The Science of Anthropology: A Series of Lectures 9783111560151, 9783111189529

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THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

STUDIES IN GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGY edited by DAVID BIDNEY

DELL HYMES

Indiana University Bloomington

University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia

P. E. DE JOSSELIN DE JONG Leiden University

EDMUND R. LEACH Cambridge University

IV

1969

MOUTON THE HAGUE - PARIS

THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY A SERIES OF

LECTURES

given by

H. R. H. PRINCE PETER OF GREECE A N D D E N M A R K M . A . , LI.D., Ph.D.

under the auspices of the Hellenic Anthropological Society Athens, Greece 1961-1963

1968

MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1969 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

The lectures were translated from Greek by the author.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 69-11287

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

CONTENTS

I. Introduction to the Science of Anthropology II. Introduction to Ethnology

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.

,

,

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III. My Own Anthropological Research. The Practical Significance of Anthropology for Greece

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IV. The History of Ethnology: The Beginnings .

48

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V. The History of Anthropology: The Progress of Ethnology

56

VI. The History of Anthropology: Contemporary Ethnology .

67

VII. A Scientific Theory of Culture

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I INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY *

The term 'science' is very often limited to physics. The real definition of Science is, however, more generally, the systematic expression of knowledge. If this definition is kept in mind, then it is certain that Anthropology is a science. As it is, the etymology of the word means 'The Science of Man'. Aristotle was the first to make use of the term Anthropology, but not in the same way as it is used today. In the Ethics, he refers to a person who deals in false information and rumours as 'not an anthropologist'. The word Anthropology was first used in its modern meaning in Latin form during the 16th century. In 1501 the German Magnus Hundt published a book which dealt in a general way with human anatomy and physiology under the title Anthropologium de hominis dignitate. Aristotle was about twenty centuries before his time, as the current science of Anthropology has really only existed since the beginning of the present century. Aristotle was the first to classify man as an animal and as such was the first anthropologist, for he made the distinction that man has a larger brain, walks erect on his hind legs and is capable of understanding and perception. It is not excluded that Aristotle examined human bodies and even made autopsies. Anthropology is one of the most extensive sciences because it has to do with man and all his works. It can be said that it is a discipline which unites both biology and sociology in one science. Anthropology is usually divided into Physical Anthropology and Ethnology. The former has to do with the study of man as part of the animal kingdom, while the latter deals with man as a member of society and of an ethnic group. That is the reason for which the second part of the science is called Ethnology. Comparative studies are the method, the principal object, and the chief interest of Anthropology. *

Lecture given on the 1st of February, 1961, before the University of Athens.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

In the first division of Physical Anthropology, that which is pursued is the investigation and description of those physical elements and criteria which make man different from other living bodies; the differences between men are also sought after so as to distinguish the various races to which they belong. In what concerns Ethnology, that division of Anthropology deals with the description of the differences and similarities that exist between various human groups. It also works to distinguish laws and principles in accordance with which human society and culture develop. Social anthropology must not limit itself to the study of so-called 'primitive' societies. If such a tendency exists this is to be explained by the historical beginnings of Ethnology, as we shall see further on. Anthropology took on great importance particularly with the expansion of Europeans throughout the world after the 15th century A.D. As I have said earlier, Anthropology was in existence already in Greek classical times. Nevertheless, as an exact science, it only came into being after the 15th century. And this can easily be explained: until knowledge of men living in other cultures was acquired its development was impossible. In the days of Herodotus, Strabo and also of Aristotle, these early writers had some acquaintance with men of other nations, and for this reason they took an interest in what we would call today Anthropology. But whatever they learned then cannot in any way be compared with what Europeans were to discover after the 15 th century, when they launched themselves overseas on their great exploratory travels. Something parallel occurred also in the case of prehistorical studies. Tools and other artefacts found in the course of excavations in Europe remained an enigma before the discovery of America. When, however, the New World was revealed, comparisons were made between these objects and the tools and weapons of the Amerindians; an answer to the riddle of the prehistoric finds in Europe was reached in this way. Until this happened, out of ignorance, many believed that what had been unearthed had belonged to the fairies. But afterwards, they were easily convinced that they were the results of the labour of prehistoric men. The first anthropological accounts were based on the various fantastic tales brought back by explorers, travellers and Christian missionaries. For instance: Europeans who visited the Nicobar islands in the Indian ocean, in the Bay of Bengal, reported that the inhabitants of these isles had tails to their bodies. Later, however, this was shown to

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be quite mistaken. The explanation was simple: these people used to tie their clothes at the back so that they formed a sort of tail. It was from this custom that the imaginative story originated. In the 19th century the first measures were taken to send out special expeditions to underdeveloped and illiterate societies; that is to say to peoples who made no use of written characters. Systematic anthropological research of this kind began round about 1900, when professional, scientifically-minded and trained anthropologists, not amateurs, made their way to distant lands to study various primitive cultures. In fact little more than sixty years have passed since responsible anthropologists first undertook to study the underdeveloped peoples of the world. Later on, I shall give the names of some of these workers and of the various anthropological schools that they founded. Anthropology, both in its physical and its ethnological branches, is closely related to other scientific disciplines. Physical anthropology has close links with anatomy, physiology, embryology, zoology, palaeontology, prehistory, and even with geology. Ethnology, on the other hand, is related to sociology, psychology, geography, political economy, the humanities, archaeology, prehistory in what concerns man's life in society. It also has to do with agriculture, folklore and botany. It is also interested in that part of zoology which has to do with domesticated animals. The founding of colonies by Europeans gave Anthropology its chance to develop considerably thanks to the wider field for research which was acquired in this way. In return, Anthropology became of great service to colonial administrators, because the better understanding of how native societies functioned was essential to their work. Even today, when most European colonies have been surrendered, the proper administration of peoples of other cultures or of minorities - such as, for instance, the Red Indians of America - derives considerable benefit from the knowledge of such matters which Anthropology has provided. Ethnology also facilitates better relations between different cultures. Comparative anthropological studies eventually enable us to comprehend our own way of life better because of the deeper insight into it which they give; without them there would be much in this connection of which we would remain unaware. Applied anthropology in many Western countries has lately been made use of to solve industrial and labour problems, as it has been useful also in better adapting foreign workmen to their surroundings. Now that I have given you the generalities of the subject with which

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

I am concerned today, I will make use of the time remaining to me to give you details pertaining to Physical Anthropology and Ethnology. First, Physical Anthropology. The definition of Physical Anthropology is: the science that studies man as part of the animal kingdom. The study comprises the history, development and current morphology of man. Consequently, Physical Anthropology is closely related to Prehistory, to studies of the environment and of the various races of man throughout the world. The history of Physical Anthropology begins with investigations into the descent of man. In classical times, Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle believed that man had always existed. There was no starting point to his existence, they thought. They had come to this conclusion because it appeared to them that all physical phenomena had no beginning and no end. This theory reminds us of the well-known argument concerning the hen and the egg; that since they both exist, it is impossible for us to determine which came first, and it is better to consider that they have always been in existence together. Hippocrates can be looked upon as the father of Physical Anthropology. Without considering the question of man's descent, he made observations of the shape of men's skulls and classified these into macrocephales and microcephales. He put forward the idea that various shapes of skulls in different tribes may be due to practices that tend to deform the appearance of the head, deformities of an artificial nature which have consequently been inherited from generation to generation. This concept was accepted for many successive centuries. Even the great French zoologist Buffon adopted it. Nowadays, it is considered to be unscientific and has been completely abandoned. With the appearance of Christianity, these theories of classical times were brushed aside and replaced by the dogmas of the Old Testament. The story that man is descended from one original couple, Adam and Eve, became a tenet of the new faith. Together with this doctrine went the idea that at the antipodes of the earth it was not possible for other men to exist. The concept of the world map then was of course still that of Herodotus and of Ptolemy. Some people were to be found, nevertheless, who did not accept the belief that the earth could be limited to such narrow confines and who felt sure that in unknown, unexplored parts there existed human beings of different descent. Those who held such opinions were looked upon by the Church as atheists. Saint Augustine thus wrote that the idea that men could exist at the antipodes of the earth was excessively stupid.

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Inspired by this blind faith, the first Spanish conquistadors who reached South America behaved most savagely toward the Red Indian natives they found there, justifying their attitude by saying that it was not possible for these creatures to be descendants of Adam and Eve. It was, however, a fact now that men did exist in these parts. And this greatly strengthened the prestige and influence of those who considered it possible that fellow mortals were to be found at the antipodes of the earth. Today, with the appearance of Darwin's theory of the evolution of the species, it is generally held that man must be considered as belonging to one of the large families of the Anthropoids, a distinct species of the Primates, and that his family is divided into a number of races. Thus, Physical Anthropology has become nowadays a natural science, entirely separate from theology and religion. The great English scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley, has said that Anthropology has nothing at all to do with religious questions. The French anthropologist, Abbe Bourgeois, has emphasized this distinction very clearly by insisting that, as an anthropologist, he is a physicist and is not dealing with theology. The German scientist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, at the beginning of the 19th century, was the first to systematize Physical Anthropology with the taking of body measurements, especially of the skull. The Swede, Retzius, improved on the method of Blumenbach with the invention of the cephalic index and he was the first to make use of the terms 'brachicephalous' and 'dolichocephalous' in order to distinguish round skulls from oval ones. Retzius is the founder of modern craniology. Lately a tendency has appeared not to distinguish between races only on the basis of the differences in head or body measurements, but also in accordance with variations in the section of hairs, in the colour of skins and in the shapes of the eyes, the nose and the teeth. This manner of bringing out the characteristics of a race is, however, very arbitrary and can only be justified because it facilitates comparisons between specimens of the various human races. What, however, do we mean by the word 'race'? It can be said that it is a difficult term, open to dangerous interpretations, and hence to misunderstandings. In the Greek language, confusion as to what is meant by the word is even greater than in other languages, because here the meaning of 'race' includes both that of nation and of culture. When we say in Greece, 'the Greek race', we do not mean that Greeks belong to any special physiological race, but that our nation has a certain cultural unity which distinguishes it from others.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

The definition of race in Genetics, that is according to the science of heredity, is that it is a group of living beings who have a large number of inherited traits in common. Anthropologists, however, prefer to say that race is a term used to describe a large group of people who, owing to common ancestry, share a general tendency to produce certain physical types recognisable by their hair, their eyes, the shape of their heads, the colour of their skins, etc. It can be said that in order to distinguish a race, exterior characteristics of the human body are still taken into consideration, and not the interior ones as is the case with the sciences of Genetics and of Heredity. The latter are GENOTYPIC (they go after the pattern of gene assembly) as it should be, while Anthropology is still PHENOTYPIC (using the exterior appearance of the organism), no doubt because genetic problems are largely unsolved. Until about one hundred years ago, it was still believed that blood was the vehicle of heredity. Even today, we speak of 'blood-relationship', and royal princes are called 'princes of the blood'; it is a way of describing the authenticity of their descent. Now, of course, we know that heredity makes use of genes as the means to hand on characteristics, microscopic bodies that are capable of forming living organisms in accordance with a quite definite inherited pattern. The characteristics of living creatures are nevertheless dependent on environmental factors for their final appearance. Thus, the children of Negroes are not as black at birth as they will be later, after having been exposed to the sun. Genes are minute particles, numerous enough to determine myriads of physical traits in man. They determine the potentiality of traits, not their form which is eventually the result of environmental influences. They are strung together like the beads of a necklace and can only be seen through a microscope. They are to be found in the sex cells of individuals, on the so-called chromosomes. These are regular elements of the cells, which can be coloured so that they become visible, hence their name. Every individual has forty-six chromosomes which he received from his parents at birth, twenty-three from his father and as many from his mother. The continuity and the perpetuation of a race is assured through the action of the sex cells. The answer of the biologists, therefore, to the question as to which came first, the egg or the hen, is that the egg did and that the hen is only the means by which the continued production of eggs is perpetuated. The manner in which chromosomes combine in a living creature about to be born does not appear to follow any special rule but rather to be the result of chance - this no doubt because no rule of combina-

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY

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tion has been discovered so far. There must be some process of contact and inmixture which follows natural laws, but science has not advanced sufficiently yet to be able to determine these with precision. What we do know is that after the chromosomes have combined, the formation of the characteristics of the offspring takes place with mathematical accuracy, in accordance with the laws of the Austrian monk, Mendel. Mendel made his observations on plants growing in the garden of the monastery in which he lived. In the most simple case of white and red flowers, their union brings about the following results: a flower with white petals joined with another one with red ones, in the first generation produces exclusively pink flowers. But if these pink flowers are crossed, their issue in the following become: one red flower, two pink ones and one white one. In the third generation, the white flowers give birth only to white ones, and the red ones only to red flowers. The pink, nevertheless, continue to produce one white, one red and two pink flowers just as before. These results are mathematically certain. Differences, however, exist in what concerns the intrinsic strength of the genes. Some can be said to be stronger than others. The strong ones are dominant while the weaker ones are recessive. The laws of heredity are further complicated by the fact that genes, without any apparent reason, are liable to change suddenly. This phenomenon is called 'mutation' and it brings about unexpected twists to heredity. The scientific observations of mutations is due to the Dutch biologist, de Vries, who noticed in his garden a flower which was of an entirely different colour from all the others, despite its descent from a plant of which he knew the genealogy. This flower later produced other ones of exactly the same coloration and because of this de Vries concluded that a mutation had taken place. His contribution can be considered as a correction of the theory of evolution of Darwin, because the latter, as is well known, never spoke of abrupt changes in the development of living species, whereas the Dutch scientist showed that heredity could take place with uneven, unpredictable changes in form. With this in mind, it can be said therefore that the evolution of man and his differentiation into various races took place in the following stages, according to the latest in Physical Anthropology: (1) Sudden mutations; (2) Selection of the human types best adapted to the environment in which they live (it should be noted here that the less well adapted ones tend to disappear); (3) Complete adaptation of the sur-

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viving type to its environment; (4) Emigration of the individual type to other environments in which it can live; (5) Isolation of a type which enables it in most cases to reproduce itself in accordance with the regular rules of heredity. I will complete this first section which I have devoted to an elementary knowledge of Physical Anthropology with a rapid survey of the various races of mankind which are to be found in the world. There are three principal races of men in existence: (1) The inhabitants of the geographical area which extends from Europe to India. This race is known as EUROPOID or WHITE. It is also called CAUCASIAN sometimes, especially in the United States of America. This appelation is the result of a scientific error. The German scientist, Blumenbach, who laid the foundations of modern Physical Anthropology, had in his possession as a specimen of the Europoid race the skull of a young woman from Georgia in the Caucasus. The inhabitants of that country, although in type part of the White race, cannot be considered as particularly representative or at the origin of that racial division of mankind, but the name persisted because of the chance existence of that one skull in the Blumenbach laboratory. The characteristics of the race under consideration are a skin of a generally white colour, considerable body hair, wavy hair, eyes encased in deeply sunk orbits, a prominent nose, a round or oval shaped skull. (2) The inhabitants of eastern and central Asia and the natives of the Americas. This race is called MONGOLOID. The characteristics of its people are the colour of their skin which goes from light yellow to red, the hair which is quite straight, and little or no body hair, their eyes which are almond-shaped and have the so-called 'mongol fold', a piece of the upper eyelid which covers the inner corner of the eye, the high and prominent cheek bones, the nose which is small and generally with little or no bridge, the shape of their skulls which are usually round. (3) The inhabitants of Africa, south of the Sahara. These are the so-called NEGROIDS. They have black skins, black woolly and kinky hair which remains short, no body hair, deeply sunken eyes, large flat noses with short, open nostrils, thick lips, and oval-shaped skulls. It is a curious fact that only white men have body hair, the men beards on their faces. The Australian aborigines have this characteristic too, but then it is difficult to place them in any of these groups, since they seem to combine the appearance of each of the three races. To many, they are emigrants from India in a very remote past and who

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have acquired traits from their new life and unusual environment. In Europe, there are four distinct types of the White race. These are: ( 1 ) The MEDITERRANEANS who are dark in appearance and are principally to be found in such countries as Greece, Italy and Spain. ( 2 ) The ALPINES who are short and thick-set. This type is usual in France, Germany and in the countries of central Europe. ( 3 ) The NORDICS. These are fair with blue eyes. They inhabit principally the north of Europe, in Germany, Scandinavia and northwestern Russia. (4) The so-called DINARICS who have the distinction of showing a large, round head with a flat nape of the neck. The Albanians are the chief component of this group. Here, in Greece, we are probably more familiar with this type than other Europeans are, because there are so many individuals belonging to it who are to be seen in Epirus. And now let us pass on to what can be called Paleoanthropology and of which I will give you a brief survey. I will consider three chief periods of prehistory: (1) The lower palaeolithic period which goes from a million years before our times to fifty thousand. In this period, various species of human beings appeared, some more advanced than others, which we can classify in three groups: 'archaic man', 'ancient man', and 'new man'. To the less developed 'archaic man' belong the Pithecanthropus of Java, the Sinanthropus of Peking and the Atlantanthropus of North Africa. The group 'ancient man' is not homogeneous and can be divided into three categories: an archaic type in general appearance as is the Rhodesian man, the classical Neanderthal type, and a progressive type that lived in Central Europe, on the shores of the Mediterranean and in Palestine. It is to this last type that the recently discovered skull at Petralona of the Chalcidic apparently belongs. In the group of 'new man', not very scientifically well known types of the beginning of the Lower Palaeolithic period are to be found, such as the skulls of the Swanscomb and the Fontechevade man, who is considered by many as the forerunner of Homo Sapiens. This human type seems to split very early, that is from the second middle Ice period, into smaller divisions which constitute the point of departure of the three great racial branches of contemporary man, the Europoid, the Negroid and the Mongoloid. These differentiations within Homo Sapiens were already completed at the end of the lower Palaeolithic. (2) The upper Palaeolithic period which goes from fifty thousand to eight thousand years before our times. It would appear that no

