History and Culture: Essays on the Work of Eric R. Wolf

61 Pages·2002·10.895 MB·English

by  J Abbink (editor), H. Vermeulen (editor)

Eric R. Wolf is a central figure in HISTORY
contemporary comparative and
historically informed anthropology.
His work, such as his callfor and
reconsideration of the c'ulture concept,
has a continuing importance for current CULTURE
debates on anthropological theory.
The present book, neither Festschrift
nor hagiography, takes up several of
on the work
his central ideas, then to discuss or ^Essøys
apply them in the analysis of spet'ffic
of Eric R. WoIf
cases. The articles altogether give a
clear picture of Eric Wolf and his
contr ibution to anthropological and
historical thinking.
.1. Altlink, H. Verm(ul¿n (editnr.)
Het Spinhuis Publishers
isbn 90-73052-f9-X
Het Spinhuis
Eric R. Wolf is a central figure in HISTORY
contemporory comparative and
historically i nformed anthropology.
qnd
His work, such as his call for
reconsideration of the culture concept,
has a continuing importance for current CULTURE
dehates on anthropological theory.
The present hook, neither Festschrift
nor hagiography, takes up several of
Essøys on the work
his central ideas, then to discuss or
apply them in the analysis of specific
of Eric l?. WoIf
cases. The articles altogether give a
clear picture of Eric Wolf and his
contribution to anthropological and
historical thinking.
.1. Ahhink, H- Verme.ul¿n (editor.s)
rsBN 90-73052-19-X
Het Spinhuis Publishers
ililtllililtilililtiltl
isbn 90-73052-f9-X 9
Het Spinhuis
HISTORY
øìrd
CUHURE
.Ebsøys on the work
R
of Eric Woï
ud
Jan Abbhh, Hans Vernad¿n (editoß)
Het Spinhuis 1992
Table of contents
Introduction
1
IanAbbìnk and Hans Vermeulen
CIP-DATA KOMNKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK DEN IIAAG
Beyond the bounds ofanthropologr 5
Anton Blok
Capitalism and tactical power in Eric Wolfs theory
of peasant levolt' in revolutionary situations 2L
RodAya
Rome and the þeoplewithout history' 31
Ian Slaftra
ISBN 90-73052-19-x
Slave raiders and their þeople without history' 53
Walter EA. van Beek
ocoplrright l9l2 H.et Spinhuis Amsterdam
Economy and society in southwest Ethiopia.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form The emergence of the'Tishana' 7t
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
JanAbbink
recording or any information storage or retrieval systern, without a
written permission from the copyright owner. Epilogue 95
IanAbbínk
Postscript 107
Eric R. Wolf
Selected bibliography of Eric R. Wolf 109
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Cover desþ: Jos Hendrix
Lay-out
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Printed in The Netherlands
Introduction
IanAbbink and Hans Vermeulen
This volume consists of essays and studies by authors inspired by the work of
Eric lVolf, a central figure in contemporary anthropology and currently
Distinguished Professor at Lehman College, City University of New York.
Preliminary drafts of some of the present contributions were presented at a
one-day conference held at the University of Amsterdam, at which time it was
decided to publish them together with related essays.
By way of introduction we comment briefly on each of the contributions, in part
to indicate recurring points of discussion and controversy evoked by Wolf's work.
Wolf's ideas have permeated anthropology. The present book, neither
Festschrift nor hagiography, picks up several of his central ideas and discusses
them (Blok, Aya, the Epilogue) or applies them in the analysis of specific cases
(Slofstra, Abbink, Van Beek). \Volf's Europe ønd the people without history
(1982) receives special attention. This is not surprising, in view of its central
theoretical importance for a comparative and historically informed anthro-
pology. But Wolf's influence is not confined to anthropology, as the article by
Jan Slofstra on Rome and the peoples on its periphery illustrates.
The opening article is a succinct and clear overview of some of Wolf's major
themes and insights and contains revealing biographical notes on Wolf. Anton
Blok describes the genesis of much of Wolf's analytical focus and thinking, as
related to the latter's fieldwork experience in Central America and in Europe.
