As part of Papua New Guinea, the Trobriant Islands are located in a bordering sea of the Pacific Ocean. At the beginning of the 20th century the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski was one of the first to explore the archipelago in the South Sea and its inhabitants. In the context of his work he discovered that Freund’s psychoanalytic universality thesis regarding the Oedipus complex is not true for the islanders. In this first volume out of three, Malinowsky deals with the tribal economics and social organizations as well as the trobriandan gardening techniques and the magic within this kind of work.

The concluding part of Coral Gardens and Their Magic provides a linguistic commentary to the ethnography on agriculture. Malinowski gives a full description of the language of the Trobrianders as an aspect of culture.

This book explores the ethnobiology of corals by examining the various ways in which humans, past and present, have exploited and taken care of coral and coralline habitats. This book will bring the educated general audience closer to corals by exploring the various circumstances of human-coral coexistence by providing scientifically sound and jargon-free perspectives and experiences from across the globe. Corals are a vital part of the marine environment since they promote and sustain marine and global biodiversity while providing numerous other environmental and cultural services. Countless valuable coral conservation efforts are published in academic and general audience venues on a daily basis. However relevant, few of these reports show a direct, deeper understanding of the intimate relationship between people and corals throughout the world’s societies. Ethnobiology of Corals and Coral Reefs establishes an intimate bond between the audience and the wonder of corals and their importance to humankind.

Malinowski's Kiriwina presents nearly two hundred of Malinowski's previously unpublished photographs of the Islanders among whom he lived between 1915 and 1918. The images are more than embellishments of his ethnography; they are a recreation in striking detail of a distant world.

An ethnographic framework to describe the varying cultures of classrooms, teacher communities and student groups in different countries and educational contexts.