CLARITY RANKING:  2

SARAH E. WICKSTROM University of Wyoming, Laramie (Lin Poyer)

Hammer, Muriel.     Some Comments on the Formal Analysis of Grammatical and Semantic Systems. American Anthropology April, 1966 Vol. 68(2): 362-373.

Muriel Hammer’s article examines the validity of linguistic analysis, both formal and empirical. Hammer considers the formal analysis of language from two perspectives. First the perspective of the native speaker, and second the perspective of the alien analyst. Hammer examines the works of Wallace (1962) on componential analysis, and Chomsky (1957) on generative grammar to illustrate open and closed systems, and formal verses empirical analysis.

First, Hammer is not convinced of Chomsky’s contention that languages observe a finite set of rules, and the rules used by the native speaker are the best analytic tool for grammatical understanding. Hammer maintains the languages are in fact not static entities, but are continuously changing, and the native speaker is continuously adapting and is therefore an inappropriate source for formal grammatical evaluation.

Second, Hammer examines Wallace’s contention that rules for languages are undetermined since every conceivable situation has not taken place under every conceivable scenario. Wallace maintains that a "psychological reality" of how people process and convey information is not clearly defined. Wallace suggests that componential analysis of rules can correspond to a "psychological reality".

Hammer’s article examines the problems and questions that arise when analyzing grammatical and semantic systems. Hammer suggests that to study semantics, is to gain an understanding of the way meaning is encoded in language. Formal semantic analysis includes not only the words themselves, but also the relationship that words have with the ideas and concepts they describe. Hammer goes on to the suggest that a formal analysis of grammatical and semantic systems must realize that semantic knowledge is not identical to ideas and concepts, but is instead the knowledge of what meanings are of linguistic relevance in a particular language. Hammer calls for the formal and empirical analysis of language in order to garner a better understanding of various languages.

This article will be of interest to individuals conducting linguistic analyses, both formal and empirical. Hammer’s article examines how analytical procedures can affect the outcome of research being conducted.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

JOSEPH DANIELE University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Harris, Marvin, and George Morren.     The Limitations of the Principle of Limited Possibilities. American Anthropologist February, 1966 Vol. 68 (1): 122-127

Marvin Harris and George Morren critique the principle of limited possibilities as used by George Murdock in his 1959 article "Evolution in Social Organization". The principle of limited possibilities states that many societies independently arrive at the same way of doing things (such as kinship systems) simply because there is only a certain number of logical ways in which things can be done. Murdock is drawing on the intellectual roots of Alexander Goldenweiser who, in 1913, first presented the principle of limited possibilities to Franz Boas, Robert Lowie, and Radin. The principle, as first described by Goldenweiser, was used by these three in an argument going on in the early 20^th century over diffusion versus independent convergence. Lowie, especially, believed that independent convergence was the more likely choice in the argument, and that the principle of limited possibilities was the driving force that best explained the presence of similar cultural traits in geographically disparate areas, among genetically and culturally unrelated groups. Murdock later uses this principle in his description of kinship systems. Murdock looks at 447 societies in use across the globe and shows that only five kinship systems were present among all of the cultural groups studied. Murdock feels that this large differentiation can be explained by the principle of limited possibilities, and that this convergence into such a small number is both "fortuitous" and "unpredictable". Harris and Morren, on the other hand, believe that the application of simple logic to describe institutions such as kinship systems is lacking in logic itself. According to the authors, one must view the convergence of societies as the biocultural choices of different groups of people, all of whom are influenced by different factors and who are responding to different needs.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

WARREN VAUGHAN University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Haugen, Einar.     Dialect, Language, Nation. American Anthropologist August, 1966 Vol. 68(4): 922-935.

National languages offer people membership and an identity within that nation. In this context, Haugen argues that language is no longer just an instrument of communication, but it is a symbol of the identity of social status among its users. The steps in the development of a national standardized language form a matrix within which it is possible to contemplate all the problems of language and dialect of a nation.

Haugen suggests that the terms "language" and "dialect" are surrounded by ambiguity and obscurity, and therefore, hamper the identification and enumeration of languages. The term language can refer to a single linguistic norm or a group of related norms. In a diachronic sense, language can also refer to a common language on its way to dissolution or a common language resulting from unification. A dialect refers to a related norm that is compromised under the general term language and historically is the result of divergence or convergence. Language is always the superordinate term and dialect the subordinate term. In other words, every dialect is a language, but not every language is a dialect.

Language serves a social function beyond the function of communication. A dialect is a language that is excluded from the social norm. The language of the upper classes is established as the correct form of expression. Haugen further argues that language and dialect have both structural and functional uses. Within the structural use of language and dialect, the important consideration is genetic relationships between the speech forms of the speakers. Within the functional use of language and dialect, the important consideration is the use of the speakers’ codes. A language is therefore a superposed norm and a medium of communication between speakers of different dialects.

Haugen suggests that language performs an important function within society other than communication. Nation and language have become inextricably intertwined. Every self-respecting nation has a fully developed language, not just a dialect. This function of language encourages internal cohesion, but also external distinction. Dialects are potential disruptive forces in a unified nation. The process of the standardization of a language within a nation is intimately tied to the history of the nation itself. Language becomes a vehicle and a symbol of a nation’s unity as people develop a sense of cohesion. Haugen claims codification and elaboration are the ideal goals of a standard language. Codification refers to the ability of speakers and listeners to communicate with one another without misunderstandings. Elaboration refers to the ability of a language to meet the complex needs of a variety of communities. Within any standard language, functional dialects provide wealth and diversity and ensure that the stability of the norm has an element of elasticity. Haugen argues that a complete language has formal and informal styles, regional dialects, and jargons. These are diversified in function, but also show a degree of solidarity with one another.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

SHANNA COX: University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Hickerson, Harold.     The Genesis of Bilaterality Among Two Divisions of Chippewa. American Anthropologist February, 1966 Vol.68(1):1-26.

Hickerson holds that the social organization of Northern and Southern Chippewa resulted from circumstances dependent on differing intertribal and ecological conditions existing in each. Both moved from a unilineal to bilateral system during the historical period. Hickerson explores the ways in which this transition occurred.

Hickerson discusses how previous reports of social organization failed to acknowledge the variety of practices employed by the highly acculturated and widely dispersed Chippewa communities. Without thorough consideration of historical context, time frame, level of acculturation, geographic separation, and a changing economy-ecology, a contradictory picture of Chippewa social organization resulted. Hickerson declares that these people have been bilocal and bilateral for 250 years, and evidence to the contrary represents "survivals."

He proposes two scenarios. Geographically separated, the Southern Chippewa adopted bilaterality by merging their bands, whereas the Northern Chippewa transition was a result of the fragmentation of their bands. Northern bilaterality is the result of the reduction of socioeconomic systems, and Southern bilaterality results from the expansion of socioeconomic systems.

Southern Chippewa organization is highly influenced by a more abundant resource base and by the reservation experience. Prior to the reservation period a proto-bilateral organization was beginning to form at the village level. Throughout the 1736-1850 migration period, Southern Chippewa communities abandoned traditional forms of division. Traditionally, fragmentation occurred as lineages split from clans, remaining unilineal and becoming their own entity. During the migration period, bilaterally organized hunting bands split from the village to work trap lines. Because the area was more equipped to serve the socioeconomic demands of the fur trade, a village and hunting band system could be maintained. When these bands were brought together, bilateral organization became the dominant sociopolitical form. The Southern Chippewa became competitive. As the fur-trade waned and the outside world encroached, the Southern Chippewa lost land and were resigned to reservations. This experience resulted in the disintegration of the bilateral village –the extended family household eroded to the nuclear family; the contemporary socioeconomic unit among Southern Chippewa.

The Northern variety continues to be influenced by the effects of their role in the fur trade industry and is particularly tied to a paucity of resources. Historically, strong social and religious sanctions enforced a family hunting territory system. Engaging the fur trade, in an area with sparse fur-bearing game, the Northern Chippewa were obliged to "rove from place to place." Decline in an already elusive supply of game, plus "wide-scale endogamy, resulted in the scattering of small social groups." These Northern communities began to isolate themselves. The Hudson’s Bay Company began supplying food from regular stores. Mobile confederations of Northern Chippewa nuclear families "settled" around trading posts, and their populations increased. Patrilocal residence increased because traplines were worked by the men, and served as a landholding and source of inheritance.

