Aby Warburg and Franz Boas: Two Letters from the Warburg Archive: The

Correspondence between Franz Boas and Aby Warburg (1924-1925)

Author(s): Aby Warburg, Franz Boas and Benedetta Cestelli Guidi
Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 52, Museums: Crossing Boundaries
(Autumn, 2007), pp. 221-230
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20167757
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 Aby Warburg and Franz Boas:
Two Letters from the Warburg Archive
The correspondence between Franz Boas and
Aby Warburg (1924-1925)
BENEDETTA CESTELLI GUIDI
The correspondence between Aby Warburg (1868
1929) and Franz Boas (1858-1942) casts an interesting
light on the dialogue between art history and
anthropology during the first decades of the twentieth
century.1 During this momentous period in the history of
the disciplines, when the boundaries between them
were being erected as part of their institutionalization
within museums and universities, the divergence of
Warburg's cultural history (Kulturwissenschaft) from
Boas's cultural anthropology became apparent through
their exchange of views on methodology. The dialogue
between the two becomes especially significant in two
letters written in 1924-1925, which are published here:
In them Warburg and Boas state their views on
contemporary issues that encompass politics and ethics,
as well as more strictly methodological topics, such as
art criticism.
On politics and ethics their dialogue is in tune; the
two Jewish scholars share a deeply ethical approach to
contemporary (and) cultural politics. Their ethical
positions are summarized here by their mutual concern
for the issue of race and the future of German
intellectual life. When Warburg upheld the "intellectual
[side] of Germany, which in the end will triumph," Boas
replied: "You do not have to be afraid that I shall lose
faith in the future of German intellectual work,
notwithstanding all the aberrations of our time. Racial
prejudices seem at the present time to be epidemic all
over the world, and we are by no means free of them
here."2 Boas's reviews of contemporary racist views
1. The correspondence between Aby Warburg and Franz Boas is
kept in the archives of the Warburg Institute (hereafter WIA), London,
in General Correspondence (GC) and at the American Philosophical
Society (APS), Philadelphia, in the Franz Boas Professional Papers
(FBPP). It consists of seventeen letters dating from 1895 to 1928. This
correspondence has been partially published in Quaderni Warburg
Italia 2-3 (2004-2005). I wish to thank Charles Hope, director of the
Warburg Institute, and Valerie Anne Lutz and Charles B. Greifenstein
of the American Philosophical Society for permission to publish the
letters. I also would like to thank Dr. D. McEwan, ex-archivist of the
Warburg Institute, for reading through Warburg's draft, and Dr. I.
Oryshkevich for the masterly translation of Warburg's German letter
into English.
2. The quotes are from the letters below.
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published in Germany were praised by Warburg.3 Boas's
role in fighting ethnologically based racist views was
pivotal in these years and was to become even more
central to his research during the 1930s, as his
correspondence with Aby's brothers, Felix and Max,
demonstrates.4 This is to say that the connection
between the two scholars follows more than one path:
The correspondence from the 1920s is only one
fragment in a much wider context of anti-racist politics
in which the Warburg family and Boas were working
side by side.5
Both scholars were concerned that the publication of
the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae was interrupted because
of the economic crisis of the 1920s. As was often the
case in their correspondence, it was Warburg who
introduced the issue: "[F]or all its 'dryness' this work, in
my opinion, provides the most perfect ammunition in
the battle against obscurantism, since only in this
manner can we quickly obtain a clear understanding's of
Europe's past."6 Boas, as one would have expected,
3. Boas published "Moderne Ethnologie" and a review of G.
Kraitschek's Rassenkunde, in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 24 (1924):
1719-1730, and 28 (1924):2008-2012. Warburg's stand against racism
has been highlighted in recent years by Charlotte Schoell Glass, "An
Episode of Cultural Politics during the Weimar Republic: Aby Warburg
and Thomas Mann Exchange a Letter Each," in Art History 21 (1998):
107-128; see also by the same author, Aby Warburg und der
Antisemitismus. Kulturwissenschaft als Ceistpolitik (Frankfurt am Main,
1998).
4. G.W. Stocking, Jr., A Franz Boas Reader. The Shaping of
American Anthropology, 1883-1911 (Chicago, 1974), pp. 307-340; by
the same author, "Anthropology as 'Kulturkampf.' Science and Politics
in the Career of Franz Boas," in The Ethnographer's Magic and Other
Essays in the History of Anthropology, History of Anthropology
(Madison, 1992), vol. 10, pp. 92-113. The letters to Felix and Max
Warburg are kept in FBPP, collection I, APS, Philadelphia.
5. For instance, Warburg was well aware of Boas's active
involvement in the Notgemeinschaften ?sterreichischer und deutscher
Wissenschaft (Emergency Society for German and Austrian Science
and Art), whose aim was the "maintenance of scientific work in Austria
and Germany by assisting institutions and by furnishing means for
research and publication," because the Society funded his assistant
Fritz Saxl's trip to Italy in 1920-1921. F. Saxl to A. Warburg, December
12, 1920; F. Saxl to A. Warburg, February 2, 1921, GC, WIA, London.
6. See Warburg's letter below.
 222 RES 52 AUTUMN 2007
given his lifelong interest in language, was keen to know
more about it. But there is more in these two letters.
