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Social Anthropology and the Study of Historical Societies a M Shah

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Social Anthropology and the Study of Historical Societies a M Shah THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1959 Social Anthropology And the Study of Historical Societies A M Shah In this article I will first discuss in brief the relation between Social Anthropology and Ethnology, and how modern social anthropologists regard the latter as a kind of conjectural or pseudo-history. I will then show how the ethnological approach has obstructed the growth of scientific study of Indian his­ tory and sociology. Finally, I will discuss how social anthropology can help the study of local history and thus contribute to a comprehensive understanding of Indian history. I and law, of family, language and recast and re-presented in the be­ SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY em­ State, and of society itself. A com­ ginning of twentieth century by a erged as a separate discipline in mon theory regarding the origin few writers such as Westermarck the last quarter of the nineteenth and development of family, for in­ and Hobhouse. It also influence- century. Before this period, it stance, was that there was first ed Marx and Engels. The latter formed a part of Ethnology (the promiscuity everywhere, then there wrote 'The Origin of Family, Pri­ study of peoples). The new disci­ was matriliny and matriarchy, vate Property and the State' al­ pline of Social Anthropology was and finally there was patriarchy most entirely on the basis of Mor­ gan, Bachofen, Lubbock and McLen­ conceived of as a branch of Socio­ and monogamy. Religion was nan. The influence of evolutionary logy which studied primitive socie­ believed to have developed from anthropology is also seen in the ties. Sociology was regarded, first­ magic, science from theology, mo­ writings of that eminent archaeo­ ly, as the discipline which studied notheism from animism, property logist, Gordon Childe. modern, civilized societies and from communism, and contract from their problems, and secondly, as status. Diffusion of Cultures theoretical science of human socie­ The evolutionary anthropologists In the middle of the nineteenth ty. This distinction between Socio­ thought they were writing the 'his­ century there developed a school, logy and Social Anthropology is tory' of human society. This is usually called "diffusionist", which however beginning to disappear evident in the titles of their books, considered the aim of anthropology nowadays. such as Adam Ferguson's 'An Essay was to trace the movement and The commercial and colonial ex­ on the History of Civil Society', mixture of peoples and the diffusion pansion of Europe, which began in H S Maine's 'Early History of In­ of cultures. The diffusionists cri­ the sixteenth century, had led to a stitutions', Tylor's 'Researches into ticized the evolutionists, because great increase in the knowledge the Early History of Mankind', and once it was shown that a social about peoples inhabiting the various McLennan's 'Studies In Ancient institution was borrowed from ano­ parts of the world. Prom the History'. The history written by ther society due to some historical seventeenth century onwards, an­ evolutionary anthropologists was, accident, it could hardly be consi­ thropological writers cited primitive however, conjectural history based dered as a stage in an inevitable societies in support of their argu­ on circumstantial evidence, and unilinear evolution. The diffusion- not critical history based on docu­ ments about the theory of human ists were, however, quite often as ments and monuments. Primitive progress of evolution. Various so­ conjectural as the evolutionists in tribes have had no tradition of cieties in the world were first com­ their 'historical' reconstructions. writing, and there was therefore no pared and then arranged on a scale, They often failed to take account means of knowing the nature of showing the emergence of man from of the possibility of independent their past social institutions. On savagery to civilization. Primitive development of culture. Secondly, the other hand, the knowledge Societies in Africa, America, Ocea­ the evidence for their historical about the earliest stages of the nia, etc, were supposed to represent reconstructions usually consisted of history of mankind was confined racial and linguistic affinities and the earliest stages in the evolution almost entirely to the items of ma­ of what were called culture paral­ of human society. The earliest terial culture discovered by the lels. ancestors of the civilized peoples prehistoric archaeologists. Only were supposed to be similar to the because the material culture of pre­ The whole concept of race as newly-discovered savages, historic man was similar to that of based upon skeletal measurements, hair-colour, skin pigmentation, co­ Evolutionary