INDEX

Paper 2
• History of Indian Anthropology by L P Vidyarthi
• i) Formative Phase
• ii) Constructive Phase
• iii) Analytical Phase
• Orientalism. Indology
• Indomaniac & Indophobia
• Max Mueller
• Herbert Risley
• Indegenous Indology
• Rise of Modern Indology
• Criticisms of Indology
• L K Ananthakrishna Aiyar
• Sarat Chandra Roy
• Influences, Idea of Tribe, Oraon of Chota Nagpur
• Contributions to Physical Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology
• Anthropology of Caste
• Applied Anthropology
• Parha System
• Munki - Munda System
• G S Ghurye
• Indigenous Indology & Indian Society
• Indian Society
• Caste System in India
• Features of Caste System
• Idea on Untouchability
• Caste Census
• Reservation
• Idea of National Integration of India
• Threats to National Integration
• Tribes as Backward Hindus
• Anti Isolationist Approach
• Criticisms of G S Ghurye
• Arguments for and against of Caste Census
• Verrier Elwin
• The Aboriginals
• The Philosophy of NEFA
• Tribal Social Life
• i) ‘The Baigas’
• ii) ‘Muria & their Ghotuls’
• iii) ‘Leaves from the Jungle’
• The Religion of an Indian Tribe
• Criticisms of Verrier Elwin
• Nirmal Kumar Bose (1901 - 1972)
• Influences
• - Indology, Diffusionism and Functionalism
• Idea of Caste System
• Hindu Mode of Tribal Absorption
• Case Studies -
• i) Juans of Keonjhar
• ii) Bondas by Elwin
• iii) Bhils
W H Rivers :-
•

Criticisms of British School of Diffusion :-

• British School is extreme diffusionist; i.e. All cultural inventions took place in Egypt
• It ignored several temporary civilisations that existed at the time of Egyptian civilisation
• The hypothetical assumption was targeted with another assumption that man was un inventive in nature

German School of Diffusionism (Culture Circle/Kulture Kreise) :-

• It suggested that different inventions happened at different places and at different times - and these places were called CULTURE
CIRCLE/DISTRICT
• example - Bodh Gaya being cultural circle for Buddhism
• they also emphasised on the idea that diffusion happened because of migration
• To study diffusion, one has to do through layer wise examination of culture
•

Freidrich Ratzel (1844 - 1904) :-

• did zoology, then geography and at last anthropology
• Wrote a book - Anthropogeography
• He talks about relationship between neighbouring countries through similar cultural traits
• He said that we should try to identify routes of migration by identifying the direction of diffusion
• Diffusion happened because of massive migration and war and conflict
• He wrote a book - History of Mankind (Volkerkunde in German); he gave the idea of Criteria of Quality/Form (Formegedanke)
• He said that not every similarity means that there is any diffusion. One can claim it to be diffusion only when there would be some
purpose behind it.
• Like - bow and arrows were discovered at different places but one African tribe had feather on one end of the arrow, which was copied.
• He gave the idea that the idea will face modification with diffusion

Leo Froebinus (1873 - 1938) :-

• He was a student of Ratzel
• agreed that migration was the major reason for diffusion
• He found similarities not only in bow and arrows but also, myths and stories
• Hence he gave a criteria - Criteria of Geographical Statistics; that means greater the similarities, greater is the chance of diffusion
• He compared the myths of Africa and Indonesia
• Myths of Indonesia being well organised and in the form of an epic
• Myths of Africa were unorganised, in the form of fragmented stories
• He said that definitely diffusion took place, and the place which was more organised would have the high culture, i.e. the place from
where diffusion took place
• this meant that when culture flowed from high culture to low culture, degeneration took place
• He also talks about Developmental Criteria - there might be instances where despite diffused ideas, the modification to it was so severe
that it would seem like an all new idea (culture)
• Example - Indian Constitution borrowed from Britain; but the Constitution is very much different
Frietz Grabner (1877-1934) :-
• He was an Australian anthropologist, inspired by Ratzel and Leo Ethnography - detailed study of culture
• wrote a book - Methodder Ethnology (comparative study of a culture)
• provides comparative account of multiple cultures in Oceania region
• Initially there was a group of people with basic culture which divided into several bands (sub groups)
• They got isolated; due to which they developed their own culture
• They then started to move in different directions and spread their culture
• However during moving and spreading their culture, they might have crossed their paths, when the cultural exchange took place
• He studied Oceania region and divided it into 6 Culture Circles -

1. Tasmanian Culture Circle - Oldest

2. Boomerang Culture of Australia
3. Totemic Culture (Northern Australia and some islands of Melanesia)
4. 2 Class Horticulturalists (society divided between commoners and chiefs)
5. Melanesian Bow Culture
6. Polynesian Patrilineal Culture (latest)

Father Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954 ) :-

• He was also inspired by Ratzel, Leo and Grabner
• He wanted to identify Culture Circles all across the world on the basis of Criteria of Quantity and Quality
• On the basis of that he divided the world into 4 major circles -

1. Primitive Culture Circle —> related to hunting and gathering; developed in 3 areas of the world -Exogamous Pygmy, Arctic Circle,
Antarctic Circle

2. Primary Culture Circle —> associated with Emergence of Agriculture, Domestication of animals and beginning of settled life. Three sub
circles -
• Patriarchal cattle rearing nomads Higher hunters :- better technology of hunting
• Exogamous patrilineal totemic higher hunters
• Exogamous Matrilineal Horticultural Village Dwelling People

3. Secondary Culture Circle —> associated with intensive agriculture and surplus production. Two sub circles -
• A Free Patrilineal System (originated in Polynesia, Sudan and India)
Free means complete here
• A Free Matrilineal System (originated in China and Melanesia)

4. Tertiary Circle/State —> associated with civilisation or state like formation (originated in Egypt, Maya, Mesopotamia)

• He came with the theory - Ur Monotheismus, to support his theory

• suggesting that monotheism was the original form of religion
• Followed by Polytheism
• He said that polytheism evolved from monotheism, i.e. degenerated form of monotheism
American School of Diffusionism :-

Franz Boas :-
• He was a German Jew, working in museum of Germany before moving to America
• he had a debate with colleague - can we not arrange the objects in tens of geographical continuity than
• it made him understand that objects found in the near areas had more similarity, suggesting diffusion
• Imitation is the major source of diffusion, and not migration
• He realised the drawbacks of German School, and planned on focusing on smaller regions rather than studying entire world at once
• It is always better to study small geographical region/Culture Area having same culture. And diffusion in such area would have
occurred because of IMITATION and not Migration.

Clark Wissler (1870 - 1947) :-

• admitted to university of Columbia; was mentored by Franz boas
• was very much against the evolutionist that categorised entire America into one category (Savagery or Barbarism)
• He wanted to highlight uniqueness of tribes
• Culture is a learnt behaviour and hence can be imitated
• and hence it is easier to imitate somebody who is closer, with whom you can have greater contact
• Therefore, groups residing nearby would have greater similarities
• Divided the entire American Sub continent into 8 Culture Areas. He opted Subsistence as the criteria to distinguish between these
areas.

1. Caribou - Eskimos
2. Bison - Plains
3. Salmon - North Pacific Coast
4. Wild seeds - California
5. Eastern Maize - Eastern woodland
6. Intensive agriculture - Mexico and Peru
7. Maniac - Amazon forest
8. Guanaco - Paraguay Argentina

• He claimed that these culture areas would have uniform environment/ecology; hence same mode of subsistence
• and this culture area would show the pattern of diffusion

Culture Centre :-
• refers to the point of initial settlement
• And this is the place where culture of this region would have originated

Age - Area Principle :-

• All the cultural traits diffused in the all the directions at the same speed
• Hence, any trait which covers more area would be older one

Criticism —>
1. Edward Sapir suggested that Age - Area Principle is not true.
Alfred L Kroeber :-
• he was a Jew who migrated to America. Entered university of Columbia where he was mentored by Franz Boas and Clark Wissler
• In 1900 joined university of California as professor
• California was one a colonised area
• Many of the tribes were losing their culture. Hence, he decided to studied culture of California
• 1901 - 1911 he studied tribes of California
• He did Salvage Ethnography - last moment effort to study a culture that is soon going to be extinct.lll
• The data was compiled in a book - Handbook of Indians of California (this book is still tarred to get info about tribes)
• In 1911, police called Kroeber and his collared saying that there was a person - Yahi. And Kroeber and others were to identify whether he
was actually a Yahi
• Yahi tribe was massacred by European settlers and only few were to escape and move to California
• Kroeber took the person to university of California and made a janitor
• That person said that taking his name was a taboo in his culture. So, Kroeber named him Ishi (meaning man in his culture)
• After Kroeber’s death, his wife, wrote a book about Ishi (on the accounts of others)
• Ishi died in 1950s. Police wanted to do autopsy. Kroeber allowed but Ishi had the culture of not cutting body after death
• Therefore, Kroeber faced criticism post that
• In the book - Handbook of Indians of California, Kroeber claimed that there were very varied linguistic diversity
• He could not support Clark Wissler’s Culture Area idea and henceforth divided the entire American Sub continent into 7 Grand Areas,
21 Areas and 63 Sub areas
• Kroeber gave the idea - Culture Climax and Culture Intensity to fight the criticism of Edward Sapir

Culture Climax (dynamic of culture centre) -

• point where there of maximum expression of the culture
• Culture expression is highest and most vibrant
• This will always be the point from where diffusion will take place
• It is dynamic; i.e. It may change because of migration etc
• Example - Paris is the Culture Climax of France (fashion, perfumes etc). If some other place is made capital, that might become the
Culture Climax

Culture Intensity -
• It means degree of expression of culture at a place
• Maximum Culture Intensity at Culture Climax and minimum at the boundary manen
• It will help in identifying start and end point of Culture
• Example - Culture Intensity minimum at the border of Kerala - Tamil Nadu, and when we enter Tamil Nadu

Culture Configuration -
• We are passive robots of the culture. We do not control the culture, rather the culture controls us
• Culture is not a random accumulation of bits and pieces
• It is a well organised way of pattern of life
• Culture is non-genetic, homogenous, anonymous, shared patterned way of life
• All the pieces of culture are arranged in a coherent manner which gives configuration grand design of culture
• Culture itself will determine the changes it might undergo; i.e. to bring a change in culture, it must be coherent with the existing
culture
• Culture is Super organic - we created culture, but once created culture controls us. Example - money
Historical Particularism :-
• Franz boas
• Marvin Harris coined this term
• Franz boas born in Germany; was from a well off Jewish family
• Haskalah Movement - Jews started Jewish Enlightenment; moving towards science, reason, logic, without leaving their culture
• Boas’s mother was a feminist
• In 1881 boas completed PhD in physics. After that he went for 6 months of mandatory military service
• It was then when he came across different groups and became curious
• In 1883, he single-handedly drove to Baffin Island - inhabited by Eskimos
• From 1883-84 he documented about them. All his compilations was written in the book - The Central Eskimos
• He applied the idea of common humanity and intelligence - meant that those Eskimos were same as Europeans
• He had to leave Europe because of the Jewish hate and moved to USA
• He at last settled in University of Columbia
• 1886-1931, He was studying a community - Kwakiul
• Made 12 major trips to Kwakiul and wrote hundreds of
• He wanted to counter two theories - Cultural Evolutionism and Racial determinism
• He contradicted psychic Unity of mankind; but he said that it could be interpreted in the sense that all are equally intelligent
• He stated that there is no relationship between skin colour and intelligence
• He was against this because he also was facing discrimination against Jews in Germany
• He found writing about the natives from the native’s own point of view
• For that he suggested writing in the native’s language itself; for this he collaborated with natives
• Currently the tribes of Kwakiul are trying to revive their culture and for that they are using Franz boas’s descriptions
• Historical Particularism :- Boas said that culture is an integrated whole produced by specific historical process and not merely a stage
in evolution
• That means experiences from the past have built that culture
• For evolutionists he said that their theory was untested and untestable and had three major flaws :-
a) Unilinear flow was wrongly assumed
b) Notion of contemporary societies as evolutionary survivals
c) Classification based on weak data
• He said that they imposed a theory on the data rather than deriving theory from the data, hence the theory was flawed
• He said that their ideas about technology was somewhat correct but the decent idea was flawed
• For Kwakiul tribe he found that they moved from patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent
• He said that different cultures can reach same stage using different paths
• And similar cultural practice in a society can be because of different reasons; for example A & B follow polygyny(in A it could be
because of high male mortality while in B it could be because of unequal distribution of resources among males)
• Similar case for Polyandry (A because of fewer women while B because of lack of land (to prevent division of land))
• 3 Basic factors for development of a culture -
a) Environmental factors
b) Individual Psyche
c) Historical Connections
• These were required to reconstruct the history of a culture

Methodology :-
He said that anthropologists should collect data as much as possible and as soon as possible. If there is a law, it will automatically out of the
large data collected. He therefore asked to go through inductive approach - specific to general. Deductive approach - General to specific

Idea of Relativism :-
He says that every culture is a result of unique historical past. Therefore we should follow the practice of relativism and avoid ranking of
cultures.
Functionalism :-
• After Boas, people shifted on their approach from diachronic studies to synchronic studies (culture as it exists at present).
• They say that any cultural practices that exist in present perform certain functions.
• It means that culture is not arbitrary; we are performing culturing because it is satisfying to certain needs; i.e. It has some kind of
function
• The idea of functionalism was inspired by the idea of Organic Analogy - organic analogy compares society with living organism
• Example - cells create tissue —> tissues create organs —> organs create organism
• Just like cells there are individuals who live in groups --> institutions —> society
• The idea of Organic Analogy was given by Herbert Spencer
• Function is partial contribution to total activity of which it is a part
• As per them
• They reject the idea of survival

‘Needs’ & function

• Headed by Radcliffe Brown

• Headed by Bronislaw Malinowski

Bronislaw Malinowski :-
• born in Poland and did PhD in marks and physics. Was from a well to do family.
• After PhD he fell ill and it was then when he read - Golden Bough by James Fraser which made him pursue anthropology
• In 1909 he visited London and came in contact with C G Seligman (who was associated with Torrer Strait expedition)
• He wrote a thesis on - The Family among Australian aborigines
• He did no field work and based entirely based on study done by Seligman
• After PhD he wanted to go for field work, And then he came in contact with R G Marett (British Administrator in Australia)
• He went to Australia with him.
• In 1914, because of First World War, having passport of Austria, he was declared alien on an enemy territory. He was restricted to
Australia till the war finished, which acted like a blessing in disguise for him
• For 3 years (1915-18), He did field work - visited two islands - Talua and Trobriand (spent major time here)
• He made participation observation (studying a community by being a member of them)
• He decided to stay near the chief of the village, living among the community
• He also learned the language of Trobriand
Pidgin - communicating using
• To develop native’s point of view, he practised their culture
common understanding
• He wrote a diary on the people of Tobriand, that was published by his wife after his death
• His diary revealed something that was completely different from his teachings
• After coming from Tobriand, he married and had 3 daughters. Went back to Tobriand, from there back to Britain
• In 1922 he published his book - Argonants of Western Pacific and became the hero of anthropology, influencing upcoming anthropologists
• In his book - Scientific Theory of Culture and other essays, he defined culture as an instrumental apparatus to satisfy human organic/
biological needs. Culture gives the capability to cope up with challenges one faces in the environment because of the body. He said that
environment is the best friend and the worst enemy of an individual.
• Culture is a means to an end
Social Institution - recurrent activity or behaviour which is
• Culture expresses itself through social institutions
socially acceptable
• Institutions are integrated responses to variety of needs of humans
•
• Theory of Functionalism - through charter of an institution
• With all the institutions there would be certain norms that needs to be followed
• Also, every institution have certain positions that are filled with personnels
• These institutions will have material apparatus
• Some activities will be performed (function) to satisfy the needs
• Theory of Needs :-
•
• 3 levels of need - hierarchy
• i) Biological/Primary Needs (7) —> Metabolism, Reproduction, Bodily Comfort, Safety, Movement, Growth, and Health. There will be
cultural response to all these 7 needs
• Metabolism —> Commissariat
• Reproduction —> Kinship
• Bodily Comfort —> Shelter
• Safety —> Protection
• Movement —> Activities (various economic and political activities that require muscular function)
• Growth —> Training
• Health —> Hygiene
• ii) Derived Needs —> Culture responses are :-
• Socio Control - to regulate human behaviour
• Education - for socialisation
• Economic - Rules related to production and exchange of goods and services
• Political Organisation - for enforcement of authority
• iii) Integrative needs —>
• Psychological need to tackle cognitive and emotional aspect
• Justify the existence of institutions
• help evaluate your behaviour
• give a sense of confidence, stability and self respect
• Integrative needs will give sensual pleasure
• Responses are Science, Magic, Myth, Religion and Art
• Science :- accumulated knowledge due to experience
•

Idea of Economic Anthropology :-

•
• While studying Trobrianders he was surprised to know that there existed no material information regarding economic activities of
simple society
• The evolutionist idea was that economy emerged only in the evolved societies but Malinowski countered this idea claiming that economy
existed in all societies regardless of how primitive the society was
• He said that Trobrianders are nor logical, nor rational and not utilitarian in economic affairs rather they favoured social relations
• He found well defined division of labour on the basis of age and sex
• Trade activities regularly conducted with neighbouring islands
• Ownership - is neither private nor communal but both
• He wrote the book - The Argonauts of Western Pacific

Kula Ring Ceremony :-

• They regularly engaged in the practice of exchanging something with neighbouring islanders
Mwali

Di
Soulava Mwali and Soulava are
·
jewelleries with no
commercial value
Wasi :- 7 Inner village - will cultivate
• acts as an insurance and ensures social continuity Yam and no fishing

S Outer village - will do fishing

Island but note cultivate yam

Urigubu :-
• society here is Matrilineal but Patrilocal (i.e. descent will be passed from mother’s side but woman after marriage will move to husband’s
house).
• Once a year during harvest 3/4th of the harvest will be sent to the man’s sister
• That woman will display all that in her village as a symbolic gesture to display that she still has that authority and respect
• Similarly, his wife will also get 3/4th of harvest from her brother, ensuring the cycle goes on

Study of Kinship (in the article - Kinship Algebra) :-

• He said that his predecessors were focusing more on the terminologies (names) while he saw no point in that
• Kinship terminology is nothing but a ‘noun’
• What we need to understand is the function that it plays. Kinship is an cultural response to the reproductive needs of humans.
• One particular institution can satisfy more than one need; for example - Kinship not only satisfy the need of reproduction but also
economic inheritance, political succession etc

Crux of Malinowski’s theory —> Every culture institution exists to satisfy the individual biological needs. And need is
a physiological/biological condition, satisfaction of which is necessary for an organism. Three types of needs.

