Seriously, Fraser as a primary reference?

[ritaxis]

I understand it when the made-up-religion people use The Golden Bough as a "sacred text" -- seriously, they do -- it even makes sense.  After all, these people are deliberately choosing to invent a mind-numbing tradition to believe in, so why not elevate a book of uneven and badly-cited scholarship with a slightly ridiculous premise to the status of holy fetish?

Though of course, in doing so, they are missing the point of the book.  Fraser's contention was that the religions of the old days were violent and superstitious, and that echoes of these primitive, bloody, and frankly horrific beliefs and customs persisted in modern folk practices because it's hard to shake superstition.  He did not propose that we all go back to what he considered to be a lesser stage of humanity, only that we understand it and appreciate it.

Okay, this is weak enough.

But, okay, Wikipedia?  Please.  Where's the scholarship standards if  The Golden Bough is your only reference?  Sure, the work is chock full of  interesting stuff from all over Europe and a few tidbits from elsewhere, but honestly, the fellow was erudite and hardworking, but his scholarship standards were -- let's call it primitive.  Citations are often sloppy, assertions are incosistently supported, et cetera.  I can see quoting a bit from Fraser, but you can't  call it research if that's your whole source.

(I'm rereading a lot of Fraser, but I'm reading it in the same spirit as I read Lord Dunsany).

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Which article or articles is/are [1] using Fraser as a reference?

[1] Damn verb/noun agreement.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Corn Dolly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_dolly)

Apparently the plural "articles" was a a mistaken impression created by the bunch of google hits that lead to non-Wikipedia pages that rely on Fraser as a primary or only source.

I think I've figured out where the uncited stuff in Fraser comes from: a front-to-back reading instead of piecemeal grazing might have lead me to it earlier.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

While this isn't a real world example, it kind of reminds me of the characters in S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series who refer to J.R.R. Tolkien's books as "The Histories". :)