Why study 'Primitive Societies' ?

From: 'Social Anthropology' by E.E. Evans Pritchard

What are 'Primitive Societies' ?

We are sometimes criticized for giving so much of our time to the study of these primitive societies. It is suggested that inquiry into problems of our own society might be more useful. This may be so, but for various reasons, primitive societies have long held the attention of those interested in the study of social institutions. They attracted the notice of philosophers in the eighteenth century chiefly because they furnished examples of what was supposed to be a man living in a state of nature before the institution of civil government. They engaged the attention of anthropologists in the nineteenth century because it was believed that they provided important clues in the search for the origins of institutions. Later anthropologists were interested in them because it was held that they displayed institutions in their simplest forms and that it is a sound method to proceed from the examination of the more simple to the examination of the more complex, in which what has been learnt from the study of the more simple would be an aid. This last reason for interest in primitive societies gained in weight as the so-called functional anthropology today developed, for the more it is regarded as the task of social anthropology to study social institutions as interdependent parts of social systems, the more it is seen to be an advantage to be able to study those societies which are structurally so simple, and culturally so homogeneous, that they can be directly observed as wholes, before attempting to study complex civilized societies where this is not possible. Moreover, it is a matter of experience that it is easier to make observations among people with cultures unlike our own, the otherness in their way of life at once engaging attention and that it is more likely that interpretations will be objective. Another, and very cogent, reason for studying primitive societies at the present time is that they are rapidly being transformed and must be studied soon or never. These vanishing social systems are unique structural variations, a study of which aids us very considerably in understanding the nature of human society because in a comparative study of institutions, the number of societies studied is less significant than their range of variation. Quite apart from that consideration, the study of primitive societies has intrinsic value. They are interesting in themselves in that they provide descriptions of the way of life, the values, and the beliefs of people living without what we have come to regard as the minimum requirements of comfort and civilization.

We, therefore, feel it an obligation to make a systematic study of as many of these primitive societies as we can while there is still an opportunity to do so. There are a vast number of primitive societies and very few indeed have yet been studied intensively by anthropologists, for such studies take a long time and anthropologists are a very small body.

But though we give chief attention to primitive societies I must make it clear that we do not restrict our attention to them.

Rituals of Liminality

This concept was introduced by Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) and elaborated by Victor Turner (1920-1983) and Edmund Leach (1910-1989). 

A 'liminal period' is -- "a betwixt and between" period; where normal life and time stand still or is reversed. Arnold van Gennep analysed the role of life cycle rituals such as birth, puberty, marriage and death, mark stages of transition in an individual's life, where a person makes a transition from one status to another. 

According to him, every ritual has 3 stages:

1. A stage of separation - the time period when the individual is removed from normal life, often giving up normal daily activities, surrounded by taboos and often enters a ritual status of sacredness. (e.g. during marriage)
2. Liminal period - the time period when a person is kept away from society, sometimes physically hidden away, therefore, they are in the society but not a part of it. This is the "betwixt and between" situation when one is suspended as it were in social space and time. (e.g. bride does not leave the house before marriage and does not take part in usual daily activities)
3. A final stage of incorporation - after the transition is made, the individual comes out of the liminal period and back to normal life. (e.g. new bride asked to cook a dish at her in-law's house)

Edmund Leach used the concept of liminality to describe what he calls - the marking of structural time/intervals; where important social events mark the oscillations of time, from one period to another. (e.g. Harvest rituals mark the interval between one agricultural cycle and another. The sowing-reaping-sowing cycle is marked at each phase my a ritual.) Leach called this oscillating time as against the concepts of lineal time. There is a sense of reversal, where ordinary life is reversed/stopped. (e.g. during a festival in India called Holi, social norms get reversed. Normal social distances get abandoned; young people take over, hostilities and inequalities are ignored and also in some cases, injustice suffered in regular life acted in reverse, women beat husbands with brooms.)

Functional study of Rituals

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

In his book, 'Elementary forms of religious life' (1912), set the stage for functional analysis from the earlier emphasis on evolution. Durkheim showed how the Totemic rituals establish within the participants;

• sense of oneness
• sense of solidarity
• sense of commitment
• sense of morality

He also showed how the Totemic rituals led to a harmonious relationship between nature and humans. Every time the Totemic rituals were performed, all the values become reemphasized and reaffirmed. The repetitive nature of rituals was to recreate the collective sentiments of the people - a process necessary for survival. 

A. R. Radcliffe Brown (1881-1955)

Followed Durkheim to give a structural-functional analysis of collective rituals. He introduced the terms 'ritual value' and 'ritual status' to describe the symbolic significance of collective rituals. He showed the significance of taboos/prescriptions and prohibitions in creating a ritual status and thereby giving a ritual value to an object. (Ritual values are social values necessary for maintaining necessary sentiments essential for social reproduction and solidarity.) 

His hypothesis - rituals, by their restrictions on action, create anxiety that is just right to make a person realize the importance of a relationship. In this analysis, importance is given to the function of rituals for social structure.