Warburg gives a sketch of the goals of his research,
which proves to be one of the few documents that
provide information on the work of the
Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg during the
1920s.7 The passage quoted below reveals a concern
with the dynamic between individuality and community,
which, one would suspect, could have interested Boas,
whose research was focused on the same dynamics:
In substance, the problem of the influence of the antique is
merely the phenomenological residue of a completely
internal psychological problem; the individual memory of
an image?an image in the most general sense?must be
regarded within a historical context as a social function
caused by the dynamic condition of the individual set in
the eternal alternation between dynamic discharge and
intentional suppression.8
Warburg continued by introducing Ernst Cassirer's
work which, he believed, might "create a bridge
between exact historicism and epistemology." In line
with his interest in a new intellectual system, Boas
lectured on Cassirer's philosophy in his seminar on
Methods, held at Columbia University in 1925.9
Warburg was then, and in later years, sending Boas the
volumes of the Vortage and Studien published by his
library, to which Ernst Cassirer, Edwin Panosfky and Fritz
Saxl were then contributing.10 Warburg's introduction to
his library's research methods would have been taken up
again when, he added, Boas was to visit during his next
European journey. In 1924, a few weeks before
Warburg's letter published here,11 Boas had visited him;
it was this visit that started the correspondence, which
came to an end in 1928, a year before Warburg' death
in 1929. The two scholars would never meet again; Boas
7. On Warburg's life and work, see E. H. Gombrich, Aby
Warburg: An intellectual biography (London, 1.970) and G. Didi
Hubermann, Limage survivante: histoire de l'art et temps des fant?mes
selon Aby Warburg (Paris, 2002).
8. See Warburg's letter below.
9. Quoted in M. Mead, "Apprenticeship under Boas," American
Anthropologist 61 (issue on The Anthropology of Franz Boas. Essays on
the Centennial of his Birth, 1959), V, 2:29-45.
10. Catalogue of the Library of Franz Boas (1931 ), typescript, FBPP,
APS, under sections: "Art," "Religion, Philosophy and Psychology," and
"Miscellaneous."
11. Earlier letter exchanges between the two scholars date to
1895-1896. See a letter from Boas to Warburg on the eve of the
latter's travel to Washington to meet him (October 18, 1895, GC, WIA)
and one from Warburg to Boas written shortly after his return to
Hamburg (July 10, 1896: draft in the GC, WIA).
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would visit the library with Fritz Saxl in 1930, when he
was in Hamburg to attend the XXIV International
Congress of Americanists.
It is significant to Warburg's intellectual life that his
interest in anthropological methods of research was
newly awakened when he resumed working in Hamburg
in 1923, after his long mental breakdown.12 The scholars
he had met in 1895-1896 in America were either dead
or their approach had been superseded by Boas's
method. Boas himself, in turn, would provide (at least
that was Warburg's hope) as much information as
possible on recent literature on the history of Native
American cultures. After having shown again his own
photographs to illustrate the slide lecture given in front
of his doctors and fellow patients at Kreuzungen,13
Warburg began working on the handwritten catalogue of
the Pueblo collection which he had brought back from
America and had later given to the V?lkerkunde
Museum in Hamburg.14 It actually was one of the
objects in this collection that prompted Warburg to write
to Boas in December 1924. He was hoping to find an
explanation or, rather, a confirmation of his
interpretation of a native baho (paho), which he
believed to be a formal survival of a forgotten sacrificial
practice. Here Warburg was applying his theory of the
Nachleben (survival in time of certain art forms).15
Warburg's hypothesis triggered an irreconcilable
disagreement between the two scholars. In his reply of
12. Amidst the vast literature on the 1923 lecture, see U. Raulff,
"Nachwort/' in Warburg, Schlangenritual. Ein Reisebericht (Berlin,
1988), pp. 61-94; see also A. Warburg, Images from the Region of the
Pueblo Indians of North America; translated with an interpretive essay
by Michael P. Steinberg (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992); for an overall view on the
reception of Warburg's journey and an up to date assessment of it, see
D. Freedberg "Pathos at Oraibi: Go che Warburg non vide," in Lo
sguardo di Giano. Aby Warburg fra tempo e memoria, ed. C. Cieri Via
and P. Montani (Turin, 2004).
13. The original 48 slides that Warburg showed at Kreuzungen, not
published together with the text of conference, have finally been
printed (by the author of this introduction) in A. Warburg, Gli Hopi,
ed. M. Ghelardi, in Opere 11.2 (Turin, 2005), pp. 1-102. P.-A. Michaud
in Aby Warburg and the Image in Motion, MIT 2007 (2006), was the
first to publish the original draft of the 1923 conference.
14. On the Pueblo collection see B. Cestelli Guidi, "La collection
Pueblo d'Aby Warburg, 1895-1896. Culture Mat?rielle et origines de
l'image," in Aby Warburg, Le Rituel du Serpent. Art & Anthropologie,
(Paris, 2003), pp. 163-192.
15. On the Nachleben and its relation toTylor's survival, see Didi
Huberman (note 7), pp. 51-60. On the rise of this concept, see S.
Settis, "Kunstgeschichte als vergleichende Kulturwissenschaft: Aby
Warburg, die Pueblo-Indianer und das Nachleben der Antike," in
Akten des XXVIII Internationalen Kongresses f?r Kunstgeschichte
(Berlin, 1992), pp. 139-153.
 Cestelli Guidi: The correspondence between Franz Boas and Aby Warburg 223