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human beings other than Homo Sapiens survived during this period, which is remarkable for the development and the spreading of Homo Sapiens throughout the world. Development occurred faster in some areas than in others; it did, however, take place everywhere on earth. There is no doubt that the development of Homo Sapiens was accompanied by a parallel arithmetical increase in his numbers. The different races of this period had one marked characteristic in common: the very thick bone of their skulls which were of a far greater volume than any of those of contemporary men of any one of the races today. No explanation has been found to date for this particularity. With the passage of time, the various races began to spread out, probably without any important clashes. In this way, the Europoids from the Near East gradually established themselves in the whole of Europe, some of them passing through North Africa on their way. The Mongoloids made their habitat in Northern Asia, and from them the so-called Amerindians were to break away, somewhat later, to cross the Behring Straits on their way to setting themselves up in the Western Hemisphere. To the south and to the west of the area in which the Mongoloids had settled, Europoids were to be found, some of whom migrated towards the Far East, such as the Ainus and the Paleosiberians. It is probable that the ice of the Arctic and high mountains contributed at the beginning of this period to isolate Europoids from Mongoloids, who thus retained intact their essential particularities. According to one theory at least, the Negroids lived no doubt in India and in Southern Asia, where they were not disturbed to begin with by the men from the North. By the end of the Palaeolithic period, however, under pressure from the Mongoloids and the Europoids, they are said to have migrated toward both the Pacific and the African continent. At about the end of the upper palaeolithic period, the spreading out of the races became more lively and this gave fresh impetus towards the differentiation of new types, with the result that lesser races were formed. In this way the specialized Mongolians and the blond Europeans appeared during those times. (3) The neolithic period, which goes from eight thousand years before our era to 1492, the date of the discovery of America. The neolithic period is remarkable for the gradual appearance of a superior culture, and for the increased ratio of births which led to a corresponding increase in the human population of the earth. During this period, we do not have so much the forming of new races as we have conflicts

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between ancient ones. The Europoids once again moved into Europe, Africa and Asia, the Mongoloids spread out towards the Orient and Indonesia, and the Negroids flourished in Africa and Melanesia. In America, the neolithic period of culture, developed by the natives independently of other peoples, gave the same artefacts but at a later period than in the Old World. Despite all this, on the edges of the great land masses, there continued to exist surviving populations with mixed and varied cultures that had either not yet reached the level of the neolithic culture or had remained stationary at some of its more primitive stages. These cultures gave birth to separate units which are to be found even today, such as the Ainus, the Polynesians, the Eskimoes, etc. The end of the neolithic period does not coincide chronologically in all parts of the earth. Thus, whereas in America the end of this period takes place more or less with the discovery of the New World by Columbus, in Greece it had already ended in 5,000 B.C. and in other parts of Europe much later. The periods that follow the neolithic are the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Steel Age. All these belong to history now and the study of the activities of man during them is of the domain of archaeology. After these generalities on Physical Anthropology, I shall speak next, also in general terms, of the second division of Anthropology, that of Ethnology. The definition of Ethnology is that it is the study of man's behaviour as a member of human society, and of the ways and means by which human beings carry out the activities of their daily living. This behaviour and these ways and means vary astonishingly throughout the world, as for instance in matters of food, dress, social organization, etc. How can this variety be explained? The answer to this question as well as the determining of the basic similarities to be found in all the different cultures of man constitute the two principal objectives in ethnological research. Modern man receives culture. He is born into a society from which he learns how to live in the group to which he belongs. This, actually, is what the education of children comprises. It is worth noting that many things that we do in everyday life are much more due to what our culture has taught us than to our individual initiative. I will have occasion to develop this theme later and to give some examples so that what I mean here will appear more clearly.

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I think that it is important for me to underline straight away that the meanings of the terms 'race' and 'culture' are not synonymous, and that, on the contrary, their difference is quite distinct. Thus, it is possible for men of different races in the sense of physical anthropology to belong to the same culture, and just as possible for people of different cultures, the word taken with its ethnological meaning, to be of one and the same race. Yet, in the past, and also today, confusion exists in the popular mind concerning the two terms, race and culture, a confusion which is mainly linguistic. Thus, we hear about 'Aryan' and 'Semitic' races, when really no such distinction exists racially, only in terms of language. There are two principal aspects of Ethnology as a science. The first is Ethnography, that is the description of the various cultures of the world, and the other is the theoretical synthesis of the observations of ethnographers, or Ethnology proper. There are three branches of ethnological activity. Firstly, the study of languages. In this case, the formation of a language is analytically studied, its basic words, which constitute its roots, are listed, and the phonetics of the language, that is the study of its sounds, are examined. Technology and the study of artefacts of material culture constitute the second branch of Ethnology. More particularly, and I can only give a rough outline here of the immensity of this field, ethnologists study tools and containers (their technique, their manufacture and their history), the gathering and production of food (collecting food, hunting and fishing, cultivation, animal husbandry and pastorialism), clothing, shelter and transportation (weaving techniques, house building, land, water and, now, air transport), and finally economics (labour and its division, the distribution, holding and consumption of wealth). The third branch of Ethnology is constituted by social anthropology. The following subjects are studied here: social organization, and more specifically institutions in order to obtain a knowledge of social structure; the family (primary, polygamous or monogamous, joint, extended (such as the clan), patrilineal and matrilineal); marriage (rules, levirate and sororate, avoidance of incest, bride price and dowry, matrilocal and patrilocal, divorce); political organization and government; religion, education and arts. To this list, particularly in the United States of America, are added personality development, culture contact and change. As is usual in scientific research, in Ethnology also there exist various opinions as to how its problems are to be solved and which is the best

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theoretical approach. With the passage of time, these conflicting opinions have been at the origin of the founding of different ethnological schools, which have had more or less success according to the circumstances and what was expected of them at the time of their apparition. I will not go into the details of the teachings of any of these schools here, because I have no more time now. But I propose to do so in my next talk, which will deal more particularly with the subject of Ethnology.

π INTRODUCTION TO ETHNOLOGY *

Today's lecture is the second one of a series on the subject of the science of Anthropology. In my previous lecture, I said that the science of Anthropology is divided into two branches: Physical Anthropology, which deals with the study of man as a member of the animal kingdom, and Ethnology, of which I shall speak to you today in more detail. The definition of Ethnology is that it is the study of man's behaviour as a member of human society. The method by which this study is carried out is a comparative one. That is to say, we compare various cultures of the world in order to arrive at certain conclusions. The object of our study is to describe the similarities and the differences to be found in different human groups and to bring out the laws and principles in accordance with which societies and cultures are formed and develop. As I have already said in my previous lecture, Ethnology is closely connected with other scientific disciplines, particularly with Sociology, which studies human society, and with Psychology, that is to say the science of the human psyche. It is upon these two basic factors, man's psyche and society, that, in the last analysis, the formation of culture depends. The definition of Ethnology which I gave at the beginning can be extended. The study of the behaviour of man in society includes all those ways and means by which human beings carry out the activities of their daily living. The behaviour of man in these activities is extraordinarily varied in different parts of the world. For instance, let us consider his eating habits. A tribe such as that of the Masai of East Africa nourishes itself exclusively with the milk and the blood of its * Lecture given on the 3rd of February, 1961, before the High School of Economic and Commercial Sciences.

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cattle. The blood is obtained from the pulmonary vein which is to be found in the animal's neck, and it is drunk with the milk of the cows. Other tribes of Central Africa feed on snakes and lizards. The Chinese, when they are weened from the milk of their mothers as infants, look upon milk as medicine, and that is the reason why, in China, it is only to be found on sale in pharmacies as a remedy for the sick. It is to be noted that Chinese cooking knows no milk products. That is to say no dish is prepared from either butter or cheese. Yet, here we have to do with a population of 660 million people, in other words with a whole world which does not recognise milk and its derivatives as a suitable food for man. Other people, such as the Indians, do not eat beef for religious reasons. The same applies to Moslems and Jews who never touch pork. The British are always making fun of their neighbours, the French, because they eat frogs and snails. In what concerns dress, some peoples, such as the natives of the Matto Grosso of Central Brazil, do not wear any clothes at all. Others, such as the Eskimoes, are dressed from head to foot in heavy furs or animal skins. In both these cases, the difference in costume can be explained by climatic conditions prevailing in those parts of the world where these people live. In Brazil, for instance, the climate is very warm because the country is in the tropical zone, while on the other hand, the Eskimoes live in the Arctic, surrounded by ice. The following question does, however, arise: how are we to explain the fact that the inhabitants of Patagonia in South America, who live in what amounts to the climate of the Antarctic, wear only the minimum of clothing and go about with the greater part of their bodies bare? As it is, in other, very hot parts of the world, the adherents of Islam are decidely overdressed. The men have fur caps on their heads and the women have their faces completely hidden from view under heavy veils. This despite the fact that in most Mohammedan countries the weather is hot, as in Malaysia and in Central Africa. If we turn now to social organization, it is remarkable that the family system presents great variations throughout the world. Some peoples, such as those of South India, follow a matrilineal system of descent in contrast to nearly the whole of the rest of India, where only the patrilineal system is to be found. We, as you know, follow the monogamous system of marriage, while others, such as the Moslems, take as many as four wives. In Tibet, exactly the contrary takes place, where, as I had occasion to see, polyandry is the rule. That is to

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say, one woman may legally marry a number of men simultaneously. What are the reasons for these greatly varied forms of culture? Why does man live in so entirely different a way in various parts of the world? The search for an explanation of these differences is one of the aims of the science of Ethnology. The other objective is to determine which are the similarities to be found beneath all these variations. Actually, Ethnology endeavours to combine these two purposes to reach conclusions which take both of them into consideration. But before I go into more detail, I think that it is essential for me to give a definition of culture. What do we mean when we speak of 'culture'? Culture is the historically derived system of implicit and explicit designs for living by which man adapts himself to his environment as well as the latter to himself and which he shares with the rest of his society. Modern man did not invent his own culture. He has simply received it. He is born into a society from which he learns how to live from those who surround him. This is the process of education. Many things that we do daily are due much more than we realize to what we have been taught by the culture to which we belong than to our own individual initiative and inventiveness. For example, when we sleep we lie down. But it is not everyone in the world who does this. In Tibet, I have seen for myself that some people there prefer to sleep in a kneeling position, with their faces held in front of them on the ground in their hands. Others sleep seated cross-legged, like the statues of the Buddha. Round their bodies they put ropes, tied under their knees and over their backs, to keep them from falling. What we should understand properly is that cultural areas do not necessarily coincide with racial divisions. The term 'race' corresponds to physical, body distinctions. The word 'culture', on the other hand, is applicable to a group of people, who may have completely different physical characteristics, yet share in common the same way of life. In Anthropology, we usually distinguish a third entity, that of language, in spite of the fact that what a people speaks is naturally part of its culture. It is however so important an element, and so special a one, that it can be considered by itself. There are thus three separate divisions: race, culture and language, and generally the three of them do not coincide in extension. In order to make myself clearer, I will take the Negroes of the United States as an example. From the point of view of race, these

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belong to the Negroid one, which includes as we know the natives of Africa. From the point of view of culture, they are part of the American, that is a section of the Western, Helleno-Christian culture. Finally, from the point of view of language, they speak English and for this reason must be classed among the Aryans, strange as this may seem. I shall return later to the various linguistic classifications. Ethnology and Ethnography must be distinguished from each other. When we talk of Ethnography, we mean only the description of the various cultures. Ethnology, however, is the science which draws conclusions from this description, based, as it always is, on comparisons of cultures. Ethnology in turn is generally subdivided into three branches of study: (1) Linguistics; (2) Technology, which includes the study of material culture; and (3) Social anthropology. Let us examine these three branches, beginning with the first one. (1) Linguistics is naturally the study of languages. The ethnologist studies the language of a people, because this will give him indications of cultural contact and social relationship between it and other peoples. The study of language enables us to gather some idea of the degree of development of a people or is capable of giving us a clearer notion of its psychology and character. That is to say, the knowledge of a people's language assists us in the exploration and the study of that people's psychology and character. In the whole world, there are 2,800 basic languages. In other words, it is a real Tower of Babel with which we have to do. Language is one of the most typical manifestations of man, distinguishing him from the animals. So typical an expression of man is language, that it justifies the scientific method which consists in classifying peoples in accordance with the language that they speak. Of course, language is part of the culture of man, and in the final analysis it is really only one of the tools of which he makes use in his everyday life. If I want to move something, I can do so in two diffferent ways: I can do it myself, or I can ask another to do it for me. Both ways lead to the same result. The study of language consists in three main pursuits. First, the examination of the structural analysis of a language. The object is to acquire a notion of the architecture of a people's speech. Then, root words are sought in an effort to discover the origins of a tongue. This goes also by the name of 'linguistic palaeontology'. Finally, linguists look into the phonetics of a language, that is into the sounds it consists of and how they are produced by the mouth. It is unfortunate that the meaning of the two terms 'race' and 'lan-

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guage' are often popularly confused. Thus, for instance, it is not uncommon to hear the term 'Aryan race' employed, when really the adjective Aryan should only be used to describe those who speak languages whose origins are to be found in ancient Arya, the area in western Afghanistan where the modern town of Herat exists today. It is considered that this geographical region is the centre from which the majority of those languages spoken now in Europe, Persia and the Indian sub-continent have radiated. The famous German orientalist, Professor Max Müller (1823-1900), who was a recognized authority in his field, fell victim to the serious scientific error of confusing 'language' with 'race' and was the first to speak of 'Indo-germanic' or 'Aryan' races, at the end of the 19th century. We all know how Hitler exploited the theme of the 'Aryan race' in the last war, principally against the Jews, whom he mistakenly called a separate race. At this point, it is important for me to insist, quite emphatically, that there is no such thing as a Jewish race, only a Jewish culture. Among the Jews, elements of many different races are to be found. Some are fair-haired, such as those who inhabit eastern Europe; others are dark in colouring and complexion, such as those to be found on the shores of the Mediterranean; in India there are black Jews and in China, yellow Jews with slit eyes who live in a Jewish colony outside Shanghai. There is no linguistic unity among the Jews either, such as we Greeks have. The Jews were always quite indifferent as to the tongue that they spoke, and usually learned the one that belonged to the people among whom they lived. There is, of course, a Hebrew language, but it is used nearly exclusively as a religious one. The only exception to this rule is the imposed language of the modern state of Israel where Hebrew has become again, despite fierce opposition, the national language. The unfortunate confusion between race and language, unscrupulously exploited for political ends, has for a long time now attracted the attention of UNESCO. At the International Congress of Anthropology which took place at Vienna in 1952, and which I attended, the General Assembly of the Congress voted in favour of a motion put before it by UNESCO, condemning the exploitation of the confusion existing in the popular mind concerning the meaning of the two terms 'race' and 'language', because they are applicable to two entirely different scientific concepts. It was especially underlined that such a thing as an 'Aryan race' does not exist, and that consequently it is ridiculous to speak of its alleged superiority. The Aryans are a group of people

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who speak Aryan languages. Those who speak those languages are the inhabitants of Europe, with the exception of the Finns, the Hungarians and the Turks. To these exceptions should be added perhaps, the small group of people living in the Pyrenees known as the Basques who speak a language of unknown origin, apparently unrelated to the others. To this day it has not been possible to discover with certaintly what is the root of this language. To the Aryan group belong also the inhabitants of Iran who speak the Persian language, the inhabitants of Afghanistan and of Pakistan (with the exception of the Pashtu and Turkish speaking part of the population), and the greater part of those living in India. Those who do not speak Aryan languages in India are the Dravidians of South India, the Austric-speaking tribes of the North-East and the Tibetan Bhotias of the Himalayas. (2) The second branch of Ethnology is technology and the study of material culture. The difference between these two is that under the first heading attention is given to the techniques by which objects of material necessity are made whilst under the second, the objects and artefacts themselves are studied. They should not be confused. There are many subdivisions of this second branch of ethnology, and I shall refer to them as briefly as I can. Tools and containers are perhaps the most important objects of material culture studied. The technique of their manufacture and their history are looked into, as are their nature and shape. Man is the only member of the animal kingdom to make use of tools in his everyday life, and these tools are innumerable. There is no essential difference between a toothpick and a jet aeroplane in this aspect really, because they are both tools of man with, of course, different usages. So natural do most tools appear to us, that we are apt to forget that they do not grow on trees, but are manufactured by man. Very often, the degree of development of a culture is measured by the perfection and quantity of its tools, whereas this criterium applies really only to one aspect of the culture and not always to the most significant aspect. Today, the so-called civilized part of humanity is even suffering from an excess production of an ever-increasing and ever more perfected quantity of tools. This is leading to a lack of balance in culture, because other aspects of it, such a moral values, are not keeping up with the pace. Next in importance to the above-mentioned objects of ethnological study are the methods of food-gathering and production. Research is

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being undertaken into how primitive peoples collect their diet in forests and jungles, how hunting and fishing is practised by others, and how more developed nations cultivate the land and depend on either animal husbandry or pastoralism to live. It would appear that in these matters there has been a natural evolution from the more primitive gathering of food to the contemporary progressive agriculture and rearing of animals. The opinion of anthropologists, however, is that land cultivation came before animal husbandry simply because it is more difficult to tame animals than to grow plants. There are places in the world where, because of the nature of the soil and climate (such as in steppes and in the rocky hills of Greece), no agriculture is possible and only wild vegetation exists from which man cannot obtain any food. In such places, the natural growth has been used to feed animals that can live on grass and other weeds and man eats the products of the animals or the animals themselves, to keep alive. This ingenious way of making use of barren stretches allowed man to progress beyond the stage of simply cultivating fertile areas. A third group of subjects of ethnological study are clothing, shelter and transportation. Under clothing come the examination of the different ways in which materials are produced, the patterns of clothing, the tools and the techniques used in the preparation of clothes, and the art of human embellishment. The masculine dress of Europeans is, for instance, of Persian origin. The clothes which the natives of the Mediterranean countries wore, such as Greeks and Romans, in classical times, consisted of pieces of material draped round the body without any cutting or stitching. In India today, this is still the mode of dressing, and for this reason there are really no Hindu tailors because the need for them does not exist. Later on in history, it became essential for the men of Central Asia to wear trousers to ride on horseback, as that was the means of transport in the steppes. Originally, these trousers were very large and baggy and resembled the breeches in our Greek islands. The reason for this was that the extra amount of material at the back was used as a sort of cushion for the rider on the horse's back. Because of contact between the cultures of Iran and of the Mediterranean, this type of clothing spread to the inhabitants of our lands. The final result of the evolution of Persian clothes is our modern European dress, cut and sewn to wear. I noticed during my travels in Persia and in Afghanistan that the people there do not accept the fact that our masculine attire is European, because they say that it is really theirs. The most that they will call it is 'international clothing'.

