What is the function of the Kula ring?
What is the function of the Kula ring?
It provides internal status for men, and strengthens political stability among kula trading islands by reinforcing peace, since Trobrianders are highly reticent to attack islanders who are partners in kula.
What is the function of the Trobriand Kula ring and spells?
kula, exchange system among the people of the Trobriand Islands of southeast Melanesia, in which permanent contractual partners trade traditional valuables following an established ceremonial pattern and trade route.
What is the primary goal of Kula ring partners?
the Kula Ring plays an important sociocultural role by creating and maintaining long-term social relationships and by fostering the traditional myths, folklore, and history associated with circulating shell bracelets and necklaces.
What is the meaning of Kula ring?
ceremonial gift exchange
Quick Reference. A ceremonial gift exchange among tribes in the western Pacific, practised alongside normal trading, functioning to establish and maintain friendly relations between islands. [ From Melanesian kula]
Who studied the Kula ring?
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski is one of the most influential anthropologists of the 20th century and is regarded as the father of ethnography. In 1914, he traveled to the Trobriand Islands in Melanesia with the intention of studying the Kula ring, a ceremonial exchange system, and remained there for several years.
Why do the Trobriand Islanders do Kula?
All Kula valuables are non-use items traded purely for purposes of enhancing one’s social status and prestige. Carefully prescribed customs and traditions surround the ceremonies that accompany the exchanges which establish strong, ideally lifelong relationships between the exchange parties (karayta’u, “partners”).
What is the benefit to avuncular residence in Trobriand society?
What is the benefit to avuncular residence in Trobriand society? The Benefit is that these boys can move out with their uncle once they have become a certain age, and they do not have to be married in order to do this procedure un like the female she would have to wait until marriage before she can leave her home.
Why is the Kula ritual so important to the Islanders?
The Kula ritual is important to the islanders of the Pacific because it helps build social connections between different tribes. Even thought the object being exchanged is not that valuable to that person but it’s a symbol of giving respect and friendship towards the participants in the ritual.
What is the basis of the value for the mwali and Soulava?
-The Trobriand Islanders traded soulava (necklaces) and mwali (armbands) from island to island in the Trobriand ring. -According to the Kula peoples, the armbands and necklaces are of equal value, but the trading of the jewelry is an insurance policy amongst the various islands in the Trobriand ring.
Who are the Trobriand Islanders?
The Trobriands, a Melanesian people who live primarily on four islands in Milne Bay Province, northeastern Papua New Guinea, are one of the over 300 cultures covered in the eHRAF World Cultures ethnographic database. Fifty-seven documents totaling 6,268 pages make up the Trobriand culture collection in eHRAF.
Is Kula ring example of balanced reciprocity?
The Kula ring system of exchange found in the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific is one example of balanced reciprocity. A Kula ring involves the ceremonial exchange of shell and bead necklaces (soulava) for shell arm bands (mwali) between trading partners living on different islands.
