On the other hand, institutions devoted to the civilized and uncivilized also
diVered, in that the number and weight of the latter was signiWcantly less
relevant. Despite their symbolically important presence, it is important not to
lose perspective regarding the limited extent to which the state cared for the
institutions dealing with the primitive past. The eVort invested in the creation
of knowledge about the past of the uncivilized was notably less marked than
that spent on the major civilizations. The higher consideration given to
monumental archaeology led to its more permanent presence in the colonial
landscape. Yet, even museums of natural history were built with imposing
architecture, symbolizing national prestige and civic pride, with designs
inspired in classical temples, ‘which carried connotations of dignity, antiquity,
and permanence’ (Pyenson & Sheets-Pyenson 1999: 138).
REDEFINING THE PRIMITIVE—DISPOSSESSING
THE INDIGENEDuring the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, primitive societies had been
described as noble savages. The imagined native was seen as hostile but
courageous, physically powerful, fearless, unconquerable, and fair-minded.
This image remained present during the early nineteenth-century Romantic
movement but was re-worked within the cultural evolutionist framework in
the 1860s and 1870s in the context of European expansionism, New Imperi-
alism, and exultant nationalism. In contrast to the Enlightenment, in the
second half of the nineteenth century primitive societies were increasingly
described as ignorant, backward and uncivilized. In addition, in the same way
as nations and empires, language, blood, soil, and political might became the
base to imagine non-state societies (Kuper 1988: 9). The general public and
most learned individuals believed that non-European cultures were biologic-
ally and socially inferior and that, due to the recent contact with Western
civilization, they were prone to inevitable and immediate extinction through
natural selection (Trigger 1989: 116) if not through other cruder means. The
belief in the imminent disappearance of the primitives would be a long-lasting
tenet, especially among conservative commentators. As late as 1906 the
Englishman General Pitt-Rivers asserted that ‘the savage is morally and
mentally an unWt instrument for the spread of civilization, except when, like
the higher mammalia, he is reduced to a state of slavery; his occupation
is gone; and his place is required for an improved race’ (1906 in Bradley
1983: 6). Similarly, the German Fritz Noeting, with respect to the extinction
of Tasmanians, also commented that ‘it is regrettable that the intensely
Archaeology of the Primitive 311