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Abstract: Contemporary anthropology has had difficulties in classifying or inte rpreting Mauss and Beuchat's Essay on Seasonal Variations in Eskimo Societies, and has mostly r emembered the seasonal dualism of the social morphology. It is tempting to discover in th is Essay the underlying influence of Mauss's own political commitment and his leanings toward a humanistic socialism. Fascinated as he was by the intensity of the winter social life of t he Inuit, in all economic, jural, religious and sexual domains, Mauss does not hesitate to call i t sexual and economic communism, as opposed to the summer individualism of conjugal families. In the light of recent ethnographic data, concerning the central Arctic Inuit exchange of spouses, in both the restricted form between couples and the generalized one during the wint er solstice festival (which Mauss viewed as the crux of social communion), the author propos es to transcend the somewhat reductionist dualism of the Essay, employing a ternary and hierarch ical approach, inspired in part by Louis Dumont. The figure of the shaman, a "third gender" an d mediator, then appears as the main operator of spouse - exchanges, in a context of sexual markings imposed upon women and communal violence inflicted on young people, particularly young couples. These have to undergo the sharing of their production, of their offspr ing and of their sexuality, for the benefit of older people, mature men and especially shamans. I ndividualism and communism are then in a conjunctive relationship not only in the dualistic play of seasons, but mostly in an unequal dynamic of sexes and generations, through the mediation and power of male shamans.
Resume: En arriere - plan de l'Essai de Mauss et Beuchat sur les variations saisonnieres des societes eskimos (inuit) que l'anthropologie contemporaine ne s ait pas tres bien comment classer ou interpreter, et dont le dualisme saisonnier de la m orphologie a surtout retenu, ne pourrait - on deceler l'influence de l'engagement politique de Mauss et sa predilection pour un socialisme a visage humain? Fascine par l'intensite de la vie sociale des Inuit, que ce soit dans les domaines economique, juridique, religieu x ou sexuel, Mauss n'hesite pas a parler a leur sujet de communisme economique et sexuel qu'i l oppose a...