Comments by C.L.R James in the Beyond a Boundary

C.L.R James comments in Beyond a Boundary: Claiming that time would pass and old civilizations would crumble while new ones took their place. The way the classes were associated had to change before he found that it is not only the quality of goods and the utility of the item or substance that changes, but it is the movement that changes considerably. That indicates that it is not simply what you have or where you are, but also your origin and destination, as well as the rate at which you are traveling towards your destination. Therefore, in studying cultural translations this paper tends to explained journeys of two great anthropologists, Marco Polo and Levi Strauss’s.

Claude Levi Strauss was well known for his excellent work and regarded as the founder of structural anthropology. Many people would not read the works of Claude Levi-Strauss without having a sigh or rather a feeling of respect for the great mind that produced the work. It is factual that whether nobody compliments the work of this genius, but he will hold a place in the future history of his great job.

Many authors get confronted by an enormous problem of finding the best category to classify the work of Levi Strauss’s. Some list’s his work under philosophy while others rule it as real science, but the work of Levi can get a rank as French literature which would also not give a correct category of the work, as research would fail to prove the zeal of Strauss production.2 Therefore, under all circumstances, Levi Strauss’s would give a suggestion and recommend “Structural Anthropology” as the best classification of his work as this would generate a new chapter in the historical ideologies.

Levi Strauss’s made a lot of arguments by considering the human perspective and leans towards the groups of physical and social objects giving the dual nativity showing the work done by the scholars. For instance, the local-cosmopolitan was known as the Merton; the folk-urban also called the Redfield, universalism-particularism (Parson) as another model.3 During Strauss’s exploration, he showed high intellectual capacity as one of the great professor of philosophy of the time in Brazil being he was in exile from Europe.4 He made his journey at the central basin of the Amazon having toured the communities of Caduveo, Bororo, Nambikwara, and the Tupi-Kawahib.

In addition, Marco Polo, on the other hand, was also an explorer who also made his journey renowned by many people as he went to many places, including visiting the people of Kirman who are the native of eastern parts of Persia.5 From here Polo was able to manufacture steel and its other products. He was also able to encounter the beautiful turquoises and then learned the art of darkness production which was diabolical and was intended for robbing the obscured caravans.6 In Ormus, Marco came across the hearted wind which was so hot that when in contact with it then death would prevail.

Therefore, Marco Polo upon meeting the people of Xanadu, he attested to Khan the kind of ritual that he encountered which was performed yearly.7 The ceremony involved scattering and spilling milk on air; this meant a spiritual offer which was to guard the land and the crops planted on it.8 Marco also referred Kinsai as the capital city which was also known as the ‘heavenly city’ which was full of precious and elegant courtesans who are actually, “highly proficient and accomplished in the use of endearments and caress. With words that suit and adapts to every sort of person, so that the foreigners who at one point had enjoyed, would remain utterly beside selves and so captivated by their sweetness and charm that they could never forget about them.

Impertinent as it sounds, it is precisely seen according to Levi’s article the place of Anthropology in the social sciences and the problems raised in teaching it of 1954.9 He said that in an attempt to handle the difficulties that come up with the best location or place to manage or teach the anthropology in the academic structures that is most currently used by many universities. He then provides a solution to this and says the best way is just to situate an institute or school (of anthropology) which is by far different from many other institutions of the universities. He came up with the solution because he argued that anthropology first gained its roots from the natural science where it mainly relied upon the human science and then followed the social science for advancement.9 Therefore, Levi views anthropology as intimately related to all most all the sciences but at some point exceeds them. Accordingly, Levi considered anthropology to be an advanced synthesis that could be of great importance to humans as far as the knowledge of science is concerned.

The above reasons then clearly outline the zeal and contempt as to why Levi-Strauss’s wanted a different place within the structure of the university so that the study of anthropology could take place and also have a new group or category established in the historical ideology to handle anthropology10. The human science has subjected the world to diminishing humans into ”spirits“; and on the other hand, the natural sciences have objectively reduced humans just to smaller particles of matter. Social sciences including history, psychology, economics, and sociology, which was well predefined to give precise levels of the various sciences that cause reductions to the humans. Seemingly to be on the right track but it has also failed to provide clear explanations as they also explain the world in forms of categories that are somewhat below or above the level of human importance.11 Levi states that if anthropology is to pull out from these problems, thus human, natural and social sciences and try to give a reasonable explanation of the universe. Considering humanity alone this by interpreting the outlined facts, the phenomenal attributes part of nature and also the experience so that in the long run, the human can become more significant. Therefore this can only be achieved by neither studying things nor studying thinking but only exploring the experiences of human and the thought of human.

