Salvage anthropology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Salvage anthropology, related to salvage ethnography, is a term referring to the practice of collecting and documenting in the face of presumed cultural decline. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, salvage anthropology influenced collectors of all kinds, including those interested in music, material culture, and osteology. Ideas connected to salvage anthropology influenced how cultures were written about and documented through a wide range of publications and popular exhibitions.
When the term was coined in the 1960s, it referred mainly to archeological efforts to find cultural information before an area was obliterated by the construction of reservoirs, power plants, or roads, or before land was leveled for irrigation.[1] These projects were often conducted under time restrictions, based on when the area was slated for destruction.[1]
Despite the origins of the term, "salvage anthropology" is most frequently used to describe Euro-American attempts to “preserve” Native American culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the term "salvage anthropology" did not emerge until later, a widespread belief in the eventual extinction of Indigenous societies drove widespread efforts to document, record, and collect.[citation needed]
Vanishing Race Theory
Beginning in the Jacksonian Era, many Americans subscribed to the belief that Native Americans were "vanishing". Despite the fact that governmental actions, including the forced removal of the Cherokee from Georgia via the Trail of Tears, had much to do with the declining population of Native Americans in the Eastern United States, leading American thinkers shifted the causes of “disappearance” to the Indians’ own destiny to give way to whites.[2] In addition to the belief that Native Americans would physically vanish due to forced migration, disease, and war, Americans also held the belief that Indians would "culturally" vanish through contact with whites and forced assimilation.[3] Because of this belief, Euro-Americans took on the responsibility of externally preserving the cultural memory and traditions of Native Americans, particularly through collecting tribal objects.