Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Primitive Mentality
In order to get hold, as it were, of the main point - the processes essential to primitive mentality - I have purposely chosen for my analyses the simplest and least ambiguous Of facts. In this way I hoped to lessen the chances Of error which in so complex a subject are very numerous, and to demonstrate more clearly the actual functioning Of the constituent principles of this mentality. I have consequently adhered to the study of what, to primitives, are the unseen powers by which they feel themselves surrounded on all sides - their dreams, the omens they Observe or incite, ' ordeals, bad death, the extraordinary things brought by white people, their remedies, etc. The reader, therefore, must not expect to find here a study Of primitive mentality as it relates to the technique of uncivilized communities (the inventing and perfecting of tools and weapons, the care of animals, construction of buildings, cultivation Of the soil, and so on), or to their oft-times complex institutions, such as the organization of family life, or totemism.
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