Sociological Inquiry

38 (Spring): 121-134

Parsons Concept of Generalized Media

of Social Interaction and its Relevance
for Social Anthropology
TERENCE
S. TURNER
Cornell University
The concept of generalized symbolic media of social interaction was introduced by
Parsons five years ago in his two articles on the concepts of power and influence.l I believe
that it represents a theoretical development of the first importance, which has received much
less attention-particularly in my own field of social anthropology-than it deserves. The
purpose of the present paper is to review and criticize the concept itself and t o point out its
relevance t o certain problems in social anthropology.

I. THE CONCEPT
OF A GENERAJAZED
SYMBOLIC MEDIUM
OF SOCIAL INTERACTION
It will be useful to begin the discussion
with a short critical summary of the generalized medium concept.a

A. Medium, code, and message:

generalized media as symbolic stmctures
and as mechanisms of interaction
A generalized medium of interaction, in
Parsons scheme, is a symbolic mechanism
which is manipulated by actors in order to
influence the behavior of other actors so as
to get results in interaction.
The prototype and most highly developed
example of generalized media of social interaction is language. Language is a mechanism for influencing the behavior or attitudes
of others by presenting them with symbolic
counterparts of the concrete things or relationships to which the symbols refer, arranged into meaningful patterns according
to the rules of a syntactic code. As a symbolic medium of communication, language
involves two fundamental aspects, code
Talcott Parsons, On the Concept of Influence and Rejoinder to Bauer and Coleman,
Public Opinion Quarterly, 27 (Spring, 1963a),
pp. 37-62 and 83-92. Talcott Parsons, On the
Concept of Political Power, Proceedings of the
American Philosoohical Society. 107 (No. 3),
1963b, pp. 232-262.
T h i s summary will be based on Parsons 1963a
and 1963b puss& and notes from lectures by
Parsons on the generalized media concept at
Harvard in 1964. Page citations will be made
only for direct quotations.

(the system of elements. and rules for combining them, through which communicable
meanings are encoded and understood) and
message (specific linguistic communications or utterances conveying particular
meanings).
Money, power, and influence are specialized languages of social interaction
and provide further examples of generalized
media. Of these, money serves as Parsons
principal theoretical model.
The distinction is made in classical
economic theory between moneys aspect as
measure of value, in which capacity it
constitutes a code of standardized categories
for measuring and expressing economic
value, and its aspect as a medium of exchange, in which capacity it serves as the
vehicle of particular economic transactions.
Parsons treats these two aspects of money
as analogous to the code and message
aspects of language. It should be made
clear that, from the point of view of
Jakobson and Halles formulation of the
code and message concepts upon which
Parsons draws, both the normative framework of syntactic rules and institutions of
the monetary system and the lexicon of
symbolic monetary tokens that comprise the
meaningful elements of which monetary
messages are composed, are parts of
code. The message aspect properly
refers to the specific semantic contents of
individual transactions or communications,
as symbolically conveyed by particular combinations of symbolic tokens. Parsons uses
~

3R ~ manJakobson and Morris Halle, Fundamentals of Language, Paris: Mouton, 1956, p. 5.

122

the term medium to refer to the symbolic

tokens of the code (its lexical aspect),
sometimes in their generalized capacity as
parts of code, and sometimes in their
capacity as units of message.
A second distinction drawn from classical
economics is that between value in use
and value in exchange. Money as a symbolic medium lacks value in use, i.e. intrinsic
utility, but as a medium of exchange it
constitutes a means of access to intrinsically
useful goods. This value in exchange it
possesses precisely because it symbolizes
value in use, i.e. the generalized property of
utility. The generalized symbolic property
corresponds to the measure of value
aspect previously mentioned.

B. Institutional
and definitional prerequisites
In order for a symbol or category of symbols to function as a generalized medium in
social interaction, Parsons asserts that there
must be specific definition and institutional
acceptance in four basic respects. The
four respects Parsons lists fall together
into two pairs, corresponding to two
levels of the structure of the code
or framework of the system. First, there
must be a category of value, of respects in
which needs of the acting units are at stake.
Second, as this implies, there must be a
corresponding category of interest, of properties of objects in the situation of action
that are important in the light of these
values. Objects here may refer both to
other actors who are parties to a transaction.
or entities, commodities, or relationships
which constitute referents of the symbols of
the medium and are transacted or communicated about through the medium.
Money conveniently illustrates these two
properties. As we have seen, it symbolizes
utility or economic value, which is a category of needs of actors. But utility is also
a category of properties of objects in the
situation of action that are of interest in
terms of the category of needs of actors symbolized by the medium.
There is an extremely important point left
implicit in Parsons exposition of this set of
propositions. This is that what is symbolized by the medium is a category of
Parsons, 1963a, op. ci., p. 41.

