Bastian History Theory Anthropology

8/18/2019 Bastian History Theory Anthropology

1/32

r/ rl- f ;

02 35

-

History and Theory

of

Anthropology

Geschichte und Theorie der Ethnologie

Preface to th e Re-Edition

edited by

herausgegeben

vo n

Volume/Band 1

Prof. Dr. Klaus-Peter Kopping

(University of Heidelberg)

The

re-edition

of

this volume co-incides with the memorial symposium

and exhibition I on the occasion

of

Bastian s death onehundred years ago

in 1905 and thus can p rovide a r e- examina ti on not only of his ideas

about the foundations of anthropology but also for a stock-taking and

self-reflection of all those disciplines which are concerned with the phe

nomenon of culture or the never-ending quest for a grasp of the relation

between culture and nature.

The

re-examination of Bastian s ideas within the context of the 19th

century has in the meantime been undertaken for specific questions

by

two outstanding recent publications, one on the struggle about the con

cept of evolution within the emerging discipline of anthropology in Ger

many .

one on the much-malignedstylistic quirks of Bastian and his no

tion of the concatenations of thought and matter

These contributions may facilitate a re-appraisal of Bastian s ground

breaking if futile attempts to forge a theoretical frame-workfor a science

of

mankind J

which in

the

recent decades has

been

taken on

by

a number

of

other disciplines. in particular by the natural sciences. While anthro

pology has largely abandoned the attempt to develop a macro-theoretical

The Museum of Ethnology

Ethnologisches Museum

in Bertin-Dahlem or

ganizes


2/32

II

Preface to theRe-Edition

Preface

to theRe-Edition

..\

stance as explanatorymodel forculture. the naturalsciences havepushed

forward to providesuch models for human behaviour.be it in the field of

neurology. in thebio-sciences or in robotics. Whether such attempts can

provide more than analogies for human thought and behaviour. must be

left to thediscourses developing between thenaturalsciences andthe hu

manities. Butit is.at thisdecisivecuttingedge of thediscussionaboutthe

nature of human cultural production that a re-reading of one of the last

and largely programmatic systems combining the search for regularities

(or laws governing natureand culture may be most fruitful.

The

present re-editicn

of

this

workon

Bastian

has therefore

abstained

fromover-stretchingthe scientific genealogy by trying to deduce all and

sundry

of present theoretical orientations from theincipientnotions an

ancestor

be it for the theoretical

concerns

of the humanities ranging

from post-structuralism through postcolonialism to post-modernism. be

it for the advances in the physics

of

non-linear models. The re-edition

has intentionally kept to the genealogy

of

anthropological thinking from

Bastian

toLevi-Strauss. This restriction to aswell as comparison of

two

theories searching for the universals human thinking is based on my

contention that

both attempts at

combining

science and

humanities

show

moreaffinitythan appears at first sight. These similarities have to

be

eva

luated in the light of the underlying metaphysics as well as reference to

physics in both Bastian and Levi-Strauss. i.e. on the basicattempts of

both to bolster their world-view through recourse to models

of

science

prevailing in their time. Bastian takes recourse to the notion that human

thinking. based on natural foundations. operates according to principles

of a cosmic harmony or to put it into older paradigms. on the equi

~ a l e n c e

of micro andmacrocosmic

structures.

This mayseem quitean

tiquatedwhen compared with the Uvi-Straussian program of deducing

fromlanguage ( myths ) the basic structures of human thinking. Howe

ver.

if one looks

at

the premise

.on

which this structural search is ulti

matelybased. we

encounter

the notion of entropy when Uvi-Strauss

remarks.that civil zation can be described as prodigiously complicated

m ~ ~ h a m s m . . . ..

Its true

function istoproducewhatphysicists

call

entro

py ,

When Levi-Strauss thus refersto

clvilization

or

culture 'and

human

thinking

well as

action

asan inertia-producing

machine ,

thisanalogy

puts us ~ t r t l ~ back to Bastian's notion of entelechy which he takes

from A n s t o ~ e h a n p r e m i s ~

For Bastian each ideaor thought-complex,

seen collectIvely as folk-Idea, has a

certain

'potential which in actuali-

<

See:

Claude Levi-Strauss: Tristes Tropiques. NewYork

1971.

p.397.

zaticn converts potential to kinetic energyand thus exhausts itself at a

certain point. Both thinkers revert here to the laws of mechanicsas well

as thermodynamics. andthey areuncannily similar. as the concreteexam

ple given by Levi-Strauss mayelucidate: Every scrap of conversation.

every line set up in type. establishes a communication between twointer

locutors. levelling what had previously existed on two different plances

andhad had. forthat reason, a greater degreeof organization .

This type of generalization about civilizational levellingor

desinte-

gration may provide ample ammunition for both promoters as well as

sceptics of globalization theories. However. the more explosive notion

may be hidden in the analogy between cultures and machines.Whileal

ready the 19thcentury equation between civilisations and organisms was

full of

pitfalls which showed the problem of analogisation

7.

this beco

mes themoreso in recenttimeswhen notions of machines arcextended

to systems of neurological or bio-chemicalprocessing.

While the humanities have in general thought it wise to retreat to the

specificity of cultural productions and human thoughtand action through

recourse to models

of

contingency, reflexivity and perforrnativity,the na

tural scienceshave

begunto considerjustthese

terms

in

their

models of

the operation of machinesor neurological and bio-chemical processes.

Thus. researchers on non-linearmodes of order operate with suchnoti

ons as contingency of systems of lowcausality and proclaim that seren

dipidous variations in the microscopic

domain

may have repercussions

on macro-systems and roboticists and. computertheoreticians

argue

in

similarways.

II

Are we then back to the physicalist analogies of metaphysical

notions like those of Bastian about the concatenation of ideas of

their

disturbance through the encounter with other ideas and

their

final

harmonizing

of

the disturbance (the optimistic notion of cultural

production or that of the entropy of systems (the negative notion of

Op.cit.

For 19th century organicism see also Werner Petermann: Die Geschichtc

der

Ethnologic . Peter

Hammer

Verlag. Wuppertal 2004. with

particular refe

rence

toBastian

and the

polemicism

around

evolution. see pp.

541

11 This

refers

to

the

research objectives of the

Centre for

the

Dynamics

of

Complex

Systems

at the University of Potsdam; see Jurgen Kurths and Udo

Schwarz:

Nichtlinearewlssenschcften- neueParadigrnen

und

Konzepte in

unstforum

vol

155.

June-July

2001. pp.64- 69.Forthe

robotics

of

Turing

machines computers) seeManuel

Bonik:

Erewhon forever in

unstforum

op.ch.. pp,70-76.


3/32

Levi-Strauss)? Or should we rather ask whether the same terminology

has different meanings in the respective

domains of

the humanllJes

and the natural sci ences? There can be no doubt tha t one influences

the other and that the dialogue between these domains about the use.of

concepts is as urgent as ever, This is a lesson for which the re-r ..

of ancestors like Bastian

in

a wider context of the history

of

SCIentIfic

discourse may be qui te salutary. This leaves questions about human

. agency and freedom

of

decision making and responsibility still 0l. n. as

Levi-Strauss unabashedly proclaimed in his confession about hIS own

subordination to the objectivewill-to-emancipation 1

tV

Klaus-Peter Kopping

Preface to the Re-Edition

Berlin. October 2004

Contents

Figures

Preface

Noteson Translation

Acknowledgments

x

xvii

. The question was addressed

by

a diversity of disciplines at a symposium.

conducted

in

Berlin from 21 ·

23 of October 2003.organized by the

author

in

collaboration withChristoph Wulfand Bettina

Papenburg.

The proceedings

winbe

published

inthe

journal

Paragrana ,

second

issueof 2005

under

[he

title Maschinenk6rper Korpermaschinen .

.

1 op.cit..p.398.

