Structural
Anthropology
CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS
Structural
Anthropology
Translated from the French by Claire Jacobson
and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf
BASIC BOOKS, In c ., Publishers, New York
COPYRIGHT © 1963 BY BASIC BOOKS, INC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 63-17344
sbn : 465-08229-7
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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May an inconstant disciple dedicate this book
which appears in 1958, the year of Émile Durkheim’s
centenary, to the memory of the founder
of Année Sociologique: that famed workshop
where modem anthropology fashioned part of
its tools and which we have abandoned, not so
much out of disloyalty as out of the sad conviction
that the task would prove too much for us.
Xpwrtov fKv πρωτιστα ytvoç.
Author’s Preface
to the French Edition
I n a r e c e n t s t u d y , Jean Pouillon wrote a
which, with his permission, I shall cite at the beginning of this work,
since it corresponds perfectly to all that I hoped to accomplish in the
scientific realm, though often doubtful of having been successful:
“ Lévi-Strauss is certainly not the first nor the only one to have
emphasized the structural character of social phenomena, but his
originality consists in taking that character seriously and in serenely
deriving all the consequences from it.” * M y hopes would be fulfilled
if this book could induce other readers to share this judgment.
One will find here a collection of seventeen of some one hundred
papers written during the past thirty years. A few have been
lost; others can profitably remain in oblivion. Among those which
seemed to me less unworthy of survival, I have made a choice, rejecting
works of purely ethnographic and descriptive character, as
• Jean Pouillon, “L ’Oeuvre de Claude Lévi-Strauss,” Les Temps Modernes,
XII (1956), 158.
well as others of theoretical scope, but the substance of which has
been incorporated into my book, Tristes Tropiques. Tw o papers
(chapters V and X VI) are published here for the first time in conjunction
with fifteen others that seem to me to elucidate the structural
method in anthropology. . . .
viii | Author’s Preface
Translator’s Preface
F or the past decade and a half, Claude LéviStrauss
has been the most influential anthropological theorist in
France. He has attracted a large following in Europe and evoked
wide interest in the United States. Standing in the mainstream of
the French sociological school, he has carried Durkheim’s and
Mauss’s theories to a totally new level of conceptualization.
This book, first published in France in 1958, is a collection of
papers, written between 1944 and 1957, which constitute what
Lévi-Strauss regards as his most representative work. More than
any of his other writings, Structural Anthropology offers a comprehensive
view of Lévi-Strauss’s theories.
Each of these papers is a self-contained whole in which he applies
the structural method to particular problems and data. LéviStrauss
is primarily concerned with universals, that is, basic social
and mental processes of which cultural institutions are the concrete
external projections or manifestations. Anthropology should be a
science of general principles; the theories which the anthropologist
formulates should be applicable to all societies and valid for all possible
observers.
Lévi-Strauss has long been one of the chief exponents of the
structural method; he considers the relations among phenomena,
rather than the nature of the phenomena themselves, and the systems
into which these relations enter. He persuasively argues that
the attainment of a general science of man is contingent on structural
considerations, which must include unconscious as well as conscious
social processes, and he time and again develops his thesis in
dealing with some of the major aspects of culture— language, kinship,
social organization, magic, religion, and art.
How does structural analysis proceed? The first step is the
definition of the constituent units of an institution; these are conceptually
equivalent to the phonemes or morphemes of a language and,
therefore, comparable cross-culturally. Once the various aspects of
culture have been reduced to their structural elements, relationships
of opposition and correlation and permutation and transformation
among these elements can be defined. Homologies between institutions
within the same society or among various societies can be
explained, not in terms of a mechanical causality, but rather in dialectical
terms. Correspondences or isomorphisms should be sought,
not between empirical data pertaining to different institutions, but
between systematized forms, or models, which are abstracted on different
levels and which can be compared either intra- or crossculturally.
T o Lévi-Strauss, the building of such models is the basic
aim of anthropology.
The author proposes bold and at times frankly speculative hypotheses,
in which he~âttempts to relate aspects of culture which no
one has previously thought to connect in this particular manner.
His originality lies in the emphasis on form, on the primacy of relations
over entities, and on the search for constant relationships
among phenomena at the most abstract level. His generalizations,
however, always depart from empirical observation and return to
it. T o document his hypotheses, he sifts masses of data pertinent to
various aspects of culture and to various societies. Though he deals
with the major world areas, his use of ethnographic source materials
is highly selective; he employs only those monographs which provide
a thorough, intensive* and reliable coverage of a society. In adx
| Translator's Preface
dition, he draws on his own field work in central Brazil, as well as
on observations of life in contemporary Western society.
Lévi-Strauss’s anthropology emphasizes the close relationship
between field work and theory, between the description of social
phenomena and structural analysis, as two phases of the same process.
The ethnographic study of societies must have a concrete,
almost microscopic character; fluid, uncrystallized attitudes, the
subjective aspects of institutions, must be observed and described
with the same care as institutionalized and sanctioned norms and behavior.
A t the same time, a systematic, comparative, and generalizing
perspective must complement the close-range view, so that the patterns
which underlie the various manifestations of social life may be
uncovered.
Lévi-Strauss’s approach is holistic and integrative. In this sense,
he has not deviated from the major concerns of Boas, Lowie, Kroeber,
and other pioneering figures in the field to whom he often refers.
He conceives of anthropology in the broadest sense, as the
study of man, past and present, in all his aspects— physical, linguistic,
cultural, conscious, and unconscious. In his elaboration of
Mauss’s concept of “the total social phenomenon,” he is concerned
with relating the synchronic to the diachronic, the individual to the
cultural, the physiological to the psychological, the objective analysis
of institutions to the subjective experience of individuals.
In Chapter I, Lévi-Strauss outlines his position; he defines the
aims, scope, and methods of anthropology and discusses the complementary
role of history in providing a perspective to the study of
social life. According to him, anthropology has in the past suffered
from a surfeit of empiricism on the one hand and culture-bound
theorizing on the other. Rejecting the atomistic and mechanistic interpretations
of evolutionism and diffusionism, as well as the naturalistic
and empirical approach of British functionalism, the author
formulates a critique of arbitrary concepts and classifications and
exposes fallacious generalizations and truisms extant in much anthropological
theory. He returns to this critique in other parts of
the book, apropos of specific problems whose analysis and interpretation,
he thinks, were misconstrued by his predecessors.
In chapters II through V , Lévi-Strauss emphasizes the revolutionary
role of structural linguistics with respect to the social sciTranslator's
Preface | xi
ences. He reviews the goals and methods of linguistics and argues
that it provides a model of scientific method for anthropology. Its
approach is objective and rigorous; it has defined constituent units,
studied their interrelations, and isolated constants; finally, language
is susceptible of mathematical analysis. Both language and culture
are built of oppositions, correlations, and logical relations. Language
can, therefore, be treated as a conceptual model for other aspects
of culture; these aspects can also be regarded as systems of
communication.
In Chapter II, the author deals with the dialectical nature of
the relationship between kinship terminology and prescribed attitudes
toward kin. He shows, for a variety of societies, the systematic
character of the relations among four prescribed attitudes within
the basic unit of kinship, that is, the oppositions, correlations, and
possible combinations among them. By the same process, he sheds
new light on the significance of the avunculate in primitive society,
which can only be understood if it is treated as a single relationship
within a larger system.
In Chapter III, Lévi-Strauss compares the structural properties
of a variety of kinship systems in various geographical areas to basic
features of the linguistic stocks found in those areas. If such a comparison
is successful— that is, if kinship systems and preferential
marriage rules, on the one hand, and linguistic structures, on the
other, could be formulated in the same terms— we would be one
step closer to an understanding of the unconscious processes which
underlie the various manifestations of social life.
In Chapter IV, the author attempts to define the levels at
which correlations can be established between language and culture;
he cautions against unwarranted correlations between intensively
analyzed linguistic materials and empirical behavioral data.
He compares the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan language areas
with respect to marriage rules, social organization, and kinship terminology;
he finds structural contrasts between these areas which
he believes have linguistic parallels. He expresses a need for a much
closer collaboration between linguists and anthropologists, so as to
pave the way for a truly integrated science of man.
Chapter V , written especially for this volume, is a rejoinder b y
Lévi-Strauss to criticisms which were addressed to him with respect
to previous publications (here chapters III and IV ). This chapter
xii | Translator's Preface
provides a clarification and amplification of the positions initially
formulated. The reader will be especially interested in the author’s
highly original and suggestive comparison of the cuisine of various
societies, which he shows is susceptible of the same type of structural
analysis as other parts of culture. He examines the relationship
between semantic content and linguistic form, which he argues is
not so arbitrary as has been heretofore supposed.
In Chapter VI, the author examines the historical position of
some of the more primitive societies of South America, by bringing
to bear both distributional evidence and internal structural principles.
The so-called archaism of these peoples is called into question,
and they are shown to have regressed from a higher level of culture.
Chapters VII and VIII are devoted to an examination of the
problem of dual organization in North and South America, Melanesia,
and Indonesia. The author shows that, notwithstanding native
theories as to the importance of this form of social organization, its
role is secondary, if not actually contradictory to reality. LéviStrauss’s
study of the spatial projection of their institutions exposes
gaps and contradictions in the natives’ conception of these
institutions and permits him to uncover the real social structure,
which departs considerably from the natives’ idea. These chapters
offer a convincing demonstration of the author’s oft-repeated point
that, although informants’ accounts of institutions must be taken
into consideration, they are rationalizations and reinterpretations,
not to be confused with the actual social organization.
Chapter IX deals with the nature of the shamanistic complex:
the relationship between sorcerer or shaman and the group, the factors
involved in the acquisition of supernatural power, and the
social bases of the religious practitioner’s effectiveness or failure.
Shamanistic curing permits the articulation into a system of diffuse
and disorganized emotions. Shamanism and psychoanalysis, considered
as two forms of psychotherapy, are contrasted with respect
to the roles ascribed to the healer, the patient, and the group.
Chapter X is an analysis of a strictly psychological shamanistic
cure for difficult childbirth. This chapter concludes with an illuminating
comparison of the shamanistic and psychoanalytic techniques
in which the role of symbols in bringing about a cure,
whether of a psychological or a physiological disturbance, is cogently
demonstrated.
Translator’s Preface | xiii
Chapter XI offers a fundamental contribution to the theory of
myth. In analyzing the Oedipus story and a series of North American
myths, Lévi-Strauss sheds new light on the logical development
and structure of myth. He shows that the intellectual process involved
in mythical thought is as rigorous as that of scientific thinking—
an important theme which he develops at great length in his
recent book, La Pensée sauvage.
Chapter XII illustrates the close connection between structural
analysis and the dialectical method. What is examined here is the
nature of the relationship between myth and ritual, once these are
reduced to their structural elements. Myth and ritual are not only
compared within the confines of one society, but within the context
of the beliefs and practices of neighboring societies. As the author
convincingly demonstrates, the structural properties of myth
and ritual may be shared by several tribes within a culture area, just
as, in language, phonetic and grammatical features may diffuse and
areas of affinity be formed.
In Chapter XIII, a comparative study of primitive and prehistoric
art, the author attempts to account for thematic and stylistic
resemblances which cannot be explained on historical grounds in
terms of their relationships to structurally similar forms of social organization
and religion.
In Chapter XIV, Lévi-Strauss points out, on the basis of South
American evidence, striking parallels between art and mythology in
societies which are widely separated in time and space. He suggests
that the structural analysis of contemporary ethnographic data can
contribute to the elucidation of historical problems raised by the
syncretism characteristic of South American cultures.
Chapter X V is the author’s systematic presentation of the
structural approach. Here, he formulates requirements for the construction
of models which are to account for various aspects of empirical
social reality. He provides a typology of models, showing
how they can be employed and their formal properties compared.
He discusses the spatial, temporal, numerical, and other properties
or correlates of social structures. Lévi-Strauss considers the various
forms of communication (exchange of women, goods, and messages)
among groups and individuals in a society and calls for a
greater consolidation of kinship studies, economics, and linguistics
xiv | Translator's Preface
within a general science of communication. He deals with problems
of change in social structure, whether associated with socialization,
internal contradictions within the structure, or the dynamic properties
of hierarchical social relations. A formal mathematical method
is proposed as one approach to the study of the integration of hierarchical
and communication structures. Here, as elsewhere, LéviStrauss
makes a strong case for the role of mathematics in providing
the tools and methods to consolidate various types of anthropological
research. Finally, he considers the “order of orders,” that is, the
manner in which institutional structures are themselves interrelated
and can be integrated within a total structure, as well as the relationship
between the “order of orders” as it actually functions and
is reconstructed by the anthropologist and the way in which the society
itself, through myth and religion, conceives of its ordering.
Chapter X V I answers objections of his French critics to points
raised in his article “Social Structure,” first published in Anthropology
Today (Chapter X V of the present volume). The author reexamines
the concepts of cultural relativity, evolution, progress, and
other perennial concerns of anthropology and shows their differential
validity within the primitive and current Western contexts.
Chapter X VII offers a significant early discussion of the relationship
of anthropology to cognate fields and the problems involved
in teaching it. Preceding by almost a decade the recent
memoir of the American Anthropological Association, The Teaching
of Anthropology, this chapter reviews the organizational contexts
of teaching and exposes ambiguities in the position of anthropology
in traditional curriculums, both in the United States and
abroad. Lévi-Strauss discusses basic principles in the teaching of the
subject to anthropology students and to specialists in other disciplines;
desirable curriculum content and methods; training for teaching
and research; and the role of field work, museums, and applied
anthropology. Thus, this chapter anticipates, in many ways, some
of the ideas expressed in the memoir. The author also returns to a
theme developed in Chapter I and recurrent throughout the book—
the call for new modes of thinking in the anthropological profession.
He insists on the need to evolve new categories and concepts
which will be cross-culturally valid.
Translator’s Preface | xv
Translator’s Preface
A cknowledgments
The translation might never have been successfully completed
were it not for the encouragement and assistance of Brooke G.
Schoepf, who translated chapters II, VII, VIII, and IX and who
helped me revise other parts of the book. I am responsible for the
translation of chapters I, V , VI, X, XII, XIII, XIV, and X V I and
for the preparation of four chapters originally written and published
in English— III, IV, XI, and X V — as well as of Chapter XVII, written
in French and published simultaneously in French and English.
Many of the figures were ably redrawn for this edition by Claude
Schoepf.
M y thanks go to Professors Joseph H. Greenberg and Morton
H. Fried for reading a few chapters relating to their respective
fields of specialization and for their useful advice on several questions
of terminology. I am indebted to Esther V . Banks and Dana
Raphael Jacobson for their willing and able editing of several chapters.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge particular gratitude to Ariane
Brunei. One of our difficulties was in attempting to convey the
author’s vivid French into English, and special credit must be given
to Miss Brunei, whose gifted ear for style in both languages was of
invaluable help.
All those mentioned here contributed to the successful completion
of the work, but final responsibility for the translation rests
with Mrs. Schoepf and me.
Claire Jacobson
October 1963
Contents
Author’s Preface vii
Translator’s Preface ix
I Introduction: History and Anthropology i
Part O n e L A N G U A G E A N D KINSHIP
II Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology
3i
III Language and the Analysis of Social Laws 55
IV Linguistics and Anthropology 67
*
V Postscript to Chapters III and IV 81
Part T w o SOCIAL O R G A N IZ A T IO N
VI The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology 101
VII Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil 120
VIII Do Dual Organizations Exist? 132
P a rt T h re e M A G IC A N D R ELIG IO N
IX The Sorcerer and His Magic 167
X The Effectiveness of Symbols 186
XI The Structural Study of Myth 206
XII Structure and Dialectics 232
P a rt Four A R T
XIII Split Representation in the Art of Asia and America 245
X IV The Serpent with Fish inside His Body 269
P a rt Five PROBLEMS O F M ETH O D
A N D TE A CH IN G
X V Social Structure 277
X V I Postscript to Chapter X V 324
XVII The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences
and Problems Raised in Teaching It 346
Acknowledgments 382
Bibliography 385
Index 399
List of Figures
I. Diagrams of relationships among ego, mother, father, and
mother’s brother 45
2. The system of basic relationships 49
3- A tri-dimensional model of Hopi kinship 74
4- Pattern of reciprocal services for Sherente men’s societies
during mask-making I25
5- Bororo social organization 128
6. Plan of a W innebago village according to informants of the
upper phratry *34
7- Plan of a Winnebago village according to informants of the
lower phratry *35
8. Plan of an Omarakana village 136
9- Plan of a Bororo village 141
10. Transition from a concentric to a diametric structure 146
ii. Plan of a Timbira village 150
12. Representation on a straight line of a diametric structure and
a concentric structure *52
*3- Diagram of the Winnebago social structure *55
*4* Diagram of an Indonesian-type social structure 156
!5- Diagram of the Bororo social structure *57
16. Diagram of the analytic method for deriving structural laws 218
*7- Haida. Painting representing a bear 249
18. Tsimshian. Painting representing a bear 249
19. Bronze discovered near An-Yang, China 250
20. Caduveo. Facial design reproduced by a native woman on a
sheet of paper 252
21. Kwakiutl. Painting for the front of a house 254
22. Nazca. Design on a vase 270
23- Pacasmayo. Vase 272
List of Plates
between pages 250-251
I. Shang bronze, China
II. Storage box representing a frog, Northwest Coast
III. Painting representing a shark, Haida
IV . W oman with painted face, Caduveo
V . W oman with painted face, Caduveo
VI. W oman with painted face, Caduveo
VII. Chiefs drawing representing his own tattooed face, Maori
VIII. Drawing representing a figure with a painted face,
Caduveo
IX. Jade figure (tiki), N ew Zealand
X. W ood carving, Maori
XI. Head ornament, Northwest Coast
XII. Three tattooing designs carved in wood, Maori
XIII. Three wood carvings, Maori
Structural
Anthropology
CHATTER
Introduction:
History and Anthropology
^ Æ o r e t h a n a h a l f - c e n t u r y has elapsed since
Hauser and Simiand formulated and contrasted the principles and
methods which seemed to them to distinguish history from sociology.
These differences stemmed primarily from the comparative
nature of the sociological method, on the one hand, and the documentary
and functional character of the historical method, on the
other.1 While the two authors agreed on the contrasting nature of
these disciplines, they diverged in evaluating the respective merits
of each method.
W hat has happened since then? W e must acknowledge that
history has confined itself to its original modest and lucid program
and that it has prospered by adhering to it closely. From the vantage
point of history, problems of principle and method appear to
have been definitely resolved. W hat has happened to sociology,
however, is another matter. Those branches of sociology with
which we shall be particularly concerned here, ethnography and
ethnology, have, during the last thirty years, produced a great
i
number of theoretical and descriptive studies. This productivity,
however, has been achieved arthe price of conflicts, cleavages, and
confusions which duplicate, within anthropology itself, the traditional
and far more clear-cut dispute that set off ethnology as a
discipline separate from history. Just as paradoxically, the historians’
theories have been taken over literally by anthropologists, and
particularly by those anthropologists who proclaim their opposition
to the historical method. This situation will be more easily
understood if we briefly trace its origins and, for the sake of clarity,
sketch some preliminary definitions.
In this discussion we shall not use the term sociology, which
has never come to stand, as Durkheim and Simiand hoped it would,
for a general science of human behavior. If sociology is taken to
mean examination of the principles of social life and the ideas
which men either have entertained or now entertain with respect
to it— and this interpretation is still current in several European
countries— then sociology can be equated with social philosophy
and thus it falls outside our scope. If, on the other hand, sociology
is considered, as it is in the Anglo-Saxon countries, as the corpus of
all the empirical research bearing on the structure and functioning
of the more complex societies, it becomes a branch of ethnography.
In the latter case, precisely because of the complexity of its subject
matter, it cannot yet aspire to findings so concrete and varied as
those of ethnography, which, at least from a methodological standpoint,
have greater value.
W e have yet to define ethnography itself and ethnology. Let
us distinguish them briefly and tentatively— this being sufficient at
the outset— by stating that ethnography consists of the observation
and analysis of human groups considered as individual entities (the
groups are often selected, for theoretical and practical reasons unrelated
to the nature of the research involved, from those societies
that differ most from our own). Ethnography thus aims at recording
as accurately as possible the respective modes of life of various
groups. Ethnology, on the other hand, utilizes for comparative
purposes (the nature of which will be explained below) the data
provided by the ethnographer. Thus, ethnography has the same
meaning in all countries, and ethnology corresponds approximately
to what is known in Anglo-Saxon countries— where the term ethnology
has become obsolete— as social or cultural anthropology.
2 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
Social anthropology is devoted especially to the study of institutions
considered as systems of representations,2 cultural anthropology,
to the study of techniques which implement social life (and,
sometimes also, to the study of institutions considered as such techniques).
Finally, it is obvious that if the data resulting from the objective
study of both complex societies and so-called primitive societies
should ever be successfully integrated to provide universally
valid conclusions from a synchronic or diachronic point of view,
then sociology, having attained its positivistic form, would automatically
acquire the crowning position among the social sciences
that its scholars have always coveted. But we have not yet reached
that point.
After these preliminary remarks and definitions, we can formulate
the problem of the relationship between the anthropological
sciences and history as follows: Either anthropology is focused
on the diachronic dimension of phenomena, that is, on their temporal
order, and thus is unable to trace their history; or anthropologists
attempt to apply the method of the historian, and the time
dimension escapes them. The problem of reconstructing a past
whose history we are incapable of grasping confronts ethnology
more particularly; the problem of writing the history of a present
without a past confronts ethnography. That is, at any rate, the
dilemma which has too often halted the development of these
sciences in the course of the last fifty years.
This contradiction has not been stated here in terms of the
classical opposition between evolutionism and diffusionism, because
from this point of view the two schools converge. The evolutionist
interpretation in anthropology clearly derives from evolutionism
in biology.8 Western civilization thus appears to be the most advanced
expression of the evolution of societies, while primitive
groups are “survivals” of earlier stages, whose logical classification
reflects their order of appearance in time. But the task is not so
simple. The Eskimo, while excellent technicians, are poor sociologists;
the reverse is true of the natives of Australia. One could cite
many such examples. W ith an unlimited choice of criteria an unlimited
number of evolutionary sequences could be constructed, all
of them different. Nor does Leslie W hite’s neo-evolutionism4 seem
able to overcome this difficulty. Although the criterion which he
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 3
suggests, namely, the amount of energy harnessed per capita in
each society, corresponds to an ideal found in certain historical
periods and valid for certain aspects of Western civilization, it does
not apply to the great majority of human societies, for which the
proposed standard would seem to entirely lack significance.
An alternative approach is to break down cultures into abstract
elements and to establish, between elements of the same
type in different cultures, rather than between cultures themselves,
the same kind of relationships of historical descent and progressive
differentiation which the paleontologist sees in the evolution of
species. For the ethnologist, Tylor says:
The bow and arrow is a species, the habit of flattening children’s
skulls is a species, the practice of reckoning numbers by tens is a
species. The geographical distribution of these things, and their
transmission from region to region, have to be studied as the
naturalist studies the geography of his botanical and zoological
species.5
But nothing is more dangerous than this analogy. For even if the
concept of species should be discarded once and for all in the development
of genetics, what made— and still makes— the concept
valid for the natural historian is the fact that a horse indeed begets
a horse and that, in the course of a sufficient number of generations,
Equus cabalius is the true descendant of Hipparion. The historical
validity of the naturalist’s reconstructions is guaranteed, in
the final analysis, by the biological link of reproduction. An ax, on
the contrary, does not generate another ax. There will always be a
basic difference between two identical tools, or two tools which
differ in function but are similar in form, because one does not
stem from the other; rather, each of them is the product of a system
of representations. Thus the European fork and the Polynesian
fork (which is used in ritual meals) do not constitute a species, any
more than do the straws through which one sips lemonade at a
café, the “bombilla” to drink maté, and the drinking tubes used for
ritual purposes by some American Indian tribes. The same is true of
institutions. W e cannot classify under the same rubric the custom
of killing the old for economic reasons and that of hastening their
entrance into the joys of the other world.
Therefore when Tylor writes, “When a general law can be
inferred from a group of facts, the use of detailed history is very
4 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
much superseded. When we see a magnet attract a piece of iron,
having come by experience to the general law that magnets attract
iron, we do not take the trouble to go into the history of the particular
magnet in question,” 6 he is really forcing us into a blind
alley. For, unlike the physicist, the anthropologist is still uncertain
which of the objects of his study correspond to the magnet and
which to the iron, and, furthermore, whether it is possible to identify
objects which at first appear to be two magnets or two pieces
of iron. Only a “detailed history” would enable the anthropologist
to overcome his doubts in each case. The critical evaluation of the
concept of totemism has long provided an excellent example of this
difficulty. If one limits the application of the totemic concept to
irrefutable cases where the institution appears with all its characteristics,
these cases are too special to permit the formulation of a law
of religious evolution. If, on the other hand, one extrapolates only
from certain constituent elements, it becomes impossible to know,
without a “detailed history” of the religious ideas of each group,
whether animal or plant names and practices or beliefs referring
to animal or plant species can be explained as vestiges of an earlier
totemic system or in terms of entirely different causes, such as, for
example, the logico-aesthetic tendency of the human mind to classify
into categories the physical, biological, and social entities which
constitute its universe. (A classic study by Durkheim and Mauss has
demonstrated the universality of this mode of thinking.7)
Actually, the evolutionist and diffusionist interpretations have
a great deal in common. Tylor, indeed, formulated and applied
them side by side. Both approaches differ from the historian’s methods.
The historian always studies individuals, whether these be
persons, events, or groups of phenomena individualized by their
location in space and time. The diffusionist breaks down the species
developed in the comparative method in order to reconstruct individuals
with fragments borrowed from different categories. But
he never succeeds in building more than a pseudo-individual, since
the spatial and temporal coordinates are the result of the way the
elements were chosen and assembled, instead of being the reflection
of a true unity in the object. The “cycles” or cultural “complexes”
of the diffusionist, like the “stages” of the evolutionist, are
the product of an abstraction that will always lack the corroboration
of empirical evidence. Their history remains conjectural and
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 5
ideological. This qualification applies even to the more modest and
rigorous studies— such as those by Lowie, Spier, and Kroeber—
of the distribution of certain cultural traits in limited areas of
North America.8 This is true not so much because we can never
conclude that events actually occurred in the way suggested by the
proposed reconstruction— for it is always legitimate to formulate
hypotheses, and, at least in some instances, the points of origin and
the extent of diffusion which are postulated hold a high degree of
probability; such studies deceive us because they do not teach us
anything about the conscious and unconscious processes in concrete
individual or collective experiences, by means of which men
who did not possess a certain institution went about acquiring it,
either by inventing it, by modifying previous institutions, or by
borrowing from the outside. Tfiis kind of research seems to us to
be one of the essential goals of the ethnographer as well as of the
historian.
No one has contributed more than Boas toward exposing these
contradictions. Thus, a brief analysis of his major tenets will enable
us to find out to what extent he himself was able to escape such
dilemmas and whether they are inherent in the nature of all ethnographic
research.
Referring to history, Boas begins with a proclamation of humility:
“As a matter of fact, all the history of primitive peoples
that any ethnologist has ever developed is reconstruction and cannot
be anything else.” 9 And to those who object that he has not
studied the history of this or that aspect of a civilization to which
he has, nevertheless, devoted the greater part of his life, he gives
this heroic answer: “Unfortunately we have not found any data
that throw light on its development.” 10 But once these limitations
are recognized, it becomes possible to define a method whose application,
though no doubt limited in scope by the exceptionally
unfavorable conditions under which the anthropologist works, may
still yield findings. The detailed study of customs and of their place
within the total culture of the tribe which practices them, together
with research bearing on the geographical distribution of those
customs among neighboring tribes, enables us to determine, on the
one hand, the historical factors which led to their development
6 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
and, on the other, the psychological processes which made them
possible.11
T o be legitimate, such research should be restricted to a small
region with clearly defined boundaries, and comparisons should
not be extended beyond the area selected for study. Actually, the
recurrence of similar customs or institutions cannot be held as a
proof of contact unless there is a continuous chain of traits of the
same type which allows us to relate the polar traits through a
series of intermediaries.12 W e shall probably never achieve chronological
certainty, but it is possible to obtain high probabilities with
reference to phenomena, or groups of phenomena, of limited distribution
in time and space. The evolution of secret societies among
the Kwakiutl was traced over a period of a half-century. Hypotheses
bearing on the relationship between the cultures of northern
Siberia and the Northwest Coast have been formulated; and the
itineraries followed by one or another mythical theme of North
America have been reasonably reconstructed.
Nevertheless, such thorough inquiry rarely reaches the point
of truly recreating history. In the entire work of Boas the result
appears to be rather negative. Among the Pueblo Indians of the
Southwest, as well as among the tribes of Alaska and British Columbia,
it has been noted that social organization takes extreme and
contrasting forms at the two ends of the territory under consideration
and that the intermediary regions present a series of transitional
forms. Thus, the western Pueblo have matrilineal clans without
moieties and the eastern Pueblo patrilineal moieties without
clans. The northern part of the Pacific Coast is characterized by
few clans and i large number of local groups with clearly defined
privileges, while the southern part has a bilateral organization and
local groups without marked privileges.
Can we draw the conclusion that one type has evolved from
the other? For such a hypothesis to be legitimate we should have
to be able to prove that one type is more primitive than the other;
that the more primitive type evolves necessarily toward the other
form; and, finally, that this law operates more rigorously in the
center of the region than at its periphery. Failing this threefold and
impossible demonstration, any theory of survivals is futile, and in this
particular case the facts support no reconstruction tending, for examIntroduction:
History and Anthropology | 7
pie, to assert the historical priority of matrilineal over patrilineal
institutions: “All that can be said is that fragments of earlier historical
stages are bound to exist and are found.” 13 While it is possible
and even likely that the instability inherent in matrilineal institutions
often leads to their transformation into patrilineal or
bilateral institutions, it can by no means be concluded that, always
and everywhere, matrilineal descent represents the primitive
form.14
Such a critical analysis is conclusive. Nevertheless, if it were
carried to an extreme, it would lead to complete historical agnosticism.
For Boas, however, this kind of analysis is directed against
the alleged universal laws of human development and generalizations
based on what he once called “a 40 per cent possibility,” 15
not against modest and conscientious effort at historical reconstruction
within the bounds of precise and limited objectives. What are,
according to Boas, the conditions necessary for such effort? He
recognizes that in ethnology “ . . . evidence of change can be
inferred only by indirect methods,” that is, as in comparative linguistics,
by analysis of static phenomena and study of their distribution.10
But we should not forget that Boas, a geographer by training
and a disciple of Ratzel, became aware of his anthropological
vocation during the course of his first field work, as a result of a
flash of insight into the originality, uniqueness, and spontaneity of
social life in each human group. These social experiences and these
constant interactions between the group and the individual can
never be inferred; they must be observed. As he once said, “In
order to understand history it is necessary to know not only how
things are, but how they have come to be.” 17
W e are now in a position to explore the character of Boas’
thought and to bring out its paradoxical quality. By university
training a physicist as well as a geographer, he ascribes a scientific
aim and universal scope to anthropological research. “He himself
often said that the problem was the relation between the objective
world and man’s subjective world as it had taken form in different
cultures.” 18
But while he aspired to apply to this subjective world the
rigorous methodology that he had learned in the natural sciences,
he recognized the infinite variety of historical processes which
shapes it in each case. Knowledge of social facts must be based on
8 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
induction from individualized and concrete knowledge of social
groups localized in time and space. Such specific knowledge, in
turn, can be acquired only from the history of each group. Yet
such is the nature of the subject-matter of ethnographic studies
that in the vast majority of cases history lies beyond reach. Boas
introduces the standards of the physicist in tracing the history of
societies for which we possess only documents that would discourage
the historian. When Boas is successful, his reconstructions
amount to true history— but this is a history of the fleeting moment,
the only kind of history that can be captured immediately
— in other words, a microhistory, which can no more be related to
the past then can the macrohistory of evolutionism and diffusionism.19
.
In this demanding enterprise to overcome contradictory requirements
with rigor, toil, and genius, the work of Boas continues,
and will long continue, to dominate from its monumental
heights all subsequent developments. In any event, the developments
of recent years can only be understood as efforts to escape
the dilemma which he himself formulated withçut recognizing its
inevitable character. Thus, Kroeber tried to loosen somewhat the
rigid criteria of validity which Boas imposed for historical reconstructions,
justifying his method with the observation that, after
all, the historian, who with a wealth of documents to help him occupy
a much more secure position than the anthropologist, is far
from being so exacting.20 Malinowski and his school, along with
most of the contemporary American school, chose the opposite
direction. Since Boas’ work itself demonstrated the extent to which
it was deceptive to seek knowledge about “how things have come
to be,” they renounced “understanding history” in order to convert
the study of cultures into a synchronic analysis, in the present,
of relationships between their constituent elements. The whole
question is to know whether, as Boas so profoundly observed,
even the most penetrating analysis of a unique culture— which includes
description of its institutions and their functional interrelations,
as well as study of the dynamic processes by which culture
and the individual interact— can attain full significance without
knowledge of the historical development underlying the present
patterns.21 This essential point will become clearer from the discussion
of a specific problem.
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 9
Introduction: History and Anthropology
The term dual organization has been ascribed to a type of
social structure frequently found in America, Asia, and Oceania
and characterized by the division of the social group— whether
tribe, clan, or village— into two moieties, whose respective members
have relationships which may range from the most intimate
cooperation to latent hostility, and which generally contain both
types of behavior. Sometimes the purpose of moieties seems to be
the control of marriage, in which case they are termed exogamous.
Sometimes their role is confined to activities of a religious, political,
economic, ceremonial, or merely recreational character, or even
to one or another of these activities only. Membership in a moiety
is transmitted in some instances by matrilineal descent, in others by
patrilineal descent. The division into moieties may or may not
coincide with clan organization. It may be simple or complex, in
which case several pairs of moieties will cross-cut one another,
each pair having different functions. In short, almost as many
kinds of dual organization are known as peoples possessing it.
Where then does it begin and where does it end?
Let us immediately rule out evolutionist and diffusionist interpretations.
The evolutionist, who tends to consider dual organization
as a necessary stage of social development, would first
have to define a simple form whose actually observed forms would
be concrete manifestations, survivals, or vestiges. He would then
have to postulate the presence, at a remote time, of this form
among peoples where nothing demonstrates that a moiety division
ever existed. The diffusionist, in turn, would select one of the observed
types, usually the most developed and complex, as representing
the archaic form of the institution and would attribute its
origin to that region of the world where it is best documented, all
other forms being considered the product of migrations and borrowings
from the common cradle. In both cases, one arbitrarily
selects a type from all those provided by experience and makes of
this type the model from which one attempts, through speculation,
to derive all the others.
Are we then compelled to carry Boasian nominalism to its
limit and study each of the cases observed as so many individual
entities? W e should be aware, first, that the functions assigned to
dual organization do not coincide, and, second, that the history of
each social group demonstrates that the division into moieties stems
from the most different origins.22Thus, depending on the case, dual
organization may be the result of the invasion of a population by
an immigrant group; of fusion between two neighboring groups,
for any of several reasons (economic, demographic, or ceremonial);
of the crystallization, in'institutional form, of empirical
norms designed to insure marriage exchanges within a given group;
of the distribution within the group— over two parts of the year,
two types of activities, or two segments of the population— of two
sets of antithetical behavior, each of which is considered equally
indispensable for the maintenance of social equilibrium; and so
forth. W e are therefore forced to reject the concept of dual organization
as a spurious category and, if we extend this line of
reasoning to all other aspects of social life, to reject institutions exclusively,
in favor of societies. Ethnology and ethnography— the
former thus reduced to the latter— would be no more than history
reduced to such a level, owing to the lack of written or graphic
documents,,that it would no longer be worthy of the name.
Malinowski and his followers have rightly protested against
this abdication. But we might ask them whether, by banning all
history on the premise that ethnologists’ history is not worthy of
consideration, they have not gone to too great extremes. For one
of two things will occur: The functionalists may proclaim that all
anthropological research must be based on painstaking study of
concrete societies and their institutions— including the interrelations
of those institutions, their relationships with custom, belief,
and technology, and the interrelations between the individual and
the group and among individuals within the group. In this case,
they are merely doing what Boas recommended in these same
terms in 1895 and what the French school, under Durkheim and
Mauss, also advised in those days— in other words, sound ethnography.
Malinowski at the beginning of his career did some admirable
ethnography, especially in his Argonauts of the Western
Pacific. But we fail to see in what way he transcended Boas’ theoretical
position.
Or the functionalists may find salvation in their asceticism
and, by an unheard-of miracle, do what every good ethnographer
must do and does; but they stubbornly refuse to consider any hisIntroduction:
History and Anthropology | n
torical information regarding the society under study or any comparative
data borrowed from neighboring or remote societies. In
this way they claim to achicve, through inner meditation, those
general truths whose possibility Boas never denied, but which he
placed at the end of an undertaking so vast that all primitive
societies will no doubt have disappeared long before appreciable
progress has been made. Such, indeed, is Malinowski's attitude.
His belated cautiousness23 cannot temper his many ambitious proclamations.
This is also the attitude of many an anthropologist of
the younger generation who disdains study of any source materials
or regional bibliographies before going into the field. He does this
in order not to spoil the wonderful intuition that will enable him
to grasp eternal truths on the nature and function of social institutions
through an abstract dialogue with his little tribe, over and
beyond a context of highly differentiated norms and customs, each
of which possesses, nevertheless, countless variants among neighboring
or remote peoples. But did not xMalinowski label “herodotage”
the curiosity for “primitive eccentricities of man” ? 24
When one confines oneself to the study of a single society,
one may do valuable work. Experience shows that the best monographs
are generally produced by investigators who have lived and
worked in one particular region. But they must forgo conclusions
about other regions. When, in addition, one completely limits study
to the present period in the life of a society, one becomes first of
all the victim of an illusion. For everything is history: W hat was
said yesterday is history, what was said a minute ago is history.
But, above all, one is led to misjudge the present, because only the
study of historical development permits the weighing and evaluation
of the interrelationships among the components of the presentday
society. And a little history— since such, unfortunately, is the
lot of the anthropologist— is better than no history at all. H ow
shall we correctly estimate the role, so surprising to foreigners, of
the apérittf in French social life if we are ignorant of the traditional
prestige value ascribed to cooked and spiced wines ever
since the Middle Ages? How shall we analyze modern dress without
recognizing in it vestiges of previous customs and tastes? T o
reason otherwise would make it impossible to establish what is an
essential distinction between primary function, which corresponds
to a present need of the social body, and secondary function, which
i2 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
survives only because the group resists giving up a habit. For to say
that a society functions is a truism; but to say that everything in a
society functions is an absurdity.
The danger of the truism, which threatens functionalist interpretations,
was aptly pointed out by Boas: “ . . . the danger is
ever present that the widest generalizations that may be obtained
b y the study of cultural integration are commonplaces.” 26 Because
such general characteristics are universal, they pertain to biology
and psychology. The ethnographer’s task is to describe and analyze
the different ways in which they are manifested in various societies;
the ethnologist’s task is to explain them. But what have we learned
about the “institution of gardening” when we are told that it is
“ universally found wherever the environment is favorable to the
cultivation of the soil and the level of culture sufficiently high to
allow it” ? 26 Or about the outrigger canoe, its multiple forms, and
its peculiar distribution, when it is defined as a canoe whose “arrangement
gives the greatest stability, seaworthiness and manageability,
considering the limitations in material and in technical handicraft
of the Oceanic cultures” ? 27 Or about the nature of society
in general and the infinite variety of manners and customs, when
we are confronted by this statement: “The organic needs of man
[Malinowski lists nutrition, defense and comfort, mating and propagation]
form the basic imperatives leading to the development of
culture . . .” ? 28Yet these needs are common to both man and animals.
It might also be submitted that one of the essential tasks of
the ethnographer is to describe and analyze the complicated marriage
rules and associated customs in various societies. Malinowski
rejects this: “To put it bluntly, I should say that the symbolic,
representative or ceremonial contents of marriage are of secondary
importance to the anthropologist. . . . The real essence of the
marriage act is that by means of an extremely simple or highly
complicated ceremony it gives a public, tribally recognized, expression
to the fact that two individuals enter the state of marriage.”
29W hy then bother going to distant places? And, according
to this point of view, would the 603 pages of The Sexual Life of
Savages in Northwestern Melanesia be worth very much? In the
same way, should we dismiss the fact that some tribes permit premarital
sexual freedom while others require chastity, on the premise
that these customs can be reduced to one function, that of insuring
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 13
permanent marriage? 80 W hat interests the anthropologist is not the
universality of the function— which is far from definitely established,
and which cannot be asserted without a careful study of all
the customs of this type and their historical development— but,
rather, the fact that the customs are so varied. It is true that a
discipline whose main, if not sole, aim is to analyze and interpret
differences evades all problems when it takes into account only
similarities. But at the same time it thus loses the means of distinguishing
between the general truths to which it aspires and the
trivialities with which it must be satisfied.
It may be said, perhaps, that these unfortunate incursions into
the field of comparative sociology are exceptions in Malinowski’s
work. But the idea that empirical observation of a single society
will make it possible to understand universal motivations appears
continually in his writings, weakening the significance of data
whose vividness and richness are well known.
The ideas held by the Trobriand Islanders concerning the
value and respective function of each sex in the society are highly
complex. They take pride in numbering in their clans more women
than men, and are unhappy when there are fewer women. A t the
same time, they hold male superiority as an accepted fact: Men
possess an aristocratic virtue which their wives lack. W hy should
such subtle observations be blunted by the brutal and contradicting
introductory statement that “For the continuation and very existence
of the family, woman as well as man is indispensable; therefore
both sexes are regarded by the natives as being of equal value
and importance”?-31 The first part of this statement is a truism, and
the second is not consistent with the facts reported. Few topics
have attracted Malinowski’s attention as much as that of magic,
and throughout his whole work one finds reiterated constantly the
argument that all over the world,32 as well as in the Trobriand Islands,
magic is used for “all important activities and enterprises in
which man has not the issue firmly and safely in hand. . . .” 33 Let
us set aside the general thesis to consider its application to the
specific case.
The men of the Trobriand Islands, we are told, employ magic
for gardening, fishing, hunting, canoe-building, safety at sea,
woodcarving, sorcery, and weather; women use magic for abor-
14 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
don, toothache, and skirtmaking.84 These activities represent only a
small fraction of those “in which man has not the issue firmly and
safely in hand” ; but even from this point of view they are not
comparable. W hy the making of straw skirts and not the preparation
of dried gourds or pottery, which has an equally uncertain
outcome? Can one arbitrarily state that a better knowledge of the
history of religious thought in Melanesia, or of data from other
tribes (both of which reveal the role often attributed to plant fiber
as the symbol of a change of status),85 would not throw some light
on the reasons why these specific activities are carried out with
the aid of magic? Let us cite two other examples which illustrate
the flaws in this intuitive method. In Malinowski’s book on the
sexual life of Melanesians, we learn that one of the principal reasons
for marriage, here as elsewhere, is “. . . the natural inclination
of a man past his first youth to have a house and a household
of his own . . . and . . . a natural longing for [children].” 86 But
in Sex and Repression in Savage Society, in which a theoretical
commentary is added to the field-work account, we read the following:
“In man this need for an affectionate and interested protector
of pregnancy still remains. That the innate mechanism has
disappeared we know from the fact that in most societies . . . the
male refuses to take any responsibility for his offspring unless
compelled to do so by society.” 37 An odd natural longing, indeed!
The followers of Malinowski are unfortunately not exempt
from the curious combination of dogmatism and empiricism that
weakens his entire system. When Margaret Mead, for instance,
characterizes three neighboring societies of New Guinea in terms
of the different and complementary combinations of relationship
between the sexes (passive man, passive woman; aggressive man,
aggressive woman; aggressive woman, passive man), we admire
the elegance of this construction.38 But our suspicion of oversimplification
and a priori thinking is confirmed by other observations,
such as those that stress the existence of a specifically female
piracy among the Arapesh.80 And when the same author classifies
North American tribes as competitive, cooperative, and individualistic,40
she remains as far removed from a true taxonomy as a
zoologist who would define species by grouping animals as solitary,
gregarious, and social.
W e really wonder whether all these hasty constructions,
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 15
which only result in making the peoples studied “reflections of our
own society,” 41 of our categories and our problems, do not proceed,
as Boas profoundly perceived, from an overestimation of the
historical method, rather than from the opposite attitude. For,
after all, it was the historians who formulated the functionalist
method. After enumerating the complex of traits that characterized
a certain stage of Roman society, Hauser wrote in 1903: “ All
this constitutes an irreducible complex; all these traits are mutually
explanatory to a much greater extent than the evolution of the
Roman family can be explained in terms of the Semitic, or Chinese,
or Aztec family.” 42 This statement could have been written by
Malinowski, with the one exception that Hauser added events to
institutions. And, undoubtedly, his statement requires a double
qualification: For what is true of process is not so true of structure,
and for the anthropologist comparative studies compensate to some
extent for the absence of written documents. But the paradox remains,
nevertheless: The criticism of evolutionist and diffusionist
interpretations has showed us that when the anthropologist believes
he is doing historical research, he is doing the opposite; it is
when he thinks that he is not doing historical research that he
operates like a good historian, who would be limited by the same
lack of documents.
What are the differences then between historical method and
ethnographic method, if we use these terms in the strict sense defined
at the beginning of this essay? Both history and ethnography
are concerned with societies other than the one in which we live.
Whether this otherness is due to remoteness in time (however
slight), or to remoteness in space, or even to cultural heterogeneity,
is of secondary importance compared to the basic similarity of
perspective. What constitutes the goal of the two disciplines? Is it
the exact reconstruction of what has happened, or is happening, in
the society under study? To assert this would be to forget that in
both cases we are dealing with systems of representations which
differ for each member of the group and which, on the whole,
differ from the representations of the investigator. The best ethnographic
study will never make the reader a native. The French
Revolution of 1789 lived through by an aristocrat is not the same
phenomenon as the Revolution of 1789 lived through by a sans-
16 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
culotte, and neither would correspond to the Revolution of 1789 as
conceived by Michelet or Taine. All that the historian or ethnographer
can do, and all that we can expect of either of them, is to enlarge
a specific experience to the dimensions of a more general one,
which thereby becomes accessible as experience to men of another
country or another epoch. And in order to succeed, both historian
and ethnographer must have the same qualities: skill, precision, a
sympathetic approach, and objectivity.
How do they proceed? Here the difficulty begins. For history
and ethnography have often been contrasted on the grounds
that the former rests on the critical study of documents by numerous
observers, which can therefore be compared and crosschecked,
whereas the latter is reduced, by definition, to the observations
of a single individual.
To this criticism we reply that the best way to overcome this
obstacle in ethnography is to increase the number of ethnographers.
Certainly we shall not reach this goal by discouraging prospective
ethnographers with tendentious objections. Furthermore, this criticism
has been rendered obsolete by the very development of ethnography.
Today there are indeed few peoples who have not been
studied by numerous investigators and observed from different
points of view over a period of several generations, sometimes
even several centuries. Moreover, what does the historian do when
he studies documents if not to surround himself with the testimony
of amateur ethnographers, who were often as far removed
from the culture they described as is the modern investigator from
the Polynesians or Pygmies? Would the historian of ancient Europe
have made less progress if Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch,
Saxo Grammaticus, and Nestorius had been professional ethnographers,
familiar with the difficulties of field-work and trained in
objective observation? Far from distrusting ethnographers, the historian
concerned about the future of his discipline should heartily
welcome them.
But the methodological parallels which are sought between
ethnography and history, in order to contrast them, are deceptive.
The ethnographer is someone who collects data and (if he is a good
ethnographer) presents them in conformity with requirements that
are the same as those of the historian. The historian’s role is to
utilize these studies when the observations extend over a sufficient
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 17
period of time. The ethnologist also draws upon the ethnographer’s
observations when they include a sufficient number of different
regions. A t any rate, the ethnographer furnishes documents
which the historian can use. And if documents already exist and
the ethnographer chooses to integrate their contents into his study,
should not the historian— provided, naturally, that the ethnographer
has a sound historical method— envy him the privilege of writing
the history of a society which he has experienced as a living
reality?
The issue can thus be reduced to the relationship between
history and ethnology in the strict sense. W e propose to show that
the fundamental difference between the two disciplines is not one
of subject, of goal, or of method. They share the same subject,
which is social life; the same goal, which is a better understanding
of man; and, in fact, the same method, in which only the proportion
of research techniques varies. They differ, principally, in their
choice of complementary perspectives: History organizes its data
in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology
proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations.
The principle that anthropology draws its originality from
the unconscious nature of collective phenomena stems (though in
a still obscure and ambiguous manner) from a statement made by
Tylor. Having defined anthropology as the study of “Culture or
Civilization,” he described culture as “that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” 43
W e know that among most primitive peoples it is very difficult to
obtain a moral justification or a rational explanation for any custom
or institution. When he is questioned, the native merely answers
that things have always been this way, that such was the
command of the gods or the teaching of the ancestors. Even when
interpretations are offered, they always have the character of rationalizations
or secondary elaborations. There is rarely any doubt
that the unconscious reasons for practicing a custom or sharing a
belief are remote from the reasons given to justify them. Even in
our own society, table manners, social etiquette, fashions of dress,
and many of our moral, political, and religious attitudes are scrupulously
observed by everyone, although their real origin and
18 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
function are not often critically examined. W e act and think according
to habit, and the extraordinary resistance offered to even
minimal departures from custom is due more to inertia than to any
conscious desire to maintain usages which have a clear function.
There is no question that the development of modern thought has
favored the critical examination of custom. But this phenomenon
is not something extraneous to anthropological study. It is, rather,
its direct result, inasmuch as its main origin lies in the tremendous
ethnographic self-consciousness which the discovery of the New
World aroused in Western thought. And even today, secondary
elaborations tend to acquire the same unconscious quality as soon
as they are formulated. W ith Surprising rapidity— which shows
that one is dealing with an intrinsic property of certain modes of
thinking and action— collective thought assimilates what would
seem the most daring concepts, such as the priority of motherright,
animism, or, more recently, psychoanalysis, in order to resolve
automatically problems which by their nature seem forever
to elude action as well as thought.
Boas must be given credit for defining the unconscious nature
of cultural phenomena with admirable lucidity. By comparing
cultural phenomena to language from this point of view, he anticipated
both the subsequent development of linguistic theory and
a future for anthropology whose rich promise we are just beginning
to perceive. He showed that the structure of a language remains
unknown to the speaker until the introduction of a scientific
grammar. Even then the language continues to mold discourse
beyond the consciousness of the individual, imposing on his thought
conceptual schemes which are taken as objective categories. Boas
added that “the essential difference between linguistic phenomena
and other ethnological phenomena is, that the linguistic classifications
never rise to consciousness, while in other ethnological phenomena,
although the same unconscious origin prevails, these often
rise into consciousness, and thus give rise to secondary reasoning
and to reinterpretations.” 44 But this difference, which is one of
degree, does not lessen their basic identity or the high value of
linguistic method when it is used in ethnological research. On the
contrary:
The great advantage that linguistics offers in this respect is the
fact that, on the whole, the categories which are formed always
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 19
Introduction: History and Anthropology
remain unconscious, and that for this reason the processes which
lead to their formation can be followed without misleading and
disturbing factors of secondary explanations, which are so com mon
in ethnology, so much so that they generally obscure the
real history of the development of ideas entirely.45
In the light of modern phonemics we can appreciate the immense
scope of these propositions, which were formulated eight
years before the publication of Cours de linguistique générale by
Ferdinand de Saussure, which marked the advent of structural
linguistics. But anthropologists have not yet applied these propositions
to their field. Boas was to use them fully in laying down the
foundations of American linguistics and they were to enable him
to refute theories theretofore undisputed.46 Yet with respect to
anthropology he displayed a timidity that still restrains his follow­
ers.
Actually Boasian ethnographic analysis, which is incomparably
more honest, solid, and methodical than that of Malinowski,
remains, like Malinowski’s, on the level of individual conscious
thought. Boas of course refused to consider the secondary rationalizations
and reinterpretations, which retained so much hold over
Malinowski that he managed to discard those offered by the natives
only by substituting his own. But Boas continued to utilize the
categories of individual thought. His scientific scruples only deprived
it of its human overtones. He restricted the scope of the
categories that he compared, but he did not re-create them on a
new level. When the work of fragmentation seemed to him impossible,
he refrained from making comparisons. And yet linguistic
comparison must be supported by something more than a mere
fragmentation— namely, a real analysis. From words the linguist
extracts the phonetic reality of the phoneme; and from the phoneme
he extracts the logical reality of distinctive features.47 And
when he has found in several languages the same phonemes or the
use of the same pairs of oppositions, he does not compare individually
distinct entities. It is the same phoneme, the same element,
which will show at this new level the basic identity of
empirically different entities. W e are not dealing with two similar
phenomena, but with one and the same. The transition from con­
scious to unconscious is associated with progression from the
specific toward the general.
In anthropology as in linguistics, therefore, it is not comparison
that supports generalization, but the other way around. If, as
w e believe to be the case, the unconscious activity of the mind
consists in imposing forms upon content, and if these forms are
fundamentally the same for all minds— ancient and modern, primitive
and civilized48 (as the study of the symbolic function, expressed
in language, so strikingly indicates)— it is necessary and
sufficient to grasp the unconscious structure underlying each institution
and each custom, in order to obtain a principle of interpretation
valid for other institutions and other customs, provided
o f course that the analysis is carried far enough.
How are we to apprehend this unconscious structure? Here
anthropological method and historical method converge. It is unnecessary
to refer here to the problem of diachronic structures,
for which historical knowledge is naturally indispensable. Certain
developments of social life no doubt require a diachronic structure.
B ut the example of phonemics teaches anthropologists that this
study is more complex and presents other problems than the study
of synchronic structures,49 which they are only beginning to consider.
Even the analysis of synchronic structures, however, requires
constant recourse to history. By showing institutions in the
process of transformation, history alone makes it possible to abstract
the structure which underlies the many manifestations and
remains permanent throughout a succession of events. Let us return
to the problem of dual organization. If we do not wish to
conceive it either as a universal stage in social development or as
a system devised in a single place and at one particular time, and
if, on the other hand, we are too well aware of what all dual institutions
have in common to consider them as totally unrelated
products of unique and dissimilar historical development, we must
analyze each dual society in order to discover, behind the chaos of
rules and customs, a single structural scheme existing and operating
in different spatial and temporal contexts. This scheme will correspond
neither to a particular model of the institution nor to the
arbitrary grouping of characteristics common to several variants
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 21
of the institution. It may be reduced to certain relationships o f
correlation and opposition, which undoubtedly operate unconsciously
among peoples who possess dual organization, but which,
because they are unconscious, should also be found among peoples
who have never known this institution.
Thus the Mekeo, Motu, and Koita of N ew Guinea, whose
social evolution Seligman was able to reconstruct over a considerable
period of time, have a highly complex organization constantly
troubled by various factors. Warfare, migrations, religious
schisms, demographic pressures, and quarrels over prestige bring
about the destruction of whole clans and villages or the emergence
of new groups. And yet these units, whose identity, number, and
distribution are constantly varying, remain linked by relationships
whose content is equally variable but whose formal character is
maintained through the vicissitudes in their history. Whether economic,
jural, matrimonial, religious, or ceremonial, the ufapie relationship
links, two by two, at the level of the clan, subclan, or
village, social units bound by reciprocal gift exchange. In some
villages of Assam chronicled by Von Fiirer-Haimendorf, marriage
exchanges are frequently threatened by quarrels between boys and
girls of the same village or by antagonism between neighboring
villages. These dissensions are expressed by the withdrawal, or
sometimes the extermination, of one or another group; but the
cycle is restored in each case, either through a reorganization of
the exchange structure or through the admission of new partners.
Finally, the Mono and Yokut of California, some of whose villages
possess dual organization while others do not, enable us to
study how an identical social structure can be expressed with or
without a defined and concrete institutional form. In every case,
something is preserved which may be gradually isolated through
observation— by means of a kind of straining process which allows
the “lexicographical” content of institutions and customs to filter
through— in order to retain only the structural elements. In the
case of dual organization, these elements appear to be three in
number: the need for a rule; the concept of reciprocity, providing
immediate resolution of the opposition between the self and the
other; and the synthetic nature of the gift. These factors are found
in all the societies considered; at the same time, they explain the
22 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
less differentiated usages and customs which fulfill the same functions
among peoples who do not have dual organization.60
Thus, anthropology cannot remain indifferent to historical
processes and to the most highly conscious expressions of social
phenomena. But if the anthropologist brings to them the same
scrupulous attention as the historian, it is in order to eliminate, by a
kind of backward course, all that they owe to the historical process
and to conscious thought. His goal is to grasp, beyond the conscious
and always shifting images which men hold, the complete
range of unconscious possibilities. These are not unlimited, and the
relationships of compatibility or incompatibility which each maintains
with all the others provide a logical framework for historical
developments, which, while perhaps unpredictable, are never arbitrary.
In this sense, the famous statement by Marx, “Men make
their own history, but they do not know that they are making it,”
justifies, first, history and, second, anthropology. At the same time,
it shows that the two approaches are inseparable.
Although the anthropologist applies his analysis primarily to
the unconscious elements of social life, it would be absurd to suppose
that the historian remains unaware of them. The historian no
doubt intends, first of all, to explain social phenomena in terms of
the events in which they are embodied and the way in which individuals
have thought about and lived them. But in his progress in
grasping and explaining that which appears to men as the consequence
of their representations and actions (or of the representations
and actions of some of them), the historian knows quite well,
and to an increasing degree, that he must call to his aid the whole
apparatus of unconscious elaborations. W e are no longer satisfied
w ith political history which chronologically strings dynasties and
w ars on the thread of secondary rationalizations and reinterpretations.
Economic history is, by and large, the history of unconscious
processes. Thus any good history book (and we shall cite a
great one) is saturated with anthropology. In his Le Problème
d e Pincroyance au X VI e siècle, Lucien Febvre constantly refers
to psychological attitudes and logical structures which can be
grasped only indirectly because they have always eluded the consciousness
of those who spoke and wrote— for example, the lack
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 23
of terminology and standards of measurement, vague representation
of time, traits common to several different techniques, and so
forth.51 All these pertain to anthropology as well as to history, for
they transcend documents and informants’ accounts, none of which
deals with this level, and rightly so.
It would be inaccurate, therefore, to say that on the road toward
the understanding of man, which goes from the study of conscious
content to that of unconscious forms, the historian and the
anthropologist travel in opposite directions. On the contrary, they
both go the same way. The fact that their journey together appears
to each of them in a different light— to the historian, transition
from the explicit to the implicit; to the anthropologist, transition
from the particular to the universal— does not in the least alter the
identical character of their fundamental approach. They have undertaken
the same journey on the same road in the same direction;
only their orientation is different. The anthropologist goes forward,
seeking to attain, through the conscious, of which he is always
aware, more and more of the unconscious; whereas the historian
advances, so to speak, backward, keeping his eyes fixed on
concrete and specific activities from which he withdraws only to
consider them from a more complete and richer perspective. A
true two-faced Janus, it is the solidarity of the two disciplines that
makes it possible to keep the whole road in sight.
One final remark will clarify our thinking. Traditionally we
distinguish history from anthropology by the presence or absence
of written documents in the societies studied. This distinction is not
incorrect; but we do not think it essential, since it stems from,
rather than explains, those fundamental characteristics which we
have attempted to define. Beyond question, the absence of written
documents in most so-called primitive societies forced the anthropologist
to develop methods and techniques appropriate to the
study of activities which remain, for that reason, imperfectly conscious
on all the levels where they are expressed. But, apart from
the fact that this limitation is often overcome by oral tradition (so
rich among certain African and Oceanian peoples), we should not
regard it as a rigid barrier. Anthropology is equally concerned with
populations which possess writing, such as those of ancient Mexico,
the Arab world, and the Far East. And it is also possible to
reconstruct the history of peoples who have never known writing,
24 | Introduction: History and Anthropology
as, for example, the Zulu. Here again, the question is one of a
difference in orientation, not in subject matter, and of two ways of
organizing data which are more alike than they first appear. The
anthropologist is above all interested in unwritten data, not so
much because the peoples he studies are incapable of writing, but
because that with which he is principally concerned differs from
everything men ordinarily think of recording on stone or on paper.
Until now, a division of labor, justified by ancient tradition
and the needs of the moment, has contributed to the confusion of
the theoretical and practical aspects of the distinction, and thus to
an undue separation of anthropology from history. If anthropology
and history once begin to collaborate in the study of contemporary
societies, it will become apparent that here, as elsewhere, the one
science can achieve nothing without the help of the other.
N OTES
I. H. Hauser, V Enseignement des sciences sociales (Paris: 1903); F. Simiand,
“Méthode historique et science sociale,” Revue de Synthèse (1903).
[2. Translator's note: In the Durkheimian sense of beliefs, sentiments, and
norms common to the members of a society.]
3. This became true at the end of the nineteenth century. But it should
not to be forgotten that, historically, sociological evolutionism preceded
biological evolutionism.
4. Leslie A. White, “Energy and the Evolution of Culture,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., X LV (1943); “History, Evolutionism, and Functionalism:
Three Types of Interpretation of Culture,” Southwestern
Journal of Anthropology, I (1945); “Evolutionary Stages, Progress, and
the Evaluation of Cultures,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, III
(«947)-
5. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: 1871), I, 7.
6. E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the
Development of Civilization (London: 1865), p. 3.
7. Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, “De quelques formes primitives de
classification,” V Année sociologique, VI (1901-2).
8. R. H. Lowie, Societies of the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians, Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, XI (1913);
L. Spier, The Sun-Dance of the Plains Indians, Anthropological Papers
of the American Museum of Natural History, XVI (1921), A. L. Kroeber,
“Salt, Dogs, Tobacco,” Anthropological Records, VI ( 1941 ).
9. F. Boas, “History and Science in Anthropology: a Reply,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVIII (1936), p. 139.
10. Ibid., p. 140.
II. F. Boas, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology”
(1896) in Race, Language, and Culture (New York: 1940),
p. 276.
Introduction: History and Anthropology | 25
Introduction: History and Anthropology
12. Ibid., p. 277.
13. F. Boas, “Evolution or Diffusion?” American Anthropologist, n.sMXXVI
(1924), p. 342.
14. Loc. cit.
15. F. Boas, “History and Science in Anthropology . . . op. cit., p. 139.
16. F. Boas, “The Methods of Ethnology,” American Anthropologist, n.s.,
XXII (1920), pp. 314-15.
17. Ibid., p. 314.
18. Ruth Benedict, “Franz Boas as an Ethnologist,” in Franz Boas: 1858-1942,
Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, n.s., No. 61
(1943), p. 27.
19. W e are not criticizing here Boas’ archaeological work, which belongs
to archaeology and not ethnology, or his research on the diffusion of
mythological themes, which constitutes historical research based on
ethnographic data. Similarly, Paul Rivet, when he formulates his hypotheses
on the primitive peopling of America, uses archaeological, linguistic,
and ethnographic data for an investigation which is properly
historical. These undertakings must, therefore, be examined from a historical
viewpoint. The same may be said about some of Rivers’ studies.
20. A. L. Kroeber, “History and Science in Anthropology,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVII (1935), pp. 539-69.
21. F. Boas, “History and Science in Anthropology . . . , op. cit.
22. R. H. Lowie, “American Culture History,” American Anthropologist,
n.s., XLII (1940).
23. B. Malinowski, “The Present State of Studies in Culture Contact,”
Africa, pCll (1939), p. 43.
24. B. Malinowski, “Culture as a Determinant of Behavior,” in Factors
Determining Human Behavior, Harvard Tercentenary Publications
(Cambridge: 1937), p. 155. On the following page he also speaks of
“these queer and sordid customs,” which have, however, “a core of
rational and practical principle.” This constitutes a return to the eighteenth
century, but to its worst aspect.
25. F. Boas, “Some Problems of Methodology in the Social Sciences,” in
Leonard D. White (ed.), The New Social Science (Chicago: 1930),
pp. 84-98.
26. B. Malinowski, “Culture,” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New
York: 1935), IV, 625.
27. Ibid., p. 627.
28. Loc. cit. For Malinowski, furthermore, it seems that no distinction is
necessary when a transition is made from the general to the particular:
“Thus culture, as we find it among the Masai, is an apparatus for the
satisfaction of the elementary needs of the human organism.” And,
referring to the Eskimo, “. . . towards sex they have the same attitude
as the Masai. They have also a somewhat similar type of political system.
. . .” (“Culture as a Determinant of Behavior,” op. cit., pp. 136
and 140.)
29. B. Malinowski, “Introduction” to H. I. Hogbin, Law and Order in
Polynesia (London: 1934), pp. 48-9.
30. B. Malinowski, “Culture,” op. cit., p. 630.
31. B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia
(London-New York; 1929), I, 29.
Introduction: History and Anthropology
32. B. Malinowski, “Culture/’ op. cit., p. 634 ff.
33. B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life . . . , op. cit., p. 40.
34. Ibid., pp. 43-5.
35. F. Boas, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl
Indians (Washington: 1895); M. Griaule, Masques Dogons (Paris: 1938),
and “Mythe de l’organisation du monde chez les Dogons,” Psyché, II
( 1947);
36. B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life . . . , op. cit., p. 81.
37. B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society (London-New
York: 1927), p. 204.
38. Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies
(New York: 1935)^.279.
39. R. F. Fortune, “Arapesh Warfare,” American Anthropologist, n.s., XLI
0 9 3 9 ). PP- “ -4»-
40. Margaret Mead (ed.), Competition and Cooperation among Primitive
Peoples (London-New York: 1937), p. 461.
41. F. Boas, “History and Science . . . ,” op. cit.
42. H. Hauser, op. cit., p. 414.
43. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 1.
44. F. Boas (ed.), Handbook of American Indian Languages, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 40, 1911 (1908), Part I, p. 67.
45. Ibid., pp. 70-1.
46. At a time when students of Indo-European linguistics still firmly believed
in the theory of the “proto-language,” Boats demonstrated that
certain traits common to several American Indian languages may be the
result of the secondary formation of areas of affinity just as well as of a
common origin. The application of the same hypothesis to Indo-European
data had to await Troubetzkoy.
47. R. Jakobson, “Observations sur le classement phonologique des consonnes,”
in Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic
Sciences (Ghent: 1938).
48. See “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” Chapter X of this volume.
49. R. Jakobson, “Principien der historischen Phonologie,” in Travaux du
Cercle Linguistique de Prague, IV.
50. C. Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: 1949),
Chapters VI and VII.
51. Lucien Febvre, Le Problème de Vincroyance au XVIe siècle, Second Edition
(Paris: 1946). (First edition: 1942.)
P A R T ONE
Language and
Kinship
CHAPTER
Structural Analysis in
Linguistics and in
Anthropology
L / i n g u i s t i c s o c c u p ie s a special place among the
social sciences, to whose ranks it unquestionably belongs. It is not
merely a social science like the others, but, rather, the one in which
by far the greatest progress has been made. It is probably the only
one which can truly claim to be a science and which has achieved
both the formulation of an empirical method and an understanding
of the nature of the data submitted to its analysis. This privileged
position carries with it several obligations. The linguist will
often find scientists from related but different disciplines drawin
g inspiration from his example and trying to follow his lead.
Noblesse oblige. A linguistic journal like Word cannot confine itself
to the illustration of strictly linguistic theories and points of
view . It must also welcome psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists
eager to learn from modern linguistics the road which
leads to the empirical knowledge of social phenomena. As Marcel
Mauss wrote already forty years ago: “Sociology would certainly
have progressed much further if it had everywhere followed the
3 1
lead of the linguists. . . . ” 1 The close methodological analogy
which exists between the two disciplines imposes a special obligation
of collaboration upon them.
Ever since the work of Schrader2 it has been unnecessary to
demonstrate the assistance which linguistics can render to the anthropologist
in the study of kinship. It was a linguist and a philologist
(Schrader and Rose)3who showed the improbability of the hypothesis
of matrilineal survivals in the family in antiquity, to which
so many anthropologists still clung at that time. The linguist provides
the anthropologist with etymologies which permit him to establish
between certain kinship terms relationships that were not immediately
apparent. The anthropologist, on the other hand, can bring to
the attention of the linguist customs, prescriptions, and prohibitions
that help him to understand the persistence of certain features of language
or the instability of terms or groups of terms. At a meeting
of the Linguistic Circle of New York, Julien Bonfante once illustrated
this point of view by reviewing the etymology of the word
for uncle in several Romance languages. The Greek Oeîos corresponds
in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese to zio and tio; and he
added that in certain regions of Italy the uncle is called barba. The
“beard,” the “divine” uncle— what a wealth of suggestions for the
anthropologist! The investigations of the late A. M. Hocart into the
religious character of the avuncular relationship and the “theft of
the sacrifice” by the maternal kinsmen immediately come to mind.4
Whatever interpretation is given to the data collected by Hocart
(and his own interpretation is not entirely satisfactory), there is
no doubt that the linguist contributes to the solution of the problem
by revealing the tenacious survival in contemporary vocabulary
of relationships which have long since disappeared. At the
same time, the anthropologist explains to the linguist the bases of
etymology and confirms its validity. Paul K. Benedict, in examining,
as a linguist, the kinship systems of Southeast Asia, was able to
make an important contribution to the anthropology of the family
in that area.5
But linguists and anthropologists follow their own paths independently.
They halt, no doubt, from time to time to communicate
to one another certain of their findings; these findings, however,
derive from different operations, and no effort is made to
enable one group to benefit from the technical and methodological
32 I L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
advances of the other. This attitude might have been justified in
the era when linguistic research leaned most heavily on historical
analysis. In relation to the anthropological research conducted during
the same period, the difference was one of degree rather than
of kind. The linguists employed a more rigorous method, and
their findings were established on more solid grounds; the sociologists
could follow their example in “renouncing consideration of
the spatial distribution of contemporary types as a basis for their
classifications.” 6 But, after all, anthropology and sociology were
looking to linguistics only for insights; nothing foretold a revela­
tion.7
The advent of structural linguistics completely changed this
situation. N ot only did it renew linguistic perspectives; a transformation
of this magnitude is not limited to a single discipline.
Structural linguistics will certainly play the same renovating role
with respect to the social sciences that nuclear physics, for example,
has played for the physical sciences. In what does this revolution
consist, as we try to assess its broadest implications? N. Troubetzkoy,
the illustrious founder of structural lingijistics, himself furnished
the answer to this question. In one programmatic statement,8
he reduced the structural method to four basic operations. First,
structural linguistics shifts from the study of conscious linguistic
phenomena to study of their unconscious infrastructure; second,
it does not treat terms as independent entities, taking instead as its
basis of analysis the relations between terms; third, it introduces the
concept of system— “Modern phonemics does not merely proclaim
that phonemes are always part of a system; it shows concrete
phonemic systems and elucidates their structure” 9— ; finally,
structural linguistics aims at discovering general laws, either by
induction “or . . . by logical deduction, which would give them
an absolute character.” 10
Thus, for the first time, a social science is able to formulate
necessary relationships. This is the meaning of Troubetzkoy’s last
point, while the preceding rules show how linguistics must proceed
in order to attain this end. It is not for us to show that Troubetzkoy’s
claims are justified. The vast majority of modern linguists
seem sufficiently agreed on this point. But when an event of this
importance takes place in one of the sciences of man, it is not only
permissible for, but required of, representatives of related disciStructural
Analysis | 33
plines immediately to examine its consequences and its possible
application to phenomena of another order.
New perspectives then open up. W e are no longer dealing
with an occasional collaboration where the linguist and the anthropologist,
each working by himself, occasionally communicate those
findings which each thinks may interest the other. In the study of
kinship problems (and, no doubt, the study of other problems as
well), the anthropologist finds himself in a situation which formally
resembles that of the structural linguist. Like phonemes,
kinship terms are elements of meaning; like phonemes, they acquire
meaning only if they are integrated into systems. “Kinship systems,”
like “phonemic systems,” are built by the mind on the level
of unconscious thought. Finally, the recurrence of kinship patterns,
marriage rules, similar prescribed attitudes between certain
types of relatives, and so forth, in scattered regions of the globe
and in fundamentally different societies, leads us to believe that, in
the case of kinship as well as linguistics, the observable phenomena
result from the action of laws which are general but implicit. The
problem can therefore be formulated as follows: Although they belong
to another order of reality, kinship phenomena are of the
same type as linguistic phenomena. Can the anthropologist, using a
method analogous m form (if not in content) to the method used
in structural linguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his
own science as that which has taken place in linguistics?
W e shall be even more strongly inclined to follow this path
after an additional observation has been made. The study of kinship
problems is today broached in the same terms and seems to be
in the throes of the same difficulties as was linguistics on the eve of
the structuralist revolution. There is a striking analogy between
certain attempts by Rivers and the old linguistics, which sought its
explanatory principles first of all in history. In both cases, it is solely
(or almost solely) diachronic analysis which must account for
synchronic phenomena. Troubetzkoy, comparing structural linguistics
and the old linguistics, defines structural linguistics as a
“systematic structuralism and universalism,” which he contrasts
with the individualism and “atomism” of former schools. A nd
when he considers diachronic analysis, his perspective is a profoundly
modified one: “The evoludon of a phonemic system at any
given moment is directed by the tendency toward a goal. . . .
34 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
This evolution thus has a direction, an internal logic, which historical
phonemics is called upon to elucidate.” 11 The “individualistic”
and “atomistic” interpretation, founded exclusively on
historical contingency, which is criticized by Troubetzkoy and
Jakobson, is actually the same as that which is generally applied
to kinship problems.12 Each detail of terminology and each special
marriage rule is associated with a specific custom as either its consequence
or its survival. W e thus meet with a chaos of discontinuity.
N o one asks how kinship systems, regarded as synchronic
wholes, could be the arbitrary product of a convergence of several
heterogeneous institutions (most of which are hypothetical), yet
nevertheless function with some sort of regularity and effective­
ness.13
However, a preliminary difficulty impedes the transposition of
the phonemic method to the anthropological study of primitive
peoples. The superficial analogy between phonemic systems and
kinship systems is so strong that it immediately sets us on the
wrong track. It is incorrect to equate kinship terms and linguistic
phonemes from the viewpoint of their formal treatment. W e
know that to obtain a structural law the linguist analyzes phonemes
into “distinctive features,” which he can then group into
one or several “pairs of oppositions.” 14 Following an analogous
method, the anthropologist might be tempted to break down analytically
the kinship terms of any given system into their components.
In our own kinship system, for instance, the term father
has positive connotations with respect to sex, relative age, and generation;
but it has a zero value on the dimension of collaterally,
and it cannot express an affinal relationship. Thus, for each system,
one might ask what relationships are expressed and, for each
term of the system, what connotation— positive or negative— it
carries regarding each of the following relationships: generation,
collaterally, sex, relative age, affinity, etc. It is at this “microsociological”
level that one might hope to discover the most general
structural laws, just as the linguist discovers his at the infraphonemic
level or the physicist at the infra-molecular or atomic
level. One might interpret the interesting attempt of Davis and
W arner in these terms.15
But a threefold objection immediately arises. A truly scientific
analysis must be real, simplifying, and explanatory. Thus the disStructural
Analysis | 35
tinctive features which are the product of phonemic analysis have
an objective existence from three points of view: psychological,
physiological, and even physical; they are fewer in number than
the phonemes which result from their combination; and, finally,
they allow us to understand and reconstruct the system. Nothing
of the kind would emerge from the preceding hypothesis. The
treatment of kinship terms which we have just sketched is analytical
in appearance only; for, actually, the result is more abstract
than the principle; instead of moving toward the concrete,
one moves away from it, and the definitive system— if system
there is— is only conceptual. Secondly, Davis and Warner’s experiment
proves that the system achieved through this procedure is
infinitely more complex and more difficult to interpret than the
empirical data.10 Finally, the hypothesis has no explanatory value;
that is, it does not lead to an understanding of the nature of the
system and still less to a reconstruction of its origins.
What is the reason for this failure? A too literal adherence to
linguistic method actually betrays its very essence. Kinship terms
not only have a sociological existence; they are also elements of
speech. In our haste to apply the methods of linguistic analysis, we
must not forget that, as a part of vocabulary, kinship terms must
be treated with linguistic methods in direct and not analogous
fashion. Linguistics teaches us precisely that structural analysis cannot
be applied to words directly, but only to words previously
broken down into phonemes. There are no necessary relationships
at the vocabulary level.17 This applies to all vocabulary elements,
including kinship terms. Since this applies to linguistics, it ought to
apply ipso facto to the sociology of language. An attempt like the
one whose possibility we are now discussing would thus consist in
extending the method of structural linguistics while ignoring its
basic requirements. Kroeber prophetically foresaw this difficulty
in an article written many years ago.18 And if, at that time, he concluded
that a structural analysis of kinship terminology was impossible,
we must remember that linguistics itself was then restricted
to phonetic, psychological, and historical analysis. While it is true
that the social sciences must share the limitations of linguistics, they
can also benefit from its progress.
Nor should we overlook the profound differences between
the phonemic chart of a language and the chart of kinship terms
36 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
of a society. In the first instance there can be no question as to
function; we all know that language serves as a means of communication.
On the other hand, what the linguist did not know
and what structural linguistics alone has allowed him to discover
is the way in which language achieves this end. The function was
obvious; the system remained unknown. In this respect, the anthropologist
finds himself in the opposite situation. W e know, since
the work of Lewis H. Morgan, that kinship terms constitute systems;
on the other harid, we still do not know their function. The
misinterpretation of this initial situation reduces most structural
analyses of kinship systems to pure tautologies. They demonstrate
the obvious and neglect the unknown.
This does not mean that we must abandon hope of introducing
order and discovering meaning in kinship nomenclature. But
W£ should at least recognize the special problems raised by the
sociology of vocabulary and the ambiguous character of the relations
between its methods and those of linguistics. For this reason
it would be preferable to limit the discussion to a case where the
analogy can be clearly established. Fortunately, we have just such a
case available.
W hat is generally called a “kinship system” comprises two
quite different orders of reality. First, there are terms through
which various kinds of family relationships are expressed. But kinship
is not expressed solely through nomenclature. The individuals
or classes of individuals who employ these terms feel (or do not
feel, as the case may be) bound by prescribed behavior in their
relations with one another, such as respect or familiarity, rights or
obligations, and affection or hostility. Thus, along with what we
propose to call the system of terminology (which, strictly speaking,
constitutes the vocabulary system), there is another system,
both psychological and social in nature, which we shall call the
system of attitudes. Although it is true (as we have shown above)
that the study of systems of terminology places us in a situation
analogous, but opposite, to the situation in which we are dealing
w ith phonemic systems, this difficulty is “inversed,” as it were,
w hen we examine systems of attitudes. W e can guess at the role
played by systems of attitudes, that is, to insure group cohesion
and equilibrium, but we do not understand the nature of the interconnections
between the various attitudes, nor do we perceive
Structural Analysis | 37
their necessity.19 In other words, as in the case of language, we
know their function, but the system is unknown.
Thus we find a profound difference between the system of
terminology and the system of attitudes, and we have to disagree
with A. R. Radcliffe-Brown if he really believed, as has been said of
him, that attitudes are nothing but the expression or transposition
of terms on the affective level.20 The last few years have provided
numerous examples of groups whose chart of kinship terms does
not accurately reflect family attitudes, and vice versa.21 It would be
incorrect to assume that the kinship system constitutes the principal
means of regulating interpersonal relationships in all societies. Even
in societies where the kinship system does function as such, it does
not fulfill that role everywhere to the same extent. Furthermore, it
is always necessary to distinguish between two types of attitudes:
first, the diffuse, uncrystallized, and non-institutionalized attitudes,
which we may consider as the reflection or transposition of the
terminology on the psychological level; and second, along with, or
in addition to, the preceding ones, those attitudes which are stylized,
prescribed, and sanctioned by taboos or privileges and
expressed through a fixed ritual. These attitudes, far from automatically
reflecting the nomenclature, often appear as secondary
elaborations, which serve to resolve the contradictions and overcome
the deficiencies inherent in the terminological system. This
synthetic character is strikingly apparent among the W ik Munkan
of Australia. In this group, joking privileges sanction a contradiction
between the kinship relations which link two unmarried men and
the theoretical relationship which must be assumed to exist between
them in order to account for their later marriages to two
women who do not stand themselves in the corresponding relationship.22
There is a contradiction between two possible systems
of nomenclature, and the emphasis placed on attitudes represents an
attempt to integrate or transcend this contradiction. W e can easily
agree with Radcliffe-Brown and assert the existence of “real relations
of interdependence between the terminology and the rest of
the system.” 23 Some of his critics made the mistake of inferring,
from the absence of a rigorous parallelism between attitudes and
nomenclature, that the two systems were mutually independent.
But this relationship of interdependence does not imply a one-to-
38 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
one correlation. The system of attitudes constitutes, rather, a dynamic
integration of the system of terminology.
Granted the hypothesis (to which we whole-heartedly subscribe)
of a functional relationship between the two systems, we
are nevertheless entitled, for methodological reasons, to treat independently
the problems pertaining to each system. This is what we
propose to do here for a problem which is rightly considered the
point of departure for any theory of attitudes— that of the maternal
uncle. W e shall attempt to show how a formal transposition
of the method of structural linguistics allows us to shed new
light upon this problem. Because the relationship between nephew
and maternal uncle appears to have been the focus of significant
elaboration in a great many primitive societies, anthropologists
have devoted special attention to it. It is not enough to note the
frequency of this theme; we must also account for it.
Let us briefly review the principal stages in the development
of this problem. During the entire nineteenth century and until the
writings of Sydney Hartland,24 the importance of the mother’s
brother was interpreted as a survival of matrilineal descent. This
interpretation was based purely on speculation, and, indeed, it was
highly improbable in the light of European examples. Furthermore,
Rivers’ attempt26 to explain the importance of the mother’s
brother in southern*India as a residue of cross-cousin marriage led
to particularly deplorable results. Rivers himself was forced to recognize
that this interpretation could not account for all aspects of
the problem. He resigned himself to the hypothesis that several heterogeneous
customs which have since disappeared (cross-cousin
marriage being only one of them) were needed to explain the existence
of a single institution.26 Thus, atomism and mechanism triumphed.
It was Lowie’s crucial article on the matrilineal complex27
w hich opened what we should like to call the “modern phase” of
the problem of the avunculate. Lowie showed that the correlation
drawn or postulated between the prominent position of the maternal
uncle and matrilineal descent cannot withstand rigorous analysis.
In fact, the avunculate is found associated with patrilineal, as
w ell as matrilineal, descent. The role of the maternal uncle cannot
be explained as either a consequence or a survival of matrilineal
kinship; it is only a specific application “of a very general tendency
Structural Analysis | 39
to associate definite social relations with definite forms of kinship
regardless of maternal or paternal side.” In accordance with this
"principle, introduced for the first time by Lowie in 1919, there
exists a general tendency to qualify attitudes, which constitutes the
only empirical foundation for a theory of kinship systems. But, at
the same time, Lowie left certain questions unanswered. What exactly
do we call an avunculate? Do we not merge different customs
and attitudes under this single term? And, if it is true that
there is a tendency to qualify all attitudes, why are only certain attitudes
associated with the avuncular relationship, rather than just
any possible attitudes, depending upon the group considered?
A few further remarks here may underline the striking analogy
between the development of this problem and certain stages in
the evolution of linguistic theory. The variety of possible attitudes
in the area of interpersonal relationships is almost unlimited; the
same holds true for the variety of sounds which can be articulated
by the vocal apparatus— and which are actually produced during
the first months of human life. Each language, however, retains
only a very small number among all the possible sounds, and in this
respect linguistics raises two questions: W hy are certain sounds
selected? What relationships exist between one or several of the
sounds chosen and all the others? 28 Our sketch of the historical
development of the avuncular problem is at precisely the same
stage. Like language, the social group has a great wealth of psychophysiological
material at its disposal. Like language too, it retains
only certain elements, at least some of which remain the same
throughout the most varied cultures and are combined into structures
which are always diversified. Thus we may wonder about the
reason for this choice and the laws of combination.
For insight into the specific problem of the avunculate w e
should turn to Radcliffe-Brown. His well-known article on the
maternal uncle in South Africa29 was the first attempt to grasp and
analyze the modalities of what we might call the “general principle
of attitude qualification.” W e shall briefly review the fundamental
ideas of that now-classic study.
According to Radcliffe-Brown, the term avunculate covers
two antithetical systems of attitudes. In one case, the maternal
uncle represents family authority; he is feared and obeyed, and
40 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
possesses certain rights over his nephew. In the other case, the
nephew holds privileges of familiarity in relatfon to his uncle and
can treat him more or less as his victim. Second, there is a correlation
between the boy’s attitude toward his maternal uncle and his
attitude toward his father. W e find the two systems of attitudes in
both cases, but they are inversely correlated. In groups where
familiarity characterizes the relationship between father and son,
the relationship between maternal uncle and nephew is one of respect;
and where the father stands as the austere representative of
family authority, it is the uncle who is treated with familiarity.
Thus the two sets of attitudes constitute (as the structural linguist
would say) two pairs of oppositions. Radcliffe-Brown concluded
his article by proposing the following interpretation: In the final
analysis, it is descent that determines the choice of oppositions. In
patrilineal societies, where the father and the father’s descent
group represent traditional authority, the maternal uncle is considered
a “male mother.” He is generally treated in the same fashion,
and sometimes even called by the same name, as the mother. In
matrilineal societies, the opposite occurs. Here, authority is vested
in the maternal uncle, while relationships of tenderness and familiarity
revolve about the father and his descent group.
It would indeed be difficult to exaggerate the importance of
Radcliffe-Brown’s contribution, which was the first attempt at
synthesis on an empirical basis following Lowie’s authoritative and
merciless criticism of evolutionist metaphysics. T o say that this
effort did not entirely succeed does not in any way diminish
the homage due this great British anthropologist; but we should
certainly recognize that Radcliffe-Brown’s article leaves unanswered
some fundamental questions. First, the avunculate does not
occur in all matrilineal or all patrilineal systems, and we find it
present in some systems which are neither matrilineal nor patrilineal.30
Further, the avuncular relationship is not limited to two
terms, but presupposes four, namely, brother, sister, brother-inlaw,
and nephew. An interpretation such as Radcliffe-Brown’s
arbitrarily isolates particular elements of a global structure which
must be treated as a whole. A few simple examples will illustrate
this twofold difficulty.
The social organization of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia
is characterized by matrilineal descent, free and familiar relaStructural
Analysis | 41
tions between father and son, and a marked antagonism between
maternal uncle and nephew.31 On the other hand, the patrilineal
Cherkess of the Caucasus place the hostility between father and
son, while the maternal uncle assists his nephew and gives him a
horse when he marries.32 Up to this point we are still within the
limits of Radcliffe-Brown’s scheme. But let us consider the other
family relationships involved. Malinowski showed that in the Trobriands
husband and wife live in an atmosphere of tender intimacy
and that their relationship is characterized by reciprocity. The relations
between brother and sister, on the other hand, are dominated
by an extremely rigid taboo. Let us now compare the situation
in the Caucasus. There, it is the brother-sister relationship
which is tender— to such an extent that among the Pschav an only
daughter “adopts” a “brother” who will play the customary
brother’s role as her chaste bed companion.33 But the relationship
between spouses is entirely different. A Cherkess will not appear in
public with his wife and visits her only in secret. According to
Malinowski, there is no greater insult in the Trobriands than to tell
a man that he resembles his sister. In the Caucasus there is an analogous
prohibition: It is forbidden to ask a man about his wife’s
health.
When we consider societies of the Cherkess and Trobriand
types it is not enough to study the correlation of attitudes between
father / son and uncle / sister's son. This correlation is only one
aspect of a global system containing four types of relationships
which are organically linked, namely: brother / sister, husband /
wife, father / son, and mother's brother / sister's son. The two
groups in our example illustrate a law which can be formulated as
follows: In both groups, the relation between maternal uncle and
nephew is to the relation between brother and sister as the relation
between father and son is to that between husband and wife. Thus
if we know one pair of relations, it is always possible to infer the
other.
