Abstract
Like the Victorian anthropologists, Lafitau constructed a comparison between "savages" and "ancients." Specifically, he asserted the universality of three fundamental human institutions: religion, marriage, and government. However, he constructed his arguments in radically different ways for each of these institutions. First, he compiled a generalized account of "pagan" religion amalgamated from classical sources and descriptions of Native American religious practices. Secondly, he compared the Iroquois practices he observed with an absolute template of marriage as a divinely ordained institution. Thirdly, he provided a functional analysis of Iroquois institutions to demonstrate the effectiveness of their form of government.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 337-343 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Anthropologica |
Volume | 52 |
Issue number | 2 |
State | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Government
- History of anthropology
- Iroquois
- Kinship
- Missionaries
- Religion
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Anthropology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)