WARNER, W. LLOYD, and PAUL S. LUNT. The Social Life of a Modern Community. Pp. xx, 460. New Haven: Yale Univer sity Press, 1941. $4.00

• Published date: 01 May 1942
• DOI: 10.1177/000271624222100176
• Date: 01 May 1942
• Subject Matter: Articles

234
the white jackals who stalked them on the
among factory workers in Chicago and
way.
aboriginal Australian tribesmen. The pur-
The Creek hoped to continue their towns
pose of the present series is to obtain an
and their tribal life in peace in Indian terri-
understanding of &dquo;the complete set of so-
tory, but trouble with the less settled tribes
cial relations which constitute Yankee City
to the west constantly threatened. Then
society, through using the techniques and
came the Civil War, and they were torn
the principles of social anthropology.
between the two sides and lost heavily in
Such, an ambitious undertaking might be
land at the close of the contest. By this
expected to rest on a modicum of clearly
time white intrusion and economic penetra-
stated principles and to point toward the
tion were harassing them anew. One con-
solution of adequately formulated scientific
cession after another was wrested from
problems. Unfortunately, such is not the
them until the work of the Dawes Commis-
case.
The first three chapters, which dis-
sion, culminating in the Curtis Act, with-
cuss theory and methods, indicate some
drew the essential functions from the tribal
bewilderment in the minds of the authors;
council and extinguished the tribal title to
the average anthropologist or sociologist
the land.
will find them equally confusing and pain-
Certainly the Creek have lost much, and
fully pretentious. Furthermore, the impli-
the narrative is not a pleasant one. But if
cations of the cultural approach as applied
it is Miss Debo’s thesis that the Creek have
to the study of modern society are never
’
disappeared as a tribe, this is true only in
explored.
a technical and legal sense. The Creek still
But if the investigators were not ade-
exist today as a people conscious of their
quately equipped to make a thorough cul-
identity. Two-thirds of them are half- to
tural analysis of the social life of a modern,
full-bloods. When I studied them in 1937
...