The sudden death of Professor Malinowski at Yale is a
great loss to anthropology in general and to the London School of Economics, where he held the Chair in that subject. His book on the Trobrian islanders is, I suppose, his outstanding work, and it has a topical interest at the moment, in that the unfortunate islanders whose habits be studied in such detail—and very singular habits some of them are—are situated full ih the Japanese bombing zone off the coast of New Guinea. Bronislaw Malinowski was the pioneer in this field, for whereas anthropologists had previously (unless they were primarily administrators or missionaries and only anthropologists incidentally) made relatively brief visits to the scene Of their investigations, he settled down for some fifteen months among the Trobrian islanders, learning their language and sharing their normal life. His other important contribution was in the appli- cation of anthropology to administration in Africa and elsewhere ; through the African Institute in London he had trained many colonkal administrators. There is something appropriate at this time in their indebtedness to this brilliant investigator, who was Polish on both sides by birth and educated in Poland, though naturalised here after the last war.
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