Abstract
AN article on “Primitive Law and Order” by Dr. B. Malinowski, which appears as a Supplement to this issue of NATURE, raises broad questions of vital interest to anthropological investigation and theory. Taking as his starting-point some of the social and economic activities of the natives of the Trobriand Islands, Dr. Malinowski has asked what is the binding force, the sanction, to use the legal phrase, responsible for their punctual and faithful performance. The conventional answer of current theory he finds by no means satisfactory. The communistic ideas which have been attributed to the Melanesians do not cover the facts. Dr. Malinowski has no difficulty in showing that the “communistic canoe” is, as a matter of fact, not communistic at all. Nor is any greater measure of reality to be attributed to the unquestioned obedience which primitive man is supposed to yield to custom backed by taboo and religious belief. Primitive man is no less unscrupulous than his civilised brother in evading his obligations if he can do so with impunity. Dr. Malinowski has put his finger on an inconsistency between theory and fact which has appealed to some, at least, both in the field and in the study. It has given rise to an uneasy feeling that an observer, not necessarily superficial, may have found by unconscious selection among the multifarious activities of the daily life of a primitive people, very much what he set out to seek. An apparently hasty conclusion has inevitably followed. Dr. Malinowski has attacked the problem by a new method and from a new point of view. He has taken certain concrete cases in primitive economics and social organisation and, by a searching analysis of the facts, shows that the conditions are such that no terms such as ‘ communism ’ or ‘ individualism ’ can be considered appropriate. The relations of individuals engaged in any economic or social activity depend upon a system of mutual obligations or reciprocities which might be regarded as something analogous to a system of ‘ civil ’ as opposed to ‘ criminal ’ law. Those who follow Dr. Malinowski's convincing argument can scarcely fail to endorse his plea for the application of his method and point of view to fields other than that in which he has employed them himself.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
[News and Views]. Nature 117, 204–208 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117204c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117204c0