Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Paul Stoller-The Taste of Ethnographic Things - The Senses in Anthropology-University of Pennsylvania Press (1989)
Paul Stoller-The Taste of Ethnographic Things - The Senses in Anthropology-University of Pennsylvania Press (1989)
Paul Stoller
Figures 2, 9 , photos by Cheryl Olkes . All other figures photos by the au thor
Portions of Chapter 8 from Discourse and the Social Life of Meaning, ed.
P. Chock and J. Wyman . Copyright© 1 986 by the Smi thsonian Institut ion .
Reprinted by permission .
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
PART I
Tastes in Anthropology
PART II
Visions in the Field
PART III
Sounds in Cultural Experience
PART IV
The Senses in Anthropology
9 Detours 142
Notes 157
References Cited 167
Films Cited 178
Index 179
Illustrations
2 Spice bazaar 18
This book is the result of the col lec t i ve efforts of many people and many
inst i t u t ions . I could not have traveled to Niger over the years wi thout gen
erous support from foundations and U .S . Govern ment Agencies . Fie l dwork
in 1 976-77 was financed through grants from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral
Dissertation Program (G00-76-03659) and from the Wenner-Gren Founda
t ion for Anthropological Research (No. 3 1 75). Research in N i ger in 1 979-80
was made possible through a NATO Postdoctoral Fel lowship i n Sc ience . My
work in N iger i n 1 98 1 and 1 982-83 was made possible through grants from
the A merican Phi losophical Society and West Chester U n i versi ty. Grants
from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and West
Chester Univers i ty made possible field studies i n the summer of 1 984.
Further grants from West Chester U n i versity enabled me to conduct re
search in N i ger in 1 985-86 and 1 987 .
The perspective of this boo k has been inf l uenced greatly by my gradu
ate studies in soc iolinguist ics at Georgetown U n i versity and in l i nguistic
anthropology at the U n i versity of Texas at Austi n . At Georgetown Roger
Shuy taught me a great deal about the relation between language and
soc iety, and Joan Rubin i n t roduced me to anthropology. At the U n i versity
of Texas a t Austin the intel lectual guidance offered me by Annette B. Weiner
and Joel Sherzer has been i nvaluable . At the M usee de ! ' Homme in Pa ris,
Jean Rouch pa tiently poi n ted a near-sigh ted student in the right d i rection .
In Niger, I must honor t h e memory o f the late Seyni Kountche , President of
the Repu b l i c , who gran ted me numerous au thori za tions to conduct eth
nographic field research in his country. At the Institut de Recherches en
Sciences Humaines I have received warm encouragement and support
xiv Acknowledgments
from Djoulde Laya, Dj ibo Haman i , and Hamidou Arouna Sidikou , past
direc tors , and Boube Gado, the present director. After mon ths in the Ni
gerien bush, Jean-Fran<;ois Berger, Tom and Barbara Hale, J i m and Heidi
Lowentha l , Tom Price, the Dji bo fami ly, and Kath leen Heffron invited me
into their homes and recei ved me w i th grac iousness and ki ndness .
Many people have commented on the various chapters in this book . In
part icular I acknowledge the insightful commentary of Jeanne Favret
Saada, Jean-Marie Gi bbal , Mart i n Murphy, Dan Rose , Judith Gleason , John
Chernoff , Smadar Lavie, Ph i l i p K i l bride, and Norman Wh i t ten , J r. Mem
bers of the staff of the Un iversity of Pennsylvania Press, part icularly Pa
tricia S m i t h , have worked with grea t dedication to transform this project
into a fine book . I thank them for their considerable effort s .
I would also like to acknow ledge three other people whose work and
efforts on my behalf have con tribu ted grea tly to the birth of this book . The
first is James Fernandez , who has been a con tinuous source of intellectual
suppor t , guidance, and encourageme n t . The second is Paul Riesma n , who
died suddenly i n 1 988 . Pau l 's field s i te among the Fulani of Burkina Faso
was a few hundred ki lometers wes t of mine in Niger. Early on, Paul Ries
man saw some thing in my work that others fa i led to see . He encouraged me
during frust ra t i ng t imes with his unforget table warm th and ki ndness . His
was an important voice i n the anthropological com muni ty, and I hope this
volume is i n a small way a testamen t to h i s sense of anthropology. Cheryl
Olkes has been involved i n my work from its beginning. We have shared
many joys in the field and the office . It is through her considerable efforts
that this book is readable and coheren t .
Lastly, I would l ike t o acknowledge the wisdom o f m y Songhay teach
er, Sohanci Adamu Jeni tongo, who died in 1 988 at the age of 1 06 . I was
privileged to have known him and learned from h i m . He taught me not
only a grea t deal about Songhay, but a grea t deal about anthropology as
wel l .
*
Much of this book consists of previously publ ished material that has been
expanded, revised , and upda ted . An earl ier version of Chapter I was pub
l i shed as " Bad Sauce , Good Ethnography " i n Cultural Anthropology I: 336-
52 . Chapter 2, " Eye , Mind , and Word in Anthropology, " was revised from an
article pub l i shed in the French journal L'Homme 24: 93- 1 1 4 . " ' Gazi ng' at
the Space of Songhay Pol i t ics" was fash ioned from two prev iously pub
lished articles, "The Negotiation of Songhay Space : Phenomenology in the
Heart of Darkness , " American Ethnologist 7: 4 1 9-3 1 , and " Re l a t i v i ty and
the Anthropologist 's Gaze , " Anthropology and Human ism Quarterly 7(4) : 2-
1 0 . Chapter 4 is a revised version of an article that originally appeared in
Acknowledgmen ts xv
In the summer of 1 969 I went to the Republ i c of N iger for the first t i me. As a
recently recrui ted English teacher, I spent my first two weeks there as a
guest of the governmen t . They housed me i n a spacious v i l l a and provided
me a government chef who had been trained i n Paris . My p lush a i r
condi t ioned quarters protected me from the hea t , mosqui toes, and dust of
sum mer in N i ger.
This luxurious arrangement i n i tially diverted me from the sensua l
rea l i t ies o f u rban N i ger: naked c h i ldren defecating into t h e d i tches which
carried the c i t y 's sewage ; clouds of aromatic smoke rising from gri lls on
which butchers roasted mouth-watering s l i ces of m u tton ; d i rt roads ren
dered i mpassible by ra t-infested h i l l s of rott i n g garbage ; gen t l e w i nds
carrying the pungent sme l l of freshly pounded ginger; skeletal lepers
thrusting their stump-hands in people's faces-their way of asking for
money; port ly men wrapped in elaborately embroidered b l ue damask
robes, e merging from their Mercedes sedans; b l i nd and crippled beggars ,
dressed in grimy rags, singing for their mea l s .
After a two-week dream hol iday, I walked i nto t h a t world a n d re
mained there for two years . What did I experience ? At first I dove i n to the
sensual world of t he ci ty. I was particularly struck by the m isery of the
" have-nots" juxtaposed with the i nsouciance of the " haves ." The misery of
the " have-nots" was a t once horrifying and fascinating. I t was horrifying
because nothing i n my twenty- two years of l i fe had prepared me for such
human deprivation . I t was fascinating for the same reason that makes
motorists slow down or stop at the scene of a gruesome automobile acci
den t . The i nsouciance of the " haves" was also horrifying and fasc i nating.
4 Introduction
How could people with so much be blind to those with so l i ttle? At first
Africa assailed my senses. I smel led and tasted eth nographic thi ngs and
was both repel led by and a t t racted to a new spectrum of odors, flavors,
sights, and sounds .
My sensual openness, however, was short l i ved . I quickly lost touch
with those scenes of abject depri vat ion which blended i n to those of i nsensi
tive consumption . I soon lost scent of the nose-cri nkling stench of the open
sewer that gave way to the aromatic aromas of roast i ng mea t . My ears soon
deafened to the moans of a sick child that were overwhelmed by the happy
laughter of a heal thy one . I had become an experience-hardened Africa
hand . My i mmersion i n Niger, in Africa, had bee n , i n short , distanciated ,
i n tel lectual i zed-taken out of the rea l m of sensual sen t i men t . The world of
ethnographic thi ngs had lost i ts tastes .
My i n tel lectualist vi sion compelled me to write about my early experi
ence in N i ger for a variety of publicat ions in the U n i ted Sta tes . It also
propel led me toward graduate study, first in l inguistics and then in social
anthropology. I wan ted to master N iger-Africa-by understanding her
deeply. My graduate studies sharpened my intellectualist vision and nar
rowed my sensual horizons. One does fieldwor k , I learned , to gather " data"
from i n forman ts. One collects these data, brings them " home " and then ,
from an objec tive distance , analyzes the m . The analysis focuses on an
in tel lectual problem-kinship, sociocul tural change, symbolic meaning
the solu t ion to which refines social theory. The underlying premise of this
epistemology is fundamen tal : one can separa te thought from feeling and
action .
So I believed when I returned to N iger in 1 976 to conduct my doctoral
research . My projec t was to assess the impact of ritual language on local
pol i t ics among the Songhay. My methods consisted of an assortment of
research i nterventions: a language a t t i tude survey, a census , and tape
recorded l i nguistic data of everyday in terac tions and religious ceremon ies .
My findings would then be used to make a con tribut ion to theory in l i nguis
tic anthropology.
In the field , as most anthropologists know,
There is nothing wrong with the conventional research met hods I used, but
they fai led , nonetheless , because most Songhay refused to coo perate w i th
me . They scarcely knew this man who had the temeri ty to ask strange
questions and wri te down t he responses . In fac t , my gaze was so narrow ly
focused i n 1 976-77 that I m i ssed much of what " went on " during my first
year in the fiel d . I had made a number of friends during that pe riod . friends
Introduction 5
T H E S T U DY A N D REST U DY OF S O N G HAY
The Songhay are a peop le proud of their pas t , trac i n g their origins to the
eighth century and the com ing of the legendary A l i aman Za to the N iger
River basin near the presen t-day city of Gao , i n Mal i . Along the banks of the
Niger, Za founded the first Songhay dynasty, the Zas ; it remai ned in tact
u n t i l the fourteenth cen tury, when Ali Kolon , who had freed Songhay from
the yoke of the Mali Empire, dec lared a second dynasty, the Son n i s . The
Sonn i dynasty reached the zen i t h of i ts power with the reign of Sonni A l i
B e r ( 1 463-9 1 ) . Sonni A l i B e r expanded t h e i n fl uence a n d power o f Songhay
duri ng h is epoch . His successor, Askia Mohammed Toure ( 1493- 1 528), who
founded the third and final Songhay dynasty, the Askiad, bureaucratized
6 Introduction
the Empire and extended i ts borders . After the reign of Askia Moham med
the i nfluence and power of the Empire waned . In 1 59 1 , the arm ies of the
Moroccan , El Mansur, defea ted Songhay and ended the i ndependent ru le of
what had been a great Sahelian empire .
In t h e wake of t h i s calami tous defea t , Songhay nobles fled t o t h e south
and establ ished a southern empire , wh ich , because of i nternecine confl icts,
was soon balkanized i n to five principa l i t ies . These pol i ties maintained
their autonomy until the com ing of French armies during the last decade of
the n ineteenth century.
The Songhay s t i l l l i ve along the N iger River basin in western Niger,
eastern Mal i , and northern Ben i n . As in the pas t , they farm m i l let in most
regions and cul t i vate rice in riverine areas . The society is divided into three
general groups of unequal status: the nobles , who trace their descent
patri l i neal ly to Askia Mohammed Toure; former slaves, who trace their
descent patril i neally to prisoners of precolonial wars; and foreigners , peo
ples who have migrated i n to Songhay country in the distant or recen t pas t .
T h i s summary of t h e historic p a s t a n d t h e social present is the result o f
m y study o f Songhay society. It is based o n both l ibrary a n d fi e l d research
in 1 976-77 . My restudies, conducted in 1 979-80, 1 98 1 , 1 982-83 , 1 984,
1 985-86, and 1 987 have revealed a grea t deal more . The tripart i te pattern
of Songhay social organization has recently been underm ined , not by the
excesses of colon ialism and i ndependence , but by incessan t drought , fam
ine, and urban migration . Haunted by dry skies , dusty soi l , and barren
fields, many Songhay have left the countryside , abandoning i n the dust
some of their cultural trad i t ions . I n the face of this sociocultural dessica
tion , the Songhay nonetheless remember their proud past and maintain
their distinc t cultural identi ty.
Besides giving me the perspective to assess social change , long term
study of Songhay has plunged me i n to the Songhay worlds of sorcery and
possession , worlds the wisdom of which is closed to outsiders-even Song
hay outsiders . My insistence on long term study forced me to confront the
interpretative errors of earlier visi ts. Restudying Songhay also enabled me
to get a bit closer to " getting it right ." But I have just begun to walk my
pat h . As Adamu Jeni tongo once told me , "Today you are learn i ng about us,
but to understand us, you will have to grow old with us."
Al though restudy has long been a research methodology among French
ethnologists, many Anglo-American anthropologists have been content to
visit the field one , two, or perhaps three t i mes during their academic
careers . This tendency is me thodologically disastrous . Like the essays i n
George Foster's volume Long Term Field Research i n Social Anthropology, the
chapters of this book reflect the methodological and intellectual rewards of
long term study i n anthropology. This book suggests that one can discover a
Introduction 7
great many "ethnographic facts" i n one year of fieldwork, but it takes years ,
no matter the perspicacity of the observer, to develop a deep comp rehen
sion of others .
Ongoing study of Songhay has also compelled me to tune my senses to
the frequencies of Songhay sens i b i l i ties . Had I l i m i ted my fieldwork i n
Songhay t o one year or two, I would have produced i n te llectualist tracts,
just l i ke the summary above of Songhay history and social organization , i n
which individual Songhay are "edi ted out " o f the d iscourse, a n d i n which
the sense of sight is prior to those of smell , taste, and sound . Returning to
N i ger year after year taught me that Songhay use senses other than sight to
ca tegorize thei r soc iocultural experience . If a nthropologists are to produce
knowledge , how can they ignore how their own sensual b iases affect the
information they produce ? This book demonstrates why a nthropologists
should open their senses to the worlds of their others .
Exhum i n g h i s body about a year after burial , people discovered i n every case
that a sweet fragrance rose from the sai n t 's tom b . The flesh had largely van
ished from the bones; and the redolence that remained indicated the absence of
putrefact ion . The pleasing aroma, cal led the odor of sanctity, proved that the
sai n t had miraculously exuviated his flesh . Possessed therefore of a n excamate
form rendering him i mpervious both to desires and to the sins of the flesh , the
sa int received divine power.3
cially visua l , became all-i mportant to the emerging scien t i fic cul ture . Em
piricism ecl i psed rationalism . The emphasis on empi rical observation
raised sight to a privileged position , soon rep lacing the bias of the " lower
senses" (especially sme l l and touch).
In medicine, as Foucau l t rem inds us, the coronat ion of sight occurred
i n the late eigh teen th century. Prior to the emergence of cli nical medicine,
physicians believed that odor could i ndicate as well as spread disease .
With the advent of anatomy, the body was for the first time "opened up" to
the observing eyes of physicians who began to spatialize and categorize
tissues , bones , and organs.6
In philosophy, Kan t 's seminal Critique ofJudgment, pub lished in 1 790 ,
was the pioneering effort in the distanciation of observer from observed .
In his Critique Kant intel lectua l i zed and i magined priori ties among the
senses, relegating sme l l , taste , and touch to the level of brute as opposed to
aesthetic sensa tion . Combined with the visual i n tel lectua l i sm of the En
l ightenment thi nkers , the i n fl uence of Kant removed Western observers
from the arena of sensual i ty, consequently expunging the so-called lower
senses from our discourse, resul t i n g in what Suzanne Langer might have
cal led " reason 's disgrace."
Anthropological wri ters have become fu ll partners in " reason 's dis
grace ." In 1 922 Mal i nowski established the goal of ethnographic wri t i n g : to
write a document that gi ves the reader a sense of what it is l i ke to l i ve i n the
lands of others . Al though Malinowski 's wri ting was ful l of dense ethno
graphic deta i l , it also fea tured many sensual passages that described the
sights and sounds of Trobriand social l i fe on land and sea.
Occasionally a wave leaps up and above the platform , and the canoe-un·
wieldy, square craft as it seems at first-heaves lengthways and crossways ,
mounting the furrows with graceful agi l i ty. When the sai l is hoisted , its heavy,
stiff folds of golden ma tting unroll w i t h a charac teristic swish ing and crackling
noise , and the canoe begi ns to make way ; when the water rushes away below
with a hiss, and the yellow sai l glows against the i n tense blue of sea and sky
then indeed the romance of sa i l ing seems to open through a new vista.?
of four chap ters on my percept ion of the Songhay and their perception of
me . In Chapter 2, " Eye, Mind , and Word in An thropology," I discuss how
and why Wes tern " intellectua l ism" has i mpoverished our visual percep
tion . I call on anthropologists to adopt " the pain ter's gaze ." " 'Gazing' at the
Space of Songhay Pol i t ics," Chapter 3, considers how the privileged sense
of vision influenced my perception of things Songhay, prompting me on
numerous occasions to see social pat terns that did not exist . My abi l i ty to
" read" Songhay i n teraction is considered in Chapter 4 , " Signs in the Social
Order: Riding a Songhay Bush Tax i ." If ethnographers want to be able to
"see" the deep significance of everyday i n teract ion , I argue , they must
return to the field year after year. In Chapter 5, " Son of Rouch : Songhay
Visions of the Other," the ethnographic world of vision is turned upside
dow n . Here, Songhay images of the ethnographer-as-European are high
lighted .
Part III, " Sounds in Cul tural Experience ," consists of two chapters .
The role of sound as a vi tal force in Songhay possession ceremonies is
probed i n Chapter 6 , " Sound i n Songhay Possession ." Here the conse
quences of taki ng an audi tory as opposed to a visual orientation to the
world are considered in the ethnographic context of Songhay possession .
In Chapter 7 the same auditory orientation is used to examine the physical
power of words in Songhay sorcery.
There are but two chapters in Part IV, " The Senses in Anthropology." In
Chapter 8 , 'The Reconst ruct ion of Ethnography," I consider the philosoph
ical underp i n n ings of the anthropological "episteme" and demonstrate
how the decaying pri nciples of the Western metaphysic have shaped what
we see , how we think, what we say and how we write. Chapter 9 , " Detours ,"
advocates the phenomenological return to things themselves-to poetry, to
conversat ions w i th others as we ll as oursel ves .
*
Taken together, the chap ters in this book speak to two important and
integra ted issues germane to the fu ture course of anthropological research
and represen tat ion . The first is methodologica l . The book demonstrates the
consi derable scie n t i fic rewards of the long term study of one society. Break
throughs in the apprehension of Songhay space and real i zations of the
importance of sound and taste in Songhay cul tural categorizat ion occurred
only after repeated visits to N i ger over a period of years . Breakthroughs
occurred because I mastered the language during those years and estab
l ished lasting friendships bui l t on a foundation of mutual trust .
Long term study of the Songhay also revealed t o me epistemological
biases which produced serious errors of in terpretat ion and representation .
Recog n i t ion of these errors led me to the second issue i l l ustrated in this
Introduction 11
Tastes in Anthropology
F. Bacon
The Taste of Ethnographic
1 Things
CO - AUTHO R ED B Y CH E RY L O L K E S
A l l meats that can endure i t I l i ke rare , and I l ike them high , even to the poin t of
sme l l i n g bad i n many cases . 1
Montaigne
Like other peoples in Sahel ian West Africa, the Songhay take great pride in
their hospitali ty. "A guest is God i n your house , " goes the Songhay adage ,
and so when strangers are accepted as guests i n most Songhay compounds
they receive the best of what their hosts can alford to offer. The host
displaces his own kin from one of his houses and gives it to the gues t . He
removes the mattress from h is bed and gives it to the guest . And then he
orders the kinswoman who prepares the fam i ly meals to make her best
sauces for the gues t .
In 1 984 Paul S tol ler, a n anthropologist, a n d Cheryl O lkes , a sociologist ,
traveled to N i ger to conduct a study of the medicinal properties of plants
used in Songhay ethnomedicine. S i nce both Stoller and Olkes were sea
soned fieldworkers among the Songhay, they had experienced the p leasures
of Songhay hospi t a l ity. And so when t hey came to the compound of Adamu
Jeni tongo , in T i l l aberi , they were not surprised when Moussa, one of Ad
amu Jeni tongo's sons, insisted that they stay in his mudbrick house . They
were not surprised when Adamu Jeni tongo , an old healer whom S toller had
known for fifteen years , gave them h i s best straw mattresses. " You w i l l
sleep wel l o n these , " h e t o l d them . They were n o t surprised when t h e old
healer told Djebo, the w i fe of h is younger son , Moru , to prepare fine sauces
for the m .
Stol ler a n d Olkes h a d come t o T i l laberi t o discuss the medicinal prop-
16 Tastes i n Anthropology
Figure 1: Preparat ion of " ki lshi " at the marke t i n Mehanna, N i ger
erties of plants with Adamu Jeni tongo , perhaps the most knowledgeable
healer in all of western N i ger. They planned to stay i n T i l l aberi for two
weeks and them move on to Mehanna and Wanzerbe , two v i l lages i n which
Stoller had won the confidence of healers . Duri ng the two weeks in T i l l a
beri , Stoller and Olkes ate a variety of foods and sauces . Some days they ate
rice with black sauce (hoy bi) for lunch and rice with a toma to-based sauce
fl avored w i th red pepper and sorrel for dinner. Some days they ate rice
cooked i n a tomato sauce (suruundu) for lunch and m i l let paste w i t h pea nut
sauce for di nner. All of these sauces contained mea t , a rare ingredient i n
most Songhay meal s . When Songhay entertain Europeans-Stoller and
Olkes , for example- the staples of the diet do not change , but the qua l i ty of
the sauces does . Europeans are guests in Songhay compounds ; people do
not prepare tasteless sauces for them !
People in the neighborhood had the same percept ion : " They have come
The Taste of Eth nograph ic Th ings 17
to visit Adamu Jeni tongo aga i n . There w i l l be good food i n the compound."
In good ti mes a host spares no expense . In bad t i mes Stoller and Olkes
quietly slipped Adamu Jenitongo money so he could ful fi l l his ideal be
havior.
The arri val of Stoller and Olkes i n Til laberi that year, i n fact , was a
bright beacon that attracted swarms of the " un i n v i ted" i n search of savory
sauces. At lunch and d i nner t i me visi tors would arrive and linger, knowing
ful l well that the head of a Songhay household is obl i ged to feed people who
happen to show up at meal t i mes.
