'Imagine Yourself Set Down...

': Mach, Frazer, Conrad, Malinowski and the Role of Imagination in Ethnography Author(s): Robert J. Thornton Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 1, No. 5 (Oct., 1985), pp. 7-14 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3032822 . Accessed: 17/02/2014 07:22
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existence of the Slovaks ('just a few shepherds in the hills'), and when the influential Englishman SetonWatson found that they had misled him, he became that much more receptiveto a more realistic,and in Masaryk's view more just, account of the ethnic situation. So the present manipulates the past. In philosophy in general, when truth becomes difficult of access, because our minds are seen to be manipulated, the normal reactivestrategyis to seek the touchstone of valid perception, of valid thought. If one succeeds to one's own satisfaction,one can vindicateone'sideas, and damn those of one's rivals as mere ideology. But an even more extremepossibility is also available.Why not damn them all, and do without this doubt-ridden, manipulationprone realm altogether? Such was, in simplest, crudest terms, Malinowski's reaction. It turns the tables on the manipulators: the fact that they use the past for current aims is the veryessence of the past. Insteadof arbitrating between rival claims about the past, explain the present by the functions which the 'past' (and anything else) fulfils right now. Weknow full well why Malinowskithe anthropologist was drawn to this view: it cut the ground from under speculative (and fragment-based) reconstructions. It is the verybasis of his methodological revolution.My point is that Malinowski the Pole had equally powerful though quite different - reasons for feeling attracted by such a doctrine. He was no political nationalist, though he was a cultural nationalist. (Evans-Pritchardtold me that he firmly turned down the suggestion that he should rename himself McRaspberry - malina being the common Slavonicroot meaningraspberry.) He knewthat the re-drawingof boundaries would not and could not solve the problem of cultural oppression; it could only redistribute the roles of oppressor and oppressed, and he said as much in print. (At the time he was working out his ideas, genocide and large scale forcible transfer of population were not yet on the agenda in central Europe.) Where did he get the ideas which enabled him to formulate an alternative, usable both in anthropology and in politics? Here the work of Andrzej Flis and others on his doctoral dissertation provides the conclusive answer.The thesis was concerned with Ernst Mach (also with Avenarius) and the 'second positivism'. One of its central themes was the radical empiricist aspiration (which reached anglophone philosophy mainly through

Bertrand Russell) to eschew the invocation of whichseemed to refer to such terms transcendent objects; objects were, wheneverpossible, to be construedas referring indirectly to observable entities.Malinowski's attitudeto the past constitutesa brilliantdeployment of current of this idea: the allegedpast is a 'charter' practices,its essence is the function it observably now. Butanotherthemeis just as prominent performs of in Machianpositivism: its biologicalinterpretation knowledge. It seesideasas serving a totalorganism, and themost'economical' as vindicated byconstituting way Thisnotionwasreflected theorganism's needs. of serving in theverytitleof Malinowski's Thisleads, dissertation. in a verynaturalway,to Malinowski's functionalism, and to his holisticattitudeto culture. In the context of the Europeanhistory of ideas, Malinowski is an unusual, probably a unique phenomenon:the romanticpositivist, and the antihistorical holist. The customary alignments are refreshingly re-shuffled.He had an organicsense of for history,and he was culture,but withoutreverence witha senseof cultural an empiricist but one endowed Machismowhich totalities.It was his epistemological enabled himto do it. It helped himdo twothingsat once: overturn andcombine cultural Frazerian anthropology; nationalismwith political internationalism, and so discountallegedhistoricalimperatives. Inter-warPoland was nationalist, romantic and historicistin its dominantmood. Why should it be attractedby a London professor,even though he be AnthropologistLaureateto the BritishEmpire,who taughtthat it was of the veryessenceof the past that in theinterests it wasmanipulated of current aspirations? And, as Szackipointsout, intellectuals tryingto piece togethera coherentnational culture,from decaying of a peasantcustomdisconnected fragments fromthe great tradition of the society, would hardly find illumination in a thinker who taughtthatcultures were in fact functionally integrated.
Today, however, the pays re'eland the pays le'gal are sharply distinct in Poland, and thepays legal is formally

to a historicist committed ideology.Whatbetterwayof it thantheinvocation needling of a theorywhichstresses themanipulation of thepastbythepresent? Malinowski, thou shouldstbe livingin this hour.Polandhath need of thee,andcouldnever havebeenmorereceptive to your views.

'Imagine

yourself

set

down...

Mach, Frazer,Conrad,Malinowski and the role of imagination in ethnography

'Imagine yourself suddenly set down ...alone on a tropical beach! With these words BronislawMalinowski invites the readerto join him on a journey that will show him 'nativeenterpriseand adventurein the archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Like other travelogues, it is a tale of the adventureto be found in journeying. The

ROBERT J. THORNTON
Theauthoris a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Cape Town. Thisarticleis basedon a papergiven at the ASA conference 1984.

text of Argonauts of the Western Pacific is also a

metaphoricaljourney into nature and human nature,an heroic attempt to reach the 'centralattitude of mind of the native'(1961[19221: 517),to 'penetrateother cultures',

in order,ultimately,to 'deepenour grasp of human nature'. It is a taleof adventure aboutMalinowski's own journeyto get there,and an allegorical journeyfrom the macrocosmic world of the European to the microcosmic worldof the Trobriand All of this natives. is intendedto revealthe 'wholeconception journeying of primitive value'. The 'Kularing' and the journeying associated,with it was indeed rich in narrative potential,laden with symbolic value for both the Trobrianders and the
7

