Abeokuta

Biography

Born in 1818 in the State from New York. After lawyer studies, he becomes initially legal adviser of a railroad company. L.H. Morgan is reconverted then with the policy. Member of the Republican party, it is elected appointed then senator. It is interested in anthropology when it meets a Senca Indian in a literary club. Adopted by the clan Falcon at the conclusion of his investigation into the “league of Iroquois”, it publishes then a test on the constitutional Government of six Indian nations.

He studies then the system of relationship iroquois, starting from data collected at the Indians of the Kansas, of the Nebraska, the Missouri, and Hudson Bay. Then it tries a study of the systems of relationship on the scale of planet, using a questionnaire sent in the various embassies, colonies, and missions evangelic. It publishes of them the results in Systems off Consanguinity and Affinity off the Human Family (1871).

For the first time, a scientific analysis of the relationship, a study of social anthropology was born. It is in this work that Morgan undertook to compare the social institutions of traditional Western antiquity and those of the contemporary primitive people seeking in those the key of the intelligibility of these. In Ancient society (1877) , it developed the evolutionary theory of which he was the most enthusiastic defender, while advancing that the evolution of humanity follows a single diagram, characterized by three successive stages: brutality, cruelty and civilization.

In 1844, Lewis H. Morgan is established as lawyer with Rochester, where he died the December 17th 1881.

Evolutionism of L.H. Morgan

In its theory, Morgan distinguishes three principal stages in the evolution from any human society:

the wild State , which is subdivided in:

lower Stage , characterized by:

technical:

appearance of the Gathering (sheets and roots)
the beginning of the Language articulated

sociopolitic organization:

the Horde and primitive promiscuity
the consanguineous Family (" mariages" between brothers and sisters)

examples:

not currently

average Stage , characterized by:

technical:

fire and cooking
the fishing (in boats of bark)
filiation by the women

sociopolitic organization:

Family punaluenne (polygamous marriage with women of the brothers and reciprocally with the husbands of the sisters)

examples:

Australian
Polynesian

higher Stage , characterized by the invention of the arc and the arrow, the wood ustensils, and the use of braided baskets of bark or snap ring.

the cruelty , which is subdivided in:

lower Stage , characterized by the introduction of the Pottery, the domestication of the animals, and first cultures of plants.
average Stage , characterized by the breeding of pets, the culture of plants with system of Irrigation, the use of bricks dried with the sun, the work of the Metals (except for iron).
higher Stage , characterized by the cast iron of the ore of Iron, the invention of the Plow of iron trailed by animals.

the Civilization , characterized by the invention of the alphabetical writing, the Agriculture on fields with large scales, the increase in the means of existence, the grubbing of forests, the fast increase in world population, the Industry, and the elaborate Art.

Work on the systems of relationship

Morgan granted for the first time of the importance to the study of the relations of relationship for the comprehension of a complex social system. It showed internal logic with these reports/ratios, and advanced that they constitute the bases of the pimitives companies, and by extension the source of the history humanity. Forsaking its work on the Indians of the plains, at the end of the years 1850, Lewis H. Morgan devoted itself quasi-exclusisvement to the studies on the relationship. He undertook an investigation with the planetary scales in the hope of a comparative analysis. The context of colonization enabled him to send questionnaires in the whole world: colonial administrations, consulates and embassies American, scientific, missionaries. It did not collect as many data as it would have wished, only some areas of the sphere having answered its call. It was very positive for example for Europe and Asia, but far from conclusive for areas like Africa in general, the Central America and Latin, like for Polynesia.

He considered however his data sufficient, and while being based on the well-known Indian systems of him, he distinguished the existence from two possible terminologies on the surface of the sphere:

the descriptive type . In this type of terminology, it is the degree of distance with a relative who is considered to be important. One thus differentiates clearly the blood relations from the parents in collateral lines. Here a succession of simple terms of relation (example in French: father, mother, wire, girl…) are enough by combination to describe any relation with a relative. It is finally the European system, considered for Morgan as that of the " civilization".
the classifying type . In this type of terminology, it is the kind of relation with one or more relative who precedes. One can thus classify some of collateral, or all, in the same categories as the blood relations. It is the case in many companies in various forms where for example one employment the same term to designate its parent and his maternal uncle. In this Morgan type under hears that there would be confusion at these " companies primitives" in the relations between the parents.

One sees here that some are the defects of this theory, Morgan keeps the merit to distinguish the companies from/to each other starting from their structuring of relationship. He is thus the founder of a new scientific discipline which is regarded today as the traditional field of the social anthropology: the study of the relationship.

He will add then at the very least contestable assumption, according to which the primitive companies have a mode of social organization based on the relationship, unlike the civilized companies which they function on a political basis. However once again, Morgan keeps the merit to have posed the first the question of the birth of the policy and the State. This question is then taken again by Evans-Pritchard in its work Nuers . It is this ethnologist whom one regards as the true founder of the Political anthropology.

Work in ethology

The book of Morgan on the beaver, The American Beaver and His Works (1868, Philadelphia), is a work which is often given like the starting point of the ethology to the the United States of America.

Appendices

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