A note on the use of the term “primitive”: Thompson uses the term primitive in several instances in this section and in the article as a whole. One of the first instances is at the beginning of section two where he wrote, “It is well known that among primitive peoples the measurement of time is commonly related to familiar processes in the cycle of work…” (58) Primitive is a word that most people–and especially most scholars–now avoid since it invokes an older, discounted framework of thinking about the world’s population in terms of civilizational and evolutionary stages (i.e. primitive being less advanced than modern peoples). The term was still very much in use when Thompson wrote this article. However, it should be noted that Thompson’s own use of the term primitive is a bit complicated and ambivalent, for while he does use the term “primitive” to describe non-European populations that would have been commonly thought of as less advanced during the mid-twentieth century , he also uses the term to refer to early modern Europeans. Moreover, Thompson is does not necessarily use the term in a derogatory way. Indeed, Thompson has serious reservations about “modern” life, especially under modern industrial capitalism, and at times even has an almost nostalgic tone for the practices of “primitive” populations who have not come under the sway of modern industrial capitalism. As you read, think carefully when he uses the term in order to consider what it being conveyed by the term.
In the passages of this section, E.P. Thompson is drawing on a wide range of ethnographic accounts collected by European anthropologists in the early and mid-twentieth century, the period when anthropology became a field of study based on field experience and ethnography. These practices were facilitated by the fact of European powers (and especially Britain and France) were colonial powers; anthropologists and anthropology was thus linked to the colonial project. Thompson ready widely among the work being produced by British and French anthropologists.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973), A British anthropologist who was among the first to do ethnographic research in Africa in the early twentieth century, helping to advance the field of social anthropology. His research focused primarily on religion, though he also studied political organization. He is best known for his work, The Nuer (1940).
The Nuer: An Nilotic ethnic group living in the Nile Valley area, mainly in South Sudan. Thompson would have known about their practices largely from reading the work of E.E. Evans-Pritchard, an anthropologist who had lived among the group and studied the group their practices, including their cosmology.
The Nandi: Another African ethnic group, the Nandi live in East Africa in the Rift Valley region.
Cross River: A major river in southeastern Nigeria.
credo: A statement of religious belief and also a part of the Catholic mass. Here Thompson is thinking about instances when people would have measured a period of time by comparing it to the length of time that it would have taken this section of mass to be completed.
Ave Maria: A Catholic prayer also known as the Hail Mary. The Ave Maria is part of the set of prayers the comprise the Rosary. Note how Thompson uses the Ave Maria and the credo to show how religious practices (length of a prayer, length of a mass, etc) were ways of measuring the length of times in religiously-oriented societies.
Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002): A French anthropologist whose initial field work was among the Kabyle people in the French colony of Algeria in North Africa. He is best known for his theorization of habitus as a set of embodied thoughts and practices. He later became a leading figure in the school of post-structuralism.
Kabyle peasant: A rural member of the Kabyle people, a Berber ethnic group who lived in the northern part of Algeria.
John Millington Synge (1871-1909): An Irish writer and collector of folklore from Ireland and Brittany. He collected the folklore of the Aran Islands, a chain of islands off the coast of Ireland, while recovering from illness in the late nineteenth century.
“natural”: On page 60, Thompson uses the term natural but puts them into what we frequently refer to as scare quotes in order to indicate a word whose meaning should be critically analyzed. In the passage Thompson writes, “in a similar way labour from dawn to dusk can appear “natural” in a farming community…” By placing natural in scare quotes, Thompson is asking the reader to stop and think about their own assumptions about what is really natural. Is it, indeed natural for farmers to work from dawn to dusk–or is this merely a social convention or a reality of farming life driven by economic demands? By placing the term in scare quote–as he will throughout the piece–Thompson is asking the reader to stop and think about what is really innate or natural about the way we organize our time and labor. For him, I think, most of these are actually social and cultural conventions that came to be naturalized (i.e. take on the appearance of being innate and natural). Once naturalized, certain habits and traits can be very hard to militate against, but the claim is that “it is just human nature.” Thompson, in contrast, is arguing strongly for the social constructed-ness of human nature.
crofting and fishing community: Largely a reference to Scottish rural communities, especially in the Highlands and the Isle of Skye, that practiced a combination of fishing and subsistence farming.
Stephen Duck (1705-1756): An English poet of a modest rural background. He is best known for his 1730 poem “The Thresher’s Labor” about field labor. Thompson is drawing on Duck’s poem because it offers a rare example of a worker (and agricultural worker) who was able to reflect on and comment on the work that he performed.