The " men who came to d inner" were so many that poor Djebo had to
double the amou n t of food she normal l y prepared . Djebo was a med iocre
cook , but the uninvited guests d i d n ' t seem to m i n d as t hey stuffed their
mouths with rice , mea t , and sauce .
There was one part icular guest , whom everyone called Gao Bora ( l i ter
ally " the man from Gao"), who unabashed ly came to breakfast , lunch , and
d i n ner every day of Stoller and O l kes' visi t . This man , a refugee (or was it a
fug i t i ve?) from Gao, in the Republic of Mal i , had been l iving hand-to
mouth i n T i l l aberi for four months . He had perfected a terrific ren t scam to
cut his expenses . In T i l l aberi , landlords will let their properties to a nyone
who promises to pay the ren t money at the end of the mon t h . Paying at the
end of the first month is a matter of Songhay honor. At the t i me of our visi t ,
Gao Bora was o n h i s third house . When a landlord would come for his
money, Gao Bora would say he was broke . The owner would throw h i m out ,
and Gao Bora would find another unsuspecting landlord . Stoller and Olkes
soon real i zed the d i rect relat ionshi p between Gao Bora 's neighborl iness
he l i ved 50 meters from Adamu Jeni tongo's compound-and his abil i ty to
stretch his food budget .
Most people in the compound were reasonably happy with the food i n
1 984 . Ad amu Jeni tongo's wives-Jemma a n d Hadjo-did complain about
the toughness of the mea t . So d id Adamu Jeni tongo. The problem, of
course , was that Djebo refused to tenderize the meat-which had come
from local stock-before cooking it i n the sauce . Olkes suggested that
Djebo mari nate the mea t . Djebo smi led a t O l kes and ignored her ad vice .
The toughness of the mea t notwi thstand i n g , everyone ate Djebo's sauces
until the last day of Stoller and Olkes' visi t , when Djebo served bad sauce .
The last day in Til laberi had been exhaus t i n g . Stoller had had two long
sessions with Ada mu Jeni tongo during which they discussed the medicinal
properties of plants and the Songhay phi losophy of hea l i n g . Olkes had seen
people i n town and at t he marke t . She had walked a good eight ki lometers
under the relent less Sahelian sun . At dusk , they each washed in the bath
house : a three-foot- high square mud brick enclosure equipped with a stool ,
18 Tastes in Anthropology
a five-l i ter bucke t , soap, and a plastic mug . Refreshed, they sat on one of
their straw mattresses and wai ted for Djebo. S m i l i ng , she brought them a
large casserole of rice and a s m a l l one of sauce, set them at their feet , and
gave them two spoons . W hen Stoller opened the small casserole, a sou r
odor overwhel med them . Stol ler s a w t h e nightly procession o f u n i n v i ted
guests sau nteri ng i n to the compou n d . Ol kes wrinkled her nose .
" What is i t ?"
" I t 's {ukko hoy [a sauce made by boi l i ng the leaves of the fu kko p lant] , "
Stol ler said .
" Fukko hoy?"
Stol ler sti rred t h e sauce with h i s spoon ; i t w a s mea tless. " Shine you r
flashlight o n t h e sauce , w i l l you ?" Stoller asked Olkes .
Olkes' flashl ight revealed a viscou s green l i qu i d . " You can take the fir st
taste , " O l kes told Stol ler.
" W a i t a m i nu te ." Stol ler picked u p the s m a l l casserole and pou red
The Taste of Ethnographic Th ings 19
some of the fukko hoy over the rice . H e put a spoonfu l of the rice and sauce
into his mouth . " I t 's the worst damn sauce I 've ever eaten , " he told O l kes .
" Straight fukko hoy seasoned w i t h sal t a n d nothing else ! "
Olkes tasted the rice and sauce . " I t 's absolutely awfu l ."
Like d iplomats, O l kes and S toller ate a l i ttle b i t of the meal before
push ing the casseroles away. Other people in the compound were less
pol i t e . Saying the sauce smelled and tasted l ike bird droppings , Morn ,
Djebo's husband , took his rice and sauce and dumped i t i n the compound
garbage p i t , a two-foot-deep hole about six feet in diameter that was
l i t tered w i t h date palm pits, orange rinds , gristle, bones , and trash . " Let
the goa ts eat this crap, " he sai d .
Jemma, one o f Adamu Jeni tongo's t w o w i ves, said : "This sauce shames
us . Djebo has brought great shame upon this compound." Hadjo, Adamu
Jeni tongo 's other wife , echoed Jemma's com ment s . " How cou l d anyone
prepare so horrib le a sauce for the guests i n our compound ? "
Gao Bora, the refugee-fugitive from Mali , arrived for h i s nightly " Euro
pea n " mea l . He took one taste of the bad sauce , stood up and declared : " I
refuse t o eat sauce that i s not fit for a n ani mal . I ' m going t o H a l i dou 's for my
dinner tonight ." From everyone 's perspective, the bad sauce was in bad
taste.
" What would you do with her?" Adamu Jeni tongo asked Stol ler.
" You 're asking me ? "
" Morn should marry a Songhay woma n , " Adamu Jeni tongo sta ted . " He
should marry one of the girls from our home near Si m i ri . If he marries one of
our people, everyone w i l l be h appy. Do you not agree ? " he asked S tol ler.
Concealing his uneasiness, S toller said that he agreed .
Morn , who had been inside his hut, overheard the d iscussion between
Stol ler and his fa ther and ran ou t to confron t the m .
"And w h a t abou t me, Baba ? Doesn't anyone a s k me , Morn , about my
fee l i ngs ? I want Djebo. I want to marry her. I want her to have my chi l d . "
Adamu Jeni tongo scoffed at Morn . "Marry h e r ! Fi rs t you bring t h i s
Fulan woman into my compound . Then you make h e r pregnan t , and now
you want to marry the worthless b i tch ." Adamu Jeni tongo turned to Stol
ler. " What is this world coming to? The young people have no respect . " He
turned now to Morn . " You l i ve in my household , you eat my food , you learn
from me our heri tage , but you have no heart and no mind. You are s t i l l a
child."
Morn s tormed off to his hu t , fuming. Jemma, his mother, re turn �d
from the market with meat and spices . Hadjo, her co-wife , informed her of
the most recen t confrontation in the compound . Jemma looked at S tol ler.
" Don 't you think it is wrong for that worth less Fu lan woman to be
here ? Look at her, " she said loudly, pointing at the girl , who was s i t ting on
the threshold of Morn 's hu t . " She's pregna n t , but she 's here with u s . Preg
nan t women must l i ve with their mothers so they give birth to healthy
babies . Does that worthless Fu lan do this ? No! She sits here . She fol lows
Morn to possession dances . Somet i mes she walks for hours-she and the
baby i n her belly."
" Is this bad ? " Stoller asked Jemma.
" They say that a mother who wanders with a baby in her bel l y w i l l
produce a monster ch i l d . That worth less Fu lan is breed ing a monster. I a m
certain o f i t . "
" She shou l d b e with h e r mother, " Hadjo rei terated .
Duri ng Stoller's visit there were also daily arguments between Jemma,
Morn 's mother, and Ramatu, Djebo's mother. On one occasion Ramatu
at tempted to drag her daughter back to her compound . Djebo broke her
mother's grip and cursed her. Jemma cursed Djebo for cursing her mother.
And Ramatu cursed Jemma for cursing her daughter. As the two older
women traded ethnic slurs in Songhay, Fu lan , and Hausa, a sobbing Djebo
told Morn , her love , that she was walking into the bush to die. Si nce no one
took Djebo at her word , they watched her walk toward the mountain .
Ramatu returned to her compound, Jemma got back to her food prepara
tions , and Morn went into his hu t .
The Taste of Eth nographic Th ings 21
Two hours passed and Djebo had not returned . Moru entered Stol ler's
hut. " Shoul d we go and look for her ? "
" I think so , Moru ."
Stoller and Moru left to search for Djebo. They returned with her two
hours later. Everyone in the compound scolded the young girl .
" You are a hardheaded b i tch , " Jemma sai d .
" You are a worth less Fulan , w h o brings u s heartache , " Adamu Jeni
tongo sai d .
Djebo cried a n d Moru fol lowed her i n to h i s hut .
When Stoller and Olkes returned to Adamu Jeni tongo's compound in
1 984 , a child no more than a year and a half old waddled over to them .
Lateri te dust powdered her body. Mucus had caked on her upper lip.
" That's my daughter, Ja m i l la," Moru proc l a i med .
Ja m i l la burst i n to tears when Olkes approached her.
" She's not used to white people , " Jemma sai d .
" She's a monster chi l d , " Hadjo declared .
The term " monster chi l d " swept Stoller back to his previous visit and
the long discussions that had raged about women who wander when they
are pregna n t . Had the predict ion come true ?
"And n o wonder, " said Jemma, " w ith a mother who wandered the
countryside with a child in her bel l y."
Moru told Stoller that he and Djebo were married short ly after his
departure the previous year.
"And you didn't write ? " Stoller joked .
Moru shrugged . Djebo pounded m i l let next to the compound 's second
mud brick house , which Moru had bui l t for his fam i ly. " Djebo , " Moru cal led
to his w i fe , " prepare a fine meal for them . They are tired from their trip, and
we must honor them ."
Adamu Jeni tongo gave Djebo money and told her to go to the market
and buy good spices and a good cut of mea t . Djebo took the money and
frowned . When she had left . Moussa (Adamu J eni tongo's other son), J e m ma,
and Moru complained abou t her. She was lazy. She was quarrelsome . They
didn't t rust her. She didn't know how to cook-probably because she
hadn't l istened to her mother long enough to learn . When she prepared
meat it was so tough that even Moru couldn't chew i t . The sauces were
tasteless even though Adamu Jeni tongo gave her money to buy the best
spices . But no one had done anything to i mprove the domestic situat ion .
" Why don ' t you teach her how to cook ? " O l kes asked .
" Ha h , " Jemma snorted . " She doesn't want to learn ."
" Why don 't you show her the right sp ices to buy ? " O l kes persisted .
" She doesn't care . She doesn ' t care , " Jemma answere d .
Olkes fel t sorry for Djebo. S h e was , after a l l , a teenager l iving among
22 Tastes in Anthropology
people who seemed set against her and who bore longstanding prejudice
against her ethnic group. As the youngest affine in the compound, more
over, Djebo was expected not only to cook, but to buy food in the marke t ,
take care o f h e r i nf a n t , fe tch water from a neighborhood pump, clean pots
and pans, and do the laundry. From dawn to dusk , Djebo performed these
tasks as lemma and Hadjo sat in front of their huts and criticized her.
Olkes decided to befriend Djebo. She accompan ied Djebo to the pump
and to the marke t . On market day, Olkes bough t Djebo a black shawl , the
current rage i n T i l l aberi . For whatever reason-cul ture , age , or personal
i ty-Djebo did not respond to these overtures. She socialized outside of the
compou nd and did not participa te i n the rambling conversa tions of the
early eveni n g .
O n e d a y before S toller a n d Olkes' departure , Djebo prepared a wonder
ful sauce for the noon mea l . She made a locust bean sauce fla vored with
peanut flour. Olkes and S toller ate with abandon . When Djebo came to
the i r house to col lect the empty cassero les , Olkes compl i mented her on the
mea l .
Stoller raised h i s arms skyward and sa i d : " Praise b e t o God ."
Saying nothi ng, Djebo smi led and left their house . Thirty minutes
l ater, Djebo returned to see Stoller and Olkes-her first social v i s i t in two
weeks . Saying l i ttle, she looked over their thi ngs . She opened the lid of
their non-fa t dry m i l k and tasted some . She touched their camera, and ran
her fingers over their tape recorder. Olkes and Stoller had seen this kind of
behavior before . A person in N i ger rarely asks for money d i rec tly; ra ther, he
or she l ingers in the donor's house and says nothing. Djebo l i n gered in
Stoller and O l kes' house for thi rty m i nu tes and left .
" Do you understand t h e reason for that scrumpt ious mea l ? " Olkes
asked Stol ler.
S tol ler nodded . " She isn 't sa t isfied w i th the black shaw l ? "
" I guess not ."
" Damn her! We can 't give her money. We have to give money to Adamu
Jeni tongo."
" She does n ' t want to fol low the rules of custom , does she ? "
" I just bet that she has been pocketing some o f the money gi ven t o her
for foo d , " Stoller sa i d . " Tha t 's why the sauces have been med iocre ."
That night Djebo's horri ble fukko hoy expressed sensua l ly her anger, an
anger formed from a complex of c i rcu mstances . She wanted her sauce to be
disgus t i n g .
One of the earl iest writers on taste was Seneca. In his Epistulae morales
he wrote that food not only nourishes our bodies, but also
nourishes our h igher nature ,-we shou l d see to i t that whatever we have ab
sorbed should not be a l lowed to remain unchanged, or it w i l l be no part of us .
We must digest i t ; otherw ise it w i l l merely en ter memory and not the reasoni n g
power. L e t us loyal l y welcome such foods and m a k e them o u r own , s o t h a t
something that is o n e m a y be formed out of m a n y elements.3
Seneca was a mong the first of the classical phi losophers to write of judg
ment with digesti ve metaphors . " For Seneca, the proper digestion of re
c e i ved i deas both educates and is the resu l t of an i ndependent faculty of
judgme n t , and this in turn is the precondit ion of righ t action ."4 These
metaphors stem from the c l assical notion that the mouth and tongue
enable us to " i nges t " the outside worl d . Physical tasting is extended to
mental tasting, the classical notion of judgment .5
In his Critique of Judgment, Kant rej ects the classical notion that the
faculty of taste can be extended to social , pol i t ic a l , or scientific matters . In
fac t , he removes taste entirely from the domain of science , preferring to
consider i t a purely aesthetic sense .
Kan t 's passage suggests that the faculty of taste should be restricted to the
apprehension of objects of beau ty. Following the pub l ic ation of the Critique
ofJudgment in 1790 , taste was no longer considered an appropriate concept
in the c l assically approved domains of pol i t ic s , society and science-do
mains that were restricted to the logical , objec t ive, and scientific reflect ion
of the Enl igh tenmen t .
" Good taast " in the sense of good u nderstanding was recorded in 1 42 5 .s But
the metaphoric extensions of the word became confused in the latter part of
the seventeenth century and the eigh teen th century, when it was associated
w i t h general rules . In Engl ish , then , the sensual aspects of taste were
gradua l l y replaced by the more genera l and rule-governed not ion . Perhaps
due to the Kant ian influence , the meanings of taste and good taste are even
today far removed from their sensual at tributes. Djebo's sense of taste is
sensual and subjective; Kan t 's sense of Taste is rarefied and objec t i ve.
Derrida's Dregs
Mon taigne 's sensuality has had a m i n i mal influence on Western though t ,
however. More prevalent today are t h e rarefied Enligh tenment metaphors
of composi tion and construction . In Hegel 's construct i ve syste m , for exam
ple, " the material of idea l i ty is l ight and sound . Voice , in the relat ion to
heari ng (the most sublime sense), ani mates sound , perm i t ting the passage
from more sensi ble existence to the representat ional existence of the con
cept ." I I Sight and hearing are theoret ical senses that represent the at tempt
of the En I igh ten men t philosophers to crea te from the c haos of appearances
constructed systems of " rea l i ty, " wherein one might Taste the Truth .
In sharp con trast to historical and modern masters of phi losophy,
Derrida stands for sensu a l i ty as opposed to rarefac tion, for dec onstru ction
ism as opposed to construc t ionism , for decomposition as opposed to Taste .
In O{ Grammatology and in Glas, Derrida ind ica tes a philosoph ic a l system
based upon such non-t heoretica l senses as taste (also smell and touc h)
which depend upon a part of the body, the tongue , wh ic h is primary in
speech product ion :
The Taste of Ethnograph ic Th ings 25
The dividing membrane w h i c h i s cal led t h e soft palate, fixed b y i t s upper edge
to the border of the roof. floats freely, at i t s lower end, above the base of the
tongue . Its two lateral s i des ( i t i s a quadri lateral) are cal led " p i llars." In the
m i ddle of the floating end, at the entrance to the throa t , hangs the fleshy
appendage of the uvula, l i ke a small grape . The text is spit out . It i s l ike a
discourse in which the u n i t ies model themselves after an excrement , a secre
tion . And because it has to do here w i t h a glot t i c gesture , the tongue working on
i tself, saliva is the elemen t which st icks the u n i t ies together. 1 2
As U l mer suggests, Derrida's texts condemn Hegel 's assertion that odor and
taste "are use less for artistic pleasure , given that esthetic contemplation
requires objectivity wi t hout reference to desire or w i l l , whereas ' things
present themsel ves to smell only to the degree in which they are con
sti tuted by a process , in which they dissolve i n to the air with practical
effects .' " 1 3 For Derrida there shou l d be no separation of the intel l igible
from the sensible . S i nce Kan t , he argues , Taste has been an objec tive ,
rarefied distanci ng from a n object o f art . Using the sensual Mon taigne as
one of his model s , Derrida opposes gustus with disgust and taste with
distaste . The key concept of Dcrrida's wri t i ng on taste is le vomi, " which
explicitly engages not the ' objective ' senses of hearing and sigh t , nor even
touch , which Kant descri bes as ' mechanica l , ' all three of which involve
percept ion of or at surfaces, but the ' subjecivc ' or ' chemica l ' senses of taste
and smel l ." 1 4 For Derrida, then, Djebo's {ukko hoy shou l d not only be spit
out into an ethnographic tex t , but should be done so with sensual vivid
ness , for Djebo's bad sauce is gloriously d isgusting; it reeks with meaning.
Taste in A n thropology
Beyond the sensual descript ions in anthropological cookbooks , most an
thropologists have fol lowed Hege l 's lead i n separating the i n t e l l igible from
the sensi b l e . This Hegelian tendency is evident from even a cursory exam
inat ion of ethnographic wri t ing. Like most wri ters , most ethnographers
tac i t l y conform to a set of conven t ions that col leagues use to judge a work .
Marcus and Cushman have suggested that convent ions governing eth
nographic represen tation devolve from rea l i s m . They argue that rea l ist
ethnographic d i scourse seeks the rea l i ty of the whole of a given society, and
that " realist ethnographies are wri t ten to al lude to the whole by means of
parts or foci of analytical at tention which constantly evoke a social and
cul tural totali ty." 1 5 In an article in L'Homme, S tol ler desc ri bes the philo
soph ical development of realism in ethnography. 1 6 That development
eventually resul ted i n a set of convent ions that Marcus and Cushman have
analyzed :
I. a narrat ive s t ructure which devolves from cul tura l , func tiona l i s t , or
s t ructuralist analytical ca tegories to achieve a total ethnograph y ;
26 Tastes in Anthropology
2 . a third person n arra tive voice which distinguishes rea list ethnogra
phies from travel accounts;
3. a manner of presentat ion i n which i n di v iduals among the people stud
ied rem a i n nameless , charac terless ;
4 . a section of text , usua l l y a Preface or Afterword , which describes the
context of i n vestigat ion ;
5 . a focus on everyday l i fe con texts represe n t i ng the Other's rea l i ty to
justify the fit of the analytical fra mework to the ethnographic si tua
t ion ;
6 . an assertion that the ethnography represents the native's poi n t of
view ;
7 . a general izing style i n which events are rarely described idiosyncra t
ical ly, but as typical man i festat ions of marriage , ki nsh ip, ritual , etc . ;
8 . a use of jargon w h i c h signals t h a t t h e t e x t is, i ndeed , an ethnography a s
opposed t o a travel accou n t ;
9 . a reticence by authors to discuss t h e i r competence i n t h e Other's
language . 1 7
Wh i le mos t ethnographers rel igiously fol lowed these con ventions of rea list
representation i n the pas t , there are a growi n g nu mber of scholars who are
worried about the epistemological and pol i t ical ra m i fica tions of ethno
graphic rea l i s m . Directly and i n d i rec tly, their ethnographic and t heoret
ical wri t i ngs reflect these phi losoph ic issues . 1 8 Fab ian wri tes of h i s concern
about anthropology's i n tel lectual i m peria l i s m : " Perhaps I failed to make i t
clear t h a t I wan ted language and com munication to b e understood as a
kind of praxis i n which the Knower cannot clai m ascendency over the
Known (nor, for that mat ter, one Knower over another). As I see it now, the
anthropologist and his i n terlocu ters on ly ' know ' when they meet each
other in one and the same con tempora l i t y." ' 9
Al though the new "experi mental " works have b een provocative, most
of them consider typical anthropological subjects of study, alb e i t through
part ially al tered conve n t ions of representat ion . How could it be otherwise ,
when discip l i n ary constra i n ts force most wri ters to concentrate on certa i n
ki nds of subjects : t h e theory o f Taste i nstead o f t h e taste of b a d sauce , t h e
theory of the fam i l y instead of texts t h a t fa m i l iarize t h e reader w i t h fam i l y
members, t h e theory o f experi men tal ethnography i n s tead c.f experi men tal
eth nographies . How can i t be otherwise, when d i sc i p l i nary constraints
i m pose form and order on what is published . Take , for example, the Ab
stracts of the Annual [A nthropology} Meetings:
Name, insti tution, and t i tle of paper or fi l m must precede narra t i ve portion: Pu t
last name fi rs t ; use capi tal let ters for author's last name and t i t le of paper; do
The Taste of Ethnographic Th ings 27
n o t include ' u n i vers i t y ' o r ' col lege ' w i t h institution name given in parenthe
ses . . . . Write the text i n complete sen tences . U se the present tense; use only
t h i rd person. 2 0
This prescription may be a fine model for terse scientific wri t i n g , but i t
discourages unconventional i ty i n ethnographic writing w i t h the message
it sends to potential Annual Meeting part icipants : " We are a scientific
organ izat ion . We sponsor scient i fic papers i n our scientific program ." Good
or " beautifu l " abstrac ts, in the sense of Kant and Hegel , are written in the
present tense (the ethnographic prese n t ?) and i n the third person (a marker
of objecti v i ty ?) Even today, Hegel 's Esthetics casts a long shadow over
anthropological representation .
Despi te the difficul ties prec i p i tated by a long entrenched philosophi
cal tradi tion , i t is a l together certai n that the pioneering and courageous
efforts of contemporary ethnographers have forced anthropologists to pon
der the nature of both their scholarship and their bei n g . But do these
writers take us far enough ? Are there other d imensions of e thnographic
discourse , other conven tions of representation which may carry anthropol
ogy deeper i n to the being of the others ? Are t here other modes of represen
tat ion that better solve the fundamental problems of realist ethnographic
representation : voice , authori ty, and authenticity?
