Types of Research
though they called them life
Contemporary social
antropologists are doing a variety
of types of historical research,
some similar to the kinds of
research that historians do and
others dictated by traditional
interest of social anthropology. In
reviewing research in this area, one
can separate the work of social
anthropologists from that of
historians and scholars in other
fields only in the most arbitrary
fashion. And rather than do this it
has seemed wiser to include some
work by nonanthropologists.
Life Histories. Biographies of
individuals in exotic societies
probably constitute the most
concrete and obvious kind of
historical research in social
anthropology. There were, of
course, many examples of this kind
of bioghrapy before anthropology
existed in a formal sense. Many
biographies of American Indians
were written in the nineteenth
century, most of them coming out
at about the same time that the
last remaining American Indians
lost their autonomy (Langness
1965:5-7). Most of these
biographies have been ignored by
anthropologists, quite unjustly, on
the grounds that they are too
literary.
The writing of biographies
enjoyed a brief period of popularity
among American anthropologists,
histories. This interest was
aroused in 1926 with the
publication of Paul Radins
Crashing Thunder. Research on life
histories did not become popular,
however, until the 1930s and
1940s, through the influence of
Edward Sapir and ClydeKluckhohn ;
and perhaps as a result of their
influence life histories were
distinctly psychological in pointof
view. In recent years, however, a
number of excellent bioghraphies
of people in other cultures have
been published which are not at all
historical. One need only mention
Oscar Lewis The Children of
Sanchez (1961) and Pedro Martinez
(1964) and Theodora Kroebers
incomparable Ishi (1961). In
addition to being a legitimate and
useful means of documenting life in
other cultures from an individual
perspective, the biographical form
is an effective means of
communicating to the layman what
anthropology has to teach.
Biographies and Tme Depth.
Collecting biographies can also be
used as a research technique in
anthropological fieldwork (Lagness
1965:20-46), and is particularly
useful in fieldwork that attempts to
add time depth to a synchronic
study. There are two principal ways
of doing this: the extended case
method and the developmental
cycle method (Olien 1967). In the
extended case method, the
fieldworker follows a single set of
persons throught time, using the
incidents in which they become
involved as a means of clarifying
the relationships among them. The
fieldworker observes the behavior
of the group of persons over an
extended period of time, collects
their oral accounts of events in the
past, and consults any written
records that may be available
(Mitchell 1956, Gluckman 1961). In
the developmental cycle method,
the interest is in the statistical
properties of groups that have a
life cycle, a regular course of
development (Fortes 1949, Goody
1958). When the developmental
cycle method is used, it often turns
out that seemingly different types
of domestic groups are simply
different stages of a single
structure that changes through
time. In both of these methods
biographical information is quite
useful. The two methods can be
combined in the same piece of
research, as was done by John
Middleton in his Lugbara Religion
(1960).
Fieldwork and Documentary
Data. These firsthand field studies
that incorporate time depth shade
imperceptibly into studies that
combine field data with
documentary data. The use of
documentary records has been
particulary useful in working out
complicated variables governing
succession to office in tribal
societies (I. M. Lewis, ed., 1968:xvi-
xvii). In tribal politics and in many
other areas of social life it is
becoming apparent that a flat,
synchronic analysis misses much.
For example, in the light of a purely
synchronic study a social institution
might appear to be defunct, only to
appear later in changed social
conditions as a fully viable social
form. An example of just this kind
of thing has been found by E.R.
Cregeen (1968) in his historical
study of Scottish clanship. In light
of this, we see that Durkheims
realization of the value of historical
research in sociological studies was
especially prophetic.
Ethnohistory. Ethnohistory, or
historical ethnology, bases its
research primarily on the study of
documentary information. There
are as many varieties of historical
ethnology as there are kinds if
history. Following the precedent of
historians, social anthropologists
produce critical editions of primary
historical documents, which, thus
edited, become accessible to the
general reader and more useful to
the scholar. Examples are John
C.Ewers edition (1967) of George
Catlins O-kee-pa, a Mandan
religious ceremony Catlin
witnessed in 1832, and his edition
of Jean Louis Berlandiers (1969)
description of Indians in Texas in
1830. A long this same line are
critical editions of documents by
literate members of exotic cultures,
such as Leon-Portillas (1962)
version of the Aztec account of the
conquest of Mexico and James
Mooney and Frans Olbrechts
(1932) version of the Swimmer
manuscript, a notebook written by
a Cherokee medicine man in the
Sequoyah syllbary.
The Kinds of research done
by historical ethnologists is similar
to anthropologists analyses of
their field data on particular social
institutions or aspects of culture.
Any selection from the works in this
category is bound to be arbitrary.
One can mention Lancaster'
(1958) study of the bilateral kinship
system of the Anglo-Saxons and
Maurice Freedmans (1958) study
of lineage organization in China.
Nor is kinship the only subject of
interest to historical ethnologists.
There have been historical studies
of political organization (Evans-
Pritchard 1949,M. G. Smith 1960),
economics (Obeysekere 1967), and
belief system (Leon-Portilla 1963).
As historical equivalents of
traditional, holistic ethnographies,
many fine historical ethnographies
of societies in most of the major
areas of the world have been
produced by anthropologists in
recent years. Selecting a few
arbitrarily, for Africa we have
Argyles (1966) work on the Fon of
Dahomey and Alagoas (1964)
history of the nembe people of the
Niger Delta. For North America we
have Hickersons (1962,1970) work
on the Chippewa, Tookers (1964)
ethnography of the early
seventeenth-century Huron
Indians, and Welthfishs (1965)
reconstruction of a year in the life
of the Pawnee Indians. For Latin
America we have Ronald Spores
book on the Mixtec of northwestern
Oaxaca in Mexico, derived from
archaeological, ethnographic, and
historical sources.
One further topic on which