Seligman, C.G.

▪ British anthropologist

in full  Charles Gabriel Seligman  

born Dec. 24, 1873, London, Eng.

died Sept. 19, 1940, Oxford

      a pioneer in British anthropology who conducted significant field research in Melanesia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and, most importantly, the Nilotic Sudan.

      Although educated as a physician, in 1898 Seligman joined the Cambridge University expedition to the Torres Strait (between New Guinea and Australia). After returning to England, he resumed medical research, but, drawn to anthropology, he went again to New Guinea in 1904. In attempting to distinguish the characteristic racial, cultural, and social traits of the peoples of the region, with the aim of classifying them, he established the pattern of his subsequent field efforts. His work The Melanesians of British New Guinea (1910) remains a basic source. Covering every important aspect of tribal life, it formed the basis for later work by the eminent British anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski.

      In 1904 Seligman married Brenda Z. Salaman, who collaborated with him on his later expeditions and writings. Their field trip to Ceylon (1907–08) to examine the vestiges of remaining aboriginal culture there resulted in the publication of a standard work, The Veddas (1911). While serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I, Seligman adopted the theories of Sigmund Freud (Freud, Sigmund). Examining the universality of certain dreams among many varied cultures, he concluded that the psychology of the unconscious could provide an approach to some basic anthropological problems. He and his wife made field trips to the Sudan in 1909–12 and 1921–22 and offered a summation of their years of work in Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan (1932).

      In 1910 Seligman was appointed university lecturer in ethnology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1913 to 1934 he was part-time professor there, and in 1938 he was visiting professor at Yale University. Among his later writings are Races of Africa (1930), long a basic reference source, and Egypt and Negro Africa (1934).

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