Example I [ Let ter from acquisitions edi tor to Stol ler] . ! have just recei ved two
reviews of your manuscrip t , and I 'm sorry to have to tell you that these have not
been sufficien tly encouraging for me to feel able to offer to consider the work
further. Both reviewers though t that the scri pt con tai ned some in teresting data,
but fel t that the theoretical argument was insufficiently wel l developed .
Example 2 [Com ments from Stoller to anonymous author] . The author of this
article suggests that anthropologists consider music more seriousl y, less tan
gen tial ly, i n their analyses of sociocultura l systems. Merri man made more or
less the same statement i n his pioneering Anthropology o( Music ( 1 964). which
the author unfortunately does not c i te . . . . The author leads one to bel ieve that
we should consider the sociocul tural aspects of music seriously. I ful l y agree .
After reading the piece, however, ! feel the author has fal len into the t rap he/she
says other anthropologists have fa l len i n to. Music is not the central concern of
this article; i t is of secondary or perhaps tert iary i m portance when compared
w i t h the author's overriding concern with subsistence and the materialist per
spect i ve . . . . In short the author fai l s to highlight the importance of music in the
cul tural scheme of thi ngs . . . .
Example 4 [ Reader's com ments to Stol ler] . I sympathize with the author's
desi re to go beyond the l i m i ts of posi t i v ism and enter i n to the mental set of the
people he studies , though he might take note that this is the poi nt of departure
espoused by such di verse scholars as Boas, Mal i nowsk i , and Rad i n , among
others . My objec tion to the work is not in his effort to seek an i nside viewpo i n t ,
but i n his fai lure to demonstrate i ts v a l u e , and , above a l l , i n his fa i l ure to meet
the canons of academic evidence. One must presume that the young man i n his
narrative was h i msel f-but his unwi l l i ngness to communica te in the scien t i fic
mode and to adhere to the Songhay ru les, depri ves us of d i rect evidence for this
insight and makes us wonder at the source and character of his information .
Example 5 [ Reader's com ments to Stol ler] . Th is is basically a sui table article for
the . . . , si nce i t has an i n teres ting and sign ificant poi n t to make concern ing the
need to recogn i ze the i m portance of sound in many societies. I feel . however,
that many readers would not be gripped enough at the beg i n n i n g of the article
[a narrative with dia logue] . . . to see i t through to the end . . . . My personal
preference i s for less human istic and subjective language .
ture , or that the author has some very valuable field data in hand . It would be
quite usefu l to have a good study of Songhay rel igion and c u l ture . . . . While
there is some i n teresting descript ion of possession rituals , and of Songhay
rel igion and history, if I have to judge it frankly I must say that at this poi n t it is
a half-baked manuscrip t .
The weakness o f i ts theoret ical grounding leads to t h e lack o f a n y real
i n tegration of the descrip tive material beyond the repeated (and u l t i mately
somewhat boring) assertion that the cults are forms of cultura l resi stance . . . . I
t h i n k there are two central poi nts of weakness , which the author gl ides over a t
t h e beginning where he casua l l y dismisses psychological a n d functional ac
cou n t s : he shows no evidence of having read the work of V ictor Turner . . . and
he shows no evidence of fa m i l iarity with the recent studies of the psycho
physiology of trance which have made such rapid advances i n our understand
ing of these phenomena . . . .
Tasteful Fieldwork
In tastefu l fieldwork , anthropologists wou ld not only investigate kinship,
exchange , and symbol i s m , bu t also describe with l i terary vivi dness the
sme l l s , tastes , and tex tu res of the land , the people, and the food . Rather
than looking for deep-sea ted h i dden t ru ths, the tastefu l field worker u n der
stands, fol lowing Foucau l t , " that the deep hidden mean ing, the u nreach
ab le heights of tru th , the mu rky i n teriors of consciou sness are all shams."2 3
From the sensu a l tastefu l vantage , the fieldworker invest igates the l i fe
stories of individu a l Songhay, Nuer, or Trobrianders as opposed to total
ized investigations of the Songhay, the Nuer, or the Trobriander. This
recording of the complex i t ies of the individu a l 's social experience lends
textu re to the landscape of the fieldworker's notes . In this way, seemingly
i nsign i ficant i ncidents as being served bad sauce become as i mportant as
sit ting with a nameless informan t and record ing genea logies-da ta-that
eventu a l l y b ecome components i n a system of kinsh i p . In this way eth
nographic research crea tes voice , au thori ty, and an au ra of au then tici ty.
Tasteful Writing
There are probably many anthropologists who do engage in tastefu l field
work . Despite their scien tific ob jec t i ves , they become sensu a l ly i m mersed
30 Tastes in Anthropology
in their field surroundi ngs . These i mpressions, however, are usua l l y cast
aside-becomi n g vomi t - i n their pu b l i shed theoretical and ethnographic
wri t ings . Like Djebo 's bad sauce , con ventions of representation govern ing
genre selection cou l d be thrown i n to a t rash p i t .
Acknowledging t h e d iverse col lection o f refuse , t h e tasteful writer u ses
the notion of melange as his or her guiding metaphor for producing tastefu l
ethnographic wri t i n g .
In Derrida's Glas, t h e wri ting on t h e pages is arranged in two columns.
In the left-hand colu mn is prose representing Hegel (rarefaction , Taste, the
Enli gh tenment and i ts theoretical senses). In the righ t-hand colum n , by
contrast , is prose representing Genet (sensu a l i ty, taste , post-modern ism
and i ts non- theoretical senses). W i t h i n this revolu tionary styl istics is a
powerful indirect chal lenge to the fu n damental me taphors of the Western
phi losophic trad i t ion . Derrida's Glas is in bad Taste . Bu t Derrida's bad
Taste-his vom i t-provides a poi nt of reference for tasteful ethnographic
wri t i n g that incorpora tes the non-theoretical senses .
Consider first an exa mple from James Agee 's Let Us Now Praise Famous
Men, in which he descri bes the odors of a tenant farm house in Alabama.
These are i ts i ngredients. The odor of pine lumber, w i de t h i n cards of it, heated
i n the sun, in no way doubled or insulated, in closed and darkened air. The odor
of woodsmoke, the fuel being again mainly pine, but in part also, hickory, oak
and cedar. The odors of cook i n g . Among these , most strongly, the odors of fried
salt pork and of fried and boi led pork lard , and secon d, the odor of cooked corn .
The odors of sweat in many s tages of age and freshness , this sweat being a
d i s t i l l a tion of pork , lard , corn , woodsmoke, pine and am monia. The odors of
sleep, of bedding and of brea thing, for the ven t i l a t ion is poor. The odors of all
the d i rt that i n the course of t i me can accu mulate in a q u i l t and mattress. Odors
of staleness from clothes hung or stored away, not washed . I shou ld further
describe the odor of corn : i n swea t , or on the teeth and the breath , when it is
eaten as much as they eat it, it is of a part icular sweet stuffy fetor, to which the
nearest parallel i s the odor of the yel low excrement of a baby. . . . 24
Consi der next an example from John Chernoff's African Rhythm and African
Sensibility, i n which he describes how mu sic and African social l i fe in ter
penetra te.
A t the begi n n i ng of each year the hannattan winds blow a fine dust from the
Sahara Desert across the Sudan and over the coastal areas of the Gulf of Gui nea.
In Bamako, capital of Mal i , you might observe the evening t raffic as if through a
reddish brown fi l ter which softens and mutes the sights and sounds of the
crowded streets. The a tmosphere i s tranq ui l , and standing on the long bri dge
over the N i ger Ri ver, w i t h cars passing just a few feet beh i n d you , you might
look a t a lone fisherman i n h i s gracefu l canoe and feel that only the lovely
melodies of the harp- l i ke kora cou l d capture and convey the unity of the scene .
At night the temperature drops u n t i l you might wonder why you ever thought
The Taste of Ethnograph ic Th ings 31
you missed w i n ter, and i f by chance you found yourself i n an isolated v i l lage a t
t h e r i g h t t i me and you looked up a t t h e m u l t i tude of stars, you might hear the
music of xylophones through the crisp air and bel ieve that the clarity of the
music was perhaps more than superfic ially appropriate to the s t i l l ness of the
n i gh t . 2 5
There had been no rai n for five mon ths and a l l the game had vanished . We were
lucky if we managed to shoo t an emaciated parrot or capture a large tupinambis
l i zard to boi l in our rice, or managed to roast in their she l l s a land tortoise or an
armadi l lo with black, oily flesh . More often than not , we had to be content with
xarque, the same dried meat prepared mon ths prev iously by a butcher in
Cuiaba and the thick worm-infested layers of which we unrol led every morning
i n the sun, i n order to make them less noxious, a l t hough they were usual l y i n the
same state the next day. Once , however, someone k i l led a w i l d p i g ; its lightly
cooked flesh seemed to us more i n toxicating than wine: each of us devoured
more than a pound of i t , and at that moment I understood the a l l eged gluttony
of savages , which is ment ioned by so many travel lers as proof of their u ncouth
ness . One on ly had to share their diet to experience s i m i l a r pangs of hunger; to
eat one 's fill i n such c i rcumstances produces not merely a feeling of repletion
but a posi tve sensa tion of bl iss.27
These examples are only a slice of the l ife that l ives in the tasteful ethnogra
phies of Agee , Chernoff, and Lev i-Strauss . In a l l the examples, t he writers
season their prose with the non-theoretical senses to evoke a worl d . Agee
masterfu l l y uses a mel ange of sme l l s to evoke t he habi tus of southern
tenan t farmers- their fa tty die t , their fi l thy clothes, their stuffy houses,
their abject m isery. In one smelly paragraph we have a memorable portrait
of the l ives of these peopl e . Chernoff records the interpenetra t ion of sound
and sight in African social l ife . This paragraph evokes an African world in
which " participa tory " music gives shape to a people's system of values as
wel l as to their manner of l iv ing-in-the-wor l d . With Levi-Strauss we come
b ack to the sensual notion of taste . In one vivid paragraph he ru m inates on
the l i n k between deprivat ion of diet and glut tony in the Amazon . Even
European intel lec tua ls can descend into gluttony!
Should t h is kind of writing be exc ised from the ethnographic manu
scripts of the future ? Aren ' t expositions on odors , sounds, and tastes extra
neous to the ethnographic message ? What can these details reveal about a
sociocultural system ? In terms of systema t ic analysis, these kinds of evoca
tive details do not uncover a system of ki nship or exchange or symbolis m ;
32 Tastes in Anthropology
hence Geertz 's critique of Tristes tropiques as not even a good anthropology
book . Tasteful anthropology books are analytic , theoret ical , and ephem
era l ; tasteful ethnographies are descriptive, non-theoretical , and memora
ble . Wri ters of tasteful ethnograph ies mix an assort ment of ingredients
dialogue, description , metaphor, metonomy, synecdoche , irony, smells,
sights, and sounds- to create a narrative that savors the world of the
Other. And just as Chernoff's drumming in Ghana once inspired members
of an audience to say : " ' Oh , the way you played ! It moved me . It was
swee t , ' " so a well constructed narrative moves the listener or the reader to
say : " Can I tell you a terri fic story ? " Indeed , there is l i fe in the words of a
good story ; there is l i fe in the prose of a tasteful eth nography.
In his monumental essay L'Oeil et /'esprit, Merleau- Ponty states that we
lose much of the substance of l i fe-i n-the-world by thinking opera tional ly,
by defining ra ther than experienci ng the reality of th ings .
Science manipulates thi ngs and gi ves up l i v ing in the m . It makes its own
l i m i ted models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect
whatever transformations are perm i t ted by their definition; it comes face to
face w i th the rea l world only at rare i n terva l s . Science is and always has been
that admirably active, i ngenious , and bold way of thinking whose fundamental
bias is to treat everything as though i t were an object-in- general-as though it
meant nothing to us and yet was predesti ned for our own use .2"
An ethnographic di scourse that " comes face to face with the real world only
at rare intervals" is usua l l y so turgid that i t is digestible by only a few
dedicated specialists-a discourse that w i l l soon be forgotten . A tasteful
ethnographic d iscourse that takes the notion of melange as i ts foundat ion
would encourage wri ters to blend the i ngredients of a world so that bad
sauces might be transformed i n to delic ious prose .
much of his time at his tai lor shop. He took his lunches there ; for d i n ner, he
somet i mes ate small mea ls at the Baghdad bars : s teak and french fries ,
green beans , omelet tes . After Stoller's arrival , to ful fi l l the requ i rements of
Songhay hospi ta l i ty, Moussa made sure to return home to eat his meals.
The qua l i ty of the sauces hadn ' t changed . Djebo d i d not serve fukko
hoy, but on occasion she refused to prepare meals, forcing Moussa, Stoller,
and Adamu Jeni tongo to eat meals of bread and sardines in soy o i l .
" T h i ngs are better now that you have come , " Moussa told Stoller.
"Weeks go by and she does n ' t prepare mea l s . Baba is o l d ; he needs to eat
better, but she doesn 't care . My brother Moru does n ' t care . And Baba, he
chews kola and tobacco."
" Bad sauces are better than no sauces , " Stol ler said .
After one week of sauces the q ua l i t y of which ranged from mediocre to
bad , Stoller suffered a violent case of diarrhea. He quickly lost weigh t .
Moussa suggested a n al ternative .
" Le t 's eat our lunches with Madame . She is a n excel lent cook ." Ma
dame was the daughter of Adamu Jeni tongo 's sister, Kedibo.
Moussa and Stoller began to eat lunch at Madame 's house . The sauces
were tasty: fine gombo, sesame, and squash sauces a l l of which were spiced
de l icately with permutat ions of garl i c , ginger, locust bea n , and hot pepper.
Moussa and Stoller stuffed themselves, know i ng that the eve n i ng fare
wou l d be much worse : taste less rice paste drowned with watery tomato
sauces all of which were spiced wi thout i maginat ion . There was m i l let in
the compound , but Djebo refused to prepare i t .
When i t became apparen t that Stoller was taking h i s meals at Ma
dame 's house , Djebo protested . Jemma, Djebo's mother-in-law, scowled .
" Why do you insist on your European sauces ? " Jemma asked h i m .
"Why don 't you e a t the sauces w e prepare for you ? "
Stoller d i d n o t respond directly ; rather, h e forced h i mself t o e a t two
mea ls at lunch and one at di nner. Even with this increased consumption ,
Stoller lost more weigh t . His diarrhea con tinued .
Shamed by the bad sauces in his concession , Moussa confron ted his
younger brother Moru before an audience of visi tors to the compoun d .
" How c a n anyone l i ve in this compound with your lazy wife , who,
when she lowers hersel f to prepare food for us, produces sauces that our
ch ickens won ' t eat."
" Now hold on , older brother. How can you . . . "
" Shut up, you ignora n t peasant . I feel l i ke a stranger in my own home .
Why re turn to a place where I 'm not wanted ? "
Moru wagged h i s forefinger at Moussa. " You donkey. Worth less person .
Come closer and insult my w i fe . I ' l l tear your eyes out . A man who does n ' t
even have a wife deserves to eat shi t ."
34 Tastes in Anthropology
" Be t ter to be single than to be a slave to a bi tch , " Moussa retorted. ' T t l
eat my sauces elsewhere."
Moru 's wife and mother restrained h i m .
Stoller restrained Moussa.
Adamu Jeni tongo called for peace . " We shame oursel ves in front of
strangers ."
Moru and Moussa are half-brothers . In the Songhay language they are
bab 'izey, which has two translations : "half-brothers" and " rivals." In Song
hay bab 'izey frequently have relationships the major i ngredient of which is
jealousy and bad feel ings bui l t up over a l i fetime. This problem has poi
soned the relationships between Moru and Moussa. As men , they have very
d i fferent kinds of temperaments. Moru is hot-headed and prone to verbal
and even physical confron tation . Moussa is even-tempered and keeps his
emotions more to hi msel f. Moru is a musician who somet i mes works as a
laborer. Moussa is a tai lor who works steadi ly. To add more sal t to an open
wound, both Moussa and Moru covet the powerful secre ts of their fa ther,
one of the most powerful sorcerers (sohanci) i n N i ger.
In h i s old age Sohanci Adamu Jeni tongo h i n ted that he would pass on
his secrets to both Moussa and Moru . But only one of them would receive
his chain of power and his sacred rings . To Moru , Jemma, and Djebo, the al
liance of the younger son , i t was painfully obvious that Adamu Jeni tongo
had chosen his eldest son Moussa to succeed h i m . Moussa had the relatively
cal m disposi tion requ i red for receiving grea t power. Moussa also had pow
erful allies: Kedibo, Adamu Jeni tongo 's youngest sister, favored Moussa
because Moussa's mother, Hadjo, was the sister of her late husband. Each
t i me she visi ted her brother, Ked i bo extolled the vi rtues of her " nephew."
Moussa's steady d isposition and his strategic pos i t ion in the fami l y kin
ship network made Moru 's s i tuat ion hopeless . Being powerless to change
the course of events, Moru , Djebo, and Jemma chose to make l i fe m iserable
for Moussa, h i s mother Hadjo, and Adamu Jeni tongo. As the recipient of
power, Moussa would soon reap considerable social rewards . He would
soon become the sohanci of T i l laberi ; people would fear and respect h i m .
Moru wanted t h e fear a n d respec t that h i s older brother was soon t o receive.
Powerless, Moru , Jemma, and Djebo used sauce to express the i r frustra
tions . Moussa must eat bad sauces and suffer i n exchange for his good
fortune .
Sauce had again become the major i ngredient i n the s tew of (Songhay)
social relations , something which Montaigne had rea l i zed long before
Djebo had produced her fi rst (though certainly not her last) bowl of fukko
hoy.
PA R T I I
Santayana
Eye, M ind, and Word in
2 Anthropology
Bu t how can the pai n ter lead us to a vantage from which we can
apprec iate more profoundly the l i fe which resides in objects or i n other
peopl e ? For Cezanne, Merleau-Pon ty, and others , painters are pathfinders
to the " there is" because they give their bod ies to the world . For the painter
there is no Cartesian distinction between subjective data gathering and
objec tive data analysis. " Indeed , we cannot imagine how a mind could
pa i n t . I t is by lending his body to the world that the artist changes the
world i n to pai n t i ngs."J
And so, in the act of painting we have a metaphor for seeing and
thinking in the world , a seeing-thinking from the inside . As Klee has wri t
ten :
In a forest I have fel t many t i mes over that it was not I who looked at the forest .
Some days I fel t that the trees were looki ng a t me. I was there, l istening . . . . I
think the painter must be penet rated by the uni verse and not penetrate i t . .I . .
If anthropologists take a sensual turn , they, too, can " open up." U n l ike
pain ters , we are not necessari l y submerged under an avalanche of brute
data which penetrate our senses ; rather, we are buried under the sed i ment
of centuries of cul tural empiricism-our senses penetrate brute data. Ours
is the " gaze , " to borrow the apt term of M ichel Foucau l t , of empiricis m .
"Gaze " is the a c t o f seeing; it is a n a c t o f selective perception .5 Much of
Eye, Mind, a nd Word in Anthropology 39
what we see is shaped by our experiences , and our " gaze " has a d i rect
bearing on what we t h i n k . And what we see and t h i n k , to take the process
one step further, has a bearing upon what we say and what and how we
writ e .
Like a l l h u m a n beings , anthropologists engage i n t h e act o f see i n g .
W h a t differentiates anthropological seeing from other forms o f seeing is
that our " gaze " is d i rected toward an ethnographic other. We talk to eth
nographic others during fieldwork and attempt to make sense of what they
say and do. Due to the centra l i ty of fieldwork to the ethnographic enter
prise , most anthropologists give their eyes and m i n ds to the world of the
other. Al though anthropologists, l ike painters , lend their bodies to the
world , we tend to al low our senses to penetrate the other's world rather
than letting our senses be penetrated by the world of the other. The res u l t of
this tendency is that we represent the other's world i n a generally turgid
discourse which often bears l i ttle resemblance to the world we are at
tempting to describe .
The problem of anthropological representation meets i t s greatest tes t ,
however, i n studies o f shama n i s m , magi c , and sorcery. In these kinds of
studies , social theories- the seeping sap of the turgid discourse- may be
of l i t tle aid in our assessment of brute data in which the " irra t iona l i t ies" of,
say, a magical vision play a major role. A n thropologists e ngaged in the
study of shamanism, for example , may observe or experience something so
extraordinary that t hey can find no reasonable explanation for i t . How do
we represent these data ? Should we include them i n our discourse ? What
wou ld the painter do?
Those anthropologists who have observed or experienced something
which is beyond the edge of rat iona l i ty tend to discuss i t i n i nformal
set t i n gs-over lunc h , d i n ner, or a drink. Serious a n thropological discus
sion of the extraordinary, in fact , t ranscends the bar or restaura n t only on
rare occasions .6 In formal set t ings we are supposed to be d ispassionate
analysts; we are not supposed to include i n discourse our confrontations
w i t h the extraordinary because they are unscien tific. I t is simply not ap
propriate to expose to our col leagues the texture of our hearts and the
uncertainties of our " gaze ." Many French anthropologists have lambasted
Jeanne Favret-Saada for her publ ished s t udy of wi tchcraft i n the Bocage of
Wes tern France , in which she reveals what it means to be personally en
meshed i n a system of magic-sorcery. I n her first book , Deadly Words,
Favret-Saada questions the Cartesian foundation of the epistemology of
anthropology. In Corps pour corps, her second book (co-authored with Josee
Cont reras), she journeys beyond the boundary of criticism and becomes a
" pathfinder, " for in this tex t , a journal of her fieldwork , she experiments
with the form of anthropological discourse .
40 Visions in the Field
The painter "sees what i nadequacies keep the world from being a
pai n t i n g . . . and sees pai n t i n g as an answer to all these i nadequacies."7
Wha t of the i nadequacies of anthropological discourse ? In the remai nder of
this chapter, by way of an epistemological discussion of my experience as
an apprent ice to sorcerers among the Songhay of N i ger, I argue that we
need to transform oursel ves from ethnographic "spec tators into seers ."s
Al though the accoun t of my exposure to the mysteries of the world of
Songhay sorcery is necessari ly personal , I hope that the reader w i l l grasp
the epistemological u t i l i ty of so vivid an account of field experience . If we
learn to " read " and "write" in a manner s i m i lar to the way the pai n ter
paints, we may wel l be able to sensualize prose which represents others so
that our books become the study of human being as well as human be
havior.9
of Dj ibo, a farmer from the v i l lage , one , maybe bot h , of the b i rds defecated
on my head .
" Birdsh i t ! Goddam country. Goddam v i l lage . Goddam v i l lage ! " I
screamed i n English as I jumped off my chair and kicked the floor of my
house .
