The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology [and Comments

and Reply]
Author(s): Marshall Sahlins, Thomas Bargatzky, Nurit Bird-David, John Clammer, Jacques
Hamel, Keiji Maegawa, Jukka Siikala
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jun., 1996), pp. 395-428
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744541 .
Accessed: 17/05/2011 05:07
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. .
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating
with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology.

http://www.jstor.org

CURRENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 37, Number 3, June I996
? I996 byThe Wenner-Gren
FoundationforAnthropological
Research.All rightsreserved
OOII-3204/96/3703-0002$4.00

SIDNEY W. MINTZ LECTURE

FOR I994

The Sadness of
Sweetness
The Native Anthropology
of
WesternCosmology'
by Marshall Sahlins
This paperattemptsto lenda broad"archaeological"supportto
SidneyMintz'sSweetnessand Powerbydiscussingcertainmajor
anthropological
themesofthelongtermin theJudeo-Christian
cosmologythatseem particularly
relevantto Westerneconomic
behavior-especiallyconsumption
issues-in the i8th century.
The pleasure-pain
principleofhumanaction,theidea ofan irresistibleand egoisticalhumannatureunderlying
social behavior,
the sense ofsocietyas an orderofpoweror coercion,and a confidencein thegreaterprovidential
value ofhumansuffering
figure amongtheseanthropological
themes.It is also arguedthat
theycontinueto inhabitmainstream
Westernsocial scienceto thebedevilment
ofourunderstandings
ofotherpeoples.
MARSHALL
SAHLINS iS CharlesF. GreyDistinguished
ServiceProfessorofAnthropology
and in the College,University
ofChicago
(Chicago,Ill. 60637, U.S.A.). Bornin 1930, he was educatedat
theUniversity
ofMichigan(B.A.,I95i; M.A., i952) and at ColumbiaUniversity
(Ph.D., 1954) and taughtat Michiganfrom
I956 to I973. His researchinterests
are Pacifichistoryand ethHe has publishedStoneAge Economics(Chicago:Alnography.
dine,I972), Cultureand PracticalReason (Chicago:University
ofChicagoPress,I972), HistoricalMetaphorsand MythicalRealities (Chicago:University
ofChicagoPress,i98i), Islands ofHistory(Chicago:University
ofChicagoPress,i985), withPatrick
Kirch,Anahulu(Chicago:University
ofChicagoPress,i992), and
How "Natives" Think:About Captain Cook,ForExample(ChiofChicagoPress,i995). The presentpaperwas
cago: University
acceptedio viii 95, and thefinalversionreachedtheEditor'soffice6 Ix 95.

Sweetness and Power (Mintz I985) was forme a landmark book because it dared to take on capitalism as a
cultural economy.In a double way it put anthropology
at the centerofhistory:not onlyas a culturaldiscipline,
the academic anthropology
we know and love,but in the
formofwhat may be deemed the native anthropology
of
Westernsociety,the indigenousconceptionsof human
existence that, at a particularhistoricaljuncture,gave
sweetness its economic functionality.It is this native
WesternanthropologyI would talk ofhere,both in relation to Sid Mintz's classic work and in relationto anthropologyas a discipline. On the one hand, the aim
will be to complementthe argumentsof Sweetnessand
Powerby expandingon certainaspects ofthe indigenous
anthropology.We shall see that it takes some singular
ideas of humanity,society,and natureto come up with
the tristetropethat what life is all about is the search
forsatisfaction,which is to say the meliorationof our
pains. On the otherhand, I will tryto make the point
thatthese cosmic notions did not beginor end with the
Enlightenment.They are native cultural structuresof
the long term that still inhabit academic anthropology-as well as otherWesternsocial sciences-and bedevil our understandingsof otherpeoples.
Concerned with certain Judeo-Christiandogmas of
human imperfection,my argumentcould be described
as an "archaeology"of mainstreamsocial science "discourse." It would be pleasing to thinkof it then as the
owl of Minerva takingwing at the dusk of an intellectual era. It has an organization,however,more closely
resemblingthe flightof the postmodernistwifflebird,
movingin ever-decreasing
hermeneuticcirclesuntil....
Nor should the mentionof Minervabe taken as a claim
to profoundknowledge.AlthoughI flitovera vast continent of Westernscholarship,it is only in the capacity
of an anthropologicaltourist,collectingan intellectual
genealogy here and a fragmentof academic folklore
there,while makinga most superficialinspectionof the
greatphilosophicalmonuments.Like most tourists,I no
doubt consistentlymake a fool of myself.Not only are
the expositionsofmain ideas always schematic,usually
idiosyncratic,and possibly wrongbut also insufficient
attention has been paid to alternative traditionswithoutwhich this paper could not have been written.
The other necessaryapologies are as follows: I do not
considerall the premisesofthenativeanthropology
that
are still in vogue as science, only the fouror five that
seem most relevantto Sweetness and Power. I do not
provide an adequate economic and political historyof
the ideas and traditionsI discuss, nor do I prove that
theyare inadequate-or, as I believe,disastrous-forthe
study of non-Westernsocieties. Finally,I am speaking
about male writerswho themselvesspoke mainlyabout
men and to men. Given what they had to say about
"mankind," you wouldn't want to substitute"her" for
"him" or even speak about "he or she."2

2. It is worthreiterating
thatI am discussingsomecommonaveri. The I994 SidneyW. MintzLecturewas deliveredat The Johns age mainstream
Judeo-Christian
ideas ofthehumancondition,to

HopkinsUniversity
on AprilI12,

I995.

the relativeneglectof variantand conflicting

positions.In this

395

396 1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

Introduction:Flowers of Evil
Paul Ricoeur singles out the biblical storyof the Fall as
"the anthropologicalmythpar excellence,the onlyone,
perhaps,that expresslymakes man the origin (or the
A willful human act,
co-origin)of evil" (I967:28I).3
Adam's sin opened the dolefulabyssbetween"the absolute perfectionof God and the radical wickedness of
man." Apartfromthis unhappyconsciousness,Ricoeur
means to distinguishthe Genesis traditionfromcosmologies in which evil is primordialratherthan historical,
precedingor accompanyingthe creationratherthan the
effectof the creature.It is truethat in a fairnumberof
othermythologiesthe originofdeath-and/or theorigin
of hungerand toil-is laid to the violation of a divine
admonitionby a legendarytricksteror ancestralhero.
Yet even if these faults were due to perversityrather
than folly,they did not produce an inherentlywicked
humanity,banished from the presence of God to a
purelynaturaland antitheticalworldofthornsand thistles. There is a differencebetween human evil and regrettablemisfortune.And Adam (or "Man") was not
only the originalagent of evil, but therebyand thenceforthhe was corporeallydisposed to it. Man cannotnot
does
sin, as Augustinesaid. This kind of self-contempt
not appear to be a generalpreoccupationof humanity.
What makes the Westernmythologyseem even more
singular is the cosmological consequences of Adam's
crime: "The whole creationgroanethand travailethin
pain together" (Romans 8:22). Bernard Mandeville
voiced a common (Western)complaint when he observedthat it was difficultto distinguishthe obstacles
to human endeavorsthat were due to man's bodyfrom
those that came fromthe conditionofthe planet "since
it has been curs'd." It is impossibleto keep thesetribulations asunder,he said; they "always interfereand mix
with one another;and at last make up togethera frightful Chaos of Evil" (Mandeville I988, vol. I:344). In
Adam's fall sinn'd we all: human lifebecame penal and
the worldhostile.4In JohnDonne's words,"The noblest

part,man, feltit first;and then/Bothbeasts and plants,

curstin the curse of man."
As forhumanity,pain and death were not the only
penalties of Adamic pride.There was also a certainstupidity,the effectof epistemological obstacles. Eating
fromthe tree of knowledge,Adam plunged men into
gross ignorance,simultaneously engenderingunfortunate consequences forhuman social relationships.Beforethe sin, when called upon by God to name the animals Adam provedhimselfthe world'sfirstand greatest
philosopher:he could distinguishthe species as theyreally were, accordingto their true essences and differ59). Adam had then an almost
ences (AarsleffI982:25,
divineknowledge.Fromthe correctnames to the confusion of tongues,however,man experiencedan all-round
fall fromintellectualgrace. A veil was drawnbetween
one person and another as well as between humanity
and the world. Mankind was thus subject to a double
dissimulationof reality,social as well as natural.Coveringthemselvesin shame,men and women introduced
deception into all communication.Relations between
societies were marked by the incomprehensionand
strifeofBabel-a fittingsequiturto this second attempt
of men "to be as gods." And if within societies people
concealed theirtrue (internal)selves fromone another,
how could theirassociation have been foundedon anything but this dissimulation,given that mankind had
been committedto self-lovefromthe Fall? "It is impossible we could be sociable CreatureswithoutHypocrisy"
(Mandeville I988, vol. I:349). Nature too was hidden
fromus. In a neo-Platonicsense, the truthof the world
disguiseditself,since it could be known only as the inadequate sensory impressions of defective empirical
things. The day was yet to come when Bacon would
attempt to reverse the epistemological values by assertingthat experientialwisdom was man's greathope
forclimbingout ofthe pit into which he had been digg'd
by OriginalSin. Even so, such empiricismturnedout to
be an ideological reconciliationwith a permanentimperfection.Man had been condemned to an ignorance
as profoundas his wickedness,a "knowingignorance,"
hopelesslyseparatedfromGod's truth(CassirerI963).
Human finitude,thefamous"metaphysicalevil," was
the defectthat encompassed all the others.A line of
argument running notably from Augustine through
Leibniz repudiatedthe classical pantheisticnotion that
God made the universe fromHimself,on the grounds
that "from a god only a god can proceed" (Leibniz

regardeven the "Judeo"in the abovephrasecouldbe questioned,

critichas remarked(and Philo of Alexandria
since,as a friendly
are not so
the radicaldualismsof Christianity
notwithstanding),
Fairenough,buthereI am
markedin thatbranchofthetradition.
tryingto hit the centerof the broadside of a bam, the would-be
discourse.
authoritative
3. The equivocation("perhaps")is well taken.The Dinka as describedbyLienhardt(i96i) comequiteclose to theAdamiccondiAugustineI948; Hick I966). The world,intionsingledout byRicoeur,as mayotherEast Africanpeoples.In I985:300;
in opposition cludingthe creature,was createdex nihilo: nothingdiDinka myth,humanwill andthesearchforfreedom,
hunger,and death into the vine as such is in it. Not that God was responsiblefor
to God, likewise broughtsuffering,
world.Certainotherdimensionsof the Christiananthropogeny/evil, which, as the absence of good, He did not make.
theodicy,however,remaindistinct(as is arguedhere).
senseI What He made was good. But as createdout of nothing,
4. On the GenealogyofMoralsconveysthe comparative
to evoke:"A singlelook at theGreekgodswill convince and in contrastto the unchangingand perfectnatureof
am trying
that God, man was corruptible(AugustineDe civitate Dei
us thata beliefin godsneednotresultin morbidimaginations,
therearenoblerwaysofcreatingdivinefigments-wayswhichdo I2.I).
Free will was the expressionof this unfortunate
in
and self-punishment
not lead to the kind of self-crucifixion
whichEurope,formillennianow,has excelled.The Hellenicgods
a raceofnobleand proudbeings,in whomman'sanimal keep bad conscienceat a distance,in orderto enjoytheirinner
reflected
in otherwords,theymadetheoppositeuse of
undisturbed;
selfhaddivinestatusandhenceno needtolacerateandrageagainst freedom
has made ofits god" (Nietzschei956:227).
itself.Fora verylongtimetheGreeksused theirgodspreciselyto themthatChristianity

SAHLINS

mutabilityand the Fall its catastrophiceffect.Human

finitudewas the root of all evil. Both the cause and the
crime consisted in the nature of man as an imperfect
creatureof lack and need. So did the punishment.

The Anthropologyof Need

The punishmentwas the crime,as Augustinesaid. Man
was destinedto wear out his body in the vain attempt
to satisfyit, because in obeyinghis own desireshe had
disobeyedGod.5 By puttingthis love of self beforethe
love of Him alone who could suffice,man became the
slave of his own needs (De civitate Dei I3, I4). Or
should we not say, Westernman, since not many other
peoples-except successful Buddhists,perhaps-know
"truerest" and "deliverance"as synonymsofdeath?But
then,this lifeis a "hell on earth,"as Augustinesaid; no
wonderbabies come into it cryingand screaming.6
Still, God was merciful.He gave us Economics. By
Adam Smith's time, human misery had been transformedinto the positive science of how we make the
the most possible satbest ofour eternalinsufficiencies,
isfaction from means that are always less than our
wants. It was the same miserableconditionenvisioned
in Christian cosmology,only bourgeoisified,an elevation of freewill into rational choice, which affordeda
more cheerfulview of the material opportunitiesafThe genesis of Economics
fordedby human suffering.
was the economics of Genesis. Lionel Robbins(I952:I5)
said as much in his famous determinationof what economics is all about:

The Native Anthropologyof WesternCosmology | 397

ofthis world.Ifbourgeoissocietyliberatedegoisticman
fromthe prisonhouse ofChristianmoralityand allowed
desire to parade shamelessly in the light of dayfinessingsocial justice by the claim that PrivateVices
were Publick Benefits-still there had been no fundamental change in the Westernconceptionofhuman nabeing,
ture. Man was ever an imperfectand suffering
withwants everbeyondhis powers.The Economic Man
of modern times was still Adam. Indeed, the same
creatureof need survivedlong enough
scarcity-driven
to become the main protagonistof all the human sciences.
I have already published this argumentabout "utilism" too many times,so I shall tryto be brief.7
First,regardingcontinuityand change in the Adamic
concept of man: The change, as I have implied, was
ratherin the value of human imperfectionthan in the
fact. Originallyunderstoodby the Church Fathersas a
formofbondage,each man's endless and hopeless attention to his own desiresbecame, in the liberal-bourgeois
ideology, the condition of freedomitself.8Originally,
need had distinguished mankind from God's selfsufficientperfection.9Afterthe Fall, as St. Basil describedit, "Nature became corrupted,just as men did,
and failedto providehim withhis needs" (Boas I 948:33).
The world "does not make good what it promises,"
wroteAugustine;"it is a liar and deceiveth."So man is
fated"to pursue one thingafteranother.... his needs
are so multipliedthathe cannotfindthe one thingneedful, a single and unchangeable nature" (in Deane
howi963:45).1O On becominga scientificanthropology,

We have been turnedout of Paradise.We have nei7. "Utilism"is a termcoinedbyGeorgeEliotto translateFeuerofthepragmatic-cum-egoistic

bach'scharacterization
senseofGod
thereternallifenor unlimitedmeans of gratificatradition:
a God who will suspendtherules
tion. Everywherewe turn,ifwe choose one thingwe in theJudeo-Christian
of the universein man's favor,a God whose love forme is thus
circummust relinquishotherswhich, in different
myself-lovedeified(FeuerbachI957, i967). I have adoptedit here
stances,we would wish not to have relinquished.
(inpreference
to "utilitarianism")
to refer
to theneed-andscarcityScarcityof means to satisfyends of varyingimpordrivenbehaviorofthe creatureswho worshipthissortofGod.
by bondsand constraint
in
tance is an almost ubiquitous conditionofhuman be- 8. "That whichin a slave is effected
us is effected
by passions,whose violenceis sweet,but none the
haviour.Here, then,is the unityof the subject of
less pernicious"(LeibnizI985: 289).
Economic Science, the formsassumed by human be9. "Thus it [thespiritualbody]is a whollymiraculousbody,the
haviourin disposingof scarce means.
fulfillment
ofman's supernatural
wish to have a bodythatis free
of sicknessand suffering,
invulnerableand immortal,and hence

For the momentwe will followLord Robbinsin skip- withoutneeds.Forthe manifoldneedsofourbodyare thesource
ping over much of what happenedbetweenthe Fall and ofitsmanifoldailments.... Buttheheavenly,spiritualbodyneeds
its Economic Science, such as the advent of capital- neitherair,foodordrink;it is a divinebodywithoutneeds"(Feuerism-on the heels of the Renaissance change of heart bach I967: 260-6I).
io. Augustinehad his
of course,such as Philo of
about the blessings of povertyand the contemptibility Alexandria: "when . . . predecessors,
men have poured themselves out wildly

intotheirpassionsand guiltyyearnings
ofwhichit is notrightto
is decreed,vengeanceforimpiouspracspeak,fitting
punishment
5. Of coursethetruefaultwas Eve's,who as womanrepresented tices.Andthepunishment
is thedifficulty
ofsatisfying
ourneeds"
theflesh,thesenses,relativeto Adam'sintellect(Philoi929:225And therewere manymedievalsuccessorsto
(in Boas I948:i2).
26; BaerI970; Twain I904). This proposition-menareto women the same philosophy,
such as Pope InnocentIII: "Desiresare like
tenetofthe a consumingfirewhichcannotbe extinguished....Whowas ever
as themindis to thesenses-has beena long-standing
nativeWesternfolklore(LloydI984, Bordoi987).
contentafterhis desirehas been fulfilled?
When man achieves
6. A discipleobservedthat"onlypaganscannotunderstand
why whathe desiredhe wantsmoreand neverstopslongingforsomeChristiansdelightin the chastisement
and disciplinewhichtheir thingelse" (Marchandi966:35). Anothercontinuity
fromtheAulovingFatherjustlysendsas a necessarymeansto a blessedend" gustiniantradition
seemsso simple-minded
andvertiginous
thatI
(LowithI949:I76,
paraphrasing
Orosius).Augustine'sline about am inclinedto buryit here,in a footnote.
It concernstheso-called
babesborncryingintotheworldwouldbe cheerfully
repeatedfor triplelibidothatAugustinespokeabout(afterI John2.i6 and othcenturies."We areall bornwailing,"wrotePopeInnocentIII,"that ers):thehumanlustsfortemporalgoods,fordomination,
and for
we mightexpressthemiseryofournature"(Marchandi966:8).
carnalpleasures(see Deane I963:chap. 2). Is it too crudeto point

398 1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

ever, this self-love changed its moral sign (Dumont

I977, I986; HirschmanI977). The originalevil and
source of vast sadness in Augustine,the needs of the
body became simply "natural" in Hobbes or at least a
"necessary evil" in Baron d'Holbach, to end in Adam
Smithor Milton Friedmanas the supremesource of social virtue.Followingon Hobbes and Locke, the materialist philosophes-Messrs. d'Holbach, Helvetius, La
Mettrie,Condillac & Co.-found that the rational response to bodilyneed could providethemwith the human parallel to the Newtonian science afterwhich they
hankered.Here was a law ofmotionofhuman bodies as
comprehensiveas the law of gravitation."In Hobbes's
terms,men move to-wardsthose thingsthat give them
those that cause thempain. In
pleasure and from-wards
additionto universalmotion,pleasure and pain forthe
philosophes became the generallaw of cognition.As in
the formulamade famous by Helvetius, corporealpleasure and pain, by awakening need and interest,issue
in the comparisonand judgmentof objects.'2Originally
condemned as the author of sin, self-pleasingman
turnedout to be a good thingand in the end the best
thing,since the greatesttotal good would come of each
person's total self-concern.Slavery was thus transformedinto liberty,and the human lust that once foretold eternalperditionbecame the premise of temporal
salvation.Over the long run,the nativeWesternanthropologyprovedto be an extendedexercisein the sublimationofevil. Yet throughall thesehappymetamorphoses,
the sad figureof needfulman remainedthe invariant.'3
Indeed,human needs came to be the reason forsociety
itself:"Because man is sociable, people have concluded
he is good. But theyhave deceived themselves.Wolves
formsocieties, but theyare not good.... All we learn
fromexperienceon this head is thatin man, as in other
animals, sociability is the effectof want" (Helvetius

vol.7:224-25).

traditionalanthropology.Again a long line of academic

ancestors-stretching back to Vico and Machiavelli
throughthe Enlightenmentphilosophes to the English
utilitariansand theirlatest incarnationsin the Chicago
School of (the) Economics (ofEverything)-haveall argued that individual self-interestis the fundamental
bond ofsociety.'4 So, ford'Holbach, "A nationis nothing
more than the union of a greatnumberof individuals,
connected to one another by the reciprocityof their
wants,or by theirmutual desireofpleasure" (I889:I47).
Or Mandeville (I988, vol. I:344; see also 4, 67, 369),
who explicitlyrefersthe possibilityofsocietyto the fall
of man:
not the Good and Amiable, but the Bad and Hateful
Qualities of Man, his Imperfectionsand the want of
Excellencies which otherCreaturesare endued with,
are the firstCauses that made Man sociable beyond
otherAnimals the Moment afterhe lost Paradise;
and ... if he had remain'din his primitiveInnocence, and continuedto enjoy the Blessingsthat attendedit, thereis no Shadow of Probabilitythathe
ever would have become the sociable Creaturehe is
now.

O felixculpa! Here was anotherredeemingparadoxof

the FortunateFault (Lovejoy I948:chap. I4). Out of the
Sin came Society.Men congregatein groupsand develop
social relations eitherbecause it is to theirrespective
advantageto do so or because theydiscoverthat other
men can serve as means to their own ends. True, the
last violates a famous categoricalimperative,to which
Helvetius counteredin turn:"Everywriterwho, to give
us a good opinion of his own heart,foundsthe sociabilityofman on any otherprinciplethanthatofbodilyand
habitual wants, deceives weak minds and gives a false
idea of morality"(I795, vol. 7:228-29).

"Aimer,"said

Helvetius, "c'est avoir besoin."''5Pope, in his Essay on

The recurrentattemptto make individual need and Man, immortalizedthe theory:"Thus God and Nature
greedthe basis ofsociability,as in thistextofHelvetius, linked the generalframe/Andbade Self-loveand Social
has been one of the more interestingprojects of the be the same."''6
I795,

outthatthethreemainWesterntheoriesofhumansocialbehavior
ofsocietywouldinvokethesame desires:gain
oroftheformation
(Marx),sex (Freud),andpower(Nietzsche,Foucault)?-notto mentionthe synthesesthathave been made ofthese,whichis also to
ofkeepingthemapart.
say the difficulties
I I. "Parle seulmouvementil [Dieu]conduitla matiere:/Maisc'est
par le plaisirqu'il conduitles humains"(Voltaire,in Hampson
I968:IO3).

occasionedbythecomparI 2. In Helv6tius'swords:"all judgments

ison ofobjectsone withanothersupposein us an interestin comnecessarilyfoundedon ourlove of
paringthem.Andthisinterest,
whence
happiness,can onlybe the effectof physicalsensibility,
all ourtroublesandpleasurestaketheirsource.... I thusconclude
thatphysicalpleasureand pain is the unknownprincipleof all
actions of men" (I795:204).

I3. So Europeansnevershook offa certaintheologicalguilt.In

" 'Pride'in Eighteenth-Century
Thought,"Lovejoydocumentsthe
thesourceofthesin.
continuing
castigationofthisoriginalfrailty,
denunciationsof pride,Lovejoyobserves,"are
The i8th-century
ofman
often,at bottom,expressionsof a certaindisillusionment
disillusionment
abouthimself-a phasein thatlonganddeepening
ofa greatpartofmodemthought"(I948:i65).
whichis thetragedy

I4. Nor shouldold Aquinasbe forgot.

The idea thatsocietyoriginatesto meetindividualneedsofcoursegoesbehindearlymodern
notesthatforAquinas,apartfromthe church
times.Schumpeter
humanaffair,
and moreover,
society"was treatedas a thoroughly
as a mereaggregation
ofindividualsbrought
together
bytheirmundane needs.Government,
too,was thoughtofas arisingfromand
existingfornothingbutthoseutilitarian
purposesthatindividuals
cannot realize without such an organization"(Schumpeter
I954:9I-92).

i 5.This aphorismoccursin Helv6tius'sDe 1'esprit,

ofwhichwork
Halevy pointsout, "Howevermuch thisbook may be forgotten
today,it is impossibleto exaggeratethe extentof its influence
throughout
Europeat the time of its appearance"(I949:i8). The
influencewas especiallymarkedin England.Amongthe firstto
submitto it was Jeremy
Bentham.
i6. "Self-love,whichan earliergeneration
would have attributed
to man's tumingawayfromtheserviceofGod,is treatedbyPope
as a necessaryforceofnature,withoutwhichreasonwouldremain

inactive" (Hampson i968:ioi). This is also the Hobbesian relation

betweenself-loveand reason.It seems to have becomecommon

in the i8th century,
evenin theperverse
formsin whichRousseau
cast it.

SAHLINS

NEED

AMONG

THE

INDIANS

OF NEW

FRANCE

one ofthetwomain
Accordingto theJesuitJosephJouvency,
sourcesof disease amongthe Indiansof New Francewas an
insatiabledesireforobjectsof a particularkind.Apparently
fromsome formof windigo,the patient,whose afsuffering
was treatedbyan equal
flictionwas thoughtto be congenital,
and oppositedisplayof generosity.
Withoutstintor thought
his "parents,
friends
andrelaofanyreturn,
Jouvency
reports,
tives ... lavish upon him whatever it may be, however expen-

sive." The patientconsumessomepartofthegift,distributes

someto thediviners,"and oftenon thenextdaydepartsfrom
life"(Jouvency
I7IO:258). This provesthatone society'sEconomicsmaybe another'smadness.Orat leastthattheinevitaofmeansrelativeto endsdoes notevokean
ble insufficiency
innatedispositionto truckand barter.Farfromsuch wants'
servingas thebondofsociety,theIndianwhois besetbythem
will have a hardtimelivingwithothers.

The Native Anthropologyof WesternCosmology 1399

of created things. Human preferencesare the Deity's
way of organizingthe world as a systemof values-as
opposedto meresubstances,which in and ofthemselves
are nothing(Cusanus, quoted in Cassirer i963:43-44):
For althoughthe human intellectdoes not give being to the value [i.e., does not create the thingsvalued], therewould neverthelessbe no distinctionsin
value withoutit.... Withoutthe power of judgment
and of comparison,everyevaluation ceases to exist,
and with it value would also cease. Wherewithwe
see how precious is the mind,forwithoutit, everythingin creationwould be withoutvalue. When
God wanted to give value to his work,he had to create, besides the otherthings,the intellectualnature.