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

relationship between actors as well as simply

of needs of individual actors or properties
of objects. I would go so far as to say that
for the symbolic structure of generalized
media, this relational aspect is the most
important of all. To return to the example
of money, economic utility represents a
mode of relationship between social actorsthat mode in which they assume the roles of
buyer and seller towards each other. A
given amount of money in this sense symbolizes the quantity of utility a seller is
prepared to relinquish to a buyer. Money
as a generalized medium of social interaction, in these terms, works because it is
itself a generalized symbolic model of the
social relationship (or system of relationships) of transaction in the mode of values
and interests (economic utility) that it
represents. By model I mean a generalized
representation of a relationship which is
manipulated as if it were epistemologically,
causally, and/or operationally prior to any
specific instance of the relationship.
Generalized media, then, represent symbolic models of social relationships involving a particular mode of communication or
transaction. Such models constitute systems of symbolic tokens which function as
objective correlatives of the relationship
they symbolize. Their social usefulness
(that is, their ability to mediate the relevant
class of transactions) depends on their
acceptance as such by the actors involved.
The actors acceptance of the medium as a
legitimate objective correlative in this sense
depends on their confidence in its convertibility into real, intrinsically valuable
or meaningful commodities or relationships
of the type to which the medium symbolically refers.
The individual actors confidence in the
convertibility or exchangeability of the
symbolic tokens of the medium for real
assets (in the terms of Parsons monetary
analogy) is one of two grounds of trust
any symbolic medium must have in order to
function. The other stems from the complementary level of the structure of symbolic
codes and media. This is the collective
dimension, through which the medium and
SThis formulation derives from Braithwaite,
Scientific Explanation, Harper Torchbook ed.,
1960, pp. 23-24, 78, 89-90.

123

PARSONS CONCEPT

the individuaI transactions it mediates are

tied into the structure of society as a whole.
At this level, every symbolic medium rests
upon a normative framework, which
regulates the use of the medium by actors,
and a definition of the situation, which
specifies the class of objects that may be
transacted through the use of the medium
and the social arenas within which such
transactions can take place. These features
represent the third and fourth institutional
prerequisites of generalized media. The
grounding of trust in the medium at this
level derives from the consensus of the actors involved that the medium shall be
reciprocally acceptable in all relevant transactions.

C. Degrees of freedom
in interaction generated
by symbolic media
The advantage of generalized media from
the viewpoint of both individual actors and
society as a whole is an enormous gain in
the flexibility and volume of transactions or
messages that can be communicated with
respect to the mode of interests of actors
that are at stake. Parsons makes this point
through a comparison of money systems
with barter, in which he shows how generalized media gain degrees of freedom for
the system in four ways. In the first place,
there is freedom of ifem: in a barter system, actors must trade their goods for whatever other specific items are available, but
in a system in which goods and services are
exchanged for money, a far greater variety
of items is potentially available in exchange
for a commodity or service of a given value.
Second, there is freedom of source: money
allows access to a variety of sources of
goods or services which might not, under
barter conditions, desire to exchange their
wares for anything ego has to offer. In the
third place is freedom of time: in a barter
situation, an actor who relinquishes control
over some good or service must take in exchange some equivalent that happens to be
available at the time of the transaction,
whereas money confers the opportunity of
waiting until its holder wishes to use the
purchasing power it represents on another
occasion. Finally, there is freedom of the
terms of exchange: because of his freedoms
of time and source, the actor is free to

accept or reject terms of exchange with

respect to which he would have little choice
in a barter situation.
It is the generalized, symbolic aspect of
the medium, its capacity to serve as a generalized reference to any object definable
within the appropriate situation and category of value, and its consequent lack of
attachment to any specific object or set of
objects of intrinsic value, that makes possible this flexibility in the system. The
symbolic value of the medium is guaranteed
and supported in the last analysis by the
consensus or mutual trust of the actors who
use it.

D. Dynamic and systemic properties

The consensus and reciprocal trust of
actors that makes it possible for them to use
the medium in specific transactions with
each other also maintains the collective
structure of the medium (its institutional
code or normative framework). Generalized media operate as a kind of feedback system, linking the level of individual
transactions between acting units and the
level of collective or institutional structure
by means of a circulating system of tokens
or symbols which themselves reflect the
structure of the transactional relationship
that they mediate. By linking the two
levels within a single framework, symbolic
media generate a far greater degree of
volume capacity and flexibility in the mode
of transaction they represent, from the
standpoint of the individual acting unit, than
would be possible on the basis of reliance
on intrinsically effective barter transactions. This increment in flexibility and
volume is only made possible, however, by
the individual acting units surrendering a
portion of their independence and individual unit security to the collective system,
in the form of commitments to the consensus
that underwrites the acceptability of the
medium and the assumption of the risks and
obligations this entails.
The increments of collective integration
and flexibility generated by symbolic media,
together with the much greater volume of
transactions that follows from these considerations, create new possibilities for the concentration and expansion of the total transactional capacity of the medium at the system level, on the analogy of bank credit

124

or monetary management. Together with

this potential for system expansion, however, go the concomitant dangers of inflationary (medium depreciation) and deflationary (system contraction) phenomena.

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY
assistance, women, children, dances, and feats;
and fairs in which . the circulation of weal&
is but one part of a wide and enduring contract. e

. .

