Horizons of Anthropology

Sol Tax

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351515160
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The scientific study of human evolution and culture is about a hundred years old. This volume surveys its achievements and methods. Originally published more than forty years ago, the volume's contributors include people who have shaped anthropology's future. As Gluckman says in his Preface, the contributions "point to the horizons of increasing understanding of man, his evolution and his social setting, as seen by a rising generation of scholars."

The book includes chapters on how man gradually became different from other primates--on the origin and nature of language and its contribution to our peculiarities as human beings. It surveys the long history of human culture and societies and the theories about their similarities and differences; it discusses human equality and inequality, and it considers, from the anthropologist's point of view, economics, politics, law, religion, medicine, and the arts.

In recent decades the various branches of anthropology--physical, cultural, psychological, and social--have become more specialized, and each branch is increasingly linking itself to its appropriate cognate, biological, psychological, or social sciences. Yet there remains a central common field to anthropology, as the science of man, for practitioners in all its branches. This book develops that common interest and deals with the specific problems of various parts of the field. The book brings out the basic nature of anthropology and the extraordinary fascination that lies in the systematic study of the exuberant variety of human societies and customs.

1. THE SETTING OF THE SCIENCE OF MAN

Sol Tax

MEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN interested in studying themselves. The individual man spends his life understanding himself; a people provides itself with myths; nations write their histories. Therefore it is futile to speak of the beginning of the study of man. We usually refer back to classical Greece for the origins of the study of man, but the study is world-wide—a philosopher can appear in any tribe—and it goes back anywhere that records carry us back. Yet, there are times when any science gets a special impetus, and crystallizes a new form, and forges ahead. For the study of man, the great period in modern times extended over the thirty years from about 1840 to 1870. One might almost call it a “thirty years’ war”—a war between two words, Ethnology and Anthropology; a war between those who were historians and philosophers on one side, and those who were for science, particularly biology (wherever it might lead one), on the other; a war between humanitarians whose science was related to their advocacy of a cause on one side and, on the other, pure scientists who would separate scientific truth from all other human concerns.

A good way to watch the thirty years’ story unfold is to read the journals of the competing societies which sprang up during that time. A quick and especially interesting history is to be found in the Decennial Anniversary Address by the great French anthropologist, Paul Broca, to the Anthropological Society of Paris which he founded ten years earlier in 1859 (Broca 1871-72). The address was published in the society’s journal and also translated into English for publication by the Anthropological Institute of New York. Broca, himself an anatomist and human biologist, was the descendent of a long line which included Blumenbach, Cuvier, and many others. Imbued with the spirit of exact science, he strongly opposed mixing science and sentiment, or science and politics, and his little history, quoted extensively below, emphasizes the dangers.

In Paris in 1800 was founded the Society of the Observers of Man “by a union of naturalists and of medical men” to promote the study of natural history mainly by providing guidance to travelers and explorers of far places. The Society was deprived of new data by the long series of Napoleonic Wars which interrupted commerce and foreign travel and “turned its attention to questions of ethnology, historical and psychological. Natural history was neglected for philosophy, politics, and philanthropy.”

“This abortive experiment had been long forgotten when some English philanthropists founded in London, in 1838, the ‘Society for the Protection of Aborigines.’ “Eminent scholars were among its members, but “its aims were rather political and social than scientific. It was at this time that the question of slavery, already solved by England, began to occupy the attention of the French government. In the session of 1839, the Chamber of Deputies . . . had appointed a commission to report upon this important subject; and the society in London, hoping that the pressure of public opinion might have a favorable influence on the decision of the chamber, resolved to establish in France a society for the emancipation of the Negroes. One of its leading members, Mr. Hodgkin, came to Paris, and put himself in communication with several distinguished persons, and more particularly with the eminent naturalist and anthropologist Milne-Edwards. But an association of this kind was not at that time possible in France. . . . Instead of a political association, Milne-Edwards and his friends resolved to found a scientific society, and thus sprang into existence the celebrated ‘Ethnological Society of Paris’ . . . authorized on the 20th August, 1839.”

When “the first volume of its Memoirs appeared, some English savants appreciated the usefulness of its work, and resolved to imitate it. Through their means, in May, 1844, a similar society was formed in London, and took, like it, the name of the Ethnological Society, and a short time subsequently a third society, founded in New York, adopted the same title.”

