International African Institute

Economics in Primitive Communities by Richard ThurnwaldReview by: W. Lloyd WarnerAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1933), pp. 113-116Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1155706 .

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[ I3 ]

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

COMPTES RENDUS BUCHERBESPRECHUNGEN

Economics in Primitive Communities. By RICHARD THURNWALD, published for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures by the Oxford University Press. I932. Pp. 314 +xiv, with 8 diagrams. 25s. THE older economics, dominated by the idea of the rational economic

man, who, by the aid of his free will, exercised with a mathematical nicety his economic decisions to buy or not to buy and thereby created the whole theory of supply and demand, has been very rudely shaken by the researches of social anthropologists into primitive economics. The warfare of demand

against supply which depended upon an even balancing of the two armies to make the theory work was obviously but a translation of the earlier dualistic conceptions of the theologians, except that sometimes supply was Jehovah and sometimes it functioned as Beelzebub, with demand occupying the opposite function according to the conditions of the moment. All the

operations of man as an economic entity could be interpreted with the same nicety and precision with which the theologian of the Middle Ages could inter-

pret the behaviour of the soul wavering at first ten points on the devil's side of the theological balance, coming to an even balance, and then finding himself

perhaps a few points on the side of Jehovah and the heavenly angels. Unfortunately, this period of certainty and precision in economic thought has passed, partly due to the discoveries of primitive economists such as Malinowski.

Professor Thurnwald, in his most recent publication, has added further to the destruction of the economic man. He states definitely that to abstract the economic life of a community from the rest of the complex structure of the civilization in which it functions is impossible and, if done, erroneous. In speaking of the diffusion of customs, ideas, or impressions he says that

they ' cannot be considered as if each existed in a state of isolation. .. . Such transferences are part of a complete system of ideas and institutions. If they are taken over by another people they enter a new system of communal life which also consists of harmonized ideas and institutions, though of a different kind'. Combined with this structural and functional point of view in observing economic behaviour in primitive communities is an historical attitude. He is concerned with the transition of society from one economic level to another. This seems to me, perhaps, to be the weakest part of his book, since any reconstruction of that nature has many of the elements of

pure speculation in it. Professor Thurnwald has divided his book into three sections. In the

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II4 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

first section he deals with general considerations, such as 'The Problems of Progress and Development', 'Population and its Means of Increase', ' The Food Question ', 'Settlements ', and ' Technical Skill'. In the second part he is concerned with types of economic life. He endeavours here to generalize the methods of earning a living by primitive tribes into a number of types with the admonition to his reader that these types are not to be considered as watertight, that there is very considerable variation within each division which he has set up, and that there is gradual transition from one type to the other, but he defends his classification on the basis of its workableness, which to the reviewer seems justified since it would be im- possible to deal with the material without generalizing the phenomena into certain workable forms. The types include, among others, (i) 'Homo- geneous Communities of Men as Hunters and Trappers, Women as Col- lectors'; (2) 'Homogeneous Communities of Hunters, Trappers, and Agriculturists'; (3) 'Graded Society of Hunters, Trappers, Agriculturists, and Artisans'; (4) 'Ethnically Stratified Cattle Breeders and Traders '; (5) 'Socially Graded Herdsmen with Hunting, Agricultural, and Artisan Population', and so on.

In the third section Professor Thurnwald considers the forms of economic activity, including handicraft, wages, barter, trade, distribution of goods and wealth, work, slavery, and symbols of value and money. In the last two chapters of his third section he discusses ' the Principles of Primitive Econo- mics ' and ' the Spirit of Primitive Economics '. There is also a bibliography and index and 'Diagrams: Illustrating the Development of Economic Methods and Simple Technical Skill'.