Maws emphasized that the phenomenon of

trade and markets, in the sense of systems
of
barter exchange for economic purposes,
II. THE RELEVANCE
were
universal phenomena and existed side
OF THE GENERALIZED
by side with gift prestation (as in the aboveMEDIUM CONCEPT
mentioned fairs). He nevertheless stressed
FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
the differences between the two forms of
AND VICE VERSA
exchange. Gift prestation, in his view,
constituted a direct expression of the fundaA. Another look at the relationship
mental principles of social solidarity:
between generalized media, barter,
reciprocity and its corollary, the division of
and ascriptive gift prestation
labor. Its purpose was the maximization
One of the most interesting problems of the solidarity between the parties to the
raised by Parsons analysis of generalized exchange, rather than the net economic gain
media is that of what relationships, if any, of either. The non-economic character of
exist between the category of generalized the exchange was borne out by the purely
symbolic media and other forms of symbolic symbolic value of many of the items exbehavior. How far, in other words, may changed, and the ritual character and setting
the analytical properties of generalized of many prestations. The obligatory nature
media isolated by Parsons hold true for of the three aspects of the prestation comother categories of social relations and cul- plex-giving,
receiving, and repayingtural symbolism? The question can per- stemmed from the gifts essential character
haps best be considered by beginning with as a symbolic expression of social solidarity.
the one case in which Parsons himself has Not to give, not to receive, or not to repay
treated it: namely, the problem of the rela- was equivalent to rejecting the bond of
tionship between monetary exchange, barter, solidarity, of common membership in the
and gift prestation as found in primitive same system of social relations. For this
societies.
reason, the sanction for failure or refusal to
I use the term gift prestation here to meet any of these three fundamental obligarefer to the class of phenomena whose tions was commonly open feud or warfare.
generic properties and common incidence in
Parsons makes extensive use in his analprimitive societies were pointed out by ysis of the contrast between barter exchange,
Mauss in his classic study, The Gifta The in which intrinsically valuable goods must
fundamental principle of the prestation, be directly exchanged for each other, and
according to Mauss, is that, although it and money transactions, in which the substituthe counter-prestation it normally calls tion of a symbolic medium of interaction for
forth, take place under a voluntary guise, intrinsically valuable goods in exchange
they are in essence strictly obligatory. makes possible increased degrees of freedom
The parties to the exchange are often in the system of economic exchange. On a
corporate groups rather than human indi- few occasions, he mentions gift prestation in
viduals, or else individuals acting as repre- primitive societies, as an example of the
sentatives of collective groups or relation- limiting case of restriction of degrees of
ship categories.
The items given, freedom in exchange (since not only the
bestowed, or exchanged in such cases are, roles of giver and receiver, but also the
furthermore,
items to be exchanged, and frequently the
. . . not exclusively goods and wealth . . . and time and place of exchange as well, tend to
things of economic value. They exchange be more or less rigidly prescribed). With
rather courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military
degrees of freedom in exchange as his
criterion of evolutionary progression, Par*Marcel Mauss, The Giff, translated by Ian
Cunnison, Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1954.
Ilbid.. p. 3.

81bid., p. 3.

PARSONS CONCEPT

sons thus arrives at the evolutionary sequence, gift prestation-barter-monetary

system. It is not my purpose here to dispute the validity of this criterion, nor its
conceptual basis, the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft continuum. There are certain implicit
CorolIaries in Parsons evolutionary handling
of fie three forms of exchange, however,
which must be challenged.
Parsons interest in considering gift prestation, barter, and monetary exchange in an
evolutionary perspective is of course in
comparing the properties of systems of exchange that rely on symbolic media with
systems relying only on intrinsic values in
exchange, of which barter furnishes the type
case. Appropriately enough, from the
standpoint of his theoretical interests, Parsons concentrates almost exclusively on the
money-barter contrast, and gift prestation is
only rarely brought into the discussion.
Yet the implication remains of an evolutionary parallelism between the development toward greater flexibility in exchange
and the elaboration of the symbolic apparatus of exchange. The problem with this
is, of course, that gift prestation is also a
highly symbolic medium, and has less in
common with barter in this respect than
monetary systems. It could be described
as a symbolic medium for transmitting a
single message, since the content of the
6message, the relationship between giver
and receiver, and often the time, place,
amount, and frequency of the prestation are
fixed by tradition and ritual formulae. In
the sense that it lacks the degrees of freedom
in exchange associated with generalized
symbolic media like money, it could be
called a restricted symbolic medium. It
possesses nonetheless a generalized component which gives it a structure resembling a
generalized symbolic medium in all other essential respects. As a collectively institutionalized symbolic model of a key social
relationship, it incorporates all the institutional prerequisites of a symbolic medium in
Parsons terms: a normative framework
and definition of the situation which
regulate a transaction mediated by symbolic
tokens, whose meaning embodies a category
of interests or values of actors and a
corresponding category of properties of
objects. The institutionalization of the
pattern at the collective level is made a

125

focus of social consensus, guaranteeing the

transaction and often imbuing it with ritual
importance. The symbolic medium of the
gift prestation itself mediates between this
level of collective consensus and values and
the level of the individual transaction, at
which the interests of the giver and recipient
are directly concerned: even the feedback property of generalized symbolic
codes as two-level structures is thus preserved in gift prestation.
This mediation between the collective
level of social consensus and the level of the
relationship between the individual partners
to the prestation is, in fact, the main point
of the gift. Gift prestation functions as a
symbolic device for focusing the whole
force of the collective consensus, which in a
generalized medium like money is mediated
in such a way as to support or legitimize a
great variety of potential transactions, on a
single, determinate relationship: that between the partners to the prestation. This
relationship, as anthropological field work
has repeatedly shown, is usually one of vital
importance to the structure of the society
concerned and, in a more direct sense, to an
individual actors field of social relations
and group affiliations. The nature of this
importance corresponds to the intrinsic
value of exchanges mediated by generalized
symbolic media. Gift prestation is, in short,
l i e generalized symbolic media, a symbolic
device for guaranteeing the intrinsic value of
an exchange and the relationship it expresses
terms of a collective, reciprocally binding
consensus.
The discussion of gift prestation so far has
shown that Parsons class of generalized
symbolic media shares many of its basic
properties with at least one other class of
symbolically mediated social relations, one
that happens to be of great importance
among societies traditionally studied by
anthropologists. The result has been to
call in question Parsons implicit assumption
that the development of generalized symbolic codes for the mediation of social relations is directly correlated with the development of degrees of freedom in exchange.
In place of Parsons one-dimensional frame
of reference, running from gift prestation
through barter (primitive Gesellschaft, lacking symbolic mediation) to money (sophisticated, symbolically mediated Gesellschaft),

