Abstract
WHEN I set out to gain some personal experience of native customs and beliefs and made Morocco my field of research, Sir James Frazer's “The Golden Bough” directed my attention to many facts that otherwise, in all probability, would have escaped my notice. It offered suggestions and explanations, which were none the less valuable because they were not always applicable to the particular data that came under my observation; and it brought home to me the great lesson, never to rest content with recording the mere external modes of native behaviour without endeavouring, so far as possible, to find the ideas or sentiments underlying them. For this reason I desire to render homage to my great teacher by stating some general results of my experience as a field anthropologist.
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WESTERMARCK, E. On the Study of Popular Sayings1. Nature 122, 701–703 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122701a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122701a0