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anthropologist. For the Melanesian participants in the Kula, travel was an instrument for creating and distributing valuables. For Malinowski, writer and ethnologist, travelwas the central rhetorical figure that defined and re-valued the ethnographic genre. In Argonauts,travel itself is allegory, image, and artifice as well as the practicethat links the text with the picturelike vision of the world as a coherent whole. Documentation and Description Malinowskithought of himself as a writer.In his vision of what anthropology was or could be, and in his own work, he struggled constantly with what were for him opposite poles of consciousness: science and art, especially the art of writing. Malinowski's own conception of the role of writing emphasized the recordthat it produced, ratherthan the process itself, or its rhetorical and aesthetic effects. Although he is mythologized as the 'fatherof fieldwork', the methodological first chapter of Argonauts stresses text ratherthan experience.He held that texts guarantee the scientific bonafides of the endeavour.Accordingly, the three most essential products of fieldwork are texts. These are described as, first, 'concrete statistical of the 'organization documentation' (1961[19221:17,24) of the tribe, and the anatomy of its culture';second, the 'minute, detailed observations' of the 'imponderabilia of actual life', that was contained in the ethnographic diary; and third, the fieldworker'stextual record of all sorts of formulaic or regular speech in a corpus inscriptionum that was to be seen as the 'documents of native mentality' (1961 [19221:24,1978 [1935J(:vi).He justified this emphasis by referring to the methods of the Classicistand Classicalarchaeologist.He gives credit to A.H. Gardiner, an Egyptologist, on this matter. From his point of view as archaeologist, [Gardiner] naturally saw the enormous possibilities for an ethnographerof obtaining a similar body of written sources as have been preserved for us from ancient cultures,plus the possibility of illumination of them through personal knowledge of the full life of that culture. (1961 [1922]:24n) More importantly, he claimed that J.G. Frazer was responsiblefor his realizationof the importanceof vivid and detailed description. En route to Kiriwina for the second period of fieldwork on the island, he wrote to Frazer from his cabin on board the S.S. Makambo. Every ethnologist naturally looks up to you as the leader in our branch of learning...At the time, when I receivedyour letter,I needed a stimulus very badly, because I was resumingwork after a pause of almost a year due to ill health. ...Throughthe study of your I have come to realizethe paramount works mainfly, importance of vividness and colour in descriptions of native life. I rememberhow helpful it was to find in your T&E[Totemismand Exogamy]a picturesque account of the country where the respective tribes live. In fact I found that the more scenery and 'atmosphere' was given in the account, which you

In this letter to Frazer,we note especially that he points to the imagination as the target of ethnographic description. The ethnographermust undertakethe work of convincing the readers by managing their imaginations in a way that would allow them to conceptualize in images what the text could not present in full. If the details of native life were 'imponderabilia', it is becausethey could only be constructedin the readers' imagination once the moment of experience was past. Frazer'srhetoric and definition of problem-areashad a major impact on Malinowski'sintellectualprogramme. In an address delivered in Liverpool in November of 1925, after the publication of Argonauts, and after its success had been registered, Malinowski revealed that its significancehad been emotional and aesthetic as well. If I had the power of evoking the past, I should like to lead you back some twentyyearsto an old Slavonic university town - I mean the town of Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland and the seat of the oldest universityin eastern Europe. I could then show you a student leaving the medieval college buildings, obviously in some distress of mind, hugging, however, under his arm, as the only solace of his troubles, three green volumes with the well-known golden imprint, a beautiful conventionalized design of mistletoe- the symbol of 7he Golden Bough (1948 [19261:93)
Cracow University: the courtyard of the Collegium Maius, 1960's.

4>~~~~~

h4bu
Ernst Mach and reading The Golden Bough'

Malinowskifirst encounteredThe Golden Bough beforeenteringuniversity when it was readto him by his motherwhilehe was recuperating froman illness. Hisstudies at theold Jagellonian University were chiefly in physics,mathematics and philosophy(Paluch1983; Malinowski1948 [1926]:94). Of the authorshe read duringthis periodthose of most significance to him, to judgefromhisownwritings atthetime,included Ernst Mach, Richard Avenarius, Wilhelm Fechner, and of Frazer's writingto MalinIowski, Wilhelm The importance Wundt. Theirideasaboutthepositive, psychoquestionof physical basis for 'imagination'as a fundamental goes beyondthe methodological however, what datato collectand how to collectand presentit. characteristicof human cognition, indicate that

and had at your disposal, the moreconvincing was the ethnology to the imagination manageable I shall try to give the local colour of thatdistrict. andmise-enof the scenery anddescribe thenature scene to the best of my ability. (Malinowski, 25/10/1917, cited as 'Corresp' Correspondence Emphasisis mine) Letterto J.G.Frazer. hereafter.