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Under the heading of shelter, ethnology studies comparatively different types of architectural styles. The materials of which constructions are made are examined, as is the historical development of the art of building. Special research in this field has been made into the various types of tents of nomads. There are two principal shapes of tents: the circular one called yurt in Central Asia and which is made use of mainly by Mongols and Turks; and the long-shaped tent which is supported by sticks over which it is made taut with the help of ropes. This is the classical type of tent of the Arabs, to which our own is related, such as that used by campers and the army. The meeting place of these two opposed types is north-west Afghanistan where they come into contact geographicaly. The study of transportation consists in examining the various means which exist throughout the word for transport on land, on the water and, lately, also in the air. Research into means of transport by water extends to the sea, lakes and waterways on land, such as rivers and canals. The fourth important subdivision of the branch of ethnology that deals with technology and material culture is economics. In this case, systems of political economy as they exist among peoples of different cultures are studied comparatively and conclusions drawn therefrom. Subjects dealt with are labour and its divisions, production, holding and consumption of wealth. Very useful for the better understanding of the economy of more advanced nations is a knowledge of primitive economy. A more simplified picture of human economy is obtained in this way and the development which has taken place to bring us up to our own intricate systems is thus better grasped. So that an economic study of this kind produces positive results, it is essential that the manner in which a local system is correlated with other aspects of the culture be observed. For instance, it should be ascertained what the links are with the religious life of the people, with their social set-up, with family ties, etc. Inevitably, such a study is not always easy to make. (3) We come now to the third branch of Ethnology, which is, as I have said, social anthropology. Just as sociology has to do with the study of our own societies, so social anthropology applies itself to the comparative study of other cultures in the world, at all degrees of development. The first subject with which it deals is the family, which is the elementary cell of human society. There are very many different types

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of families, such as for example, the family of our own HellenoChristian culture, the nuclear family of a father, a mother and their children. Our kind of family, as is well known, is correlated with the institution of monogamous marriage. In other cultures, such as for instance the Mohammedan, the elementary family is closely correlated with polygamy. In its case, the family consists of a father, his wives and the children which he has had by them. Distinct from the nuclear family, there exist, elsewhere, other types of larger family complexes, such as for example in India, where the sum total of a number of generations living all together, form what is known as the 'joint family'. Here it is not only the father, the mother and their children who enter into it, but also what we would call the uncles, the aunts, the nephews, the nieces, and the cousins both male and female. Among these peoples, all these related persons who form such a joint family at the level of the same generation, call each other by extensions of the kinship terms brother and sister, as if, from our point of view, they were all issued from the same father and mother. With some people, an even wider concept of the family is noticeable. There, the concept of the family includes even distant relatives so that it can be considered to be more akin to a clan. The classic example of such clans is, of course, that of the clans of Scotland which are still in existence today: nearly all Scots belong to some clan or other. Each one has a hereditary chief and the members are entitled to a tartan common to them all. Another subject of study for social anthropologists is systems of inheritance. In some families, the system is patrilineal, that is to say inheritance is through the male line, from the father. In others, it is matrilineal and the children inherit from their mother or from her brother through her. In most cases, however, inheritance is bilateral which means that both parents bequeath to their children. There is, nevertheless, always a predominance of one over the other in these matters. In the study of the family, nothing is more important perhaps than to get to know the kinship terms used and their exact meaning. There are two principal kinship systems: the classificatory and the descriptive. In our culture, the system is descriptive, this because each member of the family has a name for the degree of his relationship, a title of parentage so to say, which distinguishes him from the other members. In this way his position within the family is described. For example,

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when we say: 'This is my brother', we mean that that person and the speaker have the same father and mother. In the classificatory system, on the other hand, relatives form groups in which each person has the same title of relationship. In Nepal, for instance, not only are children of the same parents called brothers and sisters, but so are those issued from brothers and sisters of the parents. It is as if there were survivals of this practice even with us, in Greece, when we use kinship terms such as 'uncle' or barba1 for people who are no relations of ours at all. We do this when we want to show either respect towards them or sympathy. The institution of marriage is one of the most important subjects of study in social anthropology. First of all, the rules in accordance with which marriage is entered into are investigated. These are very varied, numerous and often curious, if the marriage is to be considered legal. The rules are so different in each culture that even today anthropologists have difficulty in formulating an appropriate definition of marriage. It can be thought, for instance, that the wedding ceremony is indispensable for people to be married, because it gives public recognition to the union of man and woman. But in Ceylon, to cite but one example, it is sufficient for a woman to cook for some time for a man for her to be accepted as his wife. Among the rules of marriage, some exist which forbid incest, but all do not agree as to exactly what is meant by this term. It is fundamental, in any case, with all men everywhere, that sexual relations within the nuclear family itself are prohibited. The only exceptions to this rule are the historical marriages of the Pharaohs of Egypt in which brothers and sisters were married in order to maintain the purity of the royal lineage. Marriage between parents and children, however, has never been permitted. It is believed that such interdictions owe their origin more to a desire to keep the peace in the nuclear family than to a fear of adverse physiological consequences. Then there is the institution of the dowry. Among some peoples, the dowry plays a big role in the contracting of marriage. This is not unknown, as you are aware, also here in Greece. Amongst other peoples, however, it has an even greater significance and no marriage is possible without a dowry for the future bride. Elsewhere, the opposite is equally true: the future husband will pay the parents of the girl about to be his wife a certain sum known as bride-price. This custom is to 1 Popular Greek for 'uncle' (otherwise theios).

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be found mainly in Africa today, where the payment is made in cattle. The price is often so high that there are many who cannot pay it, in which case they appeal to their friends for help. In such cases, the wife after the wedding, is obliged to accept sexual intercourse with those who helped her husband until they have been paid back! Another subject of study is where the married partners live. Do they take up their abode in the husband's residence or in that of the wife? Generally they go to the house of the man, but not always. In the first case, residence is called patrilocal or virilocal, in the second, matrilocal or uxerilocal. In Greece, there are many cases in which the man is considered an isogambros ('inner groom'). I discovered, for instance when I was in Mykonos that the steps to be seen outside the houses were due to the fact that on that island the husband goes to live above with the daughter of the house, his wife, while her parents remain on the ground floor. The political organization of peoples is also a subject of study for the social anthropologist. The tribe, the nation and the political systems of higher organizations such as monarchy and the republican regime, are investigated objectively. It is natural that political institutions be studied by anthropology. But to be honest, such research work has not progressed as much as it has in other branches. The reason for this is probably that we are not sufficiently developed yet, that is to say, mankind is not as yet politically mature enough. This is evident in the lack of political objectivity which most of us show. Religion, art, and education are among the other subjects which are studied by social anthropology. In the United States, much importance is given to the study of personality development, culture contact and change. Now, before I finish, I would like briefly to speak of the different schools which exist in the science of Ethnology. These schools of thought have existed ever since the science came into being and have followed its development up to this day. There are two principal themes of study in Ethnology: (1) The study of the DIFFERENCES between various cultures; and (2) The search for the SIMILARITIES which underlie all the cultures of man throughout the world. The very first anthropologists busied themselves only with the former of these two. This was, of course, only natural. Because, after all, it is the differences that strike one first in a foreign culture. Long before

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anthropology became a true science, the tales brought back by explorers and travellers were full of fantasy. But once anthropology had been initiated as a science, ethnologists did try to find reasonable explanations for the differences between cultures. The first idea that was made use of by ethnologists to account for the discrepancies that they noticed in the way people lived in different parts of the world was that of evolution. It was considered that some peoples had remained behind, were still backward, while others had gone forward, had developed. This notion has, of course, become very popular, and still today we speak of 'primitive' and 'civilized' people, or of 'backward' or 'advanced' civilizations. This conception is essentially sound, actually, because it is undeniable that cultures do differ from each other in time. The first author to put this idea forward was a French missionary called Lafitau, who in the 18th century wrote a book in which he compared the culture of the Red Indians of America with that of the prehistoric peoples of Europe. After him, the best known anthropologists who took up his theory were the Dane, Jens Kraft, the English, Pritchard and Sir Edward B. Tylor, and the American, Lewis Morgan. Later on, with the development of the science and with improved, on-the-spot, scientific observations of various cultures, anthropologists were inspired by another idea, without nevertheless doing away with the first one. They decided that another element contributing to the differences observed among various cultures was the influence of environment. This was tantamount to saying that, apart from cultures varying in time, they also showed variations geographically, in space. An illustration in point is the difference of clothing to be observed between the Eskimoes on the one hand and the inhabitants of the Congo on the other, independently of the degree of development in time of their respective cultures. In the Arctic, because it is very cold, man is obliged to wear warm clothing such as furs to protect himself against the arduous climate. In Central Africa, on the other hand, the excessive heat does not permit man to wear very much on his body. The German, Karl Ritter, was the first to put this new theory forward. Quite a number of others followed him, such as Bastian and Friedrich Ratzel, the latter being the founder of anthropogeography. The French ethnological school also followed this lead. It looked as though this would have been sufficient to answer the riddle of the sources from which cultural differences stemmed. However, at the beginning of this century, a German ethnologist, F. F. Graebner, developed the ideas of Ratzel even further and reached the

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conclusions that various cultures have been diffused from certain centres, and that, whatever the culture, its appearance today is made up of different layers which each have another origin. The object of ethnology for this author was thus the tracing back of the history of each layer so as to reach the centre from which it had originally been diffused. The school that makes this rather special research has in this way come to be called the Historical School. The ideas of Graebner caused a considerable stir in ethnological circles, and the Englishmen, Eliot Smith and John Perry, showed great enthusiasm for them. With these two, the new theory reached unbelievable extremes. The two scientists supported the hypothesis that the entire culture of the whole of humanity had been diffused from Egypt, the one and only original centre from which it had radiated. With considerable reserve and moderation, the historical method of ethnological research was followed also by the American, Franz Boas, and the Australian school of missionaries of the Word of God (S.V.D.). If certain adherents of the Historical School drove its theories to exaggerated extremes, this is due I think to the fact that they did not discern properly that diffusion of culture is not in opposition to cultural evolution. What diffusion is opposed to, however, is invention, that fundamental factor in technical progress. It is opposed to it because it is not all peoples who are capable of making discoveries and for this very reason find it easier to borrow cultural novelties. Actually, it is impossible for diffusion to take place without evolution. The one is closely linked to the other. In the end; because of the necessity of administering native populations in European colonies, and in reaction to the exaggerations of the Historical School, a fourth ethnological school came into being, the so-called Functional School. The founder of this school was Professor B. Malinowski. The ethnological methods of Malinowski were empirical. For him, before we make comparisons between various differing aspects of separate cultures, it is essential that we make sure that we are comparing identical cultural items, essentially identical and not only in appearance. To the school of Malinowski belongs the New Zealander, Professor Raymond Firth, who is today his successor in the chair of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science of the University of London in England. As an anthropologist, I consider myself also an adherent of the Functional School of Ethnology. The basic tenets of this teaching are four in number; I will briefly enumerate them:

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First tenet: The functioning of a culture trait in the total system of a culture explains and reveals its true identity. Culture is related to human needs. Second tenet: There are seven basic biological needs of man: metabolism, reproduction, bodily comfort, safety, movement, growth and health. Third tenet: Culture satisfies these needs by the following cultural responses: commissariat, kinship, shelter, protection, activities, training and hygiene. Fourth tenet: Culture, in order to serve the satisfaction of these needs of man, creates itself its own needs. These can be called derived or instrumental needs, and they are at the root of the four cultural imperatives which are: the economic system, the institutions of social control, the educational system, the political organization. We shall be returning more fully to these notions in a later lecture,

m MY OWN ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH THE PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY FOR GREECE*

In the last two lectures that I gave, the first at the University of Athens and the other at the High School of Economic and Commercial Science, I spoke on purely technical subjects in connection with Anthropology. This time, I shall endeavour to give you some relief and to keep away from theoretical questions; I will speak to you about my own research work and explorations during the last twenty-five years, in Tibet, in India and in Ceylon. I will also give you what appears to me to be the practical significance of Anthropology for Greece. In 1935, some time before the restoration of the monarchy here, I was studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science of the London University, in the classes of the distinguished professor of Anthropology, Malinowski. Before working with him, I had started in Oxford with the equally distinguished English professor of Anthropology, R. R. de la Marett, but very quickly I realised that Malinowski's teachings in accordance with his Functional School were more dynamic and inspired; they also fell in much better with my own way of thinking and with what I expected of Anthropology at the time. In particular, Malinowski's theory that culture is a creation of man made to satisfy his biological needs seemed to me essentially right and exerted the greatest attraction upon me. In that same year, after I had started my anthropological studies, my mother, who is, as you know, a psychologist of world-wide renown, happened to organise an anthropological expedition to Australia under the Hungarian-born scientist, Geza Roheim. The purpose of this scientific expedition was to make comparative psychological observations on the natives of Central Australia. The scheme appealed to me and very soon I was thinking that I, *

Lecture given on the 6th of February, 1961, at the Royal National Theatre.

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too, might be able to carry out this kind of investigation among some other people. Psychoanalysis teaches us that in the psychical structure of man there exists the so-called Oedipus complex', which is a stage in the psychic development of children. The interpretation of this complex is well-known. The dreadful drama of Oedipus, who married his mother and murdered his father, is lived by each small child in its early infancy, that is to say, harmlessly, deep down in its unconscious. The question which arises, then, from this psychological observation is whether this complex is universal, whether it is common to all men on earth, independently of the culture to which they belong, or whether it is the result of our Western family organization, which is monogamous, that is to say, in which there is only one father and one mother. In order that an investigation of this question may produce results it is important that it be carried out among people whose family organization is as different from ours as possible. For a long time, I hesitated between studying the question in a matrilineal society or in a polyandrous one. To begin with, I was inclined to choose the first of these two, and my professor actually encouraged me in this direction. He had himself done his field work among the natives of the Trobriand islands in the Pacific, where the family system is matriarchal. His arguments were the following: how can an Oedipus complex exist in an organization where the mother is the Head? In the Trobriands, the father is nothing at all, and the mother everything. The children inherit from their mother only. The education and discipline of the children are not the father's business. With a father of so little importance, how is it possible for an Oedipus complex to exist in the children? Later, I learned that, in spite of these pronouncements, the Trobriand children were nevertheless subject to masculine authority. It did not however come from the father. While the latter did play an insignificant role as Malinowski said, the mother's brother, the maternal uncle, had very much to say concerning the children. He was a kind of bad father, upon whom devolved all the unpleasant aspects of keeping order in the family. It was this detail which in the end decided me against studying matriarchy for the purpose that I had in mind. Instead, I went after polyandry. My reasoning in this case was the following: Polyandry must be the family system the most different from our Western type, since every child has more than one father. How can an Oedipus complex exist when there is no single father-figure around which to build it? I gathered information about such polyandrous families and heard that they were

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to be found in various parts of the world, but especially in the Indian sub-continent, and in the Himalayas. In 1937, when I had finished my studies in London, and had also fulfilled my military obligations in Greece, I left by car for India. After having crossed Arabia and Persia, I reached the Punjab in the spring of 1938. I stayed there about a month, time enough to enquire where I could discover polyandrous people. I came into contact with a number of persons in Lahore, among them Englishmen who had served as administrators in the area. They told me that polyandry existed to the north of the Punjab, towards the Himalayas, and more particularly in the parts called Kulu, Lahul, Spiti, Rupchu and Ladak. In the summer of 1938, from June to November, I travelled through all those regions, very distant the one from the other, dotted with valleys and peaks which are part of Western Tibet. The inhabitants are Tibetans. They constitute agricultural populations who live in poor environments, because of the altitude, the lack of water and the sterility of the soil. Many live a nomadic life too. I should add that property is common among them, that is to say it belongs jointly to all the male members of a family. These people, in order not to divide the property between them, marry only one woman with whom they have children; these they share in the same way. The boys who are born in this fashion, inherit the property jointly, and they keep it undivided until their children in turn inherit it, and so on. As for the girls, they usually receive a dowry in jewels and money and become the common wives of other polyandrous families. This leads to many women not marrying ever, and they then live on as sisters in the paternal house. If it should happen that there are no boys in a polyandrous family, only girls, then the eldest daughter inherits the whole fortune. In Greece, we would call such a girl epikleron,1 without polyandry of course! An heiress of this kind can marry whom she wishes, and as many men as catch her fancy, and these need not be brothers. The children that she will have with them take her name, just as the husbands do, too, at marriage. The sons of such a woman inherit the property jointly, and then we are back again in the previous case in which they hold it in common and marry polyandrously. If a family has no issue, before the spouses decide on the adoption 1

Translation: 'on the inheritance', the Greek custom by which a single daughter inherits and takes the inheritance into marriage with her.

