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- This page is about gifts in the common English-language sense. For other uses, see Gift (disambiguation).
Love gift
Man presents a cut of meat to a youth with a
hoop. Athenian red-figure vase, ca. 460 BCE
A gift or present is the transfer of money, goods, etc., without the direct compensation that is involved in trade, although possibly involving a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return in the form of prestige or power. In many human societies, the act of mutually exchanging gifts contributes to social cohesion. Economists have elaborated the economics of gift-giving into the notion of a gift economy.
By extension the term gift can refer to anything that makes the other more happy or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness, and kindness (even when the other is not kind).
The occasion may be:
- Expression of love or friendship
- Expression of gratitude for a gift received
- Expression of piety, in the form of charity
- Expression of solidarity, in the form of mutual aid
- To share wealth
- To offset misfortune
- Offering travel souvenirs
- Custom, on occasions (often celebrations) such as
- A birthday (the person who has his or her birthday gives cake, etc. and/or receives gifts)
- A potlatch, in societies where status is associated with gift-giving rather than acquisition.
- Christmas (people give each other gifts, often supposedly receiving them from Santa Claus)
- Saint Nicholas (people give each other gifts, often supposedly receiving them from Saint Nicholas)
- A wedding (the couple receives gifts and gives food and/or drinks at the wedding reception)
- A funeral (visitors bring flowers, the relatives of the deceased give food and/or drinks after the ceremonial part)
- A birth (the baby receives gifts)
- Passing an examination (the student receives gifts)
- Father's Day (the father receives gifts)
- Mother's Day (the mother receives gifts)
- Exchange of gifts between a guest and a host, often a traditional practice
- Giving a round of drinks in a bar.
- Lagniappe
A gift may either be an ordinary object or an object created for the express purpose of gift exchange, such as the armbands and necklaces in the Trobriand Islands' Kula exchange.
A gift can also be a special talent or ability that was not earned through the usual amount of long and difficult practice but instead comes easily to the recipient in a natural way. A person with such a gift is said to be "a natural" or "gifted" in that field of endeavor. A gift, in this sense, can be thought of as being given by God or by nature: a God-given or natural gift received by one at birth. For example, a fluent and entertaining speaker is said to have "the gift of gab".
Ritual sacrifices can be seen as return gifts to a deity. Sacrifice can also be seen as a gift from a deity: Lewis Hyde remarks in The Gift that Christianity considers the Incarnation and subsequent death of Jesus to be a "gift" to humankind, and that the Jākata contains a tale of the Buddha in his incarnation as the Wise Hare giving the ultimate alms by offering himself up as a meal for Sakka. (Hyde, 1983, 58-60)
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Marcel Mauss and W.D. Halls, Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, W. W. Norton, 2000, trade paperback, ISBN 0-393-32043-X
- Lewis Hyde: The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, 1983 (ISBN 0-394-71519-5), especially part I, "A Theory of Gifts", part of which was originally published as "The Gift Must Always Move" in Co-Evolution Quarterly No. 35, Fall 1982.
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