Alfred Louis Kroeber

1. Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960)

2. Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) • 1897—Course in American Indian languages at Columbia University offered by Franz Boas • 1901—Completed dissertation on symbolism in Arapaho art in Montana • First doctorate in anthropology to be awarded by Columbia • 1901-1946—First instructor of newly created anthropology dept. at U C Berkeley

3. Personal Life • Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, June 11, 1876 • Died in Paris, October 5, 1960 • Parents upper middle-class Protestants of German ancestry • Grandfather Kroeber came to United States when his son, Florence Kroeber, was ten years old • Grandfather fought in the Civil War • Kroeber's mother, Johanna Muller, was American born in a German family

4. Education • Schooled at home until age 7 or 8 • Private tutor • Sachs' Collegiate Institute, grammar and high school • Columbia University in 1892 at the age of sixteen

5. Introduction • Kroeber played a major role in developing American anthropology • from the rather random endeavors of amateurs and self-trained men • to a coherent, scientific, and academic discipline

6. Introduction • Contributions to anthropology included: • Extensive ethnographic investigations in • California • The Great Plains • Archaeological studies in Mexico and Peru • Linguistic research, especially in California

7. Kroeber and Culture • Lifelong goal-> Understand nature of cultural phenomena (i.e., culture) • Cultural analysis should not use method of physical sciences • Seek to determine causes and effects • Also rejected a social science orientation • To avoid problems of human welfare, which strongly oriented much social science at that time

8. Boas’ Influence • First, unrelenting empiricism • Repudiated earlier anthropologists who arranged cultural data into existing categories & developmental schemes • Second, stressed primary importance of intensivefirst-hand ethnographic field work

9. Culture as Superorganic • Kroeber's theory was: • Superorganic • Supra-individual • Culture is greater than the individual • Deterministic • Events are caused by things that happened before them & people have no ability to make choices or control what happens • No“great man theory”

10. Culture as Superorganic • Not interested in the: • Effect of culture on the individual • “Culture and personality” view • Effect of the individual upon culture • “Great man theory” of history

11. Method for Studying Culture 1. Characterized cultures by means of culture element lists 2. Identified major styles, philosophies, and values

12. The Element Survey Approach • Kroeber wanted to quantify and explain cultural diversity (specifically the Native Americans of California) • He created the cultural elements list • He developed minimal units of culture that could be listed and gathered

13. The Element Survey Approach • Included the following questions of each group: • Do they practice polyandry? • Do they practice cremation? • Do they use a sinew-backed bow? • Sinew, the shredded fibers of animal tendon

14. Do they use beaver-teeth dice? • Beaver Tooth: A game played for centuries By “First People of the Pacific Northwest” • Game includes a woven basket, four carved beaver teeth (dice), and a bundle of "counting bones" (bird bones) • Simple, fast-paced, and fun: • Depending on the fall of the carved teeth (dice) • Players win counting bones • Player with most bones at end of game wins

15. Do they eat acorn mush? • Acorns, the nut of the oak tree, has been a staple of California Indian diet for more than 4,000 years • For many groups, the most important plant food • Native Californians harvested 10 or more species • Acorns are extremely nutritious containing up to: • 18% fat, • 6% percent protein • 68% carbohydrate • Vitamins A and C • Many amino acids • Acorn mush or bread usually eaten with meat for a balanced meal

16. Do their young men drink hallucinogenic jimson weed mush? • Flowers light blue or white on a purple stem • All parts of plant are toxic: • Leaf • Root • Flower • Seed Jimsonweed used by Native Americans for drug-induced ceremonial and spiritual purposes

17. Flaws in Element Survey Approach • Reduces cultures into bits and pieces • Assigns equal significance to each (beaver teeth dice and polyandry) • Assumes an element has same meaning in other cultures • Swastika is an ancient symbol used for over 3,000 years • China, Japan, India, and southern Europe • Until the Nazis used this symbol, it was used by many cultures to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck

18. Benefits of Survey • For all the flaws, as an exercise in salvage ethnology, it helped to document cultures under threat • Culture and Society • Kroeber distinguishes between culture and society. • Society is just group life, even among bees and ants

19. Essential Elements of Culture • It is learned: Not genetic or racial • Kroeber opposed racial determinism • It is shared: Not any person’s individual province, or the creation of any one person • It is patterned: Not a random assortment of elements, but a coherent whole • It is meaningful

20. The Historical Approach • Culture’s past shapes the culture • No other forces, like political instability or economic necessity, are determining factors • To understand a culture, you must reconstruct its past

21. Focus on Culture • Definition: Culture consists of the set of attributes and products of human societies, and therewith of mankind, • which are extrasomatic(i.e., outside & unrelated to the body) and transmitted by mechanisms other than biological heredity

22. Focus on Culture • Kroeber was concerned with: • Reconstructing history through a descriptive analysis of concrete cultural phenomena • Grouped into “culture types” that could be analyzed to reveal their histories

23. The Superorganic • Pertaining to the structure of cultural elements within society conceived as independent of and superior to the individual members of society • Individualshave very little, if any, impact on culture’s development and change • Cultureplays a determining role in human behavior • Culturehas an existence outside of people and compels us to conform to patterns

24. Organizing the information: The functional prerequisites of culture • People • Language • Territory/Technology • Social Organization • Ideology (belief systems) Alfred Kroeber

25. Kroeber and Ishi • http://wn.com/alfred_l._kroeber

26. There was huge variation in languages.

27. Language Variation • Indian languages are extremely diverse. • 300 distinct languages • 2000 dialects • California—at least 20 families • West of Rockies—17 more • Rest of the continent—20 more • Today Englishis most commonly spoken language • Many native languages are gone or soon will be

28. Diverse Definitions of Culture Topical: Culture consists of everything on a list of topics or categories, such as: • Social organization • Religion • Economy Historical: Culture is social heritage, or tradition • Passed from generation to generation .

29. Diverse Definitions of Culture Behavioral: Culture is: • Shared • Learned human behavior • A way of life Normative: Culture is: • Ideals • Values • Rules for living

30. Definitions of culture • Diversity in the concept of culture • Anthropologist’s definition of culture may influence: • Choice of research problems • Methods • Interpretations • Views on public policy • Alfred Kroeber & Clyde Kluckhohn, published a list of 160 definitions of culture (1952.)

31. Studying Culture: Cultural Aspects of Dreaming • Emphasis on dreams and beliefs about them differ across cultures. • Different cultural views: • Dreams are generally dismissed as unreal and irrelevant to the important concerns of day-to-day life. • Dreams important sources of information-about the future, about the spiritual world, or about oneself. • Dreams considered as a space for action, like waking life, or a means for communication with other people or with the supernatural.

32. Cultural Aspects of Dreaming • Certain societies attribute such importance to dreams that they have been designated (by Alfred Kroeber) “dream cultures.” • Cultures in which dreams are taken seriously accumulate a depth of observations abouttheir dreams. • Their beliefs may be useful in understanding dreaming.

33. Alfred Kroeber • Understanding Culture as Superorganic • Historical Approach • Deterministic • First American Textbook in anthropology (1923)