Synthesized answer
The Polynesian islanders generally illustrate an earlier stage of the development of a leisure class [1]. In such communities, there is a rigorous distinction between classes and between the occupations peculiar to each class [1]. Manual labor and industry are the exclusive occupations of the inferior class, which includes slaves and other dependents, and ordinarily also all women [1]. Women of high rank are typically exempt from industrial employment, and men of the upper classes are debarred from all industrial occupations by prescriptive custom [1].
The passages also note that the Polynesian islanders show this stage of development "in good form," with the exception that hunting does not hold a prominent place in their scheme of life due to the absence of large game [1]. Additionally, Polynesian chiefs, through the practice of "tabu," demonstrated a form of honorific leisure, as their touch was considered contaminating and would render food unfit for consumption [4]. This illustrates a concept of non-productive consumption of time associated with leisure [4].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
rm. Neither the class distinctions nor the distinctions between leisure-class occupations are so minute and intricate. The Polynesian islanders generally show this stage of the development in good form, with the exception that, owing to the absence of large game, hunting does not hold the usual place of honour in their scheme of life. The Icelandic community in the time of the Sagas also affords a fair instance. In such a community there is a rigorous distinction between classes and between the occupations peculiar to each class. Manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly…
such as are plainly of an industrial character and are only remotely related to the typical leisure-class occupations. If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find the leisure class in fully developed form. But this lower barbarism shows the usages, motives, and circumstances out of which the institution of a leisure class has arisen, and indicates the steps of its early growth. Nomadic hunting tribes in various parts of the world illustrate these more primitive phases of the differentiation. Any one of the North…
nor does the class necessarily include all primitive communities which have no defined system of individual ownership. But it is to be noted that the class seems to include the most peaceable--perhaps all the characteristically peaceable--primitive groups of men. Indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force or fraud. The evidence afforded by the usages and cultural traits of communities at a low stage of development indicates that the institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the…
ave been communicated by the contact of his hands, and so would have made anything touched by him unfit for human food. But the tabu is itself a derivative of the unworthiness or moral incompatibility of labour; so that even when construed in this sense the conduct of the Polynesian chiefs is truer to the canon of honorific leisure than would at first appear. A better illustration, or at least a more unmistakable one, is afforded by a certain king of France, who is said to have lost his life through an excess of moral stamina in the observance of good form. In the absence of the…
e groups or communities that are classed as "savage" show no traces of regression from a more advanced cultural stage. But there are groups--some of them apparently not the result of retrogression--which show the traits of primitive savagery with some fidelity. Their culture differs from that of the barbarian communities in the absence of a leisure class and the absence, in great measure, of the animus or spiritual attitude on which the institution of a leisure class rests. These communities of primitive savages in which there is no hierarchy of economic classes make up but a small…