Criticism/Controversy of Malinowski :-
1. Oversimplified or mere Utilitarian perspective of a theory —> Max Gluckman said that it is futile to train an anthropologist, go to
Africa, spend a lot, just to study food, made and space
2. He just studied Trobrianders and used that study to generalise into an universal law for all the societies
3. As per him if every human has the same need, why variety of cultures
4. This theory is not discussing the post of the culture - Ahistorical nature of the theory
5. He assumes an over-harmonious picture of the culture. However, there is a possibility that some of our behaviours would be counter
productive to us. Example - they questioned this logic after the World War, that if everything was done to satisfy the need of an
individual, then why the war?
6. Malinowski in his book had mentioned the impact of Britishers on Trobrianders - as they were influencing change in culture. Example -
Introduction of cricket among Trobrianders
7. Annetc Weinner - a feminist scholar who went to Trobriand Island decades later and found Malinowski’s study did not mention anything
regarding the female role - hence an endocentric approach, male centred.
8. After 25 years of his death, his widow V Swann published his diary - A Diary in Strict Sense of Terms. Nobody was ready to write the
preface of the book as it would end Malinowski’s era. Then came his friend - Raymond Firth, another biological functionalist after
Malinowski. Malinowski was appreciated more for the method he used for observation than his theory. Malinowski used the word Niggas
more than 30 times, showing implicit racism.
Structural Functionalism by Radcliffe Brown (1881-1955) :-

• Brown studied from University of Cambridge and mentored by A C Haddon

• He came to India to study Andamanese tribe - Onge (1906-08)
• After two years of study he wrote a PhD thesis on Onge
• After that he visited Australia and studied Australian aborigines (1911-12)
• There he was influenced by Emile Durkheim (Male Sociologist who dealt with idea of functionalism)
• When he wrote about Onge earlier, he just wrote as it is but after reading approach of Durkheim, he followed functionalist approach and
then wrote the book - The Andaman Islanders (1922)
• This book was published in the same year as The Argonauts of Western Pacific (1922); and both talked about functionalism
• However, Malinowski’s book was published first, so got the greater recognition
• Some stories suggest that it was Radcliffe Brown who told Malinowski about functionalist approach but the latter got the credit
• They are considered as arch rivals
• Brown suggested that function of culture is to maintain stability in a society
• And aim of social anthropology is to discover law like generalisations that are applicable on society
• Durkheim was concerned about how social order is maintained; gave the fact - Social Fact, a way of thinking, acting, and believing that is
external to an individual - have coercive power over individuals. Example: the expectation to wear certain clothing in public or to obey
traffic laws are social facts that shape

Durkheim used the concept of social facts to argue that society is more than just a collection of individuals; it is a structure with
its own reality that shapes the behavior and consciousness of individuals. This concept is foundational to understanding how
societies function and how individuals are influenced by the social environment around them.

• He says that crime, suicide and unemployment are also a part of social fact; as there has to be some amount of crime to have the role of
police and maintain social structure
• As for suicide, Durkheim suggested that it was because of some social circumstances - integration and regulation of the society
• Altruistic Suicide —> suicide without any expectations (common in case of high integration) ; example - kamakazi suicide, bombing pearl
harbour despite knowing that they have no fuel to come back
• Egoistic Suicide —> happens when there is low integration in society (low support system); example - farmers suicide
• Fatalistic Suicide —> happens when there is high regulation in society (behaviour is controlled); example - 9 to 5 worker’s suicide
• Anomic Suicide —> happens when there is very low regulation (when country witnesses quick change); example - Punjab Post Green
Revolution changed drastically, high income, less regulation, too many drug activities
• Some amount of all this is normal; but if the number rises unprecedentedly, the society shall be called Pathalogical

Theory of Structural Functionalism & Idea of Need :-

• Need is the necessary condition of existence of society
• Function is to maintain the stability
• Brown says that there is a functional unity; all institutions work together - Eunomia; whereas when society does not work in
coordination, it is known as Dysnomia
• However, Brown says that society will never reach a stage where society can not be regulated; the moment there are some forces trying
to break society, there will come a mechanism that will bring back equilibrium to the society

Social Structure & Social Institution :-

• Structure means arrangement of parts with respect to one another in the functional unity; example - different parts of case arranged
to create a car
• As for a social structure, the parts are ‘individuals’. I.e. arrangement of persons; example - Family, Class etc
• Structure is permanent, regardless of which individual is playing which role
Social Institutions :- recurrent form of
• Social Institutions are the ones that give permanence to these structures
activity that is socially acceptable
• When you’re part of this social institution, it will give you a position - i.e. STATUS
• It will also define a ROLE to you - i.e. expected behaviour out of a person occupying a social status
• The structure will remain stable only when people occupying a particular status fulfils their role
•
Elements of Structure & Institution :-

• Normative System —> some norms/value system that everyone should follow
• Position System —> will allocate every individual a space in social structure
• Sanction System —> if not following norms, sanctions to be imposed
• System of Anticipated Responses —> Role
• Action System —> Final goal for which an institution was created

• Explaining Domestic Violence from Structural Functionalist Perspective - It happens to maintain patriarchal social order
• Untouchability - to maintain the hierarchical arrangement of castes

Ceremonial Weeping of Andaman Islanders :-

• Brown wrote the book - The Andaman Islanders (1922) in which he gave his idea from Structural functionalist point of view
• He talks about a phenomena in Andamanese where they have to undergo ceremonial weeping (to maintain social structure)
• Example - two friends seeing each other after long (in order to re connect the disrupted order)` `
Totemism :-
• belief in which people assume that they originated from an animal or a plant
• He studied some Australian aborigines/tribes between 1910-12 and found that they are divided into Exogamous Moieties
Tribe

Moiety Moiety

Phratry

Clans

• Moeity 1 - Eaglehawk (Kilpara) Lineage

• Moeity 2 - Crow (Makwara)
• He wanted to understand what kind of function this totem is playing in the society
• So he started to analyse the stories of eagle hawks and crows; found that they have a lot of reference in the mythologies with the
similarity that they both are meat eaters
• Eagles hawks hunts while crows steals the meat
• In stories they have been shown in regular conflict with each other
• He said that these birds were chosen as they reflect the exact relationship between the moeties
• Despite belonging to the same tribe, they were completely different with just same tribe as the similarity
• Totems is the reflection of structure i.e. structure will be satisfied
• Totem is nothing but identity of a group
• He said that structure is always dyadic in nature i.e. There are always two participants in a structure (whatever you are, you will be
defined with respect to someone)
• Totem is an identity, and the identity makes sense only with respect to someone

Kinship :-
• WHR Rivers and Morgan claimed that kinship terminologies reflects ancient practices
• Brown contradicted that; he also read Kroeber’s writings who said that it is human psychology that is responsible for kinship
terminology; human psychology created language that created kinship terminology: he also said that human psychology is responsible
for behaviour but kinship terminology is not related to kinship behaviour (completely independent from each other)
• Brown countered Kroeber claiming that they both are related
• He started focusing on the societies that practiced classification kinship terminologies
• He says that in primitive society, majority of the affairs of daily life is maintained by kinship (therefore kinship is very important in
primitive societies)

• Three major principles in Classificatory terminologies :-

• i) Unity of Siblings - considered as a single unit by an outsider
• ii) Unity of Lineage - lineage members (khandaan) are considered as a single unit by the outsiders
• iii) Generational Principle

• Kinship Behaviours :- two conditions to avoid tension between kinship

• i) Joking Relation - between same generation
• ii) Avoidance - between different generations

• Nation of Extension of Sentiment :-

• Suppose one’s relationship with his father is of awe and fear while with mother it is familiar, warm and cozy
• Brown noticed that the sentiment one have with his father, is the same with father’s sister ie extension of sentiment. That is why he
calls father’s sister as female father
• Similarly, mother’s brother relation will be the same as with the mother; hence known as Mother’s brother
• Since father’s sister and mother’s brother are living in different houses, to still maintain the connection, he behaves in a similar way as
with father and mother
•
Ancestor Worship :-
• Ancestors attain supernatural status - they decide the fortune
• It is important as it will reinforce the bond of kinship, assuring unilinear descent
• It will bring stability by mechanism of social control
• It legitimises authority in a family structure

Economic Anthropology :-
• He studied a process- Potlach among Kwakiuls
• The aspiring chief will accumulate a lot meat or goods; once accumulated, he will distribute the goods
• Larger the amount, more people will attend the feast; Greater will be the status of the aspiring chief
• This mechanism is used in a Prestige Economy (where wealth is decided by prestige)
• Potlach is maintaining the structure (chief’s hierarchy) by redistribution of wealth

Structuralism

• This theory says that Culture is a result of preprogrammed code of human mind
• Structure functionalism talked about how structure is maintained while Structuralism talks about how structure is created
• Structure is perceived
• Aim of culture is to discover unconscious thinking pattern that creates structure
• Influenced by an approach in Gestalt Psychology - Human experiences and thoughts are patterned; We impose structures or patterns on
external stimuli i.e. fed into our brain
• Examples - Closure and proximity

Proximity
( we interpret it as 3 rows and not 3 Law of Similarity
Closure columns because of the rows proximity)
• law of continuity and law of similarity

• Structural linguistics —> idea given by scholar Ferdinand De Saussure; language should be seen as an interwoven structure where any
part acquires meaning only with respect to the whole (a single chess piece kept in isolation on board makes no sense but when kept with
all pieces makes perfect sense)
• Another example - Phonic—> cat, cake, fat, father, caught (despite letter there in every word, where it is put makes the difference)
• Structural linguistics wants to find sounds that are arranged in a particular sequence to create meaningful words
• They believed that any word or any two sounds will have two structural differences :-
• i) Signifier - sound
• ii) Signified - mental image on hearing that sound
• Relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary (no relation)
• Language is made of hidden rules that we know but cannot articulate
Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) :-

• Just like language, culture is also made similarly with hidden rules which we know but cannot articulate; Gave the idea of Collective
unconsciousness
• Culture and language are homologous (same origin-brain), correlates (human mind’s structure) and analogous (same in function-
communication)
• There are only three forms of communication -
i) Words
ii) Goods and services
iii) Exchange of women
• And for these culture plays an important role

Idea of Binary Opposites & Creation of Culture —>

Three Important rules given by Durkheim :-
• People follow rules
• Reciprocity is the simplest way to create social relation
• A gift binds both giver and recipient in a continuous social relation
T
Binary opposites -
• Me vs You
• Us vs them
• M vs F
• Raw vs Cooked
• Public vs Private
• Good vs Bad
• God vs Evil

Elementary
• In this book he teaches how kinship affects us

Incest Taboo :-
• He says that It exists only because of the fact of we existing as binary opposites
• It will create rules for exchange of women

Descent Theory :-
• given by Radcliffe Brown
• Suggested that solidarity in kinship is because of blood relations (unilineal descent)
• One’s own identity is irrelevant (identified based on the lineage)
• Unilineal descent works like a corporate group
• Said that marriage is not important and done just for procreation
• It is because of incest taboo that we do not marry inside the group (considers it a negative)
• Marriage is ephemeral in nature

Alliance Theory :-
• counter idea of descent theory by Strauss
• Blood is not important in kinship; alliance/marriage is important
• Multiple groups because of exchange of women will create a multi generational federation leading to alliteration
• He says that Incest taboo is a positive force ( Incest taboo is a pre social social fact)
• He says that it was incest taboo because of which we made society for exchange of women
Analysis of Avanculate :-
• Avanculate means relation of a person vis a vis his mama
• Amitate means relation of a person vis a vis his bua
• Relation with Mother’s brother will be opposite to that with Father
• In the same relation, relationship of husband and wife cannot be understood in isolation; it can be understood vis a vis wife and wife’s
brother relation
• If relationship between husband and wife is cosy, relationship between wife and wife’s brother will be formal and vice versa

Ego is the person from the point of view of whose you’re analysing the family

+ —> Familiar and warm relation

— —> A formal relationship

A B C D

Ego & Father + + - -

Ego & Mother’s brother - - + +
Husband & Wife + - + -
Ego’s mother and - + - +
mother’s brother

Totemism :-
• idea is completely similar to what brown suggested
• is a linguistic and classificatory device to order social relationship between groups

Structural Analysis of Myths :-

• Just like phonemes, myths are gulped of mythemes
• Myths are also created by arrangement and rearrangement of mythemes

Mythemes

Sequence - events in myths Schemata - Organisation of events

Break down the myths

Y

Mythemes
Y

Pattern of engagement of mythemes

-

Binary opposites
Edmund Leach (1910 - 1989) :-
•.was a British anthropologist; has been given a title Anglo
• was a trader in a British company, posted in China; observed Chinese civilisation and used to write a letter to a friend in Britain
• In one letter he suggested that in Chinese civilisation things seemed Back to front (extraordinarily thought about)
• came back to Britain to pursue anthropology and met a friend - Rosemary Upcot, whose husband was Raymond Firth
• Firth asked him to attend Malinowski’s event
• He met Noel Stevenson there, who was an army person, posted in Myanmar
• He joined army and even rose to The Major rank
• In his early years he was influenced by Functionalism, then later Structuralism, and then left even that
• He wrote a book - Structural Anthropology
• He says that Structuralism is very much valid from the Lens of mathematics (+, 0, -)
• + and - being binary; one cannot be understood without the cognisance of other
• 0 is betwix and between (neither positive nor negative but both from the same time)
• He says that we apprehend the outer world, by seeing in the same manner through a lens (how our brain is designed to see)
• Time and space exist in the form of continuum (i.e. without any breaks); we tend to categorise it
• When we create cultural ceremonies, we use the same categories that we use to label or categorise the outer world
• We think in the form of Opposites and Meditation (+,- —> opposites, 0 —> meditation)
• When we classified animals, we classified into - domestic and wild animals; third category when we created, it was creeping animals
(neither wild nor domestic)
• We classified animals on the basis of habitat - first terrestrial and marine ; later amphibian

Analysis of Time and Rituals :-

• Opposites and Meditation idea seems valid when we perceive time; we pursue time in the form of some distinct events
• These events act as meditating category between past and the present (example 12:00 am, neither Monday, nor Tuesday, acts as
meditating event)
• One such distinct event is rituals/festivals (meditating category); to perceive that one year has passed
• Back then rituals was a measure to mark time
Idea of time first came from Rutua (Sanskrit word for menstruation) which followed
same pattern as lunar cycle (28 days)
Cosmology/Religion :-
• According to leach, cosmology and religion are also measured in Opposites and meditation
• World of Living Experience —> Church —> World of Imagination (Church being the mediator)
• Every deity we created in an opposite of human culture (Nature as Animal, Deity as Meditation point with commonalities, humans as
culture)
• Example - Traffic Signals creation in the form of opposites; first end of the spectrum - Red to stop, last end - Green to go; RBG
spectrum) When we required a colour for mediation, we chose orange from middle of the spectrum

Idea he developed through field work :-

• conducted fieldwork in Burma and wrote - Political System of Highland Burma; gave two ideas
1. Processual Approach —>
• Society is a process in time (dynamic)
Oscillating Equilibrium —> represents a combination of both the equilibrium in society ands society as a process in time (dynamic) because
of internal and external factors which will create a flux
• achieving new state of equilibrium at every point
• He strictly rejects static nature of society
• Using this idea He studied a community - Kachins (lived on hilly Myanmar region)
• Kachins are surround by Shan people
• Hilly region divided into multiple villages, further divided into clans with autonomy
• Shan groups live in plain with extreme hierarchy and extreme centralised political power
• Kachins are never in a state of Gumlao (egalitarian state), and are in the Gumsa state (middle point between egalitarian state and
centralised political power)
• Villagers are by default egalitarian but due to internal and external forces they stand as Gumsa
Culture & Personality
• becomes important for two reasons
• i) interdisciplinary discipline of anthropology and psychology
• ii) Moreover, it marks the entry of females in anthropological discipline
• They say that culture and personality are interrelated and to study a culture, we could study personality
• To identify culture of the society and the personality of the individuals possessing it
• Personality is the combination of Social, Mental and Physical traits of a person
• Here they want to identify relations between these traits

Major Influence —>

• It was influenced by Sigmund Freud (Father of Psychology)
• He said that our mind is always in a search for pleasure, reward (Pleasure Principle)
• A person following Pleasure Principle will lead to over eating, sleep
• Fh
• This adjustment is done using child rearing practices; By shifting mind from Pleasure Principle to Reality Principle

ID Ego Super Ego

• innate • accommodates both ID and Super Ego • governed by rules, regulations, moral,
• Follows Pleasure Principle • Freud says Ego is the horse and ID is the rider ethics
• Is the active consciousness - trying to balance • More inclined towards the norms
Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle

• Infantile neurosis - deep anxiety due to poor psychological development

• He explained the three phases of child rearing practice -

1. Oral Phase —>

• training with the ingestion of food (trained to consume food)
• If it goes wrong, the child will find pleasure in over eating, throwing the food

2. Anal Phase —>

• refers to toilet training; trained to excrete
• develops sense of authority - authority training

3. Phallus Phase/ Phallic Phase —>

• refers to sex training happening in the age 3-6 years
• Freud says that every child has some kind of sexual feeling towards mother or father
• This phase trains them to incest taboo; that such things are originated
• Freud said that love is not related to sex;
• if this training goes weak, a person will have issues related to commitment

Experiences during childhood play a very important role during adult personality formation
There are 3 major sub branches of this school :-

Configuration Approach by Ruth Cultural Determinist Approach Basic Personality Approach

