Ethnology

Ethnology (from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos meaning “people, nation, race”) is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity

Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct contact with the culture, ethnology takes the research that ethnographers have compiled and then compares and contrasts different cultures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnology

As an undergraduate I read load’s about ethnology, traditionally it has worked in non-historic cultures but its aims are as above defined. It is a study of ethnicity, a comparative subject. What the department of ethnology does in Scotland for the most part is more strictly termed ethnography. The study of a single group. Both ethnology and ethnography have traditionally studied non-historical  oral cultures. The ethnography of my former department keeps to that tradition and focuses on the oral tradition of a rural peasant society, oral, urban ethnology or the ethnography of religious groups.

Orality is a crucial and understated aspect of any culture but when dealing with historical societies that also have a written tradition, there is a relationship between orality and text.

This was the basis of my research, but I also wanted to study the history of my subject, its foundations and the collectors. After four years in the department I felt I still knew little about the subject. It has no written history or indeed much in the way of methodology. I wanted to understand my subject.

I do not think an ethnology or ethnography of a historic culture can be understood if it only focuses on a particular class and excludes the middle classes; in the Victorian period the middle classes  had a particular and distinct form of oral story telling in Scotland. But they were also the consumers and users of written collections of folktales. These were being used for entertainment, religious, moral instruction and in the creation of an ethnic identity.

The relationship between the collector of tales and the construction of national identity is part of the story. The collector does not stand outside and apart of the subject.

Some material was not recorded empirically it was either written and tidied up so it was presentable for a middle class book buying public or it was written by the collector, a part of his ethnicity he wanted to share.

But the term Fakelore is I think wrongly used to discusses these matters. That suggests that ethnology is only of the folk. The pure voice of an oral peasant culture that dates far back in time. That may be true of some stories and myths but there is a relationship with text, other groups use such markers as well, it is to be suggested.

It is still a pure voice but it is the voice of all the folk and not just one group. I don’t think fakelore exists.

I was always tought to understand that J.F. Campbell was the first proper empirical ethnologists. He was the first to collect a mass of material using collectors to write down tales from performers, as they were spoken and in full. But from spending a few weeks on the subject it would seem that J.F. Campbell is the first ethnographer and the Duke of Argyll may be the first ethnologist in Scotland using the material. The subject is not taught in this manner. I only became aware of the Dukes discussions a few weeks ago.

Both the Duke and J.F. Campbell had a deep belief in religion, this is to be expected in Gaelic culture. Indeed most oral tales come from very religious communities and that is reflected in the tales. They are beautiful things.

What does need to be questioned is not the Dukes and J.F. Campbell’s religious beliefs but their methods of enquiry. They are typical of the time. J.F. Campbell certainly views the tales as a tool to understand the races of man. Each race has its own separate culture. Gaelic tales are distinct form Lowland Scottish tales as they are part of a separate race with their own culture.

Race is understood to reflect biological difference. The Gaelic people are related to Scandinavia and thence the germanic people. This forms the cultural complex and allows this race to be traced back through time.

Lowland scot stems from one other branch of the celts, a dark-skinned race, whose name seems to derive from the term melancholia. As do the Welsh. But as there is also Anglo-Saxon settlement this forms one more biologically distinct people. Then there are the Norman’s the french settlers, mostly members of the aristocracy. Robert Knox (who will be breifly disscused in the next post) the Scottish surgeon who wrote a book on the Races of Man considered the house of parliament to be a Norman French institution. perhaps surprisingly given his nationality he considered the Celts to be a lower race (he thought he was Germanic).

Race is a complex thing in 1860′s Britain.

if we look down south at the Anthropological society, the despised the Celtic people considering them a lower from of life. This would appear to be the problem, it is not just that they perceive a difference in ethnicity, it’s the moral value they attach to it. J.F Campbell mentions the existence of an anti Celtic society in London. He probably as the duke certainly appears to have done that men should be treated as equals.

But that does not mean they are equals. The abolition of slavery did not mean the slave was equal to his master, it meant his master escaped the shame of holding someone in bondage. Darwin and Huxley appear to have exactly the same views. They all considered that races existed and believed their was a moral hierarchy (I suspect with their own ethnic group considered to be the top of the pile).

The methods are the same but in practice as people belong to different ethnic groups the perspectives are very different. Yet this is the high point of Empire and national identity.

These beliefs with regard to race are not drawn from evolution or from religion. Indeed despite the differences this is one aspect where science and religion do agree. Humanity stems from the same origin. The difference lies in what that origin is.

Both religion and evolution should have allowed such perspectives to be rejected. But they were not. When the theory of evolution became public knowledge. It did not matter what side of the argument you took, the origin of man was a big item of discussion.

Yet still these contradictions to both systems remained in place and were held across the middle classes regardless of political or religious perspective.

The Duke of Argyll may be trying to trace back the races of man in a bid to prove evolution wrong. But his methods are not drawn form his religious perspectives. This was the commonly perceived attitude of society. Of political and academic institutions as well. It was the way the world was thought to be composed, this was believed to be what Ethnology was. The duke also made other philosophical arguments that are still live today and are at the moment a subject of debate in the philosophy of science. The views of the Duke on ethnology (and I have not fulled studied them yet) do not affect his views in other matters of Philosophy.It is to be suspected that his views on this subject were little different from most others of his class, and in comparison to some, by the standards of the day distinctly compassionate

We must judge Victorian society by the standards of the time and not our own.

This was not a correct perspective. Ethnology is not matter of biological difference it is one of culture. ethnology is the study of different ethnic groups and their culture. These cultures also share much material between each other. The lines between them were never a sharply drawn as they were in 1860.

Does the fact that the Duke of Argyll and J.F. Campbell were men of deep Christian faith bring Ethnology to its knees or the fact they seem to have held the standard views on these issues that were held by ethnologists and anthropologists throughout Europe?

No, one thing it suggest’s is that the subject should be a rewarding one for people of faith. They will find the tales rewarding things. That is as it should be. But they are a thing for all people, and hold much value in understanding how culture is formed and interacts. Many of the tales are international legends, known throughout the world.

But our history and the tales  belong to the world and not just to Scotland, the history that surrounds them must be told as accurately as it can. I have only begun to look at this area. Much work needs to be done.

The history of the study of ethnology in Europe is a difficult subject to deal with. The way it was understood in the past must be understood but that does not mean making demons out of those in the past.

It makes history more understandable and separates it from myth.