The principal types of trade in primitive culture were once regarded as successive products in evolutionary development. Modern research, however, tries to study each particular system of trade in its own cultural setting. The primitive market in its various forms, for instance, cannot be understood if conceived simply as an evolutionary sequence from the customs of silent trade (Grierson) or as a development from previous hostile relations (Miiller-Lyer) or as the result of a recurring assemblage of people for religious or ceremonial pur poses (Ling Roth). It is explicable only as an institution sui generis which emerges in response to certain needs, and is condi tioned by the natural situation and the social structure of the community which it serves. So also with primitive trade in gen eral. It is more than a mere matter of economic trafficking on abstract principles of national advantage ; it is a complex social mechanism linked to many aspects of native life. The true prob lem does not lie in theorizing about its historical or evolutionary origins but in disentangling the various social and psychological factors which together determine the form of the living institution.
theories in K. Bucher, Industrial Evolution (trans. 1901) ; F. Miiller-Lyer, History of Social Development (trans. 192o) ; H. Ling Roth, Trading in Early Days; Modern theory in general monograph of E. Hoyt, Primitive Trade (1926) ; an excellent article by R. Thurnwald, "Handel," in M. Ebert's Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte. Detailed study of various aspects by R. Thurnwald, "Markt" ibid.; R. Lasch, "Das Marktwesen," Zeit f. Sozialwissenschaft, ix. (1906) ; F. Somlo, Der Giiterverkehr in der Urgesellschaft (1909) ; J. P. Grierson, The Silent Trade (1903) ; M. Mauss, "Essai sur le Don," L'Annee Sociologique, N.S.I. (1923-24). Primitive Trade in reference to special areas in Sartorius v. Waltershausen, "Die Entste hung des Tauschhandels in Polynesien," Zeit. f. Sozial u. Wirtschafts geschichte, iv. (1896) ; M. Moszkowski, Vom Wirtschaftsleben der Primitiven Volker (i9ii) ; C. G. Seligman, Melanesians of British New Guinea (Iwo) ; A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders (1922) ; with more theoretical consideration, B. Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) ; Raymond Firth, Economics of a Primitive People. (R. F.)