II. KEEP PROFITS FROM BEING INVESTED

MENU: 2. KEEP PROFITS FROM INVESTMENT

WHY THAT WAS NECESSARY AND HOW IT WAS DONE 

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In brief

• One can't bring in the harvest alone

• Curbs on gain that villagers impose

• The grandiose destruction of wealth

• Elders, chiefs and kings

• Ways whose logic escapes us 

• Were (are) real aims recognized? 

• Awareness of economies would avoid tragedies like this 

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Next,

2.1.

One can't bring in the harvest alone... 

 

2.1. ONE CAN'T BRING IN THE HARVEST ALONE

OR FISH WITH LARGE NETS OR HUNT BIG ANIMALS

So work must be collective. 

 The Harvesters by Pieter Breughel the Elder, Flanders, 1565 / zoom

When expanding towns lead to growing crops for market, lands used communally become private and the pursuit of individual gain weakens the community. Then people leave —"He went off to seek his fortune," is how many fairy tales begin.

Some migrants learn a craft or become merchants — that's how a middle class grows up — but most finish as vagabonds, mercenaries or thieves. 

Those who remain on the land become sharecroppers or serfs.

Ways to limit such change appear. 

Next,

2.2. 

Curbs on gain that villagers impose

2.2. CURBS ON GAIN THAT VILLAGERS IMPOSE

GRIOTS, MUSICIANS WHO FIRST APPEARED AT THE EMPEROR OF MALI'S 13th-CENTURY COURT

They are part of celebrations, transmit messages, retain oral history...

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Griots accompany a chief, Mali, early 20th century; they will sing his praises.

They may follow the newly rich, chanting acclaim that gradually becomes mockery of their servile origins until they give the expected tip* — that is, until they distribute funds they might otherwise invest.  

*An anthropologist's account. I did not note the reference.

Expecting immigrants to distribute presents 

when they return to their villages 

and pestering them if don't do so enough: 

same idea. 

*      *      *

Next,

2.3.

The grandiose destruction of wealth

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 
  

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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

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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.

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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