Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/382



nothing is so akin to the mysterious and stirring condition which we call falling in love, as that mystic expectancy of miraculous intervention and of benevolent and unexpected happenings which comes to all men at certain psychological moments and forms the foundation of the human belief in magic. There is a desire in every one of us to escape from routine and certainty, and it can be said, without exaggeration, that to most men nothing is more cheerless and oppressive than the rigidity and determination with which the world runs; and nothing more repugnant than the cold truths of science, which express and emphasize the determination of reality. Even the most sceptical at times rebel against the inevitable causal chain, which excludes the supernatural and, with it, all the gifts of chance and good fortune. Love, gambling and magic have a great deal in common.

In a primitive community, not yet in bond to science, magic lies at the root of innumerable beliefs and practices. Megwa, which may be almost exactly rendered by our word "magic," is, to the Trobriander, a force residing in man, transmitted to him from generation to generation through the medium of tradition. This force can only become active by the performance of a ritual appropriate to the occasion, by the recital of proper Rh