Anthropology primitive tribes, the prehistoric archaeologists conjectured that the lour of eyes, etc is now regarded Thanks to the theory of evolu­ social institutions of the former as of doubtful validity, in view of tion, the discovery of the origin must also have been like those of the great advances made in the and development of social institu­ the latter. Evolutionary anthropo­ science of Genetics. The linguistic tions was the dominant interest in logists often disagreed among them­ and cultural classifications, how­ the researches of the anthropolo­ selves about their historical recon­ ever, if carefully used, may supple­ gists of eighteenth and nineteenth structions, but they ail followed the ment the work of the archaeolo­ century. There were theories of same method of conjectural history. gist. They may suggest hypotheses origin of everything in society, of which may be confirmed by the dis­ totemism and exogamy, of religion Evolutionary anthropology was covery of documents and monu- 953 SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1959 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY 954 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1959 ments. A historical probability over the country. The theory is all preferred the analytic method to may thus be turned into a certain­ right so far as it goes, but it does the ethnological one. In the Intro­ ty. By and large, however, diffu- not tell us how unity and diversity duction to that book he clearly men­ sionist anthropology has provided are expressed in the social life of tions his doubts regarding the ques­ at best probabilities, and at the the people at the present day. The tion of the Aryan origin, and worst, wild guesses. Rivers' study of this empirical reality is quotes Malinowski, a functionalist, 'History of Melanesian Society' and obstructed by the ethnological ap­ to support his rejection of hypothe­ Elliot Smith's 'Ancient Egyptians' proach. tical history (though in the body of are monuments to the uncritical Another ethnological theory that the book we do find some ethnolo­ use of the idea of diffusion. has greatly obstructed the growth gical interpretations). In his recent Structure-Function of scientific study of Indian society book 'Marriage and Family in India' (Bombay, 1958), however we find There is also another point: evo­ is the imaginary division of Indian a reversal to ethnology. He writes lutionists and diffusionists endea­ culture into Aryan and Dravidian. in the Introduction, "Ethnological voured not only to reconstruct the Historians, archaeologists, linguists, analysis of culture is the basic need history of social institutions but Indologists, Orientalists, Sociolo­ of Indian sociology. Ethnological also to 'explain' them in terms of gists, anthropologists and ethnolo­ analysis has been criticized by Ma­ such history. This tendency to ex­ gists, have all accepted this dicho­ linowski and his school, but, to our plain social institutions by their tomy and interpreted almost every mind at least, the quarrel between hypothetical past was strongly cri­ aspect of Indian society in terms the two schools has not much of ticized by the anthropologists of of it. The result is that the theory substance in it." In the first book the "structure function" school— is no longer confined to the learned, Malinowski is quoted to support the and most modern anthropologists but has become current even among analytic method, and in the second, belong to this school. One of the schoolboys and laymen, and is also his criticism of the ethnological ap­ fundamental propositions in func­ unfortunately a guiding factor in proach is dismissed as of no sub­ tionalist anthropology is that the certain political movements in the stance ! Dr Kapadia now tries to first step toward understanding a country. Wrong academic theory support his viewpoint by quoting society is to find interrelations has thus become a part of the dy­ Rivers' study of Melanesian society, among its various parts, just as a namics of caste system. which is, as I have already stated, physiologist understands the func­ Ethnological Approach to Caste a monument of conjectural history. tioning of a human body by study­ The ethnological approach has ing the interrelations among its guided the study of caste system in It is no wonder that Dr Kapadia's various parts. India for about a century. All the book contains a number of patent The history of a society, where well-known students of caste, be­ arguments of evolutionary and dif­ It is known for certain and In some longing to the older generation, fusionist anthropology. Only a detail, does help one in understand­ such as Ghurye, Hutton, Irawati few instances may be given here. ing the society. The knowledge Karve and D N Majumdar, have an In the discussion of Khasa kinship, of history, however, is never a sub­ ethnological bias. And it seems there is a well-known generalisation stitute
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