126

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

I would suggest that gift prestation, con- the direction of Gesellschaft and individual
sidered as symbolically mediated Gemein- manipulation they may be, are always to
schaft. constitutes an additional dimension some extent devices by which society as a
Gemeinschaft
(no degrees of freedom)
gift

Gesellschaft

money

barter

-a point of triangulation as it were-of

Parsons analytical scheme.
From the vantage point of such a twodimensional frame of reference, many symbolic media, including Parsons cases of
power, influence, and generalized commitments, can be immediately recognized as
falling somewhere toward the middle of the
dimension connecting restricted symbolic
media like gift prestation on the one hand
and money as the type case of generalized
symbolic media on the other. They are, in
other words, more bound up with determinate social relationships, with transactions
whose content can vary only within relatively narrowly prescribed limits, than
money. Like money, however, their generalized symbolic character functions to
invest the relationships and transactions
they mediate with the prestige and authority
of the collective. The triangular conceptual
scheme we have suggested allows the similarities between such media and money to be
specified without neglecting the important
differences in degrees of freedom between
them.
In so doing, this scheme provides a potential corrective to the individualistic emphasis
of Parsons exposition of the functions of
generalized media. It is clear that in primitive gift prestation the emphasis is not on
how individual actors can manipulate the
medium to get results from other actors
by affecting their behavior in particular
ways. It is, rather, on the standardization
of the relationship between the actors according to a collectively imposed pattern.
Generalized Gesellschaft media like
money obviously have a high manipulative
potentiaI, but they also have a strong residual unmanipulative component, analogous
to the collective regulating function which
is dominant in gift prestation. Generalized
media, in short, no matter how specialized in

symbolic
non-symbolic

whole imposes certain forms and limitations

on the transactions in which they are used.

B. The applicability of the symbolic

medium concept to phenomena
of primitive social organization:
some concrete examples
Gift prestation is only one of a numerous
array of symbolic media of social relations
that have been discovered by anthropologists
in primitive societies. I shall give some examples drawn from the Kayapo, a Central
Brazilian tribe among whom I recently
carried out field research: in order to clarify
some of the points made above about gift
prestation, and also to suggest the wide
variety of social structural phenomena that
can be subsumed under the rubric of the
generalized medium concept.
1. The traditional Kayapo village is circular in form, with one or more rings of
uxorilocal extended family houses surrounding an open central plaza, in the Eastern and
Western halves of which stand two large
mens houses. The mens houses are the
domiciles of boys and young men of the
younger two mens age-sets (between the ages
of approximately 8 and 21) and the meeting
places of the mens societies, to which
belong men of the mature mens age grade.
To each mens house is attached a set of
womens societies, also stratified on the
basis of age into a senior and junior group.
The mens houses and their respectively
attached womens societies constitute the
moieties of Kayapo society.
The only stable and culturally defined
groupings based on kinship are the uxori9A total of 14 months was spent in the field
between Sept. 1962 and April 1966. The research
was supported by NIMH grant no. M-6030 and a
supplementary grant from the Harvard Central
Brazilian Research Project.

PARSONS CONCEPT

local extended family household and the

nuclear family.
Uxorilocality is not based on lineal
reckoning, as in a matrilineal-matrilocal
household. I t is a relational criterion which
dictates that the female offspring of a family
do not move out of their natal household
at any point in their life cycles, whereas men
must take up residence with their wives once
they have consummated their marriages by
fathering a child. Since marriage is largely
village endogamous, the residence rule does
not involve a major spatial movement for
men: its significance lies i n its symbolic role
within the normative structure of social relations.
Males are inducted into a mens house at
the age of about 8 by a ceremonial sponsor
called a substitute father (bam kaak).
The sole criterion of eligibility for this role
is that the man in question be a nonrelative (me-ba-item). The boy becomes a
member of the substitute fathers mens
house, and hence of the moiety it represents.
Moiety membership for men is thus based
on symbolic patrifiliation, but explicitly dissociated from patrilineal or any other genealogical kinship criteria. It is possible for a
man to change his moiety membership at
will if for any reason he feels discontented
with his current situation.
Women are similarly inducted into the
womens society associated with one or the
other mens house by a substitute mother.
Their moiety affiliation may later be adjusted to correspond with that of their
husbands.
The moieties are not exogamous, and
have no connection with the determination
of marriage choices. There is, however, a
relationship between moiety structure and
marriage, since the principle by virtue of
which the womens societies are associated
with one or the other mens house is that
women must join the society on the same
side of the plaza as the mens house of their
husbands. The bisexual moiety groupings
of the two halves of the village plaza thus
consist of husbands and wives: they are,
as it were, ex post fucto endogamous
moieties based on symbolic parallel filiation.
Conflicts which arise in the case of women,
when the ceremonial substitute mother has
inducted a woman into one moiety and the
woman subsequently marries a man of the

