Benedict, Ruth. 1961 (1934.) Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Table of Contents

A New Preface by Margaret Mead (vii)

Acknowledgements (xi)

Introduction by Franz Boas (xv)

I – The Science of Custom (1)

Custom and behaviour – The child’s inheritance – Our false perspective – Confusion of local custom with ‘Human Nature’ – Our blindness to other cultures – Race-prejudice – Man molded by custom, not instinct – ‘Racial purity’ a delusion – Reason for studying primitive peoples.

II – The Diversity of Cultures (21)

The cup of life – The necessity for selection – Adolescence and puberty as treated in different societies – Peoples who never heard of war – Marriage customs – Interweaving of cultural traits – Guardian spirits and visions – Marriage and the Church – These associations social, not biologically inevitable.

III – The Integration of Culture (45)

All standards of behaviour relative – Patterning of culture – Weakness of most anthropological work – The view of the whole – Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West’ – Faustian and Apollonian man – Western civilization too intricate for study – A detour via primitive tribes.

IV – The Pueblos of New Mexico (57)

An unspoiled community – Zuni ceremonial – Priests and masked gods – Medicine societies – A strongly socialized culture – ‘The middle road’ – Carrying farther the Greek ideal – Contrasting customs of the Plains Indians – Dionysian frenzies and visions – Drugs and alcohol – The Zuni’s distrust of excess – Scorn for power and violence – Marriage, death, and mourning – Fertility ceremonies – Sex symbolism – ‘Man’s oneness with the universe’ – The typical Apollonian civilization.

V – Dobu (130)

Where ill-will and treachery are virtues – Traditional hostility – Trapping the bridegroom – The humiliating position of the husband – Fierce exclusiveness of ownership – Reliance on magic – Ritual of the garden – Disease-charms and sorcerers – Passion for commerce – Wabuwabu, a sharp trade practice – Death – Mutual recriminations among survivors – Laughter excluded – Prudery – A cutthroat struggle.

VI – The Northwest Coast of America (173)

A sea-coast civilization – The Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island – Typical Dionysians – Cannibal Society – At the opposite pole from the Pueblos – The economic contest – A parody on our own society – Self-glorification – Shaming one’s guests – Potlatch exchanges – Heights of bravado – Investing in a bride – Prerogatives through marriage, murder, and religion – Shamanism – Fear of ridicule – Death, the paramount affront - The gamut of emotions.

VII – The Nature of Society (223)

Integration and assimilation – Conflict of inharmonious elements – Our own complex society – The organism v. the individual – The cultural v. the biological interpretation – Appling the lesson of primitive tribes – No fixed ‘types’ – Significance of diffusion and cultural configuration – Social values – Need for self-appraisal.

VIII – The Individual and the Pattern of Culture (251)

Society and individual not antagonistic but interdependent – Ready adaptation to a pattern – Reactions to frustration – Striking cases of maladjustment – Acceptance of homosexuals – Trance and catalepsy as means to authority – The place of the ‘misfit’ in society – Possibilities of tolerance – Extreme representations of a cultural type: Puritan divines and successful modern egoists – Social relativity a doctrine of hope, not despair.

References (279)

Index (287)