Franz Boas

83

Franz Boas : biography

July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942

In a programmatic essay in 1920, "The Methods of Ethnology", Boas argued that instead of "the systematic enumeration of standardized beliefs and customs of a tribe", anthropology needs to document "the way in which the individual reacts to his whole social environment, and to the difference of opinion and of mode of action that occur in primitive society and which are the causes of far-reaching changes". Boas argued that attention to individual agency reveals that "the activities of the individual are determined to a great extent by his social environment, but in turn his own activities influence the society in which he lives, and may bring about modifications in form". Consequently, Boas thought of culture as fundamentally dynamic: "As soon as these methods are applied, primitive society loses the appearance of absolute stability … All cultural forms rather appear in a constant state of flux…" (see Lewis 2001b)

Having argued against the relevance of the distinction between literate and non-literate societies as a way of defining anthropology’s object of study, Boas argued that non-literate and literate societies should be analyzed in the same way. Nineteenth-century historians had been applying the techniques of philology to reconstruct the histories of, and relationships between, literate societies. In order to apply these methods to non-literate societies, Boas argued that the task of fieldworkers is to produce and collect texts in non-literate societies. This took the form not only of compiling lexicons and grammars of the local language, but of recording myths, folktales, beliefs about social relationships and institutions, and even recipes for local cuisine. In order to do this, Boas relied heavily on the collaboration of literate native ethnographers (among the Kwakiutl, most often George Hunt), and he urged his students to consider such people valuable partners, inferior in their standing in Western society, but superior in their understanding of their own culture. (see Bunzl 2004: 438–439)

Using these methods, Boas published another article in 1920, in which he revisited his earlier research on Kwakiutl kinship. In the late 1890s Boas had tried to reconstruct transformation in the organization of Kwakiutl clans, by comparing them to the organization of clans in other societies neighboring the Kwakiutl to the north and south. Now, however, he argued against translating the Kwakiutl principle of kin groups into any English word. Instead of trying to fit the Kwakiutl into some larger model, he tried to understand their beliefs and practices in their own terms. For example, whereas he had earlier translated the Kwakiutl word numaym as "clan", he now argued that the word is best understood as referring to a bundle of privileges, for which there is no English word. Men secured claims to these privileges through their parents or wives, and there were a variety of ways these privileges could be acquired, used, and transmitted from one generation to the next. As in his work on alternating sounds, Boas had come to realize that different ethnological interpretations of Kwakiutl kinship were the result of the limitations of Western categories. As in his work on Alaskan needlecases, he now saw variation among Kwakiutl practices as the result of the play between social norms and individual creativity.

Before his death in 1942, he appointed Helen Codere to edit and publish his manuscripts about the culture of the Kwakiutl people.

Sources/further reading

Writings by Boas

  • Boas n.d. "The relation of Darwin to anthropology", notes for a lecture; Boas papers (B/B61.5) American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Published on line with Herbert Lewis 2001b.
  • Boas, Franz (1911). The Mind of Primitive Man. ISBN 0-313-24004-3 ( of the 1938 revised edition at the Internet Archive)
  • Boas, Franz. (1911). Handbook of American Indian languages (Vol. 1). Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington: Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
  • Boas, Franz (1912). "Changes in the Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants". American Anthropologist, Vol. 14, No. 3, July–Sept, 1912.
  • Boas, Franz (1912). "The History of the American Race". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. XXI, pp. 177–183.
  • Boas, Franz (1914). "Mythology and folk-tales of the North American Indians". Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 27, No. 106, Oct.-Dec. pp. 374–410.
  • Boas, Franz (1922). "Report on an Anthropometric Investigation of the Population of the United States". Journal of the American Statistical Association, June 1922.
  • Boas, Franz (1906). The Measurement of Differences Between Variable Quantities. New York: The Science Press. ( at the Internet Archive)
  • Boas, Franz (1927). "The Eruption of Deciduous Teeth Among Hebrew Infants". The Journal of Dental Research, Vol. vii, No. 3, September, 1927.
  • Boas, Franz (1927). Primitive Art. ISBN 0-486-20025-6
  • Boas, Franz (1935). "The Tempo of Growth of Fraternities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 7, pp. 413–418, July, 1935.
  • Boas, Franz (1940). Race, Language, and Culture ISBN 0-226-06241-4
  • Stocking, George W., Jr., ed. 1974 A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883–1911 ISBN 0-226-06243-0
  • Boas, Franz (1928). Anthropology and Modern Life (2004 ed.) ISBN 0-7658-0535-9
  • Boas, Franz, edited by Helen Codere (1966), Kwakiutl Ethnography, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
  • Boas, Franz (2006). Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste-Amerikas. Vancouver, BC: Talonbooks. ISBN 0-88922-553-2