Lewis Henry Morgan

Lewis Henry Morgan.

Lewis Henry Morgan (born November 21, 1818 in Aurora , New York , † December 17, 1881 ) was an American anthropologist and co-founder of ethnology . He represented an evolutionist- oriented anthropology .

Life

In 1840 Morgan graduated from Union College in Schenectady , New York , and went back to Aurora, where he enrolled in law. He studied the Greek and Roman classics.

Morgan achieved fame through his field research among the Iroquois peoples . Severely affected by the injustice with which the American government treated the Indigenous Peoples , Morgan helped the Seneca legally in their fight against the Odgen Land Company. He was adopted by the Seneca as one of their own. They gave him the name "Tayadaowuhkuh" - "one who builds bridges" (between Indians and whites).

Morgan's evolutionism

Morgan advocated the theory of a monotonously ascending development of human culture . Accordingly, all cultures go through three stages of development: from the stage of "wildness" in primitive communism to the stage of barbarism to the highest stage, civilization . According to Morgan's theory, all peoples must go through this development.

Wildness : The lowest level of cultural development knows no animal husbandry and no food preservation, but only basic nutrition through hunting and wild plants: hunters and gatherers .
Barbarism : Agriculture and Livestock
Civilization : The stage of civilization is characterized by the development of writing, i. H. of historiography. This allows past and future to be connected and further development is made possible.

In addition, Morgan represented the idea that at the beginning of human development all peoples lived matrifocally (see also matrilinear and matrilocal ) and that the development towards patriarchy should be equated with the achievement of civilization. According to his theory, the matrifocal stage of culture went hand in hand with collective property. As private property developed more and more, patriarchal social structures emerged in parallel. He saw a danger for civilization in the unchecked growth of private property: "Since the beginning of civilization, the growth of wealth has become so enormous ... that this wealth has become an unmanageable power over the people. The human spirit stands perplexed and banished there before his own creation.… The mere pursuit of wealth is not the ultimate destination of humanity…. The dissolution of society looms before us as the end of a historical career whose only ultimate goal is wealth, for such a career contains the elements of it own annihilation. "

Friedrich Engels took this theory from Morgan and refined it.

Ancient Society

Morgan's main work Ancient Society, Or: Researches in the lines of human progress from savagery through barbarism to civilization was published in 1877 and was translated into German in 1891 by Wilhelm Eichhoff with the collaboration of Karl Kautsky with the title Die Urgesellschaft or investigation into the progress of mankind from the Wildness through barbarism to civilization . It established his cultural evolutionism , as it was also represented by Herbert Spencer , Edward B. Tylor and Friedrich Engels . The theory is based on a comparison between societies at different stages of development. Morgan distinguishes between a "societas" based on personal relationships and a "civitas" based on property and region, thus providing a theoretical and historical model for Ferdinand Tönnies ' distinction between community and society.

From today's point of view and according to the current state of research, this approach of monotonously increasing cultures is insufficient to explain the development of cultures . However, this view is often falsely criticized as a linear view of history. What is meant, however, is usually a criticism of the monotonously increasing character that the course of history has. It is considered Eurocentric and includes a valuation that places the western, civilized world at the forefront of development and at the same time classifies other cultures as underdeveloped and primitive .

Honors

Morgan was inducted into the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1868 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Publications

Ancient Society - digitized
- The primitive society. Translated from the English by Wilhelm Eichhoff . 4th edition. Stuttgart / Berlin 1921.
The League of the Iroquois - Digitized
The American Beaver and His Works - Digitized
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family - Digitized

literature

Christian F. Feest , Michael Oppitz: Lewis Henry Morgan. In: Christian F. Feest, Karl-Heinz Kohl (Hrsg.): Hauptwerke der Ethnologie (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 380). Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-38001-3 , pp. 308-320.
Burkhard Ganzer: Lewis Henry Morgan. In: Wolfgang Marschall (Ed.): Classics of cultural anthropology. Munich: Beck, 1990, pp. 88-108. ISBN 3-406-40740-4
Thomas R. Trautmann: Lewis Henry Morgan and the Invention of Kinship. New Edition, University of Nebraska Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8032-6006-1 .
Georg Pfeffer : Lewis Henry Morgan's Comparisons. Reassessing Terminology, Anarchy and Worldview in Indigenous Societies of America, Australia and Highland Middle India . Berghahn, New York 2019. ISBN 978-1-78920-317-2 hardback; ISBN 978-1-78920-318-9 (ebook)

Web links

Commons : Lewis H. Morgan - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

^ Lewis Henry Morgan: Die Urgesellschaft , reprint of the first German translation from 1908, Lollar / Lahn, 1979, p. 474 ff.

personal data
SURNAME	Morgan, Lewis Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American anthropologist and co-founder of ethnology
DATE OF BIRTH	November 21, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aurora , New York
DATE OF DEATH	December 17, 1881

[1] Lewis Henry Morgan: Die Urgesellschaft , reprint of the first German translation from 1908, Lollar / Lahn, 1979, p. 474 ff.