Meyer Fortes
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3617070 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Meyer Fortes |
| NOMBRES | Meyer |
| APELLIDO | Fortes |
| FIRMA | FORTES M |
| AFILIACIONES | The King's College |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 77 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 1357 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 77 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1932 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2021 |
| ÍNDICE H | 16 |
Analysis and Description in Social Anthropology 1
Time and Social Structure and other Essays
The papers reprinted in this volume have been selected with two considerations in mind: they record ethnographical observations from my field work among the Tallensi and in Ashanti that are not easily accessible elsewhere but continue to be useful for comparative studies and as background to current research in Ghana; and they represent applications of methods of analysis and schemes of interpretation that were emerging in British structural anth…
The Homestead and the Joint Family
Physically a Tale settlement is an aggregation of homesteads irregularly distributed at varying distances from one another. A homestead is the domicile of a domestic family. The edifice of pile and thatch, and its occupants, constitute a single entity. Tale homesteads are solidly constructed of pile (puddled mud, tan), and they are built to last. When a joint family splits up, the commonest pretext is friction over grain supplies. The family whic…
Kinship and the Lineage System
The method of analysis we have followed in this study has required, for purposes of description, the isolation of the lineage system from the domestic organization of the Tallensi. The lineage system is the structural basis of Tale political, jural, and ritual institutions, whereas the domestic organization is the structural basis of person-to-person relations in the sphere of kinship in the narrow sense. The Tallensi apply the concepts of kinshi…
Husband and wife in the Structure of the Family
It is important to bear in mind that kinship relations in the family group are inter-articulated in a single configuration, dominated by the patria potestas of the male head of the family. The natives are very conscious of this, and take it into account in the management of their lives. They say, for instance, that a woman&s;s parents continue to have great influence over her for some years after her marriage and that is why her husband must keep…
Parents and Children in the Framework of the Lineage
ALL Tale genealogical connexions go back to the fact of procreation. Hence the relations of parents and children are the focal point of the whole kinship system. The affective discrimination of own parents and owns children are the psychological counterpart of the differentiation of descent lines within the lineage and of segments within the family. Mother&s;s rights have the moral basis and sanctions, at bottom, as paternal rights and duties, th…
The Functions of Kinship
Siblings in The Social Structure
Tallensi make a distinction between kinship that implies a difference of generation, summed up in the concept dɔɣam , and kinship that implies identity or equality of generation, summed up in the concept mabiirat . The key to the social relations of siblings in Tale society and to the effects on the whole social structure of the sibling bond is the principle to which Radcliffe-Brown has given the name of &s;the social equivalence of siblings&s;. …
Tensions in the Parent–Child Relationship
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Tale parents&s; relations with their children is the recognition, in custom and belief, of the latent antagonism behind their mutual identification and comradeship, their devotion and co-operation. The avoidances of first-born children are not the only customary expression of the tension between the generations. A man and his oldest child do not eat together. Eventually, when the son&s;s older children ar…
The Genetic Development of Parent–Child Relationships
A boy&s;s social development is a process of gradual advance along lines laid down in early childhood. As he grows older he grows more and more proficient in the economic skills he began to acquire in childhood and better versed in the details of his culture. If children are asked about their attitudes to their parents they always say that they do not &s;fear&s; their own father as much as they &s;fear&s; their father&s;s older brother. In partic…
The Web of Extra-Clan Kinship
The statement that extra-clan kinship ties are relationships between individuals, or between individuals and corporate groups has to be qualified. This description represents native thought and behaviour more accurately than generalizations about the classificatory extensions of the primary relationship. A person describes his or her mother&s;s brother as his or her ah?b (pl. ah?bnam), and is described as ah?? (pl. ah?s) irrespective of sex. Ther…
Introductory
The central subject of the first part of the analysis of Tale social structure was the lineage system. The attention was fixed on the permanent large-scale framework of the society in relation to which individuals behave primarily as members of corporate groups. All politico-ritual offices are vested in particular maximal lineages or clans. These are the basic units of Tale social organization that emerge in corporate activities. In this scheme o…
Grandparents and Grandchildren
The essential feature of the relationship between grandchild and grandparent is that they can tease and joke with each other and each other&s;s spouses. Grandparents are addressed by personal name or, in the case of grandmothers, by the clan name used for them by their affines. The death of a grandchild is felt as a heavy blow by grandparents of both lines. But they do not have to undergo special mourning rites as parents have to. A grandparent d…
The Moral Basis of the Relationship of Parent and Child
When Tale parents are asked what the special difficulties they had to overcome in rearing their children, they always mention sickness first. In many ways the ritual relationships of the Tallensi with the spirits of their parents give a truer insight into the parent–child bond than their visible behaviour towards one another. It is the axiom, clearly stated by the natives and apparent also in Tale values and usages, that the fact of having begott…
The Web of Kinship among the Tallensi
Originally published in 1949, this book takes the analysis of Tale social structure further. It shows how the patriarchal principle regulates domestic life and thus moulds individual development among the Tallensi. The analysis of the inter-connexion of Legal, econoic and personal relationships sheds new light on the general problems of social organization in patriarchal societies, both in Africa and elsewhere.