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Malinowski's idea of the role of imaginationin his readingof Frazer'sGolden Bough, and in his own ethnographic writing,were foundedon a positivistic of the realphysiological conception existence of images and constructs in the mind that permitted the of realityto take place. apprehension he almostentirely Strangely, suppressed anymention of his readingof Mach,Avenarius and Fechner in his laterEnglish-language work.Thismaybe partlydueto the fact that they werenot well knownin the EnglishworldwhenMalinowski wrote.It mayalso be speaking related to the attempts of Malinowski, his teachers and colleaguesto define clearly an intellectualfield for anthropology, and to draw distinct disciplinary boundaries between it and sociology, psychology, philosophyand history.In any case, we see a glimpse of Mach'sideasconcerning the construction of theory

M alinowski's doctoral degree, Cracow University,

1908.

cultural constructs of the scientific investigator and his historicaland social context interactwith and contribute to the development of scientific knowledge. Mach's chief study of scientific methodology, published in 1905 as Erkenntnisund Irrtum.[Knowledge and Error](Mach 1976),was based on a seriesof lectures delivered in Vienna during the winter of 1895-96. This work constituted a sustained critique of any philosophy of science which fails to take account of the observer and his position relative to the object of observation, or which fails to account for the cognitive structure of the human mind in its account of scientific method. Mach emphasized the provisional nature of scientific findings, and the role of historical contingency, rather than logical necessity or coherence, in determining the character of the theories that scientists developed to account for their observations (Hiebert 1976:xix). in Argonauts. Malinowski's reading of Frazerprovided the content The integrationof all the details observed,the for what he saw as a new empirical science of the achievement of a sociologicalsynthesisof all the primitive consciousness that would lead to the deeper various relevantsymptoms, is the task of the understanding of all human nature. But it was Mach's Ethnographer. Firstof all he has to find out that concept of science as a socially embedded endeavour certainactivities,whichat firstsightmightappear that guided Malinowski's attack on 'the errors of incoherent andnot correlated, havea meaning.He Economics',especiallyits failureto considerthe symbolic then has to find out what is constantand relevant nature of value. His insistence that the empirical in these activities, and what is accidental and ethnographicfact must alwaysbe evaluatedin the context inessential,that is, to find out the laws and rules of the whole, reflects the outlines of Mach's positivism, of allthetransactions. Again,theEthnographer has especially his concept of the 'field' and holism in the to constructthe pictureof the big institution,very physical sciences. muchas thephysicist constructs histheoryfromthe This provides the basis for the critique of Classical experimental data, whichalwayshavebeen within economic theory that recursthroughoutArgonauts, and reachof everybody, but whichneededa consistent later in Coral Gardens and their Magic. Malinowski interpretation. (1961 [19221:84; Malinowski's claimed that his analysis of the kula economy gives us emphasis) an understanding of the magical and symbolic nature Although Malinowskidoes not link this concise of value that is relevant to a broader, anthropological statement of hisscientific method to hisreading of Mach, understanding of economy and value in general. Ernst Mach is the central figure in Malinowski's It seems, too, that the entire conception of the second dissertation 'On the Economyof Thought'submitted chapter of Argonauts, in which Malinowski provides a to the Jagellonian University's facultyof philosophy, summary definition of the kula, and through it, of the and defendedin 1908. natureof 'primitiveeconomics' in general, is taken from Mach's philosophy of scientific methods. He presents 0 1)1 o I i 'It 1: the 'general definition of the Kula' first in order that \I\\IAM 1:1I1\ I\ LAML I SSI IUB ATI. BA(S this might serve as 'a sort of plan or diagram in our , 1 \ : (. IS AC I ~. further concrete descriptions'. In doing so, Malinowski points out that this appears to contradict the ordinary notion of the way inductive science should achieve its ADAMO : CLI D1u OGINIEC Dr FEDOROWICZ results. Again, it was Mach who argued that this is precisely the way science does, in fact, proceed. General 11C 1 1\1 1T A10't1(IIS L.NAR(,IiNII conceptions, images, or diagrams yf how things work FRANCISCO XAVERIO EQUITE DE FIERICH must first be imagined. These may then be gradually reformedand improvedthroughempiricalmeasurement. PETRO EQUIJIL DE LADA BIENKOWSKI 'The goal of the ordinary imagination', wrote Mach, 'is the conceptual completion and perfection of a partially observed fact' (Mach 1976 [1905]:1). Malinowski STEPHAINO ZACHARIA PAWLICKI emphasized, too, that his methods were 'absolutely ANA() DWNIIN1 .\I(M\AIIIDII. I'll MENSIS NOVEMBRIS candid and above board' (1961 [1922]:2).This is also to SUPRENvA PHILO1)SOPHIAE DOCTORATUS LAURLA be found as a cardinal principle in Mach's approach to SOl.EMNITR DECORATUS EST the eliminationof errorfrom scientific knowledge(Mach BRONISLAUS GASPARUS MALINOWSKI 1976: 1-9).

UFRANCISCI IOSEPHI 1.

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III 061NIEC ITDOROAWICZ.

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Mach was among the first philosophers of science to consider science as a social activity in which meaningful,

Indeed,Malinowski's turnto ethnologyis prefigured in Mach'sessayson the historyof science,and in his essays on epistemology.Mach refers frequentlyto ethnologiststhroughoutthis works. J.W.Powell, for instance,whose classification of the American Indian languages waspraised byFranz Boas(Powell 1966,Boas 1966)is citedby Machin connection withtheAmerican Indianperception of physical phenomena (Powell 1898). Mach referred manytimes to E.B. Tylor,McLennan, Haddon and to other social scientistssuch as W.S. Jevons, and HerbertSpencerin his works. Mach's
9