Let us now examine some other cases. On Tonga, in Polynesia,
descent is patrilineal, as among the Cherkess. Relations between
husband and wife appear to be public and harmonious. Domestic
quarrels are rare, and although the wife is often of superior rank,
the husband “. . . is nevertheless of higher authority in all domestic
matters, and no woman entertains the least idea of rebelling
42 I LANGUAGE AND KINSHIP
against that authority.” 84 A t the same time there is great freedom
between nephew and maternal uncle. The nephew is fahu, or above
the law, in relation to his uncle, toward whom extreme familiarity
is permitted. This freedom strongly contrasts with the father-son
relationship. The father is tapu; the son cannot touch his father’s
head or hair; he cannot touch him while he eats, sleep in his bed or
on his pillow, share his food or drink, or play with his possessions.
However, the strongest tapu of all is the one between brother and
sister, who must never be together under the same roof.
Although they are also patrilineal and patrilocal, the natives of
Lake Kutubu in New Guinea offer an example of the opposite type
of structure. F. E. Williams writes: “ I have never seen such a
close and apparently affectionate association between father and
son. . . 35 Relations between husband and wife are characterized
by the very low status ascribed to women and “the marked separation
of masculine and feminine interests. . . .” 36 The women, according
to Williams, “are expected to work hard for their masters
. . . they occasionally protest, and protest may be met with a
beating.” 37 The wife can always call upon her brother for protection
against her husband, and it is with him that she seeks refuge.
As for the relationship between nephew and maternal uncle, it is
“. . . best summed up in the word ‘respect’ . . . tinged with apprehensiveness,”
38 for the maternal uncle has the power to curse
his nephew and inflict serious illness upon him (just as among the
Kipsigi of Africa).
Although patrilineal, the society described by Williams is
structurally of the same type as that of the Siuai of Bougainville,
who have matrilineal descent. Between brother and sister there is
. . friendly interaction and mutual generosity. . . .” 39 As regards
the father-son relationship, Oliver writes, . . I could discover
little evidence that the word ‘father’ evokes images of hostility
or stern authority or awed respect.” 40 But the relationship
between the nephew and his mother’s brother “appears to range
between stern discipline and genial mutual dependence. . . .”
However, . . most of the informants agreed that all boys stand
in some awe of their mother’s brothers, and are more likely to
obey them than their own fathers. . . .” 41 Between husband and
wife harmonious understanding is rare: “. . . there are few young
wives who remain altogether faithful . . . most young husbands
Structural Analysis | 43
are continually suspicious and often give vent to jealous anger
. . . marriages involve a number of adjustments, some of them apparently
difficult. . . 42
The same picture, but sharper still, characterizes the Dobuans,
who are matrilineal and neighbors of the equally matrilineal Trobrianders,
while their structure is very different. Dobuan marriages
are unstable, adultery is widespread, and husband and wife constantly
fear death induced by their spouse’s witchcraft. Actually,
Fortune’s remark, “ It is a most serious insult to refer to a woman’s
witchcraft so that her husband will hear of it” 43 appears to be a
variant of the Trobriand and Caucasian taboos cited above.
In Dobu, the mother’s brother is held to be the harshest of all
the relatives. “The mother’s brother may beat children long after
their parents have ceased to do so,” and they are forbidden to utter
his name. There is a tender relationship with the “navel,” the
mother’s sister’s husband, who is the father’s double, rather than
with the father himself. Nevertheless, the father is considered “less
harsh” than the mother’s brother and will always seek, contrary to
the laws of inheritance, to favor his son at the expense of his uterine
nephew. And, finally, “the strongest of all social bonds” is the one
between brother and sister.44
What can we conclude from these examples? The correlation
between types of descent and forms of avunculate does not exhaust
the problem. Different forms of avunculate can coexist with the
same type of descent, whether patrilineal or matrilineal. But we
constantly find the same fundamental relationship between the four
pairs of oppositions required to construct the system. This will
emerge more clearly from the diagrams which illustrate our examples.
The sign + indicates free and familiar relations, and the
sign — stands for relations characterized by hostility, antagonism,
or reserve (Figure i). This is an oversimplification, but w e
can tentatively make use of it. W e shall describe some of the indispensable
refinements farther on.
The synchronic law of correlation thus suggested may be
validated diachronically. If we summarize, after Howard, the evolution
of family relationships during the Middle Ages, we find approximately
this pattern: The brother’s authority over his sister
wanes, and that of the prospective husband increases. Simultané-
44 | LANGUAGE AND KINSHIP
Structural Analysis
— +
A = 0 A
+ \ -
A
Trobriand—matrilineal
A = 0 A
A +
A
Cherkess-patrilineal
4- A
= 0 A
- \ +
- +
•--------- »
A = n A
Tonga - patrilineal
+ \ A
— 4-
Li
Siuoi-matrilineal
A = 0 A
A
Lake Kubutu—patrilineal
F ig u r e i
ously, the bond between father and son is weakened and that between
maternal uncle and nephew is reinforced.45
This evolution seems to be confirmed by the documents
gathered by Léon Gautier, for in the “conservative” texts (Raoul
de Cambrai, Geste des Loherains, etc.),48 the positive relationship
is established chiefly between father and son and is only gradually
displaced toward the maternal uncle and nephew.47
Thus we see48 that in order to understand the avunculate w e
must treat it as one relationship within a system, while the system
itself must be considered as a whole in order to grasp its structure.
This structure rests upon four terms (brother, sister, father, and
son), which are linked by two pairs of correlative oppositions in
such a way that in each of the two generations there is always a
positive relationship and a negative one. Now, what is the nature of
this structure, and what is its function? The answer is as follows:
This structure is the most elementary form of kinship that can
exist. It is, properly speaking, the unit of kinship.
One may give a logical argument to support this statement. In
order for a kinship structure to exist, three types of family relations
must always be present: a relation of consanguinity, a relation
of affinity, and a relation of descent— in other words, a relation between
siblings, a relation between spouses, and a relation between
parent and child. It is evident that the structure given here satisfies
this threefold requirement, in accordance with the scientific principle
of parsimony. But these considerations are abstract, and w e
can present a more direct proof for our thesis.
The primitive and irreducible character of the basic unit of
kinship, as we have defined it, is actually a direct result of the universal
presence of an incest taboo. This is really saying that in human
society a man must obtain a woman from another man who
gives him a daughter or a sister. Thus we do not need to explain
how the maternal uncle emerged in the kinship structure: He does
not emerge— he is present initially. Indeed, the presence of the maternal
uncle is a necessary precondition for the structure to exist.
The error of traditional anthropology, like that of traditional linguistics,
was to consider the terms, and not the relations between
the terms.
Before proceeding further, let us briefly answer some objections
which might be raised. First, if the relationship between
“brothers-in-law” is the necessary axis around which the kinship
structure is built, why need we bring in the child of the marriage
when considering the elementary structure? O f course the child
46 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
here may be either bom or yet unborn. But, granting this, we
must understand that the child is indispensable in validating the
dynamic and teleological character of the initial step, which establishes
kinship on the basis of and through marriage. Kinship is not a
static phenomenon; it exists only in self-perpetuation. Here we
are not thinking of the desire to perpetuate the race, but rather of
the fact that in most kinship systems the initial disequilibrium produced
in one generation between the group that gives the woman
and the group that receives her can be stabilized only by counterprestations
in following generations. Thus, even the most elementary
kinship structure exists both synchronically and diachron-
ically.
Second, could we not conceive of a symmetrical structure,
equally simple, where the sexes would be reversed? Such a structure
would involve a sister, her brother, brother’s wife, and
brother’s daughter. This is certainly a theoretical possibility. But it
is immediately eliminated on empirical grounds. In human society,
it is the men who exchange the women, and not vice versa. It remains
for further research to determine whether certain cultures
have not tended to create a kind of fictitious image of this symmetrical
structure. Such cases would surely be uncommon.
W e come now to a more serious objection. Possibly we have
only inverted the problem. Traditional anthropologists painstakingly
endeavored to explain the origin of the avunculate, and we
have brushed aside that research by treating the mother’s brother
not as an extrinsic element, but as an immediate given of the simplest
family structure. How is it then that we do not find the avunculate
at all times and in all places? For although the avunculate
has a wide distribution, it is by no means universal. It would be
futile to explain the instances where it is present and then fail to explain
its absence in other instances.
Let us point out, first, that the kinship system does not have
the same importance in all cultures. For some cultures it provides
the active principle regulating all or most of the social relationships.
In other groups, as in our own society, this function is either
absent altogether or greatly reduced. In still others, as in the societies
of the Plains Indians, it is only partially fulfilled. The kinship
system is a language; but it is not a universal language, and a society
may prefer other modes of expression and action. From the viewStructural
Analysis | 47
point of the anthropologist this means that in dealing with a specific
culture we must always ask a preliminary question: Is the system
systematic? Such a question, which seems absurd at first, is absurd
only in relation to language; for language is the semantic system
par excellence; it cannot but signify, and exists only through signification.
On the contrary, this question must be rigorously examined
as we move from the study of language to the consideration
of other systems which also claim to have semantic functions,
but whose fulfillment remains partial, fragmentary, or subjective,
like, for example, social organization, art, and so forth.
Furthermore, we have interpreted the avunculate as a characteristic
trait of elementary structure. This elementary structure,
which is the product of defined relations involving four terms, is,
in our view, the true atom of kinship.™ Nothing can be conceived
or given beyond the fundamental requirements of its structure,
and, in addition, it is the sole building block of more complex systems.
For there are more complex systems; or, more accurately
speaking, all kinship systems are constructed on the basis of this
elementary structure, expanded or developed through the integration
of new elements. Thus we must entertain two hypotheses:
first, one in which the kinship system under consideration operates
through the simple juxtaposition of elementary structures, and
where the avuncular relationship therefore remains constantly apparent;
second, a hypothesis in which the building blocks of the
system are already of a more complex order. In the latter case, the
avuncular relationship, while present, may be submerged within a
differentiated context. For instance, we can conceive of a system
whose point of departure lies in the elementary structure but
which adds, at the right of the maternal uncle, his wife, and, at the
left of the father, first the father’s sister and then her husband. W e
could easily demonstrate that a development of this order leads to
a parallel splitting in the following generation. The child must then
be distinguished according to sex— a boy or a girl, linked by a relation
which is symmetrical and inverse to the terms occupying the
other peripheral positions in the structure (for example, the dominant
position of the father’s sister in Polynesia, the South African
nhlampsa, and inheritance by the mother’s brother’s wife). In this
type of structure the avuncular relationship continues to prevail,
but it is no longer the predominant one. In structures of still
48 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
greater complexity, the avunculate may be obliterated or may
merge with other relationships. But precisely because it is part of
the elementary structure, the avuncular relationship re-emerges
unmistakably and tends to become reinforced each time the system
under consideration reaches a crisis— either because it is undergoing
rapid transformation (as on the Northwest Coast), or because
it is a focus of contact and conflict between radically different
cultures (as in Fiji and southern India), or, finally, because it
is in the throes of a mortal crisis (as was Europe in the Middle
Ages).
W e must also add that the positive and negative symbols
which we have employed in the above diagrams represent an oversimplification,
useful only as a part of the demonstration. Actually,
the system of basic attitudes comprises at least four terms: an attitude
of affection, tenderness, and spontaneity; an attitude which
results from the reciprocal exchange of prestations and counterprestations;
and, in addition to these bilateral relationships, two unilateral
relationships, one which corresponds to the attitude of the
creditor, the other to that of the debtor. In other words there are:
mutuality (= ), reciprocity (±), rights (+ ), and obligations (— ).
These four fundamental attitudes are represented in their reciprocal
relationships in Figure 2.
Structural Analysis | 49
F ig u r e 2
In many systems the relationship between two individuals is
often expressed not by a single attitude, but by several attitudes
which together form, as it were, a “bundle” of attitudes (as in the
Trobriands, where we find both mutuality and reciprocity between
husband and wife). This is an additional reason behind the
difficulty in uncovering the basic structure.
L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
W e have tried to show the extent to which the preceding
analysis is indebted to outstanding contemporary exponents of the
sociology of primitive peoples. W e must stress, however, that
in its most fundamental principle this analysis departs from their
teachings. Let us cite as an example Radcliffe-Brown:
The unit of structure from which a kinship is built up is the
group which I call an “elementary family,” consisting of a man
and his wife and their child or children. . . . The existence of the
elementary family creates three special kinds of social relationship,
that between parent and child, that between children of the same
parents (siblings), and that between husband and w ife as parents
of the same child or children. . . . The three relationships that
exist within the elementary family constitute what I call the first
order. Relationships of the second order are those which depend
on the connection of two elementary families through a common
member, and are such as father’s father, mother’s brother, w ife’s
sister, and so on. In the third order are such as father’s brother’s
son and mother’s brother’s wife. Thus we can trace, if w e have
genealogical information, relationships of the fourth, fifth or 71th
order.60
The idea expressed in the above passage, that the biological
family constitutes the point of departure from which all societies
elaborate their kinship systems, has not been voiced solely by Radcliffe-Brown.
There is scarcely an idea which would today elicit
greater consensus. Nor is there one more dangerous, in our opinion.
O f course, the biological family is ubiquitous in human society.
But what confers upon kinship its socio-cultural character is not
what it retains from nature, but, rather, the essential way in which
it diverges from nature. A kinship system does not consist in the
objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals. It
exists only in human consciousness; it is an arbitrary system of representations,
not the spontaneous development of a real situation.
This certainly does not mean that the real situation is automatically
contradicted, or that it is to be simply ignored. Radcliffe-Brown
has shown, in studies that are now classic, that even systems which
are apparently extremely rigid and artificial, such as the Australian
systems of marriage-classes, take biological parenthood carefully
into account. But while this observation is irrefutable, still the fact
(in our view decisive) remains that, in human society, kinship is
allowed to establish and perpetuate itself only through specific
forms of marriage. In other words, the relationships which Radcliffe-Brown
calls “relationships of the first order” are a function
of, and depend upon, those which he considers secondary and
derived. The essence of human kinship is to require the establishment
of relations among what Radcliffe-Brown calls “elementary
families.” Thus, it is not the families (isolated terms) which are
truly “elementary,” but, rather, the relations between those terms.
No other interpretation can account for the universality of the incest
taboo; and the avuncular relationship, in its most general form,
is nothing but a corollary, now covert, now explicit, Qf this taboo.
Because they are symbolic systems, kinship systems offer the
anthropologist a rich field, where his efforts can almost (and we
emphasize the “almost” ) converge with those of the most highly
developed of the social sciences, namely, linguistics. But to achieve
this convergence, from which it is hoped a better understanding of
man will result, we must never lose sight of the fact that, in both
anthropological and linguistic research, we are dealing strictly with
symbolism. And although it may be legitimate or even inevitable to
fall back upon a naturalistic interpretation in order to understand
the emergence of symbolic thinking, once the latter is given, the
nature of the explanation must change as radically as the newly
appeared phenomenon differs from those which have preceded and
prepared it. Hence, any concession to naturalism might jeopardize
the immense progress already made in linguistics, which is also
beginning to characterize the study of family structure, and might
drive the sociology of the family toward a sterile empiricism, devoid
of inspiration.
NOTES
1. Marcel Mauss, “Rapports réels et pratiques de la psychologie et de la sociologie,”
Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique (1924); reprinted
in Sociologie et Anthropologie (Paris: 1951 ), p. 299.
2. O. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, trans. F. B.
Jevons (London: 1890), Chapter XII, Part 4.
3. Ibid. See also H. J. Rose, “On the Alleged Evidence for Mother-Right
in Early Greece,” Folklore, XXII ( 1911 ), and the more recent studies by
George Thomson, which support the hypothesis of matrilineal sur­
vivals.
4. A. M. Hocart, “Chieftainship and the Sister’s Son in the Pacific,”
Structural Analysis | 51
L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
American Anthropologist, n.s., XVII (1915); “The Uterine Nephew,”
Man, XXIII, No. 4 (1923); “The Cousin in Vedic Ritual,” Indian
Antiquary, LIV (1925); etc.
5. Paul K. Benedict, “Tibetan and Chinese Kinship Terms,” Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies, VI (1942); “Studies in Thai Kinship Terminology,”
Journal of the American Oriental Society, LXIII (1943).
6. L. Brunschvicg, Le Progrès de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale
(Paris: 1927), II, p. 562.
7. Between 1900 and 1920 Ferdinand de Saussure and Antoine Meillet, the
founders of modem linguistics, placed themselves determinedly under
the wing of the anthropologists. Not until the 1920’s did Marcel Mauss
begin— to borrow a phrase from economics— to reverse this tendency.
8. N. Troubetzkoy, “La Phonologie actuelle,” in Psychologie du langage
(Paris: 1933).
9. Ibid., p. 243.
10. Loc. cit.
11. Ibid., p. 245; Roman Jakobson, “Principien der historischen Phonologie,”
Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, IV (1931); and also Jakobson,
“Remarques sur l’évolution phonologique du russe,” ibid., II (1929).
12. W . H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society (London: 1914),
passim; Social Organization, ed. W . J. Perry (London: 1924), Chapter
IV.
13. In the same vein, see Sol Tax, “Some Problems of Social Organization,”
in Fred Eggan (ed.), Social Anthropology of North American Tribes
(Chicago: 1937).
14. Roman Jakobson, “Observations sur le classement phonologique des consonnes,”
Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic
Sciences (Ghent: 1938).
15. K. Davis and W . L. Warner, “Structural Analysis of Kinship,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVII (1935).
16. Thus at the end of the analysis carried out by these authors, the term
husband is replaced by the formula:
C 2«/2«*/o s u ia 8/Ego (Ibid.)
There are now available two works which employ a much more
refined logical apparatus and offer greater interest in terms both of
method and of results. See F. G. Lounsbury, “A Semantic Analysis of the
Pawnee Kinship Usage,” Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1956), and W . H.
Goodcnough, “The Componential Analysis of Kinship,” ibid.
17. As will be seen in Chapter V, I have now refined this formulation.
18. A. L. Kroeber, “Classificatory Systems of Relationship,” Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, XXXIX (1909).
19. W e must except the remarkable work of W . L. Warner, “Morphology
and Functions of the Australian Murngin Type of Kinship,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XXXII-XXXIII ( 1930-1931), in which his analysis
of the system of attitudes, although fundamentally debatable, nevertheless
initiates a new phase in the study of problems of kinship.
20. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Kinship Terminology in California,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVII (1935); “The Study of Kinship Systems,”
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXI (1941).
21. M. E. Opler, “Apache Data Concerning the Relationship of Kinship
Terminology to Social Classification,” American Anthropologist, n.s.,
Structural Analysis
XXXTX (1937); A- M. Halpern, “Yuma Kinship Terms,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., X LIV (1942).
22. D. F. Thomson, “The Joking Relationship and Organized Obscenity in
North Queensland,” American Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVII (1935).
23. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Study of Kinship Systems,” op. cit., p. 8. This
later formulation seems to us more satisfactory than his 1935 statement
that attitudes present “a fairly high degree of correlation with the
terminological classification” (American Anthropologist, n.s., XXXVII
[*93j]> P- 53)-
24. Sydney Hartland, “Matrilineal Kinship and the Question of its Priority,”
Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, No. 4 (1917).
25. W . H. R. Rivers, “The Marriage of Cousins in India,” Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society (July, 1907).
26. Ibid., p. 624.
27. R. H. Lowie, “The Matrilineal Complex,” University of California
Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XVI, No. 2
( 1919).
28. Roman Jakobson, Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze
(Uppsala: 1941).
29. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Mother’s Brother ip South Africa,” South
African Journal of Science, XXI (1924).
30. As among the Mundugomor of New Guinea, where the relationship
between maternal uncle and nephew is always familiar, although descent
is alternately patrilineal or matrilineal. See Margaret Mead, Sex and
Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (New York: 1935), pp. 176-
185.
31. B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia
(London: 1929), 2 vols.
32. Dubois de Monpereux (1839), cited in M. Kovalevski, “La Famille
matriarcale au Caucase,” VAnthropologie, IV (1893).
33. Ibid.
34. E . W . Gifford, “Tonga Society,” Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin,
No. 61 (Honolulu: 1929), pp. 16-22.
35. F. E. Williams, “Group Sentiment and Primitive Justice,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XLIII, No. 4, Part 1 (1941), p. 523.
36. F. E. Williams, “Natives of Lake Kutubu, Papua,” Oceania, XI (1940-
1941 ), P- 266.
37. Ibid., p. 268.
38. Ibid., p. 280. See also Oceania, XII (1941-1942).
39. Douglas L. Oliver, A Solomon Island Society: Kinship and Leadership
among the Siuai of Bougainville (Cambridge, Mass.: 1955), p. 255.
40. Ibid., p. 251.
41. Ibid., p. 2J7.
42. Ibid., pp. 168-9.
43. R. F. Fortune, The Sorcerers of Dobu (New York: 1932), p. 45.
44. Ibid., pp. 8, 10, 62-4.
45. G . E. Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, 3 vols. (Chicago:
1904).
[46. Translator's note: The “Chansons de Geste,” which survive in manuscript
versions of the twelfth to the fifteenth century, are considered to
be remodelings of much earlier originals, dating back to the age of
L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
Charlemagne. These poems of heroic and often legendary exploits also
constitute a source of information on the family life of that period.]
47. Léon Gautier, La Chevalerie (Paris: 1890). See also: F. B. Gummere,
“The Sister’s Son,” in An English Miscellany Presented to Dr. Fumivall
(London: 1901); W . O. Farnsworth, Uncle and Nephew in the O ld
French Chanson de Geste (New York: 1913).
48. The preceding paragraphs were written in 1957 and substituted for the
original text, in response to the judicious remark by my colleague L u c
de Heusch of the Université Libre of Brussels that one of my examples
was incorrect. I take this opportunity to thank him.
49. it is no doubt superfluous to emphasize that the atomism which we have
criticized in Rivers refers to classical philosophy and has nothing to do
with the structural conception of the atom developed in modem physics.
50. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Study of Kinship Systems,” op. cit., p. 2;
CHAPTER
Language and the
Analysis of Social Laws
I n a r e c e n t w o r k , whose importance from the
point of view of the future of the social sciences can hardly be
overestimated, Wiener poses, and resolves in the negative, the question
of a possible extension to the social sciences of the mathematical
methods of prediction which have made possible the construction
of the great modern electronic machines. He justifies his
position by two arguments.1
In the first place, he maintains that the nature of the social
sciences is such that it is inevitable that their very development
have repercussions on the object of their investigation. The coupling
of the observer with the observed phenomenon is well
known to contemporary scientific thought, and, in a sense, it illustrates
a universal situation. But it is negligible in fields which are
ripe for the most advanced mathematical investigation; as, for example,
in astrophysics, where the object has such vast dimensions
that the influence of the observer need not be taken into account,
or in atomic physics, where the object is so small that we are inter­
55
ested only in average mass effects in which the effect of bias on the
part of the observer plays no role. In the field of the social sciences,
on the contrary, the object of study is necessarily affected by the
intervention of the observer, and the resulting modifications are on
the same scale as the phenomena that are studied.
In the second place, Wiener observes that the phenomena subjected
to sociological or anthropological inquiry are defined within
our own sphere of interests; they concern questions of the life, education,
career, and death of individuals. Therefore the statistical
runs available for the study of a given phenomenon are always
far too short to lay the foundation of a valid induction. Mathematical
analysis in the field of social science, he concludes, can bring
results which should be of as little interest to the social scientist as
those of the statistical study of a gas would be to an individual
about the size of a molecule.
These objections seem difficult to refute when they are examined
in terms of the investigations toward which their author
has directed them, the data of research monographs and of applied
anthropology. In such cases, we are dealing with a study of individual
behavior, directed by an observer who is himself an individual;
or with a study of a culture, a national character, or a pattern,
by an observer who cannot dissociate himself completely
from his culture, or from the culture out of which his working
hypotheses and his methods of observation, which are themselves
cultural patterns, are derived.
There is, however, at least one area of the social sciences
where Wiener’s objections do not seem to be applicable, where the
conditions which he sets as a requirement for a valid mathematical
study seem to be rigorously met. This is the field of language,
when studied in the light of structural linguistics, with particular
reference to phonemics.
Language is a social phenomenon; and, of all social phenomena,
it is the one which manifests to the greatest degree two fundamental
characteristics which make it susceptible of scientific study.
In the first place, much of linguistic behavior lies on the level o f
unconscious thought. When we speak, we are not conscious of the
syntactic and morphological laws of our language. Moreover, w e
are not ordinarily conscious of the phonemes that we employ to
convey different meanings; and we are rarely, if ever, conscious o f
56 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
the phonological oppositions which reduce each phoneme to a
bundle of distinctive features. This absence of consciousness,
moreover, still holds when we do become aware of the grammar or
the phonemics of our language. For, while this awareness is the
privilege of the scholar, language, as a matter of fact, lives and develops
only as a collective construct; and even the scholar’s linguistic
knowledge always remains dissociated from his experience as a
speaking agent, for his mode of speech is not affected by his ability
to interpret his language on a higher level. W e may say, then, that
insofar as language is concerned we need not fear the influence of
the observer on the observed phenomenon, because the observer cannot
modify the phenomenon merely by becoming conscious of it.
Furthermore, as regards Wiener’s second point, we know that
language appeared very early in human history. Therefore, even if
we can study it scientifically only when written documents are
available, writing itself goes back a considerable distance and furnishes
long enough runs to make language a valid subject for mathematical
analysis. For example, the series we have at our disposal in
studying Indo-European, Semitic, or Sino-Tibetan languages is
about four or five thousand years old. And, where a comparable
temporal dimension is lacking, the multiplicity of coexistent forms
furnishes, for several other linguistic families, a spatial dimension
that is no less valuable.
W e thus find in language a social phenomenon that manifests
both independence of the observer and long statistical runs, which
would seem to indicate that language is a phenomenon fully qualified
to satisfy the demands of mathematicians for the type of analysis
Wiener suggests.
It is, in fact, difficult to see why certain linguistic problems
could not be solved by modem calculating machines. W ith knowledge
of the phonological structure of a language and the laws
which govern the groupings of consonants and vowels, a student
could easily use a machine to compute all the combinations of
phonemes constituting the words of n syllables existing in the vocabulary,
or even the number of combinations compatible with
the structure of the language under consideration, such as previously
defined. W ith a machine into which would be “fed” the equations
regulating the types of structures with which phonemics
usually deals, the repertory of sound which human speech organs
Language and the Analysts of Social Laws | 57
can emit, and the minimal differential values, determined bypsycho-physiological
methods, which distinguish between the phonemes
closest to one another, one would doubtless be able to obtain
a computation of the totality of phonological structures for n oppositions
(n being as high as one wished). One could thus construct
a sort of periodic table of linguistic structures that would be comparable
to the table of elements which Mendeleieff introduced into
modern chemistry. It would then remain for us only to check the
place of known languages in this table, to identify the positions and
the relationships of the languages whose first-hand study is still too
imperfect to give us a proper theoretical knowledge of them, and
to discover the place of languages that have disappeared or are unknown,
yet to come, or simply possible.
T o add a last example: Jakobson has suggested that a language
may possess several coexisting phonological structures, each of
which may intervene in a different kind of grammatical operation.2
Since there must obviously be a relationship between the different
structural modalities of the same language, we arrive at the concept
of a “metastructure” which would be something like the law
of the group (loi du groupe) consisting of its modal structures. If
all of these modalities could be analyzed by our machine, established
mathematical methods would permit it to construct the
“metastructure” of the language, which would in certain complex
cases be so intricate as to make it difficult, if not impossible, to
achieve on the basis of purely empirical investigation.
The problem under discussion here can, then, be defined as
follows. Among all social phenomena, language alone has thus far
been studied in a manner which permits it to serve as the object o f
truly scientific analysis, allowing us to understand its formative
process and to predict its mode of change. This results from modern
researches into the problems of phonemics, which have reached
beyond the superficial conscious and historical expression of linguistic
phenomena to attain fundamental and objective realities
consisting of systems of relations which are the products of unconscious
thought processes. The question which now arises is
this: Is it possible to effect a similar reduction in the analysis of
other forms of social phenomena? If so, would this analysis lead to
the same result? And if the answer to this last question is in the affirmative,
can we conclude that all forms of social life are substan-
58 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
dally of the same nature— that is, do they consist of systems of
behavior that represent the projection, on the level of conscious
and socialized thought, of universal laws which regulate the unconscious
activities of the mind? Obviously, no attempt can be
made here to do more than to sketch this problem by indicating
certain points of reference and projecting the principal lines along
which its orientation might be effective.
Some of the researches of Kroeber appear to be of the greatest
importance in suggesting approaches to our problem, particularly
his work on changes in the styles of women’s dress.3 Fashion actually
is, in the highest degree, a phenomenon that depends on the
unconscious activity of the mind. W e rarely take note of why a
particular style pleases us or falls into disuse. Kroeber has demonstrated
that this seemingly arbitrary evolution follows definite
laws. These laws cannot be reached by purely empirical observation,
or by intuitive consideration of phenomena, but result from
measuring some basic relationships between the various elements
of costume. The relationship thus obtained can be expressed in
terms of mathematical functions, whose values, calculated at a
given moment, make prediction possible.
Kroeber has thus shown how even such a highly arbitrary
aspect of social behavior is susceptible of scientific study. His
method may be usefully compared not only with that of structural
linguistics, but also with that of the natural sciences. There is a
remarkable analogy between these researches and those of a contemporary
biologist, G. Teissier, on the growth of the organs of
certain crustaceans.4 Teissier has shown that, in order to formulate
the laws of this growth, it is necessary to consider the relative dimensions
of the component parts of the claws, and not the exterior
forms of those organs. Here, relationships allow us to derive constants—
termed parameters— from which it is possible to derive
the laws which govern the development of these organisms. The
object of a scientific zoology, in these terms, is thus not ultimately
concerned with the forms of animals and their organs as they are
usually perceived, but with the establishment of certain abstract
and measurable relationships, which constitute the basic nature of
the phenomena under study.
An analogous method has been followed in studying certain
features of social organization, particularly marriage rules and kinLanguage
and the Analysis of Social Laws | 59
ship systems.8 It has been shown that the complete set of marriage
regulations operating in human societies, and usually classified
under different headings, such as incest prohibitions, preferential
forms of marriage, and the like, can be interpreted as being so
many different ways of insuring the circulation of women within
the social group or of substituting the mechanism of a sociologically
determined affinity for that of a biologically determined consanguinity.
Proceeding from this hypothesis, it would only be
necessary to make a mathematical study of every possible type of
exchange between n partners to enable one almost automatically
to arrive at every type of marriage rule actually operating in living
societies and, eventually, to discover other rules that are merely
possible; one would also understand their function and the relationships
between each type and the others.
This approach was fully validated by the demonstration,
reached by pure deduction, that the mechanisms of reciprocity
known to classical anthropology— namely, those based on dual
organization and exchange-marriage between two partners or
partners whose number is a multiple of two— are but a special instance
of a wider kind of reciprocity between any number of partners.
This fact has tended to remain unnoticed, because the partners
in those matings, instead of giving and receiving from each other,
do not give to those from whom they receive and do not receive
from those to whom they give. They give to and receive from different
partners to whom they are bound by a relationship that
operates only in one direction.
This type of organization, no less important than the moiety
system, has thus far been observed and described only imperfectly
and incidentally. Starting with the results of mathematical study,
data had to be compiled; thus, the real extension of the system was
shown and its first theoretical analysis offered.6 A t the same time,
it became possible to explain the more general features of marriage
rules such as preferential marriage between bilateral cross-cousins
or with only one kind of cross-cousin, on the father’s side (patrilateral),
or on that of the mother (matrilateral). Thus, for example,
though such customs had been unintelligible to anthropologists,7
they were perfectly clear when regarded as illustrating different
modalities of the laws of exchange. In turn, these were reduced to a
6o | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
still more basic relationship between the rules of residence and the
rules of descent.8
Now, these results can be achieved only by treating marriage
regulations and kinship systems as a kind of language, a set of
processes permitting the establishment, between individuals and
groups, of a certain type of communication. That the mediating
factor, in this case, should be the women of the group, who are circulated
between clans, lineages, or families, in place of the words
of the group, which are circulated between individuals, does not at
all change the fact that the essential aspect of the phenomenon is
identical in both cases.
W e may now ask whether, in extending the concept of communication
so as to make it include exogamy and the rules flowing
from the prohibition of incest, we may not, reciprocally, achieve
insight into a problem that is still very obscure, that of the origin of
language. For marriage regulations, in relation to language, represent
a much more crude and archaic complex. It is generally recognized
that words are signs; but poets are practically the only
ones who know that words were also once values. As against this,
women are held by the social group to be values of the most essential
kind, though we have difficulty in understanding how these
values become integrated in systems endowed with a significant
function. This ambiguity is clearly manifested in the reactions of
persons who, on the basis of the analysis of social structures referred
to,® have laid against it the charge of “anti-feminism,” because
women are referred to as objects.10 O f course, it may be disturbing
to some to have women conceived as mere parts of a meaningful
system. However, one should keep in mind that the processes by
which phonemes and words have lost— even though in an illusory
manner— their character of value, to become reduced to pure
signs, will never lead to the same results in matters concerning
women. For words do not speak, while women do; as producers
of signs, women can never be reduced to the status of symbols or
tokens. But it is for this very reason that the position of women, as
actually found in this system of communication between men that
is made up of marriage regulations and kinship nomenclature,
may afford us a workable image of the type of relationships that
could have existed at a very early period in the development of
Language and the Analysis of Social Laws | 61
language, between human beings and their words. As in the case of
women, the original impulse which compelled men to exchange
words must be sought for in that split representation that pertains
to the symbolic function. For, since certain terms are simultaneously
perceived as having a value both for the speaker and the
listener, the only way to resolve this contradiction is in the exchange
of complementary values, to which all social existence is
reduced.
These speculations may be judged utopian. Yet, if one considers
that the assumptions made here are legitimate, a very important
consequence follows, one that is susceptible of immediate
verification. That is, the question may be raised whether the different
aspects of social life (including even art and religion) cannot
only be studied by the methods of, and with the help of concepts
similar to those employed in linguistics, but also whether they do
not constitute phenomena whose inmost nature is the same as that
of language. That is, in the words of Voegelin, we may ask
whether there are not only “operational” but also “substantial
comparabilities” between language and culture.11
How can this hypothesis be verified? It will be necessary to
develop the analysis of the different features of social life, either
for a given society or for a complex of societies, so that a deep
enough level can be reached to make it possible to cross from one
to the other; or to express the specific structure of each in terms o f
a sort of general language, valid for each system separately and for
all of them taken together. It would thus be possible to ascertain if
one had reached their inner nature and to determine if this pertained
to the same kind of reality. In order to develop this point,
an experiment can be attempted. It will consist, on the part of the
anthropologist, in translating the basic features of the kinship systems
from different parts of the world into terms general enough
to be meaningful to the linguist, and thus be equally applicable b y
the linguist to the description of languages from the same regions.
Both could thus ascertain whether or not different types of communication
systems in the same societies— that is, kinship and language—
are or are not caused by identical unconscious structures.
Should this be the case, we could be assured of having reached a
truly fundamental formulation.
If then, a substantial identity were assumed to exist between
62 I L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
language structure and kinship systems, one should find, in the following
regions of the world, languages whose structures would be
of atype comparable to kinship systems in the following terms:
(1) Indo-European: As concerns the kinship systems, we find
that the marriage regulations of our contemporary civilization are
entirely based on the principle that, a few negative prescriptions
being granted, the density and fluidity of the population will
achieve by itself the same results which other societies have sought
in more complicated sets of rules; i.e., social cohesion obtained by
marriage in degrees far removed or even impossible to trace. This
statistical solution has its origin in a typical feature of most ancient
Indo-European systems. These belong, in the author’s terminology,
to a simple formula of generalized reciprocity (formule simple de
Féchange généralisé)}2 However, instead of prevailing between
lineages, this formula operates between more complex units of the
bratsvo type, which actually are clusters of lineages, each of
which enjoys a certain freedom within the rigid framework of
general reciprocity effective at the cluster level. Therefore, it can
be said that a characteristic feature of Indo-European kinship structure
lies in the fact that a problem set in simple terms always admits
of many solutions:
Should the linguistic structure be homologous with the kinship
structure it would thus be possible to express the basic feature of
Indo-European languages as follows: The languages have simple
structures, utilizing numerous elements. The opposition between
the simplicity of the structure and the multiplicity of elements is
expressed in the fact that several elements compete to occupy the
same positions in the structure.
(2) Sino-Tibetan kinship systems exhibit quite a different type
of complexity. They belong to or derive directly from the simplest
form of general reciprocity, namely, mother’s brother’s daughter
marriage, so that, as has been shown,13 while this type of marriage
insures social cohesion in the simplest way, at the same time it
permits this to be indefinitely extended so as to include any number
of participants.
Translated into more general terms applicable to language that
would correspond to the following linguistic pattern, we may say
that the structure is complex, while the elements are few, a feature
that may be related to the tonal structure of these languages.
Language and the Analysis of Social Laws | 63
(3) The typical feature of African kinship systems is the extension
of the bride-wealth system, coupled with a rather frequent
prohibition on marriage with the wife’s brother’s wife. The joint
result is a system of general reciprocity more complex than the
mother’s brother’s daughter system, while the types of unions resulting
from the circulation of the marriage-price approaches, to
some extent, the statistical mechanism operating in our own society.
Therefore one could say that African languages have several
modalities corresponding in general to a position intermediate between
(1) and (2).
(4) The widely recognized features of Oceanic kinship systems
seem to lead to the following formulation of the basic characteristics
of the linguistic pattern: simple structure and few ele­
ments.
(5) The originality of American Indian kinship systems lies
in the so-called Crow-Omaha type, which should be carefully
distinguished from other types showing the same disregard for
generation levels.14 The important point with the Crow-Omaha
type is not that two kinds of cross-cousins are classified in different
generation levels, but rather that they are classified with consanguineous
kin instead of with affinal kin (as is the case, for instance,
in the Miwok system). But systems of the Miwok type belong
equally to the Old and the New World; while the differential systems
just referred to as Crow-Omaha are, apart from a few exceptions,
typical only for the New World. It can be shown that this
quite exceptional feature of the Crow-Omaha system resulted from
the simultaneous application of the two simple formulas of reciprocity,
both special and general {échange restreint and échange
généralisé),1* which elsewhere in the world were generally considered
to be incompatible. It thus became possible to achieve marriage
within remote degrees by using simultaneously two simple
formulas, each of which independently applied could have led only
to different kinds of cross-cousin marriages.
The linguistic pattern corresponding to this situation is that
certain of the American Indian languages offer a relatively high
number of elements which succeed in becoming organized into
relatively simple structures by the structures’ assuming asymmetrical
forms.
It should be kept in mind that in the above highly tentative
64 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
experiment the anthropologist proceeds from what is known to
him to what is unknown: namely, from kinship structures to linguistic
structures. Whether or not the differential characteristics
thus outlined have a meaning insofar as the respective languages
are concerned remains for the linguist to decide. The author, being
a social anthropologist and not a linguist, can only try to explain
briefly to which specific features of kinship systems he is referring
in this attempt toward a generalized formulation. Since the general
lines of his interpretation have been fully developed elsewhere,16
short sketches were deemed sufficient for the purpose of this paper.
If the general characteristics of the kinship systems of given
geographical areas, which we have tried to bring into juxtaposition
with equally general characteristics of the linguistic structures of
those areas, are recognized by linguists as an approach to equivalences
of their own observations, then it will be apparent, in terms
of our preceding discussion, that we are much closer to understanding
the fundamental characteristics of social life than we have
been accustomed to think.
The road will then be open for a comparative structural
analysis of customs, institutions, and accepted patterns of behavior.
W e shall be in a position to understand basic similarities between
forms of social life, such as language, art, law, and religion, that on
the surface seem to differ greatly. At the same time, we shall have
the hope of overcoming the opposition between the collective
nature of culture and its manifestations in the individual, since the
so-called “collective consciousness” would, in the final analysis,
be no more than the expression, on the level of individual thought
and behavior, of certain time and space modalities of the universal
laws which make up the unconscious activity of the mind.
Language and the Analysis of Social Laws | 65
N OTES
1. N. Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine (Paris-Cambridge-New York: 1948).
2. Roman Jakobson, “The Phonemic and Grammatical Aspects of Language
in Their Interrelations,” Actes du VIe Congrès International des
Linguistes (Paris: 1948).
3. J. Richardson and A. L. Kroeber, “Three Centuries of Women’s Dress
Fashions. A Quantitative Analysis,” Anthropological Records, V, No. 2
(1940).
LANGUAGE AND KINSHIP
4. G. Teissier, “La Description mathématique des faits biologiques,” Revue
de Métaphysique et de Morale (January, 1936).
5. C. Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: 1949),
passim.
6. Ibid., pp. 278-380.
7. Ibid.ypp. 558-66.
8. Ibid., pp. 547-50.
9. Ibid., p. 616.
10. Ibid., p. 45 fï.
11. “Language and Culture: Substantial and Operational Comparabilities”
was the title given by C. F. Voegelin to the symposium held at the
Twenty-ninth International Congress of Americanists, New York, September
5-12, 1949, where these comments were first offered.
12. Lévi-Strauss, op. cit., pp. 583-91.
13. Ibid., pp. 291-380.
14. From this point of view, G. P. Murdock’s suggestion (Social Structure
[New York: 1949], pp. 224, 340) that the Crow-Omaha type be merged
with the Miwok type should be categorically rejected.
15. Lévi-Strauss, op. cit., pp. 228-33.
16. Op. cit.
CHAPTER
Linguistics and
Anthropology1
pA ROBABLY FOR THE FIRST TIME, anthropologists
and linguists have come together on a formal basis and for the
specific purpose of confronting their respective disciplines. However,
the problem was not a simple one, and it seems to me that
some of the many difficulties which we have met with can be referred
to the fact we were not only trying to make a confrontation
of the theme of linguistics and of anthropology, but that this confrontation
itself could be and had to be undertaken on several different
levels, and it was extremely difficult to avoid, in the midst of
the same discussion, shifting from one level to another. I shall try
first of all to outline what these different levels are.
In the first place, we have spoken about the relation between a
language and a culture. That is, how far is it necessary, when we
try to study a culture, to know the language, or how far is it necessary
to understand what is meant by the population, to have some
knowledge of the culture besides the language.
There is a second level, which is not the relationship between
67
a language and a culture, but the relationship between language
and culture. And though there are also many important problems
on this level, it seems to me that our discussions have not so often
been placed on the second level as on the first one. For instance, I
am rather struck by the fact that at no moment during our discussions
has any reference been made to the behavior of culture as a
whole toward language as a whole. Among us, language is used in
a rather reckless way— we talk all the time, we ask questions about
many things. This is not at all a universal situation. There are cultures—
and I am inclined to say most of the cultures of the world
— which are rather thrifty in relation to language. They don’t believe
that language should be used indiscriminately, but only in
certain specific frames of reference and somewhat sparingly. Problems
of this kind have, to be sure, been mentioned in our discussions,
but certainly they have not been given the same importance as the
problems of the first type.
And there is a third level, which has received still less attention.
It is the relation, not between a language or language and a
culture or culture, but the relation between linguistics as a scientific
discipline and anthropology. And this, which to my mind
would be probably the most important level, has remained somewhat
in the background during our discussions.
Now how can this be explained? The relationship between
language and culture is an exceedingly complicated one. In the first
place, language can be said to be a result of culture: The language
which is spoken by one population is a reflection of the total culture
of the population. But one can also say that language is a part
of culture. It is one of those many things which make up a culture
— and if you remember Tylor’s famous definition of culture, culture
includes a great many things, such as tools, institutions, customs,
beliefs, and also, of course, language. And from this point of
view the problems are not at all the same as from the first one. In
the third place, language can be said to be a condition of culture,
and this in two different ways: First, it is a condition of culture in a
diachronic way, because it is mostly through the language that
we learn about our own culture— we are taught by our parents,
we are scolded, we are congratulated, with language. But also,
from a much more theoretical point of view, language can be said
to be a condition of culture because the material out of which lan­
68 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
guage is built is of the same type as the material out of which the
whole culture is built: logical relations, oppositions, correlations,
and the like. Language, from this point of view, may appear as laying
a kind of foundation for the more complex structures which
correspond to the different aspects of culture.
This is how I see our problem from an objective point of
view. But there is also a subjective point of view, which is no less
important. During the discussion it appeared to me that the reasons
for anthropologists’ and linguists’ being so eager to get together
are of an entirely different nature, and that their motivations are
practically contradictory. Linguists have told us over and over
again during these sessions that they are somewhat afraid of the
trend which is becoming predominant in their discipline— that they
have felt more and more unrelated; that they have been dealing
more and more with abstract notions, which many times have been
very difficult to follow for the others; and that what they have
been mainly concerned with, especially in structural linguistics,
has no relation whatsoever to the whole culture, to the social life,
to the history, of the people who speak the language; and so on.
And the reason, it seems to me, for the linguists’ being so eager to
get closer to the anthropologists is precisely that they expect the
anthropologists to be able to give back to them some of this concreteness
which seems to have disappeared from their own methodological
approach. And now, what about the anthropologists?
The anthropologists are in a very peculiar situation in relation to
linguistics. For many years they have been working very closely
with the linguists, and all of a sudden it seems to them that the linguists
are vanishing, that they are going on the other side of the
borderline which divides the exact and natural sciences on the one
hand from the human and social sciences on the other. All of a sudden
the linguists are playing their former companions this very
nasty trick of doing things as well and with the same sort of
rigorous approach that was long believed to be the privilege of the
exact and natural sciences. Then, on the side of the anthropologist
there is some, let us say, melancholy, and a great deal of envy. W e
should like to learn from the linguists how they succeeded in doing
it, how we may ourselves in our own field, which is a complex
one— in the field of kinship, in the field of social organization, in
the field of religion, folklore, art, and the like— use the same kind
Linguistics and Anthropology | 69
of rigorous approach which has proved to be so successful for lin­
guistics.
And I should like to elaborate— since the point of view that I
am expected to explain here is the point of view of the anthropologist—
how important this is to us. I have learned a great deal during
this Conference, but it was not only during the sessions of the Conference:
I was extremely impressed, as a non-linguist anthropologist,
in attending some of the classes in field work, led by C. F.
Voegelin and Henry L. Smith, to witness the precision, the care,
the rigor which is used in a field that, after all, belongs to the
social sciences to the same extent as the other fields of anthropology.
And this is not all. During the past three or four years we
have been impressed not only by the theoretical but by the practical
connection which has been established between linguistics and
communication engineering— by the fact that now, when you have
a problem, it is possible not only to use a method more rigorous
than our own to solve it, but to have a machine built by an engineer
and to make a kind of experiment, completely similar to a
natural-science experiment, and to have the experiment tell you if
the hypothesis is worthwhile or not. For centuries the humanities and
the social sciences have resigned themselves to contemplating the
world of the natural and exact sciences as a kind of paradise which
they will never enter. And all of a sudden there is a small door
which is being opened between the two fields, and it is linguistics
which has done it. So you may see that the motivations of the anthropologists,
insofar as I am able to interpret them correctly, are
rather contradictory to the motivations of the linguists. The linguists
try to join the anthropologists in order to make their study
more concrete, while the anthropologists are trying to rejoin the
linguists precisely because the linguists appear to show them a way
to get out of the confusion resulting from too much acquaintance
and familiarity with concrete and empirical data. Sometimes it
seems to me this has resulted, during this Conference, in a somewhat—
shall I call it— unhappy merry-go-round, where the anthropologists
were running after the linguists while the linguists were
running after the anthropologists, each group trying to get from the
other precisely what it was trying itself to get rid of. And this,
I think, deserves some kind of attention. W hy this basic misunderstanding?
In the first place, because the task is extremely difficult.
7o I L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
I was particularly struck by the session where Mary Haas tried to
write on the board formulas to analyze a problem as apparently
simple as that of bilingualism— very simple, since it might seem
from the outside that there are only two terms, two languages,
though the number of possible permutations was enormous. And
enormous as it was, during the discussion new types of permutation
were discovered. It was also admitted that, besides these
permutations, other dimensions could be introduced which would
complicate the problem still more. This is what I believe to be one
of the main lessons of this Conference— that whenever we try to
express in the same language linguistic problems and cultural problems,
the situation becomes tremendously complicated, and we
shall always have to keep this in mind.
In the second place, we have been behaving as if there were
only two partners— language on the one hand, culture on the other
— and as if the problem should be set up in terms of the causal relations:
“ Is it language which influences culture? Is it culture which
influences language?” But we have not been sufficiently aware of
the fact that both language and culture are the products of activities
which are basically similar. I am now referring to this uninvited
guest which has been seated during this Conference beside us
and which is the human mind. The fact that the psychologist
C. E. Osgood is here and the many occasions when he was literally
compelled to intervene in order to call our attention to this basic
fact are the best proofs of the point I am trying to make.
If we try to formulate our problem in purely theoretical
terms, then it seems to me that we are entitled to affirm that there
should be some kind of relationship between language and culture,
because language has taken thousands of years to develop,
and culture has taken thousands of years to develop, and both
processes have been taking place side by side within the same minds.
O f course, I am leaving aside for the moment cases where a foreign
language has been adopted by a society that previously spoke another
language. W e can, for the sake of argument, consider only
those cases where, in an undisturbed fashion, language and culture
have been able to develop together. Is it possible to conceive of the
human mind as consisting of compartments separated by rigid
bulkheads without anything being able to pass from one bulkhead
to the other? Though, when we try to find out what these conLinguistics
and Anthropology | 71
nections or correlations are, we are confronted with a very serious
problem, or, rather,-with two very serious problems.
The first problem has to do with the level at which to seek the
correlations between language and culture, and the second one,
with the things we are trying to correlate. I shall now give some
attention to these basic distinctions.
I remember a very striking example which was given to us by
F. G. Lounsbury, about the use of two different prefixes for
’womankind among the Oneida. Lounsbury was telling us he paid
great attention to what was going on on the social level, but he
could find no correlation whatsoever. Indeed, no correlation can
be found on the level of behavior, because behavior, on the one
hand, and categories of thought, on the other (such as would be
called for to explain the use of these two different prefixes), belong
to two entirely different levels. It would not be possible to
try to correlate one with the other.
But I can hardly believe it a pure coincidence that this strange
dichotomy of womankind should appear precisely in a culture
where the maternal principle has been developed in such an extreme
way as among the Iroquois. It is as if the culture had to pay
a price for giving women an importance elsewhere unknown, the
price being an inability to think of women as belonging to only one
logical category. To recognize women, unlike most other cultures
of the world, as full social beings would thus compel the culture,
in exchange, to categorize that part of womankind as yet unable
to play the important maternal role— such as young girls— as
animals and not as humans. However, when I suggest this interpretation,
I am not trying to correlate language and behavior, but two
parallel ways of categorizing the same data.
Let me now give you another example. W e reduce the kinship
structure to the simplest conceivable element, the atom of kinship,
if I may say so, when we have a group consisting of a husband,
a woman, a representative of the group which has given the
woman to the man— since incest prohibitions make it impossible in
all societies for the unit of kinship to consist of one family, it
must always link two families, two consanguineous groups— and
one offspring. N ow it can be shown that, if we divide all the possible
behavior between kin according to a very simple dichotomy,
positive behavior and negative behavior (I know this is very un-
72 ( L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
satisfactory, but it will help me to make my point), it can be
shown that a great many different combinations can be found and
illustrated by specific ethnographical observations. When there is a
positive relationship between husband and wife and a negative one
between brother and sister, we note the presence of two correlative
attitudes: positive between father and son, negative between maternal
uncle and nephew. W e may also find a symmetrical structure,
where all the signs are inverted. It is therefore common to find arrangements
of the type ( | i ) or (l^;), that is, two permutations.
On the other hand, arrangements of the type (j;+), (+ Î) occur
frequently but often are poorly developed, while those of the
type (jut), (if!If) are rare, or perhaps impossible, because they
would lead to the breakdown of the group, diachronically in the
first case, synchronically in the second.2
Now, what connections are possible with linguistics? I cannot
see any whatsoever, except only one, that when the anthropologist
is working in this way he is working more or less in a way parallel
to that of the linguist. They are both trying to build a structure
w ith constituent units. But, nevertheless, no conclusions can be
drawn from the repetition of the signs in the field of behavior and
the repetition, let us say, of the phonemes of the language, or the
grammatical structure of the language; nothing of the kind— it is
perfectly hopeless.
N ow let us take a somewhat more elaborate way of approaching
a problem of that kind, W horf’s approach, which has been
discussed so many times and which certainly must have been at the
back of our minds during this discussion.3W horf has tried to establish
a correlation between certain linguistic structures and certain
cultural structures. W hy is it that the approach is unsatisfactory?
It is, it seems to me, because the linguistic level as he considers it
is the result of a rather sophisticated analysis— he is not at all trying
to correlate an empirical impression of the language, but, rather,
the result of true linguistic work (I don’t know if this linguistic
w ork is satisfactory from the point of view of the linguists, I’m
just assuming it for the sake of argument)— what he is trying to
correlate with this linguistic structure is a crude, superficial, empirical
view of the culture itself. So he is really trying to correlate
things which belong to entirely different levels.
W hen we now turn to study the communication system, there
Linguistics and Anthropology | 73
are two statements that can be made. The first is that in order to
build a model of the Hopi kinship system one has to use a block
model, tri-dimensional. It is not possible to use a two-dimensional
model. And this, incidentally, is characteristic of all the CrowOmaha
systems. Now, why is that so? Because the Hopi system
makes use of three different time continuums. W e have the first
one, which corresponds to the mother’s line (female Ego), which
is a kind of time dimension that we use ourselves, that is, progressive
and continuative: W e have the grandmother, mother, Ego,
daughter, granddaughter, and so on; it is really genealogical. (See
Figure 3.) Now, when we consider other lines, there is a different
74 | LANGUAGE AND KINSHIP
Fa Si Fa Si Fa Si Fa Si
time dimension: For instance, if we take the father’s mother’s line,
we find that, although people do belong to generations which are
consecutive to each other, the same terms are consistently applied
to them— that is, a woman is called “father’s sister” and her daughter
is still “father’s sister,” and so on indefinitely; this is a kind of
empty time, with no change taking place whatsoever. And there is
also a third dimension, which is found in the mother’s line for
male Ego, where individuals are alternately called “sibling” and
“nephew.”
Now if we consider the Zuni kinship system, these three dimensions
still exist, but they are considerably reduced; they have a
somewhat abortive form. And what is important is that the
“straight” time framework that we have in the mother’s line is replaced
by a kind of “circular” framework, where we have only
three terms, a term which equally means “grandmother” and “granddaughter,”
and then a term for “mother” and a term for “daughter”—
a woman would call by the same term her grandmother and
her granddaughter.
If we look now at another Pueblo system, let us say Acoma or
Laguna, which are Keresan and belong to a different linguistic
stock, then we find a completely new picture: the development of
symmetrical terms. Tw o individuals who occupy symmetrical positions
in relation to a third individual will call each other by the
same term. This is usually called a “self-reciprocal” terminology.
W hen we pass from Hopi to Acoma, we have a change from
a block model to a flat model, but we have other significant
changes. W e have a change from a time framework which has a
threefold quality, through the Zuni, which is intermediate, to something
quite different; it is no longer a time continuum, it is a timespace
continuum, since in order to conceive of the system one
individual has to think of the other individual through the intermediary
of a third one.
This can be very well correlated with the different aspects of
the same myths among the Hopi, Zuni, and Acoma. When we consider
one myth, let us say the emergence myth, the very striking
thing is that among the Hopi the entire structure of the myth is
organized in a genealogical way. The different gods are conceived
as husband, wife, father, grandfather, daughter, and so on, to one
another, more or less as it occurs in the Greek pantheon. Among
the Zuni we do not find such a developed genealogical structure.
Instead we find a kind of cyclical historical structure. The history
is divided into periods, and each period repeats to some extent the
preceding period. Now, with the Acoma the striking fact is that
most of the characters which among the Hopi or the Zuni are conceived
as one person are dichotomized into different persons with
antithetic attributes. This is made clear by the fact that the emergence
scene, which is so obvious in the first two cases, is preceded,
and to some extent replaced, by a dual operation, in which the
power from above and the power from below cooperate to create
mankind. It is no longer a progressive linear movement, it is a system
of polar oppositions, such as we find in the kinship system.
Now if it is true that these features of the kinship system can be
correlated with systems belonging to a completely different field,
Linguistics and Anthropology | 75
the field of mythology, we are entitled to ask the linguist whether
or not something of the same kind does not show up in the field of
language. And it would be very surprising if something— I do not
know exactly what, because I am not a linguist— could not be
found to exist, because if the answer should be in the negative, we
should have to assume that, while fields that are so wide apart as
kinship and mythology nevertheless succeed in remaining correlated,
language and mythology, which are much more closely related,
show no connection or no communication whatsoever.
This new formulation of the problem is, it seems to me, on a
level with what the linguists are doing. The linguists are dealing in
grammar with the time aspect. They discover the different ways of
expressing the idea of time in a language. And we might try to
compare the way of expressing time on a linguistic level with the
way of expressing time on the kinship level. I do not know what
the answer will be, but it is possible to discuss the problem, and it
is possible in a meaningful way to answer it by “yes” or “no.”
Permit me to give you another, and much more elaborate, example
of the kind of analysis the anthropologist could perform to
try to find common ground with the linguist. I am going to consider
two social developments which have taken place in widely
different parts of the world, the first in an area extending roughly
from India to Ireland, the second in an area extending from Manchuria
to Assam. I am certainly not saying that each of these two
areas has shown exactly one kind of development, and only one. I
am saying only that the developments I am referring to are well
illustrated within these very vague boundaries, which, as you are
well aware, correspond to some extent to the boundaries of the
Indo-European languages on the one hand and the Sino-Tibetan
languages on the other.
I propose to consider from three different points of view
what has taken place. First, the marriage rules; next, social organization;
and third, the kinship system.
N ow let us consider first the marriage rules, for the sake of
clarity. What we find in the Indo-European area are various systems,
which in order to be properly interpreted have to be referred
to a very simple type of marriage rule called the generalized
form of exchange, or circular system, because any number
of groups can be connected by using this rule. This corresponds
j 6 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
roughly to what the anthropologists have called marriage with
mother’s brother’s daughter: Group A is taking wives from Group
B, Group B from Group C, and Group C again from Group A; so
it is a kind of circle; you can have two groups, three groups, four,
five, any number of groups; they can always be organized according
to this system. This does not mean that Indo-European-speaking
groups have necessarily, at one time or another, practiced
marriage with mother’s brother’s daughter, but that most of the marriage
systems in their area of occupancy belong directly or indirectly
to the same family as the simpler type.
Linguistics and Anthropology | 77
Indo-E u r o pe a n A rea S in o - T ib eta n A rea
Circular systems, either reM
a r r ia g e suiting directly from exR
u le s plicit rules or indirectly
from the fact that the
choice of a mate is left to
probability
S o c ia l Numerous social units,
O r g a n iz a tio n with a complex structure
(extended family type)
K in sh ip
S y s t e m
(1) subjective
(2) few terms
Circular systems, present in
juxtaposition with systems
of symmetrical exchange
Few social units, with a
simple structure (clan or
lineage type)
(1) objective
(2) numerous terms
Now, in the field of social organization, what do we have? W e
have, as distinctive of the Indo-European area, something we know
by the name of “extended family.” W hat is an extended family? An
extended family consists of several collateral lines; but the collateral
lines should remain to some extent distinguished from one another,
because if they did not— if, for instance, Extended Family A
were marrying into B, and Extended Family B into C, then there
would be no distinction whatsoever between an extended family
and a clan. The extended family would become a kind of clan. And
what keeps the different collateral lines distinct in an extended
family is that there cannot exist a rule of marriage applicable to all
the lines. N ow this has been followed up in Indo-European kinship
systems in many different ways. Some systems, which are still
working in India, state that it is only the senior line which follows
a rule, and that all the other lines can marry exactly as they wish
within the sole limitation of prohibited degrees. When one studies
certain curious features of the old Slavic kinship system, the interpretation
is somewhat different: It seems that what may be called
the “exemplary line” was more or less diagonal to the main one;
that is, if a man married according to a given rule, then at the next
generational level it would be a man of a different line, and then in
the next generation a man of another different line. This does not
matter. The point is that with an extended family system it is not
possible for all the groups to marry according to the same rule and
that a great many exceptions to any conceivable rule should take
place.
N ow the kinship system itself calls for very few terms and it is
a subjective system. This means that all the relatives are described
in relation to the subject, and the further the relative is from the
subject the vaguer the terms are. W e can accurately describe our
relationship to our father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and
sister, but even aunt or uncle is slightly vague; and when it comes
to more distant relationships, we have no terms at all at our disposal;
it is an egocentric system.
Let us now compare some features in the Sino-Tibetan area.
Here we find two types of marriage rules: one which is the same as
the one previously described, generalized exchange; and another
one, which is a special form of exchange, usually called “exchange
marriage,” a special form because, instead of making it possible to
organize any number of groups, it can work only with two, four,
six, eight— an even number— the system could not work with an
odd number. And these two rules exist side by side within the
area.
N ow about the social organization. W e do not have extended
families in our second area, but we do find very simple types of
the clan system, which can become complicated quantitatively
(when the clan system divides into lineages), but never qualitatively,
as is the case with the extended family.
As regards the kinship system, the terms are very numerous.
You know, for instance, that in the Chinese kinship system the
terms number several hundreds, and it is even possible to create an
indefinite number of terms; any relationship can be described with
accuracy, even if it is very far away from the subject. And this
makes the system completely objective; as a matter of fact, Kroe-
78 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
ber a long time ago noticed that no kinship systems are so completely
different from each other as the Indo-European on the one
hand and the Chinese on the other.
If we try to interpret this picture, what do we find? W e find
that in the Indo-European case we have a very simple structure
(marriage rules), but that the elements (social organization) which
must be arranged in this structure are numerous and complicated,
whereas in the Sino-Tibetan case the opposite prevails: W e have a
very complicated structure (marriage rules), with two different
sets of rules, and the elements (social organization) are few. And
to the separation between the structure and the elements correspond,
on the level of terminology— which is a linguistic level—
antithetic features as to the framework (subjective versus objective)
and to the terms themselves (numerous versus few). N ow it
seems to me that if we formulate the situation in these terms, it is
at least possible to start a useful discussion with the linguists. While
I was making this chart, I could not but remember what R. Jakobson
said at yesterday’s session about the structure of the IndoEuropean
language: a great discrepancy between form and substance,
a great many irregularities in relation to the rules, and
considerable freedom regarding the choice of means to express the
same idea. Are not all of these traits similar to those we have singled
out with respect to social structure?
Finally, I would say that between culture and language there
cannot be no relations at all, and there cannot be 100 per cent correlation
either. Both situations are impossible to conceive. If there
were no relations at all, that would lead us to assume that the human
mind is a kind of jumble— that there is no connection at all
between what the mind is doing on one level and what the mind is
doing on another level. But, on the other hand, if the correlation
were 100 per cent, then certainly we should know about it and we
should not be here to discuss whether it exists or not. So the conclusion
which seems to me the most likely is that some kind of correlation
exists between certain things on certain levels, and our
main task is to determine what these things are and what these
levels are. This can be done only through a close cooperation between
linguists and anthropologists. I should say that the most important
results of such cooperation will not be for linguistics alone
or for anthropology alone, or for both; they will mostly be for an
Linguistics and Anthropology | 79
anthropology conceived in a broader way— that is, a knowledge o f
man that incorporates all the different approaches which can be
used and that will provide a clue to the way according to w h ich
our uninvited guest, the human mind, works.
8o | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
N O T E S
1. Transcribed from a tape recording of a paper read at the Conference o f
Anthropologists and Linguists, Bloomington, Indiana, 1952, and first p u b lished
in Supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics,
XIX, No. 2.
2. For examples and a more intensive analysis, see Chapter II of this book.
3. Benjamin L. Whorf, Collected Papers on Metalinguistics (Washington:
1952); Language, Thought, and Reality, ed. John B. Carroll (New Y o rk :
i9j<S).
CHAPTER
Postscript to
Chapters III and IV
I n t h e s a m e issue of Cahiers internationaux de
Sociologie containing an article by Gurvitch partly devoted to me,
there is an article written by Haudricourt and Granai, whose data
are more substantial and whose thought is more precise.1 It would
be easier for me to agree with them if, before writing their article,
they had become acquainted with both my papers on the relationship
between language and society, instead of limiting themselves
to the first one. These two articles form a whole, since the second
answers objections raised in the United States by the publication of
the first. For this reason, they have been brought together in this
volume.2
Furthermore, I concede to Haudricourt and Granai that,
since these two articles are in English— the first one written, and
the second a transcription of a tape recording— they are sometimes
less accurate in expression than I should like. More than my opponents,
perhaps, I am responsible for some of their errors with
regard to m y thinking. But on the whole, it seems to me their main
81
error lies in their adoption of an extraordinarily timorous position.
Apparently disturbed by the rapid development of structural
linguistics, they are trying to distinguish between the science of
language and linguistics. The former, they say, “is more general
than linguistics, yet does not include it; it develops on a different
level; it does not utilize the same concepts or, consequently, the
same methods as linguistics.” This is true up to a certain point.
But this distinction would give the anthropologist the right— which
does not seem to be contested here— to directly refer to the science
of language when he studies, as these authors well express it,
“the indefinite whole of real or possible systems of communication,”
that is, those “symbolic systems other than the system of
language,” which comprise “the realms of myth, ritual, and kinship,
which may actually be considered as so many special languages.”
3 And then the authors continue: “Thus, and in varying
degrees, these systems are amenable to a structural analysis which
is analogous to that applied to the system of language. In this vein,
we are acquainted with the remarkable studies by Lévi-Strauss of
‘kinship systems,’ which have unquestionably refined and clarified
these highly complex problems.” 4 I might, therefore, merely acknowledge
this approval, for I have never attempted to do anything
else or to extend the method to areas other than those listed.
The authors concede, nevertheless, in the one instance what
they deny in the other by questioning my intentions. They state
that “to interpret global society in terms of a general theory of
communication” amounts “implicitly (and sometimes admittedly)
to reducing society or culture to language.” 5 Such criticism,
which is expressed anonymously here, becomes explicitly directed
toward me later: “Claude Lévi-Strauss clearly states the problerp
of the identity between language and society and seems to resolve
it in the affirmative.” 6But the adjective inmost which I used means
“the deepest,” and does not exclude the possibility of other areas of
application of lesser explanatory value. Haudricourt and Granai
are guilty here of the same error as Gurvitch. They assume that
the structural method, when applied to anthropology, is aimed at
acquiring an exhaustive knowledge of societies. This is patently absurd.
W e simply wish to derive constants which are found at various
times and in various places from an empirical richness and
diversity that will always transcend our efforts at observation and
82 I L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
description. In proceeding this way we work as does the linguist,
and Haudricourt and Granai’s attempt to maintain a distinction
between the study of a particular idiom and the study of language
seems quite weak. As Jakobson and Halle put it:
. . . the ever increasing number of detected laws moves
into the foreground the problem of the universal rules underlying
the phonemic patterning of languages . . . of the world. . . .
The supposed multiplicity of features proves to be largely illusory.
. . . T he same laws of implication underlie the languages of
the world both in their static and dynamic aspects.7
N ot only does the study of one language, therefore, lead inevitably
to general linguistics, but it also involves us in the study of all
forms of communication: “Like musical scales, phonemic patterning
is an intervention of culture in nature, an artifact imposing
logical rules upon the sound continuum.” 8
Without reducing society or culture to language, we can initiate
this “Copernican revolution” (as Haudricourt and Granai call
it), which will consist of interpreting society as a whole in terms
of a theory of communication. This endeavor is possible on three
levels, since the rules of kinship and marriage serve to insure the
circulation of women between groups, just as economic rules serve
to insure the circulation of goods and services, and linguistic rules
the circulation of messages.
These three forms of communication are also forms of exchange
which are obviously interrelated (because marriage relations
are associated with economic prestations, and language comes
into play at all levels). It is therefore legitimate to seek homologies
between them and define the formal characteristics of each
type considered independently and of the transformations which
make the transition possible from one to another.
This formulation of the problem, to which I have always subscribed,9
points up the tenuous basis of Gurvitch’s criticism. A ccording
to him, I take the position that “communication, considered
as the origin of social life, is first of all speech.” 10 To derive
from language a logical model which, being more accurate and
better known, may aid us in understanding the structure of other
forms of communication, is in no sense equivalent to treating the
former as the origin of the latter.
But society includes many things besides marriage, economic,
Postscript to Chapters III and IV | 83
and linguistic exchanges. W e also find in society other kinds of
languages, whose analogy to language itself Haudricourt and Granai
recognize. There are, for instance, art, myth, ritual, and religion,
all of which I have considered at one time or another.11
Finally, there are a large number of elements which do not lend
themselves to structuring at present, either because of their nature
or our own inadequate knowledge. These are the ones invoked by
Haudricourt and Granai for the sake of some sort of mystical goal,
for I believe these authors to be, despite appearances, bound to
some metaphysical view of history. It seems to me more fruitful to
retain, as an immediate focus of our studies, those strategic levels
which I mentioned, not because they are the only ones or because
the other levels can be identified with them, but because, in the
present state of science, they alone permit the introduction of
rigorous modes of reasoning into our disciplines.
I reject, therefore, the dilemma formulated by these writers,
that either society does not exist as an entity and is then made up
of the juxtaposition of irreducible systems, or that all the systems
considered are equivalent and express, each in its own language,
the whole of social life.12 T o this dilemma I had anticipated a reply
in my 1953 article, which my critics did not read:
. . . I would say that between culture and language there
cannot be no relations at all, and there cannot be 100 per cent correlation
either. Both situations are impossible to conceive. . . . So
the conclusion which seems to me the more likely is that some kind
of correlation exists between certain things on certain levels, and
our main task is to determine what these things are and what these
levels are.13
If we wished to establish a series of correlations, term for
term, between language and culture (the latter considered as the
totality of data pertaining to a specific society), we should be
committing a logical error which would provide a simpler and
more forceful argument than those formulated by Haudricourt
and Granai. But, actually the whole is not equivalent to one of its
parts. Is this flaw in reasoning at times characteristic of American
metalinguistics, with which Haudricourt and Granai associate me?
This is possible. But if I am not mistaken, both term and subjectmatter
became fashionable in the United States after my address to
the International Congress of Americanists, held in N ew York in
84 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
1949,14 which derived its inspiration from other sources.15 The objections
which, as far back as 1952, I raised with respect to socalled
metalinguistics are of a more technical nature and pertain to
another level. The error of W horf and his followers stems from
their attempt to compare highly elaborate linguistic data, which
are the product of a preliminary analysis, with ethnographic observations
based on an empirical level or on the level of an ideological
analysis that implies an arbitrary breakdown of social reality.
Thus they compare objects of dissimilar nature and run the risk
of achieving nothing but truisms or weak hypotheses.
But Haudricourt and Granai are guilty of the same mistake
when they write:
The subject matter of linguistics is language (in the usual sense
o f the word: French language, English language, etc.). In sociology,
comparable entities would be what we call societies or
global structures (nation, people, tribe, etc.). The entity whose
characteristics we wish to study must necessarily be as independent
as possible from other entities.16
If this be true, our cause is indeed lost and criticism is fully
justified. However, in the two studies which constitute Chapters
III and IV of this volume, I propose something entirely different.
The object of comparative structural analysis is not the French or
English language, but rather a certain number of structures, which
the linguist can derive from these empirical entities, such as, for
instance, the phonemic structure of French, its grammatical or
lexical structure, or even the structure of discourse, which is not
altogether random. I do not compare French society or even the
structure of French society with those structures, as Gurvitch
might think (for he believes that a society as such possesses a structure);
I compare, rather, a certain number of structures which I
seek where they may be found, and not elsewhere: in other words,
in the kinship system, political ideology, mythology, ritual, art,
code of etiquette, and— why not?— cooking. I look for common
properties by examining these structures, which are all partial
expressions, though especially well suited to scientific study, of this
entity called French, English, or any other society. For even in this
case, the question is not to substitute one particular content for another
or to reduce one to the other, but, rather, to discover
whether the formal properties present homologies, and what kinds
Postscript to Chapters III and IV | 85
86 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
of homologies; contradictions, and what kind of contradictions; or
dialectical relationships that may be expressed as transformations.
Finally, I do not assert that such comparisons will always be fruitful,
but that where they are fruitful, convergences will be extremely
important in understanding the position of a society in relation
to others of the same type, as well as the laws which govern
its evolution in time.
Let us take an example different from the ones presented in
the articles under discussion. Like language, it seems to me, the
cuisine of a society may be analyzed into constituent elements,
which in this case we might call “gustemes,” and which may be
organized according to certain structures of opposition and correlation.
W e might then distinguish English cooking from French
cooking by means of three oppositions: endogenous / exogenous
(that is, national versus exotic ingredients); central/ peripheral
(staple food versus its accompaniments) ; marked / not marked
(that is, savory or bland). W e should then be able to construct a
chart, with + and — signs corresponding to the pertinent or nonpertinent
character of each opposition in the system under con­
sideration.
In other words, in English cuisine the main dishes of a meal are
made from endogenous ingredients, prepared in a relatively bland
fashion, and surrounded with more exotic accompaniments, in
which all the differential values are strongly marked (for example,
tea, fruitcake, orange marmalade, port wine). Conversely, in
French cuisine the opposition endogenous / exogenous becomes
very weak or disappears, and equally marked gustemes are combined
together in a central as well as in a peripheral position.
Can this scheme also be applied to Chinese cooking? Yes, if
we restrict ourselves to the preceding oppositions; no, if others
are introduced (such as sweet / sour) which are mutually exclusive
in French cuisine, in contrast to Chinese (or German), or if one
also takes into account the fact that French cooking is diachronic
ENGLISH FRENCH
CUISINE CUISINE
endogenous / exogenous
central / peripheral
marked / not marked
+
+
+
(the same oppositions do not come into play in different parts of
the meal). Thus French hors-d’oeuvres are built around the oppositions
maximal transformation / minimal transformation of the
type “charcuterie” 17 / raw foods, which does not recur synchronically
in subsequent dishes, whereas Chinese cooking is conceived
synchronically, that is, the same oppositions are suitable for all
parts of the meal (which, for this reason, may be served all at one
time). W e must call upon other oppositions in order to account for
all the properties of the structure; in order to account, for example,
for the opposition between roast and stew, which plays such an
important role in the native cooking of the interior of Brazil
(roasting being the sensual way, and boiling the nutritive way—
and they are mutually exclusive— of preparing meats). There are,
finally, certain incompatibilities which are consciously maintained
by the social group and which possess a normative value: hot
food / cold food; milky drink / alcoholic drink; fresh fruit / fermented
fruit, etc.
Once we have defined these differential structures, there is
nothing absurd about inquiring whether they belong strictly to the
sphere considered or whether they may be encountered (often
in transformed fashion) in other spheres of the same society or in
different societies. And, if we find these structures to be common
to several spheres, we have the right to conclude that we have
reached a significant knowledge of the unconscious attitudes of
the society or societies under consideration.
I have intentionally selected this somewhat flimsy example
because it is borrowed from contemporary societies. Haudricourt
and Granai, who seem at times ready to concede the value of my
method for the so-called primitive societies, attempt to differentiate
these radically from the more complex societies. In the case of the
latter, they say that a perception of the total society is impossible.
Now I have shown that it is never a question of grasping the total
society (an enterprise which cannot, strictly speaking, ever be successful),
but rather of discerning the levels which are comparable
and thus meaningful. I agree that these levels are more numerous,
and that each, in itself, is more difficult to study in our gigantic
modern societies than in small primitive tribes. Nevertheless, the
difference is one of degree and not of kind. It is also true that in
the modern Western world linguistic boundaries rarely coincide
Postscript to Chapters 111 and IV | 87
with cultural boundaries; however, the difficulty is not insuperable.
Instead of comparing certain aspects of language with certain aspects
of culture, we shall compare the differential aspects of language
and culture in two societies, or subsocieties, which have
language or culture in common, but not both. Thus, for instance,
we might ask ourselves whether a correlation exists between the
Swiss or Belgian way of speaking French and other characteristics
that seem peculiar to these societies when we compare them to the
corresponding characteristics of French language and society.
Nor do I agree with the assertion that social phenomena have
a spatial dimension, whereas a language is unaffected by the number
of its speakers. On the contrary, it seems to me possible to
assume a priori that the “major” languages and the “minor” languages
must express, in their structure and evolutionary development,
not only the size of the area they cover, but also the presence
at their boundaries of linguistic areas of different sizes than
theirs.
The many misunderstandings in Haudricourt and Granai’s
article can be reduced to two central errors— first, overemphasizing
the contrast between the diachronic and synchronic viewpoints;
second, building a gap between language, which is seemingly
arbitrary at all levels, and other social phenomena, which do
not have the same character. It is striking that in making these
assertions the authors chose to ignore Roman Jakobson’s article,
“Principes de phonologie historique,” 18 and the equally important
article in which Émile Benveniste examined Saussure’s principle of
the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign.19
As to the first point, the authors assert that structural analysis
confines the linguist or anthropologist to synchronic studies. Thus,
it would inevitably lead, “ at each stage considered, to the construction
of a system irreducible to others,” and, therefore, “to the
denial of the history and evolution of language.” A purely synchronic
perspective would lead to the indefensible view that tw o
phonemic interpretations of the same phonetic reality must be considered
as equally valid.
W e may address this criticism to certain neo-positivists in the
United States, but not to European structuralists. Here Haudricourt
and Granai are guilty of serious confusion. It is a healthy
attitude, at certain stages of scientific investigation, to believe that,
88 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
in the present state of knowledge, two interpretations of the same
facts are equally valid. Until the twentieth century, physics was
(and in many respects it still is) in this position. The error consists,
not in recognizing this state of affairs when it exists, but in being
satisfied with it and in not seeking to transcend it. Structural analysis
already offers a way out of this situation, through the principle
of parsimony, which Jakobson among others has constantly utilized,
after borrowing it from the physicists: Frustra fit per plura
quod fieri potest per pàuciora. This principle leads us in a direction
opposite to that of pragmatism, formalism, and neo-positivism,
since the assertion that the most parsimonious explanation also
comes closest to the truth rests, in the final analysis, upon the identity
postulated between the laws of the universe and those of the
human mind.
But, above all, we know since Jakobson’s article that the opposition
between synchronic and diachronic is to a large extent
illusory and useful only in the preliminary stages of research. The
following citation demonstrates this point:
It would be a serious error to consider statics and the synchronic
as synonymous. The static cross-section is a fiction: it is
only a helpful scientific device, and not a particular mode of being.
We can consider the perception of a film not only diachronically
but also synchronically; however, the synchronic aspect of
a film is not identical to an isolated image extracted from the film.
Movement is also perceived in the synchronic aspect as well. The
same is true of language.20
And the following statement by Jakobson applies directly to
the comments, in themselves very interesting, made by the authors
on the evolution of spoken French:
Attempts to identify the synchronic, the static, and the area
of application of teleology, on the one hand, and the diachronic,
the dynamic, and the sphere of mechanical causality, on the other,
unjustifiably restrict the scope of the synchronic, make historical
linguistics an agglomeration of disconnected facts, and create the
illusion, which is both superficial and dangerous, of a chasm between
the synchronic and the diachronic.21
Haudricourt and Granai’s second error consists in rigidly
contrasting language— which “offers us a twofold arbitrary relation,”
that between word and concept and that between the meanPostscript
to Chapters III and IV | 89
ing of the concept and the physical object which it denotes— and
society, which “is directly related . . . to nature . . . in a large
number of cases” ; 22 in so doing, they restrict society’s symbolic
function.
I could be satisfied with the qualification “a large number of
cases” and reply that I am concerned precisely with the other
cases. But since the implicit assertion of the authors seems to me
one of the most dangerous possible, I shall dwell on it for a mo­
ment.
As early as 1939, Benveniste speculated whether the linguist
might one day be able to solve the metaphysical problem of the
congruence between mind and universe. While he might be better
advised to relinquish it for the moment, still he ought to realize
that “to formulate this relationship as arbitrary is for the linguist
a means of evading the question. . . .” 23 Haudricourt, since he is
the linguist of the team, remains on the defensive. And yet, as an
ethnographer and a technologist, he knows that technology is not
so natural, or language so arbitrary, as he declares.
Not even the linguistic arguments put forth in support of this
contrast are satisfactory. Does the term pomme de terre [potato]
really stem from an arbitrary convention “denoting an object that
is not an apple and does not lie in the earth” ? And is the arbitrary
character of the concept made clearer when we note that in English
the pomme de terre is called potato? Actually the French term
inspired to a large extent by didactic considérations, reflects the
specific technical and economic conditions which prevailed when
this food was finally accepted in France. It also reflects the verbal
forms current in those countries from which the plant was imported.
Finally, pomme de teire, if not inevitable, was at least one
of the likely names, because the word pomme, which originally
meant any rounded fruit with stone or seeds, had already provided
a number of functional variants established in previous usage,
such as pomme de pin [pine cone], pomme de chêne [acorn],
pomme de coing [quince], pomme de grenade [pomegranate],
pomme d'orange [orange], etc. Can a choice which has historical,
geographical, and sociological connotations, as well as strictly linguistic
ones, really be considered arbitrary? Let us say, rather, that
the French pomme de terre was not prescribed, but existed as a
possible solution (and resulted, moreover, by contrast, in pomme
ço | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
de Fair, which is so common in the language of chefs and which
replaces the expression pomme vulgaire, frequent in archaic French
for the fruit of the apple tree, since the latter is endowed with
stronger connotations of vulgarity). The solution is the result of a
choice among pre-existing possibilities.
In addition to being arbitrary on the conceptual level, language
is also claimed by the authors to be arbitrary on the phonemic
level: “There is . . . no intelligible relationship between the
pronunciation of a word and the concept it represents. What possible
relationship, for example, can exist betwen the closure of the
lips at the beginning and the end of the word pomme and the
rounded fruit which it denotes?” 24
The Saussurean principle here invoked by the authors cannot
be disputed if we are concerned only with the level of linguistic
description. This principle has played an important role in the science
of language by permitting the liberation of phonetics from
naturalistic metaphysical interpretations. Nevertheless, it represents
only one phase in the evolution of linguistic thought, and when we
attempt to perceive things from a more general viewpoint, its
scope becomes limited and its precision blunted.
T o simplify my argument, I will say that the linguistic sign is
arbitrary a priori, but ceases to be arbitrary a posteriori. Nothing
existing a priori in the nature of certain preparations made of fermented
milk requires the sound-form fromage [cheese], or rather,
from- (since the ending is shared with other words). It is sufficient
to compare the French froment [wheat], whose semantic content
is entirely different, to the English cheese, which means the same
thing as fromage, though it utilizes different phonemic material.
So far, the linguistic sign appears to be arbitrary.
On the other hand, it is in no way certain that these phonemic
options, which are arbitrary in relation to the designatum, do not,
once the choice has been made, imperceptibly affect, perhaps not
the general meaning of words, but their position within a semantic
environment. This a posteriori influence works on two levels, the
phonemic and the lexical.
On a phonemic level, phenomena of synesthesia have often
been described and studied. Practically all children and a good
many adults— though for the most part adults will deny it— spontaneously
associate sounds, whether phonemes or the timbre of
Postscript to Chapters 111 and IV | 91
musical instruments, with colors and forms. These associations also
exist on the level of vocabulary in such highly structured areas
as calendar terminology. Although the associated colors may
not always be the same for each phoneme, it would appear that
individuals construct, with variable terms, a system of relations
which corresponds, analogically and on another level, to the structural
phonemic properties of the language considered. Thus an individual
whose mother tongue is Hungarian sees vowels in the
following fashion: i, i, white; e> yellow; é, a shade darter; a, tan;
i, a shade darker; o, dark blue; 6, black; uyuy both red, as fresh
blood. And Jakobson remarks, in connection with the preceding
observation:
The ascending chromatism of the colors parallel to the gradation
from high to low vowels and the contrast of light and dark
parallel to the opposition of front and back vowels are consistent
except for the u vowels which show a deviating perception. The
ambivalent character of the rounded front vowels is clearly indicated:
dy o very dark blue base with light blurred spots spread on
it; ü, ü a very red base with pinkish spots on it.25
It is, therefore, not a question of peculiarities which can be
explained through the personal history and predilections of each
individual. Not only may the study of these phenomena disclose,
as stated by the authors we have just cited, “much of importance
to the psychological and theoretical aspects of linguistics,” 26 but it
leads us directly to a consideration of the “natural bases” of the
phonemic system, that is, the structure of the brain. Re-examining
this question in a later issue of the same journal, D. I. Mason concludes
his analysis as follows: “ . . . there probably exists in the
human brain a map of colors part of which is similar topologically
to a map of sound frequencies there. If there is, as suggested by
Martin Joos, a map, in the brain, of mouth shapes . . . then this
would appear to be the inverse, in one sense, of both the frequency
map and the color map. . . .” 27
If we admit, therefore, in accordance with the Saussurean
principle, that nothing compels, a priori, certain sound-clusters to
denote certain objects, it appears probable, nonetheless, that once
they are adopted, these sound-clusters transmit particular shadings
to the semantic content with which they have become associated.
It has been pointed out that high-frequency vowels (from i to e)
92 I L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
are preferred in English poetry to suggest pale or dim colors,
whereas low-frequency vowels (from u to a) refer to rich or
dark colors.28 Mallarmé complained that the phonemic values of
the French words jour and nuit were the opposite of their respective
meanings. As soon as French and English ascribe heterogeneous
phonemic values to words denoting the same food, the semantic positions
of the terms are no longer entirely the same. As for myself, who
has spoken English exclusively during certain periods of my life
without, however, becoming bilingual, fromage and cheese mean
the same thing, but with different shadings. Fromage evokes a certain
heaviness, an oily substance not prone to crumble, and a thick
flavor. This term is especially suitable for denoting what [French]
dairymen call pâtes grasses [high in butter-fat content], whereas
cheese, which is lighter, fresher, a little sour, and which crumbles
in the mouth (compare the shape of the mouth) reminds me immediately
of the French fromage blanc [a variety of cottage
cheese]. The “archetypal cheese,” therefore, is not always the
same for me, according to whether I am thinking in French or in
English.
W hen we consider vocabulary a posteriori, that is, after it has
been constructed, words lose a good deal of their arbitrary character,
for the meaning that we give them is no longer solely a function
of convention. The meaning of a word depends on the way in
which each language breaks up the realm of meaning to which the
word belongs; and it is a function of the presence or absence of
other words denoting related meanings. Thus time and temps
cannot mean the same thing in French and English, if only because
English also has the term weather, which French lacks. Conversely,
chair and armchair belong, retrospectively, to a more restricted
semantic environment than chaise and fauteuil. Words are also contaminated
by their homophones, despite differences in meaning. If
a large number of Frenchmen were asked to provide free associations
to the series: quintette [quintet], sextuor [sextet], septuor
[septet], I would be very much surprised if these associations were
related only to the number of musical instruments and if the
meaning of quintette were not influenced to some extent by quinte
(1de toux) [coughing spell] and the meaning of sextuor by sexe.29
Septuor suggests a feeling of duration, owing to the hesitant
modulation of the first syllable which the second then resolves, as
Postscript to Chapters 111 and IV | 93
if by a majestic chord. Michel Leiris, in his literary works, has
initiated a study of this unconscious structuring of vocabulary,
but a scientific theory still remains to be constructed. W e would
be mistaken in seeing this as a poetic game, rather than as the perception,
as through a telescope, of phenomena which— though they
are quite remote from lucid consciousness and rational thought—
play a vital role in our growing understanding of the nature of
linguistic phenomena.30
The arbitrary character of the linguistic sign is thus only provisional.