In this article Hickerson identifies evidence of pre-contact unilinear organization, while focusing on the different histories of the two divisions that resulted in the genesis of bilaterality in both.

CLARITY: 2

PAULA RENAUD University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin).

Hillery, George A., Jr.     Navajos and Eastern Kentuckians: A Comparative Study in the Cultural Consequences of the Demographic Transition. American Anthropologist February, 1966 Vol.68(1):52-70.

Hillery compares Eastern Kentuckians and Navajos to test hypotheses based on demographic transition theory. The theory concerns the relationship between birth and death rates as societies industrialize, and posits that both rates are high in preindustrial societies, birth rates remain high but death rates decline during industrialization, and that birth and death rates equalize when industrialization is achieved. Donald Cowgill (1963) constructed several hypotheses based on transition theory, and Hillery uses sociocultural and demographic data on Navajos and Eastern Kentuckians to test them.

The data used for the comparison are from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics, from 1950 and 1960. Eastern Kentuckians are considered near the end of demographic transition, while Navajos are considered to be in the earliest stage of transition. Hillery tests the validity of nine of Cowgill’s twelve hypotheses, summarized as follows: Hypothesis 2) Death control is applied earlier than birth control; 3) Nuclear families replace extended families; 4) Nuclear family size falls with lower birth rate; 7)—Birth rate decline occurs first in urban areas; 9) Declining death and birth rates result in aging trend; 10) Aging population is predominantly female; 11) A shift occurs from extractive/agrarian to industrial/commercial industries; 12) Tendency toward urbanization; 8) Included in hypotheses 9-12.

Hillery validates seven of Cowgill’s hypotheses based on available data. Death rates for both cultures are lower than birth rates, and birth rates for Navajos are higher than for Eastern Kentuckians, confirming #2. More nuclear families and a decline in family size among Eastern Kentuckians confirm #3 and #4. Lower birth rate among urban Eastern Kentuckians confirms #7. Navajo median age is lower than that for Eastern Kentuckians, confirming #9. Higher educational levels of Eastern Kentuckians is cited by Hillery for the validity of #12. Hillery claims that the failure of hypotheses #10 to conform to the data is due to the variable of migration, and the failure of #11 is due to Navajos not making transition "in all areas of their life, and this is especially true of their value structure."

CLARITY RANKING: 5

THOMAS FURGESON University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Judd, Neil.   Frank H. H. Roberts.   American Anthropologist   1966   vol. 68:  1226-1229.

Frank Harold Hanna Roberts began his career in anthropology as a student of archaeology at the University of Denver.  As a senior, he was an instructor in archaeology then served as an assistant curator at the Colorado State Museum.  He began  fieldwork in the southwestern part of Colorado, and was offered work at Pueblo Bonito and a post at the Bureau of American ethnology.  He was to be the last acting chief of the Bureau before it was disbanded and the staff merged with that of the Department of Anthropology of the United States National Museum to form the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology.

Roberts had a distinguished career as an archaeologist.  He earned his Master and Doctorate degree from Harvard, and was awarded honorary degrees from three other universities.  He held many prominent positions during his fruitful forty-year career.  Dr. Roberts earned renown for his research on the “Early Man in America” problem.  He did research in New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska, Saskatchewan, and elsewhere.  His most famous work was done at the Lindenmeier site in Colorado.  Dr. Roberts published many articles on the subject of Early Man, and lectured widely.

Roberts was named the U.S. representative to the International congress of Archaeologists in 1937, named to the International Commission on Historic Monuments in 1939, and earned numerous awards and honors for his work.  He worked as a liaison officer between the Rivers Basin surveys and the Bureau of American Ethnology, and later became director of the surveys.

In addition to his considerable administrative capabilities, Dr. Roberts published six volumes in which he reported the results of investigations in the Southwest.  He served as an assistant editor of American Antiquity from 1935 until 1950, and as associate editor of the American Anthropologist from 1932 until 1944.  Dr. Roberts was a member of several distinguished societies. 

CLARITY RANKING: 5

SONNI HOPE   University of Wyoming  (Lin Poyer)

Kennedy, John G.     "Peasant Society and the Image of Good.": A Critque. American Anthropologist October, 1966 Vol.68(5):1212-1225.

Kennedy responds to a recent article (1965:293-315) in the American Anthropologist, in which George Foster argued that much of the behavior of people in peasant societies can be explained the cognitive orientation that "Good" is limited and unexpandable. The response by Kennedy asserts that Foster’s model is untenable, the assumptions are erroneous and the interpretations drawn from those assumptions are erroneous as well.

The limited "Good" proposed by Foster plays on the basic premise that all things a peasant wants in life, wealth, health, status, ect., are limited in quantity. Kennedy points out that this is not unique to the peasant class but these desires are limited no matter what economic status is being discussed. Kennedy does not believe that peasantry is a sufficiently defined social type to make such broad generalizations. Many of the generalizations Foster makes about peasants do not hold for all people who would be classified as peasants.

Kennedy recognizes that the peasantry does seem to form a broad class and that it is tempting to make generalizations about it, but even though similar economic and structural features appear to be present in many of these societies the values of the people are based on historical, hierarchical, and cultural factors that are unique to each group. The typology that Foster applies is inadequate to account for the values and the relationships between values that he attempts to explain.

Kennedy also raises the point that economic determinism is a central assumption of Foster’s model. According to Foster the only way that behavior can be changed is to alter the economic situation. Kennedy realizes that economic factors do influence behavior but he holds that it is not the sole determinate of behavior in any society much less an entire class of societies.

CLARITY: 4

GREG WILLSON The University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin).

Klass, Morton.  Marriage Rules in Bengal.  American Anthropologist.   August, 1966   Vol. 68 (4): 951-970.

Morton Klass uses structural analysis to examine the rules governing marriage in West Bengal villages.  Four structural features are found in the Bengal variant of marriage in India: arranged marriage, kin-group exogamy/endogamy, intensification of ties, and extension of ties.  Klass points out how these features characterize marriage in other parts of India as well.

Klass challenges the assumption that village exogamy characterizes the north Indian village, and its absence characterizes the south Indian village.  Instead, Klass attempts to describe the diagnostic differences between north and south Indian marriage practices, arguing that the four structural features have broad applicability to the understanding of Indian marriages as a whole.

Klass maintains that the first feature governing marriage in West Bengal is the arranged marriage.  Arranged marriage is a positive prescription.  The head of a girl’s household initiates marriage negotiations, through an intermediary, with the head of the boy’s household.  Other adult relatives may be consulted, but the opinion of the boy or girl to be married is rarely sought.

Klass contends that kin group exogamy/endogamy also impacts Bengal marriages.  Marriage is determined by kinship.  There are prescribed boundaries to the group from which the guardian may take a boy, and within that set there are subsets of families he must exclude from consideration.  For example, the Jat, analogous to a caste group, and somaj determine marriage eligibility for the prospective couple.  Klass affirms that every Bengal villager has a Jat identification, and all men of the same Jat are assumed to be of common origin.  Jat-brothers of villages of a given geographical area form a somaj, and most marriages are within the somaj.  Two categories of kin are excluded from marriage consideration by the girl’s guardian: his gotro, the named group with which he shares stipulated patrilateral descent, and descendants of any recognized common ancestor.  There is thus a definable group in which marriage must take place.

Klass also examines intensification and extension of ties, revealing the regional patterns common in Indian marriages.  Intensification of ties, characteristic of south India, illustrates how marriage has the effect of bringing distantly related families into closer relationship.  Conversely, extension of ties, prevalent in north India, serves to prevent conflict between the two families linked by marriage.