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concept of the evolution of science from the 'ordinary thought that does not serve pure knowledge' of the primitive hunter and farmer, and which 'suffers from various defects that at first survivein scientific thought', to pure inductive,empiricalscience, is entirelyconsistent with Frazer'soverall notion of the evolution of thought from the error of 'magical thinking', through 'religion', to the truthsof 'science'. The powerfulinfluence of Mach on Malinowski, then, must be seen in its peculiar combination with Frazer's goals as they created a new discursive space for ethnographic argument. Voyaging, Adventure and Rhetoric Malinowski claims that his focus on economics is essential to the overallunderstandingof the 'mental life' of the savage,but apologizes for its not being 'romantic' (1961 [19221:98).The first two chapters of Argonauts, however,are presentedvery much in the romantic mode as travelogue, an ethnographic Grand Tour of 'The Country and Inhabitants of the Kula District'. Here he sets the problem, and the scene, almost exactly as Frazer had used the description of the sacred grove on Lake Nemi to set the scene for the Golden Bough. Within this romantic context, invoking the image of a Thrner landscape, Frazer defined the problem of the sacrifice of the king, and the symbolism of the mistletoe, the eponymous 'golden bough'. The entire narrativeof The Golden Bough is cast in the form of a travelogue, which becomes both a scientific and a moral enterprise. The groveof Nemi, in Italy,is the startingplace. It is described from the point of view of the tourist who visits the grove which, 'in antiquity...was the scene of a strange and recurringtragedy'.(Frazer1922:1).'Who does not know Thrner'spicture of the Golden Bough?, asks Frazer: The scene, suffused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine mind of Thrner steeped and transfigured even the fairest natural landscape, is a dream-like vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi - 'Diana's Mirror',as it was called by the ancients. No one who has seen that calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban hills, can ever forget it. (Frazer 1922:1) In place of a picture by Turner,Malinowski gives us a map of the 'KulaDistrict'.The scene is set, the essential lines of the problem are drawn, and we embark on a journey around the archipelago. 'Let us imagine, he writes, 'that we are sailing around the South coast of New Guinea towards its eastern end! (1961[19221:33). From therewe visit the Amphletts, Kitava,Dobu, Mailu, and other places that will figure in the ethnography of the Kula. But this is only the first stop on the tours that Frazer or Malinowski offer us. Our interest must be kindled, our imaginations fired. After ingenuously offering a clearly unsatisfactory account of the 'tragedy' of the priest-king in simple utilitarian terms, Frazer continues the metaphor of the voyage; Clearly these conclusions do not of themselves

We know we shall returnto the 'sacredgroveof Nemi'. Malinowski, similarly,leads us off into the distancewith the promise of return: Leaving the bronzed rocks and the dark jungle of the Amphletts for the present - for we shall have to returnto revisitthem in the course of our study, and then shall learn more about their inhabitants - we sail North into an entirelydifferentworld of flat coral islands; into an ethnographic district, which stands out by ever so many peculiar manners and customs from the rest of Papuo-Melanesia.(Malinowski1961 [19221:49) And then, we are 'suddenly set down' Returningto our imaginaryfirstvisit ashore,the next interesting thing to do, after we have sufficiently taken in the appearanceand manners of the natives, is to walk round the village. In doing this, again we would come across much, which to a trained eye, would revealat once deeper sociological facts. (1961 [1922]:55) The remainder of Argonauts sustains this narrative image of travel and journeying. The imaginative travel of the narrative reinforces the descriptive discourse of the real journeying of the Trobrianderswho exchange and re-exchange their mwali (arm bands) and soulava (red shell-necklaces) which are the epitome of value in this economy of vaygu'a, the non-utilitarian tokens of pure valuableness. Frazer's mysterious mistletoe is the motive for our travels,the motif of the book, and an objectivereal-world fact. We begin with it and end with it, and throughout the book the transformations of trees, spirits, sacrifice and symbols of transcendence constantly refer back to mistletoe as the symbol of the problem, as the emblem of the text, and as the thing itself. The rhetoricalmethods employed by Malinowski are similar. In Argonauts, narrativeevocations of sea-journeys, travel, adventure, and visits to far places, are both the motive for Malinowski's textual account, and the rhetorical motif of the text. These narratives of canoes and sailing tie the textual description to the objective landscape and to the culturalpractices.Referenceto 'canoesand sailing', then, is both reference to canoes, and to sailing, but is also a reference to 'Canoes and Sailing', the title of Chapter 4 of Argonauts of the WesternPacific. The textualmotif has the effect of creatinga powerfullinkage between our reading of the facts of Kula in the text, our imagination of the entire system of the Kula (something which the Trobrianderhimself can-never do without reference to Malinowski's text), and the objective historical context in which real people sail small boats acrossvast ocean spaces for the sake of what is 'valuable'. The Golden Bough comes to an end when 'Our long voyage of discovery is over and our bark has dropped her weary sails in port at last' (1922:827). For Frazer, as for Malinowski, the metaphor of travel sustains the theoreticaldiscourseby incorporatingit into a narrative. They draw similar moral conclusions concerning the ultimate goal of human self-understanding. Both, too,

sufficeto explainthe peculiar ruleof succession to the priesthood[of Nemi]...Butperhapsthe survey of a widerfieldwillleadusto thinkthattheycontain thegermof a solutionto theproblem. It willbelong and laborious,but may possess somethingof the interest andcharm of a voyage of discovery in which we shallvisitmanystrange and foreignlands,with strangeforeignpeople and still stranger customs. The windis in the shrouds: we shakeout our sails to it, andleavethecoastof Italybehind us fora time. (Frazer1922:10)
10

employ the generalizedand pervasivemetaphorsof travel, 'goldenboughs' and canoes to supporttheir claimsto universal socialrelevance, and for functional holism.Malinowski's senseof irony, however, wasbyfar the more profound. More sceptical of European understanding than Frazer, he found that the sources of error werenot uniquely dueto the 'Savage' view,but werepart of the European view itself. On writing'Argonauts' WhenMalinowski eventually returned to Europeto

