Preface

Summary

Although the bulk of anthropological literature is about traditions and traditional societies, there is no such thing as a theory of tradition in social anthropology. As Shils puts it (1981: vii), a book about tradition is very much in need of a tradition. That anthropologists do not generally recognise the need to develop such a theory is in itself a puzzling feature of the discipline. Social or cultural anthropology began as an attempt to describe and understand exotic societies, almost all of which were traditional; the main theoretical constructions were erected to explain typically traditional ways of thinking and behaving. The functional interpretation of myth and ritual and the description of marriage prescriptions as structured exchange were meant to shed light on mainly if not exclusively traditional customs. Trobriand, Zande, Nuer and Navajo, these names used as landmarks in almost every anthropological discussion or speculation, are all names of traditional groups. When trying to uncover the whys and wherefores of strange customs, Malinowski or Evans-Pritchard certainly got the familiar, if exasperating answer ‘we do that because we've always done so’, ‘because that's the way we do it here’, ‘because our fathers told us to’, and so on. This does not concern the legendary pioneers only; although modern anthropology is not ill at ease in modern urban environments, it still is much more geared to describing and explaining traditional ways.