2.3. THE GRANDIOSE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH

THE SIMPLEST WAY TO CONTAIN PROFIT: GET RID OF IT

Spectacular destructions draw in the public, reinforcing authority. As by:

• Competition

This 1914 movie filmed the last match.

When the Kwakiutls, people of the North Pacific, toward 1850 obtain goods by barter with Whites, the clans that control the trade compete by throwing the wares into the sea. The clan that destroys most wins. 

The community watches from the shore. Then all celebrate with a feast and dancing.

Trailer

Pictures from the movie, that is, of the real ceremony

The return

• Ostentation 

       A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

Medieval nobles disperse their income in horses, accoutrements and arms to show off in processions that accompany important people, notably the king. 

People come from miles around to watch processions that break the routine.

*    *

Dispersing wealth with panache is part of prestige: King Arthur cares "not for gold or silver, but for honor alone," says a Roman envoy whom Arthur has treated with a feast that a full page describes.

-- La morte d'Arthur

• Funerals

The Vikings by Robert Fleisher with Kirk Douglass, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 1958.

 Considered ethnographically excellent

When a Viking chief dies his body is placed in a boat is filled with treasure, put to sea and burnt. 

Everyone watches from the shore.

 The movie shows the majesty of the destruction.

• Monuments    

           The Great Pyramid of Giza /  zoom

Ancient Egypt remained essentially unchanged for 3,000 years. Imagine — 3000. 

Because the pharaohs neutralized investible income with monuments so huge that the term "pharaonic" applies to any construction that is over the top? 

That immensity was a constant show of power.

•  Squandering 
  

 Zoom

The emperor holds a huge gold nugget in this European map of his time. 

A 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire spends so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that its value drops for a decade, which hinders emerging producers.

Populations watch the extraordinary caravan pass and benefit from the largesse.  

Deliberate destruction

takes place in countless ways,

throws new light on customs and events

and explains what seem aberrations.

*     *     *

Next,

2.4.

Elders, chiefs and kings

2.4. ELDERS, CHIEFS AND KINGS

WHEN VILLAGE ELDERS CAN NO LONGER CONTROL THE IMPACT OF COMMERCE, CHIEFS REPLACE THEM. WHEN THEY TOO ARE OVERWHELMED, KINGS APPEAR.

The veneration they inspire comes from their tie with the Next World. In Dahomey and France, they are linked to the ancestors. 

Encyclopédie Britannica

• As the descendant of the supreme spirit, the king of Dahomey maintains cosmic harmony, that is, stability. Brandishing the skull of his predecessor before decapitating the captives who serve him expresses that tie.  

Enthroning of  king Bahadou, 1863 / zoom

• In France, three royal dynasties (merovingien, carolingien, capetien) complicate that tie. That coronations take place in the cathedral of Reims (two days' march east of Paris), with a sacred oil a dove brought from Heaven for the baptism of the first king, connects them all to the ancestor.

15th century  / zoom

The mausoleum where all the kings (except three) rest is part of that tie.

 *     *

Processions surround them:

Vidéo / zoom

The Triumph of Josephat, toward 1470 / zoom

*    *

Coronations mobilize subjects around the king: 

 

• In Dahomey the four days of the even include a procession that exhibits his wealth. 

• In France populations come from the entire region to watch the king and court pass by, the cavalcade after the crowning and in Paris, the entry that until the early 17th century took place along a route that linked him to the ancestors.

Cavalcade of Louis XV after the sanctification, Octobre 16, 1722  by Pierre-Denis Martin / zoom

*     *

Coronations include a show where the king is the star:  

The four-day event includes a procession showing the king's wealth, parades of male and female troops and "various dances, all of them performed in decapitation style by the King [... ]. The vociferous rapture of the subjects knew no bounds as the King danced with his sword between his teeth" [...]. Presently the King began to hand down decanters of rum, a sign that he was weary [...]. He had danced thirty-two dances."

-- Burton, p. 221.

• In France, the king makes the spectacular entry into Paris mentioned above.

*     *

Both kingdoms regularly renew the sacred tie.

• In Dahomey, a smaller number of captives is sent to to serve the deceased kings. 

• In France, the king displays his magical powers by curing people suffering from scrofula with his touch, after taking communion at Easter.

Henri II's book of hours (toward 1540), detail, zoom

The practice ends when the Church refuses communion to adulterous Louis XV. Abandoning the rite erases a supernatural aspect of royalty and contributes to the monarchy's decline.