This study must be done by first developing new styles of thinking and putting on new cultural concepts and topics. Levi also insists that anthropology must in all ways come out from the comparisons done culturally evaluating the societies and terming humans regarding ‘primitiveness’ and ‘civilized’ or in other occasion’s ‘good’ vs. ‘evil.’13 Thus in looking anthropology regarding the particular social groups and culture, anthropology can then be defined as the study of human beings as the science of humanity depends on its ability to come out form its cultural and historical origin.

Levi-Strauss also moved steps ahead in his work to try and give the difference between structural anthropology from both philosophy and science. He says that the three concepts are far much different from each other.14 He perceives philosophy to be more academic and scholarly. Therefore, philosophy and anthropology cannot take a definition as the sciences which are positive and empirical. Levi-Strauss’ views philosophy on his perspective and is best expressed, in Chapter 6 of Tristes Tropiques where he discusses broadly on how he evolved to be an anthropologist. He commenced by studying philosophy and particularly liking ”rationalistic ministered“ but it was after a short time that he became disappointed with the various intellectual processes that were involved. In his own opinion, he termed this as ”nothing more than verbal maneuvers“ that only enabled one to list the traditional and cultural views of reality.

Levi-Strauss wanted nothing that related to rationalism because he knew there exist a category that exceeds this group of rational which was of great significance. Levi Strauss also views Anthropology regarding music and mathematics where he says that in this field anthropology sets meanings compared to the games which are meaningless philosophy plays that. Then if Anthropology is taken to be something like15 ”super-rationalism in where mindful perceptions are integrated into reasoning and cannot lose any of its meaning and structure, and container, appearance and reality, essence and existence, continuity and discontinuity, and so on.“

Accordingly, Levi-Strauss claims that his voyage exposed his mind to a refreshed atmosphere having been imprisoned by a constant practice of philosophical ideologies since even after escaping the cage of philosophy, but his writing is still full of the philosophical sense that everybody realized in his texts of writing.16 ”My mind was able to escape from the claustrophobic, Turkish-bath atmosphere in which he got imprisonment by the practice of philosophical reflection… Once it had got out into the open air, it felt refreshed and renewed“. At this point, it seems that in spite of Levi-Strauss’ tries to get out from the philosophical diatribes, his styles thought, and the level of writing speculates that a philosophical mind still caged him. The man then went ahead and compared the work of Levi to that of Edmund Husserl who also changed from philosophy, but his ideologies and style of writing remained to be philosophical. Husserl during his time claimed to be anti-rationalistic just like Levi, and he never wanted to deal with the sorts of neo-Kantian or a neo-Cartesian, and getting a ”Rationalism in the true sense“17. Which transcended the traditional realism-idealism and rationalism-empiricism distinctions and which would return philosophy to its rightful role as ”rigorous universal science.“ Just as Husserl attempted to accomplish with his transition from philosophy, thus Levi-Strauss’s structural anthropology tends to fit in and fit in between the field of science and philosophy.

Furthermore, in his exploration Levi-Strauss never showed an active artistic life while he was in France because he spent a lot of his time on the Atlantic sides of the universe. Though the environment created by then never gave him an ample opportunity for familiarizing with the different cultures that he met at that time 18 Therefore he achieved his work by using collages that were present at that time and also used the real stylistic language device, the paradox in creating and drawing an image of the life that those people lived according to the presentation of their culture. He used a weird drawing using a Carver woman to show the portrait of a native woman who had an excellent yet complicated fine art. It revealed the fact of primitiveness that people lives.

Continuingly on his journey, Levi-Strauss then traveled to India where he realizes that the Indian people had quest and zeal to give quality production through their hard work among everybody. What he noticed in India was the use of caste systems which was incorporated to try to solve the problems and issues by providing solutions to the increasing population growth which started almost three hundred years ago.19 The main aim of implementing the caste systems was to give them a chance of converting the higher number of people which they regarded as quantity into the production of quality goods and services. It would then enable them to compete with the other groups from the outside world. But unfortunately, the experimentation did not fare on well. In fact, he says ”Men can coexist on condition that they recognize each other as being all equally, though differently human, but they can also coexist by denying each other a comparable degree of humanity, and thus establishing a system of subordination.“

Claude Levi-Strauss at some point becomes disgusted and frustrated by Brazilian people during their voyage. He faces many factual realities and objects that continually enriches his exploration, but upon reaching some point, he became considerably surprised and astonished the way the people treated him. He writes, ”When was the right moment to have a clear view of India? At what time would also be exploring the Brazilian savage have yielded the purest satisfaction and the beast himself been at his peak? Would it have been better to have arrived at Rio in the eighteenth century, with Bougainville, or in the sixteenth, with Lery and Thevet?“ With every decade that we traveled further back in time, I could have saved another costume, witnessed another festivity, and come to understand another system of belief….But I am too familiar with the texts not to know that this backward movement would also deprive me of much information, many curious facts and objects, that would enrich my meditations…”

Therefore, the paradox could not give a resolution as the limited amount of time one culture tries to communicate with another thus the less likely they are to commit corruption. But, alternatively when these cultures are in this conditions, then they are likely to seize from its significance of diversity.20 The alternative is inescapable: either am a traveler in ancient times and faced with a vast marvel which would be almost all unintelligible to me and might, indeed, provoke me to mockery or disgust; or I am a traveler four own day, hastening in search of a vanished reality.