" Praise be to God , " Dj ibo chan ted loudly, raising his hands skyward .
" How can you say something l i ke that at a time l i ke this ! " I snapped .
'' I ' m not laughing at you , Paul , I feel joy in my heart ."
" Joy ! What joy can there be i n t h i s ? "
" Yes, joy. I have seen somet h i ng today."
" No kidding."
" Yes , I have seen a sign . You see , Paul , I am a sorko. My father is a sorko.
And my grandfather, and grandfather's grandfa ther-all have been sor
kos ."
" What does that have to do w i th me ? " Despi te my frustra tion I was
i n trigued , for I had heard and read about the powers of the sorko, one of
three kinds of Songhay magician-healers .
" U n t i l today, my being a sorko had nothing to do w i t h you , " Dj i bo
con t i nued , " bu t today I have seen a sign . You have been poi nted out to me .
Yes , I am a sorko and now that you have been pointed out to m e , I want you
to come to my compound tomorrow after the evening prayer so that we
might begin to learn texts."
" What are you talking abou t ? "
" I a m saying t h a t I w a n t you t o learn to b e a sorko , " Dj i bo s a i d a s h e
cracked h i s knuckles . " The choice is yours t o make . If you choose m y pa t h ,
come t o my compound tomorrow." Dj ibo walked toward t h e door, stopped
a t the threshold and looked back toward me. " Praise be to God ."
My i m mediate inclination was to wonder: But what wou l d the mem
bers of my d issertation com m i t tee think? . . . I would l ike to study w i th
you , but I really must complete my disserta tion work . My second incl i na
t ion was to accept this rare i n v i tation because I knew that this kind of
opportun i ty cou l d not be deferred .
called sorko benya ( l i t . " slaves of the sorko"). People in this category learn
al most as much as l i neal descendan ts, but there are some secrets that a
master w i l l i m part only to consangui neal ki n .
The novice sorko must memorize scores of ritual incantations , learn
how to find speci a l herbal ingredients, and then learn how to mix them
correctly into potions . 1 2 When the potion is prepared and adm inistered to
a clien t , the apprentice must learn how to reci te the appropriate ri tual tex t .
Once a novice is selected , h e is sa id t o have "en tered i n to sorkotarey. " When
I en tered i n to sorkotarey, Dj ibo sai d :
" You know not h i n g . Listen , remember, and learn ."
This I did until I was ready to be i n i tiated by Dj ibo's fa ther, Moun
mouni Koda, who, after more than fifty years of study and reflection, had
become a master sorko.
A person becomes a master sorko only when , after years of apprentice
ship, he hears from his dying fa ther (or i n i tiator) the most powerful secrets.
Armed with this knowledge, the new master takes upon h i s shoulders the
spiri tual burden of his com m u n i ty to protect i t from the forces of evi l :
wi tchcraft , sorcerers , and the force o f maliferous spiri t s . Mounmouni
Koda, a short old man with penetrating black eyes and a quiet laugh ,
l i s tened to my reci tation of ritual texts and spirit praise-songs . Sat isfied, he
consented to i n i tiate me as a sorko benya. He prepared a special food ,
called in Songhay kusu, and told me that when I met other people along the
path (of sorkotarey) I should tell them that I am " fu l l , " or that I should push
my forefinger i n to my stomac h . He also told me that the learn i ng never
stops .
" Your journey i n to the world of magic [what I am here calling Songhay
inner space] w i l l end only w i t h your dea t h . "
Because I s t i l l knew " noth i n g " about sorkotarey, m y i n i t iator, t h e now
deceased sorko, sen t me to "si t " with a grea t master healer of the Songhay,
Sohanci Adamu Jeni tongo, a patri l i neal descendant of the great " Magic
King" of the Songhay Empire , Sonni Ali Ber. During my stay with Adamu
Jeni tongo, we wou ld talk abou t the Songhay universe . He would never
lecture me; rather, he insisted that I ask questions and, if the questions
were wel l formed , he might provide an answer to them . If the questions,
which were often about obscure ritual tex ts, were not we l l formed , he
would ask me to think more about the tex t s .
From this frail old m a n I learned scores o f r i t u a l texts designed t o
protec t me from the forces o f evil w h i c h I would confront o n the p a t h of
sorkotarey.
"And if a wi tch or sorcerer shou l d ever at tack you , " he told me, " you
must rec i te the genji how, " a text with the power to harmon i ze the forces of
the bush .
Eye, Mind, and Word in Anthropology 43
through the thick sand of the path , we were soon at the compound , in which
no person s t i rred . The compound, an e l l i pse of thirty mudbrick houses,
looked the same as i t had during my last visi t . Idrissa knocked on the door
of his father's house . " Baba, i t 's Idrissa."
Koundiababa, Idrissa's father, opened the door. He squ i n ted at us .
" Idrissa ? "
Idrissa asked h i s father for lodging. He gave u s the house next t o h i s
own , since i t s usual occupan t , Mamadu , was away i n t h e Ivory Coast
earn ing money to supplement the fam i l y 's income . I drissa found some
blankets , and we bedded down for the n i gh t .
Kassey, Idrissa's stepmother a n d t h e person whom I had come t o see ,
was not in Wanzerbe and would not return for three weeks . Idrissa recom
mended that I visit Dunguri , Kassey 's associate. I agreed .
We walked down a sandy embankment toward the road that separated
the two neighborhoods in Wanzerbe . The space between the two neighbor
hoods contained empty market stalls. Just beyond them stood the m i na
reted Friday mosque . We plod ded along sandy paths between low walls of
compounds. We greeted women who were pounding mi llet in their mor
tars . Once in the quarter of Sohanci , we encountered many of Idrissa's
people from h i s mother's side. They greeted us and asked after our hea l t h .
N e x t t o t h e s m a l l neighborhood mosque i n t h e center o f Sohanci w a s a
clearing w i t h a free-standing thatched canopy in the center. A dozen older
men recl ined i n the shade of that roof. We greeted them and asked them not
to get up to shake our hands . They did not . Fi na lly, we reached Dunguri 's
compound , which had no wal l s . Dunguri 's house was squeezed between
two large granaries and a mud brick corral for calves .
Idrissa clapped three t i mes outside the door of the woman 's house . She
came out and hugged h i m . As she gree ted Idrissa, she glanced at me. " Who
is t h i s stranger? " she asked Idrissa.
"This stranger, " I interjected i n Songhay, " is Paul from America. I am
Idrissa's friend."
" Idrissa, come i n to my house . We shou ld talk. You , too, can come in,
stranger."
We stepped down i nto Dunguri 's house . Brigh t cot ton blankets covered
her whi tewashed wal l s . She had draped a score of addi t iona l blankets over
two beds which had been placed at ei ther end of the rectangular room . She
gave us metal folding chairs to sit on . She , too, sat down on a hardbacked
chair, but eschewed i ts support as she leaned forward with her hands on
her knees .
Idrissa and Dunguri discussed the hea l t h and sickness of the people
they knew. So-and-so's son was i n N i amey serving i n the army. So-and-so's
daughter had married and was l i ving in a neighboring v i l lage . Amadu had
not been well lately. He had gone off to Tera for med ical attent ion , but the
Eye, Mind, and Word in Anthropology 45
Guinea worm still made him suffer. And an older man had recently died
from l iver disease . Idrissa asked Dunguri about the harvest .
" I t was good , Idrissa. My slave [husband] worked hard and brought i n
three hundred bundles of m i l let ."
" Our harvest in Mehanna," Idrissa told her, " was not good ."
Dunguri nodde d . " Some years we are blessed and in other years we are
cursed . A town l i ke Tegey only ten kilometers from here-Tegey might have
a good harvest while we here may not harvest one bundle of m i l let."
Duri ng the conversation Dunguri ignored me: she did not look at me
even once . Coming from someone else I would have deemed the behavior
rude ; from a Songhay it was most pecul iar. In most circumstances Song
hay are hospitable, and they are curious about the ways of strangers-not
so this woman Dunguri . I sat i mpatiently as they conversed , taking the
opportunity to study her face . I woul d never have guessed that this small
plump woman was a priestess . Her puffy face d i d not look particularly
intelligent , nor did her gaze seem forceful . Suddenly I heard the word
" stranger." Dunguri was asking Idrissa about me . This woman had the
audac i t y to ask Idri ssa about my work when I was presen t in the room . I
remained s i l e n t , t hough , as Idrissa crudely out l i ned my work in Mehanna
and T i l l aberi . He told her I was w riting a book .
" He w i l l not be using a machine to shoot fi l m , w i l l he?"
Idrissa assured her I had no in terest in film.
She turned toward me . " S tranger, where d i d you get your rings? They
are very beaut i fu l ."
Adamu Jeni tongo had warned me never to reveal to anyone the true
nature of the rings that he had given me for protection . " Thank you , " I said
to Dunguri . "I just bought these rings in Ayoru . I l i ke Tuareg rings very
much ."
Dunguri addressed Idrissa. " Show the stranger my granaries and ani
mals. I have no more t i me to talk with h i m today." She stood up, stepped
out of her house , and walked into her compound .
Idrissa and I looked at one another. Never had I been treated so un
graciously by a Songhay hos t . Idrissa frowned and muttered something
about Dunguri 's recent sufferings and suggested we look at her granaries
and animals. When we stepped into the compound, we saw no one . The
granary was fil led w i t h m i l let , and Dunguri , unlike most of her neighbors
in Sohanci , possessed a smal l herd of cows and calves , a sign of wea l t h .
" She l ives better than t h e others , does s h e not , Idrissa ? "
" Yes , " he agreed . " She is a z i m a and a powerful magician . S h e is well
paid for her services ."
Tired and frustrated , I prepared for bed . Wha t was the sense of my
coming to Wanzerbe ? I couldn ' t wait three weeks for the elusive Kassey.
46 Visions in the Field
And why had the woman Dunguri been so abrupt with me? I longed to
return to Tillaberi or to N i a mey. I longed for home . But I had to remain in
Wanzerbe for at least one week, because there were no trucks going to
Ayoru u n t i l Saturday, the day before the marke t . My kerosene lan tern
flickered out , I reconci led mysel f to spend ing some t i me in that God
forsaken place, and I slipped i n to sleep.
Some time later I awoke to the tat too of steps on the roof of the house .
Suddenly I had the strong i mpression that something had en tered the
house . I fel t i ts presence and I was frightened . Set to abandon the house to
whatever hovered in the darkness , I started to rol l off my mat . But my
lower body did not budge . I pi nched my leaden thighs and fel t nothing. My
heart raced . I couldn't flee . What could I do to save myse lf? As a sorko
benya, I began to reci te the genj i how, for Adamu Jeni tongo had told me
that if I ever fel t danger I should reci te this i ncantation until I had con
quered my fear. And so I reci ted and reci ted and reci ted u n t i l I began to feel
a slight tingling in my hips. Encouraged , I con tinued to reci te the i ncan ta
tion , and the tingl i ng spread down my thighs to my legs . My voice cracked ,
but I con ti nued to recite. Slowly, the t i ngling spread from my legs to my
fee t . I pi nched my thigh- i t hurt-and tested my response along the length
of my legs . Gi ngerly, I rolled off the mat and stood up. The presence had left
the room . Exhausted , I lay back on my straw mat and fel l i n to a deep sleep.
The next morning Idrissa woke me. I got up slowly and told Idrissa
that I was going to visit Dunguri .
'Til come w i th you ."
" No, Idrissa. I must go alone ."
I cannot explain why I fel t obl i ged to confront Dunguri , for I was
certain that it was she who had prec i p i tated the paralysis in my legs . The
previous night I had reacted to my crisis l i ke a sorcerer and , having
weathered the crisis, I had to con t i n ue to behave l ike a Songhay sorcerer.
And so I slowly walked ou t of my compound in Karia. The sun was s t i l l low
in the eastern sky and the air was cool and dry. But I was tired; my heart
pounded against my chest and I wondered what might happen when I
confronted Dunguri . I walked past the compound of Kassey and saw no one
i nside . I c l i mbed up the small dune upon which was situated the quarter of
Sohanci . An old man in a tat tered w h i te robe greeted me in Songhay but,
seeing my eyes , told me to con tinue. As I neared the top of the dune I saw
Dunguri 's compound ahead. The air was s t i l l , and I froze to the spo t . Then I
remembered what Adamu Jeni tongo once told me : When a man on the path
reaches the fork i n the road , he must make his choice of direction and
con tinue forward . And so I d i d . With trembling arms and wobbling knees I
en tered Dunguri 's compound and stood in its center, wai t i n g . After what
seemed to me a very long t i me , Dunguri emerged from her house . She
Eye, M ind, and Word in Anthropology 47
stared at me, and I tried to conceal my nervousness . But then she smi led at
me and approached , her pace quickeni n g . I was fixed i n place by my own
apprehension . As she closed the distance between us, I saw that she was
beaming. Stopping a few feet from me, she sai d : " Now I know that you are a
man w i t h a pure heart ." She took my left hand and placed i t i n hers . " You
are ready. Come into my house and we sha l l begin to learn ."
The descri ption of my encou n ter with Dunguri ends here , even though I
have seen her since that meeting which thrust me for the first t i me i n to the
magical di mension of the Songhay world . This accou n t , however, is more
than a personal narrative; i t is an event-in-the-field that forces us to con
fron t some serious epistemological questions about the nature of C' n thro
pology and what it represents. Is i t appropriate to incl ude in anthropologi
cal discourse such a personal , bizarre , and sensuous accou n t ? My first
i n c l i nation was to answer this question w i th an emphatic " N o ! " Indeed, in
my first article about some of my experiences i n the world of Songhay
sorcery, I scrupulously avoided men tion i ng t he fact that much of what I
had learned about Songhay sorcery had been from the " i nside" as an
i n i tiated apprentice . I n that text I al luded to my i nvolvement only in a
footnote descri bing how a healer i n the v i l lage of Mehanna came to accept
me as his student . 1 3 Why did I edit myse l f out of this earl ier tex t ? The
answer is si mple : we do not usual l y write what we want to wri te . I n my
case , I had conformed to one of the conven t ions of ethnographic rea l i s m ,
accordi ng t o which t h e author should be unint rusive i n an ethnographic
text . 1 4 As Foucaul t has powerfu l l y demonstrated , all d iscourse is shaped by
standards of acceptab i l i ty-the episteme-which govern the appropriate
ness of (ethnographic) conten t and style . l 5 These standards of accept
abi l i ty, moreover, determ ine both how an author w i l l construct a text and
which ki nds of texts are u l t i mately published . l 6
Stylistic evide nce of these standards of acceptab i l ity, t hese conven
t ions of representation , emerges from the most cursory examination of
wide-ranging varieties of discourse . In the eighteenth-century nove l , for
example, we have the picaresque convention i n which authors open their
texts w i t h statements concerning their fam i l y pedigree as wel l as their lust
for travel . 1 7 The i m portant poin t here is that these conventions of represen
tat ion are not l i m i ted to novels by Swift , Defoe, and S terne , but permeate
works of non-fict ion as wel l . We see what Pratt calls the " monarch-of-al l
I-see convent ion " i n such d iverse works a s R ichard F . Burton 's The Lake
Regions of Cen tral Africa, Alberto Moravia's Wh ich Tribe Do You Belong To ?,
or Paul Theroux 's The Old Patagonian Express. In a l l these texts the authors
48 Visions in the Field
Here , Moravia objec t ifies and perhaps trivial izes the c i ty of Accra, using
such bizarre European i magery as "cabbage soup" and " pasta." In the end
Pra t t warns us that scholars must be sensi tive to the messages which are
hidden in our taken-for-granted convent ions of representation , and crit
icizes " d iscourses that implicitly or explici tly dehumanize, trivial ize , or
devalue other rea l i ties in the name of Western superiori ty." I \I Anthropolo
gists should especially take heed of Pra t t 's warning, for, l ike other scholars ,
we , too, have a tac i t set of conventions (ethnographic realism) which gov
ern most of what and how we represent the et hnographic other.
phi losophic t radi t ion is born . These metaphysical distinct ions have not
been d isputed ; rather, thinkers si nce Plato have d isputed the question of
how we discover the real i ty (the One) h i dden behi n d appearances (the
Many), how we arrive at Trut h .
As Whi tehead sugges ts, the search for t h e O n e i n t h e Many h a s been at
the heart of Western scholarly discourse . This search has d i rected the
thinking of such diverse groups of thinkers as the scholastic philosophers ,
the romantics, the structuralists, the l i ngu ists, and the Marxists . Saussure ,
for example , considers parole beyond his focus of study, for i t is so hetero
geneous that " We cannot put it into any ca tegory of human fact s , and we
cannot discover i ts uni ty."23 In his monumental work , The Elementary
Structures ofKinsh ip, Lev i-Strauss demonstrates that to d iscover the mean
ing of a given institution , l i ke marriage , we must com m i t ourselves to an
analysis which uncovers the rea l i ty obscured by the haze of appearances.
In the end , Levi-Strauss argues that "it is exchange , a l ways exchange , that
emerges as the fundamental and common basis of all moda l i t ies of the
institution of marriage " (emphasis added).24 The tradi t ion of the search for
the One in the Many leads u l t i mately to the d issolut ion of man i n which
"ethnograph ic analysis tries to arrive at i nvariants beyond the empirical
diversity of societ ies ."25 Ethnographic real ism lends i tself to this aged
trad i t ion , for i t , too , seeks the One in the Many ; from bits and pieces of data,
rea l i s t ethnographies attempt to "evoke a social and cul tural unity."26
Ethnographic rea l i s m , as i t is described by Marcus and Cushman ,
ma n i fests i tself as a set of conven t ions , which have already been described
in Chapter I . To rei tera te briefly, these convent ions produce ethnographies
which claim to depict the total ethnographic picture of a society. In these
ethnographies , the people have l i ttle or no voice in what is usually third
person narrative fil led w i t h anthropological jargon .
The conventions of ethnographic realism have had a varied i m pact on
the qua l i ty of wri ting in ethnographies . Many of the early realist ethnogra
phies are magnificently wri tten . Some of t he passages in Fi rth 's We, the
Tikopia, are poe t i c , especially at the beginning of the tex t :
In the cool o f the morn i n g , just before sunrise , the bow o f the Southern Cross
headed towards the eastern hori zon , on which a tiny b l ue out l i ne was faintly
visible. Slowly it grew i n to a rugged moun tain mass . standing up sheer from the
ocea n ; then as we approached w i thin a few m i les i t revealed around its base a
narrow ring of low, flat land thick with vegetat ion . The sul len grey day w i th its
lowering clouds strengthened my grim impression of a sol i tary peak. w i l d and
stormy, upthrust i n a waste of wa tcrs .27
S ince Firth 's m i ssion was to depict the total culture of the Tikopia, he
was b lessed w i th a descript ive l icense which few anthropologists or edi tors
wou ld tolera te today. In today 's c l i mate the styles of ethnographic texts are
SO Visions in the Field
much more circumscri bed . Take the beginning of Fel d 's excellent ethnogra
phy of sound in Kaluli society: "This is an eth nographic study of sound as a
cultural system . . . . My i n tent ion is to show how an analysis of modes and
codes of sound communicat ion leads to an understanding of the ethos and
quali ty of l i fe in . . . society."28 With very few exceptions, anthropological
wri ting has become as flat, neu tral , and sludgy as the prose of the na tural
sciences , as anthropologists have a t tempted to leg i t i m i ze the scientific
nature of their d i scipline.
Heidegger, or of Derrida ? Wha t do these iconoc lastic sty les i mply for
li terature , for phi losophy, for anthropology ?
They i mply a great dea l . When an anthropologist is confronted with an
incident that he or she cannot explain-l ike my paralysis in Wa nzerbe
the p i l lars of the aged metaphysic begin to crumble ; the conventions of
representation that worked so beaut i fully in a previous study are no longer
adequate . Nietzsche wrote that the mission of science
is to make existence i n telligible and thereby justi fied . . . . Socrates and his
successors , down to our day, have considered all mora l and sen t i mental ac
complishments-noble deeds , compassion, sel f-sacrifice , heroism . . . to be ul
t i mately derived from the dialectic of knowledge , and therefore teachable . . . .
But science, spurred on by i ts energetic notions, approaches i rresistibly those
outer l i m i ts where the optimism of its logic must col lapse . . . . When the in
quirer, having pushed to the c i rcumference, realizes how logic in that place
curls about i tself and bi tes its own ta i l , he is struck w i t h a new kind of percep
t ion : a tragic perception , which requires , to make it tolerable. the remedy of
art . 3S
Given the experience , which may be banal but for the wri ter, captures a particu
lar savor of l i fe , given, i n addi tion , words . forms, phrasing, syntax. even l i terary
genres, modes of narra t i ve that through custom are always endowed w i t h a
common mean ing-the writer's task is to choose . assemble, wield . and torment
those instruments i n such a way that they induce the same sen t i ment of life that
dwells in the writer a t every moment . deployed henceforth in an imaginary
world and in the transparent body of language .3s
of prose , words carry the speaker and listener i n to a com mon universe by
draw ing both toward a new sign i ficat ion t h rough their power to designate
in excess of their accepted defin i t ion ."39 Stressing the importance of lan
guage in representing the world , Merleau-Ponty wri tes i n Le Visible et
/'invisible, about the d iscourse of phi losophy. His comments are applicable
to the discourse of anthropology :
Words most charged with philosophy arc not necessarily those that contain
what they say, but ra ther those that most energetically open upon being, be
cause they more c lose ly convey the l i fe of the whole and make our habitual
evidences v ibrate until they disjoi n . Hence i t is a quest ion whether phi losophy
as the reconquest of bru te and w i l d being can be accomplished by the resources
of the eloq uent language , or whether it wou ld not be necessary for philosophy to
use language in a way that takes from i ts power of i m mediate or di rect significa
t ion in order to equal it with what i t wishes all the same to say.40
Here Merleau-Ponty calls for " voice" in phi losoph ical discourse , a new
discourse in which the i n d i rect language of the author brings the reader
into contact w i th " brute and w i l d being." Let philosophers , he suggests,
bring thei r readers i n to the world of " brute and wild being" i n the same
manner that Stendah l uses common words and events as emi ssaries from
his worl d . " I create Stendah l while I am reading h i m . But that is because he
first knew how to bri ng me to dwe l l in h i m ."4 1 The magic of d iscourse and
com municat ion , to sum marize , is accompl ished through style, voice and
the " i ndirect language ." There should be more of an emphasis on an " i ndi
rect language " in anth ropology.