As an introductory chapter it is especially valuable because Blok quotes
copiously from unpublished interviews and letters in which Wolf clarifies
certain ideas of his, especially those concerning the necessarily interdisci-
plinary character of the anthropological endeavor. Blok makes us aware of
Wolf's own pioneering role in this respect.
The contribution by Rod Aya presents a careful and theoretically interes-
ting analysis of two well-known arguments Wolf offers in Peasant wars of the
twentieth century (1969). The first is that in revolutionary situations peasants
- since they are primarily subsistence cultivators - defend themselves first and
foremost against the spread of the capitalist market-principle and the insti-
tutions which they perceive as connected with it. The second generalization
says that'tactical power' is a decisive factor inpeasants revolutions. Aya checks
these generalizations against historical evidence and finds the first one false
and the second corroborated. He commends Wolf for his tacit application of
the 'rationality principle' or - to use Thomas C. Schelling's term - the method
2 History and culture Introduction J
of 'vicarious problem-solving' (based on Popper's situational logic; cf. popper themes and idioms differ. Van Beek suggests that these are not simply the
1974,2: 97,265 and 1,972: 178-79). Wolf himself might be surprised to be product of ecology and external history; they should be understood as rooted
associated with this tradition, which holds that every cogent explanation in the in the distinct systems of cultural meanings.
social sciences makes use of situational logic and meets the formal require- These last three contributions underscore the need to reconsider the
ments of covering-law explanations. The idea of situational logic has been organizing concepts of anthropological inquiry. We are thinking of basic
advocated before in anthropology (e.9. Ian Jarvie 1964;1972) but in general concepts such as'culture','society' and'modes of production'. Although key
it has not had much impact. Aya deals more extensively with this approach in concepts such as these can be helpful in specific cases they can stand in the
his arresting Rethinking revolutions and collective violence (1990). way when analyzing others. Already in Europe and the people without history
In the second part of this book three case-studies are presented. The first Wolf called for a reconsideration of the culture concept. In subsequent years
one, by historian Jan slofstra, is a study of the 'fronti er' zone of the Roman he published articles dealing with the concepts of 'culture' (1983; 1986),
empire and illustrates the heuristic value of wolf's perspective in Europe and 'society' (1988), 'ideology' (1986) and 'power' (1990). These writings point up
the people without history in a special way. Slofstra analyzes the relationship Wolf's continued importance for current debates on anthropological theory.
between the Roman imperial state and the northern Germanic'fringe peoples'
in terms of wolf's model and arrives at a theoretically informed interpretation
*
of an important epoch in the late ancient period of Northern Europe. The author We owe muchto RodAyafortrunslatingsome of the anicles inthis volume, to Hannie
demonstrates the analytical use of unifuing theories like that of wolf in Hoel<stra for conecting the manusctipt, and to Atie Patijn and Hannie Hoel<stra for
'anthropologizing' certain historical developments which for so long have been typing it.
the almost exclusive territory of descriptive historians (despite an emergent
blurring of disciplinary boundaries). His conclusion that worf's general and, in
a narrative sense, rather effective typology of modes ofproduction (kin-ordered, References
tributary and capitalist) may nor always be sufficient to explain specific
articulations and transitions, especially in non-capitalist societies, can be taken Aya, R.
to heart, without invalidating the heuristic use of this-typology. 1990 Rethinking revolutions and collective violence. Studies in concept, theory ønd ntethod.
The contributions by walter van Beek and Jan auuint are primarily Amste¡dam: Het Spinhuis.
ethnographic. Essentially they both ask the question of the status of ,culture' Jarvie, I.C.
in a macro approach such as wolf's: Is it only a'reactive'phenomenon, always L9& The revolutiott in antbopologt London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
initiated and conditioned by politico-economic forces? Does it have an 1972 Concepts andsocæry. London: RoutledgeandKeganPaul.
analytically relevant dynamism of its own, apart from the emic view that it is Popper, K. R.
important for the members of 'a culture'? In recent interviews (with Ghani L1997742 OThbeje ocptiveen ksoncoiwetlye dagned. Oitsf reonrde:nCtliaerse.LnodnodnoPnre: sRso.utledge and Kegan Paul,2 volumes.
and Friedman) wolf appears to be much interested in such questions regarding ÍLe4sl
the status and definition of 'culture' and .ideology'.