In either case, Levi-Strauss regarded himself as the loser and more profoundly than one might suppose; Levi continues to say for today, he is mourning in the shadows, He also misses, the great show taking its figure. He adds that his eyes do not allow him to see the spectacular centuries coming ahead. Levi-Strauss persists that another explorer could also pass the difficulties that Levi faced, but in the real sense, that might not occur.20 He then blames himself to have been a victim of infirmity. “What I see is an affliction to me; and what I do not see, a reproach.

Levi-Strauss also learns another unfamiliar way of decorating a body. The new experience involved in laying the teeth and then filling the surface of the teeth using tools that were created explicitly for the work. He also learns that this culture advanced much from the ancient tradition which involved the practice above. The culture he perceived to have been influenced by the western culture through the whites and also it had borrowed some civilizations from the current civilized culture of today and the combination. Though not abundant in the accepted dements of the picturesque, was nevertheless an original field of study, and one quite as instructive as that offered by the uncontaminated natives with whom I was to have to do later.

Consequently, Levi-Strauss found the nature of Indian federal government was fascinating and more interesting. It’s because the government took charge in building dwellings for its citizens and done by grouping the houses into various groups which formed the villages. Every village had approximately five to six houses which were made from wood. Every village had access to a nearby water source which helped the members for domestic purposes and also livestock and crop production. Levi-Strauss stated the following, ”We visited the wooden 22houses which the federal government had built. They grouped the villages each having five to six houses, with water nearby. We also saw the more isolated houses which the Indians occasionally built for themselves; these consisted of a square palisade of palmito-trunks, bound together with liana, and a roof made of leaves and hung on to the walls by its four corners. And we also examined those branch-hung awnings beneath which whole families would often live, leaving the adjacent house unoccupied. In such cases, the inhabitants would gather around an ever-glowing fire with men taking the overall security measures“.20 the author notes included, ”The inhabitants, in such cases, would assemble around a fire that was kept burning night and day... The men wore tattered remains of a shirt and an old pair of trousers, and the women either a cotton dress, worn need: the skin or a blanket rolled armpits.“

Accordingly, ”the children went naked… wore, as did ourselves while traveling, large hats of straw; the making of these was, indeed, their only activity and their only way of making money. Both men and women bore, at every age.21 The marks of the Mongolian type: lightly built, with broad flat faces, prominent cheekbones, yellow skin, narrow eyes, black straight hair worn either long or short, in the case of the women and the body almost or entirely hairless they live in one room. They eat, at no matter what time of the day, the sweet potatoes that lie roasting in the ashes picking them out with long pincers of bamboo. Sleep on either a thin layer of bracken or a pallet of maize-straw each lies with his feet nearest the fire“.

In those Indian made houses as explained by the author, they allocated a single room for the use of all the activities that were taking place including all the goods produced from the field and markets. It created a confusion making it not possible to understand and differentiate with the kind of houses built by other people across other cultures and traditions.21 ”Notably the furniture was the rudest,“ he notes, ”with a few wooden pieces of log attached in a quake manner.“

In conjunction with the Indian culture, The Indians government had several kingdoms which were headed by kings and also having their queens; this is as well captured in the book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, were the nobles of the land.22 The author states loved to play with the severed heads that their warriors brought back from battle. Nobles of both sexes delighted in tournaments absolved from all menial tasks by an enslaved people that had been installed there long before the Caduveo and differed from them both in language and in culture. The Guana, All that now remains of these is the Tereno, who lived not far away from the little town of Miranda, He went to see in there. In former times the Guana tilled the soil and paid the Mbaya lords a tribute of agricultural produce in exchange for their protection, like insurance, that is to say, against pillage and sacking by bands of armed horsemen. A sixteenth-century German who ventured into the region described the relationship as similar to that then existing in central Europe between the feudal lords and their serfs.

Considering the culture of Bororo people, they are believed to have adopted a new image of customs and traditions that captivated a new picture of a society that depicted the knowledge of the earth’s supernatural powers23. Levi then realized that everybody in this community had been engrossed and deeply rooted in their tradition that nobody could even tarnish their thinking on any cultural belief. It is evident in the notes of the author; each clan has a capital of myths, traditions, dances, and functions, either social or religious. The tales are, in their turn, at the bottom of the particular privileges which are one of the most curious features of Bororo culture. Almost all Bororo objects emblazoned in such a way that the owner’s den and sub-den realized. The privilege lies in the use of individual feathers or colors of feathers.24 In the way in which an object is carved or cut; in the disposition of feathers differing in color, or species; in the execution of precise decorative work: fiber-plaiting, for instance, or feather-mosaics; in the use of particular patterns, and so on.

