SOCIOLOGICAL THINKERS-2 (SEMESTER-6) CLAUDE LEVI STRAUSS

Claude Levi Strauss was a French anthropologist who is highly popular for his methodology of structuralism. This methodology follows the notion that across all human thought and culture, there are universal structures that underlie all human actions and social life. A structuralists aim is to therefore study these structures. Therefore although different societies may appear to have apparent distinctions the underlying thought pattern is the same. Levi Strauss used linguistics to study the structures and hence was highly influenced by structural linguist Roman Jakobson who in turn was influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure. 

Levi Strauss saw culture as a pattern vary similar to language. Just like language is a collection of words culture is like a collection of different symbols. He attempted to understand the similarity of thought pattern through the structural study of myths. In myths he studied its basic unit called the mythemes and when he examined the relation between the mythemes he found that myths operate on the notion of binary opposition where something gains meaning only in its opposition to the other.

Structuralism involves a synchronic study of structures rather than a diachronic study. The two are completely different viewpoints in the field of linguistics. A synchronic approach considers a language as a moment in time without taking its history into account. The diachronic approach considers the development and evolution of a language through history. While the spoken language may change over time its structure remains the same. Therefore a synchronic study helps to understand similarities by looking at relations. Language being similar and different through its spoken language and structure can be understood through the concept of langue and parole given by Saussure. The former is the structural aspect of language belonging to a reversible time while parole is statistical aspect of it belonging to an irreversible time.

Throughout history sociologists and anthropologists were interested in studying the interrelations between myths and ritual. They have mostly regarded myth to exist on the conceptual level and ritual to exist on the level of action. This has led to developing a homology between the two, the idea that both share a correspondence and share a similar structure. Levi Strauss argues that this homology is not always seen as myths do not always correspond to rituals and vice versa. Therefore one should not attempt to draw a homology between the two. The relationship between myth and ritual is not one of homology but rather one of dialectics. Therefore Levi Strauss reduces both to their structural elements to understand this. In order to do this he uses Jakobson understanding of structure and dialectics where the latter was concerned with the intimate relationship between structural analysis and dialectical method.

Levi Strauss refers to the myth of a Pawnee Indians of the North America Plains which is found in the work of G.A. Dorsey. The book contains several myths based on the origin of shamanistic powers. There is a theme which occurs in all the myths, the theme of a pregnant boy. He refers to myth number 77 in his study. According to this myth an ignorant young boy discovers he has innate magical powers which enable him to cure the sick. There was an old medicine man who had learned powers and he was mostly accompanied by his wife. The medicine man on being jealous of the young boy offered the young boy a pipe filled with magical herbs which made him pregnant. The boy on filling with shame leaves the village to seek death among wild animals. The animal feeling pity for the boy, extract the fetus from his body and teach him their magical powers. The boy uses these powers to return home and kill the old medicine man to ultimately become a famous and respected healer.

While structurally analyzing the myth it is seen that the myth is built on a long series of binary oppositions.

1. Initiated shaman (acquired power) v/s non-initiated shaman (innate power)

2. Child v/s old man

3. Confusion of sexes (the boy could be asexual or bisexual) v/s differentiation of sexes (the old man is a masculine man)

4. Fertility of the child v/s sterility of the old man

5. The irreversible relationship of the fertilization of the son by the father v/s an equally irreversible relationship namely the revenge of the father because the son does not reveal any secrets to him (he possess none) in exchange for his own secrets.

6. The threefold opposition between the plant magic which is real that is a drug by means of which the old man fertilizes the child but curable and magic of animals origin which is symbolic (manipulation of a skull) but incurable by means of which the child kills the old man without any possibility of resurrection.

7. Magic which proceeds by introduction (putting the magic through a pipe and into the boy) v/s magic which proceeds by extraction (animals taking out the magic from the boy).

The construction of the myth by oppositions also characterizes the details of the text. The animals feel pity for the boy for two reasons:-

1. He (the boy) compounds the characteristics of man and woman both.

2. His body being lean due to fasting for days and the swelling of his abdomen due to his condition. 

To induce a miscarriage, the herbivorous animals vomit the bones while the carnivorous animals extract the flesh. While the boy risks death from a swollen stomach the medicine man dies from an abdominal constriction.

