Word: trobriands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...talking about the Democratic Primaries, but whether to mute the ads or the game during the Super Bowl), we might take a moment to ponder the ways in which football really is America?s game. With apologies to Bronislaw Malinowski - whose pioneering treatise on the Trobriand Islands off New Guinea led to studies of the ways in which the islanders appropriated cricket and turned it into a native ritual - let?s explore how we Americans took over the primitive sports of soccer and rugby and adapted them to our belief system...
...Americans have ?optimized? rugby according to our notions of progress, there are still things many team owners might like to import from Trobriand cricket. While in football, the home team wins most of the time, in the Trobriand Island sport the home team always wins. There is still consolation for the visitors though, since the home team throws a feast in their honor. Huge differences remain, however. While football, with its fighter plane flyovers and other militaristic trappings often seems to celebrate war, cricket was introduced to the Trobriands in 1903 to replace war. How primitive...