In 1847 “the meetings of the society [i.e., the Ethnological Society of Paris], hitherto peaceful, were agitated by the question of slavery. The first thing was to determine the distinctive characteristics of the white and black races; but it was in vain that the naturalists and anatomists, too few in number, tried to restrain the discussion within the limits of natural history. . . . The debate became more lively at each meeting; the outside world began to be interested; . . . and the public willingly believed that ethnology, of which it then heard for the first time, was not a science, but something between politics and philanthropy. . . . This absorbing controversy lasted nearly a year” when it was ended by the abolition of slavery. “But the Ethnological Society had been so completely absorbed by this question that, deprived of it, its chief motive to action seemed no longer to exist.” The enfeebled society died—though weak sisters remained in London and New York.

In America (physical) anthropology was making great progress, according to Broca’s lights. Then, “In 1851 . . . the United States were agitated by the abolition question. ... By one of those confusions of ideas ... it was imagined that slavery was bound up with the polygenistic theory, while emancipation was inseparable from the monogenistic.” “A tremendous war absorbed for many years the resources of the country. Science was lost sight of amid the clash of arms, and when the victory of the North had solved the question of slavery, anthropology . . . suffered a period of eclipse. . . .”

Meanwhile, in Europe anthropology was going ahead, but “When facts ran counter to popularly conceived opinions, they were greeted with contempt. ... It was then that the founders of the Anthropological Society of Paris determined to form a tribunal before which opposing views might obtain a hearing.” “After more than six months occupied in collecting subscriptions, and in obtaining, not without difficulty, authority to hold its meetings (under the control of the police), the new society met for the first time on the 19th of May, 1859, and began work on the 7th of July following.”

Meanwhile, in Germany the anthropologists in the many scattered cities were unable to meet frequently, so they established instead an annual congress. “The first session was held at Gottenburg, in the month of September, 1861.” Circumstances interfered with well-laid plans, and the congress never actually met again. But work continued through The Germanic Archives of Anthropology, founded in 1865, and the Journal of Ethnology, first published on January 1, 1869.

“The Ethnological Society of London was quietly pursuing its labors when the perusal of our [the Anthropological Society of Paris] publications excited in its midst the desire to add modern anthropology to the old programme of ethnology. But the most influential members . . . opposed the introduction of anatomy and natural history. . . .” “On the 24th of February, 1863, the dissenting members founded, under the presidency of Mr. James Hunt, a new society, which took, like ours, the name of the Anthropological Society.” “The Ethnological Society, weakened for a moment by this defection, increased its efforts, and soon saw the necessity of enlarging, in its turn, its own sphere.” In 1868 Thomas Huxley was elected president. “Nothing could be more significant than the choice of this gentleman, whose fame rests on his works on zoölogy, comparative anatomy, and craniology. . . . From this time forward the Ethnological Society and the Anthropological Society differed only in name.”

“While France, Germany, and England were contributing thus powerfully to the progress of anthropology, the other countries of Europe were not idle.—Everywhere, from Sweden to Sicily, from the Volga to the Tagus, learned men were at work.”

“In Moscow, in 1866, there was formed, in the ‘Society of the Friends’ of Nature,’ ... a special section of anthropology” which became quickly productive and successful.

But Broca concludes this 1869 survey of progress with a difficult case. “At Madrid, a Society of Anthropology was founded in 1865.” “The Minister of Progress . . . had been pleased to honor with his presence (the 5th of June, 1865) the ceremony of inauguration. It was only when the society wished to set to work that its difficulties began. The first question submitted for discussion was that of the aboriginal races of the peninsula—an inquiry offensive, imprudent, and savoring of heresy—for the very name of aborigines was pregnant with controversy. . . .” They stopped meeting until the revolution of September. “Last 21st February they held their second inauguration.”

In addition to the formation of national societies, and of journals and periodicals, Broca could also report the founding of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology, and its first sessions in 1866, 1867, and 1868, each in a different part of Europe.

In 1869 Broca could rightly entitle his Address “The Progress of Anthropology.” Two years later the rival English societies joined to become the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1873 there was again a split, this time based on personalities, and a new London Anthropological Society with its journal Anthropologia came into being; but it was short lived. The sciences settled down to work. International communication, research, and publication made great strides. The names anthropology, ethnology, ethnography, archaeology, prehistory, philology and linguistics became firmly established. They had different meanings from place to place, and from time to time. In some places these branches of the science of man became more unified than in others, and everywhere each has its different history. But on the whole the hope of Broca was realized in the years to come. He said in 1869 that on the pivotal base of anatomy and biology, anthropology could “extract, by means of a rigorous synthesis, the ultimate ideas of general anthropology which sooner or later will be the crown and glory of our science.”

