/ANTHROPOS
Internationale Zeitschrift
für Völker- und Sprachenkunde
International Review
of Ethnology and Linguistics
Revue Internationale
d'Ethnologie et de Linguistique
AIMTHROPOS INSTITUT
83-1988-1/3
ANTHROPOS
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Anthropos 83.1988
F rife ■ >-
RUM
ANTHROPOS 83.1988/1-3
Artikel
Rezensionen
Michael Oppitz: Der männliche Pfeil durch den weibli-
chen Schmuck. Das Fest der winterlichen Sonnenwen-
de und der Mythos der Honigernte bei den Magar
West-Nepals............................................ 1
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi: Humour in a Tamil
Author’s Comedies..................................... 17
Bo Lawergren: The Origins of Musical Instruments
and Sounds ........................................... 31
Thomas Schweizer: Einen javanischen Mystiker ver-
stehen. Kognitive Analyse von Überzeugungen über
heilige Orte (tempat keramat) aus Majapahit .... 47
Gillian Feeley-Harnik: Sakalava Dancing Battles. The
Representation of Conflict in Sakalava Royal Ritual
(Madagascar) ......................................... 65
Henderikus A. Taatgen: Anthropological Involution.
The Legacy of S. F. Nadel ............................ 87
Trank A. Salamone: The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good
Life” ................................................ 101
Mario Califano: El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
(Haräkmbet) .......................................... 109
Keith V. Bletzer: La chichería among Ngawbere of the
Northern Valiente Peninsula. Some Notes and Com-
ments ............................................... 135
Paul E. Murray: Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph.
A Cultural Analysis................................... 153
Thomas F. Johnston: Community History and Envi-
ronment as Wellspring of Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts 161
Gerhard Schlatter: Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine
verlorene Religion .................................. 173
Berichte und Kommentare
■L Abbink: Me’en Means of Subsistence. Notes on
Crops, Tools, and Ethnic Change .................. 187
Johannes M. Hämmerle: Sigaru dora’a. In Holz ge-
schnitzte Lebensphilosophie auf Nias (Indonesien) . 193
William Newell: Problems of Descent in the Southern
Ryukyus (Sakeshima).................................. 202
W. W. Schuhmacher: In the Wake of the Whales. Ear-
ly Eskimo in Hawaii?................................. 207
Michael Oppitz: A Day in the City of Death. “Forest
of Bliss” (by Robert Gardner) - A Film Review . . 210
Andreas Bruck: Die leidige Konstanz von Vorurteilen.
Konstruktive Anmerkungen zu drei Vorwürfen in Er-
win H. Franks funktionaler Analyse des Tapirfestes
der Uni ............................................. 212
Jürgen Zwernemann: Kulturgeschichte und Kritik.
Eine Erwiderung auf T. O. Beidelman................. 215
Akalu, Aster: Beyond Morals? (T. O. Beidelman) 221
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (ed.): Neofunctionalism (An-
dreas Bruck) ......................................... 223
Allott, Antony, and Gordon R. Woodman (eds.):
People’s Law and State Law (Hugo Huber)........... 224
Amselle, Jean-Loup et Elikia M’bokolo (éds.): Au
coeur de l’ethnie (Antonio C. Gonçalves).......... 225
Ariès, Philippe, and André Béjin (eds.): Western
Sexuality (Andreas Bruck) ............................ 226
Arnold, Dean E.: Ceramic Theory and Cultural Pro-
cess (Albert Meyers) ................................. 227
Baer, Gerhard: Die Religion der Matsigenka (Mario
Califano) ............................................ 229
Barbier, Jean Paul: Tobaland - The Shreads of Tradi-
tion (Jörg Helbig).................................... 232
Bargatzky, Thomas: Einführung in die Ethnologie
(Maike Kleihauer) ................................... 233
Basu, Mahadeb P.: Anthropological Profile of the
Muslims of Calcutta (Christian W. Troll) ............. 235
Biebuyck, Daniel: The Arts of Zaire (Barbara Frank) 235
Bloch, Maurice: Marxism and Anthropology (Andrzej
Bronk) .............................................. 236
Boremanse, Didier (éd.); Contes et mythologie des
indiens lacandons (Ulrich Köhler) .................... 267
Borthwick, Meredith: The Changing Role of Women
in Bengal, 1849-1905 (Robert Deliège) ................ 238
Bourdier, Jean-Paul, and Trinh T. Minh-Ha: African
Space (Roderick J. Lawrence) ......................... 239
Brüggemann, Jürgen: In der Schwäche der Armen
liegt die Chance der Reichen (Wolfgang Trautmann) 240
Cipolletti, Maria Susana: Jenseitsvorstellungen bei den
Indianern Südamerikas (Iris Gareis)................... 240
Ciz, Karl Heinz: Robert Hartmann (1831-1893) (Heri-
bert Körner) ......................................... 242
Clastres, Pierre: Chronik der Guayaki (Maike Klei-
hauer) ............................................... 242
Das Gupta, Japan Kumar: Beiträge zur Museumsdi-
daktik am Beispiel einer ethnographischen Sammlung
(Volker Harms)........................................ 244
Donnan, Christopher B. (ed.): Early Ceremonial Ar-
chitecture in the Andes (Hartwig Latocha) ............ 246
Doyle, Arthur Conan: Das Congoverbrechen (F. Bon-
tinck) ............................................... 248
Feiger, Richard Stephen, and Mary Beck Moser:
People of the Desert and Sea (Thomas H. Lewis) . . 248
Felmy, Sabine (Hrsg.): Märchen und Sagen aus Hunza
(Jürgen W. Frembgen).................................. 249
Firth, Raymond: Tikopia-English Dictionary (D. T.
Tryon)................................................ 250
Anthropos 83.1988
Fox, Robin: Kinship and Marriage (Ann Marie Po-
wers) .............................................
Frayser, Suzanne G.: Varieties of Sexual Expérience
(Andreas Bruck) ...................................
Gardi, Bernhard: Zaire: Masken, Figuren (Barbara
Frank) ............................................
Gesch, Patrick F.: Initiative and Initiation (Karl J.
Franklin) .........................................
Gonçalves, Antonio Custodio: Le lignage contre l’Etat
(Klaus Weiland) ...................................
Gordon, Robert J., and Mervyn J. Meggit: Law and
Order in the New Guinea Highlands (Thunar
Jentsch)...........................................
Gowlett, John A. J.: Auf Adams Spuren (Axel Schul-
ze-Thulin).........................................
Gronemeyer, Reimer (comp.): Zigeuner in Osteuropa
(Aparna Rao).......................................
Hellinger, Marlis: Englisch-orientierte Pidgin- und
Kreolsprachen (Don Laycock) .......................
Hochegger, Hermann (dir.); Dictionnaire des rites;
vol. 1-6 (Pierre Erny).............................
Holy, Ladislav: Strategies and Norms in a Changing
Matrilineal Society (T. O. Beidelman)..............
Houston, G. W. (ed.): The Cross and the Lotus (J. V.
Ferreira) .........................................
Hunger, Heinz: Die Heilige Hochzeit (Klaus Fischer)
König, Ditte: Das Tor zur Unterwelt (Gabriella Ei-
chinger Ferro-Luzzi) ..............................
Latouche, Jean-Paul: Mythistoire Tungaru (D. T. Try-
on) ...............................................
LeRoy, John: Fabricated World (Don Laycock) . . .
LeRoy, John (ed.): Kewa Tales (Don Laycock) . . .
Lewis, I. M.: Social Anthropology in Perspective
(A. A. Trouwborst).................................
Lurie, Nancy Oestreich: North American Indian Lives
(Sonja Schierle)...................................
Ma’ax, K’ayum und Christian Rätsch (Hrsg.): Ein
Kosmos im Regenwald (Ulrich Köhler) ...............
Mahias, Marie-Claude: Délivrance et convivialité
(Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi) .................
Mahieu, Wauthier de: Qui a obstrué la cascade?
(Hermann Hochegger) ...............................
Martin, Richard C. (ed.): Approaches to Islam in
Religious Studies (Christian W. Troll) ............
Maydell, H.-J. von: Arbres et arbustes du Sahel
(Dorothee Grüner)..................................
Meillassoux, Claude: Anthropologie de l’esclavage
(Rita Cordonnier)..................................
Meyer-Bahlburg, Hilke und Ekkehard Wolff;
Afrikanische Sprachen in Forschung und Lehre (Sieg-
mund Brauner) ........................................ 274
Meyn, Matthias, et al. (Hrsg.): Die großen Entdek-
kungen (Heribert Körner) ............................. 275
Michaelis, Hans-Thorald: Schützengilden (Dieter Dü-
ding) ................................................ 276
Moore, Henrietta L.: Space, Text, and Gender (T. O.
Beidelman) ........................................... 277
Mörner, Magnus: The Andean Past (Henrique Urba-
no) .................................................. 278
O’Brien, Denise, and Sharon W. Tiffany (eds.): Re-
thinking Women’s Roles (Thomas Bargatzky) .... 279
Parkin, David (ed.): The Anthropology of Evil (Hugo
Huber) ............................................... 280
Paul, Diana Y.: Women in Buddhism (Karl-Heinz
Golzio) .............................................. 281
Petermann, Werner; Regenkulte und Regenmacher
bei bantu-sprachigen Ethnien Ost- und Südafrikas
(Thomas Hauschild) ................................... 282
Piasere, Leonardo: Märe Roma - Catégories humaines
et structure sociale (Aparna Rao) .................... 257
Plakans, Andrejs: Kinship in the Past (Zbigniew Jasie-
wicz) ................................................ 283
Rambo, A. Terry: Primitive Polluters (Wing-sam
Chow)................................................. 284
Rätsch, Christian: Bilder aus der unsichtbaren Welt
(Ulrich Köhler)....................................... 267
Rätsch, Christian: Das Erlernen von Zaubersprüchen
(Ulrich Köhler)....................................... 267
Reich!, Karl (Übers.); Rawsan - Ein usbekisches
mündliches Epos (Jürgen Frembgen)..................... 285
Singh, K. S.: Birsa Munda and his Movement,
1874-1901 (Robert Deliège) ........................... 286
Soffer, Olga: The Upper Paleolithic of the Central
Russian Plain (Axel Schulze-Thulin)................... 287
Sperber, Dan: On Anthropological Knowledge (John
W. Burton) ........................................... 288
Toulabor, Comi M.: Le Togo sous Eyadéma (Jacek
Jan Pawlik) .......................................... 289
Wernhart, Karl R. (Hrsg.): Ethnohistorie und Kultur-
geschichte (Stephen Fuchs)............................ 290
Neue Publikationen.............................. 293
Zeitschriftenschau.............................. 311
Miszellen ................................ 185, 186
Mitarbeiter dieses Heftes....................... 325
251
251
253
253
254
256
257
257
258
259
260
261
263
263
264
265
265
266
267
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273
Anthropos 83.1988
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN
Institut für Ethnologie
Inventar - Nr. 423 / /I&O//I
ANTHROROS 83.1988/4-6
Artikel
Albert Piette: Formes rituelles et comportementales
dans la fête populaire. Le carnaval de Binche .... 327
Alison Dundes Renteln: The Concept of Human
Rights................................................ 343
Franz Eichinger, Johann Frick und Anton Quack: Der
Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum ................... 365
David Hicks: Change, Adjustment, and Persistence in
Generalized Exchange. A Case Study from Indonesia 395
Clark W. Sorensen: The Myth of Princess Pari and the
Self Image of Korean Women ........................... 403
James West Turner: A Sense of Place. Locus and
Identity in Matailobau, Fiji.......................... 421
Rurkhard Schnepel: Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of
Death and Installation ............................... 433
John W. Burton: Nilotic Studies. Some Past Problems
and Prospects......................................... 453
Etienne Yarmon Soma: Les instruments de musique du
Pays cerma (ou goin), sud-ouest du Burkina Faso . . 469
Harold Olofson: Natural Areas in Hausa Urbaniza-
don .................................................. 485
Ceert Mommersteeg: “He has smitten her to the heart
with love.” The Fabrication of an Islamic Love-amulet
in West Africa ....................................... 501
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen HeB: Kultur und Kogni-
tlQn. Zur Kritik der mentalistischen Kulturkonzeption 511
IHaría Susana Cipolletti: El tráfico de curare en la
cuenca amazónica (siglos XVIII y XIX) ................ 527
Berichte und Kommentare
Richard M. Moyle: The Niuean Nose Flute .............. 541
Renate von Gizycki: “The canoe is afloat ...” Zur
Entstehung und Entwicklung der South Pacific Creative
Arts Society. Ein Beispiel für kulturelle Initiativen im
Prozeß der Entkolonialisierung........................ 546
Rainer M. Voigt: Das Bidiya - eine neue osttschadische
SPrache............................................... 554
Thomas O. Beidelman: Fourth Addendum to “The
Patrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania” ............. 558
Adam Jones: Frauen in Westafrika. Zweites Treffen
dor Arbeitsgruppe .................................... 558
Siegbert Hummel: Sind die kanarischen Petroglyphen
deutbar?.............................................. 561
Rcttina Bommer und Waltraud Kokot: „Urbane Ethno-
^gie“. Bericht über die Arbeitsgruppe................. 562
Hans-Jürgen Hildebrandt: Nietzsche als Ethnologe. Ein
citrag zur Klärung der Quellenfrage .................. 565
Rezensionen
Bargatzky, Thomas: Einführung in die Kulturökologie
(Erwin H. Frank)...................................... 573
Barker, Graeme, and Clive Gamble (eds.): Beyond
Domestication in Prehistoric Europe (Axel Schulze-
Thulin) .............................................. 574
Beach, Hugh (ed.): Contributions to Circumpolar
Studies (Evelin Haase)................................ 575
Beidelman, T. O: Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes
of Thought (John W. Burton) .......................... 577
Bierhorst, John (transí.): Cantares Mexicanos (Thomas
F. Johnston) ......................................... 578
Bierhorst, John: A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and
Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos (Thomas F.
Johnston) ............................................ 578
Binsbergen, Wim van, and Matthew Schoffeleers
(eds.): Theoretical Explorations in African Religion
(Stephen D. Glazier).................................. 579
Blanchard, Kendall (ed.): The Many Faces of Play (Rolf
Husmann).............................................. 580
Bolz, Peter: Ethnische Identität und kultureller Wider-
stand (Ralf Streum)................................... 581
Boone, Elizabeth Hill (ed.): Painted Architecture and
Polychrome Monumental Sculpture in Mesoamerica
(Kornelia Kurbjuhn) .................................. 582
Caplan, Pat (ed.): The Cultural Construction of Sexu-
ality (T. O. Beidelman)............................... 583
Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre: Voir, savoir, pouvoir (Mario
Califano) ............................................ 585
Denneil, Robin: European Economic Prehistory (Axel
Schulze-Thulin)....................................... 587
Dobbin, Jay D.: The Jombee Dance of Montserrat
(Leslie G. Desmangles)................................ 588
Dupré, Georges: Les naissances d'une société (Rita
Cordonnier)........................................... 590
Eisenstadt, S. N., and Louis Roninger: Patrons,
Clients, and Friends (Ann Marie Powers) .......... 591
Faia, Michael A.: Dynamic Functionalism (Andreas
Bruck)................................................ 592
Fardon, Richard (ed.): Power and Knowledge (John W.
Burton) .............................................. 592
Faull, J., and G. Young: South Australian Centre for
Settlement Studies Incorporated (Roderick J. Law-
rence) ............................................... 593
Fellmann, Rudolf, Georg Germann und Karl Zimmer- -
mann (Hrsg.): Jagen und Sammeln (Axel Schulze-
Thulin) .............................................. 594
Frobenius, Leo: Ethnographische Notizen aus den
Jahren 1905 und 1906. I (Jürgen Zwernemann) . . . 595
Frobenius, Lee: Ethnographische Notizen aus den
Jahren 1905 und 1906. II (Jürgen Zwernemann) . . .
Frobenius, Leo: Histoire et contes des Mossi (Jürgen
Zwernemann).......................................
Frobenius, Leo: Peuples et sociétés traditionnelles du
Nord-Cameroun (Jürgen Zwernemann) ................
Glazier, Ira A., and Luigi De Rosa (eds.); Migrations
across Time and Nations (Stephanie von Franken-
berg) ............................................
Godelier, Maurice; The Making of Great Men (Marek
Kilijanek)........................................
Goetze, Dieter und Claus Mühlfeld: Ethnosoziologie
(Volker Welter)...................................
Golomb, Louis: An Anthropology of Curing in Mul-
tiethnic Thailand (Roland Mischung)...............
Görgens, Manfred: Kleine Geschichte der indischen
Kunst (Klaus Fischer).............................
Hirschberg, Walter (Hrsg.): Neues Wörterbuch der
Völkerkunde (Pierre Erny).........................
Hotze, Ilona: Darimana? Kemana? (Urs Ramseyer)
Hutterer, Karl L., Terry Rambo, and George Lovelace
(eds.): Cultural Values and Human Ecology in South-
east Asia (David Hicks) ..........................
Josephides, Lisette: The Production of Inequality (Karl
J. Franklin)......................................
Khare, R. S.: Culture and Democracy (Robert Deliè-
ge)...............................................
Khare, R. S., and M. S. A. Rao (eds.); Food, Society,
and Culture (Robert Deliège) .....................
King, Victor T.: The Maloh of West Kalimantan (Stefan
Seitz) ...........................................
Kopytoff, Igor (ed.); The African Frontier (T. O.
Beidelman) .......................................
Lafitau, Joseph-François: Die Sitten der amerikani-
schen W'ilden im Vergleich zu den Sitten der Frühzeit
(Anton Quack) ....................................
Lamberti, Marcello: Somali Language and Literature
(Rainer M. Voigt) ................................
Levin, Isidor (Hrsg.): Märchen vom Dach der Welt
(Jürgen W. Frembgen) .............................
Linkenbach, Antje: Opake Gestalten des Denkens
(Erwin H. Frank)..................................
Maffesoli, Michael: Der Schatten des Dionysos (Andre-
as Bruck) ........................................
Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer: Anthro-
pology as Cultural Critique (Wojciech Burszta) . . .
Marschall, Wolfgang (Hrsg.); Der große Archipel
(Thomas Schweizer) ...............................
Merkur, Daniel: Becoming Half Hidden (Thomas F.
Johnston) ........................................
Miller, Daniel: Artefacts as Categories (Klaus Hesse)
Morris, Brian: Anthropological Studies of Religion
(T. O. Beidelman) ................................
Neog, Maheswar: Early History of the Vaisnava Faith
and Movement in Assam (Hans-Joachim Klimkeit) .
Niessen, S. A.: Motifs of Life in Toba Batak Texts and
Textiles (Danker H. Schaareman) ..................
Nowak, Herbert: Kanarische Studien, Bd. 2 (Siegbert
Hummel) .............................................. 626
Nurse, G. T., J. S. Weiner, and Trefor Jenkins: The
Peoples of Southern Africa and their Affinities (Volker
Welter) .............................................. 627
Nuß, Marianne und Volker Welter: Deutschland im
Urteil afrikanischer Lehrer (Matthias Wanckel) . . . 628
Oommen, T. K.: Social Structure and Politics (Klaus
Hesse)................................................ 629
Pearson, Roger: Anthropological Glossary (Danuta
Penkala-Gawqcka) ..................................... 630
Potash, Betty (ed.): Widows in African Societies
(Claudia Fonseca)................................ 632
Rahimi, Fahima: Women in Afghanistan / Frauen in
Afghanistan (Jürgen W. Frembgen) ..................... 634
Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen
Archäologie (Joseph Henninger)................... 634
Renard-Casevitz, F. M., T. Saignes et A. C. Taylor:
LTnca, Pespagnol et les sauvages (María Susana Cipol-
letti)........................................... 635
Sachchidananda and B. B. Mandal: Industrialization
and Social Disorganization (Robert Deliége) .... 636
Schild, Ulla (ed.): Jaw-Bones and Umbilical Cords
(Sigrid Paul) ........................................ 637
Schmidt, Annette: Young People’s Dyirbal (D. T.
Tryon)........................................... 638
Schütz, Albert J.: The Fijian Language (D. T. Tryon) 639
Shulman, David Dean: The King and the Clown in
South Indian Myth and Poetry (Gabriella Eichinger
Ferro-Luzzi)..................................... 640
Stevenson, Michael: Wokmani (Patrick F. Gesch) . . 641
Suleiman, Susan Rubin (ed.): The Female Body in
Western Culture (Andreas Bruck)....................... 643
Szalay, Miklös: Die Kunst Schwarzafrikas (Annemarie
Schweeger-Hefel)...................................... 644
Taussig, Michael: Shamanism, Colonialism, and the
White Man (Edmundo Magaña) ........................... 645
Terrell, John: Prehistory in the Pacific Islands (Eber-
hard Haußmann) ....................................... 647
Tiwari, Kapil N. (ed.): Suffering. Indian Perspectives
(Jayandra Soni)....................................... 648
Valeri, Valerio: Kingship and Sacrifice (Matthias
Mersch)............................................... 650
Vossen, Rüdiger und Wilhelm Ebert: Marokkanische
Töpferei (Wolfgang Haberland) ........................ 652
Waldenfels, Hans (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Religionen
(Othmar Gächter) ..................................... 653
Weir, Shelagh: Qat in Yemen (Stephanie von Franken-
berg) ................................................ 654
Neue Publikationen.............................. 657
Zeitschriftenschau.............................. 669
Miszellen ................................ 510, 572
Korrektur....................................... 564
Mitarbeiter dieses Heftes....................... 683
Index .......................................... 685
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Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 1-16
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
Das Fest der winterlichen Sonnenwende und der Mythos der
Honigernte bei den Magar West-Nepals
Michael Oppitz
Abstract. - The article connects two sets of ethnographic
facts: a myth, as told in multiple variants among several
Himalayan hill tribes; and a calendrical event, as it is ob-
served among the present day Magar of the Dhaulagiri re-
gion, Nepal. The myth relates the story of a man and his
nine sons going on a hunt for wild honey; the annual event is
the festival of the winter solstice. On both scales, in the
mythological story and during the annual, ritual event, a
bow-an-arrow competition form the core theme. In the myth,
the nine brothers compete by means of target shooting for the
hand of a forbidden woman: their own step-mother (after they
have abandonned their father at a cliff). In the ritual event,
young men compete by means of target shooting for the hand
of a girl from a prescribed marriage category. In both cases, a
sportive action confirms the social rules of marriage. [West-
Nepal, Magar, Mythology, Ritual, Rules of marriage, Pre-
scription alliance]
Michael Oppitz, Dr. phil. (1974); Studium der Soziologie,
Sinologie und Ethnologie in Bonn, Berkeley, Köln; 1985-86
Visiting Professor für Anthropologie und Ästhetik, University
of Texas; 1986-87 Fellow am Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin;
1988 Directeur d’Etudes an der Ecole pratique des hautes
Etudes, Paris. - Publikationen: Geschichte und Sozialordnung
der Sherpa (1968); Notwendige Beziehungen - Abriß der
strukturalen Anthropologie (1974); Ein Bilderbuch aus dem
Himalaya (1981); Frau für Fron (1988); Film: Schamanen im
Blinden Land (1981).
Unter den zahlreichen Bergvölkern des Himalaya
nehmen die Magar des westlichen Nepal vor
allem deswegen eine exemplarische Stellung ein,
Weil sie in mustergültiger Weise einem Heiratssy-
stem anhängen, das in der anthropologischen
Literatur unter der Bezeichnung indirekter oder
verallgemeinerter Frauentausch leidenschaftliche
Auseinandersetzungen ausgelöst hat. Unglückli-
cherweise konnten in diesen Diskussionen die
Magar bislang nicht angemessen einbezogen wer-
den, da es an publizierten Quellen über sie
mangelte. Gleichwohl ist gerade diese Population
geeignet, ungelöste Fragen zum Thema elementa-
rer Allianzsysteme neu zu beleuchten. Dazu ge-
hört das Problem des Zusammenhangs zwischen
vorzeitlichem Mythos und akuter gesellschaftli-
cher Praxis; dazu gehört auch die Erörterung der
Frage, in welcher Weise der Modus der Heirat
imstande ist, andere Formen des gesellschaftli-
chen Lebens mitzugestalten.
Auf diese beiden Fragen ist der vorliegende
Essay zugeschnitten, einmal, indem er ein jährli-
ches Volksfest und seine dazugehörigen rituellen
Tätigkeiten mit einem Mythos konfrontiert, der
dem Fest seinen primordialen Hintergrund
schafft; zum anderen, indem meine Abhandlung
die Spuren der Heirat als ein kategoriales Raster-
system bis in die sportlichen und spielerischen
Tätigkeiten des Festkalenders verfolgt. Das ka-
lendarische Ereignis, von dem ich sprechen wer-
de, ist das Fest der winterlichen Sonnenwende,
der ihm zugesellbare Mythos behandelt die Ho-
nigernte und den Bogenwettkampf um eine Frau.
Das Heiratssystem, um das es geht, ist eine ele-
mentare Struktur: die Dreierallianz, die sich aus
der systematischen Praxis der matrilateralen
Kreuzkusinen-Heirat ergibt. Drei gesellschaftli-
che Gruppen sind dabei derart miteinander ver-
knüpft, daß die erste Gruppe ihre heiratsfähigen
Mädchen an die zweite abtritt, diese die ihren an
die dritte und die dritte ihre heiratsfähigen
Frauen wiederum an die erste. Dergestalt schließt
sich mit dem einseitig gerichteten Tausch von
Frauen zwischen den drei konstitutiven Gruppen
ein Kreis, den man als zirkulatives Konnubium
bezeichnen mag. Wie die Zugehörigkeit zu diesen
Gruppen über die Heirat hinaus gesellschaftlich
wirksam ist, zeigt der Blick auf die Akteure des
Volksfestes anläßlich der winterlichen Sonnen-
wende.
An den ersten drei Tagen des frostigen Mo-
nats Magh (etwa Mitte Januar) begehen die
Magar ein kommunales Fest, mäghe sahkränti,
das auf seine Weise einen Tribut darstellt an die
zyklische Einteilung des Jahres nach dem System
der Sonne. Obwohl selbst einen halben Monat
später angesetzt, ist das Fest mäghe sahkränti in
direkter Weise mit der Wintersonnenwende ver-
knüpft. Diese setzt der Volkskalender auf den 12.
des voraufgegangenen Monats Pus fest. An die-
sem Tage, so sagen die Dörfler, ,springt4 die
2
Michael Oppitz
Sonne am Morgen um 12 hät, zwölf Ellen, nach
Osten und am Abend um zwölf Ellen nach
Westen. Aus diesem beobachteten ,Sprung4 der
Sonne leiten die Magar von Taka (einem Dorf am
Oberlauf des Uttar Ganga im Dhaulagiri Gebiet)
die Herkunft des Wortes für Sonnenwende ab,
nam cui, ,Hackbrett des Himmels4: Wie von
einem Hackbrett die zerschlagenen Fleischstücke
nach beiden Seiten springen, so springt die Sonne
am Tage der Sonnenwende nach Osten und We-
sten. Da Taka nahezu rundum von einem Panora-
ma von Bergkämmen unterschiedlicher Höhe um-
geben ist, erscheint und verschwindet die Sonne
im Verlaufe des Jahres tatsächlich nicht jeden
Tag in vollkommen gleichen Abständen an einer
anderen Stelle. Für drei Tage nach dem ,Sprung4
der Sonne verharren nach Maßgabe der Dörfler
Sonnenaufgang und Sonnenuntergang an der glei-
chen Stelle; danach, vom 15. des Monats Pus an,
werden die Tage länger und das aszendierende
Jahr beginnt. Genau an diesem Tage setzen die
männlichen Bewohner des Dorfes ein Bogenwett-
schießen in Gang, das bis zum 1. des Monats
Magh, bis zum Sonnenwendfest mäghe sahkränti,
täglich in der gleichen Weise wiederholt wird. Es
heißt mui sesine, ,den Pfeil (des Gegners) splei-
ßen4. Dieses Bogenschießen ist selbst nur ein
Vorspiel zu jenem Wettkampf mit Pfeil und
Bogen, der als eines der großen Themen des
winterlichen Sonnenwendfestes herausragt, mui
sesine, ,den Pfeil des Gegners spleißen4, besteht
darin, daß einer der am Wettkampf teilnehmen-
den Schützen - meist junge Männer des Dorfes -
einen Bambuspfeil schräg in die Erde schießt,
den dann die übrigen Teilnehmer aus einer Di-
stanz von etwa 20 Metern von der anderen Seite
her mit Pfeilschüssen zu treffen, zu durchbohren,
zu ,spleißen4 trachten. Wer als erster den gegneri-
schen Pfeil gesplissen und zerbrochen hat, gilt als
Sieger. Daraufhin stellt der Sieger einen seiner
Pfeile als Ziel zur Verfügung und das Spiel
beginnt von neuem. Mit dieser oftmals wiederhol-
ten Übung schießt man sich ein für den eigentli-
chen Wettkampf des Zielscheibenschießens am
ersten Tage des Sonnenwendfestes; zugleich hofft
man, durch möglichst viele Spleißungen gegneri-
scher Pfeile die Effizienz der Konkurrenten zu
schwächen.
Das Fest mäghe sahkränti, das den Anfang
des Sonnenjahres markiert, beginnt früh am Mor-
gen des 1. Magh mit einer rituellen Waschung
aller männlichen Dorfbewohner im Fluß. Mit
dieser Waschung entledigen sich die Männer aller
Unreinheiten, die sich im Laufe des voraufgegan-
genen Jahres angesammelt haben mögen. Phy-
sisch und symbolisch gereinigt, treten sie nun
einen neuen Jahreszyklus an. Am Ende der kur-
zen rituellen Waschung sprechen sie in festste-
henden Redewendungen zueinander: ,Wir sind
die Überlebenden aus dem Jahre zuvor. Wenn
wir im kommenden nicht sterben, so werden wir
uns hier in einem Jahre Wiedersehen.4
Die Entsprechungen zwischen Übergängen im
menschlichen Leben und Übergängen der Jahres-
zeiten, auf welche die obigen Redewendungen
anspielen, werden noch expliziter an einem ande-
ren rituellen Ereignis des gleichen Tages. Nach-
dem bereits am Vormittag die erwachsenen cili,
die ausheiratenden Töchter, im Zentrum einer
rituellen Handlung gestanden haben (s. u.), füh-
ren am Nachmittag ihre kleineren Geschlechtsge-
nossinnen einen Akt auf, den die Magar putali
mune, ,Verbrennen der Puppen4 nennen. Dabei
ziehen, entsprechend ihren zukünftigen Heirats-
klassen in Gruppen aufgeteilt, kleine cili-Mäd-
chen mit Puppen, die aus Stoff und Lumpen
zusammengebastelt sind, an verschiedene Stellen
vor das Dorf, wo sie, zusammen mit gleichaltri-
gen Jungen der bhänja- oder Frauennehmer-
Klasse, für ihre Puppen Modellhäuser, zim, aus
Maisstroh errichten. Nachdem die Stoffpuppen
auf die Dächer der errichteten Strohhäuschen
gebettet worden sind, womit diese sich gleichsam
in symbolische Scheiterhaufen verwandeln, legen
die Jungen an das Ganze ein Feuer, sie verbren-
nen die Puppen4.
Aus der Perspektive der kleinen Mädchen
repräsentieren die verbrannten Puppen die nänä,
die verstorbenen älteren Schwestern, die sie nun,
wie während eines richtigen Totenrituals, zere-
moniell beweinen. Und wie bei einem echten
jutho khyene, einem wesentlichen Akt des in
Phasen aufgegliederten Totenzeremonials, am
Ende der Trauerzeit, die Frauen ein ausgelasse-
nes Bankett veranstalten, so verteilen die kleinen
c;7i-Mädchen im gespielten Trauerspiel nach der
Verbrennung der Puppen mitgebrachte Speisen
untereinander und an ihre männlichen Spielka-
meraden. Zugleich werden kleine Opfergaben an
die Ahnen und die übrigen Übernatürlichen dar-
gebracht. Gegen Ende des Kinderspiels Ver-
brennen der Puppen4 adressieren die cili-Mäd-
chen einander mit den gleichen Redewendungen
wie am Morgen die Männer: ,Wir sind die Über-
lebenden aus dem Jahre zuvor. Wenn wir im
kommenden nicht sterben, so werden wir uns hier
in einem Jahre Wiedersehen.4 Die lebenszykli-
schen Themen der Passagen: Leben-Tod-Regene-
ration (bzw. Überleben oder Übergang in den
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
3
Ahnenstatus) werden hier also spielerisch einge-
bettet in den Übergang vom Tod des alten in die
Geburt des neuen Jahres.
Die beiden Hauptereignisse des ersten Tages
von mäghe sankränti, dem Fest der Winterson-
nenwende, jedoch sind offenbar an keine vom
Jahreszyklus auf den Lebenszyklus übertragenen
Themen gebunden. Ja, auf den ersten Blick
scheinen sie auch zueinander keine unmittelbare
Beziehung zu unterhalten. Es sind dies die Eh-
rung der ausheiratenden Frauen, cili biti pujine,
und der Wettstreit der Männer im Pfeilschießen
auf aufgestellte Zielscheiben, tahsine. Es sind
dem Augenschein nach zwei unverknüpfte, selb-
ständige Festakte; unter dem Gesichtspunkt des
Heiratssystems aber betrachtet, gehören sie zu-
sammen: Sie festigen das Konzept der Dreieralli-
anz.
Die Ehrung der ausheiratenden Frauen, cili
biti pujine, durch männliche Mitglieder der eige-
nen agnatischen Gruppe findet am Morgen nach
der rituellen Waschung der Männer statt. Sie
besteht darin, daß Männer einer jeden Abstam-
mungsgruppe ihren Schwestern, ob verheiratet
oder unverheiratet, eine Yamsfrucht als Ge-
schenk darbringen. Sind die cili oder Schwestern
unverheiratet, so findet die Ehrung im eigenen
paternalen Hause statt, sind sie verheiratet, so
ziehen die Gabenüberbringer ins gegenwärtige
Wohnhaus ihrer Schwestern. Neben der Yams-
frucht übergeben die Brüder ihren Schwestern
überdies Brote und Geld im symbolischen Wert
von einer Rupie, wobei sie den einfachen Satz
aussprechen: ,Ich bin gekommen, um dich zu
obren4, {ngä puji hunizeo). Kurz, wie dieses
rituelle Ereignis sein mag, ist es zugleich schwer
an Bedeutung.
Zunächst bedeutet es nicht mehr und nicht
Weniger als den Dank der männlichen Mitglieder
einer Heiratsgruppe an diejenigen ihrer Mitglie-
der, die sie durch Heirat verlassen haben oder
Erlassen werden: die in der eigenen Abstam-
mungsgruppe geborenen Frauen. Sie nämlich sind
os, die dadurch, daß sie von der eigenen Gruppe
ln die nächste der Frauennehmer als Bräute
überwechseln, den Strom der Kommunikation
zwischen den die Gemeinschaft konstituierenden
Einheiten allererst einschalten. Sie sind es, die als
höchste Tauschobjekte der Gesellschaft den
Kreislauf des Tauschs schließen und in Bewegung
halten. Ohne ihre Existenz gäbe es keinen
Tausch, keine Reziprozität, kein gesellschaftli-
ches Leben. Darum muß ihnen zunächst für ihre
bloße Existenz gedankt werden. In der Gruppe,
m die sie einheiraten, werden sie als Arbeitskraft,
vor allem aber als Produzentinnen von Nachkom-
menschaft empfangen und geschätzt. Ihr Wert
wird nach dieser Produktivkraft bemessen. Eine
unfruchtbare Frau kann aus diesem Grunde als
wertlos an den Frauengeber zurückgegeben wer-
den.
Als Produzentinnen von Nachkommenschaft
werden die Frauen freilich nicht nur in der Neh-
mergruppe begrüßt, die sie unmittelbar in ihrem
Fortbestand retten, bzw. vermehren helfen, son-
dern auch in der Gebergruppe, aus der sie
ursprünglich stammen, da auch diese ein langfri-
stiges Interesse am demographischen Gleichge-
wicht der matrimonialen Tauschgruppen haben
muß. Die Gabe von Yamsfrüchten am Fest der
Wintersonnenwende von Männern der Frauenge-
bergruppe an ihre eigenen ausheiratenden Frauen
ist ein symbolischer Hinweis auf deren sozialen
Auftrag: in der anderen Gruppe zum indirekten
Nutzen der herkömmlichen fruchtbar zu sein.
Was hat es nun mit den Yamsfrüchten auf
sich? Die Magar unterscheiden drei Arten von
Yams, zwei wilde und eine Hauspflanze. Die
wilden Yams werden ban-yeo, ,Waldyams4 oder
sinji genannt. Die letztgenannte Art findet in me-
dizinischen Rezepten der Astrologen oder jaisi
Verwendung, wo ihre Schalen, sinji ko bokra, als
Präparat zusammen mit Walnuß wurzeln und zwei
Arten von Gräsern gegen Blut im Urin verab-
reicht werden. Die süßlichen Hausyams, yeo,
{Dioscorea alata), werden als Kochgemüse ge-
schätzt. Sie wachsen in den Vorgärten der Häu-
ser. Frisch gepflanzt, braucht eine Yamsknolle
neun bis zehn Monate zur Reifung, fast die
gleiche Zeit wie der menschliche Fötus. Darauf-
hin trägt die Pflanze alljährlich einmal eine
Frucht, wie es auch für eine verheiratete Frau in
den ersten Jahren der Ehe als wünschenswert gilt.
Schließlich sind die Yams auch wegen ihrer Form
geeignet, sinnfällig menschliche Fruchtbarkeit zu
verkörpern, sind ihre Rundungen doch dem
Bauch einer Schwangeren nicht unähnlich. Mit
der Verteilung von Yamsfrüchten zur winterli-
chen Sonnenwendfeier im Monat Magh erinnern
also die Frauengeber die ausheiratenden weibli-
chen Mitglieder der eigenen Abstammungsgrup-
pe in doppelter Weise an ihre Fruchtbarkeit: als
Auftrag, die Gruppe der Frauennehmer zu ver-
mehren; und als Dank für bereits geleistete Mut-
terschaft in deren Gemeinschaft. Deshalb heißt in
den mythologischen Gesängen der Magar-Scha-
manen der Monat Magh, ,die Zeit, in der man die
Töchter ehrt4, auch ganz einfach der ,Monat der
Mütter4, mätäriye mäs, eine Zeit, in der die
Gerste zu reifen beginnt und in der die Yams-
Anthropos 83.1988
4
Michael Oppitz
früchte ,entbunden4 und als Gaben an die abge-
tretenen Frauen der eigenen Patrilinie überreicht
werden, die man sich mit dieser Geste als Mütter
wünscht. In der Tat gehören die Yams, ebenso
wie das Getreide, zu den Vermehrungsgütern, die
stets nur in einer Richtung verschenkt werden -
von den Frauengebern an die Frauennehmer,
während in der anderen Gabenrichtung nur Ver-
zehrgüter kursieren: Bier und Brote. Aus dem
übergreifenden hinduistischen Kontext ist im üb-
rigen auch verbürgt, daß an mäghe sahkränti,
dem Fest der winterlichen Sonnenwende, das
Verzehren von Yamsfrüchten ein fester Brauch
ist und daß der Hausherr seine andernorts verhei-
rateten Töchter zu einem Bankett einlädt und sie
bei diesem Anlaß mit Geschenken versieht.1 Dies
gilt auch trotz der Tatsache, daß in hinduistischen
Gesellschaftsordnungen zirkulativer Frauen-
tausch nicht vorherrscht.
Beherrscht die Ehrung der ausheiratenden
Töchter und Schwestern den Vormittag des
1. Magh, des ersten Tages der Sonnenwendfeier,
so steht am Nachmittag das große Bogenschießen
der Männer, tahsine, im Vordergrund der Ereig-
nisse. Dieser Wettkampf war zuvor bereits, vom
eigentlichen Tage der Sonnenwende an, zwei
Wochen lang mit einer Art Trainingsschießen auf
die Pfeile der Gegner vorangekündigt worden.
Nun aber schießt man nicht mehr auf gegnerische
Pfeile, sondern auf eine Zielscheibe, tah, die, aus
einem Bambusring von etwa 25 cm Durchmesser
gefertigt, im Kreuzpunkt zweier horizontaler
Holzplanken und eines vertikal in die Erde ge-
rammten Brettes angebracht ist. Es geht nun, am
Nachmittag des 1. Magh, um den Schuß ins
Schwarze.
Zuvor haben sich die Kombattanten in den
ihnen zugewiesenen Schmieden eingefunden, um
sich von den Kami die für den Wettkampf ange-
messenen Pfeilspitzen anfertigen zu lassen. Die
für den Bogenwettkampf im Zielschießen benö-
tigten eisernen Pfeilspitzen sind im Vergleich zu
den ,wilden4 der Jagd ausgesprochen zahm. Ihr
Name stammt aus dem Bereich der ,zahmen4
Landwirtschaft. Sie heißen kothäle, was vom fast
gleichklingenden kothälä abgeleitet ist, einem
Wort, das die eisernen Spitzen der Pflugschar
bezeichnet. Sind alle Pfeilspitzen der Wettkämp-
fer an die Bambuspfeile angebracht, so begeben
sich die Männer an den traditionellen Ort des
Bogenwettkampfs, tahpo, der am unteren Aus-
gang des Dorfes vor den Häusern der Schneider-
1 Prayag Raj Sharma (mündliche Mitteilung) und Marc
Gaborieau 1982: 17.
käste liegt. Dort übernehmen Mitglieder der drei
historischen Frauentauschgruppen jeweils spezifi-
sche, den Wettkampf einleitende und abschlie-
ßende Aufgaben: Die Ramjali sind damit beauf-
tragt, die Bretter mit der Zielscheibe aufzustel-
len, die Baijali zahlen eine Rupie Trink-Geld,
während den Gharti das Recht zusteht, den er-
sten Pfeilschuß der Saison auf die Zielscheibe
abzugeben.
Dieses traditionelle Recht hat seine Entspre-
chung in einem anderen, ebenfalls den Gharti
reservierten Privileg: dem Recht des ersten jährli-
chen Umpflügens. So setzen die Gharti alljährlich
die offenbar als verwandt angesehenen kothälä-
Spitzen der Pflugschar und die kofhä/e-Spitzen
der Pfeile als erste ein. Am Ende des Pflügens
und am Ende des Bogenwettkampfs sind sie es,
die die jeweiligen Geräte als letzte benützen und
die die Periode ihres Einsatzes wieder aufheben.
Am Ende des Zielschießens sind es parallel dazu
die Ramjali, welche die auf gestellten Zielschei-
ben wieder entfernen, tah dälaine. Diesen clan-
spezifischen, unter die drei Allianzgruppen ver-
teilten Funktionen während der Bogenwettkämp-
fe gesellen sich noch andere Aufteilungen hinzu.
So werden am gleichen Tage in der Ebene vor
dem Dorf Schaukeln aus Bambuspfählen und
langen Seilen errichtet, sir pängo, ,kopfüber4. Sie
dienen der Volksbelustigung. Die Konstrukteure
der einzelnen Schaukeln gehören den historischen
drei Abstammungsgruppen an, den Gharti, den
Baijali und den Ramjali, die untereinander ihre
Frauen tauschen. Jede Tauschgruppe vergnügt
sich auf den Schaukeln clanweise.
Hat der Wettkampf einmal begonnen, so
kämpft jeder Teilnehmer nur noch für sich selbst.
Sieger einer jeden Kampfrunde ist derjenige,
dem es als erstem gelingt, mit seinem Pfeil ins
Innere des Zielrings zu treffen. Hat jemand dies
erreicht, so wird der Wettkampf unterbrochen,
und die übrigen Teilnehmer tragen den Sieger im
Triumphzug auf ihren Schultern zu seinem Hause
ins Dorf. Dort muß der Sieger, statt selbst einen
Preis davonzutragen, alle Verlierer mit einer
Schnapsrunde bewirten. Ist diese beendet, so
zieht man gemeinsam erneut zur Kampfstätte und
beginnt mit einer neuen Runde im Bogenwett-
schießen. Dies geht den ganzen Tag so weiter, bis
die Dunkelheit dem Wettkampf sein natürliches
Ende setzt; ein zweites natürliches Ende ist zu
diesem Zeitpünkt die allgemeine alkoholische
Umnebelung der Kombattanten, sowohl der Sie-
ger wie der Verlierer.
Während der gesamten Wettkämpfe tragen
einige Sänger aus der Kaste der Schmiede einen
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
5
mythischen Volksgesang, shyembhu,2 * über den
Ursprung von Pfeil und Bogen vor. Während sie
singen, halten die Schmiede einen Pfeil und einen
Bogen in Händen, welch letzteren sie an dramati-
schen Stellen der Geschichte spannen. Das shy-
embhu- Lied wird bis zum Ende des Sonnenwend-
festes gesungen. Am letzten, dem dritten Tage,
wird es wie ein mäyä bandi vorgetragen, der
Abschiedsgesang der Schamanen am Ende der
dreitägigen Initiation eines neuen magischen Kei-
lers.
Betrachtet man die rituellen Hauptereignisse
des ersten Tages von mäghe sahkränti - die
Ehrung der ausheiratenden Töchter und das Bo-
genwettschießen der jungen Männer - als in sich
geschlossene Abläufe, so scheint es zwischen
ihnen keinerlei Verbindung zu geben. Es sind
scheinbar isolierte und selbständige Ereignisse.
Ihre Zugehörigkeit deckt der zweite Tag des
Sonnenwendfestes auf, mit einem Reichtum an
Symbolik, der alle Zweifel an ihrer Einheit besei-
tigt.
An diesem Tage begeben sich frühmorgens
die verschiedenen ci/i-Gruppen des Dorfes, das
heißt in diesem Falle die unverheirateten Mäd-
chen der verschiedenen Abstammungsgruppen,
kul, jeweils an einen für sie reservierten Ort im
Wald, wo sie, nach Frauentauschklassen genau
gesondert, je ein Picknick veranstalten. Dieses
Picknick heißt auf Kham ban ngä zeane, ,im
Gebiet des Waldes essen4. Für ihr déjeuner sur
1 herbe haben die Mädchen in großen Körben
verschiedene Fleischsorten mitgebracht, Reis,
mada-Schnaps, chokorä-Bier und Mehl, um Bro-
te zu backen. Das Kochen und Festessen dauert
den ganzen Tag.
Doch bleiben die heiratsfähigen Mädchen
nicht allein. Um die Mittagszeit erscheinen an
den verschiedenen Picknick-Orten Banden junger
Männer, um mit den kochenden und speisenden
Mädchen zu schäkern. Jede dieser Banden ist
eme spezifische bhänja-Gruppe, das heißt eine
Gruppe potentieller Heiratskandidaten. Die jun-
gen Männer sind allesamt mit Pfeil und Bogen
ausgerüstet, denn an den Picknickstätten finden
erneut Wettkämpfe im Bogenschießen statt.
Diesmal aber geht es nicht darum, wie am Tage
zuvor, in das Schwarze einer Zielscheibe zu tref-
2 shyembhu bezeichnet das Instrumentenpaar ,Pfeil-und-
Bogen1, möglicherweise abgeleitet von Sambhu, einem
Epitheton Sivas: „Sambhu, der ewige, der Gott der
Götter mit dem ungestümen Bogen“, wie es im Varaha
Purana heißt.
fen, sondern darum, ein Stück ,fetter Schweine-
schwarte abzuschießen4, kundele äpne. Das Ziel
selbst ist ein bedeutungsvolles Arrangement. Es
besteht aus einem von den jungen Männern
mitgebrachten Pfeil, den man senkrecht in die
Erde gesteckt hat. Der Pfeil selbst ist in einen
Pfeil Pfeil des Gegners
Vorspiel (15.-29. Pus)
mui sesine
,die Pfeile spleißen1
Schwächen der Gegner
Pfeil
,Zielscheibenschießen1
sportliches Siegen
¥
Pfeil
weibliche Halskette
Schafsfleisch
Büffelfleisch
Schweineschwarte :
(kundele)
Brot
II. Akt (2. Magh)
kundele äpne
,Schweineschwarte abschießen4
Erringen einer Braut
Fig.: Die Zielscheiben der verschiedenen Bogenwett-
kämpfe am winterlichen Sonnenwendfest
Anthropos 83.1988
6
Michael Oppitz
Schaschlik-Spieß umfunktioniert worden, auf den
die crVi-Mädchen aus ihrem mitgebrachten Provi-
ant Fleischstücke von Schafen, Büffeln und
Schweinen, sowie .Brote und ein Stück fetter
Schweineschwarte aufgespießt haben. Das ganze
Schaschlik-Segment des in die Erde gesteckten
Pfeils ist umrahmt von einer weiblichen Halskette
eines der Mädchen. Die Kette hängt vom nach
oben weisenden Pfeilende herab. Diese Halskette
ist sozusagen der äußere Rand der Zielscheibe
dieses Tages und das Schwarz der Schweine-
schwarte das Schwarz des Zielbildes. Interessan-
terweise heißt die aus einem Bambusring herge-
stellte Zielscheibe des ersten Tages ebenfalls
kundele, ,Fett der Schweineschwarte4, was die
Verbindung der beiden Arten von Bogenwett-
kämpfen unterstreicht.
Heute, am zweiten Tage, hat jeder der
Schützen drei Schüsse. Gelingt es einem von
ihnen, seinen Pfeil durch das Innere der aufge-
hängten weiblichen Halskette zu schießen und
dazu noch ins Schwarze der Schweineschwarte zu
treffen, so überreicht eines der c;7i-Mädchen,
konkret: die Besitzerin der Kette, dem Sieger den
ganzen Schaschlik-Spieß. Ihm gebührt die Opu-
lenz des Schweinefleischs (und der anderen auf-
gespießten Speisegaben), und ihm gebührt die
Hand des Mädchens. Trifft keiner der zum Wett-
kampf angetretenen Schützen ins Innere der
Halskette, so nimmt das als Preis feilgebotene
Mädchen den Schaschlik-Spieß wieder an sich
und verzehrt die daraufgesteckten Speisen ge-
meinsam mit den anderen Mädchen der versam-
melten c/7;-Gruppe. Ungeachtet der erzielten Er-
folge beim Bogenschießen um die Schweine-
schwarte und im übertragenen Sinne um die
Hand eines Mädchens werden die Kämpfe am
Abend vor den elterlichen Häusern der cili wie-
derholt. Es heißt, daß es in früheren Zeiten
einem Bogenschützen, dem es weder an der
Picknickstätte noch vor dem Hause der potentiel-
len Bräute gelang, wenigstens einmal ins Schwar-
ze zu treffen, für immer versagt blieb, eines der
für ihn vorgesehenen Mädchen auch tatsächlich
zu heiraten. Ein Versager im Bogenschießen
mußte auch im Leben mit einer eigenen Familie
ein Versager sein. Heutzutage sind solcherlei
Zuordnungen nur noch virtuell gegenwärtig, und
der Kampf um Frauen mit Pfeil und Bogen ist nur
noch ein Spiel mit Symbolen.
Es bedarf gar nicht erst des kruden sexuellen
Symbolismus von Pfeil (= Penis) und dem
Schwarz der Zielscheibe (= weibliches Genital),
von denen der eine die andere penetriert, um den
geradezu universal einschlägigen Zusammenhang
zwischen Bogenschießen und dem Freien um eine
Frau zu erklären. Ein Volksspruch der Magar
lautet: ,Beinahe hätte ich deine Zielscheibe ge-
troffen4, was, aus dem Munde eines Mannes,
soviel bedeutet wie; ,Fast hätte ich dich herumge-
kriegt, mit mir zu schlafen4.
Die Mythologie der Magar liefert selbst eine
Geschichte für den Zusammenhang zwischen Bo-
genwettkampf und Freien um eine Frau. Sie hat
verschiedenenorts im himalayischen Gebirge ihr
Pendant; zugleich erinnert sie an die berühmten
Episoden aus der griechischen Odyssee und den
indischen Epen. Diese seien mit ein paar Strichen
rekapituliert, um vor ihrem Hintergrund die Ähn-
lichkeiten der himalayischen Geschichten aufzu-
rollen.
Die indischen und nepalesischen Epen sind
reich an Bogenwettkämpfen, deren Preis eine
Frau ist. Im Mahabharata kämpfen zahlreiche
Prinzen auf Freiersfüßen um die Hand der Prin-
zessin Draupadi. Das Arrangement ist kompli-
ziert; Die Bogenschützen müssen ihr Ziel, einen
auf einer Lanze rotierenden Fisch, indirekt aufs
Korn nehmen: Sie müssen nach unten ins Wasser
blicken, in die Reflektion ihres Zieles, und so in
der entgegengesetzten Blickrichtung ihre Pfeile
spannen. Niemandem gelingt die schwierige Auf-
gabe außer Arjuna, einem der fünf Pandava -
Brüder und Begleiter Krishnas, der Draupadi
dann auch als seine Gemahlin heimführt.
Im Ramayama geht der große Bogenwett-
streit um die Hand der jungfräulichen Prinzessin
Janaki, der Tochter des Herrschers von Janak-
pur. Hier aber ist es nicht die Aufgabe, mit einem
Pfeil in ein bestimmtes Ziel zu treffen, sondern
überhaupt einen Pfeil abschießen zu können.
Denn der Bogen ist so schwer, daß keiner der
zum Wettkampf angetretenen Freier ihn vom
Boden aufheben kann. Erst Ravana aus Lanka
gelingt es, ihn ein wenig anzuheben, doch nicht
genug, um ihn als Schußwaffe einzusetzen.
Schließlich tritt Rama aus dem Wald in das Rund
der eifernden Kämpfer. Er hebt den Bogen mit
leichter Hand an, bewegt ihn hin und her durch
die Lüfte, schießt einen Pfeil ab und zerbricht den
Bogen. Er heiratet Janaki, die spätere Sita.
Im Madhumalati sind es sieben Brüder nebst
zahlreichen anderen Prinzen, die sich im Bogen-
schießen um die Hand der Tochter des Königs
Sundar messen. Ziel ist eine Zielscheibe. Einem
der Freier jedoch, Madhukar, dem jüngsten der
sieben Brüder, ist dies ein zu leichtes Spiel. Er
prahlt, er könne seine Pfeile so genau zielen, daß
er selbst ein Haar der Prinzessin zu spalten
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
7
imstande sei. Der König nimmt ihn beim Wort.
Die Prinzessin reißt sich ein Haar aus dem Schopf
und läßt es in der vorgeschriebenen Entfernung
aufhängen. Madhukar spannt seinen Bogen,
schießt, spaltet das Haar der Braut und führt sie
heim.
Die zum Preis ausstehenden Damen dieser
indischen und nepalesischen Epen sind allesamt
jungfräuliche Bräute, und der Wettkampf der
Bogenschützen ist eine von allen Parteien will-
kommen geheißene Festveranstaltung. In der
griechischen Episode der Odyssee dagegen han-
delt es sich bei dem Preis um eine verbotene
Brau, die verheiratet und noch nicht nachweislich
Witwe ist. Darum steht der Bogenwettkampf im
Geruch des Frevels. Dies ist genauso der Fall bei
den nachfolgenden Mythen des himalayischen
Berglands.
In der griechischen Sage haben sich im Palast
des Odysseus zahlreiche jüngere Freier niederge-
lassen, die um die Hand der treuen Penelope
werben. Odysseus irrt schon im zwanzigsten Jahr
m der Welt umher, und es ist kaum noch zu
erwarten, daß er zurückkehren werde. Seiner
Gattin war es aber drei Jahre lang gelungen, die
Freier mit ihren Anträgen hinzuhalten. Nun aber,
gemäß dem Auftrag ihres eigenen Gemahls, be-
schließt sie, den endlosen Gelagen der Freier auf
Kosten ihres geliebten Mannes ein Ende zu set-
2en und sich selbst als Preis dem Sieger im
Bogenschießen zu stellen. Sie sagt:
Diesen Wettkampf will ich den Freiern jetzo gebieten,
dessen Hand von ihnen den Bogen am leichtesten spannet
Dnd mit der Senn den Pfeil durch alle zwölf Äxte hindurch-
schnellt,
Siehe, dem folg ich als Weib aus diesem werten Palaste.
Aus der Kammer holt sie den Bogen ihres Ge-
mahls und den Köcher mit den gefiederten Pfei-
len. Telemach, ihr eigener Sohn, stellt im Hofe
zwölf Äxte in gerader Linie hintereinander auf.
Wem es aus der Schar der schwelgenden Freier
gelingt, den Schafsdarm über den Bogen zu span-
nen und dann einen ,jammerbringenden‘ Pfeil
^urch alle zwölf Löcher der Eisenäxte zu schie-
nen, dem will sie, die begehrte Penelope, als
Gattin folgen. Etliche Freier versuchen, den Bo-
8£n zu spannen, doch fehlt es ihnen an Kraft.
Gnd selbst, nachdem man versucht hat, den
Bogen mit Stierfett, Salben und wärmendem
Feuer zu weichen, ist keiner der Freier in der
Kuge, den Bogen auch nur schußbereit zu ma-
chen. Endlich reicht der Sauhirt Eumaios, gegen
den heftigsten Widerspruch der Freier, einem
alternden Fremdling den Bogen, der diesen fach-
Änth
männisch in den Händen hin und her wiegt. Mit
nachlässiger Geste spannt er den großen Bogen
des Odysseus, leicht wie die Saite einer klingen-
den Laute, und trifft gleich mit dem ersten Schuß,
sitzend auf seinem Stuhle, durch alle zwölf Öhren
der hintereinandergestellten Eisen. Entsetzen er-
greift die buhlenden Freier: Der Schütze ist
Odysseus selbst, der sie nun, nachdem er sich zu
erkennen gegeben hat, einen nach dem anderen
vernichtet.
Bei den Magar und Gurung Westnepals und
in entfernteren Anklängen auch bei den Rai im
Osten des Landes, sind Fassungen eines Mythos
ans Licht gekommen, die mit der odysseischen
Episode verblüffende Gemeinsamkeiten haben.
Die himalayischen Versionen des Mythos vom
Bogenschießen um eine verbotene Frau sind in-
dessen alle in eine andere Episode mit hineinver-
woben: die Jagd auf den Honig wilder Bienen.
Ich möchte zunächst die verschiedenen Fassungen
des Mythos vorstellen und anschließend diese mit
dem Hauptereignis von mäghe sankränti verglei-
chen.
Die erste publizierte Fassung vom Mythos
der Honiglese und dem Wettkampf von neun
Brüdern um die Frau des Vaters stammt von
Kawakita. Sie wird von den Magar des Dorfes
Sikha tradiert, im oberen Tal des Käli Gandaki.
Auf die entscheidenden Handlungseinheiten ge-
bracht, lautet die Geschichte folgendermaßen:
Einst lebte der göttliche Khärphakye, Sohn
von Hangsha und Hangsheni, mit seiner Gattin
Lei Mashini glücklich verheiratet in Sikha. Als
Lei Mashini bei der Geburt ihres neunten Sohnes
im Kindbett stirbt, nimmt sich Khärphakye deren
jüngste Schwester Kanchi Phimla zur zweiten
Frau. Einige Jahre später beschließt die Familie,
den Heimatort zu verlassen. Sie kommen nach
Beni, doch führt dort keine Brücke über den
Fluß. Khärphakye zieht einen Pfeil aus seinem
Köcher und schießt ihn auf der anderen Seite in
einen Baumstamm. Dann schießt er weitere Pfei-
le ab und ein jeder trifft in den Stiel des voraufge-
gangenen. So bildet sich eine Brücke aus Pfeilen,
auf der die Familie heil den Fluß überqueren
kann. Nach weiteren Wanderungen gelangen sie
nach Kuye Pani, wo sie sich für viele Jahre
niederlassen.
Als die Söhne herangewachsen sind, begeh-
ren sie die zweite Gattin ihres Vaters, ihre eigene
Stiefmutter, und sie sinnen darüber nach, wie sie
ihren Vater loswerden könnten. Sie beschließen,
mit ihm eine Tigerjagd im Dschungel zu veran-
stalten. Während der Vater Schütze sein soll,
wollen die Söhne ihm das gefährliche Tier zutrei-
'ropos 83.1988
8
Michael Oppitz
ben. Sie warten, bis sie den größten Tiger der
Gegend, ein Ungetüm von hundert Ellen, aufge-
stöbert haben, hoffend, daß er den Vater ver-
schlingen werde. Doch der Vater erlegt den Tiger
mit seinen Pfeilen’.
Nach diesem Ereignis wechselt die Familie
erneut ihren Wohnsitz. Sie ziehen nach Kaphal
Dhala, nahe dem Sisne Khola, wo an den Felsen
wilde Bienen wohnen. Hier nun beschließen die
Söhne erneut, sich ihres Vaters zu entledigen. Sie
laden ihn ein, mit ihnen gemeinsam auf die Suche
nach wildem Honig zu gehen. Ausgerüstet mit
einer Strickleiter aus Bambus, bhare, gehen sie
zu einem Kliff. Dort entdecken sie unter einem
überhängenden Felsen einen Bienenschwarm.
Der Vater bringt Mohabir, ,der Gottheit des
Honigs4, ein Opfer dar und läßt die Strickleiter
vom Felsen herunter. Den ältesten Sohn fordert
er auf, mittels der Strickleiter in die Tiefe zu
klettern. „Geh und hole Honig!“ Doch der Sohn
stellt sich ängstlich. Daraufhin wendet sich der
Vater an den zweiten der Söhne, doch dieser
entgegnet: „Wie kann ich es wagen, in Vaters und
meines älteren Bruders Anwesenheit!“ Die übri-
gen Söhne kommen nicht in Betracht: Sie sind
noch zu jung. Also klettert der Vater an der
Strickleiter selbst in die Tiefe. Unten angekom-
men, entfacht er ein Feuer, um die Bienen
auszuräuchern. Zornig schwärmen sie aus. Nun
macht der Vater sich eilig an die Kollekte, da er
befürchtet, von der berauschenden Wirkung des
Honigs betäubt zu werden. Die wächsernen Rän-
der des Bienenstocks wirft er vom Felsenvor-
sprung nach oben, wo seine Söhne sie auflesen.
Als der Vater zu erkennen gibt, daß er fertig sei,
schneiden die Söhne die Strickleiter durch und
rennen davon. Nur der älteste und der jüngste
der Söhne zögern noch eine Weile. Unterwegs
beschließen die Brüder, daheim ein Bogenwett-
schießen zu veranstalten. Wer der beste im Ziel-
scheibenschießen sei, dem solle die Stiefmutter
als Gattin gebühren. Und so beginnen sie ihr
Bogen wettschießen, bijaye khelne, auf eine Ziel-
scheibe, gunjyare phorne, ,den Zentralpunkt bre-
chen4, das zwölf Jahre lang währt.
Der Vater ernährt sich indessen vom Honig
des Kliffs. Doch ist dieser Vorrat nach zwölf
Jahren aufgebraucht. Vom Hunger getrieben,
verspeist er das Fleisch seiner eigenen Arme und
Beine und überlebt er eine Weile. Während
dieser Zeit schreibt er die Missetat seiner Söhne
mit seinem eigenen Blut auf dem Felsen nieder.
Ein Gott der Lüfte, Tyentis Koti, erbarmt sich
seiner und schickt dem verhungernden Khärpha-
kye einen Languraffen, an dessen herabhängen-
dem Schwanz er sich hochziehen soll. Doch der
Held fürchtet einen Trick des Affen. Als nächstes
kommt eine Krähe des Weges. Khärphakye bittet
den Vogel, seine Frau über seine mißliche Lage
zu informieren. Doch die Krähe fliegt fort, denn
sie versteht die Sprache des Menschen nicht. Der
Mann flucht: sarab diel - und seither muß die
Krähe Abfälle essen. Daraufhin kommt eine
Ameise des Wegs, und auch sie bittet Khärpha-
kye, seine Frau zu benachrichtigen. Doch auch
die Ameise versteht ihn nicht, und wieder flucht
er: sarab diel, und seither muß sich die Ameise
unter Mühen die Nahrung besorgen. Daraufhin
sendet der Gott einen garul-Geier, einen Garuda,
der den Verschollenen auffordert, auf seinen
Flügeln davonzureiten. Doch aus Argwohn ent-
gegnet Khärphakye: „Fliege zum Käli Gandaki
und bringe mir einen schwarzen Ammoniten,
einen säligräm hierher.“ Als der Vogel mit eben
einem solchen Stein zurückkehrt, faßt der Held
Vertrauen und besteigt den Vogel. „Wohin soll es
gehen?44, fragt der garul. „Setz mich nieder an der
Quelle, wo Kanchi Phimla ihr Wasser holt!“
Gesagt, getan. Bei der Verabschiedung gibt der
göttliche Khärphakye dem Geier eine Lebensdau-
er von tausend Jahren und die Fähigkeit, Aas auf
hundert Meilen zu erspähen.
Mittlerweile kommt Kanchi Phimla zur Quel-
le, um Wasser zu schöpfen. Sorgenvoll schaut sie
drein, mit den langen Kleidern einer Witwe
angetan. Khärphakye, der sich versteckt hält,
tropft vor Schweiß, und die Tropfen fallen ins
Wasser. Da vermutet die Frau jemandes Anwe-
senheit und sie erblickt einen schwarzen kalcu-
Vogel. Ihm ruft sie die Verwünschung zu: „Bleib
im Flußbett dein ganzes Leben lang!” - und
seither lebt der Vogel nur dort. Khärphakye zieht
nun seinen Ring vom Finger und läßt ihn ins
Wasser gleiten. Während er versinkt, sieht Kan-
chi Phimla den Ring, und da erkennt sie auch
ihren Gemahl, der zu einem Schatten herabgema-
gert ist. Er spricht zu ihr: „Ich habe meine
säfu-Seele am Kliff gelassen; geh und hole sie
mir.“ Da geht die Frau zum Kliff und holt die
Seele zurück. Khärphakye aber nimmt wieder
seine frühere Gestalt an. Nun bittet Phimla den
Gatten, nach Hause zurückzukehren. Doch er
meint: „Laßt uns bis Mitternacht warten. Mach
einen Korb zurecht und trage mich darin, bedeckt
mit einen weißen Tuch, ins Haus.“
Am nächsten Morgen sind die Söhne erneut
dabei, miteinander im Bogenschießen zu wettei-
fern. „Sie kämpfen mit Pfeil und Bogen um
mich!“, meint die Gattin zu ihrem Mann, der sich
hinter einer Mauer versteckt hält. „Wo ist mein
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
9
eigener Pfeil-und-Bogen? Bringe sie mir und ma-
che in die Mauer ein Loch“, entgegnet Khärpha-
kye. Er legt den Pfeil in den Bogen und spannt:
»Mein Pfeil wird die Zielscheibe treffen, wenn du
ein reines Gewissen hast. Wenn nicht, so werde
ich sie verfehlen.“ Bei diesen Worten schießt er
seinen Pfeil durch das Loch und trifft auf der
Scheibe ins Schwarze. Unter den Söhnen aber
entsteht ein Streit, da ein jeder behauptet, er
habe den Siegespfeil abgeschossen. Doch der
älteste und jüngste der Söhne unterbrechen die
anderen: „Dieser Pfeil sieht nach dem Pfeil des
Vaters aus. Laßt uns hingehen und den Pfeil
Prüfen!” Und wahrlich, sie erkennen den Pfeil als
den ihres Vaters. Und alle Söhne schämen sich
sehr. Ihres Frevels gewahr geworden, beschließen
§ie, sich gemeinsam das Leben zu nehmen. Zu
diesem Zweck gehen sie in den Wald und schei-
nen ein riesiges Feuer auf, in das sie sich einer
nach dem anderen hineinstürzen. Der Vater folgt
den beschämten Söhnen, und als er zu der Ver-
drennungsstätte gelangt, kann er gerade noch den
ältesten und den jüngsten der Söhne aus den
Flammen erretten. Die übrigen aber verwünscht
er. Sie verwandeln sich in Krankheit bringende
Geister, wie bhiringe, ,Syphilis4, katte, Konsti-
pation4, pinäs, ,Nasenkatarrh4, tarso, ,Schreck-
haftigkeit4, luto, ,Jucken4, hange pilä, ,Mumps4
Und haijä, ,Cholera4. Der erste und letzte der
Söhne aber leben von nun an im Wald. Wenn
später die Dörfler den Wald betreten, bitten sie
die beiden, ihre Herdstellen und die Dächer der
Häuser zu beschützen. So werden sie zu Gotthei-
len der Abstammungsgruppe, kul deutä. Man
verehrt sie an der Feuerstelle und auf den Höhen-
2ügen, dhuri, der Berge (Kawakita 1974: 119—
126).
Der vorliegende Mythos unterhält ohne
Zweifel eine transformatorische Beziehung zu
einem Zyklus in der Mythologie der Thulung
Rai im Osten Nepals. In diesem Zyklus, so heißt
es> leben in Salewa sechs Brüder, die sich in
Tiere, wie Tiger und Falken, verwandeln können
Und mit magischen Mitteln in einem See jagen
§ehen. Der Gatte ihrer Schwester, ein Thulung,
lst diesen sechs Brüdern nicht gewachsen. Sie
löten ihn. Doch ihre Schwester, die Frau des
Ermordeten, macht ihren magischen Jagdhand-
mngen ein Ende, indem sie den See vergiftet.
Hun beschließen die sechs Brüder, ihren paralle-
len Vetter zu töten und sich dessen tugendsame
Gattin als Zweitfrau anzueignen. Sie laden ihn zu
diesem Zwecke auf eine Honigexpedition zu den
Kliffs ein. Er wird vom Felsen herabgestoßen und
entgeht nur mit Mühe dem Tod. Aus einer Höhle
Anth
auf halber Höhe heraus rettet ihn schließlich vor
dem Hungertod ein Affe, der seinen Schwanz
herunterläßt, an dem er sich nach oben zieht.
Zurückgekehrt, tötet er einen der sechs Brüder,
während die anderen im Panch Pokhari-See bei
dem Versuch, ihm zu folgen, ertrinken. Er selbst
hat die Wasser des Sees mit seinem gefiederten
Haarschmuck (der Held ist offenbar ein jhäkri -
ein Schamane) zu seinem Nutzen geteilt (Allen
1980: 5; n. d.).
Fast zur gleichen Zeit, da der Japaner Kawa-
kita seine Magar-Version des Mythos in Sikha
selbst aufzeichnen konnte (1964), nahm der fran-
zösische Himalaya-Forscher Jest eine ganz ähnli-
che, wahrscheinlich aber unabhängige Fassung
des Mythos aus dem gleichen Magardorf Sikha
auf. Nach Aussage Jests ist der Mythos mit der
Verehrung der kul deutä verknüpft, der Gottheit
der lokalen Abstammungsgruppe, was mit den
Angaben Kawakitas übereinstimmt, demzufolge
die urzeitliche Geschichte lediglich an den Festta-
gen dieser Gottheit zum Vortrag gelangt. Da die
beiden Fassungen nahezu identisch sind, mag es
genügen, hier nur die wesentlichen Abweichun-
gen hervorzuheben.
In der Jestschen Version heißt der Heros
Garpake Baba, statt Khärphakye. Seine erste
Frau hat den Namen Raimala, statt Lei Mashini,
während die zweite Frau in beiden Versionen den
gleichen Namen trägt. In der Fassung des Franzo-
sen ist der Held zugleich die Ahnengottheit, kul
deutä, während in der des Japaners dies erst zwei
seiner Söhne werden. Die Episoden der Bienen-
jagd und der Absonderung des Helden am Kliff
sind die gleichen. Der Erretter des Helden, der
Geier garul, verdoppelt sich in der Jestschen
Fassung zu einem Paar. Als Beweis ihrer Zuver-
lässigkeit bringen diese beiden Raubvögel dem
Helden statt eines genau spezifizierten säligräm-
Steines einen unbestimmten Flußstein mit.
Bei der ersten Wiederbegegnung mit seiner
Frau an der Quelle trägt diese in Fassung II ihre
Kleider von innen nach außen und das Haar
hängt ihr wirr herunter. Bevor sie ihren Mann
erkennt, begegnet sie statt einem einzigen zwei
Vögeln und verwünscht sie, einem palcaurä- und
einem dhäbini-Vogel. Die Heimkehr des Helden
in einem zugedeckten Korb ist in beiden Versio-
nen nahezu identisch. Zuhause angekommen,
versteckt sich der Vater jedoch nicht hinter einer
Mauer, wie in Fassung I, sondern er wird von
seiner Frau über eine neunstufige Treppenleiter
sogleich ins Obergeschoß gebracht. Der dramati-
sche Höhepunkt, sein von den wetteifernden
Söhnen nicht bemerkter Pfeilschuß ins Schwarze,
'ropos 83.1988
10
Michael Oppitz
ist in beiden Fassungen nahezu gleich. Doch das
Schicksal der überführten Söhne ist unterschied-
lich. Während sich in der Version des japanischen
Ethnologen sieben Söhne nach ihrem Selbstmord
in Krankheitsgeister verwandeln und nur der
älteste und der jüngste am Leben bleiben, wer-
den in der Fassung Jests sechs vom Vater in Tiere
verwandelt, die drei überlebenden aber, der älte-
ste, zweite und jüngste, müssen, statt Opfer zu
empfangen, selbst Opfer in Gestalt eines Hahns,
Hirse und eines weißen Widders an die Mitglie-
der der Verwandtenlinie darbringen (lest 1976:
298-300).
Der gleiche Mythos, wie ihn die Magar des
Käli Gandaki erzählen, ist auch bei den weiter
östlich im Hügelland siedelnden Gurung bekannt,
grob gesprochen im Gebiet zwischen Modi und
Mädi Khola. Hier ist er fester Bestandteil der pe,
der mündlich weitergereichten mythologischen
Traditionen der pujyu oder Gurung-Schamanen.
Mythen, wie der hier behandelte, werden bei den
Gurung von ihren religiösen Spezialisten, eben
den pujyu, in Versform zum Klang einer ange-
schlagenen Bogensaite bei bestimmten Seancen
vorgetragen. Die älteste Aufzeichnung des My-
thos von der „Honiglese und dem Bogenschießen
um eine verbotene Frau“ stammt von Pignede
(1958) und ist mir, da sein Nachlaß trotz wieder-
holter Ankündigungen noch nicht veröffentlicht
wurde, nur in der Übertragung von Strickland
bekannt, an die ich mich im folgenden halte.
Kahrab Kle (oder Karabrai Kle) heiratet
eine Frau, Krokiursi, aus einer tabuierten Hei-
ratsklasse. Da sie kinderlos sind, nimmt er sich
eine zweite Frau, Congurbi, ebenfalls aus einer
verbotenen Heiratsklasse. Dieser Inzest-Verbin-
dung entspringen sieben Töchter. Inzwischen hat
die erste Frau ebenfalls Kinder, neun Söhne, und
der Mann kehrt zu dieser zurück. Doch es zieht
ihn zu der zweiten, jüngeren hin. Als er sich wie-
der zu ihr aufmacht, verhext Nummer Eins die
Töchter der Nebenbuhlerin. Diese sterben und
Kahrab Kle bleibt nichts weiter zu tun, als für
sie die Totenzeremonien abzuhalten und die Gei-
ster der vorzeitig Verstorbenen in Gestirne, graha,
zu verwandeln. Auf dem Rückweg zum Haus
von Krokiursi spricht nun die zweite Frau über
die erste einen Fluch aus, woran diese stirbt.
So lebt Kahrab Kle mit seiner schönen jun-
gen Frau und seinen neun Söhnen, ihren Stiefsöh-
nen zusammen. Da sie die Frau begehren, be-
schließen die Söhne, ihren Vater umzubringen.
Diese Gelegenheit bietet sich bei einer gemeinsa-
men Expedition zu einem überhängenden Felsen,
an dem wilde Bienen ihre Stöcke haben. Nach-
dem der Vater eine schwache Strickleiter, die von
den Söhnen installiert worden war, durch eine
starke aus Gold und Silber ersetzt hat, fordert er
die Söhne einzeln auf, sich an der Leiter den
Felsen zu den Bienenstöcken hinabzulassen.
Doch ein jeder hat eine Entschuldigung zur
Hand: die drei ältesten klagen über Kopfschmer-
zen, der vierte über Schulterschmerzen, der fünf-
te über Herzweh, der sechste über Magenschmer-
zen, der siebente über Pein in den Beinen, der
achte wird gar nicht erwähnt und der neunte
meint, er sei noch zu jung: „Das Blut unter dem
Schädel ist noch nicht trocken, noch ist die Milch
auf meiner Zunge nicht trocken.“ Da ergreift der
Vater voller ahnungsvoller Nebengedanken die
Initiative, steckt eine Honiglanze aus Gold in
seinen Gürtel, nimmt das goldene Seil in seine
rechte und das silberne Seil in seine linke Hand
und weint goldene und silberne Tränen. Darauf-
hin steigt er die neun Stufen der Strickleiter am
Steilfelsen hinab und baut sich dort eine kleine
Plattform für die Rast. Dann erntet er eine
Menge Honig ein und die unruhigen Söhne, die
ihn wiederholt fragen, ob er schon fertig sei,
beauftragt er, das Bienenwachs hochzuziehen und
noch mehr Feuer zu machen. Von seiner Platt-
form aus deutet er an, daß er fertig sei, und der
dritte der Söhne schneidet sogleich die Stricklei-
ter durch.
Mit neunfachem Tigergebrüll, durchdringen-
dem Gepfeife und Schüttelbewegungen in alle
Richtungen geben die Söhne kund, daß ihr Vater
vom Felsen gestürzt sei. Zu Hause angekommen,
melden sie die Todesnachricht Congurbi, die aus
Trauer ihre Halsketten und Armreife zerbricht
und ihre Kleider von innen nach außen wendet.
Drei Jahre später beginnen die Söhne, ihre Stief-
mutter anzüglich zu behandeln, fünf Jahre später
betätscheln sie ihren Rücken. Da sagt sie: „Es
steht mir auf der Stirn geschrieben, daß ich einen
von euch heirate, aber nicht alle neun auf ein-
mal.“ Und damit übergibt sie ihnen einen Kö-
cher. Wer aus einer gegebenen Entfernung durch
die ganze Länge des Köchers mit seinem Pfeil
hindurchzuschießen imstande ist, dem will sie sich
als Frau ergeben.
Auf ihrem Weg zum Wasser, wo sie als
Ausdruck des Endes ihrer Trauer die Haare
waschen will, trifft sie auf ein Paar blauer Flie-
gen. Diese schickt sie auf die Suche nach dem
Leichnam ihres Mannes. Sie sollen seine Augen-
höhlen und Nasenlöcher befliegen. Doch die
Fliegen finden den Gesuchten lebend vor. Dar-
aufhin trifft die vermeintliche Witwe auf je ein
Paar tipura-Wachteln und cinar (= ciyär?)-Vögel
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
11
und auf zwei Geier, die sie beauftragt, den
Körper des Toten zu verzehren. Doch Kahrab
Kle verweist sie weiter an die Kadaver von
Pferden, Kühen, Büffeln, Wild, Ziegen, Vögeln
und Hunden. Daraufhin begegnet Congurbi ei-
nem Paar Geiern, die menschliche Knochen ver-
zehren, und schickt sie auf die Suche nach ihrem
Gatten. Schließlich trifft sie auf zwei Geier mit
goldenen Gehängen und beauftragt sie, den Ver-
schollenen zu finden. Die beiden Geier bieten
Kahrab Kle die Freundschaft an, da sie doch mit
ihm die gleiche Heimat teilen. Den Vögeln gibt
der Mann auf, sie sollten zwischen ihren Flug-
und Körperfedern einen Flußstein auf den Gipfel
dos Felsen schaffen, damit die Nachwelt wisse,
wo die Freveltat seiner Söhne begangen worden
Sei, wo sie versucht hätten, ihn vom Felsen in den
Fluß zu stürzen. Nachdem die Geier ihren Auf-
zug erfüllt haben, tragen sie ihn auf ihren Flügeln
davon, nicht zu hoch und nicht zu tief, damit er
Weder an den Himmel, noch an die Erde anstoße.
Fhe Geier bringen Kahrab Kle heim zu der
Quelle, wo seine Gattin sich die Haare wäscht.
Aus einem Versteck bittet Kahrab Kle einen
weißen und einen schwarzen Vogel, das Quell-
wasser aufzuwirbeln. Als sie dies tun, wird Con-
gurbi ärgerlich: Sie peitscht den weißen Vogel,
was auf seinem Körper schwarze Streifen hinter-
st. Und sie spuckt nach dem schwarzen, was
seinen Körper sprenkelt. Dann treibt Kahrab Kle
einen Krebs und einen kleinen Fisch an, das
gleiche zu tun, und Congurbi fährt wieder verär-
gert auf. Den Krebs zermalmt sie unter ihren
Sohlen, so daß er fürderhin seitwärts gehen muß,
und den Fisch peitscht sie mit einer Leine aus,
^as auf seinem Leib Linien hinterläßt. Dann
übergibt Kahrab Kle der Strömung des Wassers
seinen Ring, der in die Hände der Gattin fällt. Sie
erkennt ihn und schaut sich nach allen Seiten hin
Urn- „Frauen schauen stets nach unten“, kom-
mentieren die Geier. Da schaut sie nach oben
und erblickt das Raubvogelpaar, hinter dem sich
der Gatte versteckt hält. Kahrab Kle entläßt sie
uut dem Versprechen, er werde sie mit goldenem
Ur*d silbernem Wangenschmuck und reichlich mit
Aas entlohnen. Das Ehepaar ist nun wieder
vereint.
Seiner Frau trägt Kahrab Kle auf, sie solle
lhn unerkannt in einem mit Blättern bedeckten,
gold-silbernen Korb nach Hause tragen. Als der
Jüngste der neun Brüder sie fragt, was in dem
Korb sei, entgegnet sie, das seien die gewasche-
uen Gerätschaften für das Totenritual und er
s°Ue besser Bogenschießen gehen. Kahrab Kle
Wird im ersten Geschoß des Hauses abgesetzt,
Anthropos 83.1988
und hier bringt er sich wieder zu Kräften: ein
Korn Reis am ersten Tag, zwei Körner am zwei-
ten, fünf Hände voll am neunten, das ist seine
Diät. Sein Geisterkopf verwandelt sich wieder in
den eines Menschen. Daraufhin bittet er seine
Frau um seinen Bogen und seine goldenen Pfeile.
Doch er kann den Bogen nicht biegen. Mit einem
Krummesser spleißt er Holzspäne von dem Bo-
gen ab, und die Splitter liegen auf dem Boden des
Hauptraums herum. Wieder fragt der jüngste:
„Was sollen all die Späne hier?“ Doch die Mutter
schickt ihn wieder fort zum Bogenschießen.
Dann läßt sich Kahrab Kle von Congurbi den
neuen Bogen reichen, den sie durch Handaufle-
gen einweiht. „Wenn du mir treu warst, wird
mein Pfeil gerade durch den Köcher sausen.“ Mit
diesen Worten spannt der Held den Bogen und
schießt seinen Pfeil genau durch den Köcher
hindurch. Unter den Söhnen entsteht ein Durch-
einander. Jeder behauptet, der Schütze zu sein.
Der jüngste aber meint: „Ich erkenne die Pfeile.
Statt neun sind es zehn. Dem Siegespfeil fehlt
hinten eine Feder.“ Da verdunkeln sich die Ge-
sichter der Brüder, und sie beginnen zu weinen.
„Mutter Congurbi, bereite uns ein üppiges Mahl
im Hauptraum, mit neun maunds fermentiertem
Getreide und neun Gallonen Speisen, wohl-
schmeckendem Gemüse und Fleisch. Denn Er
wird uns sagen, daß wir uns in Geister verwan-
deln.“ Und wahrlich, während des Festessens
spricht eine Stimme vom Trockengestänge über
der Feuerstelle herab: „Ihr werdet übelwollende
Geister sein: Du, ältester, wirst der Geist des
Blitzes sein, ihr übrigen üble Dämonen und du,
jüngster, wirst der König des Feuers sein. Sei
klug, König des Feuers, und versuche nicht, mir
zu schaden“ (Pignede 1982: 182-184).
Strickland, der diese Fassung aus den Manu-
skripten von Pignede übertrug, hat in seiner
Doktorarbeit selbst eine Fassung des Mythos
vorgelegt. Sie stammt aus dem Gurung-Dorf Sik-
hs und ist die umfangreichste Version, da er sie in
Versform mit den darin häufigen Wiederholun-
gen in Originalumschrift und in englischer Über-
setzung präsentiert hat. An anderer Stelle hat er
zudem eine Kurzfassung des Mythos in Prosa
veröffentlicht. Meine hier folgende Wiedergabe
schöpft aus beiden Quellen.
Der göttliche Karabare, der nach langer
Suche einen angemessenen Ort, um sich nieder-
zulassen, gefunden hat, nimmt sich nacheinander
zwei seiner Schwestern zur Frau: die Schoß-
Gyurupih gebiert ihm neun Söhne, die Himmels-
Gyurupih sieben Töchter.
12
Michael Oppitz
Nachdem sie herangewachsen sind, gebietet
der Vater den Söhnen, die Gerätschaften für die
Honigjagd herzustellen, - eine Lanze, eine Klin-
ge, eine Kiepe, eine Bambusstrickleiter, alles in
doppelter, goldener und silberner Ausfertigung.
Sobald die Geräte bereitstehen, ziehen Vater und
Söhne zu dem Felsen Karliti Karliprö, wo sie ein
qualmendes Feuer entfachen, mit dem sie die da-
vonsummenden Bienen vertreiben. Daraufhin
fordert er seine Söhne einzeln auf, die Strickleiter
zum verrauchten Kliffvorsprung hinabzusteigen.
Doch der erste meint, er könne wegen seiner
Kopfschmerzen und seiner Atemnot nicht, der
mittlere nicht wegen Rückenschmerzen und der
jüngste nicht wegen Magenschmerzen. Da be-
schließt der Vater, der von sich behauptet, durch
die Lüfte schweben zu können, selbst zum rauchi-
gen Vorsprung des Kliffs hinunterzusteigen. Er
füllt die Behälter bis an den Rand mit Honig und
bittet die Söhne, ihn wieder hochzuhieven. In
einer kleinen Höhle am Kliff macht er eine
Pause, während die Söhne die Leiter durch-
schneiden. Mit lauten Echostimmen und schril-
lem Pfeifen verbreiten sie, daß ihr Vater vom
Kliff zu Tode gestürzt sei. Zu Hause bei Mu-
Gyurupih angekommen, veranstalten die Söhne
ein Bogenwettschießen: vom Vorhof gegen die
Tür, von der Tür zu den Holzhaufen und wieder
zurück, um zu sehen, wer als erster einen Pfeil
durch die Schmucksachen der schönen Stiefmut-
ter schießen könne. Der Sieger erhalte als Preis
sie selbst.
Mittlerweile sucht den vereinsamten Karaba-
re in seiner Felsennische eine Ameise heim, die
gekommen ist, vom Fleisch und Blut des ver-
meintlich Toten zu essen. Doch er jagt sie wieder
fort, ebenso eine Krähe, die in der gleichen
Absicht kam. Schließlich kommt ein Raubvogel
geflogen, der dem Helden anbietet, ihn gegen
eine Belohnung zu retten. Doch der Vater möch-
te den Vogel erst testen. So sendet er ihn fort
zum Mädi- und zum Tidi-Fluß, damit er von dort
einen Mädi- und einen Tidi-Felsklotz herbeischaf-
fe. Nachdem der Vogel den Test bestanden hat,
faßt der Held Vertrauen und verspricht als Beloh-
nung reichlich Aas vom Bock und der Hirschkuh
der Berge, vom wollenen Widder und Mutter-
schaf des Flachlands und vom Hund und der
Hündin des Dorfes. Der Vogel willigt ein, trägt
den verschollenen Mann auf seinen Flügeln durch
die Luft davon und setzt ihn schließlich an der
Wasserquelle vor dem Heimatdorf Saledi ab, wo
seine Frau gerade die Getreidekörner für die
Totengetränke ihres Mannes wäscht. Aus einem
Versteck heraus schickt Karabare eine Amsel und
einen Spatzen, die vor der traurigen Frau das
Wasser besudeln. Sie spuckt nach ihnen. Dann
sendet der Gatte einen Krebs und einen Fisch
aus, die ebenfalls das Wasser schmutzig machen.
Auch nach ihnen spuckt die Frau. Dann gibt sich
Karabare mittels seines Ringes zu erkennen, und
die beiden beschließen, daß er unerkannt in
einem Korb nach Hause getragen werde. Den
Leuten im Feld ruft die Gattin auf dem Heimweg
zu, daß ihr Mann tatsächlich vom Felsen zu Tode
gestürzt sei. Auf Karabares Wunsch trägt Mu-
Gyurupih ihren Mann in das Nest oberhalb des
Wohnraums im Hause. Hier läßt er einige Tage
verstreichen, um sich wieder zu Kräften zu brin-
gen. Schließlich begehrt er nach seinem unbe-
nützten Bogen, seinem Armreif, seiner Bogensai-
te, seinen Pfeilen. Die Frau reicht sie ihm heim-
lich zu, und während seine Söhne noch immer
untereinander im Wettstreit liegen um die Hand
ihrer Stiefmutter, spannt der Vater seinen eige-
nen Bogen vom Dach des Hauses aus, schießt
und trifft ohne Fehl durch die Schmucksachen der
Frau. Man zählt die Pfeile und entdeckt dabei,
daß der Volltreffer vom unbenutzten Pfeil des
Vaters stammt. Der Totgeglaubte ist wieder zum
Leben erwacht! Entsetzt stieben die neun Söhne
unter großem Lärm auseinander, und der Vater
schickt ihnen einen Bannspruch nach: Sie alle
verwandeln sich in Dämonen, nur den jüngsten
macht er zum Dämon des eigenen Herdfeuers
(Strickland 1982: 153-176).
Es kann nach dem Voraufgegangenen kein
Zweifel darüber bestehen, daß die hier vorgetra-
genen Versionen des „Mythos von der Honiglese
und dem Bogenwettkampf um eine verbotene
Frau“ allesamt einem gemeinsamen Ensemble
angehören, egal, ob sie in der Folklore der Magar
oder in den urzeitlichen Gesängen der Gurung-
Schamanen verankert sind. Dies wird noch deutli-
cher, wenn man die vier Fassungen in einer
partiturähnlichen Sequenztafel nebeneinander-
stellt, einer Tabelle, welche die kleinsten narrati-
ven Elemente zu einfachen Sätzen formt.
Soviel zur formalen Ähnlichkeit der vier
himalayischen Mythen über die Honigernte und
den Wettkampf im Bogenschießen um eine Frau.
Es versteht sich, daß die Mythen mit derartigen
Ähnlichkeiten, die einzig den Fortgang der Ge-
schichte betreffen, sich keineswegs erschöpfen.
Die Mythen sind reich an soziologischen und
gesellschaftstheoretischen Mitteilungen. In ihnen
gibt sich eine Gesellschaft in ihrem Wesen kund.
Was den vorliegenden Mythos anbetrifft, so spie-
gelt er eine Reihe von Sujets, die in der gelebten
Anthropos 83.1988
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
13
I: Magar-Mythos 11: Magar-Mythos III: Gurung-Mythos IV: Gurung-Mythos
(Kawakita 1974) (Jest 1976) (Pignède 1982) (Strickland 1982)
[Der Ahnengott] (kul deuta) Khärphakye Der Ahnengott (kul deuta) Garpake Baba Der erste König Kahrab Kle Gott Mahadev als Karabarê
heiratet nacheinander zwei Frauen.
Die beiden Gattinnen sind Schwestern. joie beiden Gattinnen sind Schwestern des Gatten.
Die ältere hat neun Söhne.
Die jüngere hat sieben Töchter,
welche die ältere tötet.
Dafür tötet die jüngere Gattin
die ältere.
Der Vater verwandelt die to-
ten Töchter in Gestirne.
^ater, Söhne und die junge Stiefmutter leben beisammen.
Da sie die schöne Stiefmutter begehren, trachten die Söhne nach dem Leben des Vaters.
Zuerst versuchen sie, den Vater auf einer Tigerjagd loszuwer- ————
den.
Doch der Vater erlegt mit einem Pfeil den Tiger. ---------
Darauf begeben sich Vater und Söhne auf eine gemeinsame Honigexpedition zu einem Kliff im Felsengebirge.
Der Vater fordert die Söhne nacheinander auf, an einer Strickleiter am Kliff hinabzusteigen.
Doch jeder der Söhne hat eine Entschuldigung;
Angst, zu jung.
Kopf-, Schulter-, Herz-, Ma- Atemnot, Kopf-,
genweh, zu jung. Magenweh.
Nachdem er dem Honiggott
goopfert hat,
Rücken-,
ste‘gt der Vater selbst an der Strickleiter in die Tiefe des Kliffs.
Er entfacht ein Rauchfeuer ----------
und vertreibt die summenden Bienen.
Er entfacht ein Rauchfeuer
Ausgerüstet mit den Geräten
Lanze, Klinge und Behältern,
erntet der Vater reichlich Honig.
-------- ---------------------------------- Während er ausruht,
-------- ---------------------------------- auf einer Plattform, | unter einem Felsvorsprung,
dnrchschneiden die Söhne von oben die Strickleiter.
Mit neunfachem Tigergebrüll,
schrillem Pfeifen und Schüt-
teln der Körper
'aufen die Söhne davon, Kunde gebend vom Unfall des Vaters.
uhause veranstalten sie einen Bogenwettstreit um die Hand der schönen Stiefmutter,
Mit hallenden Stimmen und
schrillem Pfeifen
_________ _________ nachdem sie sie belästigt und
betätschelt haben.
Mittlerweile ernährt sich der Vater am Kliff zwölf Jahre vom
Honig
seinem eigenen Fleisch.
uf Anweisung des Gottes Aus freien Stücken
d«r Lüfte
^suchen ihn in seinem Felsenexil nacheinander mehrere Tiere
Cln Eanguraffe, eine Krähe,
5!ne Anreise und ein garul-
Geier.
ein Geierpaar, garud-garudni.
-i^H^außer den Geiern, schickt er wieder fort.
Auf Anweisung der Gattin
blaue Fliegen, tipura- und öi-
nar-Vögel, zwei Knochengei-
er, zwei Geier mit goldenen
Gehängen.
eine Ameise, eine Krähe und
ein Raubvogel.
Anthropos 83.1988
14 Michael Oppitz
I: Magar-Mythos II: Magar-Mythos III: Gurung-Mythos IV: Gurung-Mythos
(Kawakita 1974) (Jest 1976) (Pignede 1982) (Strickland 1982)
Die Geier aber unterzieht er einem Test. Sie sollen
einen saügram-Stein aus dem einen Flußstein einen Felsklotz vom Mädi- und
Käli Gandaki auf den ausgebreiteten Flü- zwischen Flug- und Körperfe- Tidi-Fluß.
geln dem
herbeischaffen.
Als Mahnmal für die Missetat seiner Söhne
schreibt der Vater seine Geschichte mit dem eigenen Blut auf
den Felsen.
Nach bestandenem Test tragen die Raubvögel den Helden von seinem Felsenexil davon, zu einer Quelle, wo seine trauernde
Gattin ist.
Sie zerbricht ihre Halsketten
und trägt
lange
Kleider.
An der Quelle
schöpft sie Wasser.
und Armreife
von innen nach außen gekehrte
trinkt sie Wasser.
Das Wasser wird aufgewirbelt
von den Schweißtropfen Kär-
phakyes und einem kalcu-\o-
gel.
wäscht sie ihr Haar.
von einem Blatt des ruru-
Baums, vom palcaurä und
dhäbini-'V oge\.
Die Frau verwandelt oder verwünscht diese Tiere.
Als der Held seinen Ring ins Wasser gleiten läßt, erkennt sie ihn wieder.
Er ist
nur noch ein Schatten, der [ abgemagert,
seine Seele verloren hat.
In einem Korb,
bedeckt mit einem weißen Tuch,
trägt sie ihren Mann unerkannt von allen nach Hause.
Dort wird er
über eine 9-stufige Leiter getragen und in der oberen Etage
von einem weißen und
schwarzen Vogel, einem
Krebs und einem Fisch.
wäscht sie die Körner für den
Totenwein.
von einer Amsel, einem Spat-
zen, einem Krebs und einem
Fisch.
wie ein Geist.
bedeckt mit Blättern,
im ersten Geschoß
im „Nest“,
Wohnraums
oberhalb
Da läßt sich der Vater seinen eigenen Pfeil und Bogen bringen
heimlich verköstigt und wieder zu Kräften gebracht.
Die Söhne sind derweil noch immer bei ihrem Bogenwettkampf um die Hand der schönen Stiefmutter, da bisher noch niemand
das Ziel getroffen hat.
Pfeil, Bogen, Armreif und Bo-
gensaite bringen
den er aus Schwäche erst |
spannen kann, nachdem er ihn
abgespänt hat.
durch die Röhre eines Kö-
chers.
vom Dach aus
durch die Schmucksachen der
Frau.
stieben sie auseinander.
8 von ihnen in üble Dämonen.
Den jüngsten macht er zum
Dämon des eigenen Herdfeu-
ers.
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen Schmuck
15
Wirklichkeit relevant sind; das Thema der Ver-
wandtenheirat und des Inzests; die für die Subsi-
stenzwirtschaft - einstmals - wesentlichen Be-
schäftigungen der Jagd mit Pfeil und Bogen und
der archaischen Technik der Honigernte wilder
Bienen; den Gegenstand der Rangabstufung von
Geschwistern nach Alter und die offensichtliche
Bevorzugung des Erst- und Letztgeborenen, mit
einem Verweis auf Ultimogenitur, womit im vor-
liegenden Zusammenhang konkret das Erbrecht
des Jüngstgeborenen auf das väterliche Haus
gemeint ist; und schließlich das religiöse Thema
der Verwandlung natürlicher Wesen in übernatür-
liche. All diese Sujets, die eine ganze Ethnogra-
phie in sich bergen, spricht der hier vorgestellte My-
thos in seinen verschiedenen Fassungen an. Wor-
auf es in dieser Studie aber insbesondere ankam,
War, zu zeigen, welchen Zusammenhang gewisse
frühe Gesellschaften zwischen dem Bogenschie-
ßen und dem Kampf um die Frauen hersteilen.
Dieser Zusammenhang wurde in zwei selb-
ständigen Bereichen der gesellschaftlichen Selbst-
darstellung wiedergefunden - im vorgetragenen
Mythos mehrerer himalayischer Bergvölker und
lrn aufgeführten Ritus des Picknicks der Mädchen
Und dem Bogenwettstreit der jungen Männer an
mäghe sankränti. Der Mythos und das festliche
Spiel am Haupttag der winterlichen Sonnenwend-
frier decken sich dabei nicht nur in den großen
Zügen des Hauptthemas, sie sind mitunter bis in
die kleinsten Details identisch. Dies zeigt sich am
Beispiel des Ziels. Wenn die unverheirateten
Magar von Taka am zweiten Tage des maghe-
Sahkränti-Fesies beim Picknick der Mädchen ih-
ren Bogenwettkampf bestreiten, so ist das Ziel
eine weibliche Halskette. Im Mythos der Gurung
v°n Siklis versuchen die neun wettstreitenden
Brüder ebenfalls, mit ihren Pfeilen die Schmuck-
Sachen ihrer Stiefmutter zu durchbohren, um sie
auf diese Weise als Frau für sich zu gewinnen. Da
Sle es nicht fertigbringen, bleibt die Frau im
Besitz des einzigen, der zum Schuß ins Schwarze,
namlich durch die weiblichen Schmucksachen,
befähigt ist, des mythischen Helden Karabare.
^uf dem Magar-Fest geschieht also genau das,
der Gurung-Mythos erzählt.
Die erwähnten Schmucksachen gehören
n,cht nur der Frau, um die es beim Bogenwett-
Schießen geht, in gewissem Sinne sind sie die
Brau. Dies offenbart sich nicht nur an diesem
Vorspiel zur Heirat, dem Bogenwettkampf um
Hand einer Kreuzkusine, sondern auch am
anderen Ende der Übergangszeremonien im indi-
viduellen Leben, dem Totenritual: Am Tage, da
e,n Verstorbener erstmals öffentlich aufgebahrt
Anth
wird, gibt sich ihm eine Frau mit der symboli-
schen Gabe weiblichen Schmucks aus ihrem Be-
sitz, den sie auf den Körper des Leichnams legt.
Diese Frau ist aber keine beliebige: Es ist die
Frau des Sohnes des Toten; das heißt, sie gehört
jener Gruppe der Gesellschaft an, aus der er
zumalen selbst seine eigene Gattin bezogen hatte.
Der weibliche Schmuck, den die Schwiegertoch-
ter auf dem Körper des Toten niederlegt, bedeu-
tet also soviel wie die Gabe einer neuen Frau aus
dem zulässigen Fonds der Frauengeber.
Die Wesensverwandtschaft einer Frau als
sozialer Person, d. h. als Gattin eines Mannes,
und ihren Schmucksachen, ist auch noch in einer
anderen Situation erkennbar. Wie in der dritten
Fassung des vorliegenden Mythos, so zerbrechen
oder zerreißen auch im realen Leben Frauen
mitunter ihre eigenen Schmucksachen, Halsket-
ten und Armreife, sobald ihr Gatte gestorben ist.
Die Zerstörung der Schmucksachen kommt dabei
einer Selbstzerstörung gleich: es ist eine kleine
sati, eine symbolische Selbstverbrennung der Wit-
we. Heißt vor der Verbindung mit einem Mann
(beim Bogenwettkampf) die Parole: erst die
weiblichen Schmucksachen, dann die Frau, so
verschiebt sie sich bei der Lösung dieser Verbin-
dung (dem Tod des Mannes): weibliche Schmuck-
sachen anstelle der Frau.
Gesehen auf dem Hintergrund der behandel-
ten, vorzeitlichen Geschichte vom Bogenwett-
kampf um die Frauen, können nun die zuerst
isoliert aufgeführten, später ineinander verfloch-
tenen rituellen Hauptakte des winterlichen Son-
nenwendfestes, die Ehrung und Feier der aushei-
ratenden Frauen und der Bogenwettkampf der
Männer, als die theatralische Umsetzung eines
Mythos, als enactment mit Lehrstückcharakter
angesehen werden. Die Lehre, welche die thea-
tralische Aufführung des Kampfs um die Frauen
jährlich einmal zu Beginn des Sonnenjahres er-
teilt, ist die: Aufgrund der Geburt in diese oder
jene Abstammungsgruppe steht einem Mann ein
vorgegebener Kreis von Mädchen als mögliche
Heiratspartner zur Verfügung. Dies ist jedoch
nicht einfach nur ein Recht; man muß sich seine
Braut auch verdienen, - und dies in einem dop-
pelten Sinne: man muß die generöse Gabe einer
Braut beim Schwiegervater an vielen Gelegenhei-
ten wieder abarbeiten, sei es vor der Heirat, sei
es nachher; und man muß sich ihrer als würdig
erweisen, beweisen, daß man als guter Jäger
imstande ist, für ihren Lebensunterhalt
(= Fleisch erlegter Schweine oder Wildschweine)
in angemessener Weise aufzukommen; man muß
die männliche Tatkraft aufbringen, die Frau auch
‘ropos 83.1988
16
Michael Oppitz
gegebenenfalls mit Waffen, Pfeil und Bogen,
gegen Usurpatoren zu beschützen. Für das Abar-
beiten der Braut als einer Gabe bietet die Gesell-
schaft der Magar ihren bhänja oder Schwieger-
söhnen reichlich Gelegenheit an den verschiede-
nen Übergängen des Lebens, den rites de passa-
ge, allen voran den Riten des Todes. Die Mög-
lichkeit zu beweisen, daß sie gute Jäger und
gegebenenfalls auch Krieger sind, unter deren
Schutz die Frauen nichts zu befürchten haben,
bietet sich den potentiellen Schwiegersöhnen da-
gegen alljährlich einmal - anläßlich des Bogen-
wettschießens an mäghe sahkränti.
Am dritten und letzten Tag des Winterson-
nenwendfestes gibt es noch einmal eine Begeg-
nung zwischen den cili und ihren Brüdern. Dies-
mal sind es die bereits anderwärts verheirateten
Schwestern, welche die Initiative ergreifen und
ihre Brüder in ihrem väterlichen Haushalt besu-
chen. Sie kommen mit einer Holzflasche voll
mada-Schnaps, um ihren Brüdern ihre Solidarität
zur herkömmlichen Abstammungsgruppe zu be-
kunden und um ihnen zu danken für die Ehrung,
die ihnen, wie den nicht verheirateten Mädchen
der gleichen cili-Klasse, am ersten Tage des
Festes widerfahren war.
Nachdem sie die Alkohol-Gabe angenom-
men haben, revanchieren sich die Brüder ihrer-
seits bei ihren verheirateten Schwestern mit einer
Gabe von Kornfrüchten, damit sie nicht mit
leeren Händen in den Haushalt ihrer Gatten
zurückkehren. Mit einem standardisierten Aus-
spruch entlassen die Brüder ihre Schwestern:
„Ihr, die ihr mit einem Getränkegefäß in euer
maiti-Haus, in das Haus eurer Herkunft gekom-
men seid, weint nicht beim Fortgehen, denn ihr
werdet Getreide mit euch nehmen.“
Diesen Gabenaustausch zwischen Brüdern
und Schwestern am Ende der winterlichen Son-
nenwendfeier ist zu verstehen als ein Austausch
zwischen den für das Heiratssystem der Magar
charakteristischen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen der
Frauengeber und Frauennehmer, zwischen denen
die an diesem Tage geehrten Frauen eine Mittler-
stellung einnehmen. Als Abgesandte ihrer ur-
sprünglichen Abstammungsgruppe tragen sie die
Gaben ihrer Brüder mit sich in die Frauenneh-
merfamilien fort, in denen sie seit ihrer Heirat zu
Hause sind. Die empfangenen Gaben, Yams und
Kornfrüchte, sind wie sie selbst - als die Produ-
zentinnen von Nachkommen - Vermehrungsgü-
ter, die alkoholischen Getränke, die sie als Abge-
sandte ihrer Gatten ihren leiblichen Brüdern
mitbringen, sind demgegenüber Verzehrgüter,
für den unmittelbaren Konsum bestimmt.
Ihr Pendelverkehr zwischen affinen und kon-
sanguinen Verwandten, zwischen niedriger ge-
stellten Frauennehmern und höher gestellten
Frauengebern, bestätigt den Vertrag, der zwi-
schen beiden Gruppen über die Generationen hin
in unveränderter Weise andauert. Das Picknick
der unverheirateten Mädchen und das Bogen-
schießen der jungen Männer, die um diese Mäd-
chen Wettstreiten, bestätigen den gleichen Ver-
trag auf ihre Weise; jeder Schütze weiß, auf
welchen weiblichen Schmuck er seine Pfeile ab-
schießen darf, welches der Rahmen ist, innerhalb
dessen die Freierschaft statthaben kann. Wird
dieser Rahmen einmal gesprengt, so führt dies ins
Unheil, zur Vernichtung der Kombattanten, wie
es im Mythos der Honigernte erzählerisch vorge-
macht wird, wo Söhne zum eigenen Verderben
im Bogenkampf um die verbotene Stiefmutter
werben. Denn das Buhlen um Frauen aus verbo-
tenen Kategorien, so lehrt es der Mythos, negiert
den einmal angenommenen Gesellschaftsvertrag
und macht das Leben in harmonischen Verhält-
nissen zunichte. Im Gegensatz dazu ist das Fest
der winterlichen Sonnenwende, mäghe sahkränti,
in der Weise, wie die Magar es feiern, in seinen
wesentlichen Akten ein Kommemorationsfest zu
den höheren Ehren der von ihnen gewählten
Heirats-Allianz, der Ehe mit der matrilateralen
Kreuzkusine.
Zitierte Literatur
Allen, Nicholas J.
1980 Tibet and the Thulung Rai; Towards a Comparative
Mythology of the Bodic Speakers. In: Michael Aris
(ed.), Tibetan Studies. Warminster.
n. d. Studies in the Myths and Oral Tradition of the Thu-
lung Rai of East Nepal. Unpubl. D. Phil. Thesis, Univ.
of Oxford.
Gaborieau, Marc
1982 Les fêtes, le temps et l’espace: structure du calendrier
hindou dans sa version indo-népalaise. L’Homme 22/3:
11-29.
Jest, Corneille
1976 Encounters with Intercessors in Nepal. In: John Hitch-
cock and Rex Jones (eds.), Spirit Possession in the
Nepal Himalayas; pp. 294-308. New Delhi.
Kawakita, Jiro
1974 The Hill Magars and Their Neighbours. Tokio.
Pignède, Bernard
1982 in: Strickland 1982.
Strickland, Simon
1982 Beliefs, Practices, and Legends: A Study in the Narra-
tive Poetry of the Gurungs of Nepal. Doctoral Thesis,
Cambridge.
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 17-30
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
Abstract. - The article examines the thematic and linguistic
humour of ten comedies by the popular Tamil writer Marina.
The comedies being about Tamil family life their thematic
humour consists mostly in the reversal of social norms.
Tuigned or excessive adherence to spiritual customs and be-
hefs as well as human weaknesses constitute further butts of
humour. The characters' loquacity, their play on words and
use of funny sayings and similes actualize and sometimes
create the humour of the theme. Marina’s humour is found to
be both similar to and different from western humour. Since
similarities seem to outweigh differences the study supports
{he existence of mental proclivities independent of culture and
language. [India, Tamil, Comedies, Humour]
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, Dr. phil. in Geography and
Anthropology (1968, Rome); she has done repeatedly field-
vv°rk in India; her research interests are culture-specific and
culture-free attitudes towards food, purity and pollution,
Hindu ritual and mythology, Tamil culture seen through
Modern Tamil literature and Tamil humour; - since 1985 she
bas been teaching Tamil culture and language at the Univ. of
Venice. - Her publications include: The Female Liiigam: In-
terchangeable Symbols and Paradoxical Associations of Hindu
Hods and Goddesses (Current Anthropology 1980); The
°lythetic Prototype Concept of Caste (Anthropos 1986); The
clf-Milking Cow and the Bleeding Lihgam: Criss-Cross of
ylotifs in Indian Temple Legends (Wiesbaden 1987); see also
References Cited.
Introduction
Anthropologists have long studied the material
and spiritual cultures of the world from the most
diverse perspectives but humour has been largely
neglected. The few anthropologists who did con-
fer non-western humour a worth-while subject
°f research have almost exclusively concentrated
0n joking relationships and ritual humour (for an
overview see Apte 1985). In both cases their main
Purpose has been to discover the social and
Psychological “functions” of these institutional-
JZed forms of humour. Humour as such, the
question what people laugh about and for what
reasons, has been left to psychologists and philo-
Sophers. With few exceptions, these, however,
have only been concerned with western humour
s° that cross-cultural comparisons would seem to
be called for. Since the creation and appreciation
of humour are cognitive processes and the con-
tent of humour reflects culture, cross-cultural
studies of humour should be relevant to the cur-
rent debate on cultural relativism versus men-
tal determinism going on among anthropologists,
linguists, psychologists, and philosophers. The
present article wants to be a contribution to this
debate. Given the almost total lack of informa-
tion about Indian humour its emphasis will lie on
ethnography. The data have been derived from
ten comedies by the well-known Tamil author
Sridhar who writes under the pseudonym Mari-
na.
With the choice of this pseudonym, the name
of the wide sandy beach where the inhabitants of
Madras like to go for a stroll in the evening, the
author has set forth his programme: his comedies
want to delight people like the cool sea breeze.
Coolness, in fact, metaphorically stands for pleas-
antness in the Tamil language (Eichinger Ferro-
Luzzi 1983: 207-232). Because of their great pop-
ularity1 Marina’s comedies are good examples
of what makes the Tamils laugh. In addition to
providing a pleasant pastime the author tackles
social problems and chastizes moral short-
comings. Some of his plays may be considered
humorous throughout; others alternate humorous
parts with serious ones; still others start in trage-
dy and end in fun or start in fun and end with a
tear. A few are even primarily dramatic - not to
say melodramatic - with humorous items crop-
ping up only occasionally. Under these circum-
stances it might be asked how I can be sure that
what I call funny has been meant to be so by the
author and understood in that sense by the
public. In order to solve this problem I have
wholly or partly taped live performances or asked 1
1 The comedies may run for more than a hundred nights,
some are also broadcast on the radio and of one (1974) a
record has been made.
18
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
informants to read the comedies and mark the
points at which they were induced to laugh or
smile. Not every Tamil will, of course, laugh at
the same things just as not every Westerner will
do, but there is a reasonable guarantee that the
instances of Marina’s humour I shall give are
representative of a common type of Tamil hu-
mour. Eight out of the ten comedies investigated
are written in colloquial Brahmin speech and two
(“Quarrelsome Ammakkannu” and “Marriage
Market”) in non-Brahmin speech. Caste dialects,
however, are no obstacle to the comprehension
and appreciation of the comedies by a wide
spectrum of the Tamil population.
With the exception of “Quarrelsome Am-
makkannu” the scene of the comedies is laid in
the house. They therefore might be termed akam
according to the binary schema of ancient Tamil
poetry, which distinguishes themes into akam
(domestic) and pur am (outside of the house).
Unlike the ancient poetry, however, the intimacy
of Marina’s akam is not that of love between the
sexes but of family relationships in the widest
sense of the word. Thus the same emphasis on the
family that is evident in Tamil short stories
(Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi 1983) also emerges from
the study of Marina’s comedies.
1. Humorous Themes
In addition to incidental sources of humour each
comedy has one or several major comic themes
usually based on the reversal of accepted cus-
toms, values, or opinions. Sometimes the title
gives a clue to the major humorous theme (1974;
1978), sometimes the title is a poor guide (1987a;
n. d.) and the author surprises the audience with
other potentially even funnier themes.
1.1 The Flouting of Social Norms
1.1.1 The joint family
In the Indian family system the separate house-
hold (tanikkutittanam) is the negative opposite of
the joint family (kuttukkutumpam). The son who
sets up a separate household with his wife disre-
gards his duty to his elders. A play that presents a
man who, as a bachelor, had planned to live on
his own and tries to put this plan into action after
his marriage might therefore be sad rather than
funny. But “Separate Household” (1974) creates
unforeseen situations that are irresistibly comical
to the Tamil. Firstly, the young man’s wife does
not jump with joy at his proposal to rent a
separate flat but praises the traditional value of
Brahmin jointness. Secondly, his mother accord-
ing to him turns out to be “unfit” for the
position of a mother-in-law, since she gets along
very well with her daughter-in-law. She does not
even fly into a rage when the young woman
breaks precious kitchen utensils as instructed by
him. When all his attempts fail to make his wife
quarrel with his mother and sister, he provokes a
quarrel with his father in order to have a pretext
to leave. At this point a third surprise awaits him
and the audience. With the wisdom befitting his
age his father had long known his son’s desire to
live alone. Since in his youth he himself had
longed for independence, he now profits by the
occasion and moves out with his wife. The old
couple’s separate household, however, does not
last long (their flat is in a neighbouring street
anyhow). At the first news of her daughter-in-
law’s morning sickness the mother-in-law rushes
back to assist her. For once it is she who gives
orders to her husband; the orders are to resume
their joint living.
1.1.2 The relationship between the sexes
1.1.2.1 Husband and wife
Though not made the major subject of any of
Marina’s comedies the not quite ideal relationship
between husband and wife adds to the humour of
most of them. As might be expected, the fun
consists in inverting the normal hierarchy be-
tween the sexes. The saktic strain of Hinduism
conceives of the goddess as dominant and occa-
sionally even subduing her husband, but to adapt
this idea to ordinary human life is absurd. In the
comedies the wife sometimes proves to be more
reasonable and determined than her husband, she
orders him about and he admits it, but their
relationship never deteriorates to the point of
gratuitous insults as in some Tamil jokes. There
also seems to be a limit to the wife’s dominance.
In “Separate Household” the protagonist’s sister
is in the habit of giving orders to her rather silly
husband. But after twenty years of marriage he
explodes in a terrible rage, which temporarily at
least reestablishes the traditional hierarchy. His
family members remain speechless but the au-
dience laughs.
Anthropos 83.1988
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
1-1.2.2 Boy and girl
The ideal of the devoted wife is so highly valued
in Tamil culture that Marina does not wish to
depart from it too far, but the inverted hierarchy
between the unmarried man and woman provides
him with a wide range of humorous situations.
Theoretically, both the boy and the girl have the
right to refuse the marriage their parents want to
arrange for them. But since an unmarried woman
still faces much hardship in Tamil society, the girl
tends to be more keen on getting married than
the boy and refusals are more likely to come from
him than from her. In “The Marriage Tether”
(1978) the young man severely criticizes the looks
°f the girl he went to see with his parents (rite
called pen partial). However, before he can ask
the marriage broker to gently break the news to
her family that he rejects her he has to learn that
the girl refuses to marry him. This is such a
terrible blow to his self-esteem that he passes
hours in front of the mirror and decides never
again to go pen parkka. Consequently, in comic
reversal of the normal course of events, his elders
ask the glamorous office-going daughter of their
family doctor to come “to see the boy.” When
she arrives he is shy and blushes as it befits a girl
and gladly accepts the “marriage tether.” This
expression, which gives the name to the comedy,
hterally denotes the tether of an animal. Figura-
tively it refers to marriage conceived as a rope that
Prevents the young man from roaming around too
much and serves to teach him responsibility.
While it has often been pointed out (for instance
as an argument in favour of child marriage) that
the young girl must be kept in check by marriage,
the Tamil expression kalkattu shows that mar-
riage is believed to have a similar effect on the
Young man.
Even though most Tamil marriages are ar-
ranged this does not prevent courtship, since the
Young may ask their parents to arrange their
marriage to the partner of their liking. In such
cases it is normally the boy who courts the girl
and the opposite as in “The Son-in-Law Who
Praises His Mother-in-Law” (1987a) strikes the
Tamil as funny. Equally funny is the fact that the
§lrl who has set her eyes on the good-looking and
Well-earning young man of weak character courts
him by first courting her future mother-in-law.
The “Marriage Market” (19875) presents an
even more hilarious inversion of the social norm.
The comedy begins with the unprecedented scene
°f a girl asking for the hand of her boy friend
from his father. Needless to say that she is not
19
well received. This culturally absurd behaviour
becomes understandable when we learn that her
boy friend, who cannot muster up the courage to
speak to his father about his marriage plans, had
jokingly suggested that she should do so. She,
however, took his words to the letter. The expres-
sion “marriage market” normally refers to the
haggling about dowry. In this case, however, it
must be understood as the Anglicized rendering
of the cuyamvaram rite (Skr. svayamvara =
self-choosing) of ancient India, in which prin-
cesses had the privilege of choosing their mates
among a row of suitors. In the comedy a crook
posing as a social reformer claims to have invent-
ed a revolutionary form of svayamvara, in which
the man selects his mate from a row of girls. This
absurd proposal turns out to be only a trick, since
the choice of partners is pre-arranged. Neverthe-
less it helps to make the boy’s stubborn father
relent and accept the bold girl as his daughter-
in-law. But he does so on one revolutionary
condition: his future daughter-in-law must tie the
tali (marriage badge) to his son’s neck rendering
him subservient to her for the rest of his life. This
is too much for the young couple. They immedi-
ately renounce all desire for innovations and
settle for a perfectly traditional marriage.
1.1.3 Other relationships in the agnatic family
In Marina’s comedies the hierarchy between fa-
ther and son is sometimes reversed. The son gives
advice to his father and plays tricks on him, which
the audience enjoys connivingly because the fa-
ther should have known better and behaved more
sensibly.
According to the Tamil social norm the
relationship between grandparents and grandchil-
dren should be unrestrained but loving. In “The
Son-in-Law Who Praises His Mother-in-Law,”
however, the grandchildren take pleasure in the
quarrels between their grandparents. Again
laughter at their callous behaviour is facilitated by
the fact that the old couple itself falls short of the
wisdom expected from it.
In the absence of the father, authority lies in
the hands of the eldest son whose duty it is to
arrange the marriage of his younger siblings.
“Quarrelsome Ammakkannu’s” elder brother has
the best of intentions to find a suitable husband
for her but she remains evasive. Finally, she
agrees to let him arrange her marriage on condi-
tion that he first fulfils her one wish. The audi-
ence is surprised and amused to learn that what
Anthropos 83.1988
20
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
she desires is a sister-in-law. Inverting the normal
hierarchy of age and sex she proposes that he
marries her girl friend. After a few lame excuses
for dignity’s sake he gladly accepts her sugges-
tion, which has been his secret wish anyway.
Ammakkannu also flouts a second social norm.
Young unmarried girls of decent families should
be timid, avoid speaking to men and going out
alone. The non-Brahmin protagonist, however,
completely lacks the virtue of timidity. Though
she has been to college she decides to make a
living by carrying lunch boxes to office workers,
an occupation normally reserved for poor unedu-
cated women. In doing so she not only talks to
men but even beats them in verbal battles.
“Quarrelsome Ammakkannu” is Marina’s only
pur am comedy. In addition to deriving humour
from the girl’s unconventional behaviour it paro-
dies self-serving and dishonest politicians.
1.1.4 In-laws
In Tamilnadu and the rest of India wife-takers
enjoy higher social status than wife-givers, but to
make a show of one’s superiority is of bad taste.
The Tamils have created the term màppillai
murukku for the man who snubs his in-laws.
{Màppillai means son-in-law and murukku is the
name of a hard savoury which metaphorical-
ly stands for stiffness and haughtiness.) “The
Haughty Son-in-Law” (n. d.) presents a man who
keeps aloof from his wife’s family keen on playing
host to him. The major butts of ridicule, however,
are the silly second son-in-law and his moth-
er. The latter corresponds to the cliché of the
mother-in-law constantly finding fault with her
daugher-in-law. The protagonist of “The Holy-
man’s Mother-in-Law” (1981b) is of even worse
disposition and drives her first daughter-in-law
to suicide. She merits to be punished and the
audience delights in seeing her duped by her son’s
clever second wife.
Indian society expects the relationship be-
tween a father-in-law and his daughter-in-law to
be restrained. In “Where Does Canti Stand?”
(1977), however, a funny battle takes place be-
tween the two. To be precise, the battle is waged
indirectly, since both voice their grievances to a
third party: his son and her husband. In another
reversal of the theme of the separate household,
this time the father with his daughter temporarily
sets up a separate kitchen on the first floor of
their house leaving his son and daughter-in-law
on the ground floor.
The Tamil joint family has another classical
quarrelling pair in the wives of brothers. “The
Marriage Tether” looks at this problem from a
humorous perspective. It opposes the uneducated
wife of the elder brother to the office-going wife
of the younger brother. Given the prestige of
education and earning power the traditional hier-
archy of age between them is reversed, which the
older woman naturally resents.
Marina does not find humour only in unsatis-
factory family relationships. The “Son-in-Law
Who Praises His Mother-in-Law” goes beyond
the social norm. As a wife-taker the son-in-law
normally has little contact with his mother-in-law.
The protagonist of the comedy, however, after
his marriage discovers the greatness of his quietly
suffering mother-in-law, which strikingly con-
trasts with his egoistic and imaginary sick mother.
He frequently visits her so that his wife has to go
to fetch him in a comical inversion of the normal
practice which wants that the husband goes to call
back his wife visiting her native family.
1.2 Disregard of Spiritual Values and Beliefs
“The Skylab Father-in-Law” (1980) focuses on
the horoscope which is still an important factor
for the selection of spouses. When trying to
arrange his niece’s marriage the uncle, by mis-
take, gives the horoscope of his daughter rather
than his niece to a retired government official so
that the latter comes with his son to see the wrong
girl. Since the prospective father-in-law is a firm
believer in astrology and finds the horoscope a
perfect match to his son’s horoscope, he insists
that his son should marry the girl of the horo-
scope. After many funny complications and sur-
prising turns, however, the groom chooses the
girl he went pen pàrkka and their marriage be-
comes a success despite the not so perfect agree-
ment of their horoscopes.
The holyman is one of the most typical fig-
ures of India. In spite of, or more likely because
of, his undiminished prestige persons are tempted
to reap the material benefits of his position
without fulfilling its spiritual demands. False ho-
lymen have been the butt of ridicule for millennia
but this has not deterred impostors. The first false
holyman in the comedy ends up by getting mar-
ried, which definitely unmasks him as a fraud.
(Although there has always existed a minority of
non-ascetic holymen, the prototypical Indian ho-
lyman is a world renouncer.) Before doing so,
however, he involuntarily gives a marriageable
Anthropos 83.1988
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
21
§!rl the idea of feigning to be possessed by her
deceased sister. Thanks to the possession trick
she succeeds in marrying her widowed brother-
in-law whom she has always liked and in subduing
her mother-in-law. To match the false holyman
becoming a householder the comedy introduces a
householder feigning to become a world renounc-
er in order to make his nagging wife and moth-
er-in-law admit that they need him.
Just as it is possible to feign permanent world
renunciation so it is possible to feign temporary
austerities. The husband of the imaginary sick
matron takes a vow of silence. He does so,
however, not for religious reasons but to avoid
being coinvolved in his wife’s troubles with her
s°n. Though he does not speak he communicates
through signs and writing. He even laughs, which
ls totally out of keeping with the idea of a vow of
silence.
t-J Human Weaknesses
Gossip” (1981a) derives most of its humour
from a human weakness, which seems to be
Particularly widespread in Tamilnadu if one wants
t° believe the Tamil writers. Already one of
the first Tamil novels written by Raj am Aiyar
around the turn of the century makes it the
s°urce of much suffering. Rajam Aiyar (1972: 10)
c°med the term “gossipers’ congress” (vampar
maha capai) taking place at the river where
^omen go to wash clothes. In “Gossip” the
characters wag their tongues within the house,
they are headed by a middle-aged man, father of
a marriageable daughter and a middle-aged wom-
an> aunt of a marriageable nephew. In addition
to these master gossipers most other characters
are shown to be addicted to the same bad habit.
The title of the comedy notwithstanding the
?ajor humorous theme of “The Son-in-Law Who
raises His Mother-in-Law” is imaginary sick-
ness. Contrary to Moliere’s “Le malade imagi-
aaUe” (and quite independently of him, of course)
vmrina’s comedy does not deal with sex and
money. The imaginary sick person is a matron
^ho because of her excessive preoccupation with
aer own health forgets her duty to her family.
Though never made the major humorous
borne gluttony provokes the audience’s mirth in
j^veral of the comedies. In “Separate House-
°m,” for instance, a pensioner with a sweet
tooth is invariably attracted by the fragrance of
be sweets his neighbour prepares and begs for
hem in barely disguised terms. In “Where Does
Anthropos 83.1988
Canti Stand?” a youth chooses to join that ama-
teur theatre group which provides the best
snacks, and in “Gossip” another youth claims
that he does not want to marry because, if he did,
the little money he earns would have to be given
to his wife in addition to his mother and he would
be unable to treat himself to candy.
Thoughtless self-betrayal and other blunders
of normally intelligent persons frequently make
them the source of laughter. But Marina does not
induce his audience to laugh only at occasional
signs of stupidity. Most of his comedies contain at
least one person who might be called a modern
version of the clown (vidusaka) in the Sanskrit
drama. The original vidusaka had the function to
offset the heroic and all too serious protagonist
(Piretti Santangelo 1982: 61-72); his modern ava-
tara simply adds to the fun. In “Gossip” a
good-natured half-wit in his naivity provides the
inveterate gossiper with the material for his tales.
In “Marriage Market” the marriage broker’s
assistant is the major clown who suffers severe
beating on account of his stupidity. Clownish
traits are also possessed by some silly and exces-
sively dependent husbands as in “Separate House-
hold” and “The Haughty Son-in-Law.”
But the clown in Marina’s comedies need not
always be lacking in intelligence. In “The Mar-
riage Tether” the role of the clown devolves upon
a distant relative living in the joint family. He is
called Ammanci, a term normally referring to the
mother’s brother who frequently becomes the
butt of ridicule in communities with institutional-
ized joking relationships. Ammanci is far from
stupid; he critically observes other people’s silly
actions and even proves to be endowed with
wisdom. At the same time, however, he has some
idiosyncracies - in particular his habit of keeping
a diary where he candidly notes all small domestic
matters - which make him a laughing stock and
involuntary trouble maker.
2. Humorous Language
Language seems to be even more important for
humour in Marina’s comedies than subject mat-
ter, since it may be an independent source of
humour, may add to the fun of the theme or
render it humorous in the first place. In the
preceding review of the major humorous themes
in them I have intentionally kept references to
language to a minimum. Presented in this dry
fashion the funny themes described will hardly
cause more than a smile in the Tamil and will
22
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
altogether lack humorous potentials in western
eyes. Through the way they are expressed, how-
ever, these humorous themes may become irre-
sistibly comic to the Tamil. In the following I shall
give some examples showing how language actu-
alizes the fun in major and minor humorous
themes. For convenience’s sake I shall distinguish
three aspects of Marina’s linguistic humour: witti-
cism not dependent on the Tamil language, play
on words, and humorous sayings and similes.
2.1 Witticism not Dependent on the Tamil Language
Taciturnity may not be an obstacle to slapstick
humour but little recommends itself for the sub-
tler forms of humour in comedies. Consequently,
most of Marina’s characters possess the gift of the
gab and are quick at repartee. Witticism comes
natural to them and they use all the standard
techniques for creating humour like incongruity,
exaggeration, absurdity, and paradox.
2.1.1 Witticism on social themes
The husband who is eager to set up a separate
household reproaches his hesitant wife in the fol-
lowing terms: “An intelligent wife runs pack-
ing the moment her husband pronounces the
word ‘separate’ and is ready to leave before he
has finished saying ‘household.’2 She, however,
remains unconvinced and later remarks to her
mother-in-law: “If he [avar, the honorific form of
the pronoun stands for ‘my husband’] stubbornly
insists on moving to a separate flat, I shall
stubbornly insist that you two must come with us”
(1974; 105).
The bickering between husband and wife
provides ample scope for witticism. In “Where
Does Canti Stand?” the husband who constantly
receives his wife’s complaints on account of his
father laments: “Wives must have got the boon
not to leave their husbands in peace for a min-
ute!”, which the wife counters as follows: “No, no,
husbands must have been cursed never to listen to
their wives even when it is right what they say”
(1977: 19). Although he does not openly admit it,
he is convinced that his wife’s complaints are
justified and transmits them to his father as if
they came from himself. His father, however,
2 This sentence appears on the Columbia record of the
comedy but not in the book.
knows better and ironically replies: “I see, you
have learnt the lesson well which she taught you.
Is there anything else she said? Should I call her
to prompt?” (1977; 23).
Just in case the revolutionary marriage the
young man in “Marriage Market” hopes to con-
tract will not succeed he asks his beloved whether
she will join him in a revolutionary death, but not
the usual way by throwing themselves in front of
a train, drowning themselves in the sea or hang-
ing themselves in a hotel room. With feigned
interest the reasonable girl inquires; “Have you
discovered some new location?” [‘location’ in
English], a witticism he does not at all appreciate.
When he later feels betrayed by her he exclaims:
“Ungrateful traitress, how many oaths have you
sworn, how many cone ice-creams have you
eaten!” (1987b, scenes 6, 9).
The use of tricks by the young to make their
elders consent to the marriage of their choice is
potentially funny. It is even more likely so, if the
elders admit that they have been defeated. When
a relative in “Gossip” pronounces the traditional
solemn formula: “The elders have decided the
gift of a virgin . . .,” the future bride’s father
interrupts shouting: “That’s a lie, the young have
decided it and imposed it on the elders!”
(1981a: 117).
To prevent such disrespect in their grown-up
offspring Tamil parents have no qualms to disci-
pline them severely in childhood. Through exag-
geration and a category error, which preposter-
ously combines politeness and menace, a father’s
attempt to teach his son manners becomes comi-
cal. He orders his son: “Kindly come here, I am
going to kill you” (1980: 26). Pinching is a com-
mon corporeal punishment. When the elder broth-
er in “The Marriage Tether” pinches his youn-
ger brother for not studying properly, his mother
protests that he should not do so because the boy
is only a child. The elder brother ironically
retorts: “Yes, a child! Put him into a cradle and
he will sleep snoring” (1978: 11).
Far from being intimidated by the men to
whom she delivers their lunch boxes “Quarrel-
some Ammakkannu” claims that she will soon use
weapons against those who approach her disre-
spectfully. To her brother’s frightened question;
“What kind of weapons?” she replies: “In one
hand a slipper, in the other a broom” (1982; 31).3
This assurance does not satisfy her brother who
3 The slipper is a traditional Indian weapon used by both
men and women. “Chappal beating” is a grave insult
because it pollutes the assaulted.
Anthropos 83.1988
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
23
Wants her to earn at home in a dignified way and
offers to buy her a sewing machine. She feels no
calling to become a seamstress and states that if
she is not allowed to carry lunch boxes as her
Mother did, she will do her grandmother’s work.
Her brother smiles at these words, which ob-
viously refer to the long abolished profession of
the temple dancer-cum-prostitute that was com-
m°n in certain non-Brahmin castes. Ammak-
hannu was just joking, of course, and then settles
f°r the work of frying pancakes on the verandah
of her house as a perfect spatial compromise.
2-1.2 Witticism on beliefs
The possiblity of supernatural powers in humans
18 a religious premise few Hindus would doubt but
this does not mean that they have to believe any
claim to such powers. The credulous daughter in
The Holyman’s Mother-in-Law” tells her father
flat a certain holyman knows that her husband in
18 last existence was a minister of the raja of
anjore. With a straight face he comments that as
a rninister her husband must have taken bribes so
at in punishment he had to marry into this
armly. \Yhen criticized by his own wife for
faking fun of everything the old man claims that
c also knows what happened in previous lives:
she
Mad
was a dishwasher in the royal palace of
urai. He adds maliciously: “Can you prove
at you were not?” Then he directs his mockery
w&rds the enormous increase of the holyman
Population [‘population’ in English] in the city of
adras. In many families, especially rich fami-
es> he states, it is now fashionable to have a
amily holyman like a family doctor (1981b: 35).
Since the young wife in the same comedy
continues her game of mock possession for some
me after her marriage her sister-in-law, who is
Wont t °
1U to pay prolonged visits to her native home,
.aves In horror. She soon comes back, however,
Slnce she found that “the demon here (her broth-
8 wife in her mother’s house) is preferable to
e devil there (her husband’s sister in her moth-
^-in-law’s house)” (1981b: 105). One sign of
e clever woman’s mock possession cannot fail
? delight the audience. Her husband tells that
e has developed such an enormous appetite
at at mealtimes she gulps up all tasty side dishes
,aving only plain rice to her mother-in-law and
Slster-in-law (1981b; 102).
2.1.3 Witticism on character traits
Marina not only vividly depicts his gossipers in
action, he makes them funnier still by showing
that they consider their behaviour perfectly nor-
mal, are unaware of their defect or unblinkingly
deny it. When reproached by his son for spread-
ing rumours the father in “Gossip” paradoxi-
cally objects that he did not gossip but only told
what happened in other people’s houses (1981a:
102). Any patent lie may be funny especial-
ly when it is couched in absurd terms. A jealous
scandal monger in “Where Does Canti Stand?”
pushes exaggeration to comic absurdity. In order
to insinuate illicit closeness between a Brahmin
girl and her non-Brahmin boy friend she claims
that when he has a headache she takes pills
(1977: 102).
The retired father in “The Marriage Tether”
does not at all like the dietary restriction and
medicine prescribed by his family doctor who will
soon become his son-in-law. When the latter asks
for his blessings he does so in the following terms:
“May you be happy without having to swallow all
sorts of pills and take injections. May you be able
to eat sweet and highly spiced dishes to your
heart’s content without getting stomach ache, rise
of blood pressure, and blood sugar, or any other
trouble” (1978: 42).
Stinginess, wastefulness and curiosity are not
major humorous themes in the comedies but add
to their fun on several occasions. In “The Skylab
Father-in-Law” a thrifty uncle who is on a visit to
his nephew and wife offers to wash some of their
clothes so that they need not give them to the
laundry. The nephew objects to it as demeaning
but his wife defends the uncle and accuses her
husband with the absurd exaggeration: “If you go
on like this you will soon give to the washerman
even dried cowdung cakes” (1980: 8).
Like the characters’ gossiping habit their
curiosity becomes funnier if they have no qualms
to admit their misdeeds. In “The Son-in-Law
Who Praises His Mother-in-Law” a husband is
well aware that his wife has taught herself the art
of reading the inland letters^ he receives by
blowing up the unglued sides. He therefore accus-
es her of lying when she claims not to know why
his parents will come to visit them. She defends
herself against the latter charge only by saying
that, unfortunately, this particular part of the
4 India has airletter-like inland letters glued only on the
long side.
Anth
ir°pos 83.1988
24
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
letter she could not read no matter how much she
blew (1987a: 25).
The greater a character’s naivity or stupidity
the more he is likely to trigger the audience’s
mirth. The fact that a half-wit uses his fingers to
do simple sums would not be particularly funny,
but when he asks his interlocutor to keep the zero
carefully in his hand until he has added up the
other numbers he cannot fail to amuse.
While Marina’s most common humorous
strategy consists in showing things as they are not
or ought not to be, occasionally he creates fun
also through true statements and cleverness rath-
er than stupidity. The little boy who noticing the
quarrels in his family remarks that there is “great
tension” (‘tension’ in English) is funny because of
his unexpected precociousness (1987a; 21). But
even incongruity and surprise are not necessary
for humour. Sometimes it is the very confirma-
tion of commonsense wisdom that makes for fun.
The audience is delighted by the marriage bro-
ker’s observation that in order to know all about
a family it is enough to ask the servant or the
family doctor and, in the case of a very rich
family, also the cook and the driver (1978:
17-18).
2.2 Play Upon Words
In ancient Tamilnadu the learned poets (pulavar)
travelling from court to court were famous for
their skill in devising double meanings and other
linguistic tricks. This attention paid to the aesthet-
ic and humorous possibilities of language has not
diminished among the Tamils to this day.
Since I have already dealt with some of
Marina’s plays upon words elsewhere (Eichinger
Ferro-Luzzi 1986) I shall limit myself here to give
a few more examples and then discuss more at
length an aspect of verbal humour hardly touched
so far: comical sayings and similes. The very titles
of several among Marina’s comedies use rhyme
{Camiyarin mamiyar), double and even triple
alliteration (Atavati Ammakkannu, Kalkattu,
Mappillai murukku, Mamiyar mecciya mappillai).
The popularity of word play is such that, at a
metalevel (cf. Paulos 1977: 113-114) it may itself
become the source of humour. In five of the
comedies (1978, 1980, 1987a, 1987b, n. d.) char-
acters appear whose habit of cracking mostly
linguistic jokes goes on people’s nerves because
they think the jokes bad jokes, humorously ab-
breviated to English B. J. (n. d., scene 4).5 This
abbreviation in turn is promptly transformed into
a pun by a joker who prefers to interpret it as
“brilliant joke” (n. d., scene 8).
In “Marriage Market” clownish figures repeat-
edly focus their witticisms on names. The self-
styled social reformer and marriage broker tells
that, since he was born on a fullmoon day, he was
given the name Pürnacantiran (fullmoon in Tamil-
ized Sanskrit), which he changed to Mulumati (a
synonymous Tamil-Sanskrit compound). His in-
terlocutor congratulates him because if he had
been born on a newmoon day he might have
received the name Irulappan (Father Darkness in
Tamil), which he might have changed to Black
Out. Then he asks Mulumati whether his assis-
tant, by any chance, is called Third Day Crescent
or Croissant (1987b: 76). Later Mulumati changes
his name to Muluttihkal (a synonymous all-Tamil
compound) because a numerologist foretold that
a seven-letter name would bring him luck (in the
Tamil syllabic script mu-lu-t-ti-h-ka-1 adds up to
seven letters). Hearing this the prospective groom
wants to know whether the marriage broker’s
assistant has changed his name accordingly to
Mulucani (Full Saturn, a Tamil-Sanskrit com-
pound)6. When the assistant denies this because
there should be seven letters to a name the groom
proposes that he will call him Muluccaniyan.
After having counted the letters mu-lu-c-ca-ni-
ya-n at his fingers and found that they are indeed
seven the assistant agrees to accept the new
name. All persons present laugh because caniyan
is a term of abuse, so that the new name might be
translated as Wholly Damned Fellow (1987b:
103).
Perhaps the most inveterate joker among
Marina’s characters appears in “The Son-in-Law
Who Praises His Mother-in-Law.” He is in the
habit of introducing himself with plays on his
mythological name Airàvatam (the name of In-
dra’s white elephant) and vexes people to such an
extent that they block his mouth and permit him
to stay only on condition that he does not joke.
However, paradoxically, he inspires others to
emulate him. For instance, they pun on the verb
‘to joke,’ which in Tamil is expressed as ‘to beat a
joke,’ claiming that he tortures and beats them
with his jokes. Even the imaginary sick matron is
5 The Tamil language has adequate words for bad or
nerve-wrecking (mattamana, aruvai) with regard to a
joke, but the Tamil word for joke nakaiccuvai tunukku
(literally ‘piece of humour’) is clumsy so that most people
prefer the English ‘joke.’
6 Both the moon and Saturn belong among the “nine
planets” (navagraha) of Indian astrology.
Anthropos 83.1988
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
25
aPt at creating linguistic humour. Learning that
she will have to change trains at Pune she asks in
an “echo-joke”7; “What cat what dog, why did
they give this new name to the station?” (The
h^arati name Pune, Anglicized as Poona, sounds
hke the Tamil word for cat punai). Her husband
offers the nonsense explanation: “Because the
train cries miaow, miaow when it arrives at the
station” (1987a, scene 11). On another occasion
the matron comically uses an alimentary meta-
phor in a religious context. To devour an exces-
SlVe amount of food is expressed in Tamil as ‘eat-
ln§ up to one’s nose.’ She, however, reproaches
her husband for reciting prayers ‘up to his nose’
sensing that he has taken to prayer in order to be
kft in peace by her.
Nearly everybody in the comedy plays on
w°rds including the girl who courts her future
husband. When he tells her ‘good-bye’ in order
t° send her away she pretends to misunderstand
fhe Tamil greeting poyittu vanko, which literally
means ‘having gone away come,’ and with feigned
naivity asks him: “When shall I come?” (1987a,
Scene 17).
Airavatam himself in addition to being con-
stantly on the look out for more or less contrived
double meanings also creates involuntary ones,
which are indeed funny to the audience. He had
Panned to travel with the imaginary sick matron
and her husband but suddenly cancels his ticket
ccause his wife has reminded him (he is not only
a Joker but also a henpecked husband) that the
^aV of the planned journey is the day his father
°u§ht his ticket. Seeing the perplexed looks on
116 faces of those present he explains that to say
°f a person that “he bought his ticket” metaphor-
1Ca% refers to his journey to the other world
the anniversary ceremony of his father’s
c&th prevents him from leaving). Airavatam
^en asks the elderly couple whether they bought
Ueir tickets. This time he means his words
uerally but they take them metaphorically and
are frightened at the inauspicious words (1987a,
scene 12).
Given the Tamil preferential marriage within
e extended family it is quite possible for a
Person to trace his relationship to another
r°ugh more than one line. Introduced as a
y°ung man’s relative on his father’s side Airava-
arn adds that he is also related to him on the
°PP°site side and backside, which makes the
7 Echo jokes repeat the main word through a word similar
lr> sound or in meaning, cf. Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi 1986.
Anthropos 83.1988
audience burst out in laughter (1987a, scene 18).
The fun in his words consists in the novel exten-
sion of a standard spatial idiom for a genealogical
connexion. Perhaps even more humorous is the
extension of an idiom by opposition. When an
authoritative wife in “Separate Household” or-
ders her husband first to take down the washing
from the clotheline so that it does not get wet in
the rain and then come to dinner he replies; “I
don’t care whether it gets wet since my stomach is
dry” (1974: 43) (kaykiratu in Tamil means both
‘is dry’ and ‘burns,’ in the latter sense it meta-
phorically denotes pangs of hunger).
A person who stubbornly insists on some-
thing is comically described as standing on one leg
by reference to an extreme form of austerity
undertaken in the hope of getting a boon from
the deity. The father in “The Marriage Tether”
extends this metaphor by the one for marriage.
He reproaches his wife that she “stood on one leg
to tie their son’s leg” (1978: 99), i.e., she had
insisted on arranging the marriage which now
causes them troubles.
Special linguistic skill is required for prolong-
ed play on words. In “The Holyman’s Mother-
in-Law” the cultural absurdity that an ascetic
holyman marries and the concomitant feigned
decision of a householder to become a world
renouncer is comically expressed through a string
of alliterative words. The father remarks that it is
natural (cakajam) that a householder (camcari)
becomes a holyman (camiyar), but if a holyman
(camiyar) becomes a householder (camcari) it is a
disgrace to the institution of world renunciation
(canniyaca acramam). Turning to his wife he adds
that on their terrace their son-in-law is waiting to
give her the news that a householder (camcari)
has become a holyman (camiyar) (1981b: 134).
Prolonged play on words can also be achiev-
ed by repeating one and the same word in dif-
ferent contexts, which is much appreciated by
the Tamil audience. In “The Marriage Tether”
the father speaking to his wife laments the
parents’ plight in arranging their son’s marriage:
“We have to look at our own people, look at the
horoscope, look at the girl, and look for an
auspicious day to celebrate the marriage. After
having looked and looked at all this we find that
our son does not look at us any more but keeps
looking only at his wife. You yourself can observe
(look at) this nuisance every day in our own
house” (1978; 79). In this lengthy discourse he
uses the verb ‘to look’ in various grammatical
forms nine times. By rhythmically repeating one
and the same word as well as in many other
26
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
phonological jokes the humorist creates harmony
or heightened congruity rather than incongruity,
which is often thought to be essential to humour.
The Tamils also do not laugh at such play on
words because it gives them a sense of “vicarious
superiority” but, on the contrary, because they
are delighted at the speaker’s skill, which they
would be unable to imitate.
2.3 Sayings and Similes
Freud hesitated to count analogy as a joke and
claimed that “it is seldom able to provoke the
explosive laughter which signalizes a good joke”
(1960: 81-82). I doubt that this holds for the West
and it certainly does not for Tamilnadu. The way
Marina’s characters talk is funny because, in
addition to being loquacious and liking to pun,
they prefer colourful expressions to matter-of-fact
statements. Standard sayings and similes are le-
gion in the Tamil language. Marina makes ample
use of their humorous possibilities and adds funny
comparisons of his own.
While Tamil jokes especially of the absurd
variety frequently attribute human characteristics
to animals, sayings and similes like to compare
humans to animals. If an outspoken domineering
wife calls herself a helpless woman she is funny
because of the patent falsehood of her words, but
she is funnier if she describes herself by a stan-
dard idiom as a “speechless insect” (vayilla pucci)
(1981a: 6). Another nagging wife in “Where
Does Canti Stand?” reproaches her husband of
hiding like a cricket behind the wardrobe the
moment the light goes on when he sees his father
(1977: 14). The husband shares her love for an-
imal similes and accuses her of bringing back to
memory long forgotten unpleasant things like a
bandicoot that stirs up garbage (1977: 52).
Even time-worn sayings may enhance the
humorous atmosphere of a comedy. A terrible
mother-in-law who feigns kindness to her daugh-
ter-in-law as long as her son is around is aptly
and comically compared to a cobra in its box
(1974: 43). Also the elliptic characterization of a
husband’s former timid self in “The Marriage
Tether” by the idiom “Will this cat drink the
milk?” (1978: 7) provokes mirth. Reference is
made to a cat so timid and well-trained that it
dares not drink the milk left unguarded. The
husband in turn describes the ridiculous behav-
iour of another pensioner in their hymn-singing
(bhajana) group through comparison to an an-
imal. When we sang the holy name, he tells, his
age-mate jumped like a monkey stung by a
scorpion and hit his head against the ceiling beam
(1978; 44).
Also to recall a popular intelligence test
(known in the West in slightly different form)
may trigger explosive laughter. The imaginary
sick matron reproachfully asks her family mem-
bers: “Why are you coming and going one at a
time like the goat, the tiger, and the bundle of
grass?” (1987a, scene 21). Sayings regarding an-
imals may be funny even when they do not
suggest any similarity to humans. If a woman is
said to be so stingy that “she would not chase
away a crow with her hand while eating” (literally
“with her dirty hand”) (1981a; 28) it is the exag-
geration that is funny. By implication, the woman
wants to avoid that the rice grains sticking to her
fingers fall to the ground where the crow might be
able to pick them up.
Comical sayings and similes are, of course,
not limited to the animal kingdom but also regard
plants and objects. A young man, for instance,
sarcastically comments on a girl who passed him
in the street that she looks “like a snake gourd
wrapped in a saree” (1974: 11). A wife asks her
husband who stubbornly keeps silent at her ques-
tions why he sits there motionsless “like a damp
fire-cracker” (1981a: 49).
Ritual and mythology constitute further rich
sources of comical comparisons. When the teen-
age cricket fan in “The Haughty Son-in-Law”
refuses to go and buy milk a witty neighbour
offers to do so because disturbing a person who
listens to a cricket commentary is like inter-
rupting an ancient rsi’s (sage) meditation (n. d.,
scene 1) (which notoriously resulted in him curs-
ing the trouble-maker). The imaginary sick wom-
an accuses her husband that his lack of consid-
eration shortens her life. He ironically agrees
saying; “Yes, I am your Yama [the god of death].
I come riding on a buffalo and kill you daily by
strangling you with my rope” (1987a, scene 6).
However, not all funny religious similes have a
negative meaning. Given her many complaints
the “daily killed” woman has just been thinking
about her doctor when he, as she puts it, arrives
“jumping like Hanuman carrying the Sanjlvi
mountain” (1987a, scene 20). With the miracu-
lous medical herbs growing on this mountain,
it will be remembered, the monkey king revived
Rama’s warriors killed in battle.
Also temple ritual suggests funny compari-
sons. The family members in “The Marriage
Tether” who disagree among themselves are said
to look each in a different direction like the “nine
Anthropos 83.1988
27
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies
Planets” (navagraha) (1978: 112). The anthropo-
morphic statues of the navagraha are arranged
ln an equilateral square with the sun occupying
the centre. In the same comedy the older sister-in-
law is jealous of the office-going newcomer to
the joint family. She complains that she has to do
aH the kitchen work, while the younger woman
§ets up leisurely at six o’clock (which is late for
Tamil standards) and then comes moving slowly
like the Tiruvarur temple cart” (1978: 135). The
heavy temple carts, it must be noted, have to
move slowly to prevent them from overturning
and crushing people.
Some Tamil similes might be called “open”
Slnce only their general idea is codified and their
Particular expression left to the speaker’s discre-
tlQn. Similarity of character may be expressed
mther through a fanciful genealogical link or
nrough spatial contiguity. The young wife in
Separate Household” calls her grumbling hus-
and a “true descendant of Durvasas” (1974: 97)
7 reference to the well-known trouble-maker of
Jidian mythology. A dishonest politician in
Quarrelsome Ammakkannu,” conversely, uses a
sPatial simile. He ironically suggests that a client
C(ho offered a low black market price must be
Tar/’s neighbour” (1982:99). (The historical
®udal chief Pari was reputed for his unbounded
hherality).
Also for slowness of wit open idioms exist,
meh leave the choice between reference to
either one of the two major Indian epics. The
Protagonist of “Separate Household” noticing
at his friend has still not grasped his intentions
C°rnically claims: “After having heard the Rama-
Tana for so long you still think that Rama is
Sita
s uncle [her father’s younger brother]”
( 74: 91) and the son in “Marriage Market”
Similarly accuses his father: “After having heard
e ^ahabharata for so long you still want to
ow whether Duryodhana is DraupadVs uncle
er father’s elder brother)” (n. d., scene 4). Ra-
^a’ however, is Sifa’s husband and Duryodhana
^fupadVs husband’s cousin, as even Indian
children know.
Ignorance and stupidity being favourite hu-
r°us themes new funny similes about them are
jmstantly created. The husband trying in vain to
ake his young wife quarrel with his mother or
jster calls her a tubelight (in English), which she
to ?S not understand. He therefore has to explain
uer that just as a fluorescent lamp takes some
e to light up so it takes her some time to
n erstand what he is driving at (1974: 77).
The very title of one of Marina’s comedies is
Anth
roPos 83.1988
a novel comparison inspired by modern technolo-
gy. “The Skylab Father-in-Law,” which might be
called a Tamil version of “Much Ado about
Nothing,” was written shortly after the happy
denouement of the hysteria caused by the defec-
tive Soviet skylab (1980; 3). Some newspapers had
even predicted that it might fall on a certain area
of Tamilnadu. Just as the Soviet skylab eventually
fell to the ground in the Australian desert hurting
nobody, so the protagonist of the comedy after
having frightened a whole family with his arro-
gance finally turns out to be kind and accommo-
dating.
I should like to end this brief review of
Marina’s linguistic humour by quoting one of his
more amusing comparisons. Since a dark complex-
ion is no sign of beauty in Tamilnadu to say of a
woman that she recalls a tar barrel which has
sprouted arms and legs (1981a: 75) cannot fail to
provoke mirth.
3. Discussion
Although the reader may have smiled at times I
do not think that the performance of Marina’s
comedies could become a success in the West.
One obvious reason is language. Humour which
depends so much on play upon words can be
explained but not effectively translated. Another
obvious hurdle for the successful introduction of
the comedies to a western public is the fact that
many comparisons and allusions in order to be
understood as funny require thorough knowledge
of Tamil and Indian culture in general, which
cannot be expected from the average western
theatre goer. But also most of the themes proba-
bly strike the Westerner as less humorous than
the Tamil.
On the criterion of its capacity to provoke
mirth, therefore, Marina’s humour seems to be
rather different from current western humour but
on other criteria it is strikingly similar, as I hope
to show. Psychologists have experimentally stud-
ied differences in the rating of humorous mate-
rials within communities and across cultures. But
the rating of the goodness of a joke probably
reflects personal preferences as much as culture.
Therefore, in order to assess how far we think
alike in the field of humour independent of
culture or differently depending on culture, it
seems to me more crucial to ask whether certain
words and situations are understood as instances
of humour than whether they are positively enjoy-
ed. Once the linguistic facts and cultural premi-
28
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
ses have been explained, the humorous intention
of most examples given above will probably have
been understood by the reader.
To test my own understanding of Marina’s
humour I marked the points which seemed humor-
ous to me in order to compare them with marks
made by informants or with laughter on tapes.
The result was a noteworthy correspondence
between expected and actual laughter in the sense
that I foresaw most actual laughter but not all my
expectations were confirmed. This does not
mean, of course, that I consider myself to be en-
dowed with a great “sense of humour” or that I
laughed aloud every time I put a mark. I rather
expected certain remarks to be funny because I
am familiar with Tamil culture and with strategies
to produce linguistic and other humour.
Discrepancies between expected and actual
laughter may partly be explained by the fact that
in reading a comedy I had more time to think
about what the author might have intended to be
funny than the audience, which had to grasp the
witticism instantaneously. Although Marina’s
comedies are enjoyed not only by the Tamil mid-
dle class, some funny allusions require knowledge
which only the more educated or at least literate
among his audience are likely to have. Since the
English word ‘ischemia,’ for instance, is little
known among the Tamils when the imaginary sick
matron first mispronounced ischemic heart as
“eschimo heart” (both in English), it passed
almost unnoticed. In the live performance, there-
fore, the joke was repeated and explained, which
then provoked loud laughter. To give another
example: in the book “Quarrelsome Ammak-
kannu” the author specifies in brackets that the
heroine’s brother laughed when she menaced to
take up her grandmother’s profession. The older
and more educated among the audience will
doubtlessly join in his laughter because they
know that she alluded to the prostitute; but my
student informant did not understand this allu-
sion.
On the other hand, even the prolonged study
of Tamil culture may not be sufficient to catch all
subtle humorous clues. For instance, I did not
expect laughter at a remark made by the aunt in
“Gossip.” The aunt claimed to know her niece’s
exact age because the latter was born on the day
when another woman’s end of birth pollution was
celebrated. There is nothing intrinsically funny in
this relative way of determining a person’s age
with respect to some other memorable event
without mentioning the calendar date. Rather it
was the author’s keen observation of this charac-
teristic habit that caused the audience’s explosive
laughter and applause.
I am not, of course, the first to note that
non-western humour is both similar to and dif-
ferent from western humour. Goldstein, for in-
stance, well aware of this fact speculates that
“one would be more likely to find trans-cultural
differences when studying the particular content
of humorous materials, than when examining the
underlying cognitive or physiological processes
involved in humour and laughter” (1977: 167).
This formulation improves on earlier psycholo-
gists’ views who, like Freud, took it for granted
that their theories ipso facto applied to humanity
as a whole or, like Greig, espoused strong rela-
tivism and held that “it is only people with the
same social heritage who laugh easily at the same
kind of jokes” (quoted by Keith-Spiegel 1972:
27).
In my view, however, similarities and differ-
ences are less clearly assignable to the distinction
of process/content or technique/content than usu-
ally assumed. Undoubtedly, all major mental
process involved in the creation and appreciation
of humour which have been identified by western
psychologists, can be discerned in Marina’s hu-
mour. The reversal of the norm is one of his
favourite stratagems. Furthermore, surprise,
exaggeration, factual and cultural absurdities,
paradox and other types of incongruities are well
represented in his comedies. Incidentally, none of
these determinants of humour runs through all
examples provided, which should point to the
futility of searching for constants in humour. But
the problem of the definition of humour, or
rather the undefinability of the concept ‘humour,’
goes beyond the scope of this paper and shall be
dealt with elsewhere.
Also the major techniques of linguistic hu-
mour like play on sounds of words, puns and the
interchange of literal and figurative meanings,
common in western humour, are equally em-
ployed by Marina. But he knows at least one
technique of humour, the “echo-joke” as I have
called it (Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi 1986: 270-271),
which seems to be absent from the western
humorist’s repertoire. I shall hazard the guess
that humour based on alliteration and prolonged
play on words may be more common among the
Tamils than among Westerners. Also the use of
standard sayings and similes as humour stimuli is
probably more appreciated by the former. The
relatively greater prevalence of sayings and simi-
les in Tamil humour might be related to the high
value attributed to tradition in India which coun-
Anthropos 83.1988
Humour in a Tamil Author's Popular Comedies
29
teracts boredom. The love of redundance evident
in Marina’s phonological humour seems to be
cultivated by the Tamil language and culture in
general. It has parallels in ritual (Eichinger Ferro-
Luzzi 1977: 512-513) and mythology (Eichinger
Ferro-Luzzi n. d.).
At first sight differences in the content of
Marina’s humour and modern western humour
might appear to be far greater than those in
mental processes and techniques but at a closer
examination these differences shrink consider-
ably. Nearly all of Marina’s humorous themes al-
so exist in modern western humour, albeit to a less-
er degree, and some have gone out of fashion in
the West only in this century. Goldstein and
his collaborators (Goldstein 1977; Goldstein et al.
1976) have dealt with differences in the appreci-
ation of humorous themes under the heading of
familiarity and salience. Clearly, unfamiliarity
does not make for humour. Given the absence of
hierarchy between wife-givers and wife-takers in
the West even my explanations of the Tamil
filiation will not have been enough to make the
reader laugh at Marina’s humour based on this
hierarchy. But I doubt that there is a simple
c°rrelation between the greater and lesser famil-
jmaty of a theme and the rating of its funniness,
^he problem of the arranged marriage, it might
e argued, has become unfamiliar to the West-
erner and hence has lost much of its humor-
°Us potentials. Mother-in-law jokes continue to
e created and enjoyed but it is unlikely that a
Western writer would make quarrels between the
mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law the major
sabject of a comedy. Since the quasi-demise of
h£ joint family in the West has reduced the
Opportunity of their quarrelling, the theme has
ecorne less topical.
In other cases, however, not familiarity but
Cubural attitudes, values, and tastes seem to be
^plcvant for humour appreciation. In the modern
est, for instance, wives quarrel with their hus-
ands and sons with their fathers probably as
much or more than in Tamilnadu; but since
Western husbands and fathers do not expect
mtplicit obedience on the part of their wives and
ndren, domineering wives and disobedient chil-
en are potentially less comical than they were a
ew decades ago in the West and they are in
Present-day Tamilnadu.
Sometimes western culture-specific attitudes
^ay induce the western reader of the comedies to
fun m situations and statements not intended
° be funny by their author. Even though a
man can become president of India the nega-
Anthropos 83.1988
live stereotype of woman is still more widely
accepted in India than in the West. In “The
Holyman’s Mother-in-Law” the son-in-law tries
to excuse his mother for having been rude to his
deceased wife and says to his father-in-law in
distancing English: “After all she is a woman!”
These words, which might seem so outrageous as
to be comical in the modern West, are not
considered so by the Tamil audience.
The concept salience proposed by Goldstein
et al. as a second factor accounting for differences
in humour appreciation, in their usage refers to
the context in which a joke occurs. Music jokes
were found to be funniest when preceded by
music jokes, and medical jokes when preceded by
medical jokes (1972: 169). Though it is not a
necessary criterion of humour I think this concept
helpful and should like to extend it to include the
predominant interests of a community. For in-
stance, most people live in a family in the West as
they do in Tamilnadu but the family is much more
salient in the mind of the Tamil than in that of the
average modern Westerner. Conversely, search
for novelty everywhere and at all costs in techno-
logy, art, music, literature, scientific theories, etc.,
is a salient feature of modern western culture. It
is this feature, which may be mainly responsible if
the traditional humour of the comedies examined
seems less funny to the reader of this article than
to the Tamil audience.
The study of Marina’s humour has shown it
to be both different from western humour and
similar to it in an inextricable way. But because of
the identity of mental processes, near-identity of
techniques, and considerable likeness of content
similarities outweigh differences by far. This re-
sult is in accordance with findings by psycholo-
gists who have investigated the problem (Gold-
stein 1977: 168; Shultz 1977: 178). It should con-
tribute to weaken the relativists’ position and
support the existence of mental proclivities inde-
pendent of culture.
References Cited
Apte, Mahadev L.
1985 Humor and Laughter; An Anthropological Approach.
Ithaca and London.
Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, G.
1977 Ritual as Language: The Case of South Indian Food
Offerings. Current Anthropology 18: 507-514.
1983 Cool Fire: Culture-Specific Themes in Tamil Short
Stories. Aachen.
1986 Language, Thought, and Tamil Verbal Humor. Cur-
rent Anthropology 27: 265-272.
30
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
n. d. Redundanz als Struktur in indischen Tempellegenden.
Paper read at the “Tagung der deutschen Gesellschaft
für Völkerkunde”, Lübeck, October 1985.
Freud, Sigmund
1960 [1905] Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.
The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of S. Freud. Transl. S. James in collaboration
with A. Freud. Vol. VIII. London.
Goldstein, Jeffrey H.
1977 Cross-Cultural Research: Humour Here and There.
In: Antony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot (eds.). It’s
a Funny Thing Humour; pp. 167-174. New York.
Goldstein, Jeffrey H., Jerry M. Suls, and Susan Anthony
1972 Enjoyment of Specific Types of Humour Content:
Motivation or Salience? In: Jeffrey H. Goldstein and
P. E. McGhee (eds.), The Psychology of Humour;
pp. 159-171. New York.
Keith-Spiegel, Patricia
1972 Early Conceptions of Humour: Varieties and Issues.
In: Jeffrey H. Goldstein and P. E. McGhee (eds.), The
Psychology of Humour; pp. 3-39. New York.
Marina
1974 Tanikkutittanam (Separate Household). Madras.
1977 Canti ehkel (Where Does Cänti Stand?). Madras.
1978 Kalkattu (The Marriage Tether). Madras.
1980 Skailap campanti (The Skylab Father-in-Law). Ma-
dras.
1981a Ur vampu (Gossip). Madras. [3rd ed.]
19816 Camiyarin mamiyar (The Holyman’s Mother-in-Law).
Madras.
1982 Atavati Ammakkannu (Quarrelsome Ammakkannu).
Madras.
1987a Mamiyar mecciya mappiffai (The Son-in-Law Who
Praises His Mother-in-Law). Madras.
19876 Kalyana markket (Marriage Market). Madras,
n. d. Mappiffai murukku (The Haughty Son-in-Law). Sepa-
rates from Ananda Vikatan.
Piretti Santangelo, Laura
1982 II teatro indiano antico; aspetti e problemi. Bologna.
Paulos, John
1977 The Logic of Humour and the Humour of Logic. In:
Antony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot (eds.), It’s a
Funny Thing Humour; pp. 113-114. New York.
Raj am Aiyar
1972 Kamalampaf carittiram (Kamalambal’s Life-story).
Madras. [8th ed.]
Shultz, Thomas R.
1977 A Cross-Cultural Study of the Structure of Humour.
In; Antony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot (eds.), It’s
a Funny Thing Humour; pp. 175-179. New York.
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 31-45
The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
Bo Lawergren
Abstract. - The earliest musical instruments are found to
derive from a common source: hunting implements. Loud
instruments (percussion instruments, reeds, trumpets) were
used to call or repulse the prey and to signal between hunters.
Quiet instruments (flutes, musical bows, bullroarers) had
uhernate uses as hunting tools (dagger edges, hunting bows
and bolas, respectively). It is argued that “hand-song” was
ar>other, previously overlooked, early instrument used for
Slgnalling. Some literary sources from ancient Greece and
China as well as iconographie material from Egypt and
Mexico provide late descriptions of the music/hunt associ-
atl°n. [Music Archaeology, Musical Instruments, Hand-song,
Parietal Art, Ancient Greek Sources on Music and Hunt]
Lawergren, Ph. D. in Nuclear Physics (Canberra 1964);
r°fessor of Physics at Hunter College of CUNY, New York;
18 research interests are now principally in the acoustics and
^rchaeology of ancient musical instruments. - Publications:
Many articles; cf. also References Cited.
legitimacy of Origin Research in Music
. The study of music demands that we go back to
lts beginnings since one cannot hope to fully
comprehend the nature of music without under-
standing its origin,” Georg Knepler (1982: 20)
Recently stated. It is a radical proposition in a
ield where historiography usually starts at the
European Middle Ages, perhaps after a brief
Preamble on ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and
reece. There can be little doubt that awareness
°f sounds has existed in man since his emergence
ar,d that it developed into musicality at some
stage. Unfortunately, the lengthy formation pro-
cess hes inaccessible to conventional research
methods in history.
The concern with the genesis of music is not
new but the topic has been of little interest to
musicologists recently. Older origin theories were
rmduly speculative and could neither be refuted
nor confirmed and with the stress on scientific
methodologies, scholars turned elsewhere. For
example, in 1964, the ethnomusicologist Alan
Merriam (1964; 285) asserted that “anthropolo-
gists have long eschewed the search for origins.”
Of course, there will always be some degree
of uncertainty in dealing with these distant events
and processes, but the universality of the subject
would seem to outweigh some procedural difficul-
ties. In this connection it is worth recalling the
view of the social anthropologist Rodney Need-
ham (1967: 609): “By rigidly confining oneself to
empirically testable propositions one will never
get very far in understanding man and his works.”
Some ethnomusicologists now advocate réévalu-
ation of this traditional attitude;1 2 Bruno Nettl, for
example, recently (1983: 168) concluded that “the
study of origins of music is a legitimate part of
ethnomusicological enquiry.”
My ‘origin of music’ will be limited to the
earliest phase: the genesis of musical instruments.
Of course, it constitutes only the preface to the
history of music, for it corresponds to cave
painters discovering paint. I shall describe an
environment which maximizes the probability3 for
the conception of musical instruments. When
man actually discovered how to make and use the
instruments depended on other things too, such
as his mental capacity.
This paper does not deal with the subsequent
stage when sounds of these instruments were
1 Summaries of some older origin theories may be found in
Allen 1962, Nadel 1930, Nettl 1983, Sachs 1965, 1977,
Schneider 1957, Wachsmann 1962.
2 Particularly strong statements in this vain were made by
Blacking (1973; 56-58): “The origins of music that con-
cern me are those which are to be found in the psycholo-
gy and in the cultural and social environment of its
creators, in the assembly of processes that generate the
patterns of sound.” His unconcern with the kind of
origins revealed by archaeological methods, substituting
for it an origin no older than living memory, seems
arbitrary and restricting. On this statement Nettl
(1983; 167) observed: “Blacking seems to suggest substi-
tuting one kind of speculation for another which he
criticizes.”
3 Admittedly, a rather qualitative concept here.
32
Bo Lawergren
—
fashioned into music.4 It is a process which per-
haps could be the subject of grand interdisciplin-
ary efforts including such experimental sciences as
bioacoustics, psychology of perception, neurol-
ogy, psycholinguistics, psychology of aesthetics5
- as Knepler (1982: 64-68) advocates - but if such
projects will lead to significant results remains to
be seen. So far, little laboratory or fieldwork has
been done along such lines.6 Another approach is
taken in several recent articles by social anthro-
pologists. Their aims are decidedly non-historical
in intent but their analyses are general enough to
reach universal mechanisms which perhaps may
be extrapolated to prehistoric conditions. Rodney
Needham (1967) discussed the close association
between percussion sounds and behavioral pat-
terns associated with the rite of passage (van
Gennep 1960); Alan Dundes (1976) examined the
bullroarer from a psychoanalytical point of view;
Donald Tuzin (1984) analyzed the role of thun-
derous sounds (also heard in drums and bullroar-
ers) in the perception of numinous objects.
Knepler is unspecific about the timing in his
prehistory of music. After all, evolutionary stages
in behavioral developments are difficult to fix if
they are not associated with archaeological ob-
jects. On the other hand, the present theory deals
with instruments many of which are accurately
dated. However, the timing of the origin defined
here is not connected to these dates but to my
conjecture that these instruments arose during
that epoch of human evolution when food was
principally supplied by hunting. Although this
was a very early period - beginning 1 million BC
(Leakey and Lewin 1977: 157) - it was not the
first. The earliest hominids (1.7-2.0 million years
ago) were scavengers (Shipman 1985) largely
lacking hunting implements, and this food procur-
ing tactic may have coexisted with hunting for
considerable time (Binford 1982: 178).
On the whole contemporary ethnomusico-
logical data (e.g., music of hunter/gatherer soci-
eties) is shunned. That material is complex and
4 A convenient definition of music is difficult at this level; it
is not sufficient to look for an organized, repeatable, and
inventive treatment of pitches and rhythms since bird
song also possesses such qualities (Marler and Peters
1982: 44). Yet, birds lack many of the mental functions
used in language, reasoning, and other tasks which,
presumably, have comparative status to music.
5 Aesthetics has been put into a prehistoric context by
Stockmann 1983.
6 Discussions have been published by a number of East
German scholars; for references see Stockmann 1983 and
1985.
may be irrelevant for it is far removed from its
origin (see section 6). Meaningful analysis is be-
yond the scope of this paper. On the other hand,
ancient literary evidence constitutes a well de-
fined body (section 6). The genesis theory is de-
veloped in the following order:
1 Definition of instruments; 2 Model of the ori-
gin of musical instruments; 3 Test of the model;
4 Sound properties of the earliest instruments;
5 Music and Upper Paleolithic art; 6 Vestiges of
the hunting/music concept in antiquity; 7 Dates
for the earliest instruments; 8 Cultic ritual as an
alternative origin of music? 9 Discussion.
1. Definition of Instruments
Since we shall consider conditions very different
from ours, musical instruments ought to be de-
fined in a general way without reference to con-
temporary instruments. But in practice one can
not even avoid using some kind of culturally de-
termined distinction between music and non-mu-
sic; so, we simply adopt the workable approach
of Sachs (1977: 63)7 who identified ancestors
of the main types of contemporary instruments:
wood-winds, brass, percussion, and strings. Per-
cussion instruments are, of course, not confined
to those using inanimate objects but may involve
the limbs of the body: clapping hands, stamping
feet, smacking lips, etc. On the other hand, song
involves only the human respiratory system. Be-
cause of its lack of an external agent, it will not be
considered a musical instrument.
There is an important intermediate form be-
tween song and manipulated limbs not considered
by Sachs: hand-song. In articulated hand-song
a steady pitch is emitted with a fixed, open, lip
position while the open hand waves back and
forth in front of the mouth, the palm periodically
closing and opening the passage of air. The
tension in the vocal cords, and the pitch, remains
unchanged. The sound is modulated8 because the
resonant properties of the oral cavity is changed
7 His “early” and “middle stratum”; in 1928 Sachs (1965:
7-125) had used ethnographic data to identify a great
many instruments as belonging to the “Steinzeit” but
many of his assignments are doubtful to have existed in
the ancient paleolithic considered here.
8 Similar modulating effects can be obtained in ordinary
vowel production by means of complex and precise
positioning and shaping of the tongue, mouth cavity, and
lips. The theory of hand-song is similar to that of the
Gourd Bow (Lawergren 1982).
Anthropos 83.1988
33
The
Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
by the proximity of the hand. Because of the use
°f an external agent, I include it among the
musical instruments.9
One cannot expect paleolithic documentation
f°r the use of hand-song but later evidence is
abundant.10 Figure la shows a musical group on
an Egyptian boat model (Hickmann 1956:
Pi- LXXXVIII) from about 2000 BC (Manniche
1987: 124). The singer (on the left) holds his right
band in front of the mouth. The musical group on
bgure lb is a product of the Colima culture,
Western Mexico (200 BC to 900 AD). The singer
CuPs both hands before his mouth.
About 100 AD Tacitus (1914: 269) related
that Germanic peoples possessed a battle song
Called barritus where “the shields being brought
UP to their lips, that the voice may swell to a
fuller and deeper note by means of the echo.”
Prom Central Australia we have the following
description of an aborigine initiation ceremony
(Spencer and Gillen 1938: 285, 413n): “This
calling out always takes the form of shouting
Pau-au-au’ at the top of the voice, while the hand
the palm turned to the face, and the fingers
0°sely opened out is rapidly moved backwards
and forwards on the wrist just in front of the
ruouth, giving a very peculiar vibratory effect to
the voice. The call is said to induce fright and
carry a great distance.” One may, perhaps, see
a survival of the custom in Sachs’ frequent obser-
vations that “primitive” peoples on occasion dis-
gutse their voices by external means. About a
brirnpet shell held before a speaking mouth in
blew Guinea he wrote (1977: 48): “Once more a
Musical instrument was first used for the pur-
P°se of masking the voice.”
Finally, the existence of hand-song is implied
y current models of language origins (Hewes
973, Krantz 1980, Falk 1980). Briefly stated,
Figure 1:
a) Music group on Ancient Egyptian boat model (dynasty
XVIII) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The singer (to
the left) shields his mouth with his hand, probably, engaged in
hand-song.
b) Two musicians, one covering his mouth (for hand-song?)
in The Mexican National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico
City (Bernal 1980: Fig. 133).
Some might, arguably, label it song, meta-speech, etc.,
kut (1) it involves an external tool (the hand, or any oth-
er object with sufficient surface area to cover the lips),
(2) h is physiologically simpler than song since it does not
10 mV0*Ve a tuning ability of the vocal tract and cords.
Musicologists have not observed hand-song among Am-
erindians. However, such experts on North American
Gdian music as D. McAllester and T. Vennum, Jr.
(private communications) consider it likely that it has
mdeed been practiced by some tribes. Another effect
(called ululation) is used by 30-40 Plains Indian tribes;
the tongue is moved rapidly and repeatedly inside the
mouth cavity while a sustained pitch is sounded. The
s°und, and vocal tract acoustics, is similar to that of
hand-song.
Anth
interpersonal communication in early man is con-
sidered to have taken place in two distinct modes:
(1) by means of hand gestures and (2) by means
of the vocal delivery system. The manufacture of
stone tool led to considerable dexterity which
permitted the early employment of the first
mode. The latter developed later because of its
larger complexity. All existing vocal languages
consist of words composed of a limited number
(less than 100) of phonemes. Combined according
to vocabulary rules, the words form extensive
lexica. In order to handle the phoneme/word
lroPos 83.1988
34
Bo Lawergren
complex man needed the mental capacity for
symbolic, abstract thinking. This ability is, practi-
cally, absent in primates. It is considered to have
arisen in connection with the greatly expanded
brain volume that occured with species Homo
sapiens sapiens (Krantz [1980] and Hewes [1973]
consider the phonemic ability to have started
about 40,000 BC). There is some disagreement
about the timing of these phases but few11 doubt
that spoken language evolved in such stages even
if the timing may have been different. Hand-song
combines gestural language with physiologically
and neurologically simple vocal behavior and it is
highly likely to have coexisted with, or act as an
intermediary between, these two forms.
2. Model of the Origin of Musical Instruments
To have been able to conceive of music and
musical instruments, man is often assumed to
have used them initially for utilitarian purposes.
One recalls Darwin’s (1899) proposition: “. . . it
appears probable that the progenitors of man,
either the males or females or both sexes, before
acquiring the power of expressing their mutual
love in articulate language, endeavored to charm
each other with musical notes and rhythm.”
Typical utilitarian approaches are exemplified by
Livingstone (1973) who argues that early homi-
nids developed song as a signaling system, and
Sachs who often alluded ambivalently to the util-
itarian mechanism: e.g., “hunters of paleolithic
type evidently did not make their instruments for
musical purposes, but as life-giving charms”
(1977: 42-43).
I shall adopt a parsimonious utilitarian ap-
proach and propose one model for the rise of all
instruments. Earlier theories have not aimed at
universal applicability but consider each instru-
ment type to have its own history not necessarily
related to that of other types. Each instrument
might have had its own specific roots and, fur-
thermore, it might have arisen in many different
places, every time under different circumstances
but it seems more attractive to have a universal
and abstract model accounting for all observ-
ables. This model of the earliest instrument is: All
paleolithic musical instruments were closely relat-
ed to hunting implements or were by-products of
11 Lieberman (1984: 323) doubts if there was ever an exclu-
sively gestural phase for syntactically complex communi-
cations.
hunting. Sound producers (musical instruments)
can be viewed as hunting tools in several ways:
1) As being similar to weapons.
2) As providing the capability to imitate
animal sounds, useful for calling quarry. Such
tools could be thought of as extending the human
voice which has a large range of articulation12 not
employed in the repertoire of speech and conven-
tional song; the voice seems only incapable of
producing very high pitches and “reedy” timbres.
(Under what condition wild13 * animals will, in
fact, approach the sound source has not been
much explored in the scientific literature.)
3) As providing means to frighten animals to
run towards traps.
4) As being signal tools enabling communi-
cation between distant hunters.
In the next section all known instruments are
examined and found to fit the conjecture. This
furnishes a necessary condition for the hypothesis
to hold. Of course, some may still like to imagine
completely spontaneous creations without any
common motivation, but the present theory is
preferable on the basis of the principle of scientif-
ic parsimony, i.e., Occam’s razor. Whether one
can claim this to be a scientific theory depends on
its falsifiability (Popper 1965; 37). Refutation is
possible: the model falls with the discovery of an
instrument which could not have had a function in
hunt. There is another possible test of the model
- at least in principle: some parameters might be
varied to generate new predictions which may be
compared to observations. For example, instead
of looking at instruments that grew out of land-
based hunt, one might examine instruments of a
fishing society. Would their instruments incorpo-
rate some aspects of boats, water, nets, hooks,
etc.? Unfortunately, the ethnographic data are
insufficient. To take an example, Japan has a
large consumption of sea-produce. Unfortunately
for our test, the Japanese are descendants of
mammal-hunting Asian people. Their instru-
ments either stem from pre-immigration times or
are more recent imports.
If the model was falsified, it would still
remain partially valid. Universality would be lost
but the hypothesis would apply in the (narrow)
context of the instruments discussed here. Until
this happens this theory remains in effect.
12 To facilitate imitation of animal sounds the hands are
often used to extend the vocal tract; they may be shaped
like trumpet-bells outside the mouth, etc.
13 Domesticated animals which can, of course, be trained to
respond to a variety of sounds.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
35
Figure 2: Hunting scene, Chi-
na, about 1700 AD (Salzle 1973:
Fig. 18) showing guns, bows,
and bolas as weapons and drums
as noise-makers.
3* Test of the Model
Percussion
one instruments (e.g., scrapers) have been
°und but there is little doubt that anything
°°d, fibers, stone, skin, bone, etc.) capable of
Producing loud or unusual sounds when struck
v naken, stamped on, etc.) also could have been
Used like percussion instruments.
An ancient14 hunting method requires one
PartY to drive the animals out of their lairs
Wards another party which does the actual
ln8 or the first party simply drive the prey over
diff. The drivers use noise-makers. A late,
realized use of drums in China is shown in
Flg. 2.
Clearly, hunters strive for the loudest noise-
jokers, which (presumably) have the strongest
^'inducing effect on game. Likewise, maxi-
^al loudness would be desirable in musical situa-
ns - whatever their nature - since these would
Ve occurred out-of-doors or in caves (see sec-
tlon 5).
Gr
°und-harp/Ground-zither
are not attested in the archaeological re-
s but Sachs infers their early use from eth-
14
documented in Egypt 1400 BC (Frankfort 1956; 38) and
ln India 1200-900 BC (O’Flaherty 1983: 242).
Anthropos 83.1988
nographic evidence. They are similar to hunting
traps where a large hole in the ground - along the
animal’s path - is covered by some membrane-
like material (bark, skin, etc.). The middle of the
membrane is attached to a string suspended from
a branch. When the structure is a trap this string
functions as a structural reinforcement, when it is
an instrument the string is played.
Bullroarer
The bullroarer (Dundes 1976) consists of a thin,
oblong, plate (of wood, stone, etc.) tied to a
string. When whirled around, it gives a buzzing
sound. The device is similar to a hunting tool, the
bola, common15 in paleolithic time (Forde
1965: 166, Clark 1977: 35) and still used, particu-
larly, in South America. The bola consists of a
massive object (stone, etc.) attached to long
strings. It is swung around and hurled towards the
prey with the aim of entrapping its legs in the
strings (Fig. 2).
In some areas where bullroarers today are
popular and important, such as New Guinea and
Melanesia, no bolas are to be found. Here, al-
ternatively, the bullroarer may derive from
slings, an ancient hunting device,16 found in some
parts of this area (Blumer 1968: 307).
15 Whether certain ball-shaped prehistoric stones were bolas
or not has been questioned by Giedion 1961.
16 H. Nickel, private communication.
36
Bo Lawergren
Hand-song
It could be used as a call signal among hunters, as
a means of frightening prey, or as animal imita-
tion. Because it is more modulated than a call on
a single pitch, it has more information content
and carrying power.
Chordophones
Many consider the musical bow (Lawergren 1982)
to be the earliest chordophone on the basis of a
picture drawn on a mud wall in the Trois Frères
cave (13,000-11,000 BC; Leroi-Gourhan 1967:
494). However, the picture is problematic. To
suggest the musical bow interpretation, the scene
of a man in animal clothing with a small bow near
his mouth is often (Marshack 1972: 273) shown.
This is a re-drawing of the actual cave wall which
is crowded with a myriad of drawings (Sandars
1968: plate 74, Pfeiffer 1984; 178) possibly done
at different times and seemingly in random juxta-
positions. The bow-like object may not have
anything to do with the man, nor is it unambigu-
ously a bow (e.g., the animal/man is not holding
the bow).
Less ambiguous evidence can be found at
later dates: mesolithic cave paintings at the El
Cingle cave, Spain, and at the Tassili plateau,
Central Sahara (Mazonowicz 1975: 130) show
(Fig. 3) hunters running or dancing with their
bows, probably tapping the strings with arrows.
Later, in the 3rd millennium BC bows are com-
mon and the composite bow is invented (Rausing
1967, Moorey 1986: 208). In antiquity there are
many literary references to the sound of bows.
Plutarch (1928: 269) writes:
Does not the Scythian, while he is drinking, ofttimes put his
hand to his bow, and twang the string, thus summoning back
his senses which are being unstrung17 by the liquor.
In both the Iliad (Homer 1968: 80: “he bent the
great bow to a circle, it gave a twang, the string
sang out”) and the Odyssey (Homer 1919: 333:
“he tried the string, which sang sweetly beneath
his touch, like to a swallow in tone”) the weapon
is alternatively used as a sound source. All in all,
this suggests that the musical bow has, indeed,
ancient roots.
17 H. Nickel was told of an opposite effect by H. J.
Nevermann (for a documentation of the latter, see van
Baal et al. 1984: 129-130, 137). Nevermann asserted that
bushmen of the Kalahari put the bow in the mouth in
order to attain a dreamlike mood.
Figure 3; Use of (musical?) bows in (top) El Cingle cave at
Gasilla, Spain; (bottom) a cave at Tassili, Algeria (Mazono-
wicz 1975: 130).
Flutes
The invention of flutes and whistles may have
proceeded in two steps, namely the discovery of
the flue mechanism and the resonating properties
of pipes: (1) a jet of air, of suitable speed and
shape, directed against any sharp edge can pro-
duce a tone (an adequate edge can be obtained
when a bone is broken or if a piece of flint is
chipped)18; (2) when a resonating pipe (cavity,
duct, etc.) is attached to the edge, the usual flute
configuration is obtained.19
18 Only low wind pressures can be used and such edge tones
are faint. The pitch of the sound depends sensitively on
the wind pressure: increasing pressure produces rising
pitch; at some critical pressure values the pitch jumps up
in steps which are not necessarily intervals related to
common musical scales (Brown 1938: Fig. 22).
19 The tone becomes stabilized so that higher wind pressures
can be used. The pitch remains fairly constant over a wide
pressure range until overblowing causes a quantized pitch
change; at this higher wind pressure the pitch is, again,
fairly insensitive to pressure changes until further over-
blowing causes another quantized pitch change, etc.
Sounds from short duct flutes tend to be more pene-
trating, since their frequency is closer to the resonance
(about 4 kHz) of the ear canal with its length of about
2.5 cm, i.e., the length of typical phalange whistles.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
37
The hypothesis is confirmed in several ways:
(1) Daggers need sharp edges for meat carv-
lng- They were made from broken bone pipes or
from chipped stones.
(2) With a resonating duct the flute becomes
louder, and the pitch can easily be changed (e.g.,
by partially closing the end) thus enabling bird
imitation. High-pitched phalange whistles/flutes
likewise mimic bird calls are still used in hunting,
e-8-, for calling dogs and birds (such as the black
guillemot, black grouse, capercaillie, and jay;
Lund 1984: track 11, 12 comments).
(3) Whistles were sometimes attached to ar-
r°ws. As the arrow flies, the stream of air causes
a whistling sound. This device was used for
signaling in hunt or war.20
^eed Instruments
Oboe and clarinet type instruments probably also
ar°se in two steps: (1) the use of freely vibrating
reed and (2) the discovery that the coupling of a
P1?6 to the reed facilitates pitch control. Leaves
^f grass can easily be made to sound (e.g., held
etween the lips or between fingers). Its medium-
PPched tone has considerably more “carrying
Power” than a medium-pitched flute. It makes an
*~xcellent communication system: blown out-
ers, blades of grass (blown between fingers)
can be heard over distances of one or two
miles.21
An account of ancient use of whistling arrows is given by
Schreiber (1976: 64-67): The Hunnish king Tumun (ca.
200 BC) in his old age took a young wife, whose son he
wanted to become his successor. For this reason he had to
eliminate his firstborn, Motun (from a presumably long-
deceased earlier wife). He sent Motun to a neighboring
tribe, the Goatsi, as a hostage, and then attacked the
Goatsi in the hope that they would kill the hostage,
Motun. Motun, however, managed to escape and his
father was so impressed that he made him commander of
his army. Motun made it known that if he shot at any
target with a whistling arrow, everyone of his warband
had to shoot at the same target instantly, under penalty of
death. After he had decapitated a few of his followers,
who had hesitated to shoot a hunting prey, and once
a§ain at one of Motun’s own horses, his warband was
disciplined enough to follow him instantly when he shot a
whistling arrow at one of his favorite wives, and finally -
crowning glory - at his father Tumun. In this way Motun
ccame supreme chief of the Huns and led them on the
2] wound up with Attila.
chis was tested by the author on a hot, windless day, with
airly low humidity, over open country. The sound was
amt but it could, of course, be made more conspicuous
V the use of a signaling code.
Anthropos 83.1988
Most commonly, reeds are used in hunt to
imitate animal calls. It is successful on many
species but perhaps most easily on the European
roe deer (family Cervidae) as abundant document-
ed in contemporary popular hunting literature.
During rut (usually in autumn) the female deer
(the doe) sounds short, plaintive, mating calls.22
The sound is easily mimicked by blowing on a
grass leaf stretched between the thumbs before
the hunter’s lips. It acts as an effective call on the
male deer (the buck). In another method used
during this season, the hunter imitates the mating
call of the buck by blowing on a leaf inserted
between his lips. This challenges the local bucks
and get them into shooting distance.
T rumpets/Horns
These were made of animal horns and sea shells23
blown in holes knocked out of the surfaces, and
could be used as signaling tools in hunt, as is still
the custom.
4. Sound Properties of the Earliest Instruments
From an acoustic point of view the sound of the
pitched instruments consists of several superpos-
ed air vibrations: a fundamental of frequency fQ
and harmonics with frequencies that are multiples
of f , This sound differs markedly from that of
22 The author is grateful to The British Library of Wildlife
Sounds (British Institute of Recorded Sounds, 29 Exhibi-
tion Road, London, SW7) which supplied excellent tapes
of Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and Fallow deer
(Dama dama). The former was the “bleeping” of a doe
and the latter the call of a young doe. Both consisted of
similar calls
tP-L: 1>
r w , t
P =— PPr
frequently repeated. These sounds are referred to as
“chirruping of Capreolus“ by Tembrock (1963: 769). The
sounds could easily be mistaken for oboe tones (or blows
leaves of grass) especially under the vagaries of the
out-of-door acoustic environment.
23 These naturally occurring objects form pipes with conical
bore, a property that facilitates production of tones
belonging to the normal harmonic series. In the case of
shells, the cone is folded. This results in a logarithmic
(= equiangular) spiral (Thompson 1948: 755).
38
Bo Lawergren
inanimate nature surrounding early man: steady
noise-sounds from wind, water and shorter noises
from falling stones, etc. On the other hand, many
sounds of the animate world have the same
characteristics as that of the pitched instruments
because both have resonating acoustic struc-
tures.
Table 1: Pitch changing mechanism
Instrument Mechanism Probability*
Bow Changing string length
or tension Fairly low?
Flutes (partially) blocking
holes (** ***) Fairly high
Reeds Changing tension in leaf Very high
Trumpet (partially) blocking
opening (**) Fairly high
Hand-song Changing tension in vocal
cords ***
Instruments could, in principle, change their
pitch f ; for some it would have been fairly easy to
discover the means to do so (see Table 1). For
hand-held reeds pitch changes are nearly inevi-
table; for other instruments it is more difficult.
On some of these instruments there is a (concep-
tually simpler?) mechanism to produce an impres-
sion of pitch change without changing the funda-
mental pitch f :
1) The mouth bow allows the player to select
one of these overtones (or a cluster of them) by
selective amplification of the vocal tract (Lawer-
gren 1982). Maybe “timbre pitches” would be a
more appropriate terminology since all sounds
have the same fundamental tone (faintly) present;
one merely emphasizes a selected region of over-
tones which gives the sense of pitch. Tunes can be
played (as on the Jew’s harp) using the perceived
pitches.
2) Hand-song gives a similar “timbre-music”
but there is less control in the selection of the
harmonics.
3) Vowel-production in speech: if a person
speaks in “monotone” he, too, keeps the same
fixed pitch; if he, furthermore, enunciates differ-
ent vowel-sounds without the discontinuities caus-
* Estimated probability of discovering the pitch changing
mechanism.
** It is not necessary to drill special holes in flutes or conch
shells (besides the mouth-holes); it suffices to partially
close any hole on the flute or the opening of the conch
shell to slide the pitch.
*** Depends on the state of physiological development (see
section 1).
ed by intermediate consonants (e.g., the pronun-
ciation of diphtongs), different overtone struc-
tures are emphasized because different formants
are brought into play24 as one vowel changes into
the other. Vowel recognition is an important part
of the speech perception mechanism (Miller
1981: 67) and the early instruments considered
here could have played a part in the development
of that mechanism since they provided sources of
vowel-like sounds possibly available before the
vocal tract was fully developed.
5. Music and Upper Paleolithic Art
The earliest documented artistic products (carv-
ed objects and painting) span the period
35,000-11,000 BC (cave paintings occured only in
the last 7 millennia) when a warming climate
created abundant sea- and land-based food sup-
plies capable of sustaining enlarged populations.
Current theories on the art (Leroi-Gourhan 1967,
1975, Pfeiffer 1982, White 1986, Halvorsen 1987),
particularly on European cave paintings, does
not support the old interpretation of it as hunt-
ing magic (Frazer 1964: 35, Sandars 1968: 65).
Whereas lines piercing animal bodies were for-
merly seen as “arrows,” Leroi-Gourhan (1967:
136, 146; 1975: 62) read them as male signs and
“wounds” as female signs. This interpretation, in
turn, has been questioned and the interpretation
of parietal art is in flux. But some observations
are beyond dispute, for example, there is no
doubt that animals are the main subject of illus-
tration.
On cave walls animals were effectively repre-
sented as painted objects; by extension one sus-
pects that musical instruments were present since
they are capable of representing animals equally
effectively as sounding objects. The two modes
complement each other and the only inferior
aspect of the aural image is its impermanence.
When animal parts were incorporated into the
instruments (bones in flutes,25 * guts in strings)
they acquired a doubly representative function.
24 Equivalent vowel sound (diphtongs) can be produced by
ordinary speech and in hand-song: e.g., sound an [a]-
sound (as in “father”) and move the hand towards the
lips in the manner of hand-song; this procedure gives an
[u]-sound (as in “loose”); in the same way [i] (as in “lip”)
becomes [ii] (as in German “Müller”).
25 More recently, at least, flutes have been made from bird
bones (Mead 1924: 335, Izikowitz 1935: 340-344, Picken
1957: 89, Lund 1984: track 9, 11).
Anthropos 83.1988
The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
39
Sounds can play various roles vis-à-vis an-
imals: (1) portrayal or (2) attractor. The reed
instrument calls already discussed illustrate the
latter role. However, consider calls of cranes
simulated on a conch shell trumpet:
Human listeners may judge it to be an exact repli-
Ca, yet the crane may be unattracted by the call.
The sound is then merely a portrait of the bird
amied at a human audience. With this displace-
ment of its function, music has moved a step clos-
er to its present role as an abstract, non-utilitarian
c°mrnunication.
It should be noted, though, that the time of
the cave paintings is a late period on the time
Scale of this paper. In fact, flutes with several
linger holes26 appeared (Pages et Mourer-Chauvi-
re 1983: 101) already in Aurignacian deposits (af-
ter about 30,000 BC).
h* Vestiges of the Hunting/Music Concept in
Antiquity
Literary and iconographic sources provide much
evidence that musical instruments were used in
•anting at the much later date of the Old World
empires. Both types of evidence can be found in
ne ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese civili-
zations. Was there a survival of paleolithic behav-
On the one hand, it is a long time interval
netween 40,000 and 1,500 BC (i.e., 92 % of the
me elapsed since the beginning of man’s lan-
§Uage ability). On the other, it was also a time of
c°mparatively slow changes although it spanned
SUch major societal changes as the introduction of
agriculture. Some guidelines are offered by re-
marchers in other disciplines. Mircea Eliade
\ vii) argues that long-term survivals may
e occurred in some instance because “it is
26 Both Pfeiffer (1982; 181 ff.) and White (1986; 113) relate
mat flautists have experimented with replicas of a Gra-
vettian flute. But this will, at best, only give an informed
guess about the sound since we do not know if the origi-
ual players used folk-fingering, partially covered the
holes, overblew the instrument, or what embouchure they
preferred.
Anthropos 83.1988
well-known that certain mythico-ritual scenarios
still current among the peasants of central and
southeastern Europe at the beginning of the
twentieth century preserved mythological frag-
ments and rituals that had disappeared in ancient
Greece even before Homer.” But the fact that a
common world vocabulary does not exist has
suggested (Krantz 1980: 789) that no trace has
survived of the earliest language from its incep-
tion 40,000 years ago. However, language may
have arisen in many independent places in which
case no common world vocabulary should be
expected. Furthermore, one would expect lan-
guage to be quite flexible judging from its well-
attested changes in historical times. By contrast,
hunting methods seem to have changed compara-
tively little since the earliest records (disregarding
the introduction of fire arms). Survival cannot be
proven but it seems rash to reject the possibility
of very ancient roots.
The interpretation of the hunt/music associ-
ation is ambiguous. Cave art reveals a pervasive
influence of the animal world on the mind of
paleolithic man. As a result, the animal world
could have permeated music through associations
different from hunt. Shamanistic ritual, for exam-
ple, often combine animal masks with music. This
practice may have arisen without any explicit
thought of the animal as an object of hunt.
With these reservations in mind I first quote
Greek sources. In some cases the ancient authors
may have facetious intentions but it is unimpor-
tant for the present argument which only con-
cerns the ancient preoccupation with the power of
music over animals. (It is tempting to include
warfare27 with hunt but the profuse latter-day
evidence of war/music makes the issue too dif-
fuse.)
Reed instruments were used then, as now, in
mammal hunting:
The Etruscans set the nets and other hunting gear that ensnare
the animals in a circle, and a man proficient on the aulos
[Michaelides 1978] stands there and tries his utmost to play a
rather soft tune, avoiding any shriller note, but playing the
sweetest melodies possible. The quiet and the stillness easily
carry the sound abroad; and the music streams up to the
heights and into ravines and thickets - in a word into every
lair and resting-place of these animals [wild boars and stags].
Now at first when the sound penetrates to their ears it strikes
27 Loud music is used to impress the enemy, for keeping up
morale, gait, etc. War dance was important in ancient
Greece (i.e., the Pyrrhic) and still exists in many “primi-
tive” societies.
/
40
Bo Lawergren
Figure 4: Ancient Egyptian
frieze showing musicians with
round instrument (drum, gong)
on the left chasing a large bird
from a tree on the right. Brook-
lyn Museum (No. 60.197.3).
them with terror and fills them with dread, and then an
unalloyed and irresistible delight in the music takes hold of
them, and they are so beguiled as to forget about their
offspring and their homes. [And yet wild beasts do not care to
wander away from their native haunts.] But little by little
these creatures in Etruria are attracted as though by some
persuasive spell, and beneath the wizardry of the music they
come and fall into the snares, overpowered by the melody
(Aelian 1959/3; 73).
Reed and mammals:
There is a story that Pythochares the piper repelled an attack
of wolves by playing a loud and noble strain on his aulos
(Aelian 1959/2: 395).
Reed and fish:
Once, he said, there was an aulos player who saw fishes in the
sea and played upon his aulos, thinking that so they would
come out on to the land. Being disappointed of his hope, he
took a net and gathered in and drew out a great multitude of
the fishes; and seeing them leaping, “You had best,” said he,
“cease from your dancing now; you would not come out and
dance then, when I played to you” (Herodotus 1920: 181).
Reed and shell fish:
Those who hunt crabs have hit upon the device of luring them
with music. At any rate they catch them by means of the
photinx [transverse aulos, see Michaelides 1978] ... at the
sound, as though by spell, the crabs . . . emerge from the sea
. . . and are caught (Aelian 1959/2: 49).
String instrument and large mammal:
In India . . . they introduce native music and charm the
Elephants with a musical instrument . . . called scindapsus
(Aelian 1959/3: 69).
Other examples of the hunt/music combination
may be found in Greek mythology; (1) Orpheus
charming the beasts;28 * (2) The brother/sister pair of
Apollo (the musician) and Artemis (the hunt-
er). In ancient Egypt, too, musical instruments
were played to animals; a relief (Cooney 1965:
78-79) from about 1400 BC shows percussion
used to chase birds (Fig. 4). The following tale
(van Gulik 1969: 143-144) is said to occur in
China 500 BC:
When he had played [the pipa] once, there appeared sixteen
dark cranes that alighted on the gate of the hall. When he
played the second time, they stretched their necks and cried,
they spread out their wings and started to dance.
At later times there is, of course, vast amounts of
evidence for the use of musical instruments in the
pursuit of hunt but I shall not delve further into
these customs other than note that, even at the
late date of Tudor England, hunters were keenly
aware of the acoustical environment at the hunt.
Hunters would sometimes follow the progress of
the venery entirely by listening. When the quarry
was finally brought to bay the huntsman would be
sent to despatch it (Brander 1971: 58-59).
28 This myth seems to be widespread. Moortgat (1969: 106)
gives a Mesopotamian example from 7th century BC.
Anthropos 83.1988
41
The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds
Dates for the Earliest Instruments
Musical instruments have been coupled to the
developments of hunting implements, thus linked
to survival pressures. This argues for an earlier
date of invention than one would expect had in-
struments merely been tools for aesthetic, plea-
sureable, or magic purposes.
Because the instruments were often made of
Perishable materials, the archaeological finds are
Probably of much later date than the first ap-
pearance of the instruments, e.g., only bone flutes
aPpear and not those made of straw, bark, or
Wood which are easier to make and, therefore,
Probably earlier.
The earliest known instrument, a pierced
Reindeer toe-bone flute excavated at Haua Fteah,
^ibya, is more than 60,000 years old (Gowl-
^tt 1984; 115). As previously mentioned, bone
dates29 start to appear around 30,000 BC (Fages
^ Mourer-Chauviré 1983: 100-102). Bullroarers
aave been found in Denmark (from about
>500 BC; Rud 1979: 167) and in France (slightly
earlier; Masset et Perlés 1978: Fig. 2). It has been
Suggested that a set of 20,000 years old mam-
^°th bones is a percussion ensemble (Bibikov
75,1981) although others remain skeptical (Law-
er§ren 1985, Soffer 1985: 420). The hunting-bow
^ thought to have been invented (Forde 1965:
Rausing 1967) between 30,000 and 15,000
^ based on the age of extant stone arrow heads.
, ut fire-hardened wooden arrow-heads may have
loeen used earlier without leaving any archaeo-
gical evidence. The sound properties of the bows
Were, no doubt, discovered without delay.30
^ Conceivably, the ancestors of all main types
^ °ur modern instruments had arisen by the time
the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens 40,000
J ars ago. There was no need to wait for the
velopment of speech or song. A common
t w that speech led to song which, in turn, led
mstruments seems dubitable. On the other
and, music would probably have to await the
emergence of the higher mental functions which
gave rise to language, art, and the cognitive
Processes indicated by awareness of natural calen-
rical events (Marshack 1972).
29 Brade (1975, 1982) has questioned flute identifications in
older articles (e.g., Megaw 1968).
The Balfour/Montandon argument about the primacy of
^he hunting bow or the musical bow (Sadie 1980, s.v.
Musical bow) now seems pointless.
Impassioned speech —» song (Allen 1962: 111); song —*
mstruments (Sachs 1943: 21,47).
Amthropos 83.1988
8. Cultic Ritual as an Alternative Origin of
Music?
We have argued that musical instruments were
used as hunting tools in the paleolithic. Does it
necessarily mean that their earliest use was in
hunt? There is archaeological evidence (Gowlett
1984: 106-110, Coles and Higgs 1969) that cere-
monial burials32 were practices 30,000-50,000
years ago: flowers were buried with the corps,
perhaps as offerings; the cranial base of skulls was
broken, perhaps to permit ritual eating of the
brain, etc. One may suspect the presence of musi-
cal instruments at ceremonies and rituals. Later,
such settings often required music. For example,
shamans give a prominent role to the drum
(Eliade 1964: chap. 5); musical instruments came
to occupy a large ceremonial role in religious set-
tings of which ethnography provides many exam-
ples. It suffices to mention only a few instances:
in Central America and in traditional Japan bow
strings were plucked in order to communicate
with, or to avert, spirits,33 bullroarers have a mul-
tipurpose religious role in Australia (Dundes
1976); sub-sonics may serve through direct psy-
chological channels to trigger religious experi-
ences (Tuzin 1984).
In spite of these early dates for rituals with
possible music, hunt must claim precedence with
regard to the discovery of musical instruments.
Unlike the hunting environment, the cultic envi-
ronment was not rich in objects that could be
used as instruments but it may have provided a
stage for complex rituals and as such possibly
acted as a stimulus for the development of music.
Finally, Brecht’s (1967) dictum “Erst kommt das
Fressen, dann kommt die Moral” seems intuitive-
ly applicable.
9. Discussion
All evidence reviewed here support the simple
thesis that the earliest musical instruments would
initially have been used in prehistoric hunt. Being
useful in the procurement of food, they were
powerful incentives for the early invention of the
instruments. There would have been no need to
await the formation of complex musical/artistic
faculties in man.
32 However, there is some doubt about the validity of the
pollen analysis of the offering of flowers (Freeman
1980: 85).
33 R. Needham, private communication.
42
Bo Lawergren
This type of parsimonious model is common
in natural sciences but unusual in the present
context. In fact, some ethnomusicologists have
expressed doubts on the validity of such a simple
model and - perhaps generalizing from the patent
complexity of human actions and motives - assert-
ed that “there must have been more than one
origin.” But that view misses the point that the
model deals exclusively with the “earliest” origin
operating during the time when Homo was preoc-
cupied with hunting and food procurement and
that it distinguishes between musical instruments
and their product, music. The many “origins”
proposed by previous scholars deal with later
phenomena and often describe only limited as-
pects of music. For example, André Schaeffner
(1968) considered dance as the origin of music in
1936. His “origin” would, at the most, account
for the introduction of percussion instruments at
a relatively late date for dance cannot be docu-
mented before the time of the Upper Paleolithic
in painted European caves as indicated by sur-
viving foot prints (Pfeiffer 1982: 179). Of course,
once the instruments were invented and more
complex societies had formed, many influences
would tend to shape music after its true origin-
stage.
The sounds of these early pitched instru-
ments are known in principle and the model
suggests situations in which it would have been
employed. As a result the prehistoric sonic land-
scape now appears somewhat better mapped than
in Nettl’s (1956: 136)34 pioneering description:
“. . . an undifferentiated method of communica-
tion, one which was neither speech nor music but
which possessed the three features that they hold
in common: pitch, stress, and duration.” The
percussion instruments were, generally, the loud-
est instruments and they stood out because of
their startling effect. (Trumpets made of shell and
short horns have considerably softer tone and at-
tack than modern brass instruments.) In this sense
percussion instruments acquired prominence,
heard far across the country side, signifying a
hunt. One hardly needs to refer to Pavlovian
responses to realize that these instruments could
have had profound effects beside musical ones.
Moreover, these effects would have exerted a
long-term influence during the early history of
man until the time when the instrumental sounds
lost their representational character.
Needham (1981: 40-41, 48; 1967) has called
attention to the universal use of percussion instru-
34 Repeated by Knepler (1982: 85).
ments and cited - from the ethnographic litera-
ture - their use in birth, initiation, marriage, ac-
cession to office, sacrifice, lunar rites, calendrical
feasts, declaration of war, the return of head-
hunters, the reception of strangers, the inaugura-
tion of a house or a communal building, market
days, sowing, harvest, fishing expeditions, epi-
demics, eclipses, Shamanistic rituals, and so on.
According to him, each occasion constitutes a rite
de passage (van Gennep 1960), i.e., a transition.
Searching for the nature of the connection be-
tween percussion and transition (a category
change), he finds that “the remarkably wide dis-
tribution of percussive noise-makers, employed in
communication with the other world, indicates
that an historical or sociological interpretation
would be quite inappropriate.” Later this percus-
sion/transition complex was successfully invoked
by Vogt (1977) in the analysis of Zinacanteco
Indian rituals.
Clearly, the features of the present percus-
sion model (ancient origin, association with food
procurement, high audibility) does not predict
Needham’s category connection as an inevitable
outcome. However, the universality of our origin
model suggests that it might be able to yield a
connection. For example, as hunting societies
waned, percussion may have come to signify
important events in general; religious institutions
may have held the power to decide which event
had sufficient importance and devised appropri-
ate rituals.
This manuscript was circulated in draft and I am most
grateful for the informed comments I have received
from many scholars, in particular Drs. Cajsa Lund,
Rodney Needham, Helmut Nickel, Anton Ploeg, Do-
nald Tuzin, and Hans-Olov Zetterstrom. The research
was partly supported by PSC grant 11493 from the City
University of New York.
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Anthropos 83.1988: 47-64
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
Kognitive Analyse von Überzeugungen über heilige Orte (tempat
keramat) aus Majapahit
Thomas Schweizer
Abstract. - This paper is a report on mystical thinking in Pare
(Eastern Java), a site (“Modjokuto”) well-known by the re-
search of C. Geertz and others. During a visit to this small
t0Wn a guru kebatinan (mystical teacher) showed us the an-
^lent remains of the once famous Javanese empire Majapahit
D4th cent.). This key informant considered the archaeological
Value of this site in the vicinity of Pare and Kediri as less im-
portant. In his beliefs the graveyards and ancient palaces of
laJapahit are embedded with mystical power, and the site has
to be viewed primarily as a collection of holy places (tempat
erarnat) par excellence. Our leader showed us some of these
°’y places and explained their meaning to us. The inter-
ange of questions and answers - modelled according to the
•scourse between mystic-teacher and pupil - led to an au-
entic albeit selective account of the point of view of a true
llever in Javanese mysticism.
I start this paper with a description of the trip to mystical
P aces and the data generated during this visit. Then a
Cognitive anthropological analysis of the belief system con-
j ned in the key informant’s statements is presented. It
Centred on the concept of a (mystic) script. The paper
concludes with the suggestion to apply scripts and other
on ernata fr°m cognitive psychology to anthropological data
leaning systems. This procedure should illuminate the
le^Ceptual deep structure underlying “native” beliefs col-
c ed at the surface level of ethnographic discourse. [Java,
lhr'C'Sni’ ^eEe/ system, Script, Cognitive and symbolic an-
P logy j
Th
Hth*1138 ^c*lwe*zer> Dr. phil. habil. (Köln 1984), Professor für
nologie an der Universität Tübingen. - Interessengebiete:
In ,e°rie ur,d Methodik; Wirtschafts- und Sozialethnologie;
no °nesien. 1978/79 Feldforschung zur javanischen Dorföko-
16- ~ Veröffentlichungen u. a.: Agrarian Transformation:
£1Ce r°duction in a Javanese Village (Bulletin of Indonesian
**** Studies 1987); Methodological Problems of Cross-
tural Comparison (New Haven 1987).
T Einleitung
p •
ne der Hauptaufgaben der kognitiven und sym-
0 ischen Ethnologie besteht im Nachweis der
r nungsprinzipien, die in Systemen kulturellen
a lssens verborgen sind. In der kognitiven Detail-
na yse sollen darüber hinaus die „Stimmung“
e- 0oT)> der „Geist“ (spirit) oder das „Ethos“
197^ ^rem^en Kultur erkennbar werden (Geertz
I9sa ^~123, pt. III; 1983; Shweder and LeVine
04; Hougherty 1985).1
Schneider (1976) und darauf aufbauend
D’Andrade (1984; cf. insgesamt Shweder and Le-
Vine 1984) schlagen für die Bearbeitung dieser
ebenso schwierigen wie wichtigen Aufgabe eine
Dreiteilung vor: Sie unterscheiden zwischen
(1) den abstrakten, situationsübergreifenden Leit-
prinzipien einer Kultur (“culture as constitut-
ed,” “constitutive rules”), (2) den situationsbe-
zogenen Normen (“regulatory rules,” “norms”)
und (3) dem sozialen Handeln selbst. Es gilt:
“. . . norms are oriented to patterns for action,
whereas culture [as constituted] constitutes a
body of définitions, propositions, and perceptions
about the nature of the universe and man’s place
in it” (Schneider 1976: 202-203). Entsprechend
bezieht sich der Unterschied zwischen konstitu-
ierenden Regeln und Normen auf “. . . ideas that
create realities and ideas that Order or constrain
action” (D’Andrade 1984: 93). Alle drei Elemen-
te - konstituierende Regeln, Normen und Han-
deln - sind miteinander verknüpft (D’Andrade
1984: 109-114). Die Unterscheidung ist nützlich,
weil man aus den abstrakten Regeln einer Kultur
- etwa dem Weltbild - nicht unmittelbar ablesen
kann, wie sich die Mitglieder der Kultur in
bestimmten Bereichen verhalten werden (Schwei-
zer 1987). Dazu muß man die situationsspezifisch
gültigen Normen kennen. Die Normen wiederum
beziehen ihren übergeordneten Sinn aus den ab-
1 Während in einer früheren Forschungsphase ein deutli-
cher Unterschied zwischen der präziser methodenbezoge-
nen, aber thematisch spezialisierten cognitive anthropolo-
gy und der schwächer standardisierten, aber thematisch
weitergefaßten symbolic anthropology bestand, ist neuer-
dings eine stärkere Konvergenz in Methodik und Thema-
tik zwischen beiden Forschungsrichtungen zu verzeich-
nen, wie die zitierte Literatur belegt. Daher soll der
Terminus „kognitive und symbolische Ethnologie“ das
gemeinsame Anliegen beider unterstreichen. Aus Ge-
sprächen mit B. N. Colby und O. Werner (nach Abschluß
des Mskr.) gewann ich den Eindruck, daß sich die Kluft
wieder verbreitert hat.
48
Thomas Schweizer
strakten Regeln der Kultur. Im sozialen Handeln
entstehen neue Normen und gegebenenfalls auch
neue konstituierende Regeln. Dem Modell unter-
liegt folglich eine stufenweise Sicht des For-
schungsgegenstands .
In der Forschungspraxis der kognitiven und
symbolischen Ethnologie überwiegt heute - ge-
genüber der früheren, zuweilen künstlichen Er-
fassung von einheimischen Klassifikationssyste-
men (folk classifications) - eine stärker kontext-
bezogene Erhebungstechnik (Dougherty 1985:
besonders die Einleitung; White and Kirkpatrick
1985; Rogoff and Lave 1984; Kokot, Lang and
Hinz 1982): Man sammelt das kulturelle Wissen
nun in bestimmten kulturspezifischen Handlungs-
und Erfahrungssituationen und achtet genauer
darauf, welchen Diskurs die Akteure selbst in
diesen „natürlichen“ Lebenssituationen pflegen.
So wurde es leichter möglich, die Verknüpfung
von situationsbezogenem Wissen und Handeln
und die Entstehung neuer Normen zu erforschen.
Diese neue, realistischere Vorgehensweise impli-
ziert auch eine stärkere Beachtung individueller
Unterschiede in der Teilhabe an kulturellem Wis-
sen.
Für die javanische Kultur ist „Modjokuto“,
die ostjavanische Kleinstadt Pare (1980: 42.000
Einwohner)2 nahe Kediri, der Mikrokosmos, in
dem Anfang der 50er Jahre dieses Jahrhunderts
wichtiges ethnographisches Wissen gewonnen
wurde (die Monographien von C. Geertz 1960;
1965; H. Geertz 1961; Jay 1969 u. a.). Vor allem
“The Religion of Java” (Geertz 1960) erwies sich
als ein besonders einflußreiches „Stimmungsbild“
des Islam in der javanischen Kultur.
Mein Beitrag greift auf der empirischen Ebe-
ne dieses Geertzsche Thema auf. Am Fall der
Aussagen eines Informanten aus Pare, den ich
1984 kennenlernte, möchte ich nachweisen, daß
im „Modjokuto“ der Gegenwart die von Geertz
(1960: Kap. 20, 21) beschriebene mystische Vari-
ante des Islam sehr lebendig ist. Am Beispiel
heiliger Orte (tempat keramat) nahe Pare und
Kediri, nämlich der Hinterlassenschaften des ja-
vanischen Reiches Majapahit, erläutert dieser
Mann seine religiösen Überzeugungen und die
Normen, die an diesen Stätten aus seiner Sicht
beachtet werden müssen. Mit dem Bezug auf
diesen Informanten versteht sich mein Beitrag als
2 Rutz (1985:265) nennt 42 603 Einwohner für die kota
kecamatan Pare einschließlich des verstädterten Randge-
biets im Jahr 1980. Für die frühen 1950er Jahre spricht
Geertz 1965: 28 von einer Einwohnerzahl von ca. 22 000
Stadtbewohnern.
Ergänzung anderer Studien zum synkretistischen
Islam, zum javanischen Weltbild und zur javani-
schen Ethik. Diese anderen Untersuchungen sind
einmal den differenzierten und verfeinerten
Überzeugungen von Angehörigen der mitteljava-
nischen Elite (priyayi) in den Zentren Yogyakar-
ta und Surakarta gewidmet (Mulder 1978 über-
wiegend; Errington 1984). Sodann enthalten sie
teilweise Sehr abstrahierte und systematisierte
Darstellungen der konstituierenden Regeln der
javanischen Kultur (Magnis-Suseno 1981; im
Kern auch Mulder 1978), oder sie beschränken
sich auf das Wissen spezieller Subgruppen und
herausragender Individuen in der javanischen
Kultur (Stange 1984; Weiss 1977). Über die
Aussagen meines kleinstädtischen Informanten,
der in Pare an der Peripherie der mittel javani-
schen Kultur lebt, erhält man demgegenüber
einen Eindruck vom praktischen Islam (in seiner
nicht-strikten Variante) in Java, nämlich von der
Art und Weise “. . . how ordinary people . . .
order and articulate categories, Symbols and the
relations between them in the pursuit of compre-
hending, expressing and formulating social practi-
ce and experience” (Ellen 1983: 54).
Auf der theoretischen Ebene stellt sich mei-
ne Untersuchung in den skizzierten Forschungs-
rahmen der neueren kognitiven und symbolischen
Ethnologie. Ich möchte am Beispiel der Aussa-
gen dieses Informanten zu den heiligen Orten -
also bezogen auf ein Individuum in einem be-
stimmten für ihn sinnvollen Kontext - die Ord-
nungsprinzipien in der javanischen Mystik als
einem (praktischen, cf. Ellen 1983) System kultu-
rellen Wissens sichtbar machen. Außerdem will
ich, entsprechend Geertz (1975: 119-123), versu-
chen, die “dominant moods and motivations”
einzufangen, die die Anhänger dieser Variante
des javanischen Islam prägen. Im Zusammenhang
mit der Suche nach Ordnungsprinzipien in diesem
Überzeugungssystem werde ich u. a. Schank und
Abelsons (1977) script-Idee auf das Beispiel über-
tragen und einige allgemeine Verfahren und Pro-
bleme der kognitiven Analyse ansprechen. Unter
„Überzeugungen“ (beliefs) verstehe ich im An-
schluß an Goodenough (1981: 70) Aussagen, die
in einer Gemeinschaft von Akteuren für wahr
gehalten werden (“. . . propositions that are ac-
cepted as true”). Zunächst erläutere ich nun
(2) den kulturellen Kontext einschließlich der
konstituierenden Regeln im javanischen Welt-
bild. Darauf folgen (3) die Darlegung und
(4) die kognitive Analyse der Überzeugungen
des Informanten zu den heiligen Orten. Abschlie-
ßend (5) gebe ich einen Ausblick auf einige
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
49
Probleme der kognitiven Analyse von Überzeu-
gungssystemen.
2. Kultureller Hintergrund
2*1 Dimensionen des javanischen Islam
Geertz (1960) unterschied in Modjokuto - als
Pars pro toto für Java - drei Strömungen des
Islam:
(I) die (kaum) santri; diejenigen, die die islami-
Sche Lehre ernstnehmen und ihre Regeln getreu-
lich erfüllen. In Java ist diese Pflichterfüllung vor
allem ablesbar an den Gebeten, der Fastenzeit
und - bei Wohlhabenden - der Pilgerreise nach
l^Iekka. Die Gruppe der santri stützt sich auf
Händler in der Stadt und reichere Bauern. Da der
Islam über den Handel an die javanische Nordkü-
gelangte und nur allmählich ins javanische
J^ernland vordrang (de Graaf 1977, qualifizierend
I^icklefs 1979), erhielt die javanische Nordküste
\Pasisir) ein stärker islamisches Gepräge als das
lnnenland (kejawen). Insgesamt bilden die
strikten Muslime eine starke Minderheit von
Schätzungsweise einem Drittel aller nominellen
Vluslirne.3 Als Ergebnis der religiösen Erneue-
rung der islamischen Welt Ende des 19. Jh.s
sPalteten sich die santri Javas in einen reformisti-
s^hen und in einen konservativen Flügel: Die
dorrnisten möchten den Islam von den vorisla-
dischen Elementen reinigen, während die kon-
Servativen Muslime die javanischen Traditionen
aufrechterhalten wollen, da sie im Koran nicht
JS**t verboten werden.
L' Als (wong) abangan bezeichnet Geertz die
ruppe der nur nominellen Muslime. Sie befol-
§en die Regeln des Islam nur zum Teil oder gar
P .1* Sie lassen sich stärker vom Glauben an
*ter bestimmen (Daszenies 1986; Keeler 1985:
134). Kern ihres religiösen Lebens sind die
Wetan-Rituale, i. e. religiös motivierte Ge-
lnschaftsfeiern, die bei wichtigen Ereignissen
Zahlenangaben zur Verbreitung der verschiedenen Strö-
mungen des Islam sind nur grobe Näherungswerte, da
Lndesweite Statistiken zur Verbreitung dieser Glaubens-
richtungen nicht vorliegen. Die üblicherweise herangezo-
gene Schätzung aufgrund der Wahl von 1955 und des
dabei erzielten Abschneidens der muslimischen Parteien
*st aufgrund des Zeitabstands problematisch (damals
errangen die sanfri-Parteien ein Drittel der Stimmen).
Durch intensiveren Religionsunterricht und im Gefolge
der weltweiten Reislamisierungstendenz könnte man
z- E- in Java für die Gegenwart eine Zunahme des
strikten Islam erwarten.
Anth
und Einschnitten im Lebenszyklus durchgeführt
werden. Sie sollen den Betroffenen und die Fest-
teilnehmer vor Krisen und Unglück schützen. Die
Majorität der Javaner ist Anhänger dieser Rich-
tung des Islam. Nach Geertz wird sie von der
physisch schwere Arbeit verrichtenden Bevölke-
rung in den Städten und auf dem Land getragen.
(3) In seiner Religions-Klassifikation unterschied
Geertz die priyayi als dritte Strömung des Islam.
Sie bekennen sich zu einer mystischen Weitsicht,
der es durch Meditation und andere Praktiken
darauf ankommt, den tieferen Sinn der Dinge zu
ergründen. Beamte und gebildete Städter sind
Anhänger dieser von Geertz herausgestellten
Richtung des Islam.
In der nachfolgenden Diskussion (Harsja
Bachtiar 1973; Koentjaraningrat 1975: 199-202;
Ellen 1983; Ricklefs 1979; Archipel 1985) erwies
sich, daß die an der javanischen Selbstsicht orien-
tierte Geertzsche Klassifikation die emische Sicht
nur teilweise richtig abbildete. Die Gegenüber-
stellung von strikten und laxen Muslimen - nach
dem Grad der Übernahme islamischer Elemente
einerseits und der Beibehaltung javanischer Tra-
ditionen andererseits - entspricht zwar im Prinzip
der Selbstsicht und dem religiösen Handeln in
Java. Doch spannen diese beiden Positionen ein
religiöses Kontinuum auf, das graduelle Unter-
schiede zwischen den Extrempunkten zuläßt. Der
Terminus „abangan“ wird zuweilen als ablehnend
empfunden, so daß man heute die Bezeichnung
„(Islam) kejawen“ für den auf die javanischen
Traditionen (des Binnenlandes!) bezogenen
nicht-strikten Islam verwendet.
Die Einordnung der priyayi im Religions-
Schema von Geertz widerspricht hingegen der
emischen Sichtweise. Diese soziale, nicht religiö-
se, Kategorie bezeichnet vielmehr in der javani-
schen Sozialtheorie die Angehörigen der Elite,
nämlich die Beamten und die Gebildeten. Diesen
„großen Leuten“ (wong gede, thiang alit) stehen
die „kleinen Leute“ (wong cilik), das Volk, ge-
genüber. In beiden Schichten, die quer zur religö-
sen Orientierung stehen, können strikte wie laxe
Muslime vertreten sein. In der Vergangenheit
waren die priyayi allerdings als Mitglieder der
synkretistisch geprägten Höfe Mitteljavas in ihrer
Mehrzahl Anhänger des kejawen-Islam. Dies
mag der Grund für die Geertzsche Verwechslung
und Mischung der religiösen und sozialen Klassi-
fikationen gewesen sein (Schweizer 1985a:
162-163).
Mystische Elemente spielen in allen Varian-
ten des Islam auf Java eine Rolle (Zoetmulder
Topos 83.1988
50
Thomas Schweizer
1965: 302-309; vgl. auch Drewes 1925 als Fallstu-
die). Wolters (1982: 27) vermutet aufgrund von
Inschriften aus dem 9. Jh., daß Java bereits da-
mals als Schatzkammer für spirituelles Wissen in
Südostasien bekannt war. Besonderen Rückhalt
gewannen die „außerordentlichen Erfahrungen“,
nämlich Visionen, Ekstasen, Prophezeiungen, as-
ketische Höchstleistungen oder ein besonderer
Lebensstil (als Kernbedeutungen von „Mystik“,
cf. Mieth 1985: 152), jedoch in der kejawen-
Variante des Islam. Die Mystik findet sich dort in
der Elite (wie schon bei Geertz 1960: Kap. 20, 21,
beschrieben) in der verfeinerten Form von Medi-
tation und Askese (Errington 1984; Stange 1984)
oder beim Volk als Glaube an Horoskope und
Weissagungen (Mulder 1978: 31-32, 51-56;
Koentjaraningrat 1979). - Beispielsweise umga-
ben sich die Herrscher Javas in der Vergangen-
heit wie in der Gegenwart mit geistlichen Ratge-
bern, und sie praktizierten auch selbst meditative
und asketische Techniken zur Erlangung tieferer
Einsicht (Schweizer 1985a: 165-166). Zahlreiche
bäuerliche Protestbewegungen in Java während
der Kolonialzeit wurden durch mystische Prophe-
zeiungen motiviert (Sartono 1978: 8-11, Kap. 6;
als mittel javanisches Beispiel cf. van der Jagd
1929: 207-210). In jüngster Zeit gab es Strafpro-
zesse gegen Personen, die die bestehende Ord-
nung unter Verweis auf ähnliche Visionen kriti-
siert hatten (Bourchier 1984). Viele Stadtbewoh-
ner suchen Meditations- und Mystikzirkel auf, um
ihre religiösen Erfahrungen zu vertiefen (Mulder
1978: Kap. 3; Stange 1984). Ein Nachbar aus dem
Dorf in Klaten, in dem ich 1978/79 forschte,
unternahm mit zwei Anhängern nachts lange
Wanderungen zu den Friedhöfen der Umgebung,
um mit Geistern in Kontakt zu treten.
Mystische Überzeugungen und Praktiken
sind offenbar in allen sozialen Schichten und
religiösen Strömungen der javanischen Gesell-
schaft verbreitet. Mitunter hat dieses Wissen
dramatischen oder gar „politisch subversiven“
Charakter, meistenteils ist es jedoch als „norma-
le“ außerordentliche Erfahrung ins Alltagsleben
integriert. Einem solchen eher alltäglichen mysti-
schen Überzeugungssystem will ich mich in die-
sem Aufsatz zuwenden. Es gehört in den Um-
kreis des kejawen-Islam in Pare. Vor der Darstel-
lung dieses Falls müssen jedoch die konstituieren-
den Regeln der javanischen Kultur skizziert wer-
den, da sie den geistigen Hintergrund für die
spezielleren, auf heilige Orte bezogenen, Auffas-
sungen des Schlüsselinformanten bilden.
2.2 Die javanische Weltansicht
Aus höfischen Chroniken, philosophischen und
ethischen Traktaten und aus Tiefeninterviews in
der Gegenwart (Geertz 1960: Kap. 17, 18; 1971:
35-41; 1983: 129-134; Mulder 1978: Kap. 2; Ma-
gnis-Suseno 1981; Moertono 1981; 26-82; Ander-
son 1972; Errington 1984; Stange 1984) lassen
sich einige Kernüberzeugungen aus dem javani-
schen Weltbild und der Religion (in der kejawen-
Variante) herausheben:4
2.2.1 Koordination irdischer und überirdischer
Phänomene
Der Makrokosmos {jagad gede) steht in javani-
scher Sicht in engem Zusammenhang mit dem
Mikrokosmos {jagad cilik), d. h. dem Menschen
und der menschlichen Gemeinschaft. Disharmo-
nie, Unruhe und Unglück beim einzelnen Men-
schen und in der Gesellschaft kann schlimmeren
kosmischen Schaden hervorrufen. Aufgabe jedes
verantwortlichen Menschen muß daher sein, sei-
ne Gefühle unter Kontrolle zu halten und offenen
Konflikt zu vermeiden. Das Streben nach Harmo-
nie und die Anerkennung von formaler Hierar-
chie durch Respektserweisung sollen diesen Zu-
stand sichern. Ümgekehrt ist das Auftreten von
schädlichen Ereignissen in der Welt auch ein
Anzeichen dafür, daß die betreffende Person
bzw. die so gestrafte Gemeinschaft die Überein-
stimmung mit den göttlichen Prinzipen verloren
hat.
2.2.2 Irdischer/göttlicher Gegensatz im
Menschen
Nach javanischer Auffassung sind in jedem Men-
schen eine Reihe von Gegensatzpaaren angelegt.
Ein Pol dieser Gegensätze ist der in jedem Men-
schen vorhandene göttliche Aspekt, während sich
der andere Pol auf die kurzlebige irdische Exi-
stenz des Menschen bezieht. So wird u. a. das
selbstlose Ich (ingsun) vom selbstbezogenen Ego
{aku) unterschieden; das Innere des Menschen
(batin) vom Äußeren, Körperlichen (lair);
schließlich als ganz zentrales Gegensatzpaar der
kultivierte Teil des Selbst (alus) vom groben,
unkultivierten (kasar).
4 Im Text stütze ich mich vor allem auf Erringtons sehr
detaillierte und methodisch sehr gründliche Darstellung
(1984). Die weiteren Quellen habe ich in Schweizer 1985a
besprochen.
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
51
Jeder Mensch muß sich nun bemühen, den
göttlichen Teil seiner Existenz zu kultivieren und
zu aktivieren. Dies kann einmal dadurch gesche-
hen, daß er die äußeren Reize durch Fasten und
Enthaltsamkeit bewußt einschränkt (nglakoni).
Der verfeinertere Weg zur Erkenntnis des Selbst
lst hingegen die Meditation (sujud). Der javani-
sche Begriff rasa bezeichnet übergreifend die
Fähigkeit, mit Hilfe dieser Techniken den göttli-
chen Aspekt hinter den weltlichen Dingen intuitiv
Zu erfassen (Errington 1984; Stange 1984). Das
Ziel dieser Übungen und der irdischen Existenz
muß es sein, Gott in uns selbst zu erkennen und
Zu erfühlen. Gott (Gusti, Tuhan) wird in diesem
Zusammenhang auch als Sang Hyang (Einheit),
Sang Hyang Kesaktian (das Heilige) oder Yang
^aha Esa (die letztliche Einheit) bezeichnet.
Gefordert wird allerdings nicht der Rückzug aus
der Welt, sondern ein möglichst abgeklärtes Le-
ben in Harmonie mit der menschlichen Gemein-
Schaft, das auf diese Weise dem wahren Selbst
Un<J damit dem göttlichen Prinzip näherkommt.
Z2.3 Der ungleiche Zugang zur Einsicht
Jui Prinzip verfügt jeder Mensch über die Anlage
^Ur Erkenntnis Gottes in sich selbst und in der
'/eh. Die irdischen Verstrickungen verstellen
iesen Weg jedoch. Es gelingt den Menschen in
Unterschiedlichem Maße, sich von weltlichen Din-
zu lösen und dadurch Weisheit zu erlangen,
heraus entsteht eine Hierarchie zwischen Kundi-
und weniger Kundigen. Im Einklang mit der
°°rdinationsvorstellung nimmt man in javani-
^cher Sicht an, daß mächtige Personen über ein
°hes Maß an spriritueller Kraft (kesakten) ge-
lten, das sie an ihre Umgebung abstrahlen,
••erdings zerfällt ihre sakrale wie politische
ucht, wenn sie ihren irdischen Leidenschaften
bachgeben und ihre Fähigkeit zur mystischen
^usicht verkümmern lassen (Moertono 1981:
^ '52). im Kreis der nach mystischer Einsicht
rebenden drückt sich dieser hierarchische Zu-
zum Wissen (ngelmu) im Unterschied zwi-
b en Lehrer (guru) und Schüler (murid) aus.
er auf dem mystischen Pfad fortgeschrittene
fUru schart Schüler um sich und läßt sie an
eiuem Wissen teilhaben.
öe Vorbereitung auf das gleich vorzustellen-
ntystische Überzeugungssystem muß eine spe-
ere Vorstellung aus der javanischen Weitsicht
er^ähnt werden:
Anth
2.2.4 Die heiligen Orte
Orte, an denen mächtige Personen mit einem
entsprechend hohen Maß an geistig-sakraler
Kraft (kesakten) lebten oder begraben sind, oder
Stätten, an denen magische Objekte vorhanden
sind, gelten als sakral (sakti, keramat). Denn dort
halten sich die Geister der Verstorbenen oder
Geister überhaupt auf (Siegel 1983: 3-4, 8-12;
cf. Daszenies 1987: 11-12). Der Kundige kann
mit ihnen in Kontakt treten, indem er an diesen
Stätten betet oder meditiert. An solchen Orten
wird er möglicherweise göttliche Inspiration (wah-
yu) erhalten. Allerdings sind diese Mächte auch
immer erschreckend. Daher sollte man ihnen
niemals unvorbereitet gegenübertreten. Für Men-
schen mit schwach entwickelter geistiger Kraft
kann der Kontakt sogar gefährlich sein. Der
„normal Sterbliche“ scheut daher solche Orte; er
beträgt sich respektvoll und sucht die Geister mit
Opferblumen und Weihrauch zu besänftigen.
2.3 Ein mystischer Diskurs in Pare
Im Sommer 1984 hielt ich mich mit meiner
Familie für einige Tage in Pare, also Geertzens
„Modjokuto“, auf. Durch Vermittlung javani-
scher Freunde kamen wir in Verbindung mit Pak
Kamto, einem 42 Jahre alten Bewohner der
Kleinstadt. Unsere priyayi-Freunde avisierten ihn
als einen Führer des nicht-strikten Islam (tokoh
kepercayaan) in der Region, der die Fähigkeit
habe, „hinter die [beobachtbaren] Dinge zu se-
hen“. Sein ursprünglicher Beruf war Lastwagen-
fahrer und später Chauffeur, bis er seine Beru-
fung zur Mystik erhielt. Seitdem lebt er sehr
bescheiden als geistiger Lehrer (guru) und Heiler
(dukun). Pak Kamto besuchte mit uns in einem
Tagesausflug die bei Pare bzw. Kediri gelegenen
Hinterlassenschaften des einst mächtigen javani-
schen Reiches Majapahit (14. Jh.). Er erläuterte
uns diese Stätten nicht unter dem archäologisch-
historischen Aspekt (Hall 1985: 236-256). Viel-
mehr war der sakrale Charakter der Ruinen für
ihn bemerkenswert (zum weiteren geistesge-
schichtlichen Image von Majapahit cf. Supomo
1979). Unsere Freunde, mit denen er gut bekannt
war, hatten ihn gebeten, uns diesen Aspekt zu
erschließen. Im Diskurs, der während des Aus-
flugs entstand, nahmen meine Frau (etwas skepti-
scher) und ich die Rolle der interessierten Schüler
ein, während Pak Kamto in seine übliche Rolle
als Mystik-guru schlüpfte. Der Kontext des Ge-
sprächs ist also die dem Informanten geläufige
iroPos 83.1988
52
Thomas Schweizer
Situation der Unterweisung. Ein junger Mann
und Verwandter der Freunde, die uns Pak Kamto
vermittelt hatten, nahm an der Exploration
gleichfalls teil. Er war ein Schüler Pak Kamtos.
Ich gebe diese Information über den Hinter-
grund des Gesprächs, weil die in einem solchen
Diskurs gesammelten Daten sehr vom Gesprächs-
kontext und der Vertrautheit der Beteiligten ab-
hängen. Ich meine, daß wir einen mittleren Ver-
ständigungsgrad erzielten: Wir waren gut einge-
führt und wir kannten durch einen früheren
Feldaufenthalt in Mittel] ava den thematischen
Kontext, so daß wir gezielt nachfragen konnten.
Allerdings hatten wir nur einen Tag Zeit, so daß
die Informationen das mystische Überzeugungs-
system nur punktuell repräsentieren. Dennoch
sind die Übereinstimmungen mit anderen For-
schungsergebnissen gut (cf. Errington 1984; Stan-
ge 1984). Durch die Fahrt (mit einem Kleinbus)
zu den verschiedenen Stätten auf dem ziemlich
weitgefaßten Ruinenglände ergibt sich die Eintei-
lung des Gesamterlebnisses in einzelne Episoden.
Ich schildere die Episoden anhand meiner Feld-
notizen.5 Zuvor möchte ich jedoch auf den Stel-
lenwert eines solchen Einzelbeispiels eingehen.
2.4 Aussagewert des Fallbeispiels
Ein wichtiger neuer Trend in der ethnologischen
Methodendiskussion zur Feldforschung proble-
matisiert die Erstellung ethnographischer Texte
(u. a. Clifford and Marcus 1986; Agar 1986).6 Die
Umstände, wie ethnographisches Wissen in be-
5 Das Gespräch wurde auf Indonesisch, das Pak Kamto gut
beherrscht, mit eingestreuten javanischen Begriffen, ge-
führt. Ich habe die Erlebnisse abends, noch aus der
frischen Erinnerung, auf Band gesprochen. Zitate in
„. . .“ sind Wiedergaben meiner Feldnotizen, ,. . .‘ kenn-
zeichnet wörtliche Aussagen Pak Kamtos; nachträgliche
Erläuterungen zum Text stehen in eckigen Klammern,
außer Übersetzungen einheimischer Termini. Der Name
des Informanten ist ein Pseudonym.
6 Die Termini „Ethnographie“ und „ethnographisch“ ver-
wende ich im Sinne der neueren amerikanischen Ethnolo-
gie (cf. Agar 1980; 1986). Gemeint ist nicht (wie in der
älteren deutschen Tradition) der Gegensatz zwischen
„Ethnographie“ als theoriefreier, „reiner“ Beobachtung
und „Ethnologie“ als theoretischer, vergleichender Syn-
these der Beschreibungen. „Ethnographie“ bezeichnet
hier lediglich die spezifische Art der Wissensgewinnung
über eine (fremde) Kultur in der ethnologischen Feldfor-
schung: die typische informelle Art der Datensammlung
mit im Kern qualitativen Verfahren in einer lokalen
Gemeinschaft. Das Ziel ist hierbei in der Tat die
Beschreibung der Kultur am Fall dieses kleineren Aus-
stimmten Situationen von bestimmten Personen
auf eine spezifische Weise erworben wurde und
wie dieses Wissen in einen wissenschaftlichen
Text umgesetzt wird, sollen erhellt werden, um so
zu einer objektiveren Einschätzung der gewonne-
nen Daten, ihrer Interpretation, ihrer Zusam-
menschau zu einem Gesamtbild und der Aussa-
gekraft des Gesamtbefunds beizutragen.
Im Fall des in diesem Aufsatz erörterten
Themas lieferten die Felderfahrungen meiner
Frau zu interethnischen Meinungen und Bezie-
hungen aus der mittel javanischen Stadt Yog-
yakarta (1976) und unser gemeinsames Projekt
zur Wirtschaft, sozialen Organisation und damit
verbundenen Sinngebungen in einem zentral] a-
vanischen Dorf (1978/79) den Verständnishinter-
grund. Im Verlauf dieser Untersuchungen und
während unseres Mitlebens in der javanischen
Kultur kamen wir verschiedentlich in bruchstück-
haften Kontakt mit dem Geisterglauben und ver-
wandten mystischen Praktiken und Vorstellungen
bei unseren Nachbarn, Gastgebern, Hausbewoh-
nern und Freunden. Dies regte unsere Neugier
an, bildete jedoch kein eigenes Untersuchungs-
thema. Während der Auswertung stießen wir
gelegentlich auf Verknüpfungen des Mystik-The-
mas mit dem Handeln und Denken der uns
vertrauten Akteure in den genannten Untersu-
chungsbereichen. Wir versuchten daher, den Stel-
lenwert der Mystik in der javanischen Kultur zu
erkennen und ein kohärenteres Bild von diesem
Bereich zu gewinnen. Daher befaßte ich mich in
der Folgezeit auf der Basis der vorhandenen
Literatur auch mit einigen Facetten der javani-
schen Religion und Mystik. Der Besuch von
Pare/„Modjokuto“ im Rahmen einer Reise (1984)
war lediglich als persönliches In-Augenschein-
Nehmen eines durch die Fachliteratur berühmten
Ortes intendiert.7 Im Vorfeld des Besuchs ergab
sich die Möglichkeit, Pak Kamto als einen inter-
essanten Bewohner dieser Kleinstadt kennenzu-
lernen, um auf diese Weise etwas mehr über das
javanische Denken in „Modjokuto“ zu erfahren.
Schnitts, doch sind theoretische Bezüge von vornherein
nicht ausgeschlossen. „Ethnologie“ bezeichnet demge-
genüber als Oberbegriff die gesamte Disziplin einschließ-
lich ihres vergleichenden und theoretischen Zweigs.
7 In der indonesischen Tageszeitung Kompas (3.-5. 11.
1985) erschienen mehrere Artikel einheimischer Journali-
sten, die die Spuren von Clifford Geertz u. a. Ethnologen
in Pare verfolgten, alte Informanten über die Forscher
befragten und insgesamt ein freundliches, nostalgisch
geprägtes Portrait der Forscher, der Informanten und des
Ortes entwarfen.
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
53
Der Kontakt war mehr durch private Neugier als
durch wissenschaftliche Spurensuche geprägt.
Während der gesamten Reise, so auch in Pare,
habe ich meine Eindrücke aus praktischen Grün-
den auf ein Diktiergerät gesprochen. Die Erleb-
nisse mit Pak Kamto fand ich unmittelbar anre-
gend, denn noch niemals zuvor hatte ich jeman-
den kennengelernt, der mir die mystische Weit-
sicht in so deutlicher wie einfacher Struktur zu-
gleich eröffnete. Erst nachträglich, im Gespräch
nnd Bericht über unsere Reise, erkannte ich, daß
es sich lohnen würde, dieses Beispiel systematisch
darzustellen, weil Pak Kamtos Aussagen schlag-
hchtartig und authentisch die mystische Weitsicht
ln Java beleuchteten.
Im Gespräch über das Beispiel habe ich
zuweilen (vor allem bei Nicht-Ethnologen) den
Eindruck gewonnen, daß der Stellenwert eines
solchen Einzelfalls für die ethnologische Erkennt-
nisgewinnung falsch eingeschätzt wird. Daher
gobe ich nun eine methodologische Erläuterung
2urn Aussagewert eines solchen Fallbeispiels: An-
gelpunkt der Darlegung in diesem Aufsatz sind
die Aussagen eines Informanten. Die Überzeu-
gungen dieses Individuums bilden jedoch primär
»keine Welt für sich“ und sie stellen als solche
auch nicht den (Selbst-)Zweck der ethnologischen
Analyse dar. Gegenstand der Ethnologie als So-
2ial- und Verhaltenswissenschaft sind letztlich
nicht Einzelpersonen, sondern soziale Kollektive.
Eie Lebensweise und die damit einhergehenden
Sinngebungen in solchen Kollektiven erfährt man
Jodoch nur über den Umweg der Befragung und
Eeobachtung einzelner Personen. Aus den Einzel-
aussagen und -beobachtungen filtert der Feldfor-
Scher dann das Gesamtmuster des Handelns und
Eenkens einschließlich der typischen Varianten
ln der untersuchten Kultur heraus. Am Anfang
des ethnographischen Erkenntnisprozesses stehen
ln der Regel das wenig systematisierte, auch
Persönlich gefärbte Gespräch mit Angehörigen
^er untersuchten Gemeinschaft über Alltagsthe-
men und die spezielle Sichtweise der Gesprächs-
Partner zu bestimmten Sachverhalten. Ergeben
sich in einem solchen Gespräch neue und uner-
wartete Informationen, so kann es eine stärker
Wissensbezogene Wendung nehmen: der Ethno-
graph fragt nach und sie/er bittet den Informan-
Jfu um genauere Erläuterung. Je länger sich der
eidforscher in der Gemeinschaft aufhält und je
vertrauter sie/er dann mit ihrer Kultur ist, desto
eher kann er/sie aufgrund dieses Hintergrundwis-
Sens zu spezielleren und strukturierteren Fragen
^ergehen. Die informellen Gespräche werden
allerd
!ugs auch dann als unverzichtbare Quelle
Anth
roPos 83.1988
neuer, unerwarteter Erkenntnisse beibehalten.
Da man in der Feldsituation niemals vorhersehen
kann, wann eine solche zentrale und neue Er-
kenntnis „aufblitzt“, gibt es auch keine strikte
Trennung in „richtige Interviews“ und „Alltags-
gespräche“. Selbst die „harmlose Alltagskonver-
sation“ kann plötzlich Einsichten eröffnen - neue
Sachverhalte aufdecken, unerwartete Zusammen-
hänge nachweisen - und somit einen „Wissens-
durchbruch“ einleiten. Im Fall unserer Erfahrun-
gen in Pare lieferten unsere früheren Kontakte
mit der Alltagsmystik und die Untersuchungen
zum javanischen Weltbild und zur Religion den
Wissenshorizont, der unsere Erwartungen struk-
turierte. Während der Unterhaltung mit Pak
Kamto eröffneten sich neue Einsichten, die über
das hinauszugehen schienen, was wir aus früheren
Erlebnissen und sporadischer Kenntnis der Bü-
cher zur javanischen (Alltags-)Mystik wußten.
Für uns nur halbbewußt und eher implizit verän-
derte sich die Interaktionssituation von einem
privaten Besuch historischer Stätten mit einem
einheimischen Führer zu einem ethnographischen
Frage-Antwort-Spiel zwischen wißbegierigen
Feldforschern und einem Schlüsselinformanten.
An der Oberfläche hat der entstehende Diskurs
die Struktur einer Konversation, in der Tiefen-
schicht steckt unsere Absicht, ein neues Thema
zu erlernen und das Gespräch (implizit) in diese
Richtung zu steuern. Pak Kamto selbst hat in der
Situation diese Absicht geschaffen und unter-
stützt, indem er dem Gespräch den ihm vertrau-
ten Verlauf einer Unterweisung zwischen Lehrer
und Schüler unterlegte. Zu unserer Schülerrolle
gehörte, daß wir seine Unterweisungen wißbegie-
rig aufgreifen und durch Nachfragen vertiefen
sollten.
Informelle Gespräche mit einzelnen Infor-
manten bilden den Grundstoff ethnologischer Be-
schreibungen. Singuläre Aussagen und spezielle
Fälle, die man im Gespräch oder in der Einzelbe-
obachtung kennengelernt hat, liefern den Anstoß
und das Anschauungsmaterial für das ethnogra-
phische Wissen über eine fremde Kultur. In mei-
nem Aufsatz sollen die Überzeugungen Pak Kam-
tos die allgemeine Struktur der javanischen My-
stik als eines praktischen Überzeugungssystems
veranschaulichen. Eingebettet ist dieses Fallbei-
spiel in das allgemeine ethnologische Wissen über
die javanische Mystik und Weitsicht. Dieses Hin-
tergrundwissen garantiert, daß das Fallbeispiel,
weil es mit diesem Wissen basal übereinstimmt,
nicht auf die womöglich idiosynkratischen Über-
zeugungen dieses einen Informanten beschränkt
bleibt, sondern Aufschluß über das Denken vieler
54
Thomas Schweizer
Angehöriger dieser Kultur geben kann. Der be-
sondere Fall soll ein allgemeines, in diesem Bei-
spiel kejawen-javanisches Denkmuster, bündeln
und exemplarisch repräsentieren. - Selbstver-
ständlich müßte eine umfassende ethnologische
Analyse der javanischen Mystik die Aussagen
von sehr viel mehr Informanten vergleichen und
eine Fülle weiterer, zentraler Aspekte dieses
Themas ansprechen. Dies kann hier nicht gesche-
hen. In diesem Aufsatz geht es lediglich um den
ausschnitthaften, wenn auch authentischen Nach-
weis des mystischen Denkmusters an einem Fall-
beispiel.
Aufgrund meiner eigenen Felderfahrungen
(Schweizer 1985 b) und der methodologischen Re-
flektionen von Agar (1980; 1986) und anderen
(Bernard et al. 1986; weiterführend Werner and
Schoepfle 1987) halte ich die Sammlung qualitati-
ver Daten mit Hilfe informeller Verfahren und
von einzelnen Schlüsselinformanten für das Kern-
stück der ethnologischen Feldforschung. Die in-
formellen, qualitativen Verfahren liefern die
Grundstruktur des Wissens, aber auch den An-
stoß zu tieferen, unerwarteten Fragen. Fallbei-
spiele sind nicht peripher, sie sind zentral für den
Prozeß der ethnologischen Erkenntnisgewinnung.
Systematische Erhebungen - Umfragen mit stan-
dardisierteren Interviewtechniken, gezielte Beob-
achtungen - werden punktuell eingesetzt, um den
qualitativ erkannten Befund zu präzisieren, ihn
partiell zu testen und zu dokumentieren. Diese
Verfahren, die sich auf größere, systematisch
gewonnene Datensätze stützen, sind eine wichtige
Ergänzung, aber kein Ersatz für die qualitativen
Verfahren der Feldforschung. Die Aufgabe des
Ethnographen besteht darin, die disparaten Ein-
zelerfahrungen zu einem systematischen Ganzen
zu verweben. Der Bericht darf jedoch nicht den
Eindruck von allzu großer Homogenität in der
Untersuchungskultur erwecken, wenn dieses Kol-
lektiv neben Gemeinsamkeiten aller Mitglieder
durch interne, nämlich intrakulturelle Variation
gekennzeichnet ist. Diese Unterschiede sind
gleichfalls zu dokumentieren. Eine wichtige Vari-
ante des Islam auf Java soll nun an einem Beispiel
geschildert werden.
3. Darlegung des mystischen
Überzeugungssystems
Episode 1. Hinfahrt: Einführung in die mystische
Weitsicht
Auf dem Weg von Pare nach Kediri sagte Pak
Kamto gleich zu Beginn: „Ziel jeder Religion ist
der Kontakt mit Gott. Nur der Weg dahin ist
unterschiedlich.“ Später führte er aus: „Falsch ist,
den Kontakt mit Gott über Dritte herzustellen,
über kiyai (islamische Religionsgelehrte) oder
andere geistige Führer. Worauf es ankommt, ist
das innere Selbst (diri-sendiri) und die innere
Erfahrung (perasaan) mit der man Gott begeg-
net.“ „Das allerwichtigste im Leben ist es, hinter
den Anschein von Dingen (kenyataan) zu sehen,
nach dem tieferen Grund zu suchen.“ Als ich
dann, Geertz-inspiriert, nach den verschiedenen
Strömungen des Islam in Pare fragte (eine Frage,
die ihn weniger interessierte, weil für ihn die
Antwort bereits feststand), antwortete er (und
wies auf eine neugebaute Moschee): „Dem An-
schein (kenyataan) nach ist der Islam außeror-
dentlich wichtig. In Wirklichkeit ist der Islam nur
die Maske (topeng), hinter der im Verborgenen
vieles andere blüht. Pare ist alles andere als eine
strikt islamische Stadt.“
Im Verlauf der Hinfahrt vermittelte er uns
eine Exposition seines Weltbilds: Er begann mit
der Unterscheidung zwischen kasar und alus:
„Der grobe Teil des Menschen will Böses tun
(,kasar mau nakak). Der kultivierte Teil (alus)
will den Kontakt mit Gott hersteilen. In jedem
Menschen gibt es kasar und alus, jeder strebt
letztlich das alus an, nur ist es nicht so einfach zu
erreichen.“ Danach explizierte er einen Leitge-
danken aus seinem Überzeugungssystem: „Es ist
sehr leicht, wenn man einen Fehler begangen hat,
hinterher um Entschuldigung zu bitten und zu
denken, damit sei der Fehler vergeben. So ist es
nicht. Wenn man einen Fehler begangen hat,
dann wird man dafür auch bestraft. Krankheit,
Unglück usw. sind die Strafe für vergangene
Fehler.“ Diese Fehler beziehen sich vor allen
Dingen darauf, „daß man Orten oder Personen,
die keramat (heilig) sind, nicht genügend Ehrer-
bietung entgegengebracht hat. Es spielt dabei
keine Rolle, ob man diese Verstöße wissentlich
oder unbeabsichtigt begangen hat.“
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
Episode 2. Die Schatzkammer von Majapahit
55
Als erstes besuchten wir die Empfangshalle (pen-
dopo) auf dem Gelände von Majapahit. Es han-
delte sich um eine neuerbaute Gedenkstätte, die
nach Pak Kamtos Ansicht ohne sakrale Bedeu-
tung war. Der eigentliche heilige Ort verberge
sich dahinter. Er führte uns zu einem nicht
sonderlich gepflegten kleinen Friedhof. Hierunter
befand sich seiner Ansicht nach die ehemalige
Schatzkammer (gudang pusaka) des Reiches von
Majapahit [ein so mächtiges Reich bewahrte in
Seiner Schatzkammer die entsprechend hochma-
gischen und sehr sakralen Reichsinsignien {pusa-
kä) auf], „Die anderen Leute meinen, dies ist nur
ein Grab. Aber in Wirklichkeit ist dieser Ort
außerordentlich heilig und gefährlich. Man muß
Sehr achtgeben, daß man nichts Falsches tut.“ Als
unser dreijähriger Sohn nun zwischen den Grä-
bern hin und her zu laufen begann, bat er darum,
!hn schnell zurückzuholen, weil sonst ein Unglück
geschähe. Er sagte uns in diesem Zusammen-
hang, daß er schon vorher darum gebetet hätte,
daß wir bei unserem Besuch dieser magischen
Stätten keine Schwierigkeiten erlitten. Die gu-
bang pusaka sei ein Ort, den man respektvoll
aufsuchen müsse, wenn man göttliche Inspiration
(u'ahyu) erhalten wolle. Er selbst habe dies schon
eiurnal getan, indem er dort eine Nacht in Medi-
tation verbrachte. [Den Inhalt der dabei empfan-
genen Weissagung erläuterte er erst bei der näch-
ten Episode. Ich ziehe diese Information hier
^0r-] Dabei erhielt er die Eingebung, daß seine
brau einen bestimmten Ort aufsuchen solle [die
ln Episode 5 beschriebene Höhle]. „Dort fiel ihr
PEhzlich ein Schatz (pusaka) in die Hände, näm-
lcb ein Stückchen ,Eisen4 (logam) [gemeint ist
^|u Stück von einem alten, magischen keris
v^olch)].“ pa^ Kamto verwies darauf, daß schon
v[ele Leute diese Höhle aufgesucht hätten, ohne
^JUen Schatz zu finden, während er durch die
£issagung an der Schatzkammer erwählt wor-
en war, ein solch hochsakrales Objekt zu gewin-
uen.
Episode 3. Das lange Grab
ß°dann besichtigten wir eine andere Gräberstät-
*e- Herausragend war hierbei ein eingezäuntes
£ud überdachtes Grab von etwa 5 m Länge. Pak
Kamto sagte uns, auf diesem Friedhof seien
fiuige hohe Beamte (tumenggung) von Majapahit
egraben. Die ungewöhnliche Länge des einen
Grabes führte er auf die Körpergröße des Ver-
Anthropos 83.1988
storbenen zurück. Während wir uns dieses Grab
noch anschauten, begann Pak Kamto zu beten.
Er bewegte sich kniend drei Schritte zurück und
verfiel in Trance. Dabei sprach er mit einer
tiefen, unverständlichen Stimme. Nach etwa fünf
Minuten verließ er das Grab und begab sich zum
Wächter des Friedhofs [an Stätten dieser Art gibt
es meist einen Beauftragten aus dem umliegen-
den Ort, der ein Besuchsbuch führt]. Aus diesem
Gebet hatte sich offensichtlich eine Botschaft für
diesen Mann ergeben, die Pak Kamto ihm nun
mitteilte. Danach erläuterte unser Führer uns,
was ihm widerfahren war: Er hatte im Gebet die
Anrufung erhalten, daß jemand von Majapahit
mit ihm sprechen wolle. Er sei in direkten Kon-
takt mit einem ,raja‘ (König) oder einem , tu-
menggung' (hoher Beamter) des Reiches getre-
ten. Wer es genau war, wußte er nicht. ,Der
Mann sprach mit sehr langsamer, leiser Stimme
und war außerordentlich alus4 [vornehm. Dies
indiziert sowohl die Sprechweise als auch die im
Javanischen verwendete Sprachebene]. Pak Kam-
to erhielt schließlich die Botschaft, daß auf die-
sem Grabplatz auf keinen Fall irgendein Stein
verändert werden dürfe und auch ergänzende
Baumaßnahmen, so das Aufstellen von Hinweis-
tafeln, unerwünscht seien. Es war aus dem Kon-
text seiner Antworten sehr deutlich, daß ein
Verstoß gegen diesen Wunsch die Geister der
Verstorbenen erzürnen und unweigerlich Scha-
den nach sich ziehen würde [bei späterer Gele-
genheit nannte Pak Kamto Baumaßnahmen an
sakralen Stätten explizit als Ausdruck der negativ
bewerteten kasar-Gesinnung].
Abb, 1: Eines der Gräber der Beamten von Majapahit (M.
Schweizer 1984)
56
Thomas Schweizer
Abb. 2: Das lange Grab von Majapahit (M. Schweizer
1984)
Episode 4. Der Giftbrunnen
Wir fuhren danach zu einem verschlossenen
Brunnen. Er wurde als summ rajun (Giftbrun-
nen) bezeichnet, weil in seiner Nähe in der
Vergangenheit schon verschiedentlich Menschen
gestorben waren. Auch dieser Ort galt als sakral
und gefährlich. Es befanden sich dort zwei Män-
ner aus einem anderen Ort Ostjavas. Wie wir
erfuhren, hielten sie sich bereits einige Tage und
Nächte in der Nähe des Brunnens auf. Einer der
beiden hatte sich die Haare lang wachsen lassen
und trug sie in der Art der früheren javanischen
Würdenträger. Pak Kamto verneinte zwar, daß
diese beiden dort meditiert hätten, doch war dies
ziemlich offensichtlich. Vielleicht hatten sie an
diesem negativ besetzten Ort nicht nur um positi-
ven Rat nachgesucht . . .
Meine Frau stellte Pak Kamto die Frage, ob
man die Dämpfe des Brunnens schon einmal
naturwissenschaftlich untersucht habe [daß Brun-
nen Giftgase aussenden können, war 1979 im
Zusammenhang mit einem größeren Unglück Ta-
gesthema vieler indonesischer Zeitungen gewe-
sen]. Er antwortete, dies ginge nicht, da es sich
um ,Dämpfe4 (uap) handle, die man mit den
Mitteln der Naturwissenschaft nicht untersuchen
könne. Und im übrigen wäre es so: ,Die Wissen-
schaft findet nichts, aber in Wirklichkeit ist doch
etwas da.4
Die skeptische Ausgangsfrage erzielte die
weitergehende Erläuterung: „Jemand ist an
Krebs erkrankt. Kein Arzt kann ihm mehr hel-
fen. Ich mit meinem [tiefergehenden] Wissen
(ngelmu) kann den Kranken zu einer Heilung
führen.“ Er führte dann ein weiteres hypotheti-
sches Beispiel ein: „Jemand hat ein krankes Bein.
Die Ärzte können nichts finden. Ich hingegen
weiß: Dieser Mann hat früher einmal etwas falsch
gemacht. Die Krankheit ist die Vergeltung dafür.
Ich kann ihm helfen und die Krankheit wieder
wegkriegen.“ [Frage: wie heilt er denn? Mit
Heilsäften oder anders?] „Dazu brauche ich keine
Heilsäfte, sondern, so wie Jesus mit dem Hallelu-
ja, so mache ich es auch. Ich komme zu ihm hin
und bete und mache ihn dadurch gesund.“
Abb. 3: Die Weissagungshöhle von Majapahit (M. Schwei-
zer 1984)
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
Episode 5. Die Weissagungshöhle
Einige Schritte von diesem Brunnen entfernt lag
eine kleine Höhle mit einem etwa 1.50 m in die
Erde eingelassenen Zugang, den man über eine
Treppe erreichen konnte. Von dieser Treppe
führte nach einer deutlichen Verengung ein
schmaler Gang ins Innere der Höhle, die von
außen nicht einsehbar war [die Verengung ist von
oben gesehen etwa 20 cm breit, und die engste
Stelle liegt in Bauch- und Hüfthöhe]. Nach Mei-
nung unseres Führers müsse man in die Höhle
gehen, wenn man ein Ziel oder einen Wunsch
habe (tujuan). Psychologisch einfühlsam sagte er:
.wenn man z. B. Doktor oder Professor werden
will.4 „Wenn der Wunsch erfüllt wird, dann ge-
lingt es, durch die schmale Öffnung zu gehen und
die Höhle zu betreten.“ Wird der Wunsch nicht
erfüllt, so gelangt man durch die enge Öffnung
nicht hindurch. [Dies ist auch die Höhle, in der
Bu Kamto den in Episode 2 erwähnten keris
fand.] Pak Kamto fragte, ob wir hineinwollten.
Ich fühlte mich dazu spirituell nicht ,mutig4 ge-
Abb. 4: Das Eingangstor von Majapahit (M. Schweizer
1984)
57
nug, was eine akzeptable Antwort war. Der junge
Mann, der uns begleitete, suchte die Höhle auf.
Meine Frau fragte, ob es nicht auch an der
körperlichen Konstitution des Ratsuchenden
läge, daß er die Prüfung bestehe oder nicht. Dies
wurde von Pak Kamto verneint, und er verwies
auf einen gemeinsamen Bekannten von ihm und
dem jungen Mann, der trotz großer Leibesfülle
die Höhle betreten hatte. - Pak Kamto selbst ging
ebenfalls nicht in die Höhle, ,weil ich keine
Vorbereitung (prasaran) getroffen habe.4
Episode 6. Das Eingangstor von Majapahit
Gegen Ende des Besuchs kamen wir zu einer
noch gut erhaltenen Torruine. Dies sei das Ein-
gangstor (pintu gerbang) des alten kraton (Pala-
stes) von Majapahit. Nach Pak Kamtos Ansicht
ist ein solcher kraton nicht von Menschenhand
erbaut, sondern vom Himmel gefallen. „Es darf
sich auch niemand trauen, hier einen Stein weg-
zunehmen.44 Er verwies dann auf einen waringin-
Baum in der Nähe, dessen Wurzeln einen dieser
Steine umfaßten: „Man hat schon mehrmals ver-
sucht, diesen Stein wegzukriegen, aber bisher hat
es niemand geschafft.“ Und im übrigen sei es
höchst gefährlich, beispielsweise an diesem Stein-
tor herumzuklettern. Wenn man davon einen
Stein entfernen wolle, dann könne man sicher
sein, daß dies schweren Schaden nach sich zöge.
Ich wunderte mich darüber, daß der Eingang
so schmal und so lang sei. Er sagte, dies sei ja
gerade das Besondere; denn „wer früher mit
böser Absicht durch das Tor ging, der ging noch
in das Tor wohlgemut hinein, aber wenn er am
Ende des Gangs ankam, hatten ihn seine Kräfte
schon verlassen“. Als Beispiel führte er an „die
Gesandten Chinas, die gekommen waren, um den
raja Majapahit umzubringen. Als sie am Ende
des Tors ankamen, fielen sie selbst tot zu Bo-
den.“
Soweit die Darlegung der Episoden über die
hl. Orte (tempat keramat) von Majapahit aus
dem Blickwinkel dieses Schlüsselinformanten aus
Pare. Auf dem Rückweg unterhielten wir uns
nicht mehr über religiöse und mystische Themen,
so daß ich die Schilderung hier abbreche.8
8 Von Interesse könnte eine säkulare Überzeugung sein,
die Pak Kamto bei der Fahrt entlang der fruchtbaren
Felder äußerte, da ihr eine ähnliche Argumentations-
struktur wie seinen religiösen Überzeugungen unterliegt.
Er bemerkte u. a.: „Der Chinese (cina) ist in Pare sehr
mächtig [er benutzte den eher abwertenden Ausdruck
Anthropos 83.1988
58
Thomas Schweizer
4. Analyse des mystischen Überzeugungssystems
4.1 Systematisierung des Argumentationsschemas
In einem ersten Schritt zur Deutung von Pak
Kamtos Überzeugungen hebe ich die im Ge-
spräch enthaltenen Hauptideen hervor und re-
konstruiere den Argumentationsgang, der dem
Gespräch unterlag. Dieser erste Analyseschritt
bleibt noch sehr eng am Text des Diskurses.
Das Gespräch begann mit der Gegenüber-
Sichtbare
Oberfläche/
Anschein,
KENYATAAN
(Eigenschaften
der Welt)
grober,
irdischer
Teil des
Selbst, KASAR
t
will Böses
tun
(Aspekte des
Selbst)
(Ziel)
Schutz und
Linderung
Unsichtbarer,
tieferer Sinn
(erfahrbar über
das Innere,
DIRI-SENDIRI,
und die
Intuition,
PERASAAN)
I
verfeinerter,
kultivierter
Teil des Selbst,
ALUS
I
strebt nach
Erkenntnis
Gottes in der
Welt
I
verkennt und (Handlung) erkennt und
mißachtet respektiert
sakraler, ^ magischer Ort
Bestrafung (Folgen) ^vBelohnung
Unglück, (Maßnahmen) Inspiration,
Krankheit, Wissen, Schätze
Tod (z. B. magischer keris)
Abb. 5: Gliederung der Überzeugungen des Schlüsselinfor-
manten über heilige Orte nach dem Gesprächsverlauf
cina anstelle des neutralen tionghoa, daher meine Über-
setzung], Man erkennt es nicht direkt. Dort hinten sieht
man Zuckerrohr- und Zwiebelfelder. Man denkt, es sind
die Einheimischen {pribumi), denen das Land gehört.
Aber in Wirklichkeit steht der Chinese dahinter, der mit
seinem großen Kapital und seinen vielen Geschäften das
Land längst schon aufgekauft hat.“ Vgl. zur Analyse von
Ideologien vertiefend Abelson 1973 und Carboneil 1978.
Stellung verschiedener begrifflicher Gegensatz-
paare (vgl. Abb. 5). Eigenschaften der Welt und
Aspekte des Selbst wurden grundlegend kontra-
stiert. Aus beiden Teilen folgten unterschiedliche
Zielvorstellungen, die gegensätzliche Handlungen
gegenüber heiligen Orten auslösten: Die grob-
irdische Motivation, Böses zu tun, verleitet zum
(unbewußten) Verkennen und bewußten Mißach-
ten solcher Stätten, während das verfeinerte Sen-
sorium der alus-Gesinnung zum Erkennen und
Respektieren sakraler Orte anleitet. Bestrafung
mit Unglück, Krankheit und sogar Tod sind die
Folge des einen Handlungstyps; Belohnung mit
göttlicher Inspiration, Erweiterung des Wissens
und Erlangung sakraler Schätze prämiert das
korrekte Verhalten. Ist ein Schaden eingetreten,
so kann man aus dem verfeinerten, mystischen
Wissen (rechte Seite des Schemas) Maßnahmen
zur Schadensbegrenzung beziehen. - Das Ge-
spräch mündete also in die Darlegung einer ein-
heimischen Kausaltheorie ein, die zwischen Zie-
len, Handlungen und Folgen Ursache-Wirkungs-
Beziehungen postulierte. Diese Theorie wurde
abschließend mit normativ-ethischen Schlußfolge-
rungen über die korrekte Lebensführung ver-
knüpft. Das Ineinandergreifen faktischer und
normativer Aussagen, die enge Verbindung kog-
nitiver und emotioneller Inhalte ist typisch für
Alltagstheorien und einheimische Überzeugungs-
systeme (Shweder and LeVine 1984).
4.2 Der script-Charakter des Überzeugungssystems
Nun ist im zweiten Analyseschritt ein übergrei-
fendes gedankliches Ordnungsmuster in diesem
Überzeugungssystem zu suchen. Diese Abstrahie-
rung ist vor allem nötig bei der Deutung komple-
xerer Gedankensysteme als dem hier vorgestell-
ten, weil man sonst vor lauter Einzelheiten den
kognitiven „Wald“ übersieht. Aber selbst in die-
sem noch einigermaßen überschaubaren Beispiel
kann ein übergreifendes Schema die Einzelaspek-
te ordnen. Im Beispiel läßt sich ein script als
Ordnungsprinzip erkennen. Die kognitive Psy-
chologie hat scripts als wichtige Organisations-
prinzipien in Überzeugungssystemen erarbeitet
(cf. Abelson 1973; 1976; 1981; Schank and Abel-
son 1977; Carboneil 1978; Reiser, Black and
Abelson 1985). Ein “script” ist definiert als Er-
wartung einer stereotypisierten Folge von Hand-
lungen oder Ereignissen für eine wohlbekannte
Situation (Abelson 1976: 33-35; Schank and Ab-
elson 1977: 41; der Restaurantbesuch ist das Stan-
dardbeispiel für ein script. Als ethnologische
Anthropos 83.1988
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
59
Übertragungen dieses Forschungsansatzes cf. Ko-
kot, Lang and Hinz 1982: 338-341; Randall 1985;
Holland 1985). Das script-Konzept bezieht seine
besondere kognitive und empirische Relevanz für
die Erfassung und Ordnung kulturellen Wissens
aus der Tatsache, daß Wissen über Erlebnis- und
Handlungsabläufe offenbar häufig in dieser
Scnpt-Form im Gedächtnis abgespeichert wird
(Reiser, Black and Abelson 1985). Im Zusam-
menhang mit der Erinnerungsproblematik unter-
scheidet Abelson (1976: 34-35) u. a. die episodi-
sche Erinnerung an bestimmte Erlebnisse von der
abstrakteren kategorial-hypothetischen Erinne-
rung. Ein Beispiel für ersteres ist aus dem hier
v°rgestellten Fall Pak Kamtos Erinnerung an die
Weissagung in der Schatzkammer (Episode 2).
Seine Diskussion der Heilungsfälle (Episode 4)
bewegt sich hingegen auf der kategorial-hypothe-
bschen Ebene. - Da ein script die Aufbewahrung
v°n Vorstellungen (in vereinfachter/stereotypi-
Slerter Form) im Gedächtnis modelliert, erfaßt es
aie kognitive Tiefenstruktur in einem Überzeu-
gungssystem. Im Gegensatz dazu gibt ein stark
am Text orientiertes Gliederungsschema (wie im
porigen Punkt und in Abb. 5) nur die oberflächli-
ue Vielfalt des Geschehens wieder, weil es die
Zeutralen nicht von den weniger wichtigen Kom-
ponenten des Überzeugungssystems trennt (zu
ähnlichen Unterschieden cf. de Beaugrande 1980:
Ca- II, besonders 42-44).
Hie hier vorgelegten Überzeugungsdaten
Stamrnen von einem Mystiker. Das seinen Über-
2eugungen unterliegende Mystik-script bezieht
^ch dementsprechend auf abstrakte Sachverhal-
’ nämlich auf Eindrücke, die einem an heiligen
rten typischerweise widerfahren. Die Handlun-
§fn im Mystik-script bestehen also zum größten
eil aus mentalen Akten. Die Situation, für die
as Drehbuch aktiviert wird, ist die mystische
le 6hdcutung, so wie sie Pak Kamto seinen Schü-
^ n und Klienten in der Unterweisung mitteilt.
er Ablaufcharakter im Mystik-Drehbuch ist
earin zu sehen, daß Pak Kamto an heiligen Orten
■ ne bestimmte Erkenntnissequenz erwartet, die
v°m groben Unwissen über Hindernisse zur
f . ren Erkenntnis und zu wirklicher Macht ent-
u et- Has script liefert damit ein vereinfachtes
auf viele konkrete Erlebnisse an heiligen
a ten anwendbares Schema für die Deutung der
.^u-klichkeit. Wie jeder Mensch wird Pak Kamto
^anderen Lebenssituationen weitere Wissensfor-
verwenden. Die hier versuchte Systematisie-
pa^ bcanspmcht keineswegs, alle Feinheiten von
ab ' ^arntos Überzeugungen wiederzugeben. Be-
cntigt wurde vielmehr, in diesem script die
Anth
roPos 83.1988
hauptsächlichen und charakteristischsten Facet-
ten aus dem Überzeugungssystem dieses Infor-
manten hervorzuheben. Eine tieferschürfende
kognitive Analyse müßte umfassender angelegt
werden und würde sich dann auch auf ein größe-
res Datenkorpus stützen müssen (cf. für solche
Beispiele die Fallstudien aus der kognitiven und
symbolischen Ethnologie: Colby and Colby 1981;
Hutchins 1980; Kokot 1982).
I---------------widerlegt-------------------->
1. Anschein 2. Wahres
von
Praktiken/Personen
+
------------------ überwindet
4. Wirkliche Macht -♦-verleiht-
Abb. 6: Schema des Mystik-Scripts
Im einzelnen besteht das für mein Fallbei-
spiel erkannte Mystikscript in seiner Grundform
aus vier Komponenten (vgl. Abb. 6):
1. Es gibt den Anschein von Phänomenen, ihre
oberflächliche Erscheinungsform.
2. Es gibt das wahre Wissen, das den tieferen
Sinn von Phänomenen offenbart und den An-
schein (immer!) als falsch entlarvt.
3. Es gibt Wünsche, Praktiken und Personen, die
die Erkenntnis des waren Sachverhalts unterbin-
den oder erschweren.
4. Wirkliche Macht erhält nur, wer die Hinder-
nisse aus 3 überwindet und durch den falschen
Schein (1) zum wahren Kern (2) vorstößt.
Die Aussagen 1 und 2 bilden die Grundelemente
des Scripts, während 3 und 4 bei Bedarf aktiviert
werden. Alle vier Komponenten sind kombinier-
bar. Für die Deutung speziellerer Sachverhalte
wird die Grundfassung durch weitere Aussagen
angereichert. So ist z. B. die Spezifizierung von
Handlungsnormen und Handlungskonsequenzen
an heiligen Orten in den Aussagen Pak Kamtos
als eine Untersequenz im übergreifenden Mystik-
Drehbuch zu kennzeichnen. Aus dem wahren
Wissen (2) und der wirklichen Macht (4) des
Grundschemas folgt die Regel, wie man sich an
heiligen Orten zu benehmen hat. Dadurch ver-
meidet man Schaden und wird belohnt. Analog
zu dieser positiven Sequenz ergibt sich aus dem
oberflächlichen Wissen (1) und seinen Agenten
(3) das falsche Tun an heiligen Orten, das Bestra-
fung nach sich zieht. Beide Themenstränge, die
Phänomenen
Wissen
bestärken
3. Falsche Wünsche/
verhindern
60
Thomas Schweizer
im Gliederungsschema (Abb. 5) detailliert darge-
stellt sind, sehe ich als einen spezielleren “track”
im wesentlich allgemeineren Mystik-script an.9
Die Relevanz dieses scripts als kognitive
Grundstruktur in Pak Kamtos Überzeugungs-
schema läßt sich im Rückgriff auf Beispiele aus
den einzelnen Episoden belegen:
In Episode 1 zeigte sich an der Oberfläche
(1) das Vorherrschen des strikten Islam, während
sich auf der Ebene des tieferen Wissens (2) das
genaue Gegenteil erwies. Kiyai und andere Rat-
geber wurden im Sinne von 3 als Hemmnisse auf
dem Weg zum wahren Wissen (2) angesprochen.
Aus dem wahren Wissen (2) erfuhr man weiter,
wie man sich an heiligen Orten zu verhalten hat,
um sich dadurch vor Schaden zu bewahren.
In Episode 2 wurden wiederum die Kompo-
nenten 1 und 2 des Schemas kontrastiert: ober-
flächlich gesehen (1) handelte es sich bei dem Ort
um irgendeinen Friedhof, tatsächlich jedoch of-
fenbarte das wahre Wissen (2), daß hier die
Schatzkammer von Majapahit liegt. Ist man im
Besitz dieses tiefen Wissens, so erhält man göttli-
che Inspiration und dadurch sogar den keris als
Schatz, ein deutliches Anzeichen von wirklicher
Macht (4).
In Episode 3 wurde wiederum der Nexus
zwischen tiefem Wissen (2) und wirklicher Macht
(4) thematisiert, da sich die Edlen von Majapahit
dem Mystiker offenbarten und ihn mit einer
wichtigen, die Gemeinschaft vor Schaden bewah-
renden Botschaft ausstatteten.
In Episode 4 wurde an den Beispielen der
Krankenheilung der Gegensatz zwischen ober-
flächlichem, naturwissenschaftlichem Denken (1)
und der tieferschürfenden mystischen Lehre (2)
gezogen. Dieser Wissensunterschied zog einen
Machtunterschied gemäß 4 nach sich: im einen
Fall versagt das Heilungsbemühen, während im
Fall des tieferen Wissens der Kranke geheilt
wurde.
Episode 5 thematisierte am Beispiel der
Weissagungshöhle die mit der wirklichen Macht
(4) verbundenen Prophezeihungsmöglichkeiten
des wahren Wissens (2).
Schließlich zeigte Pak Kamto in Episode 6
am Beispiel des Eingangstors noch einmal die
Kraft (4) des wahren Wissens (2): Wer im Besitz
9 Auf eine formalisierte Darstellung des scripts, wie sie in
der erwähnten Literatur aus der kognitiven Psychologie
durchgeführt wird, habe ich verzichtet, weil die Daten
und das script im Beispiel auch in nicht-formalisierter
Form gut durchschaubar sind.
dieses Wissens ist, vermag die Bedeutung sakra-
ler Stätten zu erkennen und respektiert sie. Da-
durch vermeidet er Schaden. Der Böswillige hin-
gegen wird durch sein oberflächliches Wissen zu
Missetaten verführt und am Ende bestraft.
5. Ausblick
5.1 Zur Analyse von Überzeugungssystemen
Ein kognitives Schema wie das hier vorgestellte
Mystik-script erfaßt selbstverständlich nicht alle
Facetten in einem System kulturellen Wissens. Es
ist vielmehr eine rationale Rekonstruktion wichti-
ger und vor allem kognitiver Komponenten (we-
niger der den Wissensinhalten unterliegenden
Emotionen, cf. D’Andrade 1984: 99-101) im
reichhaltigen Wissen von Angehörigen einer
fremden Kultur. Ein Schema wie das hier heraus-
gearbeitete Mystik-script liefert einen Wegweiser
durch das fremde Überzeugungssystem. Es gibt
Hinweise darauf, wie Mitglieder der untersuchten
Kultur (hier; der kejawen-Variante des javani-
schen Islam) in bestimmten Kontexten (im Bei-
spiel; an heiligen Orten) die Wirklichkeit deuten
und entsprechend ihrer Gedankenwelt handeln
(hier: mit Respekterweisung und Meditation).
Das script oder ein anderes kognitives Schema
(Schank and Abelson 1977) erfaßt somit die
grundsätzlichen Ordnungsprinzipien in einem Sy-
stem kulturellen Wissens. Speziell für scripts ist
sehr typisch, daß die Grundideen über den Hand-
lungsablauf sehr allgemein sind, damit das verein-
fachte Erinnerungsschema für die betreffende
Handlung auf viele Stimulisituationen angewandt
werden kann. So werden z. B. in den verschiede-
nen Episoden Pak Kamtos immer wieder diesel-
ben Denkfiguren wiederholt, was dem script sei-
ne episodenübergreifende generelle Wirksamkeit
als Denkmittel verleiht. Die Schlüssigkeit des in
der kognitiven Analyse erkannten Ordnungsprin-
zips kann einerseits am vorhandenen Datenmate-
rial (wie hier an den Episoden) überprüft werden.
Ein strengerer Test der Korrektheit ist jedoch die
Übertragung des Schemas auf neue Situationen
und seine darin sichtbare Prognosekraft. Im Un-
tersuchungsfall wäre im Diskurs mit anderen
tokoh kejawen (Mystik-Führern) an anderen hei-
ligen Orten zu überprüfen, ob in diesen Gesprä-
chen ähnliche Grundmuster wie im Mystik-script
auftreten und ob die an heiligen Orten vorgesehe-
nen Handlungen mit verwandten Ideen begründet
werden. - Zur Systematisierung und Analyse
solcher kognitiver Daten schlage ich (analog zu
Anthropos 83.1988
61
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen
den Arbeiten in Dougherty 1985; Rogoff and
Lave 1984; Kokot, Lang and Hinz 1982) vor, dem
script-Konstrukt und den anderen in dieser For-
schungsrichtung erkannten kognitiven Schemata
(Schank and Abelson 1977; Dyer 1986) mehr
Beachtung zu schenken. Die herkömmlichen eth-
nographischen Techniken eignen sich sehr gut zur
Erfassung von Detaildaten über kulturelles Wis-
Sen. Für die tiefergehende Deutung und Systema-
hsierung dieser reichhaltigen Daten erscheint je-
doch die Übernahme von Ordnungsprinzipien aus
er kognitiven Psychologie und der Artificial
JüelHgence Forschung sehr hilfreich (cf. in dieser
Richtung aus den zitierten Beiträgen besonders
*e Studien von Colby and Colby 1981; Hutchins
1980; Kokot 1982; Hinz 1984).
Eine umfassende Analyse des kulturellen
Jössens in einer Gesellschaft wird weitere
^sPekte in die Untersuchung einbeziehen müs-
Seib was in meinem Artikel jedoch nicht beab-
sichtigt war. Hier beschränkte ich mich (1) auf
!e kognitive Seite von Überzeugungen, d. h. auf
’e Analyse ihrer Inhalte und ihrer gedanklichen
S'i'ganisation. In der weitergesteckten Analyse ist
arüber hinaus darzulegen, (2) wie Vorstellun-
§en auf der Handlungsebene durch Rituale unter-
Stützt und geschaffen werden. So belegt z. B.
chieffelin (1985) für eine Gemeinschaft aus Neu-
§Ulnea, wie der Geisterglaube dort erst durch die
arnatische Erlebnisqualität von Heilritualen sei-
ne soziale Bedeutung erlangt. Weiterhin wäre
aufeuzeigen, (3) wie ein Überzeugungssystem
den übrigen Teilen der Kultur verbunden ist,
mit der Wirtschaft, der sozialen und politi-
en Organisation und den übrigen Sinnsyste-
^n- Diese Verflechtungen sind deshalb zu be-
ten, weil alle diese Bereiche potentiell in
em (allerdings nicht perfekt integrierten) Sy-
J^Zusammenhang stehen. Keesings (1982)
a*yse des Ahnenkults und Geisterglaubens auf
h-, aita ist in diesem Zusammenhang eine vor-
1 liehe Fallstudie: Sie zeigt sowohl (1) den
anklichen Aufbau dieses Überzeugungssy-
le nS’ (2) seine Alltagsrelevanz und seine rituel-
y Entsetzung, als auch (3) die unterschiedliche
erbreitung des Wissens und der Praktiken nach
zialen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Unter-
Äderungen der Gemeinschaft.
S.2
Zur regionalen Verbreitung der Überzeugungen
über heilige Orte
Bak Kamtos Überzeugungen zu den heiligen Or-
*en von Majapahit unterliegt die Vorstellung von
Anthropos 83.1988
kasar-geprägter Oberflächeninformation und tie-
fem, wahrem Wissen, das der a/us-Haltung ent-
springt. Für mich war es sehr eindrucksvoll, zu
erleben, wie ein Angehöriger dieser mystischen
Weitsicht die doch eher graue Wirklichkeit mit
Leben erfüllt. Der Diskurs mit Pak Kamto zeigt
sehr deutlich, daß im Modjokuto der Gegenwart
der mystische Weg zur Einsicht noch beschritten
wird. Wieviele Gefolgsleute und Sympathisanten
dieser Richtung des Islam in Pare anhängen, weiß
ich nicht. Ich habe jedoch aus Gesprächen in Pare
den Eindruck gewonnen, daß es eine größere
Zahl von Angehörigen dieser Glaubensrichtung
gibt (cf. Stange 1984 zur Sumarah-Organisation in
Java, die gleichfalls in dieses Spektrum fällt). In
Pak Kamtos Aussagen finden sich in klarer und
vergröberter Form viele Ideen wieder (z. B. der
Gegensatz alus/kasar), die in komplexerer, elabo-
rierter Fassung auch von den Großstadt-Intellek-
tuellen Mittel) avas artikuliert werden (cf. beson-
ders Errington 1984). Die hier vorgestellten
Überzeugungsdaten eines Kleinstadt-guru haben
den heuristischen Vorteil, einfach und gleichzeitig
authentisch zu sein. Sicherlich ist der größere
Umfang der Wissensdaten in diesen anderen Un-
tersuchungen auch eine Folge der intensiveren
und längeren Datenerhebung. Es wäre zu über-
prüfen, ob das Mystik-script in elaborierterer
Form auch auf die Vorstellungen zu heiligen
Orten der „gebildeten“ Mystiker zutrifft. Fest
steht, daß Pak Kamto mit seinen Aussagen über
die heiligen Orte zumindest punktuell ein keja-
wen-javanisches Thema variiert. Wolters’ Aus-
führungen über “soul stuff” und “prowess”
(1982: 101-104) in Südostasien, Provenchers
(1975: 120-121) Aussagen zur Lebenskraft, zu
Geistern und heiligen Orten bei den Malaien (cf.
Winstedt 1924) belegen verwandte Vorstellungen
in anderen Kulturen des Archipels (cf. auch
Linder 1985: 138-139 zu einem heiligen Ort im
Sundagebiet Westjavas). Die deutlichste Parallele
zu den javanischen Vorstellungen über heilige
Orte beschreibt Shelly Errington (1983) für die
Bugis in Sulawesi. Es gibt dort, wie in Java
(Anderson 1972), die Auffassung von einer gei-
stig-sakralen Macht (sumange’), die an bestimm-
ten Orten (meist Friedhöfen) und bei mächtigen
Personen (meist Adligen) auftritt. Die Orte wer-
den makarre’ genannt (Errington 1983: 566).
Menschen, die als halusu (kultiviert, verfeinert,
geistig stark) gelten, können diese Kraft durch
Meditation anzapfen (1983: 555-556, 558-559).
Für Personen jedoch, die als kasara einzuschät-
zen sind, besteht an heiligen Orten höchste Ge-
fahr, Unglück zu erleiden (1983: 556, 566-567).
62
Thomas Schweizer
An heiligen Stätten und im Umgang mit Mächti-
gen sind daher nach buginesischer Ethik Umsicht
und Respekt angebracht. Es hat den Anschein,
daß bei den Bugis die heiligen Orte und Personen
allgemein bekannt sind. In Java gibt es zwar
gleichfalls Orte, die bekanntermaßen sakralen
Charakter besitzen (z. B. die mitteljavanischen
Fürstengräber von Imogiri, Gräber mächtiger
Personen insgesamt, ehemalige oder noch intakte
Fürstenhöfe). Die genaue Wertigkeit einer Stätte
jedoch und die exakte Bestimmung, welche Grä-
ber oder welche Plätze an solchen Orten die
höchste Kraftkonzentration aufweisen, unterlie-
gen dem Geheimnis. Dieses Geheimnis wird erst
von einem guru durch Meditation und göttliche
Eingebung enhüllt. Damit ist auch das genaue
Wissen um diese Stätten in der javanischen Kul-
tur nicht öffentlich zugänglich. Es bedarf zu
seiner Entschlüsselung des Spezialisten. Der
kurze Vergleich zeigt immerhin, daß Pak Kamtos
und die javanischen Auffassungen zu den heiligen
Orten eine Variante eines Glaubenskomplexes
aus der weiteren Inselwelt Südostasiens darstel-
len. Der Hinweis auf die heiligen Männer (mara-
but) und die Vorstellung einer geistigen Kraft
(baraka) in Marokko (Gellner 1969; Eickelman
1976) und die als heilig geltenden Einsiedler
Thailands (Tambiah 1984) belegen die weltweite
Verbreitung von Ideen, die in einer bestimmten
Kombination und Ausformung in den Äußerun-
gen unseres Schlüsselinformanten aus „Modjoku-
tou enthalten waren. Welche dieser Vorstellun-
gen durch Diffusion aus der arabischen Welt
(Schimmel 1985) und welche über das hindubud-
dhistische Erbe (Zoetmulder 1965) nach Java
gelangten, welche Auffassungen spezifisch java-
nisch sind, auch die Frage, welche dieser Vorstel-
lungen (wie z. B. die Schuldtheorie der Krank-
heit, cf. Episode 1 und 4) allgemein menschliche
Reaktionen auf elementare Lebensprobleme dar-
stellen, soll hier nicht beantwortet werden. Hier
sollte vielmehr am Beispiel eines guru aus „Mod-
jokuto” dargelegt werden, daß die mystischen
Vorstellungen (cf. Geertz 1960: Kap. 20) in all
ihrer Verwickeltheit in diesem “famous place”
auf Java noch heute geglaubt werden, und daß
das alte Reich Majapahit bis in die Gegenwart
das mystische Denken in Java inspiriert. Auch
möchte ich mit diesem Beispiel die Anregung
aussprechen, daß es sich lohnen könnte, die
gedankliche Struktur der javanischen Mystik und
anderer praktischer Überzeugungssysteme mit
den Mitteln der kognitiven und symbolischen
Ethnologie zu analysieren.
Margarete Schweizer, Heddy Shri Ahimsa Putra, Ul-
rich Kratz, Hartmut Lang, Waltraud Kokot, Jutta
Daszenies, Stefan Dietrich, Margareta Pavaloi, Robert
P. Abelson und Angehörige der Fakultät für Kultur-
wissenschaft der Universität Tübingen waren mit Hilfe
und Hinweisen am Entstehen dieses Aufsatzes betei-
ligt. Ihnen danke ich sehr. Für den Inhalt bin ich
alleine verantwortlich.
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Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 65-85
Sakalava Dancing Battles
Representations of Conflict in Sakalava Royal Service
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Abstract. - Sakalava royal service honors the dynasty that
governed western Madagascar prior to the French conquest in
18%. Services range from annual purifications of ancestral
re'ics to generational reconstructions of royal tombs. Praise
s°ngs and dances are considered essential complements to
r°yal work, having historic as well as aesthetic dimensions.
1 be rebiky commemorates battles among rival branches of the
^ynasty that Sakalava regard as basic to its growing strength
r°rn the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and its more
recent decline. The rebiky is the only Sakalava dance in which
Participants, regardless of age, gender, or ancestry, take on
ne roles of royalty as well as those of royal subjects. The
Pattern of participation in the rebiky, common to many
asPects of Sakalava royal work, embodies ideas about the
°rganization of competition and the resolution of conflict that
apply broadly to the conduct of current everyday affairs.
/Madagascar, Politics, Work, Dance, History]
^'Hian Feeley-Harnik, Ph. D., is a Professor in the Anthro-
P°logy Department at The Johns Hopkins University, Balti-
. °re, Maryland. - Following field research in Madagascar in
W3 and briefly in 1981, she has published numerous
atticles on the Sakalava and is currently writing a book on
^kalava ideas and practices concerning work, death, and
Velopment in Madagascar (Smithsonian Institution Press).
Introduction
Th
ne people of Madagascar are celebrated in the
anthropological and historical literature for their
intricate funeral customs, which include rituals of
Uriak The Merina, for example, periodically
Ury the bones of their ancestors in silk
rouds, commensurate in beauty and number
107 social status of the deceased (Bloch
t)- Merina royalty of the precolonial period
fie^e not Pcbnricd, but the living ruler was puri-
at the beginning of every lunar new year in a
s^r^m°ny known as the “bath” (fandroana), de-
I *n Merina oral traditions (Callet 1974
a1*.935]: 301-329, II [1956]: 116-124; see also
^ninal 1949-1950, Collins 1898, Molet 1956,
a e 1907, Razafimino 1924, based on reports
atlng from 1817)
1 ne complex funeral customs of the Sakalava
Western Madagascar take a somewhat different
form. Sakalava focus on the ancestors of the
Maroserafia dynasty that ruled this coastal area,
not the ancestors of the people who were once
their subjects. The bodies of deceased royalty are
left in their tombs, but periodically relics made
from them or regalia associated with them are
taken out from their shrines, purified, and put
away again. Sakalava in the former territory of
Menabe south of Mahajanga bathe (mitampoka)
royal relics known as “elders” (dady) in sea
water. These ceremonies are held every seven to
ten years at royal compounds still occupied by
descendants of the dynasty. “Northern Sakalava”
living in the former territory of Boina, from
Mahajanga to Nosy Be, “serve” (manompo) the
“(things that) bless, heal” (mitahy, mitaha) or
“difficult things” (raha sarotra) by purifying them
in a mixture of honey and water, fermented with
bark {tô mainty). These royal services (fanompo-
ana) take place in the first month of the lunar
new year {fanjava mitsaka, about July).
Among the “Southern” and “Northern”
branches of the Bemihisatra Sakalava living in the
areas of Analalava and Nosy Be-Ambanja, the
service is carried out at both the royal compound
of the currently living descendant of the Marose-
rana dynasty (doany) and at the royal cemetery
where the royal ancestors are buried (.mahabo).
The Southern Bemihisatra Sakalava in the Anala-
lava region also repeat some aspects of the royal
funeral in the process of reconstructing the fence
immediately surrounding the royal tomb some
years later. Known after the name of the fence,
the menaty service takes the same form as the
new year’s ceremonies: the old fence is taken
down, the tomb enclosing the bodies is cleansed
with tô mainty, and a new fence is put up around
it.
Sakalava variations on the “royal bath” have
been described at some length (Chazan-Gillic
1983, Feeley-Harnik 1979, n. d. a, Nerine-Boto-
keky 1983, Platon 1958, Poirier 1939a, 19396,
R-n-j-s 1878, Raharijaona and Valette 1959).
66
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
This essay concerns some less familiar aspects
of Sakalava royal ritual, especially the fighting
dance known as rebiky that accompanies both
the new year’s rituals and the menaty service in
the Analalava region. In preserving the treasures
of their own cultural heritage through royal ser-
vice, Sakalava represent to themselves their past
history and its relevance to their current lives.
The rebiky evokes battles among rival branches
of the Maroseraha dynasty that Sakalava regard
as central to the expansion and the decline of the
monarchy in the precolonial period and to the use
and abuse of power at any time.
2. Sakalava Representations of History
The term “Sakalava” refers to diverse groups of
people along the west coast of Madagascar, who
have in common their continuing respect for the
monarchy (fanjakana) of the Maroserana dynas-
ty, said to have been founded in southwestern
Madagascar in the late fifteenth-century by mi-
grants from Araby. Over the next three centuries,
descendants of the Maroserana founded new
branches of the monarchy as they moved north
along the west coast. They established their king-
doms by conquest until the early 19th century.
With the death of the first queen, Ravahiny, in
Majunga in 1808, the Maroserana began fleeing
north to escape the efforts of the Merina to
colonize Sakalava domains in western Madagas-
car. Having taken refuge on the island of Nosy
Be, they enlisted the aid of the French against the
Merina in exchange for Nosy Be and a portion of
the adjacent mainland. In 1896, French troops
invaded Madagascar and transformed the island
from a protectorate into a French possession.
Madagascar finally achieved independence in
1960. Branches of the Maroserana dynasty, main-
tained in power during the colonial period
through indirect rule, still command respect in
many parts of the west coast.
Sakalava in the Analalava area represent
their royal history in different ways. The architec-
ture of their sanctuaries inverts the order of
spatial relations among “simple people” (olo
tsotra) by making the south, from which the
conquerers came, dominant over north. The
shrines to the royal ancestors are located in the
southern parts of the royal compounds and south
also takes precedence over north in royal service,
except when royalty are represented in terms of
their kinship to one another. The special vocabu-
lary that people must use in speaking to or about
royal persons incorporates many southern and
foreign terms. The praise names by which royal an-
cestors are known summarize the major achieve-
ments of their reigns.
The royal ancestors are also thought to pos-
sess people, making them sick until people recog-
nize them by giving them the clothing, canes,
jewelry, and other personal items that affirm who
they are (Feeley-Harnik n. d. b). Once identified,
they can resume relations with the living, often
healing similar afflictions in others. The language,
behavior, and materials associated with spirit
possession display the participants’ understanding
of Sakalava royal history and custom. Those who
undergo the legitimation procedures required of
spirit mediums associated with the royalty buried
in the mahabo are tested on their knowledge of
the time and place in which they lived (Feeley-
Harnik 1978).
Sakalava also commemorate their past in
royal songs and dances. Kolondoy are short,
pithy chants that evoke the primordial condition
of royal ancestors, hidden deep within the forest,
monstrous in their infinite capacity to destroy as
well as heal and bless. They are always sung at
the opening and closing of the doors in the fences
around the royal compound and the tomb, when
ritual materials are moved in and out of these
enclosures, and when cattle are sacrificed. This
kolondoy, for example, is sung as officiants enter
the outermost fence around the royal tomb:
Bibianala, kaka manda,
Savao lala, fa hiditra é!
Animal in the forest, monstrous thing.
Clear the way, [we] are coming in!
Women, often spirit mediums, sing these
songs, though men are not prohibited from join-
ing them. With heads uncovered and braids
down (as required for participation in any royal
service), they take up slender sticks (firozoko/
fihozoko/fohozoko) in their right hands.1 Holding
the sticks straight up, they stand in rows, facing
east toward the relic house at the doany or the
tomb at the mahabo. As they sing, they take a
few steps forward, then back again, while moving
the sticks slowly from side to side. They move
very little because, as one woman explained,
1 At the mahabo, the sticks are stacked upright in a pile
just south of the door to the outermost fence around the
tomb (sometimes there is a second pile north of the
fence). As one resident explained, they have to be “up”
(ambony), that is, near the tomb, built on the highest
ground in the village, not “down” (ambany) among the
houses on its north, west, and south sides.
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
67
“The [difficult] things are just there” (Raha fa ao
fôno). Moving freely, like improvising songs, is
associated with the relaxation of prohibitions that
is characteristic of “lower things” (raha ambany),
whereas kolondoy are considered to be “great
songs of the past” (antsa maventy taloha) that
never change." Before each kolondoy, the singers
pay homage to the royal ancestors (mikoezy) by
bending down on both knees and bringing their
cupped hands up to their foreheads and over the
backs of their bowed heads.
Both women and men can sing the “big
songs” (antsa be/maventy) in which Sakalava
praise royalty while asking for their blessing
(■milamalama, mangataka hatsarana), though usu-
ally the women are far more numerous. Whereas
kolondoy are “standing songs,” these are “sitting
songs” (antsa mipetraka)', men to the north and
women to the south sit crosslegged facing east
toward the relic house or tomb.
In contrast to kolondoy, “sitting songs” may
include jijy, long sections in which the lead singer
(usually a man) elaborates on the histories and
special qualities of royalty.3 Praise singers are
admired most for the skill with which they can
draw out their songs with unusual combinations
°f traditional and novel forms of praise (mivava-
tra, mangolikoliky), the same qualities that are
admired in formal speeches (kabary). More of-
ten, the lead singer simply intones the melody,
while the chorus answers with one of several
common responses: “I need blessing!” (Zaho
müa meva é!), “Taking away anger” (Mangala
heloko), “Going to the north, going to the south”
(Manavaratra, manambalaka), “[It] makes [us] so
§lad that [you, the ancestors] have come” (Maha-
ravoravo navy).
At the royal cemetery, boys and girls, stan-
ding off to the south of their elders, may sing
Popular songs (goma, kaoitry) at the same time.
3 The embodiments of the royal ancestors at the doany and
mahabo always stay in the same place. The “difficult
things” at the doany are not removed from the ancestors’
house when they are purified during the New Year’s
ceremony. The mahabo, unlike the doany, never changes
location.
3 See Feeley-Harnik (1982: 31) for an example. The suppli-
cator’s words to the royal ancestors on behalf of peti-
tioners who have come to the doany or mahabo are also
called jijy. The petitioner does not make his own state-
ment; “the supplicator tells it” (ny ampangataka mijijy
azy)- It is prohibited to talk about royalty, past or present
{mijijy is equated here with mitantara) except under
certain circumstances.
Anthropos 83.1988
These songs, often describing local people or
events, are disparaged as “silly sing-songs”, “play
songs” (antsa-antsa adaladala, antsa somasoma)
in contrast to the “big songs” that adults sing of
and for royalty. Still, when young people (usually
boys) stay up all night singing “for the monarchy”
(.manao tsimandrimandry), they are entitled to
payment for their services when they go from
house to house at dawn, singing to the inhabitants
to wake them up:
Ah, Vazaha,
Vazaha mahabo
Vazahanay 6!
Mangataka savoho,
Mangataka fanjava,
Mangataka mokary,
Ah, Baban’Masy
BabanMasy am’ mahabo,
etc.
Ah, Europeans,
Europeans at the mahabo,
our Europeans, eeeeeee!
[We] ask for soap,
[We] ask for money,
[We] ask for rice cakes,
Ah, Masy’s Father,
Masy’s Father at the mahabo,
etc.
Kolondoy, sometimes called “ancestor-
songs” (antsan-drazaha), are performed only for
the royal ancestors at the doany and mahabo.
They cannot be performed for Soazara, the living
ruler, because - in the words of one of the
guardians at the doany - she is “their grandchild,
beneath them” {ny zafiny, ambany) whose prin-
ciple task is to organize the services honoring her
royal ancestors. Praise songs are sung more wide-
ly - at the royal centers, for the living ruler as
well as the ancestors, and in the houses of
commoners where the songs are sung to call royal
spirits into people’s bodies and to cosset them
after they arrive. Royal spirits in mediums and
living rulers are also entertained with “amuse-
ments” {soma), including popular songs {goma,
kaoitry) and dances, both Malagasy and Europe-
an {trotrobe/tsijika Antandrano, salegy, baly).
One of the purposes of the praise songs is to
assuage royal anger, a major source of sickness
and death. The soma celebrate the joyful well-
being that comes when the anger is gone. Soma,
meaning “dance” in Swahili, refers throughout
Madagascar to amusements of all sorts, including
children’s games. The key feature of soma for
Sakalava is that “[When] people play, there are
no prohibitions” {Olo misoma tsisy fady).
All these songs and dances celebrate the
histories and qualities of royalty. One kind of
68
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
soma commemorates the very different origins of
royal slaves imported from Africa during the
precolonial period. These are the soma bekiviro,
named for a drum found only at the royal ceme-
tery. The bekiviro is made from the trunk of a
sakoana tree (Poupartaria caffra) about the size
of a grown person. The “head” (loha) is hollowed
out and covered with an ox-hide (chosen for its
strength); the other end is carved into a foot. The
big drum, sometimes called “the great grandfa-
ther”, is played together with its “children” (za-
nany), a pair of double-sided drums, one smaller
than the other, and a pair of copper plates (patso,
Swahili “plate”). The small drums are like the
pair of royal drums called mahandria, but they
are not the same as those played during the day-
time for royal services.
Sakalava at both the doany and mahabo
begin royal services in the evening by singing “big
songs” in front of the door to the tomb. At the
mahabo, they stop singing after a couple of hours,
and everyone except resident spirit mediums,
stands up and starts clapping in unison and
singing phrases like Navy el (“It has come!”) as
the instruments are removed from the “[royal]
bekiviro house” (zomba bekiviro) at the southern
end of the open space in front of the burial
compound: first the patso, then the small drums,
then the bekiviro. Eight men bring the bekiviro,
foot-first, over to the drummer’s box, a stand of
four posts open on the west side, located in front
of the door to the tomb. They put the drum in
front, east of the stand, its foot resting on a mat.
The “children” are attached to the western side
of the stand, the larger one on the north, the
smaller one on the south. The patso are put, one
half over the other, on a round piece of wood on
the ground north of the stand (see Fig. 1). While
everyone else sits down, two women, one north
and one south, hold the drum while the drummer
ties it in place by slipping a rope through the rings
on the north and south sides of the head.
Men play these instruments. Anyone, includ-
ing boys, can play the small drums or the patso\
the bekiviro is said to be the “difficult” (sarotra)
one. Anyone can learn, but the men who play it
most often belong to the group (Antibe) from
which the “supplicator” (ampangataka) is chosen.
The supplicator, who appeals to the royal ances-
tors on behalf of people seeking their help, is the
most important official at the royal cemetery, and
he decides whether or not the drum will be
brought out.
The drummer first cleans the surface of the
drum with a cloth. Then he warms the ox-hide
Fig. 1: Bekiviro at the Southern Mahabo on the island of
Nosy Lava, Analalava Region, prior to 1950. (Service de la
Presse et de la Photographie du Ministère de l’Information;
TY 13, no. 205)
with a torch of grass, moving it around counter-
clockwise until it burns down to a stump. Finally
he starts playing. The dancers move slowly count-
er-clockwise around the bekiviro. Men go first,
then women, though more men get attached to
the end of the line as it gets moving: right foot
forward, rock in place; left foot forward, rock in
place. The first man, and sometimes the other
dancers, leads with his right hand at the same
time, then drops it back to his side, or clasps both
hands to the left. As they dance, they sing
“Muslim” or “Makoa songs” (antsa Silamo, antsa
Makoa) in Swahili. The songs and dances go on
intermittantly throughout the night. Just before
dawn, eight men carry the bekiviro back into its
house, foot-first, followed by the smaller drums
and finally the patso, while the women clap in
unison and sing “big songs.”
The soma bekiviro are performed only at the
royal cemetery and only at night; it is prohibited
for the bekiviro to be seen or heard in daylight.
One mahabo resident, who first described the
soma as “Muslim, Arab dances” (tsinjika Silamo,
Arabo), explained that the drum was introduced
during the time [c. 1849-69] of the “Great Grand-
father” (Dadilahy Be, in relation to the current
ruler), who observed Muslim customs. But then
he added that these were “mixed Makoa-Silamo
songs, one of their slaves’ kinds of entertain-
ments” (antsa Makoa miharo Silamo, karazana
soma andevondred). Sakalava rulers imported
substantial numbers of African slaves through
Muslim traders in the precolonial period. Makoa
or Masombiky, as these slaves were known, were
transferred from the doany to the mahabo to
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
69
continue serving their masters after death. They
were also sent to the mahabo directly, as well as
purchased by royal slaves who wanted to avoid
being sent themselves.4
3. The rebiky
The rebiky involves both Sakalava royalty and
their followers, who are primarily their royal
slaves (Sambarivo) at the doany and mahabo, but
who ultimately include all the people in the
domain who have voluntarily subordinated them-
selves to royalty (Figs. 2, 4-10). Although Sakala-
va describe the rebiky as a soma, it is an essential
Part of the royal services marking the new year. It
18 performed for both the living ruler and the
royal ancestors, only at the doany and mahabo, ex-
cept in the reconstruction of the royal tomb, when
h is performed at the lumber camp that repli-
cates the organization of these “sacred places”
{tany masina).5
The rebiky is further distinguished from oth-
er dances as the only one in which commoners
take on the roles of royalty. In spirit mediumship,
4 See Molet's (1958) note on Fig. 1, reproduced on the
cover of the Bulletin de Madagascar, which also suggests
that the drum is “d'inspiration et de facture africaines”.
Skene (1917: 418-420) describes circle dances, especially
the ki-nyasa and mdema dances originally from Nyasa-
land, practiced only by slaves and “people of humble
origin" in Malindi on the East African coast that are
similar though not identical to the bekiviro dance. Several
°f the "Arab and Swahili" dances and ceremonies that
Skene describes are accompanied by an instrument just
like the patso: "cymbals of brass called vitasa [‘iron/metal
saucers' in Malagasy], which are placed on the ground
one above another and struck with pieces of stick, one in
each hand, so as to make the cymbals rattle together”
(Skene 1917; 414, see also pp. 416, 425, 426, 427).
The previous bekiviro, burnt in a fire, was said to
have been so big that it could be heard in Analalava:
"When you heard it, you yearned (ngoma) to be there.”
Residents of the mahabo built (nanompo) the present one
at the mainland village where the Southern Mahabo was
once relocated during the colonial period.
Some Sakalava say that the term bekiviro refers to
the metal rings on either the side of the “head” of the
drum, which are like “large earrings” {be kiviro, other-
wise kavina). They use the term entre-madamo to refer to
earrings since the death of the Sakalava ampanjaka Kavy
ln the early colonial period, when the use of her personal
name and all words resembling it was prohibited.
^ The rebiky at the lumber camp uses the costumes and
drums that are kept at the mahabo because the living
mler reconstructs the fence around the royal tomb to
honor the royal ancestors buried there.
6nth
Fig. 2: Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” and “white”
rulers and their followers. Doany, Andriamisara at Mahajan-
ga?, prior to 1950. (Service de la Presse et de la Photographie
du Ministère de l’Information; TY 13, no. 210)
commoners are thought to be possessed by royal-
ty. In dancing the rebiky, they simply play their
roles in battle, but their close identification with
royalty in this context sometimes has more se-
rious consequences.
Sakalava dance the rebiky at all royal rites of
passage: weddings, circumcisions, first hair-cut-
tings, “all big festivities” (jama), in the words of
a doany official.6 These are infrequent, however,
and most Sakalava associate the rebiky with the
annual services (fanompoana) at the doany and
mahabo, especially the new year’s service. As one
resident at the doany said, referring to the hats
(sabaka) worn in the dance;
6 He emphasized that this was exclusively royal custom, not
the custom of “simple people.” Dandouau’s (1908:
171-173) description of the sabàka worn by a mother’s
brother, the officiant and first dancer, together with the
father’s sister, at a boy’s first haircut among Sakalava in
the Sambirano region north of Analalava, probably
comes from the same group of “fils de chefs et de rois
indigènes” who provided what he considered “la majeure
partie, la meilleure, pourrions-nous dire” of the folk-tales
he collected (1922: 7).
lr°pos 83.1988
70
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Fig. 3: The ampanjaka Soazara and her retinue in front of
the royal house (zomba). Doany, Analalava, c. 1935. (Photo-
graphie du Service Photo-Cinéma de la Direction de l’Infor-
mation; TY 13, no. 4)
They are very difficult. On the days that we pray [mivavaka -
a way of explaining royal service (manompo) by comparing it
to Christian or Muslim practice], on the big days, people put
those on. It is a sacred dance (tsinjika masina). The Mompera
and Masera [the Catholic priest and sisters] come around and
say that we are all worshiping the ampanjaka, but that is not
true at all. We all worship Zanahary [a term that refers to a
single supreme creator-god and to the royal ancestors]. The
ampanjaka dances too. She leads (mampitondra).
Sakalava serve the royal ancestors on the
“good” days (Friday, Saturday, and Monday in
that order) that coincide with the waxing moon.
The “bad” days are those on which rulers died;
the waning moon, like the setting sun, is also
associated with death. The service begins with
singing and dancing that lasts throughout the
night until the break of dawn (tsimandrimandry,
“little sleep,” “dozing”). At the doany, women
sing “big songs” in front of the relic house inside
the royal enclosure. At the mahabo, the “big
songs” in front of the door to the burial com-
pound are sometimes accompanied by the popu-
lar songs, and they alternate with long periods of
bekiviro songs and dances. People come and go,
but usually they rejoin the crowd early in the
morning; Sunday night, following two tsimandri-
mandry, is the only time that the boys are left to
sing on their own.
Services, accompanied by kolondoy, and lat-
er the royal drums (manandria) and conch shell
trumpet, are carried out as the sun rises in the
morning. Except when the new year is celebrat-
ed, the rebiky is performed only after the service
is completed (tombo). People dance the rebiky
throughout the afternoon until the sun sets. Roy-
al service is often described as “difficult” owing
to the many prohibitions involved. Dancing the
rebiky after the service is over is an opportunity
to relax. At the new year’s service and the one
that follows, this is the time that cows are slaugh-
tered and meat distributed.
When the rebiky starts, people disperse to
the sidelines to watch; no one sings. (Toward the
end of the afternoon, if it is beginning to get
dark, women mikolondoy before the door during
the last dance, leaving as it ends. The door is shut
minutes later.) The rebiky is danced to the sound
of a pair of double-sided drums, a “mother”
{reny) and a smaller “child” (zanaka), known
collectively as “ennobling” (manandria) (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Rebiky. Sambarivo men playing manandria. Doany,
Analalava, c. 1935. (Photographie du Service Photo-Cinéma
de la Direction de l’Information; TY 13, no. 70)
They are like the manandria that accompany
royal services, but some Sakalava emphasize that
these are separate sets of drums, like the “chil-
dren” that accompany the bekiviro. The drums at
the mahabo are decorated with red designs on a
white ground:
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
71
At the doany, both the manandria and the
costumes for the rebiky are kept in the ancestors’
house inside the royal compound. At the maha-
bo, the manandria are kept with the bekiviro, and
the costumes are kept in a trunk in the “[royal]
house of destiny” (zomba vinta) where ritual
paraphernalia is stored inside the burial com-
pound. At the end of the services, one of the
“little slaves” (andevo kely), that is, a female
Worker at the doany or mahabo, carries out the
costumes, wrapped in a bright red cloth, holding
them on her head with both hands.7 At the
doany, she brings them to the ruler’s house in the
northern half of the royal compound. At the
mahabo, she brings them to the house of the
supplicator, located outside the burial compound
to the south. The supplicator and other members
°f his group dress the dancers and redress them if
Parts of the costume come loose or fall off. Later
the costumes are taken back into the zomban-
drazaha and zomba vinta in the same way, the
Person carrying the two guns in the lead, the
costumes on the head of the man or woman
behind.
The manandria are hung on a forked post at
the southwest corner of the fence around the
aucestors’ house at the doany and at the southern
side of the door to the burial compound at the
mahabo, the “mother” on the north, the “child”
°n the south. There is a second post south of the
boor just inside the burial compound that is used
^hen the rebiky is danced for the ancestors in the
r°yal tomb. Women are prohibited from playing
bie manandria. A pair of men “sound” (mando-
boka) the drums, using a stick in the right hand
and the fingers of the left. Sakalava also say,
Using the verb from the royal vocabulary: “The
Manandria speak [like royalty]” {Misaontsy mah-
andria).8
7 This is the way that women carry all royal materials and,
metaphorically, the way that people support the mon-
archy; on [in] the head. The head is also considered the
Purest, and apparently most purifying, part of the body.
Once when one of the male workers at the mahabo was
carrying some “white earth” {tany fotsy/malandy, the
kaolin with which the sign of royal blessing is made on the
face) out of the burial compound, he dropped a piece on
the ground. People yelled to tell him, and he picked it up
and put it directly back into the offering dish that he was
carrying in front of him. As one woman (a spirit medium)
said, he should have put it on his head first [to cleanse it],
then into the dish.
Women are also prohibited from making manandria or
seeing them made. Two men used special words for the
different sounds of the manandria. Pimakala describes
the rhythms of the drums used to accompany royal
service or the rebiky. Mbotakalisa is played when people
Anthropos 83.1988
Anyone can dance the rebiky- men, women,
children, royalty, commoners, slaves, natives, or
strangers - provided they conform to the steps
appropriate to each role. As it was explained
repeatedly to one dancer; “Each to his own
assigned duty/task!” (Samby am’ devoaran’ anyl).
The pattern of participation in the rebiky is
common to many aspects of Sakalava royal ser-
vice. Four people (two male, two female) are
arranged in two unequally matched pairs of rulers
and followers (mpanaraka), one of the common-
est words for royal subjects. The rulers of one
sex are in costumes, holding wooden replicas of
guns, the followers of the other sex are dressed in
their ordinary clothing, holding sticks (fihozoko).
Dancers also choose their own partners (namana)
- that is, one dancer of royalty chooses the other
- because, as one dancer explained it, “after all,
you need people of like character to dance to-
gether” (mila olo miramira tomboka mitsinjika
boka). Nevertheless, the pair led by the “red”
ruler is superior to the pair led by the “white”
one. And in practice, the same people who dress
the dancers and who are most familiar with the
steps also do most of the dancing and, by general
agreement, dance the best.
The whole dance is performed in pairs. At
the doany, it is done first from west to east along
the south side of the royal enclosure in honor of
the royal ancestors in the ancestors’ house; sec-
ond from south to north, along the center of the
royal compound in honor of the living sovereign,
seated at the door of her own house. The begin-
ning and end of each dance is framed by the same
gesture of obeisance to the royal ancestors that
the women make before and after each kolondoy.
The dancers usually kneel down on their left knee
beforehand and sit down cross-legged after the
dance is over. The living ruler receives the hom-
age at the beginning, but not the request for
ancestral blessing at the end. In one case, two
women about to play the rulers’ roles refused to
dance right after they had made their obeisance.
Two men took their places immediately. The
women watched on the sidelines, and when the
dance was over, both the men and the women
went back to the door of the tomb to bow down
go to mikoezy (ny antsa mandeha mikoezy). Bisibisiky
(“whispering”) is the sound used to call people to service
or to dance. Sakalava also use bisibisiky when, for
example, a sick person whispers to the royal spirit in
charge of a possession ceremony so that his or her
relatives will not hear what is being said. I know of no
other meanings for the other words, which were unfamili-
ar to most people.
72
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
for the second time. The dancers playing the
rulers are most careful about this; sometimes the
followers just walk away.9
The rebiky is also done twice at the royal
cemetery. First, and once only, dancers perform
inside the burial compound for the royal spirits in
the tomb, while people outside are paying their
respects at the door to the compound. Then, after
the services at the door are over, dancers perform
several times for the royal spirits embodied in
mediums who are seated in the open-air meeting
house north of the door. Inside the burial com-
pound, the rulers dance without their followers,
moving from the northwest corner of the enclo-
sure “up” (southeastward) toward the northwest
corner of the menaty-fence immediately around
the tomb. Outside the burial compound, the
rulers dance with their followers, beginning in the
southwest corner of the open space in front of the
door and moving “up” (northeastward) toward
the royal ancestors in the meeting house.
The sequence of dances at the mahabo of the
Southern Bemihisatra, often called the “Southern
Mahabo” (Mahabo Ambalaka), is repeated the
next day, following morning services, at the
“Northern Mahabo” (Mahabo Avaratra), where
a Bemazava ruler is buried, a descendant of Saka-
lava royalty, but from a branch that Bemihisatra
consider to be junior to their own.
Finally, the total number of dances should be
even not odd, in keeping with the general pro-
scription against odd numbers in any aspect of
royal ritual. Odd numbers signify discord. The
rebiky itself is a representation of battle, but, as
one man said, explaining the occasionally odd
numbers of dances; “There must be pairs - men,
then women. Pairs, that’s how it is done, but
people don’t do it.” (Tsy maintsy fivadiaña - lehi-
lahy, avy eo mañangy . . . Fivadiaña, zegny fana-
ovaña izy io, fa olo tsy mañano). Every one thing
should have its vady or namana, words that apply
to partners ranging from spouses to friends. Even
royal persons, whose singularity is stressed in a
variety of contexts, must be matched by other
royal persons, and royal persons must be matched
9 People usually disregard the behavior of such followers,
considering it merely in keeping with their poor dancing.
Nevertheless, when a girl belonging to an important
group at the Southern Mahabo walked away without
paying her respects at the end, a woman on the sidelines
shouted “[You] are committing sorcery!” (Mamorikyl).
In the one case in which two men, playing rulers, left
without honoring the royal ancestors, a male observer
commented to a local companion that formerly they
would have been beaten.
by commoners, and all of them by slaves. How to
work equity into hierarchy through the obliga-
tions of pairs is perhaps the most prominent
theme in the rebiky, in its subject matter and in
the “customs” (fomba) and “prohibitions” (fady)
governing its performance.
The “red” pair dances “ahead” (aloha) and
the subordinate pair dances “behind” (afara): “It
is prohibited for white to go ahead” (Fady malan-
dy mandeha aloha). The lead dancers, armed
with wooden guns, begin by moving toward the
royalty for whom they are performing, arms held
out wide to both sides, guns pointing up in the air
(Fig. 2). They bring the guns, still upright, in
toward their bodies, lowering their heads slightly
(Fig. 5b). Then the “red” ruler turns toward the
“white” ruler, with his gun pointing forward and
cloth, held between the fingers of his left hand,
stretched out in front of him. He crouches down,
aims, and shoots as the “white” ruler turns away,
shielding himself with his gun. The “white” ruler
then crouches, aims, and shoots as the “red”
ruler turns away. Both of them turn away from
their royal audience, then they turn back and
repeat the sequence again (Figs. 9a-d). Their
companions follow east and south of them, hold-
ing the sticks in their right hands like women
singing kolondoy, though some knowledgeable
dancers seem to have done more than that in
rebiky performed during the colonial period (see
Figs. 5a, b).
The best dancers move ever “higher,” ever
closer to the royal ancestors or the living ruler as
they dance; others simply dance in place and walk
up to pay their respects at the end. Most dancers
perform the conventional steps, but once, when
four doany residents were dancing at the North-
ern Mahabo, the man playing the “red” ruler
carried his gun resting on his arms like an offering
before firing it. He repeated the gesture when the
two royal dancers approached the door to the
burial compound to pay their final respects.
Some people emphasized that the lead danc-
ers could only raise their right arms, holding the
guns. “If you dance with the left arm up in the
air you are a sorceror, [you] commit sorcery. [She
continued by imitating what bystanders would
say.] Beg pardon!! Witch! Sorceror! Right only!”
(ampamoriky, mamoriky. Aza fady, el Ampamo-
savy! Ampamoriky! Ankahery foanaf). Others
just laughed, saying that some dancers do not
know what they are supposed to do. People often
yell out “Sorceror!” when someone unwittingly -
perhaps - breaks a prohibition during a royal
service. As a woman at the doany explained:
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
73
Fig. 5a, b, e. Rebiky: Royal councillor (ranitry ampanjaka)
and one of his kinswomen representing the “red” ruler and
follower (“white” ruler and follower in the background).
Doanyof the ampanjaka Soazara, Analalava, c. 1935. (Photo-
graphie du Service Photo-Cinéma de la Direction de l’Infor-
mation; TY 13, no. 62-64)
“Yes, right only. If you dance with the left hand
raised, people will think you don’t know how
(mahay). The left hand is not appropriate {tsy
metimety), that’s the bad hand {tànana ratsy
zegny).”
Sakalava in the Analalava area say that the
rebiky enacts the battles between the “Descen-
dants of the Red” (Zafinimena) and the “Descen-
dants of the White” {Zafinifotsy). The Zafinime-
na (a local rendering of Zafimbolamena, “Des-
cendants of the Gold”) is the branch of Sakalava
royalty to which the local line of rulers belongs.
The Zafinifotsy (a local rendering of Zafimbola-
fotsy, “Descendants of the Silver”) have no living
descendants in this area. Some of them, who
committed suicide by drowning in the Loza River
north of Analalava rather than submitting to the
Hova army in the early nineteenth century, are
represented by spirit mediums and a supplicator
at a doany north of the Loza River.10 11
The rebiky celebrates the conquest of the
Zafinimena over the Zafinifotsy, affirming the
existence of clear hierarchical differences among
the various categories of participants, who are
themselves united as supporters of the local line
of rulers, known as the “Southern Bemihisatra”
in contrast to their “Northern Bemihisatra” coun-
terpart in the Nosy Be-Ambanja area. In prac-
tice, the rebiky is also a competitive dance in
which the participants usually strive to outdo one
another, while observers provide a running com-
mentary on their merits from the sidelines. Only
when the living ruler dances, “people don’t call
out; they just keep quiet and look at her” {tsy
miantso olo, mangina foana mizaha izy). Some
spectators, especially the living ruler and the
royal ancestors in mediums, reward the best
dancers by giving them bank notes. The higher
their status, the more they are seen to give.11 The
dancers take the notes in their mouths while
dancing even more energetically. (The lead danc-
10 A resident of a village near the Zafinifotsy doany said
that he had once seen people dance the rebiky there,
complete with hats and guns.
11 This is also customary at political rallies when local
government officials reward the members of troupes
folkloriques who have been asked to perform.
74
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
er in Fig. 2, taken during the colonial period, is
holding money in his mouth.) These gifts are
described as “tips” or “bribes” (gadd - royal
ancestors use this term most often, sisiky). The
ancestors give to the rulers, while their “slaves,”
the Sambarivo who carry their things behind
them, may give something to the followers. But
usually the followers get nothing, and quarrels
break out between rulers and followers over the
rewards.
In practice, the language of domination is
continually undercut by alternating pairs so as to
reintroduce a kind of equity among the partici-
pants. Local residents, as hosts having a special
relationship to the land (tompontanana) should
perform the first two dances. At the doany, this
means first of all the living ruler, but since she
seldom dances, it means the guardians of the
doany. They should be followed in the next two
dances by people from the mahabo, and so on.
Guardians of the mahabo take the first pair of
dances there. The principle mediums rarely dance
(unless they are possessed by a royal spirit like
Ndramahavaka, known for his love of dancing).
Still, because people who attend services at the
mahabo are possessed by royal spirits of various
kinds, people there emphasize that a person who
is a medium should dance the “red” ruler. If both
lead dancers are mediums, then the one pos-
sessed by the “older” spirit, that is, the historical-
ly more ancient one, should take the dominant
role.
At both places, a member of the group
(Antibe) representing the supplicator should go
first, taking the “red” role, while a member of
the manantanys group (Antiravaka), his counter-
part in the northern half of the doany and
mahabo, takes the “white” role. (At the doany,
the manantany is the official most closely asso-
ciated with the living ruler.) “It is always like that
for the first dance.” In the next dance, a resident
of the northern half takes the “red” role, while a
southerner takes the “white,” and so on.
How these conflicting principles of hierarchy
and equality actually work out is most clearly
seen in the exchange of roles according to gender.
The leaders are paired together and opposed to
their followers by gender. If the leaders are male,
then their followers are female, and vice versa. A
woman is always subordinate to a male lead, but
a male is always subordinate to a female lead.
People say furthermore that anyone can initiate
the series of dances, male or female; whoever
they are, they will be followed in the next dance
by rulers of the opposite gender. But invariably
men take the first leads, sometimes boys (with
grown women as followers), and men take the
lead three out of every four dances on average (in
the thirty-two dances I saw at six services). The
living ruler herself assumes the male role on the
rare occasions when she dance the Zafinimena
ruler. The Zafinifotsy role is played by a man
from the group of ritual specialists known as
Sakalava Mahoroahomby (the head of the four
groups that compose the “Ancestor-People” or
Razan-olo who are in charge of royal burials);
they are followed by women, two of the “little
slaves” who have chosen to continue living at the
doany.
The rebiky shows how the monarchy incor-
porates many different kinds of people into
one, ultimately hierarchical, structure. Former-
ly, when one of the guardians of the doany or
mahabo cast a silver chain over someone’s head,
he or she had to dance. Now people often have to
be coaxed to dance; one of the local residents
(usually an Antibe) sometimes has to go around
thrusting the hand cloths on people, urging them
to dance. Others dance only when they have
drunk enough to overcome the reticence that
most people feel about putting themselves for-
ward. At the mahabo, the generous ones reward
those who keep them from falling off the edge of
the raised area in front of the tomb. Still, in
dancing the rebiky, “playing (for the) ruler”
{misoma ampanjaka) as Sakalava sometimes say,
they appear to submit willingly, even joyfully, to
its ultimately hierarchical structure, as ideally all
followers, regardless of their origins, should re-
joice in the power of the Maroserana dynasty.
One of the people who always dances at the
Southern Mahabo is an Indian merchant who
comes to the new year’s ceremonies held in the
first and third months of the lunar year. Since
there are no shops at the mahabo, people often
bring fruit, vegetables, tea, palm wine, tobacco,
or baked goods to sell. The Indian merchant does
a good business in matches, kerosene, cloth, and
ready-made shirts and shorts. He makes a point
of dancing because of his economic involvement
in the service. His participation is a strong public
statement of his solidarity with local people, not a
common feature of Indian-Sakalava relations,
and it helps to promote his trade. But he has been
trading at the mahabo for several years, and in
the process he has become involved with local
people in a variety of other ways. He has develop-
ed close ties with a Sakalava woman, his mama,
who is an important spirit medium. His shop is in
her house, and she, possessed by one of several
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
75
royal spirits, makes a point of rewarding him
when he dances. Local residents, including spirit
mediums, speculate about how much money he
makes at the mahabo {Kibony fan java io\). Mean-
while, he gives beer and money to the royal
spirits when they gather in the council house, and
he plays the accordion, sings, and dances for
them. He brought two sacks of rice (hulled and
unhulled) to present to the representatives from
the doany at the start of the menaty service. And
now he is possessed by two Sakalava royal ances-
tors from the Majunga area where he lives most
of the year.
The Indian merchant dances one of the lead
r°les, but always the subordinate role of the
white” king. People laugh a lot, but inevitably,
during the dance, or at the end, when he is paying
his respects to the royal ancestors, he falls to the
ground in the throes of possession and has to be
carried off, a moving testimony to the overwhelm-
lng power of the royal ancestors. This happens
to other dancers as well. The more energetically
they dance, the more likely they are to become
Possessed, though some people are quick to
become possessed because - according to cynical
°bservers - they do not know how to dance. In
fact the dance resembles spirit possession, which
ls the only other situation in which people assume
the dress of royalty. Their clothing helps to
e*plain some of the similarities and differences
between the two.
4* Royal Clothing
^he lead dancers, playing royalty, are the only
°ues to wear special clothes; their followers just
Wear what they have on. The royal costumes
c°nsist of the same outfit in contrasting colors,
mostly red and white. These should include, in
the order that Sakalava describe them:
^ancer who goes ahead
sabaka: hat made of woven palm leaves (satraha) and
^0Vered with cloth. The lead dancer’s hat is covered with
a,ahany, a red, yellow, and black striped silk, restricted to
myalty, or with red cotton cloth.
, Sav<3ko: the “big cloth” (lamba be) wrapped around the
°ulders and waist, so the ends hang down along each side.
2°l°r ~ red. kind of cloth not specified.
sarivety: hand cloth, red in color, kind of cloth not
specified.
kitamby: hip wrap or sambelatra, unsewn body wrap, made
ts‘ampongamena, a red silk restricted to royalty.
Dancer who goes behind
b sabaka covered with dongimena, a red silk restricted
to royalty, or with white cotton cloth.
nthropos 83.1988
2. savoko in white cloth.
3. sarivety in white cloth.
4. kitambylsambelatra: kikoy, white cloth with red
stripes along the edges (kikoy mena) or sometimes blue
and/or yellow stripes, formerly made of silk, now ray-
on.
The sabaka in the figures (5, 6, 7, 8) taken in
Analalava and Antognibe are made of dalahany
and dongimena, rare silks that are said to have
come from Arabia. Red silk, and dalahany in
particular, is a sign of the Zafinimena or domi-
nant branch of Sakalava royalty (the ampanjaka
Soazara is wearing red silk in Fig. 3). Dalahany
and dongimena can only be worn on the head or
shoulders. Even royalty are prohibited from wear-
ing them around the lower half of the body, and
commoners and slaves are prohibited from wear-
ing them at all under ordinary circumstances.
Some people at the mahabo said they could still
be purchased in the port town of Diego Suarez to
the north. Copies can occasionally be found in the
Analalava region, but true dalahany is no longer
available there, and the sabaka in current use at
the doany and mahabo are made from red and
white cotton cloth {jakimena and bafota malan-
dy).u
The strips of cloth sewn diagonally across the
front of each hat are intended “to tie the sabaka
together to strengthen it” (miatady ny sabaka
biaka fatatra). Except for hats made of dalahany,
the stripes are usually in cloth of the contrasting
color, though one of the red hats at the Southern
Mahabo is held together with yellow stripes and
one of the white hats at the Northern Mahabo,
made of white silk brocade, has stripes of green
velvet ribbon (one set of savoko and one set of
sarivety at the same place are also green). Other
elements of the design also vary.12 13 Some people
12 The dalahany was said to cost 3000 fmg/meter (about $ 16
in 1973) or 75 fmg for a small piece to wrap around a
“charm” (aody) put in the wallet (portefeuille). The
charm brings wealth because “this is a valuable cloth
(lamba misy valera), only worn by rulers, high-ranking
people (olo ambony).” The cotton cloth costs 350-500
fmg ($ 1.40-$ 2.00) per meter. New red and white cotton
cloth was bought for the dancing costumes - hats, savoko,
and wraps - that were taken to the lumber camp where
the wood was cut for the reconstruction of the royal tomb
in the mid-1970s.
13 The sabaka once used in hair-cutting rituals among
Sakalava (probably high ranking) in the Sambirano re-
gion is different. According to Dandouau’s (1908: 172)
account: “on prépare ensuite le sabàka, espèce de bonnet
d'une forme spéciale, que doit porter l’oncle maternel
chargé de couper les cheveux de l’enfant; ce bonnet est
rond et peu rigide. Il se compose de quatre bandes
circulaires d’étoffe de couleurs différentes. La bande qui
76
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Fig. 6: Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” ruler and followers, Antognibe (for the ampanjaka Zafinimena, Avoria, and
Anatrôna at left) c. 1935? (Service de la Presse et de la Photographie du Ministère de l’Information; TY 13, no. 134)
costumes are described in the locally written
guide to the menaty service, in the section sum-
marizing the contributions of the ancestors:
“drums together with dancing hats ahead and
behind, together with the shoulder belts” {man-
andria miaraka sabaka aloha sy afar a miaraka
amin’ ny savoko). People rarely mention the
body wraps. Dancers now wear red and white
cotton wraps, but in the figures (5, 6, 7, 8) taken
in Analalava and Antognibe during the colonial
period, the dancers are wearing the patterned
cotton wraps that people use everyday.
The hat is an important sign of authority,
because the head, as the highest and purest part
of the body, is considered to be the seat of power.
Sakalava refer to royal spirits as “masters who sit
on the heads of those they possess” (tompony
mipetraka am’ lohany). Men prepare for posses-
sion or service inside the royal enclosures by
removing their own hats. Women must uncover
entoure le fond est rouge ainsi que le fond lui-même. La
deuxième est blanche avec un grand croissant en étoffe
rouge cousu dessus. La troisième est bleu foncé. La
quatrième enfin, plus large que les autres, est blanche. Le
tout a une longueur d’environ 60 centimètres. L’oncle se
coiffe du bonnet qu’il laisse ensuite retomber sur ses
épaules.”
described the crosses (Figs. 5a, 5c, 7, 8b) as “stars”
(kintana), the crescents (Figs. 5a, 5c) as a “living
[waxing] moons” {fanjava veloho), and the circles
(Figs. 1, 5a, 5c) as “full moons” {fanjava bory).
Lunar imagery pervades all aspects of Sakalava
royal ritual. The sabaka that are currently used in
the Analalava area are decorated with stripes,
(Figs. 9, 10) circles and crescent moons in con-
trasting colors:
yellow striped
When people describe the costumes worn in
the rebiky, they always begin with the hats, then
go on to the shoulder belts. This is how the
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
77
F»g. 7: Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” and “white”
rulers (French colonial official at right). Antognibe (for the
^panjaka Zafinimena, Avoria, and Anatrôna), c. 1935?
'' holographie du Service Photo-Cinéma de la Direction de
information; TY 13, no. 131)
their heads and shoulders, and tie their shawls
ykisaly) around their chests, before they let down
their braids. Conversely, hats are always included
ln the special clothing that royal spirits require to
^stablish their identities as historically specific in-
hdduals. The “Great Grandfather” who observ-
ed Muslim customs wears a skull cap (kofia);
°ne of his contemporaries (Ndramanavaka) wears
white skull cap, wrapped in a white silk turban
vhamama). The “Father,” who served briefly as a
Cch°nial administrator, wears a tan pith helmet,
some of his contemporaries from the Be
Sl°ko area wear straw boaters.
. In their time, the sabaka identified a royal
spirit as one of the four rulers associated with the
Anthropos 83.1988
foundation and expansion of the monarchy in the
south. Charles Poirier, a French colonial admin-
istrator who worked in the Analalava region in
1914-1918 and again in 1926-1927, describes Tsi-
mijotso, a famous medium of the ruler Andriami-
sara, in these words;
... ce Sakalava aux long cheveux . . . Lorsque l’“esprit”
s’agite dans le “saha”, celui-ci se couvre la tête d’une coiffure
dite “sabaka”, formée d’un petit panier en jonc (sobika),
garni de “dalahany”, tissu rayé de rouge et de jaune,
recouvert d’une coiffe en étoffe semblable, pourvu d’un gland,
coiffe qui se rabat naturellement sur le côté du crâne, à la
manière d’un vaste bonnet de coton; drapé, de la tête aux
pieds, d’un lamba rouge ou blanc, une canne d’ébène ornée
d’argent ouvragé en main, le “saha”, tel un charlatan, se livre
à une mimique qui éblouit les naïfs . . . (1939c: 43)
Among Sakalava currently living in the Ma-
hajanga area, mediums representing the four
founding ancestors carry the royal ancestors in
the form of relics on their backs during royal ser-
vices, whence the term by which they are known:
mpibaby (“people carrying persons or things
[usually children] on their backs”). The mpibaby
are distinguished from other spirit/mediums and
from other royal officiants by their dress, which
included in the new year’s ceremony of 1972, long
red chemises and red sabàka with tops ending in
two points, like the horns of a zebu. Perhaps this
accounts for Richardson’s (1885: 532, 78) defini-
tion of sabàka, which he describes as “a provin-
cial [coastal] word” for hat [satroka in the high-
lands], and also as something “branching out into
two parts, having horns diverging in the form of a
V.” After the mpibaby have put the relics in their
appointed place, they kneel down in homage,
then dance in front of them (Estrade 1977: 61).
Men in the Analalava region, who are now
possessed by Andriamisara, wear neither long
hair nor the sabàka. People explained Tsimijo-
tso’s dress by saying that that was how Sakalava
royalty dressed “in the old days” (taloha). At that
time, men wore their hair in braids; the current
queen’s father Ndramamahana, was the first
Sakalava king not to braid his hair because he
adopted European customs. Tsimijotso, his con-
temporary, wore braids only when he was pos-
sessed. Female mediums of the queen’s father
or brother now tuck their loosened braids back
up under their pith helmets when they become
possessed.
The rest of the royal clothing worn in the
rebiky emphasizes the qualities of the earliest
Sakalava royalty as warriors who established the
monarchy through conquest based more on the
power of the royal ancestors than on guns (see
78
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Berg 1985). The savoko (sometimes called dabd-
ana) is wrapped across the back and chest so it
looks like a pair of bandoliers, but Richardson’s
(1885: 563) dictionary, based on two earlier dic-
tionaries published in 1835 and 1853, explains the
term as “a shoulder-belt or necklace of charms,”
not bullets. Fig. 5a shows the gun itself wrapped
in the right end of the savoko, probably in firing
it (but see Fig. 6 from the same period). This is
not currently done in the Analalava region, but
Sakalava at both the Southern and Northern
Mahabo “customarily,” as they put it, attach bells
to the lower end of the left-hand sash (and the
corner of the sarivety), like the silver bells at-
tached to the staff (kobay fanjava) that some
male royal spirits carry. The bells accentuate their
words and gestures.
The other distinctive feature of the savoko is
the bundle of cloth (tsivongo) carried on the back
(see Figs. 8c, 9). The tsivongo is “just a bunch of
cloth” (lamba foana, bontaka)\ “you get a wom-
an’s shawl, or whatever, to stuff in there.”14
Now it is said to be purely decorative {raha
fiaminana ndesigny mirebiky), but perhaps it
once held relics of royal ancestors. According to a
Malagasy manuscript from the Mahajanga area,
composed early in the colonial period, the Saka-
lava were led into battle by royal ancestors
embodied in mediums who carried the relics of
the four founder kings (then located at the doany
Andriamisara in Mahajanga) on their backs
(Anon. 1908, see also Poirier 1939a).
“Carrying on the back” (miboho, mibaby),
like “carrying on the head” (miloloha, miloha), is
still used metaphorically in the praise songs to
express support for the royal ancestors in the
Analalava region. Furthermore, the savoko is still
worn by those charged with defending the mon-
archy embodied in the royal ancestors. One of the
men in the entourage of the ampanjaka Soazara in
the mid-1930s is distinguished from the others by
the long piece of cloth wrapped vertically over
both his shoulders and several times around his
waist to form a wide belt with a tail on the left
side (Fig. 2). A relative still living in the Analala-
va area explained that he was wearing a savoko
because
. . . they were fighting for the monarchy (niady fanjakaha). At
the time they did that, he was the leader of the fight (tompon'
14 The term itself is probably the root form of (tsi)vongo-
vongo, “a little bundle ... for carrying” (see Richardson
1885; 781).
ny ady). The savoko is what men wear when they fight. The
waistband (fifihia, ceinturen’any) is what shows that he is the
leader of the fight. The little tail hanging down from it is the
fifihia. It [the belt] is red.15
Another relative commented:
My mother’s brother didn’t have children; he took care of
Soazara. Ralaimongo, a Hova,16 * was trying to take Soazara
away, move her to a different place. My mother’s brother
said: “You can’t do that. I will get my throat cut before I will
permit it.” He went to the [chef du] District and said: “I’m
going to kill this man Ralaimongo. But don’t you lock me up,
because I don’t like being locked up!” He is wearing a savoko
because that’s customary when men fight, that’s the custom.
Wearing that, a person can’t run away; he will fight to the
death.
In the Analalava region, only the “Ancestor-
People” (Razan’olo) are permitted to handle the
royal ancestors. The representatives of that group
who participate in the reconstruction of the fence
around the royal tomb are required to wear
shoulder belts made of white cotton cloth (bafota
malandy). These are called sandoka, the common
counterpart of the royal word savoko, in the
guide to the service written down in the early
colonial period, though people watching while
they were tied on during the service in 1973 re-
ferred to them as savoko. They are tied differ-
ently from the shoulder belts used in the rebiky:
over the right shoulder and around the waist. The
ends (rambony) hanging down in the front and
back rather than along the sides, are widened out
and tucked back into the waist so they form little
panels, mid-thigh length, covering the front and
back of the body like the tails of a loin cloth.
Although the guide does not mention it, people at
the mahabo said that the same kind of belts
should be worn by the living ruler’s representa-
tive (jadd) when, armed with a knife (jambia) in
his waistband, he sits on top of the tomb to guard
it, and by the intercessor of the mahabo when he
stands at the “open” door of the innermost fence
to the tomb, directing the work of the mahabo's
guardians.
The cloths that the dancers hold between the
15 Perhaps her comments about the waistband are relevant
to the fact that when the drummer at the Southern
Mahabo played the bekiviro, he took a shawl from one of
the women sitting nearby, folded it lengthwise, and
wrapped it around his waist like a belt.
16 Ralaimongo, a schoolteacher from the Betsileo area of
the highlands, was an early advocate of Malagasy inde-
pendence whom French colonial officials imprisoned in
the northwestern town of Port Berge for anti-government
activities. Sakalava opposed Ralaimongo’s efforts in 1936
to kidnap Soazara as a way of bringing the Sakalava of
the Analalava-Port Berge area around to his cause.
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
79
fingers of their left hands appear to be the
simplest parts of the costume, but in some ways
they are the most puzzling. The term sarivety
(rarely, mosoara) suggests that they were inspired
by the large white handkerchiefs that French
government officials used to mop their brows.
Sakalava occasionally describe the expansive be-
havior of “big men” - for example, the mother’s
brother at a circumcision - in terms of these sorts
of gestures.17 However, Malagasy have used
these words for their own purposes since at least
the first half of the nineteenth century (Richard-
son 1885: 558, 444), and many of the male royal
spirits that now possess people in the Analalava
area include sarivety as part of their required
clothing, tucking them in the left breast pocket,
draping them over the left shoulder, or flipping
them around in the left hand. Some people
described the sarivety as “royal fans” (fihimpa),
saying “that’s what makes them rulers” (mam-
Panjaka azy), but they are not used like fans or
face cloths in the rebiky. When men dance, their
female followers fan them with their shawls held
in their left hands. The sarivety are held more
like shields. Perhaps it is relevant that the four
square-meter pieces of new white cotton cloth
(bafota malandy) used to clean the new corner-
Posts of the innermost fence around the royal
f°mb, are also called sarivety.
The rulers hold their weapons in their right
hands. Guns are the “true custom” {tena fomba),
nccording to the ampanjaka Soazara. But first
French colonial officials prohibited the use of
guns, and now - as one of the guardians at the
Wahabo said - they don’t use real guns because
■ ■ there’s no point (tsisy varany). A gun kept in the house is
useful for killing birds or wild pigs. But the guns in the zomba
Vlnta [house inside the burial compound where the ritual
utaterials are kept] just sit there even though you have to pay
laxes on them. So we use imitations (sary) made of wood,
wee Figs. 1, 9; the guns in 5, 6, and 7 are real.)
These are the same pairs of guns that are
carried ahead and behind whenever, for example,
Pots are taken out of the ancestors’ house to fetch
water to make the liquid used to wash the relics
ar*d the tomb at the new year’s service, or the
dancing costumes are taken from the mahabo to
lumber camp for the menaty service. Like the
Palm-leaf fans continually moving in the air, the
White handkerchiefs are a prominent part of the Europe-
an-style dress worn by kalela dancers in colonial Northern
Rhodesia, for example (Mitchell 1956: 2).
^uthropos 83.1988
four-cornered baskets covering the “heads” of
the pots, or the clean red or white cloths wrapped
around the costumes, the guns serve to protect
things identified with the royal ancestors from
contact with “anything dirty” {raha maloto).
Elsewhere, according to the ampanjaka Soa-
zara, referring to the photographs of the young
girls in Antognibe (Figs. 8a, b, c), the dancers use
“silver sticks” (kobay fanjava) made of a hard
black wood (mpingo, a kind of ebony), decorated
with silver at the end and sometimes in the
middle. Some male royal spirits carry kobay
fanjava', “women don’t carry clubs” except when
they are representing men. Some of the shorter
staffs look like canes and are handled that way;
the longer ones, like those in Figs. 8a, b, c from
Antognibe, are handled more like spears.
The firozoko carried by the followers in the
rebiky are never decorated. They are smaller,
thinner sticks, more like switches. Only Guillain
(1845: 59), describing different war songs and
dances (mirare) performed by Hova women in
the mid-nineteenth century, suggests that these
thin sticks might also represent spears.18
18 Guillain is describing how Hova women sang and danced
on July 8, 1820, when Radama and his army were thought
to have entered Sakalava territory. They sang benedic-
tions in honor of Radama, exhortations to his soldiers
(“Manie bravement la sagaie!”) and imprecations against
the enemy.
“En même temps, tournées vers l’Ouest, c’est-à-dire dans
la direction du pays sakalave, elles tenaient toutes dans la
main une petite baguette qu’elles brandissaient comme
une sagaie, et s’excitaient par toutes sorts de mouvements
guerriers jusqu’à l’enthousiasme le plus sauvage. Cette
cérémonie fut dès lors pratiquée tous les matins et tous
les soirs, et quelquefois même une grande partie de la
journée” (Guillain 1845; 59); see Decary 1966/1: 104—108
for a discussion of гагу as practiced elsewhere in Mada-
gascar. Decary (II: 29) also notes that the bodyguard of
the Merina Queen Ranavalona I (1828-1861) excelled in
handling guns and also in the “mirebikia, a dance of
Sakalava origin.”
The terms firozoko!fohozoko may be variants of
firitsoka/faritsoka, meaning “straight stick” or “switch”
(Richardson 1885: 172, 189, 520). Tsontsoraka is another
such word, but among the Sakalava in the Analalava
region, the term refers to the mark of royal blessing on
the face, made in kaolin, drawn upwards from the nose to
the forehead. Fihozoko can be made from the wood of
any tree, provided it does not have the milky sap
identifying it as the kind (Ficus) that “murders [its]
friends” (mamono namana) by twisting its branches
around them.
80
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Fig. 8a, b, c. Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” and
“white” rulers. Antognibe (for the ampanjaka Zafinimena,
Avoria, and Anatrona), c. 1935? (Photographie du Service
Photo-Cinéma de la Direction de l’Information; TY13,
no. 138, 140, 141)
5. The rebiky as an Historical Document
The rebiky depicts the Sakalava royal ancestors
as warriors, but they are fighting with one an-
other, not with outsiders. The rebiky represents
the military leadership that led to the expansion
of the Sakalava monarchy along the west coast
during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, but also the “battles among kin” (ady
milongo), the succession battles that Sakalava
hold responsible for the eventual collapse of the
monarchy in the nineteenth century.
The main solution to ady milongo in the
precolonial period was segmentation. Failed suc-
cessors to power went off to found their own
monarchies ever further north, though it did not
always prevent them from returning with rein-
forcements; one ruler is renowned for butchering
all his rivals. The growing strength of the Hova,
then the French conquest, closed these avenues.
Furthermore, they made the doany increasingly
untenable as a politico-religious center for liv-
ing rulers identified with the Vy Lava Tsy Aroy
Manjaka Tokana, the “Long Knife Without
Equal [unpaired] that Rules Alone”. During the
decades following the collapse of the Northern
Sakalava kingdom of Boina in the early nine-
teenth-century, the royal cemetery seems to have
been elaborated as a more secure alternative
repository for the royal ancestors, and Sakalava
monarchy developed the dual form now charac-
teristic of the Northern and Southern Bemihisa-
tra of the northwest coast, divided between the
doany and mahabo. In other words, the many pairs
that are now considered essential to the symbol-
ic and social organization of Sakalava royal ser-
vice in the Analalava region may have resulted
from the historical diminution of Sakalava royal
power.
So far I have found no precise evidence of
Figs. 9a, b, c, d: Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” and
“white” rulers, heading northeast toward the open air council
house (fantsina) where the spirits are sitting (just outside the
frame on upper right). Their followers are outside the frame
to the right, and just beyond them to the east is the burial
compound. Northern Mahabo on Nosy Lava, Analalava
region, 12 May 1973 (Alan Harnik)
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
81
82
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Fig. 10: Rebiky: dancers representing the “red” and “white”
rulers. Northern Mahabo on Nosy Lava, Analalava region, 12
May 1973 (Alan Harnik)
when the rebiky came to represent these con-
flicts. But there is historical documentation con-
cerning the sabàka that may shed some light on
the kinds of competitive circumstances in which
important features of the rebiky developed. The
sabàka, which is currently central to the rebiky in
the Analalava region, may have come into use
during the late eighteenth century when Sakalava
first began to fight off Hova efforts to colonize
western Madagascar.
Richardson (1885: 562) describes hats like
the sabàka, including the satro-dava (“long hat”),
“a very tall highly decorated hat, with a tassel
reaching to the ground, worn on some particular
occasion,” and the satro-potraka (“fallen hat”),
“a cap like a nightcap whose crest hangs down,
worn by fathers in the circumcision ceremonies.”
Since he does not qualify his definitions as “pro-
vincial,” they probably apply to the Merina.
Camboué (1909: 378-379), in his discussion of
royal circumcision ceremonies in Imerina before
1869, includes photographs taken at one of the
two circumcisions held in 1844 and in 1854,
during the reign of Ranavalona I, that show just
such hats. The hats were worn by the men armed
with spears and shields who were charged with
the work of mifehy (literally, “to tie/bind/knot”),
getting the pure water from as far away as
Taomasina [Tamatave], which must have involv-
ed “binding” local people to Merina rule. (At
least, this is the meaning of mifehy among Sakala-
va now.) The final day, when the men brought
the water into the capital, they danced to honor
Ranavalona and her ancestors. The water was
used to wash the bodies and especially the penises
of the circumcised boys, transmitting ancestral
blessings, protecting them from sorcery.
According to Raombana’s account of the
circumcision of Prince Rakotoseheno in 1844, the
men who carried the sacred water
. . . étaient armés de sagaies et de boucliers. Ils étaient
richement vêtus et parés des articles rares apportés par M.
Delastelle etc. [Napoléon de Lastelle, a French merchant in
Tamatave, who handled Ranavalona’s commercial transac-
tions] ... en particulier d’immenses chapeaux carrés, de
couleur écarlate, dont les plumes touchaient presque le sol. Il
est difficile de décrire ces costumes; il suffit de dire qu’ils
étaient magnifiques et que le prix de l’un d’eux ne valait pas
moins de plusieurs centaines de dollars [whereas those of
certain royal officials and the three princes, probably cost
$ 2-3000 each] (Ralaimihoatra 1952: 25).19
The fanciest headdresses - such as the one
photographed “à la Cour de Tananarive” - were
made of precious metals and stones (Camboué
1909: 378-379). Lesser versions, judging from the
photograph of “ministres de la Circoncision à
Imerina” (ibid.), were made of red cloth appli-
qued (?) with stars, circles, and ornaments of
other shapes.20 According to Merina oral tradi-
tions collected in the mid-19th century, the
founder king Andrianampoinimerina [late
1750s—1810] was able to unify Imerina in part
because he rewarded soldiers for their bravery in
battle by presenting them with “grands hon-
neurs”:
19 Camboué (1909: 377) also comments that the whole array
of ornaments, including shoulder-belts, was very expen-
sive to rent, and so heavy that at “la dernière Circonci-
sion des princes” (1854?), two robust men who suc-
cumbed under the weight required assistants to wear
some of the ornaments for them.
20 The exhibit on “Madagascar: Island of the Ancestors,”
which opened at the Museum of Mankind in London in
November 1986, includes such a hat made of imported
red woolen cloth decorated with fleurs-de-lis in gold
braid.
Anthropos 83.1988
Sakalava Dancing Battles
83
il leur donna des chapeaux rouges et longs qui permirent de
les reconnaître; il leur donna de l’argent et des baudriers
d’argent; il leur donna des pagnes blancs et des lamba blancs
qui permirent de les reconnaître ceux qui étaient vaillants au
combat (Callet 1974/11 [1956]; 434).
The long red hats and shoulder-belts worn by the
nearly five hundred men with spears and shields
who got the sacred water in 1844 (Ralaimihoatra
1952: 25) may have been intended to identify
them as unusually brave warriors. Ranavalona I
had been married to Adrianampoinimerina’s son
(Radamal); she had known her father-in-law,
and many of her advisors were men of his
generation. She may have instructed her commer-
cial agent, de Lastelle, to have more ornate
versions of the hat and shoulder-belt made in
France for members of the court. Andrianampoi-
nimerina may have borrowed the association of
the long red hats with bravery in battle, together
with the shoulder-belts, from the Sakalava, with
whom he began negotiating and fighting in the
late eighteenth century.21
Whatever the direction of influence in An-
drianampoinimerina’s time, Raombana makes it
dear that Rakotoseheno’s circumcision was intend-
ed to be an important display of Merina power in
which Ranavalona named the boy (later Rada-
rs II) as her heir. He notes that
des gens, originaires des différentes coins de Madagascar,
avaient reçu l’ordre de se rendre à Antananarivo pour assister
aux diverse cérémonies. Tous les jours, ils exécutèrent des
danses de chez eux pour distraire les Hova, qui ne les avaient
jamais vues (Ralaimihoatra 1952: 23).
21 See Steiner (1984), who argues that the textile trade
between France, Britain, and West Africa during the 19th
and 20th centuries was far more reciprocal than scholars
have thought heretofore. The trade involved “enormous
efforts” of European textile designers and producers to
respond to the varied tastes of their clientele as well
Africans’ interests in European styles and aesthetics.
The outfit worn in the nineteenth century (?) by a
person in the Malindi area who is possessed by a spirit
said to have been introduced by slaves from the Shakini
country of the African interior is interestingly similar to
the Sakalava sabaka and savdko. In addition to trousers
made of dark blue cotton (kaniki - Malagasy use the
same word) or red cotton cloth (bendara), the patient
wore a red or blue cloth secured around the head by a
cord. “Formerly, when colobus monkey skins were obtain-
able, the head-dress consisted of a conical hat made
from these skins, about a foot to fifteen inches high, in
the shape of a dunce’s cap with a peak to it in front, and
the monkey’s handsome tail hanging down behind. A
leather breast-plate and back-plate connected by straps
that hang over the shoulders are also worn as an orna-
ment, being profusely decorated with beads and kauri
shells. This is called a torosi (a Ki-rima word) [‘protube-
rant’ in Malagasy], and is worn on the last day of the
dance” (Skene 1917: 426, see also 427, 433).
Anth
Foreigners included
le [Sakalava] prince Rainasy ... le fils du célèbre roi
Ramitraho du Menabe. Ce prince s’était naïvement placé sous
l’autorité de Sa Majesté, comme il a été dit auparavent, je
crois. En tout cas, on doit le considérer comme prisonnier, car
il ne pouvait pas sortir du fort de la garnison de Mahabo sans
être accompagné d’officiers, de peur qu’il ne s’évade pour
rejoindre son peuple sakalava libre, plein de mépris pour
l’hégémonie de Sa Majesté. Même en ce moment à Antanana-
rivo, il est gardé à vue, et cette surveillance perpétuelle de sa
personne doit l’ennuyer beaucoup à mon avis {ibid. : 25).
The use of battle imagery, including sabàka,
to represent persisting conflicts was still common
among Sakalava at the turn of the century,
judging from Dandouau’s (1908) description of
the danced battles representing the rival claims of
paternal and maternal kin groups to children
staged at the royal rites of passage mentioned
earlier, as well as the military metaphors applied
to childbirth (ibid.: 168). Dandouau’s account
(1908: 173-175) of a hair-cutting ceremony
among Sakalava royalty in the Sambirano region
illuminates the nature of conflicts represented in
the rebiky, while raising further questions concern-
ing historical connections between Sakalava and
Merina. In brief, women in the boy’s family go
out at dawn to get pure water from a distant
stream {ratio tsy vakimborona), to which they
add silver, then over it to their ancestors and el-
ders, begging them not to make the boy sick.
When they return, the mother’s brother puts on
the sabàka, letting the tail fall over his shoulders,
takes his sister’s son on his back, and dances with
one of the boy’s father’s sisters to the point of ex-
haustion. Then he - or sometimes “l’une des
grand-mères” - cuts the boy’s hair, puts some of
it in a dish to which the water is added together
with a little honey. One of the boy’s mother’s sis-
ters drinks some of the water; the rest is thrown
east in the direction of the ancestors; and the
dancing and singing starts up again, with the pa-
ternal relatives on one side, the maternal relatives
on the other. A couple from one side sings and
dances, then a couple from the other side. The
best pair wins the right to take the child on their
knees, but their right is commonly contested by
the couple holding him, backed by their kin. In
the end the neck and body of the child are
washed to thwart any attempts at sorcery.
The purpose of French colonial policy was to
weaken the capacity of Sakalava to resolve con-
flicts over the succession of power, or any other
issue, by force of arms. As Dandouau comments,
concerning the weapons used in the hair-cutting
ceremony:
‘ropos 83.1988
84
Autrefois, ils brandissaient leurs sagaies et déchargaient en
l’air leurs fusils bourrés de poudre de traite. Mais aujourd’hui,
à leur grand regret, tous les fusils ont été confisqués et le port
de la sagaie est interdit. La poudre ne parle plus et les sagaies
sont remplacées par d’illusoires bâtons (1908: 171).
Sakalava had to have official permission to hold
ceremonies, as marked by the French flag (see
Fig. 2). Or, as Sakalava now put it, French
officials could simply order them to “do your
customs!” (Ataovy fombanareo\), breaking their
own prohibitions in the process. This is how some
people explained the photographs of the rebiky at
Antognibe (6, 7, 8). The dance clearly honors the
ampanjaka seated in chairs, women whom local
people identified as Anatrona and Anarena. Nev-
ertheless, the rebiky was held at the administra-
tive center of Antognibe rather than at their
doany further south, where, moreover, European
clothing would have been forbidden. The photo-
graph (1) of the soma bekiviro in daylight was
taken under similar circumstances.
The significance of the rebiky has surely
changed with the changing circumstances of the
Sakalava over time. Sakalava are once again in a
position to see that their customs and prohibitions
are observed. These involve matters ranging from
the composition of materials to philosophical and
ideological considerations of time, space, and
number. One consequence of removing the
“real” guns from the rebiky has been to clarify
that the heart of these danced battles in recent
times lies as much in the dancers’ skillful combi-
nations of inreasingly inclusive pairs as in their
weapons. Sakalava still disagree about the form
these combinations should take and their roles in
the regeneration of power over time, but their
interest in achieving a unified resolution of their
differences, shows no signs of abating.
This paper was written for a colloqium on Pre-colonial
Madagascar sponsored by the Museum of Mankind at
the British Museum and the Centre for African Studies
at the University of London, and held at the School of
Oriental and African Studies on 28 November 1986 in
conjunction with the opening of an exhibit, “Madagas-
car: Island of the Ancestors” at the Museum of
Mankind. The paper is based on ethnographic and
archival research carried out in the Analalava region of
northwestern Madagascar over a period of 29 months
in 1971-1973, supported by a grant from the National
Institute of Mental Health. I am grateful to the
participants at the colloqium for their comments when
the paper was presented; to the Malagasy government
for granting me permission to do research; to faculty
and staff at the Université de Madagascar and the
Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie for their generous assis-
Gillian Feeley-Harnik
tance; and to the people of the Analalava region for
their patience and good will.
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'ropos 83.1988
STUDIA INSTITUTI ANTHROPOS 41
ANTHONY J. GITTINS
MENDE RELIGION
Aspects of Belief and Thought
in Sierra Leone
1987. 240 pp. DM 65,00
MENDE RELIGION is a rich account of the empirical data of a tribal religion.
Considering not just beliefs but subjective meanings, not just expected behaviour but
what actually happens, this study discloses a system and a rationale in terms of
spiritual agencies and the indigenous concept of power. In doing this, the practical
beliefs in witchcraft, secret societies, medicine, and spirits are brought into mutually
illuminating relationship. Aspects of Mende philosophy are thus preserved and
integrated, to the benefit of both missionary and anthropologist.
Orders to;
Anthropos Institut Steyler Verlag - Wort und Werk
Arnold-Janssen-Str. 20
D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1
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Postfach 2460
D-4054 Nettetal 2
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Anthropos 83.1988: 87-99
Anthropological Involution
The Legacy of S. F. Nadel
H. A. Taatgen
Abstract. - This essay comments on the extent to which
British social anthropology in the interwar years served the
interests of colonial policies. The efforts are directed at a
step-by-step analysis of the committments involved in the
applied anthropology of S. F. Nadel. Lately his activities
among the Nuba have been put in a highly unfavourable light
by James C. Paris. Our findings as to Nadel’s applied anthro-
pology will be less disquieting. We hope to demonstrate that
Dadd’s loyalty went to anthropology as an independent
discipline, rather than to a field of knowledge which served
colonial interests. [History of Anthropology, Political Anthro-
pology, British Social Anthropology, Colonialism, Africa]
Henderikus A. Taatgen, M. A. in cultural anthropology,
Bijksuniversiteit Groningen 1979; Ph. D. candidate in social
anthropology, S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook since 1982; fieldwork
in the Republic of Ireland 1982 (Winter), 1984-1986.
1* Introduction
Great Britain’s colonial empire reached its great-
est size upon the redistribution of former Ger-
man territories in 1919. The exigencies of the War
had however also exhausted the resources of the
Allied Forces, and confronted “the empire” with
the problem of administering its greater number
°f dependencies through little money and few
Personnel. Already around the turn of the centu-
ry the British had started to economize on their
colonial expenses by the introduction of a form of
local government under British supervision in
Nigeria. This was an experiment modelled after
the overseas policies of other colonial powers,
Notably the Dutch. By the time the War had
ended, the Nigerian experiment was judged a
Success, and introduction of the principle of
Indirect Rule was recommended for other areas
ln Africa under British control, including the
Sudan.
Some parts in this Anglo-Egyptian condomi-
Uuirn, in particular the Nuba mountains, were
however inhabited by ethnic groups which had no
distinct political organization. In the absence of
native political leaders who could be entrusted
^Uh judicial, fiscal, and military powers, the
Sudan Government therefore faced the task of
creating local offices of rank and authority. As it
turned out to be, this effort was carried out in a
manner which proved to be unacceptable to a
majority of the indigenous population. The newly
created offices caused frictions which occasionally
developed into local uprisings. In the lower eche-
lons of the Sudan Government these problems of
‘maladjustment’ were attributed to the rebellious
nature of the Nuba peoples. But higher within the
Administration, voices were raised against offi-
cers with a poor understanding of the various
Nuba traditions.
In 1937 Sir Douglas Newbold, Governor of
Kordofan Province, suggested that an ethnograph-
ic survey of the region could be of practical use
to administrators and other officials. The Sudan
Government was requested to locate the neces-
sary funds and to hire an anthropologist who would
be capable to do the job. Soon a suitable candi-
date was found in the person of S. F. Nadel.
April 1938 Nadel made his first appearance
in the Sudan. Appointed as Government anthro-
pologist, he had been instructed to study the so-
cial structure of the Nuba peoples in such a way
as to enable an evaluation of the solutions which
had been applied to “pressing problems in ele-
mentary education, tribal federation, and agricul-
tural development” (quoted in Nadel 1947: xi).
Nadel’s stay among the hill groups was inter-
rupted once by a five months return to London,
but all in all lasted for two years. Immediately
upon completion of his fieldwork Nadel summa-
rized his findings, which were published under
the title of “The Nuba” a couple of years later in
1947.
Some twenty years after the publication of
“The Nuba” quite a number of anthropologists
got mixed up in a debate on the moral implica-
tons of their work (see Berreman 1968, Gough
1968). In particular, concern was expressed about
anthropological research which benefitted op-
pressing political regimes. Anthropological in-
H. A. Taatgen
volvement in the Vietnam War and the Camelot
Project provided contemporary cases in point.
As the debate continued, self-reflection on
ongoing and future anthropological research ex-
panded to include the professional legacy of
former generations of anthropologists. Not sur-
prisingly, the burden of these retrospections con-
cerned British social anthropology in the interwar
years. Could the expansion in anthropological
fieldwork in those years, especially in Africa, be
attributed to an increase in funds made available
for the implementation of Pax Britannica? And if
so, should those who had made use of these
opportunities be condemned for having aban-
doned their academic independence?
In the early 1970s the balance of published
opinion was in favour of answering both ques-
tions in the affirmative. As to the moral problem
of academic independence versus interested fund-
ing, the climate of discussion left little scope for
adopting a pragmatic point of view. Accordingly,
not much public support was given to a single
view which purported to underplay the usefulness
of ethnographic surveys for the colonial officers
of those days (see Kuper 1973). The tenor of the
discussion rather accentuated the mutual compat-
ibility between anthropological theory and for-
mer colonial ideology (see Leclerc 1973, Asad
1973). On the one hand, it was alleged that
imperialism had created the circumstances condu-
cive to the rise of modern anthropology based on
fieldwork. On the other hand, British social
anthropology would have reciprocated a ‘theory’
of functionalism which served to legitimize the
unequal distribution of political power in the
world.
This picture of a corrupted discipline needed
illustration on the level of biography. Some doubt
was cast on the moral integrity of such a towering
figure as Evans-Pritchard (see Ahmed 1973).
British functionalism was also severely criticized
through a penetrating analysis of the work and
ideas of Nadel (see Paris 1973). The assaults on
both Evans-Pritchard and Nadel put British social
anthropology of previous years in a bad odour.
But as time went by, this stigma lost some of its
appeal. This was also the result of views advanced
by scholars equally inclined to historical intro-
spection, but from a different perspective.
In recent years the charges against Evans-
Pritchard have evoked some powerful response
(see Johnson 1982, Arens 1983). In addition, the
anthropology of Nadel has been made the object
of an analysis which has yielded less poignant
conclusions (see Salat 1983). But whereas Evans-
Pritchard’s defenders have plausibly argued in
favour of a point of view which does not agree
with the earlier, Marxist dismissal of this anthro-
pologist as a staunch supporter of British colo-
nialism, Nadel’s biographer has not addressed the
issue which has been raised and discussed by
Paris. To this day, the latter’s evaluation of
Nadel’s applied anthropology continues to amaze
and rouse the indignation of members of the
anthropological community.
The revealing outcome of Paris’ enquiries is
to some extent the result of his attempt to
reconcile two historiographical strategies. At first
sight, his analysis of “the functional relationship
between science and society ... in the theory and
practice of S. F. Nadel” (Paris 1973: 153) is
clearly in line with those deterministic views
which relate specific research activities to political
and economic interests of society “at large” (see
Diamond 1980). Yet, Paris could not make his
more general points on British functionalism with-
out drawing attention to the particularities of
Nadel’s applied anthropology. His occasional dis-
cussion of Nadel’s work and ideas in their own
right thus subscribes to the more idealistic point
of view which sees the history of anthropology
largely propelled by the work and thoughts of its
leading representatives (see Evans-Pritchard
1981). Paris’ employment of both the ‘internal’
and the ‘external’ approach of historiography has
yielded a highly unflattering picture of Nadel as
an anthropologist and as a man. As Paris
(1973: 160) puts it, Nadel was an “apologist and
defender” of a political system which “. . . physi-
cally attacked local societies, driving them from
their homes, forcing migrations, imprisoning
(and very frequently hanging) their men and
women.”
A note of restriction must however be added
to Paris’ conclusions. These are based primarily
on Nadel’s research in the Sudan. Moreover,
Nadel’s contributions on fieldwork methods of
the late 1930s are examined. The argument winds
up with a discussion of some of Nadel’s theoreti-
cal ideas of the early 1950s. No account is,
however, taken of Nadel’s initial fieldwork activi-
ties. Nadel began his career as fieldworker in
Nigeria in 1934, where he did research among the
Nupe. Some of his major publications are based
on data collected among this people (see Nadel
1942, 1954). Paris’ conclusions on Nadel’s applied
anthropology are therefore tentative. This is ac-
knowledged by Paris, since he calls for a “similar
analysis ... of [Nadel’s] fieldwork in West-
Africa” (1973: 159n).
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropological Involution
89
In the sequel of this essay an attempt will be
made to describe and clarify the relationship
between Nadel’s fieldwork among the Nupe and
the application of Indirect Rule in Nigeria. In
addition, the outcome of this attempt is believed
to provide the occasion for putting Paris’ evalua-
tion of Nadel’s work and ideas to a more con-
clusive test. The appropriateness of such occasion
should appear from some measure of similarity
in conditions of both fieldwork activities. The fol-
lowing observations point at a resemblance in
goal, method, and conception of the work done in
both cultures: 1. Nadel’s research among the
Nupe was, like his later mission among the Nuba,
upon explicit Government request. 2. Nadel’s
ideas on participant observation and interview
techniques which were to guide his efforts in the
Sudan, were rooted in his previous fieldwork ex-
periences among the Nupe. 3. Nadel’s profession
of faith in applied anthropology - a belief in the
co-operation between anthropologist and admin-
istrator - was stated in the Introduction of his ma-
jor Nupe monograph, “A Black Byzantium.” The
manuscript of this book took a final shape during
May-November 1939, the period of time which
intervened his fieldwork activities in the Nuba
mountains.
2. British Colonialism in Nigeria
The northern part of the area in western Africa
which later came to be known as Nigeria, had
been gradually infiltrated by Islam during the
oighteenth century. In the next century the Islam-
!2ed Haussa population was subjugated by for-
eign political powers. At first, the Fulani sent
conquering expeditions from the east, which
established Fulani overlordship in the Haussa
stetes. In later years the Haussa region attracted
British comercial interests, which extended north-
wards along the river Niger. As more often in
history, commercial expansion was soon followed
bY military protection.
