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Mauss does not immediately appear as a theoretician of reciprocity, even in The Gift, where the surprising absence of that concept probably explains why he finds it so difficult to account for the obligation to give. Social constraint as defined by Durkheim does not solve the problem. Peirce’s work is more relevant : his theory of the triad as a relationship between partners through the mediation of a thing makes it possible to understand the exchange as a mechanism that entails both action and reaction (as in games where two players follow certain rules). This is exactly what Lévi-Strauss means when he talks of exchange. Only after the publication of The Gift does Mauss problematize the concept of reciprocity. He even grants it a very significant status, identifying it in the diachronic relationships among generations that follow what he calls an “indirect alternative reciprocity.”