Benedict ( P —> C) ( C —> P) by Margaret Mead ( P <—> C) By Ralph Linton, Abram
Kardiner, Cora Du Bois
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) :-
• From a patriarchal society; one of the first women to go for graduation
• She studied English and Poetry; got married to Stanley Benedict in 1914 and divorced in 1921
• She went to a lecture of Franz Boas in 1921 and then followed Anthropology Discipline
• She completed her PhD by 1924 under Franz Boas - Concept of Guardian Spirit in North America
• She said that there is an idea of Guardian Spirits in minds of some tribes of North America; marking them responsible for everything
happening in their life
• Hence, this Guardian Spirit is the centre of all activities in their life; marriage, economics, politics etc
• She concluded that in this society Guardian Spirit is a point of origination and everything is then connected with it
• In 1924, she did a fieldwork in a society - Zuni (Mexico); used this to write a book - Patterns of Culture, that made her quite famous
• It was published in 1934; she said that Culture is made up of elements and the smallest elements are called traits; these traits are
clubbed together to make cultural complexes
• Complexes - several cultural traits that coexist together
• Multiple complexes coming together will create a pattern
• Pattern - a way of arrangement of traits and complexes
• She was concerned with underlying values that bring the cultural traits together, known as Pattern
• Configuration - grand design of Culture; the collective appearance
• What is the basis of integration of elements of culture?
• She said that it is nothing but Temperament (Special Genius) which will act as basis of integration of cultural elements
• Apollonian Genius —> reflects temperament such as kindness, reason, rationality, logic, peace, cooperation etc
• Dionysian Genius —> reflects values like Megalomaniac (someone who considers himself very important), luxurious, aggressive,
destructive etc
• Her basic idea - Culture is Personality writ at large; i.e. Personality is the one that will determine the cultural choices an individual
makes

Three types of Societies :-

Zuni - studied by Ruth Benedict and Ruth Benzel Dobu - studied by Reo Fortune Kwakiutl - studied by Franz Boas

• people living in Mexico • People are paranoid, secretive, • people are megalomaniacs
• Are peace loving, cooperative, lack of treacherous and suspicious • Chiefs are individualist and
individualism and nobody wants to stand out • Dionysian Genius selfish
• Showing Apollonian genius • Magic is to harm others • Reflection in the Potlatch
• Magic is for welfare of all • Being in conflict is a virtue and activity
• Economic activities is not for personal gain every activity shows treachery
• Marriage is not a special activity
• Priests and all have no special positions

Ethical Relativism :-

Anthropology & Abnormal :-

• Every society provides a framework to act upon; and in that framework whatever is acceptable is considered normal, and
unacceptable is abnormal
• There is no possibility of universality of moral codes
• Modern society should not consider their culture to be top most achievement of mankind;
• She says that idea of normal and abnormal will vary from society to society; something that is normal in one, could be abnormal in
another. Example - Dobus are treacherous, and if an American visits there, he will be considered a deviant, and abnormal; similarly Dobu
coming to USA will be abnormal for Americans
• Normal - Abnormal are culture specific in nature
Margaret Mead (1901 - 1987) :-
• a cultural determinist, i.e. culture shapes personality
• it was her fieldwork that provided for the foundation of feminist movement
• She was a majors in English and Psychology; then she opted Anthropology by attending Franz Boas’ lecture
• She was convinced by Ruth Benedict to join Boas as her student and she did her first fieldwork among Pacific Islands - Samoa
• She was first married to Luther Cresman, then to Leo Fortune and then to Gregory Bateson and then turned homosexual with Ruth
Benedict
• she had a daughter with Gregory Bateson - Catherine Bateson
• Her family doctor was Benjamin Spock, ; she first did psychoanalysis of him and then did an experiment with him
• She introduced a partner - demand fed feeding
• every mother today is following the feeding pattern that was started by Margaret Mead
• With this experiment she gave the statement - childhood experiences have a grave impact on the personality
• Second reason she is famous for is - after her death, her Girlfriend Rhoda Matreaux published her letters
• The study that made her famous was - Coming of Age in Samoa
• Franz Boas decided Samoa as the place for Mead as he found this place safe for a woman
• G Stanley Hall gave the statement that at the age of adolescence, there is a rebellion attitude that develops in them
• Franz boas wasn’t satisfied with this statement and thought that it had nothing to do with biology; for this he sent Margaret to Samoa
• She took samples of 68 girls in the age group 8-20, i.e. pre adolescent, adolescent and post puberty girls
• She found that there is no rebellion attitude found in them, claiming G Stanley Hall’s statement incorrect as she found an exception
• She said that incase of Samoa culture is very emotionless and things like poverty, pregnancy, birth, death etc are talked about
• Child was made aware of all these at young age, and therefore when she actually faced menstruation, it was like every other day as she
already knew about it
• She said that the rebellion has to do with cultural practices and not biology
• This shaped her theory that Culture shapes Personality
• Growing up in New Guinea -
• In American psychology the prevalent view was that mind of a child of USA is equal to mind of a primitive man and equal to mind of a
psychotic individual
• The people who have childish mindset, promotes animistic beliefs
• To prove these idea wrong, she said that as per the above idea Mind of a primitive child will be less developed than a man of primitive man
but primitive man is more animistic; whereas it should have been child, as his mind was less developed
• She proved that primitive child is trained to be animistic, to be member of the society
• These two theories are important from the Nature vs Nurture debate perspective
• Mead and Boas supported the Nurture argument, hence wanted to prove Nature laws untrue, i.e. it is because of biology how you are
• Sex and Temperament in three primitive Societies -
• This book gave rise to feminism
• Sex - What you are biologically; XX or XY
• Gender - Social aspects of behaviour; example - males - masculinity, female - feminine characteristics - love, care, warmth
• The belief in US then was that men are hard wired (biologically meant) to be masculine while female as feminine
• Mead wanted to counter this idea: she said that gender and gender roles are socially constructed
• Society trains a male to be masculine, or female to be feminine; trying to prove that it is Society that shape them that way
• For this she went to 3 societies in proximity of 100 km from each other -
Arapesh Mundugumor Tschambuli

• living in naturally protected area, near • Status of man is proportional to number of • Women are the economic providers; they go
hills wives to fields and men stay at home doing
• Population is low, yield is sufficient to • Polygyny hence becomes important, by household chores and child care
support it marriage by exchange • Females are having masculine features -
• Culture and cultural practices are • Polygyny causes jealousy among co wives, dominant, aggressive and possessive
cooperative, peace loving and and in marriage by exchange wives are • Males are submissive, having all the
harmonious unhappy to give birth to a girl, promoting feminine features
• Both male and female are submissive female infanticide
• The take equal part in Child care • Tension between father and sons as father
is exhausting all the females by marrying,
leaving him no choice
• Members of same sex are in conflict
• Men and women are equally aggressive

Balinese Character :-
• she went to Bali to study the society, finding that there are a lot of things that cannot be explained through words
• If tried explaining through words, it might not be understood well
• hence she started to use media for her study; videos and photographs - 22000 feet of films, equivalent to 10-12 hours of videos and
25000 photographs; it gave rise to Visual Ethnography as a medium
• She studied a community - Bajong Gede
• In this community she studied idea retailed to space-time orientation, leading to status
•

Basic Personality Approach

• As far as Benedict and Mead are concerned, one said Personality came first while the other claimed Culture - leading to a Chicken-Egg
debate
• Basic Personality Approach idea was that Culture shapes personality shapes culture (C—> P —> C), i.e. They are interrelated to each
other, hence one influences the other whereas other will influence the first one; like a circular pattern
• There Major Scholars - Ralph Linton, Abram Kardiner and Cora du Bois

Ralph Linton (1893-1953) :-

• coming from a Quaker family, father being an authoritarian person, he had a strict environment, so he hated authoritarian
• Co incidentally came across two authoritarian professors - Brown and Boas Me
• In 1911 - 1915, he followed archeology
• Post 1915, he studied under Franz Boas; Boas talked of Ralph Linton as not a very remarkable student hence not very keen on training
him, but Ralph Linton viewed Boas highly
• In 1916 during World War, he decided to support American side; while boas was against America joining the war
• During war, all he could think of was Anthropology, hence one was War was over, he went straight away to Boas asking for extension of
classes; Franz boas humiliated him and asked him to leave
• He then went to Harvard University to do PhD
• 1922-28, He worked in University of Chicago and from 1928-37, he worked at University of Wisconsin
• In 1937, he replaced Franz Boas as the head of Anthropology at University of Columbia
• He spent his final years (1946-53) at Yale University
• When he was in University of Chicago, he conducted a fieldwork on a community - Marquesans of Polynesia (1922)
• When he was in University of Wisconsin, he conducted a fieldwork on a community - Tanala of Madagascars (1928)
• He wrote a book - The Study of Man in which he defines culture as a sum total of knowledge, attitude and behaviour shared and
transmitted by man as a member of the society
• He says that culture has two major elements - Overt aspect of the culture and the Covert aspect of the culture
• He says that his predecessors were concerned only with overt aspect of the culture, i.e. What you see
• He was more interested in exploring the covert aspect of culture
• He says that any society you’re a part of - you will have a status and a role for it
• He said that status is of two types - Ascribed Status (by birth, eg: caste) and Achieved Status
• Two types of Roles - Ideal Role and Actual Role
• Status and role can be universal or not depending upon whether they are shared by all members of society
• Based on the above point, there are 3 elements of culture - Culture Universal (shared by all), Culture Alternatives and Culture
Specialists
• Culture Universal is seen mainly in the child rearing practices
• Culture Alternatives - two different individuals occupying the same status may not fulfill the role in same manner; example - two
teachers might not teach in the same manner
• also, a person occupying the status can also fulfill the role in two different manners in two different circumstances; example - getting
scolded by father, and scolding your father for his own good
• Culture Specialists - shared by few members only; example - different kind of knowledge despite same child rearing practices
• He wrote a book - The Culture Background of Personality, in which he suggests that child rearing practices shapes the basic personality
of the individuals in a society which will further shape the culture ( Child rearing practices —> Basic Personality —> Culture)

Abram Kardiner (1891 - 1981) :-

• shared the same idea as Linton but gave a different explanation
• He used to meet Linton in University of Wisconsin where they collaborated and presented their idea collectively
• He was a student of Sigmund Freud;
• He said we are all living under social and ecological restriction/exigencies; these exigencies get institutionalised (made compulsory for
everyone), which generates some kind of values that are fed to the brain, training our ego. This will lead to development of Basic
Personality. And this BP will generate some frustration in you.
• venting out of frustration is to create secondary institution;
• He did a fieldwork among the Afro American individuals; and found that they were facing discrimination (primary institution) since
childhood, which shaped up their basic personality, of which frustration is vented out with the help of rap music (secondary institution)
• Rap music doesn’t follow the rules of classical music, and in that they will highlight the issues they face
• Another secondary institution for them was Consumerism (consuming products to show off their wealth to the whites)
• Third Secondary institution he mentioned was smuggling, and weaponisation

Marquesans of Polynesia :-
• collective study of Ralph Linton and Abram Kardiner
• In this society there is Starvation due to drought and famine; and because of that there is very high female infanticide
• To cope up with this they created Polyandry (woman having multiple husbands)
• Polyandry led to two major issues - most of the women’s time is spent on maintaining their beauty, to keep herself attractive to all her
husbands. Second problem was the ignorance of child care because of lack of mother’s time
• Personality formation because of this - frustrating, lack of emotions, hatred and unfulfilling demand for dependency

Starvation due to drought and famine

3
Y

Female Infanticide
Y
Polyandry 1st institution

:
Women’s pursuit Importance of
to maintain her children
beauty -

3
Frustrating, Lack of emotions, hatred and Basic Personality
unfulfilling demand for dependency
-

• Folklore & myths representing the frustration

• Women are labelled as the negative character
• Characters - Seductrers, Cannibals, witches etc
3 2nd institution
Tanala Community of Madagascar :-
• talking about two time periods; before colonisation and after

• Before Colonisation - there was shifting cultivation and joint family, hence relative prosperity, due to which Father and Son relation
were cordial. This created Basic Personality of an individual - Happy, respectful
• These constraints led to practice of ancestor worship; with spirits image as benevolent

• After Colonisation - shifted towards wet rice cultivation with family breakdown (relative deprivation); this altered father-son
relationship; with Basic Personality of - conflict and competition
• Ancestor worship as a practice for modified in which the image of spirits changes from benevolent to malevolent (evil)

Cora Du Bois (1903 - 1997) :-

• she did her masters in anthropology from University of Columbia where she was mentored by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict
• Later did her PhD under Kroeber in University of California where she got to study many tribes of California region
• She stayed in Berkeley itself as she couldn’t find a job; it was then when she came in contact with Abram Kardiner when she learnt art of
psychoanalysis
• Kardiner sent her to do a fieldwork in Alor Island in Indonesia, which then was ruled by Netherlands
• She learnt the language of Alor, and could interpret poems etc
• She collected data - Life history of 8 people, dreams and drawings of children and TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) and Ink Blot Test
• She also did ethnographic fieldwork
• She sent 8 life histories to Kardiner, Dreams and drawings to Trude Schmidt, and TAT - Ink Blot Test to Emile Oberhozler
• None of them knew that 3 different data was shared with different scholars; so they were working blindly with her
• They all were asked what personality the perceive from the data; and all three came up with the same answer - personality of the people
was shallow, emotionless and suspicious
• Based on this she created an idea - Modal Personality; modal meaning most frequent data in a set of people
• She said that Modal Personality is the most frequent occurring personality in a group; Basic Personality is shared by all but does not
allow for variations in individuals; hence it was better to quote Modal Personality as it was present not among all but majority
• Her idea was the same that - Primary Institution —> Modal Personality —> Secondary Institution
• She found that vegetarian food or agriculture is controlled by women and men control meat and that’s why children are taken care by
older siblings; due to this there was frustration among children; they developed a personality that was mistrustful, suspicious with lack
of self confidence and self esteem; they do not commit to any relationship

Agriculture is controlled by women while men control meat

"
Children are taken care by older siblings

Frustration among children

3 1st institution

• mistrustful, suspicious
Modal Personality
• Lack of self confidence and self esteem
• They do not commit to any relationship 3 7 Of majority not all
Y

• No idealisation of deitiy
2nd institution
• Sacrifice occurs only in emergency
• No concept of forgiveness
3
Neo Evolutionism

• Neo means new and evolutionism is the process of change in culture

• It began in 1930s when there was a rise of Marxist theory in universities; Marxism suggested that material condition of a society will
have deterministic effect on culture
• Many anthropological scholars also got inspected by this; but then there was a tension between USA and USSR, and one who supported
Marxist theory was considered anti national; anyone supporting it would be shamed or persecuted
• Scholars to give a theory then, started to quote the scholars who influenced Marxism, i.e. Morgan and Tyler;
• It is a mechanism to describe new form of evolutionism; a mechanism to reduce the school of evolutionism
• As they believed that the scholars then didn’t gain much popularism
• They suggested that any change in means of production through technology or environmental factors will be a cause of change in other
aspects of culture
• Material condition of a society will change because of technological change and this materialistic change will bring change in other
aspects of culture like politics, kinship, marriage etc
• example - shift from agriculture towards industrialisation will bring change in family structure; as the latter requires mobility of
labour, changing the joint family structure to nuclear
• Their aim was to revive the school of evolutionism; the old scholars had the flaw of unilinear fashion
• So they claimed that evolutionism happened not in unilinear manner but rather in the form of a parabolic curve
A - less sophisticated X
culture

B - different Y culture

C - more sophisticated, evolved X

culture

• Example - in the initial stage we all roamed naked, in the second stage our entire body was covered with clothes, and now naked because of
fashion
• Example - initially communal ownership of land, then private lands (feudal lords), and now in centralised govt practices where govt own
the land as the ultimate power is in their hands
• Example - initially there was sexual promiscuous sex, then monogamy, and now there is no strict law related to monogamy
• Example - no globalisation, then globalisation, and now de globalisation
• A particular institution will develop to its peak, then a downfall, then again a rise followed by a downfall

Unilinear Universal Multi-Linear

• Tylor, Morgan, Fraser • concerned with culture of • There can be multiple paths
mankind/humanity as a whole of cultural evolution
• Not concerned about specific depending about technology
culture and environment there
• Gordon Childe and Leslie White • Julian Steward

Gordon Childe (1897 - 1957) :-

• was a universal evolutionist; concerned about culture of mankind in general
• He wrote a book - Social Evolution where he talked shot three major turning points in history of mankind -
• i) Invention of food production - first time the material condition changed substantially
• ii) Urbanisation - ultra surplus condition with cities
• He says that change can be understood with archaeological help -
• Palaeolithic - Savagery - Hunting and gathering
• Neolithic - Barbarism - Agriculture and settled life
• Chalcolithic/Copper Age - Higher Barbarism - surplus production
• Bronze Age - Civilisation - urbanisation and city life
• He said that culture progresses as man’s capacity to exploit the environment increases
• Morgan said that this change would pass through every culture, while Gordon didn’t focus on a single culture, rather the mankind as a
whole
Neolithic Revolution :-
• beginning of settled life, change in family system, development of society with high interdependence
• All this will be followed by urban revolution

Urban Revolution :-
• surplus —> prosperity —> archaic state
• change in religion, politics, family, ideologies
• Society will transform into hierarchical form from egalitarian

• He made a statement which led to a debate with Kroeber - Change In the Culture is a pre determined process; if the world is to start all
over again, the cultural phases will be the same (Palaeolithic to Bronze Age)
• Kroeber said that discovery of copper before iron was merely an accident; to this Gordon replied that copper will only be discovered
first as melting point of copper is 1085 Celsius while that of iron is 1538 Celsius; also copper is less reactive than iron, making its
extraction comparatively easier
• Kroeber agreed to this; but then what about bronze? Who made before iron? To this Gordon replied - bronze’s melting point is 1082
Celsius

Leslie A White :-
• idea similar to Gordon Childe
• His father was an engineer, so he was fed up of his job; early childhood in farming land
• At the young age of 15 suffered a setback because of stigma of his younger sister getting pregnant; due to this he turned towards
Marxist idea
• At 18 years of age he joined navy; got his initial education from University of Columbia and later from University of Chicago
• He had done a fieldwork among Pueblo of Mexico; talking to an outsider was a taboo in this community
• So he did secret informant fieldwork; he convinced them by assuring that this data will be useful to revive their culture in future
• He almost lost his job many a times because of supporting the Marxian idea; so he used a pseudo name - John Steele
• He purged all his papers before his death to prevent any controversy
• He said that Culture is a mechanism of survival; we require energy for survival - for protection, metabolism and reproduction
• Culture is a mechanism to generate energy for our survival; Culture progresses as amount of energy per capita per year increases or
the economy or efficiency of energy generation increases
• This can be explained by E x T = C; energy, efficiency of technology and progress of culture respectively
• Stages of evolution are Savagery, Barbarism, Civilisation and energy revolution;
L Y
+
-

