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The Savage MindAuthor(s): Julian Pitt-RiversSource: Man, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 300-301Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2798508Accessed: 13/12/2010 12:05

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The savage mindSIR,

Even before he ppearance f the etters fStewart ndNeedham n your revious um-ber Man N.S.) 3, 125-6) the translation fLa pense'eauvage as becoming matter finternational oncern. Among others thepublishers ave received here was even acourteousmissive rom Japan pointing ut

misprints. They could not acknowledgetbecause hewriter igned is name nly n theJapanese cript.) s the erson o whom t fellto undertake he main task of editing hetranslation, am grateful o you for llowingme to thank hose who have called ttentionto errors ndfor he pportunity o commenton the divergentudgements hathave beenpassed n it.

Needham Man)andGorer Observer) avecommendedhe ranslation or ts aithfulness.Nettl (New Statesman) raised t withoutqualificationnd even had a good word for

the tyle. eertz Encounter)n the ther andfound t execrable. each New York Reviewof ooks) uggested hatGeertz nd Needhamwereboth right. tewart ow maintains hatthe ranslations wrong nd nonsensical,uthe fails o convince Needham.To explainsuch contradictions ne must examine hebases f these arious udgements, ut etmefirst omment n Stewart's.

He gives hree llustrations n ustificationofhisview.Taking hem n reverse rder, iscomplaint gainst he hird assages ustified:a complete ine of the manuscript as been

omitted-'with a definitive nd readilyapprehended odel, but rather' with ....This s obviously printer's rror allbetweenthe two with's has been omitted) nd myattention as already een called to it, to-gether with the errors n the diagrams ndwith number f misprints hich re, amsorry o say, more numerous han thoserecorded y Mr Stewart. uch errors rehardly nough to condemn he translation,but only the preparation f the book forpublication; y an unfortunate versight twasnever ent oa professionalroof-reader.

Stewart's llustrations) and ) concern hetranslation. he error e detects n 2) is that'exclusivement' ualifies, ot the opposition' culture' versus soci6te', but 'culture' or' societe"', ummed up together s men'srelations ith ach other, ersus henomenaof technical r economic rderwhichmightseemrather o concern men'srelations ith

nature. f this s what he uthor ntended t scuriously xpressed, or he -hasnot written'exclusivement oit de la culture ou de lasociete, tc.) . . soit e manifestations. .' but'soit culture .., soit ... societe, c'est a diredesrapports .. ou demanifestations. .' Hehas evidently een at pains o guard gainstthe very nterpretation tewart orces ponthis assage.

What is the reason for this wilful mis-interpretation? tewart efuses o accept hewords n the ense hat evi-Strauss ives othem. suspect e thinks, n common withmany nthropologists,hat ulture nd ocietyareboth oncerned ith men's elations itheachother nd s such an be opposed o theirrelations ith heir nvironment epresentedby echnicalnd conomic actors. hiswouldmake these factors omething xternal osociety ndthus estrict he oncept f ocietyto the rules f social ntercourse. his viewis commonly aken y thosewho favour heterm socio-cultural'. ut this s not Levi-Strauss's tandpoint s anyonewho has readStructuralnthropologynows. tewart elievesthat he can detect rrors n the translationwithout ven looking t the French. Alas!Evenafter opying he assage ut he still asnot ooked t t closely nough.

In his llustration ) Stewart as followedthe French aithfullynd gives t the costofclumsiness, more exactrendering han hetranslation hich, s it stands, akes certainliberty ith he ext. ut, s Needham ightlypoints ut, this iberty oesnot amount o amisrepresentationf the author's houghts.Indeed, t is sometimes ecessary o takeliberties ith text n order o avoid heavygallicism, orwhat s a legitimate hetoricalfigure n Frenchmay turn out in a literalrendering ntoEnglish s a pleonasm.

There are probably etter ways to trans-late the passages ited, but Stewart's ug-gestions o not appear o me to contain nyconcrete mprovements. is services s aproof-reader re invaluable; s a translatorthey rousemisgivings, orhe fails ven tomeet the apparent riterion n which hisjudgement s based: iteral xactitude.t s tobe notedhowever hat t s not the riterionof Geertzwho disapprovesf the ranslationfor he pposite eason;neffect ecomplainsthat he work hasnot been put nto decentreadable nglish. He comparesThe savagemind nfavourably ith he sensitive' rans-lation f Tristes ropiqueswhich n the other

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hand received arsh omment rom Gorerwhen it appeared on the grounds of itsinaccuracy). ike Geertz admire he trans-lation f Tristes ropiquesrom he point ofviewof tyle, ut have o admit with Gorerthat t s not very ccurate.