Wolf, E. R.
Jan Abbink treats an episode of the ethnogenesis of a people who came to 1982 Europe and the people witltout lusrory. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of
be known as Tishana, a southeast surma-speaking group in SouthernEthiopia. California Press.
Abbink traces the group's itinerary as they migrated to a different political- 1983 'Culture: Panacea or problem?',4rnericm Antíquity 49:393-4M.
ecological niche. It appears that, next to global historical factors, elements of L986 'Cultura e ideologia: Un ensayo dedicado a Angel Palerm'. In: Susana Glantz (ed.),
La heterodoxia recuperada: En tonto a Angel Palenn,358-59. Mexico-City: Fondo de
local cultural traditions remain active in shaping an emerging ethnocultural Cultura Economica.
group in its interaction with the wider society, especially with the culturally 1988'Inventing societt'.Ameican Etltrtologist L5l. 752-6j,.
and politically dominant Amhara. 1990 'Distinguished lecture: Facing power. Old insights, new questions'. American
van Beek presents an interesting comparison between the Dogon and Anthropologist 92: 586-96.
Kapsiki of west Africa. He concludes that the culture and society of both are Wo1l9f, 8E4. R R. e(elid$.o)n, power and protest itr local comnumities. Berlin: Mouton.
much influenced by interaction with the great Muslim empires of the area.
Their ecological setting, too, is largely similar. Nevertheless, the cultural
Beyond the bounds of anthropolory
Anton BIak
Univercity of Amsterdam
This sketch of Eric 'Wolf will be somewhat personal, since reading his work
and the contacts that followed upon it have strongly influenced my ownwork
as an anthropologist.
I first heard of Eric Wolf in 1963, when I worked as a teaching assistant in
the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. With my
colleague Mart Bax I looked for literature from which we could learn
something about anthropological research on complex societies, in particular
studies of peasants in Europe and elsewhere. At the time this was still a new
field and the subject did not enjoy much prestige in the Netherlands, where
anthropology long remained identified with the study of tribal peoples and
exotic cultures outside Europe.
Our endeavours also brought us to the writings of Eric Wolf. A footnote in
Redfield's Peasant society ønd culture led us to Wolf's article on the typology
of peasants in Latin America (1955b). Subsequently we read his comparative-
historical essay on ritual kinship (Mintz and Wolf 1950), his article on
corporate communities in the New World and Indonesia (1957), and his
seminal essay on cultural brokers (1956b). In an academic environmentwhere,
with some important exceptions, such narrowviews of anthropologyprevailed,
we felt encouraged if not justified in combining history with anthropology and
focusing on European peasantries.
What appealed to us in Wolf's writings more than in the work of other
scholars on peasant societies - was his theoretical use of the idea that peasant
communities formed an integral part of larger, complex societies. What
happened on the local level among peasants had to be understood in terms of
both the larger economic and political forces working from the wider society
on those communities, and the reactions of the local population to those
outside forces. Apart from his comparative and historical approach, what
impressed us was his style, the clarity and vigour with which he raised new
questions and dealt with old problems in new ways.
Wolf's articles were pathbreaking and they are still important, fore-
shadowing a historical anthropology of complex societies. In fact, they have
been reprinted several times in various collections (e.g., Potter et al. 1967;
Shanin 1971), and can be considered as the prolegomena to Wolf's magnum
opus Europe and the people without history (1982). Some passages from those
6 Beyond the bounds of anthropolog 7
articles remained in our heads; still others we used to read to each other, like sciences you could study at a university. From his mother and grandfather,
the one on the role of.culturalbrokzrs: exiled at the turn of the century, he heard stories about Siberia, and avisitwith
Communities which form part of a complex society can thus be viewed no longer his mother to an exhibition in Vienna on Eurasian art taught him that there
as self-contained and integrated qntems in theirown right.Itis more appropriate could be something like 'Eurasia' and 'Eurasian'. In the library of his father
toviewthem as the local terminiof aweb ofgroup relationswhich extendthrough he found books on African art by Frobenius.