1925, Boas does not answer Warburg's question, leaving research for a general comprehension of the science of
the matter to an expert of Pueblo culture;16 instead, he culture" and "the ancient Pagan tradition compared with
takes up the issue of the supposed identity of the Zuni European art" we can only guess today. The letter
Kolowissi and the Mesoamerican Quetzalcoatl, which exchange between Warburg and Boas presented here
Warburg had mentioned, in order to express his point of confirms the depth and extent of Warburg's interest in
view on the dynamics of cultural phenomena. He firmly cultural anthropology and his inclination to blur the
stated how the diffusion of an idea, such as that of the boundaries between the two disciplines. It might also be
feathered serpent, over a wide geographical region of read as an opening towards the possibility of moving his
Central and North America would not "justify us in library to America. Although such a plan never came
identifying the specific forms that the idea has taken in through, in recent years his own approach to the
different cultural provinces."17 He was clearly proposing interpretation of the recurrence of images and the
an opposite view on the dynamics of cultural traits, history of culture has finally taken root in the United
basing his approach on a critical attitude towards data States.21
taken in isolation, which he had developed during his
research on language, art, and culture.18 Boas had
consistently insisted on the necessity of discerning
between form and content?the "idea"?since, he 21. A. Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to
believed, they came into being at different times. In the Cultural History of the European Renaissance, introduction by Kurt
W. Forster (Los Angeles, 1999).
Primitive Art (1927), he insisted on the diverse origins of
form and meaning: "It is essential to bear in mind the
twofold source of artistic effect, the one based on form
alone, the other on ideas associated with form.
Otherwise the theory of art will be one-sided."19 As far
as we can tell Warburg did not read Primitive Art?
therefore, we do not have an assessment of Boas's art
criticism from his point of view, but the fact that Boas
never mentions the Hamburg's school method of visual
research in his book is in itself revealing of his
disagreement with it.
The confrontation on research methods that Warburg
was attempting to provoke actually turned into a
disappointment: While Boas kept on answering all of his
letters with courtesy, he would never again dwell on
methodological issues. On the other hand, Warburg's
intention of once more crossing the Atlantic (in 1928),
was prevented by his family and his doctor.20 What
could have sprung from his planned series of
conferences on the "meaning of American ethnological

