The Modern Anthropologist
Tins is an admirable introduction to modern anthropology- not the science which a cynic once described as " stones, bones and dirty stories about black people." The author avers that the " stones have little practical relevance to-day," and that the " bones " are " not sufficiently human "—with "• fittle beyond an academic interest." There is not a single smoking room story " in the book, and despite these defects it is first-class modern anthropology. It tells of life, it sees life steadily and it secs it whole because it deals with cultures as units and " every culture is a unity in itself and no aspect of culture can be understood except in relation to its own back- ground.". Men who know the habits of the Schools little dream that the old formula, " Explain with reference to the context" is the essential secret of this revolutionary science.
The old order gives place everywhere and here the man who has faced the facts, who has lived the life, and has seen at close quarters the stark huthanity of alien cultures, is set above the armchair philosopher who turns out pretty epigrams and new theories at short notice. Nevertheless, the study has its uses—and abuses. It has a functional value and we suspect a high survival value. Science demands discipline, is impossible without technique, must keep alive the link be- tween theory and fact, and he who would be an anthropologist must settle down to hard work, and " the Cold, abstract, unemotional scientist should stay at home," for he is dealing with men and women, and has human nature, human life, to study. The field worker must learn their language, and bear in mind that " the nature and structure of language is bound up intimately with the structure of society and is a clear reflex of the tribe's psychology." Think of Erse and the Free State') the commotion about Maltese, the proscription of Polish and the question Polonaise ; remember how the Talings of Burma were harassed, plundered, slaughtered, and yet held and hold to their speech as a part, " an element and instrument " of their culture which they defended as a whole.
It is the business of the anthropologist to furnish us with spectacles, to remove ignorance and prejudice, to put the whole truth before us, and to set the gossip in his proper place. He, above all men, must avoid the " heresy that the aberration is more important than the norm." Here we shall see how the perennial problems of social life are tackled and solved and—it may be—find advantage from our troubles. There are sex questions ; there are questions of misfits ; there are economic difficulties. Here are folk who hold that ancestors are reincarnated in the bodies of children—so that " every individual is linked up with some bygone member of the family." This expresses that sense of continuity with the past which explains the strength of the conservatism, the sheet-anchor of the anthropologist.
From these pages we learn what good Wykehamists know— how manners makyth men. Yet to the savage (the other kind of civilized man) we appear to have " domineering and hec- toring ways, appalling egotism and certainty that we are the best in the best of all possible worlds." We must learn humility if we are to be good anthropologists. We must not go as up- lifters—that is not our business. We are going among folk whose life is highly and intelligently regulated. We find them set in a world of status wherein each man is bound to do his duty to those above him, to his fellows, and to those below him, so that an equilibrium may be maintained throughout the whole society—up to the ancestors—who are the living that were and are again to be, and the gods above them. In Africa, whereof the author speaks vividly from a rich fund of personal experience, " Everything," said Mary Kingsley, " works by spirit on spirit." We must not yield to our habit of analysis ; we must resist the temptation of framing defi- nitions, "dangerous things, apt to recoil on the heads of their inventors " ; we must refuse to stick neat labels on our dis- coveries and must heed the caution that " labels are often libels." the 'isms—may help us to a point, but must be viewed synthetically, as elements in an organic whole—a living whole in a definite environment. Two chapters out of this excellent book may be singled out for special note and attention. They deal with Lavi and Education. Mr. Driberg shows " the fundamental flexibility
of the law." " Legal fictions abound . primitive law is no more static than the rest of culture, but adapts itself to the changing requirements of the country." And we can see that this is done quite simply with reasonable speed, with due regard to conservative tradition so that " expansion of legal theory accompanies expansion in law." What a lesson for a country where " the judges are slaves to the past and despots for the future." Of the sanctions and machinery of the law there is much said which should be noted by all who think of the majesty of the law in terms of policemen and prisons.
The continuity of culture is assured by the processes of education. The conditions in which the transmission of knowledge is effected are of paramount importance to science and to practical politics. What is taught, when, how and by whom, have all to be surveyed, and so wrapped are we in schemes of education by books that we neglect or pay but little heed to the thousand factors which contribute—without our conscious knowledge—to our education. There is formal teaching in the lower culture ; there are organized institutions, there is an apprehension of individual quality. With them, as With us, these processes start in the home, at the mother's knee, and the pattern of the lessons of the family life spread out and set the trend of all later development. The facts of family life, of the circle of the persons with whom intercourse is maintained by the conditions of everyday life, dominate all later experience. Think of the vocabulary of the " savage who " requires nearer 2,000 words to express himself," of the training in economics, civics, ethics, genetics, botany, astronomy, medicine, which lead up to full citizenship, parent- hood and high social responsibility. We grumble about a crowded curriculum. Let us be humble again. Legends, tales, dreams, myths, ceremonies, dances, games, all sorts of activities have a part in their scheme of education. With us it is not necessary to change ; it is necessary not to change. That change must come is clear. That there is much—much more than was ever before realized—in the lives and customs, in the ideas and ideals of the lower and simpler cultures that must be presented for disintegration and protected against reformers, this book shows convincingly. It should be studied by all workers at anthropology ; by all of high or low degree who have the care of other men ; by Colonial administrators, by missionaries and by those who have to live amidst this civilization.
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