Cusanus thus prefiguresthe self-regulating

market in
A certainanthropologicalfunctionalismwas another the formof a cosmological process.By virtueof human
legacy of the enlightenedAdamic theory,especially as preferences,the universe was commoditized-before
"function"was collapsed into "purpose" and the "pur- the commoditywas universalized.
Indeed,LorenzoValla had alreadydiscoveredthe decipose" was the satisfactionofneed. In thisrespect,Malinowski's reduction of culture to corporealneeds was sive principleofthe economisticplenum: the searchfor
a pedantic elaboration of Enlightenmentsocial sci- pleasure."Pleasure,"he wrotein I43I, "iS notonlythe
ence. The main advance achieved by Radcliffe-Brown's highestgood,but the good pureand simple,the conservstructural-functionalism
was the transpositionof the ing principleof life,and thereforethe basic principleof
same paradigmto societyas a whole,thatis, by conceiv- all value." And insofaras forValla pleasurewas the aim
ing the social totalityas an organism,a biological indi- of all sociability,he also anticipatedthe legion ofWestvidual,whose institutionsrespondedin effect(function) ern scholarswho went on to explicate all varietyof so(I977:22I,
.223):
and form(structure)to its life needs. HerbertSpencer ciablerelationsas personaladvantages
was the transitionalfigure.On the one hand,he adopted
And what is the aim of friendship?Has it been
the going utilist principlethat society was an arrangesoughtforand so greatlypraisedby all ages and nament that people entered into for the satisfactionof
tions forany otherreasons than the satisfactionsaristheirpersonal interests.On the other hand, he maining fromthe performanceof mutual servicessuch as
tained that society itselfwas a "life" or a superorganic givingand receivingwhatevermen commonly
entity,engaged with other such beings in a struggle
need? ... As formastersand servants,thereis no
forsurvival (sociological Hobbesianism).Followingthe
doubt theironly aim is one of common advantage.
lead of Durkheim and Mauss, the British structural- What should I say about teachersand students?. . .
functionalistswould sublimateegotisticalman in social
What finallyformsthe link betweenparentsand
institutions-which themselves,however,respondedto
childrenif it is not advantageand pleasure?
social needs.
It remainedforcapitalism,as the materialdevelopment
ofthisphilosophy,to foreground
scarcity,and thusprivilege pain overpleasure as the primemotiveofintellecDigression: Renaissance Notes
tual judgments,object values, and social relations.
A word mightbe said about some distinctivecontribuThese revolutionaryideas of value and society were
tions of the European Renaissance to the moral promo- the complementsofa certainkindofindividualism.The
tion of need-driven,self-pleasingman-or to the spirit individual becomes conscious of himself as the free
of capitalism in general-less celebratedperhaps than agent and ultimate end of his own project.As formuthe Protestantethic but apparentlyjust as influential.I lated in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola'scelebratedOraam not speaking simply of the well-knownideological tion on the Dignity of Man (I487), it is man's unique
movements of the i5th and i6th centuries: the self- privilege"to have what he chooses, to be what he wills
of humanity,the liberationof human will to be." Pico thus develops a certainpermutationof the
affirmation
and of the individualgenerally,the removalof the onus Chain ofBeingwhichputs natureat humanity'sdisposiof sensuousness,an end to the contemptof this world, tion. The last-createdin a universealreadyrepletewith
thus the reconciliationof the mind with natureand of beings of everykind, man was left without a specific
the intelligiblewith the sensible.What gives a real feel- mode ofexistenceor niche ofhis own. At thesame time,
ing of intellectual vertigois that certainItalians con- unlike the othercreatures,who were restrictedby the
ceived capitalism as a total orderof the universe well laws of theirrespectivenatures,men were freeto fashbeforeit became a systematiceconomy.In I440, Nicho- ion themselvesin whatsoeverformtheywould. "I have
las of Cusa, for example, argued that human will and placed you at the very center of the world," Pico has
judgmentwere God's means of constitutingthe values God say to man, "so that fromthat vantagepoint you

400

1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, fune 1996

may with greaterease glance round about you on all as popular,to account forsocial practicesand cultural
that the world contains" (i956:3). (Speakingof vantage formsby the innate constitutionof Homo sapiens. The
points,it seems relevantthat the Oration was penned biologicalinfluencesare commonlyconceivedas animal
shortlyafterthe developmentof perspectiveby Brunel- drives and inclinations, which lends them a certain
leschi and Alberti,which is to say soon afterthe artistic "brute" power. Their supposed effectsare expressedeitechnique of opening a window on an indefinitelyex- therdirectlyin social practices-as, forexample,male
pandingworldfromthe viewpointofthe individualsub- dominance-or by antitheticalcustoms designedsomeject.) Pico's concept of man as endowed with limitless how to corralthem-as, forexample,norms of sexualthroughtheappropriation ity. One probablydoes not need much persuasionthat
possibilitiesofself-realization
ofnature'sdiversitywas destinedto runthroughnumer- our folk anthropologyis disposed to these explanations
ous reincarnations,fromthe philosophicalguises it as- of cultureby nature.Rangingfromracismin the streets
sumed in Herderor Marx to the crude consciousnessof to sociobiologyin the universitiesand passingbyway of
numerousexpressionsofthe commontongue,biological
bourgeoisconsumerism.17
BernardinoTelesio's description(i565) of the entire determinismis a recurrentideologyof Westernsociety.
actions of Its ubiquity,I will argue,is a functionofits transmission
universe as organizedby the self-interested
all creaturesand thingsmakes the vulgarfateofRenais- in anthropological traditions of cosmic dimensions:
once again, the concept of man as a willfulcreatureof
sance philosophyseem inescapable (Van Deusen I932).
Telesio's cosmos was a veritablephysicsofpleasureand need, especially as this notion has developedunderthe
pain, these being the senses all objects possess of the market economy, and, also, the theoryof the human
things that respectivelysustain and destroythem. As constitutioninscribedin the GreatChain ofBeing,espesome specificcompound of heat and cold in a substra- cially as linked to the antagonisticdualism of fleshand
tum of matter,everyobject or creatureacts to preserve spiritofthe Christiannightmare-the fleshas a brutish,
animal natureunderlyingand overcoming
its own nature-against perpetualoppositionand poten- self-regarding
tial destructionby objects of othernatures(Fallico and the betterinclinationsof the human soul.
Shapiro i967:3I5). Note that Hobbes had studiedTelejust as a developedcapitalismand the industrialrevosio, and Sir Francis Bacon called him "the firstof the lution were coming upon them,Europeanphilosophers
new men" because ofhis insistenceon theprinciplethat consummated centuriesof guilt by the discoverythat
human knowledgecan come fromobservationonly,lim- the demands of the fleshincreasedwith the "progress"
ited as it then might be. More recently,Funkenstein ofthe society.Necessarilyso, since progresswas Reason
sees in Telesio "one of the earliest occurrencesof an in the service of needs. Not even Rousseau objectedto
antiteleological,political, ethical, as well as natural, the premisethat desire and want moved the world; his
wantsofmanprincipleof an 'invisiblehand of nature'" (Funkenstein concernwas onlythatthe ever-increasing
to passages kind were corruptand the course of historytherefore
I968:67). No doubt Funkensteinis referring
such as this: "It is quite evidentthatnatureis propelled decadent. Pro or con, the philosophes could agree that
In fact,naturecan tolerateneithera vac- theywere livingin an age markedby the unprecedented
byself-interest.
ofhumanneeds. Rousuum nor anythingwithout purpose. All things enjoy extent,diversity,and artificiality
touchingone another,and maintainand conservethem- seau again excepted, none seems to have noticed the
selves by this mutual contact" (quoted in Fallico and contradiction-which we are still living-between a
"progress"that supposedlyrepresentedthe triumphof
Shapiro i967:304).
May we not conclude that the universehad achieved the human spiritover the body,an escape fromour anian ideal state of economic developmentwhile Europe mal nature,on the one hand, and, on the other,the dewith premodernrelationsofproduc- pendence of this happy result on an increasingawarewas still struggling
tion? In one way or another,the philosophersalready ness of bodilyaffliction-moreneed.'8
imaginedthe cosmos as a capitalistworld order.
I8. The notionthathumanprogress
was a movementfrombodily
to intellectualcontrol,a liberationof humanityfromthe constraintsofmatterandanimalnature,was verygeneralthrough
the
middle2oth centuryin Europeananthropological
thought.ConThe matterat issue here is the folkwisdom of "human dorcet,Comte,J.S. Mill, and E. B. Tylormightbe citedas prominature."I mean the settleddisposition,academic as well nentexponents,as also FriedrichEngels:"FriedrichEngelscalls
a stridebyhumankind
thefinalvictoryofthesocialistproletariat
fromtheanimalkingdomto thekingdomofliberty"(Luxemburg
I7. "In creatingan objectiveworldby his practicalactivity,in I970:i68). The notionin question,typicallyexpressedas a threefromsavagerythrough
barbarism
to
inorganicnature,manproveshimselfa consciousspe- foldsequenceofdevelopment
working-up
in theMiddleAges,forexamanimalsalso produce.... Butan animal civilization,has specificprecedents
cies being.... Admittedly
needsforitselfor itsyoung.It ple, in Joachimof Florus:"Now therewas one periodin which
onlyproduceswhatit immediately
whilemanproducesuniversally....An ani- men livedaccordingto theflesh,thatis, up to thetimeofChrist.
producesone-sidedly,
thewholeofna- It was initiatedbyAdam.Therewas a secondperiodin whichmen
mal producesonlyitself,whilstman reproduces
ture.... An animal formsthings in accordance with the standard lived betweenthe fleshand the spirit,which was initiatedby
and theneedofthespeciesto whichit belongs,whilstmanknows Elisha,the prophetor by Uzziah, KingofJudah.Thereis a third,
ofotherspecies" in whichmenlive accordingto thespirit,whichwill lastuntilthe
how to producein accordancewiththestandards
endoftheworld.It was initiatedbytheblessedBenedict"(inBoas
(MarxI96I:75-76).

The Anthropologyof Biology

SAHLINS

The Native Anthropologyof WesternCosmology I 40I

Even as thephilosophes,in speakingoftheperfectibil- sustainedby themarketeconomy.The marketeconomy

ityofthe species,were revealingnew dimensionsofhu- makes it seem to the participantsthat theirway of life
man imperfection,
the economywas producingunparal- is precipitatedout of the stirringsof theirfleshthrough
leled satisfactions by capitalizing on "the thousand the rationalmedium of theirwills. Genesis redux.
Actually there is a double mystificationat work in
shocks the fleshis heir to." In this regardthe Invisible
Hand of the marketmightwell have been the wrathful the bourgeois fascination with corporeal understandhand of God, as it would createthe wealth ofthe nation ings of culture.The subsumptionofuse-value in and as
out of the feelingofprivationit visitedon the person- exchange-valuehas something of the same effect.In
the aforementionedscarcityof means relativeto possi- Marx's classic exposition,the commodityhas a double
ble ends ofpersonalgratification.
This was the greatin- nature:it is a use-valuein virtueofthe empiricalproperdustrialrevelation:that in the world'srichestsocieties, ties of the object which make it suitable to some peothe subjectiveexperienceoflack increasesin proportion ple's "needs," and it is an exchange-valueorprice,exterto the objective output of wealth.19Encompassedin an nally attachedto the object by the market,which in the
internationaldivision of labor, individual needs were favorablecase will put it in people's grasp.In choosing
seeminglyinexhaustible.Felt, moreover,as physiologi- between differentgoods, therefore,presumablyin the
cal pangs, as deprivationslike hungerand thirst,these interestof maximum satisfaction,one in fact foregoes
needs seem to come fromwithin,as dispositionsof the specific satisfactionsthat in quality (or use-value) are
body. The bourgeoiseconomy made a fetishof human incommensurablewith those chosen, hence the mystineeds in the sense that needs, which are always social ficationin the idea thateconomic activityis therational
in characterand originand in thatway objective,had to maximizationof satisfactions.It dependson the suppobe assumed as subjectiveexperiencesof pain. Precisely sitionthatthingsunlike in theirobjectiveattributesand
as the individual was taken as the author and the su- human virtues-their different
meanings to us as usepreme value of his own activityand as the collective values-are indeed comparable as exchange-values.So
economy seemed to be constitutedby and forpersonal the economist is able to subtractapples fromoranges
satisfactions,so the urgingsofthe bodywould appearas and convince us that the remainderis all forthe best.
the sources of the society.20
Yet it remainsto haunt us thatin choosingbetween(for
This peculiarlyintroverted
perceptionofan enormous example) taking the kids to see their grandparentsin
system of social values as emanatingfromindividual- Californiaor saving the money to send them to univercorporealfeelings,this consciousness, I submit,helps sity,eitherkinshipsuffersor else education.
accountforthepersistentpopularityamongus ofbiologThis is where biological determinismcomes in, for,
ical explanations of culture. In our subjective experi- once again, in people's existentialawareness, cultural
ence, culture is an epiphenomenonof an economy of formsof everydescriptionare producedand reproduced
the reliefof bodily aches. Biological determinismis a as the objects or projectsof theircorporealfeelings.The
mystifiedperception of the cultural order,especially system of the society is perceived as the ends of the
individual. Not only kinship or college education but
also Beethoven concerts or night baseball games, the
I948:2io). Alternatively,
of course,the threestageswere before taste ofone Coke or another,McDonald's, nouvelle cuiChrist,when men lived in sin, fromChristto judgment,when sine, suburbanhomes and Picket Fences, multimillionmen livedin hope ofredemption,
and kingdomcome.
startingpitchersand the numberofchilI9. Hume thus reflectedon the tragichumancondition:"Of all aireleft-handed
else produced
the animals,withwhich this globeis peopled,thereis none to- drenper family,all these and everything
wardswhomnatureseems,at firstsight,to have exercis'dmore by historyand the collectivityappearin lifeas the prefcrueltythantowardsman,in the numberlesswantsand necessi- erentialvalues of subjective economizing.Their distrities, with which she has loaded him, and in the slendermeans butionin and as societyseems a functionofwhat
people
ofrelievingthesenecessities.In othercreatures
whichshe affords
thesetwoparticulars
generallycompensateeach other.... In man want.
Our intuition of culture as dependenton biological
alone, this unnaturalconjunctionof infirmity,
and of necessity,
may be observedin its greatestperfection"
(Treatiseon Human natureis compoundedby a certainreceivedidea, much
Nature 3.2.2). Indeed,since needs are endlesslyexpandable,the older than the capitalistcorporeality
proper,concerning
effective
"unnaturalconjunction"in theWesternviewpointis bethe stratifiedarchitectureof the human body. I mean
and infinity,
a fairdefinition
ofhopelessness.
tweeninfirmity
20. This pointhas been excellently
made foranthropologists
by the body as made up of "higher"and "lower" parts,opLouis Dumont: "In modern society . . . the Human Being is re- posed in compositionand function.Below is the mategardedas theindivisible,'elementary'
man,botha biologicalbeing rial bodily lower stratum,as Bakhtin (i984) put it in
and a thinkingsubject.Each particularman in a senseincarnates referenceto Rabelais's
grotesqueries:that which links
the whole of mankind.He is the measureof all things(in a full
and novelsense).The kingdomofendscoincideswitheach man's man to the earthand to birthand death,expressinghis
legitimateends,and so the values are turnedupsidedown.What basic bestialityand sexuality.Above is the spiritor soul
is stillcalled'society'is themeans,thelifeofeachmanis theend. affiliatingman with the angels and heavens, thus exthe societyno longerexists,it is no morethanan pressinghis rationality,his morality,and his immortalOntologically,
irreducible
datum,whichmustin no way thwartthedemandsof
libertyandequality.Ofcourse,theaboveis a description
ofvalues, ity. One recognizes the legacy of the Great Chain of
Beingbut in its specificallyChristianizedand tragicvera view of mind.... A society as conceived by individualism has
neverexistedanywhereforthereason. .. thattheindividuallives sion (LovejoyI964; Formigari
De civiI973; Augustine
on social ideas" (I970:9-IO).
tate Dei ii.i6, I2.21). Half angel and halfbeast,man is

402

1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

not simplya double and dividedbeing,he is condemned

to the perpetualinternalwarfareof spiritand flesh (a
specificallyPauline permutationof classical dualisms).
Moreover,the battle is likely to be unequal, given the
ontological densityof corporealbeing and bruteforce,
whose inclinationsof avarice and concupiscenceare not
easily resistedby an intangibleand ineffablespirit.2'
Durkheim,forone, was fullyaware thathe was drawing on a long philosophical-cum-theological
traditionin
making the argumentthat "man is double. There are
two beings in him: an individual being which has its
foundationin the organism. . . and a social beingwhich
representsthe highest reality in the intellectual and
moral orderthat we can know by observation-I mean

is not yeta conflict.For all thatthe distinctionbetween

body and soul is universal,what has set the West apart
is the notion of the civil war betweenthem.The idea of
a war between self and society within every human
breast,the eternalconflictof fleshagainstspirit,is our
peculiar Adamic inheritance."Then began the fleshto
lust againstthe Spirit,in which strifewe are born,derivingfromthe firsttransgression
a seed ofdeath,and bearing in our members,and in our vitiatednature,the contest or even victoryof the flesh" (AugustineDe civitate
Dei i3.I3).
If Augustine thus quotes Paul ratherone-sidedly"For the fleshlusteth against the Spirit;and the Spirit

againsttheflesh"(Galatians5:I7)-it is onlysymptomThe human atic ofthe agonisticbody-souldualism developedin the

beingis, on the one hand, a presocial and sensuous ani- Christianityof late antiquity:23 Pace Durkheim, this
society"(I947:I6;

cf.Lukes I972:432-33).

mal, egocentricallygivento his own welfare,and,on the

other hand, a social creature,able to submit his selfinterestto the moralityof the society. "As thereis no
one," said Durkheim, "that does not concurrentlylead
this double existence,each ofus is animatedbya double
movement.We are carriedalong in the directionof the
social and we tend to follow the inclinationof our nature" (I930:36o).22 It deserves emphasis that "our nature"-having sensory appetites as its means and the
selfas its finality-is not only anteriorto the social; it
is likewise in the pre-Paleolithicof the conceptual.But
in contrastto sensations,which we are unable to transmit as such fromone person to another,concepts or
symbols are preeminentlysocial. They are collective
representations,organizingour private sensoryexperiences,even doingviolence to them,in theformofmeaningfulvalues of which we are not the authors(see espe-

schizophrenicstruggleof the animal and the social was

not even properto the classical Roman dualism. Peter
Brown speaks ratherof a "benevolent dualism" or an
"unaffectedsymbiosisof body and soul," which would
"make late classical attitudes toward the body seem
deeply alien to later, Christianeyes" (BrownI988:2729). Connected to the fertilityand intractabilityof the
wild, the body was inferiorto the administeringmind;
but the Romans had neitheranxietyabout the city'scapacity to domesticateit nor the inclinationto severely
repress its natural exuberance. Brown quotes Cicero:
"Nature itselfdevelops a young man's desire. If these
desires break out in such a way that they disruptno
one's life and undermineno household [by adultery],
theyare generallyregardedas unproblematic:we tolerate them" (in Browni988:28). Nature spoke throughthe
body "in an ancient, authoritativevoice." And if so in
ciallyDurkheimI960:329).
Rome, what are we to make ofthe DurkheimianantithNow Durkeim thoughtthat the common reportsof esis between a natural animalism of the body and the
body-souldistinctionsfromall overtheworldconfirmed moralityof the soul in the numerous societies where
his argumentsabout duplex man. Beliefsabout a sepa- "nature" itself speaks: that is, societies that know
rateexistenceofthese aspects ofthe human beingrepre- worlds of nonhuman persons, animals that also have
sented the native apprehensionof a universal antago- souls, as well as mental and moral qualities as good as
nism between them.But he was mistaken.A difference or betterthan people's?
Of course the (Western)Middle Ages compoundedthe
Pauline and Augustiniandualism intoparoxysmsoffear
is repeatedin relationto the and hatredof the
structure
2I. The same hierarchical
body.24Only death could cure a man
as made
humanbrainitself,conceivedin muchbiologicalliterature
"the
of
the body" (Le GoffI988a:354). The
of
leprosy
up of "higher"and "lower"centers,the notionbeingthatit was

only our "higher"(and perhapsfragile)intellectualcentersthat

ofthe "lower"(Sacks i995:6i).
held back the animalpropensities
ofdu22. Perhapsthe mostdevelopedofDurkheim'sexpositions
plex man is his I9I4 article"The Dualism ofHumanNatureand
like our
Its Social Conditions,"whereit is said,"Our intelligence,
forms:on the one hand,are
activity,presentstwo verydifferent
sensations and sensorytendencies;on the other,conceptual
thoughtand moralactivity.Each of thesetwo partsof ourselves
a separatepole ofourbeing,andthesetwopolesarenot
represents
onlydistinctfromone anotherbutareopposedto oneanother.Our
egoistic:theyhaveourindividualsensoryappetitesarenecessarily
ityand it alone as theirobject.Whenwe satisfyour hunger,our
any othertendencyintoplay,
thirst,and so on, withoutbringing
it is ourselves,and ourselvesalone, thatwe satisfy.[Conceptual
by
distinguished
thought]and moralactivityare,on thecontrary,
the factthatthe rulesof conductto whichtheyconformcan be
theypursueimpersonal
by definition,
universalized.Therefore,
to somewithattachment
ends.Moralitybeginswithdisinterest,
thing other than ourselves" (Durkheim ig60:327).

23. Betz's exegesis of Galatians 5:I7

has a triadic form perhaps

"In v. I7a the dualismis set up in a

familiarto psychoanalysis:
rathersimpleform:fleshand Spiritare namedas oppositeforces,
bothagitatingagainsteach other.The fleshand its 'desiring'. . .
are humanagentsof evil,while the Spiritis the divineagentof
consequences
the good.Verse I7b spells out the anthropological
of this dualism....

Man is the battlefieldof these forces within

him fromcarrying
out his will. The human 'I'
him, preventing
out its will .. . becauseit
fromcarrying
wills,but it is prevented
is paralyzedthroughthesedualisticforceswithin.As a result,the
human 'I' is no longerthe subjectin controlof the body" (Betz
As mediatedbytheDurkheimianoppositionofegoI979:279-80).
centricand social, "flesh,""spirit,"and "humanI" could easily
pass forid, superego,and ego.
24. For summarystatementsof the medievalregardof the body

see Delumeau (iggo), Le Goff(I988a:354-55; I988b:83-Io3), Boas

(I948), Brown (i988:428-47), and Gurevich (I985).

SAHLINS

THE

HUMAN

TheNativeAnthropology
ofWesternCosmology| 403

NATURE

This is how Kaluli oftheSouthernHighlandsofNew Guinea

speak about the beginningof things:There were no trees,
The
animals,streams,orfoodwhenthelandwas firstformed.
land was entirelyand only coveredwithpeople.Havingno
But a man
shelteror food,the people soon beganto suffer.
aroseand commandedtheothersto gatherroundhim.To one
groupof peoplehe said, "You be trees,"to another"You be
fish";anotherbecamebananas,and so on, untilall the anioftheworldweredifferentimals,plants,andnaturalfeatures
ated and established.The few people leftover became the
humanbeings.The namethatKaluliuse to referto thisevent
indicatestheyconceiveit on the model of the way people
alignthemselvesintotheopposedgroupsthatfaceeach other
in revengebattles,marriages,or otherceremonialevents.
factions,
and interdependent
Constitutedas complementary
thesegroupsare eventuallyinvolvedin reciprocalexchanges
thatresolvetheiropposition.In the same way,men and the
not
beingsof naturelive in reciprocalsocial relationships:
their
onlyor simplyin someeconomicsensebut,considering
commonorigin,in an ontologicalsenseas beingsofequivalent
I976:94-95).
natures.The creaturesare also men (Schieffelin
In the forestone knows the animalsby the soundsthey
make.Soundsarethesalientperceptsof"reality"ratherthan
sight."Day" beginswhen the firstbirdssing,not whenthe
sun appears.Likewise,the formsof animals may be discounted,as theyare reallypeople,and theirvoicesare comand import(Schiefmessagesofhumancharacter
municating
felinI976:96):
Out huntingwithWanalugo,we heardthe plaintive"juujuu-juu"of the kalo (a small pigeon).Wanalugoturnedto
me witha wistfulexpressionand said, "You hearthat?It
is a littlechildwhois hungry
andcallingforitsmother.".. .
The everydayKaluli worldof gardens,rivers,and forests
is coextensivewith another,invisibleside of reality.The
remarkthat the voice of the kalo is a littlechild is not

OF ANIMALS

merelya metaphor.The kalo mayactuallybe thesoul ofa

child.
Accordingly,
humans and othercreatureslive in reversed
worlds,mirroring
each otherevenin thewaystheyappearto
each other(pp.96-97):
"Do you see thathuge tree?"anotherman asked one day
on thepath."In their[thebirds']world,thatis a house.Do
you see the birds?To each other,theyappearas men."
Similarly,
houses in our worldappearas exceptionally
big
treesoras riverpools to them,andwe as animalsthere....
Whenaskedwhatthepeopleoftheunseenlooklike,Kaluli
will pointto a reflection
in a pool ormirror
and say,"They
are not like you or me. They are like that."In the same
way,ourhumanappearancestandsas a reflection
to them.
This is not a "supernatural"
world,forto the Kaluli it is
perfectly
natural.
In thesame generalway,theindigenouspeoplesovera vast
areaofwhatis now Canada knewthatmenandanimalswere
in the beginningthe same kindof culturedbeings.Animals
were humanoidcreatures.They are still in reciprocallifegivingrelationswithpeople,membersofthesamelargersociety.And althoughanimalshave sincelost some oftheexternal aspectsofculture-songs,dances,and decoratedartifacts
are amongthe thingsmen now providethem-nevertheless,
theirmentalcapacities,includingspeech,equal thoseofmen,
andin someregards
theyareintellectually
superior
(Hallowell
I955,
I960;
BrightmanI993; Fienup-Riordan
I990;
Black
I977).