intermediate levels from the level of the community to that of the nation. In the When he was ten years old, his family moved to Sudetenland where for a
community itself, these relationships may be wholþ tangential to each other.
time his father managed a textile factory. Living in this region where Germans
The study ofthese 'brokers'will prove increasingly rewarding, as anthropolog- and Czechs confronted each other made him sensitive to problems of class and
ists shift their attention from the internal organization of communities to the ethnicity. The next year, the family passed the summer in the Val Gardena, a
. cmruacninael rj uonfc tthuereirs inotre gsryantaiopsne si notof rlealragteior nssyhsitpesm sw. hFiochr tchoenyn setacnt dt hgeu alorcda ol vseyrs ttehme tourist area in the ltalian Tyrol. Even a schoolboy could understand that ethnic
to the larger whole. Their basic function is to relate community-oriented and nationalist bonds were no less important than those of class and formal
individuals who want to stabilize or improve their life chances, but who lack citizenship. About those weeks in northern ltaly, Wolf wrote forty years
economic security and political connections, with nation-oriented individuals afterwards:
who operate primarily in terms of the complex cultural forms standardized as It was an eventful summer outside the valley: Ernst Roehm and his left-wing
national institutions, but whose success in these operations depends on the
National Socialists were slaughtered by Hitler in June, and in July, Chancellor
size and strength of their following (1956b: 10F.5,1075-76)-
Dollfuss of Austria was assassinated in Vienna by the Nazi underground. The
I quote these passag es in extenso because the perspective which Wolf here Gardena, by contrast, seemed idyllic in its peacefulness; yet one could feel
opens up would remain largely unrecognized if not anathema for at least a undercurrents ofhostilitybetrveen the inhabitantsof thevalþandofficialdom
generation of anthropologists. In the writings of Leach and Barth and Bailey's of a Fascist Italy bent on their forcible acculturation (Cole & Woll 1974: 4 r.
work on Europe, for example, attention to the larger economic, political and In 1938 Eric and his parents left for England. They settled in Didsbury near
historical context of the local communities they have studied is under- Manchester, and Eric went fot two years to an English school, called Forest
emphasized or virtually lacking. Only in the 1970s, these anthropologists have School, in rural Essex. He learned English and as he remembered almost fifty
on this point been criticized (cf. Asad 1972; Friedman 1974). As Silverman years later: 'I learned a lot there. It was a good school. I discovered natural
castigated Bailey in this regard: 'One would have hoped that the day was science and the theory of evolution' (Friedman 1987: 108; cf. Ghani 1987:
passed w-hen¡rnthropologists set out to do village studies in Europe without 349-50). Already in the summèr of 1940 Eric was placed in an alien detention
thoroughly faùiliarizing themselves with the historical background and non- camp near Huyton, not far from Liverpool. Later, he wrote about his
anthropological literature on their areas' (1974: Il4; cf.. Hofer 1968; i970). experience:
This note brings us to the study of Mediterranean societies. When preparing The camp was located in an unfinished housing project, taken over for the
for my second field study in Sicily in the spring of 1965, I learned from Jeremy occasion. The half-built houses, onþ partiallyfitted withwindows anddoors, were
Boissevain about a new book by Wolf on peasants which was due out the next supplemented with army tents; the gentle English rain quickly turned the tenting
year. If I wanted to read it beforehand, I could write the author and ask him area and unpaved roads into mudflats and rivulets. Food was scanty, consisting
for a copy of the manuscript. After some time I received a mimeographed mostly of a watery soup in which swam an occasional disintegrating piece of fhh
hr
version of Peasants, and Wolf told me in a letter about the 'Michigan or meat. a l7-year-old it was all great tun; for most of the other inmates it was
a disaster. Most of them were Jewish refugees from the Continent; the camp
Mediterranean Studies Group'. Several of his former students were involved
commander was quoted as saying that he never knew that so many Jews were
in this project, and two of them, Jane and Peter Schneider were preparing for Nazis. Internment, for them, came on top of expulsion or flight from their
research in Sicily. In the fall of 1965 I had a chance to meet Eric Wolf, who en homelands. Many lapsed into despair; a few took theirlives (1977:?ß-29).
