A Ceremonial Act of the Kula
London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
1922
[v]
Preface
By Sir James G. Frazer
My esteemed friend, Dr. B. Malinowski has asked me to write apreface to his book, and I willingly comply with his request, though Ican hardly think that any words of mine will add to the value of theremarkable record of anthropological research which he has given us inthis volume. My observations, such as they are, will deal partly withthe writer’s method and partly with the matter of his book.
In regard to method, Dr. Malinowski has done his work, as it appearsto me, under the best conditions and in the manner calculated to securethe best possible results. Both by theoretical training and bypractical experience he was well equipped for the task which heundertook. Of his theoretical training he had given proof in hislearned and thoughtful treatise on the family among the aborigines ofAustralia1; of his practical experience he had produced noless satisfactory evidence in his account of the natives of Mailu inNew Guinea, based on a residence of six months among them.2 Inthe Trobriand Islands, to the east of New Guinea, to which he nextturned his attention, Dr. Malinowski lived as a native among thenatives for many months together, watching them daily at work and atplay, conversing with them in their own tongue, and deriving all hisinformation from the surest sources—personal observation andstatements made to him directly by the [viii]natives intheir own language without the intervention of an interpreter. In thisway he has accumulated a large mass of materials, of high scientifi