Once a sign has been created its function becomes explicit,
as related, on the one hand, to the biological structure of the brain
and, on the other, to the aggregate of other signs— that is, to the
linguistic universe, which always tends to be systematic.
Traffic regulations have also arbitrarily assigned differential semantic
values to the red and green traffic signals. The opposite
choice could have been made. And yet, if it had, the emotional
and symbolic overtones of red and green would not simply be reversed
thereby. In the current system, red evokes danger, violence,
and blood, whereas green is associated with hope, serenity, and the
placid unfolding of a natural process such as that of vegetation. But
what would happen if red were to stand for “go” and green for
“stop”? Red would no doubt be perceived as an expression of human
warmth and communication and green as an icy and venomous
symbol. Red, then, would not merely replace green, and vice
versa. The choice of the sign may be arbitrary, but it retains an
inherent value— an independent content— which becomes associated
with its semantic function and modulates it. If the opposition
red/green is inverted, its semantic content shifts perceptibly, for
red remains red and green green, not only as sensory stimuli in
their own right, each endowed with its own inherent value, but
also because they constitute the supports of a traditional symbolism
which, once it has come into historical existence, can no longer
be manipulated with complete freedom.
When we shift from language to other social phenomena, we
are surprised that Haudricourt permitted himself to be influenced
by an empirical and naturalistic conception of the relations between
the geographical environment and society, when he himself
has done so much to prove the artificial character of such a rela-
94 | L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
rionship. I have just demonstrated that language is not really such
an arbitrary thing, but the relationship between nature and society
is far more arbitrary than the article cited would lead us to
believe. Need I recall that all mythical thought and ritual consist
in a reorganization of sensory experience within the context of a
semantic system? And that the reasons why different societies
choose to utilize or reject certain natural products and, if they do
utilize them, the modes of employment they choose depend not
only upon the intrinsic properties of the products but also on the
symbolic values ascribed to them? I shall not list examples that can
be found in any textbook; I shall limit myself to a single authority,
one who cannot be suspected of idealism— Karl Marx. In the
Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, he examines the
reasons which have led humanity to select precious metals as standards
of value. He enumerates several factors which refer to the
“natural properties” of gold and silver: homogeneity, uniform quality,
divisibility into any number of fractions which can always be
recombined by melting, high specific weight, scarcity, portability,
anddurability. He then comments:
Furthermore, gold and silver are not only negatively superfluous,
i.e., dispensable articles, but their aesthetic properties make
them the natural material of luxury, ornamentation, splendor,
festive occasions, in short, the positive form of abundance and
wealth. T h ey appear, in a way, as spontaneous light brought out
from the underground world, since silver reflects all rays of light
in their original combination, and gold only the color of highest
intensity, viz., red light. The sensation of color is, generally speaking,
the most popular form of aesthetic sense. The etymological
connection between the names of the precious metals, and the
relations of colors, in the different Indo-Germanic languages has
been established by Jacob Grimm. . . .31
Marx himself, therefore, suggests that we uncover the symbolic
systems which underlie both language and man’s relationship writh
the universe. “It is only through the habit of everyday life that we
come to think it perfectly plain and commonplace, that a social relation
of production should take on the form of a thing. . . .” 32
But as soon as the various aspects of social life— economic,
linguistic, etc.— are expressed as relationships, anthropology will
become a general theory of relationships. Then it will be possible
Postscript to Chapters III and IV I 95
L A N G U A G E A N D K I N S H I P
to analyze societies in terms of the differential features characteristic
of the systems of relationships which define them.
N OTES
1. A. G. Haudricourt and G. Granai, “Linguistique et sociologie,” Cahiers
internationaux de Sociologie, n.s., XIX (1955) pp. 114-29. Regarding
Gurvitch’s article, see Chapter X V I of this volume.
2. Chapters III and IV.
3. A. G. Haudricourt and G. Granai, “Linguistique et sociologie,” op. cit.,
p. 127
4. Loc. cit.
5. Ibid., p. 114.
6. Ibid., p. 126.
7. Roman Jakobson and M. Halle, Fundamentals of Language (The Hague:
1956) pp. 27, 28,17, and passim.
8. Ibid., p. 17. And, as the authors declare, farther on, “the study of invariants
within the phonemic pattern of one language must be supplemented
by a search for universal invariants in the phonemic patterning
of language” (ibid., p. 28).
9. See Chapter X V of this volume.
10. G. Gurvitch, “Le Concept de structure sociale,” Cahiers internationaux
de Sociologie, n.s., XIX (1955)^. 11.
11. See, for art, Chapter XIII of this volume; for myth, Chapters X and XI;
for ritual, Chapter XII.
12. Haudricourt and Granai, “Linguistique et sociologie,” op. cit., p. 128.
13. See Chapter IV.
14. Chapter III, above.
15. For example, certain articles by E. Sapir. See E. Sapir, Selected Writings
in Language, Culture and Personality, ed. by D. Mandelbaum
(Berkeley: 1949).
16. Haudricourt and Granai, “Linguistique et sociologie,” op. cit., p. 126.
[17. Translator's note: “Charcuterie” refers to cold meats, sausages, pâtés,
etc., which make up a major part of hors-d’oeuvres.]
18. In N. Troubetzkoy, éd., Principes de phonologie (French translation;
Paris: 1949), pp. 315-6.
19. E. Benveniste, “Nature du signe linguistique,” Acta Linguistica, I,
(1939), p. 1.
20. R. Jakobson, “Principes de phonologie historique,” op. cit., pp. 333-4.
21. Ibid., pp. 33J-6.
22. Haudricourt and Granai, “Linguistique et sociologie,” op. cit., pp. 126-7.
23. E. Benveniste, “Nature du signe linguistique,” op. cit., p. 26.
24. Haudricourt and Granai, loc. cit.
25. G. A. Reichard, R. Jakobson, and E. Werth, “Language and Synesthesia,”
Word, V , No. 2 (1949), p. 226.
26. Ibid., p. 224.
27. D. I. Mason, “Synesthesia and Sound Spectra,” Word, VIII, No. 1
(1952), p. 41, citing Martin Joos, Acoustic Phonetics (supplement to
Langage: Language Monographs, II, No. 23 (April-June 1948), p. 46.
Postscript to Chapters III and IV
28. I b i d p. 40, citing M. M. McDermott, Vocal Sounds in Poetry (1940).
29. This is so true for me that I have difficulty in not using the term sextette
in French (which would be an Anglicism), perhaps because of its
feminine inflection.
30. M. Leiris, La Règle du jeu: Vol. I, Biffures (Paris: 1948), Vol. II, Fourbis
(Paris: 1955).
31. K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, trans.
N . I. Stone (Chicago: 1911), p. 211.
32. I b i d p. 30.
P A R T TWO
Social Organization
CHAPTER
The Concept of
Archaism in Anthropology
D e s p i t e a l l i t s i m p e r f e c t io n s , a n d the d e served
criticism which it has received, it seems that primitive, in the
absence of a better term, has definitely taken hold in the contemporary
anthropological and sociological vocabulary. W e thus study
“primitive” societies. But what do we mean by this? Taken in its
broad sense, the expression is clear enough. First, we know that
“primitive” denotes a vast array of non-literate peoples, who are
thus not accessible through the research methods of the conventional
historian. Second, they have only recently been affected by
the expansion of industrial civilization and, because of their social
structure and world view, the concepts of economics and political
philosophy regarded as basic to our own society are inapplicable to
them. But where shall we draw the line of demarcation? Ancient
Mexico fulfills the second criterion, but hardly the first. Archaic
Egypt and China are open to anthropological research, certainly
not because writing was unknown to them, but because the scope
of preserved documents is not sufficient for us to dispense with
101
other methods. Furthermore, neither lies outside the area of industrial
civilization; rather, they precede it in time. Conversely, the
fact that the folklorist works in the present and within an industrial
civilization does not cut him off from the anthropologist. The
last twenty-five years in the United States have witnessed tremendous
progress in social science research— progress which clearly
expresses a crisis in the values of contemporary American society
(whose boundless self-confidence has begun to wane and which
seeks a measure of self-understanding through examination by detached
professional observers). But this progress, which has opened
to anthropologists industry, the agencies of national and municipal
government, and sometimes even the armed forces, implicitly proclaims
that the difference between anthropology and the other
sciences of man is one of method rather than of subject matter.
It is only the subject matter, however, that we wish to consider
here. It is striking to note that, in losing awareness of its
particular subject matter, American anthropology is permitting a
disintegration of the method— too narrowly empirical, but precise
and scrupulous— with which it was endowed by its founders, in
favor of a social metaphysics which is often simplistic and which
uses dubious techniques of investigation. This method cannot be
consolidated, much less refined, except through an increasingly
exact knowledge of its own subject matter, its specific characteristics,
and its distinctive elements. W e are far from having achieved
this. To be sure, the term primitive now seems to be safe from the
confusion inherent in its etymological meaning and reinforced b y
an obsolete evolutionism. A primitive people is not a backward or
retarded people; indeed it may possess, in one realm or another, a
genius for invention or action that leaves the achievements o f
civilized peoples far behind. One might cite as illustrations the true
“sociological planning” evident in the study of family organization
among Australian societies; the integration of emotional life
within a complex system of rights and obligations in Melanesia;
and, almost everywhere, the utilization of religious feeling to establish
a viable, if not always harmonious, synthesis of individual
aspirations and the social order.
Nor do primitive peoples lack history, although its development
often eludes us. The work of Seligman on the natives of N ew
Guinea1 shows how a seemingly systematic social structure evolved
io2 ) S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
and has been maintained through a succession of contingent events:
wars, migrations, rivalries, and conquests. Stanner has described
the upheaval resulting from the enactment in a contemporary society
of new marriage and kinship regulations: The “Young
Turks,” reformers converted to the doctrines of a neighboring
people, successfully introduced a more refined system in place of
the simpler ancient institutions. And natives absent from their tribe
for several years are no longer able, upon their return, to adapt
themselves to the new order.2 In North America, for example, the
number, distribution, and reciprocal relations of Hopi clans were
not the same two centuries ago as they are today.3
All this we know, but what have we learned from it? A distinction,
theoretically ambiguous and in fact impracticable, between
the so-called primitives as conventionally designated (including
almost all the peoples studied by anthropologists) and a
few rare “true primitives”— a term which, according to Marcel
Mauss,4 could include only the Australians and Fuegians. W e have
just seen how the Australians should be regarded. Would the Fuegians
(and a few other South American tribes mentioned by other
authors)5 be the only ones, therefore, along with certain Pygmy
groups, to enjoy the peculiar distinction of having endured without
possessing any history? This curious assertion rests on a twofold
argument. First of all, the history of these peoples is completely
unknown to us, and on account of the lack or paucity of
oral traditions and archaeological remains, it is forever beyond our
reach. From this we cannot conclude that it does not exist. Second,
owing to the archaic nature of their techniques and institutions,
these peoples recall what we have-been able to reconstruct about
the social organization of peoples that lived ten or twenty thousand
years ago. Hence the conclusion that they remain today just as
they were in that remote period. W e leave it to philosophy to explain
why in some cases something happened and why in other
cases nothing happened.
Once the problem is advanced to this philosophical level, it
seems insoluble. Let us suppose, as a theoretical possibility, that
certain ethnic fragments were for some reason left behind in the
uneven forward march of humanity. Since then they have been
evolving at a hardly perceptible pace, preserving until now the
greater part of their primeval traits; or, on the other hand, let us
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 103
suppose that their evolutionary momentum met an untimely end
and left them frozen in a state of permanent inertia. But the real
problem cannot be stated in these terms. When we look today at
one or another seemingly archaic people, can we establish certain
criteria whose presence or absence would permit us to make a decision,
not, to be sure, in the affirmative— we saw that the hypothesis
is ideological and not subject to demonstration— but in the
negative? If this negative demonstration could be applied to each
known case, the question would be settled practically, if not theoretically.
But then a new problem would have to be resolved. If
consideration of the past is excluded, what formal structural characteristics
would differentiate the so-called primitive societies from
those we call modern or civilized?
These are questions we might profitably bear in mind when
considering those South American societies for which the hypothesis
of original archaism has recently been revived.
Ever since Martius,6 anthropologists have been in the habit of
dividing the indigenous cultures of tropical America into two major
categories. The cultures of the coast and the Orinoco-Amazon system
are characterized by either a forest habitat or a river-bank
habitat in close proximity to the forest, an agriculture which is
rudimentary in technique but characterized by extensive clearings,
with many species of plants under cultivation, a clearly differentiated
social organization that suggests or emphasizes an unmistakable
social hierarchy, and a complex of collective houses testifying
to the level of native craftsmanship as well as to the degree of
integration of the society. The Arawak, Tupi, and Carib share
these characteristic traits in various degrees and with regional variations.
On the other hand, the peoples of central Brazil have a more
rudimentary culture. Sometimes nomadic, and unfamiliar with the
construction of permanent dwellings and pottery, they live b y
food-gathering or, when they are sedentary, by individual or group
hunting rather than by raising crops, which they consider to be a
secondary occupation. Martius believed that he could group into a
single cultural and linguistic family, to which he gave the name
Ge, peoples that actually differ in language and other aspects o f
culture. He considered them the descendants of the Tapuya savages,
described by sixteenth-century travelers as the traditional enemies
of the coastal Tupi. The Tupi were assumed to have driven
io4 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
the Tapuya into the interior in the course of migrations which
led to the Tupi occupation of the coast and the Amazon Valley.
These migrations ended only in the seventeenth century, and there
are even more recent examples of them.
Within the last thirty years this apparently likely hypothesis
was shaken by the investigations of the late Curt Nimuendaju
among several tribes of the so-called Ge family living in the savanna
between the coastal escarpment and the Araguaia Valley in
eastern and northeastern Brazil. Among the Ramcocamecra, Cayapo,
Sherente, and Apinayé, Nimuendaju found, first of all, a
more original agriculture than had been supposed: Some of these
tribes cultivate species (Cissus sp.) which are unknown elsewhere.
But, above all, in the area of social organization, these so-called
primitives had devised systems of an astonishing complexity: exogamous
moieties cross-cutting recreational or ceremonial moieties,
secret societies, men’s clubs, and age grades. These structures
are ordinarily associated with much higher cultural levels. W e may
conclude either that these structures are not restricted to higher
cultures or that the archaism of the so-called Ge is less indisputable
than it appears. Interpreters of Nimuendaju’s findings, especially
Lowie and Cooper, inclined toward the first explanation. Thus
Lowie writes that “ . . . the appearance of matrilineal moieties on
the Bororo-Canella level indicates the local origin of such institutions
among hunter-gatherers or at best incipient farmers.” 7 But
do the Ge and their parallels on the western plateau, the Bororo
and Nambicuara, deserve such an unqualified definition? Is it not
also possible to see them as a regressive people, that is, one that
descended from a higher level of material life and social organization
and retained one trait or another as a vestige of former conditions?
T o this hypothesis, suggested to him in the course of private
correspondence, Lowie replied that this alternative was admissible,
but that it would remain dubious . . until a particular model is
produced of which the Bororo-Canella organization is the demonstrably
attenuated replica. . . . ” 8
There are many ways of meeting this requirement, and the
first is no doubt deceptive in its simplicity. Yet the pre-Columbian
cultures of Peru and Bolivia had something resembling dual organization:
The inhabitants of the Inca capital were divided into
two groups, Upper Cuzco and Lower Cuzco, and the significance
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 105
of the division was not merely geographic, for at the ceremonies
the mummies of the ancestors were solemnly placed in two parallel
rows, as was done in Chou China.9 And Lowie himself, commenting
on my description of a Bororo village laid out according to a
plan that reflected its complex social structure, refers in this connection
to the layout of Tiahuanaco as it was reconstructed by
Bandelier.10 The same dualism, or at any rate its fundamental
themes, may be observed also in Central America, in the ritual
antagonism of the Aztec Eagle and Jaguar societies. The two animals
play a role in the mythology of the Tupi and other South
American tribes, as seen in the motif of the “Sacred Jaguar” and
the ritual capture of a harpy-eagle in native villages on the Xingu
and Machado rivers. These resemblances between the Tupi and
Aztec societies extend to other aspects of religious life. Is the concrete
model, of which the primitive cultures of the tropical savanna
present an attenuated replica, then to be found in the Andean
highlands?
This would be an oversimplified explanation. Between the
great civilizations of the highlands and the barbarians of the savanna
and forest, contacts have undoubtedly been in the form of
trading, military reconnaissance, and forays. The natives of the
Chaco knew by hearsay of the existence of the Incas and described
that amazing kingdom to the first explorers. Orellana found
gold objects in the middle Amazon region; and metal axes of
Peruvian origin have been excavated as far as the Sâo Paulo coast.
Yet the rapid cycles of expansion and decline of the Andean civilizations
allowed for only sporadic exchanges of short duration. On the
other hand, the social organization of the Aztecs and Incas reached
us through the accounts of conquerors who were enamored of
their discovery, and who ascribed to it a systematic character that
it probably did not possess. In both cases, we witness the ephemeral
union of highly varied cultures, often quite ancient and heterogeneous.
From the pre-eminent position temporarily occupied by one
tribe among so many others, we cannot conclude that that tribe’s
particular customs were observed throughout the whole region
where its influence was felt, even if its dignitaries had an interest
in giving that impression, especially to the European newcomers.
Neither in Peru nor in Mexico was there ever actually an empire
whose colonized peoples, whether willing borrowers or merely daz­
106 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
zled witnesses, attempted to copy the model on a more modest scale.
The analogies between high and low cultures stem from more basic
facts.
Dual organization is actually only one trait among several
which are common to both types. These traits are distributed in
the most sporadic fashion. They disappear and reappear irrespective
°f geographical distance or of the cultural level considered, as
though they were scattered at random over the entire continent.
We find them present here, absent there, now grouped, now isolated,
richly developed in a high civilization, or meagerly preserved
in the lowest. How could we possibly account for each of these
occurrences as the result of diffusion? In each case it would be
necessary to find a historical contact, to set its date, and to trace an
itinerary of migration. Not only would the task be impossible to
carry out, but it would not correspond to reality, which presents
us with a global picture that should be understood as such. W e are
dealing with a vast syncretic phenomenon, whose historical and
local causes antecede by many years the beginnings of what we
call the pre-Columbian history of America. Sound method compels
us to accept this syncretism as the starting point from which
the higher cultures of Mexico and Peru sprang and expanded.
Is it possible to find a reflection of this starting point in the
present low cultures of the savanna? Actually there is no conceivable
transition; it is impossible to reconstruct stages between,
let us say, the cultural level of the Ge and the beginnings of the
Maya culture or the archaic levels of the Valley of Mexico. Thus,
all these cultures undoubtedly derive from a common foundation,
which must be sought on a level intermediate between the present
cultures of the savanna and the ancient civilizations of the high­
lands.
Numerous facts support this hypothesis. It was archaeology
that first discovered centcrs of a relatively developed civilization
that existed until the recent past throughout tropical America: in
the Antilles, on Marajo island, on the Cunani river, on the Lower
Amazon, at the mouth of the Tocantins, on the Mojos plain, and at
Santiago del Estero. The large petroglyphs of the Orinoco Valley
and other regions presuppose collective work, of which we still
find striking evidence today in the clearing and cultivation of garden
plots among the Tapirapé.11 At the beginning of the historic
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 107
period, Orellana observed a large variety of cultivated crops along
the Amazon. Can we not assume that at the height of their development
the inferior tribes participated, at least to some extent, in the
vitality whose manifestations we have just recalled?
Dual organization itself is not a differential characteristic o f
the populations of the savanna. It was reported among the
Parintintin and the Mundurucü; it may have existed among the
Tembe and Tucuna, and certainly occurred at the two extremities
of Brazil, among Arawak cultures of such high development as the
Palikur and the Terena. W e ourselves found it, as a survival,
among the Tupi-Cawahib of the Upper Machado. W e may thus
delineate, in either matrilineal or patrilineal form, an area of dual
organization which extends from the right bank of the Tocantins
to the Madeira River. It is impossible to define dual organization
in South America as a trait typical of the most primitive tribes,
since they share it with their forest neighbors, who are expert horticulturists
and head-hunters with a much higher level of culture.
One should not separate the social organization of the peoples
of the savanna from that of their neighbors in forested valleys
and on river banks. On the other hand, one sometimes places on
so-called archaic levels tribes which actually have quite different
cultures. The Bororo offer a particularly striking example of such
false analogies. In order to make them into “true primitives” or an
approximation thereof, a text by Von den Steinen is invoked: “The
women, accustomed to digging up wild roots in the jungle, began
to cut down the young (manioc) plants by carefully turning over
the soil in the hope of finding edible roots. This tribe of hunters
lacked any true agriculture and, especially, the patience to wait for
the tubers to develop.” 12 From this it is concluded that prior to
their contact with the expeditionary corps which was to subjugate
them, the Bororo lived exclusively by hunting and food-gathering.
What is overlooked is the fact that the observation referred to the
garden plots of Brazilian soldiers, not those of the natives, and
that, according to the same author, “the Bororo did not in the least
care for the gifts of civilization.” 13 It is sufficient to place these remarks
in their context, which provides a vivid picture of the disintegration
of Bororo society under the influence of its so-called
pacifiers, in order to grasp their anecdotal character. W hat do such
comments teach us? That at that time the Bororo did not till the
io8 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
soil? (But for more than fifty years they had been ruthlessly
hunted down and exterminated by the colonists.) Or that the natives
found it more profitable to loot the gardens of the military
posts than to clear the land themselves?
A few years later, in 1901, Cook observed “fields of small
yellow maize” among the Bororo of the Ponte de Pedra River
(then a little known tributary of the Sâo Lourenço River).14 Concerning
the villages of the Rio Vermelho, which retained their independence,
Radin wrote in 1905: “The Bororo plant very little in
the Colonia Theresa Christina and for that reason, perhaps, Professor
Von den Steinen, who only saw them plow under compulsion,
believed that they had never been an agricultural nation.
Fric, visiting those still in a wild state, discovered many plantations
carefully kept.” 15 Furthermore, the same author describes an
agrarian rite: “A ceremony of blessing; to taste the com before
the ceremony would mean certain death. . . .” 16 This ritual consists
in washing the barely ripe corn husk, which is then placed before
the aroetorrari (or shaman), who dances and sings for several
hours at a stretch, smokes continuously, and thus enters a kind of
hypnotic ecstasy. Trembling all over, “ . . . he bites into the husk,
uttering shrieks from time to time. A similar ceremony is repeated
whenever a large animal . . . or fish . . . is taken. It is the firm
belief of the Bororo that should anyone touch unconsecrated meat
or maize . . . he and his entire tribe would perish.” 17 If we remember
that except for the villages on the Rio Vermelho, Bororo society
had completely disintegrated between 1880 and 1910, we can
hardly believe that the natives found the time and took the trouble,
in so short and tragic a period of time, to dignify their newly
adopted agriculture with a complicated agrarian ritual— unless they
already possessed the ritual, which of course would imply the
traditional character of agriculture.
Can we ever speak, then, of true hunters and gatherers in
South America? Certain tribes seem today very primitive, such as
the Guayaki of Paraguay, the Siriono of Bolivia, the N^mbicuara
of the Tapajoz head-waters, and the food-gatherers of the Orinoco
Valley. Yet those who are completely unfamiliar with horticulture
are rare, and they are all found isolated among groups of a higher
level. The history of each of these tribes, if we only had the
knowledge, would better account for their special characteristics
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 109
than does the hypothesis of an archaic level of which they are
claimed to be a survival. In most cases, these tribes practice rudimentary
horticulture, which does not replace hunting, fishing, or
collecting. This is not enough to prove that they are newcomers to
horticulture rather than horticulturists who regressed owing to
new living conditions which were imposed upon them.
The late Father J. M. Cooper suggested a division of the tribes
of tropical America into two main groups, which he called “silval”
and “marginal.” The marginal is subdivided in turn into “savannal”
and “intrasilval.” 18 W e shall consider only the main distinction,
which is perhaps of practical utility, but which should not be
thought of as a true representation of the facts. Nothing proves, or
even suggests, that the savanna was permanently settled in the
earliest times. On the oth^r hand, it seems that even in their present
habitat the “savannal” tribes seek to preserve the remnants of a
forest mode of life.
No geographical distinction is clearer and more fundamental
to the thinking of the South American native than that between
savanna and forest. The savanna is unsuitable not only for horticulture
but also for the gathering of wild products, since vegetation
and animal life are scanty. The Brazilian forest, by contrast, is
prodigal in fruit and game, and the soil is rich and fertile so long as
it is barely scratched. The contrast between the forest cultivators
and the savanna hunters may have a cultural significance, but it
has no natural basis. In tropical Brazil, the forest and the river
banks are the most favorable environments for horticulture, hunting,
and fishing, as well as for collecting and gathering. And if
the savanna is poor, it is poor from all these points of view. W e
cannot distinguish between the pre-horticultural mode of life retained
by the peoples of the savanna and the superior culture of the
forest, based on slash-and-burn horticulture, since the forest peoples
are not only the better horticulturists but also the better collectors
and gatherers. The reason for this is quite simple: There
are many more things to gather in the forest than outside it.
Horticulture and food-gathering co-exist in the two environments,
but both these modes of life are better developed in the one than
in the other.
The greater mastery of forest societies over the natural environment
is manifested with respect to wild species as well as to
n o I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
cultivated species. The plant environment varies from east to west
in the tropical forest, but the way of life varies less than the
species used. Thus the craft of basketry is identical, though the
baskets may be made from different types of palm; and narcotic
drugs play the same ritual role, although they are prepared from
different plants. The products change, while the customs remain.
On the other hand, the savanna exercises a negative influence; it
does not open up new possibilities but, rather, restricts those of the
forest. There is no such thing as a “savannal culture.” What is
called by this name is an attenuated replica, a weak echo, an
impotent imitation, of forest culture. The food-gathering peoples
would have chosen a forest habitat just as the horticulturists did;
or, more accurately, they would have remained in the forest if
they had been able to do so. If they are not there, it is not because
they belong to a so-called “savannal culture,” but because they
have been driven from the forest. Thus the Tapuya were pushed
into the interior by the great Tupi migrations.
Having clarified this matter, we readily admit that in any
particular case the new habitat may have exerted a positive influence.
The hunting skill of the Bororo was no doubt stimulated or
fostered by forays into the game-filled marshes of the middle
course of the Paraguay. And the place which fishing occupies in
the economy of the Xingu region is undoubtedly more important
than it was in the northern regions from which the Aucto and
Camayura came. But whenever they have the opportunity, the
tribes of the savanna cling to the forest and to the conditions of
forest life. All the horticulture is carried out in the narrow bands
of forest which, even in the savanna, fringe the major rivers. In
fact, it would be impossible to cultivate elsewhere, and the Bacairi
deride the legendary deer who stupidly planted his manioc in the
bush.19 The natives travel far to reach the forest and to find certain
products necessary to their technology, such as thick bamboo
stems, river shells, and seeds. Even more striking are the elements
involved in the utilization of wild plants, to which the forest
tribes dedicate a wealth of knowledge and techniques, for example,
the extraction of starch from the pith of certain palm trees, the
alcoholic fermentation of stored seeds, and the use of poisonous
plants as food. Among the peoples of the savanna this amounts to
large-scale gathering followed by immediate consumption, as
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | i n
though the need had suddenly arisen to compensate for the disappearance
of a differently balanced diet. Even collecting and gathering,
among them, are impoverished and limited techniques.20
The preceding considerations apply only to tropical America.
But if they are correct, they permit us to establish more broadly
valid criteria, which may be employed whenever a hypothesis o f
authentic archaism is advanced. There seems to be no doubt that
the same conclusion would be reached in each case, namely, that
true archaism is the realm of the archaeologist and the prehistorian,
but that the social anthropologist who studies contemporary societies
should not forget that, in order to be such, they must have
lived, endured, and, therefore, changed. Actually a change, if it
brings conditions of life and organization so elementary that they
suggest an archaic state, only amounts to regression. Is it possible to
distinguish, through an internal analysis, pseudo-archaism from real
archaism?
The problem of the primitiveness of a society is usually raised
by the contrast which the society offers in relation to its neighbors,
near or remote. A difference in cultural level is observed
between this society and those to which it may be most easily compared.
Its culture is poorer, owing to the absence or inadequacy of
those features— permanent dwellings, horticulture, animal husbandry,
techniques of stone-polishing, weaving, and pottery—
the habitual use, if not always the invention of which, dates back
to the Neolithic period. W ith these traits we generally associate—
though in this case the induction is less certain— a differentiated
social organization. There is no doubt that in certain regions of
the world these contrasts exist and even persist in modern times.
Yet, in the pseudo-archaic instances considered here, they are not
exclusive. These societies do not differ from their more highly
evolved neighbors in all respects, but only in some, while in other
respects numerous analogies exist.
The most striking example, which we have already noted, is
that of dual organization. In South America, this institution (or,
more accurately, this structural pattern) is a trait common to several
societies, including the most primitive as well as the most advanced
and a whole series of intermediate ones. The Bororo and
Nambicuara languages also show affinities with dialects lying outi
n | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
side the geographical area of those tribes and characteristic of
higher civilizations. The physical types, so different in the two
groups, suggest a southern origin in one case, a northern origin in
the other. The same applies to social organization, certain kinship
institutions, political institutions, and mythology— all of which recall
one or another trait whose most developed expression must be
sought outside the area. If, therefore, the problem of archaism is
raised by the differences between certain societies, we shall immediately
observe that in the case of pseudo-archaic societies these differences
never extend to the whole society: Some resemblances
remain to offset the contrasts.
Let us now consider the internal structure of a so-called
“archaic” society, rather than its relationship to other societies. A
strange sight awaits us, for this structure is full of incongruities and
contradictions. The example of the Nambicuara is particularly illuminating
in this respect, since the peoples of this linguistic family,
which is scattered over a territory half as large as France, present
one of the most primitive cultural levels now to be found in the
world. A t least some of their bands are completely unfamiliar with
the construction of permanent dwellings and pottery; weaving and
horticulture are reduced to their simplest forms; and the nomadic
groups of five or six families, which are joined under the leadership
of a chief who possesses no real authority, seem to be motivated
entirely by the requirements of food-gathering and the everpresent
threat of famine. Yet, instead of the absolute simplicity one
would expect from such rudimentary skills and such sketchy organization,
Nambicuara culture is full of riddles.
Let us recall the contrast among the Bororo between a developed
agrarian ritual and the apparent absence of agriculture,
whose existence, however, is disclosed by a more careful investigation.
The Nambicuara present, in a related realm, an analogous but
reversed situation. The Nambicuara are highly skilled poisoners.
(In tropical America, where manioc is eaten, food and poison are
not mutually exclusive categories.) Curare is one of the toxic substances
used by the Nambicuara; this is the southernmost point in
its area of distribution. Among the Nambicuara, the manufacture
of curare is not associated with any ritual, magical operation, or
secret procedure, as is the case everywhere else. The formula for
curare involves merely the basic material, and the method of manThe
Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 113
ufacture is a purely secular activity. And yet, the Nambicuara possess
a theory of poisons which includes all sorts of mystical considerations
and is based on a metaphysics of nature. But by a curious
contrast, this theory is not applied to the manufacture of real poisons;
it merely explains their effectiveness. Yet the theory is of
primary importance in the making, manipulation, and utilization of
other products, which are called by the same name and to which
the same power is attributed by the natives, though these are innocuous
substances of a purely magical character.
This example deserves further examination, for it holds a
wealth of implications. First, it fulfills the two criteria we proposed
for the detection of pseudo-archaism. The presence of curare, so
far from its present area of diffusion and among a people of a culture
so inferior to the groups among which it is ordinarily found,
constitutes an external coincidence. But the empirical character of
its preparation— in a society which also uses magical poisons, which
merges all its poisons under one and the same term, and which also
interprets their effects metaphysically— is an internal discrepancy,
whose value is even more significant. The presence among the
Nambicuara of curare which is reduced to its basic material and
which is prepared without any ritual strikingly raises the question
as to whether the apparently archaic traits of their culture are
original traits or vestiges in an impoverished culture. In the matter
of poisons, it is much more plausible to interpret the contradiction
between theory and practice in terms of the loss of complex rituals
which are associated farther north with the manufacture of curare,
than to explain how a supernatural complex could have evolved on
the basis of a purely experimental treatment of the strychnos root.
This is not the only discrepancy. The Nambicuara still possess
polished stone axes of excellent workmanship. But while they
are still capable of hafting them, they no longer know how to
make them. The stone tools that they manufacture from time to
time are limited to irregular, scarcely trimmed flakes. During the
greater part of the year they depend on food-gathering for their
sustenance. But in the preparation of wild products they either lack
the refined techniques of the forest peoples or use them only in a
rudimentary form. All Nambicuara groups engage in a little horticulture
during the rainy season, all of them practice basketry, and
some of them manufacture a shapeless though serviceable pottery.
i i 4 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
And yet, despite the terrible food shortage during the dry season,
they preserve their manioc crops only by burying cakes of pulp,
which are practically rotten when they are unearthed after several
weeks or months. The demands of nomadic life and the absence of
permanent dwellings prevent them from using their pots and baskets
for conservation. On the one hand, a pre-horticultural economy
is not associated with any of the techniques characteristic of
this mode of life; on the other hand, knowledge of various types of
containers fails to transform horticulture into a stable occupation.
We could borrow other examples from social organization. That
of the Apinayé resembles Australian institutions only superficially.21
Its extreme surface complexity conceals very crude differentiations,
and the functional value of the system is actually very low.
W e find therefore that the criterion of pseudo-archaism consists
in the simultaneous presence of what we have called external
coincidences and internal discrepancies. But we can go even further:
In pseudo-archaic cultures those correspondences and discrepancies
are contrasted through an additional feature which characterizes
each form as considered separately.
Let us turn again to the Nambicuara and briefly examine the
pattern of their external coincidences. These have not been established
with any neighboring culture whose influence— due to geographical
proximity or to an overwhelming technical, political, or
psychological superiority— might have been exerted on a miraculously
preserved archaic island. The points of correspondence tie the
Nambicuara to a number of peoples, some of whom are neighbors
and others remote, some closely related on a cultural level, others
very advanced. The physical type reminds us of ancient Mexico, and
especially of the Atlantic coast. The language has some similarities
with those of the Isthmus of Panama and the northern part of
South America. The concept of family organization and the religious
themes, together with the vocabulary associated with them,
recall the southern Tupi. The manufacture of poisons and the customs
of warfare (which are independent, since curare is used only
in hunting) point to the Guianas. Finally, the marriage customs
stir Andean echoes. The same is true for the Bororo, whose physical
type is southern, political organization western, and mode of
life eastern, in relation to their present area of settlement.
Thus, the coincidences have a scattered distribution. Inversely,
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 115
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
discrepancies are concentrated in the heart of the culture; they
affect its fundamental structure, its unique essence. W e might even
say they confer upon it its individuality. All, or almost all, the elements
of the Neolithic complex are present among the Nambicuara.
They cultivate gardens, spin cotton, weave legbands, plait
fibers, and mold clay. But these elements are not organized; a
synthesis is lacking. And in parallel fashion, even the food-gathering
obsession fails to blossom into specialized techniques. The
natives are thus paralyzed before an impossible choice. The dualism
of their mode of life permeates their daily activities and extends to
all their psychological attitudes, to their social organization, and to
their metaphysical thinking. The opposition between male activity,
defined by hunting and gardening— which are equally productive
and equally intermittent— and female activity, based on foodgathering—
whose results are constant but mediocre— is turned into
an opposition between the sexes according to which women are
actually cherished, but ostensibly depreciated; an opposition between
the seasons— that of nomadic wandering and that of more
durable settlement; an opposition between two modes of existence
— the one defined by what we might call temporary shelter and
permanent basket, which is rich in trials and adventures, and the
other by the tedious repetition of agricultural processes, which
creates a dull security. This whole complex, finally, is expressed on
a metaphysical level by the different fates which await the souls of
men— eternally reincarnated, just as the slash-and-burn holdings of
their owners will be cultivated over and over again after long fallow
periods— and the souls of women— after death scattered to
the winds, rains, and thunderstorms, destined to the same precarious
fate as female food-gathering.22
The hypothesis of a survival of archaic societies, which is
based on the discovery of external discrepancies between their culture
and that of neighboring societies, faces, in the case of pseudoarchaism,
two great obstacles. First, the external discrepancies are
never sufficiently numerous to eliminate completely the coincidences,
which are also external. The external coincidences are
atypical as well: Instead of having been established with a society
or aggregate of societies, culturally well defined and geographically
localized, they point in all directions and recall heterogeneous
societies. Second, the analysis of a pseudo-archaic culture as an
autonomous system reveals internal discrepancies which are, in this
case, typical, in that they affect the basic structure of the society
and irremediably jeopardize its specific equilibrium. For pscudoarchaic
societies are condemned societies. This should be obvious,
owing to their precarious position in the environment, where they
struggle to survive and to overcome the pressures of their neigh­
bors.
It is easy to understand that these intimate traits might elude
the historian and the sociologist, who study documents. But a good
field-worker cannot overlook them. Our theoretical conclusions
are based upon a body of data from South America which was
gathered by direct observation. It remains for the specialists on
Malaya and Africa to say whether their experiences confirm these
theories in their areas, where the same problems have been raised.
If we can reach agreement, great progress will have been made in
the definition of the subject matter of anthropological research.
For this research consists in a complex of investigational techniques
required, not so much by the character of those societies over
which no special doom hangs, as by the specific circumstances in
'which we find ourselves in relation to them. In this sense, anthropology
might be defined as the technique du dépaysement.23
For the moment, the important thing is to help anthropology
to disengage itself from the philosophical residue surrounding the
term primitive. A true primitive society should be harmonious, a
society, so to speak, at one with itself. W e have seen, on the contrary,
that in a large part of the world— outstanding in many
other respects for anthropological study— societies which appear
the most authentically archaic are completely distorted by discrepancies
that bear the unmistakable stamp of time elapsed. A
cracked bell, alone surviving the work of time, will never give
forth the ring of bygone harmonies.
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 117
N OTES
1. C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (London:
1910).
2. W. E. H. Stanner, “Murinbata Kinship and Totemism,” Oceania, VII,
No. 2 (1936-1937).
3. R. H. Lowie, “Notes on Hopi Clans,*’ Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History, XXX ( 1929), p. 6.
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
4. See the summary of his lecture notes, collected and published by his
students: Marcel Mauss, Manuel d'Ethnographie (Paris: 1947), p. 1, n 1.
5. J. M. Cooper, “The South American Marginal Cultures,” Proceedings
of the 8th American Scientific Congress (Washington, DC.: 1940),
II, 147-60.
6. C. F. P. Von Martius, Beitrdge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde
Amerikas zumal Brasiliens (Leipzig: 1867).
7. R. H. Lowie, “A Note on the Northern Ge Tribes of Brazil,” American
Anthropologist, n.s., XLIII (1941), p. 195.
8. Loc. cit.
9. Garcilaso de La Vega, Histoire des Incas, trans. into French (Paris:
1787), I, 167; H. Maspero, La Chine antique (Paris: 1927), pp. 251-52.
10. C. Nimuendaju and R. H. Lowie, “The Dual Organization of the Ramkokamekran
(Canella) of Southern Brazil,” American Anthropologist,
n.s., XXIX ( 1927), p. 578.
11. H. Baldus, “Os Tapirapé,” Revista do Arquivo Municipal (Sâo Paulo:
i944-i946).
12. K. Von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens, Second
Edition (Berlin: 1897); p. 581 of the Portuguese translation (Sâo Paulo:
•940)-
13. Ibid.yp. 580.
14. W . A. Cook, “The Bororo Indians of Matto Grosso, Brazil,” Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collection, Vol. L (Washington, D.C.: 1908).
15. V. Fric and P. Radin, “Contributions to the Study of the Bororo Indians,”
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXXVI (1906),
p. 391.
16. Ibid., p. 392.
17. Loc. cit.
18. J. M. Cooper, “The South American Marginal Cultures,” op. cit.
19. K. Von den Steinen, op. cit., p. 488.
20. C. Lévi-Strauss, “On Dual Organization in South America,” America
Indigena, (Mexico: 1944), IV; “The Tupi-Cawahib,” in Handbook
of South American Indians, Vol. Ill (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution, 1948). This reconstruction has been ingeniously criticized
by M. I. Pereira de Queiroz. She refers to several important elements
of Sherente mythology and ritual which suggest that the natives have
lived in the savanna for a prolonged period. I am ready to admit that
this presents a problem, although it is risky to interpret— as do the
Sherente themselves— certain mythical themes which are distributed in
the New World from Canada to Peru in terms of the economic history
of a specific tribe. Cf. M. I. Pereira de Queiroz, “A noçâo de arcaismo
em etnologia e a organizaçâo social dos Xerente,” Revista de Antropologia,
I, No. 2 (1953), pp. 99-108.
21. C. Nimuendaju, “The Apinayé,” The Catholic University of America
Anthropological Series, No. 8 (Washington, D.C.: 1939); see also Chapter
VII of the present volume.
22. C. Lévi-Strauss, La Vie familiale et sociale des Indiens Nambikwara
(Paris: 1948); Tristes Tropiques (Paris: 1955).
[23. Translator's note: This expression defies translation. Literally, dépaysement
means “homelessness” or “uprooting.” As used here, it is better
rendered as “marginality.” When the author defines social anthropology
as the technique du dépaysement, he is referring to the conscious cultivation
by the anthropologist of an attitude of marginality toward all
cultures, including his own, to the point where this becomes second
nature to him.]
The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology | 119
CHAPTER
Social Structures of
Central and Eastern Brazil
D u r i n g r e c e n t y e a r s o u r a tte n tio n h as b e e n
focused on the institutions of certain tribes of central and eastern
Brazil which had been classed as very primitive because of their
low level of material culture. These tribes are characterized by
highly complex social structures which include several systems of
criss-crossing moieties, each with specific functions, clans, age
grades, recreational or ceremonial associations, and other types of
groups. The most striking examples are furnished by the Sherente,
who have exogamous patrilineal moieties subdivided into clans; the
Canella and the Bororo, with exogamous matrilineal moieties and
other types of groups; and finally, the Apinayé, with nonexogamous
matrilineal moieties. The most complex types, such as a
double system of moieties subdivided into clans, and a triple system
of moieties lacking clan subdivisions, are found among the
Bororo and the Canella, respectively. (These tribes have been described
by Colbacchini, Nimuendaju, and the present author, as
well as earlier observers.)
n o
The general tendency of observers and theorists has been to
interpret these complex structures on the basis of dual organization,
which seemed to represent the simplest form.1 This followed
the lead of native informants, who focused their descriptions on
the dual forms. I do not differ from my colleagues in this respect.
Nevertheless, a long-standing doubt led me to postulate the residual
character of dual structures in the area under consideration.
As we shall see, this hypothesis later proved inadequate.
W e propose to show here that the description of indigenous
institutions given by field-workers, ourselves included, undoubtedly
coincides with the natives’ image of their own society, but that this
image amounts to a theory, or rather a transmutation, of reality,
itself of an entirely different nature. Tw o important consequences
stem from this observation, which until now had been applied only
to the Apinayé: The dual organization of the societies of central
and eastern Brazil is not only adventitious, but often illusory; and,
above all, we are led to conceive of social structures as entities independent
of men’s consciousness of them (although they in fact
govern men’s existence), and thus as different from the image
which men form of them as physical reality is different from our
sensory perceptions of it and our hypotheses about it.
Our first example will be the Sherente, described by Nimuendaju.
This tribe, which belongs to the central Ge linguistic family,
is distributed in villages, each composed of two exogamous
patrilineal moieties subdivided into four clans. Three of these clans
are considered by the natives as the original Sherente clans; the
fourth is attributed by legend to a foreign “captured” tribe. The
eight clans, four in each moiety, are differentiated by ceremonial
functions and privileges; but neither these clans, nor the two athletic
teams, nor the four men’s clubs and the related women’s association,
nor the six age grades function in the regulation of marriage,
which depends exclusively upon the moiety system. W e
would expect, then, to find the usual corollaries of dual organization,
namely, distinction between parallel-cousins and cross-cousins;
merging of patrilateral and matrilateral cross-cousins; and preferential
marriage between bilateral cross-cousins. This, however, is
only rarely the case.
In another work whose conclusions we shall review
briefly,2we have distinguished three fundamental types of marriage
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil | 121
exchange; these are expressed, respectively, by preferential bilateral
cross-cousin marriage, marriage between sister’s son and
brother’s daughter, and marriage between brother’s son and sister’s
daughter. W e have called the first type restricted exchange, implying
the division of the group into two sections, or a multiple of
two, while the term generalized exchange, which includes the two
remaining types, refers to the fact that marriage can take place
between an unspecified number of partners. The difference between
matrilateral and patrilateral cross-cousin marriage arises
from the fact that the former represents the richest and most complete
form of marriage exchange, the partners finding themselves
oriented once and for all in an open-ended global structure. Patrilateral
cross-cousin marriage, on the contrary, is a “borderline”
form of reciprocity, links groups only in pairs, and implies a total
reversal of all the cycles with each succeeding generation. It follows
that matrilateral marriage is normally accompanied by a kinship
terminology which we have called “consecutive” : Since the
position of th^ descent groups in relation to one another is unchanging,
their successive members tend to be merged under the
same term, and differences of generation are ignored. Patrilateral
marriage, on the other hand, is associated with an “alternating”
terminology, which expresses the opposition of consecutive generations
and the identification of alternating generations. A son
marries in the direction opposite from his father— yet in the same
direction as his father’s sister— and in the same direction as his
father’s father— yet in the opposite direction from that of his
father’s father’s sister. For daughters, the situation is exactly the reverse.
A second result follows. In matrilateral marriage, we find
two separate and distinct terms for two types of affinal relatives:
“sisters’ husbands” and “wives’ brothers.” In patrilateral marriage,
this dichotomy is transposed into the descent group itself, in
order to distinguish first-degree collateral relatives according to
sex. Brother and sister, who always follow opposite paths in marriage,
are distinguished by what F. E. Williams, in Melanesia, described
as “sex affiliation” ; each receives a fraction of the status of
the ascendant whose matrimonial destiny he or she follows or
complements, that is, the son receives the status of his mother, and
the daughter that of her father— or vice versa according to the
situation.
i22 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
When we apply these definitions to the Sherente, we immediately
perceive certain anomalies. Neither the kinship terminology
nor the marriage rules coincide with the requirements of a dual
system or a system of restricted exchange. Rather, they contradict
one another, each pattern being associated with one of the two
fundamental types of generalized exchange. Thus the kinship vocabulary
offers several examples of consecutive terms, as, for in­
stance:
father’s sister’s son = sister’s son
wife’s brother’s son = wife’s brother
father’s sister’s husband = sister’s husband = daughter’s husband
The two types of cross-cousins are also distinguished. However,
marriage (for male Ego) is permitted only with the patrilateral
cousin and is prohibited with the matrilateral cousin, which should
imply an alternating terminology, and not a consecutive one— as is
precisely the case. At the same time, several terminological identifications
of individuals belonging to different moieties (mother
and mother’s sister’s daughter; brother, sister, and mother’s brother’s
children; father’s sister’s children and brother’s children; etc.)
suggest that this moiety division does not represent the most essential
aspect of the social structure. Thus, even a superficial examination
of the kinship terminology and marriage rules leads to the
following observations: Neither the terminology nor the rules of
marriage coincide with an exogamous dual organization. The terminology,
on the one hand, and the marriage rules, on the other,
belong to two mutually exclusive patterns, both of which are incompatible
with dual organization.
On the other hand we find indices of matrilateral marriage
which contradict the patrilateral pattern, the only one for which
we have evidence. These are: (1) plural union— a form of polygyny
usually associated with matrilateral marriage and matrilineal
descent, although in this case the descent is actually patrilineal;
(2) the presence of two reciprocal terms among affinal kin, aimapli
and izakmu, which leads us to believe that affines maintain a
unidimensional relationship with one another, that is, that they are
sisters’ husbands or wives’ brothers, but not both at the same time;
(3) finally, and above all, there is the role of the bride’s maternal
uncle, which is unusual for a moiety system.
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil | 123
Dual organization is characterized by reciprocal services between
moieties which are, at the same time, associated and opposed.
This reciprocity is expressed in the set of special relationships between
a nephew and his maternal uncle, who belong to different
moieties regardless of type of descent. But among the Sherente,
these relations, restricted in their classic form to the special
narkwa bond, seem to be transposed to the husband or bridegroom,
on the one hand, and to the bride's maternal uncle, on the
other. Let us examine this point further.
The bride’s maternal uncle performs the following functions:
He organizes and carries out the abduction of the bridegroom as a
preliminary to the marriage; he takes in his niece in the event of a
divorce and protects her against her husband; if the niece’s husband
dies, he forces her brother-in-law to marry her; together with her
husband, he avenges his niece if she is raped. In other words, he is
his niece’s protector with, and if necessary against, her husband. If,
however, the moiety system had a truly functional value, the
bride’s maternal uncle would be a classificatory “father” of
the bridegroom, rendering his role as abductor (and as protector of
the wife of one of his “sons,” thus hostile to the latter) absolutely
incomprehensible. There must, therefore, always be at least three
distinct descent groups— Ego’s group, Ego’s wife’s group, and the
group of Ego’s wife’s mother— and this is incompatible with a pure
moiety system.
On the other hand, members of the same moiety often reciprocate
services. A t the occasion of female name-giving, ceremonial
exchanges take place between the alternate moiety to that of the
girls and their maternal uncles who belong to the officiants’ moiety.
The boys’ initiation is performed by their paternal uncles who
belong to the same moiety; at the giving of the name Wakedi to
two boys (a privilege reserved to the women’s association), the
maternal uncles of the boys accumulate game that is then taken by
the women of the opposite moiety, which is therefore the moiety
of the uncles as well. In short, everything happens as though there
were a dual organization, but in reverse. Or, more accurately, the
role of the moieties is lost. Instead of moieties exchanging services,
the services are exchanged within the same moiety, on the occasion
of a special activity held by the other moiety. Three partners,
therefore, are always involved instead of two.
124 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
Given these conditions, it is significant to discover, at the
level of the associations, a formal structure which corresponds
exacdy to a law of generalized exchange. The four men’s societies
are organized in a circuit. When a man changes his association he
must do it in a prescribed and immutable order. This order is the
same as the one governing the transfer of feminine names, which
isaprivilege of the men’s societies. Finally, this order
krara -> krieriektnü —»akemhâ annôrowa -> (krara)
is the same, although inverted, as that of the mythical origin of the
societies and of the transfer, from one society to another, of the
obligation to celebrate the Padi rite.
Another surprise awaits us when we turn to the myth. The
myth actually presents the associations as age grades, created in a
succession from youngest to oldest. For mask-making, however,
the four associations are grouped in pairs linked by reciprocal
services, as though they formed moieties, and these pairs consist of
age grades which are not consecutive but alternate, as though each
moiety were composed of two marriage classes in a system of generalized
exchange. (See Figure 4.) W e find the same order in the
rules of aikmà— the commemoration of the deaths of illustrious
men.
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil | 125
F igu re 4
The following outline sketches the main features of the preceding
discussion:
1. There are no rigid barriers between exogamous moieties,4
associations, and age grades. The associations function as marriage
classes. They fulfill the requirements of the marriage rules and
kinship terminology better than the moieties do. On the level of
myth, the associations appear as age grades, and in ceremonial life
they are grouped within a theoretical moiety system. Only the clans
appear extraneous and seemingly indifferent to this organic whole.
Everything functions as if the moieties, associations, and age grades
were awkward and fragmentary expressions of an underlying re­
ality.
2. The only possible historical evolution that could account
for these contradictory characteristics would be:
a. Originally, three patrilineal and patrilocal descent groups
with generalized exchange (marriage with mother’s brother’s
daughter) ;
b. the introduction of matrilineal moieties, leading to
c. the formation of a fourth patrilocal descent group (the
fourth clan of each present moiety, or the “captured tribe” ;
the origin myth of the associations likewise affirms that there
were originally three clans) ;
d. a conflict arising between the rule of descent (matrilineal)
and the rule of residence (patrilocal), resulting in
e. the conversion of the moieties to patrilineal descent, with
f. the concomitant loss of the functional role of the descent
groups, which are changed into associations through the phenomenon
of “masculine resistance” which appeared with the
introduction of the original matrilineal moieties.
The Bororo head the list of our other examples, which we
shall sketch more briefly. First, we must note the remarkable symmetry
between Sherente and Bororo social organization. Both
tribes have circular villages divided into exogamous moieties, each
with four clans and a central men’s house. This parallelism goes
even further, despite the opposition of terms that is due to the
patrilineal or matrilineal character of the two societies. Thus the
Bororo men’s house is open to married men and that of the Sher-
126 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
ente is reserved for bachelors; it is the scene of sexual license among
the Bororo, while chastity is imperative in the Sherente men’s
house; Bororo bachelors drag in girls or women with whom they
then have extra-conjugal sexual relations, whereas the Sherente
girls enter only to capture husbands. A comparison between the
two tribes is therefore certainly justified.
Recent studies have provided new information concerning social
organization and kinship. For the latter, the rich documents
published by Father Albisetti show that although the dichotomy
between “cross” and “parallel” relatives exists (as we should expect
in a system of exogamous moieties), it does not coincide with
the moiety division but, rather, cross-cuts it, since identical terms
occur in both moieties. W e shall limit ourselves to a few striking
examples. Ego equates brother’s children and sister’s children, although
they belong to different moieties. Although in the grandchildren’s
generation we find the expected dichotomy between
“sons and daughters” (terms theoretically limited to grandchildren
of the moiety opposite Ego’s own) on the other hand and “sons-inlaw”
and “daughters-in-law” (terms theoretically restricted to
grandchildren of Ego’s moiety) on the other, the actual distribution
of these terms does not correspond to the moiety division.
W e know that in other tribes— for example, the Miwok of
California— such anomalies indicate the presence of groupings different
from, and more important than, the moieties. Furthermore,
in the Bororo system, we note certain striking terminological
equivalents, such as:
mother’s brother’s son’s son is called: daughter’s husband, grandson;
father’s sister’s daughter’s daughter is called: wife’s mother,
grandmother;
and especially:
mother’s mother’s brother’s son and mother’s mother’s mother’s
brother’s son’s son are called: son.
These equivalents immediately bring to mind kinship structures of
the Bank-Ambrym-Easter Island type. The similarities are corroborated
by the possibility of marriage with the mother’s brother’s
daughter’s daughter in both cases.8
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil | 127
128 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
Regarding social organization, Father Albisetti specifies that
each matrilineal moiety always consists of four clans and that
there is preferential marriage not only between certain clans but
between certain sections of these clans. According to him, each
clan is actually divided into three matrilineal sections: Upper, Middle,
and Lower. Given two clans linked by preferential marriage,
unions can take place only between Upper and Upper, Middle and
Middle, and Lower and Lower section members. If this description
were correct (and the observations of the Salesian Fathers have
always been trustworthy), we see that the classic picture of Bororo
institutions would collapse. Whatever the marriage preferences
linking certain clans, the clans themselves would lose all functional
value (as we have already observed for the Sherente), and thus
Bororo society would be reduced to three endogamous groups—
Upper, Middle, and Lower— each divided into two exogamous sections.
As there are no kinship relationships between the three
principal groups, these would really constitute three sub-societies
(Figure j).
Diagram of the Bororo Village Actual Situation
F ig u re 5
Since the kinship terminology seems explicable only in terms
of three theoretical descent groups, ultimately split into six— wife’s
father, mother, daughter’s husband— and linked by a system of
generalized exchange, we are led to postulate an original triadic
system transformed by the addition of a dual system, as among the
Sherente.
To regard the Bororo as an endogamous society is so startling
that we should hesitate even to consider this possibility had
not an analogous conclusion already been drawn for the Apinayé
by three different authors working independently with documents
collected by Nimuendaju.
W e know that the Apinayé moitiés are non-exogamous and
that marriage is regulated by the division of the group into four
kiyéyas follows: a man A marries a woman B, a man B marries a
woman C, a man C marries a woman D, etc. Since boys belong to
the kiyé of their fathers and girls to that of their mothers, the apparent
division into four exogamous groups masks a real division
into four endogamous groups: men of A and women of B, who
are related; men of B and women of C, also related; men of C and
women of D ; men of D and women of A. The men and women
grouped into the same kiyé, on the other hand, are not related at
all. This is exactly the situation we have described among the
Bororo, based on information currently available, except that the
latter would have only three endogamous groups instead of four.
Certain clues suggest the same type of groups among the Tapirapé.
Under these conditions we may ask ourselves if the Apinayé marriage
rule that prohibits cousin marriage and the endogamous privileges
of certain Bororo clans (whose members may contract marriages,
although they belong to the same moiety) do not aim, by
antithetical means, to counteract the division of the group, either
by incestuous exceptions or by marriages contrary to the rules,
which the remoteness of kinship ties makes it difficult to distinguish.
Unfortunately, gaps and obscurities in Nimuendaju’s work on
the Eastern Timbira do not allow us to carry the analysis to this
point. A t any rate, we can be certain that here again we are in the
presence of the same elements of a complex common to the entire
culture area. The Timbira have a systematically consecutive terminology
in which:
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil | 129
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
father’s sister’s son = father
father’s sister’s daughter = father’s sister
mother’s brother’s son = brother’s son
daughter’s daughter = sister’s daughter
And the prohibition of cross-cousin marriage (as among the A pinayé)
despite the presence of exogamous moieties; the role of the
bride’s maternal uncle as the protector of his niece against her
husband, a situation already encountered among the Sherente; the
rotating cycle of age grades, analogous to that of the Sherente
associations and the Apinayé marriage classes; and, finally, the regrouping
of alternate pairs of age grades in athletic contests, like
that of the Sherente associations in ceremonies— all this leads us to
assume that the problems raised would be quite similar.
Three conclusions emerge from this schematic presentation:
1. The study of social organization among the populations of
central and eastern Brazil must be thoroughly re-examined in the
field— first, because the actual functioning of these societies is quite
different from its superficial appearance, which is all that has been
observed until now; and second, and more important, because this
study must be carried out on a comparative basis. Undoubtedly
the Bororo, the Canella, the Apinayé, and the Sherente have, each
in their own way, created real institutions which are strikingly
similar to one another and, at the same time, simpler than their explicit
formulation. Furthermore, the various types of groupings
found in these societies— specifically, three forms of dual organization,
clans, sub-clans, age grades, associations, etc.— do not represent,
as they do in Australia, so many functional groups. T h ey
are, rather, a series of expressions, each partial and incomplete, of
the same underlying structure, which they reproduce in several
copies without ever completely exhausting its reality.
2. Field-workers must learn to consider their research from
two different perspectives. They are always in danger of confusing
the natives’ theories about their social organization (and the superficial
form given to these institutions to make them consistent with
theory) with the actual functioning of the society. Between the
two there may be as great a difference as that between the physics
of Epicurus or Descartes, for example, and the knowledge derived
from contemporary physics. The sociological representations o f
the natives are not merely a part or a reflection of their social or-
Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil
ganization. The natives may, just as in more advanced societies, be
unaware of certain elements of it, or contradict it completely.
3. W e have seen that, in this respect, the native representations
of central and eastern Brazil, as well as the institutional language in
which these are expressed, constitute an effort to regard as basic a
type of structure (moieties or exogamous classes) whose true
role is quite secondary, if not totally illusory.
Behind the dualism and the apparent symmetry of the social
structure we perceive a more fundamental organization which is
asymmetrical and triadic;4 the requirements of a dualist formulation
lead to insuperable difficulties in the harmonious functioning of
the organization.
W hy do societies affected by a high degree of endogamy so
urgently need to mystify themselves and see themselves as governed
by exogamous institutions, classical in form, of whose existence
they have no direct knowledge? This problem (to which we have
elsewhere sought a solution) belongs to general anthropology.
Raising it in a technical discussion and with respect to a limited
geographical area at least shows the contemporary trend of anthropological
research and demonstrates that henceforth in the social
sciences, theory and research are indissolubly linked.
N OTES
1. By 1940, however, Lowie had cautioned against drawing false analogies
to the Australian systems.
2. See C. Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris:
1949).
3. Among the Bororo, however, marriage remains possible with the mother’s
brother’s daughter, which indicates that we must not push the comparison
too far.
4. This triadic organization had already been pointed out by A. Métraux
among the Aweikoma, but it was disputed because it would have been
“unique to Brazil.” (For the authors cited in this argument, see the bibliography
at the end of the book.)
CHAPTER
Do Dual
Organizations Exist?
TA h e s c h o l a r whom w e are honoring here has
divided his attention between America and Indonesia. Perhaps this
twofold interest has fostered the daring and fruitfulness of Professor
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong’s theoretical ideas, for the road
which he has charted seems to me rich in promise for anthropological
theory, w’hich often suffers from the difficulties involved
in defining and circumscribing comparative studies. Either the facts
to be compared are so closely related, geographically and historically,
that one cannot be sure one is dealing with several phenomena
rather than only one phenomenon superficially diversified,
or the facts are so heterogeneous that comparison ceases to b e
legitimate, since the things themselves are not comparable.
America and Indonesia offer an escape from this dilemma. T h e
anthropologist who examines the beliefs and institutions of these
two areas will become convinced that the facts in this case are of
the same nature. Some investigators have tried to find a common
substratum to account for this affinity. I shall not discuss here their
132
provocative but doubtful hypotheses. From my point of view, it
might just as well be a case of structural similarity between societies
that have made related choices from the spectrum of institutional
possibilities, whose range is probably not unlimited. Leaving aside
the question of whether the affinity is to be explained by a common
origin or by an accidental resemblance between the structural
principles which govern the social organization and religious beliefs
in both areas, we all acknowledge that this affinity docs exist.
And I think there is no better way to honor Professor J. P. B. de
Josselin de Jong than to follow the direction implied in his work,
that is, to show how a comparative analysis of certain institutional
forms can shed light on a fundamental problem in the life of
societies. W e know the remarkably widespread distribution of what
is generally referred to as dual organization. It is to this type of
organization that I shall now devote attention, drawing upon some
Amerindian and Indonesian examples.
A remark by Paul Radin in his classic monograph devoted to a
Great Lakes tribe, the Winnebago,1 will furnish my point of de­
parture.
W e know that the Winnebago were formerly divided into two
moieties, called, respectively, wangeregi, or “those who are above,”
and manegi, or “those who are on earth” (hereafter, for greater
convenience, we shall call the latter “those who are below” ).
These moieties were exogamous, and they also had clear reciprocal
rights and duties. Thus the members of each moiety were required
to hold funerals for deceased members of the opposite
moiety.
When he examined the influence of moiety division upon the
village structure, Radin noted a curious discrepancy among the
answers of the old people who were his informants. They described,
for the most part, a circular village plan in which the
two moieties were separated by an imaginary diameter running
northwest and southeast (Figure 6). However, several informants
vigorously denied that arrangement and outlined another, in which
the lodges of the moiety chiefs were in the center rather than on the
periphery (Figure 7). According to Radin, the first pattern was
always described by informants of the upper phratry and the second
by informants of the lower phratry.2
Thus for some of the natives the village was circular in form
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 133
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
N
S
F ig u re 6. Plan of a Winnebago village according to informants
of the upper phratry. (After P. Radin, The W innebago
Tribe, Fig. 33.)
and was divided into two halves, with the lodges scattered throughout
the circle. For the others, there remained a twofold partition
of a circular village, but with two important differences: Instead
of a diameter cutting the circle, there was a smaller circle within a
larger one; and instead of a division of the nucleated village, the
inner circle represented the lodges grouped together, as against the
outer circle, which represented the cleared ground and which was
again differentiated from the virgin forest that surrounded the
whole.
Radin did not stress this discrepancy; he merely regretted
that insufficient information made it impossible for him to determine
which was the true village organization. I should like to show here
that the question is not necessarily one of alternatives. These forms,
as described, do not necessarily relate to two different organizations.
They may also correspond to two different ways of describing
one organization too complex to be formalized by means of
N
Do Dual Organizations Exist?
F ig u r e 7. Plan of a Winnebago village according to informants
of the lower phratry. (After Radin, op. cit.,
Fig- 34-)
a single model, so that the members of each moiety would tend to
conceptualize it one way rather than the other, depending upon
their position in the social structure. For even in such an apparently
symmetrical type of social structure as dual organization, the
relationship between moieties is never as static, or as fully reciprocal.
as one might tend to imagine.
The discrepancy among the answers of the Winnebago informants
expresses the remarkable fact that both of the forms described
correspond to real arrangements. W e know of villages
which are actually patterned (or which conceive of their patterning)
in terms of one or the other of the above models. Hereafter,
to simplify, I shall call the arrangement of Figure 6 diametric
structure and that of Figure 7 concentric structure.
Examples of diametric structure abound. W e find them first of
all in North America, where, in addition to the Winnebago, almost
all Sioux camps were set up in this fashion. In South America, the
136 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
work of Curt Nimuendaju has shown the wide distribution of
diametric structure among the Ge tribes, to which we must add,
for geographic, cultural, and linguistic reasons, the Bororo of the
central Matto Grosso, studied by Fathers Colbacchini and Albisetti
and by the present author. This may even have been the type of
structure in the towns of Tiahuanaco and Cuzco. Further examples
are to be observed in various parts of Melanesia.
As for concentric structure, the village plan of Omarakana in
the Trobriand Islands, published by Malinowski, furnishes a striking
example (Figure 8). (W e shall never find a better occasion to
F ig u r e 8. Plan of an Omarakana village. (After B. Malinowski, The
Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia, Fig. 1.)
deplore Malinowski’s indifference to structural problems. H e
sketched all too briefly a highly significant structure, the further
of Omarakana is arranged in two concentric rings. At thz center
lies the plaza, the “scene of public and festive life.” 3 Around this
C* m
O 623 Burial Ground
a a
a
c
c
€
A
analysis of which would have been richly rewarding.) The village
are the yam storehouses, sacred in character and the object of
many taboos. A circular street runs around the storehouses, with
the huts of the married couples built at the outer edge. This
Malinowski called the “profane” part of the village. But not only
are there oppositions between central and peripheral and between
sacred and profane. There are other aspects too. In the storehouses
of the inner ring raw food is stored and cooking is not allowed:
“The main distinction between the two rings is the taboo on cooking”
because . . cooking . . . is believed to be inimical to the
stored yam.” 4Food can be cooked and consumed only in or around
the family dwellings of the outer ring. The yam-houses are more
elaborately constructed and decorated than the dwellings. Only
bachelors may live in the inner ring, while married couples must
live on the periphery— which recalls one point cursorily noted by
Radin of the Winnebago: “It was customary for a young couple to
set up their home at some distance from their village.” 5 This is all
the more curious because in Omarakana only the chief may establish
his residence in the inner ring, and because the Winnebago informants
who described concentric structure spoke of a village
reduced, for all intents and purposes, to the huts of the principal
chiefs. Where, then, did the others live? And, finally, the two concentric
rings in Omarakana are opposed with respect to sex: “W ithout
over-labouring the point, the central place might be called the
male portion of the village and the street that of the women.” 6
Malinowski emphasized several times that the yam-houses and the
bachelors’ quarters could both be considered as a part, or an extension
of, the sacred plaza, with the family huts having a similar
relationship to the circular street.
In the Trobriands we see, therefore, a complex system of
oppositions between sacred and profane, raw and cooked, celibacy
and marriage, male and female, central and peripheral. The roles
ascribed to raw and cooked foods in the marriage gifts, which are
themselves divided into male and female throughout the Pacific,
would confirm (if such confirmation were needed) the social imWithout
undertaking an extensive comparison, we shall simply
note the parallels between Trobriand village structure and certain
Indonesian phenomena. The opposition between central and peripheral,
or inner and outer, immediately recalls the organization
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 137
of the Baduj of western Java. They divide themselves into inner
Baduj, considered superior and sacred, and outer Baduj, considered
inferior and profane.7 Perhaps we ought to follow the suggestion
of J. M. van der K roef8 and relate this opposition to that
between “bride-givers” and “bride-takers” in the asymmetric-marriage
systems of southeast Asia, where the “bride-givers” are superior
to the “bride-takers” both in social prestige and in magical
power. This might lead us still further, to the Chinese division
of the two descent groups into fang and piao. If we view the
Baduj as occupying a transitional position between a ternary system
and a binary one, we recall Omarakana, where we have a simultaneous
distinction between two rings of the village subdivided
into three sectors. These sectors are attributed, respectively, to the
chief’s matrilineal clan, to the chief’s wives (that is, the representatives
of clans allied by marriage), and, finally, to the commoners,
who are themselves subdivided into secondary owners of the village
lands and foreigners who have no property rights in the village.
In any case, we must not forget that the dual structure of the
Baduj does not actually function on the village level but, rather,
defines the relations between territories, each of which is composed
of numerous villages. This fact should inspire great caution.
Nevertheless, P. E. de Josselin de Jong has made some legitimate
generalizations, on another level, relative to the Baduj. He points
out that their type of opposition recalls others in Java and Sumatra,
for instance that between “relatives of -the bid” and “relatives of
the overbid” (this one so “Chinese” ), or that between kampung,
or “built-up village area” and bukit, or “outlying hill district,”
among the Minangkabau.9 This concentric structure is nonetheless
the theme of a mock battle in the village plaza between representatives
of the two groups: “sailors” and “soldiers,” who are
arrayed for the occasion according to a diametric, east-west formation.
The same author indirectly raises the question of the relationship
between the two types of structure when he notes, “It would
be of even more interest to know whether the contrast of kampung
and bukit coincided with that of Koto-Piliang and BodiTjaniago,”
10 that is, with the older division postulated by him of
the Minangkabau into two moieties.
From our point of view here, this distinction is even more
important. Clearly, the opposition between the center of the village
i 38 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
and the periphery corresponds approximately to the Melanesian
structure described above. But the analogy with the concentric
structure of the Winnebago village is striking, especially because
the Winnebago informants spontaneously introduced into their descriptions
ecological characteristics which serve, just as in Indonesia,
to conceptualize this opposition. Here the built-up village area is
opposed to the peripheral ring, or cleared ground, which is in turn
opposed to the encircling forest (see Figure 7). W e note with great
interest that P. E. de Josselin de Jong finds the same type of
structure among the Negri-Sembilan of the Malay peninsula. He
describes the opposition between Coast (upper) and Inland (lower)
reinforced by an opposition, quite common both on the mainland
and in the islands, between rice fields and palm trees, on the one
hand, and mountains and plains, on the other— that is, between
cultivated and uncultivated land.11 This type of division is also
found in Indochina.
All the Dutch writers have striven to emphasize the curious
contrasts brought to light by these complex types of social
organization, for the study of which Indonesia undoubtedly constitutes
an excellent field. Let us try to outline these contrasts in
our own terms.
First of all, we find dual forms, from which some scholars
have attempted to deduce the vestiges of an earlier moiety system.
It is useless to join this debate. The important point, for us, is that
the dualism is itself twofold. It seems in some cases to be conceived
as the result of a balanced and symmetrical dichotomy between
social groups, between aspects of the physical world, or between
moral or metaphysical attributes; that is, it seems to be— to generalize
somewhat the concept proposed above— a diametric type of
structure. And according to a concentric perspective it is also conceived
in terms of opposition, with the one difference that the
opposition is, with regard to social and/or religious prestige, necessarily
unequal.
W e are of course aware that the elements of a diametric
structure may also be unequal. Indeed, this is probably the more
frequent occurrence, since we find words such as superior and
inferior, elder and younger, noble and commoner, strong and weak,
etc., used to describe them. But this inequality does not always
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 139
exist in diametric structures, and at any rate it does not stem from
their basic nature, which is steeped in reciprocity. As I noted some
time ago,12 this inequality is a mysterious phenomenon, the interpretation
of which is one of the aims of the present study.
How can moieties involved in reciprocal obligations and exercising
symmetrical rights be at the same time hierarchically related?
In the case of concentric structures, the inequality may be
taken for granted, since the two elements are, so to speak, arranged
with respect to the same point of reference— the center— to which
one of the circles is closer than the other. From this first point of
view we encounter three problems: the nature of diametric structures;
the nature of concentric structures; and why it is that most
diametric structures, in apparent contradiction to their nature, present
an asymmetrical character, one which places them midway
between those rare diametric forms that are absolutely symmetrical
and the concentric forms, which are always asymmetrical.
In the second place, whatever their form, diametric or concentric,
the dual structures of Indonesia seem to co-exist with structures
containing an odd number of elements— most frequendy
three, but also five, seven, or nine. What relationships, if any,
exist between these apparently distinct forms? This problem arises
especially in relation to the marriage rules, for there is an incompatibility
between bilateral marriage, which normally accompanies
systems with exogamous moieties, and unilateral marriage, the frequent
occurrence of which in Indonesia has been verified many
times over since the work of Van Wouden.
Actually the distinction between female cross-cousins (father’s
sister’s daughter and mother’s brother’s daughter) implies at least
three distinct groups, and is radically impossible with two. Nevertheless,
at Ambon there seem to have been moieties associated
with a system of asymmetrical exchange. In Java, Bali, and elsewhere,
we find vestiges of the dual type of opposition associated
with other types of opposition and giving rise to five, seven, or
nine categories. Furthermore, while it is impossible to reduce the
latter to the former as conceived in terms of diametric structure,
the problem holds a theoretical solution if we conceive the dualism
in concentric terms, in which case the additional element falls in
the center, while the others are symmetrically arranged at the
periphery. As J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong has clearly perceived,
i4o I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
any odd-numbered system can be reduced to an even-numbered
one by treating it as a form of “opposition between the center and
the adjacent sides.” Thus the first group of problems is related to
thesecond, at least in a formal sense.
In the preceding paragraphs I raised the problem of the
typology of dual structures and their underlying dialectic, using a
North American example. This first phase of the discussion used
Melanesian and Indonesian illustration;. N ow I should like to show
that the problem may at least be brought closer to a solution by
the consideration of a new example, this time borrowed from a
South American people, the Bororo.
Let us briefly recall the structure of the Bororo village (Figure
9). A t the center is the men’s house, which serves as a home
Do Dual Organizations Exist? ' | 141
Baddogeba
Xobuguiugue Clan
Bocodori
Clan
East
Paivoe Clan
Apiboregue
Clan
Quie Clan
Baddogeba
Xebeguiugue Clan West
Ivuaguddudogue
Clan
Figure 9. Plan of a Bororo village. (After C. Albisetti, Contribuçôes
missionârias, Fig. 1.)
for bachelors and a meeting place for the married men, and which
is strictly forbidden to women. Around this is a vast circle of un-
cultivated scrub-land. A t the center, adjacent to the men’s house,
is a dancing place of beaten earth, bare of vegetation and marked off
by pickets. Paths lead through the scrub-covered area to the family
huts, which form a circle at the forest edge. In these huts live the
married couples and their children. Descent is matrilineal, and
residence matrilocal. Thus the opposition between the center and
the periphery is also an opposition between men (owners of the
men’s house) and women (owners of the encircling family huts).
W e are dealing here with a concentric structure of which the
natives are fully aware, where the relationship between center and
periphery expresses two kinds of opposition, that which we have
just noted between male and female, and another between *sacred
and profane. The central area containing the men’s house and the
dancing place serves as a stage for the ceremonial life, while the
periphery is reserved for the domestic activities of the women,
who are by definition excluded from the mysteries of the religion.
Thus the making and use of bull-roarers take place in the men’s
house, and women are forbidden under pain of death to watch
them.
However, this concentric structure co-exists with several other
structures of diametric type. The Bororo village is, first of all,
separated into two moieties by an east-west axis which divides the
eight clans into two groups of four ostensibly exogamous units.
This axis is cross-cut by another, perpendicular to the first and
running north-south. The north-south axis splits up tne eight clans
into two other groups of four, called respectively “upper” and
“lower,” or— when a village is located on a watercourse— “upstream”
and “downstream.” 13
This complex arrangement is found not only in the permanent
villages but also in encampments set up for a single night. In the
latter case, the women and children settle in a circle around the
periphery in order of clan position, while the young men clear an
area in the center which stands for the men’s house and the dancing
place.14
The natives of Rio Vermelho explained to me in 1936 that
formerly, when the villages were more densely populated, the huts
were arranged in the same way, but in several concentric circles
instead of a single one.
As I write these lines, I have just learned of the archaeological
i 4 2 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
discoveries at Poverty Point, Louisiana, in the Lower Mississippi
Valley.15Let me insert a parenthetical remark, for this Hopewellian
town, dating from the first millennium before the beginning of the
Christian era, offers an interesting resemblance to the Bororo village
as it may have existed in the past. The plan is octagonal (recalling
the eight Bororo clans), and the dwellings are arranged six deep,
forming six concentric octagonal figures. Tw o perpendicular axes
cross-cut the village, one running east-west, the other north-south.
The ends of these axes were marked by bird-shaped mounds,16
two of which have been recovered (those at the northern and
western ends). The other two were probably erased by a shift in
the course of the Arkansas River. When we note that remains of
cremation have been discovered in the vicinity of one of the
mounds (the western one), we recall the two Bororo “villages of
the dead,” situated at the eastern and western ends of the moiety
axis.
W e are therefore dealing with a type of structure which in
America extends far back into antiquity, and whose later analogues
were to be found in pre-Conquest Peru and Bolivia and, more
recently, in the social structure of the Sioux in North America and
of the Ge and related tribes in South America. These are facts
worthy of consideration.
Finally, the Bororo village reveals a third form of dualism,
this one implicit, which has remained unnoticed until now and
whose analysis requires that we first explore another aspect of the
social structure.
In the village, we have already singled out a concentric structure
and two diametric structures. These varied manifestations of
dualism exist side by side with a triadic structure. Actually, each
of the eight clans is divided into three classes, which I shall call
Upper, Middle, and Lower. On the basis of observations made by
Father Albisetti,171have shown earlier (Chapter VII) that the rule
which requires an Upper of one moiety to marry an Upper of the
other moiety, a Middle a Middle, and a Lower a Lower, converts
the apparently dual exogamous system of Bororo society into what
is in reality a triadic endogamous system, since we are dealing with
three sub-societies, each made up of individuals who have no kinship
ties with the members of the other two. Furthermore, in the
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 143
same analysis, a brief comparison of Bororo society with that of
the central and eastern Ge tribes (Apinayé, Sherente, and Timbira)
led me to postulate a social organization of the same type for all
these tribes.
If the exogamy of the Bororo seems to be of an epiphenomenal
nature, it will not come as a surprise that the Salesian Fathers
report an exception to the rule of moiety exogamy that permits
two pairs of clans of one of the moieties to marry among themselves.
But at the same time, it becomes possible to distinguish a
third form of dualism. Let i, 2, 3, and 4 represent the clans of one
moiety and 5, 6, 7, and 8 the clans of the other moiety, taken in
sequence according to their spatial distribution around the village
circle. The rule of exogamy is suspended for clans 1 and 2 on the
one hand, and 3 and 4 on the other. W e must therefore distinguish
eight territorial relationships, such that four imply marriage and
four exclude it, and this new dualist formulation of the law of
exogamy will express reality just as faithfully as does the more
obvious division into moieties:
PAIRS OF CLANS IN
TERRITORIAL RELATIONSHIP
I. 2
2» 3
3>4
4, 5
5, 6
7
7, 8
8, 1
This gives a total of 4 + and 4— .
W e note that the structure of the Bororo village presents tw o
remarkable anomalies. The first has to do with the disposition o f
the U, M, and L classes in the two pseudo-exogamous moieties.
This arrangement is regular only within each moiety, where w e
find (according to the Salesians) a succession of huts, three to each
clan, in the order U, M, L; U, M, L; etc. But the order of succession
of the U ’s, M’s, and L ’s in one moiety is reversed in the other.
In other words, the classes are symmetrically arranged in a mirror
i44 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
MARRIAGE POSSIBLE ( + )
OR IMPOSSIBLE ( — )
+
+
+
+
image in relation to moieties, the two semicircles being joined at
one end by two U ’s and at the other by two L ’s. Disregarding for
the moment the circular form of the village, we have, thus:
South
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 145
1 2 3 4
UML UML UML UML
UML UML UML UML
8 7 6 5
North
In the above diagram, the numbers 1 through 8 represent the
clans, and the letters U, M, and L represent the classes of which
each clan is composed. The horizontal east-west line corresponds
to the axis of the pseudo-exogamous moieties and the vertical northsouth
line to the axis of the upper and lower moieties.
From this remarkable arrangement it appears to follow that
despite its circular form the natives do not conceive of the village
as a single entity susceptible of analysis into two parts, but rather
as two distinct entities joined together.
Let us turn now to the second anomaly. In each moiety, 1
through 4 and 5 through 8, two clans occupy a privileged position
in the sense that they represent, on the social level, the two great
culture heroes and deities of the Bororo pantheon, Bakororo and
Itubori, guardians of the West and East. In the above diagram,
clans 1 and 7 represent Itubori, while clans 4 and 6 represent
Bakororo. For clans 1 and 4, situated at the eastern and western
ends respectively, there is no problem. But why clan 7 rather than
8? And why clan 6 and not 5? The first answer that comes to
mind is that the clans to which these functions are delegated must
also be contiguous with one of the two axes, east-west or northsouth.
Clans 1 and 4 are contiguous with the east-west axis: They
stand at the two ends and on the same side, while 6 and 7 are
contiguous with the north-south axis, standing at the same end but
on either side of the axis. Since clans 1 and 7 are east and clans 4
and 6 are west (by definition), there is no other way to fulfill the
condition of contiguity.
146 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
W e should here point out— with all the caution necessary in
such a theoretical treatment of an empirical problem— that a single
hypothesis does account for both anomalies. W e need only postulate
that the Bororo, like the Winnebago, consider their social
structure in both diametric and concentric terms. If one moiety, or
both, conceive of themselves, regularly or occasionally, as being
one central and the other peripheral, then the mental operation
required to shift from such an ideal arrangement to the concrete
arrangement of the village would be as follows: first, to open the
inside circle at the south and shift it northward; second, to open
the outside circle at the north and shift it southward (Figure 10).
By reversing the directions, each moiety can at will regard itself
F ig u r e 10. Transition from a concentric to a diametric
structure.
and the other moiety as either central or peripheral. This freedom
is not unimportant, since the Chera moiety is now superior to the
Tugare moiety, while the myths imply the reverse situation. Furthermore,
while it would perhaps be incorrect to say that the
Chera are more sacred than the Tugare, each moiety seems at
least to maintain a privileged relationship with a certain type of
the sacred that one might call, as a simplification, religious for the
Chera and magical for the Tugare.
West East
Do Dual Organizations Exist?
Let us summarize the major features of Bororo society. W e
have distinguished three, namely, ( i ) several manifestations of the
diametric type of dualism: (a) a pseudo-exogamous east-west axis,
(b) an apparendy non-functional north-south axis, and (c) an exogamous
dichotomy of the relationships of contiguity between clans;
(2) several manifestations of the concentric type of dualism (oppositions
between male and female, celibacy and marriage,
sacred and profane; finally, the diametric structures may be conceived
in a concentric form and the concentric structures in a
diametric form, a phenomenon which has only been implied thus
far, but whose empirical expression will be described below for the
eastern Timbira); (3) a triadic structure which brings about a rearrangement
of all the clans into three endogamous classes (each
class divided into two exogamous moieties, resulting in a total
of six classes, just as we shall find six male classes among the
Timbira).
W e are dealing with a complexity inherent to dual organizations,
as we have shown above with examples derived from North
America, Indonesia, and Melanesia, and as is made clearer by an
additional observation. Among the Bororo the sacred center of the
village contains three parts: the men’s house, half of which belongs
to the Chera and half to the Tugare, since it is cross-cut by the
east-west axis (this is evidenced by the names given to the two
doors facing each other); and the bororo or dancing place lying
east of the men’s house, where the entire village comes together
as a unit. This might well be, almost word for word, a description
of the Balinese temple, with its two inner yards and an outer courtyard.
The former two symbolize a general dichotomy of the
cosmos and the third stands for a reconciliation of the antithetical
divisions.18
The social organization of the Eastern Timbira includes the
following structures:
1. Tw o matrilineal exogamous moieties, called respectively
East and West, neither of which has priority over the other (however,
the marriage rules transcend a simple exogamy based on
moieties, since all first cousins are forbidden to marry).
2. Patronymic classes, 2 in number for the women and
3 X 2 = 6 for the men. The bearing of a name leads, for both
sexes, to an allocation into one of two groups, called kamakrâ,
“people of the plaza,” and atukmakrâ, “people from without.”
3. For the men the patronymic classes have an additional
function, which consists in dividing them into 6 groups “of the
plaza,” associated 3 by 3 in two non-exogamous moieties which
are called East and West and which differ in composition from the
moieties described under number 1, above.
4. Four age classes, distributed at ten-year intervals, which
form four sections arranged in consecutive pairs into another system
of moieties (the fourth), different from the preceding ones but
also called East and West.
This complex organization calls for a few remarks. There are
two rules of descent. The first is matrilineal for the exogamous
moieties, at least in principle, since the secondary rule which prohibits
first-cousin marriage may be interpreted (from the point of
view of a formal analysis, since nothing insures that such is actually
the case) as the result of the cross-cutting of the explicit matrilineal
descent by an implicit patrilineal form of descent, resulting in a
double moiety system. The second rule of descent applies to the
patronymic classes. Women’s names are transmitted from father’s
sister to brother’s daughter, and men’s names from mother’s brother
to sister’s son.
O f the four moiety systems outlined, three are diametric (east
and west) and one concentric in type (central plaza and periphery).
This last serves as a model for a more general dichotomy:
i 48 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
kamakrâ atukmakrâ
East W est
Sun Moon
D ay N ight
D ry season Rainy season
Fire Firewood
Earth W ater
Red color Black color
From a functional point of view, System number 3 plays a
role only in the initiation ceremonies. System 1 regulates exogamy
in the broadest sense of the term. Systems 2 and 4 define two
recreational and work groups, which operate one in the rainy season
and the other in the dry season.
T o complete this description we must add one last group of
male moieties, whose function is purely ceremonial and restricted
to certain festivals.
Although gaps in the work of Nimuendaju (from which all
the preceding observations have been drawn)19 prevent our making
a complete formalization of the system, it is evident that this
labyrinth of institutions contains the essential features which we
should like to emphasize in this study.
In the first place, there is the juxtaposition of diametric
structures with a concentric structure, including even an attempt
to express one type in terms of the other. Actually, the East is
at the same time east and center, and the West is at the same time
west and periphery. While it is true that the women as well as the
men are divided between center and periphery, the six groups of
the plaza are composed only of men. In striking analogy with
Melanesia, the hearths of the groups of the plaza may not be used
to cook food, and the kitchens must be installed behind (or in
certain ceremonies, in front of) the huts of the periphery, which
are indisputably female20 (see Figure 11).
Nimuendaju even pointed out that during the dry season the
ceremonial activity takes place on the “boulevard” (that is, the circular
alley in front of the peripheral huts), while during the rainy
season it is strictly confined to the central plaza.21
Secondly, all these binary forms are combined with ternary
forms, in two different ways. The moieties fulfill three functions.
System 1 regulates marriage. Systems 2 and 4 regulate collective
work and recreation, according to the seasonal cycle:
Marriage
Alliances
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 149
Collective
Work
Dry
Season
Rainy
Season
Furthermore, the triad reappears in the men’s groups “of the plaza,”
which are six in number— three from the East and three from the
West.
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
F ig u r e i i . Plan of a Timbira village. (After C. Nimuendaju,
The Eastern Timbira, Fig. i.)
W e now come to the core of the problem. What is the re lationship
among these three types of representations— diametric
dualism, concentric dualism, and triad? And how is it that what w e
generally cal^ “dual organization” is in many instances (and perhaps
in all) actually an inextricable mixture of the three types?
For convenience we shall examine separately the relationship between
dualism and triadism and the relationship between the tw o
forms of dualism proper.