PART ONE. ADOLF BASTIAN S PROGRAMME FOR A SCIENTIFIC

AND HUMANIST SCIENCEOF MAN:

ITS SOURCE ANDDEVELOPMENT 1

Bastian, A Neglected Founder of Modern Anthropology 3

2

Life

Voyages

Writings

and Personality 7

3 Bastian s BasicPremises for the New Science of Ethnology:

Elementary Ideaand Folk Idea 28

4 Theoret ical Basis

of

Folk Idea

and

Elementary Idea:

Evolution and Entelechy

47

5 The Controversy

of

Bastian versus Ratzel or

of

Independent

Invention versus Diffusion 6

6 World View and Social P hilo sophy 69

7 The Sources of Bastian s Concepts: From the Stoa to Neo-Kantian

Psycho-Physics 77

A. Alexander von Humboldt 77

Herder, Romantic Philosophy,

the Stca and Leibniz 79

C. Neo-KantianPhysicsand Psychology:

From Herbart to Helmholtz. Fechner and Lotze

88

8 On Primitive Religion, Shamanism, Sexuality and Aberrations

of

the Mind

95

9 Culture Contact, SalvageAnthropology and

Social Engineering

1 4

From Bastian to Modern Anthropology: Disciples. Parallel

Developmentsand

Convergence

of Ideas 117

A. Ehrenreich, Andree, Frobeniusand Boas

118

B:

Tyler Graebner, Kulturkreislehrc. Culture Area Approach

and W.H.R. Rivers 26


4/32

vi Contents

C. Fraz er Evolut ionism a nd Funct i ona l i sm

7

D . B ast ia n a n d M od er n P sy ch ol og y: W un dt an d

Jung

4

Bastian and Levi Strauss The Impasse Structuralism and

t he R et u rn t o t he S ub je ct 47

PART

TWO. TRA. 1SLATION OF SELECTED WORKS

OF

ADOLF BASTIAN

ISS

I . B AS TI A. . l S W OR LD V IE W 57

On Cosmic Harmony 57

n

THE DOMAIN

OF

ETHNOLOGY

163

Ethnology and Psychology

6

On Cultural Evolution

164

I II . E LE ME NT AR Y I DE AS

FOLK

IDEAS AND

GEOGRAPHICAL PROVINCES

7

The Fol k Ide a a s Paradigm of Ethnology 7

Geographical Ethnological

and

Anthropological

Provinces

76

IV. THE PSYCHIC U NI TY OF

M ~ l N

AND

SOME ELEMENTARY SYMBOLS

179

On the Similarity

of

Mental Operations Primitive

and

Civilized

179

Space and Time 8

Numbers

182

The

Cross 8

V . R ELI GI OU S I DEA S AN D M EN TA L A BE RR AT IO NS

186

The Emergence of Diverse World Views 186

Split

in

World View

and

Rise

of Prophets

9

On Insanity Shamanism

and

Possession States

9

The

physiological

Roots

OfMorality 2 8

V I. S ALV AG E A NT HR OP OL OG Y

215

The Waning

of

Primitive Societies 215

The

Heritage

of

Mankind

and the Future of

Ethnology

216

V II . BASTIAN AS

TRAVELLER

A Sta y a mong Burya t Shama ns

List

of

Abbreviations

229

List

of

TechnicalTermsused by Bastian

German-English Glossary

23

Notes 231

Bibliography

of

Selected Works

of Adolf

Bastian 253

Selected General Bibliography 256

Index

269

l

Figures

1. Map a ppe a ri ng i n Basti an Das Bestiindige in den

Menschenrassen 34

2. Map f ro m Anthropologie der Naturvolker 134

3.

Culture

aseas

of

America from Kroeber Anthropology

4.

Culture

areas

of

America from Driver

Indians North

America 35

5. Histogram

connections ideaspertaining

to Anthropogeography 138

135


5/32

1 Bastian A Neglected Founder of

Modern Anthropology

Mall

will

not cease searchingfor harmony e will

not

rest until

he has oun a rule which without necessarily being true is

sufficiently adequate to integrate all previous experience

astian

he

ermans

havethe art

makingscience

inaccessible

Goethe

The life and work

of

ol f Bastian illustrate one of those occasions

rare in the history

of

any field of scholarship when later generations

are able to discern the start of a

separate

discipline

astian

wasone of

the first men to describe carefully the boundariesand domain of social

anthropology or ethnology in its relation to other humanities and the

fields of the natural sciences. He systematically usedthe tool of induc-

tive research experience in the field. This seminal originality is today all

too easily overlooked, indeed it is forgotten. Instead, the founding of

anthropology as a science isattributed to many other scholars selected

on dubious grounds frequently tainted by nationalistic pride or deter-

mined by the parochial narrowness of modern scholarship.

One reason iv n for the rare acknowledgment of Bastian is his

incomprehensible

style;

another that hisworks

have

never been trans-

lated into English. The first argument has some justification, but

he

cosmopolitan and multilingual traveller, would have recoiled from the

second.? If we haveto haveinterpreters and translators, then the image

of the scholarly community is nothing but a figment of the mind.

This was not always the case;

3

number of nineteenth century

anthropologists were men of many talents

conversant

in history

classical languagesand diverse fields of science. However,even for the

nineteenth century the

figure

of astian seems

something

of anexcep-

tion among the founders of cultural anthropology.

Footnotes in the works ofTylor and Frazer

iv

the impression that


6/32

4 Part ne

Bastian s Programme for a Science of Man

5

. Tylor refers

they were

familiar

enough with Bastian s writings.

Thus.

of

particularly in the preface to his

rimitive ulture

of J871 to the use of

B j ~ t i a n s materials, when he states, 1 will mention tWO tre a;l ;S by

which

I ha ve made especial use: the

ens h in

der

G e s c h ~ C

l

Professor Bastian

of

Berlin,

and

the nthropologi

der NalunJo

lker,

>

the late Professor Waitz

of

Marburg .3 th t

Yet, i f we peruse Tyler s famous work at l ength, it is apparent

t

he did not refer for any of his theoretical statements to Bastian d l e c ~ Y ,

His footnoting only refers to customs not theory This suggests t at

. • ideas

these English scholars were not really conversant with gasnan

.

although the uncanny similarity between many

of

Tyler s and Bastian s

concepts has led some

historians of

the discipline to suggest such a

connection. Tylor also says in his obituary for Bastian that the volumes

of my honoured

friend

occupy between two and

three

f ee t on my

bookshelves . This would certainly let us believe strongly in a greater

dependence of Tyler s ideas on Bastian than might be warranted. To

dispel this image

of

Tyler, it is worth quoting the comment

by

Mare.

on the imputed connection:

question into

which

one cannot go

here

concerns Tylor s debt

to

Continental scholars. Some have put Bastian. the German traveller

and writer, on parwith y l r as Creator of the science

A n t h r o ~

p o ~ g y

and even profess to find signs of his influence in Tylor s

wntmgs. I daub-to however. if Tyler owes

much

to Bastian. orat any

rate so much as to Klemm and waltz. Indeed, from conversatIon,

and in the course of helping Tylor a l ittle with his literary work

towards the end of his days at Oxford. gathered that, although he

could find his way through a book

in

French or Spanish;German or

Dutch,

and could even extract the tit-bits from a Greek or Latin

classic, he was

not really

happy

with foreign rcngues.s

This

statement

by Maret t tells us nothing def in it e

abou t the

possible

Impact of Bastian on Tylor, t hough it tells us something

about

the

erudition

of

Tylor.

The

only fair assessment

for the

connection

between Tylor and Bastian we can attempt at this timeseems to point

to

a convergence

of

ideas

of

both men.

Bastian

nevertheless merits a

special position in the per iod of the rise

of

anthropological thinking

between 1850 and 1880, as he did leave his a rm-cha ir

and

collected

many

of

those very data from which others were

to

forge

their

theoreti

cal

insights,

He thus combined in his person the interest and the

:b.ilities

of

the great t ravellers and explorers between the

end of

the

fifteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century with the

synthesizing faculty

of

the great

savants of

the eighteenth

century.

Bastian was

not

an original philosopher

and

may thus be classed with

the many eclectic minds of the eighteenth century who derived many

of their basic notions from diverse systems

of

thought, from Aristotle

to Augustine. from Nee-Platonism to Descartes, from the Stoa to

vice.

Leibniz, Spinoza and Kant. . d

Yet. as the

SQl ants

of the eighteenth century, Bastian

surpasse.

most of his nineteenth century colleagues in the social sciences

by

hIS

undoubtedly profound erudit ion and by what the twent ie th century

has made its main yard-stock for admitting a

writer

to the

.elevated

ranks of a social

scientist - empiricalobservation. id

Bastian

n

without hesitation be seen as the

first

writer - besi es

Cornte - to del ineate careful ly the scienti fic sta tus of ethnology

an d

psychology, understood as ethno-psychology VolkerpsychOlog

,

without abandoning the heritage of the humanities. He also rates

highly

3 a truly comparative scholar. since he tries to incorporate the

da

ta

from the European philosophical heritage

of

such diverse sources as the

Church

fathers, the Greek philosophers, the Enlightenment

t h m k ~ r ~

and the

Kantian

system into a coherent.

synthesized framew0.rk

Wit

data gleaned from various non-European sources such

Indian

and

Burmese Buddhism, Polynesian and African cosmologies and folk

traditions

of

the Americas. By recourse to associationist psychology

and the post-Kant ian var ie ty

of

psycho-physics, he even provided an

epistemological framework for the new scienceof man a label he

reserved for ethnology Viilk


7/32

6 Par t One

study mankind? What attitude should we displav when studying others?

