Volume 11 Number 3
May 1972

Robert E. Ritzenthaler

CULTURAL involution is a term introduced to identify the phenomenon of apparent rejection by an individual of the "old ways" as a youth, but adopting them as an adult. More academically-defined cultural involution involves the partial or total rejection of the older generational culture by a member of the younger generation, but his adoption of it as a member of the middle generation. It is most apparent in cultures undergoing acculturation, and it first came to my attention in work with the American Indian.

It is a common lament of the old that the young folks are not interested in learning the old Indian customs or language. In working with a band of the Wisconsin Chippewa in the 1940s, I was struck by the apparent lack of interest by the young people in Indian culture, which suggested I was witnessing the rapid demise of the Chippewa lifeway. It was somewhat surprising to discover that 20 years later at least some of the young people I had known were now actively involved in Chippewa traditions--somehow they had acquired a knowledge of and appreciation for Chippewa customs.

How this was acquired is not too clear. Latent learning is probably one factor. Things were learned consciously or unconsciously during the enculturational process, but not expressed, or even expressable as a youth. Post-youth association with "conservatives" could be an important influence. The seemingly universal pattern is that as one grows older there is a tendency toward conservatism, and an increased interest in traditional backgrounds is involved. Unhappy exposure to the non-Indian world in local or boarding schools or off-reservation employment can result in a withdrawal into the Indian world. This was particularly the case in the boarding school days of the 19th century when Indians returned after three or four years away from home and not uncommonly resumed life as "blanket Indians."

In the case of Sun Chief, boarding school was an interlude between a traditional Hopi boyhood and a post-school Hopi way of life. Upon his return from the boarding school, he has decided to live the Hopi way:

"As I lay on my blanket I thought about my school days and all that I had learned. I could talk like a gentleman, read, write and cipher. I could name all the states in the Union with their capitals, repeat the names of all the books in the Bible, quote a hundred verses of Scripture, sing more than two dozen Christian hymns and patriotic songs, debate, shout football yells, swing my partners in square dances, bake bread, sew well enough to make a pair of trousers, and tell "dirty" Dutchman stories by the hour. It was important that I had learned how to get along with white men and earn money by helping them. But my death experience had taught me that I had a Hopi Spirit Guide whom I must follow if I wished to live. I wanted to become a real Hopi again, to sing the good old Kateine (see Note 1) songs, and to feel free to make love without fear of sin or a rawhide" (see Note 2).

In this case, boyhood rejection of his culture was not involved, but the school experience intensified his desire to return to the Hopi way.

In some cases the revival of a phase of culture may be due to outside influences. For example, in 1968 a Papago Indian (middle generation) told me that the young girls were not interested in learning to make basketry or pottery, but an Office of Economic Opportunity program was instituted whereby the girls were paid to learn basketry and more than 100 had become involved in the project. His opinion that their motivation was economic rather than a genuine desire to learn a craft was reinforced by the fact that pottery was not included in the project and that none of the young girls were learning it.

A few days later, a Zuni in charge of the OEO project to train silversmiths said much the same thing; that most of the young people were not interested in Zuni crafts and would not be learning silver-smithing unless paid to do so. How much interest in and appreciation of crafts was generated as a by-product of such economic motivation is difficult to assess; perhaps some was; but the general effect was to stimulate the learning and production of craftwork. In a sense this could be considered a nonvoluntary form of cultural involution, and of far less importance than the voluntary variety.

However achieved, the cumulative effect of cultural involution is to slow down the loss of the traditional culture. More than one anthropologist has pondered as to how and why the Indian culture of certain tribes has survived at all in the face of long and seemingly overwhelming forces of acculturation. Herzkovits employs the phrase "toughness of culture" to characterize the persistence of culture in situations in which the odds seem against it. The thesis of this article is that cultural involution is a factor to be considered in accounting for such persistence. It should be noted, however, that there is a loss factor in the involutionary process. In the return to the traditional culture after some time lapse, the individual will rarely subscribe to the total culture available in his youth; that he is liable to learn it less perfectly or less completely. Thus some cultural loss is to be expected.

There are also variants of the involution process, one of which has been termed the "law of the third generation." Here the children of European immigrants to the United States eschew their European heritage in favor of American culture. However, the third generation exhibits some interest in their European background.

While the concept of cultural involution has been posited in terms of the American Indian, it would be applicable to any group undergoing acculturation, and even somewhat operative in societies not faced with acculturational conflicts. There are few societies in which the elders do not decry the departure of the youth from old traditions. The young may reject or ignore certain traditions, but grow into the seniority enmeshed in the basic culture of their parents and take their turn in lamenting the anti-traditional antics of the young. Revolt and rejection in youth, conservatism by the elders is a world-wide phenomenon. Somewhere along the way the individual turns in the direction of acceptance of, and greater appreciation for, the culture in which he was raised.

Within the last decade, the youth of the United States have been unusually active in rejecting the values and traditions of their elders. It is apparent that cultural involution is taking place with some, but it is too early to attempt to assess the role it is playing in the overall picture.

1. cf. Kachina