How would members of an oral culture, in which magic is taken to be a real and practical element of daily life, respond to a western understanding of magic? Is their concept of magic so common to the everyday person and so inviolable that our version would be taken as inoffensive? Or, since magic is often equated with divinity, would our version seem sacrilegious to them?

I'm struck with the humorous, yet no less relevant, image of explaining to an oral-culture shaman what our understanding of magic is -- it often involves pointy-hatted wizards throwing fireballs and lightning from their fingertips, or white-gloved performers in tailcoats making rabbits appear with a wand. To a person whose whole life is surrounded by magic, and who lives alongside magical forces every day, how would this comparison feel? What would it say about our culture?

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