"...there is nothing more dangerous than to imagine that language is a process running parallel and exactly corresponding to mental process, and that the function of language is to reflect or to duplicate the mental reality of man in a secondary flow of verbal equivalents. The fact is that the main function of language is not to express thought, not to duplicate mental processes, but rather to play an active pragmatic part in human behaviour. Thus in its primary function it is one of the chief cultural forces and an adjunct to bodily activities. Indeed, it is an indispensable ingredient of all concerted human action. (...) Let us survey rapidly the uses of language in Trobriand gardening, starting, for instance, with a group of people who after the council (kayaku) repair to the gardens in order to "count the plots in the bush" (kalawa o la odila; cf. Ch. II, Sec. 3). These people have to determine the area to be put under cultivation, to fix the boundaries, in short to make everything ready for the cutting of the boundary belt. The older men, with experience and a good knowledge of the ground, identify the fields (kwabila), place the boundaries by means of landmarks and trace the lines of stone (karige'i). All this is done by means of a combination of speech and bodily activity. Movements, words and gestures are used to solve this practical problem. The natives search for objects such as trees, coral outcrops, or stone heaps, discuss their proper names, point out, disagree. Finally they come to a decision which is the outcome of verbal discourse, of going about, pointing and using implements; for, as they come to an agreement, they leave signs, blaze marks on trees, and cut down saplings. Such words as kwabila, karige'i, tuwaga, baleko or tukulumwala, words which define various species of trees and types of coral outcrop, the proper names of a field, path or garden plot, are used as significant actions side by side with bodily movements. Speech is here equivalent to gesture and to motion. It does not function as an expression of thought or communication of ideas but as a part of concerted activity. If we jotted down the words spoken there and treated them as a text divorced from its context of action and situation the words would obviously remain meaningless and futile." (1935: 7-8)