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This thirst for objective knowledge is one of the most neglected aspects of the thought of people we call ‘primitive.’ Even if it is rarely directed towards facts of the same level as those with which modern science is concerned, it implies comparable intellectual application and methods of observation. In both cases the universe is an object of thought at least as much as it is a means of satisfying needs. Every civilization tends to overestimate the objective orientation of its thought and this tendency is never absent. When we make the mistake of thinking that the Savage is governed solely by organic or economic needs, we forget that he levels the same reproach at us and that to him his own desires for knowledge seems more balanced than ours.
(Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind)In this chapter we will be concerned in the first instance with a single text—The Savage Mind (1966)—as a means of picking out the threads of continuity across Lévi-Strauss’ writings on kinship, totemism and myth. Thus, the first half of this chapter will constitute a pause, a moment for reflection for the purpose of looking back across the seemingly disparate and diverse territories we have traversed.
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