CLASSIC CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY Hau BOOKS Editors Giovanni da Col Sasha Newell Editorial Office Faun Rice Sheehan Moore Michael Chladek Michelle Beckett Justin Dyer Ian Tuttle www.haubooks.com CLASSIC CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY Valerio Valeri Edited by Giovanni da Col and Rupert Stasch Hau Books Chicago © 2018 Classic Concepts in Anthropology by Valerio Valeri and its content is licensed under CC-BY N.D. NC 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode (embed link in the license) Cover and layout design: Sheehan Moore Typesetting: Prepress Plus (www.prepressplus.in) ISBN: 978-0-9905050-8-2 LCCN: 2014953506 Hau Books Chicago Distribution Center 11030 S. Langley Chicago, IL 60628 www.haubooks.com Hau Books is marketed and distributed by The University of Chicago Press. www.press.uchicago.edu Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgment and sources vii chapter one Belief and worship 1 Translated from the Italian by Lynn West chapter two Caste 27 Translated from the Italian by Nicholas DeMaria Harney chapter three Ceremonial 51 chapter four Cosmogonic myths and order 67 Translated from the Italian by Sarah Hill and revised by Alice Elliot chapter five Cultural relativism 85 Translated from the French by Eléonore Rimbault vi CLASSIC CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY chapter six Feasting and festivity 89 Translated from the Italian by Sarah Hill chapter seven The fetish 103 Translated from the Italian by Sarah Hill chapter eight Kingship 121 Translated from the Italian by Lynn Westwater and revised by Alice Elliot chapter nine Mourning 155 chapter ten Play 169 Translated by Nicholas DeMaria Harney chapter eleven Rite 181 Translated from the Italian by Stefano Mengozzi and revised by Alice Elliot appendix Marcel Mauss and the New Anthropology 219 Translated from the Italian by Alice Elliot Bibliography 247 Acknowledgment and sources Originally published in Italian and French across a number of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, this volume showcases Valerio Valeri’s (1944–1988) formidable scholarship with a series of dazzling comparative essays on core topics in the history of anthropological theory. A timely and invaluable pedagogical resource for students, teachers, and researchers in anthropology, this collection is a tribute to the inimitable genius and erudition of the author. We wish to thank Janet Hoskins, Sean Dowdy, Nicholas Harney, Alice Elliot, Eric White, Rebecca Frausel, Zachary Sheldon, Ned Dostaler, Magnus Fiskesjö, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Marshall Sahlins, and all others who assisted in the production of this volume. We are also grateful to the publishers and copyright holders of Valeri’s work who have generously granted Hau permission to trans- late and reprint the material in this volume. The original sources and copyright information for each chapter are detailed below. Chapter One is a reprint of Valeri, Valerio. (1992) 2001. “Belief and worship.” In Fragments from forests and libraries: A collection of essays by Valerio Valeri, ed- ited by Janet Hoskins, 33–56. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. © 2001 Carolina Academic Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder, Carolina Academic Press. http://www.cap-press.com. viii CLASSIC CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY Chapter Two is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1977. “Casta” Enciclopedia Einaudi 2, 688–707. Torino: Einaudi. © 1977 Einaudi Editore. All rights re- served. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. Chapter Three is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1977. “Cerimoniale.” Enci- clopedia Einaudi 2, 955–67. Torino: Einaudi. © 1977 Einaudi Editore. All rights reserved. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. Chapter Four is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1995. “Miti cosmogonici e ordine.” Parolechiave 7 (8): 93–110. © 1995 Parolechiave. All rights reserved. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Parolechiave. Chapter Five is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1991. “Relativisme culturel.” In Dictionnaire de l’ethnologie et de l’anthropologie, 618–19. Paris: Presses Univer- sitaires de France. © 1991 Presses Universitaires de France. All rights reserved. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Presses Universitaires de France. http://www.puf.com. Chapter Six is a reprint of Valeri, Valerio. (1979) 2001. “Feasting and festiv- ity.” In Fragments from forests and libraries: A collection of essays by Valerio Valeri, edited by Janet Hoskins, 1–14. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. © 2001 Carolina Academic Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder, Carolina Academic Press. http://www.cap-press.com. Chapter Seven is a reprint of Valeri, Valerio. (1979) 2001. “The fetish.” In Fragments from forests and libraries: A collection of essays by Valerio Valeri, edited by Janet Hoskins, 15–32. