Three famous Malinowski essays! Malinowski, one of the all-time great anthropologists of the world, had a talent for bringing together in single comprehension the warm reality of human living with the cool abstractions of science. His pages have become an almost indispensable link between the knowing of exotic and remote people with theoretical knowledge about humankind. An important collection of three of his most famous essays, Magic, Science and Religion offers readers a set of concepts about religion, magic, science, rite and myth in the course of forming vivid impressions and understandings of the Trobrianders of New Guinea. It describes the way magic in primitive cultures turns into religious ritual as they progress, and gives lots of real-world examples of cultures undergoing this transition, and the way it changes their understanding of the world. It describes organic, myth-rich magical traditions become abstract ritual, in actuality most primitive magic is very perfunctory, even boring. In many cultures the witch doctor is like the modern accountant; he knows what he's doing and does it well, but almost nobody envies him the scope of his work.