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of some child, a custom which is widespread in Tibet, they will bring in another man, known as a porsjag, or another woman (which seems more natural), without for that reason incurring a divorce. But in the latter case, we cannot speak any more of polyandry, but should rather call such unions 'joint marriages'. I have come across quite a number of such marriages during my travels through the areas of which I spoke earlier. All that part of the Western Himalayas, I crossed on horseback. I covered about one thousand miles, and reached a height of 6,300 meters. I then returned to India through Kashmir and, after having visited various other parts of the Indian plains, ended up in the south with the purpose of studying the famous tribe called the Todas. These people are among the best-known in anthropology, and it is said that no anthropological book exists which does not make some reference to them. They are, however, very few in number. When I was working among them, there were no more than 484 Todas. Apart from their polyandry, the Todas have a culture of their own which differs completely from that of their neighbours. One of the traits of this culture is that they still practise female infanticide. For this reason there are more men than women in the tribe. There is about one woman to every three men. The question then arises: why do the Todas kill off a number of female children? Some have answered that they do this in order to remain polyandrous. This explanation was first given by the British anthropologist, Dr. Rivers, who wrote a special study of the Todas in 1908. He gave it to emphasize his contention that he did not believe that polyandry was practised in the tribe as a result of the lack of women, due to the custom of female infanticide, as some would have it. The Toda tribe is divided into two moieties, of which the one is considered superior to the other. Although the tribe is endogamous, marriage between members of the two moieties is not permitted. What is allowed, however, is free sexual connection between them, especially between men of the higher moiety with women of the lower. In what concerns the recognition of paternity, this does not depend upon marriage but upon a special ceremony which is performed when the woman is in her seventh month of pregnancy. At this public ceremony, the aspiring father gives the mother-to-be a symbolic bow and arrow. Generaly, the man is one of the woman's husbands. But in the case where she is unmarried and has become pregnant as

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a result of premarital relations, a man is chosen from the moiety to which she belongs and he is designated to become the father in the bow and arrow ceremony. Because of the shortage of women, their carrying off by other men is authorised, even if they are already married to someone. If this happens, the ravisher is however obliged to compensate the offended party with buffaloes. The number of these animals which he must pay is decided by the tribe's council, which acts in such cases as a sort of high court. Decision depends on the estimated value of the woman. Many of the women who have been carried off in this way are very proud of what they are worth in buffaloes. Of course, buffaloes do play a very big role in Toda society, because the people live off them as herdsmen and do not use them to cultivate the land. The Todas consider that their herds have a divine origin, that they have been given to them by the gods. The herds of buffaloes are classified in hierarchical groups according to their degree of holiness. The bulls have very little value and are not included in the genealogical tables of the cattle in which the cows alone are recorded. To each group corresponds a dairy which is at the same time a temple. The processing of the milk into butter is considered a religious act and is carried out in accordance with a rite and to the accompaniment of prayers. The dairyman is the priest of the tribe and, paradoxically it woud seem, is always chosen from among the men of the inferior moiety. In payment for his work, he has the right to sell to his own personal advantage the butter and milk that he prepares. He must be unmarried, but he can, however, live with as many women of the tribe which he is serving as he wishes. The prayers that he recites are not written, because Todas are illiterate and do not have a written language of their own. The prayers are handed down from priest to priest verbally. I noticed, when I was working among the Todas, that in those prayers the names of Sumerian deities were mentioned, that is to say, the names of gods from the ancient Sumer of Mesapotamia. Of these gods, I recorded the names of fourteen, whose origins go back, therefore, six thousand years at least. The family organization of the Todas is strictly patriarchal. By this I mean that the woman has a very inferior status. She must greet the men of the tribe by putting her head under one of their feet. This kind of salute takes place as follows: when a Toda woman sees a man of the tribe approaching, she goes up to him, bends down, and takes his foot, which he lifts up for her, and places it on her head.

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Women do not have the right to go anywhere near the sacred buffaloes, or approach the dairy-temples. They may not drink milk either. The polyandry of the Todas can be considered to be a patriarchal practice, in which a number of men agree to take one woman only as a common spouse. Contrary to the polyandry of the Tibetans, that of the Todas is not correlated with a desire not to split up the family property. Among the Todas this property consists of buffaloes, which are divided up between individuals, each man having some of his own. After my study of the Todas, my research took me on to Malabar, in the present state of Kerala, on the south-west coast of India. This part of the country is one of the most highly populated, the number of inhabitants reaching fifteen million people. It is also the place in which the most curious Hindu social organization exists. The caste system is to be found all over India, but in Malabar the number of these religious divisions is greater than anywhere, and the separation between them more strict than ever. There are, for instance, in Malabar, categories of outcastes who polute those who do not belong to them at various distances measurable in feet; forty feet, sixty feet, or one hundred feet. The lowest category of all is that of the Nayadis. They are not allowed even to be seen, and for this reason, they are obliged to keep away from roads and paths and to beg for alms at a distance. They generally hide inside the woods, some distance away from the public highway, after having left on the latter a bowl in which money can be deposited for them. Then, with the strong and piercing voice which they have developed, they implore the passers-by to give them something. The Nayadis cannot work since they are not permitted to mingle with others because of their extremely low status. They subsist solely on public charity. Apart from the Hindus, there are also various Christian denominations of which I have spoken to you in other lectures of mine. There are also quite a number of Moslems and some Jews. For this reason, it can be said that Malabar is very cosmopolitan indeed. Those who are polyandrous belong to the Hindu religion; they are the Nayars, the Tiyyas and the Kammalans. The polyandry of the Nayars is related to the curious connection which they have with the highest caste in Malabar, that of the Nambutri Brahmins. This connection is really very extraordinary. In the families of the Malabar Nambutri Brahmins, custom has it that only the eldest son is permitted to marry. The younger ones, who are not entitled to any inheritance at

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all at the death of their father, generally work as servants in their elder brother's house and may only live freely, without marrying, with Nayar women. The Nayars constitute the lowest caste, that of the Sudras, and are usually employed on the estate of the Brahmins as agricultural workers. The inheritance system with them is matrilineal, that is to say the children of a woman inherit from her brother and not from their own father. A Nayar woman may take as many husbands as she wishes. And these are in no way responsible for the children that they may have with her. This type of polyandry, in relation with a matrilineal system, was something new for me after that which I had studied earlier among the Tibetans and the Todas. The polyandry of the Tiyyas and Kammalans was much more akin to the kind that I had found elsewhere before. These two sub-castes are very much lower than the lowest Sudras, and belong to the first poluting outcastes. The Tiyyas are agricultural workers, and the Kammalans are artisans. In both these peoples, property ownership is common to the males in the family, and for this reason, not wishing to divide it, they practise polyandry, they say. In 1939, I was not able to study the custom in Malabar as I had wished because that was the year in which war broke out and I was obliged, after a month's field-work, to interrupt my activities and return to Greece where I reported to the Army and served until 1947. When, however, that year I was demobilised, my only desire was to return to India and carry on with my anthropological research where I had left off. With this in mind, I contacted the Danish National Museum which, just at that time, was organizing an important expedition to Central Asia. The Board of the expedition appointed me leader of the second team which was to explore Tibet during the period 1950-52. I was given Tibet because of my preparatory work and the experience that I had gathered there during my travels in the western part of the country before the war. During the three years that I thus had free before me, I first went to the United States of America on a lecture tour and took the opportunity to equip myself properly for the coming expedition. In 1949, in February, I landed in Ceylon, at Colombo, where, at the time of my leaving India in 1939, I had heard that polyandry was practised in the interior of the island. I had not had time then to investigate this information on the spot. But in 1949, a rapid reconnaissance soon

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confirmed that polyandry did reallly exist in the Kandyan provinces. I found out that two classes appeared to be polyandrous here: the very poor paddy-growers and the rich rate-mahatmaye, former aristocrats of the ancient kingdom of Kandy. The former explained their custom by the necessity for them to eke out a living under miserable conditions and to keep the little property which they possessed undivided; their wealthy counterparts on the other hand, justified their living in polyandry by saying that in this way they were able to keep their riches concentrated and continued thus to wield much power and influence. I noticed that the polyandry of Ceylon was very akin to that of the Tiyyas of Malabar, and I soon learned of a tradition existing that the Tiyyas brought polyandry from Kandy to Kerala. In Ceylon, those who practise a plurality of husbands on their family life are very proud of the custom. Intense nationalism makes them say that polyandry teaches solidarity to those who marry in this way, since the husbands are obliged to share what they treasure most in this world, namely their wife and children. They add, that we in the West would be quite incapable of doing this, because we are notoriously selfish and selfseeking and each of our men wants a wife to himself. The Sinhalese, they say, were capable of drowning their feelings of jealousy and thanks to this reached great heights of glory and grandeur. When the Europeans arrived, the first thing that they did was to condemn polyandry. The British in 1853 enacted special laws forbidding the practice. Since Independence in 1947, the inhabitants of Ceylon will tell you that now that they are free they may bring back polyandry and so, once again, become great and famous. I was most astonished to find this national pride in polyandry. Among no other polyandrous peoples did I ever discover anything like it. I returned from India from Ceylon during the summer of the same year. I stayed some time first in Malabar and then in the Nilgiris to complete my study of the Todas. In the winter, I left for Kalimpong, in the foothills of the Himalayas, which I reached in February, 1950. There I met my fellow-workers of the Danish Expedition and we attempted to enter Tibet, as had been planned in the programme of the Expedition. Unfortunately, however, the threat of occupation of Tibet by the Communist Chinese was already very real, and for this reason we came up against considerable opposition to our intentions, especially from the Indian government. Finally, we decided to remain in Kalimpong, where happily in the end it turned out to be possible to do very good work on Tibetans.

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In this town there was a Tibetan colony of about three thousand four hundred individuals residing there permanently, distinct from the passing Tibetans who, some twenty thousand a year, belonged to every class of Tibetan society. There were aristocrats, churchmen, merchants, cultivators, pilgrims on their way to the holy places of Buddhism in India, nomads and beggars. I was thus well supplied with human material to make my research. I was able to complete my study of Tibetan polyandry and especially of its curious variation which is to be found only in Central Tibet: one of which I had heard earlier in my field-work and in which fathers and sons share the same woman as a wife in common. I learned the Tibetan language sufficiently well to dispense with the services of an interpreter. I made a complete collection of native costumes for the Copenhagen Museum, specimens of dress which have disappeared since the Chinese Communist occupation of Tibet. Today, as you know, the Tibetans have been forced to wear the drab Chinese khaki tunic buttoned up to the neck and the cloth cap which is ironically called for them 'liberation cap'. I bought over two thousand five hundred Tibetan books, which had been printed in Tibet and which deal with such subjects as history, art, literature, religion, guidance through the important monasteries of Lhasa and the palace of the Dalai Lama. I measured and described anthropometrically more than five thousand Tibetans for the Medical Anatomical Institute of the Copenhagen University. I took three hundred blood tests and I made a special investigation of the Tibetan diet. All this material is still being worked on by specialists in Copenhagen. In 1956, when revolt first broke out in Tibet, it became impossible to continue with my anthropological work on the Tibetans. Consequently, in 1957, I was obliged to leave Kalimpong, never to return. In the meantime, as I have been informed, Tibet has been completely destroyed because of the savagery shown by the occupants, and it can be said for this reason that my work there was carried out in extremis, just before this ancient land was annihilated. In addition to my work as a participant in this Expedition, I served also as leader of another Danish Expedition, in Afghanistan, to study the nomads of that country. Time does not, however, allow me to go into more detail about the results of our research there. And now, I shall pass on to the second part of my lecture which is about the practical significance of anthropology for Greece. The first thing that I would like to say about this subject is that here in Greece, in my opinion, we are sadly lacking in interest in the social sciences.

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Anthropology, as you well know, is no longer taught in Greece. If there has been such a thing as an anthropological teaching in the past, it must be admitted that it is solely due to the admirable activity of Professor John Koumaris. Thanks to his untiring efforts, we nevertheless have an Anthropological Museum and an Anthropological Society, which my friend the professor founded and of which I am proud to have been an Honorary Member since 1940. These three lectures which I have given during these last days have been placed under the patronage of the Hellenic Anthropological Society and I wish to thank it publicly here, from this stand, for its attention. The development of Anthropology in Greece is limited to the physical side of the science. For this reason both Ethnology and Social Anthropology have remained very much behind. It is of course true that Greece has been going through very difficult times. Perhaps more difficult than most other countries. Under these painful circumstances, it must be said that the pursuit of Anthropology appears as some kind of unnecessary luxury. But, as Professor Koumaris himself said in 1925 in his inaugural address as first professor of anthropology: 'It is not every luxury that is superfluous.' The immediate practical value of Anthropology to Greece is perhaps not strikingly evident. Yet, it is from Greece that Anthropology, as well as other scientific and philosophical pursuits, has come to the world, just as the spirit of research originated in this country. We, first of all, in classical times, began anthropological studies, but it is the foreigners who have developed the science from our beginnings. That is why I believe it to be high time that Anthropology should return to the land of its birth and be installed here again as one of the important branches of science. The practical significance of Anthropology for Greece is, I think, a question which is related to the contemporary problems of the world. The principal problem in this respect is that humanity has reached a point of great technical development without there being a simultaneous and equal moral progression. When I speak of moral progress, I do not mean here ethics and art, but rather psychology and sociology. Our knowledge in these matters is not as great as it is in the technical sphere. Those two disciplines have made very little headway. It can be said that essentially they have not progressed much beyond the point at which they were just a century ago. The notable development of Anthropology is due to foreign scientists. We, in this country, are not, unfortunately, in a position to follow this progress. But there is absolutely no reason why we should not take

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advantage of it. Why should Greece alone not have any anthropologists? At the last International Congress of Anthropology in Paris, last August, at which I represented our Hellenic Anthropological Society, one thousand two hundred delegates from various countries took part. Among these, there were twenty-five Yugoslavs, five Turks, and one Greek Cypriot. As far as the official Greek state is concerned, and I regret to have to say this, nobody represented it. I will admit that the career of an anthropologist in Greece does appear very bleak, considering that Anthropology is not taught here any more since Professor Koumaris' retirement; the future of such an anthropologist would not be very hopeful. I believe however that scholarships for Geeks abroad could be found for those who would be willing to study either in Western Europe or in the United States. Those young people who decided to go abroad and take up Anthropology in this way could return here completely trained in order to carry on with this interesting science at home. Then, I am sure, some progress would be achieved, even though late, in Greece, in what concerns Anthropology. I have grounds to think that the UNESCO might be called upon to encourage such an endeavour. I have noted with regret that in our country there still exist certain erroneous and out-dated ideas of mistaken origin which do not correspond any more to the latest progress made by the science of Anthropology. As a natural consequence of this, the fact that we hold such ideas makes us appear backward and primitive about such questions. In the first two lectures that I gave, I attempted to expose certain theories which are still in vogue here but which have for a long time been rejected abroad. In this connection, for instance, I spoke of the proper definition of the concept of race, the laws of inheritance, which races are precisely those of Europe, how these are to be differentiated from the linguistic divisions, what is the exact definition of culture, etc. It is time now, I think, for Greece to catch up with the level of development in the West, especially when it is remembered that we too, after all, are Europeans. In a world where communications and transport have reached a very high degree of development, we are now in immediate contact with people of often quite different cultures, in whichever part of the world we may be. Civilizations which had developed in isolation and which were entirely cut off from others have now come out from their isolated condition and by being brought into sudden contact with other cultures often develop tensions through the oppositions which exist in their

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structures. Anthropology can discover the reasons for such tensions, can help diminish them and can bring people of different outlook to live more easily with each other than they do on first acquaintance. This is true also of Greece. An improved and deeper knowledge of Anthropology can enable Greeks to have a greater understanding of foreign peoples. I hope that you will agree with me when I say that we must abandon the ancient adage which says that 'till those are barbarians who are not Greeks' if we want to reach the present-day level of scientific knowledge. A better knowledge of foreign cultures enables a people to understand its own more fully. And this of course applies also to Greeks. Speaking of the individual, Socrates emphasized the importance of knowing oneself. This rule applies just as well to the various societies and cultures. Without comparisons with others, it is impossible to judge correctly what the institutions of our civilization are, and how they function. That is as much as I have to say concerning the practical significance of Anthropology for Greece. Now I will tell you briefly what I think is the practical value that anthropological studies of Greece itself may have for our country. That is to say of what utility the study of the culture of its inhabitants can be for Greece. Our anthropological knowledge of Greece is very slight, and really all we do know stems from the work of only two Greek scientists, the late Klona Stephanos and Professor John Koumaris. What is more developed here is folklore, but those who are interested in the latter science consider it, I believe, as something separate from Anthropology. Abroad, interest in the peoples of the Mediterranean has lately become much greater. This is the result, I would say, of the fact that Europeans have lost their colonies in Asia and Africa, and that their anthropological attention is now directed towards closer fields of research, such as the Mediterranean. Among the countries round that sea, Greece has an exceptional position, because she is virgin territory from an anthropological point of view, but also for other reasons too. Greece as is well known, is the crucible of Western culture. That is sufficient justification for Western anthropologists to take an interest in her. We know, that since antiquity, our country has suffered numerous foreign invasions which have left many varied strains in our population, perhaps not so much from the physical, racial point of view, but rather from the angle of cultural change in our own national civilization. This is perceptible to us all, we guess of its existence, but

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the differences thus brought about have never been scientifically studied. This is, I believe, a very serious blank in our knowledge, which in the past has not failed to incite writings of a fanciful, mythical nature, tendaciously denying the genuineness of Greece's native stock. Foreign authors have unfortunately supported the theory that we have nothing in common with our ancient Hellenic ancestors and that we are a mixture of alien elements such as Turks, Albanians and Slavs. We have replied, of course, from time to time, to these inaccurate views, but it is to be regretted that we have never been able to make use of properly founded, scientific anthropological arguments to support our refutations. That is why our reasoning so far has lacked the necessary authority to convince foreigners. All one can say, is that a sort of philological discussion has taken place on this subject. As I had occasion to mention earlier in my previous lectures, the meaning of the term 'race' is very different from that of the word 'culture'. When foreign writers speak of the adulteration of our civilization by the inroads made upon it by the invasions of our land by peoples of different races, it is obvious that they are making the usual confusion between race and culture. The answer that must be made in this case, and which it is necessary to repeat continually and untiringly to the foreign distorters of the truth, is the following: in reality, the racial types who established themselves in this country as a result of various invasions in the past, belonged to weaker cultural wholes, and as such were absorbed and made part of the stronger and naturally higher Hellenic civilization. Consequently, since, except for minor changes, they eventually adopted our culture, they became themselves genuine Greeks. Their racial origin is therefore of no importance at all in what concerns the continuity and the tradition of our own cultural structure. It can thus be said, conclusively, that modern Greeks are as Greek as their ancestors, regardless of the racial precedents of some of our contemporaries. I think that it is essential that we gather more anthropological information about Greece. The task of Anthropology in Greece in this respect is very important if only in the national interest. And the sooner we start the better. Foreign anthropologists, I am sure, can be of great help in this, as is apparent from the work already done by outsiders. Other countries, as you know, have archaeological missions here; they undertake excavations, thanks to which we have got to know ancient Greece better. The same thing could take place with Anthropology:

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non-Greek anthropologists could come here to help us study Greece anthropologically. Just as the archaeologists from abroad did not harm us, so will alien anthropologists hurt us in no way. On the contrary, I would say that they will do us a lot of good. Also, in the same way as we worked in with the archaeologists in a common effort, we will be able to do the same with the anthropologists for this study, of Greeks in Greece. I believe that this work will be of interest and is important. I also believe that with a little good will, it will be possible to make it come true. A solution to the practical problem appears to me to be precisely what is most needed in order to fulfil this purpose. I have been thinking about it ever since 1957. It has worried me for four years. And I have come to the conclusion that, as one of the few Greek Anthropologists, I could help and that it was even my duty to make it my business to offer my services in this way. Already, in 1957, in agreement with the American professor Arensberg, who is the distinguished professor of Anthropology of Columbia University in New York, I accepted the responsibility of helping and assisting those anthropologists whom he would like to send to Greece for research work. I contacted Professor Koumaris and Sklavounos here for the same purpose. Already, the plan is functioning. A Greek-American anthropologist, Mr John Andromedas, has come here and has been working for some months now in the Mani area. In exchange, Professor Arensberg has agreed to help us obtain scholarships and grants towards the studying of Anthropology in America by young Greeks interested in the subject. Unfortunately, since 1957, nobody in Greece has yet come forward to take advantage of this offer. My principal objective just now is that, through these lectures, I come into contact with young students of both the University and of the High Schools, because the future is with them. We must care for them and see to it that they advance along those lines, in science and other subjects, that are of national value to Greece.

