Argonauts of the western Pacific : an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea / by Bronislaw Malinowski ... with a preface by Sir James George Frazer ; with 5 maps, 65 illustrations, and 2 figures.

  • Bronisław Malinowski
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Argonauts of the western Pacific : an account of native enterprise and adventure in the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea / by Bronislaw Malinowski ... with a preface by Sir James George Frazer ; with 5 maps, 65 illustrations, and 2 figures. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    objective, scientific view of things. The habit of treating with a self-satisfied frivolity what is really serious to the ethno¬ grapher ; the cheap rating of what to him is a scientific treasure, that is to say, the native’s cultural and mental peculiarities and independence—these features, so well known in the inferior amateur’s writing, I found in the tone of the majority of white residents.* Indeed, in my first piece of Ethnographic research on the South coast, it was not until I was alone in the district that I began to make some headway ; and, at any rate, I found out where lay the secret of effective field-work. What is then this ethnographer’s magic, by which he is able to evoke the real spirit of the natives, the true picture of tribal life ? As usual, success can only be obtained by a patient and systematic application of a number of rules of common sense and well- known scientific principles, and not by the discovery of any marvellous short-cut leading to the desired results without effort or trouble. The principles of method can be grouped under three main headings ; first of all, naturally, the student must possess real scientific aims, and know the values and criteria of modern ethnography. Secondly, he ought to put himself in good conditions of work, that is, in the main, to live without other white men, right among the natives. Finally, he has to apply a number of special methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing his evidence. A few words must be said about these three foundation stones of fieldwork, beginning with the second as the most elementary. IV Proper conditions for ethnographic work. These, as said, consist mainly in cutting oneself off from the company of other white men, and remaining in as close contact with the natives as possible, which really can only be achieved by camping right in their villages (see Plates I and II). It is very nice to have a base in a white man’s compound for the stores, and to know there is a refuge there in times of sickness and surfeit of native. But it must be far enough away not to become a permanent milieu in which you live and from which you emerge at fixed * I may note at once that there were a few delightful exceptions to that, to mention only my friends Billy Hancock in the Trobriands ; M. Raffael Brudo, another pearl trader; and the missionary, Mr. M. K. Gilmour.
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