Salvage ethnography is the recording of the practices and folklore of cultures threatened with extinction, including as a result of modernization. It is generally associated with the American
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
; he and his students aimed to record vanishing
Native American cultures. Since the 1960s, anthropologists have used the term as part of a critique of 19th-century
ethnography
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
and early modern anthropology.
Etymology
The term "salvage ethnography" was coined by
Jacob W. Gruber, who identified its emergence with 19th-century ethnographers documenting the languages of peoples being conquered and colonized by European countries or the United States. According to Gruber, one of the first official statements acknowledging that a major effect of
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
was the
destruction of existing languages and ways of life was ''The report of the British Select Committee of Aborigines'' (1837).
As a scholarly response, Gruber quotes
James Cowles Prichard
James Cowles Prichard, FRS (11 February 1786 – 23 December 1848) was a British physician and ethnologist with broad interests in physical anthropology and psychiatry. His influential ''Researches into the Physical History of Mankind'' touched ...
's address before the
British Association for the Advancement of Science
The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
in 1839, referring to the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
tale of
Cain and Abel
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain ''Qayīn'', in pausa ''Qāyīn''; gr, Κάϊν ''Káïn''; ar, قابيل/قايين, Qābīl / Qāyīn and Abel ''Heḇel'', in pausa ''Hāḇel''; gr, Ἅβελ ''Hábel''; ar, هابيل, Hāb ...
:
Conservation and art
Frances Densmore
Frances Theresa Densmore (May 21, 1867 – June 5, 1957) was an American anthropologist and ethnographer born in Red Wing, Minnesota. Densmore is known for her studies of Native American music and culture, and in modern terms, she may ...
(1867–1957), an influential ethnomusicologist, worked in the tradition of salvage ethnography. Densmore recorded the songs and lyrics of Native Americans in an attempt to preserve them permanently. Many of her original recordings, preserved on
wax cylinder
Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...
s, are archived at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
Artists compounded the work of professional anthropologists during this time period. Photographer
Edward S. Curtis
Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis travele ...
(1868–1952) was preceded by painter
George Catlin
George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the Old West.
Traveling to the We ...
(1796–1872) in attempting to capture indigenous North American traditions that they believed to be disappearing. Both Curtis and Catlin have been accused of taking
artistic license
Artistic license (alongside more contextually-specific derivative terms such as poetic license, historical license, dramatic license, and narrative license) refers to deviation from fact or form for artistic purposes. It can include the alterat ...
by embellishing a scene or making something appear more authentically "Native American". Curtis notes in the introduction to his series on the North American Indian: "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost."
Salvage ethnography started to be applied methodically in
visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science an ...
as
ethnographic film
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. ...
since the 1950s by
filmmaker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...
s such as
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch (; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.
He is considered one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized b ...
in France,
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the Na ...
and
Pierre Perrault
Pierre Perrault (29 June 1927 – 24 June 1999) was a Québécois documentary film director. He directed 20 films between 1963 and 1996. He was one of the most important filmmakers in Canada, although largely unknown outside of Québec. In ...
in Canada, or
António Campos
António Campos (29 May 1922 – 8 March 1999) was one of the pioneer filmmakers of visual anthropology in Portugal. Mainly using pure documentary techniques, he shot ethnographic films and tried docufiction. As well as in fictional films, he u ...
in Portugal (early 1960s), followed by others (1970s).
Salvage ethnography is often taught in film and
media studies
Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...
courses as a style of filmmaking that captures a civilization or people's former way of living. The best example of this would be
Robert Flaherty
Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, ''Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputatio ...
's ''
Nanook of the North
''Nanook of the North'' is a 1922 American silent film which combines elements of documentary and docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would later be c ...
''. In ''Nanook'', Flaherty staged incidents and scenes that did not fairly represent the Inuit tribe's current way of life, but rather their "former majesty".
See also
*
Documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
*
Ethnofiction
Ethnofiction refers to a subfield of ethnography which produces works that introduces art, in the form of storytelling, "thick descriptions and conversational narratives", and even first-person autobiographical accounts, into peer-reviewed academi ...
*
Ethnographic film
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. ...
*''
Nanook of the North
''Nanook of the North'' is a 1922 American silent film which combines elements of documentary and docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would later be c ...
'' – 1922 American silent documentary film
*
Salvage anthropology Salvage anthropology, related to salvage ethnography, is a term referring to the practice of collecting and documenting in the face of presumed cultural decline. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, salvage anthropology influenced col ...
– related to salvage ethnography, but often refers specifically to the collection of cultural artifacts and human remains, rather than the general collection of data and images.
*
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science an ...
– a subfield of social anthropology, of all visual representations such as dance and other kinds of performance, museums and archiving, all visual arts, and the production and
reception
Reception is a noun form of ''receiving'', or ''to receive'' something, such as art, experience, information, people, products, or vehicles. It may refer to:
Astrology
* Reception (astrology), when a planet is located in a sign ruled by another ...
of
mass media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit information ...
.
Related people
*
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...
– American
cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
.
*
George Catlin
George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the Old West.
Traveling to the We ...
– American painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of
Native Americans in the
Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
.
*
Edward Sheriff Curtis
Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis travele ...
– American
photographer
A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographe ...
and
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
whose work focused on the
American West
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
and on
Native American peoples.
*
Frances Densmore
Frances Theresa Densmore (May 21, 1867 – June 5, 1957) was an American anthropologist and ethnographer born in Red Wing, Minnesota. Densmore is known for her studies of Native American music and culture, and in modern terms, she may ...
– American anthropologist,
ethnomusicologist, and ethnographer focused on Native American music and culture.
*
Germaine Dieterlen – French
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
and student of Marcel Marcel Griaule, known for her studies of the
Dogon
Dogon may refer to:
*Dogon people, an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa
*Dogon languages, a small, close-knit language family spoken by the Dogon people of Mali
*'' Dogon A.D.'', an album by saxophonist Juliu ...
people of
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
.
*
Marcel Griaule –
French anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
known for his studies of the
Dogon
Dogon may refer to:
*Dogon people, an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa
*Dogon languages, a small, close-knit language family spoken by the Dogon people of Mali
*'' Dogon A.D.'', an album by saxophonist Juliu ...
people of
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
.
*
Felipe Lettersten – a Peruvian artist who believed he was preserving the
Amazon rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
cultures by casting sculptures of indigenous people.
*
Robert H. Lowie –
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n-born
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
, focused on
North American Indians
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European colonization of the Americas, European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peopl ...
.
*
Geraldine Moodie – Canadian photographer who took early photos of
Indigenous peoples in Northern Canada
The Indigenous peoples in Northern Canada consist of the First Nations in Canada, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit located in Canada's provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, three territories: Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. ...
.
*
Jimmy Nelson – British photojournalist and photographer known for his portraits of tribal and indigenous peoples.
*
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch (; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.
He is considered one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized b ...
– French filmmaker and anthropologist focused on Africa.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salvage Ethnography
Ethnography
Anthropology