Anthropos: Anthropos, 61.1966

Anthropos, 61.1966

Bibliographische Daten

Zeitschrift

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Untertitel:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

Zeitschriftenband

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711748

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711748

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510221115730

Titel:: Anthropos, 61.1966

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1966

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 61, 1966, Heft 3-6

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Literaturverzeichnis

Strukturtyp:: Literaturverzeichnis

Titel:: Bibliographia

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Bibliographia Evans-Pritchard E. E. Theories of Primitive Religion, v-132 pp. in 8°. Oxford 1965. Clarendon Press. Price: 25s. In this short volume Professor Evans-Pritchard of Oxford surveys most of the classic theories of the origin and nature of religion among preliterate peoples. In the introductory chapter the author indicates the importance and significance of such study for students of religion in general, and suggests some of the problems of mental re-orien tation required of those who try to convey some of the complex notions which are part of alien systems of thought. He rightly observes that the problem of translation is, if seen in its broadest implications, the major task in the comparative study of religion. The grotesque incredibility of many accounts of alien belief systems is usually due to the ethnographer’s inability to perceive the categories of thought of another society and his failure to present such categories as part of a system. This, in turn, relates to a paradox in the comparative study of religions: The accurate description of the cosmology of a people conveys something of the complex, subtle and unique qualities of a particular world-view, yet it must be written in a language with a vocabulary which is extraneous to these ideas. Furthermore, the description of these unique qualities becomes mere exoticism if they cannot be shown to have some of their roots in more basic, common features of human thought and in men’s universal concern with problems such as those posed by death, infirmity, sexuality and the discrepancy between ideals and behaviour. No other living social anthropologist has contributed more than the author toward our understanding of the thought of preliterate societies. Ironically, however, few other distinguished anthropologists seem more hostile at times to comparative study, even though research on particular societies has little significance without such studies. Evans-Pritchard divides the various theories explaining religion into two cate gories, psychological and sociological, and devotes one chapter surveying each of these. In the former, he considers authorities such as Müller, Frazer, Tylor, Marett and Freud; in the later, Fustel de Coulanges, Robertson Smith, Durkheim, Mauss, Hertz and Radcliffe-Brown. His coverage is brief yet there are memorable insights and comments on many of these authors and the issues they represent. Nonetheless, the general tone at times seems somewhat negative: "... it must not be supposed that there can be only one sort of general statement which can be made about social phenomena, and that others must be wrong if that one is right. There is no a priori reason why these theories purporting to explain primitive religion in terms respectively of ratiocination, emotion, and social function should not all be correct, each supplementing the others, though I do not believe that they are. Interpretation can be on different levels. Likewise there is no reason why several different explanations of the same type, or on the same level, should not all be right so long as they do not contradict each other, for each may explain different features of the same phenome non. In point of fact, however, I find all the theories we shall examine together no more than plausible and even, as they have been propounded, unacceptable in that they contain contradictions and other logical inadequacies, or in that they cannot, as stated, be proved either true or false, or finally, and most to the point, in that ethnographic evidence invali dates them’’ (p. 18).

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