Introduction (Robert Redfield)
Essay I. MAGIC, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION
1. Primitive Man and His Religion
2. Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings
3. Life, Death, and Destiny in Early Faith and Cult
4. The Public and Tribal Character of Primitive Cults
5. The Art of Magic and the Power of Faith
Essay II. MYTH IN PRIMITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
1. The Role of Myth in Life
2. Myths of Origin
3. Myths of Death and of the Recurrent Cycle of Life
4. Myths of Magic
5. Conclusion
Essay III. BALOMA: The Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands
1. General Remarks Concerning the Independence of Mortuary Practices, and the Welfare of the Spirit; The Two Forms of Spirit or Ghost, the Baloma and the Kosi; The Mulukausi, Terrible Beings which Haunt the Neighborhood of a Corpse
2. The Journey of the Spirit to the Nether World; Its Arrival and Reception in Tuma, the Island of the Spirits; Communion between the Baloma and the Living; Actual Meetings in Waking Condition; Communion through Dreams and Visions; Nature of the Baloma and the Kosi
3. Return of the Spirits to Their Villages during the Annual Feast, the Milamala Part Played by the Spirits in Magic; References to Ancestors in Magical Spells
4. Beliefs in Reincarnation
5. Ignorance of the Physiology of Reproduction
6. Some General Statements Concerning the Sociology of Belief
274 pages, $29.95 list
0-88133-657-2
978-0-88133-657-3
© 1948
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Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays
Three famous Malinowski essays! Malinowski, one of the all-time great anthropologists of the world, had a talent for bringing together in single comprehension the warm reality of human living with the cool abstractions of science. His pages have become an almost indispensable link between the knowing of exotic and remote people with theoretical knowledge about humankind. An important collection of three of his most famous essays, Magic, Science and Religion offers students a set of concepts about religion, magic, science, rite, and myth in the course of forming vivid impressions and understandings of the Trobrianders of New Guinea.