The translator aces ll too often choicelike Cassandra's: hallhe render he originalexactly nd fail to get its meaning nder-stood?Or shall e give plausible araphrasewhichwillnot require he eader o make heeffort o master modeof thought nfamiliarto him? One might ndeed sk: why botherto translate t all f the nly eaders ho willunderstand re those who can read theoriginal? n the ther and loose ranslationserves nly o confuse hosewho rely n it.Bowdlerised evi-Strausss hardlywhat weneed n English.An entirely uccessfulrans-lation must meet the criteria f accuracy,comprehensibility nd style, but Leachwonders hether his spossiblen the ase ofLapense'eauvage. erhaps e s right. o onehas yet suggested satisfactory ranslationevenof the itle.

In addition othe niisprints hichwill becorrected n subsequent rintings, he fol-lowing orrections ill also be made:p. 62, line 3; for carve lephants' ootprints

in' read carve out elephants' ootprintsfrom'.p. I36, end of line 22; following with a'

insert: definitive nd readily pprehendedmodelbut rather ith '.

p. 2I6, line 5; for Old-bison's-used-hoof'read Old-bison's-worn-hoof'.

p. 225, line 5; for solution f continuity'read break n continuity'.

p. 269: in order o make lear hat he eferentof it' is the avagemind he word orderof the ast entence f the book should echanged to read: ' . . . when we recognise

that, y an encounter t alonecould haveforeseen, he scientific pirit n its mostmodern orm will have contributed ..'.

Minor corrections ill be made on pp. I07,I24, i68, I69, I92. Thediagramspp. i5, 83)will be corrected n accordancewith theoriginal dition, hat s to say: on page s5,all plus signs +) should be indicators finequality ?), and in the seconddiagramon the same page the vertical ines shouldconnect n each case,not the signs, ut thewords species' nd group'. On page 83, heleft hand small oval containing B' should

contain D'.I would ike to apologise o the readers fthe riginal rinting or ailing o detect heseslips efore he book went o press. do notdare to hope that he ist s complete nd Iwouldwelcome otice f any other nstanceswhere he ense f he riginalmayhavebeenbetrayed.

As our Japanese orrespondent nded hisletter,

Peace.Julian itt-RiverstcolePratique esHautes Qtudes,

Paris

Psychology nd social anthropologySIR,

In his reply o my article Man (N.S.) 2,2I6-25) Gluckman id not onfront hemainissues raised, ut nstead lected o treat hedisagreement s a matter f semantics. epurports o resolve long standing muddle'in the use of the word psychology' whichkeeps British nd American cholars romcommunicating: Kennedy uses the word"psychological" o cover any reference oemotions,deas, eliefs nd mental rocesses,and also to cover theories n the science fpsychology, while Devons and I ... use"psychological" nly to describe tatementsabout relations etween vents within heframework f a science f psychology, ndpropose "psychical" to describe motions,ideas, tc., n individual syches' GluckmanI968: 20). This muddle' s alleged o preventme from understanding hat 'reality' isneutral, ndthat ifferent ocial ciencestudythe same events, ut seek to establish iff-erent ets f relations etween hem'.

I plead guilty o a dual use of the word'psychological'but disavow the muddle,and claim that my meaning n each caseisclear rom he ontext. he real ssue, ow-ever, oncerns he rbitrary ndrigid ivisionswhich form he boundaries f the differentsocial sciences.These seem to have beenbased upon historical nd common sensedecisions,s well as mind-body ypes f con-ceptual ualisms, ather han upon inherentdifferencesf subject matter. he separationof psychology rom he other behaviouralsciences ashistorically eenuseful, ut nowonly serves o hinder urther dvances.AsGluckman dmits, ocial cientists ften ealwith psychic' vents, nd in this, s in alltheir ttempts o analysesocial' behaviour,they make assumptions bout 'humannature' and about how the psychic' ap-paratus works. Often these psychologicalstatements re based upon an unconsciousfamiliarity ith principles f psychoanalysis,behaviouristicsychology, tc.,but these reunsystematic, nexamined, nd unadmitted.Some psychology s fundamental o anysociologicalheory, nd psychologys basicto all behavioural ciences. hus, t seems ome that great enefitmay be derived romadmitting he act nd acinghe onsequences.

This does not mean hat ll analyses hich