AW

Edward Evans-Pritchard – Life, Fieldwork & Anthropological Legacy

Biography & Early Formation

  • Birth & Education
    • Born 1902; privileged schooling at Winchester (public school) and Exeter College, Oxford.
    • Initially read History but found it "tedious"—Exeter also housed Oxford Anthropology, tempting him with "adventure" among exotic cultures.

  • Intellectual Context
    • Studied when anthropology still aimed to be a science that asked "what do institutions do?" to keep a society working.
    • EP (Edward Evans-Pritchard, often abbreviated E-P) shifted focus toward mental life: beliefs, ideas, coherent systems of thought rather than isolated customs.

Principles of Fieldwork

  • Participant Observation
    • Fieldwork no longer meant short visits; it required living with people, speaking the language, sharing mundane daily life.
    • EP built a Zande-style house, ate Zande food, joined their routines—embodied the maxim: "If one must act as though one believed, one ends in believing as one acts."

  • Logistics in the 1920s
    • Reaching the field (1926 mission):
    – Train & ship UK→Egypt (~1 week)
    – Train & boat Cairo→Khartoum (several days)
    – Paddle-steamer up Nile (≈10 days)
    – Foot trek to Zandeland (≈3 weeks)
    • Total journey ≈ 7 weeks before a single note could be taken.

  • Participant vs. Observer Paradox
    • EP taught that anthropologist is simultaneously “member of audience and actor on stage”; data come through head and heart.

Colonial Backdrop & Choice of Sites

  • Colonial Networks as Gateways & Hindrances
    • British, French, German, American scholars often went where their flags flew—administrators could supply transport, translators, or resistance.
    • EP’s acerbic view: Northern Sudan officials were “over-grown schoolboys…country of blacks governed by blues.”

Azande Fieldwork (1926-1928)

  • Who are the Azande?
    • Farmers in scattered homesteads across modern Zaire (DRC), Central African Republic & Sudan.

  • Total Ethnography
    • Documented: village layout, clan distribution, cultivation, food prep, raids, romantic affairs, storytelling.

  • Core Concept: Mangu (Witchcraft)
    • Witchcraft substance believed to be an oval, blackish bag by the liver; released with a “pop” at autopsy.
    • Not a conscious ritual: a psychic act performed unintentionally by a witch.
    • Explanation for serious misfortune, esp. death.

  • Granary Parable
    • Termite-eaten posts → periodic collapses.
    • Western idiom: “bad luck.”
    • Azande idiom: witchcraft caused that collapse at that moment to injure that person. Shows logical question of coincidence, not ignorance of physics.

  • Oracular Technology

    1. Iwa (rubbing-board): initial yes/no diagnostic.

    2. Hierarchy culminates in Poison Oracle (benge):
      – Strychnine-based poison fed to two chickens.
      – Questions framed so death vs. survival encodes binary answers.

    3. Oracle answers whether witchcraft is at play, who is responsible, what remedies needed.

  • Case: Kaguda’s Mother
    • Step 1: Diviner checks whether visiting film crew poses threat (cultural suspicion of outsiders).
    • Step 2: Oracle says mother won’t die if proper magic done.
    • Step 3: Poison oracle (first chicken dies, second lives) confirms need for ritual medicine.
    • Step 4: Witch-doctor dispenses protective spells/substances with ceremony.
    • Outcome: Mother dies a week later, but belief unshaken—system resilient like astrology or Marxism when predictions fail.

  • Interpretive Insight
    • EP concluded Azande thought is rational within its premises; difference lies in starting axioms, not logical process.
    • Question raised: What counts as “rational” across cultures? → Philosophical debate on relativism.

The Nuer Studies (1930-1936)

  • Historical Trigger
    • Anglo-Egyptian administrators faced armed resistance, aerial bombing of cattle herds. Commissioner McMichael recruited EP for deeper understanding.

  • Field Conditions
    • EP “dumped” with no grammar/dictionary; learned language via children while living in cattle camps.

  • Environment & Economy
    • Flood-plain marshes of Upper Nile; seasonal movement.
    • Subsistence: pastoralism first, horticulture secondary.
    • Dependence on cattle \to centrality in cosmology, kinship, law, song.

  • Cattle as Idioms
    • Bridewealth: marriage ↔ transfer of cattle to bride’s family (compensates for loss of daughter).
    • Compensation/feuds: blood-wealth paid in cattle.
    • Personal Identity: youths take names of favorite bulls; scars (gar) mark transition from boyhood → manhood (entitled to marry, fight, be killed).
    • Poetry: bull-songs sung to animals; sample translation by informant Simon.

