Global Journal of Human Social Science, D: History, Archaeology and Anthroplogy, Volume 23 Issue 3

During his studies under Westermarck, Gunnar Landtman met Haddon in England, and he wrote in the introduction to Haddon´s monograph “many years ago, my old friend Dr. Gunnar Landtman came to see me in Cambridge and, after the initial greetings, he said that he would go, wherever you want me to go” (Haddon, 1927: IX). Landtman went to New Guinea to stay among the Kiwai during 1910 and 1912. Landtman´s fieldwork was early in the process we are studying, and it may be true that “Landtman carried out intensive fieldwork as the first European anhropologist among the Kiwai. He was in Melanesia almost five years before Malinowski and practiced the method of participant observation” (Soukup, 2010: 47) but, as the author does not distinguish Melanesia from New Guinea, it is true that “it is the first monograph dedicaed to any of the genuine Papuans in that territory” (Seligman, 1928: 496-97) – and many aspects of his ethnography have been praised, while others have been severely ctiticized. George W. Stocking is only a conditional admirer of Landtman´s anthropology, even if he admits that it is “the closest approach to Malinowski”, he speaks of, “the flatfoodedly descriptive and rather clumsily titled Kiwai Papuans of the British New Guinea: A Nature-Born Instance of Rousseau’s Ideal Community ” (Stocking, 1992: 31). Malinowski praised the book: “Profesor Landtman has written one of the best descriptive books on one of the most interesting peoples of the world. The Kiwai islanders, that are described in this volume, belong to the Papuan culture, which constitutes the link between the Australian aborigenes, the Melanesian culture, and the Indonesian”, he especially liked the sociological analysis of kinship, of totemism, of the ways of government and justice (Malinowski, 1929: 109) There is an abundance of photos of Landtman himself, that show him as a genuine European colonialist, with his jacket, his khaki trousers and his kepi tropical helmet and boots, and his description that covers a wide specter of topics, of material culture as well as of “spiritual” themes, with a certain emphasis on buildings and the interior of living quarters. It is interesting to take note of this extremely European genteman, perfectly dressed for his activities on the edge between armchair and field anthropology, showing a certain interest in men´s comunal house and also in several details in sexual customs, leading him to discover a kind of homosexual rites, which has been the point of departure for a recent epidemic of anthropological studies of sexual life in the región. Maybe it is not a coincidence that one of Landtman´s articles about the Kiwai has been published by Margaret Mead as part of her studies of sexual bahvior in the región. Landtman´s almost exclusive dedication to description, limiting theoretical analysis to an absolute mínimum – and still worse, declaring his confidence in evolutionary theory – can be summed up in the soursweet words of a protegee of Haddon, Camila Wedgwood: “Dr. Landtman has confined himself to pure description. He refrains from theorizing as to the meaning of those things which he recounts or as to the cultural affinities of his people and other tribes of New Guinea” (Wedgwood, 1929). Back in Finland, Landtman was elected to represent the “Swedish Popular Party”, and we have to remember that the situation was very similar to that of Poland: neither of the two countries existed yet as independent states. Finland was a Swedish colony, in much the same way as what tody is Poland, where Malinowski was born in 1884, in his days was a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But, as we are coming close to the complicated relation of nationalism with the prehistory of Malinowski´s ethnography, it is a curious coincidence that, while Malinowski in a belated fit of nationalism exposed his solidarity with his Pollish fellow countrymen against Hitler´s oppression, Landtman joined the party of the Swedish colonialists. III. T he F inns in L ondon We anthtropologists are known for our enthusiasm for gossip, and it is an interesting experiment to work with other “real” scientists, who present their observations in tables and diagrams, with a mínimum of gossip, whereas we insist on presenting our observations in the shape of “tales”. We love to tell how “Malinowski praised Frazer when he wrote in English, but critizised him severely when he wrote in Polish”, and similar stuff. And maybe this propensity to gossip also characterizes practitioners of the historical discipline, for whom gossip is metamorphosed into “cultural history”, or even history of mentality. We may be able to extend our gossip to another two themes: in the first place, about the gang of Finnish scientists and artists who lived in Bloomsbury in London, exactly in the times of Virginia Woolf and, in the second place, about the spiritual leader of this gang of Finnish bohemians: the Finnish sociologist Edward Wedstermarck, who has a certain relevance for the early history of British anthropoogy. The central person in this group of Finns was Edward Westermarck, who was already then a well known sociologist who had studied in Finland and after that had settled down in London, and it is safe to asume that Edward Westermarck represented the Finnish influence in British anthropology and sociology. It may be that the most learned and least Bohemian was the Finnish political scientist Rudolph Holsti, who at one time participated in Malinowsk´s seminar in the London School of Economics. At another time he would be State Secretary in Finland´s © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue III Version I 59 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 D Gunnar Landtman (1878-1940)