May 2014
Beginner
376 pages
13h 21m
English
In explanations of culture, the uninvited guest, who is always pointedly avoided, is the human mind.
—Claude Lévi-Strauss
In To Take Place (1987), Jonathan Z. Smith begins his consideration of “theory in [not of] ritual” with reference to a citation by Claude Lévi-Strauss of a certain “native thinker” who had commented that “[a]ll sacred things must have their place.” Smith also cites Lévi-Strauss’ comment on this citation, “that being in their place is what makes…[things] sacred” (Smith 1987, xii; Lévi-Strauss 1966, 10). In his note to this passage, Smith acknowledges that Lévi-Strauss’ source for the “native thinker,” Alice Fletcher’s ethnography of the Pawnee ...
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