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The Social Organization of Tradition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Robert Redfield
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Extract

Out of that anthropology which rested on studies of isolated primitive or tribal peoples arose the concept, “a culture.” The Andamanese had a culture, the Trobrianders, the Aranda of Australia, and the Zuni. Each culture came to be conceived as an independent and self-sufficient system. Recently words have been found to make clear this conception of an “autonomous cultural system.” It is “one which is self-sustaining—that is, it does not need to be maintained by a complementary, reciprocal, subordinate, or other indispensable connection with a second system.” Such units—such cultures as those of the Zuni or the Andamanese—are systems because they have their own mutually adjusted and interdependent parts, and they are autonomous because they do not require another system for their continued functioning. The anthropologist may see in such a system evidences of past communications of elements of culture to that band or tribe from others, but, as it now is, he understands that it keeps going by itself; and in describing its parts and their workings he need not go outside the little group itself. The exceptions, where the band or tribe relies on some other band or tribe for a commodity or service, are small and do not seriously modify the fact that that culture is maintained by the communication of a heritage through the generations of just those people who make up the local community.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , November 1955 , pp. 13 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955

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References

1 “Acculturation: An Exploratory Formulation,” The Social Science Research Council Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1953 (Members: H. G. Barnett, Leonard Broom, Bernard J. Siegel, Evon Z. Vogt, James B. Watson), American Anthropologist, 56.6 (12 1954), 974.Google Scholar

2 Kroeber, A. L., Anthropology, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948), 284.Google Scholar

3 Foster, George M., “What is Folk Culture?” American Anthropologist, 55.2, Part 1 (04–06, 1953), 169.Google Scholar

4 Foster, 164. In quoting this passage I venture to substitute “peasant” for “folk” to make the terminology fit that chosen for these lectures. I think Foster's “folk societies” are much the same as those I here call “peasant societies.”

5 Chan, Wing-tsit, Religious Trends in Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 141fGoogle Scholar. See also, Eberhard, W., “Neuere Forschungen zur Religion Chinas, 1920–1932” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 33.3 (1936), 304–344Google Scholar, a discussion of Staatskult and Volksreligion in China.

6 von Grünebaum, G. E., “The Problem: Unity in Diversity,” in Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, ed. by von Grünebaum, G. E. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press [forthcoming 1955]).Google Scholar

7 Westermarck, Edward, Ritual and Belief in Morocco (London: Macmillan, 1926).Google Scholar

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11 Best, Elsdon, Maori Religion and Mythology, Bulletin No. 10, Dominion Museum, Wellington (N.Z.: W. A. G. Skinner, Government Printer, 1924), 31–32.Google Scholar

12 Herskovits, Melville, Dahomey, An Ancient West African Kingdom (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1938), Vol. II, Ch. 26.Google Scholar

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14 Armillas, Pedro, “The Mesoamerican Experiment,” in “The Ways of Civilizations,”Google Scholar ed. by Robert J. Braidwood, MS. Professor Armillas might not think of the Maya hamletdwelling farmers as peasants. He regards the world views of the elite and of the farmers as “sharply different.”

15 Kramrisch, Stella, The Art of India Through the Ages (London: Phaidon Press), 1954.Google Scholar

16 For this way of contrasting the two kinds of studies, I am indebted to Milton Singer.

17 Srinivas, M. N., Religion and Society Among the Coorgs of South India (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952)Google Scholar. See also Cohn, Bernard S., “The Changing Status of a Depressed Caste,” in Village India, ed. by Marriott, McKim, (Comparative Studies in Cultures and Civilizations, ed. by Redfield, Robert and Singer, Milton) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955).Google Scholar

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19 Marriott, McKim, “Little Communities in an Indigenous Civilization,” in Village India.Google Scholar

20 Mr. Marriott kindly tells me something of the strong evidence for the conclusion that Laksmi has entered the great tradition relatively late and from the folk cultures of India. He quotes Rhys Davids and Renou and Filliozat to this effect. It appears that this deity was absent from early vedic literature, that early statues to her were set in places reserved for popular deities, and that the Buddhist canon castigates Brahmans for performing nonsensical, non-vedic rituals such as those to Śrī Devī (Laksmī), etc. (Marriott, personal communication.)

21 Marriott says that in “Kishan Garhi” the more learned villager takes, in short, quite distinguishable positions toward great and little traditions. The latter, which he sees manifest in the doings of the uneducated villagers, is a matter of practice, is ignorance or fragmentary knowledge, is confusion or vagueness, and is expressed in concrete physical or biological images. The great tradition, which he thinks of himself as in larger degree representing, is theory or pure knowledge, full and satisfying, is order and precision, and finds for its expression abstractions or symbolic representations.

22 Pillay, K. K., The Sucindram Temple (Madras: Kalakshetra Publications, 1953).Google Scholar

23 Hivale, Shamrao, The Pardhans of the Upper Narbada Valley (London: Oxford University Press, 1946).Google Scholar

24 Firth, Raymond, Elements of Social Organization (London: Watts, 1951), Ch. 2, 35f.Google Scholar

25 Hein, Norvin, “The Ram Lila,” The Illustrated Weekly of India, (10 22, 1950), 18–19Google Scholar (provided by McKim Marriott).