Joseph francois lafitau biography of william
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Joseph-François Lafitau
Joseph-François Lafitau was an important French Jesuit missionär scholar who closely observed the Mohawks and other Indians at the Jesuit mission of Sault-Saint-Louis opposite Montreal during the early s. Social theorists describe him as a proto-anthropologist because he combined critical use of historic sources with careful (albeit not always accurate) use of the comparative method, with an insistence on the dignity of Native beliefs and the worthiness of their study. Lafitau&#;s work remains a vital ethnographic source for anthropological study of ett samlingsnamn för flera ursprungsfolk i nordamerika people and of the history and culture of the Jesuits and their missionary endeavors.
Born in Bordeaux, France, in to jean Lafitau and Catherine Berchenbos, both Joseph-François and his brother Pierre-François became Jesuits, members of a religious order of men founded by Ignatius of Loyola in that quickly garnered a reputation for intellectual acumen as well as pedagogical prowess. Beginning Jesuit for
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Jesuit Online Bibliography
Parsons, Christopher M.
English
The Jesuit Joseph-François Lafitau announced his discovery of ginseng outside Montreal as the product of his encounter with Mohawk women. While Lafitau’s efforts to foreground the participation of indigenous peoples have often been lauded, the manner in which he laid claim to the discovery was integral to the subsequent rise of an ecologically unsustainable and culturally disruptive trade in ginseng. When Parisian naturalists argued that he had found an unrelated plant, Lafitau produced a detailed examination of indigenous ecological and medical knowledge. His insistence on the existence of an Asian plant in North America emerged from his larger ambitions to demonstrate the Old World origins of indigenous peoples. While he succeeded in winning over his detractors, he disseminated a bo
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LAFITAU,JOSEPH-FRANÇOIS, priest, Jesuit, missionary, discoverer of ginseng in North America, author of Mœurs des sauvages amériquains . . . ; b. 31 May at Bordeaux, France, son of Jean Lafitau, wine merchant and banker, and Catherine-Radegonde Berchenbos; d. 3 July at Bordeaux.
The Lafitau family gave two sons to the Jesuits: Joseph-François and Pierre-François (–). The latter became bishop of Sisteron, France, and was much respected in Rome; he promoted his elder brother’s literary activities and helped get his books published. The family’s resources meant ready access to books, and its commercial activities in a busy port, harbouring vessels from New France, the Antilles, South America, and Africa, afforded opportunities to hear strange tongues and witness diverse manners. Exhibits of captives from the New World were a tradition at Bordeaux festivals. Besides the wines of Gironde, Bordeaux could boast the eminence of Montaigne, and would