I do not intend to deal here with the first question in the
preceding paragraph, because it would carry us too far afield. It
will be enough to indicate along what lines the solution should be
sought. The fundamental principle of my book Les Structures
élémentaires de la parenté 22was a distinction between two types of
reciprocity, to which I gave the names restricted exchange and
generalized exchange, restricted exchange being possible only in
an even number of groups, generalized exchange being compatible
with any number of groups. Today this distinction appears to me
naïve, because it is still too close to the natives’ classifications. From
a logical point of view, it is more reasonable and more efficient to
treat restricted exchange as a special case of generalized exchange.
If the observations presented in this study are confirmed by other
examples, we shall perhaps reach the conclusion that even this
particular case is never found empirically other than in the form
of an imperfect rationalization of systems which remain irreducible
to a dualism, in which guise they vainly try to masquerade.
If we concede this point— if only as a working hypothesis—
it follows that triadism and dualism are inseparable, since dualism
is never conceived of as such, but only' as a “borderline” form of
the triadic type. W e may then examine another aspect of the
problem, which concerns the co-existence of the two forms of
dualism— diametric and concentric. The answer is immediately apparent:
Concentric dualism is a mediator between diametric dualism
and triadism, since it is through the agency of the former that
the transition takes place between the other two.
Let us try to formulate the simplest possible geometric representation
of diametric dualism as it exists empirically in village
structures such as those we have considered. W e may draw a diagram
of the village on a straight line. Diametric dualism will be
represented by two segments of a straight line placed along the
same axis with one extremity in common.
But when we try to proceed in the same fashion with concentric
dualism, the situation changes. Though it is possible to
spread out the peripheral circle on a straight line (this time a continuous
line, not two segments), the center will be outside the
straight line, represented by a point. Thus instead of two segments
of a straight line, we have one straight line and one point. And
since the significant elements of this straight line are the two
points of origin, the diagram may be analyzed in terms of three
poles (Figure 12).
There is thus a profound difference between diametric and
concentric dualism. Diametric dualism is static, that is, it cannot
transcend its own limitations; its transformations merely give rise
to the same sort of dualism as that from which they arose. But concentric
dualism is dynamic and contains an implicit triadism.
Or, stricdy speaking, any attempt to move from an asymmetric
triad to a symmetric dyad presupposes concentric dualism, which
is dyadic like the latter but asymmetric like the former.
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 151
S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
F ig u re 12. Representation on a straight line of a diametric structure
(left) and a concentric structure (right).
The ternary nature of concentric dualism also derives from
another source. The system is not self-sufficient, and its frame o f
reference is always the environment. The opposition between
cleared ground (central circle) and waste land (peripheral circle)
demands a third element, brush or forest— that is, virgin land—
which circumscribes the binary whole while at the same time extending
it, since cleared land is to waste land as waste land is to
virgin land. In a diametric system, on the other hand, virgin land
constitutes an irrelevant element; the moieties are defined by their
opposition to each other, and the apparent symmetry of their
structure creates the illusion of a closed system.
In support of the above demonstration, which some readers
will undoubtedly consider too theoretical, we can offer a number o f
observations.
In the first place, among the Bororo it seems that each of the
two moieties unconsciously uses a different type of projection in
relation to the north-south axis. The two Chera clans, which represent
the gods of West and East, are actually located at thé west
and the east of the village. But if the Tugare thought in terms o f
concentric structure, then the projection of the village circle in a
straight line, made from the north-south axis, would result in a
straight line parallel to the east-west axis, whose two points o f
origin would therefore correspond to the location of clans 7 and
6, which are respectively guardians of the east and the west (points
a and b on the right-hand side of Figure 12).
In the second place, the representation of a concentric system
in the form of an opposition between a point and a straight line23
is an excellent example of a peculiarity of dualism (both concentric
and diametric) which may be observed in a great many cases—
namely, the heterogeneous nature of certain symbols used to express
the antithesis of the moieties. Undoubtedly these symbols can
also be homogeneous, as in the opposition between summer and
winter, land and water, earth and sky, upper and lower, left and
right, red and black (or other colors), noble and commoner,
strong and weak, elder and younger, etc. But sometimes we find
a different symbolism, in which the opposition is drawn between
terms which are logically heterogeneous, such as: stability and
change, state (or act) and process, being and becoming, synchronic
and diachronic, simple and ambiguous, unequivocal and equivocal.
A ll these forms of opposition can be subsumed under a single
category— the opposition between continuous and discontinuous.
An admittedly simple example (simple to the point of not
meeting the preceding definition) will serve as an initial approximation.
The Winnebago have an apparently diametric dualism of
“ upper” and “lower,” which masks imperfectly a system with three
poles. The upper might be represented by one pole— the sky—
while the lower must have two poles— earth and water.
Sky
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 153
Earth ■Water
Frequently, too, the opposition between moieties expresses a
more subtle dialectic; thus, among the Winnebago, the roles
ascribed to the two moieties— warfare and policing for those who
are below, and the arts of peace and arbitration for those who are
above. More explicitly, the latter have a consistent function, while
the former have an ambivalent one, consisting of both protection
and coercion.24 In another realm, one moiety is responsible for the
creation of the cosmos and the other for its preservation. These
functions are quite distinct, since creation is carried out at a given
moment and preservation extends in time. The opposition which
we have noted in Melanesia and South America between cooked
food and raw food (like the concomitant opposition between marriage
and celibacy) implies the same type of asymmetry between
state and process, stability and change, identity and transformation.
W e thus see that the antitheses which serve to express dualism belong
to two different categories, the first truly, the others only apparently,
symmetrical. The latter are none other than triads, disguised
as dyads through the logical subterfuge of treating as two
homologous terms a whole that actually consists of a pole and an
axis, which are not entities of the same nature.
This leads us to the last stage of our demonstration. If w e
treat in terms of ternary systems those forms of social organization
which are usually described as binary, their anomalies vanish,
and it becomes possible to reduce them all to the same type o f
formalization. W e shall consider only three of the several examples
discussed in this chapter. Actually, our information about the marriage
rules of the Timbira and the way in which those rules are
integrated into an unusually complex social structure are too
fragmentary and ambiguous to permit formalization. The data
for the Winnebago and the Bororo are clearer; to these we shall
add an Indonesian model. Yet we should note that the Indonesian
social structures have often been reconstructed rather than actually
observed, owing to their having disintegrated by the time it became
possible to study them. The association of an asymmetrical marriage
system (preferential marriage with the mother’s brother’s
daughter) with dual organization seems to have been very widespread
in Indonesia. W e shall schematize it here in the form of a
simplified model containing two moieties and three marriage classes.
It should be understood that the number 3 does not necessarily
correspond to an empirical datum but stands for any number except
2— because in that case marriage would become symmetrical
and we should then be working outside the premises of our h y­
pothesis.
Given the above assumptions, we present our three models,
Winnebago, Indonesian, and Bororo, in the three diagrams shown
below. They are all of the same type and each illustrates all the
properties of the corresponding system. The three diagrams have
an identical structure, namely: (1) a group of three small circles;
154 | S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
(2) a triskelion; (3) a large circle. But the functions of these three
elements are not the same in each instance. Let us examine them
each in turn.
The Winnebago village consists of twelve clans divided into
three groups. The lower moiety contains two groups of four clans
each (“earth” and “water” ). The upper moiety contains one group
of four clans (“sky” ). The triskelion represents the possibilities of
marriage according to the exogamy rule of the moieties. The large
circle, which coincides with the perimeter of the village, encompasses
the whole, making it a residential unit. (See Figure 13.)
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 155
F ig u re 13. Diagram of the Winnebago social structure.
The Indonesian model is more complex. W e are no longer
dealing with grouped clans, but with non-residential marriage
classes, whose members may be scattered among several villages.
The asymmetric-marriage rule between these classes is of the following
type: A man A marries a woman B; a man B marries
a woman C; a man C marries a woman A. This implies: (1) a
dichotomy between the sexes operating within these classes (a
brother and a sister each have a different matrimonial destiny);
this dichotomy of function is expressed in the diagram by the
triskelion, which divides each class into two groups, men on the
one hand, women on the other; (2) in such a system, the place
of residence is unimportant, and another function is attributed,
therefore, to the large circle, which represents the possibilities of
156 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
Class A
F ig u r e 14. Diagram of an Indonesian-type social structure.
marriage between the men of one class and the women of another,
as we can easily ascertain by inspection of the diagram (Figure 14).
Let us pause for a moment to examine this point. Our formalization
of the Indonesian model brings to light a remarkable
property of asymmetric marriage. Once the conditions are met—
that is, a minimum of three classes— the principle of a dualist
dichotomy appears, based upon the opposition between male and
female. That this opposition, inherent to the system, has provided
Indonesia with the model upon which it has built its dual organizations,
stems, in our opinion, from the fact that the Indonesian
moieties are always conceived of as being one male, the
other female. The Indonesians do not seem to have been troubled by
the presence of moieties which, theoretically, may be either male or
female, although each one comprises an approximately equal number
of male and female members. But in a society of the same
type (asymmetrical marriage associated with a dual organization),
namely, the Miwok of California, the natives were faced with this
problem and found it somewhat difficult to resolve.
The Miwok moieties, like those of Indonesia, express a general
dual classification of objects and phenomena. The moieties are
called kikua (of water) and tunuka (of land). Although all animals,
plants, physical geographical features, and meteorological and astronomical
phenomena are divided between the two moieties, the
male and female principles are excluded from this universal dichotomy,
as though the native dialectic were unable to overcome
the objective consideration that men and women exist in both
moieties. But— and this fact is significant— this situation is not considered
self-evident. A rather complicated myth is invoked to
explain it:
Coyote-girl and her husband told each other they would
have four children, two girls and two boys. . . . Coyote named
one of the male children Tunuka and one of the female children
Kikua. The other male child he named Kikua and the other
female Tunuka. Coyote thus made%the moieties and gave people
their first names.25
The original couple is not enough, and by a true mythological
sleight-of-hand it is necessary to postulate four original classes
(in other words, an implicit division of each moiety into male and
female) so that the moieties will not reflect (among other things)
a sexual dichotomy, as in Indonesia, where this is accepted although
it contradicts the empirical situation.
Let us turn now to the third diagram (Figure 15), in which
we have formalized Bororo social structure in terms of the same
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 157
Upper Group
i 58 I S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
F ig u r e 15. Diagram of the Bororo social structure.
type of model as the other two. Here the small circles represent
neither the groups of clans (as among the Winnebago) nor the
marriage classes (as in Indonesia), but rather groups of classes.
And, contrary to the first two cases, these units are endogamous. It
will be remembered, of cgurse, that the pseudo-exogamous Bororo
moieties were each composed of four clans divided into three
classes. In the diagram we have regrouped all the Uppers, Middles,
and Lowers. The exogamous division thus becomes internal to each
group of classes, according to the rule whereby the Uppers of one
moiety marry the Uppers of the other moiety, the Middles marry
Middles, and so forth. The triskelion then functions as an expression
of the impossibilities of marriage for each class.
What is the function here of the large circle? Its relation to
the three small circles (groups of classes) and to the triskelion
(impossible marriages) leaves no doubt that it corresponds to the
non-exogamous north-south axis which at least in some Bororo
villages divides the clans, perpendicularly to the axis of the pseudoexogamous
moieties, into two groups, called respectively “Upper”
and “Lower,” or “Upstream” and “Downstream.” I have often
noted that the role of this second division is obscure.26And for good
reason, for if the present analysis is correct, the conclusion will
emerge— at first sight surprising— that the north-south axis has no
function except that of permitting Bororo society to exist. Let us
consider the diagram. The three small circles represent the endogamous
groups, sub-societies which exist indefinitely side by side
without ever establishing any kinship ties between their members.
Nor does the triskelion correspond to any unifying principle, since
in representing the impossibilities of marriage it expresses only a
negative element of the system. The sole available unifying element
is thus provided by the north-south axis, and even this is subject
to qualification, for although this axis is functionally significant
with respect to residence, its significance remains ambiguous;
though it relates to the village, it splits the village into two distinct
areas.
This hypothesis must certainly be tested in the field. But it
would not be the first time that research would lead us to institutional
forms which one might characterize by a zero value?1 These
institutions have no intrinsic property other than that of establishing
the necessary preconditions for the existence of the social
system to which they belong; their presence— in itself devoid
of significance— enables the social system to exist as a whole. Anthropology
here encounters an essential problem, one which it
shares with linguistics, but with which it does not seem to have
come to grips in its own field. This is the problem posed by the
existence of institutions having no function other than that of giving
meaning to the society in which they are found.
Without further discussion of this point, which is beyond the
scope of the present study, we shall return to our three systems,
whose properties may be summarized in terms of five binary oppo­
sitions.
W e are dealing with classes or clans; these elements are either
grouped (groups of clans, groups of classes) or isolated (classes) ;
the marriage rules are expressed in either positive or negative
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 159
terms; the sexes are either distinguished (as in asymmetrical marriage)
or merged (as in symmetrical marriage, where brother and
sister have the same matrimonial destiny); and, finally, residence
is either a significant or a non-significant factor, depending upon
the system under consideration. W e may thus construct the following
table, where the sign + is arbitrarily given to the first term of
each opposition and the sign — to the second.
i6o ( S O C I A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N
WINNEBAGO INDONESIA BORORO
I Class/Clan — + +
2 Group/Unit + — +
3 Marriage prescribed/
Marriage prohibited
+ + —
4 Sexes distinguished/
Sexes merged
— + —
5 Residence significant/
Residence non-significant
+ — +
Opposition 3 (marriage) is ambivalent in Indonesia because of
the asymmetric character of marriage: For any two classes, the
marriage rule between the men of x and the women of y is symmetrical
and opposite to the rule of marriage between the men of
y and the women of x. Opposition 5 (residency) is ambivalent
among the Bororo for the reason indicated above: The north-south
axis implies common residence while at the same time splitting
residence in terms of the axis.
An examination of the diagrams shows that our model includes
the binary and ternary characteristics of the social structures considered.
There also seems to be a relationship between the diametric
or concentric elements of the binary oppositions, according to the
nature of the symbols to which the latter are ascribed. In Indonesia,
the diametric aspect expresses a male/female opposition, and
the concentric aspect is thus dedicated to the complementary opposition
between high and low (which provides a triad: high/
middle/low). Conversely, among the Bororo (and undoubtedly
among the Winnebago as well), a triad— high/middle/low, or sky/
water/earth— ascribes the role of expressing the male/female opposition
to the concentric aspect. It would be interesting to find
out, with the aid of other examples, whether this correlation is to
be found elsewhere— that is, to see if attributing concentric dualism
to the opposition between high and low always results in attributing
diametric dualism to the opposition between male and
female, and conversely.
From the preceding, it‘becomes clear that the most widespread
opposition (that between binary and ternary structure)
leads to symmetrical and inverse applications in South America
and Indonesia. In the Indonesian case, we have a system of moieties
associated with generalized exchange, that is, an asymmetric form
of exogamy. Ternary structure is thus used to define groups of
affinal relatives, while binary structure expresses the two directions
in which men and women, respectively, circulate. In other
words, ternary structure refers to classes, binary structure to relationships
between those classes. In South America, on the other
hand (and apparently among all the Ge tribes), binary structure is
used to define the groups, while ternary structure defines the two
directions, not of the circulation of men and women this time, but
the directions in which marriage is permitted or prohibited, to both
sexes indiscriminately (since exchange is restricted according to a
symmetric form of endogamy). In this case, then, binary structure
refers to classes and ternary structure to relationships.
In this essay I have tried to show that the study of so-called
dual organizations discloses so many anomalies and contradictions
in relation to extant theory that we should be well advised to
reject the theory and to treat the apparent manifestations of dualism
as superficial distortions of structures whose real nature is quite
different and vastly more complex. Yet these anomalies in no way
escaped the attention of Rivers and his school— the originators of
the dualist theory. They were not perturbed by them because they
saw dual organizations (on the basis of the anomalies) as the historical
result of the fusion of two populations differing in race, in
culture, or simply in power. In such a formulation, the social structures
considered could be both dual and asymmetrical at the same
time— and indeed they had to be.
First Marcel Mauss, then Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski,
revolutionized anthropological theory by substituting a sociopsychological
interpretation, based on the concept of reciprocity,
for the historical interpretation.28 But as schools grew up around
Do Dual Organizations Exist? | 161
i6i I SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
these masters, asymmetrical phenomena faded into the background,
since they were not easily integrated into the new perspective.
The inequality of the moieties came to be treated as an irregularity
of the system. And— much more serious— the striking anomalies
that were discovered later were completely neglected. As has often
happened in the history of science, an essential property of an
object was first taken by researchers to be a special case; later on,
scientists were afraid to jeopardize their conclusions by submitting
them to more rigorous proof.
It is not the theory of reciprocity which is in doubt. In anthropology
this theory continues to stand, as soundly based as the
gravity theory in astronomy. There is another lesson in this comparison:
Anthropology found its Galileo in Rivers, its Newton in
Mauss. W e can only hope that in the world of men, often as indifferent
as the infinite universe whose silence terrified Pascal, the
rare so-called dual organizations still functioning may find their
Einstein before they— less enduring than the planets— disintegrate.
NOTES
1. P. Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 37th Annual Report, Bureau of Am erican
Ethnology, 1915-1916 (Washington, D. C.: 1923).
2. Ibid., p. 188.
3. B. Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia
(New York-London: 1929),!, 10.
4. Ibid., p. 71.
5. P. Radin, “The Culture of the Winnebago as Described by Them selves,”
Special Publications of the Bollmgen Foundation, No. 1 (1949),
p. 38, w 13.
6. Malinowski, op. cit., I, 10. See also Coral Gardens and Their Magic
(London: 1935), I, 32.
7. N. J. C. Geise, Badujs en Moslims (Leiden: 1952).
8. J. M. van der Kroef, “Dualism and Symbolic Antithesis in Indonesian
Society,” American Anthropologist, n.s., LVI, No. 5 (1954), pp. 847-62.
9. P. E. de Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negri-Sembilan Sociopolitical
Structure in Indonesia (Leiden: 1951), pp. 79-80 and 83-4.
10. Ibid., pp. 80-1.
11. Ibid., pp. 139, 165, 167.
12. C. Lévi-Strauss, “Reciprocity and Hierarchy,” American Anthropologist,
n.s., XLVI, No. 2 ( 1944).
13. This moot point has led to a discussion between Dr. D. Maybury-Lewis
and myself in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-, en Volkenkunde, Deel 116,
i* Aflevering (i960).
Do Dual Organizations Exist?
14. Fr. A. Colbacchini and Fr. C. Albisetti, Os Bororos orientais (Sâo Paulo:
x942)* P« 35*
15. James A. Ford, “The Puzzle of Poverty Point,” Natural History, LX1V,
No. 9 (November, 1955), pp. 466-72.
16. The Bororo believe in a cycle of transmigrations whose ultimate stage
takes the form of a bird.
17. Fr. C. Albisetti, “Contribuçôes missionarias,” Publicaçôes da Sociedade
Brasileira de Antropologia e Etnologia, No. 2 (Rio de Janeiro: 1948),
p. 8.
18. Van der Kroef, “Dualism and Symbolic Antithesis . . . ,” op. cit., p.
856, citing Swellengrebel, Kerk en Tempel op Bali (The Hague: 1948).
19. C. Nimuendajü, “The Eastern Timbira,” University of California Publications
in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XLI (1946).
20. Ibid., pp. 42-3.
21. Ibid., p. 92.
22. Paris: 1949.
23. The objection has been voiced that the “concentric” type of structure
should be represented by two straight lines rather than by a
straight line and a point. I thought it would be better to adopt the second
diagram at the outset, for it is a simplification of the first. As I have
already shown, the arrangement in concentric circles is the empirical
expression of a more profound opposition between the center and the
periphery. But even if we adhere to the more complex diagram, the
binary or ternary character of each system is immediately apparent.
24. This opposition between two terms, one of them unambiguous and the
other ambiguous, recurs constantly in Pawnee ritual. See C. Lévi-Strauss,
“Le Symbolisme cosmique dans la structure sociale et l’organisation
cérémonielle de plusieurs populations nord et sud-américaines,” in
Le Symbolisme cosmique des monuments religieux, Serie Orientale Roma
(Rome: 1957).
25. E. W . Gifford, “Miwok Moieties,” University of California Publications
in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XII, No. 4 (1916),
pp. 143-4.
26. C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris: 1955), p. 231. See also Note
13, above.
27. This is the way in which I defined the concept of mana some time ago.
See C. Lévi-Strauss, “Introduction à l’oeuvre de Marcel Mauss,” in
Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et Anthropologie (Paris: 1950), pp. xli-lii.
28. Actually, Rivers, whose genius is largely ignored today, employed both
types of interpretation simultaneously; since his time, no one has
said anything not already anticipated by that great theoretician. What I
am suggesting here still stands, however, to the extent that Rivers’
contemporaries and successors have chiefly acknowledged his historical
and geographical interpretations, while the psychological and logical aspects
of his theory were quietly assimilated by Mauss, Radcliffe-Brown,
and Malinowski, who developed them further with great brilliance.
p a r t THREE
Magic and
Religion
CHAPTER
The Sorcerer
and His Magic
cL - J i n c e t h e p i o n e e r i n g w o r k of Cannon, we understand
more clearly the psycho-physiological mechanisms underlying
the instances reported from many parts of the world of death
by exorcism and the casting of spells.1 An individual who is aware
that he is the object of sorcery is thoroughly convinced that he is
doomed according to the most solemn traditions of his group. His
friends and relatives share this certainty. From then on the community
withdraws. Standing aloof from the accursed, it treats him not
only as though he were already dead but as though he were a
source of danger to the entire group. On every occasion and by
every action, the social body suggests death to the unfortunate victim,
who no longer hopes to escape what he considers to be his
ineluctable fate. Shortly thereafter, sacred rites are held to dispatch
him to the realm of shadows. First brutally torn from all of his
fam ily and social ties and excluded from all functions and activities
through which he experienced self-awareness, then banished by the
same forces from the world of the living, the victim yields to the
167
combined effect of intense terror, the sudden total withdrawal of
the multiple reference systems provided by the support of the
group, and, finally, to the group’s decisive reversal in proclaiming
him— once a living man, with rights and obligations— dead and an
object of fear, ritual, and taboo. Physical integrity cannot withstand
the dissolution of the social personality.2
How are these complex phenomena expressed on the physiological
level? Cannon showed that fear, like rage, is associated with
a particularly intense activity of the sympathetic nervous system.
This activity is ordinarily useful, involving organic modifications
which enable the individual to adapt himself to a new situation. But
if the individual cannot avail himself of any instinctive or acquired
response to an extraordinary situation (or to one which he conceives
of as such), the activity of the sympathetic nervous system
becomes intensified and disorganized; it may, sometimes within a
few hours, lead to a decrease in the volume of blood and a concomitant
drop in blood pressure, which result in irreparable damage
to the circulatory organs. The rejection of food and drink, frequent
among patients in the throes of intense anxiety, precipitates
this process; dehydration acts as a stimulus to the sympathetic nervous
system, and the decrease in blood volume is accentuated by the
growing permeability of the capillary vessels. These hypotheses
were confirmed by the study of several cases of trauma resulting
from bombings, battle shock, and even surgical operations; death
results, yet the autopsy reveals no lesions.
There is, therefore, no reason to doubt the efficacy of certain
magical practices. But at the same time we see that the efficacy
of magic implies a belief in magic. The latter has three complementary
aspects: first, the sorcerer’s belief in the effectiveness of his
techniques; second, the patient’s or victim’s belief in the sorcerer’s
power; and, finally, the faith and expectations of the group, which
constantly act as a sort of gravitational field within which the relationship
between sorcerer and bewitched is located and defined.3
Obviously, none of the three parties is capable of forming a clear
picture of the sympathetic nervous system’s activity or of the disturbances
which Cannon called homeostatic. When the sorcerer
claims to suck out of the patient’s body a foreign object whose
presence would explain the illness and produces a stone which he
had previously hidden in his mouth, how does he justify this pro­
168 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
cedure in his own eyes? How can an innocent person accused of
sorcery prove his innocence if the accusation is unanimous— since
the magical situation is a consensual phenomenon? And, finally,
how much credulity and how much skepticism are involved in the
attitude of the group toward those in whom it recognizes extraordinary
powers, to whom it accords corresponding privileges, but
from whom it also requires adequate satisfaction? Let us begin by
examining this last point. '
It was in September, 1938. For several weeks we had been
camping with a small band of Nambicuara Indians near the headwaters
of the Tapajoz, in those desolate savannas of central Brazil
where the natives wander during the greater part of the year,
collecting seeds and wild fruits, hunting small mammals, insects,
and reptiles, and whatever else might prevent them from dying of
starvation. Thirty of them were camped together there, quite by
chance. They were grouped in families under frail lean-tos of
branches, which give scant protection from the scorching sun, nocturnal
chill, rain, and wind. Like most bands, this one had both a
secular chief and a sorcerer; the latter’s daily activities— hunting,
fishing, and handicrafts— were in no way different from those of
the other men of the group. He was a robust man, about fortyfive
years old, and a bon vivant.
One evening, however, he did not return to camp at the usual
time. Night fell and fires were lit; the natives were visibly worried.
Countless perils lurk in the bush: torrential rivers, the somewhat
improbable danger of encountering a huge wild beast— jaguar or
anteater— or, more readily pictured by the Nambicuara, an apparendy
harmless animal which is the incarnation of an evil spirit of
the waters or forest. And above all, each night for the past week
we had seen mysterious campfires, which sometimes approached
and sometimes receded from our own. Any unknown band is always
potentially hostile. After a two-hour wait, the natives were
convinced that their companion had been killed in ambush and,
while his two young wives and his son wept noisily in mourning
for their dead husband and father, the other natives discussed the
tragic consequences foreshadowed by the disappearance of their
sorcerer.
Toward ten that evening, the anguished anticipation of immiThe
Sorcerer and His Magic | 169
nent disaster, the lamentations in which the other women began to
join, and the agitation of the men had created an intolerable atmosphere,
and we decided to reconnoiter with several natives who had
remained relatively calm. W e had not gone two hundred yards
when we stumbled upon a motionless figure. It was our man,
crouching silently, shivering in the chilly night air, disheveled
and without his belt, necklaces, and arm-bands (the Nambicuara
wear nothing eke). He allowed us to lead him back to the camp
site without resistance, but only after long exhortations by his
group and pleading by his family was he persuaded to talk. Finally,
bit by bit, we extracted the details of his story. A thunderstorm,
the first of the season, had burst during the afternoon, and the
thunder had carried him off to a site several miles distant, which he
named, and then, after stripping him completely, had brought him
back to the spot where we found him. Everyone went off to sleep
commenting on the event. The next day the thunder victim had
recovered his joviality and, what is more, all his ornaments. This
last detail did not appear to surprise anyone, and life resumed its
normal course.
A few days later, however, another version of these prodigious
events began to be circulated by certain natives. W e must
note that this band was actually composed of individuals of different
origins and had been fused into a new social entity as a result of
unknown circumstances. One of the groups had been decimated by
an epidemic several years before and was no longer sufficiently
large to lead an independent life; the other had seceded from its
original tribe and found itself in the same straits. When and under
what circumstances the two groups met and decided to unite their
efforts, we could not discover. The secular leader of the new band
came from one group and the sorcerer, or religious leader, from the
other. The fusion was obviously recent, for no marriage had yet
taken place between the two groups when we met them, although
the children of one were usually betrothed to the children of the
other; each group had retained its own dialect, and their members
could communicate only through two or three bilingual na­
tives.
This is the rumor that was spread. There was good reason to
suppose that the unknown bands crossing the savanna belonged to
the tribe of the seceded group of which the sorcerer was a member.
170 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
The sorcerer, impinging on the functions of his colleague the political
chief, had doubtless wanted to contact his former tribesmen,
perhaps to ask to return to the fold, or to provoke an attack upon
his new companions, or perhaps even to reassure them of the
friendly intentions of the latter. In any case, the sorcerer had
needed a pretext for his absence, and his kidnapping by thunder and
its subsequent staging were invented toward this end. It was, of
course, the natives of the other group who spread this interpretation,
which they secretly believed and which filled them with apprehension.
But the official version was never publicly disputed,
and until we left, shortly after the incident, it remained ostensibly
accepted by all.4
Although the skeptics had analyzed the sorcerer’s motives
with great psychological finesse and political acumen, they would
have been greatly astonished had someone suggested (quite plausibly)
that the incident was a hoax which cast doubt upon the
sorcerer’s good faith and competence. He had probably not flown
on the wings of thunder to the Rio Ananaz and had only staged an
act. But these things might have happened, they had certainly happened
in other circumstances, and they belonged to the realm of
real experience. Certainly the sorcerer maintains an intimate relationship
with the forces of the supernatural. The idea that in a particular
case he had used his power to conceal a secular activity
belongs to the realm of conjecture and provides an opportunity for
critical judgment. The important point is that these two possibilities
were not mutually exclusive; no more than are, for us, the
alternate interpretations of war as the dying gasp of national independence
or as the result of the schemes of munitions manufacturers.
The two explanations are logically incompatible, but we
admit that one or the other may be true; since they are equally
plausible, we easily make the transition from one to the other, depending
on the occasion and the moment. Many people have both
explanations in the back of their minds.
Whatever their true origin, these divergent interpretations
come from individual consciousncss not as the result of objective
analysis but rather as complementary ideas resulting from hazy and
unelaborated attitudes which have an experiential character for
each of us. These experiences, however, remain intellectually diffuse
and emotionally intolerable unless they incorporate one or anThe
Sorcerer and His Magic | 171
other of the patterns present in the group’s culture. The assimilation
of such patterns is the only means of objectivizing subjective
states, of formulating inexpressible feelings, and of integrating inarticulated
experiences into a system.
These mechanisms become clearer in the light of some observations
made many years ago among the Zuni of N ew Mexico by
an admirable field-worker, M. C. Stevenson.6A twelve-year-old girl
was stricken with a nervous seizure directly after an adolescent boy
had seized her hands. The youth was accused of sorcery and
dragged before the court of the Bow priesthood. For an hour he
denied having any knowledge of occult power, but this defense
proved futile. Because the crime of sorcery was at that time still
punished by death among the Zuni, the accused changed his tactics.
He improvised a tale explaining the circumstances by which he had
been initiated into sorcery. He said he had received two substances
from his teachers, one which drove girls insane and another which
cured them. This point constituted an ingenious precaution against
later developments. Having been ordered to produce his medicines,
he went home under guard and came back with two roots, which he
proceeded to use in a complicated ritual. He simulated a trance
after taking one of the drugs, and after taking the other he pretended
to return to his normal state. Then he administered the
remedy to the sick girl and declared her cured. The session was adjourned
until the following day, but during the night the alleged
sorcerer escaped. He was soon captured, and the girl’s family set
itself up as a court and continued the trial. Faced with the reluctance
of his new judges to accept his first story, the boy then invented
a new one. He told them that all his relatives and ancestors
had been witches and that he had received marvellous powers from
them. He claimed that he could assume the form of a cat, fill his
mouth with cactus needles, and kill his victims— two infants, three
girls, and two boys— by shooting the needles into them. These
feats, he claimed, were due to the magical powers of certain plumes
which were used to change him and his family into shapes other,
than human. This last detail was a tactical error, for the judges
called upon him to produce the plumes as proof of his new story.
He gave various excuses which were rejected one after another,
and he was forced to take his judges to his house. He began by de-
172 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
daring that the plumes were secreted in a wall that he could not
destroy. He was commanded to go to work. After breaking down
a section of the wall and carefully examining the plaster, he tried to
excuse himself by declaring that the plumes had been hidden two
years before and that he could not remember their exact location.
Forced to search again, he tried another wall, and after another
hour’s work, an old plume appeared in the plaster. He grabbed it
eagerly and presented it to his persecutors as the magic device of
which he had spoken. He was then made to explain the details of its
use. Finally, dragged into the public plaza, he had to repeat his entire
story (to which he added a wealth of new detail). He finished
it with a pathetic speech in which he lamented the loss of his supernatural
power. Thus reassured, his listeners agreed to free him.
This narrative, which we unfortunately had to abridge and
strip of all its psychological nuances, is still instructive in many
respects. First of all, we see that the boy tried for witchcraft, for
which he risks the death penalty, wins his acquittal not by denying
but by admitting his alleged crime. Moreover, he furthers his cause
by presenting successive versions, each richer in detail (and thus, in
theory, more persuasive of guilt) than the preceding one. The debate
does not proceed, as do debates among us, by accusations and
denials, but rather by allegations and specifications. The judges do
not expect the accused to challenge their theory, much less to refute
the facts. Rather, they require him to validate a system of
which they possess only a fragment; he must reconstruct it as a
whole in an appropriate way. As the field-worker noted in relation
to a phase of the trial, “The warriors had become so absorbed by
their interest in the narrative of the boy that they seemed entirely
to have forgotten the cause of his appearance before them.” 6 And
when the magic plume was finally uncovered, the author remarks
with great insight, “There was consternation among the warriors,
who exclaimed in one voice: ‘What does this mean?’ Now they felt
assured that the youth had spoken the truth.” 7 Consternation, and
not triumph at finding a tangible proof of the crime— for the
judges had sought to bear witness to the reality of the system which
had made the crime possible (by validating its objective basis
through an appropriate emotional expression), rather than simply
to punish a crime. By his confession, the defendant is transformed
into a witness for the prosecution, with the participation (and even
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 173
the complicity) of his judges. Through the defendant, witchcraft
and the ideas associated with it cease to exist as a diffuse complex of
poorly formulated sentiments and representations and become embodied
in real experience. The defendant, who serves as a witness,
gives the group the satisfaction of truth, which is infinitely greater
and richer than the satisfaction of justice that would have been
achieved by his execution. And finally, by his ingenious defense
which makes his hearers progressively aware of the vitality offered
by his corroboration of their system (especially since the choice is
not between this system and another, but between the magical system
and no system at all— that is, chaos), the youth, who at first
was a threat to the physical security of his group, became the guardian
of its spiritual coherence.
But is his defense merely ingenious? Everything leads us to
believe that after groping for a subterfuge, the defendant participates
with sincerity and— the word is not too strong— fervor in the
drama enacted between him and his judges. He is proclaimed a sorcerer;
since sorcerers do exist, he might well be one. And how
would he know beforehand the signs which might reveal his calling
to him? Perhaps the signs are there, present in this ordeal and in
the convulsions of the little girl brought before the court. For the
boy, too, the coherence of the system and the role assigned to him
in preserving it are values no less essential than the personal security
which he risks in the venture. Thus we see him, with a mixture
of cunning and good faith, progressively construct the impersonation
which is thrust upon him— chiefly by drawing on his knowledge
and his memories, improvising somewhat, but above all living
his role and seeking, through his manipulations and the ritual he
builds from bits and pieces, the experience of a calling which is, at
least theoretically, open to all. At the end of the adventure, what
remains of his earlier hoaxes? To what extent has the hero become
the dupe of his own impersonation? What is more, has he not truly
become a sorcerer? W e are told that in his final confession, “The
longer the boy talked the more absorbed he became in his subject.
. . . At times his face became radiant with satisfaction at his power
over his listeners.” 8The girl recovers after he performs his curing
ritual. The boy’s experiences during the extraordinary ordeal become
elaborated and structured. Little more is needed than for the
ï 74 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
innocent boy finally to confess to the possession of supernatural
powers that are already recognized by the group.
W e must consider at greater length another especially valuable
document, which until now seems to have been valued solely for its
linguistic interest. I refer to a fragment of the autobiography of a
Kwakiutl Indian from the Vancouver region of Canada, obtained
by Franz Boas.9
Quesalid (for this Xvas the name he received when he became a
sorcerer) did not believe in the power of the sorcerers— or, more
accurately, shamans, since this is a better term for their specific
type of activity in certain regions of the world. Driven by curiosity
about their tricks and by the desire to expose them, he began
to associate with the shamans until one of them offered to make
him a member of their group. Quesalid did not wait to be asked
twice, and his narrative recounts the details of his first lessons,
a curious mixture of pantomime, prestidigitation, and empirical
knowledge, including the art of simulating fainting and nervous
fits, the learning of sacred songs, the technique for inducing vomiting,
rather precise notions of auscultation and obstetrics, and the
use of “dreamers,” that is, spies who listen to private conversations
and secretly convey to the shaman bits of information concerning
the origins and symptoms of the ills suffered by different people.
Above all, he learned the ars magna of one of the shamanistdc
schools of the Northwest Coast: The shaman hides a little tuft of
down in a corner of his mouth, and he throws it up, covered with
blood, at the proper moment— after having bitten his tongue or
made his gums bleed— and solemnly presents it to his patient and
the onlookers as the pathological foreign body extracted as a result
of his sucking and manipulations.
His worst suspicions confirmed, Quesalid wanted to continue
his inquiry. But he was no longer free. His apprenticeship among
the shamans began to be noised about, and one day he was summoned
by the family of a sick person who had dreamed of Quesalid
as his healer. This first treatment (for which he received ne
payment, any more than he did for those which followed, since he
had not completed the required four years of apprenticeship) was
an outstanding success. Although Quesalid came to be known from
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 17 5
that moment on as a “great shaman,” he did not lose his critical
faculties. He interpreted his success in psychological terms— it was
successful “because he [the sick person] believed strongly in his
dream about me.” 10 A more complex adventure made him, in his
own words, “hesitant and thinking about many things.” 11 Here he
encountered several varieties of a “ false supernatural,” and was led
to conclude that some forms were less false than others— those, of
course, in which he had a personal stake and whose system he was,
at the same time, surreptitiously building up in his mind. A summary
of the adventure follows.
While visiting the neighboring Koskimo Indians, Quesalid attends
a curing ceremony of his illustrious colleagues of the other
tribe. T o his great astonishment he observes a difference in their
technique. Instead of spitting out the illness in the form of a
“bloody worm” (the concealed down), the Koskimo shamans
merely spit a little saliva into their hands, and they dare to claim
that this is “the sickness.” W hat is the value of this method? W hat
is the theory behind it? In order to find out “the strength of the
shamans, whether it was real or whether they only pretended to be
shamans” like his fellow tribesmen,12 Quesalid requests and obtains
permission to try his method in an instance where the Koskimo
method has failed. The sick woman then declares herself cured.
And here our hero vacillates for the first time. Though he had
few illusions about his own technique, he has now found one which
is more false, more mystifying, and more dishonest than his own.
For he at least gives his clients something. He presents them with
their sickness in a visible and tangible form, while his foreign colleagues
show nothing at all and only claim to have captured the
sickness. Moreover, Quesalid’s method gets results, while the other
is futile. Thus our hero grapples with a problem which perhaps has
its parallel in the development of modern science. Tw o systems
which we know to be inadequate present (with respect to each
other) a differential validity, from both a logical and an empirical
perspective. From which frame of reference shall we judge them?
On the level of fact, where they merge, or on their own level,
where they take on different values, both theoretically and empir­
ically?
Meanwhile, the Koskimo shamans, “ashamed” and discredited
before their tribesmen, are also plunged into doubt. Their colleague
176 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
has produced, in the form of a material object, the illness which
they had always considered as spiritual in nature and had thus
never dreamed of rendering visible. They send Quesalid an emissary
to invite him to a secret meeting in a cave. Quesalid goes and
his foreign colleagues expound their system to him: “Every sickness
is a man: boils and swellings, and itch and scabs, and pimples
and coughs and consumption and scrofula; and also this, stricture of
the bladder and stomach aches. . . . As soon as we get the soul of
the sickness which is a man, then dies the sickness which is a man.
Its body just disappears in our insides.” 13 If this theory is correct,
what is there to show? And why, when Quesalid operates, does
“the sickness stick to his hand” ? But Quesalid takes refuge behind
professional rules which forbid him to teach before completing
four years of apprenticeship, and refuses to speak. He maintains his
silence even when the Koskimo shamans send him their allegedly
virgin daughters to try to seduce him and discover his secret.
Thereupon Quesalid returns to his village at Fort Rupert. He
learns that the most reputed shaman of a neighboring clan, worried
about Quesalid’s growing renown, has challenged all his colleagues,
inviting them to compete with him in curing several patients. Quesalid
comes to the contest and observes the cures of his elder. Like
the Koskimo, this shaman does not show the illness. He simply incorporates
an invisible object, “what he called the sickness” into his
head-ring, made of bark, or into his bird-shaped ritual rattle.14
These objects can hang suspended in mid-air, owing to the power
of the illness which “bites” the house-posts or the shaman’s hand.
The usual drama unfolds. Quesalid is asked to intervene in cases
judged hopeless by his predecessor, and he triumphs with his technique
of the bloody worm.
Here we come to the truly pathetic part of the story. The old
shaman, ashamed and despairing because of the ill-repute into
which he has fallen and by the collapse of his therapeutic technique,
sends his daughter to Quesalid to beg him for an interview. The
latter finds his colleague sitting under a tree and the old shaman begins
thus: “It won’t be bad what we say to each other, friend, but
only I wish you to try and save my life for me, so that I may not
die of shame, for I am a plaything of our people on account of
what you did last night. I pray you to have mercy and tell me what
stuck on the palm of your hand last night. Was it the true sickness
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 177
or was it only made up? For I beg you have mercy and tell me
about the way you did it so that I can imitate you. Pity me,
friend.” 15
Silent at first, Quesalid begins by calling for explanations
about the feats of the head-ring and the rattle. His colleague shows
him the nail hidden in the head-ring which he can press at right
angles into the post, and the way in which he tucks the head of his
rattle between his finger joints to make it look as if the bird were
hanging by its beak from his hand. He himself probably does
nothing but lie and fake, simulating shamanism for material gain,
for he admits to being “covetous for the property of the sick men.”
He knows that shamans cannot catch souls, “for . . . we all own a
soul” ; so he resorts to using tallow and pretends that “it is a soul
. . . that white thing . . . sitting on my hand.” The daughter
then adds her entreaties to those of her father: “Do have mercy
that he may live.” But Quesalid remains silent. That very night,
following this tragic conversation, the shaman disappears with his
entire family, heartsick and feared by the community, who think
that he may be tempted to take revenge. Needless fears: He returned
a year later, but both he and his daughter had gone mad.
Three years later, he died.
And Quesalid, rich in secrets, pursued his career, exposing
the impostors and full of contempt for the profession. “Only one
shaman was seen by me, who sucked at a sick man and I never
found out whether he was a real shaman or only made up. Only
for this reason I believe that he is a shaman; he does not allow those
who are made well to pay him. I truly never once saw him
laugh.” 16 Thus his original attitude has changed considerably. The
radical negativism of the free thinker has given way to more moderate
feelings. Real shamans do exist. And what about him? At the
end of the narrative we cannot tell, but it is evident that he carries
on his craft conscientiously, takes pride in his achievements, and
warmly defends the technique of the bloody down against all
rival schools. He seems to have completely lost sight of the fallaciousness
of the technique which he had so disparaged at the begin­
ning.
W e see that the psychology of the sorcerer is not simple. In
order to analyze it, we shall first examine the case of the old
i 78 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
shaman who begs his young rival to tell him the truth— whether
the illness glued in the palm of his hand like a sticky red worm is
real or made up— and who goes mad when he receives no answer.
Before the tragedy, he was fully convinced of two things— first,
that pathological conditions have a cause which may be discovered
and second, that a system of interpretation in which personal inventiveness
is important structures the phases of the illness, from the
diagnosis to the cure. This fabulation of a reality unknown in itself
— a fabulation consisting of procedures and representations— is
founded on a threefold experience: first, that of the shaman himself,
who, if his calling is a true one (and even if it is not, simply by
virtue of his practicing it), undergoes specific states of a psychosomatic
nature; second, that of the sick person, who may or may
not experience an improvement of his condition; and, finally, that
of the public, who also participate in the cure, experiencing an enthusiasm
and an intellectual and emotional satisfaction which produce
collective support, which in turn inaugurates a new cycle.
These three elements of what we might call the “shamanistic
complex” cannot be separated. But they are clustered around two
poles, one formed by the intimate experience of the shaman and
the other by group consensus. There is no reason to doubt that
sorcerers, or at least the more sincere among them, believe in their
calling and that this belief is founded on the experiencing of specific
states. The hardships and privations which they undergo
would often be sufficient in themselves to provoke these states,
even if we refuse to admit them as proof of a serious and fervent
calling. But there is also linguistic evidence which, because it is
indirect, is more convincing. In the Wintu dialect of California,
there are five verbal classes which correspond to knowledge by
sight, by bodily experience, by inference, by reasoning, and by
hearsay. All five make up the category of knowledge as opposed to
conjecture, which is differently expressed. Curiously enough, relationships
with the supernatural world are expressed by means of
the modes of knowledge— by bodily impression (that is, the most
intuitive kind of experience), by inference, and by reasoning. Thus
the native who becomes a shaman after a spiritual crisis conceives
of his state grammatically, as a consequence to be inferred from
the fact— formulated as real experience— that he has received divine
guidance. From the latter he concludes deductively that he
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 179
must have been on a journey to the beyond, at the end of which he
found himself— again, an immediate experience— once more among
his people.17
The experiences of the sick person represent the least important
aspect of the system, except for the fact that a patient successfully
treated by a shaman is in an especially good position to become
a shaman in his own right, as we see today in the case of
psychoanalysis. In any event, we must remember that the shaman
does not completely lack empirical knowledge and experimental
techniques, which may in part explain his success. Furthermore,
disorders of the type currently termed psychosomatic, which constitute
a large part of the illnesses prevalent in societies with a low
degree of security, probably often yield to psychotherapy. At any
rate, it seems probable that medicine men, like their civilized colleagues,
cure at least some of the cases they treat and that without
this relative success magical practices could not have been so
widely diffused in time and space. But this point is not fundamental;
it is subordinate to the other two. Quesalid did not become a great
shaman because he cured his patients; he cured his patients because
he had become a great shaman. Thus we have reached the other—
that is, the collective— pole of our system.
The true reason for the defeat of Quesalid’s rivals must then
be sought in the attitude of the group rather than in the pattern
of the rivals’ successes and failures. The rivals themselves emphasize
this when they confess their shame at having become the
laughingstock of the group; this is a social sentiment par excellence.
Failure is secondary, and we see in all their statements that
they consider it a function of another phenomenon, which is the
disappearance of the social consensus, re-created at their expense
around another practitioner and another system of curing. C onsequently,
the fundamental problem revolves around the relationship
between the individual and the group, or, more accurately,
the relationship between a specific category of individuals and specific
expectations of the group.
In treating his patient the shaman also offers his audience a performance.
What is this performance? Risking a rash generalization
on the basis of a few observations, we shall say that it always involves
the shaman’s enactment of the “call,” or the initial crisis
which brought him the revelation of his condition. But we must
180 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
not be deceived by the word performance. The shaman does not
limit himself to reproducing or miming certain events. He actually
relives them in all their vividness, originality, and violence. And
since he returns to his normal state at the end of the séance, we may
say, borrowing a key term from psychoanalysis, that he abreacts.
In psychoanalysis, abreaction refers to the decisive moment in the
treatment when the patient intensively relives the initial situation
from which his disturbance stems, before he ultimately overcomes
it. In this sense, the shaman is a professional abreactor.
W e have set forth elsewhere the theoretical hypotheses that
might be formulated in order for us to accept the idea that the type
of abreaction specific to each shaman— or, at any rate, to each
shamanistic school— might symbolically induce an abreaction of his
own disturbance in each patient.18 In any case, if the essential relationship
is that between the shaman and the group, we must also
state the question from another point of view— that of the relationship
between normal and pathological thinking. From any
non-scientific perspective (and here we can exclude no society),
pathological and normal thought processes are complementary
rather than opposed. In a universe which it strives to understand
but whose dynamics it cannot fully control, normal thought continually
seeks the meaning of things which refuse to reveal their
significance. So-called pathological thought, on the other hand,
overflows with emotional interpretations and overtones, in order
to supplement an otherwise deficient reality. For normal thinking
there exists something which cannot be empirically verified and is,
therefore, “ claimable.” For pathological thinking there exist experiences
without object, or something “available.” W e might borrow
from linguistics and say that so-called normal thought always
suffers from a deficit of meaning, whereas so-called pathological
thought (in at least some of its manifestations) disposes of a plethora
of meaning. Through collective participation in shamanistic curing,
a balance is established between these two complementary situations.
Normal thought cannot fathom the problem of illness, and so the
group calls upon the neurotic to furnish a wealth of emotion heretofore
lacking a focus.
An equilibrium is reached between what might be called supply
and demand on the psychic level— but only on two conditions.
First, a structure must be elaborated and continually modified
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 181
through the interaction of group tradition and individual invention.
This structure is a system of oppositions and correlations,
integrating all the elements of a total situation, in which sorcerer,
patient, and audience, as well as representations and procedures, all
play their parts. Furthermore, the public must participate in the
abreaction, to a certain extent at least, along with the patient and
the sorcerer. It is this vital experience of a universe of symbolic
effusions which the patient, because he is ill, and the sorcerer, because
he is neurotic— in other words, both having types of experience
which cannot otherwise be integrated— allow the public to
glimpse as “fireworks” from a safe distance. In the absence of any
experimental control, which is indeed unnecessary, it is this experience
alone, and its relative richness in each case, which makes possible
a choice between several systems and elicits adherence to a
particular school or practitioner.19
In contrast with scientific explanation, the problem here is not
to attribute confused and disorganized states, emotions, or representations
to an objective cause, but rather to articulate them into
a whole or system. The system is valid precisely to the extent that
it allows the coalescence or precipitation of these diffuse states,
whose discontinuity also makes them painful. To the conscious
mind, this last phenomenon constitutes an original experience which
cannot be grasped from without. Because of their complementary
disorders, the sorcerer-patient dyad incarnates for the group, in
vivid and concrete fashion, an antagonism that is inherent in all
thought but that normally remains vague and imprecise. The patient
is all passivity and self-alienation, just as inexpressibility is
the disease of the mind. The sorcerer is activity and self-projection,
just as affectivity is the source of symbolism. The cure interrelates
these opposite poles, facilitating the transition from one to the
other, and demonstrates, within a total experience, the coherence
of the psychic universe, itself a projection of the social universe.
Thus it is necessary to extend the notion of abreaction by examining
the meanings it acquires in psychotherapies other than
psychoanalysis, although the latter deserves the credit for rediscovering
and insisting upon its fundamental validity. It may be
objected that in psychoanalysis there is only one abreaction, the
i8z | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
patient’s, rather than three. W e are not so sure of this. It is true that
in the shamanistic cure the sorcerer speaks and abreacts for the
silent patient, while in psychoanalysis it is the patient who talks and
abreacts against the listening therapist. But the therapist’s abreaction,
while not concomitant with the patient’s, is nonetheless required,
since he must be analyzed before he himself can become an
analyst. It is more difficult to define the role ascribed to the group
by each technique. Magic readapts the group to predefined problems
through the patient, while psychoanalysis readapts the patient
to the group by means of the solutions reached. But the distressing
trend which, for several years, has tended to transform the
psychoanalytic system from a body of scientific hypotheses that
are experimentally verifiable in certain specific and limited cases
into a kind of diffuse mythology interpenetrating the consciousness
of the group, could rapidly bring about a parallelism. (This group
consciousness is an objective phenomenon, which the psychologist
expresses through a subjective tendency to extend to normal
thought a system of interpretations conceived for pathological
thought and to apply to facts of collective psychology a method
adapted solely to the study of individual psychology.) When this
happens— and perhaps it already has in certain countries— the value
of the system will no longer be based upon real cures from which
certain individuals can benefit, but on the sense of security that the
group receives from the myth underlying the cure and from the
popular system upon which the group’s universe is reconstructed.
Even at the present time, the comparison between psychoanalysis
and older and more widespread psychological therapies can
encourage the former to re-examine its principles and methods. By
continuously expanding the recruitment of its patients, who begin
as clearly characterized abnormal individuals and gradually become
representative of the group, psychoanalysis transforms its treatments
into conversions. For only a patient can emerge cured; an
unstable or maladjusted individual can only be persuaded. A considerable
danger thus arises: The treatment (unbeknown to the
therapist, naturally), far from leading to the resolution of a specific
disturbance within its own context, is reduced to the reorganization
of the patient’s universe in terms of psychoanalytic interpretations.
This means that we would finally arrive at precisely that
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 183
situation which furnishes the point of departure as well as the
theoretical validity of the magico-social system that we have
analyzed.
If this analysis is correct, we must see magical behavior as the
response to a situation which is revealed to the mind through
emotional manifestations, but whose essence is intellectual. For
only the history of the symbolic function can allow us to understand
the intellectual condition of man, in which the universe is
never charged with sufficient meaning and in which the mind always
has more meanings available than there are objects to which
to relate them. Torn between these two systems of reference— the
signifying and the signified— man asks magical thinking to provide
him with a new system of reference, within which the thus-far
contradictory elements can be integrated. But we know that this
system is built at the expense of the progress of knowledge, which
would have required us to retain only one of the two previous systems
and to refine it to the point where it absorbed the other. This
point is still far off. W e must not permit the individual, whether
normal or neurotic, to repeat this collective misadventure. The
study of the mentally sick individual has shown us that all persons
are more or less oriented toward contradictory systems and suffer
from the resulting conflict; but the fact that a certain form of integration
is possible and effective practically is not enough to make it
true, or to make us certain that the adaptation thus achieved does
not constitute an absolute regression in relation to the previous
conflict situation.
The reabsorption of a deviant specific synthesis, through its
integration with the normal syntheses, into a general but arbitrary
synthesis (aside from critical cases where action is required) would
represent a loss on all fronts. A body of elementary hypotheses can
have a certain instrumental value for the practitioner without necessarily
being recognized, in theoretical analysis, as the final image
of reality and without necessarily linking the patient and the therapist
in a kind of mystical communion which does not have the
same meaning for both parties and which only ends by reducing the
treatment to a fabulation.
In the final analysis we could only expect this fabulation to
be a language, whose function is to provide a socially authorized
i 84 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
translation of phenomena whose deeper nature would become once
again equally impenetrable to the group, the patient, and the healer.
The Sorcerer and His Magic | 185
NOTES
1. W. B. Cannon, “ ‘Voodoo’ Death,” American Anthropologist, n.s., XLIV
0942)-
2. An Australian aborigine was brought to the Darwin hospital in April
1956, apparently dying of this type of sorcery. He was placed in an
oxygen tent and fed intravenously. He gradually recovered, convinced
that the white man’s magic was the stronger. See Arthur Morley in the
London Sunday Times, April 22, 1956, p. 11.
3. In this study, whose aim is more psychological than sociological, we
feel justified in neglecting the finer distinctions between the several
modes of magical operations and different types of sorcerers when
these are not absolutely necessary.
4. C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris: 1955), Chapter XXIX.
5. M. C. Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, 23rd Annual Report of the Bureau
of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution,
IÇOJ).
6. Ibid., p. 401.
7. Ibid., p. 404.
8. Ibid., p. 406.
9. Franz Boas, The Religion of the Kwakiutl, Columbia University Contributions
to Anthropology, Vol. X (New York: 1930), Part II, pp. 1-41.
10. Ibid., p. 13.
11. Ibid., p. 19.
12. Ibid., p. 17.
13. Ibid., pp. 20-21.
14. Ibid., p. 27.
15. Ibid., p. 31.
16. Ibid., pp. 40-41.
17. D. D. Lee, “Some Indian Texts Dealing with the Supernatural,” The
Review of Religion (May, 1941 ).
18. See “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” Chapter X of the present volume.
19. This oversimplified equation of sorcerer and neurotic was justly criticized
by Michel Leiris. I subsequently refined this concept in my “Introduction
à l’oeuvre de Marcel Mauss,” in M. Mauss, Sociologie et Anthropologie
(Paris: 1950), pp. xviii-xxiii.
CHATTER
The Effectiveness
of Symbols
TA h e f i r s t i m p o r t a n t South American magicoreligious
text to be known, published by Wassén and Holmer,1
throws new light on certain aspects of shamanistic curing and raises
problems of theoretical interpretation by no means exhaustively
treated in the editors’ excellent commentary. W e will re-examine
this text for its more general implications, rather than from the linguistic
or Americanist perspective primarily employed by the au­
thors.
The text is a long incantation, covering eighteen pages in the
native version, divided into 535 sections. It was obtained by the
Cuna Indian Guillermo Haya from an elderly informant of his
tribe. The Cuna, who live within the Panama Republic, received
special attention from the late Erland Nordenskiold, who even succeeded
in training collaborators among the natives. After Nordenskiold’s
death, Haya forwarded the text to Nordenskiold’s successor,
Dr. Wassén. The text was taken down in the original
186
language and accompanied by a Spanish translation, which Holmer
revised with great care.
The purpose of the song is to facilitate difficult childbirth. Its
use is somewhat exceptional, since native women of Central and
South America have easier deliveries than women of Western societies.
The intervention of the shaman is thus rare and occurs in
case of failure, at the request of the midwife. The song begins with
a picture of the midwife’s confusion and describes her visit to the
shaman, the latter’s departure for the hut of the woman in labor,
his arrival, and his preparations— consisting of fumigations of
burnt cocoa-nibs, invocations, and the making of sacred figures, or
nuchu. These images, carved from prescribed kinds of wood which
lend them their effectiveness, represent tutelary spirits whom the
shaman makes his assistants and whom he leads to the abode of
Muu, the power responsible for the formation of the fetus. A difficult
childbirth results when Muu has exceeded her functions and
captured the purba, or “soul,” of the mother-to-be. Thus the song
expresses a quest: the quest for the lost purba, which will be restored
after many vicissitudes, such as the overcoming of obstacles,
a victory over wild beasts, and, finally, a great contest waged by
the shaman and his tutelary spirits against Muu and her daughters,
with the help of magical hats whose weight the latter are not able
to bear. Muu, once she has been defeated, allows the purba of the
ailing woman to be discovered and freed. The delivery takes place,
and the song ends with a statement of the precautions taken so that
Muu will not escape and pursue her visitors. The fight is not
waged against Muu herself, who is indispensable to procreation,
but only against her abuses of power. Once these have been corrected,
relations become friendly, and Muu’s parting words to the
shaman almost correspond to an invitation: “Friend nele, when do
you think to visit me again? ” (413 )2
Thus far we have rendered the term nele as shaman, which
might seem incorrect, since the cure does not appear to require the
officiant to experience ecstasy or a transition to another psychic
state. Yet the smoke of the cocoa beans aims primarily at
“strengthening his garments” and “strengthening” the nele himself,
“making him brave in front of Muu” (65-66). And above all, the
Cuna classification, which distinguishes between several types of
The Effectiveness of Symbols | 187
188 M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
medicine men, shows that the power of the nele has supernatural
sources. The native medicine men are divided into nele, inatuledi,
and absogedi. The functions of the inatuledi and absogedi are based
on knowledge of songs and cures, acquired through study and
validated by examinations, while the talent of the nele, considered
innate, consists of supernatural sight, which instantly discovers the
cause of the illness— that is, the whereabouts of the vital forces,
whether particular or generalized, that have been carried off by
evil spirits. For the nele can recruit these spirits, making them his
protectors or assistants.3 There is no doubt, therefore, that he is
actually a shaman, even if his intervention in childbirth does not
present all the traits which ordinarily accompany this function.
And the nuchu, protective spirits who at the shaman’s bidding become
embodied in the figurines he has carved, receive from him—
along with invisibility and clairvoyance— niga, Niga is “vitality”
and “resistance,” 4which make these spirits nelegan (plural of nele)
“in the service of men” or in the “likeness of human beings”
(235-237), although endowed with exceptional powers.
From our brief synopsis, the song appears to be rather commonplace.
The sick woman suffers because she has lost her spiritual
double or, more correctly, one of the specific doubles which
together constitute her vital strength. (W e shall return to this
point.) The shaman, assisted by his tutelary spirits, undertakes a
journey to the supernatural world in order to snatch the double
from the malevolent spirit who has captured it; by restoring it to
its owner, he achieves the cure. The exceptional interest of this
text does not lie in this formal framework, but, rather, in the discovery—
stemming no doubt from a reading of the text, but for
which Holmer and Wassén deserve, nonetheless, full credit— that
Mu-lgala, that is, “Muu’s way,” and the abode of Muu are not, to
the native mind, simply a mythical itinerary and dwelling-place.
They represent, literally, the vagina and uterus of the pregnant
woman, which are explored by the shaman and nuchu and in whose
depths they wage their victorious combat.
This interpretation is based first of all on an analysis of the
concept of purba. The purba is a different spiritual principle from
the niga, which we defined above. Unlike the purba the niga cannot
be stolen from its possessor, and only human beings and animals
own one. A plant or a stone has a purba but not a niga. The
same is true of a corpse; and in a child, the niga only develops with
age. It seems, therefore, that one could, without too much inaccuracy,
interpret niga as “vital strength,” and purba as “double” or
“soul,” with the understanding that these words do not imply a
distinction between animate and inanimate (since everything is animate
for the Cuna) but correspond rather to the Platonic notion of
“idea” or “archetype” of which every being or object is the material
expression.
The sick woman of the song has lost more than her purba: the
native text attributes fever to her— “the hot garments of the disease”
(1 and passim)— and the loss or impairment of her sight—
“straying . . . asleep on Muu Puklip’s path” (97). Above all, as
she declares to the shaman who questions her, “It is Muu Puklip
who has come to me. She wants to take my niga purbalele for
good” (98). Holmer proposes translating niga as physical strength
and purba (lele) as soul or essence, whence “ the soul of her life.” 5
It would perhaps be bold to suggest that the niga, an attribute of
the living being, results from the existence of not one but several
purba, which are functionally interrelated. Yet each part of the
body has its own purba, and the niga seems to constitute, on the
spiritual level, the equivalent of the concept of organism. Just as
life results from the cooperation of the organs, so “vital strength”
would be none other than the harmonious concurrence of all the
purba, each of which governs the functions of a specific organ.
As a matter of fact, not only does the shaman retrieve the
niga purbalele; his discovery is followed immediately by the recapture
of other purba, those of the heart, bones, teeth, hair, nails,
and feet (401-408, 435-442). The omission here of the purba governing
the most affected organs— the generative organs— might
come as a surprise. As the editors of the text emphasize, this is because
the purba of the uterus is not considered as a victim but as
responsible for the pathological disorder. Muu and her daughters,
the muugan, are, as Nordenskiold pointed out, the forces that
preside over the development of the fetus and that give it its kurgin,
or natural capacities.6 The text does not refer to these positive attributes.
In it Muu appears as an instigator of disorder, a special
“soul” that has captured and paralyzed the other special “souls,”
thus destroying the cooperation which insures the integrity of the
“chief body” (cuerpo jefe in Spanish, 430, 435) from which it
The Effectiveness of Symbols | 189
draws its niga. But at the same time, Muu must stay put, for the
expedition undertaken to liberate the purba might provoke Muu’s
escape by the road which temporarily remains open; hence the
precautions whose details fill the last part of the song. The shaman
mobilizes the Lords of the wild animals to guard the way, the road
is entangled, golden and silver nets are fastened, and, for four days,
the nelegan stand watch and beat their sticks (505-535). Muu,
therefore, is not a fundamentally evil force: she is a force gone
awry. In a difficult delivery the “soul” of the uterus has led astray
all the “souls” belonging to other parts of the body. Once these
souls are liberated, the soul of the uterus can and must resume its
cooperation. Let us emphasize right here the clarity with which the
native ideology delineates the emotional content of the physiological
disturbance, as it might appear, in an implicit way, to the mind
of the sick woman.
T o reach Muu, the shaman and his assistants must follow a
road, “Muu’s way,” which may be identified from the many allusions
in the text. When the shaman, crouching beneath the sick
woman’s hammock, has finished carving the nuchu, the latter rise
up “at the extremity of the road” (72, 83) and the shaman exhorts
them in these terms:
The (sick) woman lies in the hammock in front of you.
Her white tissue lies in her lap, her white tissues move softly.
The (sick) woman’s body lies weak.
W hen they light up (along) Muu’s way, it runs over with exudations
and like blood.
Her exudations drip down below the hammock all like blood, all
red.
The inner white tissue extends to the bosom of the earth.
Into the middle of the woman’s white tissue a human being descends.
(84-90)
The translators are doubtful as to the meaning of the last two
sentences, yet they refer to another native text, published by Nordenskiold,
which leaves no doubt as to the identification of the
“white inner tissue” with the vulva:
sibugua molul arkaali
blanca tela abricndo
sibugua molul akinnali
blanca tela extendiendo
i 9o I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
The Effectiveness of Symbols
sibugua molul abalase tulapurua ekuanali
blanca tela centro fcto caer haciendo7
“Muu’s way,” darkened and completely covered with blood
owing to the difficult labor, and which the nuchu have to find by
the white sheen of their clothes and magical hats, is thus unquestionably
the vagina of the sick woman. And “Muu’s abode,” the
“dark whirlpool” where she dwells, corresponds to the uterus,
since the native informant comments on the name of this abode,
Amukkapirya'wila, in terms of omegan purba amurrequedi, that is,
“woman’s turbid menstruation,” also called “the dark deep whirlpool”
(250-251) and “the dark inner place” (32).®
The original character of this text gives it a special place
among the shamanistic cures ordinarily described. These cures are
of three types, which are not, however, mutually exclusive. The
sick organ or member may be physically involved, through a
manipulation or suction which aims at extracting the cause of the
illness— usually a thorn, crystal, or feather made to appear at the
opportune moment, as in tropical America, Australia, and Alaska.
Curing may also revolve, as among the Araucanians, around a
sham battle, waged in the hut and then outdoors, against harmful
spirits. Or, as among the Navaho, the officiant may recite incantations
and prescribe actions (such as placing the sick person on
different parts of a painting traced on the ground with colored
sands and pollens) which bear no direct relationship to the specific
disturbance to be cured. In all these cases, the therapeutic method
(which as we know is often effective) is difficult to interpret.
When it deals directly with the unhealthy organ, it is too grossly
concrete (generally, pure deceit) to be granted intrinsic value.
And when it consists in the repetition of often highly abstract
ritual, it is difficult for us to understand its direct bearing on the
illness. It would be convenient to dismiss these difficulties by declaring
that we are dealing with psychological cures. But this term
will remain meaningless unless we can explain how specific psychological
representations are invoked to combat equally specific
physiological disturbances. The text that we have analyzed offers a
striking contribution to the solution of this problem. The song
constitutes a purely psychological treatment, for the shaman does
not touch the body of the sick woman and administers no remedy.
Nevertheless it involves, directly and explicitly, the pathological
condition and its locus. In our view, the song constitutes a psychological
manipulation of the sick organ, and it is precisely from
this manipulation that a cure is expected.
T o begin, let us demonstrate the existence and the characteristics
of this manipulation. Then we shall ask what its purpose and
its effectiveness are. First, we are surprised to find that the song,
whose subject is a dramatic struggle between helpful and malevolent
spirits for the reconquest of a “soul,” devotes very little attention
to action proper. In eighteen pages of text the contest occupies
less than one page and the meeting with Muu Puklip scarcely
two pages. The preliminaries, on the other hand, are highly developed
and the preparations, the outfitting of the nuchu, the
itinerary, and the sites are described with a great wealth of detail.
Such is the case, at the beginning, for the midwife’s visit to the
shaman. The conversation between the sick woman and the midwife,
followed by that between the midwife and the shaman, recurs
twice, for each speaker repeats exacdy the utterance of the
other before answering him:
The (sick) woman speaks to the midwife: “I am indeed being
dressed in the hot garment of the disease.”
The midwife answers her (sick woman): “You are indeed being
dressed in the hot garment of the disease, I also hear you say.”
( 1-2)
It might be argued 9that this stylistic device is common among
the Cuna and stems from the necessity, among peoples bound to
oral tradition, of memorizing exactly what has been said. And yet
here this device is applied not only to speech but to actions:
The midwife turns about in the hut.
The midwife looks for some beads.
The midwife turns about (in order to leave).
The midwife puts one foot in front of the other.
The midwife touches the ground with her foot.
The midwife puts her other foot forward.
The midwife pushes open the door of her hut; the door of her hut
creaks.
The midwife goes out . . . (7-14).
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This minute description of her departure is repeated when she
arrives at the shaman’s, when she returns to the sick woman, when
the shaman departs, and when he arrives. Sometimes the same description
is repeated twice in the same terms (37-39 and 45-47 reproduce
33-35). The cure thus begins with a historical account of
the events that preceded it, and some elements which might appear
secondary (“arrivals” and “departures” ) are treated with luxuriant
detail as if they were, so to speak, filmed in slow-motion. W e encounter
this technique throughout the text, but it is nowhere applied
as systematically as at the beginning and to describe incidents
of retrospective interest.
Everything occurs as though the shaman were trying to induce
the sick woman— whose contact with reality is no doubt impaired
and whose sensitivity is exacerbated— to relive the initial
situation through pain, in a very precise and intense way, and to
become psychologically aware of its smallest details. Actually this
situation sets off a series of events of which the body and internal
organs of the sick woman will be the assumed setting. A transition
will thus be made from the most prosaic reality to myth, from the
physical universe to the physiological universe, from the external
world to the internal body. And the myth being enacted in the
internal body must retain throughout the vividness and the character
of lived experience prescribed by the shaman in the light of
the pathological state and through an appropriate obsessing tech­
nique.
The next ten pages offer, in breathless rhythm, a more and
more rapid oscillation between mythical and physiological themes,
asif to abolish in the mind of the sick woman the distinction which
separates them, and to make it impossible to differentiate their respective
attributes. First there is a description of the woman lying
in her hammock or in the native obstetrical position, facing eastward,
knees parted, groaning, losing her blood, the vulva dilated
and moving (84-92, 123-124, 134-135, 152, 158, 173, 177-178,
202-204). Then the shaman calls by name the spirits of intoxicating
drinks; of the winds, waters, and woods; and even— precious
testimony to the plasticity of the myth— the spirit of the “silver
steamer of the white man” (187). The themes converge: like the
sick woman, the nuchu are dripping with blood; and the pains of
the sick woman assume cosmic proportions: “The inner white tisThe
Effectiveness of Symbols | 193
sue extends to the bosom of the earth. . . . Into the bosom of the
earth her exudations gather into a pool, all like blood, all red”
(84-92). At the same time, each spirit, when it appears, is carefully
described, and the magical equipment which he receives from the
shaman is enumerated at great length: black beads, flame-colored
beads, dark beads, ring-shaped beads, tiger bones, rounded bones,
throat bones, and many other bones, silver necklaces, armadillo
bones, bones of the bird kerkettoli, woodpecker bones, bones for
flutes, silver beads (104-118). Then general recruitment begins
anew, as if these guarantees were still inadequate and all forces,
known or unknown to the sick woman, were to be rallied for the
invasion (119-229).
Yet we are released to such a small extent into the realm of
myth that the penetration of the vagina, mythical though it be, is
proposed to the sick woman in concrete and familiar terms. On two
occasions, moreover, “muu” designates the uterus directly, and not
the spiritual principle which governs its activity (“the sick woman’s
muu,” 204, 453).10 Here the nelegan, in order to enter Muu’s way,
take on the appearance and the motions of the erect penis:
T he nelegaris hats are shining white, the nelegan"s hats are whitish.
The nelegan are becoming flat and low (?), all like bits, all straight.
The nelegan are beginning to become terrifying (?), the nelegan
are becoming all terrifying (?), for the sake of the (sick)
woman’s niga purbalele (230-232).
And further, below:
The nelegan go balancing up on top of the hammock, they go
moving upward like nusupane (239).11
The technique of the narrative thus aims at recreating a real
experience in which the myth merely shifts the protagonists. The
nelegan enter the natural orifice, and we can imagine that after all
this psychological preparation the sick woman actually feels them
entering. Not only does she feel them, but they “light up” the route
they are preparing to follow— for their own sake, no doubt, and to
find the way, but also to make the center of inexpressible and painful
sensations “clear” for her and accessible to her consciousness.
“The nelegan put good sight into the sick woman, the nelegan light
good eyes in the (sick) woman . . .” (238).
i94 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
And this “illuminating sight,” to paraphrase an expression in
the text, enables them to relate in detail a complicated itinerary
that is a true mythical anatomy, corresponding less to the real
structure of the genital organs than to a kind of emotional geography,
identifying each point of resistance and each thrust:
The nelegan set out, the nelegan march in a single file along Muu’s
road, as far as the Low Mountain,
The nelegan set out, etc., as far as the Short Mountain,
The nelegan, etc., as far as the Long Mountain,
The nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Pokuna Yala, (not translated)
The nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Akkwatallekun Yala, (not translated)
The nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Ilamalisuikun Yala, (not translated)
The nelegan, etc., into the center of the Flat Mountain.
The nelegan set out, the nelegan march in a single file along Muu’s
road (241-248).
The picture of the uterine world, peopled with fantastic monsters
and dangerous animals, is amenable to the same interpretation
— which is, moreover, confirmed by the native informant: “It is
the animals,” he says, “who increase the diseases of the laboring
woman” ; that is, the pains themselves are personified. And here
again, the song seems to have as its principal aim the description of
these pains to the sick woman and the naming of them, that is, their
presentation to her in a form accessible to conscious or unconscious
thought: Uncle Alligator, who moves about with his bulging
eyes, his striped and variegated body, crouching and wriggling
his tail; Uncle Alligator Tiikwalele, with glistening body, who
moves his glistening flippers» whose flippers conquer the place,
push everything aside, drag everything; Nele Ki(k)kirpanalele, the
Octopus, whose sticky tentacles are alternately opening and closing;
and many others besides: He-who-has-a-hat-that-is-soft, Hewho-has-a-red-colored-hat,
He-who-has-a-variegated-hat, etc.; and
the guardian animals: the black tiger, the red animal, the twocolored
animal, the dust-colored animal; each is tied with an iron
chain, the tongue hanging down, the tongue hanging out, saliva
dripping, saliva foaming, with flourishing tail, the claws coming out
and tearing things “all like blood, all red” (253-298).
To enter into this hell à la Hieronymus Bosch and reach its
owner, the nelegan have to overcome other obstacles, this time
material: fibers, loose threads, fastened threads, successive curThe
Effectiveness of Symbols | 195
M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
tains— rainbow-colored, golden, silvery, red, black, maroon, blue,
white, wormlike, “like neckties,” yellow, twisted, thick (305-330);
and for this purpose, the shaman calls reinforcements: Lords of
the wood-boring insects, who are to “cut, gather, wind and reduce”
the threads, which Holmer and Wassén identify as the internal
tissues of the uterus.12
The nelegan's invasion follows the downfall of these last
obstacles, and here the tournament of the hats takes place. A discussion
of this would lead us too far from the immediate purpose
of this study. After the liberation of the niga purbalele comes the
descent, which is just as dangerous as the ascent, since the purpose
of the whole undertaking is to induce childbirth— precisely, a difficult
descent. The shaman counts his helpers and encourages his
troops; still he must summon other reinforcements: the “clearers
of the way,” Lords-of-the-burrowing animals, such as the armadillo.
The niga is exhorted to make its way toward the orifice:
Your body lies in front of you in the hammock,
(Her) white tissue lies in her lap,
The white inner tissue moves softly,
Your (sick) woman lies in your midst . . .
. . . thinking she cannot see.
Into her body they put again (her) niga purbalele . . . (430-
435)The
episode that follows is obscure. It would seem that the
sick woman is not yet cured. The shaman leaves for the mountains
with people of the village to gather medicinal plants, and he returns
to the attack in a different way. This time it is he who, by
imitating the penis, penetrates the “opening of muu” and moves in
it “like nusupane . . . completely drying the inner place” (453-
454). Yet the use of astringents suggests that the delivery has taken
place. Finally, before the account of the precautions taken to
impede Muu’s escape, which we have already described, we find
the shaman calling for help from a people of Bowmen. Since their
task consists in raising a cloud of dust “to obscure . . . Muu’s
way” (464), and to defend all of Muu’s crossroads and byroads
(468), their intervention probably also pertains to the conclusion.
The previous episode perhaps refers to a second curing technique,
with organ manipulation and the administration of remedies.
Or it may perhaps match, in equally metaphorical terms, the first
journey, which is more highly elaborated in the text. T w o lines of
attack would thus have been developed for the assistance to the
sick woman, one of which is supported by a psychophysiological
mythology and the other by a psychosocial m ythology— indicated
by the shaman’s call on the inhabitants of the village— which,
however, remains undeveloped. A t any rate, it should be observed
that the song ends after the delivery, just as it had begun before the
cure. Both antecedent and subsequent events are carefully related.
But it is not only against Muu’s elusive stray impulses that the cure
must, through careful procedures, be effected; the efficacy of the
cure would be jeopardized if, even before any results were to be
expected, it failed to offer the sick woman a resolution, that is, a
situation wherein all the protagonists have resumed their places
and returned to an order which is no longer threatened.
The cure would consist, therefore, in making explicit a situation
originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering acceptable
to the mind pains which the body refuses to tolerate. That
the mythology of the shaman does not correspond to an objective
reality does not matter. The sick woman believes in the myth and
belongs to a society which believes in it. The tutelary spirits and
malevolent spirits, the supernatural monsters and magical animals,
are all part of a coherent system on which the native conception
of the universe is founded. The sick woman accepts these mythical
beings or, more accurately, she has never questioned their existence.
W hat she does not accept are the incoherent and arbitrary
pains, which are an alien element in her system but which the shaman,
calling upon myth, will re-integrate within a whole where
everything is meaningful.
Once the sick woman understands, however, she does more
than resign herself; she gets well. But no such thing happens to our
sick when the causes of their diseases have been explained to them
in terms of secretions, germs, or viruses. W e shall perhaps be accused
of paradox if we answer that the reason lies in the fact that
microbes exist and monsters do not. And yet, the relationship between
germ and disease is external to the mind of the patient, for it
is a cause-and-effect relationship; whereas the relationship between
monster and disease is internal to his mind, whether conscious or
The Effectiveness of Symbols | 197
unconscious: It is a relationship between symbol and thing symbolized,
or, to use the terminology of linguists, between sign and
meaning. The shaman provides the sick woman with a language,
by means of which unexpressed, and otherwise inexpressible, psychic
states can be immediately expressed. And it is the transition to
this verbal expression— at the same time making it possible to undergo
in an ordered and intelligible form a real experience that
would otherwise be chaotic and inexpressible— which induces the
release of the physiological process, that is, the reorganization, in a
favorable direction, of the process to which the sick woman is
subjected.
In this respect, the shamanistic cure lies on the borderline between
our contemporary physical medicine and such psychological
therapies as psychoanalysis. Its originality stems from the application
to an organic condition of a method related to psychotherapy.
H ow is this possible? A closer comparison between shamanism and
psychoanalysis— which in our view implies no slight to psychoanalysis—
will enable us to clarify this point.
In both cases the purpose is to bring to a conscious level conflicts
and resistances which have remained unconscious, owing either
to their repression by other psychological forces or— in the
case of childbirth— to their own specific nature, which is not psychic
but organic or even simply mechanical. In both cases also, the
conflicts and resistances are resolved, not because of the knowledge,
real or alleged, which the sick woman progressively acquires of
them, but because this knowledge makes possible a specific experience,
in the course of which conflicts materialize in an order and
on a level permitting their free development and leading to their
resolution. This vital experience is called abreaction in psychoanalysis.
W e know that its precondition is the unprovoked intervention
of the analyst, who appears in the conflicts of the patient through
a double transference mechanism, as a flesh-and-blood protagonist
and in relation to whom the patient can restore and clarify an
initial situation which has remained unexpressed or unformulated.
A ll these characteristics can be found in the shamanistic cure.
Here, too, it is a matter of provoking an experience; as this experience
becomes structured, regulatory mechanisms beyond the subject’s
control are spontaneously set in motion and lead to an
orderly functioning. The shaman plays the same dual role as the
i 98 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
psychoanalyst. A prerequisite role— that of listener for the psychoanalyst
and of orator for the shaman— establishes a direct relationship
with the patient’s conscious and an indirect relationship with
his unconscious. This is the function of the incantation proper. But
the shaman does more than utter the incantation; he is its hero, for
it is he who, at the head of a supernatural battalion of spirits, penetrates
the endangered organs and frees the captive soul. In this w ay
he, like the psychoanalyst, becomes the object of transference
and, through the representations induced in the patient’s mind, the
real protagonist of the conflict which the latter experiences on the
border between the physical world and the psychic world. The patient
suffering from neurosis eliminates an individual myth by facing
a “real” psychoanalyst; the native woman in childbed overcomes
a true organic disorder by identifying with a “mythically
transmuted” shaman.
This parallelism does not exclude certain differences, which
are not surprising if we note the character— psychological in the
one case and organic in the other— of the ailment to be cured.
Actually the shamanistic cure seems to be the exact counterpart to
the psychoanalytic cure, but with an inversion of all the elements.
Both cures aim at inducing an experience, and both succeed by recreating
a myth which the patient has to live or relive. But in one
case, the patient constructs an individual myth with elements
drawn from his past; in the other case, the patient receives from
the outside a social myth which does not correspond to a former
personal state. T o prepare for the abreaction, which then becomes
an “adreaction,” the psychoanalyst listens, whereas the shaman
speaks. Better still: W hen a transference is established, the patient
puts words into the mouth of the psychoanalyst by attributing to
him alleged feelings and intentions; in the incantation, on the contrary,
the shaman speaks for his patient. H e questions her and puts
into her mouth answers that correspond to the interpretation of her
condition, with which she must become imbued:
My eyesight is straying, it is asleep on Muu Puklip’s path.
It is Muu Puklip who has come to me. She wants to take my
niga purbalele for good.
Muu Nauryaiti has come to me. She wants to possess my niga.
purbalele for good.
etc. (97-101).
The Effectiveness of Symbols | 199
Furthermore, the resemblance becomes even more striking
when we compare the shaman’s method with certain recent therapeutic
techniques of psychoanalysis. R. Desoille, in his research on
daydreaming,13 emphasized that psychopathological disturbances
are accessible only through the language of symbols. Thus he
speaks to his patients by means of symbols, which remain, nonetheless,
verbal metaphors. In a more recent work, with which we were
not acquainted when we began this study, M. A . Sechehaye goes
much further.14 It seems to us that the results which she obtained
while treating a case of schizophrenia considered incurable fu lly
confirm our preceding views on the similarities between psychoanalysis
and shamanism. For Sechehaye became aware that speech,
no matter how symbolic it might be, still could not penetrate beyond
the conscious and that she could reach deeply buried com plexes
only through acts. Thus to resolve a weaning complex, the
analyst must assume a maternal role, carried out not by a literal
reproduction of the appropriate behavior but by means of actions
which are, as it were, discontinuous, each symbolizing a fundamental
element of the situation— for instance, putting the cheek of the
patient in contact with the breast of the analyst. The sym bolic
load of such acts qualifies them as a language. Actually, the therapist
holds a dialogue with the patient, not through the spoken w ord,
but by concrete actions, that is, genuine rites which penetrate the
screen of consciousness to carry their message directly to the u n ­
conscious.
Here we again encounter the concept of manipulation, w hich
appeared so essential to an understanding of the shamanistic cure
but whose traditional definition we must broaden considerably.
For it may at one time involve a manipulation of ideas and, at another
time, a manipulation of organs. But the basic condition remains
that the manipulation must be carried out through symbols,
that is, through meaningful equivalents of things meant w hich
belong to another order of reality. The gestures of Sechehaye
reverberate in the unconscious mind of the schizophrenic just as
the representations evoked by the shaman bring about a modification
in the organic functions of the woman in childbirth. Labor is
impeded at the beginning of the song, the delivery takes place at
the end, and the progress of childbirth is reflected in successive
stages of the myth. The first penetration of the vagina by the
200 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
nelegan is carried out in Indian file (241) and, since it is an ascent,
with the help of magical hats which clear and light up the
way. The return corresponds to the second phase of the myth, but
to the first phase of the physiological process, since the child must
be made to come down. Attention turns toward the nelegaris feet.
W e are told that they have shoes (494-496). When they invade
Muu’s abode, they no longer march in single file but in “rows of
four” (388); and, to come out again in the open air, they go “in a
row” (248). N o doubt the purpose of such an alteration in the details
of the myth is to elicit the corresponding organic reaction, but
the sick woman could not integrate it as experience if it were not
associated with a true increase in dilatation. It is the effectiveness
of symbols which guarantees the harmonious parallel development
of myth and action. And myth and action form a pair always associated
with the duality of patient and healer. In the schizophrenic
cure the healer performs the actions and the patient produces his
myth; in the shamanistic cure the healer supplies the myth and the
patient performs the actions.
The analogy between these two methods would be even more
complete if we could admit, as Freud seems to have suggested on
two different occasions,15 that the description in psychological
terms of the structure of psychoses and neuroses must one day be
replaced by physiological, or even biochemical, concepts. This possibility
may be at hand, since recent Swedish research18 has demonstrated
chemical differences resulting from the amounts of polynucleids
in the nerve cells of the normal individual and those of the
psychotic. Given this hypothesis or any other of the same type, the
shamanistic cure and the psychoanalytic cure would become strictly
parallel. It would be a matter, either way, of stimulating an organic
transformation which would consist essentially in a structural reorganization,
by inducing the patient intensively to live out a myth—
either received or created by him— whose structure would be, at the
unconscious level, analogous to the structure whose genesis is sought
on the organic level. The effectiveness of symbols would consist
precisely in this “inductive property,” by which formally homologous
structures, built out of different materials at different levels
of life— organic processes, unconscious mind, rational thought—
are related to one another. Poetic metaphor provides a familiar exThe
Effectiveness of Symbols | 201
ample of this inductive process, but as a rule it does not transcend
the unconscious level. Thus we note the significance of Rimbaud’s
intuition that metaphor can change the world.
The comparison with psychoanalysis has allowed us to shed
light on some aspects of shamanistic curing. Conversely, it is not
improbable that the study of shamanism may one day serve to
elucidate obscure points of Freudian theory. W e are thinking
specifically of the concepts of myth and the unconscious.
W e saw that the only difference between the tw o methods
that would outlive the discovery of a physiological substratum
of neurosis concerns the origin of the myth, which in the one
case is recovered as an individual possession and in the other case
is received from collective tradition. Actually, many psychoanalysts
would refuse to admit that the psychic constellations w hich
reappear in the patient’s conscious could constitute a myth. These
represent, they say, real events which it is sometimes possible
to date and whose authenticity can be verified by checking w ith
relatives or servants.17 W e do not question these facts. But w e
should ask ourselves whether the therapeutic value of the cure depends
on the actual character of remembered situations, or w hether
the traumatizing power of those situations stems from the fact that
at the moment when they appear, the subject experiences them im mediately
as living myth. B y this we mean that the traumatizing
power of any situation cannot result from its intrinsic features but
must, rather, result from the capacity of certain events, appearing
within an appropriate psychological, historical, and social context,
to induce an emotional crystallization which is molded by a p reexisting
structure. In relation to the event or anecdote, these structures—
or, more accurately, these structural laws— are tru ly
atemporal. For the neurotic, all psychic life and all subsequent e x periences
are organized in terms of an exclusive or predominant
structure, under the catalytic action of the initial myth. But this
structure, as well as other structures which the neurotic relegates
to a subordinate position, are to be found also in the normal hum an
being, whether primitive or civilized. These structures as an a g gregate
form what we call the unconscious. The last difference
between the theory of shamanism and psychoanalytic th eo ry
would, then, vanish. The unconscious ceases to be the ultim ate
haven of individual peculiarities— the repository of a unique his-
202 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
tory which makes each of us an irreplaceable being. It is reducible
to a function— the symbolic function, which no doubt is specifically
human, and which is carried out according to the same laws
among all men, and actually corresponds to the aggregate of these
laws.
If this view is correct, it will probably be necessary to reestablish
a more marked distinction between the unconscious and
the preconscious than has been customary in psychology. For the
preconscious, as a reservoir of recollections and images amassed
in the course of a lifetime,18 is merely an aspect of memory.
