Claude Lévi‐Strauss Meets Alexander Goldenweiser: Boasian Anthropology and the Study of Totemism

Contrary to some recent overviews of the “Boas school” (e.g., by Marvin Harris and Derek Freeman), Boasian anthropology was far from unified even on a single subject: totemism. Although more recent thought on this subject stems from Lévi‐Strauss, Alexander Goldenweiser's corpus on totemism anticipates Lévi‐Strauss's formulations. This corpus included ideas that altered in the course of Goldenweiser's career, and these alterations were differently received by his “Boasian” contemporaries. It seems likely—though details of the process are unclear—that Goldenweiser's ideas “diffused” to Lévi‐Strauss.