The Myth of the Noble Savage / Edition 1

by Ter Ellingson

Overview

In this important and original study, the myth of the Noble Savage is an altogether different myth from the one defended or debunked by others over the years. That the concept of the Noble Savage was first invented by Rousseau in the mid-eighteenth century in order to glorify the "natural" life is easily refuted. The myth that persists is that there was ever, at any time, widespread belief in the nobility of savages. The fact is, as Ter Ellingson shows, the humanist eighteenth century actually avoided the term because of its association with the feudalist-colonialist mentality that had spawned it 150 years earlier.

The Noble Savage reappeared in the mid-nineteenth century, however, when the "myth" was deliberately used to fuel anthropology's oldest and most successful hoax. Ellingson's narrative follows the career of anthropologist John Crawfurd, whose political ambition and racist agenda were well served by his construction of what was manifestly a myth of savage nobility. Generations of anthropologists have accepted the existence of the myth as fact, and Ellingson makes clear the extent to which the misdirection implicit in this circumstance can enter into struggles over human rights and racial equality. His examination of the myth's influence in the late twentieth century, ranging from the World Wide Web to anthropological debates and political confrontations, rounds out this fascinating study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520226104
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/16/2001
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	467
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)
Lexile:	1500L (what's this?)

About the Author

Ter Ellingson is an anthropologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations 
Preface 
Introduction 
I. The Birth of the Noble Savage
1. Colonialism, Savages, and Terrorism 
2. Lescarbot’s Noble Savage and Anthropological Science 
3. Poetic Nobility: Dryden, Heroism, and Savages 
II. Ambiguous Nobility: Ethnographic Discourse on “Savages” From Lescarbot to Rousseau
4. The Noble Savage Myth and Travel-Ethnographic Literature 
5. Savages and the Philosophical Travelers 
6. Rousseau’s Critique of Anthropological Representations 
III. Discursive Oppositions:The “Savage” After Rousseau
7. The Ethnographic Savage from Rousseau to Morgan 
8. Scientists, the Ultimate Savage, and the Beast Within 
9. Philosophers and Savages 
10. Participant Observation and the Picturesque Savage 
11. Popular Views of the Savage 
12. The Politics of Savagery
IV. The Return of the Noble Savage
13. Race, Mythmaking, and the Crisis in Ethnology 
14. Hunt’s Racist Anthropology 
15. The Hunt-Crawfurd Alliance 
16. The Coup of 1858–1860 
17. The Myth of the Noble Savage 
18. Crawfurd and the Breakup of the Racist Alliance 
19. Crawfurd, Darwin, and the “Missing Link” 
Epilogue: The Miscegenation Hoax 
V. The Noble Savage Meets the Twenty-First Century
20. The Noble Savage and the World Wide Web
21. The Ecologically Noble Savage 
22. The Makah Whale Hunt of 1999 
Conclusion 
Notes 
References 
Index