Herbert S. Lewis

Boas, Darwin, science, and anthropology

This paper presents a new reading of Franz Boass philosophy of science and his approach to the understanding of culture and behavior. It points out that his approach had important parallels with the worldview of the major figures associated with pragmatism and suggests that a similar perspective can be useful today.

The Origins of the Galla and Somali

This study presents a reconstruction of the origins and major movements of the Galla and Somali of Northeast Africa which departs from most of the previous literature on the subject. The traditional view has been that the Galla occupied most of the Horn of Africa until the Somali, beginning about the tenth century, swept south and south-west from the shores of the Gulf of Aden driving the Galla before them. The pressure of the Somali has also been considered the major impetus to the Galla invasions of Ethiopia in the sixteenth century. It is the thesis of this paper that both the Galla and the Somali originated in southern Ethiopia, that the Somali expanded to the east and north much earlier than the Galla, and that the Galla lived only in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya until their migrations began about 1530.

HISTORICAL PROBLEMS IN ETHIOPIA AND THE HORN OF AFRICA

This paper will consider two recurrent problems of the history of the Cushites.? Specifically, we shall suggest new approaches to the history of the Galla and Somali, and to the study of the hunting and artisan castes of northeast Africa. Most writers tacitly assume that the history of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa can bc understood in terms of ethnic “waves” or cultural Schichleu. They usually say that these regions were first occupied by hunters, who were then subjected or expelled by “Negroid” or “Nigritic” farmers. These Negroid peoples were, in turn, overrun by Nilotes and/or several successive waves of “Hamites.” (Cerulli, 1957, pp. 51 -52; Huntingford, 19556, p. 44; Jenscn, 1960.) Implicit in these assumptions is the notion that each “Hamitic” wave brought new and greater cultural achievements and more “Caucasoid blood.” Associated wi th this conception of Ethiopian history is the notion that any groups in the area that deviate culturally or physically from thc observer’s idea of “typical Hamites” must be “remnant peoples,” “Negroid peoples,” or “strongly mixed with Negro blood.” Because the literature on the history of Africa has been dominated by a concern with many peoples who are called Haniites, i t seems worthwhile to reconsider the history of these hona fide Hamites more critically.

Franz Boas: Boon or Bane?

Franz Boas organized and shaped American anthropology. No academic discipline of similar scope owed so much to just one person. Within three decades of coming to the United States from Germany he had trained the anthropologists who established its place within the universities and redirected its tone and ethos as well as its theories. The biographies under review help us understand the background, aims, and drive of the man. We shall consider, in particular, the impact he had on the political and ethical tone of the field, the prevalence of women in it, and the importance of his scientific background.

Imagining Anthropology's History

In 1968, when so much happened that began to reshape the academic world, Kathleen Gough published her article on anthropology as the child and handmaiden of colonialism (1968a, 1968b). It was the beginning of more than one discourse that has flourished over the decades, in conjunction with the wider projects of Marxist anthropology, deconstruction, critical and cultural studies, and ‘‘the posts’’ in general. The two works reviewed in this essay about the history of anthropology are very different from each other, both in spirit and in what they tell us about the state of the historiography of anthropology. Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology is a follow-up (almost a reprise) of an earlier collection (Pels & Salemink, 1994a) in which Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink set out to prove the case for a fundamental and indissoluable association between colonialism and

The Malinowskis' Letters

The Story of a Marriage: The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson. Vol. I: 191620. Vol. 2: 1920-1935. by Helena Wayne Review by: Herbert S. Lewis Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 5 (Dec., 1996), pp. 882-884 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744426 . Accessed: 29/05/2012 09:20

African Political Systems: A Bibliographical Inventory of Anthropological Writings-II

The connection between the anthropological study of political systems and social anthropology in Africa has been a close and significant one for over thirty years. Without question, the largest body of anthropological data on political systems comes from Sub-Saharan Africa, while the study of political systems has been among the primary concerns of Africanist anthropologists. Not only are many leading British social anthropologists noted for their contributions to this topic, but American anthropologists as well have frequently followed the British in their con-