At the turn of the last century the adminis-
tration of the Nigerian territories was transmit-
ted from the Royal Niger Company to the British
Colonial Office. During the next two decades the
Tlaussa part of these territories saw a process of
consolidation of British overrule at the expense of
the formerly suzerain Fulani rulers. British con-
s°lidation in the Islamic Emirates went hand in
band with the introduction of Indirect Rule or
Native Administration to the North. From 1914
°nwards, a version of Native Administration op-
Anthropos 83.1988
erating in the North was extended to the coastal
areas in the South. Upon the ending of World
War I, the Nigerian experiment was recommend-
ed as a model for the administration of other
British dependencies in Africa (see Crowder
1968, Crowder and Ajayi 1971, Fika 1978).
The architect of Indirect Rule was Sir Frede-
rick Luggard, the first Governor of the Colony
and Protectorate of Nigeria. His conception of
Native Administration came down to establishing
a form of local government, for which purpose
native authorities had to be appointed and native
courts set up. As the experiment was not suppos-
ed to be a drain on the Treasury in London, the
indigenous population should be subjected to
direct taxation and forced labor for public works.
Those measures were to be administered through
the native authorities (see Crowder 1968, Crow-
der and Ikime 1970).
The Colonial Government encountered hard-
ly any problem when Indirect Rule was intro-
duced to the North.1 Native courts and native
authorities appeared to fit smoothly into the
judicial and political structures of the centralized
Islamic Emirates. Direct taxation met with little
opposition among the indigenous population;
they had been used to all sorts of taxation
imposed on them by the Fulani rulers. The idea
of common labor for public purposes even came
close to traditional notions of work held by some
of the Haussa groups. Among the Nupe, for
instance, the organization of labor distinguished
individual work (buca) from collective family
work (efako) (Nadel 1942: 241).
In theory, the doctrine of Indirect Rule was
to provide for a form of local government which
made use of the existing institutions of the Emir-
ates, but sought to improve the conditions of the
Haussa population. In practice and already under
Luggard’s Governorship, the doctrine became a
pretext for implementing social change and eco-
nomic development which would not only benefit
the indigenous population. Direct taxation, for
example, was seen as an incentive to the commer-
cialization of agriculture (see Crowder 1968: 169).
In the realm of local government the native
authorities had limited powers of decision. The
Emirs could dispose of only a part of the total tax
revenue, and not start local projects which need-
1 Problems arose, however, upon the extension of Indirect
Rule to the South. Here no attempts were made to adapt
the model operating in the North to the specific condi-
tions of the South (see Lackner 1973; 125-127).
90
H. A. Taatgen
ed funding without the approval of British offi-
cers.2 Indirect Rule left considerable scope for
intervention of the Colonial Government, and its
officers, residents, and district commissioners
were called upon to employ their diplomatic
qualities in what were called ‘matters of general
policy.’ In Luggard’s own words: “The Resident
acts as a sympathetic adviser to the native chief,
being careful not to interfere so as to lower his
prestige, or cause him to lose interest in his work.
His advice on matters of general policy must be
followed, but the native ruler issues his instruc-
tions to his subordinate chiefs and district-heads
not as the orders of the Resident but as his own”
(quoted in Crowder 1968: 200).
Upon Luggard’s retirement as Governor,
British Interventionism faded, however, into a
policy of minimal interference with the Native
Administration (Crowder 1968; 169). Especially
in the North this gave rise to a situation which
was favourable to the autocratic aspirations of
many an Emir. Confronted with a slackening in
the external checks to their authority, some of
them seized upon the opportunity to increase and
abuse their power, notably in the spheres of
taxation and compulsory labor (Crowder
1968: 209).
When Cameron was appointed Governor of
Nigeria in 1931, he sharply criticized the laissez-
faire attitude among British officers. They were
chided for . . drifting into a habit of mind that
a feudal monarchy of this kind is the be-all and
end-all of Indirect Administration” (quoted in
Perham 1937: 331). Directives were issued which
were meant to revive Luggard’s interpretation of
Indirect Rule. But the drafting of blueprints was
one thing, re-establishing British political control
on the ground was quite another. At the time
Nadel made his appearance among the Nupe, he
entered a society which was “. . . a sub-unit of
Fulani overlordship, supported by and mediating
colonial British rule” (Feuchtwang 1973: 90).
2 Of the total tax revenue of the Nupe Emirate, 30 per cent
went to the Colonial Government and 70 per cent to the
Native Administration Treasury. The apportionment of
the Native Administration share in the revenue, above all
the allotment of funds for new enterprises, was made
subject to the joint approval of the Etsu Nupe and the
district commissioner (see Nadel 1942; 162-163).
3. Applied Anthropology: The Nupe
Before continuing the argument it is appropriate
to make a remark on our research strategy. For
the moment, we assume that Paris’ conclusions
on Nadel’s research activities hold true for the
entire length of his career as fieldworker. In
compliance with the demands of modern empiri-
cal research (see Popper 1969), we should then
look for instances of Nadel’s work among the
Nupe which are incompatible with this general-
ized picture. In a way, this approach is facilitated
by Nadel’s own conception of how the co-op-
eration between anthropologist and administra-
tor would come to its fullest advantage. For in
the Introduction of “A Black Byzantium” Nadel
saw it as his duty to describe Nupe society “in all
its complexity” and in addition, to point out . .
alternative developments that have arisen, or are
likely to arise, from administrative measures or
their omission, from a new extraneous change or
the unbroken continuance of an indigenous insti-
tution” (1942: vii).
Nadel thus saw the interests of the Colonial
Government served best by critically ascertaining
the effects of Indirect Rule on the society of the
Nupe. For this purpose Nadel would make no
difference between, on the one hand, develop-
ments which appeared to be the indirect result of
the presence of the British and, on the other,
social change which was the direct result of
British interferences. As we will see in a number
of cases selected from “A Black Byzantium,”
both the consequences of a policy of laissez-faire
(a) and the results of Interventionism (b) came in
for a fair portion of criticism.
a) A laissez-faire attitude among British offi-
cers had for instance increased the scope for the
ingratiating forces of human greed. In a discus-
sion of the taxation system of the Native Adminis-
tration, Nadel (1942: 163) observed that “Native
official after official, often in the highest position,
has lost its post, and even gone to prison, for
embezzling tax-money or levying illicit dues.”
Human greed which turned to these means form-
ed an offence, but more serious was its satisfac-
tion through avenues which had become acknowl-
edged and generally accepted. It was Nadel’s
opinion that the expenditure on the Emir’s court
and the salaries of the higher officials fell within
this latter category. He strongly disapproved of
the high costs of the Native Administration, the
more so since these had to be paid by the
ordinary citizens. According to Nadel (163), “dis-
proportionally high taxes” were levied on “the
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropological Involution
91
impoverished masses of the people.” In addition
to the heavy burden of taxation, Nadel’s concern
went to the methods of assessment.
Whereas the traditional productive unit
among the Nupe peasants was embodied in the
family, “taxation takes into account only the
individual” (164). Under the external pressure of
heavy tax demands, individual family members
had to look for subsidiary means to the family
income. They turned to handicrafts and tempo-
rary labor, a development which in the eyes of
Nadel (357) would only “. . . further, and indeed
favour, that break-up of the labour- and family-
unit the beginnings of which are already visible.”
British officers turned, however, a blind eye to
these consequences.
What counted to them in the first place, was
the timely payment and collection of tax-money.
In the role of supervisor they made sure that this
would happen, notwithstanding the disruptive
effects on traditional culture and local customs.
These disruptions could not but hit at the heart of
the fieldworker: “Twice I have come across chiefs
who, in their official capacity and by the order of
u District Officer, had to forbid all dances and
festivities in a district which was behindhand with
the tax, at a time when he should have organised,
us a chief, the village rituals that precede the
harvest” (Nadel 1942: 64—65). The taxation sys-
tem posed one threat to the survival of Nupe
culture. But to Nadel’s regret, cultural disintegra-
tion was also caused by new developments within
the administration of justice.
A progressive penetration of formal political
Jurisdiction into the domain of traditional life had
left the village heads and elders with very little
judicial authority. As his findings pointed at a
continuation of this process of local jurisdiction
surrendering to the activities of the native courts
°f justice, Nadel (174) detected hardly any real-
ism in the view expressed by some British offi-
cers that “. . . the village chiefs and elders should
continue to practise their informal arbitration side
hy side with the existing courts.” Instead, Nadel
(173-174) made a plea for slowing down this
Process of a “stronger law ousting the weaker
law”: “In my view the best compromise would be
to vest the Village Head with the right [and, more
lrUportant, the duty] to act as an assessor in the
c°urt, with full consultative authority, whenever
cases from his community are brought before the
Alkali.”
Nadel’s proposition was a compromise be-
tween complete restoration of local jurisdiction on
one hand, and giving free play to the central-
Anthropos 83.1988
izing tendencies of a more ‘modern’ administra-
tion of justice on the other. Although he realized
that the first was no longer possible, he conceived
of the last development as being extremely unde-
sirable. In this case of jurisdiction, centralization
would occur on account of a laissez-faire policy of
the Colonial Government. But in other domains
of local culture affected by the Native Adminis-
tration, centralization was actively encouraged
by British officers. To the effect that these inter-
ventions continued to undermine the moral order
of the local population, Nadel would also raise a
strong voice of protest.
b) A most conspicuous figure amenable to
British intervention was the village chief turned
into an official agent of the Native Administra-
tion. In his new capacity the chief could give
orders, enforce laws, and exact actions which
were unpopular with his people. In those cases in
which his orders, laws, or actions did not serve the
interests as defined by members of the local
community, the Government had to step in by
providing “. . . the extra power which is to weigh
the scales in favour of the chief ...” (Nadel
1942:65). In the two instances in which the
British felt compelled to replace a chief by a
person more able to adopt “the white man’s point
of view,” the dilemma was only felt more acute.
In those cases “Government backing was not
capable of making up for the loss of moral unity
which supports the traditional chief in the execu-
tion of his traditional duties” (65).
Apart from turning local leaders into employ-
ees of the Native Administration, the British had
started an experiment in which higher state of-
fices had been opened to Nupe commoners. This
had resulted in the appointment of a village chief
as a member of the Emir’s council in one case,
and led to the promotion of a village chief to
district-head in another. In the eyes of Nadel
(159) both appointments were based on “insuffi-
cient knowledge” of the country. As these offi-
cials had reached their new positions “. . . through
no acknowledged channel of ‘social career’”
(159), the one was forced to play an insignificant
role on the council, whereas the other, due to
lack of authority, was unable to administer his
district satisfactorily.
Towards the end of his fieldwork among the
Nupe, Nadel was consulted by the Government
on the planned reorganization of the Town coun-
cil of Bida, the capital of the country. Formerly
the administration of Bida was based on a system
of ward-heads, in which each head ruled over that
part of the town he lived in. As this system had
92
H. A. Taatgen
led to bribery and exortation of tax-money, it was
abolished by the British in 1933 and replaced by a
new system in which no allowance was made for
the principle of locality as well as for the bonds of
protecton between ruler and ruled. In this new
system, the ruled appeared, however, to be out of
touch with their rulers. In a memorandum Nadel
suggested a return to the principles of locality and
patronage, but with one change. The patronizing
ward-heads should be elected by the people
themselves, because “. . . the ignorant, intimi-
dated commoner . . . still feels that he could only
benefit from the association with a man of rank
and learning” (162n).
The positions taken by Nadel in the latter
and preceding cases might create the impression
that, on the subject of social change, Nadel could
not but raise the conservative or even reactionary
voice. Such a conclusion would be premature.
When discussing the future of Nupe society and
more particularly, one of the solutions to the
conflict between local cultural autonomy and
political unification, Nadel emphasized the need
of planned education. Only when general and
higher education would be within the reach of all
Nupe people, only then . . will the rigid,
exclusive class boundaries be dissolved; only then
will the talaka, the Poor One, be able fully to
stand on his own feet, to have his share in the
administration of his country, and to dispense
finally with those links of clientship and patron-
age which so far have been his only weapon to
overcome the vulnerability of his position. On
this new plane the question of centralization
versus local administration may then be reopen-
ed, and with more prospect of a permanent suc-
cessful settlement” (176).
In view of the case material presented in this
section, what should be our judgement of Nadel’s
position vis-à-vis the Colonial Government? We
must be cautious to decide in favour of an
unconditional loyalty to Governmental policies
on his part. Our reserve does not derive so much
from the details of Nadel’s criticism of these
policies as from the guiding criteria he applied in
making his points. These criteria were a mixture
of a “human” concern for the material well-being
of the common people, and a more “anthropo-
logical” concern for what they held to be a morally
valid universe. The first concern of social justice
should not antagonize the guardians of Indirect
Rule, but we may wonder to what extent Nadel’s
basic concept of cultural integration could be
reconciled with the criteria of effective govern-
ment adopted by the same British officers. In the
Introduction of “A Black Byzantium” Nadel had
expressed a rather pessimistic view on this issue:
“. . . all criticism stands or falls with the concep-
tion of principles and necessities of which it is an
expression. Anthropologists and administrators
may differ about these principles and necessities -
we anthropologists are the first to realize this”
(vii).
In his capacity as Government anthropologist
and as the author of “A Black Byzantium” Nadel
abstained from evaluating the consequences of
this possible conflict of interests. One might,
however, imagine that the need for practising
carefulness in this matter would disappear upon
the termination of his contractual engagements
with the Government. Nadel’s career as Govern-
ment anthropologist ended upon completion of
his manuscript of “The Nuba” in 1941. During
the next five years he served as an officer in the
British army at various places in east Africa.
Nadel retired from the army in 1946, and in
October of the same year he was appointed Se-
nior Lecturer at the London School of Econom-
ics. Nadel fitted well into the new environment
of the university, but it would take another six
years before an occasion arose on which he would
speak with candour about the pitfalls of applied
anthropology.
4. The Wenner-Gren Symposium
In 1950 Nadel was appointed to the first Chair in
Anthropology at the Australian National Univer-
sity. Two years later he attended as a discussant
the International Symposium on Anthropology,
which was organized by the Wenner-Gren Foun-
dation in New York. At the session on “Problems
of Application” Nadel expressed some misgivings
which had arisen during the course of his career
as Government anthropologist. Drawing upon his
vast experience with work in applied anthropolo-
gy, Nadel had few positive words to say about
commissioned surveys. He disqualified this type
of enquiries as “blind research” for reasons that
“neither the employer nor the anthropologist
knows at the time what it is going to be used for
or what it will eventually be needed for” (Tax
et al. 1953: 178; our italics). Instead, Nadel stress-
ed the greater usefulness (for the employer) of
research which addresses “specific problems” and
presents “material oriented towards the prob-
lems.” Experience with research of this type,
however, had confronted him with problems of
an altogether different kind: “Certain misgivings
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropological Involution
93
also arise in connection with specifically oriented
studies, where the handling of the practical issues
remains entirely in the hands of the government,
of the men ‘with common sense’ .... I have
always mistrusted the division between anthropo-
logical knowledge or insight and common sense.
If the anthropologist knows enough about soci-
eties to be asked, he is also a judge of how and
what to plan for these societies .... I think a
good anthropologist would be a very good admin-
istrator, at least as good as anybody else” (Tax
etal. 1953: 179).
Later on we will return to Nadel’s views of
common sense knowledge, but here must be
emphasized what we had already suspected be-
fore. As Government anthropologist Nadel had
received little appreciation from district commis-
sioners and other colonial officers, a fate which
he seems to have shared with other colleagues
who had worked for the Colonial Government
(see Kuper 1973: 139). Nadel’s frankness in this
matter added to the idea that his career in applied
anthropology had not been entirely free from
conflicts between him and the Government. This
Jdea was corroborated when Nadel, some time
later at the same session, urged his colleagues
never to abandon “our values as citizens”: “I
speak with feeling because during the war, when
certain measures were going to be taken on the
basis of what I had investigated, I would not
agree, not as an anthropologist, but as a human
being. I faced court martial on one occasion for
refusing to agree to a measure of collective
Punishment of certain tribes, and I can see no
reason why any anthropologist should not stand
UP for his opinion, even though he may be an
administrator or part of the administrative body.
This is a question of conscience, but I think that
m the study which we proudly call the ‘study of
man’ conscience has a very definite place” (Tax
et al. 1953: 188).
There can be little doubt about the identity
°f at least one of the groups mentioned in this
confession. In all likelihood the punished people
ln question include the Jebel Tullishi, one of the
groups which had inhabited the Nuba mountains.
This disclosed piece of information is remarkable
ln the sense that it contradicts some of the
evidence for Paris’ picture of Nadel as an apolo-
§lst and defender of an unscrupulous colonial
regime. Two mutually exclusive possibilities
^ght explain this incongruity. The one is that
^adel, at the time he worked on the manuscript
“The Nuba,” must have kept this conflict to
bimself. The other is that, although Nadel some-
Anth
where in this study has referred to this inci-
dent, this effusion has not captured the notion of
his critic. The clue to either one or the other
explanation should, however, be provided by
what is stated (or not stated) in “The Nuba.”
5. Applied Anthropology: The Nuba
Indirect Rule in Nigeria had given rise to prob-
lems, some of which were the result, at least
according to Nadel, of a collision between indige-
nous moral conceptions and centralized control
backed up by the Colonial Government. Like-
wise, many problems which followed upon the
introduction of Native Administration in the
Nuba mountains were attributed by Nadel to this
same conflict of values. To the people of the hill
group of Jebel Tullishi, for instance, the three
communities in the ‘western section’ of their
habitat were divided from an equal number of
communities in the ‘eastern section’ by an invisi-
ble boundary line which ran across the hill. After
Native Administration had been introduced in
Jebel Tullishi, people from the eastern communi-
ties refused to appear before the chief’s court,
which was located in the western section.
In an attempt to bring back this number of
offences of “contempt of court,” Nadel proposed
certain reorganizations in the administration of
justice among the people of this hill group. The
reforms made allowance for the people’s concep-
tion of the dual division of the universe, and came
down to installing in the eastern section a sub-
court, consisting of a deputy-chief assisted by
local sub-chiefs. The court members should be
clan representatives and be elected by the people
themselves.
With the approval of the district commis-
sioner on duty the plans were suggested to the
people who, according to Nadel, received the
proposals with enthusiasm. After some obstacles
as to the election were removed, a court was
established to which the people elected their most
respected men, including the “grain priest” and
“king makers.” To Nadel this revision should be
followed by other, guiding efforts on the part of
the Government: “Certain major administrative
reforms still remain to be carried out; the abolish-
ment of the practice that the chief pockets the
fines, and a better definition of the role of
Government and tribal police. It will, besides, be
some time till the new machinery is working
smoothly. It is merely a machinery: its creation
does not in itself eliminate the deep-rooted inter-
iropos 83.1988
94
H. A. Taatgen
nal frictions or the conflict between traditional
and modern conceptions of right and wrong”
(Nadel 1947: 355).
A couple of years after Nadel had finished
his fieldwork in the Sudan but some time before
the manuscript of “The Nuba” was going to be
published, Nadel in his capacity as officer in the
Sudan Defence Force got involved in, as we know
by now, certain measures the Government had
decided upon: the sending of a punitive expedi-
tion to the hill group and the forcible evacuation
of the group from Jebel Tullishi to the plain.
Nadel added a note to the manuscript in which he
commented upon these actions. The tenor of
Nadel’s comments is noteworthy: “After I left
Tullishi, the people kept the peace for two years.
I am certain that this state of affairs would have
continued and military intervention proved unne-
cessary if the political reforms had been carefully
nursed and guided. The exigencies of war, short-
age of personnel, prevented this. But let me repeat
- the political reforms only created a new machin-
ery: the new machines must be watched, cared
for and, occasionally, corrected. Colonial rule
through native institutions is stultified unless it
envisages gradual [and guided] readjustment. But
of this I shall speak more fully in the final chapter
of this book” (Nadel 1947; 355n).
In the final chapter, then, Nadel noted that
“gradual readjustment” had proved easier in the
groups with no traditional government than in
those which possessed indigenous political institu-
tions. How was this to be explained? It had been
acknowledged by the Colonial Government that
in the groups of the last category, including the
one of Jebel Tullishi, the new authority of the
“big men” and “chiefs of the path” needed to be
augmented and checked by councils of sub-chiefs
and elders. To the anthropologist the councils
should be a political body of which the composi-
tion would make sense to the local people. With
respect to this latter requirement Nadel (498),
however, observed that “. . . the efforts of the
Administration have partly failed. Sub-chiefs and
elders were uniformly selected on the basis of
locality. But only in one or two tribes does
locality represent a significant principle of seg-
mentation [e.g., in Ottoro or Moro]. More often
it corresponds to an incidental, impermanent
grouping, while the clan represents the significant
segment in the society.”
Nadel’s observation of this failure of the
Colonial Government obviously needs some qua-
lification for the hill group of Jebel Tullishi: After
the principle of clan representation had been
introduced among these people on Nadel’s insti-
gation, it must have been abandoned (or to use
Nadel’s euphemism: not “been carefully nursed
and guided”) by the responsible British officers
after its innovator had finished his job.
On the other hand, groups without a political
hierarchy had confronted the Colonial Govern-
ment with little problems. These groups were
invariably smaller in size and this characteristic,
in conjunction with their “weakly pronounced
internal structure,” had enabled the British to
introduce a political organization which “could
not but bear down on them with overwhelming
strength and rapidly engulf them” (499). Minor
problems of political friction and maladjustment
were not absent in these cases, but received the
attention of the anthropologist rather than of the
Colonial Government. On the possibility of a
political reorganization of these groups, also
along the sounder lines of clan representation,
Nadel (499) sadly remarked that this “. . . is ruled
out, not because it would be less efficient but
because it was less timely. For anthropological
guidance in the political field is essentially an
alternative to rule upheld by power [of whatever
nature].”
The concluding chapter of “The Nuba” ra-
diates disillusionment on the subject of fruitful
anthropological guidance in matters of Native
Administration. The scope for the anthropolo-
gist was limited on account of either the reality
of accomplished facts or, as in the case of Jebel
Tullishi, of preconceived ideas held by adminis-
trators. To a certain extent this observation of
the barriers thrown up against the application of
alternative views summarized Nadel’s total expe-
rience with work in applied anthropology. For
not only in the Sudan but also in Nigeria, Nadel
had waged a battle against views held by adminis-
trators and other British officers which made no
allowance for the disruptive effects of colonial
rule on the survival of indigenous culture. In “A
Black Byzantium” Nadel’s occasional pessimism
as to the outcome of this battle was yet made
subordinate to an expressed belief in “the possibil-
ity of such co-operation between anthropologist
and administrator” (Nadel 1942: vi). But in the
Sudan, after Nadel had completed his fieldwork
and joined the Sudan Defence Force, this belief
had faded and given way to insubordination on
his part when the Government had decided on
measures of punishment against the people of
Jebel Tullishi.
This progressive deterioration of the rela-
tionship between the anthropologist and the Co-
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropological Involution
95
lonial Government strongly bears out the assump-
tion that very little of Nadel’s insights and recom-
mendations had been adopted and carried out by
officers of the same Government. But if Nadel
had not been given his way in many cases, he
might nevertheless have tried hard to make his
points during those years and for this purpose
have adopted, perhaps not ‘the white man’s point
of view,’ but the latter’s behavior towards the
local people. For has it not been observed that
some of Nadel’s fieldwork methods expressed a
condescending attitude to non-western people,
their behavior and ideas?
In his contribution Paris made mention of
Nadel’s ability to summon informants at his will,
his access to a police squad, his employment of a
“bullying technique,” his obvious contempt for
local custom, and last but not least, racist bents
within the context of his interest in intelligence
testing. In light of our previous findings we feel
compelled to reconsider Paris’ sources in this
matter. This must be done in detail, since the
interpretation of these sources is fundamental to
a more encompassing evaluation of Nadel’s ap-
plied anthropology.
6. Paris’ Criticisms Reconsidered
Paris (1973: 161): “. . . [Nadel] appears to have
been able to summon informants at will.” This
suggestion is based on a passage in “The Nuba”
in which Nadel discussed the upbringing of chil-
dren among the people of Jebel Tullishi. Due to
the matrilineal structure of this society, education
Was in the hands of the mothers. Occasionally this
female prerogative was made the object of mild
ridicule by the Tullishi men:
Informants always stressed that it is the mothers who would
forbid their children to cross the “invisible boundary” or visit
a village where leprosy is believed to be prevalent. I once
summoned some young men from across the “invisible boun-
ty,” having been assured by their male kinsfolk that they
were old enough to brave the threat of witchcraft: the young
rtlen came - only to be fetched back by their enraged mothers.
Tie men shrugged, saying: “Women are like that” (Nadel
1947: 335-336).
Paris (1973: 161): “. . . [Nadel] had access [at
least in the Nuba mountains] to a police squad.”
Nadel’s use of these forces should appear from
fhe following passage in “The Nuba”:
°n one of my visits to Tullishi, when I was in the company of
foe District Commissioner, I found two villages, Karlenya and
Lau, engaged in a violent fight with sticks and spears, and
§uns held in readiness, the eastern village accusing the
Western, in traditional fashion, of having stolen the rain. The
Anthropos 83.1988
people of Karlenya had merely intended [so they said] to go
down the fields of Lau and walk around them in a peaceful
procession, to capture the fickle rain which had for days fallen
only over Lau. For this innocuous, though unorthodox,
procedure they obtained the permission of the chief. But Lau
did not trust this new spririt, and halted the procession by
force of arms; which was proof, in the eyes of Karlenya, that
Lau meant to keep the rain. We managed to stop the fight,
and referred the matter to the chief and court for a more
peaceful settlement (Nadel 1947: 347).
Paris (1973: 160-161): “In an essay on the
use of interviews, we find the basis of Nadel’s
relationship with the indigenous people. It is clear
he prefers “raw savages” - he cautions against
using educated informants, or people educated
locally as researchers . . . Nadel prefers, instead,
his own bullying technique.”
Nadel’s essay (1939b) does indeed contain
bold statements on the subjects of how to excite
the curiosity of the informant, and how to make
the informant speak openly on “secret” and
“forbidden” topics. But should his use of a
“bullying technique” solely be interpreted as an
effort on the part of a Machiavellian scholar?
Even if Nadel’s ambitions would deserve this
qualification, it would say very little about his
true feelings for the people among whom he did
research. As Malinowski’s (1967) diary notes
show, the relationship between a fieldworker and
“his people” changes according to the circum-
stances, and is altogether extremely complicated.
Paris (1973: 161): “In discussing field partici-
pation, Nadel suggests that some anthropologists
may involve themselves more fully, but stresses
that it is really not necessary to get too involved,”
after which Paris proceeds with the following
quotation from Nadel (1939b: 326): “The anthro-
pologist may be admitted to secret rites, yet
disregard with impunity important ritual rules,
such as food taboos and submission to severe
flogging in an initiation ceremony.” “With this
kind of contempt for local custom,” Paris con-
tinues, “it is not surprising that Nadel urges
that anthropologists ‘capitalise ... on their stran-
ger value’.”
As to the desire of some anthropologists to
become fully adopted by the people they live with
Nadel, however, stressed the impossibility rather
than the needlessness of actions pertinent to such
a desire. For Nadel made the observation quoted
by Paris as an illustration of the following point:
“The anthropologist can only be a ‘freak’ mem-
ber of the group, not only because of the conspic-
uous differences in physical characteristics which
often exist, but also because of inevitable social
incompatabilities” (Nadel 1939b: 326).
96
H. A. Taatgen
Due to these incompatabilities the fieldwork-
er would never become fully accepted by the
members of one social group. Despite, the an-
thropologist who wanted to stretch his talents and
luck in such a case, received the blessing of
Nadel. But when research entailed the study of
more than one social group, Nadel recommended
the fieldworker to capitalize his “stranger value.”
Not out of “contempt for local custom,” but for
perfectly sound reasons: “In stratified or rigidly
subdivided societies a social place can be assumed
[by the fieldworker] in one stratum or section
only, and estrangement from the people belong-
ing to another strata or sections, and even their
enmity, may result” (Nadel 1939b: 327).
Paris (1973: 160n): “Among other things,
Nadel was a pioneer in intelligence testing in
British social anthropology. He saw the goal of
this to be able to arrange groups on some type of
scale that might measure relative superiority and
inferiority . . . This was not just to be quantitative
measures along a single existing scale, but compar-
ison on a new basis. The most recent statement
of this in Britain is to be found in the blatant
racism of H. J. Eysenk ...”
In the very same publication Paris alludes to,
Nadel (1939a) adopted however the claims of
cultural relativism, a position which does not
acknowledge a sound, scientific base for the
making of comparative statements. Since the
cultural differences in mental orientation “. . . do
not lend themselves to being measured on a
common scale of intellectual efficiency” (195), we
should, according to Nadel, “. . . not so much be
examining and measuring degrees of intelligence,
as analysing different types and qualities of intel-
ligence” (197). Utmost care had to be practised as
to the possibilities of an unscientific use of the
results of these measurements and other tests. In
this respect Nadel (188) warned explicitly against
“. . . the danger of test results being . . . interpret-
ed as demonstrating the constitutional inferiority
and uneducability of racial or ethnic groups.”
7. Scientism and Common Sense
Our final object of reconsideration must be Na-
del’s activities on the theoretical plane. By and
large, these followed upon his career as fieldwork-
er. In “The Foundations of Social Anthropolo-
gy” (1951) Nadel criticized two prevailing tradi-
tions within anthropology which were rooted in
the “psychologism” of Malinowski and the “soci-
ologism” of Radcliffe-Brown. Whereas Mali-
nowski’s functionalism had emphasized the indi-
vidual (and individual needs, to be satisfied by
“culture”), Radcliffe-Brown’s structural function-
alism stressed society (or social structure, of
which the individual was merely the carrier; see
Salat 1983: 132). In the “Foundations” Nadel re-
jected the primacy of either the individual or the
social, and argued in favour of an object of study
which stressed the interdependence of human
needs and social constructions in the concept of
“man-acting” (Nadel 1951: 75). This idea was
worked out in “The Theory of Social Structure”
(1957), in which Nadel presented a new model for
social structure based upon a mathematical no-
tion of social role.
Apart from defining the object of study,
Nadel advanced in both works a view of the
discipline which was modelled upon the require-
ments of the natural sciences. In the details of his
elaborations Nadel showed an almost unequalled
familiarity (within anthropology) with insights
and ideas developed within the philosophy of
science. Drawing upon some of these insights in
an original fashion, Nadel, for instance, defined
progress in anthropological knowledge along lines
of a combined inductive-deductive approach of
enquiry.3
No doubt, Nadel’s natural science conception
of anthropology expressed a long-standing episte-
mological interest which can be traced back to his
earlier training in philosophy (see Firth 1957,
Fortes 1957, Freilich 1968). An additional expla-
nation of Nadel’s scientism is, however, suggested
by our previous findings. In turn, this interpreta-
tion is believed to add to our understanding of
Nadel’s applied anthropology.
A constant theme running through our dicus-
sions has been Nadel’s dissociation from views
and lines of thought held by British colonial
administrators. At the Wenner-Gren conference
Nadel called them the men “with common
sense.” What he understood by common sense
thinking had already been put down in his opus
magnum of 1951. In the “Foundations” Nadel
distinguished common sense explanations from
explanations constructed and used in scientific
enquiries. Whereas explanations of the latter kind
involve circular procedures of induction and de-
duction, explanations of common sense “. . . do
3 See Nadel 1951: 20-25. This was an extremely modern
view for those days and perhaps beyond the comprehen-
sion of Paris, who labelled Nadel as an “inductive
empiricist” (Paris 1973: 165). Equally, matters are simpli-
fied when Nadel is branded a “psychological reduction-
ist” (165). Compare for instance Nadel 1951: 217-218.
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropological Involution
97
no more than point out the analogy between what
is being explored and what is already known; they
merely attempt to classify, to put a name to some
observed object or event; and subsume it under
an order of things already assured .... For
common sense, there is no awareness of the steps
that led to the assured knowledge; it is simply
given and intuitively used” (Nadel 1951: 196—
197).
In the Sudan, but also in Nigeria, Nadel had
been confronted with obstacles which were the
product of common sense thinking. “The Nuba”
abounds with examples of British officers who
intuitively used “assured knowledge” whenever
this suited their ignorance. The following passage
illustrates again the crucial importance of the
“invisible boundary” to the people of Jebel Tul-
lishi, but is also a case in point:
“During the Tullishi patrol of 1926 ... an
energetic District Commissioner, intent on instill-
ing some discipline into the young men of the
tribe, ordered them to appear every morning for
a roll call at his camp. As the camp was situated
on the territory of the western section, the young
men from the eastern villages failed to turn up,
which was taken as more evidence of their unruli-
ness. Often, too, when collecting porters, officers
found it impossible to recruit young men in the
western villages for a trek through the eastern
part of the hill, and vice versa; again, this was
attributed to slackness or hostility” (Nadel
1947: 323n).
In this case obviously nobody ever asked the
question: how come these men are “unruly,
slack, and hostile”? Instead, this preconceived
notion was used time and again, and found
corroborated on these occasions. In the end, this
specimen of common sense thinking served to
legitimize the taking of drastic and disastrous
measures. For it was one thing to ‘explain’ the
behavior of the young men from Jebel Tullishi by
subsuming it under this preconceived notion. But
it was quite another to use this same notion as a
justification for sending a punitive expedition to
this hill group and evacuating the people by using
force. In this last event common sense rationaliz-
ed rule upheld by violence.
Up and until the early 1940s, Nadel had
strongly opposed this and other demonstrations
°f coercive colonial administration. On several
°ccasions he had pointed out to British officers
that rule upheld by power would sap the bonds
which held local culture together, and cause a
boomerang-effect on the implementation of Indi-
rect Rule. Almost one decade later and in the
role of theoretician, Nadel disengaged himself
once more from the disruptive effects of British
colonialism. He did so by moulding anthropology
upon the rigid standards of the natural sciences.
Anthropology should be a storehouse of true
knowledge about indigenous cultures, and for this
purpose adopt a scientifically sound methodologi-
cal approach. This would entail the application of
cyclical research procedures of induction and
deduction, and ideally result in the formulation of
general statements and theories. Common sense
knowledge, on the other hand, was unscientific.
Consequently, its formulation and application fell
outside the scope and responsibility of the anthro-
pologist. But was this to mean that anthropology
should sever its ties to the guardians of Indirect
Rule?
In the “Foundations” Nadel rejected, how-
ever, a conception of the discipline as a “value-
free” science (Nadel 1951: 53). It was an “illu-
sion” to believe that true knowledge could be
pursued by “objective” scholars who had dis-
carded their personal values. Moreover, it was
wrong, according to Nadel, to uphold a belief in
anthropology as a discipline which would be of no
value to people other than anthropologists. Since
its endproducts should serve non-scientific inter-
ests as well, anthropology was to be always
applied anthropology.
During the years which had followed upon
the writing of “The Nuba,” Nadel appears to
have regained his faith in the unification of theory
and application. But in the early 1950s the status
of the discipline was formulated with one impor-
tant difference. It derived its strength from an
explicit rejection of the sort of knowledge that
had too often inspired the actions of colonial
administrators. Having no other interest but the
pursuit of true knowledge, anthropology was only
liable to the claims of science. In the meantime, it
was to be hoped that its products would benefit
extraneous interests, and replace common sense
knowledge. For common sense was not only the
enemy of science, but also of a just administration
and, ultimately, of human dignity.
8. Conclusions
The incentive to our excursion into the work of
Nadel was provided by a review article of
James C. Paris. In this article Nadel’s research
activities in the Sudan have been subjected to an
analysis which purported to determine the role of
his work and ideas in support of British coloni-
^nthropos 83.1988
98
H. A. Taatgen
alism. The analysis was devastating and the con-
clusions were sensational. With the author we
wondered whether there would be any base for
extending these conclusions to Nadel’s earlier
work as Government anthropologist among the
Nupe in Nigeria.
For this purpose we turned to Nadel’s eth-
nographic corpus on the Nupe. Our analysis
focussed on Nadel’s assessments of the effects of
the introduction of Indirect Rule on the society of
the Nupe. As the assessments were not only
critical, but also made according to “principles
and necessities” not always appreciated by the
Government, we hesitated upon generalizing Pa-
ris’ conclusions for the entire length of Nadel’s
career in applied anthropology. Our reserve as to
such an effort turned even upon the tenor of
Paris’ argument on closer examination of Nadel’s
disclosures at the Wenner-Gren conference in
1952. Our argument, on the other hand, contin-
ued to accumulate evidence for a less disheartening
evaluation of Nadel’s work, first by reconsidering
Nadel’s activities among some of the Nuba peo-
ples and, later on, by exposing the malicious
intentions which appear to have inspired Paris’
argumentation. Finally, one interpretation of Na-
del’s scientism suggested by us completed a pic-
ture of his anthropology, altogether different from
the one drawn by Paris, but substantiating the
conclusions of Salat (1983) on Nadel’s anthropol-
ogy, and of Kuper (1973) on Nadel’s generation
of British social anthropologists.
The present state of affairs in anthropology is
a far cry away from the scientific ideal portrayed
by Nadel some 30 years ago. Nowhere is this
more clear than in the absence of a clear-cut
methodology of the discipline. The research acti-
vities of the ethnographer appear in most cases to
proceed along lines which reflect individual inge-
nuity rather than commonly accepted steps of
enquiry. Notwithstanding this stituation, most
anthropologists would agree on at least two con-
ditions to be fulfilled for sound ethnographic
research. One is that the ethnographer should
speak the language of the people he lives with.
The other is that the ethnographer should be on
speaking terms with (at least a number of) his
people; i.e., in due course some rapport and trust
must have developed.
Once in Nigeria, Nadel seemed to have
needed little time in mastering the difficult Nupe
language. In a later stage of his stay among the
Nupe Nadel was awarded the title of Shaba by the
people of Jebba Island. This rank was bestowed
on him for reasons that he had become, in their
eyes, a “full Nupe” (Nadel 1942: 50). More so
than commenting on the qualities of Nadel as
ethnographer, this event throws a telling light on
the nature and direction of his committments as
anthropological fieldworker.
This paper was read and criticized by William Arens.
The typing of an earlier version was done by Mary
Feehan. I thank both of them for their assistance and
support.
References Cited
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Berreman, G.
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1968 West Africa Under Colonial Rule. London: Hutchin-
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Crowder, M., and O. Ikime
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Diamond, S.
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Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
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Paris, J. C.
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Asad (ed.), Anthropology and the Colonial Encoun-
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1973 The Colonial Formation of British Social Anthropolo-
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Fika, A. M.
1978 The Kano Civil War and British Overrule 1882-1940.
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Anthropos 83.1988
STUDIA INSTITUTI ANTHROPOS 42
ROBERT DELIÈGE
LES P AR AI Y ARS
DU TAMIL NADU
1988. 320 pp. DM 75,00
Le mot „paria“ trouve son origine étymologique dans le nom de la caste intouchable
des Paraiyars qui vivent au bas de la hiérarchie sociale sud-indienne. C’est la vie
sociale d’un petit village paraiyar qui est reconstruite tout au long des pages de ce
livre et cette reconstruction nous donne l’occasion de voir non seulement comment
vivent ceux que l’Inde moderne appelle harijans (enfants de dieu) mais aussi ce qu’ils
pensent et comment ils ressentent la société de castes au bas de laquelle ils sont
rejetés.
On commande ä:
Anthropos Institut Steyler Verlag - Wort und Werk
Arnold-Janssen-Str. 20 Postfach 2460
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Anthropos 83.1988: 101-108
The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good Life”
Frank A. Salamene
Abstract. - Every society has its concepts of the “Good Life.”
The Hune of Nigeria illustrate the manner in which that ideal
articulates with other sociocultural aspects of their life. The
article blends historical information in the analysis of the way
in which even deviations of the ideal life serve to strengthen
its legitimacy and power over everyday life. [Northern Nige-
ria, Hune, ohobe-gormu Complex, Cultural Adaptation, Cul-
ture and Personality]
Frank A. Salamone, Ph. D.; currently Chairman of the Social
Science and History Dept, at Elizabeth Seton College, Yon-
kers, N.Y.; Associate Editor of the African Studies Review,
Executive Secretary of the New York State African Studies
Association. - Publications: See References Cited.
1. Introduction
Every society has its own image of the good life.
The Hune of Yauri, Sokoto State, Nigeria, are no
exception. They, too, have a conception of what
constitutes an ideal life and the characteristics
appropriate for an ideal person. Not surprisingly,
Hune ideals correspond with other major cultural
and institutional characteristics adaptive to their
iconiche. These characteristics, in turn, aid in
distinguishing them from other ethnic groups in
the overall ecological zone.1 2
Yauri’s ethnic heterogeneity demands mutu-
ally intelligible boundary markers in order to
structure interactions between members from dif-
ferent groups. The origin of these different ethnic
groups and the evolution of diverse means for
distinguishing and symbolizing identity is fascinat-
mg. It is discussed in detail elsewhere (Adamu
1968; Balogun 1970; Salamone 1985a, 1985b,
1982, 1979a, 1979b, 1978a, 1978b, 1976, 1975a,
1975b, 1974). Briefly, Yauri’s major ethnic
groups came into the area seeking refuge from
Eulani slave raiders. Yauri’s geographical setting
along the Niger River, its many islands, low
Population density, and its position as one of the
Hausa banza3 contributed strongly to its appeal
as a haven. The major “indigenous” ethnic
groups who settled there are the Hune, Kamberi,
Reshe, Shangawa, and Lopawa. The ruling Hau-
sa have been formed through a process of ethnic
change and incorporation involving a transitional
ethnic identity, the Yaurawa. The major group
contributing members to the ruling Hausa has
been the Reshe or “Gungawa,” “people of the
islands.” Two groups have been firm in resisting
incorporation, the Hune and Kamberi. Each has
resisted in its own manner. The Kamberi have
used withdrawal, mocking humor, and a reputa-
tion for gentleness. The Hune, conversely, have
used fierceness and violence along with withdraw-
al to preserve their ethnic identity. Both have
used cultural ideals of “the good life” and “the
good person” to further their independence.
Interestingly, the Kamberi and Hunes share
an origin myth. Both claim descent from Kisra, a
Persian who led resistance in Mecca against Mu-
hammad. The Hune claim descent from Kisra’s
son, Dakkayanusw, the Kamberi, from another
son, Lata. Whatever may be the historical rele-
vance of the myth, the fact is - that linguistic
1 Sasha Distel who wrote “The Good Life” appears to have
based it on the chord changes of “Cry” through a process
of inversion. The irony may be unintentional, but it is,
nevertheless, there. I want to dedicate this paper to
Matthew Bello, who has done me the honor of putting my
earlier article about him on his wall. To my parents who
taught me their version of the Sicilian Good Life, I give
thanks. To my wife and children who reinforce their
image of the good life on me daily, I give thanks also.
2 The ruling Hausa call the Hune “Dukawa,” people of
Duku, after one of their two major towns. The other
important center is Iri. The map shows the location of the
Hune within Yauri as well as the location of their major
towns.
3 There are seven “true” Hausa states, the Hausa bakwai,
and seven “illegitimate” ones, the Hausa banza. The
banza are later settlements and are usually formed
through a process of ethnic identity change (see Salamone
1974). Yauri is the last outpost of Hausa settlement as
one travels from East to West, and it is the first as one
returns to Nigeria from the West.
102
Frank A. Salamone
Map: The Hune within Yauri
evidence strongly suggests that the Hune, along
with the Reshe and Kamberi, came to Yauri from
the current Plateau State area, around 10° North
Latitude and 10° East Longitude.4
In addition to a generally common origin
myth, linguistic affinity, and a similar migratory
history, the two groups share a history as military
allies and a joking relationship; that is, a rela-
tionship of privileged familiarity. To cement that
relationship each has its own version of an other-
wise common “salvation myth.” Simply, the
group in question has lost all its members to an
enemy except one. The enemy has left that one to
die horribly. They have submerged him in the
mud, leaving only his shoulders and head expos-
ed. Since he belongs to a people who shave their
heads, there is nothing for his rescuers to do but
wait patiently for his hair to grow and feed him
until that time. When it did, they use his long hair
to pull him from the mud. They gave him a wife,
establishing a blood tie between the groups. The
Hune, of course, claim that the buried man was a
Kamberi and now the Kamberi shave all but one
part of their heads, leaving a long hairlock lest
they be buried again. The Kamberi laugh when
4 Greenberg (1966: 8) classifies the Kamberi language as
belonging to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-
Congo family. Additionally, it belongs to its Plateau
Division. It is one of six families in that division. Three
are centered in Yauri: Kamberi, Hune, and Reshe.
they hear Hune tell the myth and claim that they
have always had their hairlock. It was a Hune,
they say, who was buried and the Kamberi
rescued him. Certainly, part of the joke in their
relationship is the reversibility of the origin
“joke.”
In truth, however, the Kamberi did arrive in
Yauri long before the Hune. There is good
evidence that they had settled by the fourteenth
century and were its first rulers. The Hune
settlement, however, appears to have come a bit
later but certainly by the sixteenth century. Their
contact has never been broken long enough to
allow their languages to grow far apart. In fact,
one study mistakenly categorized their languages
as mutually intelligible (Gunn and Conant 1960).
Despite their similarities, each has stressed dif-
ferent aspects of its cultural values in order to
survive. The explanation lies in a consideration of
historical differences.
Kamberi ruled Yauri, or parts thereof, for a
considerable period of time. Hune appear to have
been powerful, independent allies. As such, they
enjoyed an independent position within the king-
dom. As Hausaized rulers encroached on the
state, the Kamberi were more exposed to attack
than Hune. Indeed, Balogun (1970) states that in
the nineteenth century civil wars stimulated by
Fulani expansion, Kamberi lost up to half their
population. They fled from their cities and retreat-
ed to the bush country, changing their lineage
based social structure under the pressures and
calamities of warfare. They had lost the capacity
to respond militarily. The Hune had not, for they
lived in frontier settlements, requiring constant
military preparedness while offering natural pro-
tection from mounted horsemen. Their shallow
kin system, moreover, did not require further
shrinking in order to meet new conditions. Nor,
unlike the Kamberi’s did it need to become
transformed into a sept organization.5 *
The Hune stayed in the bush; they did not
retreat to it. They maintained small households;
they did not return to them. They never had
lineages “to lose.” Their patrilaterally-based hou-
seholds, depending on strong fathers to hold
independent sons and quarreling daughters-in-law
in line proved both effective and viable under
pressure. Hatred of Yauri’s Hausaized rulers and
their Fulani overlords stimulated Hune indepen-
5 Kamberi who become Muslim very quickly re-establish
their old kinship organization. Kamberi folktales and
myths make clear that the Kamberi ideology is strongly
patrilineal-patrilocal.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good Life”
103
dence. Their history to the present has done but
little to ameliorate that hatred or convince the
Hune to assimilate.
2. Brief History of Hune-Hausa Contact
Hausa-Hune history is one marked by bitterness
and mutual hostility. The Hune, as “pagans,”
were legitimate victims of the Islamic slave trade
carried on by Hausa and Fulani raiders. Yauri’s
relative isolation prompted the Hune to choose it
as a refuge. Because Islam was associated with
slave-raiding, the Hune resisted any attempts at
Islamic conversion. They interpreted any pressure
for conversion, moreover, as a hostile intrusion.
Islam and its adherents, especially Hausa and
Fulani, remain the antithesis of the Hune concep-
tion of the good life.
In the various wars that plagued Yauri
throughout its history, the Hune consistently
allied themselves with the Kamberi against Hau-
sa, Fulani, or any other Islamic forces. They
continued their resistence in the nineteenth cen-
tury against the most powerful threat posed to
their very existence, that of Ngwamse and his
son, Ibrahim. Ngwamse and Ibrahim were Fulani
slave raiders centerd in the nearby emirate of
Kontagora. As a defense against these slave
raids, the Hune at first strengthened their major
towns, Iri and Duku. Continued pressure from
Ngwamse and his son, however, forced them to
begin to disperse. Their Kamberi allies who had
chosen to fight suffered such incredible losses that
they eventually sought refuge in marginal bush
areas (Adamu, personal communication). The
losses were so great, moreover, that as mentioned
in the preceding section, they led to significant
social, structural, and adaptational changes.
In order to escape conversion or its alterna-
tive, enslavement, they moved further into Yauri’s
frontier area, Shanga District. The independent
Fulani raider, Sambo, further stimulated their
dispersal through his conquest of Rijau District in
Yauri and his removal of that district from its
control.6 Sambo’s actions served to intensify the
Hune’s self-definition as not only non-Muslim but
anti-Islamic.
6 The Fulani jihad (holy war) of Usman dan Fodio in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries carried
along with it a number of freebooters who launced
independent wars of conquest. Some, like Sambo, even-
tually negotiated official terms of affiliation with the
Sultan of Sokoto, dan Fodio’s successor, or with one of
his representatives.
Hune-Hausa relationships did not noticeably
improve under the British peace. If anything,
they deteriorated, for the British were able to
force the Hune to do things that the Hausa and
Fulani were not; namely, to pay taxes. Taxes,
moreover, were to be paid in coin, forcing people
to enter the money economy while simultaneous-
ly strengthening the central government. That
strengthened central government, furthermore,
made it virtually impossible for any group to
leave Yauri in order to escape taxes. The Hune,
however, did struggle as long as possible against
British power.7
In 1913, for example, the Hune were in
armed rebellion against British tax collectors
(National Archives of Nigeria, Kaduna [NANK],
SNP 6/143 p/1913: Iri and Duku Districts). In
1914, ninety-six fled to the nearby town of Koko,
but the British found and arrested them for
non-payment of taxes. Both armed resistence and
flight proved useless against British power, and
British power was allied in Yauri with the ruling
Hausa. This alliance further reinforced self-
perception as outsiders who must rely on themsel-
ves for survival. Their Kamberi allies had been
forced to adapt an accommodating posture of
apparent docility in order to survive (see Salamo-
ne 1979c). They reinforced their apparent servili-
ty through supplying wives to other ethnic groups
while receiving none in return. The Hune pitied
and despised their friends for their behavior while
resolving to distinguish themselves from it
through independent action.
In order to strengthen their ability to act
independently the Hune used the opportunities
the Pax Britannica afforded to disperse even
further than they had from their relatively centra-
lized settlements to ones that were clearly decen-
tralized. These settlements consisted of isolated
extended family compounds, usually established a
mile or more from similar settlements. Quite
rightly, the British perceived these settlements as
the attempts to avoid taxes and escape the “civi-
lizing” influences they and their allies exerted.8
7 The earliest British records indicate that “all” Hune lived
in Yauri. In 1918 there were 14,363 Hune, most of whom
lived in Rijau District. After the imposition of British
rule earlier in the century, Hune had returned there.
Very few, 3,071, had returned to towns.
8 British colonialists used an evolutionary theory of civiliza-
tion to justify their actions, including their Islamic alli-
ance. Any non-Christian who resisted Islam was clearly
uncivilized, for Islam was but a step towards as well as
below Christianity. See Evans-Pritchard 1951 for a gener-
al discussion as well as Salamone 1986a for one directed
more specifically to the British-Fulani relationship.
Anthropos 83.1988
104
Frank A. Salamone
The British labelled Hune resistance “uncivilized
truculence” and proceeded to misunderstand
Hune authority structures.
. . . they had no chiefs of their own so have never recognized
authority .... Their headmen are usually old dotards left in
the town apparently to look after the groves of their ancestors
(A. D. O., Yauri, to Resident Kontagora: [NANK], K 6099:
National Archives of Nigeria, Kaduna, Kontagora Province,
Portion of Dukawa Tribe in Yauri Emirate. Transfer of Rujau
District; Vol. II, letter dated Oct. 6, 1917).
British misperceptions of Hune authority
patterns cost Yauri a large section of land and
split the Hune population between Yauri and
Kontagora.9 Those Hune who remained in Yauri
tended to be more conservative than those who
came under Kontagora’s domain. They believed
that they would be better able to maintain their
old way of life in Yauri’s bush area. Indeed, the
majority of the approximately 3000 Hune who
remained in Yauri were, in fact, elders and,
therefore, most in touch with tradition (Adamu,
personal communication).
Ironically, British policy also was concerned
with the preservation of tradition even while in
the very process of shattering it. The problem was
that the British had accepted a distorted and
biased view of what constituted Yauri’s tradition-
al life from its Hausa rulers (Salamone 1985c).
In fact, the ability of the British to do what the
Fulani could not, conquer Yauri and force Hune
to pay taxes, increased the strength and prestige
of local rulers. Because of their increased
strength and prestige, other ethnic groups in
Yauri, such as the Reshawa, accelerated their im-
itation of the Hausa, accentuating a pattern pre-
vailing before British occupation and sharpen-
ing cultural differences between Hune and other
ethnic groups. Additionally, the British strength-
ened the central government, thereby extend-
ing the power of the Hausaized ruling class and
those, like the Reshawa, with easy access to its
inner circles. In fact, the British tended to favor
the Reshawa in any ethnic conflict in which they
were involved. Of course, they also enabled
members of other ethnic groups, including Euro-
peans, to enter Yauri, further increasing its ethnic
and cultural heterogeneity.
It was in the context of colonial control that
the current Hune conception of the good life
evolved. It has been in the context of Hausa
9 The details are rather complex and would unduly inter-
rupt the narrative flow. They are covered in Salamone
1985a, originally 1974: 49-51 and 64-67, and based on
NANK: K 6099; Vol. II.
post-colonial extension of that control that the
current Hune conception has solidified, for if the
colonial government was able to exert its authori-
ty and centralize the government in ways its
Islamic predecessors had been incapable of doing,
its various successor states have accelerated that
process, perhaps in ways repugnant to the coloni-
al government itself. In numerous ways, Nigerian
independence has posed greater threats to Hune
identity than British colonization. Among other
weapons in their struggle to preserve self-identity
the Hune have used their conception of the “good
life.”
3. The Good Life
The Hune conception of the good person and the
good life are inextricably intertwined; that is,
only a good person can live a good life. The ideal
life, not suprisingly, is one that best ensures Hune
survival. Thus, the perfect Hune is one who
follows the elders and their traditions. Those
Hune, then, would have been on their way to
becoming “perfect Hune.” But a good Hune
would further show his goodness in very specific
ways. He would, according to one informant,
“give his last penny to a person in need.” Gen-
erosity is highly valued among a people best
described as a “group of siblings.”10
A good person displays other neighborly
attributes. He does not fight, lie, or quarrel with
others. At the same time he controls his family
and provides for it. He is a loving father to his
children and a loyal spouse to his wife. The Hune
punish male adulterers rather severely. At one
time, they killed them. And they may do so
today. Their respect for outside law is tenuous at
best.
The good person lives a life of independence
and self-respect. He is allowed to choose his own
spouse and to work with his agemates to earn her
respect through the performance of bride-service
(,gormu). His gormu-mates become his closest
friends, even closer in many cases than brothers.
They hunt, drink, and joke with him. If need be,
they bury him. Hunting is a salient feature of
10 I use “he” deliberately. There are other ideal virtues
prescribed for women. See Salamone 1979c and 1986a. -
The Hune give property away lest they be accused of
being selfish and hence “witches.” When butane lighters
were new to Yauri in 1972, I gave one to a Hune friend.
Within minutes, he had given it away and told me that so
long as he lived with his people he was bound by their
rule of generosity.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good Life”
105
Hune self-identity, and the Hune often identify
themselves and are identified by others as hunt-
ers. Although drinking giya, barukatu, or Euro-
pean liquor is part of every festive occasion,
drinking to excess is condemned, for the Hune is
quite aware of his need to preserve his dignity.
Consequently, he is quick to take offense at any
threat to that dignity. Perhaps, that is one reason
Hune households are so scattered, for internal
conflict is dangerous in the face of very real
external threats.
As is true of any list of ideal values, one
could simply scoff and argue that actual Hune
behavior often deviates greatly from Hune cul-
tural prescriptions. Although it is true that de-
viations are statistically normal, nevertheless, it
may also be argued that cultural values do, in
fact, exist and exert an enormous influence on
behavior and its perception. Moreover, I argue
that such values, expressed in terms of “the good
life,” are adaptive and, therefore, quite practical
indeed.
Julian Steward (1955), for example, argued
that a culture’s core values are associated with its
technological kit and, consequently, enable it to
adapt to its ecological nich. That view certainly
reserves a prominent position for the role of
values in ensuring a group’s survival. I do not
read it as arguing for a simplistic relationship
between technology and cultural values. Rather
the relationship is quite subtle and one often
mediated through a number of variables.
The Hune, for instance, define hunting as an
integral part of the good life. By definition, a
Hune adult is a hunter. The most prestigeous
Hune rituals celebrate a man’s hunting skills.
Many Hune in their self-praise songs (wakar
gormu) sung first in their bride service and then
at all subsequent significant events in their lives
Praise themselves as mighty hunters.11 Therefore,
it is instructive to inquire a bit more closely into
the nature of Hune hunting.
11 The following excerpts provide examples:
Dear father-in-law, if I am not humble, you will not
give me your daughter. I continue to gaze at her with
love. That’s why I answer your questions about my
character and friends. If I am strong, you will believe me.
You will give me your daughter. So I punish my gormu-
mates by outworking them. No one farms like me. That’s
why you love me, dear father-in-law.
My love, I send you my heart. I sent it. I sent it. My
father-in-law, I thank you for your daughter. Why do you
treat me as if I am worthless? I surpass all in my
gormu-work and my wife is the best girl in the place.
Why, then, do I have a yellow eye from arguing with
you?
No Hune hunts alone. Hune tend to hunt in
groups composed of male relatives and/or their
gormu-mates. The latter often serve to mediate
fraternal conflict. Harmony is essential to hunt-
ing, for tracking is prized as highly as shooting.
In fact, given the problematic accuracy of their
“dane guns,” homemade rifles, tracking skills are
generally more essential for a successful hunt
than shooting. In addition to dane guns, Hune
use spears, bows and arrows, and medicine com-
prised of various charms. Successful hunts are
performed only by good people. Conversely,
people who are in significant ways “not good”
simply cannot hunt successfully. No one would,
for example, trust a drunkard, womanizer, liar,
cheat, or quarrelsome person. Hune have, in fact,
been murdered on hunts.
Furthermore, hunting carries with it an aura
of toughness. The Hune, like the Tiv, recognize
the usefulness of that association and consequent-
ly cultivate it. Their reputation for “truculence”
and “fierceness” is widely shared in Yauri. It is
but a small step to note the connection among
“hunting,” “truculence,” and “warrior.” The
Hune uses hunting rather consciously as a cultural
metaphore for his independence and democratic
way of life. Cooperation is important but only
among equals. No one forces a Hune to hunt.
When he chooses to hunt it is with people of his
own choosing. There is good evidence, moreover,
that hunting became central to the Hune after
they began to disperse from their towns and settle
in the bush, for prior to that dispersal Hune,
quite simply, formed a significant warrior seg-
ment of Yauri’s society. It was, moreover, a
segment allied with Yauri’s rulers. Today the
Hune are an embattled minority, striving to
maintain their independence and identity in the
face of centralizing pressures.
The present symbolic salience of hunting
(ohobe) in Hune life is succinctly expressed in the
following account of a Hune.
The reason why Hune hunt? (Sic!) A man must go hunting
because they like to dance. You see, you must go hunting if
you want to get a woman to get married. When your father or
mother died, you could not get inside their funeral feast (bikin
mutuwa). You would be ashamed, for everyone would laugh
at you. Even when you die, they will laugh at you if you are
not a hunter. The people will only beat the drum for one who
has performed bride-service (gormu). Failure to perform
bride-service means that you have never changed your life,
even since you were born. You are not a real man. People will
laugh at your wife, too. She will not be happy. Your brothers
will not marry your widow. They will treat her as a stranger.
A man cannot dance unless he has killed an animal. One who
has killed four, or three, or two animals can dance. But if a
man has killed only one animal, he cannot dance. A man who
Anthropos 83.1988
106
Frank A. Salamone
has never killed, cannot marry a woman-ever! If you have
never killed animals, you can’t come to the hunters’ lodge.
They will laugh at you, and you will not feel happy (Matthew
Bello, personal communication).
There is obviously a clear connection be-
tween hunting (ohoBe) and bride-service {gormu)
in the preceding passage. Unconsciously, Mat-
thew slips from talking about hunting to dis-
cussing the consequences for those who have not
performed gormu. The reason is obvious: only
those who have performed gormu can hunt, for
without its performance one remains socially a
child and children cannot hunt, a point Matthew
makes dramatically clear in the following pas-
sage.
Small boys who follow hunters are killed if they kill an animal
and the hunters do not. The hunters will tell their fathers, a
lion killed them.
Small boys are not adults. Therefore, they cannot
hunt. Doing so jeopardizes an entire system
Hune have established to preserve their identity.
At the very heart of that system is the gormu-
complex. Hunting is inextricably related to that
complex and a key symbol in establishing and
preserving Hune identity. In Yauri, to be a Hune
and to live the good life of a Hune good person is
to be a hunter.
Connections between hunting and gormu un-
derscores both the Hune idea of the good life and
its function in preserving Hune ethnic self-identi-
ty. The circularity and self-reinforcement of the
two appear obvious. To be a Hune adult male is
to be an independent hunter-warrior. But in or-
der to be an adult male one must first perform gor-
mu in conjunction with one’s age mates. Those
mates are one’s hunting companions through-
out life, further reinforcing the systematic na-
ture of the gormu-ohoBe complex. Gormu is per-
formed only for Hune women. The boundary-
maintenance functions of the system are patent.
Significantly, in Yauri only Hune do not inter-
marry with members of other ethnic groups.
Their ethnic endogamy is a mark of their identi-
ty-
Matthew Bello’s description of the hunting
and slaughter of a big animal is suggestive:
When a big animal is spotted and killed, the hunters begin
blowing horns and hitting gongs. They start to shout, and they
dance in the bush. The animal is slaughtered in the bush. They
come to the people and tell them to stay. They cut off its tail
and throw it to the people. The eldest gets the tail. Then with
shouts (eihoo!) they go to the slaughtering place and get meat.
The hunter who killed the animal is given the head and tail by
the elder. He doesn’t worry about the meat. The meat is
shared among all. But the hunters eat first. They distribute the
meat to others. People are free to do with the meat what they
wish. They can eat it when they want or give it away. The
hunters used to have bracelets made from the skins. They
were called wasaida; that is, “a witness for hunting.” The
hunters will not talk about an animal they have already killed.
If they have killed an antelope, they will ask God to continue
helping them by letting them kill a buffalo, and so on.
In Matthew Bello’s description, the communal
nature of the hunt is quite clear as are the various
themes I have delineated.
But, of course, not everyone lives up to
society’s image of the Good Life. People do stray
from that image. The problems Hune encounter
in so doing, however, reinforce the power of that
image in a somewhat Durkheimian fashion. Two
negative examples illustrate the point.
Matthew Bello, himself, is a negative exam-
ple. While performing gormu, his elder brother
died. His brothers’s wife was pregnant and con-
sidered a fine member of the family. Therefore,
Matthew’s duty as a good Hune was clear. He
must marry her. To do so was not incompatible
with the continued performance of gormu, for
widow-inheritance and gormu-marriage are part
of the same complex (see Salamone 1986b).
However, Matthew was in the process of becom-
ing a Christian, and the Catholic missionaries ex-
plained the matter to him, according to their ver-
sion of the good life. Plural marriage, for no rea-
son, could be tolerated. Matthew had to choose
only one woman if he wished to continue as a
Catholic. He choose his brother’s widow.
His further career has exemplified the evil
consequences awaiting those who fail to live the
good life according to Hune precepts. He left the
bush for a time to become a Catholic catechist.
He then became a teacher in a primary school
under the Universal Primary Education scheme.
However, a good part of his life was spent in
mourning for his lost gormu-love. Never had he
gone on a hunt. By his own definition, he was
socially a child among his people. Drink became a
problem. When the Catholic fathers left Yauri
recently, Matthew left teaching and returned to
the bush, turning his back on teaching and taking
up farming. The story has touches of medieval
cautionary tales of morality.
Similarly, tales of those who have become
Muslims, a kind of ultimate rejection of all that is
truly Hune, are grounded in parallel moral
lapses. For example, Jude Bako and his son were
special favorites at the Catholic mission center.
Great efforts went into the promotion of the
interests of his family. Unlike Matthew, Jude had
completed gormu and was an accomplished hunt-
er. The missionaries put great hope in his being
Anthropos 83.1988
The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good Life”
107
the means for convincing other Hune that there
was nothing basically incompatible with being a
Catholic and a Hune. They sent Jude to the
university after teaching him to drive a truck in
order to support himself.
Jude’s father, however, had become a Mus-
lim, one of the few among the Hune. Gossips
attributed his conversion to the numerous occa-
sions on which he had been judged guilty of
adultery. Conversion afforded him a legal right to
wives as well as concubines. It also was instru-
mental to his being named a Muslim headman of
a Hune settlement across the Niger River from
his own home village, the location of his embar-
rassments.
Jude withstood pressures to become a Mus-
lim until he dropped out of the university. He had
been the first Hune to attend a university and the
pressure may well have proved too great. Upon
returning to Yauri, in 1984, he resumed his old
position with the local authority. But the Catholic
fathers, at least the European ones, had left
Yauri. In order to keep his job, he had to become
a Muslim. One can speculate, in a minimax
fashion, regarding the reasons for his conversion.
The fact, however, is that he did convert and by
so doing provided a clear negative example of
what happens to those who fail to live up to the
Hune conception of the good life.
One final negative example, that of the
Kamberi, suffices to suggest the Hune state of
mind. The Kamberi were once warrior allies of
the Hune. They were, in fact, once the rulers of
Yauri and the Hune occupied a privileged posi-
tion as their staunchest allies. In the terrible civil
wars of the nineteenth century, stimulated by the
Fulani jihad and slave raids, the Kamberi suf-
fered enormous losses. In order to survive, they
left their cities and took to the bush, altering
their social organization from a patrilineal-patri-
local one to a sept with, of course, neolocal resi-
dence.
Their public presentation of self also chang-
ed. They became “accommodating” or, in the
local expression, “shy.” They accepted terrible
abuse without retribution and offered their wom-
en in marriage in an asymmetrical fashion. This
self-effacement, running from quarrels, a Nigeri-
an version of “putting on old master,” is dis-
gusting to the Hune. Hune know, through being
allowed backstage views of the Kamberi, that the
Kamberi are not meek and mild, but they resent
being allied with those who publicly play the fool.
But being a fool is exactly what comes of abandon-
Jug one’s Good Life. Thus, the Kamberi stand as
an object lesson to those tempted by the glamor
of other ways.
4. Conclusions
A basic issue in culture and personality studies of
world-view and ethos has been that of the origin
of core values. Core values, quite simply, origi-
nate in an attempt to ensure group survival in an
ecological niche. The issue, however, is not quite
so simple, for no group originates immaculately
and ahistorically in any area. It comes, of course,
to a location with its pre-existing baggage of
cultural values intact. Those values, in turn,
shape the perception of group members regarding
the location; that is, its cultural meaning. These
values, in sum, act through a group’s members on
the econiche and are acted on by it in a systemic
fashion.
The Hune ohobe-gormu complex illustrates
the point. The Hune came to Yauri from an area
in the east, most likely from what is today Plateau
State. They came to Yauri to escape slave-raiding
and settled in towns, allying themselves with a
related group, the Kamberi. When their privileg-
ed position was threatened, they left their towns
and took to the bush.
It is at that time that the current version of
their Good Life began to take shape. From their
former life, they kept their hatred of Muslims and
love for independence. Hunting and bride-service
became repositories of these values. The bush,
safe from the central government and the center
of their hunting and horticulture, became more
than a home. It became a symbol of their very
identity.
Quite logically, the Hune way of life ensured
the preservation of the Hune themselves. They
cultivated a fierce reputation, trusting that such
an image would ensure minimal interference.
They have not been loathe to resort to physical
violence to support their reputation as fierce
people. There are still tax collectors in Yauri who
are reluctant to attempt to collect taxes from the
Hune. Ethnic endogamy, aloofness from most
other groups, a sense of superiority - these have
proved adaptive.
The negative examples provided by Christian
and Muslim converts, drunkards, and adulterers
serve to reinforce the correctness of the Hune
way. Good Hune prosper as hunters. As hunters
they can dance, marry, raise their children, and
continue to live the Good Life that is their ideal
and only safeguard in a hostile world.
Anthropos 83.1988
108
Frank A. Salamone
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Anthropos 83.1988; 109-134
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
(Harákmbet: Amazonia Sud Occidental del Perú)
Mario Califano
Al P. Wilhelm Saake (S.V.D.) In Memoriam
Abstract. - In the huachipaire and zapiteri parcialities of the
Mashco (Harákmbet) shamanism had a definite configuration
and involved different stages on wa-topakéri (shaman) forma-
tion. During the ethnographical field investigations this insti-
tution had disappeared, but was alive in the indigenous recall.
Many of the wa-topakérís social functions could be replaced
by other individuals without the mediation of such a critical
iniciation like the one which was imposed by the shamanic
possession. [Peru, Mashco, Shamanism, Power, Dreams,
Songs, War]
Mario Califano, Doctor en Filosofía y Letras por la Universi-
dad de Buenos Aires; Profesor Titular de Antropología
(UBA); Miembro de la Carrera del Investigador en el Conse-
jo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas y Direc-
tor del Centro Argentino de Etnología Americana. Ha reali-
zado investigaciones etnográficas de campo en la Amazonia
Sudoccidental (Perú) entre los indígenas Mashco, en el Orien-
te boliviano entre los Chacobo y Sirionó, y en el Gran Chaco
entre los Ayoreo y Mataco. Es autor de artículos sobre temas
be etnografía americana; ver Bibliografía.
El chamanismo es un fenómeno religioso que
posee una notable difusión en la amazonia occi-
dental, una región que se distingue por la prolife-
ración de vegetales con propiedades alucinóge-
nas. Pero, una institución como aquella de cha-
manismo, que posee elementos estructurales que
le otorgan una configuración propia, presenta
modalidades muy diferentes de un grupo étnico a
°tro. Es necesario, entonces, analizarlo minucio-
samente dentro de la sociedad en que aparece,
destacando cuales son sus notas distintivas y que
Permiten definirlo como tal. Por otra parte, existe
el riesgo de confundir otros fenómenos culturales
c°n el chamanismo por aspectos, aparentemente,
similares.1
El chamanismo en las parcialidades huachi-
Paire y zapiteri del grupo mashco (Califano
19815) poseía una conformación definida y abar-
ca diferentes etapas en la formación del cha-
lán o wa-topakérí. Esta institución había desapa-
recido hacía ya muchos años en ocasión que
balizáramos nuestras investigaciones de campo,
Pero muchos de los recuerdos sobre los antiguos
topakérí se mantenían frescos y todavía algunos
individuos demostraban atisbos de una inclina-
ción hacia en la iniciación chamánica. Las causas
de su extinción pueden ser atribuidas a dos
factores; por una parte, a la existencia en las
parcialidades mashco de un corpus terapéutico
centrado en los cantos o esüva que cubre la
totalidad de las dolencias diagnosticadas por los
indígenas. Los esüva si bien constituyen uno de
los pasos iniciáticos del chamanismo, pueden ser
revelados por los animales y aprendidos sin medi-
ar la cruda y tormentosa experiencia que impone
la posesión para la obtención de la potencia,
como estructura esencial a su misma persona.
Otra causa de la desaparición, es la introducción
del horizonte religioso del cristianismo, tanto de
proveniencia católica como protestante, que ha
repercutido de manera diversa en el plano cosmo-
visional mashco.1 2
A través de la información obtenida reseña-
remos en una única descripción, la fisonomía del
topakérí huachipaire y zapiteri, dado que ambos
tendían a ser muy semejantes en virtud de los
lazos históricos y culturales mantenidos entre las
dos parcialidades. Sin embargo cabe una aclara-
ción previa respecto de lo que acabamos de
expresar. Los Zapiteri tienden a llamar al topaké-
rí con la palabra embayorokérí que proviene de
embayóro, «soñar» y este hecho podría inducir a
una confusión. Es decir, a considerar que se trata
exclusivamente de «soñadores», tal como sucede
con la parcialidad amaracaire que es la que se ha
mantenido más aislada de las restantes y que por
esa razón presenta peculiaridades propias. El
topakérí huachipaire y zapiteri utiliza el embay-
óro como una técnica más; pero no se limita
exclusivamente a ella.
1 Nos referimos en el caso mashco a la bruja, a los esüva
dañinos, a los soñadores.
2 El tema de la catcquesis cristiana sólo he sido menciona-
do en relación al mito de destrucción y reconstrucción del
árbol wanámei (Califano 1983).
no
Mario Califano
1. La elección
Entre los Huachipaire el individuo que sentía la
disposición de ser topakéri, en plena adolescen-
cia, alrededor de los 15 o 17 años, se lo denomi-
naba topakéri exéta ópax (lit.: «topakéri quiere
estar»). Esta tendencia, que si bien podía here-
darse de padre a hijo, estaba ante todo determi-
nada por el animal que lo había elegido para
iniciarlo. El animal que iba a cumplir con esta
función se lo llamaba etopáka (lit.: «el que
enseña») y el topakéri es el «que ha sido enseña-
do». Por ejemplo, si se trata del tigre apáñe o del
tapir wasébi, serán respectivamente apáñe etopá-
ka y wasébi etopáka. Ese animal era el que
desempeñaba el principal papel, tanto en la elec-
ción como en la iniciación propiamente dicha.
En la parcialidad zapiteri, la elección se
declaraba también cuando el joven sentía deseos
de cazar con obstinación al animal que lo elige,
reconociéndolo porque rondaba insistentemente
en las proximidades de la casa comunal. Un rasgo
sobresale entre los Zapiteri y es el de la infusión y
mascado de las hojas de tabaco (séri) (Califano y
Distel 19785). Tal práctica asumía las característi-
cas de verdadero indicio y prueba: si el joven iba
a convertirse en topakéri no vomitaba, de lo
contrario quedaba eliminado de tal posibilidad. A
esta experiencia se la denominaba «prueba del
tabaco». Este importante rasgo de los zapiteri
para la iniciación chamánica es desvalorizado por
los huachipaire, que si bien aspiran el polvo del
tabaco en otras ocasiones, no lo consideran im-
portante para la formación del topakéri. Para
ellos, lo fundamental es la posesión.
Un tema vinculado con la elección, pero que
se escinde por completo de los anteriores, es el
del watshípai; o sea, la aparición súbita frente al
cazador del wantópa o jefe de una especie
animal. El hombre sufre entonces un desmayo
llamado embáye, «morir». El watshípai es el
aspecto potente y dinámico del wantópa animal,
es un tóto (demonio) y su aparición puede asumir
dos cometidos; anunciar al que resultó elegido de
su inminente iniciación como topakéri o conver-
tirse en un cazador calificado de esa especie
animal.
2. La iniciación
En el momento en que recrudece la cercanía del
etopáka, el iniciando tiene a aislarse de la casa
comunal en que reside su familia. Se le construye
una pequeña choza en la que se recluye. El
chamanismo mashco, aparentemente, era de ex-
clusividad masculina y por ende, los hombres de
la parentela, se encargaban de atender al recluido
haciéndole llegar los alimentos para su subsisten-
cia, abrigo en los momentos de frío, y vigilando
que no mantuviera relaciones sexuales por el
riesgo de interrumpir el proceso iniciático. El
encierro en la chocita se alternaba con prolonga-
das estadías en la selva con diversas finalidades.
A pesar de los cuidados prodigados, adelgazaba
notablemente y se enfermaba en tal forma que
quedaba sumamente agotado.
En la iniciación intervenían el etopáka, los
sueños, los viajes, la adquisición de esposas ani-
males, el aprendizaje de los esüva durante las
libaciones del masato y el cambio de nombre.
a) Posesión y desdoblamiento
El etopáka, como animal principal, era el encar-
gado de dirigir y hacer llegar paulatinamente a los
animales que poseían al iniciando. Esta posesión
asume una modalidad muy particular. En efecto,
el término ekndéxa, cuya traducción más ade-
cuada es «empalmar», implicaba una compenetra-
ción mutua. Al existir un dualismo, tanto en los
animales como en los humanos (xarangbütn)
compuesto por el alma (wanokíren) y el cuerpo
(wáso), el alma de los primeros se desprendía del
revestimiento corporal para introducirse en el
iniciando. A su vez, el alma del hombre penetra-
ba en el cuerpo del animal. Despavorido por esta
prueba, a menudo gritaba: «¡Ahí me van arran-
car!». Una vez «empalmado» ya puede tomar
esposas animales en el interior de la selva.
Queda aún por aclarar que el ekndéxa no se
limita a un «empalme» con el etopáka que lo ha
elegido, sino con los animales más importantes,
como el tigre (apáñe), el tapir (wasébi), el venado
(báhí) y otros. El tigre apáñe, por ocupar dentro
de la organización social animal el status más
elevado, el de wantópa o jefe, con su empalme
cubre la dosis de potencia para transmitir al
iniciando. Del ámbito uránico ni del acuático se
produce ekndéxa por parte de las aves o de la boa
(sikímbi) y de los peces; pero sí se harán prolon-
gadas visitas a las alturas celestes y a las profundi-
dades del río.
b) Padecimiento de las enfermedades
Uno de los pasos más importantes en la forma-
ción del topakéri es el de padecer las principales
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
111
enfermedades, porque éstas son producto de la
acción de los animales. En efecto, aquí no se trata
del ekndéxa, sino que el iniciando sufrirá perso-
nalmente esos males. El wantópa hace penetrar
en la choza a sus wanámba, quienes proceden a
agredir y herir. Esta prueba puede asustar al
joven y a sus parientes, a tal punto que puede ser
interrumpida con el empleo de la bebida alucinó-
gena xayápa (Brugmansia insignis) (Califano y
Distel 1982) o directamente con la aplicación de
la técnica de los esüva. Porque el canto terapéuti-
co evoca la etiología de la enfermedad y por lo
tanto hace referencia a los autores de la misma,
los animales, quienes asustados se alejan. Un
joven huachipaire, que tenía como etopáka a un
picaflor (süvid), malogró la posibilidad de trans-
formarse en topakéri por dos motivos; por haber
sido curado con la ingestión de la xayápa y por las
inquietudes religiosas suscitadas por la prédica
protestante. El sujeto que manifestaba una verda-
dera predisposición hacia el chamanismo, era el
primero en oponerse a que sus familiares empren-
dieran prácticas curativas.
c) El sueño
La palabra otái significa «dormir» y este estado
comprende el aspecto dinámico del embayóro o
«sueño», mediante el cual todo individuo puede
acceder al conocimiento de situaciones personales
o comunitarias. El embayóro implica una altera-
ción de las categorías de espacio y tiempo, ya que
a través del sueño pueden conocerse aconteci-
mientos del presente y del futuro, como también
ámbitos diversos del cosmos.
En circunstancias determinadas el embayóro
se convierte en una exigencia social que reviste
una connotación ética, tal como es posible apreci-
ar en el mito del pajarito pá:
Los hombres se alistaron para ir a la guerra y el pajarito pá
(lit.: <no sé>) también se preparó. Van caminando por la
Uocha. Se les hace tarde y hacen su campamento. <¿Qué cosa
vamos a soñar? Mañana nos vamos a contar. ¡A ver si
soñamos que ganamos la guerrab -. Duermen y a la mañana
cuando despiertan se preguntan unos a otros: ¿Qué sueño has
tenido? - y contestaban contando lo que habían visto en el
sueño. Se acercaron al pá y le preguntan. - <Yo no he soñado.
iQue cosa voy a soñar!> -. <¿Nada has soñado?, y tomando su
Lolsita seokíx se la tiran lejos. Llorando de su seokíx se va.
Llorando grita: <¡pá! ¡pal . . .>, y no regresó. - <¡Ahí está!> -
Por no haber tenido embayóro sigue buscando su seokíx.
[Natashigembüe-Ndarimaponéwa].
El imperativo moral del embayóro prima
ante el aspecto etiológico del mito y en el caso del
topakérí esta técnica se convierte no sólo en un
paso iniciático, sino en un instrumento permanen-
te para conocer un conjunto de hechos que se
relacionan con la vida grupal. Estos hechos pue-
den ser tanto positivos como negativos; entre los
primeros el topakéri puede indicar la abundancia
de determinados frutos silvestres en un paraje de
la selva, de una especie animal con precisiones
sobre su localización y entre los segundos la
proximidad de la guerra o de las enfermedades.
El rasgo distintivo básico entre el soñar del
topakéri y aquel del embayorokéri, es que el
primero puede abandonar su cuerpo (wáso) por
la acción del ekndéxa y dirigirse al destino que le
señalan los animales auxiliares de los cuales
provienen los avisos.
d) Los viajes
A través del embayóro y durante el proceso
iniciático, el futuro topakéri realiza continuos
viajes cuyos objetivos consisten en explorar el
universo conociendo los distintos «mundos» o
wandári, como ul de entrar en relación con los
wantópa, jefes y simultáneamente, dueños de las
especies animales. Estas experiencias le permiti-
rán rescatar el wanokíren de los enfermos que
han abandonado el cuerpo.
1) Al cielo
El viaje al küredndári (lit.: küredn: cielo; -ndári:
«mundo»; «mundo del cielo») reviste una impor-
tancia particular para el topakéri porque allí
residen las aves carniceras y carroñeras vincula-
das con el mito de Aipixóe, el antepasado que
lograra obtener de éstas el corpus de los esüva
para curar, una vez que la enfermedad y la
muerte se instalaron entre los humanos.
Un hombre llamado Aipixóe mató a muchos puercos yárí y los
dejó amontonados en la playa del río, acostándose en el
medio. Baja el gallinazo matshigáre. Aipixóe los había coloca-
do en fila y él se había acostado en el medio. Pero antes fué
escupiendo y abriendo el ano de los yárí, para que se pudran
rápido. Después se acueta. Tenía una pita el matshigáre para
subir a küredn (cielo). Esa pita se llama wasekeseketábi y
Aipixóe se la rompe. - <¿Porqué has roto mi wasekeseketábH>
-, le dice matshigáre. - <Yo no sé con que curar. ¡Enséñame!
Tú sabes y mis hijos enferman mucho -, le contesta Aipixóe.
- <Yo no te puedo enseñar. ¡Por gusto has puesto carne!>
dice matshigáre. Pero Aipixóe le ruega: - <Yo no sé curar a
mis hijos, y se vuelven blancos> -. Pero matshigáre dice: -
< ¡ Dame mi wasekeseketábib -. No quiere matshigáre y más
rogaba Aipixóe. - <¡Cómete yáríb insiste Aipixóe. <Si
quieres que coma retírate allá> -, y principió a comer.
Matshigáre tenía el pelo largo hasta la cintura. Comenzó a
Anthropos 83.1988
112
Mario Califano
enseñar cantando y su pelo que le llegaba hasta la cintura, se
le quemó con el sol. Acaba de enseñar. Aipixóe le pide a
matshigáre: - <¡Traeme kümo (barbasco)!> y matshigáre le
dice: - <¡Traeme mi wasekeseketábi para volarb -. Aipixóe lo
arregla y vuela el matshigáre. - Comienza a traer malas
yerbas. Por eso hay maleza en el monte. Aipixóe machucaba y
echaba al río. No morían los peces. Otra vez mandaba y
matshigáre regresaba con más malezas. Al fin trae el kümo. -
<¡Esto es kümol ¡Gracias!) -. Es el barbasco más fuerte, el
kümo imáxke y Aipixóe pesca con ese. Pero al echar un
poquito, mueren hartos peces. Matshigáre lo reprende: -
<¡Pregunta cuando hay que echar! ¿Quién te dijo que eches
tanto?> -, y matshigáre se lleva el kümo imáxke. Por eso no
hay esa clase de barbasco. Antes el monte era limpio.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; mito: Origen de los cantos terapéuti-
cos; narrador: Ednémpwa]
La versión zapiteri no difiere de aquella
huachipaire que acabamos de transcribir:
Han puesto gente muerta en fila, en la orilla del río. En la
playa para que les enseñen cantos para curar. Entre los embéi
había un hombre vivo. Vinieron los matshigáre. Muchos
vinieron. Levantaban la pierna del embéi y le escupían en el
ano. Entonces se escuchaba como si estuviera hirviendo una
olla en la barriga, por el ruido que hacía. Al vivo le levantó la
pierna, pero su ano entró para adentro. - <¡Está reviviendo!
¡Está reviviendo!> -, y volaron los matshigáre. Pero el hombre
se levantó y agarró su wasekeseketábi. Lo arrancó y se
cayeron los matshigáre. Se pararon en la playa con cabellos
bonitos, largos. Como gente se pararon. - <¡Dámelo a mi
wasekeseketábib -, decían. - <¡No te lo doy!> -, contestaba el
hombre. - <¡Dámelo! Todos los cabellos mios y de mis hijos se
están cayendo de calor. ¡Dámelo que me voy!> -. Le pedía el
hombre: - <Dame kümo (barbasco)> -. Sale para traer el
gallinazo mátük y traía malas yerbas. Echaban y no morían.
Otra vez iba y otra maleza traía. Otra vez, distinta clase de
maleza. Trajo al fin el kümo, pero no tan bueno. Muere el
pescado, pero no tan bien. Echaron y murió un poquito. Si no
se hubieran contentado con ese, habrían traído el kümo
imáxke. - <¡Está bién!> -, dijeron la gente. Y el matshigáre les
enseñó a todos los cantos para curar: - <¡Así se hace! Se
escupe a la ortiga. ¡Bueno! Dame mi wasekeseketábi.> -. Se lo
dió. Al irse al cielo el matshigáre le dió el bichito süxkári. Dos
bichitos dejó - <Yo siempre le doy dos tazones de sangre. Y
esto va a saltar a los amíko, para que les entre por el culo y los
mato -. Dejó al bichito y se fue. El hombre le dió un tazón de
sangre afuera de la casa. No sabía que eran dos tazones.
Como no encontró otro tazón, entró a la fuerza por el culo y
lo mató. Después entró a la casa y mató a otra gente.
Entonces la gente mató a uno de ellos. El compañero del
bichito, cuando le ponían sangre no quería tomar y le entró en
el culo a la mujer del hombre que recibió los bichitos de
matshigáre. Se fue al cielo el bichito. Era como una avispa.
[Zapiteri: río Colorado; mito: Origen de los cantos terapéuti-
cos; narrador: Mbiríka-Ndarimaponéwa]
Este mito etiológico de los esüva obtenidos
por Aipixóe de esas aves, mediante un ardid, está
muy arraigado en la conciencia mashco, a tal
punto, que cuando aparecieron los amíko3 intro-
duciendo enfermedades desconocidas, el matshi-
gáre enseñó nuevos cantos para poder hacerles
3 El tema de los amíko ha sido tratado en diversos artículos
(Califano 1977 y 1985).
frente. Ese cometido mitopoyético de los «apes-
tosos» influye en la no proliferación de vocacio-
nes hacia el chamanismo, porque dominan ampli-
amente lo relativo de enfermedad y a su trata-
miento. Es la palabra cantada potente y no la
posesión del topakéri con el propósito de potenci-
arlo transformándolo en tóto.
Entre las aves vinculadas con los esüva de las
enfermedades cuenta el matshigáre (cóndor) que
es wantópa, sucediéndole en orden decendiente
el mátük (gallinazo), el kangámpu (cuervo) y el
héka (gavilán), a los cuales se denomina con el
mote genérico de «los apestosos» por su íntima
vinculación con la descomposición y la muerte. El
mito de Aipixóe es cantado con la finalidad de
curar una determinada enfermedad llamada wa-
miéka que puede traducirse por «diarrea», como
veremos al tratar el tema del embatáre en rela-
ción a los esüva.
La morfología uránica entre Huachipaire y
Zapiteri reviste algunas diferencias. Para los pri-
meros existen cuatro cielos: los tres primeros
cupuliformes y el último con la forma de una
esfera, procediendo de manera ascendente, el
primero se llama embéi küredn (lit.: embéi:
muerto; «cielo de muerte»), porque allí se muere;
el segundo es el beáxe küredn (lit.: beáxe: «que
no muere») o mátük küredn (lit.: «cielo del
cuervo mátük») y posee este nombre porque allí
residen los «apestosos»; el tercer cielo es el
wándak küredn (lit.: wándak: bueno; «cielo bue-
no») en donde hay un río llamado kópa kopáhwé
(kopáhwé lit.: «agua de kópa») en donde se en-
cuentran todas las especies ictícolas. Finalmente
el cuarto cielo es el waküta küredn (lit.: waküta:
«cabeza del cielo») que con su aspecto de perápo
(pelota) corona el ámbito celeste.
Los Zapiteri distinguen tres cielos; el matshi-
gáre küredn (lit.: «cielo del cóndor matshigáre»)',
el mbayéri küredn (lit.: mbayéri: enemigos; «el
cielo de los enemigos») y por último el Aimarínke
küredn o «cielo de Aimarínke» la teofanía que
produce el trueno y el rayo (Califano 1978a). El
wanokíren del topakéri si bien visita todos los
küredn durante el embayóro, se dirige principal-
mente al cielo de los «apestosos» y para concretar
su viaje utiliza el wasekeseketábi, la cuerda que
aparece en el mito de Aipixóe.
2) A la selva
La superficie terrestre presenta una forma circu-
lar cuya denominación genérica es la de wandári y
está compuesta por un conjunto de ámbitos en los
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
113
cuales residen los diferentes wantópa de las espe-
cies animales. En el centro del mismo, denomina-
do wandári-nópu, apareció el ave que trajo la
semilla de la cual nacería el árbol wanámei
(Califano 1983) en el tiempo eje de la destruc-
ción-reconstrucción cósmica, cuando cumplió la
misión de salvar a la humanidad (xarangbütn).
Concluido el momento de reconstitución de la
realidad cultural, el wanámei se hundió en la
tierra (sórox) desplazándose del wandári-nopú
hasta el confín del mundo, sitio en donde el cielo
(küredrí) toca la tierra o sea el küredn-tápo. El
lugar específico donde el árbol mítico se encuen-
tra en la actualidad se llama wanámei-tápo. La
selva o nümbáyo es el ámbito de mayores propor-
ciones y en ella pueden encontrarse dos tipos de
dueños de los animales; unos generales y otros
específicos. Los wotéri xarangbütn son los dueños
generales de los animales selváticos disponiendo
para ello de «corrales» en los cuales mantienen
encerradas a diversas especies. A su vez, entre-
gan las esposas animales a los iniciandos. Veamos
el testimonio de la informante Natashigembüe
sobre su esposo Nepakéwa:
El padre de Hawántshi se llamaba Nepakéwa y se había ido a
la chacra que quedaba en el monte. Lejos de la casa. Se había
ido solo. En medio del camino lo picó la hormiga merési. Se
pone a llorar y se sienta en un tronco. Aparece un hombre con
su esposa, son como los padres de Nepakéwa. Son los wotéri.
Gente de la cumbre, wandángda xarangbütn o <gente buena>.
- <¿Que te pasa hijito?> -, le preguntan. - <Me ha picado
merésñ -, contesta el chico. - <¿Porqué van a llorar?> -, y lo
curan con un canto. Lo sanan y se lo llevan a su casa. Allí
tenían corrales con todos los animales del monte. Cada grupo
de animales tenía su corral. Se queda allí una noche. Su mamá
lo busca. Pero él no sabía que su mamá lo buscaba. Lo único
que veía eran luciérnagas shiméa, pero eran las antorchas de
la gente que lo buscaba. El no veía sus padres y ellos no lo
veían a Nepakéwa ni a los wotéri. A la mañana siguiente los
wotéri le dicen: - <Tus padres te han estado buscando. Anda
pero no cuentes nada de nosotros. Diles que te has quedado a
dormir en la chacra. Yo siempre voy a estar a tu lado para ver
si cumples> - Nepakéwa se fué a su casa. - <¡Hijo! ¿Adonde
has estado?> -, le pregunta la madre. - <Te hemos buscado
toda la noche> -, le dice su mamá. - <Me ha quedado en la
choza de la chacra porque me ha picado merési y no podía
venir> -, contesta. - <Está bien> -, le dice su madre. Un día la
mamá le dice: - <Quiero comer perdiz kógmpo> -, y Nepaké-
wa se va a cazar. Pero no caza. Se va a la casa de los wotéri.
Se mete en el corral de las perdices y sin decir nada a los
wotéri y tira con sus flechas. Los wotéri oyen la bulla que
hacen las perdices y vienen a defenderlas. Creen que es el
tigre apáñe. Nepakéwa se escapa con la perdiz. Los wotéri lo
rodean y lo persiguen sin que él se dé cuenta. Lo esperan en el
camino. Lo cogen: - <¿Quién eres?> -. Nepakéwa al ver que
está delante de los wotéri contesta: - <Yo soy. Porque mi
mamá me dijo que quería comer perdiz kógmpo, no les dije
nada a ustedes. ¿Me perdonan?) Le contestan: - <Hay que
avisar. Si me avisas yo te doy. ¡Lleva nomásb -, y Nepakéwa:
flGraciasb -, responde. Se va con la perdiz y se la entrega a su
mamá. La madre ve el pie de la perdiz quemado. - <¡Hijo! ¡Su
piecito ha sido quemado! ¿De quién será su cria?> -. Nepaké-
wa le dice: - <¡Qué va a estar quemado!) Los wotéri
siempre le llevaban con ellos. Como ya era grande, sus padres
no le preguntaban adonde iba. Allí tenía una mujer y estaba
por vivir con ella. Pero enamoró una chica de aquí, de los
Huachipaire. Viendo ésto se enojaron los wotéri, que eran los
padres de la chica. Le pegaron a Nepakéwa y se fueron.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; tema: chamanismo; narrador: Natas-
higembüe-Hawántshi]
La historia de Nepakéwa está referida al
momento en que todavía no ha mantenido rela-
ciones sexuales con mujeres de su comunidad, no
se ha «malogrado», y por tal motivo tiene la
capacidad de acceder a los sitios de la selva en
donde se encuentran los wotéri. Estos no son
dueños de todos los animales; sino tan sólo de las
aves de escasa posibilidad de vuelo, aquellas que
caminan, como el trompetero y las perdices, que
guardan en corrales. Se los reconoce, como la
perdiz del relato, que se trata de aves de cría, que
se mueven por la caza de los wotéri y por lo tanto
se acercan a los fogones, porque se exponen a
quemarse con las brasas. Ese indicio puede ser
descubierto por cualquier individuo; pero no le es
permitida la apreciación del cambio de realidad.
Sólo para el topakéri y para el cazador que han
visto al watshípai, les son visibles el mundo de los
wotéri y de los animales en su dimensión de-
moníaca así como el trato permanente con ellos.
Sin embargo, esta posibilidad no es tan absoluta,
porque otros individuos pueden verlos y mante-
ner relaciones. El punto más importante de los
wotéri xarangbütn consiste en su condición de
fofo, que no poseen al iniciando sino que le
entregan aves y esposas. La noción de xarangbütn
está referida a la morfología «humana» que pre-
sentan y no a la naturaleza de su ser.
En relación a los wotéri puede agregarse:
Los wotéri xarangbütn han traído yuca, plátanos. Es gente de
nümbáyo (selva). <Casi he visto -. Había ido con su padre a
anzuelar, cuando han aparecido. Llevaban una carga en la
espalda. Quiso avisar pero desaparecieron. Cuando uno está
solito los vé pasar. Si un hombre habla con ellos difícilmente
muere. Oxpúxe los vió y trajo yuca, plátanos, y lindas flechas.
Los wotéri tienen una linda casa con animales. La perdiz
póyong es su yuca y el mono hó también. [Huachipaire: río
Keros; tema: señores de los animales y de la selva; narrador:
Ednémpwa]
Un relato referido a la parcialidad toyeri
dice:
Los Toyéri se encontraron con los wotéri. Los que son casados
no podían encontrarse con ellos. Sólo los solteros se encontra-
ban y los wotéri les decían: - <¡Vámos a mi casa!) -, y los
llevaban a su casa. Los casados no los pueden ver. Allí
entraban a la casa y se quedaban. Sus paisanos decían: - <¡Se
ha perdido un hombre!) -, pero éste aparecía de nuevo. Y
cuando le preguntaban: - <¿Dónde has estado?) -, no avisaba.
Anthropos 83.1988
114
Mario Califano
- <Por ahí nomás, en el monte sentado contestaba.
Regresaba con la misma cara y venía contento. Igualito venía.
Los wotéri le habían dicho: - <No vas a decir dónde has
estado. Vas a decir que has estado perdido en el monte. No
vas a avisar a tu hermano, ni a tu mamá> Los wotéri lo
acompañaban hasta la puerta de la casa y nadie sabía que
había estado con ellos. El hombre lo contaba. Se iba con ellos
y después regresaba. Vivía con los wotéri como hermanos.
Mataban perdiz, otros animales y llevaba a su casa para que
coman. [Huachipaire: río Keros; tema: chamanismo; narra-
dor: Xeréwa-Darikéwe]
Los Huachipaire siempre han destacado las
capacidades chamánicas de los Toyéri y en el
texto citado se vuelve a señalar la condición de
soltero, de no contaminado sexualmente, para
poder conocer a los wotéri. También se reitera la
prohibición de no comunicar a los miembros de la
casa comunal adonde se dirigen cuando desapare-
cen del poblado y si violan esta norma corren el
riesgo de perder esa capacidad.
El ámbito general de la selva se subdivide en
zonas menores a través de la idea de hágn esto es
«camino», dado que cada animal o cada agrupa-
ción posee el propio. Es así que el tigre posee el
apáne-hágn, el tapir el wasébi-hágn, pudiendo
observarse que se antepone el nombre del animal
a aquel de camino. Las expresiones apáne-küpa,
«cerro del tigre», como otras denominaciones
toponímicas en las que antecede el nombre de un
animal, dan cuenta del wandári en el cual reside y
deambula. En el caso del tigre es el apáne-ndári y
todos los dominios dan una idea de pluralidad de
«mundos» por los cuales transitaba el topakéri.
3) Al río
El wanokíren del iniciando se introduce en las
aguas de los diversos cursos fluviales para encon-
trarse con el wantópa de los habitantes acuáticos
que es la boa sikímbi. Tanto sikímbi como las
especies de hábitos fluviales, como por ejemplo el
lobito kámi kámi, el caimán, wakmáma, la raposa
sáka, son autores de .diversas enfermedades y el
topakéri recibirá también de parte de ellos los
esüva para curarlas. Asimismo, en este viaje
adquiere esposas de ese ámbito.
Entre las narraciones sobre Sikímbi hemos
elegido la que hace referencia a una mujer que
tomó por esposa:
En el río Keros había un remolino. Había una boa sikímbi.
Un paisano, un huachipaire, tenía una hija que estaba con su
madre. En el río Keros ven una calabaza de colores que daba
vueltas en el remolino y decía: - <Apag, apag, apag . . .
(papá)>. Era linda y la mamá quiso agarrarla, y dijo: - <Yo la
sacaré primero pero la calabaza seguía dando vueltas y la
madre no pudo sacarla. - <¡A ver si puedes> le dijo la hija.
Esta entró a sacarla. Como era para ella, desapareció detrás
de la calabaza. La vieja se enojó y quería meterse. - <Ha
engañado a mi hija> -. La vieja quería entrar y no podía.
Estaba hondo. La hija estaba con Sikímbi, enamorando.
Sikímbi abre la puerta y le dice: - <Tu mamá me está
rompiendo la casa> -. Como estaba la puerta abierta, la vieja
busca y entra en la casa de Sikímbi. La vieja se queda
mirando. Todos los peces vienen a saludarla. Pero su yerno
Sikímbi no la saludó. - <¿Oye hija, éso que está echado que
parece un tronco, que és? -. - <Es tu yerno. Este tiene
vergüenza. La vieja oye arriba la corriente que viene y sale de
la casa. Ata con una soga a la hija para llevarla. Pero ésta se
desata. La vieja se quedó arriba sola, diciendo: - <Mejor voy a
entran. Pero no querían abrirle y se va a su casa. Mientras
trabajaba en la chacra aparece su hija. Lleva a su casa pescado
que es como plátano para Sikímbi. Se va. Y le dice que va a
volver con su hijo. Le pide a la vieja que cuide de él mientras
ella va a buscar yuca. - <Vas a cuidarlo, pero no vas a tocarlo
hasta que despierte>. El chico era muy bonito. La vieja lo
pellizca y éste se despierta. Entonces aparece como Sikímbi y
llama: - <¡Abuelita!>. La vieja se asusta y se escapa. Llega el
papá Sikímbi y le dice a su mujer: - <¿Cómo estás haciendo
sufrir a nuestro hijo?>. Ella entra en cólera y le dice a su
madre: - <Qué le has hecho a tu nene?>. Lo agarra en brazos y
es como un chico. - <Tu lo has pellizcado para que despierto.
La hija agarró a su nene y se fué con Sikímbi. - <Me casé con
ese otro y no voy a regresan. El hijo de Sikímbi crecía, pero
era muy malo. Cuando pasaron sus parientes en la balsa los
atacaba y se los comía. Su mamá se enojaba. - <¡No hagas
eso!>, le decía. - <No son mis paisanos, son mi carao, contes-
taba. Los Huachipaire entonces, unieron dos canoas grandes y
prepararon sus machetes. Sikímbi quiso voltear la canoa pero
no pudo. Entonces quiso subir encima pero lo machetearon,
lo cortaron en dos pedazos. Salió su papá pero lo flecharon.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; narrador; Ednémpwa]
En el mito se reitera la concepción patrilineal
mashco y se destacan las características de-
moníacas de Sikímbi que se advierten en el en-
frentamiento con los paisanos de la mujer. Los to-
pakéri de Sikímbi se introducían en su dominio:
Darikíke era topakéri de Sikímbi (boa). Se metía horas en la
poza. Después salía con un pescado en la boca. Le pregunta-
ban: <¿ Dónde has estado?> y contestaba: - <Estaban
pescando con kümo (barbasco) y había casamiento -. Nadie
ha visto a Sikímbi, sólo los topakéri. [Huachipaire: río Keros;
tema: chamanismo; narrador: Natashigembüe-Ndarimaponé-
wa]
En el wandári acuático se desarrolla una vida
social semejante a la de la casa comunal mashco;
pero, tal como ocurre en los dominios terrestres
el único individuo que puede participar de ella es
el topakéri.
4) Al wanámei
El mito referente al árbol wanámei (Califano
1983) constituye una de las narraciones mashco
más importantes que comprende, por una parte el
tema del tiempo eje de los orígenes compuesto a
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
115
su vez por los segmentos temporales de destruc-
ción-reconstrucción de la realidad cultural. En el
árbol wanámei se anunció también la futura
existencia de los topakéri como la de numerosas
pautas culturales de la vida que comenzaba en ese
instante crítico. Finalmente se sumergió en el
wanopu-ndári para aparecer en el wanámei-tápo
para lo cual los antepasados emprendieron un
prolongado periplo lleno de acechanzas diversas
con el objeto de comprobar la existencia del árbol
en el límite del mundo.
El wanámei a su vez presenta dos aspectos;
por una parte alude a los acontecimientos míticos
acaecidos en sus ramas y en las aletas de su
tronco; por otra es el receptáculo de la existencia
de todo ser humano, de todo xarangbütn. En
efecto, cada individuo posee en el wanámei una
rama: cuando nace brota una pequeña hoja,
cuando es adulto se ha convertido en una robusta
rama, finalmente, cuando está viejo y a punto de
fallecer, la rama se va secando hasta que termina
por desprenderse y caer. El sentido de la elimina-
ción de los nacidos con el wamexáro (lit.: «ombli-
go grande») y de los gemelos, es que de ningún
modo podrían crecer y desarrollarse armoniosa-
mente. En el primer caso la idea tiene su funda-
mento en el mito de Atúnto en que su hijo es
justamente un wamexáro (enano) (Califano 1978a
y c). En el segundo caso, el canal de la vida, igual
que aquel de un río que si se bifurca en dos
arroyos conlleva una disminuación del caudal de
los mismos: se opta entonces, por eliminar uno de
ellos para facilitar el pleno desarrollo del otro.
El objeto del viaje del wanokíren del topaké-
ri al wanámei es justamente comprobar el estado
de sus pacientes a través de la observación del
estado del gajo correspondiente; pero no podrá
operar sobre el mismo.
5) Al submundo
El viaje más importante que realiza el wanokíren
del topakéri que se está iniciando es a Seronhái,
al Hades, que presenta una configuración diferen-
te entre los Huachipaire y Zapiteri, si bien para
ambos se encuentra debajo de la tierra y posee
numerosos umbrales a través de los cuales es
posible entrar a ese ámbito:
Seronhái es la tierra de los antepasados
muertos, el sitio donde emigra el wanokíren
después de abandonar definitivamente su revesti-
miento corporal. Pero no todos los muertos van a
Seronhái como veremos más adelante.
El hábitat de los muertos está claramente
diferenciado del de los vivos y la ideal del cadáver
(embéi) como despojo se encuentra igualmente
delimitada de la imagen del wanokíren. Expon-
dremos la información sobre Seronhái tal como la
relatan los Huachipaire, Amaracaire y Zapiteri.
Pero antes es necesario hacer referencia a una
pequeña narración que relata el viaje realizado
por uno de los indígenas a esta región de sombras
y que informó a los Huachipaire sobre la existen-
cia del mundo subterráneo y el destino que le está
deparado al wanokíren.
Un hombre se había muerto y lo habían enterrado. Se fue
adentro de la tierra, a Seronhái, en donde se encontró con
otros paisanos y familiares muertos. Estos le prohibieron
mirar hacia arriba.
- ¡Nunca mires arriba! le dijeron.
El hombre obedeció y no miró. Pero un día lo invitaron a
pescar con barbasco y lo llevaron a un río en el que los peces
eran como loros (mbákoi). Cuando los sacaban de las aguas
morían gritando como loros. Mientras pescaban el hombre
pensó:
- ¿Qué es lo que hay arriba? ¿Por qué me prohiben que
mire?
El hombre miró. Allí arriba vio a sus familiares llorando y ahí
mismo saltó. Se levantó de la sepultura y resucitó. Acercándo-
se adonde estaban sus paisanos les preguntó:
- ¿Por qué lloran?
- ¡Porque te has muerto! le contestaron.
Entonces el hombre se quedó con su familia y no se murió. Si
hubiera pescado en ese río no habría podido regresar.
La tumba es el primer umbral que atraviesa
el wanokíren; existen otros, y el regreso es
posible cuando no se ha integrado definitivamen-
te a la nueva modalidad de existencia. Los loros
mbákoi o sea «picudos», están clasificados entre
los pájaros como animales «más tóto» por poseer
esa característica con mayor desarrollo. La prohi-
bición de mirar hacia arriba tiene la finalidad de
evitar que el wanokíren del muerto se apene y
sienta nostalgias de los parientes vivos e intente
regresar. Los muertos intentan continuamente
evadirse de Seronhái una vez convertidos en tóto;
pero los recién llegados son los que más sufren
viendo y recordando a sus familiares. La visión
del dolor de los miembros de la familia, del clan,
del grupo, atrae afectivamente al wanokíren que
acaba de marcharse porque se siente todavía
íntimamente vinculado con ellos.
El distanciamiento es un proceso que requie-
re un lapso considerable y la prohibición de mirar
hacia el hábitat de los vivos, procura lograr esta
separación. Los muertos, dicen los Amaracaire,
tienen otros métodos para retenerlos en Seron-
hái, como por ejemplo ofrecerles cinco mujeres
por esposas. Participar de la pesca equivale a
contaminarse - consagrarse - en el mundo de los
muertos y quedar atrapado por su acción.
Anthropos 83.1988
116
Mario Califano
Durante el sueño algunos individuos, los
wayorokéri pueden conocer Seronhái por otro
medio. Kipákwa, un anciano zapiteri, contaba
que a menudo durante el sueño su wanokíren
abandonaba el cuerpo y se dirigía a Seronhái para
conocerla. Kipákwa vio a los muertos entregados
a las danzas propias de las fiestas de los vivientes,
pero no participó de las mismas; de haberlo
hecho, hubiera corrido el riesgo de quedar atra-
pado definitivamente.
La versión huachipaire sobre la existencia del
mundo subterráneo es la siguiente;
El wanokíren en su viaje a Seronhái debe recorrer un camino
muy limpio. En la mitad de este camino se encuentra un loro
pequeño llamado víki, cuya función es la de comunicar el
arribo del muerto a otro loro que se encuentra más atrás en la
bifurcación del camino. Este segundo loro de mayor tamaño
se llama waidnáro y al obtener el aviso de víki se prepara para
recibir al wanokíren. El muerto debe llevar comida en su
boca; si va con la boca vacía waidnáro le corta la cabeza y lo
mata. La comida es para entregársela a waidnáro. Finalmente
sigue el camino que corresponde a los Huachipaire, el otro es
para las demás tribus o sea para los mbayéri o enemigos. El
camino conduce hasta un río, allí debe gritar para avisar a sus
familiares que se encuentran del otro lado, así lo vendrán a
recoger. Los llama, comunicándoles que ha llegado. Entonces
los del poblado lo buscan y lo llevan a sus casas. En este
poblado vive mucho tiempo, tiene mujer e hijos hasta que
muere y lo entierran otra vez. Sigue el camino y continúa
hacia adentro hasta que llega a un lugar en donde encuentra
muchos paisanos bailando. En ese bosque vive mucho tiempo,
come moscas y tapir rojo (wámbedn kémé). Muere otra vez y
se repite el entierro. Retoma al camino y sigue andando por él
hasta que ya se va agotando. Sus piernas se van encogiendo y
finalmente muere y lo entierran. De allí sale a la superficie
terrestre bajo la forma de la hormiga kéxe.
El primer loro víki es un ayudante o inferior
(wanámba) de waidnáro, este último es el «señor
de los loros», el jefe (wantópa), y el primero le
sirve avisándole. En el interior de la selva víki
cumple las mismas funciones de vigilancia. La
comida tiene el propósito de engañarlo y permi-
tirle atravesar esta prueba que le posibilitará
continuar el camino. La bifurcación en la que se
encuentra waidnáro constituye el segundo um-
bral, el verdadero umbral del wanokíren, porque
una vez atravesado ya no es posible el regreso
bajo una condición humana. La posibilidad del
retorno del wanokíren en la terapia cantada es
realizable mientras no haya trascendido este um-
bral que lo conduce a la región subterránea. El
rescate del wanokíren está expresado en el canto
en que el wayorokéri pugna por trabarle el
acceso. En un fragmento del canto que repite
continuamente dice:
En el camino de los muertos,
adonde todos va,
en el encuentro de los dos caminos,
no te dejo pasar.
Lo estoy enredando
con bambú y con espinas.
Es en este umbral donde la potencial del
wanokíren cambia de signo volviéndose negativa,
nefasta. El río, llamado Serowe, río de Seronhái,
es el mismo en cuyas márgenes reside el grupo de
los vivientes en el mundo terrestre; entra en
Seronhái en un lugar que se encuentra en las
proximidades de küredntapo. Es otro umbral
donde la potencia del río se intensifica.
Una vez que el difunto ha atravesado el
Serowe, y con la ayuda de los wanokíren de los
muertos, podrá formar parte de la nueva comuni-
dad. El espacio que media entre la tumba y el río
debe recorrerlo solo; este viaje lo realizará lleno
de terror aunque el mito le traza el camino hacia
el mundo subterráneo. El primer espacio de
muerte comienza a pocos metros del lugar en
donde se ha sepultado el cadáver y a menudo el
olor repugnante de Seronhái sale de la tumba
mostrando el clima de las sombras.
Después de llevar a cabo una existencia
semejante a la del mundo de los vivos, padece
una segunda muerte, enfatizándose la ausencia de
la idea de aniquilación. Curiosamente el relato
continúa: aparece nuevamente el simbolismo del
camino que concluye en una danza orgiástica que
caracteriza a la típica conducta del Tóto. La
imagen de las moscas aumenta la sensación de
muerte y el mítico tapir rojo es una variedad que
únicamente habita en ese paraje. Nuevamente
muere y sigue el camino hasta que el cansancio lo
agota.
Es interesante ver de qué manera se van
diluyendo las figuras de los wanokíren que habi-
tan aquellas regiones y cómo se enfatiza la dicon-
tinuidad de los sucesivos espacios recorridos.
La visión de este wanokíren agotado, que
finalmente surge al hábitat de los vivos bajo la
apariencia de la hormiga, las cuatro muertes que
padece, el largo tránsito por los distintos ámbitos
del Hades hacen suponer un esfuerzo de intelec-
ción por parte de los Huachipaire para dar cuenta
de la finitud del cuerpo-despojo frente a la
perennidad del wanokíren. Esta hipótesis se sus-
tenta en la comparación con la representación de
los Amaracaire y Zapiteri del Hades en la que
estos episodios están ausentes. Estas son más
simples y arcaizantes. El esfuerzo que realizan los
Huachipaire es limitado, reflejándose en la pali-
dez que poseen los espacios que siguen al Serón-
hái propiamente dicho. El wanokíren podría ha-
ber salido sin tomar cuerpo y deambular por el
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
117
bosque, pero el cansancio que sufre le hace
adoptar otra corporalidad, en una palabra se
agota. La hormiga kéxe no es Tóto, no tiene
wanokíren, es un simple cuerpo que se mueve.
El esquema es circular. En esta concepción
vida y muerte conforman una totalidad circular
dividida en diferentes segmentos o etapas. Un
segmento del círculo corresponde a la vida y
posee una determinada extensión, los segmentos
que siguen pertenecen al ámbito de la muerte y
cada uno de ellos tiene una distancia semejante al
de la vida. Los espacios de Seronhái son disconti-
nuos pero su calificación es similar porque su
contenido numinoso no varía. La versión zapiteri
del destino del wanokíren y de Seronhái es la
siguiente:
Desde la sepultura del wanokíren sigue el camino de Seronhái
llamado Seronhái dágn hasta llegar a un zanjón que debe
saltar con una pértiga clavada sobre el borde del mismo
preparada para ayudar al wanokíren. Una vez atravesado el
zanjón, ya no puede regresar. En cambio, si cae en el hueco
durante el salto queda aprisionado en el barro y no podrá
salir.
Continúa el camino, una vez transpuesto el zanjón, llega
al río Serónha, el mismo que se encuentra arriba y que más
lejos entra en la tierra. Cerca del camino se encuentra dos
yárí, puercos de tropa, que tienen dos cabezas y están uno
encima del otro como si estuvieran apareados.
Para poder cruzar el río tiene que espantar una raya ísna
de tamaño mayor de lo normal con la ayuda de un palo. Una
vez alejada la raya escapa del peligro de ser punzado por ella
y cruza. Sigue el camino y se encuentra con un loro llamado
yúnka (waidnáro). El wanokíren debe darle de comer porque
yúnka tiene hambre. Si el muerto ha comido antes de morir
no vuelve, pero si no ha comido regresa. Yúnka lo asusta
obligándolo a regresar.
Finalmente llega a la bifurcación del camino y allí lo
espera el wanokíren de un familiar muerto, un tóto que lo
llevará por el camino de los parientes. Antes de llegar a la
casa de los muertos, víki, que los ve llegar, avisa gritando. Es
recibido, entra a la casa y se queda a vivir.
El zanjón que debe atravesar, la raya que
empuja con el palo, y la comida para yúnka son
las pruebas a que se ve sometido antes de llegar al
final del camino. Estos tres lugares son también
umbrales que separan espacios potencialmente
diferentes y a medida que el wanokíren los
atraviesa se van potenciando cada vez más.
Entre los Zapiteri de otros ríos circula una
versión un tanto diferente:
Cuando mueren, el wanokíren va adentro por un camino.
Hasta cierta parte hay camino, después no hay. Golpean la
fierra haciendo bulla y se vuelve camino. Por ahí se va hacia
otro río, al río de los wanokíren. Se pasa ese río y hay una
casa de los wanokíren de los perros. Hay una casa de las
flechas, otra casa de los palos de chonta, las punta de las
flechas sin preparar.
Antes de llegar al río se encuentra un loro llamado yúnka, es
•Uuy grande y tienen que darle de comer. Aparece un
barranco muy alto y un palo para sostenerse y saltar. Allí el
wanokíren va por un buen camino y se encuentra con un loro
llamado víki que está sentado y grita;
- ¡Están viniendo! ¡Están viniendo! - Entonces los wanokíren
contestan:
- ¡No es de nosotros! -
Sigue el wanokíren hacia otra parte. Más allá hay un tucán
que se llama písin písin y grita:
- ¡Písin! ¡Písin! . . .
Allí lo buscan los wanokíren y se lo llevan. Cada uno tiene su
río. Los del Euri (río Madre de Dios) sobre el que viven los
Huachipaire, están sobre el mismo río. Abajo está el río
Amarillo, el río Colorado, el río Negro; pero todo se llama
Seronhái. Hay muchas clases de animales y cada uno los mata
en su río.
En un mito el Tóto hace el camino golpean-
do con el puño sobre la tierra y el muerto lo hace
durante el viaje. También el murciélago mere
hizo el camino golpeando con su puño cuando
murió y se fue a Xiliahuándei. El segundo pájaro
o el písin písin cumplen el mismo papel de
vigilancia que antes mencionamos, la variante
está dada por el carácter de vínculo que existe
entre el wanokíren y el animal. Cada grupo tiene
un ave particular que los guía. En este relato
aparecen señalados los wanokíren de las flechas
que explicaría la práctica funeraria de la destruc-
ción del patrimonio. Como si la ruptura del
objeto librara del mismo el contenido anímico.
Nos encontramos con una visión animista que
coincide con el esquema dual del cuerpo y del
wanokíren (Califano 1981a).
El objeto del viaje del wanokíren del topaké-
ri a Seronhái era el de rescatar el alma del
enfermo resentida por la agresión de las diversas
teofanías. El wanokíren del enfermo aquejado
por el dolor (watshírí) que estas causan sobre su
cuerpo (wáso) y compelida por el permanente
acoso, se retrae hacia el mundo inferior en donde
puede surgir el riesgo definitivo de ser apresada
por los wanokíren de los difuntos. La función del
topakéri consiste en impedir que las almas de los
difuntos logren sus propósitos y evitar que el
wanokíren del enfermo atraviese determinado
umbral.
Sin embargo, también con la técnica de los
estiva es posible rescatar el wanokíren del enfer-
mo, como ocurre con la crisis de embüye, en que
la palabra (wáxa) cantada impide a las almas de
los difuntos que arrastren a la persona afectada al
wandári tenebroso en el que habitan.
e) La adquisición de esposas
El topakéri llevará a cabo una existencia doble:
por una parte mantendrá a su esposa y sus hijos
Anthropos 83.1988
118
Mario Califano
en la casa comunal desarrollando los cometidos
inherentes a su status y participando del resto de
las actividades del grupo. Sin embargo, se dife-
renciará a los demás porque su wanokíren se
encuentra en estado de tóto y durante la inici-
ación ha adquirido numerosas esposas que corres-
ponden a los animales de la selva. Esta segunda
modalidad de existencia será mantenida durante
las partidas de caza, cuando su propio cuerpo
adquiere la morfología de su etopáka para despla-
zarse con mayor facilidad, evidenciando su verda-
dera naturaleza. Como también en los viajes «en
wanokíren» que deberá realizar en pos de su
cometido cual topakéri.
El abuelo de Ednémpwa se llamaba Ixpen y mandaba a los
enemigos (mbayéri) al Teiróro con su brujería. El topakéri
vive con la mujer apáñe (tigre), de hó (mono), y con otras. No
tiene otra mujer y tiene hijos con apáñe, con hó y con otras
mujeres animales. Para brujear su wanokíren (alma) vuela
hasta küredn (cielo). Los hijos congeniaban con cualquier
animal. Vienen todos y se queda con una. Para cada topakéri
hay una especial. Cuando aprenden para topakéri enflaquecen
y enferman. No hay que cuidarlos, enflaquecen nomás.
Después van sanando. Hay topakéri de tóto, de tapir (wasé-
bí), de venado (báhi), de mono {hó), de río. El topakéri de río
hace surcar los peces. El topakéri de tóto hace doler la cabeza
a los enemigos. Hay topakéri de todo. A la viejas no las
mataban durante la guerra porque sabían brujear, eran como
el sapo mokóko y las llamaban mokóko-tóne <sapo viejo.
Cuando el wanokíren está con el animal, el wanokíren del
animal viene a curar. Los topakéri tienen el wáso (cuerpo)
vacio y son pura <piel> (wahíren). El abuelo Ixpen era topakéri
y congeniaba con wasébi. Hacía dejar a los nietos más a su
lado y venía el wanokíren de wasébi y lo comía. Ednémpwa
veía como conversaba con wasébi. Cuando murió Ixpen se fue
gritando como wasébi y decía: - <¡Ya me voy!> -. Se fue a
wanámeitapo, donde está el wantópa de wasébi. Allí hay
muchos wantópa de animales. También hay en waküren-tápo.
[Huachipaire; río Keros; narrador: Ednémpwa]
Las experiencias del cazador se aproximan a
las del topakéri y la narración que sigue posee
una fisionomía que puede ser confundida con una
experiencia chamánica.
Un hombre había ido a cazar y encuentra huellas de wasébi
(tapir) - <¿Adonde habrá ido?> -, decía, y sigue. Encuentra a
una mujer con su bolsa llena de carga. - <¿Adonde habrá ido
wasébil. Acá fresquito ha cagado.> y la mira el hombre. -
<Yo soy> -, le dice la mujer. Pero no le cree; - <¡Retírate! Voy
a buscar las huellas de wasébi. ¡Retírate!> -. La mujer le
insiste: - <¡Yo soy!> -, y no le cree. Era una linda mujer. -
<¡Retírate!> -, le decía. - <Yo soy y mi papá me ha mandado
porque tiene ganas de comer pescado y esa basura es la sobra
del barbasco> -,4 y se levanta la mujer y lo abraza. - <A ti te
quiero y por eso he venido> -, y lo tumba al hombre en el
suelo. - <Vamos a la casa> -, le dice el hombre. - <No voy a
entrar por la puerta y vas a hacer puerta sacando mbiríka
(pared)> le dice la mujer. Pero el hombre no lo hace. A la
tarde llega la mujer y se fueron a dormir: - <¡Vamos a
4 Los excrementos son para wasébi el barbasco.
dormirb -, dijo el hombre. En la noche mientras dormía la
veía con patas de wasébi y se asusta el hombre. Después de
tres dias la mujer le dice: - <¡Vamos a mi casa!> -, y se van y
llegan. Entra primero la mujer y les dice a sus hermanos: -
<¡Está viniendo! ¿Adonde se va a sentar?> -, y el hermano
coge al perezoso bühü y lo envuelve como una manta. El
hombre veía como bühü, pero era la manta de wasébi. Y el
bühü se rasca y se retira: - <¡Se está yendoh -, dice el hombre.
El hermano de la mujer lo sacude y lo pone otra vez. A la
mañana la mujer le dice: - <Mi hermano quiere que vayas a
sacar coca para ellos> -. Se van y en el camino encuentran
mokas (puerco) y la mujer le dice: - <¡Hay mókash -,
<¿Dónde?> -, <¡Allí!> -, <¿No es tronco?> -. Otra vez siguen
andando y se escapa el mokas. Siguen caminando. - <¡ Allí hay
büdn\> -, decía la mujer. Pero el hombre veía un tronco: -
<¡No es tronco seco!> -, y se escapa el büdn. - <¡Mira allá hay
báhi (venado)!> -, le indica la mujer. - <¡No es kishimbéro
(palo)!> y se escapa el báhi. - <¿Qué cosa tienen tus ojos
que no pueden mirar? ¿Había sido ciego? ¡déjame ver!> y
coge un palo y la mujer le dice: - <Te voy a sacar eso que te
está tapando el ojo> -. El hombre no quería, creía que lo iba a
punzar. - <¡A ver!> -, y le saca lo que le tapaba y vé bién.
Cosas buenas de wasébi. Vé como era la casa de wasébi, ve
mokas, yári (puerco de tropa) y mata. Llegan a la chacra y la
mujer le dice: - <Saca coca para tus hermanos> -. Había
grandes árboles de coca. Saca y regresan. - <¿En que voy a
hacer secar la coca?> dice el hombre. - <¡Acá!> -, y la mujer
saca al bühü. Extiende el bühü y pone la coca. Pero este se
levantaba: - <¿Que pasa cuñado?> -, <E1 viento quiere llevarse
la coca> -. Le habían dado al hombre el kétápe (asiento) de
séro (tortuga) y hace secar la coca. Llega un hombre que tenía
envidia de ese que se había casado con la mujer wasébi. Había
matado una nutria áwid y estaba orgulloso y decía; - <¡Así ha
matado un hombre! ¡No hay que matar mariposas! ¡Hay que
matar carne!> -. Su hermana le dice: - <¡Cállate! ¡Mira todo lo
que ha matado ese hombre!> -, y se calla de vergüenza. La
hermana de ese hombre orgulloso pedacea a la áwid. - <Voy a
ir con mi cuñado a matar wasébñ -, dice. Los ratones púshik
tékoik son wasébi para ellos. Van y encuentran. Huelléan: -
<Acá van a pasan -, hacen bulla y pasan como ratón. -
<¡Como voy a matar a ese ratón!> -, se preguntaba el hombre.
- <¿Has matado cuñado?> -. <No, cuando he ido a orinar ha
pasado <Ahora vas a matan -. Otra vez los arrean y vienen
haciendo bulla como wasébi y pasan como ratón. - <¿Has
matado?>, - <No lo he matado, - <¿Qué haces? ¿Porqué no
matas? ¡Ahora vas a matarb -, - <¿Qué cosa me están
diciendo estos?. Voy a tirar flechas y las voy a clavar en el
suelo -. Viene otra vez el ratón y lo flecha queriendo
clavarlo. Lo mata. - <¿Has matado?>, - <He matado pero no
sé si he hecho bién>. Allí está el ratón como wasébi. Lo llevan
a la casa, lo pedacean y lo comen. — <Me voy a ir a mi casa>
le dice el hombre a la mujer. - <¡Anda! Yo no voy a ir mañana
con mi hermano> le contesta. Se va el hombre. A la mañana
se va la mujer con su hermano, pero le dice: - <¡Adelántate!
Yo me voy a bañar y dile a mi cuñado que me estoy bañando y
que venga a pintarme con mantóro> -. La mujer deja a su
hermano y le avisa al hombre lo que quería: - <Voy a ir>
contesta. - <Espera que se baño -, le dice la mujer. Pero el
hombre sale a buscarlo y ve a un wasébi que se está bañando,
nadando en la poza: - <¡Ahí hay wasébib -, y sale corriendo. -
<¡ wasébi está dando vueltas en la poza>; - <¡Que va a ser
wasébi! ¡Es mi hermanob le dice la mujer. Lo persigue para
atajar lo pero el hombre lo mató. Y la mujer le dice: - <Como
has hecho así, no me vas a mirar la cara. Vas a voltean; -
<¡Anda, trae agua!> -, le dice el hombre. Pero la mujer se va
llorando y gritando: <¡Mi hermano! ¡Mi hermanop -. Enton-
ces el hombre se enoja: - <Voy a matarla para que no se
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
119
escapo La persigue y aparece en otro cerro. Sigue y
aparece más lejos. Hasta que se pierde.
La realidad y tangibilidad de estas esposas
animales se comprueba cuando los topakérí seña-
laban que preferían determinadas especies en
razón de sus atributos físicos. En efecto, algunos
preferían los «traseros gordos» de las mujeres
tapir a aquellos de las mujeres venado, por ser
estos últimos «flacos y puntiagudos». En el relato
hay un momento determinante cuando el hombre
que convive con la mujer tapir es iniciado para
que vea la nueva realidad. La esposa animal
desliza a lo largo de ambos ojos del hombre un
«palito» y con esta operación lo faculta para
introducirse en el wandárí animal. Esta participa-
ción es plena, porque no se limita a la visión sino
a todos los sentidos. Es decir, el iniciado ve, oye,
toca, huele y gusta, pero por momentos le pierde
y mete al cuñado animal.
Por otra parte, establece con la esposa ani-
mal un verdadero lazo de afecto que no puede
ser ignorado. La ira del hombre es prueba de ello
porque la considera como verdadera esposa.
f) El masato
El masato consiste en la preparación de una
bebida embriagante elaborada a partir de la
mandioca dulce (Manihot aipí) la que una vez
hervida sin sal, es masticada por las mujeres
jóvenes para luego dejarla fermentar. La palabra
«masato» es una expresión utilizada en la selva
peruana; entre los Huachipaire y Zapiteri recibe
el nombre de embatáre (lit.: e-mba-tare-: tomar;
-tare: yuca: «tomar la yuca»). Es decir que
embatáre designa tanto a la reunión social como
al vegetal con el cual se prepara la bebida que
recibía el nombre de síne. El embatáre es un
hecho social complejo que no se limita exclusiva-
mente a la ingestión del masato sino que com-
prende reglas de hospitalidad y de etiqueta,
solución de conflictos personales a través' de
imputaciones expresadas en determinados cantos
y finalmente en el caso del chamanismo, la
obtención de los estiva con la visita de los
wanokíren de los animales que se acercan al
embatáre.
Los wanokíren de las teofanías son invisibles
a los ojos de los demás miembros de la comuni-
dad y lo que se persigue con la ingestión de la
bebida es el estado de eshimbóre; esto es de
«borracho» que se incrementa con la aspiración
del polvo de tabaco. El eshimbóre posibilita ver y
tratar con los wanokíren de los animales; el
iniciando, en instantes cambia su morfología cor-
poral humana por aquella animal, operación que
realiza particularmente en el curso de la danza
éxak. Este baile se limita a la realización de una
ronda que varía de velocidad, terminando los
danzarines por correr en círculo. El estado de
eshimbóre puede controlarse a través de un estiva
que permite el «vómito».
Durante el embatáre el wanokíren del inici-
ando visitaba a los animales así como a otras teo-
fanías en sus propios ámbitos y estos se acercaban
a la casa comunal; algunos entraban en forma
humana o animal y procedían a extraer la enfer-
medad succionando en el centro del pecho: en el
wanópu, donde se encuentra el wanóre o corazón
residencia del alma. De esta forma podían neu-
tralizar el watshíri o dolor que afectaba al indivi-
duo y en muchos casos restituían el alma que ha-
bía sido arrastrada por ellos.
Todo este procedimiento del topakéri se
desarrolla a través de un diálogo cantado con los
animales a quienes entrega cuencos de calabaza
conteniendo la bebida. Estos a su vez le indican
quienes son las personas que próximamente falle-
cerían.
Otro hecho que podía ocurrir es que acudie-
ran los wanokíren de las personas fallecidas,
procedentes de Seronhái y que intentaran atrapar
a los vivientes para llevarlos a residir en el
submundo. El peligro de dejarse seducir y arras-
trar por estos wanokíren hasta Seronhái y tomar
el masato que allá abajo se elabora equivale a
morirse. Por tal motivo, muchos de los iniciandos
podían entrar en la crisis de embüye para recupe-
rarse luego, dado que su wanokíren evitaba inge-
rir el síne que allá se le prometía, como también,
los umbrales de peligro del mundo subterráneo.
Los topakérí sabían cuando la gente iba a morir, porque ellos
están con los animales. Están solo con wahíren (piel). El
topakérí de küredn (cielo) subía y se encontraba con los
animales. Tomaba masato y a la mañana bajaba. Los animales
regresaban al monte al amanecer. [Huachipaire: río Keros;
tema: chamanismo; narrador; Ednémpwa]
Los wanokíren se acercan al embatáre can-
tando y a través del mismo se presentan ante la
comunidad humana embriagada. Veamos algunos
de esos cantos.
1) Canto del caimán shimáro
Yo vivo en las humedades
Nadie puede pensar mal de mi
matshirahó ....
El caimán shimáro hace referencia a su habitat y
por una parte hace una alusión velada, una
Anthropos 83.1988
120
Mario Califano
amenaza, si alguien se burla de él. Por otra no
entra al local del embatáre por temor que el síne
sea líquido extraido del barbasco y beberlo corre-
ría peligro de muerte. La expresión matshirahó
significa «piel del mono maquisapa u ho» y sólo
tiene un sentido estético.
2) Canto del tapir wasébi
Yo nunca vivo en las quebradas
Se vivir adonde hay pampa
Tampoco vivo en las cabeceras
Vivo en las playas.
Los amplios claros del bosque y las playas de los
ríos son los lugares preferidos por el tapir wasébi,
porque le permiten desplegar una de sus principa-
les características, la de correr velozmente. Esta
capacidad del tapir es destacada en diversos mitos
y empleada en los esüva.
3) Canto de los puercos de tropa yári
En nuestra tierra, en otra tierra
Viene apareciendo otra gente
En nuestra tierra, en otra tierra
Viene apareciendo gente de sáno sáno
Viene apareciendo gente de kótshi
¡Así! ¡Gente de una casita pequeña vienen!
¡Otra gente! Pero venimos acá a visitarlos
En nuestra tierra ....
El canto hace referencia a un mito en particular
que da cuenta de cuando la tropa yári buscaba un
jefe para que los guiara, de lo contrario deambu-
larían perdidos por la selva y serían fácil presa de
los cazadores. Para subsanar esta carencia, apre-
san y matan a un joven que con su hermano
menor se halla en la selva cazando. El joven se
convierte en el wantópa de los puercos de tropa,
cambiando su cuerpo por aquel animal y su
condición de xarangbütn por la de fofo. Se
encuentra con el hermano menor que lo acompa-
ña por un tiempo con la tropa de puercos y a
quien enseña como se matan cuando estos cuel-
gan su corazón de un palo para poder dormir
porque se han excedido con la comida. El menor
punza todos los corazones y a la mañana siguien-
te, cuando los yári se los colocan van cayendo
muertos. Entonces el wantópa los resucita con el
arbusto séno séno y la madera de la palmera
kótshi. Las «casitas» son las chocitas que levanta-
ron los puercos para pasar la noche, para hacer
campamento, y la expresión «pero venimos aquí a
visitarlos» es una regla de etiqueta propia de los
visitantes mashco.
4) Canto del venado báhi
Los tiros kómpa no me dejaban venir
Así, dejando a un lado a ese tiro
He venido a visitarlos corriendo
Los tiros kómpa ....
Los disparos de los fusiles de los amíko le
impedían acercarse al embatáre, pero el venado
logró evitarlos, así pudo asistir a la reunión.
5) El tigre apáñe no entraba, permanecía en la
puerta gruñendo y regresaba. Su presencia inspi-
raba mucho temor.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; narrador: Natashigem-
büe-Ndarimaponéwa]
1) Canto del tapir kéme
xéxéé, . . .
He venido de allá
Con toda mi fuerza corriendo
He llegado aquí títí.
Nuevamente se resalta la carrera del tapir; xéxéé,
es el grito que emite y trata a los presentes de títí,
de «tío» en señal de respeto.
2) Canto del gallinazo mátük
Allá alumbrando como antorcha vengo
Así voy volando en el viento
Llego aquí y digo esto
Vuelo, vuelo, vuelo ....
La negrura de las plumas del gallinazo se agitan y
resplandecen como las llamas de una antorcha,
andar en el viento y volar, son sus elementos
distintivos.
3) Canto del cuervo kangángpo
Aibarawaxé, ....
Los informantes desconocen el sentido de esta
palabra, posiblemente haya sido de un chamán
que la utilizó en un sentido muy personal.
4) Canto del condor matshigáre
El wámbedn está alumbrando
amarillo, amarillo, ....
El rojizo de sus plumas suscita destellos amari-
llentos y alumbra en el cielo como una antorcha.
5) Canto del tigre apáñe
Yovikéke, . . .
Al cara blanca he sabido romper.
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
121
El tigre hace referencia a la fuerza de su brazo y a
un animal que tiene una parte blanca en su
rostro; yovikéke, debe poseer el mismo origen
que comentamos en el canto № 3.
6) Canto de la abeja ashínke
Waikoitéwa xeaxéaxe ....
Idem, canto № 3.
7) Canto de las abejas mákü
El cielo no se ha podido reconocer
El cielo no se ha podido reconocer.
El cielo está ennegrecido por la cantidad de
abejas que están volando.
8) Canto de la víbora kuxépo
Neyónko había en el río
Neyónko había en el río.
Idem, canto № 3.
9) Canto del perro küva
La boca del Bednwé
está haciendo vueltas.
El Bednwé es un río mítico y en su desembocadu-
ra, las aguas giran como el perro küva antes de
echarse.
10) Canto del perro küva
Wákoi, ....
Así para que me hagas
Me has traído del río grande
Sufriendo hemos estado tongaxái.
El perro es el compañero permanente de los
hombres y en particular de los cazadores, y es
sometido a esfuerzos y sufrimientos durante las
prolongadas marchas. Wákoi significa «cascaru-
dos» y tongaxái «tío», tratándose en ambos casos
de una fórmula de etiqueta.
11) Canto del perro küva
Wambáva está secando
kóya me está haciendo, ....
El cuerpo del venado wambáwa se está secando y
es negro, el masato o kóya, lo está emborrachan-
do.
12) Canto de los loritos shiren
Nosotros donde bailamos
Donde bailamos ....
Se trata de varios loritos que vuelan dando
vueltas.
13) Canto del tigre apáñe
En nuestro río estoy poniendo correntada.
Está haciendo aumentar el caudal del agua del
río.
14) Canto del tigrillo wádmpi
Mánko se está poniendo amarillo,
amarillo ....
El Mánko es un tóto de mayor tamaño y potencia
que los demás.
15) Canto del shiwáiro mápi
Watótshi, . . .
En la cabeza del camino de watótshi
quédate, ....
El mápi es un roedor que se introduce en las
chacras para robar y comer la yuca, por eso pide
que se queden en la «cabeza» del camino y no lo
sorprendan.
16) Canto de la víbora bíxi
Ni tampoco mi papá me ha pintado
xavirüwaá, ....
El cuerpo de la víbora es en partes colorado como
el avire o el achiote (Bixa Orellana).
[Zapiteri: río Colorado; narrador: Mbiríka-Ndari-
maponéwa]
g) Los estiva
El tema de los cantos terapéuticos mashco exige
un tratamiento minucioso dada que es la única
técnica que en la actualidad disponen los Amara-
caire, Huachipaire y Zapiteri para la curación de
las enfermedades. Si bien el topakéri debía cono-
cer los cantos terapéuticos, otros individuos de la
comunidad podían también disponer de ellos a
través de revelaciones individuales resultado de
las intenciones de los animales que deseaban
transmitirlos. Estos podían comunicárselos medi-
ante el embayóro, en el masato o en el encuentro
personal con las aves carroñeras.
No existe entre los Amaracaire un chamanis-
mo asimilable a la fisonomía huachipaire y zapite-
ri; sino embayorokéri o «soñadores» y toda la
actividad curativa gira en torno del mito de
Aipixóe. En síntesis, la de los esüva, si bien era
una técnica típica del topakéri, en la actualidad y
al desaparecer el chamanismo, se ha constituido
como una institución propia patrimonio de los
Anthropos 83.1988
122
Mario Califano
esüverí (en los Huachipaire y Zapiteri) y del
embayorokéri (entre los Amaracaire).
La acción de cantar se denomina e-mba-
tshinóxa y si se quiere especificar en que mo-
mento se efectúa, como por ejemplo en ocasión
del masato, se dice: síne e-mba-tshinóxa. Si un
participante del masato entona un canto sobre el
tigre sería un apáñe e-mba-tshinóxa o sobre el
tapir, será un kéme e-mba-tshinóxa. En efecto, el
nombre del animal, del vegetal o de otro ente,
antecede a la expresión general de e-mba-tshinó-
xa. Existe un conjunto de cantos llamados esüva
que posee finalidades diversas, tales como fomen-
tar el crecimiento de un niño o de los vegetales de
cultivo, alejar la lluvia, practicar la brujería dañi-
na, seducir a una mujer y otros propósitos.
Incluidos en los esüva se encuentran aquellos
cantos terapéuticos obtenidos por el lejano Aipi-
xóe quien los recibiera de las aves y posterior-
mente los legara a los antepasados de los Mash-
co.
Como ejemplo de la práctica de los esüva
hemos elegido del amplio corpus terapéutico dos
cantos que son utilizados con objetivos diferen-
tes. El primero es para curar la mordedura de la
hormiga merési, el segundo es para el «mal de los
amikó», en relación con la gripe.
Merési-ténka o «hacer de merési», «picadura de
la hormiga merési»
Yo soy síwa, yo soy síwa, yo soy síwa
[oso hormiguero].
Ya estoy comiendo todo
para que no tenga watshírí [dolor]
el shimboyéye ombukérek5.
Ya estoy comiendo todo
para que no tenga watshírí
el shimboyéye ombukérek.
Ya estoy vomitando lo que he comido
ya estoy vomitando lo que he comido
ya estoy vomitando lo que he comido.
Yo soy hombre akóro [armadillo]
yo soy hombre akóro
yo soy hombre akóro.
Yo estoy haciendo sonar kávis kávis6 *
yo estoy haciendo sonar kávis kávis
yo estoy haciendo sonar kávis kávis.
Yo saco mi lengua y trago
yo saco mi lengua y trago
yo saco mi lengua y trago.
Yo soy akóro, yo soy síwa.
5 Shimboyéye ombukérek es una palabra ritual, no es de
uso cotidiano.
6 Kávis kávis: sonido que hacen esos animales al comer las
hormigas.
Ya estoy comiendo todo el watshírí
del shimboyéye ombukérek
Yo soy akóro, yo soy síwa.
Ya estoy comiendo todo el watshírí
del shimboyéye ombukérek.
Yo soy akóro, yo soy síwa.
Ya estoy comiendo todo el watshírí
del shimboyéye ombukérek.
Ya he comido todo el watshírí
porque soy síwa y akóro
ya he comido todo el watshírí
porque soy síwa y akóro.
Ya me voy a comer el watshírí a biroetápo1
ya me voy a comer el watshírí a biroetápo
ya me voy a comer el watshírí a biroetápo.
Estoy perdiéndome con el watshírí
y el shimboyéye ombukérek
está sano y no va a tener watshírí.
Estoy perdiéndome con el watshírí
y el shimboyéye ombukérek
está sano y no va a tener watshírí.
Estoy perdiéndome con el watshírí
y el shimboyéye ombukérek
está sano y no va a tener watshírí.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; narrador: Oxpüxe-Ndarimaponéwa]
Se escupe sobre la picadura.
Cuando aparecieron los amíko trajeron una
variedad de enfermedades ignotas para los Masti-
co y para las cuales no disponían de los esüva
para subsanarlas. Por tal motivo, los morbos que
causaban produjeron numerosas muertes hasta
que uno de los esüverí obtuvo el nuevo corpus
terapéutico. En efecto, antes del amanecer, en
los instantes que median entre la oscuridad noc-
turna que concluye y la claridad inminente, uno
de los «apestosos», el cuervo mátük se encontra-
ba posado sobre la cumbrera de la casa. Al
hombre le fueron revelados los esüva para el
amíko-tshíndin, fórmula que reúne el conjunto de
enfermedades atribuidas al quehacer negativo de
los amíko. La palabra tshíndin puede traducirse
por «mal» o «viento», porque es a través de un
particular «viento oloroso» que se produce el
«mal de los amíko». La gripe se denomina
sórox.
Amíko tshíndin «gripe»: sórox (tierra)
Con olor estará sentado ese ópo8
con olor estará sentado ese ópo
con olor estará sentado ese ópo.
1 Mbiroetápo: lugar mítico no localizable que se considera
muy lejano.
8 Ópo: jefe, palabra ritual, no es de uso cotidiano.
Anthfopos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
123
Que se vaya detrás de xawáwa9 sonando
al otro lado que se vaya sonando.
Que se vaya detrás de xawáwa sonando
al otro lado que se vaya sonando.
Que se vaya detrás de xawáwa sonando
al otro lado que se vaya sonando.
Ya estoy diciendo
ya estoy empujando detrás de xawáwa.
Ya estoy diciendo
ya estoy empujando detrás de xawáwa.
Ya estoy diciendo
ya estoy empujando detrás de xawáwa.
Detrás de ese cerro xawáwa
están cayendo de rodillas.
Detrás de ese cerro xawáwa
están cayendo de rodillas.
Detrás de ese cerro xawáwa
están cayendo de rodillas.
Yo estoy golpeando a esos
con el püdnwáriküsapo
[ortiga, palabra rituel]
haciendo pógn-pógn
lo estoy haciendo regresar.
Yo estoy golpeando a esos
con el püdnwáriküsapo
haciendo pógn-pógn
lo estoy haciendo regresar.
Yo estoy golpeando a esos
con el püdnwáriküsapo
haciendo pógn-pógn
lo estoy haciendo regresar.
Al beáxe kürüdnkü [cielo de los gallinazos] he subido
parándome en la cumbrera de la casa.
Al beáxe kürüdnkü he subido
parándome en la cubrera de la casa.
Al beáxe kürüdnkü he subido
parándome en la cumbrera de la casa.
Al mátük kürüdnkü [cielo de los cuervos] he subido
parándome en la cumbrera de la casa.
Al mátük kürüdnkü he subido
parándome en la cumbrera de la casa.
Al mátük kürüdnkü he subido
parándome en la cumbrera de la casa.
Ahí he subido y he bajado
digo al shimboyéye wambokérek10 *
al watshíri voy a golpear diciéndole:
en ese cerro xawáwa,
estoy arreando atrás al watshíri.
Ahí he subido y he bajado
digo al shimboyéye wambokérek
al watshíri voy a golpear diciéndole:
9 Xawáwa: el cerro Tres Cruces.
10 Shimboyéye wambokérek: hombre, shimboyéye es una
palabra intraducibie que se utiliza en los estiva.
en ese cerro xawáwa,
estoy arreando atrás al watshíri.
Ahí he subido y he bajado
digo al shimboyéye wambokérek
al watshíri voy a golpear diciéndole:
en ese cerro xawáwa,
estoy arreando atrás al watshíri.
Con este golpe
ya está riendo
y corriendo.
Del wasána kürüdnkü11 estoy bajando
Del mátük kürüdnkü estoy bajando
Ya estoy haciendo reir
al shimboyéye wambokérek
Ya estoy haciendo sudar
al shimboyéye wambokérek.
Del wasána kürüdnkü estoy bajando
Del mátük kürüdnkü estoy bajando
Ya estoy haciendo reir
al shimboyéye wambokérek
Ya estoy haciendo sudar
al shimboyéye wambokérek.
Del wasána kürüdnkü estoy bajando
Del mátük kürüdnkü estoy bajando
Ya estoy haciendo reir
al shimboyéye wambokérek
Ya estoy haciendo sudar
al shimboyéye wambokérek.
[Huachipaire: río Keros (1968); narrador: Oxpüxe-Ndarima-
ponéwa]
Prácticas posteriores al canto:
1) Se escupe a la ortiga matshíri (Gro. Urticáce-
as).
2) Se golpea el cuerpo del enfermo.
3) No se comen alimentos de los amíko ni se
utilizan muchos de sus objetos, como por
ejemplo platos o jarros de hierro (Califano
1977).
En los esüva transcriptos es posible compro-
bar que la palabra o wáxa es la verdadera prota-
gonista de los cantos. La wáxa posee, desde el
instante en que se inicia el discurso, dos condicio-
nes: no es hablada {exápak), es cantada; pero no
se trata del hecho general de cantar (mbatándi-
ke), sino que es cantada en el contexto de un
esüva, y por lo tanto, impone el cánon estilístico
establecido por los «apestosos». En síntesis, la
wáxa se concreta de acuerdo a una específica
modalidad del hecho de cantar que implica una
alteración de orden esencial en relación a las
teofanías y entes que nombra. Esta alteración
contribuye, junto con otros elementos, a obtener
la potencia para concretar la cura.
El análisis de ambos esüva permite destacar
11 Wasána kürüdnkü es el beáxe kürüdn, wasána es palabra
ritual.
Anthropos 83.1988
124
Mario Califano
los siguientes atributos comunes de la palabra o
wáxa: compone un discurso, es etiológica, nom-
bra, ritualiza, es intención-acto, es sustancia y
potencia.12
1) La palabra discurso
En el merési-ténka se cuenta cómo el oso hormi-
guero síwa y el armadillo akóro comen el dolor o
watshírí que ha producido la hormiga merési con
su mordedura. Luego lo vomitan o se lo llevan
muy lejos a tal punto que el individuo queda sin
dolor. El ópo de los amíko es el que envía el
«viento oloroso» que provoca el sórox y es nece-
sario obligarlo a esconderse detrás del cerro Tres
Cruces, empujarlo y hacerlo caer. También hay
que golpear a los amíko que se encuentran con el
ópo, para así hacer regresar lo que el enfermo ha
perdido. Es necesario subir los diferentes cielos
en donde se encuentran los «apestosos», y golpe-
ar al watshírí para que se vaya también detrás del
cerro Tres Cruces. Una vez que el watshírí se ha
ido el hombre suda pero rie de alegría.
2) La palabra etiológica
En el estiva que se emplea para la gripe se
menciona el cerro xawáwa y por lo tanto evoca al
mito que consigna la aparición de los amíko y
consecuentemente los daños que han traído. El
xawáwa es el umbral desde el cual han entrado al
mundo mashco esos extraños seres cuya naturale-
za de tóto conmovió a los habitantes del valle de
Kosñipata.
3) La palabra ritual
La wáxa se convierte en ritual porque «reactuali-
za» un acontecimiento, como sucede con el ópo
de los amíko y los males que importaron. El
intérprete se «identifica» con la palabra con
algunas teofanías, como akóro y shíwa, menciona
sitios del universo que son dominios míticos,
como los diferentes cielos y el mbiroetápo vincu-
lado al mito de origen de los Huachipaire (Califa-
no 1983). El procedimiento ritual se intensifica
con las «repeticiones», con los nombres «no
cotidianos», con los sonidos.
12 El mito de Atúnto es también un esüva, porque en su
versión cantada, esotérica, se obtiene la potencia amoro-
sa (Califano 1978c).
4) La palabra nombre
Las teofanías que se nombran, como los sitios y
entes, se encuentran adheridos a la palabra, en el
sentido que «son intrinsecamente». Cabe aclarar
que son en el plano del estiva; pero no están
desvinculados de contenido, por esta razón el
nombre es también una entidad concreta. Akóro
y shíwa andan por la selva de la misma forma que
el ópo sigue sentado detrás del cerro Tres Cru-
ces.
5) La palabra intención-acto
En los esüva encontramos expresiones como:
comer y tragar, vomitar, se pierde, se opone al
olor, suena, dice y empuja, hace caer y golpear,
hace reir y regresar, sube y baja. Este conjunto
de aseveraciones reflejan los propósitos del esüva
que el intérprete convierte en acto con la wáxa.
En efecto, no son una anticipación a través del
canto del fin perseguido: el de la cura; son
palabras-acto que contribuyen a acrecentar la
potencia del esüva.
6) La palabra sustancia
El último paso del esüva consiste en el soplo-
saliva denominado etshípo que culmina el canto,
pero, lo fundamental es que sustancializa a la
acción desplegada. La potencia del esüva actúa
sobre el dolor watshírí en forma directa en el caso
del merési-ténka dado que el etshípo es dirigido a
la parte corporal afectada. En cambio, en el sórox
se emplea un intermediario, la ortiga, elemento
estrechamente vinculado con el origen de los
esüva y que al «picar» dispone de una propia
cualidad de potencia.
7) La palabra potente
La wáxa de los esüva es potente al perseguir una
acción eficaz dirigida hacia un sujeto que ha
provocado un daño, un watshírí. La obtención de
la potencia se logra porque el esüva, por la
modalidad expresiva que comporta, impone una
alteración de naturaleza ontològica. Como hemos
dicho, no se trata meramente de un «canto», es
un esüva. El intérprete se erige como el interme-
diario entre el dañador y el dañado, pero su
quehacer está encuadrado enérgica y dinámica-
mente en el recurso operativo del esüva.
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
125
h) El cambio de nombre
Uno de los pasos que comporta la iniciación del
topakérí es el cambio de nombre; es decir, el
individuo está obligado a recibir y colocarse el
nombre del animal que es su etopáka. Esta
práctica recibe la denominación de endikóre que
proviene de wándik o «nombre» y significa «colo-
carse el nombre» (endíkio: «que le han dado el
nombre»). El abuelo materno de uno de nuestros
traductores se llamaba Ndariwakeápa que puede
ser traducido por «la tierra que canta». Cuando
fue traducido por su etopáka el tigre apáñe, dejó
ese nombre para adoptar el de Ananéiwa, «el que
hace amanecer rápido» impuesto por su instructor
animal.
Cuando colocaban el nombre era cuando hacían los huecos
para las plumas. Si enfermaban cambiaban. Si la enfermedad
la había causado el animal tenían que tomar el nombre que le
daba el animal y colocárselo. Dejaban el viejo. A veces,
cuando enfermaban por otra cosa los parientes le daban el
nombre. El nombre no tiene wanokíren, no está en el
wanokíren, está en el wáso (cuerpo). Cuando mueren el
wanokíren no lleva el nombre y el muerto se pone otro
cuando entra a Seronhái. Si es nombre nuevo o extraño se
dice, después se avisa y los otros lo llaman así. Durante cinco
o diez años no se pronuncia el nombre de los muertos.
Después puede usarse otra vez. Todos los animales tienen su
nombre. El topakérí cambiaba de nombre después que termi-
naba de enfermarse y avisaba que había cambiado en el
masato. Mientras bailaba lo decía cantando. Guando un
animal daba el nombre, cambiaba tanto el hombre como la
mujer. Siempre que entregaba uno para cada uno. [Huachi-
paire: río Keros; tema: colocación del nombre; narrador:
Natashigembüe-Ndarimaponéwa]
Topakérí de apáñe era el abuelo de Ndarikéwe y se llamaba
Ananéiwa <el que hace amanecer rápido. Le tenía odio al
padre de Maxáno a Korixépa. Se peleaban con un cuchillo
chico y lo herían a Ananéiwa. Pero cada vez que estaba por
morir se cambiaba el nombre y sanaba. Regresaba siempre al
masato y otra vez peleaba. Hasta que en una de las peleas le
abrieron la barriga y le salió la tripa afuera. - <¡Bueno! ¡Voy a
andar con las tripas afuera!>, se consolaba. - <¡Voy a ser un
viejo con la tripa salida!> -. Pero una sobrina le dijo: -
<¿Cómo vas a andar así? Te han hecho así para que te mueras.
¡Tienes que morirte!. Debes tener vergüenza y no andar de
esa manera.> El viejo dijo: - <¡Bueno! Me voy a morir sobrina
y voy a ir a la casa de Aipixóe. Voy a salir y voy a pasar por la
casa de asinkíri (abejas). Pero voy a seguir viaje sin entrar,
Para entrar a la casa del pakéne-pünkü: casa de la madera
pakéne.> Después de decir esto se murió. El nombre Ananéi-
wa se lo había colocado para poder morir. Cuando lo
enterraron en la casa se escuchó al tigre apáñe que silbaba: -
«¡Ananéiwa! ¡Ananéiwa! . . .> Después de enterrarlo en la
casa se fueron a vivir a otro lado, porque el lugar estaba lleno
de apáñe y la casa se convirtió en una poza. Ese lugar se llama
apáne-küpa tapo-xag-xei que quiere decir <cerro del tigre
donde hay una casa vieja>. [Huachipaire; río Keros; narrador:
Natashigembüe-Ndarimaponéwa]
Durante la segunda expedición al río Colora-
do, a la parcialidad Amaracaire, nos «guiaba» un
apáñe (tigre); desde la boca del río Istare hasta el
Karene seguimos sus rastros, Darikéwe decía:
«¡Nos está llevando apánel» -. Más adelante, ya
sobre el río Colorado, cuando encontramos un
solitario lavador de oro, un amíko wámbedn le
repitió lo mismo.
Una noche, en el poblado amaracaire, Ndari-
maponéwa contaba que el abuelo de Darikéwe
había sido topakérí de apáñe y que su nieto
hubiera sido también topakérí de apáñe si no
hubiera aparecido «civilización». Comentó: -
«¿Acaso no has visto como nos acompañó apáñe
durante todo el viaje?» -.
i) Los auxiliares
¿Quienes son los auxiliares del topakéril ¿Cuál es
la modalidad de su vínculo?.
La primera pregunta lleva implícita la necesi-
dad de definir que es lo que se entiende en
términos mashco con «auxiliar», porque parecería
que el topakérí se consagrara en una suerte de
wantópa, «jefe-dueño» de las teofanías que ha
conocido durante la iniciación y en los viajes por
el cosmos. La palabra más cercana a «auxiliar» es
wanámba que es traducida como «inferior» o
«ayudantes». Por ejemplo, el tigre mítico áxa es
el wantópa de los restantes animales porque está
situado en la escala social de potencia más alta y
por lo tanto los que le siguen son sus wanámba,
incluyendo al tigre apáñe. Consecuentemente, sus
dependientes son wanámba «inferiores» y «ayu-
dantes». Con el topakérí no se trata de un vín-
culo de esta naturaleza. El topakérí ha adquiri-
do la condición de tóto con la iniciación y esta
circunstancia existencial lo aproxima a la totali-
dad de las teofanías; pero no por ello se convierte
en su wantópa. La participación en los dominios
teofánicos es plena, porque se trata de una
convivencia permanente en virtud de la doble
vida que lleva. Es un miembro más de la comuni-
dad tóto, con su propia familia, de la que por
momentos se ausenta para retornar a aquella que
posee entre los xarangbütn de la casa comunal.
Al convivir con las teofanías tóto solicita el
auxilio de éstas cuando es necesario para concre-
tar una cura o para obtener animales. En resú-
men, se trata de un pedido de auxilio.
El conjunto de teofanías es muy extenso y a
pesar de la preferencia del topakérí por algunas
en particular, como los que han contribuido en su
iniciación, se amplía con el correr de los años
Anthropos 83.1988
126
Mario Califano
como fruto de las andanzas y experiencias de los
wandári. Entonces, se convierten en auxiliadores
los habitantes de numerosos wandári, ante todo a
través de los wantópa de esos dominios, porque
de ellos dependen jerárquicamente las teofanías
en status de wanámba. Un wantópa es «jefe-
dueño» de un conjunto de teofanías no sólo
porque ocupa un sitio en una determinada organi-
zación socio mítica, sino también por dominar un
determinado ámbito cósmico.
Un caso particular es el de los wanokíren de
los antepasados difuntos que habitan en Seron-
hái, porque su existencia e intenciones son total-
mente negativas dado que su ambición es la de
arrastrar definitivamente a los vivientes a su
«mundo» y a su propia modalidad ontològica, la
de nokíren-tóto-embéi (alma-demonio-difunto).
En esta circunstancia el conjunto de los wa-
nokíren es borroso, fantasmogórico, sin que se
destaque wantópa alguno. Por el contrario, en los
restantes wandári las teofanías son individualiza-
das entre otros factores por nombres del habla
cotidiana, secretos o rituales, por una morfología
que puede ser ambigua como sucede con el
animal-humano.
3. Las funciones del chamán
El topakéri huachipaire y zapiteri cumplía tres
cometidos fundamentales dentro de la sociedad:
por la relación que mantenía con los wantópa de
los animales, obtener alimentos; en la guerra
dirigía y potenciaba las armas y por último,
trataba las enfermedades. Más adelante analiza-
remos en que forma la sociedad mashco ha sabido
suplir la pérdida del topakéri con otros individuos
y procedimientos.
a) El cazador
Las actividades económicas de los Mashco están
constituidas por la horticultura del bosque tropi-
cal, la recolección de frutos silvestres, la caza y la
pesca. Desde la perspectiva del ethos del grupo,
es la caza la que adquiere mayor importancia;
pero los productos de la chacra son los que
proveen la alimentación cotidiana y en algunas
parcialidades es atribución feminina su obtención
(Califano 1981b). Pero la caza no se limita a ser
un recurso económico; por el contrario, constitu-
ye una realidad en la que se encuentran unidos el
cazador y la presa. Es una actividad que contiene
una elevada dosis de participación por parte de
quien la practica, es por lo tanto una definición
de existencia. Consecuentemente, imprime un
sello a la cosmovisión grupal otorgándole una
particular orientación.
El cazador intenta establecer un vínculo muy
próximo con la presa y ésta a su vez, busca al
cazador, tal como es posible comprobar en el
siguiente mito:
Eran dos hermanitos. Los puercos de tropa yárí no tenían
wantópa que los mandara. La gente (xarangbütn) los mataba
y los yárí no sabían adonde ir. Al mayor de los hermanitos lo
cogen los yárí y lo matan. Le sacan el alma (wanokíren) y al
cuerpo (wáso) lo botan y queda como cuero, como corteza-
piel (wahíren). El muchacho se convierte en yárí. Su hermani-
to lo busca. Lo llama. Y al pasar por la selva, cerca de donde
estaba el hermano mayor, lo llama y este le contesta: <ssssss
. . .>. Cuando lo ve le pregunta: <¿Qué te pasa hermano?> -,
pero ya no habla más. El hermano menor llora. Llama a su
padre y lo entierran ahí. Los yárí nombran wantópa a ese
chico. Los yárí se perdieron por mucho tiempo, porque no
sabía dirigirlos y los llevó lejos.
Regresaron los yárí. El hermano menor era ya grande.
El wantópa de los yárí iba detrás de este y el chico lo espera
para matarlo. Le tira con las flechas pero no lo coge. El yárí
empieza a hablar: - <¡Oye! ¿Qué te pasa? ¡Cuidado, me vas a
matar! ¿Por qué no matas a los que van adelante¿ -. El chico
botó sus flechas y se acercó: - <¿Adonde has ido hermano? En
nuestra casa hay bastantes frutos y se los están comiendo los
pájaros. ¿Por qué no hacemos una chocita como antes para
cazarlos?) -. Pero su hermano le contesta: - <¡Sabes hermano!
Yo ya no soy como antes. Yo ya no soy como los xarangbütn>
y le mostró sus manos, su cabeza, su boca, su sexo. El chico
llora, pero no quiso dejar a su hermano menor en la selva y el
wantópa se va con los yárí. Los yárí chiquitos sacaban hojas
para hacer chozas. Estaban haciendo campamento. También
hacen para el wantópa. El wantópa va a la selva a sacar hojas
y entre las hojas trae cubierto, escondido a su hermano para
que no lo vean los otros yárí. Comienzan a repartirse lo que
habían sacado. Cocinan pescado. El wantópa le dice a su
hermano: - <Vas a recibir lo que te dan con dos dedos>. Pero
el chico se olvidaba y a veces ponía la palma de la mano
mostrando todos los dedos. Los yárí se escaparon gritando: -
<¡Enemigo (mbayérí)\ ¡Enemigo!). El wantópa le dijo: - <Yo
no soy de vuestra clase y a veces tengo que mostrarme así. Yo
soy. No se asusten). Se calmaron y siguieron repartiendo la
comida. Se durmieron los yárí; pero no podían. - <¿Qué es lo
que no me deja dormir?) -, se preguntaban. Se levantaron y
cada uno sacó su corazón (wanóre) y lo colgaron de un palo.
Todos lo colgaron del mismo palo. Recién pudieron dormir.
El wantópa le dijo al hermano: - <Lo que puedes comer,
punza el corazón). Creyendo que lo van a dejar a su hermano,
el chico punza todos los corazones. A la mañana se levantan
los yárí y se ponen el corazón. Van caminando en fila y van
cayendo muertos. El wantópa le dice a su hermano: - <¿Quién
te dijo que hagas así? ¡Ahora vas a traer toda clase de
chonta!). Amontona la chonta sobre los yárí. - <¡Arréalos
para que se levanten!) le ordena. Pero los yárí no se
levantaron. Trae toda clase de tierra y se la echa encima. -
<¡Otra vez, espántalos!) -, y recién se levantan. Hace separar
los yárí para que su hermano se los lleve. - <¡Quédate!) -, le
ordena; <Yo regresaré. El yárí más gordo es para los demás>.
Se queda el hermano menor y el wantópa se va con los yárí. El
otro regresa a su casa. Regresa el wantópa para ver si su
hermano había cumplido. Este se había guardado el más
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
127
gordo para él y los más flacos para sus paisanos. - <Como
estás comiendo muy gordo, te dejaré para remedio, y le deja
hojas de tabaco (séri) para mascar. También le deja el pito
yárí-témpu de los yári para sonar. - <Te dejaré esto. Cuando
nosotros vayamos lejos, llama y vendremos. Diles a tus
paisanos que hagan muchas flechas y tu debes hacer una casa
encima del árbol águano (ana) con tu comida. Se va el
wantópa.> Sube el joven encima de la casa para tocar el
yárí-témpu diciendo: - <¿Será cierto?> -. Comienza a sonar y
los yárí le contestan. Asustado baja. Sube a un árbol frágil y
desde allí toca el yárí-témpu. Vienen los yárí y su hermano el
wantópa piensa: - <¿En que palo estará?> -, y lo ve en el árbol
tórox. - <¿Quién te ha dicho que hagas así? ¡Ahora los yárí te
van a comer! ¡Bota el yárí-témpu\ ¡Es de ellos!>. Pero no lo
botó. Y seguía tocando. Los yárí sacaron las raíces con los
dientes para tumbar el árbol. Se enoja su hermano mayor y le
grita: - <¡Bótalo! ¡Te van a comer!> -. Lo rompe y lo tira. Se
acercaron los yárí con sus silbatos. Se bajó. Y cuando bajó se
cayó el árbol. El wantópa le dijo entonces: - <Como no has
obedecido me iré yo tambiém. Si hubiera obedecido los yárí
hubieran hecho meshíre (el masato de los animales) y se
habrían quedado. Así hubiera sido más fácil matar a los yárí.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; narrador: Natashigembüe-Ndarima-
ponéwa]
A la elección del joven sigue una captura y
una muerte, que es una iniciación e incorporación
a la comunidad de los puercos de tropa. La
muerte se limita al cuerpo (tváso) que responde a
la idea de corteza-envoltorio que ya hemos seña-
lado y que adopta la morfología de un yári. Sin
embargo, la principal metamorfosis se cumple en
el plano de lo anímico, del wanokíren, que al
«morir» (embüye), abandona la condición huma-
na (xarangbütn) y se transforma en tóto. Así lo
evidencian también los puercos de tropa y los
restantes animales de la selva. De esta situación
se encuentran exceptuados los animales que han
sido «domesticados» o sea «humanizados», que
en sentido inverso, pasan del estado de tóto al de
humano mediando una «muerte».
El verdadero cazador es la persona que ha
tenido la experiencia de enfrentarse con el wantó-
pa de una especie animal: y debe tomar cuidados
después de una matanza:
Cuando mataban apáñe (tigre) se bañaban. Después se
pintaban el cuerpo con mantóro (achiote) y se sentaban
agarrando su arco y sus flechas. Pijchaban toda la noche,
porqué podían tener embayóro (sueño). Pijchando se man-
tenían despiertos y no pasaba nada. Si no pasaban la noche
así, aparecía apáñe y les decía: - <¿Que me has hecho? ¡Vas a
morir!>. [Huachipaire: río Keros; tema: el «sueño malo» o
dákia embayóro; narrador: Tereapa-Senumpa]
Cuando se mata un animal hay que aumentar las flechas, para
que se divida y para que no dé embayóro (sueño). Un hombre
flechó al xóte (pécari). Lo mató. Al otro xóte que comía lo
corrió Ndañontashikéwa y en una quebrada se cae. Cuando se
cae se convierte en víbora. Mira bién para ver que pasó y vé
una víbora bién grande con cabeza de xóte. Se escapó Nda-
riontashikéwa y a la noche tuvo embayóro. Soñó que le
pegaban y lo herían con un cuchillo. Siempre hay que matar,
sino se tiene embayóro. Cuanto contó estas cosas, ya no
encontró al watshípai. [Zapiteri; río Colorado; tema: el sueño
o embayóro; narrador; Ndariontashikéwa-Ndarimaponéwaj
De inmediato transcribimos un relato que
documenta el encuentro con el wantópa animal:
El hermano de Ndarikéwe llamado Daxtavürinépa era un
buen cazador. Monos traía en cantidad. Era cazador de
monos. Cuando cazaba no fallaba y al ojo le tiraba. Un día
fué a la selva a buscar monos. No encontró. Mientras
regresaba escuchó que le gritaban atrás: - <¿Como no los he
visto? ¡Los voy a matarh dijo. Regresa y encuentra muchos
monos pero desaparecen. No saben adonde fueron. - <¡Se han
perdidosh -. Pero un mono pequeño, süve bajó del árbol. -
<Lo voy a matar porqué no hay más carne en casa. Para que
puedan comer siquiera eso -; pensó. Daxtavürinépa lo espera
y le tira una flecha. Lo alcanza y ahí mismo gritó como la
gente, como el trueno y saca chispas. Era el huatshípai que
aplasta a Daxtavürinépa y lo deja muerto. Se despierta
alrededor del mediodía y se retira un poco más lejos quedán-
dose dormido. Al atardecer llega a la casa con las flechas rotas
y caminando como borracho. Se pone a dormir sin pijchar.
Duerme, a la mañana cuando se despierta no cuenta lo que le
pasó. Pero ya no es como debe ser. Ya no era más xarangbütn
(humano). ¿Adonde estaría su wanokírenl. Siguió matando
monos, pero ya no los comía. Se enfermó y casi muere. -
<¿Que te ha pasado?> -, le preguntó Ndarikéwe. - <¡Seguro
has visto algo!. Tu eres hombre cazador. ¡Cuentah -; le pedía
su hermano. - <¡Estoy enfermo nomás> -; pero su hermano
sigue insistiendo y cuando está por morir le insiste: - <¡Cuen-
ta, que a todo hombre le pasa! A todo cazadon Entonces
cuenta: - <Como soy buen cazador he visto así. He matado y
me voy a llamar Virümpa. Y poniéndose el nombre se levanta
sano y bien. Más adelante bajó de las cabeceras del río Gua-
dalupe hasta la desembocadura del río Tono, y siempre decía:
- <Aquí me van a sepultar. Yo sé adonde. Sé muy bien, pero
no puedo decir> -. Cuando los amíko trajeron la viruela le
agarró a él y a su primo. Los llevaron al hospital del Cuzco. Su
primo se murió y Virümpa lo lloró. Una semana la pasó bien
sano. Pero sigue perdiendo sangre de su estómago. Y un día le
dice a su hermano Ndarikéwe, también enfermo de viruela: -
<Voy a morir> -. Se queda callado un rato y luego agrega: -
<Voy a morir y ya me estoy yendo a la casa. Pero no a nuestra
casa> Ndarikéwe le pregunta: - <¿Adonde vas a ir?>.
Virümpa le contesta: - <¡Sabes! Adonde vivíamos nosotros, en
las cabeceras del Guadalupe. Más arriba. Encima del cerro
están haciendo mi casa. Ahí voy a llegar, donde están mis
hermanos y voy a tomar masato. Me voy y no nos vamos a ver
más. Si tu crees que estás bien con la gente de aquí, puedes
quedarte. Si tu crees que no estás bien, puedes irte a otra
casa. A esa adonde vivíamos antes. Si tampoco no estás bien
allí, sigue a otra. Porque yo me voy a otra casa nueva y allí no
vas a poder llegan -. Y se murió. Después de una semana
Ndarikéwe se fué llevando la noticia que había muerto.
[Huachipaire: río Keros; tema: historia de un cazador; narra-
dor: Ndarimaponéway
El watshípai al hacer «morir» al cazador,
porque despliega su potencia, lo transforma en un
tóto que adoptará la morfología de ese animal
cada vez que se dirija a la selva y que evidenciará
en las reuniones del masato. Los cazadores, tam-
bién participan plenamente de una doble reali-
dad, la de la casa comunal y la de la comunidad
Anthropos 83.1988
128
Mario Califano
animal en la que tienen esposas y si bien están
obligados a mantener silencio respecto de su
verdadera condición, ésta es descubierta durante
las libaciones del embatáre. En efecto, durante
las danzas éxak, en que hombres y mujeres giran
tomados de la mano, mientras entonan cantos,
los cazadores adoptan por instantes el aspecto del
animal con el que han establecido ese particular
vínculo. Por otra parte, su destino final es el de
integrarse definitivamente a la sociedad animal,
en lugar de sumergirse en las profundidades de
Seronhái. En lo que hace a la caza, el topakéri no
se muestra insustituible, porque la obtención de
las presas está a cargo de los cazadores, máxime
en un grupo que persiste en denotar una verdade-
ra pasión por esa forma de vida.
b) La guerra
El hecho bélico mashco presenta fundamentos
míticos, históricos y jurídicos. El contenido
mítico etiológico se encuentra en los anuncios del
amanecer al pie del árbol wanámei, cuando los
antepasados presagiaron que en la nueva forma
de vida existiría también la guerra, la matanza
organizada: el wambaxára o «matar». Las impu-
taciones que podían desencadenar el enfrenta-
miento y que constituían el casus belli eran
debidas a diversos factores. Podemos citar la
invasión del territorio, ofensas recibidas, antiguas
matanzas, incumplimiento por parte de los amíko
de la obligación de donar artefactos de hierro e
introducción de enfermedades. Como puede ob-
servarse, aspectos históricos que contienen algu-
nos de los acontecimientos sobre los que se
sustentan las imputaciones; pero que se quiebran
al ceder ante la incidencia de lo mítico. La apa-
rición de los amíko es señalada por los Hua-
chipaire como un evento posterior al episodio
del wanámei; pero cabe recordar que estos no son
totalmente humanos, son fofo y por ese estado es
que han introducido el «mal de los amíko».
Ocurre algo semejante con personajes históricos
que han combatido con miembros de otra parci-
alidad y que luego se han erigido en modelos
guerreros a imitar (Califano 1985).
El principio del contrapaso es el que regula
la matanza; esto es, a una ofensa se responde con
un castigo y con esta acción se busca una retribu-
ción considerada como justa. De todos modos:
«La exigencia jurídica de retribución mediante un
castigo por una ofensa recibida no implica la
destrucción física del grupo; por el contrario, la
institución del ndakéxa, del <amistarse> es la
muestra evidente de este sentido. Las peleas y
diferencias acaecidas durante las borracheras del
masato, los insultos y agravios, pueden conducir a
la muerte del ofensor. Sin embargo, el ndakéxa
tal como lo aceptara el terrible Paijája, el incans-
able wantópa de los Zapiteri, que no cesaba de
acosar a los integrantes de todas las parcialidades
y a los amíko, es clara muestra de ello. También
lo es la disposición del mbayéri cuando solicita
una hermana a su enemigo como muestra de
pacificación, para tomarla como esposa y sellar
con esa unión un pacto de amistad.»
¿Cuál era el papel que desempeñaba el
topakéri en la guerra? El contenido del xinnaké-
rok topakéri o «chamán de la flecha xinnakérok
topakéri» o «chamán de la flecha xinnakérok» se
concreta:
1) Haber tenido el embayóro, el sueño en el cual
se divisaba la victoria o la derrota que luego
comunicaba a los demás.
2) Si detentaba también el status de wantópa,
pronunciaba el discurso de guerra.
3) Potenciaba a los hombres y a las armas antes
del conflicto.
4) Durante el desarrollo del enfrentamiento can-
taba los esüva dañinos contra los enemigos.
5) Curaba a los heridos, si bien existían especialis-
tas en extraer los trozos de flechas del cuerpo
de los heridos.
Como puede advertirse existen prácticas que han
desaparecido.
Luego de la invasión definitiva del territorio
mashco por parte de los colonos y con la instala-
ción de los misioneros dominicos, los enfrenta-
mientos bélicos cesaron. Esta situación de apa-
rente paz no significó la eliminación o el perdón
de las ofensas entre parcialidades y entre los
individuos. Por el contrario, la aplicación de la
norma jurídica del contrapaso se mantuvo de
acuerdo a dos procedimientos. El primero duran-
te las reuniones del embatáre en que los individu-
os o grupos de individuos pertenecientes a una
antigua parcialidad dirimían sus cuestiones, impu-
taciones y odios mutuos, con las peleas de puños,
por cierto muy sangrientas, pero que difícilmente
producían alguna muerte. En casos excepciona-
les, cuando un miembro de una comunidad fa-
llecía repentinamente, sucedía que se le imputaba
a otra comunidad la responsabilidad de ese hecho
y consecuentemente podía resolverse mediante
un combate cuerpo a cuerpo; un castigo que
podía extenderse a los familiares del imputado,
esposa aún en estado de embarazo y niños peque-
ños.
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
129
El segundo procedimiento para ejercer la
venganza se concreta con el empleo de los esüva
dañinos, por parte tanto de hombres como de
mujeres. En efecto, con la palabra cantada se
dirige a su adversario intentando causarle el mal
de diferente modo, pero siempre con la enferme-
dad y la muerte. La pacificación evangélica no
significó la comprensión del mensaje cristiano,
sólo modificó el procedimiento, no el sentido
jurídico.
c) La terapia
Al analizar el complejo tema de la terapia es
inevitable hacer referencia a lo que denominamos
como el «dualismo fundamental» o sea la realidad
individual compuesta por el wáso (cuerpo) y el
wanokíren (alma). Sin embargo, es necesario
examinar con detenimiento estas instancias. La
idea del cuerpo como envoltorio aparece en
diferentes mitos que reiteran esta idea mashco.
En efecto, en el mito de Atúnto la muerte se
origina por una decisión (Califano 1978a) o por
una infracción (1978c) por la que se abandona el
wáso. Entre los Eluachipaire, la infusión que
resulta de la cocción de la corteza del arbusto
xayápa (Brugmansia insigáis), una de la finalida-
des de esta práctica consista en «limpiar el cuer-
po», eliminando los componentes negativos que
lo están afectando. La enfermedad constituye un
proceso de separación del dualismo humano que
puede iniciarse en el plano de lo corporal o en
aquel anímico. Así es posible comprobarlo en el
merési-ténka o en el caso del sórox. Sin embargo,
conviene hacer una referencia más al wanokíren.
El proceso de escisión de ambas instancias no es
inmediato, sino lento. Se desarrolla paulatina-
mente y con variada intensidad. El instante inicial
se verifica cuando la persona afectada siente y
descubre que una acción negativa ha comenzado
contra él y el watshírí da testimonio de ello. Pero
la materia anímica sigue adherida al cuerpo por-
que el wanokíren no sólo es un «alma-figura» sino
que también «tangible», posee emanópe (pensa-
miento o facultad de pensar) y ante todo es
sentimiento. La insistencia en aclarar que el
wanokíren reside en el wanóre, en el corazón, es
para resaltar esta característica. La pena, el te-
mor, la congoja, la tristeza, como los sentimien-
tos opuestos, la alegría, la dulzura, son localiza-
dos en el wanóre porque es en este órgano donde
se encuentra la mayor porción de materia
anímica. El ejemplo más patente es la crisis de
embüye que hemos estudiado en otra oportuni-
dad:
«La crisis de embüye se acompaña de una
constelación de manifestaciones corporales que
intentaremos describir a continuación. Ha sido
posible determinar varios factores desencadenan-
tes, todos ellos vinculados con el recuerdo de la
persona fallecida. Tales factores son la infracción
del tabú del nombre del muerto o su aparición
súbita en las imágenes oníricas. La primera mani-
festación de la crisis propiamente dicha consiste
en dejarse caer al suelo, aunque a veces el
individuo logra refugiarse en su tarima en el
interior de la vivienda comunal intentando alejar-
se de la vista de los demás miembros de su grupo.
El cuerpo tendido está apoyado sobre su costado
derecho y la respiración se hace entrecortada y
jadeante. Con la mano derecha se sostiene la
frente y con la otra se toma el flanco izquierdo.
La aspiración y expiración del aire se cumple
rítmicamente acompañadas por una violenta par-
ticipación de toda la musculatura torácica que
produce la impresión de una respiración suma-
mente dificultosa. El estado creciente de ansiedad
y el padecimiento mismo se expresan a través de
un quejido reiterado y quebrado que juntamente
con los síntomas antes señalados configuran un
episodio de características particularmente dra-
máticas.
Una transpiración generalizada a todo el
cuerpo y la aceleración del ritmo cardíaco son
otros síntomas que presenta este fenómeno. Su
duración es de unos 15 minutos y la totalidad del
proceso se asemeja a la figura que describe una
parábola, implicando un punto de partida, inici-
ado por el factor desencadenante, una primera
fase de progresiva intensificación y una segunda
de atenuación. Durante la crisis el sujeto sufre
alucinaciones, particularmente visuales, en las
cuales aparecen sus parientes muertos, a veces
como figuras borrosas y en otras en forma nítida.
Concluido el episodio, el indígena permanece en
su tarima extenuado, sin responder a la acción
solícita de otras personas, quienes le ofrecen agua
o alimentos, para quedar finalmente dormido.
Habitualmente permanece en ese estado durante
un par de horas completamente solo, dado que
los miembros de su familia y de la comunidad
tienden a abandonarlo apenas iniciado el proceso.
La crisis de embüye suele repetirse cada tres o
cuatro días y la zona dolorosa que origina este
padecer se localiza en el corazón, que como ya
dijimos los Mashco sitúan en la región inferior del
esternón» (Califano 1981a).
¿Cual era entonces el papel específico que
Anthropos 83.1988
130
Mario Califano
desempeñaba el chamán huachipaire y zapiteri en
la terapia?
El topakéri en virtud de la capacidad de
separar su cuerpo del wanokíren, dado que era un
tóto, rescataba personalmente el alma de la per-
sona afectada. La terapia consistía en tratar con
las teofanías actuantes para obtener de ellas el
wanokíren apresado; su quehacer, que incluía un
viaje, finalizaba cuando devolvía la materia
anímica a su dueño, el enfermo. De esta forma
restituía el anterior equilibrio humano.
4. La potencia
En la lengua mashco no hemos encontrado una
palabra que designe a la noción de potencia en
general. Sin embargo existe una potencia es-
pecífica, como es la yüka huachipaire obtenida
mediante la versión cantada del mito de Atúnto
(Califano 1978c). En efecto, se trata de la poten-
cia amorosa que es empleada con la intención de
seducir a una mujer.
¿Cual es entonces la potencia del topakéri*?
Para ello es imprescindible referirse a la noción
de tóto que es la estructura que fundamenta su
existencia. Comencemos por diferenciar lo sigui-
ente:
1) El Tóto en cuanto tal es una teofanía que se
aisla y posee un conjunto de relatos que dan
cuenta de su actuar;
2) «lo tóto» es una estructura de sentido que
define ontológicamente a los seres del mundo,
en este caso, califica esencialmente un estado y
una modalidad de comportamiento como suce-
de con los animales no domésticos, con el
chamán o con las brujas;
3) por último, pueden observarse los entes que
son propiedad del Tóto o de las teofanías tóto
como lo son los frutos silvestres. Una estructu-
ra opuesta a la de tóto es aquella de «humano»
o xarangbütn, pudiendo transitarse de una a
otra a través de determinadas experiencias - la
muerte, la iniciación chamánica, el sapo tshi-
wemúi en el caso de las brujas - que producen
una metamorfosis de naturaleza esencial. El
Tóto y las teofanías tóto son entendidas como
«malas» (ndák-we), expresión que pretende
destacar tanto su peligrosidad como lo impre-
visible de sus intenciones.
Puede traducir se por «demonio» (Tóto) o
«demoníaco» (tóto) cuando se manifiesta en per-
sonas y en diversas teofanías.
Entonces, la potencia del topakéri era obte-
nida durante la iniciación que lo transformaba en
tóto, en un individuo «demoníaco» y esta condi-
ción afectaba a su wanokíren facultándolo para
abandonar el cuerpo.
5. Chamán y chamanismo
Es el momento de resumir cuestiones atinentes a
la institución chamánica: Huachipaire y Zapiteri.
1) El chamanismo es un fenómeno eminentemen-
te masculino y en menor medida hereditario y
comienza en la edad juvenil.
2) El primer paso es la elección por parte de un
animal que sea tóto, que se eregirá como
«instructor principal».
3) La iniciación próxima pasada implica por una
parte la separación del wanokíren del wáso, el
que se intercambia con la sustancia anímica del
animal.
4) El cuerpo es agredido por todos los causantes
de las diferentes enfermedades, de tal modo,
que el iniciado sufre personalmente aquello
que padecerán sus pacientes. Este acaecer le
permite al iniciado conocer en profundidad el
modo de actuar de sus teofanías Tóto.
5) El sueño o embayóro será una de las técnicas
que utilizará a menudo y que le permitirá
conocer el actuar de las antes mencionadas
potencias, como también, otras amenazas para
la comunidad.
6) El wanokíren del iniciado debe conocer toda la
geografía del universo mashco, relacionarse
con las numerosas teofanías que lo habitan y
en particular llegar al árbol wanámei y recorrer
el camino a Seronhái.
7) El topakéri mantendrá una doble vida dado
que tendrá esposas e hijos animales, tóto, y
una familia entre los xarangbütn.
8) El masato o embatáre es un momento impor-
tante para la consagración del iniciado en su
condición de topakéri dado que obtiene los
esüva y adopta el nombre de su etopáka, que
renovará periódicamente, según lo exijan las
circunstancias.
9) Si bien los esüwa constituyen la técnica a la
cual recurrirá con mayor frecuencia, dada su
capacidad de desdoblamiento, su wanokíren
puede rescatar el wanokíren del enfermo y
restituirlo al cuerpo que había abandonado
soplando al oido con una caña de bambú.
Al culminar este análisis cabe aún el siguien-
te comentario. La desaparición del chamanismo
entre los Mashco (Huachipaire y Zapiteri) es de
larga data pero persiste de un modo muy arraiga-
do la técnica de los esüwa que se obtuvieran por
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
131
Aipixóe, así como los testimonios y recuerdos de
los cuales hemos intercalado los trozos más signi-
ficativos.
En lo expuesto se resalta la importancia del
endikóre que permite al topakéri recibir nuevos
nombres secretos por parte de los auxiliares, los
que lo potencian de tal modo que se torna
invulnerable a los ataques físicos de los demás
miembros de la comunidad. La costumbre Hua-
chipaire establecía que la pelea realizada duran-
te el estado e-shimbóre en el masato permitiera
superar los rencores personales, combatiendo con
un pequeño cuchillo. Por tal motivo Ananéiwa al
ser un tóto y recibiendo el auxilio de sus congéne-
res, poseía la capacidad de sanar sus heridas
corporales. El wanokiren de Ananéiwa, como el
de todos los topakéri y en esto se incluye también
al cazador que ha tenido la experiencia del
Huatchípai, una vez que abandona el cuerpo de
morfología humana, no se dirige a Seronhái como
sucede con los demás mortales, sino se encamina
hacia la selva y adquiere la fama de su etopáka;
en el caso de Ananéiwa la de apáñe.
Esta concepción se encuentra tan arraigada
que muchos topakéri ya fallecidos siguen depa-
rando su protección a los parientes y miembros de
la comunidad de manera distinta.
En la segunda expedición a los Amaracaire
del Río Colorado, durante la cual transitamos por
las playas de los ríos Xabaloyoc, Schiréne, Na-
huene y finalmente el Colorado o Carene, perma-
nentemente nuestros acompañantes descubrían
una huella de tigre que nos precedía. La particu-
laridad de este hecho fué resaltada por nuestro
traductor Ndarimaponéwa en base a dos cues-
tiones: ante todo las huellas descubiertas en las
playas eran del wanokiren de Ananéiwa y se
mostraron a partir de la penetración de la expedi-
ción en el antiguo territorio Zapiteri. El peligro
de la irrupción de los tradicionales enemigos de
los Huachipaire hacía suponer a los integrantes
de las expediciones, que en esa región todavía
podía irrumpir un minúsculo grupo Zapiteri sin
contacto.
El tema de la guerra con los Zapiteri se han
prestado para que los topakéri de otra parcialidad
aliada contribuyeran en el combate.
Por fin, cuando el topakéri fallece se lo
entierra en idéntica forma que a los demás indivi-
duos de la comunidad, pero como hemos dicho su
wanokiren no se dirige a Seronhái.
La caza, el chamanismo, las técnicas de los
esüva son tres instituciones diferentes; pero pue-
den confluir simultáneamente en un mismo indi-
viduo. El tiempo transcurrido desde la desapari-
ción de los últimos topakéri ha demostrado que
esas instituciones lo han sobrevivido.
Hemos tratado de resaltar la importancia del
topakéri en dos parcialidades mashco, analizando
los diferentes aspectos y funciones que cumplía.
De lo expuesto puede advertirse que el topakéri
era un individuo que se distinguía particularmen-
te en la sociedad, ocupando un determinado
status de potencia y poseyendo una propia con-
cepción del mundo que era el producto de los
viajes y experiencias a los que estaba sometido.
Viajes que abarcaban la totalidad de los wandárí,
de los «mundos» que componen el universo, y en
los que trataba con las teofanías que los habita-
ban. Del conjunto de teofanías, eran ante todo
los wantópa jefes y dueños de las especies anima-
les, con quienes convivían. La potencia emanaba
del estado de tóto, adquirido durante la difícil
prueba iniciática que lo convertía en un individuo
que comparte dos realidades, una visible y otra
invisible para los miembros de la comunidad con
algunas excepciones. Es esa potencia tóto la que
le permitirá «ver» las teofanías y obtener de estas
los conocimientos para actuar en un orden distin-
to, extraer objetos patógenos y recuperar el
wanokiren extraviado con el recurso del traslado
al sitio en donde éste se haya recluido. La
facultad de «ver» se complementa con otras,
como la de hablar y escuchar, alimentarse, acari-
ciar y apreciar las formas corporales de las espo-
sas animales, oler y distinguir a cada especie
animal. La ampliación y modificación de los
sentidos le posibilitan acceder a un orden trascen-
dente, intangible para los individuos no inici-
ados.
Hemos señalado las tres funciones que des-
empeñaba el topakéri-, en la caza, en la guerra y
en la enfermedad. ¿De qué modo ha sido posible
su extinción? ¿Cómo fueron reemplazadas? Tra-
taremos de responder a estas cuestiones de acuer-
do a los recursos que hemos observado y en parte
expuesto entre los Huachipaire y Zapiteri.
La relación con los wantópa animales se
mantenía con los cazadores que habían sido
transformados en tóto por la experiencia del
watshípai. Si bien estaban obligados a guardar
silencio ante los familiares, estos descubrían su
nueva condición durante las libaciones del emba-
táre. En efecto, durante las danzas éxak en que
hombres y mujeres giran tomados de la mano,
mientras se entonan los cantos, los cazadores
adoptan por instantes la morfología del animal
con el que han establecido ese particular lazo. Por
lo tanto, el chamán, en lo que hace a la caza no se
muestra insustituible, máxime para un grupo que
Anthropos 83.1988
132
Mario Califano
persiste en demostrar verdadera pasión por la
caza y por todo lo que esta comporta.
Luego de la invasión definitiva del área
mashco por parte de los amíko y fundamental-
mente por la instalación de las misiones domini-
canas y protestantes, los enfrentamientos bélicos
concluyeron. En efecto, el conocimiento y acerca-
miento mutuo como el que realizara el fraile
dominico P. José Alvarez, llamado por los Mash-
co Apag-tóne o «padre anciano», estableció un
clima de tranquilidad o de status quo. Esto no
significó que los conflictos entre individuos y
parcialidades han desaparecido con la acción
evangélica. Por el contrario, el mensaje cristiano
centrado en la exaltación de la caritas, del perdón
al prójimo como ofensor, no sólo no es compren-
dido, sino en muchos casos concientemente recla-
zado. Podemos citar un caso que conocíamos muy
de cerca, el de nuestro traductor Ndarimaponéwa
que a menudo nos hablaba de entrar en contacto
con posibles sobrevivientes del extinguido grupo
shireneri. De presentarse ese encuentro el joven
huachipaire no dudó en decidirse por la matanza
como retribución justa ante los antiguos adversa-
rios (Califano 1983: 48).
El embatáre es un acontecimiento social
complejo por revestir una gama diferente de
finalidades tales como: reunión para celebrar la
victoria con el enemigo, etapa en el proceso
iniciático del topakéri, circunstancia para solicitar
esposa, brindar amistad y fortalecer los vínculos
entre las casas comunales. En relación a conflic-
tos producto de mutuas imputaciones entre perso-
nas y agrupaciones cuenta con posibilidad de
resolverlos mediante peleas en estado de eshim-
bóre que si bien lo llegan a terminar en homici-
dios o muertes, causan heridos y derramamientos
de sangre. Durante nuestra convivencia entre los
Mashco asistimos y participamos en muchos ma-
satos. Los Huachipaire y Zapiteri eran reconoci-
dos como «grandes masateros», hábito que tras-
mitieron a los Amaracaire quienes no lo conocían
antes del contacto con esas dos parcialidades; a
tal punto, que los ancianos amaracaire no partici-
paban de las libaciones y repudiaban tal costum-
bres. Pero la institución del embatáre, que trata-
ron de extirpar los misioneros por la crueldad de
los episodios que se protagonizaban entre indivi-
duos enemigos ya había sustituido a las antiguas
matanzas adquiriendo cada vez mayor función
social.
La realización de un embatáre, a pesar de un
conjunto de rasgos que ha perdido con el pasar
del tiempo, impone una serie de pasos que no
están limitados a la técnica de su elaboración o a
la etiqueta de esta especial reunión. Uno de estos
momentos, a veces culminante, es cuando dos
hombres se enfrentan, se arrojan insultos y se
recriminan las ofensas con el canto. En efecto, el
procedimiento discursivo que sintetiza el conjun-
to de cargos imputados se concreta en un texto
cantado en cuyo contenido ambos contrincantes
se identifican con un determinado animal.
Además de las peleas en el embatáre se
utilizan los esüva dañinos para resolver las situa-
ciones conflictivas. Entre los Mashco existen dos
formas de «brujería»; la de las tshiwembáe, de las
«brujas» y la de los esüva dañinos que pueden
conducir a la enfermedad y a la muerte de la
víctima. No vamos a referirnos a las tshiwembáe
porque no se vinculan con el tema de la venganza
en el sentido que aquí tratamos. Sólo podemos
adelantar, que si bien en la tshiwembáe existe una
intención vengativa, encauzada ante todo hacia
los hombres, prima en esta joven mujer la gratu-
idad del mal: la complacencia en producir el
daño. Por otra parte, la técnica empleada, la del
sapo mítico tshiwemúi que recibe de otras muje-
res que han abandonado con el pasar de los años
la brujería así como el estado de fofo que eviden-
cia, en nada tiene que ver con la brujería de los
esüva. La tshiwembáe se recorta en el entorno
social y es aceptada por todos los miembros de la
comunidad que disponen de los recursos jurídicos
para sancionarla aún con la tortura y la muerte.
El empleo del esüva puede realizarse tanto
por parte de hombres o mujeres, sin que por ello
se los califique de «brujos», ni se encuentren en
una particular condición ontològica. Es la palabra
cantada, la wáxa, la que actúa y el cantor se
expone a ser una víctima de la misma si ésta no
cumple con los fines que persigue. Tampoco
pierde su condición de humanidad (xarangbütn).
Igual que en la guerra, o contra las otras parciali-
dades, como con los amíko, la venganza se
resuelve en el orden de la palabra potente dañina.
A modo de ejemplo vamos a citar dos casos;
porque el conocimiento de esta particular forma
de ejercer el daño ha sido de difícil conocimiento
y fue el resultado de un largo contacto con los
Mashco, durante el cual fueron necesarias nume-
rosas pruebas de confianza mutua.
El padre Martín, misionero dominico, nos
relató en la Misión de Shintuya que una tarde un
hombre se desplomó al suelo a causa de un
síncope. La reacción del grupo al cual pertenecía
fue inmediata porque imputó esa muerte al uso
de los esüva a un grupo de huachipaire y se pasó
de inmediato a una pelea de tal violencia que no
respetara ni niñitos ni mujeres embarazadas.
Anthropos 83.1988
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri
133
El misionero y lingüista Raimundo Hart, al
regresar a los Amaracaire del río Colorado,
descubrió que se había producido una matanza de
mujeres supuestamente tshiwembáe a las que se
les imputaba la muerte de varios indígenas. El
señor Hart los reprendió por esa acción que
consideró desmedida y unos años más tarde
falleció. Durante nuestra estadía en el Colorado
nos informaron que los Amaracaire consideraron
que el amíko no debía inmiscuirse en ese hecho,
que no le correspondía, y por lo tanto decidieron
castigarlo con los esüva. El resultado fue el
fallecimiento de Raimundo Hart (Califano
1978b: 425).
El último punto se refiere a las funciones
terapéuticas que desempeñaba el topakéri. Como
hemos visto uno de los momentos de su forma-
ción estaba constituido por el aprendizaje de los
esüva terapéuticos que eran enseñados por los
wantópa animales. En primer lugar hemos desta-
cado que los esüva poseen un horizonte narrativo
propio, una etiología propia, que no se confunde
con el chamanismo. El papel mítico que desem-
peñaron los «apestosos» cuando entregaron los
esüva a Aipixóe volvió a reiterarse cuando los
amíko introdujeron enfermedades desconocidas y
para las cuales no se poseían los recursos curati-
vos para subsanarlas. El mal de los amíko, envi-
ado por el jefe de estos, el ópo según la designa-
ción ritual, bajo la forma de un viento calificado
según un determinado olor, provenía más allá de
las cumbres nevadas de la cordillera de Los
Andes, cadena que se erige como uno de los
límites del mundo mashco por donde aparecieron
los desconcertantes amíkos. El «viento oloroso»
descendió en el valle de Kosñipata, hábitat de los
Huachipaire, produciendo una verdadera epide-
mia ante la cual los esüvérí indefensos no podían
detenerla. La potencia del «mal de los amíko» fue
tal que la tragedia en la que se encontraba
sumergido el valle indujo al matshigáre a reiterar
el papel tesmofórico que había desempeñado en
el tiempo primordial, luego de la ruptura de ese
orden, cuando se necesitaron los esüva para
paliar los males que afectaban a la condición
humana. En efecto, en los instantes previos al
amanecer, en que la frontera de la oscuridad de la
noche aún no cede a la claridad que se anuncia,
un hombre, un esüvérí al salir de la antigua casa
comunal, descubre la silueta del matshigáre sobre
la cumbrera. El ave le avisa que le revelará los
esüva para curar las enfermedades de los amíko,
seres de apariencia humana, pero de naturaleza
demoníaca, de íófo.13 14
La primera pregunta centrada en el motivo
de la desaparición del topakéri puede ser respon-
dida al considerar que su figura como las funcio-
nes que desempeñaba eran sustituibles. El topa-
kéri no monopolizaba con exclusividad la caza, la
guerra y la enfermedad; junto con él existían
individuos y técnicas que podían suplantarlo. El
cazador, los esüva dañinos y terapéuticos dan
cuenta de esa situación, que es la que imperaba
durante los años en que convivimos con los
Mashco y de esta forma pasamos a responder a la
segunda pregunta. Lo que acabamos de afirmar
no significa que puedan presentarse nuevas voca-
ciones, porque es imposible establecer cual es la
trayectoria histórica que puede seguir un pueblo
etnográfico que está sometido a una dinámica
mitopoyética.
Una última reflexión para concluir con nuest-
ro estudio. El hombre sumergido en una visión
arcaica de la realidad persigue a la potencia en los
entes y teofanías de su mundo cultural. Asimis-
mo, la potencia lo persigue en inusitadas revela-
ciones. 4 Esta particular circunstancia existencial
es quizás la que define más adecuadamente su
estar-en-el-mundo.
Bibliografía
Bórmida, Marcelo
1976 Etnología y Fenomenología. Buenos Aires: Ediciones
Cervantes.
1984 Cómo una cultura arcaica concibe su propio mundo.
Scripta Etimologica 8: 9-161.
Bórmida, Marcelo y Mario Califano
1978 Los indios Ayoreo del Chaco boreal; información
basica acerca de su cultura. Buenos Aires: FECIC.
Califano, Mario
1973 Cantos mashco de la fiesta del embatáre. Scripta
Etimologica 1: 189-197.
1974 Investigaciones etnográficas entre algunos grupos
mashco (Perú). Scripta Etbnologica 2/1: 153-155.
1977 La incorporación de un nuevo elemento cultural entre
los Mashco de la Amazonia peruana. Relaciones de la
Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 11: 185-201.
1978a Análisis comparativo de un mito mashco. Entregas del
Instituto Interdisciplinario. Tilcara, Jujuy.
13 Entre los Ayoreo (Zamuco) del Chaco Boreal el chamán
(daihnái) es una figura nítidamente separada de aquella
de los igasitái. En efecto, el primero dispone de la
potencia del tabaco denominada pohupié, el segundo la
potencia de los sáude o cantos (ver Bórmida y Califano
1978; Bórmida 1984; Idoyaga Molina 1982).
14 Cabe recordar que con la misionización puede suscitar un
nuevo proceso mitopoyético, tal como sucede entre los
mataco de la Argentina en que los «chamanes de Dios»
poseen como horizonte narrativo de referencia a la
Biblia.
Anthropos 83.1988
134
Mario Califano
1978b El complejo de la bruja entre los Mashco de la
Amazonia Sud-Occidental del Perú. Antropos 73:
401-433.
1978c El mito de Atúnto y la potencia amorosa: Análisis de
una práctica ritual de los Huachipaire (Mashco). Cua-
dernos Prehispánicos 9; 33-89.
1981a Muerte, miedo y fascinación en la crisis de embüye de
los Mashco de la Amazonia Sudoccidental. RUNA 13:
125-151.
1981b Etnografía de los Mashco de la Amazonia Sud Occi-
dental del Perú. Buenos Aires; FECIC.
1983 El mito del árbol cósmico Wanámei de los Mashco de
la Amazonia sud occidental. Anthropos 78: 739-769.
1985 El tema de la guerra entre los Mashco (1) de la
Amazonia Sud Occidental (Perú). Scripta Ethnologica
9: 7-23.
Califano, Mario y Alicia A. Fernandez Distel
1978a El empleo de la coca entre los Mashco de la Amazonia
del Perú. Árstryk 1977; 16-32.
1978b L’emploi du tabac chez les Mashco de l’Amazonie
Sud-Occidentale du Pérou. Bulletin de la Société
Suisse des Américanistes 42: 5-14.
1982 The Use of an Hallucinogenous Plant among the
Mashco (South Western Amazonia, Perú). Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie 107: 129-143.
Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre
1983 Voir, savoir, pouvoir: Le chamanisme chez les Yagua
du Nord-Est péruvien. Paris.
D’Ans, André M., et al.
1981 Problemas de clasificación de lenguas no-andinas en el
sur-este peruano. Lima: Universidad Mayor de San
Marcos.
Idoyaga Molina, Anatílde
1982 El Daño mediante la palabra entre los Ayoreo del
Chaco Boreal. Ârstryk 1979-1980: 21-38.
Van den Eynde, Els
1972 Léxico y fonología amarakaire-wacipáire (harákmbet o
mashco). Documento de Trabajo, 7. Lima: Universi-
dad Mayor de San Marcos.
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 135-151
La chichería among Ngawbere of the Northern Valiente
Peninsula
Some Notes and Comments
Keith V. Bletzer
Abstract. - The Ngawbere ritual system includes: (1) rituals
arranged between families, (2) rituals arranged within fami-
lies, (3) rituals conducted by a family and sanctioned by the
diviner. La chichería (“thunder festival”) falls into the latter
class; as reflected in its ngawbere name, hiii dúi, the ritual is
performed in celebration of (a) climatic forces, particularly
thunder-lightning and, by extension, the rain, and (b) human
beings who hunt and cultivate to obtain food, some of which,
by extension, serves to make chicha. - The ritual structure of
la chichería is described first, paying particular attention to
differentiate between the overall frame of events within which
it occurs and the song-dance festival which Ngawbere empha-
size when describing the ritual. - Although la chichería
employs several types of trope, only the main theme of the
ritual is discussed by way of an analysis. The ritual primarily
emphasizes the importance to survival of harmonizing the pro-
cesses of society and nature, and in particular highlights a
number of metaphors related to subsistence production. [Pa-
nama, Ngawbere, Ritual, Symbolism, Thunder-lightning,
Song-dance]
Keith V. Bletzer, M. A. in Anthropology (New York Univer-
sity, 1975); Ph. D. candidate in Anthropology (Michigan State
University); consultant, Michigan Health Council. - Field-
work among Ngawbere of northwestern Panama (1982-84,
1984-85); Hispanics in greater New York area (1976-77). -
Publications include: Fleeing Hysteria (chakore) among
Ngawbere of Northwestern Panama (Medical Anthropology
9.1985), Medical Anthropology Abroad (Reviews in Anthro-
pology 11.1984).
Introduction
The present essay examines ñüi dúi, or, as it is
known in Spanish, la chichería1 (“thunder festi-
val”), a ritual performed by Ngawbere of western
Panama in celebration of the principal climatic
forces which provide nurturance to human society
while representing the possibility of misguided
power. Despite its prohibition in the early 1960s
by religious leaders of the mama chi movement,
some communities within Ngawbere territory still
perform the ritual. Before the prohibition, la
chichería was performed less frequently than
most other Ngawbere rituals; its celebration in
conjunction with thunder storms after a bolt of
lightning has struck a cultivated field negated its
performance as a common or periodic event.
Most Ngawbere rituals constitute ceremonial
performances that are arranged either between or
within family groups. A third class of ritual
requires the sanction of a diviner (dawngin)
before it can be performed; a synopsis of the
three classes of Ngawbere rituals is given in
Table 1. Two types of ritual sanctioned by the
diviner incorporate the consumption of a drink
made from cacao. La chichería is another ritual
for which a head of household petitions the
diviner, but it is the only one of the three wherein
fermented fruit drink is served and consumed.
La chichería comprises the three classic
phases of ritual (separation, liminality, incorpo-
ration). These phases apply to both the ‘interior’
structuring of the dance festival held in honor of
thunder (which Ngawbere call unsuli), as well as
the ‘exterior’ structuring of all events related to
the ritual. The ‘interior’ phases that are described
herein correspond to the emic divisions described
by informants, whereas the ‘exterior’ phases rep-
resent the author’s etic frame for depicting the
entire ritual (cf. Hobart 1982: 52-54, on internal
and external meanings).
Ngawbere are an indigenous population who
inhabit western Panama; most are bilingual,
speaking their native language (ngawbere) as well
as Spanish. Invariably known in the ethnograph-
ic literature as Guaymi, the name by which this
population self-identifies is “Ngawbere.” Ngaw-
bere territory was made into an Indigenous Re-
serve by law in 1952 (for a map of the Indigenous
Reserve, see Fig. 1). Although detailed ethno-
graphic accounts of Ngawbere life are scarce,
what little material has been published (mostly
in Spanish) emphasizes their dispersed settlement,
bilateral descent system, preference for virilocal
residence, and an economic livelihood based on
hunting/horticulture. Some sources note the exis-
1 The terms ñüi dúi and la chichería are used interchange-
ably in this essay to refer specifically to the dance festival
held in celebration of thunder-lightning.
136
Keith V. Bletzer
^ INDIGENOUS RESERVE
Figure 1: Republic of Panama,
showing location of the (Ngaw-
bere) Indigenous Reserve that
covers three western provinces.
tence of polygyny, as well as the practice of the
levirate/sororate among Ngawhere. Like other
indigenous groups in lower Central America
(with the possible exception of the Kuna of
eastern Panama), however, very little material
describes the Ngawbere ritual system. The essay
that follows, therefore, is based on field notes;
where available, relevant material from other
sources is incorporated.
1. Background
Although there are variations of la chichería that
last from one to four days, the prescribed pattern
is a four-day, four-night ceremony. In recent
years, the ritual generally begins at sunset and
concludes the following day at mid-day, according
to material that was collected for this essay.
Young and Bort (1977: 4, 11) refer to la chichería
with the term kubuidi (literally “two days”),
Table 1: The Fundamental Classes of Ngawbere Ritual
Name Dance Songs Chicha Cacao Food Duration
Inter-family
krun kite - + + 4x4 b 4 days/nights - 4x
huntaire - + + 4x b 1 day/night - 4x
Intra-family
ka kuota □ □ □ + b 1 day/night - 1 x
bromon - - - + c half day -lx
ngwawro mike - - - + a 4 days/nights -lx
Family-diviner
giitaw - - - 4x a 4 nights - 4x
mötaw - - - + b half day -lx
ñüi dùi + + 3x □ a 1 day/night - 4x
-: no
+: yes
□ : optional choice
a; besides a meal, also includes unfermented fruit mash
known as michila or m/a;
b; besides a meal and unfermented fruit mash, also includes
a “take home” meal (known as ha mroko) to share with
kinsmen;
c: includes only unfermented fruit mash (mia).
(Note on the translation of names: krun kite refers generically
to “the pole throwing festival” [la balseria, Span.]; huntaire
refers generically to “festive labor”; ka kuota refers to several
types of “celebration,” such as a birthday; bromon indicates
the serving of fruit mash to female kinsmen five days after a
woman gives birth; ngwawro mike refers specifically to “the
instruction of recalcitrant youth” [7a ciaría, Span.]; gütaw
refers generically to any “all-night vigil” which is held to
resolve primarily sociogenic health problems; motaw generally
refers to the harvest rite for a first planting; ñüi dúi refers
specifically to the “thunder festival” [7a chichería, Span.].)
Anthropos 83.198S
La chichería among Ngawbere
137
evidently confusing the duration of the ritual with
its intended purpose; their comment on one
particular kubuidi being held in a house suggests
that their data pertain mostly to ka kuota (a term
referring to several types of “celebration”), and
not la chichería. Moreover, they make no refer-
ence to either of the two terms for la chichería
elicited during the present study (ñüi dûi and
unsuli kai, respectively), nor do they mention its
association with thunder-lightning.
The principal elements of ¡a chichería include
a line dance, series of songs, the ingestion of
fermented fruit drink, piercing the right ear of
male participants, a closing rite involving the
consumption of a ritual meal, and the participa-
tion of a diviner, head singer, and someone who
has been struck by lightning and survived. Al-
though the line dance varies slightly during the
ritual, some of the songs are repeated in each of
the three interior phases of the ritual, if the head
singer so desires. Consuming fermented fruit
drink {dû in ngawbere, and chicha in Spanish)
occurs throughout la chichería, as well as the
inter-family .rituals. Occasionally, the line dance
{gwará hoge in ngawbere, and el baile in Spanish)
is included with other rituals (primarily ka ku-
ota). Nonetheless, the basis of la chichería is the
dance and songs, which, when taken together,
constitute a tribute to thunder-lightning. Rarely
performed in other contexts, the line dance prop-
erly “belongs” with la chichería. In itself the line
dance does not constitute a complete ritual any
more than the consumption of chicha means that
an inter-family ritual is taking place (cf. Young
and Bort 1977: 11).
El baile (“line dance”) is mentioned in his-
torical documents as a ceremony that is related to
la balseria (“pole throwing competition”; Von Uf-
felde 1965 [1682]: 77, 81-83); Franco 1978 [1792]:
48; Pinart 1887: 36-37). The two are described as
the primary fiestas (“ritual festivals”) performed
by Guaymi of (historic) western Panama. Yet
more interest has been shown in the study of la
balseria in the recent ethnographic literature2
2 Known as krun kite (literally “throwing the balsa stick”),
the ritual has been described by, among others, De La
Rocha (1964[1682]: 127, 97, 130), Termer (1919), Vannu-
chi (1921), Torres de Arauz (1974), Cheville and Cheville
(1977: 151-163), and Young (1971: 204-212). Upon these
and other sources, Young (1976, 1978) bases his analysis
of the relation of la balseria to subsistence production,
and its use of etebalr, see also Young and Bort (1976,
1977) who discuss etebali (or the ritual sibling relation-
ship) in greater detail. Jimenez Miranda (1984; 17-84), a
Ngawbere legislator, describes the various types of krun
kite.
than in el baile. Since the introduction of the
mama chi movement in 1962, however, Ngawbere
rituals which include the consumption of chicha
have been prohibited. A few communities within
the Indigenous Reserve, however, in fact still
hold some of the prohibited rituals, but with less
frequency.
La chichería in Veraguas Province is men-
tioned by Mérida (1963: 56-58) who describes the
preparation of food and fermented fruit drink, a
line dance comprising men and women, the ritual
piercing of the right ear of each male participant
followed by a bath in the river, and the public
consumption of food and fruit mash. In their
co-authored thesis on Ngawbere cosmology in
Veraguas and Chiriqui provinces, Mendizabel de
Cachafeiro and Zentner (1963: 72-74, 89-90)
describe the use of bamboo whistles, rattles,
songs in murire, and someone who is older to
serve as ritual guide3 in what they call la ceremo-
nia del canto (“the ceremony of song”). Reverte
(1963: 89-90), who visited the floodplain of Cri-
camola River on numerous occasions before the
mama chi movement took hold, suggests that the
line dance was an intrinsic part of several Ngaw-
bere rituals, but presents few details on what
these rituals entail. Gordon (1969: 89) claims that
the line dance among Ngawbere along the coast
of Bocas del Toro Province occurs during la junta
ceremonial (“festive labor”).4 He transcribes the
ngawbere term for the line dance as uára hogi,
translating it as jalar el cien pies (“pulling the
centipede”). Thus, Mérida and Mendizabel de
Cachafeiro and Zentner consider the line dance
as a complete ritual (evidently referring to la
chichería)-, their accounts are based on observa-
tion and interviews. In contrast, Reverte and
Gordon consider the line dance as a rite which is
performed as a part of several common rituals; it
is not known whether either of these two authors
actually observed any rituals, or whether they
rely solely on informant reports. Despite their
respective descriptions of la chichería as it was
performed prior to mama chi, however, none of
these four accounts associate la chichería with
thunder-lightning or the rain.
It is worth noting at this point the description
3 Using the Spanish term guia, it is not clear whether they
are referring to the head singer or the diviner or someone
else who assumes the role of the “guide.”
4 Informants invariably denied that the line dance occurs as
a part of festive labor (huntaire). With over 100 partici-
pants each, two large festive labor rituals were observed
during fieldwork; neither one included a line dance.
Anthropos 83.1988
138
Keith V. Bletzer
of the line dance (el baile) given by Fray Adrian
Von Uffelde, who lived for several years among
Ngawbere (called guaimies in the historical chron-
icles) in the mountains between 1623 and 1630.
He describes the line dance as follows:
. . . whenever some Bolt (which they consider the Lord of the
Spanish, as I have already mentioned) falls in a public part of
their land, all the indios organize themselves in a festival, in
which they select one day in order to celebrate a great festival
[una gran borrachera] on the same spot, and after the event,
in order to appease Lord Lightning, whom they judge to be
angry, the men pierce their foreskin with the barbed spike
[espina] of a particular fish which they keep for this purpose,
[through which] they thread a cotton cord [about the thickness
of half a finger], whose ends are tied to separate sticks which
are held firmly in the hands of the indios at each end [of the
line] and being all tied [together] by this means they begin to
sing and make great contortions and wriggling body move-
ments, and run the threaded cord from one place to another,
until they are bleeding profusely. At this time, the women,
who [also] are naked, scurry between those who form the line
collecting the blood in small bowls [bafeas], which they then
transfer to a [single] large bowl, and tossing in some “special
items” [cuenteitos] of nature, they place the bowl upon the
charred spot in the tree that was struck by the lightning Bolt
(Von Uffelde 1965 [1682]: 77; author’s translation).
There are several aspects of Von Uffelde’s
description which parallel the two rituals that are
analyzed herein, as well as the ritual described by
Mérida (1963: 56-58). The line dance with its
corresponding songs, and the ritual performance
with respect to thunder-lightning, replicate two
essential aspects of the present-day versions of la
chichería. Piercing the ear rather than the male
member, however, appears to have been one
concession Ngawbere have made in recent times;
as a substitute practice, they collect the blood re-
sulting from piercing the ear and mix it with wa-
ter for ritual use near the end of the ceremony.
2. Methods
The information presented in this essay is based
on data collected during more than two years of
medical anthropology research along the northern
Valiente Peninsula.5 The data on la chichería was
collected during the performance of two ceremo-
nies, one which was held July 7-8, 1982, and the
other from September 10-11, 1982. Interviews
5 Financial support for dissertation research was received
from a Fulbright Full Grant, Organization of American
States Fellowship, Community Services Adminstration
Fellowship, and a National Science Foundation Grant for
Improving Dissertation Research. Fieldwork was carried
out between march 1982 to April 1984, and from Novem-
ber 1984 to April 1985.
were conducted with the participants, the spon-
sors, and the diviner, before, during, and after
each of the two chicherías; another set of inter-
views was held with the diviner some two years
later (after reviewing historical documents in the
capital city). The former ritual was held in a small
“homestead” (caserío) by the members of an
extended family. The latter was conducted by the
members of a community in connection with a
lightning bolt which had struck two boys some
years before.6 Following the incident, the families
of the two boys visited a local diviner, requesting
permission to sponsor la chichería. Four ceremo-
nies were ordained by the diviner for consecutive
years. Two ceremonies were held prior to 1982.
The one observed by the field investigator was
the third, although some years had passed since
the previous two rituals had been performed.
3. Description
a) Preparation
The task of preparing la chichería falls to the
“owner” of the land where a bolt of lightning
strikes. It may be a plot of land worked by a
single household, or land jointly worked by sev-
eral households that belong lineally to the same
family. The head of the household that works the
land is required to report the lightning strike to
the local diviner, who then sanctions la chichería.
The diviner assumes responsibility for selecting
the date and time; identifying someone who has
survived a lightning strike; assuring that sufficient
fruit drink and food is prepared, and a shelter is
built; recommending someone to perform as head
singer, and someone (if not himself) to direct the
distribution of the fermented fruit drink. The
ritual is held before the crops from the stricken
field are harvested. The cultural prescription that
designates the owner of the field with primary
responsibility in sponsoring la chichería is altered
in cases where lightning strikes open water, since
this is an aspect of the environment that has no
specific (family) owner. Hence, several families in
the above incident assisted the families of the two
boys in carrying out the diviner’s instructions.
6 Two boys who were fishing in the bay area of the
Valiente Peninsula were hit by lightning. One died
immediately, and the second survived. The survivor
participated in the first and second rituals (two nights
each) while still a young boy, but at the time of the third
(observed) ritual he was a young man working on the
banana plantations.
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
139
If lightning strikes and causes injury or
death, medical treatment is given, either by a lo-
cal healer or, in recent times, the indigenous health
assistant. Since Ngawbere now have access to
boats, severe injuries frequently are transported
to the hospital in the provincial capital. The
purpose of la chichería, however, is unrelated to
whether or not death/injury is caused by the
lightning bolt. It is the bolt striking the earth
which gives impetus for the ritual.
The food and fermented fruit drink are
prepared by the housholds whose members are
related lineally to the person whose field was
struck by lightning. Occasionally, other kinsmen
(the land owner’s cognates) donate fruit drink,
which they bring with them upon arrival some
hours or even a day or two before the ritual.
A large shelter is constructed for holding the
ritual. According to some informants, a small hut
is constructed at each corner of the shelter for
safekeeping the chicha, and four additional huts
are built at each corner of the shelter for the
purpose of “enclosing” (kite) the lightning survi-
vor; their description implies five small huts.
Other informants (including a diviner) indicated
that four huts were constructed in a row, running
from east to west.7 Unfortunately, neither of the
two rituals that was observed used the auxiliary
huts, since neither ritual had an “authentic”
lightning survivor.
b) Ritual Structure
There are two conjoining frames in la chichería',
one is etic, and the other is emic. The etic frame
comprises: (1) the ritual isolation of the lightning
survivor, (2) a period of liminality in which he
“accompanies” the singers while the participants
dance, and (3) a closing rite for returning every-
one to their daily responsibilities in (Ngawbere)
society. When describing la chichería, Ngawbere
divide the ritual into four phases; these are
described in greater detail below. Three of these
(emic) phases comprise the dance with songs
(sometimes referred to as unsuli kai) and are
performed indoors; the fourth (emic) phase con-
cludes the ritual outdoors with the consumption
of a ritual meal (mótaw). As shown in Table 2,
the two frames conjoin in the conclusion, wherein
the lightning survivor is returned to (Ngawbere)
7 Called binkinko, the huts are constructed from the “tree
fern” (binkin: Alsophila scabhuscula Maxon) and/or the
main stem of “wild cane” (ibia: Gynerium sagittatum).
Table 2: Emic and Etic Schema of la chichería
Etic 1. Separation 2. Liminality 3. Re-incorporation
Enclosure Dance-songs Ritual meal
Lightning survivor Singers, etc. . Everyone ....
Emic a b c d
a) nuraw treke
b) tukwo kri
c) môkeréboto
d) kriko modego. Considering the alternative term kriko
motawite (literally, “by way of the bijao leaf harvest
rite”), the conclusion actually incorporates the essential
features of the rite performed for the harvest of a first
planting (môtaw).
society as he joins with the others in the closing
ritual meal.
Any person who survives after being struck
by lightning is called mônkon. The term implies
that an act of consecration and revitalization has
taken place. Recently, Ngawbere have adopted
the Spanish term coronado (literally “[one who
has been] crowned”) to designate the lightning
survivor in la chichería. He remains four days in
each of the four huts, being placed in the eastern-
most hut first and ending the final four days in the
westernmost hut. He is served his meals on
special leaves (bi/ao)8 while “enclosed” in each
hut. According to informants, he is permitted to
eat only meat prepared from the manta ray
(gwarâ) and miniature bananas (buchu kiare in
ngawbere, and primitivo in Spanish), and his food
is cooked only with balsa, cedar, and ant-tree
wood (bila krunye, duká, and kurá, respectively).
He leaves the final enclosure in the morning of
the 17th day, having passed a total of 16 nights
within the huts. Later that afternoon, the ceremo-
ny begins.
The afternoon of the first day of the dance,
the people gather outside the ceremonial shelter.
As the sun sets, the head singer, the diviner, and
the other singers enter the shelter. Except for the
8 Along the Bocas del Toro coast, Ngawbere identify five
kinds of bijao (Calathea spp., mostly). Two of these
produce large flat, sturdy leaves (technically, boloko
krikoi and hawko krikoi [known popularly as kriko
bunkon]). For this reason, these two are preferred for
wrapping food for cooking, and then for serving or
transporting it. The other three produce smaller leaves
(technically, truburi krikoi, dobawko krikoi, and kleako
krikoi), and are used to wrap the medicinal sticks that a
healer dispenses to clients for preparing botanical medici-
ne. Of the three, truburi krikoi (Xiphidium caeruleum) is
preferred for wrapping medicinal sticks.
Anthropos 83.1988
140
Keith V. Bletzer
diviner, they seat themselves on a bench placed in
the center of the shelter at each side of the
lightning survivor, who sits in the center of the
bench. Near the bench is placed a large ritual
gourd (kutu), which holds a quantity of ferment-
ed fruit drink. Informants describe the action of
placing the ritual gourd as the one which signifies
the commencement of the ritual. Next to the
ritual gourd, a smaller gourd (bukata) is placed;
the two gourds will be used in the concluding rite
of the ceremony.9
Outside the shelter, two lines are formed at
the eastern side of the shelter. The line to the
right is comprised of men, and the line to the left
is comprised of women.
According to the ceremony held by the
extended family, the women begin first, taking
four steps forward, then taking four steps to the
rear. They do this four times (a total of 16 steps
forward, and 16 steps backward). Then the wom-
en enter the shelter, select a palm frond (ma-
rakro)10 11 from the pile in the center, and take their
seats to one side of the shelter. The line of men
repeat the line maneuver of four steps forward
and four steps backward, four times each, as did
the women. Then they enter the shelter, taking
seats on benches located to one end of the
shelter. The men and women who lineally were
linked with the sponsoring extended family took
their seats along the southern wall, on raised
platforms corresponding to each nuclear family;
the others sat along the west wall, which was the
side opposite from the entrance (see Fig. 2).
According to the second ritual that was
observed, the line of women entered first in single
file, but without taking steps in reverse. Upon
entering, each woman chose a small ritual leaf
from a woven net bag11 (kra in ngawbere, and
chácara in Spanish) hung on a post in the north-
9 Since plastic containers (such as bleach bottles, etc.) have
replaced most of the containers made from natural
materials, the Spanish term galon is used to refer to any
container of some size; it is the term used during the
ritual when referring to the fruit drink distributed to the
participants, but not to the special gourds designated as
kutu and bukata (made from the calabazo fruit [Crescen-
tia cujete], and the seed pod of el palma congo [Oenocar-
pus panamanus], respectively).
10 Specifically, Carludovica palmata drudei are used. Else-
where in Panama, the leaves are used to make “straw
hats.” These leaves are not the same as the bijao that are
used as cooking leaves.
11 The bags are woven from a fibre prepared by crushing the
leaves of Aechmea magdalenea (Andre), known techni-
cally among Ngawbere as kika konsen (or pita in Span-
ish).
east comer of the shelter. Then each woman
selected a leaf from the center, and seated herself
with the other women along the outer perimeter
of the shelter. About this time, the men entered.
Each man took a miniature bow and arrow from a
table in the same northeast corner and transfer-
red it to an adjacent table.12 The bows were made
from peach palm wood (dba: Guilielma sp.), and
the arrows from the center vein of a coconut palm
leaf; the weapons were intended to imitate the
five weapons used in historic times. The men ar-
ranged themselves on benches around the perim-
eter of the shelter, just beyond the women seated
on the marakro leaves. When asked, informants
emphasized the “adaptive utility” of the weapons
or their manufacture, without much recourse to
describing their use in “war” or the “hunt.”
The head singer is called dunkun, which re-
fers more to his authority in matters involving
spiritual forces13 * than to his ability to sing. None-
theless, the person chosen as head singer is some-
one who has proven himself a capable singer.
Four men (sometimes more) join the head singer
on the singers’ bench, located in the center. An
equal number of women singers sit on leaves next
to the singers’ bench. Informants did not specify
to which side they should sit, although in the larg-
er ritual they sat at the left side. The singers as a
group are called kaikou (literally “sings-who”).
Since the diviner customarily assumes respon-
sibility for directing the distribution of the fruit
mash, he becomes in effect the “[temporary] head
of la chicheria” (hui dui kububu). Two persons
generally are assigned to assist the diviner in dis-
tributing the fruit mash, one to the singers and the
other to those who are dancing or observing the rit-
ual. The elder brother of the family himself served
the fruit mash at the smaller ritual that was ob-
served, whereas two people were assigned to assist
in the fruit mash distribution at the larger ritual.
The diviner’s assistants are called duroko (literally
“individualizing the chicha-who”).
12 Having entered prior to the line of men, the singers
selected miniature wooden weapons which looked much
like “souvenir hatchets.”
13 According to informants, the same term dunkun (literal
meaning unknown) refers to the “guide” who instructs
the youths in ngwawro mike. An alternative term for the
“guide” in this ritual (known as la alarida or la ciaría in
Spanish) is nirere, which refers to his altered state of
consciousness while instructing the youths.
14 Although correct grammatically, Ngawbere rarely use the
term unsuli kaiko (meaning “[they] who sing the thunder
songs”); the term is an extension of an alternative term
for the chichería ceremony, namely, unsuli kai (“thunder
songs”).
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
141
Entrance
KIN CHART
D S S S S n
KEY
Ch chicha distributor
(eldest brother)
W wife of eldest brother
D daughter (firstborn)
Br eldest brother’s brother
S sons
I in-laws
g guest
o container of chicha
y platforms for family
benches for male in-laws
£ post supporting shelter
Figure 2: The site used to cele-
brate la chichería of July 7-8, that
was organized by a single family.
The shelter usually serves as the
family’s place of worship. Place-
ment of people in the diagram is
relative to their ritual responsibil-
ities and, hence, their most fre-
quent location during the ritual.
The elder brother served the chi-
cha. His youngest daughter open-
ed the ceremony as nuraw huka-
ko, and his firstborn daughter’s
son served as rnonkon (although
he actually never had been struck
by lightning). Some sons with
their families returned from
neighboring communities, where-
as some were still living on their
parents’ land. The six platforms
served as a place of rest between
the three ‘interior’ phases, and
also served as a place for the
younger children to sleep (while
their parents danced). Ferment-
ed pineapple fruit drink (muya
dui) was served at this ritual.
Frequently referred to with the Spanish term
el público (“the public”), the participants who
dance throughout the evening are called neako
(literally “slapping-who”) in an allusion to the
thunder songs which, when sung ritually, pace the
line dance. The term neako refers to the style of
foot stumping used in the dance. The participants
who attend the ceremony and observe the pro-
ceedings but do not dance (again part of “the
public”) are called gwará toinko (literally “watch-
ing the line dance-who”). One informant men-
tioned that the use of the terms for “who’s who”
in la chichería occurred more in answering the
field investigator’s questions than when they actu-
ally performed the ritual. In support of his claim,
the field investigator collected more terms that
referred to “actions” during the two rituals he
and the others were observing, than any terms
designating roles associated with la chichería.
The first of the three parts of the dance with
songs begins at sunset. Each phase comprises a
series of songs to accompany the line dance,
along with other ritual actions; the three phases-
are described below. Between each phase, there
is a short “intermission” in which people partake
of the fermented fruit drink, converse, and in
general relax before the next part begins. At mid-
night, a drink of cacao (“chocolate”) is served.15
What informants describe as the fourth or con-
cluding phase (mótaw) is held outdoors.
Phase One: described in Spanish as “the
passage of two youth who encircle the singers’
bench,” but identified in ngawbere by the term
nuraw treke.
The term nuraw treke which designates
phase one literally means “splitting bamboo.” In
this phase, two youth are selected to serve as nu-
raw hukako (“carriers of the bamboo whistles”).
They walk around the singers’ bench, making
four passes in clockwise direction. Each carries a
bamboo whistle (huke) and/or a shaker-rattle
(fawn).16 According to some informants, anyone
15 The use of a drink made from cacao {Theobroma cacao,
Theobroma bicolor, etc.) is a much-honored custom
among Ngawbere, particularly in their practice of visiting
between households (Young 1971: 175; Roberts 1827:
75-78). The earlier term kuaw (referring to the cacao
tree, its seed, the chocolate drink, as well as indicating
the male gonads) was prohibited with the beginning of
the mama chi movement; the common term today for
both the cacao tree, its seed, and the chocolate drink is
hoba. The term hoba literally means “consumed with wa-
ter” and is the term preferred by mama chi advocates
since it takes attention away from the cacao seed, and, by
extension, the male gonads, and emphasizes consumption
of the beverage.
16 The shaker-rattle is made from the dried fruit of the
calabazo tree, and in it are placed several seeds. Alphon-
se (1956: 96) identifies the seeds as “Job’s tears.” Infor-
mants did not identify what was contained in the rattles.
Anthropos 83.1988
I
142
who wishes can take one of the rattles and join in
behind the youth and dance around the circle
during this phase of the ritual. However, no one
in the larger ritual joined the two youth encircling
the singers’ bench until they had completed the
four passes. In the smaller ritual, the boy and girl
first encircled a center pole (one of two shelter
supports), and then encouraged the people to be-
gin dancing, by “approaching” them and, some-
times, by “pulling” lightly. Comprising only the
passes around the singers’ bench or center pole,
the first phase in both rituals was short. Once the
youth have completed the four passes, they place
the rattles on the singers’ bench.
Some informants reported that a boy and girl
were the two youth who served in the role of
nuraw hukako. Others indicated that only young
boys could perform this part. Whether male only,
or male and female, the preferred social catego-
ries for the two youth include: a firstborn, twin,
orphan, or someone for whom the father is
unknown. The youth cannot be the victims of a
lightning accident.
Phase Two: described in Spanish as “the
people queue up,” and identified in ngawbere as
tukwo kri (also sabela).
The term tukwo kri which designates the
second phase means “large thorn” or “large
spike.” Informants were unwilling to attribute the
term to any particular “piercing” action, and no
reference was made by informants to “piercing”
the male foreskin. According to informants, since
this phase begins the line dance and involves the
participation of those who are present, the em-
phasis is on simulating the action of the lightning
bolt. This is done by means of the line dance,
rather than with any particular ritual parapherna-
lia. The phase begins with the head singer “in-
viting” those present to join in a line for the
dance.
The intent of the initial songs for this phase is
reported to be: “Who will take the (first) rattle?
Who dares to carry the (first) rattle?” (7nire tawn
ngwen, Inire tawn ngwen).
Whoever decides to volunteer can approach
the singers’ bench to select a shaker-rattle. After
someone chooses a rattle, and begins dancing
but they did indicate the tawn also refers to a species of
bird which lives along the beaches. Alphonse (1956: 96)
identifies this bird as cuervo marino (“sea cormorant”),
possibly the neotropical cormorrant (Phalacrocorax oliva-
ceus). In the larger ritual that was observed, two men and
three women volunteered to carry the rattles.
Keith V. Bletzer
around the singers’ bench, the lead singer sings:
“Who will take the (second) rattle? Who dares to
carry the (second) rattle?”
Someone else approaches, selects a rattle,
and joins the first dancer. This procedure contin-
ues until four persons have selected each of the
four rattles on the bench at the lead singer’s side.
The four persons are designated as gwara dokwo
(literally “the manta ray’s head”); the term gwara
refers to the line dance. To indicate the two
dancers heading the line, Ngawbere say tawn
ngwenye akone (literally “carry the rattles at the
fore”); for the two at the rear, tawn ngwenye
akure (literally “carry the rattles at the rear”).
Immediately thereafter, other people join in
by forming a line between each pair of “head
dancers.” Ngawbere emphasize that there is no
obligation to join in; based on observations at the
two rituals, few people express any reluctance to
dance.
Phase Three: described in Spanish as “join-
ing the songs of the ritual,” and identified in
ngawbere as mbkereboto.
The men and women form separate lines,
generally in the form of a circle. This action is
called tukwori (literally “toward the spike”),
which refers to the ritual preparation for piercing
the ear(s). The two lines dance forward and
dance backward, forward and backward, as if
“agitated.” Ngawbere use the term gwara diibun
(literally “angry manta ray”) to allude to the
line’s provocation by one of the nuraw hukako
youth who carries a ritual arrow fitted with a
barbed manta ray spike {gwara tukwo) and “play-
acts” that he intends to spear the participants in
the line. The lines continue their pretense of
agitation, dancing in “reverse serpentine” and
“figure-eight” motions.17 As with the previous two
phases but particularly with this phase, the partic-
ipants can repeat the songs, if they choose to do
so.
After a period of dancing, some of the men
volunteer to have their ear pierced. According to
informants, piercing the ear is the only part of the
ritual which is done separate from the general
activities taking place in the shelter. Ngawbere
use the expression tukwo boin in describing the
ear piercing. Since the term boin refers to any
ritual segregation such as having one’s meal
cooked separately from other members of the
17 These terms represent the author’s impression of the
movements of the line at this point in the ritual. There
are no equivalents to either of these terms in ngawbere.
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
143
household, tukwo boin alludes to the ritual act
of using the (manta ray) spike to pierce the men’s
ears. In the waning hours of the darkness, the
small gourd (bukata) is taken to the east entrance
of the shelter. The lightning survivor (monkon)
and whoever else wishes can volunteer to leave
the shelter, and, in an area away from the shelter,
each one has his right ear pierced. The same
arrow used to provocate the two lines is used to
pierce the ears. (This ear piercing is described by
Merida 1963: 59, who apparently used informant
reports for his description.) The ear piercing
action is described very literally as olo toko bike
bukatate (“striking the ear, send [its blood] into
the gourd”). The blood of each man having his
ear pierced is mixed with water in the small
gourd; some three medicinal herbs18 are mixed
with the water and the blood. Then all of the men
return to the shelter, and the small gourd is re-
placed in the center near the singers’ bench.
Following the ear piercing, the singers sing
songs that reflect the “piercing” action which
causes bleeding, such as the predatory actions of
“the big shark” {tru kri) or “the tiny shark” {tru
kiare). Meanwhile, the lightning survivor, the
men whose ears were pierced, and the singers all
drink the chicha being kept at the side of the sing-
ers’ bench; Ngawbere describe this action quite
literally as kutu nain noin (“proceeding to drink
the ritual chicha”). Then, the lightning survivor
Figure 3: The site used to cel-
ebrate la chichería of September
10-11, that was organized by
several families in the communi-
ty where the two boys had been
struck by lightning. The shelter
serves as the cooking facility
when school is in session. The
boy who survived the accident
(now grown) did not attend.
Once the sun had set, the wom-
en with their small ritual leaves
from the woven bag and the men
with their ritual weapons left the
hut to place their respective ob-
jects under a bush (type appar-
ently unimportant) outside the
shelter. Except for the singers,
most people moved about rather
freely when not dancing. During
the night, children remained
with their mothers or older sis-
ters on the leaves arranged by
the women around the perime-
ter. Fermented sugar cane fruit
drink {ibia dûi) was served at
this ritual, and was complement-
ed by two boxes of aguardiente
donated by the provincial gov-
ernment.
returns to his seat, and the men rejoin the partici-
pants.
Shortly thereafter, when the sun rises, the
small gourd holding the medicinal water mixed
with blood is dumped at the base of a tree, out-
side the shelter area. The larger ritual evidently
substituted another act that was performed short-
ly after the participants entered the shelter (see
Fig. 3).
According to some informants, it was once
the custom19 to have a special fruit drink set apart
from what was consumed by the line dancers.
This chicha allegedly contained the head of a
monkey and the head of a bear, and was referred
to as hurinmu kutúbiti (literally “monkey’s life-
force atop the chicha”) and men kutúbiti (literally
“bear’s [life-force] atop the chicha”), respectively.
The chicha with the animal heads has never been
18 The three ingredients include druraw, known in Spanish
as viruli, which is the slender shaft holding the fluffy
seeds of “wild cane” (Gynérium sagittatum); hura (an
unidentified medicinal plant); and nubetuli (unidentified,
possibly a species of wasp).
19 Returning to the capital city for a brief period, the author
came across the Von Uffelde reference and, upon return-
ing to the field, asked one of the local diviners some
focused questions. Although some clarifications were
made, no one in the latter months of fieldwork was
willing to verify that centuries ago the male member was
pierced.
Anthropos 83.1988
144
Keith V. Bletzer
reported by outsiders, nor was it or the “pierc-
ing” observed by the author. Although Von Uffel-
de does not refer to the special chicha, he seems to
have been the only outsider to have published his
observation of the ritual “piercing.”
When la chichería lasts for more than a day,
according to informants, other men can volunteer
to have their ears pierced before dawn on subse-
quent mornings of the ritual. One informant
suggested that some men, while quite drunk and
oblivious to the pain, often choose to have their
right ear pierced a second time.
As the sun rises, those who are responsible
for preparing the (concluding) meal leave the
shelter. One ritual was held in an open shelter
while school was not in session, and the other was
held in the homestead’s indigenous church. Thus,
the cooking areas were located adjacent to the
shelter in each ceremony that was observed.
Phase Four: described in Spanish as “the
conclusion,” and identified in ngawbere as kriko
modego or kriko mótáwite.
To prepare for the concluding rite, a number
of special leaves (kriko) are placed in a circle
outside the shelter, at its eastern side some ten to
twenty yards from the entranceway. The meal
that has been prepared is placed atop the leaves
in rather random fashion; typical foodstuffs are
included, such as root tubers, bananas, wild
spinach leaves, and, if available, meat. According
to some informants, once the circle of leaves has
been arranged outside and the meal has been
placed, the lightning survivor enters the line of
dancers. This serves as a signal to the whole line
that it is about time to exit the shelter. Since the
meal may take some time to prepare particularly
if the meat was not cooked the previous day, the
line of people continues dancing indoors and are
called out shortly before noon, or a little earlier.
The line of dancers forms a circle around the out-
side perimeter of the leaves, moving in a clock-
wise direction.
Eventually the line pauses as the male singers
place themselves at the southernmost point in the
circle, and the female singers locate themselves
opposite the male singers at the northernmost
point. By this time, they may require assistance in
standing, having sung all night amidst intermit-
tent drinking. The head singer begins some clos-
ing songs. As the participants listen, they kneel to
eat the ritual meal laid before them. The lightning
survivor, if he chooses, repeats the songs as they
are sung. Once the participants are finished eat-
ing the meal, they form a line and begin dancing
atop the leaves. According to informants, the line
must refrain from dancing atop any leaves that
have not been touched by the ritual food. Ritually
speaking, la chichería ends here. In the larger rit-
ual that was observed, however, many people
continued dancing, simply because they wished to
do so. At the smaller ceremony, some members
of the family remained around the shelter area,
catching up on gossip.
Responsibility for cleaning up was minimal in
the rituals that were observed. In the larger, for
example, it comprised little more than removing
the benches from the cooking shelter in order to
prepare for the return of classes.
c) The Songs
It must be emphasized that the basis for the ritual
enactment is singing, rather than speech. Al-
though many of the songs have a ngawbere as
well as a murire version, the songs in their
majority are sung in murire rather than ngawbe-
re. Nonetheless, ngawbere terms are used to
identify the songs (in response to the investiga-
tor’s questions) in connection with the three parts
of the ritual festival conducted indoors.
According to informants, the songs are sung
according to their relationship to the primary
themes of the three (interior) phases of the ritual.
They implied that there is some liberty in the
extent to which the head singer chooses songs for
inclusion, although only a few songs (perhaps,
just one) are used to signal the theme of each
phase. Informants also emphasized the participa-
tory nature of the ritual, indicating that anyone
wanting to repeat a song could do so. However,
during the two observed rituals only one individu-
al on one particular occasion attempted to repeat
the head singer’s song; his repetition of each
stanza following its singing by the head singer was
perceptibly accurate in tone and phrasing. From
examining two songs from la chichería, and some
that are sung in everyday contexts, it is apparent
that, first, a single song is the principal song of la
chichería. Second, it seems likely that the songs
sung for each phase represent separate yet related
themes, although insufficient song transcriptions
make this point inconclusive.20
20 Ngawbere prohibit tape recorders at their rituals. None-
theless, a local diviner was willing to sing the principal
song along with several others for taping. Another man
allowed the investigator to tape his singing, apart from a
ritual context.
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
145
Informants during the larger ritual indicated
that most of the songs depict the actions of
animals of the forest and the sea, such as the
monkey, parrot, mountain puma, turtle, fish,
pidgeon, duck, eagle, etc. Some of these animals
are predator animals, that is, they hunt for
survival whereas the others are animals that the
predators prey upon. The songs depict character-
istic aspects of the animals, for example, the
parrot who is accustomed to flying long distances
and, hence, traditionally supplied the feathers
used by Ngawbere in manufacturing hunting ar-
rows, or the courage of the manta ray against the
attack of the shark, or the antics of the monkey.
Some of the animals such as the monkey are
among the preferred animals which supply (sup-
plied) meat to the Ngawbere diet, particularly in
traditional times.
Another theme of the songs that is highlight-
ed by informants is one which celebrates the
forces of nature, with special emphasis on such
climatic forces as thunder-lightning (unsuli), the
rain (ko ñu), the wind {ko murid), the moon (sú),
etc. Unable to tape the songs as they were sung
(hence, no data on the ordering of songs), and
having witnessed only two rituals, it is not clear to
what extent (a) songs pertaining to climatic forc-
es are intertwined with songs concerning animals,
(b) songs are repeated by the head singer, either
to reinforce a particular theme or to please the
participants, (c) whether certain songs must be
sung or songs are sung solely at the discretion of
the head singer.
A translation of the principal chichería song
is offered here, as sung in ngawbere and translat-
ed by the singer.
As sung in ngawbere (author’s transcript):
muta huben chore,
betúboto ni dun,
muta huben,
diore ni dun dior(e).
makáboto koin,
muta huben makáboto.
betúboto ña nen,
(dre) kise mike no noin,
ngobo, ni moise, ngobo,
odoi, néboto.
Intended meaning (from singer’s Spanish transla-
tion, author’s English):
Far away the clouds are bathing,
Clouding the clear sky wherein dwells Lord Thunder.
The clouds are bathing during midday,
When the day is its warmest.
In the sky there is a force, OF Thunder it’s called.
In the shade of the faraway clouds as they bathe, OF Thunder
moves during the hottest part of the day.
(We implore you, OF Thunder,)
Why need you to slap (to prove your power where) deserving
beings live?
(Please) go far away from here, away from the realm of
Moisés, the First Being, and the Supreme Servant (of Human-
kind).
(Go) away from all who are close at hand, (stay outside) the
lands along our borders.
Literal translation (by author):
muta huben diore
clouds bathe dusk (faraway-simile)
betúboto ni dun
high-high-along Sir lineage head
muta hüben
clouds bathe
diore
dusk (faraway-
simile)
makaboto
Entwining (force)-along
muta huben
clouds bathe
betuboto
high-high-along
(dre) kise mike
(why) hand put
ngobo
divine lineage
ancestor-general
odoi
(Sir) divine lineage kinsman
(servant-simile)
dior(e).
dusk (faraway-
simile)
koin
above
makaboto.
Entwining (force)-along.
ha nen
not proceed
no noin
Location-ref. going
ngobo
(Sir) divine lineage
descendent-specific
neboto.
here-along.
ni dun
Sir lineage head
ni moise
Sir Moise
There are several noteworthy aspects of this
song. First, as translated by the singer, the song
serves as a plea to thunder that is given in a
manner that Ngawbere employ when appealing to
an unruly person. Yet the intent of the song is
implicit; it is something that is understood by
those hearing it, as it is sung. Second, when
examined as song-as-text, the principal song indi-
cates what Ngawbere perceive when it is prepar-
ing to rain (located in space above the earth and
identified by time of day). It indicates which
forces they personify as to (imputed) intentions
and (desired) outcomes; ni is used in two ways,
once as a reference to Ol’ Thunder, and again
with reference to the three divine forces (obvious-
ly a syncretism of indigenous/Christian concepts).
Anthropos 83.1988
146
Keith V. Bletzer
In everyday discourse just as in the song, ni is
used to refer to sentient beings (usually people)
but never animals. Third, there is reference in the
implicit plea to thunder that he refrain from both-
ering not only humans (Ngawbere) but also three
named divine forces, namely, Moisés as divinity
incarnate in the Christian world, Ngobo as the
ancestor-god from whom present-day Ngawbere
are descended, and Odoi as the serving ancestor-
son of one of the divine beings. This reference
implies the power of OF Thunder is greater than
that of the divine forces, all of which are identi-
fied as belonging to the class of human-like
sentient beings.
Although the murire version of the principal
song as sung by the same singer is not presented
here, there are indications that it also refers to
the process of cloud-moisture formation, and to
thunder. But, lacking information on the context
of this song, little can be said about how cloud
formation is perceived by speakers (or singers)
of murire. Beyond this, it is not clear to what ex-
tent the murire version reflects what is said in the
ngawbere version transcribed and translated
above.21
It appears that the ritual songs in murire
were learned by Ngawbere at some time in the
historic past.22 That is to say, Ngawbere make the
claim that certain healers and singers can “speak”
murire, having learned it as a form of discourse to
which Ngawbere elders (esp. healers) have had
access for many years. On working with an
experienced singer in translating a few of the
songs, however, the murire version invariably is
given intact and spoken roughly in the order in
which it is sung comparing the verbal transcript
with its taped version. For example, the ngaw-
bere version of the principal song (transcribed,
translated above) is sung in one way but it is
spoken in a different order. This is not true of the
murire version which is repeated for direct tran-
scription in the same order as it is sung when the
taped version is transcribed. As indicated above,
words and stanzas from the ngawbere version are
freely translated into Spanish, for the principal
song and several others, but the same cannot be
21 Judy Gunn and Robert Gunn assisted the author with the
murire transcriptions, based on their experience in work-
ing with Buglere along Río Luis, where Robert, his wife,
and sister (Judy) spent two years conducting linguistic
research.
22 Evidently the contemporary population of Buglere
(speakers of buglere) are descended from these once nu-
merous people.
done for the songs sung in murire. Asking the
meaning of a particular murire term frequently is
met with one of several conversational ploys that
Ngawbere use to avoid a direct answer. Thus, a
stanza by stanza translation from murire into
ngawbere (and, hence, into Spanish and English)
has not been possible to date.23 Moreover, de-
spite the cautionary note of Seeger (1979: 374)
that music should be analyzed as distinct from
speech, the recording of too few songs at this
stage of research requires their analysis as “text,”
by examining them in their ritual context without
recourse to ethnomusicological considerations
(cf. Brown 1984; 554, 548-549; Merriam 1964:
209-258).
d) The Dance
The line dance24 is performed by the participants
in single file, each person facing the same direc-
tion and taking alternating steps to the rear (noin
akone). The step is a forceful stomp using the
entire foot (left then right, left then right, etc.).
The participants maintain the same step as the
line of dancers winds in a clockwise direction
around the singers’ bench. The only variation is
for the dancers to move (step) sideways toward
the left, again with a concentrated effort to
remain in step with the other participants.
The body is maintained firmly, with the back
straight; the posture is not unlike the everyday
stance Ngawbere assume when walking, except in
the line dance the movement is to the rear. As
the stomp-stomp of the feet is heard, there are
moments when the sound of the line stepping-
23 More specifically, Ngawbere have songs which they sing
in buglere, and Buglere sing certain songs in ngawbere.
Linguists believe that most if not all Ngawbere and
Buglere who sing in the other language cannot give a
faithful stanza-by-stanza translation of the songs they sing
in the second language. But they can translate the songs
that they sing in their own language (Robert Gunn, 1984,
personal communication). Cf. Mendizabel de Cachafeiro
and Zentner (1963) who encountered murire songs in the
ceremony they observed in Chiriqui Province.
24 Lacking the skills required for notating the precise dance
movements, the investigator simply looked for variations
from the reverse left step, reverse right step which
comprised the basic foot-leg movement of the line dance.
He also participated briefly in each of the two rituals.
Kaeppler (1972) notes that her performance of Tongan
dance movements greatly enabled her to record intra-/
inter-personal variations. Cf. Williams (1979, 1982) who
describes some of the methods for notating dance move-
ments, and the implications of these methods for a theory
of dance.
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
147
stepping in unison becomes sharp, with no mis-
steps. At such a point, the participants may at-
tempt to sway the upper torso ever so slightly to-
ward the side on which the step is taken; first left,
then right, etc. Much of the time, however, the
participants are concentrating on remaining in
step {taw kro).
The movements for the arms vary. The most
common stance is to keep the left arm outstretch-
ed, clasping the left shoulder of the person in
front (kudere), with the right arm held lightly at
the side. At the smaller ritual, participants also
were observed to clasp wrists with the person on
each side in “chain-like” fashion, especially when
the line was stepping sideways to the left. At the
larger ritual, participants occasionally clasped
both hands on the waist of the person in front,
holding firmly enough to maintain the grip as the
line moved in step to the rear. This was most
evident when the composition of the line was
alternating male-female (gwara tawron).
As well as choosing the songs that the male
and female singers will sing, the head singer
indicates the form the line dance will take by
means of his singing. Informants indicated some
six general variations which the line could as-
sume; in effect, they were describing the main
“motifs” (Kaeppler 1972: 174-176, 202-203)
Ngawbere accentuate when thinking of the move-
ments of the line dance. Men and women may
dance in the same line in a mixed order (called
gwara tawron, literally “scrambled [line dance]”).
They generally dance with their arms extended to-
ward those immediately in front (called kudere,
roughly “obliged to be arms”). The head singer
similarly indicates the pace of the dancing, wheth-
er the line is to move rapidly (called drekebe,
roughly “with what sent forth”) or slowly (called
botare, roughly “obliged to be fat banana”), and
the direction in which the line will move, whether
forward (called hi dokwore, literally “toward the
head” without specifying any particular head) or
backward (called nganuntu, referring to the tail
of an unidentified species of bird).
As indicated, men and women commonly
intermingle in the line. At other times, one
segment of the line comprises men, and the other
women. As mentioned, the line moves in a
clockwise direction. Ngawbere use the term gwa-
ra diibun (literally “the manta ray in anger”) to
indicate that the line is moving with “intensity.”
From an observer’s point of view but not speci-
fied by informants, it is possible to distinguish
some variation in certain of the “intense” line
movements. Among other things, these move-
ments vary from a tightening spiral inward until
the participants are “bunched together,” upon
which they “relax,” spiraling outward all the
while maintaining the stomp-stomp movement
with their feet; a swaying motion that gives a
rippling “serpentine” effect, which informants
suggest is like the swimming movements of the
manta ray as it swims close to shore; and, to a
lesser extent, “figure-eight” configurations creat-
ed by the line. Yet, when asked, Ngawbere de-
scribe the more “intense” movements with the
generic term gwara diibun; they are emphasizing
in effect the experience of the participants rather
than the movements of the line.
The heads at either end of the line are
responsible for maintaining the pace as the line
moves. Occasionally, they may try a different
maneuver (such as the tightening-widening spiral)
in order to force those paying attention to misstep
and/or break their hold in the line. When this oc-
curs, the misstepping participant is gently teased.
Concentration on moving in unison is the task on
which Ngawbere focus while dancing. What they
perceive as the dance’s purpose pays tribute to a
commendation held in some esteem. The expres-
sion gwairéboto (roughly “all together as one”)
frequently is heard when people cooperate whole-
heartedly, without little concern for individual
preferences. To “misstep” in society is a-social at
the least, and possibly costly and dangerous in the
extreme, whether to oneself or to others. And
this concern for the individual subjugating himself
for the good of many receives emphasis in the line
dance.
4. Discussion
Among Ngawbere, thunder and lightning are
inseparable phenomena; they are viewed as dis-
tinct manifestations of the same force. In connec-
tion with la chichería, they are associated with the
rain. When lightning strikes a cultivated field,
Ngawbere say: ñaka toin, akwa hondron taw
konin kwe (literally “one cannot see [him], but
one knows that something is in quest of some-
thing for [himself]”). They then tie the leaves of a
nearby bush, as they repeat: mokoi mtari dú ñain
(literally “four days hence, [all] drink chicha”).
The phrase taw konin kwe (“in quest of”) is an
expression used in everyday conversation, and
includes both the efforts of men when hunting or
the efforts of both men and women when working
a plot of land (such as digging for root tubers).
The specification of mokoi mtari (“four days
Anthropos 83.1988
148
Keith V. Bletzer
hence”) emphasizes the proper period of ritual
anticipation before performing the ritual.
The basic term for designating la chichería is
ñüi dúi. This term makes reference to both the
rain (offered by nature) and the fruit mash
(prepared by humans). Literally translated, ñüi
means “rain-with reference to” and dúi means
“fermented fruit drink-with reference to”.25
Thus, ñüi alludes to what nature offers to the
earth, as a process in nature (raining), and dúi
alludes to what humans offer to themselves,
through the process of (horti)culture (producing
crops, preparing food). Thus, the term for the
ritual refers not only to rain and the quest for
food, but it also alludes to an ‘exchange relation-
ship’ between Ngawbere and nature.
Among Ngawbere of Bocas del Toro Prov-
ince, the other term for designating la chichería is
gwará hoge. Literally translated, the term means
“pulling the manta ray.” More specifically, the
term refers to the (natural) behavior of manta rays
along the coast that are observed swimming in a
line of two to three, one partially atop another
close to shore. Gordon (1969: 89) claims that the
term (which he transcribes as uára hogi) means
“pull the centipede.” He evidently confuses the
movement and synchrony of the steps performed
in the line dance as an imitation of the movement
of the centipede. Gordon’s confusion is com-
pounded by the similarity between the word gwa-
rá, which identifies the manta ray, and the word
gwára, which refers to worm-like creatures, includ-
ing the centipede. When used in connection with la
chichería, the term gwará refers to the overall
movements of the line dance, one person preced-
ing another but in a reverse direction.
Ngawbere use seven murire terms to identify
the major climatic forces that are associated with
la chichería. Given in murire, the names are:
male gweri and tete gweri [referring to the sun
overhead?], krun gweri [referring to the clouds
forming around the sun?], dote gweri, medí
gweri, koyo gweri, and baron gweri [referring to
the sky above?]. Some of the terms occur in
ngawbere, but with a change in meaning. For
example, krun refers to the balsa tree (Ochroma
pyramidale) which is considered a strong medici-
nal wood, as well as its use to signify “one
hundred”.26 And along the Valiente Peninsula,
25 The interpretation of the use of the post-positional -i
follows Kopesec (1975: 54).
26 The latter term is rarely used along the coast, however,
where the Spanish numeral system has replaced all but six
Male and Dote occur as nicknames, and Medí
occurs as a surname. Except for male (Alphonse
1956: 96) and medí (Von Uffelde 1965 [1682];
91-93), the other terms do not appear in the
available ngawbere lexical lists (see Arosemena
and Javilla 1979; Alphonse 1956: 31-35, 62-118,
1980: passim-, Pinart 1892; Lehmann 1920/1: 158—
177), or those of the author.
Linguistic borrowing may have occurred be-
tween Ngawbere and Murire. For example, while
conducting fieldwork along the Costa Rican bor-
der, Torres de Araúz (1964; 24) mentions the use
of teribe songs by the Bribri, and the interchange
of some terms in the vocabularies of the Bribri
and Teribe. Contacts among historic as well as
prehistoric peoples of the isthmus of Panama in
general is not unknown (Helms 1979). Unfortu-
nately, there is insufficient archaeological, lin-
guistic, or ethnohistorical data on Ngawbere and
Murire (Buglere) to determine more concretely
the extent to which these two groups maintained
contacts in prehistoric/historic times.
The principal theme of la chichería is re-
sistance and survival. This idea is most clearly
reflected in the incorporation of the manta ray as
the designation for the line dance (as well as its
spike for the ritual arrow), and in the participa-
tion of the lightning survivor. The manta ray is
viewed by Ngawbere as an animal quite proficient
in resisting the attack of other animals, particular-
ly the shark. The shark has a reputation among
Ngawbere as the animal that epitomizes the
sinister power of the sea, just as thunder-lightning
is the force embodying power in the realm above
the earth or the snake embodies power among
the creatures of the earth. Under usual circum-
stances, the creatures which embody such power
bear no ill will toward human beings. But they
have the capriciousness to inflict injury on peo-
ple; making a misstep in the forest or at sea can
result in a snakebite or shark attack, respectively.
To survive such an injury signifies a person’s wor-
thiness even in the face of what could have been a
“death blow.”
Lightning requires a series of ritual responses
to countermand its occurence as misguided pow-
er. The lightning survivor in particular repre-
sents the embodiment of worthiness (consecra-
tion) and resistance (revitalization) to sinister
events that could bring death. He embodies
within himself the counter-power which assures
of the fourteen numeral systems (traditionally) employed
by Ngawbere for counting.
Anthropos 83.1988
La chichería among Ngawbere
149
his survival, when struck by lightning. In similar
fashion, a lightning bolt striking someone’s culti-
vated field requires remedial action. By incorpo-
rating the lightning survivor, first, by ritually
isolating him for 16 days, and, second, by having
him “accompany” the singers, he liminally lends
his counter-power to the ritual process which is
enacted through the performance of la chichería.
Although Ngawbere emphasize the song-dance
festival, the full ritual complex of la chichería in-
cludes the three classic phases of ritual; isolat-
ing the lightning survivor to liminalize his power,
ritually manipulating his participation in the song-
dance festival, and returning the lightning survi-
vor along with all the others to their daily respon-
sibilities.
The notion of harmonization is indicated
strongly by Ngawbere insistence on enumerating
the four parts of the song-dance festival as etapas
(Spanish for “phases”) of la chichería. First, the
number “4” in Ngawbere culture represents ba-
lance and strength. Second, the terms themselves
imply a balance of power. The term for the first
phase literally means “splitting,” as when one
chops firewood, and the term for the third phase
means “tying up,” as when one secures a bundle
of firewood. Here enters a series of metaphors,
primary of which is that of disintegration through
a surge of power (misguided or otherwise), and
subsequent integration (properly guided). The
closing meal which is designated by Ngawbere as
the fourth phase brings closure to the ritual. The
term mótaw literally means “permeating abun-
dance” and refers to any act that will bring
something of benefit. In short, Ngawbere are ac-
centuating in symbolic form their understand-
ing of the forces and processes of nature which
contribute to their efforts to survive. More speci-
fically, they are making a ritual plea that the in-
cursion of thunder-lightning into human endeav-
ors will not have disruptive consequences.
The majority of metaphors which occur ritu-
ally in the performance of la chichería share in
common some reference to the hunting practices
of animals as well as humans. Some of the songs,
for example, depict the actions of animals which
are predatory flesh-eaters (the shark, mountain
puma, eagle, etc.), and some of the others depict
the animals which are hunted (the monkey, duck,
fish, etc.). Ngawbere liken the action of the
lightning bolt to that of a man while hunting:
unanticipated by his prey, he suddenly throws his
spear or shoots his arrow. Put crudely, the light-
ning bolt is likened to a spent projectile, and, by
extension, it can also refer to a spent arrow as
well as “spending” oneself in a sexual encounter.
Sometimes the aim of an arrow is clear and it
reaches the mark; sometimes its aim is faulty, and
it misses or falls short. Since they employ projec-
tiles, which, incidently, sets them apart from na-
ture, for animals are endowed with permanent-
ly attached non-projectable claws, teeth, etc.,
Ngawbere rely on the materials of nature to
manufacture hunting-warring implements (parrot
feathers, peach palm wood, etc.). They seek ma-
terials that reflect those characteristics esteemed
for the intended purpose of their implements such
as the feathers of the parrot that flies long dis-
tances. Among other things, these characteristics
are thematized in some of the songs of la chiche-
ría, as well as some of the ritual paraphernalia.
There are a number of other aspects of la
chichería which informants indicated serve as
analogies. Ngawbere liken the stomping move-
ments of the line dance to the lightning bolt, and
the sound of the rattle to the patter of the rain.
They further indicate that the ritual arrow repre-
sents the lightning bolt, and that the other mate-
rials (leaves, gourds, parrot feathers, etc.) are
intended to remind Ngawbere of the bounty and
goodness of nature in supplying to their needs. As
the diviner is viewed as the most powerful hu-
man force in (Ngawbere) society, so is the role
of unsuli (“thunder”) viewed as the most power-
ful of all the forces above the earth. Thus, the
distribution of the chicha by the diviner is a way
of referring to the participation of unsuli in the
process of rain. For this reason, the ritual is called
ñüi dûi, which, as already indicated, refers to
both the rain and the fruit drink that is consumed
ritually.
More should be investigated in the way the
songs and dance are given greater emphasis by
Ngawbere than the use of speech during the fes-
tival. Similarly, the overall ritual framework needs
more study including the purpose of the 16-day
period of enclosure of the lightning survivor.
Some ideas come to mind (of the author),
but their validity lacks the verification of further
study. For one thing, singing holds a special role
in Ngawbere society. The term ka which signifies
singing in both ritual and non-ritual contexts has
several references. In a general sense it implies
any expression of interest which captivates, at-
tracts, or appeals to another. More specifically
and quite commonly, it signifies “working one’s
way into” anything that is amendable to intrusion
(the forest, roofing thatch, etc.) as well as into
another person’s life or consciousness (roughly
the equivalent of “seducing”). Yet the concept of
Anthropos 83.1988
150
Keith V. Bletzer
singing is not associated only with attracting the
opposite sex. Singing among Ngawbere is an
expression of atunement, as well as a means of
enhancement of one’s sense of self in relation to a
large task or difficult times. Hence, among other
things, singing is a means of bringing harmony to
one’s immediate experience. By extension, part
of this harmony is related to the complementary
aspects of male-female relationships. For exam-
ple, the climatic force thunder which abides in the
sky (having qualities of openness, aggression,
above = maleness) is linked directly in la chiche-
ría with the cultivated field on earth (having the
capacity of germination, creation, below = fe-
maleness). The complementary relationship be-
tween male(ness) and female(ness) is emphasized
more (for example, men and women singers; men
and women dancers; etc.) than the binary quali-
ties of male/female.
This harmonizing is further enacted in the
consumption of the ritual meal. Ngawbere ex-
plain its purpose by stating: no puede sobresalir
nada, hay que comer de todo (literally “nothing
can be left over, everything must be consumed”).
This axiom runs counter to all other forms of
non-ritual social intercourse such as conversation,
eating, working, etc., except one. Only a couple’s
matrimonial intercourse in Ngawbere society is
self-contained. All other social intercourse is a
matter of family, and, hence, public concern. Par-
allel to the self-containment of matrimonial inter-
course, only in la chichería is all the food con-
sumed. Following their conclusion, the other ritu-
als on the other hand include a “take home” meal
(called ha mroko). This juxtaposition between
matrimonial intercourse as a special instance of
social intercourse receives reinforcement in the
juxtaposition of la chichería with the whole
Ngawbere ritual system. Hence, the enactment of
la chichería is a one-of-a-kind action spread out
over four performances that ritually bonds
(“weds”) the efforts of Ngawbere in their eco-
nomic pursuits with the workings of nature.
Conclusion
Unlike la balseria which ritually emphasizes the
theme of cooperation and competition in human
society (Young 1976, 1977), la chichería is more
concerned with representing various aspects of
the quest for human survival within the process of
nature. More specifically, there are no etebali
(“ritual siblings”) in la chichería as there are in la
balseria. Instead, la chichería employs categories
of people whose identity is linked conceptually to
some specific event in nature (the lightning survi-
vor) and who embody a specific knowledge of
divine forces (the diviner, the head singer). That
Ngawbere enact a ritual comprising mostly song
and dance to highlight the processes of nature and
emphasize those forces which embody its power
indicates the importance they place on maintain-
ing a balance between human society and the
natural environment.
The harmonization of endowed differences is
further emphasized in la chichería, particularly
with reference to male(ness) and female(ness),
and the practices of human versus animal hunt-
ers. There also occurs an emphasis on merging in-
dividual differences within the machinations
(movements) of society, in order to work for the
common good. Observing through this ritual
Ngawbere interest in balancing human and natu-
ral processes behooves the study of human behav-
ior beyond that of verbal communication. Other
forms of interactional communication such as
song and dance require study, therefore, such as
those which commonly are accentuated in ritual
contexts, like la chichería.
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Anthropos 83.1988: 153-159
Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph
A Cultural Analysis
Paul E. Murray
Abstract. - Accounts of intergroup conflict are symbolic
constructions that are meaningful to informants in communi-
cational contexts. Their use in comparative methodologies
usually overlooks their meaningfulness to subjects in favor of
some other level of reality, e.g., ecological, which is presumed
to be more basic. The author argues that the social and
cultural contextualizing of such data is logically prior to other
analytical approaches and he illustrates his interpretive meth-
od by examining a “traditional,” Eskimo (Takamiut) account
of an Eskimo victory over Naskapi Indians as emergent from a
particular socio-cultural context. [Cultural Analysis, Inter-
group Conñict, Narrative, Northern Quebec]
Paul E. Murray is a doctoral candidate in the Department of
Anthropology at The Catholic University of America, Wash-
ington, D.C. His interests include conflict analysis, multicul-
tural social environments and organizational cultures. He is
currently writing a dissertation on the social-cultural environ-
ments of international secretariats that is based on field
research that he conducted in four United Nations agencies.
Introduction
The literature of intergroup conflict analysis is
replete with methodologies which attempt to
explain behavior by reference to some level of
reality (e.g., psychological, biological, or ecologi-
cal) which is presumed to be more basic than the
social level itself. Reductionist analysts search for
evidence of underlying criteria such as the main-
tenance of “congruence” or “balance” between
beliefs and affective bonds in the perception of
group behavior (e.g., Rosenberg und Wolfsfeld
1977, Campbell 1967). These methods presume
much and waste data of how people experience
conflict. Only a knowledge of cultural context can
make conflicts understandable in their uniquely
human aspect, i.e., in terms of the meanings
which people attach to them, and in which terms
they are directly experienced.
“Battle stories,” the accounts which people
relate of conflicts, whatever their level of veraci-
ty, provide a convenient form of data for access-
ing the ways people organize their ideas about
conflict.
Anthropologists have recently focused more
attention on accounts of conflict, especially in
terms of the subtexts (or linkages with other
accounts) which inform them and underlie their
telling. Whether as a method of social control
(Basso 1984), or as an interpretive process that
enables individuals to cope with an organizational
culture (Schwartzman 1984), or as a means of
constructing and evoking metaphors by which to
interpret everyday life (Merten and Schwartz
1982) accounts of conflict contain additional data
that require a cultural analysis.
In this paper, I undertake a cultural analysis
of one battle story by examining the structure of
the narrative itself and by attempting to relate
this structure to the social and cultural structures
of the society from which it originates. My pur-
pose is to use this analysis to illustrate why a cultur-
al rendering of texts has a necessary analytical
priority to other methods.
1. The Text
In the interviews of anthropologist Nelson Gra-
burn (1972) with Eskimos (especially the Takami-
ut) of Northern Quebec several informants speak
of Indian (probably the Naskapi) raids against
their people in the past. Most often informants
speak of Indian successes and Eskimo failures.
They recall only one instance when, mirabile
dictu, there was an Eskimo triumph over these
relentless and skilled enemies. Of this set of four
texts, only Taiara actually offers a narrative
(1972: 113-114):
I have heard about one that was beyond Killiniq [Port
Burwell]. There were a lot of Eskimos inland hunting caribou.
One night the Indians came when the Eskimos were mainly
asleep and killed as many as they could and then went away
again. So the Eskimos fled onto an island and pretended that
they did not know that the Indians were coming. They all
pretended that they were asleep. The next time the Indians
came to attack, the Eskimos were ready for them and used
their bows and arrows against the Indians. I believe that some
154
Paul E. Murray
of them got into their kayaks and were able to use them better
than the Indians’ canoes or maybe the Indians were walking
through the water. Anyhow they killed a lot of Indians. That
is the story many Eskimos know. I don’t know how long ago it
was, but it was before the white men were here. In those days
they used to do their fighting with bows and arrows. The
Indians were very very clever with the bow and arrow. Some
of them could fire two arrows at once to try to kill two
Eskimos with the same bow.
Such texts presume much, and the first step
in interpretation must be to make that explicit. I
attempt to do that here by examining two major
notions which inform this account: first, the
Eskimos’ vulnerability to attack by Indians; and
second, triumph through cooperative strategizing.
Finally, I discuss the relevance of the structural
linking of the themes of vulnerability, coopera-
tion, and success within the contemporary con-
text. My analysis engages three contexts: (1) the
corpus of Eskimo narratives and recollections
about Indian aggression and battles; (2) the in-
terpretative context of intertextualities (refer-
ences to various subtexts, e.g., stories, beliefs,
values, etc.) with reference to which Eskimos
shape understandings; and (3) the historical con-
text which is external to the story itself but which
draws on sources that may be helpful in elucidat-
ing contributing materials and conditions. I sug-
gest that this “traditional” recollection themati-
cally takes up and speaks to vital issues in that
community’s conflicts, both internal and with
White society.
2. General Background
The predominant social fact for Eskimos of the
Canadian arctic is the impact of Euro-Canadian
domination. The influence of traders, mission-
aries, and government officials has effectively
brought the Eskimos into a radical dependence
on White society. Graburn (1969b) portrays the
Takamiut as a people who are unable to survive
any longer in their native ecosystem without
outside support. He finds that they have adapted
to present realities by constructing new social
forms out of traditional ones. Such integration of
traditional elements with the contemporary set-
ting is, however, neither complete nor devoid of
internal conflict; and, indeed, represents no hope-
ful “ethnogenesis” (see Whitten 1976).
3. Eskimo Vulnerability
The point of departure in Taiara’s story is the
vulnerability of the Eskimos to Indian attack. The
raid takes place at night, when the Eskimos are
asleep and defenseless. But Eskimo vulnerability
goes beyond their simply being caught off guard.
When Eskimos saw Indians, Taiara remarks, they
“shivered, they were so frightened” (Graburn
1972: 59).
The theme of Eskimo vulnerability to ruth-
lessly aggressive Indians recurs frequently in the
descriptions of Graburn’s informants about life in
the mythic past, “before whitemen came.” Many
informants recall similar incidents when the Indi-
ans attacked at night and killed as many Eskimos
as possible. Some suggest that Indians indulged in
“hunting them like animals” (Graburn 1972:
94, 97).
Not only are the Indians relentless foes, they
are unquestionably superior warriors. “The Indi-
ans always beat the Eskimos” (Graburn 1972:
145), states one informant. Taiara follows his own
account of the Eskimo triumph by recalling the
fantastic prowess of Indian archers, who “could
fire two arrows at once.”
These recollections of Indian aggression and
prowess are undoubtedly exaggerations. Taylor
(1979; 49-58) challenges the assumption that
Indian-Eskimo relations were traditionally hostile
and notes that during the British Colonial period
peaceful contact between the two groups is report-
ed more frequently than hostile relations. More-
over, Indians were known to fear the Eskimos
in the Hopedale area. Our question, then, be-
comes one of the cultural construction in this
depiction of Eskimo vulnerability.
Taiara’s partial closure with the words, “that
is the story many Eskimos know” emphasizes the
singularity of the supposed incident. Other infor-
mants who relate the story (Graburn 1972: 129,
140, 142) do so more telegraphically than Taiara
or with slight variation in the details; but all seem
to agree on its singularity. Particular tellings of
the story seem to draw on some presumed meta-
version, a hypothetical “complete text” with all
its references to other values, the subtexts of any
telling made explicit.
Accounts that resemble Taiara’s do exist in
Indian tradition and in publications (Taylor 1979:
50-51). For example, one incident is reported to
have taken place in 1640 at the mouth of the
St. Paul River; “the Montagnais attacked some
Inuit who were encamped on the island and slew
about a thousand; the remnant which fled to the
Anthropos 83.1988
Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph
155
east, numbered about 2000.” Taylor (1979) notes
that the population figures in the account must be
highly exaggerated and that the numbers are
much smaller in the Montagnais oral tradition. In
a similar account, the Eskimos had “fortified
themselves in a camp, with walls composed of
stone and turf, with a ditch outside“ (Taylor,
quoting Robertson 1979; 50; emphasis added).
The resemblance here to Taiara’s account lies in
the details of the Eskimos being encamped on an
island and prepared (by fortifying their position
with a ditch). Another Indian-Eskimo battle took
place at the instigation of the French in May of
1717, near Fort Pontchartrain when eighteen
men, half of them French, attacked Eskimos who
were encamped on nearby islands and, firing on
an Eskimo boat, killed about eight of them
(Taylor 1979: 51). Again, the incident took place
on or around islands, during a month when
Eskimos would have migrated to the south and
“many” were killed. Eskimo vulnerability prob-
ably increased sharply after the arrival of white
men, who put firearms into the hands of Indians
and instigated incidents against the Eskimos,
perhaps motivated by a desire to defend their
boats and fishing gear (Taylor 1979: 51). Given
the striking resemblance of details in the forego-
ing accounts to Taiara’s, the contributions of
White men to inter-ethnic relations in the area
seem to have provided some of the threads woven
into this story. The supposition of implacable
Indian hostility to the Eskimos may have been
nurtured by the Whites’ insupportable belief that
the Indians had driven the Eskimos north from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the historic past
(Taylor 1979: 50).
For cultural analytical purposes, the struc-
ture of the narrative, rather than its objective
validity, is the primary concern. Yet its obscuri-
ties highlight one of its major structural compo-
nents, i.e., the emphasis on Eskimo vulnerability.
The account associates four features to depict this
vulnerability; (1) the hunting band’s dormition at
night; (2) the geographic dislocation of the Eski-
mos from their usual, coastal habitat; (3) the
caribou hunt which annually followed the greatest
season of food scarcity; and (4) the implacable
ruthlessness of their Indian foes. The common
response to all of these features is some form of
Eskimo cooperation, which forms a major inter-
pretive subtext in this story.
4. Eskimo Cooperation
In Taiara’s story, the key factor that accounts for
the Eskimo triumph is preparation: “the Eskimos
were ready for them.” Such preparation evokes
cooperation. In this case, the group that cooper-
ates in an anti-Indian exploit is also the group that
cooperates in hunting caribou. The social struc-
ture of the caribou hunting band was composed
of elements from the larger society, as a sample
of it for a particular (provisory) purpose.
Eskimos were members of various residential
and territorial groupings (Graburn 1969b: 56-66).
Most of the year, they lived in the katimajut,
usually a kin-based village or band of several
households that cooperated in economic tasks,
including caribou hunting. There were also
“neighbors” that comprised several bands. Larger
groupings yet, such as “the Takamiut” were,
according to Graburn, purely conceptual and had
“little importance except as geographic labels”
(1969b: 58).
Political organization and leadership were, in
the band, exercized by an older man, usually a
father or brother of the other men. He made
important decisions about matters that required
cooperation, e.g., “when to move to another
campsite, what particular game to seek out if
there was a choice, the distribution of the pro-
ducts of the hunt, when to build a new umiak,
kajak, or tent,” etc. (Graburn 1969b: 59). This
group leader “was often known as isumatak, ‘the
thinker’ for the group, and he might even be an
umialik, ‘boat owner,’ if it were a prosperous
group” (1969b: 59). Being a good hunter and a
likeable man were prerequisites for such posi-
tions.
The traditional Takamiut annual cycle ap-
parently involved a continuing oscillation between
group cohesion and fragmentation. Even at the
level of the band or at broader levels of organiza-
tion, the scope of social cooperation was largely
restricted to provisioning activities and then only
to certain times of the year. No single leader,
religious or political, no festival or other annual
event brought these nomadic groups together for
any other shared purpose.
Social groups at levels higher than that of the
household depended entirely on voluntary coop-
eration in order to function. The isumatak's deci-
sions were made only after consultation with all
the men of the group. According to Graburn
(1969b: 59), there is no Eskimo equivalent for the
word “obey.” Decisions about the punishment of
anti-social behavior were reached consensually
Anthropos 83.1988
156
Paul E. Murray
and actual decisions such as to execute or to
abandon persons were jointly enforced (Graburn
1969a). Autocratic leaders would find families
abandoning their camps (1969b: 60-61). The dis-
tribution of game was governed by rules that
permitted the “procurer” of the meat to take the
choicest portions for himself, but required him to
give away most of it. An ethic of voluntary
cooperation, then, permeated Eskimo organiza-
tional behavior. Hunting parties and residential
groups were both organized on a voluntarily
cooperative basis, rather than along authoritarian
lines.
Graburn (1969b: 36-37) describes different
types of parties for the two annual caribou hunts.
During the first hunt, in May, which followed “an
annual season of scarcity” the parties consisted of
those men who were the better hunters. A single-
ness and urgency of purpose seems implied in this
first hunt, following the winter. Entire families
went along on the second hunt, in August. Hunt-
ing techniques varied, but generally they entailed
the use of some collective strategy such as stam-
peding the herd into a corral where many could
be easily shot with arrows.
Taiara’s account, in recalling the caribou
hunt, invokes a traditional social context, game
hunting, which was rapidly disappearing in his
own time. That the recollection of this traditional
subsistence activity may have invoked, as well,
the ethic of voluntary cooperation as a traditional
Eskimo value is suggested by the narrator’s social
role. Taiara was the umialik of one of the five
bands in Sugluk, in the early 1960s, when Gra-
burn did his field research. These bands were
kin-based, co-residential, and economically co-
operative (Graburn 1969 b: 167). According to
Graburn, Taiara’s band was highly respected and
was “probably the most traditionally oriented.”
Taiara was known as “one of the greatest hunters
along the coastline in this century” (1969 b:
170-171).
Besides cooperation in an economic activity,
which the account evokes as its own subtext, a
second form of cooperation is also present, i.e.,
devising an anti-Indian strategy and executing it.
On this the successful outcome of the story
hinges.
There is little Eskimo recollection of a mili-
tary past. There is no recollection of raids against
Indian camps; however, both Eskimos and early
White traders and explorers recall tactics in which
Eskimos attacked after inducing in their victims a
false sense of security. Informants other than
Taiara recall the use of camp fires to lure Indian
raiders into traps of caribou bone palisades as a
typical defense measure (Graburn 1972: 119, 122,
139, 140, 142). Similarly passively aggressive tac-
tics were experienced by early traders and explor-
ers in the region. In 1611, there was an incident
on Digges Islands where the mutinous crew of
Henry Hudson’s ship, thinking they had befriend-
ed a group of Eskimos, were attacked unexpect-
edly: “While entertaining the natives, the sailors
dropped their guard and were set upon treach-
erously, four of them being killed by knives or
arrows” (Graburn 1969b: 78).
While there is no recollection of intergroup
hostilities among Eskimos themselves, the use of
surprise and stealth by attacking opponents from
behind when they were distracted or asleep was
common (Graburn 1969b: 87-93). As noted pre-
viously, antisocial conduct was judged by the men
of a group and those thought guilty were con-
fronted suddenly with their punishment, includ-
ing execution or abandonment, by a group agree-
ing so to act. There is not, here, any indication
of airing grievances as a mode of building social
relations.
In the case of Taiara’s battle story, the use of
a passively aggressive strategy required a coordi-
nated group effort. The Eskimos had to lie in wait
and, presumably on a signal, attack the Indian
raiders. It seems likely that they relied on the
same type of social organization as the hunting
party, together with its isumatak, however desig-
nated, and their customary, consensual decision-
making process. Moreover, the strategy resem-
bles a hunting strategy in its use of driving
“game” into a pre-selected spot, such as a body
of water, where they could be easily killed with
arrows. It is interesting to note the anonymity of
the Eskimo fighters; certainly there is no mention
of a heroic leader or particular individual. From
start to finish this is a well coordinated group
effort.
While a cooperative response to the Indian
threat might seem to be only common sense to
western observers, flight, not fight, is recalled as
the more typically Eskimo response to Indian
aggression. Tomasi Akpaqatak, for example, an-
swers Graburn’s question (1972: 416) about what
Eskimos would think of a man who “ran away
from the Indians so he would not be killed when
the Eskimos were fighting the Indians”: “Tisi-
tik!’ [he’s smart]. Often if the Eskimo did not run
away, the Indians would kill him. Sometimes the
Eskimos ran away and left their children or their
wives behind, or the old people. They could not
run so fast.” Graburn notes that there are no
Anthropos 83.1988
Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph
157
words in Eskimo for bravery and cowardice, only
cleverness and stupidity, respectively (Graburn
1972; 423). The uniqueness of the incident re-
called by Taiara and others may lie as much in
its being a moment when the Eskimos somehow
resisted Indian aggression as in the fact of it being
an Eskimo triumph, but its basis appears to be a
general Eskimo mode of coordinating action.
The traditional principle of voluntary cooper-
ation, then, is the essential component of success
in both economic life and military defense. Tai-
ara’s account associates both types of cooperation
as different forms or different faces of the same
ethic of Eskimo social organization. Vulnerability
on both economic and military fronts was a fact
which made life difficult, but Eskimos met those
vulnerabilities, Taiara reminds us, by cooperative
behavior and their form of joint action by broad-
based consensus.
The cooperative behaviors of caribou hunt-
ing and military strategizing are inextricably
linked in Taiara’s account in that the social
structure of the former supports the latter. Both
behaviors respond to some vulnerable feature of
Eskimo life - the need for caribou and the threat
of Indians - features that are themselves associat-
ed spatially and temporally. Successful outcomes
- slaughtered caribou and dead Indians - result
from a similar “corraling” of the hunted and both
make their respective contributions to Eskimo
survival. As the ethic of meat distribution assimi-
lates the benefits of any individual hunter’s kill to
the whole village, the recollection of this anti-
Indian triumph closes on its collective, general
benefits and honors no individual in particular.
5. Contemporary Conditions
Eskimos now find themselves at the lowest stra-
tum of the Canadian socio-economic system. This
story is a familiar one, resembling the post-
contact histories of other hunting and gathering
peoples who have been incorporated into the
world market system. What is pertinent here is
how they negotiate the demands of the two social
worlds of Eskimo society itself and of Euro-
Canadian society.
At first glance, it is surprising how seldom
Graburn’s informants express any negative senti-
ments about the impact of White men on their
lives. Not only were Eskimo-Indian relations bad
in the past, but among Eskimos themselves, there
were numerous problems: fighting and stealing,
often over wives, occasional starvation, and sha-
mans whose powers were frightening (Graburn
1972: 46, 185, 189, 191). The arrival of White
men changed all this and is, at times, hailed by
Eskimos as a redemptive event (Honigmann
and Honigmann 1965: 44-45, Turner 1884: 261).
Many regard the introduction of Christian beliefs
as a deliverance from ignorance and the intereth-
nic hostilities of the past (Graburn 1972: 98, 125,
133, 136, 185, 187, 190).
Yet there are also numerous problems which
stem from the advent and presence of White men,
ranging from devastating epidemics to the impla-
cable demands of a market system that pays high
prices for fox pelts or soapstone carvings one year
but not the next.
Undoubtedly their status of “colonial” de-
pendence on Euro-Canadian society has contribut-
ed to the Eskimos’ reconstruction of their ethnic
identity. There are two faces to this reconstruc-
tion; the constitution of the Indian-Eskimo boun-
dary, on the one hand, and of the Eskimo-White
boundary, on the other. Missionary instruction
and the forced settlement of Indians and Eskimos
together, beginning in the 1940s, contribute to
the radical reconstruction of Indian-Eskimo rela-
tions. As one informant puts it: “Now we know
that all people [‘innuit’] are children of God.
They are not different like the Eskimos used to
think they were” (Graburn 1969b: 190). Not sur-
prisingly, Graburn (1972: 1) finds the native-
White dichotomy to have become increasingly
salient in recent years. As the categories, “Eski-
mo” and “Indian,” undergo reconstruction in the
present, it seems likely that their uses in talk
about the mythic past must be similarly affected.
One probable subtext that underlies much of the
telling and retelling of the singular Eskimo tri-
umph over Indians is to remind present-day
Takamiut of their “traditional” values, in particu-
lar, the importance of consensus and voluntary
cooperation in the face of external threats.
It happens that the contemporary aggressors
are Whites. And the Eskimos are certainly more
vulnerable before them than ever they were to
attack by Indians in the night. In contemporary
Sugluk, a settlement that is anomalous in terms of
traditional social organization, the most pressing
political, economic, and social issues all cluster
around the overwhelming fact of Euro-Canadian
domination.
The Eskimos of Sugluk began in the 1950s
and 1960s to recognize the need to find new ways
to organize collectively in order to gain some
control over their own affairs (Graburn 1969 b:
206-210). Sculptors and fishermen formed coop-
Anthropos 83.1988
158
Paul E. Murray
eratives. Such ventures were not often successful.
After acquiring a government freezer, Eskimo
fishermen hoped to hold out for five to ten times
the standard ten cents per fish they had usually
been paid. The initial effort was a failure, due to
the tough opposition of buyers; some Eskimos
broke ranks and sold fish at lower prices.
Despite the evident appeal of such collabora-
tive efforts, Eskimos do not easily organize them-
selves in their contemporary setting. In Sugluk,
this is partially due to the artificiality of the
settlement, which brings together several distinct
bands of Takamiut who have no clear kin relation
to each other and no indigenous procedure for
choosing common leaders. The inflated popula-
tion size frustrates Eskimo attempts to meet the
traditional obligation of distributing game beyond
the nuclear family (Graburn 1969b: 176). Indeed,
the commercialization of the local subsistence
economy was underway in the 1960s, further
frustrating the “funding” of such obligations.
Generational lines also seem to be a factor: older
men, such as Taiara, cling to “old values,” such
as the sharing of game, while younger men, who
have experienced more wage labor, “are the
leaders of the trend to slough off obligations
beyond the nuclear families of orientation and
procreation” (1969b; 227). At the same time, it is
the young men who take the greatest interest in
the Community Council of Sugluk, itself a Euro-
Canadian creation, because it enables them to
“achieve authority before their time and direct
the organization into the area that interests them
most - money” (1969b: 213).
Graburn’s ethnography of Sugluk indicates
that the town experiences a polarized tension be-
tween unifying, cooperative tendencies, and so-
cial fragmentation. The traditional band leader-
ship and structure do not work well for coopera-
tive interaction in the larger, permanent settle-
ment. At the same time, the newer forms of col-
lective behavior pose some threat to traditional
social forms.
Taiara’s story invokes an ideal image of
cooperation among the Eskimos in the past, when
the group was faced with a serious external
threat. When repeated in the present by a respect-
ed elder, it speaks obliquely to his community’s
most pressing and divisive issues, in the language
of and by its intertextualities.
Conclusion
“Battle stories” are among the most ubiquitous of
phenomena surrounding the experience of inter-
group conflict; yet, their meaningfulness is sel-
dom considered.
In this paper I have analyzed a superficially
simple, “traditional” narrative in order to locate
it as emergent from specific social and cultural
contexts. The more usual treatment of such mate-
rial is to regard it as a refraction of whatever
really happened, and epiphenomenal to some
other description of that: an account that may be
taken as a more, or less, faithful description of an
historical reality. By describing some of the cultur-
al patterns that permeate an account and render
it meaningful, I have attempted to demonstrate
why such a cultural rendering must be analytically
prior to other uses of it. In fact, all talk about
intergroup conflict, whether generated by opinion
polls or whiskeyed reminiscing, is intelligible only
in terms of its meaningfulness to those who
speak. No matter how ostensibly objective the
account, assertions about conflict are always cul-
turally mediated “stories”; that is, they represent
selections and constructions of details which have
been chosen and arranged in ways that are some-
how culturally appropriate.
As Ricoeur (1971) has stated, privileged
status can be claimed for no single interpretation
of a text. While mine may represent nothing more
than an “educated guess,” even data which would
show informants directly agreeing with my sugges-
tions would not validate it. This exercise illus-
trates instead the range of what must be considered
in any adequate attempt at understanding under-
standings.
“Battle stories,” as much as any other form
of symbolic production, are attempts to construe
reality. In that sense, they are argumentative
(Marcus 1985) and so are data on the arguments
in play in a society. They are, as such, intrinsical-
ly “ideological acts,” to use Fredric Jameson’s
terminology, that is, attempts to invent “imagina-
ry or formal ‘solutions’ to unresolvable social
contradictions” (Jameson 1981: 79). My analysis
of Taiara’s narrative has, I believe, demonstrated
some of how this has worked in one case. It is
only after examining a text in relation to social
and cultural context that the analyst is in a
position to employ it in some larger, comparative
framework as data about “conflict over scarce
resources,” “intergroup attribution,” or “ethno-
centrism.”
Anthropos 83.1988
Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph
159
I wish to thank Nelson Graburn for his comments on
this paper and for permission to reprint the exerpt from
his interview with Taiara. I am indebted, as well, to
Phyllis Chock and Jon Anderson, my advisors, and to
Regina Herzfeld, June Wyman, and the late Michael
Kenny for their comments and encouragement.
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Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse
University Press Fribourg Switzerland
Anthropos 83.1988: 161-171
Community History and Environment as Wellspring of
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
Thomas F. Johnston
Abstract. - Fieldwork and tape-recording was carried out
among Inupiaq Eskimo communities in northern Alaska;
songtexts and musical characteristics were subjected to com-
parison and analysis. Findings indicate that community his-
tory, regional lore, subsistence activities, and cultural values
serve as the main wellspring for songtexts. The emphasis
within songtexts and the profile of musical features vary
according to social function and to the social role of the
performers who use them. Dance and song are used to
regulate deviance, foster social cohesion, cement alliances
within the social network, and to honor deceased ancestors.
Additionally, traditional musical performance serves to affirm
ethnic identity and to demonstrate community pride. [Alaska,
Inupiaq Eskimo, Music and Society, Dance, Songtexts]
Thomas F. Johnston, Professor of Music at University of
Alaska. M. A. in Music, 1968; Ph. D. in Ethnomusicology,
1972. Main publications: Eskimo Music: A Comparative
Circumpolar Study (Ottawa 1976); Tsonga Music in Cultural
Perspective (Anthropos 1975). Current research: Eskimo
music (National Endowment for the Humanities).
The Inupiaq Eskimo of Alaska number about
6,000, in coastal whaling communities such as
Kaktovik, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Hope,
Shishmaref, Wales, and Kotzebue, and in north-
ern inland river communities such as Noatak
and Kobuk. The author conducted intermittent
fieldwork 1973-1985, tape-recording songs at the
formal Inviting-In held periodically by pairs of
adjacent villages. Interviews were carried out
with knowledgeable informants and traditional
song-composers, such as David Frankson of Point
Hope, Weir Negovanna of Wainwright, and
Charlie Penatac of King Island (now resident in
Nome).
The songs were examined for subject content
and for their melodic, rhythmic, and structural
characteristics, which in many cases are related to
literary and poetic factors. Findings tend to sug-
gest that the songs function partly as a historical
repository of community lore, including heroic
deeds of ancestors, cultural achievements of im-
mediate forefathers, the coming of the whalers,
the coming of the missionaries, and the coming of
the commuter airplane.
Inupiaq Eskimo vocal music, like that in
many non-Western societies, is multi-functional.
The nature and power of music and dance is such
that they lend themselves readily to a variety of
social uses. Among the Inupiaq today, dance and
song are used to mildly criticize and admonish
wayward members of the community, to praise
one’s trading partners and cement alliances, and
to help preserve certain ancient values and beliefs
which are referred to within the songtexts.
An additional use of music is seen in the
contemporary utilization of songs as mementos of
the deceased. The songs of several celebrated
song-composers - Jimmy Killigivuk, Paul Green,
Charlie Jensen, and Arctic John - are used at the
Inviting-In and at the Whaling Feast as tributes
and eulogies to these respected elders.
In ealier times, songs were used by the
shaman for spirit-communication, spirit-placa-
tion, and to heal the sick within the community.
Magical hunting songs were used to aid in the
tracking and capture of game animals and sea
mammals.
The subject-matter of these song types is
related to the social function they were designed
to serve, and to the different social roles of the
musical ensembles performing them. Additional-
ly, Inupiaq songs of all types fulfill two overriding
social functions, in that (1) at the Eskimo “na-
tional” level they symbolize ethnic identity in the
face of culture-clash, and (2) at the local regional
level they represent community pride and com-
munity solidarity.
The Musical Characteristics
The profile of musical characteristics of each song
type is adaptive in a way best suited to fulfill so-
cial function and role. Dance songs, for instance,
feature interesting additive rhythms, alternat-
ing 5/8 with 6/8 with 7/8. Where the exposition of
the story requires that motion slow down, rhythm
162
Thomas F. Johnston
changes so as to feature the use of longer notes.
Dance movements depicting the rapid pursuit of
game animals use a fast 5/8 rhythm J J. j J J.
but when the hauling of a carcass-laden sled com-
mences, and dancers appear to plod laboriously,
the rhythm changes suddently to 4/4 J J ¡ J J.
In fact, a large number of Inupiaq dances feature
tripartite metrical structure, where a period of
fast action is followed by a period of slow action,
and then concludes with a period of fast action.
Aesthetically, this is not only a way of portraying
the variety of human movement necessary in sub-
sistence life, but contains balance, contrast, and
classic arch form.
Dance songs utilize wide-ranging melody,
often more than an octave, with a variety of
melodic intervals and ascending/descending sur-
prise leaps. Many of them are through-composed
(durchkomponiert); thus the melody is intriguing
and requires more skill to memorize than does
sectionalized repetition. A selection of slurs, ap-
pogiaturas, and glissandos is used between main
scale notes for expressive purposes. Rhythmic
pulse is accentuated by the singers, using a kind
of glottal pulsation and/or rhythmic jerking of the
diaphragm. This imparts a unique and distinctive-
ly Eskimo quality to the music. Dance/song/drum
rhythm contains sudden gaps where motions
freeze; they occure irregularly and must be memo-
rized. The sound of inner vowels of many words
is changed when sung; this may originate in the
practices of the shaman-composer, who added
an aura of mysticism to his performance by intro-
ducing incomprehensible passages. Terminal song-
words in stanzas are given long melismatic (one
syllable carried over several notes) suffixes; this
not only enhances the mystic effect of the song-
words, but serves to adapt a small number of
syllables to a large number of notes, notes being
more readily available than words.
The texts of dance songs are enigmatic,
fragmented, and allusive; they also contain ar-
chaisms, numerous ancient kinship terms, and a
vocabulary of the precise directional and spatial
orientation terms used by hunters out on the flat
sea ice and featureless tundra. In sum, the musi-
cal characteristics of dance songs, and the nature
of the songtexts, make them suitable for mature
adult performers and the social function of creat-
ing impressive theatrical psychodrama before the
adult audience in the community hall.
The musical characteristics and songtexts of
story songs, however, and of other types of
children’s songs, make them suitable for the
young. Melody is limited and narrow in range;
rhythm is generally restricted to a simple 2/4. The
songs are short, and structured in repeating sec-
tions which are easy to memorize. The subject-
matter concerns familiar birds and small animals
of interest to children, for it is these which pro-
vide children with their first hunting experience,
and their prestigious first catch.
Inupiaq musical characteristics therefore
tend to be functional; asymmetrical dance
rhythms for depicting complex adult hunting acti-
vities, symmetrical rhythms for rowing and pad-
dling boats, simple rhythms for children. The
range of subject-matter in songtexts varies ac-
cording to song use and to the social role of the
user.
Songtext as Historical Repository
Of the numerous Inupiaq whaling communities in
northern Alaska, Point Hope perhaps has the
most eventful history, stretching from medieval
times, through the whaling era and missionary era
of the nineteenth century, to the present day.
Archeologists report that approximately a thou-
sand years ago, as many as six hundred house
sites existed simultaneously in the Point Hope
region (Larsen and Rainey 1948). Allowing for
about ten family members per household, this
means that a population of six thousand people
found living quarters, emotional sustenance, and
long-term subsistence in this arctic environment
where the sea is frozen over most of the year.
Provision for this large number of residents
was probably made possible by the fact that, at
this latitude, sea mammals annually pass north-
ward through narrow straits to the Arctic Ocean,
passing through again at the end of summer on
their journey southward, before the freeze. The
Inupiaq learned to build sturdy skin boats from
walrus hide, and live off the sea mammal har-
vest.
The growth of the community also gave rise
to an increasing level of ceremonialism. Each
shaman trained a group of apprentice shamans,
who carved the elaborate ceremonial dance
masks necessary for spirit-placation within the
ceremonial house. Point Hope was once the
center of a widespread Inupiaq ceremonial com-
plex, which included the Memorial Feast for the
Dead, and numerous hunting festivals such as the
Messenger Feast. This complex featured the use
of unison dance group, drumming teams, trance,
and the manufacture and use (in the ceremonial
house) of ingenious mechanical contrivances and
Anthropos 83.1988
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
163
devices, such as moving puppets, flying birds, and
running foxes.
When the nineteenth-century whalers arriv-
ed, they established a base five miles outside
Point Hope, called Yaapitaut, or Jabbertown.
There they recruited Eskimo crews, married Es-
kimo women, taught the Inupiaq how to make
whiskey from molasses, traded iron tools for skins
and furs, and introduced much cultural change.
The whalers were not always well adapted to
arctic conditions; one popular Inupiaq dance song
relates how “Whalers with long beards sank in
the deep snow and died.”
In Jabbertown at the end of each summer
was held a trade fair. Inupiaq families travelled
great distances to visit this fair, boating along the
coast or down the great rivers. In this way the
Inupiaq were introduced to many trade goods,
such as steel needles, tobacco, and rifles. Dance
teams composed special songs for the event, and
performed them for each other at Jabbertown.
Following the whalers came the missionaries,
particularly the tolerant Episcopaleans, such as
the Reverend Frank Driggs, in 1889. One popular
Point Hope dance song composed by Qalayuaq
relates how Driggs taught the community about a
“Bright light in the sky,” and about a “Second
coming from the sky.” Rev. Driggs arrived on a
coal-burning coastguard cutter, asked the Point
Hopers to help him build a large sod-house to use
as a mission station. Another popular dance song
relates how he tried to teach them the white
man’s alphabet, but the hunters and their families
only learned it up to the halfway point, so the
songwords are based upon ABCDEFG etc., but
cease about halfway.
Episcopalean Bishop Rowe visited Point
Hope in 1912, and handed each villager a small
metal cross. Today, a dance commemorates this
historical event, and included in the dance mo-
tions is the crossing of the forearms.
In the early 1900s, another Inupiaq commu-
nity, Nome, experienced a well-known gold rush.
There were at one time about 20,000 miners at
Nome. One popular Inupiaq dance song relates
how some of these miners visited other Eskimo
communities looking for gold. One group carried
a six-foot saw with two handles, and a dance song
by traditional drummer Paul Green at Qikiq-
tagruk (now Kotzebue) relates this incident, with
a humorous description of the saw, which was a
novelty at the time. Paul Green recently passed
away, but some of his compositions are preserved
in a booklet and tape published by the present
author (Johnston 1980).
With the whalers and the miners came new
diseases, and many communities were nearly
wipped out by smallpox. An Inupiaq hunter
named Siliun composed a song relating how a
widow brought her eight-year old son named
Akumqana to Tikigaq, now Point Hope. The boy
brought a terrible itching disease. In the dance as
it is given today, the performers scratch them-
selves all over in time to the music.
There are Inupiaq songs about good shamans
and about bad shamans (dances commonly fea-
ture a pair of masks, and the one with the thick
lips is the bad shaman). In one dance song, it is
related how the bad shaman with the big bones,
who had stolen many wives, was attacked and
murdered in his tent, for revenge.
Inupiaq men often travelled along the coast
on the whaling ships, visiting other communities.
One dance song, composed by such a traveller,
relates in four successive stanzas how in one
village he saw, to his amazement, four strange
phenomena: (1) a woman wearing a long skirt,
(2) a boy wearing a necktie, (3) a man smoking a
pipe, and (4) a woman wearing a strange ring. In
the dance, mime actions portray these incidents
humorously.
Before the drilling of modern fresh-water
wells, many Inupiaq communities drank water
which possessed a strong salty taste, and one
Inupiaq song relates how the water at Barrow was
undrinkable. Another song relates how there
were too many dogs at Barrow, in fact, more dogs
than people. Many of the songs are concerned
with arctic life and subsistence, and one dance
song by a veteran hunter describes how the
Inupiaq hunters learned from the white whalers
how to play checkers, and used the game to while
away long hours of waiting out on the sea ice, in
the spring, when the whales were due to pass.
Numerous Inupiaq dance songs today reflect
contemporary American life. One such song de-
scribes the regular coming and going of the com-
muter plane from Kotzebue. Another features
three odd drumbeats at the end of the dance,
symbolizing the hope (on the part of the dancers)
that the president will be elected for a third
term.
Subsistence and Music
Among the Inupiaq, music-making is considered
prestigious, and the best whalers are often the
most prominent song-composers, song-leaders,
dancers, drum-makers, and drummers. The whal-
Anthropos 83.1988
164
Thomas F. Johnston
ers of a community are divided into crews with
their captain. Each crew possesses a whaling
lodge which serves as a ceremonial house for its
exclusive use, and where song-leaders compose
songs recording the heroic adventures, hunting
experiences, and colorful deeds of its members.
At Point Hope the names of these whaling lodges
used to be Qalgigruk, Agraktagvik, Saugvik,
Unasiksikaaq, Qagmaqtuuq, and Kaniliqpak.
Two of them still survive.
Within the context of the whaling lodge,
dances are composed, rehearsed, and then per-
formed for the members. Additionally, the whal-
ers and hunters of neighboring coastal communi-
ties are welcomed in the formal seasonal Inviting-
In, which features athletic competition, feasting,
dancing, and gift-giving. During the gift-giving at
certain festivals, a large wooden box-drum called
the kalukhaq is suspended from the ceiling and
swung back and forth, while the names of gift-
recipients are called out. This is done today at
Barrow, Wainwright, and Nome.
The most common Inupiaq dance styles are
(1) sayuun, which features fixed dance motions
which are memorized and performed in unison,
and (2) atuutipiaq, which features free motions,
the men performing ad lib angular gestures, the
women curving their arms gracefully. The pur-
pose of atuutipiaq is to enable visitors from out-
side the community to join in dancing without pri-
or memorization of motions.
In addition to these two main dance styles,
there are special dances, such as the women’s
seated dance taliq, which mimes boat-rowing (in
former times women carried out this task). Other
special dances are the spinning-top dance kiap-
saq, the pupped dance tchoyaqluuqaun, the mas-
querade dance uiparung, the Northern Lights
Plate 1: Angular, aggressive movements of Inupiaq men
dancers.
Plate 3: Inupiaq masked dance called “Looking for Two
Pots.”
Plate 2: Curving, graceful movements of Inupiaq women
dancers.
dance kigugiyataun, and the well-known blanket-
toss (or rather walrus skin toss) associated with
dance at the Whaling Feast in June, nalukataun.
Each of these dances possesses its own song or
body of songs. At Point Hope, for instance, there
are currently eight known blanket-toss songs,
which are performed at the spring Whaling Feast
on the beaches.
Anthropos 83.1988
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
165
Plate 4: Point Hope dancer Herbert Kinnevauk performs the
hunters’ spinning-top dance, where hunters catch flying white
feathers to determine whaling success.
The spring Whaling Feast is an important
seasonal event for the Inupiaq; almost all of the
protein consumed in winter derives from whale
meat previously stored in underground frozen
chambers. Building the sturdy walrus-skin boats
and hunting the whale requires much skill and
experience; this is reflected in the language,
which has twenty different words for the bowhead
whale alone, depending on whether one has
sighted a young female whale, a young male, a fat
mature female, an old male, a complete whale
family, etc. The bowhead whale grows up to
seventy feet in length. In 1964 Amos Lane of
Point Hope caught one sixty-four feet in length.
In 1970 Simeon Patkotak of Barrow caught one
sixty-seven feet in length (Frankson 1980: 3).
Numerous dishes are made with the whale
meat, including mikigaq (fermented meat), pick-
led maktak, and mamaaq, from the base of the
baleen. The bones of the whale are used as
rafters, arches, and fence-posts. The lower jaw
bones are used as sled-runners and in the con-
struction of the posts of the boat-rack which
protects the boat-skins from the dogs in sum-
mer.
The baleen is used for scrimshaw carving and
for making baleen baskets. The lung- and liver-
lining is used for making drumheads, and the
blubber for light-oil and heat-oil. Thus, for the
Inupiaq, whaling is an essential occupation and a
core social and economic activity, and the whal-
ing feast and its associated music-making may be
seen as a crystallization of Inupiaq values in the
matter.
Before the whale hunt, the crew gather
inside their whaling lodge and perform the cere-
monial spinning-top dance. This is when a hand-
ful of bird feathers is inserted loosely into a hole
in the whalers’ spinning-top, and the top is spun,
ejecting the feathers at random into the air. The
whaler catching the whitest feather (snow owl) is
predicted to make the first whale catch of the
forthcoming season.
When the hunt is underway upon the ocean,
and the whale is sighted, the song called qagru-
gautaiyaun is sung, thus slowing the whale’s
progress. Once the whale is caught, its parts are
ceremonially distributed throughout the commu-
nity according to rank and status. There are three
main whaling feasts: (1) the ayirruk feast held in
the fall, (2) the aqirruk feast held in the spring,
and (3) the Whaling Feast held in June. The
spring ayirruk must take place before the qupal-
luich sparrows lay their eggs after arriving when
the snow starts to melt in May.
For the June Whaling Feast, the beach is
marked out with special markers where each
whaling lodge is to deposit its upturned boat; this
acts as a shelter and windbreaker for the dancing,
which features the nalukataun blanket-toss and its
dance and song. Formerly, the walrus skins were
tied to immobile posts made from three large
whale bones, but now everyone is positioned
around the perimeter of the walrus skin, and
helps to pull, lift, and bounce it while the jumper,
called the nalukataqtuaq, is thrown into the air.
During the jumping, the drummers and singers
perform the special songs traditionally associated
with this ceremony, and the jumber opens a bag
while jumping, spilling out communal gifts, which
shower down upon the people below. The song-
text topics reflect the whole range of whaling
activities, including men’s role, women’s role
(women take care of the meat), sea mammal
behavior, mishaps out on the ocean, whaling
mythology, and a mystical union between the
land (humans) and the sea (whales, walruses,
seals).
The Inviting-In
In addition to the Whaling Feast, the Inupiaq
hold frequent Inviting-Ins. In this, pairs of neigh-
boring communities such as Barrow and Wain-
wright participate in competitive athletics, music-
Anthropos 83.1988
166
Thomas F. Johnston
making, and generous forms of hospitality. Old
friendships are renewed, and new trading part-
nerships are struck up. The old name for the
Inviting-In is qakummisaaliq (“stick”), related to
the Messenger Feast. It is thus named because of
the 12" food-stick on which meat for the guests is
skewered.
At the Inviting-In, each dancer initially per-
forms his personal kimmun, or ancestral song
inherited from forefathers. The song is sung once
through slowly, softly, and using meaningless
vocables such as ay-ya-yanga. The second time
through it is sung fast, loudly, and using real
words, with extended kin joining in the dance and
the singing. The kimmun song often relates rever-
ed qualities of the deceased ancestors, and per-
formance of the song is thought to mystically
bring about the transfer of these qualities to the
living, particularly in the case of godchild and/or
namesake.
The Masquerade Dance
Among the Inupiaq there still exist vestiges of the
ancient mid-winter ceremonies, and one such is
the mid-winter uiyuraq, or masquerade dance,
held at the time of the new moon. Men dress like
women and women dress like men, each within
their appropriate whaling lodge; they are requir-
ed at one point to go and seek out their spouse’s
namesake and dance with that person. Name-
sakes among the Inupiaq are a way of creating
fictitious kin, which serves to enlarge and widen
the network of social alliances upon which indi-
viduals depend for aid throughout life. To seek
out one’s spouse’s namesake, the dancer must go
to the other whaling lodge, locate that person,
and dance.
Uiquraq was formerly a significant religious
event, for one of its functions is to release the
unwanted spirits which roam the village. The
song topics include references to the moon-spirits
and other mythological figures from Inupiaq folk-
lore. Additionally, much mention is made for
namesakes, nicknames, and ancient kinship
terms, some of which are no longer understood.
The Box-Drum Dance
The box-drum, whose beat symbolizes the heart-
beat of the eagle, is mentioned by many writers
(Murdoch 1892: 391, Curtis 1930: 169, Van Valin
1941: 55, Spencer 1959: 223, Koranda 1972: 18,
Binnington 1973: 236). The present author observ-
ed three different ones in use, at Barrow, Wain-
wright, and Nome. Wainwright’s is the smallest,
being about eighteen inches in height. The Bar-
row example is about thirty-six inches. The box-
drum consists of a rectangular wooden case bear-
ing wooden zigzag ornaments along the top, rep-
resenting eagle feathers. It supports a vertical
pole at one side, covered in fur. The club-like
beater is struck against this pole, producing a
solid thud. The pole is affixed with a strip of
black baleen from the mouth of the whale, and its
uppermost end is decorated with feathers. A
soundhole is cut in the bottom, and a handhold is
provided on the side opposite to the striking side.
The whole is suspended from the rafters by a
rope. The beating is done spasmodically, by a
seated drummer. It occurs during bouts of gift-
giving, during which the drummer stiffly reaches
down and jerkily passes carvings and other gifts
from the floor at his feet to a caller behind him.
The caller takes the gift with a grotesque, exag-
gerated motion, and calls the name of the recipi-
ent, who is generally one of the guests. This is part
of a lengthy box-drum ritual involving the wearing
of loonskin headdresses, the waving of feathered
dance-staffs, and the use of entrance and exit
songs. The loonskin symbolizes the bird’s deep
dive to the ocean floor, mimicked by the shaman
who goes to converse with the whaling spirits.
Plate 5: Pete Sovalik of the Barrow dancers shows the
kalukhaq box-drum used for special ceremonies.
Anthropos 83.1988
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
167
The drummer swings the box-drum as he
beats, and the caller tries to catch it. The drum-
mer pulls it away from him. As the box-drum
swings, a line of uniformed dancers matches the
swinging of the box-drum, direction for direction,
first left then right, as if mesmerized by its
movement. At climactic points in the dance and
the gift-giving, the box-drum is beaten with a
rapid tremolo rather than with a steady beat. The
box-drum dancers sharply bend the left elbow,
and raise it in front of the face, like a snout.
Positioned thus, they advance in line across the
arena and back, bending the knees and swaying
the trunk. Finally, they leave with the Exit Song.
There is an elaborate Inupiaq legend associated
with the box-drum, telling of its origin in the
ocean.
The Natural Environment and Music
The natural environment, in addition to being
represented in the subject-matter of many Inupi-
aq song types, is reflected in the making and
wearing of decorative mink dance-parkas, and in
the manufacture and use of gut mitten-rattles. It
is reflected in drum-making, where the carefully
scraped membrane is stretched over the large
hoop made from driftwood such as hemlock, and
in the women’s seated dance in which rowing is
mimed. Inupiaq dance motions, we have noted,
reflect specific subsistence actions. For the men
they depict trapping, shooting, sledding, and
boatbuilding, while for the women they depict
garment preparation, meat cutting, and the repair
of the skins lining the sides of large whaling
boats. But beyond this sex-specific nature of the
dance motions, the curving and diving shapes and
patterns used derive from sea mammal behavior,
from wave movement, from the flight of birds,
and from the swirling of falling snow.
The Human Environment: Values in the
Songtexts
In addition to the influence of the natural envi-
ronment, it is clear that the human environment,
together with its many social, religious, and eco-
nomic ramifications, is mirrored in Inupiaq song-
texts, in the dance behavior, and possibly even
in the apparently abstract melodic and rhythmic
characteristics of Inupiaq vocal music. For in-
stance, Inupiaq society traditionally possessed no
form of social stratification, no tribal chieftain,
and no class system. This constrasts, of course,
with Alaskan Tlingit Indian society, in which
there were the chiefs, the nobility, the common-
ers, and the slaves (captured prisoners-of-war).
Is it coincidence that Inupiaq vocal music is
performed exclusively in unison (i.e., no harmony
parts or stratification), while Tlingit music some-
times features harmony and part-singing? Is it co-
incidental that a society which features lopsided,
asymmetrical rhythms such as 5/8 and 7/8 in
the vast majority of its music (the dance songs), is
also a society which experiences lopsided, asym-
metrical periods of light and dark?
To return to the question of the human
environment, and the way in which its unique
features are mirrored in the songtexts, it is
appropriate first to consider certain cultural im-
peratives and values of the Inupiaq. Their child-
rearing is relatively permissive, with minimal use
of punishment, and maximal use of positive rein-
forcement, such as rewarding the child for first
catch, and no reprimand for allowing game to
escape. The child is carried for the first few years
within the mother’s protective parka-hood, and is
treated tolerantly at each stage of nurturance. A
broad group of extended kin have daily access to
the child, possibly residing within the same dwell-
ing, and their attitude and behavior toward the
child is one of indulgence. To take the opposite
picture, an orphan is greatly pitied, and in Inupi-
aq folklore becoming orphaned is one of the
worst tragedies that can befall a child. The Inupi-
aq make a social practice of adopting orphans,
and David and Dinah Frankson of Point Hope,
with whom the author resided from time to time,
possess an orphan raised within their care.
This pattern of permissive, tolerant child-
rearing may foster a worldview in which the child
acknowledges a smiling, benevolent universe, in
which man perceives himself as living in harmony
with nature. This worldview is suggested in the
many songs which express quvia (happiness or
contentment), such as the Inupiaq sayuun entitled
“People inside themselves feel warm,” and in the
optimism expressed in such songs as “I will catch
five whales!” It is reflected in the expansive dance
movements, which reach out confidently into
space, and in Inupiaq dance masks which feature
an outward-reaching perimeter of feathers and
small carved wooden attachments representing
sea mammals.
Anthropos 83.1988
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Thomas F. Johnston
Music as Social Lubricant
In further examination of Inupiaq social values, it
becomes evident that the society places a premi-
um upon conflict-avoidance. Individuals appear
to smile a lot in the presence of strangers,
gift-giving is frequent, and there is much empha-
sis upon humor in dance, song, and everyday life.
Humor has value in a society where large families
may be confined indoors within small dwellings
for lengthy parts of the year. In all probability,
Inupiaq society has evolved extensive use of
humor, in all of its many forms, as a prime social
lubricant for the reduction of interpersonal social
stress.
Humor is seen in comic dance masks, in witty
songlines, in bawdy dance motions, in joking
cousin relations, and in the sometimes uproarious
kidding and teasing which occurs within the con-
text of the community hall during dance festivals.
At one traditional masquerade dance witnessed
by the author, an Inupiaq woman arrived in a
large blond wig, wearing extremely high heels,
and dressed in a ludicrous mini-skirt. When the
masquerade dancing commenced, she approach-
ed the old hunters seated in groups on the men’s
side of the hall, and proceeded to sit on their
knees and perform “necking” mimes. This behav-
ior is so contrary to that traditionally sanctioned
for Inupiaq women, that the assembled members
of the community went into hysterical laughter.
Inupiaq women customarily dance demurely, with
eyes cast down, and do not look men in the eye.
The behavior on this occasion was a simulation
and parody of the dance behavior of white wom-
en, and perhaps represented a statement of cultu-
ral superiority (the Eskimo use a suffix which
turns a noun into a word meaning real Eskimo - a
real Eskimo boat, a real Eskimo sled, a real
Eskimo tool).
The Acephalous Society
Equality, individuality, egalitarianism, and inde-
pendence of thought and action, are major Inupi-
aq values which may be seen in the very structure
of their society, which traditionally featured no
rulers, and no formal legal system. All game
caught is shared. A composer shares his songs
with the entire community. The drums of the
village dance team are communally owned. Any
member of the community may come forward at
any time within the community hall, and perform
his or her personal dance, or express opinions via
a song of protest or admonition. The songtexts
are remarkable in their emphasis of self-expres-
sion, self-fulfillment. Many songtexts proclaim “I
feel good inside!” or “I am in the mood for real
dancing!” or “This is my very own song!”
Humble Attitude
Self-expression and self-promotion are two dif-
ferent matters. While the society sanctions self-
fulfillment and individuality, much pressure is
brought to bear against the braggard. Humility is
a cultural value. In many of the songs, the text
states “I cannot sing this very well,” “I cannot
remember this song properly,” or “I am not very
good at singing this one.” Dancers in the commu-
nity hall, when they call out to their dance
partners or joking cousins to step forth and dance
unison dancing opposite them, will often be
greeted with the response “I do not know how to
dance well,” “I have forgotten these move-
ments,” or “My performance will be shameful,”
whereupon they eventually step forward and per-
form it perfectly. It is, as though self-deprecation
is necessary in front of others, so as not to be
perceived as promoting one’s own greatness.
It is partly because of this particular cultural
trait that, in today’s Alaskan job market, Inupiaq
individuals find that they must first learn how to
indulge in self-praise and self-promotion. Prior to
learning how to do this, Inupiaq work-applicants
sometimes appear to employers as if tongue-
tied.
Family Roles in the Folklore
Another Inupiaq cultural value appears to be
connected with specific family roles and images.
Within Inupiaq family life, the role of the mother
is greatly honored, for it is her bone needle which
“makes the hunter,” as the traditional saying
goes. The mother’s bone needle makes all of the
fur clothing which protects against the cold,
makes the waterproof clothing which protects
against the sea, and makes the skin sides of the
boats which catch the meat on which the commu-
nity depends for survival. Indeed, in many stories
and songs, it is the ‘magical’ needle which per-
forms miracles, such as allowing the boy to pass
through the narrow doorway of his dwelling, after
he has eaten a whale.
Within Inupiaq folktales, Mother Duck al-
ways takes good care of her ducklings, as when
Anthropos 83.1988
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
169
she is trapped with them in the frozen inlet, and
sings her magical song in order to find the
underwater escape passage. Mother Squirrel pro-
vides nurturance in abundance to her offpring,
and Mother Ptarmigan searches for her lost ba-
bies until, almost dead from fatigue, she finds
them and saves them.
At the other end of the spectrum, the folk-
lore and the songs often deprecate the wife. There
appears to be an emphasis upon the Good
Mother and the Bad Wife. For a long period
in Inupiaq history, there was a relative shortage
of women. Not only did powerful shamans take
many wives (including the wives of less power-
ful community members), but infanticide may
have been practised as a means of community sur-
vival in the extreme and unpredictable arctic en-
vironment. There are many stories and songs
about haughty women who reject suitors, and
wives who change husbands capriciously. In a
society where men outnumbered women of mar-
riageable age, it is logical to assume that there
existed a degree of independence among the
womenfolk.
In the “Haughty Woman and Three Suitors”
dance frequently performed during the mid-
winter dance festival at Point Hope, three mask-
ed men in turn approach their masked prospec-
tive bride, offering a richly ornamented knife with
ivory handle as a gift, each brings a larger knife.
To each in turn she delivers a proud and haughty
refusal, in the end electing to marry a dog.
In the present examination of Inupiaq song-
texts, it has been suggested that natural and
human environment are reflected in the subject-
matter, and that values and beliefs are mirrored
to varying degrees. However, folklore and song-
texts do not always mirror real life. On occasion,
they serve as compensatory outlets for proscribed
behavior. The wigged Inupiaq woman in the
mini-skirt who was described at the dance earlier,
performed a ritual of rebellion for all to see.
Forbidden in real life to pet and neck with men in
public, she performed it within the formal context
of the masquerade dance, which is in itself a ritual
of rebellion, in which transvestitism holds sway.
Music and dance, because of their special power,
cloak rebellion with a kind of diplomatic immuni-
ty. They grant license to reverse the usual social
order.
Inupiaq emphasis, in folklore and in song-
texts, of the Good Mother/Bad Wife dichotomy,
may have its origins in the ancient traditions of
the men’s ceremonial house, the qalgich, where
all boys went to live after reaching a certain age.
There, raised solely by the adult men hunters of
the village, they covertly experienced a degree of
mother-loss. Reaching maturity at the age of
thirty or forty, they were formally betrothed to a
girl from another extended kin group. This girl
was generally aged about thirteen or fourteen.
Entering marriage with this young and inexpe-
rienced partner, and possessing repressed mater-
nal needs, the man undoubtably experienced dis-
appointment and frustration with his new bride,
who in many cases was incapable of fulfilling
his deep-rooted psychological needs. These mari-
tal practices are no longer followed in contempo-
rary Inupiaq life, but their subtle effect lives on
within the folklore heritage.
Ethnic Identity and Music
There are numerous other Inupiaq values and
cultural imperatives. Perhaps one of the most
prominent today concerns the expression of Inu-
piaq cultural identity. The Inupiaq have always
been proud of their unique and innovative cul-
ture, their excellent tool-making, boat-building,
subsistence skills, mask design, and endurance
under stress. Indeed, in the scale of cross-cultural
comparisons, the Inupiaq obviously rank high in
cultural achievement in the face of climatic and
historical adversity.
In some non-Western cultures, nativism has
arisen as a defensive response triggered by cul-
ture-clash and the erosion of cultural viability. This
is not so of the Eskimo; cultural pride has been a
continuous trait dating from before the contact
period. The Eskimo of northern Greenland did
not see their first white men until the present
century, and after observing them, they conclud-
ed that the strangers had undoubtably come to
them in order to learn good manners.
The Inupiaq emphasis on cultural pride and
on stressing ethnic identity has historical roots
dating back to their crossing of the Bering Straits
land bridge. It finds expression today in the
stressing of their traditional dance and ancient
songs, which more than any other facet of their
culture, embody the quality of being Inupiaq.
Their musical style and song delivery cannot be
mistaken for that of any other group. Their
mimetic dance style is unique to northern Alaska.
The body of historical and cultural material pre-
served in the dances and the songs is archetypical
of the Inupiaq, being time- and place-specific.
Where the Inupiaq musical heritage expressed
otherness in a former world of Chukchi, Athabas-
Anthropos 83.1988
170
Thomas F. Johnston
can Indians, and Tlingit Indians, today it also ex-
presses otherness in the commercialized world
and exploitative ethos of the invading mainstream
culture. Contemporary Inupiaq dance and song
serve as a banner and rallying point in the face of
the encroaching spoils system.
Community Pride and Music
Another Inupiaq value is seen in the emphasis on
local community achievement. This is engendered
by small group needs for cohesion and social
integration. Dancing together in the community
hall fosters standing together in community af-
fairs. This particular value is to be seen at the
Inviting-Ins, at urban Native art festivals, at the
annual Eskimo Olympics, at the Fairbanks Native
Potlatch, and at other dance events where friend-
ly cultures compete.
Much dedicated composing, careful rehears-
al, and costume-making precede such an appear-
ance, and almost the entire community fly the
1500-mile round trip to Fairbanks or Anchorage
in order to watch their home team perform. In
the dances and songs presented at such inter-
cultural festivals, emphasis is placed upon the
greatness of the local forefathers, the beauty of
the local environment back home, the excellence
of the local fishing, the competency of the local
womenfolk, and the skillfulness of local arts and
crafts such as ivory-carving. Indeed, the basket-
makers and the ivory-carvers invariably go along
with the dancers, drummers, and singers, paying
their own plane fare. At the final venue, they set
up their crafts and artwork on tables, and demon-
strate long-nurtured skills such as use of the
bow-drill, use of the bone-needle, execution of
delicate beadwork, skin-sewing, and scrimshaw
carving. When community A hears community B
sing a song originating in community A, they say
“It certainly sounds well, because it is ours!”
Contemporary Musical Developments
A new development has seen the employment of
elders as Cultural Aides in the rural schools.
These are skilled song-leaders and dance-leaders
who diligently help keep the ancient musical her-
itage alive by teaching dances and songs with-
in the formal classroom situation. At the same
time this also helps remedy the current educa-
tional dilemma where small rural schools have no
music teacher, Native or non-Native, and often
have none on the premises who knows anything
about music of any kind.
These Cultural Aides are effecting a remark-
able turn-around in the loss of tradition which
has been occurring over the past fifty years. Many
early missionary groups forbade Inupiaq dance
and song as the work of the devil, and in some
areas managed to eradicate it. In other areas,
some of the early schoolteachers put soap in the
mouths of schoolchildren heard speaking their
own language. This implanted in young minds the
idea that Inupiaq culture is in some way inferior,
resulting (in the period 1930-1960) in the de-
velopment in many students of a negative self-
image.
In 1971 the Alaska Native Land Claims Act,
and in 1973 the Alaska Bilingual Education Act
reversed this trend and encouraged a return to
tradition and to the subsistence way of life. The
Inupiaq now own their own territory, and formed
the powerful North Slope Borough, the largest
such borough in the world, courted by the world’s
oil consortiums. In a curious psychological rever-
sal, it is now the white man who perceives in the
ownership of own’s own secluded village and
hunting grounds, the fulfillment of much-to-be
desired utopia, unlikely of achievement for him-
self or his children, even though he is a member
of the supposedly superior society.
Conclusion
In examining Inupiaq songtexts and related musi-
cal behavior such as dance, it becomes evident
that this aspect of Inupiaq culture serves society
as a broad repository of cultural knowledge,
particularly concerning community history, the
natural environment, and the human environ-
ment. Inupiaq dance and song possess diverse
social functions. In addition to providing a reser-
voir of cultural information and community lore,
they function to regulate deviance, to foster social
cohesion, to cement alliances within the social
network, and as mementos of deceased elders. In
addition, they serve as an ideal communicative
mode for the expression of ethnic identity and
community pride.
References Cited
Binnington, Doreen
1973 The Development of an Interdisclipinary Curriculum.
Unpublished dissertation, U.C.L.A.
Anthropos 83.1988
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts
171
Curtis, E. S.
1930 The North American Indian; Voi. 20. Cambridge.
Frankson, David, and Tupou Pulu
1980 Whaling: A Way of Life. Anchorage: National Bilin-
gual Materials Development Ctr.
Johnston, Thomas F.
1980 Learning Eskimo Drumming. Anchorage: National
Bilingual Materials Development Ctr.
Koranda, Lorraine
1972 Alaskan Eskimo Songs and Stories. Seattle: University
of Washington Press.
Larsen, Helge, and Froelich Rainey
1948 Ipiutak and the Arctic Whale Hunting Culture. New
York. (Anthropological Papers, American Museum of
Natural History, 42)
Murdoch, John
1892 Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition.
Washington. (9th Annual Report, Bureau of American
Ethnology)
Spencer, Robert
1959 The North Alaskan Eskimo. Washington. (Bureau of
Ethnology, Bulletin, 171)
Van Valin, William
1941 Eskimoland Speaks. Caldwell: Caxton.
Anthropos 83.1988
FELDFORSCHUNG -
ENQUÊTE SUR LE TERRAIN
Bibliographie 1967-1981; Methoden und Erfahrungen;
Approches et expériences; VI—111 Seiten. 1982. s.Fr. 24,-
Reihe : STUDIA ETHNOGRAPHICA FRIBURGENSIA, Band 9
INHALT - TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Hugo Huber und Maria Theresia Zurrôn-Krummenacher
Feldforschung - Enquête sur le terrain. Bibliographie 1967-1981
Jean Bonvin
Techniques d’approche anthropologique au moyen des proverbes
en Afrique Centrale
Micheline Centlivres-Demont
Ethnologue au féminin: Trois terrains, trois expériences
Meinhard Schuster
Feldforschung als Gruppenarbeit
Serge Tornay
La dimension cognitive dans la démarche ethnographique
Universitàtsverlag Freiburg Schweiz
Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse
University Press Fribourg Switzerland
Anthropos 83.1988: 173-185
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
Gerhard Schlatter
Abstract. - Australian Aborigines today exercise strong re-
serve in respect to their religious sphere. Myth and ritual no
longer can be object of pure scientific research through white
scholars. This is an important progress with regard to self-de-
termination and self-consciousness for the own tradition.
However, the new and strong religious secrecy is based on
several anachronistic elements. The article seeks for reasons
of the present secrecy and in following its history shows the
way of a religion from the undogmatic claim to truth to the
ideologized justification of opinions. [Australian Aborigines,
Religion, Myth and Ritual, Secrecy]
Gerhard Schlatter, M. A. (1984); Feldforschung in Australien
1985-1986 (Stipendium der Studienstiftung des Deutschen
Volkes); 1986 Lehrbeauftragter am Institut für Völkerkunde
in München. - Veröffentlichungen: Bumerang und Schwirr-
holz - Eine Einführung in die traditionelle Kultur australi-
scher Aborigines (Berlin 1985); Artikel und Buchbesprechun-
gen in Arctic, American Anthropologist u. a.
Bei der Arbeit an den Mythen zentralaustrali-
scher Aborigines stößt man immer wieder an eine
sensible Grenze: den Geheimbereich. Am Aus-
tralian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra
gibt es einen Raum, der nur von dazu autorisier-
tem Personal betreten werden darf und in dem
nicht nur einzelne, besonders geheime Mythen
lagern, sondern ganze Dissertationen, Berichte
und Forschungsarbeiten. Sobald die Rede von
geheimen Zeremonien, Mythen oder Gegenstän-
den ist (und macht dies häufig auch nur einen
Bruchteil einer Arbeit aus), werden diese heute
unter Verschluß gehalten. Selbst für den Wissen-
schaftler ist es dann schwer, oft unmöglich, die
notwendigen Genehmigungen aller Autoren ein-
zuholen, um mit dem Material arbeiten zu kön-
nen. Und nicht nur am Institute of Aboriginal
Studies stößt man an derartige Grenzen. Überall
in Australien, sei es in Museen, Institutionen
oder einfach im Gespräch, gibt es immer wieder
den tabuisierten Bereich des Geheimen. Das war
nicht immer so. In der älteren Literatur und
besonders in frühen Filmen über Aborigines
spielte das Geheime keine oder nur eine sehr
zweitrangige Rolle. Um die Jahrhundertwende
war es durchaus möglich, daß Ethnologen ge-
heimste Rituale, auf deren Verrat die Todesstrafe
stand, sehen und sogar filmen konnten.
Auf der Suche nach Gründen für die heutige
Situation befindet man sich bald auf dem Weg
durch die Geschichte der Geheimhaltung. An
dieser Geschichte können die Veränderungen in
der Religion der Aborigines seit dem Beginn der
Kolonialisierung Australiens bis heute sehr gut
nach vollzogen werden. Man kann erkennen, in
welch zum Teil paradoxe Situationen und Be-
gründungen Aborigines im Lauf der Zeit mit der
zunehmenden Reflexion und Ideologisierung ih-
rer Religion, die im neuen Kontext der modernen
australischen Gesellschaft nicht ausbleiben konn-
te, gelangt sind, wie sie sich ihrer Religion ent-
fremdet haben, gerade dann, wenn sie sie am
heftigsten am Leben erhalten wollten.
I
Vom 28. März bis zum 9. April 1901 campten die
beiden, um die Jahrhundertwende bekanntesten,
australischen Ethnologen Spencer und Gillen in
Charlotte Waters, einer Telegraphenstation in
der Nähe der Grenze des Northern Territory zu
South Australia. Gillen arbeitete mehr als 20
Jahre lang im Zentrum Australiens für den Post-
und Telegraphendienst, hatte lange Zeit in Char-
lotte Waters gelebt1 und war als Sonderbeauftrag-
ter für die Angelegenheiten der Aborigines in
diesem Gebiet zuständig. Am Morgen des
29. März wurde ein Junge zu den in der Umge-
bung lebenden Aborigines geschickt, und Gillen
(1968: 14) bemerkt dazu: “. . . dispatched boy to
collect niggers during the morning . . .”. Selbst-
1 Gillen (1968: 14) bemerkt dazu in seinem Tagebuch:
“Looking out on the surroundings of this place with its
total absence of any sort of attractive scenery without or
social life within I marvel how I could have spent 12 years
here happily. Yet I did, years free from care of any sort
and of absolute content.”
174
Gerhard Schlatter
verständlich kamen die Aborigines, es wurden
Tonaufnahmen von “Corroboree Songs” ge-
macht, und die Aborigines wurden für einen der
folgenden Tage bestellt, an dem Spencer und
Gillen ihre Zeremonien filmen wollten. Im Tage-
bucheintrag vom 2. April können wir lesen:
“Weather cloudy and boisterous too much so to
permit of using the kinematograph. Blacks pre-
paring for an elaborate corroboree but we had to
arrange with them to put it off until the weather is
favourable.” Am 3. April schließlich gelingen die
Filmaufnahmen, die ersten übrigens, die von
Aborigines-Zeremonien gemacht wurden. “Dur-
ing the morning the blacks performed a sacred
rain dance called ‘kurnara’ which is one of the
ceremonial dances of the Intitchiuma or Rain
making ceremony. We succeeded in getting two
kinematograph records and a number of inter-
esting photographs” (Gillen 1968: 18). Am Nach-
mittag führten die Aborigines eine weitere sakra-
le Zeremonie auf, “Quatara Okranina of Okil-
chia”, die Zeremonie der großen Schlange von
Okilchia, die ebenfalls gefilmt wurde. Nach der
Zeremonie erwarb Gillen gegen eine Tüte Mehl,
etwas Tee, Zucker und Tabak die für die Auffüh-
rung benötigten Sakralgegenstände. Als Spencer
und Gillen am 9. April 1901, nach knapp 14
Tagen Aufenthalt, Charlotte Waters wieder ver-
ließen, um bis zum März des folgenden Jahres das
gesamte Northern Territory zu durchqueren und
ethnologisch zu erforschen, hatten sie weitere
Filme von sakralen Zeremonien, etliche Tonauf-
nahmen, jede Menge Photographien und zwei
Kisten voll mit Gegenständen und Zeremonial-
schmuck der Aborigines in ihrem Gepäck.
II
Aus diesen wenigen Tagebuchnotizen Gillens er-
gibt sich eine Szenerie, bei der wir ein wenig
verweilen wollen. Ganz im Gegensatz zu vielen
seiner Landsleute, die inzwischen die Aborigines
zwar nicht mehr wie Freiwild jagten oder bei
Strafexpeditionen wegen - oft unterstellter - Ver-
gehen ganze Camps ausrotteten (vgl. Rowley
1983: 71, 113, 158, 160 ff.), aber immer noch der
Überzeugung waren, dieser nicht erziehbaren und
früher oder später sowieso aussterbenden, im
Sinne Darwins früheren Form der menschlichen
Spezies als Angehörige einer höheren Rasse so-
wohl moralisch als auch intellektuell weit überle-
gen zu sein, hatte Gillen während seiner Tätigkeit
als Aborigines-Beauftragter ein tiefes Verständ-
nis für die Aborigines entwickelt und war ihnen
durchaus wohlgesonnen. Die Aborigines, die ihn
kannten, nannten ihn Oknirrabata, großer Mei-
ster. Dennoch war auch Gillens Einstellung in
vieler Hinsicht die eines Buschmannes und Gren-
zers, der von den “niggern” sprach, die man nur
einzusammeln brauchte, der zwei boys2 hielt, die
ihn bedienten und Hilfsarbeiten für die Expedi-
tion erledigten, und der, als er in unbekanntes
Gebiet kam, für den Fall eines Aborigines-
Angriffes sicherheitshalber sein Gewehr lud und
schußbereit hielt.3 Sein Verhältnis zu Aborigines
war nicht zimperlich, eher grob, und hatte die
Züge der Herr-Untergebenen-Beziehung. Den-
noch konnte er sie einfach zu sich bestellen und
sie kamen. Er wollte Tonaufnahmen machen und
sie sangen, ohne daß es für sie einen Sinn ergeben
hätte, gerade zu dieser Zeit und an diesem Ort
“Corroboree-Songs” zu singen. Mehr noch, sie
waren bereit, ihm und Spencer Zeremonien vor-
zuführen, die so sakral und geheim waren, daß
niemand, außer den voll initiierten Männern der
Gruppe, sie sehen oder darüber reden durfte. Die
Aufführung solcher Zeremonien hatte normaler-
weise einen ganz besonderen Anlaß: Entweder
diente sie zur Vermehrung des Totems oder sie
war der Höhepunkt von Initiationsritualen. Lan-
ge Vorbereitungen waren notwendig, die Männer
zogen sich zurück, sangen die Lieder der Totem-
Vorfahren und schmückten sich gegenseitig, in-
dem sie mit Blut, das sie ihren Venen entnommen
hatten, Flaumfedern von Vögeln auf ihre Körper
klebten. So vermischten sie allmählich ihre Iden-
tität mit der der Totem-Vorfahren und wurden
mehr und mehr Wesen ihrer Geschichte, der
Traumzeit. Inmitten solcher Vorbereitungen ka-
men die Forscher zu ihnen und gaben ihnen zu
verstehen, daß sie die Zeremonie an diesem Tag
nicht sehen wollten, da es zu bewölkt und stür-
misch sei. Man muß sich vergegenwärtigen, daß
Aborigines zu dieser Zeit nicht wissen konnten,
was ein Kinematograph war, die Gründe der
Ablehnung ihnen also weitgehend unverständlich
bleiben mußten. Trotzdem waren sie bereit, zu
einem späteren Zeitpunkt, zu dem es Gillen und
Spencer genehm war, erneut eine Zeremonie
vorzubereiten und dann aufzuführen. Für die
Filmaufnahmen mußten sie ihre Zeremonie nach
dem Stand der Sonne und dem Standort für jenen
2 Diese “boys” waren ausgewachsene Aborigine-Männer,
“I say boy but both are men” (Gillen 1968: 28).
3 “We are now in country in which the blacks have often
proved hostile and even now it is not wise to trust them
too far” (Gillen 1968: 98).
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
175
hölzernen Kasten auf drei Beinen - den Kinema-
tographen - richten, denn damals war es noch
nicht möglich, eine Kamera während des Film-
vorganges hin und her zu bewegen. Nach der
Zeremonie waren die Aborigines bereit, den
verwendeten Sakralschmuck herauszugeben, der
normalerweise aus Furcht, er könnte Nichtiniti-
ierten in die Hände fallen, abgebaut und zerstört
wurde, und gegen einige Güter von Gillen einzu-
tauschen. In weniger als 14 Tagen war es Spencer
und Gillen möglich geworden, in sakrale Geheim-
nisse von Menschen einzudringen, deren Interes-
se für das Materielle so gering war, daß sie kaum
etwas besaßen. Jene sakralen Geheimnisse waren
das höchste Gut ihrer Existenz, ihres sozialen
Daseins.
III
Ein weiteres Beispiel: In den 30er Jahren führte
das South Australian Museum in Verbindung mit
dem Board for Anthropological Research der
University of Adelaide mehrere interdisziplinäre
Expeditionen ins Zentrum Australiens durch, mit
dem Ziel, das Leben der dortigen Aborigines auf
möglichst breiter Basis festzuhalten und zu unter-
suchen: anthropometrische Daten, Blutgruppen-
untersuchungen, genealogische Listen, Fotogra-
fien, Ton- und Filmaufnahmen etc. wurden in
eigens dafür vorbereiteten Basislagern aufgenom-
men. Die Nachricht derartiger Expeditionen wur-
de im jeweiligen Gebiet verbreitet, und bei An-
kunft der Forscher erwarteten die Aborigines sie
zumeist schon. Dann aber hatte die Arbeit
schnell über die Bühne zu gehen, möglichst inner-
halb von zehn Tagen, da “. . . previous experi-
ence had taught that our aborigines, while enjoy-
ing the novelty at first, soon tire of intensive
work” (Tindale 1933: 99).
1933 arbeitete N. B. Tindale als Expeditions-
ethnologe in Ernabella, Musgrave Ranges. Und
wie Spencer und Gillen 30 Jahre früher war es
auch ihm möglich, in sehr kurzer Zeit als Frem-
der Zugang zu geheimen Zeremonien zu erhal-
ten, die innerhalb der Aborigines-Gesellschaft für
viele tabu, nur den initiierten Männern zugäng-
lich waren. Tindale sah und filmte die Männer auf
dem von Frauen und Kindern entfernten, abge-
schirmten Zeremonialplatz, wie sie im Kreis sit-
zend, mit ihren Schlagstöcken in schnellem
Rhythmus den Takt schlagend, die zur Zeremo-
nie gehörenden Lieder sangen, wie sie die gehei-
men Fadenkreuze - den Zermonialkopfschmuck
- herstellten, sich mit Blut und Daunenfedern
schmückten, wie sie tanzend die verschiedenen
Szenen der in den Mythen festgehaltenen Traum-
zeit darstellten, wie sie schließlich, auf dem Hö-
hepunkt der Zeremonie, Blut aus ihrem subinzi-
dierten Penis auf den Zeremonialgrund träufeln
ließen.
Noch bis in die 60er Jahre war es Ethnolo-
gen, vor allem in von der weißen Zivilisation
weiter entfernt liegenden Gebieten, immer wie-
der möglich, an derartigen hochsakralen und
geheimsten Zeremonien der Aborigines teilzu-
nehmen. Dann aber und erst allmählich änderte
sich dies. Heute fühlen sich weiße Ethnologen
wie Spione behandelt, sie müssen ihre Feldfor-
schungen vor Land Councils und Legal Aid Ser-
vices rechtfertigen; sie bemühen sich deshalb, ge-
heimes, ihnen anvertrautes Wissen aus ihren Bü-
chern herauszuhalten oder es, sollten die Bücher
Neuauflagen früher geschriebener sein, nun zu
eliminieren; ja, ganze Bücher wurden vom Ver-
lag, wie im Fall von Mountfords “Nomads of the
Australian Desert”, vom Markt gezogen, weil
Pitjantjatjara bestimmte Geheimnisse verraten
sahen; im Australian Institute of Aboriginal
Studies (AIAS) in Canberra gibt es eine gan-
ze Abteilung von Schriften, die geheim sind und
nicht oder nur mit besonderer Erlaubnis eingese-
hen werden dürfen, und schließlich empfiehlt das
AIAS sogar, Worte der Aborigines für Grund-
stücks- und Ortsnamen nur zu verwenden, nach-
dem eine Erlaubnis bei den zuständigen Aborigi-
nes eingeholt wurde (vgl. Bell 1983: 9; R. and C.
Berndt 1985: X; AIAS Library Notes 1983). Was
war geschehen?
IV
Um dies zu beantworten, müssen wir zuerst
andere Fragen stellen: Wie war es möglich, daß
Spencer und Gillen und später andere Ethnolo-
gen überhaupt Zutritt zum geheimen Wissen und
zu geheimen Zeremonien bekamen? Warum wa-
ren bestimmtes Wissen und bestimmte Dinge
geheim? Und - wie geheim waren sie?
Geheim wird etwas dadurch, daß nur be-
stimmte Personen Zugang zum jeweilig Gehei-
men haben, andere also ausgeschlossen sind. Man
kann entweder die Gruppe, die Zugang zum
Geheimen hat, oder die Gruppe, die ausgeschlos-
sen ist, nennen. Äußert man sich heute zum
Bereich des geheimen Wissens und geheimer
Rituale bei den Aborigines, so kann man diesen
Bereich nicht mehr stillschweigend nur den Män-
nern zuordnen. Lange Zeit war aufgrund der
Anthropos 83.1988
176
Gerhard Schlatter
allein von Männern durchgeführten ethnologi-
schen Forschung nur dieser Bereich bekannt, da
das streng geschlechtsspezifische Rollenverhalten
in der Gesellschaft der Aborigines eine selbstän-
dige Kommunikation zwischen Ethnologen und
Aborigines-Frauen nicht ermöglichte und auch
von seiten der meisten Ethnologen kein Interesse
dafür vorhanden war. Kaberry (1939) legte als
erste Ethnologin eine Studie über das Leben der
Frauen vor, und sie zeigte, wie inzwischen viele
Untersuchungen4, daß auch Frauen ein intensives
Zeremonialleben führten, von dem Männer in
vielen Bereichen ausgeschlossen waren. Wenn
allerdings die Berndts (1985: 297) heute vermit-
teln, daß der Zeremonialbereich der Frauen in
seiner Bedeutung dem der Männer keineswegs
nachstand, so stellen sie die ethnographischen
Fakten doch auf den Kopf.5 Es war die Aufgabe
der Männer, mit ihren Ritualen die in der end-
und zeitlosen Traumzeit geschaffene Ordnung der
Welt aufrechtzuerhalten und deren Fortdauer
sicherzustellen. Ich möchte hier auf die ganze,
teilweise von männlichem und weiblichem
Kampfgeist geprägte, Diskussion über Männer-
dominanz und Frauenunterdrückung nicht weiter
eingehen. Da Spencer und Gillen - wie auch die
meisten späteren Forscher - sich allein mit dem
Zeremonialleben der Männer beschäftigten, müs-
sen wir uns bei der Beantwortung unserer Fragen
sowieso auf den Geheimbereich der Männer kon-
zentrieren. Zu diesem Bereich gehörten Zeremo-
nien, Mythen, Lieder, sakrale Gegenstände (z. B.
tjurungä), Sakralplätze usw.
V
Beginnen wir mit der letzten Frage: Wie geheim
war dieser Bereich? Hier müssen wir zuerst ein-
mal festhalten, daß nicht alles Geheime überall
gleich geheim war. Ohne darauf eingehen zu
können, was genau wo geheim war (diese Frage
läßt sich so allgemein gar nicht beantworten und
würde, wollte man ins Detail gehen, eine lange
Liste von Definitionen ergeben, was noch als
geheim eingestuft werden muß und was nicht
4 Zur neuesten, großangelegten Untersuchung dieser Art,
siehe Bell 1983.
5 In ihrem Angriff gegen Maddock zitierten sie diesen
außerdem falsch. Maddock (1972: 146) hatte nicht von
der religiösen Ignoranz der Frauen gesprochen, wie die
Berndts (1985; 295) ihm unterstellen, sondern davon, daß
Frauen von Angelegenheiten, die die Gesellschaft als
ganze betreffen und die Männer in ihren Ritualen behan-
deln, nichts wissen.
mehr dazu gehört - Kategorien, die letztendlich
mehr dem Gehirn der Ethnologen entsprängen,
als daß sie mit der Lebenswirklichkeit der Abori-
gines zu tun hätten), können wir doch Unter-
schiede hinsichtlich des Geheimnisgrades, also
des Zugangs zu Geheimnissen zwischen einer
Gruppe und der anderen, zwischen Männern und
Frauen, zwischen Initiierten und Nichtinitiierten,
zwischen Jung und Alt, allgemein feststellen.
Abhängig von Gesellschaft, Geschlecht, Reife
und Alter waren bestimmtes Wissen und be-
stimmte Dinge für eine Person mehr oder weni-
ger geheim.
Es muß auch unterschieden werden zwischen
„Wissen“ und „Wissen-dürfen“. Sehr häufig war
es zum Beispiel so, daß ältere Frauen durchaus
sehr viel aus dem Geheimbereich der Männer
wußten. Nur war es ihnen nicht erlaubt, dies auch
öffentlich zu äußern. Sie durften ihr Wissen also
offiziell nicht wissen. Ebenso hatten Männer kein
Recht, geheime sakrale Verse, die im Besitz eines
anderen Mannes waren, vorzutragen, obwohl sie
sie kannten. Wissen war Besitz und aus diesem
Besitz entstand Macht (dazu weiter unten). Nur
wer bestimmtes Wissen besaß, durfte dieses Wis-
sen dann im jeweils festgelegten Zusammenhang
auch äußern.
Howard Morphy6 hält die Unterscheidung
von öffentlichem und geheimem Wissen als sol-
che für eine zu starke Vereinfachung der Reali-
tät, da geheimes Wissen öffentlich und öffent-
liches Wissen geheim werden kann, sowohl im
Lauf der Zeit7 wie auch im Leben eines Einzel-
nen, durch die lange dauernde Initiation, das
ständige Lernen. Er bevorzugt deshalb das Kon-
zept des “inside and outside System of knowl-
edge”. Dabei ist das, was “inside”- und “out-
side”-Wissen ausmacht, relativ. “Inside”-Wissen
ist nicht notwendigerweise geheim, “inside” und
“outside” sind abhängig vom jeweiligen Wissens-
Standort einer Person. Man erkennt eine Art
Wissenshierarchie, die in Form chinesischer
Schachteln (eine sitzt immer wieder in der näch-
sten) in immer tiefere resp. geheimere Bereiche
führt. Dabei wird ehemaliges “inside”-Wissen mit
jedem weiteren Öffnen einer Schachtel zum “out-
side”.
6 In einem Vortrag im November 1985; vgl. auch Morphy
1978: 210, 1980: 29 ff.
7 Kingsley Palmer wies mich in diesem Zusammenhang auf
das Beispiel des Lake DeyDey hin. DeyDey war seit
langer Zeit unangefochten der Name für dieses Gebiet,
neuerdings jedoch zählen Aborigines dieses Wort zu den
“restricted sacred words” und nannten das Areal nun
Oak Valley.
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
177
Zweitens: Das Geheime gehört in erster
Linie zum Bereich des Sakralen, aber keineswegs
ist alles Sakrale geheim! Nur ein bestimmter Teil
der sakralen Tradition der Aborigines kann als
absolut geheim betrachtet werden, und, wie
schon erwähnt, bestehen hinsichtlich der Einstu-
fung des Geheimen große Unterschiede, gibt es
keine überall geltende Übereinstimmung unter
den Aborigines, was als geheim zu gelten hat und
was nicht. So ist zum Beispiel die Verwendung
konzentrischer Kreise, die eindeutig zum Sa-
kralbereich gehören, auf Ölgemälden, die heute
öffentlich an Kunstliebhaber und Touristen ver-
kauft werden, für die Maler aus Papunya - einer
Siedlung im Zentrum Australiens, nordwestlich
der MacDonnell Ranges - keineswegs ein Verge-
hen gegen das Geheimhaltungsgebot, für die
traditionell lebenden Bewohner der westlichen
Wüste aber sehr wohl.8 Der Grad des Geheimen,
also wie geheim etwas ist, ist jedoch auch inner-
halb einer Gesellschaft oft nur schwer auszuma-
chen, und häufig sind die Bereiche des Geheim-
Sakralen, des „Nichtgeheim“-Sakralen und des
Profanen eng miteinander verwoben,9 mengen-
theoretisch würden sie sich als Teilmengen
schneiden und Schnittmengen bilden. Das Sakra-
le ist zwar der Bereich des Geheimen, das Gehei-
me ist jedoch nur ein Teil des Sakralbereiches.
Drittens: Es besteht heute sowohl unter Wei-
ßen als auch unter Aborigines eine erhebliche
Verwirrung darüber, wie geheim bestimmte sa-
krale Angelegenheiten sind, was zum Bereich des
Geheim-Sakralen gehört. Man kann heute häufig
die Neigung erkennen, den gesamten religiösen
Bereich der Aborigines dem Geheimen zuzuord-
nen. Hier ein Beispiel10 11; Eine Journalistin wurde
in Noonkanbah - dem Ort der langen Auseinan-
dersetzung zwischen Aborigines und der Mining
Industry in den Kimberleys11 - an die vorgesehe-
ne Baustelle geführt. Später wurde sie von einem
weißen Lehrer dort scharf angegriffen, der der
Meinung war, es würde unmöglich zu beweisen
sein, daß es sich bei der Stelle um einen Sa-
kralplatz handele, wenn bekannt würde, daß eine
Frau dort gewesen sei. Fortan wurde weiblichen
Journalisten der Zutritt zu dem Areal verwehrt.
8 Diese Information gab mir Prof. Robert Tonkinson.
9 Vgl. Elkin 1974: 9, der feststellt, daß dieselben Muster,
die profane Gegenstände zieren, auch auf sakralen zu
finden sind.
10 Auf den hier beschriebenen Vorfall wies mich Penny
Taylor hin.
11 Zur Geschichte dieses Konflikts siehe Vincent 1983:
327-338.
(Ethnologen sind an dieser Entwicklung mögli-
cherweise nicht ganz unschuldig; dazu komme ich
später.) Die Gleichsetzung von Sakralem und
Geheimem, die im Englischen durch die fast
gleichlautende Aussprache dieser Worte (“sa-
cred” und “secret”) oft geradezu provoziert wird,
führte in diesem Fall dazu, daß eine Sakralstelle
geheim wurde, die dies bisher nicht war. Wir
müssen also zwischen der Situation heute und der
Situation zur Zeit Spencers und Gillens unter-
scheiden. Vorläufig - solange wir wissen wollen,
warum Spencer und Gillen so leicht Zutritt zum
Geheimen fanden - genügt es, in der Vergangen-
heit zu fragen. Zur Analyse, was seitdem bis
heute geschehen ist, kommen wir dann ganz von
selbst auf die Gegenwart zurück.
Nach diesen langen Vorbemerkungen, die
nötig waren, um den Kontext, in dem wir uns
bewegen, zu verdeutlichen, nun zum kurzen Kern
der Frage: Wie geheim war das Geheime? Der
männliche Bereich des Sakralen, der geheim war,
veranlaßte Frauen, ihr Camp abzubrechen und an
weiter entfernter Stelle aufzuschlagen, falls der
Wind geheime Sakrallieder der Männer in ihren
Hörbereich trug; Kinder und Frauen rannten in
Panik davon, sollten sie ein Schwirrholz hören;
Frauen machten Riesenumwege, um nicht auf
einem Sakralplatz der Männer plötzlich auf sakra-
le Gegenstände zu stoßen und sie zu sehen;
Initianden insbesondere, aber auch jedem initiier-
ten Mann drohte die Todesstrafe, sollte er das
Sakrileg begehen, etwas aus dem Geheimbereich
an Nichtinitiierte zu verraten; Nichtinitiierten
schließlich war es bei Todesstrafe verboten, pas-
siv Informationen aus dem geheimen Sakralbe-
reich zu erlangen, geschweige denn aktiv in ihn
einzudringen.12 Das Geheime war also so geheim,
daß es mit der schärfsten Sanktion menschlicher
Strafmethoden belegt war. Spencer und Gillen
(wie auch spätere Forscher, z. B. Tindale, s. o.)
hatten also Zugang zu einem Bereich, dessen
unerlaubtes Betreten aufgrund seines Geheimgra-
des ein Mitglied der Gesellschaft selbst nicht
überlebte.
VI
Wir kommen zur zweiten Frage; Warum waren
bestimmtes Wissen und bestimmte Dinge ge-
heim? Die emische Antwort darauf wäre, daß das
12 Vgl. Berndt 1965:277; Strehlow 1970: 117ff.; Maddock
1972: 115, 151 f.; Röheim 1932: 68; Kolig 1982: 21.
Anthropos 83.1988
178
Gerhard Schlatter
Geheime durch die gewaltige Potenz, Energie
und Stärke, die es enthält, so gefährlich ist, daß
Nichtinitiierte krank davon werden, ja sogar dar-
an sterben können.13 So gültig eine derartige
Antwort innerhalb eines Systems ist, und so sehr
sie uns als eine Antwort von Aborigines, deren
Gründe für ihr Verhalten gegenüber Ethnologen
wir erfahren möchten, genügen könnte, so
kommt uns, die wir die Erklärungen der Aborigi-
nes von außen betrachten, diese Antwort doch
ungenügend vor.
Im Englischen sprechen Aborigines, wenn
sie diese gefährliche Energie meinen, von “pow-
er”. Das Geheime ist also begründet in seiner
“power”. Kann man diese Kausalbeziehung aber
nicht auch umkehren? “Power” ist begründet im
Geheimen, oder: gesellschaftliche Macht entsteht
dadurch, daß es bestimmtes Wissen gibt, das
nicht für alle zugänglich, also geheim ist. In der
Tat ist dies heute eine Binsenweisheit: „Wissen
ist Macht“. Obwohl unsere Gesellschaft diesen
Satz manchmal Lügen straft, und viele Wissende
der Dummheit einiger Mächtiger machtlos gegen-
überstehen, so hatte der Satz doch in einer Ge-
sellschaft, in der das Materielle so gering ge-
schätzt und alle Energie auf das Geistige ausge-
richtet war (vgl. Jones 1977: 189 ff.; Schiatter
1985: 11 f.), überragende Bedeutung. Für Abori-
gines war religiöses Wissen Macht und in seiner
ganzen Komplexität nur für einige wenige privile-
gierte Männer erwerbbar. Wissen war ein wert-
voller Besitz und darüber hinaus eine der weni-
gen Formen von Eigentum bei den Aborigines.
Bestimmte Mythen, Lieder und Zeremonien
konnten nur mit der Erlaubnis des Eigentümers
erzählt oder aufgeführt werden. Die Männer
wachten sorgsam darüber, daß die Regeln einge-
halten wurden und daß Wissen nur an die Mitglie-
der der Gesellschaft weitergegeben wurde, die
die hierfür notwendigen Bedingungen erfüllten.14 *
Das hatte seinen Grund: Der Wert von Dingen
und auch von Wissen steigt mit seiner Rarität, mit
den Hürden der Erwerbbarkeit (je höher, desto
wertvoller). Der Wert vermindert sich proportio-
nal zur Verfügbarkeit. (Daß dieser, im ersten
13 Vgl. White 1975: 133; Bell 1983:30; Berndt 1985:291.
Man fragt sich natürlich, warum Spencer und Gillen u. a.
nicht krank wurden; siehe unten.
14 Neben Wohlverhalten gegenüber den rituellen Führern
und Respektierung der „Gesetze“ der Gruppe (wie z. B.
Heiratsregeln) war Initiation eine dieser Bedingungen.
Zu dem damit verbundenen Schmerz und der dann
folgenden Wissensvermittlung siehe Schiatter 1985:
260 f.
Augenblick so profan erscheinende, Zusammen-
hang von religiösem Wissen und Wert nicht aus
der Luft gegriffen ist, zeigt sich zum Beispiel
daran, daß Aborigines heute geheime Zeremo-
nien „verkaufen“, für Vorführungen Geld verlan-
gen; vgl. Bell 1983: 27; Kolig 1981: 131.) Religiö-
ses Wissen also, das nur von einigen wenigen
gewußt und von anderen ferngehalten wurde, war
deshalb von besonderem Wert, weil es geheim
war, und umgekehrt, oder, in direkter Beantwor-
tung unserer Frage, das Wissen war geheim auf-
grund seines Wertes und der sich daraus ergeben-
den Macht.
Diese etische Antwort, die wir als Außen-
stehende geben können, ist jedoch nur eine von
vielen möglichen. Ich möchte eine zweite Ant-
wort anführen, die vom allgemein-gesellschaftli-
chen Bereich (Macht durch Besitz) weg und auf
den individuell-persönlichen Bereich (Macht
durch Sein) hinführt. Hiatt (1971: 77-88) entwik-
kelte in Anlehnung an Bettelheims (1954) Idee
des männlichen Neides auf weibliche Fortpflan-
zungsfähigkeiten (die Frauen gebären die Kinder)
die Theorie, daß bestimmte Rituale der Männer
den Fortpflanzungsvorgang der Frauen imitieren
und so, durch die Erweiterung männlicher Mei-
sterschaft in Bereiche, in denen Frauen die natür-
liche Überlegenheit besitzen, schöpferische,
männliche Macht sicherstellen (siehe auch White
1978: 44 f.). Der Erfolg dieses Kunstgriffes hängt
davon ab, wie gut es den Männern gelingt, sich
selbst irrezuführen und, durch Geheimhaltung,
die Frauen sowohl zu mystifizieren als auch ein-
zuschüchtern. Ich werde auf diesen anregenden
Artikel von Hiatt (1971) im nächsten Abschnitt
zurückkommen; hier möchte ich festhalten, daß
Männer durch Geheimhaltung, erstens, sich
selbst vor Zweifeln an der Wahrheit der den
Ritualen zugrundeliegenden Annahmen schütz-
ten, indem sie diese nicht mehr in Frage stellten
und stellen mußten, und, zweitens, eine nach
außen (gegenüber Nichtinitiierten) abgesicherte
Gruppe bilden konnten, die ihre Stärke auf die
durch das Geheime entstehende interne Bindung
stützte; oder: Das Geheime war geheim, weil
ausgedachte und schwierige Behauptungen der
männlichen Allvorherrschaft - auch in Gebieten,
wo Frauen natürlicherweise eine besondere Stel-
lung haben (Geburt) - sowohl nach außen als
auch nach innen dadurch aufrechterhalten wer-
den konnten.
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
179
VII
Es gab verschiedene Gründe, das Geheime ge-
heim zu halten. Angriffe bzw. Übertretungen des
Geheimhaltungsgebots waren mit der Todesstrafe
sanktioniert - und doch konnten Ethnologen sich
immer wieder Zutritt verschaffen. Wie war das
möglich? Kehren wir zu Spencer und Gillen und
unserer ersten Frage zurück. Ich möchte einige
miteinander verwobene Thesen aufstellen, die als
Antwort wiederum nur ein Aspekt der in histori-
schem Kontext stehenden und vergangenen Situa-
tion sein können:
1) Frauen leisten mit der Geburt von Kindern
aktiv etwas, was für den Fortbestand einer Grup-
pe lebensnotwendig ist. Sie erlangen dadurch eine
wichtige, eine starke Position. Männer, die in
dieser Hinsicht passiv und vollkommen von den
Frauen abhängig sind, haben eine schwache Posi-
tion. Diese - für die ansonsten gesellschaftlich
und physisch starken Männer - unerträgliche
Situation wurde in geheimen Ritualen (“we have
a secret phallus that functions like an uterus”,
Röheim 1945: 198) umgekehrt und mit aggressi-
ver Geheimhaltung gegen die Frauen, die nun
wieder in jeder Hinsicht die Schwachen waren,
gerichtet.15 Wenn nun weiße Männer mit ihrer
durch die materielle Überlegenheit offensichtli-
chen Stärke auftauchten, so bedrohten sie die
Stärke der Aborigines-Männer auf eine ganz an-
dere Weise, als durch die Fähigkeit zur Geburt
von Kindern, gegen die das Geheime gerichtet
war. Es machte also keinen Sinn, sich durch das
Vorenthalten des Geheimen gegen sie, gegen ihre
Waffen, wehren zu wollen.
2) Männer, nicht die Frauen mit ihrer Fähigkeit
zur Geburt von Kindern, stellten die männliche
Stärke und Allvorherrschaft in Frage. Es waren
die Männer selbst, die sich mit ihren durch die
Gebärfähigkeit der Frauen entstandenen Potenz-
zweifeln in Frage stellten. So gesehen waren alle
Männer - auch weiße - „Leidensgenossen“, und
es machte Sinn, sie ins Geheime einzuweihen.
Vor allem war es dadurch möglich, eine eigene,
im besonderen Wissen begründete, Stärke zu
zeigen, die die Ebenbürtigkeit mit den Weißen
und ihrer Stärke wiederherstellte.
15 Wie Frauen sich wiederum dagegen wehrten, kommt in
der Aussage einer Aborigine-Frau zum Ausdruck, die
gegenüber Annette Hamilton eine Zeremonie der Män-
ner als “man’s rubbish” bezeichnete und sagte: “men
make secret ceremonies, women make babies” (vgl. Hiatt
1971: 88, n. 18).
3) Weiße hatten mit ihren Gewehren eine Sank-
tionsmöglichkeit, die alles bisher Dagewesene
übertraf. Die Fähigkeit, ihnen gegenüber das
Geheime durchzusetzen, war nicht vorhanden.
Denn, fragt man, wie das Geheime geheim blei-
ben konnte, so kommt man auf die Sanktion der
Todesstrafe. Diese war aber nur gegenüber
Schwächeren durchsetzbar. Über die weißen
Männer hatten die Aborigines keine Macht, im
Gegenteil, diese hatten die Macht über sie. Wenn
ein Weißer rufen ließ, so lehrte eine schreckliche
Erfahrung, daß es nur zwei Möglichkeiten gab:
Entweder man folgte dem Ruf, oder man flüchte-
te. Im speziellen Fall von Gillen konnte man dem
Ruf folgen, denn er war ein „Freund“ der Abori-
gines.16
4) Waren der Weißen, ihre materiellen Güter,
waren durch die Macht, die sie diesen Menschen
verliehen, beeindruckend und mit dem Wissen
der Aborigines, das ihre Machtgrundlage war,
vergleichbar. Daher und in der Erkenntnis, daß
das Geheime die Macht der Aborigines-Männer
zwar gegenüber den eigenen Frauen sicherstellen
konnte, nicht jedoch gegenüber Weißen, bot sich
die Möglichkeit des Tausches. Gillen und spätere
Ethnologen „bezahlten“ den Zugang zum Gehei-
men mit Mehl, Tee, Tabak, Decken usw., Gü-
tern, die in der veränderten Situation wichtig
geworden waren.
5) Selbstachtung wird durch Unterwerfung in
Frage gestellt. Die Preisgabe des geheimen Wis-
sens durch die Aborigines, das Eindringen von
Weißen in die Sakralsphäre ihrer Jahrtausende
alten Traditionen, war für die Aborigines-Männer
objektiv ein Akt der Unterwerfung. Es gibt ver-
schiedene Möglichkeiten, subjektiv aus einer sol-
chen Situation einen Ausweg und die Selbstach-
tung wiederzufinden. Aborigines taten dies, in-
dem sie annahmen, daß diese Weißen, die so
gierig nach ihren Geheimnissen lechzten, so weit
von wahrer menschlicher Existenz entfernt wä-
ren, daß es überhaupt nichts veränderte, wenn
ihnen das Geheime verraten wurde. Stanner
(1972: 49) schreibt zur Sichtweise der Aborigines
über die Weißen: “From their point of view we
were men from Mars. It was a nightmarish world
16 Im Zusammenhang damit, wie wenig strikt Weißen ge-
genüber Wissen und Dinge geheimgehalten wurden, sie-
he auch Porteus (1931), der den Aborigines einfach
Bilder mit Sakralgegenständen aus Büchern zeigte, wor-
auf sie ihm große Macht zuerkannten und ihm ihrerseits,
wohl um selbst mithalten zu können, ihre geheimsten
Dinge zeigten.
Anthropos 83.1988
180
Gerhard Schlatter
in which every code of communication and trans-
action between people was made topsy-turvy.
Incidentally ... an aboriginal folklore about us
came into existence. Some of it is comical - that
we have no morals, and that our marriage system
is incestous; some of it is sardonic - that we are
‘like sharks,’ meaning that we pursue land, mon-
ey and goods as sharks pursue little fish; some of
it is perhaps very near the bone - as one old man
said to me; ‘You are very clever people, very
hard people, plenty humbug.’” Solchen Wesen
konnte man ohne Folgen für sie, für sich und das
religiöse System geheimes Wissen weitergeben.17
Gefährlich wurde es nur, wenn Menschen - also
Aborigines, die nicht dazu befugt waren, die
Geheimnisse erfuhren. Aus emischer Sicht war
diese Annahme gar nicht so falsch, wie wir
vielleicht annehmen. Denn die Weißen hielten
die Geheimnisse ja tatsächlich für folgenlose Ge-
schichten, sie glaubten nicht daran.
VIII
Wir müssen es den Historikern überlassen, genau
festzustellen, wann und wie Aborigines began-
nen, eine in der europäisch-australischen Gesell-
schaft so wirkungsvolle Politik zu betreiben, daß
Veränderungen, die sie wollten und die in ihrem
Sinn lagen, eintraten, und was diese Politik aus-
machte. Es ist uns aber möglich, bestimmte Er-
eignisse und Daten in dieser Hinsicht als Wende-
punkte oder Schnittstellen zu benennen, obwohl
die geschichtliche Gesamtentwicklung zur heuti-
gen Aborigines-Politik als Prozeß begriffen wer-
den muß.
Einverstanden waren sie nie, gewehrt haben
sich die Aborigines schon immer. Seit 1788, dem
Beginn der weißen Besiedlung Australiens, wehr-
ten sich Aborigines gegen die weißen Eindring-
linge, insbesondere gegen die Landnahme der
neuen Australier. Nachdem der Gouverneur Phil-
lip noch bei der Ankunft im Januar 1788 die
Theorie einer friedlichen Freundschaft zwischen
Weißen und Aborigines verkündete und sich
nicht auf seine militärische Überlegenheit stützen
wollte, damit die Aborigines eine „hohe Meinung
über ihre neuen Gäste“ (vgl. Stanner 1972: 7)
bekommen konnten, läßt er schon im Oktober
1788 aus Angst vor ihnen auf die Aborigines
17 Vgl. Bell 1983: 30; Weiße starben auch nicht, wenn sie
Geheimes sahen, vgl. oben.
feuern, um sie davon abzuhalten, zu nahe an
seine Siedlungen zu kommen. Im September 1790
wird Phillip bei einem Zusammenstoß mit Abori-
gines durch einen Speerwurf fast getötet, und
Ende 1790 stirbt sein persönlicher Jäger, M’Enti-
re, gespeert an der Botany Bay. Nun will Phillip
Blut sehen, und die erste Strafexpedition der
australischen Geschichte geht ins Land, diesmal
noch erfolglos, die Aborigines waren gut getarnt.
Über ein Jahrhundert lang findet nun auch in
Australien der Weltkrieg der Kolonisation statt,
und trotz einer Todesstrafe, die zehn Aborigines
für jeden getöteten Weißen veranschlagte (vgl.
Lippmann 1981: 47), dauerte der Guerilla-Krieg
bis in die 30er Jahre unseres Jahrhunderts fort.
Allmählich änderte sich aber die Taktik des
Widerstandes; 1938 fand die erste moderne De-
monstration der Aborigines statt, als sie in einer
Halle in Sydney einen Gedenk- und Trauertag
zur 150. Jährung des Beginns der weißen Besied-
lung Australiens veranstalteten. Als Ende der
60er Jahre die Aborigines von Yirrkala auf der
Gove-Halbinsel des Northern Territory gericht-
lich gegen die Nabalco Pty Ltd. vorgingen, die
auf ihrem Land eine Bauxit-Mine eröffnen woll-
te, verloren sie das Verfahren zwar, aber ein
anderer Kampf war gewonnen. Die neugewählte
Whitlam-Labour-Regierung setzte Ende 1972
eine Aboriginal Land Rights Commission ein, die
nicht herausfinden sollte, ob es Landrechte gebe
oder nicht, sondern wem und wie sie vergeben
werden sollten. Früher in demselben Jahr hatte
ein anderes Ereignis großes Publikums- und Me-
dieninteresse erregt. Aborigines hatten auf dem
Rasen vor dem Parlament in Canberra eine eige-
ne Botschaft, die “Tent Embassy” errichtet. Die-
se Botschaft symbolisierte den Status der Abori-
gines in Australien sehr deutlich; Sie waren von
der weißen Gesellschaft Ausgestoßene, “fringe
dwellers”, Zaungäste, Randbewohner, viele arm,
krank und verloren in einer Welt, die nicht die
ihre war. Als die Polizei die Botschaft nach
einigen Monaten am 20. Juli 1972 gewaltsam
räumte, war das Presseinteresse wieder groß.