Klass’s article highlights important factors that influence marriages in India, including social pressure, age, wealth, and status.  In village Bengal, Klass claims that there is pressure on the girl and her guardian that she be married before she reaches her late teens.  Moreover, it is preferable for the two families negotiating marriage to be of the same social and economic level.  According to Klass, it is uncommon for Indian girls to marry a boy of a lower caste.  Indeed, the wealth and status of the boy’s family should at least be equal, if not superior, to that of the girl’s family.  This article will be of interest to those studying India, marriage patterns, or kinship and culture change.

CLARITY RANKING: 4

NEIL MAXWELL SHAH   University of Wyoming (Dr. Lin Poyer).           

Kuzara, Richard S., George R. Mead, and Keith A Dixon     Seriation of Anthropological Data: A Computer Program for Matrix-Ordering. American Anthropologist December, 1966 Vol.68(6):1442-1456.

The authors have developed a new computer program for processing anthropological data. The program was developed for the seriation of anthropological data and it uses whole matrix patterns from start to finish, more exhaustive row-column comparisons, way to specify different ordering criteria, consistent use of chosen criterion for matrix evaluation, and ways of controlling input order bias.

The program was created to seriate data along the lines of the Brainerd-Robinson technique; data are placed along a continuum of similarity with like data sets placed close to each other. The program places the data into a matrix and they can then be analyzed depending on how the data falls on the two dimensional read out.

The program is compared to another computer program called the Aschers’ program. The Aschers’ program also uses a Robinson matrix to seriate data. With the Aschers’ program the data are place in position as they are entered, and the full matrix is formed. Unfortunately, the row-columns are not compared and the read out is dependent on the order in which the data is entered.

The development of the new program is described by the authors and it is tested against the Aschers’ program with several test cases. The tests show that the new program has overcome the problem of input order bias by randomizing the data input. The comparisons of data in row-columns is more detailed, the program can be specified to fit experiments by supplementing new programming into the main program. The new program is practical and useful to a wide range of research.

CLARITY: 3

GREG WILLSON The University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin).

Lambert, Bernd.     Ambilineal Descent Groups in the Northern Gilbert Islands. American Anthropologist June, 1966 Vol. 68 (3): 641-664.

Lambert discusses ambilineal descent groups, also called ramages. He specifically describes the traditional social organization of Butaritari and Makin, the northernmost of the Gilbert Islands in the Central Pacific. His discussion is focused on the factors that determine membership in a group and access to resources, as well as the factors that lead to the disintegration of group affiliations, and the formation of new groups. The effect of colonialization and land reform on descent group structure is also examined.

Ambilineal descent groups differ from lineal descent groups in that membership in a particular ramage is chosen, change of affiliation is possible simply by a change in residence, and obligations to the group are less strictly controlled. The traditional role of ambilineal descent groups on Butaritari and Makin was to determine kinship ties as well as who could belong in the corporate ramages. Membership in these corporate groups did not depend solely on kinship affiliation, but more on partial ownership of the taro garden that the ramage owned. In this way, although people often belonged to several ramages, they were also limited in the number of ramages they were affiliated with.

Even with such limitation, however, disaffiliation from the ramage could occur through deliberate action, or through neglect of group obligations. Such disaffiliation was usually the result of a serious argument, or a means to gain exclusive rights to resources. Peripheral segments could separate from a core segment of the ramage, sibling sets or larger segments could separate from both the core and periphery, or more rarely, individuals could separate. The population equilibrium and social order that resulted from such differentiation from the ramage is compared to what occurs in unilineal descent groups, where the children of members of a certain sex are excluded from membership in the group.

Colonialization and the extensive land reform of the 1920's both acted to decrease the amount of disaffiliation that occurs in more modern times. Lambert sees this as a result of both colonial law and an increasing need to maintain group connections and benefit from access to many possible resources.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

MARY PRASCIUNAS University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Long, Joseph K.     A Test of Multi-Discriminant Analysis as a Means of Determining Evolutionary Changes and Intergroup Relationships in Physical Anthropology. American Anthropologist April, 1966 Vol.68(1):444-464.

Joseph Long uses multi-discriminant analysis in six trials to assess G. Neumann’s classification of racial subgroups of eastern American Indians. Neumann, in 1959, divided eastern American Indians into four subraces—Iswanid, Walcolid, Otamid, and Lenapid—based on observations and measurements of available crania. The trials appraise the validity of Neumann’s taxonomy and his historical reconstructions based on that taxonomy. This is intended to demonstrate how multi-discriminant analysis can be used to evaluate such problems in physical anthropology as: relationships between crania and cultural, regional and temporal factors; and the use of taxonomies to discern the relative importance of microevolution and migration in the construction of racial histories. Trial results are used to suggest revisions to Neumann’s classification, and to assess the precision of the multi-discriminant model used.

Multi-discriminant analysis is advantageous over more traditional methods due to its capacity to weight variables differently based on their ability to distinguish between two racial groups. Four programs are used to conduct the multi-discriminant trials (DISCRIM, CORREL, CLASSIF, and RSPACE) and the trials are prefaced with a description of Neumann’s classification and racial histories. Trial I establishes a metrical classification of the subtypes; Trial II is a variation on Trial I; Trial III uses female crania; Trial IV is a less detailed approach; Trial V is a more detailed analysis of the data of IV; and Trial VI is based on half the variables used in Trial V.

The trials yield results that are "not as positive as might be desired". Long recommends several changes to Neumann’s classification, and modifications for the use of multi-discriminant analysis to such types of physical anthropological problems. Neumann’s classification should be modified based on the following: nothing indicates existence of the Otamids; Iswanid may be the basic American Indian race; Walcolid is not a biological type; Lenapids are not recognized by these trials; a new group, Iroquoian, is suggested; there is no support for Neumann’s claim of large-scale migrations into the area. The following modifications are suggested for the multi-discriminant method: more variables must be handled than the method allows; the tests are not reliable when individuals from single sites are indiscriminately grouped; more reliable procedures may be developed if old migration theories are rejected; the full potential of this method can only be realized if scales for morphological traits are developed to augment the small number of traits used for these trials.

CLARITY RANKING: 4

THOMAS FURGESON University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Longacre, William.  Changing Patterns of Social Integration: A Prehistoric Example from the American Southwest.   American Anthropologist, 1966 Vol. 68(1):94-101

This article is concerned with the changing patterns of social integration in one area of the prehistoric Southwest.  The annual Southwest Archaeological Expedition of the Chicago Natural History Museum conducted the research in east-central Arizona during the summers of 1959-1963.  Longacre is not interest in providing analysis of the site.  He is concerned with trying to apply theories of social anthropology to prehistory.  His goal is to stimulate thought about developing new methods that would apply the theories of social anthropology to the archaeological record.

Longacre explains the paleoenvironment of the region and shows that the people used small-scale agriculture as their subsistence pattern.  The people lived in village farming communities determined by their kinship system.  Over time, there were major shifts in the climate that caused the inhabitants to make drastic adaptive changes.  Part of the adaptive change was the shift in the patterns of social integration.  These social integration changes are manifested in the following two trends.  The first is population convergence with the people moving from small villages based on single descent groups to larger communities made up of more than one kinship unit.  He argues that the archaeological record shows that the people abandoned the highlands and congregated in the river valleys.  The second trend is the establishment of a religious mechanism to create multi-community solidarity within the newly integrated villages.  The appearance of kivas in the archaeological record promotes community solidarity.  They weakened kinship unit solidarity with cross-cutting, creating non-kin based sodalities by curing societies, and developed mutual interdependence through exchange of goods and services.

At two sites, Carter Ranch Site and Broken K Pueblo, Longacre believes the distribution of artifacts shows the pattern of social organization that would prove the changes occurring in the region.  In the case of Carter Ranch, the decorative motifs of the ceramics, along with other data, determine that two or three unilineal descent groups, practicing matrilocal residence occupied the village.  Each descent group maintained its own kiva as well.  At Broken K Pueblo, the distribution of tools, weapons, and other cultural items is evidence of the patterns of reciprocal exchange.  This would have lead to mutual dependence and enforce social solidarity within the community.