IV THE HISTORY OF ETHNOLOGY: THE BEGINNINGS *

As you all know, last year I gave a series of three lectures in Athens entitled: 'Introduction to Anthropology'. In them I distinguished two principal divisions of Anthropology: Physical Anthropology and Ethnology, and it was to these two subjects that I devoted my talks. Now I will continue with my lectures on the Science of Anthropology and in this new series, which will be concerned with 'The History of Ethnology', I shall speak to you first on the beginning of Ethnology, then on the progress of Ethnology, and finally on contemporary Ethnology. The title of today's lecture is: 'The Beginnings of Ethnology'. In my talk of the 3rd of February, 1961, before the High School of Economic and Commercial Sciences, I defined Ethnology as: The study of Man as a member of human society. Later I enlarged this definition to include: The study of the ways and means by which human beings carry out activities of daily living. I stressed that the method followed is the comparative one, namely, the one in which various cultures of the world are compared in order to reach certain conclusions. I emphasized also that my definition of the word CULTURE is as follows: the historically derived system of implicit and explicit designs by which Man adapts himself to his environment and the latter to himself and which he shares with others of his society. Furthermore I made a distinction between Ethnography, which is the process by which cultures are described, and Ethnology proper, which is the synthesis of the results of comparative studies of different cultures leading to the establishment of theoretical laws governing the formation of culture in general. In today's lecture I shall begin by speaking to you about the history *

Lecture given on the 14th of March 1962, before the University of Athens.

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of Ethnology. As you will see, the development of this science throughout the years has followed a course that is varied and often confused. Theories, in complete opposition to each other, have evolved, so that an attempt to reconcile them and get them to tend towards a unified whole presents no mean task. There are two main trends in Ethnology: one is to account for cultural differences, the other to identify similitudes beneath these outward differences. The first trend is the older of the two, a circumstance natural enough after all, for it is of course primarily the differences that are impressive. In other words, sensationalism preceded scientific observation, which, on reflection, is not really very surprising. Three theories were put forward to explain the differences that exist between various cultures. The first of these was the theory of evolution; the second, the theory of the influence of environment; and the third, the theory of the diffusion of culture from certain specific centres. These three theories did not appear successively but rather in conjunction with each other as the science of Ethnology progressed, with the last named coming perhaps slightly later than the others, under the distinctive appellation of the Historical School of Ethnology. The identification of basic cultural similitudes has been made possible mainly thanks to the teachings of the Functional School. This school has followed the method by which the fundamental biological and sociological needs of man are defined and to which various cultural institutions correspond. In this respect these institutions have the same function everywhere, namely to satisfy identical human needs. This evening, in this first lecture of mine, I shall give you an account of the evolutionary theory by which Ethnology first attempted to explain the differences observable among the innumerable cultures of the world. In my next lecture, which I shall give on Monday at the High School of Economic and Commercial Sciences, I shall speak to you of the theories of the influence of environment and of the diffusion of culture from certain specific centres. Finally, in my third lecture, I shall describe to you the method used by the Functional School and give you a short survey of the present trends in contemporary Ethnology, before ending with what I consider to be the conclusions that we may draw from the whole subject treated here. Let us begin then with the evolutionist, also called genetic, parallelistic theory. The first ethnographic material was collected by travellers from various parts of the world in very early times. The study of their tales,

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however, was made by third parties working at home. Of particular distinction amongst those who first brought back accounts of other people's ways of living are Herodotus, Strabo, Marco Polo, and various Christian missionaries. We are, however, concerned here with the elaboration of ethnological theory and how it took place. We will therefore leave these early travellers aside and concentrate instead on those who struggled to make sense out of their often fantastic descriptions. Ethnological studies are of comparatively recent date. Scientists have only taken them up during approximately the last two hundred years. The first attempts to theorize came from endeavours to answer the following question: How is it that advanced civilizations such as the Western have attained such a high degree of development when others, among other peoples in the world, have remained so backward? It was natural to think of evolution as a concept able to account for this irregular advance. The view was not restricted to the Western world either; it was and still is widely held even by primitives, who often speak of Westerners as greatly in advance of themselves. The earliest attempts to make use of the theory of evolution occurred when an explanation was sought for the remarkable resemblance between prehistoric tools and those of later primitive peoples. This was particularly the case in America where instruments used by Red Indians of the Columbian period made those who first saw them think of the finds made in different sites of Europe. For a short lecture, I think that the best way in which to illustrate how the development of Ethnology took place is to mention the best known ethnological works. Thus I will begin with the book written by the French missionary, Pere J. F. Lafiteau, published in 1729 and entitled: Moeurs des sauvages americains comparees aux maeurs des premiers temps. The contents of this book describe the Canadian Indians, and express the opinion that they are primitive, living testimony of early stages in the history of human development. In 1766, the Dane, Jens Kraft, wrote two interesting works on Ethnology: Die Sitten der Wilden and Zur Aufklärung der Menschheit. In both these books, the author follows practically the same line of thought as the French father. He tries to show that primitive people in various parts of the world are simply backward, that they have remained at a stage of development similar to that of the early inhabitants of Denmark whose prehistoric tools have been found in such large quantities throughout the kingdom. The remarkable thing about Jens Kraft is that he hit upon this idea approximately one hundred

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years before other scientists such as Vedel-Simmonsen, C. J. Thomsen and Worsaae, as well as Boucher de Perthes, had worked out systematic theories concerning the Danish prehistoric finds. Later, it was culture in its other aspects, customs, faith and forms of government, that stimulated comparative studies. Among the first to take up this line were the French authors, Montesquieu (who wrote the well-known L'esprit des lois), Voltaire, and Condorcet who, in 1795, published his Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain. Of course, it would be incorrect to consider all these works as specially ethnological. But in their text, considerable material exists which is ethnographic in origin and the treatment of which can be considered as ethnological, even in the most modern sense of the word. In 1785, the German philosopher, Christoph Meiners, wrote his Grundriss der Geschichte der Menschheit. He classified humanity into two principal races, the Mongolic and the Tartaric, dividing the latter into Gothic and Slavic. In his opinion, most Europeans belong to the Tartaric race. Meiners confused racial distinctions with social ones and arbitrarily chose his subjects of study which were food, strong beverages, dwellings, dress, adornments, opinions of savages on the facts of Nature, remarkable practices which had come to the knowledge of the author, the education of children, the treatment of women, forms of government, laws, notions of wealth, decorum, honour and shame. He did however realize the very great importance which would be attached to a science for the study of humanity, in other words, of a science of Ethnology. Another German, Gustav Klemm, published two books in 1843 which bore the titles of Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit and Allgemeine Kulturwissenschaft. In them, he recognizes three stages of human development; savagery, domestication and freedom. In the first stage, savages roam over the face of the earth without order and without owning any property. In the second, families are consolidated, tribes appear with rulers directing them, pastoral life and farming develop under priestly domination, writing is instituted. In the third stage, freedom, religious control of society by the priests is thrown off. This would appear to distinguish the author as anti-clerical, which however was not the case. Further on, he says that Christianity is the mainspring of progress because it dissolves national hierarchies. He conceived humanity as divided into active and passive races, the first of which he compared to man and the other to woman. He was of the opinion that the dynamic race originated somewhere in the region of

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the Himalayas and that it enslaved the passive one to which, according to Klemm, belong the Mongolians, the Negroes, the Egyptians, the Finns, the Hindus and the lower Europeans. From this subjection, compared by the author to a marriage between the two races of humanity, civilization was born. In spite of the unscientific and curious trend of Klemm's thought, his books are full of valuable ethnographic knowledge and are richly illustrated, something of an innovation for this time. Between 1858 and 1871, the German, Theodor Waitz, published his great work entitled Anthropologie der Naturvölker: Über die Einheit des Menschengeschlechtes und den Naturstand des Menschen. In it, he stresses the importance of psychological, historical and social determinants in the development of culture. He does not believe in laws leading to various degrees of progress in cultural matters, but thinks that the observable differences are the result of haphazard historical vicissitudes. From what has been said so far, it is apparent that the evolutionist, genetic and parallelistic theory (the last appelation denotes that evolution takes place in parallel fashion in each separate culture) is older than the theories of Darwin on the evolution of the species and of Lamarck's transformism. When these in turn appeared for the first time, together with the Danish classification of prehistorical ages, ethnology was powerfully stimulated by them and progressed at a faster pace. Comparative law now became the principal subject of ethnological interest. The first to write on this theme was the Swiss jurist, J. J. Bachofen, who in 1861 published his Das Mutterrecht. In it, he examines in detail the passage from Lycian matriliny to the rigours of Roman patriarchy. For him, Lycian secular gynaeocracy reflected the cult of a female deity, Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of civilized life. It superseded promiscuity (or hetärismus) which was the result of a system of ideas that considered the exclusive possession of a woman by a man as an offence against God to be expiated by periodical ceremonial prostitution. For the author, the cult of Dionysos of classical times was a step backward from the gynaeocracy of the Amazons due to the fascinations of a phallic system. He recognizes the following stages of development: promiscuity, woman's revolt against such humiliation leading to Amazonian assertiveness, invention of agriculture by women, loss of political and domestic power to men, paternity and patriarchy of the Roman pattern.

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An important work which has left its mark in this second phase of the history of Ethnology is La cite antique by the French jurist, Fustel de Coulanges, published in 1864. In this book, the social life of a city in antiquity is very graphically described. The following year saw the appearance of another publication of this kind: Studies in Ancient History by the Scot, J. F. McLennan. The stages of human evolution for this author are, in the beginning, a state in which promiscuous hordes practise female infanticide in selfdefence, in self-defence because they consider women as useless for warlike activities, better dispensed with when it comes to fighting. Next, a stage of polyandry which starts by being archaic and non-fraternal in type and then becomes adelphic; it is accompanied by matriliny and matrilocy, that is to say by inheritance through the mother and by what we would call esogamvrismos in Greek, or the custom by which the bridegroom does not take his bride home to his house but moves in to live in hers. The third stage consists in patriliny and patrilocy gradually asserting themselves over the previous matriarchal system, because bit by bit one of the husbands of the polyandrous wife will gain authority at the expense of the others and thus establish himself as the sole father of the children, from whom they inherit, and as the master of his own house in which they all live. Perfectly naturally, this development leads to the appearance of the fourth and last stage, that of monogamy. McLennan was an orthodox parallelist who coined two new words for Ethnology: ENDOGAMY and EXOGAMY, by which we still mean respectively marriage within a certain group of human beings and marriage outside it. He was of the opinion that totemism, that is the tribal belief that its original ancestor was an animal or plant, represents a stage in the development of religion. He was fascinated by the custom of bride-capture and wrote interesting, if speculative, pages on this subject. But on the whole, he lacked material and had to content himself with whatever ethnography was able to supply him with at this early period of its growth. The English jurist, Sir Henry Maine, at one time a judge in India, wrote a book in 1861 entitled Ancient Law. His is a very technical book based on his professional experience. Thus, he opposes blood-ties and territorial bonds, and brings out the contrast between tort and crime, status and contract, etc. He was not a parallelist but a believer in the importance of historical evolution. Stimulated by these and other studies in comparative law, Ethnology was henceforward to blossom forth.

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In 1851, an American lawyer, Lewis H. Morgan, published his League of the Ho-de-no-saunee or Iroquois, and in 1877 another book bearing the name of Ancient Society. In these two works, the author delved principally into kinship terminology, but he achieved lasting fame through the agencies of Marx and Engels and of the doctrinaires of the Soviet Union who still consider him to be one of the fundamental writers of Communist theory. Apart from kinship, Morgan studied the evolution of marriage, of government, and of property through the successive stages of savagery, barbarism and civilization. For him, each of these was characterized by a special feature, such as for instance savagery by the invention of pottery, barbarism by that of ceramics, and civilization by the discovery of writing. In his second book, Morgan gives a complete picture of the development of culture on evolutionary lines, with however the conditions of society remaining the same at any of the stages of progress. He was the first to identify classificatory and descriptive categories of kinship and to speak of Omaha and Crow types of kinship systems. He was a pioneer in linking forms of marriage and rules of descent to the terms employed to denote kin, and he often attributed evolutionary significance to them. At about the same time in England, Edward B. Tylor published two important books. The one appeared in 1865, Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization, and the other in 1871, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom. In these works, he described the development of various aspects of civilization in the classical evolutionary fashion of his time. He tempered his theories with common sense, however, and was the first to allow for borrowings from one culture to another, thus anticipating later ethnological views of which I shall speak another time. Describing, for instance, mother-in-law avoidance to be found in different parts of the world, he considered the custom to be a development within specified circumstances and not necessarily a stage of evolution. Tylor sifted a vast amount of ethnographic material carefully and clearly and showed great scientific moderation in its analysis. He coined new terms also, such as for instance 'cross-cousin marriage'. After Tylor, those who contributed most to the development of Ethnology were Sir John Lubbock (later Lord Avebury), 1872, who was always excusing himself in his books for describing what he called

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'shocking savage customs'; Richard Andree, 1878, author of Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche; Letourneau, 1903, and Colonel

Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, 1916, who took an interest in the evolution of the patterns of firearms. To sum up, now, what I have said here today. During the first period of the history of Ethnology under review, the beginnings as I have called it, the ethnologists whom I have mentioned endeavoured to link dissimilarities observed in various cultures throughout the world by the theory of evolution. They did so by postulating a uniform, genetic development along identical stages of progress in each and every culture, a development through which every individual culture had necessarily to pass, a parallel progress which did not take place at the same speed everywhere, leaving those who became the most backward behind. Such an explanation accounted for the appearance of the same customs in different places by the uniformity of development. I should like to add here that this first period of the history of Ethnology suffered from the great drawback that only imperfect and insufficient ethnographic data was available to the early ethnologists. Something of the kind was to be expected because the early attempts at field-work abroad were amateurish and often resulted in purely chance observations, completely different from the modern, systematic and scientifically-planned collection of information by professionallytrained anthropologists of today. Such a state of affairs was bound to have its effect on the elaboration of ethnological theory, which naturally could not account properly for the appearance and subsequent development of culture. In spite of the handicap, distinguished ethnologists were, nevertheless, soon to make their special science advance considerably along the road of progress. But I will leave a description of the process to the lecture that I shall give you on Monday.

ν THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY: THE PROGRESS OF ETHNOLOGY *

In the series of three lectures which I am giving to you this year under the general heading: 'The History of Ethnology', today I will deliver the second one, entitled 'The Progress of Ethnology'. In my talk to you the other day I spoke to you about the beginnings of Ethnology, its sources and foundations from the time when it first appeared. I gave you definitions of Ethnology and of culture, and I stressed that Ethnology, in what it seeks, follows mainly two trends. The first of these endeavours to explain the differences which exist between various cultures, and the other to discover the similitudes which underlie all the ways of living of the peoples of the world. In the first case, ethnologists have put certain theories forward such as evolutionism, environmentalism and diffusion, not separately but simultaneously, with the Historical School of diffusionists coming last. The other day, I described to you the evolutionist, genetic or parallelistic theory and gave you the names of its main protagonists. I showed that these accounted for cultural disimilarities by postulating that all cultures pass through identical stages of development from early times to present day civilization, but some at a faster rate than others, so that those which remain behind become, by this process, backward. Identical customs found in widely separated parts of the world were explained by the uniformity of cultural development. The weak point of this theory is, I said, that it was based on imperfect data, collected in a haphazard and unscientific fashion. In today's lecture, I will go on to the environmentalist theory and to that of the diffusionists of the Historical School, and I shall give to you the names of those scientists who distinguished themselves in the * Lecture given on the 19th of March, 1962, at the High School of Economic and Commercial Studies.