Forthatmatter,therewas a strongtradition
ofthesuperiorityof animalsto men-includingmoralsuperiority-inthe
classicalantiquityofthe West(Lovejoyand Boas I935:chap.
I3). Animalbehaviorservedas a modelforhumans.Among
thevirtuesoftheanimalscommonlycitedwas theirrestraint
in satisfying
theirneeds:theironlylimiteddesires,including
limitedsexuality,withoutpenchantsforsuperfluities,
etc.

hierarchiesofthe Chain ofBeingwerealso sociallyman- wisdom of human natureas a set of deep-seatedgenetic

ifestin periodicupsurgingsof the materialbodilylower compulsionswith which human culturemust come to
stratum,as at carnivalor in what was in some respects terms.The same folkwisdom probablyaccountsforthe
analogous,peasant unrest(BakhtinI984, Le RoyLadurie relative neglect of the two brilliant pieces Clifford
I979, Gurevich
I985, P. SahlinsI994). Butthenserfdom, Geertzdevotedto debunkingthephantasmofa determiLe Goffwrites,"was believedin theMiddle Ages to have nate and determining
human nature(GeertzI973:chaps.
been a consequence oforiginalsin," and,as slaves ofthe 2 and 3).
flesh more than others were, serfsdeservedto be enIf anything,it is the otherway round:human nature
slaved themselves(i 9 8 8 b: i o i).
as we know it has been determinedby culture.As Geertz
The fleshwas always the formidablefoe of the spirit observes,the supposed temporalprecedenceof human
if only because of its materiality.In contrastto the im- biologyrelativeto cultureis incorrect.On the contrary,
palpabilityof spirit,bodies have solidity,mass, weight, cultureantedatesanatomicallymodernman (H. sapiens)
and otherintuitionsof irresistibility.
And when in the by somethinglike two million years or more. Culture
i gth century the Chain of Being was transformed was not simplyadded on to an alreadycompletedhuman
into-or at least informed-evolutionarytheory,the nature;it was decisivelyinvolvedin the constitutionof
idea of the temporalprecedenceof our animal "inheri- the species, as the salient selective condition.The hutance" was calqued onto the olderfearsof its irrepress- man bodyis a culturalbody,which also means thatthe
The combinedeffectwas the currentcommon mind is a culturalmind. The greatselectivepressurein
ibility.25
hominid evolution has been the necessity to organize
somatic dispositionsby symbolicmeans.26It is not that

observesthatthe sentimentofan underlying

25. Starobinski
savageryhas repeatedlysubvertedWestemnotionsof "civility"and
"politesse"bymakingthemmereoutwardformsratherthansomethinginherentin the individualor society."Reducedto mereappearances,politenessand civilitygive freereign,inwardly,in
depth,to theiropposites,malevolenceand wickedness-inshort,
toviolence,whichwas nevertrulyforsaken"
I993: I I).
(Starobinski

26. This is anotherway of puttingthe argumentthathas been

made at least since Rousseauand Herder:thatpeoplediffer
from
animalsbytheirrelativelack ofinstinctualgovemance,theirfreedomfromsomaticcontrol,whichis thecomplement
to thevariety
oftheirculturesandtheiradaptability
to a greatvarietyofenvironments.

404

1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, June1996

Homo sapiens is withoutbodily"needs"and "drives," The Anthropology

of Power
but the criticaldiscoveryof anthropologyhas been that
human needs and drives are indeterminateas regards Why,then,do we have thisoppressivesentimentofsocitheirobject because bodilysatisfactionsare specifiedin ety as a systemof power and constraint,counterposed
and throughsymbolicvalues-and variouslyso in differ- to our innerdesiresand secretthoughts?Given thatbioent cultural-symbolicschemes.
logicallywe are human beingsonlyin potentia,indeterThroughoutthe millions ofyearsofhuman evolution, minate creatureswhose inclinationsremain to be culthe whole emotional economyof survivaland selection turallyspecified,societymightbe betterconceivedas a
has been displaced onto a world of meaningfulsigns,as means of empowering people rather than subduing
distinct from the direct reaction to sensory stimuli. them. Socialization in a particularlanguageand culture
Amityand enmity,pleasure and pain, desireand repul- is the way people who "all beginwith thenaturalequipsion, securityand fear:all these are experiencedby hu- mentto live a thousandkindsoflife... end havinglived
Recall the well-rehearsed
mans accordingto the meanings of things,not simply onlyone" (GeertzI973:45).
by their perceptibleproperties.Otherwise,how could parable of Helen Keller's magic moment, when the
you know that fat is beautifulor that a cross-cousin "mysteryof language" was suddenlyrevealedto her: "I
is marriageablebut a parallel cousin is not or tell the knew then that w-a-t-e-rmeant that wonderfulcool
differencebetween holy water and distilled water (as somethingthat was flowingover my hand. The living
Leslie Whiteused to say)?In the event,thegenericdeter- word awakened my soul, gave it light,hope, joy, set it
Andyetin thegloomyfashions
minationsof "human nature,"the drivesand needs, are free!"(KellerI904:23).
subject to the specificdeterminationsof local culture. of the present day, the scholars speak of "the prison
So even if man is inherentlyviolent,still "he wars on house of language"-such is indeed the current"hegethe playingfieldsof Eton, dominatesby being nicer to monic discourse." Society,then, is something"versus
him, whether
othersthan he is to himself,hunts with a paint brush" the individual," a greatbeast terrorizing
this leviathanis conceived as a necessaryconstrainton
(Sahlins I964:90).27
What happened in the Pleistocene, Geertz observes, the self-pleasingperson,as in the perspectiveofHobbes
was the substitutionof a geneticsof behavioralflexibil- or Durkheim,or as an unwantedimpositionon personal
ity for one that controlledconduct in detail. Thence- freedom,as in the complementaryopticsofAdam Smith
forth,insofaras human behaviorwas to be patterned, and Michel Foucault. Eitherway, societyis opposed to
the patternswould have to come fromthe symbolictra- the individualas power to libido.
Otherwisetherecould be anarchy.This was a theory
dition. These symbolsby which people constructtheir
lives "are thus not mere expressions,instrumentalities already known to the Church Fathers,who learned it
or correlatesof our biological, psychologicalor social fromcertainrabbis and perhapssome "antiprimitivist"
philosopherssuch as Cicero (Lovejoy and Boas I935,
existence; theyare prerequisitesofit" (Geertz I973:49).
People are not effectivelydrivenby theirbodies to act Boas I948, Pagels I988, Markus I970, Levenson i988).
in some given cultural way, forwithout culture they Irenaeus put the mattersuccinctly:" 'Earthlyrule has
act at all:
been appointedby God forthebenefitofnations,so that,
could not effectively
underthe fearof human rule, men may not devourone
They would be unworkablemonstrositieswith very
anotherlike fishes. . . ' " (in Pagels i988:47).29 The most
few useful instincts,fewerrecognizablesentiments,
famous
exponentsofthe idea, however,were Augustine
and no intellect:mental basket cases. As our central
Hobbes. The City of God (4I3-425) and
and
Thomas
nervoussystem-and most particularlyits crowning
Leviathan
(I65 i) have virtually the same argument
curse and glory,the neocortex-grew up in great
about the originof society or state, based on the same
partin interactionwith culture,it is incapable of di- premiseofmen made vicious and fearfulof one another
rectingour behavioror organizingour experience
by a restless search forpower afterpower. As Herbert
withoutthe guidance providedby systemsof signifiDeane (I963) observed,the anthropologyis remarkably
cant symbols.28
similar, including the actual or potential war of each
all. In the scarcitythat inevitablyensues from
against
oftherelationbetweenculture
27. Foran exampleofthisparadigm
no one can be sure
relentless
the
pursuitof self-interest,
and biological"humannature,"see Sahlins(I976).
Geertz'sconceptionsof"hu- of securinghis own good withoutsubduingthe persons
28. One ofthefewfullyto appreciate
man nature"has been SidneyMintz-specificallyin relationto and passions of the others.If forHobbes man became a
the questionof the desireforsugar(i988). Commentingon the wolfto othermen,forAugustine"not even lions or dragsame passagefromGeertz,Mintznotesthattheusual attemptsto ons have ever waged with theirkind such wars as we
are
bill ofparticulars"
definehumannature"as some pre-cultural
mostlikelyto expressthe specificculturalpremisesoftheinter- have waged with one another" (De civitate Dei 12.22).
butsomewhat Or, in the venerablemaritimemetaphorAugustinealso
Humannatureturnsoutto be "a distinctive
preters.
society."It is not adopted, "'How they mutually oppress,and how they
skewedprojectionofthevaluesoftheinventor's
such "humannature"thatis universal,Mintzcontinues,"butour that are able do devour! And when one fish hath de-

capacityto createculturalrealities,and thento act in termsof

them."Andpreciselythiscapacityis involvedin thewayswe are
pleasedto describeourselves"beforeculture,"thatis, ourcultural 29. CompareJohnChrysostom:" 'If you deprivethe cityof its
oftheso-calledhumannature(p. I4). The conscious rulers,we would have to live a lifeless rationalthanthatof the
constructions
inventionofhumannatureis its ultimateculturalspecification. animals, biting and devouring one another' " (Pagels I988:IoI).

SAHLINS

TheNativeAnthropology
ofWesternCosmology1405

voured,the greaterthe less, itselfalso is devouredby

some greater'" (in Deane i963:47).30 ForAugustine,the
postlapsarianhuman condition was just as nasty and
anguishedas the life of man in the Hobbesian state of
nature. In this earthlyexistence, the Saint lamented,
" 'there is but false pleasure, no securityof joy, a tormentingfear,a greedycovetousness,a witheringsadness' " (Deane I963:6I).
The remedywas the institutionof state. Whetherit
came about throughGod's providence(Augustine)orhuman reason (Hobbes), men were thus able to suppress
theirenmity-if not theiravidity.The state, law, and
morality,pale reflectionsthoughtheyare in Babylonof
theirperfectionin Sion, were conditionsof the possibilityofhuman society,which otherwise,giventhe selfish
and violent dispositionsof fallen man, would dissolve
again into anarchy.3'But the formsofhuman rule,to be
remedial,had also to be punitive:imposed on naturally
wicked men "to keep them all in awe." The state then
perpetuatedthe viciousness it suppressed,since it used
and their
men's fearof losing theirlives, theirproperty,
libertyas the legal sanctions of order.The complement
of the Westernanthropologyof self-regarding
man has
been an equally tenaciousnotionofsocietyas discipline,
is the natureof
cultureas coercion.Where self-interest
the individual,power is the essence of the social.32
Motivated by the notion of the social as the control
of the individual,Westernphilosophershave too often
conflatedthe originof societywith the originof state.
Of course the supposition is ethnographicallyabsurd.
The greatmajorityof societies known to anthropology,

including those of the aeons of prehistory,survived

without the benefit of state. Augustine had himself
imaginedhow theymanaged,forhe arguedthatGod was
pleased to derive humanityfromone individual-as a
single cognatic descent group,we could say-in order
that "they might be bound togetherin harmonyand
peace by the tie'sof relationship"(De civitateDei I4.I).
The Bishop of Hippo also anticipatedE. B. Tylor's famous incest theory,notingthatthe prohibitionof sister
marriage(in the generationssucceeding Adam's progeny) would have the effectof multiplyingkinshiprelations and therewithsocial concord. Indeed, the social
values of exogamy and endogamy are brilliantlyexoutthe
poundedin The City of God (I5.I6). The farther
exogamicrule,Augustineobserved,thegreaterand more
differentiated
will be the kindredgroup. The process,
however,should know a limit and be counteractedby
marriageamong cousins or othersof the same descent,
lest distantkin escape and relationshipscease.33All the
same, kinshipamong fallenman can be no guaranteeof
peace. Echoing Cicero and forestallingRousseau, Augustine sadly concludes that even the bonds of family
are brokenby "secret treachery,"producingan "enmity
as bitteras the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by
the most perfectdissimulation"(I9.5).
The etymologicalrelationshipsin Westernlanguages
betweenpolis, political,and police and civilityand civilization are best explainedby the traditionaltale of the
bad men and the leviathan.A largeamountof scientific
anthropologyhas likewise been constructedfromthis
native ideology,beginningwith Durkheim's insistence
on the coercive nature of the social fact-corollary to
the underlyinganimal egoism of duplex man. Raymond

3o. The fishmetaphor,

whichIrenaeushad takenfroma rabbinical Aron(I970:4I-42)
recognized
thecriticalroleofthespewas repeatednotonlybyAugustinebutagainthroughout
tradition,
theMiddleAges.Huizingasaysit was proverbial:
"Les granspois- cificallyHobbesian streakin Durkheim's philosophy:34
sons mangentles plus petits" (Huizinga 1954:229). And it still
Accordingto Durkheim,man when leftto himselfis
lives,interestingly
enough,as a one-linedefinition
of capitalism:
motivatedby unlimiteddesires.Individualman rebigfisheatinglittlefish.
sembles the creaturearoundwhom Hobbes con3I. Augustineon the functionality
of coercion:"Surelyit is not
withoutpurposethatwe havetheinstitution
ofthepowerofkings,
structedhis theory:he always wants more than he
thedeathpenaltyofthejudge,thebarbedhooksoftheexecutioner, has, and he is always disappointedin the satisfactheweaponsofthesoldier,therightofpunishment
oftheoverlord,
tions he findsin a difficultexistence.Since individeven the severityof the good father.All thosethingshave their
man is a man of desires,the firstnecessityof
ual
methods,theircauses,theirreasons,theirpracticalbenefits.
While
thesearefeared,thewickedarekeptwithinboundsand thegood
moralityand societyis discipline.Man needs to be
live morepeacefullyamongthewicked"(in Deane i963:138-39).
disciplinedby a superiorforcewhich must have two
32. It is truethatAugustine
and Hobbes-as also Machiavelliand
EdmundBurke-were apologistsforthe formsof absolutismof
theirday (see Pagels I988 on Augustine).But theysharethe idea 33. Augustinenotedthatcousinmarriagewas infrequent
though
ofstateorsocietyas counterposed
bydivineorhumanlaw. Peopleshrankfromit "beto antisocialmanwiththelikes notprohibited
of Vico, Hume, Freud,Durkheim,and Foucault,to name a few cause it lay so close to whatwas illegitimate,
and in marrying
a
who cannotso easily be typedas ideologuesof the totalitarian cousinseemedalmostto marrya sister-forcousinsareso closely
state.Particularfunctionaluses of the idea of societyas power relatedthattheyare called brothersand sisters,and are almost
wouldseem to be situationalversionsofthesame genericanthro- reallyso. But the ancientfathers,fearingthatnear relationship
pology(-cum-cosmology)
ratherthan vice versa.Hume provides mightgraduallyin the courseofgenerations
diverge,and become
exemplarystatementsof the generictheory:"This avidityalone, distantrelationship,
or cease to be relationship
at all, religiously
of acquiringgoods and possessionsforourselvesand our nearest endeavouredto limitit by the bondofmarriagebeforeit became
friends,
is insatiable,perpetual,
universal,and directly
destructive distant,and thus,as it were,to call it back whenit was escaping
ofsociety.Thereis scarceanyone,who is notactuatedbyit; and them.Andon thisaccount,evenwhentheworldwas fullofpeople,
thereis no one, who has not reasonto fearfromit, whenit acts thoughtheydid not choose wives amongtheirsistersor halfwithoutanyrestraint,
and givesway to its firstand mostnatural sisters,yettheypreferred
themto be of the same stockas themmovements,
so thatuponthewhole,we areto esteemthedifficul- selves" (De civitateDei 15.I6).
tiesin theestablishment
ofsociety,to be greater
orless,according 34. The dualityofcommandand lovabilityin theoverlying
social
to thosewe encounterin regulating
and restraining
thispassion" orderis a versionofthe anthropology
ofprovidence,
discussedin
(Treatiseon Human Nature3.2.2).
thenextsection.

406

CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, June1996

A SYMMETRICAL

AND

The particularstructureby which Augustinerepresented

a
kinshiporder-and presumably,
then,by which that order
failedto securehumanpeace in comparisonto the relative
success of imperialRome-almost perfectly
describesthe
classicHawaiiansystem,notonlyin thedetailofgenerational
or "Hawaiian" terminology
butin the complementary
workingsofexogamyand endogamyin a fieldofbilateralkinship,
thenormaltenthe in-marriage
amongdistantkin reversing
denciesof kindreddissolution(Kirchand Sahlinsi992:i962o8). Whatmakesthisconvergence
evenmoreremarkable
is
the ideologicalconclusion,equal and oppositeto the Christian-Hobbesian
mythof society,thatthe Hawaiian intellecin question.Written
tualDavid Malo drewfromthestructures
in thelate I830s or earlyI84os as one ofa seriesofspeculationson how Hawaiianchiefs(ali'i) came to be differentiated
Malo's story
commonpeople (ka-naka),
fromthe underlying
could have been his own inventionratherthan a received
sincein
tradition.
Still,the difference
maynotbe important,
much the same can be
its naturalistic-scientific
particulars,
said aboutHobbes's.Notingthatit has neverbeen explained
why"in ancienttimesa certainclass ofpeoplewereennobled
and made into ali'i ['chiefs']and anotherinto subjects[kathefollowing
as a firstpossible
naka]," Malo (i95 i:60) offers
explanation:
Perhapsin the earliesttime all the people [kanaka]were
ali'i and it was onlyafterthe lapse of severalgenerations
thata divisionwas made into commonersand chiefs;the
reasonforthisdivisionbeingthatmen in pursuitof their
andpleasurewanderedoffin onedirection
owngratification
and anotheruntiltheywerelost sightofand forgotten.

characteristics:it must be commandingand it must

be lovable. This forcewhich at once compels and attracts,can, accordingto Durkheim,only be society
itself.
The same theoryunderlies notable works of Durkheim's successors. It is entailed in the necessity for
reconciliationthatMarcel Mauss discoveredin the gift.
The total prestationhas been describedas "a kind of
social contract"wherebypeople reciprocallysurrender
to one another,in contrastto the classic coneverything
tractin which they unilaterallysurrenderforceto the
One who will bear theirperson.Yet theHobbesian alternative of isolation and Warreis as much the reason for
the one as forthe other(Mauss i966:277):
fora long period of time and in a considerablenumber of societies,men confronteach in a curious
frameof mind,involvingan exaggeratedfearand hostilityand an equally exaggeratedgenerosity....
There is no middle ground:completetrustor complete mistrust;one lays down one's arms and renounces magic or gives everythingaway fromcasual
hospitalityto one's daughtersand one's goods. It is
in conditionsof this kind that men put aside their
self concernand learnedto engagein givingand returning.
They had no choice. Two groupsof men thatmeet
can only withdraw-or in case of mistrustor defiance, battle-or else come to terms.

INVERSE

LEVIATHAN

It onlyneeds to be added thatcommonpeople were "lost"

and "forgotten"
insofaras theydidnothaveextensivegenealogies-of the sortthat distinguished
the Hawaiian aristocracy.As a rule,commonersdid not specificallytracetheir
ancestry
beyondtheirowngrandparents.
Butthegreatgenealogies of the chiefsconnectedthemat once withthe gods
whomtheyrepresented
relativeto ordinary
people-as well
as withone anotherin complexnetworksofbilateralkinship.
That commonerswereexcludedfromsuchprivileges
was fittingpenaltyto theirinclinationto pursuetheirown desires.
ForMalo, then,and byperfectcontrastto Hobbes,theprimordialhumanconditionwouldbe peaceable:thepeopleall
in a groupandas nobles,whichmeantnotonly
livedtogether
thattheywereconnectedbyblood(koko)butthattheyknew
how to give thingsto one another.Hierarchyoriginatedas
thedifferentiation
ofsocietyfrombelow,whencertainpeople
developeda restlessself-interest
andleftthecollectivity.
This
by contrastto the Hobbesiancommonwealth:
a collectivity
thatdevelopedout ofan antecedentconditionofisolatedselfinterested
individuals,and was markedbythedifferentiation
ofa superiorrulingstratum.Takingtheirdepartures
fromantitheticalbeginnings,
thetwophilosophers
pass each otherin
oppositedirectionson theirrespectivewaysto thekingdom.
A commentappendedbyMalo's editor,N. B. Emerson,speaks
of the implicationsforkingship,thus makinga connection
withthepresentcomparison
to Leviathan:"The development
of this thoughtwould have explainedthe whole mystery
of
whyone becamea kingand theothersremainedcommoners,
kanaka ormakaainana" (in Malo I95 I:63).

take the promotion

And just why did Radcliffe-Brown
of sociabilityas the main functionof institutions?Why
did he describe the social arrangementof "primitive"
people in juridicalmetaphors?What kind of disintegration did he fearifunilineal descentdid not exist to allocate rightsin persons?It is as if a pervasiveintuitionof
movean underlyingchaos, a kindofRadcliffe-Brownian
human atoms, has weighedlike
ment of self-interested
a nightmareon the brain of the social anthropologist.
are specially
PerhapsFrenchand Britishanthropology
disposed to the anxiety of anarchyand a corollaryrespect fororderand power. A parallel singularitywould
be the developmentof the concept of "civilization" in
these countriesduringthe late i 8th century,in contrast
to the German (and Russian) concept of "culture" as a
total way of life. "Civilization" again entailed the presuppositionof an original,brutishcreaturewhose antisocial dispositionsare graduallybroughtunder control
througha process of domestication:"the civilizingprocess" (Elias I978). Imposed on the uncouth poor, the
emergentbourgeoisie,or the colonized peoples-all of
whom, like the medieval serfsbeforethem,represented
the bestial-cum-fallenside of humanityrelativeto the
bons gens-this "civilization" was a governmentof the
untamedbody,an overlayofcontrolon a basic savagery.
But to the likes of Herder,it was a Gallic affectation(of
the Prussian aristocracy)by comparisonwith the distinctive"culture" a people inheritedfromancestraltraditions.Unlike the superficial"civilization," "culture"

SAHLINS

inhabitedone's innerbeing: as a way offeelingand perceiving; hence as the modes of thought,particularto

each people, bywhich experiencewas conceptuallyconstructedand emotionallysustained.Developingfrominside out, to behavior, "culture" in this HerderianBoasian perspectivewas indeed empowering,whereas
"civilization,"as the externaldisciplineofinnerdisposition,was domination.35
Everything
happensas ifwe had been waitingforFoucault. In his darkvision of societyas a totalizedsystem
of coercive power, Foucault becomes the modern
prophetof the Hobbesian-cum-Judeo-Christian
anthropology. Such seems to be the archaeologyat issue. Yet
Foucault was "a man of a thousandmasks," as one of
his biographerssaid, so it is arguablehow seriouslywe
should take the guise he assumed to say that power
arises in struggle,in war, and such a war as is of every
man againsteveryman. "Who fightswhom?" he asked.

The Native Anthropologyof WesternCosmology 1407

ing sense of the human condition. The "fundamental
and characteristicpremise of the usual proofof optimism," wrote Lovejoy, "was the propositionthat the
perfectionof the whole depends upon, indeed consists
in, the existenceofeverypossible degreeofimperfection

in theparts"(i964:2I).

Likea celebrated
beehiveofthe

time, "everyPart was full of Vice, Yet the whole mass

a Paradise."
The projectof derivinga greaterbeneficialorderfrom
the afflictionsof the human lot was an i8th-century
version of Augustinian theodicy.36For Augustine evil
was a privationratherthan God's creation.The many
and subtle degreesoffinitudein sublunarythingsdetermine in a contrastiveway the perfectgoodness of the
world-in the well-wornaesthetic metaphor,like the
shadows thatgive formand beautyto a painting.Hence
"it is good thattherebe evil," as a i2th-century
textput
it (Hick i966:97). And it seems fittingthatin Alexander
"We all fighteach other"(Foucaulti980:208).
Critics Pope's celebrationofthe optimistphilosophy,the goodand exegetes hardly notice Foucault's connection to ness of the providentialorder is achieved in spite of
Hobbes exceptto repeathis own disclaimerthatthe idea pride,the originalsin. At the same time, looking forof power he advocated was "the exact opposite of Hob- ward to the coming Westernsciences of society,this
bes' project in Leviathan" (p. 97). We are enjoined to greater harmony is realized in spite of any human
give up our fascinationwith sovereignty,"cut offthe knowledge,will, or reason-but rathermysteriously
and
king's head," freeourselvesfroman obsession with the mechanically,as if by an InvisibleHand:
institutionsof state. Power is everywherein society.It
All Nature is but Art,unknownto thee:
is investedin the structuresand cleavages of everyday
All Chance, Direction,which thou canst not see;
life,omnipresentin quotidianregimesofknowledgeand
All Discord, Harmony,not understood;
truth.If by the Hobbesian contractthe subjects constiAll partialEvil, universalGood:
tute an omnipresentpower,in the Foucauldian view an
And, spite of Pride,in erringReason's spite,
omnipresentpower constitutes the subjects. All the
One truthis clear, "WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT."37
same, when Foucault speaks ofan incessantwar ofeach
againstall and in the next breathalludes to a Christian
Adam Smith's invocationof the InvisibleHand is the
divided self-"and there is always within each of us best-knowninstance,but classical economics is hardly
something that fights something else" (Foucault the onlyintellectualsuccess thatcan be claimed by this
is too temptedto believethathe and metaphysicsof the imaginedtotality.The same general
i980:208)-one
Hobbes have more in common than the factthat,with sense of the structureof the world informedmedieval
the exceptionof Hobbes, both were bald.
and modernnaturalsciences. And,on themodel ofprovidential theoriesof the state, the ideologyreappearsin
modernanthropologicalviews of "society" or "culture"
The Anthropologyof Providence
as a transcendent,functionaland objective order.(You
will recognizethe "superorganic"ofKroeber,White,and
Vous composerezdans ce chaos fatal
HerbertSpencer.)All these cognate concepts have the
Des malheurs de chaque etreun bonheurgeneral. double-levelstructure,the heavenly and earthlycities
of the neo-Platonic,Christian cosmology.They all inVOLTAIRE
voke
an unseen,beneficentand encompassingsystemof
Pleased with the conceit that "this is the best of all
the
whole
that mitigatesthe defectsand tribulationsto
possible worlds,"the famousoptimismof the i 8th cenwhich
matteris subject (cf.EhrardI963, vol.
empirical
turywas nonethelessan unhappyphilosophy.Its necesI: II_,2),38
especially
the travailsto which man is subsarycomplementwas the receiveddogmaofhuman suffering,to which it merelyadded some consolation.So if
the shock waves of the greatLisbon earthquakeof I755
36. AndbeforeAugustinethetradition
goesbackto Plotinusespealso tumbled the belief that nature had been designed cially,whose formulation
of the Chain ofBeingas a hierarchy
of
entailsboththeAugustinian
theodicyand,withcertain
forman's benefit,it was because thispious notionofan perfection
the optimists'notion of the best possible world
overarchingProvidencehad alreadysupposeda depress- assumptions,
(LovejoyI964:6I-66;
Hick I966).
37. By "partialEvil" is meanttheevilin or suffered
byindividuals

35. Fortheassertionsaboutthehistory
of"culture"and "civilization"in theseparagraphs,
see Elias (1978), Ben6ton(I975), Benveniste (197I:chap. 28), Berlin(1976; i982:1-24), Bunzl(i99s), Meyer
(n.d.[i952]), and Sahlins(i995).

