ABSTRACT
The accounts and testimonies of G. de Ruysbroeck (1294–1381), J. de Léry (1534–1613), A. Thevet (1502–1590), J. Thévenot (1633–1664), and Lafiteau (1681–1746); the anthropological reflections of Montaigne (1533–1592) and Enlightenment thinkers; the founding of the Société des observateurs de l’homme; and the publication of Considérations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l’observation des peuples sauvages [Reflections on the Various Methods to be Followed in the Observation of Primitive Peoples] (1800) by J. M. de Gérando (1772–1842): all of these factors could have permitted France to make early progress with a vigorous programme of anthropological research, whereas in reality it was rather late in the day before such research got underway. Mauss complained of this in 1913:
Such missions as were recognized by the state were nonetheless carried out thanks to the generosity of individual benefactors, and those led by Prince R. Bonaparte, Bourg de Bozas, Créqui-Montfort and Sénéchal de Grange, among others, yielded outstanding ethnographic results, from which institutions like the Musée du Trocadéro and the Muséum greatly profited. But ethnography as a whole led a Cinderella-like existence. Although abundantly represented in the Commission des Missions, it was neglected in favour of other, more established and well-endowed areas of learning: its budget for the last thirty years does not exceed what is granted to archaeological studies in a single year [...] in contrast to the federal government of the USA with its Bureau of American Ethnology.
(Mauss, 1969 (1913): 395–435)