Muscular Domestication of Fossil Nuclear

energy Plants and animals fuel revolution

• example - coal mine being exploited by miners, few kg of coal being mined;
• Feudal lord might be controlling that mine; social organisation is now different;
• Same coal mine being exploited by corporate groups; technology and social structure will be different in all three
• Technology is playing the deterministic role in shaping the social structure
• N x P x R = S; Energy for nutrition, protection and reproduction and Social aspects

Ideological > Refers to Moral, beliefs, religion

M

Sociological 3 Refers to Social interaction

M

Technological

Layer Cake Model

• Idea of Beauty - Technology is tradition and food is scarce; fat woman will be considered beautiful but when technology overpowers and
there is surplus, and women contribute less to economy, then fatness will be a sign of ugliness

Julian Steward (1902 - 1972) :-

• did his PhD under Kroeber in California; he studied a community of California - Shoshone
• they were hunter gatherers and their main source of food is pine nut trees
• They divide themselves into smaller bands and roam separately during excess; but when there is scarcity, they will roam collectively,
ensuring survival of entire group
• Based on the availability of pine nut, the size of the band is determined
• Their hunting model had dependence on natural resource, simple technology and mobility; this leads to their culture - egalitarian society
and fluidity of bands
• He developed a general model based on the Shoshone study; used this model to explain the similarity between Shoshone, Bushman of
Africa and Semays of Malaysia
• Culture ecology says that culture is intricately intertwined with habitat; i.e. ecology plays a very important role in shaping the culture
• Based on this he gave a concept - Culture Core;
• all aspects of ecology do not equally impact Culture;
• all aspects of Culture are not equally impacted by ecology
• There are three steps to identity the Culture core :-
i) Technology and Environmental resource that it is exploiting
ii) Social Organisation that is created by the above factor
iii) Impact of above two phenomena on other aspects of culture
• Most important part of culture core is means of subsistence

Multilinear evolution and Parallels of Limited Occurrences :-

• Not all the cultures will move in a pre defined sequence or have a common destination; rather a culture can move in multiple paths
• Since ecological change can never be predicted, culture change can also not be predicted
• Two cultures might have same technology and similar environment to exploit; in such a circumstance, that part of their journey can be
shared; that part of journey is called Parallel of Limited Occurrence

Marshall Sahlins :-
• he was also a new evolutionist; believing that material condition will have a casual effect on culture
• Economy of simple society is not a product of supply demand, rather enmeshed with other social organisations
• Gave a concept based on this idea - Original Affluent Society; hunters and gatherers are the forest affluent society of the world
• They are affluent because of minimal needs;
• He wrote a book - Stone Age Economics; suggesting that in any society based on domestic economy (member of a house work for only his
family’s consumption)
• Internal anti surplus mechanism that works there; they feel no incentive to work extra
• Similar will be the case in a country where govt is taking care of everything
• Any society’s level of productivity is directly proportional to stratification; surplus will lead to inequality and hierarchy in the society
• There is an article he wrote - Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief
• He compares two societies - Big Man Society of Melanesia and Chiefdom Society of Polynesia
• Villages is Melanesia are egalitarian and autonomous, with a Big Man who has great orating skills and resources
• This society is fragmented In nature
• As for chiefdom, society is based in a hierarchical form, with a chief and some sub chiefs; pyramidical form of political society
• Here chief is powerful because of the position he occupy
• Example - BalaSaheb Thackeray as a big man
• He says that there is an internal prohibition that will prevent Big Man’s effort to bring Chiefdom; as the Big Man tries to gain followers
from outside the village, the resources are limited, and to attract new followers on using the same resources, he will lose the popularity
among old followers
• To convert Big Manship into Chiefdom, he has to negate the centrifugal tendency
Elman Service (1915-96) :-
• He suggested that rather than ranking them by hierarchy, we should identify on the basis of stages of complexity
• complexity means where there is more differentiation; example - moving from band to a state
• For transition from Tribe to Chiefdom to State, he gave a Managerial Benefit Theory

Band Tribe Chiefdom State

• Egalitarian, • relatively • Agriculture & surplus • Most complex
• Hunter-gatherers centralised • Hierarchical society • Standing army
• Nomadic • Kinship ties • Centralised leadership • Most centralised form of Govt
• Consensus based • informal leadership • Ability to use physical power
• Persuasion

Evolution and Culture :-

• compared evolution with culture; as we evolved biologically we saw diversity and progress
• Cultural evolution also witness progress, known as general evolution
• Cultural evolution also witness diversity, known as specific evolution
• White was talking about general evolution and Steward about specific evolution
• So rather than being antagonist to each other, they are complementary to each other
-
X X X X X
Cultural Materialism (Marvin Harris)

• a better reconciliation between White and Steward was done by this school
• Material condition of a society will have a deterministic impact on culture
• Culture is the mechanism to solve the earthly problems man face on earth
• He quotes his influence from Marxist materialism - that material reality creates consciousness
• Marx said that history is a result of changing material condition in a society
• Marx said that initially there was primitive communism as there was no surplus
• But as move towards agriculture, we start to see Master-Slave relationship in feudal society; followed by capitalist labour during
industrialisation
• He suggested that this capitalist society will be overpowered by socialism and that by communism
• Second thing that influenced Harris was tech determinism by Leslie White and culture ecology by Julian Steward
• He wrote the book - Rise of Anthropological Theory (RAT); it was a result of one technical innovation - photocopy machine
• In this book he gave the theory of Tech - Environment Determinism; i.e. similar kind of tech applied to similar kind of environment will
create an arrangement of labour which will be supported by a social organisation and a moral and value system to justify it
• He divides the culture into three layers

Super
Belief system, value system,
>

Structure norms & morals, religion &

ideology
Political Economy and [
Structure
Domestic Economy
Infrastructure & Modes of production & reproduction (Tech,
Economy & Environment, Demographic factors)

• Structure & Super Structure exist to maximise modes of production and reproduction
Minas Vehlas (Old Mine) :-
• initially people were doing agriculture until they found gold in their town; treasure hunters started to visit the town
• People saw that since there wasn’t much left in agriculture, they shifted towards mining infrastructure
• Families started to become nuclear; people started to bid for the land; land became a commodity;
• Change in Super Structure —> there is a rise of urban ethos (urban mental states)

Pattern of Race in America :-

• there was a belief then that racial discrimination was on the basis of knowledge; however Harris suggested that it was the other way
round - Infrastructure was responsible for the racial discrimination

Pigs Prohibition in Islam :-

• Infrastructure created this super structure; Islam originated in an arid and semi arid place; if you have pigs, you require lot of
vegetation, which would create food shortage for human society; hence consumption of pig was prohibited

Aztecs Community :-
• Spanish soldiers were limited in number and had to fight Aztecs; Spanish brought along small pox, that finished Aztecs
• Aztecs practiced cannibalism; suggesting that it was infrastructure
• After the Spanish attack, there was material deficit; moreover protein deficit in their diet
• So the mechanism they came up with was eating dying dead people to fulfill their protein demand; again it was infrastructure that
modified the super structure

India’s Sacred Cow :-

• for any American coming to India, cow moving on the road would seem wastage of protein
• He suggested that cow was chosen for animal to be sacred because - in the Vedic period, cow slaughter was very frequent; cattles became
costly and for elites; with more demand for agriculture, cows were required; Buddhism and Jainism came as rescue got no violence
against animal sacrifice; cow is the source of income for farmers; also, cow is the mother of oxen - draft animal that is necessary for
grazing

Demise of Soviet Union :-

• It was the infrastructure that led to the collapse of structure and super structure of USSR; industries were working in poor state, return
per unit input was declining
• There was a lot of waste from farm to the table; The then Political Economy was promoting inefficiencies

Maxine Margolis :-
• she countered the feminist; during 1970s feminists were happy as they secured jobs in America
• Feminists were claiming that they changed the super structure, and this changed the employment structure of women
• Maxine countered this; it was in 1945 when majority of the men were engaged in active warfare; at the same time America was looking
after reconstruction of Europe; it was then when they required extra labour; so they wanted women to enter the workforce
• And to make their entry into workforce sustainable, they came up with the ideology of feminist movement
Symbolic & Interpretive Anthropology

• It says they culture is a system of symbols

• It aims to understand the meaning of symbols in cultural context
• Every culture provides a unique world view
• And to understand that we need to understand perception of people
• Culture lies in the individual’s interpretation
• Culture is more like a dictionary; giving meaning to our experience
• And when these dictionary are shared, only then social interactions take place

Interpretive Approach Symbolic Approach

• headed by Clifford Geertz • headed by Victor Turner

• Symbols are vehicles of culture; i.e. it is • Symbols are operators in social process;
through shared meaning that social i.e. symbols instigate individuals to act
interaction takes place in a particular manner

Interpretive Approach —>

Clifford Geertz (1926 - 2006) :-

• He started his research post in 1950s; i.e. when third world countries were getting independence
• Almost all these countries had some violence; all the existing theories failed to explain this as there was no stability
• Had structures been controlling the individuals, there would have been stability; but he argued that it was individual who was controlling
stability
• He got inspired by Max Weber and his idea of Social Action; this idea was against the idea of Social Fact by Durkheim
• Weber said that an individual has a consciousness; and whatever he does is not by push or pull of society but with his own conscience,
keeping in mind on how others are going to perceive it
• To identify that consciousness, Geertz derived an idea through Weber’s idea of Verstehen (stepping into the shoes of actor)
• There are three steps to Verstehen -
i) Identify the constraints of the actor
ii) Come at the same wavelength as the actor
iii) Establish a communication
• His second influence was by the idea of Hermeneutics, an idea given by William Dilthey;
• As per Geertz, job of the anthropologist is to interpret the meaning of symbols in the cultural context
• Third influence by the idea of Thick Description by Gilbert Ryle
• Trying to give a detailed description
• Three layer approach - Verstehen —> Hermeneutics —> Thick Description
- -

Step into the Interpret the Give detailed

actor’s shoes meaning of description of it
culture symbols
• He says that Culture is historically transmitted system of meaning embodied in symbols - system of inherited conception through which
people communicate, perpetuate & develop attitude & knowledge towards life

Javanese Funeral (Modjokuto Project) :-

• This project was funded by CIA, done in Indonesia
• He want to Modjukuto and found that there is a peasant religion in people - mix of Hinduism, Islam and animism
• Post Independence of Indonesia There was rise of orthodox Muslims - creating a political party, Masjumi
• And the Peasant Religion formed an opposing party - Permai
• One Party was emphasising on Islam while the other was more liberal
• in Javanese funeral when a person dies, there is no weeping/crying; it happens in a calm composed manner, will eat food and go back
without giving any consolation - this condition is known as Iklas (serene or calm environment)
• Once a 14 year old boy died; parents asked the priest to come and perform rituals
• However the priest denied saying that there was a Permai party flag outside his house, and hence he would not perform rituals for
someone supporting different religious party
• This broke the Iklas practice, and people started to weep during funerals

Deep Play: A Note on the Balinese Cockfight :-

• Geertz with his wife went to a village in Bali; nobody even noticed them, they were busy working
• Cockfighting was illegal; once there was a police raid when everyone ran to their houses and hid
• Policemen knocked on everyone’s houses to ask about the cockfight; Geertz also denied that there was no cockfighting
• This impressed villagers; but the policemen got curious for his visit
• But it was then when an old man favoured them by telling that they are here to study the village
• Everybody was curious only for why they lied just like others
• This was his first step to Verstehen
• Cockfighting was very much widespread yet illegal; society preaching this was a masculine society and the cockfighting had a double
meaning - one, the cock they supported and second the male organ
• Cock gave the proxy representation of the owner who was grooming him
• This has deep implicit meanings -
• Fight for status, mirror of society, status of people conflict
• People do gamble, but at stake is the prestige of the owner
• People don’t bet on cocks; rather in favour of referred group
• On losing the fight, one loses his status and prestige among the community
• Stakes become deeper and important when dominant members of the society

Geertz’s idea of Religion :-

• Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long lasting moods and motivations by creating a
conception of general order of existence and clothing the conception by an aura of factuality such that the moods and motivations seem
uniquely realistic
• Religion addresses three critical thresholds -
1. Reason
2. Suffering - Religion will give the strength to suffer
3. Evil

Symbolic Approach —>

Victor Turner (1920-83) :-

• born in Scotland, not much known about earlier life
• Father was an engineer and mother an actress
• He was trained by a structural functionalist - Max Glauckman
• He studied a community - Ndembu in Zambia
• Here he countered Durkheim; We should not take stability (social unity) for granted; every society experiences some kind of forces that
are trying to tear the society apart; therefore in order to counter that an individual works on a day to day basis to re construct the social
order
• example - greeting parents everyday; national anthem every day in school
• He is focusing on the anthropology of performance rather than social structure
• In re construction of the social structure symbols are the most important tools that instigate an individual to act in a certain manner
• It is because of these actions that society is re constructed
• He calls symbols as operators in social processes which by their arrangement produce social transformations that ties an Isaiah m
individual to the norms of the society, helps in resolving conflicts or aid in changing status of the actor
• He tries to understand the roles of Ritual; for that he uses the idea of Rite of Passage, i.e. Mark the change of status of an individual
• i) Naming
• ii) Initiation
• iii) Marriage
• iv) Funeral
• Three stages of rite of passage -
• i) Separation
• ii) Transition - individual has lost his previous identity but not yet attained the new identity
• iii) Reintegration - joins the society with new identity/status
• Turner was more interested in the stage of transition - he gave the phrase Liminality and Communitas
• Liminality - Lack of identity; Communitas - sense of solidarity

Properties of Symbols :-
i) Multi Vocality - example: Indian flag on a car represents car of a bureaucrat; whereas on back of the car, it can suggest Indian supporter;
Indian flag wrapped over the body - represents martyrs
ii) Condensation - symbol can have multiple meanings at the same time; example: Diyas during Diwali - symbol of prosperity or symbol of
triumph of good over evil
iii) Polarisation of Meaning - certain meanings derived from the symbols can persuade or prohibit you from a particular manner; example -
Navratri fasting, also prohibition of non vegetarian food

Puberty Rituals :-
• He wrote a book - The Forest of Symbols, where he talks about a puberty ritual in Ndembu society
• when a girl attains menstruation, she will be wrapped tightly in blanket and placed on the foot of the tree
• happens once a year, and group of girls who attained menstruation will collectively do it
• This ties the individual to the norms of the society; preparing her for her mother role
• Every female experience this ritual; females develops a bond because of this

Social Drama :-
• Turner’s mother was an actress and he used a lot of text in a theatrical manner
• The Schism Continuity in African Society
• Idea of Social drama reflects recurrent social conflict; he emphasises on the importance of certain rituals used for re construction of
social order
• Every social drama will have 4 stages -
i) Breach
ii) Crisis
iii) Redressal measures - society will use dominant symbols to bring unity
iv) Schism/Reintegration - the one who was not fit in the society, will be removed or be reintegrated in the society
• Using this idea he tried to explain the social drama in Ndembu society
• The society was virilocal (House of the husband will be near her in laws house) & Matrilineal
• This created a tension in roles of men; example - man living with his wife and children, those biological children will carry the descent of
his sister’s
• A man has to take care of either his lineage or his own children; therefore marriage is very unstable
• Here also the Mudyi tree acts as the dominant symbol where people are to perform daily rituals around it
• It acts like a national flag of that society; even on experiencing instability, they cannot leave the village because of the tree

David Schneider :-
• Not that big of a contribution; similar to Geertz’s and Turner’s idea
• Culture is a collection of symbols and symbol is something that means something else; arbitrary relation between symbol and meaning
• There a certain important symbols, i.e. core symbols around which every other symbol orients itself
• So, identify those core symbols
• He studied kinship; wrote a book - A critique of study of Kinship; where he talks about critique of his predecessors
• He claimed that all the early scholars studied Kinship in Eurocentric perspective, i.e. biological perspective
• In American society blood or naturalness of marriage is the core symbol
• Two orders in American Society
1. Order of Nature (Blood)
2. Order of Conduct (Marriage)
• Kin by Nature alone (mating without marriage) - illegitimate
• Kin by law alone
• Kin by Nature and Law - Blood & Marriage; most legitimate
• In America kins by blood and marriage are considered legitimate because of blood & marriage being the core symbol
• There are societies where kins are determined not by Order of being but by Order of doing
• He talks about a society - Yap in Micronesia; kinship is not determined by blood and marriage as there is no concept of biological
fatherhood; the relationship that a kin has with father is maintained by the the action towards one other
• In the present society, majority of the kins are not by blood and marriage but by Order of Doing
-
X X X X X

Cognitive Anthropology

• idea arose in 1950s after Second World War; to check the change in colonies, now independent, many visits were made
• A place in Mexico was visited by Robert Red and Oscar Lewis, and both gave different opinions
• So, there was a need to re visit the credibility of study
• This was called as New Ethnography or Ethno linguistics
• These scholars noticed that earlier the scholars were writing about New cultures in idiosyncratic manner; they were using Western
category, i.e. their brain was programmed to think from western perspective
• This idiosyncratic practice was the reason for different interpretations
• So, the Cognitive Anthropology scholars emphasised upon using native’s view point; i.e. how natives view the world
• The school says that culture is a set of mental model and the aim of anthropologists is to duplicate this mental model so that one could
think like a native
• Theory of Mind —> Language can be the medium to step into the native’s mind; Sapir - Whorf hypothesis by Edward and Benjamin;
language is a face in itself and language shapes the way we perceive the world
• Sapir says that the way a culture classifies the outer world can be understood through its language
• What is to be identified is Native Conceptual Categories (Domains); how people classify things in outer world
• Componential Analysis —> Criteria based on which the objects are arranged in domain
• Summary - set of mental model —> duplicate the model —> theory of mind —> linguistics analysis —> native conceptual categories —>
componential analysis