Aborigines hatten inzwischen einen Nachrichten-
wert, sie waren politikfähig und politikbrauchbar
geworden. Mitbeeinflußt durch das seit Ende der
60er Jahre stetig gewachsene, auch internationale
Interesse an der Situation der Aborigines in
Australien, waren Politiker nun sensibilisiert, Ab-
origines waren für ihre Wähler zu einem Thema
geworden. Die Assimilationspolitik seit dem
Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges, mit der aus Ab-
origines so schnell wie möglich schwarze Weiße
gemacht werden sollten, war gescheitert, und
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
181
eine ernsthafte, gegenseitige Kommunikation
mußte nun auf genommen werden.
IX
Der kurze Blick in die Geschichte sollte dazu
dienen, die Veränderungen in den Beziehungen
zwischen den alten und den neuen Australiern zu
veranschaulichen, und es ist uns nun möglich,
noch einmal unsere Ausgangsfrage zu stellen:
Was war geschehen, als das Geheime für Weiße
wieder geheim wurde?
Seit den 60er Jahren haben mehr und mehr
Aborigines ihre zurückgezogene und oft abhängi-
ge Lebensweise aufgegeben und sind in die urba-
nen Zentren des Landes gezogen. Unabhängig
von der Frage, ob sie dort in neue Abhängigkeits-
verhältnisse kamen, bot sich ihnen doch eine
Möglichkeit der Interaktion, wie sie bisher unter
den weit verstreut lebenden Gruppen nicht mög-
lich war. Und aus diesen Lebensumständen er-
wuchsen Persönlichkeiten, die bis heute den
Kampf der Aborigines anführen. Während noch
1961 nur 23,3 % aller Aborigines in den Städten
(vgl. Rowley 1983: 381), die Mehrzahl der Abori-
gines jedoch außerhalb der Zentren und in den
Reservaten und Missionsstationen lebte, so waren
es 1971 - der Zeit des Nabalco-Konflikts und der
“Tent Embassy” - schon 44,3 % der Aborigines,
die in den Städten lebten, 55,7 % lebten auf dem
Land (vgl. Smith 1980: 248). Heute wohnt die
Mehrzahl aller Aborigines in den Städten
(75,5 %), nur noch weniger als ein Viertel
(24,5 %) lebt auf dem Land (Dept. of Aboriginal
Affairs. Newsletter [Statistical Section] 11.1981:
13). Aborigines kauften Autos, begannen zu rei-
sen, beherrschten die englische Sprache, lasen
Bücher, lernten, sich in der Gesellschaft der
Weißen zu artikulieren und schließlich, in der
Kenntnis der Werte und Mechanismen dieser
Gesellschaft, sich Gehör zu verschaffen. Die all-
gemeine Mobilität der Aborigines hat stark zuge-
nommen und der Kontakt mit der Welt der
Weißen wurde immer intensiver. Und nun ent-
deckten die Aborigines all ihre Geheimnisse in
den für jedermann zugänglichen Büchern der
Ethnologen und sahen die Konsequenzen. Alle
Aborigines - alle Menschen -, auch die Frauen
und nichtinitiierten Kinder, hatten Zugang zum
geheimen Wissen. Als Aborigines ihr geheimes
Wissen an Spencer und Gillen und spätere Ethno-
logen Weitergaben, machten sie sich keine Ge-
danken darüber, was damit geschah. Sie konnten
es auch nicht, denn dazu hätten sie den Wissen-
schaftsapparat und seine Funktion kennen müs-
sen. Die Wissenschaftler kannten diesen Apparat
natürlich, doch auch sie machten sich keine Ge-
danken darüber, und wollten sie als Ethnologen
Karriere machen, mußten sie in irgendeiner Wei-
se die Kultur ausbeuten.
Nach der Entdeckung der allgemeinen Zu-
gänglichkeit ihres geheimen Wissens forderten
Aborigines, daß das Geheime nun wieder geheim
gehalten werden müsse. Dieser Schritt ist einer-
seits verständlich, als bittere Reaktion auf den
empfundenen Verrat, andererseits aus mehreren
Gründen nicht folgerichtig;
1) Die Zeit ist nicht zurückzudrehen. Die Ent-
hüllungen des Geheimen sind auch weiterhin
jederzeit in den alten Büchern in fast allen Biblio-
theken der Erde nachlesbar.18
2) Traditionell war das Wissen, wie bereits er-
wähnt, von einer Gesellschaft zur anderen sehr
unterschiedlich beschränkt. Was z. B. in Teilen
Zentral-Australiens absolut geheim war (das Fa-
denkreuz), konnte an der Nordwestküste Au-
straliens von allen gesehen werden; Dinge, die in
einer Gesellschaft geheim sind, werden von einer
anderen heute an Touristen verkauft. Mit der
erhöhten Mobilität aller Aborigines kann es also
nicht ausbleiben, daß sich die einen von den
anderen verraten fühlen, obwohl die „Verräter“
nur das tun, was sie schon immer getan haben,
ohne je ihre eigenen Geheimgrenzen übertreten
zu haben. Diese Situation kann nun zur Folge
haben, daß heute in Gruppen bestimmtes Wissen
geheim werden muß, das nie geheim war, weil
der Druck der Nachbargruppen, die dasselbe
Wissen geheimhalten und sich deshalb als die
wahren Gesetzeshüter begreifen, sie dazu bringt.
Es besteht in der Tat die Tendenz, alles was
irgendwie mit der Religion der Aborigines zu
tun hat, heute als geheim zu klassifizieren -
ein Vorgang, der sehr deutlich die Entfremdung
und die Politisierung der Religion veranschau-
licht.19
3) Die seit Jahrzehnten mit den Aborigines be-
schäftigten Ethnologen C. und R. Berndt haben
18 Zum Beispiel Bücher wie Spencer und Gillens 1899 er-
schienenes Werk “The Native Tribes of Central Austra-
lia”, das jede Menge Abbildungen geheimer, sakraler Ri-
tuale enthält; ebenso ist Mountfords Buch in vielen Bi-
bliotheken zu finden.
19 Zum Druck von Nachbargruppen gab mir Prof. Nicolas
Peterson eine entsprechende Information bezüglich der
Pitjantjatjara; die Tendenz erwähnen ebenso C. and R.
Berndt 1985; X.
Anthropos 83.1988
182
Gerhard Schlatter
sich zwar dem neuen Trend angeschlossen, . .
to the best of our ability we have withheld
secret-sacred knowledge of detailed kind . . .
also, we do not include in this volume any
photographs of secret-sacred ritual ...” (1985:
Xf.), 0 doch sie bemerken auch, daß es notwen-
dig sei, zumindest einiges geheime Wissen mitzu-
teilen, da der völlige Ausschluß einer Würdigung
und jedem besseren Verständnis der Gesellschaft
und Kultur der Aborigines nur schaden würde.
4) Das Geheime wird keineswegs ganz geheim
gehalten. Bestimmte Ethnologen und weiße
Freunde werden auch heute noch eingeweiht.
Und das hat seinen Sinn, denn was nützen Ge-
heimnisse, von denen keiner weiß? Sie sind so gut
wie nicht existent.
Trotz dieser Gesichtspunkte muß es Gründe
geben, warum bis heute das Geheime in einer
bisher nicht dagewesenen Weise zurückgehalten
wird und einen so hochsensiblen Bereich dar-
stellt. Erstaunlicherweise wurden Aborigines in
der neuen Geheimhaltung, die sich vor allem
gegen Ethnologen richtet, von fast allen Ethnolo-
gen unterstützt, oft sogar von denen, die vorher
die Geheimnisse erfahren und sie auch veröffent-
licht hatten. Und heute sind weiße Freunde der
Aborigines in dieser Hinsicht fast päpstlicher als
der Papst.20 21 Dieser Widerspruch ist sehr leicht
aufzulösen, wenn man den neuen, wenn auch für
beide - Aborigines und Europäer - unterschiedli-
chen, Wert betrachtet, den das Geheime bekom-
men hatte.
Aborigines erkannten an den Publikationen,
mit welch großem Interesse die Weißen ihre
Religion studierten und mit welcher Inbrunst die
Tatsache des Geheimen hervorgehoben wurde.
Nach über 100 Jahren der Gefühle der Minder-
wertigkeit erkannten Aborigines nun den Wert
ihres Wissens auch außerhalb ihrer eigenen Ge-
sellschaft. Mythen und Rituale waren zu einem,
im ideologischen System der europäischen Gesell-
schaft, gefragten und anderen Ideen ebenbürtigen
Besitz geworden. Selbst wenn geheime Mythen
den einzelnen Aborigines gar nicht mehr bekannt
waren, so gab das ihrer Gruppe zugeordnete
20 Angesichts des „Bildersturmes“ fragt man sich natürlich
nach dessen Sinn, wenn derartige Bilder in den Büchern
von Spencer und Gillen (siehe Anm. 18) und vielen
späteren Autoren und auch in der Zeitschrift Oceania
jederzeit betrachtet werden können.
21 So wurde zum Beispiel das Buch von Mountford vor
allem auf Betreiben weißer Berater der Aborigines vom
Verkauf zurückgezogen (Information Peterson).
Wissen ihnen doch ein starkes Selbstwertgefühl,
und weiterer kultureller Diebstahl sollte verhin-
dert werden (vgl. Langton et al. 1985: 38 ff.).
Gleichzeitig spielte die Religion der Aborigines
im sich ausbreitenden Landrechtskampf eine im-
mer wichtiger werdende Rolle. Geheime und
nichtgeheime Sakralplätze wurden zu Markie-
rungspunkten im ökonomisch europäischen Sy-
stem mit Rechtstiteln für Landeigentum.
Für die Europäer bzw. weißen Australier
war in der Folge der neu und verschärft eingehal-
tenen Geheimhaltung der Zugang zu einem Prüf-
stein ihrer (ethnologischen) Fähigkeiten gewor-
den. Je geheimer und schwieriger der Zugang
war, umso deutlicher der Beweis der guten Zu-
sammenarbeit mit Aborigines, umso größer der
persönliche Erfolg. Und was einem Freunde im
Vertrauen mitgeteilt haben, möchte man nicht
plötzlich von Fremden hören. Das Geheime zu
erfahren, war zu einer Ehre für die Weißen
geworden, und die Aborigines hatten die Mög-
lichkeit erhalten, Ehren zu verteilen. Zu Zeiten
Spencers und Gillens war es noch eine ungeheue-
re Anstrengung, allein in das Gebiet von traditio-
nell lebenden Aborigines zu gelangen. Nur weni-
ge nahmen dies auf sich, wenige erfuhren deshalb
auch deren Wissen. Heute, wo jedermann be-
quem in Aircondition-Autos in jeden Winkel des
australischen Kontinents fahren kann, wäre nichts
mehr dabei, das Wissen der Aborigines zu erfah-
ren. Es lag und liegt also durchaus im Interesse
einiger weißer Freunde und Berater der Aborigi-
nes, das Geheime geheim zu halten.
X
Das Geheime existiert heute nicht mehr wirklich.
Es ist zu einem Spiel geworden, dem großen
“power-game”, und mit diesem Spiel ist auch die
Religion der Aborigines gestorben. Was einst in
der Gesellschaft der australischen Jäger und
Sammler ihr intimes Verhältnis zu dem Land, in
dem und von dem sie lebten, ausdrückte, die
Ehrfurcht vor den gewaltigen Taten der Totem-
vorfahren, die die Natur, als deren Zugehörige
sich Aborigines empfanden, erschufen, ist heute
in einer Gesellschaft des gegen die Natur gerich-
teten materiellen Wachstums, der Ernährungsin-
dustrie, Konsumgüterindustrie und Freizeitindu-
strie zu einer “Aboriginal Sort of Industry” ge-
worden. In dieser Industrie arbeiten viele weiße
Landrechts- und Kulturkämpfer, die versuchen,
Aborigines in ihren Bemühungen, ihre Geschich-
te wieder selbst in die Hand zu nehmen, zu
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
183
unterstützen. Ob das jeweils zum Ziel führt oder
ob oft nicht eine dem Ziel entgegengesetzte
Wirkung erreicht wird, ist eine andere Frage.22
Auffallend ist jedenfalls, daß die meisten dieser
„Kämpfer“ sehr dem Outback verbunden sind
und - wohl als moderne Abenteurer - sich vor
allem um die 25 % der Aborigines dort küm-
mern, während die Stadtaborigines längst nicht
dasselbe Interesse erfahren.23
Aborigines jagen heute nicht mehr. Sie be-
ziehen ihr Fleisch und ihre Gemüse aus Dosen,
und sie haben sich daran gewöhnt, Brot aus
Plastiktüten zu essen. Ihre ehemalige Verachtung
alles Materiellen, ihre Begeisterung für die sicht-
baren Taten der unsichtbaren Totem verfahren,
ihre Achtung der Werte dieser Vorfahren, ihrer
Rituale und Schöpfungen, ist dem Wunsch nach
dem eigenen Auto, dem Fernseher, den neuesten
Jeans gewichen. Und nicht nur die Ernährung
und die Werte der Aborigines haben sich geän-
dert, auch ihre Erkenntnis: Der Regen kommt
auch ohne Regenritual. Die Religion der Aborigi-
nes hat ihre Faszination verloren; Kolig
(1981: 71) drückt dies dramatisch aus: “Religion
is now a leisure-time affair set distinctly apart
from the material basis of life”. Sieht man sich
diese Freizeitgestaltung an, kann man traurig
werden. Als Tindale und Fry in den 30er Jahren
22 So können zum Beispiel Karten von Sakralplätzen für
Ölfirmen, die verhindern sollen, daß diese Plätze durch
Probebohrungen zerstört werden, in einigen Jahren von
diesen auch gegen die Aborigines verwendet werden,
indem sie als Rechtsgrundlage dienen, an allen anderen
Stellen zu bohren. Oder: Auf lange Sicht können Kom-
pensationszahlungen für die wenigen Aborigines im Out-
back, auf deren Land Energiefirmen Unternehmungen
durchführen, durchaus den Neid der vielen Aborigines in
den Städten, die den Landrechtskampf oft anführten,
erregen. Auch fragt man sich, was Ethnologen mit ihren
Büchern, die dazu dienen sollten, die weißen Australier
mit dem Leben der Aborigines bekannt zu machen,
erreicht haben, wenn eben dieses Wissen aus den Bü-
chern heute von weißen Australiern dazu verwendet
wird, die Aborigines, die eben nicht mehr so leben und
leben können, wie in den Büchern beschrieben, zu
diskriminieren. Eine Australierin sagte mir zum Beispiel:
„Ja, so wie die Aborigines früher gelebt haben, das war
gut, aber heute trinken sie ja nur und wollen dazu noch
das Land haben“. Die Frage, warum einige Aborigines
Alkoholprobleme haben und warum das frühere „gute“
Leben der Aborigines ein Ende fand, stellte sie natürlich
nicht.
23 Betrachtet man zum Beispiel die Liste der australischen
ethnologischen Dissertationen der vergangenen acht Jah-
re über australische Aborigines, so kann man feststellen,
daß 70 % mit den Aborigines des Outbacks befaßt sind,
nur 15 % haben eindeutig Themen über Stadtaborigines
zum Inhalt.
die Rituale der Aborigines filmten, nahmen sie
Menschen auf, die noch und trotz ungewohnter
Umstände lachend und mit großer Freude ihre
Zeremonien aufführten. Fast beiläufig manch-
mal, ohne die großen Gesten, ohne die ernste
Heiligkeit, die wir aus solchen Situationen unse-
rer eigenen Kultur kennen. Schaut man sich
heute einen Film über ein Ritual an, wie “Wait-
ing for Harry” von Hiatt und McKenzie, einen
der besten und ehrlichsten anthropologischen
Filme der letzten Zeit, so fällt der Ernst, die
Verbissenheit, die Konzentration in diesem Ritu-
al auf. Beide Filme und die darin gezeigten
Rituale sind nicht unbedingt vergleichbar, da der
erste, im Zentrum Australiens aufgenommen, ein
“memory ritual” zeigt und der zweite eine “Arn-
hem Land final mortuary ceremony”. Dennoch
wird die Veränderung offensichtlich. Die Einstel-
lung zur Religion hat sich heute mit der Reflexion
über sie geändert. Die neuerliche Geheimhaltung
ist nur eine Folge dieser Reflexion. Religion ist
heute bei Aborigines etwas, das ausgeübt wird, so
wie wir dies in diesem Bereich zu tun pflegen.
Religion entsteht und kann nicht mehr entstehen
aus dem ungebrochenen Verhältnis zur Umwelt
der Natur, zur natürlichen Welt, als deren Teil
der wolkenkratzerlose Mensch sich empfand und
als solcher seine Einheit direkt in seiner Religion,
ohne sie als Religion zu begreifen, erlebte.
Zurück zum nackten Wilden? Mit diösem
Anspruch würden wir der Tourismusindustrie si-
cherlich einen großen Gefallen tun. Für sie spielt
das ehemalige Leben der Aborigines, ihre Einheit
mit ihrer Umwelt und ihre Religion eine immer
bedeutender werdende Rolle - insbesondere hin-
sichtlich der Ängste vieler Europäer vor Ener-
gie-, Natur- und Weltkrisen. Aborigines im Out-
back verkörpern - ganz im Gegensatz zu ihrer Le-
bensrealität, die gekennzeichnet ist durch ho-
he Krankheits- und Kindersterblichkeitsraten, Ar-
mut, Depressionen, Alkoholprobleme - das ein-
fache, das natürliche, das unproblematische fried-
liche Leben von Naturkindern. Diese „Naturkin-
der“ aber, die es im besten Sinne des Wortes
vielleicht einmal gab, leben nicht mehr, und es
gibt kein Zurück. Formen und Inhalte eines
früheren Lebens aufrechtzuerhalten, das heute
niemand mehr führen kann, ist vielleicht ver-
kaufsträchtig, aber sinnlos. Das ist Kitsch, ist
Anachronismus. Mit der neuerlichen Geheimhal-
tung versuchen Aborigines etwas zurückzugewin-
nen, was sie längst verloren haben. Geheimnisse
sind in dieser Welt anderer Natur. Der Versuch,
wie früher durch Geheimhaltung von religiösem
Wissen wieder an die Macht zu kommen, muß
Anthropos 83.1988
184
Gerhard Schlatter
kläglich scheitern. Im Grunde verhalten sich Ab-
origines heute ganz im Sinn ihrer ehemaligen
Strukturen, als Geheimhaltung die Machtgrund-
lage gegenüber Kindern, Frauen und jungen
Männern war. In einer Gesellschaft aber, in der
es um Geld und nicht um Mythen geht, können
die Geheimnisse der Aborigines keine Rolle
mehr spielen.
Dies führt nun zu einer letzten Frage: Ist also
die Kultur der Aborigines endgültig zerstört, das
Ende der Traumzeit erreicht? Ich glaube nicht.
Besucht man in Redfern, einer Vorstadt Sydneys,
das Eora-Centre, eine Akademie von Aborigines
für Aborigines, in der Schauspiel, Tanz, Musik,
Video unterrichtet werden, so sind dort die Wur-
zeln eines neuen, nichtfolkloristischen und doch
der eigenen Kultur verbundenen Selbstbewußt-
seins zu entdecken, ein veränderter Traum in
einer neuen Zeit wird dort gelebt. Und hört man
George Rurrambu von der Aborigines-Rockband
Warumpi24 aus Papunya im Zentrum Australiens
das Didjeridu blasen, das satt im Rhythmus des
Rocks die Baßlinie abgibt, so spürt man eine
neue Vibration. Der Text, seine Botschaft, die
allen Anachronismus längst hinter sich gelassen
hat, gilt für Schwarze wie Weiße: “You know
there’s lots of trouble in the world, you know
about the danger, you want to be here tomorrow,
then you gotta be strong.”
Zitierte Literatur
Bell, D.
1982 Daughters of the Dreaming. Melbourne.
Berndt, C.
1965 Women and the Secret Life. In: R. and C. Berndt
(eds.), Aboriginal Man in Australia; pp. 238-282.
Sydney.
Berndt, R. M. (ed.)
1970 Australian Aboriginal Anthropology. Nedlands.
Berndt, R. M., and C. H. Berndt (eds.)
1965 Aboriginal Man in Australia. Sydney.
1985 The World of the First Australians. Adelaide.
Bettelheim, B.
1954 Symbolic Wounds. Glencoe.
Elkin, A.
1974 Foreword. In: F. McCarthy, Australian Aboriginal
Decorative Art; pp. 9-10. Sydney.
Gale, F. (ed.)
1978 Woman’s Role in Aboriginal Society. Canberra.
24 Warumpi ist die erste Band, die Lieder in der Sprache der
Aborigines gemacht hat, und auch die erste, die in die
australischen Charts gekommen ist.
Gillen, F. J.
1968 Gillen’s Diary. The Camp Jottings of F. J. Gillen on
the Spencer and Gillen Expedition across Australia
1901-1902. Adelaide.
Hiatt, L. R.
1971 Secret Pseudo-Procreation Rites among the Australian
Aborigines. In: L. R. Hiatt and C. Jayawardena
(eds.), Anthropology in Oceania; pp. 77-88. Sydney.
Hiatt, L. R. (ed.)
1975 Australian Aboriginal Mythology. Essays in Honour of
W. E. H. Stanner. Canberra. (Australian Aboriginal
Studies, 50; Social Anthropology Series, 9)
Hiatt, L. R., and C. Jayawardena (eds.)
1971 Anthropology in Oceania. Essays Presented to Ian
Hogbin. Sydney.
Hill, M., and A. Barlow (eds.)
1985 Black Australia; pt. 2. Canberra.
Howard, M. (ed.)
1982 Aboriginal Power in Australian Society. St. Lucia.
Jones, R.
1977 The Tasmanian Paradox. In; R. V. S. Wright (ed.),
Stone Tools as Cultural Markers; pp. 189-204. Can-
berra and New Jersey.
Kaberry, P.
1939 Aboriginal Woman. Sacred and Profane. London.
Kolig, F.
1981 The Silent Revolution. Philadelphia.
1982 An Orbituary for Ritual Power. In: M. Howard (ed.).
Aboriginal Power in Australian Society; pp. 14-31. St.
Lucia.
Langton, M., et al.
1985 A Celebration of Resistance to Colonialism. In: M.
Hill and A. Barlow (eds.), Black Australia; pt. 2; pp.
38-40. Canberra.
Lippmann, L.
1981 Generations of Resistance. Melbourne.
Maddock, K.
1972 The Australian Aborigines. London.
McCarthy, F.
1974 Australian Aboriginal Decorative Art. Sydney.
Morphy, H.
1978 Rights in Paintings and Rights in Women: A Consider-
ation of Some of the Basic Problems Posed by the
Asymmetry of the ‘Murngin System.’ Mankind 11:
208-219.
1980 What Circles Look Like. Canberra Anthropology 3:
17-36.
Mountford, C.
1976 Nomads of the Australian Desert. Adelaide.
Peterson, N., and M. Langton (eds.)
1983 Aborigines, Land and Land Rights. Canberra.
Porteus, S.
1931 The Psychology of a Primitive People. London.
Roheim, G.
1932 Psycho-analysis of Primitive Cultural Types. Interna-
tional Journal of Psycho-analysis 13: 1-224.
1945 The Eternal Ones of the Dream. New York.
Anthropos 83.1988
Die offenen Geheimnisse und eine verlorene Religion
185
Rowley, C.
1983 The Destruction of Aboriginal Society. Ringwood.
Schlatter, G.
1985 Bumerang und Schwirrholz. Eine Einführung in die
traditionelle Kultur australischer Aborigines. Berlin.
Smith, L.
1980 The Aboriginal Population of Australia. Canberra.
Spencer, B., and F. Gillen
1899 The Native Tribes of Central Australia. London.
Stanner, W.
1972 After the Dreaming. (The Boyer Lectures 1968) Syd-
ney.
Strehlow, T.
1970 Geography and the Totemic Landscape in Central
Australia. In: R. M. Berndt (ed.), Australian Aborigi-
nal Anthropology; pp. 92-140. Nedlands.
Die Oralliteratur in Afrika als Quelle zur Erfor-
schung der traditionellen Kulturen - La littérature
orale en Afrique comme source pour la découverte des
cultures traditionnelles (W. J. G. Möhlig, H. Jungraith-
mayr und J. F. Thiel [Hrsg.]). - Orale Literatur, jener
Teil der Tradition einer Gesellschaft, der von Genera-
tion zu Generation mündlich überliefert wird, umfaßt
Mythen, Sagen, Märchen, Rätsel, Sprichwörter, Volks-
lieder und vieles mehr. Die Oralliteratur ist ein Mittel
der Übertragung von kulturellen Werten einer Gruppe,
aber auch Kommunikation über diese Werte. Gleich-
zeitig erfüllt sie weitere Funktionen pädagogischer,
religiöser, läuternder und politischer Art. Durch diese
echte Autobiographie einer Gesellschaft kann der Eth-
nologe, der Linguist oder der Historiker sich Zugang
zur Kenntnis der Geschichte, der Weltanschauung,
sowie der Wertvorstellungen und Überzeugungssyste-
me dieser Gesellschaft verschaffen.
La littérature orale, c’est cette partie de la tradi-
tion d’une société qui est transmise oralement de
génération en génération. Y sont compris des mythes,
légendes, contes, énigmes, proverbes, chansons popu-
laires et beaucoup d’autres éléments. La littérature
orale sert de moyen pour la transmission des valeurs
culturelles d’un group. Elle sert également à communi-
quer au sujet de ces valeurs. Au même temps, elle
remplit des fonctions pédagogiques, religieuses, purifi-
catoires et politiques. C’est à travers ce genre d’une
véritable autobiographie d’une société que l’ethnolo-
Tindale, N. B.
1933 Anthropological Expedition to the North-West of
South Australia. Oceania 4: 99-105.
Vincent, P.
1983 Noonkanbah. In: N. Peterson and M. Langton (eds.),
Aborigines, Land and Landrights; pp. 327-338. Can-
berra.
White, I. M.
1975 Sexual Conquest and Submission in the Myths of
Central Australia. In: L. R. Hiatt (ed.), Australian
Aboriginal Mythology; pp. 123-143. Canberra.
1978 Aboriginal Women’s Status: A Paradox Resolved. In:
F. Gale (ed.), Woman’s Role in Aboriginal Society;
pp. 36-49. Canberra.
Wright, R. V. S. (ed.)
1977 Stone Tools as Cultural Markers: Change, Evolution,
and Complexity. Canberra and New Jersey. (Prehi-
story and Material Culture Series, 12)
gue, le linguiste ou l’historien peuvent se frayer un
chemin pour arriver à une connaissance de l’histoire,
de la conception du monde, des institutions, des
valeurs et des convictions de base de cette société.
Diesem wertvollen Zugang zu afrikanischen Kul-
turen nähern sich die Autoren des vorliegenden Ban-
des unter verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten und reflek-
tieren darin die Forschungsschwerpunkte zu diesem
Thema.
De plusieurs points de vue les auteurs en question
s’approchent d’une façon appréciable de cet accès
important aux cultures africaines et, dans leur effort
commun, Us réflètent bien les thèmes principaux de la
recherche sur ce champ.
Inhalt - contenu: Texte der fiktionalen Wortkunst
- Textes de la littérature orale (G. Guarisma et R.
Leiderer, D. Paulme, M.-F. Rombi, P. Roulon,
S. Schmidt, R. Schott, S. Steinbrich, A. Vorbichler,
J. C. Winter); Dokumentarische Texte - Textes docu-
mentaires (T. Geider, I. Strecker); Namen, Formeln,
Gebete - Noms, formules et prières (E. Bonvini, H.
Huber)] Historische Überlieferungen und historisch
interpretierte Texte - Traditions historiques et textes
historiquement interprétés (A. Jones, G. Schlee,
J. M. C. Thomas et S. Bahuchef). - ([Collectanea Insti-
tué Anthropos, 36] Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag,
1988. 380 pp. ISBN 3-496-00915-2. Preis - Prix:
DM 92,00)
Anthropos 83.1988
186
Miszellen
Les Byaambvu du Moyen-Kwango (Hubert van
Roy S. J.). - Dès la fin du 17e siècle, s’est constitué le
long des rives du Moyen-Kwango, au Zaire, un royau-
me typiquement africain, selon les principes de gouver-
nement luunda. Ce royaume atteignit son apogée au
19e siècle, jusqu’au moment de la pénétration europée-
ne en Afrique Centrale.
La genèse du royaume et les étapes successives de
son expansion restent insuffisamment connues, malgré
les études déjà consacrées à ce sujet. Le livre présent
s’efforce de compléter cette lacune par un recours
critique aux traditions orales, recuellies in situ pendant
une période couvrant près d’un quart de siècle, tout en
les confrontant aux sources d’archives et aux éditions
imprimées.
Au Kwango les envahisseurs luunda étaient con-
nus par la population autochtone sous le nom de
ba-Luwa, tandis que ces derniers appelaient la popula-
tion assujettie, d’une manière généralisée, des ba-
Yaka. C’est pourquoi on parle à juste titre du royaume
luwa-yaka, royaume connu à l’époque précoloniale
comme «Royaume de Muni Putu», nom dérivé du chef
éponyme le plus connu parmi ceux qui ont contribué à
sa constitution.
Cette monographie historique aidera à mieux
saisir une phase importante de l’extension de l’empire
luunda en direction de la côte de l’Atlantique et jettera
une nouvelle lumière sur la formation du «Royaume de
Muni Putu» en particulier. Elle se base sur des biogra-
phies sommaires de ses rois autochtones, appelés
byaambvu en iyaka, déformation linguistique de titre
de Mwata Yaambvu ou Mwant Yav, le chef suprême
des ba-Luunda, auquel les byaambvu s’identifiaient
vertu du principe de la personnalité corporative. -
([Collectanea Instituti Anthropos, 37] Berlin: Dietrich
Reimer Verlag, 1988. ISBN 3-496-00921-7. 224 pp.,
14 fig. Prix: DM 70,00)
Mende Religion - Aspects of Belief and Thought
in Sierra Leone (Anthony J. Gittins). - In some
respects the Mende of Sierra Leone are very well
represented in anthropological literature. Yet there is
room for a much more complete discussion and analy-
sis, in the area of the ethnography of Mende belief and
thought in particular, and of the anthropology of
religious ides and systems in general.
North-east of Bo, the Provincial Headquarters of
the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, is Komboya
Chiefdom. It lies in Kpa-Mende country and was the
main location of the research. The area is one of the
most isolated in Mende country, the more so as one
moves on foot into the roadless areas of the Chiefdom,
and to the remote villages whose inhabitants have little
or no experience of urban life, or white men and their
ways. Social change is by no means as rapid here as in
the townships, and patterns of customary Mende be-
haviour can be observed or reconstructed realistically.
Likewise religious forms and beliefs can be studied at
first hand and with the assistance of the older illiterate
adults.
The Mende worldview includes the belief in a Su-
preme Being, Ancestral Spirits, Non-ancestral Spirits,
and their Power; furthermore the existence of Secret
Societies, witchcraft, intermediaries like twins, medi-
cine men, diviners, and witchfinders. The study con-
cludes with a structural interpretation of the belief-sys-
tem. - ([Studia Instituti Anthropos, 41] St. Augustin;
Anthropos-Institut; Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1987.
300 pp. ISBN 3-8050-0171-1. Price: DM65,00)
A Supplement to the Ethnographic Bibliography
of North America. - The Human Relations Area Files,
Inc. (HRAF) is pleased to announce that it is recipient
of joint funding for the project “A Supplement to the
Ethnographic Bibliography of North America” from
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
National Science Foundation. The National Endow-
ment for the Humanities is contributing $ 40,000 and
the National Science Foundation is contributing
$ 50,000. The two year project, which started on
July 1, 1987, is under the direction of Co-Principal
Investigators Timothy J. O’Leary and M. Marlene
Martin. The funding will enable HRAF to compile and
publish a two volume supplement to the 1975 edition of
the Ethnographic Bibliography of North America. The
latter is the standard bibliographic reference work on
Eskimos and North American Indians and has been
described by Richard I. Ford, of the University of
Michigan, as “. . . the finest reference source available
for literature on native peoples of the continent from
northern Mexico to the Arctic.” The supplement will
bring the bibliography up-to-date by adding nearly
20,000 citations to documents published between 1973
and 1987 on the native peoples of North America.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
Me’en Means of Subsistence
Notes on Crops, Tools, and Ethnic
Change
J. Abbink
The Me’en (formerly ‘Mekan’) people in the Kafa
region of Southwestern Ethiopia are an inter-
esting but hardly known group of ‘Nilo-Saharans’
(cf. Bender 1975), on whose history and culture
essential data are lacking. The present article,
containing new ethnographical information on
several subsistence crops and iron tools of this
ethnic group in a poorly studied area of Ethiopia,
and providing some further clues for its ethnohis-
tory, is based on preliminary fieldresearch carried
out in December 1985.1
1. Location of the Me’en
The Me’en (= ‘people,’ ‘humans’) are a group of
about 35.000 to 40.000 persons, living northwest
of the junction of the lower Omo and the Sher-
ma-Dancha rivers (see map), mainly in Maji-
Goldiyya-awraja (subprovince). They are one of
the largest groups in the area. Part of this group
originated from a transhumant-pastoral people
similar to the Bodi, also a Me’en-speaking group,
to the east of the Omo river. They probably split
off in the second part of the 19th century. Some
Me’en say that they “came from the Omo, from
Gamo Gofa;’ (i.e., the region now so designat-
ed). This seems to support the idea that they first
lived in the lower Omo valley, moved up north
and gradually settled in the highlands north of
Maji town (the Omo was known to them as
‘Fatcha’). The Bodi are descendants of those who
1 Fieldwork will continue in December 1987, for a longer
period.
remained in the hot lowlands, continuing their
pastoral way of life (see Fukui 1979 and 1984;
Klausberger 1981; 231-280). The highland Me’en
have undergone a gradual process of transition
from a transhumant pastoralist to a more sedenta-
ry agricultural way of life and seem to have
incorporated parts of surrounding ethnic groups,
especially the Gimira, during their process of
expansion. It will come as no surprise to state that
this process is still in progress. Social and cultural
adaptations continue to be made by the Me’en,
now also in the aftermath of the Ethiopian revo-
lution of 1974—1975.
2. Cultural Character of the Me’en
Like many other groups in the area, the Me’en,
generally known under the name ‘Tishena’ (a
resented term), are a population partly of ‘Surma’
stock.2 Southern Sudan is most probably their
historic land of origin (cf. Muldrow 1976; 604;
Ehret 1982:21). The Me’en now live in the
territory between the Gimira, an Omotic (Gimo-
jan)-speaking group, to their north, and the Dizi,
to their south. The Dizi,3 called by Haberland a
part of the Ethiopian ‘Altvdlker,’4 are one of the
‘traditional enemies’ of the Me’en.
By Dizi and other groups, the Me’en were
formerly much feared for their frequent violent
raids on sedentary settlements and government
posts, but nowadays they have more regular
relations with their neighbours. In fact the Me’en
2 ‘Surma,’ a linguistic designation, is the best term. It is a
group of languages including Mursi, Tirma, Suri, Kwegu,
Didinga, Narim, Tenet, Murle, Bale, Majang, and is part
of the East Sudanic group within Nilo-Saharan.
3 Most important are Haberland’s articles (1981, 1983,
1984) on this group.
4 Remnants of an old pre-Amhara agrarian culture in the
area.
Anthropos 83.1988
188
Berichte und Kommentare
show a remarkable degree of acculturation to
these neighbours in several respects: they have
adopted agricultural practices, material culture
items, house forms, religious customs, various
new crops, and tools.
In this article, I want to mention some
examples from the latter two domains, also in
order to provide a preliminary answer to Haber-
lands question on the iron-working traditions
among the Me’en. According to Haberland
(1981: 126) the fact that the Me’en might, in some
areas, melt and produce their own iron, . .
paßt ebenso wenig in das ‘Kulturbild’ der Nilo-
ten, wie die Angabe, daß die Schmiede der Me’en
auch Kupfer (ga’u) produziert hätten.”
I begin by making two remarks on this point.
First, any tradition of copper production among
the Me’en was not confirmed during my field
research, although it appeared that the Me’en did
mine gold in some regions (e.g., near Entele, in
the Gesa area). Second, it is no longer useful to
designate the Me’en as a ‘Nilotic’ people; this can
only be done in a vague cultural sense. The
Surma-speaking peoples have indeed been influ-
enced by the languages and customs of the Ni-
lotes, but have always remained a rather distinct
group. Similarities stem mainly from the fact that
both originally had a transhumant pastoral way of
life. Apart from that one may note that in the
past 150 years or so, several groups, and most
notably the western Me’en, have changed their
‘original culture’ in a farreaching way, also as a
result of incorporation of other groups, and have
lost most of the cultural diacritics which could
mark them as ‘Nilotes.’ Only the fact that they
attach strong value to cattle in daily life and
ritual, remains, but this is characteristic for many
non-Nilotic groups as well. Thus the best way to
designate the linguistic and general cultural char-
acter of the Me’en and related peoples would
seem to be ‘Surma’ instead of ‘Nilotic.’5 This is
not to say that all Surma-speaking groups origi-
nate from the same ethnic stock: the boundaries
of language and ethnic group are not isomorphic.
They do not always ‘migrate’ together. Apart
from augmenting some of Haberland’s most valu-
able contributions on Southwest Ethiopian ethnic
groups and ethnohistory, the general process of
sedentarization and change in production patterns
of (originally pastoral) Me’en can be illustrated
by indicating what kind of new crops and tools
they came to adopt after their arrival and expan-
sion in the highlands.6 These Me’en-speakers
have simply tried to meet the ‘objective con-
straints’ of highland agriculture, an economic
mode more profitable and capable of sustaining a
larger population than the pastoral mode. They
have now become essentially a cultivating people
with a self-sufficient, mixed agrarian economy.
Livestock is of minor economic importance,
though cattle does indeed retain its pivotal ritual
and symbolic role, based on values and customs
dating from the lowland days. A person is not a
full member of society if he (she) has no (rights
to) cattle.
It is easily noted that the cattle symbolism in
Me’en life is still a recurring theme. It has
remained the idiom of their cultural and social
expression. For instance, in personal name-giving
one finds many names derived from types of
cattle and colour patterns. Daraita, for example,
indicates a certain combination or variety of
colour of a cow; Fat age is a name given when the
mother gave birth on a cow skin; Shu’ai: ‘the
most beautiful cow of a group’; Loyoni: ‘black
and white coloured cow,’ etc.
Furthermore, a marriage cannot be conclud-
ed without the transfer, to the family of the
bride, of at least three heads of cattle - the
minimum amount of bridewealth among the
Me’en -, while rights of use and possession of
cattle by man and wife are also defined on this
5 There is quite a difference between the sedentary Me’en
and the Bodi (who speak the same language). Bodi
culture of life and appearance are more in line with the
‘Nilotic’ pastoral image. But the Bodi (together with
some unknown Me’en herders in the immediate northern
and western lowlands along the Omo river) form only a
small part (ca. 10 %) of the total population.
6 ‘Highland’ in comparison with the surrounding lowlands
near the river, where part of them came from. It is a zone
with quite different vegetation and relief. Most of the
Me’en area is above 1000 to 1200 metres; part of it above
2000 metres.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
189
occasion. In the important burial rituals, expecial-
ly for chiefs, cattle is ritually sacrificed, while the
body of the deceased chief is first wrapped in a
cow skin and then buried in a specially built
simile of a cattle corral. Although the ‘logic’ of
economic life of the Me’en now works against it,
the attachment to cattle, as a symbolic medium
and focus of values, thus remains strong. It is true
that various related customs are affected (e.g.,
the amount of bridewealth is now significantly
lower, and also the number of wives per hus-
band), but they are not discarded.
But evidently the Me’en have undergone a
cultural metamorphosis. The memory of the low-
land days has faded. The Bodi are seen as
related, but also as enemies, with whom no
contact need be maintained. For the Me’en,
shifting cultivation is now the dominant produc-
tion type. Cattle and cattle products (blood,
meat, milk) are barely used outside the ceremoni-
al sphere.
The agricultural surplus is traded in the
markets, partly for money. There is a growing
need for cash; for the payment of government
taxes, and because of the monetization of the
brideprice. (Some 80 to 100 Ethiopian Birr is
given to the family of the bride, apart from the
cattle.)
When we assume that most Me’en-cultivators
of today have descended from people similar to
the Bodi, as their oral tradition asserts, we may
look at the economic base of this group first, in
order to see which new crops and tools the Me’en
have adopted in the course of their recent ‘seden-
tary history.’
The agricultural base of pastoral peoples -
which is always there - may be important for
subsistence but is usually of very limited range.
The Body (and other Surma groups like the
Mursi) only cultivate sorghum (Sorghum bicolor),
some maize (Zea mays), peppers (Capsicum abys-
sinicum), and tobacco (Haberland 1959: 406). In
addition, they use some vegetables, collected in
the bush (e.g., lambsquarters), or acquired in
trade from neighbouring highland groups (cab-
bage). The fact that the Surma word for sorghum,
liba, is not known in any other Ethiopian langua-
ge family (cf. Haberland 1984: 63 n. 15) suggests
that it was brought along during a migration of
Surma speakers from Southern Sudan toward the
Ethiopian highlands.
Sorghum is the staple food of the Bodi, with
maize a good second. Haberland suggests that
maize could have been taken over by the Bodi
from the Amhara through the Dime, an Omotic-
speaking agricultural people east of the Bodi area
(Haberland 1959: 406). These crops are mainly
grown in the bush belt near the Omo river, and
cultivation is the task of the women. Prestige
accorded to agriculture is low, a well-known
observation among (semi)pastoralist peoples in
Eastern and Southern Africa (cf. Kuper
1982: 11). Cattle herds are the exclusive concern
of the men.
In comparison with the Bodi, the economy of
the western Me’en is strongly diversified and also
less vulnerable to changes in rainfall and other
ecological variations. Me’en horticulture shows a
rather broad range of crops. It might be said that
they make near optimal use of their environment,
given the technological means available. Risk is
minimized by a varied cultivation pattern (shifting
and rotating crops).
3. Me’en Crops
The Me’en crops can be divided in two kinds:
1) the traditional staples maize and sorghum;
2) newer rootcrops, lentils, vegetables, and other
plants of the highland zone. These were virtually
all adopted in this century.
To begin with the first, maize and sorghum
have been maintained as food crops. Among the
Me’en maize (called weyda) is the food par
excellence. This is the only crop for which a ‘first
fruits’-ceremony is held (a description in Tippett
1970: 90 f.). The main daily food, 6oru, and the
sholu beer are produced on the basis of maize
(Zea mays). They are the only group in the area
to rely for such an extent on this crop.
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is less cultivat-
ed. The Me’en word, liba, is an old Surma word,
and is also found among neighbouring peoples
like the Dizi (see Haberland 1984: 63),
Of the root crops, at least the following are
known among the Me’en:
- sweet potatoe (Ipomoea batatas), called in
Me’en: dingisa.
- taro (Colocassia antiquorum), in Me’en: Jon-
gac.
- a plant called lo:git, which I have not been
able to identify.
Other newer crops are:
- pumpkin (Cucurbito pepo), in Me’en: botoka.
In Dizi it is called: botu. Like with other crops,
it is possible that the Me’en have taken over
this crop from the Dizi, who have been settled
as mixed agricultural producers in the area for
many ages before the Me’en were formed.
Anthropos 83.1988
190
Berichte und Kommentare
- ensete (Ensete ventricosum), the ‘false bana-
na,’ in Me’en: to:te or kudit. This was a plant
very popular among the Gimira populations
north of the Me’en. The few Me’en who
cultivate it are mainly found in the north,
around Bachuma village. Tippet makes the in-
teresting remark that especially Gimira wom-
en married to Me’en men cultivate this crop
(Tippett 1970: 76).
- chili/peppers (Capsicum frutescens or abyssini-
cum), in Me’en: minta. This is probably taken
over from the Amhara; the Dizi did not have
this crop before the Amhara arrived (Haber-
land 1984: 64).
- onions (Allium cepa), in Me’en: sunkurti
(Amharic loanword).
- cabbage (Brassica oleracea), in Me’en: ki.not,
also a plant from the north.
- beans (Vicia faba?), in Me’en: be’ara, taken
over from the Amhara.
- banana (Musa sapientum), in Me’en: muze
(Amharic loanword).
- teff (Eragrostis tef), taken over probably from
the Amhara. In Me’en it is called gacit, in
Cako Gimira: gaci or gasi (cf. Haberland
1984: 65).
- sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum), in Me’en:
’olit. This is a very recent plant.
- peas (Pisum sativum), in Me’en: ater (also an
Amharic loanword). It was introduced by the
Amhara.
- coffee (Caffea arabica), in Me’en: tika. This
was also unknown before the Me’en migration
and expansion into the highlands. Their word
tika is similar to the Ometo word for coffee,
tuka, and not to words of surrounding groups
(Haberland 1984: 66).
- tobacco (Nicotiana tabacchum), in Me’en:
dambu. This is similar to the Dizi word damb’a
(Haberland 1984: 66) and probably also a loan-
word (Amharic: tambahd).
- cotton (Gossypium herbaceum?), in Me’en:
uta:. They know this crop, but it is not widely
cultivated.
- spice plants, like fenugreek (Trigonella foe-
num-graecum), in Me’en: girana.
- finally, there are some as yet unidentified
grains, like ka:tila (possibly millet [Panicum
miliaceum], red variety), and ’amda (?).
These are the most important cultivated
plants of the Me’en. A few words can also be said
on two other means of subsistence: hunting and
gathering.
The Me’en gather a variety of wild plants,
e.g., lambsquarters and ‘bitter leafs’ called ba:ra-
rit (?). They also use bamboo (wosa:nic) and
gather a certain species of mushrooms in the
woods. Very important is the gathering of honey
(бог). The men place beehives (isi:no) in wooded
areas, gather the honey after many months, and
their women then sell it in the markets. This is an
important source of income for the household.
Conti Rossini (1913: 407) already remarked
that the Me’en (then known as Mekan or Suro)
were also hunters. Today still, they hunt small
antilopes, called modoro and gumdi. Occasionally
wild fowls (kamtu.ru) and leopards (gereme) are
killed. Hunting is a sideline of the Me’en. But it
may still be the main occupation of the Idinit,7 *
hunter ‘caste’ group incorporated into Me’en
society. These Idinit also live among the Bodi and
Mursi on the other side of the Omo river, where
they also hunt, do repair work on tools and guns,
and ferry people and cattle across the river.
From the range of cultivated crops we may
see that the Me’en have largely adapted to a form
of intensive highland agriculture, completely leav-
ing behind a former pastoral base of subsistence.
4. Tools
This adaptation is equally clear when we take a
look at some of their traditional iron tools. This
aspect of the Me’en material culture has not been
described yet and should be explored further,
also in a culture-historical context.
(1) The Me’en use axes (Bets) and hoes (lilit)
for agricultural work and woodcutting. The hoe I
saw in use is similar to the Cako hoe depicted in
Straube 1963: fig. 24.1. Like all iron tools, the
hoe is produced from scrap iron. The mining of
ore (see Tippett 1970: 105) is no longer done.
Fig. 1: Me’en hoe
(2) The knives of the Me’en are known as
wolit, a small cutting knife with a simple wooden
grip; the cu:be (?) and the wa:ra and ma:sa,
which are similar in shape but of different size.
7 ‘Idinit’ is the term used by the Me’en, their self-term is
‘Kwegu.’
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
191
They are machete-like and have again undecorat-
ed wooden grips. Me’en blacksmiths admit that
they cannot or do not make beautifully decorated
grips.8
Fig. 2: wolit
(3) The spear (her) may be a traditional
form, also common in the days of pastoralism. It
is used in defense (or attack) against people or
wild animals. The complete spear is about 2 to
2.30 m. long.
Fig. 4: ber
(4) A typical cutting instrument found
among the Me’en and various neighbouring peo-
ples (e.g., Dizi) is the wole (Me’en term), a cut-
8 The Me’en have their own blacksmiths. They do not
form, as in traditional Amhara society, a despised caste.
The craft was learned from surrounding non-Me’en
groups, among them the Dizi: the Me’en probably con-
quered the Ge§a area (with iron mines) from them (cf.
Haberland 1983: 253).
ting instrument used for grass, tobacco, sugar cane,
bush, etc. (cf. Haberland 1981: 126 and fig. 5.2).
It is perhaps remarkable that the Me’en
never took over the plough, which they saw used
by the Amhara. This may be related to differ-
ences in social organization among both groups.
The Amhara unit of production is the household.
The male household head does most of the
agricultural work (clearing, ploughing) himself.
The individualist character of Amhara society has
often been emphasized. The Me’en, on the other
hand, knew more patterns of collective work.
Clearing, burning, and planting took place by
members of a localized descent group. Collective
effort (accompanied by beer servings) was the
norm. The planting of the seeds was done with
the digging stick (or bangd), made of wood. The
scarcity of plough oxen may also have inhibited
the widespread use of the plough.
5. Concluding Remarks
A survey of other material objects (pottery,
clothing) would also reveal the farreaching extent
of ‘acculturation’ of the sedentary Me’en popula-
tion to an agricultural way of life similar in many
respects to that of their sedentary neighbours. In
the domain of religion and ritual (cf. Abbink
19865) there is also a notable similarity. The few
indications given here - to be pursued in further
field research - attest to the process of socio-
economic and thus also ethnic change among the
populations in the area. From the literature and
from a knowledge of their core values it is clear
that a large part of the population of the western
Me’en consisted of (former9) pastoralists. They
started moving to their present location some 150
years ago, already before the Amhara conquest
of the region after 1897. Although not enough
(ethno)historical data are yet available on the
subject, it can be surmised that the Amhara and
the Me’en (then composed of various different
groups, also conquered ones) became competitors
for a common economic-ecological niche in these
southern highlands. The Me’en (designated as
‘Tishena’ by the Amhara) resisted the northern-
ers for some 25 years, but were gradually sub-
9 It can certainly be assumed that Me’en groups coming
from the east side of the Omo river brought their cattle
along; but most of it was probably lost due to disease -
the area (above 1000 m!) is infested by the tse-tse fly
(Glossina; various species).
Anthropos 83.1988
192
Berichte und Kommentare
dued (cf. Garretson 1986: 206). The Amhara
wielded superior military force, and their neften-
ya (armed settlers) were able to take possession of
much of the land. They tried to force the ‘Tishe-
na’ into the oppressive gebbar-system, whereby
they would be reduced to the status of tributary
peasant serfs. In the course of years, many Me’en
were also sold as slaves.
Still, the Me’en were able to maintain them-
selves as shifting agriculturalists, and have expand-
ed significantly, altering themselves in the pro-
cess. They can no longer be seen as ‘Nilotes’ or
‘semi-pastoral,’ etc. As an ethnic group they now
tend to shade into their northern and southern
agricultural neighbours. Especially the ‘boundary’
with the northern Gimira is difficult to draw.
Significantly, the Me’en can now hardly be
said to be of the ‘same group’ as the Bodi. It can
of course hardly be doubted that they are strongly
related in a historical sense; but divergent eco-
nomic specialization, location, and decreasing con-
tacts have led to the emergence of a new group
distinction between the two groups: the western
Me’en call themselves often Banio (‘highlanders’)
while the lowlanders (in the northern qolla and
the Bodi on the other side) are designated as
Koru (the name of a qolla descent group; in
Me’en: du’ut)10 near the Dancha river, with
whom they have hardly contact. The name is,
however, applied to all ‘lowlanders’ (i.e., cattle
herders). The Banio more and more speak of the
Koru as their baragara (the traditional term for
‘longstanding enemies’).
Thus a familiar pattern of sedentary/pastoral
relations seems to have been emerging between
groups of an originally similar population. The
substantial changes in ecology, economic organi-
zation, and subsistence base have been conducive
to ethnic change and to, if we may use this term,
‘de-Nilotization’ of the Me’en population.
References Cited
Abbink, J.
1986a A List of the Clans of the Me’en (Southwestern
Ethiopia). Amsterdam: Antropologisch-Sociologisch
Centrum. [Unpublished paper]
1986b The Me’en as Historical Transformation of the ‘Sur-
ma.’ Paper presented on the IXth International Con-
ference of Ethiopian Studies, August 26-29, 1986,
Moscow, USSR.
10 A preliminary list of the du’ut (patricians) is given in
Abbink 1986a.
Bender, M. L.
1975 The Ethiopian Nilo-Saharans. Addis Ababa: Artistic
Printers.
Conti Rossini, C.
1913 I Mekan o Suro nell’Etiopia del sud-ovest e il loro
linguaggio. Rendiconti della Reale Accademia del
Lincei (serie 4) 22: 397-463.
Ehret, C.
1982 Population Movement and Culture Contact in the
Southern Sudan, c. 3000 BC to AD 1000: A Prelimina-
ry Linguistic Overview. In: J. Mack and P. Robert-
shaw (eds.). Culture History in the Southern Sudan;
pp. 19-48. Nairobi; British Institute in Eastern Afri-
ca.
Fukui, K.
1979 Cattle Colour Symbolism and Intertribal Homicide
among the Bodi. In: K. Fukui and D. Turton (eds.),
Warfare among East African Herders; pp. 147-178.
Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
1984 The Religious and Kinship Ideology of Military Expan-
sion among the Bodi (Mela). Paper presented on the
VUIth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies,
November 1984, Addis Ababa.
Garretson, P.
1986 Vicious Cycles; Ivory, Slaves, and Arms on the New
Maji Frontier. In: D. L. Donham and W. James
(eds.), The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia;
pp. 196-218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haberland, E.
1959 Die Bodi. In: A. E. Jensen (Hrsg.), Altvölker Süd-
äthiopiens; pp. 399-417. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
1981 Die materielle Kultur der Dizi (Südwest Äthiopien)
und ihr kulturhistorischer Kontext. Paideuma 27:
121-172.
1983 An Amharic Manuscript on the Mythical History of
the Adi kyaz (Dizi, south-west Ethiopia). Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies 46:
240-257.
1984 Nutzpflanzen der Dizi (Südwest Äthiopien). Paideuma
30: 59-68.
Klausberger, F.
1981 Woga - Recht und Gesellschaft in Süd-Äthiopien.
Frankfurt: Lang.
Kuper, A.
1982 Wives for Cattle. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Muldrow, W. F.
1976 Languages of the Maji Area. In; M. L. Bender (ed.).
The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia; pp. 603-607.
East Lansing: Michigan State University, African Stu-
dies Center.
Straube, H.
1963 Westkuschitische Völker Süd-Äthiopiens. Stuttgart:
W. Kohlhammer.
Tippett, A. R.
1970 Peoples of Southwest Ethiopia. Pasadena: W. Carey
Library.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
193
Sigaru Dora’a
In Holz geschnitzte Lebensphilosophie
auf Nias (Indonesien)
Johannes M. Hämmerle
1. Einleitung
Die größte der der Westküste Sumatras vorgela-
gerten Inseln ist Nias mit ca. 5000 qkm. Die
Hauptstadt, Gunung Sitoli, im Norden der Insel,
ist sowohl Sitz der Regierung des Landes (Kabu-
paten Nias) als auch der Verwaltung eines der 13
Landkreise (Kecamatan Gunung Sitoli).
Ein Besuch des Autors 1984 bei dem in
Gunung Sitoli lebenden Sökhi’aro Weither Men-
dröfa (alias Ama Rozama = Vater des Rozama)
wegen einer alten Quelle der Nias-Literatur (Pie-
per 1923), die dieser in seinem Buch „Fondrakö
Ono Niha“ (1981) benutzt hatte, war der Aus-
gangspunkt für den folgenden Beitrag.
In Ama Rozamas Arbeitszimmer entdeckte
ich eine Schnitzerei von 4x56x106 cm aus mosi
holi, einem harten Holz, das gerne für Schnitz-
bretter verwandt wird. Ama Rozama hatte es
1974 in sieben Monaten selbst geschnitzt, und
zwar nach einem Original in der Wand eines
alten, großen Hadat-Hauses im Dorf Lölöwua,
15 km von Gunung Sitoli entfernt, im alten öri
(Kreis) Tanöse’ö (noch innerhalb des Landkreises
Gunung Sitoli), wo die Sippe Mendröfa noch
stark verbreitet ist. In diesem Haus hatten die
Vorfahren Ama Rozamas gelebt, und auch er
selbst war dort aufgewachsen. 1963 war das, nach
Ama Rozama, 150 Jahre alte Haus eingestürzt
und das Original des Bildes, Sigaru Dora’a ge-
nannt, mit verlorengegangen. Im Jahre 1942 hatte
aber ein Holländer das Original im alten Haus
fotografiert und danach Ama Rozama einen Ab-
zug in Postkartengröße geschenkt. Das bruch-
stückhafte Original war zu diesem Zwecke zuerst
mit Lehm ergänzt worden. Ama Rozama lieh mir
dieses Foto, das ich in Sibolga fotografieren ließ
(Abb. 1). Nach der 1942er Aufnahme schnitzte
Ama Rozama das neue Bild (Abb. 2).
Original und Kopie weisen eine große Ähn-
lichkeit auf. Der Hauptunterschied besteht darin,
daß die Schlangen im Original das Bild abrunden
und die Ecken wegfallen; in der Kopie dagegen
wird die rechteckige Form des Brettes beibehal-
ten, und die Schlangen liegen innerhalb des Rah-
mens.
Von Bedeutung ist die Datierung des Bildes.
Abb. 1
Obwohl das Schnitzbild an die Geschichte von
Adam und Eva erinnert, dürfte es als sicher
erscheinen, daß christliche Einflüsse bei der Ent-
stehung auszuschließen sind. Wenn das Haus -
und damit das Bild - bei seinem Einsturz 1963
150 Jahre alt war, so dürfte das Bild um 1813
entstanden sein. Die beiden ersten christlichen
Missionare, P. Berard und P. Vallon, betraten
aber erst 1832 die Insel. Der eine lebte nur drei
Monate im Dorf Lasara nahe Gunung Sitoli,
dann starb er; der andere starb schon drei Tage
nach seiner Ankunft. 1854 kam ein weiterer
Missionar, Van Hessele, nach Gunung Sitoli,
aber ebenfalls nur, um dort zu sterben. So konnte
erst 1865 mit der Ankunft des Missionars Dennin-
ger ein dauerhafter Anfang für die Christianisie-
rung der Insel gesetzt werden.
Da mir keine weiteren Schnitzwerke oder
sonstige Darstellungen auf Nias bekannt sind, die
in solcher Fülle und gedrängter Form die niassi-
sche (wenn auch nur nordniassische) Welt wie
hier wiedergeben - auch nicht aus früheren Ver-
öffentlichungen -, so dürften wir es mit einem für
Nias einmaligen Fall einer bildlichen Darstellung
Anthropos 83.1988
194
Berichte und Kommentare
Abb.2
niassischer Kultur und Lebensphilosophie zu tun
haben. Zwar finden sich auch in anderen Gegen-
den von Nias geschnitzte Bretter, z. B. in Mittel-
nias lange Stirnbretter an der Vorderseite des
Hauses, geschmückt mit Echsen, Brüsten, Sym-
bolen und Ornamenten, oder die hagu laso, als
Hochrelief geschnitzte Bretter in der Bretterwand
der Häuptlingshäuser in Südnias, auf denen
hauptsächlich der Schmuck des vollendeten
Häuptlings oder der Häuptlingsfrau dargestellt ist
{hagu „Erhebung“, z. B. auch die Erhöhung in
der Mitte eines Gongs; laso „Brett, Wandbrett“).
In Südnias gibt es auch Schnitzereien an Wand-
brettern, welche die soziopolitische Dorfstruktur
symbolisieren.
Ferner liegt der günstige Fall vor, daß diese
Selbstdarstellung nicht von Außenstehenden in-
terpretiert zu werden braucht, was sicherlich nur
zu Spekulationen führen würde. Vielmehr erhal-
ten wir die Erklärung aus erster Hand mitgelie-
fert. Obwohl Ama Rozama Christ ist, kennt er
doch die Tradition seiner Väter und hat sich
durch kulturelle Forschungen in Nordnias einen
Namen gemacht. Deshalb soll in der folgenden
Bildbetrachtung die Erklärung wiedergegeben
werden, die der Autor von Ama Rozama er-
hielt.
2. Erklärung
a) Die Form
Das neue Bild erhielt von Ama Rozama eine
rechteckige Form, weil diese für ihn leichter zu
schnitzen war. Im alten Bild finden wir fast eine
Zweiteilung: den unteren rechteckigen Teil als
Basis mit Wolkengebilden und dorthineinragend
und sich darüber erhebend als Hauptbild die Welt
des Menschen, durch zwei Schlangen in eine
mehr ovale Form gepaßt.
b) Die Wolken
Mit den Wolkengebilden sollen nicht eigentlich
die Wolken (lawuo), sondern der Wind {angi,
nangi) dargestellt werden. Ohne Wolken würde
er aber nicht sichtbar. Me fagia nuwu nangi „Als
die Ahnen des Windes scherzten“, beginnt ein
alter Gesang in Nordnias. Ama Rozama konnte
aus Zeitmangel nicht weiter darauf eingehen. Ich
kannte den Vers jedoch schon aus W. Münster-
berger (1939; über Nias pp. 5-50), der den Ge-
sang als Schöpfungsmythos bringt. Auch Ama
Rozama bringt ihn in seinem Buch „Fondrakö“.
Ich selbst habe ihn am 9. Oktober 1984 in Fadoro
Lauru, einem Dorf der Mendröfa-Sippe (ca. 7 km
von Lölöwua, Kreis Tanöse’ö, entfernt), aufge-
schrieben. Meine Quelle dort war Ama Waböbö
Mendröfa, mit Hadat-Namen Balugu Ondranita.
Nach seiner Version zählt der Gesang 494 Verse.
Es würde hier zu weit führen, den ganzen Gesang
zu veröffentlichen oder die drei Versionen mit-
einander zu vergleichen. Ich möchte jedoch dar-
auf hinweisen, daß es sich nach Münsterbergers
Auslegung um einen Mythos, um Götter und um
Schöpfung handelt; nach meinem Dafürhalten
aber geht es darin um Realitäten des menschli-
chen Lebens, zunächst um eine Umschreibung
des menschlichen Geschlechtsakts in symbolhaf-
ten Bildern, um das Werden des Menschen und
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
195
seine Geburt, um Genealogien und schließlich
um Leben und Arbeit des Menschen, der die
Erde urbar macht und kultiviert.
Immer wieder begegnen wir dem Wind, in
den ersten 46 Versen steht 37mal angi oder nangi
und 8mal bara, ebenfalls Wind. In den weiteren
447 Versen begegnen wir noch 48mal dem Wort
angi (nangi) und 17mal dem Wort bara. Schnitz-
bild und Gesang entsprechen sich hier. Wie am
Beginn des Gesangs der Wind Grundlage und
Ausgangsbasis für das Ganze ist, so finden wir
auch im Schnitzbild den Wind, die Wolken, als
Basis oder tragenden Grund des Ganzen. Diese
Basis wird dann durch die Schlangen vom Haupt-
teil des Bildes abgetrennt, am deutlichsten im
alten Bild.
Wir bringen hier einige Verse vom Anfang
des Gesangs, die für die Interpretation des Bildes
als wichtig erscheinen, und zwar nach der Version
aus Fadoro Lauru:
1. Fawude nangi fania,
2. Fagia nangi fariaya.
Es scherzt der Wind, er spielt,
Es treibt sein Spiel der Wind.
8. Angi sihulö nichu doho,
9. Angi sihulö nichu mburusa.
Der Wind, der wie eine Speerspitze ist.
Der Wind, der wie eine burusa-Spitze ist.
10. Ihandro dalu nawönia angi,
11. Ihandro dalu nawönia bara.
Es stößt in den Leib seines Gefährten der Wind,
Es stößt in den Leib seines Gefährten der West-
wind.
12. Angi sawai bawa gari,
13. Angi sawai bawa wöda.
Der Wind, der zur gari-Klinge wurde,
Der Wind, der zur Schwertklinge wurde.
14. Itaba dalu nawönia angi,
15. Itaba dalu nawönia bara.
Es durchschneidet den Leib seines Gefährten der
Wind,
Es durchschneidet den Leib seines Gefährten der
Westwind.
Burusa ist eine besondere Speerart; gari eine
besondere Schwertart. In einer anderen Erklä-
rung verwendet Ama Rozama das Wort tohare
gari, was dort nicht „sein gari-Schwert ist da“
bedeutet, sondern für einen Jungen gebraucht
wird, der mannbar wird, und die Erektion des
männlichen Gliedes ausdrückt. Dann aber ist der
Wind nicht zu deuten als Bild des urzeitlichen
Chaos, bevor ein Gott als Schöpfer auftrat, son-
dern er hat dann etwas zu tun mit der Sexualität
des Menschen und seiner Fortpflanzung. Mir will
scheinen, daß auch der moyo-Tanz (s. u.) damit
zusammenhängt.
c) Die beiden Schlangen (dua sawa o’ö danö
„zwei Pythonschlangen, Topfring der Erde“)
O’ö ist der aus widerstandsfähigen Pflanzensten-
geln geflochtene Ring als Topfuntersatz, damit
der unten runde Topf sicher steht. Nach den
Vorstellungen der alten Niasser ruht die Erde
ebenso auf einem Ring. Dieser o’ö danö wird
aber von einer oder zwei großen Schlangen gebil-
det. Wenn diese sich bewegen, bebt die Erde,
und wenn sie sie nicht mehr tragen können, geht
die Erde zugrunde.
d) Der moyo
In der oberen Bildmitte sehen wir einen Habicht
(moyo). Ama Rozama nannte ihn moyo ana’a
(Goldhabicht; treffender wäre vielleicht Bus-
sard). Es handelt sich um einen Raubvogel, der
meist paarweise zu sehen ist. Das schöne Kreisen
der moyo-Paare am Tropenhimmel über Nias
führte dann wohl zur Entstehung des moyo-Tan-
zes (fanari moyo) von jeweils zwei gewöhnlich
angesehenen Frauen. Deshalb meinte Ama Roza-
ma, daß im Bild eigentlich zwei Vögel dargestellt
sein müßten. Dieser Tanz wird gegen Ende meist
schneller, impulsiver, dynamischer. Beide Frauen
tanzen schweigend und mit hoher Konzentration.
Oft werden sie mit Gesängen begleitet, oder man
tanzt im Kreise um sie herum den maena.
Eine Erklärung zum moyo hörte ich im Dorf
Tuhemberua, 5 km von Gunung Sitoli entfernt.
Danach soll der moyo einst ein Mensch gewesen
sein, der dann zum moyo wurde; und immer,
wenn der moyo weine, sterbe ein Mensch.
Man könnte sich den Vogel am Kopfe des
Bildes - anders als Rozama es sieht - auch -
entsprechend der mittel- oder südniassischen Tra-
dition - als anöwö vorstellen, was oft mit „Adler“
übersetzt wird, bei dem es sich aber aufgrund
verschiedener Umfragen um dieselbe Vogelart,
nur unter anderem Namen, handeln dürfte. Die-
ser Vogel war oft im Wurzelstock des hulu-
Balkens gegenüber dem Dachfenster im vorderen
Wohnraum des mittelniassischen Häuptlingshau-
ses eingeschnitzt.
In diesem Zusammenhang möchte der Autor
auf sein Buch „Famatö Harimao“ [Das Zerbre-
chen des Tigers] (1986) verweisen, und zwar auf
Abschnitt (84-86) „Oroisa Zochö nifa’ema Anö-
wö“ [Gesetz des Herrn überbracht vom anöwö]:
Ein anöwö mit einer Flügelspanne von einem
Klafter setzt sich bei Sonnenaufgang am Dachfen-
ster nieder und verkündet dem Vater Salawa
Anthropos 83.1988
196
Berichte und Kommentare
Holia das Gesetz oder die Gebote von Lawalani
Sanetua, Tuha Salawa, Tuha Salawa Howatua
(mit allen drei Namen sowie mit Sochö/Zochö
wird dieselbe Person bezeichnet). Hat er alles
getreu verkündet, kehrt er zurück in den neun-
schichtigen Himmel, ganz hinauf in den Himmel
über dem Wirbelwind, ins Verborgene. - Ferner
sei verwiesen auf Abschnitt (232-234) „Hoho
böröta Wondrakö“. Dort klafft bei einem Erdbe-
ben der Dorfplatz von Lalimboto auseinander.
„Wie ein Hahn fliegt empor,
Ein anöwö wie ein Fischreiher,
Schon sitzt er auf dem Rücken des Tigers,
Gesandt von Howatua, der wirklich ist.“
Die Verbote und Gebote, die Maße und Gewich-
te und alles, was der anöwö bei dieser Gelegen-
heit verkündet, werden der Beginn (böröta) des
Rechtsfestes (fondrakö, wondrakö). Der anöwö
kommt dabei aus der gespaltenen Erde hervor
und kehrt auch wieder dorthin zurück.
Vielleicht haben der moyo im Bild und der
anöwö im Häuptlingshaus denselben Ursprung,
gehen auf dieselbe Tradition im Gomo-Gebiet
zurück. Die verschiedenen Namen brauchen da-
bei nicht unbedingt zu stören. (So gibt es z. B.
auch für „Fels“ auf Nias je nach Gegend die
Namen sewe sebua, fawunu, hösi u. a., die alle
dasselbe bedeuten.) So könnte der moyo im Bild
auch mit dem Gesetz der Ahnen, mit dem Gebot
des Lawalangi (Lowalangi) in Verbindung ge-
bracht werden.
e) Das Aufzählen der Grundlagen (auf dem)
fondrakö (fangerai dane’a fondrakö)
Hierzu habe ich keine weiteren Erklärungen von
Ama Rozama erhalten. Doch handelt es sich
dabei um das große Rechtsfest (fondrakö), auf
dem das für die menschliche Gesellschaft ver-
bindliche Recht, die Sitte, die Maße, Gewichte
usw. als Fundamente (tane’a, dane’a) für diese
Gemeinschaft der Reihe nach aufgezählt wurden.
Fondrakö bedeutet die Formulierung und Ver-
kündung solchen Rechts unter Androhung von
Strafe.
f) Die Verfluchungen (auf dem) fondrakö: fünf
(fangelifi fondrakö: lima)
Die fünf nach unten gerichteten Zungen unter
der „Welt der Frau“ sollen Feuerzungen (hola-
hola) darstellen. Dies erfährt noch eine Steige-
rung: Sie sind aus einem Feuer von harten Kokos-
nußschalen, wie es z. B. ein Schmied verwendet,
weil es besonders heiß ist. Im einzelnen wollen
die fünf glühend heißen Feuerzungen dem Be-
trachter des Bildes folgendes sagen:
1. böi sawö fondrakö!
Ya’afatö waha!
Ya ’aeru mbisi!
Setze dich nicht über das fondrakö hinweg!
Sonst sollen brechen die Schenkel!
Sonst sollen abmagern die Waden!
2. Böi sui fondrakö!
Böi törö tou!
Ya’aetu mbagi!
Tauche nicht unter dem fondrakö hindurch!
Untergehe es nicht!
Sonst ist der Hals ab!
2. Böi nönö fondrakö!
Ya’asila dödö!
Ya’aboto dalu!
Füge dem fondrakö nichts hinzu!
Sonst spalte sich das Herz!
Sonst berste der Leib!
4. Böi ambösi!
Ya’asila hulu!
Ya’aeru waha!
Mache keine Abstriche!
Sonst spalte sich das Rückgrat!
Sonst werden mager die Schenkel!
5. Böi ra’u!
Ya’aetu nga’ötö!
Ya lö wa ’a ba danö!
Ya lö molöndru ba mbanua!
Ya si mate lö lewatö!
Ya taya lö mila sau!
Raube nicht!
Sonst reiße ab die Nachkommenschaft!
Sonst bleibe keine Wurzel im Boden!
Sonst zeige sich kein Sproß im Dorf!
Sonst sterbe ohne Grab!
Sonst verschwinde, ohne daß man Dampf sieht!
Letzteres meint einen ehrlosen Tod. Kein Toten-
mahl wird gehalten, also auch kein Feuer ge-
macht, kein Rauch und kein Dampf steigen auf.
Der Tote verschwindet einfach spurlos.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
197
g) Die „Welt der Frau“, die „Welt des Mannes“
Mit der „Welt der Frau“ bezeichnet Ama Roza-
ma das große, wie eine Blüte aussehende Gebilde
unterhalb der Frau. Es handelt sich dabei um eine
Knospe, die sich geöffnet hat und voll entfaltet
ist. Das gleiche Gebilde unterhalb des Mannes
wurde mit „Welt des Mannes“ bezeichnet.
h) Das Sichtbarmachen der Flüche (auf dem)
fondrakö: fünf (fangoroma ’ö fangelifi
fondrakö: limä)
Auch hier weisen wiederum fünf Zungen aus
einem Kokosnußschalenfeuer (hola-hola zole)
nach unten und künden Tod und Verderben. Es
sind die Feuerzungen unter der „Welt des Man-
nes“. Manchmal werden sie auch si lima ila-ila
wangelifi „die fünf Kennzeichen der Verflu-
chung“ genannt. Es sind dies im einzelnen:
1. Famafatö liehe „Das Brechen der (dünnen)
Palmblattrippen“
Gebraucht werden die dünnen, wohl einen hal-
ben Meter langen Blattrippen der Kokospalme,
die man sonst gebündelt als Besen verwendet, da
sie geschmeidig sind. Es ist auch sprichwörtlich,
daß man ein Bündel dieser liehe unmöglich zu-
sammen durchbrechen kann, wohl aber einzeln. -
Bei der Fluchzeremonie werden aber nicht diese
frischen, biegsamen liehe verwendet, sondern die-
jenigen einer Palme, die vom Blitz getroffen
wurde (liehe si göna garimbanua). Zudem muß-
ten diese liehe schon wenigstens ein Jahr lang im
Hause aufbewahrt worden sein. Zwölf Stück da-
von sind nötig. Diese sind durch den Blitz und die
lange Lagerzeit so dürr, daß sie auch im Bündel
brechbar sind. Man sagt dann: Lafatö liehe si
ndröfia „Sie brechen die einjährigen Blattrip-
pen.“
2. Famogö sigaru „Das Rösten der Fruchthülse“
Die große spitze Fruchthülse der Kokospalme
(sigaru nohi), die den noch unentfalteten Blüten-
und Fruchtstand der Palme schützend umschließt,
wird noch völlig geschlossen von der Palme ge-
holt und ins Feuer geworfen. Infolge der Hitze
platzt sie auf und verschmort.
3. Famuyu’ö mbagi manu „Das Abdrehen des
Halses beim Huhn“
Man nimmt ein lebendes Huhn und gießt ihm
flüssigen Zinn in den Schnabel, wobei man sagt:
Ya simanö lalau sambuyu’ö buku.
So sollen sie denen tun, die das Gesetz erweichen,
Samila’ö satulö mbörö,
Die verbiegen das im Grund Rechte,
Si manga sölö-sölö.
Die sich bestechen lassen,
Si manga si tenga önia.
Die fremdes Gut verzehren,
Ya simanö lalau!
So sollen sie tun!
Und solange das Huhn noch lebt, drehen sie ihm
den Hals ab, brechen ihm die Beine und werfen
es in die Feuergrube.
4. Fanunu auri nasu „Das Verbrennen eines
lebenden Hundes“
Man ergreift einen Hund, fesselt ihm die Füße
und wirft ihn in die Feuergrube. Dabei sagt man:
Samakao iraono ma lacha mbanua, ya simanö
alua chöu! „Wer Kinder oder Witwen im Dorfe
quält, so soll es ihm ergehen!“
5. Lafada wato baohi „Sie setzen die Axt an die
Kokospalme“
Die Axt vom Rechtsfest ist eine Faustelle lang
(sambua si’u ochö), d. h. so lange wie der Unter-
arm mit geschlossener Faust. Es handelt sich um
eine Menschenaxt, nicht um eine chinesische Axt.
Bei der Axt des Menschen (fato niha) wird der
Holzstiel durchbohrt, und der Eisenfortsatz der
Axt steckt fest in diesem Stiel. Die chinesische
Axt (fato cina) gleicht hingegen der europä-
ischen. Diese Axt nun wird an den Stamm einer
Kokospalme angelegt. Dann beteiligen sich alle
Häuptlinge (salawa) daran, sie in den Stamm zu
schlagen, bis sie darin verschwindet.
i) Die Feuergrube
Die Grube für das Feuer (baho galitö) wird in die
Erde eingegraben, jeweils fünf Ellen lang, breit
und tief. Dann füllt man sie mit hartem, trocke-
nem Holz und Schmiedekohle aus Kokosnußscha-
len. Man zündet es an; es gibt eine starke Hitze.
Und so lautet die Fluchandrohung; Ya simanö
ndra’ugö, hulö simane hola-hola galitö! „So soll
es dir ergehen, wie den Zungen des Feuers!“
Anthropos 83.1988
198
Berichte und Kommentare
j) Der Geist des fondrakö (eheha wondrakö)
Die mittlere Längsachse des Bildes enthält das
Symbol für den Geist des fondrakö. Dieser befin-
det sich im Herzen des Häuptlings (ba dödö
zalawa so ia). Das Feuer vom Geist des fondrakö
geht über auf Männer und Frauen. In der Hand
von Mann und Frau sehen wir eine Lampe: der
Geist des Menschen. Ist ein Mensch allein,
brennt sie nicht (lö muhola), wird es nicht hell.
Wenn sich aber Mann und Frau vereinigt haben,
dann brennen sie hier. (Bei dem Wort „hier“
zeigte Ama Rozama auf die Lampe zwischen
Mann und Frau.) Es brennt (muhola), da sie es
ins Werk umsetzen. Und das Feuer erlischt nicht,
es durchzieht alle ihre Arbeit. Dieses Feuer
erleuchtet sie und auch andere Menschen, die
draußen sind. Sichtbar wird der Mensch, der Sitte
hat (niha soböwö), es ist der Mensch, der Flam-
men (hola-hola) in sich hat.
k) Die Fortsetzung des Feuers vom Geist des
fondrakö (famatohu galitö geheha wondrakö)
Diese findet sich in aufsteigender Linie über dem
„Geist des fondrakö“.
l) Zwei Paar Arme und Hände
Es versteht sich von selbst, daß der oberste
Häuptling (balugu) unter allen hervorragt; sein
Leuchten ist sichtbar. Die beiden oberen Hände
sind die des balugu.
m) Das Leuchten (haga)
Der balugu kann aber nicht stark sein, wenn er
nur auf sich allein gestellt bleibt. Auch die Frau
ist notwendig. Sie stützt von hinten das Werk
ihres Gatten. Ihre besondere Aufgabe ist der
folaya-Tanz, die Gäste empfangen, der moyo-
Tanz, das Anbieten der Betelnuß u. a. Deshalb
sieht man neben ihren Armen und über ihren
Händen ein Leuchten: Mohaga mbagi mbölöcha,
mofandru dalinga za’a „Es leuchten die Handge-
lenke, aufscheinen die Spitzen der Nägel.“ Mo-
fandru meint eigentlich das Aufscheinen einer
Lampe (fandru). Die Symbole innerhalb der El-
lenbogen bedeuten ebenfalls dieses Leuchten.
Mit anderen Worten ist es fa’ohahau dödö ba
fa’omasi si so chöra baomo „die Heiterkeit des
Herzens und die Liebe, die bei ihnen im Hause
sind“.
Der ganz oben sichtbare Lichtstrahl, der von
zwei Händen emporgehalten wird, ist das Leuch-
ten im Dorf (haga ba mbanuä), es ist haga nitunu,
si no tobali hola-hola „das Licht, das entzündet
wurde, das schon zu Flammen wurde“.
n) Die sieben Ideale der Häuptlingskinder (fitu
holi turia nono zalawa) oder die sieben Ideale
der Häuptlingsfamilie (fitu holi turia bawaulu
mbatö)
(Das niassische Wort holi bedeutet „oben“ und
turia „Kunde“ oder „Ruhm“. Teturia sagt man
von einem berühmten Häuptling, dessen Ruf
überall hingelangt aufgrund seiner Fähigkeiten,
seiner guten Sitte und seiner Arbeit. Diese „Kun-
de oben“ oder dieser „höchste Ruhm“ wird hier
einfach mit „Ideal“ wiedergegeben.)
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
199
Sieben Ideale sind dargestellt, jeweils rechts
und links und für Mann und Frau gleich;
1. Eragi ba wo’adu; öwölö-ölö.
Vermögend, etwas schön zu gestalten; fleißig.
2. Mamacho mamahalö:
a) ba tanö, ba zinanö,
b) ba gurifö; manguri bawi, manu btb.
c) mama’öna; ibe’e nifalali.
Hart arbeiten auf dem Feld:
a) auf dem Land bezüglich der Pflanzen,
b) bezüglich der Tiere; Schweine, Hüh-
ner und andere züchten.
c) Geld leihen; er leiht auf Zins (er
gibt etwas im Tausch).
3. Fa’ehauhau (budaya).
Lautere Gesinnung (Brauchtum).
4. Fobara hao (susunan masyarakat).
Hao-Bambus querlegen (Gesellschaftsord-
nung).
5. Böwö masi (kasih sayang).
Die Sitte der Liebe (Liebe).
6. Folau omo niboto silötö;
Das Errichten eines Hauses mit zubehauenen
siVötö-Balken;
Eu nitoto; amatela mbawi.
Kantholz; Schlachten von Schweinen.
7. Famondrakö.
Ein fondrakö halten.
(In Klammern gesetzt wurden die von Ama Ro-
zama z. T. in Indonesisch gegebenen erläutern-
den Zusätze zu den Spezialausdrücken. Der fünf-
te Punkt handelt natürlich von der Heiratssitte,
der Sitte schlechthin.)
Die Verwirklichung oder das Erreichen der
sieben Ideale endet gewöhnlich mit einem owasa-
Fest, d. h. es werden viele Schweine geschlachtet,
und ein großes Mahl wird gehalten. Dabei wird
der Ruhm des Festgebers verkündet (teturia).
Wer alle Feste durchlaufen hat, der ist oben
(holi). Die verwirklichten sieben Ideale sind dann
gleichsam die Vorzüge oder Ruhmesblätter dieses
Mannes.
o) Die zwölf Stufen
Im rechten und linken Bildrand sind jeweils zwölf
Stufen dargestellt, aufsteigend von unten nach
oben. Bei den sechs höheren Stufen, also von 7
bis 12, tritt zu dem symbolischen Blatt, das die
Stufe anzeigt, noch jeweils eine Blüte hinzu, die
den verantwortungsvollen Einsatz (so tanggung
jawab) der entsprechenden Stufe kennzeichnet.
Si felendrua bosi (die zwölf Stufen):
1. Fa’atumbu ndraono
Die Geburt eines Kindes
2. Famatörö töi
Die Namensgebung
3. Fangefasi ba wa'aila (Famoto)
Das Freimachen von Beschämung (Die
Beschneidung)
4. Tohare gari
Das gari ist da
5. Momburambura gari
Das gari hat einen Korbball
6. Ma mo’ifö gari
Das gari hat schon Zähne
7. Fangowalu
Die Heirat (eigentlich: die Achtteilung des
Goldes)
8. Salawa mbanua
Der Häuptling im Dorf
9. Tube ba nöri
Der Häuptling (eigentlich: Stumpf) im öri
10. Fahösi
Die Steinsetzung (?)
11. . . . (lö latötöi)
. . . (wird nicht genannt)
12. Balugu
Balugu (oberster Häuptling).
Die Blüten der sechs höheren Stufen sind nicht
deutlich zu erkennen und sehen eher aus wie
Blätter, wurden von Ama Rozama aber aus-
drücklich als Blüten (bowo) bezeichnet.
Mit Ausnahme der Stufen 3-6 sind alle für
Mann und Frau gleich.
Die besonderen Stufen der Frau sind:
3. Fangehözi (fanaba nifö)
Das Abfeilen (Abschneiden der Zähne)
4. Tohare daga
Der Tragkorb ist da
5. Daga nina
Der Tragkorb der Mutter
6. Mamahalö
Feldarbeit treiben.
Die zwölf Stufen gliedern sich in drei Gruppen:
Bosi wa’iraono; tölu
Stufen der Kindheit; drei
Bosi wa’afotuwusö; tölu
Stufen des Heranwachsens; drei
Bosi zatua; önö
Stufen der Erwachsenen; sechs.
Wie schon erwähnt, steht bei den Stufen des
Mannbarwerdens der Ausdruck vom gari-Schwert
(a), das sich vom fo/ögu-Schwert (b) unterschei-
det. Die Schneide des gari ist fast geradlinig; der
Rücken aber steigt von der Spitze her eingebuch-
tet auf und verläuft dann geradlinig bis zum Griff.
Das fo/ögu-Schwert hingegen zeigt einen kurzen,
nach oben gewölbten Messerrücken an der Spit-
Anthropos 83.1988
200
Berichte und Kommentare
ze, und auch die Schneide ist leicht eingebuchtet
in ihrer ganzen Länge. Ein gari ist erst vollkom-
men, wenn es mit einem aus Rotang geflochtenen
Korb (bura) seitlich am Schwertgriff versehen ist.
Dieser Korb, sonst auch rago genannt, wird auch
noch mit Zähnen (ifo), meistens von Krokodil
oder Tiger, bestückt, welche die Kraft versinn-
bildlichen. (Auch das Wort für „Blitz“ ist gari, ge-
wöhnlich mit dem Zusatz banua [mbanua] „Him-
mel“; gari mbanua „Blitz, gari vom Himmel“.)
Sicher ist, daß der Ausdruck für die 4. Stufe
für den penis erectus steht. Dann könnte ich mir
denken, daß das Bild der 5. Stufe für die Hoden
gebraucht wird und das der 6. Stufe die Zeu-
gungsfähigkeit des jungen Mannes meint. Ebenso
könnte der Tragkorb (daga) in der 4. und 5. Stufe
der Frau die Brust der Frau symbolisieren. Dem
salawa mbanua entspricht nach Ama Rozama in
SüdniaS der si’ila, der Wissende, der Ratgeber.
Das Wort fahösi in der 10. Stufe müßte laut
Heinrich Sundermann (1892) übersetzt werden:
„etwas mit Kraft, Nachdruck oder Eifer tun“. Da
hösi allgemein auf Nias eine harte Gesteinsart
oder Fels bedeutet, könnte fahösi eventuell auch
die Steinsetzung auf dem o wasa-Fest meinen,
oder aber auch die felsenfeste Position, die der
Betreffende in seinem Gebiet erreicht hat. Fahösi
besagt aber sicher auch dies; Das Leben eines
Menschen, der diese Feste gefeiert hat, ist in-
haltsreich, hat sein Gewicht und seine Bedeutung
in der Gesellschaft (ösi oder hösi „Inhalt“ lö hösi
„leer, kein Inhalt“). Etwas rätselhaft ist für mich
noch die 11. Stufe, von der Ama Rozama sagte,
daß sie nicht genannt werde, da sie gleichsam
keinen Titel habe. Erklärend fügte er aber hinzu:
Fulu fahösi ia; afönu. Balugu safönul „Zehn
fahösi [hat] er; vollkommen. Ein vollkommener
balugu\u
Bezüglich der zwölf Stufen besteht in den
Sippen der fünf Väter eine verschiedene Praxis.
Sie durchlaufen nicht unbedingt alle Stufen.
1. Die Sippe von Hia kann bis zur 12. Stufe gelangen.
2. Die Sippe von Gözö gelangt nur bis zur 9. Stufe.
3. Die Sippe von Hulu darf nicht zur 10. Stufe gelangen, nur
zur 9. Dort angelangt, wird fünfmal ein owasa-Fest gefei-
ert, danach gelangt man direkt zur 12. Stufe.
4. Bei der Sippe von Daeli verhält es sich ebenso.
5. Die Sippe von Luomewöna gelangt nur bis zur 10. Stufe.
Man nannte dies; si fulu fahösi. - Nicht nannte man die
elfte. Doch die 12. Stufe nannte man: si felendrua amo
(maoho; lö hösi). (Ama Rozama erklärte dies nicht
weiter. Sundermann übersetzt amo mit „schwach, hinfäl-
lig“. Man könnte dies in Beziehung bringen mit dem
Festgeber, der beim Erreichen der letzten Stufe schon
schwach und hinfällig geworden ist. Lö hösi „kein Inhalt;
eer“ würde damit gut zusammenstimmen, ebenso maoho,
das Sundermann mit „hohl sein; leer sein“ wiedergibt.)
Einzelne Symbole aus dem Bild waren früher
immer auf den Festkleidern zu sehen, z. B. auf
der roten Sonnenjacke (baru luo soyd), die fast
jeder Häuptling trug, oder auf der gelben {baru
luo sa’usö), die nur die höchsten besaßen; nach
Ama Rozama gab (oder gibt) es in der Mandröfa-
Sippe davon nur acht Personen.
p) Der Name des Bildes: Sigaru Dora’a
Was bedeutet nun der Name dieses Schnit-
zwerks? Ama Rozama blieb uns die Antwort
hierfür schuldig. Für das Wort sigaru haben wir
bereits oben im Zusammenhang mit der Kokos-
palme {ohi, sigaru nohi) die Erklärung „Hülse,
Schote“ gebracht.
Bei der Frage nach dem Attribut dora’a
(tora’a) aber, um welche Schote es sich also
handelt, setzen die Schwierigkeiten ein. An ver-
schiedenen Orten fragte ich danach, aber nir-
gends kannte man einen Baum namens tora’a.
Am Mittellauf des Susua-Flusses kannte man
zwar den Ausdruck fache tori’i tora’a, d. h. der
tori’i-tora’a-Reis; man sagte jedoch, daß es keine
tora’a-Pflanze gebe, sondern daß es sich hier nur
um ein schmückendes Beiwort handle. (Vielleicht
kann man es mit deutschen Wortbildungen wie
„faleri-falera“ vergleichen. Auch die niassische
Poesie kennt dergleichen Wortbildungen; so heißt
ein besonders guter Tabak bago magege magaga,
und ein Sprichwort: Lö ta’ila dödö zalawa, lö
ta’ila na Hau hö’u hö’a „Wir kennen das Herz des
Häuptlings nicht, wir wissen nicht, ob er hö’u
oder hö’a macht.“ Der erste Entwurf von Ama
Rozamas Buch „Fondrakö“ war betitelt mit
„Börö Gotari Gotara“ [Der Gotari-Gotara-An-
fang], und vom Specht [to’ia] sagt man lautmale-
risch to ’ia tochichi tochacha.)
Münsterbergers Deutung von tora’a als my-
thischem Baum, von dem alles abstamme, läßt
sich hiernach wohl nicht halten. Die heutigen
Niasser wissen von keinem tora ’a-Gewächs, und
ihre Erklärungen gehen in eine andere Richtung.
Auch der Inhalt des Gesangs und die dazu gege-
bene Erklärung bestätigen dies.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
201
Sigaru ist also die Hülse oder Schote, die
schützend den Fruchtstand umschließt, sei es von
Kokos-, Betel- oder einer anderen Palme. Springt
sie auf, dann entfaltet sich und reift die Frucht.
Sie ist wichtig für das Leben des Menschen, sie
dient der Fortpflanzung, wenn sie keimt, wächst,
zum Baum wird und wiederum Frucht bringt. So
sollten wir also das Schnitzwerk sehen: Es ist
gleichsam ein großes Behältnis mit kostbarem
Inhalt. Es enthält die wichtigsten Elemente der
nordniassischen Tradition, zwar nicht mehr ver-
hüllt, wie in einer Schote, sondern voll entfaltet
für den Beschauer.
Bei der Erklärung von tora ’a (in der zweiten
Form dora’a) hilft uns der Gesang aus Fadoro
Lauru. In der Mitte etwa heißt es:
Siwa löndru falawa-lawa,
Sia'a löndru wesöla,
Ya'ia Dora'a tanömö niha!
Neun Triebe von gleicher Höhe,
Der erste Trieb bei der Geburt,
Das ist Tora’a, der Same der Menschen!
Steht das Wort tanömö allein, so bezeichnet es
den Samen, das Setzgut oder die Setzlinge. Hier
aber hat es ein Beiwort: niha „Mensch“. Zudem
muß man wissen, daß niha oder ono (Kind) niha
auch Niasser bedeutet. So bedeutet auch tanö
niha „Land der Menschen, Land der Niasser,
Nias“; Tora’a, tanömö niha dann „Tora’a, Same
der Menschen, Same der Niasser“. Damit wird
Tora’a als Vorfahr der Niasser ausgewiesen. Um
den Gesang vom angeblichen tora ’a-Baum richtig
zu verstehen, müssen wir das Bild gleichsam
umkehren: ganz oben ist der gemeinsame Ahn,
die Wurzel, der Stamm, von wo aus sich alles
nach unten hin verzweigt. Deshalb tragen im
Gesang zuerst die „obersten“ Äste Früchte, die
reifen, platzen und herabfallen. Zum Teil begeg-
nen wir hier auch denselben Ausdrücken wie bei
der Geburt eines Kindes. Die Niasserin gebiert
kniend, so daß das Kind gleichsam wie eine
Baumfrucht herabfällt (aechu) (vgl. Kleiweg de
Zwaan 1913: 220 ff.). Alle Errungenschaften des
Menschen lassen sich sodann auf Tora’a und
seine Nachkommen zurückführen.
Wichtig ist auch die Erklärung von Ama
Waböbö, einem in der Mendröfa-Sippe aner-
kannten Fachmann der alten Tradition von Nord-
nias, der mir diesen Gesang übermittelte: Ihm
zufolge liegt der Ursprung der Niasser 68 Genera-
tionen zurück: 20 vor Sihai, 28 nach Sihai und
weitere 20 in der Neuzeit. Setzen wir eine Gene-
ration mit 25 Jahren an, gelangen wir in das Jahr
284 n. Chr. Dies ist zwar kein Beweis, da in der
Oraltradition bei so vielen Namen leicht Irrtümer
und bewußte Übertreibungen Vorkommen. Wir
wollen jedoch versuchen, auf dem Hintergrund
der Erzählungen eines Kenners den Gesang zu
verstehen. Eine weitere Erklärung Ama Wabö-
bös kommt noch hinzu:
Mo’ono Sihai, ya’ia Tora’a.
Mo’ono Tora’a, ya’ia:
1. Tuba Similo Ba Döla.
2. Buruti Bene Dora’a.
Sifaerol
Ein Kind bekommt Sihai, das ist Tora’a.
Kinder bekommt Tora’a, das sind:
1. Tuha Similo Ba Döla.
2. Buruti Bene Dora’a.
Zwillinge!
(Das Mädchen Buruti hatte als Beinamen: Blü-
tenknospe des Tora’a.)
Damit ist nun erklärt, worum es in dem
Sigaru-Dora’a-Bild geht, nämlich um die Nach-
kommen jenes Vorfahren der Niasser, Tora’a,
und um ihre Entfaltung, Kultur, Sitte und Le-
bensordnung. Diese durch Jahrhunderte hindurch
gewachsene Tradition wurde auf einmalige Weise
in diesem Schnitzwerk dargestellt.
Diese Bildbetrachtung zeigt zwar noch deut-
liche Lücken, da nur zwei Besuche bei Ama
Rozama möglich waren. Beim ersten ließ ich ihn
erzählen und schrieb mit; der zweite Besuch war
hauptsächlich dem Fotografieren gewidmet. Den-
noch bin ich der Ansicht, daß der Beitrag trotz
seiner Mängel für weitere Studien richtungwei-
send sein kann. Ama Rozama sei an dieser Stelle
gedankt, denn es gibt nichts, was in so knapper
und dicht gefüllter Form in die nordniassische
Tradition einführt wie sein Bild.
Zitierte Literatur
Hämmerle, Johannes M.
1986 Famatö Harimao. Pesta Harimao, Fondrakö, Böröna-
du dan Kebudayaan lainnya di wilayah Maenamölö -
Nias Selatan. Medan: Abidin.
Kleiweg de Zwaan, J. P.
1913 Die Heilkunde der Niasser. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Mendröfa, Sökhi’aro Weither
1969 Börö Gotari Gotara. Gunung Sitoli: Percetakan
BNKP.
1981 Fondrakö Ono Niha. Agama Furba, Hukum, Adat,
Hikayat dan Mitologi Masyarakat Nias. Jakarta: Inkul-
tra.
Anthropos 83.1988
202
Berichte und Kommentare
Münsterberger, W.
1939 Ethnologische Studien an indonesischen Schöpfungs-
mythen. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Pieper, A.
1923 Realienboek. Laguboti: Missionsdruckerei.
Sundermann, Heinrich
1892 Deutsch Niassisches Wörterbuch. Moers: Spaarmann.
Problems of Descent in the Southern
Ryukyus (Sakeshima)
William Newell
Before unification under the first Sho Dynasty in
1429, Okinawa was split into numerous warring
chieftainships called anji or aji. From about the
late sixteenth century onwards the various small
chieftainships had come under centralized control
by compelling all chieftains to move into Shuri
(the capital) and to store their arms there. The
power of the government remained centralised
until 1879 when the Japanese government incor-
porated all the islands from Amami Oshima in
the north to Yonaguni in the south into Japan
proper. Up till this time the population were
divided into two main strata, the warrior class
(termed keemuchi, those with genealogies) and
hyakusoo (literally meaning ‘various names’).
Each stratum on the main island of Okinawa
had different sorts of kinship systems. The first
type one could call the munchu system, the other
type one can call the uji. The latter were associat-
ed with shima (villages) and often had a sacred
grove (utaki) as a centre. The former often had
no sacred grove and all births and deaths were
registered with a special genealogical department
in Shuri. Tasato by comparing the two sorts of
villages (cited in Tanaka 1983: 79) found that in
the ‘commoner’ villages only three or four des-
cent groups existed, whereas some warrior vil-
lages had over ninety descent groups, as the noble
clans became redispersed over the islands.
Japanese has been the official language in
Okinawa almost from the 1880s, and so it is
almost inevitable that the use of such terms as
munchu have become identified with Japanese
equivalents. The term munchu is not found in
Japan or China but is a commonly used term in
Korea. Since most anthropologists regard the
Japanese kinship system as basically bilateral but
the descent system as unilineal and since this is
also true over much of the Ryukyus, the differ-
ences between Japan and Okinawa tend to be-
come glossed over. I will now describe some of
the basic features of the Japanese, the Okinawan
munchu system, and the system formerly found
among commoners.
In theory, the Japanese ie system consists of
the head of a house, his successor, the wives of
these two persons, their unmarried children, and
certain other dependents plus other dead persons
who were members of the ie. Since descent is
traced unilineally, only one of the children will
remain in the ie after marriage to occupy the
position of successor or successor’s wife. All
other married members of the ie will have to
leave the ie after marriage to form a new ie or to
join another ie. The relationship between the ie
of procreation and the ie to which expelled
members go can be along either affinal links or
through kinship ties. No person can belong to two
ie at once. Since the Japanese kinship system is
basically bilateral and since one’s position in the
kinship system is also determined by one’s ie
membership, the Japanese term shinrui (which is
usually translated as relatives) refers to the rela-
tionship between two persons as members of
different ie rather than as a dyadic relationship
between two individuals. “A circle of shinrui is
recognised as a set of households, not simply as
an aggregate of individuals .... The shinrui of
the individual members of a household tend to be
congruent with the shinrui of the household head
rather than a genealogical network traced out
from each individual member.”1
On the main island of Okinawa itself there is
a marked movement to identify munchu with the
Japanese ie system and often the terms honke,
bunke, etc., are used in a similar sense to the
Japanese dozoku system. But this conceals the
basic difference between the Japanese and Okina-
wan munchu system. If a younger brother has
married but the older brother has died without
heirs, his eldest son may be moved to become the
heir of the honke even if this leaves the bunke
without an inheritor. This is almost impossible in
Japan. In Japan a yoshi is very often unrelated
1 Nakane Chie, “Kinship,” in Kodansha Encyclopaedia of
Japan; Vol. 4: 217. However a recent article by Nakago-
mi Mutsuko (1983) has shown that shinrui for married out
women in Fukushima often depends on the standpoint of
the speaker in the family of procreation before the death
of the ie head. Japanese usage is more flexible than
Nakane allows. - See also Nagashima 1984: 20 ff.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
203
before marriage with the ie which he joins, and
even a direct adoptee is often a total stranger
although sometimes an uncle’s younger son is
transferred from one ie to another if one is
available. To make this point clear see the fol-
lowing diagram
A = O
Diagram 1: Founding couple (gwansu)
All the persons in segment 5 will worship the
graves of segments 5, 4, 3 and 1. The persons in
segment 3 will only worship in segments 3 and 1.
This would be the system among the noble
Okinawans. In Japan each segment would be
separate, so each segment would only worship the
ie line of its own number. Only 1 would be
responsible for worshipping the founding couple.
But among the commoner Okinawan group since
all would be buried in the common grave, made
by the founding couple, their descendants would
all be together in the munchu-baka and worship
segments 1 to 5. Among the noble Okinawans, if
a line above 1 were to be terminated, then the
son of a lower line, even if he were the only
successor, might have to terminate his section and
transfer, although the ideal would be of course to
have two sons.
Thus even when Japanese terms are used to
describe the house or the honke there are funda-
mental differences in structure between mainland
Japan and Okinawa. Moreover, in the noble
Okinawan system there is a restriction for the
most part on having two brothers (choo.rei-
kasabai) or two cousins (ichiku-kasabai) occupy-
ing the same level on the domestic altar. If a
ceremony is undertaken which commemorates
the spirits of brothers or cousins at the same
ceremony it is believed that a calamity such as
ju-jiri (ending of the line) will happen. This
problem is one that clearly can never trouble a
Japanese because the division of the descent line
takes place at the marriage of the second sibling
when he founds a new ie never to return to his
father’s family. But in the noble Okinawan sys-
tem the patrilineal lines continue to be associat-
ed with the founding ancestor.
So far I have dealt with these two systems as
though they are clearly distinguishable. I have
described the Japanese system as unilineal des-
cent and an ie-oriented kinship system, and the
noble Okinawan as a patrilineal descent system
from a common ancestor. The commoner system
will be shown as a cognatic household oriented
system with a bilateral kinship base. But before
discussing this third system I should make it clear
that the Okinawans use the term munchu in
practice to apply to any group larger than the
domestic unit. Nakane Chie has compared the
munchu on Amami-Oshima (the northernmost
island) to the New Zealand Maori hapu which is
an extremely flexible organization, membership
of which is often determined by the person
himself or herself choosing between different al-
ternative lines (ambilinearity). Moreover, some-
times a woman after marriage still remains with
the munchu of her brother and in some cases is
even buried within her brother’s traditional cor-
porate grave after marriage. There is a certain
sense in Sakeshima (southern Ryukyus) in that
the sister is regarded as the domestic priestess of
her brother’s family, and brother/sister solidarity
{bigiri-bunari) is certainly much stronger in many
islands than emphasis on lineal descent.
I think that it is clear that there is a basic
incompatibility between these three different
forms of kinship organisation.
A Japanese System Single unilineal descent Exclusion of non-members on marriage from ie
B Noble munchu system Common patrilineal descent from founding ancestor
General responsibility for senior bara, including worship
C Commoner uji system Emphasis on household and bilat- erality
Anthropos 83.1988
204
Berichte und Kommentare
A
A = O
A = O
A = O
B
A
l\
A A
l\ \
A A A
\ r
\ O
\
j
O
Arrow shows direction of interest of new members
N
X site of utake shrine
• grave sites
■ upunaka ritual sites
^ harbour
----boundary of reef
-----Residential household
Diagram 2
The shape of the structure which maintains conti-
nuity differs.
When the society was clearly demarcated
into almost endogamous strata then each descent
system could retain its own characteristics. But
during the last hundred years and especially since
the war there has been extensive vertical and
horizontal mobility. Many islands are almost de-
populated while there has been an enormous
migration between Okinawa island and the Japa-
nese mainland. It is clear that there is pressure to
standardize the kinship and descent structure.
Moreover, while in both traditional Okinawa and
Japan there were marked features of strata endo-
gamy, in modern times it is the class system which
is dominant and a class system which has no clear
closure. Just as the Japanese ie system is today of
almost negligible importance in organizing the
Japanese domestic group and is hardly protected
by law, so in Okinawa the commoner uji system is
now rapidly disappearing and is being increasing-
ly included in the munchu system at least as far
as the main island is concerned (see Newell
1980a).
However, this is not true of the whole of the
Ryukyus and I wish to describe the commoner uji
system as it applies to the island of Tarama,
which is a small island about a mile and a half
across situated between Ishigaki and Miyako in
Sakeshima. In 1978 it had a population of 2,335
divided almost equally between men and women
with a disproportionate number of those very
young and very old as the whole village was
suffering from teenage emigration at the end of
schooling. The ‘village’ in which practically every-
one lived was to the north of the island and
there was a small mountain to the NW in which
all the grave sites were placed. These graves were
real or artifical caves on the sides of the moun-
tain. The ‘village’ had been divided by the Japa-
nese rulers into two oaza, Nakatsuji and Shioka-
wa, with each oaza in turn divided into 4 ku. The
Japanese names of these ku were all different but
4
Map 2; Tarama Island
I discovered that prior to the Nipponization of
the formal system of organization there was no
name for the ‘village’ other than the name of the
whole island. Moreover, the village was divided
into two along the centre and each side had a
fourfold division running along the present ku
boundaries but with identical ku names on both
sides of the boundary. In fact, the whole ‘village’
was bifurcated in the traditional Okinawan fash-
ion into ‘mountain’ and ‘plain.’ Moreover, it ap-
peared that historically each traditional house
occupied a piece of land with a special yashiki
name. I could not find anyone who knew the
meaning of these traditional Okinawan names of
house sites nor could I work out any plan of their
relationship to each other. However, when a
family, about to emigrate, sold the house, they
could not sell or transfer these house site names.
The names clearly had some relationship to all
the other names in the area and were not connect-
ed with the ‘family.’ I am convinced that there
was a ‘cosmological’ plan in which the two sec-
tions, Nakatsuji and Shiokawa, each reproduced
the other. Some of the ku in the village were
occupied by ‘shrines’ (utaki) but there was no
‘village’ shrine representing the whole ‘village’
other than the Japanese imposed Shinto shrine
which was built by the Japanese just before the
first World War when they forced everyone to
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
205
adopt the Japanese language and village system.
Insofar as there was unity above the two oaza I
believe this to be the whole island of Tarama.
While the island and the yashiki system were
continuous through time, there was no continuity
through time in the family or descent system. I
enclose here a model of the way the Tarama
villagers saw their kinship system (seido) as a
system of ‘knots’ (diagram 3). All those persons
within three knots are considered close relatives
and act together under certain circumstances. The
0
GFM
2
-0
FM
1
- 0
Ego
Husband
GFM
2
0 -
FM
1
0-
2
- 0----0
Wife
Ego
1
0
Child
0
0
0
Diagram 3: Tarama seido system relationships
important thing to notice is that this group cannot
begin to act collectively till after marriage after
which husband and wife are of equal importance,
as persons through whom to trace relationship.
Notice also that even siblings will not have the
same group of near relatives as they will marry
different persons.
The cave graves to the NW are regarded as
extensions of the household. The household
shrine before which are arranged the tablets is re-
garded as identical with the altar before each par-
ticular cave. The caves are divided into three sec-
tions, at the back are old bones, before them are
pots containing individuals who have passed
through the bone washing ceremony (shinuwa),
and before them are the recently dead. There is
no feeling of ‘spookiness’ and I have freely
entered these mausoleums which are closed not
very securely by the opening stone. Although
there is no formal difference between the differ-
ent graves, the people make a practical distinc-
tion between family graves where upkeep is in the
hands of only one household, all of whom are
buried there; communal graves which two or
more families collectively maintain (as two or
more households are buried there indiscriminate-
ly), and individual graves of which there are very
few and which mostly consist of strangers and
those suffering from a skin disease like leprosy.
No new graves seem to have been built for some
fifty years and if one happened to be a stranger
who died there someone would negotiate with
some family who owned a mausoleum and, in
exchange for money, a person would be buried
with the other households there. From looking at
people’s surnames in the village registers it is easy
to tell whether in former times a household was a
peasant one or whether the household was a
ruling one sent from Shuri in the remote past.
Most commoners only acquired surnames under
Japanese influence. One cannot deduce anything
about common descent from common surnames
nor can one deduce that anyone is not related by
having different surnames. There is one descen-
dant of the former ruling class who has changed
his name three times since the war.
I have described elsewhere (1980b) some
features of the domestic worship system.
Here I wish only to emphasize the point that
at 33 years after death (or earlier under certain
circumstances) the tablet on the altar is burnt and
no more ceremonies are held in memory of the
individual. The main reason for this is that the
household is the unit and because of the ‘knot’
system it is not possible to collect sufficient
people within three ‘knots’ to hold any further
yuai ceremonies. Most persons within three
‘knots’ will have died.
These customs apply to all the families in
Tarama, and the apparent conflict between the
noble munchu system and the commoner uji
system has been solved in the direction of abol-
ishing the former system. Whereas in the main
island of Okinawa and elsewhere the direction is
clearly in the direction of becoming noble mun-
chu oriented, here it is the commoner system
Anthropos 83.1988
206
Berichte und Kommentare
which is dominating the patrilineal munchu sys-
tem.
To revert once again to the main island of
Okinawa: 1978 was the 33rd year after the Battle
of Okinawa. It is estimated that about 12,000
Americans died, and about 94,000 Japanese (in-
cluding 28,000 nurses, locally mobilized Okina-
wan in the defence corps and student volunteers).
There were also about 94,000 civilian Okinawan
casualties. In 1948 the population of Okinawa
was only 560,000 including Okinawans returned
from abroad. There is practically not a single
family that did not lose one or more members.
Many of these would have been destined to carry
on their lines but died without heirs. Under the
noble munchu system there were many cases
where the remaining heirs were not able to
produce enough male children to carry on more
than one or two bara lines and it was not
uncommon for me to see a number of ancestral
shrines with siblings and cousins on the same altar
divided by some sort of barrier. But if they were
to adopt the commoner uji system there is no
problem. The tablet is removed on the 33rd year
and continuity is maintained by the continuation
of the household and house site (yashiki). But in
the other system, if the tablet is removed, this is
equivalent to terminating the line as there would
be no link to the main stem.2
During the last thirty years there has been a
most energetic campaign waged by the yuta (sha-
mans, usually female) to correct the lines. Co-
wives have been disinterred and separated so that
their children can have a different gwansu. Adopt-
ed sons have been removed from the tablets and
replaced and if a family happens to have a family
mausoleum only the eldest line has been allowed
to be buried there. New graves are scattered
everywhere in the countryside on the Okinawan
main island. I was surprised to see that in many
cases the tablets are no longer individual tablets
arranged horizontally on shelves before the shrine
but organized in Japanese fashion into tablet
containers one behind the other. I asked one
person why he did this and he said there were too
many dead to be arranged in proper order and his
altar space was too small. This must lead to a
Japanese system more exclusive even than the
noble munchu system.
It has been estimated that up to 50 % of
illnesses in Okinawa are foretold by the yuta as
due to irregular descent lines. Some islands are
going through a sort of panic with tablets not
being destroyed at the 33rd year but being reorga-
nized lineally. In the island of Yonaguni one
anthropologist who worked there informed me
verbally that he believes that about 1/3 of adult
females were yuta making a partial living by
reorganizing the dead. As you might guess, in
contrast Tarama has not a single female yuta on
the whole island and the one old male shaman
who is still there makes a very poor living by
claiming to be a sort of geomancer dealing with
house sites.
Just as Japan is managing to free itself from
an extreme dependence on a sort of feudalistic ie
system, the Ryukyus are going in the opposite
direction supporting an equally idiotic system
connected with their feudalistic past. A tradition-
al household system has operated in the past
among commoners in an efficient and equalitari-
an manner. Why throw it overboard now?
Glossary
bagare, bara side-system
bigari-bunari term of address to sibling of opposite sex
bunke, honke side-stem, main stem
choo.rei kasabai brother doubling
dozoku Japanese collectivity of related ie
gwansu founding ancestor
ichiku kasabai cousin doubling
ie house
jujiri termination of descent line
kezu, keizai written genealogy
mutsu, munchu, pis- gu, piki corporate descent group
on, wan, utaki shrine
Sakeshima southern Ryukyus
seido ‘knot’ system of counting relatives
shiji descent line
yashiki house structure also including house site
yoshi outside male marrying daughter of ie and inheriting the house
yuai ‘friendship group’ but referring to group undertaking rites de passage in bilateral kinship structures
yuta shamaness (not to be confused with tsukasa or now, priestesses)
2 Actually many former noble houses had a genealogy
inserted into the altar called keizai. But this was by no
means universal and seemed to apply only to former
noble descendants.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
207
References Cited
Nagashima, N.
1984 Glossary. In; N. Nagashima and H. Tomoeda (eds.),
Regional Differences in Japanese Culture. Results of a
Questionnaire; pp. 15-26. Osaka: National Museum of
Ethnology. (Send Ethnological Studies, 14)
Nakagomi, Mutsuko
1983 Changes of Membership Reflected in the Funeral
Services of Parents - Changes of Family Membership
and Kin Network in Fukushima Prefecture. Minzoku-
gaku-kenkyu 48: 146-174.
Newell, William H.
1976 Tarama, the Orphan Island. Economic and Political
Weekly (Bombay) 11/48 (Nov. 27)
1980a Status Conflict among the Dead in the Southern
Ryukyus. The Non-resolution of Incompatible Ideolog-
ical Beliefs. First Japanese Studies Association Confer-
ence, Canberra, May 15.
19806 Some Features of the Domestic Cult Organization in
the Southern Ryukyus and Taiwan. Asian Folklore
Studies 39/2: 23-40.
Tanaka, Masako
1983 Kinship and Descent in an Okinawan Village. Nago-
ya.
In the Wake of the Whales
Early Eskimo in Hawaii?
W. W. Schuhmacher
One of the fur traders, in Hawaii in the 1790s,
was told on Maui that many years before, two
men appeared there in a skin boat.1 They eventu-
ally died there. But how would they have got
there? It can be excluded that the two men in the
skin boat - Aleuts or Eskimo - had come from
the Russian settlement of Fort Ross, California,
which was established later (in 1812). And Russi-
an sea otter hunting along the Californian coast
together with foreigners started in 1803.
If the two men had been Eskimo (and not
Aleuts what the skin boat would point to in the
first place), North Pacific Eskimo would be a
good assumption; Fishermen and sea mammal
hunters living on Kodiak Island and in the Prince
William Sound area, using boats resembling the
Aleut baidar and baidarka that could withstand
rough seas and surf. And what has been possible
by 1750, probably also would have been possible
about 1000 years earlier.
1 I am indebted to Richard A. Pierce, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada, for having called my attention to the event.
In contrast to natural science, as far as the
humanities are concerned, not much is known
about how the “subconscious logic,” called intu-
ition, has worked here. As for me and the theory
to be outlined, there was a saying in the begin-
ning ....
At Honolulu, I discovered a different system
for specifying directions when asking (in 1977) at
the Sinclair Library of the University of Hawaii
for the University Archives: I was told to go to
the “Diamond Head end” of the third floor.
Indeed, instead of the conventional compass
terms, the following are used to give directions:
mauka (literally, “toward the mountains”)
“north”; makai (literally, “toward the sea”)
“south”; Ewa (name of a plantation town west of
Pearl Harbor) “west”; Diamond Head (name of a
crater east of Waikiki) “east.” (In earlier times,
Waikiki was also used to indicate “east.”)
This giving of directions by reference to a
concrete feature of the landscape is more econom-
ical and more easily understood by the hearer in
the local situation than use of the conventional
terms would be2 - and was familiar to me: Two of
the Honolulu terms, mauka and makai, have
parallels in Greenlandic, in wich pavane “up”
(that is, toward the high land) and samane
“down” (that is, toward the sea) are used respec-
tively for “east” and “west.”3 * *
After this Honolulu experience, a linguistic
“mystery” of the entire archipelago could be seen
in another perspective. Neither in the first nor in
the revised and enlarged edition of their “Place
Names of Hawaii,” Pukui, Elbert, and Mookini
(1974) have given an etymology of the names of
the seven inhabited Hawaiian Islands - except for
Lana’i (“conquest day”) - by referring to the
antiquity for those names, viz. Ni’ihau, Kaua’i,
O’ahu, Moloka’i, Maui, Hawai’i. (Furthermore,
Maui may be excluded as it should be derived
from the name of the demigod.)
To find cognates of these place names in the
onomastic material elsewhere in Polynesia has
2 Compare for instance: “The Agee Hall is makai of the
Makiki Library in Makiki Park” (Newsletter, Hawaiian
Historical Society, November 1986).
3 Of course, makai, when used on the north side of Oahu,
would refer to “north,” and, alternatively, mauka would
be “south.” The same alternation applies to West Green-
land (above) versus East Greenland. (Still more compli-
cated, when living in Waianae at the far west of Oahu,
one has to try to figure out what is really meant by Ewa:
Does it refer to “east,” which is where Ewa is in relation
to Waianae, or does it mean “west,” which it means to
anyone in Honolulu).
Anthropos 83.1988
208
Berichte und Kommentare
failed so far: Besides the lack of any etymology,
the procedure is made difficult by the fact that
name similarity because of the simple Polynesian
syllable structure and the poor consonantism and
vocalism may be coincidental.
As for the Hawaiian language, it is assumed
to have originated from Proto East Polynesian
(A. D. 200-800) by A. D. 800-1000. As for ar-
chaeology and prehistory, the prehistoric Hawai-
ian cultural sequence begins with a Colonization
Period (A. D. 300-600), followed by a Develop-
mental Period (A. D. 600-1100) and an Expan-
sion Period (A. D. 1100-1650) (Kirch 1985).
The two data sets thus do not correspond. It
may be assumed therefore that the (Austronesi-
an) Polynesians coming to the Hawaiian Islands
already met the non-Polynesian colonists there -
and their place names. Suggesting, as Thor Hey-
erdahl (1952) does, that Kwakiutl Indians (of to-
day’s British Columbia) came to the Hawaiian Is-
lands (and further) by A. D. 1100, their language
should have left traces at least in the Hawaiian
toponymy - which does not seem to be the case,
however (cf. Boas 1934). Heyerdahl suggests as
another component of the Polynesians of historic
time the Menehune, a legendary race of small
people who worked at night building fishponds,
ditches, roads, temples (cf. Luomala 1951).4
Today’s Moloka’ipresupposes an earlier Mo-
lotaki or Morotaki, which so far has been defined
as (Proto-)Polynesian but which may be of non-
Polynesian origin as well - at least partly. Look-
ing for a natural characteristics of the island
(which is known for its leper colony), “long
island” probably would be quite appropriate.
(James A. Michener in his novel “Hawaii” com-
pares it to a left-hand glove.) And it turns out
that in the Eskimo language (using Greenlandic
as representative) “long” (attributive) is rendered
by takisooq (take “long” + sooq attributive
suffix) - which also occurs in Greenlandic place
names, e.g., Takisuukasik “the poor long (is-
land).”5 Furthermore, Ni’ihau presupposes,
4 Manahune in Tahiti and Raivavae; Menehune and Mene-
heke in Easter Island. In the Society Islands, the dark(er)
skin of these “dwarfs” is stressed. - If the work by the
Menehune was not finished in one night, it remained
unfinished. As for the fishponds in Hawaii, these were
once found on most of the main islands, either as shore
ponds or inland ponds (Summers 1964).
5 Naturally, the compounding of two stems in Eskimo is
thoroughly alien to that language; however, a “compro-
mise form” or a “mix-up,” etc., may have resulted in
today’s Moloka’i.
among other forms, an earlier Nikifau or Nikisau;
as natural characteristics one might think of
“little island” - and “little” in Greenlandic is
mike (with suffix; mikissoq).6
This Eskimo suffixation may lead to another
impression. Within the Polynesian languages, the
case of the “split-up” of the singular definite
article as it happened in Hawaiian stands as an
isolated feature (even within the eastern sub-
group), the main rule being that ke preceds nouns
beginning with a, e, o, or k, whereas ka occurs
elsewhere - quite a surprising development in a
(more or less) “isolating” language; cf. ke aloha
“the love,” ke kanaka “the person”; ka i9a “the
fish,” ka hale “the house.” A parallel feature can
be registered in the case of the causative prefix
where ha9a alternates with ho9o (the latter surely
reflecting an earlier form with -e-e). (Compare
also the variation Hana-/Hono- “bay” in place
names.)
Such a vowel alternation is well-known fea-
ture in Eskimo as suffixation in many cases is
accompanied by an ablaut. Thus, “. . . the vowels
HI and /a/ often alternate stem finally, the main
rule of distribution being that /a/ occurs before
suffix vowels if there is no consonant in between,
whereas /i/ ... occurs elsewhere, cf. . . . /ini/
‘room’ - /inip/ ‘room, rel. case’ . . . versus /inai/
‘its rooms’ - /inaannaq/ ‘just a room’” (Rischel
1974: 237).7
Could then the Eskimo (if any) coming to the
Hawaiian Islands be identified with the Menehu-
ne?8 The Eskimo are of small stature with rather
short legs - a characteristic pointing to the Mene-
hune. And Ma/ene/ehune could be a reduplica-
tive - as known from English slang for instance
(kooky-yacky) adding wit and humor through the
aping creation by analogy of the characteristic
forms of the reduplicative (doubling, ablaut,
rhyme): As for the form to be reduplicated here,
one might think of the Eskimo folkname Inuk/
Inuit.
However, where leaves that the Manahune
of Tahiti and Raivavae, not to mention the
6 Compare, however, also Hawaiian ii9i “small, tiny”
(from Proto-Polynesian riki).
7 That the alternation between 111 and lal may be due to an
earlier “fourth vowel,” still found in Yupik Eskimo, has
no bearing on the matter here.
8 Wilhelm G. Solheim II, Honolulu, does not know of any
archaeological information that could apply to Menehune
existence in Hawaii.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
209
Menehune and Meneheke of Easter Island?9 As
another alternative, therefore, these Eskimo
could be associated with Thor Heyerdahl’s North-
west Indian component - or they could represent
a third component independent of the two oth-
ers.
What, then about the physical possibility
behind these impressions of an Eskimo substra-
tum influence?10 *
“South Sea Whaling,” reaching its zenith in
the forties and fifties of the last century, only in
the beginning of the era referred to fishery in the
Pacific waters south of the equator. Later, the
entire whaling industry in both the North and the
South Pacific, and even in the Polar seas, was
called by the name. Lahaina on Maui and Hono-
lulu, which were the only Hawaiian towns of any
size at that time, became the whalers’ main
equipment stations, whence, during the Nordic
summer, the ships sailed to the Northern Pacific
and the Arctic seas. During the Nordic winter,
they set sail for the Southern Pacific. On their
outward voyage, the ships generally were under-
manned, with the crew being completed along the
way by Hawaiians (“Kanakas”), other Polynesi-
ans, or people from Chile, Peru, etc. From this, it
is apparent how it could happen that in the last
century Hawaiians did come as far as Herschel, a
small island in the northwest Mackenzie Bay, off
the coast of the North Yukon Territory (Schuma-
cher 1978).
As for Eskimo whaling, for the later part of
the first millennium A. D., as the Birnirk culture
developed into the Western Thule culture, the
Eskimo of Northwestern Alaska had a sophisticat-
ed whaling culture (Bockstoce 1976); however,
whaling in the Bering Strait region had already
begun 1000 years earlier.
Could thus Eskimo hunters during these
early times not have reached the Hawaiian Is-
lands - following in the wake of the whales as
South Sea Whaling did in the last century, or by
9 As for biological evidence, such as the distribution of the
blood groups, there is an increased frequency of blood
group A, and a parallel decreased frequency of B when
going from West to East Polynesia. Thus, the ABO
distribution in the Easter Islanders and the “pure”
Eskimo from East Greenland is quasi-identical - indicat-
ing for East Polynesia an admixture “from the north”?
10 As for comparative phonology, consonant backing is as
striking a feature in Eskimo as it is in Polynesian (and
here especially in Hawaiian), where in Eskimo mainly
velar and uvular articulations may reflect labial conso-
nants. Moreover, merging is one of the characteristics
too.
mere chance?11 Established Eskimology naturally
would deny such a possibility. That the Hawaiian
Islands can be reached in the wake of the North
Pacific Ocean current has been exemplified in the
course of time by so many Japanese junks that
have been found adrift or stranded not only on
the coast of Northwest America but also on the
Hawaiian Islands.
Thus, to settle the question ultimately, fol-
lowing Thor Heyerdahl, one probably should set
out in a skin boat from Kodiak Island trying to
reach from there the Hawaiian Islands ....
References Cited
Boas, Franz
1934 Geographical Names of the Kwakiutl Indians. New
York.
Bockstoce, John
1976 On the Development of Whaling in the Western Thule
Culture. Folk 18: 41-46.
Heyerdahl, Thor
1952 American Indians in the Pacific: The Theory Behind
the Kon-Tiki Expedition. London.
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
1985 Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: An Introduction to
Hawaiian Archaeology and Prehistory. Honolulu.
Luomala, Katharine
1951 Menehune of Polynesia and Other Little People of
Polynesia. Honolulu.
Pukui, Mary Kawena, Samuel H. Elbert, and Esther T.
Mookini
1974 Place Names of Hawaii. Honolulu.
Rischel, Jurgen
1974 Topics in West Greenlandic Phonology. Copenhagen.
11 Compare the introductory chapter. - Postulating an
Eskimo contact with Hawaiian language (and culture) “in
the wake of the whales,” the fact would be astonishing
that so little in Hawaiian lore is said about the sea
mammal. This would, however, find its explanation as
“early Hawaiians . . . did not hunt whales, probably
because their religion recognized the whale as a represen-
tative of Kanaloa, God of the Sea. The Hawaiians’
sophisticated agriculture and aquaculture made the whale
unnecessary as food ...” (Simpson and Goodman
1986: 12). - As far as material culture is concerned, the
medium-sized, or normal, pot pounder of ancient Hawaii
may lead one’s association to the Eskimo woman’s knife,
the ulu, a product of the Thule culture, as this seems
almost identical with the food pounder’s vertical section
(which by the way resembles the shoulder blade of a
whale). And the Hawaiian Holua, the ancient, highly
specialized sled used on grassy slopes, naturally reminds
one of the Eskimo’s more “natural” way of sledding on
snow and ice.
Anthropos 83.1988
210
Berichte und Kommentare
Schuhmacher, W. Wilfried
1978 An Eskimo Reflex of South Sea Whaling. Inter-Nord
15: 233-235.
Simpson, Mackinnon, and Robert B. Goodman
1986 WhaleSong: A Pictorial History of Whaling and Ha-
wai’i. Honolulu.
Summers, Catherine S.
1964 Hawaiian Archaeology: Fishponds. Honolulu.
A Day in the City of Death
“Forest of Bliss” (by Robert Gardner) -
A Film Review
Michael Oppitz
Benares is often referred to as the City of Death.
This attribute is contained in the most ancient and
intimate name for the city; kashi, ‘the shining
one,’ ‘the luminous one,’ ‘the illuminating one.’
Kashi or Benares throws light on the existential
cycle of life and death. To the visitor, foreign or
Hindu, Benares appears first of all as a City of
Death. Hardly anywhere else in the world is one
confronted with death - and with corpses - as
frequently as in this Great Cremation Ground,
another attribute of Benares. Here, death is
woven into the visible fabric of daily life with a
thread stronger than anywhere else. It is not
surprising, therefore, that to this city a most
intense documentarist of death has dedicated a
film study of his own.
The cinema owes to Robert Gardner a num-
ber of memorable encounters with death. His two
most widely known films, “Dead Birds” and
“Rivers of Sand,” both contain magnetic scenes
of death. Among the Hamar of Ethiopia Gardner
filmed an impressive interment of a deceased
woman, and in New Guinea the ritual warfare of
the Dani became the background for a melan-
cholic reflexion on the transiency of human life.
In “Forest of Bliss” Gardner continues this voca-
tional tradition, with, however, a different artis-
tic approach.
The title “Forest of Bliss” is yet another
epithet for Benares. Until fairly recently, the
parts south to the inhabited town were indeed
forested, an ideal place for the gatherings of all
sorts of religious people. According to legend the
name was given by god Shiva himself who is
supposed to have said: “Here, my lingas are
everywhere, like little sprouts arisen out of sheer
bliss. Thus it will be called Forest of Bliss.” The
vision of Benares as a forest of lingas is certainly
not exaggerated, they are literally everywhere.
Religious devotion to the phallic shrines of
Shiva one encounters also in Gardner’s documen-
tary. In an early scene in the 90 minute film,
which covers a single day in the holy city, the
camera follows an old temple priest from his
home to the Ganges, where he takes a purificato-
ry morning bath. On his way back this old man
meets several people, talks and jokes with them,
gives alms to beggars, and pays his daily hom-
mage to shrines and religious images. Among these
are some shiva lingas which he adorns with
flowers. In his own temple, toward the end of the
film and at night, the same protagonist plays a
damaru drum in praise of goddess Durga, gives
tika to his female devotees, and performs a sacred
fire rite. He is one of three characters in the film
that are singled out as people with individual
contours. The second of these is another old
priest, slender, quiet, and gentle, who performs
various religious acts. The third individualized
character in “Forest of Bliss” is the Dom Raja, a
betel-chewing, fat and ugly man, who lives and
makes his living near the burning ghats as master
over the cremation rites. As we see him relaxing
during a body-massage; snoring, with a cigarette
in his sleepy fingers; giving orders to his under-
lings; quarreling with visitors; devouring food or
buying the armrings of a deceased woman - this
despicable man gains profile as an impressive
theatrical type.
All the other people of Benares that the
camera happens to focus on remain impersonal
performers of diverse professional actions: boat-
men rowing, coolies carrying wood as fuel for the
cremation pyres, flower pluckers for the local
manufacture of ceremonial garlands, or aides in
the hospices for the dying, - all these people,
related in one way or the other to the death
trade, disappear as persons behind their func-
tions.
This impersonal quality of the film is en-
hanced by another feature. Over long stretches
the film is carried on by structural elements, such
as dogs, logs, birds, boats, flowers, faeces, cows,
rows, kites, and biers rather than by human
actors. These elements may appear alone on the
screen or in varying combinations: a dog gnawing
at a corpse; another dog defaecating next to a
flower; a flower as a garland around a dog’s neck;
a dog contemplating a corpse floating in the river
on a bier; a cow eating a flower or a string of a
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
211
bier; a kite landing in the river near a corpse; a
kite floating on the river past an oar touching the
water.
Just as “Forest of Bliss” lacks actors, it lacks
action, in the sense of a progressive narrative. All
that progresses are the hours of the day and all
that might be called narrative are small fragments
of consecutive action in an overall juxtaposition
of heterogeneous film clips. “Forest of Bliss” is a
montage film. Most of its sequences are very
short, none are long, and as the film dispenses
entirely with verbal commentary, the methods of
cutting gain in importance. It is time to take a
glance at Gardner’s editing table.
Except for the cuts in the narrative frag-
ments, those employed are serial, conceptual,
associative, or aleatoric. I will illustrate each of
these types of cuts with one example from the
film. The progressive narrative, for example, is a
sequence filmed in one of the hospices for the
dying. It begins with a shot of the empty, inner
patio of the institution which is cleaned with a
broom by sweepers. In the second shot we see
hare-ram-musicians in a room nearby. The third
shot shows a man outside the building carrying a
bier. In the fourth shot one such bier leans on the
exterior hospice-wall. (Here, we hear the shouts
of “ram, nam, satya hai” or “God’s name is
Truth,” a chorus inevitably shouted when a corpse
is carried through the streets of Benares down
to the cremation ghats, and as this has been
depicted earlier in the film, the audience can
anticipate, by sound association, what will hap-
pen in the consecutive shots). In the next shot the
camera descends the empty staircase of the hos-
pice and in the following one a corpse is brought
down these stairs, filmed from below. After this,
several shots capture the progression made with
the ceremonial binding of the corpse on the bier
and when the procession has left the hospice, a
final shot shows again the empty inner patio, once
more cleaned with a broom by a sweeper.
A serial arrangement of shots is made in a
sequence where the camera observes the stairs
that lead from the town streets down to the ghats.
In the first shot a blind old man with a stick
comes stalking down the stairs. In the shot that
follows a dead sheep is dragged down these stairs
on a string. In the third, the same happens to a
dead cat and in the fourth to a dead dog. The
sequence ends with two people sweeping ashes
toward the edge of the stairs. This series also
contains associative elements: ‘old man’ = ‘close
to death’ and ‘sweeping’ = ‘dematerialization of
life.’
A conceptual sequence of shots is the inter-
twining of two series of events through cuts, for
instance: the consecration of a new boat with the
final rites for a deceased. This is convincing,
thanks to the formal similarities of the two types
of ritual action. In both of them water of the
Ganges is involved and in both the same flower
garlands are used; but one is for life, the other for
death. This allows the association: “by the river
Ganges life and death are inseparable.”
In another sequence that is partially concern-
ed with the last funerary activities by the river,
pure associative cuts are employed. It begins with
a clay pot standing on a wall and continues with a
series of very short pictures, all of which permit
an association with the end of a funeral. Instead
of depicting in one long take what happens
ritually in a Hindu cremation (for instance that
the skull of the burning corpse is cracked open by
the chief mourner with a stave in order to release
the ‘vital breath’ of the deceased, which act
makes him into a preta or wandering ghost),
Gardner occupies the audience with his own
visual associations: ashes taken away from the
burning ground, a bier being torn apart, an empty
wood scale, or a mourner throwing a clay pot
over his shoulders.
The most problematic type of juxtaposed
shots is the aleatoric one. Here, the search for a
pattern of meaning created through montage is
altogether absent. A sequence such as this one
from Gardner’s film: a cow eating from a dump
heap - making a kite in a kite factory - city traffic
- dogs - more city traffic - a funeral procession -
flower vendors - a beggar in a cart - a dog defe-
cating - a goat chewing - men splitting wood -
may at best be called impressionistic. Shots that
are cut together in this way follow the rules of
chance, just as the eyes of the flaneur may acci-
dentally touch on this or that facet of life. In a
structured whole such as a film that tries to make
sense out of an original chaos of impressions,
aleatoric sequences can easily become arbitrary
and subversive to the idea of meaning.
In “Forest of Bliss” Benares as the City of
Death has been captured with exceptional im-
ages. But for the Hindus this city is more than
that, it is the City of Death and Regeneration.
Cremation is more than decomposition, it is an
act of creation and cosmic renewal. This associ-
ation with death and its transcendence is crucial
to the sacred identity of the city. Manikarnika
Ghat, the main cremation ground and major
location of the film, is the very spot where,
according to myth, Shiva and Parbati created the
Anthropos 83.1988
212
Berichte und Kommentare
world at the beginning of time and where the
corpse of the cosmos will burn at the end of time.
Fire is not just the ‘eater,’ as the chosen motto
from Yeats for Gardner’s film suggests, it is also a
producer - of heat or tapas, the source of life. For
the pilgrim to Benares, Kashi is the place of
liberation or mukti, a ford, where the soul swims
across. It is a sacred space, inside which the sins
of the pilgrims drop away. The holy place radiates
with eschatological and salvational power. In the
same way as the film does not attempt to give a
geographical orientation, it also leaves out central
cosmological associations of the city.
But what about the two children’s games in
the film - hopscotch and kite, aren’t they trans-
cendental metaphors? It is indeed suggestive to
read the rise and fall of the kites that dance
through the picture on repeated occasions as a
samsaric cycle of life and death. Likewise, the
game of hopscotch that the filmmaker gave pro-
minence with a slow motion sequence could be
understood as a movement inside a sacred space
and the jump of the playing girl as the jump out
of the world into ‘heaven.’ If this is so, two other
formal devices in the film may be read in a similar
fashion. At the very beginning, the movements of
dogs and boats through the frame are from left to
right. At the very end the boats move from right
to left. The former may be taken as movements
into life and the later ones as movements out of
life. The boats, which we see at the beginning of
the film, come out of a haze and gradually take
shape, the boat in the final scene gets wrapped up
again in this haze before it disappears in the void.
The last seconds of the film are an empty screen:
is this a visualization of nirvana or muktil Fortu-
nately, no comment tells us with words.
And yet, Gardner’s coup de maitre is an
acoustic device. Placed at irregular intervals
throughout the film we hear a strange, squeaking
sound, which for more than half of its repetitions
cannot be identified, for its source is not shown.
This penetrating and painful squeak is first heard
in conjunction with the picture of a dog gnawing
at the white bones of a corpse, then with the front
of a boat, then with birds flying, then again in
conjunction with a corpse floating in the river,
then with people by the river doing gymnastics or
their toilet or their laundry. Only then we see the
source of the sound: It is the peculiar squeak of
the rowing strings of the Ganges boats. And from
this moment on it is heard only in conjunction
with rowing scenes. This squeak is the musical
leitmotiv of the entire film, a sound metaphor for
terrestrial suffering, pain, labour, and disharmo-
ny, which too, in the end, sinks into the void of
the last frame. With the squeak of the rowing
boats Gardner strikes his best transcendental
string.
“Forest of Bliss” is not a documentary with
an ambition for completeness. It omits political,
geographical, or sociological issues intentionally.
It is a film of moods: the various moods of light in
the city of death during a single day and the
moods over things struck by decay and transition.
In its silent eloquence Gardner’s film poses anew
the question of the documentary genre. Without
declarative gestures it points toward an open door
beyond which the conventional divisions between
document and fiction, sense and the senses, do
not exist. [Written in March 1986]
Die leidige Konstanz von Vorurteilen
Konstruktive Anmerkungen zu drei
Vorwürfen in E. H. Franks funktionaler
Analyse des Tapirfestes der Uni
Andreas Bruck
Erwin H. Frank hat mit seiner Schilderung und
Erklärung des Tapirfestes der Uni (Anthropos
1987: 151-181) sehr deutlich die Fruchtbarkeit
funktionalistischen Theoriebildens aufgezeigt und
damit den unterstützenswerten Weg gewagt, sich
auch explizit auf eine zwar nominell verpönte
(und deshalb inzwischen terminologisch meist
versteckte), de facto jedoch unvermindert popu-
läre (weil in der Argumentation unverzichtbare)
Forschungstheorie zu beziehen, den Funktionalis-
mus.
Um so bedauerlicher ist es, daß auch Frank
pauschale Behauptungen zum Funktionalismus
wiederholt, die - wie er in seinem Beitrag zum
Teil selbst aufweist - so undifferenziert nicht
haltbar sind, die aber zur fast schon ärgerlichen
Zementierung ablehnender Vorwürfe an funktio-
nalistische Herangehensweisen beitragen müssen
und die damit die kulturanthropologische For-
schung behindern.
Letzteres möchte ich mit den folgenden,
konstruktiv gemeinten Anmerkungen verhin-
dern.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
213
Dabei gehe ich - wie mindestens so ähnlich
auch Frank - davon aus, daß Funktionen genau
und nur solche Wirkungen (also zustandsverän-
dernde Beziehungen) und deren Effekte (d. h.
Zustandsveränderungen) sind, die die Funktions-
erfordernisse eines Sachverhalts, einer Eigen-
schaft oder eines Ereignisses erfüllen. Funktions-
erfordernisse sind dabei die Summe der Wir-
kungsbeziehungen und Effekte, die gebraucht
werden, um jeweils bestimmte Tatsachen oder
Zustände (zum Beispiel Überleben [152 r 3]1,
Fangen und Aufziehen eines Tapirs [155 r 3],
Töten von bestimmten Menschen [156 r 2], Him-
mel hoch halten [162 1 3], wahres Menschenleben
führen [172 11] oder Machterhalt [176 1]) anzu-
streben, zu erreichen oder zu behalten. Weil
Wirkungen nur von wirkenden Tatsachen gelei-
stet werden können, ist die Existenz von Funk-
tionsträgern Voraussetzung für die Erfüllung von
Funktionserfordernissen. Die Erfüllung von
Funktionserfordernissen ist ihrerseits Vorausset-
zung für die Existenz von Sachverhalten, Eigen-
schaften oder Ereignissen. Funktionszusammen-
hänge sind also die Realisierung eines allgemei-
nen Wirklichkeitsprinzips, der Funktionalität,
welches ein grundlegendes Aufgaben-Lösungs-
Prinzip ist und für den Bereich menschlicher
Existenz universell gilt (siehe genauer Bruck
1985: Kapitel 8 und 9, sowie 1987).
Vorurteil 1: Funktionalismus impliziere Statik
„Alle diese Interpretationen sind von verschiede-
nen Standpunkten aus kritisiert worden, zumeist
mit dem Hinweis auf ein dem funktionalen An-
satz unzweifelhaft eigenes Vorurteil, die Mensch/
Environment-Interaktion als statisch erscheinen
zu lassen“ (151 1 2).
Auch wenn nicht ganz klar ist, ob Frank hier
nur referiert, oder ob er diese Auffassung teilt,
läßt er den Statik-Vorwurf doch zumindest unwi-
dersprochen und macht ihn damit für den Leser
gültig.
Wie alle Aspekte menschlicher Existenz sind
auch die bei Funktionszusammenhängen beteilig-
ten Instanzen durch vielfältigen Wandel gekenn-
zeichnet: Die Erfordernisse können sich ändern,
weil zum Beispiel eine Bedrohung durch <Me-
stizo>-Gummisammler zunimmt und damit das
1 Ich verweise auf Franks Beitrag durch Angabe der
Seitenzahl, meist präzisierend auch der Spalte (1 = links,
r = rechts) und des Absatzes.
Bedürfnis nach einem schützenden Niemandsland
steigert (152 r2); die Mensch/Environment-In-
teraktion kann sich auch ändern, weil ein junger
Tapir gefangen werden konnte, damit ein Tapir-
fest in Aussicht steht und zur Bewirtung der
Gäste als Funktionserfordernis die Anbaufläche
im Gartenareal zu verdoppeln bis verdreifachen
ist und das Zuckerrohr vegetativ vermehrt wer-
den muß (156 12); die Funktionsträger können
sich ändern, weil zum Beispiel leistungsfähigere
Werkzeuge (Äxte und Macheten aus Metall statt
geschliffener Ankeräxte aus Stein) erhältlich sind
(154 11), was sich ebenfalls verändernd auf die
Mensch-Umwelt-Interaktion auswirkt usw.
Eine präzise Analyse von Funktionszusam-
menhängen wird also immer wieder auf Verände-
rungen, auf Wandel, stoßen und ihn auch bei der
Erfassung berücksichtigen. Sie kann deshalb bei
korrekter Ausführung gar keine Statik behaupten
- es sei denn, der untersuchte Ausschnitt war im
untersuchten Zeitraum tatsächlich unverändert.
Aber das ist dann kein Fehler des funktionalisti-
schen Modells, sondern ein Kennzeichen der
Wirklichkeit!
Allerdings ist zu beachten, daß Konstanz und
Wandel auch eine Frage der Betrachtungsebene
sein kann. Wenn ich nur auf einer sehr allgemei-
nen Ebene forsche, werde ich Mikroprozesse und
-Veränderungen nicht berücksichtigen (können).
Auf einer allgemeineren Ebene kann deshalb für
einen bestimmten Zeitraum in einem zum Bei-
spiel Mensch-Umwelt-System Konstanz oder Sta-
tik diagnostiziert werden, obwohl auf anderen
Ebenen innerhalb des Systems sogar ein sehr
großer Wandel stattfindet.
Außerdem ist darauf hinzuweisen, daß Funk-
tionserfordernisse immer in einem Prozeß, dem
Funktionsprozeß, erfüllt werden (müssen), an
dem beispielsweise ein Erfordernisfestleger, ein
Erfüllungsfeststeller und ein Funktionsempfänger
beteiligt sein müssen. Das erhöht nicht nur die
Veränderbarkeit (weil noch mehr Instanzen be-
teiligt sind), sondern macht deutlich, daß Funk-
tionszusammenhänge auf der Ebene ihrer kon-
kreten Existenz niemals etwas Statisches, sondern
dynamische Abläufe sind. Weshalb Funktionsmo-
delle, die solche Prozesse abbilden, nicht statisch
sein können. Daran ändert auch nichts, daß (wie
wir es von den Regelkreisen, der wohl bekannte-
sten, wenn auch nicht unbedingt verbreitetsten
Art von Funktionsprozessen, her kennen) der
immer wiederholte und gleiche oder sehr ähnliche
Ablauf einzelner Funktionsprozesse eine Art von
Konstanz oder Statik ist.
Voraussetzung für eine Dynamisierung funk-
Anthropos 83.1988
214
Berichte und Kommentare
tionalistischer Analysen ist allerdings deren Kon-
kretisierung und Materialisierung. Dazu reicht
nicht, einmalig und isolierend Erfordernisse und
deren Erfüllungs(möglichkeiten) aufzuweisen. Es
müssen auch deren Wandel, es müssen vor allem
aber die beteiligten Funktionsprozesse nachge-
wiesen und aufgezeigt werden.
Vorurteil 2: Ursprung könne nicht erklärt werden
„Ein solcher Ansatz behält natürlich immer noch
viele der Schwachpunkte bei, die andere als
unvermeidbar für funktionale Modelle im allge-
meinen aufgewiesen haben: so etwa die Unfähig-
keit, kausale Erklärungen für den Ursprung der
Kulturelemente aufzuweisen, von denen das Mo-
dell behauptet, daß sie ,funktional‘ seien“
(151 r 3 f.).
Um diesen Vorwurf widerlegen bzw. diffe-
renzieren zu können, muß ich zunächst auf die
Bedingung „kausale Erklärung“ eingehen.
Grundlage jeder Erklärung ist eine ontologische
Theorie, nach der alle Tatsachen der Wirklichkeit
auf irgendeine Weise bewirkt sind, d. h. daß es
(meist sogar eine Vielzahl von auch vernetzten
und hierarchisch verknüpften) Faktoren und Wir-
kungen gibt, die für die konkrete Existenz und
den spezifischen Zustand einer jeden Tatsache
verantwortlich sind. Erklären heißt dann, die
entscheidenden Faktoren und Wirkungen zu er-
mitteln und zu beschreiben.
Nun gibt es im Bereich menschlicher Exi-
stenz verschiedene Arten von Wirkungen, die
auch nach der Sicherheit ihrer Effekte (unter
gleichen Bedingungen) unterscheidbar sind: si-
chere (kausale) und mehr oder weniger wahr-
scheinliche (probabile). Außerdem gibt es in der
Wirklichkeit den Faktor Zufall. Wegen der Viel-
zahl von beteiligten Faktoren und der Unter-
schiedlichkeit der jeweiligen Bedingungen kön-
nen wir in den Kulturanthropologien selten kau-
sale Wirkungsbeziehungen nachweisen, meist
müssen wir uns mit probabilistischen Erklärungen
begnügen. Dies ist aber ein grundsätzliches, kein
für den Funktionalismus spezifisches Problem.
Auf dieser Basis läßt sich nun zu dem Vor-
wurf, den Ursprung eines Funktionsträgers nicht
erklären zu können, feststellen:
1) Es ist zunächst zu unterscheiden zwischen
Erklären mittels und Erklären von Funktionalität
oder Funktionszusammenhängen (Bruck 1985;
139). Nur Erklärungen mittels Funktionalität,
d. h. Erklärungen, die Sachverhalte erklären, in-
dem sie Funktionsträger oder Funktionserforder-
nisse als Faktoren nachweisen, sind eine spezifi-
sche Leistung der funktionalistischen Herange-
hensweise. Erklären von Funktionalität nimmt
auf die Funktionalität keinen Bezug und ent-
spricht den anderen kulturanthropologischen Er-
klärungsformen.
2) Eine (oft auch kausale) Erklärung der
Entstehung oder des Ursprungs von Funktions-
trägern mittels Funktionalität (um die es in
Franks Vorwurf nur gehen kann) ist nun aus-
schließlich und immer dann möglich, wenn diese
(auch) bewußt und geplant als solche geschaffen
wurden, wie zum Beispiel viele Werkzeuge und
Maschinen, aber auch Rituale (siehe beispielswei-
se die werbepsychologisch fundierten und zum
Teil exakt auf ihre Funktionserfordernisse hin
geplanten und durchgeführten Selbstdarstellun-
gen von Staaten, Parteien oder Politikern). In
diesen Fällen ist die Erklärung meist sogar relativ
einfach. War dieser Bezug zu Funktionserforder-
nissen für die Entstehung einer Tatsache jedoch
irrelevant oder nicht gegeben, dann ist der Ur-
sprung der Tatsache mittels Funktionalität über-
haupt nicht erklärbar!
3) Wenn schon der Ursprung nicht immer
mittels Funktionalität erklärbar ist, weil eine
später als Funktionsträger genutzte Tatsache
nicht als solcher entstand, dann ist oft doch
wenigstens die gegenwärtige Existenz einer Tatsa-
che damit erklärbar, daß ihre Funktionen für ein
wichtiges Funktionserfordernis nachgewiesen
werden, aufgrund deren sie beibehalten oder
selektiert wurde. Wenn nämlich die Funktionen
von bestimmten Tatsachen Eigenschaften ermög-
lichen, die erwünscht, nützlich oder adaptiv sind,
dann ist es wahrscheinlich, daß diese auch be-
nützt, behalten bzw. selektiert werden.
Vorurteil 3: Funktion-Form-Zusammenhang sei nicht
nachweisbar
„Ein solcher Ansatz behält natürlich immer noch
viele der Schwachpunkte bei, die andere als
unvermeidbar für funktionale Modelle im allge-
meinen aufgewiesen haben: ... die Unfähigkeit,
zwingende Beziehungen zwischen Funktion und
konkreter Form (z. B. eines Rituals) deutlich zu
machen“ (151 r 3 f.).
Auch für die Differenzierung dieses Vor-
wurfs ist ein kurzer Rückgriff auf die ontischen
Kennzeichen von Funktionalität erforderlich:
Funktionserfordernisse erlauben häufig einen
doppelten Erfüllungsspielraum, können also nicht
nur mehr oder weniger optimal erfüllt werden,
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
215
sondern auch durch unterschiedliche Funktions-
träger. Frank illustriert dies, wenn er beispiels-
weise die Alternativen beim Töten des Tapirs
(164 r. d.) schildert.
Aus diesen in Funktionalität häufig implizier-
ten Möglichkeits- oder Spielräumen folgt, daß es
einen allzu engen Zusammenhang zwischen der
Form eines Funktionsträgers und den Funktions-
erfordernissen in vielen Fällen gar nicht geben
kann - weswegen er dann auch nicht zwingend
nachweisbar ist.
Daß es aber auch Fälle gibt, in denen die
Form, die ein Funktionsträger haben darf, recht
eng begrenzt ist, verdeutlicht zum Beispiel Frank
selbst, wenn er zeigt, daß das Tapirfest auch
ausgeführt werden muß, um ein „wahres Men-
schenleben“ zu führen, und daß zur Erfüllung
dieses Erfordernisses „Korrektheit“ ein entschei-
dender Aspekt ist. Und Korrektheit bedeutet
hier: das Ritual Tapirfest muß in einer bestimm-
ten Form begangen werden (172-174). Weitere
Beispiele für einen zwingenden bis sehr engen
Zusammenhang zwischen Form und Funktion
lassen sich in großer Zahl im Bereich technischer
Dinge (im weitesten Sinne) finden.
Ich danke meiner Frau Annette Bruck für die Finanzie-
rung auch dieses Kommentars.
Zitierte Literatur
Bruck, Andreas
1985 Funktionalität beim Menschen; Ein konstruktiv-syste-
matischer Überblick. Frankfurt: Verlag Peter Lang.
(Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XXII, 112)
1987 Die Forschungstheorie des Funktionalismus. In: Sabi-
ne Künsting, Andreas Bruck und Peter Tschohl
(Hrsg.), Mit Theorien arbeiten - Untersuchen in der
Kulturanthropologie; pp. 125-138. Münster: Lit-Ver-
lag. (Kulturanthropologische Schriften der Akademie
'85, 1)
Frank, Erwin H.
1987 Das Tapirfest der Uni. Eine funktionale Analyse.
Anthropos 82: 151-181.
Kulturgeschichte und Kritik
Eine Erwiderung auf T. O. Beidelman
Jürgen Zwernemann
In Anthropos (1986: 661-671) hat T. O. Beidel-
man mein Buch “Culture History and African
Anthropology” in einem Artikel ausführlich be-
sprochen. Das Literaturverzeichnis überzeugt den
Leser, daß Beidelman seine Arbeit sehr gut zu
fundieren versucht hat. Ich bin ihm dafür dank-
bar, gab dies mir doch Gelegenheit, seinen Vor-
behalten nachzugehen. Sicher ist es unüblich, auf
Rezensionen zu antworten. Hier handelt es sich
aber um eine Rezension, die den Rahmen des
Üblichen verlassen hat. Beidelmans Argumenta-
tion bedarf einer Überprüfung.
Im einführenden Kapitel meines Buches
(p. 12) habe ich die Vermutung geäußert, daß die
Arbeiten deutschsprachiger Kulturhistoriker aus
sprachlichen Gründen von britischen und ameri-
kanischen Kollegen oft mißverstanden und falsch
interpretiert wurden; ferner, daß man in Biblio-
graphien der meisten anthropologischen Veröf-
fentlichungen in englischer Sprache wichtige
deutschsprachige Quellen vermißt, und zwar ver-
mutlich ebenfalls aus sprachlichen Gründen. Bei-
delman bestreitet dies als Ursache und macht
vielmehr “the disrepute of the culture-historical
school” und “the corresponding disastrous fail-
ure” der deutschen Ethnologie verantwortlich
(662). Andererseits meint er, daß die meisten
amerikanischen und britischen Kollegen ihren
Studenten eher Französisch, Russisch, Spanisch
oder sogar Arabisch, Japanisch oder Chinesisch
als nützlicher empfehlen als Deutsch (663). Er
vermißt von deutscher Seite “synthetically analy-
tical ethnographic field-studies”. Hätte er den
Rezensionsteil dieser Zeitschrift in den letzten 30
Jahren aufmerksam verfolgt, wäre er als objekti-
ver Beobachter vermutlich zu einem anderen
Ergebnis gekommen.
Ein genereller Vorwurf ist, daß ich zur Re-
zeption kulturgeschichtlicher Strömungen des
deutschen Sprachraums in der anglo-amerikani-
schen Fachwelt nur 40 bis 50 Jahre zurückliegen-
de Quellen zitiert habe und daß kritische Äuße-
rungen weitgehend fortgelassen wurden (663). Im
Vorwort meines Buches (p. 9) habe ich ausdrück-
lich darauf hingewiesen, daß es sich lediglich um
die etwas erweiterte Version einer Vorlesung
handelt, und ich fahre fort; “I pretend neither
that I have succeeded in covering all aspects of
culture history extensively, nor that I have taken
Anthropos 83.1988
216
Berichte und Kommentare
all sources into consideration ...” Das Kapitel,
in dem ich kritische Stimmen zitiere (pp. 128 ff.),
überschrieb ich; “Some criticism of culture histor-
ical research”. Beides sollte deutlich genug sein,
um dem Leser zu signalisieren, daß die Literatur
eben nicht bis zur letzten Quelle herangezogen
wurde. Der aufmerksame Leser kann außerdem
schnell merken, daß das Buch sich in erster Linie
mit der Theoriegeschichte kulturhistorischer For-
schung bis in die Fünfziger Jahre befaßt. Die fol-
gende Zeit ist nur mehr kursorisch abgehandelt.
Wie problematisch es immer ist, Zitate aus
dem Zusammenhang zu nehmen, demonstriert
Beidelman (663) selbst, und zwar schon bei den
ersten Worten, die er von Lowie zitiert, nämlich
dessen Hinweis auf Graebners “wealth of ethno-
graphic information” und seine Charakterisierung
als “prolix and pedantic”. Liest man bei Lowie
(1937[1960]: 177) nach, dann sieht die kritische
Anmerkung im Zusammenhang ganz anders aus:
“Prolix and pedantic as Graebner frequently is in
the Methode, his special papers reveal a wealth of
ethnographic information; and his ‘Ethnologie,’
discussing the whole gamut of civilisation, geo-
graphically and topically, explodes many of the
traditional criticisms leveled against him. It cer-
tainly neither considers only museum objects nor
ignores the psychology of diffusion.” Lowie war
ein fairer Kritiker der deutschsprachigen Kultur-
historiker. Er kommt zwar zu dem Schluß: “. . .
they still oversimplify the facts in practice, if not
in theory”, wie auch Beidelman zitiert, und “they
mistake analogies for homologous features”
(1937[1960]: 184), aber er verweist auch auf “the
real merits of the Graebnerian movement” und
tadelt “unfair strictures” (vgl. hierzu 1937[1960]:
187 ff.).
Das Buch von Radin (1933[1966j) hätte si-
cher bei den kritischen Stimmen zur kulturge-
schichtlichen Methode in meinem Buch Erwäh-
nung verdient, allerdings nicht ohne Hinweis auf
die scharfe Kritik, die Radins Werk seinerzeit
fand. P. Wilhelm Köppers (1934: 568 Anm. 2)
meint, daß Radin weder Graebner noch Bern-
heim, den Graebner bekanntlich häufig zitiert
(vgl. Zwernemann 1983: 45), hinreichend kenne
bzw. verstanden habe. Köppers (1934; 588) ur-
teilt, Radin habe „weitgehend Verdikt mit Kritik
verwechselt“. P. Wilhelm Schmidt fällt die „ganz
rücksichtslose Kritik an den Fachgenossen aller
Richtungen“ auf. „Graebners Buch ,Methode der
Ethnologie4 wird in dem ganzen Werk [Radin
1933] nirgendwo zitiert, offenbar weil Radin es
selbst nie gelesen hat.“ Radin bringe „keinerlei
wirkliche Kritik“ vor, und zwar auch nicht dort,
„wo er die Methode, aber wieder nur nach der
kurzen und naturgemäß unvollständigen Zusam-
menfassung in meinem ,Handbuch der verglei-
chenden Religionsgeschichte4 etwas auführlicher
darstellt . . .“. Schmidt urteilt ähnlich wie Köp-
pers: Radin „drückt sich an der Kritik vorbei“
(Schmidt 1937; 54).1
Schmidt und Köppers waren zweifellos Par-
tei. Eine andere Stimme ist in diesem Zusammen-
hang unverdächtiger. R. R. Marett hat das Buch
von Radin rezensiert. In einer sehr ironischen
Einleitung stellt Marett (1934: 116) fest, daß
letztlich kein Fachkollege bei Radin ungeschoren
davonkommt. Aufschlußreich sind wenige Sätze
(Marett 1934; 117): “Mr. Radin’s short-hand de-
scriptions of my colleagues reveal to me very little
about any of them - except Mr. Radin.” Ferner:
“Also, I find it useful to learn from a man of such
wide reading the names of so many authorities
from all parts of the world whom he would select
for special mention. As for their respective merits
or demerits, however, I find it easier for the most
part to discover what he thinks about them than
why he thinks it.”
Radin (1933[1966]; 72) nennt Adolf Bastian
“a vastly overrated and muddle-headed thinker”.
Zu diesem von Beidelman (663) zitierten Urteil
ist anzumerken, daß man in deutschen Ethnolo-
genkreisen seit eh und je weiß, daß Bastian selbst
für jemanden mit deutscher Muttersprache
schwer lesbar ist. Sicher war Bastian aber kein
Wirrkopf (vgl. hierzu z. B. Fiedermutz-Laun
1970). Dies geht z. B. auch aus der Darstellung
von Penniman (1952: 146 ff.) hervor oder auch
aus der objektiven Bewertung Bastians durch
Ryding (1975: 10 ff.).
Kluckhohn (1936: 180) bescheinigt Radin,
daß er nur aus einem einzigen Buch von Schmidt
zitiert, um die Kulturkreislehre zu charakterisie-
ren (vgl. oben, Schmidts Bemerkung hierzu).
Weitere Hinweise zu Radin (1933[1966]) erübri-
gen sich meines Erachtens. Kluckhohn (1936:
180 ff.) kritisiert übrigens die Kritiker der kultur-
historischen Methode überhaupt, denen er nach-
weist, wie wenig sorgfältig sie gearbeitet haben.
Er belegt, daß sie die Arbeiten von Graebner,
Schmidt und Köppers nicht ordentlich gelesen
haben. Später (195 f.) stellt er mit gutem Recht
fest, daß die kulturhistorische Methode nicht
unangreifbar sei und daß auch ihre Verteidiger
nicht immer sorgsam genug gearbeitet hätten.
1 Radin bietet seinerseits genügend Angriffsflächen (vgl.
Schmidt 1937: 53-57).
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
217
Beidelman meint (663), es sei bezeichnend,
daß ich das Werk von Marvin Harris (1968) in
meinem Buch nicht zitiert habe. Hiermit unter-
stellt er, daß ich nur zitiert habe, was mir für
meine Argumentation paßte, daß ich also gewis-
sermaßen Quellen vorsätzlich unterdrückt hätte.
Hierzu kann ich nur feststellen, daß ich dieses
Werk nach der Lektüre von Beidelmans Kritik
erstmals in die Hand genommen habe, ebenso
wie beispielsweise Malinowski (1944) und Penni-
man (1952). Ich kann nur erneut auf die oben
zitierte Stelle aus meinem Vorwort verweisen. Im
übrigen bringt Harris keine grundsätzlich neue
Kritik an den Methoden von Graebner oder
Schmidt vor. In der Bibliographie zitiert Harris
nur zwei Arbeiten von Graebner, dessen wichti-
ges Spätwerk (1923) er offensichtlich nicht kennt.
Von Frobenius wird sogar nur „Die Weltanschau-
ung der Naturvölker“ erwähnt2 (Harris 1968:
709).
Es verwundert niemanden, daß B. Malinow-
ski ein scharfer Kritiker kulturhistorischer Me-
thoden war. Nicht ganz richtig schreibt aller-
dings auch er von “fhe Kulturkreislehre” (1944:
20). Alles in allem nimmt Malinowski (1944:
24 f.) einen sehr aufgeschlossenen Standpunkt ein,
wenn er Diffusionismus, Evolutionismus, die „so-
ziologische Einseitigkeit eines Dürkheim“ und die
„introspektiven Analysen eines Wundt“ neben-
einander stellt. Er weiß sich seinen Vorläufern
verbunden, so daß er von den Werken so unter-
schiedlicher Gelehrter wie L. H. Morgan, W. J.
Perry, W. Wundt und Sir James Frazer schreibt,
“all they command our respect and admiration”.
Und trotz der Schärfe seiner Kritik an der kultur-
historischen Methode von Graebner spricht er
einem moderaten Diffusionismus ein gewisses
Verdienst zu, und er meint schließlich: “. . . the
survey of Melanesian cultures given by Graebner,
of Australian provinces given by Schmidt, of
Africa prepared by Ankermann, will possess
lasting value” (Malinowski 1944: 31 f.). Solche
Stellen übersieht Beidelmann bei seiner Kritik.
Beidelmann (666 f.) macht darauf aufmerk-
sam, daß wissenschaftliche Theorien von eigenen
Glaubensinhalten der Wissenschaftler beeinflußt
worden sein könnten. Er verweist hier auf Kluck-
hohn (1936: 173 f.), der dies für die „Kulturkreis-
lehre“ zwar verneine, immerhin aber erwähnens-
wert finde. Beidelmann beruft sich ferner auf
Malinowski (1944: 31 f.), White (1949: 41, 331 f.)
2 Vielleicht wurde er durch die Rezension von Boas (1899)
auf dieses Buch aufmerksam, das sicher nicht zu den
wichtigen Arbeiten von Frobenius gehört.
und vor allem auf Harris (1968: 379). Harris
meint, daß die deutschen „Diffusionisten“ von
Mitgliedern des katholischen Klerus (gemeint
sind wohl die Patres Schmidt und Köppers) be-
herrscht (“dominated”) wurden. Dies ist eine
eindeutig falsche Aussage.
Wie ich in meinem Buch mehrfach festge-
stellt habe, gab es unterschiedliche Richtungen
kulturhistorischer Forschung, die weder als eine
„Schule“ angesehen noch unter dem gemeinsa-
men Begriff der „Kulturkreislehre“ zusammenge-
faßt werden können. Die eigentliche Kulturkreis-
lehre wurde von Schmidt, Köppers und ihren
Schülern repräsentiert. F. Graebner, B. Anker-
mann, H. Baumann, W. Schilde und andere
haben sich wohl als Kulturhistoriker betrachtet,
nie aber als Anhänger der „Kulturkreislehre“,
wie sie von der sog. „Wiener Schule“ vertreten
wurde. Auf keinen Fall sind Graebner, Anker-
mann, Baumann und Schilde von Schmidt und
seinen Mitarbeitern beherrscht worden.3
Sicher ist nicht zu leugnen, daß Menschen,
die tief im Glauben verwurzelt sind wie P. W.
Schmidt, P. W. Köppers und viele ihrer Schüler,
bei wissenschaftlicher Arbeit diesen Hintergrund
ebensowenig abschütteln können wie mancher
andere Kollege, der einen soliden ideologischen
oder philosophischen Hintergrund hat. Letzten
Endes ist kein Wissenschaftler frei von der Beein-
flussung durch sein Umfeld (vgl. hierzu Leach
1984).
Dieser Tatsache ist Beidelman sich offenbar
sehr wohl bewußt, denn er schneidet (668 f.) die
Einwirkung des Umfeldes auf Wissenschaftler an,
indem er die Arbeit von Woodruff Smith (1978)
zitiert. Smith hat aufgezeigt, daß die deutschen
Ethnologen des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jh.s
mehr oder weniger alle der oberen Mittelklasse
entstammten. Die frühen Diffusionisten (Ratzel,
Frobenius, Graebner, Ankermann) sollen poli-
tisch dem konservativen Lager angehört oder
wenigstens dorthin tendiert haben. Sie förderten
zugleich den Kolonialismus, während Adolf Ba-
stian und Rudolf Virchow als Liberale bekannt
und mehr oder weniger offene Gegner des Kolo-
nialismus waren. Abgesehen von der Lektüre des
Aufsatzes von Smith, auf den ich durch Beidel-
mans Besprechung aufmerksam gemacht wurde,
habe ich mich mit diesem geistesgeschichtlich
sicher interessanten Problem noch nicht auseinan-
dergesetzt. Für Frobenius erscheint es mir jedoch
3 Winter (1980: 75 ff.) hat ausführlich dargelegt, daß Fro-
benius und Ankermann nicht in direkte Beziehung zu den
Anhängern der Kulturkreislehre gesetzt werden können.
Anthropos 83.1988
218
Berichte und Kommentare
etwas zu einfach, nur einen politischen Hinter-
grund entscheidend verantwortlich zu machen. In
„Erlebte Erdteile“, Band I, bes. Kap. 1 und 2,
erläutert Frobenius selbst seine wissenschaftli-
chen und philosophischen Wurzeln. Diese wichti-
ge Stelle kennt Smith offenbar gar nicht.
In meinem Buch (84 f.) habe ich zwei kurze
Zitate aus einem Aufsatz von J. M. Ita (1972)
gebracht, die mir von Beidelman so ausgelegt
werden, als hätte ich die Absicht vollkommen
verdreht, die Ita mit seinem Beitrag verfolgt hat.
Ich schrieb: “. . . quite recently J. M. Ita said
about Frobenius: . . however misguided some
of Frobenius’ historical reconstructions may have
been, the total rejection of historical approach
can only be a hindrance to modern anthropologi-
cal studies’ (Ita 1972: 677).” Und im Zusammen-
hang mit einem Hinweis, daß für Frobenius kul-
turelle Diffusion nicht notwendig mit einer Völ-
kerwanderung verbunden sei, zitierte ich als Fuß-
note: “Cf. also Ita (1972: 676 f.): ‘Contrary to
popular belief Frobenius did not hold that cultur-
al “diffusion” necessarily implied a mass migra-
tion of peoples.’”
Beidelman hat aus Itas Aufsätzen (1972,
1973) ein so negatives Bild von Frobenius heraus-
gelesen, daß er meint, meine „Auswahl“ sei
“grossly misleading regarding the implications
which these give of what Ita intends”. Er unter-
stellt mir eine bewußte Verdrehung der Absich-
ten von Ita. Dies weise ich mit Nachdruck zurück.
Beidelman zitiert (667 f.) Ita ausführlich, aber
nur so, daß Frobenius völlig negativ dargestellt
wird. Positive Äußerungen von Ita werden, so-
weit überhaupt erwähnenswert gefunden, in ihrer
Bedeutung herabgewürdigt oder bestenfalls ver-
niedlicht. Ita, dessen Aufsätze ich nun nochmals
sorgfältig gelesen habe, stellt zweifellos negative
Aspekte von Frobenius’ Forschungen heraus,
aber er urteilt objektiv und würdigt auch positive
Seiten.
In seinem ersten Aufsatz schreibt Ita einlei-
tend (1972; 673 f.): “In this essay I wish to
suggest that in spite of the short-comings of
Frobenius’s archaeological and anthropological
methods, his work is of value to the West African
historian.” Sicher hat Beidelman recht, wenn er
schreibt, Ita habe viel an Frobenius’ Feldmetho-
den wie auch an seinen Interpretationen auszuset-
zen. Ita verwirft z. B. die Dichotomie Hamiten/
Äthiopen, in der er eine Übertragung europäi-
scher Antagonismen auf Afrika sieht. Sie sei je-
denfalls nicht von empirischen Beobachtungen
in Afrika abgeleitet (1972:675; 1973: 314 ff.,
323 ff.). Niemand wird in der Dichotomie Äthio-
pen/Hamiten heute mehr sehen wollen als eine
längst überholte Hypothese von Frobenius.
Ita verwirft aber auch die von Frobenius
konstruierten Kulturen (bei Ita: culture areas):
“. . . they were premature, since Frobenius cer-
tainly did not amass evidence sufficiently me-
thodically to demonstrate the existence of these
culture areas. However, if the divisions are taken
merely as guidelines for further research they can
be regarded as useful.4 Indeed, Frobenius’s in-
sistence on the cultural importance of the Niger
between Timbuctu and Niger-Benue confluence
should have received more attention” (Ita 1973:
316). An anderer Stelle erklärt Ita (1972; 675),
man werde feststellen, daß “many of the empiri-
cal observations appear to have been surprisingly
reliable” (vgl. auch Ita 1973: 314). Allerdings
hatten Frobenius’ Erklärungsversuche nach Mei-
nung von Ita (1973: 314) einen “rigidly schematic,
and at the same time mythopoeic, character”.
Frobenius war ein Mensch seiner Zeit. So
verwundert es nicht, daß er mit den Vorurteilen
seiner Zeit belastet war. Aber: “The significant
fact is that he later came to reject them.” Man
kann auch wohl kaum daran zweifeln, daß Frobe-
nius den Kolonialstatus Afrikas als völlig in Ord-
nung ansah und auch seinerseits kolonialistische
Gedanken äußerte (Ita 1973: 312 f.).
Ita (1973: 308) hat die Gründe für die Ableh-
nung der Arbeiten von Frobenius durch viele
Wissenschaftler klar erkannt; . they object to
his historical approach, to the inadequacies of his
anthropological fieldwork and his archaeological
excavation methods.” Ita (1972: 678) teilt diese
Meinung übrigens: “In attempting to assess Fro-
benius’ field methods, I must make it clear that,
judged by modern standards, they were defec-
tive.” Allerdings fährt er dann fort: “But the
question we must ask ourselves is, were they so
defective as to justify us in dismissing all Frobeni-
us’ work as worthless? It appears to me that they
were not.”
Als Beispiel nennt Ita (1972: 681) Frobenius’
Aufzeichnungen von den Kabre (Togo), die er
für “at least worth re-examining” hält. Sie er-
4 Vgl. hierzu Winter (1980: 85), der feststellt, daß Frobeni-
us die von ihm konstruierten afrikanischen „Kulturkrei-
se“ von Anfang an als “indispensable but merely first
heuristic devices in the ethnological study of African
culture history” betrachtete. Winter (1980: 75) hat übri-
gens auch dargelegt, daß der Begriff „Kulturkreis“ von
Frobenius sehr sparsam und anders benutzt wurde als von
den Anhängern der „Kulturkreislehre“. Frobenius bevor-
zugte es, einfach von „Kulturen“ zu sprechen.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
219
scheinen ihm sogar “much more reliable than his
methods would lead one to expect”. Gerade im
Hinblick auf dieses Beispiel kommt Ita zu dem
Schluß: . . it appears that the defects of Frobe-
nius’ methods were definitely not so great as to
vitiate all his findings”.
Bei Ita (1973: 309) finden wir aber auch die
Erklärung für die Frobenius vorgeworfene Unzu-
länglichkeit seiner Forschungsmethoden: “His
first three expeditions began . . . long before the
rise of Functionalism with its insistence on field-
work . . . But from the first [of his works]
Frobenius recognized the importance of first-
hand observation, and at the earliest opportunity
he went into the field. Whatever the defects of his
method, the fact that he carried out fieldwork in
Africa at all in 1904 and 1907 deserves credit and
shows considerable originality of thought. His
determination, as early as 1910, to carry out
archaeological excavation in Black Africa shows
even greater independence of mind.” Dieses zur
Kenntnis zu nehmen hätte meinem Kritiker auch
gut angestanden.
Ita (1973: 308 f.) ist völlig richtig informiert,
daß die frühen Expeditionen von Frobenius durch
Museen finanziert wurden (vgl. hierzu Zwerne-
mann 1987). Die Methoden des Sammelns ent-
sprachen sicher nicht unseren heutigen Vorstel-
lungen. Ita (1972:683) nennt sie “not over-
scrupulous”. Er zitiert dann das berühmte Bei-
spiel des Konflikts wegen des Olokun-Kopfes in
Ife (vgl. Frobenius 1912; 96 ff., 109 ff.). Auch die
archäologischen Methoden von Frobenius kriti-
siert Ita5 (1973: 309).
Es ist bekannt, daß Frobenius kein ausgebil-
deter Archäologe war und daß zu seiner Zeit
jedermann grub, der sich dazu nur berufen fühl-
te. Ich meine, wir sollten uns auch hier dem sehr
objektiven Ita (1972: 686) anschließen, der zu
dem Fazit kommt: “It thus appears that what is
needed is not condemnation of everything Frobe-
nius did, nor uncritical praise of him for having
‘discovered’ the art of Ife, but a more balanced
assessment involving an awareness of the destruc-
tiveness of some of his excavations there.”
Am Ende dieses Diskussionsbeitrages bleibt
offen, was Beidelman zu seinen scharfen Angrif-
fen veranlaßt haben mag. Da ich guten Willen
voraussetze, stellt sich mir die Frage, ob es sich
5 Sehr emotionell wirft mir Beidelman (688) vor, daß ich
Fragen der Ethik des Sammelns und Ausgrabens von
Frobenius nicht angeschnitten habe. Sie gehören nicht
zum Thema Theoriegeschichte der kulturgeschichtlichen
Forschung.
hier um völlige Verständnislosigkeit gegenüber
den kulturhistorischen Theorien handelt, deren
Entstehen und Entwicklung ich aufzuzeigen ver-
sucht habe und die heute fast ganz der Vergan-
genheit angehören, oder sollte es eine Voreinge-
nommenheit sein, der Beidelman durch seine
eigene wissenschaftliche Schulung erlegen ist?
Andere Rezensenten haben jedenfalls das Anlie-
gen meines Buches besser verstanden (vgl. z. B.
Augustin Holl, L’Ethnographie 1986; 291 ff.).
Selbstverständlich hat Beidelman einiges zu
Recht kritisiert, und dort habe ich ihm nicht
widersprochen. In manchen Punkten ist er aber in
unfairer Weise über das Ziel hinausgegangen. Es
gibt nicht nur eine Ethik des Sammelns und der
Datenerhebung ....
Zitierte Literatur
Beidelman, T. O.
1986 On J. Zwernemann’s “Culture History and African
Anthropology.” Anthropos 81: 661-671.
Boas, Franz
1899 Besprechung von Frobenius, Leo: Die Weltanschau-
ung der Naturvölker, Weimar 1898. American Anthro-
pologist N. S. 1: 775-777.
Fiedermutz-Laun, Annemarie
1970 Der kulturhistorische Gedanke bei Adolf Bastian.
Wiesbaden. (Studien zur Kulturkunde, 27)
Frobenius, Leo
1912 Und Afrika sprach . . .; Band I. Berlin.
1925 Erlebte Erdteile; Band I: Ausfahrt. Von der Völker-
kunde zum Kulturproblem. Frankfurt.
Graebner, Fritz
1923 Ethnologie. In: G. Schwalbe und E. Fischer (Hrsg.),
Die Kultur der Gegenwart - ihre Entwicklung und ihre
Ziele. Dritter Teil, fünfte Abt.: Anthropologie;
pp. 435-587. Leipzig und Berlin.
Harris, Marvin
1968 The Rise of Anthropological Theory. New York.
Ita, J. M.
1972 Frobenius in West African History. Journal of African
History 13: 673-688.
1973 Frobenius, Senghor, and the Image of Africa. In:
Robin Horton and Ruth Finnegan (eds.), Modes of
Thought; pp. 306-336. London.
Kluckbohn, Clyde
1936 Some Reflections on the Method and Theory of the
Kulturkreislehre. American Anthropologist 38: 157-
196.
Koppers, Wilhelm
1934 Besprechung von Radin, Paul: The Method and Theo-
ry of Ethnology, London 1933. Anthropos 29: 588-
589.
Anthropos 83.1988
220
Berichte und Kommentare
Leach, Edmund R.
1984 Glimpses of the Unmentionable in the History of
British Social Anthropology. Annual Review of An-
thropology 13: 1-23.
Lowie, Robert H.
1937 The History of Ethnological Theory. New York. [8th
ed. 1960]
Malinowski, Bronislaw
1944 A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays.
Chapel Hill.
Marett, R. R.
1934 Besprechung von Radin, Paul: The Method and Theo-
ry of Ethnology, New York 1933. American Anthro-
pologist 36: 116-118.
Penniman, T. K.
1952 A Hundred Years of Anthropology. London. [2nd rev.
ed.]
Radin, Paul
1933 The Method and Theory of Ethnology. An Essay in
Criticism. With an Introduction by Arthur J. Vidich.
New York and London. [1966]
Ryding, James N.
1975 Alternatives in Nineteenth-Century German Ethnolo-
gy. A Case Study in the Sociology of Science. Sociolo-
gy 25: 1-28.
Schmidt, Wilhelm
1937 Handbuch der Methode der kulturhistorischen Ethno-
logie. Münster.
Smith, Woodruff D.
1978 The Social and Political Origins of German Diffu-
sionist Ethnology. Journal of the History of Behavioral
Sciences 14; 103-112.
White, Leslie
1958 The Science of Culture. New York. [5. Aufl.]
Winter, Jürgen C.
1980 Leo Frobenius’ Image of Africa. An Ethnologist’s
Work and Ethnology’s View of It. Komparatistische
Hefte2\ 72-91.
Zwernemann, Jürgen
1983 Culture History and African Anthropology. A Century
of Research in Germany and Austria. Uppsala. (Upp-
sala Studies in Cultural Anthropology, 6)
1987 Leo Frobenius und das Hamburgische Museum für
Völkerkunde. Eine Dokumentation. Mitteilungen aus
dem Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg 17: 111-127.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
Akalu, Aster: Beyond Morals? Experiences of
Living the Life of the Ethiopian Nuer. Malmö: CWK
Gleerup, 1985. 85 pp., fig., maps, photos. (Papers of
the Royal Society of Letters at Lund, 2)
If this booklet were merely the outcome of incom-
petence, it would merit little notice. Unfortunately, the
author’s gross ineptitude is also mixed with what
appears to be considerable disdain toward anthropolo-
gists, a misleading presentation of her own purported
competence, and, most alarming, a presentation of
conclusions which do serious disservice to the Nuer
people whom she describes and claims to admire.
The abstract at the beginning of this work clearly
indicates its gist. The easiest way to indicate what is
amiss is to cite this in full and then follow it with critical
commentary on the points I raise above: “It is a
common assumption, within Social Anthropology as
well as general Sociology, that moral norms and ideas
exist in all social groups and that they form the basis of
group unity. The author questions the generality of this
assumption by referring to her experiences in a field
study of the Ethiopian Nuer. In contrast to most an-
thropologists she has lived and worked with the people
as one of them. On linguistic grounds, and by analyzing
her observations of their reactions to untraditional or
damaging acts and their upbringing of the children, she
arrives at the conclusion that the Ethiopian Nuer lack
moral norms and ideas. The divergence of this result
from E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s description of the culture
of the Sudanese Nuer is explained by the fact that the
Ethiopian Nuer up to now have been unaffected by
Western culture, and that authoritative elements such
as chiefs or elders and even authoritative attitudes are to-
tally absent in their lives. The study concludes by some
reflections on what produces cohesion among this ex-
tremely individualistic and yet egalitarian people” (8).
Akalu assumes that “people on simple cultural
levels do not think or verbalize in general typified
terms” (9). Drawing selected bits (out of context) from
Lowie, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Fiirer-Haimen-
dorf, and the British legal anthropologist Simon
Roberts, she concludes that we cannot assume but
must verify whether indeed all preliterate peoples have
moral norms. She views the Nuer as a test case. To
study them she decided to approach fieldwork uninflu-
enced by any preconceived methodological principles.
Instead, she would work “spontaneously.” This con-
sisted of a pilot study of two weeks in 1976, two months
in 1979, one month in 1981, and three months in 1983.
She claims that since she had already learned Nuer
earlier as a girl the linguistic obstacle was already
solved so little time was needed to be wasted there.
Furthermore, she found that prolonged living amongst
the Nuer was arduous.
Akalu suggests that Evans-Pritchard failed to
collect proper material since he did not live as a Nuer,
even though he resided in the midst of Nuer camps.
This is because he wore shoes and clothing, slept on a
camp-bed in a tent, and wandered around taking notes
and making formal enquiries rather than hunting and
gathering, milking and herding cattle, fishing and
cultivating. In contrast, when Akalu reached Nuer
country, she discarded her shoes and clothing, donned
a loin-cloth (apparently much to the consternation of
local African officials), and moved into a Nuer settle-
ment. She claims ethnographic authority and insight by
having gone about with Nuer in this fashion, collecting
data in spontaneous conversations and by random
observations. She does not appear to have seen any
sacrifices, funerals or marriage ceremonies, though she
does claim to have witnessed male initiation. This
apparently supports her assertion that real Nuer lack
most forms of ritual and supernaturally oriented behav-
iour.
Akalu’s findings go against the grain of material
collected by every other person who has ever worked
with the Nuer: Evans-Pritchard, Howell, Huffman,
Crazzolara, and Kiggen (the last three uncited), as well
as Hutchinson (whose fieldwork was nearly contempo-
raneous with Akalu’s), not to mention many others.
All these workers spent longer time with the Nuer,
some spending several years.
Not surprisingly, given the brevity of this volume
(after photographs, illustrations, and tables of content
are deducted, less than 60 pages of reportage remain)
her material is extremely thin, consisting mainly of
vague generalizations and bald assertions, supposedly
sustained by scattered personal anecdotes and odd
quotations from her conversations with Nuer.
What Akalu reports conforms to nothing convinc-
ingly reported for any preliterate society we know any-
where. (I discount Turnbull’s bizarre and question-
able “Mountain People.”) According to Akalu, Nuer
lack all forms of personal authority, leadership, all
Anthropos 83.1988
222
Rezensionen
sense of an afterlife, and almost all sense of supernatu-
ral beings. They even lack firm expectations of how
others will or should behave.
Yet even Akalu’s few sustained expositions of
social relations are so internally contradictory socio-
logically as to put all that she reports into doubt. For
example: “They seem to have no idealized pattern as to
how to behave towards each other. On the other hand
the families of the dhor are highly dependent on others
for herding, defence, mutual support in times of need,
and the pleasures of joint activities and of simply being
together . . . For that reason they take care not to hurt
one another and, in fact, serious quarrels are very rare
within the dhor group. But killing and wounding have
occurred in former times. In these cases the reactions
of the group members not involved were extremely
variable, some people taking the side of the assaulting
individual and others against him, yet they did not
separate into hostile factions. A joint reaction was
never seen. But all people had the concern in common
to reconcile the parties and they all looked upon the
deed as a misfortune among many others which might
happen to the group. If reconciliation could not be
attained one of the families involved left the dhor
group and joined another” (71).
Far from indicating that Nuer lack moral values,
the above, brief and muddled though it may be,
sustains what has been repeatedly reported about the
Nuer: that such a local community (dhor) is so consti-
tuted that homicides must be quickly settled and feuds
not abided, and that each break in social relation leads
to complex negotiations between the various parties
involved, all invoking parallel or competing and moral
claims and values. Evans-Pritchard may have been
ill-advised to coin the phrase “ordered anarchy,” but it
is precisely such situations as these to which he was
referring.
The final factor to be considered in evaluating
Akalu’s material is her claim to knowing the Nuer
language. Even given the fact that her grasp of social
anthropology, ethnography, and fieldwork is wretched,
at best, a reader might still assume that perhaps some
of her observations have merit on account of her
conversing freely with the Nuer, even though this was
for a very brief period of time.
Consultation with a speaker of Nuer along with
perusal of copies of Kiggen’s and Stigand’s Nuer
dictionaries reveal that Akalu’s grasp of Nuer must be
rudimentary at best. What Nuer she does record is rife
with errors. For example, she writes nyier goaa (65)
combining plural (nyier) and singular (goaa) forms.
Earlier she translates some Nuer phrases as; “You
incredibly useful. I say. You go fishing. You fish catch.
We eat fish” (64). This is supposed to illustrate an
optative suggestion, indicating that Nuer can only
suggest but can never command. Actually, the phrases
should be translated as: “You have become a good
person. You went fishing. You caught a fish. We will
eat fish.” Akalu’s confusions over verbs have led her to
transform some statements of praise for a good act
already completed into a statement of request. Else-
where, Akalu’s transcription of Nuer indicates that she
is muddled about how to read the standard methods of
orthographically rendering Nuer. This is not the minor
point it may seem since she repeatedly reports that she
tried out Nuer terms cited by Evans-Pritchard and
others and got no meaningful responses. This seems
due to the fact that she may have been pronouncing
them incorrectly since she did not comprehend the
orthography. For example, she renders in her script the
Nuer sound comparable to the second consonant in the
German Lüge as r and y, misreading the orthographic
sign of the Greek uncapitalized gamma. Similar prob-
lems appear in her understanding of the orthographic
c. In English, mutatis mutandis, this could lead to a
question such as this: Do you have a wick in your
village? (A candle perhaps?) Whereas one had intend-
ed to ask whether the village had a witch. On the
basis of such seemingly minor slips she seems to have
erroneously assumed that Nuer lacked key terms (and
hence concepts) repeatedly cited by Evans-Pritchard,
Crazzolara, Kiggen, Howell, and Hutchinson. Of
course, a die-hard might argue that Ethiopian Nuer is
wildly different from the Nuer spoken and recorded in
the southern Sudan, but this would seem a desperate
defense. At other points Akalu asserts that the Nuer
lack all terms for expressing the verbal imperative.
While it is true that adult Nuer would try to express
requests in a measured and indirect manner (as indeed
would people in many other societies), such statements
are no less imbued with moral tone and even some
sense of constraining rewards and punishments. In any
case, Nuer can and do use the imperative, e.g., nongpi
(bring water!), bir (come!), albeit mostly with children.
Elsewhere, Akalu suggests that Nuer are linguistically
deficient in means of expressing moral approval or
disapprobation. She makes no considerations for many
concepts and terms for the person (or proper social
being, raan), e.g., “You are not a person,” or the
various evaluative concepts attached to the heart, e.g.,
a person without a heart. A careful perusal of Kiggen
and Crazzolara would reveal numerous examples of
Nuer phrases and texts indicating various kinds of
moral approval and disapproval, not to mention words
for obeying, heeding, good, bad, etc. I am assured that
anyone fluent in Nuer would be able to provide even
more damning criticisms. Since Akalu seems to rest a
large part of her argument on two purported facts
which seem dubious indeed, that she is fluent in Nuer
and that Nuer lack verbal means to convey moral
concepts, little of her argument holds up.
Were this all there were to Akalu’s volume, one
could merely cross it off as just another piece of inept
work published by someone snipping at her ethnograph-
ic betters. What is most seriously wrong, even morally
reprehensible, regarding this material is its implications
for Nuer vis-à-vis the administrators, developers, and
bureaucrats in Addis Ababa and Khartoum. Christian
and Muslim Ethiopians and Muslim Sudanese have
long held the pagan Nilotic minorities within their
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
223
borders in contempt. In the Sudan this has resulted in
decades of civil war, violence, and exploitation. For a
scholarly journal associated with the University of
Lund to publish material assuring the public that the
Nuer indeed lack all moral notions such as we associate
with developed societies is not only to denigrate the
Nuer but to provide material that such oppressive
governments will find compelling intellectual justifica-
tion for what they have been trying to do all along,
eradicate such “backward” cultures.
Anyone who has read the rich ethnographic
record on the Nuer, from Stigand, Ferguson, and
Huffman in the early days, through Evans-Pritchard,
Kiggen, Crazzolara, Howell, and now Hutchinson, is
likely to find the Nuer a strikingly attractive people.
Much of their attractiveness relates to their deeply held
moral and spiritual values. For Akalu, reports by her
predecessors differ from her own because her predeces-
sors studied Nuer in the Sudan already influenced by
“civilized” Muslim and Christian outsiders. Her “pur-
er” Ethiopian Nuer, she claims, are untouched by
these sources and thus lack such sophisticated, moral
concepts. It is disheartening that such an ethnocentric,
obtuse, and harmful book would be published by a
scholarly press in the present decade.
T. O. Beidelman
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (ed.): Neofunctionalism.
Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. 240 pp. (Key
Issues in Sociological Theory, 1)
Die Beschreibung, Erklärung und Voraussage von
und mittels Funktionen und Funktionszusammenhän-
gen ist und bleibt eine der wichtigsten und verbreitet-
sten Aufgaben (kultur)anthropologischer Forschung.
Angesichts der erheblichen Unklarheit und Belastung
der dazu erforderlichen Konzepte war es aber immer
erstaunlich, daß deren Klärung und Präzisierung bis
vor kurzem weitgehend Soziologen und Wissenschafts-
theoretikern überlassen wurde. Ethnologen diagnosti-
zierten und beschrieben Funktionssachverhalte, be-
schäftigten sich aber ansonsten höchstens mit der
Geschichte der Funktionalismen.
Es muß daher auch Ethnologen und Kulturan-
thropologen neugierig machen, wenn ein („obwohl“
von Soziologen verfaßtes) Buch “Neofunctionalism” er-
scheint, weil der Titel eine Weiterführung und Verbes-
serung der funktionalistischen Forschungsansätze ver-
spricht. Und das von Alexander (UCLA) herausgege-
bene Buch leistet eine solche Fortentwicklung auch -
allerdings anders, als bei dem generellen Titel erwart-
bar: Denn alle elf (erstmals publizierten) Beiträge des
Bandes haben ausschließlich eine in der Kulturanthro-
Pologie kaum verbreitete Variante der Funktionalis-
men zum Thema und zugrunde gelegt, den Funktiona-
lismus Parsons. Doch auch in anderer Hinsicht ver-
spricht der allgemeine Titel mehr, als der Buchinhalt
hält. Die Essays beschäftigen sich vor allem mit der
°ntischen Ebene, mit Funktionen und Funktionalitä-
ten. Die einen Forschungsansatz aber erst vervollstän-
digenden epistemischen und methodischen Probleme
und ihre Lösungen werden dagegen weitgehend außer
acht gelassen. Der Zusatz “-ism” im Titel ist daher -
und auch wegen der Vielzahl „funktionalistisch“
genannter Forschungsansätze - mindestens irrefüh-
rend. Vielleicht wäre Alexander besser dem Vorschlag
Münchs (235) und der Praxis Lechners (171) gefolgt
und hätte den zutreffenderen Titel “Revisionist Action
Theory” gewählt.
Der in der neugegründeten Reihe “Key Issues in
Sociological Theory” (in der jährlich das Schlüsselthe-
ma der amerikanischen soziologischen Theoriediskus-
sion aufgegriffen und zusammengefaßt werden soll und
die deswegen auch von anderen Humanwissenschaft-
lern mit Aufmerksamkeit verfolgt werden sollte) her-
ausgegebene Band ist in seiner Aufmachung Standard:
Klarer, gut lesbarer Satz und Druck; wenig erläuternde
Abbildungen; pro Beitrag eine (meist kurze) Bibliogra-
phie; Kurzangaben zu den Autoren; es fehlen leider
ein detailliertes Inhaltsverzeichnis und Indices.
Der Sammelband enthält neun durchnumerierte
und auf drei Teile (I: Interpretation and Theoretical
Boundaries [19-95]; II: Explanation and Social Change
[97-176]; III: Politics and Responsibility [177-224])
verteilte Beiträge. Dazu eine allgemeine Einleitung
von Alexander (7-18), welche kurz die Entwicklung
und einige Merkmale des “neofunctionalism” zusam-
menfaßt und in die Beiträge einführt, sowie einen an-
hand des AGIL-Schemas systematisierenden und ver-
gleichenden Kommentar zu vier Beiträgen von Münch
(225-237).
Die Aufsätze basieren auf (überarbeiteten) Refe-
raten, welche 1984 während der Tagung der American
Sociological Association in San Antonio, Texas, in
einer Konferenz vorgetragen und diskutiert worden
waren. Auch “Neofunctionalism” zeigt zwar die Stär-
ken solcher Tagungsberichte (z. B. Vielfalt der The-
men und Ansätze, Offenheit und Neuheit der Ergeb-
nisse, Stimulierungskraft), kann jedoch deren Schwä-
chen (z. B. geringer Systematisierungsgrad, Unvoll-
ständigkeit und Vorläufigkeit der Argumentation)
nicht überwinden.
Gemeinsam ist allen Beiträgen nur das Bemühen
um eine Aktualisierung, Erweiterung und/oder Präzi-
sierung der Annahmen Parsons durch die Auseinander-
setzung mit und Einbeziehung von Erkenntnissen aus
anderen Forschungsansätzen und Untersuchungen.
Ansonsten sind die Schwerpunkte unterschiedlich.
“Neofunctionalism” wird nur für die (wenigen)
Ethnologen oder Kulturanthropologen von Interesse
sein, die sich mit Parsons “functionalism” oder “action
theory” oder einem der angeschnittenen Einzelthemen
befassen. Trotz des vielversprechenden Titels ist der
Band für allgemein oder randlich an (funktionalisti-
schen) Forschungsansätzen Interessierte zu speziell.
Für die Spezialisten hier noch Kurzangaben zu
den einzelnen Beiträgen: Sciulli (21-50) versucht (mehr
anregend/aufzeigend als durchführend) eine Synthese
der Ansätze von Habermas, Füller und Parsons, die
sich gegenseitig ideal ergänzten. Gould (51-71) geht
Anthropos 83.1988
224
Rezensionen
davon aus, daß eine Theorie der sozialen Krise(n)
dreidimensional sein, d. h. funktionale, strukturale (in-
teraktionale) und genetische Komponenten enthalten
müsse, und zeigt am Beispiel Englands im 17. Jh. und
der heutigen USA, wie eine solche Theorie durch die
Verknüpfung Marxscher, Parsonsscher und Piagetscher
Ideen entwickelt werden könnte. Rossi (73-95) verbin-
det Parsons mit seiner strukturalen und poststruktura-
len Semiotik und entwickelt so eine dialektische Ver-
sion des AGIL-Schemas, welche besonders zur Voraus-
sage technologischer Innovationen in Betrieben geeig-
net sei. Eisenstadt (99-112) diskutiert die Frage nach
den systemischen Eigenschaften und den Grenzen von
Sozietäten oder Soziosystemen und mahnt an, deren
Fragilität stärker zu beachten, die in der ununterbro-
chenen Konstruktion und Rekonstruktion sozialer
Systeme begründet sei. Die folgenden drei Beiträge
beschäftigen sich mit der Wandel erklärenden Diffe-
renzierungstheorie. Smelser (113-129) kritisiert und
revidiert (am Beispiel des Wandels in der primären
Erziehung in Großbritannien und in den USA zu
Beginn des 19. Jh.s) die funktionalistische Theorie der
strukturalen Differenzierung (welche von einer aktor-
unabhängigen Entwicklung ausgeht), indem er sie um
konflikttheoretische Einsichten erweitert und konkrete
historische Prozesse mit einbezieht. Colony (131-156)
beschäftigt sich mit der Differenzierungstheorie am
Beispiel der Entwicklung der politischen Massenpartei-
en und Parteipolitik in den USA und schlägt eine
zweifache Erweiterung vor: um das Konzept einer
ungleichen Entwicklung und um die zusätzliche Einbe-
ziehung und Berücksichtigung voluntaristischer Fakto-
ren. Lechner (157-176) behandelt das Problem der
Differenzierung am Beispiel von Modernisierung und
Unzufriedenheit und schlägt eine multidimensionale,
pluralistische Sicht- und Vorgehensweise vor. Prager
(179-209) vergleicht die öffentlichen Werte und Nor-
men, die politische Organisation sowie die Solidarität,
Identifizierung und Integration zwischen und von
Staat, Politikern, Elite und anderen Bürgern in zwei
unterschiedlichen Formen von Demokratie: einer tota-
litären und einer liberalen demokratischen Ordnung.
Barber (211-224) diskutiert und führt Parsons Theorie
der “professions” fort, also der Beschäftigungen, die
hoch generalisiertes Wissen und Können voraussetzen
und benutzen (z. B. Wissenschaftler, Mediziner, Juri-
sten, Theologen). Andreas Bruck
Allott, Antony, and Gordon R. Woodman (eds.):
People’s Law and State Law. The Bellagio Papers. Dor-
drecht: Foris Publications, 1985. 354 pp. Price: $ 30.00
Dieser Sammelband umfaßt die 27 Beiträge des
1981 durch die “Commission on Folk Law and Legal
Pluralism” organisierten Symposiums in Bellagio,
Corno, Italien. Renommierte Vertreter der Rechtseth-
nologie, der Rechtssoziologie und der Vergleichenden
Rechtswissenschaft aus allen Kontinenten haben sich
von ihrem theoretischen oder regionalen Spezialgebiet
her zur vorgegebenen Thematik (Volksrecht und
Rechtspluralismus) geäußert. Die Organisatoren des
Symposiums hatten sich das Ziel gesetzt, die bisher
weithin getrennten Forschungsbereiche - das nicht-
kodifizierte „primitive“ Recht einerseits und die quasi-
legalen oder paralegalen Verordnungen außerhalb des
Codex juris der staatlichen oder sonst öffentlichen
Rechtssysteme andererseits - als gemeinsames Feld
von Untersuchungen anzugehen und die Vielfalt der
theoretischen und praktischen Problemstellungen nach
relevanten Mustern zu strukturieren. Die beiden Her-
ausgeber, A. Allot und G. R. Woodman, weisen in
ihrer kurzen Präsentierung des Sammelbandes nicht
nur auf die terminologischen Schwierigkeiten (z. B. die
Definition von “Folk Law”) hin, sondern auch auf die
immer noch vorherrschende Voreingenommenheit der
westlichen Jurisprudenz, den Begriff „Recht“ im Sinn
ihres eurozentrischen Rechtspositivismus auf das staat-
liche Recht einzuschränken, dies trotzdem feststehe,
daß jeder Mensch gleichzeitig Subjekt eines Staats- und
eines Volks-Rechtssystems sei.
Die im Symposium angestrebte Annäherung zwi-
schen der traditionellen Rechtswissenschaft und der
Rechtsethnologie bzw. Ethno-Jurisprudenz in der Fra-
ge des Rechtspluralismus und der Ausweitung des
Rechtsbegriffs auch auf nicht-kodifizierte Rechtsnor-
men, welche bekanntlich auch innerhalb der Rechts-
ethnologie zu parallelen Kontroversen wie in der Wirt-
schaftsethnologie (Substantivisten vs. Formalisten)
geführt hatte, steht im Einklang mit der Tendenz der
Annäherung zwischen der Ethnologie in ihrem
Gesamtbereich und den „westlichen“ Sozial- und
Human Wissenschaften.
Die thematische Einordnung der Aufsätze folgt
dem Muster der Sektionsthemen des Symposiums:
Informai Social Control (J. Griffiths, A. Allot,
R. A. Alum, R. Bolton, M. Galanter, A. Podgorecki);
Folk Law in State Courts (R. Schott, K. v. Benda-
Beckmann, A. K. P. Kludze, M. Koesnoe, N. J. Sin-
ger, J. Starr, G. R. Woodman); Compétition between
State and Unofficial Law (P. Fitzpatrick, U. Baxi, F.
v. Benda-Beckmann, M. Chiba, J. Griffiths, R. Schott,
E. A. B. v. Rouveroy v. Nieuwaal); Neo-Marxist Inter-
prétations of Folk Law in Pluralistic Legal Systems (F.
v. Benda-Beckmann, P. Fitzpatrick, E. Le Roy, F. G.
Snyder); Legal Policy (G. R. Woodman, R. L. Abel,
J. U. Bayly, S. Conn, H. W. Finkler, M. D. Kirby, F.
Strijbosch). Die offensichtlichen Überschneidungen
der Themen werden von den Herausgebern zugegeben.
Regional beziehen sich die Beiträge auf das moderne
Amerika, die Türkei, Japan, auf Indonesien (O-Sumat-
ra, Lombok), Indien (Rangpur), Peru, Afrika (Ghana,
Zambia, Nigérien, Togo, Senegal), Alaska (Inuit) und
Aboriginal Australien.
Fast alle Autoren berühren in ihren Beiträgen die
Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen den unterschiedli-
chen Rechtssystemen, d. h. zwischen „Volksrecht“ und
Staatsrecht oder zwischen den verschiedenen Volks-
recht-Systemen. Es geht ihnen um die Probleme der
System wähl, der Konfliktsituationen, der Inkorpora-
tion, der gegenseitigen Anerkennung und Beeinflus-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
225
sung. Die historische Realität, vor allem im Kontext
der ehemaligen Kolonialländer, hat gezeigt, wie der
Rechtspluralismus Probleme löst, aber auch solche
schafft - letzteres besonders dort, wo das Recht durch
die Macht gefährdet ist. Die Forderung der Herausge-
ber, die rechtlichen Fragen vermehrt auf dem Hinter-
grund der politischen Situation zu analysieren, erhält
darin ihre konkrete Aktualität. Die alte Frage der
Vereinheitlichung des Rechts in den unabhängigen
Staaten ist, angesichts des weiterbestehenden Span-
nungsverhältnisses zwischen tribaler Beharrung und
Selbstbetonung einerseits und der Suche nach übergrei-
fender nationaler Identität andererseits, auch heute
noch nicht gelöst. Die Schwierigkeit liegt dabei nicht
nur in unterschiedlichen Normen, sondern auch in
Definitionen von Begriffen wie „Familie“, „Besitz“ etc.
Die Akzente und entsprechend auch das analytisch-
methodische Vorgehen sind erwartungsgemäß unter-
schiedlich in den Arbeiten, je nachdem, ob darin mehr
die Normensysteme oder praktisch-strategische Belan-
ge der Rechtsprechung anvisiert werden.
Hugo Huber
Amselle, Jean-Loup et Elikia M’bokolo (éds.):
Au coeur de l’ethnie. Ethnies, tribalisme et Etat en
Afrique. Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1985. 225 pp.
Prix: FF 105,00.
Cet ouvrage réunit des essays d’anthropologues et
des historiens dans une approche, à la fois synchroni-
que et diachronique, privilégiant la dynamique sociale
et le changement lié à la colonisation dans six études de
cas africains. L’objet de ces essays est la réflexion
épistémologique sur la signification et la validité du
concept d’ethnie et des notions comme celles de tribu,
clan, lignage, race, nation, Etat. Le but ultime de cette
étude interdisciplinaire est, selon Jean-Loup Amselle,
de «déconstruire l’objet ethnique» (10) et d’interpréter
une certaine politique africaine sur l’unité nationale, de
«dosages ethniques et régionalistes, qui permet au
pouvoir de dissimuler sa nature en perpétuant le
stéréotypes ethnicistes» (9).
Les auteurs ont réussi la performance d’écrire un
livre qui dans la littérature anthropologique de l’école
française est, à certains égards, un livre original et
riche; original quant aux études de cas (les Bété en
Côte d’ivoire, les Bambara - «à chacun son Bambara»
-, les Hutu et les Tutsi au Rwanda et au Burundi, et le
séparatisme katangais); riche quant à la réflexion criti-
que sur la validité des théories dualistes et réduction-
nistes de l’anthropologie classique et quant aux rap-
ports épistémologiques entre l’anthropologie et l’his-
toire, visant à réstituer l’histoire aux formes d’organisa-
tion sociale, si bien maîtrisés par Georges Balandier et
Par l’école dynamiste.
On soulignera dès l’abord l’importance de l’expo-
sé de J.-L. Amselle qui oblige à rouvrir le débat sur
l’intérêt des études systémiques des processus d’assimi-
lation des divers groupes ethniques dans une variété de
contextes culturels.
Les autres essays de ce livre laissent dériver le
débat vers l’étude des causes historiques des conflits
ethniques et vers la dénonciation des pouvoirs colo-
niaux qui, par leurs préjugés idéologiques, ont fini pour
aggraver et disloquer ces conflits. Certaines déclara-
tions outrancières émises par les auteurs sont brandies
comme preuves de l’oppression instaurée par l’Occi-
dent. Certes, l’élaboration du modèle théorique de
l’acculturation a été fortement influencé par l’idéologie
et la situation coloniales. On peut cependant regretter
l’absence de nouveauté en ce qui concerne l’analyse
théorique de portée générale. Les auteurs ne nous
apprennent pas grand chose sur la nature des différen-
ces culturelles.
L’analyse de ces auteurs pourrait être enrichie par
l’étude des porteurs de la culture. Comment les grou-
pes ethniques concernés perçoivent-ils eux-mêmes la
diversité culturelle? Les «ethnies», les «tribus» sont-
elles des formes sociales révolues? Et si les différences
entre cultures tendent à s’estomper, les groupes ethni-
ques disparaîtront-ils? L’analyse de ces questions
pourrrait conceptuellement et théoriquement nous
apporter d’importants aspects sur les pouvoirs, relatifs
bien sûr, d’explication de beaucoup de variables imbri-
quées dans les processus de la culture.
La question de l’ethnicité est trop vast et comple-
xe pour la cerner sous tous ces aspects et aller, comme
le titre du livre l’indique, «au coeur» du problème. La
«réalité ethnique» renvoie avant tout à une forme
d’organisation; elle est fort différente selon les régions
et les types de société. Sur ce point, J.-L. Amselle
semble avoir bien posé le problème: «les formes
d’organisation sociale que l’on peut repérer en Afrique
précoloniale sont le produit des phénomènes de diasto-
le et de systole, de va-et-vient constants, en un mot de
processus de composition et de décomposition et de
recomposition qui se déroulent à l’intérieur d’un espace
continental» (28-29).
Nous pensons que l’appartenance ethnique est
une des formes d’identité les plus fondamentales, tel
comme l’appartenance à d’autres cetégories sociales,
voire la catégorie des anciens et des jeunes. Ainsi que
nous avons pu l’observer en Afrique Centrale, à la
suite de nombreux autres chercheurs, les groupes
ethniques, d’une manière générale, ne disparaissent
pas au contact d’autres groupes comparables. Au con-
traire, ce contact a pour effet d’accentuer l’identité
ethnique et la conscience de groupe. Le sociétés vivant
à l’écart n’affirment pas leur identité avec autant de
vigueur. La conscience ethnique ne naît qu’au contact
d’autres groupes. Aussi, le groupe ethnique n’est
jamais totalement dissociable de la culture. Chaque
groupe ethnique sélectionne dans sa culture, réelle ou
fictive, un certain nombre de valeurs et de caractéristi-
ques qu’il considère comme l’expression de son identi-
té. Les valeurs et les caractéristiques utilisées comme
emblème peuvent être liées à une époque: ces éléments
peuvent se modifier au fil du temps, alors que le
groupe ethnique subsiste. L’appartenance ethnique
semble être avant tout une question d’autoattribution
Anthropos 83.1988
226
Rezensionen
et d’attribution par les autres. Les groupes imposent
des critères à cette appartenance. Il ne s’agit donc pas
d’un arbitraire absolu. Sur ce point, nous sommes bien
d’accord avec J.-L. Amselle: «... l’ethnie est une
création précoloniale, en ce sens qu’elle est un mode de
regroupement idéologique d’un certain nombre d’a-
gents et cela en parfaite continuité avec les unités
sociales plus petites que sont les clans et les lignages»
(38).
Croire que la «réalité ethnique» est condamnée à
disparaître serait faire preuve de l’ethnocentrisme à
l’envers. On a tendance parfois à voir l’ethnicité
comme dans «les autres» et pas «en nous» et de
l’analyser comme périphérique, divisoire, plus qu’in-
tégrative, arriérée plus que moderne. Au cours des
dernières années, de nouvelles tendances se sont dessi-
nées au niveau mondial, en Afrique comme ailleurs,
qui nous montrent que la «réalité ethnique» est plus
complexe qu’on ne le pensait. Les groupes ethniques
s’affirment de plus en plus et militent en faveur de leur
identité culturelle, même si celle-ci s’est considérable-
ment estompée (voir à ce sujet W. McCready, Culture,
Ethnicity, and Identity. London 1983). Sur ce point,
rien ne distingue en fait le «tribalisme» ou l’«ethnicité»
africains de la renaissance du «régionalisme» à laquelle
on assiste en Europe, comme bien le dit J.-L. Amselle
(41). Antonio C. Gonçalves
Ariès, Philippe, and André Béjin (eds.): Western
Sexuality. Practice and Precept in Fast and Present
Times. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985. 220 pp. Price:
£ 17.50
1979/80 veranstaltete der inzwischen verstorbene
Ariès an der Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences So-
ciales in Paris ein Seminar über westliche, christ-
lich-abendländische Sexualität, in dem französische,
italienische und englische Historiker, Soziologen und
Kulturanthropologen aus unterschiedlichen Sichtwei-
sen berichteten und diskutierten. Einige der Referate
wurden 1982 in der Zeitschrift Communications unter
dem Titel «Sexualités occidentales» publiziert. Das hier
vorzustellende Buch ist eine von Peter Laslett und
Michael Anderson herausgegebene Übersetzung durch
Anthony Förster.
Der klar gestaltete und solide verarbeitete Band
enthält neben einem (begeisterten) Vorwort von Las-
lett (vii-ix) und einer kurzen Vorbemerkung von Ariès
und Béjin (xi) sechzehn durchnumerierte, relativ kurze
Beiträge von elf Autoren - darunter übrigens nur eine
einzige Frau (Angeline Goreau). Die meisten Essays
haben (wenige) Literaturverweise in Fußnoten; Biblio-
grafien fehlen. Es gibt einen kurzen Sach- und Perso-
nenindex (218-220), aber keine Kurzbiografien zu den
Autoren.
Die zeitlich von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart
reichenden Beiträge sind - vermutlich wegen zahlrei-
cher inhaltlicher und thematischer Überschneidungen -
nicht verschiedenen Teilen zugeordnet worden. Vier
Themenschwerpunkte werden dennoch deutlich; Ho-
mosexualität und homosexuelle Beziehungen, die Ent-
wicklung der christlichen Sexualmoral, eheliche und
außereheliche Sexualbeziehungen sowie die gegenwär-
tige Sexualforschung mit ihren Auswirkungen.
1) (Männliche) Homosexualität: Daß im antiken
Rom Homosexualität nicht durchgängig toleriert oder
verdammt wurde, sondern - wie heterosexuelles Ver-
halten auch - entsprechend dreier Normenstandards
(Freie Liebe vs. eheliche Liebe, sexuelle Aktivität vs.
sexuelle Passivität, Freiheit vs. Sklaverei) bewertet
wurde, verdeutlicht Veyne (26-35) in seiner auf der
Auswertung literarischer Texte beruhenden Analyse.
Die gegenwärtige Situation und aktuelle Strategien von
Homosexuellen im Zusammenhang mit zunehmender
Tolerierung oder auch nur Akzeptierung sind das
Thema von Pollak (40-61), der sich auf einschlägige
Untersuchungen, vor allem von Bell and Weinberg
(1978) und Dannecker und Reiche (1974), stützt. Auch
in Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Artikel Pollacks
stellt Ariès (62-75) einige eher allgemeine, punktuelle
und sehr weitläufige Gedanken zur Geschichte der
Homosexualität an.
2) Entwicklung der Christlichen Sexualmoral:
Von Foucault (14—25) ist eine Analyse der “Institu-
tions” und der “Conferences” des Johannes Cassi-
an(us) (ca. 360-435) aus dem 3. Band seiner «Histoire
de la sexualité» übernommen worden. Er untersucht
und referiert die von Cassian(us) unterschiedenen
Arten und Formen der Unzucht und die Schritte zu
ihrer Überwindung, die „Schlachten“ im „Kampf“ um
die Keuschheit. Seine exemplarisch gedachte Fallanaly-
se soll die durchaus verzweigte und differenzierte
Entwicklung der keinesfalls als homogener Block auf-
tretenden christlichen Sexualmoral verdeutlichen. In
“St Paul and the Flesh” skizziert Ariès (36-39) kurz die
von Paulus (1 Cor 6, 9-10; 1 Tim 1, 9-10) unterschiede-
nen Arten der Sünde im Zusammenhang mit Sexuali-
tät, zu denen dieser neben der männlichen Homose-
xualität auch die molles oder molüties zählt, also
Aktivitäten zur Vergrößerung und Verstärkung der
Lust und sexuellen Befriedigung.
3) Sexualität und Liebe innerhalb und außerhalb
der ehelichen Gemeinschaft: Die erhebliche Differenz
zwischen der christlichen Ehemoral und dem tatsächli-
chen, praktizierten Verhalten in den Ehen des 14. bis
17. Jh.s wird von Flandrin (114-129) aufgezeigt, der
zeitgenössische Abhandlungen zur christlichen Moral-
lehre analysiert hat. Ariès verfolgt in zwei sehr essayi-
stischen Beiträgen zunächst den abendländischen Teil
der Geschichte der Idee und des Konzepts der Liebe
vom antiken Griechenland und Rom bis in die heutige
Zeit (130-139), und dann die Geschichte der Idee und
Norm der unauflöslichen, monogamen Ehe (140-157).
Rossiaud (76-94) schildert ausführlich die Bedingun-
gen, Varianten und Bewertungen der damals auch in
kleinen Städten verbreiteten und institutionalisierten
Prostitution im Frankreich des 15. Jh.s. Olivieri
(95-102) skizziert am Beispiel Venedigs die im 16. Jh.
zu beobachtende (auch literarische) Erotisierung und
Ästhetisierung der Prostituierten und Kurtisanen und
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
227
die damit verbundene Aufwertung der freundschaftli-
chen Beziehungen zu diesen. Bejin (158-167) greift die
auch von Flandrin und Aries betonte Trennung zwi-
schen ehelicher und außerehelicher Liebe auf, um
anhand von neun Kriterien die heute unter jüngeren
Paaren verbreitete Kohabitation zu analysieren. Sein
Ergebnis: Die neueren, nichtehelichen Partnerschaften
sind der Versuch, die beiden Grundformen der Liebe
(eheliche und außereheliche) miteinander zu verknüp-
fen.
4) Sexualforschung und -therapie: Damit beschäf-
tigt sich Bejin in zwei Aufsätzen. Im ersten (181-200)
geht es um die Entwicklung der Sexualwissenschaft im
20. Jh., um das Ablösen der Psychoanalyse durch die
behavioristische Sexologie und ihre jeweiligen Thera-
pieformen, dargestellt am Beispiel der Orgasmusthera-
pie. Im zweiten (201-217) geht es um die Ziele,
Einflußmöglichkeiten und die tatsächlichen Auswir-
kungen der Sexologen, um die Utopie eines sexuellen
Egalitarismus, einer sexuellen Demokratie.
Den genannten Themenschwerpunkten nicht ganz
zuzuordnen sind die zwei verbleibenden Beiträge.
Goreau (103-113) kritisiert die Vernachlässigung
“weiblicher” Quellen in der Erforschung der weibli-
chen Sexualität und analysiert die sexuellen Wünsche
und Vorstellungen von Frauen im England des 17. Jh.s
exemplarisch an zwei (abgedruckten) Gedichten von
Elizabeth Carey und Aphra Behn. Völlig aus dem
thematischen Rahmen des Bandes fällt der Aufsatz von
Fox (1-13). Er versucht die Bedeutung der Phylogene-
se und damit unseres genetischen Erbes für die gegen-
wärtigen Beziehungen zwischen den Geschlechtern und
für unser sexuelles und Geschlechtsrollenverhalten auf-
zuzeigen. Sein nicht direkt auf westliche Sexualität
bezogener, viel grundlegenderer Beitrag ist eine knap-
pe Zusammenfassung der Hauptthesen und Ergebnisse
seines Buches “The Red Lamp of Incest” (1983). Fox
vertritt als soziobiologisch orientierter Kulturanthropo-
loge einen ganz anderen Forschungsansatz als die
übrigen Autoren des Bandes; seinem Aufruf, die eth-
nografischen und anthropologischen Daten unter
Berücksichtigung (phylo-)genetischer Faktoren und
Mechanismen neu zu analysieren (12), ist denn auch
keiner seiner Co-Autoren gefolgt.
“Western Sexuality” kann als ein vielfältig anre-
gendes (Lese-)Buch empfohlen werden, nicht zuletzt,
weil es sich mit der Geschichte und Entwicklung
unserer eigenen Auffassungen beschäftigt, weil es lau-
fend an unsere eigene sexuelle Moral und Praxis
erinnert, deren Hinterfragung provoziert. Aufgrund
seiner Entstehung (Vorträge und Diskussionen) und
der Herangehensweisen der Autoren (eher interpreta-
tiv, emphatisch, in „großen“ Zusammenhängen den-
kend, literarisch und in Alltagssprache formulierend;
kaum auf Strenge, Eindeutigkeit und Überprüfbarkeit
achtend, ohne explizite Reflexion der Untersuchungs-
ziele und vor allem -mittel) wird es vor allem „geistes-
wissenschaftlich“ Vorgehende interessieren und befrie-
digen. Andreas Bruck
Arnold, Dean E.: Ceramic Theory and Cultural
Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985. 268 pp., illus. Price: £ 19.50
Die herausragende Stellung der Keramik beson-
ders für die Untersuchung vergangener Kulturen mani-
festiert sich nicht nur darin, daß sie mengenmäßig die
bedeutendste archäologische Fundgruppe ist, sondern
auch, daß sie allgemein als Ausdruck praktischen und
symbolischen Schaffens von Kulturen und deren Bezie-
hungen zueinander sowie als wichtiger chronologischer
Indikator angesehen wird. Auch in den heutigen Ge-
sellschaften hat die Keramik neben den künstlerischen
oder kunsthandwerklichen Aspekten auch noch eine
praktische Bedeutung, wie z. B. die Überlegenheit des
Werkstoffs Ton gegenüber der Plastikindustrie bei der
in heißen Ländern besonders wichtigen Frisch- und
Kühlhaltung von Lebensmitteln beweist.
Die neuere „Keramikarchäologie“ konzentriert
sich nach P. Rice (Pots and Potters. Current Ap-
proaches in Ceramic Archaeology. Los Angeles 1984:
245) besonders darauf, 1. die Töpfer der alten Kultu-
ren im Kontext ihrer Gesellschaft zu untersuchen sowie
ihren Zugriff auf die verfügbaren Ressourcen, 2. die
heutige Töpferei zu erforschen und Experimente mit
Keramik zu machen, die Rückschlüsse auf die prähisto-
rische Töpferei zulassen, sowie 3. die neuesten Fort-
schritte auf dem Gebiet der physikalisch-chemischen
Analysetechniken zu berücksichtigen, im Sinne einer
präziseren technologischen Keramikanalyse und Cha-
rakterisierung der antiken Töpferei.
Abgesehen davon, daß diese Fragen im Grunde
nichts Neues darstellen und beispielsweise das „Analo-
giethema“ mit unterschiedlicher Intensität und an
unterschiedlichem Orte seit den Anfängen von Prähi-
storie und Ethnologie diskutiert wird, hat erst wieder
vor ca. 20 Jahren der Hamburger Ethnologe R. Vossen
unter dem Schlagwort „Lebendige Archäologie“ die
Nutzbarmachung ethnographischer Befunde für die
archäologische Interpretation anzuregen versucht (vgl.
seine Diss.: Archäologische Interpretation und ethno-
graphischer Befund. Eine Analyse anhand rezenter
Keramik des westlichen Amazonasbeckens. Hamburg
1969).
Auch in den sechziger Jahren datiert der Ansatz
der „Keramik-Ökologie“, der die Bemühungen
beschreibt, die ökologischen Bedingungen (Rohmateri-
al, Klima, technologische Fragen usw.) bei der Inter-
pretation der Keramik stärker zu berücksichtigen
(F. R. Matson: Ceramic Ecology: An Approach to the
Study of the Early Cultures of the Near East. In: F. R.
Matson [ed.], Ceramics and Man; pp. 202-217. Chica-
go 1965).
Der Autor des hier zu rezensierenden Buches
stellte 1975 in einem vielbeachteten Aufsatz dar, wie
aus der Untersuchung der ökologischen Bedingungen
der heutigen Dorfgemeinde Quinua im zentralen
Hochland Perus Rückschlüsse gezogen werden können
auf die Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Keramik in
vorspanischer Zeit (Ceramic Ecology of the Ayacucho
Basin, Peru: Implications for Prehistory. Current
Anthropos 83.1988
228
Rezensionen
Anthropology 1975: 183-205). Arnold beobachtete,
daß die Töpfer etwas unterhalb des Dorfes in einer
trockenen, stark erodierten Umgebung leben, die sich
im Vergleich zum zentralen, höher gelegenen Dorfbe-
reich mit seinem feuchteren Klima schlechter für land-
wirtschaftliche Zwecke nutzen läßt. Jedoch befinden
sich in unmittelbarer Nähe Tonlagerstätten und andere
Hilfsmittel zur Keramikherstellung (z. B. Magerungs-
stoffe, Farbstoffe, Brennmaterial), die eine kombinier-
te Einkommensstrategie (Landwirtschaft in der Regen-
zeit, Töpfern in der Trockenzeit) erlauben.
Arnold stellte aufgrund dieser Erkenntnisse ein
Entwicklungsmodell für die seit vorspanischer Zeit hier
existierende Keramikspezialisierung auf, die er als “an
adaptation to a marginal agricultural environment in
which people began to maximize thè use of nonagricul-
tural resources like clay, paints, and tempers to com-
pensate for poor agricultural land” (1975; 194) erklärt.
In der Zeit der berühmten „Huari-Kultur“ (ca. 600-800
n. Chr.) seien die Töpfer-Bauern bei wachsendem
Bevölkerungsdruck aus den marginalen Landwirt-
schaftszonen in die Hauptstadt Huari abgewandert, wo
sie zu „full-time-Töpfern“ wurden, begünstigt durch
das hier ganzjährig trockene Klima, die steigende
Nachfrage nach ihrer besonders elaborierten und ver-
zierten Ware, dabei aber immer noch relativ nahe an
den Tonlagerstätten gelegen. Mit dieser ökologischen
Erklärung für die Herausbildung von Keramikspeziali-
sten im Huari-Staat (mit dem Hinweis der Übertrag-
barkeit dieses Modells auf andere Hochkulturen des
Alten Peru) hat Arnold der peruanischen Archäologie
zweifellos wichtige Impulse gegeben.
Ein schwierigeres Kapitel ist jedoch der Versuch,
daraus ein Modell universeller, gesetzmäßiger Rekon-
struierbarkeit bzw. Voraussagbarkeit (“predictability”)
menschlichen Verhaltens oder „kultureller Prozesse“
allgemein zu machen. Mit seinem Buch “Ceramic
Theory and Cultural Process” hat er einen wichtigen
Schritt in diese Richtung gemacht, wenn man auch
seinen theoretischen Ansprüchen mit einiger Skepsis
entgegentreten wird. Nicht, daß hier etwa gegen die
Notwendigkeit von Generalisierungen gesprochen wer-
den soll! Im Gegenteil, die Vorliebe vieler amerikani-
scher Kollegen für Modellbildungen und Synthesen hat
oft genug den (vor allem festland-)europäischen Ethno-
logen und Prähistorikern die (Denk-)Arbeit abgenom-
men, auf diesem Wege zu wichtigen neuen Erkenntnis-
sen zu kommen.
Arnolds Buch hat jedoch mindestens zwei Pferde-
füsse. Zum einen möchte er die Synthese der weltwei-
ten ethnographischen Literatur über Keramik präsen-
tieren, zum anderen ein Modell, das gerade den
Rekurs auf ethnographische Analogien überflüssig
macht (232). Beides in einem Buch zu leisten, muß von
vornherein als zu anspruchsvoll erscheinen, und so
wirken sich die Lücken auf der einen Seite nachteilig
auf die andere Seite aus. Nicht nur, daß wichtige
ethnographisch-archäologische Beispiele aus dem euro-
päischen Raum unberücksichtigt bleiben, auch auf die
immerhin nennenswerten Ergebnisse anderer Diskus-
sionszusammenhänge (beispielsweise der provinzialrö-
mischen Archäologie) wird nicht eingegangen (vgl.
bereits die Kritik von M. Kresz in Current Anthropolo-
gy 1975: 197). So mag Arnolds Hinweis auf die heraus-
ragende Bedeutung von trockenem, sonnigem Wetter
für die Entstehung von Töpferei im allgemeinen und
die Herausbildung von „full-time-Töpferei“ im beson-
deren einleuchten, eine Berücksichtigung von Bei-
spielen aus dem nördlichen Europa oder etwa aus
Japan mit seinem feuchten Klima und seiner jahrtau-
sendealten Töpfereigeschichte hätte sicherlich zu einer
Modifizierung seines Modells geführt.
Arnolds Ordnungsschema für seine Daten beruht
auf systemtheoretischen und kulturökologischen Über-
legungen, nach denen Kulturen die Charakteristik von
Systemen haben. Ein Vergleich ihrer Entstehungs-
merkmale und Beziehungen zueinander führt zu Gene-
ralisierungen, “which can then enable archaeologists to
utilize ceramics to interpret the social and cultural
behavior of ancient cultural Systems without the use of
ethnographic analogies” (14). Wenn eine universelle
Anwendbarkeit des Modells angestrebt wird, sollten
zumindest bei der Erarbeitung von Generalisierungen
alle zur Verfügung stehenden archäologischen und
paläoökologischen Evidenzen berücksichtigt werden.
Man könnte sich auch einen reduzierten geographi-
schen Anwendungsbereich vorstellen, nämlich Latein-
amerika bzw. die Neue Welt allgemein, das Gebiet,
aus dem das Gros der Angaben stammt. Da der Autor
hier seine persönlichen Erfahrungen gemacht hat (in
Mexico, Guatemala und Peru), wäre somit die Verbin-
dung zwischen kulturökologischer Systemtheorie und
empirischem Datenmaterial enger und nachvollziehba-
rer gewesen.
Dennoch wartet Arnold mit einer Reihe von
Ergebnissen auf, die nicht nur in der Keramik-, son-
dern auch in der breiteren ethno-archäologischen For-
schung berücksichtigt werden müssen. Unter folgenden
7 Kapitelüberschriften, eingerahmt von einer “Intro-
duction” und “Conclusion””, trägt er z. T. sehr inter-
essante Informationen aus der Literatur zusammen
über die Frage, wie die Keramikproduktion durch die -
wie er es nennt - “local community of potters” mit den
Bereichen „Umwelt und Kultur“ verbunden ist: Res-
sourcen, Wetter und Klima, Zeitplankonflikte, Grad
der Seßhaftigkeit, Nachfrage, Person-Land-Verhältnis
und technologische Innovationen.
Die Analyse des Verhältnisses der Töpfer zu den
Ressourcen ergab einen Durchschnitt der Entfernung
zwischen Wohnung und Tonlagerstätte von 1 km und
eine maximale Tolerierung von 6-9 km. Im Kapitel
„Wetter und Klima“ ist die Vorlage einer Verbrei-
tungskarte möglicher Zentren für „full-time-Töpferei“
im Hochland des zentralen Andenraums hervorzuhe-
ben, welche Rückschlüsse auf die Entwicklung der
Keramikstile Huari, Cajamarca, Recuay und Maranon
erlaubt. Konflikte mit der Zeitplanung treten vor allem
bei „Teilzeittöpfern“ auf, bzw. wenn in der für die
Töpferei günstigen Zeit andere wichtige Tätigkeiten,
z. B. Erntearbeiten, durchgeführt werden müssen. Im
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
229
nächsten Kapitel werden aufgrund einer Analyse eines
“Human Relation Area File-sample” im wesentlichen
die bisherigen Annahmen zur Beziehung zwischen
Keramikproduktion und Seßhaftigkeit bestätigt. Wich-
tiger ist das Kapitel „Nachfrage“, in dem auf die
Bedeutung der Keramik für die Ernährungsqualität
hingewiesen wird (z. B. durch das Entgiften einiger
Eßpflanzen beim Kochen). Die Annahme, daß bei
steigendem Bevölkerungsdruck und sinkender “man-
land-relationship” die Bauern in Handwerkerberufe
abgedrängt werden, ist diskutierbar, da auch andere
Reaktionen denkbar und empirisch nachweisbar sind.
Einer der nennenswerten Punkte im Kapitel „Innova-
tionen“ ist der Hinweis darauf, daß sich der Wider-
stand gegen die Einführung scheibengedrehter Kera-
mik damit erklären läßt, daß sie sich weniger bequem
auf dem Rücken tragen läßt als handgeformte.
Im Schlußkapitel zählt Arnold noch einmal pro-
grammatisch die Implikationen seines Ansatzes für die
Archäologie auf. Dabei tauchen Themen auf, deren
ausführlichere Diskussion anhand des ethnographi-
schen sample man sich vielleicht gewünscht hätte, wie
z. B. Gefäßform oder Formtechnik (“Vessel shapes are
behaviorally significant to a culture and can provide
important behavioral data about the society”, 234).
Insgesamt gesehen hat Arnold mit diesem Buch
seine bisherigen wertvollen Beiträge zu der anfangs
beschriebenen Diskussion auf eine breitere empirische
Basis gestellt bzw. mit einigen neuen Aspekten verse-
hen. Daß man dafür gleich ein ganzes Buch schreiben
muß, mag zwar im Trend der Wissenschaftsproduktion
liegen, kann aber ansonsten bezweifelt werden.
Albert Meyers
Baer, Gerhard: Die Religión der Matsigenka,
Ost-Peru. Monographie zu Kultur und Religión cines
Indianervolkes des Oberen Amazonas. Basel: Wepf
& Co. AG Verlag, 1984. 648 pp., Fig., Abb.
La obra de Gerhard Baer es el resultado de una
prolongada investigación de campo que insumió cinco
viajes al habitat Matsigenka - 1968/69, 1976 y 1978 - y
uno a Pucallpa para trabajar con informantes. Una
particular ayuda en la concreción de esta obra ha sido
la colaboración de la lingüista Gisela Hertle que,
especializada en la lengua de estos aborígenes peru-
anos, cotejó la traducción de los mitos en versión
«español de la selva» con aquella en matsigenka.
La determinación de los Matsigenka como unidad
grupal es de época reciente dado que puede establecer-
se la primera mitad de la década del veinte como fecha
en que comienzan a ser conocidos a través de las
noticias bibliográficas. Diferentes etnólogos - Farabee,
Casevitz-Renard, Johnson, Strongin - han abordado
aspectos parciales de esta etnía, como su sociedad y
economía. Baer destaca que falta en estos trabajos la
comprensión de las concepciones y prácticas religiosas
matsigenka, como manifestación de sus condiciones
espirituales. Las hipótesis sostenidas por él apuntan a
destacar que la «cultura orienta en dirección a valores
en general» y «la religión orienta en dirección a valores
centrales» (18). Es en relación a estas dos hipótesis que
se toma a la religión en el cuadro total de la cultura
eligiendo de ésta los sectores que se consideran más
importantes, como ser: economía, sociedad, orienta-
ción espacial y temporal; entes y objetos que tienen
para el matsigenka una significación multidimensional.
Los Matsigenka ocupan la casi totalidad del curso
del Urubamba pero no son propensos a navegar los
grandes ríos prefiriendo las quebradas y los ínfimos
arroyos internos. Por pertenecer al tronco lingüístico
arawak están más emparentados con los Campa que
con los Piro. Los datos etnohistóricos sobre la expan-
sión de los Matsigenka en épocas tempranas son
vertidos para demostrar que los contactos con los
«blancos» son tardíos y que aún en la época de la
«fiebre del caucho», entre 1860 y 1890, los indígenas se
vieron poco afectados.
La cultura material se encara con una lista de
objetos utilizados por los Matsigenka en la que se
contempla su denominación en lengua indígena, la
materia con la cual está fabricada y la descripción del
artefacto. La economía, de tipo mixto - caza, pesca,
recolección y plantación de vegetales -, y la cultura
material son planteadas como un sistema de orienta-
ción y el autor explica que un elemento no sólo es
conocido por sus propiedades objetivas derivadas por
ejemplo de su materia prima; sino que posee otros
contenidos que podrían clasificarse como «simbólicos».
Se podría afirmar, piensa Baer, que el objeto represen-
ta determinadas «coherencias ideales», actúa como
representante y adquiere así un carácter indicador; se
vuelve un «signo semiótico». El individuo que crece y
busca los sentidos de los elementos de su cultura, logra
aquí, en el ámbito de los signos anclados culturalmente
y en la capacidad de «signo» de los objetos, una fuerte
compenetración que desemboca en una orientación
hacia los valores. El concepto de valor sustentado por
Baer tiene entre otros rasgos lo siguiente: cuando algo
es correcto, bueno, lindo, es exaltado, el hombre se
orienta hacia ello y a esto puede denominarse «capaci-
dad de orientación a una meta». Esa «orientación»
queda patentizada en las dos listas que consigna el
autor en las que se ordenan las expectativas del joven y
de la muchacha.
En el sistema de parentesco el etnólogo suizo
estudia las reglas de descendencia que es totalmente
bilateral existiendo imperativos de exogamia local
como así de residencia matrilocal. La terminlogía de
parentesco es de tipo dravídico y el matrimonio prefe-
rencia! es de los primos cruzados, existiendo también
uniones poligínicas de tipo sororal.
El jefe se denomina i’tinkami y se traduce por
«curaca»; es un rol social y político que ha perdido por
completo su importancia en los tiempos actuales. Es
posible que un jefe haya podido ser también chamán o
seripi’gari-, personaje que aparece reiteradamente en
los mitos como conductor de grandes multitudes, como
causante de enfermedad y muerte, como identificador
de los males, puede actuar como juez y sentenciar. El
Anthropos 83.1988
230
Rezensionen
chamán goza de una potencia que proviene de la
relación con «fuerzas no humanas» que le otorgan un
ascendiente social de gran jerarquía. Su iniciación se
cumple mediante la ingestión de la decocción de las
hojas de tabaco o seri (Nicotiana tabacum) - de allí su
nombre seripi’garv, o sea, «el embriagado por el taba-
co» - de la datura panki’rintsi, ha’yapa o toe (Datura o
Brugmansia sp.) y la ayahuasca ka’marampi (Baniste-
riopsis).
Las categorías religiosas son abordadas a partir de
la delimitación del ser humano matsigenka. En efecto
matsigenka significa «gente» y esta expresión incluye
también a los saanka’rite, los «genios buenos» y
bastante cercanos a esta condición de humanidad son
colocados los puercos de tropa. Las distinciones entre
lo «humano» y lo «invisible» saanka ’rite se patentiza en
las siguientes oposiciones: mortal-inmortal, impuro-
puro, sin poder-lleno de poder. Estas oposiciones se
develan más que nada a través del análisis lingüístico.
Tanto la gente como los animales tienen un «alma
libre» la i’sure y un «alma de los huesos» o i’tonki y sus
destinos luego de la muerte son distintos. El dios
Taso’ríntsi es invisible y tiene gran «poder» traga veane
- en alemán usa el autor indiferentemente las palabras
«Kraft» y «Macht» hay varios y en general son
masculinos con excepción de la «madre de los peces» o
pa’reui. Existen cinco taso’rintsi principales que traje-
ron la mayor parte de los bienes culturales o que han
compuesto el cosmos; sol (Pores’tsirí), luna (Ka’shirí),
estrellas (Anane’rite).
La antítesis de los saanka’rite sería el Kama’gari-
ni, «el que hace morir» o «diablo», y entrar en relación
con esta entidad es exponerse a morir y transformarse
en «espíritu de los muertos». Tiene «fuerza», poder.
Vinculado a los kama’garini se encuentra el matsika’-
nari o «hechicero» es el que causa enfermedades y
muertes a la comunidad matsigenka. El nombre matsi-
ka’nari proviene del objeto visible o invisible con el
que daña, denominado i’matsika y soplando sobre el
mismo, produce el daño, que se concreta en una espina
que se introduce en el pecho de la víctima.
El Corpus narrativo mítico esta compuesto por
veinticuatro relatos evidenciándose que no se trata de
una narrativa muy amplia pero que sí constituye una de
las vías de acceso a la religión matsigenka.
El capítulo octavo titulado «Diskussion der Daten
und Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse» puede ser
separado en tres partes: en la primera se desarrolla un
análisis etnológico de las principales categorías y valo-
res de la cultura matsigenka; en la segunda se confron-
ta metodológicamente la obra con la de otros autores;
en la tercera y última se formula la propia postura
metodológica y el planteo de fondo con que se ha
abordado el estudio del universo religioso de estos
indígenas del este selvático peruano.
En un desarrollado análisis etnológico Baer inten-
ta tender relaciones entre los distintos fenómenos
religiosos descriptos, como también, los distintos com-
plejos religiosos como es el chamanismo, para descub-
rir las estructuras internas de los fenómenos y comple-
jos particulares. El papel de la religión como orienta-
dora es indudable porque define los valores y sanciona
las categorías culturales. Una parte importante es la
delimitación de las ideas de gente o humanidad (matsi-
genka) y de sociedad y las relativas a otros grupos
humanos. No existe por parte de los Matsigenka la
voluntad de mezclarse con los grupos vecinos y las
aldeas en las que conviven con los mestizos son vistas
como habitadas por «demonios» o Kama ’garini, porque
la mezcla alude a lo «impuro-malo» y atrae las catástro-
fes. Por el contrario, los saanka’rite, como hemos
destacado, son también matsigenka, y ante todo los
«modelos-dios» para la humanidad. De esta forma se
define una agrupación, la humanidad similar a los
saanka’rite que posee un «alma de los ojos»; o sea lo
humano por excelencia. Una noción de gran importan-
cia es la de iraga’veane (poder/fuerza) que sobreviene
cuando un individuo atrae la sustancia anímica de
determinados seres. Es el caso del chamán que acre-
cienta su potencia al asociarse con sus espíritus auxilia-
res, los ine’tsaane y los isere’pito, como sucede con los
saanka’rite. Esa potencia convierte al chamán en un
taso’-ríntsi, en una «deidad».
Baer considera conveniente comparar su mono-
grafía sobre la religión matsigenka con otras que se han
ocupado de la religión de varios grupos etnográficos y
que de algún modo han influenciado su investigación.
Para ello analiza «Nomads of thè Long Bow» (1950) de
A. Holmberg; «To Hunt in thè Morning» (1973) de J.
Siskind; «The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls»
(1973) de M. Harner como otros artículos de este
autor, «The Cosmology of the Campa Indians of
Eastern Perú» (1969) y «Campa Cosmology» (1975) de
G. Weiss, finalmente «Mahekodotedi» (1974) de O.
Zerries y M. Schuster. Una mención especial esta dedi-
cada a Charles O. Frake y a su artículo titulado «A
Structural Description of Subanum <Religious Behav-
iour>» (1969) en virtud de ser un importante represen-
tante de la «Cognitive Anthropology» que Baer toma
particularmente en consideración.
Los resultados de esta comparación pueden sinte-
tizarse en tres cuestiones fundamentales: la primera se
refiere a la recolección del dato etnográfico, la segunda
apunta al problema de la «sobreinterpretación» («Über-
interpretation») y la tercera se vincula con la búsqueda
de principios generales. La fundamentación metodoló-
gica de la investigación de Baer sería: la sincronía
cultural, lo ético y lo émico, la cultura y la religión.
El propósito fundamental de Baer es el de descri-
bir sincrónicamente la religión de un grupo étnico del
Oriente peruano. La visión histórica se lograría a
posteriori de esta labor de base para así establecer
diacrònicamente las relaciones e influencias culturales.
Pero, ante todo al autor le resulta metodológicamente
no viable realizar simultáneamente la descripción sin-
crónica y la diacrònica. El planteo de conocer sincróni-
camente la religión matsigenka es un enfoque que
acerca a Baer a las proposiciones metodológicas de la
etnología tautegórica que sostenemos y que fueran
enunciadas por Bórmida (M. Bórmida, Etnología y
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
231
Fenomenología. Buenos Aires 1976). En efecto, en pos
de obtener una visión sincrónica, deben suspenderse
las categorizaciones a priori y los prejuicios de distinto
origen. Cuando Baer afirma que deja de lado, que
suspende, el aspecto diacrònico enuncia dos premisas:
1) coloca entre paréntesis toda hipótesis e interpreta-
ción histórica reiterando de esta forma la aspiración de
evitar las interpolaciones o «sobreinterpretaciones»
que puedan distorsionar el dato cultural; para 2) ab-
ocarse a los fenómenos religiosos matsigenka sin inter-
ferencias ni parcializaciones de ningún tipo. Suspender
las «sobreinterpretaciones» equivale a postular la epojé
fenomenològica para poder comprender la totalidad de
los sentidos que un determinado «hecho» religioso
posee para el matsigenka. La preocupación por el
problema del valor adquiere vigencia en el «hecho»
existencial, porque la axiología invade todos los aspec-
tos de la vida otorgándole sentido. La descripción
sincrónica de Baer es un procedimiento cognoscitivo
mediante el cual intenta aprehender la religión matsi-
genka tal como es «entendida y vivida» por esta etnia
selvática peruana. Un último punto conviene conside-
rar y que es fruto de la influencia de Frake: «la búsque-
da de principios teóricos y temas centrales», lo que
para nosotros equivale a establecer «principios o ideas
generales» que permitan explicar los «datos particu-
lares».
El segundo objetivo de Baer es el analizar y unir
elementos émicos y éticos. La cuestión del valor
plantea un problema doble; por una parte es un tema
ontològico ya que implica la relación entre el valor y la
realidad cultural que sitúa al matsigenka en el mundo.
Estos supuestos nos enfrentan con el código ético del
grupo y su concreción a través de la conducta moral
que se advierte en las calificaciones de «vida correcta»
y «vida incorrecta». Pero Baer se interesa también por
el marco axiológico al plantearse e inquirir dónde
reposan los valores de la etnia matsigenka. En efecto,
en la hipótesis inicial pretende separar la cultura - que
orienta en dirección a valores en general - de la re-
ligión - que orienta en dirección a valores centrales -;
en el desarrollo de la obra termina optando por estos
últimos. En síntesis, el horizonte axiológico esta consti-
tuido por valores de naturaleza religiosa y que son los
que definen la cosmovisión matsigenka. La visión
étnica de Baer se esfuerza por rescatar los principios
clasificatorios matsigenka sin olvidar cuales son los
atributos que cooperan a erigir todo procedimiento
taxonómico. Porque indaga sobre el sentido o los
sentidos de cada una de las categorías que erige,
superando así el carácter formal de la medición - las
diferencias y similitudes reconocidas - que ofrece el
método. La de Baer es por lo tanto una émica vivida,
revelada por los entes del mundo, rica en sentidos
religiosos. Lo ético y lo émico se dan unidos, consu-
stanciados en la realidad cultural matsigenka, y así lo
Presenta en el libro.
La religión es vista como un sistema orientativo
flue penetra a toda la cultura matsigenka. Con esto
Baer no pretende limitarse a una cosmología porque
faltarían los aspectos, relativos a la praxis religiosa,
chamanismo y rituales, como también los conceptos de
enfermedad y terapia o limitaciones categoriales de los
seres vivos y de las personas. La separación entre
religión y cultura es útil tanto desde el punto de vista
operativo como del lenguaje, pero en la realidad de los
hechos se presentan unidas de acuerdo a un lazo
indisoluble. En el caso de los Matsigenka puede adver-
tirse el primado de lo religioso, porque esos valores
centrales orientan a la totalidad de la cultura, lo que
significa que abriéndose como un haz luminoso la
compenetran en cada segmento. La expresión más
adecuada que reúne a la religión y a la cultura es
«Weltanschauung» y su conocimiento se logra partien-
do de los individuos que la encarnan y protagonizan; es
decir, del hombre concreto y de su estar-en-el-mundo,
siguiendo la tesis ontològica de Heidegger.
La palabra matsigenka, hemos visto, que pude
traducirse por «gente», «pueblo» o «humanidad». De
esta forma, es empleada por el grupo para autodesig-
narse, pero también incluye a los saanka’rite y a las
taso’rintsi; siendo los primeros «seres sobrenaturales
no humanos» e inician al chamán. Advertimos enton-
ces que la palabra matsigenka es empleada por el grupo
para autodesignarse; de inmediato incluye a los saanka-
’rite, a pesar de compartir el sentido des matsigenka,
no se confunden con la gente común. Para ello Baer ha
desarrollado un acabado fenomenismo que permite
apreciar esta diferencia y las características que enume-
ra son abundantes. La conclusión es que los saanka’rite
son «seres sobrenaturales no humanos» e inician al
seripi’gari. El elemento humano distintivo que califica
a los seripi’gari es la iraga’veane, la potencia que ha
recibido de los «llenos de fuerza», «fuertes» saanka’ri-
te. El dios Taso’rintsi, como las demás figuras religio-
sas taso’rintsi, es también matsigenka, lleno de fuerza,
poderoso.
Los kama ’garini son la antítesis de los saanka ’rite
y hemos explicado que pueden ser vistos como dos
principios contrarios que afectarían a la totalidad del
sistema religioso matsigenka. Los kama’garini son tam-
bién «poderosos» están «llenos de fuerza», poseen
iraga’veane. Sin embargo no son matsigenka como los
saanka’rite y los taso’rintsi; por el contrario son consi-
derados «diablos». Baer al referirse al significado de la
palabra kama’garini resalta lo que «no es humano», lo
que es demoníaco. Estos seres no comunes también
pueden considerarse como «sobrenaturales» ya que son
causantes de la enfermedad y de la muerte. El matsika’-
nari realize el daño con su auxilio y con el empleo de
plantas «mágicas» que no tienen nada en común con los
cuatro alucinógenos consagrados en las sesiones cha-
mánicas.
Revisados estos conceptos estamos en grado de
formular los enunciados fenomenológicos y comenzare-
mos por la expresión iraga’veane. A nuestro juicio
iraga’veane designa a la potencia en sentido general y
es la que posibilita las acciones de los seres que la
poseen. La noción matsigenka es un «concepto básico»
que predica una modalidad del ser; esto es el estado de
Anthropos 83.1988
232
Rezensionen
«humanidad». Como tal califica y clasifica a un conjun-
to de seres del mundo matsigenka que se distinguen
entre ellos por características que le otorgan individu-
alidad propia.
Los saanka’rite son teofanías que protegen a los
Matsigenka íntimamente vinculadas con el chamanis-
mo, y se enfrentan a los kama’garini por su condición
de matsigenka. El par antitético se plantea a nuestro
juicio matsigenka-kama’garini porque se trata de un
dualismo no sólo ético, sino ontològico, porque afecta
a una forma del ser. Lo mismo sucede con los taso’rint-
si, que son teofanías demiúrgicas y tesmofóricas, inte-
grantes del eje temporal originario matsigenka-huma-
no, cuyas acciones etiológicas dieron lugar al mundo y
a muchos de sus entes. Cabe recordar que existe
también una etiología general a partir de los antepasa-
dos primordiales matsigenka sin que medie la interven-
ción de los taso’rintsi, como ocurre con los animales
que fueron humanos que se transformaron. En síntesis,
matsigenka y kama’garini son, desde el punto de vista
fenomenològico, dos esencias particulares que englo-
ban a teofanías diferentes y a las que se encuentran
vinculadas entes diversos: plantas, piedras y muchos
otros. Los saanka’rite y los taso’rintsi no son más que
dos clases de teofanías matsigenka, diferenciables por
los numerosos atributos expuestos por Baer.
Las personas o Matsigenka, se encuentran situa-
das en una región intermedia entre una tendencia hacia
el estado teofánico matsigenka y el kama’garini. En
efecto, durante la vida terrena la persona es reconocida
por el dualismo «alma libre» (i’sure) y «cuerpo envolto-
rio» (i’vatsa y omancha’kile)\ el «alma de los ojos»
(ishigentia ’rite) la acerca al «modelo dios» de los
saanka’rite, pero el «alma de los huesos» (i’tonki)
puede devenir con la muerte un kama’garini. Esta
posible oscilación hacia uno de los dos polos hace que
la potencia sea virtual, pero se desencadenará una vez
que se haya definido por una u otra esencia particular.
El seripi’gari y el matsika’nari han elegido en vida la
condición matsigenka o de kama’garini. El primero ha
recibido la iraga ’veane con la iniciación y las enseñan-
zas de los saanka’rite y realiza acciones similares a la de
los taso’rintsi y si bien posee atributos semejantes a
estas dos clases de teofanías matsigenka, su condición
esencial se ha fijado en «ser matsigenka». El matsika’-
nari se opone ontològicamente por estar adherido a las
teofanías kama’garini. Con la muerte, tanto uno como
el otro, liberan su verdadera naturaleza.
«Die Religión der Matsigenka» es una obra rica
por la información que brinda respecto de la religión y
cultura matsigenka, cuya documentación minuciosa
revela el esfuerzo en el que se ha aplicado su autor.
Pero es también particularmente sugestiva desde la
perspectiva del método, aspecto de permanente refle-
xión por parte de todo etnólogo que se aboca al estudio
de una sociedad etnográfica, especialmente si intenta
penetrar en el complejo universo de la religión. La
importante contribución de Baer en relación a la
religión matsigenka nos ha permitido plantear una serie
de reflexiones que tienen por objeto resaltar aún más
un conjunto de temas que no sólo son fundamentales
para està etnia peruana, sino para la teoria etnològi-
ca. Mario Califano
Barbier, Jean Paul: Tobaland: The Shreds of Tra-
dition. Genève: Musée Barbier-Müller, 1983. 237 pp.,
maps, photos.
Grundlage des Buches bildeten die Reisenotizen
von den fünf Reisen des Verfassers in Nord-Sumatra
zwischen 1974 und 1980. Der größte Teil des Bandes
behandelt Ortschaften der Insel Samosir im Toba-See,
mitten im Wohngebiet der Toba-Batak. Hier wird die
englische Ausgabe, übersetzt von George R. Young,
vorgestellt; parallel dazu erschien die französische Ori-
ginalausgabe.
Der Verfasser hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, eine
Dokumentation der Toba-Batak-Kultur der siebziger
Jahre zu geben. Entstanden ist auf diese Weise ein
Bildband mit begleitendem Text. Der Verfasser sagt
selbst über sein Buch; “. . . it can be seen mainly as an
extended commentary on the photographs shown here”
(16). Das Buch ist also vor allem für interessierte Laien
gedacht, bringt aber auch für Ethnologen manches
Neue und Interessante. Der Hauptwert der Dokumen-
tation liegt in den 206 Abbildungen - meist Fotos des
Verfassers, darunter 30 in Farbe -, um die die einzel-
nen Kapitel gruppiert sind. Auf Bilder der berückend
schönen Seelandschaft, folgen Aufnahmen von traditio-
nellen Häusern, Steindenkmälern und Holzschnitzerei-
en. Ein einleitendes Kapitel gibt einige Auskünfte über
Eroberung, Kolonialisierung und Christianisierung
Ende des 19. Jh.s. Es folgt eine Beschreibung der
Megalithen von Lontung auf Samosir und der steiner-
nen Mörser, in denen noch heute der Reis zerstampft
wird. In Lontung gelang es dem Verfasser auch, die
Genealogie der Lineage einer marga, des patrilinearen
Clans, aufzuzeichnen (Tafel gegenüber 56). Darauf
folgt die Beschreibung von traditionellen Häusern und
Grabdenkmälern aus Stein, aber auch Beton. Von
besonderem Interesse für Ethnologen ist ein Kapitel
über die singa-Figur, die sich u. a. an Häusern und
Grabmälern befindet. Es handelt sich um den stilisier-
ten Kopf eines mythischen Wesens, bei den Toba halb
Büffel, halb Schlange, aber auch Beziehungen zur
Pferdegestalt lassen sich nachweisen (90).
Im Kapitel “A Strange Comedy” ist der Autor
einer kleinen Fälschung auf der Spur. Er beschäftigt
sich mit Ph. L. Tobing und dessen berühmten Buch
“The Structure of the Toba-Batak Belief in the High
God” (Amsterdam 1956). Dabei kann er nachweisen,
daß Tobing, selbst ein Toba, eine wichtige Zeremonie,
einen Tanz mit dem tungal panaluan (dem sogenannten
„Zauberstab“), gestellt hat. Tobing schlüpfte dabei
selbst, obwohl Christ, in das Gewand eines datu
(Priester) und wirkte an der Zeremonie mit. Der Autor
macht noch weitere Mitteilungen zur Arbeitsweise
Tobings, die geeignet sind, das faszinierende, aber
einseitige Buch über den Hochgottglauben noch skepti-
scher zu betrachten, als es bisher schon der Fall war.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
233
Im letzten Kapitel behandelt der Autor “True and
False Batak Antiquities” und stellt auf zahlreichen
Abbildungen die echten Stücke den Fälschungen bzw.
Nachahmungen instruktiv gegenüber. Jörg Helbig
Bargatzky, Thomas: Einführung in die Ethnolo-
gie. Eine Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie. Hamburg:
Helmut Buske Verlag, 1985. 212 pp. Preis: DM 19,80
Das Buch basiert auf einem im Wintersemester
1979/80 an der Universität München gehaltenen Semi-
nar zur Einführung in das Studium der Völkerkunde.
Es stellt die umgearbeitete und erweiterte Form eines
das Seminar begleitenden Skriptes dar und möchte den
Leser in die dem Autor als grundlegend erscheinenden
Aspekte der Kultur- und Sozioanthropologie einfüh-
ren, erhebt also nicht den Anspruch einer vollständigen
Abdeckung dieses umfangreichen Themenbereiches.
Die Einführung, die inhaltlich an der amerikanischen
“cultural anthropology” orientiert ist, zielt weniger auf
die detaillierte Beschreibung einzelner kultureller Insti-
tutionen und auf die Darstellung ethnologischer Fall-
beispiele ab. Entsprechend des vom Autor vertretenen
und ausgeführten systemtheoretischen Ansatzes, legt
sie vielmehr Wert auf die Verdeutlichung der Bezie-
hungen zwischen den sozialen, wirtschaftlichen und
geistig-religiösen Aspekten der menschlichen Kultur.
Ferner nehmen allgemein- und kulturtheoretische
Erläuterungen einen breiten Raum ein. In vier Haupt-
kapiteln werden wissenschaftstheoretische und defini-
torische Grundlagen, die Grundbegriffe der Kultur-
und Sozioanthropologie sowie die Themen Verwandt-
schaft, Kulturtypologie und Kulturtheorie behandelt.
Einleitend wird die Kultur- und Sozioanthropologie als
die Wissenschaft von Kommunikationsgemeinschaften
jeglicher Art und ohne räumliche wie zeitliche Ein-
schränkungen definiert (11 f.). Ein besonderer Sinn,
sich mit dieser Wissenschaft zu befassen, liege in ihrer
Möglichkeit, durch die Erweiterung unseres, angesichts
der heutigen Tragweite und Problematik wissenschaft-
lich-technologischer Entwicklungen viel zu begrenzten
Blickwinkels und moralischen Bewußtseins, einen Bei-
trag zu einer „Makroethik“ der Menschheit zu leisten
(12 f.).
Das erste Kapitel befaßt sich zunächst mit allge-
mein wissenschaftstheoretischen Grundlagen, wobei
der Autor auf die kulturelle Bedingtheit der menschli-
chen Wahrnehmung hinweist, um darauf aufbauend
auf die Frage „was ist Wissenschaft“ einzugehen. Der
folgende Abschnitt bemüht sich um eine nähere
Bestimmung der Wissenschaften „Anthropologie“,
»Kultur- und Sozioanthropologie“ und „Völkerkunde“
und ihrer Beziehungen zueinander. Das zweite Kapitel
führt in die Grundbegriffe der Kultur- und Sozioan-
thropologie ein - „System“, „Symbol“, „Kultur“ und
»Gesellschaft“. Nach einer Kritik an solchen Definitio-
nen, die „Kultur“ als einen Komplex additiv aneinan-
dergereihter Einzelphänomene beschreiben und die
damit entweder auf die Postulierung sinnentleerter
kultureller Universalien, oder aber auf einen extremen
historischen Relativismus hinausliefen, führt der Autor
seinen Kulturbegriff aus. Unter Verwendung des
System- und Symbolbegriffs gelangt er abschließend zu
folgender Definition: „Eine ,Kultur1 sei ein System, in
dem sich gewisse Variablen gegenseitig beeinflussen,
die zu Zwecken der Analyse in Form von Subsystemen
(Bios, Persönlichkeit, Ideologie, Ästhetik, Sozialstruk-
tur, Technoökonomie, Umwelt) zusammengefaßt wer-
den können. Die Art und Weise, in der sich die Varia-
blen des Systems beeinflussen, wird durch eine Menge
von Kontrollregeln - und -mechanismen, Plänen und
Anordnungen geleitet, die ihrem Charakter nach extra-
organismisch und symbolisch sind und daher tradiert
werden müssen“ (40).
Die Behandlung der „kulturanthropologischen
Arbeitsgebiete“ beginnt in Kapitel drei mit dem Thema
„Verwandtschaft“, wobei die wesentlichen Grundbe-
griffe der Genealogie und der Verwandtschaftstermi-
nologie abgehandelt werden. Abschließend wird das
Konzept vom sogenannten „Mutterrecht“ widerlegt.
Kapitel vier, Kulturtypologie, veranschaulicht zu-
nächst, was Kulturtypen sind, zu welchem Zweck sie
erstellt werden und was sie leisten bzw. nicht leisten
sollen, um dann verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Ein-
teilung von Kulturen zu diskutieren. Mit dem Argu-
ment, daß es sich dabei um eine der verbreitetsten Ty-
pologien handele, entscheidet sich der Autor für dieje-
nige von Elman Service, welcher die Kulturen unter
einem evolutionistischen Aspekt nach der Form ihrer
politischen Struktur zusammenfaßt und so die Sequenz
“band-tribe-chiefdom-state” entwirft. Ergänzend wird
die Typologie Morton Frieds - “egalitarian-rank-strati-
fied-state” - hinzugezogen, worauf die Beschreibung
der vier Kulturtypen folgt. Die Ausführungen über
„ökonomische Anthropologie“ beginnen mit den
Grundzügen nicht staatlicher Wirtschaftsformen. Die
Frage nach der Übertragbarkeit moderner volkswirt-
schaftlicher Prinzipien auf vorindustrielle Gesellschaf-
ten führt zur Darstellung der sogenannten Formalis-
mus-Substantivismus-Debatte. Als ein Beispiel für eine
mögliche Synthese dieser konträren Positionen stellt
der Autor Marshall D. Sahlins’ Konzept der „häusli-
chen Produktionsweise“ mit den Prinzipien der Rezi-
prozität und Redistribution vor. Abschließend wird die
Entwicklung hin zu staatlichen Wirtschaftsformen mit
Tributsystemen, Marktwirtschaft und Handel skizziert.
In dem Kapitel über Religion verzichtet der Autor
bewußt darauf, „Religion“ zu definieren. Er fragt
vielmehr danach, was Religionen als eigenständige
symbolische Systeme für den Menschen, der sie wie-
derum hervorbringt, bewirken und wie sie dies tun.
Anhand einer Typologie der „kultischen Institutionen“
(nach Anthony Wallace, “Religion: An Anthropologi-
cal View.” New York 1966), welche „individualistische
kultische Institutionen“, „schamanistische Kulte“,
„Gemeindekulte“ und „kirchliche Kulte“ unterschei-
det, weist er auf den funktionalen Zusammenhang
zwischen Religion und Sozialstruktur hin und bringt
bestimmte Kulturtypen mit bestimmten „kultischen
Institutionen“ in Verbindung.
Anthropos 83.1988
234
Rezensionen
Das fünfte Kapitel widmet sich den Kulturtheo-
rien. An einige methodologische Überlegungen zum
Thema und ein Plädoyer für die Beschäftigung mit
Kulturtheorie schließt sich die Darstellung vier ethno-
logischer Richtungen, des Funktionalismus, Evolutio-
nismus, der Kulturökologie und der Kulturgeschichte
an, welche nach Ansicht des Autors als synchrone bzw.
diachrone Paradigmen den Rahmen für die Formulie-
rung der eigentlichen Kulturtheorien bilden. Nach
einer Klärung des Theoriebegriffs im allgemeinen wer-
den drei Typen von Kulturtheorien skizziert - „techno-
ökonomisch-ökologische Theorien“, „Sozialstruktur-
Theorien“ und „mentalistische Kulturtheorien“. Mit
einer ausführlichen kritischen Würdigung dieser Ansät-
ze endet der Text. Das Buch schließt mit einem
umfangreichen, kommentierten Verzeichnis weiterfüh-
render Literatur zu den einzelnen Kapiteln und ihren
jeweiligen Fragestellungen ab. Mit dem Hinweis auf
bereits existierende ethnologische Glossare verzichtet
der Autor ausdrücklich auf ein solches.
Eine Einführung in die Ethnologie ist im Hinblick
auf die Zielgruppe „Studienanfänger“ besonders nach
der Gliederung und generellen Verständlichkeit des
Textes zu beurteilen. Ferner danach, inwieweit es ihr
gelingt, die verwendeten Grundbegriffe und Positionen
sowie ihren Gegenstandsbereich klar zu umreißen. Des
weiteren muß man nach der Brauchbarkeit der gesetz-
ten Schwerpunkte und ihrer Darstellung fragen - auch
im Hinblick auf bereits existierende Einführungen.
Zwar sind die Themenbereiche im vorliegenden Buch
übersichtlich und aufeinander aufbauend gegliedert,
doch was die Verständlichkeit des Textes anbetrifft, so
wird sich der Anfänger zum Teil vor erhebliche
Schwierigkeiten gestellt sehen. Viele, oft nicht, oder
erst viel später erklärte Fachtermini, Begriffe in Kur-
sivdruck und Anführungszeichen, Literaturverweise und
Zitate erschweren den Lesefluß und das Beibehalten
des „roten Fadens“. Die Fülle meist englischer Zitate
komplexen Inhalts wird dann ärgerlich, wenn sie dem
Anfänger, dessen Fremdsprachenbeherrschung man
nicht überschätzen sollte, als Ersatz für eine Erklärung
oder Definition in eigenen Worten auf deutsch ungebe-
ten werden. Daneben findet man immer wieder Dinge
diskutiert oder als Argumente angeführt, die selber gar
nicht ausreichend erklärt werden bzw. deren Kenntnis
anscheinend vorausgesetzt wird.
Diese Mängel treffen besonders auf die Abschnit-
te zu, die sich mit allgemein wissenschaftstheoretischen
Erörterungen, mit Begriffsdefinitionen und ethnologi-
schen Theorien befassen: so beispielsweise im Falle der
für das Verständnis des Buches so wichtigen Ausfüh-
rungen zum Systembegriff. Wie ein kybernetisches
Regelsystem funktioniert und wie man sich die Gesell-
schaft als ein solches vorzustellen hat, hätte man an
dieser Stelle vielleicht zusätzlich noch durch einige
Schemata verdeutlichen können. Auch die vielseitige,
engagierte Darstellung und kritische Würdigung von
Kulturtheorien läßt sich größtenteils wohl nur von
einem Leser nachvollziehen, der den Überblick über
theoretische Ansätze und ein Grundverständnis für die
Problematik derselben mitbringt. Fraglich ist aber, ob
ein Anfänger, der auf einer Druckseite beispielsweise
mit dem „älteren, niederländischen Strukturalismus“,
dem „französischen Strukturalismus“, der „neuen Eth-
nographie“, mit „formalen Codes“, „binären Oppositi-
on“, “contrastive sets”, „kognitiver Anthropologie“,
„Ethnobotanik“, „taxonomischen Kategorien“, der
Sapir-Whorf-Hypothese und entsprechend vielen Na-
men konfrontiert wird (153), weiß, wie er die Dinge
einzuordnen hat.
Undeutlich und unvollständig fällt die Charakteri-
sierung und inhaltliche Abgrenzung der anthropologi-
schen Disziplinen und ihrer Teilgebiete durch den
Autor aus (19-27). Eine entsprechende, länderspezifi-
sche und systematische Übersicht über die wissen-
schaftlichen Traditionen fehlt, würde man sich in einer
Einführung aber wünschen. Sie könnte dem Anfänger
auch die Bestimmung des Gegenstandsbereiches der
Einführung selbst erleichtern. Der Autor skizziert die,
seiner Ansicht nach, drei Grundfragen der Anthropo-
logie (21), informiert einen unkundigen Leser aber
nicht darüber, warum und seit wann man sich mit
solchen Problemen befaßt, und auch nicht darüber,
daß sich dabei in Amerika, England und Deutschland
unterschiedliche Ansätze und Forschungsschwerpunkte
herausgebildet haben. Die „Völkerkunde“ („Ethnolo-
gie“) erscheint lediglich als ein an deutschen Universi-
täten institutionalisierter und auf außereuropäische,
schriftlose sogenannte „Naturvölker“ beschränkter
Teilbereich der Wissenschaft „Kultur- und Sozioan-
thropologie“. Diese stelle ihrerseits in der Beschrän-
kung auf die rein kulturellen Aspekte des menschlichen
Daseins einen Teil der Wissenschaft „Anthropologie“
dar (21 ff.). Die „Kultur- und Sozioanthropologie“
selbst wird jedoch inhaltlich nicht differenziert. So
erwähnt der Autor, der sich in seinem Buch überwie-
gend auf Vertreter der amerikanischen “cultural
anthropology” beruft, nicht, daß es in Amerika eine
solche überhaupt gibt und daß diese zwar prinzipiell
mit der deutschen „Ethnologie“ vergleichbar ist, aber
dennoch ihre ganz eigene wissenschaftliche Tradition
und Ausrichtung hat. Ebensowenig findet eine Unter-
scheidung zwischen der “cultural anthropology” und
der jüngeren, eher philosophisch ausgerichteten deut-
schen „Kulturanthropologie“ statt. Der Anfänger eines
Studiums der Ethnologie, der ein Buch in den Händen
hält, das im Titel angibt, in die „Ethnologie“ einzufüh-
ren, in dem aber kaum ein deutscher Ethnologe zitiert
wird, und wo ab Seite 29 nur noch von „Kulturanthro-
pologie“ die Rede ist, mag sich angesichts dieser
Tatsache fragen, womit er es nun zu tun hat. In jedem
Fall wäre das Buch mit seinem Untertitel „Eine Kultur-
und Sozialanthropologie“ treffender betitelt worden.
Erfreulich klar hingegen sind die Ausführungen
zur Verwandtschaft, zu den Kulturtypen, der Wirt-
schaft, Religion und zu den synchronen bzw. diachro-
nen „Paradigmen“ Funktionalismus, Evolutionismus,
Kulturökologie und Kulturgeschichte. Lediglich die
Charakterisierung der “band-societies” erscheint weni-
ger gelungen, vor allem der Bezug auf das teilweise
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
235
überholte Konzept Julian H. Stewards mit seinem
ohnehin schwer zu präzisierenden Begriff des “cultural
core”. Auf den entscheidenden Aspekt dabei - die
Beziehung Umwelt-Subsistenztechnologie als Voraus-
setzung für die Ausbildung spezifischer sozialer Orga-
nisationsformen - geht der Autor nicht ein, und die
verwendeten Begriffe „Horde“, „Lokal-“, „Residenz-“
bzw. „Haushaltsgruppe“ werden nicht definiert. Im
übrigen aber wird er Anfänger in den genannten
Kapiteln in übersichtlicher, knapper und verständlicher
Form in zum Teil komplexe Sachverhalte eingeführt
und mit wichtigen, aktuellen ethnologischen Konzep-
ten und Grundfragen vertraut gemacht. Das hervorra-
gende, kommentierte Literaturverzeichnis gibt dem
Anfänger hilfreiche Anregungen für eine intensivere
Beschäftigung mit den einzelnen Themenbereichen.
Ferner ergänzt diese Einführung in ihren Bemühungen
um die Vermittlung theoretischer Grundlagen sowohl
allgemeinwissenschaftlicher wie ethnologischer Art,
um die kritische Reflexion von theoretischen Positio-
nen sowie in ihrer inhaltlichen Orientierung an Kon-
zepten der amerikanischen “cultural anthropology”
bereits existierende Einführungen. Sie ist zu empfeh-
len, wenn sie gleichzeitig mit anderen Einführungen
gelesen wird, worauf der Autor einleitend auch selbst
hinweist. Maike Kleihauer
Basu, Mahadeb P.: Anthropological Profile of the
Muslims of Calcutta. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey
of India, Government of India, 1985. 109 pp., tab.
Price: $ 37.00
Engaged in writing a comparative work on the
possibility of urban adaptation, the author opted for
presenting the present preliminary study of inbred
population groups in Calcutta where he lives and
works. It was Dr. M. K. A. Siddiqui’s pioneering work
“Muslims of Calcutta - A Study in Aspects of Their
Social Organization” (1974) and the availability of his
help and counsel that adverted M. P. Basu to the
presence and the inbred nature of Muslim groups in
Calcutta. He conducted his fieldwork in the period
between December 1973 and August 1974 with the
purpose “to see how far the prevailing concept of
equality among the Muslims is reflected in the variabili-
ty of somatic types and affinity among their social
groups and also to know their adaptive changes, if any,
due to their urban residence” (18).
There are in Calcutta mainly five groups of Mus-
lims, immigrants chiefly from Bihar but also from the
United Provinces, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
They speak Hindustani and form each traditionally
occupational groups of originally one occupation.
Today, however, each group is occupationally diversi-
fied (Table 4). They are mostly economically not well
off- The author’s approach is taxonomic, tracing the
evolution of the concept of “distance.”
In chapter two he explains in detail the “material”
of his research as well as the method of the detailed
measurements which follow the “biometric” approach.
It is then his effort to determine population affinity
taxonomically. The statistical results are analzyed in
chapter three and summarized on pp. 76-77. The con-
clusion (78-82) states the gist of the results of his
analysis, the main result being “that morphological and
anthropometric distance goes hand in hand with the
ethnicity, time, and geographical distance” (82). After
conversion, too, the groups - following endogamy -
have maintained their identity.
The study, in its main part, is substantial and
highly technical. Even students of empirical anthropo-
logy will have difficulty in “reading” the many graphs,
tables, charts, and figures, in other words, the author
has not made it particularly easy to follow the taxono-
mic argument in detail. Frequent abbreviations and
symbols are not sufficiently explained to the lay reader
whom other parts of the study evidently address.
The volume includes a comprehensive bibliogra-
phy and a detailed index of names and subjects.
Christian W. Troll
Biebuyck, Daniel: The Arts of Zaire; vol. I:
Southwestern Zaire. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985. 313 pp., photos. Price: $ 56.95
Die vorliegende Arbeit ist der erste Teil eines
großangelegten Werkes über die Kunst Zaires, das in
insgesamt fünf Bänden geplant ist. Der Autor ist für
ein so gewaltiges Unternehmen hervorragend qualifi-
ziert: Von 1949 bis 1957 war er mit intensiven Feldfor-
schungen bei mehreren Bevölkerungsgruppen im
Osten Zaires beschäftigt. Zwischen 1956 und 1961
führte er Survey-artige Forschungen bei verschiedenen
Ethnien in Zaire durch. Seit 1969 hat er eine große
Materialfülle über die Kunst Zentralafrikas in europä-
ischen und amerikanischen Museen, Archiven und
Bibliotheken zusammengetragen; von seinen umfang-
reichen Literaturstudien zeugt die vorbildliche 44seiti-
ge Bibliographie.
Das Buch ist in drei Teile gegliedert. Der erste
bringt eine ausführliche kritische Auseinandersetzung
mit bisher vorliegenden Arbeiten zur Kunst Zentralaf-
rikas. Neben französischen, englischen und flämischen
Werken werden auch solche in ungewöhnlicheren Spra-
chen, wie dem Deutschen, nicht nur genannt, sondern
gründlich ausgewertet. Dies sei besonders hervorgeho-
ben, da insbesondere amerikanische Kollegen in dieser
Hinsicht wissenschaftlichen Anforderungen oft nicht
genügen. Es folgt im zweiten Teil eine ethnographische
Einführung in das behandelte Gebiet als Ganzes. Im
dritten, dem Hauptteil, wird die Kunst von vierund-
dreißig ethnischen Gruppen in Einzeldarstellungen
besprochen.
Als Südwest-Zaire bezeichnet der Autor ein
Gebiet, das überwiegend zwischen dem dritten und
achten südlichen Breiten- und dem zwölften und zwan-
zigsten östlichen Längengrad liegt. Die zugehörigen
ethnischen Gruppen reichen über die Grenzen Zaires
hinaus in die Republik Congo, Cabinda und Angola.
Aus Gründen der Materialfülle sind die zugehörigen
Anthropos 83.1988
236
Rezensionen
Kongo und Teke nicht berücksichtigt; ihre Kunst soll in
einem eigenen Band dargestellt werden. An den Rän-
dern des im vorliegenden Buch besprochenen Gebietes
finden sich im Norden die Sakata, im äußersten Süden
die Holo und entsprechend im Westen die Zombo, im
Osten die Pende; womit für den weniger mit Zaire
vertrauten Leser die Grenzen grob abgesteckt seien.
(Das Buch enthält keine Karte.) Die bedeutendsten
behandelten Gruppen sind die Yaka und Pende. Eben-
falls bekannt durch ihr besonders reiches Kunstschaf-
fen sind die Suku, Mbala und Hungaan. Daneben
werden viele wenige bekannte Ethnien besprochen.
Biebuycks Buch ist kein Bildband, wie man bei
dem Thema vermuten könnte. Die Bilddokumentation
ist auf jeweils charakteristische Beispiele beschränkt,
während im Text viele Hinweise auf Abbildungen in
anderen Publikationen gegeben werden. Die immer
wiederkehrende Reproduktion der gleichen Abbildun-
gen, wie in zahllosen Werken über Kunst, wird somit
vermieden. Die Auswahl der Objekte unterscheidet
sich auffallend von derjenigen, die wir sonst meist aus
diesem Bereich zu sehen bekommen, da sie nicht in
erster Linie von dem Wunsch geleitet ist, möglichst
eindrucksvolle Stücke zu zeigen. Vielmehr geht es hier
um das ethnographisch Wichtige und Charakteristi-
sche, weshalb auch viele grobe, unattraktive Skulptu-
ren gezeigt sind, die sonst wohl selten abgebildet
werden.
Der beschreibende Hauptteil des Buches ist in
sieben Kapitel untergliedert, darin werden über dreißig
ethnische Gruppen jeweils einzeln, nacheinander be-
sprochen - je nach Quellenlage, Bevölkerungszahl und
künstlerischer Produktivität ausführlich (z. B. die Pen-
de auf zweiunddreißig und die Yaka auf vierundzwan-
zig Seiten) oder kurz (z. B. die Tiene auf einer Seite).
Durch sorgfältige Auswertung der Quellen bemüht sich
der Autor um eine möglichst genaue Lokalisierung und
Untergliederung. Nach Informationen über Geschich-
te, Demographie usw. folgen ausführliche Angaben
über Gesellschaft und Religion, in deren Kontext dann
die Kunst besprochen wird. Der Autor arbeitet dabei
so gründlich, daß das Buch auch als ethnographisches
Nachschlagewerk für Südwest-Zaire dienen kann.
Die Arbeit macht die großen Schwierigkeiten bei
der ethnischen Zordnung von Stücken deutlich, die
sich aus Völkerwanderungen, Handel, Nachahmungen
usw. ergeben. Da gibt es Ethnien, die in verschiedenen
Stilen nebeneinander arbeiten, eigenen und solchen
von Nachbarn. Andere haben verschiedene Lokalstile
oder handeln Kultobjekte samt den Kulten, in denen
sie verwendet werden, von weither ein. Viele kulturelle
Angleichungen entstehen auch aus dem räumlichen
Absplittern und Durcheinandersiedeln verschiedener
Gruppen. Es zeigt sich also, wie unsicher die Zuord-
nung eines Gegenstandes nach rein stilistischen Krite-
rien vielfach sein muß, da Hersteller und Benutzer
durchaus verschiedener ethnischer Zugehörigkeit sein
können, um nur ein Problem zu nennen. Aufgrund von
Biebuycks genauer Untersuchung gerade solcher
schwierigen Zusammenhänge ergeben sich für Kunst-
ethnologen und Museumsfachleute, zu denen die
Rezensentin nicht gehört, viele Möglichkeiten einer
genaueren Überprüfung und Zuordnung.
Barbara Frank
Bloch, Maurice: Marxism and Anthropology. A
History of Relationship. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1985. 180 pp. Price: £3.95
Trotz seines geringen Umfangs ist das Buch von
Maurice Bloch ein interessanter Beitrag zur Geschichte
der Ethnologie unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Wechsel-
verhältnisses zwischen Ethnologie und Marxismus. Als
Einführung in diese Problematik und als Information
darüber, wie einerseits die Klassiker des Marxismus
(K. Marx und F. Engels) und andererseits die zeitge-
nössischen, marxistisch eingestellten Ethnologen in den
USA, Großbritannien und Frankreich die Ergebnisse
der Ethnologie in Anspruch nahmen, enthält das Buch
sowohl reiche Kenntnisse über den neuesten For-
schungsstand und die Forschungstendenzen in der Eth-
nologie als auch aufschlußreiche Bemerkungen zur
Natur der ethnologischen Erklärung und Theoriebil-
dung. Der Autor scheut sich nicht, seine eigene Mei-
nung zu vertreten und von diesem Gesichtspunkt aus
die von ihm analysierten Konzeptionen kritisch zu
durchleuchten. Seine Sprache ist klar, und die Beweis-
führung überzeugend, daher bleibt das Buch auch für
einen Nichtfachmann verständlich.
Das Buch gliedert sich in sechs Kapitel. Die
beiden ersten sind eine Darstellung und Analyse der
Auffassungen von Marx und Engels über die gesell-
schaftliche Struktur der Naturvölker. M. Bloch stellt
fest, daß diese Klassiker auf zwei Weisen - die histori-
sche (beweisende) und die rhetorische (illustrative) -
von den ethnographischen Daten Gebrauch gemacht
haben. Sie erwarteten von der Ethnologie zweierlei:
die Bestätigung der universellen Prinzipien der
Geschichte sowie Beispiele dafür, daß noch andere als
auf Privateigentum begründete Gesellschaften möglich
sind. Es ist also falsch, Marx und Engels für Ethnolo-
gen zu halten, denn sie gebrauchten die Ethnologie nur
instrumental zu politischen Zielen (Sturz des Kapitalis-
mus) und interessierten sich für sie, um die Entstehung
des Kapitalismus zu erklären und auf die Möglichkei-
ten eines besseren sozialen Systems hinzuweisen. Sie
konnten gegenüber den primitiven Gesellschaften nicht
dieselben Methoden wie gegenüber kapitalistischen
an wenden, die im „Kapital“ ausgearbeitet wurden, weil
sie diesen klassenlosen Gesellschaften nicht angemes-
sen waren. Sie machten den Fehler - zeitgenössischen
Ethnologen, vor allem L. H. Morgan, folgend -, sie
unempirisch, rein konstruktiv und idealisierend darzu-
stellen. Letzten Endes war das Bild des sogenannten
primitiven Kommunismus ein Resultat der Vermi-
schung des historischen und des rhetorischen
Gebrauchs der Ethnologie. M. Bloch versucht zugleich
zu zeigen, daß die Konzeptionen von Marx viel subtiler
und komplizierter als die seiner unmittelbaren Nachfol-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
237
ger waren. Er warnte z. B. vor einer naturalistischen
Anwendung biologischer Modelle in den Sozialwissen-
schaften und war gegen ein rein mechanistisches Sche-
ma der Evolution, das für alle Völker in gleicher Weise
zutreffen sollte.
Das dritte Kapitel ist ein Versuch, die ethnologi-
schen und methodologischen Konzeptionen von Marx
und Egels im Lichte der allerneuesten Entwicklung der
Ethnologie kritisch zu untersuchen. Viele Schlußfolge-
rungen von Marx und Engels (z. B. über Familie und
Ehe) waren falsch, weil sie auf einem unkritisch akzep-
tierten und falschen ethnographischen Material grün-
deten. Rhetorisch gesehen hat aber dieses Material
seine Funktion in der Kritik des Kapitalismus gut
erfüllt. Neu und viel wichtiger als die Feststellung des
wirklichen Ganges der Evolution von gesellschaftlichen
Institutionen war dabei die Idee, daß sie alle eine
Geschichte hatten und zu immer neuen Entwicklungen
fähig waren.
Leider haben, so stellt M. Bloch im vierten
Kapitel fest, die marxisierenden Autoren (P. Lafargue,
K. Kautsky, G. V. Plechanov) unter dem damals domi-
nierenden Einfluß von Engels und im Geiste des
mechanistischen Naturalismus (Sozialdarwinismus) den
Akzent auf eine unilineare Entwicklung der menschli-
chen Geschichte (als Fortsetzung der Naturgeschichte)
gelegt und nach für alle Gesellschaften identischen
historischen Gesetzen und Entwicklungssequenzen
gesucht, obwohl Marx selbst immer vor der Gefahr
eines solchen Darwinismus in der Geschichte warnte.
Auch die beginnende sowjetische Ethnologie, in der
das Interesse an der Ethnologie immer vor allem
praktischer und politischer Natur war (z. B. die Rolle
des Bauerntums beim Bau einer sozialistischen Gesell-
schaft sowie das praktische Pröblem der Vereinigung
von vielen Nationen), betonte das Primat der Geogra-
phie, Ökonomie und Technologie bei gleichzeitiger
Vernachlässigung der geschichtlichen Bedeutung des
Bewußtseins in der Kulturentwicklung. M. Bloch
unterscheidet wenigstens drei Etappen in der sowjeti-
schen Ethnologiegeschichte: die Jahre 1920-1930,
gekennzeichnet durch lebendige theoretische Diskus-
sionen und viele ethnographische Feldforschungen;
dann die stalinistische Periode, in der eine vereinfachte
Sicht der Gesellschaftsformationen (Urgemeinschaft,
Sklaverei, Feudalismus, Kapitalismus und Kommunis-
mus) herrschte und sich durchsetzte; und schließlich
die Jahre der Entstalinisierung (die späten 50er und
frühen 60er Jahre), als die Probleme der ersten Periode
wieder aufgegriffen wurden.
Im fünften Kapitel wird der Einfluß des Marxis-
mus auf die amerikanische “cultural anthropology”
besprochen. Trotz anfangs negativer Einstellung (ge-
genseitige Ignoranz oder sogar Feindlichkeit) hat die
amerikanische Ethnologie einige Gemeinsamkeiten mit
den Marxisten (im Ausgangspunkt z. B. die Anknüp-
fung an die Ansichten von L. H. Morgan). Seit den
fünfziger Jahren findet hier aber eine Entwicklung
statt, die sich als Neoevolutionismus öffentlich zum
Marxismus bekennt. Es geht vor allem um die Konzep-
tionen von L. White (er vertritt den technologischen
Determinismus), J. Steward (er betont die Wichtigkeit
der Umwelt für das Sozialsystem und ist der Begründer
der “cultural ecology”) und M. Harris (er vertritt den
kulturellen Materialismus und eine multilineare Evolu-
tion). Dieser marxistische Ansatz (hauptsächlich von
M. Harris) wird von M. Sahlins heftig kritisiert, der die
Bedeutung der Kultur für den Menschen hervorhebt.
Nach M. Bloch ist es ein charakteristisches Merk-
mal der neuen Ethnologie, daß sie heute immer häufi-
ger nach den Werken der marxistischen Autoren greift.
Das sechste Kapitel stellt sich das Ziel, den Einfluß des
Marxismus auf die britische (“social anthropology”)
und französische Ethnologie aufzuzeigen. Es ist nicht
ganz klar, inwieweit B. Malinowski den Evolutionis-
mus aus prinzipiellen Gründen selbst ablehnte; doch
mit der Kritik des Funktionalismus, der den Kultur-
wandel nicht erklären konnte, haben auch einige mar-
xistische Ideen in die britische Ethnologie Eingang
gefunden (T. Asad, P. Worsley). Generell aber haben
die britischen Ethnologen in den Jahren 1920-1930 den
Marxismus fast ganz ignoriert und später nicht bei ihm,
sondern bei C. Lévi-Strauss Inspirationen gesucht.
Nach M. Bloch ist Lévi-Strauss der eigentliche
Begründer der französischen Ethnologie, der zwar von
einer marxistischen Inspiration seiner Theorie und
ihrer Übereinstimmung mit dem Marxismus spricht, in
Wirklichkeit aber durch seinen Einfluß bewirkte, daß
die französische Ethnologie bis 1960 weder marxistisch
noch antimarxistisch war. Der erste Ethnologe, der mit
der Bestimmung der afrikanischen Staaten als Spielar-
ten der asiatischen Produktionsweise direkt an Marx
anknüpfte, war J. Suret-Canale. Besonders seit der
Pariser Konferenz von 1960 beobachtet man eine Ver-
bindung des marxistischen Ansatzes mit der Ethnologie
unter der Führung von Lévi-Strauss. Es geht nicht um
die Bestätigung der Thesen der Klassiker des Marxis-
mus, sondern um eine schöpferische Weiterentwick-
lung ihrer Grundideen auf der Basis neuen ethnographi-
schen Materials. Das Grundprinzip der marxistischen
Ethnologie ist die Idee, daß die Geschichte aller Ge-
sellschaften (also auch der Naturvölker) eine Geschich-
te von Klassenkämpfen und nur auf diese Weise zu
verstehen ist. Eifrige Fürsprecher dieser Ideen wurden
M. Godelier und E. Terray, aber erst unter dem
theoretischen Einfluß des marxistischen Philosophen
L. Althusser brach eine wirkliche Begeisterung für den
marxistischen Ansatz in der Ethnologie aus. Als Vor-
teil einer solchen marxistischen Ethnologie nennt M.
Bloch die Verbindung der empirischen mit der genera-
lisierend-erklärenden Methode, mit deren Hilfe man
sowohl den Bestand als auch den Wandel der gesell-
schaftlichen Systeme verstehen kann. Andererseits
macht er ihr aber den Vorwurf des Abstraktionismus,
weil sie durch ihre generalisierende Haltung (was Marx
unbedingt vermeiden wollte) den konkreten Menschen
aus den Augen verloren hat.
Zum Schluß noch einige allgemeine Bemerkun-
gen: Das Buch von M. Bloch ist eine übersichtliche
Darstellung der Grundthesen der marxistischen Ethno-
Anthropos 83.1988
238
Rezensionen
logie bei den Klassikern und ihren Nachfolgern. Zu-
gleich ist sie ein Beweis dafür, wie tief die jeweilige
Konzeption der Ethnologie ihre Wurzeln im gesell-
schaftlichen und politischen Kontext ihrer Zeit hat und
wie sie umgekehrt diese Zeit zu prägen weiß. Sie legt
auch Zeugnis ab von der vielfältigen Präsenz des
modifizierten Marxismus in den heutigen Sozialwissen-
schaften. Die Sympathie des Autors ist auf der Seite
der marxistischen - nicht aber der sowjetischen -
Ethnologie. Im Streit zwischen den Naturalisten und
Idealisten versucht er, eine realistische Position einzu-
nehmen: es gibt eine Begriffswelt, es gibt aber auch
eine Welt, in der wir leben, unabhängig von unseren
Vorstellungen von ihr. Gäbe es keine Wirklichkeit
außerhalb unserer Gedankenwelt, wäre die Ethnologie
und das Verstehen anderer Kulturen als der unseren
unmöglich, weil wir dann keine gemeinsame Welt mehr
hätten. Andrzej Bronk
Borthwick, Meredith: The Changing Rôle of
Women in Bengal, 1849-1905. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984. 402 pp. Price: $ 52.00
Contrairement à ce que le titre de cet excellent
ouvrage pourrait laisser croire, il ne s’agit pas d’une
oeuvre dont l’intérêt est limité à la fois dans le temps et
dans l’espace. Le Bengale du 19ème siècle ne se
contente en effet pas d’être la capitale économique et
politique de l’Inde, mais il fournit également le fleuron
de l’intelligentsia indienne. La période choisie est pa-
reillement intéressante puisqu’elle représente la transi-
tion entre les premiers temps du colonialisme et un
mouvement nationaliste qui n’est encore qu’embryon-
naire à la fin du siècle dernier. L’époque couverte par
ce livre s’ouvre donc par la fondation de la première
école pour filles et s’achève en 1905 par le début du
mouvement Swadeshi et la partition du Bengale: péri-
ode d’effervescence, d’excitation, de réformes et de
débats. C’est enfin au Bengale aussi que l’on s’enflam-
me le plus pour les questions de statut de la femme et
tout ceci devrait suffire pour affirmer que cet ouvrage
intéressera non seulement les indianistes, mais aussi
tous ceux que passionne l’histoire de l’émancipation de
la femme et du colonialisme.
Il faut pourtant bien garder à l’esprit que ce livre
ne concerne qu’une frange relativement restreinte de la
société bengalie. En effet, ce sont principalement les
Bhadramahilâ, à savoir les épouses des Bhadraloks
(gentlemen), cette classe nouvelle d’intellectuels indi-
gènes au service de la société coloniale, qui constituent
les héroïnes de cet ouvrage. Cette classe urbaine,
numériquement restreinte mais socialement fondamen-
tale, constituait l’avant-garde de l’époque par sa sensi-
bilité aux valeurs occidentales.
A cette époque, les Britanniques considéraient
leur mode de vie comme le sommet de la civilisation et
ces jeunes cadres bengalis souffraient particulièrement
du mépris des colonisateurs envers certaines de leurs
traditions. C’est dans ce contexte que la question de la
condition de la femme prit une place importante dans
la lutte de promotion sociale des Bhadraloks. En effet,
comme l’écrivait l’un d’entre eux dans un journal local:
«Il est impossible de prétendre à la civilisation alors
que la moitié de la population est illettrée et ignorante»
(31).
Jusqu’alors l’univers de la femme hindoue se
confinait à Vantahpur, la cour intérieure réservée aux
femmes dans les maisons bengalies. Les femmes benga-
lies vivaient en effet dans le purdah, c’est-à-dire dans
un monde à part, sans contact avec l’extérieur. Les
jeunes bengalis employés par l’administration, autre-
ment dit les Bhadraloks, vinrent s’établir à Calcutta, en
dehors du cercle de la famille étendue, et par consé-
quent dans un univers plus favorable aux réformes
sociales. Le célèbre mouvement de réforme, le Brahmo
Samaj fondé en 1828 par R. M. Roy, se mit à recruter
parmi les Bhadraloks dès 1860 et sous l’égide de son
leader Keshub Chunder Sen, prit une part fondamenta-
le dans tout le mouvement de réforme sociale. Une
branche pour femmes, le Brahmika Samaj, fut fondée
en 1865 alors qu’un journal réservé aux femmes avait
déjà été lancé en 1863. Le type de femme moderne qui
allait émerger du mouvement allait être appelée Bhad-
ramahilâ ou femme de Bhadralok sur le mode des idées
du Brahmo Samaj.
Le premier terrain de lutte de ce mouvement fut
l’éducation puisqu’au milieu du 19ème siècle pratique-
ment aucune femme bengalie ne savait lire ni écrire.
Un débat s’installa alors dans l’intelligentsia locale,
notamment à travers ses nombreux organes de presse,
sur le type d’éducation qui devait être réservé aux
femmes: les conservateurs préféraient le cours particu-
lier ou «zenana éducation» alors que les modernes
prônaient l’envoi des femmes dans les écoles publiques.
Le contenu des cours anima également les passions: les
femmes devaient-elles recevoir le même type d’éduca-
tion que les hommes? Pour certains, en effet, le but de
l’éducation n’était pas de rendre les femmes savantes
mais bien d’en faire des meilleures épouses et des
meilleures mères. Toujours est-il qu’en 1878, 21.587
filles suivaient un enseignement au Bengale. Le succès
fut tel qu’en 1876 déjà, deux femmes avaient été
admises à l’Université de Calcutta, c’est-à-dire avant
les universités anglaises, et en 1883, C. Basu et Candra-
mukhi obtinrent leur B. A., la seconde devenant par la
suite la première femme médecin du Bengale. A la fin
du siècle, la plupart des Bhadramahilâ étaient alphabé-
tisées et l’éducation scolaire était devenue une partie
essentielle de la vie d’une jeune fille.
La lutte ne s’arrêta cependant pas en si bon
chemin mais envahit toutes les sphères de la vie sociale.
L’âge de mariage, par exemple, préoccupait les Bhad-
raloks qui désiraient une épouse capable de les soutenir
moralement et de leur offrir l’atmosphère chaleureuse
d’un foyer; une gamine de 8 à 10 ans (l’âge moyen de
mariage des jeunes filles de l’époque) ne pouvait bien
sûr pas remplir ces conditions. Sous la pression du
Brahmo Samaj, le «Marriage Act» de 1872 relevait
l’âge de mariage pour les non-hindous à 14 ans. Les
Brahmos (ou membres du Brahmo Samaj) s’intéres-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
239
saient également à l’accouchement et à l’éducation des
jeunes enfants. A cette époque, beaucoup de femmes
mouraient encore en couches et S. C. Deb écrivit un
ouvrage sur ces questions afin de sensibiliser les Bhad-
Tamahilà aux principes modernes en la matière. Sous
l’influence des idées occidentales, l’enfant en vint à
être considéré comme un être foncièrement différent
de l’adulte si bien que l’innocence de l’enfant devait
être protégée contre la corruption et le laxisme moral.
C’est donc tout un nouvel idéal de la bonne mère de
famille qui devait se forger sur le modèle victorien.
Petit à petit, la femme hindoue (du moins la Bhadra-
mahilà) fit son entrée dans le monde: on la vit dans les
écoles, dans les trains, dans les soirées mondaines et les
oeuvres philanthropiques. Certaines, en majorité des
veuves, entrèrent même sur le marché de l’emploi et au
début du 20ème siècle quelques-unes se dinstinguèrent
dans les rangs du «Congress Party».
C’est donc toute cette «émancipation» de la fin du
siècle dernier que nous relate Borthwick dans un ouv-
rage bien documenté et passionnant. Il est remar-
quable de constater, à la suite de l’auteur (360), que ce
mouvement s’est développé sans réel militantisme
féminin ni non plus d’agressivité envers les hommes qui
en étaient d’ailleurs souvent les instigateurs. Dans un
pays où la femme Symbolisait la tradition et la continui-
té, il était impensable d’envisager des réformes sociales
sans un changement profond de sa condition. Cepen-
dant, il faut regretter que le livre ne souligne pas
vraiment la spécificité de cette période par rapport au
début du 20ème siècle lorsque le mouvement nationa-
liste allait donner une vigueur nouvelle à l’hindouité
de la femme et par conséquent freiner un processus
d’occidentalisation qui paraissait irrémédiable. C’est ce
qui explique sans doute que la femme indienne a,
aujourd’hui encore, gardé son caractère propre. Dès le
début du siècle, sous l’impulsion du mouvement natio-
naliste, le purdah allait reprendre un nouvel essor
(262). Ce retour aux sources, caractéristique de la
première moitié de ce siècle, mériterait d’être à son
tour étudié. En attendant, Borthwick nous a laissé un
travail considérable sur une période importante de
l’histoire indienne. Robert Deliège
Bourdier, Jean-Paul, and Trinh T. Minh-Ha:
African Spaces. Designs for Living in Upper Volta.
New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1985.
viii+231 pp., illus. Price: $ 59.50
This beautifully illustrated book examines the
vernacular domestic architecture of eight different eth-
nic groups in Upper Volta, recently renamed Burkina
Faso. The authors present and interpret the design
Principles and building techniques of settlement, or
compound, constructed by the members of each ethnic
group in terms of the social structure (as defined by
kinship rules) and amenity use, which regulate the
design, the meaning and use of dwelling units, other
communal buildings, and surrounding outdoor spaces.
The Upper Volta region examined in this book is
located in the centre of the Sudan-Sahel zone of Africa.
The eight ethnic groups constitute a relatively homge-
neous cultural group known as the Gurunsi, a generic
classification which includes the Lela, the Nuna, the
Ko, the Puguli, the Sísala, the Kassena, the Nakani,
and the Kusasi groups. In general, the pattern of
settlement of these groups is dispersed dwelling units
rather than compact villages.
In the introduction the authors give a brief histori-
cal account of the language and names attributed to
these groups, in order to illustrate that some have
become sedentary in the Upper Volta region much
earlier than others. Moreover, instead of power being
attributed to land tenure, the concept of wealth and
power in this culture is derived from the number of
people in a settlement; a chief will be more powerful
than his conterpart if he has more subjects rather than
a greater surface of land. The authors note that the
notion of house, compound, or settlement “. . . con-
veys not only the idea of space containment, shelter,
territorial demarcation, or privacy . . . [but] also two
other realities: one social, the predominantly patrilin-
eal family organization, the other economic, the farming
of land granted by the head of the family and cleared
collectively by its members” (14—15). In this context,
the role of the eldest male member of the compound
has important implications on the social and spatial
organization of the settlements which the authors
analyze in detail using complementary approaches.
The method of study is grounded in fieldwork and
documentary research. By careful observation of the
built environment and human behaviour, coupled with
an analysis of kinship patterns and marriage rules, the
authors illustrate the variety and subtleness of the
design and use of the compounds of the eight groups of
inhabitants. Although the authors do not ignore the
importance of climatic and material factors, their
approach counteracts those recurrent interpretations of
vernacular architecture solely in terms of site topogra-
phy, local climate, and availability of building mate-
rials. This study also provides an interesting interpreta-
tion of territorial markers, privacy regulation, and
interpersonal communication, by illustrating the impor-
tant role attributed to the design and use of transition
spaces, especially in the compounds of the Kassena and
the Nankani. In this respect, the authors consider and
relate architectural and anthropological perspectives in
a complementary way, suggesting numerous avenues
for further interdisciplinary research. This is very com-
mendable given that until now it has been common
practice for architects to discuss and illustrate the
complex spatial and constructional nature of vernacular
architecture, whereas social anthropologists have exam-
ined how cultural and social factors are expressed in
extant vernacular architecture and domestic life. Here
is one monograph showing how these two approaches
can be applied in a complementary way in order to
comprehend how domestic architecture, even of the
pejoratively named “primitive hut,” defines and is
defined by a range of cultural, socio-demographic,
Anthropos 83.1988
240
Rezensionen
economie, and political factors. If only some of the
mass-produced dwelling units in so many industrialized
societies could account for some of these factors!
Roderick J. Lawrence
Brüggemann, Jürgen: In der Schwäche der Armen
liegt die Chance der Reichen. Beiträge zur Unterent-
wicklung aus Mexiko. Gelsenkirchen: Verlag Andreas
Müller, 1985. 146 pp. Preis: DM 19,—
In dem vorliegenden Bändchen sind u. a. drei
Aufsätze enthalten, die der Autor zwischen 1975 und
1979 in anderer Form bereits in Mexiko publiziert hat.
Wie aus dem kurzen und leider nicht mehr aktualisier-
ten Literaturverzeichnis hervorgeht, stützt er sich über-
wiegend auf theoretische Schriften. Empirische Unter-
suchungen wurden kaum benutzt.
Der Beitrag „Phänomene der Unterentwicklung
Mexikos“ beschäftigt sich mit dem Dependenzproblem
der Entwicklungsländer, das nicht zuletzt der Lethargie
und der sozio-kulturellen Desintegration der Betroffe-
nen zugeschrieben wird. Der Autor illustriert seine
Thesen an den Mängeln der Wirtschaftssektoren Mexi-
kos. Die dahinterstehenden politischen und gesell-
schaftlichen Strukturen sind allerdings weder vollstän-
dig noch klar genug herausgearbeitet worden.
Der kurze Abschnitt „Zum Verhältnis von Staat
und Demokratie in Mexiko“ bleibt in oberflächlichen
Erörterungen stecken. Der Leser erfährt weder etwas
über die Rolle der Staatspartei PRI noch über ihr
Verhältnis zu den oppositionellen Strömungen der
jüngsten Vergangenheit.
Der Beitrag „Die Bevölkerungsstruktur im Kreis
Veracruz, Mexiko“ untersucht mit Hilfe quantitativ-
statistischer Methoden das in den Geburtsurkunden
von 1870 bis 1977 vorliegende demographische Mate-
rial. Da auf eine geographische Differenzierung der
Daten verzichtet wurde, bieten die Grundzüge des
dargestellten Verstädterungsprozesses wenig Neues.
Der Bezug zum Thema des Sammelbandes ist schwer
nachzuvollziehen.
Das Kapitel „Die Dritte Welt zwischen den Blök-
ken: Probleme und Hoffnungen“ gipfelt in der These,
daß die gesellschaftlich und politisch zersplitterten
Entwicklungsländer nur in der Verteidigung ihrer Roh-
stoffreserven eine Überlebenschance besitzen. Die
angeführten Beispiele aus Afrika (Tansania) und
Lateinamerika (Chile) lassen allerdings den erforderli-
chen Tiefgang vermissen.
Der letzte Beitrag „Leitlinien außenpolitischer
Beziehungen zwischen Nord und Süd“ rückt die
Außenpolitik Mexikos, insbesondere sein Verhältnis zu
den USA, in den Vordergrund. Auch in diesem Fall
beruhen die Ausführungen weniger auf fundierten
Analysen als vielmehr auf subjektiven Wertungen.
Obwohl man das Engagement des Autors für die
berechtigten Interessen der Dritten Welt anerkennen
muß, hätte man sich statt ausladenden Wortgeklingels
mehr Fakten und Beispiele gewünscht. Es ist bedauer-
lich, daß der Autor weder seine Landeskenntnis noch
die vorliegenden Forschungsergebnisse zu einer gründ-
licheren Information des deutschen Lesers genutzt
hat. Wolfgang Trautmann
Cipolletti, Maria Susana: Jenseitsvorstellungen bei
den Indianern Südamerikas. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer
Verlag, 1983. 368 pp. Preis: DM 38,-
Bei der ersten Lektüre, kurz nach seinem Erschei-
nen, hat mich Maria Susana Cipollettis Buch über
Jenseitsvorstellungen südamerikanischer Indianer tief
beeindruckt. Aber auch jetzt - einige Jahre später -
habe ich es nochmals mit Gewinn gelesen. Die darin
behandelte Thematik ist faszinierend. Wen hat noch
nie die Frage beschäftigt, ob und in welcher Form die
menschliche Existenz auch nach dem Tode fortgeführt
wird? Zweifelsohne ist dies eine der Grundfragen
unseres Daseins, weshalb Frau Cipollettis Buch nicht
nur für regional auf Südamerika ausgerichtete Ethnolo-
gen lesenswert ist, sondern ebenso für Fachleute, die
sich auf andere Regionen spezialisiert haben, und für
interessierte Laien eine informative, anregende Lektü-
re sein kann.
1982 von der Münchener Universität als Disserta-
tion angenommen, basiert Cipollettis Untersuchung
vor allem auf der Auswertung der in der ethnographi-
schen Literatur unseres Jahrhunderts aufgezeichneten
Erzähltraditionen südamerikanischer Indianer. Eine
Schwierigkeit, mit der sich die Autorin dabei konfron-
tiert sah, bestand darin, daß selbst in Arbeiten jünge-
ren Datums nicht durchgängig Einblick in die Erzählsi-
tuation gewährt wird. Häufig fehlen Angaben zur
Person des Erzählers, der Zuhörerschaft und ähnliches.
Die Verbreitung der oralen Tradition und der Stellen-
wert der so erhobenen Daten innerhalb der betreffen-
den indianischen Kultur können daher kaum näher
bestimmt werden (3-5). Belege aus eigener Feldfor-
schung der Verfasserin bei Araukanern, Chiriguano
und im Nordwesten Argentiniens runden das unter-
suchte Material ab (4).
Bereits in den ersten Sätzen (1) wird der Leser
über eine Besonderheit der indianischen Vorstellungen
vom Tod aufgeklärt. Für die südamerikanischen Tief-
landindianer, um die es im gesamten ersten Teil des
Buches geht, bedeutet „sterben“ nämlich nicht „ein
abrupt eintretendes Aufhören aller körperlichen und
psychischen Lebensäußerungen“, der Tod erscheint
vielmehr als ein „langwieriger Prozeß“. Erst ein nach
„einer Reihe von Übergangsphasen“ eintretender
„zweiter Tod“ beendet die Beziehungen zwischen
Toten und Lebenden.
Ausführlich werden die indianischen Todesvor-
stellungen im ersten Kapitel diskutiert (15-31). Die
Autorin nähert sich dem Thema zunächst über die
Sprache, indem sie einen ersten Zugang über die
Wortfelder „Tod“ und „Krankheit“ in verschiedenen
indianischen Sprachen sucht (16-17). In diesem und in
den folgenden Punkten über „todesähnliche Phänome-
ne“ (17-22) und über die „Idee von einer möglichen
Auferstehung bzw. Wiederbelebung“ (22-31) wird
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
241
deutlich, daß die Indianer Südamerikas die Welt der
Lebenden und die der Toten nicht als zwei hermetisch
voneinander abgeschlossene Bereiche ansehen. Zwi-
schen beiden scheint im Gegenteil eine durchlässige
Zwischenzone angenommen zu werden, durch welche
die Bewohner beider „Welten“ in die jeweils andere
Sphäre hinüberwechseln können (zumindest zeitweise
und unter bestimmten Bedingungen, wie in den Kapi-
teln VII und VIII des Buches später noch ausgeführt
wird).
Nachdem der Begriff „Tod“ in seiner besonderen,
südamerikanischen Ausprägung Umrissen ist, wird im
zweiten Kapitel der mythische Ursprung des Todes
untersucht (22-48). Der dritte Abschnitt des Buches
handelt von der Lage des Totenreiches und von seinen
Bewohnern (49-61). Hier tritt nun ein spezifisches
Problem dieser Art vergleichender Arbeiten deutlich
hervor: Die Informationen über die Lage des Totenrei-
ches sind so verschiedenartig und auseinanderstrebend,
daß über eine klar gegliederte Zusammenstellung des
Materials hinaus nicht viel mehr geleistet werden kann.
Allgemeinere Erkenntnisse sind wegen der heteroge-
nen Aussagen der Quellen in diesem Punkt kaum
möglich, und Detailfragen können im Rahmen einer
vergleichenden Untersuchung über einen so weitge-
spannten geographischen Raum nur vereinzelt berück-
sichtigt werden. In jedem Fall ist es der Autorin aber
gelungen, das umfangreiche und vielschichtige Quel-
lenmaterial klar und übersichtlich darzustellen, ohne
daß man je den Eindruck gewinnt, die indianischen
Vorstellungen seien in ein Korsett vorgefaßter Meinun-
gen gepreßt worden.
Weitere Kapitel der Untersuchung (IV-V) sind
dem „Leben“ im Totenreich und dem Weg dorthin ge-
widmet. Es ist nämlich keineswegs selbstverständlich,
daß jeder Tote dorthin gelangt. Der Verstorbene hat
vielmehr häufig einen langen und mühevollen Weg zu-
rückzulegen, auf dem nicht selten allerhand Gefahren
lauern. Besteht die Totenseele die Proben nicht, droht
ihr die endgültige Vernichtung (62 ff.). Die Totensee-
len, die in das Totenreich aufgenommen werden, finden
dort meist eine ähnliche Gesellschaft und ähnliche „Le-
bensverhältnisse“ wie in der diesseitigen Welt vor. Das
soziale Leben der Toten unterscheidet sich nur geringfü-
gig von dem der Lebenden (78 ff.). Allerdings tritt ein
Verfremdungseffekt auf, häufig in Form des Motivs der
„verkehrten Welt“, der nach Cipollettis Auffassung
dazu dienen soll, die tiefgreifenden Unterschiede der
auf den ersten Blick so ähnlichen Welten der Lebenden
und der Toten zu verdeutlichen (86).
Abweichend von den uns vertrauten Vorstellun-
gen ist auch, daß im Erzählgut der südamerikanischen
Indianer nur selten ein paradiesisches Jenseits belegt ist
(87 ff.), wie wir es aus der abendländisch-christlichen
Tradition, wenigstens für einen Teil der Verstorbenen,
kennen. Manche Ethnien verbinden sogar recht negati-
ve Erwartungen mit dem Jenseits (88, 90 ff.).
Die letzten drei Kapitel des ersten Teils beschäfti-
gen sich mit dem „postmortalen Sonderschicksal“
(Kap. VI) und mit den Kontakten zwischen Lebenden
und Toten (Kap. VII-VIII). Kapitel VIII, das vom
Besuch Lebender im Totenreich handelt, hebt sich
allein durch seinen viel größeren Umfang (144-213)
von den vorhergegangenen ab. Darüber hinaus hat die
Verfasserin hier eine andere Art der Präsentation
gewählt. Sie faßt nicht gemeinsame Elemente verschie-
dener Texte zusammen, sondern bietet dem Leser
einen Reigen einzelner, in ihre konstitutiven inhaltli-
chen Elemente zerlegter Erzählungen, um mehreren
Texten gemeinsame Motive aufzuzeigen. Des weiteren
gestattet es diese Art der Darstellung, Detailprobleme
zu diskutieren und hierbei frühere Interpretationen
einiger Erzählungen zu revidieren oder zu ergänzen
(vgl. 176, 180). Außerdem gelingt es der Verfasserin,
das bisher in Südamerika als unbekannt geltende
Orpheus-Motiv wenigstens in zwei Fällen nachzuwei-
sen (200 ff.).
Einerseits sind die solcherart wiedergegebenen
Texte eine fesselnde Lektüre, weil sie dem Leser einen
unmittelbareren Blick auf das indianische Erzählgut
und den Vorgang der Textanalyse eröffnen. Anderer-
seits wirkt die große Zahl und Vielfalt der Erzählungen
etwas verwirrend. Auch hier ergibt sich wieder das
bereits oben erwähnte Problem, daß sich nämlich
Schlußfolgerungen allgemeiner Art schwerlich aus dem
divergierenden Material ziehen lassen. Allerdings war
dies ja auch in die Fragestellung der Arbeit nicht
miteingeschlossen, vielmehr sollten die Jenseitsvorstel-
lungen südamerikanischer Indianer systematisch darge-
stellt werden, was der Autorin durchwegs geglückt ist.
Zudem werden die einzelnen Kapitel nochmals von
Zusammenfassungen beschlossen, die die Übersicht
erleichtern.
In dem anschließenden, kürzeren zweiten Teil
beschäftigt sich die Verfasserin mit den Jenseitsvorstel-
lungen der Quechua- und Aymara-Bevölkerung des
Andengebietes (214-245). Die Autorin ließ hier wieder
die gleiche Sorgfalt walten wie im übrigen Buch und
liefert einen soliden Überblick über die bei den rezen-
ten Hochlandindianern verbreiteten Vorstellungen.
Allerdings fügt sich dieser Abschnitt an die vorange-
gangenen Ausführungen über die Tieflandindianer
nicht ganz nahtlos an, was wohl vor allem daran liegt,
daß diese beiden Hauptteile des Buches gänzlich
unverbunden nebeneinanderstehen. Sie werden zwar
durch die thematische Einheit zusammengehalten,
doch hätte eine Verknüpfung beider Teile - etwa durch
einen Vergleich der indianischen Auffassungen von
Tod und Jenseits im andinen und außerandinen Süd-
amerika - die Arbeit noch besser abrunden können.
Mit dem Thema „Jenseitsvorstellungen bei den
Indianern Südamerikas“ hat sich Maria Susana Cipol-
letti eine große Aufgabe gestellt, galt es doch, ein sehr
umfangreiches Material zu bearbeiten, ohne dabei den
Überblick zu verlieren. Sie hat diese Aufgabe sehr gut
bewältigt und mit ihrem Buch ein klar gegliedertes
Übersichtswerk über einen zentralen Bereich indiani-
scher Glaubensvorstellungen in Südamerika vorgelegt.
Trotz durchgängig straffer systematischer Darstellung
hat sie der Vielschichtigkeit der indianischen Jenseits-
Anthropos 83.1988
242
Rezensionen
Vorstellungen Rechnung getragen und vermittelt dem
Leser ein anschauliches Bild von der facettenreichen
Erzähltradition südamerikanischer Indianer. Dabei
bemüht sie sich immer um ein echtes Verständnis der
präsentierten Texte und der ihnen zugrundeliegenden
Auffassungen. Deswegen gelingt es der Autorin auch,
dem Leser einen Zugang zur Vorstellungswelt der
Indianer Südamerikas zu öffnen. Wer allerdings der
verbreiteten Meinung anhängt, Nachschlagewerke und
Dissertationen - Maria Susana Cipollettis Buch ist
beides - seien geeignete Mittel zur Bekämpfung von
Schlaflosigkeit, wird hier enttäuscht werden. Dieses
Buch bietet in guter wissenschaftlicher Prosa eine
überaus spannende Lektüre. Iris Gareis
Ciz, Karl Heinz: Robert Hartmann (1831-1893).
Mitbegründer der deutschen Ethnologie. Gelsenkir-
chen: Verlag Andreas Müller, 1984. 298 pp. Preis:
DM 39,-
Robert Hartmann, ursprünglich Zoologe und
Mediziner, gehört zu denjenigen Mitbegründern der
deutschen Ethnologie, die heute leider in Vergessen-
heit geraten sind. 1859/60 erhielt er die Gelegenheit,
als medizinischer Begleiter des Freiherrn v. Barnim an
einer Reise auf dem Weißen und dem Blauen Nil
teilzunehmen. Diese Reise, die die Expedition bis an
die äthiopische Grenze führte, wurde bestimmend für
sein weiteres Schaffen. Neben Anthropologie, Urge-
schichte und Biologie galt sein Interesse hauptsächlich
der Ethnologie Afrikas. 1876 erschien aus seiner Feder
die erste selbständige ethnologische Zusammenfassung
über Afrika: „Die Nigritier“, eine überaus moderne
Streitschrift, die sich mit den damals vorherrschenden
Meinungen kritisch auseinandersetzte. Hartmann be-
trachtete die Afrikaner als eine relativ autochtone
Einheit und versuchte, nach Unterschieden zu klassifi-
zieren. Vor allem aber behandelte er die Afrikaner als
geschichtliche und kulturfähige Ethnien, was - heute
eine Selbstverständlichkeit - zu seiner Zeit als radikal
gelten mußte.
Als Novum in den Gesamtdarstellungen über
Afrika ist Hartmanns intensive Beschäftigung mit Kul-
turpflanzen, Ackerbau und Kulturtieren, also dem
Komplex der Wirtschaftsethnologie anzusehen. Für
den Zoologen stellte die Haustierkunde eine bedeutsa-
me Hilfswissenschaft der Ethnologie dar. Sein beson-
deres Interesse galt der Verknüpfung der Beziehung
Mensch/Tier und ihrer Bedeutung für die Physiogno-
mie ganzer Landstriche. Doch auch auf Fragen der
Ethnosoziologie und Ethnomedizin geht er in seinem
Werk ein.
Hartmann, der entscheidend daran mitwirkte, die
Begriffe Nigritier, Nilot und z. T. Pygmäe in die Eth-
nologie einzuführen, gründete 1869 zusammen mit A.
Bastian die Zeitschrift für Ethnologie und war bis zu
seinem Tode 1893 ihr Schriftführer.
Ausgangspunkt für das vorliegende Buch von Karl
Heinz Ciz ist die Kritik an einigen deutschsprachigen
Arbeiten der letzten Jahre, in denen - wie er sagt -
Einzelphänomene aus den Arbeiten von Forschern des
19. Jh.s ausgewählt wurden, die für ihn zu groben
Verallgemeinerungen über die Forschung einer ganzen
Epoche führen. „Es scheint, als ob eine emanzipierte
Generation mit . . . negativ-kritischen Äußerungen mit
der Forschung der vor- und kolonialen Zeit abrechnen
möchte“ (4). Anhand der Beschäftigung und Würdi-
gung des Gesamtwerks einer heute weithin unbekann-
ten Forscherpersönlichkeit will Ciz diesen Verallgemei-
nerungen ein Gegengewicht entgegensetzen. Er tut
dies, indem er das weitverstreute Schrifttum Hart-
manns ordnet und vor unserem Auge das Gedankengut
eines Gelehrten entfaltet, der seiner Zeit um einige
Jahrzehnte voraus war.
Nach einer Übersicht über die Typologie der
afrikanischen Kulturen im 19. und 20. Jh. macht Ciz
den Leser mit der Ethnologie Afrikas im Werk von
Hartmann bekannt, aber auch mit den Hartmann be-
sonders interessierenden Grenzgebieten der Ethnolo-
gie. Den Hauptteil des Buches (129-279) nimmt Hart-
manns Reise nach Ägypten und in den Sudan sowie
ihre Forschungsergebnisse und Kritik im Kontext der
wissenschaftlichen Debatte der Zeit ein. Anhand des
gesammelten Materials über eine Reihe von Völkern
wird das Typische und die Modernität von Hartmanns
Arbeitsweise deutlich. „Jede ethnologische Abhand-
lung von ihm ist ein Stück der kulturhistorischen
Völkerkunde. Er vertrat eine kulturhistorische Rich-
tung im breitesten Sinne und nicht so eng, daß er sich
nur mit schriftlichen Quellen zufrieden geben würde.
Hartmann wandte die neuesten Ergebnisse aus der
Archäologie, der Früh- und Urgeschichte, aber auch
der Kulturpflanzen- und Kulturtiergeschichte, der
Geologie und Demographie an. Er war es auch, der
den Afrikanern (in dieser Zeit der herrschenden Auf-
fassung der Geschichtslosigkeit und Unproduktivität
der Afrikaner) die Geschichte zurückgab und sie in
Beziehung mit Ägypten setzte“ (97).
Arbeiten wie die von Ciz sind von bleibendem
Wert für die Ethnologie - auch als Gegengewicht, vor
allem aber als Beitrag zur Archäologie unseres
Faches. Heribert Körner
Clastres, Pierre: Chronik der Guayaki. Die sich
selbst Ache nennen, nomadische Jäger in Paraguay.
München: Trickster Verlag, 1984. 233 pp., fig., photos.
Preis; DM 36,-
Mit diesem Buch des französischen Ethnologen
Pierre Clastres (1934-1977), das auf seiner einjährigen
Feldforschung von 1963 bis 1964 bei den Ache eines
Reservats im Osten Paraguays basiert, hat der Trick-
ster Verlag dem deutschsprachigen Lesepublikum eine
wichtige Arbeit über diese Jäger- und Sammlergruppe
zugänglich gemacht. Die Übersetzung des bereits 1972
erschienen Orginals (Chronique des Indiens Guayaki.
Ce que savent les Ache chasseurs nomades du Para-
guay, Paris) besorgte Rosemarie Farkas. Die Ausgabe
ist mit zahlreichen Zeichnungen und 34 Schwarzweiß-
fotografien des Autors versehen.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
243
Clastres’ Buch ist in mehrfacher Hinsicht eine
Chronik. Es schreibt zum einen die Geschichte der
Ache von 17. Jahrhundert bis in Jahr 1964 und doku-
mentiert damit gleichzeitig ihren kulturellen Wandel.
Außerdem beschreibt es den Ablauf eines Ache-
Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod, und nicht zuletzt
auch den einer Feldforschung. So vielschichtig wie der
Inhalt ist auch die Struktur des Textes, der neun
Kapitel umfaßt.
Die Geschichte der Ache (Kap. 2 und 3) ist ab
dem 17. Jahrhundert faßbar. Clastres verarbeitet die
historischen Quellen und gelangt zu der Auffassung,
daß es sich bei den Ache nicht um die wildbeuterischen
Erstbewohner des Gebietes, sondern um ehemalige
Bodenbauer handelt, die ihre Pflanzungen unter dem
Druck der einwandernden Guarani aufgegeben hatten.
Im 18. Jahrhundert berichten jesuitische Missionare
von vergeblichen Versuchen einer Missionierung und
Seßhaftmachung dieser Jäger und Sammler. Erst ab
Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts hört man wieder von ihnen.
Die ab dieser Zeit stark expandierende paraguayani-
sche Vieh- und Forstwirtschaft schränkt den Lebens-
raum der Ache zunehmend ein und die immer häufiger
werdenden gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen mit
den Paraguayanern führen zur Auflösung der drei zu
unterscheidenden Ache-Stämme und zur Vernichtung
ganzer Bevölkerungsteile durch Krankheiten und
Genozid. Clastres zeichnet diesen Prozeß aus der Sicht
beider Seiten nach, indem er Siedler wie Ache zu Wort
kommen läßt. Diese Berichte stellen gleichzeitig die
grausame Vorgeschichte der Ache dar, die sich zwi-
schen 1959 und 1963 auf dem Reservat Arroyo Moroti,
dem Ort der Feldforschung, niederließen.
Aufgrund bereits vorhandener Sprachkenntnisse
gewinnt Clastres rasch Kontakt zu den Ache. Sein
vorrangiges Interesse gilt dabei dem Erfassen ihrer
traditionellen Lebensweise wie er sie aus den Quellen
erschließt und die er seinen Angaben nach im Lager
noch weitgehend erleben bzw. von den Erwachsenen
erfragen konnte. Über seine ausführlichen Beschrei-
bungen der wirtschaftlichen und politischen Aktivitä-
ten, des sozialen Lebens wie es sich jeweils typisch für
bestimmte Altersstufen gestaltet und des Verhältnisses
zwischen Männern und Frauen, vermittelt der Autor
einen lebendigen Eindruck vom Alltag der Ache, den
Mechanismen ihres Zusammenlebens und den Wert-
vorstellungen, die ihr Verhalten prägen.
Clastres ist ein leidenschaftlicher und exakter
Beobachter, kein Detail, keine Nebenhandlung scheint
ihm zu entgehen. Er bleibt jedoch nicht auf der
beschreibenden Ebene stehen. Auf der Suche nach
einer „tieferen Sinnebene, der unbewußten Stufe ihres
Denkens“ (22), unterzieht er die sichtbare, nur schein-
bar ungeordnete Welt der Ache einer Strukturanalyse.
Einer solchen Vorgehensweise liegt die Annahme
zugrunde, daß der Mensch seine Umwelt unbewußt in
Form von Gegensatzpaaren klassifiziert. Als einziges
Lebewesen besitzt er die Fähigkeit, das auf diese Weise
in der Natur Wahrgenommene symbolisch (z. B.
sprachlich, rituell) umzusetzen und so in den Bereich
der Kultur zu stellen. Damit unterscheidet sich der
Mensch von der Natur, aus dieser Abgrenzung zu ihr
bezieht er seine Identität. Die kulturellen Äußerungen
der Ache erscheinen demnach als Ausdruck ihrer
Auseinandersetzung mit der Natur und mit grundlegen-
den Oppositionen wie Mann-Frau, Inzest-Frauentausch
und Leben-Tod. Diese arbeitet Clastres anhand der
Analyse der unterschiedlichen Arbeitsbereiche von
Männern und Frauen (Kap. 7) sowie der zentralen
Ereignisse im Leben der Ache - Geburt (Kap. 1),
Initiation (Kap. 4), Tod (Kap. 6, 7, 8) und das Fest des
„tö kybairu“ (Kap. 5) - als Ordnungsprinzipien heraus.
Begriffliche und gegenständliche Symbole, Wertvor-
stellungen, Tabus, mythische Motive und insbesondere
rituelle Handlungen (etwa das Anbringen von Lippen-
pflöcken sowie umfangreicher Skarifizierungen bei der
Initiation, kriegerische Zurschaustellung und anschlie-
ßende Versöhnungsrituale während des „tö kybairu“,
rituelle Kindestötungen, Kannibalismus und Sekundär-
bestattung) werden dabei verstehbar. Sie erscheinen als
Ausdruck und Bestätigung einer logischen „Ordnung
der Dinge“, in die jeder Einzelne eingebunden ist und
die auf der Anerkennung und Wahrung grundlegender
Gegensätze beruht.
Jede Vermischung unvereinbarer Bereiche - etwa
durch die Weigerung, Frauentausch zu praktizieren,
sich den Übergangsritualen zu unterziehen, oder durch
eine nachlässige Durchführung oder gar Aufgabe von
Ritualen - bedeutet, Unordnung in die Gesellschaft zu
tragen, die Grenze zwischen Natur und Kultur zu
verletzen und damit die eigene Menschlichkeit in Frage
zu stellen. Mit derartigen Vorkommnissen wird der
Autor während seines Aufenthaltes immer wieder kon-
frontiert. Für ihn ist dies Zeichen eines Verfalls des
Identitätsbewußtseins und Selbstwertgefühls der Ache,
ein Prozeß, dem er ihre Kultur seit dem Kontakt mit
den Paraguayanern unaufhaltsam ausgesetzt sieht.
Clastres geht wohl auf diese psychische Dimension des
kulturellen Wandels ein, kaum jedoch auf die materiel-
len und sozialen Aspekte desselben.
Die Chronik, die mit einer nächtlichen Geburt
und der Geschichte der Ache beginnt, endet mit einem
nächtlichen Begräbnis und dem Gesang eines Ache auf
das Ende seines Volkes (Kap. 9). Zu Beginn von
Clastres’ Feldforschung hatten 100 Personen auf dem
Reservat gelebt, als er es 1964 verließ, waren es nur
noch 75, 1968, wie er berichtet, nur noch dreißig, die
anderen waren an Krankheiten und weil es ihnen „an
allem mangelte“ gestorben (229). Er selbst kehrt be-
wußt nie wieder zu den Ache zurück. Er wollte sich die
Erinnerung „an die Frömmigkeit der Ache bewahren,
diese Gemessenheit in ihrem Dasein in der Welt der
Dinge und der Welt der Lebewesen“ (231).
Dieses Buch ist kein „objektives“, nüchternes
Nachschlagewerk. Es präsentiert vielmehr eine Fülle
ethnographischen Materials sowie scharfsinnige Struk-
turanalysen in literarischer Form. Der Autor bedient
sich dabei verschiedener Erzählebenen. Über weite
Strecken referiert er die Aussagen der Ache über sich
selber, er spricht selbst als Fremder unter Fremden, als
Anthropos 83.1988
244
Rezensionen
teilnehmender Beobachter, als fragender, selbstkriti-
scher und als wissender Ethnologe. Diese Darstellungs-
form zielt nicht auf das Vermitteln von Rohdaten ab.
Der Leser wird gleich zu Beginn unmittelbar in das
Geschehen - die Geburt - hineingeführt. Erst nach und
nach erfährt er über Episoden, exakte Beschreibungen,
Analysen und Reflexionen, wer die Adié eigentlich
sind, welches die Umstände der Feldforschung und die
Anliegen des Forschers sind. Der Autor vermittelt auf
diese Weise ein differenziertes, lebendiges, gelegent-
lich idealisierendes, aber angesichts der Veränderun-
gen bedrückendes Bild von der Kultur der Adié, die
hier nicht als Forschungsobjekte eines Ethnologen,
sondern als ernstzunehmende, selbstbewußte Men-
schen auftreten. Clastres läßt den Leser an seiner
Feldforschung teilnehmen, an seiner methodischen
Vorgehensweise (ohne daß man diese teilen muß), an
seinen Erfolgen und Fehlschlägen und am Prozeß
seiner eigenen Annäherung an die Adié. Er führt ganz
dicht an sie heran und macht ihr Handeln, Denken und
Fühlen verstehbar. Doch niemals ist er Voyeur oder
gibt er sich allwissend. Immer bewahrt er eine respekt-
volle Distanz und Hochachtung vor den Adié, denn
„die Adié wissen schon, was sie tun“. Eine anspruchs-
volle, spannende Lektüre, ein äußerst lesenswertes
Buch, nicht nur für Ethnologen. Maike Kleihauer
Das Gupta, Tapan Kumar: Beiträge zur Muse-
umsdidaktik am Beispiel einer ethnographischen
Sammlung. Präsentation und Evaluation. Hohenschäft-
larn: Klaus Renner Verlag, 1985. 118 pp., Abb.
(Monographien zur Völkerkunde, 9) Preis; DM48,-
Die Museumsethnologen werden, was sehr zu
begrüßen ist, experimentierfreudig. Nach den Debat-
ten der 70er Jahre über die Programmatik insbesonde-
re der Bildungsarbeit in ethnologischen Museen sind
möglichst umfassend kontrollierte und dokumentierte
Ausstellungsexperimente eine logische und notwendige
Konsequenz. Die Ergebnisse eines der ersten dieser
Experimente legt der Autor des hier zu besprechenden
Buches nun vor. Es fand in den Jahren 1978-1981 statt
und stellt im deutschen Sprachraum nicht nur für diese
Zeit eine gewisse Pionierleistung dar. Sowohl dem
Autor als auch den Förderern des Projektes (Gottfried
Hausmann vom Unesco-Institut in Hamburg sowie
Gernot Prunner und Jürgen Zwernemann vom Ham-
burgischen Museum für Völkerkunde) sollte daher für
die Ermöglichung und glückliche Durchführung des
Experiments, aus dessen Ergebnissen ja auch ex nega-
tive gelernt werden kann, vorab gedankt werden.
Das Experiment bestand in Folgendem: Aus einer
in den Jahren 1927 und 1928 angelegten Sammlung der
materialisierten Kultur der Oraon, die im Nordosten
Indiens leben, wurden unter Beschränkung auf den
Bereich der Frauenkleidung und des Frauenschmucks
eine Reihe Ausstellungsgegenstände ausgewählt. Diese
wurden durch analoge Objekte aus dem Jahre 1978
ergänzt, so daß in einer Vitrine der ständigen Süd- und
Ostasien-Ausstellung des Hamburgischen Museums für
Völkerkunde durch den Vergleich der beiden Objekt-
gruppen der Kulturwandel in dieser Gesellschaft im
Rahmen des genannten Beispielbereichs dagestellt
werden konnte. Die Vitrine gehört zu einem symme-
trisch zu einer Nische angeordneten Vitrinenkomplex,
der noch eine weitere gleich hohe Wandvitrine sowie
zwei Eck- und eine Pultvitrine umfaßt. In den weiteren
Vitrinen, die vom Forschungsdesign des Experiments
her mit diesem nichts zu tun haben sollten, werden die
folgenden Themen behandelt: Masken aus Sri Lanka,
Schrift, Schmuck und Töpfereierzeugnisse ebenfalls
aus Sri Lanka sowie Religion in Nepal. Über der
Pultvitrine, die den hinteren Querteil der Nische bil-
det, befindet sich ein Fenster, auf dem eine farbige
Landkarte von Indien einschließlich Nepals und Sri
Lankas sowie eine Serie von großen Schwarzweißdia-
positiven über ethnische Besonderheiten diese Subkon-
tinents angebracht sind.
Als zweiter Teil des Experiments wurde neben der
Vitrine zum Kulturwandel ein vom Autor so genannter
Apparat aufgestellt, der das exemplarische Thema in
der Experimentalvitrine durch weitere Informationen
über die Oraon ergänzen sollte. Der Apparat hatte die
folgende Form: Drei wie in einer Kommode unterein-
ander angeordnete Schubladen informierten, wenn sie
von den Besucher(inne)n herausgezogen wurden, in
der Form kleinerer Pultvitrinen und mit Hilfe von
Texten, Bildern und kleineren Objekten über die
Themen „Vogelfang“, „Betelkauen“ und „Schmuck“
(für Männer und Frauen). Weitere Text- und Bildinfor-
mationen befanden sich auf drei senkrecht nebeneinan-
der angeordneten Schautafeln, die ebenfalls von den
Besucher(inne)n aus einem umrahmenden Kasten her-
ausgezogen werden mußten. Sie umfaßten die Themen
„Land und Leute“ (= allgemeine Informationen über
die Oraon), „Indienexpedition 1927-28 von J. Konietz-
ko“ (der die Sammlung, aus der die Ausstellungsobjek-
te ausgewählt worden waren, ihre Existenz verdankte)
und „Kulturwandel“ in erweiterter Fassung, die aus kur-
zen verbalen, durch Piktogramme ergänzten Vergleichen
zu den folgenden Unterthemen bestand: „Wirtschaft“,
„Nahrung“, „Kleidung“, „andere Gebrauchsgegenstän-
de“, „Religion“, „Tanz und Musik“, „Erziehung“. Die
äußere Form erzwang kürzeste Stichwortformulierun-
gen, aus denen teilweise problematische Vergleichs-
anordnungen entstanden. - Nach einer vom Autor
1980 durchgeführten Reise in das Oraon-Gebiet wurde
in das Arrangement eine vierte Schautafel mit dem
Thema „Indien-Reise 1980“ aufgenommen. Nach die-
ser Reise erfolgte außerdem eine formale Umgestal-
tung der Ausstellung in der Experimentalvitrine, bei
der auch einige inhaltliche Details verändert wurden.
Ebensowenig wie der Autor auf die eingangs
dieser Rezension erwähnte programmatische Debatte
unter den Museumsethnologen der 70er Jahre eingeht
- sein kurzer Hinweis darauf (15) hat für seine weiteren
Überlegungen keine Konsequenzen -, gibt er irgendei-
ne Begründung für die Auswahl der Themen in seinem
gesamten Ausstellungsarrangement. Diese Auswahl
scheint vielmehr äußerst willkürlich getroffen worden
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
245
zu sein und wurde wohl allenfalls von den in der
Sammlung zur Verfügung stehenden Objekten beein-
flußt. Beim Thema „Vogelfang“ wird diese Willkür
besonders offenkundig; denn auf entsprechende Rück-
fragen von seiten der Besucher(inne)n ist der Autor
nicht einmal in der Lage zu sagen, was denn die
Oraon-Kinder mit den von ihnen gefangenen Vögeln
machen, geschweige denn, daß er den Stellenwert
bestimmen könnte, den der Vogelfang in der Kultur
der Oraon insgesamt einnahm. Auch die Entscheidung,
den Kulturwandel bei den Oraon in der Hauptvitrine
der Ausstellung am Beispiel von Kleidung und
Schmuck der Oraon-Frauen zu zeigen, die angesichts
der vom Verfasser akzeptierten äußerst engen Rah-
menbedingungen seines Experiments durchaus be-
gründbar wäre, scheint eher zufällig und intuitiv
zustande gekommen zu sein.
Der zweite wesentliche Teil des Experiments von
Das Gupta bestand in der Evaluierung des bisher
beschriebenen Ausstellungsarrangements. Als theoreti-
schen Hintergrund für die Evaluierung ebenso wie für
den didaktischen Rahmen seiner Ausstellung entwirft
Das Gupta jeweils sehr umfassende und sehr abstrakte
Begriffsschemata, die so allgemein gehalten sind, daß
ihr Bezug zu den konkreten Fragen des Museums nicht
so recht erkennbar wird. So wie die didaktische Pla-
nung der Ausstellung eher etwas kurzschlüssig und
oberflächlich wirkt, ist auch die Organisation der Eva-
luierung äußerst pragmatisch und gerät darüber hinaus
in Widerspruch zu seinen eigenen Ansprüchen. Wäh-
rend er in seinen didaktischen Reflexionen darauf be-
steht, daß mit seinen Ausstellungsaktivitäten Lernpro-
zesse organisiert würden, ignoriert er in der Evaluie-
rung gerade die Frage danach, was und wie die Besu-
cher(inne)n denn in seiner Ausstellung gelernt haben,
und bemüht sich lediglich zu erfassen, wie sie sein
Ausstellungsarrangement bewerten, bedient sich also
eines sehr eingeschränkten Begriffs von Evaluierung.
Für die Evaluierung verwendet er drei verschiede-
ne Methoden: eine teilweise verdeckte Beobachtung,
eine schriftliche und eine mündliche Befragung, die er
als „zentriertes Interview“ nach R. K. Merton bezeich-
net. Die Ergebnisse der Befragungen teilt er in teilwei-
se arg redundanter Form mit, die allerdings den Vorteil
hat, daß ihr Entstehungszusammenhang und ihre
Eigenart gut nachvollziehbar bleiben. Obwohl der
Fächer der Fragen sowohl bei den schriftlichen als auch
bei den mündlichen Interviews sehr breit ist, vermißt
der Rezensent eine wesentliche Dimension. So ziehen
mündlich befragte Besucher mehrfach von sich aus
Vergleiche zwischen der von Das Gupta gewählten
Ausstellungsform und anderen, die sie in weiteren
Teilen der Ausstellungen desselben Museums kennen-
gelernt haben, ohne daß der Autor diesen sehr wichti-
gen und aufschlußreichen Hinweisen in seinen eigenen
Bewertungsüberlegungen Beachtung schenkt.
Den Zweck seiner Besucherbeobachtung verkürzt
Das Gupta darauf, Hinweise auf Fehler in seinem
Ausstellungsarrangement zu bekommen. So stellt er
fest, daß das bloße Bereitstellen der Zusatzinformatio-
nen in den Schubkästen und auf den herausziehbaren
Tafeln nicht ausreicht, bei den Besucher(inne)n Selbst-
tätigkeit zu induzieren. Erst sehr nachdrückliche
schriftliche Aufforderungen hätten diesen geholfen,
ihre Scheu beim Manipulieren des Apparates zu über-
winden. Verbal erhielt der Autor dagegen den Hin-
weis, daß die Möglichkeit zu eigener Betätigung in der
Ausstellung sehr begrüßt würde. Für eine verläßliche
Einschätzung dieses Widerspruchs wäre es sehr wün-
schenswert, wenn in längeren Phasen das Besucherver-
halten möglichst auch im Vergleich mit anderen Aus-
stellungsformen beobachtet worden wäre, so daß quan-
tifizierte Aussagen auf der Basis einer ausreichenden
Zahl von beobachteten Verhaltensabläufen hätten
gemacht werden können.
Diesen noch gleichsam immanent an der Arbeit
von Das Gupta orientierten kritischen Bemerkungen
sind noch zwei mehr übergreifende Bedenken hinzuzu-
fügen. - So scheint zum einen das gesamte Forschungs-
design von vornherein mit der Hypothek der Auswahl
einen zu kleinen Austellungsausschnittes belastet wor-
den zu sein. Einer naiven Orientierung an der empi-
risch-analytischen Wissenschaftstheorie mag eine Vitri-
ne als durchaus selbständige Einheit einer Ausstellung
erscheinen. Üblicherweise bildet sie jedoch eher einen
Teil einer für den Besucherblick nicht weiter zerlegba-
ren Ganzheit. Im vorliegenden Fall dürften die recht
heterogenen Ausstellungsthemen in der Nische, zu der
auch die Experimentalvitrine des Autors gehörte, in
Kombination mit seinen eher suggestiven, ausschließ-
lich auf das von ihm geschaffene Arrangement gerich-
teten Fragen über den von den Besucher(inne)n tat-
sächlich gesehenen Zusammenhang hinweggetäuscht
haben. Zumindest ergeben sich aus den von Das Gupta
wörtlich zitierten Antworten nur vereinzelte Hinweise
darauf, daß das Experimentalarrangement in selbstver-
ständlicher Verbindung mit den übrigen Ausstellungs-
teilen der Nische gesehen worden ist.
Das zweite generellere Bedenken gegenüber der
Arbeit von Das Gupta findet seine Bestätigung unmit-
telbar in einer vom Autor mitgeteilten Besucheräuße-
rung. Sie lautet (75, Antwort 19); „Ich gehe nicht ins
Museum, um wissenschaftlich zu arbeiten, sondern
wegen sinnvoller Freizeitgestaltung. Ein weißer Kasten
macht mich daher nicht besonders an.“ - Zwar bleibt
dieses Zitat insgesamt eine vereinzelte Besucherbemer-
kung, dennoch ergibt sich daraus eine unmittelbare
Bestätigung der von Heiner Treinen (u. a. 1981) vorge-
tragenen und empirisch gut untermauerten Hypothese,
daß Museumsausstellungen nicht als Bildungseinrich-
tungen im Sinne von Schulen oder Volkshochschulen
aufzufassen seien, sondern vielmehr in Analogie zu
Massenmedien wie dem Fernsehen gesehen werden
müßten.
Das Guptas didaktisches Konzept jedoch - auch
wenn er sich dessen im Konkreten selbst gar nicht so
recht bedient - wurde von ihm gerade in Anlehnung an
eine Didaktik formuliert, die am schulischen Lernen
orientiert ist (G. Heimann 1962, H. Roth 1976).
Hieran ändert auch sein ausdrücklicher Bezug auf die
Anthropos 83.1988
246
Rezensionen
von G. Hausmann (1969) vorgenommene Erweiterung
dieses Ansatzes nichts. Eine weitere indirekte Bestäti-
gung von Treinens (1981) Ansicht liefert dann Das
Gupta selbst, indem er im Gegensatz zu seinem eige-
nen Anspruch die von ihm durchgeführte Evaluierung
gerade nicht an seinem didaktischen Modell orientiert,
sondern auf eine bloße Bewertung reduziert, wie sie
für ein Produkt der Massenmedien-Industrie ebenfalls
angewendet werden könnte.
Abschließend mag der Rezensent - bei aller
Bereitschaft, dem Pioniercharakter der hier besproche-
nen Arbeit Anerkennung zu zollen - seine Enttäu-
schung darüber nicht verhehlen, daß in diesem Experi-
ment, das immerhin über drei Jahre gedauert hat und
dessen Ergebnisse erst weitere drei Jahre später vorge-
legt werden, nur ein so enger Ausschnitt aus dem
Problembereich ethnologischer Ausstellungen mit
einer so verkürzten und so wenig problembewußten
Methodik bearbeitet wurde. Volker Harms
Donnan, Christopher B. (ed.): Early Ceremonial
Architecture in the Andes. A Conference at Dumbar-
ton Oaks, 8th to lOth October 1982. Washington;
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
1985. 289 pp., illus. Price: $ 15.00
In diesem neuen Band aus Dumbarton Oaks
äußern sich eine Reihe von Autoren zum Thema
Zeremonialanlagen mit dem Grundtenor, daß dieser
Bereich eine sehr wichtige Quelle für die Erforschung
früher, sich allmählich differenzierender, also komple-
xer werdender Gesellschaften darstellt. Der vorliegen-
de Band gibt eine Zusammenfassung des derzeitigen
Wissensstandes über Zeremonialanlagen, die in der
Zeitspanne zwischen dem späten Präkeramikum und
dem Beginn des Chavin-Horizontes im zentralen
Andenraum entstanden.
Wie schon das Symposium, so ist auch der Band
dem Andenken des im Jahre 1982 verstorbenen
Archäologen J. B. Bird gewidmet, dessen Forschungs-
tätigkeit von Gordon R. Willey (“Junius Bouton Bird
and American Archaeology”) gewürdigt wird. Es sind
vor allem die Themenkreise „Frühmensch in Südameri-
ka“, „Nordchile“, „peruanische Küste“ und „Archäo-
logie und Technologie“, die untrennbar mit dem wis-
senschaftlichen Schaffen von J. B. Bird verbunden
sind. Einige biographische Angaben ergänzen das Por-
trät des Wissenschaftlers und Menschen J. B. Bird,
dessen überragende Persönlichkeit auch in einem
Nachruf von Craig Morris {AA 1985) aufscheint.
Der einleitende Beitrag von Michael E. Moseley
(“The Exploration and Explanation of Early Monu-
mental Architecture in the Andes”) führt den Leser an
die Kernfragen der Erforschung von frühen Zeremoni-
alanlagen heran. Moseley weist auf die Theorien hin,
die in der Wissenschaft über Jahrzehnte hinweg allzu
dogmatisch tradiert wurden und sich hemmend auf die
Forschung auswirkten. So kann nach heutigem Wissen
der Chavin-Horizont nicht mehr als Anfang und Aus-
gangspunkt der zivilisatorischen Entfaltung im zentra-
len Andenraum gesehen werden. Die bedeutende
Zeremonialanlage von Chavín de Huäntar steht viel-
mehr am Ende einer über zwei Jahrtausende währen-
den, höchst vielseitigen Entwicklung. Anpassungspro-
zesse an jeweils unterschiedliche geographische und
ökologische Gegebenheiten führten zu lokal oft recht
unterschiedlicher Gestaltung von Zeremonialanlagen.
In den verschiedenen architektonischen Formen in der
Zeit vor Chavín manifestieren sich auch unterschiedli-
che religiöse Traditionen. Allgemein spielte jedoch die
Verwendung von Feuer (Rauch) oder Wasser - als
heilige Medien - eine wichtige Rolle, ebenso die
Vorstellung, daß man auf erhöhten Plattformen oder in
eingetieften Höfen den Numina näher war.
Thomas C. Patterson leitet mit seinem kurzen
Beitrag (“The Huaca La Florida, Rimac Valley, Peru”)
den Teil des Bandes ein, in welchem sich die Autoren
jeweils auf einzelne Anlagen konzentrieren. Über die
an der peruanischen Zentralküste gelegene, sehr be-
kannte Huaca La Florida verfügte die Forschung bis-
her nur über sehr fragmentarische Informationen, die
der Autor hier zu ergänzen versucht, indem er eini-
ge besondere Charakteristika dieses U-förmigen Pyra-
midenkomplexes darlegt und aus Kleinfunden auch
auf mögliche gesellschaftliche Hintergründe schließt.
Die Entwicklung nicht-egalitärer Gesellschaftssy-
steme versucht auch Robert A. Feldman (“Preceramic
Corporate Architecture: Evidence for the Develop-
ment of Non-Egalitarian Social Systems in Peru”) am
Beispiel der Fundstätte Aspero (Supe-Tal), der auch
schon seine Dissertation (1980) gewidmet war, anhand
von Architektur und Kleinfunden darzustellen. Die
sich in der Bauanordnung widerspiegelnde Sozialstruk-
tur und die Arbeitsorganisation stehen dabei im Mittel-
punkt seiner Betrachtung.
Nach einem Überblick, in welchem Terence Grie-
der und Alberto Bueno Mendoza den Zeremonialkom-
plex von La Galgada vorgestellt hatten, geben sie in
ihrem Beitrag (“Ceremonial Architecture at La Galga-
da”) einige detailliertere Angaben über mögliche
Bebauungsabfolgen dieser teilweise erstaunlich gut
erhaltenen Sakralanlage. Darüber hinaus stellen sie
einige durchaus naheliegende Spekulationen bezüglich
der Art der Kulthandlungen, die einst in den heiligen
Räumen vollzogen wurden, an: Während sich in den
zur ältesten Bauphase gehörenden kleinen Raumstruk-
turen mit ihren Herdstellen im Mittelpunkt der sakra-
len Räumlichkeiten wahrscheinlich Mitglieder einer
noch weitgehend egalitären Bevölkerung versammelt
haben könnten, um an besonderen Kulthandlungen
teilzunehmen, wobei man möglicherweise Chili-Pfef-
ferschoten und Opfergaben verbrannte, scheint hinter
der später errichteten großen U-förmigen Anlage
bereits deutlich eine zentrale Autorität gestanden zu
haben. Auch das kultische Geschehen war wohl einem
Wandel unterworfen, denn in der neuen Anlage erge-
ben sich keine Anhaltspunkte mehr für die weitere
rituelle Verwendung von Feuer.
Für jenen älteren religiösen Komplex, in dem der
zeremonielle Gebrauch von Feuer üblich war, hatten
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
247
Richard L. Burger und Lucy Salazar-Burger (1980) die
Bezeichnung “Kotosh Religious Tradition” geprägt.
Zu dieser religiösen Tradition zählen die Autoren
neben der namengebenden Stätte Kotosh auch die
Zeremonialanlage Huaricoto, im Callejón de Huaylas,
die sie in ihrem Beitrag (“The Early Cermonial Center
of Huaricoto”) ausführlicher behandeln. Das Fehlen
von sicher datierbaren Gegenständen im Sakralbezirk
sowie die Gepflogenheit, kultische Anlagen - Herdstel-
len und sogar ganze Baukomplexe - mit Erde oder
Steinmaterial zu überdecken, gewissermaßen zu versie-
geln, erschwert die Datierung von Huaricoto. Das
Phänomen des “temple entombment”, der „rituellen
Beerdigung“ von kleineren und größeren Zermonialan-
lagen wird in diesem Band so häufig angesprochen, daß
man diese Sitte wohl als Charakteristikum früher Anla-
gen betrachten kann. Kulthandlungen scheinen in den
frühen Zeremonialanlagen noch weitgehend Einzeler-
eignisse gewesen zu sein und wurden wahrscheinlich
erst viel später regelmäßig ausgeführt. “Monuments
and Social Complexity” von D. L. Oliveira (Oxford
Journal of Archaeology 1986: 103-107) bietet zu diesen
Fragen weitere Anregungen.
Den einzelnen Bauphasen der zu dem im Moche-
Tal landeinwärts liegenden „Caballo Muerto Komplex“
gehörenden Huaca Los Reyes widmet sich William J.
Conklin (“The Architecture of Huaca Los Reyes”).
Mittels eines fünfteiligen Analysemodells, basierend
auf baulichen Charakteristika, versucht er die architek-
tonischen Strukturen dieser Anlage zeitlich zu ordnen.
Die Architektur und die Kunst von Cerro Sechin
sind das Thema des Beitrags von Lorenzo Samaniego,
Enrique Vergara und Henning Bischof (“New Evidence
on Cerro Sechin, Casma Valley, Peru”). Sie behandeln
nicht nur den bekannten vor-chavin-zeitlichen Ortho-
statenbau mit seiner fast ausschließlich mit anthropo-
morphen Figuren reliefierten Mauer, sondern auch den
älteren Lehmziegelbau mit Resten von Bemalung (Feh-
den) und Lehmrelieffierungen (Fische und eine anthro-
pomorphe Gestalt). Die Fundstratigraphie ergab eine
Reihe von Hinweisen, die dieses bemerkenswerte Ze-
remonialzentrum in die Zeit vor 1300 v. Chr. datieren.
Als sinnvolle Ergänzung zur Thematik sei dem deut-
schen Leser die leicht zugängliche Untersuchung von
H. Bischof über die Entstehung des Chavin-Stils emp-
fohlen (Beiträge zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden
Archäologie 1984: 355^452).
Den beiden unweit der heutigen Stadt Cajamarca
gelegenen Fundstätten Huacaloma und Layzon widmet
sich Kazuo Terada (“Early Ceremonial Architecture in
the Cajamarca Valley”), wobei er die sich für die
verschiedenen Perioden abzeichnenden unterschiedli-
chen architektonischen Prinzipien in den Mittelpunkt
stellt. Eine ausführliche monographische Bearbeitung
von Huacaloma erfolgte bereits früher (Terada und
Onuki, Tokyo 1982).
Die Grabungsaktivitäten am mittleren Jequetepe-
que-Fluß wurden infolge des Gallito-Ciego-Staudamm-
projektes in den letzten Jahren intensiviert, da der
Stausee eine Zone mit zahlreichen archäologischen
Hinterlassenschaften überfluten wird. In seinem Bei-
trag (“Early Monumental Architecture of the Jequete-
peque Valley, Peru”) will Rogger Ravines einen Über-
blick über einige der recht zahlreichen Monumental-
bauten der Initialen Periode und des Frühen Horizon-
tes im Jequetepeque-Tal geben und sie mit anderen
Zeremonialkomplexen aus dem Zentralen Andenraum
vergleichen. Letzteres bleibt er dem Leser freilich
weitgehend schuldig, da der Wissensstand über viele
bauliche Strukturen für detailliertere Vergleiche noch
unzureichend ist.
Aus der Vielfalt der Monumentalarchitektur des
Küstengebietes zwischen den Tälern Moche und Mala
greift Carlos Williams (“A Scheme for the Early
Monumental Architecture of the Central Coast of
Peru”) die U-förmigen Pyramidenkomplexe (ausführ-
lich behandelt bereits in Williams 1980) und die Bau-
werke mit runden eingetieften Höfen heraus. Er stellt
für diese Anlagen ein Entwicklungsschema für den
Zeitraum vom Ende des dritten Jahrtausends bis zur
Entstehung von Chavin de Huäntar auf, wo sich nicht
nur beide Bauprinzipien miteinander verbinden, son-
dern wohl auch die damit zusammenhängenden religiö-
sen Vorstellungen. Die Vermutung von Williams, daß
die U-förmigen Zeremonialanlagen im Hinblick auf die
lebenspendenden Qualitäten des Wassers in die Rich-
tung der Quellgebiete der Flüsse ausgerichtet wurden,
scheint etwas voreilig zu sein. Vielmehr ist anzuneh-
men, daß die an der peruanischen Küste vorherrschen-
de Windrichtung hier primär Einfluß auf die Anord-
nung der komplexen U-förmigen Zeremonialanlagen
hatte, die dieselbe Ausrichtung haben, wie sie auch die
an der Pazifikküste natürlich entstandenen Sicheldünen
zeigen.
Donald W. Lathrap (“Jaws: The Control of Power
in the Nuclear American Ceremonial Center”) sucht
nach Gemeinsamkeiten im Weltbild der alten Kulturen
Mesoamerikas, der Zwischenzone und des zentralen
Andenraumes. Der Kaiman, dessen Rachen nach sei-
ner Meinung das Vorbild für die U-förmigen Zeremo-
nialanlagen abgegeben haben soll, erscheint bei ihm als
das Wesen, welches offenbar in der Glaubenswelt
verschiedener Völker dominierte. An der zweifellos
recht phantasievollen Theorie Lathraps entzündet sich
allerdings auch Kritik: Große Skepsis scheint geboten
bei seiner Interpretation gewisser ikonographischer
Elemente von Chavin de Huäntar (vgl. Ralph E. Cane,
Iconografia de Chavin; «Caimanes o Cocodrilicos» y
sus Raices Shamänicas. Boletin de Lima 45.1986:
86-95), und um so mehr, wenn er diese mit anderen,
zeitlich und räumlich entfernten Kulturen in Zusam-
menhang bringt.
In seinem den Sammelband beschließenden Bei-
trag wirft Richard L. Burger (“Concluding Remarks:
Early Peruvian Civilization and its Relation to the
Chavin Horizon”) die Frage nach den Beziehungen
zwischen der frühen Zivilisation und dem Chavin-
Horizont auf. Der vorliegende Band dokumentiert
eindringlich die Wende, die sich in der Forschung
vollzog, indem man sich von der überholten Sichtweise
Anthropos 83.1988
248
Rezensionen
von „Chavin als peruanischer Mutterkultur“ abwandte.
Burger unterstreicht dabei, daß die Entwicklungen im
Hochland und an der Küste nicht isoliert voneinander,
sondern in ihren Wechselbeziehungen herausgearbeitet
werden müßten. Dies könnte auch zu einer Relativie-
rung der von Michael Edward Moseley aufgestellten
Hypothese vom „maritimen Ursprung der andinen
Zivilisation“ beitragen (Menlo Park 1975). Anhand der
späten präkeramischen Fundstätten lassen sich deutli-
che Hinweise auf markante Unterschiede in den rituel-
len Praktiken erkennen, die Ausdruck einer anders
ausgerichteten sozialen Organisation sein müssen.
Einige Ansatzpunkte für Kritik „entschärft“ Burger
durch den Hinweis auf noch bestehende Datierungs-
probleme. In der Tat ist die chronologische Stellung
vieler der in diesem Band behandelten frühen Zeremo-
nialanlagen noch recht unsicher.
Nachdem es allgemein in Mode gekommen ist,
daß neue Forschungsergebnisse in Symposien dargelegt
werden, wird der Interessierte kaum auf die Veröffent-
lichung umfassender monographischer Bearbeitungen
warten können und deshalb dankbar zu Sammelwerken
greifen. Im vorliegenden Fall erscheint dies besonders
empfehlenswert, zumal die Beiträge trotz der scheinbar
engen Themenstellung eine Vielfalt von unterschiedli-
chen Ansätzen aufweisen, die nicht nur den aktuellen
Kenntnisstand vermitteln und damit eine Wende in der
Forschung signalisieren, sondern diese sicherlich auch
weiter stimulieren werden. Hartwig Latocha
Doyle, Arthur Conan: Das Congoverbrechen.
Herausgegeben von Geert Demarest. Frankfurt: Syndi-
kat, 1985. 165 pp. (Taschenbücher Syndikat/EVA, 51)
Preis: DM 12,80
Vers le 26 août 1909, A. Conan Doyle termina un
livre de quelque 45.000 mots, rédigé en une semaine.
Publié le mois suivant sous le titre «The Crime of the
Congo», l’opuscule fut un succès de librairie: en une
semaine, 25.000 exemplaires furent vendus, 50.000
autres encore avant la fin de l’année. Le prix très réduit
et la rénommée de l’auteur ne furent pas étrangers à
cet engouement.
S’agissait-il d’un nouveau roman policier du père
de Sherlock Holmes? Nullement! Mettant son talent au
service de la campagne anti-léopoldienne, lancée par
Edmund D. Morel au début du siècle, Sir Arthur,
utilisant la documentation fournie par ce dernier,
entendait décrire les crimes réels (expropriation et
extermination des autochtones) commis dans l’Etat
Indépendant du Congo, suite au système d’exploitation
outrancière du caoutchouc inauguré et maintenu par
Léopold II, Souverain de l’E.I.C. Comme témoins à
charge, l’auteur citait de nombreux missionaires pro-
testants, américains et anglais, ainsi que d’anciens
agents des compagnies concessionnaires ou de l’Etat
léopoldien.
Le 13 octobre 1909, Conan Doyle adressa à
Léopold II un mot, dépourvu de toutes les habituelles
formules protocolaires, annonçant qu’il lui avait envo-
yé un exemplaire de son livre et le priant «de le lire
effectivement afin qu’il voie les choses telles qu’elles
sont et que les cris de tous ces millions de victimes
transpercent son coeur». Le Souverain du Congo de-
manda l’avis du Ministre belge de la Justice, de Lants-
heere, en vue d’une éventuelle action en diffamation
devant les tribunaux. Dans sa réponse du 3 novembre,
le Ministre estimait qu’une telle action serait inoppor-
tune, l’auteur pouvant toujours se retrancher derrière
ses témoins (cf. F. Bontinck Conan Doyle et Léo-
pold IL Les Cahiers historiques, série IX, n° 3.1974:
115-119).
La traduction française, «Le Crime du Congo»,
pourvue d’une «Préface» de l’auteur, datée «octobre
1909», complétée d’un Post-Scriptum du 23 décembre
1909, sortit à Paris au début de la nouvelle année.
Quant à la traduction allemande, «Das Congover-
brechen», elle fut faite par Curt Abel-Musgrave et
publiée par le Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, vers la
fin de 1909. Cette édition avait été financée par
William A. Cadbury, «le roi du chocolat», qui avait
versé 500 livres sterling à cet effet. Cette traduction
allemande fut également préfacée par l’auteur; «An
meine deutschen Leser». Conan Doyle y accuse l’Etat
du Congo de ne pas avoir observé les articles 5 et 6 de
l’Acte général de Conférence de Berlin, souscrit aussi
par lui.
Aux yeux de Conan Doyle, la Belgique était
inapte à gouverner le Congo; il propose qu’il soit
partagé entre la France et l’Allemagne. A la question
congolaise, on peut avancer plusieurs solutions. «Eine
[Lösung] aber gibt es, die von selbst kommen und
vielleicht ganz plötzlich das Ende der Congo-Macht
herbeiführen wird. . . eine ordnungsgemäße Teilung
unter der Leitung von Berlin oder Paris.»
La mérite principal, sinon unique, de la réédition
de l’ancienne traduction allemande consiste, semble-
t-il, à rendre d’accès facile cette pièce (plutôt mineure!)
du dossier anti-léopoldien. En effet, G. Demarest s’est
contenté de présenter sommairement, dans son «Ein-
leitung», le contexte historique du pamphlet de Conan
Doyle, suivi d’une brève notice biographique de ce
dernier. Aucune bibliographie, fût-elle très réduite,
aucune note critique ou explicative se rapportant au
texte. Peut-être cette collection de «Taschenbücher»
n’admettait pas de tels développements, mais comme il
s’agit de témoignages parfois discutables et en tout cas
discutés, le lecteur moyen, moins bien informé, risque
de se trouver démuni face à une réalité simplifiée, mais
de fait plus complexe que ne laisse supposer cet écrit de
propagande de masse. F. Bontinck
Felger, Richard Stephen, and Mary Beck Moser:
People of the Desert and Sea. Ethnobotany of the Seri
Indians. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press,
1985. 435 pp., fig., illus. Price: $ 65.00
Richard Felger is a research scientist at the Office
of Arid Land Studies. Mrs. Moser, of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics, worked in the translation of the
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
249
New Testament into Seri. The dedication of this book
is in Seri, and thus is incomprehensible to almost all
prospective readers. The book itself is constructed
around long-term studies in language and native botan-
ical knowledge (173 pp.). Many fine photographs and
ink drawings accompany the species accounts. This
core data is introduced, to justify the first part of the
title, by briefer accounts of prehistory and history and a
description of the extremely arid environment of the
Sonoran coast of the Gulf of California, its biotic
communities, and the quest for water and food of this
meticulously-adapted and resourceful tribal group. The
material culture is exceptionally well-covered, as are
mythology, shamanism, and the vision quest. Further
analysis, much to be desired, of the enigmatic fiesta
and ceremony associated with the live capture of rare
leatherback sea turtles is probably no longer possible
because of the rapid recent absorption of the Seri
culture into the cash economy of the Mexican main-
land.
The authors first attempted a standardized ap-
proach to data-gathering and fortunately recognized it
as disastrous - “do you want to do this your way
or ours?” said their informants. Some traces of this
remain in the pedantic concern with trivia. Under
“uses” of plant species, for example, the recorded
“children sometimes play with it” is not a memorable
gem of ethnobotanical information.
This beautiful and useful book has, among its
many virtues, a superb collection of drawings and
photographs gathered from many artists and sources,
including some early archival material. The bibliogra-
phy is valuable, and the index is regularly helpful to the
reader. Thomas H. Lewis
Felmy, Sabine (Hrsg.): Märchen und Sagen aus
Hunza. Köln: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1986. 143 pp.
Preis: DM 19,80
Die Ärgernisse über das vorliegende Buch begin-
nen schon mit Umschlag und Titelseite: Die Autorin
hat die Erzählungen nicht - wie es heißt - „gesammelt“
(etwa im Feld), sondern lediglich aus einer bereits
publizierten Sammlung übernommen. Sie hat die Texte
nicht aus dem Burushaski „übersetzt“, wie der naive
Leser glauben könnte, vielmehr sind sie aus den
englischen Übersetzungen Lorimers (D. L. R. Lori-
mer, The Burushaski Language; vol. II: Texts and
Translations, Oslo 1935; I. Müller-Stellrecht, Materia-
lien zur Ethnographie von Dardistan [Pakistan]. Aus
den nachgelassenen Aufzeichnungen von D. L. R.
Lorimer. Teil I: Hunza [Graz 1979]; Teil II: Gilgit;
Teil III: Chitral und Yasin [Graz 1980]) weiter ins
Deutsche übertragen. Von der sprachlichen Kompe-
tenz der Anglistin Sabine Felmy im Hinblick auf Buru-
shaski, die bei einer Bearbeitung indigenen Erzählgu-
tes doch so wichtig erscheint, erfahren wir nichts. Auf
der linken Umschlagklappe ist allerdings zu lesen: „. . .
die Hunzukuts haben ihr beim Übersetzen und Verste-
hen der Geschichten sehr geholfen“.
Die Autorin, die sich von ihrem Studium her nicht
mit Völkerkunde, Orientalistik oder Asienkunde
beschäftigt hatte, setzte sich zwar mit der Kultur der
Hunzukuts näher auseinander, doch bleiben eine Reihe
von Ungenauigkeiten bestehen. Dies gilt für den im
Grunde begrüßenswerten Teil, der den Erzählungen
vorangestellt ist und in ihre Vorstellungswelt einführt.
So hat die Burushaski-Sprache keineswegs erst bei
Lorimer „ihren ersten schriftlichen Niederschlag gefun-
den“ (9); Sabine Felmy scheinen die verschiedenen
Arbeiten G. W. Leitners vom Ende des 19. Jh.s nicht
bekannt oder nicht zugänglich gewesen zu sein. Die
Autorin behauptet ferner, daß die vorgestellten Erzäh-
lungen „die einzige Form lokaler Geschichtsaufzeich-
nung“ seien (10). Dies ist schlichtweg falsch. Es gibt
sowohl in Hunza als auch im benachbarten Nager
zahlreiche Überlieferungen über die geschichtliche
Entwicklung der Königtümer (u. a. Mythen, Sagen,
Legenden, historische Berichte), die von ihrer Gattung
her nicht in der vorliegenden Sammlung vertreten sind.
Dazu gehören vor allem auch Listen mit Königsnamen,
Genealogien von Verwandschaftsgruppen, Preisgesän-
ge sowie schriftliche Aufzeichnungen (vgl. J. Fremb-
gen, Aspekte der Oralität und Literalität: Ihre Implika-
tionen für das Geschichtsbewußtsein der muslimischen
Nagerkuts in Nordpakistan. Anthropos 81.1986:
567-581). Auf Seite 13 des Büchleins wird angegeben,
daß es sich bei phut (PI. phutongö) ebenso wie bei deu
(PI. deumuts) um Riesen handele. Phut sollen den
Hunzukuts zufolge jedoch die gegenteilige Körpergrö-
ße besitzen - sie ähneln eher kleinen, dicht behaarten
Kobolden. Zu den Ungenauigkeiten gehört auch, daß
es sich bei den Verwandtschaftsgruppen Hunzas nicht
um „Stämme“ (23) im ethnologischen Sinne handelt.
Ferner frage ich mich, ob man für die legendäre
Einsetzung der Dynastiegründer Girkis und Moghlot in
Hunza und Nager wirklich den Zeitraum des 12. Jh.s so
genau angeben kann, wie es die Autorin offenbar im
Vertrauen auf Hashmatullah Khan tut (22). - Hübsch
ist der Hinweis auf die Auslösung eines Erdrutsches in
Nager durch die Verwünschung eines bekannten Scha-
manen aus Hunza-Burongshal (19). Zur Ergänzung: Es
handelt sich um die Zerstörung eines Teiles von Pheker
und Hakuchar im Jahre 1935.
Ein Nachschlagen in Lorimers “Folk Tales from
Hunza” (so der Titel des pakistanischen Reprints)
ergibt, daß Felmy - bis auf wenige Ausnahmen - fast
alle Texte daraus für ihr Buch verwendet hat. Die
Übersetzung ist relativ wörtlich, lediglich die Titel der
Erzählungen wurden oft geändert. Auf den Inhalt der
Texte muß in dieser Zeitschrift nicht näher eingegan-
gen werden, er ist durch den Materialienband Lorimers
von 1935 und den leider um die wichtigen Anmerkun-
gen verkürzten Reprint (Islamabad 1981) den an Paki-
stan Interessierten hinlänglich bekannt.
Die Chance, etwas mehr über das Erzählgut der
Hunzukuts und die Formen ihrer mündlichen Tradie-
rung zu erfahren, wurde nicht wahrgenommen. Für
den Wissenschaftler bedeutet das vorliegende Büchlein
daher eher einen Rückschritt als einen Zuwachs an
Anthropos 83.1988
250
Rezensionen
Wissen und Kenntnissen. Worin die Ergebnisse des
erwähnten „einjährigen Forschungsaufenthaltes, der
ganz und gar den Märchen und Sagen dieser Region
gewidmet war“ (9), und der weiteren Besuche in
Hunza bestehen, ist mir jedenfalls nicht klar geworden.
Ich frage mich wirklich, warum die Autorin nicht
versucht hat, neues, bisher noch unbekanntes Erzähl-
material aufzunehmen. Es wäre wichtig gewesen,
neben Märchen, die ja nur eine Gattung oraler Litera-
tur bilden, Mythen und Sagen auch Schwänke, Lieder,
Sprichwörter, Redensarten und Rätsel aufzunehmen.
Man hätte sich die Angabe von Erzählvarianten
gewünscht, so z. B. im Hinblick auf das Kisar-Epos.
Am Rande sei nur auf eine von mir in Nager aufge-
nommene Version der Erzählung von Khuru und Kha-
mer (Felmy, Text Nr. 15 „Zwei feindselige Brüder“)
hingewiesen, die in einem anderen Funktionszusam-
menhang steht (Frembgen 1986; 570). Der Leser ver-
mißt ferner eine Struktur- und Motivanalyse der Texte
unter komparativen Aspekten. In Hunza treten
bekannte Motive auf, so z. B. die magischen Achsel-
haare, die durch ein Holzstück ersetzte Rippe einer
Ziege und das Kuhdungwerfen. Durch eine entspre-
chende Untersuchung hätten die kulturellen Beziehun-
gen im Erzählgut herausgearbeitet werden können.
Eine wertvolle Forschungsaufgabe besteht u. a. darin,
Informationen über einzelne legendäre oder sogar
historische Gestalten und Hauptpersonen von Erzäh-
lungen zu sammeln, wie etwa über Bulchitoko (Text
Nr. 5), von dem auch im benachbarten Nager mehrere
Geschichten bekannt sind. Schließlich steht noch eine
Untersuchung der sozialen Aspekte des Sänger- und
Erzählertums und der Erzählweisen aus.
Das vorliegende, in der Reihe „Diederichs Kabi-
nett“ erschienene Büchlein ist schön und ansprechend
gestaltet und wird sicherlich seine Käufer finden. Dar-
auf kam es wohl auch in erster Linie an. Immerhin
verspricht das „Traumland“ Hunza, das „Shangri-la“
des Karakorum, einen guten Werbeeffekt.
Jürgen W. Frembgen
Firth, Raymond: Tikopia-English Dictionary.
Taranga Fakatikopia ma Taranga Fakainglisi. Oxford:
Oxford University Press; New Zealand: Auckland Uni-
versity Press, 1985. 615 pp. Price; £ 17.50
Sir Raymond Firth has been closely associated
with the people of Tikopia for more than fifty years.