route from the Tyrol to the United States, had stopped in Sicily to visit the
Schneiders. One day, in the company of Peter Schneider, he came up to the To make life in the camp somewhat bearable, a group of anti-fascist 'politicos'
organized meetings for discussion, musical performances, and lectures. For
village where I was working to see 'how a Dutchman managed to get by in the
Sicilian mountains'. Who was this friendly and modest person? Eric a new world opened up. Apart from giving his own first lecture (about the
For Eric Wolf, born in Vienna in 1923 as a child of an Austrian father and work of his then intellectual heroes J.B.S. Haldane and Julian Huxley), he was
introduced to Marxist literature and attended two lectures by Norbert Elias
a Russian mother, anthropology has always been more than one of the social
8 History andculnre Bqond the bounds of anthropologt 9
- one on social relations and the other on monopolies of power - which made a York for the Columbia University Research in Contemporary Cultures, a
great impression on him. l¿ter that summer he was dismissed from the cÍunp and project directed by Ruth Benedict (Cole & Wolf 1974: 4-5; cf. Silverman 1981.:
put on a ship with his family bound for the United States (d. Wolf 1977: 29-30). 65, 180-81; for the influence of Elias, see Wolf 1964a: 16-17;1977).
In New York, Wolf enrolled in Queens College and spent the summer of 1941 Initially Wolf had prepared himself for fieldwork in Southeast Asia, in
at the Highlander Folk school in eastern Tennessee. The quality of the teaching particular lndonesia. But he went - with Sidney Mintz - to Puerto Rico as part
at Queens was 'absolutely fabulous'. His teachers included carl Hempel for of Steward's research project for the Caribbean, because that venture could be
philosophy. wolf tookseveral coursesinvarious disciplines, butcouldnotdecide funded. The research was carried out during 1948 and 1949, and resulted in a
on a major. Heliked ananthropology course onAsia, which he had chosenmore dissertation on plantation economy and laid the basis for Wolf's interests in
or less by chance, and discovered that the discipline about which he had read a peasants and their problems, the study of power, class, and patron-client
great deal also had a name (cf. Ghani 1987:352; Silverman 1981: 65). relationships (Wolf 1951; 1956a;1966q'1966b; cf. Silverman 1979: 59-63). His
ln t942 Wolf enlisted in the American Army: 'To be drafted would mean bent for comparative and historical analysis ofthese subjects was already evident
ending up in a unit I might not like; volunteering meant that you could make in 1950 when he published, together with Sidney Mintz, a long essay on ritual
your own preference known.' He joined the Tènth Mountain Division, and kinship, the significance of which he discovered during his fieldwork in Puerto
after his training at the Division's center in colorado was sent to Italy with Rico (Mintz and Wolf 1950). To give an idea of the importance Wolf attached
this unit to confront Germans in TÌrscany. In combat at Monte Belvedere he to the fieldwork experience, I will quote part of a correspondence we had on a
received a head wound and for a time could see with only one eye. But passage from his book Anthropology. In that book he writes that one has to
impaired vision did not prevent him during his convalescence at a hospital in understand a culture in the first place in terms of itself, not in those of theoretical
Livorno from reading all kinds of books, including the works of Jack London or practical schemata imposed on it from the outside (Wolf 1964a: 21). In a letter
andPlato's Republic. (dated October 17, 1966, Ann Arbor, Michigan) he added to that passage:
After the war Wolf returned to New York. At Queens Cotlege his education Probably we can agree on the meaning of the passage rnAnthropologt illtry
was supervised by anthropologists Hortense Powdermaker, Kimball young, to clarifu a bit was I was after. I should have been more precise in drawing a
and Joseph Bram. Thanks to credits for war experience (e.g., map-reading) he distinction between theory and practice here. Of course the anthropologist
