How Does Claude Levi-Strauss Relate To North American Anthropology

Claude Levi-Strauss’ ideas in reference to twins, hares and harelips and the relationship of the three is one which delves into the mythology of cultures whose similarities are more evident than meets the eye. The French anthropologist manages to relate North America with South America in a swift attempt to call the scope and range of both regions’ cultures as Pan-American mythology. He derives in Myth and Meaning, “In order to solve the problem, we have, as sometimes happens, to make a jump from South America to North America, because it will be a North American myth which will give us the clue to the South American..” (Strauss 26). In order to explain Strauss’ ideas, the details at hand must first be understood. Twins are two offspring which

She was then impregnated again by the man she was supposed to marry and thus gave birth to twins who had different fathers and thus they had opposing features, both physically and mentally. He then goes to North America and analyzes a Salish version of a myth which recounts a story of two sisters who are both seduced by Tricksters and both give birth to separate boys, but because of the circumstance under which both boys were made, they can be considered twins. He draws the similarity there establishing the relationship between the twins of the two separate cultures; a relationship which unifies both cultures into one Pan-American

Strauss elucidates, “..why..animals of..leporine family..have a split nose and upper lip...we call a harelip in people precisely on account of this anatomical peculiarity in rabbits and hares” (Strauss 29). This establishes the relation between the hare and harelip, but what of the twin? Strauss elaborates by saying that in another recount of the myth, an extenuated version, the sister split the body of the animal creating two whole halves which would create twins. This establishes the major relationship between all three things. He even manages to strengthen this relationship by analyzing another myth which speaks of a small girl who had a harelip, was kidnapped along with other children by an ogress, but escaped by digging out of a basket and dropping out feet first. Strauss analyzed that the detail of feet first was synonymous with the way the hare was positioned when he hid under the log below the elder sister: feet first. The significance of all three is then seen as more intimately catenated than one would assume when perceiving the three in a series at first