article
An investigation of the thought of primitive children with special reference to animism
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland • 62 • Published In 1932 • Pages: 173-190
By: Mead, Margaret.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This paper is a brief preliminary report dealing with the problem of whether or not the thought of primitive children was characterized by '…animistic premise, anthropomorphic interpretation and faulty logic which had been recorded for civilized children' or was basically a process of the social environment. Forty-one Manus children served as subjects for this study and were observed by the author in their home settings, in play groups and at play within the author's own home. These observations were further supplemented by a collection of spontaneous drawings made by the children, by interpretations of ink-blots, and by stimuli in the form of questions introduced by the author which were designed to provoke animistic responses. The data collected by the above means, including the author's final analysis, comprise the remainder of the source. The field work for this project was undertaken among the Manus people during the winter of 1928-1929 where the author worked as a Fellow in the Social Science Research Council.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Reviews and critiques
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Observation in research
- Tests and schedules administered in the field
- Personality development
- Personality traits
- Animism
- Eschatology
- Spirits and gods
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Manus
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Melanesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 1964
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1928-1929
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1928-1929
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Village of Peri, Manus Province, Papua New Guinea
- NotesAdditional notes
- Margaret Mead
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-190)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- sf 80000548
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Manus (Papua New Guinea people)