Longacre’s analysis is very subjective and is not supported with scientific analysis.  Although his argument is clear, it does not follow the methods of analysis used by present day archaeologists.  However, he admits this and suggests that this article is not trying to offer analysis of a single site, but is trying to stimulate new theories in archaeology that would allow us to apply social anthropology to the prehistoric record. In showing how social integration can apply to this example, he hopes others will invent new methods to make this a more empirical form of analysis.

CLARITY: 4

RACHEL LAU University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer)

Mandelbaum, David G.     Transcendental and Pragmatic Aspects of Religion. American Anthropologist 1966 Vol. 68:1174-1189

Mandelbaum presents ethnographic data showing the interface between transcendental and pragmatic religious aspects as an important factor contributing to religious and social change. Examples from Hindu and Buddhist villages in India show that transcendental and pragmatic complexes of religion coexist in many religious societies.

Priests that work within a large universal domain of superior deities, and are working from religious texts carry out the "transcendental complex". Transcendental complexes are largely concerned with providing individuals with a sense of cosmic belonging through supreme deities, and are more oriented toward constricting behavior to attain transcendence of ordinary reality. A good example would be the practices of Buddhist monks. The "pragmatic complex" is carried out by shamans and is local in scope. Power is derived from less prominent deities that can be created easily by religious individuals. This complex is concerned with mental and physical healing through intermediary spirits and local deities. Mandelbaum believes that pragmatic forms of religion provide a greater means of reconciliation with everyday problems faced by individuals than do transcendental forms. Both serve important functions, implying a somewhat Freudian analysis by Mandelbaum to personal conflict resolution.

The most important point made by the author is that until recently most of the world’s religions entail both transcendental and pragmatic aspects. He identifies four subjective religious categories " involving varying degrees of separation" between transcendental and pragmatic forms. These are undifferentiated, partly differentiated, fully differentiated, and reform. The author suggests that these categories correspond to stages of religious evolution proposed by Robert Bellah (1964). Working from Bellah’s evolutionary model the author proposes that recent religious reform movements around the world are shaping and changing religion, and many cultures are in a state of flux with varying degrees of duality of transcendental and pragmatic forms.

CLARITY: 4

JEREMY MOSS: University of Wyoming (Dr. Michael Harkin)

Metzger, Duane G. and Gerald E. Williams.     Some Procedures and Results in the Study of Native Categories: Tzeltal "Firewood." American Anthropologist April, 1966 Vol. 68(2): 389-407.

Metzger and Williams use the formation of frames as a technique of ethnographic investigation and description to represent native responses to a set of specific conditions, specifically the categorization of firewood in Tzeltal culture. The conditions that govern native responses constitute only one sort of data for the ethnographer, which is often open to various personal interpretations. The use of the linguistic unit of the frame allows the ethnographer to set the conditions that govern responses across a segment of the population being studied. Frames also allow the ethnographer to establish categories and organize the definition of these categories. Metzger and Williams work towards the production of lists from the development of frames to understand the organization of the informant’s knowledge.

Frames are formulated in the field by the ethnographer’s initial fieldwork procedures. Metzger and Williams claim that the use of bilingual informants, who can assist in the formulating of relevant questions in the native language, are essential to the formation of frames. As long as the informant’s responses are part of a limited set, a potential frame is adequate. Metzger and Williams suggest that the use of frames is very relevant for ethnography because the range of inquiry can be broadened to study any culture and aid in transcultural comparison.

After the discussion of frames, Metzger and Williams take an extensive look at the categorization of firewood in Tzeltal culture. Firewood as a named category is part of two basic frames: kind and use. Firewood can further be categorized as either firewood or kindling. The preferred wood for kindling is not necessarily the wood of preference for firewood. Metzger and Williams suggest any intersection of a response within the kind and use frames produces a potential area for focus. The criteria for firewood evaluation are not a straightforward framework, but require the elicitation of the description of the process of the preparation from the informant. The elicitation of these relative cultural terms implies an apparent ambiguity that is transcultural.

Metzger and Williams believe that informant’s responses and the linguistic contexts that elicit these responses are part of a structurally characterized procedure for gathering data. This procedure leads to the discovery of units of description that contribute to practical, feasible means for discovering crucial bits of information about any cultural world. Metzger and Williams further suggest that these descriptive frameworks are the essential groundwork for transcultural investigations into a wide range of systems.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

SHANNA COX: University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Munn, Nancy D.   Visual Categories: An Approach to the Study of Representational Systems.   American Anthropologist   August, 1966   Vol. 68(4):936-949.

Nancy Munn, in this article, studies the significance of picture representations for representing and categorizing the human world.  Munn does this by using visual representations drawn by Australian Walbiri in their totemic designs.  While examining the pictorial representations of the Walbiri, Munn presents a structural analysis of graphic representations that demonstrate a universal underlying thought process, which follows in the footsteps of Claude Levi-Strauss’s analysis of myth.

There are two visual categories, as Munn calls them, which portray meaning.  Designs that are simple and basic, and that cannot be reduced, are called “elementary” categories.  These include a circle representing a tree stump, a round path or a waterhole. These elementary categories have a high degree of generality and can only be given the correct meaning in the context of other pictures.  The Walbiri also have simple figures that distinguish between similar types of animals; for example, there are different figures for tortoise and turtle.  Munn terms the second kind of visual representation “composite.”  When many elementary elements are combined in a standardized manner, a composite design results.  The composite designs always start with a basic core of circles and/or lines and then adjunct shapes are added in a number of various ways.  These core and adjunct parts together produce a structure much as vocabulary and grammar together produce a wide range of linguistic meanings.

Combining many core elementary elements into a composite design also creates binary opposition, which is embedded in the structure of the system.  The designs that incorporate lines, curves and circles are also metaphors for Walbiri ancestors.  The ancestors are represented in totemic designs as the products they left behind.  For example, Walbiri believe the stem of a yam was created from a path used by an ancestor.  The same elementary parts are used to create many symbolic representations.  This combining of basic elementary elements and comparing them to all other aspects of life is a structural universal.

Munn further explains that visual representations are structured and should be included in the study of ethnoscience.  From this Munn suggests that a cross-cultural structural analysis of graphic representations could be done, in addition to comparing stylistic aspects of rock art.  Munn sees that ethnography could go further if anthropologists did not simply categorize pictorial representations, but rather identified what the pictures represent in terms of the underlying universal thought of human beings.        

CLARITY RANKING: 4

LAURA COWLES   University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer) 

Murdock, George Peter.  Willard Z. Park.  American Anthropologist 1966 Vol. 68:135-136

Willard Z. Park was born in Silt Colorado on October 15, 1906.  In 1931 he received the A.B. degree from the University of California at Berkeley.  Park studied under Kroeber, Lowie, and Gifford.  From 1931-1932 Park studied at the Universities of Berlin and Vienna.  In 1933 he was a graduate student at Berkeley, and from 1933-1935 he was at the Yale University Graduate School and studied under Sapir, Spier, and Wissler.  He received his Ph.D. in 1936 from Yale.

In 1935 Park was appointed instructor in Anthropology at Northwestern University, and he served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Oklahoma from 1938-1942.  While Park was a graduate student he was active in field research among the Paviotso of Nevada, and among the Indians of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in Columbia.  During WWII, Park moved to Washington where he was Associate Director of the Division of Reports for the office of Nelson Rockefeller, Coordinator of Inter-American affairs.  Park was later promoted to Chief of the Social and Geographic Sections of the Research Division.  In 1944-1945 Park was Chief of the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Coordination Staff in the Foreign Economic Administration and through 1947 he was Chief of the UNRRA Mission in Ethiopia.  Park gave invaluable help to younger scholars engaged in fieldwork in Ethiopia and served as Lecturer at the University College of Addis Ababa, where he was the first to introduce courses in Anthropology.

Upon returning to the United States, Park became a Research Associate at the Desert Research Institute at the University of Nevada in 1963.  It was here that he resumed his research and fieldwork of the Paviotso and wrote an ethnohistory, a definitive bibliography, and accounts of the social organization and religion of these people.  Park’s productive activity and plans to return to teaching at the University of Nevada was tragically cut short by his untimely death from a respiratory infection.

