The words within brackets in this and in some of the following spells are free additions, necessary to make the meaning clear in the English version. They are implied by the context in the native original, though not explicitly contained.

Compare therefore Chapter XII, Division IV.

All this is discussed at length in Chapter XVII, Division IV.

It is necessary to be acquainted with the mythology of canoe-building and of the Kula (Chapter XII) in order to understand thoroughly the meaning of this spell.

Compare the linguistic analysis of this spell in Chapter XVIII.

Cf. Chapter II, Divisions III and IV, and some of the following Divisions of this Chapter.

I am adducing these views not for any controversial purposes, but to justify and make clear why I stress certain general features of Trobriand Economic Sociology. My contentions might run the danger of appearing as gratuitous truisms if not thus justified. The opinion that primitive humanity and savages have no individual property is an old prejudice shared by many modern writers, especially in support of communistic theories, and the so-called materialistic view of history. The “communism of savages” is a phrase very often read, and needs no special quotation. The views of individual search for food and household economy are those of Karl Bücher, and they have directly influenced all the best modern writings on Primitive Economics. Finally, the view that we have done with Primitive Economics if we have described the way in which the natives procure their food, is obviously a fundamental premise of all the naïve, evolutionary theories which construct the successive stages of economic development. This view is summarised in the following sentence: “… In many simple communities, the actual food quest, and operations immediately arising from it, occupy by far the greater part of the people’s time and energy, leaving little opportunity for the satisfaction of any lesser needs.” This sentence, quoted out of “Notes and Queries on Anthropology,” p.