"My chief idea in this is that these tribes mist be studied in relation to one
another and that only someone who understands the East will be able to thoroughly
understand the West".(Muller-Willi p.97). Words written by a man who is now
regarded as being the founder of modern American anthropology, Franz Boas. The views
of culture expressed by Boas throughout his anthropological career have shaped how his
generation and possibly all generations after him view culture.
Franz Boas was born in Minden Germany on July 9, 1958 as one of 6 children. He
graduated from the University of Heidelberg in 1881, and earned his PhD from the
University of Kiel. At first he specialized in physics, but later moved toward physical,
then cultural geography. (Kroeber et al p.5) In 1883 he went to Baffin Island to conduct
geographic research on the impact of the physical environment on native migrations.
Franz Boas established modern American anthropolog...
English: Franz Boas posing for figure in USNM (Nat...
"Fig. 128 HEAD MASK OF NĀ'NAQAUALIL, REPRESENTING...While studying the Inuit of Baffin Island he developed a strong interest in non-western
cultures. Boas stayed with the Inuit for 1 year, and although his time there may have
been short, it would prove to be very significant. (Kroeber et al p.5-28) The field work
methods he came up with during that time had a large influence on the "development of
cultural anthropology as an academic discipline in general". (Stocking p.11) The first
method is "the observation, analysis and interpretation of human environmental
relations in the arctic, i.e., the Inuit's organization of the utilization of space and recourses
in a seasonal rhythm under specific natural and geographical conditions". The second is
"the development and rise of ethnological and geographical (interdisciplinary) modes of
operation, which led to a cultural-anthropological field research method". (Stocking p.11)
Boas believed that when researching a culture so different from your own, nothing
is too...