16. E. Clews Parson's reply to Warburg, which Boas sent on

January 16,is no longer in the Warburg Institute Archive.
17. See Boas's letter below.
18. F. Boas, Race, Language and Culture (New York, 1940).
19. F. Boas, Primitive Art (Oslo, 1927). The quote comes from the
Dover Press reprint of 1955, p. 13. This point of view shatters any
possible dialogue with E. Panofsky's three levels of iconological
enquiry and places Boas into an antagonistic position in relation to
this theory. E. Ranofsky, Studies in For an opposing view, see M.
Westermann, "Introduction," in Anthropologies of Art (New Haven and
London, 2005).
20. On this episode, see D. Stimuli, "Aby Warburg in America
again," RES 48 (2005):193-206; the original written plan is published
in Michaud (note 13).

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224 RES 52 AUTUMN 2007

Aby Warburg to Franz Boas*

December 13, 1924

Dear Highly Esteemed Professor,

Your visit, for which I still remain today deeply grateful, was unfortunately too
brief to permit me to relate even the most important things that have occurred in the
last few years. Especially since it was precisely during my absence from Hamburg,
while at the Sanatorium, that I began to work keenly on refreshing memories of my
trip to the Pueblos; on April 21, 1923 I gave a slide lecture on the subject in
Kreuzungen, which revealed to me and perhaps to my listeners the immense wealth
of learning that could still be gained from a close study of Pueblo culture. All the
same, I did unfortunately lack sufficient knowledge of the latest analytical literature
on the Pueblo question and beg you kindly to inform me which works have most
recently dealt with the problem in terms of both linguistics and religion. I would
also be very grateful if you could send me your selection of the most recent
literature at my cost?charging it to Kuhn Loeb & Co.?up to a total of $75. We
lack, for example, the Handbook of American Archaeology. I am still receiving the
Ethnological Reports from the Smithsonian, but I believe that there is much valuable
material for us in other, minor publications. I am enclosing the photograph ofthat
remarkable curved rod about which I spoke to you in great haste. It is tied with a
white string to a wooden knife, which in its form clearly recalls in my opinion that
of an ancient stone knife, thus I do not hesitate to view both implements as stylized
sacrificial tools related to a bloody sacrificial cult of times past; that with these the
Katchinas "were supposed to be caught" harks back to a distant memory of rituals of
human sacrifice. At the time I made a note of the implement's name: ng??lisch?
hoya, but I do not know exactly what this means and beg you for your kind
explanation. In his book on Mexico, Dr. Danzel said that Quetzaquotal is the same
thing as Kolowissi among the Zunis. Thus far he not been able to show me the
origins of his conclusion in reply to my request for more precise sources. Would
you have the kindness to explain to me what is the source for this obviously exciting
fact? He claimed that he had found some information on it in Seler. The library has
the annuals of American Anthropologist to 1907; kindly tell me, I beg you, how can
we obtain the missing volumes as soon as possible. I have also taken the liberty to
send you by the same post the lecture, which thanks to the selfless and
compassionate energy of my assistant, Dr. Fritz Saxl, was given at the Warburg
Library despite my absence. The first two volumes of the "Vortr?ge" have appeared
as well as four volumes of "Studien," which I am also sending to you. The
continuation of both series will follow shortly.

*The letter is written on the letterhead of the Bibliothek Warburg, Hamburg. It consists of six
typescript pages. Later handwritten additions, possibly by Mary Warburg, are indicated by italics. In
square brackets are my additions to the German text. At present the letter is in the Franz Boas
Professional Papers, collection I, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; its preliminary draft is
kept in the General Correspondence, the Warburg Institute Archive, London.

