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CHAPTER LI
4816 words | Chapter 95
ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY
These two sciences are devoted to the study of mankind before written
history began; and they have an interest for every reader who has asked,
when he was a child and had a story told him: “What happened _before_
that?” In the chapter in this Guide on _Language and Writing_, we have
told the story of those two great inventions which made civilization
possible. The present chapter is devoted to the story of man before
writing was commonly used—that is, before historical documents could
exist.
Just as the study of children and their habits is something new and
peculiarly characteristic of the last generation, so these sciences of
anthropology and ethnology which deal with the childhood of the human
race are of recent origin. But in comparison with child-psychology these
two sciences are at a disadvantage in a very important respect: there
are always children to be studied, but the childhood of the race is long
past and remote from the student of it, save for the primitive tribes
which can still be observed, and even these tribes are now scattered and
few, and by contact with civilization they are rapidly losing the
characteristics which invite scientific study. A hundred years ago, the
opportunities for experiment and observation were far greater, but at
that time savages were not seriously studied. There could, indeed, be no
“science of man” before the evolutionary theory of Darwin, Wallace and
Huxley had been generally accepted. Throughout this Guide we see how
this theory has affected all our modern thought, modified our sciences,
and even created new sciences. The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica may, indeed, be described as the authoritative and
interesting story of the human activities, critically studied from the
point of view of evolution. The trustworthy material is chiefly derived
from observations in Australia, in the South Seas, among the North
American Indians and among the still savage tribes of Africa, and from
studies of the tools and other remains of early peoples. All broad
conclusions must be based upon the similarity of customs among races
widely separated by time and place, and upon the fact that some traces
of such customs are still found among more highly civilized peoples.
The first article in a course of reading on the “science of man” in the
Britannica is ANTHROPOLOGY (Vol. 2, p. 108), equivalent to 40 pages in
this Guide, illustrated, by Prof. Tylor, of Oxford University, one of
the founders of the science, and author of _Researches into the Early
History of Mankind_, _Primitive Culture_, etc.
[Sidenote: Man’s Origin]
This great article deals first with “man’s place in Nature,” the most
interesting branch of the theory of evolution. Prof. Tylor traces back
the recognition of man’s structural similarity to the higher apes to
Linnaeus (1735) and to the less scientific Lord Monboddo (1774 and
1778), whose simple literary style as well as his theory of the descent
of man aroused the amusement and scorn of Dr. Samuel Johnson, who said
that Monboddo was “as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.”
Dr. Tylor remarks that:
There are few ideas more ingrained in ancient and low civilization
than that of relationship by descent between the lower animals and
man. Savage and barbaric religions recognize it, and the mythology of
the world has hardly a more universal theme. But in educated Europe
such ideas had long been superseded by the influence of theology and
philosophy, with which they seemed too incompatible.
But in 1843 Dr. J. C. Prichard, to whom Tylor gives the title that many
would give to Tylor himself, “founder of modern anthropology,” insisted
that
man is but an animal ... composed of the same materials, and framed on
the same principles, as the creatures which he has tamed to be the
servile instruments of his will, or slays for his daily food.
Dr. Tylor shows how Wallace and Darwin established a theory of human
descent, and sums up the similarities and dissimilarities in anatomical
construction between man and the man-like apes. Even more interesting is
what the article says (p. 110) about “assigning to man his place in
nature on psychological grounds.”
Huxley acknowledged an immeasurable and practically infinite
divergence, ending in the present enormous psychological gulf between
ape and man. It is difficult to account for this intellectual chasm as
due to some minor structural difference.... Beyond a doubt, man
possesses, and in some way possesses by virtue of his superior brain,
a power of co-ordinating the impressions of his senses, which enables
him to understand the world he lives in, and by understanding to use,
resist, and even in a measure rule it. No human art shows the nature
of this human attribute more clearly than does language
—although other animals have a sort of language. The article quotes Dr.
A. Russel Wallace’s conclusion that man stands “apart, as not only the
head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as
in some degree a new and distinct order of being.” And another great
anatomist, Prof. St. George Mivart, says “Man’s animal body must have
had a different source from that of the spiritual soul which informs it,
owing to the distinctness of the two orders to which these existences
severally belong.” Dr. Tylor, in citing these authorities, adds that
“man embodies an immaterial and immortal, spiritual principle which no
lower creature possesses, and which makes the resemblance of the apes to
him but a mocking simulance.”