Harold Conklin (1926 - 2016) :-

• met Clarke Wissler and did a study on Austronesian language; during Philippines War, he was sent with the American army to Philippines
• He studied Hanunoo community and had an informer - Luhun Ihvy
• He wrote a dictionary of the language of Hanunoo in English (600 pages)
• He conducted second study of Ethnobotany; how they perceive plants around them; an average Hanunoo can specify 1625 species of
plants and trees around him; 93% of those trees being culturally relevant for them
• Colour Categories of Hanunoo - they have 4 terms related to colour, i.e.
• ma) biru —> representing darkness
• ma) lagti —> lightness
• ma) rara —> wetness
• ma) latuj —> dryness
• American colour categories are categories based on the spectrum and hue

Stephen Tyler (1932 - 2020) :-

• Master and Ph.D from University of Stanford;
• Came to India to do a fieldwork among a tribe - Koya; wrote a book on them - An Outline Grammar
• He wrote another book - Cognitive Anthropology; where he criticised old scholars as they were talking about change in culture, and they
were trying to give static description of the culture. In order to give universal theories, they were picking selective datasets, and hence
invalid in nature
• Rather than trying to create a universal theory, we should make a theory that seems valid to the native
• And for that we need to create a picture from native’s point of view
• Two steps requirement for this -
• i) Identify the material phenomena which is culturally significant
• ii) How this material phenomena is arranged in a culture
• As for Koyas he said that in comparison to American culture, Americans can identify different forms of precipitation - hue, fog, rain etc
• but for all this precipitation, Koyas use a single term - Mancu; the distinction is not significant for them
• These phenomena were significant for Americans because of air traffic requirement etc
• Americans can identify only 1 bamboo while Koyas can identify 7 types of bamboos based on hardness, thickness and age
• In case of Americans mother’s brother’s son and father’s brother’s son are both called cousin; but in Koyas they are named by Baato and
Anmal as the distinction is important; marriage possible only with one
• He criticised Ruth Benedict’s idea of Special Genius, saying that these categories has nothing to do with how cousins will be identified
• He says that people in same culture can also have different world view
• Example : females knowing all types of dal while male confused
• His idea is used in AI models like ChatGPT - by language training

Post Modernism Anthropology

Pre Modern Age Modern Age Post Modern Age

(1945 onwards)
• era before Enlightenment • Reason & Rationality became (Science)
• Religion was the centre of everything with centre • Humans have capacity to destroy
church being the head • i) Perfectibility of human nature • Era of Confusion
• King was equated to God • ii) Believe in progress that would come • Rejected meta narratives
because of knowledge (Universal ideas)
• Grand theories in every discipline; meta • It is an illusion; humans can
narratives based on schematic knowledge never be 100% objective
• Idea of objectivity and rationality • An idea will be accepted only when
there is a power equation
Idea by Dr Rice Durst

• There is no absolute truth; Reality is incomprehensible & truth is socially constructed and dynamic in nature

They started to question

- - -

Epistemological tendency Omnipotence Rejecting Apolitical Questioned Ethnographic

assumption of relationship Description
• they asked reason for a reason anthropology & between researcher
• they started to question the and subjects • tools they used
science
methods and techniques used by • Analysis
anthropologists • Presentation
•

• True reflexivity would have been Malinowski publishing his diary along with his work
• Reflexivity promotes Eclecticism; i.e. multiple sources of knowledge

Multisited Ethnography :-
• Ethnography should not be emphasising on one place but should be emphasising on multiple places
• This idea was given by George Marcus
• Adriana Petryna conducted Ethnography at Chernobyl site; not only Kyiv but also multiple places where people relocated to get a
comprehensive study
•
Renato Rosaldo (1941 - present) :-

• He studied a tribe of Philippines - Ilongot, that were head hunters (cut the head of the loser in a fight)
• This practice was also prevalent In Naga tribe of India
• This head hunting is a practice to deal with their grief and rage; on tossing the head, it eases both
• His wife - Michelle Rosaldo also studied a tribe in Philippines; she died as her leg slipped while crossing a cliff
• It was then when Renato understood the grief and rage while he held onto her dead body
• He said that since objectivity is not possible, one should use subjectivity as much as possible

Jacques Derrida (1930 - 2004) :-

• one of the most celebrated and controversial scholar of post modern When asked about Post modernism, quote
• Born in Algeria (French colony then; was a Jew two scholars - Rosaldo and Stanley
• Faced anti sementism and faced discrimination
• He was expelled from the school and was later home schooled
• In Algeria all three trinity religions were against each other
• later moved to France and got enrolled into a university thinking that he won’t face the discrimination there
• However there too be faced discrimination; this made him frustrated with the structure
• Once he was caught at airport with drugs but since he had become a famous philosopher, he was very much celebrated among the youth;
this gained him political support

Deconstruction Aporia Logocentrism

• No single meaning that can be • glorify state of confusion • critique of logic; simple crude
derived from text • revise state of aporia; explanation of a phenomena
• Several hidden meaning being
the text
• We should avoid excessive
loyalty to an idea;

Barrett Stanley (1938-2021) :-

• He showed scepticism for science
• Ethnography is momentary description of a culture which is changing every moment
• He promoted relativism, opinions of all, and rejected grand narratives
• he divided Ethnography into four types -
1. Realistic
2. Interpretive
3. Experimental
4. Reflexive

History of Anthropology In India

Foreman’s
Major Events
Major Scholars
L k Ayer
S C Roy
Recap of history of anthropology :-
• 16th century - renaissance and enlightenment; paradigm shift in philosophy of Europe
• Rejection of divine creation, or decline in authority of church
• 4 major philosophies came up -

....
Rise of idea of evolution Organic Analogy Rise of Positivism Nature - Culture Dichotomy
• By August Conte
• By Herbert Spencer • Scientific study of • Human faculty of reasons
• Theological
• Comparing the society with social aspects of • This dichotomy overlapped with
living organism human life woman and man dichotomy
• Meta physical
• Social Darwinism • To identify the laws • Man is not rational and practical
while woman is more emotional,
• Positive/Scientific Stage
working in instincts

• The European society was androcentric and racist

• There were two parallel events taking place - It was a time of colonisation; at the same time in their own homes they were facing
revolutions, demanding liberty, equality and fraternity
• This was justified by the academia by giving the theory of evolution and diffusion; calling the colonies as less evolved and Europe as more
developed; diffusionist called Europe as the flag bearer of progress
• Post colonisation, during Second World War - Anthropology also experienced a wave of decolonisation; there was a rise in conflict theories
who would challenge the power dynamics in anthropological research; rise of post modernism and Marxist theories, which talked about
control of academia to control the status quo

History of Indian Anthropology

Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi :-

Formative Phase (1774 - 1919) :-

• formation of Supreme Court in 1774
• 1784 - Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded by William Jones
• 1886 - Anthropological Society of Bombay started to publish the first journal of anthropological research in India
• 1887 - Herbert Risley; under his supervision 1901 census was done; he gave racial classification of Indians; claiming Aryans to be upper class
and lower class as Dravidians (claimed Aryans to be invaders and outsiders)
• Census played a very important role in expressing the caste hierarchy in India
• 1905 - He developed a wing - People of India, who were to do ethnographical survey of India; the focus here was mainly on tribes in their
natural habitat; several monographs were written by scholars in this phase
• L K Anant Krishna Ayer, and S C Roy as first Ethnographers of India
• G S Ghurye, also known as the father of Indian Sociology
• W H R Rivers studied todas while Radcliffe Brown studied Onges

Constructive Phase (1920 - 1949) :-

• 1920 - establishment of department of anthropology in university of Calcutta; leading to institutionalisation of anthropology in India
• Scholars were - N K Bose, D N Majumdar, Dharani Sen and B S Guha
• N K Bose is famous for his idea - Hindu Mode of Tribal Absorption; tribes due to contact with Hindus have been absorbed in Hinduism and
given lower caste status
• D N Majumdar is famous for his research on Ho tribe In Chota Nagpur region; gave a concept on Man, Area, Resource, Cooperation (MARC);
• He is talking about how lives of tribes are getting disturbed by exploitation to MARC
• Several foreign scholars - Verrier Elwin, came as a missionary; met Gandhi, became his fan; went to Bastar and studied Pradhan Gond and
Raj Gond and married Kosi, Raj Gond tribal girl; later divorced ands married Leela from Pradhan Gond
• He said that tribe should be given an area with full autonomy and nobody should me allowed to enter there
• He is one of the persons responsible for the conflict in North East
• Christoph Von Haimendorf, Australian anthropologist who first studied Nagas and then travelled in South, working with nizam of
Hyderabad
• Started research on Chenchus, Raj Gonds and Hill Reddis
• Raj Gonds still offer tribute to Haimendorf
• He trained many teachers in Raj Gond, one of them becoming a minister
• 1945 - Establishment of Anthropological Survey in India
• Im1947 - Department of Anthropology, Delhi University

Analytical Phase (1950 - 1990) :-

• Post Independence there is a shift from Anthropology of India to Indian Anthropology
• A wave of scholars who would challenge the colonial ethnographers to describe India
• Earlier they researched based on books; but now they would emphasise upon fieldworks
• Many colonial ideas are challenged; they countered the idea that tribes and caste were different entities
• A large scale collaboration with foreign scholars, mainly Americans, because of Cold War and since India was a land of villages, it
required intense fieldwork
• Americans gave academic support during Cold War
• This led to the Civilisation Approach where tribes and castes were shown as continuum and not different entities
• Robert Redfield will give the idea of Folk-Urban Continuum
• Inspired by the above idea, F G Bailey and Surjit Sinha gave the concept of Tribe-Caste Continuum
• Oscar Louis talks about a concept - Rural Cosmopolitism; he studied a Rampura village of Jats; said that an average village in India has
connections with 400 different villages
• Mc Kim Marriott, who gave the idea of Universalisation and Parochialization
• Based on this, L P Vidyarthi gave the idea of Sacred Complex
• There was a famous journal then, Political Journal of India wher all the researchers were published

Orientalism and Indology :-

• Orientalism was the term coined by Edward Said; Orient means East and the manner of describing Eastern society is Orientalism
• Orientalism says that the colonial subjugation will be presented in such a manner that colonisation seem justified
• Indology is the study of India through ancient literatures of India; it was also called as Book View of Indian Society
• Missionaries first started Indology, while taken forward by administrators
• Indology is marked by two major phases -
• Indomaniac - initial phase of Indian Anthropology, talking highly of Indian literature; Scholars like William Jones, who translated many
literatures; doing so he justified similarity between Indian and European literatures, hence calling Indians as kins of Europeans;
similarly, Charles Wilkins translated Bhagwad Gita and Hitopadesh; Voltaire talked highly about Indian philosophies, but his major
knowledge was based on Ezour Vedam, claiming it to be a lost Veda; however after his death it was found that it was not a lost Veda
• This was done to do branding of India as they had to trade Indian goods with the world

• Indophobia - to demean India based on caste exclusion etc; James Mill wrote a book - History of British India, who called India as a land of
Snake Catchers; he never came to India but his book was used to be read by every Britisher before coming to India; William Bentick
before coming to India organised a feast wherein he called Mills and said that although it was his body going to India, but it was Mill’s
mind that would be going along with him; Second scholar, Charles Grant said that Indian people are corrupt and mentally weak. He
suggested that the British government include a pious clause toto send missionaries to India. Lastly, Thomas Mc Caulay said that one
shelf of library in Europe is far better than entire Indian civilisation. He said that books used in preparatory books were better than
Sanskrit books. He emphasised on creating Indians that by blood and colour are Indians but Britishers by mind and value. Max Mueller
was another Indophobic who translated Rig Veda.

• It was after these two phases that indigenous Indology rose

Max Mueller :-
• Was a philologist and is credited with the translation of Rig Veda - Sacred Book of the East (50 volumes with rig Veda one of them)
• He misinterpreted India to be polytheistic
• He said that as per Rig Veda, India was invaded by Aryans; Purandar of forts, attacked the village Hariupuria
• Based on that he said that Aryans were the people speaking the language of Europe
• people speaking Latin are Aryans
• Indians are kins to Europeans; There is a proto Indo European language based on which other languages originated
• The left wing endorsed his theory
• He proposed Aryas were linguistic group but others interpreted as racial group

Herbert Risley :-
• he said that caste has a racial origin
• His basic theory also supported the Aryan invasion and in order to protect their racial superiority they created caste like system
• He said that in order to maintain this racial superiority -
i) they started practising hypergamy - a girl is allowed to marry from a higher caste but prohibited from marrying lower caste
(hypogamy); because of male dominance; male shouldn’t lose his caste but female can
ii) they started practising endogamy - for their own girls; to maintain their status
• he used Anthropometric measurement - Nasal Index (a ratio of width and height of the nose) and suggested that the natives had a broader
nose, while Aryans had a longer nose
• He said that the idea of India itself did not exist before British rule because of Indians having particularist instincts of having caste
consciences; and India was divided between castes and never had idea of single unity
• While Europe always had the idea of nationalism since start

Indigenous Indology :-
• they suggested that India is a unique civilisation and should be understood from the context of India
• It started to counter the western Indology by presenting a glorified picture of Indian heritage
• One was too critical while the other was too appreciative; which projected Indian civilisation not as Indian but a Hindu civilisation
• G S Ghuriye - founder of Indian Sociology and ingenious Indology said that Indian civilisation should be looked as Vedic civilisation
• Doing so he overlooked Muslim civilisation
• Because of this Indian Anthropology became Hindu Anthropology
• He said that Indian civilisation was far ahead of its time; Brahmins were the one who played crucial roles in integrating India (sadhus
moved from places to places spreading Vedas)
• He said that caste should not be considered exploited rather integrative system; creating a sense of dependence on one other
• He also promoted Modern Indology - study India from the text but interpret using sociological and anthropological context
• He said that village was not a static but dynamic entity; religion was never orthodox rather a source of intellectual growth
• Iravati Karve, a student of Ghuriye also projected a glorified version of India

L K Ananthakrishna Aiyar (1861 - 1937) :-

• first Indian ethnographer along with S C Roy
•
Superintendent of Recognition and
Early Life Department of Anthropology Superintendent of
Ethnography at Cochin lectures at foreign
at University of Calcutta Ethnography at Mysore
universities
• •
• •

Early Life :-
• 1883 - BA from Christian College Madras
• Clerk at Land settlement office in Wayanad
• Became a science teacher at Palaghat
• Later became headmaster in the same school

Superintendent of Ethnography at Cochin :-

• contacted by Dewan of Cochin, who gave him the post of Science Assistant at Maharaja’s College, Ernakulem
• in 1902 the Secretary of Dewan approached Aiyar to conduct the ethnographic survey of Cochin; more like an honorary job
• Hebert Risley gave him the idea of survey
• 1908 - 1st volume Tribe & Caste of Cochin
• 1912 - 2nd volume Tribe & Caste of Cochin
• He arranged tribes and caste in ascending order of their hierarchy; second volume mainly talks about the upper class groups like
Brahmins and Kshatriyas
• Earlier used to follow a 27 point format questionnaire; he instead converted it into 14 point table
• Introduction —> Origin & Tradition —> Habitat —> Marriage & customs —> Pregnancy & child birth —> Inheritance —> Tribal
organisation —> Religion, magic and sorcery —> funeral & other ceremonies —> occupation —> physical & mental characteristics —>
food —> social status —> conclusion
• This table is followed till date for census
• With this he was able to create a name for himself

Department of Anthropology at University of Calcutta :-

• called to University of Calcutta where he established the Department of Anthropology in 1920
• in 1924, the superintendent died and Raja of Mysore asked Aiyar for his help; on vacations he used to go to Mysore
• After 12 years he completed the ethnographic survey of Mysore

Superintendent of Ethnography at Mysore :-

• finished survey in 1936;
• 1936 - Tribes & Caste in Mysore (104 tribes & Caste groups in Mysore)
• He was now talking about problems faced by tribes due to contact with outsiders
• He talks about Kadars; who were economically deprived and faced displacement from their land
• One of the displacements was because of establishing rail network on their land;
• He also talks about Soligas who were suffering from over exploitation and introduction of outsiders in their area

Recognition and lectures at foreign universities

• was called by several foreign universities to appreciate his work
• French Govt gave him the award of Office de Academic
• He gave lectures at University of Naples, Florence, Italy and France
• In one of the lectures he read the article - Agricultural Basis of Religion in South India;
• Julian Steward quoted his work but never mentioned Aiyar’s influence; Aiyar never received the recognition he deserved for Culture
Ecology
• He was given the title of - Rai Bahadur
S C Roy’s contribution towards Physical Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology :-
• while studying tribes he would describe physical features of them
• For Munda —> Dark skin, thick lips, broad nose, short stature, Dolicocephalic
• For Oraon & Asma —> Proto Australoid, racial features, wavy hair
• As for prehistoric archaeology, he visited Asura sites and found slabs of 50 stones; they were megaliths
• On excavating those he found several eastern jars, potteries, tools and bones, placed on upon the other
• He concluded that at the time of Indus Valley Civilisation, there existed a parallel civilisation in the East
• He found that those people had knowledge about iron smelting

Idea on Caste —>

• did not mention caste directly in his books but has made passing comments in his articles
• He emphasised on reading Purana to understand how the contemporary society is similar to the society mentioned in Purana
• He said the idea of caste originated by inter mingling of Aryans

Contribution to Applied Anthropology :-

• He was the member of Bihar Legislative Assembly from 1921 - 1937
• He was also consulted during Simon Commission
• During Non Cooperation Movement, Mundas organised a meeting
• Britishers consulted Roy, asking whether there was any revolt in plan
• Roy attended the Mundas meeting and found that it was more about the grievances, so he acted as the mediators
• This prevented the Britishers attack on the tribes, had they not consulted him
• Jatras - Tribal marines with every village having its own flag
• In Lohardaga a contractor was trying to build a railway bridge which was falling time and again
• Somebody asked him to visit a nearby temple; he renovated the temple and the bridge construction got completed
• So he gave a new flag to the village with symbol as train
• Animatism - says that there is some impersonal force present in variable degree in everyone; and based on the degree, the hierarchy
will be decided; this impersonal force is known as Bong
• The technologies that was not known by tribes were called as bong
• Another village copied the same flag which brought up disputes
• The tribe called Roy to mediate; he knew about their belief in animatism
• He changed the flag of one of the villages, changed the train to plane, which the people accepted

