Anthropology, culture and play

Inaugural lecture--Department of Anthropology, Rand Afrikaans University, 16 June 1969Anthropology, being a study of peoples and of their cultures, makes use of two broad methods of approach: a descriptive method, and a comparative or theoretical method. These are fully complementary, and equal attention should be paid to both in the teaching of anthropology. To illustrate this point, this inaugural lecture discusses the activity of play by first describing the play of the Pedi, and on this basis attempting a cultural theory of play. It is maintained that the improvised individual play, and the culturally defined games, should be seen as one process of human activity. Play follows on an inborn drive that man shares with animals, but in human culture it takes on a form that is different from other cultural activities, and provides an escape from the daily demands of cultural conformation. As an activity that is performed for its own sake, the element of play is to be found in many of the other cultural activities, but there exists a specific inherent coherence between play, art, and science. The point is made that these three activities arise from the same inborn drive