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 Cestelli Guidi: The correspondence between Franz Boas and Aby Warburg 225

Two studies for Teubner, direct

I have briefly outlined the program of my library?Fritz Saxl likewise speaks

about it in the first volume of the "Vortr?ge"?in my introduction to Professor
Reinhart's Lecture of October 24, 1924?which I include as well. In substance, the
problem of the influence of the antique is merely the phenomenological residue of a
completely internal psychological problem; the individual memory of an image?an
image in the most general sense?must be regarded within a historical context as a
social function caused by the dynamic condition of the individual set in the eternal
alternation between dynamic discharge and intentional suppression. I ask that you
regard these observations as merely provisional and intended only for you. I can
develop them more fully and more convincingly only if you grant me the pleasure
of a long visit as soon as possible. The works of Ernst Cassirer, which I include (in
addition to which a new linguistic work will soon appear), reveal the thought
processes to which the materials in the Warburg Library give rise. The danger of
coming to general conclusions on the basis of too small or too limited a series of
sample objects is certainly a possibility; nevertheless to me it seems that the
heuristic value of Cassirer's study lies beyond any doubt and that (were a better one
to emerge) one day may even create a bridge between exact historicism and
epistemology. Through the stand you have assumed, for example in Deutschen
Literaturzeitung nos. 24 and 28 [on] your position on the fundamental questions of
ethnology, you have proven helpful on the trickiest points. We have been thrown
into this frightening World War not least by the superstition that has deluded us into
the foolish certainty?from which we must indeed awaken?that racial traits are
somatic manifestations of something spiritual. Of course, this requires stronger and
more solid faith and relentlessness than was the case before the war, since the
nationalists, whose imbecility has been excited by French infamy, will always catch
the ear of the masses, though we could view the defeat of the hitherto obviously
psychopathic Ludendorff as a promising moment. Certainly the Deutsche
Literaturzeitung would not have calmly agreed to give space to your ideas had the
Notgemeinschaft, so selflessly promoted by you, not facilitated its existence. Despite
all the disillusionments that you have certainly not been spared, I can only beg of
you to continue to assist the intellectual [side of] Germany, which in the end will
triumph. It seems clear that we can no longer expect much from America in this
regard; at least this is how I must interpret a remark made by Professor Norder on
the contributions that the Latin Thesaurus has received so far. For all its "dryness,"
this work, in my opinion, provides the most effective ammunition in the battle
against obscurantism, since only in this manner can we quickly obtain a clear
understanding of Europe's past. We are equally in need of a Greek thesaurus; one
doesn't get far with the old Stephanus, and the new dictionaries are much too
concise. First-rate, specialized individual lexicons, such as those for Plato and
Aristotle and the New Testament, are no replacement for a general dictionary. I can
well imagine that is not easy for you to retain your faith in the intellectual side of
Germany, but it is precisely for this reason that I have so willingly spoken to you; for
I believe that I am not mistaken if I sense an intellectual awakening, though my
family has little reason to be particularly optimistic.

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226 RES 52 AUTUMN 2007

I have a few questions for you regarding people, whom I remember well from
1896 onwards. First, can the address of the Rev. Voth indeed not be found? Second:
is Mr. Mooney still alive? He worked on the Kiowa Indians. I remember him with
special fondness as a sort of anima candida. Do you know where Miss Zelia Nuttal
is now? I saw her about twenty years ago in Florence.
Excuse these inconveniences as my attempt to stay in touch with you, to whom
we (and I personally) are so indebted.

With heartfelt salutations,

Warburg

P.S. With respect to the sacrificial knives: From a report, which does not cite its
source, I discovered that wooden lances were likewise used by the Zu?is; has
anything been published on this? I had a passing thought that the combination of
the knife and rod also called to mind a harpoon-like weapon, such as the Assyrian
type that emerged in the excavations of Tello. This [I suggest] only in anticipation of
your correction of the hypothesis.

