Abstract:The first explorers and missionaries often looked askance at native conceptions of disease. They seemed illogical, irrational superstitions. Gradually, as the field of anthropology began to develop, attempts were made to better understand these native conceptions. For example, Frazer (1922) formulated cross-cultural laws of magical causation. Clements (1932) sought to explain the diffusion of certain postulated types of causation through conjectural history. To us today, such laws and conjectures seem too faci… Show more
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