Hau is a notion made popular by the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his 1925 book The Gift.Mauss M., The gift; forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies, Translated by Ian Gunnison with an Introduction by . E. Evans-Pritchard, London: Cohen and West, 1966: Internet Archive 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.MacCormack G., Mauss and the 'Spirit'of the Gift, Oceania, Vol. 52, No. 4, Jun., 1982 p.286 Jstor Writing at the turn of the century, Mauss relied on limited sources but his analysis has been expanded and refined.Maurice Godelier, The enigma of the gift. University of Chicago Press, 1999.
See also Gift economy HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
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