Aby Warburg to Franz Boas,

December 13, 1924

Hochverhrter lieber Herr Professor,

Ihr Besuch, fur den ich heute noch von Herzen denkbar bin, war leider zu kurz,
um Ihnen auch nun das N?tigste sagen zu k?nnen, das sich in den letzten Jahren
aufgespeichert hatte, besonders da ich gerade w?hrend meiner Abwesenheit von
Hamburg im Sanatorium angefangen hatte energisch daran zu arbeiten, um meine
Erinneran die Reise zu den Pueblos aufzufrischen; ich habe dar?ber am 21. April
1923 in Kreuzungen einen Vortrag mit Lichtbildern gehalten, der mir und vielleicht
auch den Zuh?rern die unvergleichliche F?lle von Belehrungen bezeugte, die man
aus den genauen Studien der Pueblokultur noch gewinnen k?nnte. Dabei war ich
leider ohne gen?gende K?nntnis der neuesten kritischen Literatur ?ber die
Pueblofragen, und ich bitte Sie, mir g?tigst mitzuteilen, in welchen Werken das
Problem letzthin sowohl in linguistischer wie religionswissenschaftlicher Beziehung
ernstlich gef?rdert worden ist. Zugleich w?re ich Ihnen sehr dankbar, wenn Sie mir
auf meine Kosten?Regulierung durch Kuhn Loeb & Co.?neuere Literatur auf
Grund Ihrer Auswahl zugehen Messen, bis zum Beitrage von $75:? Uns fehlt z.B.

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 Cestelli Guidi: The correspondence between Franz Boas and Aby Warburg 227

das Handbook of American Archaeology. Ich erhalte noch von Smithsonian Institute
die Ethnological Reports, ich glaube aber, dass auch in den anderen kleineren
Anzeigen viel wertvolles Material f?r uns stecken w?rde. Ich lege Ihnen die
Photographie jenes merkw?rdigen Krummstabes bei von dem ich Ihnen in aller Eile
sprach. Er ist zusammengeschn?rt mit einem weissen Faden mit einem Holzmesser,
das aber in seiner Form m.E.[meines Erachtens] deutlich die Erinnerung an ein altes
Steinmesser zeigt, so dass ich nicht anstehe, beide Ger?te als erstarrte Opferger?te
anzusehen, die wohl auf enien blutigen Opferkult fr?herer Zeiten hinweisen; dass
damit die 'Katchinas' gefangen werden sollen", w?rde auch f?r eine
nachd?mmernde Erinnerung an Menschenopfer-Riten sprechen. Ich habe mir
damals f?r das Ger?t als Bezeichnung notiert: ng??lisch?hoya, weiss aber nicht,
was das eigentlich heisst, und bitte um Ihre freundliche Interpretation. Dr.
Danzelhat in seinem Buch ?ber Mexico gesagt, dass der Quetzaquotal gleich
Kolowissi bei den Zu?is sei. Auf meine Anfrage nach genaueren Quellen, konnte er
mir bisher nicht die Herkunft seiner Feststellung nachweisen. W?rden Sie die G?te
haben, mich aufzukl?ren, welche Tatsachen dieser nat?rlich h?chst aufregenden
Tatsache zu Grunde liegen k?nnen. Er meinte bei Seier eine Notiz dar?ber
gefunden zu haben. Die Bibliothek besitzt vom American Anthropologist die
Jahrg?nge bis 1907; ich w?rde Sie bitten, mir freundlichst zu sagen, wie ich die
fehlenden B?nde davon baldigst erwerben kann. Mit gleicher Post erlaube ich, mir,
Ihnen die Vortr?ge der Bibliothek Warburg zuzusenden, die Dank der aufopfernden
verst?ndnisvollen Energie meines Assistenten Dr. Fritz Saxl trotz meiner
Abwesenheit gehalten werden konnten. Die zwei ersten Hefte der 'Vortr?ge' sind
erschienen und vier Hefte 'Studien", die ich Ihnen ebenfalle zusende. Fortsetzung
beider Reihnen wird in Kurze erfolgen, zwei Studien fur Teubner direct
Das programm meiner Bibliothek habe ich kurz zusammen gefasst?Saxl spricht
auch dar?ber im ersten Band der "Vortrage"?in den Begr?ssungsworten?die ich
ebenfalls beilege?zum Vortrag von Professor Reinhardt am 24. Oktober 1924. Im
Grunde ?st das Problem vom Einfluss der Antike nur der ph?nomenologische
Niederschlag eines ganz innerlichen psychologischen Problems; as soll versucht
werden das individuelle Bildged?chtnis?Bild im allgemeinsten Sinne gemeint?als
soziale Funktion bei der Umschlatung dynamischer Zust?nde des Individuums im
ewigen Wechsel von dynamischer Entladung und intentionaler Spannung am
historischen Pr?parat zu begreifen. Diese Bemerkung wollen Sie bitte nur als
vorl?ufig und nur f?r Sie gemeint ansehen. Ich kann sie Ihnen nur n?her und
glaubw?rdiger antwickeln, wenn Sie mir baldigst die Freude eines langen Besuches
machen. Die Arbeiten von Ernst Cassirer, die ich Ihnen beilege (wozu bald ein
neues sprachphilosophisches Werk treten wird) zeigen, zu welchen Ideengange das
Material der Bibliothek Warburg f?hrt. Die Gefahr, auf einer zu kleinen oder lokal
begrenzten Versuchsobjekt-Reihe zu allgemeinen Schl?ssen zu kommen, liegt
gewiss wor; doch scheint mir der heuristische Wert von Cassirers Studio ?ber jeden
Zweifel erhaben und wird sogar einstmag ein Besserer unterdessen kommen?eben
die Br?cke vom exakten Historismus zur Erkenntnistheorie schlagen. Durch Ihre
Stellungnahme, wie sie z.B. in der Deutsche Literaturzeitung Nr.24 u(nd)28 Ihre
Stellung zu den v?lkerkundlichen Grundfragen, helfen Sie am gef?hrdetsten Punkte.