(cf. Pope 1970:133n).

38. Berkeley'sparticularversionof the InvisibleHand theory(or

fortheway it necessarilycounttheodicy)is particularly
striking
erposesa systematicabstractwhole to thepainsofourfiniteand
imperfect
experiences:"As to the mixtureof pain or uneasiness

408

i CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, June1996

ject: Providenceis the positive complementof human

evil. It turnsout that God loves those who love themselves. Lifemightbe unbearablewereit notforthe imagined totalitythatgives purposeand solace to individual
suffering
or, better,makes the partial evils of an alienated existence the means of universal welfare.Thus,
each personmaximizinghis own scarce resources.... 39
So the higherwisdom of Westernsociety has often
been just that-a higher wisdom implied in earthly
things.It is oftennoted thatthe ChristianProvidenceis
a transformation
of the Aristotelianteleologyofnature.
Justso, fromGalileo and Kepler throughNewton and
Einstein,early modernphysicistswere convinced that
God could not have made the universeas disorderlyas
it mightseem in everydayexperience.Indeed, Newton
held that the fixedlaws of naturewere edicts promulgated by God.40The kinship between natural law and
whichis in theWorld,pursuantto thegenerallaws ofNature,and
actionsof finiteimperfect
spirits:this,in the statewe are in at
present,is indispensably
necessaryto ourwell-being.
Butourprospectsare too narrow:we take,forinstance,the idea ofsome one
particularpain into our thoughts,
and accountit evil; whereasif
we enlargeourview,so as to comprehend
thevariousends,connexions,and dependenciesof things,on whatoccasionsand in what
we are affected
proportions
withpain and pleasure,thenatureof
humanfreedom,
and the designwithwhichwe are put into the
world;we shall be forcedto acknowledgethat those particular
things,whichconsideredin themselvesappearto be evil,havethe
natureofgood,whenlinkedto thewholesystemofbeings"(Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge ?

I53).

But

then,the philosophythatrequiresGod in orderto guaranteethe

realityofthingswhenwe aren'tlookingat themis aboutas good
an expressionoftheprovidential
theoryas one mightfind.
39. Again,thisChristiananthropology
ofProvidencehas classical
as in Stoicphilosophy:"Those thingswhichyou call
antecedents,
whichyou call adversities
hardships,
andaccursed,are,in thefirst
place,forthegoodofthepersonsthemselvesto whomtheycome;
in the secondplace . .. theyare forthegoodofthewholehuman
family,forwhichthe godshave a greaterconcernthanforsingle
persons"(SenecaOn Providence3.1). But,on theotherhand,"The
Greeksdid not see the Homericgodsabove themas mastersand
themselvesbelowthemas servants,
as didtheJews.Theysaw, as
it were,only the reflection
of the most successfulspecimensof
theirowncaste,thatis,an ideal,nota contrast
to theirownnature.
They feltrelatedto them,therewas a reciprocalinterest,
a kind
ofsymmachia[alliance].Man thinksofhimselfas noblewhenhe
giveshimselfsuchgods,andputshimselfintoa relationship
similar to thatofthelessernobilityto thehigher....
on the otherhand, crushedand shatteredman
"Christianity,
completely,and submergedhim as if in deep mire.Then,all at
once, into his feelingof deep confusion,it allowed the lightof
divinecompassionto shine,so thatthesurprised
man,stunnedby
and thoughtfora momentthathe
mercy,let out a cryofrapture,
carriedall ofheavenwithinhim" (NietzscheI984:85).
ofdivineto naturallaw meant
40. Obviously,the transformation
the end of transcendent
being(CassirerI95I:45), butforall that,
and even beyondthe theologicaldispositionsofNewton,Galileo,
et al. (P. 42), a certaintranscendence
ofmeanexperience
byhigher
(intellectual)order,the Christianeditionof Platonism,inhabits
thenewnaturalscience:"Thus thenewconceptionofnature,seen
in the perspectiveof the historyof thought,owes its originto a
doublemotiveand is shapedand determined
byapparently
opposingforces.It containsboththeimpulsetowardtheparticular,
the
concrete,and the factual,and the impulsetowardthe absolutely
universal;thusit harborstheelementalimpulseto holdfastto the
thingsof thisworldas well as the impulseto riseabove themin
orderto see themin theirproperperspective.
The desireand joy

Divine Providenceis part of the theologicalcontinuity

initiatedby the apparentlyradicalchangesspokenabout
as the "humanization" of the Renaissance and the "secularization"ofthe Enlightenment-endingin the transferof the attributesof an omnipotentDeity to a Nature

at least as worthyof reverence(BeckerI93.2;

Fun-

kensteinI 986:3 57-5 8). Fora longtimedespised,Nature

nonetheless manifestedGod's handiwork,and now it
appropriatedHis powers-in ways thatare still withus,
such as the virtuesforhuman health of whatevercan
be called "natural." But then, the greatmedieval symbolics of nature and its providentialsciences had been
constructedfromthe same cosmic premises.
Back then, in the Middle Ages, the world was still
deceptive,even as man was vile. But forthosewho knew
how to discoverthem,the sensibletracesofGod's handiworkcould be foundin the objectsofnatureand manipulated forhumanbenefit.Nothingwas exactlywhat-or
as bad-as it seemed. In some regardor another,anything could be a sign of the Absolute.4' Eco cites the
affirmation
of JohannesScotus Eriugenia:"In my judgment there is nothing among visible and corporeal
thingswhich does not signifysomethingincorporealand
intelligible" (Eco I986:56-57; cf. Glacken I967:238).
Mediated by the greaterTruthand Powerthatotherwise
mendacious thingscould signify,a systemof providential knowledge linked these worldlyobjects according
to certainperceptibleresemblances.The walnut looks
like the brain,hence it is good forheadaches. Yellow
and greenstones could cure jaundice and liverailments,
whereas red stones were forstoppingfluxesand hemorrhages. Resemblances such as those between walnuts
and brains'now seem arbitraryto us, bringingtogether
things"in reality"or "objectively"quite distinct.42
Yet

of the senses uniteherewiththe powerof the intellectto break

awayfromall theobjectsofconcreteexperienceand to riskflight
intotheland ofpossibilities"(p. 38).
God's Providencewas theexplicitguaranteeof
41. ForAugustine,
theabsolutereadingsofearthlythings.These allegoricalinterpretationscouldbe likenedto digging
up truths" 'fromcertainmines
of Divine Providence,whichis everywhere
infused'" (Robertson
Doctrine2.40.60). Augustine'smethods
I958:xiv; cf.On Christian
ofscriptural
exegesis,moreover,
provedto havea certaincompatibilitywithmedievalartas well as its symbolicscience-all alike
in theirappealto an abstractpatternbeneaththesurfaceofthings.
D. W. Robertson
further
notesthedifference
betweenthisintellectualrelationto objects,words,orimagesandwhatmightbe called
thebourgeoismodeofapprehension
in andas personal-bodily
feeling.Referring
to thefigurative
dispositionin medievalwriting
and
muchofthesymbolismin medievalart,he writes,"The function
offigurative
expressionwas not to arousespontaneousemotional
attitudesbased on thepersonalexperienceoftheobserver,
but to
encouragetheobserverto seekan abstractpatternofphilosophical
In thisrespect,as
beneaththesymbolicconfiguration.
significance
in otherrespects,medievalartis considerably
moreobjectivethan
modernart,even in thoseinstanceswhereit is least 'realistic'"
(p. xv).
the Cartesiancritiqueofwhatwas
42. Thus Foucaulthighlighted
a fadingscience of resemblances:" 'It is a frequenthabit,'says
Descartesin thefirstlines ofhis Regulae,'whenwe discoverseveralresemblances
betweentwothings,to attribute
to bothequally,
thatwhich
even on pointsin whichtheyare in realitydifferent,
we have recognizedto be trueof only one of them'" (Foucault
1973:51).

SAHLINS

JESUS AND

COSMIC

ENTROPY

IN THE

Accordingto Glasse (i965:30), "The Huli [ofthe Southern

HighlandsofNew Guinea]havelittlepersonalinterestin the
in theafterfateofthesoul. Theyhaveno beliefin judgement
life,and the destinationof the soul in no way dependsupon
a person'scharacteror behaviourpriorto death.Theirviews
orhabitationofthesoul arein facthazy
aboutthedestination
and uncertain;theyarewillingto speculateaboutthewhereaboutsofghostsbut the questionhas no greatsignificance."
as theirghosts
(Thefateofthoseslainin battleis an exception,
go to a desirablerestingplace in the sky-"about whichthe
Huli againhave fewconcretenotions.")That the Huli seem
notto be obsessedwithwhatwill happento themafterdeath
especiallyto Christianmissionaries,who
has been baffling
of"soul bebythisindeterminacy
findthemselvesfrustrated
liefs"in theirattemptsto peddletheGoodNews aboutsalvationand a fortiori
themeaningofJesus'ssacrifice.Of course,
whattheymaybe up againstis thisworldlyreligionconcerned
thusnotgivento specwithpeople'sexistencehere-and-now,
here
ulationabout the after-life.
Conversionto Christianity
requiresconversionto a religionof death.In the Huli case,
however,themissionariesat leasthad theadvantageofdealof
ing with a people whose ideas about the contemptibility
this worldcould challengethose of medievalChristianity.
The problemwas that the indigenousHuli cosmologyinNo
cludednothinglike thesavinggraceofDivineProvidence.
higherorderofgoodcouldbe foundin earthlycircumstances,
the
On the contrary,
no greaterpurposeto humansuffering.
world was headingtowardchaos and death unless people
withthe
could establishappropriate
exchangerelationships
evermorenumerousand viciousspiritualbeings(dama)who
pessimismmakes
were causingthe decline.This confirmed
it possible to understandthe Huli's willingnessto adopt
Christianity-ontheconditionthattheycouldtakeresponsibilityforJesus'sdeath.Like manyof theirown traditional
dama, Jesuswas not so mucha savioras a sourceofmisery.
His deathcould not make the Huli free,since theyhad not
yetpaid the compensationforit (Glasse I965; Biersackn.d.;
Allen and Frankel I99Ia, b; Frankel I986; Goldman I993;
Ballardi992a, b).
"conThe Huli live in a dyingworld.TheirWeltanschaung
ofthephystainsa strongsenseofdecline,ofthedeterioration
ical earthand thedecayoftheircultureintoanarchyand immorality"(Allen and FrankeliggIa:95). Alreadyrealizedin
herdsof pigs,epidemic
fallingyieldsof crops,diminishing
diseases,and rebelliousyouth,the developingentropyis an
to dissolvesociety
all-rounddisaster,eventuallythreatening
and parricide.Thereis a sense,however,
in incest,fratricide,
as has happenedbefore,
perhaps
thatthefallcan be reversed,
morethanonce-thus a sense ofrecurrent
cyclesofdestruction and renewal.Apparently
evokingthe distantmemories
volcanicexplosionon LongIsland(off
ofa greati8th-century
New Guinea),the renewalentailsthe return,
northeastern
effectedby ritual means, of a time of darkness(mbingi)
markedby the fall of ashlike materialfromthe sky,after
whichgardens,pigs,and humanswould enjoya remarkable
prosperity(cf.Blong i982, Mai i98i). (Note that such volcanic

in themselvesto accountfortheHuli
eventsarenotsufficient
worldview,since thisapocalypticphilosophyis sharedonly
peoplesofsouthernNew Guinea,justa
bya fewneighboring
ofthoseaffected
fraction
bytheLongIslanderuption[Biersack

ofWesternCosmology1409
TheNativeAnthropology

NEW

GUINEA

HIGHLANDS

n.d.].)The returnof the time of darknessis not inevitable,

necessarilybenign."Huli beliefs
however,norare its effects
do notadequatelyexplainit [mbingi]forthem,"andmuchas
they desire it they also fear its potentialdestructiveness
fallible
dependson a potentially
(Glasse I965:46). Everything
humanagency.IfHuli areunabletoaccomplishtheprescribed
ritualsor to placate the maliciousdama, the resultwill be
world disasterratherthan world renewal (Ballardi992b).
in the2oth
Memoriesremainoftwo suchritualmiscarriages
of JesusChrist
century,one of which was the crucifixion
Allen and Frankel
about I925 (Frankel i986:23-24;
iggib:27I-72;

Glasse I965:46; Biersack n.d.).

As Huli recountit, a "red-skinned"

boy namedBayebaye
also as Jesus,was killedin the
whomtheyidentify
(Perfect),
course of a ritualdevotedto the returnof darkness,upon
in people's
and distributed
whichhis bodywas dismembered
gardens.(ChrisBallard[I992b] reportsthatthiswas a normal
ritualprocedure,or a normalalternativeto the sacrificeof
a red-skinned
pig,but otheraccountseitherleave the event
unexplainedor attributeit to some sortof error,as onlythe
blood fromthe boy's prickedfingershouldhave been sacrificed [Glasse I965, Frankel I986]. "Red-skinned," it mightbe

noted,is the way Huli characterizewhite people.)Frankel

relatesthatthe namesofBayebayeand Jesus"are frequently
for
and as manyHuli feelresponsible
used interchangeably,"
"a numberofattemptsto givecompensation
thecrucifixion,
havebeenmade" (i986:23).The boy'smother,
to missionaries
a womanoftheDuna people(tothewest),is identified
as the
aboutherimmaculate
VirginMary.Nothinghas beenreported
conception,however,nor has she been any matemalsolace
mankind.On the
to the succeedinggenerationsof suffering
thecurseshe laid in responseto herson's deathhas
contrary,
broughtdisasterin everyshapeand form.
Missionariesof fourChristiansects appearedamongthe
considerable
success.
Huli in theearlyI950Sand experienced
It has been suggestedthatthe parallelbetweenthe storyof
Bayebayeand the killingof Jesus"is a majorstrandin the
(FranexplanationoftheHuli's enthusiasmforChristianity"
kel i986:23).Butone wondersifit is nottheotherwayround,
the enthusiasmforChristianity
beingthe reasona certain
parallel-with Huli playingthe role of Pilate-was devised
Hereit is important
postfactumbetweenthetwo traditions.
thatthedestruction
bycolonizationprecededtheadbrought
ventofwhitemen in theSouthernHighlands,in theformof
epidemicdiseasesespecially.Fromthe turnofthe igth cenhave also been accompaniedbyvaritury,thesemisfortunes
such as the prolongeddroughtthat
ous naturalafflictions,
began in the same year as "firstcontact"with Europeans,
as due to theunI935. Huli have explainedtheirtribulations
leashingofmaliciousdama spiritsfromtheplacestheywere
theyperceivedthefirst
previously
confined,
and,accordingly,
visitsofwhites-includingthe notoriousFox brothers,
prospectorswhose killingsof Huli fullyjustifiedthe perception-as appearancesofevil dama. Onlylatercouldtheyconclude-without much alteration of their original
thewhiteswreakedhavocamongthem
interpretations-that
because compensationfor Jesuswas still unpaid (Frankel
i986:25). " 'This is thetimeforus to die,'" an old man told
" 'Thereis notmuchtimeleftto us now.
theanthropologist:

The world is dry....

the earth is old and worn out'" (p. 24).

4IO

I CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

it was just these obscure affinitiesthat signifiedan invisible Providenceand-by amulets or alchemy,just as
in curing-synthesizedthe Adamic oppositionofnature
and humankind. "Objectionable in itself," the world,
Huizinga remarks,"became acceptable by its symbolic
purport.Foreveryobject,each commontradehad a mystical relation with the most holy, which ennobled it"

scorn.46In this connection Dumont refersto Mandeville's "PrivateVices, PublickBenefits"argument.Mandeville's formularecognizedsomethingnot yet explicit
in Hobbes: somethingsui generis,outside and beyond
particularhuman subjects,orderingtheirparticularinterests."This something,"Dumont (I977:78) explains,47
is the mechanism by which particularinterestshar(I 9 54:2o6 ).43
monize: a mechanism (as in Hobbes, but on an interEdmundBurkecould say somethingsimilarabout the
personal,not a personal,level), thatis, not someoriginsand holiness of the State: "He who gave our nathingwilled or thoughtby men, but somethingthat
tureto be perfectedby our virtuewilled also the necesexists independentlyof them. Societyis thus of the
the State"
sarymeans of perfection:he willed therefore
same natureas the world of naturalobjects,a nonhuidea ofthestate(orsociAugustine's
(BurkeI959:I07).
man thingor, at the most, a thingthat is human
ety)as a providentialorganizationof human evil seems
only insofaras human beingsare partof the natural
to echo across the centuries.44 The sequiturappears in
world.
certainmodernacademic discourseson the functionality and objectivityof society.45Anthropologicalschools And yetthe apparentliberationfromtheologythatcould
and culturalmaterial- imaginesocietyunderthe descriptionofa worldofnatusuch as structural-functionalism
ism manifesta kind of naive trustin a beneficial,self- ral objects owed a lot to the religionthatinventedsuch
regulatingsocial order that determinessome good or a world: of pure matter,distinctfromGod, createdby
utilityin each and everycustomarypractice.It is as if Him out ofnothing.48
were forthe best. For
in societyand cultureeverything
The success of the providentialprincipleas a theory
the societyis designedin such of society,however,was no simple Tylorian"survival."
structural-functionalists,
a way that any particularcustom or relationship,how- It is true that as a structureof the longue duree, the
ever baleful or conflictual,mysteriouslypromotesthe idea managed to maintainitselfdespitethe lapse of the
generalgood,thatis, maintainsthe social systemas con- Roman imperial authorityto which it was initially
stituted.Explicationsby class, power,or hegemonyare
generallymore cynical expressionsof the same princiconfirmation
ofDumont'sinsightcomesin a
46. An ethnographic
ple. On the other hand, the materialistschools that recent
articleby KatherineVerdery(I995), whichcapitalizesbrilfoundthatAztec cannibalismsuppliedpeople with nec- liantly(ifone maysay so) on recenteconomiceventsin Romania
essaryproteinsor thatNew Guinea pigfeastskeptpopu- bydocumenting
the developingconsciousnessofan abstracttotal
lations fromexceedingtheirecological carryingcapaci- orderthataccompaniesa novel obsessionwithprivateinterests.
ties returnedto a cheerier,if equally credulous,respect Here the sentimentofsuch an impersonalsocial objectis heightened by the contrastbetweena modem,money-making
pyramid
forthe Invisible Hand.
schemeand theideologyofagencyassociatedwiththeancien(sothis
soAs Dumont again suggests,however,
greater
cialist)regime.
exampleof the naturalization
cial wisdom,byits metamorphosisofthe grubbysubjec- 47. Burkeprovidesa characteristic
social processin speakingoftheancienregime
tivityofhuman actions into an abstractcollectivegood, oftheprovidential
andall that
having"thatvarietyofparts... all thatcombination,
has become an academic object in and foritself.In a as
oppositionofinterests.. . thatactionand counteraction
which,in
curious parallel to the developmentof naturalscience, thenaturaland in thepoliticalworld,fromthereciprocalstruggle
the providentialqualityof societymakes it a properob- of discordantpowers,drawsout the harmonyof the universe"
ject of positive anthropology-and of postmodem (I959:40, emphasisadded).

48. Vico's New Science repeatedlydescribeshow privateselfvices are turnedinto social virtuesby the guidanceof
interested
and govDivine Providence.Forexample,themilitary,
merchant,
worldis, erningclasses were createdout of "the threevices which run
43. "To escapefromthisvain,deceivingandungenerous
thehumanrace,"ferocity,
avarice,andambition,from
fromthebottomto thetopofmedievalsociety,theincessantproj- throughout
riches,and wisdomof
reality- which have thus resulted"the strength,
ect. To findthe otherside ofthe mendaciousterrestrial
andart,andtheintellec- commonwealths"(Vico i984:62 [New Science? I32-33]). In the
veils,fillmedievalliterature
integumenta,
tual or aesthetictechniqueof the Middle Ages is above all an Conclusion,Vico summarizestheprinciple:
"It is truethatmenhave themselvesmadethisworldofnations
unveiling-tofindthehiddentruth... thatis themainpreoccupa... but this worldwithoutdoubthas issued froma mindoften
tionofmen oftheMiddleAges" (Le Goffi964:420).
andalwayssuperior
to theparticuwas forhim an diverse,at timesquitecontrary,
44. ChadwickwritesofAugustine:"Government
principleof orderimposedon larendsthatmenhadproposedto themselves;whichnarrowends,
of the providential
exemplification
the disruptiveforces let loose by the Fall.... The domination of made means to serveunderends,it has alwaysemployedto preone man overanothermay be abused,but it is the lesserof two servethehumanraceupon thisearth....
"The evidence clearly confirmsthe . . . position of the political
is anarchyand everymanforhimself"
evilswherethealternative
whose princeis the divinePlato,who shows that
philosophers,
(Chadwick i986:i02).
thatwhenmenfailto see providencedirectshuman institutions"(P. 425 [New Science ?
45. Vico spokeofthe "eternalproperty
and much moreif theysee it op- I I08-9]).
reasonin humaninstitutions,
The whole cosmologyof the InvisibleHand was announcedin
posed,theytake refugein the inscrutablecounselshiddenin the
ofthe firsteditionoftheNew Science,where
abyssofdivineprovidence"(NewScience? 948).His ownrecurrent the firstparagraph
recourse to Providenceto account for human institutions- it is said, " 'We wish thereto be a forcesuperiorto nature. ..
the verumfactumprinciple-seemsitselfa case whichis to be foundsolelyin a God who is not thatverynature
notwithstanding
itself'" (in Momigliano1977:253-54).
in point.

SAHLINS

The Native Anthropologyof WesternCosmology I 4I I

If anythingthe Christianreligionwent on to widen

the riftbetween man and nature by its opposition to
classical pantheisms-corollary to the contemptibility
of the material world that followed upon originalsin.
Christianshad serious doctrinalproblemswith a God
who was everywhere,as this would undermine the
whole Christology(Funkenstein I986:45). Hence the
emphasis on a creation ex nihilo, which differentiated
the Faith fromthe emanationistcosmogoniesof classical antiquity.But then, in developingthis difference,
Augustine unwittinglyreproachesjust about all other
religions-including the Polynesian,the basic concepts
of which he inventsas the reductioad absurdumof the
"irreligious"idea that the world is the body of God.
"And ifthis is so," he says, "who cannotsee what impiThe Anthropologyof Reality
ous and irreligiousideas follow,such as that whatever
one may trample,he must tramplea part of God, and
The inventionof a pure object world occurredlong be- in slaying any living creature,a part of God must be
foreDescartes distinguishedthinkingthingsfromex- slaughtered?"(De civitateDei 4.I2). Perhapsnot coincitendedthings.It was also well beforethe reignofcapital dentally,given the resemblancesbetween the classical
in Europe,which Marx thoughtput an end to "nature Greek and New Zealand Maori cosmogonies(Schrempp
idolatry"and forthe firsttime made nature"purelyan I992), Augustine most accuratelydescribes the ritual
object forhumankind,purelya matterofutility"(I973:
predicament of the Maori who tramples the Earth
409-I0).
(Note forfuturereferencethe conflationofutil- MotherPapa, attacksthe god Tane in cuttingdown trees
itywith objectivity-or at least objectification-which or killing birds, and consumes Rongo when he eats
is indeedthe bourgeoisideology.)But it was Christianity sweet potatoes (e.g.,Best I924, vol. I:I28-29).
Western
and beforethat Judaismthat firstdisenchantednature, people have been spared such blasphemybecause God
renderingit merelyan object forhumankindmany cen- made the world out of nothing."But what is my God?"
turiesbeforeits exploitationby capital-which religion Augustine asked. "I put the question to the earth. It
had thus prepared.Insistingupon an absolute gap be- answered,'I am not God, and all thingson earthdeclared
tween God and His creation,between worldlythings the same' " (Confessionsio.6). Nature is pure materialand divinity,the Judeo-Christian
traditionthus distin- ity,withoutredeemingspiritualvalue.
guisheditselffroma "paganism" it understoodprecisely
Dare one claim that the determinationof nature as
as natureidolatry."The deificationof naturewas seen pure materiality-absent gods, incarnatespirits,or any
as the real essence of paganism by both Christiansand such nonhuman persons-is a unique WesterninvenJews" (FunkensteinI986:45; cf. Feuerbach I967:9I et tion?True, worldlythingscould representor be signsof
passim; Berman I98I ).49 The ancient Hebrew religion God, but theyare not God. Nor is this differentiation
of
was absolutelyunique, Henri Frankfort
was wont to ar- "natural" from"supernatural"the same as the naturegue, in its insistence on the absolute transcendenceof culturedistinctionswidely practicedaroundthe world.
God: a god beyond ontological comparison to any It is thefurther
argumentthatnatureis onlyres extensa,
worldlyphenomenon.God was not in the sun or stars, made of nothing,lacking subjectivity.The idea, morethe rain or wind-nowhere in nature."In Hebrew reli- over,becomes the ontologicalcounterpartof an equally
gion-and in Hebrew religionalone-the ancient bond singularepistemology,insofaras knowledge of nature
between man and nature was destroyed" (Frankfort cannot be achieved by communication and the other
I948:343).50
ways subjectsunderstandsubjects.Mediated byAdam's
Fall, knowledgeof natural thingsis reducedto sensory
of the obduratematteron which humanity
experience
49. Glackenmakesthegeneralpointin a discussionofAugustine:
was
condemned
to lay waste its powers.Here was a cer"In theJudeo-Christian
doctrine,
thedistinction
betweentheCreadapted(Pagels I988). Dumont's discussion(I982) ofthe
dialecticsofhierarchyengagingthe stateand the church
throughthe Middle Ages helps explainwhy.Briefly,the
churchhad gambledits ideal superiority
byenteringinto
a contest for temporalrule. Thereforewhen the state
emergedvictoriousfromthis conflictit was gracedwith
the status and functionsof its holy adversary,notably
includingthe guardianshipofmorality.The earthlycity
absorbed significantaspects of the heavenly city. If
Durkheim concluded that "God" was anothername for
society,was this not because it was alreadytrue-that
is, of his particularsociety?It is not that God was society deifiedbut that societywas God socialized.

ator and the created .