F h

l What

or

W

at ends do we engage in comparative ethnography at a

are cultural norms and what can becalled deviant and

by

what

criteri

f

of

the

enon 0 measurement? What are the organic foundatIons

super-organic nature

of

culture?

These and many other questions are littlecloser to a

solution than

Bastian's

~ m s

A

careful

look

at systems

of

thought

of

the

ninetee 't '

century might alert us to the fact

that

in spite of its increased sophis

tl

c a t l ~ n techniques and a greater range of data, modem anthropology

IS still

V ng

of f

the capital of the nineteenth century, and

many

so-

called theoretical advances are pretentious rather than profound and

not so muchinnovative as derivative;9

Were t h i ~ not deplorable enough, the ignorance about the roots

of

anthropolOgIcal thinking is even more depressing Cora du Bois warned

almost twenty years ago that

we

are producing a group

of young pro-

f e S S l ~ n a s who are uneducate d in the h is tory of their discipline

u

10

She

IS

f inal ly proved right with such arrogant s ta tements as

t ha t b y

Marvin Harrisabout the German Africanist Baumann don t know

who Baumann is

imply ing at the same time that he couldn t

care

less.

a Such gener.ational

an.d

national parochialism might

finally

lose

nthropology Its r e ~ u t a t l n for a cosmopolitan outlook which made

the f ield so a t t ~ a c t l v e for people from very diverse national

back-

'ounds, world VIews and religions. Studying

other

cultures ought to

Include a knowledge of the different approaches to the same

problem;

only through the understanding of OUr own roots can we gain ins ight

into

othernessand.also advance to an understanding of the inadequacies

of our ownprofeSSIOn._Throughanarrowegocentrismand ethnocentrism

the very understanding of the humaneness of other ideas and o th er

points of viewis barred: this was after al l the foundation of a science

of mankin? which ultimately was expectedto lead to a ' 'world culture .

Such a VISIon of the Enlightenment was ardently shared by Bastian and

most eloquently defended in this

century

by

Kluckhohn.U

2

Life Voyages Writings and Personality

Bastian

wrote an

incredible number

of booksandarticles some

several

hundred, yet little of his personality emerges. There are no diaries, and

if there were everany personalletters. they are no longer to be found.'

In order to

understand

what drove Bastian to his ceaseless travels

around the world whatmotivated him to publish andaccumulate such

a

great

amount of data on all aspects of almost every historical and

contemporary society, and how he acquired his disciples, we must care-

fully piece together those few hints that have come down to us, most of

t hem h idden in his own works. One aspect of Bastian's personality

emerges clearly: he must have been a very private kind of person who

shied away

from great

celebrations.P

and

hid

his own passions his

enthusiasm and also his compassion, behind the screen of his laboured,

even turgid reporting

of

hard facts .

The list of his writingsamounted by

1896

to two and a halfpages of

books and fourteen quarto pages of articles, book-reviews and

addresses.' and

from

those

when read

carefully

and

intensively

wecan

trace

wit

some accuracy his eltanschauung his character and

a tt i tudes to life . For the more personal quirks, which we always want

to know about the great men

of

science, we have to rely on the few

anecdotes and recollections

of

the handful

of

scholars who knew him

best, foremost among them being Karl von den Ste inen

(1855-1929),

the e thnographer of the Amazonas tribes and the Xingu region, and

Freiherr

von Richthofen

(1833-1905),

the famous travel le r and

geographer.'

Bastian was born in

1826,

the son

of

a Bremen merchant, and

studied at five universities enrolling

first

in jurisprudence and natural

sciences and

finishing

in Wurzburg with a doctorate in medicinein the

year

1850.

s

In Wurzburg he established a

life-time

friendship and

professional collaboration when he

took

courses with the famous

anatomist, physiologist, and founder of celJular pathology, Rudolf

Virchow (1821-1902) who had first occupied a chair at the university

in 1849.

6

From

then on, Bastian seems to have rarely stayed in Germany for

.


8/32

8

Part On e

Sastian s Programme for a Science

of

n

9

d

J

ourneys which,

as

more than a few y ea rs . being r eg ular ly

abro

a

on t t b

Ri

h

h . fflnit . to

that

grea a

von

c t

of

en

c ommen ted showed his a

truty

.

. . led Bastian severa

traveller, Ibn

Battuta 1304-68)

This wandeTlng )

. . tv years overseas

times around the globe

he

spent more than (wen

. h h .

d

. untry

whic e

did

an one would be hard put to point to a reglon or co . I

not v is it . A lt ho ug h h e d ev ou re d t he miles i n t he f iel d as h e did vo urnes

in the library, he always travelled light,

without

that whole

battery

of

scientific

apparatus

necessary to field-workers or even to explore.rs:

one travel bag sufficed. Von den Ste inen reports how ~ a n g r y

Bastl :n

got when a friend urged him on a co ld April day in

187

on th e Berlin

train station to take an overcoat

with

him; finally he g r u d g m g l ~ agreed

to have a coat sent to Hamburg where he was to e n b a r ~ on Journe;

to

South

America. He financed all his travels from his pnvate

income.

On rare occasions he would campaign for financial aid, this was

never for himself, always either for the ethnological collecllons of the

Mu seu m or f or e xp ed it io ns w hi ch h e had encouraged

others to under

take.

It seems useful to organize Bastian s biography in the

rhythm of

his

voyages and to fit his other activit ies into them. assuch

a g re at

part of

his life was spent overseas. The travels provided, after all, the.

back

ground to his conceptual framework which in turn was,

by his

own

admission, the motivating force behind his

many

expeditions.

Bast ian e mb ar ks o n h is

first

voyage

around

the world in 1851 at

t he ag e

of

twenty-five, by

working asa

ship s

doctor.

T hi s f ir st

trip

altogether eight years

and

l ead s hi m b y s hip t o A us tr al ia

where

he

visits

several

regions such as the nt r or of Victoria and the gold

fields, Melbourne

and

Bendigo,

and

t he Bl ue M ou nt ai ns i n

New South

Wal es , as wel l as p ar ts

of Tasmania. From

Australia he goes

to

New

Zealand and then to the West Coast of South America

with

an extended

v i i ~ to C uz co in P er u.

The next s tops

are the highlands of

Mexico

and

California. He then recrosses

the

Pacific

and

moves

into

China

and from

t he re t o South East Asia, Indonesia

and

I nd ia . Here h e explores the

c ountry

farandwide, makingboat-tripsup the river

Ganges

and traver

si ng t he D ec ca n, e nd i ng h is v is it i n

Bombay. From

h er e h e intends to

cross Persia, bu t the

country

was barred for political reasons. He

there

fore travels to Mesopotamia

and

Syria

and

finally to Cairo,

f rom where

he ascends the Nile

and

crosses the mountains of Kosseir to the shores

of

the Red Sea, finally l an di ng in

Jidda.

He

now

t ak es a

caravan

to

Mocha

and

Aden,

and

t hen a boat to the Seychelles, Mauritius

an d

to

Capetown. The African

interior

comes

next, with

a trip

u p t he

West

Oast to Lu and a, to the capital of t he myt hi ca l C on go -e mp ir e S an

Salvador,.and then to

Fernando Po.

He follows the West-African ~ o a s t

the Niger-delta, Liberia,

i ~ r r a

Leone

and

Senegambia,

and ends

his

oyage

n

LISbon. After a

SW ft trek

across Portugal,

Spain, Turkey,

Russia. Sweden and Norway. he arriveshome in Bremen n 1859. The

result of his extensive survey was a small travelogue of 1859 called Ein

result of his extensive survey was a small travelogue of 1859 called n

esucl

in n Salvador

However insigriiflcant this little publication

appears itself, it is noteworthy that he thought it important enough

to publish at all. The seed for his later interest in exploring the interior

of Africa to fill in its last blank spots of unexplored territory was

obviously planted.

