patrick.net

Thanks, added that to my reading list.

Rather than attempt to classify societies based on their beliefs, which can be difficult for outsiders to ascertain and which cannot always be translated across cultural lines, Unwin classifies them based on their rites into four categories: zoistic, manistic, deistic, and rationalistic. Unwin defines societies who build temples as deistic (note the architectural definition, rather than one based on beliefs), those who do not build temples but pay post-funeral attention to their dead as manistic, and those who do neither as zoistic. In general, deistic societies have a longer historical memory and display more energy than manistic ones, which in turn have a longer memory and display more energy then zoistic peoples. Rationalistic societies are those which display productive energy; Unwin describes a rationalistic society like so:

(I'm only a bit in and Unwin's challenging of what an animist is vs. a pantheist, etc. to outside eyes, language barriers, 'man on the street/hut' interviews, etc. and his desire to replace that ethnography with simple observation of rites is compelling aside from his sexual arguments)

There is a perfect correspondence between sexual continence and cultural category. All zoistic societies permit pre-nuptial sexual freedom, and all societies that permit pre-nuptial sexual freedom are zoistic. All manistic societies require irregular pre-nuptial continence, and all societies requiring irregular pre-nuptial continence are manistic. All societies requiring pre-nuptial chastity (among women) are deistic, and all deistic uncivilized societies require pre-nuptial chastity. All uncivilized peoples fall within one of these three categories. Every deistic uncivilized society fell within group (4) above (modified polygamy or monogamy); there were no uncivilized absolute polygamists or monogamists. On this basis, Unwin formulates his three secondary laws of culture as such:

The first secondary law is this:

Any society in which complete pre-nuptial sexual freedom (outside the exogamic regulations and prohibited degrees) has been permitted for at least three generations will be in the zoistic cultural condition. It will also be at a dead level of conception if previously it has not been in a higher cultural condition.

The second secondary law is this:

If in any human society such regulations are adopted as compel an irregular or occasional continence, the cultural condition of that society will become manistic. If the compulsory continence be slight, the post-funeral rites will partake of the nature of tendance. If it be great, they will partake also of the nature of cult.

The third secondary law is this:

If in any human society the girls of an uprising generation are compelled to be pre-nuptially chaste, that society will be in the deistic cultural condition. If a zoistic culture be inherited, the same power will be manifest in all temples. If a manistic culture be inherited, different powers will be manifest in different temples.

From a superficial study of the available data it might be thought that the questions of female subjection and parental power are indissolubly allied to that of female continence; but actually their alliance in the past has been due to the chance factor that sexual opportunity has never been reduced to a minimum except by depriving women and children of their legal status.

It is historically true to say that in the past social energy has been purchased at the price of individual freedom, for it has never been displayed unless the female of the species has sacrificed her rights as an individual and unless children have been treated as mere appendages to the estate of the male parent; but it would be rash to conclude that sexual opportunity cannot be reduced to a minimum under any other conditions. The evidence is that the subjection of women and children is intolerable and therefore temporary; but we should go beyond the evidence if we were to conclude from this fact that compulsory continence also is intolerable and therefore temporary. Such a statement, indeed, is contradicted by the tenor of the whole story.

Sadly, Unwin did not live to see the 1960s and did not realize how wrong he was about alternative mechanisms to have both female legal equality and monogramy.

AmericanKulak says

Rather than attempt to classify societies based on their beliefs, which can be difficult for outsiders to ascertain and which cannot always be translated across cultural lines, Unwin classifies them based on their rites

One of the major themes of the book, besides pre-martial sex restrictions being linked to civilizational achievement, is that Ethnographers have totally F**ked up reporting, including the early more based ones. It is impossible now to tell what they actually believed at the time. And it seems that "Everything has a spirit" is a load of shit; the primitives generally assigned "Tabu" or "Hake" or "Spirit" to unusual places like an old strangely-shaped tree, or a large waterfall, or other areas that we would describe as "Weird" or "Ooh-wee-ooh". Nor did animals get assigned "spirit" unless they were unusual (like an albino Caiman or a very large wolf).

The confusion of "Magician" "Magician-Priest" "god/goddess" "Ghost", "Spirit" are seldom defined as what they mean to the group; Unwin makes the excellent point that asking a man-on-the-street in Modern (1930 English in his case) why they believe what they believe is usually difficult and unprofitable; how much more so with savages.

Other tribes were variously described as "Monotheistic" or "Pantheistic" when the evidence provided doesn't validate. In the case of Siberian tribes some of their stories are clearly garbled ideas of Jesus or the Holy Family via a century of contact with Missionaries.

Hence Unwin not looking at "Beliefs" but rather at "Rites". The burial of the dead, the amount of social capital spent on burial, the presence or lack of temples, a formal Priest class, etc. is far easier to qualify and quantify, and therefore preferred to relying on reports of Beliefs.