Padha/ Parha System :-

• found among Oraons; when they moved to Chota Nagpur belt, they started clearing forest; and the one who did it was called Bhuinhaar
(owner of land)
• This family got big And transformed into lineages; Khum (lineage)
• Pahan (priest) and Mahto (secular head managing law and order, protection and spokesperson of the village with outsiders)
• They started to develop a union of villages called Parha (7, 12 or 21 villages)
• Head will be called Parha Raja; different villages will be given different responsibilities
• In every village there is a piece of land that is communal in nature (common for all); here every family will work in rotation
• But none of the family can claim rights on the produce; it only acts as an insurance at the times of crisis
• Parha was created to maintain Horizontal solidarity between villages; i.e. to create a network and preserve culture of Oraon
• If Oraon had sex or eat with an outsider, he will be outcasted
• In case of crisis, one village can shift from present Parha to a different Parha without breaking any contact with the former
• The old Parha will be known as Doodh Bhaiya village;

Manki - Munda System :-

• prevalent among Ho tribes of Kolhan; prevalent even today
• Similar to Parha system; there is a head of village called Munda who is assisted by Dakua
• There is a union of villages called Peed (5 or 10 villages); with Manki being the head of Peed
•
G S Ghurye :-
• Father of Indian sociology and indigenous Indology

Influences Indigenous Indology Caste Tribe National Integration

& Indian Sociology

Origin Features Untouchability Census & Reservation

Influences :-
• member of upper caste Brahmin;
• was also influenced by orientalist Aryan invasion theory
• idea of Diffusionism by W H R Rivers

Indigenous Indology & Indian Sociology :-

• in order to glorify Indian Indology he suggested Indian Aryans were far ahead than European Aryans
• He countered the belief that Indian women were lacking intellect by recalling that long back Indian females took part in debates - Apala,
Ghosh, Maitreyi, Gargi
• He also emphasised that females also wrote vedas
• He countered the idea of untouchability by portraying the incident of Lord Ram eating leftover fruit by a tribal women; the society was
egalitarian and such concepts developed later on
• He talks about roles of Brahmins and Sadhus; as Western people showed them in bad light
• The concept of Indianness was always prevalent;
• As far as Indian society is concerned, he said that the foundation of Indian culture is Vedas and Upanishads
• Despite such diversity India shared values and beliefs
• He said that caste was simply a division of labour; and not a hierarchical order
• He emphasised that there was fluidity in caste system by quoting from Veda - Karur Aham, Tato Bhisach, Upalaprakshini Nana
• It highlighted that everyone in his family had different role
• He said that it was Brahminism that kept India united; Shiva was recognised as Nataraj; Kartikeya recognised as Murugan, Shanmukh;
Ganesha recognised as Pillai, Pillaya
• He said that what brought unity in India was religion

Caste :-
• Origin —> says that it was Aryans who were responsible for caste system in India
• The Rig Vedic Aryans came to India; had fair colour; locals were dasas and dasyus
• Dasas were Aryans who lost their colour because of staying in India (they came in a before wave of Aryans) while Dasyus were local
inhabitants
• Both were dark in colour; Aryans knew that Dasas were like them despite skin colour
• Based on skin colour, Arya/Anarya varna originated from intermingling of Aryans and dasas
• Gradually it got converted to three varnas based on occupation
• Dasyus were incorporated into varna system as shudras (B, K, V, S)
• With time society becomes rigid and strict endogamy rules became stringent
• And later it got incorporated right from birth
• When Aryans started to migrate from Ganga Yamuna basin, locals were amused by Aryans and followed their caste system
• His opinion about Risley’s idea was that it was correct but valid only in Hindoostan Proper (Ganga - Yamuna Basin; i.e. Northern part of
India) whereas in the southern and eastern part, racial features no longer resemble caste features
Features Of Caste System :
• Varna Model —> Caste expresses itself in Varna (B,K,V,S) with hierarchy based on ritual status/purity and pollution
• This hierarchy is pan Indian and fixed
• He said that untouchables did not belong to any varna
• He said that Dalits constituted Pancham varna (5th Varna); and came later in history
• 6 features of caste system —>
• Segmental Division of Society - ascribed (i.e. membership is by birth)
• Hierarchy - ranking based on ritual status/purity and pollution; purity depends on the occupation (Religious, Governance, Maintainance &
Menial)
• Civil & Religious Disabilities - restrictions on Dalits
• Lack of Choice of Occupation - Caste restricts access to job;
• Restriction on food, drink & other social intercourse - upper caste not consuming cooked food from a Dalit
• Endogamy - marrying within caste
• Ghurye said that in order to maintain endogamy Caste Council will be created; example - Khap Panchayat
• Khap was created to ensure Gotra exogamy and caste endogamy
• Example - Manoj Bubli case killed in 2007 for marrying in same gotra

Untouchability :-
• In case of hypogamous marriages, the child would be known as Chandala; having no position in the varna system
• At that time they did not get any jobs in the village; resulting that they had to take up jobs that nobody were doing which was considered
as polluting
• They were considered untouchables because of the pollution of their occupation
• Pure Untouchables—> engaged in clean jobs and clean diets
• Impure Untouchables —> engaged in polluting jobs or anathematic job
• He talks about the caste group - Namashudra who have shifted towards characteristics of pure untouchables but still considered the same
• He said that India has two types of hierarchy -
• i) Ritual Hierarchy - Hierarchy because of birth
• ii) Secular Hierarchy - Hierarchy achieved by merit; regardless of what you do position of ritual hierarchy will remain the same
• He says that gradually the untouchables will be absorbed into the Brahminical fold and their position will improve; by providing them with
technology and training and by following cleaner jobs, their position can be improved
• Despite these practices, there position in ritual hierarchy will remain the same; and he insisted that their ritual hierarchy should not be
disturbed as it might cause conflicts

Caste Census :-
• he suggested that Caste census shouldn’t happen;
• Caste census would lead to Caste associations, it will ensure caste solidarity and Caste patriotism
• This is a threat to national integration as it will lead to Caste conflicts
• Caste census is just another mechanism to divide and rule
• He quoted L Middleton, caste census officer in Punjab who put the idea of caste into people who were naive enough to identify themselves
as only Hindu Muslim

Reservation :-
• He said that it will ensure caste patriotism and hence should be avoided

Idea of National Integration :-

• Multiple threats acting against National Integration of India
• He was against secularism by Nehru which was leading to minority appeasement
• Another threat he mentioned was the Dravidian style of ; which had created anti Hindi stance, ignoring Sanskrit Brahminical stance
• Backward Class movement had turned into anti brahmanical stance
• He claimed reservation also a threat to national integration
Idea on Tribes as Backward Hindus :-
• Ghurye was against the idea of tribe presented as isolated groups
• Rather suggested that tribes are culturally similar to Hindus (are like backward Hindus)
• There are many gods and deities present in tribes, similar to Hindu society
• Backward Hindus as they are imperfectly assimilated with Hindus
• He presented evidences to prove linkage with Hindu society; like evidence of -
• Vanar Sena, Sabri, Nishri Raj, Hidimba
• He suggested a policy to remove the backwardness - was against isolation of tribes
• He suggested complete assimilation with the mainstream Hindu society; this will give them social upliftment
• He suggested that colonial rulers isolated them for missionaries purposes

Should Caste Census be conducted?

Satish Deshpande’s arguments in favour -

• Insights on National Demography is necessary to formulate any policy
• To keep a check on status of individual castes
• Status of Backward Class’ status can only be determined by present Caste Census

Arguments against -
• Caste census will being divisive tendencies
• When done by States, it will lead to reification of caste identity
• Quality of data could be bogus; for political gains
• Cost, time and manpower required
• Qualification of the enumerator
• Caste in itself is a complex entity - somebody will quote his jati, somebody gotra while somebody var

Verrier Elwin (1902 - 1964) :-

• is a scholar who been appreciated to a large extent and also been part of controversies
• His father used to convert Africans to Christianity; he planned on following his father’s path
• Hence he joined Oxford, studying Theology and English with the plan to come to India for conversion
• He came to India and joined Christ Seva Sangh (CSS); Christians modified Christianity in order to make it appealing to Indians
• He came in contact with Gandhi and started to live with him in his Sabarmati Ashram; He was say impressed with Gandhi that he used to call
Gandhi as Christ of Modern India while Gandhi called him equivalent to his son
• Then Christianity was equated with Britishers; hence people weren’t converting as they’d be called anti nationals
• He started his tribal studies among Gonds; he decided not to convert them as they had their own unique lifestyle; this disowned him from
his priest license
• In 1935 he converted to Hindu; in 1940 he married a girl from Raj Gond and divorced in 1949
• In 1953 he married Leela from Pradhan Gond;
• He was given Padma Bhushan in 1951; he was the first foreigner to be given Indian citizenship

The Aborigines :-
• He talks about the disintegration of tribal way of life with four major factors -
i) Colonial Policies - forest and taxes
ii) Merchants, Moneylenders and officials
iii) Christian and Hindu Missionaries
iv) Entry of technology and Western value system
• He gave the solution of Isolationist Policy by creating National Reserves for the tribes (just like wildlife sanctuaries, having their
autonomy). It was based on the idea that any outside contact is harmful for them
• In 1940s he started to oppose Gandhism, arguing that it should not be applied among tribes
• Gandhism promoted Asceticism, Vegetarian, and prohibition while tribals followed sex, Hunting and liquor
The Philosophy for NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) :-
• He was criticised for his isolationist policy, so later he changed his stance and went for an integrative policy
• 5 Principles -
1. Tribes should develop over the line of their own genius (of their own expertise)
2. Rights their lands and forests should be respected
3. Train the natives as personnels
4. We should neither over administer the tribal area nor overwhelm them with multiplicity of schemes
5. Results should not be judged by statistics or by money spent but by quality of character evolved

• for managing NEFA, there was Indian Frontier Administrative Services (IFAS) was formed. This was the reason that Arunachal Pradesh
never faced any insurgency.
• In 1962 when China attempted to infiltrate our borders, because of Inner Line Permit we faced challenges. Opposition proposed that 1
lakh healthy Punjabis be settled near the border area (as they could still oppose Chinese infiltration compared to tribes)

Tribal Social Life :-

• He married the Gond girl with the intention to get access to that area that wasn’t accessible for outsiders

‘The Baigas’ ‘Muria & their Ghotuls’ ‘Leaves from the Jungle’

• who are part of slash & burn • youth dormitories (like Gurukul) • monograph on Raj Gonds
cultivation • These dorms apart from giving cultural • made a friend - Panda Baba
• Celibacy is an alien concept for them training and solidarity, give sexual • Marriage by elopement was a common
• Men can identify 12 different kind of training as well practice (19 cases in a single year in Raj
breasts and rank them • ‘Dance of Genitalias’ happens Gond)
• abuses are also sexually rich; sexual • People engage in pre marital affairs • Idea of divorce was simple (to break a pot in
suggestions two)
• Marriage is a contract; honouring the
individual agency

He tried to portray tribes as more modern and Hindu societies as orthodox

The Religion of an Indian Tribe :-

• presents a study on Saoras (Hill tribes)
• Wanted to project presence of -

Shamanism Polytheism Ancestor Worship Everyday life

• People had the belief of 2 worlds - • 174 gods from village to • belief in AW • Religion is part of their
inner world and World of ghosts village • sacrifice Buffalos and offer best every day life and
• And the connection between two wine to their ancestors believe in sacrifices
with tutelaries (spirits) that the • Despite containing the wealth,
Time consuming affair
shamans controlled the lived cheap
• On failing, they get
• Religion is a time consuming
demotivated and commit
affair
suicide
• Even the neighbours assist
In feasts for ancestors
Nirmal Kumar Bose (1901 - 1972) :-
• was from the first batch of scholars of university of Calcutta
• He left his job during Civil Disobedience Movement and came in contact with Gandhi
• He started to work with untouchables of Bolpur town; his curiosity about caste started to rise
• He started well developed research on caste system
• He gave the concept - Hindu Mode of Tribal Absorption
• Served as commissioner of NCST

Influences :-
• Indology - Indian textual categories can be used to understand the culture of the society
• Categories are - Vastu (material objects), Kriya (Actions), Samhati (Social Organisation), and Tatva (knowledge and belief system)
• Diffusionism by Kroeber and Wissler; divided India into different culture areas
• Spring festival complex - Holi, Baisakhi, Ugadi, Gangai, Gudi Padwa, Bihu, Chapchar Kut
• Also talked about diffusion of temple architecture in India - Central part of India has blend of architecture of North & South
• Functionalism by Malinowski - says that culture is an adaptive device and the aim of culture is shaped by needs and aspirations of the
people

Understanding of Caste System :-

Rejection of Divine Origin Economic Security Can exist only is

& Purity and Pollution Space for Rural
• Caste is a non competitive, Expansion
• hereditary, vocation based
productive organisation •
existing in rural areas with
inter ethnic tolerance

Hindu Mode of Tribal Absorption :-

• rejects the idea that caste is an immutable category; there have instances of caste fissions & fusions
• Several tribes have been brought into the fold of Hinduism; several castes have tribal origin
• When the Hindu community living beside the tribe guarantee a monopoly over a job to a particular community of tribe; due to this
monopoly offered to the tribe, they accept the offer despite being given the lower position; as this promises them economic security
• Brahmins are the one responsible for this; they’d leave no economic freedom for the tribe; they wouldn’t mess with the basic practices of
the tribe as long as it doesn’t challenge the basic tenets of Hinduism
• Brahmins will as certain elements (rituals) that will involve the role of the Brahmin
• Tribes hence got accepted to Hinduism more than Christianity or Islam as Hinduism wasn’t monotheist religion like them
• Some narratives will be created to establish the linkage of the tribe with Hindu God; example - Bondas of Odisha (studied by Elwin)
• Bondas only cover their lower part of the body with a cloth (Ringa); upper part is covered only with pearls
• The narrative is that bondas stole clothes of Sita Ma and was cursed to wear only Ringa
• Example - Bhil; Parvathi Ma belonged to Bhil community; Shiv ji gifted Bhils Nandi that would generate wealth for them
• They killed Nandi and were cursed to never do farming again; On asking for forgiveness, Shivji said you can do theft without facing sins
• Their profession was hence justified to be brought under Hinduism
• Fieldwork among Juans - Keonjhar district; they were engaged in liquor making business; due to British forest policy they weren’t able to
access forest for liquor making; so they migrated to Pallahara (started wheat cultivation and became Kshatriyas) and Dhenkanal (started
oil milling and became Vaishyas)
Scrutinising Hindu Mode of Tribal Absorption :-
• This essay was written 13 years after fieldwork
• Certain non Hindu practices mentioned for Juans- cross cousin marriage, bride price, clan-totem, youth dormitory
• Despite such non Hindu practices, on just finding the evidence of Lakshmi puja, he categorised then caste wise
• A E George
• B K Roy
• N K Bose in 1953 himself admitted that local Hindus didn’t consider Juans as a caste; self contradictory statements in his own paper
• T C Das highlights several counter movements seen among the tribe, whenever being absorbed into Hindu fold; he talks about a tribe
Bhumij - who have several taboos preventing any kind of absorption of Hindu values; Tribe Kharia also maintains strict boundary with
Hinduism
• Ho tribes of Kolhan consider Seraikella tribes as inferior because of their involvement with Hinduism
• Surjit Singha did a study on Bhumij tribes; after coming in contact with Hindus, elders claimed Kshatriya status; while youth population of
the tribe was against it and reclaimed tribal status
• He gave the concept of Tribe Caste Continuum (but Surjit and
• Tribe and Caste are polar ideal categories

Caste in Calcutta :-
• h
• There is economy of scarcity on Calcutta (scarcity of jobs)

Belief & values

Unity of Civilisation :-
• Bose presents a pyramidal structure of civilisation Soc
• Talks about the unity in India despite the diversity; diversity exists at material level
• Despite the diversity if you move up in the pyramid, differences become weaker and weaker
• This unity is there since eternity; because of trade and economy and Sages
Material

Christoph
• Early Life
• Konyak Nagas - The Naked Nagas
• Tribes of Deccan - Chenchus and Raj Gonds
• Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh
• Re study of Nagas

Early Life —>

• was an Austrian anthropologist; read Tagore and got curious about India
• In 1931, did PhD on Assam and Burma; was in university of Vienna and mentored by Schmidt and Froebinus
• In 1935 met J P Mills - he wanted to study head hunting of Nagas
• In 1936, comes again to India; came to Kohima
• J P Mills took him to Angami Nagas, who welcomed them
• Nagas started to tell their problems to Mills and this gave confidence to Christoph
• They parted ways after that and Haimendorf entered Wangchik village of Kanyak Nagas
• He found that Nagas were converting to Christianity
• Within 5 months be learned their language Nagalim - Pidgin; with this he communicated with Kanyak Nagas
• J P Mills sent him a letter saying that the time has come - there is a Naga tribe who is practising head hunting and they should go there
for Punitive Expedition
• The Kanyak Nagas asked him to bring the skulls from there as it was considered as a trophy, evidence of achievement
• In Nov 1936 expedition started; they started moving towards village, with being assisted by 2 other people - Major Williams and W J Smith
• Major Williams commanded 150 Assam rifles while Smith commanded 300+ coolies
• When they reached the village, head of the village asked for a compromise
• But J P Mills was adamant to show action to Haimendorf
• These Nagas left the village; the coolies then entered the village and killed any living object left
• Mills then gave few hours to Haimendorf to collect evidences; He took 4 skulls along with him
• He gave the skulls to Kanyak Nagas; they celebrated and this process was documented by Haimendorf
• In the book - The Naked Nagas he mentioned 5 clan groups -
• 5 major areas of 5 clans called Khel; with every Khel having its own entry
• Every clan has its youth dormitory - Morung; here un married men are given training of tribal culture
• When head hunting was allowed, it was also practiced here
• Gender based division of labour was there; similarly, clan based division of labour also
• He also talks about presence of Council of Elders In the village who were responsible for resolution of disputes; Chief Ang Clan
• 1 member Angclan; 7 members (Niengbans) 2 each from Bala, Balang & Oukheang while 1 from Thepong clan
• When found guilty, the fine charged from the culprit will not be given to the victim, rather consumed by the Council itself
• And in case the victim isn’t able to prove his accusation, he will have to pay the fine
• He said the the youth dormitories are fading because of the contact with colonial leaders

