Written 1924, was rather inspired by Levy-Bruhl to keep within the genre. Although this was in no ways as inspiring.
This was - well, you are looking at the same issues through different lenses. This is the fascination with this - in a way, to be like a judge, you have to learn to read the author, and judge him, then you read the people he is telling you about, and judge them realizing that it's through his eyes, and then finally you have to mentally construct or imagine that tribe from some point in the middle of what the author's telling you, what he's omitting, his own, often limited understanding, and what the tribe is explaining or choosing to explain to him or her.
And there are, of course, the abundant shortfalls of language, the culturally taking for granted that which cannot be taken for granted.
So - all this said, in light of the Authors clearly displayed prejudices, and given the thorough lack of SYSTEMATIC study, in which different cultures are examined and broken down - often on completely different axis, make this perhaps less of a textbook than part of a whole understanding that (as far as I can tell) has yet to be assembled.
Ideally, anthropologically speaking, there would be a map or spreadsheet of the different cultural taboos, listing first the tribe, their location - equatorial, jungle, desert, polar, island, their climate, their foods, drinks, taboos, broken down into things like menstruation, adolescence, hunting, war, agriculture, we'd be able to correlate the migrations and patterns of belief, at the moment we are merely reading travelers tales cherry-picked to support the authors own cognitive bias.
So, this said - onto my notes:
First of all, the author attributes a much more liberal view to most of the tribes he examines than does Levy-Bruhl. Is this because he's examining different tribes, or is it a result of him projecting himself into it? That said, I found Levy-Bruhl to be considerably more "Liberal" in his outlook than Lowie - so odd they should regard so differently the objects of their studies. In substantiating this Lowie points out that while most North American Indians are implicitly bound up in their cultures, there are fewer explicit taboos prohibiting contrary views within the tribe. You are welcome to think different, if you can escape the lens of culture you've been raised within.
Examples he provides of this are certain Hawaiian Chiefs, who announced themselves free from God and Superstition, as far as their culture would let them. This was often attended by a certain awe by their tribe, who awaited the wrath of the gods or spirits, and - while it may seem a great liberality to renounce God and Superstition it should be noted that this has almost always been a licensed privilege granted Kings and Chiefs, and rarely tolerated in anybody else. So perhaps he's misreading "Privilege" as "Liberality".
Second, Lowie, American, has a fair amount of first-hand experience with Tribes of the North American Indian, and exhibits a great deal of favoritism for them. SO most of his information comes from first-hand association with them. With them he talks about their beliefs regarding "Trans" people, or the third gender, which seems to be acknowledged and socially accepted with most of the North American Tribes he notes, and he compares it to Shamanistic traditions in Siberia, but the author in examining it declares the people "Pathological", reflecting a lack of objectivity that would be preferable in describing them. While understandably very much a product of his time - understanding eschews judgement.
Similarly he ascribes greed to the selling by the tribesman of "supernatural prerogatives" to his children when - in my view it seems clear - it is simply that by charging them dearly for his "lifetime's accumulation of juju/fetishes/bundle/etc" he is merely ensuring they value it as much as he did.
Note - that in this evaluation there is raised 2 problems - the evaluation or examination of someone else's religious beliefs by either:
- - Someone who has none of their own.
- - Someone who has their own firmly held beliefs.
Both of which seem to preclude objectivity, and with this the question - how to be objective in this?
He also makes passing reference to superstitious and magical thinking in animals - with no follow up, but it does inspire one to consider. Is religion/magic/spiritual thinking exclusively the domain of men?
Taking a moment to think on this myself I'm inclined to think not. There are, of course, Skinner's Pigeons, whom displayed all manners of "religious" behaviors in their efforts to get fed. But consider as well the mating displays of fish, and almost all birds - the dances of the birds of paradise or the bower bird, and go on. How - specifically - did they evolve to the point of the elaborate ritual to summon a mate? And this seems largely to be instinctual. There is - to my eye - any perceivable difference in nests, yet one will draw a mate and the other will fail. And so it continues.
Noteworthy is the custom - apparently almost universal - of tribes modeling the "afterworld" of the deceased on the world of the living, with a few differences and embellishments. Note that different cultures give different weighing's to it - the Crow tribes of Montana paid it little interest, the dead were gone - yet in Africa and other places entire ancestor cults sprang up. What they have in common is the resemblance of heaven to earth, only slightly improved. Here we have Christianity, Mormons (if you can stomach the perpetually bad 80's decor as an 'improvement'!), Muslims, certain Chinese interpretations of Buddhism where you need burn "Hell Money" as an offering to the dead to facilitate the incomprehensible bureaucracy and bribery that comprise their version of heaven/hell. The Tibetans provide for a metaphorical journey and series of rituals to guide and placate the spirits on their final journey, which, as it seems precisely to be ritual and metaphorically bound seems to offer a more thought out ritual approach.
There is the almost universally regarded "Inferiority" of women in most respects, I've yet to see an instance where women where yet accorded an "equivalent" status. Not that it doesn't exist, I just haven't read about it. There are the abundant cross-cultural taboos regarding menstruation (which he updates later) - that while menstruating they must isolate their tents from the camp, prepare no food, have restrictions on diet, etc. etc. This seems to be largely a Taboo on the bleeding - which, in supernatural context - might have it's roots in the "Blame the Victim" mentality.
He makes note of the Australian Aborigines - described as: "The rudest savages as to whom we possess accurate information," "Universally practice magic and eschew religion; they are all magicians, none of them priests."; which he later opposes, but - in this he's correct - Australia is currently regarded as having the "Oldest Civilization", with over 50,000 years of history, and, really, if you're properly indoctrinated into the tribe nobody has need of priests.
While searching his sources and other salacious points regarding the Aboriginals I came across a few interesting articles:
- The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia - K. Langloh Parker
- Changes to Culture -4,000 years ago
And, additional: Mention of a "Father & Son" set of bones (for divination) the author was eager to acquire - the "Father" is for at home, the "Son" is for travel -> hence - we have - again, in cultures separated by tens of thousands of Millenia - the father=thought son=action, followed by:
Some Notes on Synesthesia - That synesthesia seems to be a result of firmly formed correlations & associations n childhood - so why am I still read about this 100 years later...
And so, a far less enriching read than the preceding, but - everything adds to the canon.