While perennial in character, the preconscious also has limitations,
since the term refers to the fact that even though memories are
preserved they are not always available to the individual. The unconscious,
on the other hand, is always empty— or, more accurately,
it is as alien to mental images as is the stomach to the foods
which pass through it. As the organ of a specific function, the unconscious
merely imposes structural laws upon inarticulated elements
which originate elsewhere— impulses, emotions, representations,
and memories. W e might say, therefore, that the preconscious
is the individual lexicon where each of us accumulates the vocabulary
of his personal history, but that this vocabulary becomes significant,
for us and for others, only to the extent that the unconscious
structures it according to its laws and thus transforms it into
language. Since these laws are the same for all individuals and in all
instances where the unconscious pursues its activity, the problem
which arose in the preceding paragraph can easily be resolved. The
vocabulary matters less than the structure. Whether the myth is
re-created by the individual or borrowed from tradition, it derives
from its sources— individual or collective (between which interpenetrations
and exchanges constantly occur)— only the stock of
representations with which it operates. But the structure remains
the same, and through it the symbolic function is fulfilled.
If we add that these structures are not only the same for
everyone and for all areas to which the function applies, but that
they are few in number, we shall understand why the world of
symbolism is infinitely varied in content, but always limited in its
laws. There are many languages, but very few structural laws
which are valid for all languages. A compilation of known tales
and myths would fill an imposing number of volumes. But they
The Effectiveness of Symbols | 203
can be reduced to a small number of simple types if we abstract,
from among the diversity of characters, a few elementary functions.
As for the complexes— those individual myths— they also correspond
to a few simple types, which mold the fluid multiplicity of
cases.
Since the shaman does not psychoanalyze his patient, we may
conclude that remembrance of things past, considered by some
the key to psychoanalytic therapy, is only one expression (whose
value and results are hardly negligible) of a more fundamental
method, which must be defined without considering the individual
or collective genesis of the myth. For the myth form takes precedence
over the content of the narrative. This is, at any rate, what
the analysis of a native text seems to have taught us. But also, from
another perspective, we know that any myth represents a quest for
the remembrance of things past. The modern version of shamanistic
technique called psychoanalysis thus derives its specific characteristics
from the fact that in industrial civilization there is no longer
any room for mythical time, except within man himself. From
this observation, psychoanalysis can draw confirmation of its validity,
as well as hope of strengthening its theoretical foundations and
understanding better the reasons for its effectiveness, by com paring
its methods and goals with those of its precursors, the shamans
and sorcerers.
204 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
NOTES
1. Nils M. Holmer and Henry Wassén, Mu-1gala or the Way of Muu, a
Medicine Song from the Cunas of Panama (Goteborg: 1947).
2. The numbers in parentheses refer to the numbered sections in the song.
3. E. Nordenskiold, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna
Indians, ed. Henry Wassén, Vol. X of Comparative Ethnographical
Studies (Goteborg: 1938), pp. 80 ff.
4. Ibid., pp. 360 ff.; Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., pp. 78-9.
5. Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., p. 38, n 44.
6. Nordenskiold, op. cit., p. 364 ff.
7. Ibid., pp. 607-8; Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., p. 38, nn 35-9.
8. The translation of ti ipya as “whirlpool” seems to be strained. For certain
South American natives, as also in the languages of the Iberian
peninsula (cf. the Portuguese olho d'agua), a “water eye” is a spring.
9. Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., pp. 65-6.
10. Ibid., p. 45, n 219; p. 57, n 539.
11. The question marks are Holmer and Wassén’s; nusupane derives from
The Effectiveness of Symbols 205
nusiiy “worm,” and is commonly used for “penis” (see Holmer and
Wassén, p. 47, n 280; p. 57, n 540; and p. 82).
12. Ibid,, p. 85.
13. R. Desoille, Le Rêve éveillé en psychothérapie (Paris: 1945).
14. M. A. Sechehaye, La Réalisation symbolique, Supplement No. 12 to
Revue suisse de psychologie et de psychologie appliquée (Bern: 1947).
15. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 79, and New Conferences on Psychoanalysis,
p. 198, cited by E. Kris, “The Nature of Psychoanalytic
Propositions and their Validation,” in Freedom and Experience, Essays
presented to H, M. Kallen (Ithaca, N. Y.: 1947), p. 244.
16. Caspersson and Hyden, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
17. Marie Bonaparte, “Notes on the Analytical Discovery of a Primal
Scene,” in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. I (New York:
*945)•
18. This definition, which was subjected to considerable criticism, acquires
a new meaning through the radical distinction between preconscious
and unconscious.
CHAPTER
The Structural Study
of Myth
“ It w ould seem that m ythological w orlds have been
built up only to be shattered again, and that new worlds were
built from the fragments.”
— Franz Boas1
D e s p i t e some recent attempts to renew them,
it seems that during the past twenty years anthropology has increasingly
turned from studies in the field of religion. A t the same
time, and precisely because the interest of professional anthropologists
has withdrawn from primitive religion, all kinds of amateurs
who claim to belong to other disciplines have seized this opportunity
to move in, thereby turning into their private playground what
we had left as a wasteland. The prospects for the scientific study of
religion have thus been undermined in two ways.
The explanation for this situation lies to some extent in the
fact that the anthropological study of religion was started by men
like Tylor, Frazer, and Durkheim, who were psychologically oriented
although not in a position to keep up with the progress'of
psychological research and theory. Their interpretations, therefore,
soon bccame vitiated by the outmoded psychological approach
which they used as their basis. Although they were undoubtedly
right in giving their attention to intellectual processes, the way they
206
handled these remained so crude that it discredited them altogether.
This is much to be regretted, since, as Hocart so profoundly noted
in his introduction to a posthumous book recently published,2
psychological interpretations were withdrawn from the intellectual
field only to be introduced again in the field of affectivity, thus
adding to “ the inherent defects of the psychological school . . .
the mistake of deriving clear-cut ideas . . . from vague emotions.”
Instead of trying to enlarge the framework of our logic to include
processes which, whatever their apparent differences, belong to the
same kind of intellectual operation, a naïve attempt was made to
reduce them to inarticulate emotional drives, which resulted only
in hampering our studies.
O f all the chapters of religious anthropology probably none
has tarried to the same extent as studies in the field of mythology.
From a theoretical point of view the situation remains very much
the same as it was fifty years ago, namely, chaotic. Myths are still
widely interpreted in conflicting ways: as collective dreams, as the
outcome of a kind of esthetic play, or as the basis of ritual. M ythological
figures are considered as personified abstractions, divinized
heroes, or fallen gods. W hatever the hypothesis, the choicc amounts
to reducing m ythology cither to idle play or to a crude kind of
philosophic speculation.
In order to understand what a myth really is. must we choose
between platitude and sophism? Some claim that human societies
merely express, through their mythology, fundamental feelings
common to the whole of mankind, such as love, hate, or revenge
or that they try to provide some kind of explanations for phenomena
which they cannot otherwise understand— astronomical,
meteorological, and the like. But w hy should these societies do it
in such elaborate and devious ways, when all of them are also
acquainted with empirical explanations? O n the other hand, psychoanalysts
and many anthropologists have shifted the problems
away from the natural or cosmological toward the sociological
and psychological fields. But then the interpretation becomes too
easy: If a given m ythology confers prominence on a certain figure,
let us say an evil grandmother, it will be claimed that in such a
society grandmothers are actually evil and that mythology reflects
the social structure and the social relations; but should the actual
data be conflicting, it would be as readily claimed that the purpose
The Structural Study of Myth | 207
of m ythology is to provide an outlet for repressed feelings. Whatever
the situation, a clever dialectic will always find a way to pretend
that a meaning has been found.
M ythology confronts the student with a situation which at
first sight appears contradictory. On the one hand it would seem
that in the course of a myth anything is likely to happen. There is
no logic, no continuity. A n y characteristic can be attributed to any
subject; every conceivable relation can be found. W ith myth, everything
becomes possible. But on the other hand, this apparent
arbitrariness is belied by the astounding similarity between myths
collected in widely different regions. Therefore the problem: If
the content of a myth is contingent, how are we going to explain
the fact that myths throughout the world are so similar?
It is precisely this awareness of a basic antinomy pertaining to
the nature of myth that may lead us toward its solution. For the
contradiction which we face is very similar to that which in earlier
times brought considerable w orry to the first philosophers concerned
with linguistic problems; linguistics could only begin to
evolve as a science after this contradiction had been overcome.
Ancient philosophers reasoned about language the w ay we do
about mythology. On the one hand, they did notice that in a given
language certain sequences of sounds were associated with definite
meanings, and they earnestly aimed at discovering a reason for the
linkage between those sounds and that meaning. Their attempt,
however, was thwarted from the very beginning by the fact that
the same sounds were equally present in other languages although
the meaning they conveyed was entirely different. The contradiction
was surmounted only by the discovery that it is the combination
of sounds, not the sounds themselves, which provides the significant
data.
It is easy to see, moreover, that some of the more recent interpretations
of mythological thought originated from the same
kind of misconception under which those early linguists were laboring.
Let us consider, for instance, Jung’s idea that a given
mythological pattern— the so-called archetype— possesses a certain
meaning. This is comparable to the long-supported error that a
sound may possess a certain affinity with a meaning: for instance,
the “liquid” semi-vowels with water, the open vowels with things
that are big, large, loud, or heavy, etc., a theory which still has its
io8 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
supporters.8 W hatever emendations the original formulation may
now call for,4 everybody will agree that the Saussurean principle
of the arbitrary character of linguistic signs was a prerequisite for
the accession of linguistics to the scientific level.
T o invite the mythologist to compare his precarious situation
with that of the linguist in the prescientific stage is not enough. As
a matter of fact we may thus be led only from one difficulty to
another. There is a very good reason w hy myth cannot simply be
treated as language if its specific problems are to be solved; myth
is language: to be known, myth has to be told; it is a part of human
speech. In order to preserve its specificity we must be able to show
that it is both the same thing as language, and also something different
from it. Here, too, the past experience of linguists may help
us. For language itself can be analyzed into things which are at the
same time similar and yet different. This is .precisely what is expressed
in Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole, one
being the structural side of language, the other the statistical aspect
of it, langue belonging to a reversible time, parole being nonreversible.
If those two levels already exist in language, then a third
one can conceivably be isolated.
W e have distinguished langue and parole by the different time
referents which they use. Keeping this in mind, we may notice that
myth uses a third referent which combines the properties of the
first two. O n the one hand, a myth always refers to events alleged to
have taken place long ago. But what gives the myth an operational
value is that the specific pattern described is timeless; it explains
the present and the past as well as the future. This can be made
clear through a comparison between myth and what appears to
have largely replaced it in modem societies, namely, politics. W hen
the historian refers to the French Revolution, it is always as a
sequence of past happenings, a non-reversible series of events the
remote consequences of which may still be felt at present. But to
the French politician, as well as to his followers, the French Revolution
is both a sequence belonging to the past— as to the historian
— and a timeless pattern which can be detected in the contemporary
French social structure and which provides a clue for its interpretation,
a lead from which to infer future developments.
Michelet, for instance, was a politically minded historian. He describes
the French Revolution thus: “That day . . . everything
The Structural Study of Myth | 209
was possible. . . . Future became present . . . that is, no more
time, a glimpse of eternity.” 8It is that double structure, altogether
historical and ahistorical, which explains how myth, while pertaining
to the realm of parole and calling for an explanation as
such, as well as to that of langue in which it is expressed, can also
be an absolute entity on a third level which, though it remains
linguistic by nature, is nevertheless distinct from the other two.
A remark can be introduced at this point which will help to
show the originality of myth in relation to other linguistic phenomena.
Myth is the part of language where the formula traduttore,
tradittore reaches its lowest truth value. From that point of
view it should be placed in the gamut of linguistic expressions
at the end opposite to that of poetry, in spite of all the claims
which have been made to prove the contrary. Poetry is a kind of
speech which cannot -be translated except at the cost of serious distortions;
whereas the mythical value of the myth is preserved even
through the worst translation. Whatever our ignorance of the language
and the culture of the people where it originated, a myth is
still felt as a myth by any reader anywhere in the world. Its substance
docs not lie in its style, its original music, or its syntax, but in
the story which it tells. Myth is language, functioning on an especially
high level where meaning succeeds practically at “taking off”
from the linguistic ground on which it keeps on rolling.
To sum up the discussion at this point, we have so far made
the following claims: (i) If there is a meaning to be found in
mythology, it cannot reside in the isolated elements which enter
into the composition of a myth, but only in the way those elements
are combined. (2) Although myth belongs to the same category as
language, being, as a matter of fact, only part of it, language in
myth exhibits specific properties. (3) Those properties are only to
be found above the ordinary linguistic level, that is, they exhibit
more complex features than those which are to be found in any
other kind of linguistic expression.
If the above three points are granted, at least as a working
hypothesis, two consequences will follow: (1) Myth, like the rest
of language, is made up of constituent units. (2) These constituent
units presuppose the constituent units present in language when
analyzed on other levels— namely, phonemes, morphemes, and
sememes— but they, nevertheless, differ from the latter in the same
2io | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
way as the latter differ among themselves; they belong to a higher
and more complex order. For this reason, we shall call them gross
constituent units.
H ow shall we proceed in order to identify and isolate these
gross constituent units or mythemes? W e know that they cannot be
found among phonemes, morphemes, or sememes, but only on a
higher level; otherwise myth would become confused with any
other kind of speech. Therefore, we should look for them on the
sentence level. The only method we can suggest at this stage is to
proceed tentatively, by trial and error, using as a check the principles
which serve as a basis for any kind of structural analysis:
economy of explanation; unity of solution; and ability to reconstruct
the whole from a fragment, as well as later stages from
previous ones.
The technique which has been applied so far by this writer consists
in analyzing each myth individually, breaking down its story
into the shortest possible sentences, and writing each sentence on
an index card bearing a number corresponding to the unfolding
of the story.
Practically each card will thus show that a certain function is,
at a given time, linked to a given subject. Or, to put it otherwise,
each gross constituent unit will consist of a relation.
However, the above definition remains highly unsatisfactory
for two different reasons. First, it is well known to structural linguists
that constituent units on all levels are made up of relations,
and the true difference between our gross units and the others remains
unexplained; second, we still find ourselves in the realm of a
non-reversible time, since the numbers of the cards correspond to
the unfolding of the narrative. Thus the specific character of
mythological time, which as we have seen is both reversible and
non-reversible, synchronic and diachronic, remains unaccounted
for. From this springs a new hypothesis, which constitutes the very
core of our argument: The true constituent units of a myth are
not the isolated relations but bundles of such relations, and it is
only as bundles that these relations can be put to use and combined
so as to produce a meaning. Relations pertaining to the same bundle
may appear diachronically at remote intervals, but wThen we
have succeeded in grouping them together we have reorganized
our myth according to a time referent of a new nature, correThe
Structural Study of Myth | 211
sponding to the prerequisite of the initial hypothesis, namely a twodimensional
time referent which is simultaneously diachronic and
synchronic, and which accordingly integrates the characteristics of
langue on the one hand, and those of parole on the other. T o put it
in even more linguistic terms, it is as though a phoneme were always
made up of all its variants.
T w o comparisons may help to explain what we have in mind.
Let us first suppose that archaeologists of the future coming
from another planet would one day, when all human life had disappeared
from the earth, excavate one of our libraries. Even if
they were at first ignorant of our writing, they might succeed in
deciphering it— an undertaking which would require, at some early
stage, the discovery that the alphabet, as we are in the habit of
printing it, should be read from left to right and from top to bottom.
However, they would soon discover that a whole category of
books did not fit the usual pattern— these would be the orchestra
scores on the shelves of the music division. But after trying, w ithout
success, to decipher staffs one after the other, from the upper
down to the lower, they would probably notice that the same patterns
of notes recurred at intervals, either in full or in part, or
that some patterns were strongly reminiscent of earlier ones.
Hence the hypothesis: W hat if patterns showing affinity, instead
of being considered in succession, were to be treated as one complex
pattern and read as a whole? B y getting at what w e call
harmony j they would then see that an orchestra score, to be meaningful,
must be read diachronically along one axis— that is, page
after page, and from left to right— and synchronically along the
other axis, all the notes written vertically making up one gross
constituent unit, that is, one bundle of relations.
T he other comparison is somewhat different. Let us take an
observer ignorant of our playing cards, sitting for a long time with
a fortune-teller. He would know something of the visitors: sex,
age, physical appearance, social situation, etc., in the same w ay as
we know something of the different cultures whose myths we try
to study. He would also listen to the séances and record them so as
to be able to go over them and make comparisons— as we do when
we listen to myth-telling and record it. Mathematicians to whom
I have put the problem agree that if the man is bright and if the
material available to him is sufficient, he may be able to reconstruct
2i2 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
The Structural Study of Myth
the nature of the deck of cards being used, that is, fifty-tw o or
gous sets consisting of the same units (the individual cards) with
only one varying feature, the suit.
N ow for a concrete example of the method we propose. W e
shall use the Oedipus myth, which is well known to everyone. I
am well aware that the Oedipus myth has only reached us under
late forms and through literary transmutations concerned more
w ith esthetic and moral preoccupations than with religious or ritual
ones, whatever these may have been. But we shall not interpret
the Oedipus myth in literal terms, much less offer an explanation
acceptable to the specialist. W e simply wish to illustrate— and
w ithout reaching any conclusions with respect to it— a certain
technique, whose use is probably not legitimate in this particular
instance, owing to the problematic elements indicated above. The
“ demonstration” should therefore be conceived, not in terms of
w h a t the scientist means by this term, but at best in terms of what
is meant by the street peddler, whose aim is not to achieve a concrete
result, but to explain, as succinctly as possible, the functionin
g of the mechanical toy which he is trying to sell to the on­
lookers.
The myth will be treated as an orchestra score would be if it
were unwittingly considered as a unilinear series; our task is to reestablish
the correct arrangement. Say, for instance, we were confronted
with a sequence of the type: 1,2,4,7,8,2,3,4,6,8,1,4,5,7,8,1,
2,5,7,34,5,6,8 . . . , the assignment being to put all the i ’s together,
all the 2’s, the 3*s, etc.; the result is a chart:
W e shall attempt to perform the same kind of operation on
the Oedipus myth, trying out several arrangements of the mythemes
until we find one which is in harmony with the principles
enumerated above. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that
th e best arrangement is the following (although it might certainly
b e improved with the help of a specialist in Greek m ythology):
thirty-two cards according to the case, made up of four homolo-
2
2
4
3 4 6
4 5 7 «
7
8
2 5
3 4 5 8
M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
Cadmos seeks
his sister Europa,
ravished
by Zeus
Cadmos kills
the dragon
The Spartoi kill
one another
Labdacos (Laios’
father) = lame (?)
Oedipus kills Laios (Oedipus’ fahis
father, ther) = left-sided
Laios (.?)
Oedipus kills
the Sphinx
Oedipus = swollenfoot
(?)
Oedipus marries
his mother,
Jocasta
Eteocles kills
his brother,
Polynices
Antigone buries
her brother,
Polynices, despite
prohibition
W e thus find ourselves confronted with four vertical columns,
each of which includes several relations belonging to the same
bundle. W ere we to tell the myth, we would disregard the columns
and read the rows from left to right and from top to bottom. But
if we want to understand the myth, then we will have to disregard
one half of the diachronic dimension (top to bottom) and read
from left to right, column after column, each one being considered
as a unit.
A ll the relations belonging to the same column exhibit one
common feature which it is our task to discover. For instance, all
the events grouped in the first column on the left have something
to do with blood relations which are overemphasized, that is, are
more intimate than they should be. Let us say, then, that the first
column has as its common feature the overrating of blood relations.
It is obvious that the second column expresses the same thing, but
inverted: underrating of blood relations. The third column refers
to monsters being slain. As to the fourth, a few words of clarification
are needed. The remarkable connotation of the surnames in
Oedipus’ father-line has often been noticed. However, linguists
usually disregard it, since to them the only w ay to define the meaning
of a term is to investigate all the contexts in which it appears,
and personal names, precisely because they are used as such, are
not accompanied by any context. W ith the method we propose to
follow the objection disappears, since the myth itself provides its
ow n context. The significance is no longer to be sought in the
eventual meaning of each name, but in the fact that all the names
have a common feature: A ll the hypothetical meanings (which
m ay well remain hypothetical) refer to difficulties in walking
straight and standing upright.
W hat then is the relationship between the two columns on the
right? Column three refers to monsters. The dragon is a chthonian
being which has to be killed in order that mankind be born from
the Earth; the Sphinx is a monster unwilling to permit men to live.
T h e last unit reproduces the first one, which has to do with the
autochthonous origin of mankind. Since the monsters are overcome
by men, we may thus say that the common feature of the
third column is denial of the autochthonous origin of man?
This immediately helps us to understand the meaning of the
fourth column. In m ythology it is a universal characteristic of men
born from the Earth that at the moment they emerge from the
depth they either cannot walk or they walk clumsily. This is the
case of the chthonian beings in the m ythology of the Pueblo:
M uyingwu, who leads the emergence, and the chthonian Shumaikoli
are lame (“bleeding-foot,” “ sore-foot” ). The same happens
to the Koskimo of the Kwakiutl after they have been swallow
ed by the chthonian monster, Tsiakish: W hen they returned to
the surface of the earth “ they limped forward or tripped sideThe
Structural Study of Myth | 215
ways.” Thus the common feature of the fourth column is the persistence
of the autochthonous origin of man. It follows that column
four is to column three as column one is to column two. The
inability to connect two kinds of relationships is overcome (or
rather replaced) by the assertion that contradictory relationships
are identical inasmuch as they are both self-contradictory in a
similar way. Although this is still a provisional formulation of the
structure of mythical thought, it is sufficient at this stage.
Turning back to the Oedipus myth, we may now see what it
means. The myth has to do with the inability, for a culture which
holds the belief that mankind is autochthonous (see, for instance,
Pausanias, VIII, xxix, 4: plants provide a model for humans), to
find a satisfactory transition between this theory and the knowledge
that human beings are actually born from the union of man
and woman. Although the problem obviously cannot be solved, the
Oedipus myth provides a kind of logical tool which relates the
original problem— born from one or born from two?— to the derivative
problem: born from different or born from same? B y a
correlation of this type, the overrating of blood relations is to the
underrating of blood relations as the attempt to escape autochthony
is to the impossibility to succeed in it. Although experience
contradicts theory, social life validates cosmology by its similarity
of structure. Hence cosmology is true.
Tw o remarks should be made at this stage.
In order to interpret the myth, we left aside a point which has
worried the specialists until now, namely, that in the earlier (H omeric)
versions of the Oedipus myth, some basic elements are lacking,
such as Jocasta killing herself and Oedipus piercing his own
eyes. These events do not alter the substance of the myth although
they can easily be integrated, the first one as a new case of autodestruction
(column three) and the second as another case of crippledness
(column four). At the same time there is something significant
in these additions, since the shift from foot to head is to bè
correlated with the shift from autochthonous origin to self-destruc­
tion.
Our method thus eliminates a problem which has, so far, been
one of the main obstacles to the progress of mythological studies,
namely, the quest for the true version, or the earlier one. On the
2i6 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
contrary, we define the myth as consisting of all its versions; or to
put it otherwise, a myth remains the same as long as it is felt as
such. A striking example is offered by the fact that our interpretation
may take into account the Freudian use of the Oedipus myth
and is certainly applicable to it. Although the Freudian problem
has ceased to be that of autochthony versus bisexual reproduction,
it is still the problem of understanding how one can be born from
two: How is it that we do not have only one procreator, but a
mother plus a father? Therefore, not only Sophocles, but Freud
himself, should be included among the recorded versions of the
Oedipus myth on a par with earlier or seemingly more “authentic”
versions.
An important consequence follows. If a myth is made up of
all its variants, structural analysis should take all of them into account.
After analyzing all the known variants of the Theban version,
we should thus treat the others in the same way: first, the
tales about Labdacos’ collateral line including Agave, Pentheus,
and Jocasta herself; the Theban variant about Lycos with Amphion
and Zetos as the city founders; more remote variants concerning
Dionysus (Oedipus’ matrilateral cousin); and Athenian legends
where Cecrops takes the place of Cadmos, etc. For each of
them a similar chart should be drawn and then compared and reorganized
according to the findings: Cecrops killing the serpent
with the parallel episode of Cadmos; abandonment of Dionysus
with abandonment of Oedipus; “Swollen Foot” with Dionysus’
loxias, that is, walking obliquely; Europa’s quest with Antiope’s;
the founding of Thebes by the Spartoi or by the brothers Amphion
and Zetos; Zeus kidnapping Europa and Antiope and the same with
Semele; the Theban Oedipus and the Argian Perseus, etc. W e shall
then have several two-dimensional charts, each dealing with a
variant, to be organized in a three-dimensional order, as shown in
Figure 16, so that three different readings become possible: left to
right, top to bottom, front to back (or vice versa). All of these
charts cannot be expected to be identical; but experience shows
that any difference to be observed may be correlated with other
differences, so that a logical treatment of the whole will allow
simplifications, the final outcome being the structural law of the
myth.
The Structural Study of Myth | 217
218 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
A t this point the objection may be raised that the task is impossible
to perform, since we can only work with known versions.
Is it not possible that a new version might alter the picture? This
is true enough if only one or two versions are available, but the objection
becomes theoretical as soon as a reasonably large number
have been recorded. Let us make this point clear bv a comparison.
If the furniture of a room and its arrangement were known to us
only through its reflection in two mirrors placed on opposite walls,
we should theoretically dispose of an almost infinite number of
mirror images which would provide us with a complete knowledge.
However, should the two mirrors be obliquely set, the number
of mirror images would become very small; nevertheless, four or
five such images would very likely give us, if not complete information,
at least a sufficient coverage so that we would feel sure
that no large piece of furniture is missing in our description.
On the other hand, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that
all available variants should be taken into account. If Freudian
comments on the Oedipus complex are a part of the Oedipus myth,
then questions such as whether Cushing’s version of the Zuni origin
myth should be retained or discarded become irrelevant. There
is no single “true” version of which all the others are but copies or
distortions. Every version belongs to the myth.
The reason for the discouraging results in works on general
mythology can finally be understood. They stem from two causes.
First, comparative mythologists have selected preferred versions
instead of using them all. Second, we have seen that the structural
analysis of one variant of one myth belonging to one tribe (in
some cases, even one village) already requires two dimensions.
When we use several variants of the same myth for the same tribe
or village, the frame of reference becomes three-dimensional, and
as soon as we try to enlarge the comparison, the number of dimensions
required increases until it appears quite impossible to handle
them intuitively. The confusions and platitudes which are the
outcome of comparative mythology can be explained by the fact
that multi-dimensional frames of reference are often ignored or
are naively replaced by two- or three-dimensional ones. Indeed,
progress in comparative mythology depends largely on the cooperation
of mathematicians who would undertake to express in symbols
multi-dimensional relations which cannot be handled other­
wise.
To check this theory,7 an attempt was made from 1952 to
1954 toward an exhaustive analysis of all the known versions of
the Zuni origin and emergence myth: Cushing, 1883 and 1896;
Stevenson, 1904; Parsons, 1923; Bunzel, 1932; Benedict, 1934. Furthermore,
a preliminary attempt was made at a comparison of the
results with similar myths in other Pueblo tribes, Western and
Eastern. Finally, a test was undertaken with Plains mythology. In
all cases, it was found that the theory was sound; light was thrown,
not only on North American mythology, but also on a previously
unnoticed kind of logical operation, or one known so far only in a
wholly different context. The bulk of material which needs to be
handled practically at the outset of the work makes it impossible to
enter into details, and we shall have to limit ourselves here to a few
illustrations.
A simplified chart of the Zuni emergence myth would read:
CHANGE
The Structural Study of Myth | 219
DEATH
mechanical
value of plants
(used as ladders
to emerge from
lower world)
food value of
wild plants
emergence led
by Beloved
Twins
migration led
by the two
Newekwe
sibling incest
(origin of
water)
gods kill children
of men (by
drowning)
magical contest
with People of
the Dew (coldeath
PERMANENCE
M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
CHANGE
(ceremonial
clowns)
food value of
cultivated plants
periodical character
of agricultural
work
brother and
sister sacrificed
(to gain vic­
tory)
brother and
sister adopted
(in exchange
for corn)
food value of
game (hunting)
inevitability of
warfare
war led by the
tw o War-
Gods
brother and
sister sacrificed
(to avoid the
Flood)
DEATH
DEATH
lecting wild
food versus cul­
tivation)
war against the
Kyanakwe (gardeners
versus
hunters)
salvation of the
tribe (center of
the World
found)
PERMANENCE
As the chart indicates, the problem is the discovery of a lifedeath
mediation. For the Pueblo, this is especially difficult; they
understand the origin of human life in terms of the model of plant
life (emergence from the earth). They share that belief with the
ancient Greeks, and it is not without reason that we chose the
Oedipus myth as our first example. But in the American Indian
case, the highest form of plant life is to be found in agriculture
which is periodical in nature, that is, which consists in an alternation
between life and death. If this is disregarded, the contradiction
appears elsewhere: Agriculture provides food, therefore life; but
hunting provides food and is similar to warfare which means death.
Hence there are three different ways of handling the problem. In
the Cushing version, the difficulty revolves around an opposition
between activities yielding an immediate result (collecting wild
food) and activities yielding a delayed result— death has to become
integrated so that agriculture can exist. Parsons’ version shifts from
hunting to agriculture, while Stevenson’s version operates the other
way around. It can be shown that all the differences between these
versions can be rigorously correlated with these basic structures.
Thus the three versions describe the great war waged by the
ancestors of the Zuni against a mythical population, the Kyanakwe,
by introducing into the narrative significant variations which
consist (1) in the friendship or hostility of the gods; (2) in the
granting of final victory to one camp or the other; (3) in the
attribution of the symbolic function to the Kyanakwe, described
sometimes as hunters (whose bows are strung with animal sinews)
and sometimes as gardeners (whose bows are strung with plant
fibers).
The Structural Study of Myth | 221
Gods,
Kyanakwe
CUSHING PARSONS STEVENSON
allied, use fiber Kyanakwe, Gods, 1 allied, use
string on their alone, use fiber Men J fiber string
bows (garden- string
ers)
VICTORIOUS OVER VICTORIOUS OVER VICTORIOUS OVER
Men, alone, use sinew Gods,"l allied, use sinew Kyanakwe, alone,
(until they shift to Men J string use sinew string
fiber)
Since fiber string (agriculture) is always superior to sinew string
(hunting), and since (to a lesser extent) the gods’ alliance is preferable
to their antagonism, it follows that in Cushing’s version,
men are seen as doubly underprivileged (hostile gods, sinew string);
in the Stevenson version, doubly privileged (friendly gods, fiber
string); while Parsons’ version confronts us with an intermediary
situation (friendly gods, but sinew strings, since men begin by being
hunters). Hence:
OPPOSITIONS CUSHING PARSONS STEVENSON
gods/men —* + +
fiber/sinew — — +
Bunzel’s version is of the same type as Cushing’s from a structural
point of view. However, it differs from both Cushing’s and
Stevenson’s, inasmuch as the latter two explain the emergence as
the result of man’s need to evade his pitiful condition, while Bunzel’s
version makes it the consequence of a call from the higher
powers— hence the inverted sequences of the means resorted to for
the emergence: In both Cushing and Stevenson, they go from
plants to animals; in Bunzel, from mammals to insects, and from
insects to plants.
Among the Western Pueblo the logical approach always remains
the same; the starting point and the point of arrival are simplest,
whereas the intermediate stage is characterized by ambigu­
ity:
LIFE (= : INCREASE)
(Mechanical) value of o r ig in s
the plant kingdom, taking
growth alone into
account
Food value of the plant f o o d - g a t h e r in g
kingdom, limited to wild
plants
Food value of the plant a g r i c u l t u r e
kingdom, including wild
and cultivated plants
Food value of the animal (but there is a contrakingdom,
limited to ani- diction here, owing to
mais the negation of life =
Destruction of the ani- destruction, hence:) HUNTIN(J
mal kingdom, extended
to human beings
b w a r f a r e
222 I M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
y d e a t h ( = d e c r e a s e )
The fact that contradiction appears in the middle of the dialectical
process results in a double set of dioscuric pairs, the purpose of
which is to mediate between conflicting terms:
1. 2 divine 2 ceremonial 2war-gods
messengers clowns
2. homogeneous siblings (brother couple heterogeneous
pair: dioscuri and sister) (husband and pair:
(2 brothers) wife) (grandmother
and grandchild)
We have here combinational variants of the same function in different
contexts (hence the war attribute of the clowns, which has
given rise to so many queries).
The problem, often regarded as insoluble, vanishes when it is
shown that the clowns— gluttons who may with impunity make
excessive use of agricultural products— have the same function in
relation to food production as the war-gods. (This function appears,
in the dialectical process, as overstepping the boundaries of
hunting, that is, hunting for men instead of for animals for human
consumption.)
Some Central and Eastern Pueblos proceed the other way
around. They begin by stating the identity of hunting and cultivation
(first com obtained by Game-Father sowing deer-dewclaws),
and they try to derive both life and death from that central notion.
Then, instead of extreme terms being simple and intermediary ones
duplicated as among the Western groups, the extreme terms become
duplicated (i.e., the two sisters of the Eastern Pueblo) while
a simple mediating term comes to the foreground (for instance, the
Poshaiyanne of the Zia), but endowed with equivocal attributes.
Hence the attributes of this “messiah” can be deduced from the
place it occupies in the time sequence: good when at the beginning
(Zuni, Cushing), equivocal in the middle (Central Pueblo), bad at
the end (Zia), except in Bunzel’s version, where the sequence is
reversed as has been shown.
By systematically using this kind of structural analysis it becomes
possible to organize all the known variants of a myth into a
set forming a kind of permutation group, the two variants placed
at the far ends being in a symmetrical, though inverted, relationship
to each other.
The Structural Study of Myth | 223
224 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
Our method not only has the advantage of bringing some
kind of order to what was previously chaos; it also enables us to
perceive some basic logical processes which are at the root of
mythical thought.8Three main processes should be distinguished.
The trickster of American mythology has remained so far a
problematic figure. W hy is it that throughout North America his
role is assigned practically everywhere to either coyote or raven?
If we keep in mind that mythical thought always progresses from
the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution, the reason for
these choices becomes clearer. W e need only assume that two opposite
terms with no intermediary always tend to be replaced
by two equivalent terms which admit of a third one as a mediator;
then one of the polar terms and the mediator become replaced by
a new triad, and so on. Thus we have a mediating structure of the
following type:
INITIAL PAIR FIRST TRIAD SECOND TRIAD
Life
Agriculture
Herbivorous animals
Carrion-eating animals
(raven; coyote)
Hunting
Beasts of prey
Warfare
Death
The unformulated argument is as follows: carrion-eating animals
are like beasts of prey (they eat animal food), but they are
also like food-plant producers (they do not kill what they eat).
Or to put it otherwise, Pueblo style (for Pueblo agriculture is
more “meaningful” than hunting) : ravens are to gardens as beasts
of prey are to herbivorous animals. But it is also clear that herbivorous
animals may be called first to act as mediators on the assumption
that they are like collectors and gatherers (plant-food
eaters), while they can be used as animal food though they are not
themselves hunters. Thus we may have mediators of the first order,
o f the second order, and so on, where each term generates the next
b y a double process of opposition and correlation.
This kind of process can be followed in the mythology of the
Plains, where we may order the data according to the set:
Unsuccessful mediator between Earth and Sky
(Star-Husband’s wife)
Heterogeneous pair of mediators
(grandm other and grandchild)
Semi-homogeneous pair of mediators
v (Lodge-Boy and Throw n-aw ay)
W hile among the Pueblo (Zuni) we have the corresponding set:
Successful mediator between Earth and Sky
(Poshaiyanki)
Semi-homogeneous pair of mediators
(U yuyew i and Matsailema)
Homogeneous pair of mediators
' r(the tw o Ahaiyuta)
On the other hand, correlations may appear on a horizontal
axis (this is true even on the linguistic level; see the manifold connotation
of the root pose in Tewa according to Parsons: coyote,
mist, scalp, etc.). Coyote (a carrion-eater) is intermediary between
herbivorous and carnivorous just as mist between Sky and
Earth; as scalp between war and agriculture (scalp is a war crop);
as corn smut between wild and cultivated plants; as garments between
“ nature” and “culture” ; as refuse between village and outside;
and as ashes (or soot) between roof (sky vault) and hearth
(in the ground). This chain of mediators, if one may call them so,
not only throws light on entire parts of North American mythology—
why the Dew-God may be at the same time the GameMaster
and the giver of raiments and be personified as an
“ Ash-Boy” ; or why scalps are mist-producing; or why the GameMother
is associated with corn smut; etc.— but it also probably
corresponds to a universal way of organizing daily experience.
See, for instance, the French for plant smut (nielle, from Latin
nebula) ; the luck-bringing power attributed in Europe to refuse
(old shoe) and ashes (kissing chimney sweeps); and compare the
T h e Structural Study of Myth | 225
226 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
American Ash-Boy cycle with the Indo-European Cinderella: Both
are phallic figures (mediators between male and female) ; masters of
the dew and the game; owners of fine raiments; and social mediators
(low class marrying into high class); but they are impossible
to interpret through recent diffusion, as has been contended, since
Ash-Boy and Cinderella are symmetrical but inverted in every detail
(while the borrowed Cinderella tale in America— Zuni
Turkey-Girl— is parallel to the prototype). Hence the chart:
Sex
Family Status
Appearance
Sentimental status
Transformation
EUROPE
female
double family
(remarried father)
pretty girl
nobody likes her
luxuriously clothed
with supernatural
help
AMERICA
male
no family (orphan)
ugly boy
unrequited love for
girl
stripped of ugliness
with supernatural
help
Thus, like Ash-Boy and Cinderella, the trickster is a mediator.
Since his mediating function occupies a position halfway between
two polar terms, he must retain something of that duality— namely
an ambiguous and equivocal character. But the trickster figure is
not the only conceivable form of mediation; some myths seem to
be entirely devoted to the task of exhausting all the possible solutions
to the problem of bridging the gap between two and one.
For instance, a comparison between all the variants of the Zuni
emergence myth provides us with a series of mediating devices,
each of which generates the next one by a process of opposition
and correlation:
messiah > dioscuri > trickster > bisexual being > sibling pair > married
couple > grandmother-grandchild > four-term group > triad
In Cushing’s version, this dialectic is associated with a change from
a spatial dimension (mediation between Sky and Earth) to a tem-
poral dimension (mediation between summer and winter, that is,
between birth and death). But while the shift is being made from
space to time, the final solution (triad) re-introduces space, since
a triad consists of a dioscuric pair plus a messiah, present simultaneously;
and while the point of departure was ostensibly formulated
in terms of a space referent (Sky and Earth), this was nevertheless
implicitly conceived in terms of a time referent (first the messiah
calls, then the dioscuri descend). Therefore the logic of myth
confronts us with a double, reciprocal exchange of functions to
which we shall return shortly.
Not only can we account for the ambiguous character of the
trickster, but we can also understand another property of mythical
figures the world over, namely, that the same god is endowed
with contradictory attributes— for instance, he may be good and
bad at the same time. If we compare the variants of the Hopi myth
of the origin of Shalako, we may order them in terms of the following
structure:
(Masauwu: x) d (M uyingwu: Masauwu) (Shalako: M uyingwu)
d ( y : Masauwu)
where x and y represent arbitrary values corresponding to the fact
that in the two “extreme” variants the god Masauwu, while appearing
alone rather than associated with another god, as in variant
two, or being absent, as in variant three, still retains intrinsically a
relative value. In variant one, Masauwu (alone) is depicted as helpful
to mankind (though not as helpful as he could be), and in version
four, harmful to mankind (though not as harmful as he could
be). His role is thus defined— at least implicitly— in contrast with
another role which is possible but not specified and which is represented
here by the values x and y. In version 2, on the other
hand, Muyingwu is relatively more helpful than Masauwu, and in
version three, Shalako more helpful than Muyingwu. W e find an
identical series when ordering the Keresan variants:
(Poshaiyanki: x) zL (Lea: Poshaiyanki) (Poshaiyanki: Tiamoni)
— (y: Poshaiyanki)
This logical framework is particularly interesting, since anthropologists
are already acquainted with it on two other levels—
The Structural Study of Myth | 227
first, in regard to the problem of the pecking order among hens,
and second, to what this writer has called generalized exchange
in the field of kinship. By recognizing it also on the level of
mythical thought, we may find ourselves in a better position to
appraise its basic importance in anthropological studies and to give
it a more inclusive theoretical interpretation.
Finally, when we have succeeded in organizing a whole series
of variants into a kind of permutation group, we are in a position to
formulate the law of that group. Although it is not possible at the
present stage to come closer than an approximate formulation
which will certainly need to be refined in the future, it seems that
every myth (considered as the aggregate of all its variants) corresponds
to a formula of the following type:
Fx(a):Fy(b) - F x(b): F . ^ y )
Here, with two terms, a and b, being given as well as two functions,
x and y, of these terms, it is assumed that a relation of equivalence
exists between two situations defined respectively by an
inversion of terms and relations, under two conditions: (i) that
one term be replaced by its opposite (in the above formula, a and
j-/); (2) that an inversion be made between the function value and
the term value of two elements (above, y and a).
This formula becomes highly significant when we recall that
Freud considered that two traumas (and not one, as is so commonly
said) are necessary in order to generate the individual myth
in which a neurosis consists. By trying to apply the formula to the
analysis of these traumas (and assuming that they correspond to
conditions 1 and 2 respectively) we should not only be able to
provide a more precise and rigorous formulation of the genetic law
of the myth, but we would find ourselves in the much desired position
of developing side by side the anthropological and the
psychological aspects of the theory; we might also take it to the
laboratory and subject it to experimental verification.
A t this point it seems unfortunate that with the limited means
at the disposal of French anthropological research no further advance
can be made. It should be emphasized that the task of analyzing
mythological literature, which is extremely bulky, and of
breaking it down into its constituent units, requires team work and
228 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
technical help. A variant of average length requires several hundred
cards to be properly analyzed. T o discover a suitable pattern of
rows and columns for those cards, special devices are needed, consisting
of vertical boards about six feet long and four and a half
feet high, where cards can be pigeon-holed and moved at will. In
order to build up three-dimensional models enabling one to compare
the variants, several such boards are necessary, and this in turn
requires a spacious workshop, a commodity particularly unavailable
in Western Europe nowadays. Furthermore, as soon as the
frame of reference becomes multi-dimensional (which occurs at an
early stage, as has been shown above) the board system has to
be replaced by perforated cards, which in turn require IBM equipment,
etc.
Three final remarks may serve as conclusion.
First, the question has often been raised why myths, and more
generally oral literature, are so much addicted to duplication, triplication,
or quadruplication of the same sequence. If our hypotheses
are accepted, the answer is obvious: The function of repetition is
to render the structure of the myth apparent. For we have seen
that the synchronic-diachronic structure of the myth permits us to
organize it into diachronic sequences (the rows in our tables)
which should be read synchronically (the columns). Thus, a myth
exhibits a “slated” structure, which comes to the surface, so to
speak, through the process of repetition.
However, the slates are not absolutely identical. And since the
purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming
a contradiction (an impossible achievement if, as it happens,
the contradiction is real), a theoretically infinite number of
slates will be generated, each one slightly different from the others.
Thus, myth grows spiral-wise until the intellectual impulse which
has produced it is exhausted. Its growth is a continuous process,
whereas its structure remains discontinuous. If this is the case, we
should assume that it closely corresponds, in the realm of the
spoken word, to a crystal in the realm of physical matter. This
analogy may help us to better understand the relationship of myth
to both langue on the one hand and parole on the other. Myth is
an intermediary entity between a statistical aggregate of molecules
and the molecular structure itself.
T he Structural Study of Myth [ 229
Prevalent attempts to explain alleged differences between the
so-callcd primitive mind and scicp.tific thought have resorted to
qualitative differences between the working processes of the mind
in both cases, while assuming that the entities which they were
studying remained very much the same. If our interpretation is
correct, we are led toward a completely different view— namely,
that the kind of logic in mythical thought is as rigorous as that of
modern science, and that the difference lies, not in the quality of
the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things to which it
is applied. This is well in agreement with the situation known to
prevail in the field of technology: W hat makes a steel ax superior
to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second.
They are equally well made, but steel is quite different from stone.
In the same way we may be able to show that the same logical
processes operate in myth as in science, and that man has always
been thinking equally well; the improvement lies, not in an alleged
progress of man’s mind, but in the discovery of new areas to which
it may apply its unchanged and unchanging powers.
23o | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
NOTES
1. In Boas’ Introduction.to James Teit, “Traditions of the Thompson River
Indians of British Columbia,” Memoirs of the American Folklore Society,
VI (1898), p. 18.
2. A. M. Hocart, Social Origins (London: 1954), p. 7.
3. See, for instance, Sir R. A. Paget, “The Origin of Language,” Journal
of World History, I, No. 2 (UNESCO, 1953).
4. See Émile Benveniste, “Nature du signe linguistique,” Acta Linguistica, I,
No. 1 (1939); and Chapter V in the present volume.
5. Jules Michelet, Histoire de la Révolution française, IV, 1. I took this
quotation from M. Merleau-Ponty, Les Aventures de la dialectique
(Paris: 1955), p. 273.
6. W e are not trying to become involved with specialists in an argument;
this would be presumptuous and even meaningless on our part. Since the
Oedipus myth is taken here merely as an example treated in arbitrary
fashion, the chthonian nature ascribed to the Sphinx might seem surprising;
we shall refer to the testimony of Marie Delcourt: “In the archaic
legends, [she is] certainly born of the Earth itself” (Oedipe ou la légende
du conquérant [Liège: 1944], p. 108). No matter how remote from Delcourt’s
our method may be (and our conclusions would be, no doubt, if
we were competent to deal with the problem in depth), it seems to us
that she has convincingly established the nature of the Sphinx in the
archaic tradition, namely, that of a female monster who attacks and rapes
The Structural Study of Myth
young men; in other words, the personification of a female being with
an inversion of the sign. This explains why, in the handsome iconography
compiled by Delcourt at the end of her work, men and women are always
found in an inverted “sky/earth” relationship.
As we shall point out below, we selected the Oedipus myth as our
first example because of the striking analogies that seem to exist between
certain aspects of archaic Greek thought and that of the Pueblo Indians,
from whom we have borrowed the examples that follow. In this respect
it should be noted that the figure of the Sphinx, as reconstructed by t>elcourt,
coincides with two figures of North American mythology (who
probably merge into one). W e are referring, on the one hand, to “the
old hag,” a repulsive witch whose physical appearance presents a “problem”
to the young hero. If he “solves” this problem— that is, if he responds
to the advances of the abject creature— he will find in his bed,
upon awakening, a beautiful young woman who will confer power upon
him (this is also a Celtic theme). The Sphinx, on the other hand, recalls
even more “the child-protruding woman” of the Hopi Indians, that is, a
phallic mother par excellence. This young woman was abandoned by her
group in the course of a difficult migration, just as she was about to give
birth. Henceforth she wanders in the desert as the “Mother of Animals,”
which she withholds from hunters. He who meets her in her bloody
clothes “is so frightened that he has an erection,” of which she takes
advantage to rape him, after which she rewards him with unfailing success
in hunting. See H. R. Voth, “The Oraibi Summer Snake Ceremony,”
Field Columbian Museum, Publication No. 83, Anthropological Series,
Vol. Ill, No. 4 (Chicago: 1903), pp. 352-3 and p. 353, n 1.
7. See Annuaire de l'Êcole pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences
religieuses, 1952-1953, pp. 19-21, and 1953-1954, pp. 27-9. Thanks are due
here to an unrequested but deeply appreciated grant from the Ford Foun­
dation.
8. For another application of this method, see our study “Four Winnebago
Myths: A Structural Sketch,” in Stanley Diamond (ed.), Culture in History:
Essays in Honor of Paul Radin (New York: i960), pp. 351-62.
CH APTER
Structure
and Dialectics
F r o m Lang to Malinowski, through Durkheim,
Lévy-Bruhl, and van der Leeuw, sociologists and anthropologists
who were interested in the interrelations between myth and ritual
have considered them as mutually redundant. Some of these thinkers
see in each myth the ideological projection of a rite, the purpose
of the myth being to provide a foundation for the rite. Others
reverse the relationship and regard ritual as a kind of dramatized
illustration of the myth. Regardless of whether the myth or the
ritual is the original, they replicate each other; the myth exists on
the conceptual level and the ritual on the level of action. In both
cases, one assumes an orderly correspondence between the two—
in other words, a homology. Curiously enough, this homology is
demonstrable in only a small number of cases. It remains to be seen
why all myths do not correspond to rites and vice versa, and most
important, why there should be such a curious replication in the
first place.
I intend to show by means of a concrete example that this
*3*
homology does not always exist; or, more specifically, that when
we do find such a homology, it might very well constitute a particular
illustration of a more generalized relationship between myth
and ritual and between the rites themselves. Such a generalized relationship
would imply a one-to-one correspondence between the
elements of rites which seem to differ, or between the elements of
any one rite and any one myth. Such a correspondence could not,
however, be considered a homology. In the example to be discussed,
here, the reconstruction of the correspondence requires a
series of preliminary operations— that is, permutations or transformations
which may furnish the key to the correspondence. If
this hypothesis is correct, we shall have to give up mechanical
causality as an explanation and, instead, conceive of the relationship
between myth and ritual as dialectical, accessible only if both have
first been reduced to their structural elements.
The demonstration of such a hypothesis seems to me to constitute
an appropriate tribute to the work and method of Roman
Jakobson. He himself was concerned on several occasions with
mythology and folklore; let us merely recall his article on Slavic
mythology in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology
and Legend, and his valuable commentaries on Russian Fairy
Tales} Secondly, it is clear that the method I am employing is
simply the extension to another field of structural linguistics,
which is associated with the name of Jakobson. And finally, he
was always concerned with the intimate relationship between
structural analysis and dialectical method. He concluded his wellknown
work, Prinzipien der historischen Phonologie, by saying:
“The relationship between statics and dynamics is one of the
most fundamental dialectical antinomies which determine the idea
of language.” In attempting to clarify the mutual implications of
the concept of structure and dialectical thought, I am merely following
one of the paths which he himself charted.
In the work of G. A. Dorsey devoted to the mythology of the
Pawnee Indians of the North American Plains,2 we find a series of
myths (numbered 77 through 116) which give an account of the
origin of shamanistic powers. One theme recurs several times (see
numbers 77, 86, 89, and passim); I shall call it, for purposes of
simplification, the theme of the pregnant boy. Let us examine, for
example, myth number 77.
Structure and Dialectics | 233
An ignorant young boy becomes aware that he possesses
magical powers that enable him to cure the sick. Jealous of the
boy’s increasing reputation, an old medicine man of established
position visits him on several different occasions, accompanied by
his wife. Enraged because he obtains no secret in exchange for his
own teachings, the medicine man offers the boy a pipe filled with
magical herbs. Thus bewitched, the boy discovers that he is pregnant.
Full of shame, he leaves his village and seeks death among
wild animals. The animals, moved to pity by his misfortune, decide
to cure him. They extract the fetus from his body. They teach
him their magical powers, by means of which the boy, on returning
to his home, kills the evil medicine man and becomes himself a famous
and respected healer.
A careful analysis of the text of this myth, which in one
version alone takes up thirteen pages of Dorsey’s work, discloses
that it is built on a long series of oppositions: ( i ) initiated shaman
versus non-initiated shaman, that is, the opposition between acquired
power and innate power; (2) child versus old man, since
the myth insists on the youth of one protagonist and the old age
of the other; (3) confusion of sexes versus differentiation of sexes;
all of Pawnee metaphysical thought is actually based on the idea
that at the time of the creation of the world antagonistic elements
were intermingled and that the first work of the gods consisted in
sorting them out. The young child is asexual or, more accurately,
the male and female principles co-exist in him. Conversely, in the
old man the distinction is irrevocable— an idea clearly expressed in
the myth by the fact that his wife is always with him— in contrast
with the boy, who is alone but who harbors in himself both masculinity
and femininity (he becomes pregnant); (4) fertility of the
child (despite his virginity) versus sterility of the old man (notwithstanding
his constantly mentioned marriage); (5) the irreversible
relationship of the fertilization of the “son” by the “father”
versus an equally irreversible relationship, namely the revenge of the
“father” because the “son” does not reveal any secrets to him (he
possesses none) in exchange for his own secrets; (6) the threefold
opposition between, on the one hand, plant magic, which is real,
that is, a drug by means of which the old man fertilizes the child
(this magic, however, is curable) and, on the other hand, magic of
animal origin, which is symbolic (manipulation of a skull), by
234 | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
means of which the child kills the old man without any possibility
of resurrection; (7) magic which proceeds by introduction versus
magic which proceeds by extraction.
The construction of the myth by oppositions also characterizes
details of the text. The animals are moved to pity at the sight of
the boy for two reasons, which are well defined in the text: He
compounds the characteristics of man and woman, a combination
expressed by the opposition between the leanness of his own body
(he has been fasting for days) and the swelling of his abdomen
(due to his condition). T o induce a miscarriage, the herbivorous
animals vomit the bones, while the carnivorous animals extract the
flesh (threefold opposition). And finally, while the boy risks death
from a swollen stomach (in myth number 89 the fetus is replaced
b y a ball of clay, which continues to grow until its bearer bursts),
the medicine man actually dies of an abdominal constriction.
The version given in myth number 86 both retains and elaborates
some of these oppositions. The murderer lowers his victim at
the end of a rope down into the subterranean world (the abode of
mammals, which are magical mammals) to pick up some eagle and
woodpecker feathers, that is, feathers of sky-dwelling birds, the
former specifically associated with the empyreal heavens and
the latter with thunderstorms. This inversion of the system of the
world is accompanied by a concomitant “rectification” of the inverted
opposition (found in the “right-side-up” system of myth
number 77) between carnivorous and herbivorous animals. As
seems to be “normal,” the former are now concerned with the
bones of the fetus, the latter with its blood. W e see, then, what a
structural analysis of the myth content can achieve in itself: It
furnishes rules of transformation which enable us to shift from one
variant to another by means of operations similar to those of alge­
bra.
At this point, however, I wish to consider another aspect of
the problem. T o what Pawnee ritual does the myth of the pregnant
boy correspond? On first inspection, none. Whereas the myth emphasizes
the opposition between generations, the Pawnee have no
shamanistic societies based on age-grades. Membership in these societies
is not subjected to trials or payments. According to Murie,
“ the usual way to become a medicine-man was to succeed one’s
teacher at his death.” 3The myth, on the contrary, is based upon a
Structure and Dialectics | 235
236 M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
twofold concept of innate power, which, because it is innate, is
denied the boy by the master; because the boy’s power is not
taught him by the master, the master refuses to acknowledge him
as his successor.
Shall we say, therefore, that the Pawnee myth reflects a system
which is correlated with and yet the reverse of the system
which prevails in Pawnee ritual? This would be only partly correct,
because the opposition would not be pertinent; that is, the
concept of opposition is not heuristic here: It accounts for certain
differences between the myth and the rite but leaves others unexplained.
It especially neglects the theme of the pregnant boy, to
which we nevertheless attributed a central position in the group of
myths under consideration.
On the other hand, all the elements of the myth fall into place
when we compare it, not with the corresponding Pawnee ritual,
but rather with the symmetrical and inverse ritual that prevails
among those tribes of the American Plains which conceive their
shamanistic societies and the rules for membership in the reverse
manner from that of the Pawnee themselves. As Lowie expresses it,
“The Pawnee have the distinction of having developed the most
elaborate system of societies outside the age-series.” 4 In this respect
they contrast with the Blackfoot and with such sedentary tribes as
the Mandan and Hidatsa, which exemplify most elaborately the
other type and to which they are related, not only culturally, but
also geographically and historically through the Arikara, whose
separation from the Skidi Pawnee (precisely those whose myths
Dorsey collected) dates only from the first half of the eighteenth
century.
Among these tribes, societies are based on age-grades. The
transition from one to another is achieved by purchase, and the
relationship between seller and buyer is conceived as a relationship
between “father” and “son.” Finally, the candidate always appears
in the company of his wife, and the central motif of the transaction
is the handing over of the “son’s” wife to the “father,” who carries
out with her an act of real or symbolic coitus, which is, however,
always represented as a fertility act.
W e thus rediscover all the oppositions already analyzed on the
level of myth, but there is a reversal of the values attributed to
each pair: initiated and non-initiated, youth and old age, confusion
and differentiation of sexes, and so on. In fact, in the Mandan, Hidatsa,
and Blackfoot rites, the “son” is accompanied by his wife, just
as in the Pawnee myth the wife accompanied the “father.” But
whereas in the latter case she was a mere supernumerary, here it is
she who plays the principal role: Fertilized by the “father” and conceiving
the “son,” she thus represents the bisexuality which the
Pawnee myth ascribed to the “son.” In other words, the semantic
values are the same; they are merely permuted in relation to the
symbols which express them. It is interesting to compare, in this respect,
the objects which are considered to be fertilizing agents in the
two systems. In the Pawnee myth, a pipe is transferred by the father
and his wife to the son. In the Blackfoot rite, a wild turnip is first
transferred by the father to the son’s wife, then by the latter to
the son. The pipe, a hollow tube, is the intermediary between the
sky and the middle world; hence its role is symmetrical to, and the
reverse of, the role ascribed to the wild turnip in Plains mythology
— as is evident in the innumerable variants of the cycle called “StarHusband,”
where the turnip is a plug, functioning as a circuitbreaker
between the two worlds. The elements are expressed by
different symbols when their order is reversed.
The extraordinary Hidatsa rite (whose archaic Chinese parallels
were never, to my knowledge, pointed out), concerning the
prestation of women in an arbor roofed over with dried meat,
also corresponds to the Pawnee myth. A payment of meat is made,
sometimes to the fertilizing fathers who own the magic, sometimes
to the magical animals playing the role of non-fathers (that is,
abortionists). But in the first case, meat is offered in the form of a
container (hut covered with meat), whereas in the other it is
specified that meat should be presented as content (satchels stuffed
with meat). W e could further pursue these comparisons, which
would all lead to the same conclusion, namely, that the Pawnee
myth reveals a ritual system which is the reverse, not of that
prevailing among the Pawnee, but of a system which they do not
employ and which exists among related tribes whose ritual organization
is exactly the opposite of that of the Pawnee. Moreover, the
relationship between the two systems has a contrapuntal character:
If one system is considered as a progression, the other appears as a
retrogression.
Structure and Dialectics | 237
M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
W e have thus defined a Pawnee myth in terms of both its
correlation with and its opposition to an alien ritual. It is remarkable
that a relationship of the same type, but of a still more complex order,
may be detected between this very myth and a ritual which,
while not characteristic of the Pawnee alone, was the subject of a
particularly elaborate study— namely, the Hako.B
The Hako is a ritual of alliance between two groups. In contrast
to the Pawnee societies, whose position in the social structure
is fixed, these groups may freely choose one another. By operating
in this fashion, however, they place themselves in a father-son
relationship that also defines the stable relationship between consecutive
age-grades in the sedentary tribes. As Hocart once demonstrated,
the father-son relationship upon which the Hako is based
may be considered a permutation of an affinal relationship between
paternal and maternal kin.6 In other words, the myth of the
pregnant boy, the Mandan and Hidatsa ritual of accession to the
highest rank of a series of age-grades, and the Hako represent so
many groups of permutations whose formula is an equivalence
between the opposition father/son and the opposition man!woman.
I, for one, am prepared to hold that this equation is based on the
distinctive characteristics of the kinship system known as CrowOmaha,
in which the relationships between affinal groups are specifically
formalized in terms of relationships between ascendants
and descendants. But this aspect of the problem will have to be developed
elsewhere.
I shall limit myself to examining briefly the last phases of the
Hako ritual (16 to 19 in Fletcher’s breakdown). These phases are
invested with the most sacred character and offer a series of remarkable
analogies with the myth of the pregnant boy. The
father’s group arrives in the village of the son. It symbolically
captures a young child. The child’s sex is immaterial, or, more
accurately, he is of unidentified sex.7The group consecrates him by
means of a series of anointings, in order to identify him with
Tirawa, the supreme deity of the celestial world. Then the child is
raised in a robe with his legs projecting forward, and in this position
he is handled in the fashion of a phallus for a symbolic coitus
with the world, represented by a circle outlined on the ground,
into which he is to drop, like an egg, an oriole’s nest: “The putting
of the child’s feet in the circle means the giving of new life . . .
comments the native informer unambiguously.8Finally, the circle is
erased and the anointments are removed from the child, who is sent
away to join his playmates.
All these operations may be considered clearly as a permutation
of the elements of the myth of the pregnant child. In the myth
as well as the ritual, we have three protagonists:
Myth: son father (or husband) wife of father
Ritual: son (permu- father (permutation child (permutatation
of wife) of husband) tion of son)
In both myth and ritual, two protagonists are identified with respect
to sex, and one is left unidentified (son or child).
In the myth, the lack of identification of the son enables
him to be half-man and half-woman; in the ritual, he becomes
fully a man (an agent of coitus) and fully a woman (he actually
gives birth to a nest, which symbolizes an egg, in a circle, which
symbolizes a nest).
The entire symbolism of the Hako implies that the father
fertilizes the son by means of the ambivalent function of the child;
just as in the myth, the ambivalent function of the couple (the
medicine man and his wife) fertilizes the child and, similarly, in
the ritual of the sedentary tribes, the father fertilizes the son
through the ambivalent function of the son’s wife. This ambiguity as
to the sex of one of the protagonists is constantly emphasized regardless
of context. Compare, in this respect, the sack from which
the legs of the child emerge (Hako); the male child with protuberant
abdomen (Pawnee myth); the woman holding in her
mouth a protuberant turnip (Blackfoot myth constituting the basis
o f the rite of access to the society of Kit-foxes by prestation of the
w ife).
In another study 9 I attempted to show that the genetic model
of the myth— that is, the model which generates it and simultaneously
gives it its structure— consists of the application of four
functions to three symbols. Here, the four functions are defined
by the twofold opposition elder/younger and male/female, from
which stem the father, mother, son, and daughter functions. In the
myth of the pregnant boy, the father and mother each use a different
symbol, and the functions of son and daughter are merged under
Structure and Dialectics | 239
the third available symbol, the child. In the Mandan-Hidatsa ritual,
it is the father and son who are distinguished, while the wife of the
son embodies the functions of mother and daughter. The Hako appears
to be more complex, since here the symbols, always three in
number, require that besides the father and son a new figure play
a role— namely, the child (boy or girl) of the son. The reason for
this is that the allocation of functions to symbols requires here an
ideal dichotomization of the latter. As we noted before, the father
is both father and mother; the son, both son and daughter; and the
child borrows from each of the other two symbols one of their halffunctions:
fertilizing agent (father) and fertilized object (daughter).
It is remarkable that this more complex distribution of the
functions among the symbols characterizes the only one of the
three systems which is based on reciprocity. Although the purpose
of each system is to establish an alliance, this alliance is rejected in
the first case, solicited in the second, and negotiated only in the
third.
The dialectical relationship between myth and ritual is based
on considerations of structure which we cannot take up here, and
we must refer the reader to the study already cited. But we hope
to have shown that in order to understand this relationship it is
indispensable to compare myth and ritual, not only within the confines
of one and the same society, but also with the beliefs and
practices of neighboring societies. If a certain group of Pawnee
myths represents a permutation of certain rituals, not only of the
same tribe, but also of other peoples, one cannot rest content with
a purely formal analysis. Such an analysis constitutes a preliminary
stage of research, which is fruitful to the extent that it permits the
formulation of geographical and historical problems in more rigorous
terms than is customary. Structural dialectics does not contradict
historical determinism, but rather promotes it by giving it a new
tool. Along with Meillet and Troubetzkoy, Jakobson proved, moreover,
on several occasions that the phenomena of reciprocal influence
between geographically related linguistic areas cannot remain
outside of structural analysis; this constitutes the well-known
theory of linguistic affinities. I have attempted to bring a modest
contribution to this theory, which I applied in another field, by
emphasizing that the affinity can be seen not only in the diffusion
of certain structural properties outside their area of origin or in
24o | M A G I C A N D R E L I G I O N
their rejection, which impedes this propagation. The affinity may
also be demonstrated by antithesis, which generates structures presenting
the character of answers, cures, excuses, or even remorse.
In mythology, as in linguistics, formal analysis immediately raises
the question of meaning.
Structure and Dialectics | 241
NOTES
1. Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, Vol. I (New
York: 1949); Russian Fairy Tales (New York: 1945).
2. The Pawnee: Mythology, Part I (Washington: 1906).
3. J. R. Murie, “Pawnee Societies,” Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History, Vol. XI (1916), pp. vii, 603.
4. R. H. Lowie, “Plains-Indian Age-Societies: Historical and Comparative
Summary,” Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural
History, Vol. XI (1916), pp. xiii, 890.
5. A. C. Fletcher and J. R. Murie, The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony, Bureau
of American Ethnology, 22nd Annual Report, Part II (Washington: 1900-
1901 [1904]).
6. A. M. Hocart, “Covenants,” in The Life Giving Myth (London: 1952).
7. Fletcher and Mûrie, op. cit., p. 201.
8. Ibid., p. 245.
9. “The Structural Study of Myth,” Chapter XI of the present volume.
P A R T FOUR
Art
C H A PT E R
Split Representation
in the Art of
Asia and America
nO NTEM POR ARY ANTHROPOLOGISTS S eem tO b e
somewhat reluctant to undertake comparative studies of primitive
art. W e can easily understand their reasons. Until now, studies of
this nature have tended almost exclusively to demonstrate cultural
contacts, diffusion phenomena, and borrowings. The discovery of
a decorative detail or an unusual pattern in two different parts of
the world, regardless of the geographical distance between them
and an often considerable historical gap, brought enthusiastic proclamations
about common origin and the unquestionable existence
of prehistoric relationships between cultures which could not be
compared in other respects. Leaving aside some fruitful discoveries,
we know to what abuses this hurried search for analogies “at
any cost” has led. T o save us from these errors, experts in material
culture even now need to define the specific characteristics
which distinguish a trait, trait complex, or style that may be subject
to multiple independent recurrences from one whose nature and
245
246 I A R T
characteristics exclude the possibility of repetition without borrow­
ing.
It is, therefore, with some hesitation that I propose to contribute
several documents to a hotly and legitimately debated body
of materials. This voluminous collection involves the Northwest
Coast of America, China, Siberia, New Zealand, and perhaps even
India and Persia. What is more, the documents belong to entirely
different periods: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for
Alaska; the first to second millennia b .c . for China; the prehistoric
era for the Amur region; and a period stretching from the fourteenth
to the eighteenth century for N ew Zealand. A more difficult
case could hardly be conceived. I have mentioned elsewhere1
the almost insuperable obstacles generated by the hypothesis of preColumbian
contacts between Alaska and New Zealand. The problem
is perhaps simpler when one compares Siberia and China with
North America: Distances are more reasonable and one need overcome
only the obstacle of one or two millenia. Even in this case,
however, and whatever the intuitive convictions which irresistibly
sway the mind, what an immense marshalling of facts becomes necessary!
For his ingenious and brilliant work, C. Hentze can be
called the “scrap-collector” of Americanism, pulling his evidence
together from fragments gathered from the most diverse cultures
and often mounting insignificant details2 for exhibition. Instead of
justifying the intuitive feeling of connectedness, his analysis dissolves
it; nothing among these membra disjecta poetae appears to
justify the deep sense of affinity which familiarity with both arts
had so strongly elicited.
And yet, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies presented
by Northwest Coast and ancient Chinese art. These analogies
derive not so much from the external aspect of the objects as
from the fundamental principles which an analysis of both arts
yields. This work was undertaken by Leonhard Adam, whose conclusions
I shall summarize here.3 The two arts proceed by means
of: (i) intense stylization; (2) schematization or symbolism, expressed
by emphasizing characteristic features or adding significant
attributes (thus, in Northwest Coast art, the beaver is portrayed
by the small log which it holds between its paws); (3)
depiction of the body by “split representation” ; (4) dislocation of
The Art of Asia and America | 247
details, which are arbitrarily isolated from the whole; (5) representation
of one individual shown in front view with two profiles;
(6) highly elaborate symmetry, which often involves asymmetric
details; (7) illogical transformation of details into new elements
(thus, a paw becomes a beak, an eye motif is used to represent a
joint, or vice-versa); (8) finally, intellectual rather than intuitive
representation, where the skeleton or internal organs take precedence
over the representation of the body (a technique which
is equally striking in northern Australia).4 These techniques are
not characteristic solely of Northwest Coast art. As Leonhard
Adam writes, “The various technological and artistic principles
displayed in both China and North West America are almost entirely
identical.,, 5
Once these similarities have been noted, it is curious to observe
that, for entirely different reasons, ancient Chinese and
Northwest Coast art have been independently compared with
Maori art in New Zealand.6This fact is the more remarkable when
w e note that Neolithic art of the Amur— some of whose themes
(such as the bird, with wings unfolded, whose abdomen is formed
b y a solar face) are almost identical with themes of the Northwest
Coast— exhibits, according to some scholars, “an unexpectedly
rich, curvilinear ornamentation related to that of the Ainu
and Maori on one side and to the Neolithic cultures of China
(Yangshao) and Japan (Jomon) on the other; consisting particularly
of that type of ribbon ornamentation characterized by complex
motifs such as the weave, spiral and meander in contradistinction
to the rectangular geometric decoration of the Baikalian
culture.” 7 Thus art forms from very different regions and periods
which exhibit obvious analogies suggest, each of them and for independent
reasons, relationships which are, however, incompatible
with geographical and historical requirements.
Do we rest, then, on the horns of a dilemma which condemns
us either to deny history or to remain blind to similarities so often
confirmed? Anthropologists of the diffusionist school did not hesitate
to force the hand of historical criticism. I do not intend to
defend their adventurous hypotheses, but it must be admitted that
the negative attitude of their cautious opponents is no more satisfactory
than the-fabulous pretensions which the latter merely re-
248 I A R T
ject. Comparative studies of primitive art have probably been
jeopardized by the zeal of investigators of cultural contacts and
borrowings. But let us state in no uncertain terms that these studies
have been jeopardized even more by intellectual pharisees who
prefer to deny obvious relationships because science does not yet
provide an adequate method for their interpretation. The rejection
of facts because they appear to be unintelligible is surely more
sterile from the viewpoint of scientific progress than the formulation
of hypotheses. Even if these should prove to be unacceptable,
they will elicit, precisely because of their inadequacy, the criticism
and research that will one day enable us to progress beyond them.8
W e reserve, therefore, the right to compare American Indian
art with that of China or New Zealand, even if it has been proved
a thousand times over that the Maori could not have brought their
weapons and ornaments to the Pacific Coast. Cultural contact
doubtless constitutes the one hypothesis which most easily accounts
for complex similarities that chance cannot explain. But if
historians maintain that contact is impossible, this does not prove
that the similarities are illusory, but only that one must look elsewhere
for the explanation. The fruitfulness of the diffusionist approach
derives precisely from its systematic exploration of the possibilities
of history. If history, when it is called upon unremittingly
(and it must be called upon first), cannot yield an answer, then let
us appeal to psychology, or the structural analysis of forms; let us
ask ourselves if internal connections, whether of a psychological
or logical nature, will allow us to understand parallel recurrences
whose frequency and cohesion cannot possibly be the result of
chance. It is in this spirit that I shall now present my contribution to
the debate.
Split representation in Northwest Coast art has been described
by Franz Boas as follows: “The animal is imagined cut in two
from head to tail . . . there is a deep depression between the eyes,
extending down the nose. This shows that the head itself must not
have been considered a front view, but as consisting of two profiles
which adjoin at mouth and nose, while they are not in contact
with each other on a level with the eyes and forehead . . . either
the animals are represented as split in two so that the profiles are
ioined in the middle, or a front view of the head is shown with two
The Art of Asia and America | 249
adjoining profiles of the body.’99 Boas analyzes the two paintings
reproduced here (Figures 17 and 18, which correspond respectively
to Figures 222 and .223 in the text cited) in the following terms:
F igure 17. Haida. Painting representing
a bear. (After F. Boas,
Primitive Art, Fig. 222.)
F igure 18. Tsimshian. Painting
representing a bear; from the
front of a house. (After Boas,
op. cit., Fig. 223.)
Figure 222 (a Haida painting) shows a design which has been obtained
in this manner. It represents a bear. The enormous breadth
of mouth observed in these cases is brought about by the junction
of the two profiles of which the head consists. This cutting
of the head is brought out most clearly in the painting Figure 223,
which also represents the bear. It is the painting on the front of a
Tsimshian house, the circular hole in the middle of the design being
the door of the house. The animal is cut from back to front,
so that only the front part of the head coheres. The two halves of
the lower jaw do not touch each other. The back is represented
by the black outlines on which the hair is indicated by fine lines.
The Tsimshian call such a design “bears meeting,” as though two
bears had been represented.10
. Let us now compare this analysis with that given by
H . G. Creel of a similar technique in the art of ancient China:
“ One of the most distinctive characteristics of Shang decorative
art is a peculiar method by which animals were represented in flat
or in rounded surfaces. It is as if one took the animal and split it
F igure 19. Bronze discovered near An-Yang (China). In the middle
panel, a split t'ao t’ieh mask without a lower jaw. The ears make up a
second mask above the first. The eyes in the second mask may also be
seen as belonging to two small dragons represented by the ears of the
first mask. The two small dragons are shown in profile and face to fàce,
like those in the upper panel. The latter may in turn be seen as a ram
mask shown in front view, the horns being represented by the bodies
of the dragons. The design on the lid can be similarly interpreted.
(After W . P. Yetts, An-Yang. A Retrospect.)
lengthwise, starring at the tip of the tail and carrying the operation
almost, not quite, to the tip of the nose, then the two halves
are pulled apart and the bisected animal is laid out flat on the surface,
the two halves joined only at the tip of the nose.” 11 The
same author, who apparently does not know Boas’ work, after
having employed almost exactly the same terminology as the latter,
adds: “In studying Shang design I have constantly been aware of
the feeling that this art has great resemblance, certainly in spirit
and possibly in detail, to that of . . . the Northwest Coast Indians.”
12
This distinctive technique, which is found in ancient Chinese
art, among the Siberian primitives, and in New Zealand, also appears
at the other extremity of the American continent, among the
Caduveo Indians. A drawing, which we reproduce here in Figure
20, represents a face painted according to the traditional custom of
the women of this small tribe of southern Brazil, one of the last
remnants of the once flourishing Guaicuru nation. I have described
elsewhere how these paintings are executed and what their
function is in the native culture.13 For present purposes it is, therefore,
sufficient to recall that these paintings have been known since
the first contacts with the Guaicuru in the seventeenth century
and that they do not seem to have evolved since that time. They
are not tattooings, but cosmetic facial paintings, which must be
renewed after a few days and which are executed with a wooden
spatula dipped in the juices of wild fruit and leaves. The women,
who paint one another’s faces (and who formerly also painted
men), do not work from a model but improvise within the limits
of a complex, traditionally defined range of themes. Among four
hundred original drawings gathered in the field in 1935, I did not
find two alike. The differences, however, stem more from the evervaried
arrangement of fundamental elements than from a renewal
of these elements— whether simple and double spirals, hatching,
volutes, frets, tendrils, or crosses and whorls. The possibility of
Spanish influence should be excluded, given the remote date when
this refined art was described for the first time. At present, only
a few old women possess the ancient skill, and it is not difficult to
foresee the time when it will have disappeared altogether.
Plate VIII (after p. 250) presents a good example of these
The Art of Asia and America | 251
F igu re 20. Caduveo. Facial design reproduced by
a native woman on a sheet of paper. (Author’s
collection.)
paintings. The design is built symmetrically in relation to two
linear axes, one of them vertical, following the median plane of
the face, the other horizontal, dividing the face at eye level. The
eyes are schematically represented on a reduced scale. They are
used as starting points for two inverted spirals, one of which covers
the right cheek and the other the left side of the forehead.
A motif in the shape of a compound bow, which is located in the
lower part of the painting, represents the upper lip and is applied
on it. W e find this motif, more or less elaborated and more
or less transformed, in all the facial paintings, where it seems to
constitute a constant element. It is not easy to analyze the design,
because of its apparent asymmetry— which, nonetheless masks a
real, though complex, symmetry. The two axes intersect at the root
of the nose, thus dividing the face into four triangular sections:
left side of the forehead, right side of the forehead, right wing of
the nose and right cheek, and left wing of the nose and left cheek.
Opposite triangles have a symmetrical design, but the design within
each triangle itself is a double design, which is repeated in inverted
form in the opposite triangle. Thus, the right side of the forehead
and the left cheek are covered, first by a triangle of frets, and,
after a separation in the form of an empty oblique strip, by two
double spirals in alignment, which are decorated with tendrils.
The left side of the forehead and the right cheek are decorated
with a simple large spiral adorned with tendrils; it is topped by another
motif in the shape of a bird or flame, which contains an element
reminiscent of the empty oblique stripe in the opposite design.
W e thus have two pairs of themes, each of which is repeated
twice in symmetrical fashion. But this symmetry is expressed either
in relation to one of the two horizontal and vertical axes, or in
relation to the triangles defined by the bisection of these axes.
While far more complex, this pattern recalls that of playing cards.
Plates IV, V , and V I are other examples which illustrate variations
on what is fundamentally the same pattern.
In Plate VIII, however, it is not only the painted design
which draws the attention. The artist, a woman approximately
thirty years old, intended also to represent the face and even the
hair. N ow she obviously accomplished this by split representation:
The face is not really seen in a frontal view; it consists of two
joined profiles. This explains its extraordinary width and its heartshaped
outline. The depression dividing the forehead into two
halves is a part of the representation of the profiles, which merge
only from the root of the nose down to the chin. A comparison
of Figures 17 and 18 and Plate VIII shows that this technique is
identical with that used by artists of the Northwest Coast of Amer­
ica.
Other important traits are also characteristic of both North
and South American art. W e have already stressed the dislocation
of the subject into elements which are recombined according to
conventional rules having nothing to do with nature. Dislocation
is just as striking in Caduveo art, where it takes, however, an inThe
Art of Asia and America | 253
direct form. Boas minutely described the dislocation of bodies and
faces in Northwest Coast an: The organs and limbs themselves are
split and used to reconstitute an arbitrary individual. Thus, in a
Haida totem pole, “the figure must be . . . explained in such a
way that the animal is twisted twice, the tail being turned up over
the back, and the head being first turned down under the stomach,
then split and extended outward.” 14 In a KwakiutI representation
of a killer whale (Orca jp.), “the animal has been split along its
whole back towards the front. The two profiles of the head have
been joined. . . . The dorsal fin, which according to the methods
described heretofore [split representation] would appear on both
sides of the body, has been cut off from the back before the animal
was split, and appears now placed over the junction of the two
profiles of the head. The flippers are laid along the two sides of the
body, with which they cohere only at one point each. The two
halves of the tail have been twisted outward so that the lower part
of the figure forms a straight line.” 15 See Figure 21. These examples
could easily be multiplied.
254 | ART
F igu re 21. KwakiutI. Painting for the
front of a house, the design representing
a killer whale. (After F . Boas, op. cit.,
Fig- M7-)
Caduveo art carries the dislocation process both further than,
yet not as far as, Northwest Coast art. It does not carry it as far,
because the face or body on which the artist works is a flesh-andbone
face and body, which cannot be taken apart and put together
again. The integrity of the real face is thus respected, but it is dislocated
just the same by the systematic asymmetry by means of
which its natural harmony is denied on behalf of the artificial
harmony of the painting. But since this painting, instead of representing
the image of a deformed face, actually deforms a real face,
the dislocation goes further than in the case previously described.
The dislocation here involves, besides the decorative value, a subtle
element of sadism, which at least pardy explains why the erotic
appeal of Caduveo women (expressed in the paintings) formerly
attracted oudaws and adventurers toward the shores of the Paraguay
River. Several of these now aging men, who intermarried
with the natives, described to me with quivering emotion the nude
bodies of adolescent girls completely covered with interlacings and
arabesques of a perverse subtlety. The tattooings and body paintings
of the Northwest Coast, where this sexual element was probably
lacking and whose symbolism, often abstract, presents a less
decorative character, also disregarded symmetry in the human
face.16
In addition, we observe that the arrangement of Caduveo
paintings around a double axis, horizontal and vertical, divides
the face according to a process of double splitting, so to speak—
that is, the painting recombines the face not into two profiles but
into four quarters (see Figure 20). Asymmetry serves the formal
function of insuring the distinction between quarters, which
would merge into two profiles if the fields were to be symmetrically
repeated to the right and left instead of being joined by their
tips. Dislocation and splitting are thus functionally related.
If we pursue this comparison between Northwest Coast and
Caduveo art, several other points are worthy of consideration. In
each case, sculpture and drawing provide the two fundamental
means of expression; in each case, sculpture presents a realistic
character, while drawing is more symbolic and decorative. Caduveo
sculpture is probably limited, at least during the historical
period, to fetishes and representations of gods, which are always
of small size, in contrast to the monumental art of Canada and
The Art of Asia and America | 255
Alaska. But the realistic character and the tendency toward both
portrait and stylization are the same, as well as the essentially
symbolic meaning of drawn or painted motifs. In both cases,
masculine art, centered on sculpture, expresses its representational
intention, while feminine art— limited to weaving and plaiting on
the Northwest Coast, but also including drawing among these
natives of southern Brazil and Paraguay— is a non-representational
art. This is true, in both cases, for textile motifs; as regards the
Guaicuru facial paintings, we know nothing about their archaic
character. It is possible that the themes of these paintings, whose
import has become lost today, formerly had a realistic or at any
rate symbolical meaning. Northwest Coast and Caduveo art both
carry out decoration by means of stencils, and create ever-new combinations
through the varied arrangement of basic motifs. Finally,
in both cases, art is intimately related to social organization: Motifs
and themes express rank differences, nobility privileges, and degrees
of prestige. The two societies were organized along similar
hierarchical lines and their decorative art functioned to interpret
and validate the ranks in the hierarchy.17
I should now like to make a brief comparison between Caduveo
art and another art which also used split representation—
that of the Maori of New Zealand. Let us first recall that Northwest
Coast art has been frequently compared, for other reasons, to
the art of New Zealand. Some of these reasons turned out to be
specious— for instance, the apparently identical character of woven
blankets used in the two areas. Others seem more valid— for example,
those deriving from the similarity between Alaskan clubs and
the Maori patu mere. I have mentioned this enigma elsewhere.18
The comparison of Maori with Guaicuru art is based on other
convergences. In no other region of the world has facial and
corporal decoration attained such high levels of development and
refinement. Maori tattooings are well known. I reproduce four of
them (Plates VII and XII), which may be fruitfully compared
with the photographs of Caduveo faces.
The analogies between them are striking: complexity of design,
involving hatching, meanders, and spirals (the spirals are often
replaced in Caduveo art by frets, which suggest Andean influences);
the same tendency to fill the entire surface of the face; and
2$6 | A R T
the same localization of the design around the lips in the simpler
types. The differences between the two arts must also be considered.
The difference due to the fact that Maori design is tattooed
whereas Caduveo design is painted may be dismissed, since
there is hardly any doubt that in South America, too, tattooing
was the primitive technique. Tattooing explains why the Abipone
women of Paraguay, as late as the eighteenth century, had “their
face, breast, and arms covered with black figures of various shapes,
so that they present the appearance of a Turkish carpet.” 19 This
made them, according to their own words as recorded by the old
missionary “more beautiful than beauty itself.” 20 On the other
hand, one is struck by the rigorous symmetry of Maori tattooings,
in contrast with the almost licentious asymmetry of some Caduveo
paintings. But this asymmetry does not always exist; and I have
shown that it resulted from a logical development of the splitting
principle. It is thus more apparent than real. It is clear, nevertheless,
that as regards typological classification, Caduveo facial designs
occupy an intermediary position between those of the Maori
and those of the Northwest Coast. Like the latter, they have an
asymmetrical appearance, while they present the essentially decorative
character of the former.
This continuity is also apparent when one considers the psychological
and social implications. Among the Maori, as among
the natives of the Paraguayan border, facial and corporal decoration
is executed in a semi-religious atmosphere. Tattooings are not
only ornaments. As we already noted with respect to the Northwest
Coast (and the same thing may be said of New Zealand),
they are not only emblems of nobility and symbols of rank in the
social hierarchy; they are also messages fraught with spiritual and
moral significance. The purpose of Maori tattooings is not only to
imprint a drawing onto the flesh but also to stamp onto the mind
all the traditions and philosophy of the group. Similarly, the Jesuit
missionary Sanchez Labrador has described the passionate seriousness
with which the natives devoted whole days to letting themselves
be painted. He who is not painted, they said, is “dumb.” 21
And, like the Caduveo, the Maori use split representation. In Plates
VII, IX, X, and XIII, we note the same division of the forehead
into two lobes; the same representation of the mouth where the two
halves meet; the same representation of the body, as though it had
The Art of Asia and America | 257
been split in the back from top to bottom and the two halves
brought forward on the same plane. W e note, in other words, all
the techniques which are now familiar to us.
How shall we explain the recurrence of a far from natural
method of representation among cultures so widely separated in
time and space? The simplest hypothesis is that of historical contact
or independent development from a common civilization. But
even if this hypothesis is refuted by facts, or if, as seems more
likely, it should lack adequate evidence, attempts at interpretation
are not necessarily doomed to failure. I shall go further: Even
if the most ambitious reconstructions of the diffusionist school
were to be confirmed, we should still be faced with an essential
problem which has nothing to do with history. W hy should a cultural
trait that has been borrowed or diffused through a long historical
period remain intact? Stability is no less mysterious than
change. The discovery of a unique origin for split representation
would leave unanswered the question of why this means of
expression was preserved by cultures which, in other respects,
evolved along very different lines. External connections can explain
transmission, but only internal connections can account for
persistence. Tw o entirely different kinds of problems are involved
here, and the attempt to explain one in no way prejudges the solution
that must be given to the other.
One observation immediately follows from the comparison
between Maori and Guaicuru art. In both cases, split representation
appears as a consequence of the importance that both cultures
ascribe to tattooing. Let us consider Plate VIII again and ask ourselves
why the outline of the face is represented by two joined
profiles. It is clear that the artist intended to draw, not a face, but
a facial painting; it is upon doing the latter that she concentrated
all her attention. Even the eyes, which are sketchily indicated,
exist only as points of reference for starting the two great inverted
spirals into whose structure they merge. The artist drew the facial
design in a realistic manner; she respected its true proportions as if
she had painted on a face and not on a flat surface. She painted on
a sheet of paper exactly as she was accustomed to paint on a
face. And because the paper is for her a face, she finds it impossible
to represent a face on paper, at any rate without distortion. It
was necessary either to draw the face exactly and distort the de-
258 I A R T
sign in accordance with the laws of perspective, or to respect
the integrity of the design and for this reason represent the face as
split in two. It cannot even be said that the artist chose the second
solution, since the alternative never occurred to her. In native
thought, as we saw, the design is the face, or rather it creates it. It
is the design which confers upon the face its social existence, its
human dignity, its spiritual significance. Split representation of the
face, considered as a graphic device, thus expresses a deeper and
more fundamental splitting, namely that between the “dumb” biological
individual and the social person whom he must embody.
W e already foresee that split representation can be explained as a
function of a sociological theory of the splitting of the personality.
The same relationship between split image and tattooing may
be observed in Maori art. If we compare Plates VII, IX, X, and
XIII, we will see that the splitting of the forehead into two lobes
is only the projection, on a plastic level, of the symmetrical design
tattooed on the skin.