What Broca here referred to as general anthropology became soon the synthesis characteristic of the science in England and America. On the continent of Europe the separate words anthropology, ethnology, prehistory, and linguistics need still to be used to encompass the whole. But in all of America and most of Asia the word anthropology stands for the whole study of man. Cultural anthropology, social anthropology, economic anthropology, anthropological linguistics, are equally used with physical or biological anthropology. All of the specialists now use again the single word that Broca saw would unite the world in the synthesis of general anthropology.

Before Columbus, the American aborigines had their own ideas about the nature of man. From the point of view of the European tradition of science and scholarship, North and South America, like Africa and Oceania and much of Asia, were places to explore. The American Indians were one of the greatest new mysteries of the Age of Exploration. It is little wonder then that the Americas should one day become a center of anthropological study. The English, French, Germans, and other Europeans provided the traditions of scholarship, the books, the theories; but the Americas provided a laboratory close by.

This is true in different ways throughout the Americas, but I shall speak particularly of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, is sometimes also said to be its first anthropologist; he not only developed empirical research in archaeology, but he studied carefully the data on living Indian tribes and was a pioneer in the study of Indian languages. As A. I. Hallowell (1960a:15-16) puts it:

Jefferson emerges as a significant figure in early anthropological thinking in this country not only because of his enduring interest in the Indian, his personal investigations, and expressed opinions. Through his attitude of rational inquiry, his active association with learned men of his time, and his role in our national government, he personifies, in a sense, the distinctive historical context in which anthropology in the United States was nourished in its infancy. . . . In a letter (1789) to Reverend Joseph Williard, President of Harvard, he said: “What a field have we at our doors to signalize ourselves in! The Botany of America is far from being exhausted, its Mineralogy is untouched, and its Natural History or Zoology, totally mistaken and misrepresented. ... It is for such institutions as that over which you preside so worthily, Sir, to do justice to our country, its productions and its genius. It is the work to which the young men, whom you are forming should lay their hands.” While Jefferson does not mention any discipline explicitly devoted to the study of man in his letter, his own pioneer work in the collection of Indian vocabularies, his descriptive and statistical data on Indian tribal groups tabulated in the Notes, his excavation of a mound, and the memorandum he prepared for the Lewis and Clark expedition concretely demonstrate, in principle, the kind of inquiry that he thought could be profitably carried on in America. Thus, without an academic label, he himself and others of his circle set an example by accumulating new knowledge regarding “Homo sapiens Americanus.” This was anthropology, without portfolio, pursued on our own frontiers.

Jefferson set the pattern of the nineteenth century wherein statesmen-scholars investigated the American Indians for their own sake, even as history was pushing them into isolated corners of the country. The long series of students of the American Indian, of which the best-known names are Gallatin, Cass, and Schoolcraft, culminated in a sense with Lewis Henry Morgan, who was one of the first men in the world to combine personal intensive field work in a native culture with comparative work and general theory. Missionaries and others lived with Indians and occasionally published important observations; but of those who made firsthand observations, Morgan was the first who tried also to place his results in world-wide perspective. In doing so, he virtually founded one of the great branches of modern social anthropology—the comparative study of family and kinship structure.

Anthropology in America was thus never a simple offshoot of European thought; it was an independent center in which firsthand knowledge of a variety of cultures gave it both special opportunities and a particular character. Brinton, Powell, Holmes, Putnam, Bandalier and dozens of others were great names in the development of anthropology in the late nineteenth century. Europeans led in uncovering their own long prehistory; but they were required to go thousands of miles to experience in person non-European cultures. It was in America then that the theorists themselves also had close experience with a profusion of exotic languages, cultures, and peoples. It was not until the twentieth century that European anthropologists included empirical field work in their training and practice.

The divorce from actual peoples perhaps explains the great development of social theory in England in the last half of the nineteenth century. The names of Spencer, Tylor, Frazer are symbols. France during this period concentrated on prehistory and physical anthropology, and when at the turn of the twentieth century it picked up social theory where it had left off more than fifty years earlier, it was with a set of new empirical tools in Compte’s sociological tradition; and Dürkheim, Mauss, and others avoided a good deal of what has come to be called arm chair speculation.