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formulation of these concepts. The Historical School, as we shall see, advantageously combines evolution with diffusion, and by attempting a fusion of these two outlooks has brought about a definite progress in the science of Ethnology. At the time when those ethnologists I mentioned in my last talk were working out their theory of evolution as an explanation of cultural differences, others of whom I shall speak further on were working along different lines. They were examining the influence which physical environment has upon the shaping of men's lives. It should not be thought here that the question of the effect of environment on human culture is a new one. Actually it is a very old one. Already in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., Hippocrates of Cos made pioneer studies on the conditioning of man by the physical milieu in which he dwells and of the results which he suffers from climate and humidity, all of which are apt to produce, in the opinion of the Founder of Medicine, various human groups differing from one another physically, morally and pathologically. He was followed in these studies later by other authorities such as Vitruvius, Vegetius and Servius. Much later again, in our times, other authors took up the theme, especially in France where, in the 16 th century, we find the name of Bodin, in the 18th, those of Montesquieu, of Turgot and of Buffon. The French were the first to take an interest in the science which is known today as that of anthropo-geography, and contributed to its establishment. We, however, are more particuarly concerned here with ethnologists, contemporary with the evolutionists discussed last time and who, while working on the same data, however imperfect it was, nevertheless interpreted it in a completely different way. In the thirties of the last century, Le Play, in France, founded a school of Ethnology of which E. Demolins became the principal spokesman. The members of this school published a journal under the name of La science sociale. In their work, they traced the influence of environment on the daily occupations of a people, on their social organization and other aspects of their culture. They limited themselves to the physical environment and made no attempt to take into consideration the effects of contact with alien cultures. Through Karl Ritter, anthropo-geography took on a definite scientific form when it offered a plausible explanation of the distribution throughout the world of the various kinds of human culture. Between 1822 and 1851, the German scientist published a vast work in nine-

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teen volumes entitled Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen. At about the same time, the British school for the study of the influence of environment was also founded. The members of this school limited their studies and research to the effect of environmental conditions upon ancient civilizations. The most outstanding figure of the British school was T. Buckle who, in 1857, wrote the interesting book History of Civilization. He was followed by Payne, Draper, Elsworth Huntingdon, A. J. and F. D. Herbertson, and the American W. D. Mathew who, despite his nationality, can be considered to be a product of the British school. In Germany, views on a narrow environmentalism limited to the physical surroundings in which men live were broadened to include concepts of migration of cultural items from other environments to those in which they are found. Among many distinguished German ethnologists, Adolph Bastian was a towering figure. In 1881 he published his important work under the title Der Völkergedanke im Aufbau einer Wissenschaft vom Menschen und seine Begründung auf Ethnologische Sammlungen. The author was a determined opponent of biological transformism, of which he was known to have said that 'no one had seen it happen'. He believed the similarities triumphantly discovered in different cultures by evolutionists to be as good a proof of their theory as the likeness which exists between a tulip's stem and a swan's neck. Nevertheless, he was a strong believer in independent development with what he called Elementargedanken or elementary thought evoking at higher levels different responses under different external stimuli, thus producing geographical provinces of culture. Contact, he thought, may supersede these different responses, but its effect is of subordinate significance. Bastian revealed many anthropological problems but unfortunately he did not come forward with any proposed solution of them. It was he who founded the now famous Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, in 1886. Another distinguished German ethnologist was Friedrich Ratzel, who gave anthropo-geography its lasting form. Between 1882 and 1891, he published an outstanding book entitled Anhropogeographie. In it, he gives a detailed geographical description of all living peoples known in his times. He remarks significantly that the lack of invention of mankind and the smallness of the earth has allowed for the migration of cultural forms all over the globe. For him, there is no necessary

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spatial limit to the borrowing of cultural objects and complexes. He looked upon this phenomenon as something that could be confirmed by observation and which he compared to some past, vast cultural explosion which has left pieces all over the inhabited world. These novel ideas of the German anthropo-geographist opened new horizons for Ethnology. It suggested far-reaching historical relations between peoples to be investigated, and departed radically from the purely environmental theories of his predecessors. But, like Bastian, Ratzel did not define the regional boundaries of his different interborrowing cultures and thus left the problems which he had indicated without any suggested solution. It is to be noted here, in conclusion to what I have said above, that environmentalist denied the uniformity, in equivalent stages for all concerned, of cultural development. They believed that local adaptation to environment is of far greater importance and, what is more, that it can be more easily observed on the spot. Let us pass on next to the diffusionists and the Historical School. Ethnology had now reached a moment when evolutionism had been tempered by environmentalism, and the first indications that something more was in the offing, namely the realization of the existence of borrowing of cultural traits by one people from another, had appeared. It was an important turning point which gave ethnological theory a whole new aspect. While the concept of evolution was nevertheless not abandoned, that of uniform development in stages along parallel lines was superseded, from here onwards, by that of progress through local inventions and their diffusion over specific geographical areas. These ideas were still somewhat hazy in the minds of ethnologists who, so far, only sensed that a new advance along these lines could be made for their science. What was, however, most pressing, they clearly saw, was to obtain more and better ethnographical material than that upon which former theories had been based. As a result, research became more specialized both in prehistory and in ethnography. Fieldworkers were trained before they left on fact-finding expeditions, the first of which took place in about 1880. Strangely enough, it was in traditionally parallelist England that the first voice was raised in favour of diffusion. Miss A. W. Buckland, between 1878 and 1893, published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, a series of articles in which she unequivocally declared herself against ordinary evolutionism, and emphasized the great importance which the theory of the diffusion of culture could have

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for ethnological studies. She believed that sun and serpent worship had spread agriculture, weaving, pottery and the working of metals, all over the earth. She put forward the idea that there were historical affinities between the Japanese and the Red Indian Navahos of New Mexico. In 1898, the German scientist, L. Frobenius, published an interesting book entitled Der Ursprung der afrikanischen Kulturen. The author was a disciple of Friedrich Ratzel whose ideas, however, he considerably extended. He traced to a common origin the cultures of two areas so remote from each other as West Africa and Oceania, and gave the name of geographical-statistical to his method of approach. Some years later, the theory of the diffusion of culture from certain specific centres found its principle spokesman in the person of the German scholar, F. Graebner, from 1905 to 1911, who published three remarkable books which are today considered to be classic of Ethnology. They are: Kulturkreise und Kulturschichten in Ozeanien, then Die melanesische Bogenkultur und ihre Verwandten, and Methode der Ethnologie. Their author rejects parallelism and states that invention is so rare that cultural similarities can only be attributed to separate development when a common historical origin cannot be traced. The object of Ethnology must therefore be to reconstruct separate migrations, each with a special complex of cultural traits. The method consists in mapping the distribution of cultures and objects, and the approximate coincidence of distribution is held to indicate definite historical associations. Graebner was of the opinion that humanity began in small groups of people living in different, isolated parts of Asia. Each of these groups developed its own distinct culture, forming thus a Kulturkreise. With the improvement of communications over the centuries, these cultural complexes radiated in aggregate; if there were clashes between them, blending occurred or the strongest survived. The wanderings of peoples carried Kulturkomplexen over the surface of the whole earth. Their superimposition produced Kulturschichten, or layers of culture one upon the other. The historical method in Ethnology must thus disentangle the complexes and the layers by identifying and classifying them, and reconstructing their past history. The German scholar suggested that culture complexes originating in Asia were diffused to America and Africa: the older Kreise thus became marginal to the new ones.

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Later, Polynesia was influenced from America. Six different Schichten are to be found there: the Tasmanian (which is the oldest), the PalaeoAustralian, the Totemic, the Moiety layer, the Melanesian Bow culture, and the Neo-Polynesian (which is the latest). In each of these layers of culture a cultural complex can be distinguished that is always made up of certain artefacts and institutions which appear regularly together. For instance, the Totemic Schicht consists of a culture complex which always includes the penis-sheath, stiff bark girdles, conical roofed huts, dugouts, headrests, spears with stone points or wooden barbs, spearthrowers, patrilineally organized hordes, burial practices which put the dead on platforms, initiation rites for boys, skin decoration in bands with marginal triangles or semi-circles, astral mythology. Criticism of the theories of Graebner by other ethnologers concerning his culture complexes and cultural layers states that it is not at all clear how they are established as historical realities, and that the various traits that he assigns to them are chosen in arbitrary fashion without historical justification. From more recent research, it is known that some of the traits which he mentions have an independent origin and cannot be considered as having been diffused at the same time as others with which he groups them. It also appears quite improbable that the complexity of human culture in general can be reduced to a few cultural complexes such as those of Graebner. Thus out of the six cultural layers which he gives for Polynesia, only two correspond to geographically well-defined areas, the Tasmanian and the Neo-Polynesian. The others are of doubtful, probably personal invention by the author and give the impression of having been 'juggled' by him. A possible explanation for this is that he worked mainly in a museum where he was endeavouring to classify chronologically the exhibits which he had on hand. It led him to an ethnological theory which must be looked upon as at the very other extreme of that of uniform, parallelist evolution. Continuators of Graebner, but independently of him, are the Roman Catholic Fathers of the Saint Gabriel College in Vienna of the Society of the Word of God (Soc. Verb. Div.), of which the most famous was perhaps the late missionary and anthropologist, W. Schmidt. His best known followers are the late W. Koppers and M. Gusinde. During the early 1920s, the College published many anthropological studies, among which should be distinguished Der Ursprung der Gottesidee and Völker und Kulturen, by Father W. Schmidt; Unter Feuerland Indianern, by Father W. Koppers; and Die Selk'Nam, by Father Μ.

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Gusinde. The S.V.D. also publishes the well-known journal Anthropos, which is looked upon as one of the best anthropological publications in existence. For Schmidt, the Pigmies and not the Tasmanians are nearest to the origins of culture. His way of grouping the composites of a culture complex is much more scientific, and he shows a better functional approach to the various Kreise which he distinguishes. His view is that the higher civilizations are issued from a combination of the use of hoe-tillage, of animal husbandry and of specialized craftmanship. He insists that his research work has shown that even the most primitive peoples conceive of a Supreme Being - which has led him to be accused of religious bias. Father Schmidt enlisted the help of Roman Catholic missionaries all over the world for his anthropological work, and sent out very many of his specially trained pupils to collect information in the field from all parts of the globe. The German Ethnological School as I have briefly described it here is essentially a continuation of Friedrich Ratzel's anthropogeography. It succeeded in giving a picture of world-wide cultural intercourse along historical and geographical lines. In Great Britain, where no such anthropological tradition existed, a school was founded, which however very quickly developed extreme views. First of all, we must mention here G. Elliot-Smith who, between the years 1915 and 1933, wrote the following two books: The Migrations of Early Cultures, and The Diffusion of Culture. He was professor of anatomy in Cairo and during the time that he was in Egypt he showed great interest in the native culture. He based his theories on the presumption that man is not naturally inventive and that inventions only take place under exceptional circumstances. He went on to assert that such extraordinary circumstances did effectively exist in the Nile valley, that, as a result, culture was born there and that, with the progress of navigation, it spread to the rest of the world. For him, Egypt was the one and only centre of diffusion on earth; as culture spread from it, it naturally lost some of its vigour with the distances covered and, through dilution, often degenerated. It is obvious, I think, that ElliotSmith's knowledge of ethnography was somewhat limited and for this reason he easily became a victim of extreme views. W. J. Perry was a colleague of his from the same period and, in 1923, he published a book entitled: The Children of the Sun. In it, he speaks of a 'Heliolithic' culture complex which originated in Egypt and

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subsequently spread to the whole world with only a few accretions from elsewhere. The sequences of cultural development for this author were the following: the discovery of wild barley led to cultivation; the storing of food made man build houses; leisure obtained in this fashion enabled the development of basket-making, matting, weaving and the pursuit of animal husbandry; embalming of the dead gave man religion; religious ritual led to drama, dancing and music, and stimulated the growth of architecture and of carpentry. W. J. Perry was better read in ethnography than was the previous author. He traced elements of his Heliolithic culture all over the world and asserted that the pyramids of Cambodia and those of the Maya were descended from the ones in Egypt. Among other books of his, the British anthropologist, W. H. R. Rivers, in 1910, published his History of Melanesian Society. This and other work have the great merit of being studies from the field where the author had been personally to investigate. He also wrote The Todas, about a tribe in South India of which I have also published an account. During the last years of his life, Rivers declared himself an enthusiastic convert to the ideas of Elliot-Smith and Perry, and in this way he became the third British ethnologist to espouse tbe extreme views of those two, views which continue to be of doubtful scientific value. In conclusion I can say that as far as the British school is concerned it cannot be considered as being of great interest, except for the field reports of Dr. Rivers. In America, N. C. Nelson was the first, in 1919, to formulate the 'Age and Area' theory of the naturalists under the form of the geographical distribution theory of Ethnology. In his book, Human Culture, he supports the idea that there exists a superimposed, concentric distribution of culture trait-complexes from which time relations can be assumed. Later, specialized distributions develop faster than basic, undifferentiated ones, forming pyramids of cultural layers. The centre is always the most representative of ecological adjustment. Nelson applied his theory to the whole of America and drew up maps of the cultures of the Red Indians in accordance with it. The best known anthropologist of America was for a long time Franz Boas. It is worth nothing, however, that he never wrote a single book. He was born in Germany, but he made his whole career as an ethnologist at Columbia University in New York. He found that the American continent could be divided into cultural areas. He mapped

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these carefully and concentrated on their study from the points of view of history, psychology and the interpenetration and assimilation of cultural traits. He was the first to introduce the concept of 'pattern'. No dogmatic or extreme theoretician, he insisted on the careful observation of facts in the field. His research work was done chiefly in British Columbia, on the shores of the Pacific, the most western part of Canada. He remained there for quite a long time and studied the relations between the Red Indians of the north-west with the Palaeo-Asiatics who live on the other side of the Bering Straits, in Siberia. He supported the view that in a secondary migration the Eskimoes had come across from Asia to people the northern part of America and Greenland. During his last years, Boas laid the foundations of Americanist ethnological studies, which have not changed since then, that is to say since 1912. In accordance with his teachings, it is still accepted that only two cultural zones exist among the Red Indians, the Arctic people not being part of either of these two areas. One of them extends over north-western America and California, and those who live there are primitive hunters. The other covers a wider part of the continent and its inhabitants are culturally more developed; it extends from Peru to south Mexico, and Boas called it 'middle American'. Its characteristic is farming. Between these two poles, there exist remaining cultures which are hybrid, resulting from the blending of the influence of the Middle American culture which, in varying degrees, archaic features of the other. Boas was the teacher who created the School from which all later American anthropologists derived; men like A. L. Kroeber, A. B. Lewis, F. G. Speck, R. H. Lowie, A. A. Goldenweiser, P. Radin, E. Sapir, F. C. Cole, L. Spier, M. Herskovits, G. Herzog, A. M. Tozzer, R. B. Dixon, C. Wissler, S. A. Barret, J. A. Mason; J. R. Swanton, R. Linton; and women such as Elsie Clews Parsons, Ruth Benedict, Ruth Bunzel, Gladys Reichard, Erna Gunther, Margareth Mead, Gene Weltfish and Ruth Underhill. He was a towering personality and he dominated his time as the continuator and moderniser of Friedrich Ratzel. Before I finish this lecture, I would also like to mention the name of G. Montandon, a Swiss, one-time professor at the Ethnological Institute of Paris. In 1934 he published a major work entitled I'Ologenese culturelle: Traite d'ethnologie cyclo-culturelle et d'ergologie systimatique.

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In this book, he describe culture throughout the world as composed of cycles culturels, really the French for Kulturkreise, themselves made up of elements associated by what he calls compagnonage traditionel or 'traditional companionship'. The author distinguishes two principal cultural branches, one of which, the rameau precoce, the precocious one, has lost itself in blind alleys and has ceased to progress, while the other, the rameau tardif, the late one, has never stopped going forward and has led to modern civilization. Montandon gives a map of his cultural cycles of which the culture of man throughout the world is composed. There are fourteen of them in all, and they are the following: (1) The Primitive. Covers South African Bushmen, Nilotic Africa and the Ituri forest, Ceylon and Malaya for its aboriginals, South West Australia and Tasmania, the Ameridians of California, Brazil and the Argentine. (2) The Australoid. Combined with the same backward cultures, except Ceylon and Malaya. (3) The Totemic. To this belong the aboriginals of East Africa, North and Central Australia, New Caledonia, Columbia, the Matto Grosso of Brazil and Canada. (4) The Palaeo-Matriarchal. Includes West and Central Africa, East Australia and Melanesia, parts of Canada and Chili. (5) The Neo-Matriarchal. Combined with the former in Africa, Papua and the Amazon basin. (6) The Austronesoide. With Madagascar, Indonesia and Polynesia. (7) The Sudanoid. Which, as its name suggests, covers the South Sahara and Erythrea. (8) The Arctico-Subarctic. In the far northern regions of Finland, Siberia, Alaska and North Canada. (9) The Pastoral. For the nomads of Central Asia and Abyssinia. (10) The Mexico-Andinoid. The name speaks for itself as this cycle takes in the Aztec and Inca cultures. (11) The Sinoid. Which applies to China but also to Korea, South Japan, and Indo-China for Viet-Nam. (12) The Indonoid. India and Burma. (13) The Islamoid. For the vast area of desert of the North Sahara, Arabia and Turkestan. (14) The Occidentaloid. To which belong the inhabitants of modern civilization in Europe, North Africa, the Near East, Turkey and America.

