Crime and Custom in Savage Society Quotes

“The true problem is not to study how human life submits to rules —it simply does not; the real problem is how the rules become adapted to life.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“Sorcery, in fine, is neither exclusively a method of administering justice, nor a form of criminal practice. It can be used both ways, though it is never employed in direct opposition to law, however often it might be used to commit wrongs against a weaker man on behalf of a more powerful.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“sorcery remains a support of vested interest”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“black magic is regarded as the chief’s principal instrument in the enforcement of his exclusive privileges and prerogatives.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“The point of real importance in our argument, however, is that all these standard symptoms show us how much resented is any prominence, any excess of qualities or possessions not warranted by social position, any outstanding personal achievement or virtue not associated with rank or power.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“—these are enviable failings or sins, dangerous, since they arouse the jealousy of the mighty,”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society

“If the affair is carried on sub rosa with a certain amount of decorum, and if no one in particular stirs up trouble —’public opinion’ will gossip, but not demand any harsh punishment. If, on the contrary, scandal breaks out —every one turns against the guilty pair and by ostracism and insults one or the other may be driven to suicide.”
― Bronisław Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society