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228 RES 52 AUTUMN 2007

Wir sind in den schrecklichen Weltkrieg nicht zum Mindesten dadurch

hineingetaumelt, dass der Aberglaube, dass die rassenm?ssigen Gegebenheiten
somatisch etwas geistiges verb?rgen, uns in jene alberne Sicherheit gewiegt haben,
aus der wir wohl aufwachen d?rften. Allerdings bedarf es dazu eines Glaubens und
einer Unerm?dlichkeit, die noch st?rker und ?berzeugenden sein mus als vor dem
Kriege; denn die V?lkischen, deren Bl?dheit durch die franz?sischen Infamien
gesteigert wird, wird immer noch das Ohr der Menge zu kaptivieren wissen,
obgleichh wir die Niederlage des jetzt offenbar psychopath ?sehen Lufendorff als
verheissungsvolles Moment ansehen d?rfen. Die Deutsche Literaturzeitung w?rde
sicher nicht diesen Ihren Ideen ruhig Ramm gegeben haben, wenn nicht divon
Hinen so selbstlos geforderte Notgemeinschaft ihr die Existenz erleichtert h?tte. Ich
kann Sie nur bitten, trotzdaller Entt?uschungen, die Ihnen sicher nicht erspart
worden sind, das geistige Deutschland, das doch siegen wird, weiter zu
unterst?tzen. Es scheint freilich, dass wir in diesem Punkte von Amerika nicht mehr
viel erwarten d?rfen; wenigstens muss ich eine Aesserung von Professor Norder, dar
?ber die Zusch?sse, die der Thesaurus latinus bisher empfing, so auffassen. Dieses
Werk geh?rt m.E. trotz seiner ?Trockenheit" mit zu den wertvollsten Kampfmitteln
gegen die Dunkelm?nner, da wir nur so schnell in den Besitz einer gekl?rten
Auffassung der europ?ischen Vergangeheit kommen k?nnen. Ebenso n?tig w?re und
ein griechischer Thesaurus; mit dem alten Stephanus kommt man nicht weit und
neuere W?rterb?cher sind viel zu knapp. Einen Ersatz f?r das allgemeine grosse
W?rterbuch bieten auch einzelne vorugliche Spezial-Lexika, wie das f?r Plato und
Aristoteles und das Neue Testament nicht. Ich stelle es mir ja allerdings als nicht
ganz leicht f?r Sie vor, den Glauben an des geistige Deutschland zu behalten, aber
gerade darum h?tte ich Sie sehr gern gesprochen; denn ich glaube mich nicht zu
irren, trotzdem meine Familie wirklich keinen Grund hat, besonders optimistisch zu
sein, wenn ich geistige Morgenluft wittere.
Ich habe nach einige Fragen nach Personalichkeiten, die mir von 1896 her in
guter Erinnerung sind, an Sie zu richten. Erstene, kann man die Adresse von Rev.
Voth wirklich nicht ausfinding machen? Zweitens: lebt Mr.Mooney noch? Er hatte
?ber die Kyoba-Indianer gearbeitet. Ich habe ihn als eine anima candida in
besonders lieber Erinnerung. Wissen sie, wo sich Miss ZeNa Nuttal jetzt befindet?
Ich sah sie vor etwa 20 Jahren in Florenz. Entschuldigen Sie mir diese Bel?stigungen
als Versucht, mit Ihnen, dem wir (u.ich pers?nlich).
So viel verdanken in lebhafter Beziehung zu bleiben.
Ihr herzlich gr?ssender
Warburg