completed the requirements for his undergraduate program in one semester. goes into the fìeld with a whole series of concepts which allow him to order
Now he had a major, and Powdermaker recommended Columbia University the data he collects; and of course he must translate the idiom of the culture
for graduate anthropology. About that choice he remarked in a interview: he studies into his own. There is, however, still an intermediate term: the field
experience. This presents him - or, rather, should present him - with data that
I went into anthropolog¡r partly on the basis that I had money from the army he has not previously thought about and that he must come to grips with in
to go and do something, and I had decided after four years ofbeing in the army two stages, first experientially, and only secondly conceptually. I was simply
that that's what I wanted to do. But I wasn't sure that that was going to work trying to argue that the field worker must be open enough to the world that
out. And if it hadn't I would have done something else. I did not come to he is trying to investigate to allow strange and novel impressions to impinge
anthropology with a fixed idea of what I wanted to accomplish. Some of it is on him - otherwise he would simply be filtering local material through cate-
purely accidental (McBride 1980: 130). gories that are already crystallized. This happens frequently enough, especially
in the work done by sociologists. Perhaps I can cite an example. I had read
When Wolf began graduate anthropology at Columbia in 1946, his teachers about the institution of compadrazgo (coparenthood of the same child through
included Ruth Benedict and Julian steward. But he also learned a great deal a godparent to parent relation) before I went to Puerto Rico. Since people
from fellow students. Together with Stanley Diamond, Robert Manners, noted it merely as a cultural feature without saying much about its function, I
Elman Service, Morton Fried, and Sidney Mintz, Wolf formed a group called was not prepared for the importance of the institution, for the great functional
'Mundial Upheaval Society'. They organized their own seminars and discussed load that it carried. In a sense therefore I discovered it, though nothing in my
previous conceptual apparatus pointed to that discovery; and - as luck would
their research projects, the anthropological literature as well as the writings have it - Sidney Mintz working in another community on the island discovered
of Karl Wittfogel and V. Gordon Childe, and various economic and political it too. If we had worked with the usual categories of analysis on social
issues. Reflecting on this formative period, Wolf remarked: 'What I liked organization, we might have either missed it or not paid too much attention to
about Lattimore's Inner Asian frontieru was what I liked in Wittfogel, the it. Of course, one only sees what one is in a sense prepared to see: after all the
large-scale view of the interrelationships and their dynamics' (Ghani 1987: field worker is the instrument through which we gather data, and the gathering
357). During the years in graduate school, Wolf interviewed Tyrolese in New and interpretation of data is only as fine and good as the instrument is finely
honed and well set up, on the emotional level as well as on the cognitive one.
10 Histoty and culture Beyond the bounds of anthropologt 11
In the interviews McBride had with Wolf in 1980, this thorniest (epistemo- relationships of Mexican life, and embodies the emotions which they generate.
logical) problem in anthropology - how is anthropological knowledge It provides a cultural idiom through which the tenor and emotions of these
possible? - returns. Answering to the questionwhether the problems in anthro- relationshipscanbeexpressed. Itis, ultimately, awayof thinkingaboutMexico:
a 'collective representation' of Mexican society (Wolf 1958: 38).
polog¡l change or are cyclical, wolf believes the latter to be the case, becausewe
got stuck in the problem of emics versus etics. There are various ways to handle Wolf concluded his research on Central America with Sons of the shaking earth
the opposition between emics and etics, but the issue always comes back to us. (1959b), a monograph on the history and culture of Mexico and Guatemala.
