ANTB19H3 Lecture : The last yahi
Document Summary
Key concepts: salvage anthropology; cultural translation; manifest destiny. Kroeber wanted to study a native north american that was uncontaminated by the west. He had this idea of cultures as fixed, pure, and whole. In this view, history belongs to europeans, who set history in motion through power and conquest. The ideas of social evolution still very strong. Treated native north americans as primitives who could teach us something about our prehistory. We call this salvage anthropology , where you try to learn as much as you can about a way-of-life that will disappear. An interest in learning the language, the stories, collecting artefacts, etc. This approach leads to the reification of culture, or turning cultural forms into objects to be placed in a museum, where it will be classified . Ishi had been hunted and in hiding for 40 years, since the. 1860s, because of european settlement, violence, and theft. His way of life was already completely contaminated .