  • Political Organization: “Ordered Anarchy”
    • No centralized government, no coercive legal authority, yet social order persists.
    • Leopard-skin chief: ritual mediator in feuds, arranges cattle compensation; moral authority sans force.

  • Significance
    • Shattered colonial stereotype of African societies ruled by despotic chiefs.
    • Informed more nuanced indirect-rule policies; major text: The Nuer (1940).

Lectures in Cairo & History of Ideas (1932-1934)

  • Escape from Malinowski
    • Personality clash barred him from LSE; accepted Chair of Philosophy & Sociology at Cairo’s Fouad I University.

  • Course Themes
    • "Primitive mentality" revisited via history of ideas: linked anthropological problems to earlier European philosophy & historiography.
    • Student anecdote: faced down demonstrators—commitment to teaching.

  • Influence on Arabs
    • Practiced participant observation among Bedouin; journeys by camel formed basis of later The Senussi of Cyrenaica (1954).

WWII Service (1939-1945)

  • Roles
    • Sudan Auxiliary Defence Force (guerrilla actions with Anuak).
    • Long Range Desert Group, Syria—conflict with superiors.
    • Governor of Cyrene District, Libya; self-professed “hopeless administrator,” preferred liaison in Bedouin tents.

  • Anthropology in Uniform
    • Used ethnographic rapport to disrupt Italian garrisons; illustrates applied anthropology in military intelligence.

Post-War Academic Apex

  • Oxford Professor (from 1945)
    • Fellow of All Souls.
    • Cultivated a powerhouse department; protégés later filled global chairs.

  • Honors
    • Knighted; recognized for bridging anthropology with history, philosophy, theology.

  • Religious Turn
    • Converted to Catholicism during war; faith influenced later writings on comparative religion.

Theoretical Contributions & Legacy

  • From Science → Interpretation
    • Argued anthropology is not natural science but humanistic translation of cultures.
    • Anthropologist’s task: render another worldview intelligible in our idiom.

  • Rationality Debate
    • Azande witchcraft fueled discussions in philosophy of science: can different rationalities coexist?
    • Prefigured later work on incommensurability, relativism, and cognitive anthropology.

  • Holism & Objectivity
    • Studying small, distinct societies allows analysis of entire social system.
    • Distance from own culture aids objectivity; comparison sharpens perception.

  • Ethical/Practical Impact
    • Helped colonial officers grasp indigenous politics—sometimes tempering punitive policies.
    • Demonstrated that so-called "primitive" religions merit the same philosophical respect as world religions.

Methodological Maxims (Exam Quick-Reference)

  1. Live as They Live → Build trust; language mastery is key.

  2. Document Everything → From clan layout to lullabies; photographs & native-language records.

  3. Track Case Histories → Individual experiences illuminate cultural logic.

  4. Use Indigenous Categories → Mangu, benge, gar—never impose external jargon first.

  5. Interpret, Don’t Judge → Seek coherence within local premises.

  6. Holistic Scope → Economics, politics, religion, emotion—all interlinked.

  7. Reflexivity → Recognize how field immersion shapes the anthropologist’s own beliefs.

Numerical & Statistical Nuggets

  • Travel time to Zandeland: \approx 7 weeks total.

  • Field stay with Azande: 20 months (≈ 1.7 years).

  • Poison-oracle logic: binary coding via live/dead chicken (2 trials for confirmation).

  • War service: >2 years in Cyrenaica deserts.

Connections to Previous Anthropological Trends

  • Boas → Cultural relativism & linguistic focus; EP extends to logical systems.

  • Malinowski → Participant observation; EP adds interpretive, mental dimensions.

  • Post-EP → Students (e.g., David Pocock) and disciplines (philosophy, theology) adopt his interpretive emphasis.

Real-World Relevance

  • Framework for analyzing modern belief systems (astrology, political ideologies) without dismissing them as "irrational."

  • Provides comparative lens for multicultural governance, conflict mediation, and development projects.

Key Terms Glossary

  • Mangu: inheritable substance of witchcraft.

  • Benge: strychnine poison oracle; supreme Azande divination.

  • Iwa: rubbing-board oracle (first diagnostic step).

  • Gar: forehead scarification marking manhood among Nuer.

  • Leopard-skin chief: ritual mediator in Nuer feuds; authority via moral & spiritual power, not coercion.

  • Bridewealth: cattle transferred from groom’s to bride’s kin.

Exam Tip

When asked to illustrate cultural relativism or multiple rationalities, cite:
• The collapsing granary vs. witchcraft explanation.
• Poison-oracle’s internally consistent experimental logic.
• Nuer “ordered anarchy” defying Western state models.