The magnificent title of the Functional School of Anthropology has been bestowed on myself, in a way on myself, and to a large extent out of my own sense of irresponsibility.

[W.H.R.] Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology I shall be the Conrad.

You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison.

An order given in battle, an instruction issued by the master of a sailing ship, a cry for help, are as powerful in modifying the course of events as any other bodily act...You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison.

There are no peoples however primitive without religion and magic. Nor are there, it must be added at one, any savage races lacking in either the scientific attitude, or in science, though this lack has been frequently attributed to them.

Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition, and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miraculous, in a constant revelation of their wonder-working power. They both are surrounded by taboos and observances which mark off their acts from those of the profane world.

The final goal ... is to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.