Magic, science and religion among primitive peoples

Magic, Science and Religion among Primitive Peoples by Bronislaw Malinowski… For many, primitive society still has its own magic. Perhaps this is due to the sense that this society still retains something of the era of first innocence. Since Jean-Jacques Rousseau launched his call for a return to nature, our views of primitive society have been divided between two extremes. On the one hand, it is the image that was mixed with the imaginations of romantic poets and writers, and on the other hand, the blind obsession of fanatics of the white man''s civilization, who view primitive society as a barbaric society, lacking religion, morals, and law. They also view primitive man as a class of creatures lower than the rank of humans. Malinowski was preceded by dozens of travelers, missionaries, and others, who wrote their observations and impressions of primitive societies in various parts of the world. But there is no doubt that our scientific knowledge of these societies begins with Malinowski as a pioneer of field research and one of the founders of that branch of science known as social anthropology (cultural in the modern American classification), and even as the owner of a school and theory that researchers place within the framework of "functional constructivism."