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The Myth of the Noble Savage

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This engaging history of the Noble Savage theme, purportedly the creation of Rousseau, traces the source, history, and misuse of the myth of this curious being, absolving Rousseau in large measure of the dastardly deed of fiction. At a time when this myth is being recycled by sociobiologists, a.k.a. 'evolutionary psychologists' (cf. Pinker's The Blank Slate) for reasons some have tsktsked as ideological, this book hits the spot for comprehensive debriefing of the entire lore, starting with the real inventor here, Lescarbot in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France, written in 1609: because all Mi'kmaq men practiced hunting, enjoying a right that was restricted by law to the nobility in Europe, Lescarbot drew the comparative conclusion that 'the Savages are truely Noble'. There you have it. The author notes, "...the title refers to a living, contemporary myth that most of us accept as fact, and because the myth itslef deceives us by claiming to critique and offer an expose of another 'myth', the existence of Savages who were really Noble. The purported critique typically examines ethnographic or theoretical writings on 'savage' peoples to problematise any potential claims to their 'nobility'. The supposed expose asserts that the 'myth' of savage nobility was created in the nineteenth century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau...the real myth, in other words, is what we have been deceived into thinking is the reality behind the myth..."
Excellent and detailed study, very useful from many aspects, with many vignettes of early racist anthropologists, and much else.
Jean-Jacques lives...

Much information with random connections. Can this music teacher really comprehend our ways? He seems to think he's got it all figured out, but maybe instead he should write less and make more music. Some noble drumming might make a savage out of him too.