The Primitive

The intellectual tradition of anthropology takes shape in the 1860s according to British anthropologist Adam Kuper the invention of the primitive society: transformations of an illusion.Primitive man is the legitimate and defining object of study for which professional anthropology was created.

Sir Henry Maine defined the distinction between primitive and civilized as ascribed and acquired status.Primal promiscuity,the precedence of matriliny over patriliny and matriarchy over patriarchy defined the primitive.From this speculative construct both the character of the primitive -its identification with living people and the specialist field of anthropology begin.The concept of the primitive was expanded by Sir Edward Tylor.Tylor saw living primitives as relics of earlier stages of human existence.