Clanship and Ritual Collaboration
The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi
Originally published in 1945, this book analyses Tale social structure at the level of corporate group organization. Tale culture is discussed primarily as the content of social relations and not in its own right. Customs, beliefs, conventional usages, religious values are examined as indices of social relations. Although not a comparative study, it is clear that many features of Tale social organization are typical of patrilineal societies in We…
Dynamics of Clanship among the Tallensi
Oedipus and Job in West African religion
What strikes us, then, is the criteria by which a person's evil Prenatal Destiny is diagnosed. Proof that it is working itself out in an evil way is the victim's irremediable but involuntary failure to fulfill the roles and achieve the performance regarded as normal for his status in the social structure. It would not be going too far to say that the Tallensi define a person as being afflicted by an evil Prenatal Destiny if he turns out to be inc…
Kinship and the Social Order
One of the world's most eminent social anthropologists draws upon his many years of study and research in the field of kinship and social organization to review the development of anthropological theory and method from Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) to anthropologists of the 1960s. It is the central argument of this book that the structuralist theory and method developed by British and American anthropologists in the study of kinship and social o…
Pietas in Ancestor Worship
Reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 91, pp. 166-191, 1961. Meyer Fortes was born in South Africa and received his professional degrees from the University of Cape Town and the University of London. Originally trained as a psychologist, he turned to anthropology under the influence of C. G. Seligman and Bronislaw Malinowski. He is William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology and a F…
African Political Systems
This introduction to the Routledge Classics edition of African Political Systems, originally published in 1940, provides valuable context for understanding the enduring significance of this anthropological work. Edited by Meyer Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard, the book presents a comparative study of eight African societies, exploring their political structures and functions. The introduction highlights the book's innovative approach at the time …
Kinship and the Social Order.
Originally published in the UK in 1970. The central argument of this book is that the structuralist theory and method developed by British and American anthropologists in the study of kinship and social organization are the direct descendants of the researches of Lewis Henry Morgan. Re-examining Morgan's work, the book demonstrates how a tradition of mis-interpretation has disguised the true import of Morgan's discoveries and ideas for Rivers and…
The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi
Originally published in 1945, this book analyses Tale social structure at the level of corporate group organization. Tale culture is discussed primarily as the content of social relations and not in its own right. Customs, beliefs, conventional usages, religious values are examined as indices of social relations. Although not a comparative study, it is clear that many features of Tale social organization are typical of patrilineal societies in We…
Malinowski and the Study of Kinship
African Political Systems
This introduction to the Routledge Classics edition of African Political Systems, originally published in 1940, provides valuable context for understanding the enduring significance of this anthropological work. Edited by Meyer Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard, the book presents a comparative study of eight African societies, exploring their political structures and functions. The introduction highlights the book's innovative approach at the time …
The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups1
Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations
The Web of Kinship among the Tallensi
Originally published in 1949, this book takes the analysis of Tale social structure further. It shows how the patriarchal principle regulates domestic life and thus moulds individual development among the Tallensi. The analysis of the inter-connexion of Legal, econoic and personal relationships sheds new light on the general problems of social organization in patriarchal societies, both in Africa and elsewhere.
Oedipus and Job in West African religion
Food in the Domestic Economy of the Tallensi
The hinterland of the Gold Coast north of the 10th parallel N. Latitude is a land of sparse forestation lying within the Sudanese Zone. The continuous plains, the monotony of which is, in the dry season, broken only by scattered trees, occasional patches of low bush or a low range of hills, have been described as belonging to an 'Orchard bush' type of country. The Tale settlements occupy an area of some 200 square miles, immediately north of the …
Religion, Morality and the Person
1. Divination: religious premisses and logical techniques 2. Prayer 3. Ritual festivals and the ancestors 4. Ancestor worship in Africa 5. Ritual and office 6. Totem and taboo 7. Coping with destiny 8. Custom and conscience 9. The first born 10. The concept of the person
An Anthropologist's Apprenticeship
African Political Systems
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Marriage in Tribal Societies
Descent, Filiation and Affinity
Descent, Filiation and Affinity
Ashanti Survey, 1945-46
The Negro Family in British Guiana
Time and Social Structure and Other Essays
Totem and Taboo
Ritual Festivals and Social Cohesion in the Hinterland of the Gold Coast
Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process an Investigation in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast
Opening ParagraphIn considering the effects of the contact between African societies and European civilization, one is apt to forget that the exploitation of Africa by Europeans began more than five centuries ago. To trace the consequences of this long intercourse between Africa and Europe is a legitimate and worthwhile task. But is it a task for the social anthropologist? Previous contributors to the present symposium have emphasized the necessi…