The Study of Deccan :-

• after studying Nagas went back to London and married Elizabeth (Betty)
• In 1939 because of
• First tribe he studied was Chenchus; compared them with decorated Nagas
• There was encroachment by moneylenders and merchant caste groups and colonial administrators
• He documented this in his monograph - Chenchus
• vj
• Second tribes he studied was Raj Gonds; he observed a process of Kshatriasation among Raj Gonds
• The leaders were claiming identity of Kshatriya; the heads were supposed to pay tax to the nobles
• Since other heads were Kshatriyas and Raj Gonds were paying similar tax, they claimed Kshatriya status
• He requested the govt to grant land rights to Raj Gonds; hence govt allotted 30,000 families with 1.6 lac acres of land; gained popularity
as Haimendorf Patta
• He established primary schools with Gondi medium of instruction; 95 teachers trained

Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh :-

• made documentaries
• because of isolation these tribes were living happy life; because no money lenders, no merchant, no outsider, no forest law
• 200 odd sq miles taken care exclusively by them

• came back to India

Return to Naked Nagas :-

• Sequel to the Naked Nagas book; talks about three major aspects - Christianity, Continuity & Change of their culture, and Political
Change among Nagas
• Almost every Naga had converted to Christianity; abandoning past practices
• Youth dormitories faded; church played an important role
• Christianity did however bring political awareness and economic upliftment of Nagas
• Most of their culture changed but kinship, clan and marriage continued; Council of clans also continuing
• Secessionist Movement among Nagas as a political change
• Earlier Nagas remained Naked as part of their customs; but now they were naked to show resistance and protest against the policies of
the Govt

• was the first problem oriented anthropologist of India

—>
• Ho Tribes - MARC
• Chittora Mirzapur
• Gohan Kallan
•
MARC :-
• Culture exists as an integrated whole with 4 variables maintaining harmony

Village Study :-
• calls every village unique
• With system of values
• Constellation of values
• Unique inter caste relations in every village
• Caste experiences some kind of mobility from village to village
• He countered British idea of village being a self sufficient entity
• Villages have always been a part of larger civilisation of India
• With these ideas he conducted a research on Chittora
• Hierarchy of caste in the village -
• Brahmin > Thakur > Kalwar Agrahari, Lohar, Ahir, Kewat > Kumhar, Teli > Kherwar (Mali), Chero (tribe), Manjhi (tribe) > Pasi, Panikar
(tribe), Chamar > Bhuiyan (tribe) > Korwa ( tribe)

Caste and Communication in an Indian Village :-

• In this book he mentions village study of a village - Gohan Kallan (Mohana - Pargana, district Malihabad)
• He was trying to identify caste relationship of that village
• Population was 603, with 15 caste groups
• Thakurs 78 (males), 51 (females)
• Chamar 72, 69
• Ahir 33, 32
• Kumhar 20, 14
• Lohar 4, 6
• Sex ratio in the higher caste is poorer than lower caste
• Earlier caste relationship followed tradition norms; with thakurs as land owning caste, providing employment to other castes
• Brahmins were also there in the village but still inferior to Thakurs
• An incident where a Thakur slapped a Brahmin woman on the accusation of theft
• On a child birth in Thakur family, Brahmins are called to make janampatri; then given Neg - 1 Rs for a boy, 50 paisa for a girl
• Brahmins will take the money and gifts but not consume the cooked food of the Thakurs
• Kurmi will consume the cooked food
• Lohars will make the iron case or iron bangle
• Pasis, who do the begari work (one step better than bonded labour) are given payments shraddhapurvak; as in how much the employer
wants
• Pasis are the news breaker for Thakur child birth; they spread the news in the village; they are also the Pattal cleaners
• Male Nai plasters the house while female nai gives massage to the mother
• Conflict in the society - Between Thakurs and Ahirs (Yadav)
• Both wanted to assert dominance in their respective villages; Yadavs warns the Thakurs not to carry processions through their lanes
• And Thakurs carry out the procession, asserting dominance
• Pasi in 1939 wanted to assert dominance over Thakurs; pasis suggested leaving the polluting job and start to wear janeu
• However due to World War 2, movement was suppressed; post 1947, the movement resumed which agitated Thakurs
• Thakurs ordered other castes to not give any job to Pasi groups; Pasis went to police to complaint against this
• When police tried to mediate, Thakurs agreed to attend the meeting only on the condition that Pasis should sit on the floor
• This revolt suppressed again ; in 1950 post abolition of zamindari act Thakurs lose their dominance
• Also this village was collected to Lucknow with a pakka road; people started to migrate to Lucknow
• This allowed lower castes to earn more in the cities by doing jobs not affiliated to castes; this ended Thakurs dominance and dependency
• Cloak of Solidarity was pierced because of no dependency on Thakurs; lower castes started to refuse to work as begar or Nai started to
deny plastering Thakur’s house
• This shows the bigger picture of Indian village system where land owning caste groups rule the village because of providing economic
dependency
Himalayan Polyandry : A Field Study of Jaunsar - Bawar :-
• From 1937 - 59, he used to visit this place two months every year with his students
• He collected a lot of data consisting census, genealogy, structured interview etc
• He had large understanding of this area
• He noticed the sex ratio of 800:1000 from 1881-1951; he implicitly gave female infanticide reason for the poor ratio
• He lists several caste groups
• Brahmins - Priests
• Thakurs (Khasas) - land owning castes
• Nath/Jagdi - Sorcerers/Magicians
• Lohar - Iron Smith
• Sonar - Gold Smith Red as top caste
• Badhai - Carpenter Blue as intermediate
• Bajgi - Tailor/Barber And pink as lower caste
• Julaha - Weaver Caste
• Koltas/Doms - Leather worker or labour class
• He said that castes had well structured hierarchy
• The settlement pattern of the village also reflects the caste hierarchy; since it was a hilly region, Brahmins lived on the top of the
sleep, while Koltas stayed at the lower end of the slope; intermediate caste was staying within both the ends
• Family & Social Organisation —>
• He talks about existence of Fraternal Polyandry
• Polygynandrous Family (mixture of Polyandry and Polygyny); A common woman will marry all the brothers, simultaneously the
brothers will also have exclusive wife for themselves
• But regardless of having an exclusive wife, legitimacy will be given to the child from the common wife
• In case of a child with the common wife, all brothers are considered as Father
• Due to less availability of land, such practice is followed
• This will prevent land division
• The justification for this was that they were descendants of Pandavas

Physical Anthropology :-
• did a serological study - Study of Blood Serum of people of UP, Punjab and Bengal; he found genetic similarities between them
• he believed that caste had racial origin; higher caste people in the region share genetic similarity; at the same time, lower caste
groups also shared similarities
• This made him believe that both caste belonged to different racial origins

Iravati Karve (1905 - 1970) :-

• she marks the transition phase by being the first female anthropologist of India
• Born in Burma, she was named after the river Iravati
• She was mentored by G S Ghurye in Bombay University
• Got married to Dinkar Karve, son of Maharshi Dhondo Karve (famous Maharashtrian figure)
• She went to University of Berlin to do her PhD; here she makes formal entry to anthropology
• She met infamous Eugene Fischer; she was given a task by Eugene to observe Asymmetry in skulls (during to the belief then that right
side of the skull was bigger)
• In her final thesis she rejected the idea, arguing that there is no correlation between race, and asymmetry of the skull
• She came to India and started to do similar anthropometric studies to come up with the classification of India

Theory of Caste Formation :-

• she rejected her mentor, Ghurye’s theory
• She argued that caste like formation was already prevalent before Aryan invasion
• Caste expresses itself in the form of Jati
• She defines caste as a local group
• They are endogamous and associated with certain professions
• They have caste councils
• While tribes are -
• Local
• Endogamous
• With tribal council
• Aryans came and brought the Varna system; they mixed it with tribal system
• Rulers and elite classes occupied the higher class in Varna while tribes occupied the lower class as Dalits
• According to Karve, caste is a sub unit of Jati; She called Brahmin as a caste cluster (group of castes)
• She collected genetic data of Maharashtrian 8 Brahmin groups; she found that they had no genetic relation with each other
• Had Indo Aryans created that caste, they would have kept themselves at top with similar genes
• But she proved this otherwise; some people who were already in India got the higher position with Aryans

The Role of Weekly Markets in Tribal, Rural and Urban Sitting :-

• she conducted a fieldwork in Nashik and found that weekly market played an important role - as an agent of communication between
people of different communities; that is how culture of a particular area thrives in a village

The Survey of People displaced through Koyna Dam :-

• a dam in Maharashtra; when setup, thousands of families were displaced
• she along with her daughter did a research to see the impact
• Economic impact - loss of livelihood; this economic impact escalated to social impact; social status was also impacted
• Psychological impact - a trauma and feeling of alienation in the new environment
• They found that impact was different at different levels - as the rehabilitation benefits was enjoyed by the upper castes
• Gendered impacts - stigma attached with females

Group Relation in a Village Community :-

• a study of caste relationship in 3 villages near Pune
• Did study with one of her students, Y B Damle in the villages - Ahupe, Varkute, Karul
• She said that caste relations follow social norms; despite economic interdependence for ages, it wouldn’t cause social intercourse
• There is a lot of attachment to village which is reflected in the surnames - they put the village names as their surnames; it reflects the
territorial identity, because of which they do not want to leave their place; hence wanting their son to continue their profession; unless
they get into govt jobs
• The caste group is so closely associated that at the time of turbulence, caste group is contacted first
• SCs have no place in the mainland village; they stay in the outskirts
• Except the position of SCs everything is relevant even today

The Social Dynamics of a Growing Town & its surrounding villages :-

• Town Phaltan situated in Satara district; a study of 23 villages surrounding this town was done
• She wanted to highlight the role that a town plays in acting as a bridge between village and city
• she wanted to create a policy to prevent the villages to become a place for agricultural settlement - this would keep the village backward
• town is the place where villagers can access urban facilities like healthcare, education, entertainment, and weekly markets in the towns
can progress village economy as well
• Cluster Village Program Policy - every village should be connected to the town with an all season road; and every village should be
connected to the other villages; also, the planning should be done as per the population and area
• Town should have all the urban amenities; Authority should be in the hands of people to manage the infrastructure ands logistics
• The town should act as a facilitator for surrounding villages
• Phaltan became a town in which people were moving towards the villages - reverse migration (to do sugar cultivation etc)

Yuganta: End of an Epoch :-

• Karve analyses the characters in this epic; she calls Mahabharata as a feud related to property
• She called Mahabharata as the best story to study ethical dilemmas
• Bhishmapitamaha - she says that he is nothing but the Great Indian Patriarch; even his name means the same; he is the epitome of cruel
cliche, specifically related to women
• Draupadi - she labelled her as the heroine of this epic; she compared her with Sita, following similar course in life; but claimed Draupadi’s
role to be a stronger character than Sita’s;
• Kunti - she calls her the most exploited and vulnerable character
• Karna - she says that in the entire epic he was in the pursuit of being a true Kshatriya; showed extreme level; also appreciated his loyalty
• Krishna - she calls him the smartest, rational and witty character because emotions never overpowered him despite what one said; he has
developed detachment with emotions; giving him the rational control; she said that it was because of Mahabharata that Krishna became an
important God

Kinship Organisation in India :-

• she talks about different types of Kinship practices in India
• To understand Kinship you need 3 kinds of data -
• i) Linguistic in the region
• ii) Caste - It is a local endogamous group with same language; people are related to each other either by blood or marriage
• iii) Family - reflection of the kin groups; whether joint, nuclear, matrilineal or patrilineal
• She divided India into 4 parts-

1. Northern Region —>

• There is clear distinction between blood and affinal relatives; example - Bua & Mami; Fufa & Mama
• Name for relatives of different generations are different
• Kinship terminology is more descriptive in nature

Marriage rules —>

• there is village exogamy
• 4 gotra rule for high caste and 2 gotra rule for low caste
• Cousin marriages are not allowed
• Hypergamy (female marrying into higher caste) and dowry are practised
• Existence of joint families usually in high caste
• Society is patrilineal and patrilocal

2. Southern Region —>

• No distinction between blood and affinal relatives
• Same name for relatives of different generations
• Kinship terminology is Classificatory in nature

Marriage Rules —>

• No restriction related to village exogamy
• No distinction between family of birth and family of marriage
• Cross Cousin marriages are allowed; most common being marriage with father’s sister’s daughter (this makes the women exchange even
over generations)
• Uncle Niece marriage is also common (man marrying sister’s daughter) - only requirement is that man must be older than the woman
• Presence of matrilineal - matrilocal and patrilineal and patrilocal

3. Central Region —>

• There is a mix of North & South; some communities engage in cross cousin marriages while several communities follow 2 gotra rule

4. Eastern Region —>

• Tribes of East India - Munda, Ho, are Patrilineal and patrilocal whereas some tribes like Garo Khasi are matrilineal and matrilocal
Leela Dube (1923 - 2012) :-
• she also brought feminist point of view to anthropology
• She was from a Brahmin family, with father in judiciary - education was for granted (only for the status symbol, and not to make them
independent)
• She talks about Ramcharit Manas where women have been portrayed in a different light
• She wanted to marry a man more intellectual than her
• She got married to an anthropologist SC Dube; this introduced her to anthropology
• SC Dube did a study on Kamar tribe in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
• She enjoyed the fieldwork with him, so wanted to do a fieldwork of her own
• So he set her to Gonds of MP, which was a relatively safer place
• She studied Gonds from the feminist perspective
• She talks about metaphor of men as brass utensils and women as earthern wares; not as precious as men
• This metaphor showed the superior status of men wrt to women
• Gonds were patrilineal and patrilocal
• Vl

Seed & Earth :-

• a metaphor prevailing in Patrilineal and patriarchal societies
• A concept that reflects reproductive asymmetry; man in reflected as seed and woman as earth
• Woman in just the bearer while it is the effort of the man that is responsible for the continuity of lineage
• This concepts gives rationalisation-
• to women sub ordination
• Implications -
• i) Unequal values between men and women
• ii) Power imbalance
• iii) Engendered division of labour
• iv) System as natural and inevitable
• She says that this metaphor is prevalent in every society; women are like wild forests and needs to be tamed by father, husband and son
• She calls three institutions responsible for gendering -
• Family —> primary agent, training begins
• Kinship —> rules of recruitment put a burden on women
• Caste —> woman plays an important role in maintaining caste boundary, women are the gateway of honour of caste
• 4 factors for gendering - Language, Ceremonies, Rituals and Household Socialisation

Matriliny & Islam :-

• study about group of tribes living in Lakshadweep island; they are Muslims yet Matrilineal
• This study was assisted by Abdul Rehman Kutty; 262
• Taravad was an Exogamous matrilineage; headed by eldest male of matrilineage (called Karnavam)
• Marriage is duolocal (both husband and wife can stay at each other’s house)
• Kutty found that 75% couples followed duolocal practices
• All are followers of Islam and converted recently; they practice in Shafi School
• Marriage and other practices are following Sharia laws
• Leela Dube lists the factors responsible for continuing this matriliny practice in Islam
• i) Economy - reason for Matrilineal and matrilocality
• ii) Islam provides Safety valve for his role of father, preventing the Matrilineage from breaking down
•
Indian Social Organisation
• Varna
• Ashrama
• Rina
• Karma
• Purshartha

• Desa, Kala, Srama and Guna

Place Time Effort Personality &
X- X

Inherent traits

• Guna (Inherent traits) refers to the nature you’re born with

• Training refers to Ashrama
• Based on Guna there are 4 major Varnas
• Varnas are the classification based on inherent traits
• 3 Gunas are -
• Satvik - spiritual
• Rajasik - creates restlessness, self centred
• Tamasik - creates inertia, selfishness
• Your past karma will decide your present guna; while the present aim is to expand satvik energy and attain moksha

Theories of Origin of Varna System :-

1. Divine Origin Theory —>
i) Rig Veda or Purushasukta - From Brahma
ii) Gita or Mahabharata - everyone born as a Brahmin and then according to their karma got into different varnas
iii) Manusmriti - everyone is born Shudra but by sticking to their dharma will accumulate Satvik energy and go higher in hierarchy

2. Transplantation Theory —>

• Herbert Risley says that varna system diffused to India from Persia and not originate in India
• Persian groups - Atharvans, Rathustass, Vastriya and Hinti

3. Composite Theory by PV Kane —>

• said that varna system was created by Aryans; they created two varnas - Dasas (black) and fair colour
• Dasas got to be shudra while Aryans divided themselves into Brahmins, Kshatriya and Vaishya
• Earlier hierarchy between only Aryans and non Aryans; later B > K > V > S
• Different types of crafts started to emerge, bringing new sub groups, called Jati

Characteristics of the Varna System :-

1.Uniformity —> Entire Indian Society is divided into 4 groups
2.Hierarchy —> fixed and pan Indian; B > K > V > S
3.Restricted Choice of Occupation —> jobs given according to varna
4.Marriage rules & Hypergamy —> hypogamy was prohibited
5.Division of Labour -
i) Brahmins - preaching, pratigraha and Yagna
ii) Kshatriya - Welfare, Maintainance of subjects/Brahmins
iii) Vaishya - Trade, agricultural production, cattle, and herding
iv) Shudra - serve other varnas, humility, truthfulness & purity
• Initially varna was mobile but later became permanent
• Interdependence between varna members
Buddhism & Varna :-
• Angutara Nikaya talks about dream of Buddha - 4 varnas were welcomed to fold of Buddhism
• All these varnas were not divine creation but a creation of man; Everybody is welcome in Buddhism
• But one once join the sangha, he loses his varna; however, majority of the people of sangha belonged to high varna
• Bhikkus like Mahakassapa and Sariputta were Brahmin
• Occupation - Sippas - High (writing, accounting) and low (leather, barber and porterer)
• Ranking - among commoners Kshatriya was superior to a Brahmin

Buddhism & Women :-

• Positive aspects - they created a bhikkhni sangha for women
• Nibbana was allowed for women
• Nuns - Dhammadina Theri, Uppalavana
• Therigatha - 73 poems by 72 nuns
• Negative aspects - labelled with tags like temptress; compared to a fire ball, snakes
• Buddhism put restriction on entry of women into sangha
• Buddha’s statement that women entry to sangha will bring down Buddhism from 1000 years of flourishment to 500
• Buddha went to disciple Anathapindika’s house; he diagnosed her child
• Buddha gave 7 types of wives- Vadhaka, Chorsamma, Ayyasama, Matasamma, Bhaginisamma, Sanghinisamma and Dasisamma (first 3 to
hell while rest 4 to heaven)
• Buddhist monks claimed that a woman can attain salvation but not Buddhahood