He made a more lasting impression with the publication

of

his major

work. the three volumes entitled

Der Menscn n der Geschichte

The

clarity and organization of these three volumes was virtually unmatched

du ring Bastian s whole writing career: t heir ap pearan ce in I g60

coincided

with

an astoundingperiod vital to the foundations

of

anthro

p ol og y, f or b et we en 1 85 8 an d 1 86 5 came t he maj or w or ks

of

Darwin,

Lubbock, Bachofen, Maine. Mcl.ennan, Waitz and Tyler. The purely

physical

effort

of Bastian s achievement is stunning: having completed

a strenuous journey of eight years, he was able to send three volumes

totalling

about

1 60 0 p ag es t o t he p ri nt er w it hi n a y ea r, a f eat h e w as t o

repeat over and over again though with decreasing lucidity after about

1880.

With his major work scarcely in print, Bastian embarks on his

second

voyage in

1861,

during which he spends almost live years in Asia. From

Madras he goes to Bu rma, wh er e h e i s fo rced t o s ta y f or al mo st a y ear

as physi ci an to the Burmese king s court; and then on to Siam,

Cambodia,

and

Indonesia. He turns north to China, going overland to

Peking

and

from there to Kiakhta, transversing Siberia

to

Irkutsk, and

ending his travels in the Caucasus.

This journey results in the sixvolumes Die Volker des Osrlichen siell

1866-71) which could be considered Bastian s finest descriptive work

of

history and ethnography. It includes many good collections of maps,

travel-routes, folk-tales, poetry, religious and historical literature which

gave an insight i nt o the regions of Southeast Asia and its e th ni c

c ompl ex it ie s at a ti me wh en o nly on e F re nc h e xp lo re r h ad p en et ra te d

into

some

of

the areas which Bastian covered. As the descriptions in

t he mai n d eal w it h v er y s pe ci fi c t opi cs

of

Southeast and East Asian

history, religion and ethnic groups, a deeper analysis of these reports

cannot

be undertaken here,

but

must remain a task for the future. How

e ve r, o ne p oi n. t s ho ul d b e s tr es se d: i t was t hi s s ec on d v oya ge wh ich

a wo ke m B ast ian a great i nt er es t in Bu dd his m and the older Indian

rel ig io us s ys te ms wh ich r ema in ed a l if e- lo ng p re oc cu p at io n , an d h e

was t o

return

to the East as an old man to

study

the systems

of

which

he already

had

a fair knowledge.

In t he se v ol umes o n S ou th ea st

and

Ea st Asi a we al so f in d so me o f

the

most

cogent remarks

of

Bastian

about

his style

of

fieldwork and his


9/32

---_.

10

P ar t O n e

. his trip

up the

understanding of ethnographic methods. Dunng th t he

took

tWO

Irrawady river from Rangoon to Mandalay he tells

US

a nd Burmese

helpers with him, one being the cook, a Bengali Karen

;astian

about

extraction.

He

was an original in his own way , says nstructor to

him, and he played all the diverse roles

w i ~ l i n g l y f r ~ m

Burmese,

n

shoe-shine boy .

8

Bastian's day starts w it h learmng k

wh o

then

writing, spelling as well as reading of texts from his

t O ~ ~

afternoon

took

off

to the market to get chickens and vegetables. n nd the folk

Bastian

studied with him the written history of Burma a tained me

tales, while in the evening, so he describes it Uthe

c o ~ k e n ~ e r

dishes, .9

with citations from the sacred Pall-texts while washIng t en a fast

If we can take Bastian 's word for it he must have rne broken

learning traveller, as he relates that the cook had

lear ned

sot 1as inter

English in an American mission school which made

h ffi

use u derstood

preter for the beginning, but, Bastian continues luckIly he m then

my Burmese Soon better than I did his English, so t ha t ro cur sion

onwards

we only

conversed

in

the vernacular .

lo

Dunng ex ver

the

on the Irrawady in 1861, Bastian constantly wanders

offw

ene collect

boat stops, to reconnoitre

.the

area, to visi t

villages

and to even to

snippets of religious practices, to ask people for recItatIons

and

ites

gather children around and obtain their songs which he then

tic:

et

down in the vernacular and translates, in the typical ly roman IC Y

poetic fashion of his time. During this same trip he notes down.an

observation about the objectivity

of

reporting, insisting on. b s ~ n t l O n

from personal and individual opinions to the highest pOSSIble egree,

adding a comment which

gives

usan insight into the personal thought

of this intrepid travellerwho is otherwise so reluctant to commlt any

personal feelingsto paper:

t requires great effort at

self-effacement,

not to colour ~ e p o r ~

subjectively, yet anybody who wishes to become

a disople

0

mistress science has to be able to susta in this ascetic outlook

and

must not

pick

the fruit before it is ripe, must not jump to conclus

ions which are not warranred.t t

Though Bastian's travelogueis full

of

personal value judgment. , in his

reporting on native views he most ly does retain this self -Imposed

restraint.

At the age of forty-one, Bastian now set tl ed down to his longest

per iod in Berlin, staying there from 1866 to 1875, apart f rom a half

year interlude

n

1873. In 1868 he became the president of the

Gesellschaft r rdkunde the hub of all German geographicalsocieties

which publishes an outstanding journal , and within this society he

founded a sub-section for anthropology and ethnology. During these

middle sixties Bastian's skill as a scholar and administrator came to the

Bastian's Programme for a Science of Ma n 11

fore. He acquired his second academic

degree

which enabled him to

pursuethe career

of

a university professor.

Bastian's major income is, luckily for him, not derived from his

teaching profession, as the academicsalarywould not haveenabled him

to pursue his world-wide travel and collecting interests. His official

title - having achieved his second doctoral degreeafter his return from

Asia

between 1865 and 1873 - was that ofan Extraordinary Professor

for Ethnology, a position he held until 1900whenhe was promoted to

Regular Honorary Professor

12

As well as being Professor

of

Ethnology, Bastian became Assistant

to the Director of the Royal Museum, a positionfrom which, together

with his influential friend Virchow, he was to launch an ambitious

project to create a German Museum of Ethnology which was to be

unique both inconception and scope. In 1869heattended the

o n ~ e s s

of the Natural Sciencesat Innsbruck and there established the rlin r

Gesellschaft fiir

nthropologie

thnologie und Urgeschichte which

with its main publication, the journal Zeitschrift fur thnologie became

the starting point and out le t for the new

science of man

in the

German speaking area.'3 Rudolf Virchowwas elected president of the

society; Bastianand EduardHartmann becamedeputies.

Judging from the content

of

the journal, irs first twenty yearsowed

much to Bastian, who contributes several major articles on his concep

tual f ramework, on specif ic issues and on the establishment of the

boundaries andaimsof ethnology in relation to other sciences.

t cannot be stressed emphatically enough that we owe it to Bastian

that modern cultural anthropology (ethnology) hasa clearly delineated

range of objectives. Until the I860s a considerableconfusion reignedin

Germany, in France and in England, about even the use and meaning

of the term anthropology and how to dist inguish this field from

ethnology . In spite of the early foundation of an Ethnographic

Society in Paris

n

1839 and again

n

1859 and of the Ethnological

Socie ty in England in 1842, no definition of the objectives of

ethnology was achieved at that time in discussions in these societies.

The famous book of Waitz, which Tyler mentions in 1871, was sti ll

misleadingly cal led Anthropology , although it dealt

not

with

questions of physical anthropology, but with those of ethnic diversity.

Besides, as Father Wilhelm Schmidt qui te correct ly observed.P

ethnology was up to 1860 sti ll a s tep-child of i ts more famous sis ter

anthropology, understood as physical anthropology, which had taken

enormous strides s ince the publications of Buffon's, Linne's and

Blumenbach's classifications of the human racesaccording to physical

traits. ·

Anthropology had the great advantage of being considered a

scientific field of study while ethnology was not. Bastian perceivedthe

weakness of the budding field of ethnology as follows:


10/32

Part

On e


13

The reason has to be seen in the fact that the radiC3lness of the

change was not perceived since .the whole mass of the unknown

facts which broke suddenly like a wave only led to stupefaction. Not

self-reflection but belief in miracles was the

result,

and after

satls

fying its initial curiosity the mind bored by too many exotic stimu

lants looked for even cruder abnormalities to capture the attention,

Only the curiosities the savage with his anthropophagic orgies with

his heathen abominations

was desired.That constituted

e t h n ~ l o g y

in this period.J?

