercial intercourse and industrial organiza 

 tion, has itself to grow out of certain ceremonial actions 

 originated by the desire to propitiate. 