127

other moiety, are resolved by the womans

changing her membership to the womens
society of the opposite side of the plaza.
There is also a close relationship between
the internal structure of the moieties and
marital status. The moieties are internally
stratified on the basis of a system of age
grades. A boy remains a resident of the
mens houses until he consummates his
marriage by begetting a child. In the course
of his residence in the mens house, when
he attains puberty, he is initiated. The
initiation ceremony, which is again under
the sponsorship of his substitute father, is
also a marriage ceremony and stresses the
role of a&al ties in his attainment of social
adulthood. Upon the birth of his first child,
he moves out of the mens house into his
wifes household, and simultaneously graduates to the age grade of me kra-re,
which may be translated fathers (literally,
men with children). Metriculation to the
fathers age grade enables him to join one
of the mature mens societies, membership
in which is incumbent upon, and open only
to, men of the fathers age category. The
father category is itself further stratified
into me kra-nure, or recently married
fathers, and me kra-kramti (those with
many children or men who have attained the
age or position of fathers-in-law in their
a f b a l households). The members of the
latter age category are the leading orators
and political figures of the community, and
dominate the affairs of the mens societies,
which are themselves the dominant political
entities in Kayapo social organization and
the focus of adult male social activities.
The structure of the moieties, both with
regard to the symbolic marriage bonds between the mens and womens groupings,
and to their recruitment criteria and internal
age stratification, is obviously closely correlated with the key stages and relationships in the life cycle of the individual as
related to the development cycle of the
domestic group.
Some balance must be struck in any uxorilocal system between the extent to which a
man is dissociated from the household of his
mother and the extent to which he is integrated into that of his wife. The Kayapo
moiety and mens house system, as we have
seen, strongly emphasizes marriage at the
expense of consanguineal bonds to the natal

128

household. The emphasis on a f i i t y is obviously directly correlated with the emphasis

on paternity for men (as embodied in the
criterion for promotion to the mature mens
societies and age grade), since it is the
birth of children which in Kayapo eyes
represents the real consummation of a marriage. It also is the beginning of the process whereby an incoming male a f i e transforms himself into a consanguineal
member of his wifes household, a process
which is consummated when the new son-inlaw finally becomes, in his own turn, a
father-in-law.
The emphasis on a mans a f h a l connection to his wifes household through his
paternal ties to his children requires a
counterbalancing attenuation of his ties to
his natal household, in order for him to be
able to make a sufficient transference of
allegiances to his wifes household, as well
as to make way for his sisters incoming
husband. But here a potential conflict
develops. The more paternal bonds are
stressed as the corollary of uxorilocal marriage, the more problematical it becomes to
pry boys away from their fathers and natal
households in the next stage of the cycle in
order to get them securely married into
other households. The more emphasis is
placed on paternal bonds for incoming
husbands in an uxorilocal system, the more
it becomes necessary to undercut the sons
filial bond to his father to enable him to
repeat his fathers pattern in his own wifes
household.
To this structural paradox the Kayapo
moiety institutions of the mens house and
the substitute father afford an elegant solution. The substitute father undercuts the
boys ties to his real father, both by removing
him physically from his home to the mens
house and through the symbolism of his
ersatz paternal relationship and the rites
associated with it, which are replete with
symbols of attenuation of his relations with
his parents and kinsmen.
On the other hand, the symbolic father
symbolizes the social emphasis upon the
achievement of paternal status as the central
attribute of adult manhood. In so doing he
becomes the conductor of the sociological
alternating current which is the essence of
the Kayapo male life cycle, the first phase of
which is the severance of the boys relation

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

to his own father, and the second phase his

assumption of the status of husband and
father in his own right; for the latter is
institutionally defined as the culmination of
the long process of mens house residence
and initiation throughout which the substitute father acts as the boys sponsor.
2. Social structure as symbolic medium

The description of the moiety and agegroup system given above has brought out
the tight correlation between the impact of
recruitment to the moieties and age groups
and the patterning of kin relations on the
domestic group level. It is, of course, precisely because the structure of the moiety
system reflects the structure of the domestic
group cycle so closely that it is able to affect
it. to channel and shape it as it does.
Taken as a whole, the moiety and age group
system constitutes a generalized synchronic
model of the diachronic process of transformation and adjustment of domestic group
relations through which each individual
member of society must pass in the course
of his life cycle. It represents a generalized
extrapolation of the crucial features of an
individual egos shifting field of kinship
relations, projected onto the collective level
to provide the institutional framework of
the community as a whole. The resulting
system of communal institutions, as we have
seen, functions in a way that has the effect
of continually recreating and perpetuating
the particular configuration of domestic
group relations of which it is a symbolic
projection.
Specifically, each major stage in the developmental cycle of the domestic group
requires the adjustment of the relationship
of any individual group member to any
other in terms that imply an inverse adjustment to a complementary status. The
status of a new husband/father coming into
the household is stressed at the expense of
the connection of the outgoing wifes
brother/mothers brother to the same household. The attenuation of a young sons
relationship to his father is offset by the
emphasis on the same fathers relationship
to his incoming son-in-law. The separation
of a boy from his natal household is
balanced in the next phase of the cycle by
his incorporation in his affinal household.
The female corollary of this is to emphasize

PARSONS CONCEPT

a mature womans status as wife at the

expense of her consanguineal ties to her
parents and siblings. All of these adjustments are, of course, different manifestations
of a common principle, that of stressing
afFinal or marriage relationships over consanguineal or blood relationships in the
domestic group relations of adult members
of the community. All of the complementary pairs of relationships cited in the
above list, in other words, can be regarded
as manifestations of the basic dyadic opposition of consanguineal vs. /affinal relationships. One member of each pair is emphasized at the expense of the other by
means of the symbolic and pragmatic impact
of recruitment into the moiety system and
promotion from age-grade to age-grade
within it. The recruitment criteria for the
moieties and age grades, as we have seen,
always correspond to the stressed member
of a pair of complementary relationships
that is of crucial importance in the life cycle
of the individual, in terms of his position in
the domestic group system at the time of
recruitment.
A vital attribute of the Kayapo and all
other moiety systems is that it is impossible
for a given individual to belong to both
moieties at the same time. Recruitment to
a given moiety thus implies exclusion from
the other, so that ego is aligned on the
basis of the recruitment relationship with
his sponsor in a moiety category whose
solidarity is defined in terms of its exclusive
relationship to the complementary category.
This pattern reflects the essential structure
of relationships in the development cycle of
the domestic group, which, as we have seen,
consists of stressing alignment with one of
a pair of complementary relationship categories to the relative exclusion of the other
at each step in the cycle. The actual relationship categories involved vary with the
sex and age of ego, but the entire series of
dyadic oppositions takes on unity and
coherence as an expression of the general
complementary opposition between the principles of consanguinity and affinity, which
is manifested also in the opposition of natal
and a f b a l households which underlies each
of the particular status contrasts of the
series. In the same way, the moiety structure serves as the constant point of reference
and unifying principle of the series of age

