PRIMITIVE CULTURE
FIRST EDITION _April, 1871._
SECOND EDITION _November, 1873._
THIRD EDITION _December, 1891._
FOURTH EDITION _October, 1903._
FIFTH EDITION _January, 1913._
SIXTH EDITION _June, 1920._
PRIMITIVE CULTURE
RESEARCHES INTO THE DEVELOPMENT
OF MYTHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION
LANGUAGE, ART, AND CUSTOM
BY EDWARD B. TYLOR, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AUTHOR OF “RESEARCHES INTO THE EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND,” ETC.
“Ce n’est pas dans les possibilités, c’est dans l’homme même qu’il
faut étudier l’homme: il ne s’agit pas d’imaginer ce qu’il auroit pû
ou dû faire, mais de regarder ce qu’il fait.”—DE BROSSES.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1920
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
[_Rights of Translation and Reproduction reserved_]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The present volumes, uniform with the previous volume of ‘Researches
into the Early History of Mankind’ (1st Ed. 1865; 2nd Ed. 1870), carry
on the investigation of Culture into other branches of thought and
belief, art and custom. During the past six years I have taken occasion
to bring tentatively before the public some of the principal points of
new evidence and argument here advanced. The doctrine of survival in
culture, the bearing of directly-expressive language and the invention
of numerals on the problem of early civilization, the place of myth in
the primitive history of the human mind, the development of the
animistic philosophy of religion, and the origin of rites and
ceremonies, have been discussed in various papers and lectures,[1]
before being treated at large and with a fuller array of facts in this
work.
The authorities for the facts stated in the text are fully specified in
the foot-notes, which must also serve as my general acknowledgment of
obligations to writers on ethnography and kindred sciences, as well as
to historians, travellers, and missionaries. I will only mention apart
two treatises of which I have made especial use: the ‘Mensch in der
Geschichte,’ by Professor Bastian, of Berlin, and the ‘Anthropologie der
Naturvölker,’ by the late Professor Waitz, of Marburg.
In discussing problems so complex as those of the development of
civilization, it is not enough to put forward theories accompanied by a
few illustrative examples. The statement of the facts must form the
staple of the argument, and the limit of needful detail is only reached
when each group so displays its general law, that fresh cases come to
range themselves in their proper niches as new instances of an already
established rule. Should it seem to any readers that my attempt to reach
this limit sometimes leads to the heaping up of too cumbrous detail, I
would point out that the theoretical novelty as well as the practical
importance of many of the issues raised, make it most unadvisable to
stint them of their full evidence. In the course of ten years chiefly
spent in these researches, it has been my constant task to select the
most instructive ethnological facts from the vast mass on record, and by
lopping away unnecessary matter to reduce the data on each problem to
what is indispensable for reasonable proof.
E. B. T.
_March, 1871._
Footnote 1:
Fortnightly Review: ‘Origin of Language,’ April 15, 1866; ‘Religion of
Savages,’ August 15, 1866. Lectures at Royal Institution: ‘Traces of
the Early Mental Condition of Man,’ March 15, 1867; ‘Survival of
Savage Thought in Modern Civilization,’ April 23, 1869. Lecture at
University College, London: ‘Spiritualistic Philosophy of the Lower
Races of Mankind,’ May 8, 1869. Paper read at British Association,
Nottingham, 1866: ‘Phenomena of Civilization Traceable to a Rudimental
Origin among Savage Tribes.’ Paper read at Ethnological Society of
London, April 26, 1870: ‘Philosophy of Religion among the Lower Races
of Mankind,’ &c., &c.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Since the publication of this work in 1871, translations have appeared
in German and Russian. In the present edition the form of page has been
slightly altered, for convenience of re-issue at once in England and
America. The matter, however, remains substantially the same. A few
passages have been amplified or altered for greater clearness, and on
some points additional or improved evidence has been put in. Among the
anthropologists whose published reviews or private communications have
enabled me to correct or strengthen various points, I will only mention
by name Professor Felix Liebrecht, of Liége, Mr. Clements R. Markham,
Professor Calderwood, Mr. Ralston, and Mr. Sebastian Evans.
It may have struck some readers as an omission, that in a work on
civilization insisting so strenuously on a theory of development or
evolution, mention should scarcely have been made of Mr. Darwin and Mr.
Herbert Spencer, whose influence on the whole course of modern thought
on such subjects should not be left without formal recognition. This
absence of particular reference is accounted for by the present work,
arranged on its own lines, coming scarcely into contact of detail with
the previous works of these eminent philosophers.
An objection made by several critics as to the accumulation of evidence
in these volumes leads me to remark, with sincere gratification, that
this objection has in fact been balanced by solid advantage. The plan of
collecting wide and minute evidence, so that readers may have actually
before them the means of judging the theory put forward, has been
justified by the reception of the book, even in circles to whose views
many of its arguments are strongly adverse, and that in matters of the
first importance. Writers of most various philosophical and theological
schools now admit that the ethnological facts are real, and vital, and
have to be accounted for. It is not too much to say that a perceptible
movement of public opinion has here justified the belief that the
English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves freely under the
pressure of facts.
E. B. T.
_September, 1873._
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
In this edition, while I have not found it needful to alter the general
argument, the new information which has become available during the last
twenty years has made it necessary to insert further details of
evidence, and to correct some few statements. For convenience of
reference, the paging of the last edition is kept to.
E. B. T.
_September, 1891._
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
For ordinary purposes the present edition may be taken as substantially
unchanged. In only a few passages noticeable alterations have been made,
(see vol. i. p. 167, vocal tone; vol. ii. pp. 234-7, totemism).
E. B. T.
_October, 1903._
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE.
Culture or Civilization—Its phenomena related according to definite
Laws—Method of classification and discussion of the evidence—Connexion
of successive stages of culture by Permanence, Modification, and
Survival—Principal topics examined in the present work 1