Hence it was still at Bororo community that Claude Levi-Strauss came to encounter many strange cultural practices. He again noticed and learned that the Bororo people also enjoyed and practiced pottery. The pots paint was in different ways, and their purposes got appreciation during religious functions. According to the author’s text; A few calabashes; some black pots, bowls, and shallow basins, with sometimes a long handle, ladle-wise. These objects have a high purity of form, and this virtue underlined by the austerity of their component materials. One strange thing: it seems that Bororo pottery had decoration and that in relatively recent times this was forbidden on religious grounds.25 It may form a ground of thought as to why the Indians no longer carry out Rupestral paintings such as may still be found in rock-protected shelters of the Chapada: yet these pictures contain many elements taken from Bororo culture. To make quite sure of this I once asked them to decorate for me a large sheet of white paper.

A native set to work with a paste made of Urucu and some resin. And although the Bororo had forgotten when they used to paint those rocky walls, and indeed no longer frequent the escarpments that were present at that time. The picture which he made was an almost exact version, on a smaller scale, of one of them.26 The author also continues to reveal the Bororo people who are nomads in a unique way giving a brief human existence lies between fish and Arara. The death ceremony takes place in two phases. Where the first stage the dead body is left into a ditch then later the bones are removed and thrown into a lake.

Another nomadic group that brought a new dimension of viewing the cultural life are the Nambikwara. The evidence is seen in the authors’ note, ”in that their material culture could not associate with the high cultures of the south and central America but as survivors ranged from stone age…“25. ”The women clothes were made from a strand of shell beads. The special clothes would then put around the waist and another strand or two as necklaces or as shoulder-belts. Their earrings were of feathers or mother-of-pearl, their bracelets had to carve from armadillo covers or, in some instances, straw or cotton (woven by their men) could be used and tied around the ankles of their legs or at the forearms. On the other hand, the men had a simpler wardrobe as many of them wore at most times a tuft of straws hanging them from their belts just above their genitals.“

Regarding the military wing, thus considering armaments part of it, the Nambikwara’s gunners were more sophisticated compared to Bororo’s arsenals. It could be seen in their possession which could only be assembled in a basket and then easily slung the baskets on their backs which formed the mode of transporting the produce from the fields especially during the seasons of nomadism. For instance, the author states that 27”In addition to bow and arrows, their armament consisted of a sort of flattened spike. But this seemed to relate as much to magic as to the hunt, for I never saw it used except to deflect a hurricane or to kill off, with a well-directed throw, the Atasu, or evil spirits of the bush…The name of Atasu is also given to the stars and to our oxen, with whom they lived in terror. (And yet they will readily kill and eat mules, though they made their acquaintance at the same time as that of the oxen.)“

Consequently, the form of leadership among the Nambikwara community, a chief who was chosen by generosity lead the society. Some of the morals and things that made one competent in getting the chieftaincy was one; he was to at all instances having everything at a significant proportion than anybody28. It was redefined to make those who could have wanted to seek help from the leader; then he was at a capable position in giving a hand into solving the situation. The chief enjoyed and had a lot of privileges compared to any other member of the community. The benefits included polygamy, which had its significance, as it helped to give an image to the people as the chief could achieve the virtue of uniting people across the community.

The chief also had the upper hand in ruling and giving verdicts to his people while solving problems. The author notes state that,28 ”The Chief struck me as an informed and resourceful leader, who was always turning over in his mind some possible political maneuver. His colleague was a man, not of action, but of contemplation: he had a beautiful and poetical turn of mind and was unusually sensitive. He realized that his people were decadent, and for this reason, his conversation often had a note melancholy. ‘I used to do that once,’ he would say, ‘but now it’s finished.”

In conclusion, the author reveals and shows a comprehensive coverage of different cultures during the exploration of Marco Polo and Claude Levi-Strauss. He vastly shows how various people practice different religions. Nambikwara also lived and exercised their culture to the fullest. The author intently tried to prove the relation that comes in between anthropology, philosophy and the general science as he uses Levi-Strauss’s who explained in his idea and style of work to give the correlation that exists in between this historical ideologies. Therefore, as Levi tries to change the perspective that many people try to view the universe as more significant in respect to humanistic science, this is evident in the author’s text as he reveals how every community he met live and respect its culture and tradition. Thus the culture in his perspective is just but an agreement by a specific group of people and practiced by the same people, and also the culture and tradition can be impacted and passed from one person to another according to one interest.

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