Jainism & Varna :-

• Jainism has talked about creation of Varna - the first tirthankar, Rishabh had created Varna - K,V,S and Bharat created Brahmins;
mentioned in Adi Purana
• It criticises Brahmins;
• They equate Kshatriya over Brahmins for commoners
• Vaishya caste got converted to Jainism at large
• Membership was open for all; but, on the ground level majority of the chief disciples were Brahmins; example- Haribhadra, JinaSena,
Diwaker; while Harikeshiya belonged to Chandala community

Jainism & Women :-

• Just like Buddhism they also label women as an obstacle in attaining salvation; Jain monks advised to avoid women
• In case of membership, at the time of Mahavira’s death there were 700 monks and 1400 nuns
• 159000 male laity while 318000 female laity
• Jain nuns has played an important role in preaching Jainism
• Digambar doesn’t wear any cloth while Shvetambar wears white
• Women should not be roaming naked; they were allowed to enter the sangha but were treated like a common lay woman who had attained
celibacy
• As for shvetambars, they believed that women could attain salvation in the same birth
• Shvetambars believe that 19th tirthankar is a female - Malli; Digambars believed otherwise

Ashrama System :-
• Srama - to exert oneself
• Ashrama system - stages of training in man’s life; He could attain the ultimate goal of his life ie Moksha
• 4 Ashrams -
• Bhrahmcharya - begins with Upnayana ceremony; student going to Gurukul, learning different Gunas; norms to be followed are devotion,
celibacy and obedience and develop control over senses
• On passing the Brahmacharya ashram, one moves to Grihastha ashram
• Norms - ritual bath, marriage, procreation, accumulate for family and do yagna to be performed
• A person pay off all his debt, i.e. Rina to move towards the next stage
• Next stage - Vanaprastha begins with dispossession of all his material to children and move towards a forest
• Create a hut and restart his journey of spirituality
• Last stage of Sanyas - a stage of becoming a saint; to either go into deep state of meditation or becoming a wanderer, to attain moksha
• With Ashrams come the complementary idea of Purushartha - human + pursuit; i.e. goals of human life
• 4 major goals of human life - Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha
• Arranging them In Order of priority - Artha > Kama > Dharma > Moksha
• Dharma has been mistranslated as religion; it is talking about the idea of righteousness
• Artha refers to the material objects, or the comfort being derived from material objects; it is the acquisitive instinct in human
• Kama refers to the sensual pleasure; some say that idea of kama has been misrepresented as intimate pleasure; it could be dance, music
etc; this should be satisfied but keeping in mind the dharma, i.e. doing it by the right means
• Moksha refers to liberation

Moksha Brahmacharya

...
~
Rebirth

Artha
Sanyasa Dharma Grihastha
Kama
v

Vanaprastha L

Rina :-
• Rinas - debt that has to be repaid in order to attain moksha
• i) Deva Rina - debt to God - by conducting Yagnas, and sacrificing; to be done in all Ashrams
• ii) Pitri Rina (Parents) - by procreation and socialisation and observe Shrada; followed in Grihastha Ashram
• iii) Guru Rina (teachers) - by reading the scriptures and respecting; done in all 4 ashrams
• iv) Atithi Rina - by giving gifts and alms or by providing hospitality to guests; during Grihastha and Vanaprastha

Karma & Rebirth :-

• karma talks about the actions; every action will have consequences; Indestructibility of actions
• every action generates karmaphala - merit and demerit (pap and punya)
• Karmaphala accumulated over time;
• It gives moral recognisability to everyone
• It creates Hope And a sense of opportunity for an individual to aspire for a better future
• Karma philosophy is based on the idea of Immortality of Soul; Sow seeds; it reaps the effects of seeds

Importance of Karma and Purushartha in Contemporary Time :-

Dharma vs Religion :-
• Badrinath Chaturvedi wrote a book - Dharma;
• He gave the following differences -

Religion Dharma

• Western concept • Indian concept

• Good is the creator • Not related to any supernatural state
• Belief system that is rigid • Belief system is flexible; contextual individual
• In binaries specific
• Ultimate goal - Union with almighty • action to be seen in context
• has narrow scope • Ultimate goal - liberation
• Code of conduct & Duty
Caste System

• The word Caste is not of Indian origin; Portuguese missionaries classified Indian society into casta like system; casta means lineage/race
• One group of people argued caste represented Varna; while the others believed that it represented Jati
• Destinations for Caste-
• By SV Ketkar - by ascriptive membership and endogamy

Theories of Origin of Caste System :-

• Divine Origin - Purushasukta, karma & rebirth
• Herbert Risley

F G Bailey :-
• did a fieldwork in Bisipara village in Phullbani district, Odisha;
• He said that caste as a principle is based on Segregation and Hierarchy (Hierarchy is not only determined by ritual status but also
interacts with political and economic hierarchy)
• This hierarchy keeps the caste system intact by centralised power in the hands of caste
• Hierarchy creates a sense of interdependency
• This hierarchy is displayed through interaction, i.e. language, clothes etc
• Bisipara was a closed village initially inhabited by the tribes; EIC started to generate tax revenues from villages
• Caste Hindus settled in this village; Boad warrior, Brahmin and washermen, barber, boad (distillers, ganjan), boad outcast
• boad distillers first got land transfer and then because of Kshatriya alcohol debt, they got more wealth and took the status of Kshatriya
• One distillers got rich, they captioned equality and demanded exchange of women
• For Boad hide, untouchability was obstacle for mobility

Adrian Mayer :-
• studied the village Ramkheri in MP
• He gave ranking for indicator of hierarchy -
• i) commensality
• ii) seating arrangement
• iii) land ownership
• did not complete the notes here

McKim Marriott :-
• He studied two villages - Ram Nagla and Kishangarhi in Aligarh
• Interactionist study; he says that there are 4 major dimensions of hierarchy -
• i) ritual
• ii) political
• iii) economic
• iv) other non ritual hierarchy
• Prominent factor for determining ranking is the ritual hierarchy; ritual hierarchy is created out of political, economic and other forms
of hierarchy
• There will be harmony between ritual, political and economic hierarchy; it will create a consensus in the village wrt hierarchy
• It creates a pattern of interaction
• Some aspects being indicator of rank are -
• i) food exchange
• ii) land ownership
• iii) gesture and practice
• iv) housing arrangement
• v) Brahmins are considered superior As they have to perform exclusive rituals
• Ritual hierarchy is in sync with the hierarchy because of land ownership (Brahmin has the maximum while shura minimum)
•
Perspectives on Caste :-
1. GS Ghurye, Indological understanding of Caste - Varna Model
2. MN Srinivas - Jati Model
3. Dr BR Ambedkar and Lohia’s perspective of caste
4. Louis Dumont’s - Structural Analysis
5. Andre Beteile
6. Dipankar Gupta’s understanding of caste

1. Ghurye’s understanding of caste :-

• Racial origin, AIT, valid only for Hindustan Proper
• Gave idea of caste as indological (understanding from textual view), comparative (using evolutionist pov) and integrative (harmonious
entity)
• Caste expresses itself in the form of 4 varna; arranged in Pan Indian hierarchy, and is fixed (because it’s a ritual hierarchy)
• People might have the same occupation but in the private life they will follow caste norms and caste hierarchy
• Caste used to play an integrative role; no caste was being exploited, every caste had its consensus
• Caste census criticised Caste identity and people started to compete for benefits
• Caste became dis harmonious because of Britisher’s intervention
• To remove ill effects of caste - similar cultural & religious values needed

2. MN Srinivas :-
• Jati Model or the Field View of Caste; despite being a student of Ghurye he brought dynamism to his idea
• Caste expressed itself not in form of Varna but Jati, i.e. small, local, endogamous groups based on occupation
• Varna is also important but it is a macro structural scheme
• Varna model gives a homogenous picture of caste; according to Ghurye all Brahmins are equal, but as per him even they are ranked
amongst each other
• He also says that ritual hierarchy is prominent; he also highlighted secular form of hierarchy, i.e. economic, political hierarchies
• Ritual hierarchy is influenced by secular hierarchy
• He gave the concept of dominant caste; also gave the concept of Sanskritisation, reflecting the fluidity

3. BR Ambedkar’s understanding :-
• He said that caste is based on 3 major principles -
• i) Principle of Graded Inequality - some people are more unequal than others
• ii) Prescribed Graded Occupation - more strict in the lower castes
• iii) Confinement of Interaction - food restrictions and inter caste marriage restriction
• He said the Hindu varna system had failed to uphold the value of liberty, equality and fraternity; a person is punished not because of his
own actions but because of a membership of group
• It is against the meritocratic system
• Caste maintains itself only through the use of endogamy; for endogamy maintenance of numbers is required, leading to two cases
• Surplus Girls - maintained by female infanticide, sati, polygyny, prohibition of widow remarriage
• Surplus Boys - managed by lowering age of marriage of girls, increasing the pool of girls for marriage (child marriage )

Origin of Caste by Ambedkar :-

1. Closed Door Policy —>
• care system was a brainchild of Brahmins; the policy they followed was endogamy
• Every other caste started to imitate them, as Brahmins were enjoying higher status
• He made the statement - some caste groups closed the door while some caste groups found the door closed against them

2. Broken Men Theory —>

• On the Book - Beef, Brahmins & Broken Men (Dalits)
• He associated shudras with Dalits and untouchables; he argued that shudras were initially Kshatriya, they were degraded as shudras by the
Brahmins (by refusing to perform the rituals related to sacred thread)
• During warfares tribe put the community that lost were routed from the village; these broken men when moved to new places, committed
they etc; hence were chased away; broken men were in search of food and shelter
• A contract was made by which they are allowed to settle on the boundary of the village, on the condition that they perform certain jobs
• People settled at the boundaries accepted Buddhism; but despite that they still continued eating meat; which was considered a polluting act
by the Hindus, hence declared untouchable
• As per Ambedkar, beef eating was a secular practice but anybody eating it would be considered untouchable
• Apararka Tika - a commentary on Yajnavalkya Smoiti; anybody who vists monastery or supported Buddhism was considered untouchable
• Mahars have the same surnames as Marathas; Brahmins were blamed for everything

Annihilation of Caste :-
• Caste is not just economic backwardness but is a social backwardness; hence cannot be ended just by economic support
• Poor & Proletariat are not homogenous
• He argued the idea of revolution also; a revolution against the caste system would cause Brahmins to lose and Dalits to win, keeping
inequality
• The State of mind should be altered by attacking your sacredness or divinity of caste; this would happen by attacking the sanctity of
shashtras that justify the caste system
i) There should be a single sacred text accepted and believed by all
ii) Abolish Priesthood; and if not possible, should not be hereditary
iii) Govt should conduct an exam every year for becoming a priest; person belonging to any caste group could aspire to be a priest
iv) Any person practising priesthood without the license should be penalised
v) Priest should be servant of the govt and should be accountable for his actions

Ram Manohar Lohia’s perspective of caste :-

• Caste system is created by division of labour; wherever there is hereditary production, caste system will automatically rise up as there will
be centralisation of land - Kshatriya Varna; for priest service they’d require Brahmins, for trades Vaishyas
• Caste is valid or visible only in the shudra varna as caste is associated with craft specialisation
• Second system that maintains caste system is endogamy; caste system has pushed India generationally backwards as we’re having very
narrow and shallow thoughts at the top
• He used the phrase - Roti Beti ka nata todo; to break the dining and marriage norms
• He suggested that adivasis, Harijans, women etc constitute 85% population but have not much representation; hence 60% reservation
should be there for these people
• Lower caste people should stop imitating upper class people; he gave anti English stand; it created a wave of Hindi medium schools among
backward classes
• Caste and surnames should not reflect your caste; there should be neutral surnames like Kumar Bharti etc
• He gave the statement that every govt servant should go for inter caste marriage

4. Louis Dumont’s perspective of Caste in Homo Hierarchicua :-

• in this book he compares Indian society, representing them as homo hierarchicus with Western society, that is Homo equals
• Indian society is based on hierarchy/inequality, traditions/customs, and is rigid/no mobility
• Western society is based on equality, Modernity/Rationality, and is flexible and mobile
• He said that hierarchy is the most important concept among Indians; and this hierarchy is a binary for Purity vs Pollution
• Structural idea is explained using Bougle’s idea of hereditary, hierarchy and repulsion
• Indological idea is explained by -
• i) Substance & Attributes - qualities of an individual, talent, skills etc
• ii) Status & Power - arguing MN Srinivas he said that Hierarchy is permanent in India because of ritual hierarchy; Brahmins have always
been at the top
• Substantialization of Caste -
• Caste represents non competitive ritual hierarchical system

5. Andre Beteile :-
• Study of Sripuram Tanjore (TN)
• Earlier scholars suggested that ritual hierarchy is the dominant one and matters; Andre rather used Max Weber’s model of Social
Stratification
• Social Stratification - Distinction —> Inequality/Ranking —> Institutionalisation of ranking
• Ranking can be decided by trinitarian model - i.e. Class (Wealth), Status (Prestige), and Power (Politics)
• Caste interacts with power and class to determine the rank of the individual
• Sripuram is a village 8 km from Tanjore; it is an agrahara village, majority of land owned by Brahmins
• Pandora village, where non Brahmins owned the majority of land
• Brahmins do not want to enter the Cheri (because of untouchables)
• Even Cheri people do not want to enter the Agrahari area
• In this village community can be divided into -

Brahmins Non Brahmins

(Agrahari) Adi - Dravidians
(Kudiyana street)
(Cheri)
• Total population of 1400 with 92 Brahmin, 168 non Brahmins and 89 adi Dravidian families
• Idea of Complementary Opposition - One group has its identity in respect with the other group
• As for hierarchy he said that it is not possible to create clear cut ranking in the village, because of no consensus
• Non Brahmins challenge the position of Brahmins; DMK leader was supposed to visit the village; since TN had anti Brahminical stance,
non Brahmins were celebrating while Brahmins were jealous as they were losing their power
• As for Economics, he said that traditionally land was in the hands of the Brahmins but post independence, non Brahmins and adi
Dravidians got land transfers from Brahmins
• Brahmins started to migrate towards cities - Absentee Land Lordism
• Brahmins feel insecure
• Triangular bitterness - Brahmins are bitter against non Brahmins; non Brahmins hate Brahmins as they feel that Brahmins get paid
40% despite no work; adi Dravidians hate both;
• Transition from Symmetry to Asymmetry; or from Old Caste to New Caste - in traditional times High Caste meant high class, and high
power; but Post Independence there has been unequal distribution of wealth and power which ended the symmetry between Class Caste
and power

Untouchability :-
• as per a recent report by National Council of Applied Economic Research - 27% households still believe in untouchability
• 160 million people are affected with untouchability
• Amit Thorat made a map to show spread of untouchability; he found a correlation that a state where vegetarianism is prevalent, more
untouchability is practiced
• Michael Moffatt who studied a village Endavur in Tamil Nadu in Chingalpet district, gave an idea that untouchability is by consensus and
view from the top is the same from the view from the bottom
• Due to this untouchability lower caste experiences both, inclusion as well as exclusion; when they’re included they provided some services
to the upper caste and fulfil the system but not get any service from the upper caste; and on refusal of any kind of service they will
replicate similar type of system of the upper caste because of exclusion
• In case of Endavur village, he found that the dominant caste is Reddiyar; approximately 32% people were untouchables; out of these 32%
people 43% had land ownership; therefore, despite class they were considered untouchables
• Cheri (untouchables) are divided into 5 categories -

Vallavur Paraiyars Vannan Cakkliyas Kuruvikaran

Pandarams
• priest of untouchables • control most resources • engaged in funeral • leather work • lowest in hierarchy
• Highest in ranking • are numerically services or as barbers • Crow eaters
important • Begging

• Study by GW Briggs on Chamars; Satnami Chamar and Sweeper Chamar

• For the former, the latter is untouchable
• So, a similar system of hierarchy replicates for untouchables too
• AM Shah studied Garuda, Garos in Gujarat; he highlights the idea that when a caste group providing a service to upper caste but denying
the service to the lower caste, the lower caste will create similar system
• Louis Dumont said that untouchability is based on idea of Temporary and Permanent Pollution; temporary pollution will make the person
untouchable for sometime, example - woman during menstruation; permanent pollution is by birth
Caste and Gender :-
• Caste inherently is a patriarchal institution.
• Endogamy —> It is the fundamental basis of caste and to maintain the caste identity; burden of boundary maintenance is on the shoulders
of women; Sexuality of women is controlled by ideology and coercion
• Chastity —> A Brahmin woman is supposed to be following virginity complex; Prohibition to widow remarriage or loyalty to husband; In
case of lower caste, upper caste does not enforce this on them; the burden of Chastity is falling more on the shoulders of upper caste
women; because of this they find restrictions in their career, confined to household work
• Inequality between Man and Woman —> Leela Dubey said the incase of upper caste men and women there are two types of pollution -
Bodily Pollution (menstruation) and Work Pollution (cleaning etc); men have neither of the pollutions while women have both; Similarly, in
the case of lower caste, men suffer from work pollution, bringing down the inequality between men and women in lower caste; hence the
upper caste men and women have higher inequalities; lower caste women are economically supporting the family
• Patriarchal Bargaining - a woman to rise is the hierarchy has the follow the patriarchy norms; women will be the agents of patriarchy as
because of this bargain, they’ll be able to rise in the hierarchy. However, there is a Glass Ceiling Effect that prohibits the rise of woman
after a certain level, beyond which a woman cannot rise
• Honour —> key concept that any caste would like to maintain; male will establish honour by dominating over women of the same caste and
by exploiting the women of lower caste
Bhanwri Devo Case (Kumhar caste) - was against child marriage; was gang rapped by Gujjar men; Supreme Court gave
the Vishakha guidelines
Khairlanji Case - a land dispute between Marathas and Dalits;

• Surinder Jodlka said that a rape challenges the masculinity of the lower caste; he also highlighted a case when Dalits developed
independence from upper caste, they started teasing upper class women and increased restrictions on their caste women, i.e. they started
to replicate the upper class behaviour