*     *

Destroying wealth is part of coronations.

• In Dahomey, the ritual ends by decapitating slaves, the most expensive and desired ware. 

Victims for Sacrifice, "The History of Dahomey, an Inland Kingdom of Africa" by Archibald Dalzel, 1793 / zoom

Captives are bound to posts, but "The confinement was not cruel: Each victim had an attendant standing behind him, to keep off the flies; all were fed four times a day, and were loosed at night [...]. They marked time to the music, and chattered together [...]. It is the King's object to keep them in the best of humors" so that they cheerfully enter their future service.

-- Sir Richard Burton A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey, 1864, p. 205. An account for the nearby kingdom of Ashanti mentions well-fed captives who seem equally unconcerned.

Then there is a fight for the gifts of the king.

Combat for the Heads of the Sacrifice,  "Le tour du monde," 1863 / zoom



Burton mentions violent combat for the king's gifts (not for heads as in the journal's title), whose wounded and dead show support for him. 


In France,  "There were many killed and dead" says a chronicler in  passing, of a tournament to celebrate the birth of a royal heir (in 1518).
-- Francis I by  Emmanuel Bourassin, 1997 (in French), p.75 

• Tapestries like this one were another way to dispose of resources.

Zoom

*      *

In Dahomey the sacrifice of slaves,

the most costly and prestigious ware,  

and in France such spectacles' expense 

erase potentially investible wealth.

*     *     *

Next,

2.5. 

Ways whose logic escapes us

2.5. WAYS WHOSE LOGIC ESCAPES US

WE TEND TO GLOSS OVER WHAT WE DON'T UNDERSTAND 

Take an explorer's contrast of Western dancing with that of "black devils." 

"Grant Dancing with Ukelema," Second Visit to Discover the Sources of the Nile by John Speke, London, 1864

The youths highlight the chief's exploits as villagers look on.

Since the explorer has the artist draw his partner's astonishment, he knows he's broken the rules. He thinks he's done the right thing — showing Africans how to dance.   

At other times men and women dance in separate lines, never touching. 

Bal au mariage du Duc de Joyeuse, anonymous. 1581 / zoom  

The dance reflects a collective society, like that of Europe's royal courts:

*    *

Deciphering the past means acting like a detective, pondering what seems odd.

Painting on rue de Belleville

A painting placed too high for viewing, urban voids too vast for traffic, bright yellow liveries when discretion was indispensable, etc. are clues to how unfamiliar situations work.  

"She had been trained to look for anomalies," is how the heroine of a crime novel is introduced. 

-- The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, 1988

 Historians should be too.

*    *    *

Next,

2.6.

Were (are) real aims recognized?

2.6. WERE — ARE — REAL AIMS RECOGNIZED?

THEY CAN BE SO ROOTED AS TO BE INVISIBLE. TAKE THE EXAMPLE OF OLD REGIME FRANCE

Take a modern practice, buying what one does not need:

       Department store window / Richard Nahem

"If I wore my favorite black dress on Tuesday in Cincinatti, I'd  see pictures on social media on Wednesday, and I couldn’t repeat the look in San Diego on Thursday, or people would think I had only one dress."

-- Woman preparing a book tour, New York Times

For women especially, changing outfits every day is a kind of tax. They may do so out of habit, because they like shopping or because if they don't do it, they'll seem poor. 

Few say, "such purchases give an impression of liberty but in fact are imposed, because the economy depends on them."

The next chapters show how

social organization and beliefs

stem from an economic base 

that is usually unnoticed.

*    *    *

Next,

 2.7.

Awareness of the economic base

would avoid tragedies like this

2.7. AWARENESS OF ECONOMIES WOULD AVOID TRAGEDIES LIKE THIS

"WE WERE NAIVE," SAID THE LAST COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ALLIED FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN..

"We did not understand that Afghan corruption was inevitable, and when the authorities took the pay of the teachers and soldiers, we lost the support of the people."  

-- General John Nicolson, talk at the American University of  September 27, 2019

If Americans had understood underlying economies' determining role, they would not have tried to impose their way of life (or would have had to announce deeper reasons for invading). 

But the history we are taught,

which itself stems from the economy,

is about everything except the economic base.

End of this introduction.

*    *    *

Next chapter,

III.
Curbing growth: kings and ritualized warfare