The answer to the question “How did man originate?” depends on the
answer to the question “How did species originate?” The main points are
summed up in the article ANTHROPOLOGY (on p. 112), which also deals with
the fossil remains of man, especially skulls, and their bearing on the
question. A more detailed discussion will be found in the articles
EVOLUTION (Vol. 10, p. 22) and SPECIES (Vol. 25, p. 616).
[Sidenote: Races of Man]
The classification of man into different races is the topic next taken
up by Dr. Tylor in the article ANTHROPOLOGY, and he deals particularly
with classification by the “facial angle” (on which see also the article
CRANIOMETRY, Vol. 7, p. 372). Different classifications are criticized
and the article decides that “Huxley’s division probably approaches more
nearly than any other to such a tentative classification as may be
accepted.... He distinguishes four principal types of mankind, the
Australioid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Xanthochroic (fair whites), adding a
fifth variety, the Melanchroic (dark whites).” That races are not
species, zoologically, is made plain by the fact that the offspring of
parents of different races are fertile—those of different species being
infertile.
[Sidenote: Antiquity of Man]
One of the questions connected with the origin of man is his antiquity.
The Biblical chronology, as commonly reckoned and interpreted, allowed a
time since the appearance of the original stock which seemed far too
short for the apparent variation from the original species (see
CHRONOLOGY, Vol. 6, p. 305). The natural sciences, notably geology, have
“made it manifest that our earth must have been the seat of vegetable
and animal life for an immense period of time; while the first
appearance of man, though comparatively recent, is positively so remote,
that an estimate between twenty and a hundred thousand years may fairly
be taken as a minimum.” This geological claim is supported by the
evidence of prehistoric archaeology (see the article ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol.
2, p. 344). In the caves of France and Belgium human bones have been
found with the remains of fossil species of elephant, rhinoceros, hyena,
bear, etc., and “the co-existence of man with a fauna now extinct or
confined to other districts was brought to yet clearer demonstration by
the discovery in these caves of certain drawings and carvings of the
animals done by the ancient inhabitants themselves, such as a group of
reindeer on a piece of reindeer horn, and a sketch of a mammoth, showing
the elephant’s long hair, on a piece of a mammoth’s tusk from La
Madeleine.” See Fig. 7, Plate facing p. 118, Vol. 2; the figures of the
reindeer and mammoth, hairy and with upturned tusks, in Plate II,
article ARCHAEOLOGY (following p. 348, Vol. 2); and of the reindeer in
Plate I (Vol. 19, p. 462), and the old cave paintings of wild boars and
bison from Altamira, reproduced in colour on Plate II, the next page.
These paintings, marking by their technical excellence a high stage of
art if not of civilization, are said by geologists to date back 50,000
years. The student will be repaid for turning a moment from the article
ANTHROPOLOGY and the question of the antiquity of man to the article
[Sidenote: Cave-Dwellers] CAVE (Vol. 5, p. 573), by the eminent
archaeologist, W. Boyd Dawkins, and the author of _Cave-hunting_ and
_Early Man in Britain_. He reconstructs the civilization of the
inhabitants of the pleistocene caves of the European continent (p. 576),
describes the carvings and drawings of which we have just spoken, and
says of the cave-dwellers:
If these remains be compared with those of existing races, it will be
found that the cave-men were in the same hunter stage of civilization
as the Eskimos, and that they are unlike any other races of hunters.
If they were not allied to the Eskimos by blood, there can be no doubt
that they handed down to the latter their art and their manner of
life. The bone needles, and many of the harpoons, as well as the flint
spearheads, arrowheads and scrapers, are of precisely the same form as
those now in use amongst the Eskimos. The artistic designs from the
caves of France, Belgium and Switzerland, are identical in plan and
workmanship with those of the Eskimos.... The reindeer, which they
both knew, is represented in the same way by both. The practice of
accumulating large quantities of the bones of animals round their
dwelling-places, and the habit of splitting the bones for the sake of
the marrow, are the same in both. The hides were prepared with the
same sort of instruments, and the needles with which they were sewn
together are of the same pattern. The stone lamps were used by both.
