IN his Preface to the Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Sir James Frazer wrote: 'It is characteristic of Dr. Malinowski's method that he takes full account of the complexity of human nature. He sees man, so to say, in the round and not in the flat. He remembers that man is a creature of emotion at least as much as of reason, and he is constantly at pains to discover the emotional as well as the rational basis of human action' (Malinowski, 1922a, p . ix).