1. What was E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s main problem with the previous forms of anthropology, such as the work of Tylor and Frazer?
2. Many previous scholars had thought primitive people had a different way of thinking than modern people. What did Evans-Pritchard think his work showed? How has his work shed light on the thought processes of modern people too, according to his admirers?
3. What did Evans-Pritchard mean when he accused other scholars of taking an “If-I-were-a-horse” approach? What had Evans-Pritchard done differently that gave him the standing to make this critique?
4. Pals notes that Evans-Pritchard didn’t have an overarching theory of religion like most of the other scholars we have studied. How does Evans-Pritchard’s small-scale study of the Nuer constitute a theory of religion in a different way?
5. Pals offers a critique of Evans-Pritchard near the end when he writes that modern societies seem to be divided whereas, at least in Evans-Pritchard’s writing about them, the Azande did not seem divided. What does Pals mean by “divided” and “undivided” here? Do you think this means that primitive minds were different from modern minds, or that Evans-Pritchard was wrong about the Azande.