Coral Gardens and Their Magic, properly Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands, is the final book in anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski's ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

 trilogy on the lives of the Trobriand Islanders. It concentrates on the cultivation practices the Trobriand Islanders used to grow yams, taro

Taro

Taro is a common name for the corms and tubers of several plants in the family Araceae . Of these, Colocasia esculenta is the most widely cultivated, and is the subject of this article. More specifically, this article describes the 'dasheen' form of taro; another variety is called eddoe.Taro is...

, bananas, and palms. It describes the gardens in which the Trobrianders grew food as more than merely utilitarian spaces, even as works of art

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

. In 1988 Alfred Gell

Alfred Gell

Alfred Gell was a British social anthropologist whose most influential work concerned art, language, symbolism and ritual. He was trained by Edmund Leach and Raymond Firth and did his fieldwork in Melanesia and tribal India...

 called the book "still the best account of any primitive technological-cum-magical

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

 system, and unlikely ever to be superseded in this respect". The book has been described as Malinowski's 'magnum opus

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

'.

Overview

The book consists of seven parts divided over two volumes. Volume I, The Description of Gardening, contains the introduction and parts one to three and volume II, The Language of Magic and Gardening, parts four to seven.

• Part One: "Introduction: Tribal economics and social organisation of the Trobrianders"
  This part introduces the climate, industry, and gardening arrangements of the Trobriands and supplies initial anthropological data on the Trobriand Islanders, including by sketching out their social organization and economic institutions.
• Part Two: "Gardens and their magic on a coral atoll"
  This part describes the role of magic in Trobriand gardening, the rites it involves, Trobriand theories of land tenure
  Land tenure
  Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...
  
  , and the technology and spaces associated with gardening practices. It also considers the methodological limitations of various approaches to ethnographic fieldwork, especially in relation to terminology.
• Part Three: "Documents and appendices"
  collection of documents, including plans of buildings, lineage and title diagrams, explanations of the calculation of gift obligations
  Reciprocity
  Reciprocity may refer to:*Reciprocity , used to describe the concept of free trade with the United States of America** Reciprocal trade agreement, entered into in order to reduce tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions on items traded between the signatories*Reciprocity , the relationship...
  
  , and a set of notes on ethnographic methodology and its limitations.
• Part Four: "An ethnographic theory of language and some practical corollaries"
  This part considers language as a tool, a document, and a cultural reality. It discusses the difficulties of translation and the overlap and boundaries of concepts, and brings context to bear on interpretation. for the anthropologist and for the speakers. It engages with the question of pragmatics, and of the way meaning relates to words
• Part Five: "Corpus inscriptionum agriculturae quiriviniensis; or the language of gardens"
  A linguistic supplement, outlining a vocabulary of Trobriand gardening terminology and magical words.
• Part Six: "An ethnographic theory of the magical world"
  This part advances a theory of magical language, both in the Trobriand case specifically and in general terms. Malinowski argues that Trobriand magic spells, like all forms of language, must be understood in context, as "verbal acts", with a predominantly pragmatic function. Language, including magical language, is intended primarily not to communicate thought, but to bring about practical effects. This theory of a pragmatic function of language as a functional aspect of human behaviour
  Human Behaviour
  "Human Behaviour" is Icelandic singer Björk's first solo single, taken from the album Debut. It contains a sample of "Go Down Dying" by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The lyrics reflect on human nature and emotion from a non-human animal's point of view. The song is the first part of a series of songs that...
  
  , is an early anthropological contribution to the theory of pragmatics
  Pragmatics
  Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
  
  .
• Part Seven: "Magical formulae"
  This section presents some Trobriand magical spells, together with Malinowki's word-by-word analysis.

Reception

The work continues to receive attention from contemporary anthropologists. Its assessment of the Trobriand chief's role as that of a "glorified brother-in-law" to the whole community is one with which later anthropologists have taken issue. It records unusually extensive ethnolinguistic data for of a work of its time, much of it relating to gardening spells that the Trobriand Islanders used, and much of it incompletely analysed; it continues to provide a data source for anthropologists of language. Malinowski was also praised for his serious engagement with the realities of Trobriand agriculture, its emphasis on its ceremonial aspects notwithstanding, in favour of a simpler, romanticized view.

The work is also regarded as a pioneering text in the interdisciplinary study of pragmatics

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...

. Its analysis of the context and contents of Trobriand spells was one of the first to bring ethnography to bear on the subject of language.

Release details

In a letter written around February 1929, Malinowski wrote that he was basing the monograph partly upon a draft manuscript on gardening he had written during 1916 and 1917.

The book was published by Routledge

Routledge

Routledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...

in 1935. It has been through several editions, including a 1966 second edition by Allen and Unwin. US editions were published in 1965 and 1978.