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Lädt ... The Zuni and the American Imaginationvon Eliza McFeely
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A bold new study of the Zuni, of the first anthropologists who studied them, and of the effect of Zuni on America's sense of itself The Zuni society existed for centuries before there was a United States, and it still exists in its desert pueblo in what is now New Mexico. In the late nineteenth century, anthropologists-among the first in this new discipline-came to Zuni to study it and, they believed, to salvage what they could of its tangible culture before it was destroyed, which they were sure would happen. Matilda Stevenson, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Stewart Culin were the three most important of these early students of Zuni, and although modern anthropologists often disparage and ignore their work-sometimes for good, sometimes for poor reasons-these pioneers gave us an idea of the power and significance of Zuni life that has endured into our time. They did not expect the Zuni themselves to endure, but they have, and the complex relation between the Zuni as they were and are and the Zuni as imagined by these three Easterners is at the heart of Eliza McFeely's important new book. Stevenson, Cushing, and Culin are themselves remarkable subjects, not just as anthropology's earliest pioneers but as striking personalities in their own right, and McFeely gives ample consideration, in her colorful and absorbing study, to each of them. For different reasons, all three found professional and psychological satisfaction in leaving the East for the West, in submerging themselves in an alien and little-known world, and in bringing back to the nation's new museums and exhibit halls literally thousands of Zuni artifacts. Their doctrines about social development, their notions of "salvage anthropology," their cultural biases and predispositions are now regarded with considerable skepticism, but nonetheless their work imprinted Zuni on the American imagination in ways we have yet to measure. It is the great merit of McFeely's fascinating work that she puts their intellectual and personal adventures into a just and measured perspective; she enlightens us about America, about Zuni, and about how we understand each other. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)978.9History and Geography North America Western U.S. New MexicoKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:![]()
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So this is one of the first anthropology books I have ever read, albeit one that turns the lens on the subject itself, rather than on an ethnic or cultural group (other than caucasian Americans, perhaps). It's a good one to start with. McFeely writes the stories of three late 19th century anthropologists: Matilda Stevenson, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Stewart Culin; they are linked through their competition to be the first (or most thorough) white person to get "on the inside" of the Zuni people and culture of New Mexico.
McFeely's topic here is what those early anthropologists' findings say about the broader American culture at that time, rather than about the Zuni themselves. It is well-written and balanced, acknowledging the protagonists' failures and innovations without blanket judgments in either direction. She ends the book by reminding readers that although she has foregrounded the role of the researchers in this book, that the Zuni are not simply a backdrop for caucasians' own intellectual or cultural realizations, pointing towards more recent works on Zuni for those who wish to understand more. (