. is unequivocal, as it must be: there can

neverbe anyquestionoftheinferiority
ofthenaturalorder,lovely
as it is, to God. It is a distinction
thatlies at therootofChristian
beliefand in the Christianattitudetowardnature:one should
neverbecome so entrancedwith the beautiesof naturethathe
mistakesthemforanything
otherthancreationslike himself....
Augustineproteststhatthepaganideas ofthegodsstartwiththe
conceptionofearthas motherofthegods.The earthis no mother;
it itselfis a workof God. Augustineexpressescontemptof and
disgustwiththe effeminate
and emasculatedmen consecratedto
the worshipof the GreatMotherEarth"(GlackenI967:I96-97;
see also pp. I5 I, I 6o).
50. Frankfort
and Frankfort
expressthepointevenmoregenerally
in anotherwork:

"The dominanttrendof Hebrewthoughtis the absolutetranscendenceofGod. Yahwehis notin nature.Neitherearthnorsun

norheavenis divine;eventhemostpotentnaturalphenomenaare
butreflections
ofGod's greatness....
"The God of the Hebrewsis purebeing,unqualified,
ineffable.
He is holy. This means he is sui generis....

It means that all

values are ultimatelyattributes

of God alone. Hence all concrete
phenomenaare devalued....
"Nowhereelse do we meetthisfanaticaldevaluationofthephenomenaofnatureand theachievements
ofman: art,virtue,social
order-in viewoftheuniquesignificance
ofthedivine"(I946:367,
369).

4121I CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volur4e 37, Number 3, JuneI996

RELATIVITY

OF SUBJECT-OBJECT

To speakofthe"humanizednature"ofmanyotherpeoplesand also in certainrespectsof Westempeoples-is not to

sense,
in theLevy-Bruhl
adoptthelanguageof"participation"
insofaras thatnotioninvolvessome mechanismof "projection" of the subjectonto the object.Amongotherprerequithatseemsto be
sites,"mind"has to be invented,something
dynamicsmaybe betfarfromuniversal.The epistemological
byLienhardt's(i96i:I49) discussionofDinka
terexemplified
relationsto extemal"Powers":
The Dinka have no conceptionwhichat all closelycorrespondsto ourpopularmodemconceptionofthe"mind"
as mediatingand,as it were,storingup experiencesofthe
self.Thereis forthemno suchinteriorentityto appear,
selfat
to standbetweentheexperiencing
on reflection,
inanygivenmomentand whatis or has beenan exterior
fluenceupon theself.So it seemsthatwhatwe should
and recall in some cases the "memories"ofexperiences,
as in some way interiorto theremembergardtherefore
uponhimby that
ingpersonand modifiedin theireffect
actinguponhim,
appearto Dinka as exteriorly
interiority,
as eventhe sourcesfromwhichtheyderived.
Fromthisit also seems to follow(pp. i55-56) that

DISTINCTIONS

scribethelatterthenin isolationfromhim as the"object" ofhis belief.The Dinka themselvesimplythiswhen

theyspeakofthePowersas being"in men'sbodies,"but
also "in thesky"or in otherparticular
places.Their
worldis not fortheman objectofstudy,butan active
subject.
Lienhardt'sexplicationthusinvertstheusual dogmasofparticipation-andthusoffers
a moreinteresting
wayof"saving

theappearances"
(pp.i6i-62;

cf.Barfield
I988): "To useour

Europeantypeofdistinctionbetweennatureand Mind,it is
ratherthatsome men on occasionincorporate
in themselves
theultra-human
forcesofNature,thanthattheyendowNaturewithqualitiestheyrecognizein themselvesand in humankind."Withoutthemediationofmind,subjectiveexperiences of empiricalintuitionswill appear as attributesor
"powers"of the perceivedobjects.Hence forDinka the disease catches the man. The philosophyis a kind of antitheeliminationofthesensingmindleavingthe
Berkeleyism,
extemalobjectas theessenceofall "ideas."
On the possibilityof nonexperiential
beings,entities,and
powers,see also thenextbox,"The RealityoftheTranscendent."

it is not a simplematterto dividetheDinka believer,for

analyticpurposes,fromwhathe believesin, and to de-

reasonswhy.Before
tain praxis theoryof knowledge, appropriateto this- de Condillac,stillknewtheterrible
worldlythings."For the Christiantheologians,"Gure- theFall,he said (I973:IO9_Io),52
vich writes, "labour was above all educational"
(i985:26i).

He quotesOrigen:"'God createdman as a

The soul couldabsolutely,

withouttheaid ofthe
senses,acquireknowledge.
BeforetheSin,it was in

being who needs work in orderthat he may fullyexerfromthat in which it is

a systemaltogetherdifferent
powers'" (cf.GlackenI 967: I 8 5).51 For
cisehiscognitive
foundtoday.Free of ignoranceand concupiscence,it
a long time, however,this was hardlythe best way of
commandedits senses, suspendedtheiraction and
knowing,and the thingsthus knowablewere ofno great
modifiedthem at will. It had ideas anteriorto the
value. "Scorn all thatis visible" was the greatmedieval
use of the senses. But thingschangedmuch by its
injunction.As comparedwith the experienceofthe condisobedience.God took fromit all that empire:it betemptibleobjects of a contemptibleworld, the higher
came as dependenton the senses as if these were the
neo-Platoniccontemplationofintelligibleentitiescould
physicalcause of that of which theydid but occabe said to continuein such guises as revelationand the
sion; and therewere forit only the knowledgesthat
medieval symbology,togetherwith the invidious conthe senses transmittedto it.... Thus when I shall
trastsof ideal formand empiricaltoken.But even when
saythatwe have no ideas thathavenotcometo us
the embeddedempiricistphilosophycame out fromunthroughthe senses, it must be rememberedthatI
der in the 17th and i8th centuries,most of its pracspeak only of the state we are in since the Sin.
titionersstill understoodits limitations,whichwere the
limitationsof human finitude.Some, such as the Abbe As if the senses were "the physical cause of that of
which they did but occasion." Here was the famous
metaphysicalevil-in many respects the worst afflic"For,to tion of all. Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and the FrenchluBoas also quotesPhilo-Judaeus:
5 I. On the praxistheory,
tell the truth,God has appointedtoil formen as thesourceofall
good and all virtue,apartfromwhichyou will findnothingfair mieres were fullyaware that if knowledge came from

establishedforthehumanrace.Forjustas withoutlightitis imposforvisual

sible to see, since neithercolorsnoreyesare sufficient
naturecreatedlightas a linkforthetwobywhich
perception-for
theeyeis connectedandjoinedto color,butin darknessthepower
ofeach is useless-in thesamewayalso theeyeofthesoul cannot
virtuouspracticesunlessit makesuse oftoil,likelight,
apprehend
as a co-worker"(Boas I948:i2). The currentdualismof the symon thetwo
bolic and thepragmaticwould thusbe a development
modes of medievalknowledge,thatis, by signsof thingsand by
workon things.However,thesearenotdissociatedin otherepistethe
mologies,as seemsto be impliedbyTambiah(i990), following
(see SahlinsI995 :chap.4).
venerableWestemintellectualtradition

famousin its dayon TheFall ofMan; or The

52. In a compendium
Goodmanhadalreadyargued
Corruption
ofNature(i6i6), Godfrey

that "any skill that todayrequiresstudyand labor to acquire,

'must'have been possessedby man,innately,beforetheFall,and
requiredno laboriousprocessof leaming.Goodman'sinstances
rangefromabilitieslike swimmingto intellectualactivityandhuin general.... Today'we (thatis, oursouls)
man communication
doe not receivethe thingsthemselves,but the speciesor images
ofthings'(P.46). 'Wereit not,thatmanis falne,'we shouldbe able
to reasoninfallibly;the soul dealing'directly'with 'intelligible
objects' themselves" (Hepburn I973:507).

SAHLINS

the senses alone, we could neverknow the trueessences

of things. "We see appearances only . . . we are in a
dream" (Voltaire).Some even triedto wake us fromthe
dogmatic slumber during which we dreamed that in
seeing the appearanceswe were lookinginto things-inthemselves.But most Westernphilosophers-including
most of the academy-reconciled themselvesto a concept of "reality" that remainedburdenedwith the conjoined imperfectionsof the postlapsurianepistemology,
ignorance and labor. "Reality" is the sensoryimpressions we could obtain fromthe world in the course of
practicalengagementwith it. What thereis is the metaphysicalcomplementof our bodilypleasuresand pains.
Even Descartes, forall his distrustof experience,could
be confidentof judgmentsbased on perceptionsof pleasure and pain, forGod would not have deceived us in
this but on the contrarygave us a decent sensorygrip
on the worldforthe sake of our own preservation(Sixth
Meditation)."As to my self,"said Locke, "I thinkGOD
has given me assurance enough of the Existence of
Thingswithoutme; since by theirdifferent
application,
I can producein my selfboth Pleasure and Pain, which
is one great concernmentof my presentstate" (Essay
concerningHuman Understanding4.11.3). And to the
skepticswho would not trusttheirsenses but affirmed
that our whole existence is just the "deluding appear-

ancesofa longDream,"Lockehadthisanswer(4.1 .8):

That the certaintyof Things existingin rerumNatura,when we have the testimonyof our Senses for
it, is not only as great as our framecan attain to,
but as our Conditionneeds. For our Faculties being
suited not to the full extentof Being,nor to a perfect,clear, comprehensiveKnowledgeof thingsfree
of all doubt and scruple; but to the preservationof
us, in whom theyare; and accommodatedto the use
of Life; theyserve to our purposewell enough,if
theywill but give us certainnotice of those Things,
which are convenientor inconvenientto us. For he
that sees a Candle burning,and hath experimented
the forceof its Flame, by puttinghis Fingerin it,
will littledoubt,thatthis is somethingexistingwithout him.... So that this Evidence is as great,as we
can desire,being as certainto us, as our Pleasure or
Pain; i.e. Happiness or Misery;beyondwhich we
have no concernment,eitherof Knowingor Being.
Such an assurance of the Existenceof Things without us, is sufficientto directus in attainingthe
Good and avoidingthe Evil, which is caused by
them,which is the importantconcernmentwe have
of being made acquainted with them.
Locke, it is said, repudiatedthe doctrineof Original
Sin (Cranston I985:389). Yet his own sensationalist
epistemology,yieldingfarfromperfectknowledgeand
constitutingjudgmentsof thingsthroughthe pleasures
and pains theyevoke-such beingall thatGod intended
for us in "the days of this our pilgrimage" (Essay
4.14.2)-this
epistemological doctrine surely (pan-)
glosses the Adamic condition as a positive philosophy
of empiricism.

ofWesternCosmology| 413
TheNativeAnthropology

THE REALITY

OF THE TRANSCENDENT

Kantwarnedaboutspeculating
in theabsenceofsensibleintuitions.Insofaras thoughtinvolvesthea prioricategories-of
space, time,substance,quantity,etc.-that constituteintuitions as objectiveempiricaljudgments,the extensionof
realmsor objectsentailsno metathoughtto transcendental
physicalpassageintoa domainofunreality.
On thecontrary,
transcendental
objectswill have all thequalitiesofobjective
experiencesor empiricalintuitions-exceptthatofempirical
intuition.Hence "religion"or beliefin unperceived
"spirits"
in manysocieties:thefrequent
and also its nonexistence
ethoftheWestemdistincnographic
reportofthenon-pertinence
tion betweenthe "natural"and the "supematural."It also
followsthatin theeventofa contradiction
betweentheempiricalandtranscendental,
therealityofthelatteris privileged
overtheperceptible
attributes
oftheformer.
The nonsensory
is the morereal-as Hallowell (i960:34) relatedof Ojibway
people:
An informant
toldme thatmanyyearsbeforehe was sitting
in a tentone summeraftemoonduringa storm,together
withan oldmanandhiswife.Therewas oneclapofthunder
afteranother.Suddenlytheold man tumedto his wifeand
asked,"Did youhearwhatwas said?" "No," shereplied,"I
didn't catch it."

Hallowell goes on to note that"outwardappearanceis only

an incidentalattribute
ofbeing."As he and otherstudentsof
thenonempirical
Ojibwayhave discovered,
aspectsofobjects
and persons-includingin the latter categoryother-thanhumanpersonssuch as theThunderbird-makeup a greater
andmorepowerful
Inrealitythanmeresensoryimpressions.
deed, a fundamentaldogma of Ojibway epistemology,
acofoutcordingto MaryBlack(I977:I0I), is "theunreliability
ward appearanceor the 'face-value'interpretation
of sense
data."

Hobbesand manyothersbeforeLockehad thesame

theoryofthemediationofobjectivity
byutility,as did
the Frenchphilosophesand manyothersin Locke's
wake.53
Buthowmanysagesthenorsincehaverealized
theculturalenormities
oftheproposition
thatwe know
theproperties
oftheworldin virtueofhow theyaffect
oursatisfactions?
"Juger
estsentir,"Helvetiussaid.The
arbiterof whatthereis, the determinant
and value of
significant
empiricalproperties,
is a solipsisticproject
ofadaptation
to nature.54
Hencethelong-standing
equationin thenativeWesternwisdombetween"objectiv53. Funkenstein
calls thisan "ergeticsenseofknowing,"knowing
by doing,and associatesit withVico, Descartes,and Hobbes,by
contrastto thecontemplative
ideal ofmanymedievaland ancient

philosophers (i986:290-93).

For Berman, "the equation of truth

withutility,thepurposivemanipulation
oftheenvironment,
is the
Cartesianor technologicalparadigm"(I98I:46). See also Schmidt
and Lenin(I972).
(I97I;IIo-II)
54. Nidditch writes: "The empiricism of Hobbes (I588-I679),

Locke (i632-I704), andHume (I7II-76) shouldbe seenas a compoundof severaldoctrines,

not all of themexclusivelyepistemological.Amongtheseare,as a firstapproximation:
thatournatural
powersoperatein a social and physicalenvironment
thatwe seek
to adapt ourselvesto, and thatthe variablefunctioning
of these

powers in that environment is the agency by which we get and

retainall ourideas,knowledge,
andhabitsofmind;thatourcapacities of conscioussense-experience
and of feelingpleasureor discomfort
are primary
naturalpowers. . ." (I975:viii).

4141

CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

"THEY

DETEST

When Jesuitmissionariesinstalledthemselvesin southern

China in I583, theyopeneda culturaldebateofcosmological
with the Confucianliterati.As JacquesGernet
proportions
observesin his fascinatingaccount of the confrontation,
theWesternandEastChinaand theChristianImpact(1i985),
pointsbutfunnotjuston particular
ernintellectualsdiffered
The missionaries"foundthemdamentally-ontologically.
kind of humanity"
selves in the presenceof a different
(i985:247). Common ground could perhaps be found in the

betweentheChristianGod
resemblances
superficial
relatively
and the Chinese conceptof Heaven. But the resemblances
beWesterndistinction
would end abruptlywiththe further
tweenthe Creatorand the creature.Nor could the scholarrecognizethewholesuiteofclassicalWesterndualisms
gentry
to this basic ontologicaldivide: between
complementary
mindandbody,selfandworld,spiritualandmaterial,rational
and sensible."'The mode ofaction[theDao] ofHeavenand
Earthcan be summedup in a word,'" said HuangZhou. "'It

is not double' " (i985:205).

well thatthisChinesesenseofthe
Mateo Ricciunderstood
Heaven,Earth,and the
unity-indeed,consubstantiality-of
io,ooo creaturesrenderedthe doctrinesof originalsin and
inherenthumanevil impossible.In The TrueMeaningofthe
Masterof Heaven, Ricci introduceda Chinese scholarwho
claimedthattheMasterofHeavenis "withineverybeingand
is one withit. This encouragesmen not to behavebadlyso
as not to tarnish their basic goodness; . . . not to harm others

so as not to insult the Sovereignon High,who is within

the Westernliteratus,
them."But this blasphemyinfuriates
who declaresit theworstmistakehe everheard."To saythat
decthecreaturesandtheircreatorareidenticalis an arrogant
larationof the devil Lucifer"(GernetI985:I54). Fromsuch
deJesuittextsthe Chinese concludedthatthe Westerners
testedlife,an attitudethathad to be theveryoppositeofthe
"The
claimedtobe expounding.
truewisdomthemissionaries

Barbarians say: 'I believe in eternal life.' . . . It is easy to see

LIFE"

YadangandEwa suchbadpeople?"(p.232). Xu Dashou asked,

if theMasterofHeavenwentto so muchtroubleto produce
his firstheirsandthenincitedthemto becomethefirstcriminals, "Is that behaviourworthyof a being so divine and
holy?" (p. 236). And amongthe manywho commentedon
thedisproportion
betweenthefirstcrimeandthepunishment,
FabianFucanwrotein i620 fromJapan(p. 236):
A holylaw forbade
AdamandEve toeat themacan [a Portuguese termused in Japanto denotea kindofpersimmon].
It is reallytheheightofabsurdity!
It is like settingout to
foolan old womanor gulla child.A persimmon
couldnot
possiblybe a director indirectcause in an affairas importantas attaining
thehighestHeavenorelse fallingintohell.
In all the fiveprohibitions
and ten laws ofBuddhaand in
all theBuddhistcodesofdiscipline,I haveneverfoundany
preceptthatwarnedagainstpersimmons.
Butit was nottheBuddhistclassicsso muchas thecontinuing Chinese traditionof the substantialidentityof Heaven
andEarththatmovedtheliteratito rejecttheChristianpessimism.This identitywas the basis of the contrastive
Confucian optimismto the effectthatthe seed ofgoodis in every
man,so thatwiththepropernurture-asbythemediationof
theimperialvirtueor theexampleofthesage-people could
in theirownbeingthebeneficent
reproduce
andpeacefulorder
of Heaven. Tranquilityand goodnessbeingthe objectiveof
earthlylife,even as souls were annihilatedafterdeath,the
doctrinewas doublyopposedto the Christiandogma:lifeas
becominggood ratherthan bound to evil. So, as Gernetrecounts(P. I46), it was indispensablefortheJesuitsto getthe
Chineseto understand
thattherationalsoul
was ofa substanceradicallydifferent
fromthatofthebody
and inanimatethings,and thatthissoul was theexclusive
with
privilegeofmankind.Suchideaswerein contradiction
theirentirephilosophy.Forthe Chinese,theuniversewas
in it was
composedofone singlesubstance,so everything
a matterof combinationsand degrees,the realitiesof the
worldbeing-to use ourterminology-allmoreorless spiritual or material.The spiritof man was held to be more
subtleand sharpthanthatofanimalsbutnot different
in
substance.Ricci had pouredscornon such a mad idea. He
writes:"If I were to tell foreignkingdomsthatin China
thereare educatedmenwho say thatanimals,plants,metals and stonesare all intelligentand of the same kindas
man,theywouldbe dumbfounded."

absolutelynothingabout
fromthisthattheyhaveunderstood
the meaningoftheword'life'" (p. 2o8, citingXu Dashou).
WhatRicci did understandabout humanlifeappearsin a
long disquisitionin The True Meaning of the Master of
misHeaven on thepainsofearthlyexistence.Suchprofound
erywas proofthatman was an exile in thisworld."'Who is
evercontentedwithwhat he has and does not seek outside
formore?Ifmenweregivenall therichesand all thepeoples
of the world,theywould stillnot be satisfied.The fools!' "
a Buddhistmonk,observedthat
(GemetI985:I70). Tongrong,
theJesuitshad no rightto thuscensuremenforbeingdiscontentwiththeirlot, since accordingto the missionariessuch
was theirGod's will. And ofcoursevariousChinesescholars
on thequestion-long
cameup withnumerouspermutations
in theWestas well-how a God so goodcouldhave
rehearsed
let Adam and Eve fall into sin. He should have made the
ancestorsof humanity"supremelywise and quite exceptional,"wrotetheauthorofHumbleRemarkson theDistinctionbetweentheDoctrines."Whyweretheindividualscalled

In the end, the Jesuitsconcludedthat the Chinese were

Heaven
sincetheyconsidered"brutematter"and
materialists,
to be all ofthesame substance.The Chineseliteratifortheir
"sincethey
partconcludedthattheJesuitswerematerialists,
deprivedthe universeof its invisibleforms,turningit into
brutematterdirectedfromoutsideand lackingthespontaneous intelligencethatall creaturesdisplay"(p. 203).

ity" and "rationality"(or,it may be, "practicalrationality"). The objectivityof objects-their relevant perceptible features-is factoredby corporealwell-being.
It is an objectivityfor us, an objectivityof our happiness.
Justso, the initial stagesof the Freudian"realityprinciple," involvingthe separationofego fromexternalob-

senjects (as fromthe mother'sbreast)by differentiated

sations of pleasure and pain, make up a psychoanalytic
versionof the Hobbesian epistemology.Displacing the
sensoryeconomics of objectivityfromthe state of natureto the state ofinfancy,certainpassages of Civilization and Its Discontents seem to rehearsethe opening
chaptersof Leviathan-leading up to the same antithe-

SAHLINS

sis betweenthis species ofindividualrationalityand the

culturalorder.55
Taking the same psychoanalyticpremises to a providentialanthropologicalconclusion,Geza
Roheim came up with what seems in manyrespectsthe
quintessentialWesterncharacterizationofculture:"the
sum total of effortswhich we make to avoid beingun-

and Kluckhohn
happy"(Kroeber
n.d.[I952]:209).

In sum, the historical-cum-logicalpresuppositionof

empiricalunderstandingis the lapsed Adam,the limited
individualin need of the object,who thus
and suffering
comes to know it sensually,by the obstacles or advantages it offersto his happiness. Perceptionand satisfaction are recurrentaspects of an embodied theoryof
knowledgethatseems the appropriatephilosophicalcorollary of the transferof enchantmentfromnature to
capital.

The Sadness of Sweetness

Man harbors too much horror;the earthhas been a
lunatic asylum fortoo long.
The GenealogyofMorals
NIETZSCHE,
The body,then,has had to bear the structuresofsociety
in a particularlyintense and notablypainfulway. This
is the point I wanted to make about the archaeologyof
Sweetness and Power. At a certainperiod in Western
historyall of human society and behavior came to be
perceived,popularlyas well as philosophically,through
themastertropeofindividualpleasuresand pains. Again
as in Leviathan, everythingcame down to the simple
and sad idea of life as movementtowardsthose things
thatmade one feelgood and away fromthosethingsthat
hurt.I say "sad" because anyonewho defineslifeas the
pursuitof happinesshas to be chronicallyunhappy.For
too long now this has been the prevailingsentimentthat " 'tis uneasiness which is the chiefif not the only
spurto Humane Industryand Action,"preciselynot the
pleasure we take in thingsbut the pain we feel in their
absence (Locke Essay 2.2o.6).
In a recentbook called Sin and Fear, JeanDelumeau

TheNativeAnthropology
of WesternCosmologyI 4I5
providesan extensivehistoricalcatalogue of the miseries of the human conditionin which European authors
have wallowed, especially since the I3th century.The
dolors Delumeau recounts are too many and varied to
repeathere.But somehow the observationof an obscure
I 7th-century
moralist,PierreNicole, seems best to sum
up this history of sadness: "Jesus," he said, "never
laughed" (Delumeau I990:296).
Jesus never laughed.
Soon enoughprovingthateveryonewas unhappywould
become one ofthe majorsatisfactionsofFrenchphilosophy. Pain, said d'Alembert(i963:IO-II), is "our most
lively sentiment;pleasure hardlyever sufficesto make
up to us forit":
In vain did some philosophersassert,while suppressingtheirgroansin the midst of sufferings,
that
pain was not an evil at all.... All of them would
have known our naturebetterif theyhad been content to limit theirdefinitionof the sovereigngood of
the presentlife to the exemptionfrompain, and to
agree that,withouthopingto arriveat this sovereign
good, we are allowed only to approachit more or
less, in proportionto our vigilance and the precautions we take.
This sad thoughtwas penned about the time when,
as Sid Mintz has taught,Westernpeople were learning
to make the IndustrialRevolution tolerableby getting
hooked on the "softdrugs"ofsugarand tea, coffee,chocolate, and tobacco (Mintz i985). None of the beverages
in this list were sweetenedin theircountriesof origin.
All, however,were taken with sugarin Europefromthe
time of theirintroduction.It is as if the sweetenedbitternessof the tea could produce in the registerof the
senses the kind of moral change people wished forin
their earthly existence-"the days of this our pilgrimage."
Yet as Mintz (I993:269) has remarkedof the meliorative consumptionthat continues into moderntimes"retailtherapy,"as it is sometimescalled-all this does
not entirelydispel our guilt (or should we not say our
originalsin?):

55. An infant,wroteFreud,"mustbe verystrongly

impressedby
It is not difficultto contendthat contemporary
whichhe will laterrecogthefactthatsome sourcesofexcitation,
Americansociety,even while consumingmaterial
nize as his own bodilyorgans,can providehim with sensations
goods at an unprecedentedpace, remainsnoticeably
at any moment,whereasothersourcesevade him fromtime to
preoccupiedby the moral arena in which sin and virtime-among them what he desiresmost of all, his mother's
tue are inseparable,each findingits realityin the
forhelp.In
breast-and onlyreappearas a resultofhis screaming
this way thereis forthe firsttime set over againstthe ego an
presenceof the other.We consume; but we are not,
'object,'in theformofsomething
whichexists'outside'andwhich
all of us and always, by any means altogetherhappy
is onlyforcedto appearbya specialaction.A further
incentiveto
about it.... The feelingthat in self-deniallies vira disengagement
oftheego fromthegeneralmass ofsensationstue, and in consumptionsin, is still powerfully
thatis, to the recognitionof an 'outside,'an externalworld-is
manifoldand unavoidablesensationsof
providedby thefrequent,
present.
pain and unpleasurethe removaland avoidanceof whichis enin theexerciseofits unrestricted Perhaps we can understandnow why Mintz's work on
joinedbythepleasureprinciple,
A tendencyarisesto separatefromtheegoeverything sweetnesshas producedsuch a concentratedrushof indomination.
thatcan becomea sourceof such unpleasure,to throwit outside tellectual energy,especially among anthropologists.
At
and to createa purepleasure-ego
whichis confronted
bya strange
and threateningoutside....

In this way one makes the firststep

the same time thatit epitomizesand synthesizesfunda-

towardstheintroduction
oftherealityprinciplewhichis to domi- mental cultural themes in Westernhistory,it reveals

nate development" (I96I:I4).

the historicalrelativityof our native anthropology.

