"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...
It's been a long time since I read Benedict's book......'76-'77 was the
year
of anthropology and paleontology for me.....Boas, Mead, Montagu, Dart,
Chagnon, Leakey, etc......a trip down memory lane.

I've read a little by or about most of those--just for fun-- except
Dart. Never encountered him.

Dart was one of the premier early twentieth century anthropologists, famous
chiefly for his discovery of the celebrated "Taung" child in 1924. I don't
know if any of his works are still in print, but older copies shouldn't be
hard to find. Some of his stuff may be in the public domain by now, and
thus available for free on line.

Napoleon Chagnon was on the faculty here at PSU for some years--1960s
- '70s. Used to come to our TGIF beer parties at a local pub but
never brought his own cigarets. What a cheap *******! But his films
of the Yanamomo are terrific!

Years later I read in the Washington Post that he was in serious
trouble for some kind of hanky-panky he had pulled but I can't
remember the details. Somehow it didn't surprise me.

Chagnon was (and presumably still is) at the center of the biggest ****storm
ever to hit anthropology. It all started with his study of the Yanomami
Indians and the subsequent publication of his enthnography, "Yanomamo: The
Fierce People." The book was hugely popular....the first to outsell
Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa," and was a mainstay of college
introductory anthro courses, including the one I took in about 1976, for
decades. There were rumblings from skeptical colleagues from the beginning,
and they got continually louder and more strident as time passed, but the
excrement REALLY hit the air circulating device with the publication of
Patrick Tierney's "Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists
Devastated the Amazon" in 2000. The short version.....

Tierney (as well as many others) accused Chagnon (as well as many others) of
just about every possible ethical breach, sin, misdemeanor and felony
possible in their dealings with and exploitation of the Yanomami.....all
ostensibly in the name of science but, according to their critics, really in
pursuit of their own nefarious agendas. "Darkness in El Dorado" with its
references to the careless spread of disease, murder, economic exploitation,
incitement to war, sexual misconduct, illicit relationships with corrupt
govermental agencies, gangsters, gold miners and other ne'er-do-wells,
conflicts with missionaries, internecine strife among the princciple
anthropologists, etc., reads like some sort of demented acid-induced latter
day "Heart of Darkness."

Chagnon was a protégé of James Neel who in turn was (if memory serves) a
student of Claude Levi-Strauss. It seems that all three had some very
strong ideas concerning the salutary role of violence in human reproductive
success. At the heart of the accusations against Chagnon and Neel is the
widespread belief that they were more than willing to do whatever was
necessary to ensure that an already notoriously violent people would behave
in such a manner as to corroborate their claims and validate their theories.

Needless to say, Tierney doesn't lack critics of his own, but he also has a
lot of support from other heavyweights in the anthro business.

If you're interested, a Google search on Chagnon, Neel (who died recently, I
believe), Jacques Lizot (a French anthropologist and Chagnon rival working
in the same area at the same time.....and a serious whack-job if Tierney is
to be believed), Tierney, and Terence Turner (another major Chagnon critic)
should turn up millions of hits. Good luck!

I enjoyed Benedict's Patterns of Culture and a couple of Mead's books
but the anthropologists I found most interesting are Robert Redfield,
V. Gordon Childe and Karl Polanyi--though I'm not sure whether Polanyi
was an anthropologist or economist. His work overlapped both
disciplines.

I'm not familiar with Redfield, Childe or Polanyi. I'll keep an eye out for
them......I still have a bit of uncovered floor space somewhere.

Wolfgang