He first undertook fieldwork on this tiny Polynesian
Outlier in the Solomon Islands in 1928-1929. Later
visits were made in 1952 (five months), 1966, and 1973.
In 1970, once he had completed his synoptic study of
Tikopian religion, Firth set about extracting the Tiko-
pian vocabulary from his field notebooks, some eighty
five in all. This vocabulary formed the basis of his
Tikopian Dictionary or “wordbook” as Firth himself
more aptly calls it.
For this is no ordinary dictionary. It is a kind of
thesaurus, an encyclopedia of Tikopian culture. Each
entry is amply illustrated with examples (largely unelic-
ited) taken principally from his anthropological note-
books. Many of the entries include coded cross-re-
ferences to relevant sections in Firth’s extensive pub-
lished works on the Tikopia, a key to which pre-
cedes the dictionary proper. Perhaps the principal moti-
vation for the production of the dictionary was Firth’s
awareness that a good deal of the vocabulary and
knowledge of traditional ceremonies and activities ob-
served by him in the late 1920s had fallen into disuse or ob-
livion by the time that he returned to the island after
an absence of more than thirty years. Firth’s dictio-
nary, then, provides a record not only of the Tiko-
pian language today - and indeed he has been to great
pains to obtain correct identification of current flora
and fauna terms - his dictionary is a veritable cultural
treasure trove. The people of Tikopia will be justly
delighted with it, as of course will all Polynesianists.
Purely on the linguistic level, Firth notes that
while in his field notebooks he did not systematically
note vowel length, an important phonemic feature in
all Polynesian languages, he has been at pains to do so
in the dictionary, having had the opportunity to carry
out systematic checking with his Tikopian collaborator
Ishmael Tuki in Auckland in 1978. Firth’s decisions
concerning word division are sensible and reasoned, in
the absence of any established orthographical conven-
tions in Tikopian. Being a pragmatist, however, he
notes that Tikopians, like all other Polynesians, will
have no truck with diacritical signs (marking vowel
length), even though he himself uses them for lexico-
graphical purposes. As in other Polynesian Outliers of
the Solomons, Firth notes consonant gemination, usu-
ally the result of the loss of unstressed vowels. He is
uncertain of the phonemic status of geminate conso-
nants, however. Judging by a neighbouring Outlier,
Pileni, geminate consonants and indeed consonant
clusters, across syllable boundaries, are significant in
modern Tikopian. While Firth discusses the problem,
he records the slow speech CVCVCV pattern, with just
a few exceptions which he considers important, for
example k.ave “carry” as opposed to kave “sibling of
opposite sex” (consonant lengthening being indicated
by the full stop following the lengthened consonant).
The dictionary is preceded by a grammar outline,
and followed by three appendices, showing fish parts,
the divisions of day and night, and reef and land
divisions. Like many dictionaries, however, this one
lacks an index or reversal. The dictionary itself is a
facsimile of Firth’s typescript; an index would have
been laborious to produce but extremely useful. More
modern computer-produced lexicons have no such
excuse in this area.
The Tikopia, then, have been well served by
Firth. Through his prolific writings these few hundred
souls, living on a tiny isolated island in the south-west
Pacific, have become known around the world. They
are extremely fortunate that such a detailed account of
their earlier beliefs and customs has been produced for
posterity, and in perhaps a more practical and accessi-
ble way by the production of this encyclopedic dictio-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
251
nary, without which an important part of their cultural
and linguistic heritage would surely have been lost.
D. T. Tryon
Fox, Robin: Kinship and Marriage. An Anthropo-
logical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983, 273 pp. Price: £ 15.00
When this book was first published in 1967, it was
a significant and important contribution to a topic
which, at the time, was the concern of only a few
Anglo-American anthropologists. It was an invaluable
and much needed introduction to the literature and
appeared at a time when the study of kinship and
marriage, for whatever reasons, was not quite in
vogue. Therefore, it is both timely and auspicious that
this revised edition should be released when the func-
tion, relevance, and indeed the existence of kinship, is
being called into question; more or less having fallen
out of fashion, once again.
The major contribution of the book remains Fox’s
discussion of descent and alliance theory. Although he
states that he no longer regards these as competing
theoretical views, his account sets forth the distinctions
and enables the beginning student to gain a fairly good
understanding and appreciation of kinship systems -
how they define and categorize kin and regulate allian-
ces. The only drawback is that, while the uninitiated
can acquire a good knowledge of how the systems
function, the ethnographic detail is a bit overwhelming.
Yet, the book remains one of the finest available for a
comprehensive treatise on kinship and marriage.
Although a revised edition, Fox maintains his
original position on the relationship between biology
and social behavior and contends that new data on
evolutionary processes confirms “. . . the correctness
of the social anthropologist’s faith that kinship is the
most central of all social processes” (3). Fox sees
kinship as the study of what man does with the basic
facts of life - from mating to the avoidance of incest.
Citing the bond between mother and child as the basic
unit of society (as opposed to the nuclear or conjugal
family), Fox delineates four principles which operate to
recruit members to the society: 1. The women have
children; 2. The men impregnate the women; 3. The
men usually exercise control; 4. Primary kin do not
mate with each other. From this perspective Fox
proceeds to examine a number of different kinship sys-
tems. While he stresses how essential it is to recognize
that consanguinity is socially and culturally defined,
regardless of our own preconceived notions, he still
takes exception with his critics who argue that kinship
has nothing to do with biology. According to Fox, the
facts of physiology cannot be denied (i.e., principles
°ne and two).
The problems and controversies surrounding the
!ssues of incest and exogamy are provocatively present-
ed by Fox, whose bias on this issue clearly demon-
strates his preference for alliance and exchange as an
e*planation of why the two should be treated seperate-
ly (he refers the reader to his book “The Red Lamp of
Incest” for further explanation).
Overall, this is still an excellent introductory
book. It reviews the major issues and enables the
instructor to elaborate on specific topics, as required.
My only real objection is the patronizing manner in
which he apologizes for his premise that “the men
exercise control.” If this principle is crucial (and, at
times, it is) to understanding some of the material, why
apologize for it? Further, had he perhaps paid a bit
more attention to some recent ethnographies written
by and about women, he would not have made implica-
tions that rather perpetuate the notion that the
woman’s role is primarily secondary. Perhaps we, too,
have sometimes forgotten that kinship systems do
change, and are ever in a state of so doing.
Ann Marie Powers
Frayser, Suzanne G.: Varieties of Sexual Expe-
rience. An Anthropological Perspective on Human
Sexuality. New Haven: HRAF Press, 1985. xii+546 pp.
Price: $ 25.00
“Sex. Reproduction. Each word evokes dozens of
images, thoughts, and feelings . . . We are rarely neu-
tral about these subjects. They capture our fantasies,
occupy our thoughts, and elicit intense emotional re-
sponse . They infuse our behavior with meaning at its most
intimate level” (1). Suzanne G. Frayser, eine amerika-
nische Sozialanthropologin, die seit Ende der 60er Jah-
re kulturenvergleichend über Sexualität arbeitet, hat
mit ihrem umfangreichen Werk gezeigt, daß es durch-
aus möglich ist, sich nüchtern, fundiert, differenziert
und dennoch niemals unbeteiligt mit diesen Schlüs-
selthemen menschlicher Existenz zu beschäftigen.
Fraysers Untersuchung steht im Kontext einer
materialistisch-systemistischen Realitätsauffassung, ei-
ner kritisch-realistischen Wissenschaftsauffassung und
ist disziplinär nach Anspruch (11, 15) und Ausführung
einer integrierten und integrierenden (Gesamt-)An-
thropologie zuzuordnen. Ihre Auslöser sind die sachli-
che Unvollständigkeit, die fachliche Zersplitterung
sowie die mangelnde interdisziplinäre Verknüpfung
und Systematisierung bei der Erforschung der mensch-
lichen Sexualität. Thematisch hat Frayser als Gegen-
stand nur die in Menschengruppen gemeinsame oder
geteilte Sexualität gewählt, d. h. deren biotische, kultu-
relle und soziale Ebenen; aus Datengründen mußte sie
jedoch auch dort einige Aspekte (z. B. homosexuelle
Beziehungen, spezifische Empfängnisverhütungsmittel,
Typen inzestuöser Beziehungen) ausschließen (8). An
diesen Gegenstand stellt sie drei grundlegende Fragen:
“What is the nature of the variety we see and experi-
ence? Are there any consistencies that transcend the
diversity and help us to better understand it? How can
we explain the constants and the variants that we have
delineated?” (3). Das Ziel der Untersuchung ist eine
Theorie der menschlichen Sexualität, welche die drei
genannten Fragen beantworten kann (3). Die wichtig-
sten der die gesamte Untersuchungsdurchführung und
Anthropos 83.1988
252
Rezensionen
damit -ergebnisse entscheidend bestimmenden Rah-
menannahmen sind im ontischen Bereich: a) “Human
beings are animals” (5). b) Es gibt in der (ontogeneti-
schen) Entwicklung der menschlichen Sexualität zwei
grundlegende Zyklen: einen sexuellen (Ermöglichung
und Durchführung von Geschlechtsverkehr) und einen
reproduktiven (Zeugung und Aufzucht von Kindern)
(6). c) Menschliche Existenz hat vier Dimensionen: die
biotische, psychische, kulturelle und soziale. Diese
Dimensionen interagieren, besonders im Fall Sexuali-
tät (7-11). Zu den epistemischen Rahmenannahmen
gehören; a) Aufgrund der Vieldimensionalität kann
Sexualität sinnvoll nur innerhalb eines interdisziplinä-
ren und multiperspektivischen Ansatzes erforscht und
verstanden werden (12, 15). b) Zur Klärung der bio-
tischen Dimension ist die Betrachtung der Phylogenese
der menschlichen Sexualität und damit ein speziesver-
gleichendes Vorgehen erforderlich (5 f.). c) Variation
und Einheitlichkeit auf der kulturellen und sozialen
Ebene, das gesamte Spektrum der menschlichen Se-
xualität, können nur im Kulturenvergleich diagnosti-
ziert werden (15). Die methodischen Grundlagen sind
a) der quantitative Kulturenvergleich und b) eine Fall-
daten und generelle Hypothesen und Theoreme ver-
gleichende und argumentativ verknüpfende Theoriebil-
dung.
Der gesamte allgemeine Planungsteil der Untersu-
chung wird im relativ kurzen ersten Kapitel (“Introduc-
tion: Theoretical and Methodological Problems of Gel-
ting it Together”; 1-16) expliziert. Der spezielleren
Epistemik und Methodik des zur Datengewinnung
eingesetzten quantitativen Kulturenvergleichs sind die
Anhänge A-D (423-479) gewidmet, welche die Über-
legungen, Kriterien und Verfahren bei der Datenaus-
wahl, Datenvercodung und Datenauswertung (An-
hang A), ein Beispiel für ein Auswertungsblatt mit den
Grund- und Quellendaten, die pro Ethnie erhoben
wurden (Anhang B), die verwendeten Codes (An-
hang C) und das Vercodungsformular (Anhang D) ent-
halten. Frayser hat ein (Sub-)Sample von 62 der 186
Ethnien des Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS)
gezogen und selbst vercodet; die ihrer Analyse zugrun-
de gelegten Codes zu 55 Merkmalskategorien sind im
Anhang E (482-493) aufgelistet. (Im Analyseteil greift
sie außerdem auf weitere, oft ausführlicher beschriebe-
ne Fallbeispiele zurück.) Die Epistemik und Methodik
der gleichfalls eingesetzten und nicht weniger entschei-
denden Theoriebildung (und damit Datenauswertung)
sind - außer für die rein statistischen Prozeduren der
Datenverknüpfung - nicht in gleichem Maße expliziert
worden. Ein leider übliches Versäumnis.
Die Entwicklung der Ergebnisse, d. h. die Durch-
führung der Untersuchung, wird in vier aufeinander
aufbauenden Kapiteln berichtet. Sie beginnt mit einem
Kapitel über die Phylogenese der menschlichen Sexu-
alität (“Our Human Heritage”; 17-73), in dem sowohl
die allgemeinen Prinzipien der Evolution (natürliche
und sexuelle Selektion, genetische Mechanismen), als
auch der tatsächliche Verlauf der Phylogenese mit
seinen Folgen für die menschliche Sexualität angespro-
chen und damit die Grundlagen für die weiteren
Untersuchungsschritte gelegt werden. Frayser differen-
ziert und zeigt, welche (sexuellen) Eigenschaften wir
als Säugetier, welche als Primaten und welche als
Homo sapiens besitzen.
Nach dieser speziesvergleichenden Analyse findet
in den beiden folgenden, sehr umfangreichen und in
weiten Teilen eher deskriptiven Kapiteln (soweit mög-
lich) die Analyse der im Kulturenvergleich gewonnen
Daten statt. Zunächst (75-244) geht es um den sexuel-
len Zyklus, also um “the aspects of development that
are relevant to préparation for and participation in
intercourse” (75). Die behandelten Themen reichen
von den verschiedenen Geschlechtsarten (chromoso-
males, gonadales, hormonales, physisches, psychisches,
soziales Geschlecht) über die ontogenetische Entwick-
lung (biotische, psychische, soziale, kulturelle Sozia-
lisation und Reifung), Geschlechtsverkehr (Gelegen-
heit, Anregung, Stimulation, Reaktion), Partnerwahl
Heiratsalter, prä- und extramaritale Restriktionen) und
die hormonelle Regelung (vor allem der Menstruation)
bis zum Klimakterium und der Sexualität im Alter.
Kapitel 4 (245-321) ist dann dem reproduktiven Zyklus
gewidmet, “those stages of physical development that
préparé males and females for and contribute to the
procréation and nurturance of children” (245). Hier
wird das gesamte Feld der Heirat und der ehelichen
Beziehungen mit den unterschiedlichen Regelungen,
Einschränkungen, Rechten, Ritualen usw. analysiert.
Außerdem geht es um Zeugung, Schwangerschaft,
Geburt und die nachgeburtliche Phase. Charakteri-
stisch für beide Kapitel sind die gleichermaßen ausführ-
liche Behandlung aller drei unterschiedlichen Dimen-
sionen, der Materialreichtum und die differenzierte
Diskussion verschiedener Hypothesen und Erklärungs-
möglichkeiten (ausführlicher diskutiert werden u. a.
Theorien von Cohen, Dalton, Fox, Freud, Hrdy, Mali-
nowski, Schlegel, Symons und Young).
Fraysers Auffassung, daß die reproduktive und
die nichtreproduktive Sexualität beim Menschen zwei
verschiedene „Zyklen“, zwei verschiedene „Stadien“
der (u. a. physischen) Entwicklung seien, erscheint mir
etwas problematisch. Sie ist weitgehend an einer be-
stimmten Auffassung von Heirat und Ehe orientiert, wel-
che Frayser als „reproduktive Beziehung“ (245-248)
versteht und definiert. Und eine dazu parallele (in ih-
rer Terminologie) „sexuelle Beziehung“ sieht sie nicht
vor. Daß sie selbst Schwierigkeiten mit der Zyklentren-
nung hat, verdeutlichen die Behandlung gleicher Sach-
verhalte in beiden Bereichen (z. B. 201-218 vs. 245-
284) und ihr expliziter Hinweis auf Überschneidun-
gen (6). Hier wäre eine systematischere und differenzier-
tere Dimensionierung empfehlenswert, z. B. über die
Ziele und Zwecke, die Beteiligten, die öffentlichen und
privaten Erwartungen und die tatsächlichen Effekte
sexueller Aktivitäten und/oder Beziehungen. Re-
produktivität muß keine Frage der Beziehungsart sein.
Während in Kapitel 3 und 4 die beiden Zyklen
separat und unabhängig voneinander betrachtet wur-
den, also auch höchstens interne Verknüpfungen vor-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
253
genommen und untersucht wurden, geht es in Kapitel 5
(“Patterns of Human Sexuality: Social and Cultural
Aspects”; 323-359) um das Gesamtsystem menschli-
cher Sexualität. Hier versucht Frayser durch die ver-
knüpfende Analyse des sexuellen und des reprodukti-
ven Zyklus einige allgemeine Regeln und Muster her-
auszufinden. Themen sind u. a. die Bedeutung und
Auswirkungen der häufigen Restriktionen, der Hei-
ratszeremonie, des Brautpreises, der Verwandtschaft,
der Residenz, der Umwelt und der reproduktiven
Strategien.
Den Abschluß bildet eine Auseinandersetzung mit
der Sexualmoral und dem Sexualverhalten Fraysers ei-
gener, der US-amerikanischen Gesellschaft (Kapitel 6:
“An Application of the Models: Unraveling Dilem-
mas of Sexuality in American Society”; 361^122).
Frayser verfolgt die Geschichte der amerikanischen
Sexualität vom Beginn des 19. Jh.s bis heute, zeigt die
Einflüsse der verschiedenen Strömungen der Sexualfor-
schung auf und diskutiert die gegenwärtige Situation.
Das Buch ist durch eine detaillierte Gliederung,
die auch im Inhaltsverzeichnis enthalten ist, durch ein
Verzeichnis der 2 „Figuren“ und 17 „Tabellen“ sowie
durch ein umfangreiches Peronen-, Sach-, Ethnien-
und Werktitelverzeichnis (529-546) sehr gut erschließ-
bar. Ob der etwas arg dünne Umschlag (zumindest in
der mir vorliegenden Paperbackausgabe) eine solche
Erschließung lange mitmacht, ist eine andere Frage. In
der “Ethnographie Bibliography” (495-510) sind die
für die Vercodung ausgewerteten Quellen mit einigen
Grunddaten zu den 62 berücksichtigten Ethnien aufge-
listet. Weitere Werke zum Thema (und zum Kulturen-
vergleich) enthält die “Selected Bibliography” (511—
527).
“Varieties of Sexual Experience” könnte in wei-
ten Teilen als eine Mischung zwischen Lehrbuch und
Handbuch aufgefaßt und sollte auch so genutzt wer-
den. Es steckt voller Anregungen und hat gegenüber
anderen quantitativ kulturenvergleichenden Untersu-
chungen den entscheidenden Vorteil der anthropolo-
gisch erweiterten Perspektive. Über die Auswahl des
Samples, die Quellenkritik, die Codierung, deren Ana-
lyse und Interpretation, über Einzelheiten ließe sich
sicher streiten. Die Fundierung der Argumentation in
einem gesamtanthropologischen System, die Berück-
sichtigung phylogenetischer und biotischer (z. B. hor-
moneller) Faktoren und Bedingungen, ermöglicht es
Frayser aber, auch dort Zusammenhänge aufzuzeigen
oder anzudeuten, wo die unbefriedigende Datenlage
Korrelationsanalysen nicht mehr zuläßt. Sie zeigt damit
(ihr Programm erfüllend) einen Weg auf, der - etwas
stärker reflektiert und methodisiert - nachahmenswert
scheint. Andreas Bruck
Gardi, Bernhard: Zaire: Masken, Figuren. Basel:
Museum für Völkerkunde und Schweizerisches Mu-
seum für Volkskunde, 1986. 126 pp., Abb.
In der 1986 nach dem Umbau wiedereröffneten
Afrika-Abteilung des Basler Museums für Völkerkun-
de wurden als erste Kunstausstellung 85 Masken und
Figuren aus Süd-Zaire und angrenzenden Gebieten
Angolas und der Republik Congo der Öffentlichkeit
zugänglich gemacht. Alle Exponate sind - größtenteils
erstmalig - im vorliegenden Katalog abgebildet. Er
besteht zum größeren Teil aus den sehr guten Fotos.
Die einleitenden Texte versuchen dem Ausstellungsbe-
sucher die notwendigen Informationen zum Verständ-
nis der Skulpturen zu vermitteln.
Das Material ist nach geographischen Regionen
gegliedert, die jeweils mit einem Text von zwei bis
sechs Seiten eingeleitet werden. Folgende sind die
Regionen bzw. Völker: Unterer Zaire; Kwango-Kwilu;
Kwilu-Kasai; Kasai-Sankuru; Luba, Songye, Salampa-
su; Cokwe. Nebst allgemein einführenden ethnographi-
schen Angaben über die jeweilige Region sind mög-
lichst auch Erläuterungen zu den ausgestellten Objek-
ten gegeben; so werden z. B. Sinn und Wirkung der
minkisi oder Kraftträger erklärt (13-15). Auf - ange-
sichts der Fotos überflüssige - Beschreibungen verzich-
tet der Autor, doch enthalten die Bildunterschriften
die Maße, Hinweise auf das Material u. dergl. Ferner
wird der Erwerb der Stücke dokumentiert, der häufig
schon vor 1910 oder aber kurz vor dem 2. Weltkrieg
erfolgte (123 f.).
Besonders interessant und wertvoll für den Aus-
stellungsbesucher sind alte Fotos aus den 30er bis 50er
Jahren, die den Museumsstücken entsprechende Ge-
genstände, besonders Masken, im Gebrauch zeigen.
Die Gegenüberstellung von Feldaufnahme und Nah-
aufnahme des Objektes zeigt dessen Wirkung beson-
ders lebendig. Der für den Betrachter immer wieder
verwirrende Gebrauch der „ethnographischen Gegen-
wart“ wird hierbei durch den wichtigen Hinweis ver-
mieden, daß es sich um historische Aufnahmen han-
delt. Ob der Ausdruck „archäologisch“ dafür passend
ist, bleibe dahingestellt. Überhaupt wäre eine sprachli-
che Überarbeitung vor der Drucklegung wünschens-
wert gewesen, um Sätze wie den folgenden zu verbes-
sern: „Ein kühner Schwung besitzt das als Fächer
gestaltete Haar“ (104). Eine Bibliographie von zwei
Seiten beschließt diesen ansprechenden Katalog.
Barbara Frank
Gesch, Patrick F.: Initiative and Initiation. A
Cargo Cult-Type Movement in the Sepik against its
Background in Traditional Village Religion. St. Augu-
stin; Anthropos-Institut, 1985. 355 pp., maps, fig.,
tab., photos. (Studia Instituti Anthropos, 33) Preis:
DM 68,-
In “Initiative and Initiation” Father Gesch has
provided a well documented account of the so-called
Mt. Rurun Movement (later also known as the Peli
Association).
The study constituted a doctoral dissertation for
the Religious Studies Department of the University of
Sydney.
Gesch’s thesis is that the Mt. Rurun Movement
was a response and interpretation by the people of the
Anthropos 83.1988
254
Rezensionen
area to the encroaching Western world (3, 6). The
subsequent activities were based on certain traditional
religious beliefs, but were manifested in particular
initiative actions which symbolically attempt to initiate
the culture into a present modern technological scene.
Following an introduction outlining the research
arguments and the general cult area, the book is
divided into two parts: Part I describes the leaders,
political and religious, as well as the events leading up
to and surrounding the movement. In Part II the village
structural patterns which exist are described as a
context for the main participants of the movement. The
appendixes include a series of interviews. There are
also numerous maps, figures, and tables throughout the
study.
The overall impression is that this is an excellent
first-hand ethnographic account from one who spent a
number of years in the area and had the advantage of
the Tok Pisin and Boiken languages to discuss all
aspects of the movement. There is no attempt to
disguise the Catholic Church’s participation and place
in the interpretation of the events. The interviews
which document the study are all with the principal
participants. And, unlike many ethnographies, the use
of Tok Pisin and the vernacular throughout (Boiken in
this case) enhance the work.
The controversy centers around the uprooting of
cement survey markers which were placed on top of
Mt. Rurun in 1943. The markers had become a symbol
of the unknown world and were therefore magical in
the normal sense of the word.
The main leader in the events leading up to the
confrontation over the markers and the interpretations
which followed was Matias Yaliwan, as well as one
Daniel Hawina. Yaliwan later became a member of the
National Parliament, although his stay there was short-
lived.
The event was well documented by the press and
from May 71 until November 72 the Post Courier (of
PNG) alone ran nearly 100 items on the movement. It
was particularly confusing because the movement was
near the time of Self Government (1973), and interpre-
tations drew on traditional stones the drawings of PNG
currency, and especially the “red boxes” that have
figured in many cargo cults of PNG (101). In addition
and about the same time, the New Apostolic Church
arrived from Canada. This was sometimes equated to
the Catholic Apostolic Congregations.
One of the most stimulating parts of Gesch’s study
is his general description of the forms which were
assumed by the Mt. Rurun Movement in the traditional
village religion. There were, first of all, several tradi-
tional religious manifestations, e.g., these found their
places in things like millennialism, cargo cults, syncre-
tistic cults of the dead, and fertility rituals. Next there
were activities which are termed political: civil diso-
bedience, grass roots nationalism, national political par-
ticipation, alternative local administration, and army
patterns. There were also economic patterns, such as
lucky chain letters, commercial enterprises, and an
effort at a cooperative society. Educational elements
included women’s clubs and school. Finally Christian
activities such as Bible usages and church practices
played a part as well.
Gesch shows quite convincingly that it is impossi-
ble to label the Movement simply a “cargo cult,” in that
this was but one manifestation of the chain of events.
As he quotes elesewhere (220), the “individual practice
of magic is a trial,” and the trials may include warfare,
ritual impurity, ceremonial divisions, disputes and
courts, straightforward magic, diviners, and sanguma
(sorcery of the fatal form).
The various degrees and aspects of initiation are
outlined (e.g., these include eating ginger, drinking
soup, eating herbs, circumcision, food taboos, dances)
because all forms of village religion are seen to have
initiation characteristics (224). The ancestors had pow-
er to bless and to curse, and the blessing was inher-
ent in wealth magic, fertility magic, and health magic.
Gesch interprets the Movement then as “some-
thing of an indigenous religious creation . . . uncovered
in the new times as they arrived in the village” (292).
His final chapter (16) discusses the nature of a cargo
cult which, he feels, must be interpreted in terms of
traditional village religion. In his comments on “the
religious as surprise and excess” other missionaries
should surely see the significance of “signs and won-
ders” and other such phenomena. Most often the
power is associated with a charismatic individual like
Yaliwan. Gesch concludes that cargo cult like activities
are likely to be in the area for a long time to come and
that they will be religious in nature, for the most part.
As he says so well in concluding his study, “The Mt.
Rurun Movement represents a series of such initiatives,
taken on the basis of the traditional village religion,
because an empowering intitiation is sought into the
bewildering modern times” (306).
The book should be required reading for all
outside workers in rural areas of PNG, but particularly
the Sepik. It raises questions and provides insights and
answers that are lacking in other “cargo cult” studies.
Karl J. Franklin
Gonçalves, Antonio Custodio: Le lignage contre
l’Etat. Dynamique politique Kongo du XVIe au XVIIIe
siècle. Evora: Instituto de Investigaçâo Cientifica Tro-
pical - Universidade de Evora, 1985. 255 pp., fig.
Dix ans après «La société contre l’Etat» de P.
Clastres voici, pour l’Afrique Centrale, «Le lignage
contre l’Etat». L’auteur, membre de plusieurs instituts
internationaux, a vécu presque trente ans en pays
Kongo en Angola; il est chercheur et enseignant, il a
publié plusieurs ouvrages sur la société Kongo tradi-
tionnelle et ses problèmes suite au contact avec l’Euro-
pe du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, particulièrement sous
l’aspect de l’intervention des mouvements prophéti-
ques. Partant de l’hypothèse de travail que les mécanis-
mes de base de l’organisation socio-politique Kongo de
l’époque n’ont pas changé considérablement jusqu’à
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
255
l’époque de son séjour sur le terrain, l’auteur propose
une étude des dynamiques socio-politiques et culturel-
les basée sur l’analyse des documents d’archive et des
sources primaires des differentes époques, étude orien-
tée par les apports ethno-sociologiques modernes et
appuyée sur ses connaissances de la société Kongo
actuelle. Il entend ainsi faire une contribution à une
meilleure compréhension du type de dynamisme de
cette société et une approche moins simpliste du
changement.
L’ouvrage se divise en trois parties traitant les
origines de la chefferie centrale de Mbanza Kongo, le
processus politique traditionnel et l’introduction d’au-
tonomies formelles de la politique, enfin la réforme
prophétique.
La première partie explique les données fonda-
mentales de l’organisation socio-politique lignagère: la
priorité d’aînesse à l’intérieure du groupe matrilinéaire
de descendance, la filiation patrilatérale et les straté-
gies d’alliance matrimoniale. A ce niveau, la politique
est constituée par les stratégies exploitant les tensions
entre la descendance matrilinéaire, la filiation patrilaté-
rale et les ambitions individuelles de pouvoir sur un
groupe et une terre. Cette stratégie doit joindre à
l’autorité (ancestrale - lignagère) le pouvoir (chtonien,
venant des maîtres de la terre patrilatéraux).
La deuxième partie examine les processus politi-
ques traditionnels et met à jour les institutions, repré-
sentations et mécanismes interdisant ce qui est typique
pour les modèles à Etat et royaux, à savoir la rupture
entre le social, le politique et le symbolique; entre le
chef et son groupe; interdisant également l’individuali-
sation et la personnalisation du pouvoir ainsi que sa
centralisation et sa fixation sur un seul lieu (la capita-
le). Ils interdisent également l’unification entre l’insti-
tution de la chefferie et l’exercice du pouvoir dans une
seule personne. Le mécanisme lignager contre l’Etat le
plus typiquement Kongo est la composition du pouvoir
dont l’autorité revient au chef de son matrilinéage et le
pouvoir proprement politique lui revient du matrilinéa-
ge de son père.
Cependant plus tard, vers l’arrivée des premiers
portugais, la chefferie centrale de Mbanza Kongo
développait un modèle politique «royal» du pouvoir
politique traditionnel kimfumu, modèle contraire à la
structure de la politique lignagère. Les partisans de ce
modèle voyaient une chance dans la royauté portugaise
et la religion universaliste qui appuyait ce modèle pour
réorganiser la chefferie en royaume; ce projet politique
était accompagné par un effort de christianisation.
L’intensité de ces effort ne se concentrait que sur le
territoire propre de la chefferie et n’était pas de longue
durée. La réorganisation restait superficielle et ne
Pouvait pas atteindre le noyau du système traditionnel
lignager, totalement étranger à la logique du pouvoir et
à son support symbolique venant d’Europe. On assiste
alors à un retour au pouvoir lignager et aux chefs
traditionnels. Les étiquettes «royaume, province, duc,
comte» etc. fournies par la chancellerie portugaise ne
s°nt qu’un leurre.
La troisième partie analyse la réforme prophéti-
que émerge de la crise profonde et de la situation
d’anomie suite à la réorganisation manquée; situation
durant presque deux siècles et causée par des guerres
civiles, guerres de succession et religieuses à la fois.
Dans ces circonstances, certains groupes tentent
au delà des formalismes politiques de la royauté, mais
non sans eux, tout en maintenant le projet «royal», de
restaurer la royauté Kongo moyennant des apports
politiques et religieux de l’étranger tout en réinterpré-
tant ceux-ci à partir des représentations traditionnelles
Kongo. C’est le mouvement prophétique sous sa forme
la plus élaborée des Antoniens autour de la prophétesse
et cheffesse Kimpa Vita alias Béatrice ou St. Antoine.
Sous le projet politique se dessine celui d’une
recherche d’identité culturelle et d’innovation globale.
Solidement plantée dans le sol traditionnel la prophé-
tesse récupère des éléments de la croyance et de la
pratique chrétienne non de façon simplement instru-
mentale, mais en les critiquant - tout comme elle
critique des institutions traditionnelles - pour les
employer par après et, réinterprétation faite, pour
construire une nouvelle logique du pouvoir et une
nouvelle identité culturelle.
Son succès le prophétisme le devra à l’adéquation
de son message au système symbolique traditionnel,
politique et religieux, dont le producteur et le gardien
est toujours le monde lignager. Mais ces mêmes raisons
font la cause de son échec politique: avec son projet
politique d’Etat il a porté atteinte au noyau même du
pouvoir traditionnel lignager, l’autorité ancestrale et le
pouvoir sur la terre, non moins sacré.
C’est cette période de l’histoire Kongo qui semble
révéler particulièrement la créativité Kongo, sa volonté
et sa force d’innovation et de progrès.
Par cet ouvrage l’auteur entend avant tout susciter
une reprise de l’étude, une relecture, de l’histoire
Kongo depuis son contacte avec l’étranger pour déga-
ger et valoriser les dynamiques de développement
institutionnel et de la mentalité Kongo, dynamiques
promettant la capacité toujours vivante de relever aussi
les défis de l’histoire moderne.
Les nombreuses relectures critiques des hypothè-
ses, interprétations et explications émises dans la litté-
rature sur les Kongo, valent déjà à elles seules une
lecture de l’ouvrage dont la valeur scientifique consiste
surtout dans l’élaboration d’une grille d’analyse de la
société Kongo dans la perspective de l’intitulé, «le
lignage contre l’Etat». La précaution de l’auteur dans
ses énoncés signale que beaucoup reste à vérifier et à
confirmer, y comprise l’hypothèse du travail. Pour
établir que le lignage est effectivement «contre l’Etat»
aussi sous sa forme des «royaumes de la savane», il
faudra replacer les Kongo dans ce contexte. Alors une
étude approfondie du symbolisme - surtout rituel - du
pouvoir traditionnel lignager et à «modèle royal» sera
indispensable. Enfin une critique adressée au typogra-
phe: un travail si soigné aurait mérité une typographie
moins défaillante par ses innombrables fautes de frap-
pe. Klaus Weiland
Anthropos 83.1988
256
Rezensionen
Gordon, Robert!., and Mervyn J. Meggitt: Law
and Order in the New Guinea Highlands. Encounters
with Enga. Hannover: University Press of New En-
gland, 1985. 283 pp.
„Recht und Ordnung“ ist der zur Zeit wahrschein-
lich brennendste nationale Themenkomplex, dem sich
Papua-Neuguinea gegenübergestellt sieht, so beginnt
das Buch. In der Tat wird der junge Staat seit einigen
Jahren mit einer zunehmenden Fülle von Rechtsbrü-
chen konfrontiert, die den scheinbaren Zusammen-
bruch von „Recht und Ordnung“ in Papua-Neuguinea
signalisieren und den Regierungsapparat hilflos
erscheinen lassen. Besonders ist von diesen Zuständen
die Enga-Provinz im Hochland betroffen. Bürger wie
Parlamentarier fordern drastischere Strafen und eine
personelle Aufstockung der Polizei. Dennoch erwiesen
sich solche Maßnahmen als wenig probates Mittel. Der
Realisierung des nur allzu verständlichen Wunsches,
städtischer Kriminalität und ausufernder Klanfehden
Herr zu werden, steht jedoch noch vieles entgegen.
Die Erforschung der Ursachen, so Gordon und Meg-
gitt, schreitet fort, hat jedoch wenig Effektives
erbracht. Steigende Kosten für Präventivmaßnahmen
und nicht zuletzt der sich vergrößernde Schaden für die
Ökonomie des Landes geben einer Problemlösung
nicht mehr viel an zeitlichem Raum.
Gordon und Meggitt, beide bestens mit den Ver-
hältnissen in Papua-Neuguinea, insbesondere denen
der Enga-Provinz vertraut, befassen sich intensiv mit
dem Komplex „Recht und Ordnung“ am Beispiel
dieser Provinz. Ihr vielfältige Feldforschungserfahrung
bietet für die ethnographische Analyse einen guten
Sockel, und so verwundert es nicht, daß sie einen
historischen Ansatz wählen. Fokus ihrer Betrachtung
und Analyse ist das Verhältnis zwischen Herrschenden
und Beherrschten und in diesem Zusammenhang der
Koexistenz von Recht und Wandel. Die Natur des
Problems des Zusammenbruchs von Recht und Ord-
nung liegt folglich in der sozialen Organisation der
Interaktion von Enga und Regierung, wobei Gordon
und Meggitt „Zusammenbruch“ relativieren, denn
auch früher gab es kein Equilibrium - auch wenn einige
Autoren dies romantisierend postulieren.
Das Buch gliedert sich in drei Teile, von denen
der erste Begriffliches abklärt, bestehende methodi-
sche Ansätze abklopft, sich kurz mit der bislang
erschienen Literatur zu diesem Themenkomplex aus-
einandersetzt und ihn in Bezug zur sogenannten Drit-
ten Welt setzt. Der zweite Teil widmet sich der
historischen Betrachtung und Analyse und beginnt mit
der Untersuchung der heutigen Situation in der Enga-
Provinz; angesprochen werden in diesem Zusammen-
hang auch Probleme der Datenerhebung und ihrer
Zuverlässigkeit im Rechtsbereich. Recht und Ordnung
werden aus der Sicht der Enga wie der Regierungsver-
treter vorgestellt. Ausgehend vom heutigen Zustand,
in dem sich die Fronten zwischen beiden Seiten verhär-
tet haben und Kooperationsmangel beklagt wird, führt
die Untersuchung zurück in die Zeit der Kiap, die
während der Kolonialepoche als Feldoffiziere einge-
setzt waren und Recht sprechen konnten. Ihre teils
drastische Art der Urteilsfindung wie -Vollstreckung
hatte kurzfristig großen Erfolg und erklärt den heuti-
gen Ruf einiger weniger Personen nach Wiedereinfüh-
rung dieses Systems. Meggitt und Gordon verwerfen
diesen Gedanken und tun ihn als uneffektive Reminis-
zenz ab. Die auf die Kiap zeitlich folgenden speziali-
sierten Friedensrichter bzw. richterlichen Beamten
werden im Anschluß behandelt. Die Interpretation sei-
tens der Enga und ihre Erwiderung auf diesen weit-
reichenden administrativen und rechtlichen Wandel
schließen an und vertiefen die historische Dimension.
Der dritte Teil des Buches geht wieder auf die
heutige Zeit zurück und thematisiert Schritte, die auf
nationaler Ebene vollzogen wurden, um mit dem Pro-
blem von Recht und Ordnung fertig zu werden. Trotz
guter Ansätze des Staats, z. B. im Rahmen der
Gewohnheitsrechts-Option, so folgern Gordon und
Meggitt, liegen auch hier keine wesentlichen Verbesse-
rungen im Sinne einer tiefgreifenden Veränderung vor.
Anders verhält es sich nach ihrer Auffassung mit den
seit den siebziger Jahren eingerichteten Dorfgerichten
(village courts), hier liegt ein weites Feld der sozialen
Interaktion von Enga und Regierung brach. Ihre bishe-
rige weitgehende Uneffektivität geht nach Meinung der
Autoren auf bürokratische Überforderung, geringen
Rückhalt bei übergeordneten Instanzen, geringe Auto-
nomie in Entscheidungen seitens dieser Institution und
auf die Erstarrung des Gerichtswesens und seiner
Abläufe generell zurück. Recht und Ordnung wird
jedoch nicht durch drastische staatliche Maßnahmen
geschaffen, sondern primär mit der Bevölkerung, in
diesem Fall den Enga. Hier liegt die Krux im sich
verschlechternden Verhältnis von Regierenden und
Regierten. Beide Seiten tragen die Bürde der jetzigen
Zustände von Recht und Ordnung und sind kausal
verantwortlich. Auf Seiten der Regierung sollten neue
Konzepte im Rechtswesen wie „Gericht ohne Wände“
und die Einführung von Schiedsmännern erstellt und
realisiert werden und eventuell auch die den Enga
unbegreifliche Trennung in Straf- und Zivilrecht über-
dacht werden. Der Bereich der polizeilichen Strafver-
folgung sowie die Struktur der Gerichte selbst bedürfen
erheblicher Verbesserungen. Zu guter Letzt sollten
jedoch die Enga selbst für die Aufrechterhaltung von
Recht und Ordnung verantwortlich sein, denn soziale
Mechanismen, den Frieden herbeizuführen, werden
besser von unten stimuliert als von oben aufgesetzt.
Die Dorfgerichte sind nach Gordon und Meggitt das
geeignete Forum für diese Art der Selbsthilfe. Die
Regierung kann ihr Wirken durch sensible Supervision,
Statusanhebung, Sicherung vielfältiger Kooperation
mit anderen Institutionen oder bessere Entlohnung
optimieren. Wichtig sei auch, daß die Friedensrichter
gewählt werden sollten und ihre Nominierung öffent-
lich diskutiert werden kann. In der aktiven Teilnahme
an sozialen Prozessen im Rahmen der Dorfgerichte
sehen die Autoren abschließend einen wesentlichen
Beitrag und einen sinnvollen Ansatz, die Gewalt in der
Enga-Provinz auszurotten und einen dauerhaften Frie-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
257
den zu schaffen, kurz, ein Mittel, die Ordnung faktisch
möglich zu machen.
Das Werk “Law and Order in the New Guinea
Highlands” zeichnet sich durch gründliche Datenre-
cherche und -analyse aus und wirft durch die Fokusie-
rung auf die soziale Organisation der Interaktion von
Enga und Regierenden ein neues Licht auf die schwie-
rigen Verhältnisse von Recht und Ordnung in der
Enga-Provinz. Gleichzeitig werden auf die Zukunft
gerichtete Langzeitlösungen für beide Seiten vorge-
schlagen - ein m. E. wichtiges und lesenswertes Buch.
Thunar Jentsch
Gowlett, John A. J.: Auf Adams Spuren. Die
Archäologie des frühen Menschen. Freiburg: Herder,
1984. 208 pp., Abb. Preis: DM49,80
Bücher über die Frühzeit des Menschen gibt es
viele - das vorliegende ragt über die meisten dieser Art
hinaus. Zwar folgt der Autor dem gängigen Schema
der anspruchsvolleren Exemplare dieses Genres, doch
setzt er zusätzliche Akzente, so gleich zu Anfang die
Beantwortung von Fragen, die der mit der Materie
nicht eng vertraute Leser als erste auf dem Herzen hat:
Was ist eigentlich das Entscheidende an unserer heuti-
gen Lebensweise, unserer Zivilisation? Das Leben in
Städten? Die Kenntnis des Lesens und Schreibens?
Wenn das der Fall ist - die Mehrheit der Menschheit
wohnt nicht in Städten und kann nicht lesen und
schreiben. Sind sie nicht zivilisiert? Bei Antworten auf
diese und ähnliche Fragen sollte immer versucht wer-
den, den eigenen kulturellen Standort zu erkennen und
zu berücksichtigen.
Gowletts Buch ist chronologisch aufgebaut. Es ist
in neun Kapitel unterteilt und folgt zunächst der
phylogenetischen Entwicklung des Menschen, von den
Australopithecinen und dem Homo habilis über den
Homo erectus bis zum Homo sapiens (neanderthalen-
sis und sapiens). Nach dem Erscheinen von Homo
sapiens sapiens orientiert sich der Autor an den bedeu-
tenderen Stadien kultureller Entwicklung. Hier wird
auch die Besiedlung Australiens und Amerikas einge-
schlossen.
Den größten Teil des Buches nehmen Ausführun-
gen zum Paläolithikum ein. Ab dem achten Kapitel
beginnt Gowlett mit dem Neolithikum. Domestikation
und Kultivierung noch heute bedeutender Nutzpflan-
zen stehen dabei im Mittelpunkt. Das neunte Kapitel
ist mit „Die letzten Schritte zur Zivilisation“ über-
schrieben. Hier werden die Bereiche behandelt, die wir
als der Zivilisation wesenseigen bezeichnen: Staats-
gründung, Metallverarbeitung, Schriftentwicklung,
Schiff, Rad und Handel (die Farben der Kartenlegende
[190] wurden versehentlich vertauscht).
Mit den letzten Abschnitten schließt der Verfasser
den Kreis. Er kommt auf das Wesen der Zivilisation
zurück und zeigt die zeitliche Begrenzung einzelner
Zivilisationen auf. Aus mehreren interessanten Gedan-
kengängen des Autors sei auf diesen Satz hingewiesen;
»Letztlich ist die Kultur ein Teil der Biologie, da sie
ohne Zweifel ihre Existenz unserer genetischen Struk-
tur verdankt“ (195). Vielleicht läßt sich mit der wahr-
scheinlich noch in den Anfängen steckenden Gentech-
nologie auch manche der noch immer nicht gelösten
Fragen der Kulturanthropologie (im Sinne einer
Zusammenfassung von Ethnologie und Anthropologie)
näherkommen. Mancher wissenschaftliche Streit könn-
te so gegenstandslos werden, manches ungelöste Rätsel
könnte sich lösen lassen, wie das Phänomen der präko-
lumbisch isolierten indianischen Hochkulturen in
Meso- und Südamerika mit ihren teilweise „asiatisch“
anmutenden Kulturdokumenten.
In den Anhang des Buches wurden Erläuterungen
zur 14C-Datierung sowie eine chronologische Übersicht
in Graphiken aufgenommen. Glossar, Bibliographie,
Bildnachweis und Register beschließen das Werk.
Neben dem klaren und gut verständlichen Text
(freilich auch ein Verdienst der Übersetzerin Andrea
Becker) ist besonders die Vielfalt der Abbildungen in
Schwarzweiß und Farbe beeindruckend, Bilder aus der
heutigen Umwelt, wie sie zur Zeit der jeweiligen
Hominiden bestanden haben mag, wechseln mit sol-
chen zur experimentellen Archäologie und dem völker-
kundlichen Vergleich. Selbstverständlich sind auch die
berühmtesten Objekte aus der menschlichen Urge-
schichte wiedergegeben, ebenso wie die Reste mensch-
licher Skelette, zeichnerische Darstellungen der Men-
schenarten, Rekonstruktionen und Graphiken zu ver-
schiedenen Bereichen der Paläontologie, Geologie und
Anthropologie. Dazu treten zahlreiche Karten. Nur
selten dürfte ein solch unterschiedliches Bildmaterial in
dieser Konzentration und Kombination sowie bester
Qualität in einen einzigen Band eingegangen sein.
Nicht zuletzt deshalb gehört diese Publikation zu den
eindrucksvollsten ihrer Art. Axel Schulze-Thulin
Gronemeyer, Reimer (comp.): Zigeuner in Osteu-
ropa. Eine Bibliographie zu den Ländern Polen, Tsche-
choslowakei und Ungarn. Mit einem Anhang über
ältere sowjetische Literatur. München: K. G. Saur,
1983. 280 pp. Preis: DM48,-
Piasere, Leonardo: Märe Roma. Catégories hu-
maines et structure sociale. Une contribution à l’ethno-
logie tsigane. Paris 1985. (Etudes et Documents Balka-
niques et Méditerranéens, 8) 274 pp., fig.
Compiling annotated bibliographies of studies
published on any theme in the social sciences is almost
always a fairly arduous task. This is so even when one
restricts oneself to purely scientific publications in the
more popular West European languages and to specific
sub-themes concerning a given area, or a given popula-
tion. Reimer Gronemeyer has set himself an even more
formidable task than most bibliographers by attempting
to cover all types of written materials on a very large
population and written in languages not usually acces-
sible to scholars in most parts of the world. His an-
notated bibliography lists 796 sources on Gypsies in Po-
land, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union.
Most of the titles/are in the languages of these
Anthropos 83.1988
258
Rezensionen
countries; additionally, information appearing in the
West on Gypsies living in these countries has also been
included. The sources mentioned are not restricted to
purely academic publications, but range from newsclip-
pings and handbills through unpublished manuscripts
to books and articles published in periodicals. The
period covered by the bibliography is, for Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, 1945-1980; for the
Soviet Union only sources prior to 1930 are listed (the
oldest source mentioned is dated 1794). Although it
was not easy to obtain many of the entries, almost each
of these is accompanied by an extremely useful summa-
ry, whose length varies from one line to three pages.
Whenever relevant, even quantitative data-content
have been summarized.
“Zigeuner in Osteuropa” is a very valuable ref-
erence work for all researchers in the fields of Gypsy
studies, minority studies, and State policies in eastern
Europe.
Attempts at combining scientific precision with a
vivid “feel for the place and the people” have been few
and rarely successful in social anthropology. Leonardo
Piasere’s book is a rare exception. In 263 pages of
eminently readable, though, unfortunately, not always
legible French (it is a photocopy of a typed manu-
script), the author cleverly intertwines the anthropolo-
gist’s observations (his own and those of others) and
reflections and the views and observations of a commu-
nity of Gypsies at various levels of action and speech.
The result is fascinating, not only for those interested
in Gypsy studies, but for all those researching in the
field of cognitive anthropology.
The empirical data presented in this monograph
were collected in north-eastern Italy between 1979 and
1984. The book is divided into six chapters and the text
is explained by several figures; some of the data are
presented in tabular form in the body of the book. It is,
however, to be regretted that these figures and tables
are almost never captioned, and that some of them are
not even referred to in the text. The first chapter of the
book deals mainly with the history of the group.
Chapter II deals with ethnic categories of cognition and
with terminology used to distinguish various other
Gypsy groups, while Chapter III discusses the social
organization of the group studied, and the levels and
categories of cognition within it. Chapters II and III
together provide good insights into both the func-
tioning of ethnicity and the sense of history in a non-
literate society. They also provide valuable data on the
ephemeral nature of social units at various levels of
organization.
Chapter IV raises a number of highly topical is-
sues in anthropology - such as those of territoriality, of
different types of resource-bases among nomads, of no-
madism as a strategy, of ethnic boundary maintenance
systems - and it provides a great deal of valuable
empirical data. Its drawback is a certain lack of clarity
in style and in the use of terminology. Concepts such as
“work processes” (“processus de travail”) for example,
appear to be used indiscriminately to cover “means of
production” - such as begging - as also “modes of
production.” Incidentally, is there a mode of produc-
tion specific to Gypsies - an important question touch-
ed upon, but left largely undiscussed. Piasere consid-
ers non-Gypsies - very rightly I believe - to be the
resources of Gypsies. In this chapter he analyses the
economic relations between Gypsies and non-Gypsies
and shows that these Gypsies are territorial in so far as
the rights of access to these resources are defended
against competitors. These rights of access are also
inter-generationally transmitted. Here, Piasere also
provides data which indicate that nomadism can be
viewed more as a social strategy, to maintain cohesion
within the group, rather than as an economic strategy.
The last two chapters (V and VI) are devoted to
the belief systems of this community of Gypsies and the
anthropological issue at hand is the Nature vs. Culture
debate. Much has been written on the belief systems of
other European Gypsy groups and it is to Piasere’s
credit that he really manages to break new ground here
by analysing his material from a new perspective.
Despite a few shortcomings, “Mare Roma” (“Our
Roma”) is undoubtedly one of the finest studies of
Gypsies in recent years. Above all it questions so many
readily accepted notions and raises so many issues
which are important in the study of nomads in general
and of minority communities everywhere.
Aparna Rao
Hellinger, Marlis: Englisch-orientierte Pidgin- und
Kreolsprachen. Entstehung, Geschichte und sprachli-
cher Wandel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-
sellschaft, 1985. xii+229pp., Abb., Tab., Ktn. (Erträ-
ge der Forschung, 221) Preis; DM 58,-
The serious theoretical study of pidgin and creole
languages is very much a phenomenon of the last few
decades. Because of British colonial expansion, from
the eighteenth century on, the majority of recent
pidgin and creole languages - and, therefore, the
best-studied ones - have been based, lexically at any
rate, on English. Accordingly, the majority of books
on the subject, in recent years, have been in English.
This book is an attempt to redress the balance,
even though it also deals primarily with “English-
oriented” pidgins. The preliminary chapters deal with
the major theoretical issues of creolistics: linguistic
universal, bioprograms, common features of linguistic
simplification and “foreigner talk,” theories of mono-
genesis and relexification. The characterization of rival
theories is scrupulously fair, but, in the introductory
pages at least, the author avoids taking sides. It is a
pity, in fact, that the book appeared before some of the
publications of Peter Mühlhäusler that throw doubt on
Derek Bickerton’s “bioprogramming” in the process of
creolization; her historical insights and familiarity with
African pidgins and with Jamaican creole could be
expected to make her contribution a valuable one.
Two particularly valuable chapters deal with the
work of Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) and the recep-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
259
tion of his work by Dirk Christiaan Hesseling, Otto
Jespersen, and Leonard Bloomfield. Schuchardt is still
little known, in detail, to creolists who do not know
German, and it is a pity that most of them will also miss
this excellent evaluation of a man falsely characterized
by Bickerton as an “incurable dilettante.” I hope the
author will consider an English translation of this part,
if not of the whole book.
Also of considerable historical interest is the
chapter on the oldest pidgin language known to us, the
original “Lingua Franca” of the Mediterranean and
Middle Eastern region, known from approximately the
time of the Crusades until almost to the present day. In
the monogenetic theory of pidgins, this Lingua Franca
stands as the origin of all modern pidgins based on
European languages (or, at the very least, those based
on English). Hellinger provides a succinct account,
including a number of interesting examples; but she has
to conclude: “Abschließend bleibt festzuhalten, daß
die Position der historischen Lingua Franca in dem
Netz genetischer Beziehungen zwischen den europä-
isch-orientierten Pidgin- und Kreolsprachen nicht ein-
deutig zu bestimmen ist” (78).
The remaining chapters deal in more detail with
the processes of pidginization and creolization, with
examples drawn primarily from pidgins on both sides of
the Atlantic. There is too much to summarize; there
are comments based on lexical, grammatical, and
historical data, as well as insights from universals of
linguistic contact. There are few examples from Pacific
pidgins, but the two pages devoted to Tok Pisin are
completely accurate.
It would be hard to find a better introduction to
pidgin and creole linguistics, in either German or
English. The author says, with Bloomfield’s presenta-
tion of pidginization as “the masters’ imitation of the
subjects’ incorrect speech,” “daß sich . . . der Schwer-
punkt der wissenschaftlichen Beschäftigung mit Pidgin-
und Kreolsprachen von Europa nach Nordamerika
verlagert” (45).
This book goes a long way towards redressing the
balance and moving the focus of serious creolistics back
to Europe. Don Laycock
Hochegger, Hermann (dir.): Dictionnaire des
rites; vol. 1-6: Abandon-Bonnet. Bandundu, Zaïre:
CEEBA, 1984-1987. Chaque vol. ca. 515 pp. (CEEBA
publications, série I, 9-14)
La publication du «Dictionnaire des rites» par
l’équipe du Centre d’Etudes Ethnologiques de Bandun-
du, animée par le Père Hochegger, se poursuit réguliè-
rement. Six gros volumes sont sortis, dactylographiés
de manière serrée, et l’on n’en est encore qu’à «bon-
net» dans l’ordre alphabétique. A ce rythme il faut
s’attendre à une série de trente à quarante volumes! Du
Point de vue des ethnies concernées, les Yansi restent
au centre, mais de nombreux articles se rapportent
aussi aux Hungana, Ntomba, Sakata, Mbala, Mputu,
Buma, Lulua, Luba, Pende, Yaka, etc.
J’ai déjà dit dans ces colonnes tout le bien que je
pense de cette entreprise: il est très rare qu’on ait su
motiver à tel point les ressortissants d’une population
pour l’étude et la consignation écrite de ses traditions,
qu’on ait su créer une équipe, non de spécialistes, mais
de gens aux formations très diverses réunis uniquement
par l’intérêt qu’ils portent à leur patrimoine culturel, et
qu’on ait su trouver un mode d’écriture et de publica-
tion qui facilite le retour à la population de ce qui est
issu d’elle, sans que pour autant ce soit aux dépens
d’un travail proprement scientifique.
«Dictionnaire des rites» doit être replacé dans
l’ensemble des publications du CEEBA: 94 volumes
dans la série «Mémoires et monographies», 8 volumes
de rapports et de comptes-rendus et colloques, 13
volumes de travaux linguistiques, dictionnaires et
grammaires. Le complément direct et illustré du «Dic-
tionnaire», ce sont les trois volumes intitulés «Le
langage des gestes rituels». Certes, tout ne se rapporte
pas aux seules populations entre Kwango et Kwilou.
Mais ce sont néanmois elles qui sont concernées en
priorité par cette énorme accumulation de données
ethnographiques. L’entreprise a ainsi une triple dimen-
sion: il s’agit d’un travail de recherche au sens le plus
complet et le plus exigeant du terme, il s’agit d’un
travail de formation par la recherche d’un noyau de
collaborateurs locaux, et enfin il s’agit d’un travail de
vulgarisation de cette recherche auprès de ceux qui
sont les premiers intéressés par elle.
Quand on parcourt ce dictionnaire, on se rend
compte à quel point le rite, sous sa forme discrète,
imprègne la vie quotidienne de ces populations, com-
bien il est souple dans ses modalités et sait intégrer sans
problème des éléments culturels nouveaux, combien
peut être importante la part de l’improvisation une fois
que sa finalité est nettement perçue. Un même élément
peut donner lieu à plusieurs articles. En ce cas, ceux-ci
sont précédés par un rapide chapeau introductif que
indique dans les grandes lignes le symbolisme de l’objet
en question et son utilisation, puis renvoie à d’autres
rubriques où il intervient et aux illustrations correspon-
dantes. Chaque article indique le nom du rite dans la
langue locale, en décrit les modalités et le déroule-
ment, donne une exemple de séquence verbale l’ac-
compagnant, en dégage la signification et indique le
nom de l’informateur.
Par exemple, dans le volume n° 6 nous allons
trouver l’élément «Bible». Dans le chapeau (146) on
nous explique que les rituels qui utilisent la Bible
s’inspirent tous de l’idée que le livre contenant la
parole de Dieu est porteur de grandes forces que le
responsable du rite va essayer de manipuler. Viennent
ensuite 28 exemples de telles manipulations: on frappe
avce la Bible la tête, la bouche et la poitrine de
quelqu’un qui veut s’engager dans la religion chrétien-
ne; on touche avec la Bible les maillots des foot-
balleurs avant un match et on y insère une liste écrite
des joueurs; on introduit dans une Bible le stylo à bille
et des papiers d’un élève qui va passer un examen; on
menace avec elle les mauvais esprits; on l’enjambe
Anthropos 83.1988
260
Rezensionen
pour attester la vérité; on la pose sur le front d’un
enfant malade; deux personnes la tiennent ensemble
pour montrer qu’elles se réconcilient; on la fait enjam-
ber à tout un village pour détecter les sorciers; on
frappe avec elle une personne suspecte de sorcellerie
pour la forcer à dévoiler ses fétiches d’envoûtement; on
s’en sert comme d’un moyen de divination pour trouver
les causes d’une maladie; on la pose sur les jambes d’un
enfant pour demander qu’il ne marche pas trop tôt; on
s’en sert pour maudire quelqu’un, lui envoyer un
malheur ou la folie, etc. Les cas où sont ainsi utilisés
des éléments d’introduction récente sont particulière-
ment éclairants quand il s’agit de comprendre les
mécanismes de réinterprétation qui caractérisent tout
changement culturel et toute acculturation. Il en est
ainsi, par exemple, des rubriques «Homme blanc»,
«Argent», «Billet de banque», «Abbé», «Autel»,
«Auto», «Baiser», «Allumettes», etc. Il y a donc là un
matériel ethnographique de première main, avec des-
cription souvent détaillée et recueil des paroles qui
accompagnent les gestes.
Les rédacteurs ont manifestement été habitués à
suivre un schéma très souple et à donner in fine
quelques éléments d’interprétation, qui constituent
sans doute la partie la plus discutable de ces petits
textes. On a rarement l’occasion de voir d’aussi près
comment fonctionne dans le détail une culture et une
religion. Mais il ne faut évidemment pas demander à ce
«Dictionnaire» plus qu’il ne prétend donner. On en
reste au niveau du témoignage d’informateur, donc
d’un matériel relativement brut, mais rendu facilement
accessible du fait du classement alphabétique et du
regroupement thématique.
Sur le plan autant ethnologique que pédagogique
il serait sans doute intéressant que ce niveau du simple
recueil soit au moins occasionnellement dépassé pour
montrer comment un matériau aussi riche peut être
exploité et comment il est possible de remonter jus-
qu’au système de pensée qui en fait la cohérence et qui
le sous-tend. De même qu’il y a des chapeaux introduc-
tifs, on s’attend à ce que quelque part apparaissent des
conclusions et des essais de synthèse. Il ne suffit pas de
donner à une population envie de mieux connaître son
patrimoine, il faut encore lui apprendre à s’y retrouver,
à y voir clair, à savoir quoi en faire, à le hisser au
niveau d’un véritable instrument de culture moderne.
Car ces rites, à partir du moment où ils sont consignés
par écrit, quittent la sphère du vécu pour entrer dans
celle du pensé. Tant qu’ils sont véhiculés de manière
vivante, selon une symbolique implicite et largement
inconsciente, ils relèvent d’un mode d’appréhension
qui n’admet que très peu de distance. Il n’en est plus de
même à partir du moment où l’on peut en trouver la
description dans un livre, et où ils peuvent et doivent
devenir objet d’étude et d’analyse. Le mode de con-
naissance change alors profondément. La consignation
écrite du patrimoine ancestral n’a finalement de sens
que si elle en permet l’intégration par une société qui
de toute façon est en train de changer profondément de
Weltanschauung, que si elle lui permet de rester
elle-même tout en devenant autre et d’allier harmo-
nieusement tradition et modernité.
Face à ce travail énorme, mes sentiments oscillent
donc entre une immense admiration d’ethnographe et
la relative frustration du pédagogue. Si ce matériel doit
retourner aux populations donc il est issu, il faut aussi
leur fournir les clés qui puissent le rendre utilisable
aujourd’hui. Pierre Erny
Holy, Ladislav: Strategies and Norms in a Chang-
ing Matrilineal Society. Descent, Succession, and In-
heritance among the Toka of Zambia. London; Cam-
bridge University Press, 1986. 232 pp. (Cambridge
Studies in Social Anthropology, 58) Price: £22,50
This volume is organized into a long introduction
presenting the author’s theoretical position, and ten
short chapters desçribing the working of various prin-
ciples of Toka kinship, leading up to extended discus-
sions of cases of succession to local political and ritual
offices and to the inheritance of property. The author’s
data derive from brief and intermittent stays (from two
days to several months) with the Toka during a 58
month period when the author was stationed 80 kilo-
meters distant as director of a local museum. The
peculiar nature of the fieldwork seems reflected in the
data. On the positive side, there are considerable
riches regarding the changing social composition of
particular villages and extensive statistical information
about changing patterns of residence, succession, di-
vorce, widowhood, inheritance, and other related fac-
tors. There are also some detailed genealogical charts
and accounts of particular legal cases or disputes.
Such materials are impressive in their thoroughness
and detail and reflect considerable diligence in collect-
ing settlement censuses and surveys and the compila-
tion of interviews and questionaires. This is useful and
valuable. What is missing is a sense of what Mauss
would term “total social phenomena” so that these
quantified materials fail to convey any vivid impression
about how Toka actually live their daily lives or how
they actually think and feel about their social rules and
values. This study is a useful repository of ethnographic
information, but as “global” ethnography it is an
anemic and pallid creation when compared to such
powerful writings on social organization in Zambia as
Victor Turner’s “Schism and Continuity” or William
Watson’s “Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy.”
Unfortunately, it is just such “deeper” understanding
that is needed to give affectual force and credibility to
the varying and competing goals and values animating
the various Toka protagonists portrayed.
The author would doubtless argue that this vol-
ume is not intended as a complete ethnography, but
rather as a closely focussed analysis of certain aspects
of social organization, and as a contribution toward a
new theoretical and methodological approach to under-
standing changing systems of kinship. Unfortunately, it
is far from satisfactory on these counts as well.
In this work Holy continues to press arguments he
Anthropos 83.1988
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261
raised in earlier publications. He presents a sharp
dichotomy between what he sees as operational models
that serve as ideologies existing beyond real situations,
and operational models that are comprised of situa-
tionally specific norms embedded in social actions. Holy
refuses to credit much explanatory value to any seg-
mentary model of matrilineal descent; for him such a
model merely serves as means to sustain illusions of a
continuing, now dissolving tradition. Holy fails to grasp
that such ideologies of lineage not merely legitimize
political actions but also help formulate them. All
forms of social ties, whether territorial, cognatic, lineal
or affinal, involve both some form of ideological
representation and some ever-varying operations or
actions. Furthermore, for Holy to argue that his own
attention to social action is radical and new, he must
either misread or ignore considerable prior mono-
graphs on the study of African kinship. This he already
did earlier in a particularly unsatisfactory misreading of
the Nuer material. He now does this for much of the
Zambian material as well. In his earlier approach and
now here Holy appears rooted in the kind of “material-
istic” simplifications of “kinship” represented by such
writers as Marshall Sahlins, Harold Scheffler, William
Kelly, and Roger Keesing.
Holy’s data do indicate that the Toka are under-
going a trend favouring succession and inheritance
between fathers and sons, or, at the least, increasing
cooperation between persons linked paternally rather
than matrilineally. In part this is due to monetization of
the economy and an ever increasing evaluation of
housing, agricultural equipment, and plough-oxen as
inheritable wealth. The main factor influencing these
gradual and hardly uniform and consistent changes is
an altering pattern of residence.
I do not dispute Holy’s ethnographic findings. I do
question the kind of analyses that he draws from them.
It is hardly convincing for the author to argue that
myriad local individual interactions cumulatively pro-
duce new social norms; rather, varied and competing
norms and interests, which were long part of the
“traditional” belief and value system of the Toka, are
now bent in new directions. Practices modify beliefs
and values, but practices do not arise out of some
ideological vacuum. Nor was any earlier social system
free of such contending strategies. To present either
practices or beliefs as the sole fount of the other is to
misunderstand the complex and subtle interplay be-
tween social factors. The social changes that Holy
describes have been frequently and long reported,
though admittedly not always in such detail as done
here.
In his introduction Holy implies that he has used
these materials to advance some kind of analytical
breakthrough toward a better grasp of the processes of
social change in kinship systems of descent. He de-
ceives himself; what he provides is some detailed
though narrowly focussed data analyzed in an analyti-
cally naive and muddled way that suggests an inade-
quate appreciation of social life. T. O. Beidelman
Houston, G. W. (ed.): The Cross and the Lotus.
Christianity and Buddhism in Dialogue. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1985. 250 pp. Price: Rs 125.00
One of the great questions which has confronted
us all in the last thirty-five years or so is, as Geoffrey
Barraclough calls it, “the changing relationship be-
tween Europe and the rest of the world,” or, to phrase
it after Arnold Toynbee and thus bring it nearer to the
central interest of this book, “the great dialogue”
between the world and the West.
In this connection it is worthy of note that in
earlier decades American cultural anthropologists had
dedicated considerable attention to the elucidation of
the concept of acculturation. As a result of their studies
they came to the conclusion that the acculturative pro-
cess tends to generate three end-consequences: (1) Con-
tra-acculturation or the withdrawal of the weaker cul-
ture from the acculturative situation; (2) Adaptation
or adjustment; and (3) Assimilation or the total ab-
sorption of one culture by the other in the relationship
of firsthand contact.
Since Christian apologists, both Catholic and Prot-
estant, have, ever since Vatican II or somewhat ear-
lier, begun to devote much thought to indigenization or
inculturation, it would be well to bear in mind, if for no
other reason than as a precaution, what the American
cultural anthropologists have concluded in the context
of acculturation.
In this book we are presented with ten essays on
the subject of Christianity and Buddhism in dialogue
and a seven-page introduction by the editor. Of these
essays the most thoughtful and rivetting is that of
Luis O. Gomez which ventures to illuminate the
methodological dimension of the interfaith dialogue
among Christians and Buddhists.
Let us, therefore, turn to Gomez’s essay first. If
the aim of dialogue is regarded as the “understanding
of the specific human experiences” (141) arising from
the dialogical relationship, then Gomez rightly and
properly points out that the dialogue is concerned with
integral systems and not with isolated phenomena. He
thinks further that the concept of a matrix which he
defines as “a list of doctrines that are obviously central
to the given religion” (134) is a basically helpful device
in interpreting the dialogical experience. Unlike more
frenetic and less cautious advocates of dialogue and
inculturation, Gomez, however, indicates that the dif-
ferences are as important as the parallels in the
dialogical situation, that verbal similarities must be
discounted, that individual terms must be viewed as
functions in a system of meanings, and that the herme-
neutic circle must be transformed into a wager. There
is much more in his cautionary narrative than can be
detailed in this brief review; in fact we are faced with
an embarrassment of riches. Suffice it to say, however,
that the concrete illustrations from Christianity and
Buddhism with which he seeks to illuminate his point
of view and which with good reason take up substantial
space in his methodological exercise are unquestion-
ably pertinent and immensely instructive.
Anthropos 83.1988
262
Rezensionen
But how, more specifically, does Gomez view the
propelling ends that must emanate from the dialogical
process? He is forthright in pointing out that distrust
and conversions are not the goals of dialogue, that
other religions should not be viewed as defective
fragments of one’s own, and that the aim of dialogue is
“to contribute to the peaceful coexistence of diverse
creeds, to foster cooperation and friendly communica-
tion among them, and to explore the possibility of
mutual enrichment” (202). There is no talk here at all
of the assimilation of one religion by another. The
cautionary notes struck and the clear and limited
objectives logically deduced from the nature of the
concept are edifying; and yet a nagging question
remains. It is: Where do we go from here? There is no
hint of an answer to this question in this essay. But,
then, Gomez would no doubt be justified in responding
that his purpose was confined to the methodological
clarification of the concept - and nothing more. What
is all to the good, however, is that in so confining
himself his essay turns out to be practically useful
because it is sure to act like a cold shower to those who
indulge themselves in a spree of inculturation.
Of the other essays in the book that of H.-J.
Klimkeit, concentrating on the Christian-Buddhist
encounter in medieval Central Asia, demonstrates that
the symbols and concepts of both the world religions
were sought to be consciously related to each other,
that early Christian theology, as it grew in Alexandria,
was influenced by Indian and probably Buddhist
notions, that when the Mongols turned to Buddhism in
the 15th and 16th centuries the Christians were compel-
led to lead a peripheral existence in Central Asia and
that, among other useful findings, the Christians began
increasingly to try and present their faith in Buddhist
terms almost to the extent of losing their own identity
and yet always remaining conscious of their religious
core. Although the sources are not plentiful, Klimkeit’s
essay makes gripping reading because it succeeds in
uncovering - admittedly in somewhat attenuated form
- the results of religious encounters in a region in which
there was not only an exchange of commondities but
also of beliefs and ideas.
Dealing, next, with “grace” in Martin Luther and
Tantric Buddhism, George R. Elder endeavours to
show that through grace Luther claimed to assume the
strength and wisdom of God, even as the Buddhist
candidate is taught to actively imagine that he is in fact
divine. Presumably, a few examples of the identity
doctrine which deeply characterizes much of Eastern
religion, or near approximations to it, can also be
found in Christianity. But the main stream of Christian
belief is quite distinctly otherwise - wisely and rational-
ly so. Accordingly, Elder’s essay has all the signs of
being a strained effort at demonstrating a similarity in
this direction. Richard Langdon, whose essay follows,
compares Francis and Milarepa whom he regards as
“two of the world’s greatest saints” (52). He traces
various points of similarity between them; but it is
doubtful whether the claim can be sustained that the
latter had nothing to do with the way of knowledge as a
means of salvation. Donald W. Mitchell, taking up the
theme of Rudolf Otto and the mystical vision in
Buddhism and Christianity, struggles valiantly to expli-
cate the notions of unity and identity in spite of
multiplicity through an exegesis of Rudolf Otto who
dealt primarily with the Western mysticism of Meister
Eckhart and the Indian mysticism of Samkara, but who
also, as Mitchell says, makes a number of references to
Buddhism. Mitchell is certainly right in regarding the
relation of the finite to the infinite as a nagging
question in both East and West. But is the eastern
solution, even mystically viewed, adequate? Certainly,
communion is preferable to alienation; but commu-
nion, as is evident, requires communing persons as
ineradicable entities.
As to the other contributors, Roger J. Corless is
concerned with the dialogue of silence, is astonished
that all forms of monasticism have a similarity of
structure, and speaks of coinherence in meditation
which takes place in Superconsciousness. Patrick Black
turns his attention to communication (or lack of it)
between Christianity and Buddhism and concludes
appropriately that the East can learn from the West to
affirm the world which after all is God’s creation and,
therefore, good, instead of denying it. Lama Anagarika
Govinda looks at Christianity from a Tibetan Bud-
dhist’s standpoint and maintains that Christianity did
not make progress in Tibet because Christ’s teachings
are reflected in ample measure in the Bodhisattva ideal
“and have been practiced in Tibet more than anywhere
in Europe” (123). David H. Fisher argues that tran-
scendence presents a serious difficulty for Theravada
Buddhism, that if there is no self as in this form of
Buddhism, how individual insight is achieved is a
problem of high moment, that Paul’s second self in
Christ is a gift, and that as a belief it sharply differen-
tiates Christianity from archaic Buddhism in the matter
of understanding salvation. Lastly, Travis L. Rogers,
writing on temptation and evil, sees similarities in both
the Christian and Buddhist traditions in the manner in
which temptation is handled, goes on to examine the
nature and interpretations of evil, and points out that,
without evil, good would remain dormant, and that it
was a catalyst to both Christ and Buddha.
To turn finally to the editor himself, G. W.
Houston affirms in his introduction that four possibili-
ties generally present themselves when two religions
meet in firsthand contact. The four possibilities are as
follows: They may ignore each other; or, they may
borrow from each other; or again, they may form a
new religion; or still again, they may attempt to destroy
each other. Houston, however, suggests a fifth possi-
bility, and that is: Why not learn from each other?
There is, of course, no doubt that in the circum-
stances of the contemporary world dialogue is prefer-
able by far to confrontation. Therefore, the emergence
of a Christian-Buddhist dialogue in the last twenty
years in a more substantial measure than earlier is a
matter for commendation and encouragement. Al-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
263
though the articles in this book vary in quality and
depth, one feels sure that the book will serve simulta-
neously to persuade those who drag their feet in so far
as dialogue is concerned, and dissuade those who rush
headlong into it. Similarities exist, but so also differ-
ences. Dialogue has to reckon with both of them.
J. V. Ferreira
Hunger, Heinz: Die Heilige Hochzeit. Vorge-
schichtliche Sexualkulte und -mythen. Wiesbaden:
Verlag Medical Tribüne GmbH, 1984. 203 pp., Abb.
Dr. theol. habil, und phil. Hunger hat in zahlrei-
chen Aufsätzen und Enzyklopädie-Beiträgen anthropo-
logische und ethnographische Aspekte der Sexualität
aus Geschichte und Gegenwart in Asien, Europa und
Nordamerika dargestellt und wesentliche Erkenntnisse
in sexualpädagogische Veröffentlichungen eingebracht.
Im angezeigten Werk legt er eine Summe von Beob-
achtungen und Erfahrungen vor, wonach in alten und
neuen Kulturen und Religionen ein Thema im Mittel-
punkt steht: der Liebesakt als Sicherung irdischer
Fruchtbarkeit und überirdischen Heils, oder aber der
Verzicht auf das Liebesieben als eine Entscheidung zur
Erlösung vom Unheil in dieser und jener Welt.
Verf. gründet seine durch sorgfältige Schrifttums-
nachweise fundierte Aussagen auf ein reiches und
bisher weithin unveröffentlichtes Anschauungsmateri-
al, das er im Laufe eines langen Lebens von Kultstätten
und aus Museen zusammengetragen hat. In unserer
Generation mit der scheinbaren Aufgeschlossenheit,
Freuden und Fragen des Geschlechtslebens anzuerken-
nen und die künstlerischen Zeugnisse einer solchen
offenen Haltung aus Altertum und Gegenwart des
Ostens und Westens vorurteilsfrei zu würdigen, sind
die einleitenden Beobachtungen von besonderem
Interesse, daß man in den musealen Sammlungen die
entsprechenden Werke vorwiegend unter Verschluß
hält und die Fachleute meist eine merkwürdige
Zurückhaltung zeigen, „. . . sobald die Rede auf sexu-
elles Verhalten und Sexualmoral dort und damals
kommt“ (10). Wenn auch die großen Kulte der Ver-
gangenheit die Heilige Hochzeit als eine Wiederholung
der Weltschöpfung gefeiert hatten, so beobachten wir
in der Geschichte doch immer wieder Wandlungen
vom Sexualkult zur Sexualfeindschaft.
In Bildkunst, Dichtung und Mythologie nimmt
Indien eine führende Rolle auf dem Gebiet der Sexual-
symbolik ein: in der Gestalt der zweigeschlechtlichen
Gottheit (18), im tantrischen sexuellen Kultdrama (27),
in der Sublimierung der Sexualität durch Meditation,
Voga und Askese (43) und in der Spiritualisierung der
Liebessehnsucht durch die Mystik im Bereich des
Gottes Krishna (53). In Fernost bestimmten ge-
schlechtliche Vorstellungen auch einen Teil des japa-
nischen Ahnenkults (61), die literarisch-künstlerische
Sonderform der erotischen Kopfkissenbücher (66) und
wiederum eine blühende Mystik, wobei die Heilige
Hochzeit „mit und ohne Sex“ (72) begangen werden
konnte. Was die „Neue Welt“ angeht, so verdanken
wir dem Verf. Ergebnisse seiner ausgedehnten For-
schungen zum indianischen Jagdzauber (88) und der
auch aus dem alten Indien bekannten Fest-Promis-
kuität (97). Sakrale Prostitution ist vor allem aus den
dichterischen und bildkünstlerischen Zeugnissen von
der Großen Göttin im Alten Orient (114) und zum
Beispiel aus der Heiligen Hochzeit im Turm zu Babel
bekannt (141). In den Schlußkapiteln hören wir von
der Desexualisierung der Religion (162); nachdem uns
nun zahlreiche Denkmäler aus den verschiedenen Kul-
turen vor Augen geführt worden sind, werden wir
schließlich nochmals mit einer Frage aus der Einleitung
über die Verdrängung von sexueller Kunst und ihren
Betrachtern durch Museumsbeamte konfrontiert:
„Stammt unsere Sexualmoral noch aus der Steinzeit?“
(182)
Verf. fährt darin fort, seine kulturgeschichtlich
tief bohrenden und in der Gegenwart oft als unbequem
empfundenen Fragen zu stellen. In seinen hier vorlie-
genden Illustrationen finden wir Aufnahmen von der
Anbetung göttlicher männlicher Geschlechtssymbole in
einem Tempel der Universität Benares 1965 (Abb. 13)
und von der Vergegenwärtigung uralter Kultpaarung
durch Hirschtanz-Darsteller in Arizona 1976
(Abb. 131). Zum “8th World Congress for Sexology”,
Heidelberg 1987, hielt Hunger im Symposium “Eros
and Art” einen Lichtbildervortrag über ein indischen
Zeichner, der heute Themen nach klassischen Liebes-
lehren in Sanskrit und mittelalterlichen Hindu-Tem-
peln zeitgemäß wiedergibt; “Introducing P. T. Reddy
as Illustrator of a Medieval Indian Sex Manual”; er
leitete das Symposium “History, Mythology” mit
einem Grundsatzreferat “Sexual Morals and the Great
Religions” ein und sprach dabei selbst über “‘Paranor-
mal’ Sexuality in Primitive Religion(s)”.
Klaus Fischer
König, Ditte: Das Tor zur Unterwelt. Mythologie
und Kult des Termitenhügels in der schriftlichen und
mündlichen Tradition Indiens. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag Wiesbaden, 1984. 391 pp., Abb. (Beiträge zur
Südasienforschung, Südasien-Institut Universität Hei-
delberg, 97)
Zwar haben eine Reihe von Wissenschaftlern vor
allem in jüngerer Zeit auf die besondere Rolle des
Termitenhügels in der indischen Kultur hingewiesen,
aber das vorliegende Werk ist die bisher umfassendste
Abhandlung zu diesem Thema. Mehr als 200 Sanskrit-
texte sowie Volkserzählungen, Stammesmythen und eth-
nographische Berichte wurden gleichermaßen heran-
gezogen, um das kaleidoskopische Bild des Termiten-
hügels zu zeichnen. Keine der Rezensentin bekannte
Assoziation oder kulturelle Verwendung des Hügels, sei-
ner Erde und Bewohner, ist der Autorin entgangen.
Einleitend gibt das Buch zoologische Auskünfte
über die Ameisen und Termiten, welche oft im Volks-
mund (außerhalb Südindiens) nicht unterschieden wer-
den, sowie etymologische Hinweise zu Wörtern für die
Ameise und die Termite in Sanskrittexten. Der Haupt-
Anthropos 83.1988
264
Rezensionen
teil des Buches behandelt die Termiten und ihre Hügel
im Volksglauben, Ritual, Mythos und in der Symbolik.
Ein eigenes Kapitel ist ihrer Verwendung in der Medi-
zin gewidmet. Die ältesten Werke der indischen Medi-
zin bestimmen, daß auf einem Termitenhügel wachsen-
de Heilkräuter nicht zu gebrauchen sind. Andererseits
wird die Termitenhügelerde von alters her bis in die
Neuzeit bei indischen Stämmen und Kasten zu Heil-
zwecken verwendet. Die Rengma Naga wiederum ver-
wenden (oder verwandten) diese Erde zum Töten eines
Menschen. Diese und andere unterschiedliche Vorstel-
lungen machen, nach Meinung der Autorin, den Ter-
mitenhügel ambivalent. Unter Ambivalenz jedoch ver-
steht man die Koexistenz von Haß und Liebe zu einem
Ding in einer Person. Im Fall des Termitenhügels
dagegen finden sich unterschiedliche und gegensätzli-
che Ansichten bei verschiedenen Autoren und Bevöl-
kerungsgruppen, in verschiedenen Zeitaltern und
Zusmmenhängen. Der gleiche Einwand läßt sich gegen
die Androgynität erheben, die wiederholt dem Termi-
tenhügel zugeschrieben wird. Einen termitenhügelför-
migen Ardhanärisvara (Hermaphrodit) gibt es in
Indien nicht, sondern nur die Verbindung oder Identi-
fikation des Hügels manchmal mit einer Göttin und
manchmal mit einem Gott. Wenn das Summieren von
entgegengesetzten Ansichten über das Geschlecht
eines Dinges genügte, um dies androgyn zu machen,
dann müßte man z. B. auch den Sand androgyn nen-
nen, da er im Deutschen männlich und im Italienischen
weiblich ist.
Riten, in denen der Termitenhügel eine Rolle
spielt, reichen von der vedischen Feueraltarschichtung
bis zu zeitgenössischen Hochzeitsfeiern. Vielleicht die
größte Bedeutung jedoch kommt dem Termitenhügel
bei der Schlangenverehrung und der Verehrung von
Gottheiten zu, die gelegentlich die Form der Schlange
annehmen. Der Termitenhügel ist aber auch die
Behausung oder der Doppelgänger von Gottheiten in
anthropomorpher Gestalt und in Lihgaform. Außer-
dem kennt die indische Mythologie das kulturspezifi-
sche Motiv des Asketen, der so lange meditiert, bis sich
ein Termitenhügel über ihm bildet.
Die Autorin unterscheidet 27 in den Mythen über
den Termitenhügel wiederkehrende Motive, weist
jedoch nicht auf die sehr unterschiedliche Wichtigkeit
der einzelnen Motive hin. Das Motiv 12 z. B., „Die
Gottheit befindet sich im Termitenhügel in Form eines
lihga oder einer mürtiist überaus häufig und mit
zahlreichen Beispielen belegt (warum „Die Gottheit
wohnt im Termitenhügel“ als eigenes Motiv 10 gilt, ist
nicht ersichtlich). Das Motiv 18 jedoch, „Der Termi-
tenhügel führt zur Unterwelt“, gehört zu den selten-
sten. Das Buch gibt nur vier eindeutige Beispiele: zwei
aus Stammesmythen, eines aus dem Mahäbhärata und
ein weiteres aus der dravidischen Voksreligion. Der Ti-
tel des Buches ist daher nicht durch die Bedeutung des
Motivs in der indischen Kultur bedingt, sondern durch
die psychoanalytische Vorliebe für die Unterwelt, das
Chaos, die Neugeburt und dergleichen. Die meisten
Betrachtungen zur Symbolik des Termitenhügels sind
daher mit Vorsicht zu genießen. In den fast hundert
Jahren seit der Erfindung der Psychoanalyse sollte es
auf Grund zahlreicher ethnographischer Belege endlich
klar geworden sein, daß es keine konstanten symboli-
schen Bedeutungen gibt und jedes Ding zu verschiede-
nen symbolischen Zwecken benützt werden kann.
Somit ist es gewagt, die symbolische Bedeutung eines
Ritus oder Mythos (vorausgesetzt, daß eine solche
nachgewiesen werden kann) ohne weiteres auf einen
anderen Ritus oder Mythos auszudehnen. Die Autorin
aber erklärt z. B. kühn, daß der in den Termitenhügeln
geopferten Milch „immer die Bedeutung des Samens“
unterliege und jede Öffnung (Tür, Tor, Brunnen) „als
Zeichen für eine Veränderung“ stehe. Auch gibt es
keinen Grund, warum alles und jedes eine symbolische
Bedeutung haben müßte. Wenn in den Tempellegen-
den der Gottheit eine blutende Wunde zugefügt wird,
so hat dies meist den eindeutigen Zweck, den bußferti-
gen Verletzer zum Bau eines Tempels zu bewegen,
einen Schönheitsfehler des Götterbildes oder dessen
Namen zu erklären. Weitere symbolische Bedeutungen
sind überflüssig. Die Autorin aber glaubt, daß die
Gottheit blute, weil ihre Jungfräulichkeit angetastet
wurde. Die Tempellegenden selbst geben keinen Anlaß
zu einer solchen Interpretation. Das ist verständlich,
denn die am häufigsten verletzte Gottheit ist Siva in
seiner Lihgaform.
Abgesehen von zweifelhaften Interpretationen ist
„Das Tor zur Unterwelt“ ein willkommener Überblick
über ein Thema, das die indische Phantasie seit Jahr-
tausenden beschäftigt.
Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
Latouche, Jean-Paul: Mythistoire Tungaru. Cos-
mologies et généalogies aux Iles Gilbert. Paris:
SELAF, 1984, 487 pp., tabl. (Langues et Cultures du
Pacifique, 5) Prix: FF 180,00
There is now a considerable body of material in
print concerning the traditional culture of Kiribati,
formerly known as the Gilbert Islands. Apart from
Grimble’s famous “A Pattern of Islands” (1952), there
are available numerous ethnological papers by Maude,
Koch, and Grimble himself. In 1972 Sir Arthur Grim-
ble’s daughter published a collection of her father’s
early writings, “Migrations, Myth, and Magic from the
Gilbert Islands.” The material contained in that vol-
ume provides some account of the Gilbertese tradition-
al life-style, including social organization, origins, and
migrations based on oral tradition.
Latouche’s “Mythistoire Tungaru” provides a wel-
come and detailed addition to Kiribati ethnological
literature, for it fleshes out earlier accounts of the
fundamental social organization of these islands. At the
same time it shows the role of oral tradition in Kiribati
society as the fundamental principle upon which that
society is based. Maude (1963 and 1980) had earlier
provided a clear and concise account of the significance
and role of the maneaba and the boti. Latouche goes
further in that he provides a detailed and systematic
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
account of their operation and the actual oral traditions
upon which they are based in the particular case of two
islands in the south of the archipelago, Nikunau and
Beru. His study is based on fieldwork carried out in
Kiribati in 1971-72 and again in 1975.
“Mythistoire Tungaru” consists principally of a set
of 32 texts, oral traditions collected from some 44
informants on Nikunau and Beru, together with some
previously unpublished Grimble materials and docu-
ments put together for Father Sabatier, plus a number
of documents made available by H. E. Maude.
Latouche has attempted to make a systematic
collection of all the oral traditions from Nikunau and
Beru relevant to his purpose. His aim is to show that
myth/legend and history overlap and that the present
social organization of these two islands, in all its detail,
has its origin in oral traditions which are handed down
from generation to generation. These traditions take
the form of legends (or are they historical records, for
the two are inextricably inter-twined) going back to the
creation and first settlement of the islands and moving
on to recount the migrations and deeds of the descen-
dants of these first culture heroes, through the various
lineages down to the present day. Latouche is system-
atic in his approach. He shows that Nikunau and Beru
are divided into nine districts. Each district has its ma-
neaba or meeting-house. Within each maneaba there
are varying numbers of boti or fixed sitting places.
These have been described as a kind of tabernacle of
the male line. By looking at the seating arrangements
within the maneaba one sees a sort of social map where
a man’s group or clan can be recognized the moment
he takes his seat. His position within the meeting-house
also reveals his ascendants, his ceremonial duties, and
his privileges. The number and arrangement of boti
within the maneaba are determined by the supporting
oral traditions.
Having made a study of the boti for Nikunau and
Beru, and plotted them in a series of floor diagrams,
Latouche has elicited the relevant genealogies and then
provided the material for a synthesis, which he has very
wisely refrained from giving. This material consists of
the series of legends mentioned above, upon which
social relationships in the society under study are
based, that is to say upon which the positions within
the maneaba are determined. Latouche observes that
there are often conflicting and incomplete oral tradi-
tions, mirrored in real life by disputes concerning
relationships, social organisation, and, importantly,
land tenure. He simply presents the traditions, with all
their inconsistencies and contradictions, and leaves it to
traditional Kiribati wisdom to resolve the problems
raised.
Latouche’s work represents a significant step for-
ward, although he is certainly not the first to attempt
the reconciliation of oral tradition and social organiza-
tion in the Gilberts (Kiribati), it is a first attempt at a
complete coverage of Nikunau and Beru. It certainly
goes a long way towards accounting for the lineages
and social organization of some 5,000 islanders. One
265
wonders, however, whether there are still further oral
traditions not yet recorded, whether some have be-
come lost in the mists of time, or whether rearrange-
ments have been made, just as the Australian Aborigi-
nes are known to rearrange oral history as territories
change ownership over time.
“Mythistoire Tungaru” also provides a rich
source of linguistic material, for each of the oral tradi-
tions is provided with a literal and a free translation. As
such it cannot fail to interest Oceanic language scholars.
So rich is the corpus of material presented that one can-
not help but ask what fraction of the potential whole
it represents. It also points to the necessity for I-Kiribati
to record these life-organizing traditions themselves.
Or do they really need to do so at all if they already
live the traditions which outsiders seek to document?
D. T. Tryon
LeRoy, John: Fabricated World. An Interpreta-
tion of Kewa Tales. Vancouver: The University of
British Columbia Press, 1985. xii+319 pp., map, tab.,
fig. Price: $ 38.60
LeRoy, John (ed.): Kewa Tales. Vancouver; The
University of British Columbia Press, 1985. xxv+
251 pp., photos. Price: $ 26.95
These two books belong together. “Kewa Tales”
is the corpus of 81 tales told in Kewa (a Trans-New
Guinea Phylum language of the Papua New Guinea
Southern Highlands) by 24 men and 14 women, and
recorded by a Canadian anthropologist; “Fabricated
World” is the analysis of the tales, using all the
apparatus of modern folkore studies, of anthropology,
sociology, and psychology.
One wonders if it was a wise move to publish the
two works separately. The bulk of a single combined
volume, once repetition had been removed, would not
have been excessive. Certainly, the book of commentary
cannot really stand on its own; some of the tales are
repeated in abbreviated form to elucidate the discus-
sion, but for any real understanding one has continual-
ly to refer to the paperback volume of the tales them-
selves.
The book containing the tales is complete in itself
and provides us with a representative sample of the
literary output of a group of people. Nevertheless, the
tales themselves are so alien to the average Western
reader that some kind of background information is
probably necessary. The introduction to this volume
provides some of this - it is in fact a summary of the
longer argument of “Fabricated World” - but fails, just
as does the larger book, to give us any real understand-
ing of the world of these tales and the people who tell
them. In spite of the author’s belief that the tales are
“strangely familiar” to us, the tales remain very hard to
read and absorb. I cannot agree with the author’s
statement from the introduction to the tales: “Tales
like the ones collected here are models or visions of the
world that we can know and enjoy, despite the fact that
the world they envision is not our world, precisely
Anthropos 83.1988
266
Rezensionen
because our own myths and literatures remodel our
own world in much the same way. In short, what is
strangely familiar to us is the way different literatures
recreate different realities in similar ways.” (20).
Having myself collected folk-tales of Papua New
Guinea and listened to them and read others, with
normal enjoyment, I am still somewhat puzzled as to
why these Kewa tales seem flat and uninteresting.
Equally puzzling is perhaps the question of why such
tales cannot be read with the same pleasure as, per-
haps, the “Kinder- und Hausmarchen” of the Broth-
ers Grimm, since both are anthologies of popular tales
collected in much the same way. Is it just a conse-
quence of the different cultures involved? The fantas-
tic, as LeRoy believes, should always be much the
same; yet why do we react more to a witch in a ginger-
bread cottage, or to a Baba Yaga, than to the “evil
ghostmother” in Tale 34, who drowns young women in
a pool and takes their skin?
The difference may lie solely in the narrative
style. There is, firstly, the fact that the Kewa tales are
translated. As far as I can judge, the translation is
probably faithful - too faithful, perhaps, for easy
reading. The prose style is flat and neutral, with few
concessions to colloquial speech. The discourse struc-
ture is linear and constructed of paragraph after para-
graph beginning with “one day,” “one night,” “then,”
“later,” or “soon.” Literary devices such as irony, or
sudden and dramatic effects, or wit, or humour, are
rare. This is in fact the way stories are told in Papua
New Guinea; but, outside of their own language and
culture, they make very little impact between the
covers of a book in English.
For this reason also the tales should have been
published in one volume with the commentary; in such
a context they would not need to make an impact of
their own, but would be seen only against the back-
ground of the folkloristic elucidation. If the author
wanted another book, he could have made two: the
presentation of the tales in the original Kewa, with
interlinear translation and linguistic commentary, for
one group of specialists; and a translation of the tales,
in livelier and differently-structured English, with il-
lustrations, for children or adults to gain some real
feeling for the “fabricated world” of the Kewa.
If the tales themselves do not make an impact, the
analysis contained in the accompanying hardback vol-
ume represents the type of book that can be read only
by a very dedicated anthropologist or folklorist. The
analysis is painstaking and meticulous but presented
with the full apparatus of social science jargon and
abstract terminology. I find it difficult to review or
criticize, because I found it almost impossible to read,
let alone summarize and discuss all the arguments. It
appears to be a work of sound scholarship.
Don Laycock
Lewis, I. M.: Social Anthropology in Perspective.
The Relevance of Social Anthropology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985. 408 pp. Price:
£ 7.95 (paper)
John Beattie, in his review of the first edition of
this introduction to social anthropology in Man
(12.1977: 554) comes to the conclusion that the book
“. . . should meet admirably the purpose for which it is
intended.” This appraisal can be applied equally to the
present reissue in which only a few amendments are
made and a new chapter has been included. This
chapter, contrary to what its title “Anthropology and
the Contemporary World” suggests, contains a few
brief discussions of some recent theoretical develop-
ments in anthropology.
The author presents in the first two chapters
“Aims and Methods” and “The Rise of Modern Social
Anthropology” his views on what anthropology, espe-
cially British Anthropology, is about and how it de-
veloped in the course of the years. In the following
chapters the conventional subjects of religion, kinship,
political and economic anthropology are discussed, be
it that these are sometimes presented in a rather un-
conventional way and under unconventional head-
ings. The subject of what one would call religion for
instance, is split up into three chapters: “Misfortune
and the Consolations of Witchcraft,” “The Natural
Order,” and “Myth, Rite, and Eschatology.”
In conformity to British anthropological tradition
many issues are discussed by way of extensive ethno-
graphic examples. This has the advantage of placing
the data in their context but it does not favour the sys-
tematic cross-cultural treatment of certain subjects.
The book is, in other respects also, a typical
British anthropological product. Almost all references
are to publications in English and mostly to British
authors. Though some French anthropologists are men-
tioned, these are almost all from the Durkheim/Mauss/
Lévi-Strauss tradition, and are not assessed very favour-
ably. According to Lewis Lévi-Strauss leads us “down
the misty corridors of thought” and serves us a “cereb-
ral cocktail” (65). Though he admits that there are
“brilliant” elements in the French authors’s work he
apparently considers it to be not much more than “in
many respects an elaboration of Radcliffe-Brown’s
early version of structuralism” (65). It is not surprising,
therefore, that Lévi-Strauss is accorded a discussion of
only a few pages whereas his British colleague receives
a lengthy treatment.
This approach is understandable when we realize
that Lewis’ views are “loosely grounded in structural
functionalism” which implies amongst others that “so-
cial relations rather than their cultural vestments have
priority” (19). Even though the author states that “the
basic aim of the subject” is “the translation of culture”
(66), he strongly advances his opinion that “the tradi-
tional strength” of anthropology consists in exploring
“the relationships between beliefs and the social nexus
to which they belong ...” (67). This is of course a very
laudable enterprise but it does not present to us a very
new insight.
Another point is that it is not easy to understand
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
267
how Lewis can maintain that he has adopted an eclec-
tic methodology, whereas it seems to be clear that he
is most of all a structural-functionalist. In reading his
book one gets the impression that not much has
changed in anthropology since the times of Radcliffe-
Brown and Malinowski. Even criticisms from inside
British social anthropology itself as for instance from
the “action-theorists” are scarcely mentioned and a
current like “semantic anthropology” is disposed of in
a few lines.
Nevertheless, the book is a good and very read-
able introduction into British social anthropology. It
often contains clear and penetrating expositions on
difficult matters especially in the chapters on religion
and related subjects. A. A. Trouwborst
Lurie, Nancy Oestreich: North American Indian
Lives. Milwaukee: Public Museum, 1985. 72 pp., illus.
Price: $ 7.95
Nancy O. Lurie knüpft mit ihrer Publikation
“North American Indian Lives” an die von Robert E.
Ritzenthaler und Arthur Niehoff verfaßte Arbeit “Fa-
mous American Indians” an, die ebenfalls als Broschü-
re des Milwaukee Public Museums veröffentlicht wur-
de. Auch sie konzentriert sich vor allem auf die
bekannten indianischen Persönlichkeiten, die sich
durch ihren Widerstand gegen die „weißen Eindring-
linge“ einen Namen machten. “North American Indian
Lives” ist allerdings keine Neuauflage der “Famous
American Indians”. Lurie geht weit darüber hinaus,
indem sie Indianer nicht nur als Opfer der amerikani-
schen Geschichte beschreibt, sondern am Beispiel der
einzelnen Personen auch zeigt, wie Indianer/innen
durch ihre Aktivitäten die Geschichte mitgestalteten
und einen Beitrag leisteten, der sie bis heute unverges-
sen sein läßt.
Indem Lurie die gesellschaftlichen und politischen
Verflechtungen, in die die vorgestellten Persönlichkei-
ten eingebunden waren, in ihre Darstellung einbezieht,
gelingt es ihr, historische Erfahrungen der indianischen
Bevölkerung vom 16. bis in das 20. Jh. zu skizzieren.
Die Lebensberichte werden ergänzt durch weiterfüh-
rende Literaturhinweise, einzelne Photos, Zeichnun-
gen und Karten.
Kolonisierung im 16., 17. und 18. Jh., Handelsbe-
ziehungen, Missionierung, Landansprüche, Verträge,
Epidemien, Propheten und indianischer Widerstand
bilden den Hintergrund der Lebensbeschreibungen von
Opechancanough, Weetamoo, Popé, Pontiac, Hand-
some Lake, Tecumseh und Black Hawk. Erkundung
neuer Gebiete, Landnahme, Vertreibung, Verträge,
Schaffung von Reservationen, Verhandlungen und
Widerstand im Zuge der fortschreitenden Westwärts-
bewegung werden in den Lebensbildern von Sacaja-
Wea, Osceola, Sequoyah, Chief Joseph, Gerónimo,
Wovoka, Sitting Bull und Louis Riel thematisiert.
In ihrer Einleitung bemerkt Lurie, daß wir über
viele in indianischen Gemeinschaften angesehene Per-
sönlichkeiten kaum etwas wissen, da ihnen weiße
Geschichtsschreiber keine Beachtung schenkten; daher
beabsichtigt sie mit der Beschreibung des Lebens Wee-
tamoos beispielsweise auf die Anerkennung indiani-
scher Frauen in politischen Führungspositionen hinzu-
weisen.
Zwar wählte die Verfasserin den bis heute anhal-
tenden Einsatz seitens der indianischen Bevölkerung
zur Wahrung ihrer vertraglich verbürgten Rechte als
Leitthema, beendet jedoch ihren historischen Über-
blick bereits mit der Jahrhundertwende, ohne Vertre-
ter/innen der „Aktenkoffer-Krieger“ (vii) vorzustellen,
die Aufschluß über indianische Lebenserfahrungen und
Perspektiven im 20. Jh. geben könnten. Durch die
Verbindung persönlicher Erfahrungen einzelner Re-
präsentanten mit den jeweils vorherrschenden ökono-
mischen, sozialen und politischen Interessen ist es
Nancy O. Lurie dennoch auf vorbildliche Weise gelun-
gen, die Beziehungen zwischen Indianern und „Wei-
ßen“ in ihrer historischen Gewachsenheit darzustellen.
Sonja Schiede
Ma’ax, K’ayum und Christian Rätsch (Hrsg.); Ein
Kosmos im Regenwald. Mythen und Visionen der
Lakandonen-Indianer. Köln: Eugen Diederichs Ver-
lag, 1984. 319 pp., Abb., Kt. (Diederichs Gelbe Reihe,
48) Preis: DM 19,80
Boremanse, Didier (ed.): Contes et mythologie
des indiens lacandons. Contribution ä l’etude de la
tradition orale maya. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan,
1986. 407 pp. (Collection «Connaissance des Hom-
mes») Prix: FF 190,00
Rätsch, Christian: Bilder aus der unsichtbaren
Welt. Zaubersprüche und Naturbeschreibungen bei
den Maya und Lakandonen. München: Kindler Verlag,
1985. 320pp., Abb. Preis: DM39,80
Rätsch, Christian: Das Erlernen von Zaubersprü-
chen. Ein Beitrag zur Ethnomedizin der Lakandonen
von Naha’. Berlin: Express Edition, 1985. 181 pp.,
Abb. (Reihe Ethnomedizin und Bewußtseinsfor-
schung) Preis: DM 48,-
Die Lakandonen im großen Urwaldgebiet am Rio
Usumacinta haben wie keine andere rezente indiani-
sche Gruppe Mexikos das Interesse von Ethnologen,
Touristen und Abenteurern gefunden. Die Wissen-
schaftler reizte vor allem der Umstand, daß die Lakan-
donen in ihrer Denk- und Lebensweise kaum von den
präkolumbischen Kulturzentren Zentralmexikos oder
späterer christlicher Mission beeinflußt worden sind.
Gerade bei ihnen erwartete man deshalb das Überle-
ben von Kulturzügen aus dem Klassikum der Maya,
eine Vermutung, die allerdings nicht unumstritten ist.
Die Touristen, darunter nicht wenige Ethnotouristen,
lockte dagegen die Exotik der tropischen Umwelt und
das fremdartige Aussehen der Bewohner an, von
denen auch die Männer lange Haare trugen und zum
Teil noch mit Pfeil und Bogen jagten. Eben wegen
dieser Fremdartigkeit widmet inzwischen auch das
mexikanische Fernsehen den nur etwa 400 Lakandonen
erheblich mehr Aufmerksamkeit als den übrigen ca. 40
Anthropos 83.1988
268
Rezensionen
indianischen Ethnien des Landes zusammen, obwohl
deren Gesamtzahl über 6 Millionen mißt.
Erst um die letzte Jahrhundertwende traten die
Lakandonen in das Blickfeld der Wissenschaft. Nach
frühen Arbeiten von Sapper und Tozzer und späteren
Untersuchungen vor allem durch die Sousteiles sowie
Duby und Blom war schon um die Mitte unseres
Jahrhunderts eine Menge ethnographischer Daten
zusammengetragen, doch gerade der Bereich der geisti-
gen Kultur harrte noch einer tieferen Ergründung. Es
ist das Verdienst des Nordamerikaners Roberto D.
Bruce, hier den entscheidenden Durchbruch erzielt zu
haben. Er erlernte die Sprache der Lakandonen und
erwarb das Vertrauen der alten Männer, so daß sie
bereit waren, ihm sogar ihre esoterischen Kenntnisse
anzuvertrauen. In Naha’ gelang es Bruce, mit dem
geistigen Führer dieser Lakandonen-Gruppe, dem
noch im letzten Jahrhundert geborenen Chan K’in eng,
zusammenzuarbeiten. Er zeichnete seine Mythen und
Erzählungen auf, transkribierte sie und sprach sie dann
in intensiver Kleinarbeit mit dem Informanten durch,
um eine möglichst korrekte Wiedergabe und Überset-
zung zu erreichen. Das wichtigste Ereignis ist «El libro
de Chan K’in», 1974 in Mexiko erschienen, das My-
then, Erzählungen und Gesänge dieses Mannes in der
Sprache der Lakandonen und in spanischer Überset-
zung enthält. Während der ungezählten gemeinsamen
Sitzungen wurde Chan K’in durch Bruce auch in der
Zusammenarbeit mit Ethnologen geschult. Diese jah-
relange Vorarbeit kam dann später eintreffenden Eth-
nologen sehr zu Nutzen, so auch Boremanse und
Rätsch. Sie brauchten gewissermaßen nur noch auf die
Aufnahmetaste des Tonbandgerätes zu drücken.
Der von Ma’ax und Rätsch herausgegebene Band
„Ein Kosmos im Regenwald“ ist eine neue Version des
Buches von Chan K’in, diesmal in deutscher Sprache
und ohne lakandonischen Text. K’ayum Ma’ax ist ein
Sohn des Informanten. Den Erzählungen ist ein knap-
per Abriß über die Lakandonen, ihre Art, Geschichten
zu erzählen, den Informanten, sowie Probleme der
Übersetzung vorangestellt. Das Corpus enthält 54
Mythen und Erzählungen sowie 29 Beispiele von
Gesängen, Gebeten und Sprüchen. Die Themen rei-
chen von Schöpfungsgeschichte und Urzeit über Erleb-
nisse mit bestimmten Göttern, Herren der Tiere oder
Ungeheuern bis zu Texten zur Lösung von Alltags-
problemen, sei es im Bereich der Jagd, des Anbaus
oder der Gesundheit. Inhaltlich fällt auf, daß es nur
wenige Parallelen zu anderen Traditionen aus dem
Maya-Gebiet gibt, sei es zum Popol Vuh oder rezenten
Aufzeichnungen innerhalb der Sprachgruppe. Haben
sich hier in größerem Umfang Themen aus dem Klassi-
kum erhalten oder sind es überwiegend Eigenschöpfun-
gen der Lakandonen während der Jahrhunderte der
Isolierung? Es könnte möglicherweise lohnend sein,
auch dieses Material bei der Deutung bildlicher Szenen
aus dem Klassikum - z. B. auf Keramik - heranzuzie-
hen. Wegen der geringen Zahl der Parallelen über-
rascht dann eine Version der Sintflut mit dem Thema
des großen Bootes und vorheriger Warnung, die auf
eine Entlehnung christlichen Gedankengutes hindeu-
tet. Nicht ganz schlüssig wirkt die Schilderung der
Beziehung der Harpie zu „unserem Vater“ und der
Sonne (42 f.), denn Farbe und Lebensgewohnheit tref-
fen auf diese überhaupt nicht zu, wohl aber auf den
Königsgeier. Um bei Tieren zu bleiben: mit den
erwähnten Gnus (289) sind wohl Zebus gemeint. Die
Übersetzung des Götternamens Kak’och mit „Zwei-
Affe“ überzeugt nicht. Das Element k'och hat etwa ein
Dutzend verschiedener Bedeutungen (Diccionario
Maya Cordemex), von denen nur eine sich auf den
Brüllaffen bezieht. Der erste Namensteil „zwei“ und
die Funktion als Schöpfer der Götter legt eine Ver-
wandtschaft mit dem zentralmexikanischen Omete-
cuhtli nahe. Zur Übersetzung von k’och bieten sich
dann u. a. Bedeutungen aus dem Umfeld von tragen,
Verantwortung und Wahrheit an. Das wirkt wahr-
scheinlicher als der Brüllaffe. Wie dem auch sei, bei
unsicheren Übersetzungen sollte eine Übertragung bes-
ser unterbleiben, anderenfalls wäre eine ausführliche
Begründung in Fußnoten nötig. - Die Textsammlung
erweitert unsere Kenntnis über die Lakandonen, da sie
eine ganze Anzahl von Erzählungen enthält, die im
Buch von Bruce fehlen. Außerdem sind einige der hier
wiedergegebenen Versionen erheblich länger. Die
Übersetzung ist erfreulich flüssig und lebendig
geschrieben.
Boremanse, ein Belgier, der seine Ausbildung in
Oxford erhielt und seit einigen Jahren in Guatemala
lehrt, hatte sich bei seiner 1970 begonnenen Feldfor-
schung zunächst hauptsächlich mit der Verwandt-
schaftsterminologie und Sozialorganisation der Lakan-
donen befaßt. Sein jetzt vorgelegter umfangreicher
Band mit Erzählungen und Mythen unterstreicht, daß
er während seiner verschiedenen Feldforschungen auch
Zeit zur eingehenden Untersuchung oraler Traditionen
gefunden hat. Sein Corpus ist das bisher umfangreich-
ste und zeichnet sich besonders dadurch aus, daß es
nicht nur Versionen aus Naha’, sondern auch solche
aus Lacanha’ enthält, wo die Akkulturation schon
weiter fortgeschritten ist. Ungeachtet einer gewissen
Verarmung, die aus einigen der nur noch fragmenta-
risch erhaltenen Texte aus Lacanha’ spricht, läßt dieses
getrennt ausgewiesene Corpus mehrere Unterschiede
in der Tradition der beiden Gruppen von Lakandonen
erkennen. In Naha’ war, wie nicht anders zu erwarten,
Chan K’in sein wichtigster Informant, darüber hinaus
nennt er namentlich vier weitere Hauptinformanten,
bei denen aber nicht ersichtlich ist, aus welcher der
beiden Siedlungen sie stammen. Gerade in bezug auf
Chan K’in wäre von Interesse gewesen, wie sich seine
Versionen zwischen denen von Bruce über diejenigen
von Boremanse bis zu den zuletzt aufgenommenen von
Rätsch verändert haben. Für die weitere Forschung
wäre es deshalb nützlich, wenn er ein Inhaltsverzeich-
nis mit genauer Zuordnung der Erzählungen zu
bestimmten Informanten erstellen und auch einer Aus-
wahl einschlägiger Bibliotheken zustellen könnte. Sol-
che Erläuterungen sind um so wünschenswerter, als
Boremanse sich dazu verleiten ließ, in einigen nicht
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
269
näher gekennzeichneten Fällen aus fragmentarischen
Versionen verschiedener Informanten eine halbwegs
abgeschlossene zu erstellen. Dabei stand der Wunsch
Pate, möglichst viele Details zu veröffentlichen und
andererseits die Erzählungen doch so attraktiv darzu-
bieten, daß sie auch für allgemeiner interessierte Krei-
se lesbar bleiben. Letzteres ist auch durch den lebendi-
gen Stil der Übersetzung gelungen, der wie bei Ma’ax
und Rätsch keine Version in der Originalsprache
gegenübersteht. - Die Textsammlung von Boremanse
ist nicht nur inhaltlich die umfangreichste, sie ist
außerdem mit besonders vielen erläuternden Anmer-
kungen versehen, die auch auf Parallelen in den Tradi-
tionen anderer Völker Mesoamerikas verweisen.
Das Buch von Rätsch „Bilder aus der unsichtba-
ren Welt“ richtet sich nicht an Wissenschaftler, son-
dern peilt eine breitere Käuferschicht an. Es behandelt
ebenfalls die Lakandonen; die im Untertitel an erster
Stelle genannten Maya sind dort wohl nur aus Gründen
der Verkaufswerbung plaziert. Auf der Basis von unter
Lakandonen aufgenommenen Mythen, Erzählungen
und anderen Informationen sowie seinen persönlichen
Impressionen entwirft der Autor eine Synthese zu
einigen Grundthemen in der Welt dieser Indianer. Die
Einführung in die für Europäer fremdartige Welt wirbt
um Sympathie für sie und ihre Bewohner und weist
gelegentlich auf die Gefährdung durch das Vordringen
der modernen Industriegesellschaft und ihrer Folgen
hin. Das Buch ist in einem klaren und ansprechenden
Stil geschrieben, und es sollte ihm eigentlich gelingen,
an Exotik interessierte Leser in seinen Bann zu ziehen.
Zunächst werden die Welt des Waldes, das System
Mensch und die Beziehungen zwischen Menschen und
Göttern abgehandelt. Den Hauptteil bilden dann aber
Zaubersprüche zur Bewältigung verschiedener Lebens-
situationen und Überwindung von Gefahren. Sie spie-
len im Leben der Lakandonen eine überaus große
Rolle, und es werden hier u. a. Beispiele aus der
Geburtshilfe, der Abwehr von Gefahren für Säuglinge,
gegen den giftigen Stachel oder Biß bestimmter Tiere,
zum Heilen von Verbrennungen, Zahnschmerz oder
anderer Erkrankungen vorgestellt. Nach einer kurzen
Erläuterung sind jeweils die Texte in einer freien
deutschen Übersetzung wiedergegeben. Auch in dieser
Form ist noch erkennbar, daß es dem Autor gelungen
ist, hier einzigartiges Material aufzuzeichnen. Wer mit
Zaubersprüchen gearbeitet hat, weiß um ihre Wort-
spiele, ihre bewußt mehrdeutigen Metaphern und ihre
oft nur schwer ergründbaren Archaismen. All das kann
aber nur vermittelt werden, wenn die Übersetzung
durch den Originaltext ergänzt ist, und außerdem
durch eine minutiöse Erläuterung, die offenlegt, war-
um man bei schwierigen Passagen zur getroffenen
Üeutung gelangt ist (so wie das bei wissenschaftlichen
Abhandlungen üblich ist). In der hier präsentierten
Form sind die Zaubersprüche leider nur ein schwacher
Abglanz ihrer selbst. Perlen vor/für den Meistbieten-
den? - Das mexikanische private Fernsehen hat schon
lange erkannt, daß sich die exotische Lebensweise der
Lakandonen kommerziell gut nutzen läßt. Das anspre-
chend gestaltete Buch vermittelt den Eindruck, auf der
gleichen Schiene zu fahren.
Bei dem Buch „Das Erlernen von Zaubersprü-
chen“ handelt es sich um Rätschs Hamburger Disserta-
tion. Er ist darin bemüht, mit einem Ansatz der
kognitiven Anthropologie Einblicke in das medizini-
sche System der Lankandonen von Naha’ zu vermit-
teln. Nach einführenden Erläuterungen über das Ver-
ständnis von Gesundheit und Krankheit aus der Sicht
der Lakandonen und Angaben zur Ethnoanatomie
werden Diagnose und Therapie genauer dargestellt.
Obwohl den Lakandonen eine große Anzahl von Pflan-
zen mit medizinischer Wirkung bekannt ist, bilden die
Zaubersprüche den wichtigsten Teil der Therapie.
Ihnen ist deshalb auch das Hauptaugenmerk gewidmet.
Zunächst beschreibt der Autor die einheimische Defi-
nition, Klassifikation und Applikation der Sprüche und
ihre Beziehung zum Traumdeutungssystem. Dann
behandelt er sehr ausführlich in mehreren Kapiteln die
Bedingungen und Formen der Tradierung dieses esote-
rischen Wissens. Die Dissertation ist eine solide Studie
und ein wertvoller Beitrag zur Ethnomedizin und
Wissenssoziologie bei den Lakandonen. Der Autor hat
damit auch unter Beweis gestellt, daß er erfolgreich
wissenschaftlich arbeiten kann - wenn er will (bzw.
muß). Man hätte eigentlich erwarten können, daß in
dieser wissenschaftlichen Abhandlung über Zauber-
sprüche eine größere Anzahl von ihnen im Original
vorgestellt würde. Leider sind aber nur zwei Beispiele
gegeben. Im Anhang (159) versucht der Autor seine
Zurückhaltung zu erklären. Er meint, er könne und
dürfe sie nicht im Original publizieren, da sie zum
esoterischen Bereich gehören (die zwei gedruckten
Texte etwa nicht?), andererseits sei es ihm in Abspra-
che mit seinen Informanten aber möglich, deutsche
Übersetzungen zu veröffentlichen. Kurz: Absage an
kritische wissenschaftliche Edition des Originals, statt
dessen grünes Licht für kommerzielle Vermarktung
einer freien Übertragung. Es fällt schwer zu glauben,
daß der Anstoß zu diesem „Kompromiß“ von Lakan-
donen ausgegangen ist.
Zum Abschluß sei noch eine kurze Bemerkung
zur Forschungsgeschichte angebracht. In der Übersicht
zur Literaturlage über die Lakandonen (11) findet sich
in Rätschs Dissertation die prätentiöse Aussage: „Der
erste Ansatz zu einer Kulturbeschreibung der Lakan-
donen von Naha’ aus ihrer eigenen Sicht heraus ist eine
von dem Lakandonen K’ayum Ma’ax und mir heraus-
gegebene Textsammlung“ (Ma’ax und Rätsch 1984). -
Die grundlegende Schrift von Bruce, dessen Vorarbeit
Rätsch Tür und Tor öffnete, ist doch glatt verschwie-
gen. Ulrich Köhler
Mahias, Marie-Claude: Délivrance et convivialité.
Le système culinaire des Jaina. Paris: Éditions de la
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1985. 326 pp., ill.
Prix: FF 175,00
Das Werk ist die erste umfassende ethnographi-
sche Studie über die Jain. Sein Schwerpunkt liegt mit
Anthropos 83.1988
270
Rezensionen
Recht auf der Speise, denn keine andere Bevölke-
rungsgruppe der Welt hat ihr Augenmerk so sehr auf
die Speise gerichtet wie die Angehörigen dieser Reli-
gion. Der Titel stellt die Erlösung vom Zyklus der
Wiedergeburten, welche der Asket im Extremfall
durch totale Nahrungsverweigerung zu erzielen hofft,
der Tischgemeinschaft der jainistischen Laien gegen-
über. Die ethnographischen Daten für das Werk sam-
melte die Verfasserin zwischen 1972 und 1979 vor
allem in Delhi bei der der Digambara-Sekte angehö-
renden Agraväla-Kaste. Da den Jain der Ackerbau
verboten ist, sind sie vorwiegend Händler und Geldlei-
her. Im Gegensatz zu allen anderen Bevölkerungsgrup-
pen Indiens leben sie größtenteils in der Stadt.
Zwar gliedern sich die Jain in Kasten und gelten
in hinduistischen Augen insgesamt als eine Kaste, aber
die Tischgemeinschaft erstreckt sich bei ihnen weiter
als bei den Hindu und schließt alle Vegetarier, gleich
ob Jain oder Hindu, ein. Die Jain beschäftigen sowohl
Brahmanen, die z. B. ihre Hochzeiten zelebrieren, als
auch Angehörige der niederen hinduistischen Kasten.
Sie sind von der Unberührbarkeit gewisser Kasten
überzeugt, und der Straßenkehrer z. B. ist für sie
gandä (schmutzig). Seltsamerweise zitiert die Verfasse-
rin nach dieser Fragestellung zustimmend die von Mary
Douglas vprgeschlagene Gleichsetzung von Schmutz
und Unordnung. Offensichtlich jedoch überlagern sich
die Bedeutungsfelder dieser beiden Begriffe nur in
einem winzigen Teil, was eine Gleichsetzung unmög-
lich machen sollte. Der Straßenkehrer ist sehr wohl an
seinem Platz in der sozialen Ordnung und doch
schmutzig.
Bei der Auswahl der Ehepartner spielt bei den
Jain sowohl die Kaste als auch die Sekte eine Rolle.
Der Bruch der Kastenendogamie ist jedoch seltener als
der der Sektenendogamie, und im Falle eines Bruches
erlaubt man es nur den Frauen einzuheiraten.
Der sich auf das Prinzip der ahimsä (Gewaltlosig-
keit) stützende Vegetarismus gehört bekanntlich zu
den Kardinaldogmen des Jainismus wie auch die Vor-
stellung von der Beseeltheit der ganzen Natur. Weni-
ger bekannt dürfte sein, daß man Pflanzen mit einer
und solche mit zwei Seelen unterscheidet. Der Genuß
zweiseeliger Pflanzen, wie Knollen, Wurzeln und
Früchten mit vielen Samen, ist sowohl den Asketen wie
auch den Laien verboten. Oft gruppiert man die
wichtigsten Speiseverbote in 4 vikrti: Fleisch (mämsa),
Alkohol (madya), Honig (madhu), frische butter
(makkhan, im Gegensatz zur erlaubten geklärten But-
ter ghi). Manchmal nennt man nur die ersten drei M
(makära) oder erhöht sie auf fünf M unter Hinzunah-
me von Fisch (machall). Offensichtlich ist für diese
Gruppierungen der sprachliche Faktor der Alliteration
ausschlaggebend, so daß sich die Suche nach einem
weiteren gemeinsamen Nenner erübrigen sollte. Jeden-
falls leuchtet der von der Verfasserin vorgeschlagene
gemeinsame Faktor der Unbeständigkeit nicht ein,
denn der Honig zumindest hält sich jahrelang bestens.
Die hinduistischen und jainistischen Vegetarier
sind sich über die ständige Meidung von Fleisch, Fisch,
Eiern und Alkohol einig, haben aber verschiedene
Vorstellungen vom Fasten. Da rohes Obst und Gemüse
bei den Jain als beseelter gelten als gekochtes oder
getrocknetes, ißt ein teilweise fastender Jain vor allem
gekochten Reis und Linsen ohne Salz, während ein
teilweise fastender Hindu sich vorzugsweise auf Roh-
kost beschränkt. Auch er jedoch, wie ich hinzufügen
möchte, verzichtet häufig auf Salz. Jedenfalls kann nur
ein überzeugter Strukturalist in dieser unterschiedli-
chen Auffassung vom Fasten ein Echo der Opposition
zwischen Dorf und Wald hören. Zwar könnte man den
fastenden Jain dem Dorf oder der Stadt zuordnen, das
Gleiche aber gilt meistens auch für den fastenden
Hindu, dessen typische Nahrung aus Milch und Bana-
nen besteht, die beide nicht im Wald zu finden sind.
Der jainistische Asket ist ebenso auf die Almosen des
Familienvaters angewiesen und erteilt religiöse Beleh-
rung wie der hinduistische Weltentsager, so daß es
nicht ersichtlich ist, warum man im ersten Fall von
einer Komplementarität der beiden Figuren und im
zweiten von ihrer Opposition sprechen soll (abgesehen
davon, daß nach strukturalistischer Theorie Opposition
und Komplementarität zusammengehören). Die Ver-
fasserin stellt zu Recht fest, daß der Lebenswandel der
jainistischen Laien sich nur gradweise von dem der
Asketen unterscheidet, bemerkt aber nicht, daß genau
das gleiche auch auf die Hindu zutrifft, so daß
Dumonts Antagonismus zwischen dem Menschen-in-
der-Welt und dem Weltentsager nicht aufrechtzuerhal-
ten ist.
Typisch für die Jain ist das Verbot, nach Sonnen-
untergang zu essen, was zu der vom panindischen
Standpunkt aus gesehen kuriosen Situationen führen
kann, daß die Frau am Abend vor ihrem Mann ißt, der
aus Arbeitsgründen erst spät abends heimkehrt. Zwei-
fellos läßt sich das Verbot, nach Sonnenuntergang zu
essen, gut durch die ahimsä erklären. Der Aufmerk-
samkeit der Verfasserin ist es jedoch nicht entgangen,
daß Geschichten, die vor dem Essen im Dunkeln
warnen, nicht von Mitleid mit Kleinlebewesen spre-
chen, sondern von Furcht vor bösen Geistern und
Giftschlangen. Da es hinduistische Volkserzählungen
ähnlichen Inhalts gibt, nehme ich an, daß die Jain
magisch-religiöse Vorstellungen teilweise ethisch um-
gedeutet haben.
Das Buch bietet eine eingehende Beschreibung
der Küche, Kochgeräte, Zubereitung der Speisen und
Mahlzeiten. Eine Großfamilie der Jain, erfahren wir,
hat manchmal mehrere Küchen; nicht in erster Linie,
weil sich die Frauen nicht vertragen, sondern weil
besonders orthodoxe ältere Frauen und junge Mütter
mit schulpflichtigen Kindern das allgemeine Reinheits-
niveau überschreitende oder nicht erreichende Koch-
möglichkeiten haben wollen. Weiterhin erhalten wir
Auskunft über die Sonderkost während der Perioden
ritueller Unreinheit, Schwangerschaft und bei Fami-
lienfesten sowie über die Nahrung der Asketen.
Obwohl ein Jainasket keine Speisen als Almosen
annehmen sollte, die eigens für ihn gekocht wurden,
hält es die Laienbevölkerung für besonders verdienst-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
271
voll, unter strengster Befolgung aller nur erdenklichen
Reinheitsvorschriften für die Asketen zu kochen und
diese einzuladen.
Im Tempelkult der Jain spielt die Nahrung nur
eine geringe Rolle. Traditionelle hinduistische Opfer-
gaben wie Blumen und Licht jedoch werden unter
Beibehaltung der Sanskritbezeichnungen durch Reis-
körner und trockene Kokosstücke ersetzt. Die Darbie-
tung von ganzen, rohen Kürbissen, wie ich sie bei den
Jain in Karnataka fand, scheint in Delhi nicht vorzu-
kommen.
Besondere Beachtung verdient das letzte Kapitel
des Buches, welches die Klassifikation der Speisen in
kaccä (unvollkommen oder unreif) und pakkä (voll-
kommen oder reif), Geschmackskategorien und die
magisch-medizinischen Begriffe „warm“ und „kalt“
behandelt. In bezug auf kaccä und pakkä gibt die
Verfasserin offen zu, daß «les Jaina ne cherchent pas,
au contraire de l’ethnologue, à constituer à tout prix
des ensembles cohérents et exclusifs». Es wäre aber an
der Zeit, daß auch die Ethnologen es aufgeben, die
unordentliche Wirklichkeit in künstliche kohärente
Systeme zu pressen. Da einige typische Gerichte der
Vormittagsmahlzeit kaccä sind und daher mit einigen
typischen pakkä-Gerichten der Nachmittagsmahlzeit
kontrastieren, meint sie, daß noch zu erklären sei,
warum andere Gerichte in beiden Mahlzeiten auftre-
ten. Ich sehe jedoch nichts, was eine Erklärung benöti-
gen oder ermöglichen würde, denn niemand, nicht
einmal ein überzeugter Dualist, denkt ständig in binä-
ren Oppositionen. Da die nordindische Unterschei-
dung von kaccä und pakkä nur wenige klare Kriterien
besitzt, passen offensichtlich viele Speisen überhaupt
nicht in das Schema oder liegen zwischen den beiden
Polen.
Von großem Interesse waren mir die Ausführun-
gen über die Jainversion von „warm“ und „kalt“. Die
Behauptung, daß diese Klassifikation keine Beziehung
zu physischen Aspekten wie Farbe, Form und Tempe-
ratur habe, möchte ich jedoch bestreiten. Freilich läuft
kein einziges Kriterium durch den ganzen Begriff
„kalt“ oder „warm“, aber dies ist auch nicht nötig für
die Begriffsbildung, wie wir seit Wittgenstein wissen.
Unter den vielen möglichen, aber nicht unerläßlichen
Kriterien sind einige weit häufiger als andere. Zu
diesen prototypischen Kriterien, wie wir jetzt sagen,
gehören z. B. „warme“ und „kalte“ Farben sowie
sichtbarer Wassergehalt (kalt) und Trockenheit
(warm). Wo die physischen Aspekte zusammenpassen
(z. B. grünes saftiges Gemüse), besteht ein weitgehen-
der Konsensus in der Klassifikation; wo sie sich wider-
sprechen (z. B die rote saftige Tomate), ist zwischen
verschiedenen Kulturen beträchtliche Meinungsver-
schiedenheiten zu erwarten. Die Papaya hat viele
Charakteristika, welche eine Wärme-Assoziation her-
vorrufen können. Daher verwundert es nicht, daß sie
sowohl bei den Jain wie bei den Tamilen als „warm“
gilt und für die Schwangere verboten ist, weil man ihr
eine (objektiv unbegründete) abtreibende Wirkung
zuschreibt.
In den Schlußfolgerungen bemerkt die Verfasse-
rin, daß die von ihr herausgearbeiteten Beziehungen
zwischen der Speise und anderen Ebenen der sozialen
Wirklichkeit aufschlußreich, aber nicht völlig zufrie-
denstellend seien und uns die Logik mancher Dinge
entgehe. Ich würde diese Feststellung eher als einen
Vorzug als einen Fehler des Werkes betrachten. Sie
besagt, daß der Einfluß von diskutablen Theorien es
nicht vermochte, eine ausgezeichnete Ethnographie zu
verfälschen. Nichts berechtigt uns nämlich anzuneh-
men, daß es notwendige Beziehungen zwischen kultu-
rellen Fakten gibt und diese Fakten unbedingt von
Rationalität geprägt sein müssen.
«Délivrance et convivialité» füllt eine lange offen-
gelassene Lücke in unserer Kenntnis Indiens. Seine
Lektüre ist sowohl den Ethnologen wie den Indologen
zu empfehlen. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
Mahieu, Wauthier de: Qui a obstrué la cascade?
Analyse sémantique du rituel de la circoncision chez les
Komo du Zaïre. Cambridge; Cambridge University
Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme, 1985. 439 pp. Prix: FF 187.00
W. de Mahieu qui vit depuis plus de vingt ans au
Zaïre, a des facilités linguistiques. Il connaît plusieurs
langues locales du pays. Un séjour de deux ans parmi
les Komo, population qui occupe une zone de la forêt
équatoriale au sud-est de Kisangani, lui a permis de
rassembler une documentation importante concernant
le gandjâ (rites d’initiation). Dans la joie de la décou-
verte d’un rituel riche et significatif, l’auteur conclue
qu’il «constitue ... la relecture dynamique la plus
totalisante et la plus unifiante, non seulement de la
culture, mais encore de l’organisation sociale des
Komo, le rituel se présentant aussi comme le lieu
privilégié de la conceptualisation et de l’actualisation
des relations entre les personnes et entre les groups»
(2). Cette exaltation n’est pas justifiée. Il suffit d’abor-
der d’autres domaines du rituel ancestral, tel que les
rites nombreux de réconciliation les rites, du cycle de la
vie, les bénédictions, le rituel agricole ou les rites
anti-sorciers etc. et on découvre tout un monde symbo-
lique nouveau. Il ne convient pas de mettre à l’absolu
une ségment du monde rituel en usage.
Le sous-titre «rituel de la circoncision» par contre
est trop restrictif. Il s’agit bel et bien des rites d’initi-
ation qui dépassent de loin l’événement de la circonci-
sion. L’auteur le dit ailleurs «Le rituel du gandjâ est
fort complexe ... . Il s’inscrit tout entier dans un
mouvement d’allure cyclique qui peut s’étendre sur une
dizaine d’années, parfois même bien davantage» (12).
L’auteur critique les études qui ignorent «trop
facilement la spécificité des cultures» (382) et qui font
des rites d’initiation une formation, une sorte d’école
traditionnelle. On se demande alors à quoi sert l’initia-
tion? Les garçons Komo doivent avoir des têtes dures
pour ne pas être fortement marqués par la réclusion, au
cours des épreuves d’endurance et pendant l’exécution
d’un rituel qui les concerne et qui parle un langage
Anthropos 83.1988
272
Rezensionen
symbolique plus impressionnant que mille paroles.
Ailleurs, on nous apprend que les femmes et les
incirconcis doivent être maintentant dans l’ignorance
(385) et que les rites initiatiques présentent «l’accès au
savoir» (382).
L’idée qui revient à plusieurs reprises dans l’ou-
vrage présente le rituel comme «un des lieux privilégiés
où se recrée la culture» (412). Séparer le langage, la
communication en un lieu et voir la culture comme une
entité qui s’y recrée, c’est déchirer inutilement une
unité vivante.
Le rituel est avant tout un langage, une communi-
cation par symboles, un système d’échanges d’idées
non-verbal, expression particulière d’une société qui
désire transmettre à sa jeunesse ce qu’elle estime
important pour la vie. Elle le fait aussi verbalement,
comme le montrent les nombreux chants rituels que
l’auteur présente en langue locale, accompagnée des
versions françaises et des commentaires originaux, mais
le geste et l’objet rituel, la couleur, les plantes et les
animaux de signification particulière, font un langage
plus impressionant que l’on n’oublie moins vite que les
paroles.
Dans l’interprétation des couleurs rituelles, l’au-
teur a de la peine. Il attribue au lever du soleil,
symbole de la naissance, le rouge et indique également
le rouge comme couleur des ancêtres (392). Du noir
(qui signifie avant tout la nuit et l’invisible, puis le refus
et l’oublie) l’auteur pense qu’il sert à «faire peur»
(112).
Ceci dit, l’étude présente une excellente contribu-
tion à la compréhension du rituel d’initiation chez les
Komo. H. Hochegger
Martin, Richard C. (ed.): Approaches to Islam in
Religious Studies. Tucson: The University of Arizona
Press, 1985. xiii+243 pp. Price: $ 18.95
Let it be stated right at the outset: this is a
well-planned, competently edited, and beautifully pro-
duced collection of original contributions to the current
discussion about the place Islamic studies should hold
within the wider field of religious studies and about the
methodologies to be adopted and refined in the effort
to achieve real progress in the study of Islam as a
religion. The book originated in a symposium on Islam
and the history of religions held at Arizona State
University in January 1980.
In the foreword Charles!. Adams of McGill
University evokes the quite long-standing unease felt
by many Islamicists regarding the near exclusion from
the concern of historians of religion of the Islamic
religion. He himself had pointedly expressed this feel-
ing in his essay on Islam and the History of Religions,
contributed to the seminal work “The History of
Religions: Essays on the Problem of Understanding”
(J. Kitagawa, et al. feds.], Chicago 1967). Adams sees
proof, in the present volume, of a “growing conquest
of the gap between the history of religions and Islam-
ics” in that, “in contrast to the strong, indeed almost
exclusive, textual and philological orientation of tradi-
tional Islamic studies, we have in this volume papers
that deal, for example, with such subjects as Islamic
worship, popular religious practice, and the many-
faceted significance of Qur’anic recitation in the daily
lives of pious Muslims” (viii-ix).
The mostly younger scholars put the emphasis on
Islam as experienced and lived by members of the
community, the focus being the experience of the
devotee and our understanding it. Furthermore, theo-
retical and philosophical schemes from the area of the
study of religions are explored and exploited for the
study of the religion of Islam. Or, as the editor in his
introductory essay on the problem of Islam and reli-
gious studies puts it: “Constructive criticism of long-
accepted approaches to the study of Islam and attempts
to apply the methods and theories of other disciplines
of Islamic religious data are presented here in the
service of bringing about needed change and improve-
ment in the study of Islam as religion” (17).
Four parts of the volume address themselves to
issues in religious studies (i.e., Scripture and Prophet;
Ritual and Community; Religion and Society; Scholars-
hip and Interpretation), and part five presents “two
quite different responses by noted Muslim writers on
Islam to the enterprise undertaken in this book” (18).
In this way the volume makes a critical contribution to
the debate provoked by Edward Said’s “Orientalism”
(1978). By succint introductions to each of the five
sections the editor helps the reader - he addresses
himself in this volume chiefly “to teachers and students
in religious studies” - to place each contribution in a
wider context. The familiarity of the contributors with
the other essays of the volume enhances the coherence
and common thrust of its overall argument.
This reviewer found each one of the contributions
rich and stimulating. He may be forgiven for singling
out four contributions as particularly impressive. Wil-
liam A. Graham’s “Qur’an as Spoken Word” and
Richard M. Eaton’s “Approaches to the Study of
Conversion to Islam in India” lift the direction of
research, the reflection and debate concerning two of
the key problems of Islamic studies on a new level.
Charles J. Adams’ “The Hermeneutics of Henry Cor-
bin” and Fazlur Rahman’s review essay “Approaches
to Islam in Religious Studies” demonstrate that if there
is room for progress to be made in the study of Islam as
religion, it can take off from an, indeed, quite high
level of scholarship in the discipline, already achieved.
Finally, from the angle of writing on Islam in
India, this volume would seem to suggest the need to
discuss critically how far and in which ways the rather
considerable anthropological and sociological work
during the two past decades or so on aspects of South
Asian Muslim life has contributed to the knowledge of
Islam as religion and why it has failed to do so
satisfactorily. Christian W. Troll
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
273
Maydell, H.-J. von: Arbres et arbustes du Sabel.
Leurs caractéristiques et leurs utilisations. Eschborn:
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenar-
beit, 1983. 531 pp., Abb. (Schriftenreihe der GTZ,
147) Preis: DM 97,50
Aufmerksamkeit verdient ein Nachschlagewerk,
das vor einigen Jahren in französischer bzw. englischer
Fassung erschienen ist. Es ist ein Kompendium, das
sich nicht allein an den botanischen Fachmann richtet,
sondern alle anspricht, die mit der Sahelzone, dem
Land zwischen Sahara und Sudan, zu tun haben.
Sicher, jeder weiß, daß Pflanzen der sahelischen Bioto-
pe eine entscheidende Bedeutung im Kampf gegen die
Ausdehnung der Sahara haben. Zahlreiche wissen-
schaftliche Arbeiten sind diesem Thema bereits gewid-
met. Doch erst von Maydell ist eine didaktisch vorzüg-
liche Zusammenfassung gelungen, die es sogar botani-
schen Laien ermöglicht, sahelische Baum- und Strauch-
arten nach kurzem Blättern zu identifizieren.
Hierzu dient ein nach den wissenschaftlichen
Namen alphabetisch geordneter Katalogteil. Er bildet
mit mehr als 300 Seiten den eigentlichen Kern der
Arbeit. Jede Pflanze wird mit mehreren Abbildungen
auf ein bis zwei Farbtafeln mit ihren unverkennbaren
Charakteristika vorgestellt. Dabei kann es sich um die
Gesamtsilhouette des Baumes auf typischem Standort
handeln, um Detailaufnahmen von Rinde oder Holz,
Blatt oder Blüte, Frucht oder Samen oder - in trocke-
nen Klimaten so häufigen - Dornen bzw. Stacheln. Im
begleitenden Text finden sich nach den gebräuchlich-
sten Synonyma botanische Eigenschaften sowie Stich-
wörter zur Verbreitung und Kultur. Besonders ausführ-
lich werden Verwendungsmöglichkeiten und Nutzwert
im weitesten Sinn abgehandelt. Angesprochen werden
Fragen der Bodenverbesserung, des Erosions- oder
Windschutzes ebenso wie eine eventuell vorhandene
Bedeutung als Schattenspender, als Lieferant von Bau-
oder Brennholz, Fasern oder Harz. Welch großen Wert
Blätter, Früchte oder Samen entweder als Nahrungs-
mittel oder als Tierfutter gerade im Sahel haben
können, wird hier besonders deutlich. Auch die in
traditionellen Gesellschaften sehr weitreichende Nut-
zung von Pflanzen als Heilmittel oder Gift findet in
dieser Arbeit ihren Niederschlag: Kaum eine Art, der
nicht eine mehr oder weniger spezifische pharmakolo-
gische Wirkung zugeschrieben würde! Daß gerade die
unerschöpfliche Vielfalt dieser Heilmittel-Palette (die
von Maydell nicht hinterfragt) ein Zeichen ihrer
begrenzten Wirksamkeit ist, wäre anzumerken. Phar-
makologisch und ethnomedizinisch interessierte Leser
müßten hier auf ihre Kosten kommen.
Die wichtigsten Eigenschaften und Verwendungs-
möglichkeiten (z. B. als Bauholz; hervorragend - mit-
tel - schlecht) werden in zahlreichen Tabellen zusam-
mengefaßt. Nicht nur Praktiker, die sich mit der
Verbesserung der Lebensbedingungen im Sahel befas-
sen, werden das zu schätzen wissen.
In mehreren Anhängen finden sich weitere Infor-
mationen. Auch für den Ethnologen und Linguisten
wichtig ist ein lexikalischer Teil mit Pflanzennamen in
acht afrikanischen Sprachen, am umfangreichsten in
Fulfulde. Ein Register botanischer Fachausdrücke in
Französisch, Deutsch und Englisch erleichtert u. U.
das Verständnis. Ebenfalls im Anhang finden sich
Fotos von Samen und Früchten, wie wir sie auf den
Märkten des Sahel immer wieder antreffen können. Da
sie stets auf einem konstant großen Raster als Unter-
grund aufgenommen wurden, sind die Größenverhält-
nisse eindeutig. Alle Aufnahmen, die vom Autor selbst
oder seiner Tochter Uta von Maydell stammen, sind
außergewöhnlich instruktiv und verlieren sogar bei
gelegentlich recht kleinformatiger Wiedergabe nichts
von ihrem Informationsgehalt.
H.-J. von Maydell hat als Wissenschaftler des
Instituts für Weltforstwirtschaft in Hamburg über viele
Jahre Erfahrungen in verschiedenen Sahel-Projekten
gesammelt; ihm ist ein Standardwerk zu danken. Bei
allem Lob, das seiner Arbeit uneingeschränkt zukom-
men muß, ist eine verlegerische Fehlleistung um so
ärgerlicher, die den Gebrauch des Buches schon am
Schreibtisch und erst recht „vor Ort“ (für den es ja
schließlich geschrieben ist) einschränkt: Ohne Faden-
heftung und mit einem viel zu weichen Einband ausge-
stattet, zerfällt die sonst aufwendig gedruckte, reich
bebilderte Broschur im Handumdrehen in ihre
Bestandteile. Das Exemplar der Rezensentin hat seine
erste Sahel-Reise nicht überstanden.
Dorothee Grüner
Meillassoux, Claude: Anthropologie de l’esclava-
ge. Le ventre de fer et d’argent. Paris; Presses Univer-
sitaires de France, 1986. 375 pp.
Claude Meillassoux a marqué le champ de l’an-
thropologie économique par ses recherches sur les com-
munautés domestiques agricoles d’autosubsistance.
Utilisant à nouveau la veine théorique du matérialisme
dialectique, l’auteur se penche sur un autre phénomène
économique, l’esclavage, puisant des exemples auprès
des sociétés de l’ouest africain qu’il connaît bien et qui
éclairent, à leur manière, d’autres épisodes de l’escla-
vage. Car, l’Afrique n’est tout au plus que «la dernière
garenne» d’une ponction démographique en hommes et
en femmes qui atteignit l’Asie et l’Europe bien avant
que ne se constituent les Etats médiévaux du Sahel.
L’«Anthropologie de l’esclavage» donne suite aux
dix-sept études de «l’esclavage en Afrique précolonia-
le» (1975) présentée par l’auteur qui, dans le présent
ouvrage, beaucoup plus théoretique, poursuit l’anthro-
po-logique, aux lourdes conséquences, de toute mise
en esclavage, au coeur des sociétés.
L’ouvrage commence par reconsidérer les termes
juridiques qui pèsent sur le vocabulaire et les concep-
tions courantes acceptant l’esclave comme propriété
d’un maître sans pour autant remonter aux mécanismes
créateurs de l’état d’esclave. Ensuite, l’auteur démon-
tre que le «continuum exclavage-parenté» de Miers et
Kopytoff est incompatible avec l’organisation de la
parenté. Ce qui crée l’esclave, c’est le marché. L’escla-
ve est toujours un étranger. Arrachés aux sociétés
Anthropos 83.1988
274
Rezensionen
domestiques, les esclaves forment une classe au sein
des sociétés qui les utilisent. De plus, l’esclavage
possède une spécificité qui le distingue du servage avec
lequel Engels le confondait.
Le ventre, la première partie de l’ouvrage, analyse
la dialectique de l’esclavage basée sur le processus
violent de l’extranéité. L’état d’esclave se forge par
désocialisation, dépersonnalisation, désexualisation et
décivilisation. Ces procédés, analysés de manière
approfondie, amènent l’auteur à catégoriser l’esclave
selon sa condition du moment. Etat et condition sont
bien distincts et un esclave peut être mansé, casé,
manumi, affranchi, métissé sans jamais accéder à l’état
d’homme libre.
L’esclavagisme étant un «système social fondé sur
l’exploitation d’une classe de producteurs ou de presta-
taires de services renouvelée essentiellement par acqui-
sition» (glossaire), c’est tout un espace esclavagiste que
se met en place, avec l’apparition de l’esclavage aris-
tocratique, le fer, et de l’esclavage marchand, l’argent.
Les sources historiques de l’Afrique de l’Ouest
citent les guerres de capture des rois-brigands de
l’Ashanti, de la cour Bamum, de la dynastie Sonxai.
Les captifs constituent le butin le plus important des
guerres pourvoyeuses du marché et des épisodes en-
tiers de l’histoire ouest-africaine sont à reconsidérer
sous cet angle. Des précisions importantes au sujet de
la composition des armées, de leur encadrement de
même que le rôle des esclaves de cour viennent
appuyer les démonstrations de l’auteur.
Estafiers, affidés, eunuques et courtisanes en
viennent parfois à posséder une dimension économique
et politique qui n’altère en rien, leur déni de parenté.
Et si, comme l’écrit l’auteur, la classe des esclaves est
restée en-deçà de l’histoire, elle aura contribué à
renforcer l’opposition statutaire des puissants et du
peuple. L’estafier, par exemple, esclave armé au servi-
ce de l’Etat, fut un moyen d’exercer contrainte et
répression sur la paysannerie libre.
L’esclavage-marchand façonne son espace, inter-
sticiel, par rapport aux aires aristocratiques, autour de
villes-marchés. «L’intérêt réciproque des commerçants
à entretenir les conditions morales et culturelles de
leurs affaires, et le désir de maintenir celles-ci à l’écart
des princes ou d’Etats justiciers trop rapaces leur fait
accepter la police immanente et inhibitrice de l’Islam.»
De plus, «le Koran désigne sans ambages l’esclave
potentiel par rapport à la religion» (239).
L’auteur reprend des données se rapportant à
Jenné, ville soudanaise; à Timbuktu, ville marocaine;
aux Maraka, bourgs marchands et lieux privilégiés du
pays marchand. Plus tard, au XIXe siècle, l’esclavage
s’étendra à la paysannerie, des chefs indépendants
engageant des guerres afin de trouver des esclaves. Des
jeunes ruraux islamisés rejoindront les troupes d’El
Haj Umar et de Samori.
Pour construire son argumentation théorique,
l’auteur analyse les formes d’exploitation, génératrices
soit d’un surcroît d’énergie-travail et de produit non-
consommé soit d’une rente en travail ou bien d’une
rente en produits selon la condition de l’esclave. L’état
de l’esclave se perpétue aussi longtemps que dure le
marché aux esclaves. Ce dernier subsiste aussi long-
temps que le taux de reproduction marchande de
l’esclave s’avère plus intéressant, en termes d’amortis-
sement, que celui de sa reproduction éco-démographi-
que.
Toutefois, le marché étant un concept-clé de
l’argumentation de l’auteur, on aurait souhaité de plus
amples descriptions de ce phénomène. Les marchés
d’esclaves méritent une attention plus grande qui per-
mette de saisir la spécificité des transactions qui s’y
opèrent.
Le bilan de l’esclavage reste lourd car encore
aujourd’hui, des silences, des formes de servilité at-
testent que pour certains africains, l’esclavage «reste
à portée de mémoire». L’Africanisme ne peut ignorer
cette question comme on ne pourra ignorer la publica-
tion de cette première «Anthropologie de l’esclavage»,
situant la problématique dans le champ de l’anthropo-
logie économique. Rita Cordonnier
Meyer-Bahlburg, Hilke und Ekkehard Wolff:
Afrikanische Sprachen in Forschung und Lehre. 75
Jahre Afrikanistik in Hamburg (1909-1984). Berlin:
Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1986. xxii+230 pp., Abb.
(Hamburger Beiträge zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 1)
Preis: DM 48,-
Das außerordentlich Bemerkenswerte dieser Ab-
handlung, mit der zugleich die „Hamburger Beiträge
zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte“ eingeleitet werden, be-
steht nicht nur in der fundierten und gleichermaßen
interessant abgefaßten wie zu lesenden Darstellung der
Geschichte der Afrikanistik an der Hamburger Univer-
sität aus Anlaß des 75jährigen Jubiläums der Errich-
tung des Lehrstuhls für diese Disziplin, die hier mit der
Berufung von Carl Meinhof sofort einen glanzvollen
Höhepunkt hatte und deren Reputation durch das
Wirken von August Klingenheben, Johannes Lukas
u. a. sowie Vertretern der heutigen Generation (Lud-
wig Gerhardt, Ekkehard Wolff u. a.) weiter ausgebaut
wurde, sondern in der gleichermaßen kritischen und
selbstkritischen Wertung der kolonialpolitischen und
kolonialpraktischen Verstrickungen dieser Disziplin.
Die Autoren betonen, daß es ihnen „. . . nicht um
einen Akt selbstgefälliger Rückschau auf in der Ver-
gangenheit von Hamburger Afrikanisten zweifellos
erworbene Verdienste um die Erforschung und Ver-
mittlung afrikanischer Sprachen und Kulturen . . .“
geht, als vielmehr „. . . um ein Signal: das deutliche
Angebot zum Dialog an alle, die an einer ernsthaften
und partnerschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit
Afrika, seinen Menschen, seinen Kulturen, seiner
Geschichte und seinen gesellschaftlichen und politi-
schen Problemen interessiert sind“ (v-vi).
Daß eines Tages in der Afrikanistik auch der
Bundesrepublik Deutschland eine solche, in Aussage
und Stil rigorose Abrechnung mit dem kolonialen
Engagement der Afrikanistik erfolgen mußte, verwun-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
275
dert eigentlich nicht, allein die Tatsache, daß dies erst
reichlich 40 Jahre nach Beendigung des 2. Weltkrieges
durch eine Generation geschah, die sich der 68er
Studentenbewegung zurechnet und verpflichtet fühlt,
nachdem prominente Afrikanisten der Nachkriegspe-
riode es versäumt hatten, sich einer solchen Problema-
tik zu stellen: „Mit dem Ausgang des 2. Weltkrieges
müssen auch die letzten Überlebenden der sog. Koloni-
alkreise ihre Hoffnung auf Wiedererlangung der Kolo-
nien endgültig begraben. In der Afrikanistik geschieht
dies in aller Stille, irgendein Bruch in der wissenschaft-
lichen Tradition ist nicht erkennbar. Ja, man stellt
irritiert fest, daß - von den jeweils den Herrschenden
zum Munde redenden Bekenntnissen der Vorworte
und Festreden einmal abgesehen, die ja nun nicht mehr
gefragt sind (allenfalls vorsichtig positive Wertungen
der afrikanischen Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen) -
weder in Thematik, Umfang noch Organisationsform
in der Lehre, noch in der veröffentlichten Forschungs-
tätigkeit auch nur der Hauch einer Zäsur zu vermerken
ist: weder am Ende des 1. Weltkrieges, als die Kolo-
nien zwar verloren waren, aber die Hoffnung auf deren
Rückgewinnung nie versiegte, noch am Ende des
2. Weltkrieges, als neben den Kolonien auch die Hoff-
nung auf Wiedererlangung endgültig verloren war. Im
Grunde genommen ist bis zum Beginn der 70er Jahre
die Kontinuität der akademischen Afrikanistik nie
öffentlich von deren Vertretern in Frage gestellt wor-
den, d. h. die geistige Auseinandersetzung mit der
gesellschaftlichen Funktion einer ehemals unverhohlen
kolonialistischen Zielen dienenden Wissenschaft stand
bis dahin - oder steht bis heute? - noch aus: Manch
einem war oder ist der Verbleib im Elfenbeinturm
sicher bequemer als die Mühe der selbstkritischen
intellektuellen Dekolonisierung des eigenen Werte-
systems” (16).
Unter diesem Aspekt verdient dieses Buch seitens
aller an einer demokratischen und progressiven Grund-
orientierung der Afrikanistik interessierten Fachkräfte
ungeteilte Beachtung. Auch seitens der Afrikanisten
der DDR, die sich im Rahmen der Neuformierung
ihrer Disziplin um das Jahr 1960 ebenso der Neube-
stimmung von Grundpositionen stellen mußten und
dies auch auf ihre Weise mit entsprechenden Konse-
quenzen getan haben (vgl. u. a. S. Brauner, Die Ent-
wicklung der Afrikanistik an der Leipziger Universität
- Zum Wirken von Hans Stumme und August Klingen-
heben. In: Progressive Traditionen der Orientalistik
der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig. Leipzig 1979; oder
S. Brauner. In: I. Herms und K. Legère, Diedrich
Westermann [1875-1956]. Werdegang, Leistungen,
Widersprüche und Irrwege eines bürgerlichen Afri-
kanisten; Berlin 1975 [Asien, Afrika, Lateinamerika 3:
493 ff]). In der Sowjetunion war das von D. A. Olderog-
ge und 1.1. Potechin herausgegebene Werk „Narody
Afriki“ (Moskva 1954, in deutscher Übersetzung er-
schienen als „Die Völker Afrikas“; 2 Bde. Berlin, 1961)
ein wichtiger Markstein für die progressive Umbewer-
tung einer kolonial geprägten Afrikanistik.
Das Buch zeichnet sich durch eine konzentrierte
und durch zahlreiche Fakten und Dokumente belegte
Darstellung der Entwicklung der Afrikanistik am heuti-
gen „Seminar für afrikanische Sprachen und Kulturen“
aus, wobei insbesondere für die Zeit von 1909 bis 1945
der Widerspruch zwischen herausragender wissen-
schaftlicher Leistung und oft zwiespältigem gesellschaft-
lichem Engagement bewußt gemacht wird. Hamburg
war wohl, und das ist in erster Linie das Verdienst von
Carl Meinhof, durch die schöpferische Anwendung der
für jene Zeit führenden linguistischen Methodologie
der Junggrammatiker auf die Afrikanistik, das führen-
de Zentrum dieser Disziplin nicht nur in Deutschland,
sondern im Weltmaßstab. Insbesondere gingen von
hier langjährig die entscheidenden Impulse vor allem
für die Entwicklung der Bantuistik als des neben der
Indoeuropäistik führenden Zweiges der historisch-
vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft aus.
Im Abschnitt über die Aktivitäten des Seminars
während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, von Ludwig
Gerhardt verfaßt, werden eine Reihe neuer interessan-
ter Fakten vorgelegt, die meines Erachtens aber noch
mehr zum Gesamtschaffen der einzelnen Wissenschaft-
ler hätten in Beziehung gesetzt werden müssen.
Erstmalig in einer derartigen wissenschaftsge-
schichtlichen Abhandlung der Afrikanistik findet sich
eine detaillierte Würdigung der Leistungen, die auch
afrikanische Mitarbeiter erbracht haben, ohne die
manch bemerkenswerte Publikation sicherlich kaum
zustande gekommen wäre.
Kapitel 6 und 7 bieten ausführliche Übersichten
über die bisher so beeindruckenden Aktivitäten auf
dem Gebiet der Lehre afrikanischer Sprachen und der
Forschungen des Seminars. Dabei wird einerseits die
Schlußfolgerung gezogen, die engen philologischen
Grenzen der bisherigen Lehre zugunsten einer
afrikawissenschaftlichen Ausbildung im breitesten Sin-
ne zu überwinden, und andererseits wird deutlich
gemacht, welchen spezifischen Beitrag Hamburger
Afrikanisten auf den verschiedensten Einzeldisziplinen
der Afrikanistik geleistet haben bzw. worin heute ihr
Standpunkt besteht.
Beide Kapitel sowie das abschließende Kapitel 8,
das die zwischen 1909 und 1984 realisierte Publika-
tionstätigkeit mit Akribie erfaßt, sind wertvolle biblio-
graphische Quellen für jeden Afrikanisten.
Insgesamt setzt das Buch Maßstäbe für die Abar-
beitung der zahlreichen Aspekte der Geschichte dieser
jungen linguistischen Disziplin, für die in nächster Zeit
weitere bemerkenswerte Jubiläen zu erwarten sind.
Siegmund Brauner
Meyn, Matthias, et al. (Hrsg.): Die großen Ent-
deckungen. München: C. H. Beck Verlag, 1984.
xix+659 pp., Ktn. (Dokumente zur Geschichte der
europäischen Expansion, 2)
Die vorliegende, zuerst erschienene Sammlung ist
der 2. Band einer auf 7 Bände geplanten Reihe
„Dokumente zur Geschichte der europäischen Expan-
sion“, die unter Mitwirken von 27 Fachwissenschaftlern
Anthropos 83.1988
276
Rezensionen
von dem Bamberger Historiker Eberhard Schmitt her-
ausgegeben wird. Die Reihe soll in Dokumenten und
Kommentaren global den Zeitraum von den mittelal-
terlichen Ursprüngen europäischer Expansion bis zum
Ende des alten Kolonialsystems abdecken.
In diesem Band geht es also um die großen
Entdeckungen, d. h. angefangen mit den portugiesi-
schen Entdeckungen im Atlantik und an der
afrikanischen Westküste zu Beginn des 15. Jh.s bis zu
den Reisen Cooks im 18. Jh. Auf ein einstimmendes
Kapitel, das vor Augen führt, welche epochalen Verän-
derungen das mittelalterliche Weltbild in den hier
behandelten gut drei Jahrhunderten erfuhr, folgen in
13 Kapiteln die einzelnen Entdeckungsphasen in weit-
gehend chronologischer Reihenfolge: die Erschließung
der afrikanischen Westküste bis zur Umrundung des
Kaps der Guten Hoffnung, die Fahrten von Kolumbus
und Vasco da Gama, Cabrals Vorstöße auf der Ostrou-
te nach Indien, die Entdeckung der Magellan-Straße,
die Erschließung und Durchdringung des amerikani-
schen Kontinents, das russische Vordringen in Sibirien
und nach Alaska usw.
Die einzelnen Kapitel werden jeweils durch eine
Art von Handbuchbeitrag eröffnet; es folgen Orginal-
quellen. Bei den ausgewählten Dokumenten handelt es
sich um Reiseberichte, Briefe, Chroniken, Protokolle
und dergleichen, die im wesentlichen gut kommentiert
und von Sacherläuterungen begleitet sind. Dankbar ist
man für die Literaturverweise zu den einzelnen Doku-
menten und für ein reichhaltiges Register.
In der Natur der Sache einer solchen Auswahl von
Originalquellen liegt die eurozentrische Betrachtungs-
weise, waren es doch die Entdecker und deren Betrei-
ber, die an ausführlichen Dokumentationen interessiert
waren. Dieser Tatsachen Rechnung tragend, haben
sich die Herausgeber bemüht, eine Reihe von Texten
zusammenzutragen, die die beschriebenen Vorgänge
aus der Sicht der außereuropäischen Entdeckten schil-
dern. Gerade darin liegt die Stärke des Bandes, der
zwar eine Fülle von Material verarbeitet und durch die
Vielzahl seiner Verweise zu einem Weiterstudium ein-
lädt, der jedoch aufgrund dieser Fülle auch nicht mehr
sein kann.
Ein Buch dieser Art lädt immer wieder zum
Blättern und „Entdecken“ ein; man liest sich fest.
Trotzdem hinterläßt es beim Rezensenten ein schales
Gefühl: für eine populär-wissenschaftliche Darstellung
ist es eigentlich schon zu umfangreich und zu „wissen-
schaftlich“, der interessierte Wissenschaftler hingegen
wird wohl eher zu den Quellen als zu der hier präsen-
tierten Auswahl greifen. Man kann jedoch gespannt
darauf sein, wie sich die weiteren Bände ausnehmen
werden. Heribert Körner
Michaelis, Hans-Thorald: Schützengilden. Ur-
sprung - Tradition - Entwicklung. München: Keyser-
sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1985. 96 pp., Abb. (Key-
sers kleine Kulturgeschichte)
Ist es möglich, daß ein Buch über historische
Schützengilden Leser interessiert und fesselt, die nicht
der Schar der ausgesprochenen Insider, die nicht dem
Kreis der aus Tradition oder Passion mit dem Schüt-
zenwesen eng Verbundenen angehören? Nach der Lek-
türe von Hans Thorald Michaelis’ Buch steht fest: Es
ist möglich. Michaelis, sich habilitierender Historiker
und Leiter des Archivs, der Bibliothek und des
Museums des Deutschen Schützenbundes in Wiesba-
den hat ein Buch vorgelegt, das auf einen für kulturge-
schichtliche Fragestellungen offenen Leser höchst anre-
gend wirkt. Michaelis’ knapp gehaltene, den Raum von
100 Seiten nicht überschreitende Studie zeichnet sich
unter anderem durch außerordentliche Dichte, durch
Informations- und Gedankenreichtum sowie durch
interpretatorische Sensibilität, Urteilsvermögen und -
nota bene! - Urteilsfreudigkeit aus.
Gleich zu Beginn seiner chronologischen Darstel-
lung des Schützenwesens (in der eine auf den deutsch-
sprachigen Raum eingegrenzte Sehweise erfreulicher-
weise an vielen Stellen zugunsten einer europäischen
Perspektive durchbrochen wird) wartet der Verfasser
mit einer unkonventionellen, bisherige Forschungser-
gebnisse durchaus in Frage stellenden These auf: Der
Ursprung des Schützenwesens ist nicht im bürgerlich-
städtischen, vom Gedanken der Wehrertüchtigung und
Stadtverteidigung geprägten Schützengildewesen des
Mittelalters zu suchen; seine Anfänge müssen vielmehr
im Zusammenhang mit vorchristlichen, heidnischen
Kultformen gesehen werden. Michaelis versteht es
glaubhaft zu machen, daß von dem der heidnischen
Gottheit in Gemeinschaft, gleichsam in genossenschaft-
licher Gesellung dargebrachten Vogelopfer, von dem
rituell-kultisch - bald mit Pfeil und Bogen! - betriebe-
nen Vogeltöten, das historische Schützenwesen seinen
Ausgang nahm.
Der Verfasser charakterisiert dann die einzelnen
Entwicklungsstufen des europäischen Schützenwesens
bis zur Gegenwart, indem er einige deutliche Akzente
setzt. Er schildert die Gegenoffensive der Kirche und
der weltlichen Gewalten gegen den „heidnischen Aber-
witz“ der Schützengilden seit dem 11. Jh. und schließ-
lich deren Mutation zu christlichen Bruderschaften. Er
beschreibt den im nordwesteuropäischen Raum (Flan-
dern) zuerst zu beobachtenden Wandel der städtischen
Schützengilden zu militärischen Wehrverbänden im
frühen 14. Jh., ihre auf Geselligkeit („Kurzweil“) ein-
geschränkte Funktion seit Ende des gleichen Säkulums,
schließlich ihren Niedergang in dem vom Söldnerwesen
beherrschten Dreißigjährigen Krieg und ihre Wieder-
belebung im absolutistischen deutschen Fürstenstaat
des 17. Jh.s mit dem zum Teil von der Obrigkeit
gewünschten Zweck der Erzeugung eines auf den
Einzelstaat bezogenen Patriotismus. Mit besonderem
Engagement erläutert Michaelis die Einbindung der
deutschen Schützenvereine in die national-deutsche
Bewegung des 19. Jh.s im Jahrzehnt vor der Reichs-
gründung. Ihren Abschluß und ihre Abrundung erfährt
die Darstellung mit einem Kapitel über den Wandel
des Schützenwesens zum Schieß- und Leistungssport im
20. Jh.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
277
Der Autor hat stets den Blick auf die großen,
epochalen Entwicklungsstufen des Schützenwesens
gerichtet, nicht jedoch um den Preis der Unterdrük-
kung seiner Liebe zum illustrierenden Detail. So
erfährt der mit dem Schützenwesen nicht Vertraute
z. B. viele wichtige Einzelheiten über die Veränderun-
gen in der Waffentechnik. Selbst der an semantischer
Genese von Wortbegriffen Interessierte kommt beim
Lesen des Buches auf seine Kosten. Denn wer hätte
schon gewußt, daß der „Zweck“, den man verfolgt,
ursprünglich der „zwec“, der Elolznagel in der Mitte
der Schießscheibe war, auf den die Schützen mit ihrer
Armbrust zielten!
Als Fazit läßt sich festhalten: Dem Autor ist es
gelungen, das von ihm gewählte Sujet, das vielleicht
auf den ersten Blick etwas trocken und verstaubt zu
sein scheint, durch seine Fragestellungen und seine
Darstellungsweise in jeder Hinsicht mit Leben zu
erfüllen. Es wäre zu wünschen, wenn Michaelis’ Stu-
die, die durch die sorgfältig ausgewählten, zum Teil
farbigen Illustrationen eine zusätzliche Qualität erhält,
einen großen Leserkreis finden würde.
Dieter Düding
Moore, Henrietta L.: Space, Text, and Gender.
An Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of Kenya.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
xiv+213 pp., plates, maps, fig. Price: £ 25.00
The author describes this study in the following
way: “My focus is on the organisation of household
space in an attempt to understand one particular form
of cultural representation, how it is produced and how
it changes. My broader aim is to discuss the relation-
ship between symbolic forms and the social and eco-
nomic conditions within which those forms are pro-
duced, maintained and ultimately transformed. With this
end in view, I have used the idea of ‘cultural text’
to construct an analytical framework and to try and
[sic] pursue some of the theoretical issues raised by such
an enquiry. In choosing this focus, I have given less
attention to other important aspects of Marakwet life:
for example, affinal relationships, economics, the con-
flict of old and young, the rites and associated rituals of
birth, marriage and death, all of which could have been
considered in some detail and are not. Nonetheless, I
hope that the book sheds some light on the more
general problems of understanding cultural representa-
tion, and thus belies what may seem initially to be an
unduly narrow focus” (xi).
Moore’s research is based on fifteen months field-
work among the Marakwet, a Para-Nilotic people
inhabiting a highland area of west-central Kenya. Since
almost no useful ethnographic material was previously
available for this society, her report is welcome, even
though, as she herself observes, it provides a narrow
range of information.
The book is divided into three parts. The first part
consists of a background to the area. It also discusses
the author’s aims and methods of organizing her
arguments and provides an account of what little is
known of Marakwet history, the area’s geography and
basic economy, and the general cultural traits and social
organization of these people. This is followed by a more
detailed description of the particular neighbourhoods
where Moore worked, and, finally, an account of
Marakwet gender roles as these relate to kinship, house-
holds, and settlements and how these alter over time due
to the aging of persons and the developmental cycle of
domestic groups. The second part of the book begins
with an extended discussion of theorists who have
written on the social meanings of space and its interpre-
tation as “text.” This consists mainly of rephrasing and
appraising the writings of Ricoeur and Bourdieu with
little reference to the Marakwet or writers on other peo-
ples of East Africa. Part two ends with an account of how
Marakwet traditionally understand and value social
space (mainly houses and settlements) followed by a de-
scription of how the recent impact of a cash economy
and Western education have altered such perceptions.
Part three consists of two chapters, one entitled “In-
visible Women” which Moore rates as the key to her
analysis and which attempts to show how and why Ma-
rakwet women are dominated by men. This is followed
by a brief conclusion attempting to show how Moore’s
findings fit broader theory about how beliefs and val-
ues are or are not related to changing historical-mate-
rial conditions. The author also provides short appen-
dices on Marakwet kinship terminology and burial prac-
tices.
Moore has attempted a complex task while provid-
ing insufficient ethnographic data to make her case. It
is not clear whether this is due to the fact that she was
not a very intensive ethnographer, whether she was
weak in her understanding of social anthropology and
therefore could not summon convincing and coherent
arguments, or whether, which seems most likely, both
such reasons apply. While Moore provides much de-
scriptive material in the forms of photographs, dia-
grams, maps, and tables indicating Marakwet material
possessions and where they are placed, she actually
provides insufficient information about just how
Marakwet society works or, even more crucial, how
and what Marakwet think. This is the kind of book that
might have been written by an archaeologist concerned
with formal lay-outs of space and things but with a
weak understanding of how to pursue enquiry among liv-
ing people. When one deducts the copious references
to others writing on non-Marakwet material (e.g.,
Bourdieu, Ricoeur, Foucault) and the descriptions of
material culture presented with weak cultural contextu-
alization, what remains is meagre and of a generalized
nature. For example, how Marakwet evaluate and
think about different types of activities such as work,
leisure, and play is very weakly discussed, even though
such issues would appear absolutely central to the
problems raised. How people actually think about the
qualities of different possessions and things is also
considered only in the most general terms. In large part
this appears due to the fact that a more global, “total”
Anthropos 83.1988
278
Rezensionen
ethnography is lacking, not only in this volume but
apparently in the author’s implicit comprehension.
Moore observes that the Marakwet dichotomize
the attributes and character of women and men, a
cultural feature characteristic of most societies and long
especially well described and analysed in the east and
central African literature. In this respect, her account
appears reliable so far as it goes but pedestrian. The
one ethnographic feature of some novel interest is in
Chapter ix, “Ash and Animal Dung” where Moore
observes that traditionally Marakwet saw a two-house
residence as the minimal ideal for a man during his
prime reproductive years. If he were polygynous, a
different house would accommodate each wife (it is not
entirely clear just how this would work for several
wives); if he were monogamous (most modern Mara-
kwet seem to be), one house should serve as a kitchen
dominated by the wife and the other as the sleeping-
quarters dominated by the husband. Such an arrange-
ment was the goal of newly-married couples but was
eventually abandoned after children matured and
material resources consequently diminished. Moore
goes on to relate these two male and female poles to
other uses of space. In the course of her report, Moore
describes Marakwet settlements as layed-out on a
north-south axis. She notes that the entrances to
dwellings should never face east, and that the entrance
to a roof foodstore should never lie over cooking or
sleeping areas. Food storage buildings must be “be-
hind” and “above” the main dwelling compound. Yet
nowhere does she clearly expatiate on how such
notions fit within broader Marakwet cosmology about
directions and space.
Moore makes much of the fact that ashes from the
hearth are deposited “behind” a house, that animal
dung is deposited beyond the compound and “below”
the animal quarters, while chaff from threshed grain is
deposited at the front edge of a compound. None of
these is mixed. Old men are buried in the goat dung
deposits; women in those of chaff. Moore associates
ash with both the nourishing and consumptive (destruc-
tive) aspects of women; chaff with women’s fecundity
but also their autonomy (anti-social natures), while
animals (especially goats) are associated with the cere-
monial world of men. Her support for all this strikes
me as thin, especially regarding the views of men. In
any case, all this is vitiated by two basic flaws. First, it
is not entirely clear just which of these associations
stem directly from Marakwet beliefs and practices and
which reflect assumptions drawn by the author.
Second, since we learn nothing about how Marakwet
view the dead and how they act ritually toward them,
her emphasis on placement of the dead is not very
meaningful. In all of this work, Moore’s reportage of
Marakwet quotidian life is so scant that one is hard
pressed to know how they think about space. What one
does in different spaces, how one behaves, how one
converses and observes etiquette, and dresses, all
inform the meanings of space. Incredibly, this book
makes no references regarding the proper spaces for
defecation, bathing, dancing, or anti-social behaviour.
It is not even clear how and where people assemble for
consumption of food and drink at different occasions.
Moore does note that the traditional Marakwet
round-house is going out of favour; so too are the
two-house compound and the preoccupation with
goats. Rather than investing in these, modernized
Marakwet appear to prefer radios, Western furniture,
lamps, cloth, and bicycles. Those few Marakwet who
reside in the new, modernized administrative centre
appear to have abandoned many Marakwet values
about space.
Moore’s concluding chapters say less than they
appear to do. Much of her discussion loses track of her
original theme of spatial orientation and, instead,
merely comments superficially on the problems of
Marakwet women. For example, she mentions that
there are important speech differences between men
and women, but nowhere does she coherently relate
these different types of discourse to different spatial
situations. Moore observes that cultural notions about
gender rarely reflect the “true” nature of gender
relations (167). This may be so, but it is not at all clear
to me just what “true” means. Certainly it is the case,
as she notes, that the meanings of symbols must be
repeatedly negotiated. Yet she fails to recognize that
this is as problematical for men as for women, and for
old as for young.
I do not know whether Moore is indeed a social
anthropologist or an archaeologist who has got “over
her head” in trying to do ethnography. I do know that
some of her work appears elsewhere in association with
a new and popular trend emanating out of Cambridge
University and fostered by Ian Hodder, among others
(see I. Hodder [ed.] 1982; D. Miller and C. Tilley
[eds.j 1984). This movement attempts to utilize current
work in structuralism and symbolism to inform archae-
ological material. While it is laudable and essential for
archaeologists to comprehend social theory in order to
interpret their own findings, much of this current work
is unfortunate. This is because its proponents have
confused a superficial familiarity with trendy neo-
Marxists, structuralists, and deconstructionists with
command of solid social theory, and in their zeal to do
so some kind of ethnography, they have apparently not
taken the time to learn what thorough, intensive,
global ethnography should be. T. O. Beidelman
Morner, Magnus: The Andean Past. Land, Soci-
eties, and Conflicts. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1985. xiv+300 pp., maps, photos, fig., tab.
Price: $ 39.00
Through the very short chapters of his book
(about 10), Swedish historian Magnus Morner gives us
a global look at the Andean past. Based on some
geographic-type facts, the first two chapters rapidly
describe the Prehispanic civilization with the arrival of
Europeans in the Andes and the outcome of it (1-48).
Following are two chapters which outline the colonial
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
279
system: mining production (mostly silver), Spanish so-
cio-political institutions (48-86); another chapter (ST-
119) features the 18th century reforms along with the In-
dian or mixed-racial conflicts which took place before
or after those reforms; three chapters (120-187) give
attention to the social and political ideas, economic
outlook, exportation and conflicts of the Republican
Era; finally, the last two chapters of Môrner’s book
(188-270) deal with the Andean revival: socio-eco-
nomic problems, movements of the native populations,
political experiences.
One simple look at those subjects and how long
they are given attention to in this book, will convince
any reader of the difficult task that Morner set himself.
In fact, it is very hazardous for anyone to undertake
such a task without confining oneself to generalities,
commonplace and admitted opinions. Morner has not
been able to avoid it. But at least we can give him the
credit to gather scattered facts and make them under-
standable to non-specialized readers. As for example,
some matters related to republican and colonial eco-
nomic past are to be mentioned particularly.
About socio-political and religious aspects of his
explanations, Môrner’s book is strikingly poor of intel-
lectual value. I will go even further and say that his
book is boring for the reader. In fact, the author should
have put more emphasis on matters such as socio-
political features of Andean societies, religious expe-
riences and centuries-long conflicts between one anoth-
er. This is a pity, in my opinion, when I consider that
those issues could have been an asset to better prepare
the Andean revival that Morner talks about in his last
two chapters.
It is noteworthy that the charts are sometimes
extremely accurate to the extent he includes the least
important statistical data about a South Andean ham-
let, while the accompanied texts are all in all clearly
less accurate. Spanish expressions or words often con-
tain errors or are misspelled. The final bibliography
orientations must be revised; some important book
titles are omitted.
Môrner’s book is disappointing, too much incon-
stant. The historical outlook that Morner received from
his reading of the Andean past is too short to be taken
into consideration. He undoubtedly showed honesty
when he admitted that his work is the product of a
Swedish liberal and non-marxist thinker, but this must
not be considered as an excuse to be unaware of the
conflicts of Andean populations and even less to
reduce them as part of a mere and insignificant indige-
nism. Henrique Urbano
O’Brien, Denise, and Sharon W. Tiffany (eds.):
Rethinking Women’s Roles. Perspectives from the
Pacific. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
xiii+237 pp., fig. Price $ 32.75
Dieses Buch entstand aus einer Reihe von Beiträ-
gen zu zwei Symposien über das Thema Frauen in
Ozeanien, die 1979 und 1980 von der Association for
Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) in Clearwa-
ter (Florida) und Galveston (Texas) durchgeführt wur-
den. Acht Beiträge, die sich auf Melanesien beziehen,
wurden von den Herausgeberinnen zur Veröffentli-
chung ausgewählt und, mit einem Vorwort und einem
Einleitungskapitel versehen, zur Buchform aufbereitet.
Sieben Verfasserinnen sind Ethnologinnen (Dorothy
Ayers Counts, Jill Nash, Nancy McDowell, Denise
O’Brien, Lorraine Dusak Sexton, Marilyn Strathern,
Sharon W. Tiffany), James A. Boutilier ist Historiker
und Charles W. Forman ist Missionswissenschaftler.
Das Buch handelt von Frauen in Melanesien.
Damit sind nicht ausschließlich einheimische Frauen
gemeint, sondern auch Europäerinnen (einschließlich
Frauen von neuseeländischer, australischer und ameri-
kanischer Herkunft) - Ehefrauen von Händlern, Mis-
sionaren und Beamten, aber auch Ordensfrauen im
Dienst der katholischen Mission. Jedes der Kapitel,
ohne Ausnahme, ist informativ, reich an Daten und an
sich lesenswert. Den acht beschreibenden Kapiteln ist
ein Einführungskapitel vorangestellt. Die Verfasserin
(Tiffany) stellt darin die einzelnen Beiträge vor und
erläutert jargonfrei deren Bedeutung für einen femini-
stische Perspektive in der Ethnologie. Daß die Erarbei-
tung solch einer Perspektive durchaus kein einfaches
Unterfangen ist, stellt Strathern deutlich heraus: “We
cannot assume that in correcting a male bias in our
models we thereby become bias-free” (15).
Strathern (Kap. 2) behandelt das Problem der
Abwertung der Frau und vergleicht die geschlechtliche
Arbeitsteilung der Bewohner des Hagenberg-Gebietes
(Neuguinea) mit der in der abendländischen Gesell-
schaft bislang noch üblichen Einteilung der Tätigkeits-
bereiche in eine öffentlich-männliche und eine häus-
lich-weibliche Sphäre. McDowell (Kap. 3) untersucht
die Bedeutung von Komplementarität und Hierarchie
am Beispiel des Dorfes Bun in der Ost-Sepik Provinz,
Papua Neuguinea. Im Kap. 4 gelangt O’Brien zu dem
wichtigen Schluß, daß weibliche Ethnographen (z. B.
Mead, Powdermaker, Blackwood) in der Regel ein
ausgeglichenes Bild männlicher und weiblicher Tätig-
keiten zeichnen, wogegen ihre männlichen Kollegen,
darunter auch so namhafte wie Alkire, Firth, Fortune
und Scheffler, dem weiblichen Element kaum Beach-
tung schenken. Counts (Kap. 5) beschreibt den Selbst-
mord aus Rache von Frauen im nordwestlichen Neu-
Britannien, in dem sie kein abweichendes Verhalten
erkennt, sondern “a political act, perhaps the only
effective one available, under certain circumstances, to
powerless persons” (71). Nash (Kap. 6) untersucht den
Wandel im Status der Frau bei den matrilinearen
Nagovisi (Bougainville) aufgrund des verstärkten
Anbaus von cash crops (Kakao/Tabak) und gelangt zu
der manche Ethnologen womöglich überraschenden
Schlußfolgerung, daß zumindest bei den Nagovisi die
matrilinearen Institutionen - entgegen den üblichen
Voraussagen - nicht geschwächt, sondern gestärkt wur-
den. Männer müssen mit ihren Ehefrauen kooperieren,
wenn sie im öffentlichen, d. h. männlichen, Bereich
erfolgreich sein möchten, z. B. als Big Men. Daß
Anthropos 83.1988
280
Rezensionen
Frauen auch anderswo in Melanesien der Monetarisie-
rung und einer Entwicklungshilfe-Ideologie nicht hilf-
los ausgeliefert sind, die einseitig solche Hilfsmaßnah-
men favorisiert, denen das westliche, männlich-weibli-
che Rollenschema zugrunde liegt, beweist Sexton in
Kap. 7. Im Hochland von Papua-Neuguinea etablierte
sich nämlich seit ca. 1960 Wok Meri, „Frauenarbeit“,
ein erfolgreiches und ausschließlich von Frauen betrie-
benes Spar- und Investitionssystem nach dem Vorbild
des westlichen Bankwesens. Diese Bewegung wurzelt
in der Unzufriedenheit der Frauen mit dem Anspruch
der Männer, das auch von den Frauen erwirtschaftete
Bargeld ganz alleine auszugeben, zu investieren - oder
zu verjubeln.
Auch im religiösen Bereich wirken externe Ein-
flüsse nicht immer zum Nachteil der einheimischen
Frau, argumentiert Forman (Kap. 8). Er beschreibt
darin den wachsenden Einfluß der einheimischen
Frauen in den jungen, christlichen Kirchen des Pazifik.
Melanesische Frauen, so Forman, waren von den
Führungspositionen in den traditionellen, von Män-
nern dominierten religiösen Institutionen ausgeschlos-
sen. Das Vorbild europäischer Frauen (Ordensschwe-
stern, Missionars-Ehefrauen) bewirkt aber heute, daß
der Einfluß einheimischer Frauen in den kirchlichen
Organisationen immer stärker wird. Das Andenken
solcher Frauen vor dem Vergessenwerden zu bewah-
ren, hat sich Boutilier in Kap. 9 als Aufgabe gestellt.
Anhand einiger Fallskizzen schildert er, zum Teil auf
eindringliche Weise, die Schicksale von Europäerinnen
auf den Salomonen im Zeitraum von 1900-1942. Die
„männlichen“ Fähigkeiten, die diese Frauen in extre-
mer Situation unter Beweis stellten, waren quasi ein le-
bendiger Gegenbeweis zu den herrschenden spätvikto-
rianischen Vorstellungen der kolonialen Gesellschaft.
Daß ethnologische Studien über Frauen notwen-
dig sind, da sie nicht nur eine Lücke schließen, dürfte
spätestens seit den von Rosaldo und Lamphere (Wo-
man, Culture, and Society. Stanford 1974) und von
Reiter (Toward an Anthropology of Women. New
York 1975) herausgegebenen Sammelbänden deutlich
geworden sein. O’Briens Darstellung der Vernachlässi-
gung der Frau in den Ethnographien, die von Männern
verfaßt wurden, verstärkt diesen Eindruck nur noch
(Kap. 4). Das Thema „Feminismus“ ist nun der rote
Faden in Tiffanys Einleitungskapitel, an dessen Schluß
sie schreibt: “The contributors demonstrate that re-
thinking Pacific Island societies within the contexts of
women’s experiences is a preliminary but criticai Step
for defining feminist relevance in Oceanie research
...” (11). Ist allein das Verfassen informativer und
manche männliche Voreingenommenheit korrigieren-
der Essays bereits feministisch? Hier fehlt nun eindeu-
tig eine schärfere theoretische Ausformulierung eines
Schlüsselbegriffs. Das hätte man in einem zusammen-
fassenden Schlußkapitel nachholen können, auf das die
Herausgeberinnen leider verzichtet haben.
Solch ein Schlußkapitel hätte nochmals die Leit-
motive des Buches mit dem Thema Feminismus verbin-
den und unter diesem Aspekt abschließend themati-
sieren können. Um nur einige dieser Leitmotive zu
nennen: 1. die Betonung der Unterschiede von Kultur
und Natur, entsprechend dem abendländischen My-
thos; 2. die im Abendland übliche Trennung von
öffentlichem und häuslichem Bereich, wobei öffentlich
= Kultur = Mann und häuslich = Natur = Frau ist;
3. die einseitige Betonung der reproduktiven (= „na-
türlichen“) Rolle der Frau gegenüber ihrer produktiven
Rolle; 4. die aktive Rolle der Frau in den exogen in-
duzierten Prozessen des Kulturwandels. Ohne Schluß-
kapitel „hängen“ nun die einzelnen Beiträge und die
Leitmotive quasi „in der Luft“, und die Beziehung zum
Thema Feminismus wirkt aufgesetzt - so, als habe man
auf einen Zug aufspringen wollen, der sich zu einem ä
la mode-Reiseziel bewegt. Die einzelnen Beiträge
haben diese Reklame jedenfalls nicht nötig. Auch
wenn ich das Fehlen eines Schlußkapitels als gravieren-
den Mangel eines ansonsten exzellenten Buches emp-
finde, so erscheint mir “Rethinking Women’s Roles”
aufgrund der Qualität dieser Beiträge dennoch als
Gewinn - nicht nur für die Bibliothek des Ozeanisten.
Thomas Bargatzky
Parkin, David (ed.): The Anthropology of Evil.
Oxford: Basii Blackwell, 1985. 283 pp. Price: £ 22.50
Die meisten Religionsethnologen gehen konform
mit der Ansicht, daß die existentielle Not, das Span-
nungsfeld zwischen Heil und Unheil, die Menschen
unterschiedlicher Kulturen und Weltanschauungen zu
tieferem Nachdenken über das Böse und zu immer
neuen rituellen Praktiken der Befreiung stimuliert hat.
Dieses Sammelwerk, dessen Beiträge auf Seminarien
und Symposien an der School of Oriental and African
Studies der London University zurückgehen, greift
diese Thematik auf. Der anspruchsvolle Titel läßt
erwarten, daß in den konkreten Analysen und trans-
kulturellen Vergleichen der Autoren die wesentlichen
Perspektiven einer Theorie des Übels, bzw. des Bösen,
aufgezeigt und diskutiert werden. Der Rahmen der
Untersuchungen ist aber enorm weit, so weit, daß die
Suche nach Konstanten und Tiefenperspektiven und
damit eine umfassende Systematisierung der Thematik
von vorneherein fragwürdig erscheint. Dies ist nicht
nur durch die Vieldeutigkeit und Vagheit des Begriffs
“Evil”, sondern auch durch die offenbar eher zufällige
Entstehung des Werkes aus Seminar-Diskussionen
bedingt. Die Ausweitung des Rahmens auf die Frage
nach dem „Ort“ des Bösen in christlich-judäischen (D.
Taylor), hinduistischen (R. Inden), buddhistischen (M.
Southwold), konfuzianischen (G. Moeran), islamischen
(J. Bousfield, D. Parkin) und „animistischen“ (R.
Willis, D. Parkin, J. Overing) Glaubenssystemen wie
auch die regionale Diversität (Schwerpunkt Asien)
haben andererseits zu übergreifenden Leitfragen und
zu Ideenkonfrontationen geführt, welche Parkin in der
Einleitung zu formulieren versucht.
Seine Systematisierung unter den Überschriften
“Evil and Morality”, “Evil as Imperfection”, “The
Contestability of Evil”, “Evil as Ambivalent Power”
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
281
und “The Personification of Evil” befriedigt zwar nicht
voll, sie bringt aber, gerade aus transkultureller Sicht,
m. E. wichtige z. T. kontroverse Auffassungen über
die Begründung und Vergleichbarkeit ethischer Nor-
men, bzw. moralischer Systeme, über die Fragwürdig-
keit von oft vorgefaßten Werturteilen bezüglich Gut
und Böse zur Sprache. Parkin sieht im Archetyp des
Üblen oder Bösen vor allem eine destruktive Macht,
die er andererseits als defiziär, physisch verdorben,
unrein (z. B. der „böse“ Tod), andererseits als exzessi-
ve Macht (z. B. unmenschliche Monstren) charakteri-
siert, wobei letztere zwar schreckenerregend und, wie
z. B. die Hexenkraft, als Prototyp allen Übels, aber
andererseits auch wieder, vor allem im Besitz des
Herrschers, als legitim angesehen wird. Im Abschnitt
über die Personifizierung des Bösen macht Parkin die
Unterscheidung zwischen Kulturen, welche die Ver-
nichtungsgewalt auf eine transzendente Erstursache,
personifiziert in einer Gottheit oder in den Ahnen,
zurückführen, und solchen, welche sie inner-kosmisch
und inner-gesellschaftlich sehen.
In seinem eigenen Beitrag (224—243) - einem der
interessantesten des ganzen Sammelwerks -, worin er
die Anschauungen über das destruktive Verhalten und
dessen Ursachen und die Frage der Notwendigkeit des
Bösen bei den islamisierten Swahili einerseits und bei
den nicht-islamisierten Mijikenda Kenya’s andererseits
vergleicht, sieht er diese kontrastäre Weitsicht doku-
mentiert: Die Swahili sehen in Gott und Satan die
absoluten Mächte über das Gute und Böse dieser Welt;
sie glauben, daß die Elimination des Bösen durch
Selbstkontrolle und durch Negotiation mit Gott und
Satan erlangt wird. Es ist Gott, der für sie durch den
Koran und seine Lehrer das Böse definiert. Für die
Mijikenda hingegen ist das Böse zwar eine Form des
Exzeß-Verhaltens, aber zugleich eine notwendige Kon-
dition des Menschlichen und als solche gesellschafts-
immanent. Die Vaya-Ältesten, in denen sie die Träger
der bösen Kräfte sehen, sind, nach ihnen, deswegen
nicht einfach schlecht. Ihre destruktiven Kräfte, die sie
zwar auch antisozial gebrauchen, dienen schließlich als
Abschreckung gegen die Hexerei und anderes gemein-
schaftswidriges Verhalten. Sie sanktionieren damit ihre
Autorität als Wächter der sozialen Ordnung und sind
daher „gut“. In der Kurzformel des Autors: einer
„theistischen“ Sicht des Bösen bei den Swahili und
einer „agnostischen“ Sicht bei den Mijikenda (236),
aber erscheint m. E. die Polarität der beiden Weltan-
schauungen etwas zu kraß charakterisiert, jedenfalls
wenn er, wie es scheint, solche „statische Moralität“ als
typisch für „animistische“ Religionen sehen möchte. In
nicht wenigen, z. B. afrikanischen, Religionssystemen
•st jedenfalls auch die Autorität der Ältesten ihrerseits
durch außerweltlich begründete Sanktionen in Schran-
ken gehalten.
Verschiedene Autoren (z. B. Parkin und beson-
ders J. Overing: 274 ff.) weisen in ihren Beiträgen auf
P. Ricoeur’s “The Symbolism of Evil” (1967) hin,
Worin er sein evolutionistisch geprägtes Schema der
1-ntwicklung der Begriffe „Sünde“ und „Schuld“ und
ihrer Symbolik darlegt und dabei von einer postulierten
archaischen Phase ausgeht, in der das Böse als Verlet-
zung der kosmobiologischen Ordnung Befleckung und
damit Gefahr bringt. Erst später seien Schuld und
Vergehen individualisiert und auf personifizierte trans-
zendentale Mächte bezogen worden. Overing kann von
ihren Forschungen bei den Piaroa von Venezuela her
belegen (für ähnliche Belege siehe z. B. Gusindes
Feuerland-Dokumentation), daß bei diesem einfachen
Indianervolk im selben ethisch-religiösen System so-
wohl das Konzept ritueller Befleckung als auch jenes
der „Sünde“ als persönlicher Schuld bezeugt sind -
womit Ricoeur’s Aufstellungen zumindest als fragwür-
dig erscheinen.
Das ganze Sammelwerk wirft so, auch wenn die
Frage nach transkulturellen Konstanten und Variablen
bezüglich Definition und Wurzeln des Übels nicht
systematisch gestellt wurde und die Beiträge unter-
schiedliches Niveau zeigen, bemerkenswerte Fragen
auf. Parkin hat nicht unrecht, wenn er abschließend
feststellt: “such odd-job words as ‘evil’ are in fact good
for anthropologists to think” (23). Hugo Huber
Paul, Diana Y.; Women in Buddhism. Images of
the Feminine in the Mahäyäna Tradition. With contri-
butions by Frances Wilson. Foreword by I. B. Horner.
[2nd ed.] Berkeley: University of California Press,
1985. xxviii+333 pp. Price: $ 34.50
Bereits in ihrer Dissertation “A Prolegomena
[sic!] to the Srimälädevi Sütra and the Tathägathagarb-
ha Theory. The Role of Women in Buddhism” (Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, 1974) hat sich die Autorin (da-
mals unter dem Namen Diana Mary Paul) mit der
Stellung der Frau im Buddhismus beschäftigt. Die
traditionellen Ansichten dieser Religion zeichnen wie
viele andere Religionsgemeinschaften ein negatives
Bild von der Frau: sie ist Verführerin und Inkarnation
des Bösen, da sie von Natur aus sexuell triebhaft ist,
eine Eigenschaft, die die Männer nicht besitzen.
Dieses schon in Hinayäna-Texten vorgeprägte
Frauenbild belegt die Autorin auch anhand von
Mahäyäna-Texten, die sie in Übersetzung vorstellt. Die
insgesamt 8 Kapitel des Buches sind so aufgebaut, daß
sie einen bestimmten Frauentypus („Mutter“, „Nonne“
usw.) behandeln und zum Beleg für diesen einen oder
mehrere Texte anführen; zu diesen gibt die Verfasserin
dann immer eine Einführung und eine Übersetzung.
Als Beispiele für die Frau als Verführerin werden
der nur in Chinesisch erhaltene Text Fo shuo ch’i nü
ching („Das Sütra, in dem Buddha sieben Töchter
belehrt“) und die Geschichte des Königs Udayana von
Vatsa aus dem Mahäratnaküta (ins Chinesische zwi-
schen 708 und 713 von Bodhiruci übersetzt). Im ersten
Falle belehrt der Buddha einen Brahmanen, der sieben
Töchter besitzt, die wegen ihrer Schönheit und Anmut
weithin berühmt sind, daß Lieblichkeit des Gesichts
und des Körpers sowie schöne Kleider nicht wirklich
liebenswert sind. Als Gegenbeispiel führt er die sieben
Töchter des Königs Kiki von VäränasI an, von denen
Vnthropos 83.1988
282
Rezensionen
sechs buddhistische Nonnen, die siebte aber Laienan-
hängerin wurden: alle erlangten letztlich die Arhat-
schaft. In der Geschichte von Udayana wird dieser von
seiner zweiten Königin veranlaßt, auf seine Hauptge-
mahlin Syämävati, die eine fromme Buddhistin ist, drei
Pfeile abzuschießen. Durch Meditation kann sie aber
das Unheil abwehren und ihren Mann sogar zum
Buddhismus bekehren. Obwohl sie die unschuldigste
und heiligste Gestalt der Geschichte ist und der König
keine rühmliche Rolle spielt, spricht der Buddha im
folgenden nur vom schlechten Charakter der Frauen
und der Gefährlichkeit der Beziehung zu ihnen.
Im weiteren gibt die Autorin dann Beispiele
dafür, welche Wege zur Erlösung Frauen beschreiten
können: den einer Nonne oder der Mutter eines
Erleuchtungswesens oder einer „guten Tochter“ (kula-
duhitä), die den buddhistischen Dharma verbreitet; ein
vielzitierter Text ist das Gandavyühasütra. Brisant wird
die Darstellung bei der Frage, ob eine Frau zum
Bodhisattva werden könne, die die verschiedenen
Mahäyäna-Sütras unterschiedlich beantworten: 1. Ver-
neinung, daß Frauen das Buddhaland betreten können;
2. Akzeptierung von Frauen als niedrigrangige Bodhi-
sattvas; 3. Akzeptierung von Frauen als fortgeschritte-
ne Bodhisattvas. Die meisten der Mahäyäna-Sütras,
wie z. B. die hier übersetzten Passagen aus dem
Astasähasrikäprajnäpäramitäsütra, dem Saddharma-
pundarikasütra, dem Candrottarädärikävyäkaranasütra
(Erstübersetzung von Paul) und die 13. Geschichte des
Mahäratnaküta, gestehen einer Frau nur die zweite
Kategorie zu, die den Status der Buddhaschaft nur
durch vorherige Verwandlung in einen Mann erreichen
kann. Paul sieht darin die Widerspiegelung der sozialen
Ordnung Indiens im allgemeinen und der klösterlichen
hierarchischen Struktur im besonderen, wo sogar die
älteste Nonne dem jüngsten männlichen Novizen
unterstellt ist (170). Erst in solchen Texten wie dem
Vimalakirtinirdesa und dem Vajracchedikäprajnäpära-
mitäsütra spielt das Geschlecht keine Rolle mehr, da
diese Merkmale Illusionen sind und nur die Erkenntnis
der „Leerheit“ (sünyatä) wesentlich ist. Zudem tritt die
Einsicht in den Vordergrund, daß zur Erlangung der
Buddhaschaft jegliche Sexualität - sei sie nun männlich
oder weiblich - überwunden werden muß. In diese
Richtung führt auch der Wandel des Bodhisattva Ava-
lokitesvara in die weibliche Kuan-yin in China bzw. die
Gegenstandslosigkeit des Geschlechtes. So schneidet
Paul im 8. Kapitel (“A Female Buddha?”) die Frage
an, ob eine Frau ohne Umwege (wie Geschlechtsum-
wandlung) die Buddhaschaft erlangen könne. Die spä-
teren Mahäyäna-Texte räumen diese Möglichkeit
innerhalb eines Lebens ein und lassen demnach die
Schlußfolgerung der Autorin zu: “If women were truly
capable of having a Buddha nature in this lifetime
without undergoing any sexual transformation, this
would implicitly indicate that women were not biologi-
cally determined as religiously, psychologically, and
physically inferior to men” (281). Dennoch schien den
meisten (männlichen) Buddhisten die Vorstellung von
einem weiblichen Buddha nicht tragbar. Dies zeigte
sich in Kommentaren zum Srimälädevisimhanädasütra,
in dem explizit ausgesagt wird, daß die Königin Srimälä
ein Buddha werde. Einige Kommentatoren münzten
dann die Königin in einen Mann in weiblicher Gestalt
um, nach anderen hatte sie lediglich die erste Stufe des
Bodhisattva-Weges erreicht. Die volle Anerkenntnis
der Möglichkeit, daß auch eine Frau die Buddhaschaft
erlangen kann, ist - so zeigt uns dieses Buch - bei der
Mehrzahl der Buddhisten eher die Ausnahme.
Karl-Heinz Golzio
Petermann, Werner: Regenkulte und Regenma-
cher bei bantu-sprachigen Ethnien Ost- und Süd-
afrikas. Berlin: EXpress Edition, 1985. 357 pp., Ktn.
(Reihe Ethnomedizin und Bewußtseinsforschung)
„Die Ethnologen sind vorsichtiger geworden“
(261), schreibt Werner Petermann am Schluß seiner
wuchtigen Studie über soziale und symbolische
Aspekte des „Regenmachens“ in Ost- und Südafrika:
Vorsichtiger gegen den simplen Materialismus mancher
Autoren aus der funktionalistischen Social Anthro-
pology, vorsichtiger aber auch gegen schrille Priester-
königsmythen mancher idealistischer Traditionen der
deutschen Völkerkunde. Zwischen diesen Polen, und
immer dicht am Material argumentierend, entwirft
Petermann ein eindrucksvolles synthetisierendes Bild
sozialer und religiöser Aspekte der in Afrika weitver-
breiteten Regen-Zeremonien. In seine breit angelegte
Darteilung ordnen sich dabei zwanglos so unterschied-
liche Techniken ein wie das Rühren von Flüssigkeit in
„Regentöpfen“, die Herstellung von Regenmedizinen
im Zusammenhang mit der kultischen Überwindung
der „Regenschlange“, Geheimrituale mit eisernen oder
steinernen Regenfetischen oder Regentänze. Gemein-
sam ist allen diesen Formen der Versuch der Krisenbe-
wältigung durch Appell an Fruchtbarkeitssymbolik.
Nach Petermanns ausführlicher Darlegung ist und war
dieser Komplex von Ritualen und Glaubensvorstellun-
gen von größter Bedeutung in der Entwicklung der
afrikanischen Kultur.
Die These des Autors erschließt sich dem Leser
allerdings erst, wenn er die umfängliche, auf der
Auswertung zahlreicher Monographien unterschied-
lichster Provenienz beruhende Schilderung der Regen-
riten bei 35 ost- und südafrikanischen Ethnien mehr
oder weniger durchgearbeitet hat. Die Sortierung des
Materials nach akephalen und zentral gelenkten
Gesellschaften läßt die weitere Argumentation zwar
ahnen, wird aber erst in der zweiten Hälfte in interpre-
tierenden Essays ausgebreitet, die wiederum ohne Lek-
türe der Fallstudien schwer verständlich sind. Die
These: in akephalen Gesellschaften besteht bereits ein
territorial orientierter, jenseits der lineages agierender
Regenkult, der das „allgemeinmenschliche“ und damit
die Angehörigen aller sozialen Gruppen eines Gebietes
verbindende Interesse an „gutem Wetter“ ausdrückt
und die an diese Überlebensfrage gebundenen Ängste
kanalisiert. In den Häuptlingsgesellschaften steht das
Charisma des Regenmachers dann in ähnlich komple-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
283
xen Beziehungen zur zentralen Autorität wie in den
akephalen Gesellschaften zum Ahnenkult der lineages.
Teils werden die Häuptlinge selbst zu Regenmachern
oder, umgekehrt, die Regenmacher zu Häuptlingen.
Immer jedoch läßt sich deutlich eine Tendenz zur
Trennung des territorialen Kultes von anderen politi-
schen und religiösen Formen feststellen - eine interes-
sante Bestätigung und Ergänzung der Thesen von
Meyer Fortes (Kinship and the Social Order, London
1969) zur Trennung und Überschneidung der unter-
schiedlichen, an Territorium und Verwandtschaft
gebundenen körperschaftlichen Tendenzen in Stam-
mesgesellschaften. Die Symbolik und das reale Charis-
ma des Regenmachers behaupten sich im Interesse des
Territoriums neben zentralen und akephalen politi-
schen Organisationsformen. Seine „Macht“ bezieht der
Regenmacher aus dem Vermitteln zwischen zwei das
Leben der Afrikaner (aber nicht nur der Afrikaner!)
beherrschenden Schicksalsmächten: einerseits der
rationale ökonomische Druck, der sowohl durch
Mißernten wie durch gute Ernten entsteht, andererseits
die sehnsüchtige Faszination am Symbol „Regen“,
welches Himmel und Erde, Feuchtigkeit und Trocken-
heit, Sexualität und Enthaltsamkeit eindrucksvoll ver-
bindet (216 ff.). Das ist der hervorstechendste Aspekt
von Petermanns theoretischen Darlegungen: Die Sym-
bolik hat eine in elementaren Vorstellungen vom Auf-
bau der Welt und des Körpers verankerte Eigendyna-
mik; das Charisma des Regenmachers kann sich in
jedem politischen Kontext aufs neue bilden, wird dann
aber - als persönliche Ausstrahlung, Amt, genealogisch
oder königlich legitimierte Macht bzw. Legitimation
der Herrschaft von Königen und Häuptlingen - in die-
sen Kontexten ganz unterschiedlich interpretiert. Das
Bedürfnis nach dem „Flicken“ (Swahili i-ganga „Bin-
den“, was natürlich sehr an re-ligio und „heilen“ erin-
nert!) (230) der durch Trockenheit und Unfruchtbar-
keit bedrohten Welt zieht sich durch sämtliche politi-
schen Systeme und wirkt tief auf die Kulturgeschichte
Afrikas ein (242 ff.).
Die vielfältigen Verbindungslinien dieses Komple-
xes zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelmeerraumes und
des Orients werden von Petermann nur gestreift
(249 ff.), was im Zusammenhang dieser Arbeit aber
durchaus positiv als vernünftige Zurückhaltung ver-
standen werden sollte. Der Autor verweigert sich nicht
der Aufgabe, sein Material in einen umfassenden
Rahmen historischer, sozialer und psychischer Bezüge
zu stellen, verläßt dabei aber auch nicht die Grundlage
der detailreichen dichten Beschreibung. Petermann
gibt uns damit Einblicke in „Grundlagen afrikanischen
Denkens“ und „ökologischen Bewußtseins“ (224); sein
Ansatz kann nun weitergedacht werden als Analyse der
Variationen von Formen der Manipulation und Befrie-
digung menschlicher Sicherheitsbedürfnisse durch sym-
bolische Systeme. Zugleich ist damit auch ein Vorbild
für hoffentlich noch zahlreiche Arbeiten gegeben, die
deutsche und internationale ethnologische Traditionen
kritisch und konstruktiv - eben vorsichtig - miteinan-
der verbinden. Thomas Hauschild
Plakans, Andrejs: Kinship in the Past. An
Anthropology of European Family Life, 1500-1900.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. ix+276 pp. Price:
$ 24.50
Investigation of the history of the family and
kinship is one of the fields of social history that has
recently been developed most intensively in the West.
Justification for these studies is perceived in their
importance for the verification of general theoretical
claims on the family and kinship in their historical
development, and for the interpretation of the current
state of family life. The book by A. Plakans gives one
more reason for the development of research on the
history of the family and kinship. The studies are
presented here as a domain of interest for both histori-
ans and anthropologists, and the historian is provided
with notions, methods, and the results of anthropologi-
cal research.
“Kinship in the Past” is mainly a methodological
study. It has been intended to form the first part of a
three-volume study on kinship history in Europe. This
book includes analyses of certain kinds of documentary
historical evidence, which are considered by the author
as particularly useful in the investigation of kinship,
employing notions and methods from social anthro-
pology. It also points to the possibility of establishing
anthropological history in this way. It searches for
theoretical inspiration mainly in British structuralism
and adopts some concepts of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown,
Meyer Fortes, S. H. Nadel, and others. The primary
aim of the author is to contribute to writing a “non-
conjectural” history of kinship, as has already been
initiated by the pioneering works of A. Macfarlane, the
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and
Social Structure, and the books of J. Goody, D.
Hughes, F. W. Kent, and M. Segalen.
The author starts his considerations from the
characterization of historical documents as evidence
about kinship in the past. He concentrates mainly on
three kinds of information: 1. censuses, an important
source of knowledge about patterns of co-residence;
2. interactional documents, such as marriage contracts
and testaments, which point to behaviour associated
with roles of kinship; 3. registers, which record impor-
tant events in the life of an individual, such as birth,
wedding, death, significant for the determination of
genealogical linkages. The following are examples of
the three types of evidence that A. Plakans gradually
introduces into his book and then employs in the
analyses being conducted: the so-called “Revision of
Souls,” a record compiled for tax purposes in Kurland
in 1779, and repeated 7 times before 1859, regarded as
an exceptionally interesting collection of documents by
the already mentioned Cambridge Group for the
History of Population and Social Structure; French
marriage contracts from Bordeaux, 17th century; and
German parish registers from 17th-20th centuries, with
genealogies of the inhabitants of the parishes compiled
by local historians on the base of parish registers.
Recognizing the dissimilarity of such historical
Anthropos 83.1988
284
Rezensionen
evidence and usual anthropological data - the former
being, for example, already existing information com-
piled for purposes other than research - the author
does not set these two types of information in opposi-
tion to each other. He recalls Lévi-Strauss’ statement
that historical evidence may be regarded as records of
amateur ethnographers. A. Plakans’ interest in data
giving kinship relations of a number of anonymous
persons, does not mean he neglects the fact that
kinship relations exist between individuals and are
experienced through individuals. Examination of the
individual side of kinship on the one hand and, on the
other hand, of the objectivized side - kinship groups
and their position in social systems - are not, in the
author’s opinion, contradictory and should not exclude
each other.
A. Plakans devotes particular attention to the
language of historical evidence. He distinguishes docu-
ments in which information about kinship is presented
by means of the language (notions and expressions)
used by the historical actors themselves, from others in
which the same notions are written in the language of
an observer, very often socially or ethnically distinct.
He also points to the necessity of realizing the unique
status of the analytical language which has been creat-
ed by a few generations of anthropologists exploring
kinship.
The book presents a great diversity of concepts,
techniques, and methods to interpret information
about kinship from historical documents. The author
borrows from British structuralists concepts of “do-
main” and “arrangement,” useful in the isolation of
kinship bonds from other kinds of social ties and in
their arrangement. He attaches great value to the
concepts of social roles and social network. The con-
cept of social roles, understood as kinship roles, allows
A. Plakans to transform information concerning resi-
dence, and, genealogy into kinship data. Network
analysis describes kinship bonds and points to informa-
tion channels within the group of relatives.
Quantitative analyses, particularly useful in stud-
ies that employ masses of data, have been broadly dis-
cussed. The quantitative approach may be applied to
resolve the problem of sample representativeness, to
determine the unit for analysis, to choose variables,
and, finally, to decide upon detailed description tech-
niques such as correlation and meaning tests.
Chapters devoted to kinship groups are particular-
ly interesting. The author is convinced that historical
evidence allows one to recognize not only the groups
which are clearly described and named in them, e.g.,
conjugal families or households, but also some which
are not mentioned. On the basis of historical docu-
ments, he proposes to reconstruct such kinship groups
as, e.g., the bilateral circle of relatives organized
around an individual (the kindred), a group of relatives
composed because of the origin of the same ancestors
(descent group or lineage). He is, however, aware that
we are not always able to say whether such reconstruct-
ed kinship relations were actually current.
Skillful and efficient adaptation of anthropological
concepts and methods for the study of kinship in the
past does not constitute the author’s only achievement.
Pleading in support of the autonomy of historical
investigations is also a virtue of the book. A. Plakans
does not verify hypotheses formulated within anthro-
pology by means of historical evidence; he attempts to
understand the informational value of this evidence. If
he mentions such hypotheses - presenting, for exam-
ple, an opinion about a diminishing role of patrilineally
organized corporate kin groups in favor of the personal
bilaterial kindred gathered around an individual, in
Europe, beginning from the 16th century - he does so
only to relativize them. In his proposals concerning
methods of analysis of historical documents, he warns
against disregarding secondary, “soft” evidence they
provide. This may threaten the historical nature of the
studies and direct them toward kinship analyses of
timeless societies, extracted from their context. These
analyses are important for the process of theory forma-
tion but are hardly useful for the understanding of
specific historical societies. The author makes the book
interesting for anthropologists by pointing to the neces-
sity of perceiving the diachronic dimension of kinship.
Unique events are important, but caution should be
exercised in the forming of hypotheses at the moment
of data analysis in the description of reality.
Zbigniew Jasiewicz
Rambo, A. Terry; Primitive Polluters. Semang
Impact on the Malaysian Tropical Rain Forest Ecosys-
tem. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, The Museum
of Anthropology, 1985. xvi+104pp., fig., tab., illus.
(Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology,
76) Price: $ 8.00
In the Foreword, Parsons, the Director of the
Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan,
applauds the book as a “finely textured ecosystem
analysis at the most basic level” (xi). Rambo (1985) is
no such thing.
The book purports to assess the impact of the
Semang on the Malaysian tropical rain forest eco-
system. The data are drawn from both “standard pub-
lished accounts,” which he acknowledges somewhat
obscurely in a footnote (31), and from extremely
limited and slanted field observations.
Accompanied by students of the University of
Malaysia, the author visited a Semang resettlement,
Sungai Rual, on three separate occasions for a total of
one and a half months. Since he is unable to communi-
cate in Bahasa Malaysia, the lingua franca of the
country which the Semang can speak (6), and since
apparently he does not think that gaining the confi-
dence of the subject community is a major part of
any ethnographic field work, it is not surprising that
he finds his data to be “tantalizingly incomplete” (47).
However, to save face, he lays the blame on the
Semang for being “difficult informants,” “not system-
atic thinkers,” “not [enjoying] answering questions
Anthropos 83.1988
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285
about their environmental knowledge,” and “fright-
ened by the presence of scientific instruments” (47 f.).
Sungai Rual is a resettlement established in 1972
by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs of Malaysia.
It has a population of 184, and is equipped with a
school and a clinic. The Semang wander in the nearby
forest and return to the resettlement area frequently
during the school term (approximately ten months of
every year) when children are attending classes. During
this time, they collect wild plants and animals in the
surrounding forest and trade with the Malay kampungs
for rice and manufactured goods, including knives,
flashlights, shot gun shells, kerosene, cosmetics, tinned
sardines, cooking oil, and the like.
The author, though fully aware of these facts,
insists that the Semang represent “the band level of
sociocultural integration” (32) and that they are primi-
tive because of their “sociocultural simplicity” and “a
simple, low energy technology” (32-33). The Semang
are “almost wholly dependent on human muscle power
for performing the work necessary to make their social
system function” (35). The schools, the clinic, shot
guns and other factory-made goods which he has
mentioned in other parts of the book and which he
clearly shows in photographs seem to have been forgot-
ten. The reality is that the Semang are closely inte-
grated into the state organization of Malaysia, speak
Bahasa Malaysia, and interact frequently with other
ethnic groups of Malaysia. To insist that the Semang
have not evolved beyond the band level of sociocul-
tural integration is to deny historical evidence. Surely,
this cannot be condoned by the evolutionists of Ann
Arbor.
Rambo claims that “a considerable amount of new
information was collected on the impact of the Semang
on their environment” (49). Is this so? For pages he
dwells on familiar generalities concerning environmen-
tal pollution, and in a chapter entitled “The impact of
the Semang on their ecosystem,” he makes the follow-
ing observations: “At a more local level the Semang
have certainly been responsible for some atmospheric
pollution” (48). This is illustrated by the fact that
houses are frequently filled with smoke “at sufficient
levels of concentration to cause noticeable irritation to
the eyes” (49). Questions about how frequently and
how long do individuals stay indoor are never asked.
However, the author does state, perhaps apologetical-
ly, “Surprisingly, no cases of serious eye inflammation
were observed among the Semang” (49).
He states that the Semang spread diseases germs
because of their habits of spitting and their use of
rivers as toilets can introduce disease organisms. This
claim is based on three water samples from the river
taken below the settlement. He asserts that the water is
contaminated with fecal bacteria of uncertain origin,
cither animal or human (62). What does Rambo think
this proves?
Because the Semang collect and trade wild forest
Products with Malay villages, the Semang export organ-
ic materials from the forest and affect “changes in
nutrient levels” (64) of the forest. Recognizing that the
amount of nutrients lost may be small in any one year,
Rambo argues that since “this trade pattern has existed
for hundreds and probably thousands of years . . ., the
cumulative loss suffered by the forest ecosystem may
be quite major” (65). There is no evidence that the
Semang have depended on the outside world in the
past to the same extent as they do in contemporary
Malaysia. The illustration of this trade in the same
context with items including tinned sardines, sarongs,
and transistor radios (65) is unrealistic.
He argues that noise and light pollution produced
by the Semang has environmental implications in that
“they warn game animals of the presence of humans in
the forest causing the animals to move out of the area,
thus making the hunter’s task more difficult” (52). One
wonders if Rambo is actually assessing the Semang as
hunters or as polluters?
The Semang can induce localized climatic changes.
Specifically, he says, temperature change can be in-
duced in the “microclimate surrounding the body” by
the wearing of clothings and building of simple shelters
(53). The author also notices that the house floors are
filthy, but that the Semang do not pollute the atmo-
sphere with unpleasant odors.
Rambo also has some grand observations about
what he calls “Semang habitat modification” (75). The
total loss of soil due to rainfall impact was approxi-
mately 25 % greater in the open of settlement clearing
than in the forest; air temperature during the day was
always higher in the settlement than in the forest;
average relative humidity during the day was much
higher in the forest than in the settlement. Cock-
roaches and houseflies are not found in the forest but
in relatively large number in the settlement. Unfortu-
nately these data have little explanatory significance,
because, in the final analysis, the settlement opening
has not been created by the Semang but rather the
government of Malaysia.
In his conclusions, he writes: “If citizens of Malay-
sia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur were confronted with
air pollution of the intensity normal in Semang house-
holds they would rise up in outrage over the terrible
state of the city’s environment, and they would blame it
on modernization and capitalist industrialization” (79,
emphasis added). What has happened in Kuala Lum-
pur has not ever been mentioned or discussed in the
book. Which parts of the City is he comparing - the
residential areas or the industrial areas with their
rubber and cement factories? In sum, this quotation
aptly reflects the qualities of this small book. It is filled
with superficial data and arguments which lack ground-
ing in logic and intellectual credibility.
Wing-sam Chow
Reichl, Karl (Ubers.): Rawsan. Ein usbekisches
miindliches Epos. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,
1985. 229 pp. (Asiatische Forschungen, 93) Preis:
DM 114,-
Anthropos 83.1988
286
Rezensionen
Die in dem vorliegenden Werk übersetzte und
kommentierte Dichtung gehört zum Goroghli-Epen-
zyklus, der vom Balkan bis nach Zentralasien vor allem
unter den Turkvölkern, aber auch bei anderen dort
lebenden, nicht-turksprachigen Ethnien weit verbreitet
ist. Im Mittelpunkt der verschiedenen Versionen ste-
hen die heldenhaften Taten Goroghlis (bzw. Körogh-
lus). In der uzbekischen Epensammlung erscheint
Goroghli als mächtiger, überlegener Fürst von nobler
Geburt, ähnlich etwa dem kirghizischen Manas. Die
Einzeldichtungen (dästän) des mündlich überlieferten
Gesamtzyklus sind, wie Reichl berichtet, in den zwan-
ziger und dreißiger Jahren systematisch auf gezeichnet
worden. „Rawshan“ stellt einen handlungsmäßig in
sich geschlossenen Zweig des Zyklus dar, der nach
einem Enkel Goroghlis benannt wurde. Dieses nur in
der uzbekischen Dichtung tradierte „Fortsetzungsepos“
entstand wahrscheinlich erst im 18. Jh. in der berühm-
ten Sängerschule von Qorgan. Hadi Zarif (1905-1972),
der auf die Epenforschung spezialisierte Begründer der
uzbekischen Folkloristik, fertigte in den Jahren 1927/28
eine Niederschrift des „Rawshan“ an. Er zeichnete das
Teilepos damals in Samarkand von dem Sänger Ergash
Djumanbulbul-Oghli auf. Im vorliegenden Buch finden
sich genauere Angaben über diesen Sänger und seinen
beruflichen Werdegang.
Der durch Anmerkungen und separate Worterklä-
rungen ergänzten Übersetzung Karl Reichls liegt eine
1971 gedruckte Ausgabe von Ergashs „Rawshan“-Epos
zugrunde, die eine gekürzte Form des handschriftlichen
Originals darstellt (uzbekischer Text in arabischer
Schrift). Im Rahmen der editorischen Bearbeitung des
Textes gibt der Autor zahlreiche Hinweise und Erläu-
terungen, so zu sprachlich-dialektalen Formen und
Eigenarten, Inhalt, Aufbau, Motiven und Stil.
„Rawshan“ ist ein aus Vers- und Prosateilen
bestehendes Epos romantisch-lyrischen Charakters, in
dessen Mittelpunkt die Liebesgeschichte des jungen
Helden Rawshan und seiner späteren Frau Zulkhumar
steht. Die Werbung der Braut und die Befreiung des
gefangenen Rawshan bilden die Hauptteile des dästän.
Nach Reichl sind die stilistischen Vorbilder der stoff-
lich von der persischen Kunstdichtung beeinflußten
mittelasiatischen Liebesepen, die sich durch ein Neben-
einander von Reim und Prosa auszeichnen, in der
arabischen Literatur zu suchen. Der Autor bemerkt
abschließend in seinem wichtigen Beitrag zur vorder-
und zentralasiatischen Epenforschung: „Nach einhelli-
ger Meinung der Literaturwissenschaftler stellt der von
Ergas überlieferte Text des Epos ,Rawsan‘ den stili-
stisch ausgefeiltesten und kunstvollsten Dästän aus der
Gruppe der lyrisch-romantischen hikaye [Arab. Liebes-
epen] dar . . .“ (44). Jürgen Frembgen
Singh, K. S.: Birsa Munda and his Movement
1874-1901. A Study of a Millenarian Movement in
Chotenanagpur. Calcutta; Oxford University Press,
1983. xviii+289 pp., photos, maps, fig., tab. Price:
Rs125.00
Au XIXème siècle, les tribus de l’Inde connurent
de profonds changements. Ces populations, jusque-là
relativement isolées dans les montagnes et collines
entrèrent brutalement en contact, non seulement avec
la société coloniale mais aussi avec les hindous des
plaines. Ce «contact», qui prit parfois l’allure d’une
agression ou du moins fut ressenti comme tel, n’alla pas
sans engendrer diverses formes de résistance. Parmi
celles-ci, les mouvements millénaristes que l’on retrou-
ve chez pratiquement toutes les tribus du Nord de
l’Inde, expriment bien le désarroi de ces populations
emportées dans un tourbillon de changement social.
Le livre de K. S. Singh relate l’histoire d’un tel
mouvement parmi les tribus Mundas du plateau de
Chotanagpur, dans l’Etat du Bihar, à la fin du siècle
dernier. Cette ré-édition augmentée d’un livre paru en
1966 sous le titre de «The Dust-Storm and The Han-
ging Mist» s’impose comme un ouvrage important pour
ceux que de tels mouvements intéressent. Non pas que
cet ouvrage brille par une quelconque originalité, mais
il demeure l’histoire bien documentée d’un important
mouvement religieux du Nord de l’Inde.
Bien qu’il ne soit pas divisé comme tel, on peut
distinguer deux parties dans cet ouvrage. La première
(ch. 1 à 7) retrace chronologiquement l’évolution du
mouvement depuis l’enfance jusqu’à la mort de Birsa
Munda en 1900. Dans une seconde phase (ch. 8 à 11),
l’auteur tente d’une part de décrire les croyances
principales des birsaïtes et d’autre part de donner une
appréciation plus générale du mouvement qui n’a pas
tout à fait disparu de nos jours. A ce propos, il faut
regretter que les lignes consacrées aux communautés
birsaïtes contemporaines ne soient guère illuminantes.
L’auteur se contente de décrire les caractéristiques
essentielles des trois sectes qui se réclament de Birsa.
C’est en effet le jour de repos hebdomadaire qui les
différencie principalement: ainsi la secte du dimanche
suit le repos dominical alors que celles du jeudi et du
mercredi s’arrêtent de travailler durant ces deux jours
respectivement, chacune interprétant à sa façon les in-
jonctions du prophète. Un végétarisme plus rigoureux
caractérise encore ces deux derniers groupes alors que
la secte du dimanche se montre plus «libérale». Mal-
heureusement, l’auteur n’a pas mené d’investigation
en profondeur parmi les survivants de ce mouvement.
Quant aux considérations plus théoriques, elles
n’apparaissant guère plus convaincantes. L’idée princi-
pale de l’auteur est que ce mouvement est «revivaliste»
ce qui n’a rien de très original. Ceci amène l’auteur à
refuser de parler de syncrétisme ce qui est assez
surprenant, les deux notions n’étant nullement contra-
dictoires.
Birsa est né aux alentours de 1875 dans un milieu
chrétien. Lui-même fut admis dans une école chrétien-
ne en 1886, l’année de sa confirmation, il ne tarda pas
d’entrer en contact avec le mouvement des sardars qui
luttaient pour le droit des Mundas à la terre. En 1895,
diverses expériences convainquirent ce jeune homme, à
peine âgé de 20 ans, de ses pouvoirs miraculeux et sa
réputation s’étendit vite comme une traînée de poudre.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
287
Bientôt cependant, Birsa ne se contenta plus de guérir
mais il se mit à prêcher pour devenir un véritable
prophète. Les prophéties du jeune homme prirent
rapidement une tournure plus «politique» puisque Bir-
sa se mit à revendiquer l’indépendance religieuse et
politique des Mundas, visant à la fois les Banias
(hindous) et les missionaires. Le mouvement prit une
telle ampleur qu’en août 1895, Birsa fut arrêté, empri-
sonné, jugé et condamné en novembre à deux années
de détention.
Jusqu’à sa libération, le 30 novembre 1897, la
région retrouva son calme; peu à peu cependant, Birsa
se remit à prêcher et à rassembler de nombreux fidèles
autour de sa personne. Le mouvement prit alors une
tournure nouvelle avec une caractère revivaliste plus
affirmé et la volonté de plus en plus déclarée de mettre
fin au règne britannique et à la dominance des dikus
(non-tribaux). Sous la pression, semble-t-il, de quel-
ques éléments radicaux, les leaders en vinrent à préco-
niser la violence et l’insurrection, malgré la rétinence
de Birsa qui affirme à plusieurs reprises n’être qu’un
leader religieux. A la date fixée, le 24 décembre 1899,
des bandes armées d’arcs et de flèches portèrent des
attaques aux missions dans divers endroits des districts
de Ranchi et Khunti, brûlant plusieurs demeures et
tuant quelques personnes. Il faut attendre le 5 janvier
1900 pour que l’insurrection prenne des proportions
plus importantes. Il faut ici regretter que le livre de
Singh passe sur l’insurrection proprement dite sans
nous en donner une idée réelle. Quoi qu’il en soit, la
répression militaire ne tarda pas à mettre fin au
mouvement et le 3 février 1900, des centaines de
rebelles furent également emprisonnés alors que Birsa
était jeté en prison où il devait décéder quelques mois
plus tard, le 9 juin 1900, d’une mystérieuse attaque de
choléra. Parmi les rebelles, seule une petite centaine
fut condamnée à des peines allant de la peine de mort à
quelques mois d'emprisonnement.
La personnalité du prophète n’a guère retenu
l’attention de l'auteur qui nous rapporte des faits bruts
sans l'ombre d’une analyse. Dans le dernier chapitre
cependant, Singh émet quelques vues judicieuses; il
déplore ainsi la tendance des commentateurs à inter-
préter les mouvements tribaux avec partialité: le carac-
tère religieux du mouvement a ainsi parfois été ignoré
au profit de son aspect politique. Les historiens natio-
nalistes ont de même mis l'accent sur le caractère
anti-colonial de ces mouvements qui visaient pourtant
tout autant les hindous que les Anglais. Certains
niouvements tribaux ont d’ailleurs été qualifiés de
«loyalistes» et bien souvent la nature de ces mouve-
ments millénaristes échappe à une logique rigoureuse:
ils sont en effet à la fois l’expression d’un désarroi, d’un
désespoir ou d’une révolte mais également d’une cer-
taine admiration, d’une fascination ou même d’un
sentiment d’infériorité. Ainsi, la prétendue religion
munda originale, telle que la prêcha Birsa, était en
grande partie inspirée par le christianisme. Ces reli-
gions copiaient en quelque sorte cela même qu’elles
^niaient.
En se tenant trop attaché aux faits, Singh a
manqué un élément essentiel. Comment en effet un
jeune illuminé, un peu lunatique, promettant de chan-
ger l’eau en blé, les balles de fusil en fleurs, a-t-il pu
galvaniser les masses? Nul élément de ce charisme ne
transparaît au fil des pages. C’est sans doute pour cela
que ce livre a inspiré un roman qui gagna même un prix
littéraire en 1979? Le présent ouvrage ne s’encombre,
quant à lui, pas de littérature et se borne à rendre
compte, d’une manière un peu insipide, de faits malgré
tout extraordinaires qui se sont déroulé au début de ce
siècle. Robert Deliège
Soffer, Olga: The Upper Paleolithic of the Central
Russian Plain. Orlando: Académie Press, 1985.
xxiv+539 pp., fig., tab. (Studies in Archaeology) Price:
$98.50
Die Fülle an Funden mobiler und immobiler
Kunst in westeuropäischen Höhlen seit Mitte des
19. Jh.s hat die Bedeutung des Jungpaläolithikums in
Rußland und Zentralasien bis in die jüngere Vergan-
genheit immer etwas überdeckt. Als Gründe sind
dafür, neben politischen, vor allem sprachliche Schwie-
rigkeiten zu nennen. So ist es begrüßenswert, daß seit
einiger Zeit Publikationen zur osteuropäischen Urge-
schichte in der Weltsprache Englisch erscheinen, wor-
unter das vorliegende Werk fällt. Der Verfasserin sei
gedankt, daß sie ihre Kenntnis der russischen Sprache
zum Anlaß nahm, ihre urgeschichtlichen Interessen auf
Osteuropa und die UdSSR zu konzentrieren. Dem
Verlag gebührt Dank, daß er die Dissertation Soffers
publizistisch unter seine Fittiche nahm und diese
Arbeit in einer überarbeiteten Fassung als Buch her-
ausbrachte.
Das der Veröffentlichung zugrunde liegende
Untersuchungsgebiet ist ein Teil Zentralrußlands und
180 000 km2 groß. Von den rund 1000 paläolithischen
Stationen Rußlands als europäischem Teil der UdSSR
hat Soffer 29 ausgewählt. Sie liegen in einem nördli-
chen Zentrum der südrussischen Tiefebene mit den
Sowjetrepubliken Weißrußland, Ukraine und Russi-
sche Föderative Republik. Diese Region wird im Sü-
den vom Schwarzen Meer, im Westen von Polen und
Rumänien, im Norden von einer gedachten Linie
Minsk-Moskau und im Osten vom Don begrenzt. Das
Forschungsgebiet der Autorin mit den erwähnten
Fundplätzen befindet sich zwischen den Kostenki-
Kulturen im Osten und der Molodöva-Kultur im
Westen. Es ist die im Titel des Buches erscheinende
Region der Zentralen Ebenen. Das hier gefundene
archäologische Material hat eigenständigen Charakter,
ist jedoch nicht eindeutig genug, um nicht zu Diskus-
sionen unter russischen Prähistorikern herauszufor-
dern. Es scheint anzuzeigen, daß die fraglichen Ebenen
(zur Orientierung: Kiew liegt am westlichen Rand)
Durchzugsgebiet auch schon in jungpaläolithischen
Zeiten waren.
Die Publikation ist in insgesamt acht Kapitel
unterteilt. In ihrem Vorwort weist Soffer darauf hin,
Anthropos 83.1988
288
Rezensionen
daß sie mehrere Interessen abdecken wollte, neben
denen der Archäologen insbesondere die der Ethnolo-
gen. Daß letztere vor allem angesprochen sind, geht
aus dem Zusammenhang hervor (im Buch wird der
anglo-amerikanische Begriff “anthropology” verwen-
det). In den ersten vier Kapiteln behandelt die Verfas-
serin grundlegende Fragen, wie den Forschungsstand
im fraglichen Gebiet, die Stellung der Urgeschichte in
der UdSSR, pleistozäne Stratigraphien und Chronolo-
gien, die Umwelt und Klimate des (vorerst) letzten
Glaszials mit seinen Interstadialen sowie die zeitliche
Einordnung und topographische Beurteilung der ein-
zelnen Stationen. Dabei unterscheidet Soffer zwei Peri-
oden, zum einen zwischen 22 000 und 18 000, zum
anderen von 16 000 bis 10 000 v. Chr. Die dazwischen-
liegenden 2000 Jahre werden vom Valdai-Maximum
eingenommen. Im fünften Kapitel wendet sich die
Autorin den wirtschaftlichen Voraussetzungen der
jungpaläolithischen Siedlungen zu, vorgegeben durch
Flora und Fauna, um dann die aufgefundenen Sied-
lungssysteme selbst darzustellen. Das siebente Kapitel
hat Überlegungen zur gesellschaftlichen Organisation
einschließlich möglicher Glaubensvorstellungen aufge-
nommen. Im achten und letzten Kapitel faßt Soffer
ihre Resultate und Folgerungen zusammen. Literatur-
verzeichnis und Register beschließen den Band. Bei
ersterem fällt auf, daß neben den russischen Titeln
europäische (abgesehen von den bekannten französi-
schen) kaum vertreten sind. Das trifft insbesondere auf
die deutsche Literatur zu. Bei den russischen Bezeich-
nungen stören Druckfehler und Transkriptionen von
Wörtern mit diakritischen Zeichen in Anglizismen.
Im achten Kapitel wird geprüft, inwieweit die
Erkenntnisse der Autorin auf das gesamte obere Paläo-
lithikum Europas anwendbar sind und welche Bedeu-
tung ihnen für das Theoriengebäude in Archäologie
und Ethnologie zukommt. Soffer stellt fest, daß wir das
gängige Jäger-Sammler-Modell sehr differenziert sehen
müssen. Die einzelnen urgeschichtlichen Daseinsfor-
men waren wesentlich komplexer, als im allgemeinen
angenommen wird. Die Verfasserin plädiert dafür,
nicht nur zwischen Ethnien mit verschiedenen gesell-
schaftlichen Strukturen zu unterscheiden, sondern auch
die einzelnen Bereiche einer Gesellschaft im Verhältnis
zu gleichen Bereichen in einer anderen Gesellschaft
differenziert zu sehen. Das ist nichts Neues und an sich
eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Auch mit einem anderen
Anliegen rennt die Autorin offene Türen ein. Es dürfte
jedem klar sein, daß nicht jeglicher Wandel „Fort-
schritt“ bedeutet. Paradebeispiel sind die Wandlungs-
prozesse beim Übergang vom Paläo- zum Mesolithi-
kum. Zudem müssen „Wandel“, „Fortschritt“ und
ähnliche Begriffe vor jeder wie auch immer gearteten
Anwendung exakt definiert werden, sollen Vergleiche
Ergebnisse bringen. Auch mit ihrem Hinweis, daß
unter Zugrundelegung längerfristiger Zeiteinheiten
kultureller Wandel (im Sinne von wirtschaftlichem
Fortschritt mit - implizit - gesellschaftlicher Entwick-
lung) als lineare Erscheinung sichtbar ist, bei einer
kurzfristigen Skala dieser Wandel jedoch oszillierend
erkennbar wird, trägt Soffer Eulen nach Athen. Die
bestehenden unterschiedlichen Meinungen zu diversen
Evolutionsmodellen auf mangelnde Überein- und
Abstimmung bezüglich Zeitskalen zurückzuführen, ist
naiv. Alles in allem kann Soffer der Vorwurf nicht
erspart bleiben, daß sie bei ihren theoretischen Überle-
gungen eine gewisse Sorglosigkeit im Umgang mit
anthropologischen und ethnologischen Grundlagen an
den Tag legt. Manche ihrer Aussagen wirken außer-
dem tautologisch.
Mit einer gewissen Berechtigung wendet sich die
Verfasserin gegen die übermäßige Gewichtung lithi-
scher Technokomplexe in der urgeschichtlichen For-
schung. Sie möchte statt dessen mehr „Adaptionsstra-
tegien“ prähistorischer Gesellschaften betont wissen.
Das ist schön und gut, niemand hat etwas dagegen,
doch Fundament aller wissenschaftlicher Gedanken-
gänge in der Archäologie ist nun einmal das Fundgut
und der Grabungsbefund. Sie sind bestimmt auch für
die Überlegungen der Autorin ausschlaggebend, denn
sonst wären ihre Darlegungen nichts als Spekulation.
Steinindustrien sind meist die einzigen Hinterlassen-
schaften einer paläolithischen Station. Sie müssen und
werden daher ihre grundlegende Bedeutung behalten.
Soffer beklagt weiterhin, daß zu wenige Publika-
tionen zum Paläolithikum übergreifenden Charakters
vorliegen. Das mag auf die russische Literatur zum
Thema zutreffen, stimmt aber nicht, soweit west- und
mitteleuropäische Veröffentlichungen angesprochen
sind. Verfehlt ist ebenfalls die Annahme, daß es
innerhalb der europäischen Urgeschichtsforschung eine
Front gegen „Anthropologisierung“ der Archäologie
gibt. Ziel der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Wissen-
schaft ist es ja gerade, über Funde und Befunde den
einstigen Menschen sichtbar werden zu lassen, sein
Handeln und Verhalten zu erkennen.
Es sind hier einige Aspekte allgemeinerer Art aus
dem Buch heraus- und kritisch aufgegriffen worden.
Davon unberührt bleibt das Verdienst Soffers, eine
archäologische Region Zentralrußlands kenntnisreich
beschrieben zu haben. Ihre hierauf gerichteten fundier-
ten Ausführungen untermauert sie mit vielen Tabellen
und Graphiken. Fotos und Zeichnungen tragen weiter-
hin zum Verständnis des Textes bei. Dies alles macht
den Wert der informativen Publikation aus.
Axel Schulze-Thulin
Sperber, Dan: On Anthropological Knowledge.
Three Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de
1’Homme, 1985. 107 pp. (Cambridge Studies in Social
Anthropology, 54) Price: £5.95
The rationality and relativism controversy, which
had a turbulent adolescence in the 1960s, now ambles
on decades later, transposed as much else in life, from
a seminal youth to a reflective pasturage. Certain
contemporary philosophers, call them metaphysical
realists, propose that “rational choice” models of
human experience have little relevance to an under-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
289
standing of the ambiguous and sometimes anomalous
process of life as it can be observed. Since process
participates in form, one is confronted by a plurality of
interpretations. Anthropologists in particular should be
ever more mindful that communal decisions are neither
aribtrary nor subjective. In a search for meta-historical
or atemporal truths, the post-modern philosophers ask,
do we have all the relevant evidence? It seems that the
perennial response is, it all depends. According to
Sperber, the common attributes of human experience
are “the main source of difference” among them: in
our various ways, we are dependent upon convention-
al, symbolic modes of presenting and representing indi-
vidual autonomy. Here Sperber asks again that we de-
velop a more carefully sculptured relationship between
psychology and anthropology.
As in his earlier “Rethinking Symbolism,” Sper-
ber is critical of much that has passed as standard and
authentic ethnographic qua interpretive contributions.
Here he suggests that anthropology proper “consists of
little more than a vague scientific project nursed in a
compost of philosophical reminiscences” (10). Not all
in the professional discipline would agree with his
radical separation between ethnography as “interpreta-
tion” and anthropology as “explanation.” Current
trends indicate that a majority of social and cultural
anthropologists acknowledge there are no “facts” to be
interpreted in the absence of a theoretical or interpre-
tive genre.
Issues which attend these comments comprise the
introductory section of the book. In the first chapter,
among other things, the reader is asked once again to
consider what Nuer “mean” in the discourse of their
sacrifices. This illustration and others provide a means
to the deconstruction of alien as well as interpretive
usages. If we gain anything at all from ethnography (in
his sense) Sperber suggests, “it is not because of the
interpretive generalizations these works contain, it is
because they give us an insight into some fragments of
human experience” (34). Godfrey Lienhardt expressed
an essentially similar observation more than thirty
years ago: “. . . we hope, at the best ... to reconcile
what can be expressed in their languages, with what
can be expressed in ours. We mediate between their
habits of thought, which we have acquired with them,
and those of our own society; in doing so, it is not
finally some mysterious ‘primitive philosophy’ that we
are exploring but the further potentialities of our own
thought and language” (R. G. Lienhardt, Modes of
Thought. In: E. E. Evans-Pritchard [ed.], The Institu-
tions of Primitive Society; p. 97. Oxford 1954).
In his second essay Sperber introduces the reader
to a trusted confidant he encountered in the course of
his Ethiopian research, an older man called Filate, who
has asked the fieldworker to kill a dragon that he
(Filate) claims to have seen. The anecdote introduces a
short discourse on some of the problems of relativism,
the ever-present denizen in debates attending the
Cartesian anxiety. To this reader a fuller, perhaps
rtiore reflective review of this dialectic is provided in R.
Bernstein’s “Beyond Objectivity and Relativism”
(1985). In Sperber’s view, the relativist pose assumed
now and again in modern anthropology creates “a kind
of cognitive apartheid. If we cannot be superior in the
same world, let each people live in its own world” (62).
The final chapter is yet another commentary on the
method, style, and habits of mind in the work of
Professor C. Lévi-Strauss. The structural and other
“isms” of social science are inspired by a scientific
impulse, but in Lévi-Strauss’ and others’ work, intu-
ition seems to provide the generative force. Thus,
Sperber writes, intuition is an instrument of ethnogra-
phy and hence “an object of study for anthropology”
(93).
These comments come rather late but Sperber’s
work is already well known, respected, and influential.
Though the present essays alone could not serve as an
adequate directory to the many and complex problems
of interpretation and historical transformation which
now beset the discipline, his style and method of
argument make the present collection a standard entry
for consideration. John W. Burton
Toulabor, Comi M: Le Togo sous Eyadéma.
Paris: Editions Karthala, 1986. 332 pp., carte, tabl.
(Collection Les Afriques)
Le livre de C. M. Toulabor présente le processus
de l’édification du pouvoir politique au Togo depuis
son indépendance (1960). L’auteur souhaite que son
ouvrage soit «une modeste contribution à l’approche
du politique en Afrique noire» (7) et espère «montrer
comment l’Etat est approprié par les acteurs du
système» (9).
L’histoire du Togo indépendant est marquée par
la présence sur la scène politique du général Eyadéma
(au pouvoir depuis 1967), d’où le titre du livre. L’au-
teur ne prend pas de position personnelle vis-à-vis du
pouvoir au Togo. Au contraire de certains ouvrages
précédents à ce sujet (W. O. Yagla, L’édification de la
nation togolaise [1978], qui justifie la situation actuelle;
A. N. Bonin, Le Togo du sergent-en-général [1983],
qui ridiculise le pouvoir togolais), «Le Togo sous
Eyadéma» explique les mécanismes du pouvoir où
s’entremêlent le réel et l’imaginaire, pour aboutir à la
définition de «l’éyadémaïsme» que l’auteur range dans
la ligne du «kimilsunmaïsme» (de Kim II Sung de la
Corée du Nord) et du «mobutisme» (de Mobutu de
Zaïre).
«L’éyadémaïsme» ne constitue pas seulement une
doctrine politique, mais aussi une sorte de religion
politique qui se base, selon C. M. T., sur deux mythes
principaux: le mythe fondateur du pouvoir (ch. 1) et le
mythe de Sarakawa (ch. 4). Le mythe fondateur prend
son point de départ dans l’assassinat du premier prési-
dent du Togo, S. Olympio, le 13. 01. 1963 auquel
Eyadéma aurait participé, et consiste à amplifier son
rôle jusqu’à lui donner une importance capitale pour
l’histoire du pays. Le fait de présenter après coup
Eyadéma comme le leader du coup d’Etat a permis au
Anthropos 83.1988
290
Rezensionen
pouvoir de l’exalter comme le Libérateur et le Sauveur
du peuple par rapport au régime précédent et aux
ennemis du Togo. Le second mythe a été créé autour
de l’accident de l’avion présidentiel à Sarakawa (Nord
du Togo), le 24. 01. 1974, accident dont Eyadéma est
sorti indemne. Ce mythe confirme et renforce le
premier. Le président n’est plus seulement le Libéra-
teur et le Sauveur, il se montre aussi comme l’homme
fort, immunisé contre les dangers, voire ressuscité
.... Le pouvoir mobilise ces deux mythes pour
s’auto-justifier et rendre sacré et immuable le système
en place.
Le contenu idéologique de «l’éyadémaïsme» se
résume en deux thèses principales qui forment la base
du programme du parti unique togolais; la lutte anti-
impérialiste et «l’authenticité culturelle» (ch. 5). La
lutte anti-impérialiste se traduit en pratique par l’insis-
tance sur la nationalisation de la compagnie d’extrac-
tion des phosphates et par les revendications en faveur
d’un réaménagement de la zone franc CFA. L’idée
d’«authenticité culturelle», empruntée surtout au
Zaïre, prône le retour aux traditions ancestrales dont
un exemple aigu est constitué par l’obligation d’aban-
donner les prénoms chrétiens.
Une religion à base politique implique des
mythes, un culte, des rites et célébrations. Le pouvoir a
introduit au Togo le culte de la personne du président,
des pèlerinages à Sarakawa et des rites qui y sont
associés, ainsi qu’une animation culturelle, analysée
dans le ch. 6. Cette animation, répandue dans tout le
territoire et contrôlée par le parti, se borne à la danse
et aux slogans politiques. Elle mobilise la population,
sert de liturgie politique et renforce les mythes de
base.
Deux derniers chapitres du livre présentent d’une
façon synthétique les élites politiques du pays: celles
qui sont au pouvoir (ch. 7) et celles qui animent la
résistance (ch. 8). Ils reprennent les données des cha-
pitres 2 et 3 qui analysent l’accession du général
Eyadéma au pouvoir (ch. 2) et la formation de l’appa-
reil d’Etat (ch. 3).
Fruit d’une recherche sur le terrain, bien docu-
menté à partir de sources togolaises et d’analyses
occidentales, le livre de C. M. T. constitue un apport
considérable à la compréhension de l’histoire contem-
poraine de l’Etat togolais. Avec compétence et clarté,
il introduit le lecteur dans la problématique de l’an-
thropologie politique du Togo actuel. Il montre com-
ment, par le biais des croyances et des manipulations
de l’imaginaire, le pouvoir politique s’éternise dans le
milieu africain. Jacek Jan Pawlik
Wernhart, Karl R. (Hrsg.); Ethnohistorie und Kul-
turgeschichte. Ein Studienbehelf. Wien: Hermann Böh-
lau, 1986. 330 pp. (Böhlau-Studienbücher, Aspekte
der Ethnologie, 1) Preis: DM 48,-
Das vorliegende Buch ist eine Sammlung von
Aufsätzen über Ethnohistorie und Kulturgeschichte,
die im Laufe der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte von mehreren
Autoren in verschiedenen Zeitschriften veröffentlicht
worden sind. Doch sind neun der achtzehn Beiträge
des Sammelbandes von Prof. Karl Wernhart verfaßt,
der ja auch als Herausgeber des Buches zeichnet. Das
Vorwort und die Einleitung sind ebenfalls von ihm
verfaßt.
Da die Artikel von verschiedenen Autoren stam-
men und unabhängig voneinander verfaßt sind, konn-
ten häufige Wiederholungen nicht vermieden werden.
Sie machen aber doch das aufmerksame Lesen der
Beiträge ermüdend. Auch decken sich die Aussagen
und Formulierungen der verschiedenen Autoren nicht
immer. Nur in einem Punkt sind sich alle einig: in der
Kritik und Ablehnung der Thesen der ehemaligen
„Wiener kulturhistorischen Schule“, gegründet von
P. W. Schmidt und mannhaft von ihm bis zum Tode
verteidigt, aber endgültig aufgegeben und zu Grabe
getragen von seinen eigenen Schülern W. Köppers und
J. Haekel.
Das Buch besteht aus fünf Abteilungen; Es
behandelt zuerst Grundsätzliches (19-127), dann die
Arbeitsweise der Ethnohistorie (131-202), ferner einen
sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansatz (205-259), einen kul-
turgeschichtlichen Ansatz (263-302) und schließlich:
Praxis und Reaktion (305-325). Schon diese Einteilung
zeigt, daß der Sammelband wenig systematisch und
einheitlich geordnet ist, was ja auch bei einer Samm-
lung von schon anderswo publizierten Beiträgen kaum
möglich ist. Der Herausgeber hätte vielleicht besser
daran getan, einen selbständigen und systematischen
Aufbau der ethnohistorischen Methode vorzulegen,
um so mehr weil das Buch auch als Hilfsbuch für
Ethnologiestudenten gedacht ist. Eine klare systema-
tische Darstellung der ethnohistorischen Methode ist
das vorliegende Buch nicht.
Die ersten zwei Aufsätze sind von W. Hirschberg,
dem Inaugurator der ethnohistorischen Methode, und
behandeln die Anfänge und ersten Schwierigkeiten der
um Hirschberg gescharten Gruppe von Gleichgesinn-
ten. Während P. W. Schmidt sein System der Kultur-
kreise, auf F. Graebner fußend, auf die ganze Welt
ausweitete, vertritt Hirschberg die These, daß erst jede
ethnische Gruppe für sich in ihrer Vorgeschichte,
Frühgeschichte und gegenwärtigen Situation studiert
werden müsse, und zwar in möglichst lückenloser
Kontinuität ihrer Geschichte. Es ist verdienstvoll, daß
Hirschberg so energisch auf die Notwendigkeit des
Studiums der einzelnen geschlossenen Ethnohistorien
hinweist. W. Schmidt ist mit seinem System der Kultur-
kreise gescheitert, weil zu seiner Zeit viel zu wenig
Vorstudien Vorlagen und ihm daher die ungeheure
Komplexität der Phasen der Kulturgeschichte verbor-
gen geblieben war. Es ist auch das Verdienst Hirsch-
bergs, daß er auch das Studium der Vorgeschichte und
Frühgeschichte in die Ethnologie (Ethnographie) die-
ser ethnischen Gruppen einbezieht. Das hat allerdings
auch schon W. Köppers getan.
Hirschbergs Schüler, allen voran K. Wernhart,
haben getreu seine Thesen übernommen und zu einem
neuen System auszubauen versucht. Ob es ihnen
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
291
jedoch gelungen ist, bleibt fraglich, denn außerhalb
Wiens haben sich nur wenige namhafte Völkerkundler
der „ethnohistorischen Schule“ angeschlossen.
Dem Rezensenten des vorliegenden Sammelban-
des scheint es, daß es mehrere Punkte gibt, die trotz
der Mannigfaltigkeit der Beiträge und des Aufwandes
an Gelehrsamkeit in dem Sammelband zu wenig
berücksichtigt worden sind. So wird nirgendwo aus-
drücklich betont, daß Kulturwandel nicht in allen
Belangen der Kultur dasselbe dynamische Tempo hat.
Es zeigt sich, daß ein Wechsel der Wirtschaftsform,
also der materiellen Kultur, viel leichter und rascher
angeregt werden kann als z. B. eine Änderung der
sozialen Struktur, und noch schwerer können die Ideo-
logie und Religion eines Ethnos gewandelt werden.
(Nirgendwo kann dies besser beobachtet werden als in
Indien, wo auch die historische Entwicklung vieler
Ethnien in den letzten zweitausend Jahren besser
bezeugt ist als anderswo.) Die Autoren dieses Buches
scheinen dem dynamischen Faktor besondere Bedeu-
tung beizumessen, dagegen den kulturbeharrenden
Faktoren zu wenig Beachtung zu widmen.
Auch wird im Kulturwechsel und in der Kultur-
entwicklung die Bedeutung des Individuums zu wenig
betont. Und doch müssen es Individuen gewesen sein,
die selbst in primitiven Kulturen die epochemachenden
Erfindungen gemacht haben. Man könnte da an die
Erfindung des Feuers, des Pfeils und Bogens, an die
Erfindung der Töpferei, des Ackerbaus und der Vieh-
zucht erinnern, Erfindungen, die zuerst gewiß die
ethnische Gruppe des Erfinders, aber bald die gesamte
Menschheit beeinflußt und umgewandelt haben.
Einen weiteren fragwürdigen Punkt stellt wohl
auch die Behauptung dar, daß die ethnohistorische
Methode die Kulturabläufe mit größerer wissenschaftli-
cher Exaktheit herausarbeite. Sie suche die Geschichte
der Kultur nur an Hand exakt historischen Quellenma-
terials zu erfassen. Es fragt sich eben, ob ein solches
exakt historisches Quellenmaterial in der Vorgeschich-
te, Frühgeschichte und frühen Ethnographie je wirklich
vorhanden war! Der bekannte Prähistoriker Glyn
Daniel drückte das prägnant in einer Rede aus, die er
1979 in London hielt; “And we must always remember
three things. The inadequacy and incompleteness of
thè prehistoric record; thè subjectivity of the art of
historical Interpretation; and the necessity of using
ethnographical, historical, and folk parallels in no de-
terministic way but as pointers to the possibilities of
interpretation” (RAIN 33.1979:4).
Und wie es scheint, kann sich der Ethnohistoriker
nicht einmal auf geschulte Ethnologen verlassen. Erst
kürzlich hat Freeman gezeigt, daß selbst eine so
berühmte Ethnologin wie Margaret Mead in Samoa
eine von Vorurteilen verzerrte Feldforschung betrieben
hat und zu Ergebnissen kam, die unhaltbar sind. Noch
weniger dürfen wir wohl älteren Quellen vertrauen, die
von ethnologisch ungeschulten und oft noch mehr mit
Vorurteilen behafteten Berichterstattern verfaßt sind.
Roland Girtler versucht, dieses Problem in seinem
Beitrag „Hermeneutik und Ethnohistorie“ (185-202)
zu behandeln. Er muß schließlich zugeben, daß eine
„absolute Interpretation, also eine Quellenkritik im
eigentlichen Sinn des Wortes, nicht möglich ist“ (cf.
200). Damit fällt aber auch die strenge Wissenschaft-
lichkeit der Ethnohistorie, wie sie Hirschberg gefordert
hat. Es bleibt also bei der ethnohistorischen Wahrheits-
feststellung auch nur bei einer mehr oder weniger
subjektiven „Interpretation“. Der Grad der Wahrheits-
sicherheit oder Fragwürdigkeit richtet sich aber dann
nach der Zuverlässigkeit der fragwürdigeren Quelle,
wenn ich Girtler recht verstanden habe.
Es geht also um den jeweils „historisch lokalisier-
baren Erstpunkt“, wie ihn Wernhart benennt (99), von
dem aus der spätere Wandel nachzuweisen ist. Dieser
„Erstpunkt“ mag dokumentarisch festzustellen sein,
aber wer bürgt dafür, daß die Dokumentation „wissen-
schaftlich zuverlässig“ ist? Erst für spätere und verhält-
nismäßig rezente Phasen der Kulturgeschichte mag
eine solche Dokumentation einigermaßen wissenschaft-
lich genau sein. Das gilt aber kaum für die Vor- und
Frühgeschichte der Ethnien. Und gerade für diese
Stadien, in denen der Mensch keiner schriftlichen
Dokumentation fähig war, ist die Ethnologie zuständig.
Bleibt da mehr als spekulative Interpretation übrig?
Mir scheint daher, daß es nur zwei Alternativen
gibt: entweder wandelt oder entwickelt sich die
menschliche Kultur nach streng naturwissenschaftli-
chen Gesetzen, die es nun genauer zu erforschen gibt,
oder man erkennt an, daß die Geschichte der Kultur
vom annähernd freien Willen des Menschen, als des
Schöpfers und Trägers der Kultur, abhängig ist und
geformt wird. Dann ist Ethnologie gewiß eine histori-
sche Wissenschaft und kann nur wissenschaftliche Gül-
tigkeit beanspruchen, soweit ihre Quellen wissenschaft-
lich erfaßbar sind. Darüber hinaus wird sich die Ethno-
logie mit einem mehr oder minder annähernden Wahr-
scheinlichkeitsgrad zufriedengeben müssen. Daran
wird auch die ethnohistorische Betrachtungsweise
nichts ändern können. Sie hat aber das Verdienst, daß
sie weltweite unwissenschaftliche Kombinationen und
Synthesen ablehnt und sich mit dem Studium von
kleineren Ethnien bescheidet, die historisch faßbar
sind. Stephen Fuchs
Anthropos 83.1988
Gabriele Weiss
Elementarreligionen
Eine Einführung in die Religionsethnologie
1987. 8 Abbildungen. V, 232 Seiten.
Geheftet DM 48, — , öS 340,—
ISBN 3-211-82003-5
Elementarreligionen sind — im Gegensatz zu den oft in
ihren Dogmen erstarrten Welt- oder Hochreligionen —
sogenannte „Erlebnisreligionen“.
Neben einer anschaulichen Darstellung religionsethnolo-
gischer Erklärungsmodelle vermittelt dieses Buch einen
Einblick in die religiöse Erfahrungswelt der Mitglieder von
Horden- und Stammesgesellschaften. In dieser Erfah-
rungswelt ist das Universum eine lebendige Gemein-
schaft, in der alle sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Wesen
und Kräfte in unauflösbarer Wechselwirkung zueinander
stehen. Die gelebte Erfahrung solcher Wechselwirkung
— nicht der dogmatische Glaube an die Übermacht höhe-
rer Wesen — bestimmt die Elementarreligionen.
Die meist auf einer außergewöhnlichen Bewußtseinsebe-
ne sinnlich erfahrenen Erkenntnisse bestimmen die Ord-
nung des alltäglichen Zusammenlebens.
Springer-Verlag \J^wJ Wien NewYork
Moelkerbastei 5, A-1010 Wien • Heidelberger Platz 3, D-1000 Berlin 33 •
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höfe (123-160). - Boglàr, L., A. Bognàr, Ference X.
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1. Ouden, J. H. B. den, In Search of Personal Mobil-
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ke Chiefdoms, Cameroon (3-27). - Soppelsa, R. T.,
Assongu: A Terracotta Tradition of Southeastern Ivory
Coast (51-73). - Binkley, D. A., Avatar of Power:
Southern Kuba Masquerade Figures in a Funerary
Context (75-97).
2. Merve, N. J. van der, D. H. Avery, Science and
Magic in African Technology. Traditional Iron Smelt-
ing in Malawi (143-172). - Sutter, J. W., Cattle and
Inequality. Herd Size Difference and Pastoral Produc-
tion Among the Fulani of Northeastern Senegal
(196-218). - Constantin, F., Condition Swahili et
identité politique (219-233). - Giles, L. L., Possession
Cults on the Swahili Coast: A Re-Examination of
Theories of Marginality (234—258).
3. Charsley, S., Dreams and Purposes: An Analysis
of Dream Narratives in an Independent African
Church (281-296). - Chimombo, S., Riddles and the
Reconstruction of Reality (297-320). - Law, R., Ideol-
ogies of Royal Power: The Reconstruction of Political
Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750 (321-344). -
Copet-Rougier, E., Du clan à la chefferie dans l’est du
Cameroun (345-363).
African Affairs (London)
86. 1987/344.
Al-Karsani, A., The Establishment of Neo-Mahdism in
the Western Sudan, 1920-1936 (385-404).
African Economic History (Madison)
15. 1986
Martin, P. M., Power, Cloth and Currency on the
Loango Coast (1-12). - Mbilinyi, M. Agribusiness and
Casual Labor in Tanzania (107-141). - Eltis, D., Slave
Departures from Africa, 1811-1867: An Annual Time
Series (143-171).
African Studies (Johannesburg)
46. 1987/1.
Preston-Whyte, E., R. Miller, Coping with Ethnogra-
phy: The Construction and Interpretation of an Ethno-
graphic Text (1-32).
Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere (Köln)
1987/10., 11.
10. Heine, B., C. König, On the Taxonomic Status of
Folk Botanic Categories among the Samburu (31-52).
- Ebert, K. H., Discourse Function of Motion Verbs in
Chadic (53-71).
11. Bollig, M., The Imposition of Colonial Rule in
North West Kenya: Interethnic Conflicts and Anticolo-
nial Resistance (5-39). - Abubakar, A., Taboo and
Dialect Variation: An Aspect of Hausa Culture
(93-104).
Afrika und Übersee (Berlin)
70. 1987/1.
Schadeberg, T. C., Silbenanlautgesetze im Bantu
(1-17).
Anthropos 83.1988
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Amazonia Peruana (Lima)
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Taussig, M., Cultura del Terror-Espacio de la Muerte.
El informe Putumayo de Roger Casement y la Expli-
cación de la Tortura (7-36). - Rosengren, D., Concep-
ciones de Trabajo y Relaciones Sociales en el Uso de la
Tierra entre los Machiguenga del Alto Urubamba
(39-59). - Frank, E. H., Bibliografía Anotada de
Fuentes con Interés para la Etnología y la Etnohistoria
de los Uni (151-160). - Chaumeil, J. P., Bibliografía
Yagua II (161-164).
American Anthropologist (Washington)
89. 1987/1., 2., 3.
1. Foin, T. C., W. G. Davis, Equilibrium and Non-
equilibrium Models in Ecological Anthropology: An
Evaluation of “Stability” in Maring Ecosystems in New
Guinea (9-31). - Dumond, D. E., A Reexamination
of Eskimo-Aleut Prehistory (32-56). - Nabhan, G. P.,
A. Rea, Plant Domestication and Folk-Biological
Change: The Upper Piman/Devil’s Claw Example
(57-73). - Tronick, E. Z., G. A. Morelli, S. Winn,
Multiple Caretaking of Efe (Pygmy) Infants (96-106). -
MacLaury, R. E., Color-Category Evolution and Shus-
wap Yellow-with-Green (107-124). - Dow, M. M.,
Subsample Replication in Cross-Cultural Surveys
(125-133).
2. Snerzer, J., A Discourse-Centered Approach to
Language and Culture (295-309). - Freeman, L. C.,
A. K. Romney, S. C. Freeman, Cognitive Structure
and Informant Accuracy (310-325). - Lansing, J. S.,
Balinese “Water Temples” and the Management of
Irrigation (326-341). - Atkinson, J. M., The Effective-
ness of Shamans in an Indonesian Ritual (342-355). -
Robarchek, C. A., R. K. Dentan, Blood Drunkeness
and the Bloodthirsty Semai: Unmaking Another
Anthropological Myth (356-365).
3. Aberle, D. F., Distinguished Lecture: What Kind
of Science Is Anthropology? (551-566). - Podolefsky,
A., Population Density, Land Tenure, and Law in the
New Guinea Highlands: Reflections on Legal Evolu-
tion (581-595).
American Ethnologist (Washington)
14. 1987/2., 3.
2. Comaroff, J. L., J. Comaroff, The Madman and
the Migrant: Work and Labor in the Historical Con-
sciousness of a South African People (191-209). -
Messick, B., Subordinate Discourse. Women, Weav-
ing, and Gender Relations in North Africa (210-
225). - Sharp, H. S., Giant Fish, Giant Otters, and
Dinosaurs: “Apparently Irrational Beliefs” in a Chip-
ewyan Community (226-235). - Brenneis, D., Per-
forming Passions: Aesthetics and Politics in an Occa-
sionally Egalitarian Community (236-250).
3. Smith, J. G. E., The Western Woods Cree:
Anthropological Myth and Historical Reality
(434—448). - Harrison, S., Cultural Efflorescence and
Political Evolution on the Sepik River (491-507).
Annali di Sociologia - Soziologisches
Jahrbuch (Trento)
3. 1987/1.
Huber, H., Ethnologie und Nord-Süd Diskussion
(351-364). Etnologia e dibattito Nord-Sud (365-379). -
Henninger, J., Über den Sinn des Festes bei den
Völkern der Dritten Welt (381-394). - Il senso della
festa nei popoli del Terzo Mondo (395—407). - Franchi,
A., Cultura in emigrazione: la marginalità di un pro-
blema (409-422). Kultur in der Emigration: Zur Margi-
nalität eines Problems (423^438).
Anthropological Quarterly (Washington)
60. 1987/1.
Boulay, J. du, R. Williams, Amoral Familism and the
Image of Limited Good: A Critique from a European
Perspective (12-24). - Bachnik, J. M., Native Perspec-
tives of Distance and Anthropological Perspectives of
Culture (25-34).
Archipel (Paris)
34. 1987
Blust, R., The Linguistic Study of Indonesia (27^47).
Arctic Anthropology (Madison)
24. 1987/1.
Ridington, R., From Hunt Chief to Prophet; Beaver
Indian Dreamers and Christianity (8-18). - Kan, S.,
Memory Eternal: Orthodox Christianity and the Tlingit
Mortuary Complex (32-55). - Amoss, P. T., The Fish
God Gave Us: The First Salmon Ceremony Revived
(56-66). - Laguna, F. de, Atna and Tlingit Shamanism:
Witchcraft on the Northwest Coast (84—100).
Asian Folklore Studies (Nagoya)
46. 1987/1.
Takiguchi, N., Miyako Theology: Shamans’ Interpreta-
tion of Traditional Beliefs (3-34). - Ashkenazi, M.,
Cultural Tensions as Factors in the Structure of a
Festival Parade (35-54). - Miller, A. L., The Swan-
Maiden Revisited: Religious Significance of “Divine-
Wife” Folktales with Special Reference to Japan
Anthropos 83.1988
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(55-86). - Kapp, D. B., Paniya Riddles (87-98). -
Macfie, A. L., F. Macfle, The Fairy Girl and the
Shepherd: A Turkish Ballad (99-104).
Baessler-Archiv (Berlin)
34. 1986/2.; 35. 1987/1.
2. Schienerl, P. W., Koranisches Erzählgut im Spie-
gel volkstümlicher Buntdrucke in Ägypten (305-332). -
Heimberg, U., Silberschmuck aus Südwestarabien
(333-455).
1. Förster, T., Der Poro-Bund der Senufo heute.
Institutionen segmentärer Gesellschaften und entwick-
lungspolitische Maßnahmen (191-220). - Newton, D.,
Shields of the Manambu (East Sepik Province, Papua
New Guinea) (249-259). - Arredondo, A. M., Proposi-
ciones para el estudio e interpretación de leyendas de
isla de Pascua (261-276).
Behavior Science Research (New Haven)
20. 1986/1-4.
Ember, C., The Quality and Quantity of Data for
Cross-Cultural Studies (1-16). - Winkelman, M. J.,
Magico-Religious Practitioner Types and Socioeco-
nomic Conditions (17^16). - White, C. B., Moral Rea-
soning in Bahamian and United States Adults and
Children: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Kohlberg’s
Stages (47-70). - Moon, Y.-L., A Review of Cross-
Cultural Studies on Moral Judgment Development
Using the Defining Issues Test (147-177). - Lind, G.,
Cultural Differences in Moral Judgment Competence?
A Study of West and East European University Stu-
dents (208-225).
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en
Volkenkunde (Dordrecht)
143. 1987/1.
Baker, V. J., Pitching a Tent in the Native Village:
Malinowski and Participant Observation (14-24). -
Braakhuis, H. E. M., Artificers of the Days: Functions
of the Howler Monkey Gods among the Mayas
(25-53). - Dijk, T. van, N. de Jonge, The Hosue on
the Hill; Moieties and Double Descent in Babar
(54-104). - Hitchcock, M., The Bimanese Kris; Aes-
thetics and Social Value (125-140). - Quarles van
Ufford, P., Contradictions in the Study of Legitimate
Authority in Indonesia (141-158).
Boletín de Arqueología (Bogotá)
1. 1986/3.
Correal Urrego, G., Aguazuque 1. Una Estación y
complejo funerario precerámico en la sabana de Bogo-
tá (3-24).
Boletín Museo del Oro (Bogotá)
17. 1986; 18. 1987
17. Uribe, T., C. Alberto, Pioneros de la Antropo-
logía en Colombia: El padre Rafael Celedón (3-31). -
Oyuela Caycedo, A., De los Taironas a los Kogi; Una
interpretación del cambio cultural (32-43).
18. Bolinder, G., Los últimos indígenas Chimila
(10-27). - Pardo Rojas, M., Regionalización de indíge-
nas Chocó (46-63).
Bulletin des Séances ARSOM (Bruxelles)
32. 1986/2., 3.
2. Kane, M., Le thème de l’identité culturelle et ses
variations dans le roman africain francophone
(123-135).
3. Ryckmans, J., Aux origines de l’alphabet
(311-333). - Mudimbe, V. Y., Placide Tempels and
African Philosophy (349-361).
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies (London)
50. 1987/2.
Appleyard, D. L., A Grammatical Sketch of Khamtan-
ga-I (241-266). - Voigt, R. M., The Two Prefix-
Conjugations in East Cushitic, East Semitic, and Chad-
ic (330-345).
Cahiers de Littérature Orale (Paris)
21. 1987
Aux Sources des Paroles de Guadeloupe (15-130). -
Valière, M., Se je parle ung peu poictevin, ou «Le
Parlange os écoles» (131-150). - Malamoud, C., Parole
à voir et à entendre (151-161). - Platiel, S., Le conte,
lieu et source du discours; l’exemple de la société san
(163-176).
Cahiers des Sciences Humaines (Paris)
23. 1987/1., 2.
1. Baffle, J., M. C. Droz, P. Farabollini, J. C.
Simon, C. Theurillat, Les slums de Bangkok, dynamis-
mes et précarité / Slums of Bangkok, dynamics and
precariousness (15-34). - Oliveira, F. de, Classes
sociales et identité de classe à Bahia (Brésil) / Social
Classes and class identity in Bahia (Brazil) (105-129). -
Marques-Pereira, J., Les enjeux politiques de la ques-
tion urbaine au Brésil: citoyenneté, conflits urbains et
Anthropos 83.1988
314
Zeitschriftenschau
identités populaires à Recife / The political implications
of the urban question in Brazil: citizenship, urban
conflicts and popular identities at Recife (131-147).
2. Carbanes, R., Filière et stratégies socio-profession-
nelles (étude de cas de douze ouvriers à Sâo Paulo,
Brésil) / Occupational histories and social strategies (a
study of the cases of 12 workers in Sâo Paulo)
(163-181). - Agier, ML, T. LuIIe, Héritiers et prolé-
taires. Travail et mobilité sociale et vies de familles
à Lomé (Togo) / Heirs and proletarians. Work, social
mobility and family life in Lome (Togo) (215-241). -
Heuzé, G., Travail ouvrier et consciences communau-
taires. L’évolution des mentalités des travailleurs de la
mine en Inde contemporaine / Manual labour and
collective consciousness. The evolution of the worker’s
mentalities in the coal mines in contemporary India
(245-260). - Aubrée, M., Les Orixâs et le Saint-Esprit
au secours de l’emploi (deux stratégies d’insertion so-
cio-économique dans le Nordeste brésilien) / The Ori-
xâs and the Holy-Spirit come to the help of employ-
ment (two strategies of socio-economic integration in
the Brazilian Nordeste) (261-272). - Incao, M. C. d’,
Le travailleur bôia-fria. Histoires d’une errance, condi-
tions de travail et mobilisations récentes dans l’Etat de
Sâo Paulo (Brésil) / The bôia-fria manual worker.
History of an odyssey, working conditions and recent
mobilizations in the Sâo Paulo State (287-299).
Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines (Paris)
26. 1986/1-2., 3.
1-2. Swindell, K., Population and Agriculture in the
Sokoto-Rima Basin of Northwest Nigeria; A Study of
Political Intervention, Adaptation and Change,
1800-1980 (75-111). - Johnson, D. H., The Historical
Approach to the Study of Societies and their Environ-
ment in the Eastern Upper Nile Plains (131-144).
3. Young, M. C., Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class
in Africa: A Retrospective (421-495).
Comparative Studies in Society and History
(Cambridge)
29. 1987/3.
Scott, J. C., Resistance without Protest and without
Organization: Peasant Opposition to the Islamic Zakat
and the Christian Tithe (417-452). - Becker, M., Black
and White Color: Cardinismo and the Search for a
Campesino Ideology (453-465). - Kincaid, D. A.,
Peasants into Rebels: Community and Class in Rural
El Salvador (466-494). - Rogers, J. D., The 1866
Grain Riots in Sri Lanka (495-513). - Farriss, N. Ml.,
Remembering the Future. Anticipating the Past: His-
tory, Time, and Cosmology among the Maya of Yuca-
tan (566-593).
Contributions to Indian Sociology (New
Delhi)
21. 1987/1.
Nissan, E., The Work of Sri Lanka Anthropologists: A
Bibliographic Survey (1-25). - Olivelle, P., Gananath
Obeyesekere and the Study of Religion (29-35). -
Shweder, R. A., How to Look at Medusa Without
Turning to Stone (37-55). - Das, V., On Female Body
and Sexuality (57-66). - Kakar, S., Psychoanalysis and
Anthropology: A Renewed Alliance (85-88). - Poole,
F. J. P., The Power of Personal Symbols: A Theme in
the Anthropological Work of Gananath Obeyesekere
(89-98). - Obeyesekere, G., Re-Reflections on Pattini
and Medusa (99-109).
Cultures et Developpement (Louvain-La-
Neuve)
17. 1985/4.
Prunier, G. A., Structures de clan et pouvoir politique
en Somalie (683-697).
Current Anthropology (Chicago)
28. 1987/2., 3.
2. Hammel, E. A., N. Howell, Research in Popula-
tion and Culture: An Evolutionary Framework
(141-160). - Keesing, R. Mi., Anthropology as Inter-
pretive Quest (161-176).
3. Strathern, M., Out of Context: The Persuasive
Fictions of Anthropology (251-281).
Erdkunde (Bonn)
41. 1987/3.
Bonine, M. E., Islam and Commerce: Waqf and the
Bazaar of Yazd, Iran (182-196). - Spence, M., Duality
of Market Structures in Nineteenth and Early Twen-
tieth Century Oman (196-210).
Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift
(Berlin)
28. 1987/2.
Willenberg, U., „Ethnos“ - „Ethnogenese“ - „Nations-
bildung“ und das Problem der Staatsentwicklung. Zum
Denken über Geschichte als Ethnogeneseprozeß
(272-287). - Stein, L., Zur gegenwärtigen Lage der
Beduinen in Südarabien (288-294). - Rusch, W., I.
Winkelmann, Zur Entwicklung der außereuropäischen
Ethnographie in der DDR (295-320). - Guhr, G.,
Marx’, Engels’ Auffassung zur Ethnographie und Ur-
geschichte (337-345).
Anthropos 83.1988
Zeitschriftenschau
315
Ethnohistory (Durham)
34. 1987/2., 3.
2. Behar, R., The Visions of a Guachichil Witch in
1599: A Window on the Subjugation of Mexico’s
Hunter-Gatherers (115-138). - Seligmann, L. J., The
Chicken in Andean History and Myth: The Quechua
Concept of Wallpa (139-170).
3. Hitchcock, R. K., Socioeconomic Change among
the Basarwa in Botswana: An Ethnohistorical Analysis
(219-255). - Olien, M. D., Micro/Macro-Level Link-
ages: Regional Politic Structures on the Mosquito Coast,
1845-1864 (256-287).
Ethnologia Americana (Düsseldorf)
23. 1987/1.
Andritzky, W., Trepanation und Schädelverformung
im alten Peru (1169-1173). - Hartung, H., Städtebauli-
che Bemerkungen zu Teotihuacän (1174-1177).
Ethnologia Europaea (Odense)
17. 1987/1.
Ginkel, R. van, Pigs, Priests and Other Puzzles
(57-68).
Ethnology (Pittsburgh)
26. 1987/2., 3.
2. Glazier, J., Nicknames and the Transformation of
an American Jewish Community: Notes on the Anthro-
pology of Emotion in the Urban Midwest (73-85). -
Brown, P., New Men and Big Men: Emerging Social
Stratification in the Third World. A Case Study from
the New Guinea Highlands (87-106). - Suggs, D. N.,
Female Status and Role Transition in the Tswana Life
Cycle (107-120). - Tollefson, K. D., The Snoqualmie:
A Puget Sound Chiefdom (121-136).
3. Plath, D.W., J. Hill, The Reefs of Rivalry;
Expertness and Competition Among Japanese Shelfish
Divers (151-163). - Wessing, R., Electing a Lurah in
West Java, Indonesia: Stability and Change (165-178).
~ Gray, J. N., Bayu Utarnu: Ghost Exorcism and
Sacrifice in Nepal (179-199). - Glasse, R. M., Huli
Names and Naming (201-208). - Turner, J. W., Bless-
ed to Give and Receive: Ceremonial Exchange in Fiji
(209-219).
Ethnomusicology (Ann Arbor)
31. 1987/2., 3.
2. Baes, J., Ya-Ye-Yo-Na-I-Yu-Nan: Swaying in the
Vocal Music of the Iraya People of Mindoro, Philip-
pines (229-239). - Witzleben, J. L., Jiangnan Sizhu
Music Clubs in Shanghai: Context, Concept and Identi-
ty (240-260). - Guilbault, J., Fitness and Flexibility:
Funeral Wakes in St. Lucia, West Indies (273-299).
3. Baklanoff, J. D., The Celebration of a Feast:
Music, Dance, and Possession Trance in the Black
Primitive Baptist Footwashing Ritual (381-394). -
Sahai-Achuthan, N., Folk Songs of Uttar Pradesh
(395^106). - Rice, T., Toward the Remodeling of
Ethnomusicology (469-488). - Shelemay, K. K., Re-
sponse to Rice (489-490). - Seeger, A., Do We Need to
Remodel Ethnomusicology? (491^195). - Koskoff, E.,
Reponse to Rice (497-502). - Harwood, D. L., Inter-
pretive Activity: A Response to Rice’s “Toward the
Remodeling of Ethnomusicology” (503-510). - Craw-
ford, R., Reponse to Rice (511-513). - Rice, T., Tim
Rice Responds (515-516).
Ethos (Washington)
15. 1987/2., 3.
2. Worthman, C. M., J. W. M. Whiting, Social
Change in Adolescent Sexual Behavior, Mate Selec-
tion, and Premarital Pregnancy Rates in a Kikuyu
Community (145-165). - Gillison, G., Incest and the
Atom of Kinship: The Role of the Mother’s Brother in
a New Guinea Highlands Society (166-202).
3. Krippner, S., Cross-Cultural Approaches to Mul-
tiple Personality Disorder: Practices in Brazilian Spirit-
ism (273-295).
Folia Linguistica Historica (Poznan)
7. 1986/1.
Schweiger, F., Rekonstruktion, Sprachwandel und
Sprachvergleich bei australischen Sprachen: Ein Litera-
turbericht (207-218).
Folk (Copenhagen)
28. 1986; 29. 1987
28. Hastrup, K., Veracity and Visibility: The Prob-
lem of Authenticity in Anthropology (5-17). - Peder-
sen, P., Khatri: Vaishya or Kshatriya. An Essay on
Colonial Administration and Cultural Identity (19-31).
- Harbsmeier, M., Beyond Anthropology (33-59).
29. Sjurslev, I., Untimely Gods and French Perfume.
Ritual, Rules and Deviance in the Brazilian Candom-
blé (5-22). - Pcerregaard, K., Death Rituals and
Symbols in the Andes (23-42). - Schjellerup, I.,
Gift-Exchange Ceremonies in the Northern Highlands
of Peru (43-53). - Elsass, P., Symbols of Survival. A
Social Psychological Study of Two South American
Indian Peoples (55-73). - Whyte, S. R., M. A. Whyte,
Clans, Brides and Dancing Spirits (97-123). - Ovesen,
J., Initiation: A Folk-Model Among the Lobi (125-
Anthropos 83.1988
316
Zeitschriftenschau
150). - Paarup-Laursen, B., The Danger of Love. An
Analysis of a Koma Folktale (151-163). - Keyes, C. F.,
From Death to Birth. Ritual Process and Buddhist
Meanings in Northern Thailand (181-206). - Hastrup,
K., Presenting the Past. Reflections on Myth and His-
tory (257-269).
Folklore (London)
98. 1987/1.
Ryan, J. S., ‘Wild Cat Falling’: A Totemic Man who
Sought his Dreaming (16-27). - Caspi, M. M., ‘My
Brother, Vein of my Heart’; Arab Laments for the
Dead in Israel (28-40). - Boneh, D., Mystical Powers
of Hyenas: Interpreting a Bedouin Belief (57-64).
GEO (Hamburg)
1987/10., 12.
10. Yanomami; Kinder des Mondes (78-95).
12. Henschel, U., British Museum (Natural History).
Die Taufkapelle der Natur (mit Fotos von Georg
Fischer) (38-72).
Gradhiva (Paris)
2. 1987
Parkin, D., Mythes et fantaisies post-structuralistes
(7-21). - Lévi-Strauss, C., Les trois sources de la
réflexion ethnologique (37-41). - Hertz, R., Le péché
et l’expiation dans les sociétés inférieures (Un cours
inédit de Marcel Mauss, établi, présenté et annoté par
Jean Jamin et François Lupu) (43-52).
History of Religions (Chicago)
26. 1986/4.; 27. 1987/1.
4. Faure, B., Space and Place in Chinese Religious
Traditions (337-356).
1. Smith, B. K., Exorcising the Transcendent: Strate-
gies for Defining Hinduism and Religion (32-55).
L’Homme (Paris)
27. 1987/3., 4.
3. Augé, M., Qui est l’autre? Un itinéraire anthropo-
logique (7-26). - Dumont, J.-P., Quels Tasaday? De la
découverte et de l’invention d’autrui (27-42). - Remot-
ti, F., Catégories sémantiques de l’éros chez les
Wanande du Zaïre (73-92). - Assayag, J., Le Cadavre
divin. Célébration de la mort chez les Lingàyat-
Vïrasaîva (Inde du Sud) (93-112). - Pfeffer, G., The
Vocabulary of Anglo-Saxon Kinship (113-128).
4. Dupire, M., Des Goûts et des odeurs: classifica-
tions et universaux (5-25). - Glowczewski, B., C.-H.
Pradelles de Latour, La Diagonale de la belle-mère
(27-53). - Fassin, D., Rituels villageois, rituels
urbains. La reproduction sociale chez les femmes joola
du Sénégal (54—75). - Muller, J.-C., Mythologie et
sacrifice (76-89).
The International Journal of African
Historical Studies (Boston)
19. 1986/4.; 20. 1987/1., 2.
4. Perinbam, B. M., Islam in the Banamba Region of
the Eastern Beledugu c. 1800 to c. 1900 (637-657).
1. Watson, R. L., Slavery and Ideology: The South
African Case (27^13). - Sundiata, L, Twentieth Centu-
ry Reflections on Death in Zanzibar (45-60).
2. Donvard, D., The Impact of Colonialism on a
Nigerian Hill-Farming Society: Innovation Among the
Eggon (201-224). - Cristelow, A., Property and Theft
in Kano at the Dawn of the Groundnut Boom,
1912-1914 (225-243).
International Journal of American
Linguistics (Chicago)
53. 1987/2., 3.
2. Macaulay, M., Cliticization and the Morphosyntax
of Mixtec (119-135).
3. Derbyshire, D. C., Morphosyntactic Areal Charac-
teristics of Amazonian Languages (311-326).
International Journal of Comparative
Sociology (Leiden)
27. 1986/1-2., 3-4.
1-2. Perkins, H. W., J. L. Spates, Mirror Images?
Three Analyses of Values in England and the United
States (31-52). - Le Claire, K. A., Societal Complexity
and Family Structure, Functionality and Influence
(95-101).
3-4. Misztal, B. A., B. Misztal, The State’s Capacity
to Change: The Case of Poland and the Philippines
(141-160). - Gareau, F. H., The Third World Revolt
against First World Social Science. An Explication
suggested by the Revolutionary Pedagogy of Paulo
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56. 1987/3.
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Paideuma (Stuttgart)
33. 1987
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15. 1985
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37. 1986/3-4.
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Anthropos 83.1988
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Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 327-341
Formes rituelles et comportementales dans la fête
populaire
Le carnaval de Binche (Belgique) comme exemple-type
Albert Piette
Abstract. - What is going on in a popular feast? This question is
the basis of the descriptions and interpretations in this paper,
which finds an ambivalent world in the festivities. The theory
proposed here starts with the heuristic structure that the feast
constitutes an interstitial zone in space and time. The feast
refers itself to two classes of behaviour without being identified
with either.
The popular feast examined here is the carnival of Binche
(Belgium). The analysis sets out the movements of the feast,
which oscillate between ritualization of an ideal, and ritualiza-
tion of an oxymoron (and other counterpoints). On the one side
is a strong structural codification of gestures and clothes, and on
the other side is a ludic retransformation of the same rituals
together with “overvaluing” practices. This yields a clear anti-
structural expression, always integrated in the whole ritual but
always escaping from it.
The feast is able to represent differing elements at the
same time, providing a complex movement which simulta-
neously affirms and denies the social structure. It implies a
deliberate moment of hesitation in the social structure which
refuses a perfect coincidence with itself. [Europe, Carnival,
Feast, Play, Ritual]
Albert Piette, licencié en philosophie classique et philosophie
(Louvain), docteur en anthropologie et sociologie (Paris V);
collaborateur scientifique au laboratoire d'ethnologie de la
Sorbonne et chercheur aux Facultés universitaires de Namur;
- diverses publications sur la vision anthropologique des Grecs
anciens et sur les rituels festifs contemporains.
Cette analyse des formes rituelles et comporte-
mentales d’une fête carnavalesque s’articule sur un
double fondement théorique; d’abord, le concept
de «cadre» tel qu’il a été défini dans «Frame
Analysis» par E. Goffman: «I assume that defini-
tions of a situation are built up in accordance with
principles of organization which govern events - at
least social ones - and our subjective involvement
m them: frame is the word I use to refer to such of
these basic elements as I am able to identify»
(1974: 10, 11); ensuite, le concept de «zone de
limbe» (limbo-zone) proposé par G. Bateson à
Partir de l’observation et de (’interprétation de
loutres jouant à se disputer, c’est-à-dire engagées
dans un type d’interaction dont les unités d’actions
sont analogues sans être identiques à celles déplo-
yées dans un contexte de réelle agressivité. Le jeu
constitue, selon G. Bateson, un ensemble de
comportements définis par une négation (ce n’est
pas un vrai combat) mais non pour autant équiva-
lents aux comportements niés par cette négation
(ce n’est pas non plus un non-combat). L’anthro-
pologue américain, considérant que chaque classe
de comportements est séparée des autres par une
zone de limbe, insère l’interaction ludique dans
celle-ci. On peut y aller jusqu’à l’extrême limite
d’un comportement sans entrer dans la classe
suivante et sans risquer les conséquences inhéren-
tes à celle-ci (Bateson 1956: 194; 1977: 209-224;
Winkin 1981: 37-38). Selon ces perspectives, nous
émettons l’hypothèse selon laquelle la fête consti-
tue un cadre interstitiel, caractérisé par des com-
portements situés entre deux classes de comporte-
ments, sans être équivalents à l’une ou l’autre. Le
cadre festif permet ainsi des comportements qui,
sans être semblables à ceux de la vie quotidienne,
ne constituent pas pour autant une rupture radicale
avec ceux-ci.
«What is it that’s going on here?», pourrait-on
se demander, reprenant l’interrogation goffma-
nienne (Goffman 1974: 8), devant le mouvement
festif se déployant dans une fête carnavalesque,
comme celle de Binche, en Belgique. Qui, en effet,
ne répondrait pas: «C’est une fête», visant ainsi un
cadre spécifique avec des règles d’organisation et
d’interprétation des éléments festifs, tout aussi
spécifiques? C’est bien ces contraintes fondamen-
tales régulant la réalité fluide de la fête qu’il
convient de repérer ici.
1. Le «cadre» spécifique du carnaval de Binche
«Dieu est binchou», proclame-t-on souvent à
Binche. Cette petite ville, de moins de dix mille
habitants, est située à quelques kilomètres de
Mons, entre le Borinage et la région de Charleroi.
Dissimulant mal une réelle fierté ethnocentrique,
elle semble prolonger une relative autonomie
328
Albert Flette
géographico-historique et savourer, dans un repli
sur elle-même, isolée par l’absence d’axes de
communication importants et corsetée par ses
remparts, un passé dont les habitants ne manquent
jamais d’évoquer les moments les plus importants.
Plus qu’à Marie de Hongrie, son séjour binchois et
la visite de l’empereur Charles Quint, c’est au
«Gille», héros du carnaval, que le destin de la ville
est désormais associé.
1.1 La secondarisation fictionnelle
D’emblée, par le costume du Gille et le type de
configuration festive dans laquelle il est inséré, le
mardi gras binchois est associé à un haut niveau de
secondarité, inducteur d’une représentation fic-
tionnelle du personnage permettant aux acteurs
«de faire et d’être autre chose» par rapport aux
normes habituelles du quotidien (Remy-Voyé
1981:71).
Caractérisé par des aspects contradictoires,
haut en couleurs et surchargé d’éléments décora-
tifs, le costume du Gille constitue l’expression
artificielle de l’hybridation de parties issues de
contextes spatiaux et/ou temporels différents. Ain-
si, aux éléments qui détermineraient un contexte
rural, tels que les sabots, la toile de lin, le balai, le
panier d’osier, les clochettes et le grelot, se mêlent
de nombreux signes de prestige et de richesse, issus
d’un contexte urbain: chapeau de plumes d’autru-
che, dentelles, collerette, rubans plissés (même sur
les sabots . . .), masque représentant un bourgeois
du XIXe siècle, avec une moustache style Napo-
léon III, et de nombreuses décorations en feutrine
figurant étoiles, lions et drapeaux nationaux
(Glotz 1949: 176-185; Mesnil 1974: 30-37 et Piette
1986: 165).
Quant à la configuration rhétorique du mardi
gras, elle fait éclater son impact «secondaire» à
travers un surplus de signifiants confirmant la
dénégation référentielle du Gille (Babcock 1974 et
1978; Jenny 1974):
- infinité circulaire du rituel caractérisé par la
danse du Gille, toujours la même et répétée
pendant toute la journée et la nuit, sous un rythme
spécifique. Une telle insistance chorégraphique,
reproduite à chaque instant et donnant l’illusion
d’un non-temps, est impliquée dans un mouve-
ment circulaire inhérent à toute gestualité sans but
ni direction, centrée sur elle-même et accomplie
pour son propre plaisir;
- infinité linéaire du nombre de Gilles groupés en
sociétés carnavalesques (en fait, dix groupes exclu-
sivement masculins regroupant 687 Gilles, en
1985), amplifiant la fictionnalité du Gille ainsi
multiplié;
- présence simultanée sur la scène binchoise
d’autres acteurs, à travers une juxtaposition et un
enchevêtrement de comportements différents, voi-
re incompatibles: parmi ces acteurs rompant toute
attention focalisée sur le Gille, on rencontre non
seulement des autres groupes binchois dits de
«fantaisie» - où émergent les costumes du «Prince
d’Orient» ou «Marin», du «Paysan» et du «Pierrot»
- mais aussi des acteurs «étrangers» dont les
nombreux touristes et les étudiants des diverses
universités de Belgique, profitant du terrain neutre
et ouvert que constitue la fête binchoise. Ceux-ci -
auxquels se mêlent d’autres jeunes -, sont vêtus de
leur tablier blanc bariolé d’inscriptions les plus
souvent pornographiques ou scatologiques ... et
aussi à la gloire de leur faculté; le mardi gras
binchois constitue pour eux une journée devenue
traditionnelle de «guindadle» et de comporte-
ments excentriques.
Par la présence de tels éléments, la fête
binchoise se donne à l’observateur comme un
moment de grande cacophonie visuelle et auditive,
mais aussi de décentrement du personnage Gille.
Danses sans fins des Gilles, multiplicité de ceux-ci,
présence simultanée de la guindadle estudiantine
et de la simple promenade du touriste: le mouve-
ment festif apparaît bien dans un premier temps
porteur d’une dimension secondaire, voire anti-
structurale. Mais comment, à travers cette configu-
ration rhétorique, la fête assure-t-elle sa régula-
tion? Une structuration implicite ne sous-tend-ede
pas cet ensemble désordonné?
1.2 L’idéalité unificatrice
Est-il exclu que le mouvement chorégraphique des
Gilles ait altéré, au fil des décennies, voire des
siècles, une forme rituelle stable? En tout cas, il est
encore possible d’insérer cette parade chorégra-
phique, associée à quelques gestes spécifiques,
dans une structure rituelle au moins implicite dont
l’objet idéal est l’union des Binchois autour des
Gilles: la progression unificatrice du rituel est
perceptible selon les quatre moments de la journée
(Piette 1986: 165-166):
L’aube
Les Gilles habitant les points extrêmes de la vide
reçoivent, dès l’aube, le «bourreur» qui vient
habiller le Gide et en particulier former ses deux
bosses bien serrées avec de la paille. L’«offrande»
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
329
d’un verre de champagne est de tradition lorsqu’ar-
rive le joueur de tambour. Celui-ci ne quitte plus le
Gille. Au rythme du tambour, ils se rendent chez
un Gille voisin qui les accueille aussi avec du
champagne. Tous deux vont chercher un autre
Gille et le même cérémonial se déroule dans sa
maison. Les groupes de Gilles constitués progres-
sivement se rassemblent selon leur «société» car-
navalesque dès huit heures du matin sur le haut de
la ville. Place de la Gare.
Cette phase rituelle se déroule ainsi à travers
les rues périphériques de la cité binchoise, dans les
moments d’obscurité nocturne ou de pénombre
matinale, entre les visites «privées» chez les Gilles.
Elle marque la première étape de la structure
unificatrice, entre le Gille, sa famille et les person-
nes qui l’aident à accomplir sa mission rituelle
(«bourreur», «tamboureur»).
Le matin
Les «sociétés» descendent au complet, les unes
après les autres, vers la Grand-place centrale. Au
rythme des tambours, des farandoles commencent
à se constituer autour des Gilles. Ceux-ci offrent
régulièrement le ramón (balai tronqué) à un(e)
ami(e) reconnu(e) qui le lui rend en faisant une
accolade et portent, dès dix heures, leur masque.
Avant de pénétrer à l’Hôtel de ville où le bourg-
mestre, entouré de ses conseillers communaux,
remettra une médaille aux Gilles les plus anciens,
chaque société effectue une ronde sur la Grand-
place.
Cette dernière phase marque donc la création
de la société de Gilles à partir de petits groupes,
l’arrivée des Gilles de la périphérie vers le centre et
leur maintien quasi permanent à l’intérieur. Cette
création est ainsi officialisée par le port du masque
et l’accueil à l’Hôtel de ville, où le bourgmestre
confirme la mission rituelle des Gilles.
L’après-midi
Après cette «sanction» positive du bourgmestre et
la pause de midi, les Gilles couronnés de leur
chapeau de plumes d’autruche se regroupent pour
un cortège allant de la place de Battignies (fau-
bourg naguère rural de Binche) vers la Grand-
place où toutes les sociétés formeront une ronde
globale. Le ramón a été remplacé par l’orange qui,
offerte ou lancée du panier d’osier, crée une
certaine animation dans le public massé sur les
trottoirs.
Pendant cette troisième phase, les Gilles sont
donc réunis pour la première fois dans un cortège
unique, se déplaçant d’un faubourg périphérique
vers le centre-ville. Il ne s’agit pas encore de la
consécration symbolique de l’union de toutes les
sociétés mais plutôt d’un jeu par lequel les Gilles
entrent en interaction avec les étudiants et les
touristes, leur lancent des oranges qu’ils cherchent
à attraper mais qu’ils ne peuvent relancer, témoig-
nant par là de leur exclusion.
Le soir
Le même cortège se répète le soir. Devant un
public beaucoup moins nombreux, les oranges ont
cédé la place aux feux de Bengale, créant une
ambiance plus intimiste dans les sociétés de Gilles
Fig.
1: Les Gilles masqués tien-
nent le ramón.
piiill®
i 1|
Anthropos 83.1988
330
Albert Flette
Fig. 2: La fierté du Gille coiffé de son prestigieux chapeau de
plumes d’autruche.
qui ont enlevé leur chapeau, avant la ronde finale
et un feu d’artifice se terminant par l’illumination
de la devise de la ville de Binche: «plus oultre», qui
était aussi celle de Charles Quint.
Après l’exclusion des étrangers, cette quatriè-
me phase marque bien l’apothéose de la structure
idéale de la fête, consacrant l’union de tous les
Gilles et, autour d’eux, des Binchois.
1.3 Le mouvement oscillatoire des pratiques festives
Un tel enchevêtrement de la secondarisation fic-
tionnelle et de l’idéalité unificatrice du rituel se
déploie, en fait, dans un double mouvement
oscillatoire, d’une part, entre la retransformation
ludique des pratiques festives et leur insertion dans
des enjeux survalorisants (comportementaux,
symboliques, sociaux), d’autre part, entre la codi-
fication structurale de ces pratiques festives et le
surgissement de brèches antistructurales (Rivière
1988).
1.3.1 La retransformation ludique
Quelle que soit la finalité unificatrice du rituel, il
paraît bien évident que les pratiques chorégraphi-
ques du Gille ont un effet ludique pour l’ensemble
des acteurs binchois n’hésitant jamais à battre du
pied dès qu’ils entendent leur rythme préféré, celui
des airs des Gilles. La finalité ludique de la fête est
d’autant plus perceptible que la structure idéale du
rituel est sans cesse interrompue par les arrêts-
cafés des Gilles buvant champagne ou bière,
qu’elle côtoie l’univers estudiantin de la guindaille
(drague, danse spontanée, cris, chants, beuveries,
. . .) et la déambulation indéterminée des touris-
tes. Si l’on suit la terminologie goffmanienne, on
se rend compte que les différentes dimensions du
cadre festif contiennent un impact ludique: la mo-
dalisation rituelle des Gilles (danse), les time-
out de la parade chorégraphique (arrêts-cafés), les
comportements en rupture de cadre (breaking
frame) par rapport à la danse rituelle (attitude
engagée des «students» indépendamment des Gil-
les et attitude non-engagée des touristes vêtus de
leur vêtement quotidien, non-intégrés dans les
groupes de Gilles). Mais ce sont les coulisses
festives qui expriment le plus la portée ludique de
la fête: le repas en famille de chaque Gille, le mardi
gras à midi, l’intensité de l’exaltation chorégraphi-
que la nuit après le feu d’artifice et dès que les
spectateurs ont quitté la ville, dans les rues
périphériques où divers cafés sont réservés à la
«guindaille» estudiantine, mais aussi avant le jour
J: le dimanche gras, en travestis variés et libres, les
(futurs) Gilles se regroupent surtout entre amis au
sein de leur société et hésitent moins sur la quantité
de boissons absorbées; le lundi gras, c’est en
famille qu’ils peuvent danser (non déguisés) au
rythme d’un orgue de Barbarie portatif et partager
un repas au restaurant. Dans la semaine précédant
les jours gras, la nuit dite des «Trouilles de
Nouilles» (truies de nuits) leur permet même de
pratiquer le carnaval d’intrigues, sous les masques
les plus cocasses. Il est ainsi facile de constater que
la dimension ludique est d’autant plus nette que
l’on s’éloigne de la modalisation rituelle (idéale et
secondaire) de la fête.
1.3.2 La pénétration d’éléments survalorisants
Cette observation des limites ludiques de la moda-
lisation rituelle du cadre festif doit être mise en
rapport direct avec l’existence d’éléments survalo-
risants qui semblent insérer la fête dans un cadre
réel comme s’ils effaçaient son impact de seconda-
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
331
risation fictionnelle. C’est dans une telle perspec-
tive qu'E. Goffmann parlerait de «sous-modalisa-
tion» de la dimension ludique de la fête (Goffmann
1974: 311-314). De tels éléments se repèrent
d'abord dans la logique comportementale des
Gilles astreints à des règles spécifiques promul-
guées par une association locale dite «pour la
défense du folklore binchois»: c’est que les Gilles
doivent respecter le rythme des pas de danse, leur
tenue vestimentaire, éviter les abus de boissons,
les cheveux sur la nuque dépassant la barrette, ne
pas porter leur masque sur le front, ni manger des
frites en rue, ni encore danser avec une femme
dans un café. Evitant les mains dans les poches, ils
ne peuvent pas, dans la mesure du possible, quitter
leur groupe sans un joueur de tambour, ni se
déplacer en dehors de Binche. En cas de manque-
ments graves à ces règlements, des exclusions son
prévues. Des «commissaires» sont d’ailleurs dési-
gnés dans chaque société pour veiller au bon
ordre.
La nature de l’engagement chorégraphique du
Gille peut ainsi se préciser par le triple aspect de
son contenu:
- prestigieux: par les dentelles, rubans plissés,
chapeau de plumes d’autruche et garnitures héral-
diques;
- amplifié: par la double bosse, la hauteur du
chapeau, le bruit du tambour, du grelot et des
clochettes (impliquant une amplification sonore);
- hiératique (figé): par les sabots, le costume de
toile, le poids du chapeau et la contrainte des
bosses.
Fig. 3: Le Gille: le costume amplifié, l’attitude hiératique.
Fig. 4: Un groupe de Gilles
constitue un bloc bien compact,
Privilégiant une attitude digne du
Personnage.
Anthropos 83.1988
332
Albert Flette
Fig. 5: La distance réservée des
Gilles se tenant par le ramon, lors
de la ronde du matin.
La fierté globale du Binchois envers le Gille
entraîne sans difficulté une conformité à la norme
ambiante et aux règles rituelles. La déférente
présentation du Gille se marque par quelques
signes particuliers. Ainsi, dans ce véritable mono-
lithe ambulant que représente une société de Gilles
dansant, les contacts physiques (au-delà du simple
froissement de vêtements) et les échanges verbaux
sont quasi inexistants. Dans les phases de relâche-
ment, lorsque le groupe s’arrête et que les Gilles se
dispersent dans la limite du périmètre constitué par
parents et amis, ils éviteront toute compromission:
alors que nous nous préparions à photographier un
Gille tenant un verre de bière (le champagne fait
«mieux») et un autre fumant une cigarette (beau-
coup éviteraient ces gestes à l’extérieur), tous deux
ont rapidement abandonné leur verre et écrasé la
cigarette ... . Le Gille peut embrasser un(e)
ami(e) reconnu(e) mais, à cet effet, doit lui lancer
le ramon, sortir de son groupe et l’embrasser . . .
tout amicalement. Les distances qui séparent les
Gilles dans leur ronde sont aussi significatives: ce
n’est d’ailleurs pas la main mais le ramon ou le
panier (vide) d’oranges qui les unit. Tout aussi
figée, la danse idéale du Gille doir éviter les
sautillements trop brusques ou intenses.
Dans cette perspective, comment se régulent
les contacts entre les Gilles ainsi survalorisés, les
touristes et les étudiants? Dans cette fête qui a
conquis une renommée internationale, le Gille
refuse aux nombreux touristes tout droit de parti-
cipation à sa fête: son attitude et son geste
hautains, sa quasi négation intentionnelle du tou-
riste (par son arrivée en retard lors des cortèges ou
l’unilatéralité du jet d’oranges) en témoignent.
Peu informé sur le spectacle qu’il regarde, le
touriste ne peut d’ailleurs s’y impliquer. Le souhai-
te-t-il? Sans doute pas: il a gardé ses vêtements
quotidiens témoins de son non-engagement et
emmené sa «cellule» familiale .... Fermé à toute
rencontre, il devra cependant accepter, par son
espace personnel réduit, la bousculade de la foule.
Toujours dans une attitude expectative, il se place
derrière les barrières, regardant le cortège, puis se
satisfait d’un va-et-vient dans la rue principale . . .
entre une collation et un rafraîchissement. Quant
aux étudiants venus par groupes des différents
centres universitaires de Belgique, leur fête se
caractérise, sur le terrain «neutre» que constitue
l’espace binchois, par la spontanéité et la réversi-
bilité, sans crainte des conséquences de la spécifi-
cité de leur engagement. Dans une tenue vestimen-
taire marquée par la simplicité, la souplesse et
même la malpropreté, (tablier blanc avec inscrip-
tions scatologiques ou pornographiques), l’étu-
diant boit (mais sans programme de cafés, et dans
la beuverie la plus complète allant jusqu’à l’ivres-
se dès les premières heures) ou danse (avec la plus
parfaite spontanéité et mobilité). Succédant aux
Gilles sur la Grand-place, ils font aussi leur ronde
. . . bras dessus bras dessous. Quant aux baisers et
à leur impact érotique, ils n’ont pas besoin de les
dissimuler. Leur territoire personnel réduit au
minimum est d’ailleurs ouvert à toute nouvelle
rencontre. A la différence des Gilles, leur mobilité
et dispersion dans l’espace festif contribuent d’ail-
leurs à maximaliser leurs chances de rencontre.
En fait, cinq moyens semblent mis en place
par les Gilles pour réduire les sources d’imprévisi-
bilité que peuvent constituer de telles pratiques
festives:
- la création d’un itinéraire de «délestage» dans
les rues adjacentes à la Grand-place où de nom-
breux cafés sont exclusivement réservés à l’am-
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
333
Fig. 6: Les étudiants envahis-
sent la Grand-place à travers la
spontanéité et la mobilité la plus
complète.
biance estudiantine et des «boums» y sont organi-
sées sans interruption toute la journée. En plus du
parc, des fourrés, des remparts . . trois cafés si-
tués sur la rue principale sont encore réservés aux
étudiants: dans chacun de ceux-ci où plus de trois
mille verres sont cassés, emportés, tout le mobilier
(tables, chaises, lustres) est enlevé pour laisser
libre cours à la «guindaille»;
- l’installation de barrières séparant d’emblée la
rue (lieu de la scène des Gilles) du trottoir réservé
aux autres; tout contact est ainsi évité entre les uns
et les autres;
- le surgissement de règles plus ou moins explici-
tes: l’étudiant sait qu’il ne peut relancer l’orange à
moins d’être dangereusement bombardé, de même
que l’ami(e) ne relance pas le ramon pour ne pas
compromettre la danse des Gilles;
- l’intervention des forces de police, en tête du
Fig. 7: Le plaisir de lancer de:
oranges sans crainte d'être à sor
tour bombardé.
Anthropos 83.1988
334
Albert Flette
cortège, faisant reculer les «students» occupant la
rue principale et la Grand-place. A travers ce
mélange du jeu et de la réalité où l’absence de
coercition physique n’exclut pas les taquineries
verbales, le bon déroulement du cortège ne paraît
pas possible sans la présence des forces de l’or-
dre;
- la création d’une zone-tampon, moyen décisif
pour éviter les contacts avec toute source imprévi-
sible. De même que nous avions remarqué l’ampli-
fication vestimentaire du Gille, il faut aussi obser-
ver l’agrandissement de son territoire personnel
non seulement par le bruit émanant des sonnettes,
grelots, sabots et tambours mais surtout par les
farandoles (de parents et amis) dansant autour et
derrière les sociétés de Gilles et renforçant l’aspect
monolithique de celles-ci. Lorsqu’il se rend au
départ du cortège, toujours accompagné d’un
joueur de tambour ou d’un de ses «serviteurs» du
moment (porteur d’oranges, du chapeau), le Gille
est bien fermé à tout contact. De tels «serviteurs»
rappellent d’ailleurs, comme nous allons le voir, la
réappropriation bourgeoise du Gille au XIXe
siècle qui était alors accompagné par de tels
«porteurs» . . . incapables de se payer le presti-
gieux costume du personnage principal.
Mais comment précisément expliquer une
telle présentation «sérieuse» de ce clown hybride
qu’est en fait le Gille? C’est d’ailleurs une telle
image que nous avait laissée la Commedia dell’arte
insistant sur sa niaiserie poltronne ou sentimenta-
le. S’il paraît incontestable, vu une certaine ana-
logie vestimentaire, que le personnage binchois est
bien issu des tréteaux du théâtre populaire (Glotz
1949: 179-185), comment donc expliquer une telle
transformation comportementale? Sans trop in-
sister sur les données historiques pour lesquelles
nous nous permettons de renvoyer à d’autres
études (Glotz 1949: 156-175 et Piette 1986:
170-172), l’explication doit faire intervenir les
niveaux symbolique et social auxquels le Gille est
associé.
Les orientations symboliques du «Gille»
Le Gille de Binche est aujourd’hui inséré dans un
ordre symbolique à partir duquel est défini ce qui
peut être pensé à son sujet et ce qu’il peut faire,
l’ensemble impliquant une forte mobilisation af-
fective. Les textes publiés par S. Glotz, historien
local et conservateur honoraire du musée du
carnaval à Binche, constituent sans doute le
meilleur support pour déchiffrer cet ordre symbo-
lique. La substance de ces textes, publiés sous la
forme de trois monographies (du carnaval) très
semblables, puis divulgués par des bulletins d’in-
formation émanant de l’administration communa-
le, se perçoit au mieux lorsque l’auteur évoque
l’origine du Gille, telle qu’il la conçoit. La légende
qui faisait fi des données historiques est ainsi
concurrencée par une explication scientifique fon-
dée sur le raisonnement analogique et associant ce
personnage fictif à un signifié unique autour
duquel les orientations symboliques se déploient:
Au-delà des influences subies, l’essentiel (fa danse au son du
fifre et du tambour, le masque, les sonnailles, les us et
coutumes, l’attitude presque sacerdotale) relie notre Gille, à
travers les siècles et les métamorphoses, à l’antique cycle des
traditions carnavalesques. Sur ce point, il est le frère de tous ces
danseurs masqués et emplumés qui sont perdus ou relégués
dans toute l’Europe, de la Roumanie au Tyrol, de la Forêt
Noire au Pays Basque, de la Bulgarie à la Suisse .... Nous
n’ignorons plus pourquoi le carnaval ne s’offre pas à nous
comme un spectacle. Le Gille dansant tient son rôle rituélique,
officiant, célébrant la fête du renouveau, exorcisant les démons
et appelant la fécondité sur la terre. Nos festivités constituent
un maillon de cette longue chaîne de la célébration universelle
du retour du printemps. Notre Gille est le grand-prêtre de cette
célébration. Voilà qui explique la force de nos traditions et qui
en enrichit la valeur évocatrice (Glotz 1949: 175).
Les orientations symboliques mobilisatrices,
repérables dans ce texte, peuvent se représenter
selon les trois couples suivants dont un des deux
pôles est chargé d’une valence positive ou négati-
ve: passé+/futur-, intérieur +/extérieur-, contrain-
te “'“/liberté-.
Le premier axe valorise la fête binchoise
comme fête traditionnelle et compare le Gille, son
personnage principal, à de nombreux danseurs de
fêtes européennes. Selon S. Glotz, l’extension
temporelle et spatiale du Gille fait «remonter (la
fête), sans importante solution de continuité,
jusqu’à une époque où la pratique assurait, par
exemple, des finalités rituelles, où la communauté
participait naturellement, spontanément à la créa-
tion» (1983: 79). Dans cette perspective, le carna-
val de Binche est opposé à toute fête touristico-
commerciale et créé de toutes pièces par quelque
syndicat d’initiative engageant la destinée de la
fête, en même temps que la sienne .... L’acteur
Gille est ainsi bien convaincu de la dimension
traditionnelle de son carnaval; «Il doit rester une
tradition», dit un Gille (68 ans). «Les amusements,
il y en a d’autres. L’amusement, c’est le plaisir de
danser le rythme de la tradition ... .» De nom-
breuses pratiques témoignent du désir de fixer
certains éléments selon le modèle historique le plus
ancien possible. C’est ainsi que les gravures de la
fin du siècle dernier ont incité quelques Binchois à
allonger le ramon (raccourci à vingt-cinq centimè-
tres) jusqu’à quarante-cinq centrimètres. Il fallut
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
335
encore la bonne volonté d’un artisan binchois pour
fournir les sabots en pointe . . . comme «jadis» et
d'un autre pour conserver les «vrais» masques de
cire menacés après la reconversion de l’usine
française (Saumur) qui les fabriquait. En plus des
services culturels de l’administration communale
qui ne manque pas d’assurer une diffusion (locale
et extra-locale) de l’image du Gille, la ville de
Binche a créé un musée international du carnaval
et du masque. Par ce musée, présentant de riches
expositions sur les différents types de masques du
monde entier et visualisant sa «parenté« avec
d’autres masques et costumes carnavalesques issus
de fêtes traditionnelles européennes, on ne pou-
vait mieux honorer le Gille.
Selon le deuxième axe, l’orientation tradition-
nelle de la fête entraîne une valorisation de son
authenticité exclusivement locale. S. Glotz s’oppo-
se non seulement aux déplacements commerciaux
altérant l’aspect authentique d’un groupe folklori-
que traditionnel mais aussi aux imitations «merce-
naires» de certains se vantant d’une égale authen-
ticité. Cette valorisation locale du carnaval impli-
que une véritable «osmose» entre la population
binchoise et son Gille. «L’âme d’une tradition
sourd de l’ensemble de la communauté locale»,
écrit S. Glotz, évoquant l’imaginaire unanimiste
qui surgit à Binche à l’occasion du carnaval (1983:
179-180).
Personnage authentiquement local et tradi-
tionnel, le Gille est encore présenté sous un aspect
très sérieux dont la gravité et la solennité le
différencient du «pitre anachronique destiné à
amuser la galerie» (Glotz 1975; 49). En valorisant
le Gille comme «grand-prêtre» dont le «rôle
rituélique» est de féconder la terre, S. Glotz réussit
à donner un sens global aux principaux gestes
(d’ailleurs bien peu nombreux) du personnage.
Quel Binchois ne répète-t-il pas que la danse du
Gille féconde la terre, que le ramon chasse les
mauvais esprits et que le don de l’orange constitue
une offrande par laquelle on espère recevoir plus
qu’on n’a donné? Autant d’interprétations animis-
tes qui servent à maintenir différents rituels du
carnaval, en leur donnant un sens. Il est donc
logique qu'un tel personnage soit soumis à diffé-
rentes règles pendant l’exercice de son rituel.
C’est à cet effet que, dans les années septante,
fut créée une association pour la défense du
folklore binchois dont les stipulations témoignant
du désir de maintenir la dignité du personnage
impliquent la logique comportementale décrite
plus haut. Un Gille, ouvrier à Binche (57 ans),
n’est-il pas venu nous dire que «les règlements ne
sont pas encore assez sévères»? Même les jeunes
partagent ce respect de la tradition: «si le carnaval
n’était pas un amusement, je ne le ferais pas. Mais
je veux absolument que la tradition soit mainte-
nue» nous dit un Gille de dix-neuf ans. Promoteur
de cette association, le bourgmestre de la ville ne
craint jamais d’intervenir pour rappeler la nécessi-
té du respect de «la tradition». Personnage oblige!
Ces règlements «officieux» allaient paraître insuf-
fisants. S. Glotz va jusqu’à préconiser l’interven-
tion des pouvoirs politiques: «De même qu’il existe
une législation spécifique destinée à la sauvegarde
des monuments et des sites, ... il convient aussi
d’avoir une loi protégeant, contre les germes de
dégradation, les valeurs traditionnelles .... Elle
reconnaîtrait le droit de propriété des communes
sur leurs usages spécifiques. Par exemple, on ne
permettrait plus à un individu habillé d’une défro-
que de gille, de se livrer à une caricature des usages
binchois, en distribuant des prospectus à l’entrée
d’un grand magasin de Charleroi, en mendiant
d’un café à l’autre, en vendant des cartes postales
aux passants. Cette législation, peu tâtillonne,
fournirait à l’Etat le pouvoir de s’opposer aux
abus» (1975: 49).
Citation un peu longue mais combien signifi-
cative de l’attitude fière et exclusive du Binchois
devant son Gille, méfiante et méprisante vis-à-vis
des autres Gilles imitateurs mais aussi jalouse des
succès de foule qu’ils peuvent parfois rencontrer.
En attendant l’intervention des pouvoir politiques
. . ., le Binchois se satisfait du nouveau statut
juridique, via la création d’une A.S.B.L. (associa-
tion sans but lucratif), accordé à l’association de
défense du folklore binchois. Désormais, la fabri-
cation du masque du Gille et l’appellation «Gille
de Binche», éléments constitutifs d’une marque
officiellement déposée (auprès du Bureau Bénélux
des Masques à La Haye) et donc propriété binchoi-
se exclusive, ont trouvé protection légale .... Un
huissier de justice, accompagné de quelques Bin-
chois, aurait même pris des photos du masque du
Gille ... au carnaval de La Louvière (ville
voisine).
La réalisation parfaite du projet symbolique
que constitue, dans la fête binchoise, l’acte de faire
le Gille implique donc une mobilisation affective
de l’acteur selon une triple orientation valorisant la
dimension historique et traditionnelle du person-
nage authentiquement local, et aussi élitiste et
donc contraignante. A partir d’une telle orienta-
tion, le projet vers l’acte idéal de «faire le Gille»
instaure directement une hiérarchie selon les
positions occupées par rapport au modèle parfait
du Gille. Celles-ci sont en fait dépendantes des
déterminations sociales des différents acteurs insé-
Anthropos 83.1988
336
Albert Piatte
rés eux-mêmes dans un processus historique qui a
débuté vers le milieu du XIXe siècle.
Les enjeux sociaux de la fête
Globalement, on peut dire que le Gille a profité à
cette époque de la nouvelle prospérité de la ville
de Binche, grâce à l’industrie du vêtement. Le cos-
tume confectionné par les tailleurs locaux qu’eux
seuls d’abord portaient s’est enrichi de divers
éléments prestigieux cités plus haut (chapeau de
plumes d’autruche, collerette, rubans, dentelles,
décorations héraldiques, . . .) tandis que la bour-
geoisie industrielle de la ville trouvait dans le
nouveau personnage un signe d’identification. De
plus, une légende émanant d’intellectuels locaux
procurait au Gille une généalogie à la fois aristo-
cratique et locale, en rapprochant principalement le
prestigieux chapeau du Gille et celui du gentilhom-
me castillan présent en 1549 à Binche, lorsque
Marie de Hongrie y reçut son frère Charles Quint.
Le contenu légendaire s’impose bientôt comme un
dogme au Binchois qui n’aime pas discuter ce que
son instituteur ou ses parents lui ont conté à propos
de la dignité historique du Gille, non confirmée
par les faits historiques mais bien au goût exotique
du romantisme contemporain et en rapport direct
avec un moment prestigieux du passé de la ville.
Alors que la fête commençait dès la fin du
XIXe siècle à s’organiser et à connaître un succès
grandissant autour du Gille, comment les autres
personnages carnavalesques allaient-ils réagir?
Deux possibilités s’offraient à eux: créer de
nouveaux modèles de costumes ou de comporte-
ments pour concurrencer le Gille ou bien adopter
son comportement pour s’identifier au Gille. La
logique concurrentielle n’allait en fait pas résister à
la logique mimétique; existant déjà en 1877, un
groupe de petits ouvriers des faubourgs de Binche
se déguisaient en «marins», sans doute à cause du
goût de l’époque pour les voyages et le prestige
qu’ils représentaient par rapport à la vie quotidien-
ne. En 1920 encore, les «Marins» qui défilaient le
mardi gras jusque dix heures au rythme d’airs de
fantaisie (et non de Gilles) participaient, accom-
pagnés de leur épouse, à des réjouissances exté-
rieures. Mais peu à peu, devant se soumettre aux
règlements des Gilles, ils abandonnent leurs pro-
pres airs et imitent en tous points le comportement
du Gille.
Aujourd’hui, entre les Gilles et les «Princes
d’Orient» dont le déguisement remplace celui des
Marins et concerne la même frange sociale (petits
ouvriers habitant les faubourgs de Binche), existe,
en même temps qu’une attitude discriminatoire
des Gilles les considérant comme des gens «sans
éducation» et peu fréquentables par leur renom-
mée de «batailleurs», une volonté pour les Prin-
ces d’Orient de s’assimiler aux Gilles: «Les Ma-
rins ou les Princes d’Orient, ce sont des Gilles, en
fait. Il n’y a pas de différences, on fait les mêmes
gestes.»
Le costume des Princes d’Orient révèle d’ail-
leurs ce besoin d’imiter sous le mode du «simili» le
costume du Gille, composé d’un pantalon blanc et
d’une cape (blanche le matin, rouge l’après-midi)
attachée aux épaules par deux boutons dorés,
décorée d’un pendentif et complété par un turban
doré avec un rubis et des souliers dorés.
Deux groupes d’enfants ont aussi adopté un
comportement excluant toute logique concurren-
tielle par rapport aux Gilles. D’abord, les «Pay-
sans» dont l’origine remonterait à la participation,
au XIXe siècle, des paysans au Carnaval, portent,
en plus d’éléments se référant à un contexte rural
comme le sarrau et la gibecière, une barrette, une
collerette et aussi un chapeau de plumes qui, moins
nombreuses que chez le Gille, retombent sur le
chapeau. Des souliers vernis pourraient représen-
ter un signe d’assimilation au caractère urbain du
Gille. Depuis 1977, l’identification du «Paysan» au
Gille se précise par la reprise du masque (sans les
moustaches). Comme les Paysans, pris en charge
par une école secondaire de Binche, les Pierrots
joués par des enfants d’une école maternelle et
primaire ont adopté le comportement du Gille
dans les différents moments de la journée. En plus
de la famille comme relais de continuité du goût du
Carnaval, les écoles apparaissent bien comme un
lieu de socialisation nécessaire à l’autoreproduc-
tion de la fête. La première intervient surtout pour
les «vrais» Binchois, puisque les airs carnavales-
ques sont joués à toutes les fêtes de la saison et le
Gille est présenté comme le héros traditionnel de
la ville. Les écoles valent surtout pour les nou-
veaux habitants de Binche. S’il veut faire le carna-
val, l’élève d’écoles de la ville devra s’habiller en
Pierrot ou Paysan. Ainsi, avec ses amis binchois, il
pourra déjà s’initier au rythme de la danse du Gille
et, quand il quittera l’école, rare sera celui qui ne
fera pas le Gille dans un groupe d’adultes.
La structuration du carnaval liée à l’idéalisa-
tion des Gilles dont le nombre allait sans cesse
croître (98 en 1880, 141 en 1901, 530 en 1930) est
parallèle à la création des premiers groupes carna-
valesques, appelés «sociétés» comme s’ils conte-
naient un micro-univers social représentatif des
rapports sociaux de la ville. Leurs promoteurs
appartenaient à la bourgeoisie industrielle et com-
merciale de l’époque. Parmi ces sociétés rayon-
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
337
Fig. 8: Les «Paysans» coiffés
d'un chapeau plus discret lancent
aussi des oranges.
nantes de prestige pour la population binchoise,
deux existent encore ajourd’hui: la société des
«Récalcitrants» et celle des «Indépendants», fon-
dées respectivement en 1899 et 1923. Le nombre
croissant de Gilles mais aussi les conflits de
générations liés à de nouvelles orientations socio-
professionnelles provoquèrent des discussions au
sein de ces groupes et la naissance de trois
nouveaux: les «Réguenaires,» créés par quelques
jeunes «enrichis» au lendemain de la guerre, les
«Incorruptibles» et les «Jeunes Indépendants»,
fondés respectivement en 1972 et 1979 par des
jeunes plutôt aisés et intellectuels ne supportant
plus la direction de leurs aînés.
Face à ces sociétés, d’autres, composées
surtout d’ouvriers ou petits artisans (il y en avait
quatre en 1984 et 1985), ont été créées à partir de
réunions d’amis dans des cafés ou au club de
football. En 1957, une société comprenant «les
sympathisants et camarades du parti ouvrier» reçut
le soutien du parti socialiste. Mais toutes suivront
le modèle du Gille.
Entre ces diverses sociétés que les Binchois
connotent de degrés différents de prestige, quel-
ques rivalités ou jalousies, toujours minimisées,
existent. Elles se manifestent, en particulier lors-
que, pendant les journées préparatoires, deux
sociétés se croisent dans la rue et font jouer leur
«batterie» le plus fort possible afin d’entraîner
l’autre à l’erreur. De telles rivalités ont surtout lieu
lorsque deux groupes «prestigieux» se croisent,
comme si le manque d’enjeu social entre les
premiers et les autres supprimait l’intérêt d’une
rivalité de batteries. Au carnaval 1984, tard dans la
nuit, la rencontre des «Indépendants» et «Jeunes
Indépendants», sans doute échauffés par la bois-
son, se termina par des coups et des injures.
D’autres signes permettent encore de distinguer
les sociétés plus ou moins prestigieuses; les premiè-
res savourent un petit déjeuner aux huîtres, au
mardi gras, leurs membres portent le plus souvent
le chapeau de plumes, font partie des comités
organisateurs de la fête et recherchent plus une
accumulation de leur capital relationnel qu’une
évasion momentanée en dehors du morne quoti-
dien. Les autres arborent le plus souvent une tenue
moins parfaite, contrôlent plus difficilement les
boissons absorbées; les «Princes d’Orient» ou les
«Marins» ne se faisant aucun scrupule d’une allure
plus relâchée et moins respectueuse. Selon cette
perspective, l’énumération fictionnelle des Gilles
se mêle aux enjeux sociaux impliqués par la
hiérarchie des différents groupes.
Une hiérarchie est également établie parmi les
Gilles entre les «vrais» Binchois et les autres,
comme si les premiers étaient plus soucieux de la
tradition et possédaient de façon quasi innée le
rythme du pas de danse. Les nouveaux habitants
de Binche qui désirent faire le Gille devront,
entraînés par des amis ou des parents afin de
s’intégrer dans une société, se montrer très atten-
tifs au respect de la tradition, qu’ils n’auront qu’à
intellectualiser, à défaut de la sentir.
Anthropos 83.1988
338
Albert Flette
1.3.3 La réappropriation «ludique» des éléments
sous-modalisateurs
Mais si le cadre festif a la particularité de permettre
la pénétration d’éléments sous-modalisateurs ten-
dant à effacer sa fictionnalité ludique, il permet en
même temps une réappropriation simplifiée de
ceux-ci. Reprenons quelques exemples pour clari-
fier notre propos: l’amplification idéologique du
Gille, symbole d’identité collective reconnu par
l’ensemble de la population binchoise, est néan-
moins intégrée dans un discours populaire on ne
peut plus simple: «Le Gille, il est lié à Marie de
Hongrie . . . aux fêtes qu’elle a données à Binche.»
Et c’est tout! La fête n’exige pas de l’acteur une
compréhension plus complète du personnage. «Le
Gille, c’est un personnage ancien», retient-on. Et
tel est bien le message que l’on veut faire passer à
Binche, à propos de ce clown hybride personnifié
en seigneur castillan ou danseur du renouveau. Le
procédé de création d’une dimension survalorisant
un élément festif et de réappropriation plus ou
moins distante de celui-ci se retrouve au niveau
«juridique» des groupes de Gilles se présentant
comme des «sociétés», comme s’ils contenaient en
eux-mêmes un micro-univers social représentatif
des rapports sociaux dans la ville. L’exclusion,
sanction principale de ces groupes binchois, a-t-
elle déjà été appliquée? La force des groupes
festifs ne réside-t-elle pas surtout dans leur partici-
pation volontaire, leur degré d’intériorisation du
rituel et donc l’acceptation a priori de ses règles?
On se rend compte ainsi que le cadre disciplinaire
fonctionne comme un ensemble de simples directi-
ves en vue de «socialiser» les jeunes ou les
nouveaux résidents, dans l’esprit de la tradition
soustraite aux influences extérieures, ou sous
forme de bluff pour confirmer la dignité du Gille.
La survalorisation juridique maximale a été attein-
te dans le dépôt de la fabrication du masque du
Gille et de l’appellation «Gille de Binche». Mais
détourner cette loi n’est sans doute pas difficile.
Les Gilles de La Louvière n’ont-ils pas le même
masque que ceux de Binche, ... à cette différence
près qu’ils sont constitués dans du plastique et non
pas en cire?
Nous avons essayé de montrer l’enjeu social
des pratiques festives. Le Gille qui réunit en
lui-même la dignité historique du danseur du
renouveau, la richesse sociale du bourgeois du
XIXe siècle et la fascination imaginaire du costume
se pose en valeur symbolique et modèle de
référence. Il est ainsi à la source d’un discours
unanimiste organisé pendant la période festive
autour d’un surplus symbolique qui semble le
soustraire à toute implication avec le quotidien. Il
sécrète en même temps une hiérarchie dans les
«sociétés» (voilée mais à propos de laquelle tous
les Binchois s’accorderaient pour définir le classe-
ment) selon leur réalisation plus ou moins parfaite
du comportement idéal quant à sa dignité gestuelle
et la richesse du costume dont le port du presti-
gieux chapeau de plumes est un indice différentiel.
Ainsi, les rapports hiérarchiques les plus extrêmes
sont possibles dans la fête: la différence des Gilles
et des Princes d’Orient est nettement affirmée, la
bagarre entre deux sociétés en 1984, les joutes de
batteries en confirment l’intensité. Mais le cadre
festif, en même temps qu’il crée des attitudes
extrêmes, permet de les brouiller et même de les
effacer. Ainsi il peut compenser une position
sociale par une somptueuse réception des Gilles
(de matin) ou un prestigieux travesti arboré: tel est
d’ailleurs le cas des Princes d’Orient et de nom-
breux Gilles dont l’identité vestimentaire permet
de confondre les différences sociales. Encore plus
remarquable est la réversibilité (absence de consé-
quences) d’une bagarre entre Gilles, d’emblée
minimisée et voilée après la fête.
L’argent constitue aussi un apport survalori-
sant les pratiques festives. A Binche, l’argent
dépensé au carnaval s’insère dans un circuit quasi
fermé et limité à la ville. Les dépenses surtout
individuelles du Gille (en moyenne, 25 000 FB
pour l’ensemble de la fête dont plus ou moins
10 000 FB pour le seul costume du Gille) profitent
aux confectionneurs de costumes et aux cafetiers
locaux, tandis que l’apport financier des «étran-
gers» permet à ces commerçants de soutenir les
sociétés de Gilles. Ainsi, dans le cadre festif, la
conjonction étonnante de ces dépenses individuel-
les constitue le défi financier de la fête. Ses finalités
sont diverses: ostentatoires (dans la prestance
individuelle du Gille), attractives (selon la logique
du spectacle) ou ludiques (dans les dépenses de
boissons, en particulier). Mais, comme pour les
aspects précédents, le défi financier ne peut se
comprendre que par rapport à sa réversibilité et
son éclatement, le jour de la fête, à travers le
déroulement des pratiques festives, comme si
passer au-delà du sérieux qotidien n’entraînait plus
de conséquences: le costume du Gille et surtout
son chapeau de plumes dont il est si fier, est
froissé, éclaboussé dans la cohue festive, à peine
regardé par la masse des spectateurs ignorants de
sa signification. Tel est l’argent festif, oscillant
entre le défi valorisateur et la vanité de la
pratique.
Par le discours, le juridique, le social et
l’économique, la fête semble créer un au-delà du
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
339
sérieux qui lui permet d’exercer un jeu avec
l’idéologie, la règle, la hiérarchie ou l’argent: ainsi,
l’idéologie de la fête réappropriée selon des degrés
simplifiés de compréhension (sinon oubliée); les
règles dont le bluff n’exige pas une application
stricte; les rapports sociaux affirmés mais, en
même temps, brouillés ou réversibles; l’argent
excédant et gaspillé.
1.3.4 Codification structurale et brèche
antistructurale
En plus de cette oscillation entre les éléments
sous-modalisateurs et l’impact ludique des prati-
ques festives, le cadre de la fête permet encore une
tension dialectique entre le degré de codification
rituelle et le surgissement d’une brèche antistruc-
turale. C’est ainsi que la fête carnavalesque privi-
légie une extrême codification vestimentaire, ne
laissant pratiquement aucune place à l’improvisa-
tion: seulement dans le découpage des figures en
feutrine sur le costume du Gille, à peine percep-
tible à l’observateur extérieur. Le geste rituel est
aussi réglementé que le vêtement: de la danse des
Gilles, les variantes individuelles sont parfois
difficiles à saisir. Le pas est d’ailleurs décrit avec
précision: «Les pieds sont appliqués à plat sur le
sol, tandis qu’une détente pose vigoureusement le
pied contre le sol. Le rythme de cet exercice est
asymétrique, le temps long valant environ 1,5 fois
le temps court» (Collaer 1962: 33).
Mais sur ce fond d’extrême codification surgit
une forte antistructure rendant floues et même
menaçant les limites du cadre festif. La fête
binchoise permet ainsi de distinguer quelques
sources d’antistructure:
L’impact de la composante affective
L’exécution rigoureuse du pas «traditionnel» n’ex-
clut pas nécessairement un vécu émotionnel du
Gille dansant, exprimé dans le frisson matinal,
mêlé à la portée ludique du jet d’oranges (parfois
violent) ou exalté dans le plaisir plus chaleureux du
soir. Cette sensation d’agir dans un certain enga-
gement, sans besoin d’une intervention consciente
n’atteint jamais, à Binche, la limite de rupture de
cadre (breaking frame) par une perte de contrôle
des Gilles. En effet, la focalisation du rituel du
Gille sur le seul mouvement chorégraphique im-
plique, pendant toute sa durée, une légère distance
avec celui-ci, en même temps que la maîtrise du
geste dont la répétition infinie et l’absorption de
champagne ou de bière pourrait entraîner l’acteur
dans des excès dommageables . . . pour sa réputa-
tion. Plus qu’un engagement total, les Gilles
laissent parfois apparaître, à travers cette distance,
un risque de désengagement par rapport à la
modalisation rituelle que constitue l’acte de faire le
Gille. En témoignent les brèves conversations des
Gilles dansant au sein de leur groupe, leurs regards
perdus et indifférents, comme s’ils étaient «en
dehors du cadre» (out-of frame activity) ou cher-
chant un spectateur par souci ostentatoire.
L’existence d’une pause rituelle (time-out)
Tels sont les arrêts-cafés des Gilles mettant en
brèche, comme on l’a indiqué, la structure idéale
du rituel. Programmés, organisés par un système
de cagnotte, ils se déroulent cependant dans la
dignité comportementale habituelle du Gille. Mais
celle-ci est loin d’exclure toute possibilité pour le
Gille de s’asseoir . . . décemment dans le café ou
de manger quelques frites . . . avec une certaine
discrétion. Ainsi, la forme structurale d’un rituel
suscite toujours une antistructure elle-même inté-
grée progressivement dans la première tout en
laissant une possibilité de distance.
Le surgissement d’un geste improvisé
Tel fut peut-être le cas à l’origine de ces arrêts-
cafés ou des oranges lancées avec une portée
ludique vers les spectateurs, remplaçant progressi-
vement le paisible don originel.
Le dérapage du rituel
Il est provoqué par des acteurs étrangers à la fête,
en rupture de cadre par rapport au rituel central:
ce furent, à Binche, les étudiants lançant des
pétards et maintenant une attitude de violence
systématique envers les Gilles. L’intervention des
organisateurs et, en particulier, des autorités
communales fut nécessaire pour faire comprendre
auprès des cercles facultaires la nécessité du bon
déroulement rituel. Leur recul devant les forces de
l’ordre, lors du cortège des Gilles, atteste leur
acceptation du rituel de ceux-ci et leur relative
intégration dans l’ensemble de la fête.
L’expression d’une différenciation sociale
Elle peut s’exprimer, au niveau vestimentaire, par
le port de l’imposant chapeau de plumes d’autru-
che à l’ampleur toujours croissante, d’un costume
plus ou moins neuf, et, au niveau gestuel, par
l’allure plus ou moins respectueuse vis-à-vis de la
Anthropos 83.1988
340
Albert Flette
tradition (comme on l'a montré) ou la participation
à un déjeuner aux huîtres. Les joutes de batterie
entre certaines sociétés visant à faire perdre le
rythme à l’«adversaire» s’inscrivent dans cette
perspective de maintien d’une différence sur un
fond de similitude. Indice de l’incessante prise de
distance du Gille dansant: la mise en évidence de
certains par une légère sortie de leur société qui
leur permet de s’exhiber plus nettement. Ils sont
appelés par les Binchois: «Gilles de goutière»
2. Conclusion
L’ensemble de ces observations et interprétations
permet de distinguer les différentes dimensions du
cadre festif dans son expression carnavalesque:
- une modalisation rituelle composée elle-même
d’une ritualisation secondaire à impact fictionnel
et d’une ritualisation idéale à travers une structure
unificatrice;
- une retransformation ludique des pratiques fes-
tives;
- une sous-modalisation de celles-ci dans la mesu-
re où des pratiques survalorisantes effacent quasi-
ment la modalisation fictionnelle;
- une possibilité d’un net décalage antistructural
sur un fond de forte codification.
On pourrait ainsi définir la folklorisation
comme un processus visant à créer une telle fête
fictionnelle. A ce propos, A. J. Greimas avait
associé le processus de folklorisation à une désé-
mantisation dans un contexte urbain par rapport à
son contexte rural originel et comme pur spectacle
(«faire voir») de l’objet festif destiné à une
consommation individuelle par rapport à un acte
mythique accompli dans une communauté tradi-
tionnelle (Greimas 1976; 175-185). Notre perspec-
tive insiste au contraire sur le dynamisme de la fête
folklorique, oscillant sans cesse entre une exalta-
tion de l’objet festif et sa secondarisation fiction-
nelle, une transformation ludique et une sous-
modalisation survalorisante, une antistructure tou-
jours surgissant sur un fond structural. Loin d’être
un spectacle total et une consommation exhaustive
du spectateur, elle doit assurer son dynamisme
dans la secondarité et l’antistructure impliquant
une latéralité incessante tant de l’acteur que du
spectateur. C’est bien ce surplus énergétique qui
caractérise la fête folklorique par rapport à la
participation artificielle d’un groupe folklorique
dans un défilé quelconque ou un spectacle théâ-
tral.
Cette perspective, insistant sur le mouvement
oscillatoire de la fête dont les limites du cadre
apparaissent floues, peut aussi constituer une
alternative aux théories de la fête-transgression qui
l’interprète en rupture radicale avec le quotidien.
Au lieu de saisir le cadre festif dans un espace-
temps antithétique mais équivalent à la vie quoti-
dienne (Piette 1988), nous tentons d’insister sur
l’enchevêtrement perpétuel dans la fête de la
primarité et de la secondarité. La première est
articulée autour de la ritualisation idéale de la fête
et concerne ses enjeux réels; la seconde est
articulée autour du rite secondaire et concerne la
possibilité de créer un monde alternatif et une
prise de distance, à travers une coexistence norma-
lisée de telles incompatibilités.
Situés «entre les deux», les comportements de
la fête oscillent ainsi entre deux classes de compor-
tements, dans cette béance qui en fonde la spécifi-
cité. Ni réels, ni fictifs, ni ludiques, ni sérieux, ni
structurés, ni désordonnés, étant l’un et l’autre,
sans jamais être l’un ou l’autre, les comportements
festifs impliquent, dans ce va-et-vient entre deux
limites, l’ambiguïté référentielle et une tension
toujours dialectique avec le quotidien.
Ainsi, dans la pratique festive, le Gille n’est ni
le danseur du renouveau exalté dans le quotidien
par le discours scientifique, ni le personnage
purement fictionnel ne renvoyant à aucun référen-
tiel. Exprimant la portée sérieuse des multiples
enjeux de la fête (symboliques, sociaux, . . .) en
même temps que leur réappropriation ludique, il
oscille entre la contrainte gestuelle et la prise de
distance. A l’instar du trickster, figure ethnologi-
que typique située dans les interstices de la
structure sociale, le «fêtard» exprime l’ambivalen-
ce et la confusion des catégories habituelles en
même temps qu’il suscite la «réflexion» sur les
limites de celles-ci. Comme s’il manipulait tou-
jours un cliquet assurant la dimension contradic-
toire de la fête, il prévient toute sortie du cadre
festif par l’une ou l’autre de ses attitudes antithé-
tiques. N’est-ce pas la transfiguration vestimentai-
re du «fêtard», plus ou moins importante, qui, une
fois assurée, intègre celui-ci dans un au-delà du sé-
rieux, réunit en lui-même divers attributs contrai-
res ou contradictoires et stimule un ensemble de
comportements ambivalents qu’il imposera au
contexte festif, assurant ainsi la régulation de
celui-ci?
A travers l’insistance sur le mouvement tour-
billonnaire régnant dans le cadre festif aux limites
toujours floues, c’est au coeur du jeu que cette
analyse nous conduit: le jeu-ludisme dans et par
lequel on s’amuse, le jeu-incertitude dans une zone
interstitielle rappelant des éléments mal ajustés
Anthropos 83.1988
Formes rituelles et comportementales
341
dans une mécanique et créant un espace vide
(neutre), propice à tous les comportements carna-
valesques excentriques dont les conséquences s’ef-
facent avec l’achèvement de la fête, et aussi le
jeu-stratégie constitutif de cet écart, par le décala-
ge réglé entre le système signifiant et le référentiel
signifié, et intégrant, selon les limites de cet écart,
l’ensemble des comportements surgissant dans la
fête.
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1986 Carnavals en Wallonie. Ethnologie française 16 (2):
165-176.
1988 Les jeux de la fête. Paris: Publications de la Sorbon-
ne.
Remy, J. et L. Voyé
1981 Ville, ordre et violence. Paris: P. U. F.
Rivière, C.
1988 Les liturgies politiques. Paris: P. U. F.
Winkin, Y. (éd.)
1981 La nouvelle communication. Paris: Eds. du Seuil.
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Anthropos 83.1988: 343-364
The Concept of Human Rights
Alison Dundes Renteln
Abstract. - This article examines some traditional Western
views of rights and offers a critique of them. In particular it is
shown that the case against the doctrine of logical correlativity
is flawed. It is argued that rights and duties are always
correlative, and that therefore duty-based moral systems can
accommodate human rights. By expanding the standard view of
rights, the author tries to provide a more solid foundation for a
broader range of human rights. In addition, the presumed
universality of human rights is called into question. The fact of
cultural diversity reveals the inadequacy of traditional Western
sources for human rights. [Human Rights, Western and
Non-Western Conception, Cultural Diversity]
Alison Dundes Renteln, studies in History and Literature
(Radcliffe College, Harvard Univ., B. A. 1981), Jurispru-
dence (London School of Economics), and Jurisprudence
and Social Policy (Univ. of California, Berkeley, Ph. D.). Her
fields of specialization include constitutional law, international
law, and legal theory. 1986-1987 acting director of the Law and
Society program at the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara;
since 1987 Asst. Prof, in the Political Science Dept, of the Univ.
of S. California.
There is considerable disagreement among theo-
rists about both the nature and legitimacy of rights.
Some of the theoretical issues raised by rights
theorists are important for elucidating the notion
of a human right. I will focus on the conceptual
analysis of rights only insofar as it is relevant for
understanding human rights.1 I will show that the
case against the doctrine of logical correlativity,1 2
which associates rights of one person with the
duties of another and vice versa, is flawed. If, as
will be argued, rights and duties are always
correlative, then duty based moral systems could
accommodate human rights, the assertions of some
commentators notwithstanding (e.g., Donnelly
1982). Next I will argue against some traditional
categorizations of rights. I offer several observa-
tions motivated by the desire to expand the
standard view of rights. By anticipating possible
objections that rights theorists might raise to the
assertion of particular universal human rights, I
hope to make possible a more solid foundation for
a broader range of human rights.
In the second part of the article I present some
classic definitions of human rights. I then discuss
some of the traditional Western sources from
which human rights are thought to be derived and
find them lacking. The underlying reasons for their
inadequacy are traced back to a deeply rooted
belief in the presumed universality of Western
moral notions. These same assumptions manifest
themselves in some of the international human
rights documents. It is clear from even the most
cursory study of other cultures that their value
systems differ from those of the West in significant
ways, as can be seen in the cases of female
circumcision and child labor.
1. The Nature of Rights
There are almost as many theories of rights as
there are rights theorists. It is sometimes said that
the only true rights are legal rights (Bentham in
Bowring [ed.] 1843/11:501; 111:221; Hart 1973:
171-201). Other scholars argue for a broader view
of rights which would encompass moral rights as
well. For the purposes of explaining the general
character of rights, it will not be necessary to
distinguish between them.
As is typical in the history of philosophy, what
was once a simple notion is often tranformed into a
much more complicated structure. While this is
sometimes useful (and indeed necessary) for cer-
tain concepts, it can obfuscate the essential fea-
tures of an idea. Rights theories exemplify this
tendency of rejecting more simple accounts in
favor of more complex normative structures (Mar-
tin and Nickel 1980: 165). Some of the so-called
simple characterizations of rights, however, do
capture the essence of a right.
1 For a more detailed exposition of rights theories see
Dworkin 1977, Feinberg 1973, Flathman 1976, and Well-
man 1978.
2 As opposed to the doctrine of moral correlativity; see
below.
344
Alison Dundes Renteln
For many philosophical writers, a right is
treated synonymously with a claim (Feinberg 1973:
64-66). The “Oxford English Dictionary” defines
a right as a “justifiable claim, on legal or moral
grounds, to have or obtain something, or to act in a
certain way.” A leading proponent of this view is
Joel Feinberg: “To have a right is to have a claim to
something and against someone, the recognition of
which is called for by legal rules or, in the case of
moral rights, by the principles of an enlightened
conscience” (1980: 159-160).
What distinguishes a right from a demand is
that it is justified, either by appeal to pre-existing
legal rules or to morality. Thus a right is a valid
claim. McCloskey (1976) prefers to define a right
as an entitlement rather than a claim. The view
that rights can be explained as legitimate or
reasonable claims is mistaken, according to
McCloskey, because it is based on the premise that
rights “. . . are and must always be rights against
some other person or persons” (1976: 100). He
rejects the duty definition as well: “What is
common to all rights is not some duty or duty re-
lationship but an entitlement” (1976: 104). Where-
as the previous characterizations attempt to iso-
late a single concept underlying the notion of a
right, a competing school of thought seeks to
encompass all rights within a complex normative
apparatus. Wesley Hohfeld’s classic work, “Fun-
damental Legal Conceptions” (1964), laid the
foundation for much subsequent philosophical
exegesis. He asserted that rights could be under-
stood as belonging to one of four categories: claim,
liberty, power, and immunity.3 Hohfeld’s analysis
had been used, among other things, to refute the
logical correlativity doctrine. His framework has
been adopted and extended by a number of
philosophers (e.g., Wellman 1985 and Flathman
1976).
In contrast to these normative theories are
functionalist accounts of rights, the most famous of
which is that of Ronald Dworkin (1977; see also
Scheingold 1974). According to this view, what is
distinctive about rights is that they function as
trumps over collective goals. This would seem to
require that rights be individuated in order to
distinguish them from what one might call “collec-
tive rights” (see Dinstein 1976, Caret 1983, Van
Dyke 1980).
3 For cross-cultural research, Hohfeld’s intricate typology
may have limited applicability. S. F. Moore advises legal
anthropologists to read Hohfeld and then “. . . cheerfully
do without him” [!] (Moore 1969: 343).
2. Rights and Duties
The view that rights and duties are correlative used
to be the dominant one among philosophers
(Lyons 1970: 45; Martin and Nickel 1980: 165).
The principal idea is that to say that A has a right to
X, is to say that B has a duty to insure that A can, in
fact, obtain X. But further, to say that C has a duty
to D with respect to E, is to say that D has a right to
E vis-a-vis C. Many rights theorists, including
Feinberg, Lyons, Martin and Nickel, and McClos-
key, take varying stances against this position.
Most of the arguments are based on the four
Hohfeldian categories.
Lyons, for instance, contends that one set of
rights, “active rights” (rights to do things), do not
fit the pattern of correlativity (Lyons 1970; 48).
The first example he offers involves the right of
free speech.4 * Alvin speaks to a crowd from a soap
box, decrying United States military involvement
in Vietnam. During the course of pontificating, he
is assaulted by private citizens and removed from
his platform. For Lyons, the question is whether
Alvin’s right to free speech (or the specific right to
address the crowd) is “. . . equivalent to the
assertion of correlative obligations incumbent on
others” (1970: 50).
Lyons wants to say that Alvin’s right to free
speech does not correspond to any duty: “The
constitutional right of free speech is independent
of, for example, the obligation not to assault that
was breached by those who silenced Alvin”
(1970: 51). According to Lyons, the listeners may
be under a duty not to attack Alvin, but not under
a duty to respect his free speech. But he goes on to
conclude that Alvin’s right does not correspond to
any duty on the part of Congress either: “These
Constitutional rights exemplify what some jurists
call ‘immunities’ for to assert them is to say that
protected areas of speech cannot be taken away.
Alvin’s constitutional right has a conceptual cor-
relative: but it is not an obligation; it is a legislative
‘disability,’ the assertion of which says that Con-
gress is not empowered to enact certain laws”
(1970: 51).
The second example offered by Lyons is the
right of a California motorist to turn right on a red
light. Lyons tries to show that there is no clear duty
associated with this right. But in fact he under-
mines his argument: “. . . it seems more plausible
to say that this right imposes obligations on law
enforcement officials not to interfere with one’s
4 This particular example was introduced at least as early as
1956 by Glanville Williams.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
345
making a right turn (when allowed by the condi-
tions of the right)” (1970: 55). He refuses, though,
to concede the point; “A policeman may admitted-
ly be under an obligation not to stop or disturb a
private citizen without cause - but can we say that
that obligation is ‘correlative’ with my right to
make a right turn on a red light in California?”
(1970: 55).
The crux of the argument against the logical
correlativity doctrine seems to derive from the
Hohfeldian interpretation of an immunity right,
the correlative of which is a disability. According
to Hohfeldian scholars, disabilities are associated
with the absence of obligations. I would argue that
this distinction is merely semantic. It is not simply
that Congress is not empowered to enact legisla-
tion which restricts freedom of speech, but, also,
that Congress is under an obligation not to enact
such legislation, for to do so would violate the
right. Furthermore, one could argue that there is a
duty which “stands to” the right of freedom of
speech “. . . just as Bernard’s obligation to pay
Alvin correlates with Alvin’s right” in Lyons’
paradigmatic example (1970: 50). The duty is that
of the judiciary to protect the right to freedom of
speech. I maintain that in every case in which
Hohfeldian language is used, a correlative duty
may always be found.5
McCloskey proposes another type of counter-
example to the rights implies duties thesis, namely
that of the conscientious objector (1976: 104). He
asserts that the right to be a conscientious objector
corresponds to no duty on the part of others. His
argument revolves around a reformulation of the
conflict between the individual and the state in
terms of rights language rather than duty language:
“Thus to assert that he has a right here is distinct
from claiming that others have a duty to leave him
free from interference. One can, with very good
sense, assert that the state has a right to punish him
for doing that to which he has a moral right”
(1976: 104).
But if a right to be a conscientious objector is
actually recognized as a valid moral right, then it
stands to reason that the state has a duty not to
interfere. The argument is part of a larger attempt
by McCloskey to eliminate claim language in favor
of entitlement language, but this program is
unpersuasive.6
5 See also Brandt 1959: 434; Braybrooke 1972; Singer 1972;
Hudson and Husak 1980; and Waldron (ed.) 1984: 11.
6 McCloskey’s formulation has been criticized elsewhere as
being “. . . not particularly illuminating or informative”
(Martin and Nickel 1980: 170).
Philosophers have also challenged the logical
correlativity doctrine by asserting the existence of
duties without corresponding rights. Feinberg, for
instance, says that duties of charity which “. . .
require us to contribute to one or another of a large
number of eligible recipients, no one of which can
claim our contribution from us as his due”
(1970: 244), shows the absence of a correlative
right. Hart (1979) and others contend that while
we have duties not to mistreat animals and babies,
nevertheless, they have no rights against us (in part
because they are not moral agents - see Lament
1950: 93). Still others have claimed that the duty to
rescue has no correlative right (Bedau 1968). It is
even sometimes suggested that the man in André
Malraux’s novel, “La Condition Humaine” (1946),
felt he had a duty to give his supply of poison to his
fellow prisoners, though they had no right to it
(Acton 1950: 108).
There are at least two objections which can be
raised to arguments of the kind advanced by the
above philosophers. The first is that, in the cases
where we would agree that there are such duties,
there is also a corresponding right. If society
recognizes duties to be kind to animals and babies,
for instance, then, indeed, those entities could be
said to have rights.7 The second is that, in those
cases in which we are hesitant to assert the
existence of a right, it is because the attribution of
the duty seems dubious. Unfortunately, many
persons do not recognize duties of charity, for
example, perhaps because such duties give rise to
something resembling economic rights. The reluc-
tance of theorists to acknowledge the existence of
rights corresponding to duties held by others, may
stem from the fear that to do so would cheapen
rights language by a proliferation of less significant
rights (Hart 1979). But the problem does not lie in
the correlation; it rests in the absence of some
mechanism for justifying the assertion of particular
rights/duties.
I take the view that rights and duties are flip
sides of the same coin.8 Brandt has said that the
7 Hart’s argument against babies as right-holders follows a
discussion of third-party rights. He observes that simply
because someone stands to benefit from the carrying out of a
duty by another does not mean that the beneficiary has a
claim against that person. But imagine the case in which
Hart stumbles across a starving baby (assume there was no
pre-existing agreement between Hart and the baby’s par-
ents). If Hart is under a moral duty to assist the baby, then the
baby could be said to have a moral right against Hart.
8 Western theorists sometimes assert that a right is prior to a
duty (Lament 1950: 94). Others, however, have defended
the “. . . logical priority of duties over rights” (Pappu
1982; 24).
Anthropos 83.1988
346
Alison Dundes Renteln
difference between a right and a duty is similar to
the difference between the active and passive voice
(1959: 434). While this observation is not a new
theory of rights, Waldron regards the simple
association of a duty to a right as capable of
forming the basis for a “more satisfactory” account
than some of the more elaborate ones: “Thus the
right of free speech, for example, is understood in
terms of recognition that an individual’s interest in
self-expression is a sufficient ground for holding
other individuals and agencies to be under duties
of various sorts rather than in terms of the detail of
the duties themselves” (1984: 11).
The importance of demonstrating the logical
correlativity of rights and duties does not lie so
much in any explanatory power it has for Western
rights theories, but rather in the flexibility it
affords the formulation of international human
rights standards. Correlativity is crucial because it
means that the framing of moral claims in terms
other than rights is not necessarily problematic.
The recognition of an obligation may well signify
the presence of an implicit right.
The misleading separation of rights from
duties has led philosophers to make distinctions
between right-based, duty-based, and goal-based
theories (Dworkin 1977: 169-173). It is notewor-
thy that Kant’s famous duty-based theory has been
employed as a basis for theories of rights (Waldron
1984: 13). This suggests that just because a moral
theory is couched in the language of duty does not
imply that it cannot be a vehicle for the advance-
ment of rights. Mackie (1978) goes so far as to
argue that any moral theory is necessarily right-
based, even if rights can only be identified as
implicit.
3. Observations on Rights
In this section I seek to enlarge the scope of the
notion of a right. Traditional rights theorists have
constructed a framework which is unduly restric-
tive. An examination of some of the common
classifications reveals several artificial distinctions.
The removal of these conceptual obstacles should
facilitate the formulation of a broader and more
accurate concept of human rights.
a) The Doctrine of Moral Correlativity
The idea that to hold rights one must be capable of
and willing to perform duties, is known as the
doctrine of moral correlativity (Feinberg 1973:
61-62). It is sometimes asserted that a right, in
order to be a right, must be unconditional. But this
is demonstrably false. Consider the case of the
prisoner, some of whose rights are suspended
because he has not fulfilled his duties (Feinberg
1973: 62).9 Here we would agree that it is appro-
priate to make rights contingent on duties. One
could go so far as to argue that, for adults at least,
all rights are contingent on duties. Even the right
to life, for example, could be said to be contingent
on the duty to respect other lives. On the other
hand, if babies and animals have rights, then they
have them irrespective of their capacity to perform
duties. So the doctrine of moral correlativity ap-
pears to be contingent. As a consequence, societies
in which rights depend on the performance of
duties can still be said to have rights.
b) Positive versus Negative
Philosophers have traditionally divided rights into
two categories: positive and negative. If a citizen
has a right to freedom of speech, for example, then
the state has a duty of non-interference. This
so-called negative right allegedly imposes no bur-
densome or costly duty upon the state. The
standard view of the positive right holds that
welfare rights require extensive governmental
action. It is worth pointing out that the views above
are those of Western philosophers who are sympa-
thetic to civil and political rights but not to
economic rights. Therefore, the positive/negative
rights classification simply reflects the values of the
political culture in which the philosophers live.
The allegation that positive rights demand
elaborate state action has been criticized by phi-
losophers such as Sidney Hook (1970) and Hen-
ry Shue (1980). In “Basic Rights” Shue challenges
the premise that only positive rights require a vast
expenditure of funds. Opponents of positive rights
might argue, for example, that providing a food
stamp program would involve a costly and unwiel-
dy bureaucratic network. The right to food thus
appears to be an expensive right.
But some of the ‘negative’ rights, for instance,
the right to a trial by jury, certainly necessitate the
existence of an elaborate (and expensive) criminal
justice apparatus. The maintenance of civil and
political rights depends on the existence of police,
9 Some might argue that the prisoner is not deprived of rights
but only privileges. But among the most fundamental rights
is (supposedly) the right to liberty (Hart 1979).
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
347
courts, and a plethora of other institutions. This
reappraisal suggests that the emphasis placed on
particular rights is a matter of political preference
rather than simple economic calculations.
c) Legal versus Moral
A second distinction that is often drawn is that
between moral and legal rights. Legal positivists
claim that a right exists only if it is enforceable.
Legal rights which exist by virtue of legislative
enactment, common law, and so on, are, there-
fore, the only type of rights possible.10 11 * Other
theorists, such as natural law/rights theorists, hold
that moral rights are prior to and independent of
legal rights.
The distinction can be quite crucial when, for
example, a legal system makes no provision for a
particular right. The argument that the system
should be modified to incorporate the right will be
fortified by the demonstrated existence of a moral
right. Without moral rights it would be consider-
ably more difficult to bring about changes in law.
The validity of legal rights can be based partly on
the extent to which they correspond to moral
rights.11
d) Individual versus Group
In the Western political tradition, only individual
adult moral agents have been accorded the privi-
lege of holding rights. But there is nothing inherent
in the notion of a right which logically requires this
restriction. Nonetheless, some Westerners deny
the existence of group rights, and their reluctance
to grant such rights may stem from a fear that such
rights are merely expressions of utilitarian goals.
Since one of the main purposes of rights is to limit
the arbitrary exercise of governmental power,
utilitarian goals masquerading as group rights
would perhaps seriously undermine the power of
rights as trumps.
Not all group rights, however, need be op-
posed to individuals’ rights, e.g., the right to self-
determination. The United Nations has, in fact,
10 Of course, it is still possible to identify a legal right even if it
is not enforced.
11 Of course, other factors are relevant, such as whether or not
the legal right was promulgated according to correct
procedure. Ultimately, however, the content of the right
should resonate with prior moral rights if it is to be regarded
as legitimate within the society in question.
recognized community rights, the rights of peo-
ples, and the rights of groups, in addition to the
rights of individuals (Ramcharan 1983: 278). The
advantage of admitting group rights is that there
may be certain rights which people ought to be able
to claim, which cannot be easily expressed in
individualistic terms. One could make the case, for
example, that some of the rights articulated in the
“African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,”
specifically Articles 19-24, which pertain to colo-
nialism, require the language of group rights rather
than individual rights (Anonymous 1983).
4. Human Rights and the Presumption of
Universality
The emergence of rights in political thought is
generally regarded as a new development. There
are those who maintain that rights did not exist in
ancient civilizations and those who argue that
rights are not to be found in non-Western moral
systems. Any historical study of rights reveals how
hazy the philosophical charting of the evolution of
rights has been. Based on what little evidence is
presented, it is astonishing that anyone should
offer decisive conclusions about the role of rights
in other epochs and cultures. The absence of any
consideration of moral notions comparable to
rights makes the presumed universality of human
rights dubious at best. If we are to save human
rights from the charge of cultural imperialism,
which I believe is possible, then it is necessary to
reinforce their underpinnings. In the remainder of
this article I identify some of the weaknesses in the
foundations of human rights, as put forward by
(mostly Western) philosophers.
a) Definitions
The classic definition of a human right is a right
which is universal and held by all persons: “A
human right by definition is a universal moral
right, something which all men, everywhere, at all
times ought to have, something of which no one
may be deprived without a grave affront to justice,
something which is owing to every human being
simply because he is human” (Cranston 1973: 36).
One of the definitions cited most often is that of
Wasserstrom (1979). Any true human right, it is
said, must satisfy at least four requirements:
“First, it must be possessed by all human beings, as
well as only by human beings. Second, because it is
the same right that all human beings possess, it
Anthropos 83.1988
348
Alison Dundes Renteln
must be possessed equally by all human beings.
Third, because human rights are possessed by all
human beings, we can rule out as possible candi-
dates any of those rights which one might have in
virtue of occupying any particular status or rela-
tionship, such as that of parent, president, or
promisee. And fourth, if there are any human
rights, they have the additional characteristic of
being assertable, in a manner of speaking, ‘against
the whole world’” (1979: 50).
As one can see from the definitions, human
rights are presumed to be universal in character.
This would not in itself be problematic (indeed it is
desirable), except that the philosophical founda-
tions are never adequately demonstrated. The
failure to ground human rights, as will be discussed
below, has much to do with their historical
antecedents, in particular natural law and natural
rights, with which human rights are assumed by
many philosophers to be synonymous (Donnelly
1985: 10; Pappu 1969: 44; Wasserstrom 1979).
b) Traditional Western Sources
For many centuries natural law played a dominant
role in Western political theory. Natural law was
considered to be the standard against which all
other laws were to be judged. To contest the
injustice of a man-made law, one could appeal to
the higher authority of God or natural law (So-
phocles 1974). Eventually natural law evolved into
natural rights, which are considered to be the
modern manifestations of natural law. The change
reflected a shift in emphasis from society to the
individual. Whereas natural law provided a basis
for curbing excessive state power, natural rights
offered a means by which an individual could press
claims against the government.12
Natural law/rights theorists have asserted the
existence of specific rights such as the right to
liberty (Flart 1979), the right to life (McCloskey
1975), the right to self-preservation (Hobbes), the
right to property (Locke), the right to freedom
from torture (Nickel 1982), and the right to
participate (Stackhouse 1984). Because they take
the validity of the rights to be a self-evident
proposition, there has traditionally been little
room for debate. One might expect to encounter
difficulties when various proponents defend differ-
ent and sometimes conflicting rights based solely
on the claim that the rights are self-evident. Not
12 For detailed accounts, see L. Strauss (1953), M. Roshwald
(1959), R. Tuck (1981), and J. Donnelly (1985).
surprisingly, philosophers have not welcomed dis-
cussions of competing moralities, largely because
they take their own values to be obviously correct.
Strangely enough, Waldron notes that natural
rights “. . . seemed peculiarly vulnerable to ethical
skepticism” but concludes that “. . . it would be
wrong to suggest that the discussion of human
rights has been seriously impeded by these difficul-
ties” (1984: 3).
Though the contemporary notion of human
rights may be the offspring of natural rights, there
are, nonetheless, differences between them. The
most important of these is the extent of the moral
universe to which they lay claim. Whereas natural
rights were not widely contested because they were
asserted in a universe of shared values, human
rights have been highly controversial. Consider
Locke’s assertion of the natural right to property,
the validity of which was taken for granted in
England, but which might require argumentation
in some socialist countries (to say the least). The
presumption of universality no longer serves “uni-
versal” rights well.13
In the past, attempts to ground human rights
were not successful. The best known and most
celebrated efforts employed the vague concepts of
human nature and rationality to establish particu-
lar rights. It could be argued that it is nonsensical
to separate the two insofar as rationality is, in some
regions, regarded as integral to human nature.
Other conceptual devices which have provided
tentative bases for human rights include: the ability
to use language, reciprocity, the capacity to con-
form to moral requirements, self-motivated activi-
ty, self-consciousness, and purposive agency (Hu-
sak 1984: 128).
Increasingly, justification for human rights is
coming to depend less on human nature and
rationality and more on the concepts of basic
human needs and human dignity. These strategies,
however, are subject to the same weaknesses as
their predecessors. How theorists derive specific
human rights from needs or dignity remains
entirely obscure. Just as some philosophers began
to challenge the assumption that human nature
could give rise to specific human rights (Blackstone
1968: 624), others (e.g., Donnelly 1985: 28-30)
question the ability of basic needs theorists to
delineate in the abstract those needs which should
13 Another major difference between natural law and human
rights is that, according to international human rights
lawyers and the United Nations community in general,
human rights accommodate other types of rights in addition
to civil and political.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
349
give content to the idea of human rights. Pre-
sumably, adherents to this approach would not
advocate the establishment of rights based on all
needs. Someone must decide what needs are truly
basic, and inasmuch as different judges will per-
ceive different needs as taking highest priority,
this approach does not circumvent the challenge
of diversity.
The problem with all of these approaches
which aim at anchoring human rights by another
concept is that they cannot demonstrate their
necessary connection to human rights. The inter-
pretation of basic needs, for example, falls prey to
the same hermeneutical weakness of natural law/
rights. There is no way to prove the validity of any
particular interpretation because no procedure is
established by which the legitimacy of particular
human rights can be judged. Indeed, there is some
consensus among philosophers that up until the
present, all attempts to provide solid philosophical
foundations for human rights have failed (e.g.,
Feinberg 1973: 90).
In the absence of a satisfactory grounding for
human rights, theorists are compelled to fall back
upon mere assertions as to the self-evident nature
of particular human rights. In view of the diversity
of moral systems in the world, it is difficult to
understand why the presumption of universality
could endure so long without being seriously
questioned. The answer lies in the psychological
predisposition of human beings to generalize from
their own perspective. Western philosophers in
particular seem to be prone to projecting their
moral categories on others. As a consequence, the
presumption of universality is deeply ingrained in
Western moral philosophy.
c) “Everyone Thinks the Same”
Two of the best known examples of these tenden-
cies are Immanuel Kant and John Rawls (1971).
Their conceptual devices, the categorical impera-
tive and the original position, respectively, presup-
pose the existence of a set of universal moral
principles. Many philosophers employ Kantian
notions as a vehicle to advance human rights. As
Feinberg has observed, however, the claims that
human beings are “ends in themselves” or “sa-
cred” or “of infinite value” are themselves in need
of a foundation (1973: 92). Kantian moral theory
assumes the existence of a single pattern of moral
reasoning. The abstract rational process is pre-
sumed to bear a single and universal result, irre-
spective of cultural differences.
The device of the original position developed
by John Rawls (1971) provides another illustration
of the universalistic premise. The idea is that
individuals behind the “veil of ignorance,” strip-
ped of their identity, will select principles of justice
by which society should operate. One could make
a strong case that the contractarian scenario which
Rawls has devised is rigged. For example, Rawls
requires that persons in the original position be
risk-averse and not be envious.14 By imposing
constraints such as these, Rawls insures that
individuals in the original position will agree to the
principles he advocates. Thus, the device provides
an ex post facto justification for his own personal
moral convictions.
It is plausible that individuals from the same
culture might agree to the same principles. Amer-
icans conceivably would designate Rawls’ princi-
ples as their own. But if one transposes the scenar-
io of the original position to an international set-
ting (Beitz 1979), it becomes doubtful whether all
the participants will acquiesce. The presupposition
is that individuals stripped of their cultural and
political heritage would be pure rational beings
and would thus dutifully select liberal democratic
principles of justice. The premise that individuals
could negotiate for fundamental principles in the
absence of culture is quite fantastic. And this is
precisely the root of the problem: underlying the
presumption of universality is the belief that all
peoples think in a similar fashion.
The most remarkable example of a scholar
assuming that there is a single correct pattern of
moral reasoning can be found in the work of
Lawrence Kohlberg. His stage theory of moral
development is perhaps the most blatantly univer-
salistic moral theory one could imagine. Those
surveyed who did not reason according to precon-
ceived styles were considered to have retarded
powers of moral reasoning. Among other things,
his work has been challenged as failing to take into
account gender differences (Gilligan 1982). Its
cross-cultural validity is still hotly debated. But the
astounding nature of Kohlberg’s presumption of
universality is typified by his conclusions in an
article about capital punishment (Kohlberg and
14 The reason for the risk-averse requirement is that otherwise
people might prefer less egalitarian distributive principles.
Because they are risk-averse, they worry that without such
principles they might end up as the poor. - The explanation
for the non-envy requirement has to do with the avoidance
of socialism. Since Rawls allows for some inequalities
through the difference principle, the existence of envy might
lead the participants in the original position to prefer a more
strictly egalitarian system.
Anthropos 83.1988
350
Alison Bundes Rentein
Elfenbein 1975). On his view, reaching the highest
stage of moral development entails rejection of the
death penalty. Even though Kohlberg never re-
veals his own convictions, it seems clear that these
conclusions may reflect his own values. Kohlberg’s
moral theory represents a classic example of the
fallacies which accompany the presumption of
universality. Needless to say, in the event one
disagrees with Kohlberg, e.g., on the defensibility
of the death penalty, one’s abilities in moral
reasoning are called into question. This kind of
thinking typifies the universalist position, namely
that alternative patterns of thought are dismissed
from the outset.
d) Problems with International Human Rights
Documents
Instead of facing the reality of moral diversity from
the beginning, those who participated in drafting
international human rights standards avoided the
issue. To circumvent fundamental disagreement,
the individuals involved took the tack of including
a wide range of rights in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. To have some understanding of
the nature of the problems which international
human rights have encountered, it is necessary to
review briefly the universal rights set forth in some
of the main international human rights instru-
ments.
As should be clear by now, it is only within a
universe of shared values that the presumption of
universality encounters no difficulties. Various
international human rights instruments have re-
mained controversial, however, precisely because
they contain values which are not shared on a
worldwide basis. Several provisions from the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights should
demonstrate the extent to which the presumed
universality of some human rights provisions is
called into question.
Article 17 provides that “Everyone has the
right to own property alone as well as in association
with others” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily
deprived of his property.” The value underlying
this standard is hardly universal. One commenta-
tor refers to the problem with Article 17 as one of
cultural imperialism because it “. . . seeks to
impose free enterprise and capitalism on the rest of
the world” (Zvobgo 1979: 95). Another human
rights analyst rejects the universality of Article
17 (1): “The community ideology does not admit
of private property, except in consumer goods”
(Sinha 1978; 144).
Some of the articles concerning elections
reflect a preference for a particular kind of political
system. Articles 18,19, and 20 provide for rights to
freedom of thought, religion, and association.
Article 21 guarantees the right to participate in
government, equal access to public service, and
free elections. In Article 21 (3) the ideological
basis of the human right standard is made mani-
fest: “The will of the people shall be the basis of
the authority of government; this will shall be
expressed in periodic and genuine elections which
shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall
be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting
procedures.” While these articles clearly embody
the preferred set of political devices of Western
liberal democratic regimes, the provisions may not
be universally accepted. From the Third World
perspective, Article 21 seeks to “universalize
Western-style elections” (Zvobgo 1979: 95), which
are obviously not universal: “Monarchies, dicta-
torships, single-party rules, or single-candidate
elections are not non-existent in today’s world”
(Sinha 1978; 144). Of course, one cannot infer
from the existence of these political regimes that
the people themselves prefer them to Western-
style democracies. But it is ethnocentric to assume
that Western electoral procedures are unanimous-
ly favored.
It is not only in the political realm that human
rights seem not to be expressions of universal
values. Some of the rights concerned with social
life may also be unrepresentative of the entire
world. For instance, Article 16 provides for the
right to marry and to found a family. Article 16 (2)
stipulates that marriages shall be entered into only
with the free and full consent of the intending
spouses. And finally, Article 16 (3) specifies that
the family is the natural and fundamental unit of
society, and is entitled to protection by society and
the state. It is not clear if the fundamental unit is
the nuclear family or whether the Article might
allow for the kinship group instead. The phraseolo-
gy suggests that only the immediate family can be
understood to be the basic unit, which would
appear to be insensitive to the many societies
which have different patterns of social organiza-
tion. The provision guaranteeing voluntary choice
of marriage partners runs counter to the practice of
arranged marriages, which is an integral part of
many value systems of the world. Even the first
clause holding that there is a right to marry and
found a family may be problematic when one
considers that there have been many restrictions
on the right to marry and procreate, which were at
one time regarded as moral by Americans, e.g.,
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
351
compulsory sterilization, prohibition of homosex-
ual marriages, and anti-miscegenation laws.
Some believe that the reason why many of the
values in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights appear to be Western is that the Third
World did not participate in great numbers when it
was drafted. Zvobgo (1979: 95) maintains that,
were the Declaration to be debated again in the
General Assembly, the final draft would differ
significantly from what was adopted in 1948.
Others, while acknowledging that the United
Nations human rights debate took place at a time
when the great majority of Third World nations
were still under colonial rule, still maintain that the
contribution of the Third World was “by no means
negligible” (Alston 1983: 61; 1987: 59-60). Among
the most active participants were Chile, China,
Cuba, India, Lebanon, and Panama. At the
General Assembly in 1948, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libe-
ria, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Thailand, India,
and Pakistan, as well as all of the Central and Latin
American States were among the 48 voting in favor
of the Declaration. Saudi Arabia, South Africa,
and the Eastern European nations were the eight
abstentions; no one voted against (Alston
1983: 61).
Since there is still considerable reason to
believe that the Declaration bears a Western
imprint, this suggests that the role of government
elites at international settings may not be indica-
tive of the traditional value systems which they are
supposed to represent. The problem with the
particular configuration of rights found in the
Universal Declaration is that some of the rights
may not be compatible with the diverse value
systems of the world. Consequently, the promul-
gation of the Universal Declaration appears to
many countries as the imposition of an alien value
system: “Thus, to the extent these kinds of rights
are concerned, we have the scenario of one
particular culture, or one particular ideology, or
one particular political system claiming to be
imposed upon the entire world ... . It is self-
defeating for the human-rights movement to take
the latter approach and say, force private property
upon the Soviet Union or China, or abolish
arranged marriages in India, or force general
elections in Saudi Arabia, and then - and here is
the greatest danger of all - retire in the smug
delusion that having done that, justice has thereby
been achieved for the individual” (Sinha 1978:144,
159).
Sinha attacks the single catalogue approach
because it does not take into account cultural
variability. He advocates an approach which is
culture based. By making a distinction between the
catalogue and the concept of human rights, he
wants to allow for the development of particular
rights standards for different social systems. In-
stead of “the catalogue of one particular society
being rammed down the throat of another under
the crusadic [sic] disguise of human rights”
(1978: 159), Sinha prefers to let societies devise
their own means of paying homage to human rights
standards. But while his theory is culturally sensi-
tive, it cannot provide any universals. Hence it is
no longer a theory of human rights but rather a
theory of cultural rights.
5. Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights
The international documents are not sufficient, in
and of themselves, to resolve the question of
whether the human rights which they enumerate
are Western or universal. Of course, it is possible
that they could contain some rights which are
universal and some which are not. To decide which
rights are truly universal, some have sought to
characterize the concept of human rights according
to various geographical, cultural, religious, and
ideological perspectives. It is important, however,
to be aware of the limitations of this literature.
First, there do not even exist articles on the
concept of human rights in all societies. Whether
or not those about which nothing is written have
well-defined concepts of human rights we do not
know. Second, the articles that do exist tend to
focus on what is distinctive about the concept in the
country or religion in question. So the result may
be to afford insight into the distinctive features of
the concept rather than to provide any indication
about what aspects might be consistent with the
values embodied in the international documents.
The point is that the emphasis is on what is
distinctive rather than what is common. Third, we
cannot tell whether or not to rely on the character-
izations provided. Analysts, even when speaking
of the same culture, sometimes give radically
different interpretations to the concept and often-
times formulate conclusions on the basis of mis-
leading evidence. Discussions of human rights in
China, for example, tend to focus on what rights
Chinese officials have granted rather than on what
the traditional values are. Fourth, no systematic
comparative analyses of human rights have ever
been undertaken.
In the process of evaluating non-Western
perspectives, one is struck by the lack of appro-
priate documentation. What there is is generally not
Anthropos 83.1988
352
Alison Dundes Renteln
well substantiated and is often so vague that it is
not possible to tell whether the society really
supports particular rights or not. Moreover, the
focus is on legal and religious texts from which we
cannot glean the information necessary to tell what
the cultural norms are. By drawing almost exclu-
sively from the written materials of the elites, they
give us no way of determining whether indigenous
perceptions of morality include human rights.
The following is a representative selection of
the kinds of articles on non-Western conceptions
of human rights which are available at present:
African
Adegbite, L. O.
1968 African Attitudes to the International Protection of
Human Rights. In: A. Hide and A. Schou (eds.),
International Protection of Human Rights; pp. 69-81.
New York: Interscience Publishers.
Akpan, J. E.
1980 The 1979 Nigerian Constitution and Human Rights.
Universal Human Rights 2: 23-41.
Asante, S. K. B.
1968-1969 Nation Building and Human Rights in Emergent
African Nations. Cornell International Law Journal 1/2:
72-107.
Bello, E.
1981 Shared Legal Concepts Between African Customary
Norms and International Conventions on Humanitarian
Law. Indian Journal of International Law 21: 79-95.
Cobbah, J. A. M.
1987 African Values and the Human Rights Debate: The
African Perspective. Human Rights Quarterly 9:
309-331.
Gittleman, R.
1982 The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: A
Legal Analysis. Virginia Journal of International Law
22: 667-714.
Haile, M.
1984 Human Rights, Stability, and Development in Africa;
Some Observations on Concept and Reality. Virginia
Journal of International Law 24: 575-615.
Hountondji, P. J.
1986 The Master’s Voice-Remarks on the Problem of Human
Rights in Africa. In: UNESCO; pp. 319-332. Paris:
UNESCO.
Howard, R.
1983 The Full Belly Thesis; Should Economic Rights Take
Priority Over Civil and Political Rights? Evidence from
Sub-Saharan Africa. Human Rights Quarterly 4:
467-490.
1984a Evaluating Human Rights in Africa: Some Problems of
Implicit Comparisons. Human Rights Quarterly 6;
160-179.
1984b Women’s Rights in English-Speaking Sub-Saharan
Africa. In; C. E. Welch Jr. and R. I. Meltzer (eds.),
Human Rights and Development in Africa; pp. 46-74.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Howard, R. E.
1986 Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa. Totowa,
N. J.: Rowman and Littlefield.
1986 Is there an African Concept of Human Rights? In: R. J.
Vincent (ed.), Foreign Policy and Human Rights;
pp. 11-32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kannyo, E.
1980 Human Rights in Africa; Problems and Prospects.
New York: International League for Human Rights.
1984 The Banjul Charter on Human and People’s Rights:
Genesis and Political Background. In: C. E. Welch Jr.
and E. I. Meltzer (eds.). Human Rights and Develop-
ment in Africa; pp. 128-151. Albany; State University
of New York Press.
Kunig, P.
1982 The Protection of Human Rights by International Law
in Africa. German Yearbook of International Law 25:
138-168.
Legesse, A.
1980 Human Rights in African Political Culture. In: K.
Thompson (ed.), The Moral Imperatives of Human
Rights; pp. 123-138. Washington, D. C.: University
Press of America.
Marasinghe, L.
1984 Traditional Conceptions of Human Rights in Africa. In:
C. E. Welch Jr. and R. I. Meltzer (eds.). Human Rights
and Development in Africa; pp. 32-45. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
M’Baye, K.
1982 Human Rights in Africa. In: K. Vasak and P. Alston
(eds.), The International Dimensions of Human Rights;
vol. 2: 583-600. Westport, Conn.; Greenwood Press.
Mojekwu, C. C.
1980 International Human Rights: The African Perspective.
In: J. L. Nelson and V. M. Green (eds.). International
Human Rights; pp. 85-95. New York: Human Rights
Publishing Group.
Neff, S. C.
1984 Human Rights in Africa. International and Compara-
tive Law Quarterly 33: 331-347.
Okafor, F. U.
1985 Human Right and Justice: The African Perspective.
Philosophy and Social Action 11 (3): 25-33.
Okoli, E.
1982 Toward a Human Rights Framework in Nigeria. In: A.
Pollis and P. Schwab (eds.). Toward a Human Rights
Framework; pp. 203-222. New York; Praeger.
Takirambudde, P. N. (ed.)
1982 The Individual Under Africa Law. Proceedings of the
First All-Africa Law Conference, Oct. 11-16, 1981.
University of Swaziland, Department of Law. Private
Bay, Kwaluseni, Swaziland.
Turack, D. C.
1984 The African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights:
Some Preliminary Thoughts. Akron Law Review 17:
365-381.
Umozurike, U. O.
1983 The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
American Journal of International Law 77: 902-912.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
353
Wai, D. M.
1979 Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. In: A. Pollis and
P. Schwab (eds.), Human Rights: Cultural and Ideolog-
ical Perspectives; pp. 115-144. New York: Praeger.
Weinstein, W.
1976 Africa's Approach to Human Rights at the United
Nations. Issue 6: 14-21.
Wiseberg, L.
1976 Human Rights in Africa: Toward a Definition of the
Problem of a Double Standard. Issue 6; 3—13.
Asian
Burks, A. W.
1985 Japan: The Bellwether of East Asian Human Rights?
In: J. C. Hsiung (ed.). Human Rights in East Asia;
pp. 31-53. New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Chang, C. C.
1946 Political Structure in the Chinese Draft Constitution.
Annals. American Academy of Political and Social
Science 243: 67-76.
Cheng, C,
1979 Human Rights in Chinese History and Chinese Philoso-
phy. Comparative Civilizations Review 1: 1-19.
Edwards, R. R.
1986 Civil and Social Rights: Theory and Practice in Chinese
Law Today. In; R. R. Edwards, L. Henkin, and A. J.
Nathan (eds.), Human Rights in Contemporary China;
pp. 41-75. New York: Columbia University Press.
Edwards, R, R., L. Henkin, and A. J. Nathan (eds.)
1986 Human Rights in Contemporary China. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Goldman, M.
1983 Human Rights in the People’s Republic of China.
Daedalus 112: 111-138.
Henkin, L.
1986 The Human Rights Idea in Contemporary China: A
Comparative Perspective. In: R. R. Edwards, L. Hen-
kin , and A. J. Nathan (eds.), Human Rights in Contem-
porary China; pp. 7-39. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press.
Hsiung, J. C. (ed.)
1985 Human Rights in East Asia: A Cultural Perspective.
New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Huang, M.
1979 Human Rights in a Revolutionary Society: The Case of
the People’s Republic of China. In: A. Pollis and P.
Schwab (eds.), Human Rights; Cultural and Ideological
Perspectives; pp. 60-85. New York: Praeger.
Inagaki, R.
1986 Some Aspects of Human Rights in Japan. In: UNES-
CO; pp. 179-192. Paris: UNESCO.
Kim, I.
1985 Human Rights in South Korea and U. S. Relations. In:
J. C. Hsiung (ed.), Human Rights in East Asia;
pp. 55-75. New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Lee, M.
1985 North Korea and the Western Notion of Human Rights.
In: J. C. Hsiung (ed.), Human Rights in East Asia;
pp. 129-151. New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Leng, S.
1980 Human Rights in Chinese Political Culture. In: K.
Thompson (ed.), The Moral Imperatives of Human
Rights; pp. 81-107. Washington, D. C.; University
Press of America.
Lo, C.
1948 Human Rights in the Chinese Tradition. In: UNESCO,
Human Rights; pp. 186-190. London and New York:
Allan Wingate.
Nathan, A. J.
1986a Political Rights in Chinese Constitutions. In: R. R.
Edwards, L. Henkin, and A. J. Nathan (eds.). Human
Rights in Contemporary China; pp. 77-124. New York:
Columbia University Press.
19865 Sources of Chinese Rights Thinking. In: R. R. Ed-
wards, L. Henkin, and A. J. Nathan (eds.), Human
Rights in Contemporary China; pp. 125-164. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Scoble, H, M., and L. Wiseberg (eds.)
1985 Access to Justice. London: Zed Books.
Sutter, R. B.
1978 Human Rights in China. Washington, D. C.; Congres-
sional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Tai, H.
1985 Human Rights in Taiwan: Convergence of Two Political
Cultures? In: J. C. Hsiung (ed.). Human Rights in East
Asia; pp. 79-108. New York: Paragon House Pub-
lishers.
Wilson, R. W.
1985 Rights in the People’s Republic of China. In: J. C.
Hsiung (ed.), Human Rights in East Asia; pp. 111-126.
New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Woo, P. K, Y.
1980 A Metaphysical Approach to Human Rights from a
Chinese Point of View. In: A. Rosenbaum (ed.). The
Philosophy of Human Rights; pp. 113-124. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Yamane, H.
1982 Asia and Human Rights. In: K. Vasak and P. Alston
(eds.), The International Dimensions of Human Rights;
vol. 2: 651-670. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Soviet
Anonymous
1986 The Concern for Human Rights: Real and False.
Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House.
Blaser, A. W,
1984 The Rhetoric, Promise, and Performance of Human
Rights: Soviet and American Perspectives. Journal of
Applied Behavioral Science 20: 471-489.
Blishtshenko, I. P.
1973 Human Rights Practice in the USSR and Its Internatio-
nal Impact. Berlin: GDR Committee for Human
Rights.
Anthropos 83.1988
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Chalidze, V.
1974 To Defend These Rights: Human Rights and the Soviet
Union. New York: Random House.
Chernenko, K. U.
1981 Human Rights in Soviet Society. New York: Interna-
tional Publishers.
Dean, R. N.
1980 Beyond Helsinki: The Soviet View of Human Rights in
International Law. Virginia Journal of International
Law 21: 55-95.
Kadarkay, A.
1982 Human Rights in American and Russian Political
Thought. Washington, D. C.: University Press of Amer-
ica.
Kartashkin, V. A.
1977 Convenants on Human Rights and Soviet Legislation.
Revue des Droits de I’Homme 10: 97-115.
Kennan, E. L.
1980 Human Rights in Soviet Political Culture. In: K.
Thompson (ed.), The Moral Imperatives of Human
Rights; pp. 69-79. Washington, D. C.: University Press
of America.
Koldayev, V.
1976 Soviet Citizen: Their Rights and Duties. Moscow:
Novosti Press Agency Publishing House.
Kudryavtsev, V. N.
1986 Human Rights and the Soviet Constitution. In: UNES-
CO; pp. 83-94. Paris: UNESCO.
LaPenna, I.
1977 Human Rights: Soviet Theory and Practice. Conflict
Studies 83: 1-15.
Lee, S. H.
1985 The Status of the Debate on Rights in the USSR.
Studies in Soviet Thought 30; 149-164.
Leonidov, E.
1982 Democracy - True and False. International Affairs
(Moscow) 11: 3-10.
Medvedev, E., and G. Kulikov
1981 Human Rights and Freedoms in the USSR. Moscow:
Progress Publishers.
Szymanski, A.
1984 Human Rights in the Soviet Union. London: Zed
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Tchechko, B.
1948 The Conception of the Rights of Man in the U. S. S. R.
Based on Official Documents. In: UNESCO, Human
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Wingate.
Webster, A. F. C.
1983 Human Rights in the USSR: Two Views of Socialist
Reality. Religious Humanism 17: 14-21.
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Berman, H. J.
1965 Human Rights in the Soviet Union. Howard Law
Journal 11: 333-341.
1979 American and Soviet Perspectives on Human Rights.
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1984 The Rhetoric, Promise, and Performance of Human
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Kelley, R.
1984 Comparing the Incomparable; Politics and Ideas in the
United States and the Soviet Union. Comparative
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McWhinney, E.
1962 “Peaceful Co-Existence” and Soviet-Western Interna-
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951-970.
Somerville, J.
1948 Comparison- of the Soviet and Western Democratic
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Socialist
Cavoski, K.
1982 The Attainment of Human Rights in Socialism. Praxis
International 1: 365-375.
Egorov, A. G.
1979 Socialism and the Individual - Rights and Freedoms.
Soviet Studies in Philosophy 18: 3-51.
Gjoliku, L.
1984 The Socialist Order Is the Most Democratic. Albania
Today 3 (76): 46-51.
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1979 A Socialist Conception of Human Rights: A Model
from Prerevolutionary Russia. In: A. Pollis and P.
Schwab (eds.). Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological
Perspectives; pp. 44-59. New York: Praeger.
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1982 The Socialist Concept of Human Rights. In: K. Vasak
and P. Alston (eds.), The International Dimensions of
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1981 The Rights and Duties of Young People. In: Human
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1982 Capitalism, Socialism, and Justice. In; T. Regan and D.
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1981 The Socialist Conception of Human Rights. In: Human
Rights in Socialist Society; pp. 7-23. Moscow: Novosti
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1977 The Socialist Concept of Human Rights: Its Philosophi-
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1981 The Political and Civil Rights of the Individual Under
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1978 Marxism, Socialism, and Human Rights. In: E. Kamen-
ka and A. Tay (eds.). Human Rights; pp. 105-112.
London: Edward Arnold.
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1981 Socialism and Human Rights. In: A. E. Tay (ed.),
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Marxist
Buchanan, A. E.
1981 The Marxian Critique of Justice and Rights. Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 7: 269-306.
Hirszowicz, M.
1966 The Marxist Approach. International Social Science
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1979 Catholic Foundation of Human Rights. Ecumenist 18:
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1980 A Catholic View of Human Rights: A Thomistic
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1979 Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the
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1982 Human Rights and Religious Faith in the Middle East:
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1980 Toward a Christian Theory of Human Rights. Journal of
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1978 Human Rights: An Historical and Theological Perspec-
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1982 Human Rights: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective. In;
A. Swidler (ed.), Human Rights in Religious Tradi-
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1981 Human Rights: The “So-Called” Judaeo-Christian Tra-
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Pilgrim Press.
UNESCO
1979 Meeting of Experts on the Place of Human Rights in
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Miscellaneous
(Third World)
Aral, Z. F.
1986 Human Rights and Political Instability in the Third
World. Policy Studies Review 6: 158-172.
Ferguson, J. A.
1986 The Third World. In: R. J. Vincent (ed.), Foreign
Policy and Human Rights: Issues and Responses;
pp. 203-226. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tyagi, Y. K.
1981 Third World Response to Human Rights. Indian Jour-
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Zvobgo, E. J. M.
1979 A Third World View. In; D. P. Kommers and G. D.
Loescher (eds.), Human Rights and American Foreign
Policy; pp. 90-106. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press.
(First vs. Third World)
Farer, T. J.
1979 On a Collision Course: The American Campaign for
Human Rights and the Antiradical Bias in the Third
World. In: D. P. Kommers and G. D. Loescher (eds.),
Human Rights and American Foreign Policy;
pp. 263-277. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press.
Hauser, R. E.
1979 A First World View. In: D. P. Kommers and G. D.
Loescher (eds.), Human Rights and American Foreign
Policy; pp. 85-89. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press.
(India)
Baxi, U.
1978 Human Rights: Accountability and Development. Indi-
an Journal of International Law 18: 279-283.
Buultjens, R.
1980 Human Rights in Indian Political Culture. In: K.
Thompson (ed.), The Moral Imperatives of Human
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Press of America.
Johnson, W. G.
1986 Human Rights Practices in Divergent Ideological Set-
tings: How Do Political Ideas Influence Policy Choices?
Policy Studies Review 6: 58-70.
Khanna, H. R.
1978 Future of Human Rights in Contemporary World.
Indian Journal of International Law 18: 133-138.
Kumar, S.
1981 Human Rights and Economic Development: The Indian
Tradition. Human Rights Quarterly 3: 47-55.
Nanda, V. P.
1976 From Gandhi to Gandhi-International Legal Responses
to the Destruction of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms in India. Denver Journal of International
Law and Policy 6: 19-42.
Noorani, A, G.
1978 The Judiciary and the Bar in India During the Emer-
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Pandeya, R. C.
1986 Human Rights: An Indian Perspective. In: UNESCO;
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Thapar, R.
1978 The Ramifications of Human Rights. Indian Journal of
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(Latin America)
Quesada, F. M.
1986 Human Rights in Latin America. In; UNESCO;
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Wiarda, H. J.
1978 Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America:
Toward a New Conceptualization. Orbis 22: 137-160.
(American)
Henkin, L.
1979 Rights: American and Human. Columbian Law Review
79; 406-425.
1981 Economic-Social Rights as “Rights”: A United States
Perspective. Human Rights Law Journal 2: 223-236.
Marshall, T.
1968 Human Rights: An American View. In: K. J. Keith
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Sweet and Maxwell.
Sellers, J.
1979 Human Rights and the American Tradition of Justice.
Soundings 62: 226-255.
(Human Rights and Regime Type)
Berger, P.
1977 Are Human Rights Universal? Commentary 64:
60-63.
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1981 Duties Beyond Borders. Syracuse: Syracuse University
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1986 Human Dignity: Human Rights and Political Regimes.
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1983 Capitalism and Human Rights. Daedalus 112; 51-79.
Anthropos 83.1988
358
Alison Dundes Renteln
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1977 The Western Tradition of Human Rights in Compara-
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1973 What Are Human Rights? (2nd ed.) London: Bodley
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1966 The Liberal Western Tradition of Human Rights.
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1984 Guide to International Human Rights Practice. Phila-
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(Attempted Comparisons)
Bozeman, A. B.
1971 The Future of Law in a Multicultural World. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Donnelly, J.
1982 Fluman Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic
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1985 The Concept of Human Rights. New York: St. Martin’s
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Khushalani, Y.
1983 Human Rights in Asia and Africa. Human Rights Law
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1984 The Protection of Human Rights in Africa and the
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Pollis, A., and P. Schwab
1979 Human Rights; A Western Construct with Limited
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1978 Human Rights Philosophically. Indian Journal of Inter-
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1981 Is Universality of Human Rights Standards an Outdated
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6. The Reality of Cultural Diversity
Since it is not possible to conclude that all cultures
do share the same concept of human rights on the
basis of evidence currently available, this means
that cultural differences may raise significant
problems. The presumption of universality begins
to totter when it confronts divergent interpreta-
tions of humanitarian standards.
a) The Case of Female Circumcision
There are two types of female circumcision. F. P.
Hosken, one of the leading opponents of the
practice, offers the typology:
1. Sunna Circumcision: removal of the prepuce
and/or tip of the clitoris.
2. Excision or Clitoridectomy: excision of the
entire clitoris with the labia minora and some or
most of the external genitalia.
3. Excision and Infibulation (Pharaonic Circumci-
sion): This means excision of the entire clitoris,
labia minora, and parts of the labia majora. The
two sides of the vulva are then fastened together in
some way either by the thorns ... or sewing with
catgut. Alternatively the vulva are scraped raw and
the child’s limbs are tied together for several weeks
until the wound heals (or she dies). The purpose is
to close the vaginal orifice. Only a small opening is
left (usually by inserting a slither [sic] of wood) so
the urine or later the menstrual blood can be
passed (Hosken 1976: 30; see also Huelsman
1976).
Women who live in societies where the practice of
circumcision continues must undergo surgery
throughout life. Women who are infibulated have
to be opened to permit intercourse and to be cut
open further for the delivery of a child (Daly
1978: 157). Sometimes women are sewn up again
after delivery depending on the wishes of their
husbands.
Female genital mutilation occurs in certain
tribes in the following countries: Kenya, Tanzania,
Ethiopia, southern Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, north-
ern Zaire, Chad, northern Cameroun, Nigeria,
Dahomey, Togo, northern Ghana, Upper Volta,
Mali, northern Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Guinea, Guinea Bissau, the Gambia, Senegal, and
Mauritania (Hosken 1976: 22). Excision in small
girls still takes place in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Jordan, and Syria. The operation is also performed
in Europe when members of tribes emigrate
(Anonymous 1984a). It is difficult to pinpoint the
precise number of girls who undergo the surgery
Anthropos 83.1988
The Concept of Human Rights
359
because the operation is usually performed in
secret. The Minority Rights Group report states:
“The total number of women affected is in any case
unknown, but without any doubt involves several
tens of millions of women” (McLean and Graham
1983: 3). A more scholarly article cites figures of
between thirty and seventy-four million women as
being currently circumcised in at least twenty
African countries (Boulware-Miller 1985: 156).
There are various justifications offered for
female circumcision. The main one is the preser-
vation of the moral purity of women. The opera-
tion supposedly insures the fidelity of wives. In
1938 Dr. Allan Worsley analyzed the reasons given
for the practice: “Although it is often denied, the
preservation of virginity lies at the root of this
custom” (Worsley 1938: 686-691). Daly notes that
“A basic belief that justifies all, erasing all respon-
sibility is of course that these rites keep women
faithful” (Daly 1978: 160). It complicates the issue
further that the operation is performed by women,
which might make it appear that men bear no
responsibility for perpetuating the practice. In
fact, both men and women insure the continuation
of the practice.
In the past, international organizations have
been unwilling to get involved because of profess-
ed respect for the cultural traditions of others. And
perhaps their reluctance is reasonable, since the
custom is accepted as moral and legitimate in the
societies in which it occurs. Those who do not
undergo the surgery are ostracized. Apparently,
no one will marry uncircumcised girls. In one
study, conducted by means of a detailed question-
naire administered to 3210 females and 1545 males
in the Sudan, it was shown that the ratio of those
who favored continuing the practice to those who
did not was 5 to 1 for women and 7 to 1 for men,
though the majority was against the most severe
Pharaonic type (El Dareer 1983).
There is a tendency among current writers to
speak of female circumcision not as morally
abhorrent or acceptable but rather in terms of the
health problems that it causes. Warning that
female circumcision may well be hazardous to the
health of young girls initially seems to avoid the
pitfalls of the moral dilemma. For this reason this is
increasingly the sort of position that international
organizations such as WHO and UNICEF are
taking. Perhaps the best discussion of female
circumcision along these lines, within the frame-
work of human rights, is an article by Kay
Boulware-Miller (1985). Here she discusses three
major human rights arguments challenging female
circumcision as (1) a violation of the rights of the
child, (2) the right to sexual and corporeal identi-
ty, and (3) the right to health. Her conclusion is
that: “Although the right to health argument may
not bring immediate results, it is likely to have the
most success because it considers the practice from
the perspective of the Africans . . . [it] integrates
the issues of physical, mental, and sexual health as
well as child development” (1985: 176-177).
Unfortunately, the health argument is subject
to at least two telling criticisms. First, the peoples
whose way of life is criticized, whether on health or
moral grounds, may not see a difference between
the two types of argument. That is, even if the
argument based on health is on its face more
sensitive to cultural differences, those practicing
the custom may suspect that the real argument is
that Westerners object to it on moral grounds.
Moreover, the argument is rendered even less
effective by the fact that operations of this type are
now carried out in hospitals under thoroughly
antiseptic conditions.
The fact that many women in the society
perpetuate the custom is one which must be
squarely faced. The presumption of universality
cannot alter the reality that the practice is accepted
as moral by members of the culture.
b) The Case of Child Labor
The spectre of relativism also rears its head in the
case of child labor. Today anywhere from 52 to 150
million children (under age 15) work throughout
the world. The conditions are often exploitative
and unhealthy. As a consequence, many in the
international community have focussed their ener-
gies towards the complete eradication of all forms
of child labor. This goal of abolition is justified in
absolutist terms: “a necessary evil” (Dogramaci
1985: 11; Mendelievich [ed.] 1979: 55; Blanchard
1983: 23; Rodgers and Standing [ed.] 1981: v; Bou-
dhiba 1982: 11), “an affront to our conscience”
(Blanchard 1983: 6), “a scourge” (Valcarenghi
1981: 12, 23), “unnatural” (Mendelievich [ed.]
1979: 48), “tragic” (Dogramaci 1985: 10), and “a
moral indictment on our society” (Chan 1980: 78).
Francis Blanchard, the Director-General of the
International Labor Organization, has said that
the goal of the international community should be
“. . . ultimately, the elimination of child labor”
(1983: 6), which is justified on the basis of “univer-
sal values” (1983: 20). In its 1984 report on child
labor, the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection
of Human Rights acknowledged the Western bias
in international legislation but, nonetheless, con-
Anthropos 83.1988
360
Alison Dundes Renteln
eluded that UNICEF should make “a specific
commitment to the eradication of child labour in
all its forms” (Anonymous 1984b: 46,57). Another
glaring example of the universalist presumption is
found in the international edition of Newsweek in
its special report entitled “All Work and No Play -
The World’s Youngest Laborers Sacrifice their
Childhood in Days of Endless Toil“ (Smolowe
et al. 1983; emphasis added). The language and
melodramatic tone reflect the deeply ingrained
Western way of thinking about childhood. They
also convey the message that the proper goal ought
to be the complete abolition of child labor.
Despite the presumption that child labor is
entirely wrong, it is an economic necessity. In
many societies, children are expected to help with
the family business or to bring home a substantial
portion of the family income. It is an accepted part
of the way of life in much of the world, and is
perceived as natural and moral: “In most agrarian
societies, children’s work is not only highly prized
for its economic utility but as representing the
highest ideals of the culture, viz. obedience,
respect, or filial piety. Serving those above one in
the domestic hierarchy of age statuses is concep-
tualized as moral duty, often as a sacred obliga-
tion” (LeVine 1984: 3).
The ethnocentric assumption in the literature
leads to a narrow-minded solution which is not
only unworkable, but which is also undeniably a
form of cultural imperialism. Since the concept of
childhood varies across cultures, as do ideas about
work, it is not wise to adopt an absolutist aboli-
tionist approach, even as a long-term objective.
Children’s work is an essential part of the family’s
survival; and unless that is taken into account when
policies are formulated, the viability of internation-
al standards to protect children will be uncertain.
By no means does this imply that we should turn a
blind eye to the problem. It is simply that outright
condemnation is ineffective and, indeed, counter-
productive. Greater cultural sensitivity would per-
mit the formulation of more globally acceptable
strategies.
7. Conclusion
I have tried to show that, properly interpreted, the
concept of human rights is compatible with moral
systems that are centered on concepts other than
rights. This would remove the objection that
duty-based systems cannot accommodate human
rights. But even if human rights, in the abstract,
may be possible in any moral system, we cannot
presume that all moral codes contain the same or
similar values. Women’s rights and children’s
rights are problematic because societies do not all
believe that these groups deserve special status.
So, to assert the existence of universal standards
for them is ethnocentric. The recognition of moral
diversity calls into question the presumption of
universality and leaves human rights vulnerable to
the apparent dangers of relativism.
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Anthropos 83.1988: 365-394
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
Franz Eichinger, Johann Frick und Anton Quack
Abstract. - The unpublished material collected by D. Schröder
forms the base for this article on the formation of a Lamaistic
gurtum in the Ch'inghai-Region. The work on gurtum and
shamanism, published by Schröder, is supplemented through
this critical description and analysis. [China, Ch'inghai, Folkre-
ligion, Shamanism, Initiation]
Franz Eichinger, von 1940 bis 1953 Missionar und Arzt in China
(Shantung, Nord Honan, Kansu, Tsinghai). - Zu seinen
wichtigsten ethnographischen Veröffentlichungen vgl. Litera-
turliste.
Johann Frick, Dr. phil. (Wien 1955); von 1931 bis 1952
Missionar in China (Kansu, Tsinghai); Mitglied des Anthropos
Institutes. - Zu seinen wichtigsten ethnographischen Veröf-
fentlichungen vgl. Literaturliste.
Anton Quack, Dr. phil. (Köln 1983), M.A. (Köln 1978);
Mitglied des Anthropos Institutes; Chefredakteur des Anthro-
pos (seit 1984). - Zu seinen wichtigsten ethnographischen
Veröffentlichungen vgl. Literaturliste.
“Der Gurtum ist im ganzen Bereiche des Lamais-
mus verbreitet, von der nördlichen Mongolei bis zu
den südlichen Grenzen Tibets. ... Im Folgenden
handelt es sich nur um den Gurtum eines bestimm-
ten Gebietes, nämlich der Tsinghai- oder Kuku-
nor-Provinz in Westchina, und zwar um den Typ
des Kloster-Gurtum (Kumbum und Kuomang-szu)
und den Typ des Volks-Gurtum in den Dörfern der
Chia-Fändse (Tibeter), Chinesen und Monguol
(Tujen), . . . Wenn damit auch eine geographische
Einschränkung gegeben ist, so dürfte dennoch der
Kloster-Gurtum eine gewisse Allgemeingültigkeit
besitzen, weil er in den verschiedenen Gegenden
in gleichem Milieu, in gleicher Funktion und bei
gleichen religiös-mythologischen Vorstellungen
auftritt, und weil überdies das nordöstliche Amdo
(Ost-Tsinghai) eine große religiöse Ausstrahlungs-
kraft besitzt, da es Heimat und Zentrum des
reformierten Lamaismus, der gelben Kirche, ist.”
Mit diesen Sätzen leitet D. Schröder seinen Auf-
satz “Zur Struktur des Schamanismus” ein, in dem
er sich mit der Institution des lamaistischen Gur-
tum auseinander setzt (Schröder 1955: 849 f.).
Damit ist auch der Rahmen der folgenden Darstel-
lung abgesteckt.
Die Texte, die unserer Darstellung des Wer-
degangs des lamaistischen Gurtum zugrunde lie-
gen, stammen aus dem Nachlaß von D. Schröder.
Die Autoren des Aufsatzes versuchen, Ansätze
aus früheren Veröffentlichungen Schröders zum
lamaistischen Gurtum (1952/1953, 1955) weiterzu-
führen. Eine Gesamtdarstellung der Institution
des lamaistischen Gurtum nach den Dokumenten
des Nachlasses erwies sich als nicht möglich; F.
Eichinger1 und J. Frick1 2 3 hatten sich nach dem
frühen Tod von D. Schröder, 1974, an diese
Aufgabe begeben. Doch die Quellenlage ließ nur
eine eingehendere Behandlung des “Werdegangs
des Gurtum” zu. Verantwortlich für die Schlußre-
daktion dieser Ausführungen ist A. Quack.2
Für D. Schröder war der lamaistische Gurtum
ein “echter Schamane” mit allen Wesenselemen-
ten des Schamanismus4, eingebettet in lamaisti-
sche Vorstellungen und Riten: “Der Gurtum ist
1 Franz Eichinger (* 1910) war von 1940 bis 1953 Missionar in
China: 1940-1945 als Missionar und Arzt in Shantung und
Nord Honan, 1946-1953 in Kansu und Tsinghai; er über-
prüfte und korrigierte D. Schröders Übersetzungen der hier
benutzten chinesischen Texte und entwarf gemeinsam mit J.
Frick die erste Fassung der vorliegenden Darstellung des
“Werdegangs des Gurtum”, die damals ein Kapitel der
geplanten Gesamtdarstellung werden sollte! Zu seinen
wichtigsten ethnographischen Veröffentlichungen vgl. Ei-
chinger 1952a,b; 1955; 1968.
2 Johann Frick (*1903) arbeitete als Missionar von 1931 bis
1952 in Nordwest-China: 1931-1946 in Kansu, 1946-1952 in
Tsinghai. 1952-1955 Studium der Ethnologie in Wien, 1955
Dr.phil., Mitglied des Anthropos-Institutes. Er erarbeitete
mit A. Quack weitere Versionen dieses Beitrages. Die
Literaturliste führt die wichtigsten seiner ethnographischen
Publikationen auf.
3 Anton Quack (*1946) wurde 1976 von der Leitung des
Anthropos-Institutes mit der Bearbeitung des wissenschaft-
lichen Nachlasses von D. Schröder betraut. Daraus entstan-
den folgende Publikationen: Schröder und Quack 1979;
Quack 1981, 1985.
4 Zum Schamanismus-Begriff D. Schröders vgl. Schröder
1955: 848-881, 1953: 671-678; Quack 1985: 139-150. Die
von D. Schröder entwickelte “Grunddefinition”, die auch
366
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
ein ausgesprochener Besessenheitsschamane vom
Kriegertyp, er kennt die volle Ekstase, ist aufs
engste mit einem Schutzgott verbunden, unterliegt
der Berufung durch ihn, muß die schamanistische
Vorbereitung und feierliche Initiation durchma-
chen, entfaltet eine allseitige schamanistische Tä-
tigkeit im Dienst seiner Stammesgenossen oder
des Klosters, ist an feste äußere Formen gebun-
den, amtet nach einem bestimmten Ritual, hat
seine eigene Tracht und Ausrüstung und vollzieht
in darstellerischer Mimik, was er in Wirklichkeit zu
vollbringen vorgibt.” (Schröder 1955: 880 f.; vgl.
auch Schröder 1952/1953; 237-248)
Unter der Überschrift “Werdegang des Gur-
tum” stellte D. Schröders Informant Ch’en Shen-
jui einen umfangreichen Text zusammen. Unsere
Darstellung folgt in ihrem Aufbau diesem Bericht.
Neben dem genannten Text von Ch’en, den wir in
großem Umfang wörtlich zitieren, werden zwei
kürzere Texte von D. Schröders Informant Ch’ang
Shih-an herangezogen: “Einzelheiten zum Verlauf
der Echtheitsprobe des Gurtum von Heitsuitzu”
und “Einzelheiten zum Verlauf der Echtheitspro-
be durch den Tahufa von Kumbum”.5
Da Ch’ens Bericht die Grundlage der folgen-
den Ausführungen bildet, sollen hier einige nähere
Angaben zur Charakterisierung dieses Textes vor-
ausgeschickt werden (das chinesische Original des
Berichtes ist im Anhang abgedruckt).
Der Bericht wurde innerhalb weniger Tage
fertiggestellt. Den Anlaß zur Niederschrift gab ein
eigener Auftrag. D. Schröder - von 1946 bis 1949
Missionar in Tsinghai, Sining-Gebiet - wiederhol-
te 1950 von Europa aus seine dringende Bitte, die
er bereits vor seiner Abreise aus China gestellt
hatte: Sein Mitbruder J. Frick möge an Ort und
Stelle Herrn Ch’en zu einer möglichst ausführli-
chen Niederschrift einer großen Anzahl interes-
santer Beobachtungen zum bodenständigen
Brauchtum veranlassen. Aus mündlichen Unter-
haltungen, wobei bereits Notizen gemacht wur-
den, hatten beide, J. Frick und D. Schröder, schon
auf die rudimentärste Form des Schamanismus anwendbar
sein müsse, lautet: “Der Schamanismus ist eine institutio-
nelle und formgebundene ekstatische Verbindung des
Menschen mit dem Jenseits im Dienste der Gemeinschaft”
(1955: 879).
5 Ch'en bringt in seiner ausführlichen Darstellung weder eine
eingehende Charakterisierung noch auch nur einen deutli-
chen Hinweis auf die “Echtheitsproben”. Er kannte bei
seiner Niederschrift die beiden Schilderungen von Ch’ang
Shih-an bereits. Beide Informanten trafen sich oft bei J.
Frick; sie hatten bei ihren Vorüberlegungen eine gewisse
Arbeitsteilung abgesprochen. So brauchte Ch’en nicht mehr
eigens darzustellen, was der Augenzeuge Ch’ang selber und
authentischer berichten konnte.
Einzelheiten und Zusammenhänge erfahren. Die
gezielte Frage nach dem “Werdegang” des Gur-
tum kam nun von D. Schröder, der sich dafür aus
mancherlei Gründen interessierte.
Nach einigen brieflichen Detailfragen D.
Schröders, nach Erinnerungen an frühere Unter-
haltungen mit ihm, schließlich nach persönlichem
Interesse und Einblick besprachen J. Frick und
Ch’en Shen-jui verschiedene Aspekte des Themas.
Es sollten vor allem jene Punkte zur Sprache
kommen, die für den Werdegang des Gurtum am
charakteristischsten schienen, und die Ch’en am
besten kannte. Darüber hinaus war Ch’en frei,
alles mitzuteilen, was, wie und wo er es für
angebracht hielt. So wurde seine Darstellung -
weit über das gestellte Thema hinaus - zu einer
Quelle für allerlei Einzelheiten zu Institution des
Gurtum in dieser Gegend.
Die Weite des Themas erlaubte es Ch’en, den
Stoff breit auszufalten, was der Exaktheit des
Berichts zugute kam. Er teilte den umfangreichen
Stoff in größere Abschnitte ein, die er jeweils
durch Zwischentitel einleitete. Für einige dieser
Abschnitte gibt Ch’en eigene Gewährsleute an,
deren Stellung oder Titel er gelegentlich notiert,
z. B. Akka6 oder Gurtum. Den unmittelbaren
Adressaten seiner Ausführungen, J. Frick und D.
Schröder, denen die genannten Personen bekannt
waren, wollte er mitteilen, wer außer ihm selbst für
die Zuverlässigkeit des betreffenden Abschnitts
bürgt. Manche Teile hat Ch’en so fast wörtlich von
solchen Gewährsleuten übernommen.
An manchen Stellen merkt man dem Stil an,
daß Ch’en aus lebhafter Erinnerung berichtet, was
er gesehen und gehört hat, und worüber er - dazu
neigte er - nachforschte und nachgrübelte. Die
Unterschiede in der Schrift lassen einige bemer-
kenswerte sachliche Schlußfolgerungen zu: Eng
und klein geschriebene Teile bringen mehr Details
an Dingen und Vorgängen; Schilderungen werden
lebhafter. Wo chinesische Zeichen mehr Raum
einnehmen, gilt durchweg, daß Ch’en sachlich
wichtigere Mitteilungen macht. In solch knapp
formulierten Abschnitten finden sich sehr seltene
oder falsch verwendete Zeichen kaum. Unge-
bräuchliche und falsche Zeichen deuten darauf
hin, daß Ch’en hier die Sprache der Leute schreibt,
wie er sie zum Thema reden hörte.
Ch’ens Bericht ist ein ethnographisches Do-
kument, das als solches schon Wert und Bedeu-
tung hat. Seine volle Auswertung wird allerdings
durch äußere Umstände beeinträchtigt, die sich
aus der damaligen Situation ergaben. Die politi-
6 Akka: ein gewöhnlicher Mönch.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
367
sehen Verhältnisse in China um 1950 ließen es
angebracht erscheinen, die fertige Niederschrift
des Berichtes möglichst umgehend aus dem Land
zu bringen. So wurde der Text des Manuskriptes
nicht mehr an Ort und Stelle durchgelesen und
durchgesprochen. D. Schröders Rückfragen er-
reichten J. Frick in Heitsuitzu nicht mehr, da sie
irgendwo auf dem Postweg verloren gingen.7 Die
Folge war, daß weitere gezielte Gespräche mit
Ch’en über seine Niederschrift unterblieben. Un-
klarheiten, die der Leser heute im Text findet,
konnten also seinerzeit nicht mehr beseitigt wer-
den. Neue Fragen, die der Text hervorrufen
konnte, blieben damals ungestellt und unbeant-
wortet. Manches im Text blieb ungenau und
unsicher. Glücklicherweise leidet der Text als
Ganzes kaum unter den genannten Mängeln. D.
Schröder merkt in seinen Notizen dazu an; “Im
wesentlichen aber wird dadurch der Wert der
Darstellung nicht beeinträchtigt. Von verschiede-
nen Ausnahmen abgesehen, bleibt sie eindeutig
und verständlich.”
Für den Bericht von Ch’en hatte D. Schröder
in seiner geplanten Veröffentlichung zur Institu-
tion des Gurtum eine besondere Stellung erwogen.
Am Schluß seiner “einstweiligen Übersetzung”
bemerkt er: “Dieser ausführliche Bericht könnte
als Grundbericht genommen werden, der in An-
merkungen oder im Text die anderen Berichte zur
Ergänzung und Erläuterung heranzieht.” Um die
Bearbeitung des Nachlasses so weit wie möglich an
den Absichten D. Schröders auszurichten, wollten
wir diese Anregung aufgreifen. Doch wurde uns
bald klar, daß damit Bedeutung und Wert des
Berichtes von Ch’en überbetont würden; denn
aufgrund der Themenstellung behandelte oder
erwähnte Ch’en - alle Abschweifungen mitgerech-
net - doch nur einen Teil des Fragenkomplexes
zum Gurtum. Und auch zu diesem Teil existieren
andere Aufzeichnungen, die manches ausfühlicher
und treffender berichten. Allein zum Werdegang
des Gurtum verdient Ch’ens Darstellung eine
hervorgehobene Stellung.
In der Behandlung des Themas gehen wir
über Ch’ens Bericht in drei Fällen hinaus:
7 Bei seiner Rückkehr nach Europa (Ende 1952) stellte J.
Frick fest; Post, die zwischen 1950 und 1952 an ihn
adressiert war, traf vollständig und ohne Verzögerungen bei
ihm in Heitsuitzu ein, ausgenommen D. Schröders wissen-
schaftliche Rückfragen. Schröder hatte diese für so wichtig
gehalten, daß er sie per Einschreiben geschickt hatte, damit
ihr Weg zum Adressaten J. Frick überwacht und sicher sei.
Gerade diese Briefe aber blieben offenbar bei den Sicher-
heitsorganen hängen, während Normalbriefe und Drucksa-
chen anscheinend unbeachtet und unbeanstandet weiterge-
leitet wurden.
1) Wenn sich zu einer Einzelheit, die Ch’en
mitteilt, in D. Schröders Nachlaß Äußerungen aus
anderen örtlichen Quellen finden, fügen wir diese
als Ergänzung an. Manches davon führt über das
Gebiet hinaus, das Ch’en unmittelbar berücksich-
tigt. Doch der Komplex des Gurtum läßt sich nicht
scharf lokal eingrenzen. Was als örtliches Brauch-
tum in bestimmten Landstrichen notiert wird, gilt
oft auch für weitere, angrenzende Gebiete. Was
wir in dieser Weise anfügen, bereichert die lokale
Färbung des von Ch’en gegebenen Berichtes.
2) Ch’ens Bericht wird erweitert, wo andere ein-
heimische Informanten Ausführlicheres zu sagen
haben. Ch’en berichtet über manches nur kurz
oder beiläufig. Das tut er mit Vorliebe in folgen-
den Fällen: a) Er weiß von einem Sachverhalt,
kann aber nicht aus eigenem Erleben erzählen;
b) seine Beobachtungen, oft genau und treffend,
scheinen ihm außerhalb des Gebietes zu liegen,
das er mit seiner Darstellung unmittelbar behan-
deln will; c) er scheint sich bisweilen auch deshalb
knapp zu fassen, weil er von einer Einzelheit, die
er sehr wohl aus eigener Erfahrung kennt, meint,
sie sei im behandelten Gebiet selten und peripher,
also von geringer Bedeutung.
3) Ch’ens Bericht beschreibt den Werdegang des
Gurtum, sein eigentliches Thema, nicht lückenlos.
Er beansprucht keine Vollständigkeit, und die
Umstände seines Entstehens lassen eine solche
auch kaum erwarten. Einige Lücken lassen sich
mit Hilfe von Mitteilungen anderer füllen. Solche
Texte ergänzen den Inhalt und helfen, das Bild
möglichst abzurunden.
1. Die Berufung des Gurtum
Ch’en beginnt seinen Bericht:
Auftakt
Will ein Gurtum-Geist die gläubige Bevölkerung einer Gegend
unter seinen Schutz nehmen, so erwählt er jemanden, unter
seinem Einfluß zu reden. Diese Person wird “Ma-chüeh
Ti-tzu”, Pferdefußjünger, genannt; unter diesem Namen redet
der Geist ihn, d.h. den Gurtum, an. “Erwählung” besagt
zweierlei: 1) Ein Geist wünscht jemanden zu eigen zu haben,
und 2) ein Geist hat zu diesem Menschen eine besondere,
innere Beziehung so wie Menschen sich Freund und Herzbru-
der sind. Die Zeit, wann jemand, und die Person, die zu
gegebener Zeit vom Geist erwählt wird, kennt vorher nie-
mand.
Der Betreffende bekommt bei der Erwählung, ohne daß
er es weiß und merkt, eine Gemütskrankheit. Alle drei bis
sieben Tage befällt sie ihn einmal. Er springt dann verstört
umher, brüllt und schreit. Aus seinem Mund tritt weißer
Schaum. Er schreckt im Schlaf auf, springt urplötzlich auf.
Mit der Zeit wird es damit immer schlimmer. Bei welcher Be-
schäftigung er sich auch gerade befindet, er fällt auf ein-
Anthropos 83.1988
368
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
mal bewußtlos um. Nach etwa 50 Minuten8 kommt er wieder zu
sich. Kommen diese Anfälle von Bewußtlosigkeit schon länger
als einen Monat vor, so führt das zum “endgültigen Erlöschen
der Persönlichkeit”. Der Mann wimmert und kichert, weint
oder schreit. Er spricht nur noch wenig Vernünftiges. Sein
Mund redet: “Ich bin der oder der Geist.” Was er sonst an
Lauten hervorbringt, ist Keuchen und Gröhlen. Er schüttelt
den Kopf, springt wild umher, unaufhörlich.
Ein paar Einzelheiten der hier geschilderten
“Gemütskrankheit” könnten dazu verleiten, an
epileptische Anfälle zu denken und die Gescheh-
nisse damit zu “erklären”. Man übersieht dabei
leicht die mit Epilepsie unvereinbaren Unterschie-
de. Zu ihnen gehört auch das abrupte und endgül-
tige Aufhören der Symptome, sobald die “Weiter-
führung der Erwählung” beschlossen ist. Die
spätere Schamanen-Trance des Gurtum, sein
“Fashen”, läßt sich noch weniger als Abwandlung
jener “Gemütskrankheit” erklären.
Der Bericht fährt weiter:
Die Familienangehörigen müssen nun wohl oder übel einen
Gurtum zum Fashen und um Auskunft bitten, welcher Geist
oder Dämon im Spiele ist. Der Gurtum gibt Bescheid: Der oder
der Geist ist dabei, einen Ma-chüeh Ti-tzu auszuwählen.
Handelt es sich um einen Geist, der den Angehörigen
genehm ist, so begrüßen sie die Erwählung und ersuchen dann
um weitere Auskunft, wo ein früherer Gurtum des betreffen-
den Geistes verstorben sei, für den der Geist einen Nachfolger
wählt. Sie erbitten schließlich Ausrüstungsgegenstände des
verstorbenen Gurtum, z. B. sein langes Gewand, den Brust-
spiegel, den Speer, die Geisterschlinge, das Geisterseil oder
sonstige Gegenstände, um sie in der eigenen Familie zu ehren.
Man verbrennt dabei Weihrauch, man zündet Lampen an. Der
Tag für die Einkleidung wird festgelegt: Alles geht in Ord-
nung.
Handelt es sich dagegen um den Fall, daß die Angehöri-
gen die Erwählung nur ungern sehen, kommt es zur “Verab-
schiedung des Geistes”. Wenn die Angehörigen nicht wün-
schen, daß der Geist in ihrer Mitte seine Wahl trifft, müssen sie
sich das einige Silberdollars kosten lassen: Sie laden dann einen
Gurtum, Akka oder Benpo9 ein, die ihrer Art nach zwar
verschieden sind, jedoch ähnliche Riten haben. Es handelt sich
im wesentlichen um die gleiche Art, wie bei der Paima-
Verabschiedung, doch würde man eher von einer Kurzform
sprechen. Sie umfaßt nur “Gebete rezitieren, Sänftezeremonie
durchführen, Sanch’i-Formular”.10 Bei der Durchführung der
“Verabschiedung” kann man nicht von vornherein wissen, ob
der Geist sich auch darauf einläßt. Läßt er sich darauf ein,
nimmt er eben Abschied. Geht er nicht darauf ein, so versucht
man eine zweite oder dritte Verabschiedung. Geht er immer
noch nicht darauf ein, muß man sich fügen. Man würde sonst
sein eigenes Leben riskieren. Man wechselt nun aber zur
umgekehrten Bitte über: Der Geist möge seine Erwählung
weiterführen. Und man legt den Termin der Einkleidung
fest.
8 Diese Zeitangabe soll nur zum Ausdruck bringen: Es dauert
längere Zeit, aber doch nicht ganz eine Stunde.
9 Benpo: Mönch der roten Sekte.
10 Paima-Verabschiedung: eine lamaistische Zeremonie; San-
ch’i: atropäische Zeremonie, zur Abwehr von Katastro-
phen.
Es gibt auch Leute, die von sich aus Gurtum werden
wollen. Mit allen Tricks und Listen prellen sie die Leute um
ihren Glauben und um ihr Geld. So ein schauspielerisch
gewandter Pseudo-Gurtum sorgt auf eigene Faust für seine
Publizität und seine Macht.
Wenn der Vater Gurtum war und nach seinem Tod ein
Sohn an seine Stelle tritt, dann wendet man sich mit dem
Wunsch nach Erwählung an den Geist, dem der Vater gedient
hatte. Einkleidung und Prüfung finden in der üblichen Weise
statt.
Soweit Ch’ens Bericht zur Frage, wie eine Person
zum Gurtum auserwählt wird. Er nennt drei
Möglichkeiten: Wahl einer beliebigen Person
durch den Geist: die Initiative zur Berufung geht
vom Geist aus; Anmaßung eines Bewerbers, der
von sich aus in den Beruf des Gurtum drängt;
Nachfolge vom Vater auf den Sohn: hier sind
wirtschaftliche oder soziale Faktoren ausschlagge-
bend oder tragen wesentlich dazu bei, daß jemand
Gurtum wird.
Zur ersten Möglichkeit
Ch’ens Darstellung, daß eine Person Gurtum wird,
ohne daß eine Familientradition oder sonstige
Milieueinflüsse auf diese Wahl einwirken, wobei
man allein in psychosomatischen Besonderheiten
das Zeichen der Erwählung sieht, entspricht der
allgemeinen Auffassung der Leute in jenem Ge-
biet; eine Auffassung, die in der Regel durch den
weiteren beruflichen Lebensweg des Gurtum be-
stätigt wird. Viele Gurtum einer solchen individu-
ellen Berufung erwecken auch später im alltägli-
chen Leben den Eindruck, daß sie mit psychischen
Besonderheiten behaftet sind. Alle Arten solcher
Besonderheiten lassen sich beobachten, angefan-
gen von harmlosen Eigentümlichkeiten im Geba-
ren bis hin zu schweren Psychopathien. Doch es
gibt Ausnahmen von dieser Regel. Nicht immer
leitet eine Gemütserkrankung den Werdegang des
Gurtum ein. Es gibt Gurtum, die in individueller
Art zum Amt berufen wurden, ohne daß sie
nervlich krank oder belastet gewesen wären, und
deren späterer Lebensweg sie als gesund auswies
(z. B. der Gurtum Ch’en aus Pen p’a).
Zur zweiten Möglichkeit
Betrügerische Eindringlinge in den Beruf des
Gurtum gab es immer. Manche konnten sich auf
die Dauer nicht durchsetzen; andere hielten nach
ihrem Aufstieg zum Gurtum nicht durch und
hörten stillschweigend wieder auf oder beschränk-
ten sich auf gelegentliche Ausübung des Amtes im
engen Kreis. Einzelne dieser Eindringlinge ver-
suchten auch, die Prüfungen zu bestehen, d.h. sich
irgendwie durch die Echtheitsproben zu bringen.
Bestanden sie die Prüfung nicht, wurden sie als
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
369
Gurtum mit “falschem Geist” entlarvt. Obwohl
ungeprüft oder in der Prüfung durchgefallen,
behaupteten sich einige davon auch weiter als
Gurtum.
Bei aller Leichtgläubigkeit rechnete die Be-
völkerung doch damit, betrogen zu werden; und
man versuchte, sich dagegen abzusichern. Im
allgemeinen verließ man sich auf eine nach den
geltenden Regeln vorgenommene Einkleidung.
Oft begnügte man sich mit dem Zeugnis eines
anderen Gurtum oder einer anderen Fashen-
wirkenden Person. Oft bestand der “Rat der
Alten” auf dem Nachweis der Echtheit. Eine
Echtheitsprobe war vor allem dann gefordert,
wenn man einem praktizierenden, aber nicht
allseitig abgesicherten Gurtum einen größeren
Auftrag im Dienst des ganzen Dorfes etwa geben
wollte, z. B. Errichtung einer Wetterburg.
Von den Pseudo-Gurtum, von denen hier die
Rede war, unterscheiden sich jene Aspiranten, die
als Einzelpersonen aus eigenem Antrieb und
zunächst ohne die Merkmale einer vom Geist
ausgehenden Erwählung Gurtum werden wollen.
Solche Bewerber unterwerfen sich den Regeln der
Gurtum-Initiation: Sie beginnen, zu einem Fa-
shen-wirkenden Geist zu beten. Nimmt “der” oder
“ein” Geist den Bittsteller an, gibt er dies durch
die üblichen Merkmale der Erwählung, wie sie
Ch'en skizziert hat, zu erkennen. Diese Anwärter
bemühen sich um größere Vertrautheit mit ihrem
Geist. Sie verehren ihn, suchen seinen Einfluß auf
sich zu intensivieren; sie holen Erinnerungsgegen-
stände an diesen Geist in ihre Nähe, sie lernen und
üben die Zeremonien.
Zeuge eines solchen Strebens, ein Gurtum zu
werden, wurde eines Tages J. Frick; Ein junger
Chinese machte am hellen Tag auf dem Feld im
vollen Ornat eines Gurtum Bewegungen, wie diese
sie beim Fashen auszuführen pflegen. Am Rande
des Feldes standen ein paar ältere Frauen; sie
trugen Weihrauchstäbchen und benahmen sich,
wie Gläubige es bei Fashen-Zeremonien gewöhn-
lich tun. Auf die Frage, was sie und der junge
Mann machten, kam die Antwort: Er übt. Er will
Gurtum werden. - Das Geschehen veranschau-
licht gleichzeitig die Notwendigkeit des “Glau-
bens” als unverzichtbare Voraussetzung zum Fa-
shen; selbst zum Üben bedarf es des Glaubens der
Gemeinde, hier vertreten in der Gruppe der
Frauen.
In manchen Gegenden scheint ein solcher
Einstieg in den Beruf des Gurtum die Regel zu
sein, die “Krankheit” dagegen die Ausnahme.
Ch’en läßt im Verlauf seiner Ausführungen einen
neu investierten Gurtum (Yang San-pao?) zu Wort
kommen, bei dem der eigene Wunsch, Gurtum zu
werden, am Anfang stand. Bei ihm stellte sich
zwar auch die “Gemütskrankheit” ein, doch sie
war nicht der eigentliche Aufruf, Gurtum zu
werden; sie war eher ein zusätzlicher Faktor, der
den Wunsch des Kandidaten stützte. - Aspiranten,
die aus eigener Initiative Gurtum werden, durch-
laufen alle weiteren Stufen des Werdegangs eines
Gurtum, auch alle späteren Prüfungen, sobald sie
die Auslagen dafür bestreiten können. Bestehen
sie die Prüfungen, spricht das für die Echtheit ihres
Fashen.
Zur dritten Möglichkeit
Eine größere Rolle, als die kurze Bemerkung in
Ch’ens Bericht vermuten läßt, spielen gesellschaft-
liche Faktoren bei der Bestimmung der Person, die
Gurtum werden soll. Das Amt des Gurtum wird
vielfach innerhalb der Familie weitervererbt. Älte-
re Gurtum, die die körperlichen Anstrengungen
ihres Amtes nicht mehr durchhalten können,
suchen sich oft einen Enkel als Nachfolger. Bei
Personen, die durch “Vererbung” Gurtum wer-
den, findet sich eine “Gemütskrankheit” als Zei-
chen der Berufung nur ausnahmsweise. Sowohl zu
Beginn als auch während ihrer beruflichen Lauf-
bahn erscheinen solche Gurtum als gesund.
2. Die Einkleidung des Gurtum
Ist eine Person für das Amt des Gurtum auserse-
hen und bereit, es anzunehmen, steht ihr ein
Entwicklungsgang in mehreren Stufen bevor. Ziel
ist die fachliche Ausbildung und die Ermächtigung
zu diesem Amt. Dieser Entwicklungsgang setzt ein
mit der Feier der Einkleidung oder Investitur, die
in drei Abschnitten vollzogen wird: 1. Am Anfang
steht die Berechtigungsprüfung, in der nachgewie-
sen werden soll, ob der Kandidat zu echtem
Fashen fähig ist. Er übt und praktiziert dabei
Fashen; und er bemüht sich durch die Verehrung
“seines Geistes” um dessen Gunst. 2. Es schließt
sich eine mehrtägige Ausbildung an. 3. Die ei-
gentliche Einkleidung oder Investitur bildet den
dritten Abschnitt; sie ermächtigt den neuen Gur-
tum zu seiner beruflichen Tätigkeit.
2.1 Die Berechtigungsprüfung
Ch’en fährt in seinem Bericht fort und gibt eine
“geraffte Form des Verfahrens bei der Berechti-
gungsprüfung für eine Investitur”. Er hält sich in
seinen Darlegungen fast wörtlich an Ausführun-
Anthropos 83.1988
370
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
gen von Wang Chin-fu, einem Jünger des Berggei-
stes Amits’aipa.
Es gibt zwei Arten der Einkleidung eines Gurtum: 1. durch
einen Gurtum; 2. durch einen Akka.
Bei der Einkleidung durch einen Gurtum lädt man, d.h.
die Familie oder das Dorf des Kandidaten, einen als tüchtig
bekannten Gurtum ein, einen oder zwei oder drei. Er führt
zunächst eine Vorprüfung durch, die auf dem Schreck-Angst-
Verfahren gründet: Man erhitzt sieben bis acht Metallketten bis
zur Rotglut; sie werden auf den bloßen Körper aufgelegt.
Sieben gußeiserne Pflugschare werden ebenfalls bis zur Rotglut
gebracht; sie werden mit bloßen Füßen betreten. Sieben oder
acht Stilette werden benötigt; der Gurtum sticht oder schneidet
sich damit. Ein Topf Öl wird bis zum Aufkochen erhitzt; aus
diesem Öl müssen mit bloßer Hand Gegenstände herausgeholt
werden. Gewehre werden vorbereitet.
Schließlich versetzt sich der Gurtum in Fashen, in Trance,
und verlangt das auch vom Prüfling. Mal gelingt das sofort, mal
erst unter Zwang. Der Gurtum lehrt den Prüfling “sprechen”,
in Sprachen reden, und nötigt ihn, die oben genannten
Gegenstände zu gebrauchen. Manche Gurtum tun das zuerst
selbst, bevor sie den Prüfling dazu drängen. Dabei feuert man
Gewehre ab, schlägt Trommeln und Gong - der Lärm dient der
Vertreibung böser Geister. Der Gurtum pustet in Richtung des
kochenden Öltopfs Branntwein, der als blaue Flamme ver-
sprüht. Auf den Aspiranten bläst oder wirft der Gurtum Spelt.
Viele Leute schreien bei dem Getöse und Krachen auf. Kleine
Geister oder kleine Dämonen verschwinden. Ist der Kandidat
ein zu Recht Erwählter, so fürchtet und schreckt er sich nicht.
Wagemutig gebraucht er die Dinge der Reihe nach. Auf jede
Frage gibt er Antwort. Was der Gurtum Vormacht, macht er
nach. Er stößt laute Schreie aus, macht Hochsprünge; seine
Energie vervielfältigt sich.
Wenn ein Prüfling sich schließlich als echt erwiesen hat,
wählt man den günstigsten Tag für die Einkleidung. Der
Prüfling erklärt, um welchen Geist es sich bei ihm handelt,
welcher Art und Form Kappe, Gegenstände, Ausrüstung sind,
die er braucht, ob etwa die Sachen für den Ortsgeist vollständig
vorhanden sind oder ob welche auszuwechseln sind. Ist er mit
seinen Angaben fertig, folgt der Abschlußritus. Der Geist
verläßt den Prüfling wieder, und er hat wieder seine menschli-
che Art wie zu Beginn.
Die Vor- oder Berechtigungsprüfung durch
einen Akka, die Ch’en oben erwähnte, wird von
ihm nicht weiter dargestellt, wohl weil sie nicht
sehr oft vorgenommen wurde. Sie unterscheidet
sich auch kaum von der Berechtigungsprüfung
durch einen Gurtum. Größere Unterschiede gibt
es bei der späteren Echtheitsprobe, die ebenfalls
von einem Gurtum oder von einem Akka vorge-
nommen werden kann.
2.2 Mehrtägige Ausbildung
Zweiter Abschnitt der Einkleidungsfeierlichkeiten
ist die Ausbildung. Ch’en stützt sich im folgenden
Teil seines Berichtes auf seinen Informanten Yang
Chih-ts’ai.
Nach der Erwählung eines Ma-chüeh Ti-tzu ist dessen Einklei-
dung unbedingt erfordert. Nimmt ein Gurtum die Einkleidung
vor, so lädt man dazu einen Gurtum von Ruf. Ihn anerkennt
man als “Meister”. Der Geist hat den Rang eines “geistlichen
Lehrers”. Sonst beteiligte Personen, z. B. assistierende Gur-
tum, fungieren als “menschliche Lehrer”. Der Vater des
“Meisters” führt den Titel “Ratgeber”. Sie alle stehen zuein-
ander wie Blutsverwandte, Freunde, Schüler.
Zum vorher festgesetzten Datum trifft man in der Familie
Vorkehrungen wie für eine Hochzeit. Verwandte, Freunde und
Dorfnachbarn, alle kommen mit ihren Geschenken. Sie streuen
Weihrauch, steuern Weihrauchgeld bei oder überreichen ir-
gendein Sachgeschenk. Kranke, Auskunftsuchende, ob Mann
oder Frau, kommen zunächst auch nur Weihrauch stecken;
denn vor Abschluß der Einkleidung kann man weder Auskunft
noch Wahrsagen erbitten. Ein solches Verhalten nennt man
“aufrichtigen Herzens beten”. Im Grunde ihres Herzen denken
die Leute vom Gurtum, daß man einen wirklichen Geist um
seinen Bescheid frage. Die Leute nehmen alle den Gurtum als
wirklichen Geist.
Daß man vor Abschluß der Einkleidung keine Anliegen
verbringen kann, hat drei Gründe: Die Kehle des Gurtum hat
sich noch nicht geöffnet; solange der Gurtum noch nicht
eingekleidet ist, zählt er nicht als “Geist”; der Gurtum kennt
sich noch nicht aus.
Erster Tag der Einkleidungsfeier
Am ihm wird das Geistbild aufgehängt, werden die
Geister willkommen geheißen, werden Weihrauchstäbchen
aufgesteckt und entzündet, werden die Teiglämpchen aufge-
stellt und entzündet, wird Weihrauch aufgestreut. Dieser Tag
hat die Bezeichnung “Tag zur Befriedung des Geistes”.
Der Jünger lernt das “Weihrauchgebet”. Dabei handelt
es sich um eine Einladungsformel an die Geister, eine Beschwö-
rungsformel zur Einladung der Geister. Es gibt ein großes
Weihrauchgebet - ein Beschwörungstext, mit dem alle gemein-
sam die Geister einladen. Und es gibt ein kleines Weihrauch-
gebet - es richtet sich nur an den bei dieser Gelegenheit
Fashen-wirkenden Geist. Jeder einzelne Geist hat sein ganz
individuelles Weihrauchgebet. Der Jünger muß beim Rezitie-
ren des Gebetes innerlich ergriffen sein, dann weiß der Geist,
daß er über dessen Körper kommen und ihn aktivieren soll.
Zweiter Tag
An ihm übt der angehende Gurtum das Anziehen der
Ritualkleidung'1 und das Fashen.
Zunächst sitzen sich Meister und Schüler gegenüber. Man
schlägt die Trommel,11 12 um die Geister zur Versammlung zu
laden. Meister und Schüler rezitieren ihre Weihrauchgebete;
jeder lädt seinen eigenen Geist ein. Sie sitzen auf Bänken ohne
Lehnen oder auf Hockern, die man “Machatzu” nennt: Es ist
der Sitzplatz, wo sich der Geist zunächst niederläßt. Wenn der
Gurtum in Fashen, in Trance, kommt, hat der Geist “von
seinem Körper Besitz ergriffen”.
Meister und Schüler erweisen einander Ehrenbezeugun-
gen durch Verneigen. Dann beginnt der Meister das Gespräch
11 Der hier mit Anziehen der (Ritual-)Kleidung übersetzte
chinesische Ausdruck, ch’uan-i, ist nicht der gleiche, der für
“Einkleidung, Investitur” verwendet wird, ta-i. Erst das
abschließende Anziehen mit viel reicherem Zeremoniell gilt
als endgültige Einkleidung, durch die der Anwärter zum
Gurtum wird.
12 Das “Schlagen der Trommel” geschieht durch Personen aus
der Verwandtschaft oder Bekanntschaft, gelegentlich auch
durch Berufstrommler. Solche Teilnehmer sind immer
anwesend. Sind mehrere Gurtum zugegen, beteiligen auch
sie sich daran. Bei anderen Zeremonien gilt ähnliches.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
371
mit den Fragen: “Welcher Geist bist du? Aufgrund welcher
Geschehnisse bist du zum Geist geworden? Welche Persönlich-
keit hat dich mit kaiserlicher Befugnis befördert, d.h. kanoni-
siert? Unter welcher Dynastie wurdest du geboren? Wieviele
Gurtum, Pferdefußjünger, hast du erwählt? Ich öffne dir die
Kehle. Mach wirklichkeitsgetreue Aussagen!” Daß der Jünger
sich auf die Fragen des Meisters äußert, und daß die Äußerun-
gen inhaltlich zutreffen, Meister und Schüler sich also gut
aufeinander abstimmen, das versteht man unter der Zeremonie
“Eröffnung der Kehle”. Meister und Schüler vollziehen nun
einen Schlußritus, womit der Geist wieder den Körper ver-
läßt.
Den Tag über kommt es drei- bis viermal zu Fashen, um
das “Sprechen zu lehren”. Am Abend gibt der Meister anderen
Leuten Anweisungen; sie sollen ihre Kritik Vorbringen oder
ihre Anerkennung, auch ihre Meinung darüber sagen, welche
Gegenstände man anderntags benötigt, z. B. wieviele Teiglam-
pen und in welcher Anordnung.
Bei der Programmangabe des zweiten Tages
der mehrtägigen Feier hat Ch’en das “Anziehen
der Ritualkleidung” vermerkt. Doch im weiteren
Text verliert er kein Wort darüber, sondern läßt
erst den dritten Tag damit beginnen. Wäre das
Manuskript nach der Niederschrift an Ort un Stelle
durchgelesen worden, hätte man diesen Wider-
spruch wohl gemerkt und zu klären versucht.
Allgemein läßt sich jetzt nur soviel sagen: Das
feierliche Anziehen der Ritualkleidung zur Übung
und Vorbereitung auf die spätere eigentliche
Einkleidung fällt spätestens auf den Morgen des
dritten Tages, gelegentlich aber schon auf den
zweiten Tag. Das “Sprechen-lernen” vollzieht sich
jedenfalls schon in einer ziemlich vollständigen
Ritualkleidung.
Normalerweise gehört das Anlegen der Ritu-
alkleidung zum Einstieg in das Fashen, die Trance
des Gurtum. Es gibt jedoch auch Fashen, bei dem
der Gurtum keine Ritualkleider trägt, bzw. nur
unvollständig damit bekleidet ist. Ob der Gurtum
die vollständige Ritualkleidung trägt oder nur
bestimmte Teile, hängt davon ab, welche Aufga-
ben und Leistungen im Fashen zu vollbringen sind;
nicht zuletzt richtet sich der Gurtum dabei nach
den Wünschen seines Geistes. Bei manchen For-
men des Fashen ist das Tragen der Ritualkleidung
vorgeschrieben, bei anderen den Erfordernissen
der Situation anheimgestellt, gelegentlich sogar
ganz untersagt.
Dritter Tag
Ziemlich früh bei Tagesanbruch bringen die Leute das
T’ientun. Es besteht aus dem Ch’ang mao, einem langen Speer,
an dem oben ein gewöhnliches Handtuch und mehrere Hada
hängen. Um das Ganze ist ein Stück Tuch, normalerweise von
roter Farbe, gebunden.13
13 Zu den Erklärungen der Ausdrücke für die Einzelteile der
Gurtum-Ausrüstung vgl. unten 3.2 (Ausstattung des Gur-
tum; Einzelheiten).
Es werden noch eine Reihe anderer Ausrü-
stungsgegenstände herbeigebracht, nicht allein das
T’ientun. Im weiteren Text wird dies als selbstver-
ständlich vorausgesetzt. Bei Auflistungen läßt
Ch’en es übrigens öfter an Vollzähligkeit fehlen.
Er führt den ein oder anderen Punkt oder Gegen-
stand an, um zu informieren, wann oder wie die
Dinge zum Schauplatz der Handlung kommen. Da
er seine Aufzeichnungen unter Zeitdruck nieder-
schrieb, konzentrierte er sich möglicherweise auf
das, was ihm wichtig erschien.
Meister und Schüler verbrennen langes und mittleres Opferpa-
pier. Beim Verbrennnen des langen Opferpapiers hält man in
der Rechten das Opferpapier, in der Linken das Gewand.
Diese Haltung ist die spezifische Einladungsgeste an den Geist.
Diese Geste wird immer vor dem Anziehen des Gewandes
vollzogen. Ist das lange Opferpapier abgebrannt, ziehen
Meister und Schüler das Gewand an, ordnen es und setzen sich
auf das Machatzu, die Geisterbank. Beide sitzen nebeneinan-
der; dabei rezitieren sie das Weihrauchgebet. Auch das
geschieht jedesmal beim Anziehen des Gewandes.
Nach dem Eintreten des Fashen überreicht der Meister
dem Schüler die Utensilien des Gurtum, den Ch’ang mao usw.
Auch der Meister nimmt sich seine Ausrüstung. Stück für Stück
lehrt er nun den Schüler das Gehen und Springen des Gurtum.
Dieses Gehen und Springen hat Ähnlichkeit mit den Bewegun-
gen bei der chinesischen Fechtkunst, etwa dem “Vier-Tore-
Gang”, bei dem man sich nach den vier Himmelsrichtungen
dreht.
An diesem Tag machen sie drei- bis fünfmal Fashen.
Gelegentlich ordnen sie Schalen mit klarem Wasser zu einer
Figur und schreiten dann darüber hinweg. Auch über Siebe
schreiten sie, wobei sie an den Rändern auftreten. Alle
Zeremonien, die ausgeführt werden, macht zuerst der Meister
vor.
In den folgenden Zeilen seines Berichtes gibt
Ch’en nur sehr summarisch einige Angaben über
die weiteren Tage bis zur abschließenden Investi-
tur. Fast alle Bereiche der Aufgaben des Gurtum
werden in diesen Einführungsübungen angespro-
chen. Ch’en greift aus der Fülle offenbar nur das
heraus, was ihm besonders auffällig schien. Im
Schriftbild der Niederschrift veranschaulicht sich
die schwierige Situation, in der sich Ch’en ange-
sichts der Stoffmenge befand. Er schreibt eng und
gedrängt, als müßte er mehr mitteilen, als er
bewältigen kann. Mehrmals läßt er Satz-vollen-
dende Zeichen aus, um von der gleichen, eben
genannten Sache möglichst viel Aussagen machen
zu können. Er ersetzt Zeichen, die aus vielen
Strichen bestehen, durch andere, die mit wenigen
Strichen hingeschrieben werden können, voraus-
gesetzt, daß diese gleichlautend gelesen werden
können.
Trotz eines solchen Zeit- und Platz-sparenden
Vorgehens kann er über einzelne Bereiche des
Wirkens des Gurtum nicht so viel sagen, wie an-
dere Informanten es in ihren ausführlichen Ein-
Anthropos 83.1988
372
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
zeldarstellungen tun. Doch der von Ch’en gegebe-
ne Überblick leistet als prägnant formulierte Dis-
position gute Dienste zum Verständnis anderer
Schilderungen.
Hier, im Zusammenhang mit dem Werdegang
des Gurtum, sollen nur jene Abschnitte aus Ch’ens
Text angeführt werden, die unmittelbar zum Wer-
degang des Gurtum Aussagen bringen: Eine Auf-
zählung des Wissenstoffes und der Praktiken, die
der Kandidat sich aneignen muß; ein paar auf-
schlußreiche Anmerkungen zum “wie” der Ein-
führung; schließlich die Darstellung vom Abschluß
der Investitur.
Bisher schreibt Ch’en von einem ersten,
zweiten, dritten Tag, und jedem weist er eine
bestimmte Aufgabe zu. Auch weiterhin verteilt er
den Lernstoff auf Tage; Er spricht vom “vierten
Tag”, von einem “weiteren Tag”, schließlich heißt
es “wieder ein Tag”. Die tatsächliche Praxis beim
Werdegang eines Gurtum aber hält sich nicht so
genau an eine solche Verteilung des Lernstoffes,
wie Ch’en selber schreibt: “Die Praxis bei der
Unterweisung zur Investitur beachtet die Vermö-
gensverhältnisse - arm oder reich - in der Familie
des Schülers. Bei armen dauert sie drei bis fünf
Tage, bei reichen sieben bis neun.” Auch Bega-
bung und allgemeine Vorbildung des Kandidaten
spielen eine bedeutende Rolle, denn “die Praxis
des Lernens gründet auf dem Auswendig-behal-
ten-können”.
Bei der Auswahl des Stoffes hat der Meister
eine große Freiheit. Einige Male weist Ch’en
ausdrücklich darauf hin: “Jedwede Art von Prak-
tiken, auf die der Meister aus eigener Eingebung
kommt, kann er den Schüler lehren.” Beim Erler-
nen - und späteren Praktizieren - ergeben sich
natürlich Varianten, je nach der Veranlagung und
dem Charakter von Meister und Schüler. Vor
allem aber setzt sich die Art des Fashen-Geistes
durch, der sich seinem Gurtum aufzwingt. Zu den
unterschiedlichen Vorkommnissen beim Lernen -
und Praktizieren - des “Dämonengeleites” z. B.
informiert Ch’en: “Die natürliche Anlage des
Lehrers, Schülers und ihres Geistes kann ‘wild’
oder ‘nicht wild’ sein. Ist ihr Wesen wild, kommt es
bei bestimmten Zeremonien etwa zum ‘Zerbeißen
und Verzehren der schwarzen Schalen’, zum ‘Zer-
drehen der schwarzen Schalen’ oder zum ‘Zerbei-
ßen und Verzehren eiserner Nägel’. Handelt es
sich aber um ‘nicht-wilde’ Charaktere, kommt es
nicht zu solch außerordentlichem Verhalten.”
Schließlich herrscht in den Tagen bis zum
Abschluß der Einkleidung nicht eine immer gleich-
bleibende Atmosphäre und Stimmung am Ort und
unter den Anwesenden, deren bald mehr, bald
weniger sind. Sowohl individuelle Begeisterung
und Ermüdung, Eifer und Desinteresse, wie auch
rubrikenähnliche Anweisungen oder ihr Fehlen
sorgen für Abwechslung. Was geschieht, wirkt
lärmend laut oder gedämpft verhalten, es reißt mit
oder es langweilt, fesselt die ganze Aufmerksam-
keit oder befriedigt kaum die übliche Neugier.
Ch'en charakterisiert den dritten Tag: “An diesem
Tag nimmt das Weihrauchopfern kein Ende, setzt
das Brennen der Teiglampen nicht aus. Fünf-,
sechsmal kommt es zu Fashen, jedesmal dabei die
Verehrung der Geister mit dem Opferpapier und
dem Werfen von Spelt.” Stundenlange Reigen-
und Prozessionsszenen, zu denen das ganze Dorf
kommt, werden in Schweigen beendet; denn “es
ist nicht erlaubt, umzuschauen oder einen Laut
von sich zu geben; so kehrt man vom Flußufer oder
von der Wegkreuzung, dem Ziel der Prozession,
heim”.
Unter solchen Voraussetzungen und Umstän-
den gilt es, bis zur Einkleidung am Ende der Tage
der Einkleidungsfeier den vorgesehenen Lern-
und Übungsstoff zu bewältigen. Alle praktischen
Übungen geschehen dabei im Zustand des Fa-
shen.
Es folgt nun die Aufzählung der Einzelaufga-
ben in der Reihenfolge, wie Ch’en sie zusammen-
gestellt hat. Die Reihenfolge entspricht dem, was
allgemein üblich war; streng verbindlichen Cha-
rakter aber hat sie nicht.
Zum Lernstoff des dritten Tages gehört:
1) Verfahren beim Fassen der Dämonen;
2) Zeichnen des Mandala;
3) Beschriften oder Bemalen des Ritualplatzes, einschließlich
diagrammähnlicher Bilder in allen Himmelssrichtungen;
4) Gebrauch des Siebes zum Sichten und Einsperren von
Dämonen;
5) Methoden der Krankenbehandlung durch Einfangen und
Fortgeleiten der Dämonen, durch Gebete (meistens Bann-
gebete tibetischen Ursprungs);
6) Schmerzbehandlung bei Krankheiten: durch Stecken von
Nadeln, durch Besprengen mit Wasser, durch Sprechen von
Gebeten, durch Bewerfen mit Spelt, durch Verbannen des
Sha-t’u.
Das Verbannen des Sha-t’u, ein abwechs-
lungsreicher Ritus unter der Teilnahme der Dorf-
bewohner, der zwei bis drei Stunden dauert,
beschließt den dritten Tag.
Wenn der Ritus des Sha-t’u zu Ende ist, erfolgt der volle
Schlußritus des Fashen mit einer Ansprache des Meisters, in
der er Aufträge für den kommenden Tag, erbauliche Ermah-
nungen und Anweisungen zur Verabschiedung des Geistes gibt;
er dankt für die Berufung zum Gurtum.
Vierter Tag
Er dient der Diagnose im Zustand des Fashen. Gebraucht
wird: Opferpapier, das beschriftet und dann abgeleckt wird;
Spateln, die rot glühend erhitzt und dann mit der Zunge
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
373
abgeleckt werden; klares Wasser und Spelt, die beide über
Papier und Spateln geschüttet werden. Dieses Verfahren wird
angewandt, wenn man einem drohenden Abortus Vorbeugen
will; man ermittelt dafür ein Amulett, das die Diebe der
Leibesfrucht, die “fünf Dämonen”, an ihrem Vorhaben hin-
dert.
Die zweite Art der Diagnose ergibt sich aus der Verwen-
dung des “Herzschutzspiegels”. Er wird bei vielen Anlässen
benutzt, wenn Entscheidungen zu treffen sind, etwa bei der
Diagnose von Krankheiten.
An einem weiteren Tag lernt der Kandidat, den Herz-
schutzspiegel für die Anlage von Wohnungen und Gräbern zu
benutzen. Der Herzschutzspiegel dient ihm wie die Geoman-
tenscheibe dem Geomanten. Das Verfahren, die Richtung zu
ermitteln, entspricht sinngemäß der Geomantik, allerdings nur
nach den ganz allgemeinen Richtlinien.
Ch’en erwähnt in diesem Text nur zwei Arten
der Diagnose von Krankheiten. Im Anschluß an
den eben zitierten Abschnitt skizziert er das
geomantische Vorgehen des Gurtum bei der Er-
richtung von Gehöften. Er macht darauf aufmerk-
sam, daß gerade hier viel von der individuellen
Tüchtigkeit des einzelnen Gurtum abhängt, so-
wohl beim Lernen, wie viel und wie gut er zu
lernen vermag, als auch bei seiner späteren Tätig-
keit. Sehr gedrängt versucht Ch’en, einiges über
die Besonderheiten dieser Aufgabe mitzuteilen.
Daß der Gurtum eine Einführung in die Geoman-
tik erhält, zeigt, daß er sich später zusätzlich auf
geomantische Aufträge einlassen wird. Doch
meint Ch’en, daß ein Gurtum nach einer solch
allgemeinen Belehrung kaum Nennenswertes auf
dem Gebiet der Geomantik leisten könne, die in
China so große Beachtung erfährt, und die von
dem besonderen Stand der Geomanten bis zur
höchsten Vollendung gepflegt wird.
An einem weiteren Tag lernt der Kandidat die allgemeinen
Grundzüge der Windleitung und des Regenbannes. Es kom-
men zwei grössere Bereiche zur Sprache: Den Verlauf der
Gewitter beeinflussen durch Beschriften von Donner-Schalen
und Wetterpfählen mit den zugehörigen Zeremonien; das
Verfahren der Wetterburgen.
“Wind leiten und Regen abhalten” (chih fing
tang yü), ein Vier-Zeichen-Ausdruck, kann nach
der Eigenart der chinesischen Stilistik auch einfach
den Sinn von “Wetter beeinflussen” haben. Aus
dem Schriftbild ergibt sich nicht eindeutig, ob der
Verfasser des Berichtes zwei selbständige Aufga-
ben meint oder undifferenziert die Gesamtauf-
gabe.
2.3 Der Tag der Investitur
Die abschließenden Feierlichkeiten der Einklei-
dung setzen am Vorabend des Tages der Investitur
ein.
Am Vorabend führt der Schüler die Selbstsühne durch. Sie
beginnt mit Fashen. Im Zustand des Fashen steckt er zwei
Stilette in den Mund und sticht je eines von innen her seitwärts
durch die Backen. Ihre Griffe sind mit einem Seidenhandtuch
zusammengebunden. Mit dem Ch’ang mao sticht er durch die
Bauchdecke, bis dessen Spitze auf dem Rücken heraus-
schaut.
Bei dieser Art der Selbstkasteiung darf sich kein Sarg mit
einer Leiche im Haus befinden, dürfen keine Tieftrauernden
anwesend sein. Wenn der Schüler nach dem Schlußakt und dem
Ende der Veranstaltung Schmerzen hat - es kann bis zum
Sterben schmerzhaft sein -, ist man machtlos. Der einzige
Ausweg ist es, den Geist zu bitten, er möge Fashen wiederho-
len, dann hört der Schmerz auf. Nachdem der Geist, den man
darum gebeten hat, den Schmerz weggenommen hat, ist alles
ohne Narben.
Der Tag der Investitur beginnt mit dem Ritus
des Anlegens der Gurtum-Ausstattung, den Ch’en
nicht mehr eigens beschreibt, da die Zeremonien
im wesentlichen denen gleichen, die der Kandidat
bereits in den Tagen vorher bei der Einübung
vornahm. Ch’en hebt nur einige charakteristische
Besonderheiten hervor:
Am Tag, da die Einkleidung vollzogen wird, macht der
Jünger schon frühmorgens Fashen. Da kommen die Leute
dann, die in diesen letzten Tagen sich ihre Anliegen zurechtge-
legt und “Erinnerungsweihrauch” gesteckt haben, um ihre
Anliegen darzulegen. So kann man sehen, wie jemand vor ihm
kniet und aufgeregt spricht, ein schwarzhaariger Soundsol4, ein
Laie, der sich in einer Sache nicht klar ist, oder ein Kranker,
eine Kranke mit irgendeinem Leiden; jeder erklärt sich, wie es
die Leute eben machen. Es kann verkommen, daß jemand ein
Erinnerungsweihrauchstäbchen gesteckt hat aber so beschäftigt
ist, daß er nicht kommen kann; der Jünger macht darauf
aufmerksam, daß noch Stäbchen da seien, aber falls niemand
ihm sagt, jener komme nicht, wartet der Jünger und setzt den
Schlußakt noch nicht. An diesem Tag kommen Leute mit ihren
Geschenken und machen dem Meister und dem Schüler ihre
Aufwartung. Und wenn jemand den Wunsch äußert, daß er ein
Anliegen vortragen möchte, macht der Jünger wieder Fashen.
Der Abend dient der “Verhaftung” (k'ou sha\ Fangen
und Einsperren) der bösen Mächte. Der neue Gurtum zeichnet
mit Weizenkleie das Mandala. An Gegenständen benötigt er
die Geistervase (“Krug des Diabolischen”, in den der böse
Geist gebannt wird), einige schwarze Schalen, einige neue
Ledersäcke, ein paar Eisenseile, einige Lederpeitschen, ein
paar Gewehre, einen Topf mit heißem Öl. Nachdem er das
Mandala gezeichnet hat, befiehlt der neue Gurtum einer
größeren Anzahl von Leuten, kreuz und quer durch das ganze
Dorf zu ziehen, die Ledersäcke hinter sich her zerrend, und auf
Mauern, Steinblöcke, Wege einzuschlagen, wie sie es gerade
treffen. Wenn sie zum Ausgangspunkt zurückgekommen sind,
beginnt die Runde ein zweites Mal.
Nach der zweiten Rückkehr stellt der Gurtum den “Krug
des Diabolischen” in die Mitte des Mandala. Mit einem
Papierpferd, das in rotes Tuch eingeschlagen ist, stopft er den
Krug oben fest zu. Damit sperrt er alle nicht reinen Kräfte in
den “Krug des Diabolischen”. Anschließend stellt er den Krug
ins Öl des Kessels. Das soll bedeuten, er wirft alle unreinen
Kräfte ins Verderben. Mit frischem Wasser und mit Spelt wird
14 Eine Bezeichnung für Angehörige des chinesischen Volks-
teiles in dieser Gegend (vgl. Anm. 28).
Anthropos 83.1988
374
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
alles kräftig bespritzt. So “verhaftet, schlägt und steckt er sie in
Gewahrsam”. Wenn das soweit fertig ist, fegt man das Mandala
zusammen, man fegt im Uhrzeigersinn. Der Gurtum heißt
Leute herumzuziehen, auch im Uhrzeigersinn; und die ganze
Menge wird aufgefordert, laut zu schreien: “Wir haben sie
gefaßt!” Man packt dann den Krug samt dem Weizenkleien-
kehricht und bringt alles hinaus an eine Wegkreuzung, um es
dort zu vergraben. Man sagt, die Dämonennatur kann nicht
umkommen; machen die Dämonen aber 100 Tage lang solches
Ungemach durch, können sie wohl wieder aufleben, den
Menschen aber nicht mehr schaden.
Nach dem “Wegwerfen” der bösen Mächte werden die
Geister heimgeleitet. Es handelt sich um die Geister, die am
ersten Tag der Einkleidungsfeier eingeladen worden waren, so
z. B. alle Berggeister, der Geist des Ratgebers u. a. In etwas
Weihrauchpapier wickelt man aus Brot “Bonbons” und ähnli-
ches, schreibt ein Opfergebet darauf und lädt dann alle Geister
ein, heimzukehren. Für die Hilfen, die sie in diesen Tagen an
dem Ort der Feier geleistet haben, danken Meister und Schüler
allen Geistern.
Der Meister befiehlt dem Jünger, den Abschluß zu
machen und sich die Anweisungen anzuhören. Der Jünger legt
die Gurtum-Kleider ab und kniet nieder:
“Aufrichtigen Herzens verehre deinen Geist. Es ist nicht
gestattet. Unreines zu essen wie Fleisch von verendeten
Pferden, überhaupt Fleisch von verendeten Tieren, Zwiebeln,
Knoblauch, Lauch. Das Haupttor ist 100 Tage lang zu
meiden.15 Ebenso darfst du 100 Tage lang nicht ausreiten, d.h.
bei anderen Leuten Fashen machen. Erst nach Ablauf der 100
Tage sollst du dich der Rettung allen Lebens widmen. Verbren-
ne täglich Weihrauch, danke aufrichtig dem Geist nach dem
Abschluß des Fashen.”
Der Ritus ist mit dem Abschluß der Einkleidung zu Ende.
Während der genannten Tage der Einkleidung opfert man
Brote, außerdem legt man Weihrauch auf, verglimmt man
Tuja-Blätter und verbrennt man Opferpapier. Tag und Nacht
geht das ohne Unterbrechung durch. Der neue Gurtum lebt
nach den Tabus; aber obwohl er sie einhält, macht er doch noch
zusätzlich die Selbstkasteiung.
2.4 Die Auslagen der Einkleidung
Mit der Zwischenüberschrift “Auslagen der Ein-
kleidung” schließt Ch’en unmittelbar an das Ge-
schehen an: die Beteiligung des Volkes. Die
Kostenfrage spielt eine sehr große Rolle bei der
späteren Echtheitsprobe, sie hat aber auch eine
ziemliche Bedeutung für den bisherigen Teil des
Werdegangs des Gurtum. Das folgende Zitat faßt
einige Punkte zu diesem Thema zusammen:
Die Gläubigen des ganzen Dorfes halten ihre Beratungen, bis
geregelt ist, welche Personen das Langkleid spenden, welche
die rituellen Gegenstände. Was sonst zu besorgen ist, verfügt
man termingemäß, z. B. zum Termin der Einkleidung die
Lieferung von Weihrauchstäbchen, Opferpapier, Lampenöl,
losen Weihrauch und all die Dinge, die man braucht. Viele oder
alle im Dorf tragen die Kosten dafür. Wenn eine Familie oder
das ganze Dorf arm ist und die Auslagen nicht aufzubringen
sind, erhält der Gurtum das “Geistkleid” erst für den hundert-
15 Will der Gurtum privat das Haus verlassen, benutzt er die
Nebenausgänge.
sten Tag nach der offiziellen Einkleidung.16 In diesem Falle
macht man eine Haussammlung am Haupttor jeder Familie.
Man gibt vor, “Weihrauchstäbchen zu kollektieren”, in Wirk-
lichkeit sammelt man Geld. Wenn der Erlös genügend oder
reichlich ausfällt, kauft man dem Gurtum auch noch weitere
Stücke seiner Ausrüstung.
2.5 Ch’uma nach 100 Tagen
Eine letzte Auflage der Einkleidung erfüllt sich
erst mit dem Ablauf von 100 Tagen. Ch’en
berichtet davon unter der Zwischenüberschrift
“Ch’uma” (ausreiten; das Pferd hinauslassen).
Ein neuer Gurtum kann nach der Einkleidung 100 Tage lang
nicht Fashen machen, und er geht nicht dienstlich aus. Wenn er
nach Ablauf der 100 Tage zum ersten Mal das Hoftor verläßt,
wird das für die Allgemeinheit wie für ihn persönlich zu einem
glücklichen Ereignis: Es fließt jetzt der Segen seiner Kranken-
behandlung und seiner sonstigen Tätigkeit als Gurtum; da er
damit auch Honorar verdient, wird es auch ein Segen für ihn
ganz persönlich.
Mancher neue Gurtum widmet sich während des ersten
Jahres Monat für Monat, und zwar jeweils am zweiten Tag des
Monats, dem “schamanistischen Erkunden zur Lage” (fashen
wen shih). Trifft man am Monatszweiten einen Gurtum beim
Fashen wen shih an, weiß man, daß er sich noch im Jahr seines
Ch’uma befindet. Dieses schamanistische Erkunden zur Lage
hat eine eigene Bezeichnung: “Ping la ts’ai”, d.h. an Höhere
Eingaben machen um Gabenfülle. Der Gurtum bemüht sich bei
seinem Geist um besondere Gaben. Themen dieses Erkundens
sind: politische Angelegenheiten, die Situation der Ernte in
dieser Gegend, allgemein interessierende Angelegenheiten des
ganzen Jahres.
Nach dem Ch’uma geht der Gurtum nach Belieben den
Tätigkeiten seines Amtes nach (Krankenbehandlung, Fashen
usw.).
Daß ein neuer Gurtum nach der Einkleidung
“100 Tage lang kein Fashen machen kann”,
bedeutet wohl nicht, daß er innerhalb dieser
Wartefrist nicht die Fähigkeit zum Fashen besäße,
sondern daß er es normalerweise nicht wagen wird,
Fashen zu machen, weil dies unzulässig wäre und
nicht der Tradition entspräche. Die Leute sind im
allgemeinen der Meinung, der neue Gurtum kön-
ne schon Fashen machen, wenn er nur den Mut
hätte, sich über die bestehende Ordnung hinweg-
zusetzen.
3. Die Ausstattung des Gurtum
An verschiedenen Stellen seines Berichtes geht
Ch’en auf Kleidung und Ausstattung des Gurtum
ein. Er stützt sich dabei vor allem auf die Aussagen
16 Vorher hatte der Gurtum in diesem Fall ein geliehenes
Kleid benützen müssen, etwa das Kleid von einem früheren
Gurtum seines Geistes.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
375
der beiden Gurtum Han Yu-fang und Yang Fa-
sheng. Betont wird immer die entscheidende Rolle
der Tradition, die sich am Beispiel der rituellen
Tracht des Gurtum besonders gut zeigt.
3.1 Allgemeine Angaben Ch’ens zur Ausstattung
Leute unseres Gebietes sagen: Die Kleidung des Gurtum hat
überhaupt keinen Geschmack, keinen besonderen Charakter.
Sie ist einfach aus früheren Zeiten übernommen. Veränderun-
gen daran richten sich nach menschlicher Wesensart, in der
Hauptsache gemäß folgender Richtlinien:
Chinesische Geister haben chinesischen Geschmack.
Fandse-Geister haben ihren Fandse-Geschmack. Wenn chine-
sische Gurtum mit einem Fandse-Geist Fashen machen, richtet
sich der Geschmack nach beiden Komponenten.
Der Geschmack richtet sich beim Menschen nach “hoch
oder niedrig seines Herzens”, nach praktischem Geschick oder
nach seiner Ungeschicklichkeit. Pflegt nicht ein zartes Herz
gerne Liebreiz? Daher spricht eine solche Person gern von
“nicht geschmackvoll”. So sind nun einmal Wirklichkeit und
Grundhaltung der praktischen Logik. Menschen z. B., die am
Alten festhalten, konservativ eingestellte Menschen, werden
mit “alt” argumentieren und etwas so weitergeben, wie es ist.
Dementsprechend fällt dann die “Änderung am Vermächtnis”
aus: Es wird praktisch nichts geändert, es bleibt alles beim
Alten.
Geister richteten früher, als sie noch auf der Welt waren,
ihr Verhalten nach der Art der Menschen aus. Gleich ihnen
schminkten sie sich im Gesicht. Schließt man von den Papier-
bildern auf die Tradition, so gilt: Rotes Gesicht zu grüner
Kleidung, schwarzes Gesicht zu schwarzer Tracht, natürliche
Gesichtsfarbe zu weißer Kleidung. Das ist die große Linie, also
typisch. Wo man am Alten festhält, besteht damit im großen
und ganzen Übereinstimmung.
Geister, die Fashen bewirken, betonen, kriegerische
Geister zu sein, nicht Literaten- oder Medizingeister. Das ist
der Grund für ihr wildes Umherspringen, ihr lautes Brüllen,
dafür daß sie Kriegswerkzeuge in den Händen halten, u. ä.
Beim Dämonenfangen und beim Geistertanz trägt der Gurtum
daher Kleidung nach dem Stil von Kriegern.
3.2 Ausstattung des Gurtum: Einzelheiten
Die beiden genannten Gurtum, Han und Yang,
gaben zu einer Anzahl von Einzelgegenständen
der Ausrüstung des Gurtum aufschlußreiche Be-
schreibungen und Deutungen. Ch’en hat ihre
Aussagen wörtlich in seinem Bericht festgehalten.
Zu folgenden Teilen der Ausrüstung finden sich
Einzelheiten, nach der Reihenfolge in Ch’ens
Bericht: Kopftuch, Krone, Langkleid, Herzschutz-
spiegel, Schulterumhang, Langer Speer, “Geister-
seil” und Trommel.
Kopftuch (pao chin)
Das Haupt wird von einem Kopftuch umhüllt. Es hat einen
doppelten Sinn: Es ist erstens ein militärisches Kleidungsstück,
denn es ist ein Tuch, das den Offiziersrang ausdrückt; der
zweite Sinn ergibt sich aus der Ausführung: das Kopftuch ist
viereckig.
Die vordere Ecke ist nach innen umgeschlagen, und ganz
unten am Rand sind neun oder sieben Glöckchen angenäht.
Die Ecke rückwärts hat am Zipfel einen Streifen anhängen als
Abzeichen des geistlichen Ranges; der Streifen ist etwa zwei
Zoll breit und drei Fuß lang, von roter oder grüner Farbe,
bestickt oder beschriftet. Die Stickereien werden von den
Frauen nach Belieben angefertigt, die Aufschrift enthält den
Namen des Geistes.
Zwei Ecken verdecken die Ohren: Die Ohren hören
keine unnützen Dinge; zweitens wird damit der äußere Ohr-
schutz der Offiziere angedeutet. Die Ecke mit den Glöckchen
beschattet die Augen: Die Augen kümmern sich nicht um
fremde Sachen; dadurch wird zum andern der Glaube der
Leute bestärkt, daß der Geist beim Fashen wirklich Besitz vom
Leib des Gurtum ergreift, wenn die Augen beschattet sind, und
daß nur “ein” Herz durch den Mund spricht.
Das Kopftuch hat zwei Schnüre, damit man es festbinden
kann.17 Mit ihnen läßt es sich ganz fest anbinden. Wenn der
Gurtum den Kopf schüttelt, schmerzen die Glöckchen nicht.
Die Zahl der Glöckchen beträgt neun oder sieben. Ihre
Bedeutung ist: a) Sobald sie erklingen, ist der Geist über den
Körper gekommen; b) es sind die Glöckchen am Pferd des
Geistes, denn wenn das Pferd da ist, ist auch der Geist da, daher
auch die Bezeichnung “Pferdefußjünger” für den Gurtum
(Ma-chüeh Ti-tzu); c) der Klang der Glöckchen verstärkt die
Energie des Gurtum, der daher unablässig den Kopf schüttelt,
so daß die Leute ihn im Spaß auch “Kopfwackler”, “Fliegen-
wedel” nennen.
Als Material für das Kopftuch nimmt man
grobes Tuch, etwas mehr als eine Elle im Quadrat.
Rote Farbe wird bevorzugt; bei besonderen Anläs-
sen nimmt man andere Farben, z. B. weiß oder
gelb. Da der vordere Rand des Kopftuches über
die Augen herunterreicht, kann der Gurtum fast
nichts mehr sehen; darum müssen ihm nach
Anlegen des Kopftuches die weiteren Ausrü-
stungsgegenstände angereicht werden.
Schellen oder Glöckchen kommen auch in
höherer Zahl vor, also mehr als neun oder sieben;
je mehr Glöckchen, umso mehr Lärm. Das Kopf-
tuch ist nicht immer von der beschriebenen Art. Es
gibt auch größere Tücher, die keine Schellen
tragen. In diesem Fall bindet sich der Gurtum ein
eigenes Stirnband mit Glöckchen um. Die Ver-
wendung von Schellen und Glöckchen fügt sich in
den Rahmen der sonst zu beobachtenden Symbo-
lik dieses Gebietes ein. Pferde, Esel, Maulesel
tragen gelegentlich einen Schellenkranz um den
Hals. Die Glöckchen haben die Größe einer
Walnuß, sie sind aus Kupfer oder Messing und
enthalten Metallkügelchen, die bei jeder Bewe-
gung “läuten”. Die Glöckchen sollen Miniatur-
17 Das chinesische Zeichen für “festbinden” (ku) wird in
manchen chinesischen Texten zur Wiedergabe der ersten
Silbe in “Gurtum” verwendet. Das Festbinden war immer
besonders auffällig, weil der Gurtum dazu den Dienst
anderer zum ersten Mal benötigte.
Anthropos 83.1988
376
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
Tigerköpfe darstellen; doch sind sie so nachlässig
geformt, daß man nur mit guter Phantasie die
Züge eines Tigerkopfes erkennen kann. Form,
Material, Umstände des Gebrauchs weisen auf den
magisch-symbolischen Zweck hin: Sie sollen vor
Gefahren schützen; sie sollen Ruf und Schutz guter
Geister sichern, die durch den Klang der Glöck-
chen auf die Anwesenheit ihrer Schützlinge auf-
merksam gemacht werden; sie sollen Dämonen
abschrecken oder vertreiben. Diese Symbolik ist
auch im Text angedeutet: Was der Gurtum als
Schellenkranz trägt, trägt das Reitpferd des Gei-
stes; der Klang der Schellen bestätigt die Anwe-
senheit des Geistes.
Krone {hu fa p'ai)
Auf dem Kopf trägt der Gurtum eine Krone {hu fa p'ai)', sie
besteht aus fünf zusammenhängenden Plättchen, meistens aus
Rindsleder. Auf der mittleren Platte ist der eigene Fashen-
Geist abgebildet; auf den übrigen vier sind die vier Knappen
(t'ung erh) aufgemalt, die der Geist als Bevollmächtigte {shih
t'ung) senden kann. Im Falle, daß ein Dorf unter den
Fashen-Geistern einen “großen” Geist hat, etwa die “Heilige
Mutter der Neun Himmel”, kommt sein Bild auf die Platte in
der Mitte; auf den Platten links und rechts von ihm dann der
eigene Geist und ein ihm gleichgestellter, und auf den zwei
Außenstücken zwei Knappen. Die fünf Plättchen versinnbildli-
chen fünf große Paläste, die Wohnsitze der Geister.
Daß der Gurtum das Hu fa p’ai verwendet, hat einen
dreifachen Sinn: 1. Es auf dem Haupt tragen bedeutet, daß
damit der Geist verehrt wird. 2. Es schützt den Leib des
Gurtum als eine Art Geisterschild. Während des Fashen
können ihm fremde Geister, Gespenster, Unholde aller Art mit
ihren Tricks nichts anhaben. Daher muß der Gurtum die Krone
bei wichtigen Aufgaben unbedingt tragen, z. B. bei Wetter-
bann, Dämonenfang, Regenbitte u. ä. 3. Es ist eine Zierde und
drückt Würde aus. Wenn der Gurtum den Geist vertritt, hat er
die Würde des Geistes.
Zur Verwendung von Rindsleder: Man nimmt es aus
praktischen Gründen, weil es nämlich hart ist. Man nimmt es,
weil das Rind von Geistern geritten wird; etwa wenn man im
Traum das Rind von einem Geist oder Buddha geritten sieht.
Man nimmt es, weil man im Rind ein Wesen sieht “mit Leistung
und Leid”.
Langkleid {shen i)
Die meisten Gruppen von Schamanen in dieser
Gegend Chinas benutzen für ihre Riten ein eigenes
längeres Kleid. Auch Einzelpersonen, die Fashen
machen, verwenden es. Es heißt allgemein “shen
i”, Geistkleid. Über das Langkleid des Gurtum
berichtet Ch’en:
Der Gurtum trägt ein gefüttertes Langkleid (ch’uan p’ao). Es
ist eine Nachahmung der Kleidung der alten Zeit. Zu jeder
Kleidfarbe gehört eine Borte in einer bestimmten anderen
Farbe, z. B. zur weißen Farbe des Kleides eine schwarze Borte
usw., damit durch diesen Farbunterschied der Anblick schöner
wird. Sonst hat dieser Brauch keinen weiteren Sinn.
Mit einer gewissen Freude an den Farben und
modischen Eigenarten beschreiben die Berichter-
statter die Kleidung der wichtigsten Personen bei
rituellen Handlungen. Beim jährlichen Treffen der
Gurtum in Mashengk’ou, von dem der Informant
von J. Frick, Shan Kueh-jen einen Bericht nieder-
schrieb,18 fällt vor allem die Mannigfaltigkeit der
jeweiligen Gurtum-Kleidung auf. Shan notiert
dazu:
Wenn die Gurtum vollständig versammelt sind, tragen sie
festliche Kleidung. Alle ziehen das Langkleid an. Es ist je nach
Gurtum von unterschiedlicher Qualität. Unter ihnen gibt es
Langkleider von relativ hohem Preis und vortrefflichem Mate-
rial. Nach dem Anziehen des Kleides hängen die Gurtum den
Herzschutzspiegel auf die Brust, umwickeln das Haupt mit
ihrem Kopftuch, das je nach Gurtum von unterschiedlicher
Farbe ist. Über dem Kopftuch tragen sie das Hu fa p’ai, in der
Hand den Geisterspeer. Bei der großen Zahl der Gurtum, der
Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer Tracht und der Buntheit ihres Schmuk-
kes bietet sich ein feierliches Bild, ein schöner Anblick.
Herzschutzspiegel {hu hsin ching)
Den Geistspiegel {shen ching) gibt es in zwei
Ausführungen, in einer kleinen Form und in der
großen Form des “Herzschutzspiegels” der Gur-
tum. Ch’ens Bericht dazu:
Vorne auf der Brust befindet sich der Herzschutzspiegel. Er
hängt am Hals. Am Spiegel sind zur Zierde Hada festgebun-
den, in großer Zahl und in jedweder Farbe. Es sind Geschenke
der Gläubigen. Einen Herzschutzspiegel verwendeten in der
alten Zeit die Krieger zum Schutz ihres Herzens. Die Gurtum
gebrauchen ihn heute (1.) zum gleichen Zweck und (2.) um
auszudrücken, daß ihr Herz hell ist und Helle ausstrahlt {piao
hsin ming chao ming).
Helle des Herzens ist der Ausdruck dafür, daß der Geist
den Gurtum durchleuchtet, und daß er beim Wahrsagen, wenn
die Spiegeloberfläche mit Spelt bestreut wird, alle Geschehnis-
se und deren Gründe wissen läßt. Beim “Ausstrahlen der
Helle” dient der Spiegel als Kompaß. Er beleuchtet die
Himmelsscheibe, die Erdscheibe und die Mittelscheibe, gleich
wie man es in der Geomantik mit dem Kompaß für die
Wohnungen der Lebenden und der Toten macht. Er strahlt in
eine Ferne von 18.000 Li. Wenn jemand ein Orakel über eine
Sache wünscht, ist das mit einem Blick klar zu erkennen. Mit
dem Spiegel kann man das Herz anderer ausleuchten, ebenso
anderen Glück und Segen vermitteln.
Der Herzschutzspiegel ist aus Kupfer, er ist kreisrund und
hat einen Durchmesser von über fünf Zoll (ca. 17 cm). Er soll
leuchtend glänzen.
Der Gurtum verwendet den Herzschutzspie-
gel, der sein wichtigster Ausrüstungsgegenstand
ist, ähnlich wie der Geomant seinen Kompaß. Er
18 Der Bericht von Shan Kui-jen über das jährliche Gurtum-
treffen von Mashengk’ou wurde 1950 niedergeschrieben.
Shan kam damit einer Bitte von J. Frick nach, dem er von
dem Treffen erzählt hatte. Die Gurtumtreffen von Ma-
shengk’ou fanden seit 1940 alljährlich Mitte des 6. Monats
statt. Shan war mehrmals als Augenzeuge anwesend.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
377
braucht ihn zum Wahrsagen {suan kua), beim
Erteilen von Auskünften über das Jenseits (wen
ping), beim Bestimmen des Ortes für Gräber,
Tore, Wetterburgen, Obos usw., bei Diagnosen
und Rezepten in Krankheitsfällen.
Ch’en spricht vom Herzschutzspiegel als von
einem “geschickt wirkenden Instrument”. Doch
handelt es sich nicht um ein mechanisch wirkendes
Amulett; Wirkung und Erfolg hängen wesentlich
davon ab, ob “der Geist begabt und fähig” ist (k’an
shen ling pu Ung). Beide sind hier angesprochen:
der Fashen-wirkende Geist und der Gurtum, in
dem der Geist wirkt; viel hängt von der Tüchtig-
keit ab, mit der der Geist sich seinem Gurtum im
Herzschutzspiegel mitzuteilen vermag.
Schulterumhang (p’ei pei i)
Die Gurtum tragen einen Armumhang, ein Kleidungsstück, das
über Schultern und Oberarme hängt (ch'uan p’ei pei i). Er ist
für den Gurtum sehr wichtig, den er drückt seine Würde aus. Er
steht als Sinnbild für “Halstuch” (wei ling).19 Er ist ein
quadratisches Baumwolltuch von vier Fuß Seitenlänge, grüner
Grundfarbe mit schwarzen Wolken. Die Bestickung hat immer
nur eine Farbe. Die Farben von Tuch und Bestickung gehören
nicht in die gleiche Farbreihe.
Die oft am Halsteil angebrachten Kragenver-
zierungen oder Auflagen des Kleides, das der
Gurtum trägt, sind mit dem hier beschriebenen
Schulterumhang nicht gemeint.
Langer Speer (ch'ang ch’iang)
Sodann gehört zur Ausrüstung die “lange Lanze” (ch’ang
mao). Der Gurtum nennt sie “langer Speer” (ch’ang ch’iang);
er heißt auch “T’ientun”; er gehört zur kriegerischen Ausrü-
stung der alten Zeit. Den Langen Speer als Zeichen militäri-
scher Würde führt man auch beim chinesischen Fechten. Am
Langen Speer hängen Hada, oben an einem Ring aufgehängt;
über den Ring hüllt man den Schulterumhang (p’eipeii), so daß
die Hada unten heraushängen.
Die Art, den Langen Speer so zu behandeln, besagt, daß
er Sitz des Geistes ist, in gleicher Weise wie die Tonfigur im
Tempel. Der Gläubige macht dem Langen Speer “K’o t’ou”.
Manche holen ihn zu sich, was gleichbedeutend ist mit “ihn
einladen”. Der Lange Speer hat die Rolle des Thrones, auf den
der Geist herabsteigt, vergleichbar den Signalen auf dem
Flugplatz, die die Stelle anzeigen, wo das Flugzeug landet.
Der Lange Speer besteht aus einer Metallspitze und
einem Holzschaft. Die Metallspitze ist 3 Fuß und 3 Zoll lang (33
Zoll). Sie stellt die 33 Himmel (san shih san t’ien) dar, auch
wenn sie heute nicht 33 Zoll hat. Der Holzschaft hat eigentlich 3
Fuß und 6 Zoll (36 Zoll), wie man 36 Himmelssterne (san shih
Hu kang) zählt.
19 Ch’en über nimmt diesen Satz (i piao wei ling) von seinen
Gewährsleuten Han und Yang. Der Ausdruck “Halstuch”
(wei ling) ist fremdartig und völlig ungebräuchlich. Die
beiden gebrauchten chinesischen Zeichen lassen sich deuten
als: Oberkörper-Kleidungsstück, das sich Dämonen wider-
setzt.
Über den Langen Speer hat D. Schröder an
mehreren Stellen ausführlich berichtet, und zwar
über seine Verwendung bei verschiedenen Volks-
gruppen im hier berücksichtigten Gebiet (vgl.
Schröder 1952/1953). Ergänzend sei vermerkt, daß
der Lange Speer, auch “Geisterspeer” (shen
ch’iang) genannt, hohe Ehrung und Auszeichnung
genießt. Das Einpacken und Heimtragen nach
einem Ritus darf nicht von Frauen besorgt werden;
darauf machen die Berichterstatter eigens auf-
merksam.
Hada
Hada und Handtücher (shou chin) heben den Ruf
des Gurtum, wenn er sie als Geschenke von Lamas
oder als Ausdruck der Huldigung von Gläubigen
erhält und mitführen kann. Der Gurtum gebraucht
sie bei rituellen Handlungen, wenn ihn sein Geist
danach greifen heißt. Hada werden von den
Gurtum mit Vorliebe an den Geisterspeer ge-
hängt. Sie bringen dem im Speer gegenwärtigen
Geist große Ehrung. Ch’en schreibt dazu:
Von der Spitze des Speeres hängen Hada herab. Es sind
Ex-voto Hada (shou chin pao chuang). Diese Hada sind aus
grünem oder rotem Baumwolltuch gefertigt, nicht länger als
zwei Fuß. Ex-voto: Wenn die Leute für ihre Kinder um Geleit
bitten oder darum, eine Krankheit zu heilen, überhaupt wenn
etwas gut ausgehen soll, bitten die Gläubigen einen Gelehrten
ihres Glaubens, auf das gespendete Hada etwas zu schreiben.
Bei Kindern schreibt man etwa: “Schütze mich nacktes Ding!”
Bei beliebigen andern Anliegen schreibt man etwa: “Des
Geistes Güte ist ohne Grenzen.” Es sind Ausdrücke, die den
Sinn haben, daß man dem Geist ewig dankbar ist. Wie man es
schreibt, liegt im Belieben des einzelnen.
Geisterseil {k’un ch’üan sheng)
Es wird aus Hanf hergestellt; es hat eine Länge von 3 Klafter
und 6 Fuß (36 Fuß, ca. 12 m), es stellt ebenfalls die 36
Himmelssterne dar. Es wird auf 3 Fuß und 6 Zoll Länge
zusammengelegt, insgesamt also zehnmal. So wird es in rotes
Baumwolltuch gewickelt. Rotes Tuch ist am vornehmsten, man
verpackt darin Kleinodien.
Am Endes des Hanfseiles sind neun Metallringe befestigt.
Man nennt sie die “neun Verbundringe” {chiu Han huan). Es
sind neun, weil neun die höchste, ebenso die End-Einziffer
darstellt. Die Macht des Seiles ist einmalig, ohnegleichen unter
den Seilen. Auch ein Metallhaken ist daran befestigt. Mit
diesem Seil faßt man die Geister, fängt man die Dämonen.
Seine genaue Erklärung hat mit dem Himmel-Erde-Seil des No
ch’a der Chou-Dynastie zu tun.
Trommel (yang p’i ku)
Ferner gebraucht der Gurtum die Trommel. Beim Geistpferd
vertritt sie die Peitsche. Die Trommel ruft die Geister zur
Stelle. Wenn sie ertönt, kommt der Geist, um in Fashen zu
versetzen. Ein alter Ausdruck beim Heer lautet “lebenverder-
Anthropos 83.1988
378
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
bende Trommel, lebenrettender Gong”. Wie beim Militär die
Trommel nur vorauszugehen braucht, um das Gefolge zu
wecken, so ruft diese Trommel die Geister zur Stelle.
Die Gewährsmänner (Yang und Han) reihen
die Trommel in das kriegerische Erbe ein, das die
Gurtum besitzen.20 * Andere Traditionen nennen
andere Ursprünge.
Auf andere wichtige Ausrüstungsgegenstände
des Gurtum geht Ch’ens Bericht nicht näher ein;
Geisterpfeil, Geisterschwert {shen chien), Gürtel
{yao tai), Fächer (shan), Geistertisch usw. Weitere
Angaben dazu finden sich in Schröder 1952/
1953.
4. Die Anerkennung des Gurtum
Mit der Einkleidung des Gurtum ist noch kein
Auftrag irgendeiner gesellschaftlichen Instanz ver-
bunden. Bis zur offiziellen Anerkennung hat der
Gurtum noch weitere Stufen des Werdeganges zu
nehmen, die seiner fachlichen Ertüchtigung die-
nen und ihn auf die volle berufliche Anerkennung
vorbereiten. Nach der Investitur/Einkleidung be-
ginnt für den Gurtum eine Periode inoffizieller
beruflicher Praxis. Hat er sich durch diese Praxis
ein gewisses Ansehen erworben, kann er sich
durch eine offizielle Prüfung nach anerkannten
Regeln um die amtliche und öffentliche Anerken-
nung bemühen, mit der sein Werdegang als Gur-
tum zum Abschluß kommt.
4.1 Zeit inoffizieller Tätigkeit
Jeder Gurtum versucht in dieser Anfangsphase
seiner beruflichen Tätigkeit, Leute auf sich auf-
merksam zu machen. Solche Interessenten finden
sich in der eigenen Großfamilie, im Bekannten-
kreis, unter den Bewohnern des eigenen Dorfes.
Nach und nach werden die Dienste des neuen
Gurtum von ihnen in Anspruch genommen. Oft
werden zusätzlich auch die Dienste anderer Gur-
tum gesucht, an die man sich bisheran gewandt
hatte.
Es ist überdies zulässig, gleichzeitig und in der
20 In der Tradition der Gurturn von Tsinghai finden sich
zahlreiche Beziehungen zum Kriegerischen: Die meisten
Fashen-wirkenden Geister gehörten früher auf Erden dem
Stand der Krieger an, waren hohe Militärs oder berühmte
Helden. So erklärt man die Ausstattung ihrer Gurtum als
Kleidung von Kriegern, ihr Auftreten als kriegerisch. Das
gilt vom Gesamteindruck, vor allem aber von einzelnen
ihrer Instrumente (vgl. dazu Schröder 1952/1953, 1955).
gleichen Angelegenheit mehrere Gurtum um ihre
Hilfe anzugehen. Gelegentlich scheint dies not-
wendig oder ratsam zu sein; gelegentlich wird das
von einem Gurtum sogar ausdrücklich empfohlen:
dann nämlich, wenn der Urheber des Unheils sich
als stärker erweist als der Geist, in dessen Dienst
der bisher wirkende Gurtum steht. In solchen
Fällen braucht und sucht man die Mithilfe des
Gurtum eines noch mächtigeren Geistes, damit
dieser seine Übermacht ausspielt. Manchmal kann
man durch Beziehungen etwas erreichen; denn wie
in der menschlichen Gesellschaft - die Fashen-
wirkenden Geister waren früher Menschen -
herrschen auch unter den Geistern Sympathie und
Antipathie, Wohlwollen und Konkurrenzdenken
bis hin zur Gehässigkeit. Bei ungünstigen Macht-
verhältnissen kann vielleicht ein anderer Gurtum
über seinen Geist, der mit dem augenblicklichen
Bedränger gute Beziehungen unterhält, es durch
eine freundschaftliche Geste erreichen, daß dieser
von seinem Opfer abläßt. Da also die Gurtum
aufeinander angewiesen sind, fördern sie sich bis
zu einem gewissen Umfang gegenseitig, wobei
auch ein neuer Gurtum nicht ausgeschlossen
wird.
Ein allgemein menschlicher Verhaltenszug
begünstigt nicht selten gerade die Neulinge unter
den Gurtum: Wie in aller Welt ein Kranker, wenn
bisher angewandte Methoden und Medizinen nicht
helfen, nach neuen Angeboten greift, ernsten oder
trügerischen, so versucht der Leidgeplagte in
dieser Gegend sein Glück bei einem neuen Gur-
tum. Eine bei den Leuten verankerte Auffassung
drängt dazu; denn immer wieder glaubt man die
Erfahrung gemacht zu haben, daß eine neue
Götterstatue besser hilft als eine andere, die schon
jahrelang ihre Kraft verausgabt hat. Solche Patien-
ten können dann für den neuen Gurtum die
Chance seines Wirkens werden. Gelingt ihm die
Behebung oder eine spürbare Erleichterung einer
Not, meistens einer Krankheit, bei der bisher
niemand Abhilfe zu bringen vermochte, verkündet
man in allen Dörfern und Gassen seine Tüchtig-
keit. Der Zustrom der Bittsteller schwillt rasch an.
Dieser Fall kommt nicht selten vor. Er ergibt sich
ziemlich folgerichtig aus dem Wesen der Berufung
zum Gurtum, wie man sie allgemein versteht: Die
Berufung eines Gurtum “gründet auf dem Wunsch
eines Gurtum-Geistes, der gläubigen Bevölkerung
eines Gebietes seinen Schutz zukommen zu las-
sen”. Dabei gibt es immer Leute, die gerade auf
diesen neuen Gurtum gewartet hatten. Und jeder
von Not Geplagte hofft auf neue Hilfe.
Trotz solcher Hoffnungen und ihrer gelegent-
lichen Erfüllung durch den neuen Gurtum, der
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
379
seinerseits durch auffällige Leistungen Vertrauen
erwerben und die Zahl seiner Klienten mehren
möchte, verläuft für viele Gurtum der Einstieg in
ihre Tätigkeit nüchterner. Normalerweise ist für
den neuen Gurtum die große Chance, die er
erhofft, nur ein “Zufall seines Glücks” - ein
Glück, das ihm zufällt. Die größere Anzahl der
Gurtum müssen sich durch mehrjähriges Wirken,
bei dem Erfolg und Mißerfolg sich abwechseln,
mühen, die Güte ihres Fashen zu begründen und
bekannt zu machen.
Bis ins innerste Wesen und Bewußtsein be-
stimmt dieser oft nur langsam fortschreitende
Aufstieg den Weg des Gurtum: Zu Beginn müssen
sie vielfach Pferdefußjünger (Ma-chüeh Ti-tzu)
“kleinerer” Fashen-Geister sein, bis sie ein “höhe-
rer”, “mächtigerer” Geist in seinen Dienst holt; es
kam vor, daß ein Gurtum zunächst von einem
weiblichen Fashen-Geist - unter diesen gibt es
keine besonders mächtigen - berufen wurde, und
daß er erst später von einem männlichen Fashen-
Geist übernommen wurde.
Ein weiterer Vorteil erleichtert dem neuen
Gurtum den Beginn seiner Tätigkeit: Es ist ihm
erlaubt, sein Fashen und seine Dienste überall
anzubieten, wo er will. Für ihn besteht weder nach
Gewohnheitsrecht noch durch übernommene ver-
tragliche Bindung eine Einschränkung seines Wir-
kens auf bestimmte Gegenden oder Gesellschafts-
kreise.21 Gurtum, die weitere Stufen ihres Werde-
gangs erstiegen haben, sind in der Regel seßhaft.
Vor allem aber sind sie durch eine offizielle
Anstellung örtlich gebunden; nur zu Gelegenheits-
und Freundschaftsdiensten, die einen kleineren
Teil ihrer Gesamttätigkeit ausmachen, überschrei-
ten sie die örtlichen Grenzen.
Nach ihrer Investition machen viele Gurtum,
wie auch andere Fashen-Wirkende, von der Mög-
lichkeit, ihre Fashen-Dienste anzubieten, Ge-
brauch, manche sogar ausgiebig. Sie bieten oder -
dieser Eindruck entsteht nicht selten sowohl bei
Beobachtern wie beim gläubigen Volk - biedern
ihre schamanistische Hilfe fast von Tür zu Tür an.
Das geschieht vorzugsweise zu religiösen Festzei-
ten und bei anderen entsprechenden Anlässen, wie
z. B. vor Hochzeiten, zur Zeit von Epidemien u. ä.
Nicht wenige der neuen Gurtum entwickeln ein
ausgeprägtes Gespür für den Bedarf nach ihren
Diensten und suchen spontan die Menschen auf,
21 D. Schröder gebraucht in seinem Nachlaß für diese herum-
ziehenden, noch nicht ortsgebundenen Gurtum den mißver-
ständlichen Ausdruck “Wanderschamane”, eine Ausdruck
den er an anderer Stelle (Schröder 1955) in anderem Sinn
verwendet.
die sich in Leid oder Angst vor Leid befinden.22
Manche wenig ehrenvolle Bezeichnung der Gur-
tum durch die Bevölkerung beruht auf solchen
Erfahrungen.
Hindernisse stellen sich dem Gurtum-Neuling
aus dem Bereich seiner “Kollegen” entgegen, ob
sie Gurtum sind oder andere Fashen-wirkende
Personen. Hier jedenfalls kann dem neuen Gur-
tum ernster Widerstand erwachsen, wenn er als
Eindringling empfunden wird. Eine solche Be-
kämpfung, gegen die es keinen öffentlichen Schutz
gibt, trifft vor allem hart und unerbittlich jene, die
als “falsche” Gurtum gebrandmarkt werden. Die-
ses Vorgehen der bereits etablierten Gurtum
gründet oft in wirtschaftlicher Existenzangst. Fa-
shen-Wirken bedeutet in den meisten Fällen der
oder ein Zugang zu lebenswichtigen Einnahmen,
mögen die Ansprüche ans Leben auch sehr be-
scheiden und die Honorare sehr gering sein. In
manchen Gegenden übersteigt die Anzahl der
Fashen-wirkenden Personen den Bedarf, womit
sich selbstverständlich auch die Honorare in be-
scheidenerem Rahmen halten.
Doch aus einer Reihe von Gründen hält sich
dieser Konkurrenzkampf der Fashen-wirkenden
Personen in Grenzen:
1) Ein mäßigender Faktor ist die Rücksicht auf
den Fashen-Geist, den Patron des jeweils andern
Gurtum, oder die Angst vor ihm. Diese Angst
kann sich verstärken, wenn der andere Gurtum
behauptet oder vermuten läßt, sein Geist sei
“stärker, mächtiger”. Auch die Feststellung, sein
und des anderen Geist seien befreundet, zwingt die
Gurtum, die Pferdefußjünger der beiden Geister,
zur Freundschaft untereinander. Und selbst dann
noch, wenn der angriffsbereite Gurtum seinen
großen, mächtigen Geist ausspielen könnte, muß
er vorsichtig bleiben: Es kann der schwächere,
kleinere Geist seinem Gurtum eine Huldigung an
den großen Geist des anderen Gurtum eingeben,
meistens in der Form, daß er seinen Klienten an
den Gurtum des anderen verweist. Der größere
Geist nimmt natürlich - so ist die Auffassung der
Leute, gewonnen aus dem menschlichen Verhal-
ten zwischen “hoch und niedrig” - die Huldigung
des schwächeren Geistes an. Dann hätte sein
Jünger eine Rüge für verkehrtes Verhalten zu
vergegenwärtigen, wenn er sich gegen seinen
22 Hilfe im Leid suchen und finden die Leute nicht nur bei den
Gurtum; es gibt viele andere Möglichkeiten, dem Leid zu
begegnen, die ebenfalls geschätzt und genutzt, manchmal
sogar deutlich bevorzugt werden: Ärzte, bewährte Haus-
mittel, Beten und Können der Mönche, private persönliche
Religiosität, magisches Brauchtum. Die Gurtum und ihr
Fashen-Wirken stehen keineswegs konkurrenzlos da.
Anthropos 83.1988
380
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
Konkurrenten zu weit, zu ehrenrührig und unwür-
dig der Größe seines Geistes exponiert hätte.
2) Die Konkurrenzsituation wird durch Situatio-
nen abgeschwächt, die das Mitwirken mehrerer
Gurtum voraussetzen. Viele Tätigkeiten, beson-
ders bei Festen, verlangen mehrere oder viele
mitwirkende Gurtum. Auch sonst gilt, daß alles
Fashen-Wirken an Glanz und Kraft gewinnt, wenn
eine große Anzahl von Personen sich mit dem Fall
beschäftigen. Durch diese “Zusammenarbeit”
werden menschliche Spannungen abgebaut oder
heruntergespielt.
3) Ein weiterer Umstand trägt zur Versöhnlich-
keit der Gurtum in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhalten,
vor allem Neulingen gegenüber, bei: Im Werde-
gang eines Gurtum sind immer Gurtum von Ruf
und Namen als “Lehrer” und “Meister” des
Neulings beteiligt. Jeder Gurtum übernimmt gern
diese Aufgabe, denn sie wird gut honoriert. Der
Einfluß des Lehrers, gepaart mit seiner fachlichen
Autorität den Kollegen gegenüber, läßt es nicht
zu, daß der Schüler unbillig bedrängt wird. Jeden-
falls wird gerade so verhindert, daß man gegen den
Neuen mit fachlicher Unfähigkeit argumentiert,
um ihn auf diese Weise “unmöglich” zu machen;
denn dieser Vorwurf wäre gleichzeitig gegen den
“Meister und Lehrer” gerichtet.
4) Die persönliche wirtschaftliche Lage vieler
Gurtum erlaubt ihnen Zurückhaltung. Aufgrund
ihrer Verwurzelung in der Großfamilie haben viele
genug zum Leben und sind nicht allein auf ihr
Gurtum-Honorar angewiesen. Manche üben zu
ihrem Amt noch einen zivilen Beruf aus. So
können sie ruhig abwarten, daß ihr Fashen, das sie
je nach Nachfrage ausüben, allmählich bekannt
und berühmt wird. Der Ruf und die offizielle
Anstellung sichern dem tüchtigen Gurtum ein klar
umrissenes Betätigungsfeld, so daß er nicht unab-
lässig und eifersüchtig neue Kunden werben
muß.
4.2 Prüfung und Bestätigung des Gurtum
Ein Gurtum, der nach der Zeit der inoffiziellen
beruflichen Tätigkeit zur vollen Anerkennung
seines Amtes aufsteigen will, hat dazu mehrere
Möglicheiten, die sich zwei Gruppen zuordnen
lassen: a) die Einkleidung, die zweite also, durch
Akka; b) die Prüfung der Echtheit. Die folgende
Darstellung bringt zur “Einkleidung durch Akka”
einen Text aus dem Bericht Ch’ens, zur Prüfung
der Echtheit zwei Texte von D. Schröders Infor-
mant Ch’ang Shih-an aus Heitsuitzu, die J. Frick
nach Schröders Abreise aus China vermittelte.
1. Einkleidung durch Akka
Diese zweite Einkleidung wird durch Akka, Mön-
che, vorgenommen. Der Gurtum, dem diese wie-
derholte Einkleidungsfeier gilt, hat bereits zu
Beginn seines Werdeganges und seiner Fashen-
Tätigkeit eine Investitur durch einen Gurtum
erlebt und hat sich inzwischen in seiner Praxis
bewährt. Ch’en schreibt in seinem Bericht unter
dem Zwischentitel “Ritus einer Einkleidung durch
Akka im Kloster selbst”:
Über die Erwählung eines Ma-chüeh Ti-tzu herrscht bei Fandse
und Chinesen ein und dieselbe Auffassung. Bei der Darstellung
über die Einkleidung ist das ebenso der Fall.
Zum Ritus: Bei der Einkleidung durch Akka hat man es -
den Tahufa des Klosters ausgenommen23 - mit großen und
kleinen Berggeistern zu tun. Zu den Berggeistern, die im
Kloster Ruf und Namen haben, zählen z. B. die “38 oder 108
Würden”. Der Pferdefußjünger selbst oder die Leute einer
Gegend können den Wunsch nach einer Einkleidung beim
Akka Vorbringen. Es gibt eine große, feierliche, und eine
kleine, einfache, Einkleidung. Zur großen Einkleidung: dabei
ist eine Prüfung im Kloster in Gegenwart des Tahufa vorgese-
hen. Zu dieser Prüfung gehört, “feurige Eisenketten auf den
Rücken nehmen” usw. wie bei einer Prüfung durch Gurtum,
wobei es sich um die große, nicht die kleine Prüfung handeln
muß. Es müssen drei bis vier Erprobungen durch Gurtum
vorhergehen, erst dann läßt sich der Akka seinerseits auf eine
Prüfung ein.24 25
Die Akka weilen beim Gebete-Rezitieren in der Gebets-
halle (ching fang)2?. Jeder einzelne Akka dort hält stark
gequollenen Spelt in der Fland. Man gibt dem Gurtum die
Anweisung, außerhalb der Gebetshalle auf einer Holzbank
Platz zu nehmen und von sich aus Fashen zu machen. Ein
“Akka-zu-seiner-Seite”26 rezitiert das “Gebet der Geister-
Dämonen-Verfolgung” und bewirft ihn mit Spelt.
23 Der Sinn dieser Einschränkung ist rein textlich gesehen
nicht eindeutig klar. Man kann sie aktiv verstehen: “sieht
man von der Einkleidung ab, die der Tahufa des Klosters
persönlich durchführt”; oder man kann sie passiv verstehen:
“ausgenommen den Fall, daß der Tahufa eines Klosters
eingekleidet wird”. Der Tahufa eines Klosters, der Mönch
der den höchsten Schutzgeist des Klosters hat, ist auch ein
Gurtum; so jedenfalls bemerkt Ch’en an anderer Stelle
beiläufig. Doch wenn er eingekleidet wird, gelten andere
Grundsätze: z. B. fällt bei ihm die Einkleidung mit der
offiziellen Installierung zusammen. Sein Geist gehört nicht
zu den “38 oder 108 Geistern”, die im Kloster Rang
haben.
24 “Akka”, Mönch, ist hier als Bezeichnung ungenau; in der
Regel sind bei diesem Ritus Mönche einer höheren Rang-
stufe beteiligt.
25 D. Schröder wählte in seiner ersten Übersetzung für “ching
Fang” den Ausdruck “Sutrahalle”. Die Bedeutung des
Geschehens und dessen Umstände (Zahl und Würde der
Anwesenden, notwendige Geräumigkeit) legen diese Wahl
nahe.
26 “Akka-zur-Seite”, “Akka-ad-latus”, “Akka-Mentor”: Aus
den vorliegenden Quellen wird nicht klar, ob es sich um
einen Akka handelt, der von Fall zu Fall diese assistierende
Aufgabe übernimmt, also den Mentor abgeben muß, oder
ob für solche Fälle ein Akka fest beauftragt ist und der den
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
381
Hat man es mit einem falschen Geist zu tun, kommt es zu
keinem Fashen. Handelt es sich um einen echten Geist, tritt
Fashen ein. Der Gurtum springt dann auf, läuft in die
Gebetshalle zum Mitrezitieren der Gebete. Die Akka bewerfen
ihn, jeder einzelne, mit Spelt. Gemeinsam rezitieren sie die
Beschwörungsformel “Verfolgung der Geister und Dämo-
nen”.
Der chinesische Text spricht bei der “Verfol-
gung der Geister und Dämonen” {chui kuei)
einmal von einem “Gebet” (ching), einmal von
einer “Beschwörungsformel” (chou). Ersteres
{ching) rezitiert der Akka-Mentor vor der Halle,
das zweite {chou) wird in der Halle rezitiert. D.
Schröder versuchte bei seiner ersten Übersetzung
des Textes diesem Unterschied im Wortgebrauch
gerecht zu werden, indem er eine längere spekula-
tive Überlegung anstellte, warum in der Halle eine
“Beschwörungsformel” statt eines “Gebetes” rezi-
tiert werde. Man könnte diese Verschiedenheit im
Ausdruck auch einfach auf eine Ungenauigkeit des
schnell dahin schreibenden Ch’en zurückführen.
Die Ritualformel ist ihrem Inhalt nach “ching”
und “chou”. Der Akzent der Aussage scheint eher
auf dem “zusammen”, “gemeinsam” {ch’i) zu
liegen: was der Akka-Mentor vor der Halle allein,
isoliert getan hat, das wiederholt die Versammlung
jetzt “gemeinsam”. Das würde der hier erwarteten
Steigerung entsprechen, daß sie gemeinsam errei-
chen wollen, was der Akka-Mentor allein nicht
unbedingt garantieren kann: den Ausschluß jeden
Falsch-seins des Gurtum. Der Bericht fährt fort:
Je mehr die Akka Spelt werfen, umso mehr Energie hat der
Gurtum. Geradewegs läuft er vor den Tahufa hin oder vor die
zuständige Inkarnation. Sie stellen Prüfungsfragen anhand von
Gebetstexten in Fandsesprache. Erweist es sich, daß gerade der
in Frage stehende Berggeist, jener, auf den sein bisheriges
Verhalten hindeutete, tatsächlich bei ihm Geiststelle vertritt,
legt der Tahufa bzw. die Inkarnation zusammengeknüpfte
Hada auf ihn. Dazu erklärt er: “Richtig! Du bist der und der
Berggeist, geh hin, aller Welt Schutz, Hilfe, Wehr, Rettung
bringen!"
Der “Vierer”, paoyu wei chiu (Schutz, Hilfe,
Wehr, Rettung), ist eine stilistisch wohlklingende
und inhaltlich umfassende Ausdrucksweise für die
Gesamtheit helfender und rettender Dienste, die
dem Gurtum übertragen werden. Das Wirken des
Gurtum wird nicht auf Tätigkeiten eingeschränkt,
die, eng und für sich genommen, durch je ein
einzelnes der vier Zeichen ausgedrückt werden.
Der Gurtum erweist dem Tahufa bzw. der Inkarnation seine
Verehrung - wer Tahufa ist, ist gleichzeitig Gurtum. Der
Gurtum hört nun eine Belehrung an. Wenn sie abgeschlossen
Titel “Akka-Mentor” trägt. Es könnte sich um einen der
Zeremoniare handeln, die bei religiösen Feiern den Ablauf
gestalten helfen.
ist, vollzieht er den Schlußritus. Mancher Gurtum schließt nach
dem Ende des Fashen eine Sühnehandlung an: er macht
tausendmal K'o t’ou, d.h. er berührt in kniender Haltung
tausendmal mit der Stirn den Boden; oder er macht entlang der
äußeren Umfriedung der Klostermauer die “Prostrationen
nach Körperlänge”. Der Sinn, den dieses Tun zum Ausdruck
bringt, ist: Der Leib des Gurtum ist nicht würdig, den Geist zu
vertreten. Einem Gurtum, der mit seinem falschen Geist die
Prüfung nicht zu bestehen vermag, gibt man eine entsprechen-
de Belehrung, und die Sache ist erledigt.
Mit der Zwischenbemerkung, daß der Tahufa
gleichzeitig ein Gurtum sei, begegnet Ch’en der
möglichen Frage, warum der Tahufa eigens er-
wähnt werde. Anders als die gewöhnlichen Mön-
che ist der Tahufa schamanistisch begabt, ein
“Gurtum”.27
Bei den “Prostrationen nach Körperlänge”
legt sich der Betende auf den Boden, streckt die
Hände aus, markiert mit den Fingern die Stelle,
die er bei ausgestrecktem Körper erreichen kann,
steht dann auf und geht ein paar Schritte weiter,
bis seine Füße an der eben markierten Stelle sind.
Dann wiederholt er den Vorgang solange, bis er
die vorgenommene Strecke durchmessen hat, in
diesem Falle also den Fußweg außen entlang der
Klostermauer. Oft, je nach Eingebung und beson-
derem religiösen Eifer, berührt er auch mit der
Stirn den Boden, was auch sonst ein Ausdruck
religiösen Eifers ist.
Zu weiteren Einzelheiten der “Einkleidung”
durch Akka gibt Ch’en keine Beschreibung; er gibt
jedoch einige Hinweise zur Bewertung einer sol-
chen “wiederholten Einkleidung”:
Alle, die in einem Kloster Prüfung und Einkleidung gemacht
haben, besitzen das größte Ansehen. Das Prüfungsverfahren ist
allerdings dort am schrecklichsten, da die größere Hälfte der
Berggeister Fandse-Geister sind. Die Prüfung ist mit Gebets-
texten in Fandsesprache durchzuführen. Berggeister etc., die
“Würden”, im Kloster auch die Inkarnationen, der Tahufa und
ähnliche überragen die gewöhnlichen Gurtum-Geister.
Normale Sterbliche können auch die Honorare für die
Bemühungen der Mönche bei Prüfung und Einkleidung nicht
aufbringen, da sie mehr als 200 bis 300 Silberdollars betragen.
Daher gilt: die Einkleidung durch Akka genießt den höchsten
Ruf und findet den stärksten Glauben. Später kommen viele
Leute mit Bitten um Krankenbehandlung, Wetterbann und
ähnliches; Geld kann man dann reichlich verdienen.
Ch’ens Text zeigt, daß es dem Autor nicht
darum ging, eine genaue Schilderung des Einklei-
dungsritus zu geben, sondern daß er die Verschie-
denheiten und Besonderheiten einer Einklei-
dungsfeier im Kloster zusammenstellen wollte.
Für die Einkleidung durch Akka gibt es neben
27 D. Schröder notiert in seinen Kurzaufzeichnungen, daß das
Kloster Kumbum zur Zeit des berichteten Geschehens
keinen schamanistisch begabten Tahufa besaß; der Zustand
dauerte mehrere Jahre.
Anthropos 83.1988
382
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
der hochfeierlichen Form im Kloster, deren Be-
sonderheiten eben herausgestellt wurden, auch
eine einfachere, außerklösterliche Form. Auch
diese außerklösterliche Form partizipiert an dem
höheren Ruf und der größeren Anerkennung, die
die Akka genießen, vergleicht man sie mit den
Laien-Gurtum. Sie garantiert dem Gurtum eine
genügend große Zahl von Klienten.
2. Echtheitsproben
Statt durch eine “neue Einkleidung”, die schwie-
riger ist und vor allem kostspieliger, können
Gurtum auch durch ein anderes öffentliches Ver-
fahren, durch eine Prüfung, die Echtheit ihrer
Berufung beweisen und so zu Ansehen und Aner-
kennung kommen. Nicht wenige Gurtum müssen
sich mit ihr zufrieden geben, da sie nicht die
finanziellen Mittel besitzen, eine neue Einklei-
dung im Kloster zu bestreiten. Im folgenden sollen
zwei solcher Echtheitsproben vorgestellt werden;
bei der einen prüfte ein bekannter und anerkann-
ter Gurtum, bei der anderen fand die Prüfung im
berühmten Kloster Kumbum statt. Ch’ang Shih-
an, ein Augenzeuge, berichtet:
“Einzelheiten im Verlauf der Echtheitsprobe des Gurtum von
Heitsuitzu”
Zeit des Geschehens ist das 6. Jahr der Republik (1917),
der Ort des Geschehens ist Heitsuitzu, am Nordufer des Hsi
ch’uan (Westfluß) im damaligen Kreis Sining (heute Kreis
Huang chung). Der Gurtum, um den es sich handelt, hieß
Wang K’ai-ch’i. Eh und je betätigte er Fashen, um durch
Bannen der Dämonen Krankheiten zu behandeln. Nach seiner
eigenen Behauptung war er Jünger des örtlichen Ta-shan-shen
(des großen Berggeistes). Die Leute des Dorfes glaubten alle
an ihn, und so wollten die Dorfältesten ihn einkleiden.
Einkleiden (ta-i) bedeutet; Ihm das Fashen-Ritualgewand
schenken, das Kopftuch, die Hufa-Medaille (Krone), den
Gürtel, den Herzschutzspiegel, den Geisterspeer, den Geister-
strick, und ihn so zum vollkommenen Gurtum machen. Dieses
Einkleiden sollte Vorbereitung sein für den alljährlichen
Auftrag, im Heimatdorf die Saaten zu schützen und verheeren-
de Stürme, wie Hagelschlag, zu bannen. Dieser Plan war durch
die Ungewißheit in Frage gestellt, ob sein Fashen echt oder
unecht war. Es gab keine Klarheit über sein Geheimnis. In
dieser Lage vereinbarten die Dorfältesten mit ihm eine Echt-
heitsprobe.
Zum Mitwirken lud man den Gurtum Chiang von
Lan-lung-chuang ein. Alle Interessierten wählten einen passen-
den Ort dafür. Es war der “Drei-Fürsten-Tempel”, San kuan
miao, in der “Hinteren Straße” des eigenen Dorfes, wo sich
heute die katholische Missionsstation befindet.
Von jedem Haushalt verlangte man sieben Teiglampen.
Gegen Abend des vorgesehenen Tages versammelte sich das
ganze Dorf, Familie für Familie und Haushalt für Haushalt. Als
die Teilnehmer mit ihren Teiglampen vollzählig versammelt
waren, versetzte sich der Gurtum Chiang in Fashen, um die
Teiglampen aufzustellen. Als der Hof mit ihnen bestellt war,
hatte man dort eine “Schlachtordnung”, d.h. eine Form, wie
ein Heer zu Beginn des Kampfes aufgestellt ist. die den Namen
“Drachentorordnung" hat. Nun machten die beiden Gurtum
Chiang und Wang in der “Großen Halle” (ta den) Fashen; die
Große Halle ist die Haupthalle, wo man Buddha opfert.
Die Ritualkleidung des Gurtum Chiang war folgende:
Das Haupt trug er mit einem Kopftuch aus gelbem Baumwoll-
tuch umwickelt. Dazu gehörte eine Binde aus grünem Baum-
wolltuch. An diesem Tuchstreifen waren 13 kleine tigerkopf-
förmige Schellen befestigt. Reifenartig war er über das Kopf-
tuch gebunden. Aufgebunden hatte er auch das Hufa-Medail-
lon. Gekleidet war er mit einem rotgebordeten, gefütterten
Langkleid aus weißem Baumwolltuch, in der Hüfte gefaßt von
einem Gürtel aus rotem Tuch. Vorn auf der Brust hing ein
großer Kupferspiegel; er heißt Herzschutzspiegel oder Mond-
spiegel. An ihm waren Hada aus roter und grüner Seide
festgebunden. In der Rechten hielt er den “Langen Speer”.
Der Lange Speer ist das T’ientun. Die linke Hand hielt den
Geisterstrick, der am Arm aufgewickelt war.
Die Ritualkleidung des Gurtum Wang: Sein Haupt
umhüllte ein weißes Kopftuch. Gekleidet war er in ein
ungefüttertes Langkleid aus schwarzem Baumwolltuch, in der
Hüfte gefaßt von einem roten Tuchgürtel. In der Rechten hielt
er den Langen Speer, die Linke hatte er in die Hüfte
gestemmt.
Der Gurtum Chiang ging voran, er führte; Gurtum Wang
hinter ihm, er hatte zu folgen. Im Hof machten sie einen Gang
zwischen den Reihen der Teiglampen hindurch. Man nennt das
“den Geisterweg wandern”. Wenn beim Wandern des Geister-
weges im Hof auch nur eine der Teiglampen umfällt, so handelt
es sich um einen falschen Geist. Als sie am Ende ankamen, war
tatsächlich keine einzige Lampe im Hof umgefallen. In dem
Moment rief die versammelte Menge: “Echter Geist! Echter
Geist!” Einige der Leute schlugen die Glocke oder trommelten,
andere verbrannten an allen Seiten Weihrauch oder zündeten
Tuja-Stäbchen an. Die beiden Gurtum führten mit dem Langen
Speer fechtend einen “Vier-Tore-Gang” auf, eine Art des
chinesischen Schattenboxens; von beiden war keiner unter-
oder überlegen. Als dieser Gang zu Ende war, kehrten sie in die
Große Halle zurück. Die Dorfältesten kleideten den Gurtum
Wang ein. Dieser gab eine Unterweisung über die Geschichte
des “Geisterkönigs”, Shen wang. Der Gurtum Chiang richtete
eine Ermahnung an die “Schwarzkopfigen”28, die Chinesen.
Anschließend machten sie den Abschlußritus, sie “spann-
ten das Pferd aus”; das “Pferdausspannen” hat den Sinn: der
Gurtum ersucht seinen Geist, in seinen Tempel zurückzukeh-
ren, und der Gurtum selber erholt sich.
Am nächsten Tag gaben die Leute mit angemessenen
Geschenken den beiden Gurtum Wang und Chiang das Geleit,
jedem zurück nach Hause. Das sind Einzelheiten über den
Hergang der Echtheitsprobe des Gurtum Wang.
Wenn es in diesem Bericht heißt, daß die
Dorfältesten den Gurtum einkleideten, so ist der
Ausdruck “einkleiden” ohne Zweifel als eine
lässige Ausdrucksweise des Berichterstatters zu
werten, der bei der Benennung des Vorgangs wie
die übrigen Leute wenig auf Präzision achtete. Die
normale Einkleidung hatte der Gurtum Wang
28 “Schwarzkopfiger” ist die in dieser Gegend üblich Bezeich-
nung für den aus Zentralchina eingewanderten Bevölke-
rungsteil, den man als “Chinesen” (Hanmin) bezeichnet.
Verglichen mit den Leuten der übrigen Bevölkerungsgrup-
pen der Gegend (Tibeter, T’ujen, Mongolen) zeichnen sie
sich durch ihr tiefschwarzes Haar aus.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
383
schon Jahre hinter sich. Er besaß und gebrauchte
vorher und bei der hier beschriebenen Prüfung
seine frühere Gurtum-Ausstattung. Nun wurden
ihm eine Anzahl seiner Ausstattungsteile bei
dieser Gelegenheit neu gestiftet. Sie waren Zei-
chen für die Beauftragung mit der neuen Aufgabe,
zu deren Zweck die Prüfung durchgeführt wurde.
Seiner neuen Stellung als Ortsgurtum war es nicht
abträglich, daß er auch viele Teile seiner früheren
Ausstattung weiter verwendete.
Der Aufwand, den sich eine Gemeinschaft,
meistens ein Dorf, mit der Ausstattung eines
Gurtum leistet, an dem sie interessiert ist, bleibt
dem Belieben der Geber anheimgestellt. Gefor-
dert sind nur die Dinge, die zur religiösen Zeremo-
nie gehören, wie z. B. Weihrauch, Opferpapier,
Lampen u. ä. Lampen werden von den einzelnen
Familien beigesteuert, für die übrigen Dinge
nimmt man gemeinsames Geld. Die Liste der
Gaben für den Gurtum in Heitsuitzu war:
1. Je Hof - und wenn in einem Hof mehrere
Familie verschiedenen Namens wohnten, je Fami-
lie; sieben Teiglampen.
2. Teile der Ritualausstattung, die der Rat der
Alten vorsah.
3. Die Auslagen für die Bewirtung der beiden
Gurtum Chiang und Wang und die Vertreter der
Gemeinde.
4. Geschenke beim Abschied der beiden Gurtum.
Ein Grundbestandteil wird als gemeinschaftliche
Auslage bestritten. In der Regel geben viele auch
zusätzliche Geschenke, besonders jene, die wäh-
rend der Anwesenheit der beiden Gurtum diese
mit persönlichen Anliegen aufsuchen.
Der Gurtum Wang sollte den “alljährlichen
Auftrag” erhalten, die “Saaten” zu schützen. Der
chinesische Text läßt in der Übersetzung mehrere
Interpretationen dieser Ausdrücke zu. Eindeutig-
keit ließe sich nur erzielen, wenn der Berichter-
statter selber den geschriebenen Text vorlesen
würde:
1. mei nien (alljährlich, jedes Jahr): Der Gurtum
erhält jedes Jahr den Auftrag die Saaten zu
schützen. Die übliche Praxis widerspricht dieser
Aussage. Normalerweise erhält der Gurtum ein
für allemal diesen Auftrag, jedes Jahr in der
genannten Weise in Funktion zu treten. Der
Auftrag konnte auch entzogen werden; das ge-
schah in der Regel einfach dadurch, daß ein
anderer Gurtum beauftragt wurde. Zur Zeit der
Berichterstattung oblag dem Gurtum Wang seit
ca. 30 Jahren ununterbrochen die Aufgabe, die
ihm bei seiner Anstellung aufgetragen worden
war.
2. pao hu t’ien miao (schützen Felder Saaten):
Man kann “t’ien miao” als ein Begriff verstehen
und übersetzen (= Saaten). In diesem Fall würde
sich der Auftrag des Gurtum zeitlich und räumlich
begrenzen. Der Gurtum wäre nur für den Schutz
der bepflanzten Felder von der Aussaat bis zur
Ernte verantwortlich. Man kann den genannten
Ausdruck aber auch als Doppelbegriff interpretie-
ren (= Felder und Saaten). Dann enthielte der
Jahresauftrag des Gurtum eine Verantwortung für
den Schutz der Felder allgemein, also auch für
Wiesen, Berghänge und Weiden; der Auftrag
würde auch für die Zeit außerhalb der Bewirt-
schaftung gelten.
Die zweite Echtheitsprobe, über die im fol-
genden berichtet wird, fand im Kloster Kumbum
statt. Anlaß war in diesem Falle nicht ein Interesse
einer Gemeinschaft; es ging nicht um die Anstel-
lung eines Gurtum in einem bestimmten Dorf. Der
Prüfling selber wurde initiativ, um seine eigene
Position zu stärken, sein Ansehen in der Bevölke-
rung zu vergrößern und so mehr Aufträge und
größeres Honorar für seine Tätigkeit zu gewinnen.
Der Bericht stammt ebenfalls von Ch’ang Shih-an,
der den Vorgang der Prüfung als Augenzeuge
miterlebte. Dieses Erlebnis war für ihn so ein-
drucksvoll, daß man in seinem späteren Bericht -
er war inzwischen schon lange Christ - noch die
persönliche Ergriffenheit spürt:
“Einzelheiten zum Verlauf der Echtheitsprobe eines Gurtum
durch den Tahufa von Kumbum”
Im Jahre 9 der Republik (1920) kam am 6.6. ein Jünger
(Ti-tzu) des Paima-Berggeistes zum Kloster Kumbum. Vor
dem Tahufa wünschte er die Frage klarzustellen: Ist der Geist
seines Fashen “echt” oder “falsch”. Es ist nun einmal so: Hat
man es mit einem echten Geist zu tun, läßt sich leichter
erreichen, daß die Leute einem Hochachtung und Glauben
schenken.
Bei dieser Gelegenheit machten sich alle buddhistischen
Würdenträger im Kloster auf in die Gebetshalle: viele Tulku
(Inkarnationen), Lama und Akka, wohl über 300 Personen,
begannen in der großen Gebetshalle mit der Rezitation der
Gebetstexte. Damit versetzten sie den “Jünger des Tahufa” in
Fashen, ebenso den “Jünger des Paima-Berggeistes”. Gleich
beim Einsetzen des Fashen packten vier Akka den großen
Metallhelm (ta t’ieh shamaö) des Tahufa, der ca. 100 Pfund
wog, hoben ihn hoch und setzten ihn dem Gurtum aufs
Haupt.
In diesem Augenblick stieß der Gurtum einen lauten
Schrei aus und sprang auf. Die anwesenden Tulku und Lama
eröffneten mit dem Spelt, den sie in ihren Händen hielten, das
“Ching chan” (Reinigen und “Läutern” der Schale) - Ching
chan besteht darin, daß man Spelt auf den Kopf des Gurtum
wirft; Zweck dabei ist es, ihn rein zu machen. Der Gurtum
machte das “Fashen des Kopfschütteins und Schwanzwe-
delns”.29
29 Es handelt sich um eine in dieser Gegend oft angetroffene
Form ekstatischen Ergriffenseins, die zu schnellen und
heftigen Hin- und Her- und Kreisbewegungen des Kopfes
und der Schultern führt.
Anthropos 83.1988
384
F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
Der Tahufa stellte in Fandsesprache ein paar ausgewählte
Fragen. Sie handelten von der Geschichte (Flerkunft) des
“Geisterkönigs” und von den Umständen des im Fashen
ausgeführten Dämonenfangens. Die Antworten des Gurtum
waren sehr klar und vollständig. So kam die Versammlung zur
Auffassung, der Geist seines Fashen sei ein “echter” Geist.
Die Tulku ließen ein weißes gefüttertes Langkleid mit
rotem Saum holen und ihm anlegen. Sie banden ihm ein
Kopftuch aus weißem Baumwollstoff ums Haupt. Nachdem sie
an ihm so die Investitur vollzogen hatten, ergriff der Gurtum
eine lange Lanze (ch'ang ch'iang)30 und wandelte zwischen den
Reihen der Tulku und Lama den “Geisterweg”. Akka und
Lama beteiligten sich ihrerseits: sie warfen Spelt, rezitierten
Gebete, schlugen Trommel und Gong und klatschten im Takt.
Die Hada am Shamao des Gurtum wirbelten, die tigerkopfför-
migen Schellen rundherum klingelten; der Gurtum führte mit
der langen Lanze in der Hand einen Wettkampf auf. Ein
wahrhaft prachtvolles Schauspiel! Das dauerte leider nur kurze
Zeit. Dann kam das “Ausspannen des Pferdes” (hsieh liao ma),
der rituelle Abschluß des Fashen mit Abnehmen des Shamao,
Ausziehen des Langkleides und Entfernen des Kopftuches.
Danach fand ein Empfang im Gästehaus des Klosters
statt, eine festliche Bewirtung mit Tee und Reisspeise.31
Zwei Arten von “Prüfung” gibt es im Werde-
gang des Gurtum: die Berechtigungsprüfung wäh-
rend der Einkleidung des Gurtum und die Echt-
heitsprobe bei seiner endgültigen Bestätigung. Im
ersten Fall (k’ao, k’ao cheng) liegt der Akzent der
Handlung auf der Prüfung. Der Prüfling hat im
Durchgang durch die verschiedenen Aufgaben zu
beweisen, daß der die gestellten Aufgaben mit
Hilfe seines Fashen durchführen kann.
Im zweiten Fall (cheng, cheng ming) steht die
Bestätigung, auf die die Prüfung hinzielt, im
Vordergrund. Der Gurtum muß vor fachkundigen
Prüfern den überzeugenden Beweis erbringen,
daß sein Fashen wirklich das ist, wofür er es
ausgibt. Unter den Prüfern sind solche Personen,
die eher zu einem richtigen Urteil fähig sind als die
Leute, mit denen es der Gurtum normalerweise im
Alltag zu tun hat. Es geht üblicherweise um die
Bestätigung in einem der folgenden beiden Punk-
te; 1. Was der Bewerber leistet, ist wirklich
Fashen; damit wird auch bestätigt, daß er sein
Fashen als Jünger des von ihm genannten Geistes
ausübt (Beispiel: Die Echtheitsprobe des Gurtum
Wang). 2. Bei einem allseits anerkannten Gurtum
ist tatsächlich jener hochgestellte und mächtige
Geist am Wirken, auf den der Gurtum sich beruft
(Beispiel: Echtheitsprobe des Jüngers des Paima-
Berggeistes).
30 Es muß sich hier nicht um den Langen Speer (ch’ang maö)
des Gurtum handeln. Für die folgende Vorführung genügt
irgendeine lange Lanze als kriegerisches Symbol.
31 Tee und Reis zeigen, daß es sich hier um einen Festakt
handelt. Bei solchen Festakten gab es immer auch chinesi-
sches und/oder im Kloster hergestelltes Gebäck und Zuga-
ben aus mannigfaltig zubereiteten Gemüsen.
Bisweilen stehen bei “Bestätigungen” auch
andere Einzelheiten der Gurtum-Laufbahn im
Vordergrund, daß etwa der betreffende Gurtum
auch oder besonders zuständig sein soll für “Wei-
sungen”, “Toten-sehen”, “Leichen-umbetten”
u. ä. Bei einer solchen Echtheitsprobe oder Bestä-
tigung wird nie das ganze Können eines Gurtum
überprüft. Die Personen, die zu entscheiden ha-
ben, treffen vielmehr nach ihrem Gutdünken eine
Auswahl unter den möglichen Fashen-Leistungen,
die der Bewerber vollbringen muß. Eine solche
Stichprobe genügt, um den Anspruch des Gurtum
als berechtigt zu erweisen, da nur ein Fashen-Geist
die verlangten Leistungen seines Jüngers garan-
tiert.
Eine öffentliche oder besonders feierliche
Bestätigung hat für den betroffenen Gurtum prak-
tische Auswirkungen, denn sie sichert ihm das
Vertrauen der Leute, sie garantiert ihm Zukunft,
oft eine feste Anstellung, Berühmtheit, Einkom-
men. Andere Institutionen öffentlicher Förderung
oder des beruflichen Aufstiegs stehen dem Gur-
tum nicht zur Verfügung. Das Fehlen einer eigent-
lichen Berufsorganisation - es gibt nur Ansätze
dazu32 - schließt das Aufsteigen in Grade und
Würden aus, wie sie von anderen Gruppen Fa-
shen-wirkender Personen bekannt sind. Berühmt-
heit und Ansehen des Gurtum richten sich, von
den genannten Möglichkeiten öffentlicher Aner-
kennung abgesehen, ausschließlich nach den Lei-
stungen, die er durch das Wirken “seines” Geistes
vollbringt. Im allgemeinen wird bei gleicher Tüch-
tigkeit jener Gurtum höher eingeschätzt, der den
“größeren” Geist für sich in Anspruch nehmen
kann. Doch kann es Vorkommen, daß ein Gurtum
durch innigere Verbundenheit und Verehrung
seines “kleineren” Geistes mehr leistet, er daher
auch mehr geschätzt wird als ein Gurtum eines
mächtigeren Geistes.
32 Zum jährlichen Treffen der Gurtum von Mashengk’ou, das
ein solcher Ansatz zu einer standesmäßigen Organisation
darstellt, vgl. Anm. 18.
Anthropos 83.1988
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
385
Anhang: Ch’en Shen-jui: Werdegang des Gurtum
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Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum
387
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F. Eichinger, J. Frick und A. Quack
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Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 395-402
Change, Adjustment, and Persistence in Generalized
Exchange
A Case Study from Indonesia
David Hicks
Abstract. - It is commonly supposed that systems of generalized
exchange are especially vulnerable to the forces of social and
cultural change. The argument offered here is that empirical
data furnished by the western Manggarai of Flores, in eastern
Indonesia, demonstrate that this is by no means necessarily
true. Religious, ecological, and demographic adjustments have
helped transform the local society, yet its traditional asymmet-
ric alliance system continues to flourish. [Indonesia, Flores,
Generalized Exchange, Cultural Change]
David Hicks, Ph. D. (London 1971; Oxford 1971), Professor of
Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook. In 1976 he was a Directeur d’études associé à l’Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales at the University of Paris. -
Fieldwork was carried out in Indonesia (eastern Timor and
among the Manggarai people of western Flores). - Publica-
tions: see References Cited.
Generalized exchange, social anthropologists tend
to assume, is so thoroughly a part of its local
indigenous cosmos that, when that cosmos is
dislocated by social changes, its demise is assured.
The intention of this paper is to present evidence
that this need not be the case. Specifically, I
attempt to show how religious, ecological, and
demographic changes have transformed one soci-
ety in insular Southeast Asia without disintegrating
its traditional system of generalized exchange.
A. M. Hocart (1933: 258) has observed that
the system of ideas and practices that in certain
populations are closely in congruence with the
rules governing descent and the contraction of
affinal alliances are not functions of the latter, but
if anything the reverse, for: “The system then is
not based on marriage, but marriage is regulated
by the system.” The advantages of adopting this
view of the character of descent and alliance
have proved highly instructive in the analysis of
the collective representations of many societies
in Southeast Asia (see Needham 1958, 1960a,
19606). Analyses of certain populations in eastern
Indonesia, for example, the Ema (Renard-Clama-
girand 1982, Hicks 1986) on Timor and the Rindi
(Forth 1981) on Sumba, attest to the close inter-
play between ideation and social action in societies
with this form of affinity. The consistency between
social order and symbolic order portrayed in these
studies is so convincing one finds difficulty in
imagining how systems of descent and alliance (es-
pecially, perhaps, alliance) so totally enmeshed
in the structure of cosmological ideas could survive
without the sustaining ideational matrix they pro-
vide.
I am referring in this paper to what Lévi-
Strauss terms “generalized exchange,” and Need-
ham calls “asymmetric alliance.” In the many
analyses of such systems he has published since
1957, Needham frequently has had occasion to
remark that the ethnographic data available on a
particular society were less useful than they might
be because the population in question no longer
organized its mode of affinity in the traditional
manner. Preeminently does this problem appear in
the original publications on the various Kuki tribes
along the Indo-Burma border (see Needham 1959,
1963), but he has cited eastern Indonesia, also.
Thus, in discussing the state of affairs that appar-
ently prevailed in the early 1950s among the
Manggarai peoples, who live on Flores, he quotes
local missionaries who declared that “the tradition-
al system (whatever it had been) was far too dis-
integrated” for an analysis of asymmetric alliance
(Needham 1966; 148).
One possible explanation for the ready as-
sumption that “modernization” inevitably brings
an end to generalized exchange is that until the
1970s the vast majority of attempts to analyse
generalized exchange were indeed based upon
fragmentary ethnographic information, and such
sources inevitably gave the impression of coming
from populations whose traditions were in an
advanced condition of social disintegration (see
Lévi-Strauss 1949, van Wouden 1968). This im-
pression was intensified by the contrast between
the extreme rarity of societies that practised this
form of exchange and the great theoretical signifi-
cance of such systems, according to the argument
396
David Hicks
made in Claude Lévi-Strauss’ “Les structures
élémentaires de la parenté” (1949). He suggested
that such systems may once have been of near-
universal distribution, but today, as the result of
social changes, no longer exist so abundantly.
Fieldwork reports published in the 1970s and 1980s
(Renard-Clamagirand 1982, Forth 1981, Hicks
1973, 1978a, 1983, 1984b) demonstrated that
generalized exchange continued operating in the
contemporary world, but it remains to be shown
what happens to generalized exchange in a society
undergoing profound changes.
1. Ethnographic Background
Despite Raymond Kennedy’s contention that it is
“one of the most fascinating areas in all Indonesia,
ethnologically speaking” (LeBar 1972: 80), and his
own reconnaissance across the island between 1949
and 1950, only recently has Flores attracted the
published attention of professional anthropologists
(see Gordon 1980, Hicks 1984b, 1985), a trend that
the quantity of fieldwork recently carried out there
suggests will continue, so we may anticipate expan-
sion in our knowledge of the dozen or so ethno-lin-
guistic groups located on this, the second largest
island in the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur.
The most numerous people are the Mangga-
rai, who occupy the western third of the island, a
vast territory that contains at least three other
groups closely related ethno-linguistically to them:
the Rembong, Rajong, and Mbae. As the result of
the publications of Van Bekkum (1944), Coolhas
(1942), Gordon (1975, 1980), Mennes (1933), and
several other writers, but principally the detailed
and copious writings of Verheijen (e.g., 1951,
1967, 1970, 1977), we know rather a lot about the
Manggarai, but where they do not describe Mang-
garai culture and society in a general sense, these
works refer chiefly to that population living in the
central part of the entire territory of Manggarai.
Yet recent contributions made by Needham (1966,
1980) and Hicks (1984b, 1985) show that regional
differences in the local adat (customary law) can be
substantial. The people living in western Mangga-
rai have received less attention, but even where
information exists it also suffers from being of too
general a character. Such as they are the data
suggest that the western Manggarai differ in cer-
tain important features from other Manggarai.1
1 It should be remarked, nevertheless, that many of my
findings on descent and alliance confirm the original
findings of Coolhas, Mennes, and Verheijen.
Flores is divided into five large administrative
regions known as kabupaten, and these are divided
into sub-regions called kecamatan, which are
themselves divided into units known in more
traditional times as dalu (chiefdoms) (see map in
Hicks 1984b: 517). Within what used to be dalu are
settlements known as desa (villages), which in turn
are made up of kampung (hamlets). The kabupa-
ten of Manggarai, which is administered from the
town of Ruteng in central Manggarai, contains ten
kecamatan. One of the six dalu in the kecamatan of
Komodo is called Boleng, and it was here I carried
out my field research.2 Boleng, which is cotermi-
nous with the Catholic parish of Wangkung, has 36
hamlets that are assorted into five villages: Pota
Wangka, Golo Ketak, Mbuit, Golo Cepang, and
Tanjung Boleng. One of these hamlets bears the
same name as the parish of Wangkung, my base of
fieldwork operations.
2. Persistence
Names, recruitment to descent groups, and sundry
items of property, descend patrilineally in western
Manggarai. Suku, a term used widely in Indonesia,
denotes the largest type of descent group among
these people, and here I give it the gloss “clan.”
The founder of a clan is that male ancestor most
distant from the present time; but genealogies are
actually quite shallow. Each suku consists of
segments that may be classified as “lineages.”
Since the functioning exogamous group among the
Boleng Manggarai is restricted to individuals who
share the same grandfather, and lineages are
traced back further than three generations, lin-
eages cannot be exogamous.
In the past, lineages - if not clans - formed the
groups that contracted marriage alliances, but
today, ad hoc congeries of simple families holding
allegiance to the same lineage function as the
alliance groups. Senior males of the group are
responsible for collecting the bridewealth when
one of their males takes a wife, and they distribute
it among themselves when one of their women
takes a husband. These groups are typically bond-
2 I would like to tender my thanks to the bupati of Manggarai
and all the kind fathers of the S.V.D. for the generous
hospitality they tendered me during my stay on Flores, and
especially to Father Victor Stevko S.V.D. and the wonder-
ful people of Wangkung parish. I also wish to thank
Dr. Gretchen Gwynne and Mrs. Mari Walker for their
generous help in assisting me prepare this article for
publication.
Anthropos 83.1988
Change, Adjustment, and Persistence in Generalized Exchange
397
ed together by prior affinal ties that define an
institution known as the tungku, a term whose full
range of referents Verheijen’s dictionary (1967)
provides. They include “to join,” “to connect,”
“to continue,” “to prolong.” In the tungku a man
takes a bride from a group that has previously
supplied his own with his mother. So engrained is
this local version of generalized exchange in
Manggarai thinking that, when playing with their
cross-cousins, small children may be jokingly
reminded that they are consorting with their future
spouses. In Boleng, until recently, marriage with
the genealogically-defined mother’s brother’s
daughter was preferred, and the relationship ter-
minology, in verbally corresponding to this prefer-
ence, defines this alliance system as asymmetrical-
ly prescriptive. A man may look for his bride in any
of a number of alliance groups traditionally linked
to his own by asymmetric ties, and likewise his
sister looks for her bridegroom in any of a number
of alliance groups. Males and females of a group
are thus married off in the opposite direction. The
alliance groups that give wives are known as anak
rona; the wife-taking alliance groups are the anak
wina. The institution of tungku exerted profound
political, religious, and economic influence in the
past, and its impact still remains strong in social
life.
Two brothers are forbidden to marry into the
same alliance group, a proscription that encourag-
es ties being established with different anak rona,
thereby increasing the number of wife-giving and
wife-taking partners an alliance group can have.
As usual in generalized exchange, the wife-
givers are classed as superior to wife-takers, and
are associated with the notion of masculinity (rona
connotes “male”). Wife-takers are associated with
femininity (wina = “female”).
The prescription in favor of matrilateral cross-
cousin marriage implies the prohibition of mar-
riage between a man and his patrilateral cross-cous-
in. Even sexual liaisons are regarded as incestuous.
Illicit relations occur, of course, but, if discovered,
must be expiated by the guilty pair having blood
from a white cockerel rubbed on their noses and
smeared on their legs. A marriage contrary to the
unilateral transfer of women (e.g., one in which a
man would marry his patrilateral cross-cousin)
would cause the ancestral ghosts of both descent
groups to afflict the parents of the culprits with
sickness or visit death upon them. Such alliances
are only possible if the “irregular” marriage is
contracted with the express agreement on the part
of both descent groups that further marriages
between them will henceforth be consistent with
the direction of alliance established by this new
marriage. In other words, a group that was
previously anak rona is transformed into anak
wina, while a group that was previously anak wina
is transformed into anak rona. An alliance thus
transformed is not thought of as contradicting the
unilateral flow of wives at all.
The prestations exchanged between wife-
givers and wife-takers conform to the complemen-
tary pattern typical of systems in eastern Indone-
sia. Wife-takers give a “masculine” set of presta-
tions, the bridewealth (paca), composed of buffa-
loes, horses, and money; their wife-givers recipro-
cating with an assembly of “feminine” gifts known
as the wida, made up of the person of the bride
herself, necklaces and a beautiful piece of cloth,
known as the kain songke.
Wife-takers considered affluent are liable to
demands for hefty bridewealth, and when a male
servant in a Catholic mission wishes to marry, a
large bridewealth may be demanded on the
grounds that he is a dependent of the priest in
charge, who is invariably regarded as wealthy.3
Daughters of administrative officials and school
teachers (guru) command exorbitant bridewealth,
and when a bupatfs daughter marries, the bride-
wealth is immense.4 Bridewealth of unusually
large proportions might take the husband’s descent
group years to pay off, and sometimes the husband
dies before the debt has been amortized. Unlike
the custom in certain other systems of generalized
exchange, the Boleng Manggarai do not require
the descendants of such a man to assume the
burden: it dies with the husband. Over the last few
years the tendency has been for the amount of
money demanded in the bridewealth to increase.
One million rupiahs (in mid-1986 roughly $ 1.000)
is not an uncommon sum nowadays, though 500
rupiahs is more usual.
Even into the 1980s parents continued exert-
ing a powerful influence on their childrens’ choice
of marriage partners. Occasionally a recalcitrant
couple elopes, the only possible way of marrying in
disregard of Manggarai traditions, and in these
3 The importance of reciprocity is well displayed in the
following anecdote, related to me by the local parish priest.
When he was marrying off a young woman for whom he was
responsible, a young man, very distantly related, demanded
part of the bridewealth. Upon being asked what part he had
played in paying for her education and otherwise contrib-
uting to the girl’s upbringing, he replied that he had played
with her when she was a child!
4 A bupati is the administrative official heading a kabupa-
ten.
Anthropos 83.1988
398
David Hicks
cases the Catholic Church may be called upon to
intercede for them: sometimes to no avail.
Bridewealth secures for the husband control
over the children of his marriage, the privilege of
residing patrilocally after marriage, and member-
ship of his clan for his children. It can be a source of
contention between wife-givers and wife-takers,
and more than one marriage ritual has been
disharmonized by severe friction between angry
affines.5 6 Marriages in Boleng always require bride-
wealth. In the past, the husband would have to
reside with his father-in-law and render bride-
service until his marital obligation was fully dis-
charged, but today, if enough of the total bride-
wealth has been given, the couple are permitted to
live with the husband’s father after the Nuptial
Mass.7 Eventually they move into their own house,
which will be built on a site near that of the
bridegroom’s father. Otherwise, if the affinal
partners cannot agree on the husband’s residence,
they may reach a compromise. The wife remains in
her natal home with her husband paying nocturnal
visits until an agreed-upon portion of the bride-
wealth has been handed over.8
The necessity of bridewealth (which the bride-
groom himself is not permitted to raise) undoubt-
edly makes marriages that much more difficult to
arrange in the first place. In 1986, from January to
the end of June, only five Catholic marriages had
occurred in the parish of Wangkung. This, how-
ever, was decidedly unusual, and was explained by
the local missionary as the result of the poor har-
vest the previous year; itself the consequence of the
erratic rainfall. In 1985, 38 marriages took place;
in 1984, the number was 28; and in 1983, 56.
5 Premarital sex is discouraged. The family of an unmarried
girl who finds herself pregnant tries to induce her into
revealing the name of the father, telling her when she is in
labor that only when she has confessed will the pains lessen.
Should she divulge his name, the lover is fined a buffalo. But
he is not obligated to marry her, and she and the child
usually continue living in her natal home.
6 In one case I witnessed, the bridewealth negotiations had
not been completed by the day of the Nuptial Mass, which
climaxes the marriage ritual, and the feeling between the
two affinal parties was so acrimonious the wife-givers had
refused to supply food and drink to their wife-takers,
although this entertainment is required on such occasions.
The haggling dragged on in what were considered deplor-
able circumstances until towards the end of the day when fi-
nal agreement was reached.
7 In Boleng, the term applied to an uxorilocally-residing man
is kopenggabang.
8 The actual amount is negotiable, but is not generally
regarded as excessive. According to the local missionary this
is a change from a previous custom that required all the
bridewealth to be paid off before the bride could reside with
her husband.
Fig, 1: Number of Catholic Marriages in Pota Wangka Village
Between 1953-1986
1953 8 1954 19 1955 25 1956 25 1957 6
1958 14 1959 13 1960 25 1961 30 1962 18
1963 14 1964 15 1965 17 1966 49 1967 36
1968 26 1969 14 1970 27? 1971 19 1972 22
1973 28 1974 19 1975 29 1976 52 1977 23
1978 38 1979 35 1980 27 1981 54 1982 32
1983 56 1984 28 1985 38 1986 5
(From the Records of the Parish of Wangkung, by courtesy of
Fr. Victor Stevko S.V.D.)
Several months before the wedding itself, the
affinal contract is formalized by the alliance groups
in a ceremonial called the wali manga, which
centres on the initial exchange of bridewealth. At
this time, one buffalo is exchanged for one kain
songke.
Affinal bonds, as elsewhere in such systems,
transcend marriage. In the ritual of death, the
affinal partners exchange gifts of a character
consistent with the types of prestation they ex-
change at marriage, and when a bright, ambitious
boy goes away to school, the wife-takers have the
obligation of contributing substantially to the cost
of his education with a monetary gift known as the
sida.
Non-Catholic villagers have the option of
polygyny, and even Catholic husbands will take a
second wife if the first fails to produce a son, but
doing so requires a second bridewealth. The
levirate (lili), usually of the junior variety, is also
practised. Divorce is rare, in part - it would appear
- because the bridewealth has to be returned to the
kin who contributed. Retrieving it from the rela-
tives who received it when the prestations were
allotted can be a complicated and protracted - not
to say - contentious undertaking. Marriage, there-
fore, may be considered decidedly more enduring
than would be the case were no bridewealth given.
Catholics, anyway, are not permitted to divorce.
When divorce does occur the children continue
residing with their mother, who may or may not
return to her natal home.
The tungku is not the only form of Boleng
marriage. Subject to the approval of senior ag-
nates, men and women are permitted to marry into
descent groups unrelated to their own, but once
such a marriage has been made, they initiate bonds
that - it is expected - will be maintained by their
future children and grandchildren.
One issue that has informed discussions about
generalized exchange is that of connubial cycles.
Although they have been identified on Sumba and
Anthropos 83.1988
Change, Adjustment, and Persistence in Generalized Exchange
399
in northern Burma, cycles play no discernible role
in the thinking of the Boleng Manggarai, who, in
addition, prohibit any cycle that involves fewer
than four partners. Another feature absent in the
alliance system of western Flores is that dalu are
not involved per se in affinal alliances as have been
described by Coolhas (1942: 349) elsewhere in
Manggarai. It may, of course, be that this was so in
past times; but no informant could enlighten me on
this matter.
I remarked above that we may characterize
the generalized exchange system of the Boleng
Manggarai as “prescriptive.” This implies that the
relationship terminology of this population con-
forms to a certain pattern, one that I have
displayed and analysed in an article that shows
very clearly the radical way in which the social
order these Manggarai folk have created differs
from that evolved by other Manggarai. It also
shows how, in the matter of relationship termi-
nology the western Manggarai are the most conser-
vative of all, and gives us a further indication of the
resistence their alliance mode has offered to the
forces of social and ideological change (Hicks
1984b).9
3. Change
The geographic isolation of Manggarai has always
been one of its hallmarks. During his expedition,
Kennedy noted that though more isolated than
ethnic groups elsewhere, the Manggarai had
shown greater willingness to assimilate new atti-
tudes and incorporate novel modes of conduct
than any other Florenese people. This contrast
was associated, he suggested (1955: 97), with differ-
ent forms taken by Catholic proselytizing on the
island. Whereas the missionaries in eastern Flores
improved local standards of health, they did little
by way of agricultural improvements. The conse-
quent increase in population, accordingly, was
unmatched by a corresponding rise in food produc-
tion. In Manggarai missionaries introduced mod-
ern agricultural techniques, as well as medical
practices, as a result of which the population
increase was matched by an increase in agricultural
production. In this connection it is interesting to
9 This terminology is recorded in full and analysed in close
detail in the above cited publication. At this point I should
like to register a corrective note regarding my characteriza-
tion of one of the eighteen relationship terms published in
that article. On page 519, the category “fai” should read
“iae.” I am most grateful to Father Jilis Verheijen S.V.D.
for suggesting I check my data upon returning to Boleng.
learn what - apart from his proselytizing (which his
devotion and character have made extremely
successful) the local missionary in Wangkung
regards as his principal accomplishments. He lists
the following achievements: (1) encouraging vil-
lagers to improve their hygiene; (2) teaching them
to plant vegetables (e.g., peanuts, soybeans, and
green beans) and fruit (e.g., papaiya); (3) found-
ing schools - one primary school in each mission
station and a high school in Labuanbajo.
In the mid-1970s the population of the kabu-
paten was 320,000 (Gordon 1975: 11). By the
early 1980s it had risen to around 417,000, some of
the increase being accounted for by the immigra-
tion of people from outside Manggarai. Even so,
unlike most of eastern and central Flores, this
kabupaten remains relatively underpopulated, and
good agricultural land here acts as a magnet for
outsiders, a lure strengthened by the Indonesian
Government’s policy of transmigrasi. In the dalu of
Boleng, immigration increased the total popula-
tion from 6,957 in 1980 to an estimated 8,000 less
than six years later. About 30 families in the village
of Wangkung fall into this category of “transmig-
rasf’ (pers. communication, Fr. Victor Stevko
S.V.D.).
The change in the staple crop cultivated in
Manggarai - from corn grown under a regime of
swidden agriculture (ladang) to wet rice grown in
irrigated fields (sawah) - began in the central
region about 1938, a change Boleng began expe-
riencing as late as 1972. By 1986, the conversion
was well underway. Here, also, recent changes
have been much stimulated by the completion, in
1976, of a motor road linking Wangkung with the
140-kilometre highway joining Labuanbajo, on the
west coast, with Ruteng, which resulted in a
greatly accelerated movement of local people and
goods around the kecamatan of Komodo. Further-
more, the highway itself has greatly increased the
traffic into Manggarai kabupaten. More improve-
ments in the network of roads is in the process of
accomplishment, the most important of which, by
straightening it near the town of Pacar, will reduce
the time taken on the Labuanbajo-Ruteng high-
way by over an hour. Villagers in Boleng have
begun moving their villages from more distant,
hilly sites down near the new roads, where they can
more conveniently find buyers for their garden’s
produce. The Government of Manggarai is aware
of the economic advantage of roads, and would
like to run them through each village, or compel all
villagers to re-site their settlements along them.
Although Manggarai lacks a comprehensive
system of telephone lines, each local administra-
Anthropos 83.1988
400
David Hicks
tion centre, and almost every mission station, has a
shortwave radio, known locally as the telex, which
reduces the inacessibility and decreases the sense
of isolation that existed as recently as ten years
ago.
The coast of western Flores also attracts
tourists. Three boarding houses (losmen) are now
available in the town of Labuanbajo for tourists
who wish to enjoy the extraordinary bathing,
scuba-diving, sailing, and sight-seeing opportuni-
ties this part of the island offers. Western Flores
and the neighboring islands of Rinca and Komodo
are home to the largest of all monitor lizards, the
Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodensis), and this
natural resource, as well as others far less celebrat-
ed, the local people are learning how to exploit.
The impact of foreigners (principally Ameri-
cans, Australians, Japanese, and Europeans) has
as yet not been severe in Boleng, but certain
customs of these outsiders are making minor
inroads into the traditional lives of the Manggarai,
who find, for example, the independence and
attire of young foreign women unaccountable by
their own standards. Other traits more conserva-
tive-minded villagers actually resent: especially the
easy relationships between the sexes. Single male
travellers, in addition, may try to strike up ac-
quaintance with local Manggarai girls; behavior
scandalous to even the less-conventionally mind-
ed. As the tourist industry becomes more weighty
in the economic life of western Manggarai, so more
conflicts in value between the island culture and its
guests will be unavoidable - the price Manggarai
will have to pay for its opportunity to increase
wealth.10
By far the most powerful influence for change
has been the religious doctrines of the Church.
These more than any other forces detached the
alliance system from its previous claim to be
considered a Maussian “total fact.” Whatever
their knowledge of their Church’s dogmas, Boleng
Catholics profess their faith by declining to per-
form rituals that serve notice they are pagans. In
practice, this means they no longer perform
sacrificial rites - whether to agricultural spirits or
to the ghosts of their ancestors.
The present parish of Wangkung was founded
in 1951, although there had been a school here as
early as 1925, but it was only in the middle of the
1960s that a priest began residing here - at
10 I am given to understand that Labuanbajo is already host to
illegal narcotics, and that certain establishments in the town
show pornographic movies to satisfy tourist demand.
Wangkung village. Energetic missionary work
resulted in the comparative religious figures for
Wangkung parish for the year 1980 being as shown
in Fig. 2, from which it can be seen that out of a
total population of 5,340, the parish had 1,327
Muslims, 84 pagans, and 3,929 Catholics. Only the
pagans, i.e., those individuals who continue prac-
tising the traditional rituals and claim some adher-
ence to the beliefs of their forefathers, would be in
any ideological position to maintain the alliance
system as part of their ideational system. But the
demographic depletion they are suffering - and
will continue to suffer - prevents this happening.
Fig. 2: Comparative Parish in 1980 Religious Affiliations in Wangkung
Village Religious Affiliation
Catholic Muslim Pagan
Golo Ketak 799 94 58
Mbuit 1,105 226 26
Golo Cepang 600 650 0
Tanjung Boleng 577 356 0
Pota Wangka 840 1 0
Total 3,929 1,327 84
As we have seen, however, even among the
Catholic population the alliance system does show
certain of the symbolic associations we have come
to consider typical of Southeast Asian systems,
most notably, the analogies:
wife-givers wife-takers
male female
masculine prestations feminine prestations
but these have no distinctively religious implica-
tions.
4. Adjustments
What, then, are the accommodations the contem-
porary system of generalized exchange has made to
these influences? There seem at least four.
First, as noted earlier, the clan and lineage
have been replaced as alliance groups by smaller
groups of a more variable genealogical composi-
tion: typically, combinations of simple families.
Second, as the result of condemnation by the
Church, the occurrence of marriage between
first-degree cross-cousins has been virtually aban-
doned by the Catholic population of Boleng, and
even marriage with second-degree cross-cousins
requires a special dispensation by the Bishop of
Manggarai, who recently decreed these would no
Anthropos 83.1988
Change, Adjustment, and Persistence in Generalized Exchange
401
longer be granted. Dispensations are still given by
the Bishop for third-degree cousin marriage, and
fourth-degree cousins need no dispensation. Alli-
ances, then, in the Manggarai version of general-
ized exchange, are conducted between more dis-
tantly related individuals, or else by individuals
unrelated to each other.11 An analysis of Catholic
marriages in the village of Pota Wangka from
October 19, 1977 to May 21, 1986, shows that out
of a total of 58 marriages one was with the first
cousin and two were with the second cousin. The
latter were the result of dispensations granted by
the local parish priest. No information was avail-
able regarding the former marriage. Fourteen
were apparently with third or fourth degree cous-
ins, and forty-one marriages took place between
more distant relatives, or between unrelated indi-
viduals.
Third, the traditional system has assimilated
certain modifications, taken from the Catholic
Church, into Manggarai marriage, most promi-
nently, the Investigationes Praematrimoniales, a
preliminary gathering of the bride, bridegroom,
and a few of their kin with the parish priest several
months before the marriage, and a little while after
the walimanga. This conference, which takes place
in the rectory of the parish, permits a priest to
make sure the genealogical ties between the couple
do not infringe Church regulations. He afterwards
may then prepare the banns of marriage.11 12
Fourth, whereas societies in other parts of
eastern Indonesian, for instance, the Tetum (Hicks
1978c), have fully substantiated van Wouden’s
dictum: “Cosmos and human society are organised
in the same way, and through this there emerges
the essential interconnexion of the human and the
cosmic,” the Manggarai of Boleng - as was
anticipated at the outset of this paper and re-
affirmed subsequently - offer us an exception. In
the past - at least in other places in Manggarai
territory - the practice of generalized exchange
was incorporated into the cosmological system (see
11 A Catholic person is allowed to marry one who is non-
Catholic; but a dispensation - which must now be cleared by
the Bishop of Manggarai - is required.
12 Because it is difficult to stop the marriage arrangements
after this ecclesiastical meeting, the local priest at Wang-
kung has developed the policy of taking the girl aside now to
ask her if she really wishes the marriage. Surprisingly often,
she replies in the negative, adding by way of explanation
that the two alliance groups would at this point be
unnecessarily inconvenienced were the prestations returned
- even though the exchanges have only just begun!
Verheijen 1951), but today, in Boleng, the system
lacks symbolic reinforcements of such intensi-
5. Conclusions
At the same time as western Manggarai finds itself
in the throes of far-reaching social changes -
certain to increase over the next decade - its
system of generalized exchange continues vigor-
ously, an observation from which we may draw
two lessons of more general consequence.
First, that profound changes in the religious,
economic, ecological, political, and demographic
character of a population do not inevitably entail a
social organization’s divesting itself of this tradi-
tional style of affinity. Second, the present situa-
tion in this part of Indonesia makes plain the fact
that generalized exchange does not require a ma-
trix of cosmological symbols. On the contrary, the
persistence of this affinal mode in the context of
such changes as are continuing to disturb tradition
indicates {pace Hocart) that “marriage” need not
be quite so dependent upon “the system” as we
have supposed. The future will make its own case,
naturally; but the evidence presented here suggests
that there would appear no justification for sup-
posing that generalized exchange among the west-
ern Manggarai will not continue operating effec-
tively for decades to come.
My fieldwork was conducted with Grant BNS83-11481
from the National Science Foundation. It was carried
out under the auspices of the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahu-
an Indonesia, Jakarta, and I am especially grateful for
the help given by Dr. H. Napitupulu of the Foreign
Research Scholars Division. Local sponsorship in Nusa
Tenggara Timur was in the hands of the Universitas
Nusa Cendana, and for their encouraging support of my
research I would like to thank the Rector of the
Universitas Nusa Cendana, Dr. A. Th. Thiel, and Dr.
Munandjar Widyatmika.
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Anthropos 83.1988; 403-419
The Myth of Princess Pari And the Self Image of
Korean Women
Clark W. Sorensen
Abstract. - In a patrilineal, patriarchal society such as late
traditional Korea where important ideological influence has
been exerted both by Confucianism, in which the subordination
of females to males is considered necessary, and by Mahayana
Buddhism, in which female gender has been viewed as an
impediment to salvation, one expects to find a religious system
in which ideas taken from these great traditions serve as a
rationale for excluding women from important public ritual.
Both Confucian and Buddhist rites that exclude females from
participation in roles of ritual leadership exist. However, the
spiritual welfare of traditional Korean families depends upon a
religious division of labor that leaves women with important,
legitimate, and autonomous ritual roles. By analyzing the myth
of Princess Pari, sung by and among women in the context of
certain of these rituals, it is possible to examine how Korean
women represent to themselves both those structural contradic-
tions implied in the texts of the great tradition, and those
actually experienced in their lives. The continued ability of
Korean women to control symbol-making in a religious context
allows them to affirm their moral worth as women and confront
elements of valued great traditions which seem to deprive them
of moral excellence, legitimate religious roles, and even entry
into paradise. [Korea, Folk religion. Gender, Myth, Shaman-
ism, Confucianism. Buddhism (Mahayana), Great tradition,
Little tradition]
Clark W. Sorensen, Ph. D. (Univ. of Washington, Seattle) in
Anthropology, 1981; Assistant Prof, of Anthropology, Vander-
bilt Univ., Nashville. - Fieldwork in the Republic of Korea
1976/77, 1983, 1985, 1986. - Publications include: Over the
Mountains are Mountains: Korean Peasant Households and
their Adaptations to Rapid Industrialization (Seattle 1987); -
Marketing and Social Structure among the Peasantry of the
Yongso Region of South Korea (Journal of Korean Studies
1981); - Male, Female, Inside, Outside: The Division of Labor
in Rural Central Korea (in “Korean Women” [New Haven
1983]); - Farm Labor and Family Cycle in Traditional Korea
and Japan (Journal of Anthropological Research 1984); and
other articles on Korean family and class system.
1. Princess Pari and Images of Women in World
Traditions
The myth of Princess Pari (also known as The Cast
Out Child, The Seventh Princess, or Karma) is the
story of a sonless king’s seventh daughter who,
though killed at birth, is eventually able to save her
parents by bringing them medicine from the next
world. It is extremely widespread in Korea and has
been collected by Japanese and Korean folklorists
from all parts of the country at least ten times in
this century.1 It is one of a class of texts known in
Korean folklore as “narrative shaman songs,” or
sosa muga. In sosa muga the life history and
exploits of female protagonists from their birth to
their placement as minor deities of the shamanistic
pantheon are narrated through dramatic declama-
tion, song, and dance (Kim 1966: 25). The per-
formers of these myths are female shamans, known
as mudang, or mansin,1 2 who are able to contact the
supernatural in kut: dramatic ceremonies in which
a wide variety of spirits are contacted, entertained,
and cajoled. The purposes of the kut at which
Korean shamans preside are various, but in gener-
al include the treatment of disease, the enhance-
ment of the fortunes of the household [chejae
1 This myth is first mentioned in the literature by N. Yi (1927:
42-43) who notes coming across the tale in a shaman’s
prompt book. The first oral text was collected and published
in 1938 when the two Janapese folklorists Akamatsu Chijo
and Akiba Takashi recorded the myth as sung for them by
the female shaman, Pae Kyong-jae of Seoul (Akamatsu and
Akiba 1938/1: 3-124). Since that time several Korean
folklorists such as Kim T’ae-gon (1966: 172-275; 1971:
55-88), So Tae-sok (1980), and Ch’oe Kil-s6ng (1978) have
collected and published texts of the myth. Since the
Akamatsu and Akiba text is not only the oldest text
generally available, but has also attained the status as the
‘standard’ form of the myth (Ch’oe 1978: 252), it is this text
of the myth that I have relied on most heavily in this
paper.
2 There is also a class of male shamans known as paksu, but in
all of mainland Korea the female shamans are in the great
majority (Murayama 1932: 10; Beuchelt 1975b: 146-147).
In fact, the paksu I have observed have dressed in female
clothing before beginning their shamanistic activity and only
thereafter donned the male clothing of the gods they are
manifesting. Informants tend to define paksu as “male
mudang,” while they never define mudang in terms of
paksu, thus implying that female shamans are the basic
form.
404
Clark W. Sorensen
ch’obok], and the care of the souls of the dead
(Ch’oe 1978; 189-198). All kut involve the chant-
ing of prayers and ritual formulae, and many of
them also include episodes of kongsu in which the
shaman becomes the mouthpiece of a god or spirit.
Not all kut, however, involve the rendition of
myths such as Princess Pari. Apart from the
pyolsin kut, a triennial ceremony for village
welfare found on the southeast coast of Korea,
dramatic performance of narrative materials are
found only in the context of ceremonies for the
dead such as the ancestor ceremony [chosangkut],
the spite release ceremony [punp'uri kut], or the
dead soul ceremony [chinogwi kut] (Kim
1966: 32). The narration of the myth of Princess
Pari is the central feature of the last of these, the
chinogwi kut of central Korea, whose purpose is to
transport [ch'dndo] souls of the dead to Amita-
bha’s western Pure Land, the paradise of Maha-
yana Buddhism.
The recitation of myths which chronicle the
origin and exploits of spirits or gods is often found
in the transitional, or liminal, stage of ceremonies
as a way of linking the sacred and profane so that
ritual work may be accomplished (see Amarasing-
ham 1978). However, what is interesting about the
Princess Pari myth in a literate, complex, patriar-
chal civilization such as Korea is first, that the
protagonist of such a myth is female, and second,
that she is portrayed as both good and powerful.
Much recent writing on gender and religion em-
phasizes the exclusion of women from leadership
roles in public ritual (Rosaldo 1974; Hoch-Smith
and Spring 1978). Myths portraying good and
powerful female figures are not lacking in societies
with simple economies based on the cultivation of
plants, but they become rare as technological
complexity increases (Sanday 1981: 130). In those
societies complex enough for the distinction be-
tween the great and the little tradition (Redfield
1956) to be important, in fact, the negative
imagery used to portray women in myth is quite
striking (de Beauvoir 1953; Campbell 1959; Reu-
ther 1983). Myth, as it “expresses, enhances, and
codifies belief,” (Malinowski 1926: 23) synthesizes
female metaphors which may be used to legitimize
standard concepts of women and female normative
behavior. Where myths present a negative image
of women, in fact, they are often used as a
justification for female subordination or exclusion
from important ritual or political activity (Stra-
thern 1972; 171; Bamberger 1974; Hoch-Smith and
Spring 1978: 2; Sanday 1981: 35-51).
Although the prevalence of negative images
of females in world religious texts seems consistent
with the by now commonplace observation that “in
every known culture women are considered in
some way inferior to men” (Lamphere 1977: 613),
in fact the relationship between images of women
and their role in society is far from clear. Basing
her work on correlations between types of female
deity and women’s position in subsistence, Sanday,
at one time (1974; 204-205), saw religious images
of women as “a reflection and dramatization of
female activities in the subsistence domain,” but
Netting (1969) and Murphy and Murphy (1974),
among others, have shown that even in societies in
which women have a good deal of social and
economic autonomy, male-centered religious cults
may have the effect of limiting the public esteem
and effectiveness of women. More recently Sanday
has reversed herself and come to the conclusion
that “secular power roles are derived from ancient
concepts of sacred power” (1981: xv-xvi). There
seems to be no one-to-one correspondence be-
tween the position of women and images of them.
Nevertheless, a complex, patrilineal, patriarchal
society like traditional Korea is the type of society
in which positive images of women - with the
exception, perhaps, of images of docile housewives
- would be least expected. Gluckman (1965:
248-250) and Douglas (1966: 140-158) have both
hypothesized that in patrilineal societies tension
between a normative patriarchal ideology and the
de facto power of women may lead to a negative
evaluation of females in myth and ritual. In both
Hindu India and traditional China, then, ritual
avoidance of females by males may function to
deal with unavoidable gender disharmony in these
patrilineal societies. Ahern (1975) has, in fact,
linked Chinese conceptions of female pollution to
the real, but illegitimate, power of women to
disrupt the patriarchal order in Chinese joint
families, and one would expect similar conceptions
in Korea which borrowed much of its patrilineal,
patriarchal ideology from China.
Symbols, by focusing elements of disharmony
within social systems, may be used to create social
reality as well as reflect it. Gluckman, for example,
defines “ritual” as a social process whereby people
“protect, purify or enrich the participants and their
group” (Gluckman 1965: 251). Gluckman confines
this model of ritual, however, to “tribal societies
without writing.” More complex societies embed-
ded in world religions with a written canon such as
Christianity and Islam are said to be characterized
by “ceremonial,” highly conventionalized perfor-
mances, rather than ritual. While most anthro-
pologists who have worked in complex societies
would certainly dispute the notion that, at least in
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
405
the little tradition of the villages (Redfield 1956:
40-59), ritual in Gluckman’s sense is absent, there
is no doubt that the existence of a written great
tradition and a class of people who specialize in
cultivating it complicates the relationship between
images of women and social reality, and gives
narrative materials a normative quality which they
might not otherwise have. Whether used in the
context of “ritual” or “ceremonial,” religious
texts, as Maltz (1978: 27) points out, “can define
the nature of acceptable female behavior by
containing explicit statements of proper behavior,
by depiciting model female characters, and by
using female metaphors to describe other domains
of reality so that the characteristics of that reality
and of femininity become intertwined.” In rural
Korea, negative images of women in Confucian
and Buddhist texts created outside the context of
the little tradition rituals in which villagers directly
participate have profoundly affected the relation-
ship of males and females, and make the existence
of a series of important myths about positively
valued, powerful female protagonists seem all the
more surprising.
Why, then, are narrative shaman songs which
celebrate the exploits of these powerful, positively
valued female protagonists the central mythologi-
cal materials of Korean folk religious ritual? As
will be argued below, there is no question about
the negative character of the images of females
found in either the Confucian or Buddhist great
traditions, or about the patrilineal and patriarchal
character of late traditional (and to a large extent
contemporary) Korean society (Sorensen 1983; H.
Yi 1983: 44-76; Cho 1985). The patrilineal, patri-
archal character of Korean society, however, is the
result of a government-sponsored process of accul-
turation during the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) to
norms found in Classical Chinese literature. While
men in the public domain came to cultivate
Chinese letters and androcentric Confucian social
norms as a way of asserting high status, Korean
women retained legitimate power within the do-
mestic domain and continued to link households
together in their own way. The extreme this-
worldly orientation of male-centered Confucian
ritual, moreover, left a religious vacuum which has
been filled by Buddhist-influenced, female-cen-
tered ritual necessary for the welfare of all. In the
context of these rituals, women create powerful
symbols which they manipulate to communicate
with each other about the nature of their social
position, how they feel about it and what they can
do about it. Korean mythical heroines such as
Princess Pari validate women as capable of the
highest morality and as the quintessential medi-
ators between the sacred and profane in spite of
Confucian and Buddhist attitudes toward women
which would seem to make them unsuitable for
such roles. That women in Korea use their myth-
making powers to reinterpret their position in the
context of an anti-feminist great tradition under-
scores the need for anthropologists to consider who
controls symbol-making in the little tradition, if
they are to understand how the great and little
traditions interact, and how myths function in their
social context.
2. Women in the East Asian Great Traditions
a) Confucianism
In the Confucian view, patrilineal succession and
male control of women are basic characteristics of
the well-ordered society. Confucian texts teach
that superior men who cultivate themselves and
regulate their families will then be able to rule
states and establish peace under heaven (Great
Learning: I). Regulation of the family is achieved
by implementing the five human relations: righ-
teousness between ruler and subject, love between
father and son, differentiation between husband
and wife, ordination between older and younger,
and trust between friend and friend (Mencius
III: i: 4: 8). None of these relations is one of
equality. Just as in the state a hierarchy should be
organized around the king and his subordinate
ministers, in the family a thorough-going hierarchy
should be organized around the patriarch, his
subordinate wife, and others graded by age.
Continuity over the generations is ensured through
the maintenance of the father-son relationship,
and just as the continuous link of patriarchs -
fathers and sons - provides the axis about which
the stability and order of the Confucian family is
formed, the morality of filial piety (xiao) provides
the cornerstone for confucian ethics. Children
incur a debt to their parents because of the grace
(en) they have received by having been given birth
and nurture. They must reciprocate with filial
piety. Filial piety entails treating the parents with
respect at all times, taking care of them in their old
age, mourning them well at a proper funeral, and
offering sacrifices to them after their death.
Although benevolence (ren), loyalty (zhong),
and propriety (liyi) are all cardinal Confucian
virtues, none of them receives the cultural empha-
sis that filial piety does. This obligation due to
parents is so heavy, in fact, that it is impossible to
Anthropos 83.1988
406
Clark W. Sorensen
repay completely simply by being filial to one’s
parents. One can only fully discharge the debt by
treating one’s parents with filial piety, having
children, and continuing the family line. This, of
course, requires that there be both men and
women so that a son can be produced. But just as
“heaven (yang) dominates earth (yin) . . . male
has precedence over female” (Deuchler 1977:
3-4). To preserve the differentiation of male and
female, moreover, a strict division of labor with
the women confined to inner, domestic tasks, and
the men participating in outer, public tasks is
considered necessary. Otherwise women’s sexual
indulgence and selfishness, it is thought, would
lead to social disorder.
b) Mahayana Buddhism
Mahayana Buddhist literature exhibits a profound
ambivalence in its attitudes toward females. The
most popular of the Mahayana tests, it is true, “do
not support hostile arguments against women who
endeavored to realize their spiritual goals” (Paul
1985; 303), and some of the more transcendental
interpretations of the relationship between gender
and enlightenment make the elimination of all dis-
tinctions, including that of male and female, a con-
dition for the enlightenment. However, some of
early Buddhist literature takes a frankly misogynist
view of women, and all of the literature (with the
exception of some esoteric literature) looks askan-
ce at sexuality - especially female sexuality.
In early Buddhist texts, females and their
sexuality are seen as threats to the salvation of
monk and layman alike. As the embodiment of
sexual temptation for those seeking the path of
enlightenment, women are called “the abode of
evil” {zong e zhi sud zhuchu) in texts such as the
Nirvana Sutra (Soothill 1937: 9). Their sexuality
turns sons against parents, and ensnares men in the
illusion of jealousy and intrigue (Paul 1985:
27-50). Even mothers, though more sympatheti-
cally treated than “temptresses,” represent “pain,
suffering, bondage, and dependency” in the world
of samsara, or rebirth, which Buddhists seek to
transcend (Paul 1985: 61). These negative images
seem to be dominant in Theravada Buddhist Sri
Lanka, where “women represent involvement in
life because they are the ones who give birth and
thus perpetuate the karmic round” of desire,
rebirth, and suffering which Buddhists seek to
transcend (Amarasingham 1978: 104). In Sri Lan-
ka, myths related during the liminal phase of
exorcism rituals tell of the origins of the demons
which must be exorcized, and in these myths
women “play a central role not only in actually
giving birth to the demon but also in expressing,
activating, or encouraging the desires that are the
essence of his demonic character” (Amarasingham
1978; 113).
Although the view of women in Mahayana
texts overall is not so negative as in the above
Theravadin texts, female gender is still generally
seen as an impediment to the highest stages of
enlightenment. This can be seen in ideas about the
characteristic Mahayana spiritual ideal, the bodhi-
sattva. In contrast to the Theravadin idea that the
Buddha passed into extinction with his final
Nirvana, Mahayanists believe that the Buddha
remains in a Buddha land, and that innumerable
buddhas and bodhisattvas populate the entire
universe and can be called upon in times of need
(Paul 1985: 167). Bodhisattvas, though destined
for buddhahood, postpone their full enlighten-
ment in order to remain in the world as spiritual as-
sistants to the Buddha. They comfort and teach all
beings through both transference of merit and the
use of supernatural powers obtained as full enlight-
enment approaches.
For most people in East Asia, the greatest of
the buddhas, or enlightened ones, is Amitàbha,
the “Buddha of Infinite Light” who, in the course
of obtaining enlightenment as the monk Dharma-
kara, made forty-eight vows to establish a land of
bliss, or Pure Land (Sukhàvati), where people
could practice Mahayana Buddhism in perfection.
As Dharmakara eventually achieved buddhahood,
he is now thought to preside over this Pure Land as
the buddha Amitàbha. The goal of most ordinary
Korean Buddhists is rebirth in the Pure Land
(Clark 1932: 21). Thus, much Mahayana Buddhist
ritual, such as the so-called Buddhist “mass”
(.zhài), is designed to call on the bodhisattvas to
help the dead achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
(Vos 1977: 150-153), and to provide merit for the
sponsors of the ceremony to facilitate their rebirth
after their death. Women, however, cannot be
reborn in the Pure Land. Amitàbha’s thirty-fourth
vow was: “if, after I have obtained . . . enlighten-
ment . . . women . . . should not turn their
thoughts toward Bodhi [enlightenment], should,
when they are free from birth, not despise their
female nature; and if they, being born again,
should assume a second female nature, then may I
not obtain the highest perfect knowledge” (Paul
1985: 169-170).
Although women are accepted as lower stage
bodhisattvas, then, in many texts, only a male
nature is deemed capable of attaining the highest
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
407
stages of enlightenment. Females destined for
enlightenment change their female nature and
become male. In some texts this transition is
physically brought about through enlightenment
itself, whereas in others it is brought about through
rebirth as a male in a subsequent existence, or
through the transcendence of sexuality altogether
(Paul 1985: 285). Since females as females are
excluded in the Pure Land, it is normally expected
that entry to paradise requires their rebirth as
males (Paul 1985: 253). Since a transition from
ignorance to the perfection of wisdom (Paul
1985: 176), from a profane, sensual world to the
perfection of a dharma world (Paul 1985: 247)
requires in Mahayana Buddhist literature a sexual
change from female to male, thus, women would
seem inappropriate as leaders of ritual. A male
nature would seem most appropriate for connect-
ing the profane with the sacred.
3. The Confucian and Buddhist Great Traditions
in Korea
Except for a period of Mongol domination during
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and thirty-
five years of rule by the Japanese ending in 1945,
Korea has been a united, self-governing country
since the seventh century A. D. Throughout Kore-
an history, however, the influence of the outside
world has reached Korea through China, and
Koreans have thus looked to the Chinese great
tradition for inspiration for developing and modi-
fying their social and political institutions. Espe-
cially during periods of reform and rapid devel-
opment (as at the beginning of new dynasties),
intensive borrowing of Chinese institutions has
taken place. Borrowed elements have included not
only technology, political institutions, philosophi-
cal and religious ideas and vocabulary, but also
Chinese surnames, Chinese-style ancestor wor-
ship, Chinese-style funerals, and even Chinese-
style internal organization of families. Although
from early times both Confucian and Buddhist
ideas have been imported from China, the relative
importance in Korea of these two quite different
strains of the Chinese great tradition has varied
with the vicissitudes of the two doctrines in China.
Within Korea itself, moreover, the introduction of
elements of the Chinese great tradition has usually
been politically motivated and intjmately related
to struggles for power among elements of the
Korean ruling class. Most traits of Chinese civili-
zation, in fact, were introduced by the elite as a
means of consolidating legitimacy and power, and
only spread to the rest of the population over a
period of several hundred years (K. Yi 1978:
129).
Buddhism first entered Korea beginning in
the fourth century A. D. when several of the early
states on the Korean peninsula accepted it as a
means of protecting and consolidating the power of
the ruling house. This close association with
various ruling houses continued for a thousand
years as successive states each accepted the faith
which soon spread from the court to the populace,
and became inextricably mixed with the indige-
nous folk religion. Buddhism reached its apogee
during the Koryo Period (918-1392) when it was
established as the state religion. Hierarchy within
the Buddhist orders was rationalized through state
exams, monasteries flourished under the patron-
age of the elite, and funeral and other ceremonies
were done with Buddhist rites.
Buddhism began to be suppressed by the
government, however, beginning in the fourteenth
century. Literati officials (sadaebu) of the middle
and lower ranges of the Koryo bureaucracy saw in
the Neoconfucianism developed by Zhu XI and
other Chinese philosophers in the twelfth century a
means of reforming what they saw as the abuses of
Koryo society - too powerful, landed monasteries
that shrank the tax base; frivolous and unfilial
upper class men and women who neglected orderly
social relations and who freely married and di-
vorced with enthusiasm. Institutional Buddhism,
thus, was suppressed, the government religious
exams abolished, and monks banished from the
court and capital (Clark 1932; 37). As the succeed-
ing Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) got under way, the
Confucian classics were promoted and made man-
datory objects of study among aspiring bureau-
crats. Confucian family ceremonies based on prece-
dents in the Chinese classics, especially as recom-
mended by Zhu XI, were made mandatory among
the elite.
The promotion of Confucian family ceremo-
nies among the Korean elite had a profound effect
on Korean family organization. Marriage, which
during Koryo times had been done at the bride’s
house with the groom often living there for
extended periods, came to follow patrilocal norms.
Funerals, which had been done according to
Buddhist rites, were required by royal decree to be
done in the Confucian manner. The identity of the
mourning kin and their roles in funerals was
changed to reflect patrilineal principles of social
organization. Great officials were required to set
up household ancestral shrines in the Confucian
manner, and to hold ancestor worship ceremonies
Anthropos 83.1988
408
Clark W. Sorensen
with the number of generations worshipped de-
pending upon the rank of the official (K. Yi 1978:
100-103), and in 1516 going to Buddhist temples to
celebrate ancestor worship (as is still done in
Japan) was prohibited (Clark 1932: 74). At first,
daughters-in-law were allowed to participate in
ancestor worship ceremonies in some situations,
but by the seventeenth century, women were
excluded from all formal Confucian ritual roles,
including participation in ancestor worship and, in
some families, funeral processions (Deuchler
1977: 29). Unlike in China, where women play
important, direct roles in funerals and normally
take care of most of the household ancestor
worship, in Korea these Confucian ritual roles
became a sign of social status and culture in the
public domain to be conspicuously consumed only
by men (see Janelli and Janelli 1982: 87, 129-
135).
The prevalence of education in the Confucian
Classics3 and the desire of the middle classes to re-
semble the elite who were forced to follow Con-
fucian family ceremonies led to the wide adop-
tion of these ceremonies throughout Korean soci-
ety so that by the eighteenth century, Koryo’s Bud-
dhist, bilateral society with matrilocal residence
and relatively free relations between the sexes had
become the Confucian, patrilineal society with
patrilocal residence and strict separation of the
sexes known to anthropologists today (Deuchler
1977; K. Yi 1978; Wagner 1983; Peterson 1983). In
this “traditional” society women were supposed to
be involved exclusively with domestic affairs.
Wives were brought in for sons, with daughters
being married out into distant households. Fami-
lies with any significant property, in fact, married
all daughters out even in cases of sonlessness,
adopting a collateral agnate as a son rather than
making an uxorilocal marriage as would usually be
the case in China or Japan in similar situations.
With the enhanced structural importance of the
father-son tie in succession to house headships and
duties of ancestor worship in the Confucian sys-
tem, then, women’s duty came to focus on the
bearing and raising of sons, with the cardinal Con-
fucian virtue of filial piety (hyo) being universally
known and deeply felt (Shigematsu 1980: 99).
3 H. K. Lee (1936: 52-54) reported that as late as 1931, 36 %
of the males in a nation-wide farm household survey claimed
to read Classical Chinese (hanmun), and all of them would
have been taught through the memorization of Confucian
aphorisms.
The combination of Confucian social organi-
zation with the morality of filial piety, however,
put women in a precarious position. In the Confu-
cian family system, only sons and daughters-in-law
are really necessary. A first daughter might be
welcomed because she augurs well for the fertility
of her mother but, as in the case of Princess Pari,
subsequent daughters can be met with open
hostility or outright neglect (Harvey 1979; 261).
Both males and females desire sons because in
Korea only sons can succed to the family headship,
take care of parents in their old age, and worship
them after their death. A daughter invariably
marries out, and is lost to her natal family, so even
as a young child she may be known as an “outsider
who will leave the family” (ch'ulga oein) or be
given a name such as Regrettable (sdpsdphabi)
(Moose 1911: 107). After her marriage, as a
member of her husband’s corporate household,
she is expected to be a docile worker who will shift
her loyalty from her natal family (ch'in'gatchip) to
her husband’s family (sijip). In her marital home
she starts out as a virtual slave, doing all of the
drudgery of the house for her parents-in-law and
husband, with no right to criticize her marital
house or visit her natal home except at certain set
times. Proverbially, the young daughter-in-law in
her marital house has to be “dumb three years,
blind three years, and deaf three years” (sam nydn
pdngdri, sam nydn sogydng, sam nydn kwimdgdri)
to put up with it all. It is only after she produces
sons for her marital household that her position
begins to improve and she is able to gradually take
over the authority for household affairs from her
mother-in-law. Her love for her husband and
children in this system, however, may cut her off
from her parents whose social and economic
interests remain tied to a different corporate
household.
The precariousness of women’s structural
position is mirrored in their moral position. The
cardinal principle of filial piety is an obligation of
both sons and daughters, but the Confucian
organization of Korean society makes it difficult
for women to fully attain this filial ideal. In Korea
where succession is by male primogeniture, the
focus of filial piety is on the eldest son who will
ideally continue the family line, live with his
parents until the end of their life, be chief mourner
at their funeral, and worship them after their
death. With patrilocal marriage, daughters, unlike
sons, cannot remain at home and thus cannot
directly take care of their parents in their old age.
A woman’s service is to her husband’s parents
rather than her natal parents who gave her the
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
409
grace of birth and nurture. Although she may
return to mourn for her parents at their funeral, as
a married out daughter the level of her Confucian
mourning grade is lower than her brothers’: she is
allowed to mourn only nine months compared to
her brothers’ one year. Because household ances-
tor worship rituals are public performances assert-
ing the social status of households, rather than the
matter-of-course ceremonies they are in China,
Korean women do not normally make direct
offerings to ancestors. Finally, as her children are
lost to the patriline, they do not provide continuity
for the endless continuation of grace-filial piety rec-
iprocity the way her brothers’ children do. Being
unable to match her brothers in care of parents, in
mourning at funerals, in ancestor worship, and in
providing continuity in the patriline, daughters are
in danger of being conceived as morally inferior.
Although there are alternative standards which are
more in keeping with the realities of life for Korean
women - they can be filial daughters-in-law (hyo-
bu), faithful wives (yollyo), or epitomize woman-
ly virtue (pudok) -, these alternative standards
(with the possible exception of the faithful wife)
have never received the cultural emphasis and
recognition of cardinal importance that filial piety
has. Filial piety to one’s husband’s parents is fine,
but it comes second best to filial piety to one’s
“real” parents, and womanly virtue, a litany of the
characteristics of the docile hausfrau (Deuchler
1977: 5-6), is uninspiring at best.
For Korean females, the situation is more
complicated than this Confucian problematic
would imply, however, for two reasons: (1) wom-
en retain considerable autonomous and legitimate
power within their households (Sorensen 1983),
and (2) women perform rituals outside the male-
dominated Confucian system that are necessary for
the welfare of all family members. Just as the
Korean house head maintains family standing in
the public status system through maintenance of
formal and correct Confucian ceremonies, the
Korean housewife ensures the welfare of her
family in the context of a host of supernatural
forces which her husband does not formally ac-
knowledge. Imps (tongbop), death humors (sang-
mun), arrows of misfortune (sal), as well as restless
ghosts (yongsan) and ancestors (chosang) can all
harm the family and cause it misfortune (Kendall
1985a: 86-110). As part of the “inside labor” she
manages relatively independently of the authority
of her husband, the Korean house mistress, the
senior female member of the household, then,
cares for house gods and spirits (Kendall 1983;
1985a: 121-124; Sorensen 1984: 132-134). If the
family’s spiritual defenses become weak, if the
household gods drop their guard, the family may
become prey to supernatural affliction. Out of
worldly craving {ban), ghosts or ancestors may
bother the house, or death humors may attack
those who have had contact with death or funerals
(Kendall 19856; 100-103). To forestall misfortune
and to take action when, despite all precautions,
spiritual affliction occurs, the Korean house mis-
tress, as Kendall notes (1985a: 122), is vested with
priestly authority within her house.
Although for ordinary occasions the mistress
of the house takes responsibility for the care of the
household gods and, in many cases, the local
village gods as well, there are times when she needs
professional help. This help may be provided by a
number of folk religious specialists, but shamans
are by far the most important. Only they can
directly contact gods and ghosts (kwisin) to find
the cause of a family’s misfortune and heal a
household’s relationship with the supernatural
through appropriate rites of integration and sepa-
ration. To make sure that household gods and an-
cestors are kept happy, shamans usually advocate''
clients have a household kut every three or four
years. As shaman ceremonies are expensive, how-
ever, this recommendation is usually ignored
until a crisis hits that is beyond the ability of the
housewife to control. Then a shaman may recom-
mend that the client dedicate special offerings to
various deities, or in serious cases note that the
household gods and ancestors are restless, and
recommend a kut. Such crises are frequent enough
that several kut are held in most villages each year.
The beneficiaries of the ceremonies may be male,
female, or both, but the ceremonies themselves are
female-centered. It is the house mistress (chubu)
who visits a shaman, finds out whether a particular
problem has a supernatural cause, and, if a kut is
required, arranges for the ceremony to be held and
for the money to be paid for it - even if it is the
husband who desires the ceremony.
Kut, even in private homes, are semi-public:
the participation of female representatives from
the houses of consanguineal and affinal kin,
friends, and neighbors is expected and even
required (Kendall 1985a; 22). Shigematsu notes a
saying from Yangju County near Seoul, for exam-
ple, that “it only becomes a kut if there are
on-lookers” (1980: 103). During the course of the
ceremony, friends and neighbors freely make
comments to each other and the gods about the
course of the ceremony. Many spectators will don
some of the shaman’s ritual clothes, dance during
the mugam section of a ceremony, and make
Anthropos 83.1988
410
Clark W. Sorensen
offerings to some of the gods invoked (Kendall
1985a: 135-137). At the typical kut, then, there are
three groups of people: the ritual specialists
(shamans), the sponsors of the ceremony, and the
spectator-participants. Each of these categories is
made up preponderantly of females. The ceremo-
nies, thus, are an important institution of social
and socializing activity in the women’s world
(Harvey 1979; Shigematsu 1980).
Men are not formally excluded from kut in the
way women are from most male rites, and one may
occasionally take part - expecially if improving the
health of that person is a goal of the ceremony -
but in general men refrain from attending kut,
remain in the background, and often profess to
look down on “silly female superstitions.” On
occasion, in fact, men oppose the participation of
the women of their house in kut, and may forbid
their women from sponsoring such ceremonies.
Women usually get around these objections,
however, because the benefits of the ceremony -
a more prosperous house, healthier household
members - are goals which all seek. Males and
females, moreover, share many of the same
assumptions about the relationship between the
natural and supernatural worlds so that in times of
crisis even formal male skepticism often van-
ishes.4 In any case, since taking care of household
spirits is part of women’s responsibility in the same
sense that controlling the household budget is,
most men do not have to decide whether they
believe in spirits or not; they let their wives take
care of them.
Because Buddhism is linked to these female-
centered rituals it is an important, if hidden,
element of the little tradition. Korea is not a
Buddhist country in the sense that entry into the
community of monks (sangha) and formal instruc-
tion in the tenets of Buddhism is common, as in
Burma (Spiro 1982), Thailand (Tambiah 1970), or
Ceylon (Amarasingham 1978), nor even in the
minimal sense that families commonly employ
Buddhist priests in rites for the dead as in Japan
(Smith 1974). Temples are most commonly found
in remote mountain areas where they may be the
4 When I have asked females about experiences with ghosts,
hobgoblins, or other supernatural phenomena, they have
frequently answered me with stories of their husband’s
encounters with these spirits. I also discovered during the
course of fieldwork in Kangwon Province that a particular
woman who visited the village shrine with offerings on the
full moon of every month, did so because of a promise her
husband made to a god during a time of crisis. Kendall
(1985a: 32-33) quotes missionaries and others who have
made similar observations.
object of pilgrimage, but not usually of lay instruc-
tion or spiritual intervention. Buddhist rites for the
dead, common in the past, are seldom made use of
today (Janelli and Janelli 1982: 80-82). Neverthe-
less, in my experience most rural females, when
asked about their religious preference, will answer
“Buddhism” (pulgyo).5 There are those, even
among villagers, who distinguish the Buddhism of
temples from the traditional female-centered folk
religion, but the “Buddhism” of which most
informants speak is actually a highly syncretized
folk religion which includes in its pantheon native
household gods (kasin) and nature spirits (sansin,
sonang sin, etc.), Daoist-inspired deities (ch'il-
song), as well as the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni
(Sokka, puch'o), and other Buddhist-inspired gods
and bodhisattvas. Buddhist deities are not accord-
ed special prominence in the folk pantheon, but
the birthday of Sakyamuni and other Buddhist
festivals are part of the regular calendrical ritual
cycle attended to by most of the practicing “Bud-
dhist” women of villages I have investigated, and
women are wont to call important days in the folk
ritual calendar (such as, for example, lunar 9: 9
which is not a Buddhist holiday), “good days in
Buddhism.” Old women heavily involved in the
folk religion are often called “bodhisattvas” (po-
sal) (Kendall 1985a: 132). Many shamans manifest
Buddhist-influenced deities such as the birth spirit
{samsin, chesok), which require them to wear a
Buddhist robe (changsam) and white peaked cap
(kokkal) during ceremonies in which they appear.
Thus, although rural Korean women are not
Buddhists in an institutional sense, imagery from
the Buddhist great tradition - including that in-
volving females - is nevertheless commonly found
in folk myth and ritual. This is especially true of
5 In the village in Kangwon province which I studied in
1976-1977, the spontaneous name for the folk religion
when not elicited directly by myself was always Buddhism
(pulgyo), though others report “superstition” (misin) as
common, too (Janelli and Janelli 1982; 148; Kendall
1985a: 28). Although Janelli and Janelli (1982) emphasize
their informants’ lack of knowledge of Buddhism, the fact
that in religious surveys some forty percent of the popula-
tion who report a religion regularly report Buddhism would
indicate a deeper relationship to Buddhism (especially
among women) than the Janellis’ comments would imply.
Whether participants in the folk religion recognize the
Buddhist origin of much of the imagery they use is less
important than the undoubted fact that Buddhist ideas and
images, including those involving women, can be seen by
the outsider to have found their way into the folk religion.
The male informants of the Janellis’ may, in fact, have been
less ready to acknowledge Buddhist influence than females.
See Beuchelt (1975a; 19756) on this point.
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
411
rituals for the dead involving rebirth in Amitabha’s
Pure Land such as the chinogwi kut in which the
myth of Princess Pari is narrated.
4. The Religious Division of Labor and the
Treatment of the Dead in the Korean Little
Tradition
The complex interaction between male and female
ritual roles in traditional Korea can be seen
especially clearly in the way villagers treat the
dead. Much of the imagery about death, hell, and
the soul is of Buddhist origin, but normal mortuary
ritual is centered on male patrikin and is done in a
Confucian style borrowed from China which pays
scant attention to these images (Janelli and Janelli
1982: 58-59; Dredge 1987). The details of this
process vary somewhat from village to village, but
the essential purpose of these ceremonies is the
same all over Korea. The body must be disposed of
and a tomb suitable to the social status of the
deceased person’s family must be made. In addi-
tion, the deceased person’s soul (Лол) must be
taken care of so that it becomes an ancestor
(chosang). As an ancestor, the soul has the right to
be cared for by the continuous patriline of the
house, and the descendants, as part of the obliga-
tion of filial piety (hyo), have the obligation to
perform sacrifices (chesa) for the ancestor for four
or five generations. In the traditional funeral and
annual ancestral sacrifices these obligations are
taken care of by males, with the females relegated
to secondary ritual roles in which they do not
directly offer sacrifices to the deceased. Although
most people have a vague idea that the souls of the
deceased have gone to an other world of some sort,
this is scarcely conceptualized, referred to vaguely
as “a good place” (chohun te), or “the other side”
(chosUng). Except for offerings to the three mes-
sengers (samja) of Yomma Taewang, king of the
Buddhist hell, specific conceptions of the afterlife
are not given ritual expression in ordinary funer-
als.
There are many circumstances, however,
when the ordinary androcentric ceremonialism
outlined above is not enough to keep ancestors’
souls contented. The body of the deceased may not
have been recovered (as in a drowning at sea). The
deceased person may be thought to have died with
especially strong worldly desires (ban), for exam-
ple, if a person of marriageable age has died
without marrying, or if a patient has obviously not
become reconciled to death before expiring. The
family may be prey to unexpected reverses, illness,
or other bad luck. In such cases, it is the responsi-
bility of the house mistress to consult a shaman or
other religious specialist who can give expert
advice on possible weaknesses in the house’s
spiritual armor. If a shaman suspects a restless soul
that has not yet gone to the other world is troubling
the family (Janelli and Janelli 1982: 157; Kendall
1985 b: 3; Ch’oe 1987: 145) it is likely that one of
the female-centered shaman ceremonies for the
dead, such as the chinogwi kut, where the position
of the soul after death is more explicitly concep-
tualized than in the androcentric Confucian rites,
will be held. The purpose of such ceremonies is al-
ways the same: to effect the rebirth of the soul in
paradise. Facilitating the rebirth of souls in Ami-
tabha’s Pure Land is a good in itself and gains
Buddhist merit (kong) for the persons who sponsor
the ceremony. However, the sponsor is usually
motivated by more mundane folk religious con-
siderations: “Play, all ye souls! And then go!” sings
the shaman (Kim 1971: 85). Accept our offerings
in this ceremony and then quit bothering us.
a) The Structure of the chinogwi kut
The chinogwi kut in which the myth of Princess
Pari figures, is one of the most typical shaman
ceremonies for the unquiet dead in the central part
of Korea.6 It is usually done by a team of shamans
at the house of the person sponsoring the kut. Like
many of the more elaborate shaman ceremonies of
the central part of Korea, the chinogwi kut is made
up of a number of “acts” or kori. Normally the
shamans at the ceremony take turns with the acts
depending upon their experience and preference.
The precise number of kori and their length and
elaboration are partly matters of negotiation be-
tween the shaman and the cermony sponsor. It is
common in central Korea, for example, for a
simple chinogwi kut to be held outside the gate of
the house at the tail end of a kut which honors all
the household gods (Kendall 1985 b: 6). A more
elaborate sequence of kori collected by Kim
T’ae-gon from the Seoul region, on the other hand,
included the following (Kim 1971: 55-88):
1. Ten Kings of Hell {ttun taewang) - the Bud-
dhist gods who mete out retributive punishment in
hell are invoked and informed of the ceremony.
6 See Beuchelt (1975a) for a description of Buddhist imagery
in a similar ceremony from a different culture area in
Korea.
Anthropos 83.1988
412
Clark W. Sorensen
2. Consecration of the chungdi (chungdi ch’ong-
bae) - the chungdi is a length of white cloth used to
symbolize the road to the next world {chôsûng ûi
kil) during the ceremony.
3. Benevolent Spirits {arum malmyông) - the
“known,” hence benevolent, spirits of the house
(i.e., ancestors and house gods) are invoked.
4. Three Messengers of Hell (samja samsông) -
the spirits who transport souls to and from hell
(who are also propitiated at funerals) are invoked
to bring the soul from the nether world.
5. Karma (malmi) - the Princess Pari myth is
performed.
6. Soul Calling {nôk ch’ông) - a short section in
which the soul of the deceased is called and invited
to start the journey to the Pure Land.
7. Soul Sending {nôk ponaem) - the soul is sent to
the Pure Land along the chungdi which is then rent
to prevent the soul’s return.
8. Last Sending (twitchôn) - the invoked spirits
are sent back whence they came.
The structure of the ceremony is quite trans-
parent: the first four acts are rites of integration in
which the spirits and gods relevant to the ceremony
(in this case the Ten Kings of Hell [siwang], the
souls of the dead of the sponsoring house [arùm
malmyông], the soul(s) being sent to the Pure
Land, and the Three Messengers of Hell [samja
samsông]) are called to the ceremony; the last
three acts are rites of separation in which first the
soul(s) being sent to the Pure Land, and then all
the other souls and gods are sent away from the
ceremony. The first four and last three acts are the
ones in which the ritual purpose of the ceremony is
accomplished. They occupy, however, only about
20 percent of the time of the ceremony. A full
eighty percent of the ceremony is occupied with
the narration of the myth of Princess Pari in the
liminal karma {malmi) section of the kut.
b) The Princess Pari Myth
In the Princess Pari myth we see an intricate
interweaving of themes of sin and retribution,
parental grace and filial piety, and the efficacy of
Confucian, Buddhist, and shamanistic religious
practices all viewed against the background of
female gender and told with an arresting blend of
Buddhist and shamanistic imagery. The frame-
work of the myth is provided by two prognostica-
tions. The first one, that the crown prince will have
seven daughters in a row if he is married too hastily
in an unpropitious year, is ignored, setting up the
main dramatic situation of the myth - the casting
out of the seventh princess, Princess Pari, at birth.
The second prognostication, that the king and
queen’s subsequent illness is due to their casting
out of their daughter and that they can only be
cured by the miracle water of God Peerless is taken
seriously, allowing the king and queen to avoid
retribution brought into play by their own action.
In this framework of the myth each action follows
as a consequence of what one has done or thought
previously - e.g., in good Buddhist fashion is the
consequence of previous karma. The naming of the
section of the chinogwi kut in which the myth of
Princess Pari is narrated as “consequences,” or
“karma” {malmi), undoubtedly is a reference to
this thematic material.
The structural opposition of incurred bad
consequences due to too little faith in divination
(one of the most basic services provided by
shamans) in the first half of the myth and avoided
just retribution due to appropriate belief in divina-
tion (mediated by Princess Pari) in the second half
of the myth has an obvious moral: karma and
retribution are the basis upon which the world
works, but as practical matter, to get along in this
world, one needs the services of a shaman. It is she
who through her divination can help one avoid
this-worldly trouble, can diagnose the spiritual
source of affliction, and, through her ability, like
Princess Pari, to mediate between this and the spir-
itual world, deflect the spiritual consequences
(karma) of this-worldly action. Buddhism in Korea
exists in the context of multiple religions. As in
other Buddhist countries, then, the austere soteri-
ology of modifying one’s fate solely through proper
behavior is supplemented by a more activist ap-
proach to misfortune which has its origin in the
pre-Buddhist folk religion (Spiro 1982: 155).
In the myth of Princess Pari, karma from
previous lives {dp) as well as obstinacy in ignoring
the warnings of shamans are shown to make the
conventional Confucian religious ceremonialism of
the males inadequate. The king expostulates upon
hearing of the birth of the seventh princess, “In a
former life did I commit so many crimes that
heaven has sent me seven daughters? Who sacri-
fices to all at the Ancestral Hall, at the Earth and
Grain Altars? Who instructs everyone at the Court
of the People. Who transmits [proper regulations]
to the masses.” Though he does everything expect-
ed in Confucian orthodoxy, he is still subject to
supernatural forces. It is Princess Pari, the very
child he rejected, who, by mediating between this
world {isung) and the next {chosung), becomes the
archetypal spirit familiar {momju) - the kind of
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
413
being which makes it possible for shamans to do
their intercession in the spirit world for clients.
These themes of karma and retribution, Con-
fucian ceremonialism versus the need for shaman-
istic spiritual help, however, really only frame the
myth. The deeper and more compelling structure
of the myth is expressed through two journeys by
Princess Pari to the underworld - one as an
immature child, and one as an adult. In her first
trip, caused by her being cast out by her father, she
is thrown into the sea alone in a jade box by the
Minister of Rites, meets the Buddha and two
bodhisattvas by whom she is partially rejected, is
raised by two mountain gods, and finally returns of
her own volition to her parents at the request of the
Minister of Rites. In her second trip, caused by her
decision to seek the miracle water of God Peerless
to save her parents from retribution for casting her
out, she returns alone to the other world donning
male clothes, meets in her guise as crown prince
the Buddha and two bodhisattvas by whom she is
helped, marries God Peerless, and returns with her
god/husband and seven sons to revive her parents.
Each episode in the first trip is structurally oppos-
ed by an episode in the second trip: a child victim
of her female gender in her first trip thrown out in a
box, she is an adult hero/ine in her second trip
dressed as a male; rejected as a female by Buddha
in her first trip, she is helped as crown prince by
Buddha in her second trip; nurtured by non-
Buddhist mountain gods on her first trip, she
marries and slaves for another non-Buddhist god
on her second trip; returning alone at the request
of her parents on her first trip, she returns with a
husband, seven sons, and the miracle water of God
Peerless on her own initiative on her second trip.
These structural oppositions bring out deeply
important themes related to gender.
The basic opposition in these two episodes is
between Princess Pari as a child victim and
Princess Pari as an adult hero/ine, and, as was
hypothesized above in our discussion of the Con-
fucian problematic for women, her basic problem
is a consequence of the contradiction between
female gender and the full exercise of the central
moral principle of filial piety. In the Princess Pari
myth, however, everything is the opposite of
normal real life. The central event of the first part
of the myth, Princess Pari’s being cast out by her
parents, is due to the absence of the parental grace
which must be reciprocated through filial piety.
This absence is a direct result of Princess Pari’s
being female and thus unable to become crown
prince to continue the father-son line so important
to Confucian ideas of family order. The absence of
parental grace in the end, however, is repaid not by
indifference or retribution as the logic of recipro-
city would require, but by an excess of filial piety.
These themes are explicitly brought out in the
passage in which the king and queen seek someone
to find the miracle water of God Peerless to save
their lives. The courtiers refuse “because it is not
medicine of this world.” Each of the six princesses
who had been kept and cherished by the king and
queen is in turn asked to seek the miracle water
“out of filial piety for the sake of your parents,” yet
each replies, “How can I do something that the
three thousand ladies in waiting cannot do?”7
When Princess Pari is finally asked, she replies,
“Although I have not received parental grace
(unhye) from the king and bear him no moral debt
(sinse), since my mother meritoriously (kong uro)
carried me in her womb for ten8 months, I will
go.”
There is no doubt that sexual maturity inter-
venes between the two trips to the underworld.
Just as the myth begins with the marriage of the
crown prince at fifteen, the return of Princess Pari
to the palace after being raised in the underworld is
said to take place at the age of fifteen, the normal
age of marriage for females in early twentieth
century Korea. Paradoxically, however, it is as a
child that Princess Pari’s gender is the greater
hindrance. As a child because of her sex she is cast
out from home, and because of her sex she is
rejected by the Buddha. As an adult she remedies
her disadvantage by partially taking on male
characteristics. This partial assimilation to male
gender, while effective for Princess Pari in the
myth, nevertheless is superficial, rather than the
bodhisattva transformation from a profane to a
sacred being found in Buddhist texts. Dressed in
male clothing she is able to obtain the help of the
Buddha she had not received before and she
eventually is given half of her father’s kingdom.
God Peerless remarks, however, “From the front
your body appears as a woman’s. From the back it
appears as a king’s. Let us two pledge a hundred-
year troth. How would it be if I gave you seven
sons before you go.” It is, thus, definitely as an
adult, married woman that she finally makes her
way in the other world.
Although the Buddhist ambivalence about
female gender is well illustrated in this myth, this
7 Some texts have “How could I go where males can’t even
go,” as the sisters’ replies.
8 Koreans, like all East Asians, count time in units entered
rather than in units completed as we do. Nine completed
months are the same as ten entered months.
Anthropos 83.1988
414
Clark W. Sorensen
ambivalence is not used to justify female exclusion
from the sacred as comparison with other great tra-
ditions would lead one to expect. Rather it jus-
tifies Princess Pan’s reliance on the non-Bud-
dhist deities of the little tradition. In her first trip
to the underworld, Princess Pari meets Sakya-
muni, the historical Buddha, accompanied by his
disciples Maudgalyâyana and Kâsyapa. Although
one might expect these to save Princess Pari, the
infant Princess Pari is dismissed by Sakyamuni with
the comment, “If it were like a boy, I would want it
to accompany me as a disciple, but since it is a girl,
it is of no importance,” and put under the care of
two non-Buddhist mountain gods who are depicted
as the epitome of the power of accumulated merit
(kongdôk). Dressed as the crown prince in her
second visit to hell, however, Princess Pari again
meets Sakyamuni accompanied this time, how-
ever, by Amitâbha and Ksitigarbha. Sakyamuni is
greatly surprised by her audacity, but this time she
is given the means to travel to the next world.
Maudgalyâyana and Kâsyapa are important
figures in the Buddhist scriptures, where they are
depicted as ideal disciples of Sakyamuni and
members of the community of monks (sangha), but
as such they are also skeptical of the salvation
potential of women (see Paul 1985: 206-209 and
234-241). Neither of them have ever had impor-
tant separate cults devoted to them. Amitâbha and
Ksitigarbha, on the other hand, are two of the most
popular salvational figures in Mahayana Bud-
dhism,9 and are not closely associated with the
male centered community of monks. The juxtapo-
sition of these four Buddhist figures, then, expres-
ses a contradiction between scriptural Buddhism
centering on the cultivation of proper behavior in
the community of monks in which women, though
not entirely excluded since becoming a nun is
possible, can play only a marginal role, and the
more transcendental Mahayana Buddhism of Ami-
tàbha where women can overcome their sexuality
and attain salvation. Princess Pari is marginalized
by the former. She is more directly helped by the
latter, but in both cases Princess Pan’s main
interaction - in spite of the fact that the function of
the myth is to connect the profane world with a
specifically Buddhist sacred one - is with non-
Buddhist deities: the mountain gods who nurture
9 Ksitigarbha, known as Chijang Posal in Korean, is one of
the bodhisattvas that most people in Korea, upon hearing
his name, recognize, though they may know little else about
him but his name. Ch’en (1964: 171-173) notes that at the
Longmen Caves near Luoyang, inscriptions to Ksitigarbha
are fifth in popularity after Amitabha, Avalokitesvara
(Guanyln), Sakyamuni, and Maitreya.
her in her childhood, and God Peerless whom she
marries in adulthood. The ambivalence of Bud-
dhism toward female gender is recognized and as a
response, since Princess Pari does not in the end
either give up or transcend her female gender, the
non-Buddhist pantheon must be given the most
important role in the myth.
5. Princess Pari and the World of Women
For the majority of female participants in a kut for
the dead, one can well image the piquant feelings
they would have upon listening to this tale.
Gathered among themselves, communicating with
one another in the highly symbolic expression of a
religious ceremony led by a powerful female
shaman and a house mistress in the company of
female kin, friends, and neighbors, one would
expect them to deal with the nature of their social
position, how they feel about it, and what they can
do about it. And we are not disappointed. We have
noted above that Princess Pari’s two trips to the
underworld that juxtapose rejection by parents
with salvation by the daughter mediate the contra-
diction of female gender and the emphasis on the
father-son tie in the patrilineal, patriarchal Confu-
cian system. We have also noted how the scriptural
and transcendental aspects of Buddhism are recog-
nized before being set aside as solutions for
Princess Pari’s need to bridge the gap between the
sacred and profane. Princess Pari’s two sojourns in
the other world are also, of course, structural
transformations of the normal female life cycle,
and this allows the listeners to this myth to identify
very directly with the action of the tale.
Actually being thrown out at birth was not a
serious danger for females in traditional Korea (H.
Yi 1983: 66), though feelings of rejection must
have been common. Normally loved and cherished
by her “real parents” at home, a Korean daughter
seems effectively cut off from her natal family only
in her mid-teens when she is married and taken to
her marital home where she will work and produce
for the rest of her life. The life cycle of Princess
Pari is a mirror image of this; rejected by her “real
parents” at birth, she is cherished by spirit foster
parents; reunited with her parents at puberty she
goes back to the other world to save them. Princess
Pari’s marriage in the other world to God Peerless
is a caricature of early marital life. A woman’s life
in her marital home (sijip-sari) is a metaphor in
Korean for any situation in which one must work
under the thumb of nosy, interfering persons. The
image of three years working at three tasks mirrors
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
415
the three times three structure of the aforemen-
tioned proverb about marital life. Princess Pari,
however, is not cut off from her natal family by
patrilocal marriage. Her motivation for marriage is
filial piety, as she notes when accepting God
Peerless’s marriage proposal, “If this, too, can be
considered serving my parents, let us do it.” Her
love for her husband threatens her relationship
with her parents, however. Princess Pari dreams a
silver bowl and a silver spoon have broken. Before
setting off for home she laments, “No matter how
important a couple’s love, my service to my
parents has been too late ... . It is clear that the
king and the queen died on the same hour of the
same day.” When Princess Pari prepares to leave,
however, it turns out that the three time three
years of service to God Peerless was in fact service
to her parents after all. The water she drew for
three years was the miracle water which she uses to
revive her dead parents. When Princess Pari
returns with this water, moreover, she brings her
husband and children. As Princess Pari prepares to
leave with her older children walking and her
youngest one strapped to her back God Peerless
asks: “What if I followed you?” to which Princess
Pari replies, “Since they say a woman must follow
her husband, if that, too, can be considered serving
my parents, then let us do it.” Instead of being cut
off from her parents by her marriage, she becomes
an exemplary filial daughter (hyonyo) who uses
her contacts through her patrilocal marriage to
save her parents, and this is the most salient
content of the myth (Kendall 1985a: 154, 196
notes):10 11
Filial piety is saved for Princess Pari, but what
about her gender? Told in the liminal phase of a
ceremony for the dead, the myth functions to link
this world and the other world to allow restless
souls to be transported to Amitabha’s Western
Pure Land, or, as Kendall’s informants put it “to
teach the dead the path through hell” (Kendall
19856; 8). Although the housewives listening to
the myth are undoubtedly not aware of the full
complexities of scriptural attitudes to women in
Buddhism, the central dilemma of women and
Buddhism - that transition from the profane to the
sacred requires the transformation from female to
male - is well expressed.11 Periodically throughout
10 Beuchelt collected preference lists of virtues from shamans
on Cheju Island in 1962, and filial piety headed these
shamans’ list as the most desirable virtue (Beuchelt 1975b:
150).
11 Spiro notes similar attitudes in Burma where rebirth as a
male is noted as the most popular choice after Nirvana
the myth the shaman sings an apostrophe to the
spirits that leaves no doubt about this; “Alas! It is
sorrowful, Oh past and future dead! Express to
succeeding generations your desire for rebirth and
transport to paradise! Become males! It is the day
of rebirth in the Western Paradise Pure Land!”
Princess Pari must don male clothing to receive
help from Sakyamuni. In the end, however, her
ability to mediate between the sacred and the
profane is not based on this transformation.
Princess Pari mediates between the sacred and
profane because as a woman she participates in
two households - that of her parents, and that of
her husband.
The central Buddhist image of transition from
profane to sacred through transition from female
to male, in fact, is curiously outside the structure of
the narrative. As far as the narrative sections of the
myth are concerned, women as women are present-
ed as the quintessential mediators between house-
holds and, because of this, the most appropriate
mediators between the sacred and profane. At the
end of the myth, just before the shaman begins
chanting the Buddhist mantras which will enable
the souls to be reborn in the Pure Land with the
help of Amitabha and Ksitigarbha, Princess Pari
becomes a shaman’s spirit familiar (momju) - the
spirit which governs the body of the shaman and
enables her to mediate between the sacred and
profane. Although this last part of the myth has led
some commentators (Akamatsu and Akiba 1938/1:
4—5) to see the primary importance of Princess Pari
as a myth detailing the origins of shamanism in
general, the myth can also be seen as a symbolic
expression of the real mediating power of all
women. Although shamans make use of their
powerful spirit familiars in their professional life,
all women, in fact, have a “body governing spirit”
or spirit familiar which may come to them in
shaman ceremonies, because like Princess Pari
they all have legitimate power to link households
together and mediate between the sacred and
profane as house priests (Kendall 1985a: 176). It is
this power, moreover, which makes it appropriate
for women to care for the souls of the dead and
make sure they “go to a good place” in spite of the
fact that they are marginalized by the formal
Confucian aspects of ordinary mortuary rites, and
despite the fact that their gender seems to make
them inappropriate for such mediating roles in
Mahay ana Buddhism.
among female informants when asked about their choice for
rebirth (1982: 82 note).
Anthropos 83.1988
416
Clark W. Sorensen
6. Princess Pari and the Grat Tradition in Korea
The myth of Princess Pari for the female narrator
and the female listeners at a chinogwi kut presents
a model of female virtue in Korea’s patrilineal,
patrilocal society. Rather than seeing female gen-
der as a limit - as it is interpreted in both the
Confucian and Mahayana Buddhist great tradi-
tions - it is presented as an asset. Themes of
karma, retribution, filial piety, and female gender
are the main concerns of this myth, and the
structural dilemmas are those which an anthropol-
ogist familiar with the Confucian and Buddhist
great traditions and the social organization of the
little tradition in Korean society would expect: the
contradiction between Confucian obligations to
parents and patrilocal marriage for females, and
the contradiction between Buddhist conceptions of
females as inherently profane and their important
roles in the folk religion mediating between the
sacred and profane.
The chinogwi kut in which the Princess Pari
myth is sung is not mere ceremonialism, however,
but ritual in Gluckman’s full sense of the term. It is
a social process in which the participants actively
engage in symbol creation and manipulation in
order to benefit themselves and their group, i.e.,
women. The central conflict between female gen-
der and filial piety created by patrilineal, patriar-
chal Confucian social organization cannot be
solved through Buddhism. The Buddhist soteriolo-
gy of transition from profane to sacred by tran-
sition from female to male is part of the problem.
Although these problems are given “mythical
solutions” in the Princess Pari myth as one would
expect (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 216), the effect of these
solutions is to reject the problematic of gender of
both the Confucian and Buddhist great traditions
as false consciousness. Princess Pari proves
through her ability to take on male roles, give her
parents new life, and provide them with a helpful
and powerful son-in-law with seven grandsons that
there actually is no conflict between filial piety and
female gender. She relies mostly on her courage,
her resourcefulness, and her ability as a woman to
marry and link two families. She does not require
sexual transformation through merit or the help of
the bodhisattvas of the Mahayana pantheon to
make the transition between the profane and
sacred. The creator and narrator of this myth
presents the structural dilemmas of being female in
a male-dominated society, and advocates a solu-
tion; rejection of those elements of the great
tradition which most hinder women in their roles.
Princess Pari shows that she is master of her fate.
Though not rejecting the androcentric great tradi-
tion outright, Princess Pari demonstrates she can
do it all through the little folk tradition.
At the beginning of this paper it was suggested
that, in complex agricultural societies with a
written great tradition, myths about powerful,
positively valued females are unexpected, and that
they are especially unexpected in a patrilineal,
patriarchal society such as Korea. If myths justify
the social order, then since these societies are male
dominated, women should either be portrayed as
powerless, or their exercise of power should be
portrayed as bad in order to justify male control.
One expects in a patrilineal, patriarchal society in
which female power is a threat to the system, that
beliefs in female pollution may express the belief in
the illegitimacy of such female power as does exist
and be used to justify female exclusion from
important religious activity. In any case, the
Neoconfucian and Mahayana Buddhist great tradi-
tions - both important in Korean culture - contain
such an abundance of negative imagery of females
that the sheer weight of acculturation to these great
traditions would seem to require negative assess-
ment of females in myths in the little tradition as
well. It turns out, however, that the relationship
between gender, social structure, and the image of
females in myth in Korea is much too complex to be
accounted for in this way. Because the Neoconfu-
cian great tradition in Korea was promoted from
the top down by political authorities concerned
with social control, the ritual activities of the males
became focused on formalistic ceremonialism
which did not meet the full religious needs of the
population. Women were excluded from certain
ceremonies in the public domain which expressed
the patrilineal, patriarchal Neoconfucian social
ideal, but they retained legitimate power within
their households.
Although many elements of Chinese patrilin-
eal, patriarchal family organization were adopted,
the balance of power within Korean families is
different from that of China. As pointed out by
Cohen (1976: 193-226), Chinese joint families are
disrupted by females because wives are seen to
favor their own conjugal families over the interest
of the patriarchal joint family as a whole. Women
have informal power in China (Wolf 1972), but
because this female power disrupts culturally
valued norms, the bearers of this power are seen as
polluting. This tension is not found in Korean
families because the constituent conjugal families
of a joint family hive off early with only the senior
son and his wife remaining at home with the
parents. Because of primogeniture, there seems to
Anthropos 83.1988
The Myth of Princess Pari
417
be less conflict of interest between father and son
(Janelli and Janelli 1982: 49) and brother and
brother in Korea than in China. As the tensions
built into the Chinese joint family are not played
out in the Korean stem family, they are not pro-
jected on women. Rather than split houses apart,
women link them together in ways legitimate,
though not acknowledged in the Neoconfucian
great tradition - that is cognatically rather than
patrilineally (Kendall 1983; 1985a: 176). Thus,
although ideas of female pollution exist in Korea
(Ch’oe 1987), the temporary existence of female
pollution after childbirth or during menstruation
does not disqualify females as mediators between
sacred and profane nor keep them from contact
with high gods (Kendall 1985a: 175).
There is a certain tension between the folk
religious activity of the males and females in
Korea, but there is no basic conflict between them.
The values upheld by Princess Pari - above all filial
piety - are those of the great tradition (Janelli and
Janelli 1982: 169). Active intervention with the
sacred, because it is defined as an extension of
female domestic roles, has remained under female
control. This has allowed Korean women a central
role in religious symbol making not often encoun-
tered in the literature on patriarchal societies (see,
however, Onwuejeogwu 1969). As in any process
of acculturation, of course, assimilation to the
norms of a great tradition will be selective. Spiro,
in his study of Buddhism in Burma (1982: 127),
notes that when the tenets of a religion fail to
meet the psychological needs of its believers, those
tenets of the religion will either be distorted or re-
placed by tenets of a competing system. The politi-
cal conditions under which a system is constituted,
however, must also be considered. Making and
manipulating symbols, as is clear in the myth of
Princess Pari, is a power. No doubt women in all
societies would prefer their culture to view them
positively rather than negatively. Positive images,
however, can only be maintained when they cor-
respond with social reality, and when women re-
tain the power to make and manipulate publicly
available symbols. Korean female shamans sing of
powerful, positively valued women because, in
reality, women have powerful, legitimate roles,
and because women control much of the produc-
tion of religious imagery in the Korean little
tradition.
Can this lesson help us understand the perva-
siveness of negative images of females in the
fundamental myths of so many great traditions?
Certainly such imagery reflects the fact that wom-
en are subordinate in most of those societies
complex enough to have a split between a little and
a great tradition, but as our Korea material
indicates, the relationship between mythical im-
ages of women and social structure is exceedingly
complex, and over-all male dominance is not
sufficient to account for negative mythical images
of females. Political control of symbol-making,
however, is a dimension which may repay further
investigation. Women are portrayed as Other, de
Beauvoir notes, because it conforms to males’
“ontological and moral pretensions” (1953: 139).
This could be true in myth, however, only if it is
males that speak in myth. Ardener (1972: 135-139)
and Strathern (1972: 159) have already suggested
that females’ models of social structure may be
different from males’, yet they give us little hope of
discovering what these differences are, since they
believe women are mostly inarticulate. Is the
paucity of materials known in the great tradition to
have been written by and for women (Young
1987: 2), then, simply a reflection of a general
female failure to explicitly formulate their view of
the world in abstract terms? Certainly Korean
women, at least in their myths, are far from
inarticulate and provide little support for this view.
By looking at the myth of Princess Pari, we are able
to “eavesdrop” on Korean women communicating
with each other. Analysis of their message suggests
that when women control symbol making in myth
they may use it to counteract negative imagery
found in the great tradition, or even to create a
counter-culture. In the context of the East Asian
high civilizations where the religious roles of
women seem limited, the symbol-making power of
Korean women seems extraordinary (Kendall
1985a: 176-178). This impression may be accurate,
or it may only reflect general neglect of the
materials which women have been creating all
along in societies which seem more patriarchal on
the surface than they may prove to be under-
neath.
This is a revised draft of a paper first presented at the
panel “Korean Personhood: In Memory of Youngsook
Kim Harvey” at the 1983 annual meeting of the
American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illi-
nois. The main field research upon which this paper is
based was provided by a Fulbright predoctoral grant
(HEW) and a Strong Fellowship from the University of
Washington.
Anthropos 83.1988
418
Clark W. Sorensen
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Anthropos 83.1988: 421-431
A Sense of Place
Locus and Identity in Matailobau, Fiji
James West Turner
Abstract. - A place is a social construct; a location only
becomes a place when significance is conferred on it. Social
space is that space occupied by a group of people and defined by
them in relation to socially significant places. Placement refers
to the position of a place relative to other places; just as places
themselves are imbued with significance, so, often, are the
spatial relationships among them. Human groups differ with
respect to the degree to which they elaborate on the symbolic
potential of place and placement. Fijian culture is one in which
spatial location plays an especially important role, and several
aspects of that role are examined here. For example, in any
assembly that brings together persons of different rank, age, or
gender, those status differences will be reflected in the seating
arrangement in accordance with a symbolic distinction between
“high” and “low” areas within a Fijian house. [Concepts of
place and placement, Symbols of hierarchy, Personhood, Social
identity, Fijian social organization]
James West Turner, PhD, 1983, Michigan State University;
dissertation based on fieldwork (1979-1981) in the Fiji Islands;
1984-1985 Visiting Assistant Professor at Mary Washington
College in Fredericksburg, Virginia; 1985-1986 Visiting Assis-
tant Professor at the University of New Mexico; he currently
holds the position of Lecturer at the University of Papua New
Guinea in Port Moresby. - Publications include articles in
Contributions to Indian Sociology (N. S.), Ethnology, and
Oceania.
As the geographer Edward Relph (1976: 1) has
noted, “To be human is to live in a world that is
filled with significant places: to be human is to have
and to know your place.” The recognition and
categorization of places in terms of activities and
resources - a practical knowledge of place - is an
indispensable part of any cultural system. But for
humans the importance of place extends beyond
merely pragmatic consideration. Place is tied up
with our definitions of ourselves. Our sense of
place plays a role in demarcating the boundary
between us and others, and our experience of place
is imbued with sentiments and associations. Like
other organisms human beings define and defend
territories, but there is this fundamental differ-
ence: the ties that bind us to a particular place are
built of symbols, and they are things of our own
making.
The following discussion examines the sym-
bolic aspect of spatial organization in Fijian cul-
ture. It focuses not on places as things in them-
selves but on the relationship between place and
social identity. Before pursuing this topic, how-
ever, it is necessary to define a few key terms.
As used here the term place refers to some-
thing more than a specific location in space; a
location only becomes a place when significance is
conferred on it. Relph (1976: 47) identifies several
components of place - a physical setting (i.e., a
specific location and its physical attributes), the
activities that are characteristically carried out
there, and the meanings that coalesce around it.1
Since meanings accrue and change over time,
“placeness” is always a process of becoming. In
this sense and several others, placeness is like
personhood. In both cases identity is a social
product. In both cases that identity has a physical
manifestation - the face and form in the case of the
person, the landscape in the case of a place. In both
cases that identity in a sense incorporates society
since the person is only a person in relation to
others and a place is only a place in relation to the
person or persons who attribute significance to it.
The places that make up our “existential space”
are a part of us, and we are, in a sense, a part of
them. In Matailobau, a district in the eastern
highlands of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fiji
Islands, the connection between place and person
is a physical one. Not only is it recognized that
one’s physical substance is linked to a particular
tract of garden lands through the food produced
and consumed there, but when a child is born, the
father may plant a coconut tree on the child’s
1 Relph (1976: 49) identifies a fourth component in the
identity of a place, what he calls the “spirit of place” (genius
loci). He sees this as including topography, economic
functions and activities, and the significance deriving from
past events and present association, but he sees the spirit of
a place as being more than a simple summation of these. I
find this concept elusive and do not see how it is distinct
from the significance of a place.
422
James West Turner
behalf. The infant’s umbilical cord (wa ni vicovico)
may be buried at the base of the tree, and thus a
part of the child remains in that place. Fijians
enjoy visiting other areas, but a person of thor-
oughly peripatetic disposition, one who is contin-
ually on the move, may be asked, “Did a rat eat
your umbilical cord (that you scurry about so)?”
Because persons “participate” in the places
that are significant to them, place names, like the
names of persons, can evoke all sorts of associ-
ations. Harwood (1976) has argued that place
names - or rather lists of place names - can
function as a mnemonic device calling to mind a
corpus of myths, each linked to particular places.
Among the Ilongot of Luzon (Rosaldo 1980) and
other swidden cultivators lists of place names
associated with residence shifts and other events
evoke memories of the recent or historical past as
well as mythic events; movement through time is
equated with movement through space.
The evocative quality of place names is ex-
ploited in aesthetic performances by many peoples,
but certainly one of the most dramatic exam-
ples of this is the gisaro ceremony of the Kaluli
people of Papua New Guinea (Schieffelin 1976). In
the gisaro, longhouse communities invite neigh-
boring groups who entertain their hosts by singing
songs in which places in the hosts’ territory are
named and described with imagery of desolation.
The object is to move the hosts to tears. In listening
to the songs, individuals recall dead loved ones and
times past, their memories of happy experiences in
those places triggered by the place names. The
hosts’ tears require compensation, and they re-
venge themselves on the singers by burning them
with torches.
Places exist in space, of course, and we tend to
understand space in relational terms. We can
distinguish various kinds of space, or aspects of
space, on the basis of the kinds of relation that
define them, as, for example, perceptual space
defined in terms of the perceiving organism. In his
study of the Nuer Evans-Pritchard (1971: 111)
distinguished between physical space, defined in
terms of absolute units of measurement; ecological
space, defined in relation to features of the natural
environment affecting population density and dis-
tribution; and structural space, defined in terms of
social relations. In this discussion we will be
concerned with what I call social space, the space
occupied by a group of people and defined by them
in relation to socially significant places. Social
space is perhaps closest to Evans-Pritchard’s struc-
tural space, but physical distance and ecological
features are also relevant to it.
Having discussed the concepts of place and
social space, one key term remains to be defined.
In the discussion that follows placement will be
taken to mean the position of a place relative to
other places. Just as places themselves are imbued
with significance, so, often, are the spatial rela-
tionships among them.
While a practical knowledge of place is indis-
pensable to humans as it is to other organisms (and
is therefore a part of the cultural repertoire of all
societies), human groups differ with respect to the
degree to which they elaborate on the symbolic
potential of place and placement. Fijian culture is
one in which spatial location plays an especially
significant role. While place of origin is seen as a
source of differentiation among people (“different
places, different customs”), placement is utilized
as an idiom for expressing social differences.
Unlike the Berti (Holy 1983) or Selk’nam (Chap-
man 1982), Fijian attention to placement does not
focus on compass orientation, nor does much
significance attach to orientation with respect to
geographical features such as sea and mountains as
among the Ainu of Sakhalin (Ohnuki-Tierney
1972). Rather, it is the position of persons with
respect to one another within a (relatively) cir-
cumscribed space on which this culture focuses.
As Leslie White (1975: 41) notes, codes of
etiquette have as their principal function the
regulation of behavior so as to keep persons in
their proper classes. He defines a class as one of an
indefinite number of divisions within society, the
composition of which differs from the composi-
tion of all others. White would include categories
based on age, gender, rank, and kinship within the
concept of class. Placement, or where one sits, is
an important part of the code of etiquette that
maintains the distinctions between such categories
in Fijian society. Indeed, it is a principal idiom for
the expression of status differences, and I will
consider this aspect of placement before discussing
Fijian notions of place in more general terms.
1. Knowing One’s Place
In discussing the political significance of place and
placement among the Swazi, Hilda Kuper
(1972: 417) notes that “the ignorant outsider may
see no difference between the huts of a queen and
that of her lowliest attendant, but to a Swazi the
symbolism of sitting [i.e., placement in an assem-
bly] is obvious and meaningful.” Like the kingdom
of Swazi, Fijian society is based upon notions of
hierarchy, but in Matailobau there are few external
Anthropos 83.1988
A Sense of Place
423
markers of rank. The paramount chief lives in a
house of the same general size and type as those of
other men. He dresses like them, eats the same
kinds of food, and like other men works in his own
garden. Even the linguistic markers of rank -
special forms of address or special terminology -
that exist elsewhere in Polynesia - are minimal.
But in any gathering, familial or public, in which
persons of different rank, age, or gender come
together, the seating arrangement will reflect
notions of hierarchy.
In order to explain the hierarchic implications
of placement, it is first necessary to say something
about the interior of a Fijian house. A traditional
Fijian house is a single large room without any
permanent partitions. There was variation in terms
of floor plan and construction methods through-
out the group (Williams 1858: 79-80), but in the
Matailobau area houses were traditionally rectan-
gular in floor plan and constructed of hardwood
posts, tree fern poles, bamboo, vines, reeds,
leaves, and thatch on an earthen platform (yavu)
sometimes faced with stone. Today a variety of
non-traditional materials are used; roofing iron or
sawn timber may replace the traditional siding, and
without exception roofing iron has replaced thatch
as a roof covering on all houses and most out-
buildings. But the traditional rectangular floor
plan has been retained, and with just two excep-
tions among the 50 houses in the village in which I
resided, the interior space is composed of a single
individual room. Fifteen by twenty-five feet would
be an average size.
Despite the fact that there is no dividing wall,
this interior space is conceptually divided into two
areas with a gradation between them. In many
homes this division is marked by a long strip of
decorated barkcloth hung from a roof beam across
the width of the house. Photos of family members
are often hung along this decorative strip, some-
times festooned with cowry shell necklaces or strings
of plastic flowers.
Another feature that demarcates the two
zones within the house is the placement of the
doors. All houses have more than one door; most
in the village where I resided have three and a few
have four. The doors of a house are functionally
specialized. The one at what is termed the lower
end of the house (see below) is used by most
people most of the time. Cooked food is always
brought through this door, and women who are not
members of the household should always use it.
Unless beckoned by someone within, most men
who are not household members also use this
“lower” door. Two additional doors are usually
placed at about the midpoint of the longer sides of
the house, and their placement marks the tran-
sition point between the two polar zones within the
interior. These “upper” doors tend to be freely
used by household members, but on formal occa-
sions when guests are present, these doors are for
the use of the household head and elders, espe-
cially those of chiefly rank. If there is a fourth door
it will be in the “upper” wall directly opposite the
main door. I have never seen anyone other than
the most senior men of chiefly rank use such
doors.
Fijian households have separate cookhouses
where most food is cooked and the pots and pans
and so forth are stored, but household members
eat their meals inside the main house. And so at
one end of the room near the principal door there
is often a food cabinet and some equipment for the
preparation and serving of food (see Fig. 1). This
area near the main door is conceived of as the
lower, profane end of the house. At the opposite
end of the house is the sleeping area of the
household head and his wife. If the family has a
chest of drawers it will probably be at this end of
upper, sacred, chiefly, male
bed
chest -*■
curtain L
CT
eating
cloth
9
food locker n«
□ Q
lower, profane, non-chiefly, female
Fig. 1: The interior of a Fijian house
Anthropos 83.1988
424
James West Turner
the house. Extra clothes may be stored there or in
suitcases stacked along the wall. Valuables like
whales’ teeth and money might be stored in these
or under the bed, a place off limits to all but
household members. (The bed is covered by
fringed mats that reach to the floor, providing a
storage area hidden from view.) The sleeping area
of the household head and his wife can be shut off
by curtains when privacy is required. This area
opposite the main door is considered the upper,
relatively sacred end of the house. Children, other
household members, and guests sleep “below” it
on the soft, mat-covered floor of the house.
These, then, are the two poles within a Fijian
house, the sleeping area at one end and the food
preparation area at the other. They are spoken of
as the upper {cold) and lower (ra) ends respective-
ly. This distinction is used as a medium for
expressing status differences in spatial terms. For
example, while in a sense the entire interior of the
house is a female domain, the lower end of the
house is preeminently the domain of women.2 It is
there that the female head of the household sits
when serving meals, washing dishes, and so on.
Despite the fact that it includes the sleeping area of
the married couple, the upper end of the house is a
male domain. When both the head of the house-
hold and his wife are at home and male guests are
present, he and his guests will be found sitting or
lying near the upper end of the house while his wife
sits at the lower end, perhaps listening to their
conversation while plaiting a mat or busying
herself with some other household task. When
only household members are present, the use of
space tends to be more relaxed.
2 Unlike Moala (Sahlins 1962; 121) and other islands of
eastern Fiji, in the highlands of Viti Levu women’s work is
not restricted to household chores. Not only do women fish,
gather fire wood and other forest products (e.g., wild yams),
and haul water (if necessary), but they also play a major role
in gardening. In addition women cook, clean, wash clothes,
weave mats, and perform many other tasks necessary for the
maintenance of the household. While men, especially the
fathers of small children, may occasionally assist their wives
with some of these household tasks, they are identified as
women’s work. It would be seen as unmanly to consistently
perform such work or to spend too much of one’s free time
at home. Traditionally men spent little time in the habita-
tions of their wives and children, spending their free time
instead in the men’s house (bure) of their kin groups
(Brewster 1922: 169). Bure, as such, have disappeared,
though some of their functions continue to be performed by
other structures (e.g., adolescent males may sleep in the
house of an older bachelor). It would be wrong to say that
family houses {vale) are, from the male perspective, simply
containers for women, children, and valuables (cf. Duncan
1982), but they remain a feminine domain, a sphere in which
women make important decisions.
I suspect that the human body provides the
unconscious model for this structuring of domestic
space. The head is the most sacred part of the body
just as it is the highest. The seat of mana, it rules
the body in the same manner that the chief rules
the body politic. It is an act of grievous disrespect
to touch the head of an adult, particularly that of a
person of rank. (According to tradition the Rever-
end Baker, the only European missionary killed
in Fiji, sealed his fate when he removed his comb
from the head of a Fijian chief.) So sacred is the
head of the chief that in some parts of Fiji only
special hereditary priests could dress the chiefs
hair; this sustained contact with that repository of
mana rendered their hands tabu, and for a time
afterwards they were forbidden to touch food with
their hands and, instead, were required to feed
themselves with special skewers (Brewster
1922: 30). To even reach above the head of an
adult is a sign of disrespect; if one must do so, one
first asks to be excused by saying tilou.
In contrast to the head, the feet are the least
sacred part of the body. In contact with the earth,
they are profane rather than polluting. When a
supplicant clasps the feet of a potential benefactor,
he renders himself base in a literal way.
Whether derived from the concept of the
human body or not, this division between upper
and lower zones within the house is quite different
from the front/back distinction so important in
some European domestic architecture (Lawrence
1982). The latter distinction is directly related to
the value placed on privacy and the desire to
maintain a separate space for formal entertaining
that is sheltered from the more mundane activities
of household life. Visual and auditory privacy are
not primary concerns in Fijian domestic architec-
ture. As I have already indicated, there is some-
thing of the opposition of the sacred and profane in
the conceptual model of Fijian domestic space. In
part, this separation of the upper end of the house
is an expression of respect for the privacy of
possession, and, as previously noted, valuables are
stored there. But there is also the fact that it is not
just a sleeping area; it is also a place in which
conjugal relations take place, and a measure of
separateness attaches to it for that reason.
I once attended a kava (yaqona) session in a
home in which the host’s wife’s brother was also
present. The wife’s brother was middle-aged and
married. When someone enters a kava session at
which other people are already seated, it is
customary to offer the newcomer a seat. One
honors him by asking to sit e colo (“higher up”),
toward the upper end of the house. On this
Anthropos 83.1988
A Sense of Place
425
occasion the wife’s brother sat slightly below the
midpoint of the house, lower, in fact, than other
men younger than he. I asked him to move up, but
he declined saying that he could not because his
sister slept in the upper end of that house.
(Brothers and sisters should avoid even the hint of
sexual intimacy, and after puberty brothers and
sisters should not sleep under the same roof.) In
fact, on another occasion this man did sit at the
upper end of his sister’s house, but his comments
on that first occasion are nonetheless significant.
It is not this association with sexuality and,
hence, procreation that explains why the upper
end of the house is male, for neither the act of
generation nor generative power are conceived of
as exclusively male. It is, rather, this fact that
explains why the upper end of the house is kept
separated from the profane area of food prepara-
tion and ordinary coming and going. Because it is
tinged with the sacred, it is conceived of as the
upper end of the house. Using the same spatial
idiom, men are higher than women just as chiefs
are higher than commoners, and thus the upper
end of the house is man’s proper place.
Whenever persons of different rank, age, or
gender assemble this high/low distinction is opera-
tive. This is true even in a strictly familial context.
For example, at mealtimes a cloth (ibe ni kana,
literally “eating mat”) is laid out along the long
axis of the house, and household members and
guests are seated higher or lower depending on age
and gender. The eldest male of the household or
the most senior or highest ranking guest will sit at
the upper end of the cloth with younger males below
him on either side and children of both sexes below
them. If the household is a large one, two settings
might be necessary in order to serve everyone. In
such cases priority is given to senior males. The
female head of the household, perhaps assisted by
an adolescent daughter, sits at the lower end of the
cloth. Pots of greens, fish, or meat sit beside her on
a bit of cloth or board to protect the mats on the
floor from soot and heat. Plates of “true food”
(kakana dina, i.e., traditional cultigens such as
taro, yams, or breadfruit) are centrally located
along the length of the cloth within reach of
everyone. The female head of the household is
very much in charge of “putting the meal on the
table.” She fills the plates with relish (2 coi, e.g.,
greens) from the pots beside her and hands them
up the cloth in order of seniority. She herself will
not eat until everyone else has been served, often
after all but the youngest household members have
finished eating. While others eat, she may have to
sit beside the cloth waving her hand or a bit of cloth
to scatter the flies that are so plentiful during the
hot season. Her position at the lower end of the
cloth is not only a statement of hierarchy; it can
also be seen as symbolically appropriate. Closest to
the door that both communicates with the cook-
house and serves as the main channel of commu-
nication with the world outside the household, it is
she who controls the gifts of cooked food ( takitaki)
that link the household to others in a network of
reciprocity. She is an intermediary in another way
as well; through her marriage, she represents a
“path” (sala) between her natal patriline and that
of her husband (Turner 1986a).
Like the joint consumption of food, kava
drinking is another context in which status differ-
ences are a focus of attention. Kava, or as it is
known in Fiji, yaqona, is a ubiquitous part of Fijian
life. The term yaqona is applied to both the plant
{Piper methysticum) and the beverage produced
when the pulverized rootstock is mixed with water.
One never drinks yaqona alone; it is always drunk
by a group, and the seating arrangement of the
participants reflects status differences based on
rank, age, and kinship. I have discussed the
significance of this spatial arrangement elsewhere
(Turner 1986b), and here it is sufficient to relate
the orientation of the kava circle to what has
already been said about the high/low opposition.
The highest ranking man present at a kava
session sits at the apex of an arc formed by lower
ranking men to his right and left (see Fig. 2).
Directly in front of him sits the vessel (usually a
hardwood bowl or tanoa) in which kava is mixed,
and behind it sits the person responsible for mixing
and pouring the yaqona (ko lose yaqona). Slightly
behind him and to either side sit other young men
who will serve as cupbearers and clap at appro-
priate times during the ceremony. Behind these
functionaries sit the youths and younger men who,
strictly speaking, are present to minister to (veiqa-
ravi) the elders. On most occasions any women
who are present sit behind the young men - in fact,
near the door in the lower end of the house.
The orientation of the yaqona circle is con-
sistent with what was said earlier about the floor
plan of a Fijian house. That is, the highest ranking
man present sits in the uppermost part of the house
and younger and lower ranking men sit “below”
him. On most occasions the eldest member of the
chiefly clan (mataqali) present will be accorded the
status of chief of the yaqona. The 2 talatala, or
Wesleyan minister, and the headmaster of the
district school will also be accorded very high po-
sitions if they are present. But once these positions
have been taken, seniority often takes precedence
Anthropos 83.1988
426
James West Turner
clans usually sit higher than younger men of chiefly
rank.
Yaqona is frequently drunk outdoors, perhaps
under a shelter constructed of bamboo and roofing
iron to ward off the sun and sudden showers. Even
when it is drunk outdoors the spatial distribution of
drinkers is spoken of in terms of higher and lower,
but in such cases it is the position of the highest
ranking man rather than the orientation of a per-
manent structure that determines these values.
The status distinctions within Fijian society
are not only given visible expression in the spatial
arrangement of household members at meal time
and of the participants at frequent kava sessions,
but they are also expressed in the context of formal
religion, for even in the Methodist church, the
seating arrangements reflect differences in gender,
age, and rank (see Fig. 3). Parallels can, of course,
be found in some European congregations, and
this was particularly true at the time when Chris-
tianity was established in Fiji (i.e., around the
middle of the nineteenth century), but the social
divisions recognized are Fijian, and the idiom in
which they are expressed is also rooted in Fijian
culture. This is a culture in which, for a person to
sit out of place in a social gathering, is to blur social
distinctions that are essential to the system. It is
one that gives a literal interpretation to our idiom
“know your place.”
1 pulpit
2 elders of the chiefly clan
3 elders of the other clans
4 choir
5 young girls
6 young boys
7 senior women
8 men and older boys
9 women and older girls
Fig. 3; Seating arrangement in church
2. Where Are You Coming From?
Another context in which the Fijian concern for
place emerges is in the small talk of everyday life.
In English speaking communities, or at least those
with which I am familiar, when two people meet
for the first time in the day they frequently initiate
conversation by asking one another how they are.
In cases in which they have interacted relatively
recently this tends to be a conventional question
with conventional responses. Fijians do not initiate
conversation in the same way. The most commonly
used Fijian greeting, bula (“life,” “health”) might
be taken as a statement of the wish that vitality be
conferred on the person towards whom the greet-
ing is directed, but there is nothing precisely
equivalent to our conventional inquiries about
health and well being. In similar situations Fijians
tend to initiate interaction by asking a person
where he or she is going or where he or she has
been. Like our “How are you?” this is frequently
Anthropos 83.1988
A Sense of Place
427
simply a conventional opening gambit. In the early
stages of my fieldwork I would respond to such
questions with inappropriately detailed accounts
of my comings and goings. But even though this
kind of questioning is sometimes simply conven-
tional, all that talk about comings and goings, ori-
gins and destinations, also reflects a culturally pat-
terned interest in place as a setting for social
interaction.
Now, of course, questions like “Where are
you going?” require points of reference. Just as a
Fijian house is conceptually divided into upper and
lower halves, so is Nairukuruku, the village in
which I resided. Thus, within the confines of the
village, one acceptable response to the question
“Where are you going?” is simply “To the upper
(or lower) end.”
This division into upper and lower halves of
the village is not directly correlated with the model
of interior space discussed earlier. For the most
part the houses of the men of the chiefly clan,
including the house of the paramount chief, are
located in the lower end of the village, not, as the
previous discussion of the high/low distinction
might lead one to expect, in the upper end. The
village of Nairukuruku lies on the banks of the
Wainimala river, and the designations “upper”
and “lower” refer to the direction of the river’s
flow. There is no correspondence between the
upstream/downstream distinction and the concep-
tual division within the interior of a house. That is,
houses are not oriented with respect to the river’s
flow, and the “upper” end of a house may be
upstream, downstream, or perpendicular to the
river’s current.
This is not to say that the upstream/down-
stream distinction is without hierarchic implica-
tions. A parallel can be found, I believe, in the
land/sea dichotomy so important in Polynesia. In
Polynesia the distinction between land and sea pro-
vides major reference points for spatial orienta-
tion, and it is often related to ideas about gender
(cf. Shore 1982: 49) and about the sacred and pro-
fane (cf. Firth 1963: 80). The distinction between
land and sea is also important in some areas of Fiji
where it involves notions of hierarchy - chiefly
groups identified with the sea ruling over common-
ers identified with the land. The same connotations
may lie below the surface of the inland distinction
between upstream and downstream.
In Matailobau, the word most commonly used
for “higher” or “upper,” colo, also means “hill” or
“mountain.” Rather like the American stereotype
of the mountain folk of Appalachia, in Fiji the
people of the interior of Viti Levu, kai colo (“hill
people”), are seen as rustics, less sophisticated
than groups living closer to the coast. In the
chiefdom in which I resided the chiefly clan traced
their immediate origins downstream while the clan
known as the “owners of the soil” (; taukei ni
qele), commoners par excellence, recognize ties to
groups even further upstream (kai colo dina, “true
hill people”). While the upstream/downstream
distinction does not have overtly hierarchical
connotations, I believe that something analogous
to the land/sea dichotomy of coastal groups lies
below the surface.
Along with the upstream/downstream distinc-
tion the Wainimala provides another set of ref-
erences for discussing location. The village of
Nairukuruku lies across the river and slightly
upstream from a large tract of alluvial soil bounded
by a great horseshoe curve in the course of the
river. The principal gardens of the village residents
lie there. Thus in addition to the upstream/
downstream distinction, a distinction is made
between the side on which the village stands and
the other side (taliva) where the gardens are
located. Implicit in this is the contrast between the
domestic sphere of the village and the uninhabited
yet cultivated (i.e., culturally transformed) sphere
of the gardens. Thus to say that one is going taliva
is tantamount to saying that he is going to his
veiwere (gardens).
In addition to the river, in the immediate
environs of the village there are numerous other
points of reference used in talking about spatial
location. Scattered over the village territory there
are various named places (vanua) that also serve
this function. These reference points include small
streams, trees, the sites of former villages, and
named blocks of garden land. So in answering the
question “Where are you coming from?” a person
might respond with one of these named places, but
then the response is more than just conventional.
It conveys real information because the questioner
has implicit knowledge about what the other
person might have been doing and with whom he
might have interacted.
Some of these named places are of special
significance, not only to the living residents of the
village, but also to the unseen world of spirits. For
example, in addition to the tracts of garden land
registered in their names, each of the five clans
(mataqali) considered native to the village is said
to own the creeks that drain their lands. Some of
these are fished more often than others, and while
no one wovild be denied access to them, members
of other clans must ask permission of the owners
before fishing or demonstrate in some other way
Anthropos 83.1988
428
James West Turner
(e.g., by giving a portion of the catch) a respect for
the owners’ rights.
In addition to their economic importance,
actually quite minor in comparison to the much
larger Wainimala, these creeks have another signif-
icance, for their environs are said to be the abode
of certain female spirits specific to the clan whose
creek it is. The female spirits of the chiefly mataqali
Siko have given their name to the creek they live
along, Wainiyalewa (“the stream of the women”)
or simply Nagoneyalewa (“the girls”). There is a
strong strain of dualism in this, for the female
spirits always travel in pairs. One is said to be
good, and one evil; one is said to be red-skinned,
the other dark. They are not named. One elder
claimed that the female spirits of his mataqali
resembled two of his daughters, and the spirits of
another clan were also said to resemble two sisters,
women of that group. Apparitions of these female
spirits, like all direct contacts with the spirit world,
are frightening experiences. In all of the instances
that were related to me, the female spirits had a
normal human appearance. Indeed, sometimes
they took on the appearance of specific women,
but during or after the encounter, something
would happen that indicated their true nature, of-
ten resulting in an emotional and physical shock to
the victim. Brewster (1922; 212-213) recounts such
an encounter that occurred in the last century.
While the places known to be frequented by
these spirits are not really avoided, they have to be
respected. One man told me that at one time he
had a garden quite near the creek frequented by
the female spirits of his mataqali, and for a long
time he was bothered by persistent bad luck.
Several children born to him and his wife died in
infancy, and finally he himself had an illness that
medical doctors could not diagnose but that left
him virtually bedridden. Finally, he consulted a
Fijian eurer who suggested a connection between
the patient’s misfortunes and the location of his
garden. The man stopped gardening there, pro-
vided the spirits with a feast (magiti), and his luck
changed.
At one point I asked an informant why it was
that these female spirits are associated with
streams, and he responded that the vu, the ances-
tral male deities, are localized on high ground
above the streams. This contrast between male and
female spirits and their upland and bottomland
haunts suggests New Guinean parallels (e.g.,
Rappaport 1968), but the informant gave it a very
Fijian interpretation. He said that the male vu is
like a turaga (chief), and therefore he stays e colo
(above). The female spirits are there to serve the
turaga, catching fish and drawing water, and their
place is e ra (below). Once again the hierarchic
idiom of high/low is associated with the distinctions
between male and female and between chiefs and
non-chiefs.
3. The Land Remains
Like other Fijian villages, the population of
Nairukuruku consists of people drawn from dif-
ferent descent groups with different ancestral dei-
ties, different totemic affiliations, and different tra-
ditions about their origins. They are tied togeth-
er by the bonds of cognatic kinship and affinity
and by the fact that they derive their subsistence
from the same body of garden lands. Thus they
are, at least in part, mutually dependent upon the
gods of that place for their prosperity. Or more
correctly, in each village in this area there is a
descent group that is considered native to the
village lands, and it is the ancestral spirits of these
“native owners” or i taukei to whom the commu-
nity turns for intercession in their quest for
prosperity. This is done through the annual first
fruits ceremony in which the new yam crop, the
preeminent fruit (vua) of the soil, is first offered to
the ancestral spirits of the autochthones and only
secondarily to the chief (Turner 1984). Descent
groups that live or have lived together like this are
spoken of as being vanua vata, “land or place
together.”
In the Fijian view, people who “stay together”
(tiko vata) share a bond that rivals kinship and
descent as an organizational principle. Their place,
where they live, defines, at least in part, who they
are - a resident of a particular village in a locality of
intermarrying villages and, within the village, a
member of a particular local group or mataqali.
The term mataqali simply means “species” or
“type,” and it can be used for any category of
similar things. A brand of cigarettes, for example,
can be referred to as a mataqali. When applied to
human social groups the term mataqali refers to
two kinds of groupings - patrilineally defined
descent groups and local groups based on coresi-
dence and coactivity. The relationship between
descent groups and local groups is the subject of
another paper (Turner 1986c). Here it is sufficient
to note that local groups are built around a core of
male agnates and take their names from the
patricians of these core members, but they will also
include a number of non-agnates - in-marrying
women, the families of sisters’ husbands and
sisters’ sons, and so on.
Anthropos 83.1988
A Sense of Place
429
The point I want to stress is that, in an
important sense, the “type” of person one is - that
is, the mataqali one is identified with - is a matter,
not only of descent, but also of coresidence and
cooperation, and these, of course, are a function of
place, where one lives. But descent groups, too,
are identified with places. Firstly, they are identi-
fied with origin places or yavutu. These may be
specific sites or general regions (e.g., the Kauvadra
mountains; Gifford 1952). The term yavutu is
derived from yavu, meaning “house platform.” All
houses are named, and those names remain at-
tached to the yavu long after the houses themselves
have disappeared. Yavu may be used interchange-
ably with yavutu; when a man says “My yavu is in
such and such a place,” he is speaking of the origin
place of his clan (mataqali). Descent groups are
identified with other places as well, villages in
which segments of the descent groups have been or
are established as residents, and blocks of garden
lands of which their members are the legally
registered owners.
The relatonship between a descent group and
a place can also become a part of that group’s
formal identity. Every localized clan segment has a
formal name that is used in the speeches that
accompany ceremonial exchange. For example, at
weddings and funerals guests arrive in groups and
formally present kava, whales’ teeth, mats, and so
on to the sponsors of the event. The person who
speaks on behalf of the donors acknowledges the
members of the various mataqali already represen-
ted by beginning his speech with the honorific
names of their clan segments. In some cases these
formal names incorporate the names of blocks of
garden land that were formerly associated with
now extinct branches of the descent group. As one
of my informants put it, descent groups can die
out, but the land remains, and these names
commemorate links to former groups, and through
them, to their territories.
As these formal descent group names and my
informant’s statement indicate, the most concrete
expression of the Fijian concern for place focuses
on land. Fijians refer to themselves as opposed to
the members of other ethnic groups residing in
Fiji, as the i taukei, a word that means both
“owners” and “natives” or “autochthones.” To-
day the descendants of Indian indentured laborers
constitute a slight majority of Fiji’s population but
despite their minority status Fijians own most of
the land in the islands, and their ownership rights
are constitutionally guaranteed.
Fijians view the land as the source of their
being - not only as the source of their substance
through the food they produce and consume, but
also as the most important ingredient of that
complex of symbols, concepts, values, and behav-
iors that define them and their way of life vis-a-vis
non-Fijians. This was brought home to me one day
through a discussion that took place at a funeral of
one of the village elders. The senior men were
gathered around the kava bowl conversing when a
chiefly man from a neighboring village posed a
question: which is more powerful (kaukauwa),
land or money?
To place the question in context it should be
noted that, while they produce much of what they
consume and consume most of what they produce,
Fijians do participate in the modern cash economy.
In the area in which I resided, the principal source
of cash was the production of surplus root crops,
mainly taro, for the urban market. But while
Fijians participate in, and are dependent on, the
market economy, they, as an ethnic group, do not
exert much power in it.
One by one those present offered their opin-
ion on the question posed by the interlocuter.
When it came my turn to respond, I was at a loss
for an answer. The question was characteristically
phrased in terms of absolutes, an “either/or”
choice, but to answer the question I felt that I
needed to relate it to some context. Was I being
asked to comment on the position of Fijians
vis-a-vis other segments of the nation’s multi-
ethnic population? Was I being asked whether that
position would be enhanced if there were more of
one (money) even if that meant less of the other
(land)? And what was meant by “more powerful”?
Were they talking about political clout?
Needless to say, no one else present had any
difficulty in answering. Most said that land was
more powerful. They argued that Fijians with
money but no land would be in a vulnerable
position whereas that would not be the case if the
situation were the reverse. Money can be lost or
spent, but the land remains. One man, a retired
school teacher, opted for money, arguing that
today’s economy is based on it, and power lies in
the hands of those who have it. His comments
provoked an effort on the part of the majority to
convince him of his error. One or two men said that
land and money are equally powerful, an answer
that satisfied no one but themselves.
It became clear to me in the course of the
discussion that the majority of those present were
not talking merely about the pragmatics of political
and economic power. They were also talking about
the relative value of symbols, about what they
considered to be contrasting ways of life, and
Anthropos 83.1988
430
James West Turner
about their identity as Fijians. In affirming the
value of land, they were not only assessing its
political and economic significance, they were also
affirming the value of a way of life and identifying
themselves, as Fijians, with it. It is no accident of
language that the Fijian term for customary be-
havior is vakavanua, “in the way of the land (or
place!)”
4. Conclusion
This discussion has touched on a variety of topics
that reveal the ways in which Fijians structure
space, orientate themselves in it, and identify with
the places that define it. The Fijian concern with
placement and place is not unique. Indeed it is
found to greater or lesser degrees in all cultures,
and ethnographic examples can certainly be found
that illustrate a far more elaborate use of the
symbolic potential of placement and in which the
significance of place is more highly systematized.
What makes these important topics for the under-
standing of Fijian culture is that they are central to
Fijians’ images of themselves. They see themselves
as being differentiated in terms of place, for
example. Different places mean different customs,
and persons from other areas of Fiji visiting or
residing in the village are frequently talked about
in terms of their places of origin. In the Fijian view
where one comes from says a lot about a person.
And as we have seen, placement is one of the
principal modes for symbolizing social distinc-
tions.
But while place and placement are respective-
ly a source and a statement of differentiation, Fiji-
ans also see the bond between themselves and their
native land as something that sets them as a peo-
ple apart from other ethnic groups in Fiji. They see
their islands as a land of plenty, a healthy place that
provides everything that the good life requires.
And they see themselves tied to that place in a
way that other groups can not be. It is the source of
their being, and leaving it is a serious matter. One
elderly informant emphasized this basic difference
between Fijians and other groups living in the
islands - Europeans, Indo-Fijians, and Chinese.
He did so in the context of a discussion of the
career of a well-known Fijian anthropologist,
Rusiate Nayacakalou. Educated at the University
of Auckland and the University of London, Nay-
cakalou became one of the new nation’s most
distinguished administrators serving as the man-
ager of the Native Land Trust Board, a body that
handles all land transactions on behalf of Fijian
landowners. Serving in that capacity he was a
figure of national prominence. In 1972, at the age
of 44, he died while on a trip abroad. My
informant, a man in his eighties, attributed this
untimely death to the fact that, over the years,
Nayacakalou had to spend long periods of time
away from Fiji. While Europeans like myself are
able to leave their native lands with impunity,
Fijians, he said, are different. They are a people of
a place.
This paper is based upon fieldwork supported by the
National Science Foundation and conducted from No-
vember 1979 through March 1981. I want to thank the
people of Nairukuruku village for their hospitality and
tolerance during our stay.
References Cited
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Anthropos 83.1988; 433-452
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
Burkhard Schnepel
Abstract. - The ceremonies which lead from the death of a
Shilluk king or reth to the complete occupation of the royal
office by his successor usually take place in the months from
October to February. The most important elements and
proceedings of the ceremonies are described and systematized
in Section 2. Sections 3 and 4 discuss questions concerning the
interregnum - to the Shilluk a period of great spiritual and
political danger, which they call “the year of fear.” In some
final remarks the symbolic use of effigies in Shilluk royal
ceremonies is compared with the use of effigies in late
medieval/early modern royal ceremonies. [Shilluk, Sudan,
Royal ceremonies of death and installation]
Burkhard Schnepel, D. Phil. (Oxford 1987), M. A. (Berlin
1982); Theses: Das Charisma des Königs. Zum politischen Kult
der Shilluk (M. A.); Five Approaches to the Theory of Divine
Kingship and the Kingship of the Shilluk of the Southern Sudan
(D. Phil.);-Fieldwork in the Southern Sudan, 1980 and 1982;-
Publications include; Recent Research in the Sudan (Journal of
the Anthropological Society of Oxford 1983); - Max Weber’s
Theory of Charisma and Its Applicability to Anthropological
Research (JASO 1987); - In Quest of Life. Hocart’s Scheme of
Evolution from Ritual Organization to Government (Archives
Européennes de Sociologie 1988).
1. Introduction
The kingship of the Shilluk of the Southern Sudan
has achieved some fame in anthropological
thought, since Seligman’s first report (1911) and
Frazer’s inspired interpretation of it in “The
Golden Bough” (1911-1915), as the paradigm of
the institution of “divine kingship.” One aspect of
Shilluk kingship which often attracted the atten-
tion of anthropologists concerns the ceremonies
with which a deceased king is deposed and his
successor installed. However, although there are
several eye-witness accounts,1 1 to date there has
been no attempt to systematize the material and
analyse the ceremonies as such.2 My paper at-
tempts to fill this gap. In the following section I
construct and systematize from the sum total of the
eye-witnesses’ historical accounts a prototypical
course of events. Analytical considerations and
interpretative efforts are, as far as possible, con-
fined to the final two sections where I retrace what
the time of the interregnum represents to the
Shilluk and discuss the nature of the association
between Nyikang and the new king which is
established during the ceremonies.3
Before describing the ceremonies in detail, an
outline of their overall pattern and timing has to be
given. The four major stages which lead from the
death of a Shilluk king or reth to the complete
occupation of the office by his successor are:
1 Munro 1918, Howell and Thomson 1946, Thomson 1948,
Howell 1952a, 19526, 1953. - I also make use of the film of
the present king’s installation, which was produced in 1975
by André Singer for Granada TV’s “Disappearing Worlds”
series. Moreover, I am indebted to Dr. Singer for allowing
me to use unpublished notes, taken during the making of the
film, which I refer to here as Singer 1975. Additional
information is taken from the account of the ceremonies
given by an unnamed Shilluk pupil in Sudan Notes and
Records and referred to as Anonymous 1956. In various
places I refer to the main authorities on Shilluk ethnography
such as Seligman 1911, Westermann 1912, and Hofmayr
1925, although none of these personally witnessed any
Shilluk royal ceremonies of death and installation.
2 Most of the eye-witness accounts are predominantly de-
scriptive, or else the authors’ analytical considerations are
restricted to the historical precedents described by them.
Howell and Thomson, who between them witnessed several
ceremonies, compare in their later reports various details of
the observed ceremonies; however, they do not attempt to
put their comparisons on a more abstract analytical level.
Evans-Pritchard (1948) and Lienhardt (1954) offer interpre-
tations of aspects of the ceremonies, but their analyses are
subordinate to their primary concerns with Shilluk social
and political organization and Shilluk mythology and
religion. Huntington and Metcalf (1979) compare the ritual
beliefs and practices in question with similar ones in late
medieval/early modern Europe. Like Arens, who under-
takes a similar comparison (1984), they make use of the
excellent studies by the historians Kantorowicz (1957) and
Giesey (1960).
3 Nyikang is the culture hero and first king of the Shilluk.
According to Shilluk mythology Nyikang never died but
disappeared in a whirlwind at a feast in the village of
Akurwa. During the installation, as will be shown below,
the king-to-be is possessed by Nyikang and thus becomes his
human incarnation. Dak, Nyikang’s son and successor, also
plays an important role during the ceremonies.
434
Burkhard Schnepel
1) the sealing-up of the corpse of the deceased
king in a specially prepared hut near the royal
capital Fashoda;
2) the election of the new reth;
3) the second burial of and the funeral dance for
the deceased reth, called wowo\
4) the installation ceremonies proper, called
rony.
The chronology can be reconstructed from the
reports available to us (cf. table below).
The sealing-up of the body of the deceased is
supposed to last, as Shilluk put it, “until worms are
seen to come out of the hut’s roof” (cf. Hofmayr
1925: 179; Seligman 1911: 223, n. 1), a statement
which indicates that the bones should be set free
from the flesh. If, as the chronology suggests,
October or November is considered to be the most
appropriate time for the second burial or wowo,
the actual length of the sealing-up period depends
very much on the date of death. As far as the
installation is concerned, Shilluk say that it should
not take place before the crops are ripe and
harvested (cf. Munro 1918: 542; Thomson 1948:
152; Howell 1952a: 158), which, in a normal year,
would be sometime in November/December. Ac-
cording to the chronology the Shilluk’s favourite
time for the installation ceremonies or rony is
January /February, which suggests that, in the
Shilluk’s statement above, the stress is on “not . . .
before” or that the manifold preparations rather
than the ceremonies proper are meant. According
to the intrinsic logic of the ceremonies these
preparations cannot take place before the wowo
has been completed. These are so many that it may
well take up to two months to complete them.
Climatically the months of December, January,
and February are the “cool” months in Shilluk
country; the “cool” months are followed by a
period of “heat and unrest” (cf. Hofmayr 1925:
257-258), which lasts until the rainy season proper
starts in May. Some sporadic rains may occur in
April. One main factor for the preference for
January/February (rather than March or April) as
the installation months is most probably that the
Shilluk want to have their new king in office well
before the start of the new rains, a supposition
which is supported by the fact that one of the first
important ritual tasks of a new reth after his
induction is to conduct rites for rain (cf. Howell
and Thomson 1946: 73). Another factor influenc-
ing the timing of the rony is that, according to the
Shilluk view, the installation should ideally take
place during a waxing moon (see Hofmayr
1925: 149; Thomson 1948: 154). The reason for
this is given in a statement reported by Seligman
(1911: 232) according to which “Nyakang and Dag
only come during that half of the month when the
moon is bright.” Naturally, the timing of the
ceremonies is greatly influenced by economic and
ecological necessities. The labour intensive agri-
cultural process among the Shilluk, who are largely
dependent on crop production, supplemented by
milk and fish, begins whith the preparation of the
ground and the sowing in April/May. Until No-
vember/December everyone is engaged in agricul-
tural tasks. Since movement on a north-south axis
is essential in the ceremonies, one has to wait until
the watercourses and the ground have dried out,
which usually is the case in December. Shilluk
royal ceremonies of death and installation, then,
take place in the dry season only, more specifically
in the period from October to February. The main
events, the wowo and the rony, are placed at the
beginning and at the height of the dry season
respectively.
2. The Course of Events
For matters of clarity and convenience I present
the most important elements and proceedings of
the ceremonies in fourteen units which, it must be
stressed, are not envisaged as such by the Shilluk
themselves. In my later analysis I repeatedly refer
to these units in order to facilitate the reader’s
recollection of the many details involved.
Reth Rony Death Wowo
Fadiet Kwathker 1903 22. 2. 1917 7
Fafiti Yor 17. 1. 1918 21. 9. 1943 7.-9. 11. 1943
Anei Kur 11.-15. 3. 1944 10. 11. 1945 Nov. 1946
Dak Fadiet 1.-4. 1. 1947 8. 5. 1951 Nov. 1951
Kur Fafiti 6.-9. 2. 1952 June 1974 7
Ajang Anei Jan./Feb. 1975 still reigning
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
435
Fig. 1: Shilluk Country
Unit 1: The corpse
The body of the deceased reth lies on a mattress on
its right side, shrouded in white cloth. (White cloth
is used throughout the ceremonies to enwrap sacred
objects or to screen them from the public gaze.)
The corpse is fanned by daughters and sisters of the
deceased with fans made from the wings of the
saddle-bill stork; wives of the late reth are not
present. There is no public mourning or wailing in
Fashoda or elsewhere in Shilluk country. (On this
unit see Westermann 1912: 125; Howell and
Thomson 1946: 18; Thomson 1948: 151; Howell
1952a: 158).
Unit 2: The sealing-up of the corpse
A night or two after the death of the king, his
corpse is secretly carried to a village near Fashoda,
where it is sealed up by bang reth in a specially
prepared hut.4 (See Westermann 1912: 136;
Pumphrey 1941: 15; Howell and Thomson 1948:
18; Thomson 1948: 151; Howell 1952a: 158).
4 Bang reth are personal retainers of kings who have cut links
with the clans of their birth and established new exogamous
descent groups.
Unit 3: The election of the successor
Several days after the late reth's sealing-up, the
most important Shilluk chiefs assemble and choose
a new king. The chosen prince is summoned to
Fashoda, where he is shaved and washed. A fire is
kindled in the traditional way by friction produced
through the continuous twirling of sticks in the
hole of a wooden club, a method called pic mac,5
(See Hofmayr 1925: 148; Howell and Thomson
1946: 27-37; 80-81, Appendix 1; Thomson 1948:
152-154; Howell 1953: 190-191.)
Unit 4: The transference of the late reth’s remains
The late reth's “sacred things,” jomkwer, and his
remains are brought to the location of his second
burial and enshrinement. This transference is
secretly undertaken at night by members of the
ororoclan.6 The deceased reth's remains are taken
from the hut in which his corpse has been sealed up
and put into a bag made of the hide of a calf
especially sacrificed for this occasion. Only a small
party actually travels with the remains, but there is
an advance guard which is entitled to seize gifts
from those who cross their path. During the
transference sheep are sacrificed at each water
course that is to be crossed. Before entering the
village of enshrinement the party steps over an ox
which is then sacrificed. This kind of sacrifice,
called akadh (from akadho, to cross over), takes
place at many stages of the ceremonies. (See
Thomson 1948: 152; Howell 1952a; 159-160.)
5 The symbolism of extinguishing and rekindling fire indicates
a rite of renewal and of initiation into a new phase of life, an
interpretation which is supported by the fact that the three
occasions on which the pic mac takes place coincide with
what could be regarded, following Van Gennep (1960), as
the end of the phases of separation, transition, and
incorporation of the new reth's rite of passage (after his
election, shortly before his induction, after his induction).
In my opinion, the pic mads also a rite of purification. The
notion that fire purges and cleanses is widespread in all parts
of the world. Among the Shilluk there is an important
temporal link between the pic mac and another obvious rite
of purification: whenever the fires are rekindled, and only
then, the refh-elect is also ritually bathed.
6 Ororo are Shilluk whose patrilineal descent groups formerly
belonged to the royal clan but who have lost their
entitlement to provide a king. The ororo’s ritual functions
during the interregnum are significant.
Anthropos 83.1988
436
Burkhard Schnepel
Unit 5: The funeral ceremonies or wowo
The second burial of a king and his enshrinement
take place in the village of his birth or in the private
village which he adopted as a young man. A grave
is dug by ororo within one of the huts of the
village’s “big house” formerly occupied by the
deceased, and the late reth is buried lying on his
right side. Upon leaving the hut the ororo chant
songs of Nyikang, and those who are standing
outside join in. This is the start of the public dances
at the shrine which last two or three days. The
arrangements for the wowo are in the hands of the
royal clan. Numerous cattle, collected by the late
reth’s family and by other Shilluk chiefs, are
sacrificed at the shrine throughout the wowo. The
number of cattle thus slaughtered (which may well
be over three hundred) reflects the deceased king’s
prestige. The eldest son of the late reth and the
chief of Fadiang (traditionally the head of the royal
clan or kwareth) act as the main hosts and
distribute the meat of the sacrificed animals among
the dancers. The most important ritual role is
performed by members of the Nyikir clan (“chil-
dren of the river”), who are responsible for beating
the drums and organizing the dancers.
The dances are warlike in manner, reassuring
the nation of its unity and military strength with
songs which relate to military victories of the past.
The dancers, holding shields and sticks, appear in
approximately the same units which they would
form if their section or settlement assembled for
war. They first march around the village in an
anti-clockwise direction, from time to time kneel-
ing down and banging their shields. The warriors
then dance around the drums which are located in
the centre of the village just opposite the shrine.
Every now and again they approach the shrine and
peep into its huts, as if they were looking for the
late reth. Later in the dance all the spectators, who
have come from nearby villages, join in the dance.
Occasionally panics occur; the participants shriek
and temporarily flee the village. It is said that
Nyikang has appeared, and the general mood is
characterized by a mixture of fear and hilarity.
(See Westermann 1912: 136; Howell and Thomson
1946: 20-27; 76-77, ns. 5 and 6; Thomson
1948: 152; Howell 1952a: 160-163).
Unit 6: Preparations for the installation ceremonies
Preparations for the rony start soon after the wowo
has been completed; they reach their peak at the
end of the year. Two sub-sections of Shilluk
society, Akwobai of Debalo in the southern half of
Shilluk country and Abuoro of Muomo in the
north, set out on expeditions to the Shilluk’s
traditional “raiding country” to the north of their
homeland. In former times the Shilluk used to raid
this country for cloth, ivory, and silver. Nowadays
these items are purchased at Kosti market with
money supplied by the ref/j-elect. In addition to
these expeditions the Abuoro party collects ostrich
feathers in the area around Kaka, while the
Akwobai party sets out to fetch bamboo from
Fungor in the Eastern Nuba mountains. These two
items are used for the rebuilding of the figures of
Nyikang and Dak, which are kept and guarded in
the shrine of Akurwa by the clan of Nyikwom. The
name of this clan, “the children of the sacred
stool,” points to the fact that the shrine also
contains the stool, kwom, which plays a vital role
during the induction in Fashoda (see unit 11).
Another preliminary act vital to the installa-
tion takes place when Dak (his figure) is carried by
men of the Kwa Nyikwom in a canoe to an island
north of Shilluk country proper. Dak and his
henchmen are accompanied by men of Moro,
whose task it is to dive in the Nile for Nyikang.
While drums are being beaten and Dak is watching
the river, Nyikang reveals himself (probably in the
form of ambatch wood) after some begging. He is
wrapped in white cloth and carried to Akurwa.7
Dak and men of the Kwa Nyikwom also travel
south to collect fibre of a palm tree which grows
near Fanyikang. The fibre is used to make the
whips carried by Nyikang’s warriors during their
march to Fashoda (see unit 7). The people of
Fanyikang (where another important shrine of
Nyikang is situated) hunt antelopes, royal animals
living on an island sanctuary nearby. The hunt is in
itself an affair which requires some organization
and which is accompanied by dancing. Out of the
skins of the antelopes the robes of honour (carried
during the ceremonies by the king-elect and other
dignitaries) are prepared. In Golbainy there takes
place the ceremonial kindling of the fire, in which
blacksmiths of the Kwa Nyikwom forge the fifty or
so sacred spears used for sacrifices during the
ceremonies. Furthermore, the huts in Fashoda are
cleaned and repaired. (See Seligman 1911: 225;
Howell and Thomson 1946: 37-40; 76, 77, n. 8,
82-83; Thomson 1948: 155; Howell 1953; 194.)
7 According to other accounts the diving for Nyikang and the
fetching of ambatch (abomi Nyikang) for the figure take
place in Lake No in the south of Shilluk country (see
Anonymous 1956: 99; Riad 1959: 189-190).
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
437
Unit 7: Nyikang and Dak, and their march to
Fashoda
At the death of a reth the old figure of Nyikang is
destroyed, so that a new figure has to be built
before the installation. The cylindrical figure of
Nyikang consists of ambatch wood. It measures
approximately between 21 inches in diameter at
the top and eight inches at the bottom, with a
length of about five and a half feet. The figure is
wrapped in blue cloth. At its head it is covered with
a plume of black ostrich feathers, at the neck there
is a piece of cloth that is tied like a cravat. The
figure of Dak is cylindrical in shape as well, but it is
much smaller than that of Nyikang. It measures
about five inches in diameter and is of half the
length of Nyikang’s body. However, as Dak’s body
is attached to an approximately eight feet long
bamboo pole, Dak’s figure is altogether the taller
of the two. At the top it is also decorated with
ostrich feathers, but these are not as profuse as
they are in Nyikang’s case.8 As representations of
Nyikang and Dak the figures are treated with great
respect. During the reign of a reth they normally
are kept in the shrine at Akurwa. They may
occasionally be brought out for ritual festivities in
Akurwa, but their main function arises during the
interregnum. (See Howell and Thomson 1946:
opp. 41, Fig. 3; 81, Appendix 2; Thomson 1948:
159, n. 1.)
The departure of Nyikang and Dak is charac-
terized by Nyikang’s conventional reluctance to
start. This reluctance, as well as the several delays
that occur during the journey of a week or so, are
watched with some apprehension by the refh-elect
back in Fashoda. All hesitations by the figures to
start off are, naturally, caused by their bearers
from the Kwa Nyikwom, who may thereby express
discontent with the choice of a reth or underline
their demands for rewards from the future king for
their services. However, the Shilluk also think of
these hesitations as being caused by Nyikang. It is
said that if he disapproves of his successor, he
8 The description of the figures given by another eye-witness,
Rev. D. McClure (in Howell and Thomson 1946: 58), varies
from the one given here. Comparing the different descrip-
tions with the photos of the figures I saw in Shilluk country
(which are in the possession of the present king) and with
the photos published in Howell and Thomson (1946:
opp. 40, Figures 1, 2), I regard my description, which only
slightly differs from the one given by Howell and Thomson
(1946: 81), as an accurate one. My sketches of the figures
are based on those published by Howell and Thomson
(1946: opp. 41, Fig. 3), although I had to change the
proportions of Nyikang.
21 inches
I----------------—I
Fig. 2; The Figure of Nyikang (based on Howell and Thom-
son 1946: opp. 41, Fig. 3)
becomes too heavy to lift. On their approximately
80-mile journey Dak proceeds in front while
Nyikang follows. Dak’s figure gives a rather
excited impression, whereas Nyikang is often
carried in an almost horizontal position and gives a
generally calmer impression. These characteriza-
tions follow the way in which Dak and Nyikang are
depicted in Shilluk mythology: Dak is the rather
wild, bellicose, and sometimes inconsiderate son,
whereas Nyikang, though a warrior himself, has
more “statesman-like” qualities. The procession
first marches to Moro on the northern border of
Shilluk country. It then turns around and marches
southwards towards Fashoda. The journey re-
traces the movements of Nyikang during his con-
quest of the country as recounted in Shilluk my-
thology; the procession stops where Nyikang
stopped.
The group actually responsible for carrying
Nyikang and Dak is accompanied by a number of
people who carry “Nyikang’s things,” jom Nyi-
kang, such as drums, cooking pots, spears and
shields, and a forged pole which is used as
Nyikang’s “bed.” Moreover, the group is made up
of a number of warriors of the Kwa Nyikwom who
Anthropos 83.1988
438 Burkhard Schnepel
5 inches
---------\
Fig. 3: The Figure of Dak (based on Howell and Thomson
1946: opp. 41, Fig. 3)
use their whips freely against anyone crossing
Nyikang’s path. Again, one finds the right of a
royal escort, this time of the Kwa Nyikwom, to
demand small gifts from anyone coming too close
to royalty or standing in its way (see also unit 4).
On their journey south the marchers often stop in a
village to rest in the midday heat or to stay
overnight, in which cases they have to be given
food and shelter. While Nyikang stays in a spe-
cially prepared hut in the village, Dak often gets out
to dance and bless those who pay small rewards.
With Nyikang’s and Dak’s arrival in a village, the
prowess and spiritual strength of the villagers rises.
People feel inclined to boast and they issue
challenges to other villages with which relations
are strained. These expressions of anger do not
lead to armed action; they are ritually limited to
verbal challenges, and people carry millet stalks
instead of spears.
When travelling on, Nyikang and Dak are
accompanied by the members of each settlement
up to the territorial boundaries of the settlement;
there they are awaited by the members of the next
settlement. At the end of their journey Nyikang
and Dak enter the village of the chief of Golbainy,
who is also chief of the northern Gol Dhiang half of
Shilluk country. Initially their entrance into the
village is ceremonially resisted, but they are finally
allowed to enter, whereupon they present the chief
with a sacred spear of Nyikang. Finally, Nyikang
and Dak reach the village of Adodo Nyigir, which
they enter by stepping over a black sheep and
where they rest until the installation ceremonies
proper start three or four days later. (See Seligman
1911: 223; Howell and Thomson 1946: 41-45;
Thomson 1948: 154; Howell 1952b: 103; 1953: 192,
195.)
Unit 8: The rei/i-elect’s flight to Debalo Kwom
At Nyikang’s arrival in Adodo Nyigir the reih-elect
secretly and by night goes from Fashoda (where he
had been staying since his election) to Debalo, a
village a few miles south of Fashoda. Debalo
belongs to the southern Gol Nyikang half of
Shilluk country and is headed by its chief. Shilluk
say that the reib-elect “flees” from Fashoda, and,
indeed, it is striking how hastily he retreats from
Nyikang. When the refb-elect arrives in Debalo,
the villagers ritually resist his entrance three times;
finally, he steps over a black sheep and is allowed
into the village where he spends the next few days.
Fires that were extinguished the night before the
arrival are rekindled in the traditional pic mac way.
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
439
16. 17.
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V.. , ✓ 6. CLP 18. .CN
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8.
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11
'O'
Op
Gol Nyikang (temple)
Nile
O6'
Atunvic T
ö
Adul
11. Acogers
12. Nyateng Leb
13. Othwol
14. Diir
15. Gol Pi
16. Agan
17. Gol Nyikang
18. house of medical assistant
1. Duwad
2. Obo
3. Akac
4. Dipi Gol
5. Tut Arac
6. Urian Wen
7. Gol Pac
8. and 9. houses of policemen
10. house for visiting chiefs
Fig. 4: Fashoda
During his stay the reth-elect exonerates self-
confessed adulterers and seducers of unmarried
girls in return for gifts of sheep and goats. The chief
of Gol Nyikang goes to Fashoda in order to build
the temporary grass hut, known as adul, next to the
sacred mound Aturwic.9 Back in Debalo the
king-elect is ritually humiliated by the chief; he has
to stay in a decrepit hut, even though a majestic
one - especially built for his occasion - stands
empty nearby; there is a small herd of cattle which
the king-elect has to tend to. Generally, “he is
treated roughly, like a small boy” (Anonymous
1956: 99; see Westermann 1912; xliv; Munro
1918: 542; Hofmayr 1925; 147; Howell and Thom-
son 1946: 45-48; Thomson 1948: 155; Howell
1953: 192, 195).
Unit 9: The marches of the armies of Nyikang and the
king-elect
The simultaneous marches of the opposing armies
towards each other emphasize strikingly the cere-
monial division of Shilluk country into the moieties
of Gol Dhiang (north) and Gol Nyikang (south).
9 The main buildings of Fashoda are: a) the “house of
Nyikang." Gol Nyikang, which consists of two circular mud
huts with a conical grassroof, on top of which there are the
shells of an ostrich egg and a spear blade; b) the temporary
camp, adul. described below in the text; c) the sacred
mound, Aturwic, with its four huts on top. During my stay in
Fashoda the distribution of huts was different from the way
in which Howell and Thomson (1946: opp. 66, Fig. 6) and
Munro (1918: 543) depict it: the location of the temporary
camp, I was informed by Shilluk, is next to the Aturwic and
not next to the Gol Nyikang. The film made by Singer seems
to confirm my information. On my sketch map of Fashoda I
also include houses which during my visit did not exist. The
Shilluk are well aware of the question of which houses ought
to be rebuilt and where they ought to be located. Nowadays,
the most important huts have a wooden sign at the entrance
with their name on it. The slightly different sketch map of
Fashoda in Streck (1982: 260) is based on my reports.
Fig. 5: Area of Installation (after Howell 1953: opp. 200)
a) The march of the reth-elect’s army
On the morning of the march chiefs and warriors of
the south assemble in Debalo. Their traditional
task is to accompany and guard the reth-e lect on
Anthropos 83.1988
440
Burkhard Schnepel
his way to Fashoda, no matter whether he is a
southerner himself or not. The king-elect eagerly
awaits the arrival of two special groups of envoys.
One consists of members of the Kwa Okelo, who
traditionally provide “the girl of the ceremonies,”
nyakwer, and who receive bridewealth in return.
The other group consists of members of the Kwa
Ojul, whose task it is to provide a brown heifer for
the march and to lead it backwards to Fashoda.
Both groups show a conventional reluctance to set
off and they arrive late, only after having been
urged upon by messengers of the king-elect. At
their arrival the refh-elect leaves his hut and steps
over a white sheep. More delays, caused by
arguments over various details of the procession to
Fashoda, occur, but finally the army of the
king-elect sets off. The procession consists of the
Kwa Okelo, who with the nyakwer in their midst
march at the top left; the Kwa Ojul, struggling with
the naturally reluctant heifer, at the top right; the
refh-elect, who is surrounded by private body-
guards and ororo; and, finally, the main bunch of
warriors, some of them carrying sacred objects,
such as shields, spears, and beads. In front of this
army there is a messenger, twot, who moves
quickly between it and Nyikang’s opposing army
and thus assists in the co-ordination of the proceed-
ings and with last-minute bargainings over the
cattle to be handed over by the refh-elect to
Nyikang’s men. When the refh-elect’s army arrives
at the Khor Arepejur (the “river of the gathering
of the people” which marks the traditional boun-
dary between the moieties), the warriors spread
out in several lines parallel to the river. Meanwhile
spears are exchanged for millet stalks. The chief of
Gol Dhiang, who has arrived at the northern bank
of the river, crosses it and hands over a black ox to
the king-elect’s army. While the army of Nyikang
can be seen marching down to the river from the
north, the refh-elect, holding the hands of the “girl
of the ceremonies,” steps over first a sheep, then
the black ox, and finally crosses the river. (See
Munro 1918: 546; Howell and Thomson 1946:
48-54; 77-78, ns. 7-12; Thomson 1948: 156; Ho-
well 1953: 196; Anonymous 1956: 100.)
b) The march of Nyikang’s army
On the morning of the events described above the
warriors of Nyikang muster in Adodo Nyigir. The
small black ox (which is later handed over to the
king-elect at the watercourse) is carefully prepared
for its procession to the river. It is led to the river
by about fifteen men, one of them being the chief
of Golbainy. The events in Nyikang’s resting place
are less hectic and more solemn than the simulta-
neous ones in Debalo. While the sacred drums of
Nyikang are continuously beaten, several sheep
and goats are sacrificed in honour of Nyikang.
The attitude of those assembled in the village is
one of great respect towards Nyikang. People sit in
front of Nyikang’s house in the traditional Shilluk
position of respect with their legs beneath them
and the palms of their hands touching the ground
in front of them. They pray to Nyikang, chant
songs to honour him, and ask favours of him.
Finally, Nyikang and Dak leave the hut, and the
procession starts. Dak and Nyikang lead, two
drummers walk at their side closely followed by
men carrying six baskets containing the “things of
Nyikang” such as shoes, clothes, beads, and food.
The rest of the army lines up behind. The men
march three times around the village, and a sheep
is sacrificed, its blood being sprinkled in front of
the proceeding party. The procession moves only
slowly forward, as much time is spent in singing
and dancing. Nyikang, every now and again, turns
around and moves back, thereby indicating his
reluctance to accept his (unworthy?) successor. At
a distance of about half a mile from the river the
army stops; messages are sent to and fro between
the two armies in which the refh-elect is once again
ritually abused, but this time he has to show
strength and he replies that not even Nyikang can
prevent him from entering Fashoda. Finally, the
messengers of the refh-elect bring cattle-tethering
ropes as tokens for more cattle to be handed over
by the king after the ceremonies. Nyikang’s army
then marches on, and it awaits the king-elect’s
army on the high-ground just north of the river and
west of Fashoda. (See Munro 1918: 545; Howell
and Thomson 1946: 54—60; 78, ns. 13 and 14.)
Unit 10: The battle and the capture of the king-elect
by Nyikang
The refh-elect’s army advances quickly, while
Nyikang’s army remains on the high-ground.
When they face each other, the warriors of both
armies exhibit increasingly warlike attitudes. The
refh-elect’s warriors make threatening gestures
with their millet stalks, whereupon the Kwa Nyi-
kwom break off from the high-ground, threaten-
ing to use their whips. Finally, the warriors attack
each other while shouting wildly; millet stalks fly
through the air. The king-elect’s warriors withdraw
from the ruthless brandishing of whips by warriors
of Nyikang. It is said that the whips carried by the
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
441
Kwa Nyikwom are “filled with the spirit and the
people are frightened by them, as being touched by
the whip is enough to produce madness” (Anony-
mous 1956: 100). The outcome of the battle is
ritually predetermined; it is designed to show the
defeat of the king-elect’s army and to reveal the
strength of Nyikang and his warriors. During the
battle Nyikang’s personal henchmen of the Kwa
Nyikwom advance towards the king-elect; they
touch him with the sacred rope ongero which is
said to represent Anango, another son of Nyi-
kang’s. In this way the king-elect is captured by
Nyikang. During the battle the king-elect has been
deserted by all his followers. For the first time
since his election he is not protected by any of his
personal retainers; no-one, except members of the
Kwa Nyikwom, may come close to him at this stage
of the ceremonies. It is said that “he has no father
and no brother at this moment” (Singer 1975).
The refh-elect is surrounded by Kwa Nyi-
kwom; he stands behind the figure of Nyikang,
holding it with both hands, his head covered by the
figure’s feathers and draperies. Nyikang and his
captive then march towards Fashoda; after enter-
ing the village, they and the “girl of the ceremo-
nies” circle the heifer (the one that was brought
backwards into the royal capital by the Kwa Ojul)
three times. The animal is wrapped in white cloth
and blindfolded. After the circumambulations the
party turns towards the Gol Nyikang and the heifer
is speared, its wrappings being taken as relics by
spectators. (See Munro 1918: 545; Howell and
Thomson 1946: 60-61; 78, ns. 15 and 16; Thomson
1948: 156; Howell 1953: 197).
Unit 11: The possession of the king-elect by Nyikang
The sacred four-legged stool, kwom, is brought out
of Nyikang’s house and placed on ox-hides just in
front of the Gol Nyikang; it is screened from the
public gaze by a canopy of white cloth. Dak,
Nyikang, the refh-elect, the “girl of the ceremo-
nies,” and some members of the Kwa Nyikwom
enter the screened area. The figure of Nyikang is
put upon the sacred stool. The reih-elect kneels
down and holds two legs of the stool with the girl at
his side. On the other side of the stool there kneels
the chief of the Kwa Nyikwom who also holds two
legs in his hands. After some chanting the figure is
lifted and its place is taken over by the reih-elect.
When the reih-elect sits down upon the stool, he
starts to tremble and is possessed by Nyikang. For
several minutes the king keeps sitting on the stool
while a drum is beaten behind his head and water is
poured over his face; he is still screened from the
public by the canopy of white cloth. Nyikang and
Dak are brought into their house just behind the
screen and the king re-appears in public; he seems
to be in a dazed state. The chief of the Kwa
Nyikwom holds his right hand, the girl his left. The
reth walks to the open space in the centre of the
semi-circle of the huts of Fashoda, where normally
cattle are tethered. There he consecrates for
sacrifice another ox, which again is covered in
white cloth and decorated with a leopard skin on its
back. (See Seligman 1911: 224; Munro 1918:
545-546; Howell and Thomson 1946: 61-63; 77,
n. 17; Anonymous 1956: 100).
Unit 12: The seclusion of the reth
The reth retires into the temporary camp, adul,
which was built by the chief of Gol Nyikang during
the king-elect’s stay in Debalo (see unit 8). The
camp consists of two grass huts which resemble
those built by Shilluk as shelters in their dry season
cattle-camps. Shortly after the reth’s entrance into
the camp the ox with the leopard skin is speared in
front of the adul; its wrappings are torn apart and
taken by spectators. The crowd now rapidly
disperses. In the evening of the same day the fires
of Fashoda, which had been extinguished the night
before, are rekindled in the traditional pic mac way
by ororo and members of the royal clan. During
the following three days there are no public
ceremonies in which the king participates. One of
the main events outside the king’s camp is the
ritual purification by Kwa Nyikwom of those who
crossed Nyikang’s path during his march south.
During the days of the reth's seclusion he is
accompanied by the “girl of the ceremonies” and
attended and guarded by ororo and by some
personal retainers. This period is described as “the
refh’s temporary camp outside Fashoda,” a phrase
which suggests that the reth is not yet fully installed
and accepted into the royal capital; there is still felt
to be some danger to his life. Soon after his
entrance into the adul the king is shaved and
bathed in alternating hot and cold water. He is
adorned with silver bracelets, ivory armbands, and
antelope skins. Sacred beads, called ocoro, are tied
on to the reth's ankle.10 The beads were brought to
Fashoda from their resting place in the temple of
10 The green and red beads, which are about half an inch long,
are said to have been part of the bridewealth that Nyikang
received at the marriage of his daughter Adwai to a
Nuba.
Anthropos 83.1988
442
Burkhard Schnepel
Nyikang in Lul. In Fashoda they are kept in one of
the huts of the sacred mound Aturwic. On the
night before the installation there is said to be a
vigil over the ocoro beads held by an old female
bang reth. She watches the beads to see whether a
hole pops up over night in one or more of the
beads, which is considered to be a good omen.
During the second night of his stay in the grass
hut the reth is said to be enticed away from the
camp and from the “girl of the ceremonies” by a
woman of the ororo-clan. He is enticed upon the
Aturwic, where he retires into one of the four huts.
Later Nyikang, i.e., his figure, steals out of his
house at night and carries off the “girl of the
ceremonies” from the camp into his house. Sexual
intercourse between the reth and one of his
half-sisters is also said to take place. Among the
Shilluk this is an act of incest called akwalo, which,
forbidden to commoners, has become a royal
privilege or obligation.11 During the days of
seclusion the king is once again ritually humiliated;
he has to do the work of a little boy and tend to the
herd of cattle brought from Debalo. This kind of
action, according to the Shilluk pupil (Anonymous
1956: 100), is undertaken “to obtain good fortune
in the future during his kingship.” (See Oyler 1918:
110-111; Hofmayr 1925: 60; Howell and Thomson
1946: 63-66; Thomson 1948: 156-157; Howell
1952b: 104; 1953: 197-198, n. 19.)
Unit 13: The fight over the “girl of the ceremonies”
The events of the fourth day in Fashoda, which are
public events again, revolve around “the girl of the
ceremonies.” The reth notices the absence of the
nyakwer and summons the chief of the Kwa Okelo
who provided the girl. When the chief asserts
ignorance of the girl’s hiding-place, the reth
reminds him that the girl was married with cattle
and he demands the girl be brought back. The chief
of the Kwa Okelo leaves but returns shortly
afterwards to announce that Nyikang has taken the
girl. The chief is then sent by the king to Nyikang
and he has to request the girl’s return from
Nyikang’s mediator, the chief of the Kwa Nyi-
kwom. Nyikang anwers: “Whose cattle are these?
Are they the rettfs or mine?” upon which the chief
of the Kwa Okelo returns to the reth on the mound
and reports Nyikang’s refusal to hand the girl back.
11 According to Shilluk mythology the precedent for such
incestuous proceedings was set by Dak. When the infuriated
Nyikang discovered the act, he decreed that all subsequent
Shilluk kings ought to follow Dak’s example.
Once again the chief is made to see Nyikang, this
time accompanied by the chief of the Gol Nyikang
moiety of Shilluk country. Nyikang and Dak are
infuriated by the king’s persistent requests con-
cerning the “girl of the ceremonies” and they sum-
mon their henchmen. The chiefs return to the king
who, hearing of Nyikang’s fury, also prepares for
battle.
Nyikang’s followers begin to dance outside his
house. Nyikang and Dak appear outside, accom-
panied by Cal, another son of Nyikang and
half-brother of Dak, who is represented by a
twined rope with grey ostrich feathers attached to
it. The dancers muster round their mythical kings
and march three times around the house of
Nyikang. The men of the Kwa Nyikwom fetch the
whips which they used so fervently during the
mock battle at the river. Nyikang’s army advances
towards the mound Aturwic. Meanwhile the war-
riors of the reth, armed with millet stalks, gather at
the other end of Fashoda at the bottom of the
mound. When Nyikang’s army advances, the reth
descends from the mound and joins his men. This
time the armies are not as large as during the mock
battle at the river; they consist mainly of chiefs and
ritual dignitaries. When they stand about one
hundred yards apart, the parties threaten each
other with bellicose gestures. An ox is brought and
cast upon the ground between the opposing ar-
mies. ^ The reth, who opens the battle by throwing
a millet stalk at Dak’s feet, steps over the ox and,
accompanied by several of his warriors, seizes the
nyakwer from Nyikang. The king and the girl
hastily return to the mound while the battle is
continuing. After some furious counter-attacks
Nyikang, Dak, and Cal manage to reach the
bottom of the mound Aturwic, whereupon they
climb up and enter its huts. When they descend
after a period of negotiations with the reth, all
arguments between the king and Nyikang are
settled and the girl remains with the king. Nyikang
and his followers then walk around Fashoda to
inspect the houses of the capital; they impose fines
upon those clans who have not properly repaired
the hut allocated to them. The general mood is
lighthearted. Nyikang and his sons retire into the
Gol Nyikang and they play no further role during
the ceremonies. (See Howell and Thomson 1946:
66-70; 73-74, 78-79, Ns. 19-21; Thomson
1948: 157; 159, n. 3; Howell 1953; 198-199; An-
onymous 1956; 101.)
12 It is said that in former times the place of the animal was
taken by an old man of the Kwa Dhiang.
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443
Unit 14: The day of the speeches
On the morning of the fifth day of the proceedings
in Fashoda the chiefs from all sections of Shilluk
society assemble there. They squat down in the
Shilluk manner to indicate respect, in front of and
facing the mound. Nyikang’s shield (to which little
bells are attached), his spear, and the sacred stool,
all wrapped in white cloth, are brought down from
the Aturwic and placed at the bottom of the
mound. The reth leaves the huts of the mound and,
before he descends, steps over a sheep tethered to
the hut’s entrance. He is then led down by the chief
of the Kwa Nyikang and is accompanied by the
nyakwer. While he descends he holds a spear in
each hand with the shafts pointing downwards. A
fan made of the wings of the saddle-bill stork is
held over him to protect him from the sun.
Arriving at the bottom the king is lifted by two
ororo upon the sacred stool; he now faces the
chiefs. Between himself and the chiefs are the
bearer of Nyikang’s shield and a drummer of the
Kwa Wung with Nyikang’s kettle drums; behind
the king stands a small group of his personal
retainers. The last act of the ceremonies is called
kel tong piny, literally “the thrusting of the spear
into the ground.” It consists of a series of speeches
made by twenty or more Shilluk chiefs, each
speech lasting between two and five minutes.
Before he starts to deliver his speech, each speaker
thrusts a spear into the ground in front of the king.
The first to speak are the chiefs of the ritual
moieties Gol Nyikang and Gol Dhiang; the last to
speak are the chiefs of the important border
settlements Muomo and Tonga. The end of each
speech is “applauded,” more or less enthusiastical-
ly, by Nyikang’s drums and by the rattling of his
shield. The speeches contain homages to and
recognitions of the new reth’s status as Nyikang’s
legitimate successor; they contain references to the
newly acquired state of peace, order, and normal-
ity in Shilluk country; there are also exhortations
reminding the new king of his duty to reign justly in
the spirit of Nyikang and to take care of the
well-being of his people. After the last chief’s
speech the group of assembled chiefs starts to sing
songs of Nyikang and other kings. The king is given
two silver bracelets as emblems of the royal office.
He then rises from the stool and addresses the
chiefs; he thanks them for their advice and
promises to be a just king and to keep order and
peace; he also admonishes the chiefs to assist him
in his duties and to recognize the authority
bestowed upon him by Nyikang. After the speech
the king walks towards an ox tethered on his right
side and consecrates the animal for sacrifice by
rubbing the shaft of a spear on the animal’s back.
The reth then retires into one of the Aturwic’s huts
and the ox is speared by ororo. Later during the
same day the king is shown around Fashoda and
introduced to each of the capital’s huts. He is now
fully installed. (See Howell and Thomson 1946:
70-72; Thomson 1948; 157-158; Howell 1953:
199-200; Anonymous 1956: 101.)
3. The Interregnum - Crisis and Catharsis
When a Shilluk king dies, the people say: “piny
bugon,” “there is no land” (cf. Howell and
Thomson 1946: 18). This expression indicates a
feeling that, at the death of a reth, the very basis of
existence is shattered or lost. The interregnum
undoubtedly is a time of crisis, or, as our main
authorities put it, a time of intense spiritual and
political danger (cf. 1946: 14). The kingless time is
called by the Shilluk wang yomo, the meaning of
which is explained by the chief of Debalo as
follows;
... it is the period when we fear each other. I fear you and you
fear me. If we meet away from the village, we can kill each other
and no-one will prevent us. So the meaning of wang yomo is
that we are all afraid and keep to our own homes, because there
is no king. But when the king is elected, people become strong
again and no-one is afraid and people know there is a king
again. It lasts three to five days (Singer 1975).
What is of main interest to me in this statement
here is that the wang yomo is said to last three to
five days. One of the main points of my subsequent
discussion seems to contradict this statement; it is
that the kingless time lasts from the death of a king
until the elected prince is fully installed. This
means that the wang yomo, which literally trans-
lated means “the year of fear” (cf. Heasty 1937:
101,108), lasts four to thirteen months (taking into
account the historical precedents of the twentieth
century) rather than three to five days. If one
continues to follow the interview with the Debalo
chief, my point is supported:
Question: Was this true at the death of the last king?
Answer: Nothing happened. People have become educated.
The period is three to five days, but in the past it could have
been as long as a year and there would have been more trouble.
We say during this period that the king has gone on a visit (to an
unknown place). When he is on a visit, there is a chief acting on
his behalf.
Q. Which chief acts on his behalf?
A. Big chiefs; like the chief of Kwa Reth and the chief of
Debalo.
Q. So the chiefs rule the land during that time?
A. Yes (see Singer 1975).
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444
Burkhard Schnepel
One point that emerges here is that in recent
decades there seems to have been a change in the
Shilluk’s attitude during the kingless time. In
former times the “year of fear” lasted “as long as a
year.” The intervention of foreign powers brought
with it a change towards a more peaceful attitude
during the interregnum and towards a more
powerful status of the king-elect. However, the
final part of the chiefs statement also makes it
clear that an elected king is king only nominally,
while factually he has not been invested with the
full functions and powers of the office until his
installation is completed.
At the political level of questions concerned
with the interregnum it is obvious that the inter-
regnum represents a period of political instability
and uncertainty. The death of the king in a society
with structurally opposed politico-territorial sec-
tions and with only a rudimentary administrative
framework leaves behind a disturbing vacuum at
the core of the political structure. It is unlikely that
one section of Shilluk society would attempt to
split off from the rest, but the sense of unity and
the awareness of common values is certainly
diminished. Power struggles between the various
sections which want to fill the office with a prince
of their choice are likely to be intensified, and
there is the acute danger, as Shilluk history
abundantly illustrates, of inter-sectional feuds and
even civil war. Such dangers are minimized by the
fact that all princes, the leaders of potential armed
struggles, are customarily obliged to stay at home
during the interregnum (cf. Howell and Thomson
1946: 33), an obligation which is often transgress-
ed.
The political dangers of the kingless time are
enhanced by the fact that among the Shilluk
succession to the royal office is not regulated by
rules distinct enough to guarantee a swift and
unanimous choice of the new king. At the death of
a king there are always a number of eligible princes
whose legitimate claims to the throne are necessar-
ily disappointed. Why have the Shilluk not devel-
oped more specific rules, such as primogeniture,
that would unambiguously point to one successor
and would thereby minimize the possibility of
fighting between rival princes and their sections?
One possible answer points to the Shilluk’s own
conception of their kingship as an open and
competitive office: the main thing for the Shilluk
is, not to find just any king and to find him fast, but
to find the right king. This suggestion is supported
by the fact that the Shilluk have not designed faster
ritual installation procedures. The Shilluk’s strict
adherence to a rather lengthy series of intercon-
nected ceremonies suggests that the main reason
for the relatively long duration of the interregnum
is not that it is difficult to find an agreeable king,
but that it takes some time and ritual labour to
identify one prince as the right pretender and to
make him into a king. The actual election is
undoubtedly one of the most important steps of a
prince towards the status of king. However, it is
only one part of a chain of rites, one step in a series
of steps. One could say that the person who is
elected is not elected king, but is given the first and
best chance to go through the ritual procedures
that make someone into the right king.
These points have to be elaborated. During
the installation ceremonies the ref/i-elect is dra-
matically shown that he is not reth until he has
completed the last step of the ceremonies. Until
their completion the refh-elect’s life is felt to be in
danger, and most accounts describe him as a rather
nervous figure who feels himself personally threat-
ened and who wants to complete the ceremonies
as quickly as possible (cf., for example, Thomson
1948: 154). The king-elect’s stay in Debalo Kwom
(unit 8) is considered to be a time of particular
danger. The present king Ajang Anei, for in-
stance, felt so insecure in Debalo that he asked
the Sudanese Government for special protection
through armed non-Shilluk policemen, a request
which was not well thought of by most of the
Shilluk chiefs. The personal danger to a reth-
elect’s life lasts up to the moment when he is
crossing the river Arepejur; his march to the river
seems to offer the last occasion for a rival claimant
to kill the king-elect (see unit 9, part a). The
Shilluk pupil of Rumbek writes about this
march:
Princes are not allowed to go near the Reth during the
procession, because if the Reth is killed by any of them during
the coronation procession from Debalo to Fashoda the corona-
tion is not postponed, but the people at once seize a nearby
Prince, or the prince who killed him, to replace the slain Nyireth
- he is not yet Reth, as he has not been possessed by the spirit of
Nyikango - and the coronation continues (Anonymous
1956: 100; see also Hofmayr 1925: 39).
One Shilluk chief said about this march that “even
if the king is only punched and blood appears, we
say he is piny awong (dead) and look for a new
king” (Singer 1975).
After the sacrifice at the river and after the
king-elect’s crossing of the river the main danger to
his life is over: for fierce as the subsequent battle
may be, it is made absolutely clear by the weapons
used (millet stalks and whips) and by the ritually
predetermined outcome that the armies’ clash is a
mock and not a real one (see unit 10). After the
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445
reth-elect’s capture by Nyikang, finally, the inse-
curities as to whether he represents the right choice
are largely removed too. It is at this stage of the
ceremonies that people say: rony arum, “the
installation is assured” (cf. Howell and Thomson
1946: 61).
Many of the situations the king-elect finds
himself in can be regarded as ordeals which prove
his worthiness or unworthiness as king. Hofmayr
reports a single combat at night in which the
king-elect has to show his courage, as well as his
strength and skill (cf. 1925: 146). The reih-elect, to
give other examples, is refused entry into Debalo
(see unit 8), or he is met with scorn by Nyikang
before the battle at the river (see unit 9). The
outcome of these and other conflict situations, to
be sure, is ritually predetermined. Nevertheless,
they have to be regarded as ordeals for the
king-elect in which he has to show his courage and
will-power, qualities which the Shilluk describe
with the term teko, in order to overcome adversar-
ies. A speaker in the kel tong piny ceremony (see
unit 14) of the present king’s installation said: “He
who has come to this village can’t be cautioned;
this village, you do it with your will-power” (cf.
Singer 1975).
There are a number of indices which show,
without the king’s own participation, whether or
not his selection has been a good one. Does the pic
mac fire ignite fast? Do any holes appear in the
ocoro beads? In which direction do sacrificial
animals stumble and finally fall? Is Nyikang too
heavy to lift? Although there is no known instance
in which the negative outcome of such omens
actually prevented a king’s installation from being
completed, the significance given to them by the
Shilluk says something about the king-elect’s
incomplete, humble, and insecure status during
the ceremonies, a status which is also expressed by
the ritual humiliations he experiences at various
stages of the ceremonies (see units 8 and 12).
The most important index of a king-elect’s
worthiness is whether he gains the consent of the
Shilluk nation as a whole. As one speaker during
Ajang Anei’s “day of the speeches” put it: “You
did not come here alone; people chose you!” (cf.
Singer 1975). Shilluk royal ceremonies of death
and installation are marked by a widespread “rit-
ual division of labour” which ultimately involves
every single section of Shilluk society in the
making of the king. The reluctance displayed by
many ritual actors during the ceremonies - the
Kwa Nyikwom’s dawdling on its way to Fashoda,
the villagers of Debalo’s refusal to let the king-
elect enter, the Kwa Ojul’s delay in providing the
heifer, are only some examples (see units 7, 8, and
9) - has been described in the preceding section as
“conventional” or “ritual”13. However, this reluc-
tance also expresses some real political discontent
with, or even objection to, the choice of a king. In
most cases such genuinely felt objections or discon-
tent will not lead to the actual refusal of a group to
perform the rite it owns, and the mere expression
of discontent is probably considered to be a strong
enough political statement. But the message is
clear: a reih-elect can only become reth if every
section performs its rite and ulitmately if all
sections perform their rites in the prescribed order
and thereby let the refh-elect proceed step by step
towards refhship. My stress is on “all,” because the
indispensability which each step has in Shilluk eyes
illustrates a point which is also expressed in the
actual election of a king: the choice of the reth is
not, at least in terms of Shilluk ideology, a majority
decision, but a quality decision; it is the choice of
the right successor.
We can now see more clearly how the Shilluk
make a king. Each section of Shilluk society, at
various stages of the ceremonies and in different
ways, has a traditionally bestowed and prescribed
say in the choice of a king. Each clan, it is said, was
made responsible for its task by Nyikang, and
nobody may perform this rite in its owner’s stead.
In the case of Ajang Anei’s installation, to give
only one example, it happened that no one of the
particular clan that was supposed to sacrifice an ox
at the king-elect’s arrival in Debalo was present
and that Ajang had to send a Land Rover to fetch a
legitimate sacrificer. With the actual performance
of a rite the section which owns it expresses
acceptance, no matter how reluctantly, of the new
reth. Moreover, it enters into a mutually binding
relationship with the new king. The chief of Gol
Nyikang, asked about the fact that the people of
the southern half always fight for the king, even if
he is a northerner himself and they do not agree
with the choice, said: “It’s only custom; because
the people from the south have to give a person
(the nyakwer), so we have a relation with him”
(see Singer 1975). The relationships newly estab-
lished between the reth and sections of society are
often expressed materially, though they are essen-
tially relationships of reciprocal rights and duties in
which the refh-elect assumes the role of reth.
During Anei Kur’s installation the chief of Tonga
expresses this point in his speech: “Our job is to
13 For examples of arguments, delays, bargainings, and
reluctance see Howell and Thomson 1946: 52; 77-78, ns. 7
and 12; Howell 1952a: 159.
Anthropos 83.1988
446
Burkhard Schnepel
provide you with choice morsels of hippo meat.
Your job is to keep order” (cf. Howell and
Thomson 1946; 71).
I want to illustrate these points more closely
by discussing the case of the nyakwer ot “girl of the
ceremonies” in greater length. One clan, and only
one clan, the Kwa Okelo, has the right and duty to
provide the girl. The ritual task of this clan,
according to Shilluk oral tradition, was established
by Nyikang who fined the clan to pay a girl because
of some crime committed by them (cf. Hofmayr
1910: 333). By delaying providing the girl on the
morning of the reth-elect’s march to Fashoda (see
unit 9, part a), the Kwa Okelo underlines its share
of ritual power in making the king; the clan also
expresses that theirs is a service originally owed to
Nyikang and not automatically to any of his
successors. Once the nyakwer has been handed
over and cattle have gone in the other direction,
the Kwa Okelo has performed its main ritual task
and expressed its acknowledgement of the reth-
elect as refh-to-be. It has equipped the king-elect
with an important ritual element, the nyakwer,
without whom he would not be able to proceed any
further on his way to Fashoda. The Kwa Okelo has
also entered into a mutually binding relationship
with the king, that of wife-giver and wife-taker,
which, as the battle about the nyakwer (see
unit 13) shows, is indissoluble. When the king
hears of the disappearance of the girl, the first
person he wants to see is the chief of his wife-giving
clan. By pretending not to know about the nya-
kwef s whereabouts the chief of the Kwa Okelo
shirks his responsibility towards the king as wife-
giver, and only after the king has reminded him of
the cattle received does the chief set about finding
the girl. Again, the chief seems to evade the full
consequences of the ritually established contract
between wife-giver and wife-taker, when he re-
ports to the king that Nyikang has seized the girl.
But the king, at this stage of the ceremonies, has
proceeded far enough to face Nyikang, and he
sends the chief to Nyikang, not once but twice, in
order to make him retrieve the girl.
Having provided the king-elect with the girl
and thereby having contributed in an essential way
to his final legitimization as king, the Kwa Okelo is
clearly accountable to the new king, even though
his adversary is Nyikang, the person to whom the
girl is originally owed. The rights to the girl have
passed from Nyikang to the reth. During the
ceremonies, then, the king is not just dressed up
with beads, skins, cloth, and ivory and silver
bracelets; he is not just equipped with royal
insignia, such as spears, drums, cattle, and the girl.
The new king’s clothes consist essentially of an
ensemble of statuses which he acquires during the
ceremonies (and which can only be acquired there)
and which carry the roles, and the rights and
duties, that define a king.
The ceremonies in question express quite
clearly that the office is thought to be distinct from
and to outlast its temporary tenants. Evans-
Pritchard emphasizes this point in his Frazer
Lecture of 1948 when he writes with regard to the
mock battle and to the refh-elect’s capture by
Nyikang that “the kingship captures the king”
(1948: 27) and, in his conclusions, that “it is the
kingship and not the king who is divine”
(1948: 36). The reality and perpetuity of the
refhship as a corporation sole is probably best
objectified in the figure of Nyikang, but a look at
the royal herd is also revealing. At the death of a
king the royal herd must be handed over to his
successor, who has to make sure that none of the
cattle stay in the hands of the late refh’s family.
The royal cattle belong to the office and not to the
office-holder who is only entrusted with the herd as
long as his reign lasts. When the refh-elect, on two
occasions during the ceremonies (see units 8 and
12), is ritually obliged to tend the herd, his duty to
serve (rather than to rule) in the interests of the
office and to care for its possessions is fixed upon
him. In the context of Nilotic culture cattle are also
the best materialization of a corporation, sole or
aggregate, as a perpetual entity, for, among the
Nilotic tribes of the Southern Sudan, cattle serve as
the chief means of acquiring wives and thereby
producing children, who continue the line.
Shilluk royal ceremonies of death and instal-
lation, then, perpetuate the office by properly
emptying it at the death of a reth and by refilling it
with a legitimate and proper successor. The reth-
ship is a sacred possession of the Shilluk nation and
no one can seize it on his own behalf; it has to be
bestowed upon a prince by the responsible agents
of society and ultimately by the nation as a whole.
During the ceremonies the refh-ship is entrusted to
a chosen prince in a series of interconnected ritual
acts through which those sections of Shilluk society
who own these rites impress upon the tenant his
accountability to society for the proper exercise of
the office’s functions, and through which they
themselves come to terms with their own respon-
sibility towards the new king.
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Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
4. Nyikang and the Reth
At the spiritual level of matters concerning the
interregnum the multifaceted crisis brought about
by the death of a king and by the vacation of the
royal office can only be understood if one takes the
reth's association with Nyikang into account.
Howell makes the point by describing the ceremo-
nies as “a chain of events designed to achieve the
successful transference of the spirit of Nyikang
from the old reth to the new” (1952a: 157).
With the death of a reth Nyikang’s main
manifestation or emblem disappears. One could
say that the danger of the time without a king, as
felt by the Shilluk, is not so much that there is no
king, but that Nyikang is not “graspable.” There is
a Shilluk saying which states that the Shilluk only
believe in what they see (cf. Hofmayr 1925: 377);
Lienhardt applies this saying to the Shilluk king-
ship by writing that “in their human king they are
also able to see what they believe” (1954: 163).
However, though it is certainly one of the reth’s
main functions to make Nyikang visible and
palpable, and this has to be regarded as his basic
function, it is misleading to overemphasize a view
which sees the reth as a symbol who functions
merely by existing. Nyikang manifests himself in
various forms or emblems (cf. Hofmayr 1911: 124;
1925: 49-51; Seligman 1911: 230), and the body of
the king is only one of them. But the reth is also
Nyikang’s main human emblem who not only
“stands for” but also “acts for,” and, one might
say, “is” Nyikang. It is important to see the
two-sided interdependence between Nyikang and
the reth. On the one side, the reth is only reth
thanks to the grace of Nyikang; on the other side,
Nyikang can only become active when embodied
by a king. Hence, to have an emblem which is
human and alive not only enables the Shilluk to see
and grasp what they believe in, but also enables
them to make what they believe in work for their
good.
What is ultimately shattered by the death of a
king, it should be obvious by now, can only be
understood if one looks at that which Nyikang
stands for. In order to pursue this question I have
to make a digression from my main concern with
the interregnum and the ceremonies, and outline
the various strands or configurations of ideas and
values that in Shilluk thought are associated with
Nyikang.14
14 The subsequent discussion of Nyikang’s place in Shilluk
thought is based on the data to be found in Seligman (1911),
447
One strand of ideas associated with Nyikang
represents him as a political leader, as a conqueror
and warrior. According to Shilluk oral tradition
Nyikang led his followers from their original
homeland “far to the south beside a great lake”
(where at the death of his father he failed to take
hold of the royal office) northwards to the Shilluk’s
present homeland. From the very beginning of the
migration until the completion of the occupation of
the Shilluk country, Nyikang demanded from his
followers unquestioned trust in his capacities and
strong loyalty to his divinely inspired leadership.
When departing from the “land of Ukwa,” a
hesitating man was told by him to stay behind. The
reluctance of his warriors to enter into yet another
war, after the occupation had been accomplished,
was answered by Nyikang with the abandoning of
his people in a whirlwind in Akurwa. During the
occupation of the Shilluk’s present territory, Nyi-
kang subdued and incorporated those he found
already inhabiting the country. Nyikang’s capacity
to turn “strangers” into citizens is expressed in
many Shilluk myths which report his capacity to
turn animals into human beings and subjects. At
that time Nyikang also reveals his qualities as a
military leader. The Shilluk remember from those
early days of their nation battles at Wau and
Demoth against the Funj and it is on account of
Nyikang’s deeds during these battles that he
achieved praisenames pointing to his great courage
and invincibility.
Another strand of ideas associated with Nyi-
kang represents him as being responsible for the
nation’s distinctiveness from other tribes with
values and styles of life similar to those held by the
Shilluk and as being responsible for the nation’s
own internal divisions as well as for its social and
political organization. Nyikang accounts for the
Shilluk’s separaton from the kingdom of his father
Ukwa. During the first phase of migration the
Shilluk are said to have been accompanied by the
Dinka under the leadership of Dengdit, by the
Anuak and their leader Gilo, and by the Luo under
Dimo. The Dinka and Anuak are said to have split
off first. The Shilluk and Luo settled down
together at the banks of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, just
south of the present Shilluk country. In this “land
of Dimo” Nyikang married Dirno’s daughter Nya-
Westermann (1912), Oyler (1918), Hofmayr (1910, 1911,
1925), Crazzolara (1932), Pumphrey (1941), and elsewhere.
My systematization of the material closely follows Lien-
hardt’s excellent analysis of Shilluk mythology and religion
(1954).
Anthropos 83.1988
448
Burkhard Schnepel
dimo, who bore him the quarrelsome Dak. It is
mainly on account of Dak that conflicts between
Nyikang and Dimo arose and that the two parties
finally had to move apart with Nyikang uttering the
curse that Shilluk and Luo should never meet
again. Shilluk mythology reports that Nyikang and
his followers thereafter crossed the Bahr-al-Gha-
zal at Lake No, near Tonga, from where the party
moved northwards along the Western banks of the
White Nile, until it reached the northern border of
what today is Shilluk country proper. Nyikang is
said to have then set the southern and northern
boundaries of the country and to have appointed
guards at Muomo and Tonga to watch the bound-
aries against enemies; he divided up the nation in-
to the ritual moieties of Gol Nyikang and Gol
Dhiang, which play so vital a role in the election of
a king and during the installation ceremonies (see
unit 10); he accounts for the ritual division of
labour displayed during the ceremonies by having
granted each ritual task to a specific clan; he
accounts for the totemistic associations of some
clans; he is said to have established the most
important Shilluk villages; finally, he accounts for
the subdivisions of the Shilluk nation into settle-
ments and districts, as he is said to have associated
territorial divisions with dominant lineages.
A third strand of ideas associated with Nyi-
kang helps the Shilluk to conceive of their
universe as an ordered and meaningful totality.
The Shilluk’s spatial ambient is characterized, as
Lienhardt (1954: 145) makes clear, by a tripartite
division of the universe into earth, sky, and river.
According to Shilluk myths Nyikang’s agnatic line
of descent leads to a man from the sky, the main
abode of God (juok). In Shilluk thought juok is the
ancestor of Nyikang, and Nyikang is the ancestor
of man. Nyikang, therefore, is the link between
human beings and supra-human forces, between
below and above, and between earth (piny) and
sky (mal). This mediator position is probably best
encapsulated in Nyikang’s title as “spirit of the
earth,” juok piny. By complementary filiation
Nyikang is linked to the river. His mother Nyikaya
is associated with all riverain phenomena and
beings, first and foremost with the crocodile, and
she is associated with fertility and child-birth. One
of Nyikang’s many titles is “son of the river,” wad
nam. This maternal link of the Shilluk’s mythical
king brings home why Shilluk search for Nyikang
in the river before his figure is rebuilt in Akurwa
(see unit 6); it may also suggest that Nyikang’s
reappearance from the river carries connotations
of rebirth and rejuvenation for the Shilluk. Lien-
hardt conveniently summarizes this third point
when he writes that “all three regions of the Shilluk
universe are nominally assimilated to Nyikang,
and he to them. It is the single person of Nyikang
which gives all three regions their coherence in a
single world” (1954: 149-150).
In another configuration of ideas Nyikang is
represented as someone who is able to affect
natural, especially celestial phenomena such as
wind, rain, and the sun. The following narrative
reports Nyikang’s and Dak’s fight with Garo, the
son of the sun:
In the heat of the fight and on account of the scorching sun all
the Shilluk fell down. Nyikang ordered water to be brought,
with which he sprinkled his fallen warriors, and they all came to
life again. Even the sun he sprinkled that it might not burn so
hot, and presently it ceased burning. Finally the Shilluk were
victorious . . . (Westermann 1912: 161, 168; see also Oyler
1918: 113-114; Hofmayr 1925: 16, 30).
One title given by the Shilluk to Nyikang is that of
“the Grosser of the river.” The following event is
said to have taken place at the banks of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal, before the entering of Shilluk
country proper:
When Nyikang came, he went to the Khor Atulfi with his
followers; he found the river was shut up by the sudd, so that
Nyikang did not find a passage. And a certain man who was an
albino, asked thus, “Nyikang, why do you stop? Is it because
you do not find a passage?” He replied, “Yes, I do not see a way
where to pass.” The man said, “When I have finished eating, I
shall come, I will be killed with a spear, my blood will flow into
the river, and the sudd will break away.” And Nyikang speared
the man, his blood flowed into the river, and the sudd broke
away. Thus Nyikang found a passage (Westermann 1912: 165;
see also Oyler 1918: 110; Hofmayr 1925: 18, 55).
Lienhardt shows how the crossing of the river and
the subduing of the sun can be interpreted when
seen in connection with the Shilluk’s experience of
their ecology:
. . . the sun, in Shilluk country, seems to be at its hottest at the
end of the dry season, just before the rains, and its heat is in a
sense overcome when the rains fall. Nyikang is believed to bring
the rain, and in that sense still revives his people by sprinkling
them with water. All this time, too, those who have been
herding cattle for the dry season on islands in the river or in
pastures on the east bank of the Nile, must return to their
homes on the west bank to cultivate, crossing the river in order
to do so. The subduing of the Sun, and the crossing of the river
by Nyikang and his followers, thus recur in different form in the
lives of the Shilluk (1954: 149).
It is better understandable now why the Shilluk
want the installation to be completed before the
new rains come.
A final strand of ideas to be discussed here
represents Nyikang as the originator of behaviour
considered to be sacred custom, kwong; moreover,
Nyikang and his son Dak are represented in
Shilluk mythology as the models of behaviour
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
449
qualities that are highly valued by the Shilluk. All
Shilluk customs as well as rites are said to have
derived from Nyikang. Asked about the meaning
and origin of specific rites during a king’s installa-
tion the Shilluk simply answer that “it is according
to the custom of Nyikang” (see Singer 1975; also
Hofmayr 1925: 376). As far as the model person-
hood displayed by Nyikang and Dak is concerned,
one has to emphasize that Nyikang, Dak, and the
Shilluk kings are remembered and reputed by the
Shilluk, not because they were just or in any other
sense virtuous; on the contrary, they are often
depicted as cruel and mischievious (cf. Lienhardt
1954: 158). What counts most for the Shilluk is that
they were successful, in the sense that their reigns
promoted the physical, material, and spiritual
well-being of their followers. The main qualities
displayed by Nyikang and Dak in Shilluk mytholo-
gy are those of being energetic, persevering, of
being determined to accomplish their feats, of
being cunning and clever, and of being knowl-
edgeable in a supra-human or divine way. These
qualities, besides those of being brave, reckless,
and bellicose, are best displayed by Nyikang and
Dak in their various mythical contests with Dimo
in “the land of Dimo.”
My brief enumeration of Shilluk ideas and
values associated with Nyikang has to end here,
and I return to my main concern with the interreg-
num and with Shilluk royal ceremonies of death
and installation. It should have become clearer by
now why the Shilluk, at the death of a reth, feel
themselves to enter a period of intense political
and spiritual danger, and why they say that “there
is no land,” piny bugon. The Shilluk’s social,
political, and moral order, originated and guaran-
teed by Nyikang, is felt to be in danger of breaking
down with the disappearance of Nyikang’s human
representative. The cosmological order threatens
to get out of balance, for the genealogy that leads
from a Shilluk king to Nyikang, and from there to
the sky and to the river, is interrupted. Natural
phenomena, such as wind, rain, or the sun, and
therewith the ordered rhythm of seasonal activi-
ties, threaten to get out of control. Finally, the
focus of politico-military strength and integrity has
become blurred. This “lost world” is not fully
regained until Nyikang reappears in the form of a
new king.
How do Shilluk royal ceremonies of death and
installation provide for the dissociation of the spirit
of Nyikang from the late reth and for its new
association with a royal successor? The Shilluk’s
first ritual response to the death of a king is to
immure the corpse in a specially prepared hut (see
unit 2). There is no public mourning or wailing,
and the ritual climax, as far as death is concerned,
only takes place some time later when the late
king’s bodily remains, fleshless bones by then, are
buried for a second time (see unit 5). This pattern
of double obsequies seems to confirm Hertz’s
observations of the parallelism made by peoples all
over the world between the state of the corpse and
the future of the soul or spirit (cf. Hertz 1960), a
parallelism according to which, if an application to
the Shilluk case is justified, Nyikang is dissolved
from the body of the late reth and set free for the
new one after the second burial. Indeed, it is only
during the late reth'1 s funeral dance that Shilluk
first publicly express the idea of a rather transient
reappearance of Nyikang when they flee from the
village in a mixture of anxiety and laughter. Asked
about where the spirit of Nyikang goes when a king
dies, the chief of Akurwa answered: “As soon as
the king dies, the spirit of Nyikang goes to his
mother Nyikaya in the river, and the people will
have to go to the river and bring him, and they will
have to beg him to accept” (cf. Singer 1975).
Nyikang’s first ritualized reappearance, during
which he can actually be grasped and utilized in the
form of ambatch wood, then takes place after the
funeral dance when he is found by the divers of
Moro (see unit 6).
The reih-elect, as I have pointed out repeated-
ly, is not reth until he is captured and finally
possessed by Nyikang. During most parts of the
ceremonies the king-elect’s relationship to Nyi-
kang is characterized by avoidance and antago-
nism; it is a relationship which is characterized by
the super-ordination of the scornful and arrogant
Nyikang over the king-elect, who is fearful and
humble, yet demonstrating will-power. The royal
dignity for most stages of the ceremonies is in the
figure of Nyikang and not in the reih-elect. This
tense relationship between Nyikang and the king-
to-be is best illustrated by the king-elect’s flight
from Fashoda to Debalo at Nyikang’s arrival in
Adodo (see unit 8).
The main movements of the two protagonists
during the ceremonies, starting from the reth-
elect’s stay in Debalo, can briefly be recalled as
follows. Nyikang and the refh-elect, at the heads of
their respective armies, march towards each other;
before the refh-elect crosses the river that divides
the two armies, they exchange notes of scorn and
contempt coming from Nyikang’s side and of
courage, will-power, and determination to go
ahead with the installation on the side of the
king-elect (see unit 9); Nyikang captures the king-
Anthropos 83.1988
450
Burkhard Schnepel
elect (see unit 10); Nyikang takes his captive to
Fashoda; in Fashoda the king kneels down on the
earth, holding the legs of the stool upon which
Nyikang sits; Nyikang is lifted off the stool and his
place is taken by the king; Nyikang takes posses-
sion of the king-elect (see unit 11). In more
analytical terms, the ritual process, which leads to
the close association in Shilluk thought between a
man and a semi-divine being, is marked by the
steps of the man’s avoiding, facing up to, submit-
ting to, and internalizing the divine power. From
the point of view of Nyikang it is marked by the
steps of chasing the opponent away, of being
contemptuous of him, of being victorious over
him, and, finally, of taking entire possession of his
personality.
The substitution of Nyikang by the reth on the
sacred stool symbolizes the reth’s legitimate acces-
sion to the throne as Nyikang’s substitute and
successor; it is at the end of a ritual process during
which Nyikang is seen gradually to hand over
authority, mar, to the reth. One Shilluk chief puts
the matter as follows:
It is Nyikang who has the custom and rules the people. And
before the spirit of Nyikang gets into the king, someone could
say: “I have nothing to do with you” to the king. But after
Nyikang has possessed him, you can be frightened because he
has mar. . . . Because he has become the person of Nyikang. He
has become a big man (cf. Singer 1975).
The fact that ceremonies are not completed
after the possession, but encompass yet another
confrontation between Nyikang and the reth, is,
at first sight, anachronistic, but significant. It ex-
presses the Shilluk’s view of Nyikang’s continu-
ing separateness from, and authority over, the reth.
The abduction of the “girl of the ceremonies” by
Nyikang (see unit 12) and the ensuing battle (see
unit 13) express Nyikang’s readiness to take up
arms against an unworthy successor. The king’s
negligence is symbolically expressed and empha-
sized by the opposition between the virginal “girl of
the ceremonies” on the one side and the enticing
woman of the ororo as well as the putative sexual
act with a half-sister, a particularly horrendous act,
on the other. The king, though finally victorious in
the battle, is shown that he only gets the girl back
as a trustee of the office to which she ultimately
belongs; if any of the royal possessions are neglect-
ed, Nyikang watches and claims his own back.
The ritual episode revolving around the “girl of the
ceremonies,” therefore, reveals a lot about the
character of the authority exerted by a Shilluk
reth. One could epitomize the point by saying that
Nyikang is Shilluk king per naturam while the reth
is king only per gratiam\ he is king only as
Nyikang’s continually accountable representative
- and his grace may well desert him if he neglects
his duties.
Another observation concerning the nature of
the rettis, authority can be made when the sym-
bolic use of the effigy of Nyikang is compared with
the use of effigies in mortuary ceremonies con-
ducted for late medieval/early modern European
rulers, not on account of the obvious structural and
cultural resemblances - a point which Huntington
and Metcalf (1979) and Arens (1984) stress - but
on account of the divergencies such a comparison
reveals behind the similarities. The displayed
symbolism in late medieval/early modern Europe-
an royal funerary and coronation ceremonies, and
I draw the following summary mainly from Kanto-
rowicz’s study (1957), can only be understood
when seen against the background of the Emper-
or’s and the kings’ struggles against Papal politico-
ritual sovereignty. One also has to take into
account that the “large interregnum,” i.e., the
time between the death of a king and the accession
of his successor, was virtually eliminated since
primogeniture became an established practice in
both England and France at the end of the
thirteenth century. The “little interregnum,” i.e.,
the time between accession and coronation, was
also abolished at about the same time when
anointment was no longer regarded as the essential
legitimating grace, but became a mere embellish-
ment to the Emperor’s or kings’ already estab-
lished authorities. The fact that these developments
all took place before the extensive ritual use of
effigies points to an important difference when it
comes to interpreting the symbolic meaning and
function of effigies. Certainly, in both contempo-
rary Shilluk and Renaissance European ceremo-
nies the use of effigies expresses the fictional
continuity of the royal dignity in spite of the death
of its individual bearers. However, in Renaissance
Europe, with its elimination of the “little” and
“large” interregna and its consequent routiniza-
tion of the question of succession, the use of
effigies expresses the perpetuity of the kingship as
an uninterrupted and gapless series of bodies
natural. Among the Shilluk the use of Nyikang’s
effigy puts greater value and emphasis on the
authority and continuity of the body mystical. It is
Nyikang who is represented by the effigy, not the
deceased king as in Renaissance Europe; the royal
dignity is represented by an effigy of the body
mystical up to the moment of its coming together
with a new body natural when Nyikang takes
possession of the king-elect. Thus, Shilluk ceremo-
nies of death and installation in general, and the
Anthropos 83.1988
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies of Death and Installation
451
use of effigies in particular, emphasize the charis-
matic elements of the validity of the reth's author-
ity, whereas in Renaissance Europe analogous
ceremonies and the apparently similar use of
effigies reflected and shaped the emancipation of
the secular rulers from the powerful hierocracy of
the Pope and the establishment of a dynastic type
of rule.
This paper is a rewritten version of one chapter of my
D. Phil, thesis about anthropological theories of divine
kingship and the kingship of the Shilluk of the Southern
Sudan (Schnepel 1987). I conducted five months of
fieldwork in Shilluk country in 1980 and 1982 of which
some time was spent in the royal capital Fashoda and at
the king’s residence in Malakal. As I did not witness any
of the ceremonies discussed here - the last ones took
place in 1975 - my discussion is the outcome of library
and archival research. I am indebted to Dr. P. P.
Howell, Dr. R. G. Lienhardt, Professor E. Gellner, Dr.
W. James, Dr. A. Duff-Cooper, Dr. R. Parkin, Dr. C.
Stewart, and Mr. J. Coote for their comments on earlier
drafts of this paper.
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Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 453-468
Nilotic Studies
Some Past Problems and Prospects
John W. Burton
Abstract. - Some sense of the emerging direction of anthropol-
ogy may be gained through a survey of a secondary sub-field,
and its changing concerns. A survey of sources on the
Nilotic-speaking peoples of Africa, c. 1860 to present, provides
a suitable case for such enquiry. [Africa, Nilotic-speaking
Peoples. History of Anthropology]
John W. Burton, Ph.D. (Stony Brook 1978), Associate
Professor of Anthropology, Connecticut College; research and
writings on the Nilotic peoples of the Southern Sudan.
... it was the researches of Professor and Mrs.
Seligman . . . which laid the foundations of what I
have called, I hope not too grandly, Nilotic
Studies. Evans-Pritchard 1950b: 2
While the late Sir E. E. Evans-Pritchard did in a
sense create or invent the field, or more exactly,
suggest a number or reasons for its singular
demarcation, Nilotic research has in fact grown
considerably since 1930, when Evans-Pritchard
first lived among the Nuer. This brief essay is an
attempt to review some of the older as well as more
recent enigmas within this field of enquiry with a
focus on three interrelated series of questions:
(1) the definition of Nilotic, (2) recent archaeo-
logical research concerned with ethnogenesis and
(3) problems engendered by issues relating to
history, ethnohistory, and the ethnographic pres-
ent in contemporary social and cultural anthropol-
ogy (see also Burton 1988). In a narrow sense these
comments might be conceived of as an addendum
to an address that Evans-Pritchard delivered more
than three decades ago under a similar title; at the
same time, it is hoped that this review may be of
some value to more than those who have made the
Nilotic world an area of their own special inter-
est.
The fact is that Nilotic ethnography has
become standard fare in contemporary social and
cultural anthropology, a circumstance that invites
a detailed examination of its own (cf. Arens 1983).
Even though classic studies, such as Evans-
Pritchard’s “The Nuer,” were dated at the time of
publication, essays on divine kings and leopard
skin chiefs continue to inform theories on topics as
diverse as Freudian interpretation and game theo-
ry. One can assert that many in contemporary
social and cultural anthropology struggle with
questions of interpretation, objectivity, and histor-
ical transformation; if the Nilotic world is held to
be a locus classicus of anthropological theory and
description as some would have it, then it would be
reasonable to suggest that a contemporary apprais-
al of Nilotic studies has broader relevance in con-
sidering future concerns of anthropological en-
quiry. An underlying concern of the following
comments is whether or not old questions are ever
answered, whether “progress” within the disci-
pline is simply historically contingent, a social fact,
or in the classic Durkheimian sense, an ideal that is
never realized.
The bibliography which follows this brief text
includes many more entries than are cited in the
review, and it is primarily intended to offer a useful
resource for future research (cf. Jacobs 1965).
Nilotic I
The Oxford English Dictionary definition
(1970: 151) of Nilot is rather imprecise; “a native
inhabitant of the banks of the Upper Nile.”
Relatively few speakers of Nilotic languages live
on the banks of the Upper Nile even though most
are immediately dependent upon its various re-
sources for traditional sources of subsistence. The
same source defines Nilotic in a way that seems to
have even less immediate value: “of or belonging
to, peculiar to or characteristic of, the Nile, the
Nile region or its inhabitants.” Surely few scholars
(if any) would employ the cover term Nilotic as a
meaningful way to Egyptian peasants, fishermen
of Omdurman or the residents of the southern
Sudanese capital of Juba. In an obvious sense then
the term Nilotic does not provide insight as a
454
John W. Burton
so-called “culture-area” concept nor a geographi-
cally discernable locale. For a considerable period
there lingered a multi-faceted debate involving
linguists, anthropologists, culture historians, and
others, about the classification of languages spo-
ken in northern and eastern Africa. One conse-
quence of this discussion has been the tendency to
use an entirely distinct terminology when referring
to languages once commonly termed Nilotic.
Indeed, questions entailed by a consideration of
linguistic classification engender broader questions
of African pre-history, and ultimately beg answers
from questions regarding ethnic genesis.
An early and influential contributor to this
debate was of course the late C. G. Seligman,1 who
wrote about certain African societies at a time
when the phrase ‘people of the Nile’ had become a
pedestrian concept. Given Evans-Pritchard’s ap-
praisal of Seligman’s founding role in this speciality
of African studies, something further might be said
of his previous experience. Briefly, Seligman had
gained his first degree of professional achievement
in the field of pathology, before he met and later
joined Haddon on the well known Torres Strait
expedition in 1898. In 1910, the same year in which
he was appointed as Lecturer in Ethnology at the
University of London, he published the tome “The
Melanesians of the British New Guinea,” soon
followed by a work of similar substance, “The
Veddas.” With the encouragement and support of
the Anglo-Egyptian government of the Sudan,
Charles and Brenda Seligman travelled up the Nile
in 1909. In Fortes’ (1968: 161) view, the initial
Sudan expedition was a pioneer undertaking in
every sense. “In this huge territory, still barely
pacified, living and travelling conditions were
arduous. Communication with informants, in Ara-
bic, was difficult; . . . Nevertheless, the Seligmans
opened up an area until then ethnologically un-
charted.” While the Seligmans’ river trip was
surely a novel undertaking, Fortes’ observation
invites at least minor emendation. The many
Europeans who had covered similar ground, and
who had in fact explored regions far beyond the
banks of the Nile and its tributaries, provided a fair
picture of the distribution of cultural groups within
this region (see, e.g., Santi and Hill 1980). One
would be quick to add that the few quasi-
ethnographic entries they offered were commonly
1 Though their views on social and cultural experience never
enjoyed great fashion, C. G. and B. Seligman did play a
major role in the institutionalization of the anthropology of
their time. Any future work on the history of anthropology
ought to devote greater attention to this fact.
misinformed (Evans-Pritchard 19715) but in any
case, this was not uncharted territory. Perhaps the
more important point is that after this initial visit,
Seligman’s main contributions to the embryonic
anthropology of his day had an African focus (see
Evans-Pritchard et al. 1934: 381-385 for a bibliog-
raphy of Seligman’s writings).
In 1930 Seligman published “Races of
Africa,” and in this volume he put forth views
which strongly influenced his interpretation of
African prehistory in the following “Pagan Tribes
of the Nilotic Sudan.”
For those who might not have a copy at hand,
“Races of Africa” consists of chapters titled
‘Bushmen, Hottentots and Negrillos’, ‘The True
Negro’, ‘Eastern Hamites’, ‘Northern Hamites’,
‘Nilo-Hamites and Nilotes’, ‘Bantu’ along with
‘Semites’. Seligman’s views are classic illustrations
of the notion that race, language, and culture are
indissociables. One passage reads (1966: 100):
“The mechanism of the origin of the Negro-
Hamitic peoples will be understood when it is
realized that the incoming Hamites were pastoral
‘Europeans’ - arriving wave after wave - better
armed as well as quicker witted than the dark
agricultural Negroes.” The second “great group of
hamiticized Negroes” (1966; 110) were the Nilo-
tes, whose most typical representatives were found
in the Shilluk and the Dinka (ibid.), namely those
peoples with whom Seligman had made some
personal contact during his voyage. Even the local
mode of livelihood had in part a “racial” founda-
tion: “. . . the majority of Shilluk are very obvious-
ly Negroid rather than Negro, while in spite of
their dark skin and their no doubt preponderant
Negro blood the Nilotes are culturally far more
Hamitic than Negro, being so essentially pastoral
that it is a commonplace that the Dinka generally
fail to grow enough grain to keep themselves
comfortably in meal and beer from one harvest to
another” (1966: 112).