4I6

i CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

Comments
THOMAS

BARGATZKY

Departmentof Ethnology,Universityof Bayreuth,

D-9544o Bayreuth,Germany.II XII 95
Westernscience is Westernscience,imbuedwithnative
Westernideas which can hamperthe understandingof
its object. In a book on the concept of nature and its
history,the German philosopher Georg Picht (I989)
shows,forexample,thatnaturalscience is foundedupon
threebasic premises:the idea of the absolute epistemological priorityofthe subject(Descartes),theidea ofmotionless identityor being (Parmenides),and the idea of
the indispensabilityof conceptual thinking(Aristotle).
Accordingto Immanuel Kant,these principlesare absolute and timeless. Picht,however,shows that theyare
a productof Europeanhistory.Should we decide to call
them into question, modern science would lose the
groundunderits feet(Bargatzkyi995).
Picht draws our attentionto the ontologicalpremises
on which Westernscience in generalhas been founded.
In the same vein, Sahlins points to certain JudeoChristianpremises which inspire "native Westernanofotherpeothropology"and bedevil our understanding
ples. He deservespraise forhis couragein remindingus
that anthropology,too, is firstand foremosta Western
enterprise-a fact which tends to be repressedtoday,
craze is paralyzinga diswhen the political-correctness
cipline which has not yet recoveredfromthe vertigoof
postmodernDadaism.
As Sahlins shows, the human sciences since the Age
have triedin vain to exorcisetheology.
ofEnlightenment
Our "native Westernanthropology"is so imbued with
ideas thatthe attemptto
basic WesternJudeo-Christian
ridit of them is tantamountto abolishinganthropology
itself. Nevertheless, the practitionersof a discipline
most ofwhom are said to be eitheratheistsor agnostics
need not despair.As the sayinggoes, 'If you can't fight
notions
them,join them." The factthatJudeo-Christian
inhabitacademic anthropologyor the social sciences in
that
generaldoes not in itselfrenderinvalid everything
has been built upon that foundation,as Sahlins himself
seems to suggestin the section titled"The Anthropology of Power": "Why,then,do we have this oppressive
sentimentof society as a system of power and constraint,counterposedto our inner desires and secret
thoughts?Given that biologicallywe are human beings
only in potentia . . . societymightbe betterconceived
as a means of empoweringpeople ratherthan subduing
them."
This is exactly the point of view elaboratedby the
German sociologist Arnold Gehlen (I940, I956, I957)
since the I940S in a series of influentialbooks. Gehlen
proceeds fromthe biological fact that we are humans
theoryofinonlyin potentia and createsan affirmative
stitutionswhich conceivesthe family,society,the state,
and religionas institutionsempoweringpeople, giving
themdignity,ratherthansubduingthem.Paradoxically,

the impact of Gehlen's "enormouslyimportant"theory

of institutions has been confined to the Germanspeakingcountries,probablybecause it is closely linked
with an attack on the "Enlightenment"thinkingwhich
has dominatedsocial thoughtin much of the English-

speakingworld(Dunlop1994:367). Sincethe 1970S, for

example,the NorthAmericanintelligentsiahas adopted

Gehlen's antagonist,JurgenHabermas,as one of its heroes-the proponentof a philosophyof emancipation
from"oppressive"traditionalinstitutions!This circumstance is relatedto the state of affairsthat Sahlins deals
with,and I will returnto it later.
traditionof
Sahlins shows how the Judeo-Christian
the absolute perfection of God and the radical
wickedness of man became transmuted,via St. Augustineand Adam Smith,into the modem "anthropologyof Providence"which professesfaithin a beneficial,
social orderthat mitigatesthe defectsof
self-regulating
human finitude,thus realizinga "greaterharmony"in
spite of any human knowledge,will, or reason. I would

like to add onlythatin whatRogerKessing(I974) has

labeled "cultural adaptationist" culture theories Sahlins's "Invisible Hand" appears disguised as an allembracingecosystem(Bargatzkyi984).
A scholar who dares to deal with importanttopics of
such dimensionswithinthe space assignedto an article
should not be subjectedto pedanticcriticismforhaving
failed to be more comprehensivehere or there.Sahlins
attentionto
himselfadmits to havinggiveninsufficient
alternative traditions of the general Judeo-Christian
worldview.Alas, because of this neglect,his argument
falls shorton one crucial point. Like many beforehim,
tradiSahlins retells the tale that the Judeo-Christian
tion, insistingupon an absolute gap between God and
His creation,is responsibleforthe desecrationofnature,
renderingit merely an object for human exploitation
which reached its climax under capitalism. This academicallyfashionabletheoryis, however,at best a his(Dubois I974). Erosion,the destruction
toricalhalf-truth
of plant and animal species, excessive exploitationof
and man-madeecologinaturalresources,deforestation,
cal disasters have occurred at all times and all over
the world and are not peculiar to the Judeo-Christian

tradition(cf.BargatzkyI986:56-57,

I39-40;

Bennett

I976:78 n. II, I34). In addition, the Judeo-Christian idea

ofman as an imperfectcreaturedoes not necessarilylead

to the disenchantmentof natureand the devaluationof
the body, which is, afterall, God's temple. There is a
long traditionof love forlife and nature,rangingfrom
Psalm I04 to the Franciscanreverenceforand the Benedictine stewardshipof nature. What is more, the love
between God and His human creatureshas been expressed in erotic imageryfromthe Song of Solomon
throughAlanus ab Insulis to Hildegardof Bingen and
Donatello, to list but a few examples. St. Augustine's
teachingsrepresentbut one of the many variantideas
createdduringthe more than 3,000 yearsof a multiculhistory.The questurallyimpregnatedJudeo-Christian
tionwe have to faceup to is this:Whyhas thisparticular
strandof theological thoughtgained such prominence

SAHLINS

in the past 500 years?Lack of space preventsme from

being more explicit,but I suggestthat capitalism has
createdthe intellectualenvironmentsuitableforthe efflorescenceof a doctrine which celebratedindividual
need and greedas the ultimate sources of social virtue.
Christianity,
then,did not createcapitalism,but capitalism has promoteda version of4Christianity
adapted to
its needs.
At present,however,capitalism has no more use for
Christianity.It is much betterservedby enlightenedand
well-meaning intellectuals who are devoted to undermining,throughpermanent"cultural critique,"the
veryinstitutionsin our societieswhich standin theway
ofthe finalexpansionofan unrestrainedcapitalism.Our
consumptionof sugarwill increase in the future,I dare
say.
NURIT

TheNativeAnthropology
ofWesternCosmologyI 4I7
sociallyrelatingto them.This motifreappearsin further
biblical stories,notably the Tower of Babel. Thus, as
Sahlins points out, Adam "proved himselfthe world's
first. . . philosopher"but a philosopherof a particular
kind: the firstone to deny what JohannesFabian has
called "coevalness." In many othercosmologies,if not
in all, the accent is put, rather,on social relationships
(cf.Stratherni988).
This missing detail supportsthe centerpieceof Sahlins's thesis: a Western-specific
epistemologyaccording
to which knowledgeis best gainedthroughsensationsof
pleasure and pain. In a worldseen as made of separated,
disconnectedmembers,one learns about the othernot
throughcommunicationbut ratherthroughimpressions
on one's own disconnected self, one's own mind and
body. An "anthropologyof alterity"would add to but
not alter the gist of Sahlins's thesis.

BIRD-DAVID

Departmentof Sociologyand Anthropology,

Universityof Haifa, Haifa, Israel. i9 XII 95
Too humbly,Sahlins introduceshis excellent paper as
the workofa tourist,but it providesan orientationmap
forall ofus wishingto tourthatlittle-visited
land,Western cosmology.Since anthropologicalaccounts of other
cultureshave been so influencedby thiscosmology,studentsembarkingon any anthropologicalprogramwould
do well to familiarizethemselveswith it first.
This "map," however,leaves out an importantdetail:
the unusual alterityof the Westernworld (see Fabian
i983).
Sahlins touches on this issue in his section on
"the anthropologyof reality,"but it would have needed
to be furtherelaboratedto make the point.It is too simplistic-and itselftypicalof Westernalterity-to characterize indigenous "reality" as simply the reversalof
our own: a world not of "objects" but "subjects" (be
these gods, incarnate spirits, or nonhuman persons).
Such a characterizationuniversalizes our own conceptual opposition-in "finding"it reversedin other cultures-rather than pinpointingits uniqueness.
Sahlins does not trace the historyof Westernalterity
back to the mythical, biblical roots of the JudeoChristiantraditionas he acutelydoes forotherWestern
cosmological"monuments,"thoughit can be suggested
that Westernalterityis authorizedby Genesis. Genesis
providestwo versionsof man's creation.In the firstone
(Genesis I), God createdman and woman,togetherwith
otheranimals, on the last day of Creation.In the second
version (Genesis 2), the basis of the Fall's story,however,God createdAdam (man),plantedforhim a garden,
and,forAdam not to be alone (i 8), created,further,
birds
and animals (i9). Adam, however,named the latter;he
classifiedratherthan socialized with them, separating
them fromhimselfand fromeach other(20). God then
createdEve fromAdam's own fleshand bones-that is,
from Adam's own essence. Adam knew (yadaa) her,
which in the biblical sense of the word means that he
sexually relatedto her,throughthe body. This is about
separatingbeings into essential categoriesratherthan

JOHN

CLAMMER

Departmentof Comparative Culture,Sophia

University,4 Yonban-cho,Chiyoda-ku,Tokyo I02,

Japan.I 4

XII 9 5

A numberof factorshave broughtabout somethingof a

deepening crisis in anthropology,and, interestingly,
these factorsare not at all the same ones that exercised
us a generationago: the disappearance of traditional
"tribal" societies, debates about the relationshipof anthropologyto sociologyand, indeed,to otherdisciplines
such as linguistics(which,at a time when Levi-Strauss
was considereda forceto be reckonedwith, was still
seen as havingmade theoreticaladvances well ahead of
those achieved by anthropology),and the feelingof a
distinctlack ofwelcome on the partofthe govemments
of developingcountrieswhich once providedthe environmentformost anthropologicalfieldwork.New challengeshave arisen,largelyunforeseenat thattime:feminism and its sometimes radical challenges to the
epistemologyof traditionalanthropology,postcolonial
discourses,deepeningecological and economic crisesin
many parts of the world, and the rise of non-Westem
forms of religious fundamentalism,which, whatever
theirpolitical implications,pose substantialontological
alternativesto the hegemonyof Westernscientism.
The last time I heard Sahlins speak was at the decennial conferenceofthe Association of Social Anthropologistsat Oxfordin I993. That conferencewas interesting
to me because of the pervasiveair of uncertaintyin the
plenarysessions where issues of the nature and future
of the disciplinewere debated combinedwith a dogged
adherenceto traditionin manyof the workingsessions.
This was an interestingcontradictionin itselfand one
made more fascinatingby the fact that the solutions
in the plenaries were mostly of the orderof
proffered
encouragingan interestin cybemetics,in postmodemism, or in the expression of traditionalquestions in
hyper-politically-correct
language. What was not then
and is still rarelyaddressedsystematicallyfromwithin
the discipline is the epistemology and ontology of

4I8

| CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, fune I996

"Western"social thought,which I assume in this context means mainstream academic anthropologyespecially as taughtand practisedin the main universitydepartmentsof North America and Europe. It is precisely
addressesin this
this problemthat Sahlins refreshingly
essay, and while I have doubts about subsuming so
much under"Western"(a good deal ofFrenchanthropolepistemoogy,forinstance,takes a somewhat different
logical tack fromthat of much NorthAmericanor Britwhich is presumablywhy much of it
ish anthropology,
is not read or taken seriouslyin those places), it is a
veryuseful,indeed,essential exerciseto standback and
examine the deep-levelassumptionswhich have formed
at least major partsof the contemporarydiscipline.
While sociologistshave experiencedthe emergenceof
the "sociology of sociology," anthropologistshave but
rarelyapplied theirown techniquesof culturalanalysis
to themselves. Furthermore,they have rarely (with
some major exceptions,such as Louis Dumont) seen as
significantin theirown societies those featuresof life
which theyview as fundamentally
influencingsocial organizationand ontologicalconceptionsin others,in this
case specificallyreligion,which Sahlins places at the
centerofhis analysis.The deep influenceofChristianity
not onlyin creatingsocial institutionswhich have dominatedhistoricallifein the West but,even moresignificant,in creatingcosmologicalconceptionsincludingimages of the self,a model of the relationshipbetweenself
and nature,and a theoryof the inevitabilityofmiscommunication in human interactionsand of the nonperfectabilityof human institutionshas profoundlyinfluenced the Westernpsyche.Talking of psyches,one can
hardlyimagineFreud,forinstance,despitehis own Jewishness,appearingin a non-Christianmilieu. Indeed,his
ideas have provedsingularlyunattractivein culturalenkind-in Japan,forinvironmentsof a totallydifferent
well known
stance,wherealthoughhis workis perfectly
it is neitherpracticednor taken seriouslyexcept by a
tinyminority,usually those who have been exposed to
a Western/Christian
environment.
Sahlins's essay seems to me to stand at an especially
interestinghistorical juncture the full implications of
which he does not seem to have workedout in thisenormously rich and delightfullyentertainingpaper. As an
anthropologistof Western anthropologybut someone
who has never actually worked systematicallyon the
West,in manyways Sahlins situateshimselfwithinthe
very discourse that he is examining.But whereas Dumont envisions, at least implicitly,an alternativeanthropologyderivingfromhis readingof Indian society,
Sahlins is not willinghere to take thatnextstep as even
Marx, with his own distinctivetheoryof the relationship between ideologyand economics, was. While this
is a paper fartoo rich in detail to be adequatelydebated
in one briefcommentby a single commentator,this is
ultimatelythe question that Sahlins raises forme. Insofaras this critique of Westerncosmologycan be taken
as valid,wheredo we go fromhere?Is anthropology
(and
presumablywith it a lot ofthe restofthe Westernintellectual legacy) to be abandoned,or can these questions
be asked in new ways? The real issue in this essay is

the possibilityof transcendingthe Enlightenment.The

classical Western response to this is to start to talk
about postmodernism. Epistemologically, however,
most postmodernistthinkingis simplyan extensionof
modernistthinking.Are we trappedin languageand in
power(commonviews which,I am delightedto see, Sahlins criticizes)?
The answer,I believe,lies in the verycentralexplanatoryelement in Sahlins's model-religion. If it is the
religiouscosmologyof Christianitythathas formedthe
epistemologiesof the West, then one would reasonably
suppose that even the most radical-seemingWesternaland their
poststructuralism,
ternatives(postmodernism,
immediatepredecessorsmodernism,marxism,structuralism, and psychoanalysis)derivefromthis basic source
and thence from one another: Althusser (remember
him?) fromMarx via structuralism,Lacan fromFreud,
and so on. Readingthis paper in Japan,however,makes
me thinkthatthe next step is the comparativedevelopment of Sahlins's model. Christianityand to a greatextentJudaismand Islam share a cosmology.Any anthropology based on these will likewise have much in
common philosophically,and so too will economic systems derivingfromthem. Buddhism and Shinto,howworldviews.While Shinto
ever,have radicallydifferent
is a formofvitalism-an approachwhich containsviews
quite antitheticalto Westernscience in its olderpositivist guise, among them the permeabilityof the boundary
between human and animal and the animate natureof
all the manifestationsof natureincludingsuch entities
as rocks.Buddhismis even moreradicalin its epistemological consequences. Fundamental questions such as
the identityof the self,the relationshipof the body to
the mind,the place of naturein the constitutionofhuman individualsand of society,and the natureof logic
and of science are thereaddressedin a way that allows
the formulationof an alternative cosmology. These
statementsshould not, of course, be taken as a call to
religiousconversion!Rather,they are intendedto suggest that the way out is not to enlargethe prisonhouse
but to build a more spacious mansion next door, once
havingseen that the prisonwalls are an illusion. I hope
him,but this,giventhe thrust
I am not misrepresenting
of Sahlins's argumentand the centralplace of religion
withinthe argument,seems to be the most outstanding
implicationof his provocativepiece.
JACQUES

HAMEL

Departmentof Sociology,Universityof Montreal,CP

6I28 Succursale Centre-ville,Montreal,Quebec,
Canada H3 C 3J7.20 XI 95
"Is anthropologyindissolubly linked to the West, its
birthplace?" asks the French anthropologistGodelier
(i995). Continuingin this vein, Sahlins shows how anthropologygoes back to the cosmologyconstructedon
the basis ofthe sin committedby Adam when he agreed
to bite into the apple proffered
by Eve. Man has ever
since had to atone forhis Fall ifhe is deservedlyto experiencesatisfaction.This atonementto which human be-

SAHLINS

of WesternCosmologyI 4I9
TheNativeAnthropology

ings are henceforthconstraineddeterminestheiraction knowledge, the practical knowledge that actors call
on theirenvironment-nature,theirfellow human be- upon in theirimmediateactions on theirenvironment,
ings,and themselves-in the formof a cosmologywith theirsociety.Accordingto Giddens,thisknowledgeproa strongfocus on the utilitarian,a cosmologythat has duces ontological security.This refersto most human
beings' confidence in "the continuity of their selfbecome characteristicof Westernsocieties.
In an exceptionallybrilliant interpretation,Sahlins identityand in the constancyof the surroundingsocial
shows the developmentof such a cosmologyin Judeo- and material environments of action" (Giddens
Christianreligions,philosophy,and, in many respects, i990:92). We mightgo even fartherand posit that this
anthropology.As a sociologist,I leave it to the profes- knowledgeconstitutesa "theory,"a practicaltheoryin
sional anthropologists,philosophers,and historiansof the sense that it is on the basis of this theorythat all
ideas to assess the meaningand rigourofthisinterpreta- human beingscontroltheiractions on the environment,
tion.In the followingI insteadoffersome commentson society,and, indirectly,themselves.
like sociology,moreover,is also a sum
the lessons I have drawnfromthis exegesis of utilitariAnthropology,
anism, of which capitalism is the most currentexpres- of knowledgebut of anothertype.By definition,it has
sion. The capitalist economy in fact subscribesto this no practicalgoal: its ultimate aim is to show how this
utilitarianismto the point that it has provedto be the "practical theory"compriseshuman beings' actions on
theirenvironmentin orderto explain the latter.To do
culturepar excellence of such a worldview.
In this neoliberal era forWesternsocieties it is first so, anthropologyis compelledto take note ofthis "pracof all interestingto note thatthe economyis also a cul- tical theory."It is in factby assessing its relativitythat
in relation action can be explained in terms of anthropological
ture-it is groundedin a cosmologystructured
to the "environment"and, thus,being.We mighteven knowledge,which maintains that in Westernsocieties
speak of an ontologyof the economy. Such consider- this action is closely linked to a utilitariancultureor
ations conjureup an entirelydifferent
meaningforeco- cosmology.
nomic constraints-market "necessities" which today
This practical theory or knowledge is displayed
appearin these societies in formswhich are supposedly throughlanguage,the "mystery"of which anthropoloobjectivebut neverthelessprove to have an appearance gistsmust penetrate,as Sahlins notes. It is by clarifying
necessaryto the functioningof capitalism.Lukacs sug- the contentof the language throughwhich meaningis
gests in this regardthat "these objective forms,which commonlyassignedto action thatthe action can be exsproutjust as inevitablyfromthe soil of capitalism,all plained by knowledgewhich does not presentitselfin
be seen as ideas necessarilyheld by the agents of the the formof obvious fact.
capitalistsystemof production"(LukacsI97I:I3-I4).
By showingtoday,in thisneoliberalera,thatthe capiIn otherwords,these objectiveformsappear as a com- talist economy has been structuredby an entirelyrelamon meaning forpeople belongingto these societies. tive culture, anthropologyhas proven its great useThey are a product,in Sahlins's expression,oftheir"na- fulness or utility-utility that in many ways runs
tive anthropology."
counterto the cosmologyof Westem societies.
Anthropologyemerged in the wake of this culture,
and the way in which its goal and objectiveweredefined
was markedby this culture.Sahlins's expositionleaves KEIJI MAEGAWA
no doubt in this regard.But the historyof anthropology Instituteof Historyand Anthropology,Universityof
attests in a more general sense to methods capable of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan.5I XII 95
creatinga distance with respectto this cultureand, indeed, this utilitariancosmology.In fact,although the Mintz (i985) mainly exploredthe Westernside of the
goal of studyingotherculturesis specificallylinked to storyin modern world history,that produced by the
Western culture, anthropologyhas nonetheless at- West in relation to the rest of the world. Though his
temptedto distance itselffromthis culture by imple- approach is similar to that of the Annales school as a
menting methods designed for this purpose. These historyof totality,the difference
is that Mintz seemed
methodshave enabled anthropologiststo conduct field to place the conjunctionof the West and the restin the
studiesfromwhich theyhave learneda greatdeal; they center of his analysis. Unlike the world-systemtheohave enabled them to recognize the relativityof their rists,however,in the courseofhis analysisofthe imporcultureand thus to considerit, in lightof this distance, tance of sugar,tea, and coffee,the Westerndelicacies in
as an object fromwhich theycould remaindetached.
developingcapitalism in modernworld history,he did
Its methodologyhas therefore
helpedanthropology
de- not deal with these thingssimply as objects of an entineits goal and its objectiveon anotherlevel than that forcedworldwidedivisionoflabor.Instead,he "daredto
of the appearance which society immediatelypresents take on capitalism as a culturaleconomy."
to its actors in the formof a utilitariancosmology.AnSahlins's explorationamounts to a "reverseanthrothropologycan thus clearlyshow how society,nature, pology,"
an effort
whichRoyWagner
(1975 :3 I), whoorigiand, in short, the environmentexist for their actors nally used such terms as "invention," "convention,"
Dnlywhen linked to a culture and, more broadly,to a and "objectification"in the analysis of culture(though
cosmologythroughwhich it is given a common mean- some of the recent"objectificationists"have tendedto
ing.This common meaningis in factthe native anthro- "appropriate"its meaningsto implythe "operation"of
culture),
referredto as "literalizing the metaphors
pologymentionedby Sahlins. It is, in short,a sum of

420

1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

of modernindustrialcivilizationfromthe standpointof tweenthe West and the othersbut also the culturalcontribalhistory."His academic commitmenthas been to tinuityof the West.
describe the other side of the story,that producedby
Startingfromthepositionofthe "transcendent"West,
the rest of the world in responseto the appearanceand Sahlins explores the non-West'sinterpretation
and acencroachmentof the West in modernworldhistory.
commodationof the West in termsofnon-WesterncosWhatis common to the two is thatbothpay consider- mology(such as Hawaiian priests'of Captain Cook) and
able attentionto theformationofthemeaningsofthings arrives at a relativization of the West, including its
and events-in the processes of "intensification"and interpretationof the non-West in terms of Western
"extensification"in the case ofMintz and in theprocess cosmology (modern anthropology).This relativization
of continuity and change (or, rather, continuityin emergesnot simplyfromcomparison(froma "transcenchange) in the case of Sahlins. Both go beyondculture dent" position)but fromhermeneuticreflectionon the
as an encompassingentitywith "a transcendent,func- historicalprocess of developmentofthe "transcendent"
tional and objective order" (in contrastto modem an- West.
thropologicalapproaches such as evolutionism,functo considerthe
tionalism,and structural-functionalism)
importantroles which actorsin each societyplay in the JUKKA SIIKALA
of meanings.
Social Anthropology,
Box I3 (Pohjoisranta2D),
transformation
In addition to reverseanthropology,Sahlins's atten- FIN-oooI4 Universityof Helsinki, Finland
tion is here directedto Mintz's side of the storybut in (Jukka.Siikala@Helsinki.FI). I3 XII 95
the contextofa searchfortheoriginand historyofWestern cosmology.He raises this issue not just as an object Sahlins's tour de force invites a minor act of resisof self-reflection
but as "the native anthropologyof tance-asking fora cup of coffeewith "no sugar-salt,
Westerncosmology."Focusingon the analysisof main- please." For one who comes froma society in which
stream scholarly "discourse," his "archaeological" ex- sugar in the formof stickybuns and doughnuticing is
ploration,which is a metascience, extends not just to the cultural glue tyingthe society together,Sahlins's
the originof the modernworld system or even to the "native anthropology"is at once illuminatingand proEnlightenmentbut as farback as to the Fall. In the cos- voking.On the one hand, it illuminatesfromthe point
mology of the West, with God being absolutely tran- of view of comparativeethnographythe relativityand
scendent and nature being pure materiality,realityfor pervasivenessofournotionsofman,nature,and society.
mankind is achieved through sensory impressions. The lines of thoughtascribedin social theoryto Adam
Needs derivingfrometernalhuman insufficienciesare Smithor his "fabulous" predecessorBernardMandeville
subjectivelyexperiencedas pain, but Providence,"the can in factbe tracedto the basic mythicaltextsofJudeoimaginedtotality,givespurposeand solace to individual Christianculture.Theory thus seems to be verymuch
FromProvidence,human miseryis recontex- based on folk models of the longue duree. This is the
suffering."
tualized into the "positive science ofmakingthe best of way I have had to read Sahlins's article:not as an ideaeternalinsufficiencies":Economics based on an "invisi- historicalanalysis of the Westernsocial and philosophible hand of God," which is later"mystified"in the idea cal traditionbut as a piece of thematicallyorientedhisof "rational choice," making the cosmos a capitalist toricalethnography.
As forthe need forsalt insteadofsugar,mycomments
world order.In addition,modernanthropologyprojects
social orderonto mainlyconcerna sidetrackof Sahlins's article:the conthe Westernnotion of a self-regulating
non-Westernothers.In fact,however,even "bodily sat- ception and consequences of his interpretationof the
isfactionsare specifiedin and throughcultural-symbolic concept of cultureunderlyingmuch of the folk model
describedand anthropologyin general.Sahlins has sevvalues."
Texts fromSahlins's base, Oceania, and fromChina eral uses for the concept of culture. In its Herderian
are occasionally insertedinto the flowof the analysisof sense, culturesets Helen Kellerfree,enablingher to exnative Westerndiscourse which delineates its cosmol- pressherselfthroughlanguage,and becomes lived,inner
ogy,contrastingthese others'views on the culturalcon- reality. In the modern anthropologicalsense, it is a
structionof need, the natureof human beings and ani- "symbolic tradition"which at worst takes the formof
mals, the principle of social structurebased on the a superorganic,a place outside and above the individual.
primordialhuman condition,the world afterdeath and Emancipationand agencyin this kind of culturewould
the relationshipbetweenthe naturaland the supernatu- requirethe ability"to shed shackles ofthe past,thereby
a transformative
attitudetowardsthefuture"
ral, the subject-objectrelationship,the relationshipbe- permitting
tween nature and mind, the realityor importanceof (Giddens 199I:2II).
Is the differencebetween these extremes really so
transcendentalobjects, and the evaluationofhumanity.
Ontological divisions based on the distinctionbetween great?In his discussion of "The General Society of the
Rousseau takes up the questhe Creatorand the creaturein the West, such as mind Human Race" Jean-Jacques
and body,selfand world,spiritualand material,rational tion,claimingthat "if the generalsocietyexisted ... it
and sensual, are explicated and contrastedwith their would ... be a corporatebeing (personnemorale) with
fundamentalunity in the other worldviews. Sahlins, its own qualities distinctfromthose of the particular
The
however,clarifiesnot only the cultural differencesbe- beingswho constituteit" (Rousseau I993:I72).