In the light of these observations, the interpretation of split
representation proposed by Boas in his study of Northwest Coast
art should be elaborated and refined. For Boas, split representation
in painting or drawing would consist only in the extension to flat
surfaces of a*technique which is naturally appropriate in the case
of three-dimensional objects. When an animal is going to be represented
on a square box, for instance, one must necessarily distort
the shape of the animal so that it can be adapted to the angular
contours of the box. According to Boas,
In the decoration of silver bracelets a similar principle is followed
but the problem differs somewhat from that offered in the decoration
of square boxes. While in the latter case the four edges make
a natural division between the four views of the animal,— front
and right profile, back and left profile,— there is no such sharp
line or division in the round bracelet, and there would be great
difficulty in joining the four aspects artistically, while two profiles
offer no such difficulty. . . . The animal is imagined cut in
two from head to tail, so that the two halves cohere only at the
tip of the nose and at the tip of the tail. The hand is put through
this hole and the animal now surrounds the wrist. In this position
it is represented on the bracelet. . . . The transition from the
bracelet to the painting or carving of animals on a flat surface is
not a difficult one. The same principle is adhered to. . . 22
The Art of Asia and America | 259
Thus the principle of split representation would gradually emerge
in the process of transition from angular to rounded objects and
from rounded objects to flat surfaces. In the first case, there is occasional
dislocation and splitting; in the second case, splitting is
systematically applied, but the animal still remains intact at the
level of the head and the tail; finally, in the third case, dislocation
goes to the extreme of splitting the caudal tie, and the two halves
of the body, now free, are folded forward to the right and left on
the same plane as the face.
This treatment of the problem by the great master of modem
anthropology is remarkable for its elegance and simplicity. However,
this elegance and simplicity are mainly theoretical. If we
consider the decoration of flat and rounded surfaces as special cases
of the decoration of angular surfaces, then nothing has been demonstrated
with respect to the latter. And, above all, no necessary
relationship exists a priori, which implies that the artist must remain
faithful to the same principle in moving from angular to
rounded surfaces, and from rounded to flat surfaces. Many cultures
have decorated boxes with human and animal figures without
splitting or dislocating them. A bracelet may be adorned with
friezes or in a hundred other ways. There must, then, be some
fundamental element of Northwest Coast art (and* of Guaicuru
art, and Maori art, and the art of ancient China) which accounts
for the continuity and rigidity with which the technique of split
representation is applied in them.
W e are tempted to perceive this fundamental element in the
very special relationship which, in the four arts considered here,
links the plastic and graphic components. These two elements are
not independent; they have an ambivalent relationship, which is
simultaneously one of opposition and one which is functional. It is
a relationship of opposition because the requirements of decoration
are imposed upon the structure and change it, hence the splitting
and dislocation; but it is also a functional relationship, since the
object is always conceived in both its plastic and graphic aspects.
A vase, a box, a wall, are not independent, pre-existing objects
which are subsequently decorated. They acquire their definitive
existence only through the integration of the decoration with the
utilitarian function. Thus, the chests of Northwest Coast art are
not merely containers embellished with a painted or carved animal.
They are the animal itself, keeping an active watch over the ceremonial
ornaments which have been entrusted to its care. Structure
modifies decoration, but decoration is the final cause of structure,
which must also adapt itself to the requirements of the former.
The final product is a whole: utensil-omament, object-animal,
box-that-speaks. The “living boats” of the Northwest Coast have
their exact counterparts in the New Zealand correspondences between
boat and woman, woman and spoon, utensils and organs.23
W e have thus pushed to its most abstract expression the study
of dualism, which has been commanding our attention with increasing
persistence. W e saw in the course of our analysis that the
dualism between representational and non-representational art became
transformed into other kinds of dualism: carving and drawing,
face and decoration, person and impersonation, individual existence
and social function, community and hierarchy. W e are thus
led to acknowledge a dualism, which is also a correlation, between
plastic and graphic expression, which provides us with a true
“common denominator” of the diverse manifestations of the principle
of split representation.
In the end, our problem may be formulated as follows: Under
what conditions are the plastic and graphic components necessarily
correlated? Under what conditions are they inevitably functionally
related, so that the modes of expression of the one always
transform those of the other, and vice versa? The comparison between
Maori and Guaicuru art already provided us with the answer
to the latter question. W e saw, indeed, that the relationship
had to be functional when the plastic component consisted of the
face or human body and the graphic component of the facial or
corporal decoration (painting or tattooing), which is applied to
them. Decoration is actually created for the face; but in another
sense the face is predestined to be decorated, since it is only by
means of decoration that the face receives its social dignity and
mystical significance. Decoration is conceived for the face, but
the face itself exists only through decoration. In the final analysis,
the dualism is that of the actor and his role, and the concept of
mask gives us the key to its interpretation.
All the cultures considered here are, in fact, mask cultures,
whether the masking is achieved predominantly by tattooing (as
is the case for the Guaicuru and Maori) or whether the stress
The Art of Asia and America | 261
is placed literally on the mask, as the Northwest Coast has done in
a fashion unsurpassed elsewhere. In archaic China, there are many
references to the ancient role of masks, which is reminiscent of
their role in Alaskan societies. Thus, the “Impersonation of the
Bear” described in the Chou Li, with its “four eyes of yellow
metal,” 24recalls the multiple masks of the Eskimo and KwakiutI.
Those masks with louvers, which present alternately several
aspects of the totemic ancestor— sometimes peaceful, sometimes
angry, at one time human, at another time animal-r-strikingly illustrate
the relationship between split representation and masquerade.
Their function is to offer a series of intermediate forms which
insure the transition from symbol to meaning, from magical to
normal, from supernatural to social. They hold at the same time
the function of masking and unmasking. But when it comes to
unmasking, it is the mask which, by a kind of reverse splitting,
opens up into two halves, while the actor himself is dissociated in
the split representation, which aims, as we saw, at flattening out as
well as displaying the mask at the expense of the individual wearing
it.
Our analysis thus converges with that of Boas, once we have
explored its substructure. It is true that split representation on a
flat surface is a special case of its appearance on a rounded surface,
just as the latter is itself a special case on three-dimensional surfaces.
But not on any three-dimensional surface; only on the threedimensional
surface par excellence, where the decoration and form
cannot be dissociated either physically or socially, namely, the human
face. A t the same time, other curious analogies between the
various art forms considered here are illuminated in a similar way.
In the four arts, we discover not one but two decorative
styles. One of these styles tends toward a representational, or at
least symbolic, expression, and its most common feature is the predominance
of motifs. This is Karlgren’s Style A for archaic China,25
painting and low relief for the Northwest Coast and New Zealand,
and facial painting for the Guaicuru. But another style exists,
of a more strictly formal and decorative character, with geometric
tendencies. It consists of Karlgren’s Style B, the rafter
decoration of New Zealand, the woven or plaited designs of New
Zealand and the Northwest Coast, and, for the Guaicuru, a style
easily identifiable, ordinarily found in decorated pottery, corporal
262 | A R T
paintings (different from facial paintings), and painted leatherwork.
How can we explain this dualism, and especially its recurrence?
The first style is decorative only in appearance; it does not have a
plastic function in any of the four arts. On the contrary, its function
is social, magical, and religious. The decoration is the graphic
or plastic projection of a reality of another order, in the same way
that split representation results from the projection of a threedimensional
mask onto a two-dimensional surface (or onto a
three-dimensional one which nevertheless does not conform to the
human archetype) and in the same way that, finally, the biological
individual himself is also projected onto the social scene by his
dress. There is thus room for the birth and development of a true
decorative art, although one would actually expect its contamination
by the symbolism which permeates all social life.
Another characteristic, shared at least by N ew Zealand and
the Northwest Coast, appears in the treatment of tree trunks,
which are carved in the form of superimposed figures, each of
which occupies a whole section of the trunk. The last vestiges of
Caduveo carving are so sparse that we can hardly formulate hypotheses
about the archaic manifestations of it; and we are still
poorly informed about the treatment of wood by Shang carvers,
several examples of which came to light in the excavations at
An-Yang.26
I would like to draw attention, nevertheless, to a bronze of
the Loo collection reproduced by Hentze.27 It looks as though it
could be the reduction of a carved pole, comparable to the slate reductions
of totem poles in Alaska and British Columbia. In any
case, the cylindrical section of the trunk plays the same role of
archetype or “ absolute limit” which we ascribed to the human
face and body; but it plays this role only because the trunk is interpreted
as a living being, a kind of “speaking pole.” Here again,
the plastic and stylistic expression serves only as a concrete embodiment
of impersonations.
However, our analysis would be inadequate if it permitted
us only to define split representation as a trait common to mask
cultures. From a purely formal point of view there has never been
any hesitation in considering the fao t’ieh of archaic Chinese
bronzes as a mask. On his part, Boas interpreted the split representation
of the shark in Northwest Coast art as a consequence
The Art of Asia and America | 263
of the fact that the characteristic symbols of this animal are better
perceived in a front view28 (see Plate III). But we have gone
further: W e discovered in the splitting technique, not only the
graphic representation of the mask, but the functional expression of
a specific type of civilization. Not all mask cultures employ split
representation. W e do not find it (at least in as developed a form)
in the art of the Pueblo of the American Southwest nor in that
of New Guinea.29 In both these cultures, however, masks play a
considerable role. Masks also represent ancestors, and by wearing
the mask the actor incarnates the ancestor. What, therefore, is the
difference? The difference is that, in contrast to the civilizations we
have been considering here, there is no chain of privileges, emblems,
and degrees of prestige which, by means of masks, validate
social hierarchy through the primacy of genealogies. The supernatural
does not have as its chief function the creation of castes
and classes. The world of masks constitutes a pantheon rather than
an ancestrality. Thus, the actor incarnates the god only on the intermittent
occasions of feasts and ceremonies. He does not acquire
from the god, by a continuous process of creation at each moment
of social life, his titles, his rank, his position in the status
hierarchy. The parallelism which we established is thus confirmed,
rather than invalidated, by these examples. The mutual independence
of the plastic and graphic components corresponds to the
more flexible interplay between the social and supernatural orders,
in the same way that split representation expresses the strict conformity
of the actor to his role and of social rank to myths, ritual,
and pedigrees. This conformity is so rigorous that, in order for
the individual to be dissociated from his social role, he must be tom
asunder.
Even if we knew nothing about archaic Chinese society, an
inspection of its art would be sufficient to enable us to recognize
prestige struggles, rivalry between hierarchies, and compgtition between
social and economic privileges— showing through the function
of masks and the veneration of lineages. Fortunately, however,
there are additional data at our disposal. Analyzing the psychological
background of bronze art, Perceval Yetts writes: “The
impulse seems almost invariably to have been self-glorification,
even when show is made of solacing ancestors or of enhancing
the family prestige.” 30 And elsewhere he remarks: “There is the
264 | A R T
familiar history of certain ting being treasured as emblems of sovereignty
down to the end of the feudal period in the third century
b .c .” 31 In the An-Yang tombs, bronzes were found which commemorate
successive members of the same lineage.32 And the differences
in quality between the specimens excavated can be explained,
according to Creel, in terms of the fact that “the exquisite
and the crude were produced side by side at Anyang, for people
of various economic status or prestige.” 38 Comparative anthropological
analysis, therefore, is in agreement with the conclusions of
Sinologists. It also confirms the theories of Karlgren, who, unlike
Leroi-Gourhan34 and others, states, on the basis of a statistical and
chronological study of themes, that the representational mask existed
before the mask’s dissolution into decorative elements and
therefore could not have grown out of the experimentation of the
artist who discovers resemblances in the fortuitous arrangement of
abstract themes.35 In another work Karlgren showed how the animal
decorations of archaic objects became transformed in the later
bronzes into flamboyant arabesques, and he related phenomena of
stylistic evolution to the collapse of feudal society.36 W e are
tempted to perceive in the arabesques of Guaicuru art, which are
so strongly suggestive of birds and flames, the final stage of a
parallel transformation. The baroque and affected quality of the
style would thus represent the formal survival of a decadent or terminated
social order. It constitutes, on the esthetic level, its dying
echo.
The conclusions of our work do not preclude in any respect
the always-possible discovery of hitherto unsuspected historical
connections.37 W e are still faced with the question of finding out
whether these hierarchical societies based on prestige appeared independently
in different parts of the world, or whether some of
them do not share a common cradle. W ith Creel,38 I think that the
similarities between the art of archaic China and that of the Northwest
Coast, perhaps even with the arts of other American areas, are
too marked for us not to keep this possibility in mind. But even if
there were ground for invoking diffusion, it would not be a diffusion
of details— that is, independent traits traveling each on its own
and disconnected freely from any one culture in order to be linked
to another— but a diffusion of organic wholes wherein style, esthetic
conventions, social organization, and religion are structurally
The Art of Asia and America | 265
related. Drawing a particularly striking analogy between archaic
Chinese and Northwest Coast art, Creel writes: “The many isolated
eyes used by the Northwest Coast designers recall most forcibly
their similar use in Shang art and cause me to wonder if there was
some magical reason for this which was possessed by both peoples.”
39 Perhaps; but magical connections, like optical illusions,
exist only in men’s minds, and we must resort to scientific investigation
to explain their causes.
266 | A R T
NOTES
1. “The A rt of the North W est Coast,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1943).
2. Carl Hentze, Objets rituels, Croyances et Dieux de la Chine antique et
de VAmérique (Antwerp: 1936).
3. Leonhard Adam, “Das Problem der asiatisch-altamerikanischen K u lturbeziehungen
mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kunst,” W iener
Beitràge zur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Asiens, V (1931); “N orthwest
American Indian A rt and Its Early Chinese Parallels,” Man X X X V I, N o .
3 (i93<5)-
4. See, for example, F. D. M cCarthy, Australian Aboriginal Decorative
Art (Sydney: 1938), Fig. 21, p. 38.
5. Review of Carl Hentze, Frühchinesische bronzen und Kultdarstellungen
(Antwerp: 1937), in Man, XXXIX, No. 60 ( 1939).
6. For China and N ew Zealand, see R. Heine-Geldem in Zeitschrift fü r
Rassenkunde, Vol. 2 (Stuttgart: 1935).
7. Henry Field and Eugene Prostov, “Results of Soviet Investigation in
Siberia, 1940-1941,” American Anthropologist, X L IV (1942), p. 396.
8. In his book, Medieval American Art (N ew York: 1943), Pal Kelemen
regards the resemblances between American art and some of the arts
of the highest civilizations of the Eastern hemisphere as only “optical
illusions” (Vol. I, p. 377). He justifies this opinion by writing that “PreColumbian
art was created and developed by a mentality totally alien
to ours” (p. 378). I doubt that in the whole work of the diffusionist
school one could find a single statement so completely unwarranted,
superficial, and meaningless.
9. Franz Boas, Primitive A rt, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning,
series B, Vol. VIII (Oslo: 1927), pp. 223-24.
10. Ibid., pp. 224-25.
11. H. G. Creel, “On the Origins of the Manufacture and Decoration o f
Bronze in the Shang Period,” Monumenta Serica, Vol. I (1935), p. 64.
12. Loc. cit.
13. “Indian Cosmetics,” V V V , no. 1 (N ew York: 1942). Tristes Tropiques
(Paris: 1955).
14. Franz Boas, op. cit., p. 238.
15. Ibid., p. 239 and Fig. 247.
16. See, for example, the Tlingit tattooings reproduced by J. R. Swanton in
The Art of Asia and America I *67
Bureau of American Ethnology, 26th Annual Report, Plates X LVIII to
LV I; and Franz Boas, op. cit., pp. 250-1 (body paintings).
17. I have developed this analysis further in Tristes Tropiques, chapter X X
(Paris: 1955).
18. “The A rt of the North W est Coast,” op. cit.
19. A4. Dobrizhoffer, An Account of the Abipones, trans. from the Latin,
Vol. II (London: 1822), p. 20.
20. Ibid., p. 21.
21. See also H. G . Creel: “The fine Shang pieces are executed with a care,
extending to the most minute detail, which is truly religious. And we
know, through the study of the oracle bone inscriptions, that almost all
the motifs found on Shang bronzes can be linked with the life and religion
of the Shang people. T hey had meaning and the production of the
bronzes was probably in some degree a sacred task.” “Notes on Shang
Bronzes in the Burlington House Exhibition,” Revue des Arts asiatiques,
x ( ^ ^ i P * 21 .
22. Boas, op. cit., pp. 222-24.
23. John R. Swanton, Tlingit Myths and Texts, Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bulletin 59 (1909), pp. 254-255; E. A. Rout, Maori Symbolism
(London: 1926), p. 280.
24. Florance W aterbury, Early Chinese Symbols and Literature: Vestiges
and Speculations (N ew York: 1942).
25. Bernhard Karlgren, “N ew Studies on Chinese Bronzes,” The Museum
of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin 9 (Stockholm: 1937).
26. H. G. Creel, Monumenta Serica, Vol. I ( 1935), p. 40.
27. Carl Hentze, Frzihchinesische bronzen und Kultdarstellungen (Antwerp:
1937), Table 5.
28. Boas, op. cit., p. 229. One should distinguish, however, between two
forms of split representation— namely, split representation proper, where
a face and sometimes a whole individual are represented by two joined
profiles, and split representation as shown in Plate III, where one face is
shown with two bodies. W e cannot be certain that the two types derive
from the same principle, and in the passage which we summarized at the
beginning of this chapter, Leonhard Adam wisely distinguishes between
them. The split representation so well illustrated in Plate III reminds us,
indeed, of a similar technique well known in European and Oriental
archaeology This is the beast with two bodies, whose history E. Pottier
attempted to reconstruct (“Histoire d’une bête,” in Recueil E. Pottier,
Bibliothèque des Ecoles d’Athènes et de Rome, section 142).
Pottier traces the beast with two bodies to the Chaldean representation
of an animal whose head appears in a front view and the body in profile.
A second body, also seen in profile, is assumed to have been subsequently
attached to the head. If this hypothesis is correct, the representation
of the shark analyzed by Boas should be considered either as
an independent invention or as the easternmost evidence of the diffusion
of an Asiatic theme. This last interpretation would be based on evidence
which is far from negligible, namely the recurrence of another
theme, the “whirl of animals” (see Anna Roes, “Tierwirbel,” lpek [1936-
37]) in the art of the Eurasian Steppes and in that of certain areas of
America (especially in Moundville). It is also possible that the beast
A R T
with two bodies derives independently, in Asia and America, from a
technique of split representation which has not survived in the archaeological
sites of the Near East, but which left traces in China and m ay
still be observed in certain areas of the Pacific and in America.
29. The art of Melanesia presents rudimentary forms of split representation
and dislocation. See, for example, the wooden containers of the A dm iralty
Islands reproduced by Gladys A . Reichard, “Melanesian Design: A
Study of Style in W ood and Tortoise Shell Carving,” Columbia University
Contributions to Anthropology, II, no. 18 (1933), and the fo llowing
comment by the same author: “Among the Tami, joints are
represented by an eye motif. In the face of the fact that tattooing is
exceedingly important to the Maori and that it is represented on the
carvings, it seems to me more than possible that the spiral often used
on the human figures may emphasize the joints” (p. 151 ).
30. W . Perceval Yetts, The Cull Chinese Bronzes, London, 1939, p. 75.
31. W . Perceval Yetts, The George Eumorphopoulos Collection Catalogue,
Vol. I (London: 1929), p. 43.
32. W . Perceval Yetts, “An-Yang: A Retrospect,” China Society Occasional
Papers, n.s., No. 2 (1942).
33. H. C. Creel, op. cit., p. 46.
34. A . Leroi-Gourhan, “L ’A rt animalier dans les Bronzes chinois,” Revue
des Arts asiatiques (Paris: 1935).
35. B. Karlgren, op. cit., pp. 76-78.
36. B. Karlgren, “Huai and Han,” The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities,
Bulletin 13 (Stockholm: 1941).
37. The problem of ancient relations across the Pacific Ocean has recently
come to the fore again, owing to the surprising discovery, in a provincial
museum of southeastern Formosa, of a low-relief in wood which could
be of local origin. It represents three persons standing. Those located at
the extremities are in the purest Maori style, while the person in the
middle offers a kind of transition between Maori art and that of the
Northwest Coast. See Ling Shun Sheng, “Human Figures with Protruding
Tongue,” Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Smicay
No. 2 (September 1956), Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan.
38. H. C. Creel, op. cit., pp. 65-66.
39. Ibid., p. 6j.
CHAPTER
The Serpent with Fish
inside His Body
I n a study devoted to the oral traditions of the
Toba and Pilaga Indians,1 Alfred Métraux points out certain parallels
between the great mythological themes which are still to be
found in the modern Chaco and the myths of the Andean regions
reported by ancient authors. Thus, the Toba, the Vilela, and the
Mataco know the myth of “The Long Night,” which Avila obtained
in the province of Huarochiri; and the Chiriguano relate
the tale of the rebellion of the utensils against their masters, a story
which is also to be found in the Popol-Vuh and in the work of
Montesinos. Métraux adds that the latter episode “is also portrayed
on a Chimu vase.,,
Another myth collected by Métraux strikingly illuminates a
curious motif which we know from at least two pre-Columbian illustrations.
(A careful study of the Peruvian collections in the
principal museums would doubtless yield other examples.) This
myth is the legend of the serpent Lik, “as large as a table.,, A
269
270 I A R T
kindly native, at first afraid of its appearance, carried the serpent
to the river from which it had unwisely strayed:
The serpent asked, “Won’t you carry me?” “How can I?
You are very heavy.” “No, I am light.” “But you are so large,”
countered the man. “Yes, I am large, but light.” “But you are full
of fish.” (It is true, Lik is full of fish. The fish are under his tail
and when he moves he carries them with him.) The serpent went
on, “If you carry me I shall give you all the fish I have inside me.”
Later on, the man tells his adventure and describes the fabulous
animal: “He is loaded with fish, which are in his tail.” 2
In his excellent commentary following this tale, Métraux adds:
I obtained the following information about the mythical Lik.
Lik is a supernatural animal, a huge serpent who carries fish within
his tail. Some particularly lucky people may meet Lik stranded on
high ground in winter, when water disappears from many lagoons
and canadas. Lik asks them to take him back to a lagoon which
contains water. Those who are not frightened by the very sight of
the serpent generally object that he is too heavy to be carried, but
in each case Lik uses his magic and makes himself light. When he
is once more swimming in deep water, he promises those who have
helped hhn to give them as many fish as they want whenever they
ask for them, but on one condition— that they never reveal to anyone
how the fish were obtained. . . .3
It is interesting to recall this myth in connection with the tw o
vases illustrated here. The first one (Figure 22) is a vase from
F ig u re 22. Design on a vase from Nazca. ( Collection of Dr. J. Lacan.)
The Serpent with Fish inside His Body | 271
Nazca with a rounded base; the body, roughly cylindrical, narrows
gradually toward the opening, which is 31/2 inches in diameter.
The total height of the vase is 7 inches. The decoration is in
five colors on a white background: black, deep purple, dark ocher,
light ocher, and grayish beige. A mythical animal is represented
with a human body. Its head is armed with tentacles, and it has a
jaw with huge teeth. Toward the rear of its body there is a caudal
appendix, at first straight, then curved, and ending in a hind extremity
with a second head, which is smaller. This sinuous tail
bristles with spikes, among which fish are circulating; and the
whole serpentine part, represented as though in cross-section, is
also filled with fish. The monster is devouring a man, whose bent
body is held between its teeth, while a protuberant limb in the
shape of an arm and hand is ready to stab the victim with a spear.
T w o small fish look on, apparently waiting for their share of the
feast. The whole scene seems to illustrate an episode obtained by
Métraux from his informants: “Lik sometimes swallows people.
If they have their knife when they are inside the snake, they can
cut his heart and make their way out, and at the same time secure
all the fish in his tail.” 4In the old Nazca vase, however, it is the serpent
who seems to be more effectively armed.
The second vase (Figure 23), the illustration of which we
borrow from Bassler, derives from Pacasmayo. W e see here the
same monster, half serpent, half human, whose curved body is
also filled with fish. A stripe ornamented with stylized waves suggests
that the animal is in a river, on whose surface a man is saUing
a boat. In this case, too, the archaeological object presents
a surprisingly faithful illustration of the modern narrative:
“ Kidos'k’s uncle told me that he had actually seen Lik. Once
when he was fishing in a boat he suddenly heard a big noise which
he recognized as being produced by Lik. He immediately made
for the river bank, paddling with all his strength.” 5
These parallels, which survive in areas that are far apart and
separated by several centuries in time, lead us to hope for a counterdemonstration,
that is, pictorial representations of these legends
made by contemporary natives, so that we could compare them
with the two objects reproduced here. This does not seem to be
impossible, since Métraux points out that a Toba artist drew him a
picture of Lik with fish inside his body.
F ig u re 23. Vase from Pacasmayo. (After A. Bàssler,
Alte peruanische Kunst, Vol. II, Fig. 271.)
Above all, it appears certain that in those areas of South
America where high and low cultures have been in regular or intermittent
contact for a long period of time, ethnographers and
archaeologists can collaborate in elucidating common problems.
The “serpent with fish inside his body” is only one theme among
the hundreds which are illustrated almost ad infinitum in Peruvian
ceramics. W e can no longer doubt that the key to so many heretofore
incomprehensible motifs is directly accessible in myths and
tales which are still current. One would be mistaken to neglect
these means which enable us to gain access to the past. Only the
myths can guide us into the labyrinth of ihonsters and gods when,
in the absence of writing, the plastic documentation cannot lead
us any further. By reconstructing the connections between distant
areas, various historical periods, and cultures at different stages of
development, this kind of research documents, illuminates— and,
The Serpent with Fish inside His Body | 273
perhaps, one day will explain— the vast syncretism that has persistently
frustrated Americanists in their search for the historical
antecedents of specific phenomena.®
NOTES
1. Alfred Métraux, Myths of the Toba and Pilagâ Indians of the Gran Chaco,
Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, Vol. X L (Philadelphia: 1946).
2. Ibid., p. 57.
3. Ibid., p. 59.
4. Loc. cit.
5. Ibid., p. 69.
6. In an article entitled “La Deidad primitiva de los Nasca,” published in
1932 in the Revista del Museo Nacional (Lima, Peru), II, No. 2, E.
Yacovleff approached the same problem and formulated the hypothesis
that the animal that is represented on the vase might be a terrible hunter
of the seas, a fish 13 to 30 feet long, the Orca gladiator. If this is correct,
the Pilaga legend collected by Métraux is an echo among inland peoples
of a maritime theme. A t any rate, the similarity between the modem
document and archaeological finds would remain a striking one. (See
especially Figure 9, h,m , p. 132 of Yacovleff’s article.)
W e should also keep in mind the fact that the same myth, with its
characteristic leitmotif— “You are heavy.” “No, I am light!”— recurs as
far away as North America, particularly among the Sioux, except that
among these hunters the aquatic monster is not a Mother of Fish, but
a Mother of Bisons. Curiously enough, the Mother of Fish appears
among the Iroquois (who are not fishermen), with an additional spécification:
“M y mane is heavy with fish.” W e cannot fail to be reminded of
the Maya frescoes of Bonampak in which some figures wear a headdress
(or hair) laden with fish, as well as of certain myths, especially of the
southeastern United States, in which the hero multiplies fish by washing
his hair in a river.
P A R T FIV E
Problems of Method
and Teaching
CHAPTER
Social Structure
The investigations wc may enter into, in treating this
subject, must not be considered as historical truths, but only as
mere conditional and hypothetical reasonings, rather calculated
to explain the nature of things, than to ascertain their actual
origin; just like the hypotheses which our physicists daily form
respecting the formation of the world.
J.-J. Rousseau, On the Origin of Inequality
TA h e t e r m “social structure” refers to a group of
problems the scope of which appears so wide and the definition so
imprecise that it is hardly possible for a paper strictly limited in
size to meet them fully. This is reflected in the program of this
symposium, in which problems closely related to social structure
have been allotted to several papers, such as those on “Style,”
“ Universal Categories of Culture,” and “Structural Linguistics.”
These should be read in connection with the present paper.
On the other hand, studies in social structure have to do with
the formal aspects of social phenomena; they are therefore difficult
to define, and still more difficult to discuss, without overlapping
other fields pertaining to the exact and natural sciences, where
problems are similarly set in formal terms or, rather, where the
formal expression of different problems admits of the same kind
of treatment. As a matter of fact, the main interest of socialstructure
studies seems to be that they give the anthropologist
hope that, thanks to the formalization of his problems, he may
*77
borrow methods and types of solutions from disciplines which
have gone far ahead of his own in that direction.
Such being the case, it is obvious that the term “social structure”
needs first to be defined and that some explanation should
be given of the difference which helps to distinguish studies in social
structure from the unlimited field of descriptions, analyses,
and theories dealing with social relations at large, which merge
with the whole scope of social anthropology. This is all the more
necessary, since some of those who have contributed toward setting
apart social structure as a special field of anthropological studies
conceived the former in many different manners and even sometimes,
so it seems, came to nurture grave doubts as to the validity
of their enterprise. For instance, Kroeber writes in the second edition
of his Anthropology :
“ Structure” appears to be just a yielding to a w ord that has
a perfectly good meaning but suddenly becomes fashionably attractive
for a decade or so— like “streamlining”— and during its
vogue tends to be applied indiscriminately because o f the pleasurable
connotations of its sound. O f course a typical personality
can be view ed as having a structure. But so can a physiology, any
organism, all societies and all cultures, crystals, machines— in fact
everything that is not w h olly amorphous has a structure. So what
“ structure” adds to the meaning o f our phrase seems to be nothing,
except to provoke a degree o f pleasant puzzlem ent.1
Although this passage concerns more particularly the notion of
“basic personality structure,” it has devastating implications as regards
the generalized use of the notion of structure in anthro-
pology.
Another reason makes a definition of social structure compulsory:
From the structuralist point of view which one has to adopt
if only to give the problem its meaning, it would be hopeless to
try to reach a valid definition of social structure on an inductive
basis, by abstracting common elements from the uses and definitions
current among all the scholars who claim to have made “social
structure” the object of their studies. If these concepts have a
meaning at all, they mean, first, that the notion of structure has
a structure. This we shall try to outline from the beginning as a
precaution against letting ourselves be submerged by a tedious
inventory of books and papers dealing with social relations, the
278 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
mere listing of which would more than exhaust the limited space
at our disposal. A t a further stage we will have to see how far and
in what directions the term “social structure,” as used by the different
authors, departs from our definition. This will be done in
the section devoted to kinship, since the notion of structure has
found its chief application in that field and since anthropologists
have generally chosen to express their theoretical views also in that
connection.
DEFINITION AND PROBLEMS OF METHOD
«
Passing now to the task of defining “social structure,” there
is a point which should be cleared up immediately. The term “social
structure” has nothing to do with empirical reality but with
models which are built up after it. This should help one to clarify
the difference between two concepts which are so close to each
other that they have often been confused, namely, those of social
structure and of social relations. It will be enough to state at this
time that social relations consist of the raw materials out of which
the models making up the social structure are built, while social
structure can, by no means, be reduced to the ensemble of the social
relations to be described in a given society.2 Therefore, social
structure cannot claim a field of its own among others in the social
studies. It is rather a method to be applied to any kind of social
studies, similar to the structural analysis current in other disciplines.
The question then becomes that of ascertaining what kind of
model deserves the name “structure.” This is not an anthropological
question, but one which belongs to the methodology of science
in general. Keeping this in mind, we can say that a structure consists
of a model meeting with several requirements.
First, the structure exhibits the characteristics of a system. It
is made up of several elements, none of which can undergo a
change without effecting changes in all the other elements.
Second, for any given model there should be a possibility of
ordering a series of transformations resulting in a group of models
of the same type.
Third, the above properties make it possible to predict how
the model will react if one or more of its elements are submitted
to certain modifications.
Social Structure | 279
Finally, the model should be constituted so as to make immediately
intelligible all the observed facts.3
These being the requirements for any model with structural
value, several consequences follow. These, however, do not pertain
to the definition of structure, but have to do with the chief
properties exhibited and problems raised by structural analysis
when contemplated in the social and other fields.
Observation and Experimentation. Great care should be
taken to distinguish between the observational and the experimental
levels. To observe facts and elaborate methodological devices
which permit the construction of models out of these facts is not
at all the same thing as to experiment on the models. By “experimenting
on models,” we mean the set of procedures aiming at ascertaining
how a given model will react when subjected to change
and at comparing models of the same or different types. This distinction
is all the more necessary, since many discussions on social
structure revolve around the apparent contradiction between the
concreteness and individuality of ethnological data and the abstract
and formal character generally exhibited by structural studies.
This contradiction disappears as one comes to realize that these
features belong to two entirely different levels, or rather to two
stages of the same process. On the observational level, the main—
one could almost say the only— rule is that all the facts should be
carefully observed and described, without allowing any theoretical
preconception to decide whether some are more important than
others. This rule implies, in turn, that facts should be studied in
relation to themselves (by what kind of concrete process did they
come into being?) and in relation to the whole (always aiming to
relate each modification which can be observed in a sector to the
global situation in which it first appeared).
This rule together with its corollaries has been explicitly
formulated by K. Goldstein4 in relation to psychophysiological
studies, and it may be considered valid for any kind of structural
analysis. Its immediate consequence is that, far from being contradictory,
there is a direct relationship between the detail and
concreteness of ethnographical description and the validity and
generality of the model which is constructed after it. For, though
many models may be used as convenient devices to describe and
i8o | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
explain the phenomena, it is obvious that the best model will alw
ays be that which is true, that is, the simplest possible model
w hich, while being derived exclusively from the facts under consideration,
also makes it possible to account for all of them. Therefore,
the first task is to ascertain what those facts are.
Consciousness and Unconsciousness. A second distinction
has to do with the conscious or unconscious character of the
models. In the history of structural thought, Boas may be credited
w ith having introduced this distinction. He made clear that a
category of facts can more easily yield to structural analysis
w hen the social group in which it is manifested has not elaborated
a conscious model to interpret or justify it.5 Some readers may
be surprised to find Boas’ name quoted in connection with structural
theory, since he has often been described as one of the main
obstacles in its path. But this writer has tried to demonstrate that
Boas’ shortcomings in matters of structural studies did not lie in his
failure to understand their importance and significance, which he
did, as a matter of fact, in the most prophetic way. They rather resulted
from the fact that he imposed on structural studies conditions
of validity, some of which will remain forever part of their
methodology, while some others are so exacting and impossible to
meet that they would have withered scientific development in any
field.6
A structural model may be conscious or unconscious without
this difference affecting its nature. It can only be said that when
the structure of a certain type of phenomena does not lie at a great
depth, it is more likely that some kind of model, standing as a
screen to hide it, will exist in the collective consciousness. For conscious
models, which are usually known as “norms,” are by definition
very poor ones, since they are not intended to explain the
phenomena but to perpetuate them. Therefore, structural analysis
is confronted with a strange paradox well known to the linguist,
that is: the more obvious structural organization is, the more difficult
it becomes to reach it because of the inaccurate conscious
models lying across the path which leads to it.
From the point of view of the degree of consciousness, the
anthropologist is confronted with two kinds of situations. He may
have to construct a model from phenomena the systematic characSocial
Structure | 281
ter of which has evoked no awareness on the part of the culture;
this is the kind of simpler situation referred to by Boas as providing
the easiest ground for anthropological research. Or else the
anthropologist will be dealing on the one hand with raw phenomena
and on the other with the models already constructed by the
culture to interpret the former. Though it is likely that, for the
reasons stated above, these models will prove unsatisfactory, it is
by no means necessary that this should always be the case. As a
matter of fact, many “primitive” cultures have built models of
their marriage regulations which are much more to the point than
models built by professional anthropologists.7 Thus one cannot
dispense with studying a culture’s “home-made” models for two
reasons. First, these models might prove to be accurate or, at least,
to provide some insight into the structure of the phenomena; after
all, each culture has its own theoreticians whose contributions deserve
the same attention as that which the anthropologist gives to
colleagues. And, second, even if the models are biased or erroneous,
the very bias and type of error are a part of the facts under
study and probably rank among the most significant ones. But
even when taking into consideration these culturally produced
models, the anthropologist does not forget— as he has sometimes
been accused of doing8— that the cultural norms are not of themselves
structures. Rather, they furnish an important contribution to
an understanding of the structures, either as factual documents or
as theoretical contributions similar to those of the anthropologist
himself.
This point has been given great attention by the French sociological
school. Durkheim and Mauss, for instance, have always
taken care to substitute, as a starting point for the survey of native
categories of thought, the conscious representations prevailing
among the natives themselves for those stemming from the anthropologist’s
own culture. This was undoubtedly an important step,
which, nevertheless, fell short of its goal because these authors
were not sufficiently aware that native conscious representations,
important as they are, may be just as remote from the unconscious
reality as any other.9
Structure and Measure. It is often believed that one of the
main interests of the notion of structure is to permit the introduc-
282 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
rion of measurement in social anthropology. This view has been favored
by the frequent appearance of mathematical or semimathematical
aids in books or articles dealing with social structure. It is
true that in some cases structural analysis has made it possible to
attach numerical values to invariants. This was, for instance, the
result of Kroeber’s study of women’s dress fashions, a landmark
in structural research,10 as well as of a few other studies which will
be discussed below.
However, one should keep in mind that there is no necessary
connection between measure and structure. Structural studies are,
in the social sciences, the indirect outcome of modern developments
in mathematics which have given increasing importance to
the qualitative point of view in contradistinction to the quantitative
point of view of traditional mathematics. It has become possible,
therefore, in fields such as mathematical logic, set theory,
group theory, and topology, to develop a rigorous approach to
problems which do not admit of a metrical solution. The outstanding
achievements in this connection— which offer themselves as
springboards not yet utilized by social scientists^are to be found
in J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and
Economic Behavior;u N. Wiener, Cybernetics;12 and C. Shannon
and W . Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communica­
tion.13
Mechanical Models and Statistical Models. A last distinction
refers to the relation between the scale of the model and that of
the phenomena. According to the nature of these phenomena, it
becomes possible or impossible to build a model, the elements of
which are on the same scale as the phenomena themselves. A model
the elements of which are on the same scale as the phenomena will
be called a “mechanical model” ; when the elements of the model
are on a different scale, we shall be dealing with a “statistical
model.” The laws of marriage provide the best illustration of this
difference. In primitive societies these laws can be expressed in
models calling for actual grouping of the individuals according to
kin or clan; these are mechanical models. No such distribution
exists in our own society, where types of marriage are determined
b y the size of the primary and secondary groups to which prospective
mates belong, social fluidity, amount of information, and
Social Structure | 283
the like. A satisfactory (though yet untried) attempt to formulate
the invariants of our marriage system would therefore have to determine
average values— thresholds; it would be a statistical model.
There may be intermediate forms between these two. Such is the
case in societies which (as even our own) have a mechanical model
to determine prohibited marriages and rely on a statistical model
for those which are permissible. It should also be kept in mind that
the same phenomena may admit of different models, some mechanical
and some statistical, according to the way in which they are
grouped together and with other phenomena. A society which
recommends cross-cousin marriage but where this ideal marriage
type occurs only with limited frequency needs, in order that the
system may be properly explained, both a mechanical and a statistical
model, as was well understood by Forde and Elwin.14
It should also be kept in mind that what makes socialstructure
studies valuable is that structures are models, the formal
properties of which can be compared independently of their elements.
The structuralist’s task is thus to recognize and isolate levels
of reality which, have strategic value from his point of view,
namely, which admit of representation as models, whatever their
type. It often happens that the same data may be considered from
different perspectives embodying equally strategic values, though
the resulting models will be in some cases mechanical and in others
statistical. This situation is well known in the exact and natural
sciences; for instance, the theory of a small number of physical
bodies belongs to classical mechanics, but if the number of bodies
becomes greater, then one should rely on the laws of thermodynamics,
that is, use a statistical model instead of a mechanical one,
though the nature of the data remains the same in both cases.
The same situation prevails in the human and the social sciences.
If one takes a phenomenon such as suicide, for instance, it
can be studied on two different levels. First, it is possible by studying
individual situations to establish what may be called mechanical
models of suicide, taking into account in each case the personality
of the victim, his or her life history, the characteristics of the primary
and secondary groups in which he or she developed, and the
like; or else one can build models of a statistical nature, by recording
suicide frequency over a certain period of time in one or more
societies and in different types of primary and secondary groups,
284 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
etc. These would be levels at which the structural study of suicide
carries a strategic value, that is, where it becomes possible to build
models which may be compared ( 1) for different types of suicides,
(2) for different societies, and (3) for different types of social
phenomena. Scientific progress consists not only in discovering
new invariants belonging to those levels but also in discovering
new levels where the study of the same phenomena offers the
same strategic value. Such a result was achieved, for instance, by
psychoanalysis, which discovered the means to set up models in a
new field, that of the psychological life of the patient considered as
a whole.
The foregoing should help to make clear the dual (and at first
sight almost contradictory) nature of structural studies. On the
one hand, they aim at isolating strategic levels, and this can be
achieved only by “carving out” a certain constellation of phenomena.
From that point of view, each type of structural study appears
autonomous, entirely independent of all the others and even of
different methodological approaches to the same field. On the
other hand, the essential value of these studies is to construct
models the formal properties of which can be compared with, and
explained by, the same properties as in models corresponding to
other strategic levels. Thus it may be said that their ultimate end is
to override traditional boundaries between different disciplines and
to promote a true interdisciplinary approach.
An example may be given. A great deal of discussion has
taken place lately about the difference between history and anthropology,
and Kroeber and others have made clear that the
time dimension is of minor significance in this connection.15 From
what has been stated above, one can see exactly where the difference
lies, not only between these two disciplines but also between
them and others. Ethnography and history differ from social anthropology
and sociology, inasmuch as the former two aim at
gathering data, while the latter two deal with models constructed
from these data. Similarly, ethnography and social anthropology
correspond to two different stages in the same research, the ultimate
result of which is to construct mechanical models, while history
(together with its so-called “auxiliary” disciplines) and sociology
end ultimately in statistical models. The relations between
these four disciplines may thus be reduced to two oppositions, one
Social Structure | 285
between empirical observation and model building, which characterizes
the initial stage of research, and the other between the statistical
and the mechanical nature of models, which constitutes the
products of research. By arbitrarily assigning the sign + to the first
term of each opposition and the sign — to the second, we obtain the
following chart:
SOCIAL
ETHNOG- ANTHROHISTORY
SOCIOLOGY RAPHY POLOGY
empirical observation/
model building + — + —
mechanical models/
statistical models — — + +
This is the reason why the social sciences though they all
have to do with the time dimension, nevertheless deal with two
different categories of time. Anthropology uses a “mechanical”
time, reversible and non-cumulative. For instance, the model of, let
us say, a patrilineal kinship system does not in itself show whether
or not the system has always remained patrilineal, or has been preceded
by a matrilineal form, or by any number of shifts from
patrilineal to matrilineal and vice versa. On the contrary, historical
time is “statistical” ; it always appears as an oriented and non-reversible
process. An evolution which would take contemporary Italian
society back to that of the Roman Republic is as impossible to
conceive of as is the reversibility of the processes belonging to the
second law of thermodynamics.
This discussion helps to clarify Firth’s distinction between social
structure, which he conceives as outside the time dimension,
and social organization, where time re-enters.10 Also in this connection,
the debate which has been going on for the past few years
between followers of the Boasian anti-evolutionist tradition and of
Professor Leslie W hite17 may become better understood. The Boasian
school has been mainly concerned with models of a mechanical
type, and from this point of view the concept of evolution has no
operational value. On the other hand, it is certainly legitimate to
speak of evolution in a historical and sociological sense, but the
elements to be organized into an evolutionary process cannot be
286 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
borrowed from the level of a cultural typology which consists of
mechanical models. They should be sought at a sufficiently deep
level to insure that these elements will remain unaffected by different
cultural contexts (as, let us say, genes are identical elements
combined into different patterns corresponding to the different racial
[statistical] models) and can accordingly permit the drawing
of long statistical runs. Boas and his followers are therefore right
in rejecting the concept of evolution, since it is not relevant on the
level of the mechanical models which they employ exclusively. As
for Leslie White, he is mistaken in his attempts to reintroduce the
concept of evolution, since he persists in utilizing models of the
same type as those of his opponents. The evolutionists would find
it easier to regain their position if they consented to substitute statistical
for mechanical models, that is, models whose elements are
independent of their combinations and which remain identical
thfough a sufficiently long period of time.18
The distinction between mechanical and statistical models has
also become fundamental in another respect; it makes it possible to
clarify the role of the comparative method in structural studies.
This method was greatly emphasized by both Radcliffe-Brown
and Lowie. The former writes:
Theoretical sociology is commonly regarded as an inductive
science, induction being the logical method of inference by which
we arrive at general propositions from the consideration of particular
instances. Although Professor Evans-Pritchard . . . seems
to imply in some of his statements that the logical method of induction,
using comparison, classification and generalization, is not
applicable to the phenomena of human social life . . . I hold that
social anthropology must depend on systematic comparative
studies of many societies.19
W riting about religion, he states:
The experimental method of social religion . . . means that
we must study in the light of our hypothesis a sufficient number
of diverse particular religions or religious cults in relation to the
particular societies in which they are found. This is a task not for
one person but for a number.20
Similarly, Lowie, after pointing out that “the literature of anthropology
is full of alleged correlations which lack empirical supSocial
Structure | 287
port,” 21 insists on the need for a “broad inductive basis” for generalization.22
It is interesting to note that by this claim for inductive
support these authors dissent not only from Durkheim— “When a
law has been proved by a well performed experiment, this law is
valid universally,” 23— but also from Goldstein, who, as already
mentioned, has lucidly expressed what may be called “the rules of
structuralist method” in a way general enough to make them valid
outside the more limited field in which they were first applied by
their author. Goldstein remarks that the need to make a thorough
study of each case implies that the amount of cases to be studied
should be small; and he proceeds by raising the question whether
or not the risk exists that the cases under consideration may be special
ones, allowing no general conclusions about the others. His
answer is as follows:
This objection com pletely misunderstands the real situation
. . . an accum ulation of facts even numerous is o f no help if these
facts w ere im perfectly established; it does not lead to the knowledge
of things as they really happen. . . . W e must choose only
those cases w hich perm it o f form ulating final judgments. And
then, w hat is true for one case w ill also be true for any other.24
Probably very few anthropologists would be ready to support
these bold statements. However, no structuralist study may be
undertaken without a clear awareness of Goldstein’s dilemma:
either to study many cases in a superficial and in the end ineffective
way; or to limit oneself to a thorough study of a small number
of cases, thus proving that in the last analysis one well done experiment
is sufficient to make a demonstration.
Now the reason for so many anthropologists’ faithfulness to
the comparative method may be sought in some sort of confusion
between the procedures used to establish mechanical and statistical
models. While Durkheim and Goldstein’s position undoubtedly
holds true for the former, it is obvious that no statistical model can
be achieved without statistics, that is, without gathering a large
amount of data. But in this case the method is no more comparative
than in the other, since the data to be collected will be acceptable
only insofar as they are all of the same kind. W e remain, therefore,
confronted with only one alternative, namely, to make a thorough
study of one case. The real difference lies in the selection of the
288 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
“case,” which will be patterned so as to include elements which are
either on the same scale as the model to be constructed or on a different
scale.
Having thus clarified these basic questions revolving around
the nature of studies in social structure, it becomes possible to
make an inventory of the main fields of inquiry and to discuss
some of the results achieved so far.
SOCIAL MORPHOLOGY OR GROUP STRUCTURE
In this section, “group” is not intended to mean the social
group but, in a more general sense, the manner in which the phenomena
under study are grouped together.
The object of social-structure studies is to understand social
relations with the aid of models. N ow it is impossible to conceive
of social relations outside a common framework. Space and time
are the two frames of reference we use to situate social relations,
either alone or together. These space and time dimensions are not
the same as the analogous ones used by other disciplines but consist
of a “social” space and of a “social” time, meaning that they have
no properties outside those which derive from the properties of
the social phenomena which “furnish” them. According to their
social structure, human societies have elaborated many types of
such “continuums,” and there should be no undue concern on the
part of the anthropologist that, in the course of his studies, he might
temporarily have to borrow types widely different from the existing
patterns and eventually to evolve new ones.
W e have already noticed that the time continuum may be
reversible or oriented in accordance with the level of reality embodying
strategic value from the point of view of the research at
hand. Many other possibilities may arise: The time dimension may
be conceived of as independent from the observer and unlimited
or as a function of the observer’s own (biological) time and limited;
it may be considered as consisting of parts which are, or
are not, homologous with one another, etc. Evans-Pritchard has
shown how such formal properties underlie the qualitative distinctions
between the observer’s life span and history, legend, and
myth.25 His basic distinctions have been found, furthermore, to be
valid for contemporary societies.26
Social Structure | 289
290 M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
W hat is true of the time dimension applies equally well to
space. It has been Durkheim’s and Mauss’s great merit to call attention
for the first time to the variable properties of space which
should be considered in order to understand properly the structure
of several primitive societies.27 In this undertaking they received
their inspiration from the work of Cushing, which it has
become fashionable in recent years to belittle. However, Frank
Hamilton Cushing’s insight and sociological imagination entitle
him to a seat on Morgan’s right, as one of the great forerunners
of social-structure studies. The gaps and inaccuracies in his descriptions,
less serious than the indictment of having “over-interpreted”
some of his material, will be viewed in their true proportions when
it is realized that, albeit in an unconscious fashion, Cushing was aiming
less at giving an actual description of Zuni society than at elaborating
a model (his famous sevenfold division) which would explain
most of its processes and structure.
Social time and space should also be characterized according
to scale. There is in social studies a “macro-time” and a
“micro-time” ; the same distinction applies also to space. This explains
why social structure may have to deal with prehistory,
archaeology, and diffusion processes as well as with psychological
topology, such as that initiated by Lewin or Moreno’s sociometry.
As a matter of fact, structures of the same type may exist on quite
different time and space levels, and it is far from inconceivable
that, for instance, a statistical model resulting from sociometric
studies might be of greater help in building a similar model in the
field of the history of cultures than an apparently more direct approach
would permit.
Therefore, historico-geographical concerns should not be excluded
from the field of structural studies, as was generally implied
by the widely accepted opposition between “diffusionism”
and “functionalism.” 28A functionalist may be far from a structuralist,
as is clearly shown by the example of Malinowski. On the
other hand, undertakings such as those of G. Dumézil,29 as well as
A. L. Kroeber’s personal case of a highly structure-minded scholar
devoting most of his time to distribution studies, are proofs that
even history can be approached in a structural way.
Since synchronic studies raise fewer problems than diachronic
ones (the data being more homogeneous in the first case), the simplest
morphological studies are those having to do with the qualitative,
non-measurable properties of social space, that is, the manner
in which social phenomena can be situated on a map and the regularities
exhibited in their configurations. Much might have been
expected from the researches of the so-called “Chicago school”
dealing with urban ecology, and the reasons for the gradual loss
of interest in this line of research are not altogether clear. It has
to do mostly with ecology, which was made the subject of another
paper in this symposium.30 However, it is not inappropriate
to state at this point what kind of relationship prevails between
ecology on the one hand and social structure on the other.
Both have to do with the spatial distribution of phenomena. But
social structure deals exclusively with those “spaces” the properties
of which are of a purely sociological nature, that is, not affected
by such natural determinants as geology, climatology, physiography,
and the like. This is the reason why so-called urban ecology
should hold great interest for the social anthropologist; the
urban space is small enough and homogeneous enough (from
every point of view except the social one) for all its differential
qualitative aspects to be ascribed mostly to the action of internal
forces accessible to structural sociology.
It would perhaps have been wiser, instead of starting with
complex communities hard to isolate from external influences, to
approach first— as suggested by Marcel Mauss31— those small and
relatively isolated communities with which the anthropologist usually
deals. A few such studies may be found,32 but they rarely and
then reluctantly go beyond the descriptive stage. There have been
practically no attempts to correlate the spatial configurations with
the formal properties of the other aspects of social life.
This is much to be regretted, since in many parts of the world
there is an obvious relationship between the social structure and
the spatial structure of settlements, villages, or camps. To limit
ourselves to America, the camp shapes of the Plains Indians have
long demanded attention by virtue of regular variations connected
with the social organization of each tribe; and the same holds true
for the circular disposition of huts in Ge villages of eastern and
central Brazil. In both cases we are dealing with relatively homoSocial
Structure | 291
geneous cultural areas where important series of concomitant
variations may be observed. Another kind of problem results from
the comparison of areas where different types of village structures
may be compared to different types of social relations, for example,
the circular-village structure of the Ge and the parallellayers
structure of the Pueblo. The latter could even be studied
diachronically with the archaeologist’s help, which would raise
questions such as the possible linkage of the transition from semicircular
structures to parallel ones, with the shift of village sites
from valley to mesa top, of the structural distribution of clan
houses suggested by many myths to the present-day statistical one,
etc.
These few examples are not intended to prove that spatial
configuration is the mirror image of social organization but to call
attention to the fact that, while among numerous peoples it would
be extremely difficult to discover any such relation, among others
(who must accordingly have something in common) the existence
of a relation is evident, though unclear, and in a third group spatial
configuration seems to be almost a projective representation of the
social structure. But even the most striking cases call for a critical
study; for example, this writer has attempted to demonstrate that,
among the Bororo, spatial configuration reflects not the true, unconscious
social organization but a model existing consciously in the
native mind, though its nature is entirely illusory and even contradictory
to reality.33 Problems of this kind (which are raised not
only by the consideration of relatively durable spatial configurations
but also in regard to recurrent temporary ones, such as those
shown in dance, ritual, etc.34) offer an opportunity to study social
and mental processes through objective and crystallized external
projections of them.
Another approach which may lead more directly to a mathematical
expression of social phenomena starts with the numerical
properties of human groups. This has traditionally been the field of
demography, but it is only recently that a few scholars coming
from different fields— demography, sociology, anthropology—
have begun to elaborate a kind of qualitative demography, that is,
dealing no longer with continuous variations within human groups
selected for empirical reasons but with significant discontinuities
292 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
evidenced in the behavior of groups considered as wholes and chosen
on the basis of these discontinuities. This “socio-demography,”
as it was called by one of its proponents,35 is “ on a level” with
social anthropology, and it is not difficult to foresee that in the
very near future it will be called upon to provide firm grounds for
any kind of anthropological research. Therefore, it is surprising
that so litde attention was paid in anthropological circles to the
study by a demographer, L. Livi, of the formal properties characteristic
of the smallest possible size of a group compatible with its
existence as a group.36 His researches, closely connected with
G. Dahlberg’s, are all the more important for anthropologists, in
that the latter usually deal with populations very close to Livi’s
minimum. There is an obvious relation between the functioning and
even the durability of the social structure and the actual size of the
population.37 It is thus becoming increasingly evident that formal
properties exist which are immediately and directly related to the
absolute size of the population, whatever the group under consideration.
These should be the first to be assessed and taken into account
in an interpretation of other properties.
Next come numerical properties expressing, not the group
size taken globally, but the size and interaction of subsets of the
group which can be defined by significant discontinuities. Tw o lines
of inquiry should be mentioned in this connection.
There is, first, the vast body of research deriving from the
famous “rank-size law” for cities, which makes it possible to establish
a correlation between the absolute size of cities (calculated on
the basis of population size) and the position of each city within a
rank order, and even, it appears, to infer one of the elements from
the other.38
O f a much more direct bearing on current anthropological
research is the recent work of two French demographers, who, by
using Dahlberg’s demonstration that the size of an isolate (that is,
a group of intermarrying people) can be computed from the frequency
of marriage between cross-cousins,39 have succeeded in
computing the average size of isolates in all French départements,
thus throwing open to anthropological investigation the marriage
system of a complex modern society.40 The average size of the
French isolate varies from less than 1,000 to over 2,800 individuals.
This numerical evaluation shows that even in a modern society the
Social Structure | 293
network of people united by kinship ties is much smaller than
might be expected— about the same size as in primitive groups.
The inference is that, while the absolute size of the intermarrying
group remains approximately on the same scale in all human societies
(the ratio of the French types in relation to the average primitive
types being about 10 to i), a complex society becomes such
not so much because of an expansion of the isolate itself as on account
of an expansion of other types of social links (economic,
political, intellectual) ; and these are used to connect a great number
of isolates which, by themselves, remain relatively static.
But the most striking result of this research is the discovery
that the smallest isolates are found not only in mountain areas, as
was expected, but also (and even more) in areas including a large
urban center; the following départements: Rhône (Lyon), G ironde
(Bordeaux), and Seine (Paris) are at the bottom of the list,
with the size of their isolates respectively 740, 910, and 930. In the
Seine département, which is practically limited to Paris and its suburbs,
the frequency of consanguineous marriages is higher than in
any of the fifteen rural départements which surround it.
It is not necessary to emphasize the bearing of such studies on
social structure; the main fact, from the point of view of this paper,
is that they, at the same time, make possible and call for an immediate
extension on the anthropological level. An approach has been
found which enables us to break down a modern complex society
into smaller units which are of the same nature as those commonly
studied by anthropologists; on the other hand, this approach
remains incomplete, since the absolute size of the isolate is
only a part of the phenomenon, the other one, equally important,
being the length of the marriage cycles. For a small isolate may admit
of long marriage cycles (that is, tending to be of the same size
as the isolate itself), while a relatively large isolate can be made up
of shorter cycles.41 This problem, which could be solved only with
the help of genealogies, points the way toward close cooperation
between the structural demographer and the social anthropologist.
Another contribution, this time on a theoretical level, may be
expected from this cooperation. The concept of isolate may help
to solve a problem in social structure which has given rise to a
controversy between Radcliffe-Brown and Lowie. The former
294 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
has labeled as “a fantastic reification of abstraction” the suggestion
made by some anthropologists, mostly in America, that anthropology
should be defined as the study not of society but of culture.
T o him, “European culture is an abstraction and so is the culture
of an African tribe.” All that exists are human beings connected
by an unlimited series of social relations.42 This, Lowie says, is “a
factitious quarrel.” 43 However, the misunderstandings which lie at
its root appear to be very real, since they arose all over again on
the occasion of the publication of a book by White44 and its criticism
by Bidney.45
It seems that both the reality and the autonomy of the concept
of culture could better be validated if culture were treated,
from an operational point of view, in the same way as the geneticist
and demographer treat the closely allied concept of “isolate.”
W hat is called a “culture” is a fragment of humanity which, from
the point of view of the research at hand and of the scale on which
the latter is carried out, presents significant discontinuities in relation
to the rest of humanity. If our aim is to ascertain significant
discontinuities between, let us say, North America and Europe,
then we are dealing with two different cultures; but should we
become concerned with significant discontinuities between New
York and Chicago, we would be allowed to speak of these two
groups as different cultural “units.” Since these discontinuities can
be reduced to invariants, which is the goal of structural analysis,
we see that culture may, at the same time, correspond to an objective
reality and be a function of the kind of research undertaken.
Accordingly, the same set of individuals may be considered
to be parts of many different cultural contexts: universal, continental,
national, regional, local, etc., as well as familial, occupational,
religious, political, etc. This is true as a limit; however,
anthropologists usually reserve the term “culture” to designate a
group of discontinuities which is significant on several of these
levels at the same time. That it can never be valid for all levels
does not prevent the concept of “culture” from being as fundamental
for the anthropologist as that of “isolate” for the demographer.
Both belong to the same epistemological family. On a question
such as that of the positivistic character of a concept, the
anthropologist can rely on a physicist’s judgment; it is Niels Bohr
Social Structure | 295
who states that “the traditional differences of [human cultures]
in many ways resemble the different equivalent modes in which
physical experience can be described.” 48
296 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
SOCIAL STATICS OR COMMUNICATION STRUCTURES
A society consists of individuals and groups which communicate
with one another. The existence of, or lack of, communication
can never be defined in an absolute manner. Communication
does not cease at society’s borders. These borders, rather, constitute
thresholds where the rate and forms of communication,
without waning altogether, reach a much lower level. This condition
is usually meaningful enough for the population, both inside
and outside the borders, to become aware of it. This awareness
is not, however, a prerequisite for the definition of a given society.
It only accompanies the more precise and stable forms.
In any society, communication operates on three different
levels: communication of women, communication of goods and
services, communication of messages. Therefore, kinship studies,
economics, and linguistics approach the same kinds of problems
on different strategic levels and really pertain to the same field.
Theoretically at least, it might be said that kinship and marriage
rules regulate a fourth type of communication, that of genes between
phenotypes. Therefore, it should be kept in mind that culture
does not consist exclusively of forms of communication of its
own, like language, but also (and perhaps mostly) of rules stating
how the “games of communication” should be played both on the
natural and on the cultural levels.
The above comparison between the fields of kinship, economics,
and linguistics cannot hide the fact that they refer to
forms of communication which are on a different scale. Should
one try to compute the communication rate involved, on the one
hand, in the intermarriages and, on the other, in the exchange of
messages occurring in a given society, one would probably discover
the difference to be of about the same magnitude as, let us
say, that between the exchange of heavy molecules of two viscous
liquids through a not very permeable film and radio communication.
Thus, from marriage to language one passes from low- to
high-speed communication; this arises from the fact that what is
communicated in marriage is almost of the same nature as those
who communicate (women, on the one hand, men, on the other),
while speakers of language are not of the same nature as their utterances.
The opposition is thus one of person to symbol, or of
value to sign. This helps to clarify the somewhat intermediate position
of economics between these two extremes— goods and services
are not persons, but they still are values. And, though neither
symbols nor signs, they require symbols or signs in order to be successfully
exchanged when the exchange system reaches a certain
degree of complexity.
From this outline of the structure of social communication
three important sets of considerations follow.
First, the position of economics in social structure can be
precisely defined. Economics in the past has been suspect among
anthropologists. Even in this symposium, no paper was explicitly
assigned to economic problems. Yet, whenever this highly important
topic has been broached, a close relationship has been shown
to prevail between economic pattern and social structure. Since
Mauss’s pioneer papers47 and Malinowski’s book on the kulaAS— by
far his masterpiece— every attempt in this direction has shown
that the economic system provides sociological formulations with
some of their more fundamental invariants.49
The anthropologist’s reluctance originated in the condition of
economic studies themselves; these were ridden with conflicts between
bitterly opposed schools and at the same time bathed in an
aura of mystery and conceit. Thus the anthropologist labored
under the impression that economics dealt mostly with abstractions
and that there was little connection between the actual life
o f actual groups of people and such notions as value, utility, profit,
and the like.
The complete upheaval of economic studies resulting from
the publication of Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s book50ushers
in an era of closer cooperation between the economist and the
anthropologist, and for two reasons. First— though economics
achieves here a rigorous approach— this book deals not with abstractions
such as those just mentioned but with concrete individuals
and groups which are represented in their actual and empirical
relations of cooperation and competition. Surprising though the
Social Structure | 297
parallel may seem, this formalism converges with certain aspects
of Marxian thought.51
Next— and as a consequence— it introduces for the first time
mechanical models which are of the same type as, and intermediate
between, those used in mathematical physics and in social anthropology—
especially in the field of kinship. In this connection it is
striking that Von Neumann’s models are borrowed from the
theory of games, a line of thought which was initiated independently
by Kroeber when he compared social institutions “to the
play of earnest children.” 52 There is, true enough, an important
difference between games of entertainment and marriage rules:
The former are constructed in such a way as to permit each player
to extract from statistical regularities maximal differential values,
while marriage rules, acting in the opposite direction, aim at establishing
statistical regularities in spite of the differential values
existing between individuals and generations. In this sense they
constitute a special kind of “upturned game.” Nevertheless, they
can be treated with the same methods. Besides, such being the
rules, each individual and group tries to play it in the “normal”
way, that is, by maximizing his own advantage at the expense of
the others (i.e., to get more wives, or better ones, whether from
the esthetic, erotic, or economic point of view). The theory of
courtship is thus a part of formal sociology. T o those who are
afraid that sociology might in this way get hopelessly involved in
individual psychology, it will be enough to recall that Von Neumann
has succeeded in giving a mathematical demonstration of the
nature and strategy of a psychological technique as sophisticated
as bluffing at the game of poker.53
The next advantage of this increasing consolidation of social
anthropology, economics, and linguistics into one great field, that
of communication, is to make clear that they consist exclusively of
the study of rules and have little concern with the nature of the
partners (either individuals or groups) whose play is being patterned
after these rules. As Von Neumann puts it, “The game is
simply the totality of the rules which describe it.” 54 Besides that of
game, other operational notions are those of play, move, choice,
and strategy.55But the nature of the players need not be considered.
What is important is to find out when a given player can make a
choice and when he cannot.
298 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
This outlook should open the study of kinship and marriage
to approaches directly derived from the theory of communication.
In the terminology of this theory it is possible to speak of the information
of a marriage system by the number of choices at the
observer’s disposal to define the marriage status of an individual.
Thus the information is unity for a dual exogamous system, and,
in an Australian kind of kinship typology, it would increase with
the logarithm of the number of matrimonial classes. A theoretical
system where everybody could marry everybody would be a system
with no redundancy, since each marriage choice would not
be determined by previous choices, while the positive content of
marriage rules constitutes the redundancy of the system under
consideration. By studying the percentage of “ free” choices in a
matrimonial population (not absolutely free, but in relation to
certain postulated conditions), it would thus become possible to
offer numerical estimates of its entropy, both absolute and rela­
tive.
As a consequence, it would become possible to translate statistical
models into mechanical ones and vice versa, thus bridging the
gap still existing between population studies on the one hand and
anthropological ones on the other, thereby laying a foundation for
prediction and control. To give an example: In our own society
the organization of marriage choices does not go beyond (1) the
prohibition of close kin, (2) the size of the isolate, and (3) the accepted
standard of behavior, which limits the frequency of certain
choices within the isolate. With these data at hand, one could compute
the information of the system, that is, translate our loosely
organized and highly statistical marriage system into a mechanical
model, thus making possible its comparison with the large series of
marriage systems of a “mechanical” type available from simpler so­
cieties.
Similarly, a great deal of discussion has been carried on recently
about the Murngin kinship system, which has been treated
by different authors as a seven-class system, or less than seven, or
four, or thirty-two, or three,00 before recent research resolved the
question in favor of the last number.57
In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to assess the
bearing of some recent lines of mathematical research upon anSocial
Structure | 299
thropological studies. W e have seen that their main contribution
was to provide anthropology with a unifying concept— communication—
enabling it to consolidate widely different types of inquiry
into one, and at the same time providing the theoretical and
methodological tools to further knowledge in that direction. The
question which should now be raised is: T o what extent is social
anthropology ready to make use of these tools?
The main feature of the development of social anthropology
in the past years has been the increased attention to kinship. This
is, indeed, not a new phenomenon, since it can be said that, with
his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,
Lewis Morgan’s genius at one and the same time founded social
anthropology and kinship studies and brought to the fore the basic
reasons for attaching such importance to the latter: permanency,
systematic character, continuity of changes.68 The views outlined
in the preceding pages may help to explain this fundamental interest
in kinship, since we have considered it as the anthropologist’s
special and privileged share in the science of communication.
Unfortunately, despite the enormous development of kinship
studies in recent years, the amount of usable material in relation
to that actually collected remains small. This is clearly reflected
in the fact that, in order to undertake his survey, Murdock found it
possible to retain information concerning no more than about 250
societies (from our point of view, a still overindulgent estimate)
out of the 3,000 to 4,000 distinct societies still in existence.59 It is
somewhat disheartening that the enormous work devoted in the
last fifty years to the gathering of ethnographic material has
yielded so little, although kinship has been one of the main concerns
of those undertaking this work.
However, it should be kept in mind that what has brought
about this unhappy result is not a lack of coverage— on the contrary.
If the workable material is small, it is rather on account of
the inductive illusion; it was believed that as many cultures as possible
should be covered, albeit lightly, rather than a few thoroughly
enough to yield significant results. Accordingly, there is no lack of
consistency in the fact that, following their individual temperaments,
anthropologists have preferred one or the other of the alternatives
imposed by the situation. While Radcliffe-Brown, Eggan,
Spoehr, Fortes, and this writer have tried to consider limited
3oo | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
areas where dense information was available, Murdock has followed
the complementary (but not contradictory) path of widening
the field even at the expense of the reliability of the data, and
Lowie00has tried to pursue a kind of middle road between the two
approaches.
The case of the Pueblo area is especially striking, since for
probably no other area in the world is there available such an
amount of data of such controversial quality. It is almost with
despair that one comes to realize that the voluminous material accumulated
by Voth, Fewkes, Dorsey, Parsons, and, to some extent,
Stevenson is practically unworkable, since these authors have been
feverishly piling up information without any clear idea of what it
meant or, above all, of the hypotheses which it should have helped
to test. The situation changed when Lowie and Krocber entered
the field, but the lack of statistical data on marriage choices and
types of intermarriages, which might have been gathered for more
than fifty years, will probably be impossible to overcome. This is
to be regretted, since Eggan’s book01 presents an outstanding example
of what can be expected from intensive and thorough study
of a limited area. Here we observe closely connected forms, each
of which preserves a structural consistency, although they present,
in relation to one another, discontinuities which become significant
when compared to homologous discontinuities in other fields, such
as clan organization, marriage rules, ritual, religious beliefs, etc.
It is by means of such studies, which exhibit a truly “Galilean”
outlook,01’ that one may hope to reach a depth where social structure
is put on a level with other types of mental structures, particularly
the linguistic one. To give an example: It follows from Eggan’s
survey that the Hopi kinship system requires no less than
three different models for the time dimension. There is. first, an
“ empty” time, stable and reversible, illustrated by the father’s
mother’s and mother’s father’s lineages, where the same terms are
consistently applied throughout the generations; second, there is a
progressive, non-reversible time, as shown in (female) Ego’s lineage
with the sequence:
grandm other > m other > sister > child > grandchild;
and, third, there is an undulating, cyclical, reversible time, as in
(male) Ego’s lineage with the continuous alternation between sister
Social Structure | 301
and sister’s child. On the other hand, these three linear structures
are clearly distinct from the circular structure of the Zuni (female)
Ego’s lineage, where three terms, mother’s mother (or daughter’s
daughter), mother, and daughter, are disposed in a kind of ringlike
arrangement, this conceptual grouping being accompanied, as regards
the other lineages, by a greater poverty both of terms inside
the acknowledged kin and of kin acknowledgment. Since time
aspects also belong to linguistic analysis, the question can be raised
whether or not there is a correlation between their manifestations
in language and kinship and, if so, at what level.63
Progress in this and other directions would undoubtedly have
been more substantial if general agreement had existed among
social anthropologists on the definition of social structure, the
goals which may be achieved by its study, and the methodological
principles to be applied at the different stages of research. Unfortunately,
this is not the case, but it may be welcomed as a promising
sign that some kind of understanding can be reached, at least
on the nature and scope of these differences. This seems an appropriate
place to offer a rapid sketch of the attitude of the main
contributors to social-structure research in relation to the working
assumptions which were made at the beginning of this paper.
The term “social structure” is in many ways linked with the
name of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. Though his contribution is not
limited to the study of kinship systems, he has stated the goal of
these studies in terms which every scholar in the same field would
probably be ready to underwrite. The aim of kinship studies, he
says, is (i) to make a systematic classification; (2) to understand
particular features of particular systems (a) by revealing the particular
feature as a part of an organized whole, and (b) by showing
that it is a special example of a recognizable class of phenomena;
(3) to arrive at valid generalizations about the nature of
human societies. And he concludes: “To reduce this diversity (of 2
or 300 kinship systems) to some sort of order is the task of analysis.
. . . W c can . . . find . . . beneath the diversities, a limited
number of general principles applied and combined in various
ways.” 64 There is nothing to add to this lucid program besides
pointing out that this is precisely what Radcliffe-Brown has done
in his study of Australian kinship systems. He brought forth a tre-
302 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
mendous amount of material; he introduced some kind of order
where there was only chaos; he defined the basic operational terms,
such as “cycle,” “pair,” and “couple.” Finally, his discovery of the
Kariera system in the region, with the characteristics inferred from
the study of the available data previous to visiting Australia, will
forever remain one of the great results of socio-structural studies.65
His masterly introduction to African Systems of Kinship and Marriage
may be considered a true treatise on kinship; at the same time
it takes a step toward integrating kinship systems of the Western
world (which are considered in their early forms) into a worldwide
theoretical interpretation. Another capital contribution by
the same scholar, about the homologous structure of kinship terminology
and behavior, will be dealt with later on.
However, it is obvious that, in many respects, RadcliffeBrown’s
conception of social structure differs from the postulates
which were set up at the outset of the present paper. In the first
place, the notion of structure appears to him as a means to link
social anthropology to the biological sciences: “There is a real and
significant analogy between organic structure and social structure.”
06 Then, instead of “lifting up” kinship studies to put them
on the same level as communication theory, as has been suggested
b y this writer, he has lowered them to the same plane as the phenomena
dealt with in descriptive morphology and physiology.67
In that respect, his approach is in line with the naturalistic trend of
the British school. In contradistinction to Kroeber68 and Lowie,69
who have emphasized the artificiality of kinship, Radcliffe-Brown
agrees with Malinowski that biological ties are, at one and the same
time, the origin of and the model for every type of kinship tie.70
These principles are responsible for two consequences. In the
first place, Radcliffe-Brown’s empirical approach makes him very
reluctant to distinguish between social structure and social relations.
As a matter of fact, social structure appears in his work to be
nothing else than the whole network of social relations. It is true
that he has sometimes outlined a distinction between structure and
structural form. The latter concept, however, seems to be limited
to the diachronic perspective, and its functional role in RadcliffeBrown’s
theoretical thought appears quite reduced.71 This distinction
was thoroughly discussed by Fortes, who has contributed a
great deal to the distinction, quite foreign to Radcliffe-Brown’s
Social Structure | 303
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
outlook (and to which I myself attribute considerable importance),
between “model” and “reality” : “Structure is not immediately visible
in the ‘concrete reality.’ . . . When we describe structure
. . . we are, as it were, in the realm of grammar and syntax, not of
the spoken word.” 72
In the second place, this merging of social structure and social
relations induces him to break down the former into the simplest
forms of the latter, that is, relations between two persons: “The
kinship structure of any society consists of a number of . . .
dyadic relations. . . . In an Australian tribe, the whole social structure
is based on a network of such relations of person to person.
. . .” 73 It may be questioned whether such dyadic relations
are the materials out of which social structure is built, or whether
they do not themselves result from a pre-existing structure which
should be defined in more complex terms. Structural linguistics has
a lot to teach in this respect. Examples of the kind of analysis
commended by Radcliffe-Brown may be found in the works of
Bateson and Mead. However, in Naven,74 Bateson has gone a step
further than RadclifFe-Brown’s classification75 of dyadic relations
according to order. He has attempted to place them in specific
categories, an undertaking which implies that there is something
more to social structure than the dyadic relations, that is, the structure
itself.
Since it is possible to extend almost indefinitely the string of
dyadic relations, Radcliffe-Brown has shown some reluctance toward
the isolation of social structures conceivcd as self-sufficient
wholes (in this respect he disagrees with Malinowski). His is a philosophy
of continuity, not of discontinuity; this accounts for his
hostility toward the notion of culture, already alluded to, and his
avoidance of the teachings of structural linguistics and of modern
mathematics.
All these considerations may explain why Radcliffe-Brown,
though an incomparable observer, analyst, and classifier, has sometimes
proved to be disappointing when he turned to interpretations.
These, in his work, often appear vague or circular. Have
marriage prohibitions really no other function than to help perpetuate
the kinship system?76 Are all the peculiar features of the
Crow-Omaha system satisfactorily accounted for when it has been
said that they emphasize the lineage principle? 77 These doubts, as
well as many others, some of which will be mentioned later on in
this chapter, explain why the work of Radcliffe-Brown, to which
no one can deny a central place in social-structure studies, has often
given rise to bitter arguments.
For instance, Murdock has called the kind of interpretation to
which Radcliffe-Brown seems to be addicted “mere verbalizations
reified into causal forces,” 78and Lowie expressed himself in similar
terms.79 As regards Murdock, the lively controversy which was
carried on between him and W . E. Lawrence,80 on the one hand,
and Radcliffe-Brown,81 on the other, may help to clarify the basic
differences in their respective positions. This was about the socalled
Murngin type of kinship system, a focal point in socialstructure
studies not only because of its many intricacies but because,
thanks to Lloyd Warner’s book and articles,82 we possess a
thorough and extensive study of this system.83 However, Warner’s
study leaves some basic problems unanswered, especially the way
in which marriage takes place on the lateral borders of the system.
For Radcliffe-Brown, however, there is no problem involved,
since he considers any kind of social organization as a mere conglomerate
of simple person-to-person relations and since, in any
society, there is always somebody who may be regarded as one’s
mother’s brother’s daughter (the preferred spouse among the
Murngin) or as standing in an equivalent relation. But the problem
is elsewhere: It lies in the fact that the natives have chosen to express
these person-to-person relations in a class system, and W arner’s
description of this system (as acknowledged by himself)
makes it impossible in some cases for the same individual to belong
simultaneously to the right kind of class and to the right kind of
relation.
Under these circumstances, Lawrence and Murdock have tried
to invent some system which would fit the requirements of both
the marriage rules and a system of the same kind as the one described
by Warner. They invented it, however, as a sort of abstract
game, the result being that, while their system meets some of
the difficulties involved in Warner’s account, it also raises many
others. One of the main difficulties implied in Warner’s system is
that it would require, on the part of the natives, an awareness of
relationships too remote to make it believable. Since the new system
adds a new line to the seven already assumed by Warner, it
Social Structure | 305
goes still further in that direction. Therefore, it seems a good
hunch that the “hidden” or “unknown” system underlying the
clumsy model which the Murngin borrowed recently from tribes
with completely different marriage rules is simpler than the latter
and not more complicated.84
One sees, then, that Murdock favors a systematic and formal
approach, different from Radcliffe-Brown’s empirical and naturalistic
one. But he remains, at the same time, psychologically and
even biologically minded, and he can comply with the resulting
requirements only by calling upon other disciplines, such as psychoanalysis
and behavioristic psychology. Thus he succeeds in unloading
from his interpretations of kinship problems the empiricism
which still burdens Radcliffe-Brown’s work, though, perhaps,
at the risk of leaving them incomplete or having to be completed
on grounds alien to anthropology, if not contradictory to its goals.
Instead of seeing in kinship systems a sociological means to achieve
a sociological result, he rather treats them as sociological results
deriving from biological and psychological premises.85
Tw o parts should be distinguished in Murdock’s contribution
to the study of social structure. There is, first, a rejuvenation of a
statistical method to test assumed correlations between social traits
and to establish new ones, a method already tried by Tylor but
which Murdock, thanks to the painstaking efforts of his Yale
Cross-Cultural Survey and the use of a more complex and exacting
technique, was able to carry much further than had his pred-
decessor.
Everything has been said on the manifold difficulties with
which this kind of inquiry is fraught,86 and since no one is better
aware of them than its author, it is unnecessary to dwell upon this
theme. Let it only be recalled that while the uncertainty involved
in the process of “carving out” the data will always make any
alleged correlation dubious, the method is quite efficient in a negative
way, that is, in exploding false correlations. In this respect
Murdock has achieved many results which no social anthropologist
can permit himself to ignore.
The second aspect of Murdock’s contribution is a scheme of
the historical evolution of kinship systems. This suggests a startling
conclusion, namely, that the so-called “ Hawaiian type” of social
organization should be placed at the origin of a much greater
3o6 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
number of systems than has generally been admitted since Lowie’s
criticism of Morgan’s similar hypothesis.87 However, it should be
kept in mind that Murdock’s scheme is not based upon the consideration
of individual societies taken as historico-geographical
units or as coordinated wholes, but on abstractions and even, if
one may say so, on abstractions “twice removed” : In the first
place, social organization is isolated from the other aspects of culture
(and sometimes even kinship systems from social organization)
; next, social organization itself is broken up into disconnected
elements which are the product of the traditional categories of
ethnological theory rather than of the concrete analysis of each
group. This being understood, the method for establishing a historical
scheme can only be ideological; it proceeds by extracting
common elements pertaining to each stage, in order to define a
previous stage, and so on. Therefore, it is obvious that systems
placed at the beginning can be only those which exhibit the more
general features, while systems with special features must occupy
a more recent rank. It is as though the origin of the modern horse
were ascribed to the order of vertebrates instead of to Hipparion.
Regardless of the difficulties raised by his approach, Murdock’s
book should be credited with presenting new material and
raising fascinating problems, many of which are new to anthropological
thought. It is not doing him an injustice, then, to state
that his contribution consists more in perfecting a method of discovering
new problems than in solving them. Though this method
remains “Aristotelian,” it is perhaps unavoidable in the development
of any science. Murdock has at least been faithful to the best
part of the Aristotelian outlook by demonstrating convincingly
that “cultural forms in the field of social organization reveal a
degree of regularity and of conformity to scientific law not significantly
inferior to that found in the so-called natural sciences.” 88
In relation to the distinctions made in the first section of this
paper, it can be said that Radcliffe-Brown’s work expresses a disregard
for the difference between observation and experimentation,
while Murdock shows a similar disregard for the difference
between mechanical and statistical models (since he tries to construct
mechanical models with the help of a statistical method).
Conversely, Lowie’s work seems to consist entirely in an exacting
endeavor to meet the question (which was acknowledged as a
Social Structure | 307
prerequisite for any study in social structure): What are the facts?
When he became active in research as well as in theoretical ethnology,
the latter field was fraught with philosophical prejudices
and an aura of sociological mysticism; therefore, his paramount
contribution toward assessing the subject matter of social anthropology
has sometimes been misunderstood and thought of as
wholly negative.89 But, although this situation made it imperative
at that time to state, in the first place, what the facts were not, the
creative energy liberated by his merciless destruction of arbitrary
systems and alleged correlations has furnished, to a very
large extent, the power used by his followers. His own positive
contributions are not always easy to outline on account of the
extreme modesty of his thought and his aversion to any kind of
wide-scope theoretical claim. He himself used the words “active
skepticism” to define his position. However, it is Lowie who, as
early as 1915, stated in modern terms the role of kinship studies in
relation to social behavior and organization: “Sometimes the very
essence of social fabric may be demonstrably connected with the
mode of classifying kin.” 90In the same paper he was able to reverse
the narrow historical trend which, at that time, was blinding anthropological
thinking to the universal action of structural forces:
Exogamy was shown to be a scheme defined by truly genetic characteristics
and, whenever present, determining identical features of
social organization, without calling for historico-geographical rela­
tions.
When, a few years later, he exploded the “matrilineal complex,”
91 he achieved two results which are the fundamentals of
social-structure studies. First, by dismissing the notion that every
so-called matrilineal feature was to be understood as an expression
or as a vestige of the complex, he made it possible to break it up
into several variables. Second, the elements thus liberated could be
used for a permutative treatment of the differential features of kinship
systems.92 Thus he was laying the foundations for a structural
analysis of kinship on two different levels: that of the terminological
system, on the one hand, and, on the other, that of the correlation
between the system of attitudes and terminology, thus revealing
which later on was to be followed by others.93
Lowie should be credited with many other theoretical contributions.
He was probably the first to demonstrate the true bi­
3o 8 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
lateral nature of most of the so-called “unilinear systems.94 He
made clear the impact of residence on descent.95 He convincingly
dissociated avoidance customs from incest prohibitions.96 His care
to interpret social organization not only as a set of institutionalized
rules but also as the outcome of individual psychological reactions,
w hich sometimes contradicted or inflected the rules, led to the
strange result that the same scholar who was so abused for his
famous “shreds and patches” statement on culture was able to offer
some of the most thorough and well-balanced pictures we have of
cultures treated as wholes.97 Finally, Lowie’s role as a promoter
and exponent of South American social anthropology is well
known; either directly or indirectly, through guidance and encouragement,
he has contributed toward breaking new ground.
SOCIAL DYNAMICS: SUBORDINATION STRUCTURES
Order of Elements (Individuals or Groups) in the Social
Structure. According to this writer’s interpretation, which does
not need to be expounded systematically since (in spite of
efforts toward objectivity) it probably permeates this paper, kinship
systems, marriage rules, and descent groups constitute a
coordinated whole, the function of which is to insure the permanency
of the social group by means of intertwining consanguineous
and affinal ties. They may be considered as the blueprint
of a mechanism which “ pumps” women out of their consanguineous
families to redistribute them in affinal groups, the result
of this process being to create new consanguineous groups, and so
on.98
If no external factor were affecting this mechanism, it would
work indefinitely, and the social structure would remain static.
This is not the case, however; hence the need to introduce into the
theoretical model new elements to account for the diachronic
changes of the structure, on the one hand, and, on the other, for the
fact that kinship structure does not exhaust social structure. This
can be done in three different ways.
As always, the first step consists in ascertaining the facts.
Since the time when Lowie expressed regret that so little had been
done by anthropologists in the field of political organization,99
Social Structure | 309
some progress has been made; in the first place, Lowie himself has
clarified the issue by devoting most of his recent book to problems
of that sort and by regrouping the facts concerning the North
American area.100 A recent work has brought together significant
data concerning Africa.101 T o this day, the best way to organize the
still-confused material remains Lowie’s basic distinctions among
social strata, sodalities, and the state.102
The second type of approach would be an attempt to correlate
the phenomena belonging to the order first studied, that is,
kinship, with phenomena belonging to the new order but showing
a direct connection with the former. This approach raises, in turn,
two different problems: (i) Can the kinship structure by itself
result in structures of a new type (that is, dynamically oriented)?
(2) How do communication structures and subordination structures
interact with one another?
The first problem should be related to education, i.e., to the
fact that each generation plays alternately a submissive and a dominant
part in relation to the preceding and to the following generation.
This aspect has been dealt with chiefly by Margaret Mead.103
Another side of the question lies in the important attempt to
correlate static positions in the kinship structure (as defined by
terminology) with dynamic attitudes expressed, on the one hand, in
rights, duties, obligations and, on the other, in privileges, avoidance,
etc. It is impossible to go into the discussion of these problems, to
which many writers have contributed. Especially significant is a
protracted controversy between Radcliffe-Brown and others about
the kind of correlation, if any, which exists between the system
of terminology and the system of attitudes.104
According to Radcliffe-Brown’s well-known position, such a
correlation exhibits a high degree of accuracy, while his opponents
have generally tried to demonstrate that it is neither absolute nor
detailed. In contrast to both opinions, this writer has tried to establish
that the relation between terminology and attitudes is of a
dialectical nature. The modalities of behavior between relatives express
to some extent the terminological classification, and they provide
at the same time a means of overcoming difficulties and contradictions
resulting from this classification. Thus the rules of
behavior result from an attempt to overcome contradictions in the
field of terminology and marriage rules; the functional unwedging
}io I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
— if one may call it that— which is bound to exist between the two
orders causes changes in terminology; and these, in turn, call for
new behavior patterns, and so on indefinitely.105
The second problem confronts us with the kind of situation
arising when the kinship system regulates marriage exchanges not
between equals but between members of a hierarchy (either economic
or political). Under that heading comes the problem of
polygamy which, in some cases at least, may be shown to provide
a bridge between two different types of guarantees, one collective
and political, the other individual and economic,106 and that
of hypergamy (or hypogamy). This deserves much more attention
than it has received thus far, since it is the doorway to the study of
the caste system107 and hence to that of social structures based on
race and class distinctions.
The third and last approach to our problem is purely formal.
It consists in an a priori deduction of the types of structures likely
to result from relations of dominance or dependency as they might
appear at random. O f a very promising nature for the study of
social structure are Rapoport’s attempts to formulate a mathematical
theory of the pecking order among hens.108 It is true that
there seems to be a complete opposition between, let us say, the
pecking order of hens, which is intransitive and cyclical, and the
social order (for instance, the circle of kava in Polynesia), which
is transitive and non-cyclical (since those who are seated at the far
end can never sit at the top).109 But the study of kinship systems
shows precisely that, under given circumstances, a transitive and
non-cyclical order can result in an intransitive and cyclical one.
