Wendat society was not ‘economically egalitarian’ in that sense.However, there was a difference between what we’d considereconomic resources – like land, which was owned by families,worked by women, and whose products were largely disposed of bywomen’s collectives – and the kind of ‘wealth’ being referred to here,such as wampum (a word applied to strings and belts of beads,manufactured from the shells of Long Island’s quahog clam) or othertreasures, which largely existed for political purposes.

When we simply guess as to whathumans in other times and places might be up to, we almostinvariably make guesses that are far less interesting, far less quirky– in a word, far less human than what was likely going on.

Women’s gambling: women in many indigenous NorthAmerican societies were inveterate gamblers; the women ofadjacent villages would often meet to play dice or a gameplayed with a bowl and plum stone, and would typically bet theirshell beads or other objects of personal adornment as thestakes. One archaeologist versed in the ethnographic literature,Warren DeBoer, estimates that many of the shells and otherexotica discovered in sites halfway across the continent had gotthere by being endlessly wagered, and lost, in inter-villagegames of this sort, over very long periods of time.36

Dreams or vision quests: among Iroquoian-speaking peoplesin the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was consideredextremely important literally to realize one’s dreams. ManyEuropean observers marvelled at how Indians would be willingto travel for days to bring back some object, trophy, crystal oreven an animal like a dog that they had dreamed of acquiring.Anyone who dreamed about a neighbour or relative’spossession (a kettle, ornament, mask and so on) couldnormally demand it; as a result, such objects would oftengradually travel some way from town to town. On the GreatPlains, decisions to travel long distances in search of rare orexotic items could form part of vision quests.34

Most contemporaryarchaeologists are well aware of this literature, but tend to getcaught up in debates over the difference between ‘trade’ and‘gift exchange’, while assuming that the ultimate point of both isto enhance somebody’s status, either by profit, or by prestige,or both. Most will also acknowledge that there is somethinginherently valuable, even cosmologically significant, in thephenomenon of travel, the experience of remote places or theacquisition of exotic materials; but in the last resort, much ofthis too seems to come down to questions of status or prestige,as if no other possible motivation might exist for peopleinteracting over long distances; for some further discussion ofthe issues see Wengrow 2010b.

But we often find such regional networks developinglargely for the sake of creating friendly mutual relations, or having anexcuse to visit one another from time to time;33 and there are plentyof other possibilities that in no way resemble ‘trade’.

The founding text of twentieth-century ethnography, BronisławMalinowski’s 1922 Argonauts of the Western Pacific, describes howin the ‘kula chain’ of the Massim Islands off Papua New Guinea, menwould undertake daring expeditions across dangerous seas inoutrigger canoes, just in order to exchange precious heirloom arm-shells and necklaces for each other (each of the most importantones has its own name, and history of former owners) – only to holdit briefly, then pass it on again to a different expedition from anotherisland. Heirloom treasures circle the island chain eternally, crossing