TRIBAL SOCIETY 273 



making exchanges in this district. Of course the object 

 of this exchange is to procure articles which cannot be 

 produced in one's own tribe at all, or at least in as large 

 quantities. This leads each tribe to produce more than 

 it requires of those products which are desired by other 

 tribes, because in exchange for these it is easiest to obtain 

 that which one does not possess one's self, but which 

 others manufacture in surplus quantities. In this way 

 the idea of value originated and developed in complexity 

 until among modern nations we have many grades in our 

 scale of values. In the course of time it always happens 

 that some one commodity has been exchanged so much 

 more frequently than any other that men can always be 

 sure that with it they can purchase any other commodity 

 they desire. Whatever this specially well-known and 

 highly-valued commodity may be whether oxen or grain, 

 beads or shells it is a true medium of exchange, it is a 

 true money. 62 But it is seldom that true money is found 

 in primitive society ; exchange is usually mere barter, the 

 transfer of goods in kind. It has taken many centuries 

 of constant transfer and exchange of goods before one 

 particular commodity was recognized as a universal me- 

 dium of exchange, money. 



Because the system of exchange and trade is in such 

 a rudimentary stage of development among primitive 

 peoples, modern concepts of price and competition are un- 

 known. There is no competition in the economic sense, 

 for that implies price and differing quality in goods. 

 Price is a concept which is dependent upon a money econ- 

 omy, for price is the amount of money a given quantity of 

 goods will exchange for. Without money there could 

 obviously be no concept of price; and as we have seen, 



2 Giddings, op. cit., p. 316. 



