Taboos and Cultural Evolution

• Date: 01 October 1944
• Author: Joseph S. Roucek
• Published date: 01 October 1944
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1944.tb01413.x

134

The

American Journal

of

Economics

and

Sociology

or complete State control—the farthest, perhaps,

in

this direction that they

have ever gone,"

he

declares:

"

In

more than

one

particular

the

Soviet experiment offers

a

chal-

lenge

to the

rest

of the

earth.

If the

Soviet order

be

found wanting,

and

the order prevailing elsewhere

is to

survive

and to

constitute

the

future

pattern

for man, the

world will

do

well

to

give itself

a

heart-searching

examination

in the

light

of

Soviet efforts,

and to

learn better therefrom

what

it

lacks

and how it may

take measures

for

improvement

and

reform."

Taboos

and

Cultural Evolution

Taboo,

By

Hutton Webster. Stanford University: Stanford University

Press,

1942,

xii+

393 pp., $4.

The word "taboo" entered English speech from Captain Cook's fasci-

nating narrative

of his

third

and

last voyage

to the

island world

of the

Pacific.

In

18 88

James George Frazer contributed

to the

ninth edition

of

the Encyclopaedia Britannica

a

brief article dealing with

the

system

of

taboo, especially

as

it

appeared

in

Polynesia,

its

peculiar home. Noteworthy

contributions

to our

knowledge

of the

subject have since been made

by

Frazer himself

and by

other students

of

primitive magic

and

religion.

Webster's study

is the

latest

and the

best distinguished contribution

to

this

literature

of

social anthropology

by its

comprehensive treatment

of

taboo

as

a

phenomenon

o£

wide prevalence.

The

customs considered here

are

mostly

of

unknown origin

and of

unknown antiquity. Many

of

them,

particularly those relating

to

reproduction, death,

and the

dead, must

be

very

old,

reaching back into

the

childhood

of the

race. Though often

fantastic

and

absurd

and

sometimes lewd

and

cruel, they nevertheless

are,

as Webster shows,

the

most imperative

of

primitive observances,

to

which

the savage accords

the

most implicit obedience.

Webster's main concern

has

been

to

show

how

important

a

place taboos

hold

in the

cultural evolution

of

mankind. Well written, with much

shrewd comment, Webster's volume

is

characterized

by a

magnificent

virtuosity

in the

management

of its

material.

In

general,

one

cannot

admire

too

much

the

skill with which

the

mosaic

is put

together

out of its

thousand details.

JOSEPH

S.

ROUCEK

Pioneer Community Life

Tales

of the

Pioneers.

By W. A.

Chalfant. Stanford University,

Calif.:

Stanford University Press,

1944, xi-f 129 pp., $3.

During fifty-five years

of

service

as

editor

of The

Inyo Register

of

Bishop,

Calif., W. A.

Chalfant

saw the

California-Nevada border area

develop from

a

pioneer region

of

prospectors

and

mining camps

to a

settled

community.

At the

same time

he

collected accounts

of

incidents

of

pioneer life from those

who had

witnessed them.

The

result

is

this beauti-