17

To name this strange “power,” included “in the given thing” and that make “the received present is necessarily rendered,” Mauss proposes the Maori notion of Hau. Trying to better name that principle of all societal exchanges (including that one, so delicate, with the divinity), we propose and try to justify the term, borrowed form the law and maybe wider and at the same time more precise, of “quasi-contract,” implicite but almost irresiliable, of which we present several and varied examples. The importance of these quasi-contracts is stressed in all situations of conflict —war in the first place— where the law is overridden by violence. Finally, we must note the proximity of this quasi-contract to the central notion of the economy of conventions.