ANTH 208 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Frank Hamilton Cushing, United States Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell
ANTH 208 Week Four Lecture Notes
● Ethnology predates actual ethnography though it’s spotty
● At Oxford a guy Edward Burnett Tylor founded Anthro. In Britain through the book
Primitive Culture
, 1871. Which gives concept of holism, though in England is later
focused in Social Anthropology, which is also contributed to significantly by Lewis Henry
Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity
○ After Morgan’s work and ideas become more focused on in England, Tylor’s
ideas of holism and such become more prominent in the US and is thus a major
player in the founding of the American four-field approach to Anthropology.
● Fraser holds the first chair in Anthropology, in England, after Morgan turns it down, helps
popularize Anthropology.
● John Wesley Powell, founded the US Geological survey, explored and mapped the
Colorado River Basin, also did folklore studies for the Shoshone native americans there,
as well as linguistic studies/documentation and then became head of the department at
the Smithsonian, Bureau of American Ethnology,
● Frank Hamilton Cushing taught himself how to do projectile point making by spending a
lot of time at Native American sites, and then he did work with the Zuni, lived with them
for three years learning the language thus inventing the participant observation method
of fieldwork in the 1870s.
● At Oxford at the same time as Tylor, Frazer is in the Classics dept., Tylor had recently
become an editor on the Encyclopedia Britannica and needed articles on myths so went
to Frazer who while doing this starts to get into Anthropology and seeing how many
myths/folktales were cross cultural. Leads to writing The Golden Bough
ends up being
twelve volumes before reducing to one.
○ Book becomes incredibly popular and anthropology along with it
○ Fraser puts out that people came up with explanations of magic and religion and
such as they didn’t have experience yet, and then magic leads to religion which
leads to science. Basically another version of progressive evolution
○ In opening we get illusions to things like aging, weather, craft, murder, ritual, etc.
all localized around one place. Looking at how they play into one another, can
see some of the foundations of functionalism. Puts forward looking for
ethnographic analogies, though doesn't actually say that. And element of people
having always been the same even if way of thinking has ‘evolved’.
● Fraser believed that magic was universal and had been widespread in the world in the
past among non modern peoples, also a big thing was that he didn’t say such people
were retrograde in intelligence
● See evidence of these rituals everywhere in cultures all over the world
● Evans-Pritchard puts Frazer’s theories into the intellectualist explanations category when
it comes to ways of theorizing about various topics, intellectualist thinking, thinking based
on own intellect for interpretations of religion
○ Role of magic used to be a point of focus in anthropology in the 19th century and
early 20th
○ Durkheim viewed religion as a projection of societies collective experience
Document Summary
Ethnology predates actual ethnography though it"s spotty. At oxford a guy edward burnett tylor founded anthro. Which gives concept of holism, though in england is later focused in social anthropology, which is also contributed to significantly by lewis henry. Fraser holds the first chair in anthropology, in england, after morgan turns it down, helps popularize anthropology. John wesley powell, founded the us geological survey, explored and mapped the. Colorado river basin, also did folklore studies for the shoshone native americans there, as well as linguistic studies/documentation and then became head of the department at the smithsonian, bureau of american ethnology, Leads to writing the golden bough ends up being twelve volumes before reducing to one. Book becomes incredibly popular and anthropology along with it. Fraser puts out that people came up with explanations of magic and religion and such as they didn"t have experience yet, and then magic leads to religion which leads to science.