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begin to draw together his notes and begin writing, his health and his financial circumstances caused him to move to Tenerife.Soon after beginning work on the first volume of his Trobriandstudies, he wrote to Frazer to congratulatehim on an article that had appearedin The TimesconcerningFrazer'srecentseriesof publiclectures. The audience and the reviewerhad been very impressed, and Malinowski saw this as 'the best means to arouse public interestand securesome assurancein futurework. But he went on to say that he was havingsome difficulties in getting started with his own writing. I am now working on an extensive account of the Trobriand trading, especially the KULA. I find it always difficult to begin writing. I am trying to imagine always that I am writing for some special person. Yourgreat kindness and the privilege I had of seeing you and speaking to you is a great help to me. And writing my present paper, I am, so to speak, addressingyou. (Correspondence,letter from Malinowski to Frazer, 18/7/1920) Less than a year later,Malinowski had begun to think of looking for publisherfor his volume. In a letter,written from Tenerife in February, 1921, he asked Frazer to approach George Macmillan about the publication of the book. 'As you may remember'he said, 'I am writing out a sort of preliminaryaccount on intertribaltrading and sailing'. The manuscript had reached a length in excess of 400 pages, and Malinowski declared that he was 'deleting heavy matter [on] duller subjects..' and he hoped that 'while the book is strictly scientific and containing a mass of information, [it] promises to make quite attractive reading..' Indeed he thought it would almost certainly be 'reallya paying proposition' for any publisher who would take it on. That is, if a firm like Macmillan'stakesit and if some publicity is given to it in the press. This latter goes very much against the grain, of course, but [rightly or wrongly], I believe in the value of my stuff, [and] naturally,would like to see it read...Moreover,I am now very much in need of becoming known, and even if possible of earning a few pounds. (Correspondence,Malinowskito Frazer10Feb.1921) Malinowski noted that he had already written to several publishers, George Macmillan included, and asked Frazer to write in support. Finally, he noted that title that would catch he was puzzlingoveran appropriate the public'sinterest, and suggestedthat 'Atitle like Kula; a Tale o native enterprise and adventure in the South Seas or Primitive Barter; a Tale, etc. might be suitable' (Corresp. 10 Feb.21). By May, 1921, Malinowski had completed the manuscript and Frazerhad agreed to write a preface for it. Macmillan had rejectedthe manuscript,however,and Malinowski was again searching for a publisher. Disappointed, he wrote from Tenerife, 'I would have valued it very highly to enter the world of literature introduced by you'. He felt that his work should be 'accepted, not because of its scientific value (whatever that may be) but because it ought to be a book that sells (Malinowski's emphasis; Corresp.10 May 21), and

by Frazer that Malinowski desired so much. In this preface, Frazer paid special attention to the fieldwork of the author, especially since he saw in Malinowski's treatment of economy a proof of his own 'theories' of the role of magic, imagination and emotion in what 'at first sight might seem a purelyeconomic activity' (Frazer in Malinowski 1961[1922]:x).Invoking Charles Dickens and HerbertSpencer,among others, Frazerassertedthat Malinowski had shown... ...that it [the kula] is not based on a simple calculation of utility...,but that it satisfies emotional and aesthetic needs of a higher order than the mere gratification of animal wants. This leads Dr. Malinowski to pass some severe structures on the conception of the Primitive Economic Man...who, it appears, still haunts economic text-books and even...the minds of certain anthropologists. Rigged out in the cast-off garments of Mr. JeremyBentham and Mr. Gradgrind, this horrible phantom is apparently actuated by no other motive than that of filthy lucre, which he pursues relentlessly, on Spencerian principles... If such a dismal fiction is really regardedby the serious inquireras having any counterpart in savage society,... Dr. Malinowski's account of the Kula...shouldhelp to lay the phantom by the heels...(Frazerin Malinowski 1961 [1922]:xi). Malinowski soon had the opportunity to repay his mentor's favour. In a review of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, he paid tribute to the importance of this work in his own thought, and in the history of anthropology. Frazer responded in a letter to Malinowski, then on holiday in Italy, to say that he was greatly encouraged by Malinowski's evaluation of the work. I say 'encouraging' because, though I have tried to follow a strictly inductive method (having no belief in theories evolved a priori), I cannot help often fearingthat I haveallowedmy imaginationto outrun the evidence. Your testimony is therefore very reassuring and comforting by indicating that even in cases where I have travelled beyond the limits of the facts known to me, I have yet sometimes been following the right lines and that I have anticipated conclusions which have been proved, or rendered probable, by subsequent researches, such as your own. For this experimentalconfirmation of theories which I some time fearedweretoo bold, I am deeply grateful to you. (Corresp. Frazer to Malinowski 21/5/23) Frazer was not far from the mark. Malinowski's reading of The Golden Bough while under the sway of Mach's critical empiricism, has indeed produced a document that justified and supported Frazer's 'imagination'. Conrad and the imagination of darkness We do not know when Malinowski may have first discoveredJoseph Conrad'swriting, but he chose several volumes of Conrad's stories and novels to take into the

in desperation exclaimed that [this]type of scientificworkwhichhas to be real donenowor neverandwhichentailsat present for an Ethnologist, is no career - forthere sacrifices and the workitself is hard- that few endowments for it it shouldbe evendifficultto find a publisher 'culture' is altogether Butnowadays is discouraging! May1921) a uselessluxury!(Corresp.10 considered Eventually, Malinowski found a publisher with the preface and the book appeared (Routledge),

