Why do the Trobriands Have Chiefs?

Who Benefits from Complexity? A View from Futuna

“…Goldman (1970:505-507) explicitly states that the prestige gifts of chiefs such as mats were more highly valued than the food that they received in exchange perhaps because chiefs controlled the supply (elite women basically controlled the production and distribution of these goods -Gailey 1985:6, Douaire-Marsaudon 1998. In other parts of the world, too, chiefs secured monopolies on ceremonial and prestige goods as well as using this control to create socioeconomic inequalities and complexity (Bishop 1987, Brunton 1975, Feinman 1991:247, Teit 1909:583, Tybjerg 1977.…”

Pathways to Power

“…like Feil, Clark and Parry (1990:323) suggest that this control over important prestige items may have been critical in the emergence of chiefdoms. Similarly, Brunton (1975), Bishop (1987), and others have argued that both natural access constraints, such as those imposed by long distances, and artificial access constraints, such as control over exchange imposed by aggrandizers, result in increased socioeconomic and political complexity. Lemonnier (199Oa:73) explicitly states that effort investment is the primary criterion for items used in economic competition, while Clark and Parry (1990:297) add that prestige goods in transegalitarian societies not only involve high labor costs to procure or produce but also have conspicuous display characteristics.…”

Hawaiian Adze Production and Distribution: Implications for the Development of Chiefdoms. Barbara Lass 1994. Monograph No. 37. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, v + 89 pp., figures, tables, appendixes, bibliography. $15.00 (paper)

“…Such exchange was, however, an effective mechanism for creating and maintaining social ties between groups which could be advantageous during times of food shortages or other stress, according to Flannery. This dual role for centrally controlled exchange has also been suggested by ethnographers for a number of nonstate societies with hereditary chiefs and Big Men (Brunton 1975;Dalton 1977;Strathern 1971).…”