CLARITY RANKING: 5

ERIN SMITH   University of Wyoming (Dr. Lin Poyer)      

Plath, David W.     The Fate of Utopia: Adaptive Tactics in Four Japanese Groups. American Anthropologist 1966 68(5):1152-1162.

Plath introduces the reader to four Japanese utopian communities. Utopian communities must decide how to deal with the rest of the world. Plath believes that most of the communities, rather than resigning from the world, wish to reform it. This essay is a consideration of some of the adaptive strategies and tactics of these utopian communities in their dealings with the rest of the world, especially with that portion of humanity that is close at hand.

The term "utopia" refers to voluntary communities of people with a vision for a better way of living and a desire to institute that way of life in a comprehensive common style of living. Such communities, either implicitly or, more commonly, explicitly, reject the larger society's ways. With this in mind, utopian communities must develop tactics to disarm potential opposition. The challenge is to interpret the communal image so as to be tolerated by state institutions and the general public.

Plath looks at the adaptive strategies of four Japanese utopian communities as they relate to institutional relations and public relations. Institutional relations refer to concepts of property, taxation, conscription, and education. Public relations refers to incursions by tourists, anthropologists, and the like.

Plath suggests that comparative studies of utopian communities in different settings could teach us about "the influence of group values and adaptive tactics on purposeful action in complex civilizations." He proposes three lines of study: first, to compare utopian communities with other types of revitalization movements; second, to contrast utopian communities with various approaches to planned change; third and finally, to contrast the influence of different historical trajectories on utopian communities.

CLARITY: 4

CHRIS YOUNG University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Price, Richard.   Caribbean Fishing and Fishermen: An Historic Sketch.  American Anthropologist   December, 1968   Volume. 68(6):1363-1381

This article is a preliminary historical investigation of Caribbean fishermen from pre-emancipation times to the present.  Price attempts to demonstrate that Caribbean fishermen, both Indians and later Africans, were a privileged slave group within the colonial plantation system and this allowed for a smoother transition from slave to free fishermen after emancipation.   The privileged position of fishermen in the plantation system has created a sociological distinction between modern fishermen and their inland neighbors.

The author splits the article into four parts: Island Caribbean Fishing Techniques, Early Contacts, Negro Fishing Slaves, and From Slave to Freedman. 

Early in the article Price outlines the change in fishing technologies through time, as well as the cultural exchange between the French, African, and Amerindian.  The author first outlines Amerindian fishing techniques and the mutual borrowing as social equals of fishing technologies between the African slaves and the Amerindians.  Next he deals with the French who also borrowed as much as they taught in tropical fishing technologies.   He also demonstrates that the majority of fishing techniques were assimilated by non-fishing slaves who, after emancipation, chose a life at sea.

Towards the end of the article Price outlines the role of fishing as a “way out” of the plantation system.  Economic pressures forced plantation owners to teach slaves skills or let them develop skills on their own.   Fishermen are compared to slave artisans in the relative ease at which both groups made the transition to freedmen.  Fishermen were allowed special privileges comparable to artisans, including greater independence, but unlike slave artisans, fishermen raised little controversy or fear of upsetting the social order because they did have pretensions toward upward social movement.  This allowed for more economic maneuverability and foreshadowed the end of the plantation system.

CLARITY RANKING 4

JAYSON BYERS    University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer)

Silverman, Sydel F.  An Ethnographic Approach to Social Stratification: Prestige in a Central Italian Community.  American Anthropologist  1966  Vol. 68(4):899-921

Sydel F. Silverman uses the principles of ethnoscience to determine the social stratification of a community in Central Italy.  This type of ethnographic approach incorporates the cognitive aspects of individuals within a culture and how they perceive their world.  Silverman seeks to understand and determine the distinctions people make when placing individuals within a system of social stratification. 

The unit of study, a community of approximately 1,900 individuals, is primarily agricultural.  Fieldwork was carried out using participant observation, informant interviews, and informal interviews during a period of twelve months.  Silverman used four informants, obtaining information by giving each informant a set of cards with names of members of their community and asking them to sort them according to high or low status.  Silverman admits that her informants “do not constitute a random sample of the population”; however, her goal was to obtain an objective evaluation of members of the community.  Silverman discovered that the concept of rispetto was applied by the informants in placing community members into the social stratification system.  Silverman describes rispetto as “a habitual response-readiness with which one approaches another member of the society”.  Community members were placed in either a major category (A, B, and C) or a sub-category (A-1, A-2, C-1, C-2, and C-3) distinguished by certain indicators and criteria.  Silverman states that indicators and criteria are different from each other, should be considered distinct, and this distinction helps to account for discrepancies between informants.  Towards the end of her article, Silverman evaluates the validity of her stratification model. She states that, in order for her hypothesized model to be valid, it should make observed behavior and judgments about certain individuals predictable based on “actual demonstrations of deference behavior.” 

Silverman discusses other methodological approaches to prestige stratification and states the reasoning behind her particular method that she followed for her research. Other descriptions of social rank use an index of occupation or an “arithmetical combination of several factors” such as occupation, education, income, type of house, etc.  This approach does not establish the relevancy of the factors to the social system, therefore the importance of the criteria are not known.  Silverman’s goal is to “learn the principles by which persons are ranked,” not to “correctly” place individuals within the different social strata.  Her approach and methodology were effective for her purposes and “an accurate and complete statement would eventually produce an adequate placement of persons in the various ranks of their system” due to the idea that the ethnographer would be able to expect the correct response in placing hypothetical persons in the stratification framework. 

Silverman describes her method as only applicable to small communities, though she explains that with some modification, it could be applied to larger communities.

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DARCI BOYD    University of Wyoming  (Lin Poyer)

Slobodin, Richard   Martha Champion Randle.   American Anthropologist 1966 Vol. 68: 995-996

Martha Champion Randle was an anthropologist, classical scholar, and musicologist.  She was born in 1910 in Las Angles and died in Ontario on July 3, 1965.

She received an Honors degree in Greek at the University of Wisconsin.  Randle studied anthropology and linguistics from 1933 to 1935 at Columbia under Boas and Benedict; she was one of the first to study peyote music.  Randle lived in France from 1935 until 1940, and her work on Fox peyote songs was published in transition.  She was also “amanuensis” to James Joyce at this time.

Randle returned to the United States and received her Ph. D. from Columbia in 1946 and began her study of Iroquois women, which lasted for the next twelve years.  She did her fieldwork in Ontario and taught anthropology at the University of Southern California and Las Angeles State College.  In 1958 she completed her thesis on Juvenal and received an M.A. from Southern California.  From then on Randle taught Latin in secondary schools in both Canada and America, while still pursuing interests in folklore, linguistics, ethnomusicology and Indian welfare.

Richard Slobodin had this to say about her “Martha Randle will be remembered by her friends for the remarkably wide range of her learning and interests – she was among other things an accomplished violinist and a former championship tennis player-- for her generosity to younger scholars in her fields of interest, and for her courage in the face of disheartening circumstance.”

Randle’s publications (dating from 1935-1953) include works on peyote songs and Shoshoni hand gaming songs, acculturation among the Mohawk, Iroquios women and folktales, and educational problems among the Canada’s Indians.

CLARITY: 5

KATIE STIENMETZ   University of Wyoming  (Lin Poyer)

Spicer, Edward.  Obituary: John H. Provinse (1897-1965) American Anthropologist    August, 1966   Vol. 68 Number 4: 990-994.

John H. Provinse was born in Carbon County, Montana in 1897, He enlisted in the US Navy in 1917 and served for three years, mainly in the Philippines, where he gained an interest in the people of Southeast Asia.  In 1921 he went to the University of Chicago to study law, receiving the degree of LL. B. in 1925 and was then admitted to the Illinois Bar.  He returned to the University of Chicago to study Anthropology to study under Edward. Sapir, Fay-Cooper Cole, Robert Redfield, and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown.  He married in 1927 and in 1928 he did his fieldwork in Borneo studying cooperative ricefield cultivation. He received his Masters in 1930 and his Ph.D. in 1934.

