Rousseau, Levaillant, Marais

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva, was an 18^th century philosopher and writer. Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist and ethnologist, called Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Inequality the beginning of anthropology. This was stated partly because of it's self-questioning stance and partly because “of its consideration of links between human and primate behaviour” (Glenn 62). Levi-Strauss sees Rousseau as the founder, while other researches argue that Rousseau can be seen as the first Enlightenment figure, supposing that there is a link between particular species, “the relation between apes and men” (Glenn 63). Rousseau tried to find the missing link between primate and man in his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (Glenn 63). Rousseau speculated that travellers who claim to have seen primates that look like men might have been confused and seen animals instead of men, these travellers might have judged simply on external characteristics (Glenn 63). There are sections in Rousseau's Discourse that developed the idea that to move away from being savage to a more civilised state it involves “a complex economy of sensory, psychological and social losses and gains” (Glenn 64). This sense of lost capacities and possibilities influenced both Levaillant and Marias (Glenn 64).

The French explorer Francois Levaillant, an 18^th century travel writer, was a pioneering figure in South African ornithology, zoology, and ethology as well as in anthropology (Glenn 65). Levaillant worked from what he found in the field, he felt that Rousseau had a false and distorted view of the Hottentots. Levaillent attacks Rousseau's work and views of the Hottentots and he criticised Rousseau for “relying on second-hand accounts” from other writers (Glenn 66). However, Levaillant's self-justification in the “prière d'insérer” saw himself as agreeing with Rousseau's challenge in finding a “philosophy that travels” (Glenn 66). Levaillant seemed to describe African people without prejudice and shared another view with Rousseau, the idea of the “Noble savage” and the condemnation of civilization. Levaillant had a relationship with a Khoekhoe woman in Gonaqua called Narina, his relationship with her would be frowned upon and seen as social unacceptable in the later colonial period. “Levaillant's legacy to South African literature of the nineteenth century was generally as a political critic of colonialism” (Glenn 70). Levaillant was able to see the Hottentots and Gonaquois as completely human, this meant that he worked with “the conventions of classicism to depict black bodies as beautiful” (Glenn 70).

Eugene Marais, a South African poet, writer and naturalist, is well-known for his contribution to Afrikaans literature although, he is little less know for his contribution to science. His book, Souls of the Ape, “aspires to the high detached scientific tone,” which echoes Freud as Marais recounts various experiments he performed in hypnosis (Glenn 72). Marais' 19^th century reading of Darwin created a scale that put blacks closer to baboons and was inevitably racist (Glenn 72). His central concern of his theory of ethnology and anthropology was “the cost of the transition from savage man to civilised, animal to human” (Glenn 73). Marais saw that there was an inherent weakness in the stage of development and way of life for the Bushman (Glenn 73). It is ironic that in his chapter “Addiction and Depression” - Marais comments that the Bushman “may be closer to him, or the universal condition, than the cynical exploiters” (Glenn 74). Marais discovered the Waterberg Cycad which was also named after him (Encephalartos eugene-maraisii). Marais is also known as the first person to study the behaviour of wild primates.

The main theme in the late 19^th century literature “is the tension between high pretension and 'the horror' of primal drives and forces” (Glenn 75). Marais can be seen as being closer to Rousseau's work than Levaillant, in the sense of the movement of man from primate to savage (Glenn 75). Rousseau, Levaillant and Marais share different and similar findings in their work about the 'savage man'. It is interesting to note that although some saw the Hottentots as human, they were never seen as fully human.

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Marais

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Levaillant

Works Cited:
Glenn, Ian. “Primate Time: Rousseau, Levaillant, Marais”. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, 18.1 (2011): 61-77. Print.