Casting Out Anger
Psychosis and Social Change among the Tallensi of Northern Ghana
Fortes Meyer, Mayer Doris Y. Psychosis and Social Change among the Tallensi of Northern Ghana. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 6, n°21, 1966. pp. 5-40
Rules and the Emergence of Society
Of Installation Ceremonies
The Significance of Descent in Tale Social Structure
Opening ParagraphThe Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast furnish data of special interest for the study of comparative social structure among the peoples of West Africa. Large as the ethnographic literature on West Africa is, it is singularly lacking in analytical data concerning social structure. Some of the most useful collections of ethnographic information on West African peoples thus lack the foundation without which a coh…
Radcliffe-Brown's Contributions to the Study of Social Organization
T T is astonishing to conclude from some of the reviews of this selection of Professor Radcliffe-Brown's essays and papers [I] that there are professional sociologists who owe their Srst acquaintance with his work to this publication. For it can be categorically asserted that each of the papers here reprinted has been a major landmark in the growth of social anthropology over the thirty years since the publication in I924 of the famous Mother's B…
Some Aspects of Migration and Mobility in Ghana
A Study of Cognitive Error
R ésumé . UNE ÉTUDE DES ERREURS DE COGNITION. Létude des erreurs de cognition, bien que trop souvent négligée, peut jeter beaucoup de lumière sur les processus normaux de la cognition. Dans cet article on examine, en rapport avec trois explications théoriques de l'erreur, les erreurs commises par des élèves dans un test d'intelligence perceptif. Les résultats démontrent que les types d'erreur, qui se manifestent dans une situation donnée de cogni…
Notes on Juvenile Delinquency
Notes on Juvenile Delinquency
The Influence of Position in Sibship on Juvenile Delinquency
JUVENILE delinquency, like crime in general, is a complex social phenomenon, the outcome of a large number of contributory factors. This much has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt, as may be gathered from any up-to-date text-book of criminology.2 Ranging in an interlinked hierarchy from crude economic conditions such as poverty or bad housing to subtle disturbances of personality which defy scientific classification, these factors have b…
The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland
The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland Get access The Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland. By R. S. Rattray, (Oxon), of the Gold Coast Political Service. With a chapter by D. Westermann. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1932. 2 vols., pp. xxxii and 604; 158 illustrations and a map. 45s. net.) M. FORTES, PH.D. M. FORTES, PH.D. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume XXXII, Issue CXXVI, January 1933,…
Ritual Festivals and Tribal Cohesion in the Hinterland of the Gold Coast
Food in the Domestic Economy of the Tallensi
The hinterland of the Gold Coast north of the 10th parallel N. Latitude is a land of sparse forestation lying within the Sudanese Zone. The continuous plains, the monotony of which is, in the dry season, broken only by scattered trees, occasional patches of low bush or a low range of hills, have been described as belonging to an 'Orchard bush' type of country. The Tale settlements occupy an area of some 200 square miles, immediately north of the …
Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process an Investigation in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast
Opening ParagraphIn considering the effects of the contact between African societies and European civilization, one is apt to forget that the exploitation of Africa by Europeans began more than five centuries ago. To trace the consequences of this long intercourse between Africa and Europe is a legitimate and worthwhile task. But is it a task for the social anthropologist? Previous contributors to the present symposium have emphasized the necessi…
Ritual Festivals and Social Cohesion in the Hinterland of the Gold Coast
A Note on Fertility among the Tallensi of the Gold Coast
The Significance of Descent in Tale Social Structure
Opening ParagraphThe Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast furnish data of special interest for the study of comparative social structure among the peoples of West Africa. Large as the ethnographic literature on West Africa is, it is singularly lacking in analytical data concerning social structure. Some of the most useful collections of ethnographic information on West African peoples thus lack the foundation without which a coh…
Ashanti Survey, 1945-46
Land Law and Custom in the Colonies
Journal Article Land Law and Custom in the Colonies Get access Land Law and Custom in the Colonies. By C. K. Meek, Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, and lately of the Administrative Service, Nigeria. With an Introduction by Lord Hailey. 1946. (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press. 83⁄4′′ × 51⁄2′′. xxvi + 337 pp. Index. 21s.) Meyer Fortes Meyer Fortes Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Inter…
Kingship and the Gods
The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups1
Radcliffe-Brown's Contributions to the Study of Social Organization
T T is astonishing to conclude from some of the reviews of this selection of Professor Radcliffe-Brown's essays and papers [I] that there are professional sociologists who owe their Srst acquaintance with his work to this publication. For it can be categorically asserted that each of the papers here reprinted has been a major landmark in the growth of social anthropology over the thirty years since the publication in I924 of the famous Mother's B…
African Political Systems
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Culture and Human Fertility
Culture and Human Fertility
The Negro Family in British Guiana
Descent, Filiation and Affinity
Descent, Filiation and Affinity
Oedipus and Akhnaton
Oedipus and Job in West African Religion
Pietas in Ancestor Worship
Sociology (39 obras) · History (33 obras) · Geography (21 obras) · Anthropology (20 obras) · Political science (20 obras) · Psychology (20 obras) · Genealogy (19 obras) · Philosophy (14 obras) · Archaeology (13 obras) · History (13 obras)