The quintessential Seligman is revealed in his
prolegomena to “Pagan Tribes” where he attempts
to make the case that any measure of cultural
achievement in Black Africa was a consequence of
diffusion “from Egypt up the Nile, and not in the
reverse direction” (Seligman and Seligman
1932: 36). An equally notable aspect of the text is
the series of photographs suggesting a correlation
between cranial capacity and level of cultural
achievement.
In a method recalling “The Melenanesians of
British New Guinea,” Seligman was evidently
interested in description, but perhaps only to the
degree that this provided evidence for a theory of
Anthropos 83.1988
Nilotic Studies
455
diffusion and related matters of ethnology. Thus,
Seligman saught a “cradleland” of the Nilotes, to
be found “somewhere to the east of the Great
Lakes of eastern-central Africa.” “Here, in the
welter of partially hamiticized cattle-owning Ne-
groids, was differentiated a group, black-skinned
and wooly-haired, retaining the Hamitic outlook
with regard to cattle .... From this homeland
there emerged two great waves . . . which, using
the names of their best known tribes, we may call
Dinka and Shilluk waves. The former, which we
may safely regard as the earlier, travelled north,
giving rise to the Dinka and Nuer of the present
day [an observation, informed observers will rec-
ognize, that has virtually no affinity with ethnohis-
torical texts recorded for the peoples mentioned].
The latter were also moved north, giving rise to
Shilluk-speaking tribes - Shilluk, Luo, Anuak - all
physically Nilotes” (Seligman and Seligman
1932: 18).
This is but one representative illustration of
Seligman’s understanding of certain ethnological
questions, and any number of additional citations
would only demonstrate further his fixation with a
concept of race that could concurrently account for
linguistic and cultural differences. In retrospect it
would be fair, I think, to observe that Seligman’s
concept of Nilotic was neither cultural, linguistic,
nor geographical: it was instead a biblically inspir-
ed myth, and one would imagine that these days,
few would argue that Noah’s son was responsible
for a cultural tradition in Africa. On a more pos-
itive note, as Sanders (1969: 530) observes in his
excellent review: “Because the Hamites discov-
ered in Africa south of the Sahara were described as
pastoralists and the traditional occupation of the
Negro was supposedly agriculture, pastoralism and
all its attributes became endowed with an aura of
superiority of culture.”
The Catholic missionary priest J. P. Crazzola-
ra, like Seligman, made lasting contributions to the
study of Nilotic peoples.2 Among other works, he
wrote a number of essays on the Shilluk and Nuer,
a dictionary of the Acholi language, a fairly
comprehensive grammar of the Nuer language as
well as a study of Nuer society and religion, about
which Evans-Pritchard (1955: 477) noted: “. . .
2 Crazzolara’s work in this field has been criticized, but he
should be acknowledged for his attempt to offer a synthetic
view of Nilotic prehistory. Those who have been critical of
his work have made quite little of a positive contribution.
Indeed, a considered review of his work would surely repay
the labors of an extended study. It seems all too often the
case in anthropology that negative commentary is conceived
of a positive advance.
this is one of the best accounts yet published on the
religion of an African people .... This book will
certainly be numbered among the few really good
books on African religions.” As I understand his
writings on the more general topic of Nilotic
ethnology, much of Crazzolara’s attention was
focussed on ethnology as a process of linguistic
reconstruction, or a certain application of histori-
cal linguistics. It may be fair to say that few of his
day or since had an equally wide knowledge of
Nilotic languages. And while his trilogy on the
Lwoo has yielded a fair amount of critical com-
mentary, the fact is that his general interest now
appears quite contemporary: he early on suggested
that local peoples be known in print by their own
terms for self-reference. As he wrote in his preface
to “Outlines of a Nuer Grammar” (1933; v):
“Instead of the unfortunate and misleading name
‘Nilotic,’ which tells us nothing about the character
of the particular tribes which are singled out
arbitrarily and thus termed, I should suggest the
name Jii and hence speak of Jii-tribes, -men,
-language, etc. The word jii, in some cases equal to
jo(o), means ‘men, people’ and is used, though in a
different degree, in the languages of all the various
groups or sub-tribes, the name should be applied
to. The term a) characterizes these tribes by a
word common to all of them, b) includes all of
them, c) excludes all others.”
It is remarkable that more than forty years
later, an essay published in one of, if not the
leading journals of anthropology, suggested that
peoples such as the Nuer and Dinka should be
spoken of in their own terms of self-reference, and
that this was perceived as a novel idea! In
Crazzolara’s time, the suggestion was not taken up
by then leading authorities on Nilotic languages,
for reasons that are neither self-evident nor clear.
Bryan and Tucker (1948; 7) simply opine, “The
term Nilotic is to be preferred here to the terms Jii
and Loo introduced by Crazzolara.” As Tucker
(1935; 861) wrote some years before, “The South-
ern Sudan may be regarded as one of the most
interesting of African fields for the comparative
linguist and anthropologist, for it is here that the
Eastern ‘Sudanic’ and Western ‘Hamitic’ races
meet, and it is here also that one finds that peculiar
wedge of people who, for want of a better term, are
called ‘Nilotes’.”
Returning to the main concern, it is equally
clear that Crazzolara had a rather different “home-
land” or “cradleland” in mind than did Seligman
when considering the process of prehistoric migra-
tions and diffusion in eastern Africa. According to
Crazzolara the Nuer hold “a particular and impor-
Anthropos 83.1988
456
John W. Burton
tant position, a kind of key position” among the Jii
tribes (1933: vii). In contrast with much of what
continues to be speculation, Crazzolara (ibid.)
wrote, “It has been said that Nuer is derived from
Dinka; the contrary would be more plausible a
priori. How could they possibly have parted
linguistically and differentiated more and more
from a large people, by which they were complete-
ly surrounded and from whom they took thousands
of prisoners, whom they had to assimilate in the
last century?”
The map accompanying the first volume of
Crazzolara’s trilogy on Jii peoples suggests that the
region between the present towns of Shambe and
Rumbek, west of the Nile, was the “cradleland” of
the Lwoo and he implicitly assumes that the
present day Dinka, Nuer, and Atuot can figure as
the apical ancestors of pastoral peoples now living
throughout central and eastern Africa. Crazzolara
insisted that his method was the only one that
could be considered sound as others relied entirely
on speculation and surmise. At the present time, as
was the case fifty years ago, the attempt to provide
an account of migrations from a “cradleland” will
inevitably resort to reasoned speculation. Widely
accepted linguistic authorities provide further evi-
dence from what can be inferred from the “ethno-
graphic present,” namely, that there is some com-
mon matrix in Nilotic ethnology and prehistory. As
Greenberg (1955: 71) wrote, “The evidence of
both vocabulary and morphology indicates genetic
relationship of the Great Lakes and Nilotic lan-
guages” (see also Ogot 1967; Ehret 1971).
In summary to this point; Crazzolara’s recon-
struction of Nilotic traditions was formulated on
the basis of myth and related sources of oral
tradition. Various Lwoo peoples as well as the
Dinka, Nuer, and Atuot “originated” in a common
homeland to the south of Lake No, and while these
peoples then migrated in relatively short distances,
sections of the Lwoo separated, one group moving
to the north to become the Shilluk and others
giving rise to peoples such as the Anuak, Acholi,
and Alur. Based on evidence gleaned from head
shape and material culture, Seligman evolved an
hypothesis whereby the Nilotes emerged from east
of the Great Lakes from whence they migrated in
“waves,” the first resulting in the Nuer and Dinka
and the second in the Anuak, Luo, Shilluk, and
related peoples. Based on an analysis of Shilluk
oral traditions, Westermann argued that these
peoples reached their present territory from yet
another cradleland on the Bahr-el-Jebel, in ap-
proximately 1500 A. D.
Roberts (1962; see also Roberts 1956a,
1956b) has surveyed much of this literature, and in
combination with his own serological research
writes “There are no significant differences in
phenotype frequencies” among speakers of Shil-
luk, Dinka, and Nuer. “That is to say that at the
loci examined these peoples can be regarded as
genetically homogenous” (1962: 302). Further,
“. . . the incoming Shilluk in A. D. 1500 who
subsequently intermixed with the Dinka were
already genetically very similar to them” (303).
Finally, “. . . the blood group data then support
those traditions which tell of common origin of the
northern Nilotic peoples” {ibid.; cf. also
McLaughlin 1967). In this regard then, the Suda-
nese Nilotes do indeed comprise a distinctive
ethnological and cultural category, within which
limited diachronic comparisons are possible. More
recent research confirms Crazzolara’s assertion
that the Atuot and Nuer share especially close
linguistic and ethnological history. Some thirty
years after Crazzolara’s suggestion, Evans-Prit-
chard (1960; 335) echoed a similar conclusion.
“The Nilotes form a solid block on the Nile and its
tributaries the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Sobat,
consisting of the Shilluk, the Dinka, the Nuer, the
Anuak, and the Atuot.” In his review of the extant
literature a decade earlier Evans-Pritchard
(1950b: 1) wrote, “For the purposes of sociological
analysis those people who have usually been
classified as Nilotes are more usefully compared
separately among themselves, and those who have
been classed as Nilo-Hamites among themselves
.... When all these considerations are given due
weight, we can still without hesitation place all the
Nilotic peoples in a distinctive cultural class which
stands in sharp contrast to other east African
groups of the same kind.”
As noted, the larger question is whether or not
there ever was something that might be called a Ni-
lotic nation, or less grandly, a common residence
of both northern and southern Nilotic peoples.
Clearly, Southall (1970: 46) hints at such a possibil-
ity: “There appears to be from remote antiquity a
certain common stock of concepts, with related
sounds and social structures, which nonetheless
vary somewhat independently of one another, so
that with the variations of empirical social struc-
ture, the common stock of sounds and concepts has
been drawn upon with independent shifts of sound
and concept, the rules of which have not yet been
defined. Despite some seminal, and other sterile
suggestions, the conclusion appears valid at pres-
ent. Yet what is lacking at the present time and
has been lacking since the time of initial enquiries,
is a definitive study of Nilotic ethnogenesis and
Anthropos 83.1988
Nilotic Studies
457
migration. Enough has happened within this time
to suggest that such a study will never be complet-
ed. In other words one might observe, within the
ill-defined terms of an ethnographic present, re-
construction of migration is possible up to a point
but the deep structure of tradition, if that is what
Southall had in mind, will continue to be enig-
matic.
Nilotic II
To carry the metaphor ahead, the nature of the
grammar of the larger Nilotic world has been
either an explicit or tacit concern of the relevant
historical and archaeological research. Some of the
more recent research in these fields confirms this
point.
In their essay on Cushitic and Nilotic prehis-
tory Lynch and Robbins (1979) discuss in some
detail a burial site known as Namoratunga, located
on the western shore of Lake Turkana in northern
Kenya (see also Robbins 1980; Angel et al. 1980).
In their view, the artifacts associated with an
occupation ca. 339 B. C. indicate cultural practices
strongly suggestive of contemporary Konso usage.
(Given the current debate on the existence of
lineages and agnatic descent in Nilotic and other
societies, it is somewhat ironic that Lynch and
Robbins suggest “a number of different lineages
were buried within the same cemetary”;
1979: 322). Of greater importance to this section of
the review is their statement: “The earlier archa-
eological history of the Nilotic speakers is not
known; however, the Lake Turkana basin may
have figured predominantly as a general homeland
for the ancestral Nilotes before they diversified
[emphasis added] ... .It should be noted that the
early Holocene fishing people who occupied the
Lothagam Hill area between 6,000 and 7,000 years
ago show some physical similarities to modern
Nilotes” (1979: 323; see also Barthelme 1985).
Two additional comments invite special attention.
The same authors continue, “Linguistic and histor-
ical research suggests that the homeland for the
eastern Nilotes was in the region to the west of
Lake Turkana in the general area where most of
the modern people live” (1979: 324). “Clearly”,
they continue, “the people who lived there were
both fishermen and pastoralists” (327; cf. Butzer
1980; Burton 1979 b; Sutton 1974 and Ogot 1967:
41-42, “. . . the early Nilotic group was a fishing
and pastoralist community”).
The data they interpret surely does support
the notion that the contemporary residents of the
region have in fact occupied the general environ-
ment for some considerable time. This does not
mean, however, that this was a cradleland of the
eastern Nilotes. By way of comparison one might
well speculate that a site dated 2,000 years B. C. in
the Nilotic Sudan would also indicate that peoples
of the past and present in that region represent a
unified or at least common cultural and economic
tradition.
Something approaching this circumstance is
reported by David (David et al. 1981; cf. Hays
1974) in regard to a site near present day Abyei,
the administrative center of Ngok Dinka country.
At Dhang Rial there were found traces of a
ceramic style followed by “. . . an early iron age
culture that appears at about A. D. 500. This
phase, characterized by pastoralism, has produced
striking evidence of internecine warfare. Possibly
in the 14th or 15th century A. D. the replacement
of humpless by humped cattle marks the division
between the local early and later iron age. The
latter appears directly ancestral to the present
Dinka occupation .... The diffusion of a superior
breed of humped cattle here formed part and
parcel of a process of western Niloticisation, where
elsewhere it may have facilitated the expansion of
speakers of Nilotic languages” (David et al.
1981: 50; cf. Kelly 1985). Until further research is
completed (work that in order to be of lasting value
must combine archaeological methods with the
analysis of oral tradition) there can be no certainty
about dates, events, or more specific processes. It
is not uncommon to find references in the literature
which suggest that the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were critical periods in more recent
Nilotic prehistory. One could recognize at the
same time that a variation of pastoral production
has a considerable genealogy in the prehistory of
these regions of Africa (cf. Southall 1970: 46) so
that if some general series of events had a broad
effect upon pastoral communities from the south-
ern Sudan to northern Kenya and further south,
these were experienced by people who, though
possibly at one time more closely related, had long
since occupied distinct and geographically dif-
ferent areas. In other words, it continues to be
premature to speak in definitive or consistent
terms of anything approaching a common Nilotic
cradleland. On the one hand, empirical studies of
the prehistory of “Nilotic” pastoralism are still in
their infancy, and it may be reasonable to suggest
as a consequence that the term Nilotic thus be
restricted in its geographic referent.
These and related comments are not intended
to deny that a broader pattern is not in fact already
Anthropos 83.1988
458
discernable. Among other considerations, Oliver’s
(1982) essay is valuable as a reasoned summation
of these general rather than particular processes
and phenomena. Oliver (1982: 434) offers the very
sound observation that “Cattle greatly increased
the possibility of accumulation, and the increase of
cattle provided a dynamic stimulus to migration,
conquest, and all kinds of political experiment.” In
his view, the original impulsions leading towards a
later Iron Age mode of livelihood “reached Bantu
Africa from the southern Sudan and especially
from its eastern borderlands” (435). In differing
ways, possibly in a manner recalling a structuralist
series of transformations, a general process such as
this is echoed throughout the oral traditions of
interlacustrine societies. These traditions are sup-
plemented by consistent archaeological findings:
“Right across the interlacustrine region from the
Congo forest to the eastern rim of the Lake
Victoria basin . . . the Early Iron Age was brought
to an end when the beautiful, boldly grooved and
bevelled Urewe ware pottery was superseded by an
altogether different style of coarse-fired, roulette-
decorated pottery, which all experts agree is in-
duitably of Nilotic origin ... .If the western high-
lands of Kenya could be seen, with convincing chro-
nological support, as the main jumping-off point
for the spread of a later Iron Age way of life into
Bantu Africa, there would be little difficulty in de-
lineating the main lines for its southward spread”
(Oliver 1982: 437; see also Phillipson 1977). Fi-
nally, in his summary of the very rich literature
on the association between pastoral migrations
into the interlacustrine region and the emergence
of novel forms of political economy, Oliver (441)
suggests, “Hence the Lwo, though politically
acephalous in their own homelands, emerge in
Bantu history as kings and nobles in systems built
up by others.” As he notes, there is tacit agree-
ment on this general, clearly abstracted process.
Still, one must note that nobles, headmen,
and even the unlikely distinction “divine king” are
known in the Nilotic Sudan and indeed, there are
numerous reasons supporting the interpretation
that the designation “acephalous” is the exception
rather than the rule. And even in that celebrated
case, which one contributor to Nilotic ethnography
has aptly characterized as “anthropology’s peo-
ple” (Arens 1983: 3), the nature of so-called “tra-
ditional” political organization is still very much a
matter of contention. Interestingly, on this point,
there is an indication of the sort Southall (1970: 46)
may have had in mind. The common Nilotic term
ruac, “to speak” becomes ruic or “spokesman” in
Nuer (Lewis 1951), reth or “spokesman” in
John W. Burton
Atuot (Burton 1981c), and, of course, reth or the
misnomer “divine king” in Shilluk.
These necessarily brief comments on the
ever-growing field of Nilotic prehistory suggest, if
nothing else, that while general patterns and
processes can be discerned, significant advances
have yet to be realized. In a number of interesting
ways, the underlying disagreements recall those
from an earlier period in anthropological theory
which involved broadside attacks between evolu-
tionists and diffusionists. In this regard one thinks
of more contemporary illustrations of analogous
processes, suggesting that the diffusionists stand
ahead of the pack. Buxton’s writings on the
Mandari (1973; 1975) for example, reveal a con-
scious attempt on their part to adopt and adapt to a
mode of livelihood and cultural tradition observed
among their Atuot and Dinka neighbors to the
north, and, on a micro-scale, her study of Mandari
political organization (Buxton 1963) provides at
least an alluring comparison with Nuer/Dinka
relations on one end of the scale, and Bantu/
Nilotic processes on the other. In a significantly
different case, James’ (1979) first monograph on
the Uduk provides suggestive evidence and infor-
mation on Nilotic prehistory.
Nilotic III
Given the expected degree of uncertainty about
avowedly authoratative statements on African and
more particularly Nilotic prehistory, it is a some-
what unexpected and surprising circumstance to
find an equivalent disparity in the literature among
social anthropologists with regard to ethnographic
facts recorded by trained observers of local life
over the past five decades. It is especially in this
regard that one cannot help but wonder about the
dialectical relationship between old answers and
new questions.
A ready explanation for the fact that a lively
debate on the nature of traditional3 Nilotic social
organization continues unabated in professional
journals as well as monographs, is that so few
anthropologists have actually carried out first hand
research in this region of Africa. There is a
remarkably clear line of contrast on this point
between Nilotic peoples of the southern Sudan as
3 “Tradition” is surely a social fact. Tradition changes with
our questions about it. See, e.g., Hobsbawm and Ranger
1983 and Burton 1988.
Anthropos 83.1988
Nilotic Studies
459
opposed to related linguistic groups in Kenya,
Uganda, or Tanzania. But the general focus here is
on the Nilotic Sudan where the very quantity of
ethnographers pales in comparison with eastern
Africa. Writing of the Nuer-speaking peoples in
particular Arens (1983; 3) notes that “there is both
the requisite quantity, but also the less rarely
encountered quality of the ethnography in the
sense of internal consistency which has allowed for
informed reanalysis.” Conversely, Southall (1986)
asserts that the ethnography is in fact contradictory
with regard to such key information as patterns of
residence, territorality, and descent. [One feels
compelled to add in passing, in the midst of this
peculiar fixation with the Nuer, that Lienhardt’s
work on the Dinka is as complete and lucidly
presented as might be hoped for in regard to any
society, anywhere]. An obvious question emerges:
did Evans-Pritchard simply get it wrong? Conver-
sely, one might ask in light of preceding observa-
tions: has the Nilotic Sudan continued to attract
interest precisely because of the quality of the
ethnography reported for the region, a circum-
stance which offers a context within which one
can argue the merits or faults of one and another
theoretical fancy? I am inclined to argue in favor of
the latter interpretation. Surely, no ethnographer
ever captures the truth, and in the context at hand
it is especially worthwhile to recall Tedlock’s sage
observation “There is no such thing as pre-contact
ethnography” (1982: 160). Yet the odd fact is that
while few have carried out field research in the
region, many are noted as ethnographic authori-
ties!
Essays published in the past thirty years (a
convenient time frame since one of the first essays
in this genre, Gluckman’s “Peace in the Feud” was
published in 1955) which have re-interpreted data
from the Nilotic world represent a wide spectrum
of theoretical views, including Freudian, ecologi-
cal, structuralist, semantic, and evolutionary para-
digms! While the poeples in question have changed
almost radically, anthropologists, in the process of
becoming historians, bicker on about the reality of
the ethnographic present, with some feeling com-
pelled to instruct us how to read the ethnogra-
phy!
In this curious mix of theoretical confusion
and ethnographic certainty, recent essays which
draw upon Nilotic ethnography suggest that the
Nuer, who have long served as a classic illustration
of a society based on segmentary lineages, do not
in fact have lineages (e.g., Verdon 1982; Kuper
1982). A more recent entry attempts to make the
case that for the classically patrilineal Nuer,
agnation is an illusion (Southall 1986). In order to
achieve a fuller understanding of Nuer lineages,
“we may need historical evidence of an earlier
phase” (1986: 13). Following this, some anthro-
pologists have begun to think of the Nuer as two
processes of society, the one now called “eastern
Nuer” and the other “western Nuer.” Though
incredibly little research has yet been undertaken
among the so-called western Nuer, they (or more
properly their long deceased ancestors) are now
being cited as typical of the “true Nuer” of which
we want to know more about. Another recent per-
spective considers aspects of the process of Nuer
ethnogenesis in terms of bridewealth exchange
based upon evidence gathered in the 1930s, some
years after Nuer herds had been decimated by
rinderpest and British carbines.
The true Nuer that exist in the ethnographic
present were as historically contingent as any other
social or cultural phenomenon anywhere else in
human history. Current theoretical arguments are
to a large extent based upon descriptions of
1920-1930 (by which time significant changes
instituted by British administrators were taking
hold) which were in turn based upon recollections
or reconstructions of an unknown world that
existed thirty years before British military and
political domination in the area, a world that was
preceded by decades of foreign influence, which
was preceded by centuries of slaving expeditions,
which was preceded by tradition?
An appreciation of the traditional Nilotic
world seems as illusive as the possibility of a
consistent understanding of Nilotic ethnogenesis,
which suggests among other things that looking for
the past in the present is no more productive than
looking for sources of the present in the past.
It has not been the intended purpose of these
few comments to relegate some contributions to
Nilotic studies to the trash heap and elevate others
to some undeserved rank of final authority. Con-
clusions change in consequence of the questions
asked, or the conclusions proposed. Evans-
Pritchard, who perhaps not too grandly popular-
ized the phrase Nilotic studies, had a very limited
number of peoples in mind, namely the Shilluk,
Dinka, Nuer, Anuak, and Atuot (Evans-Pritchard
1960: 335). It is understandable that given certain
obvious facts at the time, that he would have made
reference to the Seligmans’ “Pagan Tribes” as a
textbook for the region and to suggest that their
initial researches were instrumental in promoting
further enquiry. A small fragment of anthropolog-
ical history must, however, recall his testimony
Anthropos 83.1988
460
John W. Burton
that “There are so many errors and confusions in
“Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan” that I must be
content to give just a sample by way of illustration”
(Evans-Pritchard 19715: 150). Earlier in the same
essay he wrote (130) “The Seligmans alone must
take full responsibility for what they wrote .... I
annotated their book in the margins shortly after
its publication but I could not bring myself to
making public their errors during their lifetime.”
Evans-Pritchard’s authority was initially based, at
least in no small part, on that of the Seligmans, so
that one cannot deny that his early observations on
the Nuer were, in principio, of the same era. Some
other author will hopefully make sense of the fact
that Seligman carried into his anthropology his
medical training, whereas Evans-Pritchard saw the
Nuer in largely a temporal vacuum, an unexpected
result of his training in the methods and questions
of history.
An additional point for short reflection in-
volves Evans-Pritchard’s demarcation of the
‘northern Nilotes’ as a distinct and distinctive field
of enquiry. In a paper written in 1957 titled “Pro-
posals for a Comparative Study of Nilotic Peoples
of the Lwo Group” Southall voiced explicit agree-
ment; “The Lwo peoples are chosen for two
reasons ... at present it seems best to exclude the
Nuer and the Dinka from the study because they
represent more distant variations of the Nilotic
type, and the study is more likely to be fruitful if
restricted to a class of phenomena within which
variation is minimal. The Lwo constitute such a
class both by virtue of their overlapping, if not
consistent, traditions of common origin, as well as
their manifest similarities in language, culture, and
social organization” (Southall 1957: 1; cf. Crazzo-
lara 1933). Evans-Pritchard argued for essentially
the same goals, and by the same reasons, in his first
public lecture on Nilotic studies. Are these to be
the future categories for comparative studies?
Southall (ibid.) also writes, “The suggested strate-
gy is that each member of the team should write a
concise background account of the tribes he or she
knows best, restricting this to precise coverage of
those features of this tribe held to be significant for
the comparison and all such tribes included ... .”
Surely this is a notable entry in the field of enquiry
under review since the author initially encourages
the tribe as a locus of study, then argues that tribes
are illusions, and later argues that agnation is an
illusion, and finally suggests that we need more
historical data. How is theoretical progress to be
defined?
The word ‘tradition’ has been used a number
of times in this short review. The term has a long
history of anthropological use yet one senses that it
is not always employed with the same intent. Some
three to four hundred years following prolonged
contact with Spanish and other European societ-
ies, American anthropologists converged upon
the American frontier to study “traditional” Amer-
indian societies and cultures. Likewise, in Black
Africa, British, French, Belgian, and other Euro-
pean anthropologists sought to define the tradi-
tional features of societies that experienced a
broad spectrum of transformation since first con-
tact, again, hundreds of years before. Evans-
Pritchard seemed to echo Malinowski’s first pages
of “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” when he
wrote (1960: 340), “The government of the Repub-
lic of the Sudan is sympathetic to anthropological
studies within their territories and it is to be hoped
that those who control research funds will be
equally sympathetic towards the continuation of
research in the southern Sudan before it is too
late“ (emphasis added). The obvious question is,
too late for what? As indicated, it is clear that local
conditions had been altered by foreign, particular-
ly British, influences, even in his day (see, e.g.,
Johnson 1979, 1982), and it has also been sug-
gested that there are no grounds on which to
speculate that significant changes were not in
progress in preceding centuries. Indeed, recent
research confirms the sense that a good deal of
Nilotic prehistory is to be characterized by move-
ment, change, and adaptation to novel environ-
ments and circumstances (cf. Kelly 1985: 9-68).
The “too late” phrase is pondersome for a
number of additional reasons. In an obvious sense,
this quest for an ethnographic present implies that
anthropology, against its increasingly public stance
of “relevance,” continues to be an antiquarian
mode of reflection or a novel development in
historical studies. Surely, as Geertz (1983) has
suggested, Evans-Pritchard’s stance can be charac-
terized as one that was typical of his own times and
issues. In other words, whereas to some he appears
as a colonialist intellectual, “let he who writes free
of his time’s imaginings cast the first stone”
(1983: 63). Geertz’s concluding remarks for the
same essay have an immediate relevance in the
attempt to assess the future direction of Nilotic
studies, if not all of anthropology. In his words
(1983: 80),“. . . contemporary anthropologists are
harassed by grave inner uncertainties . . . con-
cerning how one can know that anything one says
about other forms of life is a matter of fact. This
loss of confidence, and the crisis in ethnographic
writing that goes with it, is contemporary and is
due to contemporary developments. It is how
Anthropos 83.1988
Nilotic Studies
461
things stand with us these days. It was not how they
stood for Evans-Pritchard.” Such grave uncertain-
ties will be defined by different peoples in different
ways. The fact remains, however, that while the
re-interpretation of Nilotic ethnography industry
continues to grow, it is increasingly generating its
own facts for analysis. To overcome this dilemma,
anthropologists must be more fully aware of the
fact that, whereas “tradition” is a useful concept,
its specific application is always historically contin-
gent, whether this involves principles of agnation
or incest.
Methodological issues aside, there are grave
uncertainties regarding the future of Nilotic studies
because, first and most obviously, research is now
carried out in independent nations, so that the
question one must first consider is whether one or
another people, usage, or language is Nilotic, or
whether it is Sudanese, Kenyan, Ugandan, or
something else. There is also the fact that in the
Nilotic Sudan a popularly supported guerilla move-
ment is now four years in the running, that in
Uganda unknown thousands of peoples have died
in the past decade, that in Kenya tradition has been
preserved to attract tourists. At the time of
writing, the Nilotic peoples Evans-Pritchard had in
mind have adopted the time honored tradition
ethnologists refer to constantly, namely, migrating
to seek safety, however, that may be defined, in
the swamplands and savannah forests of the
southern Sudan. As they abandon their home-
steads, and fail to plant the next season’s crop of
durra or millet, they are in the process of becom-
ing international news, reminiscent of the western
sensation attending famine and drought in Ethio-
pia. The least attractive scenario one might imag-
ine is that at some point in the future, five years
from now or thirty years from now, observers of
local life in this region will speak of “tradition” in
the terms of late 20th century phenomena, while
we have as yet been unable to fully understand the
traditions upon which the colonial ethnographic
present were formulated. This would be an uncom-
fortable stance for anthropology, resulting in a
discourse on human life that creates a reality it
then comes to know. In any case, a review of
Nilotic studies confirms the broader characteriza-
tion of contemporary social and cultural anthro-
pology as a field that is increasingly concerned with
problems of interpretation, objectivity, and histor-
ical transformation.
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Anthropos 83.1988: 469-483
Les instruments de musique
du pays cerma (ou goin), sud-ouest du Burkina Faso
Etienne Yarmon Soma
Abstract. - This is an inventory of the principal musical
instruments of the ethnic group of the Goin or Cerma
(Province of Comoë, southwestern Burkina Faso). The inven-
tory lists as much the instruments presently in vogue as those
which were in current use fifty years ago, but are now at the
point of disappearing. The author describes the playing of the
instruments from within their socio-cultural context: The myth
of origins, the main rituals in which they play a role, the songs
(here transcribed and translated) which they customarily
accompany. [West Africa, Burkina Faso, Cirarjba, Goin, Musi-
cal Instruments, Xylophone, Traditional Songs]
Etienne Yarmon Soma fut directeur de l’Ecole Primaire de
Niangoloko (Province de la Comoë). Il est actuellement
interprète et collaborateur de l’anthropologue Michèle Dacher
(E.H.E.S.S.), spécialiste des Goin. Le Ministère de l’Educa-
tion nationale, des Arts et de la Culture l’a désigné pour mener
une enquête sur les instruments de musique de la région en vue
d’une revalorisation du patrimoine culturel.
Nous nous proposons de présenter les différents
types d’instruments de musique traditionnels ac-
tuellement en usage dans le pays cerma, de même
que ceux, délaissés aujourd’hui, dont on jouait
encore dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Il
s’agit principalement d'un instrument à percus-
sion, le balafon, puis d’instruments à cordes et à
vent.
Cet article est tiré des résultats d’une recher-
che que nous avons menée en 1984 dans les trois
départements de Soubakaniedougou, Niangoloko
et Dakoro. La région soumise à notre enquête
couvre une superficie de 4 120 km2 et se situe au
sud-ouest du Burkina Faso, dans le bassin compris
entre la Léraba et la Comoë. Elle est limitée au
sud-sud-ouest par la Côte-d’Ivoire, à l’est par le
département de Mangodara, au nord-est par celui
de Banfora, au nord et au nord-ouest par ceux de
Douna et de Loumana. C’est l’une des régions les
mieux arrosées du pays (1 m annuel) où l’agricul-
ture domine les activités socio-économiques et
culturelles. La population de 43 000 habitants est
composée en majorité d’agriculteurs; quelques
éleveurs et commerçants sont répartis dans une
trentaine de gros villages allant de 300 à 5000
habitants.
Les Ciraqba1 constituent l’ethnie dominante.
Avec les Turka et les Lobi, ils auraient quitté le
nord du Ghana au XVIIe ou au XVIIIe siècle et
seraient venus s’installer sur leur territoire actuel,
alors peuplé de Senufo, au début ou au cours du
XVIIIe siècle. La société cerma est lignagère,
acéphale et matrilinéaire. La langue, le cerma, n’a
jamais été analysée mais elle appartient probable-
ment au groupe gur des langues voltaïques.
Un certain nombre de minorités ethniques
vivent parmi les Cirarjba dont les principales sont
les Senufo, implantés au nord-ouest et dans de
petites colonies éparpillées à travers le pays, ainsi
que les Diula. Le pays cerma, situé à l’est des
royaumes bambara et au nord du royaume de
Kong, fut menacé par la convoitise de ce dernier.
A l’époque des guerres de Tieba, puis de Samory,
il fut sillonné par des troupes étrangères à la
recherche de butin. Un certain nombre de Diula
restèrent dans le pays. Ensuite la colonisation
française et les travaux forcés occasionnèrent de
nouveaux brassages de populations et de nouveaux
échanges socio-culturels. Enfin l’administration
coloniale imposa aux Ciraqba des chefs de canton
diula jusque vers les années 30. Les Diula s’instal-
lèrent dans les principaux villages de la province de
la Comoë: Niangoloko, Dièfoula, Ouangolodou-
gou, Soubakanièdougou, Dakoro, Dièrisso, pour
ne citer que ceux concernés par notre enquête.
Parmi les minorités ethniques on peut encore
signaler de petits groupes dafin, lobi et dagari, et,
provenant de migrations récentes, des Mossi et des
Peul dont le nombre est en augmentation constan-
te.
Les Ciraqba sont des musiciens passionnés qui
1 Ciraqba (sing. Ciroqo) est le substantif, cerma l’adjectif et
le nom de la langue. Ciraqba est le terme par lequel les
intéressés se désignent eux-mêmes. Toutefois ils sont plus
connus dans la litérature anthropologique sous le nom de
Gouin, Goin ou même Gwi, déformation probable d’un mot
diula.
470
Etienne Yarmon Soma
utilisent toutes les occasions pour jouer de la
musique: mariages, funérailles, travaux agricoles
. . . . Mais entre tous leurs instruments, le plus
important, le plus aimé est le balafon: présent en
chaque circonstance de la vie, sacrée ou profane,
honoré dans les mythes, il est par excellence
l’instrument de musique cerma. Aussi notre pre-
mière partie lui sera entièrement consacrée. Nous
décrirons ensuite les autres instruments cerma
actuellement en usage, puis ceux qui furent récem-
ment abandonnés. Nous évoquerons leur rôle dans
les activités socio-culturelles et nous transcrirons et
traduirons quelques-uns des chants qu’ils accom-
pagnent, ou accompagnaient.
I. Le gbonga: xylophone a dix-huit lames
Son nom courant est le balafon. Une classe très
importante de la société, les fannarjba, gardienne
des valeurs traditionnelles, le fabrique et en joue
lors de chaque grand rite de passage. En effet, les
fannarjba remplissent le rôle fondamental de mé-
diateur: entre les hommes, entre les hommes et les
ancêtres, les hommes et les génies, les hommes et
Dieu. Sans eux, ni les mariages, ni les enterre-
ments, ni les funérailles ne sont possibles. Ces
différentes fonctions ne leur confèrent cependant
aucun avantage matériel car l’argent obtenu au
cours des cérémonies ne peut être investi dans des
biens personnels: cet argent, disent-ils, appartient
aux génies. Aussi les fannarjba, qui sont également
les forgerons, sont réputés être les plus pauvres de
la société.
1. Origine du balafon
Comment nous est-il parvenu? D’après un conte
cerma ses premiers détenteurs furent les génies de
la terre, puis les animaux sauvages, mais ceux-ci ne
savaient pas en jouer. Un jour où ils étaient à la
chasse, ils entendirent le son du balafon louant le
lion, la panthère, l’éléphant et même Mamungo,
l’hyène, qui pourtant n’a pas bonne réputation
parmi ses pairs. Ils accoururent mais ne trouvè-
rent personne auprès du balafon. Ils cherchèrent
longtemps sans succès et durent se résigner. Le
lendemain ils tinrent conseil, désignèrent l’hyène
pour surveiller l’instrument, puis ils s’en allèrent
comme de coutume à la chasse. Le balafon se mit à
résonner. L’hyène dormait et n’entendit rien. Au
retour de ses camarades l’hyène leur raconta
qu’elle avait eu beau regarder, elle n’avait rien vu,
le balafon était joué par un génie. Le surlendemain
ce fut au tour du lièvre de garder le balafon.
Celui-ci se cacha dans un buisson. Au bout d’un
moment l’instrument se mit à résonner comme les
jours précédents. Le lièvre sortit de sa cachette. Je
te tiens, dit-il au musicien qui, surpris, ne put
s’enfuir. Les animaux accoururent et trouvèrent le
musicien entre les mains du lièvre; ce n’était autre
que Sindalon, l’araignée. Ce fut alors la fête au son
du balafon joué par Dame Araignée qui en devint
officiellement titulaire. La fête se termina tard
dans la nuit; on but, on mangea et on dansa. Les
animaux fatigués se couchèrent et s’endormir,
mais Koro-Suruku, grande-soeur-Hyène, ne put
trouver le sommeil: elle mijotait quelque complot.
Elle se tordit de douleur, elle appela, cria, pleura
et ne réussit à réveiller personne, elle griffa tantôt
son voisin de droite, tantôt celui de gauche, mais
sans succès: c’est ce qu’elle souhaitait. Elle se leva,
se saisit de l’araignée et alla la manger derrière les
buissons. Pour qu’on ne la soupçonnât pas, elle
enroula les intestins de la victime autour des
défenses de Koro-Lè, grand-frère-Sanglier. Le
matin on constata la disparition de Sindalon la
musicienne. On décrocha même les restes d’intes-
tins des défenses du sanglier. Koro-Diara, le lion,
réunit tous les animaux pour rendre la justice.
- La preuve est faite! Nous connaissons le crimi-
nel, se hâta de dire l’hyène, rien ne peut disculper
Koro-Lè qui n’a pas eu la finesse de retirer de ses
dents les intestins de sa victime. Est-il encore
besoin d’aller chercher ailleurs notre coupable?
- Puis-je parler, Sire? demanda le sanglier.
- Vas-y, ordonna le lion.
- Vous comprenez bien que j’ai été une cible très
facile pour quelqu’un qui a eu de mauvaises
intentions sur notre regrettée amie, comme je ne
peux pas couvrir toutes mes dents, il a été facile à
quiconque d’y accrocher les intestins de la victime
pour dissimuler son forfait ....
- Non, non, non! coupa sèchement l’hyène, Koro-
Lè veut nous égarer. C’est bien lui qui a tué notre
innocente amie.
- Je demande la parole, Sire, dit Koro-Lè.
- Parle, autorisa le lion.
- Il est vrai, reprit le sanglier, que je mange tout ce
que je rencontre sur mon passage, mais cette fois,
ce n’est pas moi qui ai tué notre bien-aimée
Sindalon. Vous pouvez me croire. Pour clore les
discussions, je propose que nous allions jurer
devant Banlé, le marigot de mon arrière grand-
père. Là-bas nous connaîtrons l’assassin de notre
musicienne.
- Rendons-nous à Banlé, acquiesça le lion.
Tous les animaux se rendirent au marigot, le
sanglier passa le premier.
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
471
- Banlé, dit-il, s’il est vrai que j’ai mangé Sinda-
lon, notre musicienne, en te traversant que je
meure noyé.
Il se jeta dans le marigot et atteignit sain et
sauf l’autre rive. Les autres animaux passèrent,
puis vint le tour de l’hyène. Elle avança, hésitante,
et murmura:
- Banlé, s’il est vrai que j’ai . . . que j’ai . . . . Elle
se baissa pour saisir sa culotte qu’elle avait
dénouée à dessein.
- Ne nous fais pas perdre de temps, intervint le
lion.
- Banlé . . . Banlé, reprit-elle, s’il est vrai que . . .
oh ramenez-moi mon bonnet ... si ce n’est pas
vrai que j’ai man . . .
- Non, corrigea le lion, dis comme tout le monde:
«s’il est vrai que j’ai mangé l’araignée, en te
traversant que je meure noyée!»
- Banlé, s’il est vrai que j’ai . . . que j’ai ....
Tout le monde voyait la mauvaise foi de
l’hyène. Le lion, d’un coup de patte, poussa
Suruku dans le marigot. Elle s’y noya. Pour se
disculper d’une éventuelle complicité, le lion se
jeta à son tour dans l’eau et arriva indemne sur
l’autre bord.
Le balafon demeura sans musicien. Les hom-
mes le trouvèrent abandonné par les animaux qui,
désormais, ne s’en occupaient plus. Ils le ramenè-
rent au village. C’est ainsi qu’il passa de génération
en génération jusqu’à nous.
2. Fabrication du balafon
Le balafon ou xylophone se compose de seize
lames (dix-huit au village de Guèra), en bois de
véne, de dimensions variables suivant les notes.
Ces lames sont disposées sur un chassis en bois et
reliées entre elles par des cordes en peau de vache;
le chassis, haut d'environ quarante centimètres à
Fig. 1: Le xylophone ou balafon
Anthropos 83.1988
son extrémité gauche, s’incline vers la droite où il
ne mesure plus que vingt centimètres. Il est
traversé par des tiges de bois; à ces tiges sont
suspendues des calebasses ouvertes au goulot et
percées sur les côtés de deux ou trois petits trous
refermés d’une toile d’araignée; ce sont les résona-
teurs.
J’ai vu Mambon, un fannago (singulier de
fannagba) de Guèra monter un balafon que
quelqu’un lui avait commandé. Le châssis est déjà
fait; les lames ont été préalablement séchées au
four à balafon; ensuite elles ont été équarries et
polies. Aujourd’hui il les place sur le châssis; il les
accorde en partant de la gauche, c’est-à-dire des
grosses lames qui correspondent aux sons graves.
Lorsqu’il joue deux lames consécutives, on entend
quatre notes bien connues de tous les fannagba:
suogcie et kogcie (femme du champ et femme de la
bière de mil), selon qu’il descend ou qu’il remonte
la pente du châssis. Toutes les lames ainsi placées,
il les relie avec des cordelettes en peau de
boeuf.
L’opération suivante consiste à placer les
calebasses sous les lames pour rendre celles-ci plus
sonores: opération difficile car il s’agit de faire
correspondre le son de la lame au volume de la
calebasse. Mambon est penché sur son balafon; il
teste chacune des calebasses, les taille au besoin
pour accorder la sonorité lame-calebasse; ce tra-
vail lui demandera quelques jours. Ensuite les
calebasses sont attachées au châssis avec de petites
cordes: le balafon est terminé. Mambon est en
même temps un musicien d’une grande réputation;
il essaye son instrument; il est satisfait de son
travail. L’acquéreur viendra le chercher pour une
somme de quatorze mille francs CFA et deux
poules.
Nous avons rendu visite à différents balafonis-
tes à Niangoloko et à Danherni, petit village situé
à quatorze kilomètres à l’ouest du précédent, afin
de comparer le système de notes du balafon cerma
avec le système international. Notre système tonal
est pentatonique, avec les notes suivantes: Do, Ré,
Fa, Sol, La, do, ré, fa, sol, la, do’, ré', fa', sol', la',
do". Les lames que les balafonistes considèrent
comme les plus importantes, car c’est par elles
qu’ils commencent un chant, portent des noms
(voir annexes).
Par ailleurs les fannagba s’ingénient à adapter
le son du balafon aux parlers régionaux. En effet,
le pays cerma se découpe en quatre régions
liguistiques: celles de Niangoloko, Banfora, Sou-
bakanièdougou et Goindougouba. Le parler de
Soubakanièdougou est intermédiaire entre ceux,
assez proches, de Niangoloko et de Banfora, et
472
Etienne Yarmon Soma
celui de Goindougouba. Ce dernier se rapproche
de la langue turka: Goindougouba est à treize
kilomètres seulement du gros village turka de
Douna et ses habitants se font difficilement com-
prendre par ceux de Niangoloko ou de Banfora.
Le cerma est une langue à tons, et les
différences lexicales entre les parlers entraînent
parfois des différences tonales. Par exemple, le
verbe «cultiver» est kûn (ton haut) à Niangoloko et
kùôn (ton montant) à Soubakanièdougou. Les
Ciraqba savent faire ressortir ces différences dans
la confection de leurs instruments.
3. Evolution du balafon
Notre enquête nous a permis de découvrir que les
anciens consacraient un balafon spécial aux funé-
railles et aux excisions: ils l’appelaient hanlieng
ghuoga, balafon de douleur. Il avait des lames
larges et un son caverneux, et il exigeait un rythme
lent qui correspondait à l’expression de la peine.
Ils avaient un deuxième balafon qu’ils réservaient
aux cultures: ses lames étaient moins larges que
celles du balafon des funérailles, le son était plus
aigu, car il devait porter loin, et le rythme plus
rapide. Il devait en effet exciter les travailleurs afin
qu’ils aient cultivé une très grande superficie en fin
de journée.
De nos jours les fannagba n’ont pas cru bon de
respecter cette tradition: ils utilisent le balafon de
culture pour toutes les occasions. De plus, comme
nous l’a dit le balafoniste de Danherni, ils ont
supprimé une note grave à l’extrême gauche et
l’ont remplacée par une note plus aiguë à l’extrême
droite. Certains ont même ajouté deux notes,
comme nous l’avons vu à Guèra: les notes ré" et
fa". Ce système est copié sur le balafon malien qui
a dix-neuf lames au lieu de seize.
Cela donne au balafon cerma actuel un ton
plus haut et un rythme plus rapide qu’au balafon
ancien. Un jour, lors de funérailles, j’avais deman-
dé à une vieille femme de m’interpréter les airs des
chansons qu’on jouait au balafon. J’avais constaté
avec surprise que le débit du chant était plus lent
que le rythme du balafon. Maintenant je com-
prends mieux pourquoi les femmes chantent de
moins en moins aux excisions et aux funérailles et
pourquoi les gens s’épuisent rapidement quand ils
dansent: le balafon cerma actuellement utilisé
n’est plus adapté à ces cérémonies, sans que les
utilisateurs en aient conscience.
Mais ce balafon cerma moderne qui a rempla-
cé l’ancien est lui-même en train de perdre du
terrain au profit du balafon malien, le dio-gbonga,
dont le rythme infernal exaspère les personnes
d’un certain âge. Il n’est pas rare de les entendre
dire: «Ce balafon est pour les enfants, notre
époque est passée.»
Aujourd’hui on ne danse plus comme avant et
on commence à ignorer les chants traditionnels.
Qu’adviendra-t-il à l’avenir?
4. Instruments accompagnant le balafon
Le balafon ne se joue pas seul. Il est accompagné
lors des funérailles et des excisions par deux
tambours, vases de terre cuite recouverts d’une
peau de vache. Le plus grand de ces tambours
s’appelle jolorjo, et le plus petit, considéré peut-
être comme l’enfant du précédent, jorjbilorjo (litt.
joIorjo-Qnfant). Le jologo peut porter jusqu’à plus
de dix kilomètres. Lorsqu’il s’agit de chants desti-
nés à stimuler les cultivateurs, on accompagne le
balafon de deux autres tambours, différents des
premiers par le son et la forme, le perniego et le
korbaago. Ils sont taillés dans du bois et recouverts
d’une peau d’animal (biche, antilope). Leperniego
peut porter jusqu’à douze kilomètres suivant la
force du vent.
Fig. 2: Orchestre de balafon
Le son de chaque tambour doit correspondre
à une note du balafon pour qu’il y ait une harmonie
d’ensemble. Le korbaago et le jologo correspon-
dent à la note Do et le perniego à la note do, tandis
que le jogbilogo, aussi appelé kangkungmuo,
correspond à la note do" (voir annexes).
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
473
Fig. 3: jolorjo
Fig. 4: jorjbilorjo
S. Le balafon dans les activités socio-culturelles
Suivons notre balafon dans les activités culturelles
des Ciraqba: funérailles, excisions (qui constituent
la première étape des cérémonies de mariage) et
travaux agricoles.
a) Les funérailles
Tolo, un homme d’une soixantaine d’années, est
malade depuis une semaine. Il a été évacué dans un
centre hospitalier, mais malgré les soins dont il a
été entouré, il n’a pas survécu. La mauvaise
nouvelle arrive au village tôt le matin, au lende-
main de sa mort.
La douleur et le désarroi s’emparent de tout le
monde dans la concession, toute activité cesse sur
le champ, les cris et les hurlements ameutent les
concessions voisines, le désordre s’installe, chacun
court en tout sens, se lamente, certains se roulent
dans la poussière en signe de deuil, les chiens
aboient, les voisins accourent, les plus raisonna-
bles mettent en lieu sûr les armes et instruments
tranchants ou pointus des plus proches parents du
mort afin d’éviter d’éventuels suicides. Nanguna,
le chef de concession, tente par ses discours
d’arrêter les pleurs; Kamon, devenu chef de
famille après le décès de son frère aîné, maîtrise sa
douleur et envoie des messagers porter la mauvaise
nouvelle aux parents, aux fannarjba et aux amis.
Les fannarjba se hâtent avec leur balafon. En
raison de l’âge de Tolo, les funérailles doivent être
célébrées avec pompe.
Le corps de Tolo est arrivé depuis quelques
heures. Il a été déposé dans la case d’une de ses
femmes. Les tintarjba, secte d’initiation à laquelle
appartenait Tolo, ont accompli le rite d’ouverture
de la case. Après eux les fannarjba sont venus
rendre les honneurs au défunt. Les chants de
balafon sont interprétés selon un ordre précis. Le
premier de tous est le chant d’ouverture de la
porte: «Ouvre la porte que j’entre.» En effet, du
temps de nos grands-pères on barricadait les portes
et les fannarjba demandaient, avec leur balafon,
l’autorisation d’entrer dans la concession. Cette
pratique reste aujourd’hui comme un symbole car
les portes de concession ne se barricadent plus.
Puis suivent «ugboya me« («pour moi il est perdu
pour toujours») et «sayubengo« («on ne demande
à personne le chemin de la mort, il se présente de
lui-même, on s’y engage»). Ces chants suscitent à
nouveau les pleurs et les cris des parents, des
femmes et amis de Tolo. Enfin viennent des chants
de culture et des chants de mariage en l’honneur du
défunt. Pendant ce temps, des vieilles femmes
déléguées par les dorarjba, les jeunes femmes dont
Tolo a été l’intermédiaire de mariage, massent le
corps pour le ramollir avant de procéder à la
première toilette. Kamon, le maître des cérémo-
nies, danse devant le balafon et entrecoupe ses pas
de discours, de dons de cauris aux balafonistes ou
de coups de fusil.
Anthropos 83.1988
474
Etienne Yarmon Soma
Mais le plus urgent, et Kamon le sait, c’est
d'inhumer au plus vite le corps de son frère. Il
indique aux fannagba un endroit pour creuser la
tombe, leur remet la poule et le matériel rituels.
Les fannagba se mettent au travail, stimulés par les
chants de balafon; au bout de quelques heures la
tombe est achevée. Le corps de Tolo a été lavé,
parfumé et enveloppé; le temps est favorable car la
chaleur est tombée. Au milieu de la foule massée
autour de la tombe retentit le «fuoregtiego», le
chant d’accompagnement des morts, ponctué par
le son strident d’un sifflet en corne de biche dans
lequel souffle l’un des fils du défunt. Les partici-
pants défilent et remettent aux fannagba une
somme symbolique destinée au mort: Cet argent
lui servira à acheter du tabac au cours de son
voyage vers l’au-delà. L’enterrement terminé, la
place est laissée aux fannar/ba pour faire danser les
gens venus saluer à cette occasion. Ils reviendront
dans plusieurs semaines pour le angbalma, céré-
monie de purification sans laquelle le défunt ne
pourrait s’approcher des ancêtres: après suivront
les funérailles qui seront une véritable fête égayée
par le balafon.
Les chants interprétés par le balafon sont
variés. Ce sont les sunlmag mini (chants retraçant
la douleur de l’individu après la perte d’un parent),
les singjan mini (chants de mariage) et les kunlleg
mini (chants de travaux agraires). Dans tous ces
chants, on retrouve la sagesse et la foi des Ciraqba.
Nous donnerons ici quelques chants funèbres puis-
que nous parlons d’enterrement et de funérailles.
1) Kuorj sanlle
Louanges adressées à l’âme du mort
Nig wa aa ce mamag.
Nuonei kaan da ni.
Da g ka hi bingcuogba-i, g jaal-ba.
Huog bagba-i g ce angfafama-i bei.
Tu étais et tu as vécu.
C’est toi qui pars maintenant.
Si tu arrives chez les ancêtres, tu les salues.
Ceux qui restent derrière toi, fais-leur du
bien.
2) Fuoregtiego
Chant d’adieu au mort (Il est désormais
pour le dehors)
Nig daa hunmelle, g wud dei.
Nig birii g huoggu-i bisanlgba-na.
Da g ka da g jogma-i g jo-i.
N non si kaan da ni,
g sa ji tira jo ba kang-ni tugu.
g birii g huoggu bisanlgba-na,
A bir g huoggu yogbiigba-na.
Tu as eu la route, bon voyage.
Tu as tourné le dos aux enfants.
Quand tu auras le retour, reviens. [Réincarna-
tion]
Te voilà qui vas.
Tu ne reviendras pas qu’on te compte. [Sous la
forme actuelle]
Tu as tourné le dos aux enfants.
Et tu as tourné le dos aux orphelins.
3) Ku gbuyaa-mie
Tout le monde est mort, je reste seul
Sire bisinuo ta mi kaal, ku gbuyaa-mie o.
Kuliiggu-i g saa sud wud ku jag wei?
Ku jag duma-i, da g ka kaal, g kaal.
Ku jag duma-i, ku jag teu.
Je me suis levé le matin en pleurs, je suis
seul.
La mort, est-ce que tu ne sais pas qu’elle fait
mal?
Oui, elle fait mal, et si tu veux, pleure.
Elle fait mal, oui vraiment elle fait mal.
4) Kuliiggu sa ko nelduogo
La mort frappe tout le monde
Ba yen o, ba yen o,
Ba wuora ba yen o.
Kuliiggu sa ko nelduogo.
Faagba2 o, balaba sa ce hujarre.
Ba taa nagna bisangkuogba ta ba kaal.
Na yen o, na yen o,
Na wuora na yen o.
Kuliiggu sa ko nelduogo.
Na ce da hele hele.
Kuliiggu sa ko nelduogo.
Ils rient, ils rient,
Ils se promènent et rient.
La mort est pour tout le monde.
Les Fayaqba2 n’ont pas de pitié.
Ils sont partis et ont abandonné les petits
enfants en pleurs.
Vous riez, vous riez,
Vous vous promenez et riez.
La mort ne frappe pas un seul.
Vous faîtes <hele, hele>. [Onomatopée du
rire]
La mort ne frappe pas un seul.
2 Fayama est le nom d'un des six matriclans goin et celui du
défunt que l’on célèbre.
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
475
Les chants funèbres sont nombreux; ils s’a-
dressent à la conscience de celui qui a été frappé
par le malheur et font appel à sa foi. Ainsi, les
membres de la famille de Tolo vont puiser la force
de combattre la douleur qui les éprouve dans la
sagesse des anciens, véhiculée par les chants de
balafon.
b) Les excisions et les mariages
Les excisions donnent lieu à une fête animée par le
son du balafon.
J’ai assisté à l’excision de Yafie, une de mes
cousines. Yafie a environ vingt ans; elle va se
marier bientôt et, suivant la tradition, elle doit se
faire exciser. Très tôt le matin d’un kaadie, l’un des
cinq jours de la semain goin, Siefoku, l’exciseuse,
arrive dans notre concession. C’est une femme
d’environ soixante ans; elle est bardée de fétiches;
la musique du balafon s’arrête; des femmes con-
duisent Yafie dans un endroit caché où l’exciseuse,
se servant du punuygu (couteau d’excision), lui
enlève son clitoris. Cette opération est très doulou-
reuse; elle dure quinze à vingt minutes; mais Yafie
ne pousse pas un cri; elle ferait honte à ses parents
et perdrait la face parmi ses camarades. Un coup
de fusil suivi des cris des vieilles femmes salue la
vaillance de la jeune excisée; le balafon reprend;
Yafie, parée du costume traditionnel de sinyjanra-
nyo (excisée), danse au milieu des vieilles femmes
envieuses qui chantent.
1) Kortieyo
La peureuse
Binykuny duay-ni sai,
Ku duay-ni sai o.
Binykuny duay-ni sai o,
Da kua doy-ni sai.
Kortie cura bayde o,
U ka naara nuay jaaya.
Na bêla u gboluoygu,
Aa na bêla u nagayga kpelle.
U ce yenyyenyma-ye.
Ca binycua, piyay na jo o,
Na biloy u ka yagar sire o.
Quelque chose t’a mordu, tant pis, [allusion
au couteau]
S’il t’a mordu, tant pis.
Quelque chose t’a mordu, tant pis,
S’il t’a mordu, tant pis.
La peureuse a passé ici,
Elle va déraciner le mil des gens.
Attrapez-la par le pied,
Et retenez-la solidement par la main.
Elle tremble devant nous.
Vieilles femmes, approchez,
Votre fille a refusé et s’est enfuie.
2) Kenl biloyo
La fille de la panthère
Kenl biloy u ku,
B a da b a haa-yo gbanygaray-nu.
Woye, woye, ba sa haa kenl biloyo gbanygaray-
nu.
Ma gaala ta mi duafuny
Ji da tanyma mie o.
Biloy y sa sire i ne
Kumay duay-ni kuo-ye.
I taara-kua naa,
Kumay duay-ni daan daan daan.
Biloy y sa sire i ne
Kumay duay-ni daan daan daan.
I taara naa o.
La fille de la panthère est morte,
On va la mettre sur un hangar.
Mais on ne met pas la fille de la panthère sur
un hangar.
Je me suis couchée et je dormais,
A mon réveil j’ai trouvé du sang sur moi.
Fille, lève-toi, nous allons voir
Ce qui t’a mordu, où c’est?
Nous l’avons cherché sans le trouver,
Ce qui t’a mordu, rouge, rouge, rouge,
[sang]
Fille, lève-toi, nous allons voir
Ce qui t’a mordu, rouge, rouge, rouge.
Nous avon beau chercher, nous n’avons rien
trouvé.
3) Cemelle
Danse de mariage
Mei daryo-i,
U deliena danydanyyilay teyma.
U sua yenmuygu.
Mei daryo-i,
U deliena danydanyyilay teyma.
Mi kuoy woyo,
Dua fie ka hi Dola nelle Isiiy nelle,
Mi yaan u huoy-nu ka jo baa-yo.
Mei daryo saanmay, mi way darru baa-ni,
Sikuoytayba gbuo du darru gbuya niyseyo.
Mi haa mi nayga wua mei daryo saanmay,
Sikuoytayba gbuo-yo darru gbuya o.
Mei daryo saanmay, mi way darru baa-yo,
Nelbiliiyba gbuo-yo darru gbuya niyseyo.
Anthropos 83.1988
476
Etienne Yarmon Soma
Mon amante,
Elle plane comme une hirondelle.
Elle sait danser.
Mon amante,
Elle plane comme une hirondelle.
Celle choisie par mes ancêtres,
Qu’elle aille à Moussodougou au pays des
Turka,
Je vais la suivre pour la ramener.
Mon amante aimée, je t’ai déclaré mon
amour,
Mais les jaloux sont venus nous brouiller et
c’est fini.
Je lui ai fait confiance,
Mais les jaloux s’en sont mêlés et c’est fini.
Mon amante aimée, je lui ai déclaré mon
amour,
Les gens s’en sont mêlés et l’amitié s’est
perdue.
Le tayaana (témoin de mariage) a réglé dans
les moindres détails les cérémonies de la danse.
Milmo, le fiancé de Yafie, viendra le deuxième jour
après l’excision, accompagné d’une foule de pa-
rents, d’amis et de voisins pour la danse rituelle.
Entre l’excision et la guérison, auront lieu
certaines cérémonies coutumières (jeu du tambou-
rin, fumigation de l’excisée, dogo des femmes . . .)
qui conduiront Yafie à la deuxième danse; c’est la
danse du mariage animée par le balafon.
c) Les chants de culture
Les funérailles et les excisions ne sont pas les seuls
domaines où intervient le balafon. Les Ciraqba
sont des cultivateurs passionnés; ils sont très
attachés à la terre; «tu mourras la data [petite
houe] à la main», disent les anciens. Dès la
naissance d’un enfant, les parents procèdent à la
sortie du horjdunrjgu (case de naissance). Deux
enfants, un garçon et une fille, l’un portant le
nouveau-né, un panier contenant un mélange de
grains et une daba, l’autre un tison, font le tour de
la concession; ils sèment les grains de céréales sur
tous les chemins, creusent un petit trou à l’entrée
de chaque chemin partant de la concession, y
déposent les grains de céréales, les brûlent, ajou-
tent un peu d’eau, puis referment le trou. Ce rite a
consacré le petit enfant au travail de la terre; il est,
et demeurera, cultivateur jusqu’à sa mort. Le
travail de la terre est très pénible à cause de
l’outillage qui est archaïque: daba, hache, coupe-
coupe .... Il faut débroussailler, tracer les
sillons, semer, désherber, refaire les sillons et
récolter, mais le travail est fait en groupe et les
Ciraqba font oublier le côté pénible de ces travaux
par la musique des chants de balafon. Le rythme
des chants de culture est plus rapide que celui des
funérailles ou des mariages, car il s’agit d’inciter
chacun à labourer la plus grande superficie possi-
ble pour la fin de la journée. Chaque cultivateur a
son chant préféré parmi un répertoire très riche.
1) Darru barjbarjban
La portion à cultiver est grande
Darru barjbarjban,
Hunrjma sir da yonrj.
Darru sa gbu tin,
Hunrjma sir da yonrj.
La portion à cultiver est grande,
On ne boira pas.
Tant que le champ n’est pas fini.
On ne boira pas.
2) Terharorjo
Champ sur lequel on revient après une
longue jachère
Torturai] birii yinyonrjma-i,
B a ka yar nuorjba yunrjgo o.
Le champ est touffu, l’embarras énorme.
Le vainqueur sera connu aujourd'hui.
3) Banrjba Kasa
L’aigle
Banrjba Kasa u yaanyaa borjborre.
Da na sir na yarj u ta u bel.
L’aigle domine toute la région.
Si vous voulez, laissez-le seul dominer.
4) Sa bi kanrj nabrrj yarrma
Je n’ai pas peur de la domination de
l’adversaire
Sa bi kanrj nabrrj yarrma,
Mri kaal baa mi bolle gbarrma.
Mri sa bi kanrj nabrrj yarrma,
Mi kaal baa bolle gbarrma yorj.
Je n’ai pas peur de la domination de l’adver-
saire,
Je m’inquiète de la rupture du manche de mon
outil.
Je n’ai pas peur d’un autre garçon,
Je ne m’inquiète que pour la rupture du
manche de mon outil.
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
Ail
Accompagnant la musique du balafon, le
tambourinaire interpelle chaque cultivateur par
son nom de culture: Bonpba Kasa (l’aigle), Fonyon
tikolo ta (le vent n’emporte pas le mortier), Kongo
kami senkele (pintade sauvage à une patte), Wolo
den (cadenas de la terre), Dungukoro Masa
(Maître de la terre) ... . Il leur indique les
obstacles à franchir, leur commande de faire vite
car le travail est immense. On entend le son du
perene, le tambour, à huit kilomètres à la ronde.
Le joueur de korobapo, le petit tam-tam, n’est pas
en reste, il chante, exhorte les travailleurs qui ne se
ménagent plus; des vieux circulent entre eux, leur
canne à la main, ils encouragent les laboureurs.
Loin derrière le groupe, viennent les femmes: avec
une palette elles font de petits trous, y déposent le
grain de maïs, puis elles le referment.
Nous ne pouvons quitter le domaine du
xylophone sans signaler la présence du balafon
malien ou balafon diula, dio-gbonga, appelé éga-
lement petit balafon, gbo-yinga, car son châssis est
plus bas que celui du balafon cerma. Les fannapba
introduisirent le balafon malien en milieu cerma
pour louer les chefs administratifs diula imposés
par les Français et pour renforcer leur pouvoir.
L’orchestre de balafon malien se compose de deux
balafons, deux tambours (bara), un râcleur (kopa-
lu). Les chants exécutés sont des chants diula ou
des chants empruntés au balafon cerma. Bien que
le balafon malien soit proscrit par les vieux dans les
rituels d’enterrement, de funérailles ou d’excision,
il est cependant populaire chez les jeunes Ciraqba
qui le préfèrent au balafon cerma. Il tient une place
de plus en plus importante dans les cérémonies.
II. Autres instruments cerma
1. Les flûtes verticales: tulamu
Parmi les instrument utilisés par les Ciraqba, on
trouve aussi des flûtes. Elles sont taillées dans
l’aubier du vêne, en forme de grenade; elles sont
évidées et percées à la partie supérieure de deux
petis trous latéraux. On les tient verticalement en
appuyant cette partie contre la lèvre inférieure. En
soufflant un peu d’air dans la flûte et en ouvrant ou
en fermant les trous on obtient trois sons; un aigu si
on ouvre à la fois les deux trous, un mi-grave si on
ferme un trou, un grave en fermant les deux.
L’ensemble des flûtes se compose de sept
flûtes de notes différentes; la dandanlapo qui
prélude le chant, la urnapo au son grave, les trois
musiemu qui accompagnent, la kporoya intermé-
diaire entre les deux premières, la tula-bepo, flûte
Fig, 5: Les flûtes verticales
mâle au son aigu et perçant. Elles sont toujours
accompagnées de trois tambours: deux pernenba
(plur. de pernepo) et un korobapo. Chaque flûte
possédant trois notes, pour exécuter un chant, il
faut accorder vingt et une notes. Quand une flûte
manque ou sonne faux, on l’entend immédiate-
ment.
J’ai assisté à une séance d’entraînement chez
un des derniers anciens flûtistes vivant. Celui-ci, le
vieux Sulama Kito, veut conserver un art qui
menace de s’éteindre. «Ces flûtes appartiennent à
nos ancêtres, dit-il, elles ont eu beaucoup de succès
dans le passé lors des funérailles de nos notables et
elles ont fait la renommée de notre concession.
Plusieurs fois nos grands-pères les ont accrochées
dans des arbres lorsqu’ils fuyaient les guerres et ils
les ont retrouvées à leur retour.»
Kito veut donc transmettre ses connaissances
à des jeunes de sa concession. Il a fait offrir
auparavant une poule aux ancêtres pour qu’ils
disposent les jeunes cerveaux à recevoir son
Fig. 6: Orchestre de flûtes et yaarjo (calebasse contenant des
graines de baobab)
Anthropos 83.1988
478
Etienne Yarmon Soma
enseignement. Il a placé les joueurs dans un
certain ordre; lui-même tient la dangdaglango,
flûte maîtresse, et il dirige l’orchestre. L’ensemble
est rythmé par les deux tambours et le tambourin.
De plus chaque joueur tient dans sa main une
calebasse à long goulot contenant des graines de
baobab, le yaago, qu’il secoue. Les chants exécu-
tés sont variés.
1) Hai taa yaagga ?
Qui est devant? (Chant de marche des
chevaux)
Hai taa yaagga, hai taa yaagga?
Nagguna Dafe, u-i taa yaarjga.
Qui est devant, qui est devant?
C’est le Dafe de Naqguna qui est devant.
2) Kuforo3 saar g yaarjga-i
Kuforo, lave-toi la figure
Saar g yaagga-i, Kuforo,
Saar g yaagga-i, neragba juo.
Sire o, Kuforo.
Sire o, nerarjba juo.
Lave-toi la figure, Kuforo,
Lave-toi la figure, les étrangers sont venus.
Lève-toi, Kuforo,
Lève-toi, les étrangers sont venus.
3) Gbeig narjpanrjto
Le rat tenace
Gbeig narjpanrjto
Sis yarj u cikorre
Kuonfierjtie maa-na.
Le rat tenace
Ne va pas abondonner sa maison
Par peur du chasseur avide de viande.4
3 Kuforo était le fils d’un terrible sorcier de Koutoura nommé
Borofale. Après la mort de celui-ci, Kuforo, chassé par les
habitants du village, alla se réfugier à Baalo-Tanungu
derrière Katierla. Mais quand il eut acquis la force de son
père, les Ciraqba allèrent là-bas le consulter afin de faire du
mal aux gens. Lorsqu’ils arrivaient, ils le réveillaient par
cette chanson.
4 On n’abandonne pas sa concession par peur d’un malfai-
teur.
4) Dunrjya u wa yinaa
Autrefois
Urj wa yinaa-i,
Dunrjya wa yinaa,
Mamarj wa yinaa,
Mahorjma sa tira ye tugu.
Ce qui était avant,
Le monde d’autrefois,
Ce qui était avant,
Ça n’existe plus.
2. Le kogcuoggu (harpe à sept cordes)
Le balafon et les flûtes ne sont pas les seuls
instruments de musique en pays cerma. Il y a aussi
le kogcuoggu, instrument à sept cordes attachées
à une tige de bois courbée d’environ 1,50 m qui
traverse une grande calebasse recouverte d’une
peau de chèvre. Cette calebasse sert de résonateur;
elle est percée sur le bord droit supérieur d’un petit
trou grâce auquel on introduit dans la calebasse les
pièces de monnaie données par les danseurs. Au
bout de la tige de bois est fixé un bruiteur. Les
Fig. 7: korjcuoygu
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
479
Fig. 8: kporjo
notes du korjcuorjgu sont accordées suivant le
principe du balafon: suorjcie (femme du champ) et
kopcie (femme du dolo)5 en remontant ou en
redescendant les cordes. Elles correspondent aux
notes do, ré, fa, sol, la, do', ré' du système
international. Cet instrument s’accompagne d’une
clochette appelée kporjo (nom tiré du son de
l’instrument) et de deux sanrjsagarjni, petits pa-
niers en feuilles de rônier contenant des graines de
fruits de baobab. Le son du kporjo correspond à la
note do' et celui des sanrjsagarjni à la même
note.
Le korjcuorjgu était un instrument très recher-
ché par les Ciraqba; il s’employait pour stimuler les
cultivateurs ou pour animer les mariages. Il a aussi
célébré pendant longtemps le prestige des chefs de
canton et renforcé leur pouvoir.
De nos jours, le korjcuoggu a perdu de son
importance. Les gens le considèrent comme dépas-
sé; cependant, il est encore joué par quelques
conservateurs pour animer les cabarets de dolo.
Fig. 9: sanrjsagarjni
5 Dolo: terme diula par lequel on désigne la bière de mil dans
toute la zone voltaïque.
Voici quelques-uns des chants entendus un après-
midi dans un cabaret de dolo. Ils étaient chantés en
choeur par les trois musiciens (korjcuorjgu, kporjo
et sanrjsagarjni) devant une foule d’admirateurs.
1) Saanma, ta rj yenrj deliena
Ma bien-aimée, danse comme une
hirondelle
Saanma, ta rj yenrj deliena danrjdanrjyilarj tepma.
Mi dorrj saanma, ta rj yenrj deliena,
Danrjdanrjyilarj terjma.
Ku yaara-ni ta rj deliena ?
Bilo, ku yaraa-ni?
rj sa ta rj deliena danrjdanrjyilarj terjma?
Ta rj yenrj rj deliena, ku jap jaaboroba-ba-i.
Da p an p suyaa yunrjgo-i,
p sa sud cicuorjgu.
Diilorj nelma-i ma dii yonyon.
A ce banapba-i woptuorpba,
Aa ce banapba-i nelfafaapba.
p da nelfafa-i sa ku terfafaap-nu.
p ka ku hienrj-nu narj sud hie?
p ka ku ciinrj-nu narj sud hie?
p saa taara weima, weima da-ni hie?
p saa taara weima, weima da-ni hei?
Ka ko nyini ni e te ko nyini [Diula]
Ni mogD le be e ko nyini e yere ye ko nyini.
[Diula]
Ma bien-aimée, danse comme une hirondelle.
Mon amante aimée, danse comme une hiron-
delle,
Comme une hirondelle.
Es-tu incapable de danser?
Fille, es-tu incapable de danser?
Ne peux-tu pas danser comme une hirondel-
le?
Danse pour faire mal aux célibataires!
Si tu connais aujourd’hui,
Tu ne connais pas demain.
La parole de Dieu est un mystère.
Il a créé des lépreux,
Il a fait des riches.
Vois, un homme bon ne meurt pas à un bon
endroit.
Tu vas mourir en brousse, tu ne le sais pas.
Tu vas mourir à la maison, tu ne le sais pas.
Si tu n’as pas été imprudent rien ne t’arrive-
ra.
Si tu n’as pas été imprudent rien ne t’arrive-
ra.
Chercher des histoires, même quand on ne
cherche pas d’histoires.
Quand quelqu’un vous cherche des histoires,
vous ne pouvez pas les éviter.
Anthropos 83.1988
480
Etienne Yarmon Soma
2) Jugu Ье п’кэгэ (Diula)
Mon ennemi est à côté de moi
Jugu Ье n ’кэгэ, (Diula)
Mako t£ na ny£ jugu Ье n ’кого. (Diula)
E тако Ье na ny£ lahara, (Diula)
E mako t£ na ny£ ni jugu Ье e кэгэ. (Diula)
Ло, nag sa sud siele.
Diilo ka sii-ni£ baa g dung kuogba.
Sikuogta mi haan diilog baa-na о sikuogta.
Jujuola mi haan diilog baa-na jugu Ье п’кэгэ.
Yuu ma tin diilor) nelma-i,
Hai gban yuu ma tin?
Mon ennemi est à côté,
Rien ne prospérera chez moi.
Tu seras payé dans l’au-delà,
Sinon tu ne seras pas payé pendant que ton
ennemi est à côté.
Tu ne sais pas consulter les devins.
Dieu te couvrira.
Jaloux, Dieu fera justice.
Vous racontez vos méchancetés, Dieu fera
justice.
La parole de Dieu,
Qui peut se flatter de la comprendre?
3) Diilogo cîe baa-ni
Dieu est avec toi
Ge baa-ni o,
Diilogo cîe baa-ni.
Grag b a suyaa,
Diilor) cîe baa-ni.
Mimilang b a suyaa,
Diilor) cîe baa-ni.
Na Ые na niwuoni.
Mi sîe wuo baa-na o.
Na teteyugni mi sis wuo baa-na o.
g yerre duu naarug tegma.
Nacolog g киэ yEÜE wud ni£?
Avec toi,
Dieu est avec toi.
Les Ciraqba le savent.
Dieu est avec toi.
Même les sots le savent,
Dieu est avec toi.
Prenez votre nourriture,
Je ne mange pas avec vous.
Je n’en veux pas de vos poissons réduits en
morceaux.
Ton nom tonne comme un fusil.
Jeune homme, pourquoi te morfondre?
3. Le kogcuoyelle
Les Ciraqba ont aussi le kogcuoyelle. Le suffixe
yelle est un diminutif; cet instrument, qui a le
même nombre de cordes que le kogcuoggu mais
qui est plus petit, se joue de la même manière. Il
s’emploie dans les séances de divination et aussi
dans les veillées commémoratives de chasse.
Fig. 10: korjcuoyelle
4. Le danngbologgu (arc musical)
C’est un instrument monocorde; il est constitué
d’une tige de bois recourbée en forme d’arc, reliée
aux extrémités par une corde en écorce de bam-
bou. Lorsqu’on tape avec une baguette sur cette
corde, elle vibre. Le son est amplifié par le jeu des
lèvres effleurant la corde, la bouche servant de
résonateur; avec un bâtonnet, on coince et on
relâche la corde; cela permet de contrôler le débit
du chant qu’on exécute. L’arc musical s’emploie
dans les jeux d’éducation sensorielle: on met un
bandeau sur les yeux d’un enfant, puis on cache un
objet, un bracelet par exemple; ensuite on libère
Fig. 11: Jeu de l’arc musical
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
481
l’enfant et on lui fait rechercher le bracelet.
L’enfant est guidé par le son de l’arc musical.
V gbang gbang
g ce gbanrj gbanrj
Binrjkunrjgu si dii.
g ce gbang gbang
g ce gbang gbang
Bingkunggu si dii.
Ta g kan nig kan kusuog-nu,
Ta g kan nig kan kusuog-nu.
Tu n’es pas dans la bonne direction.
Tu n’es pas dans la bonne direction.
L'objet ne se trouve pas là où tu vas.
Maintenant va où tu vas,
Va où tu vas.
En suivant ces indications, le chercheur finit
par retrouver l’objet.
On l’utilisait aussi pour stimuler les ménagè-
res lorsqu’elles écrasaient le grain à la pierre, à
l'époque où les moulins n’existaient pas.
III. Les instruments en voie de disparition
Notre enquête nous a permis de découvrir d’autres
instruments qui, très populaires du temps de nos
grands-pères, sont de moins en moins employés
dans les activités culturelles des Ciragba. Ce
sont:
1. Le tongtongo (tambour d’aisselle)
Cet instrument est taillé dans du bois. Il a la forme
d’un cylindre plus mince vers le milieu et renflé aux
bases; les bases sont recouvertes d’une peau
solidement ajustée par des cordes qui traversent
tout le corps du cylindre d’une base à l’autre.
Lorsqu’on tape avec une baguette sur l’une des
bases, il se produit un son; en exerçant une
pression du bras sur les cordes, celles-ci tirent sur
les peaux des bases; le son devient aigu; le
contraire se produit en relâchant les cordes. Le
tambour était autrefois populaire; on l’utilisait
dans les cérémonies d’enterrement et d’excision. Il
servait aussi, accompagné du duomaago (trompe
que nous verrons plus loin) à exhorter les guerriers
à la bravoure sur les champs de bataille.
Fig. 12; tonrjtonrjo
2. Le duomaago (trompe)
Cet instrument est confectionné à partir de la
corne du duomaago (waterbuck). La corne est
percée à son bout effilé d’un petit trou; la base est
enfoncée dans une calebasse oblongue ouverte à
l’autre extrémité. Le joueur souffle dans la corne
par le petit trou; il se produit un son; ce son est
amplifié à la sortie par la calebasse servant de
résonateur. Cet instrument peut porter jusqu’à un
ou deux kilomètres suivant la force du vent. Le
duomaago était utilisé avec le tongtongo pour
exhorter les guerriers à la bravoure, car le pays
cerma a connu bien des troubles: luttes tribales,
luttes contre les Pallakas, guerres Samoriennes,
occupation coloniale; on s’en servait encore pour
annoncer les tristes nouvelles. Ecoutons alors ces
instruments.
Ko-mi ko-mi bolbol,
Ko-mi ko-mi bolbol.
Bag kog bamag nuog bagba-i.
Anthropos 83.1988
482
Etienne Yarmon Soma
Fig. 13: duomaarjo
Baa gbar, baa gbar.
g kan hie, g kan hie?
Baa gbar.
Bag kog bamag nuog bagba-i.
Banlle hung furr,
Banlle hung furr b a dii-ni.
Tue-moi, tue-moi, c’est mieux.
Tue-moi, tue-moi, c’est mieux.
Ceux qu’on tue ont des parents.
Ne te sauve pas, ne te sauve pas.
Où vas-tu, où vas-tu?
Ne te sauve pas.
Ceux qu’on tue ont des parents.
La tombe sent bon,
La tombe sent bon pour qu’on t’y mette.
3. Le kuojologo (tambour des morts)
Ainsi appelé parce qu'il ouvrait les cérémonies
funéraires, il était constitué d’un grand vase en
terre cuite d’une capacité d’environ soixante litres
dans lequel on mettait de l’eau. On renversait une
calebasse à la surface de l’eau; avec le dos d’une
autre calebasse plus petite on tapait sur la grande;
il se produisait un son, amplifié par le volume de
l’eau. Lors des veillées funèbres, les vieilles fem-
mes se regroupaient autour du kuojologo pour
chanter et danser toute une nuit en mémoire du
disparu.
Conclusion
On voit que la région concernée par notre enquête
est riche en instruments de musique. Ces instru-
ments sont pour nous un patrimoine d’une grande
valeur. Ils nous ont été légués par une très longue
tradition et constituent un lien avec notre passé.
Ce sont des moyens d’expression; à chaque évène-
ment heureux ou malheureux nous avons recours à
leur langage pour exprimer nos joies ou nos
peines. Ils servent aussi de moyens de communica-
tion: leurs sons constituent des messages. Ce sbnt
enfin des moyens d’enseignement des valeurs
ancestrales, car ils développent en nous l’amour du
travail (chants de culture), nous exhortent à la
bravoure (chants d’excision, chants de guerre),
suscitent en nous le goût du beau et le respect
envers la femme (les chants de mariage sont des
odes d’exaltation à la femme); ils s’adressent à
notre raison lors des moments pénibles et font
appel à notre foi (chants funèbres).
Ces instruments ont été et demeurent des
moyens de diffusion et d’échanges culturels. En
effet divers types d’instruments comme le xylopho-
ne, les flûtes, le tam-tam, les tambours, les
tambours d’aisselle, se retrouvent, mais avec des
noms différents, chez les différentes ethnies de la
région. Cela montre que ces ethnies ont, soit une
origine commune, soit une cohabitation séculaire
due au brassage des populations.
Notre enquête nous a permis de déceler
d’autres instruments aujourd’hui disparus. Mais la
plupart des instruments encore en usage sont
menacés de disparition à longue échéance car les
jeunes ont peu d’engouement pour la musique
traditionnelle: ils la trouvent dépassée. C’est qu’ils
méconnaissent en réalité les richesses que cachent
nos instruments. Cette acculturation nous fera
perdre ce que nous ne pourrons plus jamais
retrouver si nous n’en prenons conscience dès
maintenant.
Anthropos 83.1988
Les instruments de musique
483
Annexes
I: Ancien balafon de culture à Niangoloko
Do Ré Fa Sol La do ré fa sol la do' ré' fa' sol' la' do"
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Les noms de certaines lames: 1: yeryerjyunrjo, 6: yeryeybilor/o, 13: sumaicoro, 14: torogbuolle, 16: kanr/kunrjmuo, 0: elle ne por- te ni son ni nom. C’est la lame sur laquelle on sacrifie. Système tonal: régulier, sans exception. 2: pernierjo (tambour pour appeler les cultiva- teurs) correspond au son 8 du balafon (soit 13 moins un octave). 3: kamjkunpmuo (petit tambour) correspond au son 16 du balafon. 4: jolopo (tambour des funérailles et des maria-
Les instruments qui correspondent à certains sons: 1: korbaapo (grand tambour) correspond au son 1 du balafon, son de base. ges) correspond au son 1 ou son de base du balafon.
II: Balafon des funérailles de nos jours
1. à Niangoloko
Do Ré Fa Sol La do ré fa sol la do' ré' mi' sol' la' do"
1 2345678 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Les noms des lames correspondent à ceux des balafons de culture. Système tonal: pentatonique (do-ré-fa-sol-la) avec une exception, le son 13 (sumaicoro), «saute du système». Au lieu de fa' on trouve mi'.
2. à Banfora
Système tonal: pentatonique, mais pas à la façon
grecque!: do-ré-fa-sol-sib.
III: Balafon de culture à Danherni
Il correspond au balafon de culture à Niangoloko, mais les noms des lames ne coïncident pas tous: 1: bànpbànluôn (au lieu de yeryepunpo), 2: tânp- kdijô (au lieu de kanrjkumjmuo). De plus les gens de Danherni appellent le son 11 sumaicoro (le son 13 à Niangoloko) et ils ne donnent pas de nom à 14. En revanche ils donnent un nom à tous les do du balafon.
Anthropos 83.1988
STUDIA INSTITUTI
ANTHROPOS
Afrika
Hugo Huber: The Krobo. Traditional, Social, and Religious Life of a West African People. 306 pp., 1963. sfr 55,00
Inge Hofmann: Wege und Möglichkeiten eines indischen Einflusses auf die meroitische Kultur. 188 pp., illustr., 1975. DM 54,50
Alfred Hauenstein: Fables et contes angolais. 294 pp., 1976. DM 56,50
Josef Franz Thiel: Ahnen - Geister - Höchste Wesen. Religionsethnologi- sche Untersuchungen im Zaire-Kasai-Gebiet. 200 pp., 1977. DM 39,00
Henri Maurier: Philosophie de l’Afrique noire. Deuxième édition revue et corrigée. 318 pp., 1985. DM 68,00
Inge Hofmann: Beiträge zur meroitischen Chronologie. 248 pp., illustr., 1978. DM 63,00
Jacques A.Th. Theuws: Word and World. Luba Thought and Literature, x + 198 pp., 1983. DM 58,00
Anton Vorbichler und Rudolf Maria Brandi: Die Oralliteratur der Balese-Efe im Ituri-Wald (Nordost-Zaire). Mit einem musikwissenschaft- lichen Anhang, xv + 349 pp., 1979. DM 132,00
John W. Burton: God’s Ants. A Study of Atuot Religion. 150 pp., 1981. DM 45,00
Léon de Sousberghe: Don et contre-don de la vie. Structure élémentaire de parenté et union préférentielle. 160 pp., 1986. DM 42,00
Anthony J. Gittins: Mende Religion. Aspects of Belief and Thought in Sierra Leone. 248 pp., 1987. DM 65,00
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Anthropos 83.1988: 485-499
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
Harold Olofson
Abstract. - A synthesis of three analytical approaches is applied
in this paper to ethnographic materials on an increasingly
important Hausa commercial center. (1) Interview data yield
Hausa emic images or folk models of the distinctive levels of
urbanity of four town neighborhoods of different ages.
(2) Census data are used to compare the neighborhoods. These
data partially confirm and add substance to the Hausa concep-
tions of the neighborhoods, and allow us to view them as
“natural areas” after Valdo Pons. (3) Historical materials
allow us to trace the emergence of each natural area. As
micro-level phenomena, the areas can be viewed as phases in a
macro-level developmental sequence of urban growth and
decline in the Twentieth Century that may be of aid in
interpreting inter- and intra-urban relationships in Hausaland
and perhaps in the Sudan generally. [West Africa, Hausa.
Urban Anthropology, Natural Areas]
Harold Olofson, Ph. D. in Anthropology (1976, University of
Pittsburgh); Graduate Professor in Anthropology and Consul-
tant, Area Research and Training Center, University of San
Carlos, Cebu 6401, Philippines; previous teaching assignments
at Oakland University, Ahmadu Bello University, and the
University of the Philippines at Los Baños. - Fieldwork in the
Great Basin of the western United States on shamanism (1965),
in northern Nigeria on Hausa urbanization, migration, and
expressive culture (1969-1971), and intermittent research
projects in the Philippines in agricultural and forest anthropol-
ogy (1977-present). - Publications on the Hausa in anthropo-
logical journals in the United States, England, West Germany,
and Sweden, and on Philippine upland farmers in journals in
the Philippines and the Netherlands.
1. Introduction: Three Approaches to Urban
Anthropological Data
Anthropologists have accumulated a number of
trial approaches to shed light on the complexities
of ethnographic materials collected in that often
confusing context, the urban milieu. Each has
contributed to analytical work, but the task re-
mains of combining them to see how they might re-
late to each other and thus widen our understand-
ing of a particular city. In this paper I synthesize
three such approaches and apply them to a body
of historical, cultural, and census data which I ob-
tained in a 1970-1971 study of the relatively new
Islamic town of Funtua in southern Katsina Emir-
ate (now a part of Kaduna State), northern Nige-
ria.
One approach that informs this paper is the
characterization of urban neighborhoods as natur-
al areas, a concept developed by Valdo Pons in his
study of Stanleyville (1969; 102-104; 121-123) and
which originated with Robert Park. According to
Pons, the natural area is a neighborhood which dif-
fers from others on the basis of socio-demograph-
ic and cultural criteria and which is a result not of
planning but of “forces and tendencies inherent in
the urban situation” or of “urban-centered prob-
lems and activities.” For example, Pons thought
that an ethnic neighborhood in Stanleyville that
was located on a side of the city oriented toward
the rural homeland of the group was so situated as
a geographical-historical “accident” and was thus a
natural and not a planned area (Pons 1969:
121-123).
This approach requires first that a natural area
be determined to exist through a comparative
study of neighborhoods. It ought to be easy to
show that a neighborhood is in some way different
from some other, but we must be clear as to the
kind of criteria by which the comparison is made,
and why these criteria are selected. Also, it must
be clear that the areas are a result of urban
processes other than planning.
A study of maps of different dates of publica-
tion of the town of Funtua and its surrounding
district, the district of Maska (now Funtua),
together with historical data, suggested that there
existed probable natural areas that differed at least
partly due to differences in age. It occurred to me
that since I was organizing my study of the town
through the investigation of Hausa categories of
migrants that were coming to visit or stay there, I
could determine whether these areas reflected
some migrational differences that might relate to
their differences in age. At the same time, I could
get some indication of the incidence of migrants
among the compound heads and their families.
486
Harold Olofson
find out the reasons for their migration, arrive at
the incidences of categories of migration, and
become familiar with the social structure of Hausa
urban compounds.
Using census data taken from 452 compounds
in four neighborhoods, simple descriptive tabula-
tions allowed me to synchronically compare and
differentiate them in terms of at least some of the
following characteristics: sex of compound heads,
relative ethnic heterogeneity, population density
within the compounds, modes of compound occu-
pancy (owned, or rented or borrowed), occupa-
tions of compound heads, and incidence and types
of migration to the compounds in each neighbor-
hood. I found that the neighborhoods were indeed
“natural areas,” and that the areas could be
differentiated according to social and cultural
characteristics, as well as by their relative ages.1
A second approach in urban anthropology
that is useful here is to make a distinction between
micro-, middle-, and macro-level studies. These
have been succinctly defined by Basham (1978:
300-318). Micro-level studies are “traditional or
formal ethnographies of clearly segmented urban
populations,” focussing through participant obser-
vation on the intensive study of a few individuals,
their lives, networks, and linguistic perspectives.
Middle-level studies are community studies based
on particular ethnic or isolated groups. Macro-
level ethnographies use historical materials and
social survey techniques to study the social struc-
tural and ecological characteristics of entire cit-
ies.
In these terms, my study of Funtua and Maska
falls into the macro-level category, although consid-
erable formal interviewing of selected informants
took place. I should like, however, to readjust
Basham’s distinctions somewhat to fit my own
aims. While the natural areas concept has clearly
evolved from Park’s ecological orientation (and so
is apparently a macro-level concept), so called
natural areas are smaller segments of the larger
urban social agglomeration, and their individual
study is on lower levels. I will attempt here to add
another point of view to the concept of the natural
area by characterizing each of the neighborhoods
studied in Funtua and Maska as representative of a
phase in a possible developmental sequence of
1 Another study of natural areas is a paper by A. B.
Chivilumbo (1975) on Blantyre, Malawi, where “social
areas” are classified into types on the basis particularly of
the prevalence of African ethnic or European values, life
styles, and occupations in the areas.
phases in the growth and decline2 of Hausa
urbanism in the immediate district in this century.
Similar sequences may be studiable throughout
Hausaland or even the Sudan as various commer-
cial settlements, or neighborhoods of larger settle-
ments, might be seen as located at one or another
phase. Settlements, neighborhoods/natural areas
may be co-existing at different phases in a develop-
mental sequence at the same time in the same
town, district, or region.
Thus lower-levels can be linked meaningfully
to the macro-level, as Hausa urban neighborhoods
might be seen to take their places in a historical
sequence of growth and decline of urban settle-
ments in Hausaland or a part of it. A historical
section of the paper provides a diachronic perspec-
tive whereby the appearance of each natural area
and its role in Funtua’s growth is recounted.
A third useful approach is to contrast analyti-
cal models and folk models. Robert Lawless sees
the distinction (1980; 366-367) as follows. An
urban people have their own way of cognizing
urbanness, in stereotypical, specific, normative,
and elitist terms, grounded in their own ideas of
reality and correct behavior. The anthropological
scientists have theirs, which must be more flexible,
general, simple, and able to pose and answer
testible questions. To my mind, this is basically the
distinction between two ways of classifying ethno-
graphic materials, emically, as the people them-
selves would, or etically, as scientists must do in or-
der to carry out intelligibly their goals of cross-cul-
tural comparison. Lawless believes that to be suc-
cessful, analytical models must acknowledge and
incorporate folk models - and I would add, folk
images - which often have a degree of richness and
refinement of some value to our understanding of
urban phenomena.
The Hausa have a complex of emic categori-
zations of urbanity and of urban images (Dalby
1964, Yusuf 1974, Olofson 1975, 1980). Some of
these concepts can be incorporated into an etic
picture of the phases of urban growth and decline,
phases which I present here and which I suggest
could be used in comparative analysis to test their
appropriateness for Hausa urban culture in this
century. Of particular interest is the way in which
the findings from the census survey of the natural
2 I avoid the term “developmental cycle,” since “develop-
ment,” according to dictionary definitions, implies a step-
like progression of stages with no suggestion of a return to a
beginning step. The combination of the two terms, “devel-
opmental” and “cycle,” is contradictory. The word “phase”
may be used to refer to a point in either a cyclical or a
developmental sequence.
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
487
areas tend to confirm and add substance to these
concepts, which will be discussed in the next
section where I introduce the neighborhoods that
are the focus of study.
2. Four Hausa Town Neighborhoods: Emic
Images
Funtua is the capital of Funtua District and the seat
of the Sarkin Funtua (chief or district head of
Funtua).3 It is in the center of a prosperous
cotton-growing area and at the crossroads of two
important trade routes, now highways, linking
Kano and Katsina in the north to southern Nigeria,
and Sokoto in the northwest to Zaria, 45 miles to
the southeast. The Zaria-Kaura Namoda railway
also passes through the town. In 1970 Funtua had a
balanced population of 20,685, having grown
gradually from 1,463 in 1917.4 Its only industry,
the largest cotton ginnery in Nigeria, employed
both Funtuans and cotton-growing farmers from
surrounding hamlets and districts in the dry sea-
sons.
The oldest of the four censused neighbor-
hoods is located not in Funtua itself, but in the cen-
tral ward of the satellite village of Maska some ten
miles southward.
a) Maska
Before 1927 Maska was the seat of the district
head. One Islamic priest in Funtua described it as
the “root of the tree” from which Funtua is a
branch. Today it is bypassed by both highway and
railway (a decision of the British) and is a quiet
village of farmers. It is surrounded by watercourses
supplying rich, low-lying farmland that is moist and
cultivable year-round (known as fadama). These
streams sometimes isolate it in the rains. Maska
retains an active weekly market particularly fa-
vored by Fulani who traditionally water their cattle
in the streams and graze them on the upland farms
of the Hausa. In 1971 it was still the seat of a
3 Before my fieldwork period the district name was changed
from Maska to Funtua and the District Head’s title became
Sarkin Funtua. In precolonial times the Sarkin Maska was a
vassal of the Emir of Katsina. A district is divided into
villages each with its village head (Magaji)\ Funtua and
Maska are each different villages or “Village Areas.’’ These
are divided into wards (anguwoyi) each with its ward
head.
4 Maska District census records, District Head’s office,
Funtua; and C. J. Chaytor 1917.
village-area, with a village chief, the uncle of the
current Sarkin Funtua, living in a house 150 years
old. The Sarkin Funtua’s former palace had been
allowed to crumble into ruins along with the town
wall and moat surrounding the central ward.
According to the Hausa folk model of urbanism,
Maska has become a village (k'auye) and is in a
decline, whereas Funtua is a full-fledged and
growing city (gari).5
Before the removal of the district head,
Maska had been in all contexts a gari, but since that
event, it has lost its importance. It is now viewed as
a homogeneous, conservative settlement of merely
historical significance. It has the image of a lungu,
which can be accurately translated as “hole or bush
community,” with a connotation of darkness. It is
a place which no longer exudes the light (haske) of
civilization (Olofson 1975). Because it has lost
political importance, people say of it, an yi an yi
Maska tashi, “people are continually flying away
from Maska.” This emic view will be testable
through census, ethnographic, and historical
data.
b) The “Old Town”
The second oldest area selected for study is
Funtua’s oldest neighborhood, known as “Old
Town” (Tsohon Gari). Some of the compounds
here may be as old as Funtua itself (ca. 1905). The
Old Town was never walled but is organic in
lay-out. The political, administrative, and religious
center of Funtua, it has Sarkin Funtua’s palace and
offices, the mosque, the court, the prison, and the
police and post office departments. Highways
connecting Funtua to other cities meet at a
roundabout at this center. Numerous traditional
chiefs of crafts and other occupations, well-known
traders of wealthy means, and important Islamic
priests live here. A central place, formerly the day
market, is today only a night market (kasuwar
dare) where snacks, kola nut, and cigarettes can be
purchased by kerosene lamp. Adjoining this space
is the very oldest area of habitation, the “Butchers’
5 The Hausa would agree with Southall (1979: 215) that labels
like “city” and “town” - they would add “village” - are
relative, for the terms gari and k'auye shift in relation to
each other as the context of speaking moves from one to the
other. Thus a Funtua man speaking in Funtua would view
Maska as a k'auye (village) but, since this is a pejorative
term, a Maska or even a Funtua man for the sake of courtesy
when standing in Maska, would refer to Maska as a gari
(city) and only to a still more remote ward or hamlet of
Maska as a k'auye (Olofson 1975: 152-153).
Anthropos 83.1988
488
Harold Olofson
Hill” {Tudun Mahauta). The Chief of the Butchers
(Sarkin Paw a) and others of his craft still reside
there. A ward of lepers as well as an old Yoruba
enclave are located in the interior.
The Funtuans see the Old Town as a conser-
vative and elite section, a place where a person of
the utmost Islamic propriety would prefer to live.
It is a center of traditional culture, but it is
interesting to note that this does not mean only
Islamic tradition, for it is also the site of public
performances of the pre-Islamic spirit possession
cult {boh) that take place in an empty field next to
the palace of Sarkin Funtua at his invitation, and
only just across the street from the prayer-yard of
the mosque.
c) The “New Town”
Appearing in the post-World War II period, the
“New Town” (Sabon Gari) is today the heart of
Funtua’s commercial and entertainment life, hav-
ing a very crowded and bustling daily market,
with two “big” market days every week, rows of
shops, a motor park, railway station, petrol sta-
tions, spare-part and tire shops, hotel-brothels
with bars (for example, the “Gay Palace” and the
“Victory”), and an open-air cinema. I think of
this combination of elements as reflecting a brash
Hausa culture of the road. The Hausa folk model
of such a neighborhood is subsumed under the
concept of dandi. I have written about the dandi
image elsewhere (1980) as a settlement of people
purportedly living modern and free life-styles, and
about yawon dandi (Olofson 1976, 1985) as a
category of migration where the migrant pursues
individualism and seeks experience while wander-
ing in the world.
The emic concept dandi will be central to the
hypothetical sequence of growth and decline of
Hausa towns which I wish to posit in this paper. A
dandi essentially appears to have four characteris-
tics, as elicited from informants. First, it is a city
or suburb which has grown up outside of a walled
town, especially in this century, either indepen-
dently (as in the cases of Jos and Kaduna) or in
association with one (as with the Tudun Wada and
the Sabon Gari at Zaria). A dandi is itself
unwalled. Secondly, it is ethnically heterogeneous
and may include Christian groups. Thirdly, it is
composed primarily of migrants born elsewhere
who are considered “strangers” (bako) by the
original inhabitants. These must prove themselves
trustworthy before they can consider themselves to
have become members of the citizenry {’yan gari).
This acceptance may involve marriage within the
town and the acquisition of one’s own compound,
indicating commitment to settlement rather than
temporary residence or wandering. Fourthly, a
dandi is famous for the carrying on of low shame,
low status occupations, and of “modern” lifestyles
threatening to proper Islamic values, such as the
performances of the itinerant “children of the
bowed lute” (Olofson 1980), alcohol consumption
at the bars, prostitution (Barkow 1971), and even
criminal occupations by types known as “the sons
of the wind” {’yan iska). The dandi calls to mind
the probable destination of selfish men and women
who, for whatever reasons, perhaps shameful
ones, have fled from their rural families of orien-
tation or procreation, sometimes to be lost to them
forever.
For Funtua specifically, the researcher may be
told several times of the independence of its
people, of the looseness with which they maintain
the behavioral norms of their parents, of their
unwillingness to be told what to do or to have their
lives interfered with by outsiders, or of the
difficulty with which they are held to promises
given. Such behavior is known throughout Katsina
as Katukanci, “the mode of behavior of the people
of southern Katsina,” Katuka being the local name
for the southern districts. Also pointed out is
Funtua’s jostling vitality and forward movement
which make it more apparent to the people with
each passing year that as a place of progress {ci
gaba) it is outshining Katsina. The Hausa are
attracted to cosmopolitan settlements, and even
though respectful behavior may be wanting in
some of their populace, there are increased oppor-
tunities for business activity {harka) and intellectu-
al exchange {hira) (Olofson 1975). This view of the
New Town as a dandi includes the elitist and
normative elements which Lawless mentions as a
part of folk models of urbanism, but in this case
there is a curious mixture of negative criticism and
admiration.
Funtua as a whole is considered by the Hausa
to be a dandi, but they also recognize some
neighborhoods within such towns (e. g., New Town)
as being more dandi than others. Our census
neighborhood was not the entire New Town but a
section of a smaller portion known as “New Line”
{Sabon Layi). This area was laid out on a grid plan
after 1953 when Funtua received a town council
that began to implement a new British policy of
establishing residential areas in this fashion. I
selected it because it was near the center of activity
of the dandi. The data will allow me to test at least
partially the Hausa emic image of the dandi as
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
489
being in some ways socially and culturally different
from more traditional Hausa settlements such as
Maska village and Old Town, Funtua.
d) Zamfarawa
The fourth and youngest neighborhood grew up
from 1966-1971. It borders adjacent farmland and
lies on the end of a street called “Line of Orphans”
(Layin Marayu).6 It is a growing point of the town
as it expands into the bush (daji). It is also on a
grid-plan. Here the noises of the market and the
main roads are lost to the ear, to be replaced by the
sounds of children at play and the rhythmic
pounding of mortar and pestle within the com-
pounds. Though a new residential area, it is
complex, for it includes those who have moved
there from elsewhere in the town, as well as
migrants from a rural hamlet situated close by in
the surrounding district. I will name the neighbor-
hood, as did our respondents, after the hamlet,
which is “The People of Zamfara” (Zamfarawa).
As a community of farmers, they have attached
themselves to a dandi; Zamfarawa is seen as a
village that has moved to town.
3. Synchronic Comparison of Neighborhoods:
An Etic View from Census Data
Each neighborhood shows similarities to and
differences from each of the others, but also stands
out from them in ways suggestive of the possibility
that all lie on the same continuum of growth and
decline. To approach the comparisons most effec-
tively, I describe how each neighborhood is
unique, beginning with the two that contrast with
each other most strikingly.6 7
6 The name of this street suggests the dandi symbol in that the
“children of dandi"' act as if they had no parents. But more
accurately, it probably commemorates that Muhammad was
an orphan and worked for the care and protection of
orphans (see the article “Yatlm” in Gibb and Kramers 1953:
640-641).
7 In each selected neighborhood in Funtua, a block of
contiguous houses which we hoped would number around
100 each to allow rough comparisons to be made between or
among samples, was censused. They totalled 110 in Zamfa-
rawa, 138 in New Line, and 106 in Old Town. In Maska no
such blocks were easily discernible, so every compound
fronting the main roads and surrounding the market were
visited, totalling 97. Random samples were not drawn for
we had no accurate idea of the size or nature of the universe
a) New Line, in the New Town
This sample, located in the ward of Rabiu, has the
highest number of non-Hausa compound heads (25
out of 138) and the highest percentage of popula-
tion accounted for (13.5 %) of non-Hausa. Most of
these are Yoruba with a few Efik from southern
Nigeria. Five own their compounds. We learned
that many of the Hausa and Yoruba in the New
Town have moved into houses vacated by fleeing
Ibo at the outbreak of the Biafran Civil War. It is
here, then, that the Ibo had chosen to dwell, near
the market. Other ethnic groups living in small
numbers in the New Town are primarily from the
southern Zaria area, and are working in the
modern sector.
New Line has the most male or female com-
pound heads who have migrated to the town after
a yawon dandi type of circulation. For six of the
females, this meant a period of prostitution. It has
the most independent female compound heads,
including widows and elderly divorcees, and is
notable in the number of its prostitutes’ com-
pounds (gidajen karuwai) in which the head (uwar
gida) is always a woman who controls numerous
other women who live as singles in her house. One
compound is headed by the traditional female
leader in Funtua of the bori spirit possession cult,
which is associated with prostitution. With Zamfa-
rawa, New Line shares the highest number of
female heads who live by “selling cooked food,”
which is sometimes put forward as a circumlocu-
tion implying prostitution.
New Line has the most units that are not
owned by the head, but rented or taken on loan.
Many newcomers to Funtua look for temporary
small quarters in the New Town, so that the
neighborhood of New Line has more strangers
seeking temporary accommodations with com-
pound heads than in the other sample neighbor-
hoods.
In terms of occupations, New Line is very low
in heads who do only farming, and even in those
who combine 'farming with other occupations.
Consistently, it has the greatest number of non-
farmers, and of practitioners of occupations in the
modern sector, including those who came to
Funtua on transfer (canji), usually in a government
job.
of either the town as a whole or of each neighborhood.
These blocks did not coincide with census wards which were
too large and sometimes included built-up areas of different
ages.
Anthropos 83.1988
490
Harold Olofson
Migrants to the town through the compounds
in the New Line sample are over twice the number
of those in the neighborhood which ranks second
in this characteristic, which is Zamfarawa (number
of Zamfarawa compounds = 110, of New Line
compounds = 138).
This data at least partially confirm the Hausa
urban folk model of dandi. Census data from New
Line indicate social and ethnic heterogeneity,
“disreputable” elements, employees in the mod-
ern sector, and numerous non-native heads and
temporary sojourners. The data add another di-
mension to the dandi concept of which the Hausa
may not be fully aware: a de-emphasis on farm-
ing.
b) Maska
The censused compounds, while the fewest in
number of the four groups, have substantially
higher total population than any of the three
groups of compounds studied in Funtua. The
density of population per compound is also the
highest. 1 suggest that these are common features
among older settlements where family compounds
are old and well-developed (compare with Zamfa-
rawa, below).
Maska is very homogeneous. There are no
non-Hausa heads in the sample. It has the lowest
number of independent female heads, the fewest
rented or loaned compounds, and the fewest
strangers living in the houses of others.
In terms of occupations, it has the fewest
number of non-farmers, and the highest number
who do only farming (i.e., not engaging also in
trade, a craft, or both). Using census records for
1968, I compared the census of craftsmen for
Maska Ward with that of the ward of Rabiu (where
New Line is located) in Funtua. This indicated that
Maska can support far fewer traditional craftsmen
of most categories per one thousand population.
The only craft standing out in Maska is the dyeing
of indigo cloth which is more popular in the old
village than in Funtua. The wealth of the gari sup-
ports far greater numbers of tailors, needlework-
ers, butchers, brokers of manufactured cloth,
mallams, barbers, itinerant traders, and builders.
Maska has the fewest holders of modern occupa-
tions. It is low in those who prosper where there
are many migrating or circulating customers, for
example, prostitutes (one compound head only,
with two others in residence) and female com-
pound heads who live by making and selling
cooked food (only three).
Despite the larger population in the Maska
sample, Maska has the lowest net in-migration to
the town through the compounds in the sample of
any of the four neighborhoods. Although there has
been growth, it has been slow and has come about
over a far greater number of years in the history of
the settlement (70 - the length of time the oldest
migrant had lived there) than in New Line (25) or
Zamfarawa (4-5). It is the only sample where the
majority of heads are native to the town in which
they were interviewed, and so it has the fewest
migrant heads, only one of which admitted to
having come years before on “the walk of dandi."
More than in the other neighborhoods, husbands
select their wives from within the town in which
they are living, rather than from without, suggest-
ing more restricted social networks through kin or
trading contacts beyond the neighborhood. Con-
servatively, more sons remain in their home town
after separating from their fathers’ compounds,
and similarly, more daughters of the heads marry
within the town (Maska) where they were born.
Maska thus presents a direct contrast to New
Line in many ways. The analysis of census data (an
etic exercise) appears to uphold at least partially
the Hausa folk model of a place like Maska as a
remote, non-urban community of homogeneous
farmers, and gives substance to the distinction
between them as two different types of “natural
area.” But the view that people have of it as a
village that is losing its population is not borne out
by these and other findings, a point that will be
discussed further below.
c) The Old Town
This neighborhood lies neatly in an intermediate
position between Maska and New Line not only in
age, but also in the following characteristics: the
number of independent female compound heads of
prostitutes’ compounds, the number of non-Hausa
heads and total non-Hausa population, total popu-
lation in the sampled compounds, the number of
rented or loaned compounds, the compound heads
engaged only in farming and the number of
non-farmers, the number of traditional craftsmen,
those engaged in modern occupations, and in the
number of independent women engaged in prosti-
tution or food-selling. It is also intermediate
between Maska and New Line in the net in-
migration through its compounds to the town in
which the sample is located, in numbers of migrant
male or female heads, native heads, and strangers
receiving accommodation.
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
491
All ten of the non-Hausa are Yoruba and all
own their houses. They live in an old, well-
established enclave known as agbole Ogbomosho,
indicating an origin in the town of Ogbomosho in
western Nigeria. It dates from the early days of
Funtua when the market was located in the Old
Town.
The Old Town sample leads in traders. We
would have expected New Line, located adjacent
to the market, to take first here. All neighbor-
hoods are about the same in numbers of tradition-
al craftsmen among both farmers and non-farmers,
but we know that Sarkin Funtua has appointed the
chiefs of several traditional crafts from within the
Old Town population.
The Old Town sample appears in its interme-
diate position to be a more mature, homogeneous,
and conservative version of the sample from New
Line. But because Old Town is still a part of
Funtua, is its political and religious center, and has
many traders participating in its vital market even
though that market has been moved away a short
distance, Old Town is not declining into the
position of a “hole” community like Maska.
d) Zamfarawa
This the youngest neighborhood has the most
migrant compound heads. New Line, because of
the predominance of prostitutes’ houses there,
exceeds it, however, in the number of migrant
female heads.
The overall population and population density
per compound in Zamfarawa are strikingly lower
than the other three samples, for the family houses
here are in an early stage of development. The
sample has the fewest heads who are native to
Funtua. Most of their wives came from elsewhere
in the district, usually accompanying their hus-
bands from the hamlet of Zamfarawa.
Thirteen are practicing modern occupations.
The two-storey house of a successful lorry park
touter is a prominent landmark in this otherwise
rural-looking neighborhood. But those in the
modern sector make up a lower number than in the
other samples, being similar to Maska in this
respect. The traders, however, are almost as many
as in the Old Town sample. Those who are
“farmers only” are second in number to Maska,
but those who are “non-farmers” are second in
number to New Line. There is only one prostitute’s
compound, a few independent female heads who
claim to sell cooked food, and one compound
owned by a married couple who are officials in the
town’s bori spirit possession cult. Zamfarawa is
second only to New Line in rented or loaned units.
The Yoruba population, all temporary laborers,
numbers only 5, but ethnic complexity can be
expected to increase in the future.
Many who built compounds here came from
other parts of town, probably mostly from New
Line, where they had rented previously. These
include traders, non-farmers, and those in the
modern sector who give the neighborhood the
semblance of an incipient heterogeneous dandi.
When they built here, they signalled a lasting
commitment to the town. On the other hand, the
migrants from the rural hamlet are similar in their
homogeneity and agrarian orientation to the peo-
ple of Maska. They are attaching themselves to a
dandi and just beginning to participate more
intensively in the social and commercial life of
Hausa urbanism. We learned, for example, that a
highly respected elder who had migrated from the
hamlet recently had already arranged the marriage
of a daughter to the son of the Funtua village head.
This man was seen accompanying the village head
to a mass prayer for rain.
4. The Emergence of the Neighborhoods:
A Historical View
a) The Decline of Maska and the Rise of Old Town,
Funtua
The date of Maska’s foundation is unknown and
may have been in the early eighteenth century.
The first Fulani Emir of Katsina, Umaru Dallaji,
was installed by Shehu dan Fodio, the first Caliph
of Sokoto, in 1806, after he overthrew the reigning
Habe Emir of Katsina. Umaru gave the vassal state
of Maska to one of his lieutenants, named Gudin-
di, from whom the present Sarkin Funtua (former-
ly Sarkin Maska) is patrilineally descended. It is
said that six or seven Habe chiefs had ruled at
Maska prior to the holy war which led to the
substitution of the Fulani Gudindi. Until the
coming of the British, Maska was walled and
moated, and surrounded by walled satellite vil-
lages, for the district was often threatened with
attack by rebellious elements. The district head,
being a vassal, resided in his palace at Maska
rather than in Katsina city. The presence of
pastoral Fulani, who had symbiotic relations with
local farmers, and the availability of nearby fada-
ma lowland, must have had a role in stimulating
the Maska market, which has prospered to the
present.
Anthropos 83.1988
492
Harold Olofson
An assessment report of Maska District made
by District Officer C. L. Chaytor in 1917 refers to
Funtua as an already established center of trade
equal in importance to Maska, and lying on the
main road for the movement of cattle and sheep by
foot from Katsina and Kano in the north to Ilorin
in Yorubaland. Funtua appears in the archival
sources as if from nowhere, and a discussion of its
origin must depend on informed conjecture. The
fact that it was never walled means that it must
have come into being shortly after the establish-
ment of British rule over Katsina at the turn of the
century.
The section of Funtua now known as Old
Town is the location of the original settlement, on
a slight rise known as “Butchers’ Hill,” and not far
from an inselberg (Dutsen Funtua) known for the
good drinking water which can be obtained from
its base. Chaytor- (1917) described this early
settlement as having a brisk trade in cotton and
hides. Itinerant, non-native traders, including
English, were already present. In 1917 Chaytor
mapped the major trade routes running through
the district, and the notable thing about them was
that none were shown as entering Maska, which
was connected to them by side roads. Instead, they
all intersected at Funtua some ten kilometers to
the north. Palmer, the first Resident in charge of
the division, passed through the district in 1905 but
did not consider Funtua worthy of mention,
although, according to local informants and archi-
val records, the first village head, a Maguzawa
pagan, had been appointed by the Sarkin Maska by
1905. The first member of the Maska royal family
to be installed in this office, after the term of the
Maguzawa ended, took over in 1911. Why did
Funtua so suddenly become the hub of long-
distance trade (fatauci)?
If international trade was beginning to bypass
Maska in southern Katsina at this time, Palmer
also noted in 1905 that it was not passing through
the city of Katsina, but rather through the town of
Sabon Gari considerably to the east. Was Sabon
Gari becoming to Katsina what Funtua became to
Maska? Today, Sabon Gari is of little note, as the
British apparently chose to shore up the ancient
role of Katsina. Still, Katsina continued to decline,
for Polly Hill noted with surprise the “insignificant
appearance” of the market at Katsina in the
present day (Hill 1971: 313). Funtua seems to have
inherited its position as a center of trade, perhaps
as a substitute for Sabon Gari.
Palmer’s imposition of a caravan tax at Katsi-
na may have been one cause for an attempt to
adjust trade routes to avoid it, but probably of
much more significance was the shift in population
distribution that came with the pax Britannica.
Customary raids from the “Second Katsina” at
Maradi (now in Niger) ceased, slavery was abol-
ished, and thousands of farmers migrated from
already crowded districts in Kano Emirate into
empty lands with relatively richer (less heavily-
worked) soils available in southern Katsina. By
1933, thirty-three abandoned walled villages and
hamlets were counted by the British in Maska
District alone, as the inhabitants had found it much
safer now to farm and live away from their
protection, and probably more productive, too, as
the soil around such places had begun to decline in
fertility through over-use, and the fragmentation
of farms through inheritance had doubtless be-
come advanced. Paradoxically, then, Funtua was
a center of population growth (with 1,463 in 1917)
in a period of general population dispersal. Very
likely the redistribution of the rural population was
matched by subtle accommodating shifts in long-
distance rural trade routes and the appearance of
new centers at their crossroads. Also, caravaneers
may have been avoiding any tolls that could have
been levied upon them at Maska. Refugees from
political oppression during the Nineteenth Centu-
ry in nearby Zazzau Emirate, including Maguza-
wa, may have served as a ready-made nucleus for
the appearance of Funtua (Krusius 1915: 313).8
The continuing residence of the Funtua butch-
ers of today near the open space of the old-time
day market in Old Town is a carry-over from the
time when Funtua rapidly became a watering
place, rest stop, and cattle market on the cattle
trade route linking northern to southern Nigeria
(see Hill 1966: 244). Such a place is called a zango.
Today, the zango at Funtua is still an animal
market attached to the main market at its present
location, and has its own occupational chief.
I speculate that associated with this early
zango were the earliest prostitutes’ compounds in
Funtua. Flyers of this occupation traditionally go
to take advantage of an emergent commercial
population and the presence of long-distance
traders. As a place where travellers could find
overnight sleeping quarters and food (probably
cooked for sale by prostitutes) Funtua would have
been on its way to fulfilling one Hausa conception
of the town as opposed to the village: in villages
strangers are feared rather than accommodated.
8 Thanks to Murray Last for this reference. M. G. Smith
(i960: 195) discusses the persecution that could have been
the cause of migration from Zazzau.
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
493
An interpretation of two lexical items leads
me to believe that prostitutes were an early feature
of Old Town life, that the Old Town was at this
early period already a dandi. The first is maciya,
defined for me as “a place in the bush along a main
road where food is sold to travellers.” In fact, a
maciya can be located almost anyplace where even
only one man decides to set up a table under a tree
or in front of his house from which he can sell small
items to passersby. The verb ci, meaning both “to
eat” and “to have sexual intercourse,” is the root
of this term. Since women do the cooking in Hausa
society, a maciya where cooked food is sold implies
that women are selling the food - and in public, out
of seclusion.
The second term is maciyar karuwai, “the eat-
ing-place of prostitutes.” An informant described
this as “a public open space where women sell
cooked food and where harlots eat and buy food
for strangers visiting them.” The main road be-
tween Funtua’s central roundabout and the market
was given as an example. The origin of this maciyar
karuwai must go back to Funtua’s earliest days,
when caravaneers and traders were buying food
from prostitutes and seeking overnight liaisons in
their compounds (see Cohen 1969: 54-64 for the
role of Hausa courtesans in Sabo, Ibadan). Any
other ordinary citizen could profit by establishing a
maciya at Funtua on this stretch, but not necessar-
ily with the intention of selling cooked food - the
term extends itself to small vending from fixed
points in public places generally.
As the early dandi of Funtua grew a relation-
ship must have developed between the chief of the
zango (Sarkin Zango) and the chief butcher
(Sarkin Pawa). The first is a cattle landlord, and
the second an entrepreneur in the buy-and-sell of
meat. This traditional relationship exists today. All
of the meat to be sold to butchers in Funtua must
first be sold by the Sarkin Zango to the Sarkin
Pawa, who distributes it to the other butchers, and
they to vendors and the public. Hence there is the
presence in the Old Town of a settlement of
butchers who were at one time physically closer to
the zango and the market than their houses are
now.
Around 1912 southern Katsina farmers began
to take advantage of improved seed supplied by
the British Cotton Growing Association (BCGA)
to grow cotton as a cash crop (Cowley 1965). The
Hausa were far more serious in this than the
southern Nigerians. By 1917 Chaytor noted that in
Maska District cotton yields had reached half that
of the staple, guinea corn. In 1916 a road to
facilitate the purchase of cotton at Funtua and to
transport it to a ginnery in Zaria was built to bypass
Maska. The British engineers did not want to
bridge its encircling streams. This somewhat arbi-
trary decision was fateful for Maska. While it still
retained a daily market, no longer were two days of
the week able to sustain a “big” market as before.
By 1921, the influx of alien non-Hausa middlemen,
the presence of touters, and general problems of
market control in Funtua meant that the judge at
Maska had to come to Funtua to dispense justice
without the use of a court house. Funtua had
become the “most paying centre” in the province
in terms of her licensed trading sites.9
The most significant date in Old Town’s
history was February 21, 1927, when two events
occurred simultaneously. The first BCGA ginnery
to be built in Funtua began operating, and the first
train entered the town on a new rail line from
Zaria. This line also bypassed Maska. In this year,
too, the reigning Sarkin Maska died, and the Emir
of Katsina ordered that his successor move his
capital to Funtua to be near the Emir’s own new
southern residence which he had just completed
there. The need for the social control of a
population of railway laborers many of whom
decided to stay on in Funtua, and of dry-season
ginnery workers, may have been behind this
decision. Sarkin Maska’s palace was constructed
adjacent to the market on “Butcher’s Hill.” The
old residence in Maska eventually fell into total
ruin. European firms began to establish them-
selves from then on only in Funtua’s commercial
area and ignored Maska.
The positions of Funtua and Maska thus
became reversed. Maska became a “dark hole”
(lungu) in the eyes of the people. Migration from
Maska to Funtua occurred immediately, as Funtua
became the center of fadanci, “palace behavior” or
political flattery. Relatives, clients, and retainers,
or “palace people,” of the district head, and
traders, Koranic mallams, and important crafts-
men such as the Head of the Dyers and the Chief of
the Silversmiths who made luxury items which they
sold to royalty and its clients and guests were
among the most notable of the early migrants.
These were in the “shade” (inuwa) of the district
head and wished to remain so. Other occupational
chiefs followed, as well as many of those craftsmen
who practiced under them. From 1930-1935 the
population of Maska declined considerably. How-
ever, religious and cultural conservatism - the
9 Katsina Division Reports, Annual 1921, Kaduna National
Archives, and Katsina Division Reports, September 1921,
Kaduna National Archives.
Anthropos 83.1988
494
Harold Olofson
desire to remain near the graves of notable
Koranic scholars or saints (waliyyai) and a fear that
the younger generation would scatter (watse) into
the wide world - prevented those who stayed
behind from moving their town even to the bypass
highway only two kilometres away. This attitude
prevented any possible recovery of Maska’s lost
position. Maska lost its small daily market; today
the market meets only once a week. It lost its judge
and courthouse to Funtua. And there is some
evidence that members of the Maska royal family
who fall into political disfavor are requested to
retire to live in Maska, as a sort of exile.
But after the initial outflow, subsequent mi-
gration from Maska to Funtua slowed consider-
ably. Only eleven compound heads interviewed in
the Funtua neighborhoods had come from Maska,
while only ten in Maska could think of friends or
relatives who had moved to Funtua. Thus, while
one popular opinion which we overheard was that
Maska was becoming empty, Maska in fact had
experienced a spurt of growth amounting to 1,000
souls between 1958 and 1968, when the population
of the central ward reached 3,747, greater than in
the old days.10 Maska is situated close to rich
lowland farms, and, as a result, there is extraordi-
narily little dry-season migration from Maska.
Additionally, the continuing prosperity of its
citizens is part and parcel of the growing prosperity
of the whole district as a result of the cash-cropping
of cotton in upland fields. Maska’s decline is not a
fall, and, in this respect, the folk model of a
disappearing Maska is false and simply an ideolo-
gical reflection of the historical switch in relative
status between it and Funtua.
b) The Rise of New Town
In 1939 the dandi portion of Funtua began to shift
to its present location. Due to the increasingly
congested conditions on “Butchers’ Hill,” the day
market had to be moved to its present site at what
was then a location outside the town, but nearer
the railway station. The old market may have
remained important for a time even in the daytime
until 1947, when the motor park was also moved
from the center to a location outside of the Old
Town.
The appearance and growth of the motor park
(tasha, from English “station”) is of great impor-
10 In 1930 Maska Ward (the walled town) had 2,322 people
(Notes on Maska District, Assistant D. O. Pegge, Kat Prof
1786, Kaduna National Archives).
tance in the history of Funtua. In the 1930s and
1940s the Sarkin Maska attempted to dominate the
passenger business with his own vehicle, until the
District Officer and the Emir made a rule against
this obvious conflict of interest. From 1944 to 1946,
however, a client of that same Sarkin Maska
became an important touter in the early motor
park, which was an empty area adjacent to the
palace. In 1946 this touter was given the new title
of Sarkin Tasha. Shortly thereafter, a famous
general strike hit the Nigerian railroads. Kola
traders discovered that they could pump kola into
the north in greater quantities and more cheaply
than ever before by using motor lorries. When the
railroads began moving again, their great ineffi-
ciency in moving all types of crops and passengers
became quite apparent, and since that time, they
have taken second place to highway traffic. In 1950
the kola-receiving station “became too narrow”
and was shifted to its present location alongside the
market outside of “old town.” At the same time,
three years after its initial shift, the motor park
again needed expansion and was attached to the
new kola-reception area, a fact which demonstrates
the significant role played by the kola trade as a
source of revenue for the town, levied from every
vehicle and passenger using the park. Once again
the site of the motor park was next door to the
market. In the 1950s a grid-plan residential area
was measured out for the New Town adjacent to
the market-lorry park complex, and the neighbor-
hood of New Line began to become inhabited.
In 1966 licenses for buying crops were with-
drawn from European firms in Nigeria, and though
this hastened the demise of those firms in Funtua,
it stimulated the growth of motor lorry fleets run
by newly-formed Funtua-based native companies
and licensed buying agents.
The New Town became the center of dandi
life styles and personalities. Formerly associated
with the prostitutes and cooked-food sellers serv-
ing the early caravans, these have evolved into a
more complex association of characters that par-
take of the culture of the road, and include lorry
drivers and their apprentices, porters, prostitutes,
petrol station operators, beer-brewers and -sellers,
gamblers, and hoteliers. The four hotels in Funtua
(the first was opened in 1956) were all originally
owned by southern Nigerians, and were permitted
by the town council (which dates from 1953) so that
non-Hausa could have places to entertain their
visitors. But today, many Hausa can be seen
among the late night, post-cinema customers and
observers of goge musicians and dance troupes
(filled by prostitutes and shoeshine boys) who
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
495
perform on the hotel dance floors. The council
decided to restrict these elements to New Town,
and so keep them away from the vicinity of the
Funtua Secondary School which had been estab-
lished (also in 1953) on the highway to Zaria at the
opposite end of town.
c) Zamfarawa Moves to Town
The 1960s saw the gradual extension of Funtua on
all sides as new neighborhoods were added to its
edges. One of these was Zamfarawa. 23 compound
heads from the hamlet of that name three miles to
the southeast of Funtua moved to a new neighbor-
hood at the southeast edge of the town. The
migrants thus did not move far, and remained
oriented toward their old compounds. They want-
ed both to attach themselves to the city and at the
same time remain within easy reach of their
fields.
It is important for our depiction of a sequence
of settlement growth and decline in the district to
note that many of the people in the hamlet had
earlier moved there from Maska because of land
shortage adjacent to the walls of that village.
Others may have been descendants of migrants
coming from old centers in Zamfara in Sokoto,
although our only clue to this is the hamlet’s
name.
The most important reason for the second
move was the running dry of wells in the hamlet.
Our research took place at the inception of the
Great Sahelian Drought. Water shortage had
previously plagued Funtua throughout the 1960s
and the hoped-for industrial growth of Funtua was
threatened. It was well that at that time the son of
the Sarkin Maska was the Minister of Public Works
of the Northern Region. To solve the problem the
Ministry installed a system of taps taking water
from a new reservoir on the headwaters of the
Sokoto River. Several compound heads stated that
they had moved to escape the lack of water at
Zamfarawa and to take advantage of Funtua’s new
amenity. Others mentioned such factors as the
availability of commercial involvement in the city,
to be closer to the mosque so as to be more easily
able to join the Islamic community in worship, and
because those left behind missed the pleasurable
conversation of friends and relatives and so fol-
lowed them.
5. Conclusions
a) Natural Areas
The aim of this paper has been to synthesize three
approaches to urban anthropological data to shed
light on the development of Funtua in northern
Nigeria. The first approach was to see whether a
comparison, according to certain criteria emerging
from census data, of four strategically selected
neighborhoods of differing ages would reveal them
to be “natural areas” as defined by Valdo Pons,
and so quite distinct from each other on the basis of
these criteria. This synchronic comparative exer-
cise appears to have yielded positive results. Only
two further points need be made.
First, the distinctiveness of each neighbor-
hood in sociocultural terms is not a result of urban
planning but, as Pons insisted, of unplanned social
processes. Each neighborhood has been formed as
a result of the multiple choices of the individuals
who chose to live there. Even though, for example,
New Line’s grid plan is an outcome of British
models of hygienic urban design imposed on an
African city, it was not foreseen that many of the
compounds here would become the dwelling pla-
ces of courtesans or southern Nigerians. And even
though the town council wants to restrict the
dandi-type activities and life styles to the New
Town and away from the area of the secondary
school, this is a response to what has already taken
place in the New Town.
Secondly, Pons believed that “accident” had
something to do with the formation of natural
areas, especially where migrants settle at the side
of a town in a direction oriented toward their place
of origin. It seems more useful to suggest that the
migration to the natural area of Zamfarawa from
the hamlet of the same name located in the same
direction away from the town center is due to the
relationship between Funtua and its rural hinter-
land. It is no accident that the first migrants from
Zamfarawa did not move in another direction to
look for water, commercial and political chances,
and deeper religious involvement. Rural-urban as
well as inter-urban processes play a role in the
development of some urban natural areas.
b) Folk and Analytical Models
Is the folk or emic picture drawn by the Hausa of
New Town as a dandi and of Maska as a k’auye or
lungu confirmable through the analysis of census
data? These distinctions are partially confirmed.
Anthropos 83.1988
496
Harold Olofson
The dandi is far more complex in terms of
ethnicity, the numbers working in low-shame
occupations or in the modern sector, and the
percentage of compound heads who are migrants
over compound heads born in the town, all
consistent with the folk model of dandi.
While the census data tend to confirm and
provide substance to the local emic characteriza-
tions of the neighborhoods, they also add further
insight. For example, the dandi has many com-
pound heads who do no farming, and very few who
do only farming, while for the rural village of
Maska these characteristics are reversed. We
cannot recall, however, the Hausa ever having
characterized a dandi on the basis of the lack of
interest in farming among its population. It ap-
pears to be assumed that all Flausa urban settle-
ments, or portions of them, will have a consider-
able majority of farmers, and certainly this remains
the case for Funtua taken as a whole, which in
1970-1971 was still basically a pre-industrial com-
mercial center despite the presence of Nigeria’s
largest cotton ginnery.
A dandi is seen as a trading center first and
foremost. But the “most dandi” neighborhood of
the four. New Line, does not come first in traders.
Rather the Old Town has the most. This can be
explained in two ways. Funtua as a whole is
considered a dandi, and the Old Town is still part
of it, of the commercial vitality of the whole. As a
quieter, more secure part of town, wealthy traders
are drawn to it. The heterogeneity of New Line,
and the prevalence of rented quarters and transient
populations which fill them up, may also help to
explain this.
Data additional to the census were brought to
bear on the accuracy of the emic conceptions of
neighborhoods. We were told by a ward head in
New Line that older, presumably more religious
men do not like to settle there because of the
“children of dandi“ who are so noticeable in the
area. I cannot substantiate this view, for according
to the Funtua Local Authority census, the ward in
which New Line is located (Rabiu) has the largest
number of Koranic mallams of any in Funtua. A
vital urban place will have attractions not only for
people who are “modern” in orientation but also
for those who are conservative in view and who
would decry its immoral aspects. Such religious
functionaries may want to live close to the market
and the work-place of the traders to whom they
traditionally give advice and especially-prepared
charms for good luck or for casting misfortune on
their rivals.
The view of Maska as a dying town is
substantiated neither by our own nor local census
data which indicate rather a slow growth of the
village. Interviews revealed little current abandon-
ment of Maska by younger people for Funtua or
any other place.
c) Micro- and Macro-Level Synthesis: The Natural
Areas as Developmental Phases
I believe that the data reveal phases in a sequence
of urban growth and decline in the district in this
century. The delineation of such a sequence is a
macro-level endeavor, but the study of small
neighborhoods made here was at lower levels.
Such smaller units can be shown to be located
within a larger view of the historical rise and
decline of interrelated settlements and/or neigh-
borhoods.
I wish now to place the natural areas into the
proposed sequence where they can be seen as
representatives of its specific phases. To do this,
the emic or folk categories of dandi, tsohon gari,
and k'auye or lungu can be incorporated, as
Lawless suggested, into an arrangement that emer-
ges etically - in the course of analysis - from the
data. I posit a sequence of urban developmental
phases for southern Katsina that is not meant to be
useful in the understanding of the entire history of
Hausa urbanism over eight centuries, but which
may be helpful through comparative study in
identifying similar sequences that have taken place
within Rayfield’s (1974: 181-183) third phase of
West African urban development, involving those
cities whose appearance and growth have been
stimulated by Western-induced trade, and, I would
add, by the penetration of the capitalist world-
system. Although I will not explore the idea fully
here, a dandi such as Funtua, characterized as it is
by expressions of individualism among its people,
may be a non-passive Hausa reflection of, interac-
tion with, and adaptation to the impinging world-
system.
The dandi settlements represent the initiation
of a new phase of Hausa urban development
beginning with the pax Britannica. These hetero-
geneous towns are located at first away from
authority, often just outside of, often far-removed
from, the walls of older, well-established centers.
People feel less restricted there in their search for
fortune (arziki), and some urban subcultures in
dandi are characterized by anti-Islamic, highly
individualistic, and even “shameless” behaviors
and life styles. The dandi is considered cosmopoli-
tan, a phenomenon of “modern times” (zamani),
Anthropos 83.1988
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization
497
and in it commercial pursuits are emphasized over
agrarian ones, although it is based on agricultural
prosperity in the local region that was originally
stimulated by colonial interests. Its vitality de-
pends on its location on important lines of trade, a
fact which has always been true for Sudanic cities
of any significance, but now its inhabitants include
traders and others who attach themselves to
traders, such as clients, Koranic mallams, praise-
singers, and prostitutes, who seek a part of the flow
of new wealth.
As the dandi increases in ethnic and social
complexity and in commercial dynamism and
requires tighter political and administrative con-
trol, the local seat of authority may be moved to it
from another town which has become relatively
less important commercially.11 In the past, Maska
may have been a focus of trade in southern
Katsina. We know it used to have big market days.
It must then have been much more complex
socially and ethnically than it is now. Today it has
very few newcomers, southern Nigerians, or pros-
titutes within its central ward. The redistribution
of population (including the movement of farmers
out of Maska itself) and realignment of rural trade
routes following the British peace with its gradual-
ly increasing security for rural populations, and
then the decision of the colonial government to
bypass Maska with both highway and railway,
sealed its decline. For some years prior to the shift
of Sarkin Maska’s palace to Funtua in 1927, he had
been spending most of his time in Funtua already.
He stayed, significantly, at the house of a promi-
nent cattle-trader, whose name comes down to us
as Alhaji Garba, while his family and clients
remained in the old palace at Maska. During this
interval, Maska may be said to have been in a
tsohon gari phase. The center of trade had moved
away, but it still remained the district capital. With
the final removal of the rulership, Maska was left
with only a village head. It moved into the category
of ancient and backward settlement - a reversal to
a k’auye or lungu status - in which it is considered
to be frozen today.
The Old Town thus represents a second phase
11 This is not to claim that ethnic and occupational heteroge-
neity has been historically restricted to dandi settlements,
for it did occur in the great pre-20th century Hausa cities.
The walled city of Kano had long been known for its wards
of ethnic groups of “international” origin originally coming
for purposes of trade. Most of these have become absorbed
into the Hausa people. An example is the ward of Ayagi in
the walled city of Kano. This is an old Hausa term for the
Yoruba. Today it is the surname of people who are
considered Hausa and who are natives of this ward.
in the sequence of Hausa urban development, and
Maska, our oldest natural area, is in a third. The
location of Old Town within Funtua, adjacent to
the commercial center even though that is now
moved to New Town, means that it still partakes of
the vitality of Funtua, is not yet in any real decline,
and probably will never be unless the town as a
whole declines. Similarly, although Maska is today
considered a “hole” we know that it has not died;
its quiet prosperity continues due to its location
within an agriculturally prosperous district.
For most of its history, up to the end of World
War II, the area now known as Old Town rep-
resented the dandi of Funtua. Then overcrowded
conditions required an eventual relocation of the
market to New Town, which became the dandi and
left what then became the Old Town as a tradi-
tional political, administrative, and religious cen-
ter for the district. Non-Hausa began to reside in
the New Town near the market rather than in en-
claves in the tsohon gari.
With Zamfarawa we complete the sequence
and may even begin to see the possibility of a cycle.
Many of the people from this hamlet left Maska
many years ago to look for fresh farmland in a
relatively sparsely inhabited area. Now, due pri-
marily to a shortage of water in the countryside,
and the attraction of a nearby city with its
amenities, it is re-attaching itself to a gari, and
particularly to the dandi or sabon gari of Fun-
tua.
In Hausaland there are many settlements
which look like one or another of these natural
areas. For example, Katsina, Sokoto, and Birnin
Zazzau have moved on or declined to Old Town
status.12 Kaura Namoda, Gusau, Sabon Garin
Zaria, Jos, Kaduna, and others are in a dandi or
12 It must be noted that the walled cities of Kano and Zaria are
examples of ancient centers that still contain thriving
markets, although the market in the walled city of Zaria has
taken second place to the one in Sabon Gari outside of the
walls. During my fieldwork, controversial plans were being
debated about moving the Kurmi market in Kano to the
edge of town as a solution to its congestion and lack of
sanitation. This move was being opposed by its traders who
claimed that they would lose their trade connections and
customers if a relocation were to be carried out.
Goddard (1973) points out how Sokoto “became
relatively remote and inaccessible” and underwent a “dra-
matic change of fortune” as a result of the failure of the
British to extend the railway beyond Kaura Namoda, thus
inhibiting the development of cash crop farming in north-
western Nigeria. By 1970, however, Sokoto was connected
to all points east by a very fine, all-weather paved road, the
project of national-level political leaders from Sokoto. No
Anthropos 83.1988
498
Harold Olofson
New Town phase. In southern Katsina places like
Danja and Birnin Kogo are now reduced to village
status as Bakori and Faskari have replaced them in
sociopolitical and economic importance.
Funtua is interesting in having within it a
range of variation of neighborhoods, some striking
the observer as “modern” or like a dandi13 in
appearance and “feel,” while others are more
traditional. As a whole social organism undergoing
development, it contains a quickening activity and
a differentiation of natural areas that symbolize
unfolding past and future positions on its historical
transit. Funtua as a whole could conceivably lapse
into Old Town or even village status at some future
time, particularly if desertification extends its ugly
hand deeper into the savanna country of West
Africa (Scott 1979). Maska, due to the vicissitudes
of history, has lost whatever central role it had and
represents symbolically both Funtua’s political
point of origin (its “root”) and a phase in its
possible existential destination.
Grateful thanks are due to the following; Sarkin Katsina
Alhaji Usman Nagogo for permission to do research in
Funtua from August, 1970, to August, 1971; to Sarkin
Maska Alhaji Idirisu of Funtua (now Sarkin Funtua) for
his hospitality and helpfulness in the research during the
course of my stay; to Dr. Charles Frantz and the
Department of Sociology at Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria, who provided me with Research Associate status;
and to the Center for International Studies of the
University of Pittsburgh and Professor Leonard Plotni-
cov who provided funds for the research. I accept full
responsibility for any errors or shortcomings in this
paper.
one has assessed the effects this road must be having on the
resurgence of Sokoto.
Wiseman (1979) in a study of Gimi, Zaria Province,
describes how what we would call a dandi-type ward of that
town, a trading post situated on the Zaria-Kano rail line,
lapsed into a “state of decay” and “lost its raison d'etre” for
these reasons: the flight of Ibo during the Biafran Civil War,
the inability of local Hausa to replace them as large-scale
traders, and the continuing inefficiency of the railway
compared to lorry transport. This trading settlement, while
located on the rail line, was some distance from the
Zaria-Kano highway.
13 Sarkin Funtua Alhaji Idirisu did not think of his capital town
of Funtua as a dandi. Perhaps a ruler would not want to
think of his chief town in this way. But I think that, to him. a
dandi is a place other than one’s own town to which persons
from the town might go to visit on the “walk of dandi."
Funtua was his home-town.
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Anthropos 83.1988
STUDIA INSTITUTI ANTHROPOS 41
ANTHONY J. GITTINS
MENDE RELIGION
Aspects of Belief and Thought
in Sierra Leone
1987. 240 pp. DM 65,00
MENDE RELIGION is a rich account of the empirical data of a tribal religion.
Considering not just beliefs but subjective meanings, not just expected behaviour but
what actually happens, this study discloses a system and a rationale in terms of
spiritual agencies and the indigenous concept of power. In doing this, the practical
beliefs in witchcraft, secret societies, medicine, and spirits are brought into mutually
illuminating relationship. Aspects of Mende philosophy are thus preserved and
integrated, to the benefit of both missionary and anthropologist.
Orders to:
Anthropos Institut Steyler Verlag - Wort und Werk
Arnold-Janssen-Str. 20
D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1
West Germany
Postfach 2460
D-4054 Nettetal 2
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Anthropos 83.1988: 501-510
“He has smitten her to the heart with love”
The Fabrication of an Islamic Love-amulet in West Africa
Geert Mommersteeg
Abstract.- Among the characteristic features of popular Islam
is the use of amulets. By means of these charms the special
measure of power ascribed to Qur’anic words is applied for
different protective or causitive purposes. This article describes
the process of fabrication of one such amulet. A West African
marabout is followed during the manufacture of a love-amulet.
By looking closely at this process, it becomes clear that the
Qur’anic quotation is not only paramount in the literal content
but also determines the way in which the amulet is fabricated.
[West Africa, Popular Islam, Amulets, Marabouts]
Geert Mommersteeg, grad, in Cultural Anthropology (Univ. of
Utrecht, 1983); - Fieldwork was conducted (1985/86 and
1987/88) in Mali among the marabouts in Djenne as a research
associate of the Institute for Cultural Anthropology of the
Univ. of Utrecht. On the basis of this fieldwork he is preparing
his Ph. D. thesis.
Introduction
The use of amulets is widespread in the Islamic
world. It is even held that due to this popular
custom Islamization in West Africa scored its early
successes. As Marty (1914: 321) points out: “L’is-
lamisation par 1’amulette est un de ces procédés
merveilleux par lesquels la religion d’Allah pénè-
tre les masses fétichistes et y ouvre la première
brèche . . 7’1 In the shape of little leather sachets
containing a piece of paper inscribed with Arabic
characters and numbers, cabbalistic diagrams, and
mysterious signs; and worn on the body or suspend-
ed above the doorway of a house, the amulets are
believed to guard their owner from particular evils
as diseases and malevolent forces or to enable him
to achieve a desirable goal such as to obtain
wealth, power, children, or even women. The use
of these amulets derives from the belief in the
power of the inscriptions they contain. It is the
inherent power of the Qur’anic words and the
names of God which will protect or help their
bearer.
In West Africa amulets are manufactured by
Muslim religious specialists known by the French
term “marabout.” These “clergymen” (Triming-
ham 1959), “savants” (Delafosse 1910: 178) or
“personnages plus ou moins religieux, plus ou
moins lettrés, plus ou moins magiciens ou guéris-
seurs, parfois mystiques authentiques, souvent
affiliés à une confrérie” (Monteil 1980: 153) are,
often besides their role as Qur’anic teachers, the
providers of amulets. Although not all marabouts,
especially not those who have specialized in legal
or theological studies, practise the manufacture of
charms - or will easily admit that they practise, the
lore of amuletmaking is part of a marabout’s
training. After his Qur’anic education, a marabout
gathers the required knowledge by studying with
one or more elder marabouts and by self-study of
imported, published books on magic,1 2 and, if a
tradition of marabouts exists in his family, of an
inherited, handwritten collection of notes and
instructions in this field.
In a number of publications about the popular
forms of Islam the authors give ample overviews of
what old Arabic manuals on magic say about
amulets as well as descriptions and analyses of the
content of a considerable number of such charms. 3
In this paper, however, I shall concentrate on the
description of one single amulet and particularly
on the process of its fabrication as I witnessed it.
Describing the different stages of the manufacture
of this amulet will enable us to distinguish relevant
features of its form and content and, consequently,
clarify some of the principles of the belief-system
which is at its roots.4
1 On the role of amulets, and of Islamic healing in general, in
the process of establishment and maintenance of Islam in
black Africa see Fisher 1973.
2 For some titles see Goody 1968b: 235.
3 See Bravmann 1984, Doutté 1909, Kriss und Kriss 1962,
Marty 1914, Robson 1934, Winkler 1930.
4 The data on which this paper is based are gathered during
fieldwork between November 1985 and October 1986. The
research was financed by the Netherlands Foundation for
the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) (W 52-
368) and carried out in Djenné in the north-east of the
Republic of Mali. The ancient Sudanic town of Djenné,
502
Geert Mommersteeg
The Fabrication of a Love-amulet
Stage One: Preparation and Calculation
When a man sets his heart on a woman and wants
to marry her or sometimes - more prosaic - just
wants to make love to her, and the woman, despite
all his advances, keeps rejecting him, he may call
upon a marabout for an amulet which will enable
him to possess that particular woman. Once the
man owns such an amulet certainly the woman will
open up her heart to him, no longer able to refuse
his wishes. She will be completely enchanted not so
much by the man’s own charms as by the power of
his amulet.
The fabrication of an amulet to gain a wom-
an’s love can be divided into two major stages;
the writing (and calculating) and the invocation.
It is the fact of writing through which the
Islamic amulet originally won the admiration of the
indigenous people of West Africa (Marty
1914: 322). Or, as Turay states: “More than
anything else, the power of using the Qur’an and
situated in the inner Niger-delta, played, as an important
commercial centre, a major role in the history of the
Islamization of West Africa (since the 13th century). It was
one of the “gateways of Islam.” Nowadays it is a small town
(approx. 10.000 inhabitants) where the drought of the last
years has left its marks. Islam characterizes a great part of
the daily life of the ethnic diverse population - most
Marka/Sonray, Fulani, and Bozo. There are about 50
Qur’anic schools and several schools for “secondary”
Islamic education (theology, law, Arabic). Apart from the
teachers at these schools many men in the town are known
as marabouts because of their magico-religious activities.
The marabout, who fabricated the amulet discussed
here and who gave extensive explanations, originates from a
little village about 40 kilometres north of Djenne. Ap-
pointed by his father, the village-chief, as a servant in
a household of Dutch developmental workers, he accompa-
nied them as they moved to Djenne. Here he seized the
opportunity to continue his theological and Arabic studies
with one of the greater marabouts of the town. The
marabout, now in his early thirties, finished his Qur’anic
studies and started to read theological, juridical, and
grammar-books in his native village. His knowledge of the
practice of magic he gathered partly from his “master,” who
also taught him the Qur’an, and from an uncle in a nearby
village; partly by self-study of imported books (as for his
most important book here, the marabout refers to “Ighal-
that al-mazlum wa-kashf asrar al-'ulum - The rescue of the
wronged and the revelation of the secrets of knowledge”
written by 'Abd al-Fattah al-Sayyid al-Tukhi, General
Director of the astronomical institute al-Futuh for Egypt
and the East [Beirut, Libanon: Shabiba Press, n.d.]. In his
home village the marabout had a couple of pupils who
followed Qur’anic lessons with him, and he enjoyed a
certain esteem both in theological matters and in the domain
of magic.
knowledge of the Arabic script helped to entrench
the position of Manding, Susa, and more latterly
Fula marabouts among the Temne [Sierra Leone]”
(see Skinner 1978: 58).5 It is its written content
that distinguishes the Islamic amulet from the
traditional ones.6 Writing itself is considered to
have magical powers. Doutté (1909: 151): “Les
signes graphiques qui représentent les mots, tom-
bant plus facilement sous les sens que les sons et
étant susceptibles de durée, puisqu’ils sont maté-
riellement fixés, il est naturel que la force magique
soit conçue comme concentrée sur eux: autrement
dit, l’écriture est réputée avoir des vertus magiques
par elle-même.” But not only does writing have its
magical characteristics, Arabic itself is also a
sacred language. It is the language in which the
Qur’an was revealed to mankind. In West Africa,
moreover, “the sacredness of Arabic was doubt-
less intensified by the simple fact that most people
did not understand it” (Brenner and Last
1985: 433).
The words of the Qur’an lie at the foundation
of all Islamic amulets. When preparing the fabri-
cation of the love-amulet the marabout first looks
for a passage in the Holy Book which will suit the
desired goal. In principle, he is free to choose any
verse, or part. It is sufficient to know the meaning
of it, that is, to be able to translate the Arabic into
the vernacular.7 As, according to our marabout-
5 The marabouts did not alter the traditional belief in the
power of charms. All they did was replacing the traditional
forms of charms for new ones based on the Qur’an (see
A. K. Turay in Skinner 1978: 58). In fact, Trimingham
(1959: 113) has a more moderate view on the effects of the
introduction of written charms in West Africa: “Clergy have
introduced new techniques into the general body of magical
practice, but it is simply an addition or substitution of
written amulets for old, hence the Fulbe saying, ‘those who
write are no better than magicians’.” See, for the general
effects of the introduction of writing in traditional societies,
Goody 1968 (ed.) and, for the role of amulets in this context,
Goody 19685: 201-203; 227-229.
6 Traditional charms can consist of a large variety of materials
of vegetable or animal origin such as roots, pieces of bark or
skin, bones, cauri-shells, each believed to contain a certain
kind of power. Both kinds of amulets - Islamic as well as
traditional - are referred to with the French term gris-gris
and both often look alike on the outside (little leather
sachets). There exists a whole class of amulets which
combines, to a greater or less extent, the written form with
some traditional object.
7 Compare Bledsoe and Robey (1986: 210) who write, with
regard to Islamic magic among the Mende of Sierra Leone:
“. . . in most cases, the specific potential of the words [the
chosen Qur’anic verses] cannot be discerned from a literal
understanding of the words’ meaning. Learning which
verses have magical qualities is a task separate from the
initial literacy skills.”
Anthropos 83.1988
“He has smitten her to the heart with love”
503
informant, the Prophet once should have said:
“Take whatever where for whatever what.” Gen-
erally, however, a marabout will restrict himself
to the verses indicated in the books on magic or
to what he has learned from his teacher in this
field.
In the case we are examining the marabout
takes a section of sura 12, verse 30; “Indeed he has
smitten her to the heart with love”8. The passage
of the sura “Yusuf” from which this is taken, tells
how Joseph, with his extreme beauty, infatuated
the wife of his Egyptian master.9 Suitable words
therefore for an amulet which aims to provide its
owner with the love and attachment of a wom-
an.
Once the marabout decided which part of the
Qur’an he wants to use, he scribbles it down and
begins to calculate the numerical value of these
words. In Islamic magic the power of the words is
closely associated with numbers. In accordance
with one of the basic premises of the old Jewish
Cabala: “Jedes Wort ist eine Zahl, und jede Zahl
ist ein Wort” (Ahrens 1917: 202), each letter in the
Arabic alphabet has its own numerical value.10 *
After some calculation the marabout finds that the
numerical value of the chosen part of sura 12, verse
30 is 1957. Finding this value enables him, as we
will see, to determine the exact content and shape
which the various components in the process of
amulet-making have to take. First, however, the
marabout fixes on the basis of his calculations the
appropriate time for the actual writing of the
amulet and for the invocation of the spirits.
For every act of magic, for all “maraboutage,”
there is a time; a time for “good work” and a time
for “bad work”11. Each of the twelve hours of the
day, and those of the night, has a different
8 Pickthall’s translation (The Glorious Koran. A Bi-lingual
Edition with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes.
Marmaduke Pickthall. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1976).
9 Kriss und Kriss (1962; 108) write about a love-amulet in
which the second part of sùra 12, verse 32, is used and
conclude: “Bezeichnenderweise wurde gerade jener Vers
aus der Sure Yusuf gewählt, der davon berichtet, wie die
geladenen Frauen so sehr von Josephs Schönheit geblendet
wurden, daß sie alle in Liebe zu ihm entbrannten.” Doutté
(1909: 254-255) writing about an amulet ‘pour faire naitre
l'amour’, mentions the following words used in the invoca-
tion: “O Une Telle, accorde ton amoure à Un Tel, comme
Zoulelkha a aimé Joseph, sur lui soit le salut! . . .”
10 See, in connection with the numerical value and its
calculation, Ahrens 1917: 201-203; Doutté 1909: 174-179;
Kriss und Kriss 1962: 71 ff.; Marty 1914: 339-341. The last
two references contain a list in which each letter of the
Arabic alphabet and its corresponding number is given.
The amulet-paper (the name of the man and the name of the
woman are obliterated)
character. The so called “planet-hours.” Seven
“planets” (i.e., the sun, the moon, and the planets
Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn) each
exert a particular time of the day, or the night, a
special influence which is important for the manu-
11 “Bad work” is, as the marabout explains, all maraboutage
of which the objective is to bring a loss upon another person.
But, he immediately adds, one can have reason to act as
such - even have reason to kill someone with the help of
magic. Someone who always does evil and who has been
warned at least three times by a marabout that he acts
against the will of God, has to fear magical reprisals. Besides
this, there is a whole field of magic which is looked upon as
reprehensible. So the magical fabrication of money or gold
is morally condemned. One has to work for his money. - On
the attitudes of orthodox Islam concerning black magic see,
i.a., Macdonald 1934, Doutté 1909: 336-341 (and 280-304,
where a few examples of magical practices to harm someone
are given). However, as Trimingham (1959: 116) states:
“Clerics in West Africa are confused as to whether it is the
method employed, or the intention, or both, that matters.
The boundary between black and white magic in Islam is
rather vague. Since the powers and methods employed for
both are the same, clergy are regarded as practioners of the
one and the other.”
Anthropos 83.1988
504
Geert Mommersteeg
facture of amulets.12 The hours of the sun, the
moon, Jupiter, and Venus are hours for good
work. Under the sign of Mars and Saturn it is
possible to perform bad work. And an hour of
Mercury is fit for both kinds of work. To ensure
himself of the right astrological influences the
marabout determines, on the basis of the numeri-
cal value, during which hour, under the sign of
which planet, he has to write the amulet. The
numerical value of the Qur’anic text is 1957. When
divided by 12 the remainder is 1. Thus the writing
has to be done during the first hour of the day. This
hour, however, had already passed when the
calculation took place. The first hour of that day, a
Wednesday, is under the sign of the planet
Mercury. In a table of the planet-hours the
marabout finds that the fifth and the twelfth hour
of Thursday are also Mercury-hours. So he post-
poned the writing to the fifth hour of the next day
and planned to begin the invocation in the twelfth
hour, since writing and invocation are to be
performed in hours of the same planet.
Stage Two: Writing
When the auspicious hour has come, the marabout
writes the amulet-paper. The inscriptions can be
divided into three parts: mysterious signs, a square
of which eight of the nine sections are filled in with
numbers, and an Arabic text.
In the right-hand top corner the marabout
draws seven signs:
6 f> ll/| # r fl
All his magical work he starts with these signs he
points out. They represent “the highest name of
Allah”: ismillahi I-asma. The pronunciation of the
great name is no different from the description of
the signs of which it is composed. When the
marabout needs to recite this name for a certain
kind of maraboutage he says: “Three little sticks
on a row after the ring; and a blinded and curtailed
mlm, next a ladder to climb to all your wishes but it
12 These planet-hours are not the same as the clock-hours.
They are one twelfth part of the real day- and nighttime.
Say, a day (from sunrise to sunset) lasts thirtyfive minutes
longer than twelve hours; in that case a planet-hour during
the day lasts 63 minutes (35 : 12 — 3) while a planet-hour
during the night only lasts 57 minutes. See, in this context,
also Laarss 1919: 196-200.
is not a ladder; and four fingers on a row; and a
cloven hâ; and reversed wâw, one would say an ear
of a cup but it is not a cup.”13 As the marabout
explains, the seven signs exist since the days of
Muhammad. When the ancient marabouts were
discussing the highest name of Allah, the Prophet’s
nephew and son-in-law Ali gave them these seven
signs and taught them how to pronounce them. Ali
was the wise man who knew all about magic, and
all knowledge of maraboutage dates back to
him.
In the literature these signs, known as sab’a
hawâtim (“the seven signs”)14, are closely associ-
ated with King Solomon. They were his seals.
Solomon was “a great magician” (Carra de Vaux
1932: 457) and to him “later Islam traced back all
white magic” (Macdonald 1934: 439). The penta-
gonal star is said to have been cut on the bezel of
his ring (Budge 1961: 40). In a seventeenth-
century text, of which Winkler (1930: 57-65) gives
a translation, all seven signs play a part in a story
about how Solomon conquered an evil spirit. And
Doutté (1909: 157), following the great scholar
Al-Buni (died 1225), writes: “Les signes gravés sur
le sceau de Salomon renfermaient le ‘grand nom’
de Dieu, comme ceux qui étaient gravés sur le
coeur d’Adam”. Yet, it can be read in Winkler
(1930: 65-66), when he quotes the “Dïwàn of Ali”
- a mediaeval collection of poems and aphorisms
attributed to Ali - that it was the Prophet’s
son-in-law who, after he had found them inscribed
on a rock, interpreted the seven signs as the highest
name of Allah. In a poem Ali describes the signs.
And it is this poem in which we recognize the
marabout’s pronunciation of the highest name.
The two are all but the same.15 *
Under the seven signs the marabout writes:
“In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compas-
sionate ; at Him we call for help” followed by a bene-
13 The mlm, the ha, and the waw are respectively the 24th, the
26th, and the 27th letter of the Arabic alphabet.
14 See, i.a., Doutte 1909: 155-158; Kriss und Kriss 1962:
74-80. The most extensive work on this subject is Winkler
1930, who devotes almost his entire book to the “seven
seals” and not only writes about their origin and significa-
tion, but also tries to give an explanation for the form of the
signs.
15 Strictly speaking the poem as described in the “DTwan of
Ali” is rather different from the words the marabout used.
This is due to variance in the form and sequence of the seven
signs (see, for different forms of the signs, Winkler 1930:
114-116). In the Shams al-ma'arif of Al-Buni (who in all
probability used the “Diwan of Ali” as a source; 1930: 109),
however, the poem of Ali is identical with the way in which
the marabout pronounces the highest name of Allah (see
1930; 71).
Anthropos 83.1988
“He has smitten her to the heart with love”
505
diction for the Prophet: “O Allah bless our Lord
Muhammad and his family.”
A square divided into nine sections is drawn at
the centre of the amulet-paper. Eight of them
contain numbers, and the middle one contains a
text. Here the marabout writes; “Indeed he has
smitten her to the heart with love” together with
the name of his client and that of the woman whose
heart is to be won. The woman’s name is written
under the Qur’anic quotation, the man’s name
above and upside down. In this way the two names
allegedly “attract” each other. Above, or rather
“under,” the name of the man the marabout writes
the name of Allah, and under the woman’s name
he writes the name of an angel - probably
Djibril.
The numbers in the square are in a certain
ratio to each other. They are all derived from the
numerical value of the Qur’anic text. According to
the following principle the eight fields are filled:
3 00 1
7 5
2 4 6
field 1: the numerical value divided by 12;
field 2: two times the number of field 1;
field 3: three times the number of field 1;
field 4: the number of field 1 plus that of field 3;
field 5: the number of field 1 plus that of field 4;
field 6: the number of field 1 plus that of field 5 plus
the remainder of the division of the numerical
value;
field 7: the number of field 1 plus that of field 6;
field 8: the number of field 1 plus that of field
'j 16
So the square reads as follows:
489 1305 163
1142 815
326 652 979
16 I have given the explanation of the way to fill in the square as
told by the marabout. The principle can be formulated here
as follows: the numerical value; 12 = a + (rest) b. field 1: a;
field 2; 2a; field 3: 3a; field 4: 4a; field 5: 5a; field 6: 6a + b;
field 7; 7a + b; field 8: 8a + b. So the total of each
horizontal and vertical line is 12a + b (i.e., the numerical
value).
When constructed in this way the numbers in the
square are so arranged that the horizontal and
vertical lines always add up to the same total, viz.
1957: the numerical value. Thus there exist a close
relation between the numbers and the text. As the
marabout explains, writing one such square is the
same as writing the quotation from the Qur’an
1957-times. But using a square is not only easier
and quicker.17 Squares like this are also very easy
to read for the spirits who will be invoked in order
to realize the request as formulated in the amulet.
Spirits can read squares at a glance. Immediately
they understand what is asked for. Constructing a
numerical square might be seen, therefore, as a
“condensed” way of writing. The apparent jug-
gling with numbers, which is in fact based on a
clear and simple basis, certainly enhances the
magical character.
Numerical squares as well as other kinds of
tables (djadwal) form an essential part of the
content of Islamic amulets (Graefe and Macdonald
1965; Doutte 1909; 152). The very popular djad-
wal da'wat al-shams may serve as an example.18
The forty-nine sections of this table contain, in
seven lines, respectively: the seven magic signs (cf.
supra), seven letters not found in the first seven
verses of the Qur’an, seven of the ninety-nine
names of God, the names of seven angels, the
names of the seven kings of the jinn, the names of
the seven days of the week, and the names of the
seven “planets” (cf. supra). With regard to this
table Goody (1968a: 18) writes, following Doutte’s
remark, that “the dominant idea behind this djad-
wal is that there exist a precise correspondence
between the different elements. ... it is the nature
of this link that gives the square so great a
significance in human affairs; it is not simply a
classificatory device but has operative power for
the solution of problems.” The so-called “magical-
squares” (wafk) form a special class of tables.19 In
these squares the numbers in each field are so
arranged that not only, as in our case, the
horizontal and vertical but also the diagonal lines
add up to the same total.
17 When a marabout works according to the other method;
that is, writing the Qur’anic words an equal number of times
as their numerical value - either for an amulet or for an
erasure (cf. infra) he usually instructs a few of his elder
Qur’anic pupils to do the writing.
18 See Budge 1961; 40-44; Doutte 1909; 154-161; Graefe and
Macdonald 1965; Kriss und Kriss 1962: 81-82; Winkler
1930: 96-109.
19 A very extensive treatise of magical squares, but above all of
mathematical interest, is found in Ahrens 1917 and 1922.
Anthropos 83.1988
506
Geert Mommersteeg
The most simple of these is the nine-cell square:
9 2
3 5 7
00 1 6
According to Goody (1968a: 18) these squares
have a similar significance as the djadwal da'wat
al-shams, “on the Pythagorean principle that
numbers hold the key to the operation of the
world”20.
After he has constructed the numerical square
the marabout writes the following text around it;
“Trust [in Allah], o servants of this holy verse.
May Allah bless you. You have to obey. Quick!
Quick! By virtue of the rights of this verse over you
and the power of it over you [.?.] (the woman’s
name) [.?.] the love for (the man’s name) in this
hour. So that she will not be able to be away from
him during one hour or even less than that.” The
marabout requests, or better he orders, the spirits
belonging to the Qur’anic text on the amulet-paper
to accomplish what is asked for. Later on, during
the invocation, when he addresses himself directly
to the spiritworld, he shall pronounce this phrase.
As we will see in detail further on, every verse,
even every word in the Qur’an has its own
accompanying spirits.
When the marabout has written at the foot of
the amulet-paper another benediction for the
Prophet - “May Allah bless our Lord Muhammad,
His Prophet, and his family and companions!” -,
he makes two copies of it: one on another sheet of
paper and with a ballpoint, the other with a
homemade pen and ink on a wooden slate.21 While
one of the written sheets is kept apart for use in the
20 Ahrens (1922: 161) speaks of squares in which one or both
diagonals have a different sum as “semi-magical.” Mathe-
matically speaking this might be the case. However, in our
view and looking at its purpose, such a square is no less
magical than others.
Ahrens deals only with squares of which all fields are
filled in with numbers. In Kriss und Kriss (1962: 108) there
is a square where the middle number is omitted and replaced
by a text. This square has the same pattern as the most
simple “magical square,” thus the number 5 fails. In such a
way 4 lines add up to 10 and 4 to 15. While in the numerical
square the marabout uses 6 lines have the same total.
21 The wooden slate, the pen; a sharpened piece of a stalk of a
shrub, and the ink; soot washed off from cooking-pots and
gum arabic dissolved in water, are the same as used by the
pupils in the Qur’anic schools.
invocation-ritual - it is this one which will serve
as amulet in the end -, the other must be placed on
a certain spot. There are four possiblities, each
associated with one of the four elements: water
(the paper is put in a tin, bottle, or the like and
buried by the waterside), earth (buried in a hole in
the ground), air (suspended in a high tree), and fire
(buried in the ground at a place where is often a
fire - e.g., a kitchen - or written on an iron sheet
and placed near a fire or a burning charcoal-stove).
Which of the four locations is the proper one in this
case, the marabout determines, again, on the basis
of the numerical value of the Qur’anic text. It is
important to deposit the copy on the right spot for
it is there where the invoked spirits will command
their assistents to go and search. In the present
case, “water” was derived from the numerical
value. Thus, some time before he starts with the
invocation, the marabout puts the paper in a little
plastic bag and buries it by the riverside just
outside the town.
After the marabout has written the signs, the
numerical square, and the text on the wooden slate
he washes them off and collects the water in which
the writing has been dissolved in a container. The
liquid is given to the client, who has to, regularly,
rub the water over his face and head or drink a
little bit of it. The use of an erasure like this
derives, just like the use of amulets, from the belief
in the power of the Qur’anic text and other
inscriptions they contain (see El-Tom 1985).22 *
Although erasures are also given and used apart
from amulets, in the present case the erasure is
closely connected with the amulet. Both contain
the same text, i.e., the same power. By using them
both they will reinforce one another. While the
erasure not only strengthens the power of the
amulet, at the same time it attaches this power to
the individual. The client, whether he wants to
wear the amulet or just keep it in his house, can
internalize the power of its inscriptions by drinking
the erasure or even by rubbing it over his body.
22 I have adopted the term “erasure” from El-Tom’s article on
the meaning imposed on the Qur’anic text, especially as
used in erasures among the Berti of the Republic of the
Sudan. The Berti refer to the water with which the text is
washed off from the slate with a term derived from the verb
“to erase.” In Djenne (Sonray) this water is called nasi or
nesi. According to Trimingham (1959; 115) this means
“holy water.”
Anthropos 83.1988
“He has smitten her to the heart with love”
507
Stage Three: Invocation
When the hour has come that corresponds with the
one in which the marabout has done the writing, he
starts with the invocation. It is time to call upon the
spirits to accomplish that what is asked for in the
amulet.
There are two kinds of spirits, as the marabout
explains: rùhâniya sufula and rùhâniya ulia. The
first, the “lower spirits,” are the demons, the jinn.
The dwell everywhere upon earth and in the seas.
Nobody knows their number but surely they
outnumber the human population. As for their
character they resemble man. They may act good,
they may act evil. The rùhâniya ulia, the “higher
spirits,” however, never do any evil. Their be-
haviour is exemplary. They are the angels, the
nearest approach to God. They live scattered over
the seven heavens. To seven angels and seven jinn
God has given the responsibility for all that
happens on earth. Each couple during one day of
the week.23 They constitute the “government of
Allah.”
It is this group of spirits, and particularly the
kings of the jinn, who play an important role here.
As will be shown, the marabout asks the jinn who
is in charge that day permission to invoke other
spirits. It is even possible to directly ask this “king”
to fulfil the wish formulated in the amulet. That is
to say, to call upon him to give an assistent orders
to do this - because “kings” never move. In our
case, however, the marabout does not work
according to this method which is, as he states,
rather difficult and requires meticulous prepara-
tions. He prefers to direct himself to a group of
spirits who are easier to approach; those associated
with the Quranic text on the amulet-paper. Yet,
before he can invoke them there are a couple of
acts to perform.
First, the marabout kindles a charcoal-fire in a
little stove. He then takes the amulet-paper,
throws a little frankincense (in this case: djâwi =
benzoin-resin) in the glowing coals, and holds the
paper in the fumes for some time. Doutté writes:
“Au premier plan de la pharmacopée magique
musulmane sont les parfums à brûler; il n’y a
aucune cérémonie importante, aucune invocation
sérieuse de djinns sans qu’il soit indiqué d’y brûler
tel ou tel parfum; parfois il y a des parfums plus ou
moins efficaces suivant les heures et les jours ...”
23 Their names are mentioned in the djadwal da'wat al'shams
(cf. supra). In this table they are each listed by their own day
and “planet.” See, for names and attributes of these spirits,
Winkler 1930: 97-109.
(1909: 72). The fumes are food for the spirits. As
the marabout explains: “You can’t invite someone
without giving him a meal.” By feeding the spirits
the marabout ensures himself of their help. The
kind of perfume to use depends - also - on the
numerical value of the Qur’anic text in the amulet.
During the preparations for the invocation the
marabout has ascertained which scent is the proper
one.24 When the amulet-paper is incensed with the
fragrant fumes the marabout folds it three times,
winds a thread round it, and attaches it in such a
way that the folded paper hangs about half a meter
above the burning charcoal. At times he shall
throw little pieces of resin in there.
Previous to the invocation proper the mara-
bout, standing on his mat in front of the stove and
turned in the direction of Mecca, prays two
ruku'.25 After this prayer to Allah he sits down and
addresses himself to the “spirit of the place,” the
one who occupies the location. It is necessary to
inform the local spirit of the arrival of other spirits.
Three times the jinn is asked either to agree with
this or, otherwise, to leave his territory for a while.
The marabout uses a special formula of strange
words here. “Magic words,” as he calls them,
“words of which nobody knows the meaning.”26
Next he uses a similar spell to ask the king of the
jinn who is associated with this particular day of
the week to give permission for the invocation.
Nothing can be done by an other spirit either good
or bad, not even by Iblis - the Satan -, without the
consent of the spirit who rules the day. So, first
things first, it is necessary to make sure that “the
spirit of the day” agrees with the work to be done.
Seven times the marabout calls upon him.
After this the marabout takes up his rosary
(tasbiha) and begins with the invocation of the
24 When after the calculation and the transformation of
numbers into letters there appears a name of a certain
perfume that is not available - in a small market-town as
Djenné such is fairly often the case - or when the
calculations do not give a definite answer, it is possible to
use a perfume which, as mentioned in a list, belongs to that
particular day of the week. In our case the marabout used
“the perfume of the day,” strengthened in his choice by the
fact that, in the outcome of his calculations, he found one
letter which also occurs in the name of that perfume.
25 The five daily Muslim prayers are each made up of a certain
number of rukú' (minimal two). One rak'ah consists of the
various bowings, genuflexions, prostrations, and accompa-
nying recitations constituting one act of worship.
26 Names of spirits (cf. infra) the marabout reckons as
belonging to the same category of words. See, for the use of
strange, incomprehensible words (mostly, as stated there, of
Syrian and Hebrew origin) in Islamic magic Winkler 1930:
29-37; see also Doutté 1909; 119 ff.
Anthropos 83.1988
508
Geert Mommersteeg
spirits who are held responsible for the realization
of the request as written down in the amulet.
Nineteenhundredfiftyseven times he recites “In-
deed he has smitten her to the heart with love.”
Slipping the beads of his rosary through his fingers
he mumbles the words from the Holy Book. After
the seventh, the fiftieth, the ninehundreth, and,
after that, every hundredth time he pronounces the
words which are written around the numerical
square on the amulet-paper. The spirits who
“follow” the Qur’anic text are asked to accomplish
that Miss So and So may open up her heart for the
marabout’s client.
As mentioned before, each part of the
Qur’an, even a single word, has its own spirits.
Once during the invocation the marabout calls two
of these spirits by their own name. After the
thousandth recitation of the Qur’anic text he
directs himself to a jinn and an angel. Their names,
found and noted during the preparations, are
derived from the numerical value of the words with
which they are so closely associated. The names of
jinn characterize themselves by the suffix -taysu.
The numerical value of -taysu is 319. This substract-
ed from 1957 gives 1638. The letters correspond-
ing with 1638 are, respectively, 1000 = ghain, 600
= kha \ 30 = lam, and 8 = ha’. So the jinn of the
quoted part of sura 12, verse 30 answers to the
name of Gbakhalahataysu. Using the same meth-
od, but starting from the suffix -hahil, the
marabout has found that the name of the angel in
question is Ghazawahahil. This jinn and this angel
are the most important of the spirits who “follow”
the quoted Qur’anic text. They are the leaders of
the other angels and jinn of whom the names can
be found with the help of the numbers in the square
on the amulet-paper (numbers, as we have seen,
derived from the numerical value of the words
from the Qur’an). And as they are the “chiefs,”
the marabout pronounces their names after the
thousandth recitation. He asks the jinn Ghakha-
lahataysu to bring about the desired goal on
account of the angel Ghazawahahil. In this way the
outcome is certain. For, as the marabout explains,
when the name of the corresponding angel is
mentioned it is impossible for the jinn to put the
request aside. He cannot stay idle and has to set his
assistent to work.
During the invocation the amulet-paper
swings quietly in the rising heat of the glowing
charcoal. Near the end of the recitations it has
enough speed to turn around its own axis for a few
times. This is the sign for the marabout that his
request is heard. A jinn is present. But the
marabout not only notices the presence of this
spirit by the turning amulet, he also senses it
himself. As he declares: “It is as if I’m suddenly
cold. And afterwards I’m always very tired”27.
In this case the marabout is sure that his
invocations are not without result. But what if he
had made a mistake during the invocation or when
the local spirit had obstructed the arrival of
another spirit and thus the paper had not moved
and turned around? For this the marabout had
prepared himself. He had written and kept aside
another amulet-paper: a copy of the original one
with an extra square on it in which the names of the
spirits corresponding with the eight numbers in the
numerical square are written. With this spare-
paper the marabout could have started the invoca-
tion anew, and each time after he formulated his
request, by using the words which are written
around the numerical square, he would - to
emphasize the request - have added the names of
the eight jinn. By calling each one personally he
would have made the invocation more powerful,
less easy to ignore.
About an hour after the marabout has started
the invocation, when he has counted a bead of his
rosary for the 1957th time and has spoken an equal
number of times “Indeed he has smitten her to the
heart with love,” he directs himself once more to
the spirits to whom he has addressed his request,
and pronounces a benediction for them. May Allah
bless them. Knowing that in this way the spirits will
bless him in return the marabout concludes the
invocation.
The amulet-paper is detached and, with the
thread winded round, it is brought to the client
who is to have it sewed up in a leather pouch.28
Assured of the support of amulet and erasure, the
man can continue his amorous adventure.
Conclusion
Let us, to conclude this paper, look once more at
the different elements which can be discerned in
the process of the manufacture of the amulet as
27 The marabout explains that his tiredness nowadays is quite
different from the time when he started with this kind of
work and did not know it very well. In those days he was sick
for a few days afterwards each time.
28 Prices of such amulets and erasures vary considerably.
According to the marabout’s name and the client’s possibil-
ities prices range from a few francs cfa or a few colanuts - a
marabout who once in a while offers a friend or a neighbour
his services - up to 200.000 francs cfa or more - a great
marabout who specialized in the field of magic and attracts
clients even from Europe.
Anthropos 83.1988
“He has smitten her to the heart with love”
509
described above. The fabrication can be repro-
duced schematically as follows:
- purpose -
'i' --------------
*choosing the Qur’anic text
4 ___ ..
"calculating its numerical value -
"fixing the proper time < - -
"writing
amulet-paper
highest name
invocation of Allah
numbers^-
square
text ■<----
request •<----------
benedictions for the Prophet
copy
copy
*invocation
idem
depositing <-----
- idem
erasure
burning perfume <-----------------
prayer to Allah
invocation of the local spirit
invocation of the spirit-of-the-day
recitations (number) <-------------
pronunciation of the request
calling the spirits-of-the-text by their own names 4-
benedictions for the spirits
Represented in this way it is easy to see that
the whole process of fabrication is determined by
the Qur’anic text. The content of nearly all
elements depends on the words taken from the
Holy Book. Except a few fixed items or, rather,
standard formulae, as well in the writing (highest
name, invocation, and benedictions) as in the
invocation (prayer, invocations, incantations, and
benedictions), all variables are filled in on the basis
of the Qur’anic quotation. Not only, as is obvious,
in the literal content of the amulet and the
recitations we find these words but they are at the
root of the content of such a variety of elements in
the process of manufacture as: the proper time, the
right spot to place the copy, the kind of perfume to
burn during the invocation, the number of recita-
tions, even the names of the spirits. By means of its
numerical value the Qur’anic text determines the
exact way in which the fabrication is to be
accomplished; the fabrication of an amulet that
derives its alleged efficacy from the power ascribed
to the very same Qur’anic words, God’s words.
I wish to thank Dr. W. E. A. van Beek and Prof. Dr.
H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen for reading and comment-
ing on earlier drafts of this paper. Prof. Dr. J. D. J.
Waardenburg and Dr. H. Waardenburg-Kilpatrick for
translating the Arabic text on the amulet-paper, and
Lieneke de Klerk for polishing up my English.
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(ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge:
University Press.
Anthropos 83.1988
510
Geert Mommersteeg
Graefe, E., and D. B. Macdonald
1965 Djadwal. Encyclopaedia of Islam II: 370. Leiden: E. J.
Brill. [New ed.]
Kriss, R. und H. Kriss-Heinrich
1962 Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam; Bd. 2; Amulette,
Zauberformeln und Beschwörungen. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz.
Laarss, R. H.
1919 Das Geheimnis der Amulette und Talismane. Leipzig:
Verlag von Wilh. Hartung.
Marty, P.
1914 Les amulettes musulmanes au Senegal. Revue du
Monde Musulman 27: 319-368.
Macdonald, D. B.
1934 Sihr. Enzyklopaedie des Islam IV: 438-447. Leiden:
E. J. Brill.
Studies in Central and East Asian Religions. - The
Seminar for Buddhist Studies, Copenhagen and Aarhus,
is pleased to announce the publication of a new journal
in the field of Oriental Religions, to be entitled: Studies
in Central and East Asian Religions.
In addition to articles on religious phenomena in
Central and East Asia, the Journal - the first issue of
which is scheduled to appear on 1 April 1988 - will
provide a Forum for the discussion of problems con-
nected with our subject, as well as a section on current
research and reviews of recently published items in the
field. The rough geographic limits of the Journal are:
Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan.
Authors are hereby invited to submit papers for
inclusion in future issues of the Journal, as well as short
reports on current research. Publishers are also invited
to send books for review in the Journal. It would
facilitate editorial tasks if material were submitted as
follows:
Tibet/Mongolia: Per K. Sprensen, Alléegade 25c, st.,
2000 Copenhagen F, Denmark. China/Korea: Henrik
H. Sprensen, Limgaardeb 4/V, 2300 Copenhagen S,
Denmark. Japan: Ian Astley-Kristensen, Kolby Hoved-
gade 8, 8791 Tranebjerg/Samsp, Denmark.
Public Culture Bulletin. - The Public Culture Pro-
Monteil, V.
1980 LTslam noir. Paris; Editions du Seuil.
Robson, J.
1934 Magic Cures in Popular Islam. Moslem World 24:
33-43.
Skinner, D. E.
1978 Mande Settlement and the Development of Islamic
Institutions in Sierra Leone. The International Journal
of African Historical Studies 11: 32-62.
Trhningham, J. S.
1959 Islam in West Africa. Oxford: University Press.
1980 The Influence of Islam upon Africa. London: Long-
man.
Winkler, H. A.
1930 Siegel und Charaktere in der muhammedanischen
Zauberei. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
ject at the University of Pennsylvania will publish a new
bulletin with seed money from the Joint Committee on
South Asia of the American Council of Learned
Societies and the Social Science Research Council:
Public Culture Bulletin.
This Bulletin will report and reflect current re-
search on: the cultural transformations associated with
cities, media, and consumption in contemporary soci-
eties; the cultural flows that draw these societies into
larger transnational dialogues.
The Bulletin has three goals: to establish an
international network of scholars committed to research
on public culture issues and debates, and on cosmopoli-
tan cultural forms (such as cinema, sport, television and
video, restaurants, domestic tourism, and museums);
to publish excerpts from ongoing scholarly work, news
clippings, and media material; to announce recent
publications, and to encourage network members to
facilitate their acquisition or exchange, particularly
across national boundaries, for colleagues who have
problems with foreign currency.
Research scholars interested in joining this net-
work and receiving a copy of the Public Culture Bulletin,
please write to: Carol Appadurai Breckenridge, The
University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 33rd
and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324, USA.
The first issue is expected in Spring 1988.
Anthropos 83,1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 511-526
Kultur und Kognition
Zur Kritik der mentalistischen Kulturkonzeption
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
Abstract. - In this essay the authors criticize the contemporarily
prevalent understanding of the term and concept of culture as
‘shared knowledge’! They focus on the analysis of the concrete,
historic processes of the creation, inter-generational transfor-
mation, and application or loss of individual knowledge
concerning mythology and birth control among the Uni-Indians
of eastern Peru. The ethnographic evidence illustrates their
argument that a purely mentalistic conception of culture is
insufficient to grasp and describe the dynamics of ideology and
knowledge within a society. [Peru, Uni, Culture, Cognition.
Mythology, Birth Control]
Erwin H. Frank, Dr. (Bonn 1983), M. A. (Bonn 1979);
Studium der Ethnologie, Altamerikanistik und Politologie an
der F. W. Universität Bonn; seit 1983 wiss. Mitarbeiter am LAI
der FU-Berlin, - Feldforschungen in Ost-Peru (1980/81, 1982,
1983, 1985, 1987) und Ekuador (1985). - Publikationen: Vgl.
Zitierte Literatur.
Carmen G. Heß, M. A. (Berlin 1986); Studium der Ethnolo-
gie, Altamerikanistik, Soziologie und Geschichte an der FU-
Berlin; seit 1986 ‘graduate studies’ an der Harvard University,
Cambridge. - Feldforschungen in Ekuador (1982/83, 1985,
1987) und in Ost-Peru (1985). - Publikation; Die Entwicklung
der Marktintegration andiner Dorfgemeinschaften (Bonn
1986).
Seit A. Kroeber und C. Kluckhohns berühmter
Studie (1952) gilt es nachgerade als Gemeinplatz,
daß die Zahl divergierender Definitionen der
zentralen und anthropologischen Kategorie Kul-
tur4 nur um weniges geringer ist, als die Zahl
praktizierender Anthropologen. Bei genauerer
Betrachtung, insbesondere der neueren Literatur,
erweist sich freilich dieser von manchen mit
Bedauern, von anderen mit Stolz behauptete
definitorische Pluralismus als anthropologischer
Mythos. Auch wenn sich immer noch kaum zwei
,Kultur‘-Definitionen finden lassen, welche in
allen ihren Momenten übereinstimmten, so
scheint sich doch heute eine ,mentalistische‘ Kul-
turkonzeption weitgehend durchgesetzt zu haben.
,Mentalistisch‘ wollen wir in diesem Zusammen-
hang all jene Kulturkonzeptionen nennen, welche
die Kognition, den Geist, das Denken des Men-
schen als den ,Ort‘ der Kultur bestimmen.
Eine weithin akzeptierte ,mentalistische4 Kul-
turdefinition liefert Keesing, wenn er Kultur als
ein “. . . system of knowledge, a composite of the
cognitive systems more or less shared by members
of a society” beschreibt (1979: 15).
Die zweifellos wachsende Akzeptanz, die
solche mentalistischen Kulturdefinitionen gerade
in der jüngsten Anthropologengeneration findet,
mag eine Reaktion gegen den als Bedrohung
empfundenen Anspruch z. B. der Soziobiologen
und Human-Ethologen sein, auch menschliches
Verhalten erklären zu können. W. Goodenough’s
bekannte Aussage, daß “Culture, being what
people have to learn as distinct from their biologi-
cal heritage, must consist of the end product of
learning: knowledge, in a most general, if relative,
sense of the term” (1964: 36), scheint uns diese
Interpretation zumindest nahezulegen.1
Aber Keesings “more or less”, ebenso wie
Goodenough’s abschließender Halbsatz “. . . in a
most general, if relative, sense of the term”,
verweisen den aufmerksamen Leser sogleich auf
das akuteste konzeptionelle Problem der herr-
schenden ,mentalistischen4 Definition von Kultur.
1 .Kultur1 soll, als exklusiv menschliche Sphäre, als das
Studium menschlichen Verhaltens, als qualitativ different
von dem Tätigkeitsfeld der Ethnologie bewahrt bleiben.
Goodenough’s Versuch, die qualitative Ausgrenzung
menschlichen Verhaltens noch 1964 in der populären
Dichotomie von ‘nature/nurture’, von ,genetischem Erbe*
versus ,erlerntes Wissen' zu fundieren, muß heute als
endgültig gescheitert betrachtet werden. Die anthropologi-
sche Reaktion auf dieses Scheitern aber war nun gerade
nicht die Aufgabe der a priori-Differenzierung von mensch-
lichem und tierischem Verhalten (als ,kulturell' versus
,genetisch' programmiert), sondern vielmehr der definitori-
sche Rückzug vieler Anthropologen auf eine Position, die
Verhalten des Menschen bestenfalls noch als einen Hinweis
auf den eigentlichen anthropologischen Gegenstand, näm-
lich .Denkinhalte' und ,-Strukturen', betrachtet.
Es ist wohl kein Zufall, daß sich z. B. M. D. Sahlins
.Läuterung' zum .Strukturalisten' in und mit zwei Schriften
(1976, 1977) vollzieht, in denen er sich explizit mit der
,Soziobiologie‘ bzw. dem ihm ,zu biologistisch' erscheinen-
den Kulturmaterialismus auseinandersetzt.
512
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
Es ist dies die unentschiedene Frage nach der
Beziehung von Kultur als soziales Faktum, als
inter- und transindividuelle Realität (‘shared
knowledge’) einerseits, zu der prinzipiellen Sub-
jektivität, der Individuenbezogenheit von konkre-
tem Wissen andererseits.
‘Shared knowledge’, welche ,mentalistische‘
Anthropologen mit Kultur gleichsetzen, ist nie-
mals identisch mit dem konkreten Wissen einer be-
liebigen Zahl von Individuen. ,Kulturelles4 Wis-
sen greift vielmehr immer durch diese konkreten
Denkinhalte hindurch. Es wird gedacht als eine
Summe von Vorstellungen, Werten etc., welche
jenseits individueller Denkinhalte existieren soll
und sich in diesen konkreten Denkinhalten immer
nur mehr oder minder direkt manifestiert - oder
auch nicht! Das zentrale Problem dieser Konzep-
tion liegt in diesem letzten Flalbsatz.
Größte Virulenz erhält dieses Problem im
Zusammenhang mit der Auswahl und Aufnahme
von Daten in der ethnographischen Feldfor-
schung. Anthropologen mit der oben skizzierten
,mentalistischen‘ Kulturkonzeption - also solche,
die Kultur als ,gemeinschaftsweit geteiltes Wissen4
betrachten - finden sich als Ethnographen im Feld
mit individuellem Wissen konfrontiert. Sie müssen
aber und wollen aus den Aussagen einzelner
Informanten und aus Beobachtungen individueller
Handlungen (die häufig genug in sich widersprüch-
lich sind!) die Kultur derXY (re-)konstruieren. Sie
können dies nur tun, indem sie von der Diversität
individueller Antworten und Beobachtungen ex-
trapolieren. Genau hier aber liegt der methodolo-
gische Schwachpunkt des ethnographisch/ethnolo-
gischen Verfahrens, der durch eine mentalistische
Kulturkonzeption sowohl begründet als auch zu-
gleich verdeckt wird.
Man muß nicht die bekannten Beispiele
grundlegend unvereinbarer Darstellungen eines
identischen Kulturzusammenhangs durch unab-
hängig voneinander arbeitende Ethnographen2
zitieren, um Zweifel an derartigen (Re-)Konstruk-
tionen begründen zu können. Zur Illustration der
Virulenz des ,Diversitätsproblems4 in der Ethnolo-
gie reicht es aus, die rhetorische Frage zu stellen,
wieviele übereinstimmende Antworten getrennt
befragter Informanten denn notwendig sind, um
auch nur eine ihrer Aussagen als Teil ,gemein-
schaftsweiten Wissens4 eines Sozialverbandes von
- sagen wir - 10 000 Mitgliedern zu etablieren?
2 Etwa R. Redfield (1930) und O. Lewis (1951) über
Tepoztlän, oder M. Mead (1928) und D. Freeman (1983)
über ,Samoa1.
Anthropologen mit einer mentalistischen Kul-
turkonzeption haben seit langem versucht, in
verschiedenster Weise mit dem Problem der intra-
kulturellen Diversität persönlichen Wissens analy-
tisch umzugehen. Eine Minderheit (P. u. G. Pelto
1975) plädiert dafür, es als ,Epiphänomen4 zu
mißachten. Andere scheinen es unter Berufung
auf sogenannte Autoritäten lösen zu wollen.
“For some subjects at least, there are ac-
knowledged authorities whose judgements . . .
are accepted by others in the group .... Ethno-
graphers . . . make a regular practice of seeking
out recognized local authorities and experts in or-
der to use them as their principal sources of infor-
mation” (Goodenough 1970: 100 f.).
Aber diese Antwort verkennt nur das grund-
sätzliche Problem, statt es einer Lösung näherzu-
bringen. Die Frage ist nämlich nicht, wie oder
durch wen man sich am besten/leichtesten jener
,transindividuellen Kultur4 nähert, sondern ob
jene ,Kultur(-Beschreibungen)4, die Ethnogra-
phen mit Hilfe der Aussagen von ,Experten4 (best
informant) und der Beobachtung ihrer Handlun-
gen konstruieren, irgendeine Realität außerhalb
des Kopfes der Ethnographen besitzt?
Keesing, der nun wahrlich keiner anti-menta-
listischen Ressentiments bezichtigt werden kann,
warnt uns: “Treating the realm of culture symbols
as shared and public, as transcending the minds of
individuals, raises the danger not only of the
cultural interpreter’s creating a spuriously integra-
ted and internally consistent symbolic design . . .
but also of his hiding diversity and obscuring
change” (1974: 88).
Eine weitere bedeutende Fraktion der ,Men-
talisten4 versucht das Diversitätsproblem formali-
stisch zu lösen.
In einer jüngsten Arbeit von Kimball-Rom-
ney et al. erscheint dies auf die Spitze getrieben.
“We suggest that informants statements should be
treated as probabilistic in character. When ... an
informant states that the name of an object is 4X’,
we should assume that there is some probability
. . . that the statement is correct. This probability
may be close to 1 in the case of a very knowledge-
able informant and close to 0 in the case of an
uninformed informant. The more informants there
are who agree (when questioned independently)
on an answer the more likely it is to be the correct
cultural response” (1986: 314).
Für Kimball-Romney et al. ist Kultur der
breiteste ,Konsensus4: “The central idea in our
theory is the use of the pattern of agreement or
consensus among informants to make inferences
about their differential competence in knowledge
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
513
of the shared Information pool constituting cul-
ture. We assume that the correspondence between
the answers of any two informants is a function of
the extent to which each is correlated with the
truth” (316). Hiermit ist das Diversitätsproblem zu
einem statistischen Problem verkommen: Die
,Wahrheit1 der Kultur beweist sich durch die
Übereinstimmung der Mehrheit. Aber auch hier
ist Keesings oben zitierter Verdacht wirksam, daß
die (Re-)Konstruktion dieser Wahrheit in der
ethnographischen Aufnahme nichts weiter als ein
sich objektiv gebender Trick der Ethnographen
sein könnte, zu einem konsistenten Ganzen (Kul-
tur) vorzustoßen, von dem man immer schon im
vorhinein weiß, daß es real existiert.
In dieser Arbeit werden wir eine ethnogra-
phisch begründete Kritik der mentalistischen Kon-
zeption von Kultur als ,kollektives Wissen1 versu-
chen. Wir werden den Prozeß der Entstehung,
Weitergabe, Anwendung und des Verlustes von
konkretem individuellem Wissen an zwei Bei-
spielen aus einem ethnographischen Kontext auf-
weisen. Wir wollen dadurch versuchen, unsere
Erfahrung illustrativ zu belegen, daß - zumindest
in dem von uns ethnographisch bearbeiteten Feld-
jeder Versuch einer Annäherung an die von uns
Vorgefundene Realität auf der Basis einer menta-
listischen Kulturkonzeption uns notwendig zu ei-
ner verzerrten Sichtweise der realen Sachverhalte
geführt und damit unseren ehrlichen Versuch, die
Realitäten in der von uns untersuchten Gemein-
schaft zu verstehen und zu dokumentieren, ent-
scheidend erschwert hätte.
Wir verstehen aber unsere Situation im Feld
und die von uns angetroffene Realität durchaus
nicht als exzeptionell und deshalb auch unsere
Kritik als grundsätzlich gegen eine mentalistische
Kulturkonzeption im obigen Sinne gerichtet.
Die Szene ist <Santa Marta>, eine von sieben
<Comunidades Nativas> der <Uni>3 in der zentralen
Montaña, Ost-Peru.4
3 Uni ,Männer, Menschen1, - das Handbook of South
American Indians (3; 563-564) führt diese Gruppe unter der
(Shipibo-)Bezeichnung ,Cashibo‘ = Vampirfledermaus-
leute1.
4 E. Frank konnte seit 1980 umfangreiche ethnographische
Aufnahmen in Santa Marta durchführen (siehe Frank
1983). Von Juni bis August 1984 ermöglichte ihm ein
Stipendium der DFG einen erneuten Aufenthalt in der
Gemeinde zur Aufnahme und Analyse der <Fiesta de
Sachavaca> (Frank 1987). Hierbei begleitete die Ko-
Autorin (C. Heß) ihn als Feldassistentin. Wir danken der
Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft sowie dem Centro
Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica (Lima)
für die freundliche Unterstützung unserer Arbeit.
In Santa Marta lebten zur Zeit unserer Untersuchun-
Santa Marta ist eine entlegene indianische
Gemeinde, etwa zwei Bootsreisetage oberhalb
jener Stelle gelegen, an der seit kurzem (1983) die
<Carretera Marginal» auf ihrem Weg von Pucallpa
nach San Ramón den Rio Zungaru-Yacu, einen
der größten Nebenflüsse des unteren Pachitea,
kreuzt.5
Es ist eine Streusiedlung, die sich über etwa
acht Stunden Fußmarsch an beiden Ufern des
Zungaru-Yacu erstreckt, kurz unterhalb jener
Stelle, an der dieser Fluß aus dem Ost-Abhang der
< Cordillera Azul> heraus- und in die südwestliche
<Pampa del Sacramento> hineinfließt.
Die Gemeinde formierte sich als solche erst in
den 40er Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts aus Mitglie-
dern einer (Dialekt-)Untergruppe der Uni, den
<Uni de las Cabeceras», von denen ein anderer Teil
in der mindestens drei Tagesmärsche entfernt
gelegenen <Comunidad Nativa Puerto Azul> am
oberen Rio Aguaytia lebt. Die Uni de las Cabece-
ras sind durch eine lange, leidvolle Historie,
Heiratsverbindungen und eine Fülle gemeinschaft-
licher Sitten und Bräuche miteinander verbunden
und - zumindest partiell - von den restlichen
beiden Untergruppen der Uni/Cacataibo ge-
trennt.
Im folgenden wollen wir uns an Garro’s
jüngstem Hinweis orientieren, daß “. . . from the
perspective of representing cultural knowledge
Systems . . . more attention needs to be directed
towards understanding the processes by which
cultural knowledge is acquired” (1986: 366).
Aber nicht allein die räumlichen Schranken
eines Essays zwingen uns, die Darstellung des
Prozesses des Erwerbs, der Weitervermittlung,
der Schaffung und des Verlustes von Wissen auf
zwei thematische Bereiche zu beschränken. Um
ein weiteres Mal Kimball-Romney et al. zu zitie-
ren; “Clearly we can not study all of culture but
rather we must have a strategy for sampling
smaller, coherent segments of the total informa-
tion pool” (1986: 314). Kimball-Romney et al.
bezeichnen solche ,Segmente4 in Anlehnung an
A. L. Kroeber als ‘‘systemic culture patterns
[which] are characterized as coherent Subsystems
of knowledge” (314).
Wir ziehen im folgenden den Terminus syste-
matische Themenbereiche“ vor und haben zur
Präsentation zwei von ihnen ausgewählt, von
gen 207 Personen, die - mit Ausnahme einiger weniger
eingeheirateter Mestizo-Männer - allesamt zu den Uni
(Cashibo/Cacataibo-Sprache - Pano-Sprachfamilie) gehör-
ten.
5 Provincia Pachitea, Departamente Huänuco, Ost-Peru.
Anthropos 83.1988
514
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
denen wir erwarten, daß sie der oben ausgeführten
Charakterisierung als ‘coherent subsystems of
knowledge’ entsprechen: ,Mythologie4 und
,schwangerschaftsfördernde bzw. -verhindernde
Medizinen und Praktiken4.
1. Mythologie
Die Aufnahme von Mythen/Geschichten (bana)
war eher ein Nebenprodukt meiner (E. F.) eth-
nographischen Arbeit in Santa Marta. Mythen
spielen keine auffällige Rolle im Alltagsleben der
Uni. Es gibt keine festgeschriebenen Gelegenhei-
ten, sie vorzutragen, und nur äußerst selten be-
zieht sich ein alltäglicher Exkurs auf ,unsere
Vorfahren4 (nucen rara, chaiti/aintsi).
Bana ist das ureigenste Monopol der <viejos>,
der Ältesten des Ortes. Nur sie werden als kompe-
tent betrachtet, die Wahrheit über nucen rara zu
erzählen.
Meine Arbeit zur Mythologie in Santa Marta
begann mit einigen Aufnahmen von bana, die mir
jüngere Männer in spanischen Zusammenfassun-
gen und unter wiederholtem Hinweis darauf, daß
sie eigentlich nicht kompetent seien, auf Band
sprachen. In der Tat ernteten ihre Versionen, die,
wie sich später herausstellte, detailliert und kennt-
nisreich waren, heftige Kritik von seiten einiger
,alter Männer4 des Ortes. Ich dachte damals mit
einem typischen Fall von ,Kulturverlust4 konfron-
tiert zu sein: Da Mythen kaum noch erzählt
wurden, hatten offenbar selbst die 40-jährigen
bereits ihre Kompetenz auf diesem Gebiet verlo-
ren. Ich nahm mir folglich vor, zu ,retten4, was
noch rettbar war.6
Erste Irritationen in bezug auf mein Konzept
der ,Rettung4 der Mythologie der Uni erzeugten
dann folgende Episoden. Zum einen fand ich 1981
in den ‘field notes’ einer Mitarbeiterin des Summer
Institute of Linguistics7 die Version eines Mythos,
der von einem 1981 etwa 35-jährigen Bekannten
aus Santa Marta erzählt worden war, der mir
gegenüber bisher immer vorgebracht hatte, über-
haupt keine bana zu kennen. Was mich aber noch
mehr erstaunte, war die Tatsache, daß diese
detailreiche Version einer Geschichte, die ich in
6 Die methodologischen Details meiner Arbeit zum Themen-
bereich .Mythen1 habe ich anderswo (Frank, MS) beschrie-
ben. Hier mag es genügen festzustellen, daß ich bis heute
etwa 15 längere bana in Cashibo/Cacataibo-Sprache aufge-
zeichnet und übersetzt habe.
7 Einzusehen im Ministerio de Educación, Lima/Peru.
nur wenig veränderter Form auch von einem der
,Alten4 in der Gemeinde erzählt bekommen hatte,
von dem Bekannten im Alter von etwa 20 Jahren
der SIL-Mitarbeiterin vorgetragen worden war.
Zum anderen fand ich mich eines Tages mit
zwei Versionen eines Mythos von zwei der autori-
sierten ,Ältesten4 des Ortes konfrontiert. Die
Versionen differierten in der zeitlichen Kombina-
tion bestimmter Szenen und dem Auftauchen bzw.
der Benennung gewisser Personen. In meinem
Bemühen, die wahre Mythologie der Uni zu
dokumentieren, hielt ich es damals für eine gute
Idee, die beiden Informanten gemeinsam mit den
Widersprüchen zwischen den jeweiligen Versio-
nen zu konfrontieren und um Klärung zu bitten.
Ich konnte nicht ahnen, daß dies ein größte
Peinlichkeit auslösendes Unterfangen werden
würde. Meine beiden Informanten reagierten of-
fensichtlich entsetzt. Abgewandt und mit gesenk-
ten Köpfen begannen sie eine - nach der Tonlage
zu schließen - durchaus heftige Diskussion. (Sie
wußten natürlich, daß ich mit meinen rudimentä-
ren Sprachkenntnissen ihrer Unterhaltung in Ca-
shibo/Cacataibo nicht folgen konnte.)
Nach einigem Hin und Her trugen sie mir
dann eine dritte Version des Mythos vor, in der
sich die ersten beiden relativ unvermittelt mitein-
ander verwoben fanden.
Obwohl mich offensichtlich Brüche in dieser
neuen, gemeinschaftlichen Version irritierten, war
ich doch froh, eine ,richtige4 Version - jenseits
individueller Wissensdifferenzen - vorliegen zu
haben, und ich nahm mir vor, sie mit weiteren
Informanten zu überprüfen und notfalls zu vervoll-
ständigen.
Um so enttäuschter war ich, als in den
folgenden Stunden jeder der beiden Informanten
unabhängig voneinander erneut zu mir kam, um
mir mitzuteilen, daß nicht etwa die dritte gemein-
schaftliche, sondern ihre jeweils erste, eigene
Version die ,einzig richtige4 gewesen sei. Man
erklärte mir, daß der jeweils andere Informant es
,nicht richtig4 wisse, weil er ,als Kind nicht zuge-
hört4 habe oder weil gar schon seine rara ,alles
falsch4 zu erzählen gepflegt hätten. Auf die Frage,
warum sie dies denn nicht sogleich (in Anwesen-
heit des anderen) gesagt hätten, erwiderten sie
beide irritiert, man habe sich geschämt. Schließlich
sei es eine Schande, daß die rara des anderen
diesem nicht die Wahrheit beigebracht hätten.
Es waren solche Episoden, die mich ab 1981
veranlaßten, mich detailliert mit dem Erwerb und
der Weitergabe sowie der Autorisierung von (my-
thologischem) Wissen in der Gemeinde zu beschäf-
tigen. Es wurde nur allzubald deutlich, daß es für
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
515
Uni nur eine wirkliche Autorität in Sachen bana
gibt, und zwar die rara, hier im Sinne von: die
direkten (ambi-)linearen Vorfahren der ersten und
zweiten aufsteigenden Generation, mit einem
deutlichen Schwergewicht auf FF. Dies hängt mit
der ungebrochenen Überzeugung aller Uni in
Santa Marta zusammen, daß es nur eine wahre
(authentische) Version der bana gibt (die nicht
eine Pluralität von ,Geschichten4 sind, sondern
eine einzige ,Geschichte der Uni4, von der Welt-
schöpfung bis heute!). Diese einzige authentische
Version ist verbatim jene, welche die ältesten
linearen Vorfahren eines jeden Informanten er-
zählten, als er selbst noch ein Kind, bzw. Jugend-
licher war.
Das Insistieren auf einer Version hängt zu-
sammen mit der Konzeption von bana, welche alle
Uni propagieren. Für sie ist bana ihre wahre
Geschichte. Es ist die Geschichte, welche die rara
durchlebt haben, und sie ist ,wahr4, weil die rara
sie persönlich erlebt und berichtet haben. „Die
rara lügen nicht!44 Die einzig absolut glaubwürdi-
gen rara sind freilich immer nur die eigenen,
unmittelbaren (ambi-)linearen Vorfahren. Latera-
le und insbesondere affine Verwandte unterliegen
nach Ansicht aller Uni dem prinzipiellen Ver-
dacht, als Kinder ihren linearen Vorfahren entwe-
der nicht richtig zugehört zu haben oder von diesen
falsch unterrichtet worden zu sein.
Die Differenz zwischen zwei Versionen einer
Mythe, auf die ich gestoßen war, stellten sich also
schnell als ein historisches Relikt aus Zeiten
heraus, zu denen Santa Marta als solches noch gar
nicht existent war.
In den Jahrzehnten vor ihrer endgültigen
,Pazifizierung4 (Ende der 20er Jahre dieses Jahr-
hunderts) lebten die <Uni de las Cabeceras> in
einer ganzen Reihe autonomer Dorfgemeinschaf-
ten in den Taleinschnitten am Fuß der Cordillera
Azul. Jede Dorfgemeinschaft bewohnt ein einziges
Großhaus und bearbeitet ein gemeinschaftliches
Gartenareal. Die Dörfer beherbergten (zumindest
theoretisch) patrilineare unbenannte <Lineages>
von drei bis vier Generationen Tiefe. Im Idealfall
sammelten sich um einen ,Ältesten4 oder eine
Gruppe ,ältester4 Brüder seine oder ihre verheira-
teten Söhne und Enkel. Obwohl es keine formale
,Häuptlingswürde4 gab, stand doch im Zentrum
jeder Gruppe ein (selten mehrere) sogenannter
<Uni-Cushi>, - Männer in mittleren Jahren mit
außergewöhnlichen Talenten auf möglichst allen
Gebieten, welche den Uni damals bedeutsam
erschienen: Lebensmittelproduktion, Kampf,
Rhetorik etc. Trotz der (noch heute) großen
Bedeutung einer ,patrilinear/patrilokalen Ideolo-
gie48 waren es doch primär diese Uni-Cushi, deren
,Politik4 und persönliche Stärken und Schwächen
die Zusammensetzung und Permanenz eines Ortes
auf Dauer bestimmten. Erfolgreiche Uni-Cushi
waren jene, die es schafften, nicht nur ,Brüder4,
sondern möglichst auch ,Schwäger4 und ,Schwie-
gersöhne4 sowie entfernte ,klassifikatorische Brü-
der/Söhne4 um sich zu scharen, deren schwacher
persönlicher familiärer Hintergrund es ihnen gera-
ten erscheinen ließ, sich über die allseits als Norm
vertretene Patrilinearität/Patrilokalität hinwegzu-
setzen und sich einem außergewöhnlich erfolgrei-
chen Uni-Cushi anzuschließen. Die verschiedenen
Lokalgruppen der Uni de las Cabeceras waren
politisch, ökonomisch und häufig auch sozial
gänzlich voneinander unabhängig.8 9
Die Beziehungen zwischen den Lokalgruppen
schwankten zwischen (meist befristeten) Bündnis-
sen, die sich in gemeinschaftlich begangenen Ta-
pirfesten und regelmäßigen Heiratsverbindungen
sowohl begründeten als auch manifestierten.
Nach der Pazifizierung (um 1930) veränderte
sich das Bild grundlegend. Erstens erlebten und
durchlitten die Uni einen demographischen Zu-
sammenbruch, von dem sie sich bis heute noch
nicht erholt haben. Zum anderen teilten und
vereinten sich die Uni de las Cabeceras in zwei
Untergruppen: Puerto Azul und Santa Marta.
Was hat all dies nun mit der differenten
,Mythenkenntnis4 verschiedener Bewohner von
Santa Marta zu tun? Zunächst einmal ist Santa
Marta (ebenso wie Puerto Azul) ein künstliches
und relativ junges Konglomerat. Im Ort leben die
Nachfahren früher unabhängiger und häufig genug
sogar untereinander antagonistischer Lokalgrup-
pen zusammen.10 Die beiden alten Informanten,
die mir divergierende Versionen einer bana erzählt
hatten, bezogen sich also auf (leicht) divergierende
Traditionen in einst unabhängigen und darüber
hinaus sogar befeindeten Lokalgruppen. Beide
8 Die einzigen verläßlichen Verbündeten eines Mannes sind
seine leiblichen und nächsten ,klassifikatorischen‘ Brüder,
also FBS und/oder MZS in einem ,dravidischen‘ Termino-
logiesystem.
9 Es gab kein lokales Exogamiegebot, und zumindest die
Uni-Cushi zeigten ein lebhaftes Interesse daran, lokale
Endogamie durch die Einbindung von ,Schwägern4 in die
Dorfgemeinschaft zu fördern, - durch direkten Frauen-
tausch, d. i.: (reale) MBD/FZS-Heirat.
10 Diese Tatsache wird aus der Perspektive der heutigen
Generation durch den Umstand gemildert, daß ein Ehepaar
aus den Zeiten der ,Befriedung1 sich als ungewöhnlich
fruchtbar erwiesen hat. Weit mehr als 50 % aller Bewohner
der Gemeinde führen dieses eine Ehepaar in ihrem Stamm-
baum.
Anthropos 83.1988
516
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
nahmen für ihre Version die Autorität der unmit-
telbaren linearen Vorfahren in Anspruch. Beide
versuchten, ihre Versionen als die einzige Wahr-
heit4 an die nächste Generation weiterzugeben. Ihr
fester Wille, unbedingt die ,Wahrheit4 (d. i. die
eigene Version) vermitteln zu wollen, hing mit der
Funktion zusammen, welche die Kenntnis der
Wahrheit4 in den Augen der Uni hat.
Für die Uni konstituieren die bana ihre
ethnische Identität. Diese Identität aber ist immer
kontext-abhängig und kontrastiv. So gibt es etwa
diejenigen (= die Uni), die wissen, wie die Welt
geschaffen wurde und wie die Tiere ihre heutige
Form erhielten etc., und es gibt diejenigen, die all
dies nicht (mehr) wissen (= die Weißen, die
Mestizen, die Shipibo, Cunibo, Kampa etc.).
Innerhalb derjenigen aber, die grundsätzlich gis-
sen4, gibt es wiederum diejenigen, die all dies (in
Abstufungen),nicht richtig4 wissen. Die Cacataibo
z. B. ,wissen4 zwar etwas, aber sie wissen alles
falsch. Die Uni des Aguaytia liegen schon richti-
ger, aber sie haben offenbar „als Kinder nicht
richtig zugehört44 und bringen deshalb vieles
durcheinander. Jeder meiner beiden Informanten
in Santa Marta akzeptierte zwar die jeweilige
Version des anderen als grundlegend ,besser4 als
alle Versionen der gleichen bana, selbst wenn sie
z. B. aus Puerto Azul stammten,11 aber eben doch
,falsch4 im Vergleich zur eigenen.
Wie ich schon sagte, gibt es heute keine
institutionalisierten Anlässe mehr, bei denen in
der Gemeinde bana vorgetragen werden müßten.
(Das war früher anders; vgl. Frank 1983a.) Das
heißt nun aber nicht, daß niemals bana erzählt
würden. Alles kann heute den Ältesten Anlaß
bieten, bana vorzutragen: ein Abend am heimi-
schen Herdfeuer, eine Episode bei der täglichen
Arbeit, eine Zusammenkunft, aus welchem Anlaß
auch immer, etc. Dennoch haben die Alten (nicht
ganz zu Unrecht) das Gefühl, daß die Kenntnis der
bana verlorengeht; daß die Jungen4 (Männer und
Frauen bis 45) ,nichts wissen4 und ,nicht richtig
zuhören4. Sie bedauern dies zutiefst. In meiner
Arbeit erkannten sie sehr bewußt eine Möglich-
keit, mit dieser traurigen Situation fertig zu wer-
den. Ich wurde eingesetzt, die ,Wahrheit4 zukünf-
tiger Generationen trotz der augenscheinlichen
Unwissenheit der jetzigen Elterngeneration in
mittleren Jahren, in schriftlicher Form, unver-
fälscht fixiert zu erhalten.
11 Ich hatte Vergleichsmaterial, insbes. von den Cacataibo und
Aguaytia-Gruppen, aus der Arbeit von L. Wistrand(-Ro-
binson), 1969, zur Verfügung.
Meine Studien zum Thema ,Mythologie4 wa-
ren in der Tat die einzigen, deren ,Sinn‘ und
Notwendigkeit ich in Santa Marta niemandem
erklären mußte. So lauteten die Worte des <Jefe de
la Comunidad> (an einen Mestizo-Besucher ge-
richtet, der sich nach dem Grund meiner Anwe-
senheit im Ort erkundigte): «El trabaja bastante,
para que nuestros hijos saben!» - ,Er arbeitet hart,
damit unsere Kinder wissen!4
Was die Kinder wissen sollten, ist nicht primär
eine Vergangenheit, welche den Inhalt der bana
bildet, sondern sind insbesondere die Lehren aus
dieser Vergangenheit für ein gichtiges4 Leben;
denn für Uni ist der notwendige Schluß aus dem,
was war, das, was ist, und das, was sein soll. Alle
Lehren, Vorstellungen, Meinungen, Wissen und
Gebote darüber, wie die Welt ist und wie ein
wahrer Uni in ihr leben soll, sind in den bana
begründet. Die Beziehung von bana und richtigem
Leben ist direkt und kausal, ohne konkret zu sein.
Nur wer die Wahrheit wörtlich kennt (die ,richtige4
Version), kann richtig leben - nicht weil bana
Gebote, Verbote oder Ratschläge enthielten, die
man auch außerhalb von bana formulieren könnte,
sondern weil sie den rechten Sinn stiften! Von
hierher begründet sich diese Obsession derer, die
sich im Besitz der Wahrheit glauben, diese unver-
fälscht tradiert zu sehen.12
Ein gichtiges4 Leben beruht auf der Kenntnis
der ,wahren4 bana. Der Prozeß, der es den Uni
ermöglicht, richtig zu leben, ist die Erziehung (als
persönliche, intrafamiliäre Lehre der bana), und
die Verantwortung dafür tragen diejenigen, die
bana wissen, freilich nur ihren linearen Nachkom-
men gegenüber.
Erziehung, gleich Unterweisung in bana, ist
für die Uni ein Prozeß, der andauert, solange ein
Individuum noch jemanden hat, den er als Auto-
rität akzeptiert/zu akzeptieren hat. Die Frage
aber, wer für wen eine Autorität ist, ist selbst
abhängig von dem, was bana lehren und wie bana
gelehrt werden.
Jede bana-Erzählung schließt mit dem ste-
reotypen Satz, daß genau dies ,mein Vater/Groß-
vater4 (seltener: Mutter/Großmutter) gesagt habe
und daß man es so ,als Kind4 gehört habe.
Gleichzeitig ist den Uni in Santa Marta die
Existenz anderer bana mit differenten Graden der
,Unwahrheit4 nicht fremd. Immer wieder werden
12 Das reicht hin bis zu dem Versuch, Sätze, die man von den
,Autoritäten1 gehört hat, ,verbatim‘ zu wiederholen - selbst
dann, wenn sie Worte und Redewendungen enthalten, die
heute längst nicht mehr gebräuchlich und - in extremen
Fällen - sogar dem (Nach-)Erzähler unverständlich sind.
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
517
andere (nicht wir, auf allen Hierarchieebenen) als
Leute charakterisiert, die ,nicht wissen*, als Men-
schen, die ohne Eltern aufgewachsen sind, deren
Eltern ihre Erziehungspflichten nicht wahrgenom-
men haben, weil sie ,nur in den Tag hinein gelebt*
hätten (z. B. immer nur an Frauen und Essen
dachten) etc. Die Schlechtigkeiten anderer, wie
Betrug, Zauberei, Nicht-Einhaltung der Tabu-
und Reziprozitätsverpflichtungen etc., werden pri-
mär mit ,Ignoranz* begründet, wie umgekehrt
,Ignoranz* den permanenten Verdacht begründet,
daß ,andere* schlecht sind (zaubern etc.).
Ein junger Uni lernt also bald, daß es nur eine
Wahrheit gibt, daß die eigenen (nächsten) Sozia-
lisierer diese Wahrheit besitzen, und daß Differen-
zen zwischen ,Wir* und ,Andere* immer Differen-
zen von ,wahrem* und falschem* Wissen (Unwis-
sen) sind, seien sie nun auf der Ebene der
Familien, der lokalen Untergruppen, von Dörfern
oder den Dialektgruppen der Uni/Cacataibo als
Ganzes zu finden. Dieses Wissen macht, daß
divergierende Subtraditionen nicht vereinheitlicht
und quasi als ,Lineagewissen* reproduziert wer-
den. Das ist aber nur eine Seite des Prozesses, eine
andere führt scheinbar zum gegenteiligen Ergeb-
nis. Viele Kinder und Erwachsene im heutigen
Santa Marta haben und hatten keine Gelegenheit,
bana von ihren unmittelbaren linearen Vorfahren
zu lernen, da diese bereits gestorben waren, bevor
sie ihren Kindern und Enkeln ihre bana lehren
konnten. Konfrontiert mit verschiedenen, aber für
sie gleich autorisierten (oder zweifelhaften) Ver-
sionen der ,Wahrheit*, müssen sie selbst Optionen
entwickeln, die man u. a. als durchaus politisch
begreifen kann. Die Option, die eine solche
Person in ihrer Jugend entwickelt (ihre ,Wir-
Gruppen-Zuordnung*), ist am ehesten noch durch
ihre Residenz (und das ist unter Jugendlichen in
Santa Marta durchaus schon eine Residenz- Wahl\)
determiniert. Wie gesagt, die Gemeinde Santa
Marta ist eine Streusiedlung. Insbesondere leben
heute keine zwei der am meisten autorisierten
Ältesten im gleichen Flußabschnitt. Wo ein Ju-
gendlicher sich deshalb in der Regel aufhält
(innerhalb der Gemeinde!), determiniert mit ho-
her Wahrscheinlichkeit 1., welcher Version der
,Wahrheit* er sich am häufigsten ausgesetzt findet,
und 2., welche durch andere Mechanismen aufge-
baute ,Wir-Solidaritäten* er entwickelt und gleich-
zeitig in der gängigen Wahrheit/Unwahrheit-
Ehchotomie zu denken beginnt.
Ferner werden ,Erwachsene* formal zur
^Autorität* in Sachen bana in dem Moment, in dem
sie beginnen, ihren Kindern bana vorzutragen.
Kein(e) Familienvater (Mutter) aber hält (und
erklärt) sich selbst für eine Autorität (und/oder
wird von anderen als solche betrachtet), bevor
er/sie zu den ,Alten* gehört (etwa ab 50). In
Gegenwart Dritter (also außerhalb der Kernfami-
lie) wird jeder Nicht-Alte auf die alleinige Kompe-
tenz der ,Alten* in Sachen bana verweisen. Nur sie
erzählen bana im öffentlichen Kontext (zumin-
dest, solange auch nur eine[r] von ihnen in der
Nähe ist!). Unter den ,Alten* haben wiederum die
,Ältesten* im öffentlichen Kontext zwar nicht das
letzte Wort, aber das entscheidendste Argument,
nämlich, daß sie es schon so erzählt gehört hätten,
als andere noch nicht existierten.13
Die Bedeutung des relativen Alters bei der
Determination von Autorität in bezug auf bana im
öffentlichen Kontext kann freilich von einem
entscheidenden politisch/demographischen Faktor
überspielt werden. Es gibt Personen in Santa
Marta, die ,alt* geworden sind und doch nie zu den
Alten zählen (werden), die bana ,wissen*. Sie
behalten den Jgnoranten-Status* der Männer in
mittleren Jahren bis ins hohe Alter, obwohl sie
(wie auch jener Uni in mittleren Jahren, ja selbst
jeder Jugendliche ab etwa 18-20 Jahren, s. o.)
durchaus in der Lage sind, bana zu erzählen, d. h.
ihre Inhalte kennen. Ihre ,Inkompetenz* hängt
zusammen mit ihrer politischen Stellung in der
Gemeinde, die wiederum einerseits von ihnen
selbst (ihrer Persönlichkeit*) und andererseits
aber auch entscheidend von der Zahlenstärke ihrer
Familiengruppe bestimmt wird. Ein Mann ohne
Kinder kann alt werden, aber er wird nie zur
,Autorität*. Ein Mann mit wenigen Nachkommen
(insbes. in der zweiten Generation) kann nur dann
zur ,Autorität* werden, wenn er in seinen mittleren
Jahren eine politisch bedeutsame Rolle gespielt
hat und bis ins hohe Alter hinein sein Image
bewahren kann. Ein Mann mit vielen Kindern
(insbes. Enkeln) wird mit aller Wahrscheinlichkeit
selbstbewußt auftreten und wird schneller eine
Autorität (auch in Sachen bana) als sein weniger
fruchtbarer Konkurrent. Das aber heißt, daß in
Santa Marta seine Wahrheit, da sie im öffentlichen
Kontext wirkungsvoller (und häufiger) vorgetra-
gen wird, größere Chancen hat, in der nächsten
13 Ich habe nie einen solchen Streitfall zwischen Autoritäten*
erlebt (mit Ausnahme vielleicht des oben geschilderten, von
mir selbst provozierten!), aber es war auffällig, daß der
Jüngere* von zwei sich als Autoritäten begreifenden Infor-
manten niemals die Rolle des primären bana-Erzählers
übernahm. Jüngere* fungierten in Anwesenheit Älterer
immer nur in der Rolle des ,Mit-Erzählers‘, quasi eines
,Chors*, der die Erzählmotive des Vortragenden immer
wieder aufgreift, wiederholt, verstärkt und ausschmückt.
Näheres zur Kunst des bana-Vortrags siehe in Frank,
MS.
Änthropos 83.1988
518
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
Generation auch in einem Personenkreis außer-
halb seiner direkten <Lineage>, als die Wahrheit zu
gelten.
So gibt es also in Santa Marta ambivalente
Prozesse in bezug auf den Erwerb, die Ausfor-
mung und Weiterleitung von bana, die verstanden
sein wollen, wenn man diesen Themenbereich aus
der Gesamtheit des ,Uni-Wissens‘ herauslösen
und analysieren will. Einerseits gibt es Prozesse,
welche die Segmentierung in diesem Themenbe-
reich fördern. Da primär ausdrücklich die unmit-
telbaren linearen Verwandten (Vater und Großva-
ter - weniger: Mutter und Großmutter) als letzte,
unbedingt vertrauenswürdige Autoritäten gelten -
verschiedene (Groß-)Väter/Mütter aber verschie-
dene ,Wahrheiten‘ behaupten -, werden Differen-
zen in dem, was einzelnen Uni als die bana der Uni
gilt, perpetuiert, und jeder ,Alte‘, der mit der
Autorität des Vaters eine differente Version er-
zählt, schafft damit eine neue ,Wahrheit4, ange-
sichts derer jeder Versuch einer ethnographischen
Kreation eines gemeinschaftsweiten ,Gesamtwis-
sens4 nur eine weitere Verfälschung wäre. Er
kreiert zugleich auch eine neue potentielle Grenze
zwischen ,Wir4 und ,die Anderen4, die nur darauf
warten, in irgendeinem Kontext (politisch) akti-
viert zu werden. Andererseits selektiert die Form
der bana-\ermittlung auf lokaler (öffentlicher)
Ebene beständig zuungunsten divergierender Ver-
sionen, deren Anhänger das Pech haben, 1. nicht
sehr alt zu werden oder 2. demographisch unbe-
deutsam zu bleiben. Die Kinder von Anhängern
solcher abweichender ,Wahrheiten4 entwickeln
entweder ,Mischversionen4 - die selbst wiederum
,divergierende Wahrheiten4 der nächsten Genera-
tion (en) werden können! - oder aber sie konver-
tieren4 (bewußt oder unbewußt) zur Mehrheits-
meinung unter der sozial akzeptablen Berufung
auf die Autorität der rara, die nur in diesen Fällen
eben nicht die unmittelbaren linearen Vorfahren
sind, wohl aber als solche deklariert werden.
Der zweite systematische Themenbereich, mit
dem sich im folgenden auseinandergesetzt wird (C.
Heß), ist im Gegensatz zu bana ein explizit als
,Frauensache4 deklarierter Teil des ,Wissens der
Uni4.
2. SchwangerschaftsförderndeZ-verhindernde
,Medizinen4, und Praktiken
Es waren die Frauen von Santa Marta selbst, die
meine Aufmerksamkeit im Feld auf den Bereich
der Familienplanung, die Kenntnisse über Mittel
und Methoden zur Geburtenkontrolle lenkten.14
Als vermutliche aini (= MBD/FZD oder
,Ehefrau4 von Dr. Frank) wurde ich von jeder Frau
beim ersten Zusammentreffen gefragt, ob ich auch
Kinder hätte. Meine Kinderlosigkeit verursachte
mitleidige Blicke bei meinen Geschlechtsgenossin-
nen. Meinen anschießenden Ausführungen, daß
sie durchaus gewollt sei, folgten sie mit eher
skeptischer Miene.
Schon nach wenigen Tagen wurden dann
erstmals in meinen Gesprächen mit den Frauen
Pflanzen erwähnt - in Cashibo/Cacataibo: tuatiro
„Kinder-Machen-Medizin“ genannt -, mit denen
eine Schwangerschaft herbeigeführt werden könn-
te. Mittlerweile neugierig geworden, ließ ich mir
von der Anwendung und Wirkung dieser schwan-
gerschaftsprovozierenden Pflanzenmedizin be-
richten.
Die Frauen schienen sich über meine Wißbe-
gier zu freuen (über meine Bedürftigkeit bestand
für sie ohnehin kein Zweifel). Man nannte mir
auch sogleich einige ältere Frauen, die besonders
viel über solche Heilpflanzen, über ihre Verwen-
dung sowie über begleitende Taburegeln wüßten.
Ich suchte diese Spezialistinnen4 auf, und es
dauerte nicht lange, bis die Idee aufkam, nicht nur
über diese spezifischen ro15 zu sprechen, sondern
sie auch im Wald zu suchen. Nach einiger Zeit
begann ich damit, Frauen auch nach den ihnen
bekannten empfängnisverhütenden Mitteln zu fra-
gen. Den Frauen waren antikonzeptive Pflanzen-
medizinen vertraut - aber wieso gerade ich mich
für empfängnisverhütende ro (Cashibo: tuatimaro
„Kinder-Nichtmachen-Medizin“) interessierte,
war ihnen weniger einleuchtend.
So entwickelte sich, eher beiläufig, ein gänz-
lich ungeplanter Themenschwerpunkt für meine
Arbeit während meines Aufenthaltes in Santa
Marta: das lokal vorhandene Wissen über Fami-
lienplanung, also vor allem über kontrazeptive4
und ,schwangerschaftsfördernde4 Pflanzenmedizi-
nen, Pflanzenmagie und die damit im Zusammen-
hang stehenden Taburegeln sowie die Formen der
Übertragung dieses Wissens unter den Frauen und
zwischen Frauengenerationen.
14 1984 begleitete ich (C. Heß) den Ko-Autor als Feldassisten-
tin nach Santa Marta. Meine ursprüngliche Aufgabe be-
stand in der Hilfestellung bei der (photographisch-
filmischen) Dokumentation der «Fiesta de Sachavaca»,
welche im Juni/Juli 1984 in der Gemeinde gefeiert wurde.
15 Ro — „Medizin“. Alles, was geeignet ist, instrumental zur
Veränderung von Gegebenheiten eingesetzt zu werden,
ohne daß die Wirkungskräfte unmittelbar zugänglich wä-
ren, ist ro, von Heilpflanzen bis hin zu tödlichen Liedern
oder dem Tabakrauch, den man gegen ein Unwetter
bläst.
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
519
Unschwer stellt man in Santa Marta fest, daß
Männer wie Frauen im allgmeinen einem reichen
Kindersegen in der Familie sehr positiv gegenüber-
stehen. Natürlich sind von Frauen mit durchweg
mehreren Kindern schon mal Klagen zu hören,
daß man keine weiteren Kinder mehr bekommen
möchte, sei es, weil es ,zuviel Arbeit1 mache oder
weil die lange Stillzeit (3-4 Jahre) ,belastend4 sei,
da sie die Bewegungsfreiheit einschränkt. Um
Empfängnisverhütung tatsächlich bemüht sind
aber im allgemeinen nur Frauen, die ein Gesund-
heitsrisiko während der Schwangerschaft und bei
der Geburt befürchten.
Die positive Einstellung zu reichem Kinderse-
gen hat gute Gründe. Viele Kinder erlauben einem
Ehepaar, durch eine geschickte Heiratspolitik
viele Schwiegersöhne und (wenn möglich) auch
Schwiegertöchter mit dem eigenen Haushalt zu
verbinden. Das Ziel ist, eine zahlenmäßig starke
Familiengruppe aufzubauen. Die Vorteile einer
umfangreichen Verwandtschaftsgruppe zeigen
sich u. a. bei Streitigkeiten. In Konfliktfällen kann
sich ein Individuum sicher sein, daß seine nächsten
Angehörigen fraglos für es Partei ergreifen wer-
den. Wer einer zahlenmäßig kleineren und schwä-
cheren Familie angehört, ist deshalb im Nachteil.
Er muß - mehr noch als andere - versuchen, den
offenen Streit mit Mitgliedern eines ,starken4
Familienverbandes zu meiden.
So bietet eine große Verwandtschaftsgruppe
dem einzelnen Schutz, Sicherheit und eine gewisse
individuelle Handlungsfreiheit. Die Möglichkeit
aber, solche ,Schutzgemeinschaften4 aufzubauen,
basiert auf einer geschickten Familienplanung und
Heiratspolitik. In Santa Marta besteht auch zwi-
schen der politischen Position des einzelnen und
der Stärke seiner Verwandtschaftsgruppen eine
enge Beziehung. Politik wird weniger diskutiert als
,gemacht4, und zwar von ,starken Männern4, den
oben erwähnten Uni-Cushi. Um Uni-Cushi zu
werden, muß ein Mann über bestimmte Fähigkei-
ten verfügen. Er muß ein guter Jäger und Garten-
bauer sein. Er muß rhetorisch begabt sein. Aber
vor allen Dingen muß er auch möglichst viele
nächste Verwandte besitzen, die ,seine4 Politik
mittragen.
Neben diesen sozio-politischen Vorteilen, die
in Santa Marta jede Person (insbesondere jeder
Mann, aber auch Frauen) genießt, die das Glück
hat, einem ,starken4 Familienverband anzugehö-
ren, gibt es auch noch handfeste ökonomische
Vorteile.
Ein Familienvater, der eine geschickte Heirats-
politik betreibt, kann mit Hilfe seiner Schwieger-
söhne die ökonomische Potenz seiner Gruppe
erheblich erhöhen. Sie erleichtert die Verfügbar-
keit von mehreren männlichen Arbeitskräften, die
Anlage großer produktiver Chacras oder den Bau
eines neuen, geräumigen Hauses. Die Familie ge-
winnt dadurch an Prestige und verdient Beachtung.
Ein starker Familienverband bietet auch den
Vorteil eines regen, zwischenfamiliären Austau-
sches von Anteilen aus der Jagdbeute und/oder
Gartenproduktion. Fisch- und Fleischrationen
werden von den Frauen der erfolgreichen Jäger an
ihre Verwandten verteilt, und auch Grundnah-
rungsmittel wie Bananen oder Yucca werden
einem bedürftigen Verwandten nicht verweigert.
Ein anderer Beleg für die Vorteilhaftigkeit
einer zahlreichen Verwandtschaft ist die Verleih-
praxis bei Arbeitsgeräten. Werkzeuge wie Mache-
ten, Äxte oder Gewehrkugeln sind für Uni extrem
teure, aber überlebensnotwendige Gebrauchsgü-
ter. Wer sich aus Geldmangel z. B. keine Axt
kaufen kann, aber dringend eine benötigt, muß sie
sich von einem nahen Verwandten leihen. In große
Schwierigkeiten kann eine solche Mangelsituation
denjenigen Uni bringen, der nur wenige nahe
Verwandte hat, die zu allem Überdruß ebenfalls
keine Axt besitzen. Wertvolle Gerätschaften, wie
Arbeitsgeräte, werden nämlich (wenn überhaupt)
nur an engste Verwandte verliehen.
Neben den bisher genannten sozio-ökonomi-
schen Faktoren ist (eher) sicher auch der Blick auf
die jüngste Geschichte der Uni nicht unwesentlich,
um sich ihre positive Haltung gegenüber zahlrei-
chen Nachkommen zu erklären. Seit der Kontak-
tierung, etwa 1930, wurden die Uni durch mehrere
schwere Epidemien stark dezimiert (vgl. Frank
1983 b: 49). Faktisch kämpfen sie seit über einem
halben Jahrhundert gegen ihr Aussterben. Auch
dieser Aspekt könnte zur Erklärung ihrer kinder-
bejahenden Haltung herangezogen werden.
Die Vermutung liegt nahe, daß die mo-
mentane Notwendigkeit einer starken biologi-
schen Reproduktion sich auch auf der Ebene der
Geburtenkontrollpraxis widerspiegelt. Tatsächlich
existiert in Santa Marta allerhand tradiertes Wis-
sen über verschiedene Geburtenkontrollprakti-
ken, z. B. mit Hilfe von Pflanzenmedizin, -magie
und Taburegeln; allerdings gibt es mehr und
detailliertere Informationen darüber, wie die
Fruchtbarkeit einer Frau erhöht, wie Sterilität
geheilt werden kann oder welche Tabus eingehal-
ten werden müssen, um der Gesundheit des
Ungeborenen nicht zu schaden, als darüber, wie
Verhütung betrieben oder Abtreibung praktiziert
wird. Ob sich dieser Umstand tatsächlich auf einen
,Reproduktionszwang4 der Uni zurückführen läßt,
kann aufgrund meiner Daten nicht endgültig ent-
Anthropos 83.1988
520
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
schieden werden, scheint aber nicht unwahrschein-
lich.
Über die verschiedenen Geburtenkontroll-
praktiken arbeitete ich in Santa Marta ausschließ-
lich mit den erwachsenen Frauen (etwa ab 18
Jahren) aus zwei der mindestens sieben lokalisier-
baren Familiengruppen - denen des Ortskerns und
denen, welche unmittelbar oberhalb des Ortskerns
auf der anderen Flußseite siedeln.
Zu diesen Familienverbänden gehören drei
ältere Frauen, deren soziales Prestige in der
Gemeinde sehr hoch ist, sogenannte <Xano-Cushi>
(starke Frauen). Mit diesen Frauen sowie mit ihren
Töchtern, Schwiegertöchtern und Enkelinnen
führte ich einzeln oder in Gruppen Befragungen
durch und ließ mir über ihr Leben und das
Schicksal anderer Frauen berichten. Während
dieser Zusammenkünfte besaß die jeweils anwe-
sende Xano-Cushi die absolute Autorität. Dies
war auf ihr überlegenes Wissen, ihre erwiesene
Qualifikation als ,Wissende4 sowie auf ihr Alter
und ihren Status zurückzuführen (der u. a. von der
Zahl ihrer lebenden Kinder abhängig ist).
Auch auf unseren Ausflügen in den nahen
Urwald übernahm sie wie selbstverständlich die
Führung, da sie offensichtlich besser als die ande-
ren, jüngeren Frauen wußte, wo die gesuchten
Heilpflanzen zu finden waren. Schließlich ließ sich
auch an den Fragen, die jüngere Frauen im Ver-
lauf von Gruppeninterviews an die Xano-Cushi
richteten, deutlich ablesen, wie unterschiedlich die
Kenntnisse unter den Frauen verteilt waren.
Unsere gemeinschaftlichen Ausflüge zur
Sammlung von tuati(ma)ro erbrachten eine
Sammlung von 10 verschiedenen Kräuter- und
Buschpflanzen, die unabhängig voneinander von
allen drei Xano-Cushi im Wald entdeckt wurden
und von denen ich jeweils ein Exemplar zur bota-
nischen Bestimmung nach Deutschland brach-
te.16
Man erzählte mir, daß es noch weitere tu-
ati(ma)ro-Arten gebe, aber in Santa Marta würde
man nur diese zehn gesammelten ,kennen4 und
verwenden. Bei der Besprechung der gesammel-
ten Exemplare mit anderen (jüngeren) Frauen
zeigte sich erneut, daß einige von diesen zwar
etliche der Pflanzen selbständig (er)kannten, doch
keine von ihnen kannte alle zehn Pflanzen, noch
kannten alle die gleichen.
16 Wir danken Herrn D. M. Hakki und Dr. Hiepko vom
Botanischen Museum, Berlin-Dahlem, für ihre Bemühun-
gen um die Bestimmung dieser Pflanzen, die leider zu häufig
an unserer Unkenntnis des Botanisierens scheitern muß-
te.
Von den zehn Pflanzen gehörten allein acht
den schwangerschaftsprovozierenden, den tuatiro,
und nur zwei den empfängnisverhütenden (sterili-
sierenden) Pflanzen, den tuatimaro, an (siehe
Tabelle).
Aus den in der Tabelle aufgeführten zehn
Waldpflanzen wird die eigentliche ,Medizin4 in
einfachster Weise extrahiert. Aus manchen Pflan-
zen oder Pflanzenteilen (Blätter, Früchte) wird
durch Zerquetschen und Auspressen ein Saft
gewonnen, der in die Augen getröpfelt und/oder
(mit Wasser gestreckt) zur Körperreinigung ver-
wendet wird.
Aus zwei der ro kann ein Pflanzensaft oder
-sud gewonnen werden, der von den Frauen
getrunken wird. Eine dieser beiden Pflanzen ist ein
tuatiro (4), die andere ein tuatimaro (10).
Die meist äußerliche Anwendung der ro läßt
vermuten, daß hier Pflanzenmedizin (im europä-
ischen Sinne) und Pflanzenmagie eng miteinander
verwoben sind. Diese Vermutung drängt sich
insbesondere im Fall der Pflanzen 3 und 7 auf,
welche Blüten bzw. Samen ausbilden, die den
männlichen, bzw. weiblichen Geschlechtsteilen
ähneln. Die Frauen befestigen sich diese Pflanzen-
teile auf ihrem Unterleib und sind überzeugt,
dadurch nicht nur eine Schwangerschaft provozie-
ren, sondern insbesondere auch das Geschlecht
des gewünschten Kindes im voraus bestimmen zu
können.
Zu einer anderen Form von Ähnlichkeitszau-
ber oder, wie wir es hier nennen wollen, Pflanzen-
magie gehört das Verspeisen von kleinen eier-
bzw. beerenähnlichen Früchten einiger tuatiro-
Pflanzen, was die Fruchtbarkeit der Frau deutlich
erhöhen soll.
Die Dauer einer Behandlung mit tuati(ma)ro
beträgt meist nur zwei bis maximal 5 Tage.
Die Tabelle vermittelt den Eindruck eines
gänzlich einheitlichen Wissens über Herstellung,
Anwendung und Behandlungsziel der aufgeliste-
ten tuati(ma)ro in Santa Marta. Wie oben er-
wähnt, waren sich die drei Xano-Cushi auch in der
Tat in der Identifikation der zehn Pflanzen als ro
sowie in ihrer Klassifikation als tuatiro oder
tuatimaro einig, über die ,Dosierung4, die notwen-
dige Anwendungsdauer, das bei der Anwendung
bestimmter ro zu erwartende Geschlecht des Kin-
des sowie insbesondere über die bei jeder ro-
Behandlung unabdingbar zu beachtenden gichti-
gen4 Verhaltensweisen (Taburegeln) gab es jedoch
etliche gravierende Meinungsverschiedenheiten
selbst unter ihnen.
Allgemein verbreitet ist in Santa Marta die
Auffassung, daß der Erfolg, bzw. Mißerfolg einer
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
521
Überblickstabelle: Tuati/ma/ro aus Santa Marta
botanische Bezeichnung genutzte Pflan- zenteile Medizinherstel- lung Anwendung (bei Frauen) Anmerkung
1 Dalechampia cf. spathulata (Scheidw.) Baill. Euphorbi- aceae [Wolfsmilchgewächs] Blätter und Blüten Zerreiben und Auspressen a) Augentropfen b) Pflanzensaft wird bei Körperreinigung benutzt
2 Clidemia dimorphica Macbr. Melastomataceae [Schwarz- mundgewächs] Blätter perlenartige Früchte Zerreiben und Auspressen Verspeisen Pflanzensaft wird zur Kör- perreinigung benutzt
3 Piperaceae, Piper spec. Blätter und Sa- menfäden Zerreiben und Auspressen Pflanzensaft wird zur Kör- perreinigung benutzt Erwirkt die Ge- burt eines Soh- nes
4 Piperaceae, Piper spec. Blätter a) Zerreiben und Auspressen b) Abkochen a) Pflanzensaft wird zur Körperreinigung benutzt b) Sud wird allmorgendlich getrunken Die hierbei empfohlene Be- handlungsdauer von 1-4 Wo- chen ist ver- gleichsweise lang
5 nicht identifiziert [gleiche Art wie 6] Blätter Früchte Zerreiben und Auspressen Mit den reifen, dunklen Früch- ten werden Röcke oder Kleider befleckt Pflanzensaft wird zur Kör- perreinigung benutzt
6 nicht identifiziert [gleiche Art wie 5) Blätter und Früchte Zerreiben und Auspressen Pflanzensaft wird zur Kör- perreinigung benutzt
7 (vermutlich) Annonaceae [Liane] Blüte a) Zerreiben und Auspressen a) Pflanzensaft wird zur Körperreinigung benutzt b) Befestigung der Blüte in der Kleidung Erwirkt die Ge- burt eines weib- lichen Kindes
8 nicht identifiziert Blätter und per- lenartige Früch- te Zerreiben und Auspressen Pflanzensaft wird zur Kör- perreinigung benutzt Erwirkt die Ge- burt eines männlichen Kindes
9 (vermutlich) cf. Euphorbi- aceae Blätter Zerreiben und Auspressen a) Augentropfen b) Pflanzensaft wird zur Körperreinigung benutzt Menstruation setzt aus
10 nicht identifiziert Blätter Zerreiben und Auspressen Pflanzensaft wird getrunken Menstruation setzt aus
Heilbehandlung letztlich durch die Einhaltung,
bzw. Mißachtung von Taburegeln determiniert ist.
Eine detaillierte Darstellung aller in Santa Marta
bekannter Verhaltens- und Speiseregeln, Verbote
und Empfehlungen im Zusammenhang mit tu-
ati(ma)ro-Behandlungen, Schwangerschaft und
Geburt müßte den Rahmen dieses Aufsatzes
sprengen. Sie erscheint mir aber auch für ein
besseres Verständnis der Funktion solcher Regeln
und Gebote nicht zwingend erforderlich. Es gibt
kein einheitliches Tabusystem in der Gemeinde.
Die den Frauen bekannten Regeln bezüglich
erfolgreicher Geburtenkontrolle variieren von
Frau zu Frau und von Familiengruppe zu Familien-
gruppe. Sie sind die Summe ihrer persönlichen
Erfahrungen im Umgang mit einem größeren Satz
von Regeln, die sie im Laufe ihres Lebens von
anderen (meist älteren) Frauen gehört und im
praktischen ,Test‘ an sich selbst oder nahen Ver-
wandten als wirksam oder unwirksam erfahren
haben. Die Regeln, die eine Frau deshalb als
notwendig zu beachten propagiert (eben die, die
sie als wirksam erfahren hat), sind nur selten
identisch mit denen, die eine zweite Frau emp-
fiehlt. Das schließt natürlich nicht aus, daß es
einige wenige Regeln gibt, welche die Mehrzahl
der Frauen, z. B. während einer tuatiro-Behand-
lung, zu beachten empfehlen. Hierzu gehört z. B.:
1. den Anblick von Menschen-ZTierblut zu mei-
den, 2. kein Tapir- oder Weißlippenpekari-
Anthropos 83.1988
522
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
Fleisch zu essen, oder auch 3. keine warmen
Speisen zu verzehren.
Viele Regeln sind so angelegt, daß es den
Frauen schwerfallen muß, sie einzuhalten - so
etwa, wenn empfohlen wird, ,nicht viel in der
Sonne herumzulaufen*, oder Schwangeren mit
Fehlgeburtsängsten geraten wird, keine ,tiefen
Wasser zu durchwaten* oder Herdfeuer zu meiden.
Solche Regeln werden dann auch von Schwange-
ren im Normalfall17 schlicht ignoriert. Treten
jedoch Komplikationen auf, so bieten diese Re-
geln, d. h. die Tatsache ihrer offensichtlichen
Mißachtung, die notwendige Erklärung, sowohl
für die Betroffene selbst als auch für andere. Kurz,
Tabus im Umfeld medizinischer Praktiken im
Zusammenhang mit Empfängnis, Schwanger-
schaft und Geburt werden in Santa Marta aufgrund
ihres eingeschränkten Charakters vorzugsweise
ignoriert und bezeichnenderweise erst in einer
Situation erfragt, bzw. ,richtig* beachtet, wenn
eine versuchte Heilbehandlung ohne Erfolg bleibt
oder ein Unglück eingetreten ist oder absehbar
scheint, d. h. wenn die Betroffenen unter erhebli-
chen psychischen Druck geraten.
Eine Frau und - in geringem Ausmaß - ihr
Ehemann werden sich in einem solchen Fall zuerst
unter ihren engsten Verwandten nach richtigen
Heilbehandlungen und den wichtigsten Tabus
erkundigen. Diese im engsten Familienkreis emp-
fohlenen Medizinen, Praktiken und Taburegelun-
gen sind dadurch autorisiert, daß die Mutter oder
Schwestern (Tanten) einer Betroffenen sie als
erlebtermaßen wirksam angibt. Bleibt nun trotz
strenger Einhaltung dieser Lehren der erwartete
Erfolg aus, d. h., steigt der psychische Druck der
Frau bzw. der Eheleute an, dann werden weitere
und umfassendere Erkundigungen über effektive*
Medizin und Taburegelungen eingezogen - auch
außerhalb des eigenen Familienverbandes. Hierzu
stehen primär zwei Personenkreise zur Verfügung:
Xano-Cushi sowie Frauen, von denen bekannt ist,
daß sie ein ähnliches Problem schon einmal erfolg-
reich gelöst haben.18
Bleibt auch in diesem Falle eine Behandlung-
trotz strikter Tabubeachtung - erfolglos, dann
schlägt die Befürchtung und die psychische Not der
Frau, aber auch ihres Ehemannes, leicht in Ver-
17 D. h. wenn sie keine Fehlgeburt befürchten, keinen seit
langem unerfüllten Kinderwunsch hegen, bisher keine
Schwierigkeiten bei vorhergehenden Schwangerschaften
und/oder Geburten erlebt haben etc.
18 Auch ,wissende1 alte Männer und insbesondere die Uni-
Cushi des eigenen und auch benachbarter Orte können um
Rat angegangen werden.
zweiflung um, und erneut wird in der Folge der
Kreis der befragbaren Autoritäten erweitert, dies-
mal z. B. um einen der wenigen approbierten
Schamanen oder Curanderos19 der Gruppe.
Ist auch deren Einsatz (d. h. die Anwendung
eines esoterischen Wissens und kurativer Prakti-
ken, was nicht ursprünglich Uni-Wissen und tradi-
tionelle Praxis ist) erfolglos, kann sich die Ver-
zweiflung der Betroffenen verständlicherweise zu
wahrer Panik steigern. Eine solche Frau, ihr
Ehemann und ihre Mutter/Schwestern (falls sie
durch Matrilokalität oder häufige Besuche in
engem Kontakt stehen) entwickeln in einem sol-
chen Fall eine wahrhaft fanatische Sammelleiden-
schaft und Experimentierfreudigkeit. Auch Nicht-
Uni20 werden um ihre Kenntnisse angegangen,
ihre Ratschläge ausprobiert und - falls erfolgreich
- in das persönliche Wissen um die effektive
Medizin, die erfolgreichen Praktiken und die
notwendigen Verhaltensregeln integriert.21 *
Dies bringt uns zurück zur Autorität der
Xano-Cushi, Frauen, die durch reiche Lebenser-
fahrung (hohes Alter) aus Lernprozessen, die sie
selbst, weniger an sich selbst als in ihrem weiten
ambi-linearen Verwandtschaftskreis, durchlaufen
haben, ein umfangreiches Wissen um wirksame
Medizin, Praktiken und begleitende Verhaltensre-
19 Schamanen/Curanderos im (ostperuanisch) üblichen Sinne
waren unter den Uni de las Cabeceras bis zur Kontaktzeit
unbekannt (ebenso Ayahuasca und die damit verbundene
Vorstellungswelt!). Der einzige im Augenblick in Santa
Marta praktizierende Schamane hat seine Kunst als junger
Mann von einem Shipibo-Schamanen gelehrt bekommen.
Alle Ältesten der lokalen Gruppen besaßen früher die
Fähigkeit, durch ro zu heilen (oder zu töten!).
20 Z. B. Händler, Holzfäller, Kontaktpersonen aus anderen
Stammesgruppen - auch Anthropologen und europäische
Mediziner!
21 Als Beispiel möge hier eine junge Frau dienen, welche ihr
zweites, drittes und viertes Kind in der ersten Woche nach
den Geburten durch <Mal de los siete Dias> (Wundstarr-
krampf?) verlor. Sie verwandelte sich durch dieses Unglück
innerhalb von nur drei Jahren (bis 1984, ihr viertes Kind
überlebte!) von einer Frau, welche während ihrer ersten
Schwangerschaft keinerlei Tabus beachtet hatte, zu einer
fanatischen Expertin in Sachen perinataler Verhaltensmaß-
regeln. Das von ihr gewissenhaft praktizierte Wissen inte-
grierte nach ihrer vierten Schwangerschaft Regeln und
Vorstellungen, welche u. a. von Frauen aus anderen Dorf-
gemeinschaften, von ,durchreisenden1 Mestizos sowie ei-
nem europäischen .Doktor1 stammte. Mit ihr aber hatten
auch noch weitere Frauen aus ihrer Familiengruppe .ge-
lernt1. Das heißt nicht, daß auch sie nun die gleichen
(komplizierten) Verhaltensmaßregeln und Medizinen an-
wendeten wie unsere junge Frau, nur wußten sie nun um
ihre Wirksamkeit und würden sie anwenden und weiter-
empfehlen, wenn sie in eine ähnliche Situation gerieten!
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
523
geln akkumuliert haben. Die Zahl der bekannten
(und damit erfahrbaren) Medizinpflanzen zur Ein-
leitung bzw. Verhinderung einer Schwangerschaft
oder zur Vorherbestimmung des Geschlechts eines
Kindes ist - wie gezeigt - gering. Ihre Kenntnis ist
deshalb noch am ehesten gruppenweites Gemein-
gut. Dagegen ist die Zahl potentieller Verhaltens-
regeln fast unbeschränkt und deshalb ihre Kennt-
nis unter den Frauen (insbes. aber der Glaube an
ihre Wirksamkeit) weit variabler.
Die erlebte Wirksamkeit einer Medizin oder
Praxis ist es, die dem Wissen um sie Autorität
verleiht. Dem steht gegenüber, daß unterschiedli-
che Frauen unterschiedliche Erlebnisse haben.
Hier entscheidet über die Glaubwürdigkeit unter-
schiedlichen Wissens von zwei Frauen für eine
dritte, ähnlich wie bei divergierenden Mythentra-
ditionen für nachwachsende Männergenerationen,
letztlich die relative verwandtschaftliche Nähe der
Expertinnen zur ratsuchenden Frau. Im Unter-
schied zu den Mythen aber muß sich medizinisches
Wissen in der Praxis bewähren.
Die Summe des Wissens jeder neuen Genera-
tion ist deshalb immer das Ergebnis der Summe
des Wissens der vorhergehenden Generation, mi-
nus durch Erfahrung aussortierte unwirksame
Wissensanteile und plus möglicherweise importier-
tes, überprüftes und inkorporiertes Wissen.
Dieses Ergebnis scheint es mir notwendig zu
machen, nicht nur das gemeinschaftlich geteilte/
individuelle Wissen der Frauen als solches und die
Vermittlungspraxis in und zwischen den Frauenge-
nerationen zu studieren, sondern auch die spezifi-
schen Situationen zu beleuchten, in die Frauen im
Verlaufe ihres Lebens geraten müssen, bevor sie
sich um die Aneignung des Wissens in bezug auf
schwangerschaftsfördernde und kontrazeptive ro
bemühen.
Eine Behandlung mit tuatiro (insbesondere
aber mit tuatimaro) ist nämlich ein durchaus
seltenes Ereignis in Santa Marta, das immer nur
die wenigsten Frauen einer Generation betrifft.
Die wichtigsten Motive für eine fuafiro-Behand-
lung sind;
- Kinderlosigkeit selbst nach längerem Ehele-
ben;22
22 Uni-Frauen in Santa Marta sind überzeugt, daß Fälle von
weiblicher Sterilität zumeist auf eine ,heimlich1 durchge-
führte fuaiima-ro-Behandlung durch eine andere Person
(z. B. einen enttäuschten Liebhaber) zurückzuführen sind.
Eine Gegenbehandlung mit tuati-ro ist in solch einem Falle
möglich, aber schwierig und langwierig.
- die offensichtlich eingeschränkte Empfängnisfä-
higkeit einer Frau;23
- der Wunsch, den Zeitpunkt der Empfängnis
selbst zu bestimmen, sowie
- der (seltene) Wunsch einer Frau und/oder ihres
Mannes, das Geschlecht des nächsten Kindes
selbst zu bestimmen.
Die wichtigsten Gründe, warum eine Frau
keine Kinder mehr bekommen möchte, und sich
einer fuaiimaro-Behandlung unterziehen kann,
sind:
- das fortgeschrittene Alter einer Frau, z. B.
wenn sie schon kurz vor ihrer Menopause steht,
aber biologisch noch reproduktionsfähig ist; oder
aber, wenn sich eine Frau aufgrund von langwieri-
ger Erkrankung für zu geschwächt hält, um weiter-
hin Kinder zu bekommen, und
- die Erwartung einer problematischen Schwan-
gerschaft bzw. vorausgegangener komplizierter,
gefährlicher oder extrem schmerzhafter Gebur-
ten.
Uni-Frauen glauben, daß eine tuatimaro-
Behandlung zur Sterilität führt. Da Status und
Anerkennung einer Frau bei den Uni durchaus
auch von der Zahl ihrer Kinder abhängig ist, ist es
wenig verwunderlich, daß es zum Zeitpunkt der
Untersuchung nur wenige Frauen gab, die Zugaben
(bzw. denen nachgesagt wurde), sich mit tuatima-
ro behandelt zu haben, bzw. worden zu sein. Es
fand sich nur eine moderne junge Frau, die sich mit
tuatimaro gezielt behandelt hatte, da sie ihren
Kleinkindern später bessere Kleider und eine
höhere Schulbildung angedeihen lassen wollte,
und meinte, dies sei bei zwei, aber nicht mehr mit
weiteren Kindern möglich.
Die Kenntnis von Abtreibungspraktiken
scheint in Santa Marta auf eine einzige beschränkt
zu sein. Die Frauen nannten mir nur die Einnahme
eines Suds, der, aus zerstampften Avokadokernen
hergestellt, mehrmals täglich schluckweise von
den Frauen eingenommen werde und nach mehre-
ren Tagen Unterleibskrämpfe bzw. Wehen provo-
ziere, welche zur Abstoßung des Fötus führten.
Zur gleichen Reaktion soll es nach Einnahme eines
Suds kommen, der aus der Rinde des Avocado-
Baumes gewonnen wird. Diese Abtreibungsme-
thode verursacht jedoch starke Schmerzen und
läßt sich nach Auskunft meiner Informantinnen
auch nur während der ersten Wochen nach der
Empfängnis anwenden. Nach den möglichen Mo-
23 Diese wird angenommen, wenn - bei geordneten Familien-
verhältnissen- nach jeder Geburt mehr als vier Jahre bis zur
nächsten Schwangerschaft verstreichen.
Anthropos 83.1988
524
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
tiven für einen Abort befragt, wurden mir zwei
genannt;
- wenn das Alter und der Gesundheitszustand der
Frau eine erneute Schwangerschaft zum lebensbe-
drohenden Risiko werden lasse;
- wenn der Ehemann oder Liebhaber sich weige-
re, das Kind zu versorgen.24 *
In Santa Marta scheinen heute Aborte selten
zu sein. Rein ökonomische Überlegungen sollen
angeblich nicht wesentlich für die Abbruchent-
scheidung sein. Die Frauen meinten, daß es immer
ausreichend zu essen gebe, um einen zusätzlichen
Erdenbürger zu verkraften. Die bei uns noch
sattsam bekannte Diskriminierung lediger Mütter
ist unbekannt und darum auch kein Entschei-
dungskriterium. Eine Frau mit unehelichen Kin-
dern oder eine Witwe haben normalerweise auch
keine Probleme, einen neuen Lebensgefährten zu
finden.
Fassen wir zusammen: Es ist keinesfalls zwin-
gend, daß sich eine Uni-Frau im Laufe ihres
Lebens mit geburtenregelnder Pflanzenmedizin,
-magie und den entsprechenden Taburegeln be-
schäftigt. Vielmehr ist eine persönliche Not- bzw.
Nachfragesituation nach Manipulationsmöglich-
keiten im Bereich ,Empfängnis-Verhütung-
Schwangerschaft-Geburtsverlauf Voraussetzung
dafür. Eine gezielte Aufklärung der jungen Mäd-
chen über Geburtenkontrollmittel und -methoden
ist (bisher noch) keineswegs üblich.
Viele gesunde Frauen in Santa Marta erhalten
deshalb im Verlaufe ihres Lebens nie Gelegenheit,
umfangreiches Wissen auf diesem Gebiet zu er-
werben. Ihr Bezug zu diesem Thema ist das vage
Wissen, daß es einige Frauen im Ort gibt, die man
notfalls um Rat angehen kann. Drei Kriterien sind
hierbei ausschlaggebend: verwandtschaftliche
Nähe, der Xano-Cushi-Status sowie der Status als
ehemalig selbst Betroffene. Verwandtschaftliche
Nähe verleiht primäre Glaubwürdigkeit. Der
Xano-Cushi-Status ist das Ergebnis einer reichen
Lebenserfahrung, insbesondere getragen durch
diese primäre Glaubwürdigkeit. Eine große Fami-
lie und viele Nachkommen (in bis zu dritter
Generation) ergibt vielfältige Gelegenheit für
Lernprozesse auf diesem esoterischen Wissensge-
biet. Ähnliches gilt für die ehemals selbst Betrof-
fenen, doch muß ihr Wissen seine Glaubwürdig-
keit immer erst durch Erfolg gewinnen, kann aber
24 Es gibt (selten!) Ehemänner, die sich weigern, die Kinder
anderer Männer großzuziehen. Häufiger sind schon Liebha-
ber, welche die Verantwortung für eine Schwangerschaft
ablehnen, weil sie die Geliebte nicht als Ehefrau haben
wollen.
auch durch primäre Glaubwürdigkeit gestütztes
Wissen außer Kraft setzen.
Welche theoretischen Schlüsse kann oder
muß man nun aus der obigen Darstellung zie-
hen?
Wir hoffen zunächst einmal deutlich gemacht
zu haben, daß es unstatthaft wäre, aus der konkre-
ten Pluralität und Diversität von Wissensinhalten
in Santa Marta einen gemeinschaftsweiten, über-
greifenden kulturellen Inhalt zu konstruieren.
Erstens, eine bana, welche die konkreten Varian-
ten der in Santa Marta zur Zeit unserer ethnogra-
phischen Aufnahme existenten bana-Traditionen
harmonisierend zusammenfaßte, wäre selbst nur
eine weitere falsche bana-Variante, welche dar-
über hinaus noch den entscheidenden Nachteil
hätte, von keinem der heute in Santa Marta
lebenden Uni so akzeptiert werden zu können.
Zweitens, eine Darstellung von Kenntnissen zum
Thema SchwangerschaftsverhütungZ-förderung,
welche die divergierenden Kenntnisse der Frauen
in der Gemeinde schlicht summierte, stellte eben
nicht ein gemeinschaftsweit geteiltes Wissen der
Xano (Frauen) in Santa Marta, sondern ein Kunst-
produkt mit zweifelhaftem Erkenntniswert dar,
ein Kunstprodukt noch dazu, welches keinerlei
Chance hätte, auch nur in der nächsten Frauenge-
neration der Gemeinde reproduziert zu werden.
Mehr noch - keine Konstruktion eines ge-
meinschaftsweiten Wissens in Santa Marta hätte,
unserer Meinung nach, angesichts der Dynamik
des Prozesses des Aufbaus, Umbaus und der
konstanten Umbewertung und Umformulierung
konkreter individueller Wissensinhalte in der Ge-
meinde eine Chance, auch nur vom nächsten
Ethnographen oder auch von uns selbst mit weni-
gen Jahren Abstand in der gleichen Weise (re-)
konstruiert - und das heißt verifiziert - zu wer-
den.23
Aber ist Santa Marta in diesem Sinne wirklich
ein untypischer Einzelfall? Unserer Meinung nach
nicht! Wir glauben im Gegenteil, daß eine menta-
listische Kulturkonzeption uns Anthropologen
häufig den Blick darauf versperrt, wie typisch und
generell Divergenzen konkreter Denkinhalte in
Kulturen sind, und wie allgemein Prozesse und
Strukturen, welche solche Divergenzen fördern
und dynamisieren, in allen Kulturen verbreitet
25 Gar nicht erst in Betracht gezogen werden können hier
mögliche Versuche ,mentalistischer' Anthropologen, die
Kultur der (1200) Uni/Cacataibo-Indianer Ost-Perus in
Form ,gemeinschaftsweiter Wissensinhalte' zu konstru-
ieren.
Anthropos 83.1988
Kultur und Kognition
525
sind. Wenn dem aber so ist, so bedeutet dies, daß
wir mit der Propagierung unseres mentalistischen
Kulturbegriffs wenig zur wissenschaftlichen Ana-
lyse der kulturellen Realität, sondern im Gegenteil
eher zu ihrer Mystifikation beitragen.
Die definitorische Beschränkung der Kultur
einer Gruppe auf Denkinhalte mit der zusätzli-
chen, methodologisch kaum faßbaren Einschrän-
kung durch die Attribute gemeinschaftsweit oder
geteilt (shared) scheint uns nahezu zwingend zur
Unterbewertung der Rolle von Geschichte und
Praxis im konkreten kulturellen Prozeß zu füh-
ren.26
Hiermit wenden wir uns kritisch gegen einen
Aspekt ,mentalistischer‘ Kulturauffassung, den
wir bisher noch wenig explizit gemacht haben.
Seine letztendliche Begründung findet nämlich die
mentalistische Kulturkonzeption und die sich aus
ihr ableitende ethnographische Praxis in der Vor-
stellung, daß es Kultur (als ‘shared knowledge’)
sei, welche langfristig die soziale Praxis und damit
Geschichte eines Sozialverbandes determiniere.
Diese Vorstellung aber wird substanzlos, wenn
unser (und Keesings 1974; s. o.) Verdacht sich
bestätigen sollte, daß jede Transformation von
konkreten Denkinhalten auf eine Ebene oberhalb
oder jenseits der Individuen nichts weiter als ein
“spuriously integrated design” zu schaffen in der
Lage ist und immer einen Schritt weg bedeutet von
den konkreten individuellen motivationalen Struk-
turen, welche für die Praxis und Geschichte einer
Gesellschaft relevant sind.
Auf einer konkreten Ebene sollen unsere
obigen Ausführungen insbesondere die gängige
ethnographische Praxis der Arbeit mit sogenann-
ten Autoritäten oder ‘Best-Informants’ kritisch
beleuchten. Es scheint uns in keiner Weise ge-
rechtfertigt, deren Kenntnisse als die kulturellen
Kenntnisse einer Gemeinschaft zu deklarieren, an
denen dann die anderen nur mit mehr oder
weniger Kompetenz partizipieren. Solche gängige
Vorgehensweise vereinfacht zwar die ethnographi-
sche Feldarbeit, aber sie stellt unserer Meinung
nach gleichzeitig ein Verfahren dar, das nicht nur
ungeeignet ist, die historische Realität einer Grup-
pe adäquat zu erfassen, sondern darüber hinaus
auch fast zwangsläufig zu falschen (inadäquaten)
Vorstellungen über die Beziehung von Ideologie
und sozialer Praxis sowie über die historische
Dynamik von Kulturentwicklung führt.
Das heißt nun natürlich nicht, daß wir uns
26 Denn diese Geschichte und Praxis erhält ganz wesentlich
aus der Diversität der Denkinhalte ihre determinierende
Dynamik.
weigerten, die Kognitionen von Mitgliedern einer
soziokulturellen Gemeinschaft als systematisch zu
betrachten, oder gar, daß wir die konkreten
Denkinhalte grundsätzlich als kontextunabhängig
und individuell betrachtet wissen wollten. Es sollte
aus unserer Darstellung vielmehr deutlich gewor-
den sein, daß es auch in Santa Marta in der Tat
Vorstellungsinhalte gibt, die eine bedeutsame
Rolle in dem realen Prozeß der Schaffung, Weiter-
gabe und des Verlustes von Wissen spielen. Es sind
dies Inhalte (Konzeptionen, Vorstellungen), wel-
che die Beziehungen der Individuen zu Themenbe-
reichen (mit-)bestimmen, mit denen sie in ihrer
Lebenspraxis konfrontiert werden (z. B. die sozial
anerkannten Determinanten von Autorität). Die-
se sind in der Tat gemeinschaftsweit mehr oder
minder geteilte Regeln des Umgangs mit Kognitio-
nen (die eigenen und die der anderen!). Sie haben
aber eben nicht notwendig die Vereinheitlichung
jener Denkinhalte zur Folge, welche wir Ethnolo-
gen als die Mythologie (Religion, Medizinkennt-
nisse etc.) der Uni studieren. Im Gegenteil, wie
wir gezeigt haben, können ihre direkten Konse-
quenzen sogar der Art sein, daß Differenzen auf
dieser vordergründigen Ebene direkt gefördert
werden. Solche Differenzen sind Teil der ethno-
graphisch zu erfassenden, kulturellen Realität der
Uni, denen gegenüber jede Kategorisierung von
richtigen versus falschen Inhalten (kompetenten
versus inkompetenten Informanten, etc.) sinnlos,
ja selbst wiederum falsch ist.
Wir plädieren deshalb für ein Umdenken in
bezug auf die in der heutigen Anthropologie
gängige Konzeption von Kultur/Kognition sowie
ihrer Beziehung zur Praxis der Lebensentfaltung.
Es scheint uns ein konzeptioneller Fehler, indivi-
duelle Denkinhalte, wie sehr sie auch gemein-
schaftliches Wissen darstellen mögen, zu der Kul-
tur einer Gruppe zu reifizieren, der eine soziale
Existenz jenseits und/oder oberhalb der Individu-
en zugestanden wird. Diese Konzeption hilft uns
nicht nur nicht weiter in unserer wissenschaftlichen
Aufgabe der Analyse der Realität fremder Kultur-
gemeinschaften, sie lockt uns darüber hinaus sogar
in die implizite Akzeptierung von Konsequenzen,
welche diese Aufgabe erschweren, wenn nicht gar
unmöglich machen.
Kognitionen (d. i. konkrete Denkinhalte von
Individuen) von der Warte eines supra-individuel-
len Zusammenhangs aus zu betrachten, verführt
a) zur fruchtlosen Dichotomisierung von richti-
gem/falschem, systematischem/unsystematischem,
kulturellem/individuellem Wissen. Es verführt
b) zu einer Mystifikation sogenannter Autoritäten
und ihrer Rolle im sozialen Lebensprozeß, und es
Anthropos 83.1988
Erwin H. Frank und Carmen Heß
526
verführt ferner dazu, c) die konkrete Geschichte
einer Population, die zeitliche Sequenz der indivi-
duellen Handlungen ebenso wie die zeitliche Se-
quenz der Kognitionen, nicht als permanente
konkrete Praxis von Individuen in Auseinander-
setzung mit einer, immer nur zum Teil und nie
widerspruchsfrei, sozial konstituierten Lebewelt
zu studieren, sondern sie als bloßen Nachvollzug,
als alternativlose Realisation eines inhaltlich prä-
existenten Gedankensystems zu begreifen, dessen
historische Dynamik unverstanden bleibt.
Zum Schluß ist noch einem allzu einfachen
Einwand zu begegnen: Wir haben hier versucht,
einen ,mentalistischen‘ Kulturbegriff zu hinterfra-
gen, und uns dabei primär gegen ein definitori-
sches Attribut (‘shared’) gewandt, das manchem
Mentalisten als sekundär erscheinen mag. Hat
nicht schon Keesing im Eingangszitat (1979; s. o.)
Kulturen als “composite of the cognitive Systems”
nur “more or less shared” bezeichnet? Wäre es
nicht möglich, auf dieses Attribut einfach ganz zu
verzichten und dennoch ,Mentalist4 zu bleiben,
d. h. jetzt eine Identifikation von Kultur mit den
konkreten, individuellen Kognitionen aller Mit-
glieder eines Sozialverbands ohne letztlich arbiträ-
re Identifikation einiger Mitglieder als kompe-
tent4 und anderer als inkompetent4 zu versuchen
(und somit Mentalist auf einer individuellen Ebene
zu bleiben)? Diese Frage mögen andere für uns
und sich entscheiden. Wir denken, daß ein solcher
Kulturbegriff schlichtweg inpraktikabel wäre,
auch wenn er sicherlich ,wahrhaftiger4 als jener
andere wäre, den wir mit dieser Arbeit kritisch zu
hinterfragen versucht haben. (Wer wäre denn
z. B. bereit, als Konsequenz aus der Kritik der
individualistisch/mentalistischen Kulturkonzep-
tion heraus auf den unser Fach doch mit-konstitu-
ierenden Konsensus zu verzichten, daß Kultur ein
soziales, transindividuelles Phänomen sein soll
und Anthropologie mithin eine Sozialwissen-
schaft?) Von hierher scheint uns ein radikaler
Bruch notwendig.
Wir brauchen einen Kulturbegriff der Praxis,
einen Kulturbegriff, der individuelles Wissen, und
sei es noch so allgemein verbreitet (oder auch
esoterisch), nicht zum mehr oder minder getreuen
Abbild eines Systems außer- und oberhalb der
Individuen erklärt, sondern uns erlaubt, die kon-
krete Rolle zu studieren, welche die individuellen
Wissensinhalte, die konkreten Kognitionen der
Individuen, mit all ihren Divergenzen, im Ent-
wicklungs- und Wandlungsprozeß einer Gesell-
schaft spielen.
Zítierte Literatur
Frank, E.
1983a Mécécé - La función sicológica, social y económica de
un complejo ritual de los Uni (Cashibo) de la Amazonia
Peruana. Amazonia Peruana 5/9; 63-78.
19836 Ein Leben am Rande des Weltmarkts. Bonn. (Bonner
Amerikanistische Studien, 10)
1987 Das Tapirfest der Uni. Eine funktionale Analyse.
Anthropos 82: 151-181.
MS Énéx ca Santa Martanu icé Unin baña icen.
Freeman, D.
1983 Margret Mead and Samoa. Cambridge.
Garro, L. C.
1986 Intercultural Variation in Folk Medical Knowledge.
American Anthropologist 88: 351-370.
Goodenough, W.
1964 Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. In; D. Hymes
(ed.). Language in Culture and Society; pp. 36-39. New
York.
1970 Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology.
Chicago.
Keesing, R. M.
1974 Theories of Culture. Annual Review of Anthropology
3: 73-98.
1979 Linguistic Knowledge and Cultural Knowledge: Some
Doubts and Speculations. American Anthropologist 81:
14-36.
Kimball-Romney, A., et al.
1986 Culture as Consensus. American Anthropologist 88:
313-338.
Kroeber, A. L., and C. Kluckhohn
1952 Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Defini-
tions. Cambridge. (Papers of the Peabody Museum of
American Archaeology and Ethnology, 47)
Lewis, O.
1951 Life in a Mexican Village. Champaign.
Mead, M.
1928 Coming of Age in Samoa. New York.
Pello, P., and G. Pello
1975 Intra-Cultural Diversity: Some Theoretical Issues.
American Ethnologist 2: 1-18.
Redfield, R.
1930 Tepoztlán: A Mexican Village. Chicago.
Sahlins, M. D.
1976 Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago.
1977 The Use and Abuse of Biology. London.
Wistrand(-Robinson), L.
1969 Folkloric and Linguistic Analysis of Cashibo Narrative
Prose. Unpubl. Dissertation, University of Texas.
Anthropos 83.1988
Anthropos 83.1988: 527-540
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
(Siglos XVIII у XIX)
Maria Susana Cipolletti
Prof. Udo Oberem in memoriam (1923-1986)
Abstract. - Curare (arrow poison) is a plant product from the
tropical rain forest. Curare produced by the Ticuna, Peba, and
Lama in Northwest Amazonia was considered to have the
highest quality. Referring to written accounts I suggest here
that Jesuit missionaries played a significant role in distributing
curare by introducing it to tribes that had no previous contact
with it or by using curare as payment for Indian workers. In this
way curare became a «currency» in areas where money was rare
or not used. In addition I explore the different plant species
used in the production of curare and the trading routes and
tribes that were involved in the curare trade. [South America,
History, curare)
Maria Susana Cipolietti, Dr. phil. (München 1982), M. A.
(Buenos Aires 1977); Humboldt-Stipendiatin (1985-87), Lehr-
aufträge an den Universitäten Bonn und Trier. - Feldforschun-
gen bei der andinen Bevölkerung Nordwest-Argentiniens und
bei den Secoya Ost-Ekuadors.
1. Introducción
Las noticias relativas al veneno para flechas
utilizado en las tierras recién descubiertas llegaron
muy pronto a España, y se hallaron rodeadas, si no
siempre de horror, por lo menos de misterio.
Posiblemente la primera información escrita sobre
el curare sea la de Pedro Mártir de Anglería quien,
a fines del siglo XV, en una de sus «Décadas»,
compuestas en latín - la Década II - se refiere a su
preparación en las Antillas, a cargo de ancianas a
las que luego se golpeaba severamente, si es que no
morían antes, debido a los vapores de la cocción
(cf. Anghiera 1972: 301)l 1. Esta aureola de misterio
se refleja también en las páginas del Jesuíta
Gumilla quien, dos siglos más tarde, al describir
desde su misión en el Orinoco la preparación de
veneno que realizaban las etnias Caribe, denomina
al fenómeno «oculto arcano» (s. d.; 362).
La expresión curare2 constituye una denomi-
nación genérica para venenos compuestos por
varios ingredientes de origen vegetal, que se
mezclan con agua y se someten a un proceso de
cocción3. El producto final es una sustancia pega-
josa de color negruzco. Los dos ingredientes
principales son variedades de Strychnos, de la
familia de las logniáceas (que algunas etnias
utilizan con exclusividad) y de Chondondendron
de la familia de las mespirmáceas (cf. Bauer 1971a,
Karsten 1933, Lewin 1984). Existen curare en los
cuales se utilizan variedades de las primeras,
mientras que otros se basan en la segunda de las
especies mencionadas. Esta diversificación en la
utilización de las plantas activas se ha explicado de
dos maneras. Según una de éstas, el uso de una
determinada especie botánica se basa en la existen-
cia de la misma en un territorio determinado.
Curiosamente, esta explicación ecologista, tan en
boga en algunas corrientes etnológicas actuales, es
también, con respecto a este tema, la más antigua.
Uno de los informes tempranos acerca del curso
medio del Amazonas es el del Padre Julián, quien
en 1732 informa (en Jouanen 1943/11: 449), que los
indígenas Peba abandonaron su territorio por
temor a los Yagua4, emigrando a un asentamiento
en el río Chiquita (Shishita), situado a un día y
1 Ya Humboldt (1859-60) dudó de la posibilidad de envene-
namiento debido a los vapores de la cocción, en lo que
concuerdan investigadores actuales.
2 La expresión remite a las denominaciones caribe uralí,
urarí, kulális (cf. Friederici 1960: bajo «curare«). Denomi-
naciones del producto en distintas lenguas indígenas han
sido reunidas por Lewin (1984: 421).
3 En la costa pacífica colombiana, el veneno de los Chocó y
Noanamá se basa en la utilización de una secreción de una
rana de la especie Phyllobates (Lewin 1948: 426 ss., Santes-
son 1946: 16 s.). En el Noroeste amazónico, por el contra-
rio, los venenos conocidos hasta la actualidad utilizan
principios activos de ingredientes vegetales. Una biblio-
grafía sobre el curare ha sido realizada por Sujo Volsky
1969, 1970.
4 La familia lingüística Peba comprende, además de los Peba
propiamente dichos, a los Yagua y a los Yameo (Steward y
Métraux III 19486). Acerca de la historia de los Yagua
cf. Chaumeil (1982) y Seiler-Baldinger (1984).
528
María Susana Cipolletti
medio de viaje en canoa aguas abajo de la boca del
río Ñapo. La elección del lugar se debió a que allí
abundaban los bejucos para confeccionar el vene-
no, agregando el misionero: «... como estos
infieles hacen los mejores venenos, tienen muy
cerca los bejucos y materiales . . . por lo cual nunca
hubo forma de persuadirlos que viniesen más
arriba de la boca del Ñapo ... .» Esto coincide
con la opinión de Lewin, quien en las primeras
décadas de este siglo (1984; 475) afirmó que las
diferentes variedades de Strychnos crecen sólo en
ciertas regiones del Noroeste amazónico. Hasta
aquí, entonces, se refleja la característica de
mosaico en lo referente a distribución de plantas,
propia del ecosistema amazónico.
Sin embargo, trabajos actuales, como los
numerosos realizados por Bauer (1965, 1969,
1971a, 19716, 1981), que versan sobre la composi-
ción química de distintos curare sudamericanos,
proporcionan una visión distinta. Bauer afirma
(1965: 231 ss.), basándose en trabajos botánicos
sobre estas especies, que no existen pruebas sobre
una irregularidad en la distribución geográfica de
las especies de Strychnos productoras de veneno
de la Amazonia, con excepción de determinadas
especies de Chondondendron en la «Montaña»
(selva alta). Si esto es así, quiere decir que la
fabricación o no de curare por las etnias amazóni-
cas se debe a factores culturales, y no a la
existencia o no de las plantas necesarias. Esto
recuerda la afirmación de Lévi-Strauss (1948/
VI: 467), acerca de que la no utilización de una
determinada especie vegetal por una etnia a
menudo no se debe a factores ecológicos, sino
culturales.
Las principales especies utilizadas, debido a
sus alcaloides curarinos, son variedades de Strych-
nos y Chondondendron (especialmente Ch. te-
montosum, Bauer 1969: 155). En trabajos tempra-
nos Bauer asegura que el curare Ticuna - como
también el de los Peba y los Huitoto - se halla
compuesto exclusivamente por Chondondendron,
por lo cual serían más débiles que los que contie-
nen Strychnos (1965: 233). Esta afirmación es
sorprendente si se la compara con las informacio-
nes contenidas en las fuentes de los siglos XVIII y
XIX, que, por el contrario, no cesan de alabar el
curare de los Ticuna y los Peba, los más famosos
entre el medio Amazonas y los contrafuertes
orientales andinos.
Posteriormente afirma Bauer (19716: 2) que
el curare preparado por los Ticuna, Yagua, Peba y
Orejón contiene Strychnos castelneana Wedd., de
débiles efectos, que hasta hacía escaso tiempo no
eran susceptibles de ser analizados en laboratorio.
Lo que convierte al preparado de los Ticuna en una
Anthropos 83.1988
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
529
sustancia sumamente potente es el mínimo agrega-
do de Strychnos toxifera (Bauer 1971a: 6s.). La
aseveración de este autor (1971a: 9), acerca de que
la adición de Strychnos castelneana era - desde el
punto de vista de eficacia química - innecesaria,
pues los efectos son responsabilidad prácticamente
exclusiva de S. toxifera, plantea otro problema. A
mi entender, este hecho muestra claramente el
error de imaginar a los indígenas amazónicos
productores de veneno como una suerte de quími-
cos, que para su tarea miden proporciones exactas
y se sirven exclusivamente de productos que -
desde nuestra perspectiva occidental - son quími-
camente activos. Sabemos por Maroni (Jiménez de
la Espada 1889-92: 407) que los Ticuna y algunos
grupos Encabellado5 agregaban veneno de ser-
piente, y los Ticuna cuentan al viajero italiano
Osculati (1854: 21) que uno de los ingredientes de
su veneno lo constituían las hormigas «conga»
{Dinoponera grandis); posiblemente identificando
la picadura dolorosa que produce ésta con el poder
que se deseaba conferir al curare. El agregado de
estas sustancias, inexplicable para un químico,
confería al producto, en opinión de los preparado-
res de veneno, una mayor toxicidad. Bauer (1965:
240 s.) ha encontrado, en efecto, en distintos
curare, restos de hormigas, escarabajos, etc.
En cuanto a la cantidad de ingredientes
utilizados, el Padre Magnin menciona, alrededor
de 1740 (1940: 172) a los Lamista, Pinche, Yame-
os, Mayoruna y Peba como los grupos indígenas
fabricantes de veneno, anadiendo: «... pero el
mejor y mas subido es el de los Tilunas [sic, por
Ticuna] Arianas y Charuayes, hasta cocinando 23
ingredientes de rayces, bejucos, cáscaras y pa-
los.»
Otro misionero jesuíta de esta época, el Padre
Veigl - a quien Gicklhorn (1973: 84) le otorga la
primacía de haber descrito antes que Humboldt
correctamente los síntomas provocados por el
curare - afirma, de modo similar, que el veneno de
los Peba «... wird aus dem Saft von mehr ais 30
Wurzeln, Kráutlein und Rinden gemacht»
(1785: 91) [se hace del jugo de más de 30 raíces,
hierbillas y cortezas].
La amplitud de los ingredientes utilizados ha
sido puesta en duda por Lewin (1984) quien - en
base a los análisis químicos que ha realizado -
tiende a pensar que se trata de una exageración.
5 «Encabellados» fueron denominados por las crónicas,
debido a sus largas cabelleras, diversos grupos Tucano
occidentales que ocupaban regiones del Alto y Medio Ñapo
y del Putumayo.
Tampoco en los trabajos de Bauer citados hasta
aquí se encuentran referencias más que a unos
pocos ingredientes vegetales. Ignoro si esta disi-
dencia entre la opinión de los Jesuítas y la de los
químicos se debe a que algunas sustancias no son
susceptibles de ser analizadas químicamente, pero
no es posible dudar de las afirmaciones de Veigl y
de Magnin, dado que también Karsten observó, en
las primeras décadas del presente siglo, cómo los
Canelo agregaban al veneno unas dos docenas de
elementos vegetales (1920: 6ss.). La respuesta a
estas divergencias posiblemente tenga su explica-
ción en el hecho que esbocé anteriormente: La
utilización, por parte de los indígenas, de numero-
sos elementos que no poseen propiedades quími-
cas especiales, y que no fueron detectados en el
análisis de laboratorio porque en este se buscaban
con exclusividad alcaloides que explicaran el prin-
cipio activo (desde la perspectiva occidental) de la
sustancia.
En cuanto a los síntomas producidos por el
curare, se manifiestan, en rasgos generales, en
convulsiones y una paralización progresiva del
sistema nervioso periférico, sobreviniendo la
muerte por asfixia. Informaciones detalladas a
este respecto pueden consultarse en Biocca
(1954: 167 ss., quien describe asimismo la prepara-
ción del curare por los Makú de la región del
Vaupés colombiano), Lewin (1984: 484 ss.) y Vel-
lard (1965: 161 ss.).
El animal muerto por este procedimiento
puede ser consumido - aún la parte del cuerpo
envenenada - sin ninguna medida de precaución,
pues el veneno actúa al entrar en contacto con la
corriente sanguínea, no siendo absorbido por vía
digestiva. Eventualmente, algún misionero jesuíta
del siglo XVIII, activo en la zona amazónica,
comenta jocosamente el temor inicial de algunos
europeos de degustar la carne de animales muertos
por este procedimiento. Humboldt y Bonpland
tragaron pequeñas cantidades de un veneno que se
hallaba en proceso de cocción, sin observar ningu-
na reacción (Humboldt 1860/IV: 82).
Varios de los misioneros Jesuítas que se
hallaban en esta región hacia mediados del siglo
XVIII han consignado asimismo las sustancias
utilizadas como contraveneno, en los casos de una
herida casual o intencional. Como tales menciona
el Padre Veigl (1785: 91 s.) la sal, el azúcar, la miel
y la orina, aunque por lo general priman los
elementos dulces: según Uriarte (1952/11: 80), el
herido debe ingerir azúcar, miel u otro dulce.
Maroni (en Jiménez de la Espada 1889-92: 407)
agrega a estas sustancias el plátano desecho en
agua, que da como eficaz en todos los casos,
Anthropos 83.1988
530
María Susana Cipolletti
mientras que no se haya agregado a la preparación
veneno de serpiente.
Ya en la primera mitad del siglo XVIII, los
experimentos realizados con curare Ticuna que La
Condamine (1921: 129) había obtenido en su viaje,
demuestran que el azúcar no produce resultado
alguno, y que el sujeto del experimento (una
gallina) muere. En las primeras décadas del
presente siglo, Lewin (1984: 495) afirma que no
existen contravenenos para aquéllas sustancias
que, como el curare, actúan en el torrente san-
guíneo.
En cuanto a la perdurabilidad del producto,
La Condamine (1921: 129), la definió como consi-
derable, pues este conservó sus propiedades pasa-
do un año desde el momento en que lo obtuvo
hasta que se realizó el experimento. La perdurabi-
lidad ha resultado ser mucho más elevada: Bauer
(1965: 234) analizó algunos curare de colecciones
de museos europeos que hacía más de un siglo que
habían sido preparados, sin que hubieran perdido
sus propiedades curarinas.
2. Utilización del curare - La problemática
histórica
¿De qué forma se utilizaba el curare en la extensa
Provincia de Maynas y en las regiones limítrofes?6
Una lectura primera de las fuentes tiende a crear la
convicción de que su uso, en esta región, se
limitaba a untar con él los dardos o flechas
pequeñas para la cerbatana o bodoquera, un tubo
de bambú por lo general de 2 ms. o más de
longitud7, utilizada para cazar sobre todo aves y
cuadrúpedos de pequeño tamaño (El espesor y la
dureza del cuero del tapir, por ej. es un obstáculo
insalvable para estos dardos). Generalmente son
los monos una pieza preferida de este modo de
6 La Provincia de Maynas fue así denominada debido a un
grupo indígena de este nombre, cuyo territorio se extendía
entre el Marañón y sus afluentes Morona y Santiago. Por
extensión se llamó así a la región de influencia jesuítica,
entre el Pongo de Manseriche (70°30' long. O) y la zona de
los Ticuna (70° long. O), teniendo por límites aproximados
Andoas hacia el Noroeste y el río Huallaga hacia el sur
(Beltrán Rózpide 1911: 263 s.). Los límites de la Prov. de
Maynas han sido trazados en el mapa adjunto. El presente
trabajo se concentra, aunque no exclusivamente, en infor-
maciones procedentes de su territorio.
7 Yde (1948) ha sistematizado los cuatro tipos de cerbatana
existentes en América del Sur; la distribución de este objeto
y el uso del curare por las etnias indígenas del subcontinente
ha sido elaborado por Métraux (1948).
caza, pues la silenciosidad del procedimiento no
alerta a la manada. En algunos casos, también las
lanzas se envenaban con curare, seguramente para
acelerar la muerte de un animal mayor al que era
necesario matar por medio de este método (cf.
Maroni en Jiménez de la Espada 1899-92: 407,
Uriarte 1952/11: 80, Veigl 1785: 84).
Además de su uso para la cacería, es evidente
que el curare se empleaba en esta región - a lo
largo del río Marañón y/o los afluentes amazónicos
- también con fines de guerra, a pesar de la opinión
de Karsten (1920: 23), quien quiere revindicar al
curare como un veneno exclusivamente de caza.
Un comentario del Padre Acuña (1942: 80 s.)
afirma de las tierras de la Provincia de Maynas:
«Abundan de yerbas venenosas, de que hazen en
algunas naciones una ponzoña tan eficaz, que
enherboladas con ellas las flechas, en llegando á
sacar sangre, quitan juntamente la vida ...»
Los informes de los Jesuítas de alrededor de
mediados del siglo XVIII lamentablemente no
siempre identifican a las etnias a las cuáles se
refieren, hecho comprensible, pues de lo que
trataban los misioneros era de proporcionar una
imagen de zonas del Nuevo Mundo desconocidas
generalmente a los destinatarios de sus cartas y
relaciones y pensarían, con razón, que el exceso de
nombres desconocidos confundiría al lector. Des-
de esta perspectiva no sorprende que el Padre
Magnin (1940: 183), refiriéndose a las numerosas
etnias de la extensa Provincia de Maynas, afirme:
«. . . Unos pelean con lanzas envenenadas, otros
sin veneno», mientras que, de modo similar, Veigl
(1785: 92) afirma lacónicamente que el veneno se
utiliza en la región de Maynas para cazar y contra
los enemigos. De aproximadamente la misma
época sabemos de otro uso del curare: utilizado
como defensa y para impedir la entrada de otros
indígenas en el territorio propio. Los «Encabella-
do» (Tucano occidentales) del río Putumayo cons-
truían trampas-foso en la zona circundante a sus
asentamientos, provistas de dardos envenenados.
Así, cuando Santa Gertrudis, misionero francisca-
no de la misión de Agustinillo, sobre el Putumayo,
sale con indígenas de su misión a buscar otros
grupos de la misma filiación étnica, para conven-
cerlos de la necesidad de «reducirse», tiene expe-
cial cuidado - al acercarse al asentamiento - de
inspeccionar el terreno en busca de trampas-foso
(Santa Gertrudis 1956/1: 217).
Un párrafo de Chantre y Herrera (1901: 87),
quien extractó numerosos manuscritos (muchos
perdidos irremisiblemente) de Jesuítas del siglo
XVIII, se presta a confusión. Primeramente afir-
ma que el veneno es utilizado por los indígenas de
Anthropos 83.1988
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
531
Maynas para la caza, pero no para el combate, lo
cual atribuye a la creencia indígena de que quien
utiliza curare para matar a un hombre, no tendrá
más éxito en la cacería. Más adelante afirma, que,
debido al secreto que guardaban los Ticuna sobre
la preparación de su veneno, tenían «muchas
ventajas en sus guerras» (1. c.). ¿Cómo puede
explicarse esta última aseveración, si no es porque
los Ticuna hacían uso de curare en la pelea?8 La
certeza de esta afirmación se acentúa con un
testimonio de Almagro, miembro de la Expedición
Española al Pacífico, quien, hacia mediados del
siglo XIX (1984: 134, nota 1) anota que los Ticuna
y los Coto9 envenenan con curare las lanzas que
utilizan en sus combates recíprocos. De la última
de las etnias mencionadas afirma Tessmann
(1930: 198) que utilizan lanzas envenenadas en la
guerra, sin identificar a sus contricantes.10 *
La distribución y el uso del curare en América
del Sur provocó, en las primeras décadas de este
siglo, una polémica que tuvo su protagonista más
encendido en Karsten (1933, 1934, 1936), sin que
hubiera respuesta posible por parte del principal
atacado, Nordenskióld, quien ya había fallecido.
Los ataques de Karsten fueron respondidos por
Santesson (1933, 1936) un toxicólogo que había
analizado en laboratorio distintas muestras de
curare, al cual se unió posteriormente Wassén
(Santesson y Wassén 1936).
Nordenskióld (1924: 53) parte del hecho de
que ni Carvajal ni Ortiguera - dos cronistas
tempranos para esta región del Noroeste amazóni-
co - mencionan la existencia ni de la cerbatana ni
del curare en la zona del Alto Amazonas, sino
solamente del Bajo Amazonas, y que difícilmente
8 Afirma Chantre y Herrera (1901: 87 s.); «... Están en la
persuasión de que el que usa del veneno contra el prójimo
pierde toda la provisión que le queda en casa . . . Los
misioneros les dejaban en esta su creencia, que les era tan
saludable . . . Basta lo dicho del célebre veneno de los
Ticunas, quienes por el secreto que guardaban en hacerlo,
lograban en su gentilidad muchas ventajas o sus guerras
...» [subrayado de la A.]. Karsten (1920: 23) utiliza este
párrafo - sin tomar en cuenta la última afirmación - como
prueba de que en la región ningún grupo indígena utilizaba
en la guerra armas envenenadas, lo cual no se ajusta a las
evidencias.
9 Coto u Orejón es la denominación habitual para un grupo
Tucano occidental que habita en afluentes del bajo Ñapo,
en actual territorio peruano. Su autodenominación es Mái
Huna (Bellier 1982: 213); aquí conservo la denominación
utilizada en las fuentes para no confundir el panorama.
10 El botánico Poeppig (1960/11: 455) observó que los indíge-
nas Coretú, que habitaban en la cercanía de Pebas, utiliza-
ban lanzas envenenadas para matar onzas e individuos
mestizos, pero que no las usaban en contra de indígenas.
hubieran omitido hacerlo de haberlo observado.
Agrega Nordenskióld que ambos autores hablan
de españoles envenenados con armas de guerra,
que fallecieron pasado un día, por lo cual la
sustancia empleada no podía haber sido curare,
pues éste actúa más rápidamente (1924: 54), por lo
cual cree que en el Bajo Amazonas - entre otras
zonas - se utilizaba un veneno distinto al curare.
Parte de su conclusión - que le vale el ataque de
Karsten - es que en el siglo XVI el curare no se
hallaba tan difundido como en la actualidad,
apoyándose sobre todo en la escasa mención que
hacen las fuentes tempranas del uso de la cerbata-
na. Quizás, según Nordenskióld (1924: 57), fue
con la migración de los Carijona o Hujánacoto-
Omagua desde Guayana al Amazonas, que el
curare llegó a ser importante en esta última
región11.
Karsten reaccionó violentamente ante estas
afirmaciones, escribiendo; «... these statements
. . . seem to me to be characteristic both of the
light and airy manner in which Nordenskióld wrote
the <history> of culture elements in South America
. . .» (1933: 8).
Este trabajo produjo la reacción de Santesson
(1933,1936), a la cual siguieron otras respuestas de
Karsten (1934, 1936), derivando pronto la polémi-
ca en aspectos toxicológicos relativos a la compo-
sición del curare y algunas plantas alucinógenas,
que no son de interés en el marco de este trabajo.
Lo importante es acentuar la defensa que hace
Karsten del uso de la cerbatana y el curare como un
antiguo rasgo cultural del Noroeste amazónico
(1934; 11).
Esta discusión continúa en parte en trabajos
posteriores, que retoman una u otra de las afirma-
ciones de Nordenskióld; Yde (1948), en su trabajo
ya clásico sobre los tipos de cerbatana existentes en
América del Sur, postula una sugestiva aclaración
al hecho de que existan escasas menciones en las
fuentes tempranas acerca del uso del curare (para
la caza): Los primeros encuentros entre españoles
e indígenas en la región amazónica fueron, por
regla general, signados por el combate, por lo cual
la posibilidad de observar una actividad indígena
realizada en momentos pacíficos - como lo es una
partida de caza - habría sido, según Yde
11 La opinión de Nordenskióld de que el curare ha sido
introducido en el Amazonas por los Omagua implica,
aunque no lo afirme expresamente, que ei curare del
Amazonas es el mismo que utilizan los grupos Caribe del
Orinoco o la Guayana. El Padre Gumilla sospechó, con
respecto al curare utilizado por los Tapajos del Bajo
Amazonas, algo similar (s. d.: 364).
Anthropos 83.1988
532
María Susana Cipolletti
(1948; 281) nula. A pesar de esta afirmación,
también él opina (1948: 310), que el veneno ha
sido inventado relativamente tarde, otorgándole
expresamente razón a Nordenskióld.
Métraux (1948/III; 249) retoma la afirmación
de Nordenskióld - relativa a la no mención del
curare en las fuentes tempranas - y opone la
opinión de que la vaguedad de las informaciones
tempranas sobre América tropical no justifican la
aceptación de una evidencia puramente negati-
va1 . Steward, por su parte (1948MII: 526), da por
seguro que la cerbatana y el uso de dardos
envenenados reemplazaron el uso de arco y flecha
entre las etnias de la «Montaña» de los actuales
Perú y Ecuador, lo cual sólo pudo verificarse con la
utilización del veneno, sin el cual los dardos de
cerbatana habrían sido ineficaces. De modo que
Steward, sin referirse expresamente a Nordenski-
óld, comparte la noción de que el curare se ha
difundido en esta región tardíamente.
Esta polémica - de la cual he mencionado aquí
sólo sus puntos esenciales - no será posiblemente
retomada, dado que los antropólogos culturales
han pasado de interesarse en recuperar los hipoté-
ticos orígenes de ciertos hechos culturales al
análisis concreto de los mismos. Posiblemente no
se lograría tampoco una respuesta unívoca, dado
que las fuentes sobre el Noroeste amazónico sólo
en ocasiones permiten recrear el estado en que se
hallaban las numerosas etnias de la región en los
sucesivos momentos del contacto.
En cuanto al uso del curare en la región del
Alto Ñapo, existe un documento tan temprano que
lo atestigua, que basta, en mi opinión, para
demostrar que ya se lo usaba, aunque posterior-
mente pueda haber cobrado mayor difusión. En un
documento publicado por Oberem (1958) - es
decir, posteriormente a la discusión antes esboza-
da - afirma en 1577 el Oidor Diego de Ortegón, al
referirse a la cacería practicada por los indígenas
de Archidona (o sea, el territorio de los Quijo):
«. . . lo qual /se refiere a los animales/ matan con
unas zebratanas hechas de palo e dentro unos
birotillos untados con una yerba que entrando
donde hay sangre adormece por mas de un ora e asi
matan la caza . . .» (en Oberem 1958: 240)12 13.
Este documento no es el único disponible:
12 Métraux (1948/III: 241) restringe la afirmación con un
comentario cuya lógica se me escapa: «... but it is,
nevertheless, striking that the blowgun is not found in
eastern South America and in the Xingu region.»
13 Es curioso que Ortegón no hable de la muerte del animal,
sino de su adormecimiento, a no ser que se trate de una
observación incorrecta.
algo más tarde, en 1619, al relatar Vaca de la Vega
su incursión en el Oriente de Perú y Ecuador
actuales a través del Pongo de Manseriche, los
indígenas del Pastaza le dicen que continuando el
Marañón hacia abajo se halla la provincia de
Aguanu: «... que dicen que es muy cuantiosa de
gente belicosa y que les dan guerra a ellos, y están
fortificados en palenques y tiran flechas con yerbas
ponzoñosas . . .» (Vaca de la Vega 1965: 244).
Un testimonio indirecto, de la misma época,
proviene de Ponce de León, un fraile que en su
Relación de servicios enumera las primeras entra-
das que realizó por el Pongo de Manseriche;
afirma haber visitado en 1621 las provincias de
Xeberos, Urarinas, Paranapuras, Cocamas, Pam-
pas, Tonchetas, Agúanos y Zerbeteneros
(1965: 254). Jiménez de la Espada, editor de este
documento, explica el nombre mencionado en
último lugar como «Cerbataneros, por usar cerba-
tana».
Hasta aquí la discusión, es difícil decidir el
curso de la misma, dado que la realidad amazónica
de esa época era demasiado compleja como para
tratar de resolverla a través de las fuentes a nuestra
disposición. Por un lado, parecería que no sola-
mente en el Bajo Amazonas, sino también en el
Alto Ñapo y regiones de la «Montaña» existía -
aunque circunscripta su fabricación a algunos
grupos - el uso del curare. Como posibilidad se
puede pensar en los Lama o Lamisto que, como
vimos anteriormente, enfatizan la utilización de
especies de Chondondendron, en oposición a las
variedades de Strychnos utilizadas por las etnias
del Bajo Amazonas (y también de la Guayana).
En cambio, sí me parece una realidad induda-
ble el papel que jugaron los misioneros Jesuítas -
entre mediados del XVII y mediados del XVIII en
el momento de la disolución de la Orden y la
expulsión de los misioneros de América - en la
difusión del curare, tanto el producido por los
Lama, desde los contrafuertes orientales andinos
hacia el Bajo Amazonas, como - y sobre todo -
desde esta última zona hacia distintos puntos, a lo
largo de los ríos amazónicos. En este sentido
querría recordar una aseveración de Steward
(1984MII: 526), quien luego de mencionar a los
Lama, Canelo y Peba como principales producto-
res de curare, anade;
Most of these tribes had a much livelier trade in the historie
period, when canoes and mission influence brought about
greater intertribal contacts.
No hay razón para suponer que fue recién con
el arribo de los Jesuitas que comenzaron las
relaciones de contacto e intercambio entre las
Anthropos 83.1988
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
533
etnias de esta región del Noroeste amazónico, que
seguramente han existido con anterioridad a su
llegada. Lo cierto es, sin embargo, que con su
estadía el intercambio recibió un impulso funda-
mental; Los Jesuítas se desplazaban desde sus
misiones más tempranas - sobre el Huallaga y el
Alto Ñapo - llevando consigo remeros indígenas
provenientes de aquéllas, los cuales desempeñaron
un papel de mediadores entre las etnias de las
zonas más altas y las bajas. No sólo los Jesuitas
entraban desde Quito hacia la cuenca amazónica:
Desde el Atlántico, los portugueses, en busca de
cera, cacao silvestre, aceite de copaiba, y esclavos,
penetraban en dirección oeste, provocando la
emigración de grupos indígenas - el caso más
conocido es el de los Omagua - que se relacionaron
con los Jesuitas. Estos, además, llevaron en
algunos casos una política de traslado de etnias que
se hallaban en territorios de difícil acceso, a fin de
facilitar la catequización.
Que la influencia de los Jesuitas puso en
algunos casos en contacto a etnias que hasta allí no
se conocían, se desprende entre otros, de un
informe del Padre Rodríguez, una fuente ineludi-
ble, en cuanto resumió informaciones orales y
escritas de los primeros misioneros. Comentando
las actividades del P. Santa Cruz, señala que en
1650 emprendió con un grupo de Xebero un viaje
al territorio de los «Encabellado» (Tucano occi-
dentales) - es decir, Ñapo abajo -:«... en una
jornada por la Nación de los Encabellados (que
entonces no la conocían los Maynas)» (Rodríguez
1684; 191)14.
Es desde esta perspectiva de conmoción y
extrema movilidad, que es una característica de las
etnias indígenas amazónica en esta época, que
puede entenderse la difusión de los curare indíge-
nas.
3. El tráfico de curare en el siglo XVIII
El curare aparece como elemento de intercambio
en las informaciones de los Jesuitas, que lo
mencionan con asiduidad, lo cual no sucede con
otros objetos, a los que otorgan menor importan-
cia. ¿A qué se debe este interés de los misioneros?
La respuesta debe buscarse a mi entender, en
primer lugar, en la organización de las misiones
jesuíticas de esta región. En ellas, los indígenas,
14 Maynas era la denominación de un grupo indígena situado
entre los ríos Marañón y Morona; al aplicarla aquí a los
Xébero parece utilizarse en un sentido colectivo, para
denominar a otros grupos indígenas de esta región.
por turno, debían pescar y cazar para proveer la
cocina del misionero; a veces, también de enviados
de la Corona. El trabajo realizado por el indígena
se denominaba «traer el mitayo«, y al indígena
encargado de esta tarea se lo llamó mitayo. Esta
expresión deriva del quechua mita, mitayoc, «tur-
no», con la cual se designaba el trabajo realizado
por los indígenas de las tierras altas en los
corregimientos (cf. Friederici 1960: 416). El Padre
Uriarte, que actuó en diversas misiones de la
región entre 1750 y 1767, anota en su diario
(escrito en Ravena, luego de la expulsión), cómo -
en las reducciones de Nombre de Jesús y Napeanos
- reparte anzuelos y veneno al indígena que se
halla de turno, para que éste le traiga el mitayo
(Uriarte 1952/1: 100, II: 161). Además, algunos
misioneros utilizaban el curare como pago a los
indígenas por servicios que éstos realizaban, una
situación que - por parte de viajeros y científicos -
continuó en el siglo XIX.
En efecto, una serie de informaciones de esta
época permite reconstruir el papel que cumplía el
curare en una red de tráfico muy extensa, pues no
sólo comprendía la gran Provincia de Maynas, sino
que alcanzaba el sur de la actual Colombia,
comercializándose asimismo hacia el Oeste hasta
las cercanías de la costa ecuatoriana actual.
Aunque varios grupos indígenas de esta re-
gión amazónica confeccionaban veneno para dar-
dos, dos etnias son las que sobresalen, tanto por la
estima que inspira el curare que producen, como
por la difusión que alcanzó éste. Por un lado las
fuentes mencionan a los Ticuna y los Peba (dos
grupos pertenecientes a la misma familia lingüísti-
ca, que se hallaban a menudo embarcados en
guerras mutuas), y los Lama o Lamiste, que
habitaban el río Moyobamba hasta las cercanías
del Huallaga.
Los Ticuna y los Peba, cuyo territorio forma-
ba el límite más oriental de la Prov. de Maynas,
sobre el río Amazonas, confeccionaban el curare
más preciado de la zona. Chantre y Herrera
(1901: 87) resumiendo informes jesuíticos proce-
dentes de este siglo, califica al veneno de los
Ticuna como «... el más fino, activo y celebrado,
cuyo secreto sólo llegaron á entender los Pe vas, /y/
Zavas, naciones confinantes.»
A su vez, el Padre Veigl (1785: 90), otro
jesuíta activo en la zona, ratifica la fama del
veneno de esta procedencia, afirmando que el
mejor es el producido por los Peba, por lo cual
quien tiene necesidad de él lo compra a estos
indígenas.
El Padre Uriarte, un Jesuíta español que -
junto con el P. Fritz - fue uno de los mejores
Anthropos 83.1988
534
María Susana Cipolletti
conocedores de esta vasta región contribuyó evi-
dentemente a la difusión del veneno Ticuna en
regiones de la «Montaña», pues anota en su diario
(1952/11: 80) que los misioneros de estas misiones
le encargaban veneno Ticuna, que él obtiene
entregando a cambio herramientas. Uriarte es una
de las escasas fuentes que detalla las medidas de
cambio vigentes: a cambio de una ollita de veneno,
los indígenas obtenían un machete o un hacha, por
cada uno de los cuales se pagaban cuatro pesos
(1952/11: 80).
La similaridad existente entre los venenos
producidos por los Ticuna y los Peba es resaltada
por un informe posterior a la expulsión de los
Jesuítas. En 1784 afirman Echeverría y Aguilar,
acerca del veneno producido por los indígenas de
la misión de Nuestra Señora de los Ticunas: «...
hacen de el el trafico correspondiente a su calidad,
así en dicha Misión, como en las Montañas de
Guayaquil, Loxa, Macas, y los Qellaysingas de los
Tumbos . . .» (1911: 366).
Dado que no existen hasta el momento
pruebas de que los Ticuna se desplazaran hacia
zonas alejadas para comercializar su veneno, pero
sí que desde esta zona se distribuía hacia otras,
cabe preguntarse por la identidad étnica de los
intermediarios entre el curso medio del Amazo-
nas, la «Montaña» sur ecuatoriana (Loja, Macas) y
la cercanía de la costa («las Montañas de Gua-
yaquil»), a las que hace mención el citado informe
de Echeverría y Aguilar. Es muy probable que en
esa época - la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII - este
papel correspondiera a los Quijo, que actuaban de
mediadores con respecto a productos de las regio-
nes altas y bajas desde tiempos anteriores (cf.
Oberem 1958: 247). Sin embargo, también hay
que tener en cuenta la presencia de comerciantes o
«patrones» mestizos, que surcaban el Amazonas y
sus afluentes, o tenían relaciones con determina-
das etnias, con las que intercambiaban cuchillos,
machetes, ropa, etc. por cera silvestre, aceite de
copaiba, y otros productos selváticos. Hacia esta
época, la Expedición Española de Límites, estacio-
nada en Tefé, sobre el Amazonas, obtenía - como
se desprende de las cuentas de las Cajas Reales
(Hernández Bello 1787) - a menudo curare por
intermedio de un «patrón».
Según el informe de Echeverría y Aguilar
(1911: 366), el curare producido por los Ticuna
llegaba hasta los «Qellaysingas de los Tumbos».
Los Quillasinga, un grupo indígena cuya identidad
étnica se ha extinguido, habitaban la zona del río
Guaitará, en el sur de la actual Colombia (cf.
Hernández de Alba 1948/11: 927 ss., Ortiz 1954).
De qué modo llegaba hasta aquí el curare de los
Ticuna sólo puede ser planteado como hipótesis.
Además de la actividad de los comerciantes, los
indígenas de las misiones solían recorrer largas
distancias con objeto de realizar intercambios.
Refiriéndose a indígenas que identifica como
procedentes de la misión franciscana de Santa
María, sobre el Putumayo (por lo cual es posible
concluir que se trata de Tucano occidentales),
anota Requena en su Diario, que en junio de 1782,
en el Río de los Engaños, un capitán de ingenieros:
«. . . halló una Canoa con Indios del /Pueblo de
Santa María, que andaba comprando entre los
Infieles Ceras/ y venéno para llevar al Misionéro
. . .» (Requena 1783)15.
Vemos entonces que los «Encabellado» o
Tucano occidentales del Putumayo se desplazaban
para adquirir artículos de etnias que vivían libre-
mente16, y es probable que grupos de esta filiación
lingüística, cuyo territorio se extiende a modo de
cuña entre el Oriente del Ecuador actual y las
zonas limítrofes del Perú por un lado, y el sur de
Colombia por el otro, fueran responsables del
traslado del curare entre ambas zonas. No hay que
olvidar que los Tucano occidentales ocupaban una
extensa zona sobre el río Ñapo («Encabellado»), el
Putumayo («Encabellado»), el Caquetá (Maca-
guaje, Coreguaje) y el Caguán (Tama). Entre
estos grupos la comunicación no ofrecía mayores
dificultades, pues pertenecen a la misma familia
lingüística, y sus relaciones, aunque a menudo
poco amistosas, no excluían eventuales alianzas.
A su vez, la relación entre la región del
Putumayo y la de Pasto - no lejana a Quillasingas -
era establecida por los Sibundoy, quienes trans-
portaban cargas entre las zonas bajas selváticas, y
Pasto. Este rol de intermediarios de los Sibundoy
se revela en las fuentes a lo largo de la época co-
lonial y también posteriormente. Hacia media-
dos del siglo XVIII, los Encabellado de la misión
de Agustinillo, sobre el Putumayo, transportaban
cargas de cera, cacao, etc. - que el misionero del
lugar quería vender en Pasto - hasta el Caquetá;
desde aquí eran llevadas por los Sibundoy hasta
Pasto (Santa Gertrudis 1956/1: 184; II: 151). Este
15 Los indígenas con los que comercian son seguramente los
Huaque o Murciélago, con los que Requena, durante los
viajes relizados para fijar los límites entre las Coronas de
España y Portugal, tiene en esta zona varios encuentros.
16 Y a la inversa, éstos visitaban a los indígenas de las misiones.
El misionero franciscano Bustamante declara que visitando
las misiones del Putumayo: «... vio venir algunos Indios a
los Pueblos referidos á comersiar / con los /Indios/ Chris-
tianos en las cosillas que fabrican, como son hamacas,
chucos, dardos, / y sebretanas para sus caserías . . .» (en
Cisneros 1711).
Anthropos 83.1988
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
535
camino era quizás también por el que se comer-
cializaba el curare producido por los indígenas de
este lugar, del cual Santa Gertrudis (1956/1; 151)
informa lacónicamente que se vende «afuera» a
cuatro patacones o pesos duros por onza.
Además del veneno fabricado por los Ticuna y
los Peba, también el de los Lama o Lamisto ocupa
a lo largo del siglo XVIII un lugar importante en la
red de intercambio. Los Lama, que ocupaban la
zona del río Moyobamba hasta el Huallaga habían,
ya en la época de los primeros contactos, adoptado
el quichua como lengua (Steward y Métraux
1948MII: 598 s.). A diferencia del veneno Ticuna
y otros del curso medio del Amazonas, que se
guardaban en pequeños recipientes de arcilla, los
Lama utilizaban para este fin tubos de caña
cerrados en sus extremidades.
La presencia de los misioneros jesuítas ayudó
a consolidar las relaciones mutuas entre algunos
grupos indígenas, ya que las misiones eran un foco
de atracción para los indígenas, pues era una
posibilidad de obtener objetos tales como cuchi-
llos, machetes, etc. Una vez en posesión de las
herramientas, no se cortaba la relación con el
misionero, pues persistía la necesidad de reparar-
la, cuando las desgastara el uso, en las fraguas
existentes. De ahí que el Padre Uriarte (1952/
II; 88) acentúe la importancia de no descuidar las
fraguas, entendiendo que éste era un medio ideal
para afianzar las relaciones con los indígenas. Las
visitas que realizaban los indígenas a la misión eran
aprovechadas para realizar intercambios, así ve-
mos que cuando Uriarte es trasladado a San
Joaquín de Omaguas - donde se hallaba montada
una fragua - lo visitan indígenas de Santa Bárbara,
San Regis y Napeanos con el objeto de reparar sus
herramientas. Estos traen además veneno, man-
tas, tabaco y azúcar, que bajaban de Lamas y
Moyobamba (Uriarte 1952/1: 213). A veces, el
intercambio se basa en un producto natural que
existe en una zona: el mismo Uriarte (1952/1: 184)
informa que los indígenas de San Regis se dedican
a recoger y hacer gran provisión de huevos de
tortuga acuática en las playas del río Huallaga, de
los cuales obtienen un preciado aceite, que luego
es enviado a los misioneros de la región de Lamas,
donde no existía este recurso natural. A cambio de
seis tinajones de aceite de tortuga regresan de
Lamas con lienzo, sal, azúcar, tabaco y veneno «en
canutos» para cazar (1952/1: 184). El curare de esta
procedencia era utilizado también por los misione-
ros en el intercambio, así vemos que Uriarte
(1952/1: 86), a cambio de una canoa que le entregan
los Omaguate, proporciona a éstos herramientas y
veneno. De ahí que parezca acertada la asevera-
ción el P. Bayle (en Uriarte 1952/1: 425, nota 27),
acerca de que los misioneros utilizaban el curare de
los Lama, que se producía en cantidad, para pagar
a los indígenas17.
No conozco de esta época ninguna descripción
de la fabricación del curare, que recién será un
interés de los viajeros del siglo XIX y de los
primeros trabajos etnográficos en la región. De los
Lama existe un magro dato en el diario del
Franciscano Sobrevida (1790), a quien le explican
que la zona de la desembocadura del Moyobamba
con el Huallaga era el lugar donde los Lama
acudían a confeccionar su veneno, el cual comer-
ciaban con los indios «gentiles» (en Izaguirre
1924/11: 251).
Las informaciones siguientes proceden de la
Amazonia central y muestran tanto la relevancia
del curare para la supervivencia en el medio
ambiente amazónico como la actividad imprescin-
dible de los mitayo: Los datos proceden de
documentos producidos por la Comisión Española
de Límites, dirigida por Francisco Requena, que
debía reconocer, junto con la Comisión Portugu-
esa, el río Yapurá (nombre del curso bajo del
Caquetá) y sus afluentes, para deslindar los límites
entre ambas Coronas. Entre 1779 y 1799 la
Comisión permanece en Tefé o Ega, dándose la
misión por terminada sin que se hubiera logrado
un acuerdo.
Los documentos producidos en este lapso -
tanto el Diario y las numerosas misivas de Reque-
na, como las cuentas de las Cajas Reales, de mano
de Benítez y Hernández Bello, sucesivos tesoreros
de la Expedición - contienen datos de interés pa-
ra la reconstrucción del estado de las etnias indíge-
nas de esta región en aquélla época18 *. Aquí sólo
extraeré de los documentos algunas escuetas infor-
maciones acerca del curare, que evidencian que los
miembros de la Expedición obtenían en parte su
alimentación de animales cazados por los mitayo
por medio de cerbatana y utilizando veneno. En
1784, las cuentas de la Expedición declaran haber
utilizado durante el año - junto a arpones, puyas
(instrumentos para cazar tortugas acuáticas) y
anzuelos - 32 ollas de veneno (Hernández Bello
1784). Lamentablemente no se indica la proceden-
cia de estas últimas, aunque seguramente se trata
17 Uno de los grupos que recibían curare de los misioneros
Jesuítas eran los Omagua, de filiación Tupí-Guaraní, que
hacia esta época cazaban con cerbatana pero no fabricaban
veneno.
18 Un trabajo sobre los datos etnográficos que se reflejan en
los documentos de la Comisión de Límites al río Yapurá se
halla en preparación.
Anthropos 83.1988
536
María Susana Cipolletti
de curare producido por un grupo indígena de una
zona relativamente cercana. En 1787 el curare
utilizado por los mitayo de la Expedición asciende
a 38 ollitas, 31 obtenidas por intermedio de un
«patrón», y 8 por medio de un subteniente (Her-
nández Bello 1787).
Los diferentes documentos producidos por la
Comisión de Límites demuestran la precariedad de
su situación en lo que hace a la manutención. De
allí que se aprovecharan los viajes hacia el interior
para obtener de los indígenas que encontraban
distintos artículos necesarios para la subsistencia.
En varias oportunidades se encuentran con indíge-
nas Cuaque o Murciélago quienes, sumamente
temidos por otros indígenas de la región (como los
Miraña), se muestran amistosos hacia los españo-
les. Sobre uno de estos contactos anota Requena
en su Diario: «Entre ellos rescaté otro Indio de su
esclavitud y se permutó / por Casábe, Cera, y
Venéno una poca de herramienta» (Requena
1783)19.
4. El tráfico de curare en el siglo XIX
A lo largo del siglo XIX se acentúan las tendencias
que vimos surgir desde finales del siglo XVII o
principios del XVIII: el curare Ticuna se ratifica
como el veneno de mejor calidad de la región,
como lo demuestra la opinión de varios viajeros.
El producido por los Lama sigue siendo colocado
en un grado inferior en lo que hace a su efectivi-
dad, pero su difusión es aún mayor que en el siglo
anterior, pues alcanza la zona de la población
brasileña de Tabatinga. Ambos tipos de curare,
por lo tanto, se difunden en parte en las mismas
regiones, un fenómeno al cual volveré más adelan-
te.
Como se verá a continuación, los conspicuos
mediadores entre las zonas bajas amazónicas de las
que procede el veneno Ticuna y la «Montaña» o
selva alta, son los Quijo y Canelo, que bajaban de
su territorio situado en los alrededores de Archi-
dona y la actual ciudad de Puyo respectivamente.
A estos se suma la esporádica presencia de viajeros
y científicos, y sobre todo la actividad de los
comerciantes mestizos, que ejerciendo el comercio
a lo largo de los ríos amazónicos, constituían un
jalón importante como intermediarios del curare
entre grupos indígenas que los producían y quienes
19 Se trata de un indígena Miraña, etnia cuyos miembros a
menudo eran capturados por los Cuaque o «Murciélago»; a
este respecto cf. Pineda Camacho 1985.
no lo hacían20. Este hecho es expresado por el
viajero italiano Osculati, quien refiriéndose a los
comerciantes y al curare afirma: «... i quali ne
fanno un lucroso traffico cogli indiani ...»
(1854: 210).
Aunque la mayoría de las observaciones que
hizo Humboldt a principios de siglo sobre el curare
se refieren a la preparación de éste en Esmeraldas,
una misión sobre el Orinoco (1860/1V: 79 ss.),
sobre la región del Noroeste amazónico que nos
ocupa proporciona el interesante dato de que el
curare producido por los Ticuna comienza a ser
denominado «ticuna», o sea que existe ya una
identificación entre la etnia que produce el veneno
más famoso y éste. En la segunda mitad del siglo,
uno de los integrantes de la Expedición española al
Pacífico comunica el uso de este curare y la
denominación de «ticuna» entre los indígenas de
Loreto y Aguano, dos asentamientos del Alto
Ñapo (Barreiro 1926 [1865]: 385). Esta identifica-
ción entre la denominación de la etnia y el curare
se desprende también del testimonio del abate
Pierre, quien algunos años más tarde recorrió esta
zona de la «Montaña» (Pierre 1983: 129).
El testimonio de Poeppig, quien hacia me-
diados de siglo viajó a lo largo del Amazonas
(1960/11: 416 s., 455), ratifica la producción en
Pebas de un fuerte curare, que se utiliza asimismo
en la región del Huallaga y del Alto Ñapo. Su
afirmación de que en Maynas se utilizan dos tipos
de veneno: el proveniente de los Peba y el de los
Lama (1960/11: 331), confirma la simultaneidad de
ambos tipos de curare en la misma región. En
cuanto al veneno producido en Lamas y Pajatén, la
información de que éste se comercializa hasta
Tabatinga (1960/11: 331) es relevante, pues mues-
tra que este producto era llevado desde una zona
muy alejada a las cercanías del centro de produc-
ción del curare más potente, un hecho cuyas causas
no son claras.
En cuanto a la dirección de difusión de ambos
productos - el de Lamas desde el oeste hacia
Amazonia central y el de los Ticuna en sentido
inverso - y sus intermediarios en el tráfico, son
especialmente dos etnias de la «Montaña» las que
aparecen en este rol. La actividad de los Quijo
como mediadores de una serie de productos, in-
cluido el veneno, resaltada por Oberem (1966-67)
es también clara con respecto a los Canelo, situa-
20 Los Secoya, un grupo Tucano occidental del Oriente
ecuatoriano y ría Yubineto (Perú) obtenían hasta hace unas
décadas veneno por intermedio de comerciantes peruanos.
Aunque desconocen la procedencia exacta del producto,
saben que este se traficaba desde la región amazónica
perteneciente al Brasil.
Anthropos 83.1988
El tráfico de curare en la cuenca amazónica
537
dos en una zona cercana a la de los anteriores,
con centro en la actual ciudad de Puyo21. Ellos
emprendían, hacia mediados de siglo, el laborioso
y extenso viaje en canoa a la zona de los Ticuna
para obtener curare, como se desprende del
testimonio del abate Pierre; «Los ticunas habitan
el Amazonas, desde donde viene hasta Canelos
esta terrible ponzoña .... Cada año los canelen-
ses emprenden viaje para conseguir este veneno, a
fin de distribuir entre las demás tribus cristianas»
(Pierre 1983: 129).
Simson, un viajero inglés que proporciona
valiosas informaciones sobre esta zona del Noroes-
te amazónico en el último tercio del siglo, muestra
la actividad de los indígenas de Canelos que viajan
a Iquitos a proveerse de curare, y hacia el sur,
hacia el Huallaga, a recoger sal (Simson
1886: 112). La sal, otro producto de intenso tráfico
en esta región, procedía sobre todo de zonas
salíferas del río Huallaga (cf., entre otros, Poeppig
1960/11: 336 ss.).
La estima de los indígenas de la «Montaña»
por el veneno Ticuna se expresa, además de las
aseveraciones a este respecto de distintos viajeros,
en los sucedido a uno de éstos: En el recorrido que
realiza Wiener desde el Alto Ñapo a lo largo del
Amazonas, son los Suno (Suno es el nombre de un
asentamiento en el Alto Ñapo, por lo cual puede
identificárselos como Quijo) quienes actúan de
remeros desde aquélla región hasta Pebas. A pesar
de la oferta de pago que les hace Wiener
(1884: 77), los indígenas se niegan a conducirlo
hasta Tabatinga, como era el deseo del viajero.
Sólo la oferta, de otorgarles a cambio varias ollas
de veneno de los Ticuna los decide a realizar el
viaje.
Aunque el siguiente testimonio no menciona
la procedencia del curare del cual se trata, es
relevante porque muestra cómo, siguiendo la
huella de los Jesuítas del siglo XVIII, los misione-
ros utilizan este producto como pago a los indíge-
nas por ciertos servicios. El hecho de que el
misionero vuelva desde Quito a su misión en la
región de los Quijo y les entregue veneno como
pago, sugiere que había salido de la misión
llevando ese producto consigo, como medio de
pagar el viaje de regreso. En una acusación contra
varios misioneros de Ñapo y Archidona, que se
caracterizaban por los abusos que cometían
contra los indígenas, escribe en 1820 el Goberna-
dor interino de Quijos, Castillo Rengifo, que un
misionero llamado Bustamante, castigó brutal-
21 Investigaciones actuales sobre este grupos han sido realiza-
das por MacDonald (1984) y Whitten (1976).
mente a los indígenas que lo conducían desde
Quito a la misión, y describe así la conducta del
misionero: «... sin permitirles /a los indígenas/
que en los Ranchos se apegasen siquiera á ellos
porque él solo dormía con una india que llevó en su
compañía y que como por flete solamente les dio
veneno, se excusaban alegando la mucha lluvia»
(en Pardo y Barreda 1905/1: 131).
5. Discusión
En primer lugar, el curare es un producto acerca de
cuya existencia no es posible esperar testimonios
arqueológicos directos (el hallazgo de la sustan-
cia), ni indirectos (la presencia de cerbatanas, que
podrían servir como índice de su uso), dado que
tanto el curare como las cerbatanas - confecciona-
das con especies de cañas o de madera - son
sustancias perecederas, especialmente en el húme-
do ambiente amazónico. Por esta razón, las únicas
fuentes utilizables son las escritas.
La sospecha de que el uso del curare pueda
haberse introducido en el Amazonas desde el
Orinoco - una posibilidad que fue defendida por
Nordenskióld - se despierta al observar que la de-
nominación Ticuna (la etnia por excelencia dedi-
cada a su fabricación) procede, según Nimuendaju
(1952: 29) de la palabra uirarí, de la lingua geral
(tucuna: gu: <ré), en la cual se reconoce claramente
las denominaciones caribe del veneno: urarí, uralí,
etc. De todos modos, una expresión lingüística,
por sugestiva que sea, no puede proporcionar una
prueba contundente, sobre todo porque esta hipó-
tesis quizás podría utilizarse para los curare ama-
zónicos que se basan - como los del Orinoco - en la
utilización de Strychnos, pero no para los curare de
los Lama. Estos no sólo utilizan otras especies bo-
tánicas (Chondondendron), sino que además habi-
tan zonas más alejadas y de cuyos mutuos contac-
tos sabemos, hasta épocas tardías, muy poco.
En qué medida existía en esta región antes de
la penetración de los primeros conquistadores
españoles y de la instalación de los misioneros
Jesuítas (alrededor de 1637) un tráfico de curare
entre los grupos indígenas, es un hecho que no
puede ser dilucidado. Mi tesis es, a partir de las
informaciones escritas, que la presencia de los
Jesuítas en esta región del Noroeste amazónico
amplió la zona de distribución del curare, y que su
uso se expandió a algunas etnias que antes no lo
conocían.
Las fuentes de los siglos XVIII y XIX mues-
tran que los principales protagonistas de la produc-
ción del veneno - los Ticuna, Peba y Yagua por
Anthropos 83.1988
538
María Susana Cipolletti
una parte, por otra los Lama o Lamiste - no
abandonaban su territorio para comerciar el pro-
ducto, sino que más bien los interesados en él se
desplazaban a lo largo de los ríos amazónicos en
grandes distancias para obtenerlo. Desde tempra-
na época aparecen en el rol de intermediarios o
distribuidores del curare los Quijo y Canelo, dos
etnias de la «Montaña», que en sus desplazamien-
tos conectaban las zonas andinas cercanas a su
territorio con las bajas amazónicas. Alrededor de
mediados del siglo XVIII aparecen algunos comer-
ciantes mestizos como intermediarios del curare,
una tendencia que aumentó con el avance del
tiempo.
Es curioso que los curare Ticuna y Lama
coexistieran en gran parte en las mismas zonas, ya
que las fuentes coinciden en alabar las excelencias
del primero como el más efectivo y perdurable.
Podría pensarse que por esta razón el curare de los
Ticuna habría podido eliminar del tráfico al pro-
ducto más débil producido por los Lama. Sin
embargo, esto no sucedió, y sus motivos sólo
pueden ser planteados como posibilidad: Existen
indicios de que el curare de los Lama era más
«barato» (en el sentido de favorables condiciones
de intercambio), lo cual podría haberse debido o
bien al reconocimiento de su inferior calidad o bien
a que se lo producía en mayor cantidad con
respecto al de los Ticuna. Es probable también que
la producción de los Ticuna - una etnia no muy
numerosa - no alcanzara a satisfacer las demandas
del mercado que se había creado.
Aunque el curare no es el único de los
productos que intervenía en la red de tráfico
creada en esta zona del Noroeste amazónico, sino
uno más en la extensa lista que comprendía desde
los preciados objetos de metal a la canela, ocupa
un lugar especial pues es el único producto
amazónico que se convirtió en imprescindible aún
para europeos y mestizos que viajaron o se
instalaron en las zonas amazónicas.
El presente trabajo forma parte de una investigación
más amplia, sobre las etnias Tucano occidentales del
Noroeste amazónico, que se realizó con una beca de la
Fundación Alexander von Humboldt, de Alemania
Federal (1985-87). Esta institución posibilitó asimismo
el trabajo de investigación en el Archivo General de
Indias, de Sevilla, motivos por los cuales expreso mi
profundo agradecimiento. Este se dirige también al
Prof. Udo Oberem, no sólo por su generosa hospitalidad
en el Seminario de Antropología Cultural de Bonn, que
dirigía, sino además por sus valiosos comentarios e
informaciones bibliográficas. En este último aspecto
debo agradecer asimismo datos proporcionados por el
Dr. Helmut Schindler y por Martin Volland. El mapa
adjunto ha sido realizado por Antonio Nodal, del
Seminario arriba mencionado.
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Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
The Niuean Nose Flute
Richard M. Moyle
This brief paper describes the last surviving nose
flute from the South Pacific island of Niue. The
nose flute is reported from several areas within
Polynesia, including all island groups within west-
ern Polynesia. In only two areas, Tonga and Niue,
is the instrument still played, although proficiency
is currently confined to a few elderly persons, and
on Niue to only one man.
Two features distinguish the Niuean nose flute
from those elsewhere in western Polynesia; the
first is its indigenous name. Among neighbouring
island groups (Samoa, Tonga, Uvea, Futuna,
Tokelau) the flute’s name is fangufangu (or fagu-
fagu in some orthographies), a word whose root,
fangu (or fagu) means ‘to blow.’ In Niue the
instrument is called kilikihoa (southern, Tafiti
dialect) or kikihoa (northern, Motu dialect), a
term which appears to be designative. The second
distinguishing feature of the Niuean instrument is
its construction material. Unlike nose flutes else-
where in western Polynesia, which are of bamboo
and sealed at each end by a node, the kilikihoa may
be of bamboo or solid wood construction, and is
open at the non-blowing end (see Fig. I).1
A museum search throughout the United
Kingdom, Europe, the United States of America,
Australia, and New Zealand has located a total of
twenty-three specimens, acquired between 1872
and 1940; the details of these are given in the
Appendix. The construction materials are almost
evenly divided numerically between bamboo and
solid wood. An examination of the construction
material in relation to the date on which the
1 A specimen from Frankfurt, Museum für Völkerkunde,
with five holes on top and a sixth beneath is evidently of
Tongan influence or origin (see Appendix).
Fig. 1: Talaiti playing his kilikihoa.
specimens were acquired reveals no obvious pat-
terns.
Edward Tregear and S. Percy Smith’s Niuean
dictionary of 1907 resulted from data gathered
during Smith’s four-month stay in 1902, supple-
mented by the work of the Rev. F. E. Lawes, who,
in 1902, had been resident on Niue for 34 years
(Talagi 1982: 120). Two entries in this dictionary
are of particular interest. Whereas the term for
‘bamboo’ (kofe, or ’ofe) elsewhere in western
Polynesia is also an alternative term for the flute,
no such nomenclature currently operates on Niue.
The present local term for bamboo is kaho
papalagi (McEwen 1970: 107), and no cognate
form of the word kofe is in use. Kaho papalagi
translates literally as ‘European bamboo,’ from
which the botanist Sykes (1970: 234) infers that
existing species were introduced by foreigners.
Although ‘kaho’ by itself is the present term for
bamboo, the name applies more accurately to a
species of giant reed (Arundo Linnaeus- Yuncker
1943: 21); cognate terms exist throughout western
Polynesia. Tregear and Smith’s dictionary con-
firms (1907: 122) that, in 1902, the term for
Anthropos 83.1988
542
Berichte und Kommentare
bamboo was indeed kaho, with or without the
suffix ‘papalagi.’ However, the dictionary also
includes the word kofe (1907: 65), where it is
defined, not as ‘bamboo,’ but as ‘the native flute,
played with the nose.’ Several specimens collected
in the late nineteenth century are of bamboo,
which permits an addition to Tregear and Smith’s
dictionary entry: ‘the native flute, made of bam-
boo, played with the nose.’ This is confirmed by
Harold Williams’ Niue vocabulary (1893: 23),
which gives kofe as ‘reed,’ ‘bamboo,’ and, by
extension, the flute. If the nomenclature elsewhere
in western Polynesia formerly applied also on Niue
(and the area is generally accepted as a homoge-
neous culture bloc [Burrows 1941]), it appears
possible that in the nineteenth century the term for
both bamboo and the nose flute was kofe. One can
only hypothesize as to the reason for the discontin-
uation of the word ‘/co/e’ in the twentieth century.
The type of bamboo known as kofe may itself have
died out and been replaced by the kaho, for there
seems no obvious reason why Europeans should
have introduced a new strain of bamboo if the
existing species was flourishing. Alternatively, the
flutes known as kofe may have been introduced
and of a type of bamboo previously unknown on
Niue; with the eventual deterioration of these
flutes, the name also passed out of use.2
It appears unlikely that a change in name
would have occurred without a change in one or
more aspects of the instrument itself. This change
appears to have been gradual, as witness the
presence of both ‘kaho’ and ‘kofe’ in the 1907
dictionary; alternatively, the former term may
have been collected by Smith and the latter
supplied by Lawes. The date when the name of the
instrument changed from kofe to kilikihoa is not
known. Here, too, it is presumed that the change
was precipitated by alterations to the instrument’s
physical properties.3
The most common placement of holes on the
museum specimens is for the blowing aperture to
be within one centimetre of the closed end, and for
two finger-holes to be located at positions ap-
proximately 50 % and 60 % respectively along
the instrument’s length. Variations to this pattern
include four specimens with a single finger-hole at
the open end, and two specimens with three
finger-holes lying close together (see Fig. 2). The
absence of a uniform spacing of the finger-holes,
expressed either as a proportion of the total length
or in real distance, might suggest that the tunings
would have differed from one instrument to
another. Further, the absence of evidence of
changes to tunings, by the plugging of existing
holes and re-drilling of additional ones, might
suggest that the instruments were not fashioned so
as to fit a preconceived individual or national
tuning system. A comparison of the tunings of four
specimens, however, indicates similarities in both
intervals and pitches.
A comparison of the tunings of three speci-
mens from the National Museum of Victoria (Nos.
X2647, X2698, X2648), one from the Auckland
War Memorial Museum (No. 25755), and the
instrument currently played by Talaiti reveals the
following ascending intervals between their four
pitches:
M2 + m2 + m2 (X2647, X2698)
M2 + M2 + m2 (X2648, Talaiti)
m2 + m2 + M2 (25755)
A single-hole specimen at the National Mu-
Fig. 2: Two Nieuan flutes at the
National Museum of Victoria;
upper: X2646 (length: 208 mm);
lower: X2647 (length: 215 mm).
2 This theory may be tested by an examination of the cell
structure of bamboo specimens in museums, should it be
practicable to remove a fragment for microscopic analy-
sis.
3 The present form of bamboo on Niue is a variegated form of
bambusa vulgaris (Sykes 1970: 234); its date of introduction
is not known.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
543
seum of Victoria (No. X2646) produces two pitch-
es a Major second apart.
The sample is too small to permit comment on
the significance of the coinciding of intervals on
two occasions. However, the possibility of sheer
chance, at least among the National Museum of
Victoria specimens, is reduced by the closeness of
their actual pitches. These, together with those for
the other two flutes, are as follows (the pitches
being an octave higher than shown):
X2647, X2698
X2648
Talai ti
Representing highest to lowest from left to
right, these pitches are obtained by the following
sequence of fingerings (the open end of the flute
lying below the lower of the two holes as depicted);
a solid circle indicates a closed hole:
The flute is blown with one nostril, the thumb
of the hand not operating the finger-holes blocking
the other nostril (see Fig. 1). Three references
exist to a double nose flute; the first followed the
visit to Niue in 1848 by the Reverend George
Turner: “The have wooden flutes as musical
instruments, they are single and double, resem-
bling those of the ancient Egyptians, only shorter,
and are blown with the nostrils” (1861: 468). The
second reference arises from Hood’s visit to Niue
in 1862: “The only instrument we saw was a double
flute, like that of the ancient Egyptians, which they
play with the nostrils, the performer presenting a
most grotesque appearance” (Hood 1863: 22-23).
The third reference is contained in an annotation
accompanying two specimens in the Museum of
Mankind, Sidney, (Catalogue No. 1938 10-1
90a & b) possibly collected by J. R. B. Lister in
1891; “Wooden nose flutes, hollowed wooden
tubes stopped with a wooden plug at one end with
two small holes in each flute . . . one for each nos-
tril.” Double nose flutes are not reported else-
where in Polynesia, and the absence of corrob-
orating evidence from Niueans or museum speci-
mens suggests that the instrument was excep-
tional.
The sole remaining kilikihoa on Niue belongs
to Talaiti, an elderly man living in Vaiea village.
During a survey of traditional Niuean music made
in 1984, my co-worker, Mrs Fifita Talagi, and Î
visited Talaiti and interviewed him on the subject
of his flute. A summary of this interview is
presented below.
Like Talaiti himself, Talaiti’s mother had
been the island’s only flutist in her day.4 He recalls
sitting beside his bed-ridden mother, watching and
listening to her play. Both his parents died when he
was quite young, and Talaiti’s own interest was
aroused when he borrowed from school a Europe-
an recorder. While playing it, he recalled his
mother’s kilikihoa, which he had kept on her
death, and began experimenting with it, playing
most evenings until the time of his marriage. After
a hurricane destroyed Talaiti’s house, and the
kilikihoa was lost, he made his own first specimen,
which he still possesses. He says that it took a long
time before he became accustomed to the new
instrument, and that the compositions he now
plays are those he learnt from his mother. Copying
his mother’s practice, Talaiti rinses the flute in hot
water after use, to discourage any insect crawling
into it. He recalls asking his mother on one
occasion what useful purpose the flute served. Her
reply was simply that it kept her happy while she
was house-bound. When asked the origin of the
flute on Niue, Talaiti’s mother said that the
legendary woman Mataginifale possessed the first
flute. While Mataginifale was living at Avatele
beach, her time was occupied in two activities -
making bark cloth and making kilikihoa. Matagi-
nifale later voyaged to Tonga, where, it is said, she
introduced the instrument to the Tongans.
4 The only early account (Thomson 1902: 120) to mention the
gender of the flute player describes her as a “weird old”
lady, who, as part of the welcome to a British Admiral and
his entourage, “whipped a nose-flute from the bosom of her
nightgown, and blew soft notes upon it with one nostril
Anthropos 83.1988
544
Berichte und Kommentare
Prior to the interview, Talaiti recorded a
melody on his kilikihoa, which is made of pao
wood (Ochrosia parviflora sp., Yuncker 1943: 97).
A branch of the pao tree is divested of its outer
bark and left to dry for several weeks, following
which the core of the branch is burned out with a
hot poker, the wood cut to length and three holes
cut using a sharp metal point. The presence in early
specimens of a separate wooden plug at each end
indicates that the entire core was removed. Al-
though no accounts of the former construction
process are available, the complete removal of the
core could have been accomplished by fire or by
vigorous poking or chiselling.
The following is a transcription of the melody
played by Talaiti. Neither the specific melodic
intervals nor the overall contour of the melody
bear any resemblance to Niuean songs recorded
during the 1984 survey (see Moyle 1985). An
unusual feature not reported elsewhere in western
Polynesia appears in lines three and four of the
notation. Here, Talaiti presses his first and second
fingers together and slides them rapidly back and
forth over the finger-holes. The melody continues
in this manner until its end, some thirty seconds
later.
Obviously, only limited conclusions may be
drawn from a single melody. Of the four pitches
available from combinations of open and closed
finger-holes, the second-to-highest (b in the nota-
tion) is heard only twice. Most of the first part of
the melody is restricted to the two lowest notes,
that is, with the upper finger-hole closed all the
time and the lower hole either open or closed.
There is evidence of repetition and development of
melodic and rhythmic motifs. The second part of
the melody appears to focus on rhythm rather than
melody as such. A comparison with flute melodies
from Tonga, the only other Polynesian country
where it still exists, indicates more differences than
similarities. Of fourteen Tongan specimens exam-
ined (Moyle 1987: 88-90), only one had a tuning
identical to that found on Niue (the flute X2648
and that of Talaiti). And whereas in Tonga some
melodies were instrumental versions of songs, the
Niuean examples have no obvious resemblance to
the vocal repertoire.
Whatever cultural values sustained the Niue-
an nose flute in the past as a national instrument
seem not to have survived. The absence of any
compositions by Talaiti himself suggests that the
present existence of the instrument may be as
much due to the cherishing of the memory of a
deceased parent as a love of the music which the
flute produces. But whatever the reasons why
others have discarded what Talaiti has chosen to
retain, the kilikihoa has never been closer to
obsolescence than it is today.
I am grateful to Dorota C. Starzecka, Museum of
Mankind; Alessandro Tana, Brighton Museum; Hélène
La Rue, Pitt Rivers Museum; Yvonne Schumann,
Merseyside Maritime Museum; J. F. Thiel, Museum für
Völkerkunde, Frankfurt; David Simmons, Auckland
War Memorial Museum; Robin Watt, National Museum
of New Zealand; Marlene Hamann, Peabody Museum;
and Gaye Sculthorpe, National Museum of Victoria, for
providing information on early specimens of nose flutes.
John Griffiths, of the University of Melbourne, kindly
played the flutes in the collection of the National
Museum of Victoria. The survey on Niue itself was
funded jointly by UNESCO, The Institute for Polynesi-
an Studies (Hawaii), and the University of Auckland, to
all of whom I would express my thanks. Finally, I wish to
record the valuable assistance of Fifita Talagi and
Dorothy Puheketama, co-workers in the survey.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
545
Appendix - Details of Museum Specimens
Institution and when
identification No. acquired
construction No. of length (mm)
material finger-holes
Museum of Mankind (Sidney)
BM 1943 9 bamboo 2 195
BM 9936 1876 wood 1 213
BM 5928 1892 wood 3 192
BM 1938-10-1, 90A 1891 wood 1 241
BM 1938-10-1. 90B 1891 wood l 231
Q80 Oc. 1263 c. 1920 ? bamboo 3 240
1944 Oc. 2.758 c. 1920 bamboo 2 322
1944 Oc. 2.759 c, 1920 bamboo 2 177
1944 Oc. 2.760 c. 1920 bamboo 2 175
1944 Oc. 2.761 c. 1920 bamboo 2 171
Brighton Museums
not known 1908 wood 2 224
Pitt Rivers Museum
1903.130.19.1 1903 wood 2 154
1903.130.19.2 1903 wood 2 172
Merseyside Maritime Museum
1954.111.125 1931 bamboo 2 195
Auckland War Memorial Museum 25755 1940 bamboo 2 235
16865 1931 bamboo specimen misplaced 440
11682 1891 wood specimen misplaced 7
National Museum of Victoria
X2647 1892 wood 2 215
X2646 1892 wood 2 208
X2698 c. 1890 wood 1 143
X2648 1892 wood 2 138
Frankfurt. Museum für Völkerkunde N. S. 18 782 1913 bamboo 5 515
Peabody Museum (Cambridge, Mass.) 71017B12/4 1907 wood 2 280
Cranmore Museums
not known 9 7 2 7
not known ? 7 2 7
not known 7 7 2 7
References Cited
Burrows, Edwin G.
1941 Polynesian Music and Dancing. New Plymouth, Avery:
The Polynesian Society. (Memoirs 17: 143-160)
Hood, T. H.
1863 Notes of a Cruise in H. M. S. “Fawn” in the Western
5 Miles (1938) includes a photograph of three flutes, each with
two finger-holes centrally located, formerly in the Cran-
more Museum. The museum has now disbanded and the
present location of the flutes is not known.
Pacific in the Year 1862. Edinburgh: Edmonston and
Douglas.
McEwen, J. M.
1970 Niue Dictionary. Wellington: Department of Maori and
Island Affairs.
Miles, G. P. L.
1938 Notes on the Material Culture of Niue. Ethnologica
Cranmorensis 3: 19-22.
Moyle, Richard M.
1985 Report on Survey of Traditional Music of Niue.
Auckland: University of Auckland Anthropology De-
Anthropos 83.1988
546
Berichte und Kommentare
partment. (Working Papers in Anthropology, Archae-
ology, Linguistics, and Maori Studies, 67)
1987 Tongan Music. Auckland, London: Auckland Universi-
ty Press.
Sykes, W. R.
1970 Contributions to the Flora of Niue. Christchurch:
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
(Bulletin, 200)
Talagi, Fifita
1982 Pre-history. In: Niue: A History of the Island;
pp. 103-110. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of The
University of the South Pacific and the Government of
Niue.
Tregear, Edward, and S. Percy Smith
1907 A Vocabulary and Grammar of the Niué Dialect of
the Polynesian Language. Wellington: Government
Printer.
Turner, George
1861 Nineteen Years in Polynesia . . . London: John
Snow.
Williams, Harold
1893 Vocabulary of the Language of Niue (Savage Island).
Journal of the Polynesian Society 2: 17-24.
Yuncker, T. G.
1943 The Flora of Niue Island. Honolulu. (Bishop Museum
Bulletin, 178)
“The canoë is afloat . .
Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der
South Pacific Creative Arts Society
Ein Beispiel für kulturelle Initiativen im
Prozeß der Entkolonialisierung
Renate von Gizycki
Noch immer stehen bei der ethnologischen Be-
schreibung und Analyse des Kulturwandels in
Ländern der „Dritten Welt“ europäische/westliche
Einflüsse thematisch im Vordergrund von For-
schungsarbeiten; die Untersuchungen gelten weit
häufiger Erscheinungen des kulturellen Verlusts
und Verfalls als den Kräften des Widerstands, die
allenfalls als Reaktionen, nicht aber als eigenstän-
dige Überlebenskraft wahrgenommen werden.
Die Entstehung und Entwicklung der South Pacific
Creative Arts Society (SPCAS) soll hier als Bei-
spiel einer kulturellen Erneuerungsbewegung be-
trachtet werden, in der Künstler und Poeten
gewissermaßen eine institutionelle Antwort auf
die Herausforderungen der kolonialen Situation in
Ozeanien und auf die Frage nach kultureller
Selbstbehauptung und Identität zu geben versu-
chen.1 Dabei machen sie durchaus Gebrauch von
allen ihnen geeignet erscheinenden westlichen
Neuerungen geistiger, technischer oder organisa-
torischer Art, die im Laufe der kolonialen Epoche
ungefragt in ihre Gesellschaft und Kulturen einge-
drungen sind, angefangen von der Alphabetisie-
rung durch christliche Missionare und den mit der
Bibel importierten Drucktechniken bis zum Ge-
brauch der elektronischen Medien im Gefolge
militärischer Interessen in der Region seit dem
Zweiten Weltkrieg. Heute werden zum Beispiel
Gedichte und Erzählungen dieser Poeten durch
Radio und Satellit auf die entlegensten Inseln ver-
mittelt, oft noch ehe sie irgendwo im Druck erschie-
nen sind, und sie haben inzwischen auch Eingang
gefunden in die Schulprogramme der Region.
Künstler und Schriftsteller wollen in der
Auseinandersetzung zwischen Tradition und Mo-
derne nicht länger „die passiven Objekte von
Außenstehenden sein“ (Wendt 19765), und sie
wehren sich gegen kulturelle Überfremdung eben-
so wie gegen die Romantisierung ihrer traditionel-
len Lebensweise. In diesem, hier nur in Umrissen
skizzierten, Zusammenhang hat die Gründung der
South Pacific Creative Arts Society ihren histori-
schen Ort; dabei lassen sich im Rückblick auf ihre
noch junge Geschichte seit 1972/73 folgende Pha-
sen in ersten Ansätzen unterscheiden:
- die Euphorie des Aufbruchs in den frühen
siebziger Jahren mit der Gründung der Zeitschrift
Mana (1976);
- die Konsolidierung der Arbeit bis zum Beginn
der 80er Jahre mit einer regen Publikationstätig-
keit und Wirkung im Bildungsbereich, Anwachsen
der Resonanz auf regionaler und internationaler
Ebene (Übersetzungen);
- ein Nachlassen der Publikationstätigkeit der
Zeitschrift Mana als regionaler Publikation zugun-
sten nationaler/lokaler Publikationen (z. B. Sinnet
- A Fiji Literary Quarterly, 1980; nach: Faikava -
A Tongan Literary Journal, 1978, und Moana,
1979, einer Zeitschrift der Samoa Writers’ Associ-
ation).
1 Der folgende Bericht ist Bestandteil eines seit mehreren
Jahren laufenden Forschungsvorhabens über zeitgenössi-
sche Schriftsteller in Ozeanien (vgl. Anthropos 81.1986:
264-276). Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft hat mei-
nen letzten Forschungsaufenthalt im Südpazifik und in
Hawaii (1983) mit einer Reisekostenbeihilfe gefördert;
Fragen zum Problem kultureller Identität und zur Entste-
hung und Entwicklung der “South Pacific Creative Arts
Society” in Suva, Fidschi, standen im Mittelpunkt dieses
Aufenthalts.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
547
1. Entstehung der South Pacific Creative Arts Society
(SPCAS)
Voraussetzung war die Gründung der University
of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fidschi, im
Rahmen der neugewonnenen politischen Unab-
hängigkeit der Inselstaaten West-Samoa (1962),
Tonga und Fidschi (1970) als Ort der Begegnung
und als Arbeitsplatz einer Reihe von Schriftstel-
lern von verschiedenen Inseln der Region; sie war
verbunden mit einer allgemeinen Aufbruchstim-
mung, wie sie in den sechziger und siebziger
Jahren noch in vielen Ländern der „Dritten Welt“
verbreitet war. Ähnlich wie zuvor in Afrika wurde
auch im Pazifik die Idee einer gemeinsamen
Identität (Pacific Way, The New Pacific, A New
Oceania; siehe z. B. R. G. Crocombe 1973
[1978)]) als Hoffnung auf eine gemeinsame Zu-
kunft propagiert.
Kulturelle Erneuerungsbewegungen und In-
itiativen haben in der Tat mit der Gründung von
Kulturzentren oder Zeitschriften oft wichtige Bei-
träge zur Erlangung der Unabhängigkeit geleistet
(z. B. The New Hebridean Viewpoint), und auch
Gruppen der in den letzten Jahren stark angewach-
senen Bewegung für einen nuklearfreien Pazifik
sind nicht selten in ihnen verwurzelt.2 Ihre Wort-
führer waren und sind - außer Geistlichen und
Lehrern - vor allem Schriftsteller, von denen
einige dann, nach Erreichung der Unabhängigkeit,
Politiker wurden (z. B. Albert Maori Kiki).
Starke Impulse für die Gründung der Gesell-
schaft und der Zeitschrift Mana kamen aus Papua-
Neuguinea, wo junge Künstler und Schriftsteller in
Werkstätten und Schreibkursen an der Universität
ermutigt wurden, vor dem Hintergrund ihrer
traditionellen Erfahrungen nach neuen Aus-
drucksformen zu suchen. Marjorie Tuainekore
Crocombe von den Cook-Inseln hatte an solchen
Kursen teilgenommen und gründete 1972 nach
ihrer Rückkehr aus PNG gemeinsam mit anderen
Schriftstellern und Künstlern auf dem Campus der
USP die South Pacific Creative Arts Society,
zunächst als Forum für die jungen Poeten der
Region. Ihren organisatorischen Fähigkeiten, ih-
ren persönlichen Kontakten, auch ihrer unermüd-
lichen Überzeugungsarbeit ist es vor allem zu
verdanken, daß aus hochfliegenden Ideen und
Träumen eine mehr und mehr beachtete Institu-
tion für die neue Kunst und Literatur des Südpa-
zifik werden konnte. Die Gesellschaft war von
2 R. v. Gizycki 1986a: bes. „Vanuatu - Ein Land kurz vor der
Unabhängigkeit“ (130 f.) und „Das Paradies muß sich
wehren“ (16 f.).
Anfang an offen für Anregungen und Beiträge, die
ihrer Förderung dienlich waren; dazu gehörten die
Studentenzeitschrift UNISPAC ebenso wie die
moderne englischsprachige Maori-Dichtung mit
Poeten wie Hone Tuwhare (1964), deren Einflüsse
in ihrer Literaturzeitschrift wirksam wurden.
Die 1976 gegründete Zeitschrift Mana - A
South Pacific Journal of Language and Literature
hatte Vorläufer in den Literaturseiten der austra-
lischen Monatszeitschrift Pacific Islands Monthly,
die seit 1973 jährlich zum Mana Annual of Cre-
ative Writing zusammengefaßt wurden und mit
einer Auflage von etwa 12 000 wesentlich zur
Verbreitung und - durch Honorierung der Beiträ-
ge - Finanzierung der literarischen Arbeiten bei-
trugen. Im Hinblick auf seine Wirkung in der
Öffentlichkeit der Region kann das 1973 erschie-
nene Mana Annual heute sicher als erste eigen-
ständige Publikation der SPCAS betrachtet wer-
den: so als habe man einen Magnet über Eisenfeil-
späne gehalten, entstand plötzlich ein völlig neues
Bild Ozeaniens, und es wurde ein Potential an
Kreativität sichtbar, das vorher nur von wenigen
erahnt worden war. Es enthielt Beiträge von etwa
80 Autoren und Künstlern (z. B. Grafiken) aus
allen Gegenden des Pazifik.
Zwei Jahre nach Gründung der Zeitschrift
Mana führt uns eine Diskussion mitten hinein in
die zeitgenössische literarische Landschaft. Die
Kontroverse um Auftrag und Bedeutung der
modernen Literatur für Länder der „Dritten Welt“
war ausgelöst worden durch einen westlichen
Kritiker, der den Vorwurf erhoben hatte, es
handele sich bei diesen neuen literarischen Äuße-
rungen um “a programmed literature”, sie verdan-
ke sich einem antikolonialen Affekt und Pro-
gramm.
Es ist ein Glücksfall in der noch jungen
Geschichte der Zeitschrift, daß sie durch diese
Herausforderung eines Papalagi-Kritikers rasch
zum lebendigen Forum von Meinungen wurde und
eine Reihe der wichtigsten Schriftsteller mit ihren
Grundauffassungen über ihre eigene Arbeit zu
Gehör brachte. Der schon damals bekannteste
Autor der Region, Albert Wendt aus West-
Samoa, beantwortet diese Unterstellung mit einer
Art Credo: Er spricht von seinen eigenen Erfah-
rungen mit dem Schreiben, “the Creative process
and Creative education”, und erinnert daran, daß
nahezu Dreiviertel der Menschheit in sogenannten
Dritte-Welt-Ländern lebt, daß jedes Land und
jede Kultur über eine eigene Literatur verfügt,
“and that the best works of those literatures are as
valuable as any in his World ...”
“A literature is both a mirror and a map of the
Anthropos 83.1988
548
Berichte und Kommentare
mind and soul, the here and now. And because we
need to know about where we are living now, every
culture needs such a map. It is a necessity for the
survival of any people. And it has to be their
literature. (This does not mean the exclusion of the
literatures of other peoples.) . . .” (Wendt 1978;
13-14).
Außer Gedichten, Erzählungen, Kurzge-
schichten und Buchbesprechungen brachte die
Zeitschrift gerade in den ersten Jahren eine Reihe
wichtiger Grundsatzartikel über die Perspektiven
und Probleme der neuen Literatur (wie z. B. den
Aufsatz von Albert Wendt “Towards a New
Oceania” [1976a]).
Mit den “Mana Publications” brachte die
SPCAS darüber hinaus eine Reihe von Sammlun-
gen von Gedichten und Erzählungen heraus, z. B.
“Some Modern Poetry from Fiji” (1974) oder den
ersten Gedichtband der inzwischen weit über die
Region bekanntgewordenen tonganischen Lyrike-
rin Konai Helu Thaman “You, the choice of my
parents” (1974). Herausgeber dieser Gedicht-
sammlungen war Albert Wendt, der sich bereits
während seines Studienaufenthaltes in Neuseeland
einen Namen gemacht hatte (vor allem mit seinem
1973 erschienenen Roman “Sons for the Return
Home”). Während seiner Lehrtätigkeit an der
neugegründeten Universität in Fidschi veranstalte-
te er auch Kurse in “creative writing”. Seine
Mitwirkung in der Anfangsphase der SPCAS kann
in ihrer Bedeutung für das Gesicht der Gesell-
schaft kaum überschätzt werden. Aber auch ande-
re Autoren sind aus diesen Gründerjahren mit
eigenen Namen als ernsthafte Schriftsteller her-
vorgegangen.3
2. Bedeutung und Funktionen der SPCAS
Das Bild vom Boot in voller Fahrt, das Marjorie T.
Crocombe als eine der Gründerinnen der Gesell-
schaft 1974 in einer ersten Zwischenbilanz der
Arbeit der SPCAS beschwört (1974: 1 [Editorial]),
ruft nicht zufällig die Traditionen der Großen
Seefahrer, der “Vikings of the Pacific” (vgl. Buck
1972), wieder in Erinnerung; in dieser sehr bewußt
gewählten Metapher drückt sich etwas vom Stolz
und vom Selbstbewußtsein aus, im Zeitalter von
3 Dazu gehören z. B. Subramani (Fidschi); Vanessa Griffen
(Fidschi); Celestine Kulagoe (Salomon-Inseln); Ruperake
Petaia (West-Samoa); Satendra Nandan (Fidschi); Pio
Manoa (Fidschi) und, obwohl er nicht zu den Gründern
gehört, der Satiriker Epeli Hau’ofa, der zum Kreis der
Freunde der SPCAS gezählt werden muß.
Flugverbindungen aus eigener Kraft einen Beitrag
zur Erneuerung der eigenen Kultur leisten zu
können; “The canoe is afloat. The flow of creati-
vity in poetry, drama, story writing, as well as
other forms of creative expression from painting to
wood sculpture, has expanded enormously since
our society was launched. Hidden talents are being
developed, ideas are being expressed, confidence
is growing. Mana is just a vehicle to carry the rich
cargoes of individual talent from every part of the
Pacific to every other part, both within and beyond
the island shores” (vgl. Marjorie T. Crocombe
1980: 147).
Die Zusammenarbeit der an der USP vertre-
tenen pazifischen Inseln ist für Marjorie T. Cro-
combe eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der Gesell-
schaft: “Perhaps the greatest result has been the
pulling together of people from the most distant
parts of the Pacific . . . the feeling of oneness that
creative artists are getting with each other through
reading each other’s work, and reading of each
other’s activities” (1980: 14; vgl. auch Manoa
1976).
Mit der Gründung der Gesellschaft haben sich
die Schriftsteller und Künstler der Region ein
Forum für ihr öffentliches Wirken geschaffen,
gewissermaßen - enttäuscht von der anfangs feh-
lenden Resonanz in der USP - eine institutioneile
Antwort auf die sie bewegenden Fragen nach
Herkunft und Weg, nach “cultural identity” zu
finden versucht.
Die in den ersten Jahren geradezu explosions-
artige Entwicklung der neuen englischsprachigen
Literatur des Südpazifik4 ist ohne das Wirken der
SPCAS, ohne ihre Ermutigung und Organisations-
arbeit, nicht zu denken. Die Gesellschaft wurde
immer mehr zur Brücke zwischen Autor und
Publikum (Leserschaft/Öffentlichkeit), und zwar
in beiden Richtungen, denn sie wurde auch zur
Anlaufstelle für die an die Schriftsteller von außen
herangetragenen Erwartungen, zum Beispiel im
Bildungsbereich. Zum Zeitpunkt meines For-
schungsaufenthaltes an der USP (1983) stand die
Entwicklung der SPCAS ganz im Zeichen des Auf-
und Ausbaus der elektronischen Medien, des
Radio- und Satellitenprogramms, der Zusammen-
arbeit mit Einrichtungen der Erwachsenenbildung
(University Extension) auf den der USP ange-
schlossenen Inseln und der Förderung einheimi-
scher Sprachen als literarischer Ausdrucksfor-
men.
4 Stenderup 1985; diese Bibliographie dokumentiert die
Entwicklung der zeitgenössischen Literatur der Region auf
dem Stand vom 31. Dezember 1983.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
549
Durch diese Arbeit wurde die Gesellschaft
nicht nur zum Fokus für die Vielfalt der Inselkul-
turen, sie übernahm zugleich eine Reihe prakti-
scher Aufgaben, wie sie zur Entwicklung einer
eigenständigen Literatur unerläßlich sind: sie wur-
de zur Schaltstelle für Publikationen aller Art, zur
Interessenvertretung der Autoren (Copyright),
zur Dokumentationsstelle, Veranstaltungsagentur
(Workshops, Wettbewerbe, Festival-Beiträge, Le-
sungen, Artist-in-Residence Programmen, usw.),
und zwar sowohl auf lokaler und regionaler wie
internationaler Ebene. Die Mitglieder der Gesell-
schaft stellen auch den Herausgeberstab und die
Redaktion der Zeitschrift und der “Mana Publica-
tions” (sie arbeiten „ehrenamtlich“, und selbst für
Schreibarbeiten steht nur stundenweise Hilfe zur
Verfügung. Nur für ihre Publikationen erhalten sie
finanzielle Unterstützung).
Die SPCAS verdankt ihre ungewöhnliche
Unabhängigkeit vor allem zwei Wesensmerkma-
len: Sie wurde nicht von „oben“, auf dem Regie-
rungsweg, verordnet und ideologisch auf “nation-
building” verpflichtet, und sie verdankt sich-trotz
finanzieller Förderung durch verschiedene Kultur-
fonds (z. B. Australiens oder der UNESCO) -
keinem außerhalb konzipierten Entwicklungspro-
jekt (obwohl sie immer für Anregungen offen
war); sie kennt daher auch (anders als PNG) keine
Probleme der “localisation”. Sie ist im Grunde
identisch mit einem Kreis von befreundeten
Schriftstellern und Künstlern auf einer Vielzahl
von pazifischen Inseln. Darin liegt, zweifellos, eine
große Stärke, aber auch die Gefahr, ähnlich wie
zum Beispiel „die Gruppe 47“, zu stark an eine
Generationserfahrung gebunden zu sein, die für
nachwachsende Talente zur Barriere werden
kann.
Auch haben sich die politischen Rahmenbe-
dingungen in Fidschi für die überregionale Orien-
tierung der SPCAS durch ethnische Spannungen in
den letzten Jahren laufend verschlechtert und sind
durch die Ereignisse des Jahres 1987 (den zweifa-
chen Putsch im Mai und im September) in eine
Krise geraten, deren Lösung heute schwer vorstell-
bar ist. Unabhängig davon wird die langjährige
Arbeit der SPCAS im Bildungsbereich, die Einbe-
ziehung von Kunst und Literatur aus der Region in
die Programme der Schulen und Colleges auf den
Inseln und ihr Echo in der Welt als ein unschätz-
barer Beitrag zur kulturellen Selbstbehauptung
lebendig bleiben.
Die Gespräche, die ich während meines Auf-
enthaltes an der USP 1983 mit Angehörigen der
Gründergeneration über ihre Erfahrungen mit der
Gesellschaft (anläßlich des zehnjährigen Beste-
hens der SPCAS), über ihre Erwartungen und
Perspektiven führen konnte, geben nicht nur
Auskunft über diesen Zeitabschnitt, sondern auch
Einblick in eine lebensgeschichtliche Entwicklung,
die aufs engste mit einer einmaligen historischen,
einer Umbruchssituation verbunden ist.
3. Zu den Gründern der South Pacific Creative Arts
Society5
a) Marjorie Tuainekore Crocombe (Cook-
Inseln)
Sie ist heute Präsidentin der SPCAS und spielt in
der zehnjährigen Geschichte der Gesellschaft eine
bedeutende Rolle; sie verkörpert in den Jahren der
Aufbruchstimmung kurz vor und nach der Unab-
hängigkeit in der Region ihre Kontinuität. Es ist
ihr gelungen, die unterschiedlichsten kreativen
Kräfte um sich zu versammeln und mit ihnen eine
tragfähige Institution aufzubauen, die sich allen
Schwierigkeiten zum Trotz zum Forum einer
neuen Literatur und Kunst im Südpazifik entwik-
keln konnte.
Marjorie T. Crocombe stammt von den Cook-
Inseln; sie studierte in Neuseeland und Papua-
Neuguinea (PNG), wo sie, wie sie selbst sagt, „das
Glück hatte, an Ulli Beiers Schreibkursen teilzu-
nehmen“. Während ihrer Studienzeit und später
als Lehrerin war es ihr zu Bewußsein gekommen,
daß es praktisch keine gedruckten Maori-Texte für
ihre Arbeit gab, keine einheimische Literatur, son-
dern im Gegenteil nur eine Flut von Publikatio-
nen aus der Feder europäischer Autoren, in denen
die bekannten Südsee-Klischees vorherrschten.
In ihren Ausbildungsjahren machte sie die
Entdeckung, daß es eine Vielzahl von Briefen,
Tagebuchaufzeichnungen und historischen Berich-
ten in Maori und Englisch über die Inseln gab, die
in der Frühphase der Missionierung und Alphabe-
tisierung von einheimischen Autoren verfaßt wor-
den waren, und die in den verschiedensten Biblio-
theken der Region nun zu verstauben drohten;
jahrelang widmete sie sich der Übersetzung und
Herausgabe solcher Manuskripte. “If I Live”
(1975) ist eine von ihr nacherzählte Geschichte von
Ta’unga, die auf den vor hundert Jahren geschrie-
benen Manuskripten des ersten Missionsschülers
und späteren Missionars der EMS (London Mis-
5 Die hier ausgewählten Aufzeichnungen von Gesprächen
mit Gründerpersönlichkeiten der SPCAS (im Februar und
März 1983) repräsentieren die Vielfalt der Herkunft und
Ansätze in der Gesellschaft.
Anthropos 83.1988
550
Berichte und Kommentare
sionary Society) auf den Cook-Islands basiert
(vgl. auch 1964 [1981]).
1972 kam sie nach langjährigem Studienauf-
enthalt in PNG gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann (dem
Sozialwissenschaftler R. G. Crocombe) an die
neugegründete Universität des Südpazifik (USP)
in Suva, Fidschi, die als überregionale Einrichtung
die an ihr beteiligten Insel-Regierungen und Ver-
waltungen mit Fachleuten versorgen sollte. Mit
Freunden und Kollegen, die wie sie in Kunst und
Literatur “the soul of a people” sahen, wehrte sich
Marjorie T. Crocombe von Anfang an gegen das
verkürzte Konzept einer “Bread-and-Butter-Uni-
versity”.
Anders als in PNG zeigte die neugegründete
Universität in Fidschi nicht das geringste Interesse,
Kunst und Literatur der an ihr versammelten
pazifischen Inseln zu fördern, geschweige denn, sie
in ihr Curriculum aufzunehmen. Zwar fanden viele
kulturelle Veranstaltungen des ersten “South Pa-
cific Arts Festival” 1972 in Suva auf dem Laucala
Campus der USP statt, ihr eigener Beitrag jedoch
war gleich Null. Die Schriftsteller und Künstler
mußten also selbst die Initiative ergreifen; Marjo-
rie T. Crocombe berichtet: “Ata Ma’ia’i, Jo
Nacola, Vanessa Griffen, Raymond Pillai, How-
ard Van Trease, Satendra Nandan, Neal Engle-
dow, and myself got together and formed the
South Pacific Creative Arts Society. A regular flow
of letters from Albert Wendt in Samoa encouraged
us to go ahead to form the Society and publish
Mana“ (1977: 6).
Und im Rückblick auf den Beginn ihrer
Arbeit schreibt sie 1980: “SPCAS was formed by a
widely representative group of Pacific Islands
writers and artists from Fiji, Tonga, Western
Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Kiribati,
Tuvalu, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, and
Papua Neuguinea. Interested persons from almost
all islands of the Pacific have joined or contributed
to the society since then, as have many from
Australia, New Zealand, USA, and Europe. De-
spite warnings to the contrary, the founders were
confident that many Pacific Islanders had talents
for writing, music, plastic arts, painting, and other
forms of creative expression far beyond what was
being expressed at that time. So far the main
concentration had been on literature, but the
society is now expanding into a wider range of
activities” (1980: 147).
Schwerpunkt der Arbeit der Gesellschaft
blieb auch weiterhin die Förderung von Literatur,
wobei Versuche mit Theatergruppen über Ansätze
nicht hinausgekommen sind, obwohl Papua Neu-
guinea als Vorbild auf einige Autoren im Umfeld
der USP großen Eindruck machte. Auch das
“Artist-in-Residence” Programm blieb in Anfän-
gen stecken, während die neue Literatur des
Südpazifik regional und international wachsende
Aufmerksamkeit fand und in viele Sprachen über-
setzt wurde.6
Seit kurzem ist Marjorie T. Crocombe “Ex-
ecutive Director” der Erwachsenenbildung der
USP (Extension Services for Continuing Educa-
tion) und hat in dieser Eigenschaft und in Verbin-
dung mit den neuen elektronischen Medien der
USP (Satellite-Network; Audio- und Video-Stu-
dios) die Wirkungsmöglichkeiten der jungen Lite-
ratur im Rahmen eines breiten Bildungsangebots
für die Inseln weiter ausbauen können; diese
Literatur ist inzwischen Bestandteil einer Vielzahl
von Kursen und Curricula geworden mit Program-
men wie “Pacific Profiles” oder “Bookshelf on the
Air”, in denen die Poeten und Erzähler der
Region ihre eigenen Texte vortragen.
Wenn die Konzeption eines “Pacific Way” als
eine besondere pazifische Lebensweise oder
Orientierung heute überhaupt noch ernsthaft dis-
kutiert werden kann, dann allenfalls im Kontext
der hier skizzierten Arbeit und verkörpert in der
gegenwärtigen Präsidentin; ihren integrativen Fä-
higkeiten vor allem ist es zu verdanken, daß sich
die nationalen Eigeninteressen der Inselstaaten
und ethnischen Gruppen bisher in dieser Bildungs-
arbeit noch in Grenzen hielten. In ihrem Bemü-
hen, diese Eigenarten jedoch zu Wort kommen zu
lassen, hat Marjorie T. Crocombe seit einigen
Jahren die Arbeit der SPCAS gewissermaßen
dezentralisiert und die Verantwortung für die
Edition einer Reihe von Nummern der Zeitschrift
Mana an Schriftsteller außerhalb Fidschis übertra-
gen (so gibt es inzwischen Ausgaben von Mana,
die in West-Samoa, Solomon-Islands, Cook-
Islands und Hawaii ediert wurden, und 1982, in
Verbindung mit dem Vanuatu Centre, die erste
dreisprachige Ausgabe von Mana, “Tahitian Poet-
ry” [Englisch, Französisch und Tahiti-Polyne-
sisch]).
Während wir über ihre Arbeit in der SPCAS
und in der Erwachsenenbildung der USP spre-
chen, über die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen regio-
naler Orientierung in einer Zeit wachsender öko-
nomischer und ethnischer Konflikte, liegen die
neuen Nummern von Mana vor uns auf dem Tisch,
ein konkretes Programm für das Offenhalten der
6 Dokumentiert z. B. in The South Pacific Creative Arts
Society- A Report - 1981. In deutscher Sprache erschienen
Arbeiten von Wendt (1982) und Konai Helu Thaman
(1986).