In both there was the same disregard for sepulture. All these facts
can hardly be mere coincidences caused by both peoples leading a
savage life under similar conditions. The conclusion, therefore, seems
inevitable that, so far as we have any evidence of the race to which
the cave-dwellers belong, that evidence points only in the direction
of the Eskimos. It is to a considerable extent confirmed by a
consideration of the animals found in the caves. The reindeer and musk
sheep afford food to the Eskimos now in the Arctic Circle, just as
they afforded it to the cave-men in Europe; and both these animals
have been traced by their remains from the Pyrenees to the north-east
through Europe and Asia as far as the very regions in which they now
live. The mammoth and bison also have been tracked by their remains in
the frozen river gravels and morasses through Siberia as far as the
American side of Bering Strait. Palaeolithic man appeared in Europe
with the arctic mammalia, lived in Europe with them, and in all human
probability retreated to the north-east along with them.
The antiquity of man may be estimated also by the time it must have
taken to deposit the soil that overlies traces of civilization,—for
instance in Egypt where pottery is found 60 feet deep, while inundations
from the Nile probably have not averaged more than a few inches in a
century. “The most recent work of Egyptologists proves a systematic
civilization to have existed in the valley of the Nile at least 6000 to
7000 years ago.” Similar testimony is given by examining the
lake-dwellings of Switzerland and the kitchen middens of Denmark. On
these see the articles LAKE DWELLINGS (Vol. 16, p. 91), by Joseph
Anderson, keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, and
SHELL-HEAPS (Vol. 24, p. 832). The latter article, in a description of
the middens of Denmark, says:
Among the bones were those of the wild bull or aurochs, beaver, seal
and great auk, all now extinct or rare in this region. Moreover, a
striking proof of the antiquity of these shell-heaps is that they
contain full-sized shells of the common oyster, which cannot live at
present in the brackish waters of the Baltic except near its entrance,
the inference being that the shores where the oyster at that time
flourished were open to the salt sea.
The article on LAKE DWELLINGS brings out very clearly the fact that
this, like other early stages of development, is to be found at widely
different periods of time: in Switzerland, thousands of years ago; in
Scotland and Ireland (see also the article CRANNOG, Vol. 7, p. 377)
during the Christian era; and in New Guinea and Central Africa within
the last few years. This is in accordance with the fact that the human
race has not “matured” with equal rapidity all over the earth—that even
now one race is in infancy, another in childhood, another in a
transition stage like adolescence, and another in the prime of
civilization.
[Sidenote: Language]
Returning to the article ANTHROPOLOGY, the next topic treated is
Language. The more important points on this subject are stated in
another chapter of this part of the Guide, on _Language and Writing_.
Dr. Tylor says:
For all that known dialects prove to the contrary, on the one hand,
there may have been one primitive language, from which the descendant
languages have varied so widely, that neither their words nor their
formation now indicate their unity in long past ages, while, on the
other hand, the primitive tongues of mankind may have been numerous,
and the extreme unlikeness of such languages as Basque, Chinese,
Peruvian, Hottentot and Sanskrit may arise from absolute independence
of origin. The language spoken by any tribe or nation is not of itself
absolute evidence as to its race-affinities. This is clearly shown in
extreme cases. Thus the Jews in Europe have almost lost the use of
Hebrew, but speak as their vernacular the language of their adopted
nation, whatever it may be.... In most or all nations of mankind,
crossing or intermarriage of races has taken place between the
conquering invader and the conquered native, so that the language
spoken by the nation may represent the results of conquest as much or
more than of ancestry.... On the other hand, the language of the
warlike invader or peaceful immigrant may yield, in a few generations,
to the tongue of the mass of the population, as the Northman’s was
replaced by the French, and modern German gives way to English in the
United States.
[Sidenote: Development of Civilization]
The last general topic in the article ANTHROPOLOGY is Development of
Civilization. In connection with it the student should read the article
CIVILIZATION (Vol. 6, p. 403), by Dr. H. S. Williams, editor-in-chief of
_The Historian’s History of the World_, and particularly the first part
of it dealing with early times.
[Sidenote: Ethnology]
The comparatively brief article ETHNOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY (Vol. 9, p.
