Joseph

'Including trusting him about e.g. Odum'

On the contrary, as I have demonstrated, I read Odum for myself.

I trust Odum on Odum. I agree absolutely with Miller in his view that Odum was working in a sort of social darwinist 'anthropoligical' approach, claiming to be 'scientific' in his comments on the negro 'race' while in fact drawing largely on stereotypes of much minstrelsy and the coon songs. He did not think of himself as a 'folklorist', and this is demonstrated in the opening to his 1911 articles, in which he explains that he has left out a lot of his thinking to suit the context in which his articles are to be published. However, enough of it was left in to demonstrate his attitudes at the time. It is said that he later changed his view and attitudes.