He taught at the University of Arizona from 1923 to 1936, but he was not comfortable in academia.  He had a strong conviction that the social sciences ought to be used practically.  This conviction led him to a career within the US Government working for the United States Soil Conservation Service with the Navajo Reservation during 1939-40.  From 1940-42 he worked the Department of Agriculture.  The outbreak of World War II put him in charge of the evacuation of Japanese-Americans from the west coast to the Internment Camps of the central part of the country.  He was elected the first president of the Society for Applied Anthropology and held that position from 1942-44.  After that he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a position he held for six years. 

In 1953 he went to Cairo, Egypt to join the staff if the American University, where he served as the Director of Social Research Center until 1958.  Upon Retirement in 1963, he returned to the county and served as a consultant to the Ain to International Development (AID) in Washington, D.C. and then became director of International Voluntary Service.  While working at his desk, he died suddenly. 

Through his career and his life he was a pioneer of the practical application of Anthropology to the “real” world.  Much of his work centered on this.  The relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II is probably the most notable action in his life.  One of the major problems was the lack of understanding of the evacuees by the rest of the administrators on the project.  Provinse sought the aid of anthropologists and sociologists, particularly those with experience with the Japanese people.  This was one of the best efforts to merge anthropology and sociology with a realistic and historical problem, one that affects U.S.-Japanese relations to this day.

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BENJAMIN V. EBERT     University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer).

Spoehr, Alexander.  The Part of the Whole: Reflection of the Study of a Region.  American Anthropologist June, 1966 Vol. 68(3):629-639

Since the establishment of anthropology as a discipline, anthropologists have debated about how to balance the regional focus with broad, theoretical questions.  Spoehr’s article examines the application of this debate to the studies of Oceania.  This region provides a good example of the history of the application of the theories and methods of anthropology since its conception.  It is subject to the problems he sees with research and is also an example in how to improve anthropology.  Spoehr suggests that there needs to be a broadened base of investigation. He argues that ethnography has become too specific and ignores the important questions, like when the people colonized the islands of the Pacific.  Prior to World War II, anthropologists only speculated about the answers to these larger questions.  With application of different subfields, a better understanding of these questions can be uncovered.  These subfields include archaeology, ethnobotany, linguistics, historical ethnology, and physical anthropology.

Spoehr goes on to provide examples of how these subfields have helped so far in finding answers to these inquiries.  Archaeology has provided essential cultural sequences and new data for the prehistory of the region.  It has created a tentative time scale for Oceanic settlement.  The dating would suggest that New Guinea was a pathway for people to enter Australia.  The relationship between the Marquesas, the Society Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island could provide a better perception of the prehistory from which the historic cultures derived.  Linguistics and physical anthropology have tried to find the area in which these people originated through connecting similarities in language and physical traits.  Ethnobotany finds that the sweet potato was introduced to Polynesia from South America long before Europeans arrived in America or the Portuguese reached the East Indies, suggesting an early connection with the Americas.  These findings provide new perceptions about the peopling of Oceania and the relationships between the Islands.

Although it is essential to have regional ethnographic studies, Spoehr suggests new goals for this research.  One new goals is a focus on comparing subregions with the goal of creating an ethnographic map, holding constant the social structure, ecology, and historical factors.  This would allow for a second goal, to the study of contemporary change.  Studying change and other relevant questions leads us to the ultimate goal of anthropology, which is to provide answers to the broad, theoretical questions.  By necessity, we must study each region.  However, the goal of looking for the whole also needs to be addressed.  Anthropology has been unsuccessful if it only accumulates a vast amount of data on the world’s cultures.  If the focus remains of regional uniqueness and not on answering the large questions, the anthropology becomes trivial.  Spoehr invites the anthropologist to broaden the focus to pursue the scholarly goals of the profession.

CLARITY: 4

RACHEL LAU   University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer)

Steven Piker.     The Image of a Limited Good: Comments on an Exercise in Description and Interpretation American Anthropologist October, 1966 Vol. 68 (5): 1202-1211

Piker examines and critiques the interpretations of Thai peasants put forth in papers by George Foster. While Piker agrees with most of Foster’s points, he feels it necessary to address some problems he found in Foster’s papers. Foster argued that the peasants see wealth as scarce and limited. Therefore, the things, which are "good" in life, are limited.

Tyler contends that Foster makes a great generalization of the Thai peasants, however the explanations put forth by Foster did not properly explain the behaviors recorded. Tyler relates three main criticisms against the methods, which Foster employed. He stated that Foster did not provide a reliable method for deciding where his model applied and to whom it applied. Tyler states that Foster did not use reliable methods to extrapolate the true thoughts of the peasants. Tyler contends that Foster’s method did not provide a reliable empirical base for determining the peasants cognitive orientation.

Tyler contends that Foster’s psychological premises used for his interpretations could not be justified. Tyler also contends that Foster did not justify the relationship between the villagers and the larger community. Due to this inconsistency, Tyler states that Foster’s analysis of the community is wrong, and should not be addressed as a major part of his thesis.

His last argument against Foster, was concerned with the psychological aspects underlying his thesis. Tyler explains that while the behavioral aspects of society can change rapidly, the cognitive tradition is slower to change. Due to this, the traditions of the society are going to remain longer than some social behaviors.

Tyler justifies these criticisms in detail and ends his article by stating that Foster deserved merit in all of his descriptive work, but did not justify the analysis and assumptions given in the explanation of behavior in the peasant society.

CLARITY RANKING: 2

SANDRA L. MCALLISTER University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Stocking Jr., George W.  John Finley Freeman 1929-1965.  American Anthropologist  1966 Vol68:134.

This is an obituary of John Finley Freeman, who died in 1965 at the age of 36.  Freeman received his A.B. from Harvard in 1951, and A.M. in American History in 1955, and later worked towards his doctorate in American Civilization.  Freeman taught American colonial history at Bates College from 1958 to 1960, receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1960.

From 1961 to 1962, Freeman was a Research Associate at the Library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and from 1962 until his death, he was Assistant Professor at Kansas State University.  Freeman also served as visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964, teaching two courses in the history of anthropology.

Freeman was a member of a small group of professional historians with an interest in the history of anthropology, especially 19^th century American ethnology. At the time of his death, he was involved in several research projects on the history of American anthropology.  He was to have begun work in 1965 on a history of American anthropological societies and institutions.  Several of Freeman’s writings completed before his death, are listed in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,  I(1965), 299-300.

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DARCI BOYD   University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer)

Preston, Richard.     Edward Sapir’s Anthropology: Style, Structure, and Method. American Anthropologist October, 1966 Vol. 68(5):1105-1127.

Preston postulates that Sapir is an important anthropological figure who is analyzed and utilized by only a few anthropologists. Instead of actively using Sapir’s cultural theory most anthropologists tend only to admire him. The goals of this article are to explain Sapir’s place in anthropology as a result of the current atmosphere of anthropological discourse as well as to describe the place Sapir’s "style of writing, conceptual approach to structure and method" hold in modern anthropology.

According to Preston, Sapir deviated from the mainstream of anthropology by not excluding culture. He went beyond the limits of the "traditional culture-bound ethos" which allowed "historically determined concepts" to integrate with larger concepts. Preston believes that Sapir wanted to "personalize" the idea of culture and also determine the "psychological reality of culture patterns".

Preston contends that problems associated with Sapir’s writing result from two types of "strangeness". One type of strangeness results from Sapir’s writing style while the other type of strangeness, the hardest to deal with, is his mode of thinking. Preston believes that Sapir expressed the idea of a "personalistic science of man". The study of culture was the scientific analysis of the conscious and unconscious of individual members in a society.

It is the assumption of Preston that Sapir had a concept of structure based on the "patterns in language" in which speech is perceived as a cluster. The patterns of clusters are analyzable through conceptual models. Preston perceives of the conceptual model as a means of generalizing the "facts of experience". Models are "statements" about happenings in the real world. Preston emphasizes the importance of forming logical and insightful knowledge from past experiences.

