The Ethnological Theory of Marcel Mauss*

Abstract

M ARCEL MAUSS is probably best known in the United States as the author of Essai sur le don (1925). His other work is less well known, and his position as a leading figure in French sociology for over half a century is largely ignored. Mauss recently died (1950), and, in keeping with a tradition of our society, it is now time to write about him. However, this paper is not intended to be an obituary, or what Mauss would have called l'expression obligatoire des sentiments, nor will it deal primarily with Mauss' work in French sociology. Rather, the emphasis in this paper will be on those aspects of Mauss' work which have direct bearing on ethnological theory. Mauss was born in Epinal in 1872. He attended the University of Bordeaux, and studied philosophy under Durkheim, Alfred Espinas, and Hamelin. In 1895 he became an Agrg~e de Philosophie, and in 1900 joined the faculty of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at the University of Paris (Lenoir 1950: 306). He assumed his first important teaching position in 1902 when he succeeded Leon Marillier as head of the course called L'histoire des religions des peuples non-civilises. Mauss taught this course until 1930 at the ]Ecole Pratique des Hautes etudes, and after 1930 taught the same course at the College de France (Levy-Bruhl 1950: 318). Of greater significance, at least in terms of his influence on French ethnology, was Mauss' work at the Institut d'Ethnologie. This institution was founded at the University of Paris by Mauss, Paul Rivet, and L6vy-Bruhl in 1926, and Mauss taught and served as joint director at the Institut until 1939 (Levi-Strauss 1945: 510). While it is probably as a teacher that Mauss' influence was greatest, the courses that he taught and the way he taught them can only be understood in terms of his participation in another enterprise-the publication of the Annie sociologique. This journal was founded by Durkheim in 1898, and was dedicated to the promulgation of doctrines which have come to be known as French sociology. From the beginning Mauss was an integral member of the tightly knit group which published this journal, and after Durkheim's death (1917) it was Mauss who succeeded him as director. Other members of the original group included Paul Fauconnet, Henri Hubert, F. Simiand, Henri Beuchat, Maxime David, and Robert Hertz. As an indication of the close collaboration between the members of this group, it is worth noting that practically all of Mauss' early work was written in conjunction with another