TEXT S , WRIT E R S , A N D R EA D E R S
We c a n now return t o t h e question o f h o w to descri be-represent my con
frontation w i t h Dunguri in the Songhay v i l l age of Wanzerbe . My i n i t i a l
solut ion w a s to edit myse lf o u t o f t h e t e x t and substi tute an invisible t h i rd
person narrator. What to do now ? Should I , rather, describe the confronta
t ion even more dispassiona tely, d i scuss i t as one small part of Songhay
wi tchcraft , and place the data i n to the broader theoretical context of
witchcraft studies ? Nei ther of these tacks is satisfac tory to me , for, l i ke it or
not , there is a d i rec t relat ionship between the degree of the anthropolo
gists' subjec t i ve i nvolvement and the forms they choose for their d iscourse .
In Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal, Larry Peters desc ribes his appre n t iceship
to a Tamang shaman , admitting that he had only begun to understand the
existen tial dynam ics of trance sta tes . But Pe ters's book is disjoi n ted : Part
One is a representat ion-of his experience , which in Part Two he transforms
i n to a psychoanalytic analysis (represen tat ion-as). Would the form of Pe
ters's discourse be d i fferen t if he had proceeded deeper i nto the inner
54 Visions in the Field
On their existen tial path i n inner space , sorcerers , i n the end , create
their own sorcery ; painters create their own styles . And just as writers need
to spend many years searching for their own voices , so we anthropologist�
need to find a " voice " and create works which bring readers to dwe l l w i t h i r
u s as w e w a l k along o u r sol i tary paths i n t h e field, exposing o u r hearts sc
fu l l of exci temen t , fear, and doubt .
"G azing " at the Sp ace of
3 Songh ay Politics
Jean Rouch , who has learned much about the Songhay-speaking peoples of
the Republic of Niger during the past forty-five years , once told me about
an error in his perception of Songhay spatial pattern s . Despi te his great
knowledge of the Songhay, he had only recently real i zed that Songhay
roads do not i n tersec t , but rather end in a fork with two new roads going off
in d i fferent d i rections . "I was so used to viewing the world from my Euro
pean perspective , " he said , " that I saw i ntersections rather than forks ." As
we later agreed, the road-as-a-fork is a significant symbol in Songhay
cosmology. I f it took a tru l y perceptive anthropologist thi rty years to dis
cover what Whi tehead cal led the " delusion " of his perception , what can
The Space of Songhay Politics 57
one say about other anthropologists whose genera l i za tions about social l i fe
are based upon one , two, or ten years of fieldwork ? • Do anthropological
analyses suffer from significant omissions generated from the " delusion " of
the anthropologist 's perception ? Are most anthropological theories based
on misconcept ions stemming from the inab i l i ty of the anthropologist to
percei ve something his or her informant takes for gran ted ? These are
haunting questions for anthropologists who in the course of fieldwork must
struggle to comprehend systems of symbolic and social relations that are ,
for the most part , outside the scope o f their experience .
In the remainder of t h is chapter I advocate an a n thropological v ision
i n which the scholar must not only make use of keen observat ional ski l l s ,
b u t also reflect critically on his o r h e r o w n phi losophico-cul tural biases so
as to guard against seeing or wri ting about something that does not exist .
More speci fical ly, I argue that the deep-seated i nfluence of post-Socratic
Greek philosophy has rendered anthropology, not to mention psychology
and soc iology, a social science engaged i n the search for the static univer
sals of soc i a l l i fe . This search can often delude our field perception s , condi
tioning us to see thi ngs which have no importance or meaning to the people
we study.
M E H A N N A
N I G E R R I V E R
1 : N o b l e s ' F i e l ds
2 : Fo nne r S l a ve s ' F i e l ds
3 : Fo re i gn e rs ' F i e l ds
and can even be outrageous i n their demands on a noble. Rather than being
regarded as i ndependent and ca l m , foreigners aPd former slaves are con
sidered dependent and volatile.
The social exclusivity of t he nob les h as also played a major role i n the
legi timation of the chief's rule in Songhay poli t ical relations . Most Song
hay bel ieve that only someone of noble descen t has the predisposi tion to
govern . Chosen from among noble fam i l ies, the Songhay chief becomes the
bankwano. Some Songhay have l ikened bankwano to a cloud in which exist
the sacred powers of lakkal, the wisdom of governance , and fula, the " h a t "
of i n n e r strength and determ i nation.3 These sacred powers enable Songhay
chiefs to govern effectively. When a noble is elected chief, he is said to "enter
into bankwano." O nce in bankwano, he is imbued with fula and lakkal , and
is transformed from noble to ch ief; he thereby becomes the manifestation
of the sacred on eart h .
The Space of Songhay Politics 59
The foca l poi nt of Songhay pol i t ics is the ch ief. As the recipient of
the sacred powers of fula and lakkal, which are passed down from A llah
through the Prophe t , the chief in Songhay has maintained power and
legi t i macy over the pol i ty both by reinforcing the collective bel ief i n his
sacredness , and by demonstrating his sociopo l i t ical effectiveness through
the ski l l fu l deployment and use of cl ients organized in diffuse pol i t ical
networks .
The legi ti macy of the chief. therefore , is derived from his social ex
clusi v i ty and his prox i m i ty to the sacred . These i m portant legi t i mating
themes appear to be rei fied in the spatial al location of the fields and
compounds i n Songhay communi ties . The nobles i n Mehanna, for example,
occupy fields along a particular road (see Figure 5). Descendants of slaves ,
many of whom are s t i l l c l ients of noble fa m i l ies, have their fields along
those roads closest to that of the nobles . The foreigners , some of whom have
become wea l thy merchants, have their fields along those roads most dis
tan t from that of the nobles. The reason for this al lotment of fields is purely
pol i t ica l . Such an al lotment has maintai ned the practice that only those
Songhay with a genea logical connection to Askia Mohammed Toun!
including, of course , the chief-could have fields along the nob le roa d .
Nobles, then , have fi e l d s in close prox i m i ty t o t h e field(s) o f t h e bankwano ,
who is the manifestation of the sacred on eart h . Theoretica l l y, foreigners
and descendants of slaves could nei ther have fields along the noble road
nor have compounds in the noble section of a tow n , which i tsel f is situated
next to the s i te of the Friday mosque , the most sacred space in a Songhay
community. I n general , the pat terns found i n the field a l lotments have been
repl icated , for the same pol i tical reasons , in the a l lotment of compounds
(see Figure 6).4
There is, then , an inequity of access to sacred space , or to space w h ich
is a t least proxi mate to the sacre d . This inequity of access has underscored
a centra l theme in Songhay sociopo l itical relations-the basic inequal i ty
of social l i fe , which i tself high l i ghts the soc i a l exclusivity of the nobles .
Social i nequal i ty was the cement of the Songhay i m perial order, and its
conti nuation has been the foundation of the ongoing pol i t ical legi ti macy of
Songhay nobles.5 As the Songhay proverb states : Bora kon go mayga windo
ra, nga no mayga no (The person who l i ves i n [or near] the nobles' com
pound becomes [ l ike a] noble). The person who has holdings c lose to those
of the nobles-or better, c lose to that of the chief h i mself-shares in the
frui ts of being c lose to the sacre d . Prox i m i ty to the space of the nobles is
believed to insure divine salvation , for proxi m i ty to the sacred has always
i nsured a person 's ascension to heaven and the bounty of soc i a l effect i ve
ness on eart h .
Such cont inuous referencing o f sociopo l itical themes h a s made space a
60 Visions in the Field
1: N ob l es • Compoun ds
2: Fo rme r S l a ves • Comp o u n d s
3: Me rch a n ts • Comp o u n ds ,... N
4: Fo re i gne rs • Comp o u n ds
powerful pol i t ical tool . Each t i me the descendant of slaves , for example,
walks to his field , which is close to but not on the noble road , he is rem inded
of his social and pol i tical position i n Songhay society. When he returns
home , the location of his compound vis-a-vis those of nobles is a strong
rem inder of his social posi tion . As this routine ac tivity is repea ted , day
after day, from childhood through the various stages of the l i fe cycle, this
descendant of slaves , as Schutz would sugges t , takes space for gran ted .6
Space and the arrangement of objects in i t becomes , for this descendant of
slaves, part of the fabric of the everyday world ; it becomes i n tertwined
with his set of bel iefs about the Songhay social order, a system in which
social i nequa l i ty is seen as part of the natural order of things. What better
way for the nobles to reinforce their pol i tical legiti macy over the genera
tions .
EXCEPTIO N S AS NO I S E
My i n i tial analysis of the pol i t ical use of Songhay space would lead us to
believe that the Songhay nobles are firmly in control of the pol i tical sys
tem . From imperial t i mes to the presen t , the nobles seem to have developed
The Space of Song hay Politics 61
a set of symbolic med ia which have legi ti mated their authori ty. More
speci fica lly, I suggest that space has been one of the nobles' most powerful
tools; they have used it as a med ium to reinforce the col lec t i ve belief that
only a noble has the predi sposition to govern .
Such was the gist of my i n i tial analysis of Songhay space ; i t fit nicely
into a more complicated web of Songhay pol i tical relat ions that I had been
trying to explain 7 One thorny problem remai ned , however. I had un
covered a number of exceptions to the normat i ve pattern of Songhay
spatial distri bution (see Figure 7). Despi te the fact that a l l the nobles had
fields a long one road, I discovered that merchants X and S, both of whom
62 Visions in the Field
were of foreign ori g i n , had taken fields next to those of the nobles . In the
same vei n , a former slave who was highly respected in Mehanna, Y, had
moved his compound from the former slave quarter to that of the mer
chants. Moreover, the wealth iest merchant in Mehanna, Z, had moved his
compound from the merchant neighborhood , i ts appropriate space , to the
very outskirts of town (space R), an area designa ted for the poorest people
of foreign origi n .
Si nce these excep tions were s o few, m y i mmediate inclination was to
trea t them as though they were noise in a communicat ion syste m . Noise
occurs in every system of communicat ion (and in every theory), but i t s
presence in the communication channel in no way al ters t h e meaning o f a
message being trans m i t ted from a sender to a recei ver. If I treated these
exceptions as noise , I could ei ther explain them away or ignore the m , and
the validi ty of my theory of the pol i t ical use of Songhay space would be
only slightly d i m in ished .
Trea ting these exceptions as noise was hardly iconoclastic; this episte
mological practice is evident in some of the major theoretical orientat ions
of anthropology. French structuralists, for example, have often been cri t
icized for the lack of importance they give to ethnographic examples which
violate the fixed rules they hold to be uni versal . In discussing the Yano
mamo Indians, Duvignaud wri tes:
Space is n o t t h e set ting (real or logical ) i n w h i c h t h ings are arranged , but the
means whereby the pos i ting of things becomes possible. This means that in
stead of i magining i t as a sort of ether i n which a l l things floa t , or conceiving it
abstractly as a characteristic they have i n common , we must think of i t as the
universal power enabling them to be connected . . . . Is i t not true that we are
faced w i t h the al ternative of e i t her perceiving things i n space , or conceiving
space as the indivisible system governing acts of u n i fication performed by the
constituting mind ?22
The overa l l impact of the money economy seems to have al tered the
" b iographically determined si tuation" of Songhay merchants and younger
descendants of slaves. Given the increasing i m portance of money, the mer
chants, w i th their inabi l i ty to claim the sacred genealogy of the nobles,
seem instead to be asser ting t h e i r changing sociopol i tical s tatus by con
sti tuting space in a manner d i fferent from that of the nobles . Not all the
merchants of Songhay communit ies are pol i tically active, but those who
are younger (ages 35 to 40 in 1 98 1 ) and of foreign origin (especially Hausas
who have migrated recently i n to Songhay from the eastern and central
regions of N i ger) appear to consti tute space as a powerful pol i t ical force .
U s i n g this concept o f space, t h e pol i tically active merchants, t h e very
people responsible for the spatial exceptions , are attempting to rearrange
the al lotment of Songhay fields and compounds to disrupt the intricate and
delicate web of themes which have in the past leg i t i m i zed the ru le of the
Songhay nobles .
There is not , therefore , one static perception of Songhay space as the
rei ficat ion of the social order, but two coexisting conceptions of space, both
of which have been consti tuted and then objectified. Songhay nobles , re
gardless of age or sex , con tinue to concei ve of space as the rei fication of the
precolonial social order. The " biographically determined si tuation " of the
nobles blinds them , as theories often blind anthropologists, from seeing
otherw ise. The strategic actions of the poli t ical ly active merchants to
rearrange space are viewed by the nobles as ludicrous activi ty. In respond
ing to a question about this phenomenon , one noble sai d : Lumba tondi a si
bora tey jaana (A person cannot change a lumba stone i n to a jaa na). While
the lumba s tone and the jaana, a small marine animal , are both found in the
N i ger River and resemble one another, there is nothing a person can do to
change the stone into a l i v i ng objec t . Just as one cannot tamper w i th the
predetermined natural order of thi ngs, according to the noble view, one
cannot alter the predest i ned social order of l i fe in which only the nobles
have the predisposi tion to govern . A s i m i lar view is held by older people
who are ei ther of foreign origin or descendants of slaves . They, too, con
tinue to const i tute space as the rei fication of the precolon ial order of
bankwano.
For foreigners and former slaves under 40 years of age in 1 98 1 , all of
whom were born after the introduct ion of money i nto the Songhay econ
omy, the actions of the pol i tically ac tive merchants have had a profound
social i mpac t . These younger people not only perceive the changes taking
place in Songhay spatial apportionmen t , but are begi nning themselves to
part icipate in ongoing soc iopoli tical changes . I n precolonial and colonial
ti mes, younger (former) slaves and foreigners would have at tached them
selves as clients to a noble fam i l y. Today, these younger people place them-
The Space of Songhay Politics 67
selves in the client networks of weal thy merchants. This expansion of the
merchants' network of c lients has enabled many of the merchants to ex
pand their opera tions from the v i l lage to the regional leve l .
The merchant 's a t tempt t o rearrange space is part o f their general
chal lenge to the legi t i macy of the Songhay nobles. Given the merchants'
concept ion of space as a dynamic poli t ical tool , the movement of their
fields and compounds to inappropriate areas is designed to trans m i t mes
sages to the pol i ty which assert ( 1 ) that space is not sacrosanct and i m mu
table, but rather a negotiable entity; and (2) that despite the fact that t hey
cannot share in the sacredness of bankwano , the merchants have nonethe
less gained enough power to manage large networks of c lients to their
economic and social advantage , and to attempt to manipulate the nature of
space i tself.
This attempt to rearrange Songhay space a lso corresponds to changes
in the symbolic behav ior of many of the poli tica lly active merchants and
former slaves . They now carry canes and often dress in white robes , as do
the nobles. Their communicative behavior has become more indirec t ; they
prefer, as do the nobles , to use intermediaries to communicate to other
people or to conduct business . In short , t hey are using a variety of com mu
nicative media to chal lenge the legi t i m acy of the nobles .
The lord w hose oracle is at Delphi nei ther speaks nor conceals, but gives signs.
Heraclitus
When a Western visi tor to Songhay country rides a bush taxi , he or she is
suddenly thrown i n to a social universe in which many of the advantages of
being a " prestigious" European are rudely pushed aside. No mat ter a per
son 's status i n the pecking order of Songhay society, riding a bush taxi i n
Songhay is a rude i n i tiation both t o t h e uncomfortable condi t ions of public
travel in the Republ ic of N iger and to the " hardness" of Songhay social
interact ion .
I took my first bush taxi ride in the fal l of 1 969 , when I had been in the
Republ i c of N iger a scant three weeks ; I was going to depart for the town of
Tera and my first teaching pos t . Arriv i ng at the bush taxi depot early, I ful l y
expected t h e t a x i t o leave o n schedu le. I wai ted i m patiently for nearly
thirty m i nutes before I asked someone i n French about t he hour of depar
ture . The man to whom I had directed the quest ion seemed to be organizing
the loading operation . He smi led at me and sa id, " toute de suite." Reas
sured , I sat down under a tree and bought two oranges . One hour passed .
City taxis came into the bush taxi depot and deposi ted more passengers
bound for Tera. Young men took the baggage of these passengers and
hoisted them atop the bush tax i . In my i nchoate Songhay I asked the old
woman s i t t i n g next to me abou t the hour of departure . " Who knows , " she
said . " I n a l i ttle while." After two hours of waiting I noticed that a man ,
who appeared to be working on the engine of the bush taxi , was leavi ng the
Figure 8 : A Songhay bush t a x i on t h e Dos u l to M a rkoy rou t e
70
Signs in the Social Order 71
depot . Beside myself, I asked h i m where he was going. " To the autoshop. We
need a new part ." When I asked h i m when he woul d be back, he said,
characteristically, " toute de suite." Another hour passed before the me
chanic returned from the autoshop. He looked a t me and sai d , " You should
buy some meat before we get started." About 30 m inutes later, another
man, who had been scurrying about the depot all morning, announced that
the taxi was about to depart and that a l l the passengers for Tera should
board the tax i .
Bush taxis in t h e Songhay view o f things are either converted Peugeot
404 pickup trucks, the carriers of which have two wooden p lanks secured to
the floor for passenger seating, or larger vehicles cal led mille kilo, which are
more l i ke buses . Our vehicle for the ride to Tera was of the m i l le k i lo variety.
Along w i t h the other passengers I picked up my bags and moved toward the
vehicle that would transport us and our baggage to our destination . As I
approached the m i l le kilo, three or four young boys attempted to help me
with my things . When I resisted their efforts, exclaiming that I could
handle my own bags , they said something to me i n Songhay that I did not
comprehend and then attempted to help an elderly N i gerien gen t leman .
He gave them his bags and gave each of them a few francs for their efforts .
Inside t h e bus , t h e m a n who h a d announced our departure was tel ling
people where they should sit. He suggested to the generous elderly gentle
man that he sit next to the driver. When he saw me, he suggested that I s i t
next to t h e elderly gentleman. I s a i d t h a t i t would b e better for an old
woman to sit i n front of the tax i : 'Til sit i n the back of the taxi l i ke everyone
else ." The man looked at me strangely and told me to move on . The other
passengers already seated i n the back of the bus greeted me and ei ther
giggled or laughed . Meanwhile, I squeezed myself between two young
mothers , both of whom were nursing their chi ldren . The noontime heat
made the air hot and stuffy i n the crowded m i l le kilo, and the baby to my
left vomi ted on me. The driver started the engine and we began our trek to
Tera, a voyage of some 1 90 ki lometers which, because of frequent flat t i res,
engine breakdowns, social visits, and pol ice stops along the way, took more
than ten hours to complete .
I was too overcome by the hea t , fi l t h , and discomfort , not to mention
my own ignorance of the Songhay sociocul tural world , to understand what
was occurring around me. As i n the case of the oracle of Delphi , no one was
" speaki ng" to me and no one was concealing anything from me; rather I
found myself in an al ien u n iverse of signs, most of which I was unable to
see. 1
When I returned to Songhay i n 1 976 to conduct anthropological field
work , I con tinued to use public transportation . After having taken bush
taxis exclusively for a two year period , I was no longer angered and irri-
72 Visions in the Field
tated by long delays , engine fai lures, flat tires , or vom iting babies ; in fact , I
rather enjoyed talking with the friends I had made during a l l those many
stops along the bush taxi route. Besides, I had gotten to know the drivers ,
apprentices, and personali ties of the bush taxi depot . Sti l l , I did not " read , "
i n t h e sense o f Ricoeur, bush taxi in teraction a s deeply a s I migh t , for I was
stil l onl y beginning to " see " Songhay society from a Songhay perspective. 2
Now, almost twen ty years after that first disconcerting ride, I real i ze
that the complex i nterac tions that form the complex of Songhay bush taxi
i nteraction correspond to deep-seated Songhay beliefs abou t the nature of
their social world . Much as with Geertz's Bal inese cockfight or Basso's
Apache jokes about white men , riding a bush taxi , a thoroughly mundane
soc ial event , can be " seen " as a set of symbolic ac tions that reinforce a
corresponding set of Songhay cul tural concept ions .3 Thi s chapter, like the
others i n this section , is not only abou t the dynamic mesh that connects
bush taxi i nteract ion to Songhay culture , or the mundane to the profound,
but also about the epistemological process- the act of seeing-through
which anthropologists and ethnographic others learn to interpret the dis
course of social action .
SOGA ( COX E U R ) : Hey everybody, hey ! Come here . T i ll aberi people . Nia
mey people . Come here quickly. We must go. We w i l l
n o t wai t .
((Passenger A presents herself to Soga))
SOGA : Where are you going, woman ?
PASSEN G E R A : I ' m goi ng to T i l l aberi .
74 Visions in the Field
In this i nteraction , Soga, the coxeur, is the foca l point . By fol lowing
closely what Soga does and says , one can uncover i n teractional patterns
not uncommon in everyday Songhay l i fe . To begin w i t h , nei ther the owner
nor the driver, the two most highly ranked social identities i n the transport
pecking order, is present for the ent ire episode . During most of the i nterac
tion , therefore , Soga the coxeur is in authority. Throughout the loading,
Soga attempts to maintain his social prestige as coxeur, as reflected i n his
use of language that is laced w i t h requests and demands .
Since Soga knows the owner's prices, he w i l l nei ther bargai n with the
woman, which would reveal his symbol ic weakness, nor load the baggage
76 Visions in the Field
onto the roof of the taxi , which would be a symbolic reflection of inferior
status . For the physical labor involved in loading the tax i , Soga h i red, on
his own i n i tiative, two assistan ts. Soga's language to his two assistants
his requests and his demands-sugges ts that he percei ves that he is in
authori ty and is maintaining his social pres tige .
Soga's authority is d i m i nished greatly, however, when the driver re
turns to the tax i . As soon as the driver arrives Soga makes his first request
for informa tion other than the destination of the passengers , asking if
everyone has pai d . The driver ignores this and asks the coxeur how much
money he has col lected . When Soga tells him the amou n t , the driver repl ies
that the coxeur is short . Here the impl ication is that ei ther Soga might
have pocketed the money, a veiled insu l t , or the driver, knowing that 6500
francs is the correct amoun t , is trying to shame the coxeur while asserting
his own prestige as driver. Boreyma, sensing the driver's motive , tries to
take advan tage of the s i tuation by assert ing that Soga has forgotten to
col lect money from one passenger, a rather direct challenge to Soga's
competence and authori ty. Soga, reacting to Boreyma's assertion and wish
ing to maintain face , insults his assistan t , cal l i ng him a donkey; he then
asserts that he has forgotten no one . The driver accepts this and gi ves Soga
500 francs for his work . Soga is angry with the driver for paying a coxeur so
l i ttle money-an insu l t to his competence and ski l l as coxeur. But the
driver absolves h imsel f; the owner, the u l t i mate, albeit absen t , authori ty, is
the person who sets the prices for passage , for cargo , and for coxeurs .
