Hau (anthropology)
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This article is about an anthropological concept. For the Polynesian deity, see Tāwhirimātea.
Hau is a notion made popular by the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his 1925 book The Gift.[1] Surveying the practice of gifting, he came to the conclusion that it involved belief in a force binding the receiver and giver. The term 'Hau', used by Māori, became a paradigmatic example for such a view.[2] Writing at the turn of the century[when?], Mauss relied on limited sources but his analysis has been expanded and refined.[3]