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. © 2001 Carolina Academic Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder, Carolina Academic Press. http://www.cap-press.com Chapter Eight is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1980. “Regalità.” Enciclope- dia Einaudi 10, 742–71. Torino: Einaudi. © 1980 Einaudi Editore. All rights reserved. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. ACKnowLedGMENT AND SOURCES ix Chapter Nine is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1979. “Lutto.” Enciclopedia Einaudi, 8, 594–604. Torino: Einaudi. © 1979 Einaudi Editore. All rights re- served. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. Chapter Ten is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1979. “Gioco” Enciclopedia Einaudi, 6, 813–23. Torino: Einaudi. © 1981 Einaudi Editore. All rights re- served. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. Chapter Eleven is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1981. “Rito.” Enciclopedia Einaudi, 12, 210–43. Torino: Einaudi. © 1981 Einaudi Editore. All rights re- served. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Einaudi Editore. http://www.einaudi.it. The Appendix is a translation of Valeri, Valerio. 1966. “Marcel Mauss e la nuo- va antropologia.” Critica Storica 2: 677–703. © 1966 Critica Storica. All rights reserved. Translated with permission of the copyright holder, Critica Storica. First English translation published as: Valeri, Valerio. 2013. “Marcel Mauss and the new anthropology.” Translated by Alice Elliot. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3 (1): 262–86. Giovanni da Col and Rupert Stasch chapter one Belief and worship Translated from the Italian by Lynn Westwater Belief is a notoriously ambiguous term, but the principal meanings listed by dic- tionaries can be grouped in two general categories. On the one hand, “belief ” re- fers to a mental state which either takes the form of assent to propositions or the form of faith in somebody; on the other hand, the word designates the objects of the assent, that is, the propositions or notions that are believed, implicitly or ex- plicitly. “Worship” refers to an assemblage of ritual practices which have as their object and justification sacred entities and make it possible to communicate with those sacred entities, to utilize their powers and to render them homage, thus reaffirming their preeminent position in the believers’ consciousness. Beliefs that are associated, directly or indirectly, with worship are called “re- ligious,” and it is exclusively these beliefs that will be the focus of this article. Both the relationship between the two meanings of “belief ” and the use itself of this term as a universal descriptive category, however, raise considerable problems. Moreover, of the pair “worship/belief,” which is the more important Editor’s Note from Original Translation: The reader should be aware that the original Italian text speaks of “credenze e culti,” which we have chosen to translate as “belief and worship,” because the English word “worship” has a wider usage than “cult” and does not have the pejorative connotation that “cult” sometimes acquires. We have also chosen to render the word “belief ” in the singular for the title, since that signals a more abstract discussion of the notion ( Janet Hoskins, editor). 2 CLASSIC CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY and unifying term? Is worship an aspect of belief, or is belief an aspect of wor- ship? We will begin by examining the question of the legitimacy of the term “belief.” The CAteGORY “belieF” This problem has recently been addressed by two scholars, W. C. Smith (1979) and Rodney Needham (1972). W. C. Smith’s thesis can be summarized as fol- lows: of the two principal meanings of belief, that is, “assent to propositions” and “faith,” only the latter is universally applicable to religious phenomena. Smith maintains in fact that it is improper to use “belief ” as a synonym for “faith”: in our modern culture the true meaning of “belief ” is a mental state of assent, which lacks certainty, and is even doubtful, about propositions. Inversely, it is erroneous to consider faith as a species of superbelief, that is, Thomistically, as an essentially cognitive power that allows people to believe in propositions which seem incredible to natural reason. “Faith” should be understood in the sense it carries in the Old and New Testaments, in the Koran and in Brahmanic literature, or in the Buddhist canon: as action and not as intellection, as an at- titude (of reverence, acceptance, testimony, commitment, fidelity) toward the transcendent. Contrary to belief, this attitude does not even raise the issue of the reality of its object and for this reason it is incompatible with doubt. In sum, like the Arabic iman and the Hebrew he’min (from which our amen derives), “faith” means “saying yes,” responding affirmatively to a divine offer, to a revela- tion upon which the intellect never dwells because it never casts the revelation in doubt. W. C. Smith is certainly right in emphasizing (as Fustel de Coulanges and especially William Robertson Smith had before him) that the modem West- ern tendency to reduce religion to belief in certain propositions is completely exceptional.