Abstract
DR. RIVERS has re-discovered the Todas. This curious little nation, long known to us as an isolated social abnormality, in which the dairy industry takes the place of religion and matrimonial safety is found in a plurality of—husbands, now appears to be both much more and much less than this. As a descriptive monograph in ethnology the book is a remarkable achievement, but it is, perhaps, most significant on account of its method. The social sciences are at a disadvantage in that they are not exact, as physical and mathematical sciences are exact; but the present work is a proof that anthropology is attaining such exactness as the nature of the subject allows. This means a good deal, as anyone may see who compares the present monograph with the earlier accounts of the Todas. The testing of the evidence and the verification of fact have been arried out in the most pertinacious and patient manner, and the general method followed is new enough in its application to deserve the epithet original. To the superficial reader little trace of this laborious preliminary process may be revealed, but the work will justify itself by remaining unsuperseded. It struck me as interesting that the account is compiled in such a way as to show itself in the making, that it is an organism, revealing its own evolution.
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CRAWLEY, A. An Anthropologist among the Todas . Nature 75, 462–463 (1907). https://doi.org/10.1038/075462a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/075462a0