Abstract
IN another column of this issue of NATURE (see p. 1003) it is suggested in discussing ‘indirect rule’ of native peoples in Africa that the anthropological approach to problems of native administration is open to the danger of taking too conservative a view in the attempt to regulate the effects of cultural contacts. How this is to be avoided, without at the same time impairing the lessons of anthropological study, is the main thesis of an essay by Mr. F. C. Williams, Government anthropologist of the Territory of Papua, which was awarded the Wellcome Medal for Anthropological Research by the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1933 (“The Blending of Cultures: an Essay on the Aims of Native Education”: Territory of Papua, Anthropology, Report No. 16. Government Printer, Port Moresby. Pp. 46. Is.). Mr. Williams, whose conclusions, necessarily, are largely coloured by his experience in Papua, points out that, rightly regarded, the problems of native education and native administration are one. Education, thus understood, he maintains is a process of three operations, or “tasks” maintenance, fostering necessary or desirable elements in native culture; expurgation, eliminating undesirable elements, such as sorcery, cannibalism and head-hunting; and expansions, which, while recognising that change is inevitable, seek to guide it by the incorporation of progressive elements which native culture is ready to assimilate, as, for example, improved methods in horticulture. It will be noted that this throws upon the administration the responsibility of formulating a ‘blend’ of cultures, which is both conservative and progressive, and will not prove detrimental to native character and morale. This demands an intensive study of native culture, but at the same time one which the successful administration of native affairs in Papua has shown to be not impossible.
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Education and Administration among Backward Peoples. Nature 136, 1019 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/1361019b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1361019b0