Malinowski's next step to study the Trabraianders was revolutionary to Anthropology. He stepped "off the veranda" and joined the people of the group. This method of studying the people while living among them is called the participant observation method. He was a brilliant linguist and learned the language of the people. Living among the people, he was able to place all ways of life in their proper context. He changed the idea of the natives as savages and offered first hand insight into their lives. Their customs, language, "magic", and artifacts and how they all served the needs of the society was studied by Malinowski. He developed the idea of functionalism, in which the culture functions to fulfill the biological and psychological needs of the society. He was not worried about the cultures past or if they originated from a cave, rather he wanted to know how they society worked in its present context.

The most interesting part of the video focused on the Kula ritual, which means "to go." The Kula was a ring of exchanges between different island groups. They exchanged seemingly worthless objects annually. The objects were rotated amongst groups for hundreds of years. The Kula ritual was productively useless and required the participation and resources of all in the tribe, but it was part of the groups function. It was ritual that served both a psychological and biological need in the society, which was exactly what Malinowski wanted to study.