The structural analysis of myth furnishes the rules of transformation which helps us to shift from one variant to another by using the same logic and operations of algebra. It allows us to move from one myth to another through its opposition and similarities and then forming empirical cases.

Levi Strauss then looks at the relationship between myth and ritual. He questions to what extent the Pawnee ritual corresponds to the myth of the pregnant boy. If seen at first it is none because while the myth emphasizes the opposition between generations the Pawnee do not have shamanistic societies based on age grades. In order to become a medicine man one had to succeed one's teacher at his death. The myth on the other hand is based upon the concept of innate power. The power of the boy is derived by the master because it is not taught by him. Therefore the master refutes to acknowledge him as his successor.

Since it neglects the theme of the pregnant boy, Levi Strauss finds that the elements of the Pawnee myth do not fall into place with the corresponding Pawnee ritual but with the symmetrical and inverse ritual prevailing among the tribes of the American Plains. Their shamanistic society and rules for membership exists in a reverse manner from that of the Pawnees. The tribes include the Blackfoot, the Mandan and the Hidatsa. These tribes are organized on the basis of age grades. The transition from one stage to another is done by purchase and the relationship between father and son. The son is always accompanied by his wife and transaction involves handling over the son's wife to the father who carries out with an act of real or symbolic coitus.

In the Hidatsa, Mandan and Blackfoot rites the son is accompanied by the wife while in the Pawnee myth, the wife accompanied the father. In the Pawnee myth the wife's role is redundant but in the Blackfoot rites the wife plays the principal role. Fertilized by the father to conceive the son, she represents the bisexuality of the son of the Pawnee myth. While the meaning is the same in both the cases, they are merely arranged relation to the symbols which express them. The fertilizing agent in the Pawnee myth is the pipe which is given by the father and the wife to the son. In the Blackfoot rite a wild turnip is first transferred by the father to the son's wife and then by the latter to the son. While the pipe is the intermediary between the sky and the real world, the turnip is the plug that functions as a circuit breaker between the two worlds.

From the above it can be understood that the Pawnee myth reveals a ritual system which is the reverse of other related tribes whose ritual organization is exactly opposite to that of the Pawnee. Therefore they are related to each other in their opposites. If one system is considered as a progression then the other appears as retrogression.

Levi Strauss refers to the last phase of Hako ritual to again show its correspondence to the Pawnee myth. In the Hako ritual the father's group arrives in the village of the son and symbolically captures a young child. The child's son is unidentified. The group then sacrifices him by means of a series of anointing, in order to identify him with Tirawa, the supreme deity of the celestial world. The child is then raised upward with his legs projecting forward which symbolizes the phallus for symbolic coitus with the world. There is also a circle is to drop like an egg. Putting the child's feet in the circle represents the giving of new life.

In both the myth and the ritual two protagonists are identified (son or child). In the myth the lack of identification is the son enables him to be a half man and half woman and in the ritual the child becomes fully a man (an agent of coitus) and fully a woman (giving birth to a nest which symbolizes an egg in a circle which symbolizes a nest).

The symbolism of the Hako implies that the father fertilized the son by means of the ambivalent functions is the child. In the myth the ambivalent function of the medicine and his wife fertilize the child. In the ritual of Blackfoot, Mandan and Hidatsa tribes the father fertilizes the son through the ambivalent function of the son's wife.

Levi Strauss then attempts to show the genetic model of the myth consists of the application of four functions (mother, father, son and daughter) to three symbols (father, wife, and son). In the Pawnee myth the father and mother correspond to the symbol of the father and wife respectively and the function of son and daughter are merged under the symbol of the child/son. In the Blackfoot, Mandan and Hidatsa ritual the father and son are distinguished while the son's wife embodies the functions of mother and daughter. In the Hako ritual along with the father and the son there is a new figure which is the child of the son. The allocation of functions to symbols requires here an ideal dichotomization of the latter. The father is both the father and mother and the son both the son and daughter. The child then borrows from each of the other two symbols one of their half functions: fertilizing agent (father) and fertilized object (daughter).

In order to understand the dialectical relationship between myth and ritual it is important to compare myth and ritual not only within the confines of one and the same society but also with the beliefs and practices of neighboring societies. To do a structural analysis of myth, the myth needs to be broken down into its basic elements (mythemes) and then form all the possible permutations between the elements. Then only can one proceed to examination of the empirical evidence on a comparative basis.