Feinberg R
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Kent State University, OH 44242.
Soc Sci Med. 1990;30(3):311-23. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(90)90187-w.
Several writers have challenged recently the long-held contention that non-Western peoples tend to emphasize spirits, sorcerers, and other supernatural forces in their explanations for the cause of illness. Here, I examine indigenous theories of illness-causation on Nukumanu, a Polynesian outlier atoll in Papua New Guinea. Although Nukumanu invoke mundane as well as supernatural explanations, their major preoccupation is with spirits as etiological agents. In this light, I suggest a number of potential reasons for the difference between my findings on Nukumanu and those of commentators who have emphasized naturalistic etiologies among the peoples they have studied. In addition to real ethnographic variation, I argue that a major reason for the difference lies in the level of causality (instrumental as opposed to efficient and ultimate) sought by various investigators.
最近，几位作者对长期以来的一种观点提出了质疑，这种观点认为非西方民族在解释疾病成因时往往强调灵魂、巫师和其他超自然力量。在此，我考察了巴布亚新几内亚波利尼西亚偏远环礁努库马努岛上关于疾病成因的本土理论。尽管努库马努人既援引世俗的也援引超自然的解释，但他们主要关注的是作为病因的灵魂。据此，我提出了一些潜在原因，以解释我在努库马努岛的研究结果与那些强调他们所研究民族中的自然主义病因的评论者的研究结果之间的差异。除了实际的人种志差异外，我认为造成这种差异的一个主要原因在于不同研究者所寻求的因果关系层面（工具性因果关系与动力因和终极因相对）。
