Book Reviews 62 1

recorders of man’s various destinies has made them take increasing note of that great plurality of cultures in which the tensions of life are not compensated for by collective dreaming. To our understanding of human strategies in the face of an often capricious social fate this book is an enduring contribution.

Pul Eliya, a Village in Ceylon: A Study in Land Tenure and Kinship. E . R. LEACE. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1961. xv, 344pp., appendices, 7 diagrams, 9 genealogical charts, index, 7 maps, 5 plates, references, 14 tables. $8.00.

Reviewed by DOUGLAS OLIVER, Harvard University If Professor Gluckman’s thesis concerning the function of conflict is generally

applicable, then the publication of this book will provide British social anthropology with a mighty stimulus for cohesion. The small Sinhalese village of Pul Eliya seems to have been singled out for study mainly, and perhaps solely, to serve as an instrument for attacking some of the premises and formulations about primitive society alleged to to be basic to “Oxford Structuralism”-especially, notions about the dominance of descent for determining group membership and the primacy of social-relational rules for constraining individual behavior. The author in passing also aims some character- istically sharp missiles at indiscriminate use of notions like “social solidarity” and “equilibrium,” at “intuitive” analytic procedures, and a t kinship typology in general. Whatever else may be said about this book, it maintains the level of liveliness one has come to associate with all Leach’s public statements. And even his most direct targets must concede that Leach’s own public social behavior consistently exemplifies his ex- pressed views about social-relational norms. From this safe distance-Leach has not yet fired intercontinentally-admiration for his incisiveness is matched only by fascina- tion for his candor.

Post-war British social anthropology, he says, has been most heavily influenced by the normative approach of the early (Division of Labor) Durkheim, as transmitted through Radcliffe-Brown, and by the peculiarities of the societies, mainly unilinear African ones, studied by most British anthropologists. This has resulted, he claims, not only in an inadequate theoretical model for the particular societies studied, but also in a tendency to extend generalizations from these studies to all other kinds of primitive societies. To counter this tendency Leach chose to examine a nonunilinear society, i.e., Pul Eliya, where such factors as descent and jural-moral rules are, according to him, less consequential than are the unyielding facts of topography, the conventions of technology, and the irrepressible self-interests of individuals. And to avoid the fallacy of reification he considers inherent in the focus on rules, he derives his generalizations from frequencies of actual events, after the fashion of the later (Suicide) Durkheim, as practiced by Malinowski. This approach commits him to producing a book very much like Suicide, in its laudatory empiricism as well as in its inevitable shortcomings. (His own brief effort to integrate these two approaches is rather half-hearted and inconclu- sive-or a t least not very clear to this reviewer.)

Pul Eliyans, along with the inhabitants of several nearby villages, consider them- selves to be members of one endogamous division (variga) of the large Cultivators caste of North Central Ceylon. They sometimes carry on commercial transactions with neighboring Hindus and Moslems, and interact on ritual occasions with nearby mem- bers of other Sinhalese castes (Drummers, Washermen, etc.), but by rule should have little to do with members of other Cultivator varigas. Theirsocial exclusiveness is also expressed in positive rules encouraging mutual aid, etc., among local variga kinsmen.

622 A merican A ntkro pologist [64, 19621

Their subsistence crops are produced mainly on land irrigated from a large artificial tank; rights to this water and to associated house sites are thus crucial, and are ideally allocated to members of the local variga through inheritance, gift, sale, or loan. I t would appear, then, that kinship rules are the primary determinants of social interac- tion and of economic behavior. Yet, writes Leach, an examination of actual events dem- onstrates that such rules are in large measure mere fictions; that they are often reinter- preted or even ignored in the face of technological imperatives, individual differences, and political factionalism. For example, the very central rule regarding variga endog- amy (and hence local citizenship) is often bent by official action of the variga court whereby certain outsiders are admitted to variga membership. And factionalism within the local community is influenced less by kinship prescriptions than by parallel or con- flicting claims to land.

The author presents exceedingly detailed statistics and numerous case histories to support these and other substantive findings, and in general it must be granted that he makes his point-at least for Pul Eliya, and a t least with regard to a lack of con- gruence between some kivzds ojrules and some kinds of actual events. His major methodo- logical thesis, however, fares less well. That part of it which asserts that “jural rulesand statistical norms of actual events should be treated as separate frames of reference” (p. 9) is methodologically sound and applicable anywhere. But the second part of this thesis, that jural rules “. . . should always be considered secondary” to statistical norms cannot be proved by findings from any one-or any 100-societies. I t may well be that actual social events are usually historically antecedent to rules about them (although exceptions come to mind), but to imply that such rules are thereafter less in- fluential than other behavioral determinants is generalizing beyond the data of scores of Pul Eliyas.

Then there is Leach’s curious dogma (which goes much further than positions ex- pressed elsewhere in the book) that “kinship systems have no ‘reality’ at all except in relation to land and property” (p. 305). Granting him a very narrow definition of “reality” and a very broad one for “land and property,” I find this statement in- applicable to the societies I know best, and I am not even convinced that it is entirely applicable to Pul Eliya-thanks to the wealth of data he provides. In fact, I suspect that this all-or-nothing stand may be another instance of the author’s highly effective device for stirring up his colleagues to rethink their assumptions and previous inter- pretations. In any case, Pul EZiya is a landmark in anthropological methodology-a pleasure to read (despite its avowed “unreadability”), a gratification to agree with on many important issues, and a martial pleasure to join issue with on some others.

The Achievivzg Society. DAVID C. MCCLELLAND. Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nos- trand Company, Inc., 1961. xv, 512 pp., 7 appendices, chart, 16 figures, index, chapter notes, references, 67 tables. $7.95.

Reviewed by CHARLES J. ERASYUS, University of North Carolina This is an amazing book. I t is so broad in scope, so ambitious in objective, so

ingenious in technique,and so full of correlations and tests of significance that few will escape a feeling of awe as they set out to read it.

The author is primarily concerned with n (need for) Achievement, an index of motivation derived from the scoring of fantasy responses to pictures. Actual achieve- ment could not safely be used as an index because i t may be affected by native ability or desire for social approval. The n Achievement motive is seen as a desire to excel1 for its own sake.