849) takes up the story of man’s progress at the point where
ANTHROPOLOGY stops, and deals particularly with the division of mankind
into separate races. Was pleistocene man specifically one? The evidence
to supply an answer to this question is of three kinds: anatomical,
physiological and cultural and psychical. Human bones from this early
period “show differences so slight as to admit of pathological or other
explanation,” and do not prove that there were separate species. The
physiological answer, that there was only one species, is given and
explained in the article ANTHROPOLOGY: species cannot breed with
species, and hybrids are infertile. The third answer is also in the
negative. “The works of early man everywhere present the most startling
resemblance.” Dr. J. C. Prichard is quoted in the article as saying that
the same inward and mental nature is to be recognized in all races of
men. When we compare this fact with the observations, fully
established, as to the specific instincts and separate psychical
endowments of all the distinct tribes of sentient beings in the
universe we are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion that all
human races are of one species and one family.
If man was specifically one, where did he originate and how did he
spread over the world? “As to man’s cradle-land there have been many
theories, but the weight of evidence is in favour of Indo-Malaysia.” The
problem of distribution “has been met by geology, which proves that the
earth’s surface has undergone great changes since man’s appearance, and
that continents, long since submerged, once existed, making a complete
land communication from Indo-Malaysia.... Proofs no less cogent are
available of the former existence of an Eurafrican continent, while the
extension of Australia in the direction of New Guinea is more than
probable.... The western hemisphere was probably connected with Europe
and Asia, in Tertiary times.” The article ETHNOLOGY closes with a
description of the four divisions of the human race proposed by Huxley,
which have already been enumerated.
Separate articles supplementing these two main articles, ANTHROPOLOGY
and ETHNOLOGY, especially in the field of comparative anatomy, are:
ANTHROPOMETRY (Vol. 2, p. 119) for physical measurements, including the
Bertillon system used to identify criminals; BRACHYCEPHALIC (Vol. 4, p.
366), or short-headed, a term applied to Indo-Chinese, Savoyards,
Croatians, Lapps, etc.; DOLICHOCEPHALIC (Vol. 8, p. 388), or
long-headed, like Eskimos, negroes, etc.; MESOCEPHALIC (Vol. 18, p.
179), for the type between the two; PROGNATHISM (Vol. 22, p. 424), for
jaw protrusion; CRANIOMETRY (Vol. 7, p. 372) and CEPHALIC INDEX (Vol. 5,
p. 684), for the measurement of skulls and heads; STEATOPYGIA (Vol. 25,
p. 860), for a peculiar heaviness of hips found in some negro and other
savage peoples; MONOGENISTS (Vol. 18, p. 730), on the theory that all
men are descended from a common original stock; and POLYGENISTS (Vol.
22, p. 24) on the opposite theory.
[Sidenote: North American Indians]
One of the most elaborate ethnological articles in the Britannica is of
particular interest to Americans, that on INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN (Vol.
14, p. 452), by Dr. A. F. Chamberlain, professor of anthropology, Clark
University, Worcester, Mass. It is equivalent to more than 100 pages of
this Guide, and there are also scores of brief articles on different
North American Indian tribes. A few, only, of the many interesting
topics treated in it may be mentioned:
The name “American Indians”—due to the mistaken early belief that the
New World was a part of Asia. “Amerind” a suggested substitute.
Various uses of “Indian.” French “sauvage” the original of “Siwash.”
Popular fallacies of the origin of the Indians—Welsh, “lost Ten
Tribes,” etc.
Linguistic stocks. Table of languages. General description;
varied character; enormous compound words, like
_deyeknonhsedehrihadasterasterahetakwa_ for “stove-polish.”
Indian literature.
Migrations of Indian stocks. Tabular conspectus of 180
tribes—situation and population, degree of intermixture, condition and
progress, and authorities on each.
Population, physical characteristics, race mixture.
Culture, arts, industries, religion, mythology and games.
Social organization, contact of Indians and whites, Indian wars,
missions, Indian talent and capacity, syllabaries invented by Indians.
In addition to the articles on Indian tribes there are many on Indian
notables—for example, PONTIAC, TECUMSEH, KING PHILIP, BLACK HAWK, BRANT,
and SITTING BULL.
[Sidenote: Central America]
Interest in the Indians of Central America, popularly called Aztecs, is
rather archaeological than ethnological. See in the Britannica the
article CENTRAL AMERICA (Vol. 5, p. 677), by Dr. Walter Lehmann,
directorial assistant of the Royal Ethnological Museum, Munich; and the
article AMERICA, _Ethnology and Archaeology_ (Vol. 1, p. 810), by O. T.
