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This book is the outcome of work done by the author when social psychologist to the West Indian Social Survey from 1947 to 1949. The object of the survey was to collect information about social and family life on the island. The field material was obtained from a certain number of villages chosen as being representative of different aspects of Jamaican life. Therefore the book deals mostly with peasant culture, though some indirect references are made to urban life and problems.
Information was obtained by direct contact with the people in the course of field work. Aspects considered range from questions relating to colour bar, politics, religious practices, economic factors, prostitution, folklore, and so on, to birth customs, child-parent and parent-child relationship, training of children, sex and marriage problems, schooling, artistic expression, etc. An attempt has been made to use projection techniques such as the Rorschach test, the Lowenfeld Mosaic test, and other especially designed tests. The relation between field work and the use of tests is discussed. Perhaps the most characteristic aspect of this book is that the material is vividly presented, the people are alive, the large part that emotional (as well as racial and economic) factors play is brilliantly conveyed to the reader and makes the book extremely readable. (The reviewer has no knowledge of Jamaica, but is closely acquainted with islands with a similar population and similar problems, and he has been struck by the lively and apparently faithful rendering of personalities and idiosyncrasies.) One of the greatest difficulties encountered by the Jamaicans is the clash between the customs, beliefs, and ways of life of an ancient and primitive culture and Anglo-American culture. The Africans came in the days of slavery. They were not allowed to retain their own customs; they were not allowed to adopt freely European standards. Racially they are now mostly of mixed origins. Influences, di