When we consider that Prichard in 1841 sti ll def ined ethnography as

the survey of the different races of man an investigation of their

physical history

:

t8 the achievement

of

Bastian in allocating to

ethnography and e thno logy the task of collecting diverse customs

unrelated to the physicalclassification of people attains its trueweight:

In 18.63, Hunt still

r e p e a t e d ~ t

ethnology

treats

on the history or

science of

~ a t l o n s

or races. How different and more concisely

focused Bastian soundswhen he states in 1867:

The main focus. of. ethnology. in spite of its close connect ion to

psychology

l ~ e s In the m ~ n t ~ l life of peoples in the research

abQu.t the

orgaruc

laws under which mankind rose to a state

of cul

..

ture

In

the developmental process

of

history

20

And shortly afterwards evenmoreprecisely:

Ethnology will give to culture history which was until now

restr c,

t:d to areas

of

European. Western Asian and Northern African.

clvihz.3tlOn. the

::0015

for comparative equations with which

to

en..

large Its perspective over all the five continenrs.P

. The particular reason for Bastian's

travels

to East Asiaare imrned.

lately apparent f rom this goal: for him, East Asia has undergone a

cultural development uninfluenced by European culture.

Both

cultural

developments , he says, ru n para ll el to each other and

therefore

enable us to use them as controls for the derivation

oflaws

(o f culture

h story)

: main tool for establishing comparative research is

given

for Bastian

the concept

of

folk ideas, which I shall deal

with

in

depth

the

n e ~ t

s ec ti on. Suffice it to s ta te

that

in 1867 Bas ti an

defines

the

folk '.deas as

the mental

manifestations

of

a

group which

precede the individual and which are primari ly to be found in diverse

religions because

he says religion reflects the psychic life of

people .2J

. Bastian e n v i ~ g e s a connect ion between psychology

and

culture

history by

makmg ethnology,

through its

ethnographic

data, the basis

for the f i n d m ~ of s y c ~ o l g i c a l laws of the mental development of

groups under diverse environmenu in order to use these lawsto unravel

thecomplex culturehistory of ancient andmodern civilizations.To this

end.

he

wants

to

establish comparisons between

areas

where c u l t u ~ e

contact and contamination is most unlikely to

have

occurred as this

provides

a testing

ground

for the

environmental variable: East

Asiawas

thus

an ideal choice.

During this middle period in Berlin, Bastian completes also whole

volumes as special or supplementary edi tions to the Journal

of

the

Society for Ethnology for which he also provides several

h u n ~ r e d

book

reviews introducing to the German audience the

major

publications in

the fields

of

physical anthropology. prehistory, comparative religion,

ethnography linguistics andon explorations and travelogues from over

seas,

reviewing the

works of Darwin as wen

3S

those of Spencer and

Tvlor at considerable length. Bastian

remained

on the executive of the

EiJmo ogica Society

until 1887, and was re-elected president of the

eographica Society

in 1872 unti l von Ric htho fen as sumed t ha t

position in 1873. .

In his capacity as president of the Geographical Society he turns his

interest to the fascinating Dark

Continent

with its unexplored

regions.

Bastian is determined to

further

the

German

contribution to

ts exploration. e therefore

coaxes

ll

regional associations

for

geography into contributing special funds for the establishment of an

frika Gesellschaftin Berl in . He has a discerning eye for

the

very

spot

whose successful exploration would fill the last gap in anthropological

and geographical knowledge and incidentally enhance the reputation of

German resear ch : he chooses the kingdoms of the cent ra l Af ri can

Congoforan expedition to bemounted from theWest coast.

Central Afr ica had been nibbled at f rom all directions dur ing the

decades between 1850 and 1870: Heinrich Barth and Vogel had

app roached from the north into the Sudan and Chad regions in

1850-56, Livingstone had vent ur ed from the east i nt o the int er

lacustrine regions and south-central Africa between 1852 and 1873,

while Speke, Grant and Baker had made inroads beyond there between

1858 and 1864: Nacht igal went on a famous trip through the Nilot ic

Sudan between 1870 and 1874, and the most famous of German ex

plorers, Schweinfurth, went along the Gazelle river in 1870.

Nobody

had ventured

into

the centre f rom

the

West, from

the

Angolan

coast,

and so in 1873 Bastian prepares an exploratory trip to the Loango coast

to find the most feasible route Yet far-sighted and

inventive

as his

scheme

was the expedition proves a

failure

inmanyrespects.The

gee-

graphy of the region was only scantily known, and the money collected

just did not suffice: to

pursue

a major venture into this forbidding area.

I t was left to Stanley

in

1877 to make the rou te from

the

East, a gee

graphically more accessible and sound way of approaching the centre.

After Bastian s

relative failure during

his t ir voyage in 1873 the

German

Imperial Government took over

the expenses of

the

ill-fated


11/32

14 Part On e

d

. d . g these

xpe ition, and many great explorers got their training urm

years.. . . of a

Bastian

S VISit

to unknown African territories proved somethmg

dis appointmenr in

other

ways particularly for geographers who .rely

very accurate mapping and topographical descr ip tion for r jrei r

map

const ruct ion. Bastian was undoubt ed ly a man of great courag.

e,

grandiose ideas, vision and foresight, and most erudite

and versed

n

many arts, but map·making was not his forte His maps

lacked order

and det ai l, and for this he was severely c ri ti ci zed by many

German

geographers. The two volumes on the expedit ion to the Loango c.cast

are brimming with information about living conditions of the rnixed

reole populations of the coastal Strips. about piracy.moral degeneracy

and dishonesty brought about by Culture Contact. This was the

debase·

m rit of the indigenous cultures about which Malinowski

was

com-

plain so bit terly seventy years later . Bastian was

acute

as

an

o b s e r v ~ r

and

industrious

in

tapping all existing source-materials mostly .

m

~ o r t u g u e s e and good linguist to boot,yet his reports were disappom

tmg for the geographers. The o th er most prestigious g e o g r a p h l c ~

journal in Germany besides the

Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft

u

Erdkunde

n mely

Perennanns Geographische Miueilungen severely

castigates Bastian

in

the

issuesof 1874 and 1875, indicating that

his

publications on the expedit ion, in par ticular on his foray from June

to October 1873, are hazy with regard to geographical descriptions and

dIsastrous with regard to topographical accuracy: every reader of these

volumes must echo the geographers dissatisfaction. We

l ea rn much

about fetishism. bu t as far as geography and even the

extent

or exist

ence

of

tribal kingdoms is concerned he relies heavily

on

informants,

mainly creoles, with second·hand k n o ~ l e d g e . 2 4

Because of his usual carelessness with sources and

footnoting,

it is

often difficult to make out what originates

with

Bastian and what from

POrtuguese SOurces. This- shows a limitation in Bastian s manner of

working which

would

haunt him more and

more

the older

he

became

and which led no t merely to the mild expression of

von Richthofen,

who said that Bastian was no t a geographer in the ordinary

sense ,

but to more scathing indictments of his later works, for instanceby

MiihImann who said hi s mental power of conceptualization no longer

mastered

the

richness

of

the incoming images. His late works

are there-

fore abstruse and incoherent

.2 6

This

judgment

was

shared by

his

disciples, colleagues and those very few scholars who made

the

effort

to disentangle the system of Bastian s thinking, as for instance the

above·mentioned ~ i i h l m a n n or Lowie. This is no t to say tha t

nothing

worthwhile appeared after 1873. On the contrary, he stil l

produced

gems, and many

of

his art ic les are ful l

of

sparkling

and

surprisingly

innovative thOUghts which are

worth

further investigation. His capacity

Bastian s

Programme

for a Science of

Man

15

as traveller, recorder, data-collector and administrator of museological

collections remains undiminished.

I have dwelt at considerable length on the Loango incident

of

J873

a nd 18 74

because it

became

one

of

the chief pretexts for

m a n ~

later

writers

to dismiss

Bastian s ideas summarily. considering them Incom

prehensible. Bastian was very wellaware of this shortcoming, a od when

i t was used as a weapon against him, as for instance in the bit ter and

vicious debate

Over

evolutionism with Haeckel between 181 2and 1875.

he qui te rightly felt annoyed. The attacks against his careless and

incomprehensible style evoke a sharp response from

B a s t l a ~ n 874

which shows another facet of his personality. his aristocraw: e h t l ~ m .

Bastian, unlike modem gurus. did take the commitment to calling

seriously; this isclearly shown when he pleads for the s 3 ~ v a g l n g of the

remnants of primitive cultures which were fast d i s a p ? e a r ~ n . s under the

onslaught of the imperialist powers.

