orate rites and ceremonies connected with this system which aim at propitiating the souls of powerful ancestors in order that these spirits may be favorably inclined and advance the material prosperity of the living.58

The economic life of primitive peoples presents many striking contrasts to the systematized economic activities of civilized men. Savages live from day to day, from hand to mouth, satisfying their immediate pleasures and making little provision for future needs. Compared with the careful methods of the modern business man we would say that the untrained native lacked foresight. The savage does not seem able to sustain protracted labor. He does not appear to possess the power of continuous application which has made the prosperity of modern peoples. The routine and drudgery of agriculture is too great a burden for the Indian. Under it he often sickens and dies. The Indian is nervously more unstable than the average civilized man. He is more frequently subject to hysteria and becomes easily intoxicated. As the activities of primitive peoples are largely those of war, hunting, magical and religious ceremonies, there is little control of conduct by economic motives. The scale of values of modern peoples is foreign to the savage. His sense of values is undeveloped by comparison with the finely sensitized value concept which we are accustomed to recognize. This difference is not primarily due to any mental defect inherent in the savage, but is almost entirely due to different traditional associations. Because we are familiar with a highly developed system under which we can procure what we want at store or market in exchange for money, we think that

58 Giddings, Descriptive and Hist. Soc., pp. 464-465; and Hozumi, Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law, pp. 9-11, 12-14.

primitive men must have similar usages. But the first discoverers of the Australian natives found that they had no conception of exchange. Their interest was not even aroused by the ornaments offered them, and gifts which had been presented to them were cast away in neglect and strewn about the woods. The same experiences were had with the Indian tribes of Brazil. But in spite of this apparent absence of modern usage, the tribes carried on a brisk trade in pots, stone hatchets, hammocks, cotton threads, necklaces of mussel-shells, and a variety of other articles. Direct observation showed that the explanation of this riddle was in fact simple enough,-the transfer of goods was not true economic exchange, but ensued by way of presents, and, under certain circumstances, by way of robbery, spoils of war, tribute, fine, compensation, and winnings in gaming. A virtual community of goods prevails between members of the same tribes in matters of sustenance. Customs of hospitality are most liberal. When a herd of cattle is slaughtered, the passer-by must be invited to the meal. One may freely enter a hut and ask for food and is never refused. When there is a poor harvest, it is the custom for whole communities to visit their neighbors, who are expected to support them. The customs of loaning articles of use and implements is universal and all but obligatory. There is no private property in land. Surplus stores can be utilized only for consumption, since all households produce similar commodities and assist each other when need arises. Hence there is no occasion for direct barter.59 Between the tribes of this locality rules of hospitality prevail which necessitate the presentation of a gift to the stranger. "After a certain interval he reciprocates, and 59 Bücher, Carl-Industrial Evolution, 1901, pp. 59-82.

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 distances." 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 propitiate. 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.” 60

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 desired. This exchange creates from tribe to tribe its own contrivances for facilitating matters. The most important of these are markets and money.61 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 sentiment that members of tribes should be unmolested while

60 Giddings, Principles, p. 280.

61 Bücher, op. cit.; and Seligman, E. R. A.-Principles of Economics, 1908, pp. 67-80.

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 medium 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 unknown. 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 economy, 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,

62 Giddings, op. cit., p. 318.

money was unknown because primitive exchange is mere barter, the giving of goods for goods. There was no such system as hiring help for work because each community was self-supporting; consequently there could be no competition between wage earners producing a rate of wages. The industry which was carried on, fell to the lot of the women of the community, or to slaves, and no form of remuneration was paid for this work as such. Competition between different forms of capital reflected in the rate of interest could not exist, because the concept of capital was absent, there being little or no private property. The idea of property in land was but slightly developed since the land was held in common by the clan. Private property in objects was unimportant because of customs of lending, sharing, and giving presents. The growth of property by inheritance was checked by the custom of burying the treasures of the dead with them. The Indian's concept of property therefore differs radically from our concept of property. The Indian regards his name as his personal property just as much as we regard our house or our clothes as our private property. He can pawn his name if in debt, or loan it to a friend.

Perhaps one reason for the slow growth of economic concepts among primitive peoples was the existence of certain traditions which hampered the development of means of producing goods. New methods of production were less easily justified than in modern society. An improved method of producing an article encountered as obstacles to its general introduction many senseless superstitions and conservative prejudices. On the Nicobar Islands the art of pottery was given up because some of the natives who had just begun to make pottery