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
551
Horizonte, die heute bis Hawaii und Tahiti rei-
chen, ein Wagnis, dessen Ausgang ungewiß ist.
Marjorie Crocombe ist stolz darauf, daß - anders
als in PNG nach dem Weggang Ulli Beiers - „die
SPCAS so lebendig geblieben ist.“ Trotzdem, man
sucht nach neuen Impulsen, möchte jetzt Witi
Ihimaera, einen Maori-Schriftsteller aus Neusee-
land, als “writer in residence” gewinnen. Auch
Marjorie Tuainekore Crocombe fühlt sich als
Maori: „Ich bin in Rarotonga zu Hause, wo meine
Familie Land hat“, aber: “I work for it here.”
b) Albert Wendt (West-Samoa)
Er ist seit 1982 “Professor of Pacific Literature”,
galt bereits zum Zeitpunkt der Gründung der
SPCAS als einer ihrer bedeutendsten Schriftsteller
und Wortführer (vgl. R. v. Gizycki 1986b: bes.
270 f.); von Samoa aus beteiligte er sich an den
Diskussionen um die Zielsetzungen und Aufgaben
der Gesellschaft; von Anfang an hat er seine
Tätigkeit als Herausgeber von Gedichtsammlun-
gen, Förderer von Schreibkursen, Schriftsteller-
Workshops und “Artist-in Residence’’-Program-
men genau so ernst genommen wie seine eigene
schöpferische Arbeit und seine Rolle als Mittler
und Lehrer.
Im Gespräch mit Albert Wendt über die
Gründungsjahre der SPCAS wird deutlich, wie
stark die Gesellschaft geprägt wurde von einem
Kreis von befreundeten Kollegen, die noch heute
ihren beständigen Kern bilden. Die Rolle einzel-
ner Persönlichkeiten, Katalysatoren, Gründer,
“culture-heroes”, die wie der Halbgott Maui
„Inseln aus dem Meer fischen“ (und die uns aus
der Geschichte unserer eigenen Kulturzeitschrif-
ten ja nicht unvertraut ist), wäre eine eigene
Untersuchung wert; hier kann ihre Bedeutung nur
vorläufig durch einige Namen veranschaulicht
werden, wobei Marjorie Crocombe, Subramani,
Albert Wendt, Jo Nacola mit an erster Stelle zu
nennen wären; und sicher auch Ulli Beier, der
einen Prototyp dieser Mittler- und Gründertätig-
keit darstellt (1969).
Aus der Sicht von Albert Wendt, der
1974-1976 seine Lehrtätigkeit an der USP in
Fidschi (School of Education) für die Förderung
und Vermittlung literarischer und künstlerischer
Arbeiten fruchtbar zu machen versuchte, war die
Universität in jenen Jahren im Grunde nur daran
interessiert, Fachleute für die Verwaltung und für
die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung auszubilden. Sein
Vorschlag, durch den Aufbau eines Zentrums für
Südseesprachen das vorhandene sprachliche Po-
tential dieser kleinen regionalen Universität als
Besonderheit zu entwickeln und zu pflegen, fand
kein Interesse.
Schon früh versuchte er daher, in West-Samoa
die Tradition der Geschichtenerzähler (tusitala)
und mündlichen Überlieferung in die neu entste-
hende Literatur des Pazifik und die „Renaissance“
der Kulturen einzubeziehen, und gründete mit
samoanischen Freunden und Kollegen die Zeit-
schrift Moana, die ausschließlich in samoanischer
Sprache publiziert.
In diesem Zusammenhang fällt auf, daß die
Rückbesinnung auf die eigene Kultur und Mutter-
sprache auch in Tonga, Fidschi, auf den Cook- und
Salomon-Inseln durch Schriftsteller und Poeten
erfolgte, deren eigenes Ausdrucksmittel inzwi-
schen vorrangig die englische Sprache ist, und die
gewissermaßen auf dem Umweg über die regionale
SPCAS an der USP und über die Zeitschrift Mana
auf ihren Heimatinseln Zeitschriften gründeten, so
Faikava in Tonga (1978), Moana in West-Samoa
(1979), Sinnet in Fidschi (1980).
Albert Wendt ist besorgt über die wachsenden
Rivalitäten und Spannungen zwischen den ethni-
schen Gruppen an der USP, von der die Schrift-
steller nicht ausgenommen seien; besonders
schwierig sei die Rolle der “Indo-Fijians”, die
ihrer Literatur einen Sonderstatus (analog der Li-
teratur der “Westindies”) zu geben versuchten; er
bedauert, daß solche Fragen beispielsweise nicht
in einem größeren literarischen Werk zur Sprache
kämen, obwohl es ein Potential dafür gebe; ähn-
lich wie Subramani befürchtet er eine gefährliche
“polarization”, und er teilt dessen Hoffnung auf
kulturelle Vielfalt in einer gleichberechtigten Ge-
sellschaft, einer “multi-ethnic society”.
Die Berufung des inzwischen in der Region
und darüber hinaus berühmten Romanschriftstel-
lers, Essayisten und Lyrikers Albert Wendt auf
einen persönlichen Lehrstuhl für Literatur des
Pazifik unterstreicht eine grundlegende Wandlung
in der Einstellung der Universität gegenüber den
künstlerischen und literarischen Arbeiten ihrer
Mitglieder, die heute auch akademisch anerkannt
werden, auch wenn sie nicht unumstritten sind.
Es ist als ein Erfolg der SPCAS zu verbuchen,
wenn Studenten ihre Examensarbeiten heute auch
über die Literatur der Region schreiben können,
oder wenn in den USP-Zentren der Erwachsenen-
bildung auf den Inseln mit Hilfe der neuen
elektronischen Medien Schreibkurse angeboten
werden. In dieser Arbeit der SPCAS und der
Zeitschrift Mana, “to help encourage our people
to write and get their work published,” sieht
Albert Wendt die Kontinuität und die künftigen
Aufgaben der Gesellschaft.
Anthropos 83.1988
552
Berichte und Kommentare
c) Jo Nacola (Fidschi)
Der Autor mehrerer Dramen, einer der Gründer
der SPCAS und ihr erster Präsident, erinnert sich
im Gespräch an die Hoffnungen, die mit der
Gründung der USP verbunden waren und mit
einem Besuch Ulli Beiers 1969/70 aus PNG: “He
came specially to make suggestions on how to
encourage local people at universities and in the
public . . . how they can start writing and eventu-
ally would establish a national literature, so to
speak. Because that was a very interesting point in
time: Fiji was just at the threshold of independence
and the University of the South Pacific was only
one year old” [Beier 1969 u. pers. Mitteilung].
Die mit diesem Besuch verbundenen Erwar-
tungen haben sich auf der Ebene von Regierungs-
stellen und Universitätsverwaltung nicht erfüllt.
Für das Theater, das Jo Nacola besonders am
Herzen liegt, fehlt eine substantielle Unterstüt-
zung und Ermutigung von dieser Seite (anders als
in PNG) bis zum heutigen Tag: . . some sort of
synthesis of the performing arts and of traditional
arts and experimentation should be done at the
university. That this is not so, is very sad . . . when
the South Pacific is very rich in drama and
performing arts . . .” (vgl. Gericke und Kroog-
Hrubes 1986: 20-23; vgl. auch Schild 1981).
Gemeinsam mit Marjorie T. Crocombe enga-
giert er sich in den Jahren 1972/73 für die Grün-
dung der SPCAS, für Aufführungen und Work-
shops für junge Schriftsteller und Künstler, die
außerhalb seiner 16-18 stündigen Lehrverpflich-
tungen im English-Department als freiwillige Pro-
gramme veranstaltet werden. Das sei oft schwie-
rig: “Because in this part of the world and with the
facts of life, the students . . . must learn what will
help them in life as a Bread-and-Butter ticket.”
Jo Nacola stammt aus einem Dorf auf der
Hauptinsel (“Mainland”), 60 km von Suva ent-
fernt; es ist auch heute noch - in seinen Worten -
“very traditional”. Er besuchte die Queen Victoria
Highschool, eine Eliteschule der britischen Kolo-
nialverwaltung, in der die künftige Führungs-
schicht des Landes herangebildet werden sollte.
Erst später, vor allem während seines Studiums,
wurde ihm bewußt, was es bedeutet, in diesem
Sinne zur „Elite“ gebildet zu werden; man habe
ihnen als Schüler eingebläut “that we were going
to be the saviour of our people . . das war
1957/58; trotzdem, die Idee der Unabhängigkeit
habe schon in der Luft gelegen.
Nach der Schule habe er in Neuseeland
gearbeitet, um dort studieren zu können, und
jeden Job akzeptiert, der sich mit seinem Lehrplan
vereinbaren ließ: Fensterputzer, Müllmann, Stra-
ßenfeger, Wäschereiarbeiter. In seinen Briefen
nach Hause, so erzählt er, habe er seine Lust am
Schreiben entdeckt, “they were moments of ex-
pressing myself”. Der nächste Schritt war ein
Tagebuch. Im Studium wechselte er das Fach:
englische Literatur statt Administration, “so that I
would be able to express myself”.
Nach langen Jahren in Neuseeland und spä-
ter, mit einem Commonwealth-Stipendium in Exe-
ter (England), wo er Theater und Drama studierte,
begann er nach seiner Heimkehr nach Fidschi die
ersten Stücke zu schreiben “about race relations or
communications”, “Indo-Fijians and Fijians”,
“mixed marriages and the problems it brings about
for their families. These have been the ideas that
engaged me for the last few years.” Seine Thea-
terarbeit mit den Studenten sollte zum gegenseiti-
gen Verstehen der verschiedenen Gruppen an der
Universität einen Beitrag leisten (1976, 1978).
Jo Nacola empfindet die englische Sprache, in
der er seine Stücke schreibt, als Bereicherung
seiner Welt; gerade durch die Erfahrungen in einer
anderen Kultur habe er auch die Menschen in
seinem Dorf besser verstehen gelernt. Da er dort
alle Traditionen kenne, betrachteten sie ihn “as
one of them . . . but the blessed one. He has this
and this and this, but at the same time he can be
with us and he is with us.” Natürlich spiele die
Sprache für diese Zugehörigkeit eine wesentliche
Rolle, sie sei “part and parcel of it”. Aber
Englisch? “That is the growing part of me . . . the
only thing that counters that aging process.”
Jo Nacola arbeitet auch an einem Roman über
seine Jahre in Neuseeland, “a Fijian novel . . .
something like ‘Lord Jim’ . . . but written in Fijian
... I want to write in Fijian because I know I am at
home in the language, too. It’s not just that, I know
there are people who would enjoy reading that, for
the first time, ... so it’s not just a writer indulging
in something, ... he is fulfilling a duty towards
them.”
Jo Nacolas Leben und Werk geben exempla-
risch Einblick in die Probleme einer Generation
von Schriftstellern, die noch im Dorf aufgewach-
sen ist, sich dort verwurzelt fühlt, zugleich aber
auch im Gespräch mit der Welt ist.
d) Subramani (Fidschi)
Er war in den ersten Jahren des Bestehens
(1976-1978) verantwortlicher Herausgeber der
Zeitschrift Mana Review/Mana, beurteilt die heu-
tige Bedeutung der SPCAS eher skeptisch, beson-
ders auch die für ihn mit der Gesellschaft stark
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
553
verbundene “conservative ideology of the ‘Pacific
Way’”, die eine nicht vorhandene kulturelle Ho-
mogenität vorspiegele; auch übe sie eine ethnisch
selektive Schirmherrschaft aus, die begreiflicher-
weise einige Schriftsteller der Gesellschaft ent-
fremdet habe. Er konstatiert “the polarization of
the literary élites and the shift towards national
interest and local language . . . Der anfängliche
Idealismus der SPCAS sei nun auf einen kleinen
Kern von Autoren beschränkt.
Subramani lebt in Fidschi; er hat sich als
Erzähler und Kritiker und als einer der besten
Kenner der modernen Literatur des Südpazifik
und der „Dritten Welt“ einen Namen gemacht; er
gehört zu deren engagierten Verfechtern gegen-
über falschen Erwartungen von „Authentizität“;
er verteidigt ihr Recht auf Entwicklung und fordert
begründete Kriterien für die Beurteilung ihrer
Qualität. Er holt den in der Luft liegenden Streit
um die sogenannte “programmed literature” der
gerade unabhängig gewordenen Staaten der „Drit-
ten Welt“ in die Seiten seines Mana-Forum (siehe
auch Wendt 1978; 13-14; in Subramani 1985 wird
diese Diskussion auch historisch vertieft).
Mana trägt in den ersten Nummern ganz die
Handschrift des ungewöhnlich belesenen, litera-
risch wie analytisch begabten Herausgebers Subra-
mani, der die Zeitschrift zugleich als Experimen-
tierfeld poetischer Schreibversuche, als Publika-
tionsorgan etablierter Schriftsteller wie auch als
Forum für die Diskussion künstlerischer und lite-
rarischer Fragen betrachten möchte. Dieses Kon-
zept habe aber leider wegen mangelnder Resonanz
bei den Autoren und Lesern schon während seiner
Herausgeberschaft nicht voll realisiert werden
können; die kritische Komponente wurde weitge-
hend verdrängt.
Subramani gehört auch heute noch zu den
wichtigsten Mittlern zwischen den “Indo-Fijians”
und den “Pacific Isländers“; er repräsentiert den
Typus des kreativen Intellektuellen, der es in
einem kulturellen Klima, das stark von geistigem
Harmoniebedürfnis bestimmt ist, mit seiner kri-
tisch-analytischen Orientierung nicht immer leicht
hat, der die Dinge aber zur Sprache bringen will.
Sein Buch “The Indo-Fijian Expérience” (1979) ist
dafür ein Beispiel.
Im Gespräch mit Subramani nehmen diese
Fragen, die unmittelbar mit seiner Herkunft zu tun
haben, breiten Raum ein: “My father was an
indentured person brought to work in the sugar-
cane fields. He died when I was about twelve ....
Cultural things were not of great importance in a
way that we look at it; there was so much to do with
working and living, surviving. But as I was begin-
ning to grow up, he was beginning to get worried
about things. And I could see that. And reflecting
now . . .? It’s sad .... But at that time it was just
trying to survive, trying to get an education .... I
simply had to be the best in the class in order to get
a scholarship ... it was all very hard work ... .”
“There tends to be that barrier between the Fijians
and the Indians, that they were put into that kind
of desperate situation to go ahead. Like immi-
grants in most places.”
Vor diesem Erfahrungshintergrund geht es
Subramani in seiner Arbeit als Schriftsteller, als
Wissenschaftler und als Lehrer um den Abbau
ethnischer Konflikte und Vorurteile (racial ten-
sions); auch sein Verhältnis zur englischen Spra-
che, in der er auch seine Kinder heute erzieht, ist
davon geprägt, und er setzt - wie viele seiner
Schriftstellerkollegen, die inzwischen auf den In-
seln des Pazifik und in der Welt herumgekommen
sind - seine Hoffnungen auf eine multikulturelle
Gesellschaft, in der die Vielfalt ethnischer Unter-
schiede als Bereicherung erlebt wird.
In den literarischen Arbeiten Albert Wendts,
besonders in dessen Romanen (z. B. “Sons for the
Return Home”), zeichnet sich für Subramani ein
Weg ab, der - gekennzeichnet durch das avancier-
te Bewußtsein des Autors - den Graben überwin-
det, der heute entlang ethnischer Grenzen ver-
läuft, und der eine Verbindung von Tradition und
Moderne, von radikalem Individualismus und
kollektivem Spiritualismus herzustellen versteht.
In seinen eigenen dicht erzählten Kurzge-
schichten, zum Beispiel “No Man’s Land” (1977),
versucht Subramani die Tiefe dieses Grabens
durch Einfühlung in die Alltagserfahrung und
Erlebniswelt derer auszuloten, die sich in ihrem
eigenen Land bedroht sehen; Literatur ist für ihn
auch Selbsterforschung und Weg zur Verständi-
gung.
Zitierte Literatur
Beier, Ulli
1969 The Potential Role of the University of the South Pacific
in Encouraging the Arts. A Special Report for the
University of the South Pacific. [Unpubl. MS, 18 pp.]
Buck, Peter H.
1972 Vikings of the Pacific. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. [5th ed.; first published as “Vikings of the
Sunrise”, 1938]
Crocombe, Marjorie Tuainekore
1964 They Came for Sandalwood. Wellington. [Repr. Suva,
Fidschi: SPCAS. 4th ed. 1981]
1974 Mana Annual of Creative Writing. Suva, Fidschi;
SPCAS.
Anthropos 83.1988
554
Berichte und Kommentare
1975 If I Live. The Life of Ta’unga. Suva, Fidschi: Lotu
Pasifica.
1977 Mana and Creative Regional Cooperation. Third Mana
Annual of Creative Writing. Suva, Fidschi: SPCAS.
1980 Independence Movements Bred the New Wave of
Pacific Writers. Pacific Islands Monthly (PIM) August:
140-147.
Crocombe, R. G.
1973 The New South Pacific. Wellington: Publ. in association
with the University of the South Pacific - Reed
Education. [Revised and reprinted 1978]
Gericke, Wolf Rüdiger und Ulla Kroog-Hrubes
1986 Auf eigenen Wegen. Neues Theater in Papua-Neu-
guinea. Theater heute 3.
Gizycki, Renate von
1978 Haku Meie - The Role of the Poet in Polynesian
Society. Mana - A South Pacific Journal of Language
and Literature 2/2.
1980 Kulturelle Initiativen zwischen Samoa und Papua-
Neuguinea. Der Überblick 4.
1986a Nachbarn in der Südsee - Reiseberichte über Inseln im
Pazifik. Frankfurt. (Fischer-Taschenbuch, 3884)
1986b “Our Own Visions of Oceania and Earth” - Zeitgenös-
sische Schriftsteller im Südpazifik (Polynesien) und
Probleme kultureller Identität. Anthropos 81;
264-276.
Helu Thaman, Konai
1974 You, the Choice of my Parents. Suva, Fidschi:
SPCAS.
1986 Inselfeuer - Gedichte aus Tonga. Nürnberg: Tolling
Verlag. (Reihe Literatur des Pazifik; Auswahl, Über-
setzung und Nachwort von R. v. Gizycki)
Manoa, Pio
1976 Singing in Their Genealogical Trees. Mana-Review 1/1:
61-69.
Nacola, Jo
1976 I Native No More. Three Drama Sketches. Suva,
Fidschi: SPCAS.
1978 Gurudial and the Land. Mana 3/1.
Schild, Ulla
1981 Literaturen in Papua-Neuguinea. Berlin; D. Reimer.
(Mainzer Ethnologische Arbeiten, 3)
Stenderup, Vibeke
1985 Pacific Islands Creative Writing. A Select Annotated
Guide for Students, Librarians, and the General Read-
er. 58 pp. (Comp, and privately publ. by V. Stenderup,
Saralystvej 15, 8270 Hdjbjerg, Denmark)
Subramani
1977 No Man’s Land. Mana 2/1: 55-62.
1985 South Pacific Literature - From Myth to Fabulation.
Suva, Fidschi: University of the South Pacific, Institute
of Pacific Studies. [Diss.]
Subramani (ed.)
1979 The Indo-Fijian Experience. Brisbane: University of
Queensland.
The South Pacific Creative Arts Society (SPCAS)
1981 A Report. Suva, Fidschi: SPCAS.
Tuwhare, Hone
1964 No Ordinary Sun (Poems). Dunedin.
Wendt, Albert
1973 Sons for the Return Home. Auckland: Longman
Paul.
1976a Towards a New Oceania. Mana-Review 1/1: 49-60.
1976b Opening Ceremony Address. In: Report on Regional
Visual Arts Workshop. Tonga.
1978 Mana-Forum. Mana 3/1.
1982 Der Clan von Samoa. Wuppertal: Hammer.
Das Bidiya - eine neue osttschadische
Sprache
Rainer M. Voigt
Seitdem J. Lukas in seinen „Zentralsudanischen
Studien“ (Hamburg 1937) eine grammatische Skiz-
ze des Mubi veröffentlicht hat, erfreuen sich die
im äußersten Osten des tschadischen Sprachgebie-
tes gesprochenen Idiome der besonderen - durch
den Mangel an neuem Material noch genährten -
Aufmerksamkeit der Tschadisten und Semitoha-
mitisten. In den östlichen Gruppen des Osttscha-
dischen, d. i. vor allem in der Dangla- und der
Mubi-Birgid-Gruppe, finden sich nämlich viele
altererbte Züge, die in den anderen Sprachgrup-
pen nicht mehr so deutlich zu erkennen oder ganz
verlorengegangen sind. Obwohl eine neue und
umfassende Beschreibung gerade des Mubi noch
aussteht, sind einige Vertreter des östlichen Ost-
tschadisch in den letzten Jahren in den „Marburger
Studien“ monographisch gewürdigt worden, wie
das (Ost-)Dangaleat (durch C. Ebobisse, 1979)
und das Migama (durch H. Jungraithmayr, noch
nicht erschienen, aber angekündigt). Hinzu
kommt jetzt das Bidiyo oder Bidiya, das von über
zwölftausend Sprechern (den Bidiye) im zentralen
Tschad östlich von den Dangaleat gesprochen
wird. Khalil Alio präsentiert in vorliegendem
Werk,1 einer bei H. Jungraithmayr noch in Mar-
burg/Lahn angefertigten Doktorarbeit, eine aus-
führliche Beschreibung dieser bisher (fast) nur
dem Namen nach bekannten tschadischen Spra-
che.
1 Khalil Alio: Essai de description de la langue bidiya du
Guéra (Tchad). Phonologie, grammaire. Berlin: Dietrich
Reimer Verlag, 1986. XVIII + 365 pp. (Marburger Studien
zur Afrika- und Asienkunde. Serie A: Afrika, 45) Preis:
DM49,00.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
555
Das phonologische System der Sprache wird
durch die möglichen Oppositionen von Wörtern
bestimmt, die sich nur in einem Segment (und
gelegentlich in einem abweichenden Ton) vonein-
ander unterscheiden. Dabei wird auch die Position
der bedeutungsdifferenzierenden Einheiten im
Wort beachtet. Es ergibt sich ein - für semitoha-
mitische Sprachen üblicher - Konsonantenblock
mit jeweils drei Vertretern (stl. : glottal. : sth.) in
jeder Reihe. Vollständig ist die labiale (pßb),
dentale {t dd) und palatale Reihe (c dy f); demge-
genüber ist die alveopalatale (s - z) und die velare
Reihe {k- g) unvollständig. Um bei der palatalen
Reihe den Bezug zur Dentalreihe sichtbar zu
machen, könnte man sie auch - innerhalb
Konsonantenblockes - wie folgt wiedergeben:
P 6 b m
t cf d n
s - z -
ty dy dy ny
k - g ü
Die grammatikalische Beschreibung orien-
tiert sich an der Methodik, wie sie in der dreibän-
digen, von L. Bouquiaux und J. M. C. Thomas
herausgegebenen «Enquête et description des
langues à tradition orale» (Paris 1976) für die
Aufnahme afrikanischer Sprachen entwickelt wur-
de. Die Identifizierung und Bestimmung gramma-
tischer Kategorien erfolgt nach ihrer Position,
ihrer Kommutationsfähigkeit und ihren Kombinie-
rungsmöglichkeiten im Satz. Man gewinnt so die
Kategorien der selbständigen Pronomina, Partizi-
pien, Numeralia, Verben usw. Durch diese auf der
Satzeinheit sich gründenden Verfahrensweise wer-
den auch syntaktische Erscheinungen behandelt,
die in ersten Beschreibungen afrikanischer Spra-
chen gewöhnlich keine Berücksichtigung finden.
Im Bereich der nominalen Morphologie sei
nur auf einige Besonderheiten hingewiesen, wie
die Genusunterscheidung (mit -a als Femininzei-
chen, z. B. bâkô, f. bâkà ,benachbart3 4 * * * *), die äußere
Pluralbildung (vorwiegend mit -i und -e), die
innere Pluralbildung (mit internem -a-, z. B. dùb-
lö, pl. dùbâl2 Junger Mann4, das sich vokalharmo-
nisch zu -e- bzw. -o- angleicht, z. B. 9èytî, pl. 9èyét
,Fluß4 bzw. gôlmà, pl. gölöm ,Seite4) und die
Bildung von deverbalen Nomina (mit Hilfe der
,Femininendung4 -a aber auch der ,Maskulinen-
dung4 -o). Beachtenswert ist auch die Bildungswei-
se mit dem Suffix -te, das an diejenigen Substanti-
2 Der waagerechte Strich über dem Vokalzeichen bezeichnet
den Mittelton. In anderen Sprachen steht er für die
Vokallänge.
ve ohne Possessivsuffixe tritt, welche sich durch
eine unveräußerliche Beziehung zu ihrem Rektum
auszeichnen, z. B. tä-te ,der täte (jidd.)4, mit
Suffix der 2. pl. tä-kön ,euer Vater4, und sin-te
,Bruder4.
Das im Tschadischen weitverbreitete Wort für
,Bruder4 verdient eine kurze etymologische Be-
trachtung, da es in vier der fünf semitohamitischen
Zweige belegt ist. Es hat seine etymologischen
Entsprechungen im Ägyptischen (sn ,id.4) und in
mehreren kuschitischen Sprachen, wie dem
Bedauye (san ,id.4) und dem Agaw (Awqi sen,
Bilin dän ,id.4 mit regelmäßigem Lautwandel).3
Dieser Wurzel entspricht im Semitischen nicht,
wie gewöhnlich angenommen wird, das Zahlwort
für ,zwei4 (6NI, z. B. akkad. sinän, arab. iOnäni,
vgl. ägypt. sn ,zwei4), sondern eher die Wurzel, die
in akkad. sanänu(m) gleichen4 vorliegt, womit
ägypt. snsn ,sich gesellen zu4 zu vergleichen ist.4
Die Wurzel für ,Bruder4 ist übrigens im Ägypti-
schen tertiae vocalis, wie der koptischen Plural-
form (snew ,Brüder4) zu entnehmen ist (s. Osing
1976: 420). Der Plural von Bidiya sin-te, d. i.
seney ,Brüder4, bietet nun die Möglichkeit, den
dritten Radikal auch für das Tschadische anzuset-
zen. Bei dem Element -ey kann es sich nämlich
nicht - wie der Verfasser p. 235 meint - um eine
Pluralendung handeln, da sich die wenigen
Beispiele alle anders erklären lassen. So ist der
dort angeführte Pl. meleyvon melyä ,Geschichte4
besser als gebrochene Pluralbildung des Typs
bellä, pl. belel ,Stock4 aufzufassen. Die sg. Form
sin-te möchte ich von daher aus siny-te ableiten,
wozu der Pl. seney dann ganz regelmäßig gebildet
wäre. Vielleicht könnte man auf diese Weise auch
den Pl. semey von seme ,Name‘, ebenfalls ein im
Tschadischen weitverbreitetes Etymon, zur Re-
konstruktion des Sg. heranziehen (*semy-).
Die Personalzeichen am Verb und am Nomen
sowie die Personalpronomina sind so vielfältig,
daß es einige Zeit in Anspruch nehmen wird, ihren
Aufbau im tschadischen und semitohamitischen
Rahmen zu erkennen. In einem Teilbereich ist
jetzt schon ein Ansatz zu einer Deutung möglich.
Die reduzierten Formen des selbständigen Perso-
nalpronomens der dritten Personen, welche durch
3 S. Rössler 1987: 385. Zu den Agaw-Belegen s. Appleyard
1984: 42).
4 Persönliche Mitteilung von H. Prof. O. Rössler, für die ich
ihm an dieser Stelle herzlich danken möchte. S. Rössler
1979: 24, wo sich auch weitere tschadische Belege finden.
Die dort gegebene Vergleichung mit akkad. sanü(m) ,der
andere* erübrigt sich damit. Weder die Grundbedeutung
,anderer* noch die Grundbedeutung ,zwei* passen zu
,Bruder(/Schwester)‘.
Anthropos 83.1988
556
Berichte und Kommentare
Abtrennung des Elementes -nda aus den absoluten
Personalpronomina hergeleitet werden können,
lauten sg. m. gä, f. nä, pl. gü. Ich möchte hier den
velaren Nasal auf n+k und den alveolaren Nasal
auf n + t zurückführen;
Sg- m. n + kä -*■ üä
f. n + tä —» na
pl . c. n + ku -* üü
Assimilation des Dentals in der femininen
Form vergleiche die Entwicklung kääti+nö —>
käännö ,ich ging weg4 (123). Den eigentlichen
Beweis für unsere Ableitung gewinnen wir aus
einem Vergleich mit anderen Personal- und De-
monstrativelementen. Erwähnt seien 1. die Ob-
jektspronomina am Imperativ und Aorist-Sub-
junktiv (202), 2. eine Art von Demonstrativen
(207) und 3. die Determinative (209):
1. 2. 3.
sg. 3. m. -gä köö kä
f. -tä töö tä
pl. 3. c. -gü küü kù
Offensichtlich sind die Parallelen zu kuschitischen
Sprachen, vgl. nur die Demonstrativpronomina
des Galla/Oromo (1.) und die Artikel des Somali
(2.):
1.
sg. m. kana/kuni
f. tana/tuni
pl. m. kani
f. tani
2.
-ka, -kii, -ku
-ta, -tü, -tu
(wie sg.)
(wie sg.)
Damit ist ein weiteres Merkmal bestimmt, welches
das Tschadische mit dem Kuschitischen verbin-
det.
Im Bereich der verbalen Morphologie, die
vom Verfasser ausführlich dargestellt wird, möch-
te ich auf die verschiedenen Arten von Suffixkon-
jugationen hinweisen, welche auch in anderen
osttschadischen Sprachen belegt sind (s. Jungraith-
mayr 1987). Die im Aorist («accompli») des Bidiya
verwendeten suffigierten Personalelemente sind
dabei mit den aus dem Berberischen, Semitischen
und Kuschitischen bekannten präfigierten Perso-
nalelementen identisch:
Bidiya Semitohamitisch
sg. 3. m. -yi y-
f. -ti t-
pl. 3. -yo y-
Es ist der Verdacht begründet, die Übereinstim-
mungen zwischen den beiden Paradigmen könnten
durch Herleitung aus einem ursprachlichen Para-
digma erklärt werden (s. Voigt 1987a). Die suffi-
gierten Personalelemente des Bidiya wären dann
Überreste von postponierten Hilfsverben, die in
präfigierender Weise konjugiert sind.
Die beiden semitohamitischen Themen
(Aspekte) der Präfixkonjugation, die auch im
Tschadischen angesetzt werden müssen, sind der
Aorist («accompli») und das Präsens («inaccom-
pli»). Während sich die beiden Themen in ihrer
ursprünglichen morphologischen Differenzierung
in einigen osttschadischen Sprachen erhalten ha-
ben (vgl. Mubi tîî : tuwà ,essen4, mat : mùwat
,sterben4) (s. Jungraithmayr 1974: 591 f.), scheint
im Bidiya auf den ersten Blick nur ein Thema
vertreten zu sein. Eine Analyse der Formen bringt
jedoch das verloren geglaubte Präsensthema an
den Tag. Das Präsens wird in regelmäßiger Weise
von der verbalen Basis durch Suffigierung von
-ga/-ka gebildet (z. B. tää-gä ,essen4), wobei ein
Langvokal in geschlossener Silbe verkürzt wird
{dyoor-gä —> dydr-gä ,lieben4, 309). Bei einigen
Verben mit langem Vokal in der Basis wird nun
der Vokal ebenfalls verkürzt, obwohl er wegen
eines vor dem Element -ga/-ka auftretenden Vo-
kals in offener Silbe steht, vgl. die präsentische
Form mätä-kä ,sterben4, die von der Basis määt
gebildet ist. Die Entwicklung maat-ka —» mat-ka
—* matä-kä ist auszuschließen, weil sich kein
Grund für die Einfügung eines Hilfsvokals ange-
ben läßt. Wenn man hingegen die ursprüngliche
Längung des letzten Wurzelradikals annimmt,
erscheint der Hilfsvokal motiviert. Wir nehmen
von daher folgende Entwicklung an:
*maatt-ka^> *maatta-ka-^> *matta-ka—> mätä-
kä.
Die hier angesetzte Aufgabe der Konsonantenlän-
gung ist durch ihr geringes Vorkommen innerhalb
der Sprache gestützt. Von einigen wohl durch
Expressivität ausgezeichneten Fällen abgesehen
(siehe 123 f.) kommt eine Folge von identischen
Konsonanten nur dann vor, wenn sie durch eine
Morphemfuge (Junktur) getrennt werden, vgl. dä-
wän+nin ,wir gingen4. Außerdem gibt es synchron
nachvollziehbare Fälle von Vereinfachungen ge-
längter Konsonanten. So lautet das Präsens («inac-
compli») von ßök ,hervorsprudeln4 ßokä, was auf
ßok-gä zurückgeht. Das unregelmäßige Verb rääd
,krank werden4, mit seinem Präsens räkä <— rakka
raad-ga (?, s. u.), zeigt außer der Aufgabe der
Konsonantenlänge die Vokalverkürzung in ge-
schlossenen Silben.
Die Bildungsweise des Präsens ist für die
innertschadische Rekonstruktion und den außer-
tschadischen Vergleich von so großer Bedeutung,
daß man bei der Erklärung einzelsprachlicher
Formen möglichst viele Gesichtspunkte berück-
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
557
sichtigen sollte. Die Allomorphie des Bidiya-
Präsens -gä/-kä ist von uns nicht in der nötigen
Weise beachtet worden. Dies sei jetzt nachgeholt.
Nach unserem Ansatz ergibt sich folgende Vertei-
lung der beiden Varianten: -gä steht nach Vokal
und (einfachem) Konsonanten und -ka nach ur-
sprünglich gelängtem Konsonanten, wobei zwi-
schen beiden ein Hilfsvokal in Erscheinung tritt.
Was könnte nun die Ursache für die stimmlose
Realisierung des Velars sein, wenn man die Form
-ga als ursprünglich ansetzt? Man könnte an die
Assimilation an einen vorangehenden Konsonan-
ten denken und müßte dann bei stimmhaftem
Auslaut an eine Analogiebildung denken. Sinnvol-
ler scheint es mir zu sein, von einer ursprünglichen
Verdoppelung auszugehen, die auf die Assimila-
tion des Auslautradikals der Wurzel zurückgeht.
Von der Basis määt ,sterben4 leitet sich demnach
das Präsens wie folgt ab:
*maatt-ga —> *matat-ga —> *matakka —> mätä-
kä.
Der a-Vokal zwischen dem wiederholten Radikal
der Wurzel stellt hier einen Hilfsvokal dar, der zur
Vermeidung einer Dreifachkonsonanz eingefügt
wird. Schwieriger ist die Ableitung bei Wurzeln
mit stimmhaftem Auslaut (z. B. nüüb ,fühlen4):
*nuubb-ga —> *nubab-ga —> *nubag-ga (?) —>
nübäkä.
Bei der Annahme einer ursprünglichen Form -ga
bleibt auch das schon angeführte Präsens von rääcf
,krank werden4, d. i. räkä, unerklärlich. Die Pro-
bleme lassen sich vermeiden, wenn -ka als ur-
sprüngliches Präsenssuffix angesetzt wird. Aus
nubab-ka kann leicht nubakka —> nübäkä entste-
hen, desgleichen räkä aus raakka <— raacf-ka. Nur
gelängtes kk wäre danach im Bidiya als k erhalten,
während nicht-gelängtes k im Wortinnern zu g
geworden wäre. Eine weitere Erhärtung dieser
Feststellung durch Sprachvergleich ist wünschens-
wert.
Mit unserer - soeben etwas modifizierten -
Ableitung ist die Konsonantenlängung als semito-
hamitisches Mittel zur Bildung des Präsens («inac-
compli») nunmehr in einer weiteren osttschadi-
schen Sprache belegt, vgl. Migama (Aorist) kü-
tüm-e : (Präsens) kötömm-ä ,umwickeln4 (s. Voigt
1987b: 339).
Konsonantenlängung ist vielleicht noch in
einem anderen Fall als morphologisches Mittel
greifbar. Beim Verbum kämen nur die abgeleite-
ten Verbalstämme in Frage, die sich durch die
Längung eines Radikals auszeichnen, d. s. die
Intensivstämme. Tatsächlich gibt es nun im Bidiya
eine Verbalableitung mit durativ-intensiver Be-
deutung, die zwar keine Konsonantenlängung,
dafür aber eine Verkürzung des vorangehenden
Vokals an den Tag legt. Dieses Bildungsprinzip gilt
nur für zweiradikalige Verbalwurzeln (337):
dees ,sich ausruhen1 : desew ,sich immer wieder ausru-
hen1
9ääd ,trinken1 : 9ädäw .häufig trinken1
Die Formen des Intensivstammes ließen sich dann
wie folgt ableiten:
*deess-ew —> *dess-ew —► des-ew
*‘?äädd-äw —* *9ädd-äw —* ?äd-äw
Die beiden zur Ableitung nötigen Regeln betref-
fen die Vokalverkürzung vor Doppelkonsonanz
und die Aufgabe der Konsonantenlänge.
Unsere Ausführungen sollten zeigen, welche
Überraschungen das Osttschadische zu bieten hat,
das nun auch dank der tüchtigen Arbeit des
Verfassers immer mehr an Kontur gewinnt. Man
darf auf das neue, vom Verfasser und von H.
Jungraithmayr gesammelte Material gespannt
sein, das in dem angekündigten und hoffentlich
bald erscheinenden Wörterbuch des Bidiya enthal-
ten sein wird.
Zitierte Literatur
Appleyard, D. L.
1984 The International Classification of the Agaw Lan-
guages. Current Progress in Afro-Asiatic Linguistics.
Amsterdam.
Bouquiaux, L, et J. M. C. Thomas (éds.)
1976 Enquête et description des langues à tradition orale.
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Ebobissé, C.
1979 Die Morphologie des Verbs im Ost-Dangaleat (Guera,
Tschad). Berlin.
Jungraithmayr, H.
1974 Perfektiv- (Kurz-) und Imperfektiv- (Lang-) Stamm im
Aspektsystem osttschadohamitischer Sprachen. ZDMG
Suppl. 2: 583-595.
1987 Zur Suffixkonjugation im Osttschadischen. Afrika und
Übersee 70: 49-60.
Osing, J.
1976 Die Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen; Bd. 2. Mainz.
Rössler, O.
1979 Berberisch-tschadisches Kernvokabular. Africana Mar-
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Voigt, R. M.
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Anthropos 83.1988
558
Berichte und Kommentare
Fourth Addendum to “The Matrilineal
Peoples of Eastern Tanzania”
Thomas O. Beidelman
Over the past twenty years, I have continued to
publish revisions to my original bibliography of the
matrilineal peoples of Eastern Tanzania (“The
Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania”, Lon-
don: IAI, 1967; pp. 72-82), in Africa 39.1969,
44.1974, and in Anthropos 76.1981. The present
note constitutes my forth and final contribution to
this. I leave further work on this task to other
scholars.
Anonymous
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Foreign Bible Society.
Beidelman, T. O.
1982 Colonial Evangelism: A Socio-Historical Study of an
East African Mission at the Grassroots. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
[Missionwork in the area, mainly among the Kaguru]
1983 The Organization and Maintenance of Caravans by the
Church Missionary Society in Tanzania in the Nine-
teenth Century. The International Journal of African
Studies 15: 601-623.
[Some historical material on events in Ukaguru, Ungu-
lu]
1986 Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Brain, James L.
1980 The Uluguru Land Usage Scheme: Success and Failure.
The Journal of Developing Areas 14; 175-190.
Brenzinger, Matthias
1987 East African Beekeeping Vocabularies: kiZigua.
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Cassanelli, Lee V.
1987 Social Construction on the Somali Frontier: Bantu
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pp. 216-238. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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Chipindulla, D. C.
1968 The Maji Maji Rising in Kilosa Town. Maji Maji
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1978 Survival or Extinction: Reflections on the Problem of
Famine in Tsimshian and Kaguru Mythology. In: C. D.
Laughlin and I. A. Brady (eds.), Extinction and Sur-
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Columbia University Press.
[Thin use of some of Beidelman’s published texts]
Forssen, Anja
1980 Illness and Healing in a Traditional East African Tribe.
In: T. Vaskilampi and C. MacCormack (eds.), Folk
Medicine and Health Culture; pp. 235-256. Kuopia
(Finland): University of Kuopia Press. (Originally
published in Psychiatrica Fennica 1980: 56-68)
[On Zaramo]
Giblin, James
1986 Famine and Social Change During the Transition to
Colonial Rule in Northeastern Tanzania, 1880-1896.
African Economic History 15: 85-105.
[On Uzigula]
Leleur, Annette
1979-1980 Sexes and Chaos? Folk 21/22: 161-194.
[Contains a brief reanalysis of Ngulu ritual]
Mkunduge, G. L.
1973 The Ukaguru Environment; Traditional and Recent
Responses to Food Shortages. Journal of the Geo-
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Pitblado, J. Roger
1981 The North Mkata Plain, Tanzania. Toronto: Depart-
ment of Geography, University of Toronto Press.
(Research Publications, 16)
Rapp, A. V. Axelson, L. Berry, and D. H. Murray-Rust
1972 Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport in the Morogoro
River Cathment, Tanzania. In: A. Rapp, L. Berry, and
P. Temple (eds.). Studies of Soil Erosion and Sedimen-
tation in Tanzania. Geografiska Annaler 54/A;
125-155.
[Not obtained]
Temple, Paul
1972 Soil and Water Conservation Policies in the Uluguru
Mountains, Tanzania. In: A. Rapp, L. Berry, and P.
Temple (eds.). Studies of Soil Erosion and Sedimenta-
tion in Tanzania. Geografiska Annaler 54/A.
[Not obtained]
Temple, Paul FL, and A. Rapp
1972 Landslides in the Mgeta Area, Western Uluguru Moun-
tains, Tanzania. In: A. Rapp, L. Berry, and P. Temple
(eds.), Studies of Soil Erosion and Sedimentation in
Tanzania. Geografiska Annaler 54/A.
[Not obtained]
Turshen, Meredith
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Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
[Sixth chapter on Kilosa area]
Frauen in Westafrika
Zweites Treffen der Arbeitsgruppe
Adam Jones
Nach dem Erfolg des ersten Treffens dieser Ar-
beitsgruppe auf dem Afrikanistentag in Bayreuth
im November 1986 (siehe Anthropos 82. 1987:
649-652) erschien es sinnvoll, ein zweites Treffen
zu organisieren. Die Kölner Tagung der Deut-
schen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde im Oktober
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
559
1987 bot eine Gelegenheit dazu. Den Wünschen
der Tagungsorganisatoren entsprechend wurden
zwei Poster über die Arbeitsgruppe von Sabine
Steinbrich und Barbara Rocksloh-Papendieck ver-
fertigt. Die Vorträge fanden am 9. Oktober
statt.1
Eva-Maria Bruchhaus (Köln) sprach über
„Möglichkeiten und Probleme der Förderung von
ländlichen Selbsthilfegruppen bei Frauen in West-
afrika“. Aufgrund der kontinuierlichen Ver-
schlechterung der Lebensbedingungen in West-
afrika, verbunden mit einem zunehmenden Rück-
zug der staatlichen Dienste aus wichtigen Berei-
chen wie Infrastruktur und Gesundheitsfürsorge,
bildeten sich in zahlreichen Ländern Selbsthilfe-
gruppen, die vorwiegend von Nichtregierungsor-
ganisationen unterstützt werden. Wie in anderen
Ländern der Dritten Welt stellen Frauen den
überwiegenden Anteil der Basis. Die Bildung und
das Funktionieren dieser Gruppen werden durch
vorhandene Strukturen gefördert, z. B. durch die
noch bestehenden Traditionen der Gruppenarbeit
und der gegenseitigen Hilfe sowie die traditionelle
geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilung. Die Tatsa-
che, daß Frauen ihren eigenen Aufgaben- und
Verantwortungsbereich haben und in gemischten
Gruppen oft bevormundet und ausgenutzt wer-
den, führt zu einer oft bemerkenswerten Motiva-
tion und, aufbauend auf den erreichten Erfolgen,
zu gestärktem Selbstbewußtsein. Das geht nicht
immer ohne Konflikte mit den Männern ab. Trotz
weit verbreitetem Fehlen von formeller und infor-
meller Ausbildung zeichnen sich viele Gruppen
durch ihre Organisationsfähigkeit aus, sowohl im
Bereich der Gruppenorganisation als auch im
Hinblick auf die Aktivitäten. Dabei sind manche
Gruppen in der Lage, langfristig zu planen. Pro-
bleme ergeben sich zumeist auf der Ebene der
Gruppenzusammenschlüsse auf regionaler oder
nationaler Ebene, wo die Frauengruppen oft die
Rolle von Steigbügelhaltern für Männer spielen.
Bei der Beurteilung darf man den kulturellen,
sozialen und politischen Kontext nicht außer acht
lassen.
Die genannten Faktoren sind als Ansatzpunk-
te für eine gezielte Förderung von Frauenselbsthil-
fegruppen je nach Land und Volksgruppe unter-
schiedlich geeignet. Angesichts der Forderung
nach verstärkter Integration der Frauen in die
Entwicklungsanstrengungen v. a. durch einkom-
mensschöpfende Maßnahmen muß man sich aller-
1 Die Zusammenfassungen der Vorträge stammen von den
Autorinnen selbst, denen ich für ihre Mitarbeit und Hilfe
danke.
dings fragen, ob dadurch nicht ein “disengage-
menf ’ sowohl der Männer als auch der staatlichen
Dienste sowie eine zunehmende Ausbeutung der
Frauenarbeitskraft durch ungleiche Austauschre-
lationen erreicht wird. Die Betroffenen selbst
haben sich jedoch für diesen Weg entschieden, mit
oder ohne Unterstützung von außen.
Hortense Hoffmann (Aachen) ergänzte die
allgemeine Darstellung von Eva-Maria Bruchhaus
mit einem geographisch begrenzteren Beitrag über
„Handlungsmöglichkeiten der Yoruba-Frauen
durch ihre traditionellen und neuen Zusammen-
schlüsse“.
Der Titel des Vortrags von Adam Jones
(Institut für Historische Ethnologie, Universität
Frankfurt) lautete: „Das mmobomme der Akan-
Frauen im 19. Jahrhundert: Ermutigung der Krie-
ger oder sexuelle Inversion?“ Die Bezeichnung
mmobomme beschreibt ein Ritual, das früher von
den Frauen im Südwesten des heutigen Ghana
(Fante, Asante usw.) praktiziert wurde, wenn ihre
Männer in den Krieg zogen. Wichtige Aspekte
waren: das Beschmieren des Körpers mit weißem
Lehm; das Tragen nachgeahmter Waffen bzw.
männlicher Werkzeuge; ein Umzug durch das
Dorf unter großem Lärm (Schreien, Schlagen auf
Messingbecken usw.); symbolische Handlungen
mit homöopathischer Absicht; Lieder, in denen
die eigenen Männer gelobt und die Feinde verspot-
tet wurden; besondere Tänze, „unanständige“
Gebärden, gelegentlich auch Nacktheit; die Be-
strafung von „Feiglingen“, die zu Hause geblieben
waren. Bisher wurde mmobomme ausschließlich
als direkte Ermutigung der Krieger interpretiert;
die Frauen sollen etwa die gleiche Rolle wie ilcheer
leaders” im amerikanischen Fußball gespielt ha-
ben. Aber handelt es sich nicht eher um ein Ritual
der Statusumkehrung oder eine „Ventilsitte“?
Auffallend sind die Parallelen zu den Handlungen
von Frauen in Krisenzeiten anderswo in West-
afrika, etwa in Südost-Nigeria („Frauenkrieg“,
1929) oder im Kameruner Grasland („Anlu“,
1958).
Barbara Rocksloh-Papendieck (Accra/Berlin)
sprach über „Die Kenkey-Frauen von Labadi,
Ghana“. Mais hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten
zum überwiegenden Grundnahrungsmittel im süd-
lichen Ghana entwickelt. Er wird zu verschiedenen
Gerichten verarbeitet, hauptsächlich jedoch zu
Kenkey, in Mais- oder Plantain-Blätter eingewik-
kelte Klöße. Der Kenkey hat eine ebenso symbo-
lische Bedeutung wie „unser täglich Brot“ in
Europa. Sein Preis gilt wie anderswo der Brotpreis
als Maßstab der Lebenshaltungskosten.
Die meisten Kenkey-Frauen in Labadi sind
Anthropos 83.1988
560
Berichte und Kommentare
über 45 Jahre alt und füttern weit mehr als ihre
durchschnittlich sechs Kinder durch; häufig die
doppelte Anzahl - Enkel und Geschwisterkinder.
Die Frauen müssen alle Kraft aufbieten, um die
Kinder zu ernähren und zu kleiden. Die Schulbil-
dung der Mädchen bleibt dabei häufig auf der
Strecke. Drei von vier Kenkey-Frauen haben nie
eine Schule besucht; bei ihren Ehemännern ist es
umgekehrt.
Alle waren einmal verheiratet; fast alle leben
dagegen ohne Ehemann. Die Ehemänner üben in
der Mehrzahl moderne Berufe aus, die kaum noch
Möglichkeiten der Kooperation zwischen den
Eheleuten bieten. Kornmühlen und permanente
Wasserversorgung am Haus haben den Kenkey-
Frauen einen Teil ihrer Arbeit erleichtert. Zu-
gleich hat die rapide zunehmende Verstädterung
ihnen die nutzbare Umwelt zerstört, die ihren
Eltern noch unentgeltlich viele Lebensnotwendig-
keiten lieferte. Das frühere Farmland in Labadi ist
längst bebaut; die Männer sind meist Lohnarbei-
ter; alles, was zum Lebensunterhalt benötigt wird,
ist in Geld zu bezahlen.
Die großen, alteingesessenen Kenkey-Kü-
chen zeigen sich als weit überlebensfähiger als die
kleinen. Gerade in den großen Küchen setzt sich
eine zunehmende Arbeitsteilung durch. Sie lagern
vor allem die schwersten Arbeiten in Lohnarbeit
aus (üblicherweise an Frauen ohne jegliche Schul-
bildung). Diese zunehmende Monetarisierung
greift allmählich auch auf innerfamiliäre Arbeits-
verhältnisse über, auch in die Sphäre des Ver-
kaufs, der allgemein den jüngeren weiblichen
Familienmitgliedern (mit oft abgebrochener
Schulbildung) Vorbehalten bleibt. Die überwälti-
gende Mehrheit der Kenkey-Frauen lebt in einem
von den landwirtschaftlichen Ernten abhängigen
Zyklus zunehmender und abnehmender Verschul-
dung, unterbrochen von Zeiten der Schuldenfrei-
heit, die nach Betriebsgröße variieren. Ihren
kalkulatorisch errechenbaren Gewinn verzehren
Kinder und Kindeskinder an Kenkey-Klößen.
Christine Oppong (International Labour Or-
ganisation, Genf) stellte unter dem Titel “A
Method for Studying Motherhood and the Impacts
of Migration, Urbanization, and Employment”
eine gemeinsame Studie vor, die sie mit Katherine
Abu (Tamale, Ghana) durchgeführt hatte. Sie
beschrieb eine Methode zur Sammlung und Ana-
lyse von Daten über Mutterschaft und erzählte,
welche Erfahrungen sie und Katherine Abu bei der
Verwendung dieser Methode zur Aufnahme kon-
zentrierter Frauenbiographien in zwei ghanaischen
Städten gemacht hatten. Die Analyse der Daten
diente zur Verifizierung von zwei Hypothesen: die
eine verbindet die zunehmende Aufwendung von
Zeit und Geld auf Kinder sowie den Wunsch nach
Kindern einer „höheren Qualität“ mit dem Ver-
langen nach kleineren Familien und mit der
Übernahme einer wirksameren Geburtenkontrol-
le; die andere verbindet diese (zuletzt erwähnten)
Änderungen mit Zeit- und Interessenkonflikten
zwischen beruflichen, gesellschaftlichen und indi-
viduellen Rollen auf der einen Seite und Mutter-
schaft auf der anderen. Dr. Oppong wies auf zwei
relevante Veröffentlichungen der I. L. O. hin, die
sie mit Katherine Abu verfaßt hat: “Seven Roles
of Women: Impact of Education, Migration, and
Employment on Ghanaian Mothers” (Reihe: Wo-
men, Work, and Development, 12; Genf 1987)
und “A Handbook for Data Collection and Anal-
ysis of Seven Roles and Statuses of Women” (Genf
1985).
Zum Schluß lieferte Sabine Steinbrich (Insti-
tut für Völkerkunde, Universität Münster) einen
Beitrag über „Nichtenpflegschaften und sororale
Polygynie bei den Lyela (Burkina Faso)“. Die
traditionelle Nichtenpflegschaft, bei der eine jun-
ge Frau kurz nach ihrer Verheiratung eine kleine
Tochter einer ihrer Brüder mit zu sich in ihren
neugegründeten Haushalt im Gehöft ihres Ehe-
mannes nimmt, ist bei den Lyela immer noch
allgemein üblich. Bei dieser Institution ist jedoch
die in vorkolonialer Zeit dominante Funktion der
Verstärkung von Heiratsallianzen zwischen ant-
agonistischen Klanen durch eine andere Funktion
ersetzt worden. Nichten oder klassifikatorische
Schwestern, die in sororaler Polygynie oder mit
„Brüdern“ derselben Gehöftgemeinschaft verhei-
ratet sind, bilden heute immer häufiger sehr
selbständige Wohn- und Wirtschaftsgemeinschaf-
ten innerhalb der Lineage ihrer Ehemänner. Die
steigende wirtschaftliche Verantwortung der
Frauen der westafrikanischen Savanne, die be-
kanntermaßen von Abwanderung zahlreicher
Männer in die Küstenländer betroffen sind, macht
besondere Formen der Arbeitsteilung und der
Kooperation zwischen Frauen verschiedener Ge-
nerationen notwendig. Die Nichtenpflegschaft
verschafft einer jungverheirateten Frau im ersten
Jahrzehnt ihrer Ehe, in der sie die meisten Kinder
gebiert, die Verfügungsgewalt über die Arbeits-
kraft eines Mädchens, das ihr bedeutende Hilfe im
Haushalt und bei der Aufzucht der Kleinkinder
leistet. Die jungen Frauen selbst müssen heute
einen erheblichen Beitrag im Feldbau leisten.
Über den Ertrag dieser Arbeit verfügen jedoch in
der Regel wiederum nicht selten die Tanten
(FaSis) der aufsteigenden Generation, die als
„Besitzerinnen“ der einzelnen Gehöftabteile für
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
561
die Versorgung und Ernährung der jüngeren
Schwestern und deren Kinder verantwortlich
sind.
Falls sich genügend Interessenten/-innen mel-
den, beabsichtigt die Arbeitsgruppe, ein weiteres
Treffen im Jahre 1988 zu organisieren.
Sind die kanarischen Petroglyphen
deutbar?
Siegbert Hummel
In Gegenbaurs Morphologischem Jahrbuch1 habe
ich auf ein linguistisch sehr altes Substrat uralaltai-
schen Typs hingewiesen, das sich über Europa und
Teile Nordafrikas bis zu den Kanarischen Inseln
erstreckt, dem die Sprache der dortigen Crömag-
niden angehört haben muß und wahrscheinlich
auch die Sprache der Megalithiker Westeuropas
und des westlichen Mittelmeeres. Die Crömagni-
den dürften die Träger dieses Megalithikums
gewesen sein. Ich kann hier das von mir vorgelegte
linguistische Material mit besonderer Berücksich-
tigung des Tibetischen, Mongolischen, Sumeri-
schen, Etruskischen und Altkanarischen nicht
wiederholen, möchte aber meine Vermutung un-
terstreichen, daß viele der sogenannten Megalith-
wörter zu diesem Substrat gehören und sich erst
mit der Ausbreitung des Megalithikums im Mittel-
meerraum angesiedelt haben, daß somit viele als
mediterran verstandene Sprachreste besser als
pseudo-mediterran zu bezeichnen sind.
Was nun die kanarischen Petroglyphen an-
geht, so lassen uns Beziehungen des Altkanari-
schen zum Protoberberischen in einem mediterra-
1 siehe Hummel 1988; - dort auch zur Zahl im Altkanari-
schen. Wenn die kanarischen Zahlwörter auch außer 1, 3
und 9 mit denen der Berber übereinstimmen (M. Cabrera
Barreto 1971), so verdient doch ein älterer Rest merkwür-
diger Bildung von Zahlen, wie sie aus dem Sumerischen und
aus der Sprache von Zhang-Zhung bekannt ist, unsere
Aufmerksamkeit. - Zur Nominalbildung im Mongolischen
möchte ich noch ergänzend das kanarische Präfix ta-[te-]
vergleichen (etruskisch: -ta zur Substantivierung von Ad-
jektiven); kanarisch ti- muß eine ähnliche Funktion haben
und entspricht dann dem Präfix ti- im Zhang-Zhung. Der
Plural kanarisch -na, -ana erinnert an sumerisch -ne, -ene.
Zu kanarisch sei (Mond) vgl. noch griechisch oekfivr],
tibetisch und Zhang-Zhung zla, mongolisch sara (uralisch
sei = glänzen); vgl. hierzu auch altaisch sar, sir (glänzen)
mediterran verbreitet: kanarisch zel[oy], etruskisch usil,
berberisch azil, azal (Sonne); auch tibetisch zil (Glanz).
nen Beziehungsgefüge bei Deutungsversuchen
völlig im Stich. Wölfel (1942) hat festgestellt, daß
nur 30 % des kanarischen Wortschatzes vom
Berberischen her zugänglich sind, und hat daher
eine atlantolibysche Sprachschicht als gemeinsa-
mes Substrat des Kanarischen, Berberischen und
Hausa-Baskischen angenommen, obwohl er sich
selbst vor der Frage sah, das Altkanarische als eine
Altsprache mit späterer Einschichtung des Berbe-
rischen anzusehen.2 Die neuerlichen Untersu-
chungen von J.-H. Scharf haben jedoch gezeigt,
daß der Zugang zum Altkanarischen schwerlich in
einem wie auch immer gearteten mediterranen
Substrat zu suchen ist, eine Feststellung, die schon
E. Zyhlarz (1950) an altkanarischen Sprachdenk-
mälern getroffen hat. Es ist das Verdienst von
Scharf, die von Zyhlarz noch als unidentifizierbar
bezeichneten Reste einer Sprache, die älter ist als
das Kanarische unter berberischem Einfluß, nach
den Regeln der altaischen Syntax und Morpholo-
gie untersucht und mit Erfolg interpretiert zu
haben (Scharf 1977, 1978, 1978-1979, 1982).
Vielleicht sollte man den sogenannten Sinn-
zeichen wahrscheinlich megalithischer, z. T. noch
älterer Petroglyphen keinen Platz im Bereich
altkanarischer Schriften einräumen, auch nicht als
eine Art Vorläufer. Gewiß ist ihre Aufgabe eine
Feststellung, z. B. astronomisch, etwa des Sonnen-
standes oder der Mondbahn, oder sie sind religiöse
Sinnbilder, z. B. als Labyrinth oder Spirale für das
Tod-Leben-Geheimnis. In ihrem Symbolcharakter
können sie auch noch neben den Versuchen
schriftlicher Mitteilung bestehen.
Zu den altkanarischen Petroglyphen mit ech-
tem Schriftcharakter gehören somit nur die soge-
nannte Westschrift, die Transitionsschrift Wölfeis
und die libysch-berberischen, alphabetiformen In-
schriften (siehe Galand 1973, 1980-1981; Bieder-
mann 1982-1983; Nowak 1982-1983). Was dabei
die Westschrift angeht, so scheint sie aus Silben-
zeichen zu bestehen und ihren Ursprung im West-
mediterraneum zu haben. Selbst wenn sich eine
Verwandtschaft mit altkretischer Schrift auf-
drängt, entzieht sich die Sprache, die sich dieser
Schrift bedient hat, allen Deutungsversuchen mit
Hilfe altmittelmeerischer Anklänge. Ebenso hat
die Transitionsschrift Lautwerte, bei denen das
Berberische bislang jegliche Deutung versagt,
obwohl eine Verwandtschaft mit altlibyscher
Buchstabenschrift zu erkennen ist. Das gilt dann
auch von der Sprache der libysch-berberischen
2 Wölfel 1942 und 1955: 20; siehe hierzu auch die anthropo-
logischen Untersuchungen von I. Schwidetzky (1963) und
E. Fischer (1926 und 1944).
Anthropos 83.1988
562
Berichte und Kommentare
Petroglyphen, deren Zeichenformen an libysch-
berberische Inschriften Nordwestafrikas erin-
nern.
Bemerkenswert ist, daß die meisten Petrogly-
phen der Transitionsschrift und viele der soge-
nannten libysch-berberischen Inschriften in der
Nähe der Küste zu finden sind. Es scheint sich
Wölfeis Theorie zu bestätigen, wonach die Mega-
lithiker Küstenfahrer mit Vorliebe für Flüsse und
Seen waren, wenn wir die Ausbreitung des Mega-
lithikums über den Indus ins Käshmirtal, das in
prähistorischer Zeit weithin ein See gewesen ist,
und von da bis in die nordtibetische Seenplatte in
Betracht ziehen (Hummel 1975).
Nach unserer gegenwärtigen Kenntnis ist es
bei dem Versuch, die altkanarischen Petroglyphen
zu deuten, die vordringliche Aufgabe, das uralal-
taische Substrat im Altkanarischen weiter zu erfor-
schen und jene Sprache zu fixieren, die mit
vielleicht wenigen Ausnahmen nur in dem lingui-
stisch sehr alten uralaltaischen Substrat zu finden
sein wird, damit auch in der Sprache der Crömag-
niden, ganz gleich, welcher Zeichen sich diese im
Laufe der Zeit bediente und welcher sekundären
Beeinflussung sie aus einem mediterranen Sub-
stratraum, gegen den sie nicht isoliert bleiben
konnte, ausgesetzt war. Damit wird die Hoffnung
auf eine baldige Deutung der Petroglyphen vorerst
nur wenig Aussicht auf Erfolg haben, da wir nicht
wissen, welcher Lautwert hinter Zeichen verbor-
gen ist, die mit der Sprache nicht homogen sind,
sondern aus der Umwelt stammen. Der Versuch,
den Zugang aus einem mediterranen Substrat zu
erschließen oder die Sprache der kanarischen
Petroglyphen zumindest dorthin zu verweisen,
sollte jedenfalls endgültig aufgegeben werden.
Eine völlige Neuorientierung der altkanarischen
Linguistik ist daher dringend erforderlich.
Zitierte Literatur
Biedermann, Hans
1982-1983 Wölfeis Gliederung des epigraphischen Materials
der Kanarischen Inseln. Alte und neue Probleme.
Almogaren 13-14: 57-68.
Cabrera Barreto, Manuel
1971 Die Zahlwörter der Altkanarier. Almogaren 2:
151-167.
Fischer, Eugen
1926 Zur Frage nach der Urbevölkerung der Canarischen
Inseln. In: Tagungsberichte der Deutschen Anthropolo-
gischen Gesellschaft; pp. 87 ff. Augsburg.
1944 Ein geschichtlicher Beitrag zur Rassenkunde der alten
Kanarier. Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropolo-
gie 41.
Galand, Lionel
1973 Die afrikanischen und kanarischen Inschriften des
libysch-berberischen Typus. Almogaren 4: 65-79.
1980-1981 Einige Fragen zu den kanarischen Felsinschriften.
Almogaren 11-12: 51-57.
Hummel, Siegbert
1975 Das tibetische Megalithikum. Ethnologische Zeitschrift
Zürich 2: 31-54.
1988 Einige Notizen zum uraltaischen Substrat im Altkanari-
schen und im Etruskischen als Beitrag zur linguistischen
Neolith-Anthropologie Eurasiosahariens. Gegenbaurs
Morphologisches Jahrbuch 134: 53-57.
Nowak, Herbert
1982-1983 Die „alphabetiformen Inschriften“ der Kanarenin-
sel El Hierro. Almogaren 13-14: 69-90.
Scharf, Joachim-Hermann
1977 Sprachen die Crö-Magnon-Megalithiker Protomongo-
iisch? Biologische Rundschau 15/6: 382-385.
1978 Goethes Morphologie-Definition und das Problem des
Verhältnisses der Cromagniden zu den „Urgermanen“.
Gegenbaurs Morphologisches Jahrbuch 124/2: 139—
190.
1978-1979 Cromagnide der Kanaren - Träger der Megalithkul-
tur? Almogaren 9-10: 17-34.
1982 Linguistische Vergleiche zur Ergänzung morpholo-
gisch-anthropologischer Untersuchungen. Verhandlun-
gen der Anatomischen Gesellschaft (Halle) 76:
557-566.
Schwidetzky, Ilse
1963 Die vorspanische Bevölkerung der Kanarischen Inseln.
Göttingen. {Homo, Beiheft 1)
Wölfel, Dominik Josef
1942 Die Hauptprobleme Weißafrikas. Archiv für Anthropo-
logie 27: 89-140.
1955 Eurafrikanische Wortschichten und Kulturschichten.
Salamanca. (Acta Salmanticensia, Filosofía y Letras,
9/1)
Zyhlarz, Ernest
1950 Das kanarische Berberisch in seinem sprachgeschichtli-
chen Milieu. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländi-
schen Gesellschaft 100; 403-460.
„Urbane Ethnologie“
Bericht über die Arbeitsgruppe
Bettina Bommer und Waltraud Kokot
Urbanethnologie, die ethnologische Beschäfti-
gung mit Städten, hat seit Ende der 60er Jahre
einen rapiden Aufschwung erlebt. Im englisch-
sprachigen Raum, besonders in den USA, hat sie
sich inzwischen als eigenständiger Zweig der Eth-
nologie etabliert, wie u. a. die Gründung der
Zeitschrift Urban Anthropology im Jahre 1972,
eine Vielzahl von Symposien und Konferenzen
sowie eine kaum mehr zu überblickende Fülle von
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
563
Literatur zu diesem Thema deutlich machen. Auch
in deutschsprachigen Ländern, die nach Gerholm
und Hannerz (1982: 6) in der gegenwärtigen Land-
schaft der Ethnologie lediglich kleine Inseln neben
dem von den USA, England und Frankreich
gebildeten Festland darstellen, besteht mittlerwei-
le ein reges, weiter wachsendes Interesse an
urbanethnologischen Forschungen und Themen.
Diese Tatsache zeigte sich auch bei der Tagung der
Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, der
Österreichischen Ethnologischen Gesellschaft und
der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, die
vom 5.-9. Oktober 1987 in Köln stattfand.
Im Rahmen der Kölner Tagung wurden eine
Reihe von Arbeitsgruppen zu systematischen oder
regionalen Schwerpunktgebieten abgehalten, in
denen Vorträge und - als organisatorische Neue-
rung - auch “posters” zur Diskussion gestellt
waren (s. dazu lensen 1987). Das Thema einer
dieser Arbeitsgruppen lautete „Urbane Ethnolo-
gie“. Ziel dieser Arbeitsgruppe war zunächst
einmal, Ethnologen, die Stadtforschung betrei-
ben, zu einem Informationsaustausch zusammen-
zubringen, um auf diese Weise einen Überblick
über den Stand der Urbanethnologie im deutsch-
sprachigen Raum zu erhalten. Ein weitergehendes
Anliegen war, eine Diskussion über den Gegen-
stand, die Methoden und den Aufgabenbereich
der Urbanethnologie einzuleiten.
An der Arbeitsgruppe „Urbane Ethnologie“
nahmen in der Mehrzahl deutschsprachige Ethno-
logen, aber auch Fachvertreter aus Griechenland,
Italien und den Niederlanden teil. Die Referenten
lieferten hinsichtlich der Darstellungsweise (Vor-
trag, “poster” oder beides) sowie der behandelten
Gegenstände und Thematiken sehr unterschiedli-
che Beiträge. Viele berichteten über die Ergebnis-
se neuer, zum Teil noch in der Auswertung
befindlicher Forschungen.
Die Sitzung wurde eröffnet und geleitet von
Waltraud Kokot (Köln). Im ersten Beitrag erläu-
terte Bettina Bommer (Göttingen) verschiedene
Ansätze zur Konzeption des Forschungsgebie-
tes Urbanethnologie, die sich aus den Jahrgängen
der Zeitschrift Urban Anthropology ablesen las-
sen. Anschließend ordnete sie diese Ansätze
forschungsgeschichtlich ein und stellte Fragen
über die Anlage der Urbanethnologie zur Diskus-
sion.
Elisabeth Schwarzer (Berlin) ging von
Aspekten der „Alternativkultur“ in Berlin aus und
setzte sich kritisch mit idealisierenden Konzepten
von „Stadt“ und „Land“ auseinander. Einen ganz
anderen Gegenstand und völlig unterschiedliche
theoretische Gesichtspunkte sprach Annegret
Nippa (Berlin) an. Ihr Thema war die Verände-
rung der Rolle von traditionellen Küsten- bzw.
Handelsstädten am Indischen Ozean. Bedingt
durch die wachsende Bedeutung der im Inland
vieler Nationalstaaten neugegründeten Haupt-
städte hat sich ihrer Darstellung zufolge die Rolle
und die Struktur dieser Küstenstädte drastisch ver-
ändert.
Der niederländische Ethnologe Henk Dries-
sen (Nijmegen) berichtete über die Körpersprache
bei einer marginalen Gruppe in einer marokkani-
schen Stadt. Nach seinen Beobachtungen wird die
Marginalität dieser Gruppe durch eine spezifische
Form von Gesten und Körperhaltungen einerseits
ausgedrückt, andererseits sogar noch verstärkt.
Werner Bauer (Wien) veranschaulichte und
erklärte die Veränderungen im Marktgeschehen
innerhalb einer anatolischen Kleinstadt im Zusam-
menhang mit der Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschich-
te dieses Ortes.
Anhand einer ersten Datenanalyse seiner
Feldforschungen im Sudan stellte Rolf Husmann
(Göttingen) einige Aspekte der Land-Stadt-Wan-
derung der Nuba dar. Einen besonderen Schwer-
punkt legte er dabei auf die Rolle, die Migranten-
vereine und Sportclubs für die Migranten in
Städten spielen. Ebenfalls die Problematik der
Migration, aber aus einem anderen Blickwinkel,
behandelte Alki Nestoros-Kyriakidou (Thessalo-
niki). In ihrem Beitrag rekonstruierte sie anhand
von biographischem Material die Geschichte von
drei Generationen griechischer Flüchtlinge aus
Kleinasien, die heute in Thessaloniki leben. Da-
nach zeigte sie Veränderungen in der Identitätsbil-
dung der unterschiedlichen Migrantengeneratio-
nen auf.
Über die Rolle der neuen religiösen Bewe-
gungen in den Städten Südnigerias sprach Gudrun
Ludwar-Ene (Bayreuth). Sie betonte besonders
die Bedeutung dieser Bewegungen für die Frauen,
denen häufig die Mitgliedschaft in Migrantenverei-
nen verwehrt ist.
Salvatore Tufano (Neapel/Köln) behandelte
den symbolischen Ausdruck städtischer Identitäts-
bildung in seiner Interpretation der neapolitani-
schen Weihnachtskrippe als kulturellem und so-
zialem Symbol. Seiner These zufolge sind in einzel-
nen Bestandteilen der Krippe spezifisch neapolita-
nische Traditionen abgebildet, welche mit Hilfe
dieser sichtbaren Darstellungen erhalten und wei-
tervermittelt werden.
Über ihre Feldforschung in einem multiethni-
schen Slum von Brooklyn referierte Gisela Welz
(Frankfurt). Die Ergebnisse ihrer Untersuchungen
über Problemlösungsstrategien in diesem Slum
Anthropos 83.1988
564
Berichte und Kommentare
widersprachen den von Suttles (1972) aufgestellten
Thesen über die soziale Organisation von Nach-
barschaften.
Zusammenfassend betrachtet war das auffal-
lendste Kennzeichen dieser Arbeitsgruppe die
Vielfalt der angesprochenen Gegenstände, The-
matiken und theoretischen Ausgangspunkte. Mit
Ausnahme des ersten Vortrags befaßten sich die
Beiträge nicht mit übergreifenden theoretischen
Problemen der ethnologischen Stadtforschung,
sondern mit Untersuchungen in Städten oder von
Städten unter sehr unterschiedlichen Gesichts-
punkten und Fragestellungen. So entstand der
Eindruck einer “. . . collection of ethnographies
loosely related”, wie Moore (1975: 18) die ameri-
kanische “urban anthropology” Mitte der 70er
Jahre charakterisierte. Dennoch ließen sich einige
Tendenzen und thematische Schwerpunkte der
Urbanethnologie im deutschsprachigen Raum er-
kennen.
Bemerkenswert ist zunächst, daß die vorge-
stellten Studien beinahe zu gleichen Teilen in
Ländern der sogenannten „Dritten Welt“, also den
angestammten Forschungsgebieten der Ethnolo-
gie, und in westlichen Industrienationen durchge-
führt wurden. Dies unterstreicht die in jüngerer
Zeit in vielen Bereichen der Ethnologie zu beob-
achtende Tendenz, sich verstärkt den westlichen
Industriegesellschaften zuzuwenden. Im Hinblick
auf die thematische Ausrichtung der Beiträge
zeichneten sich folgende Schwerpunkte ab:
1. Problematik der Land-Stadt-Migration und von
Migranten in Städten (Husmann, Ludwar-Ene,
Nestoros-Kyriakidou); 2. Aspekte der Bildung
und Wahrung der Identität von Stadtbewohnern
(Driessen, Nestoros-Kyriakidou, Tufano, Schwar-
zer, Welz); 3. Veränderungen im sozialen und
wirtschaftlichen Bereich ganzer Städte oder be-
stimmter städtischer Institutionen und Knoten-
punkte (Bauer, Nippa, Ludwar-Ene).
Eine Diskussion über die einzelnen Beiträge
kam nur ansatzweise zustande. Zentrale Fragen
hinsichtlich der Urbanethnologie, wie etwa; was ist
ihr Forschungsgegenstand und was ist ihr theoreti-
scher Rahmen? wie sind zentrale Begriffe, insbe-
sondere das Konzept „Stadt“, zu definieren?
welche methodischen Probleme treten bei ethno-
logischer Feldforschung in Städten auf?, konnten
nur gestreift werden. Dies lag zum einen an dem
Mißverhältnis zwischen der zur Verfügung stehen-
den Zeit und der großen Zahl an Beiträgen. Zum
anderen erschwerten die Vielzahl der behandelten
Themen und die unterschiedlichen theoretischen
Interessen der einzelnen Referenten eine systema-
tische, zusammenhängende Diskussion und auch
eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse dieser Ar-
beitsgruppe.
Für Oktober 1988 ist ein weiteres Treffen
deutschsprachiger Ethnologen mit ausländischen
Gästen zum Thema Urbanethnologie geplant. Bei
diesem Symposium soll die begonnene Diskussion
über ethnologische Stadtforschung vertieft wer-
den. Durch die Festsetzung thematischer Schwer-
punkte soll erreicht werden, daß die Ergebnisse
von Feldforschungen von vornherein mit zentralen
theoretischen Fragestellungen der Urbanethnolo-
gie in Verbindung gebracht werden können. So
hoffen wir, einer Beantwortung der Fragen über
den Gegenstand, die Methoden und den Aufga-
benbereich der ethnologischen Stadtforschung nä-
herzukommen, aber auch weitergehende Themen,
wie die Definition zentraler Begriffe der Urba-
nethnologie, den Stellenwert der Urbanethnologie
als eigenständigem Forschungsgebiet oder auch
den Beitrag der Ethnologie zur Stadtforschung im
Vergleich zu anderen Disziplinen, erörtern zu
können. Eine Veröffentlichung der Diskussionser-
gebnisse in Form eines Sammelbandes ist vorgese-
hen.
Zitierte Literatur
Gerholm, Thomas, and Ulf Hannerz
1982 Introduction: The Shaping of National Anthropologies.
Ethnos 47: 5-35.
Jensen, J.
1987 Die gemeinsame Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft
für Völkerkunde, der Österreichischen Ethnologischen
Gesellschaft und der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in
Wien vom 5.-9. Oktober 1987 in Köln. Sociologus 37:
181-187.
Moore, Kenneth
1975 The City as Context: Context as Process. Urban
Anthropology 4: 17-25.
Suttles, Gerald D.
1972 The Social Construction of Communities. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Korrektur. - In der Kurzbiographie von M. Lam-
berti (Anthropos 82.1987: 529) ist folgende Angabe zu
korrigieren; Statt “Since 1987 Assoc. Prof, of African
Linguistics at the Univ. of Frankfurt/M.” muß es heißen;
“Since 1987 associated with the Dept, of African
Languages at the Univ. of Frankfurt/M.”.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
565
Nietzsche als Ethnologe
Ein Beitrag zur Klärung der
Quellenfrage
Hans-Jürgen Hildebrandt
W. W. Schuhmacher weist in einem Arbeitspapier
in Anthropos (82. 1987; 629-631) auf drei Frag-
mente ethnologischen Inhalts aus Nietzsches
Nachlaß hin,1 „deren Quelle (bisher) nicht er-
schlossen worden ist“2 und die seiner Meinung
nach „unter dem provokativen Titel ,Über den
Ursprung der Familie“4 zusammengefaßt werden
können (629). Seine weiteren Ausführungen
zeichnen dann „die Suche nach der Quelle/den
Quellen von Nietzsches ethnologischen Aufzeich-
nungen“ nach (ibid.), ohne allerdings am Ende ein
Resultat vorlegen zu können. An die Vorgehens-
weise Schuhmachers anknüpfend, werde ich im
folgenden diejenigen Arbeitsschritte darstellen,
die schließlich auch zur Identifikation der zentra-
len ethnologischen Quelle der vorliegenden Frag-
mente führten.3
Die Feststellung des zugrundeliegenden
Autors bereitete keine größeren Schwierigkeiten.
Dabei konnte an dem im Text vorhandenen
Begriff der „Geschlechtsgenossenschaft“ (vgl.
KSA 10: 329, 330 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1: 339,
340) angeknüpft werden. Dieser Terminus wurde
von Albert Hermann Post (1839-1895)4 in die
1 Im folgenden werden folgende Abkürzungen verwendet:
KSA = F. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studien-
ausgabe. München 1980.
KGW = F. Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe.
Berlin - New York 1967 ff.
Da Schuhmacher in seinem Arbeitsbericht die KSA zugrun-
de legt, werde ich diese Quelle jeweils mit angeben. -
Die drei Fragmente - 8 [6], 8 [8] und 8 [9] - sind
abgedruckt in: KSA 10; 326-333 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1:
336-343.
2 Darüber hinaus macht Schuhmacher auf Fragment 8 [1]
aufmerksam (vgl. KSA 10; 325 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1:
335), das seiner Meinung nach als „Einleitung in diesen
ethnologischen Exkurs . . . gelten [darf]“ und „ebenfalls
noch nicht erschlossen“ ist (629 Anm. 2).
3 Ich habe zunächst die von Schuhmacher benutzte KSA
verwendet, zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt allerdings noch die
KGW herangezogen.
4 Obwohl heute weitgehend in Vergessenheit geraten, ist
A. H. Post einer der zentralen „ethnologischen“ Autoren
des 19. Jh.s und der eigentliche Begründer der vergleichen-
den Rechtswissenschaft in Deutschland. - Einige wenige
Informationen zu Leben und Werk finden sich z. B. in
Achelis 1895 und 1896, Bernhöft 1895, Kühtmann 1912. Die
einzige „neuere“ Monographie, die einen etwas ausführli-
cheren Abschnitt über A. H. Post enthält, ist W. Sellnows
„Gesellschaft - Staat - Recht“ (1963: 666-692). - Der
wissenschaftliche Diskussion eingeführt, und zwar
mit seiner Veröffentlichung „Die Geschlechtsge-
nossenschaft der Urzeit und die Entstehung der
Ehe“ (1875).5 Diese Publikation kam nun aller-
dings ebensowenig als Grundlage für Nietzsches
Exzerpte in Frage wie „Der Ursprung des Rechts“
(1876), da der von Nietzsche ebenfalls angeführte
Terminus „Gruppen-Ehe“ (vgl. KSA 10: 327 bzw.
KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1: 337) von Post damals (noch)
nicht verwendet wurde. In der zwei Jahre später
erschienen Arbeit „Die Anfänge des Staats- und
Rechtslebens“ beschreibt Post an einer Stelle das
Phänomen „Gruppenehe“ zwar sehr deutlich,6
einen Einfluß auf die Terminologie hat dies jedoch
nicht. - Da die Exzerpte Nietzsches vom Sommer
1883 datieren, konnte nun lediglich noch Posts
Publikation „Bausteine für eine allgemeine
Rechtswissenschaft auf vergleichend-ethnologi-
scher Basis“ (1880/81) als Grundlage gedient
haben,7 und die Überprüfung der Texte hat diese
These auch vollständig bestätigt.8
In einem abschließenden Arbeitsgang wurde
dann - der Vollständigkeit halber - noch die
(bisher nicht abgeschlossene) „Kritische Gesamt-
ausgabe der Werke Nietzsches“ (KGW) herange-
zogen. Dabei stellte sich heraus, daß inzwischen
(1984) die Nachberichte zur siebenten Abteilung
erschienen (KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4) und die Heraus-
geber/Bearbeiter auf dieselbe Spur gestoßen wa-
ren.9 Aufgrund der möglichen Bedeutung der
vorliegenden Exzerpte (dazu später noch einige
Verfasser des vorliegenden Artikels hat vor kurzem mit
einer (von der DFG geförderten) Forschungsarbeit über
A. H. Post begonnen.
5 In seiner „Einleitung in eine Naturwissenschaft des Rechts“
(1872) - die übrigens im selben Jahr erschien wie Bastians
„Rechtsverhältnisse bei verschiedenen Völkern der Erde“ -
verwendet Post diesen Begriff nicht, sondern geht, wie die
meisten Autoren seiner Zeit, noch von der Ursprünglichkeit
der patriarchalischen Familie aus (vgl. Post 1872: 29 f.).
6 „Es heirathen sich nicht einzelne Personen, sondern ganze
Gruppen“ (1878: 12).
7 In diesem Werk wird von Post auch der Begriff „Gruppen-
ehe“ übernommen (vgl. z. B. 1880/81 Bd. 1; 96). - Später
hat A. H. Post noch einen Artikel über „Hausgenossen-
schaften und Gruppenehen“ (1891) veröffentlicht.
8 Ich habe später noch einen Brief Nietzsches vom 21. Juni
1881 an seinen Verleger Ernst Schmeitzner in Bautzen
gefunden, in dem er u. a. auch Posts „Bausteine“ anfordert
(vgl. KGW 3. Abt. Bd. 1.: 94 bzw. F. Nietzsche, Sämtliche
Briefe. Kritische Studienausgabe Bd. 6: 94).
9 Vgl. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 187-189. In der von Schuhma-
cher benutzten KSA finden sich dagegen noch die Hinweise
„Quelle nicht erschlossen“ (KSA 14: 688).
Ich vermute, daß die Identifikation durch Herausge-
ber/Bearbeiter der KGW über das - von Schuhmacher nicht
angeführte - Fragment 7 [247] (vgl. KSA 10: 318 f, bzw.
KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1; 326 f.) erfolgte, in dem Nietzsche
selbst auf Post hinweist.
Anthropos 83.1988
566
Berichte und Kommentare
Worte) und der Tatsache, daß die Identifikation
der Textstellen in der KGW einige Unschärfen
aufweist, werde ich die betreffenden Texte im
folgenden - versehen mit den entsprechenden
Angaben zu Post und notwendigen Anmerkungen
(jeweils in eckigen Klammern und kursiv) -
vorstellen10:
Fragment 8 [6]
(vgl. KSA 10: 326-329 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1;
336-339) [Post, Bausteine Bd. I bzw. II]
Weiber-Verwandtschaft: Kinder gehören
nicht in die Familie des Vaters, sondern des
Bruders ihrer Mutter [I: 81]. Der Vater gehört zu
einer anderen Familie: Vater und Sohn in feindse-
ligem Verhältniß. Der Vater heirathet in eine
fremde Familie hinein und in ihr ist er lediglich
Erzeuger, und kaum mehr als ein Sklave. - Die
Vaterschaft nichts Selbstverständliches, sondern
ein spät erreichtes Rechtsinstitut. Das sittliche
Band zwischen Vater und Kind fehlt [I: 82]\ Der
Vater gilt nicht als blutverwandt mit seinen Kin-
dern. Die Nabelschnur ist das Band der Familie
[I: 77].
In den Verbänden von Blutverwandten giebt
es weder ein individuelles Verbrechen, noch indi-
viduelles Eigenthum, noch Ehe. Nur das Ge-
schlecht hat Rechte und Pflichten. Weiber sind wie
Kinder Gemeingut. Ja es giebt Zustände, wo es
keine Verwandtschaft von Person zu Person giebt,
sondern Gruppen verwandt sind. - Gruppen-
Ehen.
[Nach der KGW (7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 189) soll
hier Post I: 85, 94-95, 96 ff. zugrunde liegen.
Außer in Hinblick auf den Begriff „Gruppenehe“,
der in I: 96 auftaucht, ist diese Angabe nicht
zutreffend. Wie sich aus den Formulierungen
ergibt, basiert dieses Exzerpt auf Post I: 74 bzw.
75]
Rechtsubjekte sind jetzt die sogenannten „na-
türlichen Personen“, die Einzelnen: sie sind die
Träger von Rechten und Pflichten [I: 73; ähnlich
auch 74 f.].
Ein alter Chinese sagte, er habe gehört, wenn
Reiche zu Grund gehen sollen, so hätten sie viele
Gesetze [I: 58].
Die Ehe mit schlechtem Gewissen: das Weib
muß, bevor es heirathet, eine Zeit des Hetärism
durchmachen, es muß entjungfert sein [I: 92]. Es
muß sich den Stammesgenossen preisgeben, bevor
10 Eine gleichzeitige Auflistung der Postschen Originalstellen
hätte den Artikel unnötig aufgebläht. Allgemein läßt sich
feststellen, daß sich Nietzsche in seinen Formulierungen eng
am Original orientiert.
es Einem Manne gehört. Letzter Rest das jus
primae noctis der Häuptlinge oder auch Priester
(wie bei den Buddhisten in Cambodja) [I: 93; der
Hinweis auf „Cambodja“ findet sich in
Anm. 3)].
Die Hetäre steht in manchen Theilen
Afrika’s, in Indien und in Java in hohem Ansehen,
sie ist den Volksgöttern treu geblieben [I: 94].
Hier erhält der Mann mit der Frau zugleich
sämmtliche Schwestern, dort haben sämmtliche
Brüder eine Frau [I: 98].
Bei den Thieren sind die Weibchen nicht
geschmückt, die Schönheit gehört den Männchen
zu - die Begehrenden und Kämpfenden werden
schön.
das Weib macht bei uns „Eroberungen“
Die höhere Schönheit der Weiber unter Men-
schen beweist, daß die Weiber hier die kämpfen-
den und begehrenden sind; sie verstehen sich leicht
darauf, den Mann zu erobern. Bei den Thieren
nimmt die männliche Intelligenz zu durch den
Geschlechtstrieb. -
In Athen waren die Männer schöner als die
Frauen - nach Cicero; dies ist aber wohl eine Folge
der großen Arbeit an der Schönheit, unter Einwir-
kung der Päderastie.
[„Bei den Thieren . . . Päderastie“: Diese
Abschnitte basieren nicht auf A. H. Post, dem
solche Tier-Mensch-Vergleiche fremd sind. Nietz-
sche knüpft hier an A. Espinas, Des sociétés
animales (Paris 1877) an bzw. nimmt selbst Stel-
lung (vgl. dazu KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 189)]
Mit der Entstehung der individuellen Ehe
entsteht die neue Pflicht, nach der Brüder und
Schwestern, Schwiegervater und Schwiegertoch-
ter, Schwiegermutter und Schwiegersohn, Schwa-
ger und Schwägerin nicht mit einander sprechen,
essen, ja sich nicht ansehen dürfen [I: 103]. -
Früher hat man oft Mutter und Tochter zusammen
geheirathet [I: 104]. - Feindseligkeit und Kälte
gehört zu den Pflichten überall, wo individuelle
Pflichten entstehen. Mit der Liebe tritt immer die
Abneigung zugleich auf. Menschenliebe im Allge-
meinen ist bisher nicht ohne einen ungeheuren
Haß dagewesen.
[Bei dem Teil „Feindseligkeit. . . dagewesen“
handelt es sich um einen Zusatz Nietzsches (vgl.
auch KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 189)]
Eheliche Treue erscheint lange als unmora-
lisch [I: 108 f.].
Das Weib ein Eigenthum, welches der Stärke-
re jederzeit dem Schwächeren nehmen kann.
Wettkampf der Stärke entscheidet [1:109]. Nur
die Häuptlinge und Priester haben die schönen
Frauen. Junge Leute müssen sich mit alten Weib-
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
567
lein begnügen [1:110]. - Der Raub die regelmäßi-
ge Form zu einem Weib zu gelangen [I:111].
der Verlobungsring der Rest der Kette, mit
der die Geraubte weggeschleppt wurde [I: 112 f.]
Zwischen Ehegatten ursprünglich die höchste
„Kälte und Indifferenz“. Das Weib ist gekauft
oder geraubt [I: 122 f.]. Dazu der geheime Gewis-
sensvorwurf, daß die Ehe etwas Naturwidriges und
Unsittliches ist: die Gatten leben wesentlich ge-
trennt, nicht Gemeinschaft von Tisch und Bett
[1:123]. Trennung der Geschlechter Grundgedan-
ke der chinesischen Ehe [1:123 f.]. Das Haus
<hat> zwei Theile: im äußeren wohnt der Mann,
im inneren die Frau. Die Thür soll sorgfältig
verschlossen werden. Jeder soll allein sterben. Es
ist die durchgeführte separatio quoad thronum et
mensam [I: 124].
Höhere Verbände von Geschlechtsgenossen-
schaften: Viele kleine Gemeinwesen ohne alle
Verbindung mit einander, oft durch große Wälder
getrennt, einem Fürsten Gehorsam und Abgaben
leistend, der in die innere Verwaltung der kleinen
Gemeinden nicht eingreift (Indien und Sumatra
heute noch) [II: 37 f. Der Hinweis auf „Sumatra“
findet sich in Post II: 38 Anm. 1]. Nach innen
möglichst fest geschlossen ist so ein Gemeinwesen
[II: 38]: die griechische JioA,ig.
[Post bezieht sich hier (II: 38) auf das alte
England; „die griechische Polis“ ist offensichtlich
ein Zusatz Nietzsches]
Älteste Scheidung der Stände nach dem Alter:
Pietät. [II: 46; „Pietät“ von Nietzsche hinzugefügt]
Die Tupinambazes mästeten ihre Kriegsge-
fangenen an langen Seilen und versahen sie mit
Beischläferinnen, bis sie fett genug zum Fräße
waren [II: 55].
Fragment 8 [8]
(vgl. KSA 10: 329-330 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1:
339-340) [Post, Bausteine]
Eine Person ursprünglich: Priester Zauberer
Arzt Richter Häuptling [II: 76]. Regen Friede gut
Wetter gute Erndte fette Kälber - aber auch
Mißwachs Seuche Mißerfolg im Kriege oder auf
der Jagd, schlechtes Wetter [II: 77].
Verachtung des Greisenalters wegen der
Schwäche für Krieg und Jagd [II: 88].
Tödtung von Zwillingen, wenigstens von Ei-
nem [II: 119]. Man sucht in Zwillingen den Beweis
vom Ehebrüche [z. B. bei den Cariben)
[II: 119 f.]. Auch die Germanen dachten so. -
Diese Vielheit gilt als thierähnlich, gleich Ratten
und Hündinnen [II: 120].
Hier und da da gilt es als Schande, Töchter zu
gebären [II: 120].
Altgermanisch: das Kind liegt auf dem Bo-
den, bis der Vater erklärt, ob er es leben lassen will
oder nicht. Hebt er es nicht auf, so wird es
ausgesetzt - ganz wie bei den Fidschi-insulanern
[II: 121].
Die Häuptlinge haften für die Handlungen
der Weiber und Kinder, für den Schaden, den
Sklaven und Thiere verrichten [11:217]. Für ein
von den Seinen verwirktes Blutgeld; er muß
Schulden derselben bezahlen. Verlobungsgelder.
Ein ganz andres Gewissen entsteht bei solchen
Personen. Auch ;eizf noch bei Fürsten und Staats-
männern.
Die Verantwortlichkeit lange getrennt vom
Gewissen!
[„Ein ganz andres . . . vom Gewissen!“: Zu-
satz Nietzsches (vgl. auch KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1:
190)]
Fragment 8 [9]
(vgl. KSA 10: 330-333 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1:
340-343) [Post, Bausteine]
Typus der primitiven Geschlechtsgenossen-
schaft: eine Gruppe von Verwandten, von der
gleichen Stammmutter her, in vollständiger Wei-
ber-, Kinder- und Vermögensgemeinschaft le-
bend, so daß jede individuelle Ehe, jede individu-
elle Vater- und Elternschaft fehlt; alle Genossen
gleich nahe verwandt, alles Eigenthum, bewegli-
ches und unbewegliches als gemeinsam, alle Ar-
beit gemeinsam; aller Erlös gemeinsam verzehrt,
alle Schulden gemeinsame Schulden der Genos-
senschaft, alle Blutsfreunde für jeden Blutrache
übend und von der Blutschuld eines Blutfreundes
mitgetroffen [II:18f.]. Fremde durch Adoption
aufgenommen [II: 25].
Über den Geschlechtern stehen Geschlechter-
verbände und Stämme [11:21]. Die Hausver-
wandtschaft grundverschieden davon als Vereini-
gungen von Abkömmlingen desselben Stammva-
ters [II: 22]. Schwerlich ein primitives Gebilde:
Corporation Gruppe von Männern und Weibern,
Kindern und Sklaven, vereinigt unter der patriar-
chalischen Gewalt eines Häuptlings oder Hausva-
ters [11:24]. Mit eigenen Göttern, Recht Regie-
rung, unveräußerlichem Boden. Nicht an die
Existenz der einzelnen Genossen gebunden, Fort-
erhaltung der Hausgemeinschaft erste Pflicht: und
Zwang sich von einem unfruchtbaren Weibe zu
scheiden: Strafbarkeit des Coelibats: bei Impotenz
des Mannes war die Frau verpflichtet, sich von
einem Verwandten des Mannes ein Kind zu
schaffen [II: 25 f.].
Überall wo die Organisation auf dem Blut-
bande beruht, giebt es Blutrache [1:143]: das
Anthropos 83.1988
568
Berichte und Kommentare
Gesamtleben des Verbandes kommt zum Aus-
druck, als unverständliche und über das Individu-
um hinausreichende Kraft, Gegenstand religiöser
Verehrung [I: 144]. Grundtendenz: zwischen zwei
Geschlechtern wird das Gleichgewicht wiederher-
gestellt; das Verschulden des Einzelnen ist gleich-
gültig, es ist Krieg zwischen Geschlechtern. Mit
dem sich bildenden Staatswesen schmilzt die Blut-
rache zu einem Racheakt gegen den Thäter zusam-
men [I: 145].
Voraussetzung dev Blutrache ist zunächst, daß
sie eine Familien-Angelegenheit ist: die Gauge-
nossenschaft oder der Staat mischt sich zunächst
nicht ein [I: 153]. Aber sie setzt die höhere
Organisation schon voraus: es ist Zweikampf
zwischen Gleichgeordneten, Einem Ganzen Zuge-
hörigen. Die Feindschaft gegen die Familie des
Blutschuldigen ist grundverschieden von der
Feindschaft gegen alles, was nicht zur höheren
gemeinsamen Organisation gehört. Es fehlt die
Verachtung, der Glaube an die tiefere Rasse des
Feindes: in der Blutrache ist Ehre und Gleichbe-
rechtigung.
[„Aber sie setzt . . . Gleichberechtigung“ ist
ein Zusatz Nietzsches (vgl. auch KGW 7. Abt.
Bd. 4.1: 190)]
Friedloslegung: ein Genosse wird aus der
Friedensgenossenschaft ausgestoßen; er ist jetzt
vollkommen rechtlos. Leben und Gut können
<ihm> von Jedermann genommen werden
[I: 164]. Der Übelthäter kann bußlos von Jeder-
mann erschlagen werden [I: 169, nicht 165, wie die
KGW angibt]. Grundgefühl: tiefste Verachtung,
Unwürdigkeit [Zusatz Nietzsches] z. B. noch im
moslemischen Recht bei Ketzerei oder Schmähung
des Propheten: während es bei Mord und Körper-
verletzung lediglich Blutrache und friedensgenos-
senschaftliche Bußen kennt [1:172]. Es ist Äch-
tung [Zusatz Nietzsches]: Haus und Hof wird
zerstört, Weiber und Kinder und wer im Hause
wohnt, wird vernichtet, z. B. im peruanischen
Inkareiche, wenn eine Sonnenjungfrau sich mit
einem Manne vergieng, mußte ihre ganze Ver-
wandtschaft es mit dem Leben büßen, das Haus
ihrer Eltern wurde dem Erdboden gleichgemacht
usw. Ebenso in China, wenn ein Sohn den Vater
tödtet [I: 165; das chinesische Beispiel findet sich
bei Post „vor“ seinen Ausführungen zum Inka-
reich ].
Also: Vergehen, welche die Existenz der
Gemeinde aufs Spiel setzen, fordern die Friedlos-
legung heraus: der verdorbene Sproß wird ausge-
tilgt. Was als eine solche heillose und grundver-
ächtliche Handlung angesehen wird, richtet sich
nach dem, was als Existenz-Bedingung der Ge-
meinde gilt - und kann folglich bei verschiedenen
Gemeinden sehr verschieden sein.
[Bei diesem Abschnitt handelt es sich um eine
Zusammenfassung von Nietzsche, deren erstem
Teil Post 1:176 zugrunde Hegt, wie die KGW
(7. Abt. Bd. 4.1:191) richtig feststellt. Der zweite
Teil („ Was als eine . . .“) basiert m. E. jedoch auf
Post I: 224)]
In der Praxis entstehen Milderungen aller
Art, z. B. man läßt ihm Zeit, sich durch Flucht zu
entziehn [I: 166]. Verbannung und Vermögens-
confiskation sind die letzten Ausläufer [1:166 oder
170]. Namentlich die beschimpfenden Strafen ha-
ben hier ihren Ursprung [1:170].
[Die KGW (7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 191) gibt bei
diesem Abschnitt irrtümlicherweise 1:178 als
Grundlage an]
Friedensgenossenschaft: Schutz- und Trutz-
verbände, in denen sich die Genossen gegenseitig
Leben und Gut verbürgen, in denen der Fried-
<ens>brecher aus dem Frieden ausgestoßen wird,
in denen Kinder, Weiber, Gut und Schuld gemein-
sam sind - älteste Form [II: 7].
Staatliche Bildung: ein von der Basis der
Blutverwandtschaft gelöstes Königthum, ein öf-
fentliches Staatsrecht, individuelles Eigenthum,
individuelle Verhaftung für Verbrechen und
Schulden - späteste Form - [II: 7].
Je bestimmter eine organische Einheit z. B.
eine Gemeinde Heerde sich zum Bewußtsein
kommt, um so stärker ist ihr Haß gegen das
Fremde. Die Sympathie mit dem Zugehörigen und
der Haß gegen das Fremde wachsen mit einan-
der.
In Hinsicht auf die Continuität des gemein-
schaftlichen Lebens und die Menge Gedanken,
welche es in Anspruch nimmt: wie gering ist der
Umfang, den die auf das Einzelwesen selbst
bezüglichen Zwecke und Bilder in ihm einnehmen!
Die socialen Triebe überwiegen bei weitem die
individuellen. Die Thiere führen zu ihrem eigenen
Schaden Handlungen aus, die der Gruppe nüt-
zen.
Die thierische Gesellschaft beruht, um uns
der jetzigen moralischen Sprache zu bedienen
(aber grundverschiedenen Empfindungen entspre-
chend), auf Liebe, Beständigkeit der Zuneigun-
gen, Erziehung der Jungen, Arbeit, Sparsamkeit,
Muth, Gehorsam bei den Schwachen, Besorgniß
bei den Starken, Aufopferung bei Allen. Keine
Gesellschaft kann sich erhalten, ohne solche Ei-
genschaften, und in der erhaltenen werden diese
Triebe vererbt: sie würden bei einem Grad von
Stärke die Gesellschaft matt machen: aber es
entwickeln sich antagonistische Kräfte innerhalb,
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
569
in dem Grade als nach außerhalb Sicherheit
eintritt. Und im vollendeten Zustand der Ruhe
nach außen löst sich die Gesellschaft in Individuen
auf: es bildet sich die Spannung, die früher
zwischen Gemeinde und Gemeinde war. Damit
erst giebt es Mitleid - als Empfindung zwischen
Individuen, die sich als solche fühlen. (Die altru-
istischen Handlungen jener einheitlichen Urgesell-
schaften haben ein Ichgefühl zur Voraussetzung,
aber ein Collektiv-Ich und sind grundverschieden
vom Mitleiden.) Vielleicht empfand ein Ge-
schlecht zu einem anderen Geschlecht innerhalb
eines größeren Verbandes zuerst etwas wie Mitleid
und Achtung, also nicht gegen Individuen. Hier ist
der Ursprung des Mitleidens. Ich meine: die
Blutrache ist die älteste Form dieser Achtung vor
einem anderen Geschlecht: als Gegensatz zum
absoluten Gefühl der Feindschaft.
[„Je bestimmter . . . Gefühl der Feindschaft“
geht nicht auf Post zurück. Dieser letzte Teil des
Exzerptes basiert teilweise auf Espinas (1877),
teilweise handelt es sich um Zusätze von Nietzsche
(vgl. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1: 191)]
Aus der o. a. Analyse der Nietzsche-Frag-
mente wird deutlich, daß diese keineswegs - wie
Schuhmachers Ausführungen nahelegen - eine
einheitliche Struktur aufweisen und somit auch
nicht durchgängig als „ethnologisch“ zu bezeich-
nen sind: neben Auszügen aus Espinas’ «Des
sociétés animales», die man heute wohl „etholo-
gisch“ nennen würde, finden sich auch Bemerkun-
gen, die aus Nietzsches eigener Feder stammen.
Den Kern der Fragmente bilden allerdings zweifel-
los die Exzerpte aus Posts „Bausteinen“, und in
Kenntnis dieser Tatsache lassen sich zwei weitere
Schlußfolgerungen ziehen:
1. Das von Schuhmacher ebenfalls erwähnte und
als „Einleitung“ in den ethnologischen Exkurs
(1987: 629 Anm. 2) bezeichnete Fragment 8 [1]
steht mit den o. a. Exzerpten in keinem engeren
Zusammenhang. Es handelt sich hier lediglich um
eine Auflistung ethnographischer „Kuriosa“, wie
z. B. „Die Tonga-Insulaner schneiden die kleinen
Finger ab, als Opfer“, oder: „Im Orient bedeckt
die Frau, im Bade überrascht, das Gesicht - so ist
es dezent!“ und: „Unsinnige Massen Reis ißt z. B.
der Siamese“ etc. (vgl. KSA 10: 325 bzw. KGW
7. Abt. Bd. 1: 335). Die Quellen dieser Exzerpte
sind zwar immer noch nicht vollständig erschlos-
sen,11 Albert Hermann Post ist m. E. aber mit
11 Bei den erschlossenen Quellen handelt es sich um Klemm
1843 ff. und Peschei 1874; vgl. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 4.1:
187 f.
ziemlicher Sicherheit auszuschließen. Zum einen
richtet sich dessen Interesse auf spezifische gesell-
schaftliche Erscheinungsformen (sprich: „rechtli-
che“ Normen und Sanktionen) und zum anderen
zeigen die Exzerpte deutlich, daß Nietzsche bei der
Post-Lektüre nicht an einer Erweiterung seiner
Sammlung ethnographischer „Kuriosa“ interes-
siert ist, sondern an Posts Erklärungszusammen-
hang und dabei insbesondere an dessen Theorie
über die Entwicklung des Familien- und des
Strafrechts.
2. Das von Schumacher nicht angeführte Frag-
ment 8 [5], das eine Auflistung von Strafen bei den
alten Germanen enthält, ist dagegen mit Sicherheit
ebenfalls dem „ethnologischen Exkurs“ zuzurech-
nen. Es lautet:
„Strafen bei den Germanen; einen Mühlstein
aufs Haupt fallen lassen (mythisch), das Vierthei-
len durch Pferde, Zertreten durch Pferde; in Oel
oder Wein gesotten (14. und 15. Jahrhundert)
werden; ebenso im Mittelalter Lebendigbegraben,
Vermauern, Verhungern. Das Rädern (rein ger-
manisch), das Schinden (Riemenschneiden aus der
Plaut). Mit Honig bestreichen und den Fliegen und
der heißen Sonne übergeben. Das rechte Bein und
den linken Arm abhauen. Nase, Ohren, Lippen,
Zunge, Zähne, Augen, Geschlechtstheile.“
(Vgl. KSA 10: 326 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1; 336)
- Die Grundlage liefern hier ebenfalls Posts
„Bausteine“ (vgl. 1880/81 Bd. 1: 191, 192, 194,
196, 197, 198, 206, 207, 208).12 * * *
Mit den bisherigen Ausführungen ist natürlich
noch nichts über die Relevanz der Post-Exzerpte
für Nietzsche und sein Werk ausgesagt. Man
könnte sie interessiert zur Kenntnis nehmen und
dann zur Tagesordnung übergehen, gerade auch
angesichts der Tatsache, daß in einschlägigen
Monographien in der Regel keine Hinweise auf
eine mögliche Bedeutung A. H. Posts für Nietz-
12 Für das ebenfalls als „ethnologisch“ zu bezeichnende kurze
Fragment 8 [10] - sein Inhalt: „Auch die ,Wilden' sind
unsäglich hoch entwickelte Menschen, gegen die längsten
Zeiten gerechnet“ (KSA 10: 333 bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1:
343) - habe ich dagegen bisher keine Entsprechung in Posts
Arbeiten gefunden. Ich vermute allerdings, daß Post diese
Einschätzung inhaltlich durchaus geteilt hat. Sie entspricht
einer Grundüberzeugung der sogenannten „klassischen
Evolutionisten“ des 19. Jh.s, die keineswegs den Fehler
machten, die Verhältnisse bei den rezenten ,Primitiven' mit
denen in der Urgesellschaft vollständig gleichzusetzen. J. F.
McLennan drückt dies z. B. in folgenden Worten aus: “A
really primitive people in fact exists nowhere. For many
thousands of years now, the various races of men have been
in the school of experience, all making progress therein,
though under different masters and in different forms”
(1865: 28).
Anthropos 83.1988
570
Berichte und Kommentare
sches Werk aufzufinden sind; auch in den seit 1972
jährlich erscheinenden Nietzsche-Studien wurde
Post bisher nicht erwähnt.13 Ich meine allerdings,
daß man - trotz dieser Sachlage - die Bedeutung
dieser Exzerpte nicht unterschätzen sollte. Diese
Einschätzung basiert u. a. auf einem weiteren
Fragment vom Sommer 1883, dessen Bedeutung
Schuhmacher (verständlicherweise) ebenfalls ent-
gangen ist, da er die zentrale Quelle Nietzsches
nicht erkannt hat. Dort heißt es:
„Ja die Philosophie des Rechts! Das ist eine
Wissenschaft welche, wie alle moralischen Wissen-
schaften, noch nicht einmal in den Windeln liegt!
Man verkennt z. B. immer noch, auch unter frei
sich denkenden Juristen, die älteste Bedeutung der
Strafe - man kennt sie gar nicht: und so lange die
Rechtswissenschaft sich nicht auf einen neuen
Boden stellt, nämlich auf Historie und Völker-
Vergleichung, wird es bei dem unseligen Kampfe
von grundfalschen Abstraktionen verbleiben, wel-
che heute sich als „Philosophie des Rechts“ vor-
stellen und die sämtlich vom gegenwärtigen
M<enschen> abgezogen sind. Dieser gegenwärti-
ge M<ensch> ist aber ein so verwickeltes Ge-
schlecht, auch in Bezug auf seine rechtl<ichen>
Werthschätzungen, daß er die verschiedensten
Ausdeutungen erlaubt.“14
Diese „radikale“ Kritik Nietzsches - die ja durch-
aus auch Implikationen für das eigene „Pro-
gramm“ enthält - an der zeitgenössischen Rechts-
philosophie setzt nicht nur die Lektüre Posts
voraus. Sie ist in dieser Form nur dadurch zu
erklären, daß sich Nietzsche den Standpunkt Posts
(zumindest in den grundlegenden Positionen) zu
eigen gemacht hat. Das Ziel von Posts Veröffent-
lichungen lag ja gerade darin, „die gänzliche
Unzulänglichkeit der bestehenden Rechtsphiloso-
phie“ (1878: 1) mit Hilfe der vergleichenden For-
schung zu überwinden und sie so von der „Specu-
lation“ (1876; 4) auf den Boden der Tatsachen
zurückzuführen.15 - Die Möglichkeit, daß sich
Nietzsche in seiner Kritik auf einen anderen Autor
als A. H. Post stützt, ist wohl aus verschiedenen
Gründen auszuschließen: 1. Zur Zeit der Entste-
hung der o. a. Fragmente befand sich die soge-
13 Der einzige mir bekannt gewordene Artikel, der auf einen
möglichen Zusammenhang zwischen Nietzsche und Post
hinweist, ist in Frankreich erschienen (vgl. Kremer-Marietti
1984: bes. 220 ff.) und hat m. W. bisher nicht die ihm
gebührende Beachtung gefunden.
14 Es handelt sich um das Fragment 8 [13]; vgl. KSA 10: 334
bzw. KGW 7. Abt. Bd. 1: 344.
15 Ausführlicher äußert sich Post dazu selbstverständlich auch
in den „Bausteinen“ (vgl. bes. 1880/81 Bd. 1.; 1-20).
nannte „vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft“ erst in
statu nascendi, und Post war zu dieser Zeit nicht
nur der entscheidende Vertreter des neuen For-
schungszweiges,16 sondern er hatte bis dahin auch
als einziger bereits ausführliche theoretische Ar-
beiten vorgelegt.17 18 2. Nietzsches Hinweis auf die
„älteste Bedeutung der Strafe“ in diesem Exzerpt
kann sich nur auf A. H. Post beziehen, der gerade
diesem Phänomen in seinen „Bausteinen“ einen
breiten Platz eingeräumt hat (vgl. Post 1880/81
Bd. 1: 137-349).
Aber noch ein weiterer Punkt spricht für die
Bedeutung dieser Fragmente: Ihr Einfluß ist noch
in Nietzsches Werk „Zur Genealogie der Moral“
(zuerst 1887; wiederabgedruckt in: KGW 6. Abt.
Bd. 2.: 267-430) spürbar. Nietzsche führt in dieser
Publikation nicht nur die bereits erwähnten Stra-
fen bei den Germanen an (vgl. Fragment 8 [5];
siehe KGW 6. Abt. Bd. 2: 312), auch an weiteren
Stellen ist der Einfluß Postschen Gedankenguts
offensichtlich (vgl. z. B. KGW 6. Abt. Bd. 2.:
323 ff., 332 ff., 343 ff., 374 ff.). Es handelt sich bei
der Lektüre Posts durch Nietzsche also offensicht-
lich um ein Phänomen mit „Langzeitwirkung“!
Selbstverständlich ist auf der Grundlage der
hier vorgelegten, begrenzten Recherchen eine
abschließende Beurteilung des Verhältnisses
„Nietzsche - Post“ nicht möglich. Dazu bedarf es
weiterer Forschungen, die dann auch andere Ar-
beiten der genannten Autoren einer genaueren
Analyse unterziehen müßten. Wenn meine Aus-
führungen dazu anregen würden, hätten sie ihren
Zweck erfüllt.
Noch erfreulicher wäre es, wenn sich einige
Ethnologen dadurch veranlaßt sehen würden, die
Geschichte ihres Faches etwas genauer und vorur-
teilsloser unter die Lupe zu nehmen. A. H. Post
war ja nicht der einzige Ethnologe, der von
Nietzsche rezipiert wurde,19 und Nietzsche war
16 Noch in den „Bausteinen“ klagt Post; „Dass meine gänzlich
isolirte Stellung einer ganzen wohl fundirten Wissenschaft
gegenüber nicht zu den Annehmlichkeiten gehört, wird man
mir wohl zugeben“ (1880/81 Bd. 1: 20).
17 Die vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft gewinnt erst im
Verlaufe der 80er Jahre des vorigen Jahrhunderts an
Bedeutung. Aber selbst Josef Köhler, der zweite bedeuten-
de Vertreter dieser neuen Forschungsrichtung, hat zu
seinen Lebzeiten keine so umfassenden Arbeiten vorgelegt
wie A. H. Post.
18 Zu diesem Themenbereich existiert auch noch ein Aufsatz
Posts aus späteren Zeiten (1895).
19 Zum Verhältnis „Bachofen - Nietzsche“ ist z. B. bereits
etwas Literatur vorhanden. Diese habe ich, soweit sie mir
zugänglich war, in meiner 1988 erscheinenden Bachofen-
Bibliographie erfaßt.
Anthropos 83.1988
Berichte und Kommentare
571
ganz sicher nicht die einzige geisteswissenschaftli-
che „Größe“, die ethnologische Materialien/Theo-
rien verarbeitet hat.20 - Schuhmacher kommt das
Verdienst zu, auf diese, von heutigen Ethnologen
bisher kaum thematisierte, Problematik hingewie-
sen zu haben. Daß sich in diesem Bereich auch die
Möglichkeit einer interdisziplinären Zusammenar-
beit abzeichnet, versteht sich von selbst. Eine
Realisierung erscheint mir gegenwärtig allerdings
eher zweifelhaft, da hierfür - von ethnologischer
Seite - offensichtlich bisher die Grundlagen feh-
len. Auch aus diesem Grunde könnte eine Rück-
besinnung auf die eigene Geschichte von Nutzen
sein.
Zitierte Literatur
Achelis, Th. L. B.
1895 A. H. Post. Geb. 8. Oct. 1839, gest. 25. Aug. 1895. In:
Beilage Nr. 216 zur Allgemeinen Zeitung (München)
Nr. 260 vom 19. September 1895.
1896 A. H. Post und die vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft.
Hamburg.
Bastian, Adolf
1872 Die Rechtsverhältnisse bei verschiedenen Völkern der
Erde. Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Ethnologie.
Berlin.
Bernhöft, F.
1895 Dr. Albert Hermann Post. Jahrbuch der Internationa-
len Vereinigung für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft
und Volkswirtschaftslehre 1; 643-647.
Espinas, E.
1877 Des sociétés animales. Paris.
Hildebrandt, H.-J.
1988 Johann Jakob Bachofen. Eine Bibliographie der Pri-
mär- und Sekundärliteratur, [im Druck]
Klemm, Gustav
1843 ff. Allgemeine Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit. Leip-
zig.
20 Auch dazu finden sich einige Anregungen in der erwähnten
Bachofen-Bibliographie, wenn auch nur thematisch be-
grenzt.
Kremer-Marietti, A.
1984 Nietzsche et la vengeance, comme restitution de la
puissance. In: La vengeance. Etudes d’ethnologie,
d'histoire et de Philosophie; vol. 4: 219-241. Paris.
Kühtmann, A.
1912 Post, Albert Hermann. In: Bremische Biographie des
neunzehnten Jahrhunderts; pp. 392-395. Bremen.
McLennan, J. F.
1865 Primitive Marriage. An Inquiry into the Origin of the
Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies. London.
[Zit. nach; repr. Chicago-London 1970]
Nietzsche, F.
1967 ff. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Berlin-New York.
1980 Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe. Mün-
chen.
1986 Sämtliche Briefe. Kritische Studienausgabe. Mün-
chen.
Peschei, Oscar
1874 Völkerkunde. Leipzig.
Post, A. H.
1872 Einleitung in eine Naturwissenschaft des Rechts. Ol-
denburg.
1875 Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Urzeit und die
Entstehung der Ehe. Ein Beitrag zu einer allgemeinen
vergleichenden Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft. Olden-
burg.
1876 Der Ursprung des Rechts. Prolegomena zu einer
allgemeinen vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft. Ol-
denburg.
1878 Die Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtslebens. Ein Beitrag
zu einer allgemeinen vergleichenden Staats- und
Rechtsgeschichte. Oldenburg.
1880/81 Bausteine für eine allgemeine Rechtswissenschaft auf
vergleichend ethnologischer Basis; 2 Bde. Oldenburg.
1891 Hausgenossenschaften und Gruppenehen. Ausland 64;
821-825; 841-846.
1895 Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Strafe. Globus 67:
30-33.
Schuhmacher, W. W.
1987 Ad fontes: Nietzsche als „Ethnologe“. Ein Arbeitspa-
pier. Anthropos 82: 629-631.
Sellnow, W.
1963 Gesellschaft - Staat - Recht. Zur Kritik der bürgerli-
chen Ideologien über die Entstehung von Gesellschaft,
Staat und Recht. Von der bürgerlichen Aufklärung bis
zum deutschen Positivismus des 19. Jhdts. Berlin
(DDR).
Anthropos 83.1988
572
Miszellen
Symbolische Logik in der mündlichen Tradition der
Aymaras - Von schwierigen Übergängen und richtigen
Abständen (Raimund Schramm). - Der Autor unter-
sucht Kontinuität und Wandel in der oralen Tradition
der Aymaras (Südamerika). 52 Erzählungen werden
kritisch analysiert und in dem ihnen gemäßen kulturel-
len Kontext kommentiert. Sie spiegeln Anpassung und
Widerstand der andinen Indianer - die Kontinuität ihres
Lebens - in ihrer kosmologischen Weltanschauung
angesichts gesellschaftlicher und politischer Verände-
rungen.
In den Erzählungen (Cuentos) der Aymaras ist der
Fuchs die herausragende Figur. Durch sein Verhalten
stört er immer wieder die Harmonie des Zusammenle-
bens und gefährdet damit das Gleichgewicht der kosmi-
schen Räume und Zeiteinheiten.
Die Analyse der Erzählungen aus der oralen
Tradition der Aymaras und benachbarter andiner Eth-
nien deckt deren innere Struktur auf und deutet sie als
Übergangsmodell. Dabei wird auf die panandine Kon-
zeption des Pachakuti - die chaotische Übergangsphase
zwischen zwei Epochen - zurückgegriffen. Weitere
Cuentos lassen schließlich eine genauere Positions- und
Funktionsbestimmung des Fuchses zu; seine Neigung
zur Instabilität wurzelt offenbar in seiner Verwandt-
schaft mit verschiedenen Wesen aus der Manqha Pacha
(die Welt „innen“ bzw. “unten“, das Erdinnere). In
diesem Rahmen tritt der Fuchs als eine Figur auf, die die
Kontinuität des Lebens gefährdet; die Cuentos setzen
jedoch dem füchsischen Handeln eine agrarische Ideo-
logie entgegen, die den Vierbeiner immer wieder in
seine Schranken weist.
Der zweite Teil, der Impulse für weiterführende
Analysen geben will, verfolgt einige Spuren von den
andinen Cuentos zu Erzähltraditionen von Ethnien des
Chaco. Praktiken der Schamanen werden beleuchtet,
Etappen der Geschichte andiner Ethnien, vor allem
deren Konfrontation mit christlicher Mission, werden
gedeutet. Stets bleibt der Fuchs Ausgangspunkt der
Fragestellung und der Vergleiche. - ([Collectanea Insti-
tué Anthropos, 38] Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag,
1988. ISBN 3-496-00984-7. 280 pp. Preis: DM 70,00)
Les Paraiyars du Tamil Nadu (Robert Deliège). -
Le présente étude est le fruit d’une recherche dans un
petit village paraiyar du Tamil Nadu (district de Ram-
nad) au cours d’un séjour de deux années en Inde du
Sud. L’auteur a, pardessus tout, cherché à faire revivre
l’univers social des Paraiyars. C’est donc toute la vie du
village qui se reconstruit au fil des pages, avec ses
intrigues et ses passions, ses joies et sa misère, ses rites et
ses croyances. L’étude des relations d’autorité, de la vie
économique, des rapports entre castes, des relations de
parenté et de l’univers religieux révélera une population
qui a peu intégré les valeurs hiérarchiques de la société
indienne. Les Paraiyars ne supportent en effet aucune
différenciation sociale interne; ils mettent peu l’accent
sur les règles de pureté et sur toute orthodoxie en
général; le rituel est ice réduit à sa plus simple expression
et la vie religieuse contraste avec la sophistication des
rites et croyances brahmaniques.
La majorité des villageois étant catholique, cette
étude comble enfin un vide dans l’anthropologie indien-
ne que s’était jusque-là presque totalement désintéres-
sée de cette minorité catholique, pourtant importante,
du Sud de l’Inde. - ([Studia Institut! Anthropos, 42]
Sankt Augustin: Anthropos-Institut; Nettetal: Steyler
Verlag, 1988. ISBN 3-8050-0205-X. xiii+306pp. Preis:
DM 75,-)
Chinese-Western Encounter: Studies in Linguistics
and Literature. Festschrift for Franz Giet, SVD, on the
Occasion of his 85th Birthday (A. Bramkamp, Yi-chin
Fu, A. Sprenger and P. Venne [eds.]). - Der Band
enthält 31 Artikel, in Englisch und Deutsch, über
Themen der Phonetik, Linguistik, Literatur und Sprach-
methodik. Die Verfasser der Beiträge sind Chinesen,
Deutsche, Amerikaner und Japaner. Prof. Giet hat über
50 Jahre in China, Japan und Taiwan als Missionar,
Lehrer und Gelehrter gearbeitet.
Aus dem Inhalt: P. Denlinger, “Tone” in Sino-
Tibetan; H. Siebenhandl, Zur Entwicklung des chinesi-
schen Tonsystems; R. L. Cheng, Vivid Reduplication in
Mandarin and Taiwanese; J.-w. Shieh, Deutsch als
„tierische“ Sprache; W.-j. K. Yen, The First Generation
of a Chinese Parsing System; K.-t. Hu, Übersetzen als
Kommunikationsprozeß; A. Sprenger, On the Use of
Plays in a Foreign Language Department in Taiwan;
J. H. Hsu, A Socio-Linguistic Survey of Language
Attitudes in the Taipei Area; F.-h. Dscheng, Brechts
Reflexionen über die chinesische Lyrik; R. Wandel,
Bemerkungen zur Rezeption deutscher Literatur in
Taiwan.
([Chinese Materials Center Publications, Asian
Library Series, 44] San Francisco: Chinese Materials
Center Publications, 1987. ISBN 0-89644-673-5. xi+
464 pp.)
Call for papers for a reader entitled “Applied
Ethnotherapy” to be edited by Walter Andritzky in
cooperation with the publisher Andreas Gehling.
The emphasis is on practical aspects of ethnomedi-
cine and the broad range of methods in ethnopsycho-
therapy. The basic scientific concept is the complemen-
tary use of emic and etic concepts. Issues could be, e.g.,
the possibilities of learning and integrating ethnothera-
peutic methods and philosophies in modern therapies
here as well as in the third world, the effects of fieldwork
on the groups involved and revitalization strategies for
folk healing systems, the problems of effectivity-re-
search, etc. In any case, the topic should be presented in
a broader conceptual framework relevant to practice and
exceed purely scientific purposes. Languages: English,
German. Proposals for topics and first drafts should
be sent as soon as possible to: Dr. Walter Andritzky,
Kopernikusstraße 55, 4000 Düsseldorf!, West Ger-
many.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
Bargatzky, Thomas: Einführung in die Kulturöko-
logie. Umwelt, Kultur und Gesellschaft. Berlin: Diet-
rich Reimer Verlag, 1986. 252 pp., Fotos, Fig. Preis:
DM 26,-
Wer sich ohne Vorkenntnisse durch diese Arbeit
über Ziele, Methoden und Erkenntnisstand der Kultur-
ökologie unterrichten möchte, wird nach 220 Seiten
Text möglicherweise die Frage stellen, warum sich ihr
Autor solche Mühe gemacht hat.
Da wird vor dem Leser eine komplexe Terminolo-
gie ausgebreitet (Kap. 3 u. 4; definitiv der nützlichste
Teil der Arbeit!), aber alle bisherigen Versuche, mit
deren Hilfe kulturanthropologische Probleme zu lösen,
Erklärungshypothesen zu formulieren und zu testen,
werden für gescheitert erklärt. Da wird in schwierigste
Konzepte eingeführt, nur um sie sodann als unserem
Gegenstand (Kultur) unangemessen zu verwerfen.
Die gesamte Geschichte kulturökologischen Theo-
retisierens in der Anthropologie gerät Bargatzky zu
einer Serie konzeptioneller Fehlschläge! Dem “Cultural
Area Concept” etwa „. . . kommt . . . allenfalls ein
beschränkter heuristischer Nutzen bei der Gestaltung
von Museums-Ausstellungen zu“ (26). Meggers’ “Law
of Environmental Limitation” kann schlicht „. . .zu den
Akten gelegt werden . . .“ (26), und von Steward’s
“Cultural Ecology” wird behauptet, daß sie „. . . kaum
Anhänger fand . . .“ (29), als sei ohne Steward die
wachsende kulturökologische Forschungstradition über-
haupt nur denkbar!
Aber, es geht natürlich nicht darum, daß Bargatzky
einzelne Erklärungshypothesen einiger Kulturökologen
für „falsch“ oder „veraltet“ hält; was in seiner Art der
„Einführung“ auf der Strecke bleibt, ist vielmehr die
Kulturökologie als Analyseansatz. Was er für „mißlun-
gen“, „gescheitert“ oder „widerlegt“ erklärt, ist das
kulturökologische Paradigma an sich! Aber lassen Sie
mich kurz versuchen, meine Kritik an einem einzigen
Punkt zu erläutern.
Bargatzky stellt ganz richtig fest, daß der Begriff
der „Anpassung“ im Mittelpunkt kulturökologischer
Überlegungen steht. „Vermittels seiner Kultur und
seiner Sozialorganisation interagiert der Mensch mit
seiner natürlichen Umwelt und jedes Biom stellt ihm
besondere Aufgaben, die es zu lösen gilt, will er
überleben. Der Prozeß der längerfristigen Mensch-
Umwelt Interaktion wird in der Literatur oft als Anpas-
sung1 (engl, adaptation) bezeichnet“ (37). Soweit, so
gut, - dann aber fährt Bargatzky fort: „Aus Gründen,
die später noch deutlicher werden . . . wird in diesem
Buch auf diese Sprachregelung verzichtet“ (37). -
Worauf Bargatzky hier „verzichtet“, ist keine „Sprach-
regelung“; es ist das Herz des kulturökologischen
Paradigmas selbst!
Was aber ist denn falsch am Begriff der Anpas-
sung? Wenn es denn stimmt, daß Menschen mit ihren
natürlichen (inklusive sozialen!) Umwelten interagie-
ren, und wenn es stimmt, daß diese Umwelten (im
Verbund mit einer genetisch determinierten Physis) den
Menschen „Aufgaben“ stellen, deren Lösung unum-
gänglich ist, was sollte uns dann daran hindern, jene
Menschengruppen als „angepaßt“ zu betrachten, deren
Mitglieder diese Aufgaben gelöst haben?
Bargatzky beginnt seine Gegen-Argumentation
mit der üblichen Behauptung aller Gegner der Kultur-
ökologie (und der wenigen überlebenden, hartnäckigen
Zweifler an der biologischen Evolutionstheorie!), daß
„Anpassung“ nicht meßbar und die Idee des “survival of
the fittest” zirkelschlüssig sei, „. . . denn wer überlebt,
muß wohl ‘the fittest’ sein“ (175). Das ist er wohl in der
Tat - relativ zu Varianten seines Geno-/Phenotyps, die
nicht überlebt haben, nur der angebliche Zirkelschluß
überlebt leider das zweite Nachdenken nicht!
Bargatzky weiß natürlich, daß es für „Angepaßt-
heit“ sehr wohl ein (und nur ein einziges!) akzeptables
Maß gibt, nämlich: (genetische, relative, individuelle
und/oder inklusive) Fitness. Aber jeder wird sich ver-
wundert die Augen reiben, wenn er erfährt, wie er
“Fitness” definiert (wobei er vorgibt, den biologischen
Wortsinn zu replizieren!): „Die Anpassung einer Tier-
oder Pflanzenari an ihre natürliche Umwelt wird dort [in
der Biologie; E. F.] an der relativ größeren Anzahl von
Nachkommen gemessen, die eine Population [?!] auf-
grund ihrer günstigeren genetischen Ausstattung im
Vergleich mit den übrigen Populationen [!] besitzt, die
sich mit ihr im Wettbewerb um Lebensraum und
Ressourcen befinden“ (175 f.; Hervorhebung: E. F.).
Nur mit sehr viel gutem Willen könnte man hieraus
noch eine Wiedergabe der Definition von “Inclusive
Fitness” (?) herauslesen. Aber ich möchte hier gar nicht
erst in eine evolutionstheoretische Debatte eintreten.
Für diese Besprechung interessanter ist die Argumenta-
tion, die Bargatzky aus solchem Exkurs in die Syntheti-
sche Theorie gegen die Kulturökologie gewinnt: „Kultur
wird aber durch Lernen und nicht genetisch übertragen.
Anthropos 83.1988
574
Rezensionen
Unterschiedliche Reproduktionsraten von menschli-
chen Populationen sind daher keine Selektionsverfahren
[?], die auf Ausbreitung und Evolution von Kultur
Einfluß haben. Eine menschliche Population kann ja
aussterben, aber zuvor ihre Kultur weitergeben; umge-
kehrt kann eine Population eine andere Kultur überneh-
men. Daraus folgt [?], daß die Reproduktionsrate beim
Menschen kein Kriterium für die Angepaßtheit von ein-
zelnen soziokulturellen Merkmalen [?] oder sogar von
ganzen soziokulturellen Systemen sein kann“ (176).
Behauptet Bargatzky hier, daß eine (kulturell)
angepaßte menschliche Population dennoch aussterben
könne (?), oder daß menschliche Populationen (?) frei
sind, sich eine unangepaßte Kultur anzueignen, wenn sie
nur wollen? Warum sollten sie wollen? Kennt man
Beispiele?
Was immer Bargatzky hier gemeint haben mag,
klar ist, daß er als bewiesen behauptet, was erst noch
erwiesen werden muß. Klar ist ferner, daß Bargatzky
den vorgeblich kausalitätsfreien Raum menschlicher
Kultur gegen den Erklärungsanspruch naturwissen-
schaftlicher (und insbesondere: soziobiologischer!) Mo-
dellbildung verteidigen möchte. (Daß er diesen Versuch
mit einer Polemik gegen die angeblich von „Adaptioni-
sten“ betriebene Dichotomisierung von Natur und
Kultur zu verbinden sucht (177), entbehrt nicht der
Komik!)
In seiner Kritik der „Philosophie des Anpassungs-
konzepts“ wirft er den „Adaptionisten“ nichts weniger
vor, als ein Beharren auf dem „Reiz-Reaktionsschema
der behavioristischen Psychologie“ [!] (176), um dann
die Inadäquatheit des Reiz-Reaktionsschemas für
schlicht „bewiesen“ zu erklären. Nur so viel will er
anmerken: „. . . Menschen haben aber ,PIäne‘, die ihr
Verhalten leiten [!] . . .; sie sind nicht die passiven
Roboter, die der Behaviorismus aus ihnen macht“
(176).
Dieses Zitat belegt dreierlei; erstens, daß Bargatz-
ky einem kognitivistischen Kulturparadigma anhängt,
zweitens, daß er den Behaviorismus in seiner Intention
nicht verstanden hat (darin vielmehr eine entwürdigen-
de Konzeption des Menschen sieht!), und drittens, daß
er gegen die kausale Erklärungsintention der „Adaptio-
nisten“ (von der Kulturökologie bis hin zur Soziobiolo-
gie) die „Pläne“ nicht leugnet, sondern begründen will,
die nicht-determinierte Imaginationsfähigkeit des
menschlichen Geistes verteidigen möchte. Das ist ihm
natürlich unbenommen - nur, warum schreibt er dann
eine Einführung in die Kulturökologie?
Was nämlich übrig bleibt von einer Kulturökolo-
gie, der ihre Erklärungsintention genommen worden ist,
ist ein kompliziertes und wenig Sinn machendes Des-
kriptionsverfahren, ein bloßes „Thema“, wie „Reli-
gionsethnologie“ und „Mythen“, dem man sich dann mit
paradigmatisch ungebundenem Eklektizismus widmen
kann. Kulturökologie (in allen ihren Varianten) aber ist
und bleibt ein anthropologisches Paradigma, dessen
Erfolge sich mehren - wie ein Blick in einschlägige
Fachzeitschriften und Dissertationslisten beweist.
Erwin H. Frank
Barker, Graeme, and Clive Gamble (eds.): Beyond
Domestication in Prehistoric Europe. Investigations in
Subsistence Archaeology and Social Complexity. Lon-
don: Académie Press, 1985. xx+282 pp., fig., tab. Price:
£ 36.00
Der Titel der Publikation ist nicht historisch in dem
Sinne zu verstehen, daß er auf eine zeitliche Folge
„jenseits der Domestikation“ (vor/nach) gerichtet wäre.
Vielmehr ist die Basis „Domestikation“ für die Subsi-
stenzsicherung, exakter wohl Grundlagenwirtschaft,
vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Gruppen in Europa ange-
sprochen, die sich durch kontinuierlich zunehmende
gesellschaftliche Vielschichtigkeiten auszeichnete. Bar-
ker und Gamble verfolgen mit dem vorliegenden Werk
das Ziel, zur verstärkten Erforschung grundlagenwirt-
schaftlicher Daten „prähistorischer“ Gesellschaften an-
zuregen, um so einen theoretischen Rahmen für verglei-
chende Studien zu erhalten, insbesondere im Hinblick
auf ökologische Bezugspunkte. Sie meinen, daß solche
Untersuchungen bisher sträflich vernachlässigt worden
seien und betonen, daß hier ein Schlüssel zur Bestim-
mung gesellschaftlicher und wirtschaftlicher Komplexi-
tät vorliege. Der Untertitel trifft daher die mit dem Buch
verfolgte Absicht der Herausgeber besser, wenn er auch
nicht so zugkräftig ist wie der Haupttitel. Beide stehen
für eine Zusammenstellung von insgesamt neun Aufsät-
zen unter einem Dach, geschrieben von zehn wissen-
schaftlichen Autoren (den ersten Beitrag haben die
Herausgeber gemeinsam verfaßt), überwiegend Ar-
chäologen. Das alle verbindende Ziel ist eher nichtssa-
gend: “What links all the contributions is a concern with
the complexity of the data base available to us, the need
for theories and methods appropriate to such data, and
the potential impact on prehistoric archaeology as a
whole once such an approach becomes commonplace”
(xix f.).
Abgesehen von Kapitel 1 mit einführendem Cha-
rakter werden in den Kapiteln 2 bis 5 methodologische
Fragen behandelt, während in den vier folgenden
Fallstudien präsentiert werden. Bei einer Aufsatzsamm-
lung wie der vorliegenden ist es nicht möglich, auf den
einzelnen Beitrag einzugehen, soll eine Rezension in
Buchlänge vermieden werden. Es sollen daher hier die
neun Kapitel mit Originaltitel vorgestellt werden, da
eine Übersetzung oftmals nicht das exakt wiederzuge-
ben vermag, was der Autor mit der gewählten Über-
schrift auszudrücken suchte. Im Anschluß daran wird
auf solche Meinungen der Herausgeber kritisch einge-
gangen, die bei der Auswahl der Artikel ausschlagge-
bend waren und daher den roten Faden der Publikation
bilden.
Alle Kapitel sind in mehrere Untertitel gegliedert
und enthalten am Schluß Quellenangaben. Die meisten
enden mit einer Zusammenfassung. 1) Beyond Domes-
tication: A Strategy for Investigating the Process and
Consequence of Social Complexity (G. Barker and C.
Gamble). 2) Patterns in Faunal Assemblage Variability
(J. M. Maltby). 3) The Analysis of Ancient Herding
Systems: An Application of Computer Simulation in
Faunal Studies (R. Cribb). 4) Archaeobotany beyond
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
575
Subsistence Reconstruction (M. Jones). 5) Land Ten-
ure, Productivity, and Field Systems (A. Fleming).
6) Iron Age Transformations in Northern Russia and
the Northeast Baltic (M. Zvelebil). 7) Regional Survey
and Settlement Trends: Studies from Prehistoric France
(N. Mills). 8) Social Factors and Economic Change in
Balearic Prehistory, 3000-1000 B. C. (J. Lewthwaite).
9) Subsistence and Settlement in Northern Temperate
Europe in the First Millennium A. D. (K. Randsborg).
Ein Index beschließt den Band.
Während die Naturwissenschaften ihren methodo-
logischen Beitrag zur Erforschung der Domestikation
erbracht zu haben scheinen, steckt die Archäologie
hinsichtlich der sich stellenden Aufgaben noch in den
Anfängen. Deren Zielsetzung ist wesentlich umfangrei-
cher und komplexer, denn sie hat sich mit der Bewälti-
gung der Domestikation durch den Menschen zu be-
schäftigen. Biologische Daten müssen mit archäologi-
schen Befunden zusammengebracht werden.
In ihrem einführenden Kapitel liefern Barker und
Gamble einen Überblick über die bisherigen Ansätze
zur Lösung verschiedener Fragestellungen. Sie führen
dabei insbesondere Grahame Clark und dessen For-
schungen über wirtschaftliche Grundlagen des vorge-
schichtlichen Europas an. Nach Meinung der Herausge-
ber konnten definitive Antworten bisher deshalb nicht
gefunden werden, weil zu theoretisierend und generali-
sierend vorgegangen wurde. Statt dessen müsse versucht
werden, mit Fallstudien auf regionaler Ebene voranzu-
kommen. Diese erforderten dann Analysen, die über
eine Station hinausreichten. Dabei müsse unterschieden
werden zwischen den Begriffen der Subsistenz- bzw.
Grundlagenwirtschaft (oder - im Deutschen zweckmä-
ßiger - Grundversorgung) und der Wirtschaft. Die
Begründung, die für eine solche begriffliche Trennung
angeführt wird, ist vom wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen
Standpunkt aus allerdings nicht stichhaltig, zumal noch
in demselben Absatz für eine Verbindung beider Berei-
che plädiert wird. Ein Erfordernis für die angeführte
terminologische Zweiteilung läßt sich nicht erkennen.
Ein weiterer Punkt, der Kritik hervorruft, ist der
Hinweis der Herausgeber, daß die Umwelt zwar die
Grundversorgung einzwänge und die Produktion wirt-
schaftlicher Mittel begrenze, daß sie aber niemals das
Wachstum bei bereits laufender Entwicklung begrenzen
würde. Das mag auf entwickelte Wirtschaftseinheiten
zutreffen, doch muß bestimmt ein gewisser Standard
produktiver Kraft erreicht sein, um die wirtschaftliche
Eigendynamik bei ungünstigen Umweltbedingungen
nicht erlahmen oder sogar erlöschen zu lassen. (Es wird
nicht recht klar, ob die Herausgeber begrifflich zwischen
Entwicklung und Wachstum unterscheiden.) Auch ist
der Einfluß der jeweiligen Umwelt auf die Herausbil-
dung der Gesellschaftscharakteristika nicht zu leugnen.
Natürlich ist das Gesellschaftssystem gegenüber der
ökologischen Struktur dominant, aber doch nur deshalb,
weil es sich im Einklang mit ihr bereits längst etabliert
hat. Eine gegen die Umwelt gerichtete Gesellschaft
wäre doch, auf jeden Fall in ihren Anfängen, nicht
lebensfähig. Selbst entwickelte Wirtschaften sind der
Umwelt in vielfältiger Weise unterworfen. Gerade
unsere eigene Gegenwart zeigt dies deutlich. Hier
scheint noch viel Forschungsarbeit erforderlich. Erfor-
derlich erscheint auch der Hinweis, daß bei allem
forschenden Vorgehen nicht dadurch Aufmerksamkeit
erweckt werden sollte. Neues mit Gewalt, unter bewuß-
tem Abschneiden vermeintlich „alter Zöpfe“, d. h.
Negierung bewiesener Tatbestände, aus der Taufe zu
heben. Neue Wege jedoch müssen immer wieder be-
schritten werden. Nur so ist durchgreifender Fortschritt
möglich. Axel Schulze-Thulin
Beach, Hugh (ed.): Contributions to Circumpolar
Studies. Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1986. 181 pp.
(Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology,
7) Price: skr 50.-
Das Buch enthält drei Aufsätze zu verschiedenen
Aspekten des Lebens von zirkumpolaren Völkerschaf-
ten. Außer der regionalen Übereinstimmung besitzen
die drei Studien auch inhaltlich gemeinsame Fragestel-
lungen. Wie Beach in seinem Vorwort ankündigt,
befassen sie sich insbesondere mit der Ethnohistorie der
nördlichen Völker, ihren Rechten über die Ressourcen
ihrer Wohngebiete und über die Nutzung dieser Res-
sourcen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Alle drei
Aufsätze sind weniger von allgemeinem ethnologischen
Interesse, sondern behandeln sehr spezielle Themen.
Die ersten beiden Beiträge jedoch bieten Beispiele für
die Problematik der Beziehung zwischen der Politik von
Nationalstaaten und den Interessen der zu ihnen gehö-
renden ethnischen Minderheiten, den Angehörigen
sogenannter „Naturvölker“.
Hugh Beach sucht in seiner Studie “The Saami in
Alaska: Ethnie Relations and Reindeer Herding” nach
Spuren jener samischen (lappischen) Rentierhirten, die
den Inuit (Eskimos) Alaskas um die Jahrhundertwende
helfen sollten, die Rentierzucht zu erlernen. Im Laufe
einiger Jahre nahm Beach an der Rentierhaltung der
Tuorpon-Samen in Schweden teil, und 1982-1983 arbei-
tete er als Rentierhirte bei den Inuit der NANA
Corporation von Nordwestalaska. Neben den persönli-
chen Informationen, die er bei diesen Aufenthalten
erhielt, befaßte er sich mit den schriftlichen Quellen aus
jener Zeit, besonders mit den Aufzeichnungen von
Sheldon Jackson, dem Initiator des Rentierzuchtprojek-
tes in Alaska.
Der Presbyterianer Jackson war Oberhaupt der
gesamten christlichen Mission in Alaska und somit auch
für die Erziehung zuständig. 1890 stellte er auf einer
Reise in den Norden fest, daß die Eskimos sich in einer
schwierigen Ernährungssituation befanden. Zwar ist
zweifelhaft, ob die Eskimos damals wirklich vom Hun-
gertod bedroht waren, doch wurde diese Annahme der
offizielle Anlaß für eine groß angelegte Rettungsaktion
der Inuit durch Einführung von Rentieren.
Ein weiterer wichtiger Grund war aber die „Erzie-
hung“ der Eskimos. Beach schildert die damals herr-
schende Ideologie, die hinter diesem Unternehmen
stand und an die auch Jackson glaubte. Entsprechend
Anthropos 83.1988
576
Rezensionen
einer evolutionären Stufenfolge vom Jägertum über die
Viehzucht zur „Zivilisation“ sowie vom Nomadismus
zur Seßhaftigkeit glaubte man, die Inuit der Lebenswei-
se der Weißen anzunähern, sie auf den Weg zur „Zi-
vilisation“ zu bringen, indem man ihnen die Möglichkeit
er öffnete, von der Jagd zur Rentierzucht überzugehen.
Jackson sah in der Einführung der Rentierherden
auch eine Möglichkeit für die Missionsstationen, ihre
Position zu stärken, z. B. selbst für Nahrung zu sorgen.
Es zeigte sich später, daß bis zum Ende des Projektes
1937 ein großer Teil der Herden in Alaska in den
Händen der Missionen geblieben war. Die Rentierzucht
sollte ebenfalls den Handel mit Rentierfleisch in
Schwung bringen und die Einführung von Rentierschlit-
ten neue Transportmöglichkeiten schaffen.
Da die Haltung von Rentieren jedoch spezielle
Kenntnisse und Fähigkeiten voraussetzt, mußte man mit
den Tieren auch Hirten anwerben, die den Inuit halfen
und sie belehrten. Nachdem ein Versuch mit Tschukt-
schen gescheitert war, brachte Jackson in zwei Wellen
(1894 und 1898) lappische Hirten nach Alaska. Beach
beschreibt diese Einwanderungen sehr detailliert. Ge-
dacht war an eine permanente Ansiedlung der sami-
schen Familien, doch die meisten kehrten nach Ablauf
ihrer vertraglich festgelegten Zeit nach Hause zurück,
einige nahmen am Goldrausch in Alaska teil oder ließen
sich in südlicheren Gegenden nieder. Nur wenige
blieben als Rentierhirten in Alaska.
Die Inuit waren weiterhin Jäger. Das Projekt
scheiterte unter anderem daran, daß in der ethnischen
Dreierbeziehung - Weiße als Überwacher, Lappen als
Lehrer, Eskimos als Schüler - die Inuit stark benachtei-
ligt wurden. Obwohl das Unternehmen ursprünglich ins
Leben gerufen worden war, um ihren Lebensstandard
zu verbessern, wurden die Möglichkeiten für die Inuit,
selbst Rentierherden zu erwerben, sehr eingeschränkt
und an weitere Überwachung und Bevormundung durch
die Missionen oder samische Lehrer gebunden.
Die interethnischen Beziehungen zwischen Samen
und Inuit scheinen nach anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten
meist durch gegenseitigen Respekt gekennzeichnet ge-
wesen zu sein, jedoch belastet durch die vielen Privile-
gien, die die Samen genossen. Es kam nur zu oberfläch-
lichem Kulturaustausch. 1937, als die Rentierzucht in
Alaska aufgrund von Krieg, Depression, Überweidung,
neuen Transportmöglichkeiten durch das Flugzeug etc.
bereits in einer ernsten Krise steckte, erließ die US-
Regierung ein Gesetz, nach dem der Besitz von Rentie-
ren nur noch den Eingeborenen Alaskas Vorbehalten
war. Dies war das Ende von Jacksons Rentierzuchtpro-
jekt in Alaska.
Beach konnte auf seinen Feldforschungen 1982
kaum mehr Spuren der Samen in Alaska finden. Die
heutige Rentierhaltung unterscheidet sich grundlegend
von der in Skandinavien. Es gibt keine lappischen
Rentierhirten mehr, und selbst die wenigen noch vor-
handenen Nachkommen der ehemaligen samischen Ein-
wanderer zeigen nichts mehr vom kulturellen Erbe der
Samen.
Diese Episode aus der Geschichte der Samen und
Inuit in Alaska ist wenig bekannt und auch heute noch
teilweise von Mythen und Ideologien umrankt. Daher
ist es dankenswert, daß Beach sie ethnohistorisch so
detailliert aufgearbeitet hat. Interessant wäre ein noch
stärkeres Eingehen auf die Seite der Inuit, auf ihre
Einstellung zu diesem Projekt, ihre Reaktion darauf und
auf die Auswirkungen, die es auf ihr damaliges Leben
gehabt hat.
Auf ein von Ethnologen bisher relativ wenig
beachtetes Thema geht Nancy C. Weeks in ihrem
Aufsatz “National Parks and Native Peoples: A Study of
the Experience of Selected Other Jurisdictions with a
View to Cooperation in Northern Canada” ein. In vielen
Teilen der Welt sind die von einem Staat zum Schutz der
Natur geschaffenen Nationalparks gleichzeitig der tradi-
tionelle Lebensraum bestimmter Völker. Wie lassen sich
die Zielsetzungen solcher Parks mit den Interessen der
betroffenen ethnischen Minderheiten vereinbaren?
Nancy Weeks ist Juristin und arbeitet bei der Inuit
Tapirisat in Kanada. Ihr Anliegen ist daher in erster
Linie, politische und gesetzliche Ansätze zu finden für
eine Verbesserung der Beziehung zwischen National-
parks in Nordkanada und jenen Inuit und Indianern, die
darin leben.
Sie betont die große Bedeutung, die die National-
parks für die Erhaltung des Ökosystems der Erde und
damit für das Überleben der Menschheit haben. Ihrer
Meinung nach können die Eingeborenen dabei eine
wichtige Rolle spielen, denn auch sie sind an der
Erhaltung der Natur in ihrem Wohngebiet interessiert,
da dies für sie die Voraussetzung zur Beibehaltung ihrer
traditionellen Lebensweise bildet. Die Autorin will
diese Menschen aber nicht zum lebenden Inventar einer
Art Freilichtmuseum machen. Traditionelle Nutzung
des Landes bedeutet für sie jene Wirtschaftsformen, die
„schon immer“ dort ausgeübt wurden, wie Jagd, Fallen-
stellen, Fischfang oder Rentierzucht, angepaßt an die
natürlichen Gegebenheiten der Gegend. Es bedeutet
jedoch nicht, daß diese Tätigkeiten nicht auch auf eine
moderne Art und Weise ausgeübt werden könnten.
Weeks vergleicht die Gesetzgebung, die Politik
und ihre praktische Umsetzung in den Nationalparks
von Australien, Neuseeland, Skandinavien und Alaska
mit jenen Kanadas. Was ihr in diesen Ländern nachah-
menswert erscheint, untersucht sie auf seine Anwend-
barkeit für den Norden Kanadas. Um den besonderen
ökologischen und kulturellen Bedingungen des
Nordens, die sich von jenen der südlichen Gebiete
unterscheiden, gerecht zu werden, fordert Weeks eine
neue Art von Nationalpark. Schutz für die gefährdete
Umwelt kann ihrer Meinung nach nur durch Zusam-
menarbeit mit der dort lebenden Bevölkerung erreicht
werden. Um das Interesse der Eingeborenen an den
Nationalparks zu erhöhen, ist ihre aktive Beteiligung auf
allen Entscheidungsebenen der Parks erforderlich. Um
dies zu erreichen, hält Weeks eine Verbesserung der
bestehenden “National Parks Act” und der betreffen-
den Gesetzgebung für nötig. Nicht deutlich wird in dem
Aufsatz jedoch, welche ganz konkreten gesetzlichen und
politischen Verbesserungen die Autorin vorschlägt.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
577
Der dritte und kürzeste Beitrag des Bandes,
“Traditional Reindeer Husbandry among the Evens of
Kamchatka in the Beginning of the 1920s. From the
Ethnographical Field Notes of Sten Bergman”, ist von
Ingvar Svanberg und Leif Linden. Die Autoren veröf-
fentlichen darin Informationen über die Rentierhaltung
der Evenen (Lamuten), die der Zoologe und Forscher
Sten Bergman auf einer Reise nach Kamtschatka in den
Jahren 1920 bis 1922 sammelte. Bergman verwendete
dabei einen Fragenkatalog von K. B. Wiklund, den
dieser 1913 aufgestellt hatte, um von Reisenden und
Feldforschern Informationen über die Rentierzucht der
Lappen und anderer Völker zu erhalten. Vor allem war
Wiklund interessiert an Material, das möglicherweise
Auskunft geben konnte über Alter und Ursprung der
Rentierzucht.
Die Bedeutung der Aufzeichnungen von Bergman
liegt darin, daß es über die Völker Kamtschatkas nicht
sehr viel ethnographisches Material gibt. Im Anschluß
an den kurzen Überblick über Rentierhaltung, Jagd und
einige andere Aspekte aus dem Wirtschaftsleben der
Evenen folgt ein Vokabular von lamutischen Ausdrük-
ken, die die Rentierzucht betreffen.
Es ist beabsichtigt, die Reihe “Contributions to
Circumpolar Studies” fortzusetzen.
Evelin Haase
Beidelman, T. O.: Moral Imagination in Kaguru
Modes of Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1986. 231 pp. Price: $ 39.50
Readers of this Journal ought to be very familiar
with the work of Professor T. O. Beidelman. Anthropos
has published what is essentially a small monograph of
his Kaguru texts in addition to a number of more
focussed essays that interpret his observations on these
same people. He has also contributed numerous reviews
for Anthropos and some of these have served as a
vehicle to expound his broader theoretical views. Much
of his career as a social anthropologist has been occupied
with Kaguru ethnography, while his mastery of African
ethnography in general has been demonstrated in a
different series of publications. In 1971 he published a
small monograph on the Kaguru in a format and style
sculptured for an undergraduate audience in the An-
glophone world. More recently he has published one of
the best informed, historically and socially detailed,
accounts of a mission society in Africa. In his “Colonial
Evangelism” Beidelman writes of the numerous ambi-
guities and paradoxes of the mission process and the
manner in which Kaguru reacted to its presence. It is a
unique text, and will most likely be cited as the
inspirational source for all further work in that field.
Professor Beidelman characterizes his most recent work
as an “extended, synthesized account of Kaguru soci-
ety” (xi) and promises a sister volume on Kaguru
concepts of gender and rites of passage.
“Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought”
is concerned with ideational aspects of Kaguru experi-
ence. “Quotidian” is the operative term in his present
view. While he is concerned with the everyday world of
the Kaguru he wants to find in the ordinary imaginative
discourses on the ambiguous, the anomalous, the sub-
verted in the moral world the Kaguru have created and
live within. The text provides a standard account of the
Kaguru world, from economics to ethnic identity, but his
central focus is directed toward oral traditions and
folklore. Through these media “Kaguru safely yet
imaginatively explore possibilities about their social
world by stressing some discrepancies with reality ....
Imaginative moral inquiry is at the heart of many Kaguru
stories” (161). In the same view Professor Beidelman
comments, “Each Kaguru struggles to shape a meaning-
ful and expressive world. This ceaseless struggle stems
from a pathetic tension between the individual and
others, and the culturally defined objects which they
employ” (201). First citing, and later paraphrasing
Wittgenstein, Beidelman observes, “To imagine anoth-
er kind of world is always a judgment about this one”
(204). In this narrative Beidelman draws upon his many
previously published essays, weaving them together into
a finished piece. It is not a definitive monograph
(whatever A. Kuper intends by that phrase [Struggling
to Make Sense. Review of T. O. Beidelman, Moral
Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought. Times
Literary Supplement 21 February, 1987: 224]) since that
is impossible. It is, however, a work of art that few in the
contemporary world of social and cultural anthropology
could replicate. While the Kaguru ethnography may be
familiar to many readers Beidelman here reveals for us a
side of life that is virtually absent in most standard
works. Clearly, “Moral Imagination” will become the
standard by which any future studies of this Tanzanian
people will be assessed but its value for modern
anthropological studies has a far greater range. One
hopes it will be widely read and appreciated.
As is often the case in reading Beidelman’s work
substance is often intermixed with commentary, a fact
which he acknowledges and pursues in the present case.
Since his work is highly valued by the anthropological
community, particularly by this reviewer, some addi-
tional comments on his professed views are invited.
According to my reading, all previous reviewers of
“Moral Imagination” have drawn attention to and
remarked upon an observation he puts forward in the
first paragraph of the preface. I will join that tradition:
“Most anthropologists do their initial research while still
in their twenties, as I did. While they undoubtedly often
collect copious and accurate information, their youth
probably impedes both their ability to appreciate society
as a totality and, more serious, their appreciation of the
essential pathos and ambiguity of social life. If youth
provides the robustness to facilitate ethnography, mid-
dle age provides seasoning and perspective” (xi).
It might be suggested that this remark is fundamen-
tally flawed, since we all see and imagine social life and
individual experience in peculiar ways at any point in
life. Meta-historical truths are not revealed at a specific
birth date and it might just as well be asserted that one’s
Anthropos 83.1988
578
Rezensionen
biases become more imbedded and intractable the more
confident one becomes of their essential authenticity. In
any event, there is the possibility of producing an
a-temporal staleness, what Kuper (ibid.) has character-
ized as a “static and timeless ethnography of a tradi-
tional, tribal people at a time when African studies are
dominated by history.” For example, Beidelman writes,
“In this chapter I do not consider Kaguru time reckoning
as it exists today .... Instead, I here try to present
some of the ways that Kaguru traditionally imagined”
(84). But what do we really mean by tradition? The
problem of temporality, indeed, has not been sufficient-
ly addressed in any modern monograph.
Two additional (though brief) comments might be
mentioned. In his reviews, Beidelman has often been
critical of anthropologists and ethnographers for their
apparent theoretical naivety. And yet here one might be
inclined to make the same accusation. A more inconse-
quential remark attends his lauding of an older struc-
tural-functional account on Lugbara politics and ritual.
Given the focus of Beidelman’s interpretation, namely
imagination and experience, the real predecessor in
African studies of this type of enquiry is surely Godfrey
Lienhardt’s “Divinity and Experience,” yet this work is
not mentioned in the present text. Given the breadth of
his knowledge and the sophistication of his theoretical
views, one might have expected something different on
both counts.
As suggested, these are minor and perhaps de-
cidedly subjective footnotes attending the otherwise
exemplary work Beidelman has written. Just as his
“Colonial Evangelism” marks a new direction in the
anthropological appreciation of social history, so too will
“Moral Imagination” serve to impel anthropologists
toward revising the received standards of ethnographic
writing and interpretation. This work is one of few that
can be profitably read by specialists whose research and
interests have some non-African focus and one awaits in
anxious anticipation, as a result, for his next book on the
Kaguru. John W. Burton
Bierhorst, John (transí.): Cantares Mexicanos.
Songs of the Aztecs. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1985. 559 pp., illus. Price: $48.50
The sixteenth-century Aztec codex Cantares Mexi-
canos has resisted translation for four hundred years.
Discovered in the nineteenth century (truer to say
re-discovered), it is the chief source of Aztec poetry and
one of the monuments of American Indian literature,
having been compiled by Native scribes in the late 1500s,
and preserving almost all known examples of Aztec
musical notation. The songs are here presented in a
paleographic text of the original Nahuatl with facing
English translations and accompanied by an extensive
introduction and a detailed commentary on each of the
ninety-one songs. These latter re-enact battles, describe
the effects of the Spanish Conquest, touch on Christian
subjects, and deal tangentially with certain transvestite
and homosexual themes. Bierhorst views the Cantares
as evidence of a post-Conquest revitalization movement
in which the participants summoned the ghosts of
ancestors and relived the glory of ancient Mexico.
The project was supported by funding from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and includes a
companion volume entitled “A Nahuatl-English Dictio-
nary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos” (by
the same author).
Part I comprises a general introduction consisting
of thirteen chapters on the manuscript, the ghost-song
ritual, poetics, metaphysics, Aztec history, revitaliza-
tion, song-classification, authorship, and the study of
Aztec poetry. Part II contains the text in the two
languages, and includes a guide to the transcription and
the translation, and a discussion of the contents of the
Cantares. The text in Nahuatl and English occupies
pages 134-425. Part III is a commentary, occupying
pages 429-514. The orthography used is modernized
Jesuit; the Cantares Mexicanos is a Jesuit copy of a
Franciscan original.
Bierhorst’s version breaks with tradition in that the
ninety-one songs are considered as belonging to a single
genre, Netotiliztli, rather than a poets’ miscellany
studded with lyrics composed by famous kings. Bier-
horst designates the Netotiliztli genre as ghost songs,
musical performances in which warrior-singers summon
the ghosts of ancestors in order to swell the ranks and
overwhelm enemies; performance resembled mock bat-
tle in which ghost warriors from paradise, led by ancestor
kings, flew to earth in the form of birds, rather like the
voladoT dance still to be observed in various parts of
Mexico and Guatemala, and a well-known acrobatic
ritual.
The theme of the Cantares Mexicanos is that waves
of incoming Mexican revenants will establish paradise
on earth in which Mexicans, while embracing Chris-
tianity, will enjoy superiority over Spanish colonists. The
principal scapegoats turn out to be the Tlaxcalans, the
Huexotzincans, and the Chalcans, who joined with
Cortés in the siege of Mexico and made victory possible
for the Spaniards.
The book is hard cover and set entirely in clear
legible modern print, with the two languages on facing
pages for easy comparison, and with the lines numbered
for easy reference. The English is sensibly written in
modern prose, while retaining the colorful and flowery
oratory evident in the original. There is no artificial
attempt at rhyming. The work is highly useful as source
material for further study and will prove of interest to
Americanists, anthropologists, linguists, folklorists, and
others concerned with ancient culture in the New
World. Thomas F. Johnston
Bierhorst, John: A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and
Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos. With an
Analytic Transcription and Grammatical Notes. Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1985. 751 pp. Price:
$ 69.50
This volume is essentially a supplement to its
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
579
companion. Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs.
Its principal feature is the dictionary, which is based on
an analytical transcription of the codex Cantares Mexi-
canos, included here, along with a grammatical sketch.
Translators of Aztec poetry will find this volume of great
utility.
The two dictionaries familiar to every student of
Classical Nahuatl are Molina’s Vocabulario and Si-
méon’s Dictionnaire. To these copious references may
be added several others, such as Carochi’s Arte. These
works, however, omit many idiomatic usages, slight
pre-Conquest ethnological terms, and exclude place
names and personal names. Figurative meanings are
poorly represented, as are floral and faunal names.
Siméon’s work is largely a re-arrangement of Molina.
The Cantares vocabulary may be broken into sever-
al categories: rare words, nonce words, extended usage
of familiar words, figurative meanings, unfamiliar deriva-
tives, variant forms, and loan-words. The Cantares
abounds in plant and animal names. Judged as an
independent dictionary, the present work will be found
to contain virtually the entire Nahuatl vocabulary of high
frequency and several thousand items of intermediate
and low frequency. Bierhorst found that, in order to
permit easy reference back and forth between the Dic-
tionary and the Analytical Transcription, at the same time
preventing the Dictionary from becoming unwieldy,
it became necessary to have Jesuit entries rather than
Franciscan orthography. The lasting value of the present
work will depend, however, not on the orthography of
its main entries, but on the ease with which the inquiring
reader can run back to its sources. It serves chiefly as a
valuable concordance. Recommended for specialists.
Thomas F. Johnston
Binsbergen, Wim van, and Matthew Schoffeleers
(eds.): Theoretical Explorations in African Religion.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. x+389 pp.,
fig., maps. Price: £30.00
This book, an outgrowth of a conference held at the
African Studies Center (Leiden), in 1979, reviews classic
and contemporary approaches to African religions. Its
goal is to arrive at greater theoretical and methodologi-
cal precision and validity, and many of its insights will be
important to the study of non-religious aspects of
African life. Essays cover a variety of topics, including:
divination, fertility cults, initiation rites, and relation-
ships between so-called “regional cults” and world
religions. Considerable attention is given to Christianity
and Islam and to identifying “blind spots” in the study of
African religions.
Most essays evidence an overriding concern with
methodology. Each essay is preceded by an editors’
introduction in which Binsbergen and Schoffeleers
outline what they believe to be the most important
theoretical issues addressed by each author. They also
point out shortcomings in each author’s presentation,
including, refreshingly enough, their own essays. I found
this very helpful.
Religion is one of the most rapidly growing fields in
African studies. Much of this growth, the editors
contend, is due to the discovery that local religious
systems have a history, the increased use of oral tra-
dition, a concern with the transformation of religious
forms, and the formulation of general principles in the
works of James W. Fernandez, Mary Douglas, Victor
Turner, Johannes Fabian, and Bennetta Jules-Rosette -
especially in the areas of language, meaning, and sym-
bolism.
I found the essays by Renaat Devisch, André
Droogers, Richard Werbner, and Johannes Fabian most
relevant to my own research interests. Devisch provides
an encyclopedic discussion of divination studies. He
traces theoretical developments from functionalism to
performance, to dramaturgy, and aesthetics. Droogers’
review of advantages and limitations of classic ap-
proaches to religious change argues that theorizing
should be eclectic and accumulative. His major concern
is to save the heuristic potential of discarded theoretical
approaches. Johannes Fabian takes exception to the
classic approach of viewing single religious systems as
unitary constructs. Taking lead from the “ethnography
of speaking,” Fabian argues that the quest for dogma
and uniform behavior is to be regarded as just one form
of religious behavior and not its norm. Werbner empha-
sizes symbolic and social structures in the transformation
of religious movements in South Central Africa. He
organizes his argument around notions of strangerhood
and estrangement, focusing on spatial or locational
imageries in Zimbabwean independent churches. Build-
ing on the theories of Robin Horton and James W.
Fernandez, Werbner argues that images are related to
changes in wider social fields. While van Binsbergen and
Schoffeleers find Werbner’s work “unconvincing and
idiosyncratic,” I find it stimulating and highly applicable
to my own work among Afro-Caribbean syncretist
cults.
Terence O. Ranger’s work on the Mwari cult in
Zimbabwe argues for the significance of class analysis
for the study of African religion, while Robert Buijten-
huijs argues, to the contrary, that class differences are
not important. Both of these essays raise a question of
tremendous interest to social scientists: what happens to
religious movements once the initial conditions that
generated them disappear?
As noted above, the editors seem to have recog-
nized the limitations of this collection more keenly than
most potential readers and take contributors to task in
the course of their introduction. Both editors express
serious doubts about the possibility of a study of African
religions that is more than a projection of the concerns of
“a North Atlantic intellectual subculture.” While such
sobering self-criticisms may have positive consequences
for the study of African religions, it should also be kept
in mind that African religions are among the best studied
religions in the ethnographic record and that African
religions have attracted - and continue to attract - the
attentions of the best ethnographers from every genera-
tion. Stephen D. Glazier
Anthropos 83.1988
580
Rezensionen
Blanchard, Kendall (ed.); The Many Faces of Play.
Champaign: Human Kinetics Publishers, 1986. 288 pp.
(The Association for the Anthropological Study of Play,
9), Price: $ 14.95.
Seit 1974 existiert mit Sitz in den Vereinigten
Staaten “The Association for the Anthropological Study
of Play” (TAASP), deren Ziel es ist, interdisziplinär
organisiert die kulturellen Dimensionen des Phänomens
Spiel zu untersuchen. Ethnologischen Beiträgen kommt
in diesem Rahmen regelmäßig eine wichtige Aufgabe
zu. Die von TAASP seit 1975 veranstalteten Jahresta-
gungen haben als Ergebnis stets einen Band mit ausge-
wählten Beiträgen der jeweiligen Tagungen hervorge-
bracht (Band 1 ist 1977 erschienen). Diese Buchreihe ist
neben dem ebenfalls von TAASP edierten “Newsletter”
(kostenlos für Mitglieder) zu einem wichtigen Informa-
tionsmedium für alle Wissenschaftler geworden, die sich
mit Spielforschung (das umfaßt in diesem Zusammmen-
hang u. a. Sport, Kinderspiel, Erwachsenenspiel, Thea-
ter, Tanz und Humor) beschäftigen.
Der von Kendall Blanchard edierte Band 9 dieser
Reihe präsentiert eine Auswahl von Beiträgen, die
während der 9. TAASP-Tagung vom 11.-13. 2. 1983 in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, zu hören waren. Insgesamt ist
das Buch in sieben Kapitel gegliedert, die jeweils
mehrere Artikel umfassen und mit einer kurzen Einfüh-
rung versehen sind. Kapitel 1 entspricht einer Einlei-
tung, in der mit Edmund Leach und Roger D. Abrahams
die offiziell geladenen Gastredner zu Wort kommen.
Des weiteren finden sich dann Beiträge zu folgenden
Kapitel-Themen: Kinderspiel aus psychologischer Sicht,
Kinderspiel aus ethnologischer Sicht (u. a. mit einem
Artikel von Sara Harkness und Charles M. Super über
das Spiel der Kipsigi-Kinder in Kenia), Spiel in der
Literatur, Spiel im Ritual, Spiel in „Spiel und Sport“,
sowie ein abschließendes Kapitel mit zusammenfassen-
den Worten.
Stellvertretend für die insgesamt 22 Artikel des
Buches sollen hier drei Arbeiten vorgestellt werden, die
die Spannbreite der Spielforschung und damit die
inhaltliche Breite des zu rezensierenden Buches ver-
deutlichen.
Als erster Artikel findet sich die überarbeitete
Fassung des Vortrags von Sir Edmund Leach. Mit ihm
kommt gleich einer der profiliertesten zeitgenössischen
Vertreter der Ethnologie zu Wort. Sein Beitrag mit dem
Titel “Fieldwork in Buckingham Palace or Once a
Knight is Quite Enough” schreibt zu Beginn in einer
breiten Konsens versprechenden Definition dem Spiel
die Merkmale einer a) freiwilligen, b) lustvollen und
c) auf keinen ökonomischen Gewinn ausgerichteten
Tätigkeit zu und subsumiert darunter u. a. auch Karne-
valsauftritte. Das dort zu findende “mildly comic play-
acting” bezieht er dann auf seine persönlichen Erfahrun-
gen bei der Zeremonie seines Ritterschlages durch die
englische Königin: Feldforschung (noch dazu “partici-
pant” in engstem Sinn) im Buckingham-Palast.
In erhellender und zugleich ein wenig ironischer
Weise analysiert Leach das dort ablaufende Ritual,
seziert es strukturell und vergleicht die gefundenen
Merkmale mit Abläufen bei einem Verdienstfest der
Iban auf Borneo. Höhepunkt seiner Ausführungen ist
die These, das rituelle Schlagen auf beide Schultern des
zu Adelnden bedeute symbolisch dessen Enthauptung:
in van Genneps Sinn der notwendige Übergang von
einem Lebensabschnitt in den nächsten durch rituellen
Tod.
Einen „typischen“ Beitrag ethnologischer Spielfor-
schung stellt Alyce T. Cheska, bekannt geworden durch
ihr 1985 gemeinsam mit Kendall Blanchard publiziertes
Buch “The Anthropology of Sport”, mit ihrer Studie
vor, die den Titel trägt: “Playful Evidence of Old and
New World Contacts Between Medieval Norsemen and
Greenland Eskimos: A Tentative Hypothesis". Hier
wird ethnohistorische Quellenforschung am Beispiel
von Spiel als Ausdruck kulturellen Inventars geleistet.
Cheska hat die Kulturkontakte der etwa zeitgleich um
800 n. Chr. nach Grönland vordringenden Eskimos
(vom amerikanischen Festland) und Wikinger (aus
Skandinavien) untersucht. Dabei standen ihr archäolo-
gische Funde, historische Schriftquellen aus dem Mittel-
alter, spätere Wort- und Bilddarstellungen sowie Legen-
den der betroffenen Inuit und Skandinavier zur Verfü-
gung. Durch Analyse und Vergleich der nachzuweisen-
den Spielformen in den beiden Ausgangskulturen vor
dem Kontakt und in der grönländischen Post-Kontakt-
Gesellschaft gelingt es der Autorin, für den Bereich
expressiver Kultur (Spiel, Tanz, Gesang) Kontakt und
Einfluß als unilateralen Kulturwandel (Geber: Wikin-
ger) nachzuweisen. Aus den untersuchten Quellen leitet
sie ferner weitere Thesen zum Kulturkontakt der beiden
Bevölkerungsgruppen ab. Cheskas Beitrag ist Beleg
dafür, daß sich auch bei so fundamental ethnologischer
Arbeit wie in den Bereichen Kulturwandel und Ethno-
historie die Beschäftigung mit dem Komplex „Spiel“
lohnen kann.
Im Gegensatz zu dieser eher speziellen Studie
widmet sich Klaus V. Meier in seinem das Buch
beschließenden Übersichtsartikel mehr theoretisch-me-
thodischen Fragen. In einem sehr anregenden Rückblick
auf die in den ersten sieben Tagungsbänden erschiene-
nen Artikel weist er, auf der Grundlage von T. S. Kuhns
bekannten Überlegungen zu Paradigmenwechseln in der
Wissenschaft, auf definitorische Einstimmigkeiten in der
seit nunmehr über 10 Jahren geführten Diskussion zum
Spiel-Begriff hin. Dabei beklagt er die notwendige, aber
oft vernachlässigte (und im Englischen deutlicher als im
Deutschen werdende) Elnterscheidung von “play” und
“game”, die uneinheitliche Auffassung der Spiel-
Arbeit-Dichotomie sowie Zirkelschluß-Argumentatio-
nen (“If the poetry of X is playful, it is ipso facto
play”).
Bei all seinen Überlegungen kommt Meier zu dem
vom Editor Kendall Blanchard - aber sicher auch den
meisten TAASP-Mitgliedern - geteilten Auffassung,
daß klarere begriffliche Konzepte gemeinsam erarbeitet
werden müssen. Dann sei die anthropologische Spielfor-
schung “a vibrant field of inquiry with significant future
potential”.
Diesem Urteil kann man bedenkenlos zustimmen.
Anthropos 83.1988
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581
Ein Überblick über alle bisher erschienen Bände der
TASP (wie sie sich seit 1987 unter Wegfall eines A für
“anthropological” neuerdings nennt) bestätigt das brei-
te interdisziplinäre Untersuchungsfeld, das „Spiel“ in
allen seinen Ausprägungen darstellt. Der Ethnologie
kommt dabei als phänomenologischem Fallbeispiel-
Lieferanten, aber auch als theorieanregendem Partner
(z. B. durch Victor Turners Ritual-Theorie) eine wichti-
ge Rolle zu.
In dem hier exemplarisch vorgestellten neunten
Band der Reihe kommen, wie stets bei derartigen
Sammelbänden, nicht alle Teilgebiete adäquat zu Wort.
In diesem Fall ist es im Vergleich zu anderen Bänden ein
Weniger an sportbezogenen Themen und Arbeiten über
Gesellschaften der Dritten Welt. Dem an dieser speziel-
len Thematik interessierten Ethnologen sei deshalb
nicht nur dieser Band zur Lektüre empfohlen, sondern
ein Blick in die gesamte Buchreihe und den TASP-
Newsletter. Rolf Elusmann
Bolz, Peter: Ethnische Identität und kultureller
Widerstand. Die Oglala-Sioux der Pine Ridge-Reserva-
tion in South Dakota. Frankfurt; Campus Verlag, 1986.
277 pp., Ktn., Tab. (Schriftenreihe des Zentrums für
Nordamerika-Forschung [ZENAF], Universität Frank-
furt, 7) Preis: DM 49,-
Die als Dissertation vorliegende Studie ist das erste
geschlossene wissenschaftliche Ergebnis eines von der
Stiftung Volkswagenwerk geförderten Projekts mit dem
Titel „Akkulturation und ethnische Identität: Wider-
stand und Selbstbestimmung bei indianischen Minoritä-
ten Nordamerikas“, das am Zentrum für Nordamerika-
Forschung der Universität Frankfurt von 1980-1984
durchgeführt wurde.
Bolz untersuchte in diesem Zusammenhang die
Reservationskultur der Oglala-Sioux auf der Pine Rid-
ge-Reservation in South Dakota, vom frühen 19. Jh. an
bis in die Gegenwart.
Akkulturation, Assimilation und Ethnizität sind
anthropologische Begriffseinheiten, die die Kontaktge-
schichte zwischen der indianischen Minorität und der
dominanten anglo-amerikanischen Gesellschaft deter-
minieren und den Komplex des Kulturwandels für die
ethnologische Forschung in dieser Region umreißen.
In dem als Einführung betitelten Kapitel versucht
Bolz eine theoretische und methodische Konzeption zu
entwickeln, die dem Topos ethnische Identität und
kultureller Widerstand gerecht werden soll.
Im Gegensatz zu den sozio-psychologischen Defini-
tionsvarianten vieler amerikanischer Anthropologen,
die in individuellen Identitätssystemen eine Erklärung
des Phänomens ethnischer Resistenz sehen (vgl. Royce
1982), favorisiert Bolz das von Edward Spicer 1971
entwickelte Modell der “persistenten Identitätssyste-
me” (21).
Spicers Befassung mit ethnischer Identität im
Prozeß des kulturellen Wandels zielt auf die Einbezie-
hung des kulturologischen und historischen Aspektes
ethnischer Gesellschaften hin, und zwar in jener klassi-
schen Interpretation von Kultur als Summe einzelner
Kulturelemente, die nicht bloße Form, sondern auch
Bedeutung für die Mitglieder einer Gesellschaft besitzen
(22).
Kulturelemente, sei es die Topographie, die Spra-
che, Verhaltensweisen, soziale und religiöse Rituale,
aber auch Gegenstände und mythologische Gestalten,
werden als Identitätssymbole interpretiert (23), die im
jeweiligen Konfliktfall bzw. bei einer Identitätsverzer-
rung zum Tragen kommen.
Persistenz in einem Identitätssystem wird von Bolz
in Anlehnung an Spicer als „historische Tiefe“ definiert;
d. h., daß nicht nur die objektiven historischen Tatsa-
chen in der Beurteilung von Identitätssymbolen von
Bedeutung sind, sondern gerade das Moment der
subjektiven Erfahrung von Geschichte in einer ethni-
schen Gruppe (24).
Im ersten Teil, der der Kultur und Geschichte der
Oglala bis zur Reservationszeit gewidmet ist, umreißt
Bolz topographische, ökologische und ethnographische
Standards seiner Präferenzgruppe (31-58).
Neben einer Beschreibung des Lebensraumes und
der ethnischen Zuweisung geht er besonders auf die
„Wanderungen“ der Oglala nach Westen ein. Hierbei
weist Bolz auf die Bedeutung der Einführung des
Pferdes, das diesen Migrationsprozeß beschleunigte, hin
(44-51).
Der erste Teil wird mit einer Analyse des traditio-
nellen Wertsystems der Oglala und dessen sozio-
kultureller Bedeutung für die individuelle und kollektive
Identitätsbestimmung abgeschlossen (55-58).
Im zweiten Teil schildert Bolz die Entwicklung der
Reservationskultur der Oglala. Er stellt zunächst fest,
daß die Geschichte dieser Gruppe zwar bis in die
sechziger Jahre unseres Jahrhunderts gut dokumentiert
ist, allerdings fand eine Polarisierung der Forschung an
der Frage „Wer tötete Güster?“ statt (61). Insbesondere
stand die Darstellung der Schlacht am Little Bighorn
von 1876, als der letzte große Sieg der Indianer über die
Armee der Vereinigten Staaten, sowie die Ermordung
des Oglala-Führers Sitting Bull und das Massaker von
Wounded Knee von 1890 im Vordergrund des wissen-
schaftlichen Interesses. Seine Darstellung und Analyse
beginnt mit einer Quellenkritik und leitet über zu den
wesentlichsten historischen Phasen und Ereignissen, die
den kulturellen Wandel der Oglala bewirkt haben.
Dabei stellt er zunächst die politisch-administrativen
Kontakte, die sich in diversen Verträgen zwischen der
Regierung der USA und den Indianern manifestieren, in
den Vordergrund seiner Diskussion (63-73). Darauf
aufbauend zeigt er die territorialen, ökonomischen,
sozialen und kulturellen Veränderungen auf.
Bemerkenswert an der Darstellung von Bolz ist,
daß der engagierte Indianist sich eine übertriebene
Idealisierung des indianischen Widerstandes gegen die
massiven Akkulturations- und Exterminationsbestre-
bungen durch die anglo-amerikanische Gesellschaft
versagt. Vielmehr legt Bolz Wert auf eine durch
dezidierte Sachkenntnis untermauerte Analyse, um
auch auf die Widersprüche des indianischen Kampfes in
Anthropos 83.1988
582
Rezensionen
diesem Prozeß des kulturellen Wandels hinzuweisen
(69 f. ). Er versäumt es aber auch nicht - durch eine Fülle
von Faktenmaterial belegt -, auf die subtilen Unter-
drückungsmechanismen aufmerksam zu machen, deren
sich die dominante anglo-amerikanische Gesellschaft
bei der versuchten Unterwerfung der Indianer bedien-
te.
Dem Leser wird eine unheilige Allianz von staatli-
cher Administration, Armee, Siedlergruppen und Mis-
sionsgesellschaften vorgeführt, denen die Indianer fast
wehrlos ausgesetzt waren (74-76).
Ein besonderes Augenmerk legt Bolz auf die
Darstellung der wirtschaftlichen Veränderungen und
Anpassungen der Oglala-Sioux.
Neben einer Charakterisierung der einzelnen öko-
nomischen Stadien, die die Oglala vom ehemaligen
Wildbeuter und Sammler zum Bisonfell-Lieferanten,
über Viehzüchter und Farmer bis hin zum abhängigen
Lohnarbeiter in den urbanen Zentren des mittleren
Westens der USA durchliefen, geht er auch auf die
sozio-kulturellen Auswirkungen dieses Prozesses ein
(94 ff.).
Als sichtbares Ergebnis dieser Veränderung kon-
statiert Bolz nicht nur einen bescheidenen Wohlstand
und, aufgrund der Beteiligung einiger Oglala am zwei-
ten Weltkrieg, eine gewisse nationale Anerkennung
durch die dominante weiße Gesellschaft, sondern er
macht auch aufmerksam auf die soziale Verelendung,
die sich in Alkoholismus, Drogenmißbrauch und Ge-
waltdelinquenz äußert. Ebenso stellt Bolz einen starken
Faktionalismus in der Reservation fest, der die Oglala-
Gesellschaft zeitweise in vier Fraktionen dividierte.
Zwei Gruppen, nämlich die „Progressiven“, die einen
hohen Anpassungsgrad an die anglo-amerikanische Ge-
sellschaft erlangt hatten, und die „Neotraditionalisten“,
aus denen sich die Anhänger des American Indian
Movement (AIM) rekrutierten, wurden federführend in
den Auseinandersetzungen, die sich in den siebziger
Jahren als „Indianischer Widerstand“ formierten, der in
Wounded Knee von 1973 seinen Höhepunkt erreichte
(103-115).
Im dritten und letzten Teil geht Bolz, ergänzt durch
eigene Feldforschungsergebnisse, auf die heutige indi-
anische Situation der Oglala auf der Pine Ridge-
Reservation ein.
Bolz vollzieht damit methodologisch den Wechsel
von historischer Makroanalyse zur kontemporären Mi-
kroanalyse, wobei er alle gesellschaftlich relevanten
Instanzen und Strukturen herausarbeitet, in denen
ethnische Identitätsbildung und kultureller Widerstand
sichtbar und tragend für die Oglala wurden.
Ob es sich hierbei um die ökonomischen Verhält-
nisse (126-144), die politische Struktur (145-157), das
soziale System (158-174), das Erziehungswesen
(175-202), die religiöse Wiederbelebung (203-230) oder
um den Fall Black Hills (231-235) handelt, in allen
Bereichen dokumentiert seine Darstellung das Versagen
der Akkulturations- und Assimilationsbestrebungen der
dominanten weißen Gesellschaft. Gerade am Beispiel
des Schulwesens auf der Pine Ridge-Reservation, das
zwischenzeitlich nicht nur administrativ, sondern auch
durch die Lehrinhalte von den Oglala bestimmt wird,
ist dies deutlich nachvollziehbar. So existiert nicht nur
ein bilingualer Unterricht an den Grundschulen, in
dem neben Englisch auch die traditionelle Stammes-
sprache Lakota gelehrt wird, sondern mit der Einrich-
tung eines eigenen College auf der Reservation wird den
Indianern neben der kulturellen Nähe zu ihren Familien
auch ein qualifizierter Bildungsabschluß ermöglicht, mit
dem sie auch außerhalb der Reservation bestehen
können.
Bolz beendet seine Studie mit einer Schlußbetrach-
tung. Noch einmal eingehend auf Spicers Modell der
„persistenten Identitätssysteme“, kommt er zu folgen-
dem Resümee;
„Heute ist Akkulturation mehr denn je ein selekti-
ver Prozeß, der bewußt gehandhabt wird, um die
Errungenschaften aus der Kultur der Angloamerikaner
im Sinne der Indianer zu nutzen. Diese Form der
selektiven Akkulturation oder Transkulturation ist ein
wesentliches Merkmal des kulturellen Widerstandes“
(243).
Bolz' Arbeit ist ein neuer methodologischer Ansatz
in der Befassung mit ethnischer Identität und kulturel-
lem Widerstand. Wer allerdings eine neue und auf
andere Regionen und ethnische Gruppen übertragbare
Theorie erwartet, sieht sich enttäuscht. Seine Behand-
lung des Problems zielt auf die Herausarbeitung der
„historischen Tiefe“, in der Akkulturation, Assimilation
und ethnischer Widerstand an unzähligen historischen
und sozio-kulturellen Ereignissen dokumentiert wird.
Das umfangreiche Quellenmaterial, das Bolz zusam-
menstellt und dezidiert auswertet, weist ihn als intimen
Kenner der Oglala und der indianischen Reservations-
kultur von heute aus. Sechs Karten und drei Tabellen
ergänzen das schriftlich Fixierte, und eine ausführliche
englische Zusammenfassung ermöglicht den Einstieg in
seine Arbeit über den deutschsprachigen Raum hin-
aus. Ralf Streum
Boone, Elizabeth Hill (ed.): Painted Architecture
and Polychrome Monumental Sculpture in Mesoameri-
ca. A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 10th to 11th
October, 1981. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, 1985. 186 pp., photos. Price:
$ 20.00
In her preface to this volume, E. Boone relates the
origin of the conference idea: Donald Robertson, to
whom the volume is dedicated and who chaired the
conference, wanted to have attention paid to the use of
paint in Mesoamerica. As excavators have always
recorded traces of color on architecture and sculpture
when they encountered any, the task rather seems to
have been to interpret what meanings those colors had.
Maybe Robertson would have been better served by
another format; a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks these
days is not the same as an archive or as a catalogue (if a
fact compilation was important), or even an art historical
jam session (if as many interpretations as possible were
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
583
hoped for) could have been fun. The resulting efforts are
neither of those.
The selection of speakers at the symposium, who
are the authors of this volume (with one casualty), allows
to hypothesize that the organizing committee had its
own tacid motif: in 1980-1981 a wave of young scholars
had completed their degree work and their peers
realized that PhDs were awarded to people who had not
done much background study and who didn’t like to go
to the library. Boone suggests that we visualize pre-
columbian Mexico incorrectly; this is a symptom of lack
of thorough education that the previous generations had
enjoyed. Nowadays the work of those who were the first
to see the remnants of pre-columbian Mexico are
neglected and a painful ethnocentrism spreads among
the very people who ought to be the first to fight it.
Elsewhere in the world there is nobody who thinks that
art and architecture in the 20th century has anything to
do with ancient Mexico.
There are three papers on the Maya (by D. Freidel,
L. Scheie, and J. Kowalski) and one each on Oaxaca (by
J. Paddock), on Tula (by E. Taylor Baird), and the
Aztecs (by H. Nicholson). A last chapter by E. Boone
attempts to fill in what we know about the Olmec, the
Gulf Coast, Teotihuacan and Postclassic Maya. She also
presents an overview of the major results of the
preceding papers.
The very first sentence by David Freidel reads “The
master painters of the late Preclassic era (350 B.C.
-A.D. 100) in the Maya lowlands preferred pyramids to
pots.” To me this is a major annoyance. First of all, it is
by no means established that one person would paint
ceramics and cover large structures with colors. This is
symptomatic for what follows: facts are bundled and
simplified until their significance is lost; this in favor of a
splashy sentence, which is used as a description of a large
time span and an extensive area. We end with blood of
the royal (?) lineages (?) being painted on walls and
floors .... How soothing to read that Paddock thinks
this very red was available in large quantities at low cost
and helped to cut the midday glare better than white-
wash.
There are many pieces of information one is glad to
have. There are also interpretations which make sense to
the outsider and others which sound wrong somewhere
along the path of reasoning. Due to a reader’s own
application - this is not expressed by anybody quite this
way (Paddoch only makes a point similar to this) - one
sees that there is no uniformity, that color and its
interpretation has to be studied site by site and often
piece by piece. The most helpful papers to that end are
by Paddock and Nicholson, whose careful approach and
reliance on previous studies provide very good reading
and learning. This is why I believe that a generational
problem has been touched inadvertently.
There was massive painting on buildings and
sculpture in ancient Mesoamerica. Some were not
painted ever, others were differently colored several
times. What it meant is often explained here by
interpretations. It is up to the credulity (or scholarly
standards) of the readers to accept all, some or
nothing.
Each paper has its own bibliography and there are a
few color reproductions next to many black and white
illustrations. The quality of both is not high, the literary
care taken is much better. Overall, the volume contains
enough important material to make it recommended
reading for those who like overviews with solid bibliog-
raphies for one’s own further studies.
Kornelia Kurbjuhn
Caplan, Pat (ed.): The Cultural Construction of
Sexuality. London: Tavistock Publications, 1987.
ix+304pp., fig. Price: £25.00
This collection of ten essays and a long introduction
is the product of seminars organized in 1984 by the
Anthropology Department of Goldsmiths’ College,
London University. Almost all of the contributors are in
some way connected to London University, the majority
with a background in cultural anthropology, though two
papers by writers in education and one in sociology add
a contrasting perspective. These latter are the least
grounded in immediate experiences with living people
(fieldwork), depending mainly on reformulations of
other publications.
A problem that a reviewer faces considering such
collections is that there seems little holding them
together in terms of any common theoretical or moral
view. Probably the most useful procedure for reviewing
such a collection is therefore to indicate briefly the
authors and their contributions. No meaningful gener-
alization is possible for this collection as a whole, other
than noting that the authors stress the cultural rather
than the biological factors shaping sexual identity and
activities. It is most unlikely that any social scientist
already predisposed to reading such papers is likely to be
startled or challenged by any of the positions taken by
the contributors.
Seven of the ten contributors are women. Two of
the contributors, one male and one female, emphasize
their commitment to homosexual rights. A feminist
perspective strongly colours most of the essays; certainly
any emphasis on the views of heterosexual men is muted
at best. There is much to be gained from a feminist
approach, but it strikes this reviewer as increasingly odd
that the current publications on gender concentrate so
often on women and homosexuals without recognizing
in practice that a sensible and generous view of gender
must encompass heterosexual men as well, however
problematical that stereotype may also prove to be upon
closer scrutiny.
Caplan’s introduction is unexceptional. She re-
views some of the writings on gender, mainly the
obvious, meaning those regularly cited. (I am perplexed
that not one contributor to the volume mentions Mary
Wollstonecraft.) Caplan concludes with the exhortation
that we do not study sexuality in a social vacuum but
rather within its broader cultural context. It would be
difficult to find anyone likely to contest this. How well
Anthropos 83.1988
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any of the contributors succeeds in doing so is another
matter.
Jeffrey Weeks’ lead essay mainly concerns the
problems that homosexuals may encounter regarding
their place in social life. The observations are general
and essentially engagé.
The second essay, by Margaret Jackson, is a
militant lesbian critique of male oppression. This is
weakly linked to a thin survey of Victorian reports on
sexuality. The information provided and the commen-
tary are of interest, but the conclusion is not. “Learning
to listen to our bodies” cannot constitute a reliable
response to the intellectual issues raised in the preceding
account, most of which makes sense only as grounded in
ideas and values or in social structure.
Shirley Ardener provides a tiresome essay on
vaginal symbolism apparently in contrast to what she
perceives as the prevailing over-emphasis on phallic
meanings. Her thin references undermine whatever
points she tries to make. She cites a brilliant essay by
Froma Zeitlin on vaginal symbolism in classical Greece,
but since she fails to exploit the full possibilities either
with Zeitlin's other publications or in the related myths
and plays to which these directly relate, that aspect of
her commentary remains merely derivative. Ironically,
Zeitlin, a classicist, does a far better job of relating such
symbols to beliefs, values, and social structure than does
Ardener, an anthropologist. Ardener’s comments on the
work of Judy Chicago and other feminist artists remain
trendy, exploring no meaning in depth.
Carol MacCormack and Alizon Draper provide a
sensible and useful account of how various Jamaican
women view their own bodies, fertility, and sexuality.
Their arguments recognize that fertility and conception
seem irrevocably tied to Jamaican women’s sense of
proper identity. Their findings are always grounded in
terms of a particular culture. Modestly presented and of
a limited theme this essay is one of the most useful
contributions in this collection.
Victoria Goddard considers the relation between
traditional Neapolitan views about honour and shame
and the fact that few Neapolitan women seek work
outside the home. The argument emphasizes cultural
values as more powerful than mere individual self-
interest as viewed as “rational.” Goddard’s final broad
conclusions may appear more questionable but her
material is interesting.
Allen Abramson discusses the sexual behaviour of
adolescent Fijians with an attempt to relate his findings
to the well known attack on Margaret Mead by Freeman
regarding Samoa. Abramson’s assumption that findings
for Fiji may be applied to Samoa seems risky. At one
point, Abramson’s conflation of Melanesian and Poly-
nesian material hardly inspires confidence. Abramson
argues that both virginity and promiscuity are socially
defined terms and have little to do with actual biological
fact, or with all social situations. Adolescent “loose”
behaviour and adult prudery and condemnation of
immorality are argued to be complementary or at least
consistent with broader and more complex Fijian views
of personal and cosmological processes. Abramson ties
Fijian sexual behaviour into more complex ideological
notions about time, space, and society. His data and
discussion are among the most provocative in the book;
unfortunately his English is so appallingly dreadful that
it is unlikely that a reader can always be sure what the
author means. The quality of Abramson's writing is so
unsatisfactory that one wonders about the responsibility
of the editor who is thanked for reading the essay.
Nici Nelson provides an essay on Kikuyu women
who provide sexual services (prostitution) for men living
in urban areas. The essay is useful and sensible as far as it
goes; its main weakness is its thin account of traditional
Kikuyu concepts and values.
Gill Shepherd’s essay on homosexual behaviour on
the East African coast is far from satisfactory. Her view
of homosexuality is narrow and naive. Boys may well sell
their bodies for profit and may well remain heterosexual
at heart; in contrast, older, wealthy men must heartily
desire young, attractive males or such arrangements
would not be feasible. Yet Shepherd reduces homosexu-
al behaviour to essentially a question of “options” or
“strategies” by which the younger or poorer partner in a
relationship secures material gratification until arriving
at a more secure and successful social stage. The
emotional, erotic, and possibly convivial aspects for men
are hardly treated. It is true that Swahili culture appears
somewhat tolerant of sexual deviancy, but it is not at all
true, as Shepherd implies, that male homosexuality does
not carry considerable stigma, especially for the younger
partner in such a relationship. Such stigma is carried
over into later life, even when the stigmatized is married
and perhaps no longer a practising homosexual. Or may
we presume that the “used” homosexual boys often
become older “users” of boys themselves? In any case,
as with the Greeks, male bonding among both Swahili
and coastal Arabs is often valued above any prospect of
intimate communication between men and women.
These contrasting values all suggest that the issues are
far more complex than Shepherd’s reductionist discus-
sion suggests. Given the highly questionable and thin
character of Shepherd’s material, I was not surprised to
learn from her that she relied upon second-hand
comments of others and did not interview homosexual
men themselves. Shepherd’s essay adds confusion to a
topic already badly distorted and muddled by Wikken
and others.
The editor, Caplan, provides the final essay on
Gandhi’s notions about sexual abstinence. Caplan as-
serts parallels between Gandhian and Victorian notions
of sexual purity and abstinence, yet coeval similarity
does not demonstrate influence. Caplan goes on to
observe regarding Gandhi’s recommendation for female
sexual continence that “given the mode of thought and
the social structure in which he operated, this is not an
unreasonable conclusion” (292). That women are ex-
ploited and denigrated in Indian culture is well docu-
mented. Yet denial of sexuality seems both an unreal-
istic and dubious solution, especially since Indian wom-
en’s surest path to honour and esteem lies in mother-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
585
hood. In any case, it is not at all clear whether this would
be acceptable to the desires and needs of most women or
men. It certainly would not lend itself to perpetuating a
society.
Sex and gender remain profoundly exciting, provoc-
ative matters; yet the essays presented here are for the
most part dull. We can draw several useful lessons from
this collection. First, general pronouncement on these
topics, such as position papers, directives on how to
define concepts or conduct research, all tend to reiterate
the familiar clichés that litter much that is published on
the topic. The best way to illustrate and argue these
points is through sustained and detailed consideration of
particular social situations. The few interesting papers in
this collection were those that approached these issues
from such a perspective. Second, increasingly one finds
that books appear bearing the term “gender” in their
titles, yet dealing preponderantly with females and
providing relatively little on males. The construction and
maintenance of gender remain problematical for men as
much as for women. In any case, neither construction
makes any sense without sustained reference to the
other. It is perhaps easy to affirm such views, but the
essays under review indicate how much more difficult it
is to maintain such a position in actual practice.
T. O. Beidelman
Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre: Voir, savoir, pouvoir. Le
chamanisme chez les Yagua du Nord-Est péruvien.
Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, 1983. 352 pp., photos, cartes.
Los Yagua componen una etnía amazónica de 3300
individuos diseminados en unos sesenta grupos locales
de 10 a 180 personas que residen en un territorio de
70.000 km2 en el noroeste de la selva peruana. El río
Amazonas es el eje de su habitat y los Yagua se
extienden sobre los afluentes de ambas márgenes,
llegando por el norte hasta el Putumayo en la frontera de
Colombia y por el sur al río Yavarí, límite corj Brasil. Si
bien los Yagua poseen un lejano parentesco caribe, en la
actualidad han sido clasificados lingüísticamente como
integrantes de la familia «peba-yagua». A pesar de la
existencia de variantes dialectales poseen la misma
lengua, la nihamwo nékie háné o «la lengua de la
gente».
Como sucede con muchas culturas indígenas, el
término yagua es de origen exógeno, sea español,
quechua, tupí o de otra procedencia, y su autodenomi-
nación es nihamwo, esto es, «la gente». Los jesuítas
comenzaron su catequización intensiva a fines del siglo
XVII con la instalación de una misión en el curso medio
del Amazonas.
El propósito de Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, no ha sido
sólo estudiar el chamanismo de este grupo amazónico,
sino hacer de esta institución objeto de una meditación
más profunda y de largo alcance.
Los temas de la enfermedad, muerte y venganza -
por el relieve que adquieren dentro de esta cultura -,
convierten al chamán en un personaje clave, tal como
fuera puesto de relieve por el misionero agustino P. L.
Alvarez en 1913, quien llegó a afirmar que «su voz es la
voz del cielo». A pesar de que el chamán no se diferencia
a primera vista de los demás miembros de la comunidad
este individuo detenta altérité, o sea que es otro
intrínsecamente.
La aproximación es estrictamente etnológica, dese-
chando aquella psicológica que, si bien es la más
solicitada, se limita por su parcialidad. La insistencia en
relación al método puede advertirse en la afirmación de
emplear un procedimiento inductivo, o sea, de lo
particular a lo general.
Lo que vendría a equivaler, en términos fenome-
nológicos, a que todo hecho particular está adherido a
una esencia que es la que hace posible el enunciado de
los predicados que han resultado de una analítica previa.
Es acertada la consideración del autor en relación a la
técnica etnográfica de la observación participante, la
que se hace de difícil aplicación cuando se trata del
chamanismo.
Otra fuente de subjetividad radicaría en el investi-
gador mismo, constituida por el bagaje de «prejuicios»
teóricos que terminan distorsionando la realidad cultural
global.
La preocupación metodológica de Chaumeil está
centrada en lo holístico y global al mismo tiempo; en
síntesis, ante todo fenómeno cultural se exige un
relevamiento exhaustivo y dinámico de todos los senti-
dos, tal como los conciben los propios indígenas. En
ellos estará contenida la cosmovisión del grupo.
El aprendizaje chamánico se denomina sándaténé-
hi, «yo estoy aprendiendo», que proviene de sankahatia,
«aprender» o «saber». En el paso inicial para la
obtención del poder el iniciando es llamado sándahitara
némara, «aprendiz de chamán», y está sometido a un
conjunto de interdicciones alimenticias, sexuales y de
aislamiento. La iniciación está íntimamente vinculada a
la ingestión de alucinógenos vegetales, siendo los más
importantes los de Banisteriopsis y de Brugmansia. Si el
individuo no logra resistir el efecto de estos alucinógenos
deberá desistir de la iniciación, porque son éstos los que
le otorgan los espíritus auxiliares esenciales al cometido
chamánico: dado que en estos últimos se fundamenta
tanto el «saber» (ndatara) como el «poder» (hándiateta-
nu).
En la lengua yagua existe una denominación
general para chamán; sándatia o sea «aquel que sabe», y
una específica, némara. El primer gran chamán mítico es
<cruzrimitiu>, guardián universal de la tradición y de los
valores chamánicos, y de quien emana el poder. Sin
embargo no interviene en las cuestiones humanas y ha
facilitado su saber a dos ancianos, róntu, «espina», y
runako’, «tierra roja», conviertiéndolos en los dos
primeros aprendices sobre la tierra, con la intervención
de los gemelos míticos a los cuales se les imputa el papel
de creadores o transformadores de la humanidad. Un
chamanismo meramente curativo y más simple, a cargo
de individuos llamados pándra, está contemplado por
los antepasados róntu y runako'.
El aspecto distintivo del chamán, o sea su altérité,
Anthropos 83.1988
586
Rezensionen
luego de una serie de pruebas, está dado por la
adquisición de fuerza, de potencia o haríe, a partir - en
general - del legado de otro chamán, materializada en
«flemas» o woropandi que deben terminar instalándose
en el estómago. Siempre dentro del tema de la altérité,
patentizaciones de ella serían las intensas afecciones
orgánicas que parecen conducirlo al borde de la muerte y
en las cuales sólo puede aparecer el chamán como
«vencedor de la muerte», con la condición de realizar
«viajes» a diferentes dominios del cosmos, no precisa-
mente dependiendo de las drogas. Es un individuo al que
Chaumeil define como «transcategorial» dado que me-
dia entre los vivos y los muertos, tiene el don de la
ubicuidad, de premonición, de curación, de tomar
temporariamente otros cuerpos como, por ejemplo, el
de los animales.
En los accesorios del chamán encontramos cigarros
sándipu, pipa sénéci, manojo de hojas sonoras mborca-
tuwí, recipientes para drogas ramanwmétio, recipientes
para administrar la droga súñohato.
Los Yagua clasifican los elementos del universo en
dos grandes categorías: los vivos siskatia, «que vive»,
que poseen una esencia hamwo o «madre», y lo
inanimado ne siskatia «sin vida». Las «madres» de-
sempeñan un papel fundamental en la vida de los Yagua
y en particular en el chamán dado que ellas le con-
fían el «saber» o adatara. Las más potentes son las de
los alucinógenos súño, «vegetales fuertes» o harie wa-
cara.
El cuerpo es un mero envoltorio que cobija a cinco
almas separadas y clasificadas en dos grupos según su
naturaleza, destino, duración en la existencia postuma y
alejamiento del cadáver. Las dos primeras, a las que los
Yagua llaman en español «espíritus» se encuentran
presentes en la vida de las personas y son determinadas
huñítu y hunisétu. El espíritu hunítu, localizado en la
parte superior del cráneo, es el principio motriz del
cuerpo humano; mientras que hunisétu configura el
entendimiento, la inteligencia, la visión. La anulación de
uno u otro de estos principios vitales constituye el estado
de muerte, porque produce una ruptura entre las
instancias psíquicas y el cuerpo. Las tres almas restantes
comienzan a actuar luego del fallecimiento de la persona
y reciben una denominación que las incluye, ndeñu
mbabayátu o «almas de los muertos». Estas son: nariatu
o «alma de día», noporatu o «alma de noche» y wosahatu
o «alma del medio» o del «zenit».
La adquisición de los poderes se cumple en la fase
inicial en la cual el aprendiz recurre a los «auxiliares»,
que no son ni heredados ni comprados, sino «ingeridos»
junto con la decocción de las plantas y revelados en el
humo sea del tabaco o de determinados vegetales. El
vocablo para «auxiliar» es hamwo, lo mismo que
«madre», pero también se usa la expresión anihamwo,
«mi gente». Dado que la relación chamán-auxiliar
reproduce una situación filial, en la intimidad el primero
lo llamará «hijo» pwípwí y el otro lo retribuirá con el
trato de «padre» rahe o faifa. Los Yagua conocen una
amplia gama de auxiliares: las propias «madres» vegeta-
les o animales, las almas de los difuntos, los espíritus del
bosque y los habitantes de distintos mundos, el trueno,
el relámpago, el viento, la lluvia, el arco iris, etc.
El chamán yagua es un gran explorador del
universo y lo notable de sus viajes está centrado en el
hecho que se realizan a través del «espacio y del
tiempo», con el propósito de dialogar tanto con los
antepasados míticos como con otras teofanías. Chaumeil
destaca que el mito o lo mítico es vivido (vécu) en una
forma personal y plena, es una dimensión «sensorial»
que, por el grado de existencialidad que denota, unido al
hecho de divulgar sus experiencias, lo convierten en un
activo gestor mitopoyético.
La enfermedad es llamada genéricamente sánduya-
nu, palabra que proviene de sándu «soplar» y el sufijo
yanu que resalta la acción realizada. Por lo tanto el
estado de enfermo puede ser traducido por «haber sido
soplado». Las enfermedades son clasificadas en dos
grandes grupos: nowónu sánduyanu o «enfermedades de
brujería» y las húnídanu sánduyanu o «enfermedades
del creador». Las primeras abarcan el mayor número de
enfermedades imputadas a la malevolencia de los
chamanes o a los espíritus del bosque y son factibles de
ser curadas. Las segundas son impuestas por el «cre-
ador» cuando se comete una infracción - incesto,
crimen, robo, etc. - y son incurables. La nosotaxia yagua
determina otros dos grupos de enfermedades que no
tienen relación con las anteriores: las enfermedades
celestes o «enfermedades de lo alto» y los envenena-
mientos producidos por un veneno vegetal o por
brujería.
Las enfermedades nowónu sánduyanu y hunídanu
sánduyanu nos suscitan algunas reflexiones. En efecto,
éstas se caracterizan por plantear un principio común a
ambas, aquel jurídico, y uno distintivo, la naturaleza del
mal en un caso y el código ético grupal en el otro. Las
primeras están referidas a la naturaleza del mal en
cuanto lo demoníaco persigue «el mal por el mal
mismo», el otro, si se trata de una venganza a cargo de
un chamán, contiene un objetivo jurídico basado en la
reparación de una ofensa cometida que exige retribu-
ción. Las segundas están íntimamente vinculadas con el
horizonte ético yagua, cuya concreción implica también
una sanción que emana del plano religioso, un castigo
por parte del «creador» que se perfila como irreparable
ya que la enfermedad es incurable.
Los tres elementos claves de la consagración del
chamán son los que figuran en el título del libro: el saber
adatara, el poder sándahetaránda y el ver renuria; de
esta forma, la vida cotidiana es una mera apariencia que
esconde el verdadero sentido de las cosas y será develada
por el chamán. El grado de poder será correlativo con la
cantidad de saber que detenta y el saber fluye de dos
fuentes; las «madres» y los «maestros» chamanes, dado
que ambos le entregan un patrimonio de distinta
naturaleza. De nada serviría este legado si el chamán,
por su parte, no demostrase capacidad para guardar en
su estómago las armas o poder que le serán imprescin-
dibles para su acción.
Un segundo punto en relación a la figura del
chamán está dado por su ambivalencia, que oscila entre
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
587
«terapeuta» y «dañador», de tal modo que no existe en la
concepción indígena una oposición bien-mal, sino una
«dosificación» y un contexto concreto sobre el que se
actúa. El yagua, por otra parte, enfoca al chamán como
cazador, lo que se advierte lingüísticamente al emplear
el mismo término para chamanizar y cazar, y con la
acción al disparar la flecha. Pero las funciones principa-
les de este personaje «transcategorial» son las de
establecer la mediación entre los mundos y sus habitan-
tes, así como restablecer todo tipo de desorden - sin
excluir la enfermedad -.
Según Chaumeil es importante profundizar el
estudio diacrònico del chamanismo yagua para poder
valorar adecuadamente las modificaciones que la insti-
tución ha sufrido con el pasar del tiempo, como por
ejemplo su limitación en las funciones sociales y penet-
ración en el mundo mestizo amazónico. De esta forma el
autor, luego de un planteo metodológico de carácter
sincrónico, tautegórico, se propone metas historicistas
en cuanto el chamanismo se convierte en una «respuesta
cultural» de resistencia indígena en América del sur ante
situaciones existenciales críticas.
La obra contiene un anexo en el que se enumeran
los principales informantes yagua, un glosario, un
vocabulario chamánico, una tabla de mitos compuesta
por unas veintisiete narraciones, índices de nombres de
plantas, de animales, de sitios geográficos, de grupos
étnicos y de los temas tratados. Todo ello contribuye a
otorgar al libro una gran unidad y un ordenamiento que
facilita la lectura.
Un comentario especial merecen las ilustraciones
que, además de las fotografías, se caracterizan por la
abundancia de esquemas que explican los diferentes
problemas y temas tratados, diseños de instrumentos y
técnicas chamánicas, croquis geográficos y dibujos
realizados por los informantes yagua. En el curso de
nuestro comentario hemos mencionado la capacidad
expresiva de estos indígenas en el plano plástico, que
Chaumeil ha sabido explotar adecuadamente y que
contribuye a documentar aún más la realidad cultural
yagua.
«Voir, savoir, pouvoir. Le chamanisme chez les
Yagua du Nord-Est péruvien» es una obra bien conce-
bida y diagramada analíticamente que presenta gran
unidad interna, que constituye no sólo un aporte
etnológico para conocer el chamanismo de una etnia
amazónica. En efecto, es un modelo sobre el cual
pueden inspirarse otras investigaciones, tanto por su
técnica documental como por las reflexiones teóricas
que suscita. En el primer caso, hemos podido apreciar el
cuidado que el autor ha dedicado al aspecto lingüístico al
aclarar en todo momento el significado de las expresio-
nes utilizadas en la lengua aborigen. Las narrativas
míticas transcriptas, que componen el corpus de relatos
de base para comprender la religión yagua, unido a los
cantos, a las experiencias iniciáticas y de trance provo-
cados por la ingestión de los preparados vegetales con
principios alucinógenos, están provistos de un alto grado
de vivencialidad que permiten al lector una paulatina y
profunda penetración en el mundo fantástico de los
nihamwo. No es necesario extendernos más sobre este
punto, dado que lo hemos ido resaltando a lo largo de
nuestra reseña. El segundo aspecto, el metodológico,
nos impone también algunas consideraciones, que tam-
bién han sido destacadas por Chaumeil. Lo primero
sería plantear una definición sobre chamanismo sólo
como punto de partida para luego ser colocada «entre
paréntesis», definiendo a esa institución «desde aden-
tro» de su particular Weltanschauung «una vez que se ha
podido relevar su sistema de ideas y valores». Esto
último advierte quizás sobre la enorme labor etnológica
que aún queda por realizar para poder penetrar en las
cosmovisiones etnográficas amerindianas, en las cuales
el chamanismo desempeña frecuentemente un papel de
primer orden. La premisa metodológica que resulta de
lo que acabamos de manifestar está referida a la actitud
del etnólogo que se aboca a esta minuciosa labor, y que
hemos señalado en más de una oportunidad; y que
implica el esfuerzo de eliminación de «prejuicios teóri-
cos, y de otra naturaleza, a príori». Mario Califano
Dennell, Robin: European Economic Prehistory.
A New Approach. London: Académie Press, 1983.
xii+217 pp., figs., tab. Price; £9.50 (paper), £19.50
(cloth)
Diese Buch ist ein Lesevergnügen, sowohl im
Hinblick auf den Inhalt als auch auf den gut lesbaren Stil
des Autors. Wo geht schon wissenschaftlicher Text mit
Humor einher? Selten genug. Dennell versteht es,
humorvoll zu erklären und auf bisher Ungereimtes in
der urgeschichtlichen Forschung aufmerksam zu ma-
chen. Erfrischend.
Das Vergnügen beim Lesen darf allerdings nicht
dazu verleiten, Dennell nun bedingungslos bei seinen
Ausführungen zu folgen. Er versucht, die aus dem
19. Jh. überkommenen und nach seiner Ansicht längst
überholten Gliederungen der Urgeschichte sowie die
sich hieraus ergebenden wirtschaftlichen und techni-
schen Charakteristika durch neue Überlegungen zu
ersetzen. Dabei geht er jedoch von vereinfachten
Schemata aus und berücksichtigt zu wenig, daß sich das
chronologische System des vorigen Jh.s bis in die zweite
Hälfte des 20. Jh.s sehr verfeinert hat, daß regional
differenziert wurde, daß etliche Unterscheidungskrite-
rien Mensch/Tier modifiziert wurden und daß Annah-
men über Abfolgen einzelner Industrien nicht mehr so
gemacht werden wie noch vor 20 oder 30 Jahren.
Ebenfalls ist heute wohl auch davon auszugehen, daß
eine weltweite Urgeschichte, nicht nur eine auf Europa
beschränkte, von allen Archäologen akzeptiert wird.
Das Buch ist nach Vorwort, Abbildungsverzeichnis
und Einführung in neun Kapitel untergliedert. In “To-
wards a New Framework” (1) schlägt Dennell verschie-
dene Einteilungen wirtschaftlicher und gesellschaftli-
cher Bereiche vor. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die
Versorgung mit Grundnahrungsmitteln, weitgehend
identisch mit dem, was unter dem Begriff der „aneignen-
den Wirtschaft“ bekannt ist. Im 2. Kapitel, “Europe:
the Empty Continent?”, beleuchtet der Autor die
Anthropos 83.1988
588
Rezensionen
400 000 Jahre (von 500 000-100 000 v. h.), die sich
Menschen, zumindest zeitweise, in Europa aufhielten.
Er macht umweit- und verhaltensbedingte Erklärungs-
vorschläge für die Gründe ihrer periodischen Abwesen-
heit. In “The Colonization of Europe” (3) verweilt
Dennell mit seinen Ausführungen in der angegebenen
Zeitspanne. Er vermutet, daß Europa zu einer gewissen
Zeit dieser Periode., „erfolgreich kolonisiert“ worden
war.
Auch die nächsten beiden Kapitel gehören in
gewisser Weise zusammen, denn untrennbar mit der
Mousterien-Frage ist die des Übergangs vom Mittel-
zum Jungpaläolithikum verbunden. Dem 4. Kapitel,
“The Mousterian Muddle”, liegen die 70 000 Jahre von
100 000-30 000 v. h. zugrunde. Ob nun der Übergang
zwischen den beiden angeführten Zeitabschnitten konti-
nuierlich oder abrupt erfolgte, in keinem Fall - so
Dennell - seien anatomische und typologische Faktoren
verantwortlich zu machen. Für ihn ist auf der Grundlage
faunistischer Daten ein kontinuierlicher Übergang eher
unwahrscheinlich. In “The New Technology and the
Advent of Modern Behaviour” (5) geht er diesem
Komplex weiter nach. Er weist darauf hin, daß nach
30 000 v. h. gravierende Änderungen in den Verhaltens-
weisen der Menschen eingesetzt haben müssen. Die
erkennbaren Unterschiede, beispielsweise wie die Exi-
stenzsicherung organisiert wurde, werden durch eine
bloße isolierende Betrachtung der Steinwerkzeuge ver-
deckt. Ob die Wandlungen in Europa selbst entstanden
oder von außen hereingetragen wurden, ist eine Frage,
die Dennell lieber offenlassen will.
Mit dem allmählichen Ausklingen der Würm-
Eiszeit befaßt sich der Autor dann im 6. Kapitel, “The
Last Deglaciation and its Consequences in Southern
Europe”. Er setzt hierfür einen Zeitraum von 10 000
Jahren an (16 000-6 000 v. h.). Die Technik der Jagd auf
Großsäuger sei gegenüber den vorangegangenen Zeiten
nahezu unverändert geblieben, doch habe die Standort-
gebundenheit nachgelassen. Auch im folgenden Kapitel
halten wir uns noch in der Epoche des Eisrückgangs auf.
Jetzt werden die Konsequenzen auf das nördliche
Europa behandelt. Dennell möchte diese nördliche
Periode in zwei Phasen unterteilen. Während der ersten
wurden die nordeuropäische Tiefebene, Dänemark und
das südliche England (außerdem die Alpen und Pyrenä-
en) besiedelt, in der zweiten (postglazialen) Phase
wanderten Menschen nach Irland, ins nördliche Eng-
land, nach Schottland und in den größeren Teil Skandi-
naviens ein. In diesem Kapitel wendet sich der Verfasser
auch gezielt mehreren Fragen der Subsistenzwirtschaft
zu, wobei er die in etlichen archäologischen Arbeiten zu
verzeichnende Vernachlässigung der pflanzlichen Er-
nährung in ihrer Bedeutung für den urgeschichtlichen
Menschen beklagt.
In den beiden letzten Kapiteln befaßt sich Dennell
mit noch ungelösten Problemen der beginnenden produ-
zierenden Wirtschaftsweisen in Europa. Er hält es für
unwahrscheinlich, daß die Ehre des ersten Pflanzenan-
baus in Europa Kolonisten aus dem Nahen Osten
zukommt. Statt dessen plädiert er für lokale Entwick-
lungen in Südosteuropa, hervorgerufen durch intertriba-
len Wirtschaftsverkehr über die westliche Türkei. Für
die Ausbreitung des Bodenbaus und der Viehhaltung
nach Mitteleuropa schließt er dagegen Einwanderer als
Träger der „neolithischen Revolution“ aus dem Osten
nicht aus, wozu jedoch gleichfalls Adaptationen lokaler
mesolithischer Gruppen beigetragen haben werden, dies
insbesondere bezogen auf England. Eine Zusammenfas-
sung, ein Literaturverzeichnis und ein Index beschließen
den Band.
Grundsätzlich Neues hat Dennell nicht vorgelegt.
Zwar setzt er einige interessante Akzente und legt eine
umbenannte Periodisierung des Pleistozäns mit etwas
vorgezogener Neolithisierung im Holozän vor, doch am
Ablauf der Menschheitsgeschichte mit ihren großen
Umbrüchen kann (und will) er nichts ändern. Kaum zu
glauben, daß sich sein nicht grundsätzlich geändertes
chronologisches System durchsetzen wird, zumal sich
die Frage nach der Notwendigkeit einer Änderung stellt.
Bedeutsam erscheint eigentlich nur, daß Dennell - im
Gegensatz zur Meinung seit wenigen Jahrzehnten - den
Übergang vom Mousterien zum Aurignacien doch als
wesentlichen Bruch erscheinen lassen will, insbesondere
im Hinblick auf die immaterielle Kultur der seinerzeiti-
gen Gruppen. Im Gegensatz dazu sieht er keinen
Einschnitt am Ende der Würm-Eiszeit (wogegen aller-
dings zahlreiche Kulturerscheinungen sprechen) und
leugnet als Folge auch die Notwendigkeit, das Mesoli-
thikum als besondere Periode fortzuführen (womit er
sich im Einklang mit vielen anderen befindet).
Das Buch ist anregend geschrieben, interessant zu
lesen und verdient es, bei Diskussionen zum Thema
noch längere Zeit herangezogen zu werden.
Axel Schulze-Thulin
Dobbin, Jay D.: The Jombee Dance of Montserrat.
A Study of Trance Ritual in the West Indies. Columbus:
Ohio State University Press, 1986. 202 pp. Price:
$ 22.00
The contrast between Europe and Africa in the
New World during the Colonial period contributed to
the formation of a host of new religious movements in
the Americas. Herskovits’ pioneering work in the 1940s
had led scholars to view these movements in two ways.
Some argue that they are shaped by the slaves’ reaction
against the Christianizing efforts of missionaries. In their
resistance against acculturation, they hammered out for
themselves new religious traditions that blended African
and Christian beliefs and practices. Others assert that
these movements are schismatic Christian sects which
preserved Christian doctrines, but in culture contact
syncretized with African traditions.
Jombee is one of such religious traditions. As the
folk religion of Montserrat, it resembles other folk
religions throughout the Caribbean. Like Vodou in
Haiti, Cumina in Jamaica, and Shango in Trinidad, it is
part of what Redfield called the “Little Traditions.”
Dobbin’s analysis of Jombee relies heavily on the
study of African-derived religions in the New World by
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
589
George Simpson. He noted that Jombee originated from
two continents: Africa and Europe. Its Africanness can
be seen not only in its belief system, but in the word
jombee itself. Jombee is used widely throughout the
Caribbean, namely jombi, jumbie, juppy, or jumby.
Etymologically, jombee is related to duppi in Jamaica, a
term which refers to the spirit of the departed who are
believed to return to life in visible form. As Simpson
suggests, duppi is related to zombie which in Jamaica is a
pantheon of Cumina ancestral spirits who are the subject
of ritual trance possessions. Zombie is also used in
Haitian Vodou to designate those who have died and are
believed to have been extracted from their graves by
sorcery, or the wandering souls of persons who, as a
result of accidents, are said to be unable to ever find
their way into the ancestral world. Despite the regional
variations of the word, jombee refers to ancestral spirits
who are believed to people the world, are hierophanous
in that they manifest themselves in sacred objects and
places, as well as through dreams, visions, and trance
possessions of their devotees.
In their Weltanschauung, Montserratians give little
attention to the remote cosmos of stars, clouds, and
constellations, but emphasize the sacramental and tran-
substantiational nature of objects close at hand. Once
endowed with the sacred power of the jombees, these
objects can be transformed in their magical manipula-
tions for good or evil. Montserratians conceive of the
Christian God according to Tempels’ description of the
African godhead; an elan vital, a dynamic, transcen-
dent, and impersonal power that is far removed from
human affairs. In contrast, the jombees, like the deities
of African pantheons, can be cajoled and coerced to
grant special dispensations to humans.
One of the characteristics of Jombee rituals is the
ritual dance which engenders spirit possession. Fol-
lowing Bourguignon’s analysis, Dobbin defines spirit
possessions as including a broad range of experiences,
from sleep to alcoholic intoxication, from dance to
musical trance induced by rhythmic drumming, from
drug induced states of consciousness to daydreaming,
and from altered states of consciousness deriving from
frenzy at revival meetings to intense task absorption. In
Montserrat, spirit possession is known as “turning,” a
term which applies not only to the ritual dances
themselves but to the trances that derive from them. As
in Haitian Vodou rituals, turning dancers are said to
have no will of their own but assume the imagined
personalities of the jombees. Turning is then, as in
Africa, a non-material achievement which symbolizes
not only the devotion of the dancers to the jombees, but
the willingness of the spirits to intervene in human
profane activities. During turning, devotees become
mouthpieces of the jombees and make pronouncements
about the present problems and eventual fate of the
community. That is why jombee dancers are not regular
occurences in Montserrat, but are held only in moments
of crisis or, in Turner’s term, in liminal periods in the life
of the community.
In its various local forms, turning operates as
heuristic devices” by which devotees discover new social
relationships as well as symbols in the dances. Dobbin
notes that they fulfill a number of social functions of a
liminal nature. First, dances are social occasions during
which participants break through the social class struc-
tures to establish, as Turner notes, a sense of communi-
tas. Second, the dances reinforce in concrete form
communally shared values. Third, they free individuals
from social restrictions and allow them to establish
contact with powers outside of the profane sphere.
Fourth, they symbolize a quest for solutions to common,
existential human problems. And finally, social bonds
are based upon a pre-scientific worldview in which
divinition is an integral part. The trance dancer is in part
a diviner, a diagnostician who solves the existential
problems of the community by “mystical” means ana-
logous to opening a secret. It is in the dancers’
relationships with the community that these problems
are defined and clarified. Utterances by those dancing
are not only dramatized, but responses from participants
influence the outcome of the solutions to the problems of
the community.
Christian theology is also part of Jombee belief.
Historically, Montserrat was ruled by the British and the
French. Dobbin provides too few examples of Christian
doctrines in Jombee as a syncretism - the symbiosis, the
coexistence, the juxtaposition of two religions with the
Christian overlaying the more persuasive and deeper
tradition by stratification (17). As in Vodou, symbiosis
can be seen in the juxtaposition of Catholic votive
candles, statues of saints with African derived concoc-
tions used for spiritual healing, jars of water and liquor
on the same Jombee altar. In this instance, all distance
between Jombee and Christianity seems abolished, and
the devotees feel at home in the use of Christian and
African ritual paraphernalia in their dances.
While Dobbin’s definition of symbiosis is clear,
he gives little historical data that might have helped
to explain why it occurred in Montserrat. Such data
would have not only shed light on the acculturative pro-
cess that caused symbiosis but would have served as
a means of developing a theoretical framework about ac-
culturation which Dobbin himself admits is lacking the
book.
Bastide’s analysis of acculturation in Caribbean
religions would have provided a sound theoretical
framework for the book. He describes symbiosis as
“mosaic syncretism,” that is, the juxtaposition of Chris-
tian and African symbols on the same altar; and
“institutional syncretism,” that is, the blending of
Christian and African traditions in Caribbean folk
religions. Both forms of syncretism developed in the
Caribbean as a result of historical events during slavery,
and later left their mark on these societies. Dobbin notes
that in Montserrat’s history, slaves were strictly forbid-
den to practice their African religions under the threat of
severe punishment. He cites incidents as late as 1959 and
1961 when Montserratians were convicted for practicing
obeah. Although these “persecutions” were not as
severe as those of Haiti during the 19th and 20th
Anthropos 83.1988
590
Rezensionen
centuries, mosaic syncretism was maintained in Mont-
serrat (as in Haiti) as a way for the slaves to hide their
African religious practices behind the facade of Chris-
tian symbols. Similarly, institutional syncretism devel-
oped historically at the level of religious beliefs and
practices. The use of obeah and thunderstones, as well as
spirit possession, would have disappeared in Jombee
had it not been for the fact that these phenomena were
reinforced by their presence in Medieval folk Christi-
anity. In this context, Dobbin notes that these Christian
folk practices were undoubtedly brought to Montserrat
when Europeans settled there.
Moreover, in his analysis of religious acculturation
in the Caribbean, Bastide differentiates between “motor
memory” and “memory-as-recollection” (“African civi-
lizations in the New World” [1971: 141]). The first has to
do with the preservation of ritual forms simply by habit
while forgetting the African traditions that served as
their bases; and the second involves a deliberate attempt
by a group to recreate its ancestral traditions. The
occurrence of either of these depends upon a number of
variables: the length of the colonial period and hence the
extent of acculturation, the evangelistic zeal of Christian
missionaries to convert a non-Christian group to Chris-
tianity, and the territorial size of the region in question. A
large territory makes the formation of “maroon repub-
lics” during the slave period more likely. Hidden in the
interior of these islands, and isolated from European
contact, these republics or “ethnic niches” made the
recollection, the preservation, and transmission of an-
cestral traditions possible. Such was the case with the
large Caribbean colonies of Haiti and Cuba. In contrast,
Montserrat is a relatively small island, the isolation of
these niches was difficult and their European penetra-
tion facile. Moreover, the period of European domina-
tion was longer in Montserrat. Few beliefs remained in
more or less simple forms, and some religious practices
were merely preserved by motor memory or habit. The
evangelistic zeal of both Protestant and Catholic mis-
sionaries to uproot African traditions from Montserrat-
ian society during a long colonial period tended to dis-
courage the recollection of ancestral traditions.
In short, while Dobbin himself recognizes that the
book’s weakness is its lack of a theoretical framework,
his findings are nevertheless valuable especially at a time
when Jombee practices are gradually disappearing from
the island. To my knowledge, it is the only scholarly
study of its kind on Jombee in Montserrat. His field
research is complete and well documented. His applica-
tion of Bourguignon’s analysis of spirit possession,
Turner’s and Douglas’ analysis of symbolic structures to
Jombee is particularly well done. In recent years,
scholarly literature about native religious movements in
the Caribbean have been scanty. Hence, the book is a
welcome addition to the study of Caribbean religions.
Leslie G. Desmangles
Dupré, Georges: Les naissances d’une société.
Espace et historicité chez les Beembé du Congo. Paris:
Editions de l’ORSTOM, 1985. 418 pp., ph., cartes, tabl.
(Mémoires, 101)
Georges Dupré est maître de recherches à l’Institut
français de recherche scientifique pour le développe-
ment en coopération (ORSTOM). Après plusieurs
années sur le terrain, en milieu rural congolais, il
présente une étude sur les Beembé, situés au nord-ouest
de Brazzaville.
Cette ethnie, comprise entre les Kongo et les Téké,
habite principalement le plateau de Mouyondzi que le
travail agricole des femmes beembé rend prospère.
L’histoire du peuplement mentionne plusieurs groupes
beembé mais la solidarité ethnique se fonde avant tout
sur l’appartenance à un même village. Le XIXe siècle
connaît un état de guerre permanent entre villages que
l’auteur considère «dans ses origines et dans ses résultats
comme la continuation du peuplement» (80). Les
vainqueurs sont souvent les villages les plus anciens, les
plus opulents, les mieux organisés évinçant les nouveaux
arrivés.
L’auteur analyse les motifs qui déclenchent les
guerres, les règles de partage du gibier et la fonction du
juge.
Par la suite, la décennie 1870-1880 voit éclore des
marchés en pays beembé considérés comme une institu-
tion nouvelle, «empruntée aux populations installées au
sud du Niari ou au Stanley Pool» (93). Le marché - qui
s’inscrit dans le mouvement de l’histoire beembé - est un
événement. En effet, il apporte la paix là où la guerre et
l’agriculture suppléaient aux besoins des populations.
Au départ, des perturbations écologiques; à l’arrivée,
une nouvelle idéologie de la réussite créée par le marché
que l’auteur a le mérite d’analyser sous l’angle social,
politique et idéologique.
Un aperçu sur les pouvoirs surnaturels et sur les
grandes lignes de la conquête coloniale marquée par le
recrutement de la main-d’oeuvre du chemin de fer
Congo-Océan, amène l’auteur aux «outils du présent»
de la société beembé, deuxième partie de l’ouvrage.
Dispersion, segmentation et domination des ligna-
ges (les Kanda) répondent à l’organisation spatiale des
terroirs. Les enquêtes de l’auteur ont englobé 40.000
personnes réparties en 140 villages, et trois villages,
Pand, Moudzanga et Nkila, ont fait l’objet d’enquêtes
intensives.
Pour les techniques agricoles, exposées succinte-
ment en annexe, l’auteur se réfère aux travaux de B.
Buillot du centre ORSTOM de Brazzaville. Les femmes
beembé cultivent trois sortes de champs: les champs de
savanne (champs maala avec buttes écobuées, les
champs kifunduka débroussaillés à la houe et préparés
après brûlis), les champs de forêt et les jardins (Chap.
XIII et chap. XIV).
L’apprentissage du travail des champs commence
dès que la petite fille sait marcher. L’auteur n’hésite pas
à utiliser le terme d’asservissement pour décrire la
femme dans son rapport au travail des champs où elle
passe le plus clair de son temps. Le travail agricole assied
la prospérité beembé et le pouvoir des hommes, en
particulier. Car, le sens du mariage beembé est une
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
591
lecture de la fécondité qui donne pouvoir à l’homme de
s’approprier le sexe de son épouse et l’intégralité du
produit de son travail. Il est comme la houe qui
s’approprie le champ. La dot vient socialiser la fécondité
de la femme qui, en cas de stérilité, sera tenue pour
responsable.
«La femme beembé est une fécondité et une force
de travail contrôlées et exploitées par l’homme», écrit
l’auteur. «Les femmes sont les agents actifs d’une
accumulation de richesse dont les hommes font du
pouvoir et, leur exploitation et la dépendance dans
laquelle elles sont tenues servent à reproduire un
système politique dont l’élément dominant est le pou-
voir dans le lignage» (309).
Georges Dupré a dépouillé les archives du tribunal
de Mouyondzi pour connaître les changements interve-
nus dans la condition des femmes beembé, entre 1952 et
1972. (Chap. XV). L’instabilité matrimoniale augmente
mais le devenir de la femme beembé se dessine aussi
grâce aux exemples des femmes commerçantes, scolari-
sées et diplômées.
Le pouvoir masculin est un pouvoir de lignage. Des
attitudes relevées au cours des funérailles d’un chef de
lignage rendent compte de l’ancienneté des relations des
uns, des futures séparations des autres. L’hostilité des
lignages paternels et maternels engendre de graves
discussions à propos du montant de la sanga, somme
envoyée aux pères du défunt, que le juge apaise en
invoquant la solidarité lignagère. On désigne alors un
héritier qui vivra au village (Chap. VIII).
Le pouvoir passe par la possession de la terre et par
la religion. L’auteur reprend les représentations du
surnaturel qui sont liées au politique. Parmi les plus
importantes: la marmite du Mukomo, la magie de la
guerre; le Nkondi, représenté par des statuettes héris-
sées de clous; le Muziri, «une statue dans laquelle les
ossements d’un ancêtre sont placés, exposée dans un lieu
public et qui est l’objet d’une vénération» (249). Le
Muziri est la propriété de tous. Il représente une
ancestralité protectrice, détachée de la terre.
Mais la religion est, elle-aussi, en proie aux
changements. E. Andersson, J. F. Vincent et M. C.
Dupré ont analysé les cultes anti-sorcier dont celui
connu sous le nom de «mouvement Croix-Koma» que
l’auteur a pu approcher à son tout et compléter.
«Depuis le début des années soixante, Kankata,
près de Kinkala est le siège du mouvement Croix-Koma
créé par Malanda Victor. Les années 1968, 1969 et 1970
connurent une très forte fréquentation beembé. De
façon plus précise, grâce aux archives tenues par le
secrétariat de Croix-Koma, on sait que, de 1966 à 1973,
5 500 Beembé au moins vinrent à Kankata <soulever la
croix> et promettre de ne plus se livrer à la sorcellerie»
(325).
Citant G. Balandier et A. Touraine, l’auteur a su se
donner les moyens théoriques de son exposé et systéma-
tiser les données, nombreuses, précises, actuelles, con-
cernant le passé, le présent et le futur des Beembé.
Rita Cordonnier
Eisenstadt, S. N., and Louis Roninger: Patrons,
Clients, and Friends. Interpersonal Relations and the
Structure of Trust in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984. ix+343 pp. Price: £25.00
(cloth), £8.95 (paper)
As a further exploration into Eisenstadt’s long-
term interest in neo-patrimonialism, clientelism, and
personal relations, this book (co-authored with L.
Roninger) is nothing short of a treatise “. . . about some
special types of interpersonal relations - above all about
friendship, ritual personal and patron-client relation-
ships - and their connections to the institutional matrix
in which they develop” (1). One of the leading scholars
of the sixties in comparative studies of development and
modernization, Eisenstadt sees the present volume as an
outgrowth of his ealier interests, and mentions the
development of his ideas over the years by referring to
his participation in two important academic collabora-
tions: a colloquium on friendship held in 1970 at
Memorial University of Newfoundland and a series of
seminars in 1974—75 on comparative civilizations held at
Hebrew University.
After presenting a review of the literature on
friendship and patron-client relationships, the book
deals with the structure, nature, and place of trust within
the society. It is argued that the extension of trust from
the sphere of primary relations, usually concommitant
with the development of a larger social order, is achieved
through different types of generalized exchange. But
trust or solidarity involves basic tensions and contradic-
tions which creates ambivalence towards the institution-
al order and towards the institutionalization of trust.
Since relations of friendship are based on pristine, moral
obligations, while formalized institutionalized relations
are contaminated with and by power, people try to
balance their ascriptive and voluntary relationships:
“. . . the moral obligations implied in these relations
may not be more encompassing in their scope or legally
more forceful than those of kinship, [but] they often
seem to be ‘purer’, not only because the obligation is
voluntarily undertaken but also because it is seemingly
disconnected from specific group membership or ascrip-
tive bases .. .” (15-16).
Perhaps the most significant contribution of the
book, however, is the tour de force ethnographic survey
of different types of patron-client relationships found
throughout the world: Latin America, Southern Eu-
rope, Muslim Middle East, Southeast Asia, Rwanda,
and historical China, India, and Japan. Of particular
interest from an evolutionary perspective is the explana-
tion and analysis of various types of patron-client
relationships as either adaptations or responses to the
decline of ascriptive structures, or as transformations
related to a shift of power from the local to a national
level. In conjunction with the latter, the authors cite the
neopatrimonial phenomenon in the United States of
having personal staffs at the White House. Unlike
clientelistic societies where patron-client relations are
embedded within the institutional matrix, Eisenstadt
and Roniger note that in countries such as the U.S. and
Anthropos 83.1988
592
Rezensionen
the Soviet Union, the clientelistic mode of generalized
exchange is a corollary to the centrally institutionalized
framework.
The book concludes with an appeal for further
research on the “dialectics of trust” and a rather cursory,
but provocative chapter on ritualized interpersonal
relations; privacy and friendship in traditional and
modern societies. Ann Marie Powers
Faia, Michael A.: Dynamic Functionalism: Strate-
gy and Tactics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986. xiv+186 pp., tab. (ASA Rose Monograph
Series) Price: £ 22.50
Die unverminderte und deshalb nicht einfach
ignorierbare Existenz und Wichtigkeit von Funktionen
und Funktionszusammenhängen im Bereich menschli-
cher Existenz sowie - damit verknüpft - die Unverzicht-
barkeit von Funktionsanalysen haben in jüngerer Zeit
wieder zu einer offeneren Anwendung und Diskussion
funktionalistischer Forschungstheorien geführt. Faias
Buch ist dafür ein weiteres Beispiel.
Trotz des einschränkenden Titels und einer wahr-
scheinlich abweichenden Intention hat die Untersu-
chung drei Gegenstände; 1. die vor allem soziologi-
schen und kulturanthropologischen Publikationen zum
Funktionalismus, 2. eine relativ spezielle Variante der
funktionalistischen Forschungstheorien, in der es vor
allem um Feedback-Prozesse und um zirkuläre Verursa-
chungen geht und in der quantitative und für Computer
programmierte Verfahren überwiegen, sowie 3. funk-
tionale Merkmale sozialer “time-series”-Prozesse oder
-Entwicklungen. Ihre Probleme sind eine Vielzahl von
Fragen (siehe z. B. die Liste pp. xii f.) zum Forschungs-
stand, zur Ontik von Funktionssachverhalten und zur
Epistemik und Methodik funktionalistischen Forschens.
Explizites Ziel der Untersuchung ist eine allgemeine
Forschungstheorie Funktionalismus, welche spezifisch
(also nicht identisch mit soziologischer Forschung
schlechthin) ist und die Schwächen, welche früheren
Versionen des Funkionalismus vorgeworfen werden,
überwindet.
Als Verfahren hat Faia fast durchgängig ein knap-
pes Referieren und ausführlicheres Diskutieren des
Schrifttums gewählt, wodurch die Untersuchung, trotz
der Behandlung sehr vieler systematischer Probleme
und Aspekte, stark autoren- und publikationsbezogen
angelegt und durchgeführt ist. Die implizierte Theorie-
bildung wird eher unbewußt geleistet.
Der Bericht ist in drei Teile mit sieben Kapiteln
und einem Anhang untergliedert und enthält eine
Einleitung, Anmerkungen, Bibliografien, ein Abbil-
dungsverzeichnis und einen kurzen Index. Im ersten
Kapitel geht es um die Spezifizität oder Universalität der
funktionalen Analyse, um Teleologie, um Probleme der
funktionalistischen Methode, um funktionale Unver-
zichtbarkeit und um funktionales Erklären. Im zweiten
und dritten erörtert Faia Mechanismen und Prozesse
sozialer Evolution und das Überleben sozialer Organi-
sationen, illustriert an den Beispielen Aufenthaltsdauer
an Schulen, Verweildauer im US-amerikanischen Kon-
greß und Dauer US-amerikanischer Ehen. Kapitel vier
enthält eine Analyse der Merkmale, Faktoren und
Auswirkungen von linearen und nichtlinearen sozialen
Prozessen, u. a. anhand einer Diskussion der Theorien
von Malthus und Marx. In Kapitel fünf geht es um
„Adaptation“ (hier verstanden als ein Wandel eines
Bereichs einer sozialen Organisation) und ihre Lösungs-
kapazität für z. B. durch das Verlassen eines homöosta-
tischen Zustands hervorgerufene Probleme in anderen
Sektoren. Kapitel sechs stellt Verfahren und Computer-
programme zur Analyse von “time-series”-Prozessen
vor, die als zentral für dynamische funktionale Analysen
angesehen werden. Im letzten Kapitel diskutiert Faia
Arten soziologischer Forschungstheorien, und im An-
hang zeigt er, daß Fehler früherer Funktionalisten
individuell ausführungsbedingt und nicht prinzipielle
Schwächen des Funktionalismus sind.
Das Ergebnis der Untersuchung ist eine zwar
ziemlich ungeordnete, aber doch relativ vollständige
Zusammenstellung von Annahmen und Lösungen zu
Problemen funktionalistischen Erforschens sozialer Pro-
zesse. Besonders gut verdeutlicht das Werk, daß Funk-
tionen eine bestimmte Art von Interaktion von Entitä-
ten sind und daß Funktionsereignisse als Prozesse einen
dynamischen Charakter haben, weshalb zur Erfor-
schung auch Daten über einen längeren Zeitraum zu
erheben sind. Seine Forderung . . functionalist prop-
ositions ought to be considered the summum bonum of
the social scientific endeavor ...” (xi) ist allerdings
etwas übertrieben, weil Funktionalität nicht das einzige
Realitätsprinzip im Bereich menschlicher Existenz ist.
Der entscheidende Nachteil der Untersuchung ist
das Fehlen eines untersuchungstechnischen und aufga-
bensystematischen Untersuchungsrahmens, weshalb die
angeschnittenen Probleme recht willkürlich und letztlich
doch unvollständig behandelt werden. So fehlt beispiels-
weise eine präzise Bestimmung der Funktionen und
Funktionsprozesse, finden sich wichtige Bauteile seiner
Theorie des dynamischen Funktionalismus verstreut an
überraschenden Orten, ist die Forschungstheorie nicht
komplett und systematisch zusammengefaßt.
Andreas Bruck
Fardon, Richard (ed.): Power and Knowledge.
Anthropological and Sociological Approaches. Proceed-
ings of a Conference held at the University of St. An-
drews in December 1982. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic
Press, 1985. 216 pp. Price: £ 12.50
According to the editor’s introduction the papers
which comprise this volume “are in the descent line of
what would once have been called political anthropolo-
gy.” All the contributors participate in the tradition, and
in a broader sense much of British social anthropology in
its earlier years was political in orientation, a fact now
widely acknowledged to have been a consequence of the
colonial moment. These essays, however, are not so
much concerned with formal “structures” of political
organization as with an understanding of power per se,
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
593
as an aspect rather than object of social action. In
substantive content, the essays (by the anthropologists
at any rate) draw upon a wide range of ethnographic
data, from Africa to New Guinea. Unhappily, like so
much else in the “theories” of contemporary anthroplo-
gists, the “social life as discourse” mode resonates in
each contribution. Few address the broader framework
of action in the effort to contextualize individual
“intentionality.” In the midst of uncertainty so charac-
teristic of the discipline as a whole, this recourse is not
unexpected. The essays are, I think unintentionally,
reflections on the ambiguity of power, and one has
difficulty understanding why they collectively comprise
an anthropological approach.
Pardon’s introductory comments, as noted, at-
tempt to place current discussions about knowledge,
power, and ideology in the ambience of anthropology
(particularly British anthropology) in the 1980s. M.
Bloch (“From Cognition to Ideology”) contrasts the
methods anthropologists have employed in the study of
non-western systems of thought with the process of
cognition psychologists concern themselves with. He
suggests we should conceive of knowledge “as the
momentary crystalization of different processes which
interact on each other.” On the way to this sensible
observation some straw men are produced and rhetori-
cally done away with. He writes that “Anthropological
theories about collective representations and such like
are not theories of cognition.” Who, one wonders,
among the ranks of Evans-Pritchard or Needham (to
name only two of the more obvious choices) ever
suggested they were? D. Parkin (“Controlling the U
Turn of Knowledge”) is concerned with religious oratory
in coastal Kenya, the intended and unintended func-
tions of language. His typology may or may not pro-
mise further comparative work. M. Strathern (“Know-
ing Power and Being Equivocal: Three Melanesian
Contexts”) examines personhood and the temporality
of power. Like much of her recent work, Strathern’s con-
tribution is insightful and polemical in the best way.
“In these aggressively egalitarian societies,” she writes,
“claims to prestige are forever negotiable.” D. Riches
(“Power as a Representational Model”) describes “de-
velopment” and politics as these involve an Eskimo
community on the Labrador coast and the agents of their
transformation. Power, in his view, “is not a tool by
which people’s actions may be explained; rather, it is
part of a body of knowledge by which the outcome of
events may be given retrospective moral evaluation.”
The relations pertaining between bridewealth, marriage,
and power provide a context for L. Holy’s discussion
of “close agnatic marriage” in Middle East communi-
ties. Pardon seeks to “develop an analysis of power
relations which is able to encompass the reflexive
awareness and agency of the subjects with which it
concerns itself” by reference to the so-called Chamba
peoples of the Nigerian/Cameroon border.
The sociologists in this collection (R. Kreckel,
“Ideology, Culture, and Theoretical Sociology”; P.
Hirst, “Constructed Space and the Subject”; B. Turner,
The Practices of Rationality”) pick and choose be-
tween collective representations and philosophical an-
cestors to discuss the concept of culture, ideology, con-
structed spaces, and the writings of Foucault. To this
reader. Turner’s is the more valuable and relevant of the
sociological ilk. He critiques and characterizes Fou-
cault’s work as no more than “an extended commentary
on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.” Turner
remarks that the oeuvre is a “gay science of obscurity.”
According to Turner, “Foucault’s attempt to recast the
analysis of power and knowledge exhibits major prob-
lems. There is an almost wilful disregard for evidence,
for systematic treatment of sources, and for comparative
collaboration.”
As this list of paper titles and overly condensed
summaries suggest, there is no common theoretical or
empirical focus to these essays so it is fair to presume
that anthropologists and other interested readers will
find something of value depending upon their specific
interests. Much as the editor might like to expel the
notion that there is a political anthropology, our classic
works remain unblemished; weathered by time like all
things of course, but not contradicted by the jargon of
the 1980s, so apparent here. John W. Burton
Fault, J., and G. Young: South Australian Centre
for Settlement Studies Incorporated. Adelaide: 1986.
120 pp. Price: $A 25.00
This is a simple, unpretentious book, which in-
cludes a wide range of information about a small sample of
pioneer families who settled in diverse townships in the
Adelaide Hills during the nineteenth century. This book
includes a foreword, an introduction, eleven chapters,
two appendices, an index, and acknowledgements. Each
chapter presents a brief (all too brief) account of how a
family established their home: the Scotts of Kersbrook,
William Beavis Randell at Gumeracha, the Pflaums of
Birdwood, George Dunn at Mount Torrens, the Schu-
berts of Springhead, Friedrich Kleinschmidt at Lobe-
thal, the Dunns of Charleston, the Johnstons of Oak-
bank, William Dalwood at Verdun, the Jaenschs of
Hahndorf, and the Danckers of Macclesfield. Each
chapter includes illustrations - black and white photo-
graphs, sketches, and measured drawings - of the
townships and/or a limited number of buildings.
This book brings together selected and edited
information from several comprehensive studies pub-
lished by the South Australian Centre for Settlement
Studies. The authors state that the main goal of this book
is to highlight the interrelations between people, places,
and buildings by using what they term a complementary
architectural, geographical, and historical approach.
This interdisciplinary approach could highlight the
unique and common characteristics of the selected
settlements, some of the buildings, and the way they
were used by a sample of the pioneers who emigrated
from different regions of the United Kingdom and
Europe bringing vernacular building traditions and do-
mestic customs with them. A comprehensive, compar-
Anthropos 83.1988
594
Rezensionen
ative study of this kind has not been published, and this
book does not adequately treat this subject. For exam-
ple, given that the authors are trained in architecture
and geography, it is surprising that there is such a
strong emphasis on family biography in each chapter,
and relatively little architectural analysis or discussion
of domestic culture. In chapter Four, for example, we
read about the divorce of George and Mary Dunn, that
Mary claimed George commited adultery, and that
George’s testament allocated a pension to his illegiti-
mate daughter. This account of marital and extra-
marital affairs comprises about a seventh of the chapter.
Concurrently, there is no detailed account of the design,
the construction, and the furnishing or use of houses
inhabited by George and Mary either before or after
their divorce.
At a more general level, the reader is rarely
informed about the design and construction of buildings
in any detail, and certainly not in any systematic way that
would enable a comparative analysis. Some plans of
buildings are not adequately related to the layout of the
townships, and house plans are presented with a brief
commentary rather than an analytical text. Some ques-
tions that a book of this kind could have posed and
attempted to answer include: How did the buildings
constructed by or for these pioneers reflect the vernacu-
lar customs related to building constructions in the
Motherlands? Were any adaptions to these customs
imposed by local climatic conditions, the availability of
building materials, or introduced by the settlers for other
reasons? If so, for what reasons? Beyond such questions,
there is no discussion of the nomenclature, furnishing,
and use of rooms. In other words, the historical narrative
of the interrelations between people, and the places in
which they settled, is not adequately complemented by
an interdisciplinary analysis of the buildings they in-
habited.
This shortcoming is a disappointment for this
reviewer who is an admirer of some of the comprehen-
sive studies of settlements in the Adelaide Hills already
published by the South Australian Centre for Settlement
Studies (and also referenced in the notes at the ends of
some chapters of this book). In sum, for the general
reader with an interest in social history, this is a nicely
illustrated collection of essays. For the academic, how-
ever, this book is too descriptive, not sufficiently analyti-
cal, so much so that, without a synthesis or a conclusion,
it does not explicitly compare the content of each
chapter. Therefore, the authors have not exploited a
unique opportunity to illustrate (to the general public)
how even the most simple townships and the most
humble buildings express and are defined by a matrix of
architectural, cultural, socio-economic, and material
factors. Such is an excellent outline for a future book.
Roderick J. Lawrence
Fellmann, Rudolf, Georg Germann und Karl Zim-
mermann (Hrsg.): Jagen und Sammeln. Festschrift für
Hans-Georg Bandi zum 65. Geburtstag. Bern: Verlag
Stämpfli, 1985. 301 pp. (Jahrbuch des Bernischen Histo-
rischen Museums, 63-64) Preis: sfr 102,-
Der Titel der Festschrift bezieht sich auf die
Hauptinteressen des Jubilars, die über die Jahre und bei
den vielfältigen Aufgaben, vor die sich Bandi gestellt
sah, doch in erster Linie immer bei den paläo- und
mesolithischen Sammler- und Jägerkulturen lagen. Im
Laufe seines jahrzehntelangen Schaffens hat der mit
dem vorliegenden Werk Geehrte viele Denkanstöße
gegeben, viele Tore aufgestoßen und viel Wissen vermit-
telt. Ein Resultat dieser Arbeit kann der Leser in der
Vielschichtigkeit der Aufsätze erblicken, die in den auch
äußerlich ansprechend gestalteten Band eingegangen
sind. Nicht alle Autoren haben Beiträge geliefert, die in
den Rahmen der jägerischen Archäologie fallen, worauf
die Herausgeber im Vorwort unter Hinweis auf die
„Beute“ aller Museumsinstitutionen aufmerksam ma-
chen.
Die Artikel des Buches sind alphabetisch nach den
Verfassern angeordnet. So ist es Zufall, daß die Publi-
kation - nach der beeindruckenden Bibliographie Ban-
dis - mit S. A. Arutiunovs und M. M. Bronsteins
Abhandlung über die Alte Beringmeer- und Okvik-Stile
eröffnet wird, gilt doch Bandis Liebe in besonderem
Maße Alaska. Nun würde es zu weit führen, jeden
einzelnen Aufsatz zu besprechen (insgesamt 30). Statt-
dessen sei zunächst eine kritische Anmerkung zur
Gliederung gemacht; anschließend werden die Artikel,
die sich mit dem Titel der Festschrift verbinden lassen,
aufgeführt, wobei auf das eine oder andere eingegangen
wird.
Es ist nicht so tragisch, daß die in das Werk
aufgenommenen Beiträge eine umfangreiche Palette der
verschiedensten Sachthemen, unterschiedlicher histori-
scher Zeiten und geographischer Regionen umfassen.
Damit wird auf die Breite der wissenschaftlichen Inter-
essen und Aufgaben des Jubilars hingewiesen. Doch
hätte dies Anlaß sein müssen, die Aufsätze anders als
geschehen zu gliedern, am zweckmäßigsten wohl in
räumlicher Hinsicht und als weitere Aufteilung zeitlich.
Infolge der alphabetischen Reihenfolge steht - um
beispielhaft einige Abhandlungen aus der Mitte des
Bandes anzuführen - nach dem genetischen Erbe der
eiszeitlichen Jäger das Klippschliefer-Ritual bei den
Zulgo in Nordkamerun, danach kommen neue Aspekte
und Hypothesen zur römischen Limitation in der West-
schweiz. Hieran schließt sich eine Darlegung zur „Ver-
ordnung wider das Wegnehmen und Beschädigen alter-
thümlicher Fundsachen im Seeland“ vom 7. Juni 1873
an. Es folgt eine Abhandlung über den biologischen
Artbegriff, weiterhin etwas über die Entstehung von
Ackerbau und Viehzucht in China, dann alexandrini-
sche Münzen, anschließend Hinweise zum Hochsee-
fischfang auf den Malediven .... Dies macht nun alles
tatsächlich den Eindruck eines Sammelsuriums und
schmälert die Geschlossenheit der Publikation insge-
samt, die das im Hinblick auf ihren fundierten Inhalt,
verfaßt von oft weltbekannten Wissenschaftlern, nicht
verdient hat. Ein Register hätte diesen Eindruck etwas
auffangen können.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
595
Welche Aufsätze fallen nun unter den Titel „Jagen
und Sammeln“, und zwar bezogen auf die im Vorwort
ausdrücklich genannte Alt- und Mittelsteinzeit (in erster
Linie Europas)? Da haben wir zunächst die von G.
Bartolomei et al. vorgelegten vorläufigen Resultate aus
der neu erforschten Höhle von Paina auf dem Gemein-
degebiet von Mossano, Provinz Vicenza (Italien). Eben-
falls vorläufig sind die Ergebnisse, die Studien an
Feuersteinindustrien aus der Haditha-Region im Irak
geliefert haben, niedergelegt von W. Chmielewski und
St. K. Kozlowski. Von H. Delporte stammen Überle-
gungen zur Jagd im Paläolithikum. Nur zum Teil den
angeführten Epochen zugehörig sind Angaben von M.
Egloff über die Entwicklung des Sammlerkorbes, deren
Beginn in das Jungpaläolithikum gestellt wird. Am
Rande des Festschrifttitels bewegen sich T. Geizers
Ausführungen über Bachofen, Bern und den Bären.
Abgesehen davon, daß der Verfasser die Begehung der
Ostschweizer Höhlen in die „letzte“ Eiszeit (113), nicht
aber in die vorausgegangene Zwischeneiszeit stellt,
hätte sich der Rezensent ein etwas näheres Eingehen auf
die Zurückweisung von Bachofens Mutterrecht durch
die Ethnologie im 20. Jh. gewünscht, als dies auf den
Seiten 114 und 118 kurz angedeutet wird, zumal dieses
Mutterrecht in dem Artikel (im Zusammenhang mit
Bachofens Bärenuntersuchungen) beträchtlichen Platz
einnimmt. Andererseits wird die am paläolithischen
Bärenkult geübte Kritik, gerade auch vom Jubilar
(1966), nicht durch die zahlreichen anderen, nicht so
negativen Stimmen relativiert. So spricht mehr für als
gegen die Bärenverehrung bereits im Mittel- und Jung-
paläolithikum. Ein wie auch immer gearteter Kult rund
um den Bären während der Altsteinzeit hat heute mehr
Befürworter als Gegner. Dies hängt gewiß auch damit
zusammen, daß dem Neandertaler auf kulturellem
Gebiet seit einiger Zeit wesentlich mehr zugetraut wird
als noch vor zwanzig Jahren.
Der nächste Aufsatz, der mit dem Jäger- und
Sammlertum in einem bestimmten Zusammenhang
steht, ist G. Germanns „Höhle und Hütte“. Im folgen-
den Artikel erläutern G. und M.-L. Glowatzki-Mullis
das schon erwähnte genetische Erbe der eiszeitlichen
Jäger. In einer gewissen Verbindung mit dem Thema des
Buches steht auch W. Hubers Beitrag „Vom biologi-
schen Artbegriff“. Mit der Vorlage gravierter Tierbilder
aus der Dëravâ-Hôhle in Böhmen von B. Klima gelan-
gen wir dann wieder in das Jungpaläolithikum. Diese
Gravierungen sind denen aus Gönnersdorf (Neuwied)
vergleichbar, wenn sie diesen gegenüber in Quantität
und Erhaltung auch zurückstehen. Im Gegensatz zu
denen aus Neuwied überdecken sich die Ritzzeichnun-
gen auf den böhmischen Stücken nicht. Nur drei
Tierbilder sind vollständig erhalten. Eingezeichnete
Verletzungen im Brustbereich der Tiere durch Lanze
oder Speer weisen auf Analogiezauber hin, was für eine
Erklärung im Sinne der in jüngerer Zeit oft zurückge-
wiesenen Jagdmagie spricht. Im auslaufenden Jungpalä-
olithikum halten wir uns auch bei dem nächsten Aufsatz
über die Gleichzeitigkeit der verschiedenen Fazies des
Magdalénien von J. K. Kozlowski auf.
Auf ein besonderes Interessengebiet Bandis
kommt dann H. Müller-Beck mit seinen Überlegungen
zur Interpretation früher bildlicher Darstellungen zu
sprechen. In den Mittelpunkt seiner Abhandlung stellt
der Autor zwei vom Tübinger Institut für Urgeschichte
ausgegrabene Objekte aus Mammutelfenbein, nämlich
die löwenköpfige Vollplastik aus dem Hohlenstein-
Stadel und das Plättchen mit anthropomorphem Relief
aus dem Geissenklösterle, beide Schwäbische Alb.
Während erstere mit Macht und Stärke in Zusammen-
hang gebracht werden kann, sieht Müller-Beck in dem
Plättchen eine Erzählgrundlage mit astronomischem
Bezug (Einschnitte auf dem Stück kennzeichnen Mond-
phasen). Ein Kratzer von der Station Umingmak auf
Banks Island (Nordkanada) mit abstrahierten Ritzzeich-
nungen auf Vorder- und Rückseite wird den europäisch-
en Gegenständen als jüngerer Ausdruck mythisch ver-
bundener Religiosität gegenübergestellt.
K. J. Narr bezieht in seinem Beitrag über die
Frage, ob das Mammut ausstarb oder ausgerottet
wurde, vor allem die Urgeschichte Amerikas ein. Bei
der Beantwortung dieser Frage neigt der Autor hinsicht-
lich Nordamerikas eher klimatisch-ökologischen Verän-
derungen zu als einem “Overkill”, äußert sich insgesamt
jedoch unter Hinweis auf fehlende Beweise vorsichtig.
In den Bereich jägerischer Archäologie gehört der
Aufsatz von J.-G. Rozoy über zwei Jagdmethoden auf
dem Ardennenplateau im ausgehenden Jungpaläolithi-
kum ebenso wie der folgende von E. Schmid zur
Seitenansicht der Tiere in der paläolithischen Kunst.
Indirekt muß auch der Artikel von Hanni Schwab über
Funde von Gagat und Bernstein auf dem Rentierjäger-
halt Moosbühl bei Moosseedorf (Kanton Bern) mit dem
zugehörigen Beitrag von C. W. Beck über die Herkunft
der Bernsteinfunde vom Moosbühl in unsere Aufzäh-
lung aufgenommen werden. Das gleiche läßt sich von
den restlichen vier Abhandlungen sagen: J. Tomsky
über die Klingenindustrien des Altpaläolithikums; H. T.
Waterbolk zu mesolithischen und frühen neolithischen
Siedlungen der nördlichen Niederlande; F. H. West
über Typologie und Interpretation sowie K. Zimmer-
mann mit seinem Aufsatz über Ignaz Venetz
(1788-1859), Pionier der Eiszeittheorie.
Das inhaltliche Gewicht dieser 19 Artikel, die mit
„Jägern und Sammlern“ Zusammenhängen, ist gewiß
beeindruckend. Die vorgelegten Fakten, die meist
einem neuen Forschungsstand entsprechen, machen das
Buch - so recht im Sinne des Jubilars - besonders für den
an jägerischer Archäologie Interessierten wertvoll.
Axel Schulze-Thulin
Frobenius, Leo: Ethnographische Notizen aus den
Jahren 1905 und 1906. I: Völker am Kwilu und am
unteren Kasai. Bearb. von Hildegard Klein. Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1985. xxiv+223 pp.,
Abb., Ktn., Fotos (Studien zur Kulturkunde, 80) Preis:
DM75-
Frobenius, Leo: Ethnographische Notizen aus den
Jahren 1905 und 1906. II: Kuba, Leela, Nord-Kete.
Anthropos 83.1988
596
Rezensionen
Bearb. von Hildegard Klein. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag Wiesbaden. 1987. xx+236 pp., Abb., Ktn.,
Fotos (Studien zur Kulturkunde, 84) Preis: DM 89,-
Frobenius, Leo: Histoire et contes des Mossi. Trad.
par Fabienne Tesseire. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag
Wiesbaden, 1986. viii+94 pp. (Sonderschriften des Fro-
benius-Instituts, 3) Prix: DM 28,-
Frobenius, Leo: Peuples et sociétés traditionnelles
du Nord-Cameroun. Trad. par Eldridge Mohammadou.
Stuttgart; Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1987.
175 pp., ill., carte (Studien zur Kulturkunde, 83) Prix:
DM 48,-
Mit seinem Werk „Der Ursprung der afrikanischen
Kulturen“ (Berlin 1898) unternahm Leo Frobenius
einen Versuch, Kulturen in ihrer Entstehung und
Entwicklung zu erfassen und zu begreifen. Damit
versuchte er zugleich, „die bisher als geschichtslos
geltenden schriftlosen Völker der Erde in einen univer-
salhistorischen Zusammenhang“ zu stellen (Hildegard
Klein in Frobenius 1985: 1). Frobenius löste damit
kulturhistorische Forschungen aus, die sich in der Folge
vor allem in Deutschland und Österreich zu unterschied-
lichen Richtungen entwickelten und das Mißvergnügen
vieler angloamerikanischer Fachkollegen erregten.
Frobenius’ kulturtheoretisches Gebäude war auch
in Deutschland nie unumstritten. Schon „Der Ursprung
der afrikanischen Kulturen“ wurde durchaus nicht über-
all freundlich aufgenommen. Vielmehr wurde das Werk
von vielen Gelehrten abgelehnt. Frobenius hatte jedoch
auch Gönner. Hier verdient Georg Thilenius, Direktor
des Hamburgischen Museums für Völkerkunde von
1904 bis 1935, an erster Stelle genannt zu werden.
Bei der Abfassung seines Werkes und eines als
„Vorläufer“ in Petermanns Mitteilungen 1897 und 1898
veröffentlichten Aufsatzes „Der westafrikanische Kul-
turkreis“ war Frobenius sich der teilweise sehr schlech-
ten Quellenlage über die Kulturen der afrikanischen
Völker bewußt geworden. Dies brachte ihn zu dem
Entschluß, wenigstens einige Gebiete aufzusuchen und
solche Lücken ethnographischen Wissens zu schlie-
ßen.
Als Frobenius seine erste Reise vorbereitete, deren
Ziel der damalige Kongostaat war, nahm er Kontakt mit
Thilenius auf, der sich spontan bereit erklärte, diese
Reise durch Übernahme der zu erwartenden Sammlun-
gen mitzufinanzieren. War ursprünglich bei einer Reise-
dauer von etwa zwei Jahren an eine Summe von
10000,- M pro Jahr gedacht, so wuchs der Gesamtbetrag
letztlich auf 64000,- Goldmark an, bei deren Aufbrin-
gung Thilenius erhebliche Schwierigkeiten überwinden
mußte, denn diese Summe überschritt die Haushaltsmit-
tel des Museums bei weitem. Durch diesen Betrag
wurde die Reise von Frobenius überwiegend finanziert
und damit überhaupt erst ermöglicht. Das materielle
Ergebnis für das Museum waren rund 8000 Sammlungs-
gegenstände. Für Frobenius’ Forschungen im Westsu-
dan (1907-1909) und in Nigeria und Kamerun
(1910-1911) gewann Thilenius Karl Weule (damals
Direktor des Museums für Völkerkunde in Leipzig) und
später auch Bernhard Ankermann (Leiter der Afrika-
Abteilung am M. f. V. Berlin). Weitere, wenn auch
geringere Mittel erhielt Frobenius z. B. von der Rudolf-
Virchow-Stiftung (vgl. Zwernemann in Mitt. a. d.
M. f. V. Hamburg 17. 1987: 111 ff.).
Über die Kongo-Reise, bei der er von dem Maler
Hans Martin Lemme begleitet wurde, legte Frobenius
schon 1907 ein umfangreiches Reisewerk vor („Im
Schatten des Kongostaates“, Berlin). Außerdem veröf-
fentlichte er einige Notizen in der Zeitschrift der
Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin und in der Zeit-
schrift für Ethnologie (jeweils in den Jahrgängen 1905,
1906 und 1907). Schließlich erschien noch ein Band mit
Erzählungen („Dichtkunst der Kassaiden“, Jena 1928)
in der von ihm herausgegebenen Atlantis-Reihe. Weite-
re Angaben finden sich hier und da in den vergleichen-
den Arbeiten von Frobenius. Hiermit ist Umrissen,
welche Ergebnisse seiner Reise Frobenius selbst publi-
zierte.
Hildegard Klein, seit vielen Jahrzehnten Mitarbei-
terin des Frobenius-Instituts, befaßt sich seit einigen
Jahren mit der Herausgabe der Feldnotizen, die Frobe-
nius im Kongo machte. Frobenius hatte 19 Tagebücher
und 30 Notizbücher auf dieser Reise gefüllt. Mit
Ausnahme von fünf Notizbüchern, die inzwischen ver-
lorengegangen sind, stand dieses Material Frau Klein
zur Verfügung. Außerdem konnte sie auf eine Fülle von
Zeichnungen von Lemme und aus Frobenius’ Notizbü-
chern zurückgreifen. Weitere Angaben lieferten die
Kataloge des Hamburgischen Museums für Völkerkun-
de, dessen Sammlung durch die Feldnotizen von Frobe-
nius erst richtig erschlossen wird.
Frobenius hat keine im heutigen Sinne systema-
tische Forschung betrieben. So sind seine Reisenotizen
„Beobachtungen und Überlegungen, teils flüchtiger,
teils detaillierterer Darstellungsart, was sich schon aus
der verschieden langen oder kurzen Aufenthaltsdauer in
den einzelnen Gebieten ergab“ (Klein in Frobenius
1985: 2). Ein tieferes Eindringen, auch nur in einzelne
Bereiche der Kulturen, war durch die Art des Reisens
ausgeschlossen, die wohl von dem Wunsch diktiert war,
ein möglichst großes Gebiet in der begrenzten Zeit von
zwei Jahren kennenzulernen. Freilich war ein gewisser
Schwerpunkt durch Frobenius’ Interesse am Erzählgut
der Völker gesetzt, das er ja auch noch selbst veröffent-
lichte. Besonderes Augenmerk richtete er ferner auf
Hausbau, Bogentypen und Tatauierungen, aber auch
viele andere Bereiche des Lebens der Menschen, die
Frobenius besuchte, werden angesprochen. Letztlich
war er an allem interessiert, was er beobachtete und
erfuhr. Dennoch fällt auf, daß Notizen über das Gesell-
schaftsleben oder die politische Struktur weit hinter
solche über Objekte zurücktreten.
Man kann darüber spekulieren, ob Frobenius seine
allgemeinen ethnographischen Notizen nicht veröffent-
lichte, weil sie ihm zu unvollständig waren. Heute stellen
sie m. E. wertvolle ethnographische Dokumente für das
Leben der besuchten Völker zu Beginn unseres Jahr-
hunderts dar. Frau Klein hat Frobenius’ Notizen in
erster Linie in eine systematische Ordnung gebracht,
dabei aber Termini und Text „möglichst wortgetreu
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
597
übernommen“. Widersprüche wurden nicht beseitigt
und auch keine kritischen Anmerkungen gemacht. Den
einzelnen Abschnitten hat Frau Klein jedoch einleitende
Bemerkungen hinzugefügt und Verweise auf Zeichnun-
gen, das Reisewerk sowie auf Sammlungsstücke des
Hamburgischen Museums für Völkerkunde gegeben
(vgl. Klein in Frobenius 1985: 3). Von besonderem
Interesse sind die vielen Abbildungen, die als Tafeln
zusammengestellt wurden. Sie ergänzen die Notizen in
sehr glücklicher Weise und steigern deren Wert erheb-
lich.
Etwas eigenartig mutet an, daß die Notizen über
die [Ba-]Kongo und über die Teke dem Abschnitt über
die Völker am unteren Kasai vorangestellt worden sind.
Sicher war es schwierig, diese wenigen Notizen unterzu-
bringen. Dennoch wären sie vielleicht besser als Anhang
behandelt worden. Auch fragt man sich, ob nicht hier
und da doch eine kommentierende Anmerkung ange-
bracht gewesen wäre. Ein Beispiel: Frobenius benutzte
den Terminus Baschensi für die Völker des unteren
Kasai. Er war sich der Tatsache vollauf bewußt, daß dies
kein Ethnonym ist. Er meinte, daß das Wort „Altbe-
wohner“ heiße. Hier irrte er wohl, denn -shenzi ist über
das Swahili ins Zaire-/Kongobecken gelangt und bedeu-
tet Barbar, Wilder, Unzivilisierter, und erst dann im
übertragenen Sinn Altbewohner. Das Wort hat zweifel-
los einen negativen Beigeschmack.
Während im ersten Teil des ersten Bandes der
„Ethnographischen Notizen“ die Gliederung ausschließ-
lich thematisch ist, sind die Feldnotizen im folgenden
Teil sowie im zweiten Band nach ethnischer Zusammen-
gehörigkeit angeordnet und innerhalb des Abschnitts
der betreffenden ethnischen Gruppe thematisch geglie-
dert.
Frau Klein gebührt Dank und Anerkennung, daß
sie sich der Herausgabe dieses wichtigen Forschungsma-
terials verschrieben hat. Dies ist sicherlich keine ganz
einfache Aufgabe, der sie sich mit viel Liebe und
Energie widmet. Bleibt noch anzumerken, daß der
dritte Band der „Ethnographischen Notizen“ bereits
angekündigt ist und noch in diesem Jahr erscheinen soll.
Außerdem bereitet Frau Klein einen vierten Band vor,
der das Werk beschließen wird.
Ganz anderer Art sind die beiden anderen jetzt
veröffentlichten Bücher von Frobenius. Hier handelt es
sich um Übersetzungen bereits publizierter Texte. 1983
wurde eine französische Übersetzung der „Dichtkunst
der Kassaiden“ unter dem Titel «Mythes et contes
populaires des riverains du Kasai» (Steiner Wiesbaden)
veröffentlicht. Mit den beiden hier zu besprechenden
Veröffentlichungen in französischer Sprache setzt Eike
Haberland, Direktor des Frobenius-Instituts, sein Be-
mühen fort, wichtiges Quellenmaterial von Frobenius
den Menschen zugänglich zu machen, bei denen es
gesammelt wurde.
«Histoire et contes des Mossi» ist ein Titel, der nur
zwei der drei in dem Buch angeschnittenen Themen
wiedergibt. Auf den Seiten 1-28 findet der Leser eine
Übersetzung der geschichtlichen Überlieferungen der
Mossi, die Frobenius bei seiner Westsudan-Reise auf-
nahm und bereits 1912 im zweiten Band des Werkes
„Und Afrika sprach . . .“ (157-190) und später in etwas
veränderter Form erneut veröffentlichte.1 Der zweite
Abschnitt (29-42) ist der Organisation und dem Leben
des Hofes des Mogho-Naba gewidmet. Es ist eine
Übersetzung der Seiten 304—320 von „Und Afrika
sprach . . .; II“. Die Erzählungen auf den Seiten 43-94
wurden den „Erzählungen aus dem Westsudan“ (Jena
1922: 224-284 [Atlantis, 8]) entnommen.
«Peuples et sociétés traditionnelles2 du Nord-
Cameroun» ist eine Übersetzung der Seiten 6-172 von
„Dichten und Denken im Sudan“ (vgl. Anm. 1). Dieses
Werk, dem der kamerunische Übersetzer eine kurze
Einleitung vorangestellt hat, betrifft die Tchamba,
Daka, Mundang, Laka, Gbaya, Voko, Namdji, Duru,
Mbum sowie die Kanuri von Moulgoy.
Frobenius hat, wie viele Ethnologen nach ihm,
seine Forschungen ausschließlich mit Hilfe von Dolmet-
schern durchgeführt. Dies ist sicher eine Fehlerquelle,
nur - auch wenn der Ethnologe versucht, eine Sprache
selbst zu erlernen, wird er erst nach vielen Jahren eigene
Verständnisfehler ausschließen können. Letztlich be-
deutet es, daß der Ethnologe eigentlich sein ganzes
Forscherleben mehr oder weniger ein- und derselben
Ethnie widmen müßte.
Wie zuverlässig sind nun aber die von Frobenius
gesammelten Informationen? Bei den Moba (Nord-
Togo) hatte ich Gelegenheit, seine Veröffentlichungen
über dieses Volk zu überprüfen. Ich hatte so gut wie
keine Schwierigkeiten, seine Angaben bis in Details
hinein bestätigt zu bekommen. Probleme bereitete in
erster Linie die Umsetzung der von ihm benutzten
Termini. Dies bestätigt sich übrigens auch bei einem
Vergleich des von ihm gesammelten Erzählguts der
Mossi mit identischen Erzählungen von Nachbarvöl-
kern: Die Abfolge der Handlung und die auftretenden
Personen sind durchaus korrekt wiedergegeben.
Schwierigkeiten ergeben sich lediglich manchmal bei der
Identifizierung der handelnden Charaktere, weil die
Wiedergabe nicht immer so ganz exakt ist. Einige
Beispiele aus den Mossi-Erzählungen mögen dies zei-
gen: younde <hippopotame> ist nach dem Wörterbuch
von Alexandre («La langue môré.» 2 vols. Dakar 1953
[Mémoires de 1TFAN, 34]) korrekt yémdé; oder hou-
rouogo <grue couronnée) ist richtiger bul-waögho. Hin
und wieder stimmt auch die Identifizierung der handeln-
den Personen nicht so ganz. So wird nyaka als <petite
antilopo wiedergegeben, während <gazelle à front roux>
richtig wäre, und katere, richtiger katré, ist nicht der
Schakal ( wagha), sondern die Hyäne. Hier stellt sich die
Frage, ob solche Ungenauigkeiten nicht besser korri-
giert worden wären.
1 „Dichten und Denken im Sudan.“ Jena 1925: 257-290
(Atlantis, 5). - Die Abweichungen des Textes gegenüber
der Erstveröffentlichung betreffen keine Fakten, sondern
die Form.
2 Ein peinlicher Fehler hat sich auf Umschlag und Titelblatt
sowie in der CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme eingeschlichen: Über-
all steht <traditionelles> statt <traditionnelles>.
Anthropos 83.1988
598
Rezensionen
So umstritten die theoretischen und kulturphilo-
sophischen Überlegungen von Frobenius sein mögen,
sie waren zumindest anregend und haben die Diskussion
entfacht, und - nur durch Diskussionen entsteht doch
wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt. Zweifellos kann man
Frobenius’ Feldforschung nicht völlig von seinem hypo-
thetischen Ansatz afrikanischer Kulturen trennen. Trotz
aller Kritik, die auch an seinen Feldforschungsmethoden
geäußert wird3, bleibt die unbestreitbare Tatsache, daß
Frobenius einer der ersten war, die ausschließlich zum
Studium afrikanischer Kulturen ins Feld gingen. Die auf
seinen verschiedenen Reisen nach Afrika gesammelten
Daten haben, dies steht für mich außer Zweifel,
bleibenden Wert. Unter diesem Aspekt ist die Veröf-
fentlichung seiner Feldnotizen aus dem Zaire ebenso
wie die Übersetzung wichtiger Teilbereiche seiner For-
schungen ins Französische von unschätzbarem Wert.
Jürgen Zwernemann
Glazier, Ira A., and Luigi De Rosa (eds.): Migra-
tion across Time and Nations. Population Mobility in
Historical Contexts. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986.
384pp., fig. Price: $49.50
Der Titel dieser Aufsatzsammlung läßt einen grö-
ßeren Überblick über Wanderungsbewegungen vermu-
ten: Wanderungen nicht nur zwischen zwei Nationen
über längere Zeiträume hinweg. Der Untertitel verdeut-
licht die historische Dimension; „Bevölkerungsbewe-
gung im historischen Kontext“. Der Klappentext erzählt
etwas über die Bedeutung der U. S. A. als Einwande-
rungsland und fragt, was all die Menschen dazu bewogen
hat, ausgerechnet in die U. S. A. zu gehen. Im Vorwort
erfährt man schließlich noch, daß die Aufsätze in diesem
Buch anläßt des 8. International Economic History
Congress in Budapest 1982, und zwar für die Sektion
“History Models and Methods in Migration Research”,
geschrieben wurden. Dann werden die einzelnen Auf-
sätze von den Herausgebern kurz vorgestellt, ohne
dabei einen Bezug zwischen den einzelnen Themen
herzustellen. Bei 22 Aufsätzen eine etwas fade und
überflüssige Einführung.
Derart vorbereitet stürzt man sich auf das Inhalts-
verzeichnis. Mit Zwischentiteln werden die Aufsätze in
„Wanderungsbewegungen nach Südostasien und
Afrika“, „Wanderungsbewegungen in die U. S. A. und
Argentinien“, „In den Städten“, „Quellen und Metho-
dologie“ und „Ausblick“ unterteilt. Diese Einteilung
wirkt nach den Ankündigungen des Klappentextes
verwirrend und bietet auch in sich keinen nachvollzieh-
baren Aufbau. Sicherlich läßt sich fragen, ob ein
Sammelband einer Gesamtwürdigung unterzogen wer-
den darf oder gar kann. Doch was für einen Sinn hätte es
sonst, mehrere Aufsätze unter einem Gesamttitel zu
3 Hier stellt sich für mich die Frage, ob denn die Methoden
anderer Forscher seiner Zeit wirklich so viel entwickelter
waren.
vereinigen, wenn nicht von den Autoren im weitesten
Sinne ein gemeinsames Ziel verfolgt wird?
Dieses gemeinsame Ziel des vorliegenden Buches
besteht sicherlich darin, etwas über Wanderungsbewe-
gungen zu berichten. Doch selten wird einem so klar
gemacht, welch ein umfassendes Thema Wanderungsbe-
wegungen abgeben können. Diese Themenstellung ist
offenbar so weit gefächert, daß unter den vorliegenden
22 Aufsätzen nicht einer darunter ist, der in irgendeiner
Weise in Beziehung zu einem anderen Aufsatz gestellt
werden könnte. Obwohl erstaunlicherweise sich zwei
Aufsätze finden, die über das gleiche Emigrationsland
berichten (Di Comité und Ruggiero, beide Italien), so
sind sie in ihrer Darstellungsweise und in der Auswahl
ihres thematischen Schwerpunktes so verschieden, daß
zwischen ihnen keine Verbindung hergestellt werden
kann.
Und wer nun unter dem Zwischentitel „Wande-
rungsbewegungen nach Südostasien und Afrika“ auch
einen Aufsatz vermutet, der über die Wanderungsbewe-
gung nach Afrika berichtet, irrt. Daß in zweien dieser
Aufsätze, aufgrund ihres weltumspannenden Anspru-
ches, auch Afrika erwähnt wird, kann einen solchen
Titel wohl kaum rechtfertigen.
Gemeinsam haben diese Aufsätze, daß sie keine
Wanderungsbewegungen nach dem 2. Weltkrieg be-
rücksichtigen. So lernt man, daß „Gastarbeiter“ keine
neue Erscheinung unserer Zeit sind, sondern daß es
auch schon im 18. und 19. Jh. (und sicherlich schon
früher) Menschen in allen Ländern dieser Erde gab, die
sich entschlossen, wenn Hunger (durch schlechte Ernten
oder Überbevölkerung) oder Seuchen die Lebensgrund-
lagen entzogen, ihr Land zu verlassen, um anderswo ihr
Glück zu suchen. Man lernt auch, daß saisonale Wan-
derungen ebenso möglich waren wie endgültige Umsied-
lungen, die häufig durch europäische koloniale Interes-
sen gefördert wurden.
Einige Aufsätze zeichnen sich dadurch aus, daß sie
unendliche Datenlisten - wann, wer, wohin und wieviel
- aufbieten, um sie dem geneigten Leser vor die Füße zu
legen, ohne jede Begründung, warum gerade aus diesen
Ländern und gerade aus diesem Zeitabschnitt. Ein
kleines Archiv ohne jede Interpretation (besonders
Latham, O Gräda, Erickson, Mageean).
Häufig beschleicht einen auch etwas Verwunde-
rung ob der Sicherheit der Autoren über die Exaktheit
ihres Zahlenmaterials, das meist nicht nur aus dem
letzten Jahrhundert stammt, sondern auch aus Ländern,
die selbst wohl kaum Statistiken über Ein- und Auswan-
derer geführt haben. Selbst wenn die jeweilige Koloni-
alverwaltung das getan hat, so bleiben Unwägbarkeiten
bezüglich der Genauigkeit.
Berichte über diverse europäische Auswande-
rungsländer zu unterschiedlichsten Zeiten im 19. und
beginnenden 20. Jh. mischen sich mit Überlegungen zur
Psychologie der Auswanderer (Ruggiero) und zur inner-
deutschen jüdischen Wanderungsbewegung (Barkai),
ohne Bezug jedoch auf deren gewaltsame Vertreibung
bzw. Vernichtung in den 30er und 40er Jahren dieses
Jahrhunderts. Dann erfahren wir wieder etwas über die
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
599
Stadtanlage von Batavia, wie sie von den holländischen
Kolonialisten geprägt wurde (Spooner). Der erhoffte
Lichtblick von Kleiner u. a.: „Internationale und natio-
nale Migration: eine umfassende theoretische Annähe-
rung“, beläßt den Lichtschein bei der Bemerkung, daß
die meisten Untersuchungen zu diesem Gebiet metho-
disch meist unzureichend seien. Dafür war ein eigener
Aufsatz (mit insgesamt 5 Autoren) nun eigentlich
überflüssig geworden.
Der letzte Autor, Mark Stolarik, hat wohl dieses
Dilemma der nicht zueinander passenden Aufsätze
bemerkt und deswegen versucht, sie nachträglich zu
klassifizieren. Er stellt dabei drei Herangehensweisen
der 21 Autoren fest: die traditionelle („sozio-ökonomi-
sche“), die geläufige statistische („cliomatrische“ - sic!)
und die neue (sozio-psychologische) Herangehensweise
beim Thema Migration. Die meisten Autoren dürfen
Herrn Stolarik dankbar sein ob so viel theoretischer
Würdigung ihres Aufsatzes.
Sicher mag für den Spezialisten, der sich mit den
Wanderungsbewegungen in einem bestimmten Land zu
einem bestimmten historischen Zeitpunkt befaßt, der
eine oder andere Aufsatz interessant sein. Doch einen
irgendwie gearteten Ein- oder Überblick über vergange-
ne Wanderungsbewegungen in Europa, Asien oder
Amerika kann man aus diesem Sammelband leider nicht
bekommen. Und da die Themenvielfalt zu groß ist,
befriedigt dieses Buch noch nicht einmal Spezialinteres-
sen. Stephanie von Frankenberg
Godelier, Maurice: The Making of Great Men.
Male Domination and Power among the New Guinea
Baruya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
254 pp., fig. (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropolo-
gy, 56) Price; £ 30.00
In the course of the development of social anthro-
pology research it has been shown that even in pre-class
societies we can notice the existence of considerable
diversity in social role and status, which suggest various
types of inequalities and social hierarchies. This has
been revealed through study of kinship and the functio-
nal diversification of social roles determined by sex, and
of discoveries of various aspects of economic processes
and political life of traditional societies. There were
important attempts to show that what was happening in
these subsystems, was forming social life as a whole in a
hierarchical way. These attempts came from British
functionalism (e.g., E. Evans-Pritchard, M. Fortes), and
the point is today again under review by ecologists (e.g.,
M. Harris). Such an attempt is taken up by Maurice
Godelier within structuralistic Marxism. In order to
show that such a social life as a whole was not just a
notion constructed out of anthropological studies, it was
necessary to go where such a society exists. As Godelier
writes, he rejected the collected materials concerning
the problem of sex roles in various societies. He chose as
the subject of his own research the Papua tribe Baruya
which inhabits the mountain area of south-eastern New
Guinea. Baruya who, before 1951, had not seen a white
man and only in the 60s were subjected to the control of
Australian administration, are a society of about two
thousand inhabitants (1979), divided into several clans
(with a further division into lineages), acephalous, a
patrilineal and patrilocal society with an economy based
on horticulture and pig breeding and also on production
and trade in salt, which plays a significant part in
economics and politics. As Godelier writes, he was
interested in a book which pictured Baruya social life as
determined by sex differences. The society was said to be
split along sexual lines, with male domination as a
ideological justification leading to the production of
Great Men.
The biological nature of a human being, including
the sex difference, is certainly a premise of his existence
as a social creature. As Godelier says, people “not only
live in society but also produce society in order to live”
(236). The biological nature of man demanded social-
ization so that he could further exist as a species.
Biological differentiation is important as far as men and
women perform both different and complementary roles
in the process of production and reproduction of the
society. That difference, and simultaneously the interde-
pendence of the roles performed by men and women,
includes several important spheres of that process - from
sexual life, family, material production to political life,
and ideology - and within them transforms a biological
difference into a social one. Biological reproduction and
the material conditions of life constitute the basis for the
existence of the society. It might seem in pre-class
societies that the tasks of the sexes within a given kinship
structure are still all part of the one production process.
But the author analyses the life cycles of Baruya men
and women with particular regard to determining the
problems of initiation and marriage, division of work
and distribution of manufactured products, various
customs and the rituals associated with them. He
presents aspects of male domination in all spheres of
social life, which find expression in fact that men are
engaged in activities which determine the form of those
spheres, from tool manufacture (also for women) to
designing religious life. And now we come to the
problem of explanation of that male domination. If we
even assume that biological difference determines the
social character of cooperation between men and wo-
men in various areas, a question arises why all those
social processes approved by cultural rules are under the
control of men. According to Godelier, the crucial fact is
that there is some hierarchy of importance of particular
spheres of social life, in the functioning of which men
and women take part. Thus, first, the ordering of kinship
relations and then of all other social relations constitutes
a superstructure of kinship, based on sexuality. It also
means that for the functioning of the society as a whole a
hierarchy of roles is essential - from those performed
(most often or exclusively) by women to those executed
by men (hunting, war, salt trade). In other words, roles
performed by men constitute a condition (“protection”)
of effective execution of women’s roles, as associated,
for example, with biological reproduction. A hierarchy
Anthropos 83.1988
600
Rezensionen
built on the sexual principle becomes a hierarchy of only
men’s roles. It seems that in any social role, including
those filled by men, there will be differences in their
realization by every individual, which may be a source of
prestige or privilege for him. Also, for Baruya, there is a
hierarchy of esteemed roles, from the salt maker, who
is the least esteemed, through the cassowary hunter and
the shaman to the great warrior who is the most
esteemed. A man then, who can distinguish himself in
any of those roles, is a great man. Godelier analyses here
the function of a big man, with his peculiar attribute of
redistribution of material goods, concluding that it is a
particular case of a great man, which arises “wherever
competitive exchanges have diminished the relative
importance of war and warrior” (185).
When discussing the above mentioned problems,
the author devotes much attention to social conscious-
ness in its various forms, such as myth, ritual or rite, and
to their cognitive and communicative aspects, which
tend to regulate behaviors of the individuals and
coordinate group actions. Consciousness is not only a
reflection of the real social world. Consciousness is an
element that constitutes this world through a definition
of social situations, interpretation of roles and behavior
of individuals, and the like. Godelier’s analyses show
how it happens in practice, constituting a valuable
contribution to the problem of social consciousness
dependent on objective social processes. Among the
problems the book exposes is the role of explanation and
legitimization of the obligatory state of affairs of the
Baruya society, particularly the domination of men.
It seems that the logic of Godelier’s reasoning can
be formulated in the following way. The biological needs
of man and their fulfillment constitute a starting point
and a premise of his existence. But the biological and
material bases of human life cannot do without a social
form. Thus, the biology of man becomes subjected to
that social form - first, to kinship relations and the
division of work, which includes also the definite roles
that men might perform, as sketched above. Then, social
forms which are directly connected with life reproduc-
tion become subordinated to the control of men. This,
however, one cannot do without ideological legitimiza-
tion, which would justify male domination in every
important element of social life. Suitable myths, rites
(basically of initiation), and the like serve that purpose.
Therefore, anything that happens in the society has its
ideological justification - it occurs in that way, because it
has to happen according to the will of the ancestors.
We see that, as we pass from one level of social life
to another (it is an open question whether and in what
sense they form one real genetic sequence), their
interdependence undergoes a reversal, in a way. Thus,
the biological needs of man which constitute an objec-
tive premise for some form of social life and require the
existence of the latter for their own realization become
themselves factors subjected to that form. In this way
biological needs make an appearance in the conscious-
ness of the natives. However, the ideological justifica-
tion of male domination seems to be real cause, since it is
this justification that motivates the performances of both
men and women who “produce” Baruya society as
something objective. “Deep structure” in this society is
given to its members only in the way in which it appears
on the “surface,” that is in their interactions in everyday
life. And that which is revealed on the “surface” is the
only reason for activities of the members of the society,
it is the only social reality known to them. The objective
order discovered by a researcher is the reverse of the
subjective order of the members of the examined
society.
The reviewed book is the first of a series of
monographs planned by the author and devoted to
various aspects to the life of the Baruya society. At the
same time, it constitutes a significant contribution to
society theory. It seems to promise a work of a lasting
value. Marek Kilijanek
Goetze, Dieter und Claus Mühlfeld: Ethnosoziolo-
gie. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1984. 326 pp., Fig., Tab.
(Studienskripten zur Soziologie, 123) Preis: DM 19,80
Goetze und Mühlfeld begründen die’Entscheidung,
ihren als Einführung gedachten Text als „Ethnosoziolo-
gie“ zu bezeichnen damit, „daß hier in erster Linie
ausdrücklich nur von intra- und intergesellschaftlichen
und -ethnischen Strukturen und Prozessen die Rede sein
soll“ (7). Die Autoren beschränken sich dabei auf
Gesellschaften vorstaatlichen Typs und auf ethnische
Gruppen, die in staatliche Verbände eingegliedert sind.
Die Ethnographie bleibt bewußt aus der Betrachtung
ausgeklammert.
Das umfangreichste Kapitel des Buches befaßt sich
mit den wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Hintergründen der
Ethnosoziologie. Fünf theoretische Orientierungen wer-
den behandelt: Evolutionismus, historischer Partikula-
rismus, Funktionalismus, Kulturökologie und kulturel-
ler Materialismus. Die Autoren nehmen, was angesichts
ihres eher soziologisch orientierten Hintergrundes nicht
überraschen sollte, eine relativ positive Einschätzung
der social anthropology vor. Dem steht eine kritische
Darstellung der “culture and personality school” gegen-
über, deren übertriebene Vereinfachungen und schema-
tische Typologisierungen überzeugend aufgezeigt wer-
den (35-37). Gegenüber dem Neoevolutionismus ä la
Sahlins können Goetze und Mühlfeld gleichfalls eine
gewisse Skepsis nicht verbergen. Insbesondere die
Schwierigkeit, Sahlins’ Indikatoren genereller Evolu-
tion zu quantifizieren, wird von ihnen hervorgehoben
(67).
Einem Abriß ethnosoziologischer Forschungsme-
thoden, in dem die beiden Verfasser u. a. auf den
mythischen Charakter der Forderung nach vollkomme-
ner Empathie während der Feldforschung hinweisen,
folgt eine umfangreiche Darstellung der Ethnosoziolo-
gie der Wirtschaft. Die Autoren beschreiben zuerst die
Merkmale der fünf Wirtschaftstypen Jagd-/Sammeltä-
tigkeit, Hack- und Pflanzbau, Fischfang, Ackerbau und
Hirtennomadismus. Dem schließt sich eine Erörterung
der Diskussion zwischen Formalisten und Substantivi-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
601
sten an, in der Goetze und Mühlfeld Stellung für den
Substantivismus beziehen. Das Kapitel schließt mit der
Darstellung verschiedener Zeremonialtauschsysteme
(u. a. Kula-Ringtausch, Potlatch).
In dem Kapitel über die Ethnosoziologie der
Politik geben die Autoren drei Kriterien der Klassifika-
tion politischer Formen an: interne Ordnung, Regelung
der gesellschaftsexternen Beziehungen und legitime
Verfahrensweise. Sie nehmen auch eine Typologisie-
rung nicht-zentralisierter politischer Systeme vor
(169 ff.): in Jäger-/Sammlerinnen-Gesellschaften, unab-
hängige Dorfgemeinschaften, Altersklassen-Systeme
und segmentäre Gesellschaften. Gegenüber einer pro-
zeßorientierten Analyse der Politik bleiben beide Auto-
ren etwas skeptisch (186). In dem Kapitel finden sich
außerdem noch eine Aufzählung der Merkmale des
frühen Staates, Frieds Typologie von Gesellschaften, ein
Abriß der Faktoren, die die Entstehung des frühen
Staates begünstigt haben könnten, sowie eine Darstel-
lung von Theorien des Krieges, die sich allerdings auf M.
Harris und Sahlins beschränkt.
Einen breiten Raum nimmt im Kapitel über Ver-
wandtschaftsformen die Behandlung der zahlreichen
Theorien über das Inzesttabu ein. Nach Auffassung der
Autoren liegt bis jetzt noch keine befriedigende Erklä-
rung für das Inzesttabu vor (217).
In dem Kapitel über ethnische Minoritäten greifen
Goetze und Mühlfeld vor allem auf die Beispiele USA,
Malaysia und Südafrika zurück. Die Amish (Pennsylva-
nia) und die Walser (Italien) werden als weitere exem-
plarische Beispiele erörtert.
Das Buch schließt mit einem Kapitel über Religion,
Magie und normative Ordnung. Die Religionstheorien
Tylors, Dürkheims und Radcliffe-Browns werden knapp
aber informativ behandelt. Malinowskis Magietheorie
und Evans-Pritchards Unterscheidung zwischen Hexerei
und Zauberei sind weitere Diskussionsthemen in dem
Kapitel. Die Symboltheorien V. Turners und M. Doug-
las’ werden zumindest angerissen. Das Kapitel endet mit
einer Behandlung der Themenkomplexe Schamanismus
und Nativismus/Millenarismus. Die Kritik, daß Eliades
Definition des Schamanismus diesen zur reinen Ekstase-
technik reduziere (288), und die Bedeutung, die einer
Methode des Verstehens nativistischer Bewegungen von
den Autoren beigemessen wird (292), zeigen den Ein-
fluß Mühlmanns - ein Einfluß, auf den Goetze und
Mühlfeld auch mehrfach verweisen.
Das Buch ist als Einführungstext in die Ethnosozio-
logie nur mit großen Einschränkungen zu empfehlen.
Zahlreiche orthographische und bibliographische Feh-
ler, ein abschreckender akademischer Jargon und ein
mangelhafter und stellenweise willkürlicher Aufbau
einzelner Kapitel erschweren die Lektüre des Buches
unnötig. Was soll man von solchen Sätzen halten wie
„Über den Gruppenzusammenhang etablieren sich Sta-
bilisierungstendenzen, denen Schutzfunktionen gegen
Anpassungsdruck zukommen und so eine immer bewuß-
tere Technik der Selbstschaffung durch Entfaltung
neuer Verhaltensweisen erlaubt“ (225). Muß unbedingt
von „gemeinsamen Schnittmengen“ (256) gesprochen
werden, wenn „Gemeinsamkeiten“ gemeint sind, und
sind Ausdrücke wie „Aufzucht der Kinder“ (116),
„naturwüchsige Form“ (116) und „Vitalablauf“ (42) so
gelungen?
Eigenartigerweise kann das Kapitel über Ver-
wandtschaftsformen als das inhaltlich schwächste über-
haupt bezeichnet werden. Die fundamentale Unter-
scheidung zwischen Verwandtschaft und Abstammung
wird nicht expliziert. Ein wichtiger Begriff wie etwa
„körperschaftlich‘7„korporativ“ (“corporate”) wird von
den Autoren nicht nur nicht definiert (was man von
einer Einführung erwarten sollte), sondern auch in einer
Weise verwendet, die den Verdacht nahelegt, daß den
Verfassern der Begriff in der Fassung von M. Weber und
weniger in der in der Ethnologie gebräuchlicheren Form
von M. Fortes vorschwebt, wenn sie etwa davon
sprechen, daß Altersklassen körperschaftlichen Charak-
ter haben können (172). Die Bedeutung, die Termino-
logiesysteme in der Verwandtschaftsforschung hatten,
wird so gut wie ignoriert.
Die Behauptung, daß Malinowski den Nachweis
erbringen konnte, daß „bei primitiven Völkern keine
Kenntnisse über den Kausalzusammenhang zwischen
Geschlechtsverkehr und Schwangerschaft vorhanden
sind“ (214), wäre, hätten die Autoren sich mit neuerer
Literatur (z. B. Zeitschrift Man in den siebziger Jahren)
befaßt, sicherlich unterblieben. Den zahlreichen Unter-
suchungen, die auf biologische Komponenten der In-
zestthematik hinweisen, wird man mit Charakterisierun-
gen wie „deplacierte Gedankenlyrik“ (231 Anm. 23)
wohl kaum gerecht. Begriffliche Klärungen, wie sie von
Soziobiologen und Verhaltensforschern gebraucht wer-
den (Unterscheidung zwischen „Inzestmeidung“, „In-
zesttabu“ und „Exogamieregel“), hätten auch Goetze
und Mühlfeld gut angestanden.
Vor Trugschlüssen wie „der Pflanzenbau ist sehr
oft eine stark von Frauen dominierte Tätigkeit, die
damit auch einen beträchtlichen Teil der subsistenzrele-
vanten Arbeit tragen und dementsprechend relativ
starke Positionen innehaben“ (120), muß gewarnt wer-
den. Die Tatsache, daß bestimmte Gruppen oder
Kategorien von Personen eine beträchtliche Arbeit lei-
sten, ist nicht gleichbedeutend damit, daß diese Per-
sonen starke Positionen in der Gesellschaft einnehmen.
Den Autoren kann zumindest zugute gehalten
werden, daß die wichtigen Diskussionen und theoreti-
schen Paradigmen der modernen Ethnosoziologie er-
wähnt und kurz behandelt werden. Nicht zuletzt auf-
grund des Mangels an geeigneter deutschsprachiger
Einführungsliteratur in die Ethnosoziologie kann das
Buch mit großen Einschränkungen empfohlen werden,
obwohl die Benutzung fremdsprachiger Einführungstex-
te wohl doch immer noch fruchtbarer sein dürfte.
Volker Weiter
Golomb, Louis: An Anthropology of Curing in
Multiethnic Thailand. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1985. xiv+314 pp., map., illus. (Illinois Studies in
Anthropology, 15) Price: $ 23.95
Anthropos 83.1988
602
Rezensionen
Angesichts des Buchtitels könnte man eine umfas-
sende Darstellung „ethnomedizinischer“ Systeme im
Vielvölkerstaat Thailand erwarten, über die bisher nur
verstreute Zeitschriftenbeiträge sowie einige wenige,
mit Teilaspekten befaßte monographische Arbeiten
vorliegen (v. a. von Boesch und Hinderling). Tatsäch-
lich beschränkt sich Golombs Untersuchung aber auf
einige Provinzen Zentral- und Südthailands und widmet
sich hier fast ausschließlich den buddhistischen Thai und
den muslimischen Malaien (bzw. deren thaiisierten,
aber immer noch muslimischen Nachkommen).
Das der Arbeit zugrundeliegende Material wurde
während eines zehnmonatigen Feldaufenthalts im Jahre
1978 gesammelt, dessen regionale Schwerpunkte im
Stadtgebiet von Bangkok sowie in den Provinzen Ayu-
thaya, Songkhla und Pattani lagen. In den beiden
erstgenannten Gebieten bilden Muslime malaiischer
Abstammung eine religiös geschlossene, aber sprachlich
und politisch bereits weitgehend in die Thai-buddhisti-
sche Mehrheitsbevölkerung integrierte ethnische Min-
derheit. Den gleichen sprachlichen und politischen
Assimilationsgrad weisen auch die malaiisch-stämmigen
Muslime im Nordteil der Provinz Songkhla auf, die sich
jedoch zahlenmäßig mit ihren buddhistischen Nachbarn
in etwa die Waage zu halten scheinen (demographische
Angaben fehlen leider). Demgegenüber hat die musli-
mische Bevölkerungsmehrheit der Provinz Pattani bis
heute ihren malaiischen Dialekt beibehalten und unter-
stützt mehr oder weniger aktiv die militante Separa-
tionsbewegung der südthailändischen Malaien gegen-
über der Zentralregierung in Bangkok. Während die
buddhistischen Thai der Untersuchungsgebiete sozio-
kulturell relativ homogen erscheinen, veranlaßt die
oben skizzierte regionale Differenzierung den Autor,
die untersuchten muslimischen Bevölkerungsgruppen
terminologisch in „Thai-Muslim“ (Bangkok, Ayuthaya,
Songkhla) und „Malay-Muslim“ (Pattani) zu unterschei-
den. Die Materialbasis der Arbeit besteht aus „hunder-
ten“ von unstrukturierten Interviews mit traditionellen
medizinischen und/oder magischen Spezialisten, von
denen 97 “biographical and professional information”
lieferten. Patienten-Interviews scheinen demgegenüber
eine geringere Rolle gespielt zu haben: Gespräche mit
Laien sollten wohl vor allem Hinweise auf Namen und
Aufenthalt häufig frequentierter Spezialisten liefern.
Zusätzlich zu diesen Daten greift der Autor gelegentlich
auf Ergebnisse eines früheren Feldaufenthalts bei der
Thai-Minderheit im malaysischen Staat Kelantan zu-
rück.
Das Buch befaßt sich weniger mit im eigentlichen
Sinne medizinischen Aspekten, sondern konzentriert
sich vor allem auf medizin-soziologische und sozialpsy-
chologische Fragen. So erfährt der Leser relativ wenig
Spezifisches über Krankheitssymptome und - mit Aus-
nahme der Schilderung eines Exorzismus (240 f.) - über
den konkreten Ablauf von Heilungs-Prozeduren. Dafür
ist ausführlich vom sozialen Kontext der Beziehungen
zwischen Heilem bzw. Magiern und ihren Kunden die
Rede, vom kommunikativen Gehalt ritueller Handlun-
gen sowie von der Bedeutung all dessen für die
interethnischen Beziehungen zwischen buddhistischen
Thai und den Angehörigen der beiden muslimischen
Kategorien. Untersuchungseinheiten sind nicht die je-
weiligen ethnischen Gruppen mit ihren besonderen
magisch-religiösen Traditionen, sondern ein sich vom
nördlichen Malaysia bis Nordost-Thailand erstrecken-
der sozialer Raum, innerhalb dessen therapeutische
Verfahren über ethnische Grenzen hinweg angewandt
und von einzelnen Spezialisten in synkretistischer Ma-
nier miteinander verknüpft werden.
Der Verfasser glaubt, daß das für Südostasien (und
nicht nur dort!) typische fortwährende Streben nach
einer Erweiterung des therapeutischen Repertoires zu
allen Zeiten ein wesentlicher Mechanismus der kulturel-
len Diffusion war. Das zweite Kapitel des Buches
(“Curative Magic and Cultural Diffusion in Southeast
Asian History”) soll zeigen, daß sowohl die Indisierung
des Subkontinents (also die Übernahme brahmanisti-
scher und hinduistischer Elemente sowie des Buddhis-
mus) als auch der darauffolgende Einfluß des Islam
wesentlich durch die anfängliche Entlehnung von Ritu-
altexten dieser Religionen zu therapeutischen und magi-
schen Zwecken eingeleitet wurden. Sicherlich ein sehr
anregender Gesichtspunkt, wenn auch etwas einseitig
formuliert und historisch zu schwach begründet, um
mehr als eine vage Hypothese darzustellen (leider greift
Golomb in späteren Teilen des Buches auf diese Idee als
auf eine angeblich gesicherte Tatsache zurück).
Auch nachdem sich die Hochreligionen an der
Bevölkerungsbasis durchgesetzt hatten, verloren „ma-
gisch-animistische“ (?) Vorstellungen und Praktiken
nicht an Bedeutung. Golomb schreibt ihnen mit guten
Argumenten sogar eine wesentliche komplementäre,
die jeweilige „offizielle“ Doktrin stützende Funktion zu
(Kap. 4): Die Befolgung buddhistischer bzw. islami-
scher Lehren befriedigt zwar ein spirituelles Heilsbe-
dürfnis, läßt den Einzelnen aber mit den Mißgeschicken
und Leiden seiner irdischen Existenz allein - diese
werden entweder mangelnder Frömmigkeit (Islam) oder
einem ungünstigen Karma (Buddhismus) des Betreffen-
den zugeschrieben, und unmittelbare Abhilfe ist auf
orthodoxem Weg nicht zu erreichen. An diesem Punkt
setzen die traditionellen Techniken der Divination, der
magischen Beeinflussung und der Therapie ein, die dem
Mißgeschick konkrete Ursachen und Möglichkeiten der
Abhilfe zuweisen und somit einem Diesseits-bezogenen
Fatalismus entgegenwirken.
Die sehr detaillierten Ausführungen über profes-
sionelle Spezialisierungen von Experten der Naturheil-
kunde, traditionellen Psychotherapeuten, Magiern und
Geister-Medien, über einheimische Theorien der „Ge-
sundheit“, über Motive und Struktur interethnischer
Konsultationen, über Besessenheitsphänomene sowie
über die Widerstandskraft der traditionellen magisch-
therapeutischen Systeme gegenüber der modernen,
westlich orientierten Medizin können in diesem Rahmen
noch nicht einmal in groben Zügen zusammengefaßt
werden. Von besonderem Interesse ist die Darstellung
verschiedener traditioneller Theorien über das Wesen
des Phänomens „Krankheit“, wobei häufig Vorstellun-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
603
gen über den Verlust körperlich-geistiger Harmonie, die
Einwirkung negativer spiritueller Kräfte und Wirksam-
keit von Mikroorganismen als Krankheitserregern als
kausale Faktoren ineinandergreifen- ganzheitliche Auf-
fassungen, wie sie auch in der westlichen Medizin
neuerdings zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnen
(Kap. 5). Demzufolge gibt es in jedem individuellen Fall
stets eine Reihe von therapeutischen Alternativen, die
auch miteinander kombiniert werden können und deren
wesentliche Funktion es ist, dem Patienten eine kulturell
akzeptable Erklärung seines Zustands zu liefern. Der
Autor weist allerdings darauf hin, daß vor allem in urba-
nen Milieus von traditionellen Therapeuten (häufig bud-
dhistischen Mönchen) neuerdings zunehmend „naturali-
stische“ Krankheitsdiagnosen bevorzugt werden und be-
gleitende magische Techniken in erster Linie um eines
erwünschten Plazebo-Effekts willen eingesetzt werden.
Ein Hauptanliegen des Buches ist es, die intereth-
nische Dimension von Patient-Therapeut-Beziehungen
in den Untersuchungsgebieten aufzuzeigen. Ein wesent-
liches Motiv für die Wahl eines Spezialisten aus einer
anderen ethnischen Gruppe ist das Bedürfnis nach
Diskretion - z. B. wenn es gilt, einen Angehörigen des
eigenen sozialen Umfeldes auf magische Weise beein-
flussen zu lassen oder ihm gar Schadenzauber zuzufügen
(Kap. 7). Hinzu kommt, daß in Südostasien (wie auch in
anderen Teilen der Welt) ethnischen Minderheiten ein
besonders großes magisches Potential zugeschrieben
wird; u. a. eine Folge von “projections of majority-
group fears”. So ist es bei buddhistischen Zentral-Thai
üblich, in schweren und hartnäckigen Fällen von Beses-
senheit auf Geister-Medien oder Exorzisten aus dem
Kreis der lokalen malaiisch-stämmigen muslimischen
Minorität zurückzugreifen, während umgekehrt die
Malaien von Kelantan in vergleichbaren Fällen die
Dienste der kleinen buddhistischen Thai-Volksgruppe
dieses Staats bevorzugen. Eine Ausnahme von diesem
interethnischen Interaktionsmuster bildet jedoch die
malaiisch-muslimische Mehrheitsbevölkerung der süd-
thailändischen Provinz Pattani, die sich militant gegen
eine Hegemonisierung durch die Thai wehrt. Hier wird
das eigene magisch-therapeutische System zu einem
Symbol der ethnischen Identität, das es gegenüber
fremden Alternativen zu verteidigen gilt. Folglich sind
interethnische therapeutische Konsultationen hier weni-
ger „normal“ als in den übrigen Untersuchungsgebieten.
Die Lektüre des Buches vermittelt ein in sich
geschlossenes, facettenreiches Bild ethnomedizinischer
Phänomene im südlichen Thailand, das gleichwohl nicht
ganz zu befriedigen vermag. Die Darstellung wirkt
merkwürdig abstrakt und blutleer - nicht nur, daß der
Leser nach fast 300 Seiten konzentrierten Textes keiner-
lei konkrete Vorstellung von Form und Durchführung
der analysierten therapeutischen Prozeduren oder von
der Zusammensetzung des spirituellen Kosmos hat (mit
einer Ausnahme fehlen detaillierte ethnographische
Beschreibungen völlig), sondern es bleibt auch unklar,
wie das zugrundeliegende Feldmaterial beschaffen ist
und in welcher Beziehung es zu den Aussagen und
Schlußfolgerungen des Autors steht. Gelegentlich fin-
den sich Angaben wie „drei Therapeuten erklärten mir,
daß . . .“, aber der Leser erfährt nicht, wer diese drei
Informanten waren und was die übrigen der “hundreds
of unstructured interviews” zum gleichen Thema ent-
hielten. Nur in sehr seltenen Fällen wird auf statistische
Korrelationen verwiesen, deren Interpretation aller-
dings nicht immer überzeugend ist. Dazu ein Beispiel: “I
questioned seventy-five pedicab drivers in Songkhla
about where I could find the best love magic. Thirty-six
(53 percent [!]) of the sixty-eight who responded recom-
mended or introduced me to outgroup practitioners
(that is, Buddhist drivers were more likely to recom-
mend Muslim practitioners and Muslim drivers were
more likely to recommend Buddhist practitioners)”
(224, Anm. 5). Das „Ergebnis“ paßt zwar hervorragend
in das Konzept des Autors, aber ein unvoreingenomme-
ner Beobachter würde aus den Zahlenangaben doch
wohl eher den Schluß ziehen, daß es bei der befragten
Stichprobe offenbar keine ethnospezifischen Präferen-
zen in der angesprochenen Frage gab. Man kann nur
hoffen, daß nicht allzu viele Feststellungen Golombs auf
einer solchen Datenauswertung beruhen! Ein gelegent-
lich schlampiger Umgang mit Fachbegriffen (z. B. 153:
Techniken der Divination = Magie [!?] oder auch die
wiederholte Bezeichnung der nicht-buddhistischen bzw.
nicht-islamischen religiösen Vorstellungen und Prakti-
ken als “magical-animism”) fällt dagegen weniger ins
Gewicht und soll hier nicht weiter diskutiert werden.
Insgesamt eine interessante, anregende Publika-
tion, die noch erheblich an Wert gewinnen würde, wenn
die wichtigsten zugrundeliegenden Daten - z. B. in
Form von Tabellen - dem Leser zugänglich gemacht
würden. Durch eine Wiedergabe von Originalmaterial
(Interviews, Fallschilderungen) in einem Anhang hätte
das Werk zu einer erstklassigen ethnographischen Quel-
le zur Ethnomedizin Südostasiens werden können.
Roland Mischung
Görgens, Manfred: Kleine Geschichte der indi-
schen Kunst. Köln: DuMont Buchverlag, 1986. 308 pp.
Ktn., Fig., Fotos (DuMont Taschenbücher, 185) Preis:
DM 24,80
Dem neuerdings zunehmenden Interesse an außer-
europäischer Kunst kommt ein Taschenbuch von be-
grenztem Umfang, aber außergewöhnlichem Informa-
tionswert in der denkbar besten Weise entgegen.
Der Verfasser, Jahrgang 1954, hat nach seinem
Studium der Kunst und Indologie ausgedehnte Reisen
zu den kulturellen Mittelpunkten Südostasiens unter-
nommen und beschreibt Bauten und Bilder Indiens und
seiner Nachbarländer von der frühesten Zeit bis zur
Gegenwart aus eigener Anschauung. Er wird dabei auch
durch die Zeichnungen von Magdalene Krumbeck
unterstützt, die früher in „Bharat Yatra“ großformatige
„Indische Reisebilder“ vorlegte. Nachdem der Verfas-
ser früher in getrennten Monographien „Rajasthan“ und
„Das tropische Südindien“ dargestellt hatte, gibt er nun
auf gedrängtem, aber wohlgeordnetem Raum einen
vollständigen Überblick über alle Phasen der indischen
Anthropos 83.1988
604
Rezensionen
Kunst. Er beginnt mit den vorgeschichtlichen Ausgra-
bungen im Industal, der Zeit der vedischen Einwande-
rungen und der daraus hervorgehenden frühgeschichtli-
chen Kultur und dem anschließenden Zeitalter des
Buddha und der ersten historischen Hofkunst unter den
Mauryas. Danach lernen wir die Auseinandersetzung
indischer Schöpfungskraft mit den Beiträgen abendlän-
discher Wanderkünstler im Nordwesten des indischen
Subkontinents und eine großartige Synthese im mittel-
indischen Andhra-Reich während der 1. Hälfte des
1. nachchristlichen Jahrtausends kennen. Dann wird die
„klassische“ Gupta-Kunst des Nordens mit der gleichen
Einfühlungsgabe behandelt wie die zentralindische Kul-
tur unter den Chalukyas und die dravidische Kunst des
Südens. Auf eine Schilderung der mittelalterlichen
Regionalstile des Hinduismus folgt eine lückenlose
Übersicht über die Bau- und Schmuckkunst unter der
islamischen Herrschaft. Von besonderem Wert sind die
Schlußkapitel, wie sie in solchen Gesamtdarstellungen
nur selten erscheinen: über die Traditionen indischer
Lebens- und Kunstformen in der Kolonialzeit und über
die neuen künstlerischen einheimischen Kräfte in der
Gegenwartskunst und ihre Auseinandersetzung mit dem
Abendland. Der sorgfältig gearbeitete Anhang enthält
neben Glossar, Zeittafel und Bibliographie auch einen
willkommenen Überblick über Museen mit indischen
Kunstsammlungen.
Der fehlerfreie Druck, die einem künstlerischen
Gegenstand angemessene vorzügliche Ausstattung
durch den Verlag und die Menge der bisher noch wenig
oder gar nicht veröffentlichten Denkmäler stellen inner-
halb eines Taschenbuchs - ohne dessen Rahmen zu
sprengen - eine neue und wohlgelungene Form der
Kommunikation dar. Das handliche Buch dient sowohl
als wissenschaftlich fundierter Einstieg in das Gebiet der
indischen und islamischen Kunst als auch durch sein
umsichtig erstelltes Register als Begleiter auf den Reisen
durch Indien, Pakistan und Bangladesh.
Klaus Fischer
Hirschberg, Walter (Hrsg.): Neues Wörterbuch der
Völkerkunde. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1988.
536 pp. Preis: DM 44,-
Par leur nature même, les lexiques et les diction-
naires sont les ouvrages à la fois les plus utiles et les plus
décevants qui soient. Le tout est de ne pas leur
demander plus qu’ils ne peuvent donner. Celui qu’édite,
Walter Hirschberg, est non seulement de présentation et
de consultation fort agréables, mais aussi d’une excep-
tionnelle richesse de contenu et en indications biblio-
graphiques. Pour plus de 1800 entrées, 64 auteurs ont été
mis à contribution. Il entend se situer dans le prolonge-
ment du «Wörterbuch der Völkerkunde» édité en 1965
par la maison A. Kröner. Mais beaucoup de choses se
sont passées depuis, et il a fallu procéder à un remanie-
ment complet. Les noms de peuples, ethnies et tribus ont
été sciemment laissés de côté. On ne mentionne qu’in-
directement les auteurs encore vivants (on trouvera C.
Lévi-Strauss sous «structuralisme»). A part les articles
classiques concernant le vocabulaire technique dans les
domaines de l’anthropologie biologique, de la culture
matérielle, de l’organisation sociale, de la croyance
religieuse, ou les représentants majeurs de la discipline,
l’accent est mis avec beaucoup d’à-propos 1. sur les
grands courants de pensée et les théories principales,
2. sur les méthodes de travail et les techniques de
recherche, 3. sur les sources de documentation, musées
et revues, 4. sur les secteurs où l’ethnologie se trouve au
contact direct avec d’autres disciplines, et dont on sait
l’importance aujourd’hui: ethnoarchéologie, ethnohis-
toire, ethnomédecine, ethnolinguistique, ethnophar-
macologie, etc. Les notices sur les courants de pensée
récents sont particulièrement bienvenues: éthologie
humaine, ethnoscience, ethnologie cognitive et ethno-
théorie, etc. Par contre, je me suis précipité pour voir ce
qu’on écrivait sur l’ethnologie de l’éducation et l’ethno-
pédagogie, sur l’ethnozoologie, sur l’ethnoastronomie,
sur l’ethnophilosophie, sur les jumeaux, sur l’enfance en
général, etc., et je n’ai malheureusement rien trouvé.
L’ethnométhodologie est liquidée en trois lignes. . . .
(Etonnant pour un français: rien sur Volkskunde\) Si
j’avais un regret à formuler, ce serait que ce dictionnai-
re, qui est nécessairement d’un temps et d’un lieu, ne
soulève pas de manière plus incisive encore qu’il ne le
fait les problématiques actuelles, peut-être éphémères
comme l’ont été tant d’autres dans le passé, mais au
milieu desquelles on a tant de peine à s’y retrouver, dont
on connaît mal les représentants et la bibliographie, dont
souvent on se sent séparé pour des questions de barrière
linguistique ou de tradition scientifique. Un dictionnaire
n’est rien d’autre qu’un instrument de travail, et c’est
avant tout l’utilité qu’il doit viser, les services à rendre
aux spécialistes, certes, mais plus encore aux étudiants et
au grand public. En ce sens, celui-ci est peut-être resté
un peu trop classique. Mais tel qu’il se présente, avec ses
limites, il faut le saluer avec reconnaissance et admira-
tion. J’en apprécie tout particulièrement la parfaite
homogénéité de rédaction et l’équilibre interne. Avec
un peu plus de hardiesse, cela aurait été parfait.
Pierre Erny
Hotze, Ilona: Darimana? Kemana? Leben auf der
Insel Bali. Berlin: Selbstverlag Ilona Hotze, 1984.
151 pp., Fotos
Das Erlebnis Bali löst auf der Ebene der subjekti-
ven Empfindungen Schwingungen aus, die auch den
nüchtern um Sachlichkeit ringenden Wissenschaftler
zuweilen vibrieren lassen. Das Leben auf der Insel Bali
hat für Nicht-Balinesen eine poetische Qualität, die sich
seit Jahrzehnten in unzähligen farbigen Tagebüchern, in
ethnographischer Belletristik und in touristischer Propa-
ganda niederschlägt .... Doch auch wer Bali und seine
einzigartige Kultur nach wissenschaftlichen Kriterien zu
sezieren hat, kann sich dem magischen Ambiente der
Insel nur schwer entziehen. Man kann zwar nicht
Balinese werden, ohne auf der Insel, im Kreislauf der
Wiedergeburten, geboren zu sein. Aber man kann Bali
so erfahren, daß man nach seiner Rückkehr ins Her-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
605
kunftsland ein anderer Mensch ist, verändert durch ein
neues Verständnis von Zeit und Raum, von solidari-
scher Gemeinschaft, von der ganz anderen, aber nicht
weniger zwingenden Logik des assoziativen (nicht kau-
salen) Denkens, dem es gelingt, Dinge harmonisch zu
vereinen und zu versöhnen, die für uns disparat oder
antagonistisch sind.
Wer sich also dem Erlebnis Bali stellen möchte,
sollte daran denken, neben wissenschaftlichen Abhand-
lungen und praktischen Reiseführern auch solche Bü-
cher zu lesen, die etwas von der unverwechselbaren
Atmosphäre der Insel herüberbringen, deren Kultur mit
wissenschaftlichen Begriffen allein nicht faßbar und
verständlich wird. Deshalb ist das Buch „Liebe und Tod
auf Bali“ von Vicki Baum genau so unentbehrlich wie
die wissenschaftliche Aufsatzsammlung “Bali: Studies in
Life, Thought, and Ritual” (The Hague and Bandung
1960) oder wie eines der gelehrten Bücher von C.
Hooykaas über die balinesische Literatur. Und deshalb
gehört auch der schmale Band von Ilona Hotze zu
meinen Lieblingspublikationen über Bali, die ich Freun-
den vor einer Reise zur Einstimmung auf den Flug
mitgeben würde.
Ilona Hotze hat im Verlauf von zehn Jahren im
Kreis einer balinesischen Großfamilie Spuren des ein-
heimischen Lebens verfolgt und diese zu einem Gesamt-
bild zusammengefügt, das einsichtig und gut verständ-
lich ist, ohne die balinesischen Realitäten zu verzerren.
Die Verfasserin reiht Beobachtungen, persönliche Ge-
danken und Gefühle (kursiv gedruckt) und Aufzeich-
nungen ethnographischer Art wie Perlen auf den roten
Faden eines tragischen Erlebnisses: den tödlichen Ver-
kehrsunfall, die anschließende Kremation und Seelen-
reinigung ihres Freundes Cokorda Sambeh. Man nimmt
mit der Autorin als Gast, und nicht als anpasserischer
Voyeur, am alltäglichen und rituellen Leben eines genau
umschriebenen Bekanntenkreises teil, denkt mit ihr
über die Balinesen und ihre Kultur, über das Schicksal
von Menschen unterschiedlicher Herkunft, verschiede-
nen Alters und Geschlechts nach und erhält aus Ge-
sprächsprotokollen sehr handfeste Informationen über
Gesellschaft und Kultur. In kleinen Porträts jüngerer
und älterer Menschen werden Vorlieben, Freuden,
Ängste und Sorgen faßbar, die um das kreisen, was alle
Tage auf den Tisch kommt, was an Arbeiten auf dem
Reisfeld oder im Tempel anfällt, was Musik, Tanz und
bildende Kunst und den Kunstmarkt angeht, der.
zusammen mit den reichen Touristen, das Leben der
Familie verändert hat. Neben der hartnäckig verteidig-
ten Tradition steht der Wandel, der als Verlockung,
aber auch als Gefährdung begriffen wird.
Zwei kritische Bemerkungen seien zum Schluß
erlaubt, die den Wert dieses handlichen, feinfühlig, mit
präzisem Wissen und mit Intuition geschriebenen Buchs
allerdings nicht schmälern sollten. Ilona Hotze bewegt
sich vor allem in besseren Kreisen der Satria, der
ehemals und bis zu einem gewissen Grade heute noch
feudalen, höfischen Gesellschaft, der es an nichts
gebricht und die es sich leisten kann, für die Erhaltung
der überlieferten Werte (und Privilegien), für traditio-
nelle Kultur und Kunst einzutreten. Daneben gibt es das
bäuerliche, derbere Bali mit seinen Dorfkulturen, die in
der Regel ebenfalls erstaunlich intakt geblieben sind,
und ein auf Dienstleistungen aller Art ausgerichtetes
Bali, dessen Vertreter in ihrer Faszination für die
materiellen Güter der industriellen Welt in Gefahr sind,
die Errungenschaften ihrer Kultur zu folklorisieren und
sie zur Ware zu machen. Schließlich möchte ich der
Autorin empfehlen, in Zukunft bei der Wiedergabe
einheimischer Ausdrücke und Zitate die balinesische
Sprache und nicht die Staatssprache Bahasa Indonesia
zu verwenden, die von den Balinesen nur im offiziellen
Verkehr und indonesisch sprechenden Fremden gegen-
über verwendet wird. Der Buchtitel „Darimana? Kema-
na?“ („Woher? Wohin?“) ist die Übersetzung einer
balinesischen Grußform ins Indonesische .... Ich
empfinde ihn in seiner künstlichen Echtheit als unpas-
send für ein Buch, das so sensibel gemacht ist.
Urs Ramseyer
Hutterer, Karl L., A. Terry Rambo, and George
Lovelace (eds.): Cultural Values and Human Ecology in
Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor: Center for South and
Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 1985.
x+417 pp., fig. (Michigan papers on South and South-
east Asia, 27.) Price: $ 19.95
Prompted by the lack of adequate conceptual
frameworks for studying the interaction between human
activities and their natural environments, seventeen
scholars conferred for a week in June 1983 at the
East-West Center in Honolulu to discuss the place of
symbols, beliefs, and values in the human ecology of
tropical regions. One upshot is the volume under review,
which, with contributions from representatives of sever-
al nationalities, and from diverse disciplines, is orga-
nized in the following manner.
First is an Introduction by Hutterer and Rambo in
which they define what they mean by “values” (6);
“mental constructs that enable humans to execute
comparative assessments of the state of the world with
regard to certain qualities; i.e., things, actions, ideas,
and so forth are assessed to be more or less good, true,
ethical, pleasant, or beautiful.”
Then follow three general discussions about cul-
tural values and tropical ecology. Despite book’s title,
these include an article by Leslie E. Sponsel on
Amazonia that deals with carrying capacity, limiting
factors, cultural complexity, and cultural evolution. The
Yanomama are accorded special attention, and explana-
tions that have been advanced to account for their
famous devotion to warfare are used to highlight the
distinction between cultural materialism and mentalism.
The author contrasts these explanatory schools with the
approach he himself favors. This is, naturally, one that
gives due weight to ecological factors, and he argues that
cultural ecology has the potential to develop a holistic
framework that acknowledges that human beings adapt
simultaneously as organic, cultural, and intellectual
creatures.
Anthropos 83.1988
606
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In another of these introductory articles, “People
and Nature in the Tropics,” Hutterer attempts to discern
the interplay between natural influences and cultural
influences. He concludes by endorsing Rappaport’s idea
that natural environment and culture are intrinsically
and deeply interrelated, and that social and environmen-
tal processes affect each other in fundamental ways.
The next section (by far the longest) of this volume
contains nine case studies and thematic discussions.
With its array of detail, variety of topic, and regional
diversity, the articles assembled here defy anything
resembling a thorough evaluation in the necessarily
confined space of a review, so - with the advice to my
reader that each essay fully merits inclusion in this most
excellent collection and, depending upon his or her
personal interests, deserves a reading - I shall restrict
myself to commenting on a selected number of articles
that in their distinctive ways particularly impressed
me.
One of these concerns Java: Alice G. Dewey’s
“Boundary and Batik: A Study in Ambiguous Catego-
ries,” which, in a feat of remarkable imaginative
ingenuity, brings together what might well be supposed
to be unrelated things. These items are peasant markets,
batik designs, gamelan music, wayang techniques, and
the contrast made by social anthropologists between
rules and conduct, and modes of thinking. Dewey
observes that in Javanese batiks many patterns exist in
both light-on-dark and dark-on-light versions, so that
the patterns may be conceptualized successively in
alternative ways. One focuses on the dark areas and the
other on the light areas created by the dark areas. Each
is capable of standing visually on its own as an
aesthetically satisfying motif and be equally worthy of
attention. In such a pattern, figure and background are
reversible and each area stands in turn as the focus.
Dewey then goes on to discuss another aspect of pattern
manipulation, also discernible in batiks. Here, the
elements of the design can be grouped into a variety of
units, the boundaries of which shift in complex ways, as
in the classic kawung. In it the same basic elements can
be conceptualized in two quite different ways. In one,
the set of oval motifs group around a central diamond
and the cluster of circle motifs lies at the periphery. In its
other interpretation, the small circle motif moves into
the center, with the ovals radiating out and the diamonds
fitting into the space between the outer ends of the petals
and forming a border for the flower pattern. The
conceptualizations crosscut one over the other as the eye
singles out first one and then the other possible
interpretation. With this exemplar defined, she takes us
on a short tour-de-force which emphasizes the need for
social anthropologists to regard institutions and idea-
tional systems from more than one perspective and to
remember that abstracting them from the contexts that
alone give them meaning results in their semantic
destruction.
The effect of beliefs and customs on the plant
environment of southern Yunnan Province in China
provides Pei Sheng-ji with his topic. He demonstrates
how Hinayana Buddhism promoted ideas that encour-
aged the Dai people to preserve certain natural features
called “Holy Hills” that otherwise would probably have
been seriously depleted by the local populations. His
conclusion is that the world of the Dai cannot be
understood by reference to natural or cultural factors
exclusively, and that the influence of one set of factors
cannot be isolated from the other.
Changing values in market trading is discussed by
Chavivun Prachuabmoh. Her region is southern Thai-
land, and she describes how agricultural products and
agricultural labor have become commercialized in recent
years, and that villagers have entered a market system in
which economic transactions are on a purely impersonal
basis. The quest for profit is overcoming reciprocity, and
money is increasingly regarded as the most important
basis for living. This latter notion runs counter to the
traditional emphasis on personal relationships defined
by kinship and locality, and so villagers have begun
trading outside their communities. She argues that the
development of the villagers’ role in trade has become
possible because of the evolving economic environment,
in which crucial resources are no longer natural, but
social and technological. She concludes that material
conditions seem to have taken precedence in generating
change in this part of Thailand, but - as do other authors
in this book - remarks that the process of change is of a
systemic, interactive character, in which ideas and
material factors work together.
The collection ends with “Commentaries” by
Gerald C. Hickey (on development issues) and Neil L.
Jamieson (on paradigms, perceptions, and changing
reality).
These appreciative remarks for the particular
articles singled out for comment should be taken as
indicative of the high quality of the collection as a whole.
Scholars and scientists interested in human ecology in
general and/or Southeast Asia in particular will find this
volume offering a wealth of thought-provoking material.
The most probable beneficiaries, though, are an-
thropologists who, on grounds of principle, eschew
ecological factors in attempting to understand what is
happening in the societies they study. One does not have
to be a cultural materialist to appreciate the determining
influence the natural environment may have on certain
of the activities of a given society, nor need one be a
demographer to realize that an expanding or contracting
population is likely to see its social organization having
to adjust radically to fit changing circumstances. Yet
such approaches as that which are followed by the typical
structural-functionalist do indeed make the assumption
that to understand a “social structure” it is quite
unnecessary to place it in its environmental context. For
such anthropologists the central theme in this collection
should be that natural factors must be taken into account
in the analysis of society, and if a non-anthropologist
should wonder why such a commonsense notion needs to
be stated at all, one can only reply that the influence of
Evans-Pritchard, Fortes, Radcliffe-Brown, and others
structural-functionalists has been so overwhelming as to
Anthropos 83.1988
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607
elevate such abstractions as “social structure” to such an
esoteric plane of discourse that the discernment of
“social structures” becomes almost a sub-branch of
learning in its own right - no matter how irrelevant the
structural-functional exercise may be for the way in
which people really arrange their lives or how predict-
able the answers to the trivial problems analysts formu-
late within the context of the structures they themselves
have devised.
It is to be hoped that articles such as those brought
together here will finally remove such naivety from
anthropological thinking. David Hicks
Josephides, Lisette: The Production of Inequality.
Gender and Exchange among the Kewa. London:
Tavistock, 1985. x+242pp. maps, tab., fig., photos.
Price: £ 16.95
This book is the published version of the author’s
1984 Ph. D. dissertation from the University of London,
based on her fieldwork between 1979-1981. The people
studied are the South Kewa, who live somewhat east of
where LeRoy studied (see LeRoy, Kewa Reciprocity,
1975), and well south of our own studies in the East and
West Kewa (see Franklin, A Grammar and Dialect
Study of Kewa, 1969).
The book is divided into two parts. The first deals
with group formation, both traditional and contempo-
rary social organization, while the second part deals with
power and inequality, as mediated through gender.
The title suggests certain presuppositions on the
part of the investigator. We read, for example, that the
word man is a “false generic” (x), and a form of
“subterfuge.” Or, as L. Josephides (L. J.) states, “In
constructing a model for the analysis of gender we can
start from the debris of universal woman” (103). This
sort of hyperbole is not unusual because to L. J. gender
is not a natural (i.e., physiological) category, but a social
one (97). “The Production of Inequality” is then, first
and foremost, an ethnographic study designed to sup-
port a belief about gender. It is therefore not simply an
hypothesis, to be tested and proven or discarded, but is
rather a doctrine that Kewa women are the victims of
male dominance. In terms of prestige structure women
are born, but men are made, such that female positions
are defined in reference to the male (133).
If all human endeavors are determined by econom-
ic and political factors, which the author believes, then
this book can also be considered anthropology in the
Marxist tradition. L. J. claims that political manipula-
tion is inherent in Kewa society, which “exhibits] the
characteristics of an incipient peasant economy” (91).
They have been “sucked into a world capitalist system as
petty commodity producers” (90). She concludes else-
where that “Marxist theory exactly locates capitalist
exploitation” (207). L. J. sees the centralized power of
the “State” as one factor which has lead to the loss of
Kewa self-reliance (82).
Ethnographies of this kind often contain vernacular
glosses, and this book is no exception. However, there is
no explanation of why certain events or functions are
glossed, but others are not. There is a glossary and note
on pronunciation at the end of the book, but many
inconsistencies are noted. L. J. comments, for example,
that “r, t, and to a lesser extent s, sometimes slide into
one another” (222), a phenomenon that I have never
observed in any Kewa dialect. This leads to incorrect
glosses such as tieboali “rubbish man” (155), but
elsewhere the literal meaning of “man of short stature”
(139). If an etymology is desired the word probably
comes from ri -I- abo -I- ali, i.e., “carrying + refuse +
man.” It should be written as riabo ali, and tupale as
rupale. The phonemes Irl and Itl clearly contrast, as in ro
“bridge” vs. to “body,” or toa "I will say” vs. roa “to
break off (sugar cane).” The confusion which L. J. notes
is because [r] and [d\ are allophones medially of the
initial sound [fr], which are both written as r.
L. J. also has trouble with central vowel recogni-
tion and the nature of compounds in the language. Some
examples, extracted from the glossary (222-223) and
followed by the correct spelling (see K. and J. Franklin,
A Kewa Dictionary, 1978), are: adali > adaa air, amoali
> amo ali; emapu > e maapu; kalusekere > kalu sekere;
kama > kamaa; kepa > kepaa; komada > koma ada;
mapu > maapu; muduali > mudu ali; paki > paaki; pala
> paala; rameada > tame ada; roponali > ropona ali;
wenada > wena ada; yaisia > yasia, and wenali >
wenaali. I give these in some detail because L. J. claims
that in 6 weeks she “acquired a fair working knowledge
of the Kewa language” (vii-viii).
The word wenaali “people” is a compound of wena
“woman” and a/i“man,” a common strategy for forming
compounds in Kewa (and other languages). L. J. takes
pains (144) to show that the word cannot stand for
“some abstract humanity,” i.e., what I would commonly
call a person. However, wenaali is the perfect candidate
and is found in other dialects as well; EK is winyaali and
WK is onaa. Note, incidentally, that the word “woman”
comes first in this male dominated society. The com-
pound means “human being” just as much as ki-aa
(hand-foot) means “limbs,” or mena-yapa-nu (pig-
marsupial-collection) means “animal.” It is dangerous
to determine the semantics of word compounding on the
basis of a preconceived theory.
L. J. is concerned that male fieldworkers have
viewed women through male ideology, resulting in
inadequate descriptions (98, 102). Kewa men own the
women, i.e., they own the basic resources for produc-
tion. This leads to inequality because of the unequal
access to power (145). Women are then unable to
express themselves politically and are seen only as
productive units in the power arena. They are defined
only in reference to the male (133).
Because of this focus on productivity, L. J. says
that “women are often reluctant to marry” (105). If that
were true, I would ask: Why then do young women ask
their relatives for permission to sing outside of the house
of a young man they wish to marry? Or why, knowing
that marriage is “hard work,” do the young women still
want a husband and work love magic on the young men
Anthropos 83.1988
608
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to get one? The Kewa women may be subservient, but
they are also aggressive. As L. J. notes, “Many men
insist that their wives chose them" (55).
L. J. makes a point that men use one word for “to
marry” and women use another, implying the object-
like status of the women in marriage transactions (65),
while men remain stationary. Then, because the social
rules dictate that the women go to the clan site of the
husband, the women are viewed by L. J. as sojourners
and aliens, without land and with limited rights. But
widows often remain on the land of the husband because
their sons inherit the land. In addition, the final verbs in
both expressions show movement, e.g., in WK the man
will say ona rumaa-ta pu-Iu (woman portion out -
purpose go - I am = I am going to display (shells), i.e.,
for marriage), but the woman will say aa-na ada pu-Iu
(man - possessive house go - I am = I am going to the
man’s house, i.e., for marriage). So it is difficult for me
to see how the language reflects that women are
exchange objects.
The alienation (205 ff.) of women is one of the
theses of this study: the Kewa women are mere laborers,
where all of their credit is relinquished to the husband
who converts products to exchange values. Therefore
“Kewa women have no name, talk, group, or land”
(214) and the power belongs to the men. The women are
peripheral (217), victims, and spectators. My own
observation is that Kewa women are very much a part of
the power in any transaction.
Given the assumptions that L. J. has, the conclu-
sions about Kewa women follow. I would agree that the
Kewa women have a hard life, if we are using the
Western woman in comparison. But apparently that is
not what L. J. means. Rather, in the grand unisex
society of our imagination, Kewa women and men
should be classless coproducers, even though there is no
evidence that any such society has or could exist without
social stratification.
There are inaccuracies in the book: 1) Kagua
airstrip was never “used mostly by missions” (9). The
government built the airstrip in 1957 and closed it in
1986, and the government was always the primary user;
2) the word ruru “clan” (or “tribe”, as L. J. claims) is
not a dialect variation of repa (15). Repa (correctly
-repa) is a suffix attached mainly to proper names to
signal the particular гиги as an entity. It may refer to a
man, men, places, or objects, but neither refer to family
as such. If the family is the father plus children, it is
called агаа-Iu (someone’s father-extension), if it is the
mother plus children, the correct term is agia-Iu; 3) oge
is not a prefix (16); it simply means “small,” just as adaa
(not ada, which means “house,” or “to see”) means
“large”; (4) contrary to L. J., I have observed that in
many areas of Kewa the enemy land was appropriated by
the victorious group (18). The claims and counterclaims
in the EK area over pandanus trees and nuts is witness to
the appropriation process; 5) according to my records,
Kewa men went to war over land, although L. J. claims
that the Sugu Kewa men never did (28). As I have said
elsewhere (Franklin 1978: 448) “formerly land disputes
were a source of constant or intermittent warfare.” This
was recorded in 1963 after living amongst the EK for 5
years; 6) men often do peel sweet potatoes and sell in
the markets, although L. J. has not seen them; 7) wom-
en also do tell stories (122, 128). (On this see LeRoy,
Fabricated World, 1985.)
Having pointed these things out, I realize that the
Kewa are not a homogenous social unit and that there
are differences between various areas. I have therefore
confined my observations to things which I believe hold
for the SKewa (where we have not lived), as well as for
the EK and WK, where we have resided for considerable
periods of time.
Perhaps L. J. has certain “moral roots of conflict,”
(see Priest, Anthropologists and Missionaries, 1987),
which can be seen in her feelings about missionaries.
That is, there may be basic disagreements that she has
with missions or Christians about moral absolutes which
are transferred to her surface criticisms about the
missionaries in the Kewa area. She blames them for the
loss of Kewa cultural values (74), squatting (75),
inculcating fear (78), and even for the observation that
the Kewa no longer use decorations or have dances
(180). These allegations would be difficult to prove
although new leadership has naturally arisen through
such offices as the pastor, evangelist, catechist, or other
representatives of the missions or government.
I found the most interesting parts of this book to be
on the description of the clan structures and the
settlement patterns in the South Kewa (41 ff.). Certainly
there is more tie with the Samberigi area than has been
reported for groups this far north of the Erave River.
Her discussions on the solidarity of the clan, based on
the functions of compensation, pig kills, working par-
ties, and, at one time, cult importations, is helpful. Also
the description of the big man (157 ff.), with his
oratorical skills, settling disputes, holding the group
together, and giving it credibility, have been observed in
other areas of the Kewa.
Taken on the whole, this book provides a useful
ethnography in understanding the gender relationships
among the Kewa, as long as one does not have to
espouse Marxism or feminism to interpret the observa-
tions. Karl J. Franklin
Khare, R. S.: Culture and Democracy. Anthropo-
logical Reflections on Modern India. Lanham: Univer-
sity Press of America, 1985. xii+89pp. Price: $ 16.75
(cloth), $ 6.75 (paper)
L’auteur affirme que ce petit livre est une «compa-
raison anthropologique entre les deux cultures com-
plexes de l’Inde et de l’Amérique» et il souligne de ce fait
l’urgence d’une analyse comparative des sociétés. Ce-
pendant, à la lecture de ce livre, on trouve peu de - sinon
aucune - traces de cette comparaison anthropologique
entre l’Inde et l’Amérique. Le sous-titre de ce livre
(Anthropological Reflections on Modern India) semble
déjà plus approprié bien que l’on ne voit pas exactement
ce qu’il y a d’anthropologique dans ces - très vagues -
Anthropos 83.1988
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609
réflections sur la démocratie indienne. Khare n’a nulle
part tâché de connaître l’opinion et les sentiments des
Indiens à propos de la démocratie ni non plus la manière
dont ils vivent cette dernière. Il ne se réfère pas non plus
aux études qui sont allées dans ce sens et l’on est alors
pas surpris de lire que «Culture and Democracy» ne
dépasse guère la généralisation, la simplification et la
platitude. C’est notamment ce qui ressort de la page 14:
«India and America are similar in some ways and yet
quite dissimilar in other ways.» La page suivante nous
fournit un bel exemple de généralisation abusive lorsque
l’auteur affirme: «To India, America represents democ-
racy and modernity; to America, India is a diverse,
traditional society with modem democracy.» Je suis
certes conscient du fait que ces citations sont tirées de
leur contexte, néanmoins l’auteur ne semble jamais y
ajouter quoi que ce soit et il semble se contenter de
répéter que la démocratie indienne est une institution
complexe (voir 17, 27, 69, 73, 80 etc.), ce que nous
savions déjà.
La même chose est vraie de la relation entre le
système hiérarchique traditionnel et la démocratie mo-
derne. Khare a raison d’affirmer (29) que la démocratie
convient bien au pluralisme et à l’inégalité de l’Inde et
que chacun modifie l’autre plutôt que de l’anéantir (26),
mais il ne donne aucun élément pour illustrer cette
hypothèse. Il ne considère pas non plus les différentes
forces sociales qui s’affrontent dans la société indienne.
La «dynamique sociale» se voit ici réduite à quelques
considérations impressionnistes sur la dot et l’importan-
ce d’un bon mariage en vue d’une carrière.
La conclusion des «cogitations» de l’auteur semble
se résumer dans cette affirmation selon laquelle «l’inter-
pénétration des forces traditionnelles et démocratiques
est caractéristique de la situation sociale indienne» (43).
Il s’agit cependant là d’une quasi-évidence. En bref,
«Culture and Democracy» n’est nullement une analyse
comparative entre l’Inde et l’Amérique; ce n’est pas non
plus une vue anthropologique de la démocratie indien-
ne, et finalement, ce livre nous apprend peu sur la
société indienne en général. Pour ces raisons, on dira
que son principal mérite est d’être court.
Robert Deliège
Khare, R. S., and M. S, A. Rao (eds.): Food,
Society, and Culture. Aspects in South Asian Food
Systems. Durham: Carolina Academie Press, 1986.
336 pp. Price: $ 35.95
Cette étude sur les systèmes alimentaires de l’Asie
du Sud pourra surprendre certains puisqu’il n’est pas
question ici de famine, de malnutrition ou de déficit
céréalier, mais bien de catégories alimentaires, d’abon-
dance, de sophistication culinaire ou encore de ce que
certains auteurs appellent pompeusement «gastrodyna-
mique». C’est en effet une vue anthropologique, au sens
étroit du terme, qui se voit développée tout au long de
cette dizaine d’articles; c’est dire que le «système
alimentaire» (food System) est ici conçu comme «un
système cohérent de classification, de catégories et de
contraintes» (5).
Si l’on voulait se permettre un mauvais jeu de mots,
on dirait qu’il y a «à boire et à manger» dans ce livre
puisque l’on passe de l’étude des offrandes divines aux
fêtes musulmanes d’Old Delhi en passant par les
catégories alimentaires du Bangladesh ou encore les
habitudes culinaires de castes nomades. Néanmoins, il
existe, par-delà cette diversité, une certaine cohérence
qui relève justement de ce point de vue étroitement
anthropologique que nous avons souligné ci-dessus. Il
faut en outre remarquer la bonne teneur scientifique de
la plupart des articles proposés. La première partie de
l’ouvrage est consacrée à la nourriture rituelle. L’analy-
se des dons de nourriture au temple de Tirupati donne à
Breckenbridge l’occasion de nous rapporter quelques
éléments intéressants. Elle affirme que pendant la
période Vijayanagar (14— 17ème siècle), le temple était
le principal système de redistribution de nourriture dans
la société sud-indienne. Un flux continu de dons passait
du temple à l’hinterland agricole et aux centres urbains.
Aujourd’hui encore, les dévots offrent chaque année des
millions de roupies au temple. Malheureusement, les
données de l’auteur ne confirment pas toujours ses
prétentions et si au 14ème siècle, 1416 personnes
pouvaient être nourries journalièrement à Tirupati, cela
suffit-il pour affirmer que le temple était essentiel au
fonctionnement de la société sud-indienne?
Cet article met cependant bien l’accent sur l’impor-
tance de la nourriture dans le culte au temple, une
importance que l’on retrouve dans l’article suivant où
Toomey souligne la variété et la complexité de la
nourriture offerte au dieu Krishna par deux sectes de
Mathura. La préparation de nourriture au temple de
Vallahali étonne par sa sophistication: par crainte de
pollution, les cuisiniers brahmanes ne peuvent pas
quitter la cuisine du temple avant la fin du jour; seul le
sanskrit est parlé dans l’enceinte du temple et chaque
cuisinier doit porter un masque chirurgical pour empê-
cher la salive d’atteindre la nourriture. De même, les
repas offerts aux dieux sont nombreux et variés. Au
temple Haveli, le dieu est nourri pas moins de 8 fois par
jour.
Si les dieux hindous ne manquent pas d’appétit, les
musulmans font également preuve du même sens de
l’abondance et de l’ostentation. Dans les fêtes musulma-
nes d’Old Delhi, nous rapporte Murphy, le don de
nourriture constitue l’un des actes essentiels de la vie
religieuse et sociale. Ici pourtant, la nourriture n’est pas
directement offerte à Dieu mais la charité et l’hospitalité
sont considérés comme des devoirs religieux essentiels.
Les musulmans insistent sur l’importance du partage qui
est directement lié à l’humanisme de l’Islam. Le Rama-
dan lui-même est l’occasion de festoyer car l’abstinence
diurne est récompensée par Dieu pendant la nuit. Le
mariage est plus encore l’occasion de faire preuve
d’hospitalité. Une noce de plus de 1.000 invités n’est pas
chose rare et les partis (biradari) rivalisent entre eux:
c’est à qui offrira le plus! D’une manière générale, tout
invité dans la maison se voit offrir bien plus de
Anthropos 83.1988
610
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nourriture qu’il n'est capable d’en ingurgiter. Un Pathan
ne peut être heureux si son invité refuse de manger.
La deuxième partie du livre est consacrée aux
«catégories alimentaires» et comprend quelques articles
de valeur. Parmi ceux-ci, celui de Nichter sur les
différentes classifications de nourriture au Karnataka
mérite notre attention. Le riz tient une telle place dans la
société sud-indienne qu’il est opposé à toutes les autres
nourritures: un repas (üfa) comprend invariablement du
riz, et toute autre nourriture est appelée «snack» (tindi).
Sur cette distinction de base se greffent de nombreuses
autres oppositions, et la nourriture est par exemple
divisée entre «chaud» et «froid». Mais elle est aussi
classée selon l’apparence physique, la couleur, le goût,
l’odeur etc. . . . Cette sophistication permet une diète
adaptée aux circonstances; ainsi, pendant la mousson,
de la nourriture considérée comme «chaude» est conseil-
lée; pendant la grossesse, période pendant laquelle la
chaleur corporelle augmente, il est nécessaire de manger
de la nourriture dite «froide» etc. . . .
A l’autre bout de la péninsule, Rizvi tente de
relever de semblables classifications pour le Bangladesh.
L’influence de la médecine traditionnelle ayurvédique
s’est également fait sentir dans cette société musulmane.
La nourriture est ici considérée à la fois comme source
d’énergie et de maladie. La nourriture peut être classée
comme donnant de la force, comme froide ou chaude,
comme produisant du sang, corne amère etc. ... Le
choix de nourriture est donc conditionné par les proprié-
tés de cette dernière afin de maintenir le corps dans un
bon état. Les auteurs, nous l’avons dit, se sont confinés à
une vue étroitement anthropologique de la nourriture
comme système de classification. Tel n’est cependant
pas le cas de l’article de Lindebaum, toujours sur le
Bangladesh, qui vient, en fin d’ouvrage, nous rappeler
que la nourriture est également affaire d’estomac et
d’intestins. Il est intéressant de noter, avec l’auteur,
l’importance du riz dans la société bengalie de même que
le certain mépris à l’égard du blé considéré comme
nourriture du pauvre.
Ce livre comprend encore quelques autres contri-
butions et s’achève sur une assez impressionnante
bibliographie dressée par M. S. A. Rao. Nul doute qu’à
l’avenir, il faudra inclure cet ouvrage dans toute biblio-
graphie sur le sujet même si le point de vue adopté en
restreint quelque peu la portée. Robert Deliège
King, Victor T.: The Maloh of West Kalimantan.
An Ethnographie Study of Social Inequality and Social
Change among an Indonesian Borneo People. Dor-
drecht: Foris Publications, 1985. 252 pp., photos. (Ver-
handelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-,
Land- en Volkenkunde, 108)
Victor T. King, der in den vergangenen eineinhalb
Jahrzehnten bereits in fast zwei Dutzend Beiträgen
Einzelaspekte der bis dahin nur wenig bekannten Kultur
der Maloh an den Seitenflüssen des oberen Kapuas, am
Embaloh, Palin und Leboyan, in West-Kalimantan
untersuchte, legte mit dieser umfassenden Monographie
das voll ausgewertete ethnographische Material seiner
intensiven Feldforschung vor, die er Anfang der 70er
Jahre durchgeführt hatte. Das Werk orientiert sich an
der Frage nach den sozialen Unterschieden in der
Gesellschaft dieser Ethnie und konzentriert sich vor
allem auf das Erscheinungsbild der von ihm als Aristo-
kraten bezeichneten Oberschicht der samagat, auf de-
ren politische, wirtschaftliche und religiöse Funktionen
und deren Sozialverhalten hinsichtlich ihrer Abgrenzung
gegenüber den anderen Gesellschaftsschichten. Die
Situation dieser sozialen Gruppe wird im gesamtkultu-
rellen Kontext dargestellt und der Wandel ihrer Rolle in
den verschiedenen Epochen aufgezeigt. Damit wird
zugleich ein umfassendes Bild des Kulturwandels bei
den Maloh - ein weiterer Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit -
über zwei Jahrhunderte vermittelt, ausgehend von den
aufgrund von mündlichen Überlieferungen und frühen
schriftlichen Quellen rekonstruierten Gegebenheiten
vor dem Auftreten der Kolonialadministration, einer
Zeit, in der Einflüsse der Küstenmalaien und damit des
Islam partiell wirksam waren, über die holländische
Kolonialzeit, während der von der Mitte des vorigen
Jahrhunderts an durch die Verwaltung und nach der
Jahrhundertwende durch die Missionen ihre Kultur
verändert wurde, bis zum Zeitpunkt der Feldforschung
von King, zu dem bereits wichtige Kriterien der sozialen
Differenzierung im Verschwinden begriffen waren. Sei-
ne Untersuchungen zur heutigen Situation erfassen in
komparativer Weise verschiedene Maloh-Gemeinschaf-
ten und machen so unterschiedliche Stadien der Ent-
wicklung deutlich.
Die Maloh waren begünstigt durch ihre Umwelt,
die ihnen den Trockenreisanbau und vereinzelt auch
Naßreisanbau auf fast ebener Fläche (im Gegensatz zu
den Iban) ermöglichte, und durch ihre relative Seßhaf-
tigkeit, die sich für über zwanzig Generationen im
Bereich des oberen Kapuas nachweisen läßt. Mit der
Institution der Sklaverei, sowohl von Kriegsgefangenen
als „Haussklaven“ wie auch von Schuldsklaven als
„Feldsklaven“, verfügte die Oberschicht, die das Recht
der Sklavenhaltung ausschließlich für sich beanspruchte
und selbst nie Feldarbeit tat, über zusätzliche Arbeits-
kräfte vor allem zur Erschließung von Primärwald für
neue Anbauflächen und damit von weiteren Landrech-
ten zur Sicherung ihrer ökonomischen Vorrangstellung,
die aber nicht im Eigentum an Land, da genügend
Reserve vorhanden war, sondern in den Gewinnen aus
dem Reisanbau und aus dem Handel begründet war. Die
politische und religiöse Vorrangstellung der samagat
war durch eine entsprechende Ideologie abgesichert. Bis
zur Jahrhundertwende blieb dieses soziale System rela-
tiv stabil. Durch die Endogamie, die durch die Kontrolle
der Wahl des Ehepartners über die Eltern der Frau
beachtet und auch durch Heiraten unter nahen Ver-
wandten eingehalten wurde, grenzte sich die Ober-
schicht gegenüber den anderen Schichten ab. Mit dem
Verbot der Sklaverei, mit dem Eingreifen der Kolonial-
administration und mit dem Einfluß des Christentums
trat sein Beginn unseres Jahrhunderts eine spürbare
Schwächung ihrer Stellung ein.
Anthropos 83.1988
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611
Die Maloh selbst unterscheiden terminologisch vier
verschiedene soziale Gruppen, nämlich die Aristokra-
ten, den Mittelstand, die gewöhnlichen Dorfbewohner
und die Sklaven. King bewertet diese Differenzierung
als Rangordnung. Die Zugehörigkeit zu den verschiede-
nen sozialen Rängen wird äußerlich z. B. am Totenkult,
an der Symbolik, an der Siedlungsweise, am Brautpreis
und am Hochzeitszeremoniell, an der Überlieferung der
Genealogien oder an den Familiennamen erkennbar.
Nach ökonomischen Kriterien sieht King aber nur drei
soziale Klassen gegeben, deren Zugehörigkeit vererbt
wird, nämlich die Oberschicht, die Freien und die
Sklaven. Die Klassenzugehörigkeit beurteilt er nach der
Verfügung über Arbeitskräfte und über Landrechte. So
wird die Klassifizierung der verschiedenen sozialen
Gruppen innerhalb der Maloh-Gesellschaft dadurch
erschwert, daß, an sozioökonomischen Kriterien gemes-
sen, die hierarchische Struktur eine andere Aufgliede-
rung zeigt als die von den Maloh terminologisch vorge-
gebene Rangordung. Entscheidend aber sollten doch
immer noch die von der Gemeinschaft anerkannten
Einheiten sein. Nur im Hinblick auf die Untersuchung
der Entwicklungsvorgänge des sozialen Wandels er-
scheint eine solche theoretische Kategorisierung ge-
rechtfertigt.
Die traditionellen Aufgaben der Aristokraten wa-
ren im politischen Bereich die Führung des Dorfes durch
das aus ihren Reihen gewählte Dorfoberhaupt und im
religiös-rituellen Bereich die Durchführung von Riten,
die die ganze Dorfgemeinschaft betrafen, etwa im
Zusammenhang mit dem Reisanbauzyklus oder mit dem
Bau eines Gemeinschaftshauses. Neben dem Schwinden
ihrer ökonomischen Macht, primär verursacht durch die
Aufhebung der Sklaverei, brachte zunächst die Ausbrei-
tung des Christentums eine Schwächung ihrer religiösen
Vorrangstellung mit dem Aufgeben der Reisanbauzere-
monien, die, wenn noch praktiziert, als kleinere Rituale
vom einzelnen Haushalt wahrgenommen werden, sowie
mit dem Aufgeben der Hausbauzeremonien durch die
Umstellung auf die Einzelhausbauweise. Ihre politische
Macht wurde später durch den Eingriff der indonesi-
schen Verwaltung mit der Beschränkung der Entschei-
dungsbefugnisse der Dorfoberhäupter eingeengt und
Angehörige der Aristokratie durch die Forderung nach
einer demokratischen Wahl und nach dem Nachweis
einer Schulausbildung des Amtsinhabers auch aus die-
sem Amt verdrängt, das ihnen in der holländischen Zeit
uneingeschränkt zugestanden wurde. So war zum Zeit-
punkt der Forschung von King keine klare Korrelation
mehr zwischen ökonomischer Vormachtstellung und
Klassenzugehörigkeit oder zwischen traditionellem
Rang und politischer Macht erkennbar. Der soziale
Status des Einzelnen war nicht mehr von der Gruppen-
zugehörigkeit bestimmt, sondern von dessen persönli-
chem wirtschaftlichem Erfolg, von dessen Ausbildung
und Berufsausübung.
King stellt seine Beobachtungen über die sozialen
Unterschiede bei den Maloh den Forschungsergebnissen
von anderen Gesellschaften Borneos gegenüber, wie
den Iban (Leach 1950, Freeman 1955, Pringle 1970,
Rousseau 1980), den Kayan (Rousseau 1974,1979), den
Kenyah (Whittier 1973, 1978) oder den Melanau (Mor-
ris 1953, 1978, 1908), und versucht, die mit sehr
unterschiedlichen Forschungsansätzen gewonnenen Er-
kenntnisse vergleichbar zu machen, indem er die soziale
Stratifikation aufgegliedert nach wirtschaftlichen, so-
zialen, politischen und religiösen Dimensionen beurteilt
und Zeit und Raum gerade auch bei der Frage des
Zustandekommens sozialer Unterschiede mitberück-
sichtigt. Dabei zeigt King, daß hierarchisierte Gesell-
schaftsordnungen vor allem bei den alten Völkern im
Innern Borneos (Kenyah, Kayan etc.) in Erscheinung
treten, Ethnien, die deutlich eine konstantere Seßhaftig-
keit aufweisen, während die mobileren Gesellschaften in
der Peripherie eher egalitär blieben (Iban, Rungus
Dusun, Land Dayak). Sein Werk stellt somit einen
weiteren Beitrag zur alten Diskussion um egalitäre und
hierarchisch strukturierte Gesellschaften in Borneo dar.
Er zeichnet die Gesellschaft der Maloh in scharfem
Kontrast zur Darstellung der Iban am Baleh von
Freeman, womit King bewußt, wie dies aber auch schon
andere taten, Kritik an der teilweise überzogenen
Betonung egalitärer Gesellschaftsformen in Borneo
anbringen möchte. Zugleich ist seine Arbeit auch ein
wichtiger Diskussionsbeitrag zur Untersuchung von
Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen in den kognaten Gesell-
schaften des insularen Südostasiens. Denn für die
Aristokratie der Maloh spielt der Nachweis der Grup-
penzugehörigkeit und damit die Abstammung von einer
am Eigentum an Land orientierten und von Vorfahren,
die dieses Land urbar machten, abgeleiteten Abstam-
mungsgruppe eine wesentliche Rolle.
King hat mit seiner Monographie nicht nur eine
immense Fülle von ethnographischen Daten über eine
lange Zeit wenig bekannte Kultur geliefert, sondern mit
dieser an ethnosoziologischen Fragestellungen ausge-
richteten und von einer Vielzahl theoretischer Überle-
gungen geleiteten Untersuchung auch wichtige Themen-
komplexe der Ethnologie Borneos weiter aufgearbei-
tet. Stefan Seitz
Kopytoff, Igor (ed.): The African Frontier. The
Reproduction of Traditional African Societies. Bloo-
mington: Indiana University Press, 1987. viii+
288 pp., maps. Price: $ 35.00
This volume consists of a theoretical essay by the
editor and nine ethnographic case studies. In addition,
Kopytoff provides introductions (totalling 19 pages)
before each contributor’s essay, informing the reader
what to look for in each paper so that such material
would support the points he has made in his introduc-
tion. Kopytoff dominates the work; his preface, intro-
ductory essay, and lead-ins account for nearly a quarter
of its total length.
The nine contributed essays vary in length and
quality. Despite Kopytoffs comments, these papers fail
to form a cohesive body of material animated by a
common set of theoretical assumptions. This is the kind
of diffuse collection more appropriate for a reference
Anthropos 83.1988
612
Rezensionen
library than for any individual scholar seeking a volume
consistently applicable to his or her particular needs.
The nine case studies are as follows: 1. Nancy J.
Fairley provides an account of the formation of the Ekie
“state” of southern Zaire. She argues that Luba new-
comers adapted traditional Ekie ritual beliefs and prac-
tices in order to dominate the subjected Ekie (10 pp.).
2. Chet S. Lancaster considers some of the ways the
Namainga “kingdom” of the Goba of the Zambezi
Valley was organized to facilitate assimilation of dispa-
rate immigrant groups (19 pp.). 3. William P. Murphy
and Caroline H. Bledsoe discuss the ways that principles
of kinship and territory interplay in the construction and
manipulation of patrilineal kin groups through matri-
lateral connexions (24 pp.). 4. Randal M. Packard con-
siders the ways origin legends are manipulated and
interpreted by various segments among the BaShu of
eastern Zaire in order to assert both differences and
unity within one polity (13 pp.). 5. David Newbury
considers how a frontier society provides a conceptual
field for defining attitudes and values regarding not only
the outlying groups but the polititical center from which
they derive. He does this using oral literature and history
ofwestern Rwanda (29 pp.). 6. Adell Patton Jr. discuss-
es how Muslim and pagan beliefs and organizations
were combined to form the short-lived successionist
Ningi state in nineteenth century northern Nigeria
(19 pp.). 7. Lee V. Cassanelli examines the historical
material documenting two frontier communities in
nineteenth century Somalia, both founded by Bantu
language-speaking slaves who escaped from their Somali
masters (23 pp.). 8. W. Arens describes a small agricul-
tural and trading community in northern Tanzania that
grew up on the edge of Maasailand and which framed its
ethos in opposition to the usual terms of ethnicity and
kinship discussed in most of the other essays (13 pp.).
9. Sandra Barnes provides an account of how traditional
Yoruba concepts were adapted to provide means for
organizing local government in Mushin, a large
(400,000) suburb of Lagos, that was forced to provide its
own bricolage-forms of local government in the chaotic
conditions created by rapid growth and immigration
accompanying neglect by both British and Black African
officials (22 pp.).
The quality of these essays varies greatly. None is
without some interest, although the papers by Newbury,
Barnes, and Cassanelli are the most useful and stimu-
lating because they combine detailed illustrations with
adroit analysis, hardly feasible in some of the other, far
briefer essays.
I add one negative criticism of Cassanelli’s essay,
singling his out only because I am unquestionably the
only person likely to review this volume who also is
likely to record such comments. This is because I am
likely to be the only reviewer who has written on the
matrilineal peoples of eastern Tanzania. The escaped
slaves described by Cassanelli’s essay were mainly
matrilineal Zigua from Tanzania, yet nowhere does
Cassanelli refer to any of the ethnographic material
published on traditional Zigua nor does he so much as
consider what if any bearing their traditional matrilineal
mode of social organization had on how they organized
when they secured their freedom. Yet these seem
pertinent and obvious lines for investigation.
I have postponed discussing Kopytoff s essay until
last. Its relation to the case studies appears more tenuous
than the editor seems willing to acknowledge. Yet he
appears to admit this implicitly since he felt compelled to
precede each case study with instructions as to just how a
reader should fit the material into his theory. He seems
unwilling to let these papers speak for themselves. Such
intrusive didacticism is unusual in such collections.
Kopytoff presents his concept of “the internal
African frontier” as a new theoretical breakthrough in
the analysis of how African political systems have
emerged and changed. As such, the issues which he
raises should interest both historians and social anthro-
pologists. Indeed, four of his contributors, Cassanelli,
Packard, Newbury, and Patton, are historians rather
than anthropologists. Kopytoffs notion of “frontier”
derives from Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous nine-
teenth century study of the American frontier, a work
never properly analyzed or evaluated by Kopytoff,
despite his initial claim that it provides the inspirational
germ for his theory. While such an omission at first
appears odd, it may be credited to the fact that, in
practice, Kopytoffs own argument actually related but
weakly to Turner’s.
Kopytoff claims that his model “stands Turner’s
thesis on its head, for we suggest that the frontier may
also be a force of culture-historical continuity and
conservatism” (3). It is arguable that such an interpre-
tation is not as radically opposed to Turner’s as Kopytoff
proclaims, but then reference to Turner appears to be
merely a convenient springboard for presenting what
Kopytoff has in mind. How novel Kopytoffs arguments
may appear to be depends upon the kind of anthro-
pology to which a reader is accustomed. To be fair, many
of the arguments appear sensible as initially framed.
Indeed, they are so sensible that one would be hard-put
to find many (if any) competent social anthropologists
currently writing on Africa who would be likely to
contradict them in their own work. Reservations do,
however, set in on several counts. First, the concept of
“frontier” is eventually stretched so far that it seems to
embrace any and all situations of social change where
some group alters from another. Since this can include
anything from junior lineages breaking away from
“parent” ones and suburbs proliferating with urban
sprawl to conquest or the formation of new communities
in the wilderness, Kopytoffs theory virtually embraces
all social change for all Africa. Second, Kopytoff
repeatedly argues for certain values and modes of social
organization being particularly African. Not only is this
questionable but it parochializes social issues that would
seem better considered universally. Certainly any eru-
dite anthropologist or historian could readily cite parallel
examples from other continents.
Kopytoff claims that “most African polites and
societies have, so to speak, been ‘constructed’ out of the
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
613
bits and pieces - human and cultural - of existing
societies” (3). Such an argument is presented as opposed
to “evolutionary” theories. This is a false contrast since
both modes of analysis are essential and complementary
for dealing with social change, and it is doubtful that any
intelligent theorist would disclaim either. Yet such
extreme characterizations typify Kopytoffs approach
which tends to over-simplify and distort what he views as
competitive analytical positions, only to counter these
with his own which strike me as equally one-sided and
stereotypical. Most of the ideological windmills at which
he tilts do not characterize the best of current African
studies, and it should rather be at the best, not at the
retrograde and outmoded, that one should address one’s
critical efforts at new theory and analyses.
Kopytoffs introduction opens by considering “the
African frontier” in terms of the settlements founded by
groups hiving off from core groups, what he terms an
“internal” or “interstitial frontier” (9). Certainly “the
formation of new social groups as offshoots of old ones
has been a constant theme in the histories of African
societies” (18), but where is this not so and who would
contend otherwise? Kopytoff goes on to criticize the
notion of a frontier as an “institutional vacuum.”
Clearly, if new groups form, they take with them some of
the cultural baggage of their groups of origin. The
frontier process then becomes one of cultural self-
reproduction on a regional scale (35), yet who would
contend against the notion of nihil ex nihilol Still,
Kopytoffs essay provides little to facilitate explanation
of innovation and invention which also are sometimes
key formative factors.
In the course of his account, Kopytoff informs us
“that African cultures are suffused with a sense of
hierarchy in social, political, and ritual relations” (35),
but is this particularly African? Not also Polynesian?
Northwestern Amer-Indian? Andean? East Asian?
Similarly, the fact that social and political positions are
vested in groups of kin is hardly unique (41). Rather
than belabour my criticisms, let it suffice to state that
Kopytoff yokes basic theories about kinship, segmenta-
tion, and hierarchy with his notions about how new
groups are generated particularly in Africa as though
such processes were different for that continent. One
does not want to attack the general account, but one
does wonder how one can endorse this as any kind of
innovative breakthrough, or as being special or distinc-
tive for Africa.
A point by point critique of Kopytoffs arguments
would be pointless here. The arguments are not so much
wrong as they are either obvious, overstated or overpar-
ticularized for Africa. In his efforts to make bold new
claims his observations occasionally become somewhat
distorted and confused (see his unacceptable statements
regarding “sacred kings” in Africa, 64—68). Some of
Kopytoffs arguments, upon close examination, depend
on mere word juggling. Yet there is sense in much of
Kopytoffs introduction; unfortunately, this 84 page
essay is repetitive and verbose and would have been
improved by being cut in half. As a review of some of the
African literature it may prove useful to some readers,
but as an important new theoretical Statement this fails
to make good its high daims. T. O. Beidelman
Lafitau, Joseph-François: Die Sitten der amerika-
nischen Wilden im Vergleich zu den Sitten der Frühzeit.
(Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Helmut Reim.)
Weinheim: Acta Humaniora, VCH Verlagsgesellschaft,
1987. 52 + 504 + 61 pp., Abb. Preis: DM 98,-
Der französische Jesuit Joseph-François Lafitau
(1681-1746) ist spätestens seit 1913/1914 (Arnold van
Gennep) anerkannt als der Begründer der modernen
Ethnologie als vergleichender Kulturwissenschaft.
Mühlmann nannte Lafitau den Begründer sowohl der
ethnologischen Soziologie als auch der ethnologischen
Religionsforschung (1938); sein Werk, «Moeurs des
sauvages amériquains, comparées aux moeurs des pre-
miers temps», rühmte er als die erste große ethnologi-
sche Leistung der Neuzeit und folgt damit W. Schmidt,
der ähnliches bereits früher (1924) gesagt hatte. Die
Vertreter der kulturhistorischen Schule hatten allen
Grund, auf Lafitau zu verweisen, kann er doch mit Fug
und Recht als Vorläufer ihrer Methode in Anspruch
genommen werden. Damit nicht genug: Von Lafitau
stammt auch die erste Formulierung der These des Ur-
monotheismus. Die späte, einmütige Anerkennung La-
fitaus kann allerdings nicht verdecken, daß sein Werk in
der Geschichte der Ethnologie ohne nennenswerten
Einfluß geblieben war.