many to themarerecorded fieldwithhim.His reactions (1967). timesinA Diaryin the StrictSenseof the Term notes' allowus to from these 'reading Some examples of againstthebackground assessthe impactof Conrad other works. begana newepoch Sept.20,1914-Sept.1 Pt. Moresby, in my life: an expeditionall on my own to the arrived [5Sept.,1914], 9.5.14 leftBrisbane tropics...We yes, that afternoonI readRivers...Oh Cairns...that a Rider wasthe timeI madethe mistakeof reading Haggardnovel.
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- Yesterday a week had passed since Mailu, 10.21.1914 my arrival in Mailu. During that time I was much too disorganized. I finished VanityFair, and read the whole of [Conrad's] Romance. I couldn't tear myself away; it was as though I had been drugged. 10.17 copied in at some later date; predates the previous entry Wednesday morning I collected materials about the dances. It was about that time that I read Romance. The subtle spirit of Conrad comes through in some passages; all in all a novel 'more spasmodic than interesting' in the broadest sense. Duringthe restof October,while in Mailu, Malinowski seems to have read a wide selection of novels and anthropology. He 'reviewed'Notes and Queries, read Victor Hugo's The Count of Monte Cristo 'without stopping'. Later he noted that he had finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo, but vowed to himself 'never again would I touch another novel'. Late in November, he began to read Kipling. He declared Kipling to be a 'fine artist (naturallynot if compared with Conrad) and a very admirable fellow', and recorded that his main interests in life at that time were 'Kipling, occasionally strong yearnings for Mother' (Malinowski 1967: entry dated 11.29.14) By the end of December of that year he seems to have been obsessed with Conrad's novels. He recorded for instance, on December 1, that he had talked with Saville, a missionary on WoodlarkIsland and Malinowski'shost at the time, and that they 'talked about Conrad; I took Youth' On the 13th of the month, Malinowski wrote in his diary that he awoke 'feeling as if just taken down from the cross' and went on to describe his reading of Conrad in the context of his field situation. ...A sago swamp gives an impression that cannot be compared with anything else...and a terriblystifling heat always goes with it. I visited a few huts in the jungle, and enteredan abandoned house, came back; started to read Conrad. Talked with Tiabubu and Sixpence - momentary excitement. Then I was again overcome by sluggishness - hardly had the strength of will to finish the Conrad Stories... I tore my eyes from the book and I could hardly believe that here I was among neolithic savages, and that I was sitting here peacefully while terrible things were going on back there [i.e., the war in Europe; Malinowski's emphasis] The collection of storiesto which Malinowskireferred was Talesof Unrest which included Heart of Darkness. In the context of fever and sago swamps it must have made a very deep impression on him. While his health seems to have remained bad, and he became more irritable with the natives of Woodlark, he continued to do fieldwork and read novels. About a month later his patience was close to an end, and he noted on the 21st of January that he went to the village hoping to photographa few stages of bara I handed out half-sticks of tobacco, then watched a few dances;...At moments I was furious

begun in Europe. The 'darkness' that Conrad conveyed in his narrative masterpiece, was a darkness of many kinds. These places and ideas shared in his mind, and in the minds of many of his contemporariesand mentors, including Mach and Frazer,a common image: The past was dark because it was only partially known, like the interior of Africa. With this epistemological 'darkness' went the physical images of dark skins, and dark foliage of the forests and swamps, and the emotional darkness of uncontrolled passion, and dark rages. Marlowe, the narratorin Heart of Darkness, is made to refer as much to the darkness of London as to the darkness of Africa, for the images are closely linked: What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river [the Thames, in London] into the mystery of an unknown earth!...The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires..!Andthis also: said Marlowe suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth! (Conrad 1905). Conrad's notion of darkness, in the heart of Africa and 'in the hearts of men', derived from his own deepseated pessimism about the human future. But it also grew out of his equation of the past with the 'primitive', and of the 'savage! with the unbridlingof human passion. Moreover,he saw the task of the novelist as being similar to that of the historian. Reflectingthe historian Fredrick Maitland'sfamous dictum that 'by and by anthropology will have the choice between being history and being nothing' (Maitland 1968:248), Conrad claimed that 'fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing' (Conrad 1979:154). It is in this sense that Conrad portrayedMarlowe'strip up the river to 'rescue' Kurtz, as 4 trip into the past, into the interior, into the psyche, and into the darkness. Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on earth and the big trees werekings...We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first men taking possession of an accursedinheritance,to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and excessive toil...the steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and uncomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us, who could tell? Wewere cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings...We could not understand because we were too far and could not rememberbecause we weretravellingin the night of the first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sigh - and no memories (Conrad 1905). Malinowski's response to Conrad's vision allows us to place Malinowski's use of imagination with some certainty in the history of English writing. Although he read Heart of Darkness in early 1915,and did not begin to writeArgonauts until five yearslater,we may still find the indelible mark of Conrad in Malinowski's early flirtation with Conradian book-titles (Kulw A Tale of Native Enterprise andAdventure in the South Seas, or

becauseafter I gavethem with them, particularly Onthe theirportionsof tobaccotheyall wentaway. wholemy feelingstowardthe nativesaredecidedly tendingto 'Exterminate the brutes'. manyreaders Malinowski's words haveshocked of his Diary (1967), but they are a direct quotation from Conrad's Heart of Darkness.Theiruse hereindicates an ironicsense of identitywith Kurtz,the white man whom the 'darkness' of Africa had unhinged. withthe 'savage' worldwas Malinowski's confrontation madeevenmoreironicby the bloodyconflictthat had
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Primitive Barter: A Tale), orin theimaginative portrayal of his 'firstencounter'. This passageparallelsConrad in detailsof style and content.In Heart of Darkness, Conraddescribesthe captainof an Ancient Roman trireme 'ordered suddenly to the north'who eventually finds himself among the savage Britons, while Malinowski urgesus to consider ourselves 'suddenly set down' on a Pacificisle. Conrad'simaginedfirst encounterbetweenRoman andBritonhas numerous parallels in Englishliterature of the middle 19thcentury,but the generalidea goes

