ABSTRACT
Columbus's "discovery of America" is a myth, the kind of myth that anthropologists have studied for more than a century. Bronislaw Malinowski, a prominent British-resident anthropologist, termed myths like the one crediting Columbus social charters. Columbus, in the myth, "opened a New World" for exploitation by the major European powers of his day. The myth of Columbus is a story of an Italian working for Spain, dealing with Portuguese, and challenged by other Italians working for England. The myth of Columbus's discovery of a new world enabled the science-minded to put forth the Americas as a natural experiment, where the varied degrees of progress seen among American First Nations replicated similar differing stages of progress observed in Africa, Asia, Australia, and rural Europe. Postcolonial anthropology cannot accept either the myth of Columbus the discoverer of a hidden new world, or the myth of progress.