Mason, late curator, Department of Anthropology, National Museum,
Washington, dealing with the Indians of North, Central and South America
in general. The other principal articles on races or tribes of unusual
ethnographic importance are:
NEGRO (Vol. 14, p. 344), by Thomas Athol Joyce, assistant in the
Department of Ethnography, British Museum,—with a section on the negro
in the United States, by Walter F. Willcox, late chief statistician,
United States Census Bureau; supplemented by AFRICA, _Ethnology_ (Vol.
1, p. 325), by Mr. T. A. Joyce, with a particularly valuable classified
list (p. 329) of African tribal distribution, which may be made the
basis for further study by reference to articles on the separate tribes,
such as BERBERS, KABYLES, MZABITES, TUAREG, etc.
POLYNESIA (Vol. 22, p. 33) for the Polynesian race; and also SAMOA (Vol.
24, p. 115) and HAWAII (Vol. 13, p. 83)
AUSTRALIA, _Aborigines_ (Vol. 2, p. 954) and _Maori_. The following is a
list in alphabetical order of articles on races or tribes:
Ababda
Abipones
Abnaki
Aborigines
Acholi
Afars (Danakil)
Agaiambo
Ahom
Aht
Ahtena
Aimak, or Eimak
Ainu
Akka
Alfuros
Algonquin
Alur
Amarar
Anti, or Campa
Apache
Apalachee
Arabs
Arapaho
Araucanians
Arawak
Areoi
Arikara, or Aricara
Artega
Ashraf (Shurefa)
Assiniboin
Athapascan
Attacapa
Awadia and Fadnia
Aymara
Aztecs
Babu
Badagas
Baggára
Bakalai
Bakhtiári
Ba-Kwiri
Ba-Luba
Bambute
Banate
Bangash
Barabra
Bari
Bashkirs
Basques
Battakhin
Battanni
Battas
Batwa
Bazigars
Bechuana
Bedouins
Beja, or Bija
Bellabella
Bellacoola, or Bilqula
Beni-Amer
Beni-Israel
Beothuk
Berbers
Bertat
Bhattiana
Bhils, or Bheels
Bimana
Bisharin
Blackfoot
Boer
Bogos (Bilens)
Bois Brûlés
Bongo
Botocudos
Bozdar
Brahui
Bugis
Bugti
Buriats
Bushmen
Caddo
Cagots
Cahita
Cahokia
Cakchiquel
Calchaqui
Caribs
Cashibo, or Carapache
Catauxi
Catawbas
Celt
Chamkanni
Changos
Charrua
Chechenzes
Chellian
Cheremisses
Cherokee
Cheyenne
Chickasaws
Chimesyan
Chinook
Chiquitos
Choctaws
Cholones
Chude
Chukchi
Chuncho
Chuvashes
Circassia
Cocoma, or Cucamas
Coeur d’Alêne
Comanches
Conestoga
Conibos
Copts
Cree
Creek Indians
Crow Indians
Cunas
Curetus
Czech
Dawari; or Dauri
Delaware Indians
Dinka
Dogra
Dravidian
Dualla
Duk-Duk
Durani
Dyaks
Engis
Eskimo
Ewe
Falashas
Fang
Fanti
Fellah
Fiji
Fingo, or Fengu
Finno-Ugrian
Flatheads
Fox Indians
Fula
Funj
Furfooz
Galchas
Gallas
Gararish
Ghilzai
Gilyaks
Gipsies
Golds
Gonaguas
Gros Ventres
Guanches
Guaranis
Guatos
Guatusos
Guaycurus
Gumus
Hababs
Hadendoa
Haida
Hakkas
Hamitic Races
Harratin
Hassania
Hausa
Hawawir
Hazara
Heroro, or Ovaherero
Hindki
Hipurnias
Hiung-nu
Hopi
Hottentots
Hova
Huambisas
Huastecs
Huichol
Huron
Indians, North American
Iquitos
Iroquois
Irulas
Itza
Ja’alin
Jakuns
Jats
Jeveros
Jibitos
Jicarilla
Juangs
Jur (Diur)
Juris
Kabbabish
Kabyles
Kaffirs
Kakar
Kalapuya
Kalispel
Kalkas
Kanaka
Kanuri (Beriberi)
Kara-Kalpaks
Karen
Kashubes
Kavirondo
Kaw (Kansa)
Kayasth
Khamtis
Khattak
Khazars