Despi te the near-violent protests of Soga and his assistants, the driver
leaves Bonfebba, having used this brief scene to reinforce his authority-at
the expense of Soga.
The give and take of Songhay bush taxi loading is not yet complete,
however. Soga's assistants want their money. They begin to play the kind of
game Soga played only a m i nute earl ier with the driver. Soga, once again in
authority, must be firm . He gi ves each assistant 1 00 francs, and sugges ts
that if they are not happy with this amount they should search elsewhere
for work . Here , Soga uses the strong, ful l tone of assertions and demands
rather than the pleading questions of angry but powerless assert ions.
Benea th the surface of the episode , however, appears an ethos of " hard
ness , " examples of which are expressed throughout the scene . Soga speaks
harshly to the woman who cannot pay the required price for the trip to
Til laberi ; he tel l s her to go and sit under a tree , and no one comes to her a i d .
T h e t a x i driver expresses l i t tle sympathy toward Soga by giving t h e coxeur
an unsuitable fee for his services ; indeed , he expresses his con tempt for
Soga and his assistants by rapidly shutting his taxi wi ndow, literally clos
ing h i mself off from his social i n ferivrs . Soga also treats his assistants
crudely, barking orders at them as though they were donkeys. Soga's assis-
Signs in the Social Order 77
Later i n the i n terac tion , Boreyma returns the compl i men t . There are other
statements in Songhay speech i n which human activi ties are understood
(unfavorably) in terms of those of donkeys:
Example 7 . Your head and a donkey 's head ; i t i s the same thing.
Example 8 . You are the son of a donkey.
From these examples , which can serve as real or ritual insults, we under
stand that the act i v i t ies of human beings who are slow-witted are seen i n
l i g h t o f t h e behavior o f donkeys .20 B u t t h e observation o f human beings
in teracting with donkeys and a perusal of Songhay proverbs sheds more
l i g h t , it seems, on the relationship of MEN and DON KEY S . Donkeys have
no dignity in the natural order. Many Songhay throw stones at donkeys ,
and somet i mes beat them on the head w i t h batons for no apparent reason .
Donkeys are abused and are expected to work i ncessantly, as is suggested
by the fol lowing proverb .
The more I have learned about Songhay language , the better I have become
able to place the symbol ic in terac tions of such mundane activities as
loading a bush taxi into deeper perspectives . This vantage has revealed to
me the ful l signi ficance of " hardness" and its relation to social negotiation .
Perhaps the importance of a sensual approach to anthropological inquiry is
that as a process i t cont inually reveals to the anthropologist the l i m i tations
of his or her knowledge . After more than forty-five years of com m it ment to
the Songhay world , Jean Rouch is s t i l l trying to solve many of the mys
teries of the Songhay cosmos . Such comm i t ment is probably beyond the
expectat ions and hopes of most A merican anthropologists who must com
pete for dwindling research funds . But wi thout this com m i t ment to " lan
guage , " or to " deep visions , " which may take years to develop, how can we
be sure that what we claim to know is indeed knowledge ? As one of my
Songhay teachers once told me : " If you l isten to us, you w i l l learn much
about our ways . But to have v ision , you must grow old with us." As the
discipl i ne of anthropology proceeds from crisis to crisis, i t might be benefi
cial to remember the aphorism of Herac l i tus and confront ful l y those signs
we encounter daily i n the fiel d .
Son of Rouch : Songhay Visions
5 of the Other
Figure 9: " Son of Rouch " in Niamey, N i ger, 1 976 (photo by Cheryl Olkes)
Songhay king, Sonni Ali Ber. Rouch also conducted fieldwork among the
Songhay in 1 949 when he went to Aribinda and Dori (Burkina Faso) and
Hombori (Mali). This trip enabled him to complete his work on Songhay
mythology. In 1 950-5 1 , he studied the Songhay populations l i v ing in what
was then the Gold Coast, and he continued this work in 1 953-5 5 .
This early work resulted in a n ethnographic treasure chest o f mate
ria ls. Rouch publ ished two studies, Contribution a l'h istoire des Songhay
( 1 953), which focused upon Songhay archeology, mythology, and his tory,
and Les Songhay ( 1 953), a classic ethnography. In 1 960 he published his
these d'etat, La Religion et Ia magie Songhay, the culmination of al most
twenty years of contact with Songhay. La Religion is a comprehensive
ethnography, covering in exhaustive detai l Songhay mythology, posses
sion , and sorcery. La Religion is a book a l i ve with the voices of Rouch 's 67
informants , whose words are woven throughout the tex t ; Rouch 's own
voice is subdued . His interpretations are l i m i ted to a short preface and an
even shorter conclusion .
This Griaulian predispos i t ion to let the informant speak, to let the
informant evoke h is/her world , paved the way for Rouch 's contributions to
a more evoca tive medium : ethnographic fi l m . The early years produced
some of Rouch 's most memorable films: In itiation a Ia danse des possedes
86 Visions in the Field
( I 948), Circoncision ( I 949), Bataille sur le grand fleuve ( I 953), Les Hommes
qui font Ia pluie ( 1 95 1 ), and Les Magiciens de Wanzerbe ( 1 949). Les Magiciens
de Wanzerbe has a remarkable sequence of a sorcerer's dance (sohanci hori)
in which a dancer vomi ts his magical chain and then swal lows i t . Like
Rouch 's other films, Les Magiciens documents the horrors and delights of
the Songhay worlds of sorcery and possession , worlds in which the i nexpli
cable occurs with a l arming frequency. 1
Wi th the exception of a few articles , Rouch has, since 1 960, concen
trated exclusively on ethnographic fi l mmaking.2 Fieldwork in Ghana and
the Ivory Coast resul ted in three incomparable films: Les Maitres fous
( I 954), Jaguar (I 954), and Moi, Un Nair ( I 954). Fieldwork in N i ger between
1 957 and 1 964 cul m i nated i n his wel l-known Chasse au lion a I'arc (The
Lion Hunters). Rouch has also produced feature-length general audience
films based partially upon his ethnographic experience (see Petit a petit
[ 1 968] and Coco rico, monsieur poulet [ 1 974]), which were commercial suc
cesses in France and i n West Africa. Most of Rouch 's fi l m work is concen
trated on Songhay possession , Rouch 's ethnographic passion . There are
cinematic i nterviews with possession priests (Douda Sorko), and a score of
short films on the Songhay yenaandi ceremon ies , the possession ri tes dur
ing which the spiri ts are asked to bring ra i n .
Among the most fascinating o f Rouch 's fi l ms is Tourou e t bitti ( I 97 1 ).
The fi l m covers the closi ng moments of the fourth day of a festival for the
genji bi (the black spiri ts, which con trol soi l fert i l i ty and pestilence). Dur
ing the first three days , the spirits refused to possess their mediums, a bad
sign for the upcoming harves t . Sido, the Si miri possession pries t , invited
Rouch to a ttend the rites on the fourth day of the fest ivities . Nothing
happened until just before sunse t , when Rouch began to fi l m . Suddenly, as
i f i n response to the presence of the camera, one of the black spirits took the
body of his medium . Rouch says he hi mself en tered a " c ine-trance ," which
fac i l i ta ted possession .3 Aside from making i mportant poi nts abou t the
phenomenology of the self. this film also documented Jean Rouch 's power
in Songhay.
In Europe Rouch 's books , his articles and espec i a l l y his fi l ms have
brought him i n ternational acclai m . He i s considered the crea tor of cinema
verite, and if he is not the greatest e thnographic fi l m maker today-and I
think that he is-he is certainly the most prolific , w i th more than 1 00 fi l ms
to h i s cred i t . In N i ger he has become a legend , his name evoking both
pos i t i ve and nega t i ve passion s . Many N i geriens are proud of the powerfu l
i mages that Jean Rouch 's fi l ms depi c t ; others , who are profoundly i n
sul ted , complain that his fi l ms reinforce t h e " pri mitive" i magery o f African
peoples . His films have nonetheless been shown i n all the regions of N i ger.
Jean Rouch has introduced both N i gerien and European audiences to the
fascinating peoples of N i ger.
Songhay Visions of the Other 87
Rouch also comments on his entry into the Songhay world of sorcery :
Rouch 's penetra tion of a world of great power in Wanzerbe was an event
that com manded attention . Word spread widely i n Songhay : Rouch had
been to Wanzerbe . Rouch had learned great secrets . Rouch had eaten kusu ,
the substance of power. Rouch was a man to be both feared and respected .
Over t i me many Songhay have blended the notion of " Rouc h " i n to the
i magery of myt h ; he has become part of contemporary Songhay cosmology.
When I returned from my initial v i s i t to Wanzerbe , thirty years after Jean
Rouch 's first v i s i t there , the news spread widely i n Songhay : Stoller had
been to Wanzerbe . Stoller had learned great secrets. Stoller had eaten kusu .
Stoller was a man to be both feared and respected . Stoller had become the
" son of Rouch."
ROUC H A N D H I S "SON"
I suppose I was destined to meet Jean Rouch sooner or later. I t happened
for the first t i me i n August of 1 97 6 , when I went to N iger for my doctoral
study w i t h the Songhay. Having read his books and seen some of his films, I
fe l t honored to make his acquaintance . He i mmediately put me at ease and
encouraged me, saying that my research project was an i mportant one .
88 Visions in the Field
since for thirty years she had stedfastly refused to work with researchers
Rouch , other Europeans, and N i geriens al ike . We spent two hot and dusty
days i n the saddle and finally arrived in the compound of Idrissa Dembo's
father. We were greeted warmly and fed wel l . In the even ing, men from the
neighborhood came by to visi t .
" You came here o n horsebac k ? " one asked .
" Yes ."
" Monsieur Rouch used to come here on horsebac k . Do you know him ? "
' ' I 've m e t h i m , " I responded .
" He used to ride in from Ayoru . Where did you come fro m ? "
" Mehanna."
" Why d i d n ' t you come from Ayoru , l ike Monsieur Rouch? Mehanna is
too far."
" Yes, it i s , " I responde d .
"Are you goi ng to d o w h a t Monsieur Rouch d i d ? "
" Not exactly."
Another man joined our discussion . He greeted me and then asked . " Do
you know Monsieur Rouc h ? "
" Yes."
"Where is he ? "
" I don ' t know."
" We haven ' t seen h i m in a long t i me."
" How long ? "
" Many years . S a y h e l l o t o h i m from us here in Wanzerbe , w i l l you ? "
' T i l b e sure t o d o i t , " I told h i m .
The morning after my arrival I learned that Kassey had left town that
morning, and would not return u n t i l after my departure . A wasted tri p !
Idrissa suggested t h a t w e v i s i t t h e hunters at Youmbou m , a permanent
water hole just to the north of the v i l lage of Yatakala. We mounted our
horses and rode to Youmbou m . There , I was introduced to Monsieur
Rouch 's godji ( monochord violinist) Issiakia, and his brother Wangari , two
of the protagonists in Rouch 's monumental Chasse au lion a I'arc ( 1 957-65).
Issiakia took me to an abandoned mudbrick house at the north end of the
lake .
" This is where Monsieur Rouch stayed ," he told me . We went inside
and I saw some electric wire at tached to the c losed window shutter.
" What's that ? " I asked .
" Monsieur Rouch put i t there . He had a machine that made l i g h t ."
" I see ."
" Do you know Monsieur Rouch ? " Issiakia asked .
" Yes, I do."
" Do you know when he's comi ng back?"
90 Visions in the Field
Fol lowing Rouch 's path , the path of the Songhay spiri t s , brough t m e to
Adamu Jeni tongo, the sorcerer and possession priest of T i l l aberi . After I
became Adamu Jeni tongo's apprentice, people i n T i llaberi began to call me
Anasara zima, " the European possession priest ." People who knew me
better cal led me sohanc'izo. " the son of a sohanci, " and even Jenitongo
hama, " the grandson of Jeni tongo , " a famous sorcerer from the Oual lam
region of N i ger, some 1 00 kilometers due east of Tillaberi , who was t he
father of Adamu .
In 1 98 1 I saw Rouch and told h i m about being temporari ly paralyzed
in Wan zerbe .s
" You are making progress , " he told me . " You must cont inue year after
year. You are fol lowing the right path ."
We made arrangements to meet Boubou Hama, the N i gerien h i s torian
and former President of the National Assembly of N iger during the regi me
of Hamani D iori ( 1 960-74). Even Boubou Hama had heard of my progress
on Rouch 's path . He addressed me as zima kayna, " the l i ttle possession
priest." Rouch , of course , was zima beri, " the big possession priest ."
How amusing are the marvels of fict i ve kinship, of human c lassifica
t ion . All too often , ethnographers are so busy c lassifying others that we
don 't take t i me to explore how the others classify us. You are my " brother" ;
you are my "cross-cousi n " ; you are my " son " ; you are my " daughter"; you
are " the European " ; you are my " father" ; you are " Monsieur Claude 's
daugh ter."
In 1 984 I learned what it fully meant to walk in the N i gerien shadow
cast by the myth of Jean Rouch . A col league of m i ne had been to S i m i ri , a
v i l lage where Rouch had fi l med many possession cere monies over the
years . I had not been to S i m i ri , but the people there , especially Daouda
Sorko , the S i m i ri possession pries t , knew that I was fol lowing Rouch 's
pat h . Daouda Sorko knew that I had learned much about possession and
sorcery from Adamu Jeni tongo. My col league was astounded that they
knew so much about me.
" Do you know what they call you i n S i m i ri ? " she asked me.
" No."
" They ca ll you Rouch 'izo, " which translates to " son of Rouc h , " " l i t t le
Rouch , " or " Rouch 's seed ."
Fulani Social Life. These and other monographs and articles have discussed
ful l y the contingent nature of the field experience and the i m portance of
interpretation to the ethnographic en terprise .9
Wha t were the con tingencies that drove people to categori ze me ? So
far I have discussed how a small number of people ca lled me Rouch 'izo,
Anasara Z i ma, or Sohanc 'izo. Many of my age-ma tes cal led me baso, or
"cross-cousin , " which gave them license to insult me ritually with such
pithy barbs as " Your fa ther's penis , " or " Your mother's vagina." A few
people called me " my son , " or " m y brother, " fully expecting me to meet
various fi l i a l obl i ga tions . Someti mes this fictive kinship was fel t genuinely;
most t imes i t was the means to the end of money. " He 's taking advan tage of
us , " people would say, " why shouldn 't we take advan tage of h i m ? "
B u t t h i s is only a small part o f m y story, for most of t h e Songhay with
whom I came in con tact did not know me personally; they simply cal led me
Anasara, " the European." The term Anasara is borrowed from the Arabic
nazareen, or Christian . Over the years the word has become synomynous
with "white man." And so most of the Songhay I met categorized me as " the
white man ." People would come up to me and say, " How are you today,
Anasara ? " ; or " Where are you travel ing today, Anasara ? " ; or simply, "Ana
sara, good day." The chi l dren even got i nto the act . They would walk up to
me and say, "Anasara, cadeau [gift ) " ; or if they had learned a smattering of
French , "Anasara bonjou , donne-moi 5 francs" ( European , good day. Give
me 5 francs). Some of the smaller children never u t tered a word ; they
simply approached me and held out their open pal m s .
No o n e l i kes t o be treated insensi ti vely, a n d my retort t o these mer
cenary greet ings was an appropriate proverb , " lri koy rna dogonaandi"
(May Allah l i gh ten your burden), to which the i nterlocu ter must respond ,
"A men." Someti mes I would complain t o the adults that I was not the bank,
an endless source of money. " Why don 't you ask the merchants in town for
money ? " I would urge the m . There were many merchan ts, in fact , whose
daily income far outdistanced my humble monthly stipend . Many of these
men wore exquisite robes ; some of them owned t rucks . "Ask the merchants
for money, " I would say.
"But they won 't give us anythi n g , " the able-bodied beggars wou ld
respond .
These sorts of incidents are nothing new to anthropologists. But how
many of us make them a subtext in our ethnographic writ ings? What do
they reveal ?
All the world's a stage , but the script is not As You Like It, i t is Rashornon. Each
of us has our own rea l i t y i n which we try to persuade others . Facts do not have
an i ndependent existence . Rather, facts are created w i t h i n theoretical systems
that guide the select ion of observat ions and the invention of rea l i t y. l 0
the cause of idolatry is that man , through s i n , left beh ind the contemplat ion of
the divine , invisible, and i n tel lec tual nature and sank wholly into the senses ,
with the result that he is i ncapable of being touched by objects other than
objects of the senses; hence he has come to the forgetfu l ness of God and wor
ships stars, elements, animals, even i mages , passions, and vices , and finally,
everything other than God . 1 6
In short , social or scientific facts are not d iscovered ; they are , as Wagner
has eloquently told us, " i nvented ."22 More profoundly, facts are " invented"
96 Visions in the Field
The old principle that the acquisit ion of knowledge is indissociable from the
tra i n i n g of m inds, or even individuals is becoming obsolete and w i l l become
ever more so . . . . Knowledge is and w i l l be produced in order to be sold , it is and
w i l l be consumed in order to be valorized in a new produc tion : in both cases .
the goal is exchange.24
If one accepts Lyotard 's argumen t , there is no noble savage in the world of
late consumer society. Noble savages have long had access to knowledge
the means to information . Increasingly, these c i t izens of the " peripheral
states" are gai ning access to the technology needed to produce knowl
edge- the means to sel l informat ion .25
Songhay Visions of the Other 97
But has the informa tion revolution had an i mpact on the perceptions
of Africans? Despi te the aura of change , much has remained the same . The
ever-powerfu l discourse of the marketplace still reinforces n ineteenth
century racist myths about Africa. Contemporary travel brochure writers,
for example , paint a picture of Togo not far removed from the d iscourse of
the late n i ne teenth-century travel writers : 26
Togo is just a sl ice of country, never more than 1 00 m i les in width and only 360
m i les long . Its d i m i n u t i ve boundaries belie a cultura l and geographic diversi ty,
and can mislead those who underest i mate its influence. Togo is the homeland of
voodoo. We are con t inually surrounded here by t h i s rel i gion that is based on
sorcery and the spiritual power of charms and fetishesP
The feeding ritual takes place i n the afternoon , i n bright l i gh t . There are cars,
the tourists i n bright clothes , the cameras. But the crocodi les are sacred . A l ive
offering-a ch icken- i s often made to the m ; it is part of the ritual . This element
of sacrifice, this protracted display of power and cruelty, i s as unse t t l ing as i t is
meant to be , and i t seems to bring n ight and forest c lose again to the dream of
Yamoussoukro. 2 9 (my emphasis)
How many of Naipau l 's readers w i l l have the i n tel lectual curiosity to
consu l t anthropological texts on the rel igious prac tices of societies i n the
Ivory Coast ? How many of N a i pau l 's readers w i l l recognize the super
fici a l i ty of his tex t ?
If European myths about Africans are stubborn ly persisten t , s o t oo are
Songhay myths about Europeans . Throughout Songhay, knowledge about
the Anasara has i ncreased exponentially during the past twenty years , yet
Songhay categorizat ions about Europeans, including myself, have changed
l i t t l e . The l iving tradition of Songhay history w i l l not be overcome by the
superficial i magery of the information revolu tion .30
There is only a smal l group of Songhay who know Jean Rouch person
al ly. Few Songhay would recognize Rouch if they saw h i m in the flesh .
Wha t most Songhay know is the myth of Jean Rouch , the European who
went to Wanzerbe , the w h i te man who " follows the spirits."
Al though the myth of Jean Rouch i s i mportant i n Songhay, the forces of
history, pol i tics , and i nternat ional econom ics make the myth insignificant
to daily l i fe . In conversations that I have had in Songhay over a period of
n ineteen years , the subject of Jean Rouch has surfaced only in highly
speci fic contex ts: talk of sorcery, wi tchcraft , o r possession . Rouch , and
98 Visions in the Field
"son " of Rouch , for that matter, are minor topics of philosophical rumina
tion . In my experience , most Songhay lump Europeans into a single ho
mogeneous category : Anasara. And so anthropologists i n Songhay are fre
quently mis taken for tourists, diplomats, or technical consul tants.
I t is not surprising that these kinds of classificatory incidents occur.
Mos t anthropologists are all too fam i l iar with the m . We never get to know
everybody in the field . Many of the people among whom we l i ve , as a
consequence , may i gnore us as individual s . But condi tions of his tory, eco
nomics, and poli tics force " them " to confron t what " we " represen t . To
" them , " what we represen t is someti mes hilarious; i t is often ugly, oppres
sive, or embarrassing; it is usually beyond our con trol to shape or change .
My point , of course, is tha t reports of embarrassing classifica tory
incidents rarely find their way into anthropological texts. If we give others
as much of a voice as the anthropologists reserve for themsel ves , our
wri t i n g w i l l reflect fai thfully the epistemologica l , historical , and pol i t ical
contex ts of our investiga tions . Besides, these reports w i l l infuse our tex ts
with humor and shield our readers from the " dead hand of competence ."
PA R T I I I
Baudelaire
6 Sound in Songhay Possession
The eye and its gaze , to use the apt term of Foucau l t , has had a lockhold on
Western though t . 1 In this book , for example, four of the chap ters focus on
" v i sions" ; " our" visual takes on " them , " and " their" visual takes on us . In
Figure I 0: M u s i c i a n s at a possess i o n cere m o n y i n M e h a n n a , 1 97 7
Sound in Songhay Possession l 03
those chapters, I was concerned pri marily w i t h the notion of the " gaze " and
i ts i mpact on human categorization . In this section , I attempt to disregard
the " gaze , " and tune into the d i mension of sound i n two ethnographic
domains : Songhay possession ceremon ies and Songhay sorcery.
EYE , G A Z E , A N D TON E
Ever since t h e period o f alphabe tization , o f which O n g wri tes s o eloquen t ly,
sound-in-the-world has been spatial ized and the oral-aural world has been
relegated to the back benches of phi losophical debating chambers .2 Zuck
erkandl suggests that the majesty of v ision i n the epistemology of Western
thought stems from our tradi t ional stress on the observation of material
things w i t h i n a field of v ision .3 From Aristotle on we have been condi tioned
to see colored illum inated t h i ngs, not colors or l ight . We feel hard or
smooth things, not hardness or smoothness . " I n seeing, touching, tasting,
we reach through the sensa tion to an objec t , to a thing. Tone is the only
sensation not that of a thing ."4 In Western d iscourse we have tended i n our
acts of seeing to spatial ize the phenomena we observe . Foucault prov ides a
medical example :
For us the human body defines , by natural righ t , the space of origin and of the
distribution of disease : a space whose l i nes, volumes , surfaces , and routes are
laid down in accordance w i t h a now fam i l iar geometry, by the anatomical atlas.