129

groups, whose recruitment criteria always

correspond to the stressed member of the
pair of complementary relationship categories that determine the alignment of persons at the corresponding age level in the
domestic group system.
Both with respect to its structural form
and the concrete particulars of its recruitment criteria, the moiety and age group system could on these grounds be described as
a generalized symbolic model of the system
of domestic group relations. This model
characteristic, by virtue of which the moiety
complex incorporates in itself an integrated
template or blueprint of the structure of
the domestic group cycle, enables it to serve
as a dynamic device which acts in such a
way as to maintain the balance of afinal
as opposed to consanguineal relations of the
system it symbolizes and reflects. In the
terminology of generalized symbolized
media, the moiety system is a symbolic
code; it serves as a syntactic framework
for the transmission of a single message (or,
more precisely, a related set of messages
expressing the same content in different symbolic terms suited to different points of the
individual life cycle). The message concerns the maintenance of a certain balance
between consanguineal and a f h a l relations
in the domestic group cycle. The symbolic
medium by which the message is transmitted is made up of the recruitment criteria
of the moieties and age groups and the
rites de passage associated with them.
The system of Kayapo communal institutions can, from this point of view, easily be
interpreted in terms of Parsons four institutional prerequisites for generalized media.
There is a category of interests of actors
at stake (the adjustment of kinship relations
in the course of the domestic group cycle
and the individuals life cycle), and a corresponding category of properties of objects relevant to these interests (the status
attributes of kinsmen in the relevant domestic group contexts). The definition of
the situation, specifying which objects can
be referred to by the symbolic tokens of the
medium and how, when and in what social
contexts, is provided by the system of rites
de pmsage that regulates admission to the
moieties and age groups and by the recruitment criteria of the groups themselves.
The normative framework regulating the

130

manner in which the symbolic tokens are

used and what messages they can be made
to transmit is likewise provided by %
ritual system and the norms governing the
communal institutional structure.
Taken as a whole, the moieties and age
groups on the one hand and the domestic
groups on the other clearly constitute a
two-level feed-back system, in which particular instances of adjustment in domestic
group relationships are invested, through the
medium of collective ritual, with the weight
and authority of the community as a whole,
physically embodied in the communal
moieties and age groups themselves. It is,
on the other hand, only through the constant
feeding of individuals into the communal
institutional structure as a result of the
continual succession of such individual transitions and their associated rites de passage
that the moieties and age groups are maintained in being. Each level of the system
depends on the other.
3. Ritual name prestation
Complementing, and, as it were, crosscutting the system of moieties, age groups,
and the rites de passage which regulate
access to them, is an elaborate system of
ritual prestations which forms the major
focus of Kayapo ceremonialism. The main
element of this system is a special class of
personal names. These names can only be
transferred from a category of kinsmen that
includes the maternal uncle and both
maternal and paternal grandfathers to a
category including sororal nephews and
grandchildren on both the sons and
daughters sides, for male names, and the
corresponding female categories (paternal
aunt and grandmothers to fraternal niece
and granddaughters) for female names.
Transference of ritual names can only take
place at the end of a ceremony which lasts
for two or three months and involves the
entire community. The immediate parents
of the name-receiving children are responsible, during this period, for providing food
for those who dance in the collective rituals
(all males who have attained the age of
induction into the mens house and the boys
paternal aunts, in male naming ceremonies,
and the corresponding female age categories and a girls maternal uncles in female
ceremonies). The parents secure the assistw

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

ance and contributions of their respective

relatives for this task. The name-bestowing
uncle or aunt is exempted from the responsibility to contribute and also from participation in any of the ceremonial activities
connected with the naming.
Names, as I mentioned, are only the
most important of a large class of ceremonial prerogatives and items of ritual paraphernalia passed down between the same
categories of kinsmen. There is a general
belief in the close affinity and effective identity of the name-bestowing and namereceiving categories. The kinship term used
by the name-bestowing category for the
name-receiving category of both sexes literally connotes sameness or identity with the
speaker, and the transference of personal
names from the one category to the other is
itself a major expression of the theme of
identification of the older category with the
younger. Significantly, there is a strict
prohibition against a childs parents or their
parallel siblings (who are addressed by the
same kinship term as the biological parents)
bestowing either personal names or any
other items in the associated category or
ritual prestations on their own children.
The symbolic significance of this complex of ritual prestations emerges clearly
when it is placed in the context of the system
of relationships centered around the changing relations between parents and children
in the development cycle of the domestic
group described above. The categories of
kinsmen (i-nggt and kwa-tuy) who bestow
names and ritual wealth are precisely
those which are separated in the course of
the development cycle, not only from the
junior category of nephews, nieces and
grandchildren (tab-djuh) to which the names
are actually passed, but more importantly,
from the parents of these children (the crosssex siblings or children of the name givers).
It is the parental kinship categories, as we
have seen, who figure most prominently in
the symbolic moiety and age-grade relationships and the associated rites de passage.
The naming ceremonies, by asserting the
identity of the polar-reciprocal categories of
name-givers and receivers, in a manner that
requires great effort and sacrifice by the
latters parents to secure the collective
legitimation of the naming relationship,
serve to
mend the
breach between the cate_ _ ___
.
~