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Criticism of Montandon's theories is the same as that of Graebner: the cycles are made up in arbitrary fashion and lack scientific criteria. To sum up now what I have said to you today. In this second talk of mine, I endeavoured to show you that the environmentalist theory gave a new turn to the evolutionist, parallelistic theory and brought it closer to reality. It demonstrated that the development of culture does not follow a uniform pattern but is greatly influenced by the environment in which people live. As a result, in Germany a new discipline was born, that of anthropo-geography which led to the theory of the geographical areas of culture. Immediately afterwards came the Historical School of the diffusion of culture, which postulates its spread from certain defined centres, without, for that, abandoning, of course, the idea of the evolution of culture. The difference is that uniform, parallel evolution is no longer accepted, but the idea that borrowings take place, from areas where more advanced inventions are made, is brought in instead. This School made its principal task the drawing up of cultural maps of various parts of the world, in which are emphasized the different layers of culture (Kulturschichten) in order to facilitate the work of research into the history of the diffusion of culture complexes from their centres of origin. Unfortunately, the composition of the cultural complexes has been the result of an arbitrary choice of elements which reveals the lack of sufficient ethnographical knowledge of those who undertook the work, something which has incurred considerable criticism from better informed ethnologists. Here ends my second lecture on the progress of Ethnology. On Wednesday, I will speak to you about contemporary Ethnology and its practical achievements up until the present day.

VI THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY: CONTEMPORARY ETHNOLOGY*

With today's lecture, I shall have completed the series of three talks on the general theme of 'The History of Anthropology'. This subject is among the most important of the science of Anthropology and cannot, of course, be exhaustively treated here for lack of time and because of the necessarily synoptical form in which I have had to present it to you. What I have attempted to do is to give a general account of the historical development of Ethnology, described to you more in the form of a lesson than anything else, and with the purpose of awakening your interest in that science. In my two previous talks I spoke, in the first, on the beginnings of Ethnology and, in the second, on the progress of Ethnology. Today, in the third, I shall speak to you on contemporary Ethnology. I should begin, I think, by giving you a short resume of what I have said so far, in order to introduce you better to the general theme. In my first lecture, at the University, I described to you the ethnological theory of the evolution of culture and I gave you the names of the principal scholars who were associated with its promotion. I spoke of their works and gave you the estimation of their value in accordance with present-day views on the subject. I showed that cultural differences in the world were accounted for by these scientists by a theory of genetic, parallel development which postulates that all cultures passed through identical stages, some faster and some more slowly than others, from early times up to contemporary civilizations. I concluded by saying that unfortunately this theory was based on insufficient and inaccurate data. In my second lecture, I showed that environmentalism tempered the parallelistic, genetic theory by demonstrating that cultural development *

Lecture given on the 21st of March, 1962, at the Athens Academy.

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was not always uniform, but depended greatly upon adaptation to environment. This led to the science of anthropogeography and to the concept of geographical provinces of culture. With the Historical School of the diffusionists, the idea of evolution was not abandoned, but that of development through borrowing from centres of invention took the place of that of uniform development. The task of this school consisted in mapping out cultural areas and layers of culture and retracing the history of the diffusion of culture complexes from their initial centres. I concluded here by saying that the way in which the composing elements of the complexes were chosen was completely arbitrary, and for this reason it must be said that this theory, too, lacked solid foundations in ethnographic data. Today, I will show how the realization that more evidence was needed, coupled with practical necessity, led to the formation of yet another School of Ethnology, the Functional School, and to an intensification of ethnographical research along lines of sociological investigation. I shall conclude with a brief outline of the achievements of Ethnology up until the present day, emphasizing the existing deficiencies and suggesting in which way they can be remedied. As I have said, the theory of evolution proved inadequate because is was based on a lack of proper ethnographical data. The environmental and diffusionist theories were more satisfactory, but not completely so because they still did not base themselves on sufficient ethnographical evidence, a defect that showed up glaringly through the arbitrary fashion in which the composition of the culture complexes was made up. The work, as we saw, was done mainly in museums and there, more often than not, the comparison of apparently like artifacts really consisted in establishing analogies and nothing more. As a result, the need for the better identification of like items of culture became imperative. Elsewhere also the need for further and better ethnographical knowledge became indispensable. That was in the sphere of administration of European and American overseas territories, where ethnological theories were not of much use, but a great demand for factual information about the native way of life developed. In order to cope with it, more and more anthropologists began to go out into the field to work on the spot. They were trained research workers and not the amateurs of the early days, which gives us a period of about eighty years now since ethnographical field-work was placed on an exact and scientific basis.

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One of the methods most in favour with ethnographers for the collection of data is that followed by the so-called Functional School. Before its appearence, the usual procedure followed was that of studying the various aspects of culture in a static way; information about economics, social and religious life, for instance, was obtained as if they were independent phenomena. Their interacting activities and motives were neglected and consequently did not appear in the studies. In 1922, Bronislaw Malinowski, professor at the University of London, of Polish descent, published an interesting book called Argonauts of the Western Pacific. In 1929, he published another one, entitled The Sexual Life of Savages. In these writings, the author describes in detail a strange and complicated custom of the inhabitants of the Trobriand islands in the Western Pacific. That custom is the Kula system. It consists in the ritual exchange of jewelry between the various tribes that live on the islands. The exchange, which is considered to have magical virtues, is a traditional one with very ancient roots. Its origin is lost in the mythology of the tribes. Its main feature is that it takes place between the members of certain classes only, something revealing as to the hierarchy and social organization of those who take part in the exchange. Another curious feature is that the objects exchanged always follow the same route and that in the end they always return to where they started from. The ritual of the actual exchange is very impressive and it is accompanied by music and dancing. Not that the jewelry is of any great value; it may have been so originally, but today consists of objects of adornment which are not used for that purpose any longer and that have become the repositories of tradition and competition. The whole system of their exchange as described by Malinowski involves magic, mythology, social organization, commercial interests, ceremonial and aesthetic proclivities. The author was led from this to put forward the assertion that customs cannot be studied in isolation and that it is necessary, in order to understand them properly, to know something about their interrelations and the influence of the one upon the other. The ethnographical work of Malinowski was considerable and valuable. Thanks to him, two basic principles of Ethnology were established. First, that every living culture is a functioning and integrated whole of which no part can be properly understood except in relation to this whole; the functioning of a culture trait in the total system of the culture will explain and reveal its true identity. Secondly, culture, in all its principle aspects, is related to human

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biological needs, the requirements of which it attempts to meet: cultural institutions are function of man's requirements as a biological organism. Malinowski did give us in his writings a definition of the biological needs which men must satisfy in order to survive and be happy. In accordance with his scheme, there are seven of these, which are the following: metabolic, reproductive, bodily comfort, safety, movement, growth, health. Culture satisfies these needs by the following responses: commissariat, system of kinship, shelter, means of protection, activities, training, hygiene. Needs and responses, Malinowski tells us, are closely linked to each other by organized and age-old routines of satisfaction which individuals receive from the culture in which they are born. On the other hand, cultural responses to basic biological needs create their own needs, which Malinowski calls derived or instrumental needs. They are cultural in nature, it should be noted, and not biological. For instance, in the technique of obtaining food, training is necessary, and this training is an instrumental need whereas the need for food is biological. Derived needs can be grouped into four principal cultural imperatives, as Malinowski calls them. To them in response correspond four broad divisions or aspects of culture, which we will list after the cultural imperatives. These are as follows: the making, using, maintaining and replacing of objects of material culture; the social regulation of human behaviour; the acquiring of knowledge about the working of the culture to which the individual belongs; the defining of authority and its equipment with the powers and means to enforce them. The cultural responses that correspond are listed as follows: economic systems; institutions of social control; education; political organization. One of the great merits of Malinowski was the emphasis that he laid on the conflict between practice and theory. That is to say, he was very insistant that the field-worker must not only listen to what is said about a culture, to what the people who live in it would like it to be, but he must also find out for himself what it is really like, what is really done in contrast to what it is desired should be done. Malinowski also stressed the non-utilitarian side of economics (as in the kula system) and he was the first to speak of the nexus between a type of institutions and its psychiatric concomitants. The work of Malinowski had attracted much criticism from ethnologists. The principal reproach is that he treats cultures as closed systems.

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which is not ethnological, they say, because he tends to generalize his conclusions from the one society which he chose to study. For this reason he has been nicknamed 'the Trobriander' because of his many years in the islands where he worked and built up his theories. He nevertheless founded a school of his own. I myself had the privilege of studying with him, and still consider myself as one of his followers. Many, however, who were with him to begin with, have now taken other ways, as, for example, Raymond Firth, his successor in the chair of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science of the University of London. Let us pass on now to Social Anthropology. As is well known, the interest in sociology began in France, where it stimulated ethnographical research there and elsewhere. In my second lecture, the other day, I spoke of Le Play and his School. Today I will go on from there and tell you about further developments. In 1898, Emile Dürkheim founded in Paris his journal L'annee sociologique. In it, he and his colleagues presented many concrete ethnographic findings which they had taken the trouble to collect as material for a sociology of the future. But in them, they purposely ignored the individual and eliminated the biological factor from the functional analysis of culture as being useless to the sociologist. Their attitude led them inevitably to exaggerations, such, for instance, as the alleged intellectual and moral uniformity of primitive societies. Any ethnographer who has worked in the field is prepared, I am sure, to deny from experience this assertion of the Durkheimian School. Despite this, it cannot be denied that Dürkheim founded a most important sociological school and that he had many followers who carried on with his work not only in France but also abroad. In his own country, among his best known continuators should be mentioned Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, the latter, in 1925, author of the well-known book Essai sur le don, and Lucien Levy-Bruhl who, in his work La mentalite primitive, stressed that pre-existing norms determine individual thinking and spoke of the pre-logical nature of primitive thought. The last-named author was more of a philosopher than a scientist. He also purposely ignored the individual mind and dealt only with group ideas which he termed representations collectives. He allowed, however, full scope for the emotional side of primitive man which he considered dominated his mind and did not allow him to think logically. The primitive concept of the soul, Levy-Bruhl considered to be far

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more complex than that of civilized man. The custom of couvade, in which, as you know, the father simulates birth pains while his wife is undergoing labour, he looked upon as one of the taboos imposed on both parents by the community at childbirth, in order to underline the duties of both parents toward the child. Certain numbers, he said, have a mystical and even magical value in some societies, such as 7 in Malaya, for instance. From these examples, it can be seen that Levy-Bruhl was of the opinion that primitive man does not think logically but purely in accordance with his feelings. He considered that to be the reason why the primitive mentality conforms to the law of participation; primitives, he said, dispense with the principles of causality and of contradiction, their thinking is pre-logical, not anti-logical; thus logically distinct aspects of reality tend to fuse into one mystic unity. For instance, Australian aborigines do not look upon their land as owned by them because they cannot conceive separation from it, bodily separation, which is participation. Another example he quoted is that of the South American Indian who identifies himself with a parrot, which is precisely what he means: he is a parrot, not like one. Criticism of Levy-Bruhl has not always been very kind. That he should have included Chinese and Indians among those whom he considered primitive is quite unrealistic considering the ancient civilizations of these two peoples. Then he completely neglected individual variability in any one society. To say that primitive man thinks without logic is to go against observation, because, in fact, primitives appear, to all those who have been in close personal touch with them, to be just as keen in their reasoning as Westerners in comparable situations. As to the law of participation, it would seem that it is common really to all humanity. In conclusion it can be said that Levy-Bruhl, in stressing the overwhelming significance of irrational factors in human thought, was actually doing so for the whole of mankind, whereas he himself thought of it only in terms of the primitive, which is a mistake. In Great Britain, the most outstanding sociologist and anthropologist was, until a few years ago, A. P. Radcliffe-Brown. In 1922, he published his book The Andaman Islanders: A Study in Social Anthropology. Here, as also later, he devoted himself to the comparative study of societies, and in this book particularly to that of the inhabitants of the Andaman islands in the Bay of Bengal. For him, society is like an organism made up of interfunctioning and interdependent parts whose object is the maintenance and the persistance of the social body. Con-

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sequently, ethnographers must make descriptions of the functioning of social structures throughout the world, with a view to the systematic classification of social phenomena and the formulation of general laws underlying them. Radcliffe-Brown was a theoretician who encouraged research along the lines of his recommended comparative ethnographic method in other parts of the world, notably in Australia. The modern school of British Anthropology can be said to be made up of followers of Radcliffe-Brown. The professors of Anthropology at Cambridge and at Oxford are among his disciples. The best known of them is perhaps Ε. E. Evans-Pritchard, with whom Dr. John Peristiany, the present Director of the Centre of Sociological Studies in Athens, worked for a long time. In 1950, Evans-Pritchard gave a series of talks at the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, which were published in book form in 1951. In them, he opposes Social Anthropology to Ethnology because he says the former studies social behaviour only in institutionalized form. For instance, it studies the family, kinship systems, political organization, legal procedures, religious cults, etc. It also examines the relations between these institutions. I do not think that Evans-Pritchard is right when he considers Social Anthropology as opposed to Ethnology. For me, Social Anthropology is nothing more than Ethnography, that is to say, it is research which has as its object the description of the sociological factors of culture. Lately, Evans-Pritchard, since his conversion to Roman Catholicism, has said that there is no essential difference between Ethnology and History and that he considers Ethnology to be simply a part of History. The sociologist, John Peristiany, whom I mentioned earlier, has made an interesting study of the Negro tribe of the Kipsigis in East Africa among whom he lived for a long time. In 1939, he published his thesis on his research among the members of that African tribe. In Germany, one of the most representative social anthropologists is R. Thurnwald, who between the years 1931-35 published a five volume work entitled Die menschliche

Gesellschaft

in ihre

ethno-

soziologischen Grundlagen. A very learned scholar, he is the first to have given a competent ethnographic survey of the entire field of primitive economics from the sociological point of view, in Melanesia, New Guinea and East Africa. Before I finish and pass on to the conclusions about Ethnology that I have promised you, I should like to mention that there are also other

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fields of ethnographic research than those mentioned above. There is psychoanalytical Anthropology which combines Freud's psychoanalysis and comparative anthropological studies. Pioneer of this discipline was the Hungarian scholar, Geza Roheim. In 1931, he was sent by my mother who was, as you know, an internationally famous person in psychoanalysis, to carry out comparative studies among the aboriginal population of Australia. Another specific field of ethnographic research is that of culture contact and of the acculturation which takes place as a result of it. This is a subject of particular interest to Americans who have taken it up very seriously as, for instance, in the case of Mexico. In that country, European and Amerindian cultures have been face to face for more than four hundred years. For that reason, the process of acculturation there is perhaps better known than in any other part of the world. I will give you a brief account of it. When Cortes reached Mexico in 1519, it was dominated by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, whose capital was where Mexico City stands today. These people lived in large cities supported by the products of garden cultivation. They enjoyed highly developed occupational specializations, extensive trade connections not only within the country but also outside it, and had well-developed socio-economic classes in their community. Two centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztecs had extended their empire over many of their neighbours who, at the time of the conquest, numbered some ten million, paying tribute to their overlords. For this reason, it was possible for Cortes to raise a large army of dissatisfied natives and join them to his meagre two thousand five hundred men. He marched onto the capital of Tenochtitlan, took it and destroyed their rule. Many of the subject peoples then accepted the Spaniards as successors of the Aztecs who succeeded in keeping control of the country. There were very few of them, and even after eighty years numbered no more than twenty thousand. They met with this unexpected success because they took over from the upper Aztec classes. Native rulers who were friendly to the newcomers were allowed to retain their positions for more than a century. Christianity, as the religion of the new ruling class, quickly took the place of the Aztec religion. But the conversion was only effective in the capital. Household and agricultural rituals in the country retained their popularity and were little affected by the change.

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Gradually, the Spaniards became land-owners. In areas where they acquired large properties, the natives were brought under control. Work habits were modified, non-Christian religious elements were fought and eventually eliminated, dress was changed, and in some cases even the language of the people was lost. On the other hand, food habits and techniques were adopted by the Spaniards, who, while they remained the dominant class, gradually tended to lose the characteristics which distinguished them from the native inhabitants. By contrast, in other parts of Mexico, something quite different was happening. Where there were missionaries, the Mexicans were protected against the bad example of the laymen. They were not allowed to learn Spanish, self-governing Indian communities were formed, Indian titles to land were maintained, and only some few elements of European culture were introduced selectively. When the missions had to leave Mexico in the 18th century, those natives who had been their wards felt lost and inferior to the rest of their brethren. They withdrew from contacts with others as much as possible and revived old ways from before the conquest, but, of course, were not completely successful in this, because it could never be the same again. Today, in Mexico, there are to be found two distinctive cultures living side by side. The one is the Mestizo culture to which belong the Spanish-speaking Mexicans who live in more or less European fashion. The other is made up of those who have retained much of the ancient Aztec culture, speak Indian languages, yet also have many readapted cultural traits from the Spain of the 16th and 17 th centuries and whose way of living is, for this reason, a complete amalgan of Spanish and Indian customs. There are more than one of these hybrid communities in the country, all very different from each other. With the 1910 revolution, industrialization was introduced, creating a further cycle of acculturation which is still going on today. It should be noted, that such deep-going changes as Mexico has been subjected to often result in considerabe social disturbance and individual psychological maladjustments. This has been the case in that country, where messianic religions have made their appearance, and where anti-social behaviour in individuals has been on the increase, when they have not been afflicted with neurotic ailments. A third field of ethnographic research which I should also mention here is that of applied Anthropology. It has become very popular in the United States where it is used on a large scale for industrial in-

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vestigations into the way in which workmen live, but also for the administration of the islands of the Pacific which are under the American government. The object of this type of ethnography is to obtain practical information which can be used to improve living conditions in the communities under study. In this connection I can give you the example of what happened when it was decided to evacuate the entire population of the BiMni atoll in the Pacific and, because of the atomic experiments which were going to take place there, to resettle it on another island. Before the move, the people's ways and means were properly investigated so that the uprooting from their homes would cause them as little inconvenience as possible. Thanks to the research done, they could be put up elsewhere under conditions very similar to those in which they were used to live. Consequently they became quite independent again very quickly and the American authorities were not burdened with the task of looking after them in any special way for very long. And now let me come to the conclusions reached in this series of three lectures which I have given to you under the title 'The History of Ethnology'. They are the following: (1) Ethnology has established that culture varies in time and space. (2) The evolution of culture takes place primarily through invention, but secondly through borrowing. The borrowing is the consequence of the diffusion of inventions from specific centres. (3) Culture exists to serve individual biological needs, but itself creates an abundance of instrumental, derived needs of its own. (4) Ethnology as an abstract science has now remained stationary for some years. More ethnographic material is needed for sounder and more elaborate theories to be developed concerning the complexity of human culture throughout the world. (5) There has been, nevertheless, a recent intensification of ethnographic research, no doubt because it is realized that more evidence from field-work is needed. It has led to the compilation of many monographs, mainly along the lines of comparative sociology, that is to say, Social Anthropology as the British call it. (6) Unfortunately, present world conditions of de-colonization and the tensions of the Cold War make research increasingly difficult - as I myself experienced while working in India on the borders of Tibet. After the Chinese Communist occupation of that country, I was obliged to stop and to return to Europe. (7) There are, however, other obstacles which the ethnographer

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meets when endeavouring to carry out his task. Those difficulties are to be found within our own Western civilization. They are intolerance and dogmatism which threaten to close the door to greater knowledge and understanding of culture and society, thereby witholding the key to progress from us as was already, alas, the case in our own country, in ancient Hellas, with the execution of Socrates. I should just like to add that I do not believe that obstacles of this nature can, in the long run, really obstruct the forward movement of the Science of Man. The day will come when we shall have even better results than we have now, provided the desire for better Anthropology remains at its present level.

