Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures

I know I’ve already mentioned in class how much I liked Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures in class before, but it stands repeating that this is one of the better books that I’ve read on the topic of commodities, the fusion of beliefs and practices, and the Atlantic World. The fact that it remains a good book, looking at it from the different point of view of a commodities class, just emphasizes the point. It helps that Norton’s thesis fits in very well with a focus on commodities, revolving as it does around the social space and meanings of two of the most popular agricultural luxury commodities from the Americas.

In this case, I think the most relevant thing for us is the adoption of social meaning, which Daniel already pointed out ties into Appadurai. Norton uses the social meaning of cacao/chocolate and tobacco as it develops, changes, and is adopted and adapted by Europeans and Africans from Mesoamericans and various Caribbean cultures. The book is about how the adoption of these two commodities relied on the acceptance of indigenous meanings of the commodities and to a certain extent the indigenous uses and rituals surrounding them. In essence, the adoption of chocolate and tobacco originally demonstrated the modification of European spaces by indigenous commodity identities. Additionally, in the early parts of the book we also see how indigenous commodity usage and activity becomes modified with the introduction of European culture, as in the use of chocolate and tobacco’s spiritual properties in conjunction with European saints and ceremonies.