"The connection of exchange contracts among men with those between men and gods explains a whole aspect of the theory of sacrifice. It is best seen in those societies where contractual and economic ritual is practised between men. Where the men are masked incarnations, often shamanistic, being possessed by the spirit whose name they bear, they act as representatives of the spirits. In that case the exchanges and contracts concern not only men and things but also the sacred beings that are associated with them."
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Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss (French: [mos]; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a Jewish French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology".
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