2 S

In regard to

hIS CrItlCS he writes

the following

in

an open letter:

You cal l my books confused, boundlessly confused, and you are

nei ther the first nor the last to describe them thus. The unruly

among my children have received many other epithets, ~ 0 r : t e bad

ones, some inimical and vicious. but

I

also received appreciati e

and

maybe somet imes all too laudatory comments

: .

Some

of

mr,

critics consider it more convenient to declare my . book-monsters

unreadable after skimming the first few pages. This saves.them

trouble of reading, and, they think, they can save the reading public

this effort also,

I do not have any ambit ion to become a popular

writer M o d e ~ S c h r i f t s t e l l e r , 2 9

In 1898 he puts i t with even more acerbity, AU my wri ting is incon

venient for those who wont to be fed with pre-chewed tasteless pap, but

it is a great experience for the palate of the discerning gourmet of

thought

.3 0

The only scholar who to my knowledge seemed to

~ a v e

understood

this side of Bastian, this sacrificing

of

a whole life to h S chosen profes

sion, much as priests sacrifice their personal

l ~ f e

for honour of

serving the divine, was the late Paul Honigsheim, a dl:clple of Max

Weber,

who

was clearly a kindred spirit in life and teaching, He wrote

on the

occasion of Bastian s centenary in 1926 that Bastian was 3 man

for whom love family worldly happiness, aesthetic living and

readability of

his

works had already long s u n ~ into the fog of

irrelevancy. whose life on this earth was utterly. ~ e d l c a t e d to task

of finding the key to the riddle of the

positron

of man ,m. :he

cosmos, for which he was searching among the neglected pnrmtive

societies before they vanished or were changed through European

influence)


12/32

16

Part On e

Bastian s Programme

fo r a

Science of

Ma n

17

During the period between 1865 and 1875 Bastian published several

major

works despite his. m ~ n ~ · o t h t : r

a c t i ~ i t i e s

d u t i e ~ . .In 1869

appeared

his article

Das N a u ~ l z c h e System

m

der Ethnologie

which

he discusses the i nf luence 01 geography on cul tu re . race a nd o th er

somatic and social f ~ : l t u r e s

He was

alsoone of the first to notice that

the distribution of races, assuming they were

even definable,

has

nothing to do with the distribution

of

languages

or cultures, a

point

that

w

ult imat el y to be proved by Boas and Sap ir

around

19: 0.32

In 1868. Bastianpublished one of his most mature pieces

of

analysis,

the ei Tage ZUT

Vergteichenden sychologie

which deals with the

notion of the soul and its various

expressions. In

the foreword, Bastian

sugaests -that the

ethnographic

data contained in the volume indicate

th;;e

main

ideas about. or possibilities for. the continuity

of the

soul

after death. First. it is a spirit that haunts and wandersaimlessly about

or so condly, i t is a spirit led by a divine being to places of reward or

punishment respectively, or

t ~ i r d l y

.it is reincarnated on the ladder of

livinz organisms accordmg to Its preVIOUS deeds.

Th s work also

puts

into sharper focus

some

of the ideas he ha d

dealt

WIth in his 1860 volumes on the role

of

shamans and.

of

psycho-mental

disturbances. He objects strongly to the notion that tribal societies do

no t

know instances

of

mental disturbance.

On

the contrary, Bastian

thinks that tribal groups

suffer

as

much

from mental

aberrations

as do

modern societies. only that the persons so endowed or

afflicted

are in

contrast to modern practice. channelled to occupy a social role instead

of

being declared insane. Bastian a lso reasserts

t ha t e ac h

thought

system

seems appropriate to the particular historical and environmental

conditions of a society, Each idea-system is designed to provide answers

to those questions people might ask at a part icular state of societal

complexity. He defines as a system those thought structureswhich are

designed to answer specific classes of problems which are raised by the

em.;ronment .33

He insists that the native logic

of

tribal societies is not intrinsically

different from modern thought

scientific systems.

As

an example

he gives the image

of

a savage

who

insi sts tha t his fever is

caused

by a

demon;

if we call the origin

of

fever , says Bastian, as

lying

in the

vapours of the atmosphere.

the

miasm the difference is

indeed

only a

minor one . as we do not know what a miasma is any more t han the

native knows what a demon

i5

4

Bastian again, asin 1860, promotes a

spirit of scientific

enquiry

par ti cu la rl y in fields such as

ecstasy

enthusiasm and intoxica tion; he rejec ts al l answers

which smack of

mysticism in the field of ecstatic experiences and ecstatic individuals as

for i ns tance fire walke rs . Ins te ad

of

speaking

a b ou t s u pe r na t ur a l

influences, Bastian advises recourse to natural causes for s uch

phenornena.Jf

He thus consistently maintains his image of the enlight-

enment through scientific inquiries and castigates his century for being

10 0 easily

trapped

by the belief in miracles.

In 1871, Die Cultur und lhr Entwicklungsgang ufethnologischer

Grund/age

appeared

as a s upplemen t to the Ethnological s ociety

journal,

then edited

by Bastian. This volume consists of a large collec-

tion

of

folk tales,

myths

and linguistic and historical inquiries on the

origin

of

diverse e thnic groups in Europe and the Near East and other

ethnological provinces; he identifies areas

in

which diverse ethnic

croups share

what

he would ca ll a c ircle of ideas Gedankenkreis or

in modern parlance

.

a mental horizon . The book's major

theoretical contribution is an elaboration of his 1868 volume

s

Bestandige in n Menschenrassen in which he insists that any attempt

to pu t diverse cultures on a hierarchical ladder of high or

low

according

to

the

scheme

of

some evolutionists. is futile. He also cautions against

tr yi ng to d iv id e the world

into

savage and civil ized peoples.

36

The

volume

of

1871 could be seen as one of Bastian's strongest statements

against premature generalizations in the face of the complexities of

historical development and the mixture of cultures.

In

1872.

he publishes

Die Rechtsverhaltnisse bei verschiedenen

Volkem de Erde. This volume on comparativ e law was the first

German

work

in th at field of social a nt hr opology made famous in

England by Maine.

37

this work, Bastian reverseshis earlier

i n s i s t ~ ~ c e

on historicity and the individuality of diverse customs by

speculating

wildly

about

the rise of ins ti tutions from family to

state.

In methodo-

logical respects this work must be considered one

of

the weakest of

major writings. However,

in

the introduction of the book Bastian

makes some new and biting remarks on ethnocentrism and colonialism.

on religion and its practitioners, on priestly andaristocratic classes, on

tha t is , the conspiracy of the rul ing c lasses to which he had already

alluded in his first major work

of

1860.

38

His

attitude

to the ruling c lasses is one

of

the

most

puzzling aspects

of this a ri st oc ra t of the mind. Bastian held

two

apparently opposing

views on

the

probl em. On one hondo he cas tigate s the ru ling

e ~ ~ . - : , , , S < > -

throughout

history for keeping the mosses

of

people

in

i g n O r a ~ c e a ~ ~t

submission,

yet

on the other he consistently relterates

hIS

•

materialistic stand and it is

clear

that he considers socialist doctrines

a very

dangerous

tool of demagogues.t? Although Bastian never

arknowledges him directly, he was certainly familiar with Karl Marx

d the socialist doctrines of his

century.

He strongly rejects materialist

philosophy because he stresses the spiritual and men tal

component

in

man 's social life which he t hi nks all mat er ia lis t doc tr ines neg lec t.

Bastian does however subscribe to

that

form of socialism which would

coincide

with

his own out look on the use

of

science: he looks forward

to the era when a natural morality could be grounded on scientific


13/32

18

Part

One

~ t i a n s Programme for a Science of Man

19

. . I d ouid guarantee the social health of the state and the

pnnClp e s an w .

40

mental health

of

the mdlVldual .

He is a s tout defender

of

private property and the

power of

the

tat

. d h considers revolutions as a derangement of the collective

s

e,

an e . sh th t d

fh i

. d T onsiderable degree BastIan ares e ren s 0 s cen

tury

mm. 0

a c

b li f

i

ial

which united the eighteenth

century.

e :

SO

progress

with

the

nineteenth century application of scientific procedures to the whole

range of human problems.Herecognizes that the ~ o m t e n and Positivist

slogans,

t o

know is to

predict ~ o u l

be achieved through experi

mental psychology, if it were empmcally co.rroborated comparative

ethnology.Bastiandeviates from the g e n e ~ l l e of the nme about pro-

gress as a unilinear development from pnmrnve .to clvihzed:

Instead

he

thinks

of

development as the movement

of

a spiral, much

the

tradi

t ion of a philosophy of history as proposed by Vico. He thinks as did

Vico

that

evolution was at times a backward oriented

movement

with

• .

n4

the appearance

of

secondary

pnrmnvism .