Sapir’s anthropological method according to Preston is based on the participation of the ethnographer in as many activities and relationships as possible in the culture being studied. Thus, ethnography is based on the understanding and "synthesis of psychologically real culture patterns". Preston contends that Sapir’s anthropological style is a means of "conceptualizing" the goals of anthropology rather than a method for anthropological studies.

CLARITY RANKING: 3

DIANA L. HARMAN: University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Sawyer, Jack and Robert A. Levine.     Cultural Dimensions: A Factor Analysis of the World Ethnographic Sample. American Anthropologist June, 1966 Vol.68(3):708-731.

Jack Sawyer and Robert A. Levine had two main objectives in mind when they wrote this article. The first was to arrange Murdock’s Ethnographic Data sample into a manageable set of data that is testable cross culturally. The second objective was to show how they achieved their first goal by performing the factor-analytic method to a select part of the data.

The analysis was performed on a sample consisting of 565 cultures from around the world with the hope to represent all cultural variation. The authors examined 30 characteristics of these societies in order to perform cross-cultural analyses. The first test they employed looked at the correlation of 30 characteristics. After they performed the correlation test they examined the differences between the factors to understand the many dimensions of cultural variation. The specific factors examined include agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, shellfish and marine hunting, hunting and gathering, nuclear family household, patrilineality, matrilineality, cross-cousin marriage, and sociopolitical stratification. After interpreting the factor analysis they discovered that the factors are independent of one another. According to Sawyer and Levine this indicates that there is process of culture evolution occurring.

Another analysis was conducted comparing the cultural dimensions of six independent cultural regions. They performed the same analysis on the six regions as they did with the entire world sample. Sawyer and Levine found very consistent results across the regions. They suggest that the consistent results are not from diffusion across the regions but instead resulted from a similarity in functional relation.

In sum Sawyer and Levine use a factor analysis technique to examine the correlation and dimensions of many cultures around the world. They believe that this type of analysis has excellent potential for studying extensive sets of data like George Peter Murdock’s 1957 World Ethnographic Sample. Not only did this study provide a better understanding of cultural differences and similarities, it also has excellent potential for understanding general cultural theory.

This article would attract individuals interested in cultural variation, George Peter Murdock’s work, general cultural theory, cross-cultural analysis, and statistics.

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AMY HOLBOROW University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin).

Scholte, Robert.     Epistemic Paradigms: Some Problems in Cross-Cultural Research on Social Anthropological History and Theory. American Anthropologist October, 1966 Vol.68(5):1192-1201.

Paradigms allow for a historical persistence, an internal consistency, and a "theoretical provincialism and professional incestuousness detrimental to the progress of a discipline." Scholte offers an outline of the world-view of the paradigms influencing European and Anglo-American brands of anthropological research. Each "perpetuate and adhere to a set of interrelated presuppositions, methods, and characteristic problems." Scholte concentrates his efforts on outlining the French school, as this paradigm is less understood for the American audience.

The French school employs a rationalist philosophy. This approach presupposes a primacy of the human mind. Logic and reality, ideas and actions, follow a dialectical process. The human mind differentiates reality into units, these units are structured into systems of reciprocal associations, and these systems pronounce the rules that govern the actions and behaviors accepted in any given society. The qualities of the human mind are universal and unconscious. The French school is interested in "the syntax rather than the content of culture." Their methods are "formal and structural rather than descriptive and empirical." Institutions are the conscious and variable human events present in a culture, but represent only a reflection of this internal syntax. Historical data are only marginally important. Diachronic events are "mere reflections of a more fundamental synchronic and unconscious level of reality." Events are conscious expressions of an unconscious reality. Data require a "supra-empirical model for their explanations." The model is manipulated to the various possible relations.

The Anglo-American school employs an empiricist philosophy. This method tends to prefer quantitative and descriptive procedures. The differences in the basic philosophy driving the Anglo–American school make dialogue between the two extremely difficult. Scholte introduces Anglo-American authors who attempt to bridge the chasm between the French and American schools. He also outlines the basic problems in building this bridge. Most American anthropologists find Levi-Strauss and the French emphasis on "synchronic sociological rules antithetical to their own interest in diachronic and psychodynamic relations."

Scholte discusses the limitations imposed on any social science study. These limitations are directly related to the assumptions inherent in the paradigms employed. Dialogue between competing schools needs to be fostered, as "understanding ought to precede evaluation." This paper stresses the incompatibilities of the two paradigms, but proposes that mutual interests and potential agreements are possible. Each school must first comprehend the "intellectual-historical context in which their own rivals’ paradigms are grounded." Only then can progress be made in the study of social science.

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PAULA RENAUD University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Spiro, Melford E.     Buddhism and Economic Action in Burma. American Anthropologist October, 1966 Vol.68(5):1163-1173.

Melford Spiro proposes that economic concepts of saving and spending in Burma are shaped by the Buddhist world view. He maintains that the ideology of religious spending is both provident and rational. The notions of karma and rebirth play a key role with regards to investing in religious property.

Spiro begins with a discussion on the five levels of ideological learning and reveals that most Burmese have not internalized their religious ideology, yet this ideology profoundly influences the way they live their lives. He argues that it is not necessary to internalized ideology as long as it remains a part of the culturally constituted behavioral environment it will influence behavior.

He states that even though the Burmese spend a large portion of their income on religious expenses such as the patronage of monks, monasteries, and pagodas, they are not necessarily spiritually oriented or interested primarily in spiritual rewards. Spiro explains that the Burmese are interested in the material world and the pleasures of the body just like other people, but within the Buddhist world view if a person is good and charitable in this life they will be rewarded in the next with material pleasures. These are actions that are in many ways contrary to the Buddhist belief system. The givers are more interested in the merit they gain by giving than welfare of the recipient of the gifts.

Spiro shows that the apparent improvidence, lack of concern for the future displayed in the lavish feasts that the Burmese often give is not improvidence but just the opposite. The Burmese are indeed concerned with the future but not in the way a typical westerner would be concerned. They are concerned with their future existences and what kind of life they will have when they start their next life. The feasting and religious patronage is regarded as and investment in karma. The Burmese keep close records of how much merit they have accumulated through religious expenditures. The merits they have gained are weighed against the Buddhist precepts they have violated and a positive balance is an investment in the future.

In making his argument Spiro demonstrates that karma in not only a negatively motivated variable but also positively motivated. Violating the tenants of Buddhism will bring bad karma but it can be balanced out by gaining merit. The more merit a Buddhist gains, the greater their reward will be in future lives.

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GREG WILLSON   The University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin).

Stocking, JR., George W.     Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective. American Anthropologist August, 1966 Vol. 68(4): 867-882.

Stocking suggests that Boas and his students established the leads that became part of the systematic critique of the prevailing anthropological point of view. Much of the social science of the 20th century is concerned with working out the implications of the culture idea laid out by Boas. Stocking sees Boas as a leader of a cultural revolution that transformed the notion of culture and in the process transformed the field of anthropology.

The hybrid concept of culture has its parentage in both the humanist and anthropological interpretations of the use of the term culture. Stocking suggests that the humanist culture emphasizes the creating, innovating scientist, while the anthropological culture emphasizes the inherited names that condition the ordering of experience. However, in history anthropologists have not always maintained an anthropological position. E.B. Tylor used the humanist idea of culture in order to fit it into a progressive social evolutionist framework. Tylor clearly saw human groups in hierarchical terms. The idea of a humanist and evolutionist definition of culture continued until challenged around 1900 by Franz Boas. Stocking argues that Boas played a critical role in the emergence of the anthropological concept of culture.

Stocking suggests that Boas is a transitional figure. Boas began his career with the traditional humanist and evolutionist notion of the use of the term culture. This view describes culture as a singular phenomenon that is present in all people to a varying degree. Boas sensed that the term culture was better described in the plural and used to denote the cultures of individual groups. In this transformation, Stocking argues the modern anthropological use of the term culture emerged.

