Moka Exchange

The Moka is a system of exchange in the Mt. Hagen area, Papua New Guinea.

It is a complex system of exchange that relies heavily on pigs as currency for status in the community.

The Moka is the vehicle by which big-men obtain their status and is a complicated game of zero-sum exchanges of material culture that serves to elevate prestige. A big-man can have several Moka partners with whom he carries on exchanges: some on a larger scale than others. He must be constantly thinking about people he owes and people who owe him, the timing of the next Moka, and how he might subtly undermine another big-man to gain more prestige.

The Moka system encompasses a large area around Mt. Hagen and involves large-scale exchanges of pigs between big-men. Moka is based on competition between big-men and tribes: at any given time in the process, there is inequality between the players. Big-men are able to exchange huge numbers of pigs at the Moka by having a large support group of men who have received small gifts of sweet potatoes or pigs in exchange for one or two pigs. The pigs accumulate from many sources and when there are enough, they are given to a rival big-man. That big-man uses them to repay what he owes to his supporters (in addition to using many of them as a feast at the Moka) and has a few years to breed and amass pigs enough to equal and outdo the previous gift. In this fashion the exchange is continued, each exceeding the other in turn. He could also use the gift to make Moka to a third big-man, guaranteeing superiority over him for a time.

The Moka depends on the big-man, who is dependent upon his social network of supporters.

The Moka continues until one of the big-men cannot reciprocate and increase the gift and his inferiority to the other is established. Theoretically, Moka exchanges continue for an indefinite amount of time and an outcome is never reached. At any time, one of the more important members of a big-man’s social network may decide that he is better off supporting a rival big-man and could switch sides, so to speak, and undermine his former big-man while strengthening his rival. There is always uncertainty involved in the Moka.