This happens, for instance, in a hypergamous society, where a circular
marriage system with mother’s brother’s daughter leaves at one
end a girl unable to find a husband (since her status is the highest)
and at the other end a boy without a wife (since no girl, except
his sister, has a status lower than his own). Therefore, either the
society under consideration will succumb to its contradictions, or
its transitive and non-cyclical order will be transformed into an intransitive
and cyclical one, temporarily or locally.110
Thus, with the help of such notions as transitivity, order, and
cycle, which admit of mathematical treatment, it becomes possible
to study, on a purely formal level, generalized types of social
Social Structure | 311
structure where both the communication and the subordination
aspects are fully integrated. It is.also possible to enlarge the field
of inquiry and to integrate, for a given society, actual and potential
types of order. For instance, in human societies the actual forms
of social order are practically always of a transitive and non-cyclical
type: If A is above B and B above C, then A is above C; and C
cannot be above A. But most of the human “potential” or “ideological”
forms of social order, as illustrated in politics, myth, and
religion, are conceived as intransitive and cyclical; for instance, in
tales about kings marrying lasses and in Stendhal’s indictment of
American democracy as a system where a gentleman takes his orders
from his grocer.
Order of Orders. Thus anthropology considers the whole
social fabric as a network of different types of orders. The kinship
system provides a way to order individuals according to certain
rules; social organization is another way of ordering individuals
and groups; social stratifications, whether economic or political,
provide us with a third type; and all these orders can themselves
be ordered by showing the kind of relationships which exist among
them, how they interact with one another on both the synchronic
and the diachronic levels. Meyer Fortes has successfully tried to
construct models valid not only for one type of order (kinship,
social organization, economic relations, etc.) but where numerous
models for all types of orders are themselves ordered inside a total
model.111
When dealing with these orders, however, anthropologists
are confronted with a basic problem which was taken up at the
beginning of this paper, that is, to what extent does the manner
according to which a society conceives its orders and their ordering
correspond to the real situation? It has been shown that this
problem can be solved in different ways, depending on the data at
hand.
All the models considered so far, however, are “lived-in”
orders: they correspond to mechanisms which can be studied from
the outside as a part of objective reality. But no systematic studies
of these orders can be undertaken without acknowledging the fact
that social groups, to achieve their reciprocal ordering, need to call
upon orders of different types, corresponding to a field external to
312 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
objective reality and which we call the “supernatural.” These
“thought-of” orders cannot be checked against the experience to
which they refer, since they are one and the same as this experience.
Therefore, we are in the position of studying them only in their
relationships with the other types of “lived-in” orders. The
“thought-of” orders are those of myth and religion. The question
may be raised whether, in our own society, political ideology does
not belong to the same category.
After Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown has contributed greatly to
the demonstration that religion is a part of the social structure. The
anthropologist’s task is to discover correlations between different
types of religions and different types of social organization.112
Radcliffe-Brown failed to achieve significant results, however, for
two reasons. In the first place, he tried to link ritual and beliefs
directly to sentiments; besides, he was more concerned with giving
universal formulation to the kind of correlation prevailing between
religion and social structure than in showing the variability of one
in relation to the other. It is perhaps as a result of this that the study
o f religion has fallen into the background, to the extent that the
word “religion” does not even appear in the program of this
symposium. The field of myth, ritual, and religion seems nevertheless
to be one of the more fruitful for the study of social structure;
though relatively little has been done in this respect, the results
which have been obtained recently are among the most rewarding
in our field.
Great strides have been made toward the study of religious
systems as coordinated wholes. Documentary material, such as
P. Radin’s The Road of Life and Death113 and R. M. Berndt’s
Kunapipi,114 should help in undertaking, with respect to several
religious cults, the kind of ordering of data so masterfully achieved
b y Gladys Reichard for the Navahb.115 This should be complemented
by small-scale comparative studies on the permanent and
non-permanent elements in religious thought as exemplified by
Lowie.
With the help of such well-organized material it becomes possible,
as Nadel puts it, to prepare “small-scale models of a comparative
analysis . . . of an analysis of ‘concomitant variations’ . . .
such as any inquiry concerned with the explanation of social facts
must employ.” 110 The results thus achieved may be small; they are,
Social Structure |
however, some of the most convincing and rigorous in the entire
field of social organization. Nadel himself has demonstrated a correlation
between shamanism and some aspects of psychological
development;117 using Indo-European comparative material borrowed
from Iceland, Ireland, and the Caucasus, Dumézil has interpreted
an enigmatic mythological figure in relation to specific
features of social organization;118 Wittfogel and Goldfrank have
shown how significant variations in mythological themes can be
related to the socioeconomic background.119 Monica Hunter has
established beyond doubt that the structure of magical beliefs may
vary in correlation with the structure of the society itself.120 These
results, together with some others (on which space prevents our
commenting), give hope that we may be close to understanding not
only what kind of function religious beliefs fulfill in social life
(this has been known more or less clearly since Lucretius’ time)
but how they fulfill this function.
A few words may be added as a conclusion. This chapter was
started by working out the notion of “model,” and the same notion
has reappeared at its end. Social anthropology, in its incipient
stage, could only seek, as model for its first models, among those of
the simplest kinds provided by more advanced sciences, and it was
natural enough to seek them in the field of classical mechanics.
However, in doing so, anthropology has been working under some
sort of illusion, since, as Von Neumann puts it, “an almost exact
theory of a gas, containing about io25 freely moving particles, is incomparably
easier than that of the solar system, made up of 9
major bodies.” 121 But when it tries to construct its models, anthropology
finds itself in a situation which is neither the one nor the
other: The objects with which we deal— social roles and human
beings— are considerably more numerous than those dealt with in
Newtonian mechanics, and at the same time, far less numerous
than would be required to allow a satisfactory use of the laws of
statistics and probability. Thus we find ourselves in an intermediate
zone: too complicated for one treatment and not complicated
enough for the other.
The tremendous change brought about by the theory of communication
consists precisely in the discovery of methods to deal
with objects— signs— which can be subjected to a rigorous study
3i 4 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
despite the fact that they are altogether much more numerous than
those of classical mechanics and much less than those of thermodynamics.
Language consists of morphemes, a few thousand in number;
significant regularities in phoneme frequencies can be obtained
by limited counts. The threshold for the use of statistical laws becomes
lower, and that for operating with mechanical models
higher, than was the case when operating on other grounds. And,
at the same time, the size-order of the phenomena has become
significantly closer to that of anthropological data.
Therefore, the present conditions of social-structure studies
can be summarized as follows: Phenomena are found to be of
the same kind as those which, in strategics and communication
theory, were made the subject of a rigorous approach. Anthropological
facts are on a scale which is sufficiently close to that of
these other phenomena as not to preclude their similar treatment.
Surprisingly enough, it is at the very moment when anthropology
finds itself closer than ever to the long-awaited goal of becoming
a true science that the ground seems to fail where it was expected
to be the firmest: The facts themselves are lacking, either not numerous
enough or not collected under conditions insuring their
comparability.
Though it is not our fault, we have been behaving like amateur
botanists, haphazardly picking up heterogeneous specimens,
which were further distorted and mutilated by preservation in our
herbarium. And we are, all of a sudden, confronted with the need
of ordering complete series, ascertaining original shades, and measuring
minute parts which have either shrunk or been lost. When
we come to realize not only what should be done but also what
we should be in a position to do, and when we make at the same
time an inventory of our material, we cannot help feeling in a disheartened
mood. It looks almost as if cosmic physics were asked to
work with Babylonian observations. The celestial bodies are still
there, but unfortunately the native cultures from which we used to
gather our data are rapidly disappearing and that which they are
being replaced by can only furnish data of a very different type.
To adjTist our techniques of observation to a theoretical framework
which is far more advanced is a paradoxical situation, quite
opposite to that which has prevailed in the history of sciences.
Nevertheless, such is the challenge to modem anthropology.
Social Structure |
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
N O T E S
1. A . L. Kroeber, Anthropology (N ew York: 1948), p. 325. Compare with
the statejnent by the same author: . . the term ‘social structure’
which is tending to replace ‘social organization’ without appearing to
add either content or emphasis of meaning.” A . L. Kroeber, “Structure,
Function and Pattern in Biology and Anthropology,” Scientific
Monthly, L V I (1943)^ . 105.
2. The same idea appears to underlie E. R. Leach's remarkable study,
“Jinghpaw Kinship Term inology,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute, L X X V ( 1945).
3. Compare Von Neumann: “Such models [as games] are theoretical constructs
with a precise, exhaustive and not too complicated definition;
and they must be similar to reality in those respects which are essential
to the investigation at hand. T o recapitulate in detail: The definition
must be precise and exhaustive in order to make a mathematical treatment
possible. The construct must not be unduly complicated so that
the mathematical treatment can be brought beyond the mere formalism
to the point where it yields complete numerical results. Similarity to
reality is needed to make the operation significant. And this similarity
must usually be restricted to a few traits deemed ‘essential’ pro tempore
— since otherwise the above requirements would conflict with each
other.” J. Von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and
Economic Behavior (Princeton: 1944).
4. K. Goldstein, Der Aufbau des Organismus. French translation (Paris:
1951), pp. 18-25. [English translation, N ew York: 1939.]
5. F. Boas (ed.), Handbook of American Indian Languages, Bureau of
American Ethnology Bulletin 40 ( 1908), 1911, Part I.
6. See “Introduction: History and Anthropology,” Chapter I of the present
volume.
7. For examples and detailed discussion, see C. Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures
élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: 1949), p. 558 ff.
8. R. Firth, Elements of Social Organization (London: 1951), pp. 28-31.
9. On this point, see Chapters VII and VIII of the present volume.
10. J. Richardson and A. L. Kroeber, “Three Centuries of W om en’s Dress
Fashions: A Quantitative Analysis,” Anthropological Records (Berkeley,
Calif.), V , No. 2 (1940).
11. Princeton, 1944.
12. Paris-Cambridge-New York, 1948.
13. Urbana, 1950.
14. D. Forde, “Marriage and the Family among the Yakô in S. E. Nigeria,”
Monographs in Social Anthropology, No. 5, London School of Economics
( 1941); V . Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Oxford: 1947).
15. Despite the criticism which has been leveled at me, I also maintain that
the time dimension is irrelevant to the argument. For these discussions,
see Chapter I of the present volume, already cited, and my Race and
History (Paris: 1952). These studies have elicited criticisms and commentaries
from C. Lefort, “L ’Echange et la lutte des hommes,” Les
Temps Modernes (February, 1951 ) ; “Sociétés sans histoire et histori­
Social Structure
cité,” Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie, XII (1952); J. Pouillon,
“L ’Oeuvre de Claude Lévi-Strauss,” Les Temps Modernes (July, 1956);
R. Bastide, “Lévi-Strauss ou l’ethnographe *à la recherche du temps
perdu,’ ” Présence africaine (April-M ay, 1956); G . Balandier, “Grandeur
et servitude de l’ethnologie,” Cahiers du Sud, No. 337 (1956).
16. R. Firth, op. cit., p. 40.
17. L. A. W hite, The Science of Culture (N ew York: 1949).
18. This is, indeed, how modem biological evolutionism is being developed
in the researches of J. B. S. Haldane, G . G . Simpson, and others
19. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Social Anthropology, Past and Present,” Man,
LII (195*)-
20. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Religion and Society,” Henry Myers Lecture,
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, L X X V (1945), p. 1.
21. R. H. Lowie, op. cit., p. 38.
22. Ibid., p. 68.
23. E. Durkheim, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (Paris: 1912),
P- 593-
24. K. Goldstein, op. cit., p. 25.
25. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, “Nuer Tim e Reckoning,” Africa (1939), XII,
189-216; The Nuer (Oxford: 1940).
26. L. Bemot and R. Blancard, “Nouville, un village français,” Travaux
et mémoires de VInstitut d'Ethnologie, LV II (1953).
27. E. Durkheim and M. Mauss, “De quelques Formes primitives de classification:
Contribution à l’étude des représentations collectives,” Armée
sociologique, V I (1903), pp. 1-72.
28. This opposition was never accepted by Lowie; see the preface to his
Primitive Society (N ew York: 1920).
29. These studies were summarized by their author in V Héritage indo-européen
à Rome (Paris: 1949).
30. W e refer to the chapter “Human Ecology,” by M. Bates in Anthropology
Today, pp. 700-13.
31. “Division et proportion des divisions de la sociologie,” Année sociologique,
n.s., II ( 1924-1925), p. 98 ff.
32. See, for example, R. Firth, We, the Tikopia (London-New York:
!93^)i J- Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups,
Bureau of American Ethnology7, Smithsonian Institution Bulletin 120
(Washington: 1938); S. F. Nadel, The Naha (London-NcwYork: 1947);
D. Forde, “Double-Descent among the Yako,” in A. R. Radcliffe-Brown
and D. Forde (eds.), African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (London:
1950).
33. See Chapters VII and VIII of this volume.
34. See, for instance, the “configuration” of a ritual at its various stages,
as they were mapped in A. C. Fletcher, The Hako: A Pavmee Ceremony,
22nd Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Vol. II
(1904).
35. M. de Lestrange, “Pour une Méthode socio-démographique,” Journal
de la Société des Africanistes, XXI ( 1951 ).
36. L. Livi, Trattato di demografia (Padua: 1940-1941); “Considérations
théoriques et pratiques sur le concept de ‘minimum de population,’ ”
Population, IV, No. 4 (1949), pp. 754-56.
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
37. C. W agley, “The Effects of Depopulation upon Social Organization
as Illustrated by the Tapirapé Indians,” Transactions of the N ew York
Academy of Sciences, Series 2, III, No. 1 (1940), pp. 12-16.
38. See K. Davis, The Development of the City in Society: Proceedings of
the First Conference on Long Term Social Trends (Washington, D.C.:
Social Science Research Council, 1947); J. Q. Stewart, “Empirical
Mathematical Rules Concerning the Distribution and Equilibrium of
Population,” Geographical Review, X X X V II, No. 3 (1947), 461-85;
G . K. Zipf, Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (Cam bridge,
Mass.: 1949). An expert on the theater told me recently that
Louis Jouvet was always surprised that the house was filled approximately
to capacity every night— that is to say, that a house with a capacity
of 500 should have approximately 500 customers, and that one w ith
a capacity of 2,000 should have about this number, with few people being
turned away in the first case and the house never being three-quarters
empty in the second case. This built-in balance would indeed be unexplainable,
if all seats in each house were similar. But since the bad seats
quickly acquire a bad reputation, a compensating effect occurs: If only
poor seats remain, connoisseurs prefer to attend another performance
or go to another theater. It would be interesting to investigate whether
this phenomenon is of the same type as the rank-size law. From a more
general perspective, the study of this theater phenomenon, considered
from a quantitative viewpoint (relationship among the number of
theaters, their respective size, the size of the cities, box office receipts,
etc.) would provide a convenient and heretofore neglected method of
clarifying— almost as in a laboratory— both diachronically and synchronically,
certain fundamental problems of social structure.
39. G . Dahlberg, Mathematical Methods for Population Genetics (LondonN
ew York: 1948).
40. J. Sutter and L. Tabah, “Les Notions d’isolat et de population minimum,”
Population, VI, No. 3 ( 1951), pp. 481-89.
41. These two situations correspond respectively to marriages of the matrilateral
type (long cycles) and patrilateral type (short cycles). On this
topic, see my Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté, Chapter X X V II.
It is evident from this example that considerations of a purely quantitative
nature are not adequate. W e must add to them the study of
structures, which differ qualitatively.
42. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “On Social Structure,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, LX X (1940), pp. 10-11.
43. R. H. Lowie, “A Marginal Note to Professor Radcliffe-Brown’s Paper
on ‘Social Structure,’ ” American Anthropologist, X LIV , No. 3 (1942),
pp. 520-21.
44. L. A . W hite, op. cit. /
45. D. Bidney, review of L. A. W hite, The Science of Culture, in Am erican
Anthropologist, LII, No. 4, Part I (1950), pp. 518-19. See also A. R .
Radcliffe-Brown, “W hite’s View of a Science of Culture,” American
Anthropologist, LI, No. 3 (1949), pp. 503-12.
46. N . Bohr, “Natural Philosophy and Human Culture,” Nature, CX LIII
(1939), p. 9.
47. M. Mauss, “Essai sur les variations saisonnières dans les sociétés eskimos:
Social Structure
Étude de morphologie sociale,” Année Sociologique, IX, 1904-1905
(1906), pp. 39-132; “Essai sur le don, forme archaïque de réchange,”
op. cit., I ( 1923-1924), pp. 30-186.
48. B. Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (London: 1922).
49. F. G . Speck, Family Hunting Territories and Social Life of Various
Algonkian Bands of the Ottawa Valley, Canada Department of Mines,
Geological Survey Memoir 70, Anthropological Series, No. 8 (Ottawa:
1915); A. I. Richards, Hunger and W ork in a Savage Tribe (London:
1932), “A Dietary Study in Northeastern Rhodesia,” Africa, IX, No.
2 (1936), pp. 166-96, and Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia
(Oxford: 1939); J. H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical
Groups, op. cit.; E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford: 1940);
M. J. Herskovits, The Economic Life of Primitive Peoples (N ew
York: 1940); K. A. W ittfogel and E. S. Goldfrank, “Some Aspects of
Pueblo M ythology and Society,” Journal of American Folklore, L V I
(1943), pp. 17-JO.
50. Op. cit.
51. This parallel did not appear in the original version of this paper, but
it was suggested in the course of the discussion that followed. I subsequently
developed it in an article, “The Mathematics of Man,” which
was the introduction to “Mathematics and the Social Sciences,” a special
issue of the International Social Science Bulletin, VI, No. 4 (U N E SC O ,
Paris: 1954), pp. 581-90.
52. A . L. Kroeber, “The Societies of Primitive Man,” Biological Symposia,
VIII (1942), p. j 15.
53. V on Neumann and Morgenstern, op. cit.ypp. 186-219.
54. Ibid., p. 49.
55. W e attempted to introduce these notions in another work. See Race
and History, already mentioned.
56. W . L. W arner, “Morphology and Functions of the Australian Mumgin
T ype of Kinship System,” American Anthropologist, XXXII, N o. 2
(1930), pp. 207-56, and XXXIII, N o. 2 ( 1931 ), pp. 172-98; C. LéviStrauss,
Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté; W . E. Lawrence and
G . P. Murdock, “Mumgin Social Organization,” American Anthropologist,
LI, No. 1 (1949), pp. 58-65; A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Mumgin
Social Organization,” American Anthropologist, LUI, No. 1 (1951),
pp. 37-55; A. P. Elkin, personal correspondence.
57. See pp. 305-6, supra, and notes 83-84.
58. Smithsonian Institution Contributions to Knowledge, X VII, N o. 218
(Washington: 1871).
59. C. S. Ford and F. A. Beach, Patterns of Sexual Behavior (N ew York:
>95'),P- S'
60. R. H. Lowie, Social Organization (N ew York: 1948).
6 r. F. Eggan, Social Organization of the Western Pueblos (Chicago: 1950).
62. That is, aiming to uncover the law of variation, in contradistinction
to the “Aristotelian” outlook, which is concerned primarily with inductive
correlations; for this distinction, fundamental to structural analysis,
see K. Lewin, A Dynamic Theory of Personality (N ew York: 1935).
63. See Chapters III and IV of the present volume, where this problem
is treated more fully.
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
64. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Study of Kinship Systems,” Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXI ( 1941 ), p. 17.
65. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Social Organization or Australian Tribes,”
Oceania, I, No. 1 ( 1930-1931), pp. 34-63, No. 2, pp. 206-46, No. 3, pp.
322-41, and No. 4, pp. 426-56.
66. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “On Social Structure,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, LX X ( 1940), p. 6.
67. Ibid., p. 10.
68. A . L. Kroeber, “Basic and Secondary Patterns of Social Structure,”
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LX VIII (1938), pp.
299-309, and “The Societies of Primitive Man,” op. cit., p. 205 ff.
69. R. H. Lowie, Social Organization, Chapter IV.
70. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Father, Mother, and Child,” Man, X X V I, N o .
103 ( 1926), pp. 159-61.
71. Radcliffe-Brown, “On Social Structure,” op. cit., p. 4.
72. M. Fortes (ed.), Social Structure: Studies Presented to A . R. RadcliffeBrown
(Oxford: 1949), P* 5^*
73. Radcliffe-Brown, “On Social Structure,” op. cit., p. 3.
74. G . Bateson, Naven (Cambridge: 1936).
75. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Study of Kinship Systems,” op. cit.
76. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “W hite’s V iew of a Science of Culture,” A m erican
Anthropologist, LI, No. 3 ( 1949), pp. 503-12.
77. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Study of Kinship Systems,” op. cit.
78. G. P. Murdock, op. cit., p. 121.
79. R. H. Lowie, The History of Ethnological Theory (N ew York:
i937)i PP-224-5*
80. Lawrence and Murdock, op. cit.
81. Radcliffe-Brown, “Mumgin Social Organization,” op. cit.
82. W . L. Warner, “Morphology and Functions of the Australian M um gin
T ype of Kinship System,” op. cit.; A Black Civilization: A Social Study
of an Australian Tribe (N ew York: 1937).
83. For a further word on this question, which appeared after this chapter
was first published, see R. M. Berndt, “ ‘Murngin,’ (W ulamba) Social
Organization,” American Anthropologist, n.s., LVII, No. 1, Part I
<*955>-
84. W arner postulated a system with seven lines of descent corresponding
to seven classes. Lawrence and Murdock substituted for it a system with
eight lines of descent and thirty-two classes. A t that time (see my Les
Structures élémentaires de la parenté, Chapter XII) I suggested reducing
W arner’s scheme to four lines of desccnt one of which would be ambiguous.
In 1951, E. R. Leach, a British anthropologist, adopted m y
interpretation, which he then undertook to defend against me while
attributing to me another interpretation invented by him to further the
argument. See E. R. Leach, “The Structural Implications of Matrilateral
Cross-Cousin Marriage,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
LX X X I (1951 ). In the article cited in Note 83, above, Berndt set the
number of lines of descent at three. Criticized by Leach at the time
when he wrote his article, he acknowledged subsequently, in private
conversation and correspondence, that I had obtained, on purely deductive
grounds, the solution that among all those proposed until then
Social Structure
came closest to the one which he validated himself in the field.
M y interpretation of the Mumgin system was the object of an admirably
lucid and penetrating analysis by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong,
Lévi-Strauss's Theory on Kinship and Marriage (Leiden: 1952).
85. Murdock, op. cit., pp. 131-2.
86. Lowie, Social Organization, op. cit., Chapter III.
87. Lowie, Primitive Society, op. cit., Chapter III.
88. Murdock, op. cit., p. 259.
89. A . L. Kroeber, review of R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society, in American
Anthropologist, XXII, No. 4 ( 1920), pp. 377-81.
90. R. H. Lowie, “Exogamy, and the Classificatory Systems of Relationship,n
American Anthropologist, X VII, No. 2 (1915); “Relationship
Term s” in Encyclopaedia Britannica ( 1929).
91. R. H. Lowie, “The Matrilineal Complex,” University of California
Publications in American Archaeology and Anthropology, X V I, N o. 2
(1919), pp. 29-45.
92. R. H. Lowie, “Notes on Hopi Clans,” American Museum of Natural
History, Anthropological Papers, XXX, Part V I (1929), pp. 303-60.
93. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Mother’s Brother in South Africa,”
South African Journal of Science, XXI (1924), pp. 542-55; C. LéviStrauss,
“Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology,”
Chapter II of the present volume.
94. Lowie, Primitive Society; “ Hopi Kinship,” American Museum of
Natural History, Anthropological Papers, X XX , Part V II (1929), pp.
361-88.
95. Lowie, Primitive Society.
96. Ibid., pp. 104-5.
97. R. H. Lowie, The Crow Indians (N ew York: 1935), and Social Organization,
Chapters X V , X V I, XVII.
98. On this point, see C. Lévi-Strauss, “The Family,” in H. L. Shapiro (ed.),
Man, Culture and Society (Oxford: 1956), Chapter XII.
99. Lowie, Primitive Society, Chapter XIII.
100. Lowie, The Origin of the State (N ew York: 1927), Social Organization,
Chapters VI, VII, XII-XIV, “Some Aspects of Political Organization
among American Aborigines” (Huxley Memorial Lecture), Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LX X V III (1948), pp. 11-24.
101. M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, op. cit.
102. Lowie, Social Organization.
103. In connection with the approach of this chapter, see especially M.
Mead’s “Character Formation and Diachronic Theory” in M. Fortes
(ed.), Social Structure: Studies Presented to A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, pp.
18-34.
104. A . R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Kinship Term inology in California,” American
Anthropologist, X XX VII, No. 3 (1935), PP- 53°“35» Joking
Relationships,” Africa, XIII, No. 3 (1940), pp. 195-210, and “A Further
Note on Joking Relationships,” Africa, XIX, No. 2 (1949), pp. 133-40;
M. E. Opler, “Apache Data Concerning the Relation of Kinship
Term inology to Social Classification,” American Anthropologist,
X XX IX , No. 2 (1937), pp. 201-12, and “Rule and Practice in the Behavior
Pattern between Jicarilla Apache Affinal Relatives,” American
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
Anthropologist, XLIX, No. 3 ( 1947), pp. 453-62; C. S. Brand, “On Joking
Relationships,” American Anthropologist, L ( 1948), pp. 160-1.
105. In a short book devoted to refuting Les Structures élémentaires de la
parenté, Homans and Schneider attempt to reduce the rules of preferential
marriage to systems of attitudes. T hey attack the principle,
postulated in Les Structures, that there is no necessary connection
between matrilateral or patrilateral marriage on the one hand, and the
type of descent— patrilineal or matrilineal— on the other. In support of
their own interpretation, according to which matrilateral marriage
would be a function of patrilineal descent, they invoke statistical correlations
which prove nothing. Actually, societies with patrilineal descent
are much more numerous than societies with matrilineal descent
Furthermore, matrilateral marriage is more frequent than patrilateral
marriage. Thus, if the distribution occurred at random, we might expect
that the incidence of societies characterized by an association
between patrilineal descent and matrilateral marriage would be higher,
and thus the correlation claimed by my critics would be meaningless.
A fter re-examining this postulated correlation on the basis of a larger
sample (564 societies), Murdock concludes: “The worldwide incidence
of such preferences . . . is so low as to cast some doubt on the
validity of the theoretical interpretation advanced/’ (G . P. Murdock,
“W orld Ethnographic Sample,” American Anthropologist, n.s., LIX,
No. 4 [1957], p. 687.)
I still maintain, in the same terms that I first employed, that there
is no necessary connection between marriage with the unilateral crosscousin
and type of descent; in other words, that none of the conceivable
combinations implies a contradiction. It is possible and even
probable, however, that empirically the two types of marriage are
more frequently associated with one or the other type of descent. If
this should be the case, this statistical correlation (not to be confused
with a logical connection) would require an explanation. I would be
inclined to find it in the instability characteristic of matrilineal societies
(a theme already developed in Les Structures), which would make it
more difficult for them to adopt long cycles of reciprocity, while the
extremely short cycles of patrilateral marriage would be less affected
by the conflicts always found in matrilineal societies. Homans and
Schneider’s theoretical interpretation seems to me completely unacceptable.
They explain the preference of patrilineal societies for matrilateral
marriage in terms of psychological factors, such as the transference of
an adolescent’s emotional feelings to his maternal uncle’s group. If such
were the case, matrilateral marriage would be more frequent; but it
would not have to be prescribed. W ith reference to a particular case,
Homans and Schneider revert to the psychological theory advocated
by Westermarck to explain the incest taboo; we had hoped that anthropology
had outgrown its old errors. See G. C. Homans and D. M.
Schneider, Marriage, Authority, and Final Causes: A Study of Unilateral
Cross-Cousin Marriage (Glencoe: 1955).
106. See C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris: 1955), Chapter XXIX,
which re-examines the themes of a previous study, “The Social and
Psychological Aspects of Chieftainship in a Primitive Tribe,” Transac­
Social Structure
tions of the New York Academy of Sciences, series 2, VII, N o. i
( i 944)-
107. A. M. Hocart, “Les Castes,” Annales du Musée Guimet, Bibliothèque
de vulgarisation, L IV (Paris: 1938); K. Davis, “ Intermarriage in Caste
Societies,” American Anthropologist, XLIII (1941), pp. 376-95; C. LéviStrauss,
Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté, Chapters X X IV to
X XVII.
108. A. Rapoport, “Outline of Probabilistic Approach to Animal Sociology,”
Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, XI (1949), pp. 183-96, 273-81.
109. This qualification appears to me today (1957) to be superfluous. There
are societies characterized by hierarchical and intransitive cycles and
quite comparable to the pecking order— as, for instance, in the Fiji
Islands, where the population was organized until the beginning of the
twentieth century into fiefs which were interconnected by relations of
fealty, so that fief A might be a vassal of fief B, B of C, C of D, and
D of A . Hocart described and explained this structure, which at first
sight seems unintelligible, by pointing out that in Fiji two forms of
vassalage exist— vassalage by right and vassalage by conquest. Fief A
might thus be traditionally a vassal of B, B of C, and C of D, whereas
fief D might have recently become, as a result of an ill-fated war, a
vassal of A . N ot only is this structure the same as that of the pecking
order, but— and this passed unnoticed— anthropological theory outdistanced
mathematical interpretation by several years, since the latter
is based on the distinction between two variables which operate with
a time-lag between them— and this corresponds exactly to Hocart’s
(posthumous) description. See A. M. Hocart, The Northern States of
Fiji, Occasional Publications No. n , Royal Anthropological Institute
(London: 1952).
no. For a striking example of the local transformation from one type into
another, see K. Gough, “Female Initiation Rites on the Malabar Coast,”
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, L X X X V (1955), pp.
47-48.
in . M. Fortes, in Social Structure: Studies Presented to A. R. Radcliffe-
Brovm.
112. Radcliffe-Brown, “Religion and Society,” op. cit.
113. N ew York, 1945.
114. N ew York, 1951.
115. G . A. Reichard, Navaho Religion: A Study in Symbolism, 2 vols.,
Bollingen Series, No. XVIII (N ew York: 1950).
116. S. F. Nadel, “W itchcraft in Four African Societies: An Essay in Comparison,”
American Anthropologist, LIV , Part I (1952), pp. 18-29.
117. S. F. Nadel, “Shamanism in the Nuba Mountains,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, LX X V I, Part I (1946), pp. 25-38.
118. G. Dumézil, Loki (Paris: 1948).
119. W ittfogel and Goldfrank, op. cit.
120. M. Hunter-Wilson, “W itch Beliefs and Social Structure,” American
Journal of Sociology, LV I, No. 4 (1951), pp. 307-13.
121. Von Neumann and Morgenstern, op. cit., p. 14.
CHAPTER
Postscript to Chapter XV
Ge o r g e s G u r v i t c h , whom I must admit I understand
less and less each time I happen to read his works,1 attacks
my analysis of the concept of social structure,2 but his arguments
amount mostly to exclamation marks tacked on to some distorted
paraphrases of my text. W e shall attempt, however, to get to the
bottom of this disagreement.
Gurvitch offers what he believes to be a fresh discovery:
“There is . . . a striking affinity between the Gestalt approach in
psychology and structuralism in sociology, and, so far as we know,
it has not been emphasized until now.” 3 Gurvitch is mistaken. All
anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists who are structureminded
are aware of the interrelations between their disciplines
and Gestalt psychology. As early as 1934, Ruth Benedict drew
the parallel by citing Kohler and Koffka.4
I myself was so determined to bring this affinity to light that
I concluded the 1947 .preface to Les Structures élémentaires de la
parenté with an acknowledgment to Gestalt psychology:
3*4
Having cited Eddington— “Physics is becoming the ‘study
of organization*— Kohler wrote, almost twenty years ago, that
“Along this road . . . it will converge with biology and psychology.”
My work will have served its purpose if, when the
reader has finished it, he feels inclined to add— “and also sociology.”
5
In a similar vein, Kroeber in his Anthropology asserts that:
A system or configuration is always, in its nature, more than
the mere sum of its parts; there is also the relation of the parts,
their total interconnections, which add up to something additionally
significant. This is well recognized in “Gestalt” or configurational
psychology. The “form” of a culture may therefore
be regarded as the pattern of the interrelations among its constituent
parts.6
On a still deeper level, finally, a Norwegian sociologist, Sverre
Holm, having noted also that the science of culture has long drawn
its inspiration from the message of Gestalt psychology, attempts to
trace structuralism back to one of the remote sources of Gestalt
thinking— the natural philosophy of Goethe.7
As for the scholars in structural linguistics, Troubetzkoy and
Jakobson have often acknowledged their indebtedness to Gestalt
theory, notably to the work of K. Biihler.
However remote Gurvitch’s thinking may be from mine, we
occasionally happen to agree, as the following excerpt from his
article indicates:
When our aim is to study types of global societies (which
must be distinguished from microsociological types— that is,
forms of sociability— and specific types of groups), the construction
of such a typology is possible only on the basis of their
structures. Actually, in contrast to specific groups (let alone
astructural forms of sociability), every global society 'without exception
[Gurvitch’s italics] possesses a structure, and studying
structure is the only means of establishing and re-creating the
types of global social phenomena. We went so far as to say in
Déterminisme sociaux et liberté humaine that global societies and
global social structures coincide. This is true with respect to types
of global societies, but it demands strict reservations when we
speak of a concrete global society, which obviously is incomparably
richer than its structure, however complex that structure
Postscript to Chapter X V I325
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
m ay be, since it is never more than an aspect, a segment, or a
partial expression o f the total social phenomenon. T o grasp the
total social phenomenon in its entirety, we have found no solution
other than to begin w ith a constructed type, w hich, in this case,
can only be a specific type o f the global social structure. . . .8
If we keep in mind that by global societies Gurvitch means
those which the anthropologist makes the object of study and
that his “constructed type” bears a remarkable resemblance to
what I myself mean by “model,” I do not understand his grounds
for criticism. For I am the one who is retreating here from his
position, since I am anything but inclined to believe, as Gurvitch
asserts, that “global societies and social structures coincide.” However,
I do think that social structures can help us to understand and
classify global societies.
Yet Gurvitch objects in the quoted excerpt that what is true
for types ceases to be true for a concrete society. By what authority
does Gurvitch appoint himself our mentor? And what in fact does
he know of concrete societies? The crux of his philosophy would
appear to be high regard for the concrete (involving praise of its
richness, complexity, fluidity, inexpressible character, and creative
spontaneity), and yet this philosopher is imbued with such pious
reverence that he has never dared to undertake a description or
analysis of any concrete society.
Those anthropologists who have spent many years of their
lives steeped in the concrete existence of particular societies may
rest at ease, since among them Gurvitch will never discover an indifference
to the concrete comparable to that which he displays
when he reduces the diversity and specificity of thousands of
societies to four (sic) types; for he merges all the South American
tribes with all the Australian societies, and Melanesia with Polynesia,
and as far as he is concerned North America, bn the one hand, and
Africa, on the other, constitute but two homogeneous blocks.9
Because Gurvitch is a pure theoretician, he is interested only
in the theoretical aspect of our work. And since he does not care
for our theories, because they invalidate his own, he bids us
dedicate ourselves to descriptive ethnography. From this division
of roles he would derive the twofold advantage of reigning supreme
over theory and providing himself with impunity the luxury
of invoking pell-mell a large number of descriptive studies in sup­
port of his speculations. I might add that the arbitrary interpretation
he makes of these studies shows that he does not often trouble
to read them.
Without waiting for advice from Gurvitch, the anthropologists
whom he attacks have dedicated the greater part of their
scientific lives to observing, describing, and analyzing, often with
an exhaustive thoroughness, the “forms of sociability,” the “groups,”
and the smallest details of collective life which, together with
structures, constitute the individual character, impossible to mistake
for any other, of the society among which they have lived.
None of us would ever think of substituting a frozen abstract
type or structure for that living reality. The search for structures
comes at a later stage, when, after observing what exists,
we try to isolate those stable— yet always partial— elements that
will make possible comparison and classification. In clear contrast
to Gurvitch, we do not begin with an a priori definition of what
can be structured and what cannot. W e are too much aware that it
is impossible to know in advance where, and at what level of observation,
structural analysis can be applied. Our experience of the
concrete has taught us that it is quite often the most fluid and the
most transient aspects of a culture which provide access to structure.
This is why we pay such intense, almost compulsive attention
to details. W e bear in mind the example of the natural sciences,
whose progress from one structure to another (ever more comprehensive
and more adequate as an explanation) always lies in discovering
better methods of structuring, by means of the small facts
ignored in previous hypotheses as being “astructural.” Thus the
anomalies in Mercury’s perihelion, which were considered “astructural”
according to the Newtonian system, became the basis for
discovering a better structure through the theory of relativity.
Anthropology, a residual science par excellence, since it has been
assigned the “residue” of societies which the traditional social
sciences did not deign to take into account (precisely because
they considered them to be “astructural” ), cannot, by definition,
use any method other than that of residues.
But we know that a concrete society can never be reduced to
its structure, or, rather, structures (since there are so many of them,
located at different levels, and these various structures are themselves,
at least partially, integrated into a structure). As I wrote in
Postscript to Chapter X V | 32
1949, when criticizing that rudimentary version of structuralism
called functionalism: “To say that a society functions is a truism;
but to say that everything in a society functions is an absurdity.” 10
Gurvitch’s error, like that of most opponents of anthropology
— and they exist11— stems from the fact that he regards the goal of
our discipline as the acquisition of a complete knowledge of the
societies we study.12 The disparity between such an ambition and
the resources which are available to us is so great that we might be
called charlatans, and with good reason. How would one penetrate
the dynamics of an alien society after a stay of a few months,
knowing nothing of its history and usually very little of its language?
Confidence diminishes even more when some of us arc
prone to replace with schemes and diagrams those facts which
elude us. But actually our ultimate purpose is not so much to
discover the unique characteristics of the societies that we study,
as it is to discover in what way these societies differ from one
another. As in linguistics, it is the discontinuities which constitute
the true subject matter of anthropology. To those who question
the possibility of defining the interrelations between entities whose
nature is not completely understood, I shall reply with the follow ing
comment by a great naturalist:
In a very large part of m orphology, our essential task lies in
the comparison of related forms rather than in the precise d efin ition
o f each; and the deformation of a com plicated figure m ay be
a phenomenon easy of comprehension, though the figure itse lf
have to be left unanalyzcd and undefined.13
But the author adds immediately, thus providing us with an
answer to Gurvitch’s objections:
T his process o f comparison, of recognizing in one fo rm a
definite permutation or d e fo lia tio n of another, apart altogeth er
from a precise and adequate understanding o f the original “ t y p e ”
or standard of comparison, lies within the immediate province o f
mathematics, and finds its solution in the elem entary use o f a c e r tain
method of the mathematician. This method is the M ethod o f
Coordinates, on w hich is based the T h eo ry of Transform ations
. . . w hich is part of the T h eory of G roups.14
I shall now deal with the specific points of Gurvitch’s criticism.
The most important of these is directed at the role 1 attributed to
certain mathematical methods in anthropological theory.
3i8 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
Gurvitch declares that I have attempted “to carry out a
synthesis of all the interpretations relating social structure and
mathematics,” 15 and thus I have succeeded in presenting “a real
breviary of the major errors committed, or even possible, with
respect to the concept under discussion,” by drawing “from each
of the four sources of deviation or error” which he has just denounced.
And Gurvitch continues: “Not only does he [LéviStrauss]
claim them [the errors] as his own, but he— as it were—
sublimates them and becomes their apologist by integrating them
intohisown theory of structures. . . 16
Gurvitch’s claim that the study in question is an attempt at
synthesis indicates that he either did not read it or failed to understand
what he read. The reader here may easily verify that I take
the greatest care to dissociate my conceptions from those of
RadclifFe-Brown and Murdock.17 Therefore, I feel in no way affected
by the objections which Gurvitch addresses to them, especially
regarding the statistical method, which I have never
utilized and whose dangers I have explicitly stressed, at least in
connection with the way Murdock sometimes employs it.
Furthermore, and without setting myself up as a “founding
father” of structural anthropology, I should like to point out that
my views on social structure were already formulated in my book
on kinship, which I finished writing at the beginning of 1947—
that is, before, or at the same time as, the works of Fortes, Murdock,
and others for whom Gurvitch would like to make me
merely the commentator and apologist. 1 think it is worth noting
that several anthropologists independently turned toward the concept
of structure during the war years, when circumstances condemned
some of us to a certain degree of isolation; their simultaneous
recognition of structure demonstrated how indispensable the
concept is in solving problems that our predecessors found insoluble.
It brings to our common inquiry a claim to validity, whatever
the differences which separate us in other respects.
O f what deviations and errors have I been guilty, according
to Gurvitch?
They all appear to stem from the artificial relationship which
I wish to impose “between the application of measurement . . .
and the problem of social structure” 18— in other words, my tendency
“to relate the concept of social structure to mathematical
Postscript to Chapter X V | 32
measurement.” 19 Does Gurvitch read carelessly, or too closely,
always finding what he is seeking for purposes of contradiction?
Far from ever asserting anything of the kind, I have often said the
opposite. Let the reader refer to another section in this book:
It is often believed that one of the main interests of the notion
of structure is to permit the introduction of measurement in
social anthropology. . . . However, one should keep in mind
that there is no necessary connection between measure and structure.
. . . It has become possible . . . to develop a rigorous approach
to problems which do not admit of a metrical solutipn.20
And in another article, to which Gurvitch does not hesitate to
refer in support of his allegations, I wrote:
There are, no doubt, many things in our fields of study
which can be . . . measured; but it is by no means certain that
they are the most important things. . . . It was found that the
quantification of [social] phenomena was not by any means in
step with the discovery of their signification. . . .
Had we been concerned exclusively with measurement, w e
should not have added in that same statement that “the new school
of mathematics” introduces “a rigorous treatment [which] no
longer means recourse to measurement. . . . This new mathematics
. . . teaches us that the domain of necessity is not necessarily
the same as that of quantity.” 21
The use Gurvitch makes of the terms measure, measurement,
and quantification (all of which, incidentally, he employs interchangeably)
makes us doubt that he has any idea of the problems
on which we are working. After all, the use of certain mathematical
methods in anthropology is not a topic for academic discussion.
W ith the collaboration of a mathematician, I have applied
these methods to a specific problem;22 with other mathematicians,
I am continuing to apply them to other problems. The only question
which may justifiably be raised is whether or not problems
are brought nearer to their solution by these means.
Although more respectful of structural linguistics than he is
of structural anthropology, Gurvitch also endeavors to restrict its
theoretical scope. But, contrary to what he believes, mathematical
statistics (whose role in linguistic analysis is quite legitimate) is by
330 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
no means limited to the distributional study of phonemes. It can be
applied to grammar and discourse, as the theory of machine translation—
now being elaborated— shows, and its importance has already
been demonstrated in the field of stylistics and philology.
W hen Gurvitch argues that structuralism has its place only in
phonemics and that it loses all meaning at the level of language in
general, he is overlooking the structuralist contributions with respect
to grammar, syntax, and even vocabulary, in the rich and
variegated forms given to them by Benveniste, Hjelmslev, and
especially Jakobson, who in a reccnt work attacks the problem of
figures of speech, which is far removed from phonemics.23 In
addition, the theoreticians of machine translation are in the process
of laying the foundations of grammatical and lexical analysis,
which belongs both to mathematics and to structuralism.24
Gurvitch censures me for “regrettable confusion . . . between
what is called structure and the externally perceptible and
palpable surface of social reality, located in stretches conceptualized
as morphological spaces.” 25 The reader may not immediately grasp
(and he is readily excused) that what is being attacked here are
the phenomena of spatial distribution and the qualitative representation
of space as exemplified in many societies. This “regrettable
confusion,” however, far from being a product of the American
school, as the author would have it, is one of the principal discoveries
of the French sociological school, to which we are indebted
for far more than “allusions . . . rapidly superseded.” 26
This is the central point of the memorable studies De quelques
Formes primitives de classification, by Durkheim and Mauss, and
Les Variations saisonnières dans les sociétés eskimos, by iMauss.27 In
France we need only read Jacques Soustelle’s La Pensée cosmologique
des anciens Mexicains,2Hto be convinced that, almost a halfcentury
later, this method retains its entire validity.
But no one, either in France or in the United States, has ever
believed, as Gurvitch says I claim, that this level should be isolated
from others and that spatial structure and social structure are
identical. Let me make two observations on this:
(i) A large number of native societies have consciously
chosen to project into space a schema of their institutions: thus,
for instance, the circular distribution of Sioux camping sites and Ge
villages in central Brazil; or the layout of towns, the network of
Postscript to Chapter X V I331
roads, and the location of temples and shrines in ancient Peru.
Study of these spatial phenomena permits us to grasp the natives’
own conception of their social structure; and, through our examination
of the gaps and contradictions, the real structure, which
is often very different from the natives’ conception, becomes accessible.
(Chapter VIII of this book presents an illustration of this
method.)
(2) Even when a society is indifferent to space or to a certain
type of space (for instance, in our society, urban space when it has
not been the object of planning), what happens is that unconscious
structures seem to take advantage, as it were, of the indifference in
order to invade the vacant area and assert themselves, symbolically
or in actual fact, somewhat after the fashion of unconscious preoccupations,
which, according to Freud, utilize the “emptiness” of
sleep to find expression in the form of dreams. This second observation
applies both to those so-called primitive societies which
appear to be indifferent to spatial expression and to more complex
societies which profess the same attitude: Thus, most modern cities
present spatial structures which can be reduced to a few types and
which provide certain indexes of the underlying social structure.
By now it should hardly be necessary to comment on G urvitch’s
opinion that in my work “there is nothing of a sui generis
reality, of ‘total social phenomena,’ of macrosociological collective
units.” 29 I have spent the best part of my life studying “macrosociological
collective units.” But in discussing them I see no reason
to use such an unwieldy term, which is as unattractive as it is
overabstract. For my memory calls them by their names— Caduveo,
Bororo, Nambicuara, Mundé, Tupi-Cawahib, Mogh, and Kuki;
and each name reminds me of a place on earth and a moment of m y
history and that of the world. All of these names are associated
with men and women of whom I have been fond, whom I have
respected, whose faces remain in my memory. They remind me o f
joys, hardships, weariness, and, sometimes, dangers. These are m y
witnesses, the living link between my theoretical views and reality.
Finally, as to Gurvitch’s censuring me for regressing, “in a
thinly veiled fashion, after so much effort, to the traditional conception
of the social order,” 30 I shall take it up here only because
other writers too have seemed confused by the concept of order o f
orders introduced at the end of my article on social structure.31
332 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
According to my critics, the order of orders as I conceive it
consists either in a total reconstruction of the concrete society I
would first attempt to break down into structures (which would
make the breaking-down endeavor useless) or in the assertion that,
for a given society, all structures are homologous— which would
really be saying that each society constitutes a kind of monad, at
the same time perfectly coherent and hermetically sealed. Neither
of these interpretations could be more remote from my position.
The order of orders is not a mere logical reformulation of
phenomena which have been subjected to analysis. It is the most
abstract expression of the interrelationships between the levels to
which structural analysis can be applied, general enough to account
for the fact that the models must sometimes be the same for
societies which are historically and geographically disparate. This
is a little as though— if I may be allowed this comparison— molecules
of different chemical composition, some of them simple, others
complex, could nevertheless all be said to have a “right-hand”
structure or a “left-hand” structure. By order of orders, then, I
mean the formal properties of the whole made up of subwholes,
each of which corresponds to a given structural level.
Thus, I fully agree with Jean Pouillon’s interpretation of my
position when he describes it as trying to elaborate “a system of
differences which leads neither to their mere juxtaposition nor to
their artificial obliteration.” 32
I do not postulate a kind of prc-existcnt harmony between
the different levels of structure. They may be— and often are—
completely contradictory, but the modes of contradiction all belong
to the same type. Indeed, according to dialectic materialism it
should always be possible to proceed, by transformation, from
economic or social structure to the structure of law, art, or
religion. But Marx never claimed that there was only one type of
transformation— for example, that ideology was simply a “mirror
image” of social relations. In his view, these transformations were
dialectic, and in some cases he went to great lengths to discover the
crucial transformation which at first sight seemed to defy analysis.33
If we grant, following Marxian thought, that infrastructures
and superstructures are made up of multiple levels and that there
are various types of transformations from one level to another, it
becomes possible— in the final analysis, and on the condition that
Postscript to Chapter X V | 33
we disregard content— to characterize different types of societies
in terms of the types of transformations which occur within them.
These types of transformations amount to formulas showing the
number, magnitude, direction, and order of the convolutions that
must be unraveled, so to speak, in order to uncover (logically, not
normatively) an ideal homologous relationship between the different
structural levels.
Now, this reduction to an ideal homologous relationship is at
the same time a critique. By replacing a complex model with a
simple model that has greater logical value, the anthropologist reveals
the detours and maneuvers, conscious and unconscious, that
each society uses in an effort to resolve its inherent contradictions
— or at any rate to conceal them.
This clarification, already furnished by my previous studies,84
which Gurvitch should have taken into consideration, may expose
me to still another criticism. If every society has the same flaw,
manifested by the twofold problem of logical disharmony and
social inequality, why should its more thoughtful members endeavor
to change it? Change would mean only the replacement o f
one social form by another; and if one is no better than the other,
why bother?
In support of this argument, Rodinson cites a passage from
Tristes Tropiques: “No human society is fundamentally good, but
neither is any of them fundamentally bad; all offer their members
certain advantages, though we must bear in mind a residue o f
iniquity, apparently more or less constant in its importance. . . .” 85
But here Rodinson isolates, in biased fashion, one step in a reasoning
process by which I tried to resolve the apparent conflict between
thought and action. Actually:
( i ) In the passage criticized by Rodinson, the relativistic argument
serves only to oppose any attempt at classifying, in relation
to one another, societies remote from that of the observer— for instance,
from our point of view, a Melanesian group and a North
American tribe. I hold that we have no conceptual framework
available that can be legitimately applied to societies located at
opposite poles of the sociological world and considered in their
mutual relationships.
(2) On the other hand, I carefully distinguished this first case
from a very different one, which would consist in comparing,
334 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
not remote societies, but two historically related stages in the development
of our own society— or, to generalize, of the observer’s
society. When the frame of reference is thus “internalized,” everything
changes. This second phase permits us, without retaining anything
from any particular society,
. . . to make use o f one and all o f them in order to distinguish
those principles o f social life w hich m ay be applied to the reform
o f our ow n customs, and not of those o f societies foreign to our
own. T h at is to say, in relation to our ow n society w e stand in a
position of privilege w hich is exactly contrary to that w hich I have
just described; for our ow n society is the only one that w e can
transform and y et not destroy, since the changes w e should introduce
w ould com e from w ithin.36
Far from being satisfied, then, with a static relativism— as are
certain American anthropologists justly criticized by Rodinson
(but with whom he wrongly identifies me)— I denounce it as a
danger ever present on the anthropologist’s path. M y solution is
constructive, since it derives from the same principles two apparently
contradictory attitudes, namely, respect for societies very
different from ours, and active participation in the transformation
of our own society.
Is there any reason here, as Rodinson claims, “to reduce Billancourt37
to desperation” ? Billancourt would deserve little consideration
if, cannibalistic in its own way (and more seriously so
than primitive man-eaters, for its cannibalism would be spiritual),
it should feel it necessary to its intellectual and moral security that
the Papuans become nothing but proletarians. Fortunately, anthropological
theory does not play such an important role in tradeunion
demands. On the other hand, I am surprised that a scientist
with advanced ideas should present an argument already formulated
by thinkers of an entirely different orientation.
Neither in Race and History nor in Tristes Tropiques did I
intend to disparage the idea of progress; rather, I should like to see
progress transferred from the rank of a universal category of
human development to that of a particular mode of existence,
characteristic of our own society— and perhaps of several others—
whenever that socicty reaches the stage of self-awareness.
• T o say that this concept of progress— progress considered as
Postscript to Chapter X V | 33
an internal property of a given society and devoid of a transcendent
meaning outside it— would lead men to discouragement seems to
me to be a transposition in the historical idiom and on the level of
collective life, of the familiar argument that all morality would be
jeopardized if the individual ceased to believe in the immortality of
his soul. For centuries this argument, so much like Rodinson’s, was
raised to oppose atheism. Atheism would “reduce men to desperation”—
most particularly the working classes, who, it was feared,
would lose their motivation for work if there were no punishments
or rewards promised in the hereafter.
Nevertheless, there are many men (especially in Billancourt)
who accept the idea of a personal existence confined to the duration
of their earthly life; they have not for this reason abandoned
their sense of morality or their willingness to work for the improvement
of their lot and that of their descendants.
Is what is true of individuals less true of groups? A society
can live, act, and be transformed, and still avoid becoming intoxicated
with the conviction that all the societies which preceded
it during tens of millenniums did nothing more than prepare the
ground for its advent, that all its contemporaries— even those at the
antipodes— are diligently striving to overtake it, and that the societies
which will succeed it until the end of time ought to be
mainly concerned with following in its path. This attitude is as
naïve as maintaining that the earth occupies the center of the
universe and that man is the summit of creation. W hen it is professed
today in support of our particular society, it is odious.
What is more, Rodinson attacks me in the name of Marxism,
whereas my conception is infinitely closer to Marx’s position than
his. I wish to point out, first, that the distinctions developed in
Race and History among stationary history, fluctuating history,
and cumulative history can be derived from Marx himself:
The simplicity of the organization for production in thpse
self-sufficing communities that constantly reproduce themselves
in the same form and, when accidentally destroyed, spring up
again on the spot and with the same name— this simplicity supplies
the key to the secret of the unchangeableness of Asiatic societies,
an unchangeableness in such striking contrast with the
constant dissolution and refounding of Asiatic states, and the
never-ceasing changes of dynasty.38
336 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
Actually, Marx and Engels frequently express the idea that primitive,
or allegedly primitive, societies are governed by “blood ties”
(which, today, we call kinship systems) and not by economic
relationships. If these societies were not destroyed from without,
they might endure indefinitely. The temporal category applicable
to them has nothing to do with the one we employ to understand
the development of our own society.39
Nor does this conception contradict in the least the famous
dictum of the Communist Manifesto that “the history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles.” In the light of
Hegel’s philosophy of the State, this dictum does not mean that the
class struggle is co-extensive with humanity, but that the ideas of
history and society can be applied, in the full sense which Marx gives
them, only from the time when the class struggle first appeared. The
letter to Weydemeyer clearly supports this: “What I did that was
new,” Marx wrote, “was prove . . . that the existence of classes
is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development
of production. . . 40
Rodinson should, therefore, ponder the following comment
by Marx in his posthumously published introduction to A Contribution
to the Critique of Political Economy :
The so-called historical development amounts in the last
analysis to this, that the last form considers its predecessors as
stages leading up to itself and perceives them always one-sidedly,
since it is very seldom and only under certain conditions that it is
capable of self-criticism. . . .41
This chapter had already been written when Jean-François
Revel published his lively, provocative, but often unfair study.42
Since part of his chapter VIII%concerns my work, I shall briefly
Revel criticizes me, but not without misgivings. If he recognized
me for what I am— an anthropologist who has conducted
field work and who, having presented his findings, has re-examined
the theoretical principles of his discipline on the basis of these
specific findings and the findings of his colleagues— Revel would,
according to his own principles, refrain from discussing my work.
But he begins by changing me into a sociologist, after which he
insinuates that, because of my philosophical training, my sociology
Postscript to Chapter X V | 337
is nothing but disguised philosophy. From then on we are among
colleagues, and Revel can freely tread on my reserves, without
realizing that he is behaving toward anthropology exactly as,
throughout his book, he upbraids philosophers for behaving toward
the other empirical sciences.
But I am not a sociologist, and my interest in our own society
is only a secondary one. Those societies which I seek first to understand
are the so-called primitive societies with which anthropologists
are concerned. When, to Revel’s great displeasure, I interpret
the exchange of w'ine in the restaurants of southern France in
terms of social prestations, my primary aim is not to explain contemporary
customs by means of archaic institutions but to help
the reader, a member of a contemporary society, to rediscover, in
his own experience and on the basis of either vestigial or embryonic
practices, institutions that would otherwise remain unintelligible to
him. The question, then, is not whether the exchange of wine is a
survival of the potlatch, but whether, by means of this comparison,
we succeed better in grasping the feelings, intentions, and attitudes
of the native involved in a cycle of prestations. The ethnographer
who has lived among natives and has experienced such ceremonies,
as either a spectator or a participant, is entitled to an opinion on
this question; Revel is not.
Moreover, by a curious contradiction, Revel refuses to admit
that the categories of primitive societies may be applied to our own
society, although he insists upon applying our categories to primitive
societies. “ It is absolutely certain,” he says, that prestations
“in which the goods of a society arc finally used up . . . correspond
to the specific conditions of a mode of production and a
social structure.” And he further declares that “it is even probable
— barring an exception unique in history, which would then have
to be explained— that prestations mask the economic exploitation of
certain members of each society of this type by others.” 43
How can Revel be “absolutely certain”? And how does he
know that the exception wTould be “unique in history” ? Has he
studied Melanesian and Amerindian institutions in the field? Has
he so much as analyzed the numerous works dealing with the ktik
and its evolution from 1910 to 1950, or with the potlatch from the
beginning of the nineteenth century until the twentieth? If he had,
he would know, first of all, that it is absurd to think that all the
338 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
goods of a society are used up in these exchanges. And he would
have more precise ideas of the proportions and the kinds of goods
involved in certain cases and in certain periods. Finally, and above
all, he would be aware that, from the particular viewpoint that
interests him— namely, the economic exploitation of man by man
— the two culture areas to which he refers cannot be compared. In
one of them, this exploitation presents characteristics which we
might at best call pre-capitalistic. Even in Alaska and British
Columbia, however, this exploitation is an external factor: It acts
only to give greater scope to institutions which can exist without
it, and whose general character must be defined in other terms.
Should Revel hasten to protest, let me add that I am only
paraphrasing Engels, who by chance expressed his opinion on this
problem, and with respect to the same societies which Revel has in
mind. Engels wrote:
In order finally to get clear about the parallel between the
Germ ans o f Tacitus and the Am erican Redskins I have made some
gentle extractions from the first volum e o f your Bancroft [The
N ative Races of the Pacific States, e tc.l. T h e similarity is indeed
all the more surprising because the m ethod of production is so
fundam entally different— here hunters and fishers w ithout cattleraising
or agriculture, there nom adic cattle-raising passing into
agriculture. It just proves how at this stage the type or production
is less decisive than the degree in w hich the old blood bonds and
the old mutual com m unity of the sexes within the tribe have been
dissolved. O therwise the T lin git in the form er Russian Am erica
could not be the exact counterpart o f the G erm anic tribes. . . ,44
It remained for Marcel Mauss, in Essai sur le Don (which
Revel criticizes quite inappropriately) to justify and develop Engels’
hypothesis that there is a striking parallelism between certain
Germanic and Celtic institutions and those of societies having the
potlatch.™ He did this with no concern about uncovering the
“specific conditions of a mode of production,” which, as Engels
had already understood, would be useless. But then Marx and Engels
knew incomparably more anthropology almost a hundred
years ago than Revel knows today.
I am, on the other hand, in full agreement with Revel when he
writes, “Perhaps the most serious defect which philosophy has
transmitted to sociology is . . . the obsession with creating in one
Postscript to Chapter X V | 339
stroke holistic explanations.” 46 He has here laid down his own
indictment. He rebukes me because I have not proposed explanations
and because I have acted as if I believed “that there-is
fundamentally no reason why one society adopts one set of institutions
and another society other institutions.” He requires anthropologists
to answer questions such as: “W hy are societies
structured along different lines? W hy does each structure evolve?
. . . Why are there differences [Revel’s italics] between institutions
and between societies, and what responses to what conditions
do these differences imply . . . ?” 47 These questions are highly
pertinent, and we should like to be able to answer them. In our
present state of knowledge, however, we are in a position to
provide answers only for specific and limited cases, and even here
our interpretations remain fragmentary and isolated. Revel can
believe that the task is easy, since for him “it is absolutely certain”
that ever since the social evolution of man began, approximately
500,000 years ago, economic exploitation can explain everything.
As we noted, this was not the opinion of Marx and Engels.
According to their view, in the non- or pre-capitalistic societies
kinship ties played a more important role than class relations. I do
not believe that I am being unfaithful to their teachings by trying,
seventy years after Lewis H. Morgan, whom they admired so
greatly, to resume Morgan’s endeavor— that is, to work out a new
typology of kinship systems in the light of knowledge acquired
in the field since then, by myself and others.48
I ask to be judged on the basis of this typology, and not on
that of the psychological or sociological hypotheses which Revel
seizes upon; these hypotheses are only a kind of mental scaffolding,
momentarily useful to the anthropologist as a means of organizing
his observations, building his classifications, and arranging his types
in some sort of order. If one of my colleagues were to come to me
and say that my theoretical analysis of Murngin or Gilyak kinship
systems was inconsistent with his observations, or that while I
was in the field I misinterpreted chieftainship among the
Nambicuara, the place of art in Caduveo society, the social structure
of the Bororo, or the nature of clans among the TupiCawahib,
I should listen to him with deference and attention. But
Revel, who could not care less about patrilineal descent, bilateral
marriage, dual organization, or dysharmonie systems, attacks me—
340 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
without even understanding that I seek only to describe and analyze
certain aspects of the objective world— for “flattening out
social reality.” For him everything is flat that cannot be instantaneously
expressed in a language which he may perhaps use correctly
in reference to Western civilization, but to which its inventors
explicitly denied any other application. N ow it is my turn to exclaim:
Indeed, “ what is the use of philosophers?”
Reasoning in the fashion of Revel and Rodinson would mean
surrendering the social sciences to obscurantism. What would we
think of building contractors and architects who condemned cosmic
physics in the name of the law of gravity and under the argument
that a geometry based on curved spaces would render obsolete
the traditional techniques for demolishing or building houses?
The house-wrecker and the architect are right to believe only in
Euclidean geometry, but they do not try to force it upon the
astronomer. And if the help of the astronomer is required in remodeling
his house, the categories he uses to understand the universe
do not automatically prevent him from handling the pick-ax
and plumb-line.
Postscript to Chapter X V | 34
N O T E S
1. Yet I tried to read his works some years ago, and not without sympathy.
See C. Lévi-Strauss, “French Sociology",” in G . Gurvitch and W . E.
Moore (eds.), Twentieth Century Sociology (N ew York: 1945), Chapter
X VII.
2. G . Gurvitch, “Le Concept de structure sociale,” Cahiers internationaux
de Sociologie, XIX, n.s. (1955). It seems that Gurvitch republished the
same essay, with some modifications, in the second edition of Vocation
actuelle de la Sociologie (Paris: 1957). This present chapter, which I
wrote in 1956, refers to Gurvitch’s initial text.
3. Gurvitch, “Le Concept de structure sociale,” op. cit., p. 11.
4. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Boston: 1934), pp. 51-2 and 279.
Gurvitch more recently made another “discovery” which he was “eager
to communicate to the readers of the Cahiers as an addendum to . . .
[his] study on the concept of social structure” : namely, that Spencer
is “a forgotten source of the concepts of ‘social structure,’ ‘social function,’
and ‘institution’ ” (Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie, XXIII
CÏ957], pp. 111-21). However, we fail to see who— besides Gurvitch
himself— has “forgotten” Spencer and the paternity which must be
attributed to him for these concepts; certainly not, in any case, the
contemporary exponents of the concept of structure, who have never
lacked memory to this extent. See D. Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
(N ew York: 1953), Chapters II and IV; and, for England, E. E. EvansPritchard,
Social Anthropology (Glencoe, 111.: 1951), p. 17, and, especially,
A . R. Radcliffe-Brown’s introduction to his collection of essays,
Structure and Function in Primitive Society (Glencoe, 111.: 1952), in
which he comments, after referring several times to Spencer: “ [My]
. . . theory can be stated by means of the three fundamental and connected
concepts of ‘process,’ ‘structure,’ and ‘function.’ It is derived
from such earlier writers as Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Durkheim
and thus belongs to a cultural tradition of two hundred years” (p. 14).
5. C. Lévi-Strauss, Structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: 1949), p.
xiv.
6. A. L. Kroeber, Anthropology (N ew York: 1948), p. 293.
7. Sverre Holm, “Studies towards a Theory of Sociological Transformations,”
Studia Norvegica, No. 7 (Oslo: 1951), p. 40 and passim.
8. Gurvitch, “Le Concept de structure sociale,” op. cit., pp. 11-2.
9. Gurvitch, Déterminismes sociaux et liberté humaine (Paris: 1955), pp.
200-22.
10. See page 13, above.
11. See Brice Parain, “Les Sorciers,” Le Monde nouveau (M ay, 1956).
12. This I gather from the terminology used by Gurvitch, who also misinterprets
the views of Alauss, to whom we are indebted for the expression:
“to apprehend the total social phenomenon.”
13. D ’A rcy W entworth Thompson, On Growth and Fonti (Cambridge,
Mass.: 1942 ), II, 1032.
14. Loc. cit. and footnote.
15. Gurvitch, “Le Concept de Structure sociale,” op. cit., pp. 14-5.
16. Ibid.yp. 19.
17. See pp. 287-8, 303-7, and 313 of the present volume.
18. Gurvitch, “Le Concept de structure sociale,” op. cit., p. 14.
19. Ibid., p. 17; reiterated in the same terms, p. 19.
20. See pp. 282-3 of this book.
21. C. Lévi-Strauss, “The Mathematics of Man,” in International Social
Science Bulletin, VI, No. 4 (Paris: U N ESCO , 1954), p. 585.
22. Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures . . . , Chapter X IV.
23. R. Jakobson and M. Halle, Fundamentals of Language (The Hague:
1956).
24. V . H. Yngve, “Syntax and the Problem of Multiple Meaning,” in W . N .
Locke and A. D. Booth (eds.), Machine Translation of Languages
(N ew York: 1955); “Sentence for Sentence Translation,” Mechanical
Translation, II, No. 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1955); “The Translation of
Languages by Machine,” Information Theory, Third London Symposium,
n.d.
25. Gurvitch, “Le Concept . . . ,” op. cit., p. 17.
26. Loc. cit.
27. Année sociologique, respectively V I ( 1901-1902) and IX (1904-1905).
28. Paris, 1940.
29. Gurvitch, “Le Concept . . . op. cit., p. 19.
30. Ibid., p. 21.
31. See page 312, above. I am thinking especially of Maxime Rodinson, in
his two articles “Racisme et civilisation,” La Nouvelle Critique, N o. 66
Postscript to Chapter X V
(June, 1955), and “Ethnographie et relativisme/* La Nouvelle Critique,
N o. 69 (November, 1955). W hen the editors of La Nouvelle Critique
published Rodinson’s second article, they assured me in several letters
that they “would welcome” my comments. I replied, therefore, with
the following letter.November
25, 1955
T o the Editor-in-Chief:
For the second time in several months, Maxime Rodinson has
published in La Nouvelle Critique an article which is in large part dedicated
to me. W hile the author appears to be more concerned with
widening the gap between us than with stressing the points of convergence,
I shall disappoint him perhaps by saying that his articles
seemed to me vigorous and well-thought-out, and that, on the whole,
I agree with him. I regret, however, since so much attention was paid
to me, that he did not think it profitable to inquire into my endeavors
to reintegrate the anthropological knowledge acquired during the last
fifty years into the Marxian tradition. Apparently Mr. Rodinson decided
to reject this new knowledge m toto. But should we not distinguish
scientific findings, strictly speaking, from the political and ideological
uses to which they are put, all too frequently, in the United States and
elsewhere? Mr. Rodinson’s attitude certainly corresponds to that of an
orthodoxy which has asserted itself boisterously with respect to linguistics,
physics, biology, and cybernetics. A ll this has changed lately,
and Mr. Rodinson will doubtless find cut shortly that he is behind
the times. I wish to point out, furthermore, that in regard to a question
which in certain aspects resembles the one which he discusses—
namely the present trends of quantum mechanics— La Nouvelle Critique
exhibits, in its last issue, an infinitely more cautious and moderate
attitude, which could be usefully transferred to the theoretical problems
of anthropology.
Mr. Rodinson criticizes me for misinterpreting the concept of structure,
which I have borrowed, or so I thought, from Marx and Engels,
among others, and to which I attribute a primary role— this constituting
a more frequent ground for criticism addressed to me. In regard to
Mr. Rodinson’s critique of the concept of culture, or, rather, of certain
of its connotations, I agree with him. The merits of Kroeber, which I
have explicitly recognized, reside in other works (especially the admirable
Handbook of the Indians of California), rather than in that unfortunate
attempt at cultural statistics which Mr. Rodinson subjects to a
fundamentally just critique— but which is really beside the point. An
apparently fruitless undertaking all the same presented a certain amount
of interest within the very spécial and in many respects privileged
geographic framework offered by California. The diversity and ethnographie
density of California were so accentuated that one was tempted
to find out whether, despite a classification of culture traits made in a
systematically mechanical and avowedly unintelligent fashion, the significant
elements might not emerge spontaneously. This endeavor has
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
been taken up in psychology by L. Guttman since then, with positive
results.
Finally, Mr. Rodinson advises me to adopt the concept o f society
in lieu of the concept of culture. W ithout rejecting the latter, I have not
waited for him to attempt embodying both concepts within a perspective
compatible with Marxian principles. If he had read m y book,
instead of confining himself to the extracts published a few months ago,
he would have discovered— in addition to a Marxian hypothesis on the
origins of writing— two studies dedicated to Brazilian tribes (the Caduveo
and the Bororo), which are efforts to interpret native superstructures
based upon dialectic materialism. The novelty of this approach in
the Western anthropological literature perhaps deserves more attention
and sympathy.
Among contemporary critics Mr. Rodinson is certainly not the
only one who finds it natural to refute an author on the basis of a few
fragments. The other liberties which he takes are less common, particularly
that of using false quotations. This is indeed what Mr. Rodinson
does in his second article (page 61), by putting into italics and quotation
marks three lines which he attributes to me— the reference to which he
gives in a footnote (Race and History, page 40). The “quoted” lines
do not appear there and I do not recall ever having written them.
Sincerely yours,
La Nouvelle Critique rectified the erroneous quotation in its next
issue. As for my letter, it was never published.
32. Jean Pouillon, “L ’Oeuvre de Claude Lévi-Strauss,” Les Temps Modernes,
XII, No. 126 (July, 1956), p. 155.
33. For instance, in the famous passage on Greek art in the posthumously
published introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy; and also, from another viewpoint, in the Eighteenth Brumaire
of Louis Bonaparte.
34. See Chapters I and VII in this book.
35. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris: 1955), p. 417 (English
trans., N ew York: 1961, p. 385). Cited by Rodinson, op. cit., pp. 50-2,
and passim.
36. Tristes Tropiques, p. 424 (English trans., pp. 391-92).
[37. Translator's note: The author uses the term Billancourt to stand for
working-class ideology. Billancourt is the name of a Seine district, the
largest industrial complex of the Paris region, where the Renault automobile
works are located. Its workers are organized into one of the most
powerful trade unions in France.]
38. K. Marx, Capital (N ew York: 1906), pp. 393-4. [The italics are the
present author’s.]
39. These themes recur constantly in Capital with respect to India and the
ancicnt Germanic societies, which were at that time the most “primitive”
societies Marx knew. Engels generalized these themes in Anti-Dührmg
and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
40. Letter to W eydcm eyer, March 5, 1852, in K. Marx and F. Engels,
Selected Correspondence, 1846-1895 (N ew York: 1942), p. 57.
Postscript to Chapter X V
4 1 . K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, trans.
N . I. Stone (Chicago: 1904), p. 301.
42. J. F. Revel, Pourquoi des philosophes? (Paris: 1957).
43. Ibid., p. 138.
44. Letter to Marx, December 8, 1882, in Marx and Engels, op. cit., pp.
405-6.
45. Année sociologique, n.s., I (1923-1924). English trans., I. Cunnison, The
G ift (Glencoe, 111.: 1954).
46. Revel, op. cit., p. 147.
47. Ibid., p. 141.
48. In the history of Marxism, Revel’s deviation, which is also Rodinson’s,
is not new. It can be traced back to Kautsky, and as early as 1883 Engels
was forced to denounce it. Like Revel and Rodinson afterward, Kautsky
also wanted to interpret primitive societies in terms of historical materialism,
by employing exclusively economic concepts, such as barbarism,
which was defined by Engels, following Lewis H. Morgan, as “the
period during which man learns to breed domestic animals and to practice
agriculture, and acquires methods of increasing the supply of natural
products by human agency” (The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State [London: 1940], p. 25). Engels replied to Kautsky as
follows: “ It is not barbarism that establishes the primitive character of
a society, but, rather, the degree of integrity of the old blood ties in
the tribe. It is these blood ties which must be demonstrated in each
particular instance, before drawing conclusions for this and that tribe
from isolated phenomena” (letter to Kautsky, February 10, 1883, cited
in M. Rubel, Karl Marx, Essai de biographie intellectuelle [Paris: 1957],
pp. 301-2). W hat have I done in Structures élémentaires, if not to demonstrate,
“in each particular instance,” the nature of the “blood ties,”
“for this and that tribe”?
CHAPTER
The Place of Anthropology in
the Social Sciences and Problems
Raised in Teaching It
THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY
TJLh e p r e s e n t organization of anthropological
studies is, in a way, a challenge to the authors of this volume.1
Logically they ought to have provided a general report on the
teaching of social anthropology, since the name of that discipline
places it among the social sciences and it appears to have a separate
content. But difficulties at once arise?; where, save in Great
Britain, do we find “social anthropology” taught as a separate, organic
discipline in an autonomous department? All the other countries
(and certain establishments in Great Britain itself) speak of
anthropology pure and simple, or of cultural anthropology, or
again of ethnology, ethnography, folklore, etc. These names certainly
cover social anthropology (or the subjects grouped under it
elsewhere), but they cover many other things at the same time—
and is it possible to regard technology, prehistory, archaeology,
certain aspects of linguistics, or physical anthropology, as social
sciences? W e seem to be departing from the problem in the very
act of approaching it.
346
But the position is even more complicated. Social anthropology
tends to be present in a vast series of studies which have no
evident association with the social sciences; yet, by a singular
paradox, these studies are frequently connected with the social
sciences in another way: Many universities, particularly in the
United States, have departments of “ anthropology and sociology,”
“ anthropology and social sciences,” or similar titles. Just when we
think we have grasped the connection between anthropology and
social science, it evades us; and it is scarcely lost before we find it
again on a new plane.
It is as though social and cultural anthropology, far from appearing
on the scene of scientific development as an independent
subject claiming a place among the other disciplines, had taken
shape somewhat in the manner of a nebula, gradually incorporating
a substance previously diffused or distributed in another way
and, by this concentration, bringing about a general redistribution
of research subjects among the humanistic and social sciences.
It is important to realize, from the outset, that anthropology
is not distinguished from other humanistic and social sciences by
any subject of study peculiar to it alone. At first, indeed, it was
concerned with so-called savage or primitive societies, and we shall
later investigate the reasons for this. But this interest is increasingly
shared by other disciplines, especially demography, social psychology,
political science, and law. On the other hand, we have the
strange phenomenon that anthropology develops as those societies
tend to disappear, or at least to lose their distinctive features— it is
no longer entirely bound up with stone axes, totemism, and polygamy!
This has been well exemplified in the last few years, during
which anthropologists have turned to the study of so-called civilized
societies. What then, in fact, is anthropology? For the time
being we shall merely say that it proceeds from a particular conception
of the world or from an original way of approaching
problems, both discovered during the study of social phenomena
which are not necessarily simpler (as people often tend to think)
than those appearing in the observer’s own society, but which are
so remote from them that they throw into relief certain general
features of social life which anthropology makes it its business to
study.
This conclusion may be reached in different ways. In some
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 347
cases it is the outcome of ethnographical research; in others, of
linguistic analysis; in yet others, of attempts to interpret the findings
of archaeological excavations. Anthropology is too young a
science for its teaching not to reflect the local and historical circumstances
that are at the root of each particular development.
One university may thus combine cultural anthropology and linguistics
in a single department, because linguistic studies there early
assumed an anthropological character; another may arrange matters
differently, but for the same kind of reason.
In these circumstances, the present authors might well wonder
whether it was possible, or even desirable, artificially to “systematize”
different situations, each of which justifies a separate explanation.
A general report on the teaching of anthropology
would be bound either to distort facts by placing them in arbitrary
frameworks or to be reduced to historical surveys which
would differ for each country and often even for each university.
Since anthropology is a growing science whose independence is
not yet universally recognized, it has seemed necessary to proceed
by another method. A statement of facts must be based on the
de facto situation; and since social anthropology, in the great
majority of cases, is allied to other disciplines, and the social science
in whose company it is most frequently found is sociology,
both have finally been linked together in the same general report.
This however is only a temporary arrangement, resulting not from
a considered plan but from chance and improvisation. It is not,
therefore, enough to define the general terrain in which the teaching
of anthropology is now emerging; we must also try to discover
its present trend, and the main lines of an evolution which is unfolding
in various places. The general report on the teaching of
sociology and anthropology meets the first requirement; the present
work meets the second.
A GLANCE AT THE SITUATION TODAY
From the facts contained in the general report, certain conclusions
emerge. Irrespective of local variations and idiosyncrasies,
three main methods of teaching anthropology can be distinguished.
It is taught either by means of isolated chairs (of which there
may be only one in the university in question or, alternatively,
348 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
several attached to various faculties or establishments) ; or by departments
(which may be purely anthropological or may combine
anthropology with other disciplines); or, again, by institutes or
schools which are of an inter- or extra-faculty nature, i.e., which
regroup subjects taught under other titles in the various faculties,
or organize instruction in the subjects proper to them (both of
these systems may, moreover, be combined).
Isolated Chairs of Anthropology. This method is very widespread,
but never seems to be adopted deliberately. A country or
university which decides to start teaching anthropology usually
begins by founding a chair and goes no further if developments
are hindered by a lack of students or a lack of openings for them
(the latter generally explains the former). If the position is more
favorable, other chairs are added to the first and the whole tends
to form an institute or department. This trend is very apparent in
the United States, where a survey of the range of teaching establishments,
from the smallest to the largest, reveals all stages of
development— from a single anthropology course taught by the
teacher of an adjacent discipline to a department of anthropology
containing a team of teachers and conferring a Ph.D. Between
these two extremes may be found a single chair attached to another
department, a mixed department, or, finally, a department of anthropology
that does not take the student beyond his B.A. or M.A.
But the formation of a complete department is always the object
aimed at.
Another type of development can also lead to isolated chairs
— as when we have chairs which, originally founded in a discipline
far removed from anthropology, are brought back toward it by a
process of academic evolution that was unforeseeable at the time of
their foundation. France presents two striking examples. The École
Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes (National School of
Modem Oriental Languages) was started at a period when it was
thought that the study of all the world’s languages would develop
along lines similar to those of classical philology; but experience
has shown that a knowledge of certain unwritten languages can
be acquired only by unorthodox methods, much more dependent
on anthropology than on traditional linguistics. Similarly, at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études (Practical School of Higher
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 349
Studies), the chairs devoted to religions of peoples with little or no
written traditions tend to diverge, in trend, from the others and to
assume an increasingly anthropological character. In cases of this
kind, anthropology, if one may so put it, “contaminates” other disciplines
sporadically and faces the administration and the educator
with unforeseen problems that are very difficult to solve within
the framework of traditional groupings.
Finally, we must cite the case of a mixed department, well
illustrated in Great Britain. A t the time when oriental studies were
becoming increasingly tinged with anthropology, the rapid development
of African studies showed the need for introducing philological,
historical, and archaeological considerations into this field.
An opportunity for regrouping was thus opened up and was sanctioned
some years ago by the conversion of the School of Oriental
Studies into the School of Oriental and African Studies, where
anthropology became closely associated both with the social sciences
and with humanistic studies— an arrangement that would
not have been possible, for studies bearing on those particular regions
of the world, under any conventional academic structure.
Departments. In theory, the departmental system may seem
ideal. American universities, as we have just seen, are tending toward
it; and in other countries where anthropological studies are
in full development— like Great Britain, Australia, and India—
departments of anthropology are being founded and are increasing
in number. In fact, a department of anthropology meets two requirements—
well-coordinated courses suited to the different sections
or aspects of research, and gradual preparation for diplomas,
from the elementary examinations up to the doctorate. But the
system involves certain difficulties. In countries with a rigid academic
tradition, which strictly separates sciences from the arts or
humanities, the department of anthropology implies a choice between
the two types of faculty; so that one is led to envisage two
departments, one of social or cultural anthropology and another ctf
physical anthropology. It is of course in the interest of these two
branches to specialize; yet an anthropologist, whatever his particular
line, cannot dispense with a basic knowledge of physical anthropology,
while this latter branch is lost unless it constantly keeps
in mind the sociological aspects. W e shall return to this point later.
35o | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
France may be cited as an example of the abnormal situation
arising in anthropological work from a rigid separation between
the faculties of science and arts. The University of Paris grants
three diplomas in anthropology— a diploma in ethnology (with
arts optional) awarded by the faculty of arts; the same diploma
with sciences optional, awarded by the two faculties combined;
and, lastly, a diploma in physical anthropology, awarded by the
faculty of science alone. The students are neither sufficiently numerous
nor, above all, sufficiently specialized (since these diplomas
involve only a year’s study) to justify such complexity.
But the inconveniences of the departmental system are felt
even in the countries that have most readily adopted it. In England
itself, the University of Oxford prefers the system of institutes
(with the Institute of Social Anthropology), and in America increasing
doubts are arising: The departmental system often entails
premature specialization, with inadequate general education as its
corollary. The example of the University of Chicago is typical in
this respect; to remedy the defects just mentioned, the department
of anthropology first became part of a division of social
sciences, but this change had hardly been effected before expert
minds began to feel the need for similar contacts with humanistic
studies. Thus arose the third system, that of schools or institutes.
Schools or Institutes. The best known examples of these are
the Escuela Nacional de Antropologfa (National School of Anthropology)
in Mexico City and the Institut d’Ethnologie (Institute
of Ethnology) at the University of Paris. The former offers a
comprehensive form of professional training which amounts to a
specialization and completion of past university studies; the latter
aims, rather, at regrouping and supplementing current university
studies. The Institut d’Ethnologie stems from three faculties— law,
arts, and science. In preparation for a university examination— the
ethnology diploma of the arts or science degree— it prescribes for
students courses given in the three faculties, adding other courses
organized under its own responsibility but sanctioned by the University.
The same interfaculty approach is seen in the courses for
the Overseas Peoples Studies Degree, which involve certificates
awarded by the faculties of law and arts and, sometimes, by the
faculty of science.
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 351
W e shall later explain why this seems to us the most satisfactory
system. For the moment we shall merely note that it, too,
raises problems; the autonomy of the institute often has to be paid
for by a lowering of status, in comparison with teaching conceived
on more traditional lines. It is a somewhat irregular system;
hence the difficulty of introducing a sufficiently long period of
study culminating in diplomas which rank with those awarded by
the faculties. At the University of Paris there has been partial success
in extending the length of the courses to two years for the
most promising students, thanks to the foundation of another establishment,
the Centre de Formation aux Recherches Ethnologiques
(Ethnological Training Center), devoted to specialized
courses and practical work; but this solution too is questionable, as
it removes anthropological teaching further from traditional lines
instead of bringing it nearer and raises the standard of the work
without permitting it to culminate in the usual highest type of
award.
These few examples show the difficulty of solving the problems
of anthropology teaching on the basis of experience gained.
W e can, in fact, hardly talk of “ experience gained” ; the experiments
are still in progress, and neither their ultimate trend nor
their results can yet be seen. Perhaps we should state the problem
in another way. For lack of facts from which to draw conclusions
by induction, let us seek the answer in anthropology itself. Let us
try to see not only where anthropology stands at present, but
where it is heading. A long-term view may— better than any
non-forward-looking analysis of the present confused situation,
characteristic of an enthusiastic period— enable us to discern the
principles that should govern its teaching.
THE QUESTION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The first problem is one of classification. Is anthropology,
whose appearance has made so marked an impact upon the social
sciences, itself a social science? Undoubtedly it is, since it deals with
human groups. But being by definition a “science of man,” does it
not come within the range of the so-called humanistic sciences or
studies? And by reason of that branch of it which is known almost
everywhere under the name of physical anthropology (though as
352 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
“anthropology” pure and simple in several European countries),
does it not belong to the natural sciences? No one will deny that
anthropology has this threefold aspect. And in the United States,
where a “tripartite” division of the sciences has been carried fairly
far, anthropological societies have secured the right of affiliation
with the three great science councils, each of which controls one of
the fields we have just differentiated. Let us take a closer look at
the nature of this threefold relationship.
First let us deal with physical anthropology. This is concerned
with questions such as man’s evolution from animal form and the
present division into racial groups distinguishable by anatomical or
physiological characteristics. Can it therefore be described as a
natural study of man? T o define it thus would be to forget that
the last phases, at least, of human evolution— those which have
differentiated the races of Homo sapiens, and even perhaps the
stages which led to him— occurred under conditions very different
from those governing the development of other living species.
From the time when man acquired the power of speech (the very
complex techniques and the marked similarity of form which characterize
prehistoric industries imply that he already had a language
wherewith to teach them and pass them on), he himself determined,
though not necessarily consciously, the processes of his biological
evolution. Each human society conditions its own physical
perpetuation by a complex body of rules, such as the prohibition of
incest, endogamy, exogamy, preferential marriage between certain
types of relatives, polygamy, or monogamy— or simply by the
more or less systematic application of moral, social, economic, and
esthetic standards. By conforming to these rules, a society facilitates
certain types of unions or associations and excludes others.
A n anthropologist who tried to interpret the evolution of human
races or subraces as though it were simply the result of natural
conditions would enter the same blind alley as a zoologist attempting
to explain the present differences among dogs by purely biological
or ecological considerations, without taking human intervention
into account. Men have made themselves to no less an
extent than they have made the races of their domestic animals,
the only difference being that the process has been less conscious
or voluntary. Consequently, physical anthropology, though using
knowledge and methods derived from the natural sciences, has
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 353
particularly close connections with the social sciences. To a very
great extent, it amounts to a study of the anatomical and physiological
changes resulting, in a given living species, from the emergence
of social life, of language, and of a system of values— or, to
use a more general teçm, of culture.
ETHNOGRAPHY, ETHNOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY
W e are, then, very far from the period when the various aspects
of human civilizations (tools, clothing, institutions, beliefs)
were treated as a kind of extension of, or as dependent upon, the
somatic qualities characterizing various human groups. The opposite
relationship would be nearer the truth. The term ethnology
with this outmoded meaning survives here and there, notably in
India, where the system of castes (endogamous and technically
specialized) has given it a measure of tardy and superficial consistency,
and in France, where an extremely rigid academic structure
tends to perpetuate traditional terminology (cf. the Chair of
Ethnology of Living and Fossilized Man in the National Museum
of Natural History, as though there were any significant relation
between the anatomical structure of fossilized man and his tools
and as though the ethnology of present-day man raised the question
of his anatomical structure). But once these confusions have
been eliminated, we remain puzzled, after reading the general report,
by the disturbing diversity of terms that require precise
definition. What are the connections and the differences among
ethnography, ethnology, and anthropology? W hat is meant by the
distinction (so irksome, apparently, to persons of different nationalities
preparing reports) between social anthropology and cultural
anthropology? And what is the relationship between anthropology
and the disciplines frequently combined with it in a single department—
sociology, social science, geography, and, sometimes, even
archaeology and linguistics?
The answer to the first question is relatively simple. In all
countries, it seems, ethnography is interpreted in the same way: It
corresponds to the first stages in research— observation and description,
field work. The typical ethnographical study consists of
a monograph dealing with a social group small enough for the
author to be able to collect most of his material by personal obser-
354 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
vation. Ethnography also includes the methods and techniques
connected with field work, with the classification, description, and
analysis of particular cultural phenomena— whether weapons, tools,
beliefs, or institutions. In the case of material objccts, these operations
are generally performed in the museum, which in this respect
may be regarded as an extension of field work (an important
point, to which we shall return).
In relation to ethnography, ethnology represents a first step
toward synthesis. Without excluding direct observation, it leads
toward conclusions sufficiently comprehensive to preclude, or almost
to preclude, their being based solely on first-hand information.