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)

His hypothesis - explains rituals as relieving anxiety rather than creating anxiety. In this analysis, importance is given to the function of rituals for individuals.

All human beings have certain amount of rational knowledge about the tasks we do. In spite, a certain degree of uncertainty prevails. The role of rituals is to take care of this 'grey area' which no amount of skill or knowledge can cover. The more dangerous the result of failure, greater the anxiety, more elaborate the rituals. For example, in his study of the Trobrianders, a seafaring community of Pacific Islands, Malinowski showed that when they are fishing in backwaters or otherwise safe zones, the fishermen perform little rituals, but they always perform elaborate rituals when they are venturing out in the deep sea or any long distance voyage where the risk factor is high.

The performance of rituals can be rationalized by the positive mindset/confidence it builds in an individual, who feels satisfied at having done all that could be, including those that are beyond human control and only the supernatural can take care of. 

In his book, 'The Coral gardens and their Magic' (1935), he showed how rituals performed by magicians help to regulate agricultural work and imposes rational time schedule that actually helps in scientific management of productive activities. Once activities are projected as a sacred duty, there is greater compliance and less chance of people defaulting. 

Reference: IGNOU Study Materials

A note on Rituals

A performance, to be socially meaningful, must have a public content. 

Even if, a person is performing a ritual individually, he/she follows a pattern that is publicly recognized and followed. For example, a Hindu woman blowing a conch shell and lighting a lamp under the Tulsi tree in the evening. Every culture prescribes a format for the performance of rituals that must be followed by everyone, whether or not the ritual is actually performed publicly. 

Photo by Naveen Kumar on Unsplash

Religion and Anthropology

The anthropological approach of studying human societies as integrated wholes consider religion as a part of culture. Anthropologists try to find out the relevance of religion in human societies, whether primitive or technologically advanced, and the significance of religion in human societies. Notable is the fact that there is no society known so far without any religious idea, it is a cultural universal. They made attempts to search for earlier forms of religion and religious thoughts and the courses of change therein. Some intellectuals thought that religion will have no place where science and technology flourish - but the reality is to the contrary. 

Anthropologists defined religion in different ways, but none of them adequately cover all aspects of religion practised by all human societies. 

Edward Burnett Tylor : "Belief in spiritual things"

Emile Durkheim : …"a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church all those who adhere to them."

Clifford Geertz : "A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

for more - Various Definitions of Religion

Typical dictionary definition of religion : "belief in, or the worship of, God or Gods."

References: IGNOU Study Materials

Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism

Cultural relativism : 

• Cultural Relativism/ Cultural determinism approach was first formulated by Franz Boas in North America in the 19th century. He says no culture should be judged by the standards of another. Cultural relativism views people’s behavior from the perspective of their own culture. It places a priority on understanding other cultures, rather than dismissing them as “strange” or “exotic.” Any part of a culture must be viewed from within its cultural context-not that of the observer or the notion that there are no universal standards by which all cultures may be evaluated. Cultures must be analyzed with reference to their own histories and cultural traits understood in terms of the cultural whole. (IGNOU)
• J.F. Lafitau (1724) - insisted that alien ways of life should be observed and described not according to prevailing European standards of what is proper/moral, but by consideration of the conditions under which these ways of life exist.
• The anthropological practice of suspending judgment and seeking to understand another culture on its own terms sympathetically enough so that the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living.  
• Examine each culture within the context of its own beliefs.
• Acknowledges that other societies are, like our own, reasonable responses to the circumstances they must deal with.
• The notion that judgments should not be made concerning the merits of one way of life over another.
• The attempt to understand and evaluate each cultural system in terms of its own internally consistent logic. (Miller et al.)
• The argument that behavior in a particular culture should not be judged by the standards of another. (Kottak)
• Resistance to 'universal' assumptions about socio-cultural processes.
• The proposition that cultural differences should not be judged by absolute standards. (A History of Anthropological theory)

(Relativism - judgments, truths, or moral values have no absolutes, and can only be understood relative to the situation/ individuals involved.)

Ethnocentrism : 

• The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct and the only true way of being fully human.
• Creates prejudice against other ethnic groups.
• Tendency to view one's own culture as superior and to apply its own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures. (Kottak)
• Scholar's own moral system formed the basis by which other phenomena are judged. 
• The tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of one's own culture. (Miller et al.)
• The white Europeans presenting their own culture as a benchmark for civilization put all other societies on an evolutionary scale. They justified each society as being at different levels of evolution based on their technological knowledge. Thus, giving rise to ‘cultural ethnocentrism’. This concept devalued the comparative method, as it was used mainly to accentuate the scholars' own society as ‘superior’ to the societies of the people under study. (IGNOU)
• In his book “Folkways” Sociologist William Graham Sumner coined the term ethnocentrism to refer to the tendency to assume that one’s culture and way of life are superior to all others. (Sumner 1906)
• As students of Anthropology, we must shed our cultural biases or the assumption that our own culture is superior. Only when we accept our own culture as one among the many other cultures that exist in human societies across the World we will be able to conduct a proper study. 

References: Collected