These are some of the major points which become clear in Bastian s

works between the second

and

the third voyage. After his relatively

unsuccessful venture into Africa in 1873, Bastian embarks in 1875 on

his fourth voyage, this time for fur ther col lec tion o f d at a in the

Americas. The results

of

these wanderings appear in three volumes in

1878-89 as

Die Culturliinder des alten Amerika

which consist of a

travelogue, a general theoretical introduction and a full volume

of

source materials on the cultures

of

the Incas, Aztecs, and other civiliza

tions of the New World. Of great interes t are his comments on the

Spanish colonial policies

and

the cultural

and

racial

creolization

process

as well as on the problems of acculturation and acclimatization, which

had interested him since at least 1868.

42

Although Bastian does

not

develop a cohesive

theory

in these

volumes. several clear statements on various issues emerge. foremost

that of the distinction between savage and civilized nations. The

contrasts in American conditions

must

have struck Bastian

deeply

for

. he remarks tha t the original cu lt ur es , whi ch r epresented - as he

. .expresses it somewhat exaggeratedly - half of mankind s history have

been destroyed. Wenow find

natural

people

and

cultural

people

living

. side by side, with the implication

that

a reconstruction

of the

original

conditions of the Peruvian or Mexican empires would be difficult from

the ethni c groups now p res en t, as the educat ed classes had been

extirpated.

4 3

How then does Bastian distinguish so-called natural

people from civilizations? He statesvery clearly the minimal conditions

for any development

of

culture by saying:

Natural people arc the

so-called savages

or people without culture

which only me ans that they have a minimum of culture. because

without any form

of

culture man as a toolmaking animal would be

unthinkable

Culture in the narrower sense arises when

manis

no

longer preoccupied with

survival

tasks and-has time

to

contemplate

in

comfort

For such development we postulate

two

preconditions;

a mild

c limate between the extremes

and

an exchange between

diverse

ethnic

groups.s-t

Bastian here, in his insistence on the importance

of

culture contact for

the very existence of dynamic cultural evolution, pulls the rug from

under the feet

of

all diffusionist schools. The diffusionists after Ratzel

implied that the socio-psychological approach of Bastian - as entailed

in the concept

of

the

elementary idea

- could not explain cultural

similarities adequately. as the psych ic uni ty made cu lture con tact a

superfluous

concept

Bastian indeed insists that the primary source

of

all cultural

innova

t ion - in

the wide meaning

of

the word l ies

in

his elementary ideas

which include the response of collectivities to basic needs. Yet he adds

that for the development of civilized life, culture in the narrower

sense , movement and contact

of

and between people

and

ideas isa

necessary precondition.

t should be po in ted out tha t Bastian s use

of

the term natural

people

Naturvolker

carries etymologically and by usage connotations

rather different from the English savage , primitive or pagan . At

limes the equivalent to savage

wi/rI ,

the wording

Naturvolk

which

was to dominate German ethnology or

Volkerkunde

to the present time

goes back to Herder s

Ideas (1784-91).

The term originally entails the

idea

that tribal societies are closer to a virtuousstate of nature after

Rousseau, and

no t

to a savage hell, after Hobbes. In the time

of

Bastian s usage

of

the word in 1860, i t had shifted more to the notion

that the insti tutions

of

the so-called natural people ate the basic

responses to the fulfillment

of

the minimal needs necessary for survival,

more in line with the understanding of the later functionalist school of

thought. Natural people are for Bastian not so much a part

of

nature, as

for Rousseau, but precisely those people who are still living under the

dictates of

nature Naturzwang . as

Ratzel put it.

Bastian expresses

it most clearly in by contrasting the realm

of

culture

where

an

apparently relative) free will governs with the realm

of

the

untamed Wildheit where nature exerts a stronger binding force

and where we find

only

a minimum

of

individual variation

46

Before seeing the America volumes in print, Bastian embarks upon

his

fifth

voyage from

1878

to

1880

which bringshim via Persia to India.

He then travels.from Assamacross the width and breadth

of

the Pacific

to New Zealand, Hawaii and the North-west coast

of

North America,

down to Yucatan and back to Germany,where he settles down from

88

to

1889.

47

.


14/32

20 Part One

Bastian's Programme

for

a Science of Man

21

In 1886

the Royal Ethnological Museum

KoniglichesMuseum fiir

Volkerkunde)

was finally opened in Berlin under the auspices of

the Crown Prince and the Ministerof Education. The Museum was to

become Bastian's unsurpassed bequest to the next generation.

s

is

own preoccupation was the accumulation of material culture items

from as many areas as possiblein order to supply documentation of the

diverse folk ideas, and to salvage the dying cultures: 1he Museum had of

course many more purposes. According to

Virchow, it

provided

material for a specialized study of the problem of adaptation

of

man to

diverse environments,

particularly

of Europeans to the tropics a

project supported by the

German Colonial Association),

and also

provided the raw-materials for a better understanding of the cultures

under colonial rule. In other words, the collections were intended to

serve as starting point for grasping the principles on which the

dominated cultures were based in order to administer

them better

.49

Ethnology, then, was envisaged

not

only as a pure science

but

also

as a practical tool. While the Museumdid become the training ground

for such eminent future leaders in the fields of German and American

anthropology as Frobenius, Boasand Radin, or for specialized scholars

for instance in the field of Mexicanistics, neither Virchow nor Bastian

made any bones about the usefulness of the exhibits for the colonial

enterprise.

so

This is apparent in Bastian s belief, which grows stronger

after the 1880s, that the advantage of other nations over Germany in

colonial pol icy was part ly due to the earl ier establishment of their

ethnographic collections and the accruing increase in their knowledge

of other cultures.

hls

aspect of rivalry in the cosmopolitan Bastian is

a verysurprisingbut undeniable feature. He states:

The Education

Ministry

heeded well the comment vide nt consules,

ne quid res pu lic detrimentf captat the government must see to

it that the country doesnot cometo grief), when it gavethe German

natic n a Museum at a time when even the term ethnology was sti ll

foreign to the ears

of

the public.

is is

an intellectual.weapon

providing the necessary teaching aids which are needed more than

evernow to

COUnter

the emerging

competition

_ . S1

Yet his enthusias: for German colonialism did not encompass enthus

iasm for any rivalry between European powers, par ticularly

not

between Germany and England. As late as

1886,

Bastian hopes for a

combined effort of England and Germany to explore as well as to

control present-day Uganda and thereby to reach inner Africa .

52

Such hopes are expressed by Bastian on the occasion of the death of

the African explorer Gustav Fischer whom Bastian had encouraged to

enter Ugandaf rom the South, at the same time as the famous Emin

Pasha, the German born Eduard Schnitzer 1840-92 , had t ried to

reach the interior of

Uganda

from the North. Schnitzer, who had taken

the name Emin Pasha during

his

nine years of servicewith the Turkish

government, was one of the most gifted and daring personalitiesamong

the explorers of Africa. In

1875

Emin Pasha had joined Gordon in

Khartoum as medical officer and became governor of the Equatorial

Province of the Sudan in 1878. He remained in hisprecariousposition

after the Mahdist uprisingand the withdrawal of the British to Egypt.

In

1886,

both Bastianand Ratzel independently urged the German

government to

relieve

him, though this wasfinallyachievedby Stanley

in April

1888,

on the instigation and with the support of the Geograph

ical societies of Germany and England. Stanley had been eager to

obtain Pasha's nonexistent ivory-stash Pasha subsequently worked for

the German government, but crossed into the

ongo

Free State after

disagreements with

German

colonial officials. He was finally

assassin-

ated by an Arab ruler who believed that Pasha had handed Arab slave

traders over to the nativechiefs which - consideringhis truly enligh

tened stand on the matter - was possibly a realisticappraisal of Pasha's

activities.

The other colonial expansionwhich Bastianlookedupon favourably

was the Russian conquest of Siberia and Central Asia.Onepoint which

led him to evaluate thisexpansion positivelywas theconsideration that

Russia would through this huge task be strained in its resources to such

an extent that countries on i ts Western border would be safe from

Russian

covetousness.