SAHLINS

characterof this moral person would, however,be not

that of the monstrousLeviathan but more reminiscent
of lifebeforethe Fall: "And the whole earthwas of one
language, and of one speech. . . . And the Lord said,
Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language" (Genesis I I: I, 6). This is exactlywhat Rousseau
supposed, too: "There would be universal language
whichnaturewould teach to all men." Happinesswould
of privatevices into public
not be the transformation
benefits,but "public felicity,farfrombeing established
on the happiness of the individuals,would itselfbe the
source of that happiness" (Rousseau I993:I71).
Now, wheredo we findthese kindsof"generalsocieties"? Rousseau claims that we find them only in the
minds of philosophers,and Sahlins adds to the groupa
few anthropologistsand other social theorists.Rousseau's generalsocietyforeshadowsVictorTurner'scommunitas, in which "society is seen as a seamless and
structurelesswhole, rejectingalike status and contract
. . . eschewingprivateproperty... and relyingon nature's bounty to supply all needs" (Turner i969:I35).
The subsumptionof individualityinto the communitas
is in fact an escape fromand experienceof Providence,
be it the Invisible Hand of the capitalisticeconomy or
the "modern anthropologicalview . . . of 'society' or
'culture' as transcendent,functional and objective
order."
The experienceof communitas and thus the derivation of happiness from"public felicity"(or social solidarity-God socialized) can be found in the transcendent objective order of the anthropologicalnotion of
"sharedness" of culturebut also in its predecessor,the
Herderian Kultur. For Herder (i964), Droysen (I937),
List (i9io), and von Ranke (n.d.) German culturewas
above all a Geist specificto a certainnation. Thus the
nation was a Seelische Gemeinschaftthe "sharing" of
which was the basis of the happiness of its members.
The primacyofthis spiritualcommunitywas, ofcourse,
the basis of the emancipatoryrole of German Kultur
duringthe last century,but the verysame cultureconinto American anthropologyby Franz
cept, transferred
Boas, led him to ask about the relationshipbetweenan
individualand his cultureand the abilityof "the strong
individual" to "freehimselffromthe fettersof convention" (Boas i982:638). So even behindHerderthereis a
Leviathanwhich imposesupon all ofus theroleofAhab,
the captain of the Pequod, and his mission of killing
the monstrouswhale (Melville I994). This mission of
emancipatingthe individualcontinuesin the social sciences today (see Giddens I99I:2io).
Attemptsto freeoneselffromthe inhibitionsimposed
by convention-attempts to escape Providence-and
theirtheoreticalformulationsareverymuch seen in cultural terms. Sahlins himself speaks in other contexts
of the importanceof "culturalism" as one of the most
significantphenomenaof modernworldhistory(I993a;
I995:I2). But when he rejectsthe widespreaddisease of
cultureaddiction which ascribes agencyto "culture of
addiction"and the most variedkindsof social groupsor
phenomena exactly throughtheirunique culture,"the

ofWesternCosmologyI 42I
TheNativeAnthropology
panic about the [culture]concept itself" (p. I 3) begins
to come to mind. The standardsocial science practice
of reducingcultureto similarities,Rousseau's universal
languages, and the consequent shared understanding
within a "culture" or the tendencyof communitas to
reduce "seeming" to "being" deprivesthe anthropological culture concept of its dynamics.The implementation of culturalorderin a worldof completefitbetween
functionalparts of society would not be a creativeact,
and the same can be said of the stale individualityin a
cultureof "shared values and meanings,"that is, similarities(cf.Falk I994:99).
Therefore,I would like to add salt to my coffeejust
to demonstratethe importanceof mutuallysignificant
differences
insteadof sharedand similarmeanings.Sahlins's historicalethnography
ofWesternnotionsofman
beginningwith pre-FallAdam deservesa sequel: a historicalethnographyof the concept of culturebeginning
But
with the pre-Babelian"culture" lackingdifferences.
thatprojectshould take seriouslythe Polynesiannotion
ofman, who fromthe verybeginningwas different
even
fromhimself: "He was Ti'i (the firstman), clothed in
sand,Ti'i the propagatorinland; Ti'i the propagatorseaward; Ti'i, secret destroyer;Ti'i the axe sharpener"
In Western anthropogonyman was
(Henry i928:402).
first,and only then it "became the interestof men to
appear what they really were not. To be and to seem
became two totallydifferent
things"(Rousseau I993:95).
In Polynesia being and seemingbegan at the same time
(Siikala i992).

Reply
MARSHALL

SAHLINS

Chicago, Ill. 60637, U.S.A. 6

ii

96

I am gratefulforthese considered(and considerate)commentsfrommy colleagues. Broadlyspeaking,theyraise

two criticalissues: the tendencyin my lectureto overgeneralize-or, in the currentlanguage, essentializethe long-playingideas of the native Westernanthropologyand the failureto specifyalternativeanthropologies,
as byway ofcomparativecosmologies.Some ofthe comments,such as Siikala's piquant remarkson salt, seem
to addressbothissues at once. Bargatzkyand Bird-David,
especiallyBargatzky,take up the question of alternative
paradigmsin the Westerntradition.Clammer,Hamel,
and Maegawa, especially Clammer,pose the problemof
how one transcendsthis traditionin orderto achieve an
alternativeanthropology.I will tryto reflecton these
well-takencomments.
Withregardto alternativeconceptsofhumanity,society, and nature over 3,000 years (plus) of Western
thought,I would not simply repeat the disclaimers
about the simple-mindednessand single-mindedness
of
the attemptto determinethe mainstreamideology,to
the neglect of all kinds of conflictingideas. What does

4221

CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

seem worthdefendingis the minimal structuralsense

thatthereare dominantand subdominantideas in play,
even over the long run.Bargatzky'sremarkson the Augustiniantraditionprovide an opportunityto consider
this question.
view ofhuBargatzkyarguesthatthe Judeo-Christian
man imperfectiondoes not necessarilylead to a disenchantmentand desecrationofnatureor to a devaluation
ofthe body,"which is, afterall, God's temple."He gives
counterexamplesrangingfrom Psalm I04 to positive
Benedictineand Franciscanperspectiveson nature.With
regardto such matters,then,Augustine'steachingsrepresent"but one of the many variantideas" createdduring this long multiculturalhistory.So forBargatzkythe
question is, "Why has thisparticularstrandof theological thought[i.e., the Augustinian]gained such prominence in thepast 500 years?"His suggestedanswer,necessarilycompressedforlack ofspace, is that"capitalism
has createdthe intellectualenvironmentsuitableforthe
efflorescenceof a doctrinewhich celebratedneed and
greedas the ultimate source of social virtue.Christianity,then,did not create capitalism,but capitalismhas
promoteda versionofChristianityadaptedto its needs."
I will discuss the threeor fourissues raisedby this argument in what may be consideredan orderof increasing
significance.
First,Bargatzkyseems to have misread my text in
supposing it asserts that the Western tradition is
uniquely givento ecological desecration-a matterthat
is, in fact,nowhere discussed as such. I do argue that
the Judeo-Christian
cosmologyis distinctivein rendering naturepure materiality,thus opposed ontologically
to human subjectivityand pragmaticallyto human productivity."Thorns and thistles shall it bringforthto
thee." This contemptusmundi, moreover,was a dominant ideologyuntil the Renaissance, a movementthat
was in critical respectsits antithesis.But the desecration of nature is not a necessarysequitur to its disenchantment. On the one hand, Christianityitself included the mitigatingthesisthattheworldwas designed
by a ProvidentialDivinity,so that,as in the medieval
symbology,some greatervalue, or even love, could be
accorded to otherwiseuseless thingsas the signs of a
benevolent Author. (Augustine's Confessions are
markedby the apparentcontradictionbetween the appreciationof nature's beauty and the condemnationof
knowledgeby the senses along with other"lusts of the
eye" [e.g.,Conf. IO.61.) On the otherhand, as Bargatzky
points out, the existence in many societies of a subjective relationto and ritualrespectforcertainnaturalspecies is no guaranteeagainsttheirextinction.To the contrary,the ritual assurance of northernAlgonkiansthat
the more game they took the more they would have
probablycontributed,at a certainhistoricalmoment,to
themassive destructionofthe caribou(Brightman
I993).
Secondly,it is possibly the lack of space that leads
Bargatzkyto assertthat capitalism,by providinga suitable environmentfora doctrine"which celebratedindividual need and greedas the ultimate sources of social
virtue," thus led to a marked development of Au-

gustine'sinfluenceoverthe past 500 years.Augustinian

doctrineis, 'ofcourse,preciselythe opposite: the moral
castigationof self-pleasingas the condition of human
bondage and the cause of anarchyand strife.Augustine
is a classical locus of the doctrinethat need and greed
are the sources of individual ruin and social disaster.'
Instead of sayingthat capitalismfoundin Augustine"a
versionof Christianityadaptedto its needs," Bargatzky
might have made a betterargumentforAugustine as
capitalism's bad conscience. (It could have been one of
the more interestingdemonstrationsof the marxian
principleofsuperstructure
as a dialecticinversionofthe
There is, however, a larger historical
infrastructure.)
problemwith the notion that the Augustiniandoctrine
of human imperfection
was just one strandof Christian
theologyamongmany,one which thenhappenedto gain
prominencein earlymoderntimes. This hardlyseems a
fairassessmentofAugustine'sinfluencein particularor
the role ofhuman evil in the Christiancosmologymore
generally.
It is difficultto understandwhy Bargatzkydenies the
common average received wisdom that St. Augustine
was the predominant theologian of Western Christendomfromlate antiquityto the High Middle Ages-a
historythat was critical forhis great popularityfrom
the i5th throughthe I7th centuries. The Bishop of
Hippo was not just one Church Fatheramong many,as
Bargatzkyclaims. "St. Augustine,it would be generally
agreed,has had a greaterinfluenceupon the historyof
dogma and upon religious thought and sentimentin
WesternChristendomthan any otherwriteroutside the

canon of Scripture"(Knowles I988:20).

He was, as

Knowles put it, "a second Bible to the darkand middle

ages" (p. 30). Isidore of Seville elevated him above any
other Church Father; the Venerable Bede ranked him

"justaftertheapostles"(Delumeaui990:262).

Norwas

this influencesimply doctrinalor textual. The favored

authorof Charlemagne,Augustinecontinuedto have a
political influencethroughoutthe Carolingiandynasty.
Indeed, both sides of the controversybetween the empire and the papacy in the late I ith centuryreliedupon
Augustinianarguments(WarfieldI 9 I o).2 Speakingof On
Christian Doctrine, D. W. Robertsonextends the Augustiniancontributionfromthe theological to the anthropological:the book provides"abundantevidence of
theintellectualacumen whichhad a largesharein creatingthepatternofculturewhich enduredthroughoutthe
thousand years we unjustly call 'The Middle Ages"'
thatcouldbe made
i. Thereis another,moreinvolutedargument
of capitalism,
forAugustine'spositiveeffecton the development
Ethicand
butit wouldhave to pass byway ofWeber'sProtestant
the influenceof the Augustiniansalvationby grace,as well as
in general,on theReformation.
Augustinianism
writesofAugustine:"The entirepoliticaldevelopment
2. Warfield
of the MiddleAges was dominatedby him; and he was in a true
sense the creatorof the Holy RomanEmpire.It was no accident
readingof Charlemagne"
thatDe CivitateDei was the favourite
also addedhisvoicetothechorusofthosewho
(i 9 io:222). Warfield
that"to no otherdoctoroftheChurchhas anything
like
considered
been accorded"(p. 2o).
the same authority

SAHLINS

(I958 :x, emphasis added). Until Aquinas, Delumeau observed,"it is possible to speak of 'an almost obsessive
presenceofAugustinianism"'( I 990:262, citingMarrou).
AfterAquinas, Augustinianismhad to contendwith
Thomism and Aristotelianrationalism,in contrastto
which its adherentswere inclined to spiritualismand
even mysticism(cf.MacIntyreI990). But then,by this
character,and preciselybecause ofits traditional(medieval) dominance, all the later reformistmovementsin
the church would take inspirationfrom Augustine's
teaching-up to and including the Reformation,the
work of a certainAugustinianmonk.3So if Augustine
was a second Bible to the Middle Ages, "he was all but
the gospel of the threegreatheresies,Lutheranism,Calvinism and Jansenism"(Knowles I988:30). Thus the
heightenedpopularityof Augustiniantexts in this pe-

TheNativeAnthropology
ofWesternCosmology| 423
Delumeau remarkson threemain aspectsoftheWestern
self-contempt:"hatred of the body and the world,the
pervasiveness of sin, and an acute consciousness of
fleetingtime." But finally,as Ricoeur has it, "everydimension of man-language, work,institutions,sexuality-is stampedwiththe twofoldmarkofbeingdestined
forthegood and inclinedtowardevil.... Thus thewhole
conditionofman appearssubjectto theruleofhardship"
(I967:246-49).

Here was a whole "patternof culture" based on the

creatureof insatiable
tragicnotion of man as a suffering
bodilyneeds. Augustine's theoryof originalsin, Elaine
Pagels wrote,"offeredan analysis ofhuman naturethat
became forbetterand worse, the heritageof all subsequent generationsofWesternChristiansand a majorinfluence on their psychologicaland political thinking"
riod(DelumeauI990:254, 259-65). Founderof the or- (I988: xxxvi). In a later paper,Pagels (I994:IO2)
told a
thodoxy,Augustinethen became the common denomi- large internationalconferenceentitled"Augustine:His
natorof a Christianitydividedbetweenits Catholic and Influenceon the Church and the World,"
Protestantforms.
Fromthe fifthcenturyon, Augustine'spessimistic
Hence also the long run of the Augustiniandoctrines
views of sexuality,politics,and human nature
of human misery.It was Augustinewho was the main
would become the dominantinfluenceon Western
authorof "the doctrinalroutofthe body"which,LeGoff
Christianity,both Catholic and Protestant,and color
writes,markedthe transitionfromthe ancientworldto
all Westernculture,Christianor not, ever since.
theMiddleAges(LeGoff
i985:I23; cf.BrownI988:44I).
Thus Adam, Eve, and the serpent-our ancestral
In this connection,the Pauline originalof the doctrine
story-would continue,oftenin some versionof its
cited by Bargatzky-"the body is the temple of the
Augustinian
form,to affectour lives to the present
soul"-was actually a call to corporealdiscipline: an
day.
admonitionto protectthe holyspiritwithinagainstharlotryand fornication(I Corinthians6:I9). Classical lo- The commentatorscorrectlyremind us that Western
cus of the antagonismoffleshand spirit,the writingsof historyhas known other,conflictingviews of the huSt. Paul are punctuated by diatribesagainst the body: man situation.Yet somethingneeds to be said, first,for
"For I know that in me [thatis, in my flesh]dwelleth the social orderin and of these ideological differences
no good thing.... But I see anotherlaw in mymembers, and, secondly,about theirrelativestayingpower in the
warringagainst the law of my mind, and bringingme Westernscheme of things.Of course,if the differences
into captivityto the law ofsin which is in mymembers. are socially and historicallyrandom,not much can be
O wretchedman that I am! Who shall deliverme from said. One would be reduced to the plightof the Herathe body of this death?" (Romans 7:i8, 23-24).
clitean philosopherwho in the end could do nothing
AmplifiedbyAugustiniansentimentsofhumanbond- but point.However,even the apostles ofpostmodernist,
age, this dark conception of the body echoed through poststructuralist,
and other"afterologicalstudies"5have
the medieval period. The body was "an ergastulum,a perceivedsuch conflictingvoices as an orderof differslave's prisonforthe soul," or else (in Pope Gregorythe ences: at the minimum, as a hierarchicalrelationship
Great's phrase) it was "the abominable clothingof the between authoritativeand subalterndiscourses.This is
soul" (LeGoffI 988:83). Developed and refinedin monas- the explicitintentionof Bakhtin'sheteroglossia,which
teries,convents,and mendicantorders,this "woefulvi- describes"a complex system"ofdifferences,
as it is also
sion of life" was thence transmitted"to the whole of entailed in Gramscian hegemonyor the dominantepisociety as a self-evidenttruth" (Delumeau I990:I7).4
stemesofFoucauldianarchaeology.Howeveroftenthese
concentshave been used in writingagainst culturalco3. "Augustine,"said Luther,"is entirelywith me" (Delumeau
i990:263).

4. Bargatzky
citesFranciscanalternatives
to the darkerChristian
viewofthehumanfate.But,ofcourse,therewerealso differences
here,as witnessthispoem fromthe pen of a Franciscan,written
in the I 3thcenturyand worthyofthemisogynoussentiments
of
Pope InnocentIII's ContempusMundi,which it seems to echo
(Delumeau

(I990:I7):

In a verydirtyand vile workroom

You weremade out ofslime,
So fouland so wretched
That mylips cannotbringthemselvesto tellyou aboutit.
Butifyou have a bit ofsense,you will know,

That thefragilebodyin whichyou lived,

Whereyou weretormented
eightmonthsand more,
Was made ofrottingand corruptexcrement...
You came out througha foulpassage
Andyou fellintotheworld,poorand naked...
... Othercreatureshave some use ...
Butyou,stinkingman,you are worsethandung...
You are a sly and evil traitor.
5. Jacqueline
Mrazcoinedtheterm"afterological
studies"to cover
thevariouscurrent
positions,including,
besidesthosementioned,
"post-Marxism,"
"post-colonialism,"
"post-postmodemism,"
etc.
I firstsaw it in an unpublishedpaperofhers.

4241

CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

herenceor adapted to currentpurposesof anthropologi- with binarism,although once again in the context of
cal deconstruction,one and all theyimplya systematic authoritativeand dissentingdiscourses.In an appropriunderstandingof givenhistoricalordersby determining ately idiosyncratic-if apparentlyself-contradictorythe social and political subject positions of the con- fashion,he reopensfamouslyvexed questions about the
tendingdiscourses. In contrast,when confrontedby a powersofhistoricalagencyrelativeto structuralorders.
structureof the longue duree such as the tragicview Siikala objectsto the oppressivesentimentofan encomof human imperfection,we are dealing with a kind of passing and determiningorderthat seems to haunt the
ideological dominance that no contingentfunctional cultureconceptin practicallyall its varieties,especially
those that suppose some notion of sharedbehavior.No
value or political motivationwill account for.6
Rather,it seems thatthe continuityofthe ideologyof space is leftforcreativehuman acts of culturaltransforhuman evil comes fromits positionalvalue in a cultural mation, most particularlyforthe heroic acts that defy
schemeofuniversaldimensions.It historicaldominance prevailingnorms and schemes. Yet the metaphoricexis the temporalexpressionof a pivotal structuralrole. ample he proposessuggeststhatdefiancewill be no easy
The fall of man has been the conditionof possibilityof escape fromsystematicity.Referringto Mintz's work,
a greatcomplex of interrelatedtheologicaldogmas.The Siikala says thathe would ratherseason his cup ofcoffee
whole redemptiveChristologydependson the inherent with salt than sugar:somethingof "a minoract ofresiswickedness of humanity."The incarnationof God was tance" that could "demonstratethe importanceof muhis humiliation" (LeGoffi985:I24). The sacrificeof Je- tuallysignificantdifferences
insteadof sharedand simisus and the possibilityof salvation,the associated no- lar meanings." The problem is that it would be the
tionsofDivine Providenceand the Trinity,theontologi- differencesthat were thus shared, and in the highly
cal distinctionsof Heaven and Earth, body and soul, structuralformof dialectical negation.Siikala does not
humanity,nature,and divinity,all are motivatedin the dissentby addingcow dungto his coffee,or kava, pesto,
Adamic narrative.In the long course of Christianity rose pollen, or any number of other substances that
there have been many variationson those dogmas, it mighthave had the demonstrativevirtue of not being
is true. But the impulses of totalizationare such that negations (in this society) of sugar. A long time ago
relativelyminor differenceshave been able to set off Floyd Lounsbury taught me something about logical
opposites,he said,
radicalsectarianschisms.And veryfewofthe sectshave contraststhatI have neverforgotten:
been able to forgothe dogma of human wickedness. are thingsalike in all significantrespectsbut one. PerTo awake fromsuch dogmaticslumberswould seem to haps few substantial oppositions fit this definitionso
require a cultural revolution on a Copernican- well as sugar and salt, which are (to us) alike in nearly
ontologicalscale. PerhapsAugustinewas rightin more all intents, purposes, and properties. (Probably few
among us have not at some time mistakenthe one for
ways than one when he said thatman cannotnot sin.
Bird-Davidand Siikala are in different
ways concerned the other.)But if even denials of a given culturalorder
with dialectical negationsof dominantWesternideolo- take theirlogic and meaningfromthis order,does this
gies-thus with changesthatremainin the same struc- mean that thereis no place forthe historicalagencyof
turalscheme, still culturallyrelevantas well as histori- the subject?Is all our "resistance" destinedto be swalcally relative. Bird-David properly claims that I lowed up in this systematicand dialectical Leviathan?
On the contrary,it does not follow that because the
oversimplifyotherviews of natureby treatingthem as
inversionsof the Christianoppositionbetween Creator change initiated by someone is in the line of a given
and creature.(I had hoped that the ethnographicexam- cultural order,the order must be responsiblefor the
ples would give a richerview.) Argumentcould be given, change-any more than if one says somethinglogical
however, against her analysis of the naming scene of it was the logic that determinedwhat was said (not to
the Westernantithesisof human- mentionwhere,when, and if it was said). A couple of
Genesis as signifying
ity and material nature,for Adam's knowledgeof the generalcircumstancesof such innovativeeventsshould
of
essences and differencesof the creaturesby more than be noted. First,insofaras acts and transformations
sensorymeans implies a relationship-a mergingofhu- meaningare concerned,we are not dealingwith a total
fromthe ontologicaloppositionbetweenthe "individual"and the
man thoughtand its object-quite different
separationsof the postlapsarianstate. Everythinghap- "culture" but ratherwith the symbolictrafficbetween
pens as if the Fall were the definingmoment: an event them.To a greateror lesser extent,the semiologicalrethatcut like a swordthroughtheuniverse,cleavingman sources of the societyhave been put at the intellectual
fromGod, fromparadise,fromnature,and fromhis bet- dispositionsand capacities ofits subjects.But then,secondly,the cultural creations bf these subjects have to
terself.
Siikala's challenging comments are also concerned be intelligibleand communicablein the societyif they
are to take historic effect.The innovations must be
receivable-that is, in termsofa pertinent
6. In a well-regarded
analysisoftheinitialAugustinian
movement, meaningfully
Pagels(i988) pointsout thecomplementary
politicalvaluesofhu- culturalorder.Yet again,ifthe changeis thus culturally
mandepravity
fortheChristianized
Romanimperiumanda North relative,if it follows on a given cultural logic, it does
doctrines.But,as she reflects not mean thatit was the
Africanchurchbesetby contending
only changepossible or thatit
in anothercontext,"the requirements
of an authoritarian
state
ofsuch teachingthrough- could not consistofsomethingneverseen before.To say
alone cannotaccountforthe durability
that an event is culturallydescribedis not to say it was
out thecenturies"(I994:97).