From 1894 to 1911, Boas criticized evolutionism and developed an inverted form of the concept of culture that is still today part of the modern anthropological meaning of culture. Boas placed emphasis on the historical conditions of diffusion and the relativity of evaluation standards. This was his basis for rejecting the traditional assumptions of racial hierarchy. Boas argued against the prevailing idea that the basic mental organization governing psychological processes of the primitive mentality is radically different than the mental organization of the "civilized" man. Boas considered three characteristic mental functions as evidence: abstraction, inhibition, and choice. Using the existence of numerical and grammatical categories in all languages, Boas showed that abstraction is common to all men. Similarly, Boas argued that all humans subject their impulses to some form of customary inhibition and exercise a form of choice. Any differences within these mental functions are not great enough to allow men to be put on different evolutionary stages. Within this context, Boas claimed that the difference between "civilized" and "primitive" mentality is not due to a "fundamental difference in mental organization," but a "product of the diversity of the cultures that furnish the material with which the mind operates."

Stocking claims that Boas’ argument shows that a body of habitual behavior patterns passed on through the enculturative process determines the behavior of all men, regardless of race or culture.

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SHANNA COX: University of Wyoming (Michael Harkin)

Tyler, Stephen A.     Context and Variation in Koya Kinship Terminology. American Anthropologist 1966 Vol.68: 693-706.

By studying the contextualization of kinship terms in Koya villages, Stephen Tylor shows overemphasis on typology or genealogy based formal analysis as obscuring functional aspects of kinship terminology. Tylor suggests that there has not been enough interest in linguistic variation due to the belief that a single unitary structure of kin terms can be defined merely on the basis of genealogical components. Within Koya villages the appropriate use of kin terms cannot be predicted on the basis of genealogical reckoning. His critique of other formal analysis by linguists indicates that less emphasis on variation in kinship terms has skewed our understanding of context of language use. It is proposed that problems of variation require different field techniques than those commonly used to identify contextual rules. Tylor’s "new" approach allows for more precise predictions of who will be called what using kinship terms. He identifies two types of "lexical variation" that breakdown into contextual rules. These rules produce variation in kinship term usage by different members of a group(s). They relate to: social setting, audience composition, sex and age of speaker/hearer, linguistic repertories of speaker/hearer, and the more difficult- speaker’s intention.

Tylor has adequately shown early linguistic approaches to kinship terms as reductions of variation. Using his approach Tylor believes linguistics can provide fuller analysis of the relationship of kinship terms to social situation in societies. Full analysis can only be successful through the study of linguistic variation.

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JEREMY MOSS: University of Wyoming (Dr. Michael Harkin)

Watson, O. Michael and Theodore D. Graves.   Quantitative Research in Proxemic Behavior.   American Anthropologist.   August, 1966   Vol.68(#4): 971-985.

Proxemic behavior, first defined by Edward T. Hall, is how humans relate physically to others while communicating.  The research project reported in this article was designed to quantify Hall’s observations that proxemic behavior differs between Arabs and Americans.  The authors tested three hypotheses.  First, that Arabs and Americans exhibit differences in their proxemic behavior, with the Arabs interacting more closely than Americans do.  The second hypothesis was that the proxemic behavior of Arabs would be more like that of other Arabs than like Americans, regardless of the Arab region they were from.  The last hypothesis was that Americans would behave in a manner more similar to other Americans than to Arabs, irrespective of which part of the United States they were from.

The researchers enlisted 16 Arab students and 16 American students from the University of Colorado, all of whom were male.  These two groups were subdivided into groups of four individuals who were all friends and came from the same country or region.  The groups of four were shown into a room with a table, chairs, a one-way mirror and a hidden microphone, where their interaction was observed and recorded for a period of five minutes.  The interactions were scored on five out of eight categories of proxemic behavior as defined by Hall.  The five categories indicated the relationship of the axes of the individuals shoulders to each other as they communicated, how close the individuals were to each other, in what manner and for how long the individuals touched each other, how much visual contact took place and how loud the individuals spoke.  Each category was scaled for scoring, with a higher score in each indicating less interaction.  The results for each category are presented in tabular form.

The Arab group was expected to score lower in each category than the Americans, and this was in fact the result of the research.  In each category, the Arab students scored consistently lower than the American students, indicating that the Arab students maintained more visual contact, spoke louder, touched each other more, and maintained less physical distance between each other while communicating.  The research also supported the hypothesis that the proxemic behavior of the groups would be more alike within each group than between the Arab group and the American group.

 In summary, the authors outline several issues that need to be addressed to further the study of proxemic behavior.  These issues include improved methods for recording proxemic behavior such as using a digital magnetic tape recorder, and the need for larger and more diverse samples.  The aim of these improvements is to facilitate quantitative descriptions of proxemic behavior as part of ethnographic analysis.  The authors point out that while this kind of study is able to quantify proxemic behavior, it cannot identify the meanings attached to proxemic behaviors and what personality traits might be associated with certain behaviors.   

CLARITY RANKING: 5

SYDNEY MAWHORTER   University of Wyoming (Lin Poyer)

West, Frederick Hadleigh.  Ivar Skarland 1899-1965.  American Anthropologist Feb-June 1966 Vol. 67:132-133

Ivar Skarland was born in Hoylandet, Namdel, Norway on September 2, 1899.   In 1921 he was granted a diploma from the Steinkjer School of Forestry in Norway.  In 1935 he graduated from the then Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines with a degree in English.  In 1942 he received his Master’s degree and in 1948 his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University.  In 1940 he had joined the faculty of the University of Alaska and was the senior member at the time for his death.

He first emigrated to Canada working as a logger and eventually moved into Alaska employed as a logger and paying his way through school.  His interest in Anthropology came during his undergraduate days serving as a field assistant to Otto William Geist on St. Lawrence Island.  At the University of Alaska he served variously as the Director of the University Museum and Chairman of the Division of Social Sciences.  He was also a member of the American Anthropological Association, Arctic Institute of North America, Royal Anthropological Society, a life member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the Explorer’s Club and served in several offices of the Alaska Division o f AAAS.  He had a vast knowledge of the northern regions and peoples, which often was used by the government for advice on the Alaskan natives.

Some of Ivar Skarland’s publications include Flint Stations in Central Alaska (1948), The Bering Land-Bridge Re-evaluated (1952), and Archaeological Discoveries on the Denali Highway (1958).  Those interested in the geography, geology, and archaeology of the Alaskan region would want to pursue some of these publications.

CLARITY 3

RYAN GARBER    University of Wyoming (Dr. Lin Poyer)

Williams, Thomas.     Cultural Structuring of Tactile Experience in a Borneo Society. American Anthropologist February, 1966 Vol. 68 (1): 27-38

Thomas Williams examines the various ways that touch is learned and understood throughout life among the native Dusun peoples of Borneo. Williams focuses on "one type of sensory exploration by a native people", rather than choosing to study more conventional topics of discussion among cultural anthropologists, such as kinship or linguistics. The author feels that these conventional topics of study do not adequately deal with subjects such as sensory experience, but that by focusing on something like tactile experience, these other topics can be given a depth that they might not acquire through direct study of their own. The author stresses that one of his most important observations dealt with the ways that an individual must forego tactile experience and begin to substitute "surrogate" gestures that take the place of the actual experience.

Williams spent two years among the Dusun people of Borneo who, with only a few exceptions involving the place of violence and murder in society, remain minimally touched by western society. Williams examines the various ways that touch is substituted for in tattooing, among the men, and cosmetic use, among the women and how these two different expressions explain gender roles. He looks at the different bathing and grooming practices between the sexes and again draws conclusions about gender roles. Dancing and the tactile experience involved is explained, as is the code of conduct for touch among strangers. Next, Williams looks at the restrictions involving touching oneself and the related verbal surrogates that substitute for touching another person. Williams believes that the most important code of conduct dealing with touch is that regarding incest. Finally, he examines the way tactile privileges are withdrawn- because of death, divorce, or the termination of friendship.

Williams feels that his study of tactile experience, while at the time not a conventional topic of study, nonetheless sheds light on an important subject: the way that a culture teaches an individual to deal with a major sensory experience. In so doing, Williams feels that he can offer valuable insight into the individual enculturation process in general and can show how the individual learns to think about the world through the eyes of his learned culture.

CLARITY RANKING: 4

WARREN VAUGHAN University of Wyoming (Dr. Michael Harkin)

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