South Seas magic

Robert Hale. 1959. Hard cover. Good in good dust jacket. small tears to edges of dust jacket, price clipped from inside dust jacket, foxing (age spots) to page edges and some pages. 192 p., illustrations, index. . This is the story of an investigation into magic and psychical beliefs in modern Samoa. Together with his wife as co-experimenter, and accompanied by their two children, the author lived on the tiny island of Manomo for six months. The family lived largely as the Samoans do, in a thatched house by the side of the coral lagoon. They fished with the Samoans, were accepted into the native society, and took part in feasts and ceremonies. In addition to giving Samoan accounts of ghosts, magic, sorcery, "spirit sickness' and psychical healing, and describing the experimental investigation of telepathy and clairvoyance, the book describes the daily life of Samoans, their social organization, morality and sex life, and their prospects for self-government. It describes the extraordinary influence of missionaries in Samoa but points out how superficial this influence has been. It shows how the main feature of Samoan society, the matai system, has been preserved, but how it is being challenged both from within by young men and from outside by the Christian pastors--the "new nobility".