SAHLINS

TheNativeAnthropology
ofWesternCosmology| 425

culturallyprescribed.Precisely because the historical predicament,leading igth-centurymissionariesto endchange is mediated throughan individualbiography,it lessly complainthatthe "natives" could not mustersufcannotbe structurally
prescribed-any morethanis the ficientguiltto become good Christians.7Since Clammer
individualityof the biography(cf.SartreI996).
refersto the after-dinner
speech I gave at the ASA MeetWe are alreadyinto the second major themeposed by ings in I993, perhapsI can borrowa littlefromthe imthe commentators:the question of the transcendence mortalitythatKeithHart conferred
on thatpiece bypubof Judeo-Christian
traditionsor, what is the same, the lishingit in PricklyPear Press to help make clear these
possibilityof an alternativeanthropology.Here Clam- remarkson anthropologicalmethod.The section of the
mer on the one side and Hamel and Maegawa on the speech is entitled"Etics and Emics" (Sahlins I993b:9):
otherput me into somethingof a dilemma,since ClamAll etics or languagesof objectivescientificdescripmerfindsmylecturewantingfornotpresentingan altertion (so-called)are based on a gridof meaningfulor
native to the native tradition,while Hamel and Maeemic distinctions.Take the internationalphoneticalgawa too generouslysuggestthat I have managedto do
phabet,by means of which the significantsounds of
so. Perhaps the best way to respondis to reflecton, if
any languagecan be "objectively"recordedand repronot reconcile, these contradictoryreadings.They may
duced. The phoneticalphabetis made up of all
bringout somethingin the lectureworthmakingmore
knownphonemic distinctions:of all differences
in
explicit.
sound-segmentsknown to signifydifferences
in
I do tend to believe, with Hamel and Maegawa, that
meaningin the naturallanguagesof the world. So in
the metadiscoursewhich is the Mintz lecture itselfis
principlethe objectivedescriptionof any language
There
alreadysomethingofan alternativeanthropology.
consists of its comparisonwith the meaningfulorder
is some criticaldistance taken fromthe native folklore
of all otherlanguages.
to
it describes. Analytic and at least crypto-sensitive
The same forethnography.
No good ethnography
other possibilities,the perspectiveis not the same as
is self-contained.Implicitlyor explicitlyethnograthe conceptionsof humanity,divinity,society,and the
phy is an act of comparison.By virtueof comparison
universethatit intendsto understand.There is no need
ethnographicdescriptionbecomes objective.Not in
to suppose we are the prisonersof receivedcategories,
the naive positivistsense of an unmediatedpercepwhetherin some pseudo-Whorfiansense of linguistic
the opposite: it becomes a universalunrelativityor because of the alleged source of anthropo- tion-just
to the extentit bringsto bear on the perderstanding
logical ideas in colonial projectsof dominatingand "inceptionof any societythe conceptionsof all the
carcerating"the Others.Will anthropology
neverescape
others.Some Cultural Studies typesseem to think
fromoriginalsins? Or is it that anthropologists,
so unthat anthropologyis nothingbut ethnography.
Better
like the peoples they study,are the mindless victims
the otherway around: ethnography
is
anthropology,
and last witnesses of "culture" as an essentializedand
or it is nothing.
deterministicsystem?It is as if they could do nothing
but repeata monologicalculturaldiscourse.Still,ClammerwritesfromJapanand findsit conceivablethatBuddhismor Shintoismcould serveas cosmologicalgrounds
of a new anthropology.
As Clammer makes clear, it would be of no purpose
AARSLEFF,
HANS.
i982. From Locke to Saussure. Minneapolis:
to exchange our indigenous anthropologyfor another
ofMinnesotaPress.
University
thatis equally relativeand particular.Rather,as I under- ALLEN, BRYANT, AND STEPHEN FRANKEL. i99ia. "Across
theTari Fuforo,"in Likepeopleyou see in a dream.Editedby
stand it, he is arguingthat anthropologyas a discipline
EdwardL. Schieffelin
and RobertCrittendon,
pp. 88-124. Stanneeds to returnto its comparativetraditions-although
Stanford
Press.
University
not for traditionalprojects of comparativegeneraliza- ford:
. iggib. "The Huli," in Likepeopleyou see in a dream.
tion. What is needed is a methodologicalcosmopoliEditedbyEdwardL. Schieffelin
and RobertCrittendon,
pp.
tanism: the situationof anthropologyin and as the se268-73. Stanford:
Stanford
Press.
University
I970. Main currents
in sociologicalthought.
ries of cultural-ontologicalvariations, which would ARON, RAYMOND.
allow the constructionof more adequate ethnographic Vol. 2. New York:AnchorBooks.
AUGUSTINE
OF HIPPO.
1948. "Concerning thenatureofthe
I have
and interpretiveschemata (ifthese are different).
good,"in Basic writingsofSaintAugustine,vol. I. Editedby
to believe that an unsystematicand inexplicitperspec- WhitneyS. Jones.New York:RandomHouse.
tive of this sortlay behindthe Mintz lecture.Of course,
Besides that,I am
thereare the ethnographichypertexts.
surethathow I perceivedthe Westernimage ofsuffering
7. Here is anotherinteresting
missionaryexample.A Botswana
mankindwas informedby common disciplinaryknowl- repliesto Robert
Moffat'squestionof whether,when he was a
edge of othernative cosmologies: the synonymyof the pagan,he had no fearsthathe would pay forhis crimes."'No,'
human and the beautifulin theAmazon; evil as external said he. 'How could we feel,how could we fear?We had no idea
to the self(and community)ratherthaninternalin east- thatan unseeneyesaw us, orthatan unseenearheardus"' (Moffat
ernand southernAfrica;man as good ifnurtured(rather i969:268). It makesone appreciatebettertheWestemsentiments
ofan imaginedgoverning
totality.Perhapsit also
one underthanbeaten) in the Confuciantradition;Polynesiansfor stand betterwhere Foucault's panopticon-orhelps
Panoptician-is
whom evil of any sort is not an obsessive existential comingfrom.

References
Cited

426

1 CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, JuneI996

A. I970. Philo's use of thecategories

male
and female.London:Brill.
BAKHTIN, MIKHAIL. I984. Rabelais and his world.Translated
byHelen Iswolsky.Bloomington:
IndianaUniversity
Press.
BALLARD, CHRIS. igg2a. Firstcontactas non-event
in thePaBAER, RICHARD

pua New Guinea Highlands. Paper presented at the gIst An-

nual MeetingoftheAmericanAnthropological
Association,
San Francisco,Calif.,December2-6.
. Igg2b. The firenexttime:Britishpetroleum,
theBookof
Revelations,and Huli ritual.PaperpreparedfortheFirstEuro-

pean Colloquium on Pacific Studies, Nijmegen, Holland, December I7-I9.

OWEN. i988. 2d edition.Savingtheappearances:A

studyin idolatry.Hanover: Wesleyan UniversityPress.
BARGATZKY, THOMAS. I984. Culture,environment,
and the
ills ofadaptationism.
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 25:399-4I5.
BARFIELD,

[TB]

. i986. Einfiihrung
in die Kulturikologie:Umwelt,Kultur
und Gesellschaft.
. I994. "Introduction,"
in Theinventionofnature.Edited

CHADWICK,

sityPress.

I986.

HENRY.

Augustine.Oxford:OxfordUniver-

ETIENNE
BONNOT
DE. 1973. Essai surl'origine
des connaissanceshumaines.Paris:Galil6e.
CRANSTON,
MAURICE.
I985. JohnLocke:A biography.
Oxford:OxfordUniversity
Press.
D ALEMBERT,
JEAN LE ROND.
I963. Preliminary
discourseto
theEncyclopediaofDiderot.Translatedby RichardN.
Schwab.Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill.
D E AN E, H E R B E RT A. I 963. Thepoliticaland social ideas ofSt.
Augustine.New York:ColumbiaUniversity
Press.
DELUMEAU,
JEAN. I990. Sin and fear:The emergence
ofa
Westernguiltculture,I3th-I9th centuries.New York:St. Martin'sPress.
GUSTAV.
DROYSEN,
JOHANN
I937.
VoslesungeniiberEnzyklopadie und MethodologiederGeschichte.Muinchen: Rudolf
CONDILLAC,

Huibner.[Js]

RENE.
I974. "Franciscanconservation
versusBenedictinestewardship."
in Ecologyand religionin history.Editedby
D. Springand E. Spring,pp. II4-36. New York:HarperTorchbooks.[TB]
by Thomas Bargatzkyand Rolf Kuschel, pp. 9-25. Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang. [TB]
LOUIS.
DUMONT,
I970. Homo hierarchicus.
Chicago: UniverBECKER, CARL. I932. The heavenlycityoftheeighteenthsityofChicagoPress.
New Haven: Yale UniversityPress.
century
philosophers.
. I977. FromMandevilleto Marx.Chicago:University
of
BENETON, PHILLIPPE.
I975. Histoiredes mots: Cultureet civiChicagoPress.
lisation.Travauxet Recherchesde SciencePolitique35. Paris:
. i982. A modifiedview ofourorigins:The ChristianbeFondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.
ginningsofmodernindividualism.
ReligionI2:I--27.
. I986. Essayson individualism.Chicago:University
BENNETT,
JOHN W. I976. The ecologicaltransition:
Cultural
of
and humanadaptation.Oxford:Pergamon.
ChicagoPress.
anthropology
[TB]
FRANCIS.
and humannaDUNLOP,
I994. "Gehlen,motivation,
EMILE. I97I. Problemsin generallinguistics.
BENVENISTE,
ture,"in Zur geisteswissenschaftlichen
BedeutungArnoldGehCoral Gables: University of Miami Press.
lens. EditedbyH. Klagesand H. Quaritsch,pp. 365-74. Berlin:
Dunckerand Humblot.[TB]
BERLIN, ISAIAH. I976. Vico and Herder:Two studiesin the
historyofideas. New York: Vintage Books.
DURKHEIM,
EMILE,
I930. Le suicide.Paris: Quadrige/Presses
. i982. Againstthecurrent:
Universitaires
de France.
Essaysin thehistoryofideas.
Harmondsworth:
. I947. The elementary
PenguinBooks.
formsofthereligiouslife.GlenMORRIS.
coe: FreePress.
I98I. The reenchantment
BERMAN,
oftheworld.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
. I960. "The dualismofhumannatureand its social condiBEST, ELSDON I924. The Maori. 2 vols. Wellington:
tions,"in EmileDurkheim,I858-I9I7.
EditedbyKurtH.
HarryH.

Tombs.

DUB OS,

Wolff,pp. 325-40.

Columbus: Ohio State UniversityPress.

Artand beautyin theMiddleAges.

New Haven: Yale University
Press.
lands. EditedbyA. Biersack.MS.
EHRARD, JEAN, I963. L'idee de natureen Francedans la premieremoitiedu XVIIIesiecle. 2 vols. Paris:S.E.V.P.E.N.
BLACK, MARY, I977. "Ojibwa power-belief
system,"in The anELIAS,
NORBERT,
I978. The civilizing
thropology
ofpower.EditedbyR. D. Fogelsonand R. N. Adprocess:Historyofmanners.New York:UrizenBooks.
ams. New York: Academic Press.
R. j. i982.The timeof darkness.Seattle: Universityof
FABIAN,
JOHANNES.
I983. Time and theother.New York:CoBLONG,
Press.[NB]
lumbiaUniversity
Washington Press.
The consumingbody.London: Sage. [JS]
FALK, PASI.
I994.
BOAS, FRANZ. i982. Race, language,and culture.Chicago:UniARTURO
SHAPIRO.
FALLICO,
B., AND HERMAN
versityof Chicago Press. [JS]
I967. Renaissance philosophy.Vol. I. The Italianphilosophers.
New York:
BOAS, GEORGE. I948. Essays on primitivism
and relatedideas
ModemLibrary.
in theMiddleAges.Baltimore:JohnsHopkins Press.
LUDWIG.
The essenceof Christianity.
to objectivity:
New
FEUERBACH,
I957.
BORDO, SUSAN. I987. The flight
Essayson
York:HarperTorchbooks.
Cartesianismand culture.Albany: State Universityof New
. I967. Lectureson theessenceofreligion.Translatedby
York Press.
ROBERT A. I993. Grateful
RalphManheim.New York:Harperand Row.
BRIGHTMAN,
prey:Rock CreehuANN.
I990. Eskimoessays.New Brunsman-animalrelationships.
FIENUP-RIORDAN,
Berkeley: Universityof California
wick: RutgersUniversity
Press.
Press.
LIA. I973. "Chain ofbeing,"in Dictionaryofthe
FORMIGARI,
BROWN, PETER. I988. The bodyand society:Men,women,and
in earlyChristianity.
sexual renunciation
New York:Columhistoryofideas. Editedby I. Berlinet al. New York:Scribner
MICHEL.
The orderof things:An archaeolPress.
bia University
FOUCAULT,
I973.
MATTI.
1995. "Franz Boas and the Humboldtian tradiogyofthehumansciences.New York:VintageBooks.
BUNZL,
to an anthropoEditedby Colin Gordon.New
. I980. Power/knowledge.
tion:FromVolksgeistand Nationalcharakter
York:PantheonBooks.
logicalconceptofculture,"in Volksgeistas methodand ethic:
and the Germananthropologi- FRANKEL, STEPHEN.
I986. The Huli responseto illness.CamEssayson Boasian ethnography
Press.
bridge:CambridgeUniversity
cal tradition.(History of Anthropology8.) Edited by G. S.
HENRI.
FRANKFORT,
I948. Kingshipand thegods. Chicago:
Stocking. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. In press.
ofChicagoPress.
on therevolutionin
University
BURKE, EDMUND.
i959. Reflections
France.New York:Holt,Rinehartand Winston.
FRANKFORT, H., AND H. A. FRANKFORT. I946. "Conclusion:
ERNST.
Thephilosophyof theEnlightenment. The emancipationofthoughtfrommyth,"in Theintellectual
CASSIRER,
I95I.
adventureofancientman. EditedbyH. Frankfort
Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress.
and H. A.
Frankfort
et al. pp. 363-88. Chicago:University
ofChicago
. I963. The individualand thecosmosin RenaissancephiofPennsylvania
Press.
Press.
losophy.Philadelphia:University
BETZ, H. D. I979. Galatians.Philadelphia:Fortress
Press.
to Papuan borderBIERSACK, ALETTA. n.d. "Introduction,"

ECO,

UMBERTO,

1986.

SAHLINS

New
Civilizationand its discontents.

ofWesternCosmology1427
TheNativeAnthropology

The anthropology
ofhistoryin thekingdomofHawaii. Vol. I.
ofChicagoPress.
Historicalethnography.
Chicago:University
AMOS.
DAVID.
FUNKENSTEIN,
I986. Theologyand thescientific
imagi- KNOWLES,
I988. 2d edition.The evolutionofmedieval
Press.
nation.Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
thought.London:Longman.
The interpretation
A. L., AND CLYDE
CLIF FrORD. I973.
KLUCKHOHN.
n.d. (i952). CulGEERTZ,
KROEBER,
ofcultures.New
York:Basic Books.
ture:A criticalreviewofconceptsand definitions.
New York:
ARNOLD.
GEHLEN,
VintageBooks.
I940. Der Mensch:Seine Naturund seine
and Diinnhaupt(Man: His
Stellungin der Welt.Berlin:Junker
LE GOFF,
JACQUES.
I964. La civilisationde 1Occidentmenatureand place in theworld.Translatedby ClareMcMillan
dieval. Paris:B. Arthaud.
and KarlPillemer.New York:ColumbiaUniversity
Press,
. I988a. Medieval civilization.Oxfordand New York:Bai988.)
[TB]
sil Blackwell.
Urmenschund Spatkultur.
Bonn:Athenaum.[TB]
.I956.
. I988b. The medievalimagination.Chicago:University
*I957. Die Seele im technischen
Zeitalter.Reinbek:RoofChicagoPress.
wohlt.(Manin theage oftechnology.
TranslatedbyPatricia
G. w. I985. Theodicy.La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.
LEIBNIZ,
V . I . I 97 2. Materialismand empirico-criticism.
Lipscomb.New York:ColumbiaUniversity
LENIN,
Press,i980.)
Peking:
ForeignLanguagesPress.
[TB]
LE ROY LADURIE,
Carnivalin Romans.
EMMANUEL.
I979.
GERNET,
JACQUES.
I985. China and the Christianimpact:A
Press.
conflictofcultures.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
New York: Braziller.
LEVENSON,
JON D. I988. Creationand thepersistence
The consequencesofmodernity.
ofevil.
ANTHONY.
I990.
GIDDENS,
Press.[JH]
Stanford:
Stanford
San Francisco:Harperand Row.
University
Stanford:
Stanford
Uni- LIENHARDT,
I96I.
.I 99I. Modernity
and self-identity.
GODFREY.
Divinityand experience:The religionoftheDinka. Oxford:ClarendonPress.
versityPress. [JS]
Traceson theRhodianshore:
F RIEDRICH.
CLARENCE
LIST,
19I0. Das nationaleSystemderpolitischen
GLACKEN,
J. I967.
Okonomie.Jena: Gustav Fischer. [JS]
Natureand culturein Westernthought
fromancienttimesto
ofCali- LLOYD, GENEVIEVE.
theend oftheeighteenth
I984. The man ofreason: "Male" and "fecentury.
Berkeley:University
forniaPress.
male" in Western
ofMinphilosophy.Minneapolis:University
G L A S S E, R O B E RT R. M. I965. "The Huli oftheSouthern
nesotaPress
Highlands,"in Gods,ghosts,and men in Melanesia.EditedbyP.
LOVEJOY,
ARTHUR
0. I948. Essaysin thehistory
ofideas. BalLawrenceand M. J.Meggitt,pp. 27-49. Melbourne:Oxford
timore:JohnsHopkinsPress.
Press.
University
. I964. The GreatChain ofBeing.Cambridge:
Harvard
MAURICE.
GODELIER,
I995. Is anthropology
indissolubly
University Press.
linkedto theWest,its birthplace?
International
Social Science LOVEJOY, ARTHUR O., AND GEORGE BOAS. I935. Primitivism and relatedideas in antiquity.Baltimore:JohnsHopkins
JournalI43-58. [JH]
LAURENCE.
AcciPress.
GOLDMAN,
I993. The cultureofcoincidence:
dentand absoluteliabilityin Huli. Oxford:ClarendonPress.
KARL.
LOWITH,
I949. Meaningin history.
Chicago: University
A. J. I985.
GUREVICH,
Categoriesofmedievalculture.TransofChicagoPress.
latedby G. L. Campbell.London:Routledgeand KeganPaul.
LUKACS, GEORG. I97I. Historyand class consciousness.
CamELIE.
The growthofphilosophicalradicalism.
HALEVY,
I949.
bridge:MIT Press.[JH]
New York:AugustusM. Kelly.
STEVEN.
LUKES,
I972. Emile Durkheim:His lifeand works.
A. IRVING.
Cultureand experience.PhilaI955.
HALLOWELL,
New York:Harperand Row.
ofPennsylvania
Press.
delphia:University
ROSA.
LUXEMBURG,
I970. Rosa Luxemburg
speaks.Edited by
.I960.
"Ojibwa ontology,
behavior,and worldview,"in
Press.
MaryAlice Waters.New York:Pathfinder
Culturein history:Essaysin honorofPaul Radin.Editedby
MAC INTYRE,
ALASDAIR.
Threerivalversionsofmoral
I990.
StanleyDiamond,pp. i9-5.2. New York:ColumbiaUniversity
enquiry:Encyclopedia,genealogy,and tradition.Notre Dame:
Press.
ofNotreDame Press.
University
NORMAN.
HarmondsHAMPSON,
I968. The Enlightenment.
MAI, PAUL. I98I. "The 'timeofdarkness'or Yuu Kuia," in
worth:PenguinBooks.
Oral traditionin Melanesia.EditedbyDonald Denoon and
HELVETIUS.
Oeuvrescompletes.Vol. 7. Paris:Garnery.
I795.
RodericLacey,pp. I25-40. PortMoresby:University
ofPapua
HENRY, TEUIRA. i928. AncientTahiti.BerniceP. BishopMuNew Guinea and InstituteofPapua New Guinea Studies.
seumBulletin48. [JS]
DAVID.
Hawaiian antiquities.Honolulu: Bernice
MALO,
I95I.
R. W. I973.
"Cosmic fall,"in DictionaryofthehisHEPBURN,
P. BishopMuseum.
toryofideas. EditedbyI. Berlinet al. New York:Scribner.
BERNARD.
MANDEVILLE,
I988. The fableofthebees; or PriGOTTFRIED.
HERDER,
JOHANN
I964. Idee zum ErstenPatrivate vices,publickbenefits.2 vols. Indianapolis:LibertyClasotischenInstitutfurden Allgemeingeist
Deutschlands.Berlin:
sics.
Aufbau-Verlag.
[JS]
BERNARD.
Editor. I966. Two viewsofman: Pope
MARCHAND,
HICK,
JOHN.
I966. Evil and the God ofLove. London:MacmilInnocentIII On theMiseryofMan, GianozzoManettiOn the
lan.
DignityofMan. New York:Ungar.
ALBERT.
HIRSCHMAN,
I977.
Thepassionsand theinterests:
R. A. I970. Saeculum:Historyand societyin thetheMARKUS,
Politicalarguments
forcapitalismbeforeits triumph.
ologyofSt. Augustine.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press.
Press.
PAUL HENRI
D'. I989. The sysHOLBACH,
THIERY,
BARON
KARL.
I96I.
Economicand philosophicmanuscripts
MARX,
of
temofnature.Boston:J.P. Mendum.
I844. Moscow: ForeignLanguagesPublishing
House.
HUIZIN GA, J I954. The waningoftheMiddleAges.Garden
TranslatedbyMartinNicolaus.Har. I973. Grundrisse.
City:DoubledayAnchorBooks.
mondsworth:
PenguinBooks.
JOUVENCY,
JOSEPH.
I7I0.
"Concerningthe countryand manMARCEL
Paris:
MAUSS,
I966. Sociologieet anthropologie.
nersofthe Canadians,or thesavagesofNew France,"in The
PressesUniversitaires
de France.
Jesuitrelationsand allied documents,vol. I. EditedbyReuben MELVILLE,
HERMAN.
I994. MobyDick. London: Penguin
Gold Thwaites,pp. 240-9I. Cleveland:Burrows.
Books.[JS]
KE E S I N G, R O G E R. I974. Theofiesof culture.
AnnualReviewof MEYER, ALFRED. n.d. (i952). "Historical notes on the ideologiAnthropology3:73-97. [TB]
cal aspectsofthe conceptofculturein Germanyand Russia,"
HELEN.
The storyofmylife.Garden City: DouKELLER,
I904.
in Culture:A criticalreviewofconceptsand definitions,
by
bleday,Page.
A. L. Kroeberand ClydeKluckhohn,pp. 403-I3. New York:
KIRCH,
AND MARSHALL
PATRICK,
SAHLINS.
i992. Anahulu:
VintageBooks.
FREUD,

SIGMUND.

I96I.

York:W. W. Norton.

428

CURRENT

ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 37, Number 3, fune I996

SIDNEY.
I958. Sweetnessand power:Theplace of
. I993b. WaitingforFoucault.Cambridge:PricklyPear
sugarin modernhistory.New York:VikingPenguin.
Press.
. I988. Thepowerofsweetnessand thesweetnessof
. I995. How "natives"think:About Captain Cook,forexpower.The EighthDuijkerLecture.Amsterdam:
Van Loghum
ample.Chicago:University
ofChicagoPress.
Slaterus.
PETER.
SAHLINS,
I994. Forestrites.Cambridge:
HarvardUni. I993. "The changingrolesoffoodin thestudyofconversityPress.
sumption,"in Consumptionand theworldofgoods.Editedby SARTRE, JEAN PAUL. I968. Searchfora method.New York:
VintageBooks.
JohnBrewerand RoyPorter,pp. 26I-73. London:Routledge.
MOFFATT,
ROBERT.
I969 (i842).
Missionarylaboursand
L. I976. The sorrow of the lonely and
SCHIEFFELIN,
EDWARD
the burningof thedancers.New York:St. Martin'sPress.
scenesin southernAfrica.New York:Johnson
ReprintCorporaGREGORY. I99 2. Magical arrows:The Maori,the
SCHREMPP,
tion.
ARNOLD.
Greeks,and thefolkloreoftheuniverse.Madison:University
MOMIGLIANO,
I977. Essaysin ancientand modern
ofWisconsinPress.
Press.
historiography.
Middletown:WesleyanUniversity
A. I954. History of economic analysis.
SCHIJMPETER,
JOSEPH
and The
NIETZSCHE,
FRIEDRICH.
I956. The birthof tragedy
Garden
New York:OxfordUniversity
Press.
genealogyofmorals.TranslatedbyFrancisGolffing.
SIIKALA, JUKKA. I992. 'Akatokamanava:
and soCity:DoubledayAnchor.
Myth,history,
cietyin thesouthernCook Islands.Auckland:PolynesianSoci. I984. Human,all too human:A bookforfreespirits.Linety. [Js]
coln: University
ofNebraskaPress.
New
PAGELS, ELAINE. I988. Adam, Eve, and theserpent.
STAROBINSKI,
JEAN. I993. Blessingsin disguise,or,Themoralityofevil. Cambridge:HarvardUniversity
York:RandomHouse.
Press.
. I994. "Augustineon natureand humannature,"in Saint STRATHERN,
MARILYN.
I988. The genderof thegift.Berkeley
and Los Angeles:University
ofCalifomiaPress.[NB]
Augustine,the bishop:A book ofessays.EditedbyFannie
TAMBIAH,
STANLEY
LeMoineand Christopher
Kleinhanz,pp. 77-I08. New York:
JEYARAJA.
I990. Magic, science, religion,
and thescope ofrationality.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Garland.
PHILO
OF ALEXANDRIA.
i929. Philo.Vol. I. Cambridge: HarPress.
W. I969. The ritualprocess.London:
TURNER,
Press.
VICTOR
vardUniversity
PICHT,
GEORG.
I989. Der Begriff
derNaturund seine GeRoutledgeand KeganPaul. [js]
MARK.
fromAdam'sdiary,"in The
TWAIN,
schichte.Stuttgart:
Klett-Cotta.
I904. "Extracts.
[TB]
DELLA
man thatcorrupted
PICO
MIRANDOLA,
GIOVANNI.
I956. Orationon the
Hadleyburgand otheressaysand stories,
pp. 260-75. New York:HarperHillcrestEdition.
dignityofman. Los Angeles:GatewayEditions.
LORENZO.
VALLA,
POPE,
ALEXANDER.
I970.
The selectedpoetryofPope. Edited
I977. On pleasure.New York:Abaris
Books.
byMartinPrice.New York:SignetClassic,New AmericanLiVA N D E U S EN N E I L C. I 93 2. Telesio: The first
ofthemodems.
brary.
Ph.D. diss.,ColumbiaUniversity,
PAUL.
RICOEUR,
I967. The symbolismofevil.Boston:Beacon
New York,N.Y.
KATHERINE.
VERDERY,
Press.
I995. "Caritas"and thereconceptualizationofmoneyin Roumania.Anthropology
ROB BINS,
LIONEL.
2d edition.An essayon thenature
I952.
Today II:3-7.
VICO, GIAMBATTISTA.
and significance
I984. The New Science of Giambatofeconomicscience.London:Macmillan.
in On
tista Vico.Translatedand editedbyThomasGoddardBergin
D. W. I958. "Translator's
ROBERTSON,
introduction,"
ChristianDoctrine,bySaintAugustine,
and Max HaroldFisch.Ithaca:CornellUniversity
pp. ix-xxi.New York:
Press.
VON RANKE, LEOPOLD.
n.d. Die ErhebungPreussensin Jahre
Macmillan.
I8I3 und die Rekonstruktion
and Disdes Staates.Leipzig:OttoKaemROUSSEAU,
JEAN-JACQUES.
I993. The social contract
mel. [Js]
courses.London:J.M. Dent. [JS]
nemesis:An off-Broadway WAGNER, ROY. I975. The inventionofculture.Englewood
MARSHALL.
SAHLINS,
I964. African
Cliffs:Prentice-Hall.
[KM]
review. KroeberAnthropological
SocietyPapers30:83-IOO.
WARFIELD,
BENJAMIN
B. I9IO. "Augustine,"
I976. Colorsand cultures.Semioticai6:i-22.
Hastingsencycloin theconpedia ofreligion,vol. 2, pp. .2I9-24.
I993a. Goodbyeto tristestropes:Ethnography
textofmodernworldhistory.JournalofModernHistory
MINTZ,

65:I-25.

[JS]