Gift as a Symbol of Inter-human Relations
Gift as a Symbol of Inter-human Relations

Summary/Abstract: The paper in details show how an ethnological act, an act of gift-giving, can and must be put in a theoretical and methodical context. Without it, it is difficult to find the meaning of any ethnological occurrence. The author explains the conception of a gift as an universal cultural category through which higher values are realised. In communication between two persons, which have a positive attitude towards each other, meeting has an important role. The situation in which occasional gift-giving is obliged, the author calls gift-situation and puts it within a cultural system. Gift-giving and the gift givers, together with the kind of gift that is given, the intention of giving and the ritual of giving a gift, are connected with time and place and the typical gestures while the gift is given. It is obvious that the act of gift-giving has a symbolic function which is complex and of various meaning.

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