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Denying the gift

Aspects of ceremonial exchange and sacrifice on Ambrym Island, Vanuatu

University of Bergen, Norway, knut.rio{at}bm.uib.no

This article takes up the well-known `obligation of a return' suggested by Marcel Mauss. Through material from Ambrym Island, Vanuatu, Central Melanesia, we get a view of how the ceremonial process, and the sacrifice of pigs especially, builds on a distinction between `giving' and `exchanging'. Supported by the phenomenological approach taken by Derrida on the gift as well as recent ethnographies parallel to the Ambrym case, the argument is that this very opposition is the driving force of the ceremonial process. It is argued that the sacrifice of pigs is about transforming gifts into reciprocity and thus the creation of autonomous persons.

Key Words: Ambrym island • ceremonial exchange • circumcision • [the] gift • Melanesia • mortuary ceremonies • sacrifice • Vanuatu

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 7, No. 4, 449-470 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499607083429


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