Joseph-François Lafitau

Joseph-François Lafitau

Joseph-François Lafitau (born May 31, 1681 in Bordeaux , † July 3, 1746 in Bordeaux) was a French Jesuit who worked as a missionary , ethnologist and naturalist in French Canada ( New France ). He is considered the founder of comparative social anthropology and the forerunner of an evolutionary anthropology . He became known for his writings on the Iroquois and the discovery of the Canadian ginseng ( Aureliana ).

Youth and education

Lafitau, son of a wealthy wine merchant and strict Catholic, had been interested in the French colonies since his youth. He received a very good education and soon mastered the literature on the expeditions of discovery and conquest of the French, Spaniards and English, on the ancient cultures of Europe and the lessons of natural history. At the age of 15 he entered the Jesuit order in Bordeaux and then studied rhetoric and philosophy in Pau . He then taught in Limoges , Saintes and Pau and continued his studies in Poitiers and La Flèche from 1706 to 1709 . René Descartes also studied at the Jesuit college in La Flèche . Lafitau completed his theology studies in 1710 at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. In 1711 he received permission to go to Canada for the Iroquois mission.

When he arrived there was still war: the majority of the Iroquois warriors of the Five Nations were ready to join the English in the fight against the French. The forests were considered unsafe, so that Lafitau was ordered to the small settlement of Sault St. Louis (today Kahnawake ), where a longer Jesuit tradition already existed. Here he worked for almost six years.

At the end of 1717 he returned to France and made the successful appeal to the colonial administration to stop trading in brandy because this went against the interests of the colony. Then he devoted himself to his scientific work.

Lafitau's brother Pierre-François Lafitau was Bishop of Sisteron from 1720 to 1764 .

Scientific and theological work

During his work, Lafitau became aware of the important position of the Iroquois women in society and of matrilineal succession, the differences in the kinship systems compared to Europe, the exogamy and residence rules of the Iroquois and the important role of their village councils. He tried to understand the Iroquois culture using its own terms and to avoid Eurocentric interpretations. However, he proceeded from theological assumptions: All people were created equal and had received the same moral principles from God. However, through the spread of people on earth, they would have lost contact with the values ​​and traditions of their monotheistic original religion, Christianity - a consequence of original sin . Lafitau consequently tried to prove traces of the “true faith” among the indigenous peoples of America. In contrast, Pierre Daniel Huet and other predecessors and contemporaries of Lafitau assumed that the pagan deities went back directly to Moses and his wife Zipporah or were even older, and that there were therefore no common roots of the religions of the peoples. Such an assumption, however, according to Lafitau, would make the Christian religion sensitive to attacks by atheists, who could see in it one of many others, i.e. only human blindness.

Lafitau assumed that all cultures could develop and gradually reach the European level. He compared the Iroquois culture with the ancient European cultures or with what ancient authors had handed down about them and came to the conclusion that cultures with similar levels of development existed at different times and under different conditions. By juxtaposing cultures, customs, beliefs and mentalities with a similar level of development, one can “illuminate each other” and work out similarities and differences. One could certainly compare the customs of the biblical peoples with those of the Indians of North America and regard them as early examples of admirable humanity. Lafitau also considered it possible that customs would align or spread spatially widely.

He examined the working process in which the indigenous peoples made stone axes and concluded that similar stones found in prehistoric settlements were not "thunder stones" that were split by lightning, as earlier authors had claimed, but the same Art had been made. It is possible to translate all forms of human behavior and all forms of religion into the language of a “symbolic theology” that can make the universal elements of belief and behavior visible.

Although the manners and customs of the indigenous peoples of America had long been compared with the stories of ancient European authors or the Bible about the "wise and enlightened" ancient peoples, Lafiteau's comparisons were far more positive for the Indians. He helped to improve the image of the indigenous peoples and to better understand their strange appearing customs and traditions and thus to make the "savages" appear more humane. In this way he was able to show that even in ancient times people had animal names like the Iroquois, e.g. B. Hoghouaho (Big Wolf) or Hoskereouak (Big Bear).

Inspired by reports from Jesuit missionaries from northern China about ginseng, he confirmed its use as a medicine by the Iroquois. This valuable plant was also exported to China via France after its discovery.

His two-volume main work Mœurs des sauvages amériquains, comparées aux mœurs des premiers temps with a length of 1100 pages was first published in Paris in 1724. In it he pointed out that in the horticultural, fishing and hunting culture of the Wyandot women are the mainstay of economic activity and free from male oppression.

In two volumes on the Histoire des découvertes et conquestes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde (1733) Lafitau reported to French readers the history of the Portuguese discoveries. Here, too, he used his comparative method.

The evidence-based , methodical approach reflected Lafitaus can be used as Cartesian be considered, although he of theological premises runs out. His ideas and his language form the hinge between French classicism and the rationalism of natural rights activists . It can also be seen as a forerunner of diffusionism . However, the originality of his work was not fully recognized during his lifetime, as they seemed too similar to those of his predecessors. It was only recognized by later scientists.

Major works

• Mœurs des sauvages amériquains, comparées aux mœurs des premiers temps. 2 volumes, Paris 1724. German edition: The customs of the American savages compared to the customs of the early days. New edition of the German first edition from 1752/1753 by Johann Justinus Gebauer, Halle (1st section of the general history of the countries and peoples of America ), edited by Helmut Reim, Leipzig 1987.
• Histoire des découvertes et conquestes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde. 2 volumes, Paris 1733. Reprint: Slatkine Reprints Geneva Online .

literature

• William N. Fenton, Elizabeth L. Moore: J.-F. Lafitau (1681-1746), Precursor of Scientific Anthropology . In: Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 25th year 1969, p. 2 ff. JSTOR 3629200.
• William N. Fenton: Lafitau, Joseph-Francois. In GG Halpenny: Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. III (1741-1770). University of Toronto Press 1974 ( online )
• William N. Fenton, Elizabeth L. Moore (eds. And authors of the introduction to): Joseph-François Lafitau: Customs of the American Indians compared with the customs of primitive times. Toronto: Champlain Society 1874.
• Anthony Pagden: The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983. ISBN 0-521-33704-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Joseph-François Lafitau in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Joseph-François Lafitau in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ William N. Fenton, Elizabeth L. Moore: J.-F. Lafitau (1681-1746), Precursor of Scientific Anthropology . In: Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 25th year 1969, p. 2 ff. JSTOR 3629200.
2. ↑ Harry Liebersohn: Anthropoplogy before Anthropology , in: Henrika Kuklick, Harry Liebersohn (Ed.): A New History of Anthropology. Wiley & Sons, 2019, p. 17 ff.
3. ↑ Fenton and Moore 1974, pp. XXXI.
4. ^ Fenton and Moore 1974, pp. XXXIII and 175.
5. ↑ Fenton and Moore 1974, pp. 31-36.
6. ↑ Pagden 1983, pp. 199-200.
7. ↑ Harry Liebersohn: Anthropoplogy before Anthropology , in: Henrika Kuklick, Harry Liebersohn (Ed.): A New History of Anthropology. Wiley & Sons, 2019, p. 22 f.
8. ^ Fenton and Moore 1974, pp. LXXX-LXXXI.
9. ↑ Pagden 1983, p. 201.
10. ^ William N. Fenton: Contacts between Iroquois herbalism and colonial medicine. Smithsonian Institution: Annual Report 1940-41 , pp. 503-526.