~~

PARSONS CONCEPT

gory of name-bestowers and that of the

parents opened by the shifting relations of
the domestic group cycIe.
I have argued that the moieties themselves
constitute a symbolic code whose structure
reflects the cleavage between the relationship
categories to which I have just referred. It
is therefore important to note that in the
great majority of the collective rites associated with name prestation, the moieties are
merged in a common body of dancers, which
tends to be subdivided across moiety lines
on the basis of age grades. It is important
that the naming ceremonies are always
focused in the center of the village plaza, at
the maximum distance from the dwelling
houses around the periphery; no part of the
rites occurs within the houses of the children
to be named. This spatial focus serves to
underline the sociological fact that the
fissure opened by the domestic group cycle
between the parental and name-giving categories can only be bridged in terms of the
communal structure embodied in the
moieties and age groupings of the central
plaza. It is the operation of this system of
collective institutions, as we have seen,
which emphasizes the cleavage between the
name-receiving children and their parents,
on the one hand, and the name-giving categories on the other.
Kayapo name-giving, a form of gift
prestation as defined in the previous section, functions as a symbolic medium of
social interaction in Parsons sense. The
prestation itself, in its symbolic form and in
the manner of its giving, constitutes a symbolic model of the social relationship between the categories of reIatives who are
parties to the prestation as donors and recipients. The rituals of name bestowing,
moreover, comprise symbolic models of the
relationship between the name-bestowing
categories and the parents of the namereceiving children. The symbolic medium
(the names and allied symbolic prestations)
embodies a category of ways in which the
interests of actors are at stake (healing the
social breach opened in the course of the
domestic group cycle) and a category of
properties of objects that are of interest
(the social affiliations of children, which, as
offspring of the mamage which is the root
cause of the breach between the categories
of consanguineal kinsmen involved in the

13 1

prestation, constitute both the most obvious

symbols of that breach, and also, through
their common relationship to both the namebestowing category of kinsmen and their
own parents, the natural foci for reconciling
and adjusting the attenuated relationship).
The individual name-giving transactions,
however, can take place only within a collective structure involving a definition of
the situation (the context of communal
ritual required for legitimizing the transference of a ritually prestigious name) and
a normative framework (the rules regulating participation in the rites, the inability of
parents to name their own children, the
relationship of the parents to the ritual
celebrants whom they must feed after each
performance, etc.).
Each of the prestations involved in the
naming ritual (the prestation of the name
itself, and the parents gifts of food to the
men or women of the community at large
who dance in the ceremonies on behalf of
their child) signalizes the establishment of
a particular social relationship. They thus
illustrate the point made in the last section
that gift prestation is a symbolic medium
for transmitting a single, determinate message. The coupling of these two prestations, representing different relationships, in
a single overall ritual code structure
demonstrates the way in which such restricted media may be utilized to communicate something about the relationship
between the different relationships symbolized by the prestations. The naming
ceremonies also provide examples of how
symbolic gift prestation functions to invest
particular interpersonal relationships with
the prestige and legitimacy of communal
consensus and authority: the name-givers
bestowing a name on his nephew or
grandson is made to depend on collective
rituals involving the entire community.
4. Conclusions

The preceding analysis of Kayapo social

institutions represents an attempt to extend
the interpretation of gift prestation as a symbolic medium of social interaction to certain
widespread forms of primitive social organization: the age set system and the
moiety system. I would suggest that other
primitive institutional structures could be
reanalyzed in similar terms, just as the anal-

132

ysis of ritual name prestation presented

above could be extended to other forms of
ritual symbolism. These undertakings must,
however, be left for other studies. The time
has come to ask the question: so what?
What, more precisely, does the analysis of
gift prestation and Kayapo social structure
as symbolic media in Parsonian terms reveal
about the properties of generalized symbolic media?
The general discussion of gift prestation
and the specific example of the Kayapo
have demonstrated that primitive social
institutions can be conceived as symbolic
codes and media functioning on two levels:
that of the individual actor participating
with other actors in a given social transaction, and that of the system as a whole.
These functions may be set out in general
terms as follows.

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

on the others. For each, in short, the relationship remains partly ambiguous, out of
control, and insecure with respect to his own
subjective interests.
Symbolic media represent objective, collectively standardized models of the crucial
ambiguous features of such relationships.
The objective, concrete symbolic tokes of
the medium can be accepted in the same
terms by all involved parties. As objective
standards, media help to neutralize the
ambivalent, intersubjective component in
the definition of transaction that is not
fully under the control of any party.
By virtue of this clarifying, standardizing function, and because of the collective guarantee of convertibility into
whatever categories of real assets are at
stake, symbolic media actually become far
more suitable and flexible instruments of
manipulation and expression of individual
interests by both parties.
A symbolic medium thus enables individual actors to relate to each other by relating to a common collectively defined and
guaranteed object, which is objective in the
same terms for both of them. Since this
symbolic object refers to a model of their
common relationship, it is able at the same
time to reflect the subjective interests
and orientations of each. The symbolic
medium, in other words, makes objective for
both actors aspects of their common relationship which are subjective from the
standpoint of each in relation to the other.
By so doing, it provides a stable (because
collectively guaranteed) framework in terms
of which each actor can define his interests
relative to the other, and simultaneously
serves as a device for standardizing the individual behavior and subjective orientations
of actors in key relationships according to
collective norms. From the standpoint of
society as a whole, it is far more practicable
and efficient to channel communal sanctions
and support through a standardized system
of symbolic tokens and institutions than to
try to bring collective norms and values
directly to bear on every instance of social
interaction of a particular type, without the
aid of a mediating symbolic system.

