BOOK REVIEWS

Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, translated from the French by

Robert Brain. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972, pp. 148, Index,

$ 7.50.

To start off with the complaints. This is a translation from the French re-

print by Levi-Strauss in Sociologie et Anthropologie, a collection of some of Mauss'

writings selected to play down Mauss' connection with this uncle, Emile Durk-

heim. Nowhere in the text is any hint given that the original article was pub-

lished in 1904, not 1959 although Pocock, in the foreword states that "we must

remember the date at which the Theory of Magic was published" but no date is

mentioned. Moreover in L' Année Sociologique 1902-3, the article is jointly pub-

lished by H. Hubert as well as Mauss and in the absence of any definite informa-

tion as to how the workload was shared, it seems somewhat unethical to com-

pletely drop one of the names of the co-authors without acknowledgement. Al-

though the 1950 copy is close to the 1904 original text, one rather important

difference I noticed was in respect to Codrington's citation on p. 98. Mauss had

inserted a note after vigona as follows, "l'individu a mana, possesseur d'esprit,

vigona", which is omitted in the translation. Without this note showing that

Mauss identified the vigona tree with mana the latter part of the extract is not

very clear. Also after the second time vigona is mentioned, Mauss adds in

brackets to the original 1904 text, ` feuilles de vegetaux aquatiques" which is neces-

sary to understand the first sentence on page 127 when the reference to "aquatic

plants bringing clouds" makes one realise that it is to his earlier Codrington

reference that Mauss is looking back. Although these two points are perhaps not

very important, the editor of the book gives an impression ofslapdashness which

is not improved by the few spelling mistakes which occur in the text such as

Eskimoes on p. 57 or rights for rites on p. 46. If one be expected to pay $ 7.50 for

a book of only 144 pages of text, this comes to 10 cents each time one turns over

a page. One expects a high standard of publication at that price. For that reason

I am glad that a short but adequate index has been added omitted in the 1904

article.

Mauss himself was probably the most erudite and well educated anthro-

pologist ever to hold a chair. Apart from German and English he knew Greek,

Latin and Hebrew as well as Sanscrit and is reputed to have had a working

knowledge of Assyrian and other ancient languages. He was also a sociologist

in the modern sense and had been responsible among other things for preparing

the statistical tables for his uncle's book on Suicide. It is this substantial and

universalistic background which makes his writings so rewarding. Dr. Brain has

made a good translation of this text which flows freely and is accurate, although

every now and then he uses words which are not to be found in the Oxford

dictionary. For example, this quotation sounds exciting; (p. 38). "There is a

story of a Rajput who, having made a female glanders' spirit his prisoner ..."