Jaime De Angulo Quotes

“The scientific descriptions of ethnology that we find in books are inevitably dry and do not give the least impression of the mysterious world of the Achumawi, whose life is so inextricably mixed in with the animals, the trees, the plants.
But without forming some mental picture of that life, it is, I believe, almost impossible to understand how and to what extent the Achumawi Indian finds himself in a state of direct mystical connection with the universe that surrounds him.
Now that is precisely his religion, and his entire religion.” — Jaime de Angulo
from
"Tracks Along the Left Coast"
by Andrew Schelling”
― Jaime de Angulo

“The scientific descriptions of ethnology that we find in books are inevitably dry and do not give the least impression of the mysterious world of the Achumawi, whose life is so inextricably mixed in with the animals, the trees, the plants. But without forming some mental picture of that life, it is, I believe, almost impossible to understand how and to what extent the Achumawi Indian finds himself in a state of direct mystical connection with the universe that surrounds him. Now that is precisely his religion, and his entire religion.”
— Jaime de Angulo

Appears in the introduction of "Tracks Along the Left Coast" by Andrew Schelling”
― Jaime de Angulo

“You say that to (Franz) Boas science is "austere and impersonal." You know, that is just the thing that gets my goat. They have managed to take all the life out of science. Why be ashamed of the joy and the exaltations that are the blood of knowl-edge? Why pretend that you have no emotions? In another century they will look aghast at the funereal aspect of our science. They will say: those people were doing penance for something! ... We have driven our libido underground.”
— Jaime de Angulo, written in a letter to his friend and mentor, the linguist Edward Sapir

(Appears in the introduction to "Tracks Along the Left Coast" by Andrew Schelling)”
― Jaime de Angulo