Levi-Strauss Claude - Tristes tropiques

PENGUIN CLASSICS

TRISTES TROPIQUES

CLAUDE LVI-STRAUSS , the founder of structural anthropology, was born in Belgium in 1908. He studied at the University of Paris, including readings in sociology, took a degree in law and was received at the agrgation in philosophy. After teaching in a lyce, he was appointed in 1934 to a post as Professor of Sociology at the University of So Paulo in Brazil. During his tenure there, he made several expeditions to the countrys interior, where he conducted his first fieldwork. In 1941 he began teaching at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and served from 1946 to 1947 as the cultural counsellor to the French embassy in Washington. Lvi-Strauss began publishing his work in the midforties. He was appointed to the specially created Chair of Social Anthropology at the Collge de France in 1959. In 1968 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and in 1973 he was elected to the French Academy. His many published works include Structural Anthropology; Totemism; The Savage Mind; The Raw and the Cooked; From Honey to Ashes; The Origin of Table Manners; The Naked Man; Myth and Meaning; and Look, Listen, Read. He died on October 30, 2009, a few weeks shy of his 101st birthday.

JOHN WEIGHTMAN and DOREEN WEIGHTMAN together translated several important anthropological works of Claude Lvi-Strauss and a book about Rousseau by Jean Guehenno.

PATRICK WILCKEN is the author of Claude Lvi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory and Empire Adrift: The Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro, 18081821. He studied anthropology at Goldsmiths College, London University, and now works as a researcher on the Brazil desk at Amnesty International. He lives in London.

CLAUDE LVI-STRAUSS

Tristes Tropiques

Translated by
JOHN WEIGHTMAN and DOREEN WEIGHTMAN
Introduction and Notes by
PATRICK WILCKEN

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This translation first published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1973 Published in the United States of America by Atheneum Publishers 1974 Published in Penguin Books 1992 This edition with an introduction by Patrick Wilcken published 2012

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright Librarie Plon, 1955
English translation copyright Jonathan Cape Limited, 1973
Introduction copyright Patrick Wilcken, 2012
All rights reserved

A previous English translation of this work, from which of the French were omitted, was published in the United States by Criterion Books and reprinted by Atheneum.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Lvi-Strauss, Claude.
[Tristes tropiques. English]
Tristes tropiques/Claude Lvi-Strauss: translated from
the French by John and Doreen Weightman.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-101-57560-4
1. Indians of South AmericaBrazil. 2. BrazilDescription and travel19511980. I. Title.
F2520.L4813 1992
981.00498dc20 9144515

Printed in the United States of America
Set in Old Style 7 Std.

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Version_2

TO LAURENT

Nec minus ergo ante haec quam tu cecidere, cadentque.

LUCRETIUS,

De rerum natura, III, 969

CADUVEO

A Caduveo woman with a painted face

A Caduveo belle in 1895 (taken from Boggiani)

Facial painting: an original drawing by a Caduveo woman

Two further facial paintings drawn by natives

A Caduveo girl made ready for her puberty rites

BORORO

The authors best informant, in ceremonial dress

A meal in the Mens House

Bringing out the mariddo

A funeral ceremony (photograph by M. Ren Silz)

NAMBIKWARA

The Nambikwara group on the move

Saban, the sorcerer

The chief of the Wakletou

A Nambikwara woman piercing mother-of-pearl from river shells

The siesta

The native method of carrying a baby

Day-dreaming

A Nambikwara smile

TUPI-KAWAHIB

The Mund village square

A Mund woman with her child

A Tupi-Kawahib man (Potien) skinning a monkey

Taperahi, the Tupi-Kawahib chief

Kunhatsin, Taperahis chief wife, carrying her child

Pwcreza, Taperahis son

Penhana, the young wife shared by the two brothers

Maruabai, the co-wife of Chief Taperahi