Obituary
120. Claude Levi-Strauss
Nov 12th 2009 From The Economist print edition

Claude Levi-Strauss, anthropologist, died on October 30th, aged 100

120-1-557
BEFORE Claude Levi-Strauss revolutionised the discipline, anthropology in France, and generally elsewhere, was a matter of ill-attended lectures in small, cold halls, and the collection of feathers and fish-hooks as evidence of the quaint divergences of the "primitive" tribes of mankind. He made it as fashionable as philosophy and poetry, both of which he wove through his ethnographical studies as perhaps only French intellectuals can. The proper study of mankind was indeed man: not in his politicking, warring or banking, but naked, painting his body, hunting bears, snaring birds. Here lay the universal truths about how the human mind worked and what man was.

Obedient to Rousseau, who always "set him aflame", Mr Levi-Strauss observed men from afar. He never got too near or stayed too long in his rare stints of field-work, mostly in Brazil in the 1930s he grasped only a few words of the languages, and avoided the "hateful" distractions of individual characters. In the bitter phrase of Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom he sparred for years, he preferred to view men like ants. He focused not on their differences but on the deep-lying patterns and systems in everything they did, until he could proclaim that all tribal myths were reducible to one formula, and that all human thought, "savage" or not, was built up from binary opposites such as hot and cold, night and day, raw and cooked, good and bad. Round these concepts whole societies, as well as stories, were organised.

A. 어휘
obituary 사망기사. anthropologist 인류학자.
revolutionise 근본적으로 바꾸다, 혁명하다. discipline 학문.
ill-attended 출석률이 낮은. lecture 강의. collection 수집.
feather 깃털. fish-hook 낚시 바늘. evidence 증거. quaint 진기한.
divergence 별종, 逸脫(일탈). primitive 원시적인. tribe 종족, 部族(부족), 一族(일족).
weave-wove-woven 누비면서 지나가다, 천을 짜다, 조립하다.
intellectual 지식인. ethnographical 민족지학적. cf. ethnography 民族誌學(민족지학).
proper study 진정한 연구, 순수한 연구. snare 덫(올가미)으로 잡다.
universal 보편적인. obedient 순종하는, 순응하는.
aflame 불타는, 열정적인. stint 절약, 할당된 일, 정량, 제한.
field-work 현장연구. grasp 이해하다, 붙잡다. distraction 주의 산만, 정신산란, 오락.
individual characters 개별적 특성. bitter 辛辣(신랄)한, 쓰라린, 지독한.
phrase 말투, 語句(어구). spar 논쟁하다, 서로 주먹질하다.
proclaim 선언하다. myth 신화. reducible 축소할 수 있는. 約分(약분)할 수 있는.
formula 공식. savage 야만족. binary 둘의. opposite 반대의 것, 逆(역).
binary opposites 二項對立(이항대립). raw and cooked 생식과 조리한 식품.
concepts 개념.

120-2-558
Mr Levi-Strauss, throwing down the gauntlet in "La Pensee Sauvage" in 1962, saw nothing primitive about the tribes he studied. Totemism, for example, was a system as complex as the Linnaean classification. In tribal myths, apparently diverse and arbitrary elements-eruptions by lizards and woodpeckers, the significance of black arrows or the artemisia plant-were suddenly revealed to have a universal unity at their heart, a quest for objective knowledge and origins as acute as any in the West. The minds behind them were not savage, just "untamed". The salient difference was that his tribesmen stayed within their limits, simply putting the materials they had together in new ways, like handymen or bricoleurs. "Civilised" man, on the other hand, tried to defy his constraints and change the world with new inventions, like an engineer.
The world needed both these types, said Mr Levi-Strauss. And he embodied both. He too hopped from subject to subject like a bricoleur, discarding philosophy for its arid moralising, giving up law out of sheer boredom, vaunting socialism until it tired him, turning to anthropology as if he was still a fascinated boy in a curio shop. He abandoned theories like scorched earth in the forest. But the far-sighted engineer in him set up a "laboratory" at the College de France, where he held the brand-new chair of social anthropology from 1959 to 1982, and produced the four huge volumes of "Mythologiques" (1964-71), in which he tracked 813 myths the length of the American continent. He happily called himself both "neolithic" and a man of science.

A. 어휘
gauntlet 긴 장갑, 笞刑(태형). throw down the gauntlet 도전하다.
primitive 원시적인. tribe 部族(부족). Totemism 토템신앙. complex 복잡한.
Linnaean classification 린네식 생물분류법. myth 신화.
apparently 분명히. diverse 다양한.
arbitrary 任意(임의)의, 恣意的(자의적)인, 제멋대로의.
elements 자연현상, 성분, 원리. eruptions 분출물, 감정의 폭발, 분출.
lizard 도마뱀. woodpeckers 딱다구리. significance 의미, 중요성.
artemisia 쑥 屬(속)의 식물. reveal 감추어진 것을 알리다, 啓示(계시)하다.
universal unity 보편적 통일성(불변성, 일관성). quest 추구.
objective 객관적인. origin 기원. acute 예리한, 深奧(심오)한.
savage 야만적인. untamed 길들여지지 않은, 훈련받지 않은, 야성의.
salient 두드러진. handymen 잡역부, (자질구레한 일을) 무엇이든 잘하는 사람.
bricoleurs=handymen. constraints 제한, 속박.
embody 구현하다, 정신에 형체를 주다. hop 깡충깡충 뛰다.
discard 저버리다, 포기하다. arid 무미건조한, 不毛(불모)의, 마른.
sheer 순전한, 완전한. boredom 지루함, 倦怠(권태).
vaunt 자랑하다, 과시하다. anthropology 인류학. fascinated 매혹된.
curio shop 골동품 가게. abandon 버리다. theories 학설.
scorched earth 불에 탄 흙, 焦土化(초토화) 상태(전술).
far-sighted 先見之明(선견지명)이 있는, 먼 데를 잘 보는.
brand-new 아주 새로운. chair 대학의 강좌, 교수. volume 책.
track 추적하다. neolithic 신석기 시대인.