Khevsurs
Khonds
Kickapoo
Kiowas
Kirghiz
Klamath
Koch
Kolis
Kols
Korkus
Koryaks
Kotas
Krumen
Kubus
Kumyks
Kunbis
Kurumbas
Kusan
Kutenai
Kwakiutl
Laos
Lascar
Latuka
Legas
Lepcha
Lipan
Lolos
Madi
Mahar
Mahrattas
Makalaka
Makaraka
Malays
Mandan
Mandingo
Maneteneris
Mangbettu
Manyema
Maori
Marianas
Mariposan
Maroons
Marri
Masai
Mashona
Metabele
Maya
Mayoruna
Menangkabos
Mensa and Marea
Meshcheryaks
Meyrifab
Miami
Miaotsze
Micmac
Mikirs
Mishmi (tribe)
Modoc
Mohave
Mohawk
Mohican
Mohmand
Monassir
Montagnais
Moors
Moplah
Mordvinians
Moxos
Mpongwe (Pongos)
Mundas
Mundrucus
Muras
Musa Khel
Muskhogean Stock
Mzabites, or Beni-Mzab
Nahuatlan Stock
Namasudra
Nandi
Navaho, or Navajo
Nayar, or Nair
Negritos
Negro
Nez Percés
Niam-Niam
Nuer
Oerlams
Ojibway
Omaguas
Omahas
Oneida
Onondaga
Opata
Orakzai
Oraons
Ostiaks
Ottawa
Papuans
Pariah (caste)
Parsees
Pathan (people)
Pawnee
Penobscot
Pequot
Petchenegs
Pima
Polabs
Ponca
Pondo
Potawatami
Povindah
Prabhu (caste)
Pueblo Indians
Puelche
Pygmy
Quiché, or Kichés
Quichua
Rajput
Riffians
Ruthenians
Sahos
Sakai
Salishan
Samoyedes
Santals
Semang
Seminole
Seneca
Serers
Shagia
Shangalla
Shans
Shawnee
Sherani, or Shirani
Shilluh
Shilluk
Shinwari
Shukria
Sienetjo
Sikh
Sioux
Slavs
Slovaks
Slovenes
Songhoi
Sorbs
Swahili
Syryenians
Tajik
Talaing
Tamils
Tarkani
Tatars
Tehuelche
Tembu
Tibbu, or Tebu
Todas
Toltecs
Troglodytes
Tshi
Tuareg
Tukulor (Tuculers)
Tunguses
Tupis
Turi
Turki
Turkoman
Turks
Tuscarora
Uighur
Unyamwezi
Ustarana
Ute (Utah)
Utman Khel
Vaalpens
Veddahs
Wa
Wichita
Wochua
Wolof (Woloff, Jolof)
Wyandot (Huron)
Yaos
Yusafzai
Zaimukht
Zaparos
Zenaga
Zenata
[Sidenote: Terminology]
The technical terms of nearly every science are words coined from Latin
and Greek roots, so that the student of these languages is at an
advantage in learning any science—its terms have some meaning to him no
matter how strange the science itself. But in anthropology and ethnology
we come across such terms as _taboo_, _totem_, _shaman_ and _manitou_.
For their comprehension Latin and Greek give no aid. Each of these terms
comes into English from the language of a primitive people to convey an
idea at once too primitive and too complex to be expressed by any
English word or by a Greek or Latin compound. “Taboo” is a Malay word
meaning both “unclean” (as that word is used in the Old Testament) and
“sacred”; and the idea it conveys is characteristic of the religious and
social system found among the Polynesians and nearly all other peoples
in a comparatively low stage of civilization, which sets persons or
things apart as sacred or accursed. “Totem” is a Chippewa (North
American Indian) word denoting an animal, plant, or other object chosen
as the name of a whole family or tribal division. The word “shaman”
comes from the Ural-Altaic (Tungus), and means “medicine-man,” a
combination of priest, magician and exorcist. “Manitou” is another North
American word meaning “spirit” or “genius.”