But this order of the sol id visible body is only one way- i n a l l nei ther the first
nor the most fundamenta l - i n which one spatializes disease .5
By analyzing the form and performance of weepi n g , poetics, and song i n rela
tion to their origin myth and the bird world they metamorphize, Kalu l i sound
expressions are revealed as embodi ments of deeply fel t sen t i men ts . I O
once suggested to me, one can learn l i t t le about the world . A deeper appre
ciation of sound could force us to overturn our static, spatialized world and
consider the dynamic nature of sound , an open door to the comprehension
of cul tural sent i ment .
been purchased . He hires musicians and praise-s ingers . He requ i res the
attendance of spirit mediums. But the zima is more than a producer. Dur
ing ceremonies he directs the ritual action , orchestrating musical arrange
men ts, overseeing costume changes , and in terpreting spirit language . He is
also responsible for the distribution of money that the troupe collects
during a ceremony.
If the zima is the head of the Songhay spirit possession troupe , the
med i u m is its heart . Spirits i nvade the bodies of their mediums to speak to
people i n Songhay comm u n i t ies . A l t hough the majori ty of med i u ms in
Songhay are wome n , a large percentage are men . Con trary to much of the
li terature on possession , Songhay mediums come from all the social strata
in the Republic of Niger. l 5 Despi te their social divergence , mediums in
Songhay share a number of social and experiential bonds. Firs t , medium
ship is passed down through the kindred . If a person 's c lose relative is a
spiri t med i u m , he or she is likely to i nheri t one of that med i u m 's spiri t s .
Second , spirits mark t h e i r mediums by making t h e m sick . T h e preposses
sion mal adies are cured through i n i tiation into the troupe. Third , each
med i u m , through his or her i n i t i ation, is l i nked perpetually to the spiri t
worl d . No matter their accompl ishments in the social world , mediums are
obliged to pay l i felong homage to the spiri t s . They are also required to
support direct ly or indirec tly the acti v i t ies of spirit possession troupes .
The cast of the Songhay possession troupe is completed by its praise-
1 08 Sounds in Cultural Experience
bo (Varanus niloticus) which is stre tched over the opening of the gourd and
fastened to the instrument w i th ei ther small i ron nails or the thorns of the
garbey tree (Balinites aegytica ). The neck of the instrumen t is a simple stick
of wood carved from the kubu tree (Combretum m icrantum); i t is generally
75 em i n length . The neck is i nserted i n to the resonating cavity about 3 em
bel ow the poin t where the gourd was cut into two hal ves . The viol i n string
consists of black hair c l i p ped from a horse 's tai l ; i t is tied to the end of the
neck and to a piece of wood at tached at the far end of the resonating cavi ty.
The musician pulls the string taut as he pushes a small wooden bridge into
pos i t ion . The bow is an arc of wood to which is attached more black hair
cli pped from a horse 's tai l . 1 8
When the musician plays the godj i he produces a sound that is qui te
high in p i tch-si m i lar to a high-pi tched wai l . Indeed , in Songhay one says
that the godj i " c ries" (a ga he). As Adamu Jeni tongo told me: "The godj i
cries for me; i t cries for you ; i t cries for the people of T i l laberi ; it cries for a l l
t h e Songhay." 1 9
Because the godj i "cries" for a l l the Songhay, i t is the most sacred of
i nstru ments . It was the prize given to Fara n Maka Bote when he van
quished the river genie Zinkibaru to gain cont rol of the N iger Ri ver spiri t s .
Consideri ng i ts m y t h i c history, the godj i a n d i ts sound are s a i d t o l i nk
Songhay of the present and pas t . Indeed , the godj i is so sacred that i t
shou ld never b e played on nonsacred occasion s . Generally, i t is kept in a
cloth sack and is placed in a zi ma's sacred spirit house , a hut in which a
zima keeps his or her sacred objec t s .
T h e godj i is more t h a n an i nstrument w i t h a sound t h a t li nks the
Songhay with their ancestors . As Adamu Jeni tongo said :
The sound o f the godj i penetrates and makes u s feel the presence of the ances
tors , the ancients [don borey] . We hear the sound and know that we are on the
path of the ances tors . The sound is i rresistible. We cannot be unaffected by i t
a n d neither c a n t h e spiri ts, for when they hear it '"cry, " i t penetrates the m . Then
they become exci ted and swoop down to take the body of the med i u m .2 o
The sound of the godj i is a tangible l i nk between Songhay present and pas t ,
for t h i s wai l i ng sound revivi fies deep-seated cultural themes about the
nature of l i fe and dea t h , the origin of Songhay, the juxtaposi t ion of the
social and spiri t worlds. These themes , i n turn , reinforce Songhay cul tural
iden t i ty.
the musician wishes to play h i s gas i , he digs a hole in the sand at the edge of
the possession dance ground . When the ground is overturned and placed
over the hole, the drum 's resona ting cavity is deepened considerably. The
gourd is stab i l ized over the hole by a notched s tick which the musician
extends from u nder the place where he sits to a poi n t beyond the edge of the
gourd . He stri kes the drum with a set of carved bamboo sticks which
resemble the human hand ; i n fact , the various parts of the drumstick are
called the " wrist " (where the musician grips the drumstick), the "palm"
(where the five pieces of bamboo are tied to the " wrist "), and the " fingers"
(which when manipulated can strike the dru m i ndependen tly). If the musi
cian strikes the drum w i th the " wris t " or the " palm , " one hears a sol id
" clack " which echoes i n the air. If the musician rolls h i s own wri s t , the
" fingers" of the drumstick hit the drum i ndependen tly, producing a " rol l ."
In this way musicians playing the gasi produce a h i ghly distinctive "clack"
and " roll ." The ratio of " c lacks" to " rolls" corresponds not only to dance
movements but to the spirit in the Songhay pantheon which the zima is
sol iciting.
Like the godj i , the gasi appears i n Songhay myth . The drum was
played originally by river spirits which danced to its bea t . The i m portance
of the d ru m , be it a gasi or a tourou (a long s l i t drum used by Songhay
possession musicians in the n i neteen th century), is that it produces a
highly charged sound which, l ike the godj i , revivifies the ancestra l pas t .
Adamu Jeni tongo told me t h a t drums were played for t h e great warriors of
Songhay to render them i n v i ncible to their enemies . " The sound of the
drum explodes from the gasi and rem inds us of the ancients and their
strength ." And so the sound of this special dru m- i ts "clack " and " rol l "
intoxica tes the dancers as they part icipate in the possession ceremony, a
ri te of ancestral origi n . The drum sound, l ike that of the godj i , also exci tes
the spirits, creat i ng for them a con text in sound wh ich they find irresistible.
The Kalapalo of central Brazi l have a similar musical orien tation to the
world .
misfortune . A person has many enemies on the pat h , enemies who w i l l seek h i m
out . The evi l w i tches c a n search a person o u t w i t h e v i l medicine, a n d a few of
them w i l l be overcome. They say that the evil genies w i l l search a person out
and a few of them w i l l be overcome . They say that the dev i l 's c h i ldren w i l l
search a person o u t a n d a few o f them w i l l b e overcome, a n d t h e spirits o f the
cold w i l l search a person out , and they too can be mastered . All of them are on
the path, some of them can be mastered . 2
" Wash h i m , " Sorko Dj ibo told the man's wife , "especially the joints of
the body : the ears , nose , and mou t h ." Sorko Djibo then took me by the hand
and led me out of the man's compound. We began our trek up a large dune
toward the outskirts of Mehanna. " Now we shall find the man 's doub le,"
said the sorko. " Fol low me."
And so I did, up the crest of the dune where there was a h i gh pile of duo
(the husk of the m i llet seed), for i t is outside of town that women let the
wind separate the husk from the seed . Sorko Dj i bo walked i nto the p i le of
duo and got down on his hands an d knees . He sifted through the husks ,
jumped up and exclai med : " Wo, wo, wo, wo" (by flapping the palm of his
hand over his open mouth).
He turned toward me . " Di d you hear i t ? "
" Hear what ? " I asked dumbfounded .
" D id you feel i t ? "
" Feel wha t ? " I wondere d .
" Did you see i t ? "
" Wh a t are you talking abou t ? " I demanded.
Sorko Dj ibo shook h i s head i n disbelief. He was disappointed that I had not
sensed i n one way or another the man 's double as he , Djibo, had l iberated
i t . He said to me : " You look but you do not see . You touch , but you do not
fee l . You l isten , but you do not hear. Wit hout sight or touc h , " he con t inued ,
"one can learn a great dea l . But you must learn how to hear or you w i l l
learn l i t t le about o u r ways ."
SOU N D S , WO R D S , A N D C U LT U RA L EXPERIENCE
The notion of the magical word has long been associated with cosmogony.
Myth makers and scholars a l i ke have grappled w i t h the preem inence of the
word . Tambiah suggests that i n Totem and Taboo Freud was speculating
that the deed preceded the word .3 Linguistic phi losophers , by contras t ,
have suggested t h a t t h e word is deed . T h e elega n t arguments o f Aus t i n and
Searle on performat i ve utterances certainly lend some credence to this
posi tion .4 Taking the anthropological perspective, Tambiah rem inds us of
Goethe's view of the chicken-and-egg question concerning the word and the
deed . In Faust, the protagonist progresses " from word to t hought , then to
the notion of power, and [ends] w i t h deed ."5 None of t hese philosoph ical
1 16 Sou nds in Cultural Experience
rum i nations, however, solves the problem Tambiah ra ises : when a person
is asked why a particular ritual or magic rite is effec tive, he or she invar
iably answers, " The power is in the words ."
Malinowski , among others , paid considerable attention to the relat ion
ship between words and magic . He was convi nced , in fac t , that for the
Trobriander the very essence of magic was the spel l : " Each ri te is the
product ion of force and the conveyance of i t , directly or indirec tly, to a
certai n gi ven object , which , as the natives believe, is affected by this
force ."6 Mali nowski 's notion of force was not one of some ex ternal energy of
supernatural origi n ; ra ther, i t was an outgrowth of his pragma tic view of
language, in which the force of an ut terance stems from the reproduct ion of
i ts consequences, a force which Austin calls " perlocut ionary."7
Malinowski 's contextual ethnographic theory of the language of magic
was a major con tribution ; Tambiah refines Malinowski 's view by conjoin
ing word and deed . He wri tes that language
cultures which do not reduce words to space but know them only as aural-oral
phenomena, in actua l i ty or in the i magi nation , naturally regard words as more
powerful than do l i terate cul tures . Words are powerfu l . Being powered projec
tions, spoken words themselves have an aura of power. Words in the aural-oral
culture are i nseparable from action for they are always sound.
I n ora l -aura l cul tures i t is thus eminently credible that words can be used
to achieve an effect such as weapons or tools can achieve . Saying e v i l things of
another is thought to bring him direct physical harm . This a t t i tude toward
words in more or less i l l i terate societies is an anthropological commonplace,
but the connection of the a t t i tude with the nature of sound and the absence of
wri ting has not until recently begun to grow clear. 1 0
Sound in Songhay Sorcery 1 17
Throughout Africa, and elsewhere i n the worl d , the sounds of words are
bel ieved to carry potent powers . The Jelgobe Fulani of Burkin a Faso " do
not find i t necessary to i mbue their words w i t h emotion when speaking of
pai nful things. To name pai n and suffering in a neutral tone is to master
them because words do not escape though tlessly but are spoken con
sciously." 1 1 Indeed , the everyday speech of the Jelgobe has a power of i t s
own . Among the Dinka i t is the spoken i n vocation " which is s a i d to affect
and weaken i ts object , whether a sacrificial victim or a human enemy." 1 2 In
the Bocage of western France ,
w i tchcraft is spoken words but these spoken words are power, not knowledge or
informat ion .
To talk in wi tchcraft is never to inform . Or if information is g iven it is so
that the person who is to k i l l ( the unwi tcher) w i l l know where to a i m his blows .
Informi ng an ethnographer, that i s , someone who has no i n tention of using this
information , i s l i tera l l y unthi nkable. For a si ngle word (and only a word) can tie
or untie a fate, and whoever puts h i mself i n a posit ion to u t ter i t is formidabl e .
I n short, there is no neutral posit ion w i th spoken words: i n w i tchcraft ,
words wage war. l 3
Words , then , are seen a s a kind of energy b y many peoples i n the world , an
energy which should be apprehended i n and of i tself rather than only as a
representation of something. Such is the case among the Songhay of N i ger,
for whom the sound of words is a foundat ion of a deep-seated cul tural
experience . 1 4
Faran l i ved i n Gao. H e had a rice fiel d . Every night Zi nkibaru came t o the
rice fields to play his gui tar and the fish of the N iger came and ate Faran 's rice .
One day Fa ran went fishing and could find only two h ippos . It would be a shame
to bring home these small prizes from the river. He cal led his aide, Santana, and
left to fight Zinkibaru. Faran found Zinkibaru on an island at the juncture of
1 18 Sounds in Cultural Experience
seven rivers . Zinkibaru was playing his gui tar and the genies of the river were
playing gourd drums and a monochord viol i n . And as the Tooru river spirits
were dancing, Faran said to Zinkibaru : " G i ve me your guitar." Zinkibaru said:
" You will have to fight for it. I f you win, you wi l l have my guitar and my Tooru
capt i ves . I f I win I w i l l take your dugou t canoe ."
Faran was short and fat and Zinkibaru was tall and thi n . The ba ttle went
on . Faran came to wa rd Zinkibaru , but Zinkiba ru said : " The palm leaf w i l l
In his second confrontation with Zinkibaru, Faran won this war of words
and took control of the river spirits.
In other Songhay myths the spirits reveal the words of i ncan tations to
the ancestors , who teach them to thei r sons, and their sons to their sons ,
and so on until the words are passed on to the present t i me . Whi le myths
about sorcery and powerful words are told publicly, the incan tations them
selves are precious secrets not to be revealed to outsiders . Among those
who possess the knowledge of powerful words are the sohanci , the patri l i n
eal descendants of Sonni A l i Ber. Sohancis are specialists in m i l i ta ry sorc
ery; they possess the power to cause or protect soldiers from being
wounded from arrows , spears , or bullets . They also know the words which
will cause or protect peop le from l i fe-threateni ng accidents . Like other
Songhay healers, they also have an impressive knowledge of the plants that
can be used to heal people of physiological and superna tural disorders .
Sorkos , a l l descendants of Faran Maka Bote, are praise-singers to the
spiri ts of the Songhay pantheon . Sorcerers i n their own righ t , sorkos know
the words that can repel wi tches and the spells of other sorcerers . The zima,
or ritual priest , is the i mpresario associa ted with the Songhay possession
troupe . These men and women know the words that have the force to
beckon the spirits from the spiri t world to the world of social life . A l l these
pract i tioners undergo long apprenticesh ips duri ng which they memorize
scores of ritual incantations and learn to apply these special words to the
substances they prepare for c l ients. A substance (a vine, tree bark , a stone
or a cowry shell) is withou t power un less a sohanc i , a sorko, or a zima has
i mbued it with force through words .
THE S OU N D OF WO R D S
This brief review of the role of the word i n the Songhay u n iverse g ives only
a surface representation of t h i ngs Songhay. There is much more . Obviously,
one must learn to hear the words of i ncantations; and this, wi thout doubt ,
i s t h e most i m portant aspect o f a young sorcerer's apprenticeship. Learn
ing to hear is more than transforming the sound contours of a magical
1 20 Sounds in Cultural Experience
incantation i n to one 's own speech , however; it is more than mastering the
li teral and metaphoric meani ngs of the narratives. To learn how to hear,
the Songhay sorcerer must learn to apprehend the sound of words much as
the musician learns to apprehend the sound of music . Just as sound is the
central feature of the world of mus i c , so sound is the cen tral feature of the
world of sorcery. This world of sound comes to l i fe in a network of forces
" that act in obedience to laws whose act ion in man i fest in the act ion
of tonal [sound] even ts, in the precisely determi ned relations of tones
[sounds] to one another in the norms that govern the course of tonal
[sound] motion ."20 While the laws governing sound movement differ from
melody to melody, from i ncantation to incantation , the laws have one thing
i n common : they are dynamic , referring to "states not objects, to relations
betweeen tensions, not to pos i t ions betwee n , to tendencies , not to magni
tudes ."l l Taking this logical sequence one step further, " the forces that
act i n the tonal world manifest themselves through bodies but not upon
bodies ."22 In this sense , a tone or an incantation is not a conveyor of action ,
as Malinowski would have sai d ; ra ther i t is action . The physical manifesta
tion of the word is signi ficance , to paraphrase Merleau-Ponty, before it has
signi ficance .2 3
When a musidan o r an appren tice Songhay sorcerer learns t o hear, he
or she begins to learn that sound al lows for the interpenetrat ion of the
inner and outer worlds, of the visible and the invisible, of the tangible and
intangible. A person 's spatialized " gaze " creates dis tance . Sound , by con
trast , penetrates the individual and creates a sense of communication and
part icipation . From the musical perspective, the "out-there" is replaced
by what Zuckerkandl calls the " from-ou t-there- toward-me-and-through
me."24 In this way outer and i n ner words in terpenetrate in a flowing and
dynamic universe , a universe in which sound is a foundation . Just as i n the
world of music , where there is no clear distinction between the ma terial
and i m material worlds, so i n the Songhay cosmos there is no discrete
boundary between the spiri t and social worlds. Zuckerkandl 's description
of the musical world can be applied d i rectly to the Songhay view of the
cosmos :
It is t rue that the musical concept of the external world-nature pervaded by
i m material forces , the purely dynamic transcending of the physica l , space
wi thout distinc tion of places , t i me in which past and fu ture co-exist w i t h the
prese n t , experience of the world in the mode of participation , the external and
inward i n terpenet ra t i ng- much more nearly resembles the magical and myth
ical i deas of pri m i t ive or preh istoric peoples than i t does the sc ien t i fic concep
tions of modern man .2 s
This musical view of the ex ternal world also corresponds to the theories of
modern physics .
Sound in Songhay Sorcery 121
And so when Sorko Dj ibo says that there are invisible forces i n the
universe and that words carry some of these forces to an intended targe t ,
are w e t o discount h i m ? Are w e t o discount t h e possibi l i ty t h a t words have
power?
TO H E A R O R N OT TO H EA R
The Jelgobe Fulani of Burki na Faso inform us of the " force" of everyday
expression . The Di nka of the Sudan say that the i nvocation has the power
to weaken a human enemy. The Trobrianders speak to the force of the spe l l .
The peasants of the Socage i n western France demonstrate how " words
wage war." The Wolof of Senegal bel ieve that the sound of praise-names i n
t h e con text o f a ceremony c a n physiologica lly transform t h e addressee .26
The Tiv covet song as power, energy, the veritable force of life P The
Songhay invite us to learn about the " force " of the sounds of words , praise
names , and sacred musical instruments .
As the anthropological record sugges ts, the peoples whom anthropolo
gists study often i n v i te us to learn how to see , how to think, and even how to
hear. Many of us accept these invitat ions genuinely. And once we decide to
fol low thei r paths of wisdom , we leave the comforts of a world in which we
are members of an intellectual elite and en ter worlds of experience i n
which our i l l i terate teachers scold u s for our ignorance .
X is in the darkness . In the darkness it sees a rock . And the rock sees the e v i l
witch's gen italia. T h e l ights of t h e w i tch fl a s h o n and o ff . B u t w h e n i t [the w i tch]
l i fts i t s torc h , i t is worthless because now i t will fal l and fear w i l l escape . Men
1 22 Sou nds in Cultural Experience
w i l l not fear you . Women w i l l not fear you . You w i l l not know your front side
from your back side. The darkness will be upl i fted .2 8
The referential meaning of this incantat ion taught me about heari ng- that
the force of the words of the inca n t a t ion can incapac i ta te a wi tch . The
power of the i ncantation is not in the words as carriers of referential
meaning , bu t in the sounds of the words. " X " is the powerfu l word that
incapaci tates the wi tch by causing i t to fa l l from fligh t . When the sorko
reci tes the tex t , the sound waves of the word , " X , " and a l l the other words
that consti tute the i ncantat ion , enter i n to the night air. Through the dark
ness the powerful sound waves travel to find a rock which guides the sacred
sounds to the wi tch 's gen i ta l i a . The sound waves of the incantat ion pene
trate the wi tch 's gen i t a l i a and the l i gh ts of the witch begin to flash . The
wi tch raises i ts frightening red torch to scare away the sorko. But it is too
l a t e . The w i tch becomes disorien ted and no longer poses a threat to the
com munity. " The darkness is u p l i fted ."
Words are powerfu l and sounds ca rry force. I t is for these reasons that I
present the " X " incantation only in English .
PA R T I V
W i t tgenste in
The Reconstruction of
8 Ethnography
chief, who approved the proposa l . But before I surveyed individuals, the
chief told me , I should consul t with the eigh t neighborhood chiefs . After a
series of long visits with the chiefs , I at last began my survey. U nexpectedly,
each in terview was so long that I cou ld conduct only six i nterv iews a day. I t
took me thi rty days t o complete 1 80 i nterviews . As I collected d a t a I began
to analyze the m , and I discovered that mu l t i l i ngual ism was grea ter than I
The Reconstruction of Ethnography 1 27
had antic i pated . Moreover, a cursory examination of the language atti tude
data suggested much cross-e t h n ic enmity.
Toward the end of the Mehanna survey, I i nterviewed a shopkeeper
named Abdou Kano. Abdou told me that he spoke four languages ( Songhay,
Hausa, Fulan i , and Tamasheq). My work w i t h Abdou completed, I walked
next door to i nterv iew Mahamane Boulla, who, l i ke Abdou , was a shop
keeper. I asked him how many languages he spoke .
" How many languages does Abdou say he speaks ? " he asked me .
"Abdou , " I sai d , " says he speaks four languages."
" Hah ! I know for a fact that Abdou speaks only two languages ."
" Wha t ? " I exclai med . " How could he lie to me ? " I s tood up abruptly
and strutted over to Abdou 's shop.
Abdou smi led and greeted me. "Ah , Monsieur Paul , what would you
l i ke to buy today ? "
"Abdou , " I began firm ly, " Mahamane h a s just told m e t h a t you speak
only two l anguages . Is that t rue ? "
Abdou shrugged h i s shoulders . " Yes , i t is t rue . I speak only two lan
guages: Hausa and Songhay."
