Joyce who was Assistant in the Department of Ethnography at the British Museum and Secretary of the Anthropology Society. Ethnologists dealt descriptively with specific cultures; those of non-literate groups. Anthropology was the study of humans/humanity; cultural and physical characteristics, customs and social interaction. In the 19th century, people in Britain and Europe were getting more involved in the discussion of evolution and the social, moral and scientific place of different groups of people within the world, yet like the entry by the A. D.
E, it shows the opinion at the time as being a biast and racist view of the African people who were culturally different to their ‘civilised’ European neighbours and thus inferior. Joyce’s text was an entry on ‘Negro’ in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the purpose of which is to convey accurate and detailed information about many diverse subjects to the public, and written by specialists in that field. It is fair to say that the continuous use of ‘negro’ and ‘native’ only implies Joyce’s unprofessionalism, lack of cultural understanding and uneasiness to accept the African people as equal in any area of life.
The African people are compared to ‘a child’, and having ‘servant dog-like fidelity’, which was the general opinion being portrayed and accepted by the Western people at the time. This is now not only considered a highly racist view but it shows the lack of understanding of different cultures which didn’t fit into the cultural ‘norm’ in Britain and Europe at that time, and how this incorrect and distorted information was used to build walls instead of bridges between people.
The Essay on The Adaptation of the Inuit (Eskimo) People: Cultural and Biological
The Adaptation of the Inuit (Eskimo) People: Cultural and Biological The Inuit people are also known as Eskimos. They have lived in the Artic area; the Tundra, where the climate is cold and too severe for trees to grow, for over a thousand years. Over the thousands of years living in the Artic environment, the Inuit people have adapted culturally and biologically. Among the biological adaptations, ...
Joyce continues in his tone of suppression and degradation of the African people with his clinical explanation of his supposed supporting evidence to his theories of the African inferiority to white people; only if the ‘natives’ are ‘given suitable training’ can they hope to rival their white European counterparts. It is also made clear that the level of craftsmanship that had been shown in Africa could only be achieved with the influence and guidance of white people, completely ignoring any notion of the skill being practised many years before utsiders came to the land, again alliterating the apparent dependence of the primitive natives on their civilised and modern white scholars. In conclusion, the entry is a one sided argument, in which there is no mention of its credibility or any reference to physical or solid evidence which could be concluded as being neutral or fair in the discussion of African culture and civilisation.
Misleading and distorted information given by persons of highly respected stature, played a major role in the racist view of the Western world towards the African people, given rise to the belief that they were inferior to white people and could not be expected to progress into a ‘civilised’ society without influence from the ruling and dominant white governments. The African civilisation had many different social practices and beliefs to that of Europe and Victorian Britain, and this text goes a long way to show how people who did not convert to traditional or conventional ideas were represented in a negative and inferior light.
