Roger Bastide ou l'anthropologie des gouffres.

Abstract

In an article written in 1959, R. Bastide said that the anthropo logist who hears the call of primitive civilizations is as it «were charmed by the abysses». For R. B. himself this call took the shape of mystic search and led him in 1938 to Latin America where for sixteen years he applied himself to apprehending the Other, listening and attempting to be accepted to do this he went so far as to share the Others existential experience of the Sacred. Upon his return to France, R. B. treated this empiric material theoretically and elaborated new religious Anthropology around two major poles; 1) religions are to be considered as systems of symbols which must be apprehended in their living unity as total cultural activity ; 2) religion is to be treated like any other social fact, as something that changes while it continues resisting and resists while it continues changing.