Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth? Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in the Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today — including a nine-month gestation period. “Impossible, ” replied the Melanesians. “Do you not see that woman over there with her six-month-old child? Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years.” Is it more likely that the Melanesians were ignorant of the begetting of children or that they were gently chiding Malinowski? If some peculiar-looking stranger came into my town and asked ME where babies came from, I’d certainly be tempted to tell him about storks and cabbages. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are. . Carl Sagan
About This Quote

The quote "can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth?" is a reference to a belief that people from other times and places have visited the Earth. The natives believed that the white man had come from another planet. It was a belief from their mythology. The white man came from another planet, the white man destroyed the pristine state of the native myth. In other words, they believed that people from other times and places had come to Earth, which would make it seem as though they were creatures from another planet instead of just men and women.

Source: Brocas Brain: Reflections On The Romance Of Science

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