PS. Bez?glich des Opfermessers: Aus einer Notiz, die ihre Quelle nicht angibt, ersah
ich, dass bei den Zu??s auch ein Wurfholz vorkommen soll; ist da?ber irgendetwas
publiziert? Ich habe vor?bergehend den Gedanken, dass die Kommunikation von
Messer und Stab auch die Erinnerung an eine harpenartige Waffe, wie sie nach den
Ausgrabungen von Tello anch bei den Assyriern vorkommen soll, darstellen k?nnte.
Dies nur um die Korrektur einer Hypothese von Ihnen zu erfahren

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 Cestelli Guidi: The correspondence between Franz Boas and Aby Warburg 229

Franz Boas to Aby Warburg, January 14,1925*

My dear Dr. Warburg

I have inquired from the publisher of the American Anthropologist and I find that
he cannot get any reduction in the price of the previous volumes. I can subscribe
for the current volumes at the rate of one dollar a year, but previous volumes would
cost $6.00, so that the series 1908-1924 would amount to $102, including carriage.
I will answer today a few of your questions. An identification of Quetzalcoat and
Koolowisi was made I think by Fewkes in one of his papers on Arizona. It is, of
course, true that the idea of the horned or feathered serpent is very general in
America. It is by no means confined to Central America and the Southwest but
occurs also in the Northeast and on the Northwest Coast, and I am inclined to think
that a general diffusion of the idea has occurred at any early time. This, however,
would not justify us in identifying the specific forms that the idea has taken in
different cultural provinces. For instance there is certainly nothing to indicate that
the double-headed feathered serpent of the Northwest Coast has any psychological
or cultural connection with the feathered serpent of Mexico.
In regard to the prayer stick, a photograph of which you sent me, I have asked Dr.
Elsie Clews Parsons, who is thoroughly familiar with the whole subject, to give me
what information she can, and I will send it to you as soon as I receive it.
So far I have not been able to find the address of Voth, but I am still trying.
Mooney died about a year ago for hearth disease. His special work was always
carefully done. Unfortunately time was not given him to work out all the valuable
material in his possession. The most important among this is a large collection of
medicine formulae of the Cherokee, written by the Cherokee themselves, which, of
course, would require very careful editing.
Mrs. Zeila Nuttall lives in Mexico, D.F., Casa Alvarado. I have not seen her in a
good many years.
I wonder what you refer to in regard to the support of the Thesauros Linguae
Latinae. So far as I know it is being liberally supported by a committee in St.Louis. If
you have any detailed information on the subject, I should be glad to know of it.
You do not have to be afraid that I shall lose faith in the future of German
intellectual work, notwithstanding all the aberrations of our time. Racial prejudices
seem at the present time to be epidemic all over the world, and we are not by any
means free of it here. I wrote the review for the Literaturzeitung at the special
request of the editor, who must have known my views. I know that Dr. Schmidt-Ott,
the president of the Notgemeinschaft, is entirely opposed to the anti-Semitic
movement. We had several talks about this subject, particularly in reference to the

* This letter is written on the letterhead of the Department of Anthropology of Columbia University. It
consists of two typescript pages. Right now, the letter is in the General Correspondence, the Warburg
Institute Archive, London.

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230 RES 52 AUTUMN 2007

attitude of part of the American Jews who resent German anti-Semitism and for that
reason are not inclined to help us.
I want to thank you for the beautiful publications of your library which you were
so kind to send me, and which I appreciate very highly

With kindest regards

Yours very sincerely

Franz Boas

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