a) The level of the individual actor

First, it should be pointed out that each
of the instances of generalized media mentioned by Parsons, and the examples of
gift exchange and Kayapo social-structural
media I have put forward in the latter part
of this paper, are oriented to social situations characterized by some form of ambiguity, ambivalence, or conflict. At the
very least, they are situations in which the
actors interests take the form of complementary opposites (e.g., buyer-seller,
communicator-communicatee. etc.). The
relationships involved ordinarily occur embedded in a miscellaneous welter of conflicting circumstances. Since important interests are often involved in such circumstantial
associations, the isolation of the essential,
general features of the relationship in question for the purpose of consummating the
transaction would often be difficult or impossible for any single actor.
Each actor in a relationship in which the
ends of the actors involved are complementary, ambivalent, or conflicting, has a
built-in motive to impose his own definition of the situation on the other parties, in
order to maximize his own benefits from the
interaction in ways that may or may not
accord with the subjective interests of the
other parties. No single actor, however,
except in rare and special cases, will have b) The collective level
the power to impose his own definition of
The imposition of regular patterns on key
the relationship completely or consistently relationships in the social structure, which

PARSONS CONCEPT

has been shown to be one effect of symbolic

media of interaction, is a basic requirement
for any social system, and symbolic media,
for the reasons given above, are the most
efficient devices for achieving this result.
It has been shown what a central role
such media play even in societies at
the Kayapo level. Besides the basic
function of providing a standardized
framework for crucial categories of social
relationships, symbolic media typically serve
as the means of articulating different categories of relations with each other to form
integrated systems (an example is the way in
which the Kayapo system of name prestations complements and reinforces the balance of domestic group relations that is the
foundation of the moiety and age group system). Finally, the generalized symbolic
structure thus created has properties peculiar to its own level of organization, which
create for the society a new range of organizational possibilities (and problems). It is
here that Parsons credit expansion, inflation, and deflation come in.
c) Generalization and degrees of freedom
Symbolic media such as the Kayapo naming system and moiety system clearly lack
the degrees of freedom of item, source,
time, and terms that Parsons stresses as
criteria1 attributes of generalized symbolic
media. It might, as I suggested earlier in
the discussion of gift prestation, be more appropriate for this reason to call them
restricted symbolic media to distinguish
them from generalized media like money.
There is, however, a sense in which symbolic
media like gift prestation and moiety systems are generalized and possess degrees
of freedom, which gives them a structure
resembling Parsons generalized symbolic
media in all other essential respects. Any
symbolic model of a social relationship that
is integrated into the normative code of the
society wins both for the system as a
whole and for the individual actors within
it a measure of independence from reliance
on any given instance of the relationship in
question. The generalized form of the relationship is preserved by the medium and its
associated code as part of the social structure of the community. I t applies uniformly and continually, that is, regardless of

133

the particular time, item, or source

involved. Any symbolic medium, in short,
is generalized with respect to the individual instances of the category of behavior
it mediates, however restrictedly that category may be defined and its terms of interaction regulated. Generalization in this
sense is inherent in the symbolic relationship
itself.
Generalization and degrees of freedomin this elementary sense are the foundation of the properties Parsons discusses
under these terms with reference to money,
power and influence. I would maintain that
the difference, though large in degree, is not
a difference of kind, but simply a question
of the elaboration of the potential already
present in rudimentary form in primitive
forms of symbolic media such as gift
prestation and social structures of the
Kayapo type. I would therefore argue that
the Kayapo naming system and moiety
structure could with justice be called generalized symbolic media. This point is essentially a development of one I made
earlier in connection with the diagram in
which I attempted to represent the relationship between gift prestation, money, and
barter. At that point I remarked that such
generalized media as power and influence
fall somewhere between money and gift
prestation in their degree of generalization.
Such media, like the Kayapo moieties and
name prestations, are tied more closely to
symbolic models of specific status relationships than the generalized buyer-seller
relationship that is the reference of the
monetary system.
The foregoing general formulation of the
functions of generalized symbolic media, although based on examples drawn from a
primitive society, then, holds true in essential respects for sophisticated media like
the monetary systems of complex industrial
societies. Consideration of primitive cases
has helped to reveal the irreducible degree
of generalization implicit in the symbolic
component of the media, as well as the ungeneralized model component, analogous
to Durkheims non-contractual element of
contract, in the symbolic media of modem
societies.
The two levels of functions of symbolic
media as I have set them out above correspond roughly to the two levels of

134

SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

the structure of media in Parsons origi- dynamic social processes. I have attempted
nal model (the level of individual actor to demonstrate by the analysis of several
interests and transactions and the level examples that this approach is capable of
of collective institutionalization). The power throwing new light even on such classical
of the generalized medium concept as an anthropological problems as gift prestation
analytical tool largely derives from the way and moiety organization. I believe. howthat it focuses attention on the feed-back ever, that the potential applicability of the
relationship between these two structural concept in social anthropology is far wider
and functional levels as they affect each than even these examples would indicate.
other through their mutual involvement in