In Germany, in this same period, there developed first a psychological and then a geographical tradition of cultural anthropology. Theodore Waitz developed the basic physical anthropology of the peoples of all the world; Adolf Bastian surveyed their cultures and described what he thought were the basic psychological ideas of all men; and Freidrich Ratzel developed what has come to be called anthropogeography. All were in different ways empirical, and when Franz Boas came to America with a German education, it was also with a strictly empirical background. It was easy for him to fit into the established American tradition. It was easy for him to take advantage of the opportunities there for field research. Boas has been influential in American anthropology partly because American anthropology had already developed the tools and theories that suited his ways.

Nevertheless, the continuity of American anthropology appears to me to stem most directly from the British. The tradition of mixing philanthropic and scientific interests that came in the original combination of the anti-slavery movement and the formation of the Ethnological Societies around 1840 never ended in England; it carried over into America. The insistence on “pure science” which twenty years later caused “anthropologists” to split off from ethnologists was a reflection of confusion in knowledge about evolution and race. The “anthropologists” thought that the anti-slavery bias of many ethnologists interfered with the search for truth. They fought emotionally about this, and many of them were willing to justify slavery because they thought that Europeans probably were higher on the evolutionary scale than Africans and perhaps Asians. As time passed, it became evident that some races could not be shown to be inferior to others; but it also became clear that political and social policies had very little to do with such technical questions. After the Civil War in the United States, Broca complained about the foolish use of science, as we have seen.

Thomas Huxley had remained in the Ethnological Society in London, despite his biological orientation. He too, after the American Civil War, pointed out that if, indeed, the Negroes or any other race are. inferior, it is reason to discriminate in their favor, rather than against them to redress the balance.

The fact is that the “ethnologists” in England, rather than the “anthropologists,” became the leaders in the Anthropological Institute in which they combined. It is from the tradition of scholarship begun with the founding of the Ethnological Society of Paris in 1839 and continued by the Ethnological Society of London and the Anthropological Institute, that American Anthropology gets its major European continuity, particularly through the person of Edward Burnett Tylor who is known to most anthropologists in America as the Father of Modern Anthropology.

In the succeeding essays it will become evident that Americans, following in this tradition, are specialists but also generalists. Whether we are archaeologists or linguists, students of the arts or of geography, whether we study the behavior of baboons or the refinements of the human mind, we all call ourselves anthropologists. It will become evident also that we all carry with us the liberal tradition of the first ancestors. Humankind is one; we value all peoples and cultures; we abhor any kind of prejudice against peoples, and the use of power for the domination of one nation by another. We believe in the self-determination of free peoples. We particularly abhor the misuse by bigots or politicians of any of our knowledge. As scientists we never know all of the truth; we must grope and probe, and ever learn; .but we know infinitely more than the glib racists—whether in the United States or in South Africa. We are equalitarians, not because we can prove absolute equality, but because we know absolutely that whatever differences there may be among large populations have no significance for the policies of nations. This comes from our knowledge as anthropologists; but it also pleases us as citizens of the world.

It is a pleasure to introduce now these chapters by a group of young North American anthropologists. They will not talk about anthropology very much, but rather about what anthropologists have learned in the hundred years since it became so well fixed among the sciences. They will speak about human evolution—how man became different from the other primates in behavior and in form; about the origin and nature of language, and how it makes us human; about the long history of human culture and society, and the theories that we have to account for the similarities and the differences that we find ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contributors
• Contents
• 1. The Setting of the Science of Man
• 2. The Evolution of Social Life
• 3. The Transition to Humanity
• 4. The Hominization Process
• 5. Human Populations
• 6. The Psychological Approach in Anthropology
• 7. Language and Thought
• 8. A Perspective for Linguistic Anthropology
• 9. The Study of Evolution
• 10. The Origins of Agriculture
• 11. Culture and Environment: The Study of Cultural Ecology
• 12. Perspectives Gained from Field Work
• 13. Social Organization
• 14. The Organization of Economic Life
• 15. Anthropology and the Study of Politics
• 16. Anthropology and the Law
• 17. Evolution and the Ills of Mankind
• 18. The Study of Religion
• 19. The Arts and Anthropology
• 20. Equality and Inequality in Human Societies
• 21. The Uses of Anthropology
• Bibliography
• Index