Sex and culture / by J.D. Unwin.

  • J. D. Unwin
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sex and culture / by J.D. Unwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/710 page 9
    If the view be adopted that all classifications which are based on 'beliefs' are inherently misleading, it follows at once that such terms as 'animism' and 'animistic' must be discarded; and the following pages will be under- stood more easily if the conception of 'animism' is banished from the mind. When we begin to extract those facts which will facilitate a final interpreta- tion of the relation between sexual opportunity and cultural condition, we shall have to consider the Tylorian hypotheses in greater detail. Here and now I will state some of the reasons why, in my view, native terms cannot be translated into our language. The main points of my criticism can be tabulated thus: 1. If we translate a native term 'spirits' or 'spiritual beings', we create the impression that different powers are manifest in different places. We often find that the native uses the same word to denote the 'spirit' in each place; that is to say, the same power is manifest in different places. 2. Sometimes a savage will apply a singular or collective word to 'the dead'. If we must translate the word, 'the dead' most nearly approaches the native meaning, assuming that the natives employ the term in those contexts in which we use a substantive and not an adverb. If we render this term 'spirits of the dead', we may create the impression of an individual survival which is not part of the native conception. 3. Often the word which we translate 'spirit' is used in an adverbial context. It seems, then, that the savage may conceive of a character or of a quality. Our translation represents him as conceiving of an entity. 4. Often the same word is translated both as 'spirit' and as 'god'. If these English words are to be accepted as alternative renderings, it follows that neither of them has that precise meaning which it is desirable that a technical term should possess. 5. Sometimes the natives employ the same term to denote various circumstances or phenomena for each of which we use a separate word. If we translate the native term by the word which we should use under similar circumstances, or in a similar reference, we create the impression that he distinguishes what actually he confuses. Sometimes we find that a native word of this description is translated 'God', 'god', 'deity', 'godling', 'spirit', 'ghost', 'guardian spirit', 'malignant demon', or by these or other words in their plural forms. We are then told that the members of that society believe in 'gods', 'spirits', 'ghosts', &c, and their rites are classified as 'spirit-worship' and 'ghost-worship'; but the dual nature of the practices has been created by our translations. To the native they are one and the same thing. 6. The members of different societies often employ the same word to denote the power in the universe. Usually we translate this word by the same English equivalent, e.g. 'god'; we then assume that all the societies conceive of the power in the same way. This is not a justifiable conclusion. Sometimes a study of their rites reveals an astounding variety. Methodologically these submissions are important, so I propose to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3