VII A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF CULTURE *

This year I had hoped to give you another three lectures on Anthropology, thus continuing the annual series of free talks on this subject which I began two years ago. Unfortunately it has not been possible for me, so far, to put this into practice. An unusual pressure of work elsewhere and the undertaking of a military mission to the United States which lasted a little over a month have kept me from realizing my intentions. I have been obliged to limit myself to only one lecture. However, the choice of my subject today, I think, presents a particular interest. I intend to give you my ideas and the conclusions to which I have come concerning a theory of Culture. But before I do this, I would like to bring the audience up to date as to certain general principles of Anthropology, so that what I have to say will be clearer and easier to understand. I will thus recapitulate some of the most important points of my previous lectures and, afterwards, will develop the scientific theory of Culture, in combination with my own remarks and connotations. I shall conclude by giving you a general summary of the various aspects of the subject. Let me begin with a brief recapitulation of my previous talks. To start with, I want to give you once again the definition of Culture that I have composed in accordance with my personal views on the matter. What do we mean when we speak of Culture? For me, Culture is the historically derived system of implicit and explicit designs by which man adapts himself to his environment and the latter to himself, and which he shares with others of his society. To comment on this definition analytically and to express it in simpler terms, we could say that: Culture traits are the result of his* Lecture given on the 2nd of May, 1963, in the Hall of the Archaeological Society.

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torical developments and for this reason man generally inherits them from the previous generations. That is to say, he does not invent them himself, he simply receives them. Man and his environment suffer reciprocal adaptation. This is the result of the activities which man deploys to insure the physical survival of his organism. Man does not indulge in these activities alone, as an individual, but always in cooperation with his fellow men, with those, more specifically, who have been born and live in the same society as his. In previous talks which I gave to you in 1962,1 dwelt on the subject of the historical development of Ethnology, and I referred to various theories of distinguished ethnologists concerning the way in which the historical development of Culture took place. I spoke to you of the theory of Evolution as well as of that of Diffusion. Today, I will deal with two other aspects of the subject: that is to say with the adaptation of man to his environment and of the environment to him, as well as with the social obligations which man has as an individual acting in cooperation with others of the society to which he belongs. Before I go on to speak to you about these points, you will allow me to refer briefly to what I told you earlier about the Functional school of Ethnology. I said that the theory of the influence of the environment and the theories of the historical evolution of Culture and of its diffusion with the passage of time proved to be inadequate. It became particularly obvious that the composition of cultural complexes as they had been put together by ethnologists on the basis of their theories was quite arbitrary. This was also due to the fact that scholars, first and foremost, made use of artifacts from museums and that they very often compared not so much the similarities as the analogies of the articles of material culture which they had at their disposal. In this way, when comparisons were made, it was felt necessary to be absolutely sure that identical objects were being compared and that we were not simply basing ourselves on the outward similarities of different articles. Consequently, it became essential to have a more thorough practical knowledge of the identity of various cultural artefacts in order to study them with accuracy and certainty. At the same time another field appeared in which greater and better anthropological knowledge was needed. This was the one of the administration of foreign peoples by either Europeans or Americans. Here, Ethnology, with its theories about Culture on an abstract, aca-

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demic plane, was not in a position to help solve practical cultural problems of the administration of foreign peoples. It thus became indispensable to create new conditions in which a better knowledge of native peoples could be obtained. In order to serve this end, specialized anthropologists made particular efforts to explore and study the working of the cultures of such peoples so that the task of alien administrators could be effectively assisted. This took place about eighty years ago. One of the fundamental methods used by anthropologists in order to collect anthropological data is that of the so-called Functional School. Before the appearance of this school, the habitual method made use of by ethnologists in such cases was the study of various manifestations of a culture. For instance, an isolated study was made of the economics of a people, of its social organization, of its religious life, etc., and conclusions were drawn independently about each subject, a method which made results neither certain nor complete. This way of proceeding was called static, because it did not take into account the interaction of the various elements of a culture. Only if the ethnographic research is carried out upon all the elements and manifestations of a culture will it be possible for us to have an accurate and representative picture of the way in which the culture under study functions. In 1922, Bronislaw Malinowski, professor at the University of London, of Polish origin, published an interesting book entitled: Argonauts of the Western Pacific. In 1929, he also released another book called: The Sexual Life of Savages. In these books, Professor Malinowski describes in great detail a curious and precious custom to be found among the inhabitants of the Trobriand islands of the Western Pacific. The custom is called Kula. It consists of the ritual exchange of jewels between various tribes that inhabit those islands. This exchange, which is considered to have magical virtues too, is carried on in accordance with a custom the origin of which goes back to very ancient times. Its beginning is supposed to be found in the mythology of the tribes. The most characteristic aspect of this ritual exchange of jewelry is that it takes place between members of certain social classes, something that reveals the relations and the hierarchy existing among the members of the tribes taking part in the feast. A curious aspect too is that the exchange of jewels always follows the same round so that the exchanged articles eventually return to the place from which they originally came. The ceremony of the exchange of jewels is exceptionally impressive and is accompanied by the playing of music and by dances. As a result

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of the study of this custom Malinowski concluded that it was not possible to study any single element of a culture without taking into consideration what influence it has upon the culture as a whole. The ethnographic work of Malinowski was considerable and valuable, and thanks to him two basic principles of Ethnology were established. The first of these is that a culture is a living entity in which the different elements play a dynamic role and are related to one another in such a way that we cannot understand a single one of them without examining it in relation to all the others which contribute towards making up the characteristic traits of a culture. The purpose of this method is to explain the special characteristics of a culture by discovering its actual cultural identity. The second basic principle of Ethnology according to Malinowski is the following: Culture, as it appears in its principle form, is related to man's biological needs and seeks to satisfy them. Consequently, the various institutions that compose a culture have come into being in connection with the needs of man as a biological organism. The theories of Malinowski explain what basic biological needs must be satisfied by Culture in order for man to survive and be happy. There are thus seven basic human needs: (1) Metabolism, (2) Reproduction, (3) Bodily comforts, (4) Safety, (5) Movement, (6) Growth, and (7) Health. Culture satisfies these needs of man by the following corresponding cultural responses. (1) Commissariat, (2) Kinship, (3) Shelter, (4) Protection, (5) Activities, (6) Training, and (7) Hygiene. Human needs and their satisfaction, according to Malinowski, are culturally related as above in an organized fashion and as laid down by ancient custom, something that is inherited by each individual together with culture from the moment of his birth. As it is, in order to serve the satisfaction of the biological needs of man, Culture creates its own needs. Those needs, Malinowski calls INSTRUMENTAL or DERIVED needs. It must be emphasized that these needs are not biological, but that they originate directly from Culture itself. For instance, one such need is the way in which man must learn to find his food. Instrumental needs must be classified under four principal needs which Malinowski calls the instrumental imperatives of Culture. To these correspond four cultural responses by which these imperatives are satisfied. The instrumental imperatives of Culture are the following: (1) The cultural apparatus of implements and consumers' goods must be produced, used, maintained, and replaced by new production.

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(2) Human behaviour, as regards its technical, customary, legal, or moral prescription must be codified, regulated in action and sanction. (3) The human material by which every institution is maintained must be renewed, formed, drilled, and provided with full knowledge of tribal tradition. (4) Authority within each institution must be defined, equipped with powers and endowed with means of forceful execution of its orders. To these imperatives of culture, Malinowski considered that the following institutional responses corresponded: Economics, Social Control, Education and Political Organization. Let me go on now to speak to you of the scientific theory of Culture, to which I will add my own remarks and appreciations. In order to make myself better understood, I must analyse the subject more thoroughly and give you some diagrams. To begin with, let us imagine Culture as a model which we observe from on high, a complicated piece of machinery made up of material and spiritual substance, by which man endeavours to satisfy his various biological needs within the environment in which he lives. The process by which this satisfaction is obtained is that of perpetual adaptation. This knowledge gives us a sound basis. We have the biological fact that man must satisfy his organic needs and that precisely this circumstance imposes on all cultures, be they complex or simple, various elementary imperatives. In Table I, I have listed the permanent vital sequences incorporated in all cultures. The way basic biological human needs are satisfied within society leads to the creation of a secondary, fabricated environment, which we call Culture. Here, in Table II, you see the Basic Needs and the Cultural Responses which they evoke. This secondary, fabricated environment has, however, its own needs also, needs and imperatives which we call instrumental or derived. In Table III you see the imperatives of Culture and, corresponding to them the four, basic institutional responses. Culture functions in the following manner: The satisfaction of a need takes place thanks to an operation in which a number of people take part, in cooperation, making use of tools and consuming goods. The groups of people who are brought together in this way, constitute an institution. The scientific study of Culture thus concretely requires before anything else, the detailed and isolated examination of institutions.

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TABLE I

Basic vital A.

sequences1

B. Act

Impulse

1. Intake of oxygen

1. Drive to breathe; gasping for air 2. Hunger 3. Thirst 4. Sex appetite 5. Fatigue

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. Restlessness

6. Activity

7. Somnolence

7. Sleep

8. Bladder pressure 9. Colon pressure

8. Micturation 9. Defecation

10. Fright 11. Pain

1

C.

Ingestion of food Absorption of liquid Conjugation Rest

10. Escape from danger 11. Avoidance by effective act

Satisfaction

1. Elimination of CO2 in tissues 2. Satiation 3. Quenching 4. Detumescence 5. Restoration of energy 6. Satisfaction of fatigue 7. Awakening with restored energy 8. Removal of tension 9. Abdominal relaxation 10. Relaxation 11. Return to normal state

After Br. Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays, p. 77.

TABLE II 2

A . Basic 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

B. Cultural

Responses

Metabolism Reproduction Bodily Comforts

1. Commissariat 2. Kinship 3. Shelter

Safety Movement Growth

4. Protection 5. Activities

7. Health

2

Needs

6. Training 7. Hygiene

After Br. Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and. Other Essays, p. 91.

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A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF CULTURE TABLE III 3

B. Institutional Responses

A. Imperatives 1. The cultural apparatus of implements and consumers' goods must be produced, used, maintained, and replaced by new production.

1. Economics

2. Human behaviour, as regards its technical, customary, legal or moral prescription must be codified, regulated in action and sanction.

2. Social Control

3. The human material, by which every institution is maintained, must be renewed, formed, drilled, and provided with full knowledge of tribal tradition.

3. Education

4. Authority within each institution must be defined, equipped with powers, and endowed with means of forceful execution of its orders.

4. Political Organization

3

After Br. Malinowski, A Scientific

Theory of Culture and Other Essays, p. 129.

At this point I must add that the special study of Culture through the analysis of institutions does not keep one from studying the different aspects of Culture from the historical or geographical point of view. This, despite the contrary opinion of those who are partisans of the theories of the evolution of Culture, of the influence of environment and of the diffusion of Culture. On the contrary, by studying institutions, a new scientific basis is created for the foundation and the development of the above-mentioned theories. The contribution of Malinowski to the science of man was really very considerable. Thanks to him, anthropology took on a more concrete character. That distinguished scholar was the first to relate Culture with the bio-

A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF CULTURE

85

logical needs of man, which must be satisfied so that the human organism can survive. And he showed that this connection constitutes the basis of the complicated social organization through which Culture is created. Let me now refer to Table II. Although I agree in general with what stands there, I think that things could be simplified somewhat. In the left hand column, where the Basic Needs of man are given, I am of the opinion that these can be restricted to the following headings only: (1) Metabolism (2) Reproduction, and (3) Safety. I think that Bodily Comforts and Health can be included in the heading of Safety. This because, in my opinion, when the safety of the body is threatened, either by a criminal's weapon or by a deadly illness, there can exist in isolation neither health nor bodily comforts. In what concerns the sixth basic need of man, which is given here by the word Growth, I am of the opinion that this need is not basic, but relative or rather subjective. Movement is not a basic need either, because it is related mainly to Metabolism. Man, for instance, moves in order to procure food for himself. It can be said too that very often man does not want to move, he wants to rest; but there are biological needs that force him to get up and get a move on. If we now restrict the number of biological needs of man to, for instance, the needs of Metabolism, of Reproduction and of Safety, we must on the other hand limit the satisfaction of these through Culture, and to ascribe it only to Commissariat, Kinship and Protection. The last named, Protection, includes, in my opinion, the responses of Shelter, and Hygiene. In what concerns Activities and Training, these tire relative Cultural Responses, for the same reasons which I put forward to exclude Movement and Growth in the list of Basic Needs. Finally, I should like to add some new headings of essential importance to Table II, because I think that this is necessary. For instance, I would suggest that we supplement Reproduction with the sexual needs of man, which are something different really from actual reproduction of the species. I mean by this, that it often happens that the search for sexual satisfaction is not accompanied by a corresponding desire for offspring. There are many people who have a full sexual life without for that reason wanting to have children. On the contrary, they do all that they can to avoid having any. And now let me add one more Basic Need of man: Aggression.

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A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF CULTURE

Modern psychology has shown that man is moved by an innate instinct of aggression. To these two Basic Needs which I have added here, Sexuality and Aggression, correspond special social institutions for their satisfaction. To the first, there are many which are well known to you all, I am sure. With regard to Aggression, there are various social manifestations institutionalized for the satisfaction of this human instinct such as, among others, boxing matches, wrestling bouts, etc. The many aggressive games which exist in the schools, chiefly of Europe and America, serve the same purpose. On the other hand, crowds of people follow with great enthusiasm movie films which concern themselves with either police or gangster subjects only in order to satisfy their instinctual feelings of aggression. Millions of people also read with great gusto the accounts in the papers of various crimes. The publishers of daily news know full well that such accounts bring many readers. Perhaps they do not know, however, that in this way they bring satisfaction to the instinctual aggressive drives of each and every person who reads their papers, drives which are the only explanation of the greed with which such descriptions are read. Let me now give you my conclusions. It can be said that a scientific theory of Culture describes Culture as having the appearance of an enormous and complicated machine, which had both material and social foundations. The object of this hypothetical machine is the satisfaction of the basic needs of man, needs which are continuous and inexhaustable. It must be stressed, however, that these needs are often contradictory and in opposition to each other. For this reason the main task of Culture is to conciliate and to find a compromise between opposing needs. Consequently, the object of Culture is not simply the satisfaction of man's needs; it is also the COMBINING of the satisfactions of needs which are in opposition to one another. In the last analysis, Culture is thus a COMPROMISE between the opposing satisfactions which contradictory needs entail. By creating new, instrumental or derived needs, Culture at the same time creates new needs for man the number of which is endless. In other words, the adaptation of man to his environment is NEVER COMPLETE, but is always in need of something more in order to be considered satisfactory. This is precisely that incurrable, eternal, continuous and unsatisfactory need to adapt which is common to all living beings on this earth. The reason for this is, I think, that if things were other-

f

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wise, if man's needs could be satisfied completely and finally, this would bring about satiation, apathy, and with them, the end, that is to say, death. Consequently, the insufficient satisfaction of the needs of man is the principal drive within him, leading him to the interest, striving and restlessness of life. In my opinion, an ideal, complete anthropological study should include the following: To begin with, the deductions of biological research in order to note all the needs of man; following on this, a psychological study, which will give us the result of the adaptation of man to his environment, adaptation which can only take place in accordance with his mental capabilities; what is also needed is a special study of the environment in which man lives, that is to say a geographical study; it is necessary also to have a special study of how institutions function; finally, a study of the forms of culture based on its historical development. The sum total of such scientific endeavours would no doubt give us the ideal anthropological picture of a culture, but it has not been successfully tried, unfortunately, up to this day. Of course, many studies and research schemes are being made in that direction, and psychological and biological questions connected with the essence of human nature are being examined the whole time. But this scientific task, which is enormous, necessitates much knowledge and many means of every kind in order to be carried out. We must not forget that anthropology is relatively new in comparison with other branches of science. If today, anthropologists have not reached the high level of attainment that I have mentioned above, it is all the same certain that the day will come when the adepts of that science will bring into being that progress which is essential for the modernization of anthropology.

STUDIES IN GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGY

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DAVID BIDNEY, DELL HYMES, P. E. DE JOSSELIN DE JONG, EDMUND R. LEACH

David Bidney (ed.): The Concept of Freedom in Anthropology. 1963, 291 pp. Dgld. 32.— Dell Hymes (ed.): The Use of Computers in Anthropology. 1965. 558 pp., 46 figs. Dgld. 59.— Dell Hymes (ed.): Studies in Southwestern Ethnolinguistics. 1967. 464 pp., map. Dgld. 70.—

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