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back at least to John Aubrey, essayist, biographer, discoverer of the true historical significance of Stonehenge and arguably the first 'ethnologist' of the British people (John Fowles 1981;John Aubrey 1981). It is interesting to compare Malinowski's and Conrad's first-encounterpassages with Aubrey'stext. It may even have had a direct influence upon them. Writtenaround 1680,Aubrey'stext was not published until 1847(Aubrey 1869) when it would have been available to Conrad, at least. But whatever may be the facts of their historical relationship,all threepassages take their departurefrom an imagined traumatic 'first encounter' with the savage. We are 'set down' on a 'tropical beach' (Malinowski),
Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, J.Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1898

'at the very end of the world'(Conrad),or in 'shabby dismal wood' (Aubrey), there to suffer 'tropical and depression'. 'powerlessness'. 'disgust'.'surrender' 'hate'. Fromtherewe areled towards the salvation that is to be foundin getting downto 'business', 'thedevotion to efficiency'.'civilityand building'or, indeed, 'any occasionfor Bustling'(cf. also Conradquotedabove: 'subduedat the cost...of excessive toil'). The contrast between the despair of the tropicsandthe discipline of modern societycreated forMalinowski a newdiscursive spacein whichhis owntextcouldbe seenas a uniquely scientificproduct,a synthesisof knowledge aboutthe that was also the productof greatindustry. 'savage'
John Aubrey, Wiltshire Antiquitiesc. 1680, published1862 Let us imaginewhat kind of countrythis was in the time of the AncientBritons.

1922 Imagineyourselfsuddenlyset down surrounded by all your gear,alone on a tropicalbeach close to a nativevillagewhilethe launchor dinghywhichhas broughtyou sails away out of sight... I was thinkingof the very old times whenthe Romansfirst camehere [to Britain,the Thames]...Imaginethe feelingsof a of a fine - what d'ye call em commander orderedsuddenly triremein the Mediterranean to the north. Imaginehim here [on the Thames]- the very end of the world... Sand banks,marshes,forests, savages- precious little for a civilizedman and nothingbut .Land in a swamp, Thameswaterto drink.. marchthroughthe woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery,the utter savagery,had life of closed roundhim - all that mysterious the wilderness stirsin the forest, in the jungles in the heartsof wildmen. There'sno initiationeitherinto suchmysteries.

that you are a beginner Imaginefurther withoutpreviousexperience, with nothingto guideyou and no one to help you... I well remember the long visits I paid to the villagesduringthe first weeks;the feelingsof and despairafter many obstinate hopelessness but futile attemptshad failed to bringme into real touch with the natives,or supplyme with any material.I had periodsof despondency whenI buriedmyselfin the readingof novels, as a man mighttake to drinkin a fit of tropicaldepression and boredom... I triedto proceedto business... I was quite unableto enterinto any more detailedor explicitconversation with them at first. I knew well that the best remedyfor this was to collect concretedata, and accordingly, I took a village census,wrotedown genealogies drewup plans and collectedtermsof kinship.

By the natureof the soil whichis a sour [wet] woodsereland, very naturalfor the production of Oakesespecially,one may concludethat this North Divisionwas shabbydismalwood: and the inhabitants almostas savageas the Beast whose skinsweretheironly raiment...The Boats in the Avon (whichsignifiesriver)were basketsof twigs coveredwith an ox skin... They weretwo or threedegreesless savagethan the Americans[Indians] The Romanssubduedand civilisedthem. The Saxonssucceeded them...

He has to live in the midstof the incomprehensible, whichis also detestable. And it has a fascination,too, that goes to work upon him. The fascinationof the abomination
- you know.

Imaginethe growingregrets,the longingto escape,the powerlessness, the disgust,the surrender, the hate. Mind, none of us would feel exactlylike this. Whatsavesus is efficiency- the devotionto efficiency. The Normansthen came and taughtthem civilityand building.. .For theirgovernment until the time of Henry8, it was like a nest of Boxes:for Copy-Holders [tenants]held of the Lordsof the Manor,who held of the King. Upon any occasionfor Bustlingin those days, one of the greatLordssoundedhis Trumpet.. .and summoned them that held under him: these again soundedtheirtrumpets and so on down to the Copy-Holders.

of 'life' or 'society'reallyexists,it canprovidea 'sense of it'. Travel, voyagesof discovery, andtravelnarrative wereessentially thepracticethatlinkedthe textualand scientific classifications of lifeandsocieties witha vision of the worldas a coherentand continuouswhole. The metaphorof travel in this historicalcontext was an entirelyappropriate rhetoricalmode for Frazerand Malinowski,as it was for Conrad,since it supported by evocation of place and mise-en-scene, and by their claims that culture, or civilization, were such appealing to an inherently humanquestfor coherency coherentwholes. of knowledge. Theimagination 'fillsin' the lacunaeof Malinowski's advocacyof 'holism'and 'function', both experience and description. It is this imaginative however, wasbasedon philosophical commitments that potentialthat allowsthe readerto connectthe words had been made well before his being set down on a andphrases of thetextitselfto themoregeneral images tropicalisland.Thesecommitments presented serious whichit evokes. problems whenconfronted bytheverydifferent modes Althoughthe text can neverprovethat a coherency of life encountered in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. It
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Conclusion Malinowski sawthekeyto an authentic ethnographic rhetoricin the literaryimaginationof Conrad and Frazer. Herecognized thatthewriter muststimulate andguide the reader's imagination in orderto be intelligible. He accomplished thisthroughthe use of metaphors, vivid description, narratives of adventure andmisadventure,

