Edmund Leach - The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism

THE STRUCTURAL STUDY OF MYTH AND TOTEMISM

ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY

WITCHCRAFT, FOLKLORE AND MYTHOLOGY

In 6 Volumes

THE STRUCTURAL STUDY OF MYTH AND TOTEMISM

EDITED BY EDMUND LEACH

First published in 1967

Reprinted in 2004 by
Routledge
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First issued in paperback 2010

1967 Association of Social Anthropologists of the
Commonwealth

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The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-33072-5 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-61162-6 (pbk)

Miniset: Witchcraft, Folklore and Mythology

Series: Routledge Library Editions Anthropology and Ethnography

THE STRUCTURAL STUDY OF MYTH AND TOTEMISM

Edited by Edmund Leach

EDMUND LEACH

CLAUDE LVI-STRAUSS

Translated by Nicholas Mann

MARY DOUGLAS

NUR YALMAN

K. O. L. BURRIDGE

E. MICHAEL MENDELSON

PETER WORSLEY

ROBIN FOX

Publishers of potentially libellous novels sometimes try to save their skins by an opening assertion that All the characters in this book are entirely imaginary. Much the same might be said of the leading off-stage character in this set of critical essays: each of the authors has his own fixed ideas about the nature of Lvi-Strauss's thought and is prepared to do battle on ground of his own choosing. But the different Lvi-Strauss figures which are thus turned into Aunt Sally do not seem to me to share a great deal in common; just where they connect up with the living Lvi-Strauss, Professor at the Collge de France, is not for me to say. If this book provides illumination it will be because of the light it throws upon the assumptions and attitudes of particular British social anthropologists rather than because of any consistent analysis of the work of Continental Europe's most distinguished living anthropologist.

The symposium originated in the spring of 1963, when members of the Association of Social Anthropologists meeting at Oxford decided to devote a future session to a series of papers concerning the work of Lvi-Strauss. By the time that I myself was brought into the matter as seminar convener, the principal contributors had already agreed to prepare papers. At that stage I saw my role as strictly catalytic and I circulated to participants copies of an English translation of La Geste d'Asdiwal which had been prepared for me by Mr Nicholas Mann. I am particularly grateful to Professor Lvi-Strauss and Mr Mann for allowing this translation to appear as the headpiece of these printed proceedings.

I should here explain that Dr Douglas's contribution was prepared for an audience which did not have immediate access to the Lvi-Strauss essay and on that account her paper includes a prcis of the document which she is criticizing. This means that pp. 5360 of this book to some extent repeat what has already appeared at pp. 147. But Dr Douglas's prcis is itself an integral part of her analysis and a comparison between the original and the prcis may be of some interest in itself.

It was originally intended that the seminar should take place in January 1964 and drafts of four of the papers printed here were actually prepared by that date. However, as things turned out, the meeting was not held until June 1964. The proceedings fell into three parts. The first session, with the general title Method in the Analysis of Myth, was focused around papers by Dr Douglas and Dr Burridge; the second, entitled General and Particular Views of Totemism, developed out of a paper by Dr Mendelson and a more or less off-the-cuff contribution from Professor Worsley. The final session had as theme The Significance of Anthropological Studies of Myth and Totemism for other Fields of Study. The principal paper here was one by Dr Fox, while I myself endeavoured to sum up the whole proceedings. There was a large attendance of members of the Association of Social Anthropologists, and the discussion at all three sessions (which was unrecorded) was very lively. Especially valuable contributions were made by Professor Firth, Dr Freeman, and Dr Yalman.

The various contributors have all reworked their original papers and the texts printed here are in some cases substantially different from the originals. This applies especially to the contributions by Burridge and Worsley. In these printed proceedings a review of Lvi-Strauss's Le Cru el le cuit by Dr Yalman has been inserted immediately after Dr Douglas's paper, but the reader should bear in mind that this book had not been published at the date of the original symposium. If it had appeared earlier the seminar papers and discussions might have taken rather a different line. For example, Dr Douglas expresses surprise and puzzlement that Lvi-Strauss should insist that myth is wholly unlike poetry because poetry is a kind of speech which cannot be translated except at the cost of serious distortions; whereas the mythical value of myths remains preserved through the worst translation. Dr Douglas seems to think that this argument must be invalid because Lvi-Strauss has himself made a structural analysis of a poem by Baudelaire using procedures similar to those by which he analyses the structure of myths. There is clearly a misunderstanding here. Dr Douglas might have grasped Lvi-Strauss's meaning more easily if she had read