After establishing economic types in the second section, he then treats his forms of economic activity by placing each activity such as wages or barter within each of the types of economic life by generalization and by giving examples from the various tribes. Professor Thurnwald uses a great amount of concrete material, chiefly drawn from Melanesia, New Guinea, and Africa, but he also includes material from China, Sumaria, Polynesia, and other parts of the inhabited globe, although his examples are too few from the American Indian societies. He quotes very heavily from Malinowski and, I suspect, has been considerably influenced by Malinowski's work on the Trobriands. One of the chief difficulties with Thurnwald's work is that he becomes involved in historical arguments which at times contradict his statement of his method. This is particularly true of such chapters as that on technical skill and hunters, trappers and agriculturists. His description of the various types of economic life is very compact and, I should think, excellent material for the economic student who knows little of anthropology, but it is of less value to the anthropologist who is conversant with the general field, since it throws very little light on the economic structure in its general relation to the social structure, which, after all, is the purpose of the book.

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS 1 5 The third section seems to me to be the best part of the book, although

here again he abandons his statement of method for an historical interpreta- tion: ' The esteem in which handicraft is held is also the result of an historical development. In general it may be said that in places where the handicraft has become an emergency expedient for people to acquire foodstuffs by means of exchanging their products the artisan communities become de- graded.' His consideration of population and means of increase is decidedly inadequate, and this vast subject is given but one page out of the three hundred. It would have been better to have ignored it entirely. In his treatment of settlements he states that 'the original condition of the settle- ment can frequently be gathered from the name, which is often derived from that of a very early immigrant who founded the settlement and whose name is often applied by his successors to the whole district '. This statement is undoubtedly true for certain modern communities, and probably for certain primitive communities, but frequently it seems highly likely that the original settler spoken of by the natives was much more likely to be the human embodiment of the totemic ancestors.

His chapter on the distribution of goods and wealth is very good. He states that 'Economic goods do not appear in the form of abstract values but as concrete objects of consumption or use. They are, therefore, related to many other sides of life besides the economic one, and are affected by the connexion of the object with supernatural powers and forces in so far as these form the basis of the mental attitude of the people. This excludes the possibility of regarding economic processes from a one-sided rationalistic point of view'. He then proceeds to demonstrate this point of view with concrete material from various monographs, particularly the work of Firth on the Maoris and Malinowski on the Trobriands.

In his excellent chapter on ownership and property he gives a very clear interpretation of the function of wealth in a stratified tribe. ' The wealth of the superposing people is envied by the subjected ones and symbols of it are cherished for the personal reputation and social distinctions they carry within the community.... Within this upper stratum, then, appears a rivalry for the possession of the greatest number of these symbols. This means the rise of plutocratic valuations which begin to supersede the aristocratic ones. Consequently, among these leading individuals there is competition for the acquisition of these symbols, first because of their social value, secondly because of their economic importance.'

His chapter on family capitalism is too short; it comprises a few lines over three pages. In his chapter on work he says that the less advanced primitives' attitude toward work is different from that of the peoples of our culture because they prefer ' monotonous, regular muscular action rather than complicated manual dexterity' (p. 2 3). I suspect this statement cannot be sustained by the facts. If Professor Thurnwald means that in primitive

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116 REVIEWS OF BOOKS societies there are fewer inventions which demand this type of labour, then his statement is true, but if he means it is a mere matter of preference, I think sufficient evidence could be found to prove that primitive man shows no decided preference for monotonous muscular action. As a matter of fact (p. 214) Professor Thurnwald implicitly contradicts the above statement when he says, ' In the higher stages of civilization well-developed craftsman-

ship is connected with strong artistic development, but even in the lower cultures there is no lack of decoration of tools and implements '. The decoration of some of the primitive implements takes a tremendous amount of manual dexterity, as any one knows who has watched some of the

primitive craftsmen form their implements and weapons. The present review has been perhaps too adversely critical of Professor

Thurnwald's book. It must be remembered that this is the first effort to collect the data on primitive economics and present a general book on this

subject from this newer point of view. Considering the difficulties of opening a new field and the inadequacy of much of the material, it is the reviewer's belief that Professor Thurnwald has written a first-class piece of work which should be read by all serious students of economic anthropology.