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may have been possible for nineteenth-centurynovelists and armchair theorists to construct convincing images of the coherentruralcommunity, sublimeyet vulnerable in comparison with urban moral disintegration. Such contrasts were not obvious, however, in the villages of 'savages', or the agrarian societies of the southern tropics. They were manifestly rural, but they did not at first appear to possess the moral wholeness that the European had hoped to see. At the same time it was impossible to endorse completely the industrial society that had grown up in Europe, and which was held to be responsible for displacing the simpler moral life of the country side. Whether this moral expectation was based on the musings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a romanticization of the primitive, or was really just part of a widely-felt messianic hopefulness, it is clear that Europeans were unable to endorse the radically different modes of economy, work, sexualityand spiritualityof the tropical natives that Malinowski began seriously to address. Conrad's image of darkness, and the image both of the voyage of discovery as one of internal discovery of Self, and external discovery of the Savage, provided a necessary sense of tragedyand urgency for Malinowski. Together, the delineation of these tropes and modes formed the basis for Malinowski's Trobriand oeuvre. Malinowski's experiencein the field was not the cradle of functionalism, as he himself so frequently asserted, but it was among the most deliberate of personal and intellectual confrontations between the 'European' and the 'Savage' that had yet been attempted. The interaction of imagination and description, the contrast between 'civilized' and 'primitive' thought, and the tension between endorsement and doubt, led Malinowski towards his famous first encounter, 'set down' in the self-imposed agony of loneliness at the very juncture of contradiction. As Mach taught, the observer/theoretician is enmeshed in the context of that which he must explain, and of that which he hopes to transcend. Set in a Conradian representational universe, Malinowski's Argonauts of the WesternPacific synthesized Frazer's ironic comparativism with Mach's philosophy of the scientific imagination. in part,frommyreading of manuscripts Thisessayderives, in Polishbefore Malinowski of paperswrittenby Bronislaw I amindebted to mycolleague Peter Skalnik hewentto England. who has gatheredthis materialtogetherand arrangedfor areto accurate translations into English.Thesemanuscripts be published soon in a volumeeditedby Peter Skalnikand myself. Researchin the Wren Libraryof TrinityCollege, and betweenMalinowski on the correspondence Cambridge, Frazer was conducted with support from The National Endowmentfor the Humanities(USA), and the Human SciencesResearch Council(SouthAfrica),in 1982. Bibliography Aubrey, John 1969 (1847),NaturalHistory of Wiltshire (Facsimilereprintof original publishededition of 1847; David Abbot,Devon: Newton datesto about1680). manuscript and Charles. 2 volumes.Ed. by Britannica, 1981(1847),Monumenta John Fowles, with introductionby John Fowles. Dorset PublishingCo. Boas, Franz 1966, Introductionto Handbook of the Ed. by PrestonHolder.Lincoln: Indianlanguages. American Universityof NebraskaPress. London: Conrad,Joseph1905(1898),Heartof darkness. J.M.Dent. 1898, Talesof Unrest.London:Unwin. text,background anauthoritative Heartof darkness; 1979, and sources, criticism. Norton critical edition. Ed. by
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New York:W.W.Norton. Kimbrough.

Fowles, John 1981, Introduction to Monumenta Britanica

by John Aubrey.DorsetPublishingCo. Frazer,JamesGeorge1922,TheGoldenBough.Abridged editionin one volume.London:Macmillan. and to Knowledge Hiebert,ErwinN. 1976, Introduction Publishing D.Reidel Holland: Mach.Dordrecht, Errorby Ernst
Co. Mach, Ernst 1976, Knowledge and Error: sketches on the psychology of enquiry. Dordrecht, Holland: D.Reidel

PublishingCo. D. 1968,Selectedessays. Reprinting Maitland,Frederick of 1936 ed. Ed. by H.D.Hazeltine,Lopsleyand Winfield. Freeport,New York:Books for Libraries. Manuscript n.d., Correspondence: Bronislaw Malinowski, Trinity WrenLibrary, to J.G.Frazer. lettersfromMalinowski College,Cambridge. 1908, On the principleof the economy of thinking. of Philosophy, Jagellonian to theFaculty Dissertation presented University, Cracow, Poland. (Forthcoming in English ed. by P.K.J.Skalnikand R.J.Thornton). translation economics',in TheEconomicJournal, 1921,'Primitive March. psychology',in Magic, 1948(1926), 'Mythin primitive
science and religion, and other essays, Anchor Books. New

York:Doubleday.
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prefaceby J.G.Frazer.New York:E.P.Dutton& Co.

1967, A Diary in the strict sense of the term. New York:

Harcourt,Braceand World.
1978 (1935), Coral gardens and their magic: A study of the methods of tilling the soil and of agricultural rites in the

NewYork:DoverPublications. 2 volumes. Trobriand Islands, Paluch, Andrzej 1983, 'The Polish background to Malinowski's Work'in Man (n.s.) 16: 276-285.
Powell, J.W. 1966, Indian linguistic families of America

northof Mexico.Ed. by PrestonHolder.Lincoln:University Press. of Nebraska

1898, Truth and error. Chicago.

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