The paper argues that Claude Lévi-Strauss’ thought was influenced by Marcel Mauss’ works in a much deeper way than has been remarked in the literature. Far from being restricted to Lévi-Strauss’ seminal 1949 work on The Elementary Structures of Kinship Mauss’ constitutive impact can already be found in Lévi-Strauss’ early ethnographic studies (starting in the mid-1930s). Moreover, it can be shown that decisive theses and arguments of Lévi-Strauss’ later thought – ranging from the anthropology of kinship to classification theory and the specifics of the “savage mind” – are clearly prefigured in these early texts. In the end, the arguments presented here do not only call into question the well-known and widespread portrayal of Lévi-Strauss as a solitary scientist and “born structuralist” but also show how the specific interpretation of Mauss by Lévi-Strauss directed and restricted the further reception of Mauss’ works.