A¡e we not dealing then with a pseudo-problem? Wolf suspects we are, since in This is not only an impressive and masterfully written book, but also one of
anthropological research ofgreat quatity both issues coincide and the opposition the few anthropological studies of national states. It includes among other
vanishes. 'There are really two kinds of objectivity: one is letting the phenomena things a fine description of the development of the hacienda, the way in which
speak to you before you bat it over the head; the other is to try and be sure that in these Spanish colonies large commercial landed estates grew out of the
you're not just making it up' (McBride 1980: I29; cî. Geertz L977). encomienda, a prebendal form of domain of Eurasian origin, like the Turkish
After taking his doctoral degree at Columbia University, Wolf went to ilaa (cf.. Wolf 1959: 189; 1966b: 51).
Mexico, where he studied ecological problems in the Bajío area and concerned In 1960, Wolf returned to Europe for fieldwork in the Italian Alps. What
himself with the formation of states and national identity. wolf has already brought him to the mountain villages of St. Felix and Tiet in the province of
explored these issues in graduate school, as appears from his historical-anthro- Bolzano were not only practical considerations, but especially the problem of
pological analysis of Islam as a catalyst of Arab state formation processes (wolf national identity and the how and why of ethnic conflicts and loyalties. These
1951a).In Mexico he worked together with Angel Palerm and Pedro A¡millas, questions had intrigued him for a long time: as a child in Vienna, northern
who brought him in touch with new developments in archeology. Bohemia, and the Tyrol, as an inmate of a British camp for refugees, as a soldier
Subsequently, Wolf worked at the University of Illinois (1952-55), where once again in the Tyrol, as a graduate student in New York, and as an
he continued with Steward his Mexican studies. In those years he wrote an anthropologist in Central America - but for which he had never found a
essay on nation formation in Mexico (wolf i953) and a number of articles satisfactory answer. Located in similar ecological niches and on both sides of
(some of them together with Angel Palerm) on the history and ecolory of the language border separating a German-speaking and a Romance-speaking
various Mexican areas (cf. Palerm&Wolf 1954;Wolf&Palerm 1955; 1955a; population, these villages offered the possibility of systematic research on both
Palerm&Wolf 1957). In this period he also worked on the essays mentioned national character and ethnic contrasts (cf. Cole & Wolf 1974:5-8).
before, in particular his typology of Latin American peasants. This article The common features of St. Felix and Tiet resulted to a large extent from
appeared in the American Anthropologist of 1955, after having been rejected their physical-geographical conditions. The striking differences in settle-
several times by Herskovits because of its perspective. It was only accepted ment pattern, farm management, inheritance, kinship structure, authority,
and published after the journal had a new editor. The article was a first attempt political organization, migration patterns, urbanization, and military tradi-
to form an analytical concept of peasants (cf. Silverman 1979: 62-63). tion turned out to be closely connected with the political history of the area
While Wolf taught at various universities (Virginia 1955-58; Yale 1958-59; and the way in which the communities were tied to two different larger
and Chicago 1959-60), he continued his work on Mexico and summarized his cultural regions (cf. Wolf 1962).
views on that society in a short and brilliant essay: The Virgin of Guødalupe. A In the course of the 1960s, the results of this Alpine study were further
Mexican national symbol (1958). On the basis of a symbol 'which seems to investigated, and Wolf worked together with John Cole, one of his former
enshrine the major hopes and aspirations of an entire society', Wolf sketches students in the Department of Aathropology at the University of Michigan,
a method for the study of national characters. One should not look for things where Wolf taught between 1961 and I97t.In The hidden frontier (Cole and
which members a society have in commoq but rather start from the idea that Wolf 1974), which they composed togerher, Cole wrote the chapters on
in nations, as in other complex societies, people should have at their disposal inheritance and came to slightly different conclusions: the actual inheritance
cultural forms which they can use in their formal and informal relationships. practices in both places were more similar than one would expect on the basis
These cultural forms develop historically, closely intertwined with other of the (ideological) emphasis on partible and impartible inheritance in Tiet
processes bound up with the formation of a nation: and St. Felix, respectively. This book is a fine example of comparative-
The Guadalupe symbol links together family, politics and religion; colonial historical research, combining ethnographic fieldwork with archival work and
past and independent present; Indian and Mexican. It reflects the salient social the study of nonanthropological literature.