Bastian

sees the

Russian

expansion as

geographic-

ally and ethnological ly qui te natural , as he did not consider the

annexed area as alien or uncongenial foreign soil , but looked upon

the Russian expansion rather as a shifting of the home-territories. He

thinks Russia

h s

the same right to expand its energieson the con

tiguous Eurasian continent, as has America in its push to the West.

S3

Bastian is still opposed to colonies on foreignsoil, without geographical

connections and in inimicil climates where the European does natur

ally

not

belong. In the Russiancase he seemsrather to think of the

expansionmore like the historical continuationof the great migrations

of

the nomads from InnerAsiainto Europe (only in the opposite direc

tion) which, or so he thinks, history has proved as a natu ra l ,

geographically determined route of expansion and migration. Besides,

he grants the lavic populations great abilities for accommodation and

acclimatization (following here also Herder's admiration for

lavic

cultural potential).

Useful though Bastian's Museum position was for influencing and

aiding the colonial enterprise, he felt that this institution was by itself

an inadequate basisfor ethnology and its development: his main thrust

is thus for the creation of more chairs for ethnology in Germany. He

defends this with the pragmatic and utilitarian reasoningthat informa-


15/32

22

Part One

Bastian s Programme for a Science of Man 23

, b t the many diverse ethnic groups would facilitate

trade

and

tion a

au , it did f E gl d

1 . tion for Germany in the same way as

I or n n or ,

cro °thruz t

matter for the US with the establishment

of the Bureau

or

h drnired

tlv judainz f

h

gy

which Bastian seems to ave a mire grea

y,Ju

glng rom

t

r ~ u s

comments. His hope was ignored: by the

l at e 1920s

any had only professorial positions for ethnology in Hamburg

and

~ i g

the Berl in chair

fo r

a n t h r o p ~ l o g y

and

ethnology

h a v i ~ g

b me one for physical anthropology 1927 at the

death of Felix

e ~ ° u s c h a n a disciple and collaborator of Bastian.

ss

voThe

M u s e ~ m

activesupport

of

colonialism, andhis various positions

and duties occupied much

of

this second German sojou rn

from

1880-89.

t

is perhaps thus no t surprising that his literary output

becomes both obscure and rather stale, though he does still

manage

to

put

some of his ideas in a reasonably clear form. Hisspecialized

works

on the psychology

of

Buddhism and some five volumes on

Indonesia

are hardly readable and lack any organizat ional princip le , ye t his

writings and editing

of

materials from his fourth vovage in Polynesia are

both interesting and clear . In travelling through the Pacif ic islands,

Bastian develops his concept of

idea circles.

those geographical regions

on earth where several ethnic groups share a basic world-view. Bastian

was stunned that one single idea-cluster

extended

over a quarter

of

the

globe, as he

pu t

it,

and

in Polynesia he finds mythologies

with

an

astonishing similarity in structure and

content

to early

Greek

myths,

particularly to the myths of the Ionian natural philosophers: in both

areas we find, for instance, a succession of different forms of darkness

finally leading to the genesis of light.This is

just

what Bastian has been

searching for: since diffusion between Greece and Polynesia was really

improbable, there being neither geographical nor historical continuity,

Bastian thinks that the

two

separate regions

must

have

hi t

indepen

dently on very similar concepts,

thus

providing proof for his

idea

of

independentinvention.S6

The other major contribution in this time concerns his work of 1881

Der Volkergedank« im ufb u einer Wissenschaft vom Mensehen und

seine Begriindung

uf

ethnologische Sammlungen Here Bastian

takes

the very clear posit ion - a good two decades before Durkheim - that

the folk idea is prior to

the

individual, or in modern jargon

that the

olle tive ons iousness and its represent tions mould the thought

processes

of

the individual through the socialization process.

As

he says,

th e folk ideas are therefore the primary force within whichindividual

thought canbe locatedin its relative position 57

Although Bastian never used

to

talk much in private about his

voyages, these volumes show some glimpses of the fascination,

the

almost charismatic

attraction

he

must

have had for a great

number of

people whom he

met,

and

they show

his working style. If there is still

any doubt in anyone s mind about the endurance of this roving

ethnographer, it should disappear when we hear

that

he spenthis time

in Hawaii taking down and transcribing

large parts

of the

awaiian

national epic

Kumulipo

which he transcribes in Polynesian and

translates with the help of KingKalakaua. 8 t isalso in Hawaii that he

again, as so often before, winssomebody to full-time ethnology. The

man in question, von den Stemen, calls astian

n

this context a

catcher of souls , referring to his uncanny ability to bring ou t the best

in a discussion partner by encouraging andchallenginghim at the same

time.

59

.

astian

used to

hire assistants

for the

Museum and

new

researchers

in ethnography from many diverse fields, and they were often people

who were

no t

necessarily highly educated,

but

showed imagination. His

appointments to the museum

of

ethnology were sound, as

for

example

in the case

of

the famous Mexicanist Seler

1849-1922)

or of many

East Asian specialists, Sometimes, though, men with neither training

nor brains got jobs: Felix von Luschan

1854-1927)

was such a man,

at least in

the

eyes

of

his students Graebner and Frobenius. The latter

said later on von Luschan that

he

was of such boundless ignorance,

more like a layman in this field , while Graebner attested to his lack

of

expertise

6

.

Von den Steinen himself began his career as anthropologist in 1880

when he visited Hawaiiand found the name Dr. Bastian-Berlin in a

hotel s guest.book. He recounts that when he travelled in 1880 on the

East Coast

of

the North Island

of

New Zealand and

met

an English

doctor in Napier who was supposed to be a special ist on Maori,he

found him sit ting on

kiwi

mats surrounded by artifacts

of

greenstone

about

which he was writing notes. When the doctor realized

that

von

den Steinen was a friend of Bastian s he said: These things are all for

Professor Bastian who was here and has to get them; these manuscripts

are genealogies and myths which I have translated for

him

from the

Maori 61

If this was indeed Bastian s typical form of collecting and collating

materials and

of

finding assistants,

it

shows a far different image

ofthe

great ethnologist than wewould gain from his own works alone.

Despite his condemnation of the priestly profession and

of

religion in

an age

that

adulated science, Bastian was always the first to emphasize

the importance of tapping the memories of missionaries as genuine

specialists of native societies.·

2

The

volumes

of

materia ls and of

theoretical discussions, however, give us the impression of an ascetic

man, ser ious to the point

of

fanaticism. Vet he must in the flesh have

been quite charmingand convincing to people in many walks

of

life.We

can otherwise hardly explain a personality

who

was able to

chat

with

the King of Hawaii as skilfully as

with

missionaries, doctors, lumber-


16/32

24

ar t

n e


25

jacks medicine men andnative bearers;

who ~ o u l d

persuade his

govern-

ment to build a huge Museum;who could cajole others into financing

projects he considered worthwhile; could i mpress on t rader s,

geographersand military personnel the Importance of sending artifacts

to Berlinor taking notes about the life

of

primitive tribes. As von den

t ~ i n e n once said Bastian was not a stickler for small details but a

man with a grand vision, and wemight add, a person who could impart

this visionto others.

. . I must point out that Bastian had a great flair for r om an ti c poetry

as well. He collected songs and poems, in particular love-poems in

the

vernacular for instance in ~ u r m a and translated them into a s ty le

reminiscent of some Romantic wnters. Here follows an

example

of a

poem he collected in 186 5 when he sp en t some time in the w in te r

quarters of the Kalrnyk tribe, the only Buddhists in Europe. He me t

the

Kalmyks

in

their winter camps near the Caucasus; their Lama the

religioushead, had just died, and the dirge refers to him:

From the ocean s

sw r

Wesurged on with

joyous

laud.

Hewas among us whom all praise.

whom we celebrate in

song

and phrase.

The black steed which was his love

Isstill waiting for its liege,

while reigning in splendid silver.

But he who used to ride the proud horse.

Heleft usas does a beautiful dream.

To the temple where the gods reside

Wegave the white horses he rode

What has his little brother left. but

the name of a waif?

w y to the monastery with the black steeds

Over which the favourite horse is ruling.

Old servant what do you cry

what have

you

left besides the

empty

hearth

Oh,

you friend, who saw them prepare

The

funeral

pyre.

and

the bier

Who returns

now

with the horse

On the saddle the bones of its master?

Bastian collected the following riddles from the Kalmyks: is born in

. water and f ears the water salt) . - The fi el d i s whit e, t he seed is black

writing npaper).63

In 1889 Bast ian depart s f or his

sixth

voyage which is to last until

Documents

Bastian History Theory Anthropology