W. LLOYD WARNER.

The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs. By JOHN HENDERSON SOGA. Pp. 432.

Photographs. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 2Is.

LINKED as he is with both races and trained in the culture of the West, Mr. Soga is eminently fitted to interpret the deepest thought of the African to the European. The announcement of this book, following on his South- eastern Bantu, aroused therefore great expectations. And without doubt the book does fulfil them to a considerable degree. But I confess to a certain

disappointment. Mr. Soga adopts a rather too apologetic, not to say de- fensive, tone. He is too anxious to prove the superiority of the Xosa to other Southern Bantu, and to shield them from misinterpretation by people who are always disposed to denigrate the African. I instance his treatment of the u-metsho practice: he will not allow us to call it isiko, ' custom ', but

isiqelo, 'a customary habit'. (The distinction, though real, is often ignored: isiko is a 'communal or tribal custom on which law is founded'; isiqelo is ' a practice which has no legal recognition '.) Mr. Soga is also obsessed with the notion that the Xosa derive many of their religious and social customs from the Jews, through the Arab colonists on the eastern sea-board. He even suggests a connexion between the Xosa Ma conini, 'it is forbidden', and the Hebrew korban. It is a wonder he did not derive the Xosa word for ' sacrifice', idini, from the Arabic din (religious observance). He is also too fond of generalizing about ' all the Bantu ', when, to all appearance, he means no more than the South-eastern Bantu. We would willingly have

116 REVIEWS OF BOOKS societies there are fewer inventions which demand this type of labour, then his statement is true, but if he means it is a mere matter of preference, I think sufficient evidence could be found to prove that primitive man shows no decided preference for monotonous muscular action. As a matter of fact (p. 214) Professor Thurnwald implicitly contradicts the above statement when he says, ' In the higher stages of civilization well-developed craftsman-

ship is connected with strong artistic development, but even in the lower cultures there is no lack of decoration of tools and implements '. The decoration of some of the primitive implements takes a tremendous amount of manual dexterity, as any one knows who has watched some of the

primitive craftsmen form their implements and weapons. The present review has been perhaps too adversely critical of Professor

Thurnwald's book. It must be remembered that this is the first effort to collect the data on primitive economics and present a general book on this

subject from this newer point of view. Considering the difficulties of opening a new field and the inadequacy of much of the material, it is the reviewer's belief that Professor Thurnwald has written a first-class piece of work which should be read by all serious students of economic anthropology.

W. LLOYD WARNER.

The Ama-Xosa: Life and Customs. By JOHN HENDERSON SOGA. Pp. 432.

Photographs. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 2Is.

LINKED as he is with both races and trained in the culture of the West, Mr. Soga is eminently fitted to interpret the deepest thought of the African to the European. The announcement of this book, following on his South- eastern Bantu, aroused therefore great expectations. And without doubt the book does fulfil them to a considerable degree. But I confess to a certain

disappointment. Mr. Soga adopts a rather too apologetic, not to say de- fensive, tone. He is too anxious to prove the superiority of the Xosa to other Southern Bantu, and to shield them from misinterpretation by people who are always disposed to denigrate the African. I instance his treatment of the u-metsho practice: he will not allow us to call it isiko, ' custom ', but

isiqelo, 'a customary habit'. (The distinction, though real, is often ignored: isiko is a 'communal or tribal custom on which law is founded'; isiqelo is ' a practice which has no legal recognition '.) Mr. Soga is also obsessed with the notion that the Xosa derive many of their religious and social customs from the Jews, through the Arab colonists on the eastern sea-board. He even suggests a connexion between the Xosa Ma conini, 'it is forbidden', and the Hebrew korban. It is a wonder he did not derive the Xosa word for ' sacrifice', idini, from the Arabic din (religious observance). He is also too fond of generalizing about ' all the Bantu ', when, to all appearance, he means no more than the South-eastern Bantu. We would willingly have

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