272 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



at his departure still another present is handed to him. 

 This custom of reciprocal gifts of hospitality permits 

 rare products of a land or artistic creations of a tribe 

 to circulate from people to people, and to cover great dis- 

 tances." Thus the early transfer of goods was through 

 gift-making to strangers and others. But even before 

 this there was the giving of presents with a view to pro- 

 pitiate. Evil spirits, powerful chiefs, and objects of 

 reverence, might be appeased by gifts of useful articles. 

 Hence the giving of presents was not in response to 

 altruistic or unselfish motives but purely with a view to 

 diverting or directing away from self some impending 

 danger. "The transition from this form of propitiation 

 to exchange for its own sake is easy, but the fiction of 

 present-giving is long retained." ^'^ 



In the course of time, production of articles of food 

 and wear is no longer followed directly by consumption, 

 but there is interposed the process of exchange for the 

 sake of exchanging what is not wanted for what is de- 

 sired. This exchange creates from tribe to tribe its own 

 contrivances for facilitating matters. The most impor- 

 tant of these are markets and money.^'^ Markets are 

 held among Negroes, East Indians, and Polynesians in 

 open places, often in the midst of the primeval forests, 

 on the tribal borders. The market is a neutral district 

 between the bordering territories of the two tribes. It 

 is a sacred place within which all hostilities must cease. 

 Presents were first exchanged here, perhaps to keep up 

 friendly relations; in time there was a growth of senti- 

 ment tliat members of tribes should be unmolested while 



CO Giddings, Principles, p. 280. 



61 Biicher, op. cit.; and Seligman, E. R. A. — Principles of Economics, 

 1908, pp. 67-80. 