Lafitau hielt sich fünf Jahre lang in der Indianer-
mission der Jesuiten am Südufer des St. Lorenz-Stromes
auf (1712-1717). Er hatte die Reise ausdrücklich unter-
nommen, um Material gegen Lahontan («Nouveaux
voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrional», 1703) und
andere Reisende zu sammeln, deren Behauptungen
über Religion, Herrschaftsfreiheit und sexuelle Freizü-
gigkeit der amerikanischen Indianer er Punkt für Punkt
widerlegen wollte. Entsprechend leitet er die Kapitel in
seinem Werk ein: „Eine Religion ist den Menschen
notwendig“ (53). „Es ist den Wilden in America durch
das Vorurtheil, als ob sie lauter Barbaren wären, die
ohne Gesetz und Policey lebten; ingleichen, daß sie
nicht die geringste Neigung zu einer Religion hätten,
auch davon bey ihnen keine Spur angetroffen würde,
kein geringes Unrecht geschehen. Jede Völkerschaft hat
ihre Beherrschungsart“ (210). „Mir scheinet . . . Son-
nenklar, daß die Heirat von allen Völkern als eine
geheiligte und feierliche Sache beständig betrachtet, und
deren Gerechtsame auch von den wildesten Völkern
verehret worden“ (246). Lafitau begann seine intensive
ethnographische Tätigkeit als Apologet. Er wollte auf-
zeigen, daß die Indianer Religion haben und an einen
Gott glauben, um so indirekt auch die Wahrheit der
christlichen Religion darzustellen. Wenn Religionskriti-
ker mit ethnographischen Fakten argumentierten, muß-
ten Lafitaus Gegenargumente sich ebenfalls auf ethno-
graphisches Tatsachenmaterial stützen. Freilich hatte
Lafitau gleich gegen zwei Fronten zu kämpfen, nämlich
auch gegen viele Missionare, die selbst immer wieder
Anthropos 83.1988
614
Rezensionen
behaupteten, die Wilden hätten weder Gesetz noch
Religion.
Beiden Gegnern gegenüber stützte sich Lafitau auf
eine gründliche Kenntnis antiker Quellen, zahlreicher
Reiseberichte und seine eigenen Beobachtungen, die er
fünf Jahre hindurch gezielt gesammelt hatte. Als guter
Beobachter und Denker sah Lafitau durchaus, daß die
Religion der Indianer nicht dem Idealbild (z. B. reiner
Monotheismus) entsprach. So führte er zur Begründung
dieses Zustandes zwei Theorien ins Feld: Eine Wande-
rungstheorie (die Indianer Nordamerikas seien Nach-
fahren antiker Völker, die nach Amerika ausgewandert
seien); eine Depravationstheorie (die reine Urreligion
der Vorfahren der Indianer habe sich im Laufe der
Geschichte verfälscht). Beide Theorien spielten später
in Ethnologie und Religionswissenschaft eine Rolle
(Urmonotheismus). Lafitau suchte Beweise für seine
Thesen im Vergleich der Kulturen der Antike und der
Kulturen der Indianer.
Wird das umfangreiche Kapitel „Von der Religion“
(52-209) noch weitgehend von apologetischen Interes-
sen des Autors bestimmt, gewinnen in anderen Kapiteln
(über Regierungsart, Heiratsbräuche, Erziehungsfor-
men, Beschäftigung und Arbeitsteilung, Krieg, Spiel
und Zeitvertreib, Krankheiten und Heilmittel, Begräb-
nisriten, Sprache) die ethnographischen Beobachtungen
zunehmend an eigenständiger Bedeutung. Lafitau findet
durch seine Beobachtungen und Vergleiche eine Art
Gliederung der menschlichen Institutionen. Er ent-
deckt, daß die Gebräuche der Menschen überall auf der
Welt sich um eine begrenzte Anzahl von Kernproble-
men gruppieren lassen (vgl. die Einteilung der Kapitel).
1752 war die erste deutsche Übersetzung von
Lafitaus Buch erschienen, 28 Jahre nach der Publikation
der französischen Erstausgabe. Die zur Rezension vor-
liegende Ausgabe ist eine Reproduktion dieser ersten
deutschen Übersetzung, die als erster Teil der zweibän-
digen „Algemeinen Geschichte der Länder und Völker
von America“ (Übersetzer: Johann Friedrich Schröter;
Herausgeber: Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten; Verleger:
Johann Justinus Gebauer, Halle/Saale) veröffentlicht
worden war. In einem Anhang sind ein Register, aus der
Vorlage übernommen aber neu gesetzt, und ein Kom-
mentar von Helmut Reim beigefügt, der vor allem die
Entstehungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte des Werkes
rekapituliert. Der stattliche Band erfüllt ein altes Desi-
derat: Endlich wird dem interessierten deutschen Leser
Lafitaus Werk wieder leichter zugänglich, das bisher
wohl nur in wenigen Bibliotheken zu finden war, etwa in
der Bibliothek des Anthropos-Institutes. Dem Verlag
gebührt dafür gewiß Anerkennung. Andererseits ist es
erstaunlich, daß sich immer noch niemand gefunden hat,
der dieses außerordentlich wichtige Werk in einer neuen
deutschen Übersetzung vorlegt. Denn Schröters deut-
sche Übersetzung ist durchaus verbesserungswürdig und
-fähig. Zudem erschwert die vorliegende fotomechani-
sche Reproduktion heutigen Lesern den Zugang zu
Lafitaus Werk doch mehr als wünschenswert, so sehr sie
auch bibliophilen und nostalgischen Empfindungen ent-
gegenkommen mag. Anton Quack
Lamberti, Marcello: Somali Language and Litera-
ture. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, 1986. 106 pp.
(African Linguistic Bibliography, 2) Preis: DM 20,-
Als Nebenprodukt seiner Doktorarbeit über „Die
Somali-Dialekte“ (Hamburg 1986) legt M„ Lamberti im
selben Jahr eine Bibliographie des somalischen Schrift-
tums vor. Sie enthält in erster Linie die westlichen
Publikationen über die somalische Sprache und Litera-
tur. Seit der offiziellen Verschriftung und der Deklarie-
rung des Somali als alleiniger Nationalsprache im Jahre
1972 sind etliche einheimische wissenschaftliche Publi-
kationen hinzugekommen, die hiermit zum ersten Mal
einem weiteren Publikum bekannt gemacht werden. Die
Bibliographie enthält jedoch nicht nur wissenschaftliche
Publikationen, sondern auch populäre Schriften, offi-
zielle Verlautbarungen und sogar Romane auf Somali.
Vielleicht wäre es ratsam gewesen, das primäre Schrift-
tum getrennt von dem sekundären aufzuführen. Als
Ersatz für die fehlende Sachgliederung wird jedoch ein
Index geboten, welcher die im Hauptteil verzeichneten
Publikationen 18 Sachgebieten zuordnet.
Außerdem umfaßt die Bibliographie einige wenige
semitohamitistische Arbeiten, wobei die Auswahlkrite-
rien nicht recht klar werden, sowie zahlreiche Kon-
greßpapiere und unveröffentlichte Manuskripte. Solche
Papiere können doch nur ein Interesse auf sich ziehen,
wenn sie Teil eines Nachlasses sind, welcher dann
gegebenenfalls anderen Forschern zur Verfügung steht.
Was nützen uns z. B. sieben Titel eines amerikanischen
„Autors“, wenn seine “Papers” alle nur in Manuskript-
form vorliegen.
Wie einem Vermerk der Herausgeber der Reihe zu
entnehmen ist, wurde die Literatur bis zum Jahre 1980
möglichst vollständig aufgenommen. Aufgrund von
Verzögerungen, die “not entirely of our making” seien,
konnte die Literatur der Jahre 1980-1985 nur noch in
unsystematischer Weise eingearbeitet werden. Das führt
zu dem kuriosen Ergebnis, daß die erwähnte Doktorar-
beit des Verfassers als unveröffentlicht verzeichnet ist,
obwohl sie im selben Jahr wie vorliegende Arbeit
erschienen ist.
Alle Titel werden, soweit sie nicht ohnehin auf
Englisch sind, mit einer englischen Übersetzung verse-
hen, wobei ein Vermerk über die Sprache des Originals
hinzugefügt wird. Das führt zu solchen Einträgen wie;
Moreno, Martino Mario. 1955. II somalo della Somalia.
[The Somali Language of Somalia. L] ... (I. =
Italian)
Reinisch, Leo. 1900-1903. Die Somalisprache (1. Die
Somali-Sprache). [The Somali Language. G.] . . . (G. =
German)
Damit wird einem Monolingualismus Vorschub gelei-
stet, der der Entwicklung einer so multilingualen Wis-
senschaft wie der Afrikanistik nicht förderlich ist. Für
den Aufbau der Bibliographie zeichnet freilich nicht der
Verfasser verantwortlich, sondern die Herausgeber der
Reihe, die im Anhang des vorliegenden Werkes ihre
Richtlinien festgelegt haben. Dennoch scheint zu diesem
Vorgehen die nachlässige Wiedergabe von Titeln in
nicht-germanischen und nicht-romanischen Sprachen zu
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
615
passen. Über die je nach Quelle unterschiedliche Um-
schrift des Arabischen wird man hinwegkommen. Die
Transliteration des Russischen ist aber einfach haar-
sträubend. Jedes zweite Wort enthält einen Fehler.
Hätte man nicht einen Slawisten mit der Transliteration
der russischen Titel beauftragen können? Auch die
wenigen polnischen Titel zeigen Fehler, die mehr als
reine Druckfehler sind. So erscheint die Zeitschrift
Przeglad orientalistyczny verstümmelt als Przeglyeskie
ohentalistyczny (11 und 90). In der Wiedergabe durch
den Bearbeiter sind diakritische Zeichen in polnischen
Wörtern und in der Umschrift des Russischen ohnehin
nicht berücksichtigt. So kann man sich in der Tat viel
Arbeit ersparen!
Trotz gewisser Einschränkungen wird man vorlie-
gende Bibliographie, solange - wie zu wünschen ist -
keine korrigierte und auf den neuesten Stand gebrachte
Neuauflage vorliegt, mit Gewinn in allen somalistischen
Angelegenheiten zu Rate ziehen. Rainer M. Voigt
Levin, Isidor (Hrsg.): Märchen vom Dach der
Welt. Überlieferungen der Pamir-Völker. Übersetzt
von Gisela Schenkowitz. Köln: Eugen Diederichs Ver-
lag, 1986. 333 pp. Preis: DM 32,-
Die vorliegende Sammlung mittelasiatischen Er-
zählguts besteht aus 33 Märchen und 22 kurzen
Schwankgeschichten, die in tajikischer Sprache überlie-
fert sind. Tierfabeln (9 Stck.), Schwänke und einige
andere Märchen verschiedenen Typs (8 Stck.) wurden
dem Folklore-Archiv der Akademie Tajikistans in Du-
shanbe entnommen. Isidor Levin ist an der zweispra-
chigen (tajikisch-russischen) Herausgabe dieser Texte
im Rahmen eines Korpuswerkes maßgeblich beteiligt.
Die übrigen hier ins Deutsche übersetzten Märchen
stammen aus verschiedenen russischen Quellen.
Dem Titel des Buches entsprechend erwartet man
sowohl im Hinblick auf die Auswahl der Erzählungen als
auch auf das ausführliche Nachwort einen engen Bezug
zum Gebirgsraum der Pamire. Viele der Märchen sind
jedoch von ihrem Typus und ihren Motiven her weiter
verbreitet oder stellen Lehngut dar; einige wurden auch
in den von Tajiken bewohnten Ebenen aufgenommen.
Man hätte Erzählungen, Sagen und Schwänke mit
stärkeren lokaltypischen Zügen auswählen bzw. vor Ort
aufnehmen sollen. Dadurch wäre das Erzählgut der
Pamir-Völker in sinnvoller Weise von dem der Uzbe-
ken, Turkmenen, Karakalpaken und chinesischen Turk-
völker abgegrenzt worden, das inzwischen durch deut-
sche Übersetzungen allgemein zugänglich ist.
Die Texte der vorliegenden Sammlung sind in vier
Gruppen eingeteilt: Sie handeln „von der Macht der
Frauen“, „von Zauberern, Padischahs und dem Si-
rnurg“, „von Traumdeutern, Gaunern, klugen Ratge-
bern“ und „von Schlauheit und List der Tiere“. Die
Schwankgeschichten hat man dabei bedenkenlos den
Tiermärchen zugeordnet. Ferner ist das Heldenmärchen
„Lohn der Güte“ nicht gerade ein Beispiel für die
„Macht der Frauen“. Ethnologisch besonders interes-
sant ist das Märchen „Die Teigpuppe“. Es reflektiert
erstaunlich offen und deutlich die Schwierigkeiten einer
in pardah lebenden jungen Ehefrau, die an ihr Haus
gebunden ist und keinen Kontakt zu ihren Mitmenschen
hat. Als Ersatz dient ihr eine Teigfigur, mit der sie
spricht und die - gängigen magischen Vorstellungen
entsprechend - ihre giftige Gallenflüssigkeit aufnimmt.
Ohne diese Geduldpuppe wäre die einsame und un-
glückliche Frau krank geworden. Über den darob
einsichtsvollen Ehemann heißt es am Schluß des Mär-
chens: „Von dem Tage an nahm der Mann sich vor, alles
zu tun .damit sein Haus von Menschen besucht wird, daß
seine Frau Umgang pflegt mit Verwandten, Freundin-
nen und Nachbarinnen“ (21).
Das leider nicht durch Kapiteleinteilungen klarer
gegliederte Nachwort (84 Seiten) erlaubt einen guten
Einblick in die landes- und volkskundlichen Gegeben-
heiten des Großraumes Mittelasien. Über die traditio-
nelle Kultur der Pamir-Völker erfährt der Leser viel zu
wenig. Hier wäre an die Geschichte und Ethnographie
der folgenden zu Afghanistan, der Sowjetunion und
China gehörenden Gebiete zu denken: Karategin, Dar-
waz, Badakhshan, Wakhan, Sheghnan, Roshan, Ishka-
shem, Zebak, Munjan, Wanj, Shakhdara, Gharan, Sary-
kol usw. Die Ausführungen im ethnographischen Teil
des Buches (286-292) - über die alltägliche Lebenswelt,
die äußere Erscheinung der Menschen, ihre Kleidung
etc. - beziehen sich jedoch in erster Linie auf die Kultur
der Steppengebiete und Oasen. Ähnliches gilt für die
eingehende Darstellung der sozio-politischen Geschich-
te und der Religionen Mittelasiens. U. a. finden sich
historische Exkurse über das Khanat Kokand (277-280),
das Kräftespiel zwischen Rußland und England im
19. Jh. (283-286) und die moderne Entwicklung Mittel-
asiens im 20. Jh. (292-300). Ferner ergeht sich Levin in
der Schilderung der Gewalttaten und Grausamkeiten,
die bis gegen Ende des 19. Jh.s in den despotisch
regierten Khanaten vorkamen (270, 272-274). Über den
Emir von Bukhara berichtet der Autor salopp: „Er
nahm sich frischfromm etwa hundert Weiber jährlich,
wohl teils aus Prestige-Gründen, teils aus maskuliner
Neugierde“ (275). Der Bezug zu den Märchen ist in
diesen Ausführungen oft zu wenig erkennbar. Insgesamt
wird auch der Eigenbeitrag der Lokalkulturen im
Pamir-Raum zu gering eingeschätzt. Der Autor sieht
z. B. Einflüsse des Zoroastrismus, Buddhismus und
Manichäismus im Erzählgut, verweist jedoch nicht auf
die Rolle der autochthonen Volksreligion und des
einheimischen Brauchtums. Levin schreibt der Bevölke-
rung sicherlich zu vorschnell einen „Mangel an histori-
schem Bewußtsein“ (321) zu. Daß er im übrigen dem
Islam nicht gerade wohlgesonnen ist, zeigen verschiede-
ne Bemerkungen und Formulierungen, die von ihrer
Diktion her auf dem Niveau älterer deutscher Schulbü-
cher stehen (261 ff., 270, 281, 305).
Bei der Lektüre des Nachwortes fallen eine Reihe
eigenartiger Wortschöpfungen und Begriffe auf, wie
„märchenhalber“, „Märchenpersonal“, „Märchenge-
rüst“, „kindertümlich“, „judenchristlich“, „entarteter
Buddhismus“, „Sejide“ (anstatt Sg. Sayid, PI. Sadat)
usw. Übersetzerin und Autor hätten hier mehr Wert auf
Anthropos 83.1988
616
Rezensionen
Sorgfalt und weniger auf Schnellarbeit legen sollen.
Überhaupt wäre angesichts der häufig antiquierten
Ausdrucksweise ein konsequentes Redigieren durch
einen Lektor angebracht gewesen.
Jürgen W. Frembgen
Linkenbach, Antje: Opake Gestalten des Den-
kens. Jürgen Habermas und die Rationalität fremder
Lebensformen. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1986.
313 pp. Preis; DM 68,-
Die Welle ,linker1 Theoriediskussionen, die seit
den späten 60er Jahren durch (nicht nur!) Deutschlands
Universitäten flutete, hat die deutsche Ethnologie merk-
würdig unberührt gelassen. Der Zeit- und Energieauf-
wand, den auch Ethnologiestudenten in den 70er Jahren
in das Studium der ,Klassiker1 (Marx, Engels, Lenin
etc.), insbesondere aber auch der Werke der bekannte-
sten Vertreter der sogenannten frankfurter Schule4
(Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer) investiert haben, statt
- wie gewünscht - Boas, Malinowski oder Mühlmann zu
lesen, hat allgemein wenig Niederschlag in ihren späte-
ren ethnographisch-ethnologischen Arbeiten gefun-
den.
Im Gegensatz zu Frankreich und z. T. auch Groß-
britannien, wo sich mit den sogenannten Struktur-
Marxisten im vergangenen Jahrzehnt ein loser Verband
von Theoretikern etablieren konnte, die zumindest
marxistische Terminologie (weniger: marxistische Theo-
rie!) zur Konstruktion ihrer ethnologischen/ethnogra-
phischen Modelle benutzen, scheint bei uns derzeit eine
eigenständige ,linke4 Ethnologie nirgends in Sicht.
Dies ist um so erstaunlicher, als sich in einem
Zentralelement deutscher, kritisch-linker Theoriedis-
kussion im Werk des ,letzten Frankfurters4, des Philoso-
phen und Sozialtheoretikers Jürgen Habermas, in den
letzten beiden Jahrzehnten eine immer deutlichere
Hinwendung zur Kulturanthropologie feststellen läßt,
die in seinem ,Opus Magnum4, der ,Theorie des kom-
munikativen Handelns4 (1981) in nichts weniger gipfelt
als einem ausgefeilten kulturanthropologischen Paradig-
ma, inklusive Handlungs-, Kultur-, Evolutions-, Be-
wußtseins- und Ideologietheorie.
Antje Linkenbachs Arbeit ist - meines Wissens -
der erste,, größer angelegte Versuch von seiten der
Ethnologie in Deutschland (!), sich diesem Paradigma
zugleich rezipierend und kritisch zu nähern - und zwar
insbesondere dem Teil des Paradigmas, der die größte
Relevanz für die Ethnologie im traditionellen Sinne
besitzt: Habermas’ Theorie der kulturellen Evolution.
Dieser Versuch allein ist lobenswert, auch wenn er mir
im Ergebnis nicht immer befriedigend ausgefallen er-
scheint.
Habermas’ Werk, das Frau Linkenbach in seiner
ganzen Breite zu berücksichtigen versucht, ist bekannt-
lich von einem schon fast hemmungslos zu nennenden
Eklektizismus bzw. der enzyklopädischen4, alle Fach-
bindungen sprengenden Breite der in ihm behandelten
Themata, Konzeptionen und Theoretiker gekennzeich-
net, aus deren immanenter Kritik sein Autor die
Bausteine zur eigenen Theorie herausschält. Dies macht
es äußerst schwierig, Habermas’ Paradigma in einer
präzisen, in sich logischen, von generelleren zu speziel-
leren Annahmen fortschreitenden Weise zusammenfas-
send darzustellen.
Frau Linkenbach hat diese Aufgabe meiner Mei-
nung nach in hervorragender Weise gelöst. In der Tat
scheint sie mir dort am besten, wo sie sich geduldig und
mit viel Gespür für das Zentrale durch Habermas’
theoretische Produktion zu jenen ,Nennern4 hindurch-
windet, die dem Ganzen zu unterliegen scheinen, und
den spezifischen Gebrauch jener Begriffe und Konzep-
tionen aufweist, die sich Habermas immer wieder bei
den bekanntesten Vertretern aller möglichen Fachrich-
tungen und Disziplinen ausleiht: Weltbild und Rationa-
lisierung, Arbeit und Interaktion sowie System und
Lebenswelt.
Am schwächsten erscheint mir aber ihre Arbeit
leider gerade dort, wo Frau Linkenbach von der
Rezeption und Präsentation Habermas’scher Theorie
und Begrifflichkeit zur ethnologischen Kritik übergeht.
Zentralthema der Kritik von Frau Linkenbach an
Habermas ist verständlicherweise dessen Konstruktion
eines Stufenmodells kultureller Evolution in expliziter
Analogie zum ontogenetischen Stufenmodell, das von
Piaget, Kohlberg u. a. entwickelt wurde, um die kogni-
tive Entwicklung des Menschen vom ,symbiotischen4
Säugling zum ,universalistischen4 Erwachsenen zu be-
schreiben. Frau Linkenbachs Kritik an dieser Konstruk-
tion besteht nun primär in der kategorischen Feststel-
lung, daß diese Konstruktion unhaltbar, weil ,ethnozen-
tristisch4 sei.
Der Ethnozentrismus-Vorwurf ist der vernichtend-
ste Bannstrahl, den die Ethnologie gegen alle Theorien,
Konzepte und Vorstellungen verbringen kann, die
,Andere4 in eine bewertende Relation zum Sprecher/
Theoretiker bringen. Diese ,Waffe4 wird freilich schnell
stumpf, wenn sie immer wieder nur dazu verwandt wird,
um unliebsame theoretische Grundpositionen allein aus
einer ,moralischen4 Position heraus zu verbieten.
Frau Linkenbachs Position ist natürlich, daß es nur
eine legitime Konzeption der klassifikatorischen Ord-
nung von Kulturen zueinander geben darf, nämlich die
Konzeption des totalen Relativismus. Kulturen sind
untereinander nur schlicht verschieden, und jeder Ver-
such, ihre Verschiedenheit zu ,bewerten4 - und hierzu
gehört bereits der Versuch, sie nach ihren Ähnlichkeiten
untereinander in klassifikatorische Gruppen zu fassen,
und solche Gruppen in eine evolutionäre Sequenz4
zueinander zu bringen ist bereits Ethnozentrismus.
Nun haftet natürlich jeder evolutionären Sequenz,
die in einem Gesellschaftstypus gipfelt, dem sich der
Theoretiker selbst angehörig fühlt (bei Habermas: die
Moderne!), in der Tat sogleich der üble Geruch ethno-
zentristischen Dünkels an. Allzu leicht kann eine solche
Konzeption zur ideologischen Rechtfertigung von Kolo-
nialismus, Abhängigkeit, Missionierung und ,gelenkter
Akkulturation4 mißbraucht werden. Nur trifft eine
solche Unterstellung Habermas' Intention nicht im
geringsten.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
617
Umgekehrt müßte es Frau Linkenbach bei ihrer
feinfühligen Rekonstruktion des Habermas’schen Para-
digmas aufgegangen sein, daß für ihn und seine theore-
tische Intention der radikale Relativismus, den sie
fordert, gänzlich inakzeptabel sein muß. Die Ironie des
Linkenbach’schen Ethnozentrismusvorwurfs gegen Ha-
bermas besteht gerade darin, daß Habermas seine ganze
Arbeit als einen theoretischen Kampf gegen eine ihm
,ideologisch1, unsere Gesellschaft im Kern gefährdende
Position auffaßt, welche eine Form von Rationalität (die
instrumentell-zielgerichtete) zur einzigen stilisiert (und
damit die Klassifikation anderer als ,irrational1 möglich
macht), ohne daß Habermas bereit wäre, die Negation
dieser Position mit der Unfähigkeit zu bezahlen, jeder
Lebensweise gegenüber Stellung nehmen zu können,
und damit das emanzipatorische Grundpostulat seiner
kritischen Theorie aufzugeben.
Denn: Weit davon entfernt, unsere zur besten aller
Welten stilisieren zu wollen, braucht Habermas die
evolutionistische Perspektive ja gerade dazu, diese
(unsere!) Welt anfechten zu können, ohne ihre Vorteile
leugnen zu müssen.
Wenn etwas zu kritisieren ist an Habermas’ evolu-
tionistischem Modell, dann dies: Wie die meisten
,Evolutionisten‘ vor ihm konstruiert auch Habermas
seine Stadien ,genereller1 Evolution weit mehr aus der
logischen Negation der eigenen Kultur (Gesellschaft/
Realität), als daß er sie aus den Ergebnissen der
Ethnologie und Archäologie gewänne. Hierbei hilft ihm
(und dies ist eine weitere Pointe des Linkenbach’schen
Ethnozentrismusvorwurfs) gerade eine (oberflächliche)
Rezeption einer ganzen Reihe klassischer Ethnologie-
Theoretiker (von Leach und M. Fortes bis Lévi-Strauss
und Godelier!), die - in ihrem Bemühen, die ,Relativi-
tät1 von Kultur zu beweisen (die sie natürlich anders als
Habermas konzipieren) - gerade jene mythischen Mit-
glieder ,neolithischer‘ Kulturen erst geschaffen haben,
die Habermas uns vorführt, mit ihrer vorgeblichen
Unfähigkeit, zwischen menschlichen und göttlichen
Handlungen, natürlichen und sozialen Phänomenen,
Tradition und Mythos zu unterscheiden, und deren
,ganz anderes Ich1 (Negation) wir selbst sein sollen.
Habermas’ grandioser Entwurf eines human-wis-
senschaftlichen Paradigmas, das zugleich phänomenolo-
gisch und kritisch, neo-kantianisch und marxistisch sein
will (man entscheide selbst, ob das Zusammengehen
kann!), steht (ungewollt?) im Brennpunkt rezenter,
internationaler, kulturanthropologischer Theoriedis-
kussion. Erhellende Bezüge zu Arbeiten von Geertz,
Sahlins, V. Turner und anderen bieten sich darin in
Fülle. Frau Linkenbachs Buch ist eine sensible, gut
lesbare Einführung in dieses Paradigma. Es zeigt klar
seine zentrale Relevanz für die brennendsten Fragen
ethnologischer Theorie auf. Von daher ist es mehr als
empfehlenswert. Eine begründete ethnologische Kritik
des Paradigmas kann und muß erfolgen, sobald es in
allen seinen Dimensionen rezipiert worden ist.
Erwin H. Frank
Maffesoli, Michel: Der Schatten des Dionysos. Zu
einer Soziologie des Orgiasmus. Frankfurt: Syndikat,
1986. 184 pp. [Frz. Orig. Paris 1982] Preis: DM 28,-
Gegenstand dieser Untersuchung ist das „orgiasti-
sche Lebensgefühl“, der Orgiasmus, das von der herr-
schenden Norm und vor allem Sexualmoral Abweichen-
de, das Zügellose und Leidenschaftliche im Leben von
Personen wie Sozietäten. Obwohl Liebe, Eros und
Sexualität im Zentrum der Betrachtung stehen, werden
auch andere Bereiche (Religion, Tod, Drogen - vor
allem Alkohol) berücksichtigt.
Dieses orgiastische Lebensgefühl interessiert Maf-
fesoli als Merkmal und als Faktor im sozialen Leben. Er
untersucht die Auswirkungen und Funktionen, die
Abweichungen und Übereinstimmungen, die Konstanz
und den Wandel sowie die Einheitlichkeit und Variation
des Leidenschaftlichen beim Menschen allgemein. Sein
Ziel ist eine generelle Theorie des Orgiastischen, eine
„Logik der Leidenschaften“ (11), als Teil und Vorstufe
zu einer allgemeinen Soziotheorie des Alltagslebens
(174 ff.).
Als Verfahren wählt er eine „der filmischen Tech-
nik der ,Anschlußblende1 nicht unähnliche Querlektü-
re■“, eine „anthropologische Kreuzfahrt“ (12), in der er
zeitlich wie räumlich breitest streuend ethnografische
Fallbeispiele, historische Bilder, „Mythologeme1 (22),
Anekdoten, Metaphern, literarische Gestalten und fik-
tive Ereignisse sowie Alltagserfahrungen einbezieht und
auswertet. Insgesamt ist sein Vorgehen eine entdecken-
de und erfindende Theoriebildung mittels eines frei
befundorientierten globalen Kulturenvergleichs.
Das Ergebnis der Untersuchung ist vor allem eine
reiche Sammlung von zahllosen Fallbeispielen für das
Auftreten und die Auswirkungen des orgiastischen
Lebensgefühls, aber auch eine weitgehend deskriptive,
zum Teil erklärende und manchmal (normativ-)progno-
stische Theorie, die im orgiastischen Lebensgefühl eine
der wesentlichen Strukturen von Sozietät sieht und eine
entscheidende Wirkung des Orgiastischen für das Sozie-
täre behauptet.
Der Bericht ist sehr essayistisch bis literarisch,
völlig quellenunkritisch und kaum auf Durchsichtigkeit,
Überprüfbarkeit und Nachvollziehbarkeit angelegt. Er
ist relativ stark mit (zum Teil versteckten) Autoritätsar-
gumenten durchsetzt und häufig eher überredend als
überzeugend oder begründend. Das Fehlen einer detail-
lierten Gliederung und von Registern erschwert das
Zurechtfinden und das Auffinden des sehr reichen
Materials.
Maffesolis Werk ist in zweifacher Hinsicht anre-
gend: Es lenkt das Augenmerk auf einen bisher weitge-
hend vernachlässigten Bereich und offensichtlich auch
einflußreichen Faktor personeller wie sozietärer Exi-
stenz. Und es ist ein Beispiel für eine oft fantasievolle,
sehr materialreiche und teilweise originell beobachtende
und schlußfolgernde Theorieerfindung, die viele Hin-
weise und Elemente enthält, deren kritische, begrün-
dende und systematisierende Weiterverfolgung lohnen
könnte. Sein Ziel, „etwas zu denken zu geben“ (9), hat
Maffesoli jedenfalls erreicht. Andreas Bruck
Anthropos 83.1988
618
Rezensionen
Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer:
Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An Experimental
Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: The Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1986. xiii+204pp. Price:
$ 25.25
The statement that in recent cultural anthropology
we have to do with an unusual pluralism of theoretical-
methodological attitudes is certainly neither astonishing
nor revealing. G. E. Marcus and M. M. J. Fischer from
the Department of Anthropology at Rice University
raise a thesis, however, which, from a European
perspective, may seem to be exaggerated. They claim
that, in spite of an unquestionable diversity of theories
and methods, in the United States, cultural anthropolo-
gy is experiencing both an intellectual and institutional
crisis. They simultaneously try to outline such a perspec-
tive for the science which will allow one to assume an
attitude towards achievements obtained up to the pres-
ent, and will permit the setting up of anthropology as a
peculiar type of cultural critique with a quite radical
social profile. In the opinion of the researchers from
Rice University, today’s crisis in cultural anthropology is
a special case of a more general situation in social science
which they call “a crisis of representation.”
The situation of ethnologist researchers is specific
in so far as they have always been entangled in
moral-ethnical problems, since the primitive or under-
developed societies they have studied and described,
have, in comparison with modern civilization, rapidly
started to lose their self-identity and often even their
physical existence.
Social and cultural anthropology of the XXth
century seemed to promise western readers some kind of
“enlightenment” on two levels: (1) by protecting var-
ious forms of cultural life from the process of total
westernization, (2) by elaborating forms of cultural
critique and analysis of ourselves, members of western
culture. As proposed by the authors in the title,
“anthropology as cultural critique” relates to both of the
above mentioned problems.
The arrangement of the book is very lucid -
considerations that depict the broad panorama of XXth
century human thought interweave with discussions on
trends within anthropology that are just as broad - from
functionalism and naive realism, through structuralism,
interpretive and psychoanalytic anthropology, to cul-
tural critique as postulated by the authors. As far as the
first area of problems is concerned, we can notice in the
humanities some departure from global theories in favor
of the interpretation and description of social reality,
inspired by literary critique. This intellectual trend has
also been reflected in anthropology: in its concentration
on ethnographic monographs as an almost literary result
of research; and in the formation of so-called “interpre-
tive anthropology,” the pioneers of which were C.
Geertz and D. Schneider in the ’60s.
The main thesis defended by Marcus and Fischer is
that since the ’60s experimental anthropology has
tended to employ knowledge about other cultures to the
study of unrealized assumptions in our own culture.
Ethnography, the descriptive basis for every anthropo-
logical theory, includes “playing” with various theoreti-
cal concepts and notions for the remodelling of social
theory. The authors maintain that the period of experi-
mentation has not been completed yet, as some imagine,
and - what is more - that it should never be terminated,
since this enables one to determine the limits of con-
temporary theories of society and to elaborate state-
ments concerning the nature of social reality as such.
Marcus and Fischer distinguish 3 groups of experimen-
tal anthropological texts - psychodynamic, realistic,
and modernistic. They devote most attention to the last
two, since works of those spheres most nearly approxi-
mate the postulates of anthropology as cultural critique.
Most important in the book are the last two
chapters, devoted to an explicit presentation of views on
the idea of cultural critique practiced in recent anthro-
pology. Let us take no account here of works from other
domains, often referred to by Marcus and Fischer, which
may be associated with that idea, and let us mention only
that they see their precursors basically in the Frankfurt
School of surrealists under the banner of M. Leiris and
G. Bataille, and in American “documentary criticism.”
In order to express the thesis of “critical anthropology”
most precisely, we could say that it is to deny the
obviousness of the present research model. The contem-
porary world with its extremely complex social, eco-
nomic, and political situation challenges researchers,
who can no longer isolate themselves in their hermet-
ic “cabinets of theory” and practice a purely descrip-
tive anthropology that serves only a narrow group of
specialists. The number of potential “receivers” has
increased considerably and the previous “subjects of the
study” are no longer passive objects of scientific
consideration, but become partners who possess equal
rights in the dialog of cultures which is carried on always
there where the anthropologist goes beyond the limits of
his own society. Anthropology, understood in an up-
to-date manner, does not restrict its field of study to
exotic cultures (if we can still refer to them in this way); it
also examines its own society using knowledge about
other cultural systems for the critique of its own culture.
Therefore cultural critique sets itself two directions - it is
both an analysis of the socio-cultural reality of the
researcher and an intercultural comparative analysis of
the contemporary world. It is a question of the reciproc-
ity of perspectives here, a matter of the abolition of the
traditional dichotomy between “the researcher” and
“those being examined”; the former is the object of
epistemological self-critique as well as every other
examined subject. The critique extends to one’s own
society as well as to a society linguistically and culturally
distinct from one’s own.
Anthropology as cultural critique is conceived as a
socially engaged discipline which puts forward the
postulates of realistic liberalism. It should serve - if my
understanding of the authors’ intentions is correct - the
interests of the middle class which is conceived as a
“mass receiver” of the works of anthropologists. It has
been stressed that ideally each work about a different
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
619
culture should simultaneously constitute an example of
the self-analysis of the researcher’s cultural prejudice.
This will protect him from the temptation of an idealized
contrast between “we” and “the others,” often encoun-
tered in anthropology.
Several theoretical-methodological and practical
consequences are brought about if one agrees with the
above postulates. One of them - probably too little
discussed by Marcus and Fischer - is the new form of
relativism: the relativity thesis constitutes a basic axio-
logical assumption here, justified by purely social rather
than cognitive reasons. When we take a relativistic view
of our statements we protect ourselves against some kind
of “scientific imperialism” and against the assumption
that our judgements are final. Cultural reality is only
some mental construct; each statement of the anthropol-
ogists constitutes a similar construct as he relates to a
state of affairs which is unsteady and multidimensional.
The authors present an interesting example of the
attempts of D. Schneider who shows how it is possible to
apply categories taken from the so-called primitive
cultures to the analysis of American society. This is a
modern reversal of the old ethnological perspective! A
doubt of epistemological nature arises though; is it
possible that any kind of multidimensional cultural
critique totally controlled and clearly conceived, could
completely eliminate the danger of ethnocentrism? We
do not find a satisfactory answer to that question, and
this is one of the basic problems that scientists of this
field are faced with.
Another question that arises is the future develop-
ment of anthropology. Will the criterion for this devel-
opment be included in cognitive achievements yet to
come, or in the “depth” of the critiques (or self-cri-
tiques), or in a combination of these trends? There is a
danger of further increasing the pluralism of the ap-
proaches, languages, and methods of experimentation.
Consequently, it may appear that cultural critique will
take the form of some monads with common features
hard to find.
When reading the book of Marcus and Fischer one
is challenged to formulate a lot of questions of the above
type, and we can perceive here its great value. This is a
book that could be the germ of an unusually interesting
discussion on the condition of contemporary anthropol-
ogy, and, taking a broad view of it, on the position of the
man in the contemporary world. Cultural anthropology
certainly has a lot to say in this problematic area.
Finally, I would like to suggest still another
consequence of practicing anthropology in the way
suggested in this work. It seems to me that consequent
realization of the ideals of anthropology as cultural
critique leads to the negation of scientific activity
conceived as the work of a specialized and isolated group
of people who deal with their particular field. What will
be the function of ethnographers in a society which is
totally aware of itself and of other cultures - a situation
at least theoretically imaginable. Will this society be a
fulfillment of ideals advocated in Anthropology as
Cultural Critique? Wojciech Burszta
Marschall, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): Der große Archipel.
Schweizer ethnologische Forschungen in Indonesien. Le
grand Archipel. Recherches ethnologiques suisses en
Indonésie. Bern: Schweizerische Ethnologische Gesell-
schaft, 1985. viii+391 pp. Ktn., Fig., Fotos, Tab. (Eth-
nologica Helvetica, 10)
Der vorliegende Sammelband will mit Beiträgen
über einzelne Kulturen Indonesiens die kulturelle Viel-
falt in diesem Archipel dokumentieren (viii). Da die
Verfasser der Artikel meistenteils Ethnologen in oder
aus der Schweiz sind, verspricht der Band zusätzlich
Auskunft darüber, ob es so etwas wie eine schweizer
Perspektive in der Indonesienforschung gibt.
Der Herausgeber stellt dem Werk eine kurze
Einleitung über die schweizer ethnologische Forschung
in Indonesien voran. Im 19. Jh. finden sich einige
Reisende und Forscher mit Südostasieninteressen, doch
gewinnt man aus dem Überblick den Eindruck, daß die
schweizer Forschung über diese Region erst in der
jüngeren Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, vor allem in
Basel und Bern, einen systematischen Aufschwung
genommen hat.
Die Beiträge von Alain M. Viaro («Analyse mor-
phologique de l’espace villageois à Nias: essai de
typologie»), Gaudenz Domenig („Duale Opposition
und einseitige Ergänzung an Kultbauten der Sa’dan
Toraja“) sowie Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin („Blockbau-
ten der Sa’dan Toraja. Materialien zur Geschichte der
Toraja aufgrund von früheren Hausformen“) befassen
sich mit traditioneller Architektur. Alle drei Aufsätze
verbinden eine solide Darstellung der handwerklichen
und materiellen Aspekte ihres Themas mit dem Ver-
such, weitergehende Bezüge herzustellen: Viaro behan-
delt die Verflechtung mit der politischen Struktur;
Domenig bemüht sich um die Anbindung von Bauele-
menten an symbolische Gegensatzpaare; Hauser-
Schäublin versucht eine kulturhistorische Rekonstruk-
tion. Während die beschreibenden Teile schlüssig die
architektonische Vielfalt dokumentieren, sind die wei-
tergehenden Ausführungen zwar anregend, aber in ihrer
Aussagekraft weniger verbindlich.
Wolfgang Marschalls Artikel über „Die Töpfer von
Pakundhen“, einem auf dieses Handwerk spezialisierten
Weiler in Mitteljava, verknüpft eine bündige Darlegung
der technischen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekte mit der
Diskussion des Verfalls dieser alten Handwerksproduk-
tion in der Gegenwart und der daraus entstehenden
Probleme für die Bewohner. Das Beispiel zeigt deutlich
die Gefährdung im Fall der Abhängigkeit von einer
ökonomischen Spezialisierung. Sein lesenswerter Bei-
trag wirft die Frage auf, ob die Verdrängung traditionel-
ler Produktionsformen durch industriell gefertigte Mas-
senware - mit durchaus beklagenswerten negativen
Konsequenzen für die unmittelbar betroffenen Men-
schen - nicht immer schon vorkam (in Java sicherlich,
wenn man z. B. an die Ersetzung einheimischer Baum-
wolle durch Importtuche um die Jahrhundertwende
denkt) und überhaupt aufzuhalten ist. Wäre nicht die
frühzeitige Förderung ökonomischer Diversifizierung
eine vorausschauende Hilfe für solche Krisen- und
Anthropos 83.1988
620
Rezensionen
Übergangssituationen? Werner F. Schneeberger
(“Some Notes on the Hilt of the Keris”) versucht im
nächsten Aufsatz eine kulturhistorische Analyse der
Schnitzereien am Griff außerjavanischer Dolche, die die
Form von Hockfiguren haben. Er interpretiert diese als
historisch frühere Darstellungen mythischer Ahnen im
Gegensatz zur sonst üblichen hindu-javanischen Deu-
tung als Garuda-Abbild. Adrian Linder vertieft den
mythischen Leitgedanken in seiner interessant zu lesen-
den, vielschichtigen Schilderung „Panday Domas: über
einen mythischen Ahnen bei Sunda-Schmieden in West-
java und die Schwierigkeiten beim Versuch, ihm auf die
Spur zu kommen“. Er zeigt die Kluft zwischen den
hochbewerteten Schmiedemeistern der mythischen Er-
zählungen einerseits und der schlechten Lage der zeitge-
nössischen Eisenwerker andererseits auf. Deren orale
Traditionen, die keinem einheitlichen Muster folgen,
versuchen letztlich im Brückenschlag zur besseren Ver-
gangenheit ihre gegenwärtige Misere symbolisch zu
überhöhen. Eva Seiler betont in „Gesundheitsversor-
gung bei den Karo-Batak (Nordsumatra) im Spannungs-
feld zwischen indigener und westlicher Medizin“ den
hohen Stellenwert der einheimischen, „ganzheitlichen“
Medizin für die Gesundheitsfürsorge in der Region.
Christian Pelras stellt in seinem Aufsatz «les éléments du
rituel populaire bugis» dar, die als Tradition dieser
Ethnie über den mythischen Epen und der islamischen
Orthodoxie oft übersehen wird. Er beschreibt einge-
hend die Ingredienzien der Opfer als Kernelemente des
Volksrituals und endet mit der Fallanalyse eines solchen
Ritus. Barbara Lüem („Sag mir, wessen Kind du trägst,
und ich sage dir, wer du bist. Zur Stellung des Kindes bei
den Tenggeresen“) schildert einfühlsam die wichtige
Position und das allmähliche Hineinwachsen der Kinder
in die Erwachsenenwelt. Danker Schaareman („Kontext
und die Interpretation von Adat-Regeln in einem
balischen Dorf“) stellt einerseits die verwickelte Zuge-
hörigkeit balinesischer Dorfbewohner zu verschiedenen
sich partiell überlappenden Vereinigungen dar und
analysiert dann auf diesem Hintergrund einen Verstoß
gegen das adat, nämlich eine Mißachtung des rituellen
Kontextes und die daraus erwachsenden Konflikte
zwischen Gruppen im untersuchten Dorf. Urs Ramseyer
setzt das Thema in „Desa Adat Tenganan Pegeringsin-
gan: Soziorituelle Organisationen einer altbalinesischen
Kultgemeinschaft“ fort. Er beschreibt die vielfältigen
sozialen Gruppierungen in einem altbalinesischen,
hauptsächlich auf das Ritual spezialisierten Dorf der
Gegenwart einschließlich ihrer religiösen Hintergründe.
Zum Schluß betont er Wandeltendenzen im Ritualsy-
stem aufgrund von wirtschaftlich motivierter Abwande-
rung der jüngeren Generation. Stefan Dietrichs Studie
über „,Religiöse1 und ,säkulare1 Reaktionen gegen die
koloniale Verwaltung auf Flores“ ist eine kenntnisreiche
ethnohistorische Analyse der kolonialen Durchdringung
von Flores. Der Autor weist nach, daß militanter Protest
wie Heilerwartungsbewegungen gleichermaßen Reak-
tionen auf wirtschaftliche und politische Außeneingriffe
darstellten und daß lediglich in einer als machtlos
erwiesenen Situation die säkularen Rebellionen durch
religiös inspirierte Protestbewegungen abgelöst wurden.
Albert Leeman und Werner Röll untersuchen aus
geographischer Sicht „Lombok (Indonesien); Der Zu-
gang der ländlichen Bevölkerung zum Produktionsfak-
tor Boden“. Den Kern ihres Artikels bilden regionale
Umfragedaten, doch werden kleinere Fallbeispiele zur
Verdeutlichung des quantitativen Befunds, etwa bei der
Schilderung der komplizierten Pachtverhältnisse, hinzu-
gezogen. Jean-Luc Maurer («Modernisation agricole et
changement socio-économique à Java: Kutagandok, un
village de la grande plaine rizicole de Karawang») liefert
eine interessante Fallstudie der Ergebnisse der grünen
Revolution in einem Dorf aus einer hochproduktiven
Reisanbauregion in Westjava. Er kommt (wie auch
andere Vergleichsstudien) zum Schluß, daß Einkom-
mensgewinn bei allen mit einer Zunahme der sozialen
Differenzierung erkauft wurde. Der Abschlußaufsatz
von Reimar Schefold („Kulturelle Transformationen im
„Ethnologischen Studienfeld11 Indonesien“) greift das
neuerdings wieder häufiger diskutierte Alt-Leidener
Thema von Indonesien als einer einheitlichen Kulturre-
gion und darum einem idealen ethnologischen Studien-
feld auf. Nach einer Skizze dieser Forschungstradition
und einiger ihrer Probleme vergleicht Schefold thema-
tisch verwandte Mythen aus Mentawai und dem Mina-
hasa-Gebiet. Gerade die Unterschiede in den Mythen
bei ansonsten großer Ähnlichkeit erlauben Hinweise auf
unterschiedliche Werthaltungen in beiden Kulturen;
eine um Harmonie bemühte Orientierung einerseits, ein
heroisches Grundmotiv andererseits. Diese gegensätzli-
che Orientierung findet sich auch in anderen Lebensbe-
reichen der verglichenen Fälle wieder. Dieser Vergleich
im vorliegenden Aufsatz ist sehr instruktiv. Eine gewisse
Skepsis beim Rezensenten bezüglich der allgemeinen
Fruchtbarkeit des wiederentdeckten Studienfeld-Para-
digmas wird allerdings nicht ausgeräumt: Seit zwei
Generationen hegen die holländischen Ethnologen die-
se Forschungsrichtung; dennoch bleiben gravierende
Pobleme offen: die willkürliche und beschränkte Aus-
wahl der betrachteten Merkmale wie Kulturen, ebenso
die eher intuitive Abgrenzung des indonesischen1 Stu-
dienfelds von den südostasiatischen und ozeanischen
Nachbarregionen.
Zusammengefaßt enthält der Band viele interes-
sante und lesenswerte Einzelbeiträge. Die regionale
Klammer gibt der Edition jedoch keine systematisch/
thematische Geschlossenheit, so daß das Buch im
wesentlichen nur an der Region interessierte Leser
anspricht. Schwerpunkte in der rezenten schweizer
Indonesienforschung sind erkennbar: materielle Kultur;
kulturhistorische und symbolische Analysen; Feldfor-
schungen zur Wirtschaft, sozialen und politischen Orga-
nisation und zum Recht in lokal erfaßten Kulturen des
Archipels. Eine eigenständige schweizer Perspektive
der Indonesienforschung begründet dies nicht (muß ja
auch nicht!). Die Melange aus kulturhistorischen Tradi-
tionen, holländisch/französisch inspiriertem Post-Struk-
turalismus und „dichten Beschreibungen“ einzelner
Kulturen auf der Basis von Feldforschung oder histori-
scher Analyse entspricht auch dem Stand der ethnologi-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
621
sehen Südostasienforschung in der Bundesrepublik.
Bemerkenswert ist die Qualität der hier gesammelten
schweizer Beiträge. Thomas Schweizer
Merkur, Daniel: Becoming Half Hidden: Shaman-
ism and Initiation among the Inuit. Stockholm: Alm-
qvist & Wiksell International, 1985. 305 pp. (Stockholm
Studies in Comparative Religion, 24)
This is number twenty-four in the Acta Universita-
tis Stockholmiensis Studies in Comparative Religion,
and was a doctoral dissertation for University of
Stockholm’s Department of Comparative Religion. The
book is paperback and the production in an inexpensive
typescript style; the study is of interest to circumpolar
Eskimologists, and additionally useful to folklorists,
anthropologists, and scholars concerned with religions.
However, there are serious reservations.
In Merkur’s study, the shamanism of the Inuit of
Asia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland is examined from
the esoteric perspective of shamans, by using what
Merkur refers to as “scientific psychology” to control
the ethnographic data. After surveying shamans’ eso-
teric religious functions, the study refutes theories of
shamans as pathological personalities (a) who are sanc-
tioned by their cultures and (b) who are healed during
their initiations. The image of the shaman as a “healed
leader,” found in some Alaska groups, is a misdirection
(states Merkur) that prevents laity from discovering the
shamans’ secrets. Inuit laity are familiar with a great
range of religious experiences: religious trances, rever-
ies, dreams, and apperception of miracles. Shamans
alone are able to command helping spirits. Their seances
depend on use of hypnotic trance; different depths of
trance are specific to different goals and activities.
Different trances summon helping spirits, hostile spirits,
and facilitate journeying as free-soul.
Merkur finds that initiations involve an esoteric,
sequenced use of three types of ecstasy. First, the
initiator extracts the initiand’s free-soul, leaving him to
return to his body on his own. The initiator also acquires
“inner light” for the initiand, making him clairvoyant.
These uses of hetero-hypnosis cultivate a capacity for
deep trances. Second is a lonely vision quest in the
interior that results in the deadly attack of a hostile spirit
and/or the gift of the song or name that commands a
spirit. Sensory deprivation produces the experience. The
initiand must master his emotions and thoughts in order
to control it. “Initiatory death” is a complication of the
basic experience that is ecologically conditioned by
kayak-angst, a pathology that afflicts Inuit kayakers. In
folklore, both positive and negative sensory deprivation
experiences may be portrayed as journeys to the moon
and sun. Having learned to be active rather than passive
when ecstatic, the initiand turns to self-hypnotic trances,
in which he acquires helping spirits and practises seance
techniques. Lastly, the initiand reveals himself to the
community by demonstrating his powers in his first
seance.
This is the first study to discuss shamanism and
initiation from the perspective of shamans rather than
from the laity’s point of view. The latter may believe that
shamans die and resurrect. But shamans live to tell the
tales, and thus can afford no illusion concerning the
symbolic understanding of the religious language. Mer-
kur’s goal is to get behind this language in order to
understand the experience. He is a Canadian historian of
religions whose early studies were at York University,
Canada. Merkur mentions no personal fieldwork among
the Inuit. Perhaps this is irrelevant, because shamanism
is now defunct. However, from the anthropological
point of view, participant observation for a period within
a tradition-oriented Inuit community may have added
insight. For instance, in numerous Alaskan Eskimo
communities, traditional music and dance are associated
with festivals and ceremonies such as the Whaling Feast
and the Walrus Festival. Observing one aspect of
traditional ritual may clarify another aspect, such as
old-time shamanism. Certainly there are informants in
Alaska, Canada, and Greenland who remember the
shaman members of their traditional communities, and
who relate significant incidents, and give excellent oral
reports on ancient shaman activities.
Merkur’s study relies largely on excerpts from
Balikci, Birket-Smith, Boas, Eliade, Hawkes, Holtved,
Jenness, Lantis, Rasmussen, Stefansson, Thalbitzer,
and numerous contemporary works and ethnologies.
Many of these are valuable and reliable studies, and
their use as a resource unquestioned. However, Merkur
is somewhat indiscriminate in his use of each and every
report and study which happens to be available. Indeed,
it would be difficult to name a source he has not used,
including numerous Freudian writers and numerous
non-anthropologists. In some cases, Merkur makes
deductions from non-anthropologists who are making
deductions, increasing the possibility of compounding of
errors. While Merkur’s findings may be interesting and
even correct, they are not proved, meaning that his study
is by no means a reliable resource for future scholars. It
is, like many dissertations, a skilled and interesting
exercise in tracking down useful data, and the lack of
questioning of sources increases the possibility for
biased selectivity. Nowhere, for instance, is there
reference to the many written challenges, oppositions,
and counter-statements in anthropological journals, to
the many articles cited in Merkur’s study. If there was
controversy surrounding a cited study, the reader never
learns about it; studies are used according to their utility
in furthering Merkur’s goals. He apparently has come up
through the loose anthropological culture-and-personal-
ity school of the 1960s and remains somewhat oblivious
to the more empirical ethnopsychology of Michael Cole
and others, who later established stringent parameters
for deducing emic thought, and understanding non-
Western cognitive processes.
The study is not recommended as a model for
conducting ethnopsychological research. It is, however,
useful as a new way of thinking about ancient Inuit
shamanism, and as a way of creating an alternative
Anthropos 83.1988
622
Rezensionen
approach to Inuit initiation. Additionally, it is of utility
in that it brings together in one book the many
references and observations of early writers and later
theorists, concerning Inuit shamanism.
Thomas F. Johnston
Miller, Daniel: Artefacts as Categories. A Study of
Ceramic Variability in Central India. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1985. 253 pp. illus. (New
Studies in Archaeology) Price; £ 25.00
Dieses in der Reihe ‘New Studies in Archaeology’
der Cambridge University Press erschienene, hervorra-
gend publizierte Buch hinterläßt beim Rezensenten
einen zwiespältigen Eindruck.
Miller, der sowohl Archäologe als auch Ethnologe
ist, versucht auf der Grundlage einer ethnologischen
Feldforschung, in der detailliert das Töpferhandwerk
und die Keramik in einem Dorf in Malwa (Zentralin-
dien) aufgenommen werden, die Struktur sowie das
kognitive und symbolische Feld der Artefakte zu erfor-
schen und eine strukturale Theorie der ,Artefakte als
Kategorien1 zu entwickeln. Gleichzeitig sollen klassische
Probleme der Klassifizierung und Kategorisierung von
Artefakten kritisch überwunden und auf eine neue
Grundlage gestellt werden. Es ist somit der Versuch,
über in der Archäologie (und Ethnologie) übliche
formale Klassifizierungen und Kategorisierungen nach
Technik, Verbreitung, Form, Funktion, Stilkategorien
etc. hinaus zu Kategorisierungen zu gelangen, die die
den menschlichen Artefakten inhärenten variablen
praktischen, sozialen, rituellen und kognitiven Bezüge
und Kategorisierungen im kontextuellen Rahmen ein-
schließen. Artefakte haben nach Miller eine eigene
strukturelle Qualität, die das Studium linguistischer
Kategorien ergänzen und bereichern können.
Hieraus ergeben sich zwei methodologische und
praktische Probleme, die durch das ganze Buch hin-
durch erörtert werden; 1. Die Faktoren der Variabilität
der Töpferei und des konzeptuellen Kontexts der
Artefakte; 2. Das Problem der Töpferei als pragmati-
sche, symbolische und kognitive Struktur oder die
Erfassung der Keramik als ,totale soziale Tatsache4, um
den Begriff Dürkheims zu verwenden. Diese Problem-
felder werden in 11 Kapiteln behandelt, die selbst in
einem komplexen Bezugssystem zueinander stehen.
Nach einer Einleitung (Kapitel 1) in das Problem-
feld der Kategorisierung von Artefakten und der Bedeu-
tung aktueller Aufnahmen von Artefakten für Probleme
in der Archäologie folgt ein Kapitel, in dem das
untersuchte Dorf und seine Töpfer in sozialanthropolo-
gischen Kategorien vorgestellt werden. Es enthält pri-
mär eine Analyse der Kastenstruktur, der sozialen
Heterogenität, der Familienstruktur u. a. m. In Kapi-
tel 5 wird diese Analyse weitergeführt, und die sozialen
und ökonomischen Bedingungen der Töpferfamilien
und Haushalte, der Lern- und Arbeitsprozeß sowie die
Distribution und Vermarktung der Töpfe werden einge-
hend erörtert. (Eine minutiöse Beschreibung und
graphische Listen der Töpfe sind vorab gegeben; auf den
Arbeitsprozeß wird in Kapitel 2 und vor allem im
Appendix eingegangen, der eine sehr genaue Beschrei-
bung des Herstellungsprozesses der hauptsächlich ge-
bräuchlichen Tongefäße gibt (207-235). Kapitel 6 führt
die Darlegung der sozialen Dimension weiter und
enthält eine Analyse der Formen, Muster und Motive
der Bemalung und Verzierung, eine Arbeit, die aus-
schließlich von Frauen geleistet wird. In Kapitel 7 wird
der rituelle Kontext der Keramik analysiert.
Kapitel 3 und 4 nehmen die Fragestellung der
Kategorisierung und Klassifizierung aus der Einleitung,
vertieft unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Variabilität der
Produktion und Konsumtion der Keramik vor allem in
Hinsicht auf die daraus resultierenden Implikationen für
Klassifizierungen in der Archäologie, auf. In Kapitel 4
wird diese Auseinandersetzung in der Erörterung der
Variabilität des Stils und der Funktionen im dörflichen
Kontext weitergeführt.
Kapitel 3 und 4, Kapitel 7, die Darlegung des
rituellen und symbolischen Kontexts, die ethnographi-
schen Teile und Kapitel 8, das eine Analyse der Symbo-
lik und Morphologie sowie eine Aufnahme der Keramik
als Code in bezug auf Speise, Kaste, Geschlecht u. a. m.
zum Inhalt hat, dienen der Vorbereitung von Kapitel 9,
der zusammenfassenden theoretischen Analyse der Ar-
tefakte als Kategorien.
In Kapitel 9 werden die gewonnenen Ergebnisse im
Zusammenhang der Sprachanalytik, modernen Theo-
rien der Kognation, der artifiziellen Intelligenz und
anderer Theorien erörtert, um auf dieser Grundlage
eine Theorie der Artefakte als Kategorien zu erstellen,
ein Anspruch, der m. E. nicht eingelöst wird.
Kapitel 10 versucht die getroffenen Aussagen zu
einer Theorie der Artefakte als Kategorien mit einer
Handlungstheorie zu verbinden, um den diachronischen
Kontext der Artefakte zu erfassen. Der dabei aufgebau-
te theoretische Apparat und Anspruch wird durch die
Sachaussagen nicht gerechtfertigt. Das gleiche gilt für
Kapitel 11 (Zusammenfassung), in dem am Beispiel der
diachronischen Perspektive der Töpferei und der ar-
chäologischen Funde in dem Gebiet der Versuch unter-
nommen wird, das Problem von Archäologie und
Gesellschaft neu zu beleuchten.
Sieht man von der großen Zahl der z. T. divergie-
renden theoretischen Bezüge ab, auf die sich der Autor
beruft und die er vereinen möchte, beruht die Analyse
der sozialen Tatsachen weitgehend auf der Anwendung
dualer Prinzipien der Hierarchie und des Kontrasts.
Dieser strukturale Ansatz ist heutzutage eine konventio-
nelle Methode. Die Basistheoreme der kontextuellen
Analyse der Variabilität der Keramik und ihres sozialen
Feldes sind die Dualitäten rein und unrein, ,roh‘ und
,gekocht4 (kaccha und pakka), sakral und profan, hoch
und niedrig u. a. Diese Oppositionen werden in Bezug
zur Funktionalität der Tongefäße und zum variablen
praktischen, sozialen, rituellen und symbolischen Kon-
text gesetzt und bilden eine sinnvolle Analyse, die
Verbindungen und Sachverhalte aufzeigt, die in anderen
Studien über Keramik oder Handwerker und ihre
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
623
Artefakte gar nicht oder nicht hinreichend erhellt
werden. Der Pragmatismus des Autors kommt der
Anwendung dieser Methode in weiten Teilen des Bu-
ches zugute.
Allein schon die Aufnahme der Keramik und ihres
Herstellungsprozesses sowie die ethnographischen Tei-
le, vor allem die Beschreibung der Distributions- und
Austauschsysteme, machen Millers Buch zu einem
Standardwerk über dörfliche Keramik und das Töpfer-
handwerk in Indien.
Kritisch einzuwenden ist, daß seine für sich stehen-
den Beschreibungen und Analysen teilweise mit weitläu-
figen Auseinandersetzungen und Exkursen über er-
kenntnistheoretische Fragestellungen in der strukturel-
len Linguistik, den rezenten Variationen des Struktura-
lismus, der Symboltheorie, Informatik u. a. m. über-
frachtet werden. Diese Passagen, die im Kernkapitel 9
kulminieren, geben einen guten Einblick in das Spek-
trum der rezenten Debatten in England und in die
Teilnahme des Autors an ihnen; ob sie zur weiteren
Analyse der Töpferei und der Töpfer im gesteckten
Kontext eines Dorfes in Malwa beitragen, ist trotzdem
zweifelhaft. In bezug auf den theoretischen Anspruch
einer Theorie der Artefakte als Kategorien im Sinn der
Linguistik ist festzustellen, daß das Feld einer solchen
möglichen Theorie beleuchtet wird; eine Theorie wird
m. E. nicht erstellt.
Trotz dieser kritischen Einwände ist zu betonen,
daß die Aufnahme der Keramik, ihre technische, funk-
tionale und kontextuelle Analyse sowie die Auseinan-
dersetzungen über Kategorisierungen und Klassifizie-
rungen in der Archäologie und Ethnologie eine große
Bereicherung darstellen. Daß Artefakte - im vom Autor
gesteckten Rahmen - sinnvolle Kategorien im Studium
der sozialen Realität und ihrer Struktur darstellen, hat
Miller ebenfalls aufgezeigt.
Besonders hervorzuheben sind auch die exzellente
Gestaltung des Buches, insbesondere die Graphiken
und Photos.
Trotz der erörterten Zwiespältigkeit möchte ich
dieses vor allem auch schöne Buch zur Lektüre empfeh-
len. Klaus Hesse
Morris, Brian: Anthropological Studies of Reli-
gion. An Introductory Text. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987. x+369 pp. Price: £ 9.50
A blurb on the back cover of this book promotes it
as the first such guide since Evans-Pritchard’s “Theories
of Primitive Religion” (1965) which I reviewed for this
journal in 1966 (61: 906-907). The differences between
these two works illuminate the vast changes that have
occurred in social anthropology during the intervening
decades; they also disclose two authors who are worlds
apart in their aims and styles. Yet before considering
these matters, I first briefly indicate the form and
general content of this volume.
The book consists of a brief introduction, six
chapters recounting and evaluating the works of various
writers on religion, and an appendix where Morris lists
102 monographs (with his evaluations) that he considers
useful to students to consult in order to familiarize
themselves with anthropological studies of religion. The
first chapter, Religion as Ideology, opens with an
account of Hegel but is mainly devoted to surveying the
writings of Marx, Engels, and some of their contempo-
raries. The second, Religion as Theodicy, opens with
Nietzsche but is devoted mainly to surveying the works
of Weber. The third, The Anthropological Tradition,
opens with early British scholars such as Tylor, Spencer,
Smith, and Frazer but mainly concerns Durkheim and
his school although briefly, at its end, also dealing with
Radcliffe-Brown. The fourth, Religion and Psychology,
is devoted to Freud and, to a lesser extent, Malinowski,
Jung, and Eliade. The fifth, Religion: Meaning and
Function, presents a “mixed bag” of Lévy-Bruhl,
Evans-Pritchard, Douglas, Leach, Turner, Van Gen-
nep, and Gluckman. The sixth. Religious Thought,
considers mainly Lévi-Strauss but also discusses Geertz,
Horton, Needham, and Godelier.
In his introduction Morris states that he intends to
present as sympathetic an account as possible of all the
writers he considers, although not without some criti-
cism. The subsequent chapters suggest that he has
striven to be as balanced and fair as he can, even to the
point of not letting the reader be entirely sure where the
author himself stands. In general, Morris tries to
summarize the major arguments of each author and then
list the drawbacks to their points, usually citing other
critics but occasionally also indicating his own judg-
ments. What this adds up to is a lengthy patchwork of
views and arguments organized serially mainly in terms
of individual writers rather than issues. The rambling
discussion may provide ready opinions for students not
caring to invest time in reading the authors surveyed.
What it does not provide is a clear sense of what the
subject of religion may actually be or what, if any,
special insights anthropologists may provide for under-
standing it.
The most serious defect of this text is its failure to
make clear from the start just what the key issues in the
anthropological study of religion are or how or why
anthropology occupies a strategic position in such
analyses. Such issues are, of course, touched upon
throughout the text, but what the novice reader requires
is more direct and sustained help in discerning from the
outset just what these issues involve so as to be alerted to
these problems as they arise. The evolutionary aspects of
religion, the relations between knowledge and values or
morality, the connexions (or lack) between rituals and
beliefs, and the complex nature of sacrifice all constitute
perennial concerns for students of religion and all merit
far more direct attention than they here receive.
One of the main difficulties throughout the text
centers on the differences (if such they be) between
cosmologies and religions or between knowledge and
values. It could be argued that many preliterate societies
do not have religion as we now understand the term.
One might argue that instead they have cosmologies. By
Anthropos 83.1988
624
Rezensionen
such an assertion I mean that in preliterate societies
members discern little discrepancy between their every-
day notions about space, time, causation, categories,
and substance, and their ideas about morality, purpose,
and social organization that are intertwined with these.
In contrast, many literate, more complex societies
entertain religious beliefs (sometimes quite sectarian)
that flourish with considerable autonomy from these
other notions. For example, belief in Judaism, Chris-
tianity, Islam or atheism may all occur among the
inhabitants of one city or state who share many other
activities. The reasons for such compartmentalization of
moral beliefs from other areas of knowledge and
conduct are complex but obviously affect our changing
conceptions of what we are trying to study and explain as
religion. In some cases, such as in the writings of Weber
and Marx, the connexions between supposedly secular
and sacred beliefs and activities are explored. In others,
such as the writings of Lévi-Strauss, the moral or
affectual aspects of beliefs are seriously neglected.
Morris fails to tackle this central quandary. Indeed, one
of the reasons why I have argued that this book has lost
sight of what religion is about is because it devotes so
little attention to the issues of feeling and morality, as
these are embedded in beliefs, symbols, and rituals.
Many scholars, including myself, consider sacrifice the
central activity in religious life since it exemplifies the
conjunction of powerful affectual, operational, and
ideological factors. Perusal of the text and consultation
of the index reveal how badly this central topic is
slighted.
Since Morris’ text is entirely organized around
particular scholars and their works, his abilities to report
these accurately and fairly are crucial. I found difficulties
with many of his accounts, both in terms of facts and
their interpretation. To be fair, this is probably inevita-
ble given the large number of writers whom he reports.
This, in turn, reflects the staggering increase in the
publications annually appearing in social studies. In
contrast, Evans-Pritchard in his day could probably
safely claim to have read nearly everything significant
published by anthropologists concerned with religion.
No one could make such a claim today, though a maturer
scholar might be in a stronger position on this score than
Morris. Because there is so much available, some
selection of material is inevitable and clearly many
authors merit little or no attention. While many might
not share my dismay at who is considered and who is
ignored, no one would dispute the prominent place that
Morris assigns to Weber. Consequently, it constitutes a
very serious criticism for me to maintain that Morris’
account of Weber is unsatisfactory.
Morris presents a weak account of Weber’s concept
of ideal types, failing to indicate clearly how such
concepts provide powerful tools for explicating particu-
lar case material. Weber’s ideal types are in turn related
to his complex ideas about rationality which Morris
distorts. Weber’s view of rationality and its relation to
bureaucracy is ambivalent at best. In failing to empha-
size Weber’s central concerns with domination Morris
misses much of these more unsettling aspects of Weber’s
views about knowledge and rationality. While Morris
repeats the common stereotypes of Weber’s sociology
being pessimistic and grim, he fails to convey to the
reader just what are the powerful and pertinent reasons
for such labelling. Furthermore, Morris provides a very
lop-sided account of Weber’s arguments involving pro-
testantism and the work ethic. Morris discusses, though
inadequately, Weber’s theory about the psychic distress
and energy activated by the concept of predestination,
but he entirely neglects Weber’s equally powerful ideas
regarding sects and sectarian behaviour. Weber’s study
has been so influential because it combines both mo-
tivational (psychological) and organizational (sectar-
ian) factors in accounting for social change. Without an
appreciation of this, Weber’s profound signifcance for
understanding revolutionary social change is lost. Simi-
larly, while Morris briefly discusses Weber’s ideas about
charisma and prophets, he ignores Weber’s complex and
ironic associated ideas about routinization.
Morris seems to believe that he must discuss Hegel
in order to allow the reader a grasp of Marx, and that he
must discuss Nietzsche in order to contextualize Weber.
Morris’ sallies into German philosophy constitute the
most muddled and irrelevant sections of his text. Hegel
and Nietzsche are notoriously difficult, but that should
require a writer to be especially careful to write clearly
about them. In the case of Nietzsche, his most obvious
impact on anthropology, his profound reorientation of
classical studies (slow and subtle though it was), is
entirely neglected, even though his insights later surface,
albeit somewhat distortedly, in such influential writings
as Benedict on culture and personality and Dodds on
irrationality among classical Greeks.
Morris devotes a good deal of space to discussing
aspects of Marx, Spencer, Freud, and Weber that are
never clearly shown to be directly related to the study of
religious behaviour and belief. As a result, much of the
text, especially the first half, appears to ramble far from
the purported subject. While Morris devotes entire
chapters to Marx, Weber, and Freud, he never provides
specific examples of how subsequent anthropological
studies utilized their particular theories. Furthermore,
while those writers are best known for their writings on
complex societies, almost none of Morris’ text relates to
religion within such civilizations, even though increasing-
ly anthropologists have written on the practices and be-
liefs of world religions. Furthermore, Morris nowhere
indicates how anthropological writings have influenced
and appear in sociological and other texts. For example,
current important writings in Old and New Testament
studies, in Classics, and in Medieval and Renaissance
history, art, and literature all make significant use of
anthropology, especially as it relates to symbolism,
beliefs, and religion. Consequently, some of the most
interesting current writings on “religion” appear in
works some would more readily label as non-anthropo-
logical even though anthropological thought is clearly
involved. It could well be argued that some of these
non-anthropological scholars omitted by Morris are of
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
625
more anthropological significance today than some of
the contemporary anthropologists he cites.
Criticisms almost as serious as these involving
Weber and the other topics noted above could be
levelled against Morris’ accounts of Lévi-Strauss, Durk-
heim, Turner, Evans-Pritchard, and others. In compari-
son with such flaws, there is little point in my relating a
litany of complaints about details such as the fact that the
Azande are not the Nuer’s neighbors, that Radcliffe-
Brown was not Evans-Pritchard’s tutor, or that Jacobson
should be Jakobson, or versehen should read verste-
hen.
In my earlier review of Evans-Pritchard I criticized
many features of his influential survey. Yet there remain
two reasons why that earlier work will continue to be
read: (1) it presents a coherent and integrated (though
one-sided) view of what religion and its study involve;
(2) it represents seasoned opinions by a senior scholar
who, after decades of research and copious publication,
acquired a towering stature, that led some readers to be
deeply interested in his views. What Evans-Pritchard
thought about Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, or Tylor was
nearly as interesting to some readers as what those
writers themselves had written. Had Morris also distin-
guished himself by first publishing an extensive body of
work on religion, perhaps his slant on the subject would
be of more interest. While many of his observations and
accounts are useful and perceptive, too many others are
inadequate, misleading or wrong. Those who already
comprehend the anthropological study of religion may
be irked by much of Morris’ text; novices who seek to
learn may be confused or misled as much as being
informed and guided. T. O. Beidelman
Neog, Maheswar: Early History of the Vaisnava
Faith and Movement in Assam. Sahkaradeva and his
Times. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985. xx + 400 pp.
Price: Rs. 200
Während die Geschichte der Bhakti-Bewegung in
Südindien, Maharashtra, Nordindien und Bengalen gut
aufgearbeitet und durch Übersetzungen von Primär-
quellen nicht nur der Fachwelt, sondern auch einem
größeren Leserkreis zugänglich ist, sind die Ausprägun-
gen dieser Strömung der „Gottesliebe“ in Assam relativ
wenig bekannt. Neog trägt in seinem Buch eine Fülle
von Material zusammen, das Licht auf die vishnuitische
Bhakti-Bewegung im Nordosten Indiens wirft. Im Mit-
telpunkt seiner Betrachtung stehen das Leben und das
Werk des Sri Sahkaradeva (gest. 1568 oder 1569), der als
vornehmster Vertreter der Vaisnava-Bhakti im Land am
Brahmaputra gelten kann. Die Arbeit ist hervorgegan-
gen aus einer Dissertation mit dem Titel “Sahkaradeva
and His Times, being a Study in the History of the
Spread of Neo-Vaisnavism in Assam”, die der Univer-
sität Gauhati 1955 vorgelegt wurde. Sie ist - in offenbar
erweiterter Form - erst 1965 gedruckt worden; das zu
besprechende Werk ist ein Neudruck der 2. Aufl. von
1980.
In einem 1. Kap. legt der Verfasser die Quellenlage
dar und gibt eine umfassende Übersicht über die
Materialien zu Sahkaradeva und seine Zeit. Sodann geht
er auf die politischen Verhältnisse vor und in der Zeit
des großen Bhakti-Heiligen ein, wobei er auch islami-
sche Quellen hinzuzieht. Ein weiteres Kapitel ist dem
sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Hintergrund gewidmet.
Der zentrale Teil des Werkes ist das 4. Kap., in
dem Neog die Geschichte der Vaisnava-Bewegung
skizziert, wobei er von Leben und Persönlichkeit des
Sahkaradeva ausgeht. Es wird sodann eingegangen auf
das Leben seines wichtigsten Schülers, nämlich des
Mädhavadeva (1489-1586), und auf das Wirken weiterer
„Apostel“, Gurus und SattrTyäs. Die Bewegung wird bis
zu ihrem Schisma, d. h. bis zu ihrer Aufspaltung in vier
verschiedene Gruppen, verfolgt.
Nach einem Überblick über die Geschichte der
Bewegung in ihrer klassischen Zeit stellt der Verfasser
die Werke des Sahkaradeva vor und geht sodann auf die
Grundlehren seiner Schule ein. Extra behandelt sind
seine philosophischen Ansichten sowie sein dramaturgi-
sches Werk. Kap. 9 ist der Musik und dem Tanz
gewidmet, Kap. 10 der Buchkunst und der Illumination
von Handschriften.
Der Schluß des Werkes geht auf die Institutionen
und Praktiken der assamesischen Neo-Vaisnava-Bewe-
gung ein und skizziert schließlich ihre sozialen Implika-
tionen.
Wir haben es also mit einer umfassenden Darstel-
lung der von Sahkaradeva inspirierten Bhakti-Strömung
in Assam zu tun. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit
Niessen, S. A.: Motifs of Life in Toba Batak Texts
and Textiles. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1985.
viii+249 pp. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Insti-
tuut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 110) Price:
hfl. 35.-
Nach einem Vorwort behandelt die Autorin in
einem einführenden Kapitel ihre wissenschaftlichen
Methoden und bringt kurzes (ethnographisches) Hinter-
grundmaterial über die Toba-Batak von Nord-Sumatra,
über die für diese Studie relevanten westlichen und vor
allem einheimischen Texte sowie über die behandelten
Textilkategorien.
Das erste Kapitel gibt in Text und Übersetzung
(mit Anmerkungen) zwei für die Toba-Batak wichtige
Mythen: Über den Ursprung der Menschen und über die
Entstehung der Erde. Anhand dieser Texte - oder eher
aufgrund dieser Texte - will Niessen auch ein (rasch
verschwindendes) Weltbild der Toba-Batak vermit-
teln.
Die in diesen Mythen enthaltenen Motive Ver-
wandtschaft, Fruchtbarkeit, Zeit und Raum sowie ihre
Beziehungen zu Toba-Batak-Textilien werden in den
Kapiteln 2-5 einzeln besprochen und analysiert. Das
kurze letzte Kapitel bezieht sich wieder auf die in der
Einleitung diskutierte „vergleichende Methode“ im
Rahmen der Ethnologie Indonesiens. Das Buch schließt
mit Anmerkungen, einem Glossar, einer Bibliographie
sowie einer Liste mit Toba-Batak-Begriffen.
Anthropos 83.1988
626
Rezensionen
Darstellung und Analyse des Materials in den vier
zentralen Kapiteln sind meiner Meinung nach gelungen
und wirken überzeugend. Die Beziehungen zwischen
„Fäden“ und Elementen der Sozialorganisation, der
Religion, der Architektur usw. zu Fäden und Motiven
der verschiedenen Textilien mitsamt ihrer Funktion
kommen deutlich zum Ausdruck. Gleiches gilt für die
Beziehung zwischen Text/Mythos und Textil; Rückver-
weise auf Textstellen in den Mythen erleichtern die
Lektüre und untermauern die Analyse.
Weniger gelungen ist meines Erachtens die Hinzu-
ziehung des in der „Leidener Schule“ von J. P. B. de
Josselin de Jong in den dreißiger Jahren entwickelten
Konzepts “Field of Anthropological Study” (F. A. S.).
Aufgrund zugrundeliegender Gemeinsamkeiten wäre
ganz Indonesien (bzw. die Gesamtheit der indonesi-
schen Kulturen) ein solches F. A. S., und deshalb
plädiert Niessen für “a systematic comparative approach
to the social role of Indonesian textiles” (1). Außer einer
Auflistung der von de Josselin de Jong formulierten
Elemente des „F. A. S. Indonesien“ bringt aber auch
diese Studie nichts Wesentliches, was uns einer Kontex-
tualisierung des behandelten Stoffes im Rahmen einer
F. A. S.-Theorie näherbringen würde. Der sozial-reli-
giöse Kontext der Textilien kommt klar zu Vorschein
(und das ist gerade das Verdienst dieses Buches), der
theoretische Begriffsapparat hingegen - außer vielleicht
im Kapitel über das Verwandtschaftsmotiv - ist ungenü-
gend ausformuliert. Die Frage der Anwendbarkeit eines
F. A. S.-Modells im Rahmen der von Niessen geforder-
ten Vergleichsstudien kann dadurch auch nicht über-
prüft oder beantwortet werden.
Zum Schluß: Auch wenn Niessen mitteilt (11), daß
sie die Toba-Batak-Textilien als abstraktes Konzept
behandelt, so hätte man sich doch weit mehr Abbildun-
gen der besprochenen Textilien gewünscht.
Danker H. Schaareman
Nowak, Herbert: Kanarische Studien; Bd. 2: Bei-
träge zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Insel El Hierro;
1. Teil. Hallein: Ediciones Canarias, 1986. 106 pp.,
Abb., Ktn.
Der Verfasser, durch Beiträge zur Vor- und Früh-
geschichte der Kanarischen Inseln hervorgetreten, hat in
diesem Buch das Wichtigste des z. T. in verschiedenen
Aufsätzen bereits veröffentlichten, z. T. aber auch noch
unbekannten Materials über die Insel El Hierro, von
den Eingeborenen Ecero, von Torriani aber Ferro
genannt, zusammengefaßt. Dabei geht es ihm vornehm-
lich um die religiösen Vorstellungen (32-64) und um den
strittigen Fragenkomplex der Petroglyphen (65-100).
Den prähistorischen Steinanlagen ist ein besonderer 2.
Teil Vorbehalten.
Was wir über die Kultur vor der Conquista durch
die Spanier, d. h. vor Anfang des 15. Jh.s, insbesondere
aus den Chroniken von Leonardo Torriani und J. de
Abreu Galindo, erfahren, zeugt von einem durchaus
ärmlichen Zustand mit Steinwerkzeugen und anspruchs-
loser Keramik, mit Fellen als Kleidung, Schmuck aus
Steinen oder Knochen und mit Höhlen als Wohnraum,
aber auch als Orte der Bestattung. Von Bedeutung sind
vor allem die Muschelhaufen (Concheros) mit den
Abfällen der Küche (7-30). Es liegt daher nahe, die
altkanarische Megalithkultur, aber auch die Petrogly-
phen, einer dünnen Oberschicht zuzuweisen, was durch
die anthropologischen Untersuchungen von I. Schwi-
detzky (in Homo 1963) gestützt wird. Diese Schicht
dürfte aus dem iberischen Raum zugewandert sein (42).
Ob wir allerdings in den beiden länglichen Felsen (span.:
mojón) als Sitz und Kultort des göttlichen Stammes-
elternpaares, Eraoranzan (Eraoranhan) und Moneiba,
schon megalithischen Vorstellungen begegnen, was in
Hinsicht auf den Idafe von La Palma durchaus denkbar
wäre, läßt der Verfasser vorsichtshalber offen. Viel-
leicht handelt es sich auch um Numina einer vormega-
lithischen Vorstellungswelt, der auch die heiligen Berge
angehören (44 ff.). Moneiba ist als Göttin der Frauen
eine chthonische Gestalt, deren Heiligtümer in Höhlen
auf den fruchtbaren Mutterschoß der Erdtiefe deuten
und die in den zahlreichen Marienfiguren der Insel ohne
männliche Schutzheilige noch fortlebt (56 ff.). Wenn
Eraoranzan, der Gott der Männer, in den Regenkulten
angerufen wird, deren schwierige Lokalisierung durch
den Verfasser in der Nähe von Tagutunta überzeugt
(35 ff.), so deutet das auf seine Funktion als Himmels-
und Wettergott. Das Schwein bei diesen Riten als
Mittler ist nach Auffassung des Verfassers vielleicht ein
Alter-Ego der Gottheit. Die so oft, besonders auf La
Palma, anzutreffenden Spiralgravierungen scheinen als
wasserbringendes Symbol ebenfalls dem Regenzauber
gedient zu haben.
Eng verbunden mit den zahlreichen Petroglyphen
der Insel, um deren Erfassung und Erhaltung sich der
Autor verdient gemacht hat, d. h. mit der Frage ihrer
Deutung, ist das Problem der Sprache der Ureinwohner.
Selbst die nach ihrem Schrifttyp mit Recht so genannten
libysch-berberischen Inschriften sind nicht lesbar (86).
Daß Alphabete aus anderen Sprachen entlehnt werden,
ist bekannt. Die im Ergebnis bedeutenden linguistischen
Untersuchungen von J.-H. Scharf (Biol. Rundschau
[15/6. 1977] und Gegenbaurs morpholog. Jahrbuch [124/
2. 1978]) haben überraschend gezeigt, daß der Zugang
zum Altkanarischen nicht in einem mediterranen Sub-
strat zu finden ist. Dagegen sind die z. B. von Torriani
überlieferten, in einer heute nicht mehr gesprochenen
Sprache verfaßten und schon von Zyhlarz als unidenti-
fizierbar bezeichneten Textproben einer Übersetzung
mit Hilfe von Regeln der altaischen Syntax und Morpho-
logie zugänglich (Scharf). Die Sprache der Urbevölke-
rung mit crömagniden und protomediterranen Rasse-
merkmalen scheint diesem altaischen Substrat angehört
zu haben (Scharf). Sie ist nach Zyhlarz auch die Sprache
der Megalithiker und mit Wahrscheinlichkeit der mei-
sten der altkanarischen Petroglyphen. Dorthin dürfte
auch das bislang rätselhafte Präfix era- im Namen des
Gottes der Männer gehören. Im Mongolischen haben
wir es jedenfalls noch als ere- in der Bedeutung „Mann“,
„männlich“ und „Held“.1 Wölfeis Theorie von der
maritimen Ausbreitung des Megalithikums und die
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
627
Tatsache, daß die Petroglyphen gern in Küstennähe zu
finden sind, könnte zusätzlich ein Hinweis auf die
Sprache der Petroglyphen sein. Man wird dem angekün-
digten 2. Teil des Buches mit großem Interesse entge-
gensehen. Siegbert Hummel
Nurse, G. T., J. S. Weiner, and Trefor Jenkins:
The Peoples of Southern Africa and their Affinities.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. 409 pp., tab., (Research
Monographs on Human Population Biology, 3) Price:
£45.00
Das Buch ist das Ergebnis der Zusammenarbeit
eines Physiologen/Paläanthropologen, eines Humange-
netikers mit guten Kenntnissen in klinischer Epidemo-
logie und eines medizinisch ausgebildeten Anthropolo-
gen mit Kenntnissen in Linguistik. Der Aufbau des
Buches läßt diese interdisziplinäre Ausrichtung gut
erkennen, obwohl der Schwerpunkt eindeutig auf der
Darstellung der biologischen Aspekte liegt. Die Auto-
ren grenzen das südliche Afrika ein auf die Republik
Südafrika, die Königreiche Lesotho und Swaziland,
Namibia unter Ausschluß des Caprivi-Streifens und
Mocambique südlich des Limpopo.
Einer kurzen geografischen Einführung, die Topo-
grafie, Klima, Vegetation, Fauna, Haustierhaltung und
Landwirtschaft berücksichtigt, schließt sich ein Kapitel
über die archäologischen und paläanthropologischen
Befunde in bezug auf das südliche Afrika an. Die
Autoren stellen dabei vor allem die Bedeutung von
Klimaänderungen heraus, die ihrer Auffassung nach
maßgeblich den Hominisierungsprozeß beeinflußt ha-
ben könnten. Zwei Problemkreise werden etwas aus-
führlicher behandelt: der Beginn der Metallbearbeitung
und die dafür verantwortliche Ethnie sowie die Frage,
inwieweit die San in ökologische Rückzugsgebiete ver-
trieben worden sind oder nicht. Die zahlreichen münd-
lichen Überlieferungen, denen zufolge die San und die
Dama die Kupferproduktion kontrollierten, werden
durch archäologische Daten nicht abgestützt - die
Skepsis der Verfasser gegenüber diesen Überlieferun-
gen ist so nicht ganz unverständlich. Etwas weniger
verständlich, da in Widerspruch zu historischem Mate-
rial, ist allerdings die Kritik der Autoren an der These,
daß die San in ökologische Rückzugsgebiete vertrieben
worden seien - eine Kritik, die damit begründet wird,
daß die physische Ausstattung der San besonders gut an
die Wüste und Halbwüste angepaßt sei, die Technologie
nur in diesen Regionen habe voll entwickelt werden
können und die San-Sprachen überreich an Begriffen
seien, die in einer fruchtbareren Umgebung nutzlos
wären (53). Insbesondere das letzte Argument unter-
1 Nach Scharf (1978: 165) bedeutet Eraoranhan in altaischer
Auflösung „der erhabene, heilige Herrscher“. Vielleicht
Entsprechung zu dem vom Berberischen ableitbaren altka-
narischen Wort für Gott „Acoran“ (der große Herrscher);
vgl. zu „Acoran“ D. J. Wölfel, Die Hauptprobleme Weiß-
afrikas. Archiv f. Anthropologie 1942: 130.
schätzt wohl doch die Wandlungsfähigkeit des Wort-
schatzes.
In dem Kapitel über Migration und Anpasssung
stellen die Verfasser vor allem heraus, daß Migrationen
in der Regel aus einer Verschlechterung der heimischen
Bedingungen herrühren. Von einigem Interesse dürfte
ihre These sein, daß Migrationen hauptsächlich in
Ökosysteme zielen, zu denen bereits eine Art von
Voranpassung besteht.
Die Völker des südlichen Afrikas werden in sechs
Kapiteln einzeln behandelt, wobei eine Einteilung in
Khoi, San, Schwarzafrikaner (“Negro”), denen zwei
Kapitel gewidmet sind, über den Seeweg gekommene
Einwanderer und hybride Gemeinschaften vorgenom-
men wird. Der Aufbau dieser Kapitel ist sehr ähnlich.
Einer Einführung in die Sozial- und Wirtschaftsordnung
der behandelten Gruppe schließt sich eine sowohl
morphologische als auch genetische Beschreibung der
physischen Charakteristika an. Die Krankheitsmuster,
der Einfluß der geografischen, sozialen und wirtschaftli-
chen Umwelt auf die biologische Ausstattung der
diskutierten Ethnien werden gleichfalls eingehend erör-
tert.
Die Bedeutung, die biologische Untersuchungen
auch für Ethnologen, Soziologen und Historiker haben
können, ist z. B. an der Erkenntnis ablesbar, daß ein
Genfluß in einer Richtung oft Indikator für Dominanz-
beziehungen zwischen Gruppen ist (155, 156).
Aufschlußreich ist vor allem die Darstellung der
hybriden Gemeinschaften und ihrer unterschiedlichen
Reaktion gegenüber der Aufnahme von Fremden.
Während etwa die Griqua für ihre Fähigkeit bekannt
waren, Fremde aus sehr unterschiedlichen Gemein-
schaften zu integrieren, und selbst nie ausgeprägte
Abschließungstendenzen entwickelten, ist die Gemein-
schaft der Rehobother für ihren rassischen und genealo-
gischen Stolz bekannt, der die Aufnahme und Einheirat
von Fremden nur dann gestattet, wenn diese genealo-
gisch ihre Verbindung zur Gemeinschaft nachweisen
können. Hier hätte man sich eine ethnosoziologische
Interpretation dieses Sachverhaltes gewünscht, die von
den Autoren jedoch nicht geliefert wird.
Die letzten beiden Kapitel befassen sich mit Anpas-
sung und Selektion sowie mit dem Einfluß der durch
Technologie und Urbanisierung veränderten Umwelt
auf die Anpassung der einzelnen Gruppen. Die Bemer-
kungen der Verfasser über die biologischen Auswirkun-
gen der Urbanisierung kommen meistens nicht über
Allgemeinplätze hinaus, ja ob überhaupt solche Auswir-
kungen feststellbar sind, erscheint den Verfassern zwei-
felhaft (271). Beeindruckend sind hingegen die Passagen
des Buches, die sich mit den zumeist irreparablen
Schädigungen des Ökosystems befassen - oft eine Folge
landwirtschaftlicher Techniken, die nur als Raubbau
bezeichnet werden können. Stellenweise scheinen sich
die Autoren allerdings in düsteren darwinistischen
Prognosen zu verlieren: “Technology has relaxed adap-
tive selection as far as the Southern African Caucasoids
are concerned. The failure of technology is likely to
prove catastrophic for them. . . . Though it would
Anthropos 83.1988
628
Rezensionen
probably lead to the reversion of much of the Cape
interior and most of the Highveld to desert, there would
still be some arable land left in the Cape and Natal
lowlands. . . . competition for this land would become
intense, and all the populations would be subjected to
Darwinian pressures once more” (294).
Auch an anderer Stelle finden sich Prognosen, wie
etwa: “The Basters, in short, and probably all the similar
. . . hybrid communities, present a social rigidity which
may be their present shield but could be an important
future weakness. The policies of the Griqua tend to their
own extinction; those of the Basters could, if carried to
an extreme, provoke their eventual extermination”
(239). Ein nachdenklicher Leser mag sich allerdings
fragen, ob letztere Prognose nicht viel eher für die
Weißen Südafrikas zutreffen mag. Man hätte sich auch
eine deutlichere Abgrenzung der Autoren vom politi-
schen Mißbrauch der Humanbiologie in Südafrika ge-
wünscht, als sie im Buch vorkommt. Das Werk ist aber
nicht zuletzt aufgrund eines umfangreichen Tabellen-
teils über die genetische Polymorphie der Völker des
südlichen Afrikas, einer beeindruckenden Bibliographie
und eines sorgfältigen Autoren- und Sachregisters als
Nachschlagewerk für die Humanbiologie des südlichen
Afrikas sehr geeignet. Volker Weiter
Nuß, Marianne und Volker Weiter: Deutschland
im Urteil afrikanischer Lehrer. Saarbrücken: Verlag
Breitenbach Publishers, 1986. 245 pp. (Sozialwissen-
schaftliche Studien zu internationalen Problemen,
115)
Das Buch behandelt die Ergebnisse einer Befra-
gung, die die beiden Autoren 1984 in Lesotho durchge-
führt haben. Befragt wurden ehemalige afrikanische
Stipendiaten der Deutschen Stiftung für internationale
Entwicklung (DSL) und der Carl-Duisberg-Gesell-
schaft, die in der BRD zu technischen Lehrern ausgebil-
det worden waren, zu ihren Ausbildungs- und Rückkeh-
rerproblemen. Nach kurzen Einführungen zum Stand
der empirischen Forschung zur Ausländerausbildung in
der BRD sowie zur Geschichte und zum Bildungssystem
Lesothos ist der Großteil des Buches der Präsentation
der Einzelergebnisse der Untersuchung gewidmet. Die
einzelnen Abschnitte behandeln den sozialen Hinter-
grund der Stipendiaten, die Vorbereitung in Lesotho
und die Ausbildung in der BRD, die soziale Situation
der Stipendiaten in der BRD und ihre Probleme bei der
Rückkehr nach Lesotho. Ein Exkurs geht schließlich auf
die Berufsaussichten von technischen Lehrern in Leso-
tho ein.
Auf den ersten Blick scheint es sich hier nicht um
eine völkerkundliche Studie zu handeln. Bei genauerer
Betrachtung stellt man jedoch sehr bald die völkerkund-
liche Methodik der beiden Autoren fest: Grundlage der
Ergebnisse sind die Äußerungen der Befragten, nur
gelegentlich ergänzt durch Kommentare der Autoren.
Das Bild, das sich daraus ergibt, ist die subjektive
Einschätzung einer Situation durch die Betroffenen, die
scheinbar „objektive“ Interpretation abstrakter Daten
tritt dagegen in den Hintergrund. Durch diese Vorge-
hensweise eröffnet sich ein neuer - „völkerkundlicher“ -
Blick auf die Situation ausländischer Studenten in der
BRD.
Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung sind erschrek-
kend: Die Kritik der Stipendiaten an ihrer Ausbildung
reicht von der völlig mangelhaften Vorbereitung in ihrer
Heimat über den nicht als ausreichend empfundenen
Sprachunterricht und eine teilweise völlig verfehlte
Eingruppierung in Fachgebiete bis hin zur Kritik am
niedrigen Niveau der Ausbildung und der Praktika.
Diese Kritikpunkte sind schon deshalb besonders ernst
zu nehmen, da sie jeweils von einem Großteil der
Befragten vorgebracht wurden; hinzu kommt, daß die
Autoren darauf hinweisen, daß die meisten Befragten
aus Höflichkeit eher zögernd ihre Probleme vorbrach-
ten.
Ein besonders aufschlußreiches Kapitel behandelt
die soziale Situation der Stipendiaten in der BRD.
Einmal abgesehen von gelegentlichen Problemen mit
der Wohnsituation oder mit der finanziellen Ausstattung
ihrer Stipendien fällt in der Gesamtbetrachtung vor
allem die teilweise extreme Vereinsamung der Basotho
in der BRD auf - ein Problem, das sie mit vielen anderen
Ausländern bei uns teilen. Hier zeigt sich eine besonde-
re Schwierigkeit dieser Form des „Kulturaustausches“.
Ein Stipendiat brachte sie auf den Punkt: “In Lesotho
you can talk with everybody, in Germany it was even
difficult to say hello to somebody.” Dennoch, dies allein
kann keine ausreichende Erklärung dafür sein, daß
einige Stipendiaten während ihres fast zweijährigen
Deutschlandaufenthalts überhaupt keine privaten Kon-
takte zu Deutschen fanden.
Verblüffend sind die Aussagen zur Fremdenfeind-
lichkeit der Deutschen: Während einige die Existenz
eines solchen Problems völlig bestritten oder als völlig
normal herunterspielten, behauptete eine ganze Reihe
von ihnen, daß sie nur deshalb gelegentlich Schwierig-
keiten hatten, weil sie aufgrund ihrer Hautfarbe für
amerikanische Besatzungssoldaten gehalten worden sei-
en, deren Auftreten in der BRD zu Recht kritisiert
würde.
Auch das dritte Hauptkapitel des Buches, das die
Situation der Stipendiaten nach ihrer Rückkehr nach
Lesotho behandelt, wirft kein gutes Licht auf diese Form
der Auslandsausbildung: Viele Rückkehrer hatten gro-
ße Probleme, einen ihrer Ausbildung in der BRD
entsprechenden Arbeitsplatz zu finden. Viele klagten
über Probleme, weil sie aufgrund ihrer langen Abwesen-
heit ihren Freunden, teilweise sogar ihren Familien,
entfremdet waren. Andere hatten Schwierigkeiten an
ihrem Arbeitsplatz, weil ihre Kollegen ihr durch ihr
Studium in Deutschland erworbenes Prestige als Kon-
kurrenz fürchteten. Etliche klagten auch darüber, die in
Deutschland erworbenen Kenntnisse in der Berufspra-
xis in Lesotho nicht umsetzen zu können.
Bei der Gesamtbewertung der Ergebnisse muß
noch einmal darauf hingewiesen werden, daß es sich hier
um die subjektive Sichtweise der von den Ausbildungs-
maßnahmen Betroffenen handelt. Gerade aber für eine
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
629
heute so häufig proklamierte „bedürfnisorientierte“
Entwicklungspolitik sind derartige Daten von besonde-
rer Bedeutung. Von daher rechtfertigen die Ergebnisse
der Untersuchung die Forderung, das gesamte System
der Ausbildung von aus Entwicklungsländern stammen-
den Fachlehrern in der BRD zu überdenken. So ist z. B.
äußerst fraglich, welchen Sinn es ergeben soll, die
gesamte Ausbildung durch Probleme beim Erlernen der
deutschen Sprache zu behindern, wenn die Betroffenen
diese Sprache nach ihrer Ausbildung weder beruflich
noch privat jemals wieder gebrauchen können. Auch ist
kaum einzusehen, warum man die Stipendiaten oft
schwerwiegenden Eingliederungsproblemen in der
BRD aussetzt, wenn ihnen ihr langer Deutschlandauf-
enthalt häufig außer Reintegrationsproblemen sowohl
im beruflichen als auch im privaten Bereich nichts
einbringt (meist verbesserte sich nicht einmal ihre
Einkommenssituation). Schließlich ist zu fragen, wel-
chen Sinn eine unter europäischen Industriemaßstäben
durchgeführte Ausbildung hat, wenn die vermittelten
Kenntnisse unter den Bedingungen eines Entwicklungs-
landes meist nicht umsetzbar sind.
Eine der besonderen Stärken dieses Buches liegt
darin, daß fast jeder Abschnitt außer der Kritik an der
realen Situation auch positive Anregungen der Befrag-
ten zur Verbesserung enthält. Nicht zuletzt auch da-
durch wird das Buch zu einem wertvollen Hilfsmittel für
diejenigen, die sich um eine Verbesserung des Systems
der Ausländerausbildung in der BRD bemühen. Wenn
etwas kritisch anzumerken wäre, dann am ehesten, daß
auch diese Studie (wie viele der besseren neueren
ethnographischen Arbeiten) sich damit begnügt, „nur
deskriptives Material bereitzustellen, das zukünftigen
Forschungen in diesem Bereich mit einem weitergehen-
deren theoretischen Anspruch hilfreich sein könnte“.
Dies ist durchaus legitim; es wäre jedoch wünschens-
wert, wenn hin und wieder auch jene „zukünftigen
Forschungen mit weitergehendem theoretischen An-
satz“ durchgeführt würden, die die immer größer wer-
dende Menge an Faktenmaterial analytisch verarbei-
ten. Matthias Wanckel
Oommen, T. K.: Social Structure and Politics.
Studies in Independent India. Delhi: Hindustan Publish-
ing Corporation, 1984. xi+236pp., tab. Price: Rs.
95.00
T. K. Oommen ist einer der führenden Soziologen
Indiens, der die indische Soziologie der 70er und 80er
Jahre entscheidend beeinflußt hat. Er arbeitete in den
letzten 20 Jahren primär in den Themenbereichen der
sozialen Bewegungen im modernen Indien, der sozialen
Transformation des agrarischen Sektors, der Sozial-
struktur politischer Bewegungen, Berufsbranchen und
-Organisationen sowie der Theorie und Praxis der
politischen Willensbildung und sozialer Führerschaft.
Das zu besprechende Buch, das in der Reihe
“Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology” erschie-
nen ist, ist ein Sammelband von 12 Beiträgen, Artikeln,
die zwischen 1966 und 1982 in zum Teil schwer zugäng-
lichen Zeitschriften und Sammelbänden erstmals veröf-
fentlicht wurden. Der Sammelband gibt einen zusam-
menfassenden Einblick in das Schaffen von T. K.
Oommen, der in seinem Denken sowohl von Weber, der
amerikanischen Soziologie und Politologie als auch von
Marx beeinflußt ist, um nur die europäischen - die
westlichen - Denktraditionen zu nennen. Diese unter-
schiedlichen Wissenschaftstraditionen verbindet er in
origineller und fruchtbringender Art für eine präzise
Analyse der sozialen Verhältnisse im gegenwärtigen
Indien. Mit diesem Sammelband werden gleichzeitig
wichtige Beiträge einem breiten Publikum leicht zugäng-
lich gemacht.
Die Auswahl der Beiträge für diesen Sammelband
ist ausgewogen und deckt ein breites Spektrum ab,
wobei die Beiträge, die in einzelnen Themenkomplexen
gebündelt sind, konzeptionell ineinandergreifen. Der
etwas vage Titel des Buches “Social Structure and
Politics. Studies in Independent India” ist voll gerecht-
fertigt; es wird die Interdependenz von unterschiedli-
chen Faktoren und Themenkomplexen sichtbar ge-
macht, die nur unter diesem allgemeinen Titel zusam-
menzufassen sind.
Übergreifendes Thema des Buches ist die Frage
von normativem und nicht-normativem Handeln und
der zugrundeliegenden gesellschaftlichen Struktur in
einem gesellschaftlichen Zustand, der mit dem Begriff
‘transitory society’ nur unzureichend charakterisiert ist.
Das zentrale Problem ist das der Bedingungen und der
Verbände sozialen Handelns, der politischen Willensbil-
dung und der sozialen Struktur von Führerschaft im
modernen Indien als Typus einer ‘transitory society'.
Als eine wesentliche soziale Struktur hebt Oommen die
Bedeutung freiwilliger Assoziationen hervor. Er unter-
sucht unterschiedliche Arten von Assoziationen - Dorf-
aktionen, Kastenassoziationen, religiös-soziale Reform-
bewegungen, sozio-politische Verbände, politische Par-
teien, Studentenverbände u. a. m. - und erforscht ihre
Konstituierung sowie ihre Bedeutung für soziales Han-
deln und Meinungsbildungsprozesse. Die Untersuchung
der sozio-ökonomischen, religiösen, ideologischen und
politischen Bedingungen der Gestaltung von Sozialver-
bänden, Führungsstrukturen und sozialem Handeln
nicht allein vom Gesichtspunkt der Faktoren Kaste und
Verwandtschaft aus - bei all ihrer Bedeutung - trägt der
Komplexität der sozialen Realität des modernen Indiens
besonders Rechnung. Diese Problemfelder werden so-
wohl auf theoretischer als auch empirischer Ebene
behandelt. Diese Wechselbeziehung von theoretischer
und empirischer Analyse auf makro- und mikrosoziolo-
gischer Ebene ergibt eine Fülle neuer und wichtiger
Einsichten in soziale Prozesse der indischen Gesellschaft
nach der Unabhängigkeit.
Der Sammelband selbst ist in vier Themenkomple-
xe gegliedert, die inhaltlich ineinandergreifen. In jedem
Teil werden sowohl die Makrostrukturen als auch die
Mikrostrukturen und -prozesse analysiert. Gesamtana-
lysen und theoretische Schlußfolgerungen werden gezo-
gen, so daß im Prinzip jeder Teil für sich einen Komplex
bildet. Gleichzeitig gelangt der Autor durch Interdepen-
Anthropos 83.1988
630
Rezensionen
denz der Themenstellungen zu einer Gesamtsicht spezi-
fischer sozialer Strukturen und politischer Prozesse.
Der erste Teil des Buches - “Social Structure and
Political Process” - umfaßt vier Kapitel. In den ersten
beiden Kapiteln befaßt sich der Autor mit dem dialek-
tischen Verhältnis von sozialer und politischer Struktur,
primär mit der Möglichkeit der politischen Integration
durch Assoziationen und ihrer Bedeutung für den
politischen und sozialen Pluralismus Indiens. Das dritte
Kapitel untersucht das Problem des normativen sozialen
Verhaltens in Phasen sozialer Übergänge, das Problem
der transitionalen Anomie, am Beispiel der ‘General
Elections’ von 1967. Dies geschieht primär unter vier
Gesichtspunkten: 1. der Rolle der traditionellen Fakto-
ren, 2. der politischen Rekrutierung, 3. der Bedeutung
charismatischer Führungspersönlichkeiten und 4. der
Rolle säkulärer Modernisierungsbewegungen. Die Fra-
ge von Charisma als Produkt der sozialen Struktur und
der Bedeutung von Charisma - im Weberschen Sinn - im
Kontext des sozialen Wandels wird in Kapitel 4 geson-
dert behandelt: empirisch am Beispiel des gesellschaftli-
chen Gegenmodells der Bhoodan-Gramdan-Bewegung
von Vinoba Bhave.
Im zweiten Teil - “Community Power Structure” -
wird die im ersten Teil aufgeworfene Fragestellung des
Verhältnisses von normativem Verhalten, Sozialstruk-
tur sowie der Bedeutung charismatischer Führungsper-
sönlichkeiten und Assoziationen primär auf mikrosozio-
logischer Ebene im ländlichen Bereich erweitert aufge-
nommen. Der zentrale Ausgangspunkt ist eine profunde
Kritik des von M. N. Srinivas entworfenen Konzepts der
dominanten Kaste. Der Kernpunkt der Kritik ist, daß
die Bedeutung der sozialen Führerschaft, die Heteroge-
nität und interne soziale Dynamik der dominanten
Kaste und die Rolle kastenübergreifender Assoziatio-
nen nicht genügend berücksichtigt werden. Der Kon-
trolle über Ressourcen und Entscheidungsfindung wird
hierbei eine entscheidende Bedeutung beigemessen.
Behandelt das erste Kapitel von Teil II (Kapitel 5) das
Konzept der dominanten Kaste in theoretischer Ausein-
andersetzung, so wird im weiteren Verlauf (Kapitel 6-8)
die Kritik anhand von empirischen Untersuchungen in
einer Reihe von Dörfern in Rajasthan untermauert.
Dieser Teil bietet eine Vielzahl von Einsichten, die die
Diskussion um die dominante Kaste in den 70er Jahren
implizit und explizit beeinflußt haben.
Teil III - “The Politics of Agrarian Conflict” -
untersucht die Bedeutung der „grünen Revolution“ für
die Ausbreitung und Formierung gesellschaftlicher Kon-
flikte sowie die Politisierung der Spannungen im ländli-
chen Bereich. Diese 1971 erstmals veröffentlichten
Beiträge erörtern eine Thematik, deren Brisanz sich erst
mit der rapiden Ausweitung der Konflikte im ländlichen
Bereich (besonders auch in Gebieten mit „grüner
Revolution“) in den 80er Jahren voll zeigt. Viele
Punkte, die der Autor 1971 teilweise nur schemenhaft
fassen konnte, treten heutzutage klar hervor.
Teil IV - “Student Power and Politics” - greift die
Fragestellung des Verhältnisses von sozio-ökonomi-
scher Struktur, politischer Führerschaft, Charisma und
die Bedeutung von Assoziationen für soziales Handeln
und Willensbildungsprozesse unter Studenten und in
Studentenorganisationen auf. Die Verklammerung von
Teil III und IV bildet das Problem der sozialen Unruhe
im modernen Indien, ihrer Mobilisierung, Motivation,
politischen Kanalisierung und Manifestation. In den
zwei Kapiteln von Teil IV wird dies am Beispiel der
politischen Formierung in der Studentenschaft sowohl
allgemein theoretisch als auch empirisch analysiert.
Das große Verdienst dieses Buches ist es, daß diese
z. T. schwer zugänglichen Artikel hier, zusammenge-
stellt und mit einer Einleitung versehen, einem breiten
Publikum zugänglich gemacht wurden. Die in den
einzelnen Teilen aufgeworfenen Teilprobleme werden
in einen weiteren Rahmen gestellt, und hierdurch wird
die substantielle Bedeutung von Oommens Einsichten
für den gesamtgesellschaftlichen Rahmen sichtbar ge-
macht. Obwohl ein Teil der empirischen Daten durch
die rapide gesellschaftliche Entwicklung wahrscheinlich
nicht mehr voll zutreffend sein dürfte, stellen seine
theoretischen Aussagen m. E. immer noch einen wichti-
gen Beitrag auch für die Analyse wirklich aktueller
Verhältnisse dar. Insofern ist “Social Structure and
Politics” nicht nur ein profundes, sondern auch sehr
aktuelles Buch.
Jeder, der an der Soziologie Indiens interessiert ist,
sollte nicht versäumen, dieses wichtige Buch zur Kennt-
nis zu nehmen. Klaus Hesse
Pearson, Roger: Anthropological Glossary. Mala-
bar: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company, 1985.
vi+282 pp. Price: $ 18.50
This dictionary is of a specific character. The author
defines it as a glossary, that is, an alphabetically ordered
set of terms within the study of “the origin and evolution
of man, culture, and society.” The twenty-one page
glossary to Pearson’s “Introduction to Anthropology”
(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974) constituted the
basis for this glossary. However, as the author admits,
the dictionary was modified considerably and expanded
beyond the strict limits of a glossary. It is not strictly a
terminological dictionary which concentrates on the
analysis of general terms from a chosen field. It has some
features of an encyclopaedic dictionary, as it contains
some review entries that inform about particular phe-
nomena (among others, entries which deal with ethnic
groups). Exceeding the formal limits of a glossary, the
author tried to relate entries to each other and to
determine connections between them. However, the
briefness of the majority of entries, the lack of presen-
tation of different theoretical approaches to the prob-
lems discussed, and, in most cases, the absence of
reference to the sources of the presented definitions
point to the rather glossarial or lexical character of the
dictionary.
There is no comprehensive introduction which
would clearly define and justify the principles of the
selection of entries and bring them into relationship by
means of reference indexes. Contrary to the accepted
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
631
practice in such works, the number of entries has not
been mentioned. The author bases the selection of
entries on his own personal preference only. He does not
present any objective criteria, so it is difficult to evaluate
what they might be. It seems to me that even if it were to
be an author’s extremely subjective vision of a field, such
a dictionary should satisfy some general requirements of
consistency, accuracy, and coherence.
This is an anthropological glossary, but it reaches
into several domains - to a considerable extent, into ar-
chaeology, physical and cultural anthropology, linguis-
tics. It also contains a number of entries from psychol-
ogy, sociology, musicology, and even a few entries from
philosophy (e.g., “stoicism”). A good number of entries
seem to go beyond the limits of anthropology - those
dealing with concepts from zoology (e.g., “amoeba,”
“bacteria,” “insecta,” “pterodactyla”), from geology,
and a few from geography (e.g., “Altai mountains”). It
is difficult to find a satisfactory justification for their
inclusion in the anthropological glossary, and the same is
true for such terms as “heraldry,” “life,” or “Greek
god” explained as “a term popularly used to refer to
someone who is strikingly handsome by Nordic stan-
dards.”
Let me make a few remarks concerning the entries
from the domain of cultural anthropology. Among the
terms from this group the author presented some
subdisciplines, ethnological schools, general terms that
refer to cultural and (to a slight degree) ethnic phe-
nomena and processes, general terms from the field of
social organization, kinship relations, marriage and
family, magic and religion. Besides, the author included
a good many review entries which directly refer to
concrete phenomena and cultural objects, and even
numerous terms which are the tribal names of local
deities, rites, etc. It is also possible to distinguish a group
of more general review entries that describe a given
sphere of culture in its ethnic or territorial differentia-
tion (e.g., “African religion”). Entries which treat par-
ticular ethnic groups constitute a separate category.
The already mentioned types of entries have not
been given proportionate treatment by the author. The
selection of entries concerning subdisciplines of cultural
anthropology is not satisfactory.
Among other areas of neglect, there are no entries
on economic anthropology, medical anthropology, or
political anthropology, to mention only well-established
fields. The group of entries that refer to ethnological
schools and methods is not at all exhaustive. There are
no separate terms “evolutionism” and “neo-evolution-
ism,” while evolutionistic theories are briefly treated in
the entries “evolution, cultural,” “evolution, lineal,”
“evolution, multilineal,” and “cultural evolution, uni-
lineal.” Scant information on the culture-historical school
and other diffusionist orientations is included in the
entries “diffusion,” “Kulturkreis,” and “heliolithic.”
Furthermore, the author inserted the entries “functional
theory,” “structural-functional theory,” “particularism,
historical,” and “cultural materialism.” There are no
entries, however, which discuss such important orienta-
tions as C. Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism, the culture and
personality approach, or the culture area theory, al-
though there are included some more detailed terms,
elaborated within the last two of the above mentioned
trends (e.g., “culture pattern,” “personality, basic,”
“culture area”). Terms within the scope of kinship
relations, marriage und family, as well as magic and
religion are treated quite extensively but not entirely
satisfactorily from the point of view of the merits and the
selection of entries.
Among the entries on magic and religion there are
discussed universalistic religions, a number of religions
such as Hinduism, Shintoism, Confucianism, and, also -
it seems quite unnecessarily -, Tahunaism (the ancient
religion of Hawaii), whereas such terms as Judaism or
Taoism have not been included. A few entries treating
ethnic religions, e.g. “Eskimo religion,” have been
inserted. But is it right to introduce the entry of
“Chinese religion” which does not refer to ethnic
religion but to a few different religions, partly presented
in separate entries?
In my opinion, too many detailed entries have been
inserted, which concern some particular cultural phe-
nomena and objects, and which are minor in comparison
with the whole pertinent set of problems and theoretical
issues. Needlessly the author has included many local
terms which have not been established in the ethnologi-
cal literature (e.g., “Kallofalling - and undersea mon-
ster in Eskimo mythology”). I also think that such
entries as “informant” or “utensil” are unnecessary, and
they are very likely to be included due to the author’s
fascination for anthropological trivia of all kinds (as he
writes in the introduction).
The set of ethnonyms included by the author is also
very large. He treats in details ethnic and language
groups of South and North America, Africa, and
South-East Asia. He takes no account, however, of
several important ethnic groups of Europe. Among
Slavonic nations he does not include, e.g., Russians,
Poles, Slovacs; among German nations, e.g., Norwe-
gians, Danes, Englishmen. Some large and significant
ethnic groups of Central Asia - Tajiks, Turkmen,
Kirghiz, Pashtuns - have not been taken into account.
Maybe, the author thought about the last group (some-
times also called Pathans) when inserting the mysterious
entry “Patella - a Pushtu-speaking . . . people, inhabit-
ing much of Northwestern Pakistan and parts of East
Afghanistan.” “Persians” have been treated only histor-
ically. The term “Iranian,” though, has been referred
not only to the main part of the inhabitants of Iran but
also to the population of most of Afghanistan and West
Pakistan, so it does not stand for an ethnic group but
rather for a language community (Iranian languages).
However, there is a separate entry “Iranian languages”
in which the author distinguishes four subgroups: Ave-
stan, an Eastern group, a Pamir group, and a Western
group. It is not correct that the Pushto and Parachi
languages are included among the Pamir languages; we
do not know, in addition, which is the “Afghan”
language, since it also is listed in the group of the Pamir
Anthropos 83.1988
632
Rezensionen
languages (does it concern Pushto, which has already
been mentioned or maybe Dari which also does not
belong to the Pamir languages?). Nuristani languages
have been distinguished under the entry of “Indo-
Iranian languages” as a separate group, the others being
Indie and Iranian. However, the author inserts the term
“Nuristani languages,” explaining it as a division of the
Iranian group of Indo-European languages (by the way,
this has not been reflected in the content of the above
mentioned entry “Iranian languages”). Actually, some
researchers include Nuristani languages in the Iranian
group while others distinguish them as a separate group
within Indo-Iranian languages - the author should be
consistent, though. Having thus reviewed in detail a
group of entries concerning the ethnic and language
groups of Central Asia, I can only hope that analogical
entries referring to other parts of the world do not have
so many faults and inconsistencies.
The merits of various entries evoke some doubts.
The author indeed has the right to omit a larger
theoretical context when explaining terms under the
form of an extended glossary. However, in the case of
concepts so basic to cultural anthropology as “culture,”
which is susceptible to various interpretations, when one
confines oneself to only one definition (here: the
classical definition of Tylor), its source should be given
at least. Nobody can be satisfied, for example, with the
definition of myth which reduces it to “legends which
explain the origin of the customs, rituals, and magico-
religious beliefs,” or with the definition of folklore as “a
collection of orally transmitted traditions comprising a
mixture of stories, myths, legends, songs, and supersti-
tions surviving from earlier magico-religious traditions.”
Both in the last entry and in some others, the author’s
implicit reference to an evolutionistic approach is
noticeable. It is astonishing then that the author has not
included in the glossary terms so crucial for evolutionism
as “survival” or “parallel evolution.” It is certainly
contrary to the principles of definition formulation to
explain “Islam” and “the religion of the Islamic,
Moslem or Mohammedan peoples.” Apart from the fact
that three adjectives which actually mean the same thing
are mentioned one after the other (the third notion being
obsolete and inappropriate), the suggestion is that three
groups of peoples have different variants of the religion
which is collectively called Islam. The explanation of the
term “family,” defined identically with “marriage - a
socially recognized pair-bond between one or more
males and one or more females,” is incorrect. Simply
amazing is the last sentence of the explanation of the
term “ethnos” which seems to equalize “ethnos” with
“ethos” (“The term ‘ethos’ is today more custom-
ary”).
Relations between entries are inconsistently and
incompletely indicated. The author has applied three
kinds of references: 1) “pure” referential entries which
direct one to suitable entries with the explanatory text;
2) references under the text of the entries; 3) refer-
ences in the text of the entries. There are very few “pure”
referential entries and their choice seems to be quite
accidental. It is evident that compound terms are
inconsistently formulated, for often the word order is
reversed. It would be easier to use the glossary if in such
cases corresponding referential entries were inserted. It
is striking that there is no reference between a good
many terms that are closely connected with each other,
often even synonymous. The multitude of entries sug-
gest a great number of phenomena, whereas actually
these terms relate to the same phenomenon (e.g.,
“ancestor worship” and “manism;” “Islam” and “Mo-
hammedanism”). Numerous synonymous terms should
be reduced to referential entries, for the sake of the
coherence and clarity of the glossary. Entries which are
subordinate to others should be connected, at least, with
the main entries by means of references. It also seems
that the author did not attach importance to the precise
formulation of the terms to which he referred in the text
of entries (applying the symbol “q.v.”). It often occurs,
that entry headings to which we are referred appear in
another form and there is a lot of difficulty in finding
them; some are not even to be found in the glossary.
At least, in a few cases the same entry has been
repeated twice, in different places - that occurs too often
to satisfy the requirements of accuracy and precision to
be expected in such a publication.
Concluding, we should state that the undoubtedly
enormous effort of the researcher in compiling a dic-
tionary which comprises such a broad area of prob-
lems has not brought satisfactory results. This kind of
dictionary would certainly prove very useful for students
of ethnology and other related disciplines if it were
better compiled. The lack of consistency, the numerous
inaccuracies, and even glaring faults concerning certain
evaluations do not make it worth recommending. That is
why, contrary to what C. Scott Littleton predicted in the
last sentence of his preface to the glossary, I am
convinced that dog-eared copies of “Anthropological
Glossary” will not be found at the elbows of anthropol-
ogists everywhere. Danuta Penkala-Gawçcka
Potash, Betty (ed.): Widows in African Societies.
Choices and Constraints. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1986. 309 pp. Price: $35.00
“Widows in African Societies” has the makings of
an anthropology classic: competent ethnographies com-
posed along a single theme and survey articles which
effectively integrate the findings into an innovative
theoretical framework.
“Why, despite the fact that they account for as
much as one fourth the adult female population in many
African societies, have widows been so little studied?”
ask both Betty Potash and Miriam Slater in introductory
articles. First, it is suggested, because of the ethnograph-
ic bias toward conjugality that views individuals outside
the nuclear family as residual. Second, because of an
“androcentric” tendency to privilege the male’s point of
view and/or to see women as the passive by-products of a
male-defined set of norms (alliances, descent systems,
etc.). Since the general lack of single women in studies
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
633
on kinship may be attributed to like methodological
shortcomings, it is small wonder that, once these
intellectual biases corrected, divorcees creep into the
analysis almost as often as widows.
By their emphasis on process and, in particular, on
life span trajectories, the authors, counteracting the
structural-functionalist slant toward corporate groups’
rights and obligations, propose to bring individual
options and strategies back into the limelight. Following
a general trend in contemporary social sciences, the
theoretical thrust of this book is away from an oversim-
plified view of structure toward the complex reality of
actual behavior: women are no longer peons disposed of
by the system but rather actors who, assessing the
various alternatives open to them (constraints), opt for
those which best satisfy their economic, social, and
affective needs (choices).
The ten ethnographic studies, spanning the conti-
nent from East to West, are not meant to be “represen-
tative” of African society. They do, however, include a
considerable range in terms of urban/rural origins, class
affiliation, religion, marriage arrangements, and descent
rules. Thanks to firm guidelines, similar variables are
explored in all the articles: division of labor, access to
land, demography, the impact of colonialism, a market
economy, etc. We see the myriad forces which, in
different contexts, push widows back into conjugal
relationships (a desire for more children, the need for
sex and companionship and the sanctions against non-
marital sexuality, the lack of economic self-sufficiency
and fraternal pressure) and those which are likely to
leave women single (strong natal group ties permitting a
woman’s return, concern with support in old age, the
desire to maintain ties with children, a wish to be
independent of male control, the presence of hired
labor, and the availability of other outlets for sex and
procreation). But no easy solutions are offered. Hesitant
to advance new models, the authors are most effective
when exploding old myths.
Up to now, widowhood in Africa has been, more
often than not, assimilated to the levirate, a system in
which the widow is “inherited” by her deceased spouse’s
brother (real or classificatory) who provides for her and
sires children in the deceased’s name. From this volume
we learn that the “levirate” is neither so simple nor so
universal. First, our attention is drawn to the importance
of context. Despite morphological similarities, practices
resembling widow inheritance and the levirate may,
according to each group’s demographical patterns,
residences rules, division of labor, etc., have entirely
different functions and meanings. Second, there is
considerable variety in the various practices. Among the
Kenyan Luo, for example, the levir’s unique task is to
sire children - he neither lives with his deceased
brother’s widow nor assumes any domestic or economic
responsibilities for her or her children. Among the
Nandi (also in Kenya), on the other hand, levirs are
supposed to provide economic aid, but, according to the
women, seldom do so. At any rate, the levirate appears
relevant to women in fewer than half the groups studies -
and, even then, they have considerable freedom to
accept or reject this option.
Our Occidental stereotype of the elderly widow,
sober and chaste, is quickly shattered by the material in
this book. In many groups, age differences between
spouses, particularly in polygynous marriage systems,
leave women widowed at an early age. Remarriage may
not be a socially-permitted option: in some groups, all
children belong to their jural father (their mother’s first
husband’s lineage); in others, a widow, if she remarries,
loses her right to reside with her deceased spouse’s
family and may thus lose custody of her children.
Perpetual widowhood, however, does not necessarily
imply sexual abstinence. In many a case we find these
women kicking up their heels in a way unknown to
wives; frequenting beer halls, becoming involved in
informal debates with men, travelling, and, at least in
one Swahili Muslim community, engaging in their first
moment of socially-tolerated sexual experimentation.
Another exploded myth pertains to lineage support
of widows. Rarely do affines contribute with more than
house and land privileges to a widow’s support. Al-
though, in some cases, her own natal kin may be of
periodic importance, more often than not these pages
present us with an image of self-reliant women whose
only regular economic and affective dependence is on
their own children. Far from being synonymous with
misery, this self-reliance may present distinct advan-
tages. Particulary when a woman has adult sons or is in a
region where it is possible to employ wage laborers, she
may find herself economically better-off than her mar-
ried neighbors.
If, by underlining the women’s viewpoint and their
self-reliance, this book touts a feminist academic line, its
authors scrupulously avoid the pitfalls of militancy. The
women are seldom painted as “victims”. On the
contrary, in an essay by one of the two male contribu-
tors, we see ideas on male dominance challenged square
on. If anything, certain aspects of the feminist research
proposal are not carried far enough - for instance, the
book’s stated ambition to study affectivity and sexual
behavior. Emotions, attitudes of women toward hus-
bands (or levirs), are, for the most part, dealt with only
peripherically. All too often, the concept used to
compare and contrast with the conjugal relationship is
the “companionate marriage” - a yardstick about as
inappropriate here as the “conjugal family” would be.
Carrying through on the impulse provided by this book,
future researchers may go beyond either/or dichotomies
to sound the full array of subtle emotions found in each
context.
“Widows in African Societies” is of relevance to
students of kinship throughout the anthropological
world. This reviewer, for example, in her attempts to
understand kinship organization in lower-income urban
Brazil, found the material’s de-emphasis of conjugal
relationships a welcome change to most existing para-
digms. But certainly, the major challenge this material
presents us with is to take a second look at age-old
stereotypes of Western society’s single women (“home-
Anthropos 83.1988
634
Rezensionen
bound widows,” “sexless spinsters”) - and who knows,
perhaps even to finally extricate the “divorcee” from the
Parsonian quagmire of “broken” and “disorganized”
families. Claudia Fonseca
Rahimi, Fahima: Women in Afghanistan / Frauen
in Afghanistan. Liestal: Foundation Bibliotheca Afgha-
nica, 1986. 112 pp. (Bibliotheca Afghanica, 5) Preis;
sfr 22.50
Die Autorin übernahm 1977 im Auftrag der afgha-
nischen Regierung die Aufgabe, einen Bericht über die
Stellung der Frau in ihrem Heimatland zu schreiben.
Grundlage des vorliegenden englischen Textes mit
deutscher Übersetzung war eine einzige übriggebliebene
Kopie ihres Büchleins. Die restlichen Exemplare wur-
den kurz nach der Veröffentlichung vom Ministerium
für Information und Kultur unter Verschluß gelagert, da
diese Institution auf dem Umschlag nicht genannt
worden war. Vermutlich wurde die Gesamtauflage in
der Zwischenzeit vernichtet. Die Entstehung der vorlie-
genden Ausgabe ist vor allem Nancy Hatch Dupree zu
verdanken, die Fahima Rahimi bei ihrer Arbeit unter-
stützte und einen Nachtrag zu dem Bericht von 1977
verfaßt hat. Über den persönlichen Hintergrund der
Autorin schreibt sie: „Die Journalistin Fahima Rahimi
war eine der ersten teilweise emanzipierten berufstäti-
gen Frauen. Entgegen altem Brauch wagte sie es, eine
eigene Wohnung zu mieten, ohne Verwandte und
Dienerinnen zu leben und selbständig ihre Haushalts-
pflichten neben den Aufgaben einer engagierten Repor-
terin zu erfüllen. Forsch und beharrlich konnte sie sich in
eine Aufgabe verbeißen, bis sie ihre Story hatte“ (15).
Das vorliegende Büchlein ist ein kleines “Who is
who” afghanischer Frauen. Fahima Rahimi erwähnt
dabei u. a. eine Reihe bedeutender Frauen aus früherer
Zeit, die wegen ihrer Dichtkunst und ihren weisen
Ratschlägen sehr geschätzt wurden. In erster Linie geht
es jedoch um Damen der in den Städten lebenden
Oberschicht, die in der Moderne seit der Regierung
Amir Habibullahs (1901-1919) „Geschichte“ gemacht
haben. Im Gegensatz zu Dorfbewohnerinnen und No-
madenfrauen war es ihnen viel eher möglich, Bildungs-
chancen wahrzunehmen und in den neugeschaffenen
Institutionen des Staates mitzuarbeiten. Auch in Afgha-
nistan hat es immer an der Einbeziehung der ländlichen
Bevölkerung - und dabei vor allem des weiblichen Teils
- in den Entwicklungsprozeß gefehlt.
Im Hinblick auf das 20. Jh. hat Fahima Rahimi
interessante biographische Skizzen über Frauen zusam-
mengestellt, die in Erziehungs- und Gesundheitswesen,
Familienplanung, sozialer Wohlfahrt, Verwaltung, di-
plomatischem Dienst, Politik, Journalismus und Sport
tätig waren und z. T. heute noch sind. Auch Nachrich-
tensprecherinnen, Stewardessen, Schauspielerinnen
und Sängerinnen werden genannt. Soweit man den
Angaben der Autorin entnehmen kann, handelt es sich
bei diesen Frauen ausschließlich um Angehörige der
städtischen Elite. Ihre Bemühungen um verbesserte
Bildungs- und Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten, Lockerung
der pardah-Vorschriften, Aufgabe des Schleiers usw.
stießen regelmäßig auf den Widerstand konservativ-
religiöser Kreise. Die Auseinandersetzung mit den
sozialen und politischen Interessen der westlichen Indu-
striegesellschaft hat sich im Grunde immer auf Kabul
beschränkt und geschah weitgehend losgelöst von den
Gegebenheiten und Problemen auf dem Lande. Leider
erfährt der Leser wenig über die Auswirkungen moder-
ner Vorstellungen auf das alltägliche Verhalten der
“upper class”-Frauen, über veränderte Wertvorstellun-
gen und Einstellungsmuster.
Viele der von Fahima Rahimi genannten Afghanin-
nen kämpften für die Gleichstellung der Frauen und für
Verbesserungen ihrer Lage. Die kleinen Erfolge, die auf
diesem Wege bisher erzielt wurden, sind jedoch inzwi-
schen durch die kommunistische Revolution jäh ge-
bremst worden. Bestürzend ist das angegliederte
Schlußkapitel des Büchleins, das die grauenvollen Er-
lebnisse der Mathematik- und Physiklehrerin Fahima
Nasery in Kabuler Gefängnissen seit 1980 wiedergibt.
Was die Saur-Revolution von 1978 den afghanischen
Frauen gebracht hat, kann sich danach jeder Leser selbst
beantworten.
Sicherlich kann der Bericht Fahima Rahimis nur
eine willkommene Ergänzung zu bisherigen Studien
über afghanische Frauen bieten, in denen die Problema-
tik der sozio-ökonomischen Bedingungen, des pardah-
Systems und des Islam im Vordergrund stehen (zur
Stellung der Frau seit Ende der siebziger Jahre vgl.
jedoch: N. H. Dupree, Revolutionary Rhetoric and
Afghan Women, in: M. N. Shahrani and R. L. Canfield
(eds.), Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan; pp.
306-340. Berkeley 1984). Auch in dem begrenzten
Ausschnitt, den die Autorin wählte, kann nur summa-
risch und kaum differenziert dargestellt werden. Nichts-
destoweniger ist die Veröffentlichung sehr zu begrüßen,
da viele Angaben und Daten den meisten Afghanistan-
Forschern kaum bekannt sein dürften. Wichtige Einblik-
ke verschaffen schließlich auch die wertvollen histori-
schen Photographien (eine ganze Reihe sind Louis
Dupree zu verdanken), die den Wandel in der Kleidung
der städtischen Oberschicht dokumentieren.
Jürgen W. Frembgen
Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiati-
schen Archäologie. Bd. 7, 1./2. Lfg. Hrsg, von D. O.
Edzard. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987. 160 pp. Preis:
DM 108,-
Nach längerer Unterbrechung (über die 1983 er-
schienenen Lieferungen cf. Anthropos 80.1985: 298 f.)
liegt nun wieder ein neuer Faszikel dieses Lexikons vor.
Den breitesten Raum unter den Stichwörtern nehmen
darin Zusammensetzungen mit „Lugal“ ein (108-158),
meist Namen von Göttern (bzw. Dämonen) oder Herr-
schern. Unter letzteren ist der vergöttlichte König
Lugalbanda besonders ausführlich behandelt (117-132).
Erwähnenswert ist auch Lugalzagesi, der durch Sargon
von Akkad besiegt wurde; damit gelangten im 24. Jh.
v. Chr. erstmals Semiten zur Vorherrschaft. An sonsti-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
635
gen Herrschern ist vor allem Lipit-Istar zu nennen,
bekannt durch seine Gesetzgebung. Für weitere Götter-
(bzw. Dämonen-)namen sind eine Reihe von kürzeren
Artikeln beachtenswert, so „Lim“, ein Gott (vielleicht
westsemitischer Herkunft), an dessen Namen sich in den
letzten Jahrzehnten verschiedene Spekulationen ange-
knüpft haben, und „Lilü, Lilitu, Ardat-lili“, definiert als
„,Familie1 von dämonischen Geistern“; Lilitu, deren
Namensverwandtschaft zur syrisch-jüdischen Lilith
schon früh Anlaß zum Vergleich der Gestalten bot, ist
als individuelle Dämonin in der Keilschriftliteratur
bisher nirgends sicher greifbar (cf. 23b, 24b).
Einen breiten Raum nehmen auch die Artikel über
„Literatur“ ein (sumerische, akkadische, hethitische,
35-75). Hier ist „Literatur“ nicht so verstanden, wie
man als „Keilschriftliteratur“ alles in Keilschrift Ge-
schriebene bezeichnet, sondern im traditionellen Sinne
als „sprachliches Kunstwerk“ (35b; vgl. den weiteren
Kontext, ferner 48a-b, 66b). In der so verstandenen
akkadischen Literatur, die dank der weiten Verbreitung
der Keilschrift auch einen beträchtlichen Export erlebt
hat (49b), sind neben Mythen und Epen vor allem
Weisheitsliteratur und magische Texte zu nennen; dage-
gen fehlt die Weisheitsliteratur bei den Hethitern (75b),
wo die Geschichtsschreibung einen breiten Raum ein-
nimmt (68b-73a). Auf die in der hethitischen Literatur
überlieferten Kumarbi-Mythen wird nur kurz hingewie-
sen, weil diese schon im 6. Band ausführlich behandelt
sind.
Aus dem Bereich der Religion ist neben den bereits
erwähnten Götter- und Dämonennamen vor allem noch
das Stichwort „Libation“ zu nennen. „Beim Fehlen von
systematischen Arbeiten über das Opferwesen und über
Rituale im allgemeinen kann hier die Libation nur
einigermaßen summarisch und schematisch behandelt
werden. Absonderung und Klärung der verschiedenen
Arten von Libation und ihrer Geschichte ist noch
Desiderat“ (la). Bemerkenswert ist, daß im Gegensatz
zu West- und Südsemiten Blutlibationen in Mesopota-
mien nur eine geringe Rolle spielen (2b), ebenso auch
bei den Hethitern (6b). - Mit juristischen Gegebenhei-
ten befassen sich im wesentlichen nur die Artikel
„Lisänu-Urkunden“, „Literal-Vertrag“ und „Löse-
geld“. In die verschiedensten Bereiche hinein erstrecken
sich die Informationen, die in dem umfangreichen
Artikel „Löwe“ enthalten sind (80-94); Zusammenset-
zungen wie „Löwenadler“ u. ä. (94-102) behandeln
Mischwesen, die in der Ikonographie eine bedeutende
Rolle spielen. Im übrigen ist die Ikonographie in diesem
Faszikel wenig behandelt, abgesehen etwa vom Stich-
wort „Lugalanda-Stufe“ (charakterisiert durch eine spe-
zielle Form der Siegelkunst). - Auf Fundplätze beziehen
sich meist nur kürzere Artikel, ausgenommen etwa
„Lidar Höyük“ (ein Ort in der Provinz Urfa, wo die
Universität Heidelberg seit 1979 Ausgrabungen durch-
führt).
Die Spezialliteratur über den Alten Orient ist
unübersehbar und wächst ständig an; so nimmt man die
hier unter den einschlägigen Stichwörtern zusammenge-
faßten Ergebnisse und Literaturnachweise dankbar ent-
gegen. Mit einiger Sorge stellt man aber fest, daß im
Laufe von fast 60 Jahren (der erste Faszikel dieses
Reallexikons kam 1928 heraus, der erste Band war 1932
abgeschlossen) kaum das Ende des Buchstabens L
erreicht ist, und möchte dringend einen etwas rascheren
Fortgang dieses Unternehmens wünschen.
Joseph Henninger
Renard-Casevitz, F. M., T. Saignes et A. C. Tay-
lor: LTnca, l’espagnol et les sauvages. Rapports entre
les sociétés amazoniennes et andines du XVe au XVIIe
siècle. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations,
1986. 411 pp., cartes, tabl., ph. (Synthèse, 21) Prix:
FF 262,00
Los diferentes tipos de relaciones establecidos
entre las culturas andinas y las amazónicas es el tema de
esta obra, que se halla internamente dividida en dos
tomos, de acuerdo a la región geográfica que cada uno
trata. El primer tomo, cuyos autores son Renard-
Casevitz y Saignes, lleva por título «Les Piémonts
Orientaux des Andes centrales et méridionales: des
Panatagua aux Chiriguano» (11—211); Taylor, autora del
segundo tomo, titula su aporte «Les versants orientaux
des Andes septentrionales; des Bracamoro aux Quijos»
(215-352). A éstos se suma un postfacio de la pluma de
los tres autores (353-365). En esta obra se refleja un
esfuerzo de síntesis a partir de trabajos anteriores de sus
autores sobre estas regiones (Renard-Casevitz especial-
mente entre los Machiguenga, Taylor entre los Jibaro y
Saignes acerca de los Chiriguano y Kallawaya).
El primer tomo (Renard-Casevitz y Saignes) divide
su materia en análisis regionales - Huánuco a Guaman-
ga, Vilcabamba al Madre de Dios, y la región al sur del
Cuzco - en los cuales se tratan las relaciones entre las
zonas altas y bajas, con algunos datos de la arqueología,
pero especialmente a partir de las informaciones de los
cronistas, desde la época anterior a la pentración
española y durante el primer siglo de ésta. Así, los
autores analizan el tipo de control incaico en distintas
zonas, los intentos de pentrar en las regiones selváticas,
y el fracaso total en cuanto a la frontera sur, siempre
asediada por los Chiriguano.
De destacar en un trabajo que utiliza fuentes
históricas, es el hecho de que se utilicen relatos de la
tradición oral de etnias de la «montaña» (por ej. un mito
Machiguenga, 106), que muestra la óptica de estas
culturas con respecto a las relaciones existentes con las
zonas altas. Los autores no se limitan a una lectura de las
fuentes sólo en su aspecto de penetración o «entradas»,
sino a las imágenes y relaciones mutuas de las culturas
andinas y las de la «montaña»; para mencionar un
ejemplo, la visión incaica de los Anti (Arawak preandi-
nos) como seres salvajes desde el punto de vista
material, pero dotados de poderes mágicos y shamáni-
cos.
El segundo tomo, escrito por Taylor, se refiere a las
relaciones entre la región andina y las etnias de la
«montaña» desde el norte del Perú (Bracamoros) hasta
la zona de los Quijo, en el Ecuador. Esta región se halla
Anthropos 83.1988
636
Rezensionen
dividida, a fines de análisis, en cinco sub-regiones, que
son tratadas sucesivamente, recayendo el énfasis (como
la autora misma señala; 218) en los Jíbaro, debido a sus
propios trabajos etnográficos en esta etnia. Justamente
es este proceso de lectura de las fuentes con ojos y
preguntas de etnógrafo, el que confiere a su aporte
algunos de sus momentos más brillantes, que no son
pocos: por ej. (248) al iluminar la organización social de
algunas etnias pre-incaicas, como los Cañar, o el
abandono de la identidad original de algunas etnias, o el
análisis de los motivos de la continuidad de la organiza-
ción social jíbaro, entre los que incluye el atomismo y la
autonomía política en tanto forma de oposición (348).
Este último hecho resaltado por Taylor es aplicable, más
allá de las fronteras geográficas de esta obra, a varias
etnias amazónicas (por ej. algunos grupos Tucano) y
hace recordar a los textos de los misioneros de los siglos
XVII y XVIII, que no cesan de quejarse de la dificultad
de sedentarizar a los indígenas de las tierras bajas,
sociedades sin «cabeza» y sin «policía».
A partir de los para varias zonas escasos - y tardíos
- documentos disponibles (el trabajo se basa en fuentes
éditas), la autora realiza un análisis convincente de
varios problemas de esta región, como por ej. el de la
identidad étnica de los Waorani (Auca), a quien
identifica con los Aushiris de las fuentes (311-313), sin
temer además la propuesta de hipótesis a las que la
conduce el análisis de las fuentes históricas.
En el postfacio, finalmente, los autores detallan
una serie de relaciones de complementaridad entre las
culturas andinas y las amazónicas, y cómo la noción de
«frontera» - en cuanto antinomia y total oposición -
surge con la conquista española.
El trabajo se basa prácticamente en fuentes éditas,
lo cual no es criticable, pero sí el hecho - esto se refiere
al primer tomo de la obra - de que los documentos
utilizados se citan a veces de modo que sería dificultoso
ratificar la información. No alivia la tarea el proceder
curioso del manejo de los documentos empleados, que
no son citados en la bibliografía. Otros errores (algunas
citas, por ej. p. 159, carecen de número de página,
varios autores mencionados en el texto serán buscados
vanamente por el lector en la bilbiografía) son posible-
mente atribuibles a errores de imprenta, inevitables
generalmente en trabajos de tal magnitud.
Lo anterior no invalida el principal mérito de esta
obra: el ser resultado de un esfuerzo de síntesis acerca de
un tema fundamental para la etnohistoria y etnografía
sudamericanas; esto vale especialmente para la contri-
bución de Taylor que es, de ambos aportes, el más
profundo y decantado en sus afirmaciones.
El enorme corpus de información del libro ha sido
organizado de modo tal que facilita su intelección;
Prueba de ello son las aproximadamente tres docenas de
mapas que acompañan al texto y los numerosos cuadros
sinópticos que puntualizan tanto las expediciones incai-
cas como las «entradas» españolas hacia la «montaña»
(por ej. 60 s., 170, 258 ss.). Asimismo facilitan la lectura
varios registros, desde un índice temático (que no sólo
remite al texto, sino que explica también numerosas
expresiones utilizadas), a otros, que detallan los nom-
bres de las etnias, los nombres de personas y los
accidentes geográficos. María Susana Cipolletti
Sachchidananda and B. B. Mandai: Industrializa-
tion and Social Disorganization. A Study of Tribals in
Bihar. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1984.
164 pp., tables. Price: Rs 100
Ce livre repose sur une enquête sociologique parmi
les tribus des régions industrielles du plateau de Chota
Nagpur, au Bihar, et il vise à «identifier» ce que l’auteur
appelle un «procès de désorganisation résultant de
l’industrialisation». Deux zones ont été sélectionnées:
Jamshedpur, la ville de la «Tata Iron Steel Company» et
Hatia où l’on trouve la «Heavy Engineering Construc-
tion». Les auteurs prétendent que l’industrialisation
rapide a désorganisé les communautés tribales vivant
dans la région, c’est-à-dire les Oraons, Hos, Mundas et
Santals. Pourtant, leur analyse est si faible qu’elle
pourrait être critiquée sur presque chaque point. Des
jugements de valeurs, généralisations abusives, lieux
communs, erreurs patentes et platitudes apparaissent à
presque chaque page. Les arguments servant à illustrer
l’hypothèse d’une désorganisation sont pitoyables. On
lit par exemple; «About 33 % of them have reported
that they know many children who are disobedient to
their parents and have lapsed into anti-social activities»
(85). Un peu plus loin: «More than 51 % of the slum
dwellers attest to the fact that slum children have taken
to the habit of the theft, gambling and drinking alcohol»
(99). Les auteurs trouvent ces résultats suffisants pour
conclure: «It may thus be said that psychological
attachment to the family or the sense of belongingness
has been waning among the children with the passage of
time» (100). Certains tableaux (tel le tableau 6) sont des
plus illisibles avec en outre des erreurs de calcul.
En dehors de ces problèmes, les données recueillies
par les enquêteurs sont souvent sans rapport avec le but
proposé. En vue d’analyser un procès de désorganisa-
tion, il aurait été bon de décrire quelle était l’organisa-
tion des tribus, c’est-à-dire la société tribale traditionnel-
le. Les auteurs reconnaissent que les tribus ont tradition-
nellement des valeurs morales différentes de celles de
leurs voisins hindous et, pourtant, ils prétendent que
l’industrialisation est la cause de ce qu’ils appellent les
«vices sociaux». De plus, les tribus ont toujours bu
l’eau-de-vie du pays et il est alors hasardeux de lier
l’alcoolisme à l’industrie moderne. Le brigandage et le
vol de bétail sont ainsi de véritables institutions tribales
qui ne peuvent être mises sur le compte de la «Tata Steel
Industry». Il est même probable que les travailleurs de
l’industrie, avec leurs salaires assez élevés, soient deve-
nus plus sanskritisés, avec des valeurs morales et
religieuses plus affirmées que leurs frères des villages
plus reculés. Ceci n’apparaît pourtant nulle part dans le
livre; les différences entre les catégories choisies (core-
villages, fringe-villages et industrial workers) ne sem-
blent nullement significatives et ne permettent de tirer
aucune conclusion fondamentale.
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
637
On pourrait ainsi continuer la liste des insuffisances
de ce type d’ouvrage. Les quelques exemples repris
ci-dessus suffiront néanmoins à montrer que ce travail ne
nous apprend rien sur les changements modernes des
régions industrielles du Bihar. Robert Deliège
Schild, Ulla (ed.): Jaw-Bones and Umbilical Cords.
A Sélection of Papers Presented at the 3rd Janheinz Jahn
Symposium 1979 and the 4th Janheinz Jahn Symposium
1982. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1985. 150 pp.
(Mainzer Afrika-Studien, 6) DM 48,-
Dieser Tagungsband gewährt einen perspektiven-
reichen Einblick in die afrikanische Literaturszene.
Thema des in Mainz organisierten 3. Symposiums war
„Opposition und Exil“, das des 4. „Die Afrikanerin als
Autorin und literarische Figur“. Zu beiden Themen
wurde je ein Beitrag zur deutschen Autorenproblematik
einbezogen, ein Schritt in Richtung „vergleichende
Literaturwissenschaft“.
Die Vorträge sind unverändert abgedruckt, je ein
französischer und ein deutscher auf englisch zusammen-
gefaßt. Biographische Daten zu Referenten und Auto-
ren wie jegliche analytische Schlußfolgerungen sucht der
Leser leider vergebens.
Zunächst erzählt Camara Laye, wie sein 1954
erschienener autobiographischer Roman «L’enfant
noir» entstand: Nach hartem Arbeitstag bei Simca war
er Abend für Abend, in Sehnsucht nach Verwandten
und Freunden, ins Reich seiner Kindheit getaucht. Erst
auf Anregung eines Freundes entschloß er sich, seine
nostalgischen Notizen für ein Buch zu bearbeiten. Laye
war zum Studium nach Paris gekommen. Ins politische
Exil begab er sich erst 1965, nachdem in Guinea unter
dem Banner des „Gott leugnenden Sozialismus“ der
Teufel losgebrochen sei.
Deutsche Exil-Autoren waren in den Jahren
1933-1945 mit anderen Problemen konfrontiert als Laye
und seine afrikanischen Leidensgenossen. Hans-Albert
Walter bringt sie in Erinnerung: Von den ca. 3000
Journalisten und Schriftstellern, die als Gegner oder
Verfolgte des NS-Regimes ins Ausland flohen, konnten
sich nur wenige in der Öffentlichkeit Gehör verschaffen.
Ihre Sprache war hier unverständlich, ihr Leserkreis
klein, Verlage standen in schwindendem Ausmaß zur
Verfügung. Hinzu kam eine meist erforderliche berufs-
fremde Tätigkeit, bzw. die ihrer Ehefrauen.
Afrikanische Exilanten konnten sich dagegen gewandt
in einer Fremdsprache ausdrücken, mit der sie zwar die
Majorität ihrer Landsleute nicht, dafür aber kaufkräfti-
ge andere Leser erreichten.
Taban Io Liyong, dessen Überthema als Buchtitel
dient, geißelt in bildreicher Sprache die politische
Enthaltsamkeit vor allem der Baganda, ob Gestalter
oraler oder schriftlicher Werke. Von Kintu über Ba-
chwezi, Briten, Obote bis Idi Amin habe das Volk
gesungen und gedichtet, Bananen geerntet, Kinder
gezeugt und sich auf die alten Götter wie den Fruchtbar-
keit spendenden Viktoria-See verlassen. Am Hofe aber
wurden erbitterte Machtkämpfe ausgefochten. Wer den
stärksten Unterkiefer und die längste Nabelschnur
besaß, blieb noch bis über seinen Tod hinaus beherr-
schend. Die Geschichte Bugandas sei eine Geschichte
dieser Kieferknochen, Symbol für „Macht durch Wor-
te“. Keiner habe es gewagt, gegen den immerwährenden
Despotismus aufzubegehren, nicht einmal einer der von
den Missionaren zum Widerstand erzogenen “Guten-
berg boys”. Auf einen Ousmane Sembene warte man in
Uganda noch.
In Kenya hatte ein Schriftsteller den Protest ge-
wagt: Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Aber als er sich in seiner
Muttersprache Kikuyu an die Landsleute wandte, wurde
er eingesperrt. “Petals of Blood” war schon vorher
(1977) erschienen. Grant Kamenju analysiert dies kriti-
sche Buch und meint, hierin den Beweis für die
Erfüllung der Leninschen Prophezeiung sehen zu dür-
fen: Trotz offizieller Unabhängigkeit sei das Land
abhängig geblieben, und zwar vom Kapitalismus, garan-
tiert durch die einstigen Freiheitskämpfer, die neue
Bourgeoisie.
In den lusophonen Gebieten, führt Donald Bur-
ness aus, sei die koloniale Situation anders gewesen als
im restlichen Schwarzafrika. Der Protest der Autoren,
ob schwarz, weiß oder gemischt, in Afrika oder Portu-
gal, habe sich gegen die Diktatur, gegen die den
Kolonialismus tragende Oberschicht Portugals gewandt.
Deshalb sei auch ihr Verhältnis zur afrikanischen Ge-
schichte von anderer Qualität als das der negritude-
Autoren. Zwecks besseren Verständnisses dieser spezi-
fischen Lage plädiert Burness für verstärkte Übersetzer-
tätigkeit. Wichtig ist seine Forderung, klarer zwischen
politisch und ästhetisch wertvoller Literatur zu unter-
scheiden.
Ulli Beier zeigt an einem nigerianischen Beispiel
die Gefahr für Künstler, zum Spielball politischer Kräfte
zu werden. Duro Ladipo, Yoruba Musiker und Drama-
tiker, um eine Renaissance seiner Kultur bemüht, durfte
zum Berliner Festival 1964 zunächst nicht ausreisen,
dann seine Truppe nicht ohne Schuhe auftreten lassen -
sonst sähen sie ja aus wie „Wilde“! -; nach seinem Erfolg
bedrängte ihn Akintola, für ihn ein „Wahlkampfdrama“
zu schreiben. Von der Regierung 1965 zum Common-
wealth Festival delegiert, sorgte sein Kollege Ogunmola
anschließend dafür, daß dieser „Regierungstreue“ unter
Hausarrest gestellt wurde. Von Beier befreit, schrieb
und spielte Lapido während des Biafra-Krieges auch mit
Igbo-Tänzern. Bis zu seinem Tode 1978 gelang es ihm,
als gefeierter Nationalheld seine politische Unbefangen-
heit zu wahren.
Dieter Riemenschneider spürt der literarischen
Verarbeitung dieser nigerianischen Wirren nach. Von
wenigen Ausnahmen abgesehen (z. B. Soyinka’s Ge-
fängnistagebuch “The Man Died”, 1972), habe sich die
poetische und dramatische, symbolisierende Form als
geeigneteres Medium erwiesen (z. B. Omotosos “The
Combat”, 1972). Bei den wesentlichen Dichtern stehe,
inspiriert durch den 1967 gefallenen Christopher Okig-
ba, der Glaube an den Sieg moralischer Werte, des
Lebens, im Vordergrund (z. B. Soyinkas “Season of
Anomy”, 1973).
Anthropos 83.1988
638
Rezensionen
Jânosz Riesz analysiert acht frankophone Romane
- Ousmane Socés «Mirages de Paris» (1937) über
Ousmane Sembènes «Le docker noir» (1956) bis Cheikh
Hamidou Kanes «L’aventure ambigüe» (1961) - unter
dem Aspekt der Spannung zwischen Nähe und Ferne,
Stadt und Land, Illusion und erlebter Realität. Wurde
das Trugbild „Europa“, an die Afrikaner durch Romane
und Filme vermittelt, durch einen Aufenthalt in Europa
selbst grundlegend erschüttert, so faszinierte doch ande-
rerseits der Lebensstil in der Metropole. Jetzt erschien
eher die dörfliche Heimat in rosarotem Licht. Eine
Synthese beider Bindungen sei selten gelungen.
Schließlich gibt Hans M. Zell, Herausgeber von
“African Books in Print”, einen ausgezeichneten Über-
blick zum Thema; Autor und Verleger. Seit den
fünfziger Jahren bieten englische, französische, auch
amerikanische Verlage afrikanischen Autoren ihre
Dienste an, teils in Kooperation mit Kultusministerien,
um über den Schulbuchmarkt Absätze zu sichern. Auch
die zunehmende Übergabe von Entscheidungsfunktio-
nen an afrikanische Verlagsfilialen hat noch lange nicht
dazu geführt, daß afrikanische Autoren sich direkt an
ihre Landsleute wenden können. Lfm Erfolg und Kasse
nicht zu schmälern, beugen sich noch zu viele den von
einheimischer Elite und ausländischen Lesern angedeu-
teten Richtlinien. Dem Appell der “Union of Writers
and African Peoples” von 1975, sich einheimischer
Sprachen, Bilder, Formen zu bedienen, gute Manu-
skripte lokalen Verlagen anzubieten, ist nicht leicht
nachzukommen. Einheimische Verlage haben viele Pro-
bleme: Mangel an marktwirtschaftlicher Erfahrung,
Zwang zur Rücksichtnahme auf den Schulbuchsektor,
zu kleine Auflagen bei muttersprachlichen Texten,
mangelhafter Ausbau von Büchereien, Buchklubs, zu
wenig Leserforschung. Die literarische Infrastruktur -
Zeitungen und Zeitschriften in Lokalsprachen, Auto-
renwettbewerbe, Förderung der Produktion von Billig-
büchern - müßte ausgebaut werden. Vielleicht aber
könnten die Verlage an Vitalität gewinnen, wenn sich
ihre Autoren öfter des in West-, Ost- wie Südafrika so
populären dramatischen Mediums bedienen würden?
Zells Beitrag sollte von Interessenten an dieser eminent
wichtigen Frage selbst zur Hand genommen werden.
Das zweite Thema des Tagungsbandes wurde
leider nur sehr selektiv behandelt. Zwei heftig diskutier-
te Vorträge, von Miriam Tlali aus Südafrika und
Wanjiku Matenjwa aus Kenya, wurden nicht zum Druck
eingesandt. Der längste Beitrag hat die deutsche
Frauenliteratur zum Gegenstand.
Die Senegalesin Annette M’Baye d’Erneville skiz-
ziert die Situation der afrikanischen Autorin aus franko-
phoner Schau. Zunächst wagten sich Frauen nur mit
Gedichten, Novellen, Kinderbüchern an die Öffentlich-
keit. Aus Scheu und Furcht vor männlicher Kritik
enthielten sie sich weitgehend als Romanautorinnen.
1975 erschien dann die politische Autobiographie von
Aoua Kéita (Mali) «Femme d’Afrique», 1978 das bei der
UNO-Frauenkonferenz 1980 heiß umstrittene feministi-
sche Buch der senegalesischen Soziologin Awa Thiam
«La parole au négresse». Aminata Sow Fall aber gab
1976 und 1979 zwei ausgezeichnete satirische Romane,
«Le revenant» und «La grève des bättus», heraus, die
der senegalesischen literarischen Szene Ehre machen.
Das nämliche gilt für Miriama Bäs beide Bücher «Une si
longue lettre» (1979) und «Le chant écarlate» (1980).
Das Bezeichnende an diesen und anderen Frauenbü-
chern sei, meint die Referentin, die Thematisierung des
Alltagslebens, der realen Situation vor allem in der
Familie unserer Zeit. Offensichtlich hatten diese Frauen
- beide wurden preisgekrönt - einen so großen Erfolg,
daß ihre männlichen Kollegen aufpassen müssen, daß
sie nicht ins Hintertreffen geraten.
Mme M’Bay unterstreicht in ihrem zweiten Sympo-
siums-Beitrag die hohe Bedeutung senegalesischer
Frauen als Trägerinnen religiöser Traditionen. Ihre
Nähe zu übernatürlichen Kraftquellen erkläre ihre
Funktion als Ratgeber und Stützpfeiler in einer sich nach
außen hin patriarchalisch gebenden Gesellschaft. Dies
schlage sich auch in literarischen Werken nieder.
Gerhard Grohs befaßt sich mit dem sich zwischen
1961 und 1980 wandelnden Frauenbild in Romanen
männlicher Autoren. Wurden Frauen zunächst nur als
Instrumente der nach Macht strebenden Männer in die
Handlung eingebracht, so treten sie ab Ngugis “Petals of
Blood” auch als der politischen Initiative fähige Mitbür-
gerinnen auf.
Ob sich der aktive Einsatz von Frauen während der
Unabhängigkeitskämpfe (z. B. in Simbabwe), ihre Zu-
rückversetzung in abhängige, untergeordnete Positio-
nen, nach dem Kriege in literarischen Produktionen -
und dann wie? - niederschlagen wird, diese Frage wirft
Ruth Weiss in ihrem Vortrag auf.
Die Kriegssituation dieser Frauen war der deut-
schen nicht ganz unähnlich. Auch ihr Partnerschaftsver-
hältnis und ihr Ich-Gefühl hatten sich gewandelt. Inge-
borg Drewitz behandelt auch diese Frage in ihren
Ausführungen zur deutschen Frauenliteratur nach 1945,
vorrangig aber die des Generationenkonflikts, des Mut-
ter-Tochter-Verhältnisses, ein Thema, das in der
afrikanischen Romanliteratur ganz und gar nicht domi-
nant ist.
Hätte man zum Frauen-Symposium noch andere
Referentinnen eingeladen, so wäre das Bild der schrei-
benden Afrikanerin und ihrer Themen weitaus differen-
zierter ausgefallen, vor allem auch unter Einschluß der
Werke anglophoner Autorinnen wie z. B. Flora Nwapa
und Buchi Emecheta aus Nigeria oder Ama Ata Aidoo
aus Ghana.
Die Symposiumsbeiträge sind zwar qualitativ und
quantitativ von sehr unterschiedlichem Gewicht, sie
regen aber zu vielen Fragen und Erwartungen an.
Sigrid Paul
Schmidt, Annette: Young People’s Dyirbal. An
Example of Language Death from Australia. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xviii-F
252 pp., tab. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Sup-
plementary Volume) Price: £ 22.50
Schmidt’s is the first detailed account of the demise
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
639
of an Australian aboriginal language. The language she
discusses is Dyirbal, spoken by some 100 people in
north-east Queensland. Standard or traditional Dyirbal
has previously been described by Dixon (1972). Without
it Schmidt would have lacked the necessary yardstick
against which to measure the erosion and potential
collapse and disappearance of the language today.
Dyirbal is currently spoken, with minor exceptions,
only in the Jambun community at Murray Upper in
north Queensland. Even within this closed group it is
currently being replaced by a variety of English. Schmidt
finds that there is a linguistic continuum at Jambun
ranging from English only at one end of the scale to
“traditional” Dyirbal at the other. She divides the
Jambun community into three overlapping groups, aged
0-15, 15-39, and 40-90. The group in focus is basically
the 15-39 year age group, which is the group speaking
“Young People’s Dyirbal.”
Compared to “traditional” Dyirbal, Schmidt finds,
not unexpectedly, that “young” Dyirbal lacks many of
the morphological and syntactic complexities of the
language as it is spoken by older members of the
community. She notes, for example, that less fluent
Dyirbal speakers abandon morphological ergativity and
regroup core elements according to the English nomina-
tive-accusative pattern. There is also severe allomorphic
reduction of ergative-instrumental, locative-aversive,
and genitive affixes. The traditional alienable-inalienab-
le possessive distinction is neutralized. Peripheral case
distinctions are collapsed, with often only a single case
affix being used to cover various peripheral case
functions.
Schmidt observes that unlike inflectional affixes,
nominal and verbal derivational morphemes show mark-
ed resistance to change, with the only collapsing occur-
ring with reciprocal and reflexive, expressed formally as
reflexive. It is the unmarked forms that are the most
resistant to change, both in terms of closed categories,
such as bala, ‘there,’ wanya, ‘who,’ wunyja, ‘where,’ and
the pronoun paradigms. At the same time, the unmark-
ed (non-future) affix becomes the unvarying form for
the verb ending when marked affix forms (future and
negative imperative) are dropped. Schmidt sums up by
stating that the pattern of change in young people’s
Dyirbal is characterized by extreme asymmetry. For
while on the one hand there is a pattern of morphologi-
cal simplification (with the dropping of inflectional
affixes), there is retention of morphological complexity
(the derivational affixes). At the same time Schmidt
makes the point that what is taking place in Dyirbal is
not pidginization. Nor can the changes be entirely
attributed to English influence. She concludes that the
death of Dyirbal is imminent. Its low social and political
prestige make its take-over by English inevitable.
There are a couple of problems, however, with
Schmidt’s study. The first is that the number of speakers
in the sample upon which she focusses is extremely
small, some fifteen to twenty people, of whom only
twelve are used as “informants.” The sample is a
dangerously small one upon which to base generaliza-
tions, not that Schmidt had any control over the
numbers. These people were brought together as a
single community only in 1977 (upon land purchased for
them by the government). The research upon which this
study is based was carried out in 1982. During the period
between 1977 and 1982 the young Dyirbal speakers had
formed two in-groups, the “Buckaroos” and the
“Rock’n Rollers,” upon which most of the data collec-
tion and analysis is based. By the end of the fieldwork
period (mid-1982) the “Rock’n Rollers” group had
disintegrated, so destroying the in-group and its identi-
fying speech characteristics. Schmidt herself notes the
highly transient nature of the community. She has done
well to identify and categorize the range of speech
variation along the continuum. However, she does not
pay much attention to the ephemeral nature of in-group
speech styles or to changing alliances within the commu-
nity and the attendant linguistic consequences. If she
were to return to Jambun today she would in all
likelihood find that the continuum from “traditional”
Dyirbal to “young” Dyirbal and English is still essen-
tially as she described it in 1982. The in-group identifi-
cational speech characteristics, however, may well be
rather different.
Schmidt’s study is womanlike, but frustrating, for
while it provides a detailed account of a small commu-
nity on the verge of linguistic extinction, comparable
studies in other areas of Aboriginal Australia will be re-
quired before significant generalizations about language
death in this country can be made. D. T. Tryon
Schütz, Albert J.: The Fijian Language. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1985. xxxi + 688 pp. Price:
$35.00
Albert Schütz has devoted more than twenty five
years to the active study and mastery of the Fijian
language, and more especially to the study of the Bauan
dialect of Eastern Fijian, which has been the standard
official dialect for generations. “The Fijian Language” is
the culmination of his linguistic efforts during this
period. Let it be said, however, that Schütz has already
published widely on Fiji and Fijian language, history,
and culture, his “Languages of Fiji” dating back to 1972.
Indeed, some of the material which is incorporated in
“The Fijian Language” has previously appeared in
Schütz’s earlier publications.
The book contains five sections. The first, devoted
to background material, gives an exhaustive and fasci-
nating account of the history of European contact with
the Fiji Islands. Schütz devotes considerable space to the
issue of Fijian orthography, so correct linguistically yet
so unorthodox when looked at Eurocentrically. His ac-
count of the original LMS (London Missionary Society)
Tahitian genesis of the original Fijian spelling system
reveals Schütz’s talent as an ethno-historian. Even the
use of the apostrophe in Fijian has Tahitian antecedents,
a fact not mentioned by Schütz. Since his account is so
wide-ranging, perhaps he could also have mentioned the
fact that the “Fijian alphabet,” characterized by the use
Anthropos 83.1988
640
Rezensionen
of “c” for Idl, “q” for Igl and “g” for /(7/, is also used in
the western Solomon Islands, principally in Roviana,
where Fijian and Fiji-trained evangelists established
Christian missions at the beginning of this century. He
could also have mentioned that Fijian almost became the
national language of the Solomons as far back as
1896.
The second section deals with sentence types and
verb phrases. It is here that Schütz makes his most
important contribution to our understanding of Fijian.
His analysis of the Fijian sentence differs markedly from
previous interpretations in that he treats as subjects the
so-called pronominal elements that precede the verb,
rather than the nominals which follow it. For in Fijian
there are two entities in the sentence which might qualify
as subject(s). Schütz cites the example:
eräü sä date na gone
3D ASP sit DEF child
(The two children were sitting)
Both eräü and na gone could fit the traditional definition
of subject. Schütz argues that it is eräü which is the
subject, and not na gone. His reanalysis of subject hinges
on the interpretation of e as the third person singular
pronoun, thereby filling a gap in the pronominal
paradigm as previously perceived. Having established
this point, Schütz examines the frequency of sentences
with and without a noun phrase “subject.” He argues
that we have received our impression of “normal” Fijian
sentences, where a noun phrase “subject” is most
commonly present, from directly elicited materials. He
points out that Geraghty has found that in a large body
of material which he transcribed only a minority of
sentences included noun phrases. Schütz concludes that
therefore the noun phrase is not an obligatory element of
the sentence, but rather an optional element, added to
give more information about the semantic referent
“when that information is necessary to the hearer” (89).
Schütz concludes that because the person-number mark-
er (pronominal) is obligatory and the noun phrase
optional, therefore he interprets the first element as the
subject. It is surprising that his common-sense approach
had not been adopted by earlier Fijian scholars. Schütz is
surprised too and remarks that many analysts seem to
have forgotten that some very well studied languages
have something rather different from an NP + VP
sentence structure.
The remaining sections of the book deal with noun
phrases, operations (subordination, etc.), and phonol-
ogy. The treatment of each section is painstaking and
thorough. Certainly, no such exhaustive account of
Fijian has been previously produced.
The main body of the text is followed by a complete
bibliography on Fijian language. This bibliography,
compiled over more than twenty five years is an
important component of this very important work on
Fijian. In addition, in an appendix, all of the early Fijian
wordlists are reproduced, beginning with the 1777
Cook-Anderson wordlist of twelve items. To round off
this documentary storehouse of materials, many of
which are inaccessible to most scholars, Schütz repro-
duces a number of plates featuring the earliest published
works on Fijian, namely the first two pages of Cargill’s
Lakeba grammar (1839), extracts from Cargill’s unpub-
lished Lakeba dictionary, and the title page from
Hazlewood’s 1850 dictionary.
Schütz is to be congratulated on a fine piece of work
and some innovative thinking. “The Fijian Language”
will certainly become the standard reference work for
Fijian and is likely to remain so for many years to come.
The only feature which grates is that the University of
Hawaii Press has really only reproduced a typescript,
rather than a typeset production which a book of this
nature and quality so obviously merits. D. T. Tryon
Shulman, David Dean: The King and the Clown in
South Indian Myth and Poetry. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1985. xvi+471 pp., map, photos.
Price: $ 57.00
Unlike other students of South Indian history the
author dispensing with inscriptions and chronicles tries
to discover the symbolism of kinship in poetry and folk
narrative. Well versed in both Tamil and Sanskrit he
examines for this purpose literary works covering about
a thousand years. The greatest emphasis is laid on the
Chola period from the 9th to the thirteenth century, in
which Tamil culture reached one of its peaks.
The author sees the South Indian kingship as an
“empty centre,” a “black hole,” and the king as
essentially weak, conflict-torn, and suffering under the
unavoidable evil of violence. In support of this view he
cites the Pandyan king in Cilappatikaram who dies from
remorse for a judicial error and the king in Manimekalai
who has to be prevented from renouncing the world (the
author prefers to call these works “ornate literary
creations” rather than epics). The evil king Vena in the
Bhagavatapurana, which is presumably of Tamil prove-
nance, and kings suffering from leprosy or other physical
flaws are given as further examples of the king’s negative
symbolic image.
While ancient Hindu theorists and modern West-
ern scholars have usually stressed the Brahmin’s su-
premacy the author finds him almost as fractured as the
king with whom he is intimately connected. The Brah-
min’s inner conflicts are said to be reflected in the far
from ideal Brahmin warriors Parasurama and Asvatta-
ma as described in Sanskrit and Tamil works.
The historical link between the Brahmin and the
clown already attested in late-Cankam poetry and in the
Sanskrit drama with its Brahmin clown Vidusaka contin-
ues in the historically doubtful Brahmin court jester
Tenali Rama of the 16th century Andhra king Krsnade-
varaya and the modern form of the Vidusaka in the
Kerala folk drama Kutiyattam. The author derives this
persistent association from the Brahmin’s need for
comic transcendence of his irreconcilable contradictions
and the ambiguity shared by the Brahmin and the clown.
While the classical Vidusaka functioned as an “onto-
logical referee and commentator” the modern Tamil
Anthropos 83.1988
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641
village clown, who indulges in slapstick and obscenity,
has a fertility connotation, since the plays in which he
appears are sometimes performed as a rain magic.
But folly, the author claims, is “a necessary
component of the royal identity.” In addition to the
above bona fide clowns he thus discovers clownish traits
in the “king of the gods” Indra, who is often shown in an
unseeming light, in the mythic king Trisahku hanging
upside down in the sky, and the king Ceraman Perumal
intoxicated by the love for god. The legendary lifestory
of this Saiva saint is said to contain not just one but three
clowns: the king, his friend the Brahmin saint-poet
Cuntarar and the playful god Siva whom they both
worship. Further comic aspects of kingship are pointed
out in macabre war poems, in particular the Kaliiikat-
tupparani.
According to the reviewer, in order to be justified
in speaking of the comic at least one of the following
conditions must be fulfilled: the writer or actor must
want to be funny or/and the audience must perceive his
words or deeds as funny. Though also Indian tastes may
have changed over the centuries, if a modern Indian
commentator understands some verses of Kaliiikattup-
parani as obviously comic, we have to respect his emic
statement. It will not do, however, to claim that the
poem has a general comic tone not recognized so far, as
if comicality were an intrinsic feature independent of the
observer’s attitude. To the modern Westerner more
prone to understatement than hyperbole the standard
gruesome descriptions of battlefields in Indian poetry
may indeed seem grotesque as may do excessive
devotion. But it is unlikely that the king and his subjects,
whose victory over the enemy was described in such
horripilating images, thought them funny, or that the
ordinary Hindu conceives his saints and gods as clowns.
In the Hindu conception the god amuses himself, to be
sure, but he does not want to amuse his devotees like a
clown nor is there any evidence that they feel amused by
the often cruel tricks he plays on them.
The king in myth and poetry is not only associated
with male characters like the Brahmin and the clown but
also surrounded by a host of women: his queens,
courtesans, and young female subjects who, according
to a poetic convention, fall madly in love with him when
they see him in procession (ula). Here the author
perceptively remarks that “the ula may be given to
irony, but it is hardly comic.”
The powerful bandit may equally be linked with the
king. Although the bandit-hero is primarily a tragic
figure occasionally deified, in the 17th and 18th century
Tamil literature he has developed the picaresque genre
of the nontinatakam dealing with the tragic-comic
cripple. The king, in the author’s words, “remains at
once a bandit and a clown as well as an iconic paragon of
order, hovering above these two personae and partially
veiling them from sight.”
The reviewer sympathizes with the author’s at-
tempt to derive from literary works information about
values and ideals of a people; but without the possibility
of comparing this information with non-literary sources
conclusions must remain tentative. The most problem-
atic aspect of the book, however, is not the reliability
of the texts, it rather is their interpretation. Underlying
urges, hidden ideals, deeper levels of similarity, latent
tragedies and comedies, etc. are constantly felt or
sensed. But feeling or sensing alone would seem to be
insufficient evidence for their existence.
Certainly the characters discussed are not all of a
piece, but this does not justify the claim that they feel
torn by unbearable tensions and hanker back to a lost
wholeness. Few people apart from mystics and psycho-
analytical-minded theorists bother about their “whole-
ness,” and all the talk about psychological tensions
seems to be but the unfortunate result of taking a
mechanical metaphor at face value. Nothing supports
the view that the mind works in the way pictured by this
metaphor. If, as the anthropological literature has amply
shown, people can and do hold simultaneously logically
opposite beliefs (presumably by keeping them separate
in the mind), there is no good reason why they should
not be able to subscribe to different or opposite values
without mental tension. Besides, by chronologically
sequencing theoretically incompatible aims of life the
Indian law-givers have further reduced the chance that
they might conflict. If the king were really so much
subject to mental suffering one wonders why kingship
has been such a coveted goal and so few people have
renounced it.
These criticisms should not induce to think that the
book is devoid of merit. Also those who, like the
reviewer, have reservations against most interpretations
proposed will find it original, stimulating, and highly
informative. It introduces the reader to a wealth of little
known literature like the mediaeval Tamil version of the
Mahabharata, Chola court poetry, and folk genres of
past centuries and modern times. Special mention must
be made of the superb translations of excerpts from
more than a dozen works of poetry in Tamil and
Sanskrit. “The King and the Clown in South Indian
Myth and Poetry” will interest all students of Indian
culture. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi
Stevenson, Michael: Wokmani: Work, Money, and
Discontent in Melanesia. Sydney: Oceania Publications,
1986. 183 pp., tab. (Oceania Ethnographies, 1) Price:
$ 15.00
Lying somewhat in the direct line of fire of this
book, insofar as I am an Australian once-and-future
resident of Madang (Papua New Guinea), who has
occasionally been involved in the “imposition of forms
of democracy,” I freely admit to being disturbed and
moved by this book. It is a worthy presentation as the
first publication in a new series of books which Oceania
is launching.
Stevenson has written a kind of urban ethnography
based on extended participant observation which, as far
as I am aware, is quite rare for Papua New Guinea. He
lived in the workers’ compounds in Madang town for
more than a year, following half a year in a bush village.
Anthropos 83.1988
642
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In many places his reports capture well the mood, the
feelings, and the colour of events in the urban migrant’s
daily life. He moves back and forth between vivid scenes
of personal strife, reconciliations, blank despair, and
analyses in political and economic terms. The fabric of
the account thus becomes uneven, but it has the
advantage of emphasizing that the book is something of
a dialogue between the situation that could be found in
Madang, and the best analysis that an outside observer
can offer from his academic background. This element
of distance is strictly necessary, given the rather doctri-
naire Marxist flavour that comes through in the analysis.
Fortunately, Stevenson succeeds in having the Papua
New Guineans speak with their own voice to a substan-
tial extent. But the constant analysis in terms of class,
and the slogans of “class solidarity” and “class antago-
nism” found throughout the book ring loud bells, warn-
ing the reader of the imposition of foreign categories -
although that was supposed to be part of the problem
being described. I wish to know more about Michael
Stevenson before being too comfortable with his book:
he does not seem to be claiming that he has simply pre-
sented facts as they are, but rather teases the reader with
his inexplicit absence.
The Series Editor has warned that these ethnogra-
phies are being undertaken as the necessary backbone
of Anthropology, although costs almost prevent their
appearance. A warning then, that it is done on the
cheap. I did find the small dense print difficult to read,
and perhaps a free line between paragraphs could have
helped that, but there are few mistakes in the produc-
tion. There is something a little unfortunate about the
fact that Stevenson’s work is dated. He draws his
material mainly from the 1965-1968 period, although he
has written it up for publication with statistics which
reach into the middle of the 1970s, and with biblio-
graphic materials up to 1981. The painful urgency of the
injustice which he describes was consequently diluted
for me by two questions: Is this a description of an aspect
of Australian colonialism thankfully past since PNG
Independence in 1975? Or is it to be a permanent feature
of modern PNG either because of the international
economy or because of the imprinting of a now
inadequate tradition? Stevenson comes down on the side
of Marxist ineluctability and brings his work to a
conclusion with a description of the formation of at least
three economic classes, which have been internalized
amongst citizens, deploring the fact that the workers do
not yet see themselves as caught up in a certain total class
structure.
The pain and the outrage of the villager who feels
driven to come to town to find work for money, and then
discovers that he is living in the dry ashes of boring,
repetitive work and quickly exhausted income, is vividly
present from the motto page onward. It is alienation in
Stevenson’s terms. He quotes very effectively a passage
of Marx on the perversion of values which is caused
when money becomes the basis of relationship (151), but
this seems to be narrowed down to a non-Melanesian
perspective when Stevenson concludes, “With money,
they hoped to be able to restore their individuality”
(155). Otherwise the author is concerned to show the
flexible and adaptive nature of wantok-ism (claiming
bonds of fellowship, on the model of fellow-speakers of a
small language group, who encounter each other in a
foreign situation). It is wantokism which makes it
possible for drifting villagers to find support in the
towns, and wantokism with its swift lines of communi-
cation which helps to build the workers into a class.
Stevenson makes some of his most effective points
about the alienation of the wage earner by reporting and
commenting on recent research on the 1929 Rabaul
Strike, and on the posturing of the white colonialists with
regard to the protection of white women from maraud-
ing blacks. In the early years of plantations in German
New Britain 18.7 % of the ensnared labourers died. A
flogging statute allowing 25 strokes per fortnight was
only removed, under great protest from the white
community, in the early 1920s (54). A curfew on black
people from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. in the New Guinea towns
remained until 1959 (56). Elaborate laws and fantastic
fears about black men touching white women are here
said to have been little more than a sanctification of the
distance whites wished to keep from the blacks, which in
turn was motivated by the intent to squeeze as much as
was possible out of the land and the Melanesians
themselves. This was further justified by talk of the
Melanesians as “beasts” and “children,” cunning but
stupid, with retarded intellect and emotions. These
judgments from sixty years ago make the whites seem
the shallow, one-dimensional monsters of the colonial
time, but it would be hard to disagree with the author,
who says that this style of relationship is by no means
securely behind us (12).
A recurring theme is the many-sided support and
real economic subsidy which the PNG village offers to
urban work. Above all it is the women who save the
general situation of flight to the city from becoming a
social and economic disaster. Although women do not
enter into the scheme of equal conditions for all, which is
such a sore point for the urban workers, it is the women’s
work which keeps a new generation forthcoming, and
which keeps the village going in such a way that the
workers always know they have a secure resort behind
them.
The book contains a good analysis of the defects of
the form of labourers’ organizations which were impos-
ed in PNG by the Australian Government. Beyond the
improbability of transposing a form used in one country
over onto the top of a situation in a different country, the
Australian Government took steps that made the PNG
form of unions almost unworkable. This was done by
compulsory registration of unions in conjunction with
exhausting demands for proper accounting and strike
regulations prescribing a 60 % majority in a secret
ballot. The result was to set the leaders of the unions in a
position of trying to conciliate and communicate bet-
ween employers and employees, and strikes frequently
collapsed because no leader would enter into a pose of
conflict. At the same time, Stevenson’s emphasis on the
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
643
necessity of conflict for union identity seems some sort of
imported prejudice. The many-splendored ideal of
consensus in traditional PNG village life never seems to
have excluded conflict, but it does represent a different
ideal.
The reader of this book is not battered with
statistics, but there are enough to provoke some
interesting questions. Stevenson lays great value on the
feeling of inequality between black workers and whites
in the same firm. The World Bank estimated that in 1962
the wages of whites in PNG were on average ten times as
high as those of blacks (77). One very telling statistic is
hidden away in a footnote on p. 164: An official enquiry
in 1974 found that in manufacturing net profits were as
high as 776 % of the wage bill.
Overall in the author’s treatment I had the feeling
that a certain point of view was lacking. Stevenson even
apologizes a couple of times that he does not know how
certain basic concerns such as sorcery (160) or the
original term wantok are seen in the village (31). And it
is this village outlook that is not tangibly present. This is
pertinent in at least two important considerations. The
PNG workers’ wage was low, but in the face of
discussion with oriental countries in the Pacific neigh-
bourhood, it is often felt to be excessively high. The
author seems to have his sights set on an Australian wage
standard. The other consideration is highly important in
Madang: the cargo cult background to the feeling of
inequality. Stevenson does not neglect to mention cargo
cult, but he does not seem to notice that it is the idiom in
which he finds himself embarrassed by talk of a money
machine (122); that it sounds like it has a place in the
abandonment of the advisor Cooper who was thought to
have promised an invading army of Russians (82); and
that apocalyptic reversal of values is a spectre behind the
contrasts between white and black (esp. 121).
I found this overall a stirring book, introducing a
note of radical passionate analysis to a situation which,
as the author says, has intensified rather than disappear-
ed in recent times. I cannot disagree that the formation
of social classes makes a grim appearance in PNG: there
is something horrible about going with people from the
Madang squatter settlement of Sisiak to visit their
wantoks living in the luxurious houses abandoned by the
whites in the Kalibobo part of town. Stevenson serves a
worthy goal in setting this kind of social disjunction
squarely on the shoulders of the contempt shown by
whites to blacks in the colonial times, and in warning
that urban civilization and its discontents do not sit well
with free men. Patrick F. Gesch
Suleiman, Susan Rubin (ed.): The Female Body in
Western Culture. Contemporary Perspectives. Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. x+389 pp.
Price: $ 11.50
“What ‘place(s)’ has female body occupied in the
Western imagination, and in the symbolic productions of
Western culture, over the past two thousand years?
What shifts, slippages, or displacements of that body
bave occurred or might occur in our time, and what
would be thè cultural consequences of such displace-
ments?” (1) Dies sind die Auslöserfragen für den hier
vorzustellenden Sammelband, der neben einer kurzen
Einleitung 23 Beiträge von 21 Autorinnen und 2
Autoren enthält, die zum größten Teil bereits in Band 6,
Heft 1-2, der Zeitschrift Poetics Today veröffentlicht
worden sind. Die Artikel sind in sechs Teile (Eros, Tod,
Mütter. Krankheit, Bilder, Unterschiede) gruppiert und
in sich geschlossen. Die meisten Beiträge enthalten
Anmerkungen und/oder Bibliografien; Register und
Gliederungsübersichten fehlen.
Gegenstand des Bandes sind westliche oder christ-
lich-abendländische Kultur und darin vor allem die
Dimensionen Kunst (Literatur, Bildende Kunst, Film),
Normensysteme, Medizin und Religion. Dieser Gegen-
stand wird nun nicht nur (wie der Titel des Bandes
vermuten läßt) auf das Thema weiblicher Körper als
symbolisches Konstrukt hin analysiert, auch die Pro-
bleme der Geschlechterrollen, Geschlechterbeziehun-
gen und Sexualität werden ausführlich behandelt. Ziel
des Bandes ist ein Aufzeigen und Bewußtmachen der
Situation und Rolle der Frau(en) in der westlichen Welt,
der Anspruch ist feministisch-emanzipatorisch.
Das Vorgehen ist je nach Beitrag unterschiedlich,
es überwiegen aber interpretative und analysierende
Verfahren. Die Texte sind engagiert, durchgehend recht
kurz und meist essayistisch bis literarisch formuliert.
Die größte Gruppe von Beiträgen setzt sich mit
dem Bild der Frau in literarisch-fiktiven Werken ausein-
ander: M. Bai (317-338) analysiert die Entstehung der
Frauenrolle und der Moral für Frauen in Genesis 1-3.
Ch. Bernheimer (373-386) diagnostiziert in den Werken
von J.-K. Huysman ein falsches Frauenbild. A. Borin-
sky (288-302) untersucht das Frauenbild in den Werken
Jean Rhys. Zwei Beiträge schildern die Situation und
Rolle der Frau im alten Griechenland: E. Cantarella
(57-67) anhand verschiedener klassischer Werke, M.
Canto (339-353) anhand von Platons Schriften. A.
lardine (84—96) beschäftigt sich mit schreibenden Paa-
ren, vor allem Beauvoir und Sartre. N. Schor (363-372)
erörtert George Sands weiblichen Fetischismus und ihre
textliche Strategie. C. R. Stimpson (30-43) beschäftigt
sich mit „Somagrammen“ von und über Gertrude Stein
und der sprachlichen Erfassung des weiblichen Körpers.
S. R. Suleiman (7-29) zeigt an literarischen Beispielen
aus den USA, aus Frankreich und aus England, wie
Körper und Sexualität der Frau neu zu erfassen und zu
definieren versucht werden. N. J. Vickers (209-222)
analysiert das Gedicht “Lucrece” von Shakespeare
(1594) unter dem Aspekt des Zelebrierens der Schön-
heit des weiblichen Körpers. Selbst fiktiv ist ein Essay
von Th. G. Pavel (44—53) über den Vergleich des
weiblichen (Gesamt-)Körpers mit dem Ohr.
Filme sind der Gegenstand oder das Beispiel von
zwei Artikeln: J. Bergstrom (243-261) untersucht das
Frauenbild und die Behandlung von Sexualität in Filmen
von F. W. Murnau. A. M. Doane (152-174) analysiert
die „Medizinalisierung“ der Frau, die medizinischen
Diskurse in US-amerikanischen Filmen der 1940er
Anthropos 83.1988
644
Rezensionen
Jahre, die als “woman’s film/picture”, “weepies” oder
“tear-jeakers” bekannt wurden.
Der weibliche Körper in bildlichen Darstellungen
wird von drei Autoren untersucht: C. M. Armstrong
(223-242) analysiert die Bilder nackter Frauen von
Edgar Degas, M. A. Caws (262-287) beschäftigt sich mit
der Darstellung von Frauenkörpern in der surrealisti-
schen Kunst und M. R. Miles (193-208) untersucht
Darstellungen der Jungfrau Maria mit einer entblößten
Brust, die in der toskanischen Renaissance (14. Jh.)
Verbreitet waren.
Die übrigen Beiträge sind auf verschiedene kon-
krete Probleme von Frauen bezogen: E. L. Bassuk
(140-151) untersucht die Praxis und Auswirkungen der
„Ruhekur“ zur Behandlung als hypochondrisch, hyste-
risch oder neurastenisch eingeschätzter Patientinnen im
viktorianischen England. Ch. Brooke-Rose (305-316)
untersucht anhand literaturwissenschaftlicher Publika-
tionen den Zusammenhang zwischen Moral und Spra-
che, die Rolle von Frauen als semiotischen Objekten. N.
Caskey (175-189) beschäftigt sich mit der Anorexia
nervosa, ihrer Beziehung zu sozietären Kulturnormen
und ihrer Rolle als Lösungsversuch für Probleme von
Frauen. M. Fligonnet (68-83) erörtert den Suizid von
Frauen und als Frauenproblem im Hochkapitalismus
und seine Verknüpfung mit Identitätsproblemen und
Männerperspektiven. Mit der These “If women would
only stop having children, men would stop making war”
(119) setzt sich, auch kulturenvergleichend, N. Huston
(119-136) auseinander. J. Kristeva (99-118) diskutiert
die Rolle der Frau als Mutter in der Geschichte des
Christentums. N. K. Miller (354—362) erörtert Ge-
schlechtsunterschiede beim Lesen und Interpretieren
von Texten.
Wie die Kurzcharakterisierung der Beiträge zeigt,
ist das thematische Spektrum recht weitreichend, ent-
sprechend viele und unterschiedliche Interessenten wer-
den deshalb von diesem Band angesprochen. Weil die
Situation und Rolle der Frau(en) in vielen Aspekten und
zum Teil differenziert beleuchtet wird, weil die Texte
engagiert und teilweise fordernd, aber nicht polemisch
sind und weil das Thema Frau und Frauenprobleme in
den (kultur-)anthropologischen Wissenschaften immer
noch unterrepräsentiert ist, kann “The Female Body”
als anregendes und denk- wie handlungsanstoßendes
Lesebuch empfohlen werden. Andreas Bruck
Szaiay, Miklös: Die Kunst Schwarzafrikas. Werke
aus der Sammlung des Völkerkundemuseums der Uni-
versität Zürich. Teil I: Kunst und Gesellschaft. Zürich:
Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich, 1986.
198 pp., illustr.
Ausgehend von den afrikanischen Beständen des
Völkerkundemuseums der Universität Zürich konfron-
tiert uns der Autor mit einem äußerst aufschlußreichen
Aspekt der Betrachtung afrikanischer Kunst.
Im vorliegenden ersten Band stellt er die nach
ethnischen und thematischen Gesichtspunkten geordne-
ten Werke und ihren sozio-kulturellen Bezug und zieht
dazu eine große Anzahl historischer Bilddokumente
heran, um mit ihrer Hilfe aufzuzeigen, wie stark sie „. . .
in den Gesellschaftszusammenhang eingebettet sind
. . .“ (7). Dieser Tendenz folgend werden nun die
Objekte des Museums, großteils aus der berühmten
„Negersammlung“ Corays stammend, vorgestellt: Ba-
mbara-, Bidjogo-, Torna- (poro-Masken), Mende- und
Guro-Masken, Baule-Figuren, Grabkeramik der Akan,
Yoruba, Benin, des Crossriver-Gebietes, der Bangwa,
Bamileke und Bamum, magische Figuren und Frauen-
statuen vom unteren Kongo, von den Bembe, Ndenge-
se, Kuba, Luba/Songe und Mangbetu.
Mit größter Akribie die neuesten Ergebnisse regio-
naler Forschung berücksichtigend, vertieft Szaiay unse-
re Kenntnis einzelner Objekte mit interessantem neuen
Wissen, wie etwa, daß die sogenannten Ahnenporträts-
figuren der Baule primär mit Vorstellungen von Geist-
Liebhabern jedes Menschen verknüpft sind. Sie sind
Darstellungen von personifizierten weiblichen Seelen
des Mannes und männlicher Seelen der Frau, die auf die
gegenseitigen Ehepartner eifersüchtig sein können.
Durch Statuen, die sie verkörpern, können sie versöhnt
werden.
Bei Crossriver-Masken wird die Tatsache ihrer
zunehmenden Bedeutung seit dem späten 19. Jh. der
Wandlung des ekpe-Bundes zu einer immer stärker
betonten monetär-kapitalistischen Institution zuge-
schrieben. In der ausgeprägten Porträtkunst der Bami-
leke müssen wir vor allem die Manifestation des
Prestigedenkens der höfischen Auftraggeber sehen.
Dies nur einige wenige Beispiele aus der Fülle der
zusammengestellten neuen Erkenntnisse.
In einem 20 Seiten umfassenden Abschlußkapitel:
„Gemeinschaftskunst, Kunst der Elite? Über den so-
zialen Ort der Kunst in den traditionellen Gesellschaften
Schwarzafrikas“, legt der Autor sehr klar sein gedankli-
ches Konzept dar, das auf dem ihm in der Sammlung zur
Verfügung stehenden Material beruht. Dabei geht er
davon aus, daß „. . . früher und auch noch heute die
afrikanische Kunst als eine sozial undifferenzierte
Kunst, als eine Kunst, an der jeder in der Gesellschaft
teil hat, die jedermann gleichermaßen zugänglich ist,
betrachtet wurde. Geht man aber der Frage der gesell-
schaftlichen Stellung der Kunst nach, so erkennt man,
daß das einzelne Kunstwerk mit Gruppen, bestimmten
Einzelpersonen verbunden ist, die in den meisten Fällen
auch politische Führungspositionen innehaben“ (166).
Szaiay sieht dieses Elitephänomen und das Phänomen
der Ungleichheit auch in jenen Kulturen, die nicht
zentralistisch organisiert sind.
Als Beispiel der Verhältnisse von Kunst und Elite
in segmentären Gesellschaften behandelt er ausführlich
das Kunstschaffen der Lega in Zentralafrika. Bei ihnen
verfügt nur der letztlich politisch-rechtliche Bund des
bwamiüber bestimmte Statuen und Masken, so wie auch
bei den Guro nur Masken Besitz einzelner Familien
waren, Holzfiguren aber von jedermann verwendet
werden durften. Bei den Suku gibt es Masken, die bei
Initiationsfeiern der Knaben verwendet werden, die -
künstlerisch hochstehend-von den Funktionären getra-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
645
gen und nach Gebrauch im Maskenhaus aufbewahrt
werden, daneben aber gibt es Masken der Initianden -
künstlerisch minderwertig die nicht offiziell aufbe-
wahrt werden. Dies bedeutet für Szalay, daß „Qualität“
einer Elite Vorbehalten ist. Ist dabei aber nicht doch zu
bedenken, ob für diesen Usus nicht religiöse Anschau-
ungen der Grund sind? In Gesellschaften mit staatlichen
Organisationsformen sind sowohl bestimmte Kunster-
werbe als auch bestimmte Materialien dem König
Vorbehalten. Dies führt dann naturgegeben zur Heraus-
bildung berufsmäßiger und statusmäßig sehr hochge-
stellter Künstler. Kunst ist also „. . . ein Mittel der
Distinktion“. Am Beispiel der Aschanti zeigt Szalay die
enge Verknüpfung von Politik-Religion und Kunst auf
und meint, daß . . durch die Kunst vor allem die
Verbindung zum Ausdruck kommt, welche politische
Funktionen zur übersinnlichen Welt unterhalten
(184). Dort aber, wo die Politik in zunehmendem Maße
säkularisiert wird, führt sie zu einem Zerfall der
Kunst.
Daß Szalay im ersten Teil seiner „Kunst Schwarz-
afrikas“ diesen gesellschaftlichen Aspekt der afrikani-
schen Kunst herausarbeitet, ist ihm nicht hoch genug
anzurechnen. Er betritt damit einen bisher weitgehendst
unberücksichtigt gelassenen Aspekt der kunstethnologi-
schen Forschung und gibt Anregung, in dieser Richtung
weiterzuarbeiten, vor allem in bezug auf die Stellung der
Kunst in jenen Gebieten, deren Schema nicht das der
staatlichen Elitekulturen und der Kulturen mit extrem
ausgebildeten Geheimbünden ist. Diese Notwendigkeit
betont der Autor selbst (167, 186). Auch sieht er ganz
richtig, daß die Quelle jeder politischen Macht im
Übersinnlichen liegt (183). Aus meiner Erfahrung bei
Gesellschaften ohne starke Zentralgewalt glaube ich
sagen zu dürfen, daß bei ihnen nicht das „Kunstwerk als
solches“ ein wichtiges Instrument bei der Lösung politi-
scher Aufgaben ist, sondern das, was hinter dem
Kunstwerk steht; sein religiöser Sinngehalt. Masken
müssen nicht bloß Geister darstellen (179), sondern sie
sind Geister. Damit hat aber nun die gesamte Gesell-
schaft teil am Kunstwerk: sie hat teil am Sinn des
Kunstwerkes, der für alle verbindlich ist, für alle wirkt,
auch wenn das einzelne Kunstwerk nur einem oder einer
bestimmten Gruppe gehört. Nicht das Kunstwerk för-
dert den Zusammenhalt, sondern das, was hinter ihm
steht.
Diese Bemerkungen sind nicht als Kritik gedacht,
sondern als Anregung zu dem, was der Autor ja selbst
mehrmals betont: Kunst ist immer Bestandteil des
gesamten kulturellen Gefüges und kann nur aus der
Gesamtschau heraus wirklich annähernd verstanden
werden.
Das bedankenswerte Verdienst Szalays ist, daß er
mit dieser grundsätzlichen Arbeit ein „vergessenes Tor“
zum Verstehen afrikanischen Kunstschaffens weit öffnet
und neue Wege zu gehen ermutigt.
Dem Text ist ein Werkverzeichnis der abgebildeten
Stücke, ein äußerst umfangreiches Literaturverzeichnis
und ein Bildquellennachweis angeschlossen.
Man kann abschließend nur hoffen, daß die beiden
im Vorwort angekündigten Bände über Geschichte und
Ästhetik recht bald erscheinen mögen.
Annemarie Schweeger-Hefel
Taussig, Michael: Shamanism, Colonialism, and
the Wild Man. A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1987. 517 pp., illus.
Price: $ 35.95
During the first quarter of this century the Indians
of the Putumayo River and adjacent zones were subject-
ed to the most extreme forms of terror and torture:
women were raped and then killed, men were hunted
down and forced to gather rubber, their gardens were
destroyed in order to make them dependent on the
rubber companies’ supplies. Arbitrary killings were
frequently or even systematically carried out. Rubber
traders dismembered Indians’ bodies while they were
still alive. Indians who failed to bring in their quota of
rubber were put into cages and often left to die of
starvation, eating the maggots in their wounds. They
were suspended above the ground by chains around their
necks. They were quartered, burned alive, flogged,
mutilated, decapitated, shot, cut to pieces with ma-
chetes. Children who could not work were killed by hurl-
ing them against trees and rocks. Old men were used as
targets by rubber companies’ officials to practise their
marksmanship. Drunken officials burned Indians alive
just for fun during a birthday party. A report on the
rubber boom stated that in a period of 12 years no less
than 30,000 people were killed.
The economic reasons that supposedly explain this
state of terror are still open to question. Indian slavery
was thought necessary due to the scarcity of labour in
the area but this does not explain the reported killings.
The same argument disintegrates when applied to the
widespread practice of mutilation at that time since
mutilated people could not work and were therefore
killed. Terror was deemed necessary to maintain the
labour system. Rubber traders often tried to impose the
debt-peonage system on the Indians: in exchange for
Western goods Indians were forced to work for them to
repay the debt thus engaged. This system could work but
it did not: Indians were not so interested in knives,
mirrors, and beads. They could easily escape to the
forest, according to another report, and live on its na-
tural products. The “owners,” therefore, were obliged
to treat them “with consideration.” Knowing what it
meant to accept Western gifts, some Indians began to
refuse them and were as a consequence flogged to death.
Or: terror was necessary to avoid uprisings, though the
Indians were known for their docility. But sometimes
they revolted. When the rubber traders could not gain
the cooperation of the natives, the army was called in to
further enforce the rule of civilization. Reports, diaries,
travellers’ accounts, and local newspapers’ articles are
some of the documents on which Taussig depended to
reconstruct both the area and the period that were to be
known as “the Hell’s Paradise.”
The extent and arbitrariness of torture and terror
Anthropos 83.1988
646
Rezensionen
leads Taussig to define Latin American societies as
“cultures of death.” Taussig argues that calling in
principles of economic rationality explains away the role
of torture in Latin American societies. By making terror
intelligible, economic reasoning merely obscures the fact
that torture and terror are cultural elaborations of fear
behind which “lie intricately construed, long-standing,
unconscious cultural formations of meaning whose social
network of tacit conventions and imagery lies in a
symbolic world.”
Colonization was in desperate need of savages and
cannibals either to subject and civilize or to kill when the
natives became an obstacle for colonizing enterprises.
The image of the Indian as a ferocious and cruel
man-eater was a political force indispensable for the
work of conquest. Once in motion, the machinery of
terror needed to erase its rationale: “terror nourished
itself by destroying sense.” It seems, as Taussig suggests,
that this “culture of death” had a profound impact on
shamanistic practices as these began to develop their
force “from the colonially generated wildness of the
epistemic murk of the space of death.” For in spite of
their alleged savagery or rather because of it Indians
were and still are reputed to possess extraordinary
healing powers and powerful spiritual allies. Taussig
observes that this imagery goes so far as to establish a
particular relationship between the Indians and the
“gods of the Christians” as many of the saints and virgins
in Colombia are believed to have first appeared to
Indians. The Church only afterwards took them over to
carry out the appropriate cults. Healing practices and
sorcery have become deeply embedded in colonial
reality and in particular in the imaginary component of
class conflict. Though sorcery (magia) is opposed to yage
healing in that the first is the personification of an
abstraction (evil) and the second is just the highly
idiosyncratic yage knowledge, both have to deal with the
fear of envy: a landowner fears the envy of his workers
(who can call in a sorcerer to damage his properties:
cattle and plantations), a merchant fears the envy of
other merchants or of his customers, plantations work-
ers or poor peasants fear the envy of their equally poor
neighbours, etc. And there is even a particular mythical
personage, the duende, who attacks people just out of
envy. Envy seems to have become a force of nature
(“evil wind”), whereas it was originally socially generat-
ed. Besides the power to combat “envy,” yage healers
and sorcerers are supposed to divine and foretell the
future. Taussig tells us that the army, when fighting the
guerrilla, forced healers to work for it in trying to locate
guerrilla camps. This is just another example of the way
in which death and magical reality are supposed to
merge in Latin America.
The ways in which sorcery and yage healing cope
with misfortune and illness seem to be completely
different: sorcery is the standardized, mercantile way of
dealing with evil - books on sorcery can be bought
everywhere in Colombia yage, in contrast, derives its
power from the dialogue between shaman and patient
while they both are under the influence of the drug
(yage). In the hallucinatory world created by yage it is
the patient who sees and the shaman who talks, the
result being a shamanistic comment on the patient’s
hallucinations. Yage healing, therefore, cannot be ren-
dered as a device to introduce “order” into “chaos.” By
stating this, Taussig dismisses ethnological theories on
shamanism as being merely self-indulgent rites of aca-
demic text-making. Yage healing comes “from the joint
construction of the healer and the sick in the semanti-
cally generative space of annulment that is the colonial
death-space.” The implicit social knowledge “is scored
by two forms of looming Otherness, the envious other
and the colonial other.” Yage nights “offer the chance,
not to escape sorrow by means of utopie illusions, but
rather the chance to combine the anarchy of death with
that of carnival, in a process that entertains yet resists
the seductive appeal of self-pity and redemption through
suffering.”
The political situation of Latin America today is the
explicit background of Taussig’s book: death-squads,
massive torture, dictatorships, the rule of terror. The
topics he addresses, the widespread use of terror as a
means of government, and the generalized use of state
violence seem in fact to defy all reasonable explanation.
I think he is right in that both economic and political
theory have failed in explaining the rulers’ apparent
need of using arbitrary terror in contrast to the more
traditional use of selective terror coupled with policies
designed to obtain support. This reviewer would be
willing to believe that this generalized state of terror
characterizes colonial societies, but I am afraid that the
historical evidence does not support such a view. The use
of arbitrary and generalized violence as a means of
controlling society has been reported from almost
everywhere in the world and in very diverse periods and
circumstances. Nor is this kind of “culture of death” a
purely Latin American product. I share Taussig’s con-
cern about terror in Latin America but I fail to detect the
“tacit conventions” lying behind the Hell’s Paradise at
the beginning of this century and Argentina during
military rule back in the 1970s.
The rule of arbitrary terror might have affected
native healing or sorcery practices; the argument is
compelling in that the Indians had to cope with the
savagery of Western rule in a very cruel period. But
healing practices, sorcery, and terror were in the New
World, as in the Old, before the arrival of Europeans,
and they were in the Putumayo River before the rubber
boom. Even assuming that the arrival of Europeans
changed or distorted native healing practices, I find it
difficult to believe that shamanism, as a concept, is
merely an academic construction. But what can be
argued when the starting point of the author is that
ethnology is part of the “culture of death” that he
describes? He seems to think that just by theorizing on
shamanism ethnology contributes to terror. This is not
so reasonable: somewhere in the book he states that
terror nourishes itself by destroying sense. Other an-
thropologists - when failing to make sense of the data
gathered on shamanism - opted to become shamans or
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
647
sorcerers themselves (cf. F. Donner, The Witch Dream,
1985). That was, perhaps, the right decision. Taussig is
not a sorcerer, but offers interesting though blurred
reflections on shamanism and colonialism.
Edmundo Magaña
Terrell, John: Prehistory in the Pacific Islands. A
Study of Variation in Language, Customs, and Human
Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
299 pp., fig. Price: £ 30.00
Bereits die frühen europäischen Entdecker der
Pazifikinseln stellten sich die Frage, woher die Eingebo-
renen dieser Inseln gekommen waren und wie es sie auf
ihre Eilande verschlagen hatte. Ebenso frug man sich
schon bald nach den Ursachen für die Unterschiede im
Aussehen, in der Sprache und in der Kultur zwischen
den Bewohnern der verschiedenen Archipele, Inseln
und/oder Inseldistrikte. Beim Versuch, diese humanbio-
logische, linguistische und kulturelle Vielfalt zu erklä-
ren, d. h. die Vorgeschichte der Pazifikinseln zu rekon-
struieren, griff man lange Zeit allein auf die komparati-
ven Methoden der historischen Linguistik, der kulturhi-
storischen Ethnologie und der Anthropologie (z. B. der
„rassenkundlichen“ Anthropométrie) zurück. Erst nach
dem 2. Weltkrieg setzte nach und nach in immer
stärkerem Maße die archäologische Erschließung Oze-
aniens ein, welche die Vorstellungen von der ozeani-
schen Vorgeschichte bis heute in großem Umfang
verändert und verfeinert hat.
Die sprachliche Verwandtschaft der auf den entle-
genen polynesischen Inseln lebenden Eingeborenen mit
den Bewohnern des indonesischen Raumes wurde von
den europäischen Entdeckern schon früh erkannt, und
die Ansicht, daß letztlich ganz Ozeanien von SO-Asien
aus besiedelt worden ist, setzte sich daher bald weitge-
hend durch. Recht lange hielt sich jedoch die Meinung,
daß diese Besiedlung Ozeaniens vor noch nicht allzu
langer Zeit stattgefunden habe, weshalb man viele der
bestehenden Unterschiede zwischen den einzelnen Kul-
turen oder Kulturregionen weniger auf eigenständige
lokale Entwicklungen zurückführte, sondern als bereits
von außerhalb importierte Eigenheiten verstand. D. h.
die humanbiologische, linguistische und kulturelle Viel-
fältigkeit Ozeaniens wurde zunächst hauptsächlich als
Resultat einer Abfolge von mehreren recht schnell und
z. T. über beträchtliche Distanzen erfolgten Immigra-
tionswellen aus dem südostasiatischen Raum aufgefaßt,
wenngleich man auch Mischungen zwischen den Ange-
hörigen dieser verschiedenen Einwanderungswellen bei
der Ausprägung jener Mannigfaltigkeit eine Rolle ein-
räumte (so vor allem im melanesischen Raum). Mit der
beginnenden archäologischen Erschließung Ozeaniens
und der gegebenen Möglichkeit der 14C-Datierung
wurde es jedoch bald klar, daß die Besiedlung der
pazifischen Inseln schon zu wesentlich früheren Epo-
chen erfolgt war, als man lange Zeit gemutmaßt hatte.
Zudem wurde lokaler Kulturwandel stratigraphisch
nachgewiesen. Als Antwort auf die Ergebnisse der
archäologischen Forschungen verringerte sich die An-
zahl der postulierten Einwanderungswellen in den Ar-
beiten über die Vorgeschichte Ozeaniens im allgemei-
nen immer mehr, und man maß der innerozeanischen
Entstehung der humanbiologischen, linguistischen und
kulturellen Vielfalt wachsende Bedeutung bei. Trotz-
dem kommen auch die gängigen Theorien über die
ozeanische Vergangenheit gegenwärtig noch nicht gänz-
lich ohne mehrere Immigrationswellen aus und unter-
scheiden zumindest zwei Haupteinwanderungswellen -
eine papuanische und eine austronesische.
In der hier zu besprechenden Arbeit bestreitet der
Verfasser, daß die humanbiologische, linguistische und
kulturelle Mannigfaltigkeit Ozeaniens letztlich allein mit
Hilfe von multiplen Einwanderungswellen zu erklären
ist. Aufgrund von einigen logischen Überlegungen und
unter Einbeziehung bestimmter ausgewählter Fallbei-
spiele entwickelt er andere denkbare Modelle von den
vorgeschichtlichen Abläufen, welche nach seinem Emp-
finden dem vielfältigen historischen und rezenten Be-
fund genau so gerecht werden. In diesen Modellen
spielen lokaler Wandel in relativer Isolation und inner-
ozeanische Kontakte und Bewegungen die Hauptrolle.
Wenngleich nach Terrells Dafürhalten bislang gesicher-
te Belege für mehrere Immigrationswellen in den
ozeanischen Raum fehlen, schließt er es keinesfalls
völlig aus, daß sich dieselben eventuell doch noch
irgendwann finden werden. Dennoch stellt er die gängi-
ge Vorstellung von einer papuanischen und einer austro-
nesischen Einwanderungswelle ernsthaft in Frage.
Das Unvermögen der historischen Linguistik, mit-
tels ihrer Methoden einen gemeinsamen Ursprung für
die papuanischen und austronesischen Sprachen nachzu-
weisen, läßt er nicht als Beweis für eine getrennte
Einwanderung der Vorfahren der Papuas und der
Austronesier gelten. Zudem bezweifelt er die von der
historischen Linguistik für gewöhnlich akzeptierte Vor-
stellung von einer verhältnismäßig konstanten Sprach-
wandlungsrate, die nach dem Auseinanderfallen einer
Muttersprache in mehrere Tochtersprachen eine feste
intersprachliche Divergenzrate bedingt. Seiner Meinung
nach ist sprachlicher Wandel kein selbständig und
gleichmäßig ablaufender Prozeß, sondern wird in hohem
Maße von sozialen und umweltlichen Faktoren (wie
z. B. Worttabu, Bevölkerungsdichte, Entfernung und
Topographie) mitbestimmt, beschleunigt oder verlang-
samt. Den Einfluß solcher Faktoren auf den Sprachwan-
del hat die historische Linguistik gemäß Terrell bislang
zu sehr vernachlässigt, und er ist überzeugt, daß sich mit
ihrer Hilfe auch die Unterschiede zwischen den papuani-
schen und austronesischen Sprachen als Ergebnis inner-
ozeanischer Entwicklungen erklären lassen.
Humanbiologisch unterscheidet man häufig eben-
falls zwischen Austronesiern und Papuas. Kraushaarig-
keit und Dunkelhäutigkeit gelten dabei meist als papua-
nische Merkmale, wohingegen gelocktes Haar und helle
Haut als austronesische Kennzeichen verstanden wer-
den. Nur die polynesischen Austronesier weisen jedoch
diese angeblich austronesischen Kennzeichen in reiner
Form auf, die melanesischen Austronesier hingegen
lassen sich kaum von den ihnen benachbarten Papuas
Anthropos 83.1988
648
Rezensionen
unterscheiden, was nach gängiger Vorstellung davon
herrührt, daß sie sich in hohem Maße mit Papuas
vermischt haben. Terrell bezweifelt dies. Die beträchtli-
che humanbiologische Vielfalt der Pazifikinsulaner, der
die angeführte Grobgliederung seines Erachtens keines-
falls gerecht wird, ist für ihn vor allem das Ergebnis
lokaler genetischer Wandlungsabläufe in relativer Isola-
tion und nicht notwendigerweise auf zwei Einwande-
rungswellen zurückzuführen, deren Angehörige sich
z. T. in unterschiedlichem Ausmaß vermischten.
Terrells zentrales Anliegen, den Aspekten des
lokalen Wandels bei der Rekonstruktion von vorge-
schichtlichen Prozessen mehr Bedeutung und Aufmerk-
samkeit zukommen zu lassen, erscheint berechtigt.
Noch immer wird allzu schnell auf verschiedene Immi-
grationswellen zurückgegriffen, um scheinbar unverein-
bare linguistische, humanbiologische oder kulturelle
Unterschiede erklären zu können. So postuliert z. B.
S. A. Wurm allein aufgrund der Tatsache, daß sich die
papuanischen Sprachen Melanesiens mittels der verglei-
chenden historischen Linguistik nicht alle auf einen
Nenner bringen lassen, mehrere papuanische Einwan-
derungswellen in den melanesischen Raum (Papuan
Languages. In: R. J. May, and H. Nelson [eds.]:
Melanesia: Beyond Diversity. Canberra 1982: 225-240).
Derartige Theorien, für die es letztlich keine positiven
Belege gibt, sind sicher fragwürdig, und Terrells Kritik
an dem leichtfertigen Umgang mit Immigrationswellen
ist angebracht. Tatsächlich dürfte lokaler Wandel bei
der Ausprägung der humanbiologischen, linguistischen
und kulturellen Mannigfaltigkeit Ozeaniens eine größe-
re Rolle gespielt haben, als bislang gemeinhin nachge-
wiesen und anerkannt wurde. Terrell gelingt es in seiner
Arbeit, durch die angeführten Modellentwürfe und
Fallbeispiele einige Vorstellungen von den Ursachen
und Determinanten lokaler Wandlungsprozesse im
ozeanischen Raum zu vermitteln. Doch erlaubt der
gegenwärtige Forschungsstand noch keine allzu tiefen
Einblicke. Viele Fragen bleiben offen oder lassen sich
vorerst nur hypothetisch beantworten. Die weitere
Bearbeitung der Thematik wäre daher wünschenswert,
und eine Absicht des Verfassers scheint es zu sein, mit
seiner Arbeit neue Interessenten hierfür zu gewinnen.
So gerechtfertigt Terrells Ablehnung des leichtsin-
nigen Umgangs mit Immigrationswellen grundsätzlich
auch sein mag, seine Infragestellung der gängigen
Unterscheidung einer papuanischen und einer austrone-
sischen Einwanderungswelle erscheint überzogen. Neu-
guinea wurde als Teil von Sahul (Groß-Australien)
schon während der letzten Eiszeit von Wildbeutern
erreicht, die den bisherigen archäologischen Befunden
gemäß in der Folgezeit offenbar nicht über den Bis-
marck-Archipel hinausgelangten. Erst zu einem späte-
ren Zeitpunkt erfolgte nach und nach die menschliche
Inbesitznahme der Inseln östlich des Bismarck-Archi-
pels, und zwar durch Siedler, die neben wildbeuteri-
schen Aktivitäten bereits Landbau und Tierhaltung
ausübten und anfänglich auch Kenntnisse von der
Keramikherstellung besaßen. Man nimmt an, daß diese
Siedler schon Yams und Taro anbauten, Kultigene,
denen man für gewöhnlich einen südostasiatischen
Ursprung nachsagt. Sicher ist jedoch, daß sie bereits
Schweine, Hunde und Hühner hielten, Tiere, die keine
verwandten Wildformen in Ozeanien besitzen und
bereits domestiziert über SO-Asien eingeführt worden
sein müssen. Ebensowenig dürfte die Keramikherstel-
lung in Ozeanien entwickelt worden sein.
Terrell verschweigt die Existenz dieser älteren
wildbeuterischen und dieser jüngeren pflanzerischen
Kulturtradition, die beide von außerhalb in den ozeani-
schen Raum gelangt sein müssen (Hinweise auf ein
frühes, lokal entwickeltes, akeramisches und haustier-
freies Pflanzertum auf Neuguinea können hier nicht
berücksichtigt werden). Die bislang vorliegenden ar-
chäologischen Daten für die Ankunft und Ausbreitung
der jüngeren pflanzerischen Kulturtradition lassen sich
weitgehend mit den errechneten Daten der historischen
Linguistik für die Ankunft und Ausbreitung der austro-
nesischen Sprachen in Einklang bringen. Die Theorie
von zwei Haupteinwanderungswellen - offenbar einer
wildbeuterischen papuanischen und einer pflanzeri-
schen austronesischen - wird also sowohl durch die
Ergebnisse der historischen Linguistik als auch durch die
Resultate der archäologischen Forschung abgestützt.
Selbst der humanbiologische Befund dürfte letztlich für
diese Theorie sprechen. Terrells Infragestellung dersel-
ben erscheint mir daher unbegründet.
Das vorliegende Buch eignet sich kaum für denje-
nigen, der eine erste Einführung in oder einen systema-
tischen Überblick über die Vorgeschichte Ozeaniens
sucht. Sein zentraler Gegenstand ist die Herausarbei-
tung der allgemeinen vorgeschichtlichen Prozesse, wel-
che zur historischen und rezenten kulturellen, linguisti-
schen und humanbiologischen Vielfalt des ozeanischen
Raumes führten. Der Autor hebt vor allem lokale
Wandlungsabläufe hervor und glaubt, beim gegenwärti-
gen Forschungsstand mehrere Immigrationswellen nach
Ozeanien verneinen zu können. Dies ist sicher fragwür-
dig. Trotzdem ist die Arbeit alles in allem ein gelungenes
Werk, da sie den Leser zur eigenständigen kritischen
Reflexion herausfordert und ihn dazu anhält, sich über
die eigene Position hinsichtlich der angesprochenen
Problematik Klarheit zu verschaffen. Damit dürfte der
Autor ein wesentliches Ziel erreicht haben.
Eberhard Haußmann
Tiwari, Kapil N. (ed.): Suffering. Indian Perspec-
tives. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986. 300 pp. Price:
Rs. 125
The book is a collection of 17 articles which en-
compass a broad spectrum of perspectives to the con-
cept of suffering in Indian thought. These perspectives
range from such treatment of the concept as “On the
Universality of Suffering” (B. K. Matilal), “Suffering in
Hindu Theism” (A. Sharma), “Suffering: the Jaina
Perspective” (S. Gopalan), “Suffering in Theravada
Buddhism” (J. W. Boyd) to some of the following
interesting themes: “Suffering in Contemporary Indian
Religious Thought” (B. K. Lai), “Suffering in Union:
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
649
Kabir’s Burning Bride” (V. C. Mishra), “‘Suffering’ in
Indo-Anglican Fiction” (R. Shepherd), and “Indian
Sociological Perspectives on Suffering” (T. Ling).
Whilst the word “suffering” in all the articles is
generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit word
duhkha or the Pali word dukkha, there is a consensus
that this English rendering is inadequate. In his article
which raises a crucial question, “Suffering in the
Orthodox Philosophical Systems: Is There Any?” K.
Potter goes so far as to say that it is even “an unfortunate
translation” (2). When pain is called ‘suffering’ it is to
imply, says Potter, “that it is undeserved” (1). Duhkha,
on the other hand, “is deserved, being conditioned by
the maturation of karmic residues laid down by actions
in previous lives or in earlier portions of this one” (1-2).
What seems to emerge from the use of the word
“suffering” is that it should not be seen as a temporary
phenomenon but as standing for a more basic fact of life.
It is the word duhkha in all its ramifications that carries
the force and impact of the Indian view of life.
Another consensus of opinion that emerges is that
duhkha is at the heart of Indian philosophy, religion,
literature, and social views, all of which are concerned
with man’s involvement in the world. This does not
mean that Indians have a pessimistic or negative
perspective of man’s role in the world (see, e.g., Potter,
Boyd, Ramakrishna Rao). Although life is shot through
and through with duhkha, and the Buddha calls this a
noble truth, it sparks off the positive and constructive
trait in Indian thought. Suffering, says B. K. Lai, “gives
a sort of a dignity to man” (209). Potter would disagree
with this apparent ‘glorification’ of duhkha. However, as
regards charges of pessimism intended as a characteriza-
tion of Indian philosophy, Potter says that they “seem to
me very far off the mark” (3).
The other consensus that is implicit in most of the
articles is the role of karma and its direct connection to
duhkha. The Indian doctrine of karma places full
responsibility on the individual for his or her own
situation. Karma acts as an inexorable law which at some
time or the other requires the reaping of all deeds
performed in this life or in previous lives. Karma can
thus be regarded as a theory of (moral) causation which
is accepted even by the theological systems of Indian
thought. The status of God is not in any way undermined
or compromised by the acceptance of the law of karma
(Sharma, 31). God is rather in command of it and hence
unaffected by it. In the case of Saiva Siddhánta, for
example, it is sivam’s sakti that activates karma (and
maya) in order to afford the atrnan which has become a
pasu or a bound being, an opportunity to become
unfettered. In this way karma (with maya) operates as a
‘benevolent’ fetter to overcome the fetter of anava-
malam. In this way karma (with maya) serves paradoxi-
cally the soteriological function through which the
atrnan becomes fetterless through fetters.
After his analysis of “Suffering in Theravada
Buddhism,” dealing with the Buddhist perspective of
the meaning and use of the term dukkha, Boyd reiterates
the question he began with: Do Buddhists view all life as
suffering? His unambiguous answer is: “definitely not”
(162). The Buddhist view is not that all life is suffering,
he says, but that “the unenlightened life I am living is
without real meaning and truth” (162). What Boyd does
is to reinterpret the Buddhist claim of dukkha as one of
the three marks of life (together with impermanence and
being without a self) and the claim that the human
personality is dukkha. For Boyd, the Buddhist’s funda-
mental concern is with “the meaning of one’s personal
existence” (148). In other words, he sees the Buddhist as
in fact asking: “what does it mean for me to be, to exist
in the world?” (148). With this question he enters into a
discussion of the five khandas (aggregates), viz., mental
activity, consciousness, perceptions, sensations, and a
material body, together with dukkha as a central aspect
of the Buddhist teaching about the meaning of human
existence. He discusses three specific contexts in which
dukkha is applied: as ordinary suffering (dukkha-
dukkha), as unsatisfactoriness (viparinama-dukkha),
and as misdirected and unenlightened mode of existing
(sahkhara-dukkha). He sees the last as “the fundamen-
tal mental condition from which the Buddhist endeavors
to be free (dukkha-pamuccatiy ’ (158). Dukkha, he says,
“helps me reflect upon and eventually understand the
character and quality of my own existence. Dukkha is a
Noble Truth for it helps me make true my existence”
(159).
In his article Potter refers to the Buddha’s famous
sermon on the Four Noble Truths where duhkha
“appears to mean anything unsatisfying or frustrating,
anything which does not come up to expectations” (1).
His considered opinion is that suffering “does not find a
place in Indian philosophy” (9) in the way in which it
does in the West (here he does not seem to refer to
western ‘philosophy’). There is no glory in duhkha, he
says (3). In the West suffering is awful to bear “but to
bear it is glorious” (2) as symbolized in Job, Sisyphus,
Francesca da Rimini, and Jesus Christ. The Indians, on
the other hand, have a matter-of-fact, business-like
concern with duhkha. Vacaspati Misra’s attitude in the
beginning of his commentary on the Samkhyakarikas is
“healthily optimistic”: “here is what is wrong, and here
is what one can and should do about it. No time to waste
dramatising the nature of bondage, nor certainly for
honouring duhkha by dwelling on it ... what are its
causes and how do we deal with them” (4). Thus, Potter
prefers retaining the word duhkha as a characterization
of what Indian philosophy positively and optimistically
attempts to solve, i.e., from what man is to be liberated.
Together with this point goes Potter’s definition of
Indian philosophy as “the science of liberation,
moksasastra“ (9). Among the other sciences of living a
successful life (dharmasastra, arthasastra, and kamasa-
stra), moksasastrais “the supreme science of living, albeit
not for everyone at any moment in time” (9). When
philosophers use duhkha in the context of liberation,
sukha is included: “even sukha is duhkhaV’ (11). All
experiences of man are duhkha “in the sense that they
issue from and represent man’s continuous bondage to
karmic conditioning, from which liberation provides the
Anthropos 83.1988
650
Rezensionen
only surcease” (11). This thought, says Potter, is not
peculiar to Buddhism. It is fundamental to “the stoical
viewpoint from which the science of liberation begins to
make any sense. ” According to Potter, this viewpoint is a
necessary condition for taking philosophy as a science of
liberation seriously.
Together with perspectives of suffering in the
Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, Advaita Vedanta,
Tagore, and Gandhi the book makes an excellent
collection in a single volume of the far reaching
ramifications of “suffering” in Indian thought. Each
article is self-contained and well documented, and serves
as a good starting point for those interested in more
detailed analyses in any particular context (e.g., the
article on the Mahabharata is concerned only with
Draupadi and Yudhistira; the one of the Puranas, only
with the Visnu Parana; and Spence deals only with
“some themes” of the problem of suffering in the work
of Tagore).
The book is eminently readable and will surely be
of interest not only to specialists but also to those
wanting an authentic picture of the complexity and
ramifications of the various perspectives on “suffer-
ing.” Jayandra Soni
Valeri, Yalerio; Kingship and Sacrifice. Ritual and
Society in Ancient Hawaii. Transl. by Paula Wissing.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985. xxiii-P
446 pp., fig., map. Price: $ 22.50
Valeri hat mit Unterbrechungen seit 1969 an dieser
Studie gearbeitet; fünf von acht Kapiteln der nun
veröffentlichten Fassung sind allein 1979 entstanden,
seit 1981 wurden an der Studie keine wesentlichen
Veränderungen mehr vorgenommen. Durch seine frü-
heren Arbeiten deutlich geringeren Umfangs hat sich
Valeri bereits als Kenner des alten Hawaii erwiesen.
Gleichwertig bestand für ihn daneben stets das Interesse
an theoretischen Problemen, vor allem an der Ritus-
Diskussion. Diese beiden Forschungsschwerpunkte zu-
sammenführend, soll die vorliegende Studie zwei An-
sprüchen genügen: “. . . givingacoherentinterpretation
of Hawaiian religious ideas (the first one, to my
knowledge) and working out a number of theoretical
principles for the interpretation of ritual, especially in its
interrelation with social practice” (x).
Beide Aspekte werden in jedem der drei Haupttei-
le des Buches berücksichtigt: 1. Sacrifice and the Gods,
2. Sacrifice and Hierarchy und 3. The Sacrifice of the
Hawaiian King. Nur im letzten Teil erhebt Valeri
Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit, die Ritenzyklen unter
Aufsicht des Königs werden darin minuziös geschildert,
wobei das besondere Augenmerk dem luakini-Tempel-
fest gilt. Von der Darstellung deutlich gesondert, wer-
den in Unterkapiteln die einzelnen Abschnitte der Riten
erläutert und - dies sei vorweggenommen - auf eine
ebenso neuartige wie überzeugende Weise interpretiert.
Nach Valeri wird in diesem dritten Teil der Studie die
höchste Ebene ritueller Praxis behandelt, die das in den
beiden ersten Teilen vorgestellte System “in a single
concrete action” zeigen und unter Beweis stellen.
Im ersten Teil werden die hauptsächlichen religiö-
sen Konzepte der alten hawaiianischen Gesellschaft
beschrieben, die sich um die Begriffe Gottheit (akua),
Opfer (hai), Tabu (kapu) und mana zentrieren.
Der zweite Teil handelt von der Zuordnung be-
stimmter Opfergaben zu einzelnen Gottheiten und von
der in diesem System sichtbaren Hierarchisierung nicht
nur der Gesellschaft, sondern jedwedem menschlichen
Handeln, das im alten Hawaii vor allem mit dem
Maßstab des Beziehungspaares rein - unrein bewertet
worden sein soll. Das Opfer diente dabei als Vermittler
nicht nur zwischen dem Gegensatz pure - impure
sondern auch zwischen den anderen Gegensatzpaaren,
die nach Valeri die hawaiianische Gesellschaft prägten:
positive gods - negative gods, superior (ali’i) - inferior
(commoner), collective - individual, male - female, und
completeness - lack of completeness.
Die Hierarchisierung beschränkte sich aber weder
auf die Gesellschaft noch auf die Gesamtheit menschli-
chen Handelns, sondern wurde ebenso sichtbar in der
Organisation des Kosmos. Die Kommunikation zwi-
schen seinen Bestandteilen geschah ebenfalls durch
deren Angleichung vermittels Opferriten. So wird im
Opfer die Hierarchie der Menschenwelt mit der Hierar-
chie der Götterwelt gleichgesetzt. Wie sich Mann und
Frau, ali’i und commoner durch den Opferritus wenig-
stens zeitweilig in eins setzen konnten, so vermittelt das
Opfer innerhalb
- der Hierarchie der Erscheinungsformen einer einzel-
nen Gottheit,
- der Hierarchie der „positiven“ Götter,
- der Hierarchie der „negativen“ Götter (magischen
Helfer),
sowie zwischen diesen Hierarchien.
Es ist zu beachten, daß es sich bei den Kategorien
der Hierarchie nach Valeri nicht etwa um selbständige
Entitäten handelt, sondern lediglich um “representa-
tions of ideal types of subjects acting in certain types of
social contexts or in certain concrete groups” (xi).
Valeri gebraucht den Begriff der „Idealtypen“
durchaus im Sinne Webers, ohne jedoch auf den
Urheber hinzuweisen oder eine genaue Eingrenzung
dieses Ausdrucks vorzunehmen. Es ist dies ein Hinweis
auf die nicht unbedenkliche, weil keinerlei kritische
Reflexion mehr fordernde Gesetzeskraft, die Weber-
sche Denkmodelle gegenwärtig in den Sozialwissen-
schaften zu besitzen scheinen. Immerhin läßt die Ver-
wendung dieses Begriffs aber auf die Unmöglichkeit
schließen, einzelne Gottheiten und somit jeden Men-
schen vollkommen und dauernd einer „positiven“ oder
„negativen“ Kategorie zuzuordnen. Gerade der Wech-
sel jedes Wesens von einer Kategorie in die andere unter
Beibehaltung seines grundsätzlichen Charakters verleiht
erst dem Opfer seinen Sinn, erlaubt es z. B. dem
Menschen vom Zustand der „Unreinheit“ wieder in den
der „Reinheit“ zu treten.
Der Zweck des Opfers ist es, die Einheit der
Gegensätze herzustellen, allerdings nur bis zu dem
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
651
Punkt, an dem ihr gänzliches Verwischen die Hierarchie
der Institutionen und Konzepte gefährden würde: in
diesem Moment bewegen sich die Riten wieder in die
entgegengesetzte Richtung: ihr Ziel ist es nun, die
Trennung herzustellen, indem sie etwa die Andersartig-
keit von Mensch und Gottheit betonen.
Als ein Schüler Lévi-Strauss’ und Marshall Sahlins
ist Valeri der strukturalistischen Methode verpflichtet,
“tempered, however, by as much skepticism and good
sense as I am capable of” (193). Diese kritische Haltung
zeigt sich etwa in seiner Zurückweisung eines Grundsat-
zes des dogmatischen Strukturalismus: “. . . cultural
motivations - that is, meaningful motivations - cannot
be simply treated as false motivations or rationaliza-
tions” (68 f.). Andererseits ist seine Anwendung struk-
turalistischer Methode gelegentlich von jener struktura-
listischen Übertreibung begleitet, die uns die Transfor-
mierbarkeit des Mythos bis zur Unkenntlichkeit plausi-
bel machen möchte. So hält Valeri den Mythos vom
Ursprung der Trennung zwischen den Geschlechtern
sowie zwischen Adel und gewöhnlichem Volk für die
“Hawaiian transformation of the Polynesian myth that
recounts the Separation of heaven and earth” (169).
Diese Herleitung ist jedoch willkürlich, denn der poly-
nesische Mythos über die Trennung von Himmel und
Erde ist in einer sehr ähnlichen, keineswegs transfor-
mierten Fassung auch auf Hawaii bekannt gewesen.
Valeri weiß dies übrigens, da die Hauptquelle für die
hawaiianische Fassung ein Buch ist, das er in seiner
Bibliographie aufführt (Westerveit, Legends of Ma-ui, a
Demi-God of Polynesia and of his Mother Hina.
Honolulu 1910: 31-32).
Neben der Anwendung der strukturalistischen
Methode greift Valeri vor allem auf die Theorien von
Loisy, G. Lienhardt, Mauss und Durkheim zurück. Sehr
gründlich diskutiert er ihre jeweiligen Ansätze im
Hinblick auf ihre Verwertbarkeit für hawaiianische
Phänomene. Auch wenn Valeri seine Vorliebe für
bestimmte theoretische Perspektiven nicht verleugnen
kann, so ist seine Arbeit doch stets an der Klärung von
Fragen interessiert, die typisch für die hawaiianische
Religion sind. Auf diese Weise werden Theorien pro-
duktiv auf den Prüfstand der Empirie gebracht, anstatt
daß Tatsachenmaterial einem Denkmodell „angepaßt“
würde, dessen universelle Gültigkeit es zu beweisen
gelte. Dieses Vorgehen wird möglich durch Valeris
hervorragende Sachkenntnis, ja, es zeigt sich, daß er mit
hawaiianischen Verhältnissen vertrauter ist als mit den
Überlieferungen ethnologischer Ahnväter. Von Durk-
heim und Robertson Smith verlängert er die Traditions-
linie seines Ansatzes bis hin zu Hegel. Dort aber erweist
sich seine Bezugnahme auf die Hegelsche Klassifizie-
rung der Religion unter ‘“objective spirit,’ that is, the
objectified System of ideas of a community" (x) als
ebenso rituelles wie falsches Zitat, das zugleich seine
Abhängigkeit von der marxistisch geprägten Hegelre-
zeption eines A. Kojève verrät. Hegel hat in seinem
„System der Philosophie“ (Band III) die Religion (vor
allem als geoffenbarte) dem Bereich des „absoluten
Geistes“ zugeordnet, während dem „objektiven Geist“
Sittlichkeit (und damit der Staat), Moralität und Recht
angehören.
Fast ebenso ausführlich wie beim Begriff des
Opfers diskutiert Valeri theoretische Überlegungen zum
Begriff mana, um dann eine Synthese zu finden, auf
deren Grundlage sich die gegenseitige Abhängigkeit von
Mensch und Gott in Hawaii erklären läßt. Interessanter-
weise stellt sich dabei für Hawaii mana - entgegen
aktueller Lehrmeinung - durchaus als übertragbare,
mithin stoffliche Substanz heraus.
Trotz dieser gut durchdachten Auseinandersetzung
mit Theorien zu gleichzeitig traditionellen wie aktuellen
Themen der Ethnologie liegt die eigentliche Bedeutung
von Valeris Studie in der Fülle an feinsinnigen Deutun-
gen hawaiianischer Opferriten, deren Würdigung im
Rahmen einer Rezension nicht auch nur annähernd
möglich ist. Valeri erklärt überzeugend die Choreogra-
phie eines religiösen Symbolsystems und erbringt somit
den Nachweis, daß wir es im Ritus nicht mit Vorgängen
zu tun haben, deren Sinn uns heute nicht mehr faßlich
sein kann.
Es sei nicht verschwiegen, daß auch hierbei wie
stets der Grundsatz gilt: „Andere Rezensenten, andere
Meinungen.“ Für eine harsche Kritik der Studie durch
Charlot und eine nicht minder vehemente Erwiderung
Valeris siehe Pacific Studies 10/2. 1987: 107-214.
In den ersten beiden Teilen des Buches bleibt
manches Problem ungelöst, was nicht verwundert, denn
es werden dort Fragen behandelt, die auch in der
Literatur umstritten sind. Ähnlich wie bei den Arbeiten
älterer Autoren ist Valeris Unterteilung der Gottheiten
in akua, ’aumakua und akua ’unihipili widersprüchlich.
Ich halte es nach meiner Kenntnis der Literatur für
wahrscheinlich, daß wir es hier lediglich mit Synonymen
für eine einzige Kategorie - die der Ahnengeister - zu
tun haben, ähnlich wie dies bereits Horst Cain für Samoa
nachweisen konnte. Diese These wird gestützt durch die
gemeinsame Abkunft von Menschen und Göttern, wie
sie im kumulipu berichtet wird.
Zwar erwähnt Valeri (403, Anm. 261), daß die
Opfer oft stranguliert wurden, um die Berührung mit
Blut zu vermeiden, aber er geht nicht ein auf die
Symbolfunktion der “cords” bei der Hinrichtung von
„Jenseitsbegleitern“ des verstorbenen Königs, worüber
Kamakau berichtet. Daß diese Praxis symbolische Be-
deutung hat, ist sicher anzunehmen, wenn wir Valeris
hervorragender Erklärung des zentralen symbolischen
Wertes von Schnüren aus Kokosfasern beim Tod eines
Königs folgen wollen.
Die Wiedergabe des luakini heiau nach John Papa
Ti (241) ist unvollständig: die beiden Götterstatuen am
Eingang sowie zwei Statuen zwischen “wai ea house”
und “drum house” fehlen, was bei Valeris sonstiger
Umsicht die Vermutung nahelegt, er habe sich keine
zusätzlichen interpretatorischen Probleme zumuten
wollen.
Der Stil des Buches läßt leider oft die Luzidität
vermissen, welche die Lektüre eines englischen Origi-
naltextes so angenehm macht. Dies ist nicht Valeri
anzulasten, denn die Studie ist in Französisch verfaßt
Anthropos 83.1988
652
Rezensionen
und für die Veröffentlichung von Paula Wissing über-
setzt worden. Valeri trägt jedoch die Verantwortung für
den inflationären Gebrauch von Leitsprüchen: 28 habe
ich für die acht Kapitel der drei Teile des Buches
gezählt, abgefaßt in zwei toten, vier lebenden und einer
wiederbelebten Sprache! Dem Zitat in letzterer Sprache
ist inkonsequenterweise eine Übersetzung beigefügt, als
stünde dem Social Anthropologist das Hawaiianische
ferner als die alt-griechische, lateinische oder gar deut-
sche Sprache! Immerhin ist aber etwas von der Polyglot-
tität des Autors in Form eines erhöhten Alphabetismus
auf die Setzer übergegangen, was sich an der für
amerikanische Verhältnisse erstaunlich geringen Druck-
fehlerquote bei deutschsprachigen Titeln in der Biblio-
graphie zeigt.
Eine Erörterung des wohl interessantesten Phäno-
mens der uns bekannten polynesischen Geschichte, die
hawaiianische „Kulturrevolution“ von 1819, spart Valeri
aus, dennoch wird seine Studie gerade in diesem Punkt
die Diskussion beleben. Valeris Modell der alten hawai-
ianischen Gesellschaft läßt nämlich keinen Raum für
einen revolutionären Umschwung, der zu etwas ande-
rem hätte führen können als zu größter Desorientiert-
heit und baldiger Vernichtung dieser Gesellschaft.
Dennoch hat dieser Umschwung stattgefunden, und die
Gesellschaft hat ihn überlebt.
Valeris Buch wird Anlaß zu vielfältigen Überlegun-
gen und weiterführenden Studien geben und damit
zweierlei bewirken: es wird zu Recht den Anspruch
erheben können, ein Anwärter zu sein auf den Status
eines Klassikers der Erforschung der Gesellschaft des
alten Hawaii wie der polynesischen Religionen, und
zugleich all jenen, die es gewohnt sind, wissenschaftliche
Methoden als Modeerscheinungen von saisonaler Be-
deutung aufzufassen, beweisen, daß der Strukturalismus
in der Völkerkunde, umsichtig angewandt, auch in
Zukunft fruchtbar sein wird. Matthias Mersch
Vossen, Rüdiger, und Wilhelm Ebert: Marokkani-
sche Töpferei. Töpferorte und -Zentren. Eine Landes-
aufnahme (1980). - Poterie marocaine: Localités de
potiers et centres de poterie. Un inventaire sur tout le
pays (1980). Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 1986. 549 pp.,
Abb., Ktn. Preis: DM 88,-
Vom Januar bis September 1908 bereisten die
Autoren, Rüdiger Vossen, Leiter der Eurasien-Abtei-
lung des Hamburgischen Museums für Völkerkunde,
und Wilhelm Ebert, Ordinarius für Kunstpädagogik an
der Universität Wuppertal, teilweise mit wechselnden
Mitarbeitern, Marokko. Wie bei den bekannten Unter-
suchungen in Spanien war das Ziel zunächst das Aufsu-
chen noch existierender Töpferorte und -Zentren in
diesem Königreich, die Feststellung der angewandten
Methoden, Formen und Dekore sowie das Sammeln von
Belegstücken. Vossen schloß damit an seine erfolgrei-
chen Töpferei-Untersuchungen in Spanien an, die nicht
nur einen vollständigen Überblick über die Keramikpro-
duktion der siebziger Jahre in dem iberischen Land
lieferten, sondern auch Anregungen gaben, dieses da-
mals scheinbar sterbende Handwerk neu zu beleben.
Fragen der Einflüsse aus berberischen und arabischen
Quellen während der islamischen Zeit Spaniens führten
zur Wahl Marokkos als nächstem Forschungsobjekt.
Es gelang den Verfassern und ihren Mitarbeitern,
rund 200 Töpferorte bzw. -Zentren zu besuchen und
Nachrichten über 400 weitere zu sammeln, meist sol-
cher, die auch mit dem Landrover nicht mehr zu
erreichen waren. Welch große Schwierigkeiten dabei
und im Umgang mit der Bevölkerung zu überwinden
waren, kann man nur aus einzelnen Sätzen ersehen und
erahnen, wie z. B. „Der Ort war auch mit dem Landro-
ver nicht zu erreichen, weil die Piste aufgeweicht war“
(Imtat, 349); „Ein Besuch des Töpferortes war wegen
seiner Lage in der Sperrzone nicht möglich“ (Tamanaht/
Ait Herbil, 519); „Der Töpferort Baygdad westlich der
Straße Tamanar-Essaouira war selbst mit Landrover
nicht zu erreichen“ (Imi-n-Tlit, 253); „Die Frauen
brannten gerade Küchengeschirr für den Frauensouk in
Ajdir am nächsten Morgen. Beim Anblick eines Foto-
apparates machten die Frauen ein lautes Geschrei und
gaben mit Drohgebärden zu verstehen, daß sie das
Fotografieren nicht zulassen wollten. Ein 12-jähriger
Schüler aus der Nachbarschaft, der uns dolmetschte,
sagte, daß die Töpferinnen im Rif glaubten, daß durch
das Fotografieren die Gefäße in der Brennmulde zer-
stört würden“ (Ajdir [Azrhär], 90); „Striktes Fotogra-
fierverbot; Verweigerung der Namensnennung von ver-
heirateten Frauen“ (Ait Tighärt, 93); „Er [der Töpfer]
verweigerte jede weitere Auskunft und verbot das
Fotografieren“ (Ait Oua’bdi, 373); „Eine Wand von
Mißtrauen machte eine nähere Untersuchung unmög-
lich“ (Khenadek, 165); usw.
Der vorliegende Band, zweisprachig (bis auf die
Bildunterschriften), in Deutsch und Französisch, veröf-
fentlicht, stellt einen Katalog der besuchten Orte sowie
jener dar, über die ausreichend sichere Informationen
auf den Wochenmärkten (souks) oder in Nachbarorten
gesammelt werden konnten. So umfaßt der Katalog
insgesamt 259 Orte. Sie sind in kleineren Gruppen
zusammengestellt, die oft im Zusammenhang mit be-
stimmten Marktorten stehen, in denen die Töpfer ihre
Waren anbieten. Neun größere geographische Regionen
geben das Skelett für die Einteilung ab. Die Angaben zu
den Orten sind nach einem einheitlichen, 15 Punkte
umfassenden Schema gegliedert, das die Autoren wie
folgt beschreiben (8-9):
1. Töpferort/Töpferzentrum (teilweise mit näherer
Charakterisierung, z. B. Stammeszugehörigkeit, Lage,
Spezialisierung, Varianten der Schreibweise).
2. Naturregion (nähere Kennzeichnung der Region).
3. Provinz (in der Regel benannt nach der Provinz-
hauptstadt).
4. Caidat/Büro (Kreisort, cercle, Verwaltungszen-
trum).
5. Stamm (Traditionsgemeinschaft: kabyla, taqbilt).
6. Fraktion (Stammessegment, Sippenverband: ferka,
faghda).
7. Wichtigste Marktorte und Markttage (im jeweiligen
Töpferort bevorzugte Märkte/souks und Markttage).
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
653
8. Anzahl der Töpfereien/Werkstätten oder der Töp-
fer(innen)/Meister(innen).
9. Anzahl und Typ der Brennöfen oder Brennstel-
len.
10. Namentlich erfaßte Töpfer/Töpferinnen (Meister/
Meisterinnen).
11. Produktion mit den wichtigsten Form- und Funk-
tionstypen zum Aufnahmezeitpunkt mit den einheimi-
schen Bezeichnungen (Arabisch, Berberdialekte, Fran-
zösisch).
12. Besondere Bemerkungen (z. B. zu den Besonder-
heiten der Produktion, Vergleich zur Produktion von
Nachbarorten, Angebot auf den Märkten, Schwierigkei-
ten der Aufnahme). Hier finden sich auch die Angaben
zu den nicht besuchten Orten.
13. Bearbeitet (Teilnehmer des Aufnahmeteams, ver-
antwortlich für die gebotenen Informationen).
14. Aufnahmedatum (Zeitpunkt der Datenaufnah-
me).
15. Kartenausschnitt-Nummer (Lage/Lokalisierung des
Töpferortes auf den Detailkarten 1 : 200 000).
Die auf diese Weise dargebotenen Informationen
sind außerordentlich instruktiv und vielseitig, ermögli-
chen einen guten Überblick über den gegenwärtigen
Zustand der marokkanischen Töpferei und ihre Vielsei-
tigkeit. Sie werden eindrucksvoll durch die zahlreichen
Fotografien ergänzt, die sowohl die verschiedenen
Keramiktypen wie auch Herstellungsphasen, Brenn-
öfen, Werkstätten und Töpfer/innen zeigen. Für jene,
die sich für diese Keramik interessieren und die Orte
aufsuchen möchten, geben klare Kartenskizzen ihre
Lage wieder. Sie können auch auf ein Glossar (520-529)
zurückgreifen, in dem die Bezeichnung der zahlreichen
Gefäßtypen in den verschiedenen einheimischen Spra-
chen und Dialekten neben den deutschen und französi-
schen Namen aufgeführt sind. Ein Literaturverzeichnis
endlich und ein Ortsindex ergänzen den Band.
Das Buch stellt die Grundlage, das Rohmaterial für
einen zweiten, vergleichenden Band dar, den die Auto-
ren planen. Er wird sicherlich von gleichgroßer Bedeu-
tung sein, denn schon beim Lesen des wirkungsvoll
dargebotenen Grundmaterials kann man viele Probleme
erkennen, die dort zur Sprache kommen werden: die
regionalen oder ethnisch bedingten Unterschiede zwi-
schen Frauen- und Männerarbeit z. B., die Art der
Herstellung, mit oder ohne Töpferscheibe, die Art der
Werkstätten, die Verteilung der Formen oder des
Dekors und viele andere Dinge mehr. Er wird bestimmt
zu unserem Verständnis nicht nur der marokkanischen
Töpferei oder der Keramik des westlichen Mittelmeer-
raumes beitragen, sondern auch wichtige Hinweise zur
allgemeinen Kenntnis der Töpferei beinhalten.
Vielleicht regt der vorliegende Band auch andere
Völkerkundler/Volkskundler an, sich in ähnlicher Weise
mit anderen Ländern, z. B. des mediterranen Raumes,
zu beschäftigen. Dieses Buch kann ihnen als Vorbild
dienen, als Muster, das es zu erreichen gilt. Endlich
kann man der Hoffnung der Autoren nur beipflichten,
daß ihre Arbeit und diese Veröffentlichung einem
besseren Verständnis der marokkanischen Keramik,
auch im eigenen Lande, dienen möge und so ihr
scheinbar unaufhaltsamer Untergang gestoppt werden
möge. Die Verfasser haben sicher dazu eine Grundlage
geliefert, deren Wert man kaum überschätzen kann.
Man kann ihnen zu dieser Publikation nur gratulieren
und mit Spannung den zweiten Band erwarten.
Wolfgang Haberland
Waldenfels, Hans (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Religio-
nen. Phänomene, Geschichte, Ideen. (Begründet von
Franz König) Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1988.
xiv + 729 pp., Fig., Tab. Preis: DM 98,- [2. Aufl.]
Der Verlag Herder knüpft mit diesem Lexikon an
eine verdienstvolle Tradition an. Franz Königs „Reli-
gionswissenschaftliches Wörterbuch“, erschienen 1956,
wurde damals von vielen als Pionierleistung angesehen.
Der Herausgeber des Nachfolge-Lexikons, Hans Wal-
denfels, ging ein gewisses Risiko ein. Denn man wird
beide Nachschlagewerke miteinander vergleichen. Man
wird den Herausgeber an seinem Anspruch messen.
Worin unterscheidet sich das „Lexikon der Religionen“
von seinem Vorgänger?
Beide bemühen sich, wissenschaftlich zuverlässig
über die Religionen dieser Welt in zeitgemäßer Perspek-
tive zu informieren. Beide leugnen nicht den „katholi-
schen Verständnishintergrund“, legen aber Wert dar-
auf, den Geist fremder Kulturen und Religionen zu
verstehen. Doch das „Lexikon der Religionen“ ist nicht
einfach eine Neubearbeitung von Königs „Religionswis-
senschaftlichem Wörterbuch“. Die Stichworte wurden
neu ausgewählt, für die Beiträge wurden neue Autoren
gewonnen, insgesamt 124 (nur Franz König erscheint
auch im neuen Werk als Autor), von denen etwa 1/10
aus dem nicht deutschsprachigen Raum kommen (ge-
genüber 1/3 im „Religionswissenschaftlichen Wörter-
buch“). Das Werk möchte, nach den Worten des
Herausgebers, der neuen Weltsituation Rechnung tra-
gen, „mehr als 40 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg mit
seinen einschneidenden gesellschaftlich-politischen und
international-interkulturell-interreligiösen Folgeer-
scheinungen“ (v). Vor allem seien solche Artikel be-
rücksichtigt, „die über die heute wirksamen Religionen
und religiösen Strömungen berichten, Zugang zu religiö-
sen Phänomenen vermitteln und damit die Wahrneh-
mung des Religiösen fördern“ (v). Wieweit wird dieser
Anspruch eingelöst?
In Rahmen- und Schwerpunktartikeln wird in der
Regel sachlich, ausführlich und kompetent über die
großen Weltreligionen informiert (z. B. Buddhismus,
Hinduismus/Hindu-Religionen, Islam, Judentum, Chri-
stentum, Gott, Mensch, Ethik, Ehe/Familie, Heil/
Heilsweg, Heilige Schrift[en], Heilsgestalten, Kult/Got-
tesverehrung, Schuld/Sünde, Tradition u. a.). Lokal
begrenzte Religionen werden dagegen eher stiefmütter-
lich behandelt bzw. überhaupt nicht berücksichtigt,
z. B. traditionelle Religionen, die synkretistischen Reli-
gionen Afrikas und Süd/Mittelamerikas. Es ist schwer
verständlich, warum gerade letzteren kein eigener
Blockartikel zugestanden wird. Selbst bei großen Rah-
Anthropos 83.1988
654
Rezensionen
menartikeln fehlt nicht selten Vollständigkeit sogar bei
der Berücksichtigung der Weltreligionen (haben die
Themen „Ehe/Familie“ oder „Tradition“ im Buddhis-
mus keine nennenswerte Bedeutung? warum wird im
Blockartikel „Gesetz“ nur auf jüdische und christliche
Religion Bezug genommen [es wird zwar auf „Dharma“
verwiesen, ein Hinweis auf „Shari’a“ fehlt]?). Da sich
das Lexikon an Fachleute und an Laien wendet, wäre
mehr Vollständigkeit schon ein erstrebenswertes Ziel.
Nicht ganz verständlich ist es dem Rezensenten, warum
in Rahmenartikeln einmal auf konkrete Weltreligionen,
einmal auf geographische Regionen abgehoben wird.
Das dankenswerte Bemühen des Lexikons um
Aktualität zeigt sich u. a. darin, daß z. B. Themen wie
„Medizin und Religion“, „Ökonomie und Religion“,
„Befreiungstheologien“, „Feministische Theologie“,
„Krisenkulte/Messianische Kulte“, „Neue religiöse Be-
wegungen“, „Religionsdialog“ in eigenen Stichworten
angesprochen werden. Der Rezensent, der in einer
ethnologischen, kulturanthropologischen Zeitschrift
schreibt, hätte natürlich gewünscht, daß die Aktualität
noch weiter geführt worden wäre. Ihm scheint, daß der
Ansatz dieses Lexikons - wenn auch weniger als im
„Religionswissenschaftlichen Wörterbuch“ - immer
noch zu sehr dem traditionellen religionsgeschichtlichen
Wissenschaftsverständnis verhaftet bleibt, also den hi-
storischen Aspekt zu sehr betont, den Bezug auf heute
gelebte Religion aber oft vermissen läßt: Wir finden die
herkömmlichen Stichworte „Etruskische Religion“,
„Sumerische Religion“, „Germanische Religion“ usw.,
doch unter dem Stichwort „Synkretismus“ fehlt jeder
Hinweis auf die Unzahl synkretistischer Bewegungen,
die sich heute z. B. am Rande des Christentums überall
auf der Welt finden. Gelebte Religion, zu der man etwa
unter dem Eintrag „Religiosität“ grundsätzliche Aussa-
gen erwartet, kommt zu wenig in den Blick der zumeist
„religionsgeschichtlich“ orientierten Autoren des Lexi-
kons. Oder ist etwa Religiosität nur ein Charakteristi-
kum chinesischer Religion und Weltanschauung? Stich-
worte wie „Religion und Kommunikation“, „Feste“,
„Ritus“ (gewiß nicht identisch mit „Kult“) u. a. würden
ein so wertvolles Nachschlagewerk, wie es dieses Lexi-
kon ist, bereichern, da sie es erlauben, auf praktizierte
Religion stärker einzugehen, Kontinuität und Wandel
aufzuzeigen. Gechichte sollte nicht ihrer selbst wegen
berücksichtigt werden, sondern insofern als sie zum
besseren Verständnis der heutigen Religionen beiträgt.
Daß ein religionsethnologischer Ansatz hilfreich und
nützlich ist, wenn es darum geht, aktuell gelebte
Religion zu verstehen, ist eine Erkenntnis, die nur
vereinzelt in diesem Buch aufscheint.
Der stärkeren „Bewußtwerdung eines pluralen
religiösen Angebots in Europa“ trug man zu Recht
dadurch Rechnung, daß auf Artikel, die ausschließlich
christlich-theologische Bereiche betreffen (Dogmatik,
Liturgie, Kirchengeschichte), weitgehend verzichtet
wurde. Der „katholische Verständnishintergrund“, legi-
tim wie er ist, kommt in vielen Beiträgen zum Ausdruck.
Doch gelegentlich drängt sich der Eindruck auf, daß
eine rein katholische/christliche (wenn nicht apologeti-
sche) Perspektive, wie man sie eigentlich nicht mehr
erwartet hätte, sich durchgehalten hat, vgl. Beiträge wie
„Absolutheitsanspruch“, „Leben“, „Mission“, „Wun-
der“, wo außerchristliche Religionen nicht berücksich-
tigt werden.
Das „Lexikon der Religionen“ enthält auf engem
Raum eine erstaunliche Fülle an Informationen und
Denkanstößen. Anzumerken bleibt freilich, daß viel
Material durch die Stichworte und Querverweise allein
nicht erschlossen werden kann. Jede Stichwort-Auswahl
bleibt letztlich defizitär, weil unvollständig, zumal in
einem Lexikon, dessen Raum beschränkt ist. Viele
Themen können keinen eigenen Eintrag bekommen,
müssen also in Rahmen- und Blockartikeln abgehandelt
werden. Sie aufzufinden ist dann allerdings manchmal
Glückssache. Ein ausführlicher Index könnte diesem
Mangel abhelfen.
Einen Schritt in die richtige Richtung ging der
Herausgeber mit der bereits nach wenigen Monaten
notwendig gewordenen zweiten Auflage des Lexikons.
Der Liste der Autoren wurden die jeweils behandelten
Stichworte beigefügt. Herausgeber und Verlag ist mit
diesem Lexikon ein Standardwerk gelungen, für das
man gratulieren kann. Es verdient weitere Auflagen, es
ist verbesserungswürdig und -fähig.
Othmar Gächter
Weir, Shelagh: Qat in Yemen. Consumption and
Social Change. Dorchester: Trustees of the British
Museum, 1985. 191 pp., illustr. Price: £ 15.00
Hauptthemen dieses Buches sind die soziale Be-
deutung des Qat-Gebrauchs im Jemen und die starke
Veränderung, besonders in quantitativer Hinsicht, der
dieser Gebrauch durch die starken ökonomischen Ver-
änderungen der 70er Jahre unterlag.
Der Nachmittag, ab ca. ein, zwei Uhr, gehört im
Jemen offenbar nicht mehr der Arbeit. Diese ist nach
sechs Stunden getan. Zumindest ist dies eine erkennbare
Tendenz in den 70er Jahren. Bis zu dieser Mittagsstunde
sind auch die wesentlichsten Geschäfte abgeschlossen,
weil sich jedermann (und jede Frau) bis zu diesem
Zeitpunkt mit einem Bündel Qat-Zweige versorgt hat.
Anschließend trifft man sich zu den sogenannten Qat-
Parties.
Qat (khat), bei den Botanikern auch als Catha
edulis bekannt, ist ein Genußmittel, das fast ausschließ-
lich im ostafrikanischen und südarabischen Raum ange-
baut und genossen wird. Qat ist ein Strauch von 10 bis 20
Metern Höhe - je nach Bewässerungslage - und trägt
meist grüne Blätter. Auf diese Blätter kommt es an,
denn diesen wird kauend ein leichtes Stimulans entzo-
gen.
Shelagh Weir sieht im Qat-Genuß bzw. in den
sogenannten Qat-Parties den wichtigsten sozialen Dreh-
punkt der jemenitischen Gesellschaft (gemeint ist hier
immer die Republik [Süd-]Jemen). Als sich die Autorin
insgesamt für vierzehn Monate zu Feldforschungsarbei-
ten im Jemen aufhielt, um über Anbau und Handel von
Qat als ökonomischem Faktor innerhalb der jemeniti-
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensionen
655
sehen Wirtschaft zu forschen, sah sie, worin der Schwer-
punkt beim Qat-Anbau lag. Sie stieß bei ihren Recher-
chen auf Widersprüche zwischen dem Literaturstudium
über Qat und ihren Erfahrungen, die sie vor Ort
(überwiegend in den nördlichen Regionen) machte.
Damit gerät Weirs Abhandlung über den Qat-Genuß
fast automatisch zur Kampfschrift gegen euro-zentrische
Sichtweisen bei der Klassifikation von Drogen. Urteile
über Qat in der westlichen Literatur kommen meist auch
von westlichen Wissenschaftlern, die sehr schnell bereit
sind, Qat als eine (gefährliche) Droge anzusehen, die
das psychische und materielle Wohlbefinden der Jeme-
niten in den Ruin treiben wird. Obwohl schon seit vielen
Jahrhunderten belegt ist, daß Jemeniten - zumindest der
Oberschicht - regelmäßig Qat genießen, scheint dieses
Volk, trotz westlicher Unkenrufe, noch recht gut zu
bestehen.
Mit Akribie führt die Autorin Belege auf, die
zeigen, wie sehr westliche Wissenschaftler von den
negativen Auswirkungen des Qat überzeugt sind, ohne
dafür jedoch medizinische oder psychiatrische Untersu-
chungen angestellt zu haben. Häufig wird das Urteil der
Anthropologen von ihrem angewiderten Gefühl gelei-
tet, das sie empfinden, wenn sie Jemeniten Qat kauen
sehen. Wichtigstes Ziel daher ist es für Shelagh Weir,
Qat in das richtige soziale Licht zu rücken, was da heißt,
in das Licht der jemenitischen Gesellschaft.
Qat gehört zu den wenigen Genußmitteln, die
niemals über ihre recht eng umgrenzten Gebiete hinaus-
gekommen sind. Andere Genuß- oder Rauschmittel aus
Asien oder Südamerika werden in der ein oder anderen
Form auch in westlichen Ländern genossen (z. B. Coca
oder Opium). Da also Qat im Westen niemals eine Rolle
gespielt hat, scheint es um so wichtiger zu sein, es nicht
nach den Kategorien westlicher Drogenklassifikationen
allein zu bewerten, sondern seinen Stellenwert und seine
Wirkung innerhalb der jemenitischen Gesellschaft her-
auszufiltern. Für eine solche Analyse liefert die Autorin
viele wichtige Daten über Qat;
Der (1) botanischen Klassifikation folgt die
(2) geographische Verteilung des Anbaus, also die
klimatischen Voraussetzungen, unter denen Qat ge-
deiht. Daraus ergeben sich die entsprechenden Handels-
wege, die wegen der Frische von Qat sehr bedeutsam
sind. Qat muß immer ganz frisch gekaut werden. Schon
24-36 Stunden nach der Ernte verlieren die Blätter ihre
gewünschte Wirkung.
(3) Das Handelssystem für Qat: Im Gegensatz zu
anderen Handelswaren, die nicht so leicht verderblich
sind und die sich gar, wie Kaffee, zum Export eignen,
können bei Qat keine Handelsmonopole aufgebaut
werden, die das Horten von Gütern voraussetzen, um
diese dann bei möglichst hohen Marktpreisen zu verkau-
fen. Der Zwang zur Frische und damit zum schnellen
Verkauf führt im Jemen dazu, daß sehr viele Jemeniten
nicht nur Qat kauen, sondern selbst - als Anbauer oder
Händler - am Marktsystem des Qat beteiligt sind.
(4) Die Ausweitung des Qat-Anbaus im Jemen seit
den 70er Jahren wird von westlichen Forschern beson-
ders heftig diskutiert. Aus dem erweiterten Qat-Anbau
wird der Schluß gezogen, daß dies den Anbau von
Kaffee oder Hirse verdränge. Zwar wird heute im Jemen
weniger Kaffe und Hirse angebaut, doch dürften dafür
die lange anhaltenden Trockenzeiten verantwortlich
sein, die den traditionellen Agrarsektor veränderten.
Qat ist anspruchsloser und verhindert heute vermutlich
das Veröden weiter Agrarflächen. Der erweiterte Qat-
Anbau war aber erst durch eine erhöhte Nachfrage
möglich. Diese wiederum wurde durch den Öl-Boom in
Saudi-Arabien beeinflußt, der ein Drittel der jemeniti-
schen Männer anzog und einen enormen Devisen-
Rückfluß bewirkte. Erst dieses Geld ermöglichte es, im
Jemen Straßen zu bauen, so daß der Transport des frisch
geernteten Qat mit Lastwagen schnell zu den jeweiligen
Märkten erfolgen konnte (vgl. den vorausgegangenen
Punkt). Erst die Gastarbeit in Saudi-Arabien ließ
breiten Bevölkerungsschichten Bargeld in größeren
Mengen zukommen, wodurch die Qat-Nachfrage an-
stieg.
Auch die (5) physiologischen Aspekte des Qat-
Genusses werden beschrieben, wobei sich die Autorin
im wesentlichen nur auf eine Untersuchung stützen kann
(vgl. J. G. Kennedy, Erkenntnisse der medizinischen
Qat-Forschung. In: G. Völger [Hrsg.], Rausch und
Realität. Köln 1981). Qat wirkt normalerweise in drei
zeitlich aufeinanderfolgenden Stufen: Zuerst tritt
„Wachheit“ ein, dann ein Rauschzustand, der als
„Wohlbefinden“ deklariert wird, und nach ca. drei
Stunden folgt ein „temporärer depressiver Zustand“,
der durch seelische Unruhe gekennzeichnet ist (Armin
Schopen, Qat im Jemen. In; G. Völger [Hrsg.], Rausch
und Realität). Die Form eines solchen Ablaufs läßt
durchaus an ein Rauschmittel denken, das eine physi-
sche und psychische Abhängigkeit erwarten läßt. Doch
lehnt die Autorin dies mit dem Hinweis ab, daß
Jemeniten im Ausland auch problemlos ohne Qat leben
könnten (auch Kennedy bestätigt das).
Der (6) soziale Kontext, in dem üblicherweise Qat
genossen wird, zeigt, welche Kontrollen beim Qat-
Genuß „eingebaut“ sind. Die sogenannten Qat-Parties
sind meist tägliche, fest institutionalisierte Nachmittags-
sitzungen von Männern (getrennt davon auch von
Frauen), die eine hohe, sozial stabilisierende Funktion
haben. Qat-Parties finden nicht an öffentlichen Plätzen
oder Cafés statt, sondern im privaten, häuslichen Rah-
men. Man kommt in das Haus des jeweiligen Gastgebers
und bringt sein eigenes Bündel Qat mit. Die jeweilige
Sitzordnung in dem dafür bestimmten Raum kennzeich-
net den sozialen Rang, den man innerhalb der jeweiligen
Gruppe einnimmt. Während einer Qat-Sitzung werden
anliegende Probleme des Ortes oder individuelle
Schwierigkeiten besprochen oder kleinere Zwistigkeiten
beigelegt. Man versichert sich des gegenseitigen Wohl-
wollens. Nimmt ein Mann über längere Zeit an solchen
Sitzungen nicht teil, schließt er sich sozial und schließlich
auch ökonomisch von der Gesellschaft aus. Eine Qat-
Sitzung dauert ca. vier Stunden. In dieser Zeit wird von
allen Beteiligten ungefähr die gleiche Menge an Qat-
Blättern gekaut. Nur selten kaut ein Mann Qat allein,
obwohl heute auch häufiger Männer während der Arbeit
Anthropos 83.1988
656
Rezensionen
Qat kauen. Unterschiede beim Qat-Kauen gibt es
bezüglich der Qualität der Blätter, und dieser Qualitäts-
unterschied schlägt sich in Preis und Wirkung nieder.
Diese Qualitätsunterschiede sind für Einheimische deut-
lich an der Art der Blätter zu erkennen, wodurch Qat die
ökonomischen Verhältnisse eines Mannes aufzeigt. Qat
muß täglich neu gekauft werden, und es ist alles andere
als billig. Qat kann man nicht aufbewahren und fordert
so die Statusanzeige jedes Mannes täglich. Ruhm
vergangener Tage hilft dabei nicht. Die breite Zunahme
des Qat-Verbrauchs mit Beginn der 70er Jahre und die
starken ökonomischen Veränderungen zu dieser Zeit
gehen somit Hand in Hand. Diese sozialen Umwälzun-
gen verunsichern das traditionelle jemenitische System
sehr stark, so daß ein starkes Band gefunden werden
mußte, um eine zerstörende Eruption dieser Gesell-
schaft zu vermeiden. Qat-Preise, die eben heute nicht
mehr auf eine kleine Oberschicht beschränkt sind, üben
somit eine starke soziale Kontrolle aus und binden die
Männer solidarisch aneinander. Täglich erneut wird
festgestellt, auf welcher Sprosse der sozialen Stufenlei-
ter man steht, da Geld die traditionelle, durch Geburt
bestimmte Hierarchie lockerte.
So gesehen kann die rasche Verbreitung des
Qat-Genusses nicht als Vernebelung der jemenitischen
Bevölkerung angesehen werden, die sich jedem techni-
schen Fortschritt verschlösse. Qat wird im Normalfall
nicht unkontrolliert genossen, sondern in sozial und
kulturell fest umschriebenen Situationen. Qat-Exzesse
sind somit überwiegend ausgeschlossen, aber natürlich
im Einzelfall möglich. Die wichtige sozial stabilisierende
Wirkung dieses Brauches muß wohl als die entscheiden-
de Wirkung von Qat gesehen werden.
Obwohl das Plädoyer gegen die Verteufelung des
Qat-Gebrauchs von Weir überzeugend vorgetragen
wurde, bleiben zum Schluß des Buches doch einige
Unklarheiten bestehen. Der Beobachtungszeitraum von
Weir bezieht sich auf die 70er Jahre (1979/80 war ihr
letzter Aufenthalt im Jemen), also auf jenen Zeitraum,
der im Jemen mit großen sozialen und ökonomischen
Umwälzungen einherging. Es ist wohl kaum anzuneh-
men, daß in diesem recht kurzen Zeitraum sich die
sozialen Veränderungen in einem solchen Maße beru-
higt hätten, um eine Stabilität für den Jemen vorauszu-
sagen. Es bleibt also offen, ob der von Weir sicher zu
Recht betonte soziale Aspekt des Qat-Genusses tatsäch-
lich diesen Stellenwert auch beibehalten wird, ob nicht
die stärkere Ausrichtung des Agrar- und Wirtschaftsbe-
reichs auf Qat und das plötzlich vermehrte Vorhanden-
sein von Geld nicht doch in einiger Zeit ein Umkippen
des Qat-Genusses zumindest begünstigt. Zwar ermögli-
chen die hereinkommenden Devisen den Ankauf aus-
ländischer Lebensmittel, doch fördert dies gleichzeitig
auch die ökonomische Abhängigkeit von anderen Län-
dern.
Methodisch gesehen bleibt diese Abhandlung et-
was verschlossen. Auf welche Weise Weir zu ihren
eigenen Erfahrungen bei den Qat-Parties gekommen ist,
verrät sie nicht. Sie erwähnt die weiblichen Qat-
Zusammenkünfte nur am Rande, während sie die
männlichen Parties ausführlich und detailliert auch mit
Bilddokumenten belegt. In einer Gesellschaft, die die
Männer- und Frauenwelt sehr strikt voneinander trennt,
ist es doch erstaunlich, daß ausgerechnet eine Frau so
freien Zutritt in die Männerwelt erhält. Es wäre interes-
sant zu wissen, wie sie diesen Zutritt erhalten hat oder
ob sie über ausreichende und zuverlässige Informanten
verfügte.
Zu Beginn des Buches gibt die Autorin eine sehr
informative und dichte Beschreibung der jemenitischen
Gesellschaft mit ihrem historischen Hintergrund, die
jedem Jemen-Interessierten einen guten Einstieg in das
Land geben kann. Leider aber bleibt dieser Vorspann
fast ohne jeden Einfluß auf die Feldforschung. Das zu
Beginn beschriebene Nord-Süd-Gefälle (stärkere demo-
kratische Traditionen im Norden gegenüber dem Süden)
wird beim sozialen Aspekt des Qat-Genusses außer acht
gelassen. Leider bleibt auch die Frage unbeantwortet,
warum Qat niemals über seine beschriebenen Grenzen
hinauskam, ob dies allein in den klimatischen Bedingun-
gen des Anbaus zu suchen ist.
Stephanie von Frankenberg
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Wilpert, Clara B.: Südsee. Inseln, Völker und Kulturen.
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668
Neue Publikationen
Societies of Temperate Eurasia and their Transi-
tion to Farming. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press, 1986. vii + 194 pp., map. (New Directions
in Archaeology)
Zwischen Tukul und Felsenkirche. Volkskultur in
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Alle bei der Redaktion eingegangenen Bücher und Sonderdrucke werden hier kurz angezeigt. Bücher werden in
einer der folgenden Nummern nach Maßgabe von Zeit und -Raum besprochen. Rezensionsexemplare sind
unmittelbar an die Redaktion, nicht an Mitglieder des Anthropos-Instituts persönlich, zu senden. Unverlangtes
wird nicht zurückgesandt. Für Tauschexemplare wird keine Verpflichtung zur Besprechung übernommen.
All books and offprints received by the Editor are here briefly indicated. Books will be reviewed in one of the
future numbers of Anthropos as time and space will allow. Review copies should be sent directly to the
Editor-in-Chief. We assume no obligation to return unsolicited publications or to review exchange copies.
Anthropos 83.1988
Zeitschriftenschau
Acta Orientalia (Copenhagen)
48. 1987
Rischel, J., S. Egerod, “Yumbri” (Phi Tong Luang) and
Mlabri (19-33). - Egerod, S., J. Rischel, A Mlabri-
English Vocabulary (35-88). - Coblin, W. S., The
Rimes of Chang-an in Middle Han Times. Part II: The
Eastern Han Period (89-110). - Wagner, D. B., The
Dating of the Chu Graves of Changsha: The Earliest
Iron Artifacts in China? (111-156). - Hummel, S., Der
Dickbauchbuddha (157-167).
Africa (Manchester)
57. 1987/4.; 58. 1988/1.
4. Magbaily Fyle, C., Culture, Technology, and Policy
in the Informal Sector; Attention to Endogenous Devel-
opment (498-509). - Sengova, J., The National Lan-
guages of Sierra Leone: A Decade of Policy Experimen-
tation (519-530). - Hannerz, U., The World in Créoli-
sation (546-559).
1. Barnard, A., Kinship, Language, and Production:
A Conjectural History of Khoisan Social Structure
(29-50). - Houseman, M., Social Structure Is Where the
Hearth Is: A “Woman’s Place” in Beti Society
(51-69).
African Affairs (London)
86. 1987/345.
Moore, H., M. Vaughan, Cutting Down Trees: Women,
Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern
Province of Zambia, 1920-1986 (523-540). - Seeley, J.,
Social Welfare in a Kenyan Town: Policy and Practice,
1902-1985 (541-566).
Africana Marburgensia (Marburg)
1986/Special Issue 11.; 1987/Special Issue 12.
11. Omokhodion, D., Cultural Adaptation in West
Africa (3-20). - Funsho Afolayan, S., Pre-Colonial
Concept of History in Nigeria (31-47). - Olorunfemi,
A., Trade and Politics and the German Occupation of
Togoland, 1882-84 (48-70).
12. Mbon, F. M., Aspects of Annang Religion: A
Preliminary Exploration (5-20). - Ennang, K., Some
Key Religious Concepts of the Annang (21-35). -
Offiong, E. A., Efik Traditional Concepts of Death and
Hereafter (45-54).
African Studies (Johannesburg)
46. 1987/2.
Van Straaten, Z., Semantics for Natural Language
(199-209).
Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere (Köln)
1987/12.
Winter, J. C., Zur Prosodologie des Mochi-Dialekts des
Chagga (5-15). - Haussier, B., Die Dichtung des
Mamman Shata als Beispiel oraler Literatur im Hausa
(63-73). -Ischinger, B., Le symbolisme du théâtre rituel
Une nouvelle terre de Werewere-Liking; relation avec la
culture bassa ou plutôt relation avec le Vaudou?
(75-90). - Kastenholz, R., A Short Note on Verb
Extensions in Mande (91-98).
Afrika und Übersee (Berlin)
70. 1987/2.
Lange, D., The Evolution of the Hausa Story: From
Bawo to Bayajidda (195-209). -Lawuyi, O. B., The Sex
Symbolism in Sango Worship (245-256). - Glinga, W.,
Life Story, Utendi, and Colonial Novel: Literature in
“German East Africa” (257-277).
Afrique Contemporaine (Paris)
26. 1987/144.; 27. 1988/145.
144. Hugon, P., La crise économique à Madagascar
(3-22). - Lanne, B., Quinze ans d’ouvrages politiques
sur le Tchad (37-47). - Perrois, L., Les arts africains
dans le monde en 1986 et 1987: Expositions, livres,
recherches (54—57).
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145. Mpembele Sala-Diakanda, Démographie
africaine: tendances et perspectives (3-27). - Margu-
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(47-54). - Chrétien, J.-P., Église et État au Burundi:
l’issue politique (57-59).
American Anthropologist (Washington)
89. 1987/4.
Sherman, D. G., Men who are Called “Women” in
Toba-Batak: Marriage, Fundamental Sex-Role Diffe-
rences, and the Suitability of the Gloss “Wife-Receiver”
(867-878). - Mosko, M. S., The Symbols of “Forest”: A
Structural Analysis of Mbuti Culture and Social Organi-
zation (896-913).
American Ethnologist (Washington)
14. 1987/4.
Hoskins, J., The Headhunter as Hero: Local Traditions
and Their Reinterpretation in National History
(605-622). - Ginsburg, F., Procreation Stories: Repro-
duction, Nurturance, and Procreation in Life Narratives
of Abortion Activists (623-636). - Tannenbaum, N.,
Tattoos: Invulnerability and Power in Shan Cosmology
(693-711).
Annual Review of Anthropology
(Palo Alto)
16. 1987
Davis, D. L., R. G. Whitten, The Cross-Cultural Study
of Human Sexuality (69-98). - Heath, D. B., Anthro-
pology and Alcohol Studies: Current Issues (99-120). -
Bettinger, R. L., Archaeological Approaches to Hunt-
er-Gatherers (121-142). - Burton, M. L., D. R. White,
Cross-Cultural Surveys Today (143-278). - Earle, T. K.,
Chiefdoms in Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Per-
spective (279-308).
Anthropology Today (London)
3. 1987/6.; 4. 1988/1.
6. Stoll, D., Smoky Trails: On Taussig’s Shamanism,
Colonialism, and the Wild Man (9-10). - Flavin, I., The
Mindfulness of Anthropology (10-13). - Street, B. V.,
Anti-Racist Education and Anthropology (13-15).
1. Harrison, S., Armageddon in New Guinea (5-7).
Archiv für Orientforschung (Horn)
33. 1986
Tomabechi, Y. Wall Paintings from the Northwest
Palace at Nimrud (43-54). - Tomandl, H., Zur Thema-
tik des „Löwen von Babylon“ (55-64).
Archiv für Völkerkunde (Wien)
41. 1987
Janata, A., Die historischen Sammlungen aus Jemen im
Museum für Völkerkunde Wien (21-40). - Schienerl,
P. W., Das vermeintliche Weiterleben altägyptischer
Amulettformen im heutigen Ägypten (77-86). - Mayer,
K. H., Drei frühklassische Maya Miszellen-Texte
(137-144).
Arstryck (Goteborg)
1985/86
Rosengren, D., Hunting and Gender Complementarity
among the Matsigenka of Southeastern Peru (25-34). -
Wassen, H. S., “Ulluchu” in Moche Iconography and
Blood Ceremonies: The Search for Identification
(59-85).
Asian Folklore Studies (Nagoya)
46. 1987/2.
Nasir, M., Baithak: Exorcism in Peshawar (Pakistan)
(159-178). - Bamber, S., Metaphor and Illness Classifi-
cation in Traditional Thai Medicine (179-195). - Katz,
P., Demons or Deities? - The Wangye of Taiwan
(197-215). - Sadler, A. W., The Spirit-Captives of
Japan’s North Country: Nineteenth Century Narratives
of the Kamikakushi (217-226). - DeVries, L., The
Father, the Son, and the Ghoulish Host: A Fairy Tale in
Early Sanskrit? (227-256). - Ting, N., “Folk Literature
Run by the Folk”: A New Development in the People's
Republic of China (257-271).
Asiatische Studien (Bern)
41. 1987/2.
Back, D., Vijhana: Eine Anmerkung zur buddhistischen
Erkenntnislehre (83-91).
Ausgrabungen und Funde (Berlin)
32. 1987/6.
Gringmuth-Dallmer, E., Bibliographie zur Ur- und
Frühgeschichte, 1. 3. 1986 bis 28. 2. 1987 mit Nachträ-
gen (270-312).
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671
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en
Yolkenkunde (Dordrecht)
143. 1987/4.
Ding Choo Ming, Access to Malay Manuscripts
(425-451). - Marrison, G. E., Modern Balinese - A
Regional Literature of Indonesia (468-498). - Robson,
S. O., The Terminology of Javanese Kinship
(507-518).
Boletín de Antropología (Medellín)
Henao Delgado, H., P. Cortés Lombana, La artesanía
indígena en las selvas del Vaupés (1973) (101-124). -
Patiño Roselli, C., Aspectos lingüísticos de la Amazonia
colombiana (125-140). - Correa, F., Medicina tradicio-
nal Cubeo (141-159). - Alvaro Echeverri, J., Las
prácticas populares de adivinación (211-234).
Bulletin de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique
Noire (Dakar)
Série B, 45. 1983/3-4.
Khane, G., Signification symbolique de la double
royauté pharaonique: le sma taouy (277-301). - Becker,
C., V. Martin, Les familles maternelles sereer. Réparti-
tions par pays traditionnels et par castes (357-402). -
Guissé, Y. M., Politique culturelle et unité africaine
(403-421).
Bulletin des Séances ARSOM (Bruxelles)
32. 1986/4.
Van der Dussen de Kestergat, J.-M., Apartheid et
littérature (607-618). - Harroy, J.-P., Présentation du
livre de P. Salmon: «Introduction à l’Histoire de
l’Afrique» (627-638). - Janssens, P. G., “Child Health
in the Tropics” (655-657).
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies (London)
51. 1988/1.
Yassin, M. A. F., Spoken Arabic Proverbs (59-68). -
Hart, G. R., Anatolian Evidence and the Origins of the
Indo-European Mediopassive (69-95).
Cahiers d’Études Africaines (Paris)
26. 1986/4.; 27. 1987/1-2.
4. Pineau-Jamous, M.-J., Porto-Novo; royauté, loca-
lité et parenté (547-576). - Guyer, J. I., Indigenous
Currencies and the History of Marriage Payments. A
Case Study from Cameroon (577-610). - Webster, D.,
Tembe-Thonga Kinship: The Marriage of Anthropology
and History (611-632).
1-2. Fetter, B., Decoding and Interpreting African
Census Data: Vital Evidence from an Unsavory Witness
(83-105). - Jewsiewicki, B., Vers une anthropo-sociolo-
gie historique des populations. Une proposition de
macro-analyse des processus démographiques contem-
porains au Zaïre (107-121).
Cahiers de Littérature Orale (Paris)
22. 1987
Krauskopff, G., La féminité des poissons. Un motif
aquatique dans les mythes et les chants Tharu (Népal)
(13-28). - Carrin-Bouez, M., Le talon d’Achille de la
tortue. Espèces animales et genres littéraires chez les
Santal (Inde) (29-56). - Desveaux, E., La métamor-
phose comme limite de l’animalité symbolique (Améri-
que du Nord) (57-69). - Fournier, D., A travers de
Miroir Fumant, ou la transgression de l’ordre dans les
mythes aztèques actuels (71-104). - Therrien, M., La
parole partagée. L’homme et l’animal arctiques
(105-130). - Ferry, M.-P., Oreille de lièvre! De l’injure
aux contes chez les Tenda (Sénégal oriental) (131-145).
Bulletin of the International Committee on
Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological
Research (Wien)
27. 1985
Jensen, J., Mauritius - an Area Neglected by Anthro-
pologists (7-16). - Olupona, J. K., Some Notes on the
Religion of the Ondo-People in Nigeria: A Phenomeno-
logical Anthropological Study (47-58). - Santos Barbo-
sa, G. dos, O negro no mèdio vale de Rio Sào Francisco
- Bahia (59-62). - Santos Barbosa, G. dos, O negro na
Cidade e a sua Cultura - Brasil (63-65). - Idoyaga
Molina, A., Approach to the Pilagà Culture of Central
Chaco (67-86).
Central Asiatic Journal (Wiesbaden)
31. 1987/3-4.
Binnick, R. I., On the Classification of the Mongolian
Languages (178-195). - King, J. R. P., The Korean
Elements in the Manchu Script Reform of 1632
(252-286). - Stary, G., A New Subdivision of Manchu
Literature: Some Proposals (287-296).
Cibedo (Frankfurt)
1. 1987/6.; 2. 1988/1.
6. Böckermann, G., Muslime in der Diaspora
(172-182).
Anthropos 83.1988
672
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1. Jacob, X., Der Islam in der Türkei seit September
1980 (1-10). - Huber, B., JOSEPH; derselbe Name -
ähnliche Geschichten - unterschiedliche Erzählzusam-
menhänge (11-23).
Comparative Studies in Society and History
(Cambridge)
29. 1987/4.; 30. 1988/1.
4. Burke III, E., P. Lübeck, Explaining Social Move-
ments in Two Oil-Exporting States: Divergent Out-
comes in Nigeria and Iran (643-665). - Sklar, R. L.,
Developmental Democracy (686-714).
I. Appadurai, A., How to Make a National Cuisine:
Cookbooks in Contemporary India (3-24). - Borneman,
J. , Race, Ethnicity, Species, Breed: Totemism and
Horse-Breed Classification in America (25-51). - Sou-
thall, A., The Segmentary State in Africa and Asia
(52-82). - Silverblatt, I., Imperial Dilemmas, the
Politics of Kinship, and Inca Reconstructions of History
(83-102). - Altmann, I., Emigrants and Society: An
Approach to the Background of Colonial Spanish
America (170-190).
Curare (Wiesbaden)
10. 1987/3., 4.
3. Jilek, W., The Impact of Alcohol on Small-Scale
Societies in.the Circum-Pacific Region (151-168). - Ots,
T., Aneignung durch Umdeutung - Zur Rezeption der
traditionellen chinesischen Medizin in Deutschland
(169-195).
4. Rätsch, C., Der Rauch von Delphi. Eine ethno-
pharmakologische Annäherung (215-228). - Pessoa de
Barros, J. F., H. Trujillo La Menza, Patioba: An
Anthropological Study of a Brazilian Edible Aroid
(229-236).
Current Anthropology (Chicago)
28. 1987/4., Supplement, 5.
4. Kirch, P. V., R. C. Green, History, Phylogeny, and
Evolution in Polynesia (431-456). - Knauft, B. M.,
Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies:
Homicide among the Gebusi of New Guinea
(457-500).
Supplement. Yamaguchi, M., The Dual Structure of
Japanese Emperorship (5-11). - Mihashi, O., The
Symbolism of Social Discrimination; A Decoding of
Discriminatory Language (19-29). - lijima, Y., Folk
Culture and the Liminality of Children (41^18). - Itaya,
T., The Torimono Dance: The Reenactment of Posses-
sion and the Genesis of a Nô-type Performance (49-58).
- Nishimura, K., Shamanism and Medical Cures
(59-64). - Namihira, E., Pollution in the Folk Belief
System (65-74). - Ueno, C., The Position of Japanese
Women Reconsidered (75-84). - Shimizu, A., le and
Dozoku: Family and Descent in Japan (85-90).
5. Spain, D. H., The Westermark-Freud Incest-Theo-
ry Debate: An Evaluation and Reformulation
(623-645). - Greenberg, J. H., Language in the Ameri-
cas - a Book Review (647-667).
Economic Development and Cultural Change
(Chicago)
36. 1987/1.; 1988/2.
1. Graham, D. H., H. Gauthier, J. R. Mendonça de
Barros, Thirty Years of Agricultural Growth in Brazil:
Crop Performance, Regional Profile, and Recent Policy
Review (1-35). - Binswanger, H. P., J. Mclntire,
Behavioral and Material Determinants of Production
Relations in Land-abundant Tropical Agriculture
(73-99). - Das Gupta, M., Informal Security Mecha-
nism and Population Retention in Rural India
(101-120).
2. Al-Haj, M., The Changing Arab Kinship Structure:
The Effect of Modernization in an Urban Community
(237-258). - Becker, C. M., A. R. Morrison, The
Determinants of Urban Population Growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa (259-278). Horton, S., Birth Order and
Child Nutritional Status: Evidence from the Philippines
(341-354).
Eranos (Frankfurt)
55. 1986
Stamm, R. A., Erkennen und Gestalten: Zur Stammes-
geschichte des Bewußtseins (1-55). - Pietschmann, H.,
Die Sicherheit der Naturgesetze; Polarität von Mensch
und Kosmos (85-108). - Servier, J., Le miroir du
serpent: une réflexion ethnologique sur la connaissance
(109-145). - Kawai, H., Interpénétration: Nature in
Dreams of Médiéval Japan (241-263). - Schabert, T., In
urbe mundus: Weltspiegelungen und Weltbemächtigung
in der Architektur der Stadt (303-347). - Hornung, E.,
Hieroglyphen; Die Welt im Spiegel der Zeichen
(403-438).
Erdkunde (Bonn)
42. 1988/1.
Schaaf, T., W. Manshard, Die Entwicklung der unge-
lenkten Agrarkolonisation im Grenzgebiet von Ghana
und der Elfenbeinküste (26-36). - Köhler, T., Landbe-
sitz und Landnutzung im Umbruch: Das Beispiel des
Laikipia Distrikts nordwestlich des Mt. Kenya (37-49).
Anthropos 83.1988
Zeitschriftenschau
673
- Zinyama, L. M., Changes in Settlement and Land Use
Patterns in a Subsistence Agricultural Economy. A
Zimbabwe Case Study, 1956-1984 (49-59).
Ethnic and Racial Studies (London)
10. 1987/3.
Sabaratnam, L., The Boundaries of the State and the
State of Ethnic Boundaries: Sinhala-Tamil Relations in
Sri Lankan History (291-316). - Barbosa, L. C., Manu-
mission in Brazil and Surinam; The Role of Dutch
Hegemony and the Decline in the Capitalist World-
Economy (349-365).
L’Ethnographie (Paris)
83. 1987/1-2.
Allen, N. J., Le mariage chez les Thulung: L’hindouisa-
tion d’un cycle rituel au Népal oriental (15-33). -
Buffetrille, K., Un rituel de mariage tibétain (35-62). -
Dollfus, P., Lo-Gsar, le Nouvel An populaire au
Ladakh (63-96). - Sagant, P., La cure du chamane et
l’interprétation des laïcs (247-273). - Steinmann, B., Le
culte des dieux du clan chez les Tamang: la terre, le livre
et la lignée (303-328).
Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift
(Berlin)
28. 1987/3.
Escher, R., Faktoren und Bilanz ethnischer Prozesse in
der feudal-kapitalistischen Klassengesellschaft Äthio-
piens (379-392).
Ethnohistory (Durham)
34. 1987/4.
Ortiz de Montellano, B., Caida de Mollera: Aztec
Sources for a Mesoamerican Disease of Alleged Spanish
Origin (381-399).
Ethnologia Americana (Düsseldorf)
24. 1988/1.
Mayer, K. H., Ein Maya-Inschriftenfragment am
Schwitzbad von Etzna, Campeche, Mexiko
(1185-1187). - Rätsch, C., Tarot und Maya
(1188-1190). - Kaufmann Doig, F., Keramikplatten
mit magischen Inschriften aus Condesuyos, Peru
(1193-1195).
Ethnologia Europaea (Odense)
17. 1987/2.
Weber-Kellermann, I., Lebenszyklus und soziale
Schichtung (107-126). - Segalen, M., Famille et paren-
té. Perspectives de recherches en France (127-137).
Klanlczay, G., Decline of Witches and Rise of Vampires
in 18th Century Habsburg Monarchy (165-180).
Ethnologia Polona (Wroclaw)
10. 1984; 11. 1985
10. Paprocka, W., M. Drozd-Piasecka, The Role of
Tradition and Folk Art in Contemporary Poland
(27-38). - Lehr, U., Psychologic and Socio-Religious
Aspects of Beliefs in Supernatural Beings of the Inhab-
itants of the Carpathian Villages (91-107). - Mróz, L.,
People and Non-People. The Way of Distinguishing
One’s Own Group by Gypsies in Poland (109-128). -
11. Siarkiewicz, E., La muerte ritual y sus aspectos
profanos en el Altiplano Central de México (11-44). -
Tomicki, R., Estructura de las épocas del mundo en la
mitología náhuatl: el problema de la llamada versión
canónica de Tenochtitlan (45-73). - Frankowska, M.,
La cruz y su significación en el proceso de formación del
sincretismo religioso de los indios mexicanos (75-101). -
Szemiñski, J., La imagen de Wiraqucan según las
oraciones recogidas por Joan de Santacruz Pachacuti
Yamqui Salcamaygua (103-118). - Ziótkowski, M. S.,
P. Stawowczyk, Un documento inédito: Autos crimina-
les contra Pedro de la Cruz alias Quiñones . . . por
delitos de Ydolatrías. 1724, Santiago de Maray, reparti-
miento de Checras, Perú (177-226). Penkala-Gaw^cka,
D., Two Types of Traditional Medicine in Afghanistan
(227-236). - Kabziñska-Stawarz, I., Mongolian Games
of Dice. Their Symbolic and Magic Meaning
(237-263).
Ethnology (Pittsburgh)
26. 1987/4.; 27. 1988/1.
4. Strathern, A., Social Classes in Mount Hagen? The
Early Evidence (245-260). - Headland, T. N., Kinship
and Social Behavior among Agta Negrito Hunter-
Gatherers (261-280). - Huber, B. R., The Reinterpre-
tation and Elaboration of Fiestas in the Sierra Norte de
Puebla, México (281-296).
1. Ashkenazi, M., The Varieties of Paraded Objects in
Japanese Festivals (45-55). - Nutini, H. G., Pre-His-
panic Component of the Syncretic Cult of the Dead in
Mesoamerica (57-78). - Sargent, C. F., Born to Die;
Witchcraft and Infanticide in Bariba Culture (79-95).
Anthropos 83.1988
674
Zeitschriftenschau
Ethnos (Stockholm)
52. 1987/1-2., 3-4.
1-2. Ensminger, J., Economic and Political Differen-
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A., Women as Heads of Houses: The Organization of
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Payian (Elder): The Status of Widows among the II
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The Twareg Women of Ahaggar and the Creation of
Value (103-118). - Oxby, C., Women Unveiled: Class
and Gender among Kel Ferwan Twareg (Niger)
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in Pastoral Production: Daza Kesherda, Republic of
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3-4. Hastrup, K., The Reality of Anthropology
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a Kongo Nkisi (339-349).
Ethos (Washington)
15. 1987/4.
Wikan, U., Public Grace and Private Fears: Gaiety,
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Luborsky, M. R., Analysis of Multiple Life History
Narratives (366-381). - Kirkpatrick, J., Taure’are’a: A
Liminal Category and Passage to Marquesan Adulthood
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Differences in Perceived Maternal Acceptance in West
Bengal, India (406-425).
Études Inuit (Québec)
10. 1986/1-2.
Guemple, L., Men and Women, Husbands and Wives:
The Role of Gender in Traditional Inuit Society (9-24).
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Oosten, J. G., Male and Female in Inuit Shamanism
(115-131).
Folklore (London)
98. 1987/2.
Bynon, J., North African Bird Lore: New Light on Old
Problems (152-174).
GEO (Hamburg)
1988/3., 4.
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4. Jungblut, C., Ein Junge wird Jäger (36-64). -
Maréchaux, M. und P., Wege in eine andere Zeit
(90-106).
Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft
(Halle)
11. 1987
Mode, M., Die Gottheit mit den Drachenschultern (zur
Herkunft und Identität des „Dahhak“ von Pendzikent)
(65-81).
History of Religions (Chicago)
27. 1987/2.
Darrow, W. R., Zoroaster Amalgamated: Notes on
Iranian Prophetology (109-132). - Handelman, D.,
Myths of Murugan: Asymmetry and Hierarchy in a
South Indian Puranic Cosmology (133-170). - Merkur,
D., Eagle, the Hunter’s Helper: The Cultic Significance
of Inuit Mythological Tales (171-188). - Wolfson, E. R.,
Circumcision, Vision of God, and Textual Interpreta-
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(189-215).
L’Homme (Paris)
28. 1988/1.
Bebnont, N., L’Enfant et le fromage (13-28). - Djéribi,
M., Le Mauvais oeil et le lait (35-47). - Angélopoulou,
A., Muscambre, fils de l’inceste (49-63). - Brouskou,
A., Enfants vendus, enfants promis (76-87).
Homo (Göttingen)
37. 1986/3.
Beals, K. L., Problems and Issues with Human Brain
Size, Body Size, and Cognition (148-160). - Fauss, R.,
Zur Bedeutung des Gesichts für die Partnerwahl
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IBLA (Tunis)
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Ennaifer, H., La pensée sociale dans les écrits musul-
mans modernes (223-253). - Santamaria-El Amouri,
A., Pourquoi une Française épouse-t-elle un tunisien?
Ce qu’elle en pense, ce qu’en pensent les tunisiens.
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d’une édition récente des «Mille et Une Nuits»
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Indiana (Berlin)
11. 1987
Barthel, T. S., Deciphering Teotihuacan Writing
(9-18). - Baudez, C. F., Archaeoastronomy at Copan:
An Appraisal (63-71). - Cipolletti, ML S., El ascenso al
cielo en la tradición oral secoya (noroeste amazónico)
(181-199). - Cerrón-Palomino, R., La flexión de perso-
na y número en el protoquechua (263-276). - Hart-
mann, R., Narraciones quechuas recogidas por Max
Uhle a principios del siglo XX (321-385). - Moya, R.,
Educación bilingüe en el Ecuador; Retos y alternativas
(387^106).
The International Journal of African
Historical Studies (Boston)
20. 1987/3.
Dawson, M. H., The 1920s Anti-Yaws Campaigns and
Colonial Medical Policy in Kenya (417-435). - Wilson,
L. E., The Rise of Paramount Chiefs among the Krobo
(Ghana) (471-495).
International Journal of American
Linguistics (Chicago)
53. 1987/4.
Van Valin, R. D., The Role of Government in the
Grammar of Head-Marking Languages (371-397). -
Marlett, S. A., V. B. Pickett, The Syllable Structure
and Aspect Morphology of Isthmus Zapotec (398-422).
- Robertson, J. S., The Common Beginning and Evolu-
tion of the Tense-Aspect System of Tzotzil and Tzeltal
Mayan (423^144).
Irian (Jayapura)
15. 1987
Lake, L. M., Vernacular Literacy Programs in Irian
Jaya; Ethnographic Perspectives (37-46). - Hartzler,
M., Health Care Options and Attitudes among the
Sentani (49-60). - Collier, K., Illness and Traditional
Medicines of the Tepera (63-103).
The Islamic Quarterly (London)
31. 1987/2., 3.
2. Ghafur Muslim, A., Islamic Laws in Historical
Perspective: An Investigation into Problems and Prin-
ciples in the Field of Islamization (69-86).
3. Obeidat, M. M., Lured by the Exotic Levant: The
Muslim East to the American Traveller of the 19th
Century (167-193). - Muslim Modernists: The Torch-
Bearers of Progressive Islam (194-204).
Islamochristiana (Roma)
13. 1987
Borrmans, M., LTslam et la paix (9-29). - Kamel,
A.-A., Culture and Religion (31-46). - Troll, C. W.,
Islamic Thought in Modern India (79-98).
Journal Asiatique (Paris)
275. 1987/3-4.
Stein, R. A., Un genre particulier d’exposés du tantris-
me ancien tibétain et khotanais (265-282). - Verellen,
F., Luo Gongyuan. Légende et culte d’un saint taoiste
(283-332).
Journal de la Société des Américanistes
(Paris)
73. 1987
Boremanse, D., La quête religieuse des Hach Winik
(Indiens Lacandons) du Mexique méridional (51-74). -
Petesch, N., Divinités statiques, hommes en mouve-
ment. Structure et dynamique cosmique et sociale chez
les Indiens Karaja du Brésil Central (75-92). - Combés,
I., «Dicen que por ser ligero» : cannibales, guerriers et
prophètes chez les anciens Tupi-Guarani (93-106). -
Platt, T., The Andean Soldiers of Christ. Confraternity
Organization, the Mass of the Sun, and Regenerative
Warfare in Rural Potosí (18th-20th centuries)
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Ukupacha. Prácticas y creencias religiosas de los mine-
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M., Un genre musical du Nord-Ouest argentin: la
baguala (219-242).
Journal de la Société des Océanistes (Paris)
42. 1986/82-83.; 43. 1987/84.
82-83. Sack, P., German New Guinea: A Reluctant
Plantation Colony? (109-127). - Turner, M. M., Planta-
tions, Politics, and Policy-making in Papua New Guinea
1965-1986 (129-138). - Chowning, A., The Develop-
ment of Ethnie Identity and Ethnie Stereotypes on
Papua New Guinea Plantations (153-162). - Keesing,
R. M., Plantation Networks, Plantation Culture: The
Hidden Side of Colonial Melanesia (163-170).
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84. Manderson, L., Gender, Substance, and Subsis-
tence (49-50). - Macintyre, M., Nurturance and Nutri-
tion: Change and Continuity in Concepts of Food and
Feasting in a Southern Massim Community (51-59). -
Young, M. W., Skirts, Yams, and Sexual Pollution; The
Politics of Adultery in Kalauna (61-71).
Journal des Africanistes (Paris)
56. 1986/1.
Jonckers, D., «Les faiseurs d’enfants». Réflexions sur le
statut des femmes dans le système religieux minyanka
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des couleurs chez les Fon (Bénin) (67-85).
The Journal of African History
(Cambridge)
28. 1987/3.
Schoffeleers, M., The Zimba and the Lundu State in the
Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries
(337-355). - Ross, D., The Dahomean Middleman
System, 1727-c. 1818 (357-375). - Metcalf, G., A
Microcosm of Why Africans Sold Slaves: Akan Con-
sumption Patterns in the 1770s (377-394).
Journal of African Languages and
Linguistics (Dordrecht)
9. 1987/2.
Timing, R., J. Watters, Focus in Vute (95-121). -
Paradis, C., Strata and Syllable Dependencies in Fula:
The Nominal Classes (123-139). - Lloret, M.-R., The
Morphophonology of the Causative in Oromo
(141-156).
Journal of American Folklore (Washington)
100. 1987/398.
Weigle, M., Creation and Procreation, Cosmogony and
Childbirth Reflections on Ex Nihilo, Earth Diver, and
Emergence Mythology (426-435). - Young, M. J.,
Women, Reproduction, and Religion in Western Pueb-
loan Society (435-445). - Turner, K., S. Seriff, “Giving
an Altar”: The Ideology of Reproduction in a St. Jo-
seph’s Day Feast (446-460). - Hollis, S. T., Women of
Ancient Egypt and the Sky Goddess Nut (496-503). -
Saltzman, R. H., Folklore, Feminism, and the Folk.
Whose Lore is it? (548-562).
Journal of Asian and African Studies
(Leiden)
22. 1987/3-4.; 23. 1988/1-2.
3-4. Chadney, J. G., Family Planning: India’s Achil-
les’ Heel? (217-231). - Richter, W. L., Mrs. Gandhi’s
Neighborhood: Indian Foreign Policy toward Neigh-
boring Countries (249-265).
1-2. Chakrabarty, D., Class Consciousness and the
Indian Working Class: Dilemmas of Marxist Historiog-
raphy (21-31).-Murray, M. J., The Triumph of Marxist
Approaches in South African Social and Labour History
(79-101). - Dennis, C., Women in African Labour
History (125-140). - Post, K., The Working Class in
North Viet Nam and the Launching of the Building of
Socialism (141-155). - Robertson, C., Invisible Work-
ers: African Women and the Problem of the Self-Em-
ployed in Labour History (180-198).
Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago)
47. 1988/1.
Hermansen, M. K., Shah Wali Allah’s Theory of the
Subtle Spiritual Centers (Lata’if): A Sufi Model of
Personhood and Self-Transformation (1-25). - Gold-
stein, J. A., The Historical Setting of the Uruk Prophe-
cy (43-46).
The Journal of Religion (Chicago)
67. 1987/4.; 68. 1988/1.
4. Gerrish, B. A., The Secret Religion of Germany:
Christian Piety and the Pantheism Controversy
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tive Coherence: Transcendental and Religious (456-473).
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(493-509).
1. Goldberg, M., God, Action, and Narrative: Which
Narrative? Which Action? Which God? (39-56).
Journal of Religion in Africa (Leiden)
17. 1987/3.; 18. 1988/1.
3. Isichei, E., The Maitatsine Risings in Nigeria
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Hiskett, M., The Maitatsine Riots in Kano, 1980; An
Assessment (209-223).
1. Lawuyi, O. B., J. K. Olupona, Metaphoric Associ-
ations and the Conception of Death: Analysis of a
Yoruba World View (2-14). - Adegbite, A., The Drum
and its Role in Yoruba Religion (15-26). - Opefeyitimi,
A., Iwure: Medium of Communicating the Desires of
Men to the Gods in Yorubaland (27-41). - Isichei, E.
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On Masks and Audible Ghosts: Some Secret Male Cults
in Central Nigeria (42-70). - Ubah, C. N., Religious
Change among the Igbo during the Colonial Period
(71-91).
The Journal of the Polynesian Society
(Auckland)
96. 1987/3.
Hunt, T. L., Patterns of Human Interaction and Evolu-
tionary Divergence in the Fiji Islands (299-334).
Language (Baltimore)
63. 1987/4.
Woodbury, A. C., Meaningful Phonological Processes:
A Consideration of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo
Prosody (685-740). - Payne, D. L., Information Struc-
turing in Papago Narrative Discourse (783-804). - Du
Bois, J. W., The Discourse Basis of Ergativity
(805-855).
Language and Linguistics in Melanesia
(Ukarumpa)
16. 1987/1-2.
Haiman, J., Proto-Gorokan Syllable Structure (1-22). -
Senft, G., The System of Classificatory Particles in
Kilivila Reconsidered (100-125).
Latin American Indian Literatures Journal
(Beaver Falls)
3. 1987/2.
Cipolletti, S., The Visit to the Realm of the Dead in the
Ecuadorian Amazon Mythologies of Siona and Secoya
(127-156). - Ochoa Villanueva, V., Advice in Aymara
Wedding Ceremonies (157-165).
Law & Anthropology
(Wien, Hohenschäftlarn)
2. 1987
Carneiro da Cunha, M., Aboriginal Rights in Brazil
(55-71). - Durham, W. C., Indian Law in the Continen-
tal United States: An Overview (93-112). - Kuppe, R.,
The Indigenous Peoples of Venezuela and the National
Law (113-138). - Morse, B. W., R. K. Groves, Cana-
da’s Forgotten Peoples: The Aboriginal Rights of Métis
and Non-Status Indians (139-167). - Sanders, D.,
Aboriginal Rights in Canada: An Overview (177-193). -
Hyndman, P., The Law and the Veddas of Sri Lanka:
Vanishing Aborigines? (215-237). - Kitakamae, T.,
Ainu Concepts of Social Order and the Law of Japan
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Ethnic Group of the Baizu (Yunnan) in P. R. China’s
Law (255-266). - Olmesdahl, M. C. J., Aboriginal
Peoples and South African Law (277-311). - Agostini,
E., Aboriginal Rights in New Caledonia (337-346). -
Nettheim, G., Australian Aborigines and the Law
(371-403). - Williams, D., Aboriginal Rights in Aote-
aroa (New Zealand) (423^140).
Maghreb (Paris)
118. 1987
Escallier, R., La population marocaine: Héritages et
changements (20-45). - Naciri, M., L’aménagement des
villes et ses enjeux (46-70).
Man (London)
22. 1987/4.; 23. 1988/1.
4. Lewis, G., A Lesson from Leviticus: Leprosy
(593-612). - Skultans, V., The Management of Mental
Illness Among Maharashtrian Families: A Case Study of
Mahanubhav Healing Temple (661-679). - Van der
Veer, P., Taming the Ascetic: Devotionalism in a Hindu
Monastic Order (680-695). - Whiteley, P. M., The
Interpretation of Politics: A Hopi Conundrum
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H. S. Savithri, Rajeswari Sridhar, N. Appaji Rao,
Consanguineous Marriage and Post-natal Mortality in
Karnataka, South India (736-745).
I. La Fontaine, J. S., Child Sexual Abuse and the
Incest Taboo: Practical Problems and Theoretical Issues
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Legitimation of Hierarchy (19-39). - Gruhn, R., Lin-
guistic Evidence in Support of the Coastal Route of
Earliest Entry into the New World (77-100). - Row-
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Modern State in Cameroon (118-132).
Man in India (Ranchi)
67. 1987/2., 3.
2. Chakrabarty, F., Agricultural Rituals of the Santals
of Ajodhya Hills: Techno-Ecological Perspective
(99-123). - Katariya, G., A. Capila, Women as Portray-
ed in Folk Songs: Attempts to Create Alternatives
(124-136). - Roy, S., S. H. M. Rizvi, Tribal Hallucino-
genic Tradition: A Case Study of Manipur Village
(137-146).
3. Singh, K. S., The People of India. A National
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Mankind (Sydney)
17. 1987/1.
Hirsch, E., Dialectics of the Bowerbird: An Interpreta-
tive Account of Ritual and Symbolism in the Udabe
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Question of ‘Corruption’ in Nepal (15-29).
The Mankind Quarterly (Washington)
26. 1986/3-4.; 27. 1987/4.
3-4. Reiter, H. H., Personality Correlates of Left-
Handedness (271-275). - McGregor, A., The Evolu-
tionary Function of Prejudice (277-284). - Morris, K.,
The “Lascivious” Witch (285-303).
4. Melotti, U., War and Peace in Primitive Human
Societies: The Effects of Exogamy (371-378). - Rush-
ton, J. P., Evolution, Altruism, and Genetic Similarity
Theory (379-396). - McGregor, A., Social Engineering
in India and China: Contrasting Approaches to Birth
Control (479-486).
Medical Anthropology (Bedford Hills)
10. 1986/1.
McKenna, J. J., An Anthropological Perspective on the
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): The Role of
Parenting Breathing Cues and Speech Breathing Adap-
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Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Völker-
kunde Hamburg (Hamburg)
17. 1987
Prunner, G., Koreas Neue Religionen - Zwei Vorträge.
Korea’s New Religions - Two Lectures (21-54). -
Frembgen, J., Schuhwerk in Afghanistan (75-110). -
Zwernemann, J., Leo Frobenius und das Hamburgische
Museum für Völkerkunde (111-127). - Zwernemann,
J., Gelbgußfiguren der Mossi (Burkina Faso)
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Monumenta Serica (Fribourg)
36. 1984-1985
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and Ming Drama (303-408). - Liscomb, K., On Theo-
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Christian Murck: A Review Article (425-451). - Baw-
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der Mongolei (545-550). - Hummel, S., Die Flüsse und
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Tien T’u in der Ausgabe von 1812 (II. Teil)
(551-553).
Muntu (Libreville)
1985/3.; 1986/4-5.; 1987/7.
3. Batalha, M. M., Medicina e farmacopeia tradicio-
nais bantu (Angola) (69-84). - Kita, K. M., La techni-
que traditionnelle de la métallurgie du fer chez les
Balega de Pangi (Zaïre) (85-99). - Allainmat-Mahine,
B., Technologies traditionnelles bantu: Méthode et
rituel de la construction d’une pirogue et de ses apparaux
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P. R., On the Reconstruction of Bantu Technology and
its Vocabulary (121-135).
4—5. Eno Belinga, S. M., Civilisation du Fer et tradi-
tion orale bantu (11-46). - Prinz, A., L. Heke, Résultats
d’études ethnopharmacologiques sur les plantes toxi-
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1988/283.
Finet, Y., Coquillages et mollusques dans la vie de
l’homme; que de richesses! (3-10).
The Muslim World (Hartford)
77. 1987/3-4.
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S. V. R., Towards a Philosophy of Islamic Economies
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M. H., Translations of the Holy Qur’an in the African
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Anthropos 83.1988
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Netherlands Foundation for the Advance-
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1986
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Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft
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44. 1988/1.
Ifesieh, E. I., The Place of Religion in Nigeria’s Current
Socio-economic Problems (39-55).
Numen (Leiden)
34. 1987/2.
Denning-Bolle, S. J., Wisdom and Dialogue in the
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Goddess Traditions (235-255).
Oriens Antiquus (Roma)
26. 1987/1-2.
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Orientalistische Literaturzeitung (Berlín)
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1987
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Black-Rogers, M., L’application des principes de l’eth-
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bwas (5-16).
Religion and Society (Bangalore)
33. 1986/3.
Taylor, R. W., Modern Indian Ashrams (3-23).
Religious Studies (Cambridge)
23. 1987/3.
Loewe, R., Judaism’s Eternal Triangle (309-336). -
Steadman, J. D., Pure Land Buddhism and The Bud-
dhist Historical Tradition (407^121).
Research in Economic Anthropology
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8. 1987; 9. 1987
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Multinational Corporations: Their Origin, Develop-
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9. Henderson, C., Famines, Droughts, and the
“Norm” in Arid Western Rajasthan: Problems of
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Revista Andina (Cusco)
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Torero, A., Lenguas y pueblos altiplánicos en torno al
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Revista de Antropología (Bogotá)
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Revue d’Ethnographie et de Folklore
(Bucarest)
32. 1987/3., 4.; 33. 1988/1.
3. Bucur, C., La civilisation populaire roumaine
(243-256).
4. Dobre, A., La permanence historique du peuple
roumain - une constante de la folkloristique et de
l’ethnographie nationales (315-322). - Bucur, C., La
civilisation populaire roumaine (II) (357-370). - Oi§te-
anu, A., Dendromythologie roumaine: le faux sycomore
(I) (371-388).
1. Busulenga, Z. D., Valeurs pérennes de la culture
populaire (5-7). - Coman, M., La mythologie populaire
roumaine - argument à l’appui de la continuité et de la
dynamique de la civilisation traditionnelle (9-16). -
Suliteanu, G., Éléments prouvant la continuité de la
culture néolithique Cucuteni-Baiceni chez le peuple
roumain (17-38). - Gheorghe, G., Éléments archaïques
dans la spiritualité populaire roumaine (47-62). -
Oiçteanu, A., Dendromythologie roumaine: le faux
sycomore (II) (63-74).
Revue Internationale des Sciences Sociales
(Paris)
115. 1988
Lomov, B. F., La science cognitive et les rapports entre
l’esprit et le corps (95-107). - Parente, M. A. de M. P.,
A. R. Lecours, L’influence des facteurs culturels en
neuropsychologie et neurolinguistique (109-122).
Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde
(Bonn)
26. 1985/86
Daxelmüller, C., Die Entdeckung der jüdischen Erzähl-
literatur. Rezeption und Bewertung populärer jüdischer
Erzählstoffe in der Gesellschaft des 17. und 18. Jahrhun-
derts (7-36). - Dekker, T., Wahre religiöse Geschichten
in der niederländischen mündlichen und schriftlichen
Tradition (93-107). - Grober-GIück, G., Das Aussehen
des Teufels nach Sage und Umfrage des Atlas der
deutschen Volkskunde in synchronen und historischen
Vergleichen (109-140). - Fischer, H., Der Rattenhund.
Das Beispiel einer neuen Sage (177-195). - Röhrich, L.,
Die Moral des Unmoralischen. Zwischen Schwank und
Exempel (209-219).
Runa (Buenos Aires)
16. 1986
Cordeu, E. J., Los atuendos shamánicos chamacoco del
Museo Etnográfico: un intento de interpretación simbó-
lica (103-136). - Palermo, M. A., Reflexiones sobre el
llamado «complejo ecuestre» en la Argentina
(157-178).
The Sarawak Museum Journal (Kuching)
37. 1987/58.
Hussain bin Jamil, J. Newman, Limbang Bisaya; Soci-
ety and Language (75-89). - Brewis, K. A., The Death
of a Timugon Murut (91-113).
Scripta Ethnologica (Buenos Aires)
10. 1986
Grebe Vicuña, M. E., Etnozoología andina: concepcio-
nes e interacciones del hombre andino con la fauna
altiplánica (7-18). - Vuoto, P. M., Los movimientos de
Luciano y Pedro Martínez, dos cultos de transición entre
los Toba-tasék de Misión Tacaagle (19-46). - Mashn-
shnek, C. O., Acerca de las ideas de menarca, concep-
ción, alumbramiento e infanticidio entre los Ayoreo del
Chaco Boreal (47-53). - Vellard, J. A., Observaciones
sobre la natalidad y mortalidad infantil en las etnías del
Chaco (67-69). - Califano, M., Un ejemplo de herme-
néutica bíblica etnográfica: el caso mataco (79-85). -
Pitluk, M. R., Habitat y cosmovisión: el espacio local
percibido culturalmente (87-103). - Cipolletti, M. S., El
rostro de las deidades; la ingestión de alucinógenos entre
los Secoya de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana (105-112).
Signs (Chicago)
13. 1987-1988/1., 2.
1. Bloch, R. H., The Gendered Meanings of Virtue in
Revolutionary America (37-58). - Arendeli, T. J.,
Women and the Economics of Divorce in the Contem-
porary United States (121-135).
2. Seed, P., Marriage Promises and the Value of a
Woman’s Testimony in Colonial Mexico (253-276). -
Brewer, R. M., Black Women in Poverty: Some Com-
ments on Female-headed Families (331-339).
Slovenska Archeologia (Bratislava)
35. 1987/2.
Chropovsky, B., Archaeology as History (245-250). -
Trugly, A., Gräberfeld aus der Zeit des Awarischen
Reiches bei der Schiffswerft in Komärno (251-341). -
Gomolcäk, P., J. Jakab, Anthropologische Analyse des
Gräberfeldes in Komärno-Schiffswerft (345-364). -
Ambros, C., Tierbeigaben in den Gräbern von Komär-
no-Schiffswerft (365-379).
Anthropos 83.1988
Zeitschriftenschau
681
Social Compass (Ottignies Louvain-La-
Neuve)
34. 1987/2-3.
Kokosolakis, N., Religion and Modernization in the
19th Century Greece (223-241). - De Bernart, M., P.
De Marco, Question sociale, modernisation, éthique
religieuse. Le jeune Weber entre le christianisme social
et la Machtpolitik (243-264). - Bibliographie Internatio-
nale de Sociologie des Religions 1986. (265-297).
Sociologus (Berlin)
37. 1987/2.
Käufeler, H., Die Dynamik islamistischer Ideologien in
der iranischen Revolution von 1978/79 (97-117). -
Laguerre, M. S., Migration and Urbanization in Haiti
(118-139). - Abbink, J., A Socio-Structural Analysis of
the Beta-Esra’el as an “Infamous Group” in Traditional
Ethiopia (140-154). - Hicks, D., Cognation and Gen-
eralized Exchange; An Indonesian Case Study
(175-180).
Spiritus (Paris)
29. 1988/110.
Timmermans, F., Réfugiés, le prix de leur dignité
(3-17). - Arrupe, P., Réfugiés en Afrique: appel et défi
(53-58). - Réfugiés dans le monde: faits et chiffres
(78-80).
Studia Linguistica (Stockholm)
41. 1987/1., 2.
1. Gunnarson, K. Â., Expressions spatiales comme
prédicats, modifieurs et arguments (1-47). Rydén, M.,
Syntactic Variation and Paradigmatic Typology
(48-58).
2. Sigurd, B., Referent Grammar (RG). A General-
ized Phrase Structure Grammar with Built-in Referents
(115-135).
Temenos (Helsinki)
23. 1987
Comba, E., Inside a Circle: The Structure of the Cosmos
among the Plains Indians (9-34). - Griffin, R., Jung’s
Science in Answer to Job and the Hindu Matrix of Form
(35-44). - Hasan-Rokem, G., The Rhetoric of Intimacy
- The Rhetoric of the Sacred (45-57). - 0 Giollain, D.,
Myth and History. Exotic Foreigners in Folk-belief
(59-80).
Trabalhos de Antropología e Etnología
(Porto)
26. 1986/1-4.
Maffia, M. M., La migración caboverdeana hacia la
Argentina. Análisis de una alternativa (191-207).
Trickster (München)
15. 1987
Amborn, H., Mit der Unsicherheit leben. Strategien
bäuerlicher Gesellschaften Südäthiopiens gegen die
Ausweitung von Krisen zu Katastrophen (56-73). -
Straube, H., Die traditionelle Landwirtschaft Afrikas in
historischer Sicht (98-110). - Schneider, R., Legitima-
tionsprobleme der Entwicklungspolitik. Über die
Schwierigkeit, sozio-kulturelle Kriterien einzuführen
(111-117).
Wiener Völkerkundliche Mitteilungen
(Wien)
28. 1986
Kremser, M., Das Sandorakel „cen“ bei den Bambara
(5-31). - Stagl, J., Kulturanthropologie und Eurozen-
trismus (33-66). - Wagner, J., Einige naturwissenschaft-
liche Aspekte der Homophagie (67-99).
Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens
(Wien)
31. 1987
Bakker, H., Reflections on the Evolution of Rama
Devotion in the Light of Textual and Archaeological
Evidence (9-42). - Schlingloff, D., Die Meditation
unter dem Jambu-Baum (111-130).
World Archaeology (London)
19. 1988/3.
Sturdy, D. A., D. P. Webley, Palaeolithic Geography;
Or Where Are the Deer? (262-280). - Hassan, F. A.,
Prolegomena to a Grammatical Theory of Lithic Arti-
facts (281-296). - Mithen, S. J., Looking and Learning:
Upper Palaeolithic Art and Information Gathering
(297-327).
Anthropos 83.1988
682
Zeitschriftenschau
Zaïre Afrique (Kinshasa)
27. 1987/219., 220.
219. Munzihirwa, ML, Nation en voie de création ou
pays en développement? - Pour promouvoir la Nation
zaïroise (519-528).
220. Van Parys, J.-M., Les Églises, l’Islam et les
pauvres (583-593). - Kabuya, K., Les problèmes et la
gestion du financement du développement en Afrique
(617-626).
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (Berlin)
112. 1987/1.
Roth, R. B., Die Abgrenzung „Indonesiens“ nach
Raum und Zeit: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des
Indo-Pazifik (1-44). - Duff-Cooper, A., Incorporation
and Alliance Among a Community of Balinese in
Western Lombok (45-69). - Herbon, D., Sozio-ökono-
mische Wirkungen von Entwicklungsmaßnahmen: Fall-
beispiele aus einem Dorf in Bangladesh (71-84). -
Hauenstein, A., Mélanges ethnologiques (105-124).
Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch (Stuttgart)
37. 1987/4.; 38. 1988/1.
4. Becker, J., Von Ganesha und Babar, von Jacob
Grimm und Theodor W. Adorno: Prolegomena zu einer
Imagologie des Elefanten in Fabel und Märchen, in
alten und neuen Mythen (617-640).
1. Das sogenannte Exotische. Zu einem internationa-
len Symposion (6-119).
Zeitschrift für Religions- und
Geistesgeschichte (Köln)
39. 1987/4.
Altmann, A., The God of Religion, the God of
Metaphysics, and Wittgenstein’s “Language-Games”
(289-306). - Zinser, H., Schamanismus im “New Age”
(319-327).
Anthropos 83.1988
Mitarbeiter dieses Heftes
Prof. T. O. Beidelman, Dept, of Anthropology, New
York University, 100 Rufus D. Smith Hall, 25 Wav-
erly Place, New York, NY 10003, U. S. A.
Dr. Andreas Bruck, Holunderstraße 10, D-4817 Leo-
poldshöhe, W. Germany
Dr. Wojciech Burszta, Instytut Etnologii, ul. Mar-
chlewskiego 124, PL-61-874 Poznan, Poland
Prof. John W. Burton, Dept, of Anthropology, Connec-
ticut College, New London, CT 06320, U. S. A.
Dr. Mario Califano, CAEA, Av. de Mayo 1437 1° «A»,
1085 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Dr. Maria Susana Cipolletti, Pfleghofstr. 7, D-7400
Tübingen 1, W. Germany
Rita Cordonnier, Résidence Joffrin Montmartre, 30 rue
de Poteau, F-75018 Paris, France
Dr. Robert Deliège, Rue des Tilleuls 4, B-5800 Grand-
Manil (Gembloux), Belgium
Leslie G. Desmangles, Ph. D., Dept, of Intercultural
Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106,
U. S. A.
Franz Eichinger, SVD, Missionshaus St. Peter, Postfach
11 40, D-8593 Tirschenreuth, W. Germany
Dr. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, Via Mario Fascetti
67, 1-00136 Roma, Italy
Prof. Pierre Erny, 6 rue Victor Huen, F-6800 Colmar,
France
Prof. Dr. Klaus Fischer, Im Kottensiefen 10, D-5330
Königswinter-Heisterbach, W. Germany
Claudia Fonseca, 64 rue Alexandre-Guilmant, F-92190
Meudon, France
Dr. Erwin H. Frank, FU Berlin, Lateinamerika-Institut,
Rüdesheimerstr. 54-56, D-1000 Berlin 33, W. Ger-
many
Dipl. Soc. Stephanie von Frankenberg, Perkerhof 61,
D-4030 Ratingen 5, W. Germany
Karl J. Franklin, Ph. D., SIL, Technical Studies Dept.,
Box 418, Ukarumpa via Lae, Papua New Guinea
Dr. Jürgen W. Frembgen, Museum für Völkerkunde,
Maximilianstr. 42, D-8000 München 22, W. Ger-
many
Dr. Johann Frick, SVD, Gymnasium Marienburg,
CH-9424 Rheineck, Switzerland
Dr. Renate von Gizycki, Birkenkopfstr. 4A, D-3500
Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, W. Germany
Prof. Stephen D. Glazier, Westmont College, 955 La
Paz Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93108-1099,
U. S. A.
Dr. Evelin Haase, Klüberstr. 29, D-1000 Berlin 46, W.
Germany
Dr. Wolfgang Haberland, Timm Kröger Weg 9, D-2070
Ahrensburg, W. Germany
Eberhard Haußmann, Hellewiesenstr. 14, D-7333
Ebersbach 1, W. Germany
Dr. Joseph Henninger, SVD, Arnold-Janssen-Str. 30,
D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1, W. Germany
Carmen G. Heß, M. A., 19 Westminster St., Somer-
ville, MA 02144, U. S. A.
Dr. Klaus Hesse, Klopstockstr. 1-3, D-1000 Berlin 37,
W. Germany
Prof. David Hicks, Dept, of Anthropology, SUNY,
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4364, U. S. A.
Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hildebrandt, Institut für Ethnologie,
Postfach 39 80, D-6500 Mainz, W. Germany
Prof. Dr. Siegbert Hummel, Forstweg 1, DDR-9701
Röthenbach, E. Germany
Dr. Rolf Husmann, Greifswalder Weg 2, D-3400 Göt-
tingen, W. Germany
Prof. Thomas F. Johnston, Dept, of Music, University
of Alaska, AK 99775-1220, U. S. A.
Dr. Adam Jones, Institut für Historische Ethnologie,
Liebigstr. 41, D-6000 Frankfurt, W. Germany
Prof. Dr. Marek Kilijanek, Instytut Etnologii, ul.
Marchlewskiego 124, PL-61-874 Poznan, Poland
Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Nelkenweg 23, D-
5308 Rheinbach, W. Germany
Dr. Waltraud Kokot-Sitaras, Institut für Völkerkunde,
Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-5000 Köln 41, W. Ger-
many
Kornelia Kurbjuhn, Ph. D., 1427 Second Avenue, New
York, NY 10021, U. S. A.
Roderick J. Lawrence, Ph. D., 4 rue du Prieuré,
CH-1260 Nyon, Switzerland
Edmundo Magaña, CEDLA, Keizersgracht 395-397,
1016 EK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Matthias Mersch, M. A., Bahnhofstr. 21, D-8100 Gar-
misch-Partenkirchen, W. Germany
Dr. Roland Mischung, Frobenius Institut, Liebigstr. 41,
D-6000 Frankfurt, W. Germany
Geert Mommersteeg, Dept, of Cultural Anthropology,
Postbus 80.140, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Nether-
lands
Dr. Richard M. Moyle, Dept, of Anthropology, Univer-
sity of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New
Zealand
Anthropos 83.1988
684
Mitarbeiter dieses Heftes
Harald Olofson, Ph. D., c/o ARTO, University of San
Carlos, Cebu City, 6401, Philippines
Prof. Dr. Sigrid Paul, Institut für Kultursoziologie,
Schwarzstr. 24, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria
Dr. Danuta Penkala-Gaw^cka, Instytut Etnologii, ul.
Marchlewskiego 124, PL-61-874 Poznan, Poland
Albert Piette, 8 rue des Nobles, B-5003 St. Marc
(Namur), Belgium
Prof. Dr. Ann Marie Powers, 355 So. Erie Av.,
Lindenhurst, NY 11757, U. S. A.
Urs Ramseyer, Museum für Völkerkunde, Augustiner-
gasse 2, CH-4001 Basel, Switzerland
Prof. Alison Dundes Renteln, Dept, of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720,
U. S. A.
Dr. Danker H. Schaareman, Ethnologisches Seminar,
Münsterplatz 19, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland
Dr. Burkhard Schnepel, Knobelsdorffstr. 44, D-1000
Berlin 19, W. Germany
Dr. Axel Schulze-Thulin, Linden Museum, Elegelplatz
1, D-7000 Stuttgart 1, W. Germany
Dr. Annemarie Schweeger-Hefel, Stephansplatz 6, A-
1010 Wien, Austria
Prof. Dr. Thomas Schweizer, Völkerkundliches Institut,
Schloß, D-7400 Tübingen 1, W. Germany
Prof. Dr. Stefan Seitz, Institut für Völkerkunde, Wer-
derring 10, D-7800 Freiburg, West Germany
Dr. Jayandra Soni, Poltenweg 4, A-6080 Vill, Austria
Prof. Clark W. Sorensen, Dept, of Anthropology,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235,
U. S. A.
Ralf Streum, M. A., Saarburgerstr. 23, D-6200 Wiesba-
den, W. Germany
Dr. Darrell T. Tryon, Dept, of Linguistics, Australian
National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT
2601, Australia
James Turner, Ph. D., Dept, of Anthropology/Sociolo-
gy, The University of Papua New Guinea, Box 320,
University P. O., Papua New Guinea
Dr. Rainer M. Voigt, Im Schönblick 3, D-7400 Tübin-
gen, W. Germany
Matthias Wanckel, M. A., Blutenburgstr. 66, D-8000
München 19, W. Germany
Dr. Volker Welter, M. A., Kirchenstr. 89, D-8000
München 80, W. Germany
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zwernemann, Museum für Völker-
kunde, Binderstr. 14, D-2000Hamburg 13, W. Ger-
many
Anthropos 83.1988
AUTORENINDEX
Artikel
Bletzer, Keith Y.: La chichería among Ngawbere
of the Northern Valiente Peninsula. Some Notes
and Comments................................ 135
Burton, John W.: Nilotic Studies. Some Past
Problems and Prospects........................... 453
Califano, Mario: El chamanismo huachipaire y
zapiteri (Harákmbet) ............................ 109
Cipolletti, María Susana: El tráfico de curare en
la cuenca amazónica (Siglos XVIII y XIX) . . 527
Eichinger, Franz, Johann Frick und Anton
Quack: Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gur-
tum............................................ 365
Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, Gabriella: Humour in a
Tamil Author’s Popular Comedies .................. 17
Feeley-Harnik, Gillian: Sakalava Dancing Battles.
Representations of Conflict in Sakalava Royal
Service........................................... 65
Frank, Erwin H. und Carmen Heß: Kultur und
Kognition. Zur Kritik der mentalistischen Kultur-
konzeption ...................................... 511
Frick, Johann: cf. Eichinger, Franz, Johann
Frick und Anton Quack
Heß, Carmen: cf. Frank, Erwin H. und Carmen
Heß
Hicks, David: Change, Adjustment, and Persist-
ence in Generalized Exchange. A Case Study
from Indonesia................................ 395
Johnston, Thomas F.: Community History and
Environment as Wellspring of Inupiaq Eskimo
Songtexts..................................... 161
Lawergren, Bo: The Origins of Musical Instru-
ments and Sounds............................. 31
Mommersteeg, Geert: “He has smitten her to the
heart with love.” The Fabrication of an Islamic
Love-amulet in West Africa.................... 501
Murray, Paul E.: Recollections of an Eskimo
Triumph. A Cultural Analysis................. 153
Olofson, Harold: Natural Areas in Hausa Urban-
ization ..................................... 485
Oppitz, Michael: Der männliche Pfeil durch den
weiblichen Schmuck. Das Fest der winterlichen
Sonnenwende und der Mythos der Honigernte bei
den Magar West-Nepals...................... . 1
Piette, Albert: Formes rituelles et comportemen-
tales dans la fête populaire. Le carnaval de Binche
(Belgique) comme exemple-type ................. 327
Quack, Anton: cf. Eichinger, Franz, Johann
Frick und Anton Quack
Renteln, Alison Dundes: The Concept of Human
Rights ....................................... 343
Salamone, Frank A.: The Hune’s Ideal of “The
Good Life” .................................... 101
Schlatter, Gerhard: Die offenen Geheimnisse
und eine verlorene Religion.................... 173
Schnepei, Burkhard: Shilluk Royal Ceremonies
of Death and Installation ..................... 433
Schweizer, Thomas: Einen javanischen Mystiker
verstehen. Kognitive Analyse von Überzeugun-
gen über heilige Orte (tempat keramat) aus
Majapahit .................................... 47
Soma, Etienne Yarmon: Les instruments de
musique du pays cerma (ou goin), sud-ouest du
Burkina Faso ................................. 469
Sorensen, Clark W.: The Myth of Princess Pari
and the Self Image of Korean Women .... 403
Taatgen, Henderikus A.: Anthropological Invo-
lution. The Legacy of S. F. Nadel.............. 87
Turner, James West: A Sense of Place. Locus and
Identity in Matailobau, Fiji................... 421
Berichte und Kommentare
Abbink, J.: Me’en Means of Subsistence. Notes
on Crops, Tools, and Ethnie Change........... 187
Beidelman, Thomas O.: Fourth Addendum to
“The Matrilinea! Peoples of Eastern Tanzania” 558
Bommer, Bettina und Waltraud Kokot: “Urbane
Ethnologie”. Bericht über die Arbeitsgruppe . 562
Bruck, Andreas: Die leidige Konstanz von Vor-
urteilen. Konstruktive Anmerkungen zu drei
Vorwürfen in Erwin H. Franks funktionaler
Analyse des Tapirfestes der Uni ............. 212
Gizycki, Renate von: “The canoe is afloat ...”
Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der South
Pacific Creative Arts Society. Ein Beispiel für
kulturelle Initiativen im Prozeß der Entkoloniali-
sierung ................. ................... 546
Hämmerle, Johannes M.: Sigaru Dora’a. In Holz
Anthropos 83.1988
686
Autorenindex (R)
geschnitzte Lebensphilosophie auf Nias (Indone-
sien) ...................................... 193
Hildebrandt, Hans-Jürgen: Nietzsche als Ethno-
loge. Ein Beitrag zur Klärung der Quellenfrage 565
Hummel, Siegbert: Sind die kanarischen Petro-
glyphen deutbar? .............................. 561
Jones, Adam: Frauen in Westafrika. Zweites
Treffen der Arbeitsgruppe...................... 558
Kokot, Waltraud: cf. Bommer, Bettina und Wal-
traud Kokot
Moyle, Richard M.: The Niuean Nose Flute 541
Newell, William: Problems of Descent in the
Southern Ryukyus (Sekishima) ............ 202
Oppitz, Michael: A Day in the City of Death.
“Forest of Bliss” (by Robert Gardner) - A Film
Review......................................... 210
Schuhmacher, W. W.: In the Wake of the Whales.
Early Eskimo in Hawaii? ....................... 207
Voigt, Rainer M.: Das Bidiya - eine neue
osttschadische Sprache......................... 554
Zwernemann, Jürgen: Kulturgeschichte und Kri-
tik. Eine Erwiderung auf T. O. Beidelman . . 215
Rezensionen
Akalu, Aster: Beyond Morals? Experiences of
Living the Life of the Ethiopian Nuer. Malmö
1985. 85 pp. (T. O. Beidelman).............. 221
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (ed.): Neofunctionalism.
Beverly Hills 1985. 240 pp. (Andreas Bruck) . 223
Allott, Antony, and Gordon R. Woodman (eds.):
People’s Law and State Law. The Bellagio Pa-
pers. Dordrecht 1985. 354 pp. (Hugo Huber) , 224
Amselle, Jean-Loup et Elikia M’bokolo (éds.):
Au coeur de l’ethnie. Ethnies, tribalisme et Etat
en Afrique. Paris 1985. 225 pp. (Antonio C.
Gonçalves).................................. 225
Ariès, Philippe, and André Béjin (eds.): Western
Sexuality. Practice and Precept in Past and
Present Times. Oxford 1985. 220 pp. (Andreas
Bruck)...................................... . 226
Arnold, Dean E.: Ceramic Theory and Cultural
Process. Cambridge 1985. 268 pp. (Albert Mey-
ers) .................................... . . 227
Baer, Gerhard: Die Religion der Matsigenka,
Ost-Peru. Monographie zu Kultur und Religion
eines Indianervolkes des Oberen Amazonas. Ba-
sel 1984. 648 pp. (Mario Califano) ......... 229
Barbier, Jean Paul: Tobaland - The Shreds of
Tradition. Genève 1983. 237 pp. (Jörg Helbig) 232
Bargatzky, Thomas: Einführung in die Ethnolo-
gie. Eine Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie. Ham-
burg 1985. 212 pp. (Maike Kleihauer) .... 233
— Einführung in die Kulturökologie. Umwelt,
Kultur und Gesellschaft. Berlin 1986. 252 pp.
(Erwin H. Frank) ........................... 573
Barker, Graeme, and Clive Gamble (eds ); Be-
yond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe. Inves-
tigations in Subsistence Archaeology and Social
Complexity. London 1985. 282 pp. (Axel Schulze-
Thulin)......................................... 574
Basu, Mahadeb P.: Anthropological Profile of
the Muslims of Calcutta. Calcutta 1985. 109 pp.
(Christian W. Troll)............................ 235
Beach, Hugh (ed.): Contributions to Circumpolar
Studies. Uppsala 1986. 181 pp. (Evelin Haase) 575
Beidelman, T. O.: Moral Imagination in Kaguru
Modes of Thought. Bloomington 1986. 231 pp.
(John W. Burton) ............................... 577
Biebuyck, Daniel: The Arts of Zaire; vol. I:
Southwestern Zaire. Berkeley 1985. 313 pp.
(Barbara Frank)................................. 235
Bierhorst, John (transl.): Cantares Mexicanos.
Songs of the Aztecs. Stanford 1985. 559 pp.
(Thomas F. Johnston)............................ 578
Bierhorst, John: A Nahuatl-English Dictionary
and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos.
With an Analytic Transcription and Grammatical
Notes. Stanford 1985. 751 pp. (Thomas F. John-
ston) .......................................... 578
Binsbergen, Wim van, and Matthew Schoffeleers
(eds.): Theoretical Explorations in African Reli-
gion. London 1985. 389 pp. (Stephen D. Gla-
zier) .......................................... 579
Blanchard, Kendall (ed.): The Many Faces of
Play. Champaign 1986. 288 pp. (Rolf Hus-
mann) .................................. 580
Bloch, Maurice: Marxism and Anthropology. A
History of Relationship. Oxford 1985. 180 pp.
(Andrzej Bronk)................................ 236
Bolz, Peter: Ethnische Identität und kultureller
Widerstand. Die Oglala-Sioux der Pine Ridge-
Reservation in South Dakota. Frankfurt 1986.
277 pp. (Ralf Streum)........................... 581
Boone, Elizabeth Hill (ed.): Painted Architecture
and Polychrome Monumental Sculpture in Meso-
america. A Symposium at Dubarton Oaks, 10th
to 11th October, 1981. Washington 1985. 186 pp.
(Kornelia Kurbjuhn)......................... 582
Boremanse, Didier (ed.): Contes et mythologie
des indiens lacandons. Contribution ä l’etude de
la tradition orale maya. Paris 1986. 407 pp.
(Ulrich Köhler) ............................ 267
Borthwick, Meredith: The Changing Role of
Women in Bengal, 1849-1905. Princeton 1984.
402 pp. (Robert Deliege) ...................... 238
Bourdier, Jean-Paul, and Trinh T. Minh-Ha:
African Spaces. Designs for Living in Upper
Volta. New York 1985. 231 pp. (Roderick J.
Lawrence) ..................................... 239
Brüggemann, Jürgen: In der Schwäche der Ar-
men liegt die Chance der Reichen. Beiträge zur
Unterentwicklung aus Mexiko. Gelsenkirchen
1985. 146 pp. (Wolfgang Trautmann)............. 240
Caplan, Pat (ed.): The Cultural Construction of
Sexuality. London 1987. 304 pp. (T. O. Beidel-
man) .......................................... 583
Anthropos 83.1988
Autorenindex (R)
687
Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre: Voir, savoir, pouvoir. Le
chamanisme chez les Vagua du Nord-Est péru-
vien. Paris 1983. 352 pp. (Mario Califano) . .
Cipolletti, Maria Susana: Jenseitsvorstellungen
bei den Indianern Südamerikas. Berlin 1983. 368
pp. (Iris Gareis)...........................
Ciz, Karl Heinz: Robert Hartmann (1831-1893).
Mitbegründer der deutschen Ethnologie. Gelsen-
kirchen 1984. 298 pp. (Heribert Körner) . . .
Clastres, Pierre: Chronik der Guayaki. Die sich
selbst Aché nennen, nomadische Jäger in Para-
guay. München 1984. 233 pp. (Maike Kleihau-
er) ........................................
Das Gupta, Tapan Kumar: Beiträge zur Mu-
seumsdidaktik am Beispiel einer ethnographi-
schen Sammlung. Präsentation und Evaluation.
Hohenschäftlarn 1985. 118 pp. (Volker Harms)
Dennell, Robin: European Economic Prehistory.
A New Approach. London 1983. 217 pp. (Axel
Schulze-Thulin) ............................
Dobbin, Jay D.: The Jombee Dance of Montser-
rat. A Study of Trance Ritual in the West Indies.
Columbus 1986. 202 pp. (Leslie G. Desman-
gles) ......................................
Donnan, Christopher B. (ed.): Early Ceremonial
Architecture in the Andes. A Conference at
Dumbarton Oaks, 8th to 10th October 1982.
Washington 1985. 289 pp. (Hartwig Latocha) .
Doyle, Arthur Conan: Das Congoverbrechen.
Herausgegeben von Geert Demarest. Frankfurt
1985. 165 pp. (F. Bontinck).................
Dupré, Georges: Les naissances d’une société.
Espace et historicité chez les Beembé du Congo.
Paris 1985. 418 pp. (Rita Cordonnier) ....
Eisenstadt, S. N., and Louis Roninger: Patrons,
Clients, and Friends. Interpersonal Relations and
the Structure of Trust in Society. Cambridge
1984. 343 pp. (Ann Marie Powers)............
Faia, Michael A.: Dynamic Functionalism. Strat-
egy and Tactics. Cambridge 1986. 186 pp. (An-
dreas Bruck) ...............................
Lardon, Richard (ed.); Power and Knowledge.
Anthropological and Sociological Approaches.
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Univer-
sity of St. Andrews in December 1982. Edinburgh
1985. 216 pp. (John W. Burton) .............
Faull, J., and G. Young: South Australian Centre
for Settlement Studies Incorporated. Adelaide
1986. 120 pp. (Roderick J. Lawrence) ....
Feiger, Richard Stephen, and Mary Beck Moser:
People of the Desert and Sea. Ethnobotany of the
Seri Indians. Tucson 1985. 435 pp. (Thomas H.
Lewis) .....................................
Fellmann, Rudolf, Georg Germann und Karl
Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Jagen und Sammeln. Fest-
schrift für Hans-Georg Bandi zum 65. Geburts-
tag. Bern 1985. 301 pp. (Axel Schulze-Thulin)
Felmy, Sabine (Hrsg.): Märchen und Sagen aus
Hunza. Köln 1986. 143 pp. (Jürgen W. Fremb-
gen) .......................................
Firth, Raymond: Tikopia-English Dictionary. Ta-
ranga Fakatikopia ma Taranga Fakainglisi. Ox-
ford 1985. 615 pp. (D. T. Tryon)............ 250
Fox, Robin: Kinship and Marriage. An Anthro-
pological Perspective. Cambridge 1983. 273 pp.
(Ann Marie Powers).......................... 251
Frayser, Suzanne G.: Varieties of Sexual Expe-
rience. An Anthropological Perspective on Hu-
man Sexuality. New Haven 1985. 546 pp. (Andre-
as Bruck) .................................. 251
Frobenius, Leo; Ethnographische Notizen aus
den Jahren 1905 und 1906. I: Völker am Kwilu
und am unteren Kasai. Bearb. von Hildegard
Klein. Stuttgart 1985. 223 pp. (Jürgen Zwerne-
mann) ...................................... 595
— Ethnographische Notizen aus den Jahren 1905
und 1906. II: Kuba, Leela, Nord-Kete. Bearb.
von Hildegard Klein. Stuttgart 1987. 236 pp.
(Jürgen Zwernemann)......................... 595
— Histoire et contes des Mossi. Trad. par
Fabienne Tesseire. Stuttgart 1986. 94 pp. (Jürgen
Zwernemann) ................................ 596
— Peuples et sociétés traditionnelles du Nord-
Cameroun. Trad. par Eldridge Mohammadou.
Stuttgart 1987. 175 pp. (Jürgen Zwernemann) 596
Gardi, Bernhard: Zaïre: Masken, Figuren. Basel
1986. 126 pp. (Barbara Frank) ..... 253
Gesch, Patrick F.: Initiative and Initiation. A
Cargo Cult-Type Movement in the Sepik against
its Background in Traditional Village Religion.
Sankt Augustin 1985. 355 pp. (Karl J. Franklin) 253
Glazier, Ira A., and Luigi De Rosa (eds.):
Migrations across Time and Nations. Population
Mobility in Historical Contexts. New York 1986.
384 pp. (Stephanie von Frankenberg)............ 598
Godelier, Maurice: The Making of Great Men.
Male Domination and Power among the New
Guinea Baruya. Cambridge 1986. 254 pp. (Marek
Kilijanek) .................................... 599
Goetze, Dieter und Claus Mühlfeld: Ethnosozio-
logie. Stuttgart 1984. 326 pp. (Volker Welter) 600
Golomb, Louis: An Anthropology of Curing in
Multiethnic Thailand. Urbana 1985. 314 pp.
(Roland Mischung) ............................ 601
Gonçalves, Antonio Custodio: Le lignage contre
l’Etat. Dynamique politique Kongo du XVIe au
XVIIIe siècle. Evora 1985. 255 pp. (Klaus Wei-
land) ......................................... 254
Gordon, Robert J., and Mervyn J, Meggitt: Law
and Order in the New Guinea Highlands. En-
counters with Enga. Hanover 1985. 283 pp.
(Thunar Jentsch)............................... 256
Görgens, Manfred: Kleine Geschichte der indi-
schen Kunst. Köln 1986. 308 pp. (Klaus Fi-
scher) ....................................... 603
Gowlett, John A.J.: Auf Adams Spuren. Die
Archäologie des frühen Menschen. Freiburg
1984. 208 pp. (Axel Schulze-Thulin) .......... 257
Gronemeyer, Reimer (comp.): Zigeuner in
Osteuropa. Eine Bibliographie zu den Ländern
585
240
242
242
244
587
588
246
248
590
591
592
592
593
248
594
249
Anthropos 83.1988
688
Autorenindex (R)
Polen, Tschechoslowakei und Ungarn. Mit einem
Anhang über ältere sowjetische Literatur. Mün-
chen 1983. 280 pp. (Aparna Rao)..............
Hellinger, Marlis: Englisch-orientierte Pidgin-
und Kreolsprachen. Entstehung, Geschichte und
sprachlicher Wandel. Darmstadt 1985. 229 pp.
(Don Laycock)..........,.....................
Hirschberg, Walter (Hrsg.): Neues Wörterbuch
der Völkerkunde. Berlin 1988. 536 pp. (Pierre
Erny)........................................
Hochegger, Hermann (dir.): Dictionnaire des
rites; vol. 1-6; Abandon-Bonnet. Bandundu
1984-1987. (Pierre Erny) ................
Holy, Ladislav: Strategies and Norms in a Chang-
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London 1986. 232 pp. (T. O. Beidelman) . . .
Hotze, Ilona: Darimana? Kemana? Leben auf der
Insel Bali. Berlin 1984. 151 pp. (Urs Ramseyer)
Houston, G. W. (ed.); The Cross and the Lotus.
Christianity and Buddhism in Dialogue. Delhi
1985. 250 pp. (J. V. Ferreira)...............
Hunger, Heinz: Die Heilige Hochzeit. Vorge-
schichtliche Sexualkulte und -mythen. Wiesba-
den 1984. 203 pp. (Klaus Fischer)............
Hutterer, Karl L., A. Terry Rambo, and George
Lovelace (eds.): Cultural Values and Human
Ecology in Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor 1985. 417
pp. (David Hicks)...................
Josephides, Lisette: The Production of Inequali-
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London 1985. 242 pp. (Karl J. Franklin) . . .
Khare, R. S.: Culture and Democracy. Anthro-
pological Reflections on Modern India. Lanham
1985. 89 pp. (Robert Deliège)................
Khare, R. S., and M. S. A. Rao (eds.); Food,
Society, and Culture. Aspects in South Asian
Food Systems. Durham 1986. 336 pp. (Robert
Deliège) ....................................
King, Victor T.: The Maloh of West Kalimantan.
An Ethnographic Study of Inequality and Social
Change among an Indonesian Borneo People.
Dordrecht 1985. 252 pp. (Stefan Seitz) . . . .
König, Ditte: Das Tor zur Unterwelt. Mythologie
und Kult des Termitenhügels in der schriftlichen
und mündlichen Tradition Indiens. Stuttgart
1984. 391 pp. (Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi)
Kopytoff, Igor (ed.): The African Frontier. The
Reproduction of Traditional African Societies.
Bloomington 1987. 288 pp. (T. O. Beidelman)
Lafitau, Joseph-François: Die Sitten der amerika-
nischen Wilden im Vergleich zu den Sitten der
Frühzeit. Herausgegeben und kommentiert von
Helmut Reim. Weinheim 1987. 617 pp. (Anton
Quack).......................................
Lamberti, Marcello: Somali Language and Liter-
ature. Hamburg 1986. 106 pp. (Rainer M. Voigt)
Latouche, Jean-Paul: Mythistoire Tungaru. Cos-
mologies et généalogies aux Iles Gilbert. Paris
1984. 487 pp. (D. T. Tryon)....................
LeRoy, John: Fabricated World. An Interpreta-
tion of Kewa Tales. Vancouver 1985. 319 pp.
(Don Laycock)................................ 265
— Kewa Tales. Vancouver 1985. 251 pp. (Don
Laycock).................................... 265
Levin, Isidor (Hrsg.): Märchen vom Dach der
Welt. Überlieferungen der Pamir-Völker. Über-
setzt von Gisela Schenkowitz. Köln 1986. 333 pp.
(Jürgen W. Frembgen) ........................ 615
Lewis, I. M.: Anthropology in Perspective. The
Relevance of Social Anthropology. Cambridge
1985. 408 pp. (A. A. Trouwborst) ...... 266
Linkenbach, Antje: Opake Gestalten des Den-
kens. Jürgen Habermas und die Rationalität
fremder Lebensformen. München 1986. 313 pp.
(Erwin H. Frank) ........................... 616
Lurie, Nancy Oestreich: North American Indian
Lives. Milwaukee 1985. 72 pp. (Sonja Schierle) 267
Ma’ax, K’ayum und Christian Rätsch (Hrsg.): Ein
Kosmos im Regenwald. Mythen und Visionen der
Lakandonen-Indianer. Köln 1984. 319 pp. (Ul-
rich Köhler) ............................... 267
Maffesoli, Michel: Der Schatten des Dionysos.
Zu einer Soziologie des Orgiasmus. Frankfurt
1986. 184 pp. (Andreas Bruck) .............. 617
Mahias, Marie-Claude: Délivrance et conviviali-
té. Le système culinaire des Jaina. Paris 1985. 326
pp. (Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi) ..... 269
Mahieu, Wauthier de: Qui a obstrué la cascade?
Analyse sémantique du rituel de la circoncision
chez les Komo du Zaïre. Cambridge 1985. 439 pp.
(Hermann Hochegger)..................... 271
Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer:
Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An Experi-
mental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago
1986. 204 pp. (Wojciech Burszta)............... 618
Marschall, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): Der große Archi-
pel. Schweizer ethnologische Forschungen in
Indonesien. Le grand Archipel. Recherches eth-
nologiques suisses en Indonésie. Bern 1985. 391
pp. (Thomas Schweizer)..................... 619
Martin, Richard C. (ed.): Approaches to Islam in
Religious Studies. Tucson 1985. 243 pp. (Chri-
stian W. Troll)............................ 272
Maydell, H.-J. von: Arbres et arbustes du Sahel.
Leurs caractéristiques et leurs utilisations. Esch-
born 1983. 531 pp. (Dorothee Grüner) .... 273
Meillassoux, Claude: Anthropologie de l’escla-
vage. Le ventre de fer et d’argent. Paris 1986. 375
pp. (Rita Cordonnier)........................ 273
Merkur, Daniel: BecomingHalfHidden. Shaman-
ism and Initiation among the Inuit. Stockholm
1985. 305 pp. (Thomas F. Johnston) ........... 621
Meyer-Bahlburg, Hilke und Ekkehard Wolff:
Afrikanische Sprachen in Forschung und Lehre.
75 Jahre Afrikanistik in Hamburg (1909-1984).
Berlin 1986. 230 pp. (Siegmund Brauner) . . . 274
Meyn, Matthias, et al. (Hrsg.): Die großen
Entdeckungen. München 1984. 659 pp. (Heribert
Körner) ...................................... 275
257
258
604
259
260
604
261
263
605
607
608
609
610
263
611
613
614
264
Anthropos 83.1988
Autorenindex (R)
689
Michaelis, Hans-Thorald: Schützengilden. Ur-
sprung, Tradition, Entwicklung. München 1985.
96 pp. (Dieter Düding) ..................... 276
Miller, Daniel: Artefacts as Categories. A Study
of Ceramic Variability in Central India. Cam-
bridge 1985. 253 pp. (Klaus Hesse) ...... 622
Moore, Henrietta L.: Space, Text, and Gender.
An Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of
Kenya. Cambridge 1986. 213 pp. (T. O. Beidel-
man).......................................... 277
Mörner, Magnus: The Andean Past. Land, Socie-
ties, and Conflicts. New York 1985. 300 pp.
(Henrique Urbano) ............................. 278
Morris, Brian: Anthropological Studies of Reli-
gion. An Introductory Text. Cambridge 1987. 369
pp. (T. O. Beidelman).......................... 623
Neog, Maheswar: Early History of the Vaisnava
Faith and Movement in Assam. Saiikaradeva and
his Times. Delhi 1985. 400 pp. (Hans-Joachim
Klimkeit)...................................... 625
Niessen, S. A.: Motifs of Life in Toba Batak
Texts and Textiles. Dordrecht 1985. 249 pp.
(Danker H. Schaareman) ........................ 625
Nowak, Herbert: Kanarische Studien; Bd. 2:
Beiträge zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Insel El
Hierro. 1. Teil. Hallein 1986. 106 pp. (Siegbert
Hummel)........................................ 626
Nurse, G. T., J. S. Weiner, and Trefor Jenkins:
The Peoples of Southern Africa and their Affini-
ties. Oxford 1985. 409 pp. (Volker Welter) . . 627
Nuß, Marianne und Volker Welter: Deutschland
im Urteil afrikanischer Lehrer. Saarbrücken
1986. 245 pp. (Matthias Wanckel)............... 628
O’Brien, Denise, and Sharon W. Tiffany (eds.):
Rethinking Women’s Roles. Perspectives from
the Pacific. Berkeley 1984. 237 pp. (Thomas
Bargatzky)..................................... 279
Oommen, T. K.: Social Structure and Politics.
Studies in Independent India. Delhi 1984. 236 pp.
(Klaus Hesse) ................................. 629
Parkin, David (ed.): The Anthropology of Evil.
Oxford 1985. 283 pp. (Hugo Huber) ............. 280
Paul, Diana Y.: Women in Buddhism. Images of
the Feminine in the Mahayana Tradition. With
Contributions by Frances Wilson. Foreword by
I. B. Horner. Berkeley 1985. 333 pp. (Karl-Heinz
Golzio)........................................ 281
Pearson, Roger: Anthropological Glossary. Ma-
labar 1985. 282 pp. (Danuta Penkala-Gaw^cka) 630
Petermann, Werner: Regenkulte und Regenma-
cher bei bantu-sprachigen Ethnien Ost- und
Südafrikas. Berlin 1985. 357 pp. (Thomas Hau-
schild) .......................................... 282
Piasere, Leonardo: Märe Roma. Catégories hu-
maines et structure sociale. Une contribution à
l’ethnologie tsigane. Paris 1985. 274 pp. (Aparna
Rao).............................................. 257
Plakans, Andrejs: Kinship in the Past. An An-
thropology of European Family Life, 1500-1900.
Oxford 1984. 276 pp. (Zbigniew Jasiewicz) . . 283
Potash, Betty (ed.): Widows in African Societies.
Choices and Constraints. Stanford 1986. 309 pp.
(Claudia Fonseca)............................. 632
Rahimi, Fahima: Women in Afghanistan. Frauen
in Afghanistan. Liestal 1986. 112 pp. (Jürgen W.
Frembgen) ...................................... 634
Rambo, A. Terry: Primitive Polluters. Semang
Impact on the Malaysian Tropical Rain Forest
Ecosystem. Ann Arbor 1985. 104 pp. (Wing-sam
Chow) .......................................... 284
Rätsch, Christian: Bilder aus der unsichtbaren
Welt. Zaubersprüche und Naturbeschreibungen
bei den Maya und Lakandonen. München 1985.
320 pp. (Ulrich Köhler) . . . .................. 267
— Das Erlernen von Zaubersprüchen. Ein Bei-
trag zur Ethnomedizin der Lakandonen von
Naha’. Berlin 1985. 181 pp. (Ulrich Köhler) 267
Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiati-
schen Archäologie. Bd. 7, 1./2. Lfg. Hrsg, von
D. O. Edzard. Berlin 1987. 160 pp. (Joseph
Henninger).................................. 634
Reich), Karl (Übers.): Rawsan. Ein usbekisches
mündliches Epos. Wiesbaden 1985. 229 pp. (Jür-
gen W. Frembgen)............................ 285
Renard-Casevitz, F. M., T. Saignes et A. C.
Taylor: LTnca, l’espagnol et les sauvages. Rap-
ports entre les sociétés amazoniennes et andines
du XVe au XVIIe siècle. Paris 1986. 409 pp.
(Maria Susana Cipolletti) ................... 635
Sachchidananda and B. B. Mandat: Industrializa-
tion and Social Disorganization. A Study of
Tribals in Bihar. New Delhi 1984.164 pp. (Robert
Deliege) ........................................ 636
Schild, Ulla (ed.); Jaw-Bones and Umbilical
Cords. A Selection of Papers Presented at the 3rd
Janheinz Jahn Symposium 1979 and the 4th
Janheinz Jahn Symposium 1982. Berlin 1985. 150
pp. (Sigrid Paul)................................ 637
Schmidt, Annette: Young People’s Dyirbal. An
Example of Language Death from Australia.
Cambridge 1985. 252 pp. (D. T. Tryon) ... 638
Schütz, Albert J.: The Fijian Language. Honolu-
lu 1985. 688 pp. (D. T. Tryon) .................. 639
Shulman, David Dean: The King and the Clown
in South Indian Myth and Poetry. Princeton 1985.
471 pp. (Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi) . . 640
Singh, K. S.: Birsa Munda and his Movement,
1874—1901. A Study of a Millenarian Movement
in Chotenanagpur. Calcutta 1983. 289 pp. (Ro-
bert Deliege).................................... 286
Soffer, Olga: The Upper Paleolithic of the Cen-
tral Russian Plain. Orlando 1985. 539 pp. (Axel
Schulze-Thulin) ................................. 287
Sperber, Dan: On Anthropological Knowledge.
Three Essays. Cambridge 1985. 107 pp. (John W.
Burton) ......................................... 288
Stevenson, Michael: Wokmani. Work, Money,
and Discontent in Melanesia. Sydney 1986. 183
pp. (Patrick F. Gesch)........................... 641
Suleiman, Susan Rubin (ed.): The Female Body
Anthropos 83.1988
690
Autorenindex (R)
in Western Culture. Contemporary Perspectives.
Cambridge 1986. 389 pp. (Andreas Bruck) . . 643
Szalay, Miklos: Die Kunst Schwarzafrikas.
Werke aus der Sammlung des Völkerkundemu-
seums der Universität Zürich. Teil I: Kunst und
Gesellschaft. Zürich 1986. 198 pp. (Annemarie
Schweeger-Hefel) ................................. 644
Taussig, Michael: Shamanism, Colonialism, and
the White Man. A Study in Terror and Healing.
Chicago 1987. 517 pp. (Edmundo Magaña) . . 645
Terrell, John: Prehistory in the Pacific Islands. A
Study of Variation in Language, Customs, and
Human Biology. Cambridge 1986. 299 pp. (Eber-
hard Haußmann) ................................... 647
Tiwari, Kapil N. (ed.): Suffering. Indian Perspec-
tives. Delhi 1986. 300 pp. (Jayandra Soni) . . 648
Toulabor, Comi M.: Le Togo sous Eyadéma.
Paris 1986. 332 pp. (Jacek Jan Pawlik) .... 289
Valeri, Valerio: Kingship and Sacrifice. Ritual
and Society in Ancient Hawaii. Chicago 1985. 446
pp. (Matthias Mersch)...................... 650
Vossen, Rüdiger und Wilhelm Ebert: Marokkani-
sche Töpferei. Töpferorte und -Zentren. Eine
Landesaufnahme (1980). Poterie marocaine. Lo-
calités de potiers et centres de poterie. Un
inventaire sur tout le pays (1980). Bonn 1986. 549
pp. (Wolfgang Haberland) ................., 652
Waldenfels, Hans (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Religio-
nen. Phänomene, Geschichte, Ideen. (Begründet
von Franz König) Freiburg 1988. 729 pp. (Othmar
Gächter)....................................... 653
Weir, Shelagh: Qat in Yemen. Consumption and
Social Change. Dordrecht 1985. 191 pp. (Ste-
phanie von Frankenberg) ...................... 654
Wernhart, Karl R. (Hrsg.); Ethnohistorie und
Kulturgeschichte. Ein Studienbehelf. Wien 1986.
330 pp. (Stephen Fuchs)........................ 290
Anthropos 83.1988
Rezensenten
691
Rezensenten
Bargatzky 279
Beidelman 221, 260, 277, 583, 611, 623
Bontinck 248
Brauner 274
Bronk 236
Bruck 223, 226, 251, 592, 617, 643
Burszta 618
Burton 288, 577, 592
Califano 229, 585
Chow 284
Cipolletti 635
Cordonnier 273, 590
Deliège 238, 286, 608, 609, 636
Desmangles 588
Düding 276
Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi 263, 269, 640
Erny 259, 604
Ferreira 261
Fischer 263, 603
Fonseca 632
Frank, B. 235, 253
Frank, E. H. 573, 616
v. Frankenberg 598, 654
Franklin 253, 607
Frembgen 249, 285, 615, 634
Fuchs 290
Gächter 653
Gareis 240
Gesch 641
Glazier 579
Golzio 281
Gonçalves 225
Grüner 273
Haase 575
Haberland 652
Harms 244
Hauschild 282
Haußmann 647
Helbig 232
Henninger 634
Hesse 622, 629
Hicks 605
Hochegger 271
Huber 224, 280
Hummel 626
Husmann 580
Jasiewicz 283
Jentsch 256
Johnston 5782, 621
Kilijanek 599
Kleihauer 233, 242
Klimkeit 625
Köhler 2674
Körner 242, 275
Kurbjuhn 582
Latocha 246
Lawrence 239, 593
Laycöck 258, 2652
Lewis 248
Magaña 645
Mersch 650
Meyers 227
Mischung 601
Oppitz 210
Paul 637
Pawlik 289
Penkala-Gawecka 630
Powers 251, 591
Quack 613
Ramseyer 604
Rao 2572
Schaareman 625
Schierle 267
Schulze-Thulin 257, 287, 574, 587, 594
Schweeger-Hefel 644
Schweizer 619
Seitz 610
Soni 648
Streum 581
Trautmann 240
Troll 235, 272
Trouwborst 266
Tryon 250, 264, 638, 639
Urbano 278
Voigt 554, 614
Wanckel 628
Weiland 254
Weiter 600, 627
Zwernemann 5952, 5962
Anthropos 83.1988
GEOGRAPHISCHER INDEX*
Afrika
The African Frontier 611
Afrikanische Sprachen 274
Anthropological Involution 87
Anthropologie de l’esclavage 273
Au coeur de l’ethnie 225
Jow-Bones and Umbilical Cords 637
Kulturgeschichte und Kritik 215
Die Kunst Schwarzafrikas 644
Regenkulte und Regenmacher 282
Theoretical Explorations in African Religion 579
Widows in African Societies 632
Nordafrika
Kanarische Studien 626
Marokkanische Töpferei 652
Sind die kanarischen Petroglyphen deutbar? 561
Nordostafrika
Beyond Morals? 221
Me’en Means of Subsistence 187
Nilotic Studies 453
Shilluk Royal Ceremonies 433
Ostafrika
“The Matrilinea! Peoples of Eastern Tanzania” 558
Kaguru Modes of Thought 577
Sakalava Dancing Battles 65
Somali Language and Literature 614
Space, Text, and Gender 277
* Seitenzahlen in kursiv weisen auf Artikel oder Berichte und
Kommentare hin.
Westafrika
African Spaces 239
Frauen in Westafrika 558
Histoire et contes Mossi 596
The Hune’s Ideal of “The Good Life” 101
Les instruments de musique du pays cerma 469
Natural Areas in Hausa Urbanization 485
Peuples et sociétés traditionnelles du Nord-Came-
roun 596
Le Togo sous Eyadéma 289
West-Zentralafrika
Arbres et arbustes du Sahel 273
The Arts of Zaïre 235
Das Bidiya 554
Das Congoverbrechen 248
Dictionnaire des rites 259
Ethnographische Notizen 1905 und 1906 595
Le lignage contre l’Etat 254
Les naissances d’une société 590
Qui a obstrué la cascade? 271
Zaïre: Masken, Figuren 253
Südost-Zentralafrika
Strategies and Norms in a Matrilinea! Society 260
Südafrika
The Peoples of Southern Africa and their Affini-
ties 627
Amerika
Nordamerika
Contributions to Circumpolar Studies 575
Ethnische Identität und kultureller Widerstand 581
In the Wake of the Whales 207
Anthropos 83.1988
Geographischer Index
693
Inupiaq Eskimo Songtexts 161
North American Indian Lives 267
People of the Desert and Sea 248
Recollections of an Eskimo Triumph 153
Shamanism and Initiation among the Inuit 621
Die Sitten der amerikanischen Wilden im Vergleich zu
den Sitten der Frühzeit 613
Mittelamerika
Bilder aus der unsichtbaren Welt 267
Cantares Mexicanos 578
La chichería among Ngawbere 135
Contes et mythologie des indiens lacandon 267
Das Erlernen von Zaubersprüchen 267
L’Inca, l’espagnol et les sauvages 635
In der Schwäche der Armen liegt die Chance der
Reichen 240
Ein Kosmos im Regenwald 267
A Nahuatl-English Dictionary 578
Painted Architecture and Monumental Sculpture 582
Karibik
The Jombee Dance of Montserrat 588
Südamerika
The Andean Past 278
El chamanismo huachipaire y zapiteri 109
Chronik der Guayaki 242
Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Andes 246
Jenseitsvorstellungen 240
Die Konstanz von Vorurteilen 212
Die Religion der Matsigenka 229
Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man 645
Voir, savoir, pouvoir 585
Asien
Women in Buddhism 281
Naher und Mittlerer Osten
Märchen und Sagen aus Hunza 249
Qat in Yemen 654
Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 634
Indien
Artefacts as Categories 622
Birsa Munda and his Movement 286
Culture and Democracy 608
A Day in the City of Death 210
The Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Assam 625
Food, Society, and Culture 609
Délivrance et convivialité 269
Humour in a Tamil Author’s Comedies 17
Industrialization and Social Disorganization 636
The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and
Poetry 640
Kleine Geschichte der indischen Kunst 603
Museumsdidaktik 244
The Muslims of Calcutta 235
The Role of Women in Bengal 238
Social Structure and Politics 629
Suffering. Indian Perspectives 648
Das Tor zur Unterwelt 263
Zentralasien
Der männliche Pfeil durch den weiblichen
Schmuck 1
Märchen vom Dach der Welt 615
Rawsan. Ein usbekisches Märchen 285
The Upper Paleolithic of the Central Russian
Plain 287
Women in Afghanistan 634
Nordasien
Contributions to Circumpolar Studies 575
Ostasien
Descent in the Ryukyus 202
The Myth of Princess Pari 403
Der Werdegang des lamaistischen Gurtum 365
Südostasien
An Anthropology of Curing in Multiethnic Thai-
land 601
Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast
Asia 605
Europa
Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe 574
Le carnaval de Binche (Belgique) 327
Deutschland im Urteil afrikanischer Lehrer 628
European Economic Prehistory 587
The Female Body in Western Culture 643
Kinship in the Past 283
Märe Roma 257
Anthropos 83.1988
694
Geographischer Index
Schutzengilden 276
The Upper Paleolithic of the Central Russian
Plain 287
Western Sexuality 226
Zigeuner in Osteuropa 257
Ozeanien
Prehistory in the Pacific Islands 647
Indonesien
Generaiized Exchange 395
Der große Archipel 619
Einen javanischen Mystiker verstehen 47
Leben auf der Insel Bali 604
The Maloh of West Kalimantan 610
Motifs of Life in Toba Batak Texts and Textiles 625
Primitive Polluters 284
Sigaru Dora’a 193
Tobaland 232
Australien
Young People’s Dyirbal 638
Die offenen Geheimnisse 173
South Australian Centre for Settlement Studies Incor-
porated 593
Melanesien
Fabricated World 265
Initiative and Initiation 253
Kewa Tales 265
Law and Order in the New Guinea Highlands 256
The Making of Great Men 599
The Production of Inequality 607
Rethinking Women’s Roles 279
Tikopia-English Dictionary 250
Wokmani 641
Polynesian
The Fijian Language 639
In the Wake of the Whales 207
Kingship and Sacrifice 650
The Niuean Nose Flut 541
A Sense of Place 421
Mikronesien
“The canoe is afloat ...” 546
Mythistoire Tungaru 264
FELDFORSCHUNG -
ENQUÊTE SUR LE TERRAIN
Bibliographie 1967-1981; Methoden und Erfahrungen;
Approches et expériences; VI—111 Seiten. 1982. s.Fr. 24.-
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INHALT - TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Hugo H über und Maria Theresia Zurrôn-Krummenacher
Feldforschung - Enquête sur le terrain. Bibliographie 1967-1981
Jean Bonvin
Techniques d’approche anthropologique au moyen des proverbes
en Afrique Centrale
Micheline Centlivres-Demonl
Ethnologue au féminin: Trois terrains, trois expériences
Meinhard Schuster
Feldforschung als Gruppenarbeil
Serge Tornay
La dimension cognitive dans la démarche ethnographique
Universitàtsverlag Freiburg Schweiz
Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse
University Press Fribourg Switzerland
STUDIA
ETHNOGRAPHICA
FRIBURGEN SIA
Herausgegeben von
Hugo Huber
1. Otto Bischofberger, The Generation Classes of the Zanaki (Tanzania).
112 p., 2 maps, 1 diagram, 12 plates. 1972.
2. Hugo Huber, Marriage and the Family in Rural Bukwaya (Tanzania).
266 p., 6 figures, 37 photos. 1973.
3. Henryk Zimon, Regenriten auf der Insel Bukerebe (Tanzania).
183 S., 1 Karte, 4 Zeichnungen, 13 Photos. 1974.
4. Hans Stirnimann, Existenzgrundlagen und traditionelles Handwerk der
Pangwa von Südwest Tansania. 311 S., 2 Karten, 48 Photos. 1976.
5. Otto Bischofberger, Heil und Unheil. Gebete und Riten der Amis von For-
mosa. 220 S., 2 Karten, 20 Photos. 1976.
6. Paul Nchoji Nkwi, Traditional Government and Social Change. A Study of the
Political Institutions among the Kom of the Cameroon Grassfields. 240 p.
1976.
7. Hans Stirnimann, Die Pangwa von SW-Tansania. Soziale Organisation und
Riten des Lebens. 304 S. 1979.
8. Hugo Huber, Tod und Auferstehung. Organisation, Rituelle Symbolik und
Lehrprogramm einer westafrikanischen Initiationsfeier. 191 S., 10 Bildtafeln.
1979.
9. Feldforschung - Enquête sur le terrain. Bibliographie 1967—1981.
Methoden und Erfahrung — Approches et expériences. VI—111 S. 1982.
10. Hans Stirnimann, Praktische Grammatik der Pangwa-Sprache (SW-Tansania).
245 S. 1983.
11. Charlotte von graffenried, Das Jahr des Stieres. Ein Opferritual der Zulgo
und Gemjek in Nordkamerun. 308 S., 56 Photos. 1984.
12. Asiatische Flüchtlinge in der Schweiz. Fragen zur Integration. VIII—277 S.
1984.
13. Pascal Mukene, L’ouverture entre l’école et le milieu en Afrique noir. Pour une
gestion pertinente des connaissances. 336 p. 1988.
14. Marguerite Schlechten, Tourisme balnéaire ou tourisme rurale intégré. Deux
modèles de développement sénégalais? 448 p., 20 photos. 1988.
Universitàtsverlag Freiburg Schweiz
Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse
University Press Fribourg Switzerland
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MNTHROPOS
Internationale Zeitschrift
für Völker- und Sprachenkunde
International Review
of Ethnology and Linguistics
Revue Internationale
d'Ethnologie et de Linguistique
ANTHROPOS INSTITUT
83-1988-1/3