[Sidenote: Taboo and Totem]
The practice of taboo and totemism, although one word comes to us from
the South Seas and the other from the American Indians, is found all
over the less civilized world, and—even more important—it explains many
things in the social and religious life of more civilized communities.
For instance, the account by modern students of Greek and Roman religion
has had to be largely rewritten in the light of what we have learned in
the last two generations about taboo and totemism.
The articles TABOO (Vol. 26, p. 337) and TOTEMISM (Vol. 27, p. 79) are
both by Andrew Lang, author of _Custom and Myth_ and other standard
works on folk-lore. It is unnecessary to outline these two articles
here, as the two words have been defined, and the importance of the
subject suggested. The reader should refer to the article on ANDREW LANG
(Vol. 16, p. 171), in which it is said that “he explained the irrational
elements of mythology as survivals from earlier savagery....” idealized
“savage animism ... maintained the existence of high spiritual ideas
among savage races, and instituted comparisons between savage practices
and the occult phenomena among civilized races.” His appreciation of the
culture of the savage and his remarkably interesting style should induce
the student to read Lang’s other and related articles in the Britannica,
especially:
FAMILY (Vol. 10, p. 158), (equivalent to 27 pages of this Guide),
dealing particularly with the question of marriage as related to
totemism, and the practices of marrying only _out_ of the tribe or
totem, and of marrying only _within_ the totem (see the articles
ENDOGAMY and EXOGAMY, MATRIARCHATE, POLYANDRY, POLYGAMY, LEVIRATE and
COUVADE).
NAME (Vol. 19, p. 157), which discusses the relation of the name to the
totem, the strange primitive custom of the individual’s having many
names and concealing his true name, etc.; and also the articles FAIRY
(Vol. 10, p. 134) and MYTHOLOGY (Vol. 19, p. 128).
[Sidenote: Religion]
For special forms of superstition, read the articles MAGIC, SHAMANISM,
WITCHCRAFT, DEMONOLOGY and LYCANTHROPY, and in the field of religion,
RELIGION, _Primitive_ (Vol. 23, p. 63), by R. R. Marett, of Oxford
University, author of _The Threshold of Religion_, etc. This article
puts particular stress on the importance of ritual in early religion.
Compare also the matter, already mentioned, on religion in the article
on North American Indians with the short articles MANITOU (Vol. 17, p.
568) and GHOST DANCE (Vol. 11, p. 925). Besides, the student should road
ORDEAL (Vol. 20, p. 173), PRAYER (Vol. 22, p. 256), RITUAL (Vol. 23, p.
370), SACRIFICE (Vol. 23, p. 980), ANIMISM (Vol. 2, p. 53), on the
attempt to explain religion as due to the fear and worship of ghosts—and
FETISHISM (Vol. 10, p. 295), by N. W. Thomas, government anthropologist
to Southern Nigeria; ANCESTOR-WORSHIP (Vol. 1, p. 945), FUNERAL RITES
(Vol. 11, p. 329) and PURIFICATION (Vol. 22, p. 660), all by Dr. F. C.
Conybeare, author of _Myth, Magic and Morals_, etc.; TREE-WORSHIP (Vol.
27, p. 235) and SERPENT-WORSHIP (Vol. 24, p. 676), both bearing on
totemism, by S. A. Cook, author of _Religion of Ancient Palestine_, etc.
[Sidenote: Biographical Study]
A course of reading on anthropology may well close with the study in the
Britannica of the lives of some leaders in this science. The student
will thus be familiarized with the theories of each great
anthropologist—and will notice the manifold appeal of the science by
seeing from what point each approached it—one from his interest in
geology, another from travel, a third because of his studies in surgery
or biology, another as a psychologist.
Avebury, 1st Baron
Bandelier, Adolph F. A.
Bastian, Adolf
Brasseur de Bourbourg, C. E.
Brinton, D. G.
Broca, Paul
Catlin, George
Christy, Henry
Dawkins, William Boyd
Deniker, Joseph
Fletcher, Alice C.
Hale, Horatio
Hodgson, B. H.
Lartet, Edouard
M’Lennan, John F.
Mantegazza, Paolo
Morgan, Lewis Henry
Mortillet, L. L. G. de
Prichard, James Cowles
Schoolcraft, H. R.
Tylor, Edward B.
Wagner, Rudolf
Waltz, Theodor
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