The synthesis may be of three kinds: geographical, if information
about neighboring groups is to be collated; historical, if
the purpose is to reconstruct the past of one or several peoples;
systematic, if one type of technique, custom, or institution is
selected for special attention. It is in this sense that the term ethnology
is applied, for instance, to the Bureau of American Ethnology
in the Smithsonian Institute, to the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie
(Journal of Ethnology), or to the Institut d’Ethnologie (Institute
of Ethnology) at the University of Paris. In all these cases, ethnology
includes ethnography as its first step and is an extension of it.
For a considerable time, and in several countries, this “duality”
was regarded as sufficient unto itself. This was especially so wherever
historical and geographical considerations predominated and
where the opinion prevailed that synthesis could not range beyond
determination of the origins and centers of cultural diffusion.
Other countries— France, for instance— held to the same view, but
for different reasons; the final stage of the synthesis was left to
other disciplines— sociology (in the French sense of the term),
human geography, history, and, sometimes, even philosophy. Thus,
apparently, it came about that in several European countries the
term anthropology was left undefined and was therefore limited
in practice to physical anthropology.
On the other hand, wherever we meet with the terms social
anthropology or cultural anthropology they are linked to a second
and final stage of the synthesis, based upon ethnographical and
ethnological conclusions. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, anthropology
aims at a global knowledge of man— embracing the subject in
its full historical and geographical extension, seeking knowledge
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 355
applicable to the whole of human evolution from, let us say,
Hominidae to the races of today, and leading to conclusions which
may be either positive or negative but which are valid for all human
societies, from the large modem city to the smallest Melanesian
tribe. In this sense it may thus be said that there is the same connection
between anthropology and ethnology as that, described above,
between ethnology and ethnography. Ethnography, ethnology, and
anthropology do not form three different disciplines, or three different
conceptions of the same branch of study. They are in fact
three stages, or three moments of time, in the same line of investigation,
and preference for one or another of these only means that
attention is concentrated on one type of research, which can never
exclude the other two.
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
If the terms social anthropology and cultural anthropology
were intended simply to distinguish certain fields of study from
those covered by physical anthropology, there would be no difficulty.
But the preference of the United Kingdom for the former
and that of the United States for the latter term, and the light
thrown on this difference of opinion in the course of a recent controversy
between the American G. P. Murdock and the Englishman
R. Firth,2show that each term, where chosen, has been chosen
for definite theoretical reasons. In many instances, no doubt,
chance has determined the choice of a particular term (especially
for the titles of university chairs). It seems, indeed, that the term
social anthropology came into use in England because a title had to
be found to distinguish a new chair from others for which all the
traditional terms had already been used. Nor is any difference to be
seen when we simply consider the actual meanings of the words
cultural and social. The concept of culture originated in England,
since it was Tylor who first defined it as “that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society.” 3 Culture therefore relates to the specific differences between
men and animals, thus leading to what has ever since been the
classic antithesis between nature and culture. Viewed in this light,
356 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
man appears chiefly as Homo faber or “toolmaker.” Customs, beliefs,
and institutions are then seen as techniques comparable to
other techniques, though no doubt more purely intellectual— techniques
promoting social life and making social life possible, just as
the techniques of agriculture make it possible to satisfy man’s need
for food, or those of cloth-making to protect him from the rigors
of the weather. Social anthropology denotes merely the study of
social organization— an extremely important subject, but only one
of the many subjects making up cultural anthropology. This way
o f stating the problem seems typical of American science, or at
least of the early stages of its development.
It was probably not pure chance that the term social anthropology
was first brought into use in the United Kingdom as the
title of the first chair held by Sir J. G. Frazer, who was much less
interested in techniques than in beliefs, customs, and institutions.
It was A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, however, who brought out the
underlying meaning of the term when he defined the object of his
own research work as social relations and the social structure. The
dominant idea here is no longer that of the tool-maker but that of
the group, and the group considered as such— that is to say, the
whole complex of forms of communication on which social life is
based. There is no contradiction, be it noted, or even any opposition
between the two points of view. The best proof of this is to be
found in the development of French sociological thought: Only
a few years after Durkheim had shown that social phenomena
should be studied as things (which, expressed in different terms, is
the standpoint of cultural anthropology), his nephew and follower,
Mauss, simultaneously with Malinowski, put forward the related
thesis that things (manufactured articles, weapons, tools, and ritual
objects) are themselves social phenomena (which represents
the view of social anthropology). W e may therefore say that cultural
anthropology and social anthropology cover exactly the
same ground, but that one starts from techniques and material things
and proceeds ultimately to the “super-technique” of social and political
activity, which makes life in society possible and determines
the forms it takes, while the other starts from social life and works
down to the things on which social life leaves its mark and the
activities through which it manifests itself. Cultural anthropology
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 357
and social anthropology are like two books which include the same
chapters, though the latter may be arranged in different order and
the number of pages in each may vary.
Nevertheless, even on this comparison, certain finer distinctions
can be drawn. Social anthropology developed out of the discovery
that all the aspects of social life— economic, technical,
political, legal, esthetic, and religious— make up a significant complex
and that no one of these aspects can be understood unless it is
considered together with all the others. It therefore tends to work
from the whole to the parts, or, at least, to give the former logical
precedence over the latter. A technique does not merely have a use:
It also fulfills a function, and a function, if it is to be properly understood,
implies sociological and not only historical, geographical,
mechanical, or physico-chemical considerations. The complex of
functions, in turn, brings in a new notion, that of structure, and
the importance attributed to the idea of social structure in contemporary
anthropological research is well known.
Admittedly, cultural anthropology was to arrive, almost simultaneously,
at a similar conception, although by an entirely different
path. Instead of the static view of the whole social group as a
sort of system or constellation, the question of dynamics— of how
culture is handed on from generation to generation— was to lead
cultural anthropology to exactly the same conclusion, i.e., that the
system of interconnections among all aspects of social life plays a
more important part in the transmission of culture than any one of
those aspects considered separately. In this way, the “culture and
personality” studies (which, in the tradition of cultural anthropology,
can be traced back to the teachings of Franz Boas) were, by
this unexpected route, to be linked with the “social structure”
studies going back to Radcliffe-Brown and, through him, to Durkheim.
Whether anthropology is described as “cultural” or “social,”
its object always is to discover the whole man, as revealed in the one
case through his works and in the other through his representations.
It is thus understandable that a “cultural” bias brings anthropology
closer to geography, technology, and prehistoric studies, while a
“sociological” bias gives it more direct associations with archaeology,
history, and psychology. In both cases, there is a particularly
close link with linguistics, because language is at once the prototype
of the cultural phenomenon (distinguishing man from the animals)
358 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
and the phenomenon whereby all the forms of social life are established
and perpetuated. It is therefore logical that, in the systems
o f academic classification analyzed in the general report, the usual
tendency is not to treat anthropology separately but to group it
w ith one or more of the following branches of study:
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 359
Geography -
Psychology
-ANTHRO POLOGY
Sociology
In the above diagram, the horizontals mainly represent the view of
cultural anthropology, the verticals that of social anthropology,
and the obliques both. But— leaving aside the fact that there is a
tendency, among modern research students, for the two standpoints
to converge— it must not be forgotten that, even in the
extreme cases, the difference is only one of standpoint, not of the
subject investigated. The question of the standardization of terms
thus becomes* much less important. There seems to be almost unanimous
agreement today on the use of the term anthropology, rather
than ethnography or ethnology, as the best designation for all these
three phases of research. A recent international survey shows this
clearly.4 The use of the term anthropology can therefore be unhesitatingly
recommended for the titles of departments, institutes,
or schools in which research or teaching in these subjects is carried
on. And it is unnecessary to go further than this: The differences in
temperament and interests— which are always productive of good
results— between those in charge of teaching and the conduct of
research work will determine the choice of the adjective social or
cultural as better reflecting individual particularities.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
One brief comment remains to be made on folklore. W e shall
not attempt to recount the very complicated history of this term;
broadly speaking, it denotes the study of matters which, though
relating to the society to which the observer belongs, necessitate
the use of methods of investigation and observation techniques,
similar to those employed when dealing with far-distant societies.
W e need not at this time go into the reasons for this state of affairs;
but, whether we consider the explanation to lie in the fact that the
phenomena studied are very old (and therefore far distant, in time
if not in space)5 or in the unconscious, group character of certain
forms of social and mental activity in any society, including our
own,6the study of folklore is undoubtedly connected, either by its
subject or by its methods (and probably by both at once), to
anthropology. Certain countries, particularly the Scandinavian ones,
seem to prefer to treat folklore as a comparatively distinct branch
of study. The reason for this is that they took up the problems of
anthropology relatively late, whereas at a very early date they had
begun to investigate problems connected with their own particular
traditions. They have thus proceeded from the particular to the general,
while in France, for instance, the situation has been reversed.
In France we started by theorizing on human nature and gradually
turned to the study of facts as a basis for speculation or in order to
set bounds to it. The best situation is probably that in which both
points of view have been adopted and developed simultaneously,
as in Germany and the English-speaking countries (in each case,
for different reasons), and it is this situation which accounts for
the earlier progress made in anthropological studies in those coun­
tries.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
From these considerations, which it would be wrong to regard
as purely theoretical, an initial conclusion emerges: Under no
circumstances can anthropology allow itself to be dissociated from
the natural sciences (to which it is linked by physical anthropology)
or from the humanistic studies (with which it is closely connected
by geography, archaeology, and linguistics). If it had to
select a single allegiance, it would declare itself a social science—
not in the sense in which this term denotes a single, separate field
but, on the contrary, because it underlines a feature that tends to be
common to all the disciplines: Today even biologists and physicists
36o I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
are becoming increasingly conscious of the social implications, or
rather the anthropological significance, of their discoveries. Man is
no longer satisfied merely to acquire knowledge; while accumulating
more of this, he regards himself as the “knower” and his research
is daily brought a little more to bear on the two inseparable
factors presented by a humanity that transforms the world and a
humanity that, while it acts, is transforming itself.
Thus, when the social sciences demand their own separate
place within the university framework, anthropology subscribes to
this demand. Not however without certain mental reservations. It
realizes that such independence would lead to the development of
social psychology, political science, and sociology and to a modification
of what are often considered to be overtraditional standpoints
on the part of law and economic science. But so far as anthropology
itself is concerned, the establishment of faculties of
social science, where they do not at present exist, would not resolve
its problems; for were anthropology to be included in these
faculties, it would feel no less out of place than it would in faculties
o f science or arts. It stems, in fact, from three different disciplines,
for each of which it desires balanced representation in teaching,
lest it should itself suffer from lack of balance if unable to give
effective proof of its triple allegiance. From its point of view, the
only satisfactory solution is the institute or school where the instruction
given at the three faculties concerned would be rearranged
in an original, comprehensive system, around the syllabuses
peculiar to the school or institute itself.
N ew ly established sciences find difficulty in inserting themselves
into traditional structures. It can never be sufficiently emphasized
that anthropology is by far the youngest of these young
sciences (the social sciences) and that the general solutions appropriate
to its elders have what is, for it, an already traditional
aspect. It has, as it were, its feet planted on the natural sciences, its
back resting against the humanistic studies, and its eyes directed toward
the social sciences. And since it is this third relationship
which, in this volume entirely devoted to the social sciences, must
in particular be studied if we are to draw the necessary practical
conclusions, the reader will forgive us for dwelling upon it at
greater length.
The uncertainty surrounding the relationship between anthroThe
Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 361
pology and sociology derives first from the ambiguity of sociology’s
own present position. Sociology should, from its very name,
be the science of society par excellence, the science that crowns—
or sums up— all the other social sciences. But since the great ambitions
of the Durkheim school came to naught, it nowhere now fulfills
that function. In some countries, particularly in continental
Europe and sometimes also in Latin America, sociology follows
the tradition of a social philosophy, in which knowledge (acquired
at second or third hand) of concrete research carried out by others
serves merely to buttress hypotheses. On the other hand, in the
Anglo-Saxon countries (whose standpoint is gradually being accepted
by the Latin American and Asian countries), sociology is
becoming a special discipline on the same level as the other social
sciences; it studies the social relationships within present-day
groups and communities on a largely experimental basis, and its
methods and subjects do not, in appearance, distinguish it from
anthropology, except possibly for the fact that the subjects of
sociology (urban centers, agricultural organizations, national states
and their component communities, and international society itself)
are of quite a different magnitude from, as well as more complex
than, the so-called primitive societies. Nevertheless, as anthropology
tends to take an ever greater interest in these complex forms
of society, it is difficult to perceive the exact difference between
the two.
However, sociology is always closely linked with the observer.
This is clear from our last example, for urban, rural, religious,
occupational, etc.: Sociology is concerned with the observer’s
society or a society of the same type. But the same applies to
the other example— the comprehensive “synthesis” or philosophical
sociology. Here, admittedly, the sociologist extends his investigations
to much wider ranges of human experience, and he can even
seek to interpret human experience as a whole. The subject extends
beyond the purview of the observer, but it is always from the
observer's point of view that the sociologist tries to broaden it. In
his attempt to interpret and to assign meanings, he is always first of
all concerned with explaining his own society, what he applies to
the generality are his own logical classifications, his own background
perspectives. If a French sociologist of the twentieth century
works out a general theory of social life, it will inevitably,
362 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
and quite legitimately, reveal itself as the work of a twentiethcentury
French sociologist; whereas the anthropologist undertaking
the same task will endeavor, instinctively and deliberately (although
it is by no means certain that he will ever succeed), to
formulate a theory applicable not only to his own fellow countrymen
and contemporaries, but to the most distant native population.
While sociology seeks to advance the social science of the observer,
anthropology seeks to advance that of what is observed—
either by endeavoring to reproduce, in its description of strange
and remote societies, the standpoint of the natives themselves, or by
broadening its subject so as to cover the observer’s society but at
the same time trying to evolve a frame of reference based on
ethnographical experience and independent both of the observer
and of what he is observing.
W e see therefore why sociology can be regarded, and rightly
regarded, sometimes as a special form of anthropology (this is the
tendency in the United States) and sometimes as the discipline
which occupies first place in the hierarchy of the social sciences;
for it undoubtedly occupies not merely a particular position but a
position of privilege, for the reason, with which we are familiar
from the history of geometry, that the adoption of the observer’s
standpoint makes it possible to discover properties which are apparently
firmer in outline and certainly easier to employ than those
involving an extension of the same perspective to other possible
observers. Thus Euclidean geometry can be regarded as a privileged
case of a metageometry which would also cover the consideration
o f spaces with different structures.
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 363
THE PARTICULAR TASK OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A t this stage of our analysis we must stop once more to examine
how we can define what anthropology, as such, has to say—
the message which the proper organization of its teaching should
enable it to transmit under the best possible conditions.
Objectivity. The first aim of anthropology is to be objective,
to inculcate objective habits and to teach objective methods. Not
simply an objectivity enabling the observer to place himself above
his own personal beliefs, preferences, and prejudices; that kind of
objectivity characterizes every social science, or they could not be
regarded as sciences at all. The objectivity aimed at by anthropology
is on a higher level: The observer must not only place himself above
the values accepted by his own society or group, but must adopt
certain definite methods of thought; he must reason on the basis of
concepts which are valid not merely for an honest and objective
observer, but for all possible observers. Thus the anthropologist
does not simply set aside his own feelings; he creates new mental
categories and helps to introduce notions of space and time, opposition
and contradiction, which are as foreign to traditional
thought as the concepts met with today in certain branches of the
natural sciences. This connection between the ways in which the
same problems are stated in apparently very different disciplines
was admirably perceived by the great physicist Niels Bohr when he
wrote: uThe traditional differences of [human cultures] . . . in
many ways resemble the different equivalent modes in which physical
experience can be described.” 7
Yet these unrelenting efforts to achieve complete objectivity
can go forward only on a level where phenomena retain a meaning
for humanity and can be apprehended, in mind and feeling, by an
individual. This is a very important point, for it enables us to distinguish
between the type of objectivity to which anthropology
aspires and that aimed at by the other social sciences, of which it
can be said that it is no less rigorous, although it is on another
level. The realities in which economic science and demography are
interested are no less objective, but they are not expected to have a
meaning so far as the subject’s own personal experience is concerned,
for in the course of his historical evolution he never encounters
such things as value, profitableness, marginal productivity,
or maximum population. These are all abstract notions; their use
by the social sciences brings the social sciences closer to the natural
sciences, but in a quite different way, for in the case of
anthropology the connection is more with humanistic studies. Anthropology
aims to be a semeiological science, and takes as a guiding
principle that of “meaning.” This is yet another reason (in
addition to many others) why anthropology should maintain close
contact with linguistics, where, with regard to this social fact of
speech, there is the same concern to avoid separating the objective
j 64 I M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
basis of language {sound) from its signifying function (meaning) }
Totality. The second aim of anthropology is totality. It regards
social life as a system of which all the aspects are organically
connected. It readily admits that, in order to acquire a more
thorough knowledge of certain types of phenomena, it is essential
to subdivide— after the manner of the social psychologist, the jurist,
the economist, and the political scientist— and it is too much concerned
with the method of models (which it employs itself in
certain fields, such as that of kinship) to question the validity of
these particular models. But when the anthropologist endeavors to
create models, it is always with the underlying motive of discovering
a form that is common to the various manifestations of social
life. This tendency underlies both the notion (introduced by Marcel
Mauss) of the total social phenomenon, and that of pattern (an
idea which has loomed large in Anglo-Saxon anthropology during
recent years).
Meaningfulness. The third original feature of anthropological
research— unquestionably more important than the other two—
is not so easy to define. W e are so accustomed to attaching negative
terms to the types of society that interest the ethnologist that it is
difficult for us to realize he is interested in them for positive reasons.
Anthropology, we are apt to say— and this is evidenced by the
title of the chairs themselves— is concerned with societies that are
» 07z-civilized, without a system of writing, and pre- or nonindustrial
in type. Yet behind all these qualifying negative expressions
there is a positive reality: These societies are, to a far greater
degree than the others, based on personal relationships, on concrete
relations between individuals. It would take some time to prove
this point, but, without entering into details, it will suffice here to
emphasize that the small size of the societies known as “primitive”
generally permits of such relationships and that, even where this is
impossible because the societies of this type are too extensive or
scattered, relations between individuals who are extremely remote
from one another are based on the most direct kind of relationship,
of which kinship is usually the prototype. Radcliffe-Brown has
given us examples in Australia, which have become classic, of this
process of projection.
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 365
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
THE CRITERION OF AUTHENTICITY
In this respect it is, rather, modern societies that should be defined
in negative terms. Our relations with one another are now
only occasionally and fragmentarily based upon global experience,
the concrete “apprehension” of one person by another. They are
largely the result of a process of indirect reconstruction, through
written documents. W e are no longer linked to our past by an
oral tradition which implies direct contact with others (storytellers,
priests, wise men, or elders), but by books amassed in libraries,
books from which we endeavor— with extreme difficulty— to form
a picture of their authors. And we communicate with the immense
majority of our contemporaries by all kinds of intermediaries—
written documents or administrative machinery— which undoubtedly
vastly extend our contacts but at the same time make those
contacts somewhat “unauthentic.” This has become typical of the
relationship between the citizen and the public authorities.
W e should like to avoid describing negatively the tremendous
revolution brought about by the invention of writing. But it is
essential to realize that writing, while it conferred vast benefits on
humanity, did in fact deprive it of something fundamental.9 The
international organizations, and particularly UNESCO, have so far
entirely failed to appreciate the loss of personal autonomy that has
resulted from the expansion of the indirect forms of communication
(books, photographs, press, radio, etc.). But the theorists of
the most modern of the social sciences (that of communication)
treat this as a major question, as is shown by the following passage
from Wiener’s Cybernetics: “ It is no wonder that the larger communities
. . . contain far less available information than the
smaller communities, to say nothing of the human elements of
which all communities are built up.” 10 Taking an illustration from
a field which is more familiar to the social sciences, there is the
dispute— well known to French political scientists— between supporters
of the individual constituency poll (scrutin cTarrondissement)
and supporters of voting for several unknown or littleknown
members out of a list drawn up by the political parties
(scrutin de liste). Under the latter system, there is a great loss of
information suffered by the community, owing to the substitution
of abstract values for personal contacts between the electors and
their representatives.
Modern societies are, of course, not completely “unauthentic.”
On the contrary, if we carefully consider the points on which
anthropological investigations have been brought to bear, we note
that in its increasingly intensive study of modem societies, anthropology
has endeavored to identify levels of authenticity within
them. When the ethnologist studies a village, an enterprise, or the
neighborhood of a large town, his task is facilitated by the fact that
almost everyone knows everyone else. Likewise, when demographers
identify, in a modern society, “isolates” of the same size as
those characterizing primitive societies,11 they help the anthropologist,
who thus discovers a new subject. The community surveys
carried out in France under U N ESCO ’s auspices have been very
revealing here; those conducting the surveys (some of whom had
anthropological training) felt completely at home in a village of
500 inhabitants, the study of which necessitated no change in their
classical methods; whereas in an average-sized town they felt they
were confronted by an entirely new problem. W hy? Because
30,000 persons cannot constitute a society in the same way as 500
persons. In the former case, the main communication is not between
persons; the social reality of “senders” and “receivers” (to
use two words current in communication terminology) is hidden
behind the complex system of “codes and relays.” 12
In the future, it may be recognized that anthropology’s most
important contribution to social science is to have introduced, if
unknowingly, this fundamental distinction between two types of social
existence: a way of life recognized at the outset as traditional
and archaic and characteristic of “authentic” societies and a more
modern form of existence, from which the first-named type is not
absent but where groups that are not completely, or are imperfectly,
“authentic” are organized within a much larger and specifically
“unauthentic” system.
But while this distinction explains and justifies the increasing
concern of anthropology with the types of “authentic” relations
that persist or appear in modern societies, it shows where the limits
of that science’s investigations lie. For though it is true that a
Melanesian tribe and a French village are, grosso modo, social entities
of the same type, this ceases to be true if we start to work
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 367
outward toward larger units. Hence the error which those who
favor “national character” studies fall into if they wish to work
solely as anthropologists; for by unconsciously confusing forms of
social life that cannot in fact be identified, they can achieve only
one of two results— to consecrate either the worst forms of prejudice
or the most shallow abstractions.
THE ORGANIZATION OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES
W e perceive the singular crossroads of disciplines at which
anthropology stands. In order to resolve the problem of objectivity,
which is imposed upon it by the need of a common language
wherewith to communicate heterogeneous social experience,
anthropology is beginning to seek the help of mathematics and
symbolic logic. Our current vocabulary, which is the product of
our own social and mental categories, is in fact inadequate to describe
markedly different types of sociological experience. W e must
resort to symbols, like the physicist when he wishes to show what
is common between, say, the corpuscular theory and the wave
theory of light; here, in the language of the ordinary man, the two
notions are contradictory, but, since science regards them as equally
“real,” it is necessary to employ new symbols in order to be able to
proceed from one to the other.13
Second, as a “semeiological” science, anthropology turns toward
linguistics— first, because only linguistic knowledge provides
the key to a system of logical categories and of moral values different
from the observer’s own; second, because linguistics, more
than any other science, can teach him how to pass from the consideration
of elements in themselves devoid of meaning to consideration
of a semantic system and show him how the latter can
be built on the basis of the former. This, perhaps, is primarily
the problem of language, but, beyond and through it, the problem
of culture in general.
Third, alive to the interrelations of the various types of sociaf
phenomena, anthropology aims at simultaneous consideration of
their economic, legal, political, moral, esthetic, and religious aspects;
consequently, it is careful to note developments in the other
social sciences, and especially in such of them— viz., human geog­
368 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
raphy, social and economic history, and sociology— as share with it
this total perspective.
Last, being essentially concerned with those forms of social
life— of which the so-called primitive societies are merely the most
readily identifiable and most developed examples— whose degree
o f authenticity is estimated according to the scope and variety of
the concrete relations between individuals, anthropology maintains,
in this respect, the closest contact with psychology (general and
social).
There can be no question of overwhelming students with the
enormous mass of knowledge which would be necessary in order
to do full justice to all these standpoints. The mere realization,
however, of this complexity leads to a number of practical con­
sequences.
( 1) Anthropology has become too diversified and technical a
subject to be taught in one-year courses, generally entitled “Introduction
to Anthropology” (or something similar) and usually
consisting of vague comments on clan organization, polygamy, and
totemism. It would be dangerous to imagine that such superficial
ideas can be used to provide effective training for young men
who, as missionaries, administrators, diplomats, soldiers, etc., are
destined to live in contact with populations very different from
their own. An introduction to anthropology no more produces an
anthropologist, even an amateur one, than an introduction to
physics produces a physicist, or even an assistant physicist.
In this respect, anthropologists bear heavy responsibilities.
Having been ignored or disdained for so long, they often feel
flattered when asked to provide a smattering of anthropology as a
round-off to some form of technical training. They should firmly
resist this temptation. There is of course no question of turning
everyone into an anthropologist; but if doctors, jurists, and missionaries
must acquire certain notions of anthropology, it should be
through a process of very thorough technical training in the few
branches of anthropological research directly relating to the exercise
of their professions and to the particular areas of the world
which they propose to serve.
(2) Whatever the number of courses envisaged, it is impossible
to train anthropologists in one year. Three years would seem to
T h e Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 369
be the minimum period within which complete instruction, absorbing
the whole of the student’s time, can be given; and this
minimum should, for the purpose of certain professional qualifications,
be increased to four or five years. Consequently it seems
essential that in all universities anthropology should cease to be regarded,
as it too often is (especially, for example, in France) merely
as a complementary subject. Special diplomas should be conferred,
up to the highest university levels, on those who have successfully
completed full courses devoted exclusively to anthropology.
(3) Even when extended over this period of time, the subject
matter of anthropology is too complex not to involve specialized
studies. There is, of course, a general form of training which all
anthropology students could receive during their first year and
which would permit them to choose their subsequent specialized
work judiciously. Without wishing to suggest a rigid program, we
think that the subjects to be studied would necessarily comprise
the basic principles of physical, social, and cultural anthropology;
prehistory; the history of ethnological theory; and general lin­
guistics.
Specialization in each subject should begin in the second year:
(a) physical anthropology, accompanied by comparative anatomy,
biology, and physiology; (b) social anthropology, together with
economic and social history, social psychology, and linguistics;
(c) cultural anthropology, with technology, geography, and pre­
history.
In the third year (and perhaps during the second), this systematic
specialization would be accompanied by “regional” specialization,
which would include, in addition to regional prehistory,
archaeology, and geography, a sound training in one or more of the
languages used in the area chosen by the investigator.
(4) The study of anthropology, general or regional, involves
extensive reading. W e are thinking not so much of textbooks
(which can complement but never replace verbal instruction) or of
works on theory (which it is not essential to use before the final
years of training) as of monographs, i.e., books which enable the
student to “relive” experience that has been acquired on the spot
and to accumulate a considerable amount of factual knowledge,
which alone can guard him against hasty generalizations and simplifications.
Throughout the entire training, therefore, the theo­
370 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
retical and practical courses would be complemented by compulsory
reading, at the rate of some thousands of pages per year; this
reading would be checked by various procedures (written summaries,
oral précis, etc.) which we cannot describe in detail here.
This implies (a) that every institute or school of anthropology
must have a library containing copies, in duplicate or triplicate, of
a considerable number of works; (b) that, in present circumstances,
the student will have to possess, at the outset, adequate knowledge
of at least one of the foreign languages which have been most
frequently used in recent years by authors of anthropological
works.
W e hesitate, indeed, to recommend a policy of systematic
translations; the technical vocabulary of anthropology is at present
in too chaotic a state. Each author tends to use his own terminology,
and there is no firm agreement on the meaning of the
principal terms. Consequently, it is most unlikely that a country
which does not produce, on a large scale, afithropological works
in its own national language will possess specialized translators
capable of rendering the exact terminological meaning and the
subtleties of thought of a foreign author. UNESCO cannot, therefore,
be pressed too strongly to carry out its project for the compilation
of international scientific vocabularies; this project, once
completed, might enable us to be less categorical on the matter of
translations.
Last, it is to be desired that use should be made of such media
as photographic slides, documentary films, and linguistic or musical
recordings. The recent establishment of various institutions—
especially that of the International Center for Ethnographic Documentary
Films, decided upon by the Fourth World Congress of
the Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Vienna, 1952)— is
an encouraging development.
(5) These thz:ee years of theoretical training could be usefully
followed by a practical course lasting for one or even two years,
at least in the case of those intending to practice anthropology
professionally (teaching or research) ; but this raises some extremely
complex problems.
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 371
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
TEACHING AND RESEARCH
The Training of Teachers. W e shall first consider the case
of future teachers of anthropology. Whatever the university qualifications
required for teaching (in general, the doctoral degree or
equivalent accomplishments), no one should be entitled to teach
anthropology unless he has carried out considerable field research.
It is sheer illusion that anthropology can be taught purely theoretically,
with the help of a complete (or usually abridged) edition of
The Golden Bough and other works, whatever their intrinsic merits
may be. Those combating this assertion by referring to the distinguished
scholars who have never done field work (Sir James
Frazer, in answer to those who raised the question, declared:
“Heaven forbid!” ) should remember that Lévy-Bruhl, for instance,
held, not a chair of anthropology or any related chair— in his day,
no such chairs existed at the French universities— but a chair of
philosophy; in future, nothing will prevent pure theorists from
receiving chairs of disciplines bordering on anthropology: history
of religions, comparative sociology, etc. Nevertheless, the teaching
of anthropology must be reserved for eyewitnesses. There is nothing
radical in this standpoint; it is adopted de facto (if not always de
jure) in all countries where anthropology has attained some measure
of development.
The Training of Research Workers. The problem of training
is much less simple with regard to future members of the
anthropological profession, i.e., the research workers.14 W ould it
not be in the nature of a vicious circle to require them to carry
out research before receiving the university training which qualifies
them for such research? Here we can usefully refer to what we
have already said, by way of clarifying the very special position of
anthropology. W e pointed out that its fundamental feature and
chief merit is that it endeavors to identify, in all forms of social life,
what we termed the level of authenticity, i.e., either complete societies
(most frequently found among the so-called “primitive” societies)
or forms of social existence (found even in modern or
“civilized” societies) where relations between individuals and the
system of social relationships combine to form a whole. These special
features have one immediate consequence: Such forms of social
existence, cannot be apprehended simply from the outside— the investigator
must be able to make a personal reconstruction of the
synthesis characterizing them; he must not merely analyze their
elements, but apprehend them as a whole in the form of a personal
experience— his own.
Thus we recognize a profound reason, associated with the
very nature of the discipline and the distinctive features of its
subject, why the anthropologist needs the experience of field work.
It represents for him, not the goal of his profession, or a completion
of his schooling, or yet a technical apprenticeship— but a
crucial stage of his education, prior to which he may possess
miscellaneous knowledge that will never form a whole. After he
engages in field work his knowledge will acquire an organic unity
and a meaning it did not previously possess. The position is comparable
to that in psychoanalysis. The principle is universally recognized
today that the professional psychoanalyst must have a specific
and irreplaceable practical background, that of analysis itself;
hence all the regulations require that every would-be psychoanalyst
be psychoanalyzed himself. For the anthropologist, field
work represents the equivalent of this unique experience. As in the
case of psychoanalysis, this experience may or may not be successful,
and no examination, whether competitive or not, can prove
conclusively whether it is. Only experienced members of the profession,
whose work shows that they have themselves passed the
test, can decide if and when a candidate for the anthropological
profession has, as a result of field work, accomplished that inner
revolution that will really make him into a new man.
From these considerations several consequences flow.
First, the exercise of the anthropological profession— which is
full of problems, since it involves a “foreign” person (the investigator)
examining an environment whose inner structure and
position in the world render it particularly unstable and fragile—
demands preliminary qualifications that can be obtained only as a
result of field work.
Second, this situation, which theoretically implies a contradiction,
is closely akin to two others— that of psychoanalysis, as we
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 373
have just seen, and that of medical studies in general, where the
non-resident and resident systems provide apprenticeship in diagnosis
through the practice of diagnosis itself.
Third, these two other cases we have just mentioned show
that success can be achieved only through personal contact between
the student and an acknowledged practitioner— contact sufficiently
close and extensive for the studies to bear the imprint of
an inevitably “arbitrary” factor (that is, the evaluation of the
“boss” in the case of medical studies and of the “supervisory”
analyst in the case of psychoanalysis). This “ arbitrary” factor can
be reduced in various ways, but it is difficult to see how it can
be completely eliminated from the study of anthropology. Here,
too, an older member of the profession must personally assist the
young research worker in his training. Close contact with someone
who has already undergone a change psychologically not only
expedites a similar change on the part of the student; it enables the
person assisting him to ascertain if, and at what stage, this has
occurred.
Let us now consider the practical ways of providing the
future research worker with “supervised” field work. It seems that
there are three ways:
Practical Work. This type of work is done under the guidance
of teachers in charge of the last years of instruction, or under
that of assistants. Its value is relative. Without wishing to advise
new institutions, or countries lacking appropriate systems, against it,
we would emphasize its provisional nature. Practical work supplementing
theoretical training always tends to appear as a form of
drudgery, or as spurious experience. A paltry three weeks spent in a
village or engaged in some kind of enterprise cannot create that psychological
revolution which marks the decisive turning point in the
training of the anthropologist or even give the student a faint idea
of it. Indeed, these hasty practical courses are sometimes actually
harmful; they allow for only the most summary and superficial
methods of research; they often amount to a kind of anti-training.
However useful the Scout movement may be for adolescents, it
is impossible to confuse professional training at the higher educational
level with forms— even advanced forms— of supervised play.
374 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
Outside Practical Training. As an alternative, there might
be lengthier practical courses in those institutes, institutions, or
other establishments which, without being specifically anthropological,
function on the level of those interpersonal relationships and
global situations which, as we have already seen, constitute the
choicest field for anthropology: municipal administration, social
services, vocational guidance centers, etc. This solution, compared
with the previous one, would have the immense advantage of dispensing
with imitation experimental work. On the other hand, it
would have the disadvantage of placing students under the control
and responsibility of heads of agencies who may have had no
training in anthropology and who therefore may be unable to
demonstrate the theoretical bearing of daily experience. This particular
solution is, therefore, more or less an idea for the future,
to be used once training in anthropology is recognized as having a
general value and when a substantial proportion of anthropologists
are attached to establishments or agencies of this type.
Anthropological Museums. A t the beginning of this discussion
we referred to the role of anthropological museums as an extension
of the field for research. The museographer enters into
close contact with the objects: A spirit of humility is inculcated in
him by all the small tasks (unpacking, cleaning, maintenance, etc.)
he has to perform. He develops a keen sense of the concrete through
the classification, identification, and analysis of the objects in the
various collections. He establishes indirect contact with the native
environment by means of tools and comes to know this environment
and the ways in which to handle it correctly: Texture, form,
and, in many cases, smell, repeatedly experienced, make him instinctively
familiar with distant forms of life and activities. Finally,
he acquires for the various externalizations of human genius that respect
which cannot fail to be inspired in him by the constant appeals
to his taste, intellect, and knowledge made by apparently insignificant
objects.
All this constitutes a wealth and concentration of experience
which should not be underestimated. And it explains, not only why
the Institut d’Ethnologie of the. University of Paris attaches such
importance to the hospitality it receives from the Musée de
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 375
I’Homme, but also why the American report recommends, as a
normal situation which is obtaining more and more throughout the
United States, that every department of anthropology have attached
to it a museum at the university itself.
However, it seems that even more can be done in this direction.
Anthropological museums were long regarded in the same light as
other establishments of the same type, i.e., as series of galleries for
the preservation of objects— inert things fossilized, as it were, inside
their showcases and completely detached from the societies
that produced them, the only link between them and their originators
being the missions periodically dispatched to the field to procure
further material for the collections; they were mute witnesses
of forms of existence that for the visitor were unknown and inaccessible.
The evolution of anthropology as a science and the
changes undergone by the modern world make modification of this
conception essential. As already shown, anthropology is becoming
increasingly aware of its true subject, which consists of certain
forms of man’s social existence— which, though possibly more easily
recognizable in societies differing markedly from the observer’s,
exist just as much in his own. As anthropology deepens its reflections
on its subject and improves its methods, it feels more and
more that it is “going back home.” Although it assumes very different
forms, which may not be easily identifiable, it would be
wrong to imagine that this tendency is peculiar to American anthropology.
In France and in India, community studies carried out with
U N ESCO ’s assistance have been directed by the Musée de l’Homme
(Paris) and the Anthropological Museum of Calcutta. The Laboratoire
d’Ethnographie Française is attached to the Musée des
Arts et Traditions Populaires. The Laboratoire d’Ethnographie
Sociale is housed in the Musée de l’Homme, and, despite its name, it
is devoted not to the sociology of Melanesia or Africa but to that
of the Paris region. In all these cases the purpose should be, not
merely to collect objects, but to understand men; not so much to
classify dried remains— as in herbariums— as to describe and analyze
forms of existence with which the observer is closely and actively in
touch.
The same tendency is found in physical anthropology, which
is no longer satisfied, as in the past, to assemble measurements and
pieces of bone. It studies racial phenomena as revealed in living per­
376 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
sons; it studies the softer parts of the body as well as the skeleton
and gives no less attention to physiological activity than to simple
anatomical structure. Consequently, it is mainly interested in the actual
processes of differentiation in all representatives of the human
species and is not content merely to obtain “ossified” results
(literally as well as figuratively) among the types most easily distinguishable
from that of the observer.
Moreover, the expansion of Western civilization, the development
of communications, and the frequency of travel that characterizes
the modern world have all helped to make the human
species “fluid.” Today there are practically no such things as
isolated cultures; to study a given culture, as a rule it is no longer
necessary to travel half-way around the world and “explore.” The
population of a great city like New York, London, Paris, Calcutta,
or Melbourne includes representatives of highly differing cultures;
this is well known to linguists, who are astonished to encounter, in
these circumstances, persons qualified to inform them about rare
and remote languages, some of which had been thought to be
practically extinct.
Formerly, anthropological museums sent men traveling in one
direction to obtain objects that seemed to be drifting in the opposite
direction. Today, however, men travel in all directions; and,
as this increase in contacts leads to the “homogenization” of material
culture (which for primitive societies usually means extinction),
it can be said that, at least in some respects, men tend to replace
objects. Anthropological museums must note this vast change.
Their task of preserving objects is likely to continue— though not
to be expanded. But while it is becoming increasingly difficult to
collect bows and arrows, drums and necklaces, baskets and statues
of divinities, it is becoming easier to make a systematic study of
languages, beliefs, attitudes, and personalities. How many communities
of Southeast Asia, North and sub-Saharan Africa, the
Near East, etc., do we not find represented in Paris by visitors or
residents (whether families or small groups) ?
THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
From this standpoint, anthropological museums are offered not
merely possibilities for research (thus becoming, to a large extent,
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 377
laboratories),15but also new tasks of practical importance. For these
representatives of peripheral cultures, unintegrated or ill-integrated,
have much to give the ethnographer— language, oral traditions, beliefs,
a conception of the world, an attitude toward persons and
things. They are, however, also often at grips with real and distressing
problems— isolation, separation from their customary environment,
unemployment, incomprehension of the milieu in which
they have temporarily or permanently been planted, nearly always
against their will or at least without knowing what awaited them.
No one is better qualified than the ethnologist to help them overcome
these difficulties. First, the ethnologist knows their original
environment; he has studied their language and culture at first hand,
and has a sympathetic feeling for them. Second, the method peculiar
to anthropology is marked by that “distantiation” which
characterizes the contacts between representatives of very different
cultures. The anthropologist is the astronomer of the social sciences:
His task is to discover a meaning for configurations which, owing
to their size and remoteness, are very different from those within
the observer’s immediate purview. Consequently, there is no reason
to limit the anthropologist’s role to the analysis and reduction of
these external distances; he can also be called upon to take part, together
with specialists of other disciplines, in the study of phenomena
which exist within his own society but which are also
characterized by “distantiation,” either because they concern only
one section of the group and not the whole of it, or because, even
though they are of an over-all nature, they are deeply rooted in the
unconscious. Instances of the former case are prostitution and
juvenile delinquency and, of the latter, resistance to food or health
changes.
Thus, if anthropology’s rightful place in the social sciences
were more generally recognized and its practical function more
clearly identified than it is at present, a number of fundamental
problems would be well on the way to solution:
(i) From the practical standpoint, a social function would be
performed which is today much neglected. As an example— the
problems raised by the immigration of Puerto Ricans to New York
or of North Africans to Paris; no general policy is followed in
these matters, and various administrative agencies (often poorly
qualified to deal with them) fruitlessly refer them to and fro.
378 | M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
(2) N ew prospects would be opened up for anthropology.
W e have not yet considered this problem, but its solution is obviously
implied in all that we have said above. If it is to be solved
rightly, it is not enough to re-emphasize that every person— colonial
administrator, soldier, missionary, diplomat, etc.— called upon to live
in contact with a society very different from his own must receive
general or at least specialized training in anthropology. It must also
be remembered that certain essential functions of modern societies,
made more involved by the increasing mobility of the world’s
population, are inadequately performed, if indeed performed at all;
that this gives rise to difficulties which often become very acute,
creating misunderstanding, fostering racial or social prejudices, and
compromising the cause of peace; that anthropology is today the
only discipline dealing with social “distantiation” ; that it possesses
considerable theoretical and practical resources which enable it to
train specialists; and, above all, that it is always available and ready
to engage in tasks which humanity cannot afford to neglect.16
(3) Last, and from the more limited standpoint of this study,
it is obvious that the expansion of anthropological museums into
laboratories for the study of social phenomena difficult to analyze
or, to use a mathematical expression, the “borderline” forms of
social relationships, would be the most suitable solution to the
problem of anthropologists’ professional training. For the new
laboratories would permit students to spend their last years of studies
as residents or non-residents, under the direction of teachers
who would also be resident, as in the case of medical studies. The
twofold aspect, theoretical and practical, of the studies would be
justified by the new tasks entrusted to the profession. For anthropology
would plead in vain for that recognition to which its outstanding
achievements in the realm of theory otherwise entitle it if,
in this ailing and troubled world of ours, it did not first endeavor
to prove its usefulness.
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences | 379
N O T E S
1. W e refer here, of course, to the volume in which this chapter originally
appeared.
2. American Anthropologist, LIII, N o. 4, Part 1 (1951), pp. 465-89.
3. E. B. T ylor, Primitive Culture (London: 1871), I, 1.
M E T H O D A N D T E A C H I N G
4. G. Sergi, “Terminologia e divisione delle Scienze dell’Uomo; i resultati
di un’inchiesta intemazionale,” Rivista di Antropologia, X X X V (1944-
'947)-
5. It is in this way that the problem is raised by the Institut International
d’Archéocivilisation, directed by A. Varagnac.
6. As envisaged, on the other hand, by the Laboratoire d’Ethnographie
Française and the Musée National Français des Arts et Traditions Popu­
laires.
7. Niels Bohr, “Natural Philosophy and Human Culture,” Nature, CXLIII
(«939)-
8. Just after writing these lines, we came across very similar views expressed
by Jean-Paul Sartre. After criticizing an out-of-date sociology,
he adds: “The sociology of primitive peoples is never open to this criticism.
There, we study meaningful wholes [ensembles signifiants]” Les
Temps Modernes (October-November, 1952), p. 729, n 1.
9. Regarding this point, see C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (Paris:
1955), Chapter XXVIII.
10. Pages 188-9. Speaking generally, I should say that all of pages 181-9
of that book would deserve inclusion in extenso in U N E SC O ’s Con­
stitution.
11. J. Sutter and L. Tabah, “Les Notions d’isolat et de population minimum,”
Population, VI, No. 3 ( 1951 ).
12. See on this subject N . W iener, The Human Use of Human Beings
(Boston: 1950).
13. The reader wishing to delve deeper into these remarkable analogies
between the social and the natural sciences should consult the excellent
book by Pierre Auger, VH om m e microscopique (Paris: 1952).
14. W ith regard to these questions, the reader can profitably consult the
special number of American Anthropologist devoted to a symposium:
“The Training of the Professional Anthropologist,” LIV , N o. 3 (1952).
The problems we deal with here are discussed in that symposium with
reference to the situation in the United States.
15. In this respect it will be noted that since 1937 two-thirds of the buildings
at present housing the Musée de l’Homme (Paris) have been given over
to laboratory work, and only one-third to exhibition galleries. It is this
concept— revolutionary at the time— which permitted the establishment
of a close association between muséographie and educational activities;
an illustration of this is the housing, already mentioned, of the
Musée de l’Homme and the Institut d’Ethnologie in the same building.
16. Such suggestions are often criticized because they threaten to turn the
anthropologist into a “servant of the social order.” Even if this threat
is real, it seems to me preferable to standing aloof, because the anthropologist’s
participation results at least in an understanding of the facts,
and truth has a power of its own. I hope that the reader will not misinterpret
my suggestions. Personally, I do not care for applied anthropology,
and I question its scientific value. But those who criticize it in
principle should bear in mind that the first book of Capital was partly
based on the reports of British factory inspectors, to whom Marx in his
preface pays a glowing tribute: 11W e should be appalled at the state of
things at home, if, as in England, our governments and parliaments
The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences
appointed periodically commissions of enquiry into economic conditions;
if these commissions were armed with the same plenary powers to get
at the truth; if it was possible to find for this purpose men as competent,
as free from partisanship and respect of persons as are the English
factory inspectors, her medical reporters on public health, her commissioners
of enquiry into the exploitation of women and children, into
housing and food. Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hynted
down might not see him. W e draw the magic cap down over eyes and
ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.” Capital, trans. Samuel
Moore and Edward Aveling (N ew York: Modem Library, 1906), p. 14.
The italics are mine.
Evidently Marx had no thought of censuring those “applied anthropologists”
of the time for being servants of the established order. Yet
they were; but what does it matter to us in view of the facts they un­
covered?
Acknowledgments
C H A P T E R I, “Introduction: History and Anthropology,” first published
under the title “Histoire et Ethnologie,” in Revue de Metaphysique et de
Morale, LIV , Nos. 3-4 (1949), pp. 363-91.
C H A P T E R II, “Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology,”
first published under the title “L ’Analyse structurale en linguistique et en
anthropologie,” in Word, Journal of the Linguistic Circle of N ew York,
I, No. 2 (August, 1945), pp. 1-21.
C H A P T E R III, “Language and the Analysis of Social Laws,” first published
under the same title in American Anthropologist, n.s., LIII, N o. 2, (1951),
pp. 155-63. Reprinted here with slight modifications.
C H A P T E R IV, “Linguistics and Anthropology,” a paper read at the C onference
of Anthropologists and Linguists, Bloomington, Indiana, 1952, and
first published in Supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics,
XIX, No. 2 (April, 1953). Reprinted here with slight modifica­
tions.
C H A P T E R VI, “The Concept of Archaism in Anthropology,” first published
under the title “La Notion d’archaïsme en ethnologie,” in Cahiers
Internationaux de Sociologie, XII (1952), pp. 32-5.
C H A P T E R VII, “Social Structures of Central and Eastern Brazil,” first
published under the title “Les Structures sociales dans le Brésil central
et oriental,” in Sol Tax (ed.), Indian Tribes of Aboriginal America, Proceedings
of the 29th International Congress of Americanists (Chicago:
r952), PP* 302"10*
C H A P T E R VIII, “Do Dual Organizations Exist?” first published under
the title “Les Organisations dualistes existent-elles?” in Bijdragen tot d e
taal-, land-, en Volkenkunde, Deel 112, 2e Aflevering (1956), pp. 99-128.
The volume was dedicated to Professor J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong.
C H A P T E R IX, “The Sorcerer and His Magic,” first published under the
title “Le Sorcier et sa magie,” in Les Temps Modernes, N o. 41 (1949),
pp. 3-24.
382
Acknowledgments | 383
C H A P TE R X, “The Effectiveness of Symbols/’ dedicated to Raymond de
Saussure, first published under the title “L ’Efficacité symbolique,” in Revue
de VHistoire des Religions, C X X X V , No. 1 ( 1949), pp. 5-27.
C H A P TE R XI, “The Structural Study of M yth,” first published under the
same title, in “M yth, a Symposium,” Journal of American Folklore,
LXXVIII, No. 270 (October-December, 1955), pp. 428-44. Reprinted
here with slight modifications.
C H A P T E R XII, “Structure and Dialectics,” first published under the title
“Structure et Dialectique,” in For Roman Jakobson, Essays on the Occasion
of His Sixtieth Birthday (The Hague: 1956), pp. 289-94.
C H A P T E R XIII, “Split Representation in the A rt of Asia and America,”
first published under the title “Le Dédoublement de la représentation
dans les arts de l’Asie et de l’Amérique,” in Renaissance (N ew York:
T he École Libre des Hautes Études), Vols. 2 and 3 (1944-1945), pp.
168-86.
C H A P T E R X IV , “The Serpent with Fish inside His Body,” first published
under the title “Le Serpent au corps rempli de poissons,” in Actes du
X X V IIIe Congrès des Américanistes (Paris: 1947; Société des Américanistes,
1948), pp. 633-36.
C H A P T E R X V , “Social Structure,” was a paper given at the W ennerGren
Foundation International Symposium on Anthropology, N ew
York, 1952. First published in A. L. Kroeber (ed.), Anthropology Today
(Chicago: 1953), pp. 524-53. Reprinted here with some modifications.
C H A P T E R XVII, “The Place of Anthropology in the Social Sciences and
Problems Raised in Teaching It,” first published, in French and English,
in The University Teaching of the Social Sciences (Paris: U N ESCO ,
1954). Reprinted here with slight modifications.
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Index
abreaction, in psychoanalysis, 198; in
shamanism, 181
Acoma kinship system, 75
Adam, L., 246, 267
African kinship systems, 64, 303
African Systems of Kinship and Marriage
(A. R. Radcliffe-Brown), 303
Agave, 217
age-grades, 105, 121, 125, 130, 148, 236
aikmâ, rule of, 125
aimapli, 123
Ainu art, 247
Alaska, 7, 255-256
Albisetti, Fr. C., 127-128, 136, 143, 163
alligator, in Cuna magic, 195
Amazon River, 106-107
America, pre-Columbian history of, 107;
representation in art of, 245-266
American Anthropologist, 380
American anthropology, method in, 102
American Indian, art, 248; kinship systems,
64; mythology, 224
ancestors, masks and, 264
Andean civilizations, 106
animism, 19
anthropologist, as “astronomer of social
sciences,’ 378; as historian, 23-24; relationship
with linguist, 69
anthropology, xi; American, 102; applied,
xv; authenticity in, 366; changes
in, 2; and collective phenomena, 18;
cultural, see cultural anthropology;
defined, 18; departments of, 350-351;
ethnography-ethnology contrasts and,
354-356; folklore and, 359-360; history
and, 1-25, 285-286; isolated chairs of,
349-350; linguistics and, 67-80; meaningfulness
in, 365-366; mythology and,
207; objectivity in, 363-364; organization
of studies in, 368-371; physical,
351-354; place of in social sciences,
346-379; practical work in, 374-375;
psychoanalysis and, 180-183, 198-204;
relationship theory and, 95; religion
and, 206-207 (see also religion); responsibilities
in, 369; schools or institutes
of, 351-352; social, see social
anthropology; social science and, 360-
363; specialization in, 370; structural
analysis in, ix, xiv, 31-51, 288, 295; task
of, 363-365; teaching of, 346-379; theoretical
and applied, 377-378; totality
in, 365; use of term, 359
Anthropology (A. L. Kroeber), 325
Antigone, 214
Antilles Islands, 107
An-Yang excavations, China, 263, 265
Apinaye tribe, 105, 115, 120-121, 129, 144
Araguaia Valley, Brazil, 105
Arapesh tribe, 15
Arawak Indians, 104, 108
archaism, concept of, xiii, 101-117
Argonauts of the Western Pacific
(B. Malinowski), 11
Arikara Indians, 236
Aristotelian outlook, 307
Arkansas River, 143
aroetorrari, 109
art, impersonation in, 263; as language,
84; prehistoric, 245-256; split representation
in, 245-266; transformation of
details in, 247
Ash-Boy, myth of, 226
Asia, split representation in art of, 245-
266
Assam, India, 22
Index
astructural hypothesis, 327
atheism, 336
attitudes, system of, 37, 49; versus terminology,
310
atukmakrâ, 148
Auetô tribe, 111
Auger, P., 380
Australian kinship system, 302-303
Australian primitives, 103
Australian tribes, social structure in, 304
authenticity, criteria of, 366-368; level
autochthonous origin, of man, 215
Aveling, E., 381
Avila, G. de, 269
avunculate, defined, 39-41; in elementary
structure, 48; origin of, 47
Aweikoma tribe, 131
axes, Peruvian, 106
Aztec Eagle and Jaguar societies, 106
Bacairi tribe, 111
Baduj tribe, 137
Bakororo deity, 145
Balandier, G., 317
Baldus, H., 118
Bali, 140, 147
Bancroft, H. H., 339
Bandelier, A., 106
basketry, 111, 114
Bâssler, A., 271-272
Bastide, R., 317
Bates, M., 317
Bateson, G., 304, 320
Beach, F. A., 319
“beast with two bodies,” 267
behavior, language and, 72
behavioristic psychology, 306
Benedict, P. K., 32
Benedict, Ruth, 26, 219,324, 341
Benveniste, É., 88, 90, 230, 331
Berndt, R. M., 313, 320
Bernot, L., 317
Bidney, D., 318, 341
bilingualism, 71
Billancourt, 3^6, 344
binary structure, versus ternary, 160-161
bisexuality, myth and, 237
Blackfoot Indians, 236
Blancard, R., 317
Boas, F., xi, 6-8, 16, 19-20, 25-27, 175, 185,
206, 230, 248-249, 254, 259, 262-266, 281,
286, 358
boat, correspondence of with woman,
261
Bodi-Tjaniago moiety, 138
Bohr, N., 295-296, 364
Bolivia, 109; pre-Columbian cultures in,
105; pre-Con<juest culture, 143
Bonaparte, Mane, 205
Bonfante, J., 32
Booth, A. D., 342
borôro, 147 Bororo
tribe, 105-106, 108, m -113, 115,
120, 126-131, 136, 292, 332, 340, 344;
compared with Sherente, 126; exogamy
of, 144; major features summarized,
147; social structure of, 157-159;
village structure of, 141
boys, initiation of, 124
Brand, C. S., 322
bratsvo lineages, 63
Brazil, 104, 120-131, 291-292, 331; dual
organization in, 108; social structure
in, 120-131; sorcery in, 169
bride, maternal uncle of, 124
“bride givers” versus “bride takers,” 138
British school of anthropology, 303
brothers-in-law axis, 46
brother-sister relationships, 42-44, 73
Brunschvicg, L., 52
Bühler, K., 325
bukit, 138
Bunzel, Ruth, 219, 222-223
Cadmos, 214-217
Caduveo Indians, 251-252, 255, 332, 340,
344
Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie, 81
calendar terminology, 92
Camayura tribe, 111
Cambrai, R. de, 45-46
Canella tribe, 105, 120, 130
Cannon, W. B., 167-168
Caribs, 104
carnivores, versus herbivores, 235
carrion-eating animals, 224
Carroll, J. B., 80
Caspersson, T. O., 205
caste system, 311
Cayapo tribe, 105
Cecrops, 217
Celtic institutions, 339
Central America, dual organization in,
106
Chaco region, South America, 106
“Chansons de Geste,” 45-46, 53-54
Chera clans, 146-147, 152
Cherkess, Caucasus, 42
Chicago, University of, 351
Chicago school, urban ecology, 291
child, in kinship system, 46-47; versus
old man, 234
childbirth incantation, Cuna Indians,
186-197
Chinese art, 246, 250, 264-265
Chinese kinship system, 78
Chinese masks, 262-265
Chou dynasty, 106
Cinderella tale, 226
cities, size of, 293
clans, in Bororo tribe, 128; extended
family as, 77; groups of, 158-160;
moieties and, 120-121; in Sherente
tribe, 121
classes, groups of, 158-160
coincidence, external, 114
Colbacchini, Fr. A. A., 120, 136, 163
collaterally, 35
collective consciousness, 65, 281
collective phenomena, 18-19
collective thought, 19
colors, sounds and, 92-94
communication, exogamy and, 61; general
theory of, 82; structures of, 296-
310; theory of, 314-315
Communist Manifesto (K. Marx & F.
Engels), 337
computers, in language studies, 57
concentric dualism, 149-152
concentric structure, 146, 149-152; representation
of, 163; of village, 135
connectedness, in art, 246
consanguineous groups, 309
consciousness, collective, 65, 281; versus
unconsciousness, 281-283
constituency poll, 366
Contribution to a Critique of Political
Economy, A (K. Marx), 95, 337
Cook, W . A., 109, 118
Cooper, Fr. J. M., 105, no
“Copernican revolution,” 83
correlation, synchronic law of, 44
cosmology, and Oedipus myth, 216
couple, 303
cousin marriage, 129; see also crosscousin
marriage
coyote, 224-2.25
Creel, H. G., 249, 265-267
crop cultivation, pre-Columbian, 107-108
cross-cousin marriage, 39, 60, 122, 130,
148, 293
cross-cousins, female, 140; versus parallel,
121; two types of, 123
Crow-Omaha kinship system, 64, 74, 304
cuisine, English versus French, 86-87
cultural anthropology, 2-3; defined, 355-
Index
356; development of, 358; teaching of,
347-350
cultural phenomena, 18-19, 358
culture, concept of, 295; historical development
of, 9; language and, 67-69,
84; nature and, 356; Tylor’s definition
of, 68
Cuna Indians, 186
Cunani River, 107
curare, 114
Cushing, F. H., 218-219, 221, 226-227,
290
Cuzco, Peru, 105, 136
Cybernetics (N. Wiener), 283, 366
cycle, 303, 311-312
I 401
Dahlberg, G., 293, 318
data, collection of, 17
Davis, K., 35, 318
death, by exorcism, 167; of illustrious
men, 125; versus life, 222
Delcourt, Marie, 230
demography, 292
dépaysement, defined, 117-119
descent, rules of, 148
Desoille, R., 200
diachronic structures, 3, 21
dialectics, structure and, 232-241
diametric dualism, 151, 161
diametric structure, versus concentric,
149-152; of village, 135, 139
Diamond, S., 231
diffusion, versus evolution, 5-6, 10, 290
Dionysus, 217
discrepancy, internal, 114
disease, germs and, 197
“distantiation,” 378
Dobrizhoffer, M., 267
Dobuan tribe, New Guinea, 44
documents, study of, 17
Dorsey, G. A., 233, 236, 301
dual organization, xiii, 10, 21-22, 105,
340; archaism and, 112-114; binaryternary
structures in, 159-161; complex
structures in, 120-121; diametric
and concentric, 135, 146, 151-152; existence
of, 132-165; in pre-Columbian
America, 107-108; reciprocity and, 60,
124; village structures and, 133-136
Dumézil, G., 290, 323
Durkheim, Ê., ix, 2, 11, 206, 232, 282,
288, 290, 313, 317, 331, 357-358, 362
Dutch writers, 139
dyadic relations, 304
dynamic structure, 146
Index
earth-water-sky poles, 153-161, 227-228,
23*
Easter Island, 127
École Nationale des Langues Orientales
Vivantes, 349
ecology, urban, 291
economic history, 23
economics, anthropology and, 297; communication
and, 296
Eddington, Sir A. S., 325
Eggan, F., 52, 300-301, 319
Elkin, A. P., 319
Elwin, V., 284
emergence myth, 219
empiricism, xi
endogamous societies, 122, 129-131
endogenous versus exogenous elements,
86-87
Engels, F., 337-344
English language, 90-93
Escuela Nacional de Antropologia,
Mexico City, 351
Eskimo culture, 3
Eskimo masks, 262
ethnographer, goals of, 6
ethnography, versus anthropology, 285;
changes in, 1-2; defined, 2-3, 359; ethnology
and, 354-356; goal of, 16
Ethnological Training Center, Paris, 352
ethnology, changes in, 1-2; defined, 2-3,
354-355, 359; history and, 17-18; see
also ethnography
Europa, 217
European culture, 294-295
Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 287, 289, 317, 319,
321 .evolution, versus diffusion, 5-6, 10, 290
exchange, generalized and restricted,
122-125, !5°
exchange-marriage, 60, 78
exogamy, communication and, 61; versus
endogamy, 130-131; kinship studies
and, 308; suspension of, 144
exorcism, death by, 167
experimentation, observation and, 280-
281, 307
eyewitnesses, need for, 372
fahu, 43
family, biological, 50; “elementary,” 50;
extended, 77
Farnsworth, W . O., 54
“father,” connotations of, 35
father-son relationship, 41-43, 238
Febvre, L., 23
fertility, versus sterility, 234-235
Fewkes, J. W., 301
Field, H., 266
Fiji Islands, 49, 323
Fiith, R., 286, 316-317, 356
Fletcher, A. C., 238, 241
folklore, anthropology and, 359-360
food-gatherers, 108-111; versus hordculturalists,
no, 116; versus hunters, 222
Ford, C. S., 319
Ford, J. A., 163
Forde, D., 284, 316-317
forest, versus savanna, no
Fortes, M., 300, 303, 312, 320-321, 329
Fortune, R. F., 27, 44, 53
France, anthropological work and teaching
in, 351; départements of, 293-294
Frazer, Sir J. G., 206, 357, 372
free association, 93
French language, 90-93
French Revolution, 16-17, 209
Freud, S., 201, 217, 228, 332
Fric, V., 109, 118
Fuegians, 103
functionalism, versus diffusionism, 290
function value, in mythology, 228
Fiirer-Haimendorf, C. von, 22
Gautier, L., 45, 54
Game-Mother, 225
Geise, N. J. C., 162
Ge language family or trioe, 104, 107,
121, 135-136, 143-144» 161, 291-292, 331
genealogical structures, 74-75
generalized exchange, 122, 125, 150
Germanic institutions, 339
germ theory of disease, 197
Gestalt approach, 324
Geste des Loherains, 46
Gifford, E. W., 53, 163
Gilyak kinship system, 340
global societies, 325-326
Goethe, J. W . von, 325
Golden Bough, The (J. G. Frazer), 372
Goldfrank, E. S., 319
Goldstein, K., 280, 288, 316
Goodenough, W . H., 52
Gough, K., 323
Granai, G., 81, 84, 87-88
grandmother, in kinship systems, 75
Great Britain, anthropology teaching in,
350
Greeks, Oedipus myth and, 214-220
Griaule, M., 27
Grimm, J., 95
group, law of the, 58
groups, theory of, 328
Index
group structure, 289-296
Guaicuru tribe, 251, 256, 265
Guayaki tribe, 109
Gummere, F. B., 54
Guianas, South America, 115
Gurvitch, G., 81, £3, 85, 341; criticism
of. 314-334
“gustemes,” 86
Guttman, L., 344
Haas, Mary, 71
Haida painting, 249
Haida totem pole, 254
Hako ritual, 238
Haldane, J. B. S., 317
Halle, M., 83, 96, 342
Halpern, A. M., 53
harmony, diachronic and synchronic,
212
Hartland, S., 39
Haudricourt, A. G., 81, 84, 87-90, 94
Hauser, H., 1, 16, 25
Hawaiian-type kinship terminology, 306
Haya, Guillermo, 186
Hegel, G. W . F., 337
Heine-Geldem, R., 266
Hentze, C., 246, 263, 266
Herskovits, M. J., 319
Heusch, L. de, 54
Hidatsa rite, 237, 240
history, anthropology and, 1-25, 285-
286; goal of, 16; meaning of, 12; reconstructions
as, 9
Hjelmslev, L., 331
Hocart, A. M., 32, 207, 238, 323
Hopbin, H. I., 26
Holm, S., 325, 342
Holmer, N. M., 186,188
Homans, G. C , 322
Homo faber, 357
homophones, 93
Hopi Indians, clans of, 103; kinship system,
74, 301
horticulture, archaic, 110; as occupation,
115
Howard, G. E., 44
hunting, 108-111; versus food-gathering,
116, 222
Hunter-Wilson, M., 323
husband-wife relations, 42-44; language
and, 73
Hydén, H., 205
hypergamy, versus hypogamy, 311
impersonations, in art, 263
incantation, function of, 198-199
Incas, 105-106
incest taboo, 46, 309, 322; and circulation
of women, 60; kinship structure
and, 72; universality of, 51
Indian, American, see American Indian
Indochina, 139
Indo-European area, kinship systems and
language in, 63; marriage rules in, 76-
78
Indonesia, 147; social organization in,
139-140; villages in, 155-156
induction, knowledge and, 8-9
initiation ceremony, 124
Institute of Ethnology, Paris, 355, 375-
376, 380
institutional forms, zero value of, 159
institutions, versus societies, 10-n
International Center for Ethnographic
Documentary Films, 371
International Congress of Americanists,
.invariants, in structural analysis, 295
Iroquois Indians, 72, 273
isolate, concept of, 295, 299
isomorphisms, x
Itubori deity, 145
izakmu, 123
Jaguar society, 106
Jakobson, R., 3J, 52-53, 58, 79, 83, 88-89,
91, 96, ij3 ,140, 325, 341
Japanese art, 247
Java, 137, 140
Jevons, F. B., 51
Jocasta, 214, 216
Joos, M., 92
Josselin de Jong, J. P. B., 132-133, 140,
321
Josselin de Jong, P. E., 138-139
Journal of Ethnology, 355
Jouvet, L., 318
Jung, C., 208
Kallen, H. M., 205
kamakra, 148
kampung, 138
Karlgren, B., 263, 265, 267-268
Kautsky, K., 345
kava, 311
Kelemen, P., 266
kikua, 157
kin acknowledgment, 302
kinship, “atom” of, 72; language and,
31-96; social organization and, 127;
unit of, xii, 46
kinship studies, communication and, 296
Index
kinship systems, xii, 127, 304, 306, 337,
340; attitudes and terminology in, 37-
38; avunculate in, 48; Chinese, 78;
cyclical order in, 311; models of, 74;
Murngin, 299, 305-306; phonemes and,
34; Radcliffe-Brown’s work on, 302-
303; relationships in, 78; two orders
in, 37
kinship terms, xii, 34, 123, 303; speech
and, 36
Kipsigi, Africa, 43
knowledge, induction and, 8-9
Koffka, K., 324
Kohler, W., 324
Koita tribe, New Guinea, 22
Koskimo Indians, 176
Koto-Pilang moiety, 138
Kovalevski, M., 53
Kris, E., 205
Kroeber, A. L., xi, 6, 9, 25, 36, 59, 65,
78, 278, 283, 285, 290, 298, 301, 303,
316, 320-321, 342-343
Krocf, J. iM. van der, 138, 162
Kuki tribe, 332
kula, 297, 338
Kunapipi (R. M. Berndt), 313
Kwakiutl Indians, 7, 175, 215, 254
Kyanakwe, 220-221
Labdacos, 217
Labrador, S., 257
Laios, 214
lameness, symbolism of, 214-216
Lang, A., 232
language, antiquity of, 57; behavior and,
72; communication and, 314-315; computers
and, 57; as condition of culture,
68, 84; kinds of, 84; kinship and, 31-
96; versus linguistics, 82; marriage
rules and, 76-78; mathematical analysis
in, 56; “mctastructure” of, 58;
phonological structures in, 58; psychophysiological
elements in, 40; science
of, 82; social laws and, 55-65; as social
phenomenon, 56-57; structural analysis
of, 19, 85, 203; “thriftiness” in, 68;
see also linguistics
langue, versus parole, 209, 229
La Vega, G. de, 118
Lawrence, W . E., 305, 320
Lcach, E. R., 316, 320
Lee, D. D., 185
Leeuw, G. van der, 232
Lcfort, C., 316
Leiris, M., 94, 185
Lcroi-Gourhan, A., 265, 268
Lestrange, M. de, 317
Lévi-Strauss, C., xiv-xvi, 27, 66, 118, 131,
162-163, 185, 316, 322, 341-342, 344,
380; Gurvitch’s criticism of, 81-83,
324-334; Haudricourt-Granai critique
of, 81-83
Lévy-Bruhl, L., 232, 372
Lewin, K., 290, 319
life, versus death, 222
Lik, serpent legend of, 269-271
lineage, models of, 74
lineage clusters, 63
Ling Shun Sheng, 268
linguist-anthropologist relationships, 69-
70
Linguistic Circle of New York, 32
linguistics, xii, 19; anthropology and, 67-
80; differential features of, 328; ethnographic
data and, 85; kinship terms
ana, 36; versus language, 82; mythology
and, 209; as science, 31; structural
analysis in, 20, 31-51; unconscious infrastructure
in, 33
linguistic sign, arbitrary, 88, 209
Livi, L., 293, 317
Locke, W. N., 342
logic, in mythical thought, 230
Long Night, myth of, 269
Lounsbury, F. G., 52, 72
Lowie, R. H., xi, 6, 26, 39, 105-106, 236,
287, 294-295, 303, 307-310, 313, 317-321
McCarthy, F. D., 266
McDermott, M. M., 97
Machado River, 106, 108
Madeira River, 108
magic, 14; belief in, 168; poisons and,
114; religion and, 167-230; as situational
response, 183-184
male-female opposition, 142, 160-161
Malinowski, B., 9-16, 20, 26, 42, 53, 136-
137, 161, 232, 290, 297, 303-304, 319,
357
Mallarmé, S., 93
man, autochthonous origin of, 215
Mandan ritual, 238, 240
manegiy 133
manioc root, 108, in , 113, 115
man-woman relationship, 238
Maori art, 247, 256-258
Marajo Islands, 107
marginal tribes, versus silval, no
marriage choices, 299
marriage classes, 50, 158
marriage cycles, 294
marriage exchanges, 22, 122, 311
Index
marriage regulations, 10, 13, 61-63; and
circulation of women, 59-60, 83; for
classes and clans, 159-160; language
and, 76-78
marriage system, in complex society,
293; statistical model of, 284
Martius, C. F. P. von, 104, 118
Marx, K., 23, 9j, 333, 336-337, 340, 343-
344,380
Marxist thought, economics and, 298
Masauwu, 227
mask cultures, 261-264
Mason, D. I., 91-92
Maspero, H., 118
Mathematical Theory of Communieatioriy
The (C. Shannon & W . Weaver),
283mathematics, in social sciences, 55
matrilateral marriage, 122, 322
matrilineal clan, 138
matrilineal complex, Lowie’s article on,
39». 3<>9
matrilineal moieties, 105, 120, 128, 147
matrilineal systems, 8, 32, 41, 60, 148,
286, 322
Matto Grosso, 136
Mauss, M., ix, xi, 31, 52, 103, 161-163,
185, 282, 290-291, 297, 317, 331, 339,
357»365
Maya culture, 107
Maybury-Lewis, D., 162
Mead, Margaret, 15, 27, 53, 304, 310
meaning, mythology and, 241
measure, versus structure, 283
mechanical models, 283-289, 298, 307
medicine men, 187-188; see also shaman
Meillet, A., 52, 240
Mekeo tribes, New Guinea, 22
Melanesia, 141, 147, 149
Mendeleieff, D., 58
men’s clubs, 121
menstruation, 191
Merleau-Ponty, M., 230
metalinguistics, 84-85
metaphor, poetic, 201-202
Métraux, A., 131, 269-270
Mexico, pre-Columbian, 107, 115
Michelet, J., 17, 209-210
microhistory, versus macrohistory, 9
micro-time, versus macro-time, 290
midwife, shaman and, 187-194
Minangkabau tribe, 138
mind, language and, 71; versus universe,
9°
Mississippi Valley, 142-143
Miwok tribe, California, 64, 127, 157
models, mechanical and statistical, 283-
289, 299, 307
Mogh tribe, 332
moieties and moiety systems, io, 60;
clans and, 120; division of, 123; exogamous,
105, 133; historical evolution
of, 126; inequality of, 162; levels of,
143; maternal uncle in, 124; matrilineal,
120; opposition between, 153;
pseudo-exogamous, 144; in village
structure, 141, 154-156; water and
land, 157
Mojos Plain, 107
Mono tribe, California, 22
Monpereux, D. de, 53
Montesinos, F., 269
Moore, S., 381
Moore, W . E., 341
Moreno, J., 290
Morgan, L. H., 37, 290, 300, 340, 345
Morgenstem, O., 283, 297, 319
Morley, A., 185
morphemes, language and, 315
mother’s brother-sister’s son relationships,
42
Motu tribe, New Guinea, 22
Mundé tribe, 332
Mundugomor tribe, New Guinea, 53
Mundurucu tribe, Brazil, 108
Murdock, G. P., 66, 300-301, 305-306,
319, 322, 329, 356
Mûrie, J. R., 241
Murngin kinship system, 299, 305-306,
340
Musée de l’Homme, Paris, 375-376, 380
museums, anthropological, 375-376
mutuality, 49
muugan, 189
Muyingwu, 215, 227
myth, archetype in, 208; constituent
units of, 210-211 ; defined, 229; duplication
in, 229; function and term
value in, 228; genetic model of, 239;
innate power and, 236; interpretation
of, 207; as language, 76, 84, 210; neurosis
and, 201-202; purpose of, 232;
religion and, 313; ritual and, 240;
structural study of, 206-230; theory
of, xiv
mythological time, 211-212
mythology, 113; anthropology and, 207;
language and, 76; Slavic, 233
Nadel, S. F., 313-314,323
Nambicuara Indians, 105, 109, 112-116,
KS9.331.340
Index
narkwa bond, 124
nature, versus culture, 356-357
Navaho Indians, 313
Naven (G. Bateson), 304
Nazco vase, 270-271
Negri-Sembilan tribe, 139
nele, 187-190
nelegan, 194-195, 200-201
neo-evolutionism, 3
Neolithic complex, 116
neo-positivism, 88-89
nerve cells, polynucleids in, 201
Neumann, J. von, 283, 297, 319, 323
neurosis, shamanism and, 201-202
New Guinea, mask cultures in, 264;
Mead’s studies in, 15; patrilineal societies
in, 43-44; social structure in,
102-103; tribal organization in, 22
New Zealand, art of, 246-247, 256; split
representation in, 251; tree-trunk treatment
in, 263
nhlampsa, 48
niga, 188-189, 196
Nimuendajü, C., 105, 120-121, 129, 135,
>49
nominalism, 10-n
Nordenskiôld, E., 186
North America, dual organization in,
147; mythology of, 7, 219, 224-225
Northwest Coast, 49; cultures of, 7; sorcery
on, 175; split representation in
art of, 247-251, 260
Nouvelle Critique, La, 343
nuchu, 190, 192
nucleated village, 134
observation, experimentation and, 280-
281,307, 362
Oceanic kinship systems, 64
octopus, in Cuna magic, 195
Oedipus myth, 213-218, 231
Oliver, D. L., 43, 53
Omarakana, Trobriand Islands, 136
Oneida Indians, 72
Opler, M. E., 52
oppositions, pairs of, 35
oral literature, duplication in, 229
oral tradition, 24
order of orders, concept of, xv, 312-
3i4i 33i -333
orders, and social system, 312-315
organization, dual, see dual organization
Orellana, F. de, 106, 108
Orinoco-Amazon system, 104
Orinoco Valley, 107,109
Osgood, C E., 71
otherness, 16
outrigger canoe, 13
Oxford, University of, 351
Pacasmayo vase, 271-272
Padi rite, 125
Paget, Sir R. A., 230
Palikur tribe, 108
Panama, Isthmus of, 115
Paraguay, 109, 111, 255
Paraguay River, 255
Parain, B., 342
Parintintin tribe, 108
Paris, University of, 351-352, 355, 375
parole, versus longue, 209, 229
Parsons, Elsie Clews, 219, 221, 225, 301
pathological thought, 181
patient, abreaction of, 183
patrilateral marriage, 322
patrilineal moieties, 120
patrilineal systems, 8, 42, 60, 286, 322
patronymic classes, 147-148
patu mere, 256
Pausanias, 216
Pawnee Indians, 233, 236, 238
pecking order, 311
Perry, W . J., 52
person-symbol opposition, 297
person-to-person relations, 305
Peru, pre-Columbian cultures in, 105,
107; pre-Conquest, 143
phonemes, x, 33-34, 91; consciousness
and, 56-57; evolution of system of,
34-35 .
phonemics, 33, 36; language and, 58
phratries, among Winnebago, 133-135
physical anthropology, 350, 353
Pilaga Indians, 269
piracy, female, 15
Plains Indians, 47
plants, as model for humans, 216
plant smut, 225
poetry, translation of, 210
poisons, magical, 114
Polynices, 214
polynucleids, in nerve cells, 201
pomme de terre, connotation, 90-91
Ponte de Pedra River, 109
Popol-Vuh, 269
Poshaiyanne, 223
potlatch, 338-339
Pottier, E., 267
Pouillon, J., 317,333, 344
Poverty Point, Louisiana, 142-143
pre-Columbian cultures, 105, 107
preconscious, 203, 205
Index
pregnant boy, theme of, 233-234, 238
pre-horticultural economy, 115
prestations, exchange of, 49; social, 338;
of women, 237
“primitive,” use of term, 101-103
“primitive” cultures, versus “modem,”
24, 104, 282
primitive mind, myth and, 230
primitiveness, degree of, 112
Problème de Pmcroyance au XVI9siècle,
Le (L. Febvre), 23
progress, concept of, 335-336
Prostov, E., 266
pseudo-archaism, 112,114-115
psychoanalysis, 19; abreaction in, 182-
183, 198; shamanism and, xiii, 180, 198,
202-204
psychology, collective versus individual,
183
psychophysiological studies, 280
psychoses, 201
Pueblo Indians, 7, 215, 220-221, 223, 292,
301
purbay187-190
Pygmy groups, 103
Queiroz, M. I. Périra de, 118
Quesalid, sorcerer, 175
Race and History (C. Lévi-Strauss), 335-
336, 344
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 38, 40, 50, 54,
161, 163, 287, 294, 300-307, 310, 313,
317-321, 329, 342, 357-358, 365
Radin, P., 118, 133, 137, 231, 313
Ramcocamecra, Ge family, 105
rank-size law, 293, 318
Rapoport, A., 311
Ratzel, F., 8
reciprocity, 49; generalized, 63; versus
historical interpretation, 161-162; marriage
exchange and, 122; mechanism
of, 60-64
reconstructions, as history, 9
Jleichard, Gladys A., 96, 268, 313, 323
reincarnation, 116
relationships, bilateral and unilateral, 49;
ternary structure and, 161; theory of,
95; see also brother-sister relationships,
husband-wife relationships, interpersonal
relationships, person-toperson
relations
relativistic argument, 334
religion, as language, 84; magic and, 15,
167-230; myth and, xv, 313; social, 287;
studies of, 206
religious mysteries, 142
research workers, training of, 372-374
residence, effect of on descent, 309
restricted exchange, 122, 150
Revel, J. F , 337-340, 345
Richards, A. I., 319
Richardson, J., 316
Rimbaud, A., 202
Rio Ananaz, Brazil, 171
Rio Vermelho, Brazil, 109, 142
rite, myth and, 232
ritual, as language, 84; magic and, 113;
myth and, xiv, 232, 240
Rivers, W . H. RM34, 52, 162-163
Rivet, P., 26
Road of Life and Death, The (P. Radin),
313
Rodinson, M., 334-335, 341*343. 345
Roes, Anna, 267
Rose, H. J., 32, 51
Rousseau, J.-J., 277
Rout, E. A., 267
Rubel, M., 345
Salesian Fathers, 128, 144
Santiago del Estero, 107
Sâo Lorenço River, 109
Sâo Paulo, 106
Sapir, E., 96
Sartre, J.-P., 380
Saussure, F. de, 20, 52, 88, 91, 209
savannal culture, 107, n o-in
Schneider, D. M., 322
School of Oriental and African Studies,
London, 350
Schrader, O., 32
scientific thought, myth and, 230
Sechehaye, M. A., 200
secret societies, 7, 105, 113
Seligman, C. G., 22, 102
semantic system, 95
semeiological science, 364
Semele, 217
Sergi, G., 380
“serpent with fish inside his body,” 269-
273
“sex affiliation,” 122
Sex and Repression in Savage Society,
(B. Malinowski), 15
sexes, confusion versus differentiation
of, 234; relationship between, 15
sex relations, extra-conjugal, 127
sexual freedom, premarital, 13
Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern
Melanesia, The (B. Malinowski), 13
sex values, Trobriand Islands, 14
Index
Vhalako, deity, 227
<haman, 109, 175-177; as abrcactor, 181;
deception of, 178; initiated and noninitiated,
234; language of, 198; origin
of powers, 233; transference in, 199-
200; see also sorcerer
shamanism, xiii, 179; psychoanalysis and,
198, 202, 204
Shannon, C., 283
Sherente tribe, 105, 120-121, 126, 144
Shumaikoli, chthonian being, 215
Siberia, 7
sickness, magic beliefs and, 186-198
sign, linguistic, 94
silval tribes, versus marginal, no
Simiand, F., 1, 25
Simpson, G. G., 317
Sino-Tibetan area, kinship systems in,
63; marriage rules in, 76-78
Sioux Indians, 135, 273, 331
Siriono tribe, 109
Siuai, New Guinea, 43
sky-earth-water poles, 153-161, 227-228,
231Smith, H. L., 70
Smithsonian Institute, 355
social anthropology, 2-3, 278, 293; defined,
355-356; development of, 358;
kinship in, 300; models in, 314 {see
also models); teaching of, 346-352
social consensus, 180
social dynamics, 309-315
social facts, knowledge of, 8-9
social group, division of, 10
social laws, language and, 55-65
social morphology, 289-296
social order, cycle and, 311-312; types
of, 312-315
social organization, 101-165; language
and, 78-79; native theories of, 130-131
social phenomena, events and, 19-23;
“spatial dimension” of, 88; total, 332
social relations, structure and, 279, 303
social sciences, anthropology and, 346-
379; mathematical analysis in, 55; research
in, 102
social statics, 296-309
social structure, 277-316; in central and
eastern Brazil, 120-131; defined, 277-
280; order of elements in, 309-312;
Radcliffe-Brown’s association with,
302; versus social relations, 303
Social Structure (G. P. Murdock), 66
social time and space, 289-290
societies, global, 325-326; versus institutions,
10-11; among Pawnee Indians,
236; secret, see secret societies
society, composition of, 296; “existence”
of, 84; “French” versus “English,” 85;
language and, 82; “total,” 87
socio-demography, 293
sociological mysticism, 308
sociological planning, 102
sociology, changes in, 1-2; comparative,
14; versus ethnography and social anthropology,
285; meaning of, 2
sociometry, 290
Sophocles, 217
sorcerer, deception of, 177-178; magic
and, 167-185; psychology of, 179
sound-clusters, 92
sounds, colors and, 92-93
Soustelle, J., 331
South America, archaism in, 104; dual
organization in, 108; magico-religious
text in, 186; split representation in art
of, 250-253; village structure in, 141-
*43
space and time, social, 289
Speck, F. G., 319
Spencer, H., 341
Sphinx, 214, 230-231
Spier, L., 6, 25
Spoehr, A., 300-301
Stanner, W . E. H., 117
Star-Husband cycle, 237
statistical correlation, 322
statistical models, 283-289, 299
Steinen, K. von den, 108-109, **8
Stevenson, M. C., 172, 219, 221-222
Steward, J. H., 317, 319
Stewart, J. Q., 318
Stone, N. I., 97
structural analysis, x, xiv; goal of, 295;
in linguistics, 31-51; rules of, 288
structure, defined, 279; measure and,
282-283
Structures élémentaires de la parenté,
Les (C. Lévi-Strauss), 150, 322, 324,
345
subordination structures, 309-315
suicide, 284-285 *
supernatural forces, sorcerer and, 171
supernatural order, 312-313
Sutter, J., 318, 380
Swanton, J. R., 267
symbols, effectiveness of, 186-204; inductive
property of, 201; psychoanalysis
and, 200; symbol-person opposition
and, 297
sympathetic nervous system, exorcism
and, 168
Index
synchronic structures, 21, 291; versus
diachronic, 3, 21, 89
synesthesia, 91
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity
of the Human Family (L. H. Morgan),
300
Tabah, L., 318, 380
taboos, ritual and, 38, 43; see also
brother-sister taboo, incest taboo
Taine, H., 17
t’ang and piao, 138
Tapajoz River, 109, 169
Tapirapé tribe, in
tapuy43
Tapuya tribe, 104-105, 111
tattooings, 256-261
Tax, S., 52
teachers, training of, 372-377
teaching, problems of, 277-379
Teissier, 6., 59, 66
Teit, J., 230
Tembe tribe, 108
Terena tribe, 108
terminology, versus attitudes, 310; systems
of, 37
term value, in mythology, 228
ternary systems, 154, 160-161
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
(J. von Neumann & O. Morgenstern),
283
Thompson, D’A. W., 342
Thomson, D. F., 53
Thomson, G., 51
thought, categories of, 20
thunder, “kidnapping” by, 169-171
Tiahuanaco, Mexico, 106, 136
Timbira tribe, 129, 144, 147-150
time, mythological, 211; reversible and
non-reversible, 301; social structure
and, 289
Toba Indians, 269
Tocantins River, 107
totality, in anthropology, 365
traffic lights, 94
transference, to shaman, 199
tree-trunk carvings, 263
triadism, versus dualism, 149-151
triskelion, 158-159
Tristes Tropiques (C. Lévi-Strauss),
185, 266, 322, 335, 344, 380
Trobriand Islanders, 14, 49; magic of,
14-15; social organization of, 41-42;
village structure, 136
Troubetzkoy, N., 27, 33-35, 96, 240, 325
Tsiakish, chthonian monster, 215
Tsimshian painting, 249
Tucuna tribe, 108
Tugare moiety, 146
tunuka, 157
Tupi tribe, 104, 106, in , 115
Tupi-Cawahib tribe, 108, 332, 340
Tylor, Sir E. B., 4, 18, 68, 206, 306, 356,
379
ufapie relationship links, 22
uncle, bride's, 123-124; position of, 32,
39uncle-sister’s son relationship, 42
unconsciousness, versus consciousness,
281-283; preconscious and, 205
UNESCO, 366-367, 371
unilineal systems, 309
United States, anthropology teaching
in, 350; see also America, American
urban ecology, 291
Varagnac, A., 380
Vilela Indians, 269
village structures, 133-137, 154-156
vocabulary, kinship terms and, 36;
meanings and, 93-94
Voegelin, C. F., 62, 66, 70
Voth, H. R., 231, 301
Wagley, C., 318
Wakedi, in boy’s initiation, 124
wangeregiy 133
war-gods, food production and, 223
Warner, W . L., 35, 52, 305, 319-320
Wasscn, H., 186, 188
Waterbury, Florance, 267
Weaver, W., 283
Werth, Elizabeth, 96
Westermarck, E., 322
Weydemeyer, J., 337
White, L. A., 3, 286-287, 31®
White, L. D., 26
Whorf, B. L., 73, 80, 85
Wiener, N., 55-58, 283, 366
Wik Munkan group, Australia, 38
Williams, F. E., 43, 53, 122
Winnebago Indians, 133, 146, 153-155
witchcraft, defense of, 173-174
Wittfogel, K. A., 319
woman, correspondence of boat to, 261
womankind, “dichotomy” of, 72
women, circulation of, 60, 83; communication
of, 296; facial paintings of, 252-
253, 258-259; language oF, 61-62; prestation
of, 237; “redistribution” of,
309; tattooing of, 257
women’s associations, 121
Word, 31
words, “exchange” of, 61-62; meaning
of. 93
Wouden, F. A. E. van, 140
writing, 24-25
Xingu River, 106,111
Yacovleff, E., 273
Yale Cross-Cultural Survey, 306
4 io |
Yetts, W . P., 250, 264, 268
Yneve, V. H., 342
Yokut tribe, California, 22
Zetos, 217
Zia, 223
Zipf, G. K., 318
Zulus, 25
Zuni Indians, New Mexico, 172-173,
221-222, 225-226; emergence myth of,
219-220; kinship system, 74; lineage,
302
Index