" Why did you tell me you spoke four languages ? "
Abdou patted me o n t h e shoulder. "What difference does i t make?" H e
glanced skyward . " Te l l m e , how many languages did Mahamane say h e
speaks ? "
" Mahamane , " I answered , " told m e t h a t he speaks three languages ."
" He can speak Songhay and that is a l l , " Abdou said .
" Wha t ? " I exclaimed. Turning red w i t h a nger, I stormed back t o Ma
hamane 's shop. "Abdou tel l s me that you speak on ly one language . But you
just told me that you spoke three languages . What is the t ru t h ? "
Mahamane smi led a t me. "Abdou is tel l i n g t h e tru t h ."
" Bu t how could you lie to me ? "
Like Abdou , Mahamane shrugge d . " What is the difference ? "
I spent t h e next week frantically consu l t i n g t h e other 1 78 people whom
I had in terviewed duri ng the previous mont h . To my d isgus t , I d iscovered
that everyone had lied to me , and that the data I had so laboriously
collected were worth less .
Any audience of fieldworkers , anthropologists or whatnots, can em
pathize with my predicamen t , for I am sure that such incidents are not
isolated ones . Informants rou t i nely lie to anthropologists for any number
of reasons . " Wh a t 's the d i fference ? " " We don ' t know you ." " We know you ,
but we don ' t trust you ." " S i nce you are too young we cannot tell you the
tru t h (but we are too pol i te to tell you to go away)."
I was lucky because I discovered early i n my fieldwork that people
were l y i ng to me; some of us are not so lucky, especially if we do not engage
1 28 The Senses in Anthropology
Two vignettes from the field . Two v ignettes on the paradoxical nature
of anthropological work . My first attempt to learn about the Songhay
through a ques t ionnaire was an unqua l i fied fai lure; all of my respondents
l ied to me. Perhaps much of the blame was m i n e . Perhaps my questionnaire
was not wel l-designed . Perhaps I abandoned too rapidly an epistemology
in which the goa l is to produce idea l , verifiab le, and repl icable knowledge
that we might use as a data base for comparison . But my personal i nterest
i n rel igion and the i mponderables of magic , wi tchcraft , and sorcery pushed
me to choose a more subjective approach to fieldwork- letting the Song
hay teach me about their culture and society. 1 This approach led me over
1 30 The Senses in Anthropology
the years to meet and know people, not i n formants; i t led me i nside a
sorko's h u t ; i t led me beyond an invisible threshold to a domain the Song
hay call the " world of eternal war." In this " world of eternal war" much has
happened that I have not been able to expla i n or understan d . How could I
expla i n , after a l l , the broken vial of B int al Hadash ? Sleight of hand,
remembering so vividly Lev i-Strauss's " Sorcerer and his Magic "?2 Perhaps
the force of the spiri t broke the vial ? Maybe this woman , despi te our
budd i n g re l a t ionsh i p , was , for any number of reasons, trying to decei ve
me ?
Wh i le I prefer to be led by others i n to murky worlds where I attempt to
unravel the mysteries of metaphor, i l l usion , humor, or symbolism , this
subject i ve approach is not foolproof. Even when an anthropologist has
gained the confidence of people after ten , twen ty, or thi rty years , he or she
may s t i l l be the victim of misin terpretation, innuendo, and decei t . I know
of Song hay who con ti nue their at tern pt to deceive Jean Rouc h , even though
he has been a sens i t i ve , knowledgeable and respected part icipant in Song
hay social l i fe for more than forty years .
What are we to make of these fundamental problems ? A re these cases
representative of most anthropological work ? If we transcend the l i m ita
tions of the Western empirical tradi t ion , whatever that may be, what
remains? Are we left w i th a subjectivism so laced with i mperfect ions that
it, too, is worthless ? Perhaps we shou ld be more realistic about the goa ls of
the human sciences and take the sober advice of David Hume, who wrote
that "all our reason i ngs concern ing causes and effects arc derived from
nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sens i t ive,
than the cogi tative part of our naturc ."3
This chapter fol lows Humc's advice by assessing the sense of "anthro
pological science ." Can we discover the Tru th of Human Nature ? Arc there
underlying Laws of Culture ? Do we waste our t i me and resources through
endless theorizing, as we try to discover the U l t i mate and the Absolute in
our search for the Tru t h ?
Anthropology h a s one strengt h : ethnography, t h e original , a l b e i t i m
perfec t , product of o u r disc i p l i ne . Despi te i ts taken-for-granted status,
ethnography, rather than cul tura l materialism, structuralism, or any other
" is m , " has been and w i l l con t i nue to be our core con tribution . I t is t i me to
apprec iate ethnographers who produce works of art that become powerfu l
vehicles of theoretical exposi t ion .4
what may from what may not be characterized as scient i fic ."5 I n his diverse
works on madness , sexual ity, crim i nal justice , medicine, and the h istory of
the human sciences , Foucaul t demonst rated how the episteme governs
what we see , what we think, what we say, and what we write . He a lso
described how h istorical forces have combined in different periods of time
to change a gi ven episteme. He wrote of the episteme of the Renaissance , in
which words had an existence of their own . He described the classical
episteme, an age of mathesis, in which words were neutra l , conveyors of
pure representation i n a mechanistic order. He discussed the modern epis
teme, in which scholars discovered the finitude of man , a d iscovery that
heralded the human sciences . And yet the human sciences present , as
Foucau l t suggested , an epistemological paradox :
Not only are the human sciences able to do w i thout a concept of man, they are
unable to pass through i t , for they always address themselves to that which
const i t u tes his outer l i m i t s . One may say of them what Levi-Strauss said of
ethnology : that they dissolve man .6
Do not l isten to me, the moral speaker, but be in hearkening to the Laying that
gathers; first belong to this and then you hear properly ; such hearin g is when a
letting-l ie-together-before occurs by which the gathering letting-lie, the Laying
that gathers, l ies before us gathered ; when a l e t t i ng-l ie-before occurs , the fate
ful comes to pass.7
From these philosophical fragments Plato devised the search for Trut h , to
paraphrase Richard Rorty, in which we turn away from subjec t i v i ty (Her
ac l itus's obl ique wri ting) to objecti v ity. Objectivity was Plato's solution to
the puzzle of i n fi n i te variab i l i ty i n the world of appearances . And so Plato
was the first t h i nker to distinguish appearance from rea l i t y : behind every
appearance there is a h idden , i mmutable Form . These Forms are the arche
types of knowledge , disti nguished from opinion , which , in Plato's view, is
as unstable as the flux of appearances. Knowledge , on the other hand , is an
i m mutable p i l lar of real i ty.s
1 32 The Senses in Anthropology
From these simple distinct ions, the epistemology of Western phi loso
phy was born . These metaphysical distinct ions , I sugges t , have not been
disputed by others si nce Plato; ra ther, thinkers have disputed on ly how to
discover the real i ty hidden beh ind appearances, how to arri ve at Tru th .
In the course o f this work , w e have seen the notion o f exchange become com
pl icated and diversified; it has constantly appeared to us in different forms .
Somet i mes exchange appears direc t . . . . Somet i mes it functions w i t h i n a total
system . . . and at others i t instiga tes the formation of an u n l i m i ted number of
special systems and short cycles unconnected among themselves . . . . Some-
t i mes the exchange is exp l i c i t . . . and at other t i mes it is i mplici t . . . . Some-
t i mes the exchange is closed , while at other t i mes it is open . . . . But no matter
what form it takes . whether d i rect or indirec t , general or special , i m mediate or
deferred , explicit or i m p l i c i t , closed or ope n , concrete or symbol i c , it is ex
change , al ways exchange , that emerges as the fundamental and common basis
of all moda l i t ies of the i n s t i t u t ion of marriage 1 3
The u l t i mate goa l of the human sciences is not to constitute man , but to dissolve
h i m . The critical importance of ethnology is that it represents the first step i n a
process which includes others. Ethnologic analysis tries to arrive at i nvariants
beyond the empirical d i vers i t y of soc ieties . . . . This i n i t i a l e n terprise opens the
way for others . . . which arc incumbent on the natural sciences: the rei ntegra
t ion of culture i n to nature and generally of l i fe into the whole of its physico
chemical condi t ions . . . . One can understand , therefore . why I find in ethnology
the principle of a l l research . 1 4
1 34 The Senses in Anthropology
Ethnology is not only Levi-Strauss's principle for a l l research, but the basis
of the metaphysics founded by Plato more than 2 ,500 years ago.
A n th ropological Adages
What has been good for Levi-S trauss has been good for most anthropolo
gists . I do not suggest that all anthropologists are latent structuralists;
rather, I argue that most anthropologists are members of the community of
Western metaphysic ians . We , like Levi-S trauss, search for the One in the
Many; we seek out the Platonic Truth , the rea l i ty lurking behind appear
ances .
Radcliffe-Brown did not hesitate to place anthropological science
within metaphysics. In numerous articles he stedfastly suggested that
anthropology, or what he called comparative sociology, was a branch of the
natural sciences i n which scholars would induce social structures to be
compared . Through comparison , Radcliffe-Brown , argued , anthropolo
gists arrive i nduc tively at " laws of social statics" (what Levi-Strauss re
ferred to as " in variants"). 1 5 Plato, of course, referred to these " laws" as
Forms . Like Radc l i ffe-Brow n , Mali nowski thought that general p roposi
tions can be induced from a mass of data. One first col lects ethnographic
fact s , M a l i nowski tells us, and then analyzes them to see what patterns
unfold.
These metaphysical pat terns are present i n recent theoretical orienta
tions in anthropology. The eth nography of communication provides an
example. Hymes argues for describing society from the van tage of com
municat ion (speaking). He points, rightly, to the importance of descri bing
cul tural conceptions from the poin t of view of those who are being s tud
ied- the so-cal led "ernie gri d . " From ernie data, the ethnographer of com
munication classifies com munica t i ve acts , events, or si tuat ions within
their cul tural context . Hymes warns, however, that taxonomy is not an end
i n i tself; the object is the painstaking recording of ethnographic divers i t y :
" The work of taxonomy is a necessary part of progress toward models
(structural and generative) of sociolinguistic description , formulation of
universal sets of fea tures and relations, and explanatory theories ." 1 6 Join
ing the universal ists of the Pla tonic heri tage , Hymes adds : " I n sum , just as
a theory of grammar must have its uni versal terms , so must a t heory of
language use ." 1 7 Indeed , wi thou t the universal terms natural scentists use,
how can sociol i nguists or social scien tists compare data from highly di
verse societies ? How can they achieve theoretical wholes from the muddle
of variable data ?
The taken-for-granted Platon ic distinctions , which weave themselves
i n to so many theories, also appear in some contemporary theories of eth
nography. The New Ethnography was an at tempt to produce reliable and
The Reconstruction of Ethnography 1 35
ars lose sight of what is in the worl d .2 1 Merleau-Ponty and Langer suggest
in d i fferent works that scientific methods , assumptions , and discourse ob
scure rather than i l lumine questions of l i fe and consciousness .22 Caught in
the web of metaphysics , we posit post-Socratic uni versal theory as an
al ternative to pre-Socratic chaos . Caught in these metaphysical webs , we
produce a discourse that is flat and neutra l .
Example 4. Cul tural understandi ngs abou t ethnic identity typically entail be
liefs about personal i t y traits characteristic of particular ca tegories of people or
groups .27
Example 7. This paper concerns the communicat ion of affec t , and the role
therein of cul tural and l i nguistic systems. It explores some analyt ical issues in
cross-cul tural comparison and the notion of "expressive language " and it exam·
i nes modes of affec tive expression i n a particular ethnographic case .3 0
Example 8. Kennan ( 1 97 3 : 49) has defined the pragmatic presuppos i t ion as the
" relation between the u t terance of a sen tence and the con text in which i t is
ut tered ."3 1
The Reconstru ction of Ethnography ! 37
back to the ci ty. Just as one might say: tell us abou t ogres and wolves , abou t
L i t t le Red Riding Hood . Fri g h ten us, but make it clear that i t 's onlv a storv . ; or
.
that they are just peasa n t s : credu lous , backward , and margina l .JB
1 38 The Senses in Anthropology
This kind of lush , vivid, lyrica l , and personal writing lies beyond the
usual parameters of appropriateness that have been establ i shed within the
episteme of anthropology. Unfortuna tely, one does not become a distin
guished anthropologist because of the qua l i ty of one 's prose or the memo
rab i l i ty of one 's descript ions .
Anthropological discourse is characterized by the search for " invar
iants beyond the empirical d i vers i ty of societies ."39 The search must isolate
a n d accou n t for aspec ts of human behavior, and not the murki ness and
i mprecision of human existence . In a recent article on " Human Linguis
tics , " Ross ski l l fully highlights the relationsh ip between episteme and
discourse . Some l i nguists, he wri tes , are concerned with answering the
question : " What formal principles, both language-particular and univer
sal , are necessary and sufficient to characterize the distribut ion of and
relationshi p among l inguistic elements in each of the languages of the
world? "40 Human li nguistics is concerned with an al together d i fferent
question : " What can the study of language tel l us about human beings ? "4 1
When any one of these pantom i mic gen tlemen, who are so clever that they
i m i tate anythi n g , comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit hi mself and his
poetry, we w i l l fal l down and worsh i p h i m as a sweet and holy and wonderfu l
bei ng, but we m u s t a lso inform h i m that in o u r S t a t e such as h e are not
perm i t ted to exist; the law w i l l not a l low them.42
And why not ? Because i n the State, the poe t or dramatist does not fi t i n to
any of the social categories prescribed by the doctrine of U l t i mate Forms .
Put another way, art and metaphysics become mutually exclusive; hence
the presence of flat, neutral , and sludgy prefaces , pretexts, and texts in the
discourse of the human sciences .
Yet , when anthropologists are confronted with something they cannot
explai n , they find that the foundation of this aged metaphysics begins to
crumble, that the d iscourse that worked so wel l in a previous study cannot
adequately represen t a particular field inciden t .
Art a n d science shou ld complement one another. Indeed , if w e focus on
anthropological texts not as explicit logico-deductive/i nductive state
ments, but rather as texts that describe the texture of a society to a reader,
The Reconstruction of Ethnography 1 39
Ross seems to have experienced the Being of l anguage ; h i s article, " Human
Linguistics" is a poem that is a multi logue . It not only concerns a current
debate i n theoretical l inguistics, but also suggests a fundamental shift
toward humanism in the most positivistic of the social sciences . Favret
Saada and Contreras wrote an ethnography in the l i terary form of a diary,
where they record Favret-Saada's experience in the Bocage of western
France . This diary becomes a n open window through which the reader is
swept i n to the Bocage . Readers experience the authors' joy, doubts , fears ,
and disappointments.45
" For five years I have watched you , and today you shall know me. Come
into my house . I l ike you and this is why I shall give you the story of me l i fe ."
I wondered what he would tell me. Inside h i s dark thatched hut was an
al tar. M i n iature leather sandals and small clay jugs tied to pieces of cloth
hung from bundles of st icks that formed the skeleton of the hut .
" I am a zima, and I have been one for more than fifty years ."
"I did not know, Baba."
" We Songhay do not talk of our strengths to anyone . We must know
peop l e firs t . I know you now, my son , and I want you to know me . Go and
get your mach ine [tape recorder] so you can open it and learn my story."
I went to get my tape recorder and " opened " i t for this warm , wise
man . An orpha n , he left the island of his birth , Si nder, as a young man . He
traveled about the Sahel i n search of work , mos t ly as a farmhan d . He then
traveled to Aribinda, the grea t center of farming magic i n Burkina Faso,
where he apprenticed h i mself to a master sorcerer. After seven years i n
Aribinda, he traveled t o t h e Borgu i n northern Togo, where he again ap
prenticed h i mself to a master sorcerer. Seven years later he returned to
Niger and spent one year i n Sangara, one of the magic v i l l ages of Songhay.
There he learned about the Songhay spirits and became a zima. After
fifteen years of training he se ttled in Mehanna, where he became the priest
of the local possession t roupe . By the t i me I met h i m , A madu Z i ma's body
was bowed w i t h age- like the dessicated trunk of a giant acacia dying ever
so slowly. He had long since given up being a zima, but clients s t i l l sough t
his serv ices-for sorcery. He never left his compound .
After recounting in detail the h i s tory of h i s l i fe , Amadu Zima d iscussed
with me Songhay phi losophy and sorcery. He spoke about the spiri ts,
reci ted i ncantations and praise-poetry, revealed the secret names of medic
inal plants, and performed three rites that would protect me from the
vicissi tudes of enemies and spiri ts al i ke .
We talked for weeks , a n d throughout our discussions Amadu Z i ma
continued to proclaim how much he liked me . " I would never tel l this to
anyone , " he sa i d . " But I tell my l i fe , my secrets, to you , Paul , because I l ike
you . You like me . You ask questions . You want to learn my ways . You are
l i ke the son I never had ."
A madu Z i ma does not represen t all the Songhay; his story is his own .
Yet how can we ignore such a man in the name of ethnographic realism ?
How can we i gnore what the Amadu Z i mas and Fatouma Seynis teach us
about ourselves, about l i fe ? Is i t not their voices that w i l l help us to
reconstruct ethnography ?
9 Detours
forms I discussed in the prior chapter. Imagine articles and books which
dwe l l upon the sideroads of d iscovery rather than the main highway of
resu l t s .
I t wou ld be fool ish t o suggest t h a t t h e " conve n t ions o f representation "
in the soc i a l sciences completely exclude surrealist methodologies and
epistemological essays . ' They don ' t . Michel Le iris's magni ficent Afrique
fa nt6me, his journal of the famous Dakar-Dj ibou t i M i ssion ( 1 93 1 - 3 3 ) is a
1 44 The Senses in Anthropology
An adjacent hearer can elect to let the matter entirely pass , tacitly framing i t as
though it were the stomach rumblings of another's mind, and con t i nue on
undeflected from his task i nvolvements; or, for example, he can h i t upon the
venting as an occasion to bring the remaining company i n to a focus of conversa
tion attention for a j i be made at the expense of another person who i n t roduced
the i n i t ia l distraction , which efforts t hese others may dec l i ne to support , and if
declining, provide no display of excuse for doing so. In these circumstances the
whole framework of conversational constraints-both system and ritual-can
become something to honor, to i n vert , or to disregard , depending as the mood
strikes . On these occasions i t 's not merely that the lid can 't be closed ; there is no
box .5
And if this kind of " free play" pops out of illusionary conversa tional boxes ,
what can be said of the m i nd-boggling " free play " that explodes from the
i l l usionary boxes of society and cul ture ?
How does t h e ethnographer apprehend t h e elusiveness of worlds i n
which he o r s h e tries t o close t h e l i d t o discover t h a t there is n o box ? Keats
long ago had an answer i n his concept of " negative capabi l i ty." Dewey
notes that , for Kea ts, Shakespeare was a man of enormous " negat i ve capa
b i l i ty, " the capac i ty of " being i n uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, wi thout
any i rri table reaching after fact or reason ."6 Keats con trasted Shakespeare
with Coleridge , who lacked the great playwright's " negative capabili ty."
Coleridge would " let a poetic insight go when it was surrounded wi th
Detours 1 45
Our Glassy Essence was not a philosophical doctrine, but a picture which
l i terate men found presupposed by every page they read. It is glassy- mirror
l i ke-for two reasons. Fi rs t , it takes on new forms wi thout being changed-but
intel lectual forms , rather than sensible ones as material mi rrors do. Second ,
mi rrors are made o f a substance t h a t is purer, finer grained, more subtle, and
more delicate than mos t . U n l i ke our spleen , which , in combi nation w i t h other
equa l l y gross and visible organs, accoun ted for the bulk of our behavior, our
Glassy Essence i s something we share with the angel s , even though they weep
for our ignorance of its essence . The supernatural worl d , for the sixteenth
century i n tellectuals , was modeled upon Pla to's world of Ideas, just as our
con tact with i t was modeled upon his metaphor of vision . ' '
disci p l i nes which are on the ' secure path of a science'-and the rest of
culture ." 1 2
This p h ilosophical framework may be fi ne for t hose engaged i n the
natural sciences , but it is l i m i t ing for many scholars i n the human sciences
who struggled to make the study of human i ty a n inquiry i n to the real , a
veri table science . As indicated i n Chapter 8 , Levi-Strauss's structuralism is
an extreme expression of this tendency.
Scient i s m , in fac t , reigns in the human sciences because we continue to
bel ieve the m i n d to be a pure m i rror and that Our G l assy Essence enables
us to find the One in the Many, the i rreducible i nvariants beneath the
surface divers i ty of appearances. In this trad i t ion scholars search for sim
ple sociobiological explanations of human behavior, and for theories of
ethnography. 1 3 The search for uni versal Truth in the hard sciences , social
sciences, and philosophy is business-as-usual ; i t i s phi losophy with m i r
rors .
The i mage of the artist anoi n ted , silently mouthing to a mute animal what
cannot be said to his fel low man, became one of the most resonant i mages of the
Detours 1 49
1 960s . But beyond that the appeal of How to Expla in Pictures to a Dead Hare l ies
in the combination of that title, which says much about our anxious need for
explanations, w i t h the ritual mask through which the iden t i ty of man is psycho
logical l y obscured, and the i n t i mate i nclusion , where we are excluded , of an
a n i mal i n a total state of vul nerab i l i ty. 1 8
Veering off the art istic path , Beuys was eager t o discuss the whys and
wherefores of his art , for h i s exposi tory discourse was an essential aspect of
his work . Symbol ically, Beuys l i n ked the hare to wome n , birth , and men
struation , and he suggested the hare i ncarnates h i mself i n to the eart h . The
hare rubs, pushes , and digs i tself i n to the earth and enters i ts law; human
beings, by cont ras t , are fundamentally mental creatures who incarnate
themselves in the earth through thought . The honey coating Beuys's head
referred to thinking. Human bei ngs do not produce honey ; they produce
ideas . When Beuys put honey on h i s head he infused l i fe i n to non-animate
thinking .
Gold and honey i ndicate a t ransformat ion of the head , and therefore natura l l y
and logical ly, t h e bra i n and o u r understanding of thought , consciousness and
all the other levels necessary to explain pic tures to a hare : the warm stool
insulated with fel t , the " radio" made of bone and electrical components under
the stool and the iron sole w i th the magne t . I had to walk on this sole when I
carried the hare round from picture to picture , so along w i t h a strange limp
came the clank of i ron on the hard stone floor- that was a l l that broke the
si lence , si nce my explanat ions were mute , and the radio was on an a l most
i naudible wavelength .
This seems to have been the action that most captured people's i magina
tions. On one level this must be because everyone consciously or unconsc iously
recognizes the problem of explaining things , particularly where art and cre
a t i ve work are concerned , or anything that involves a certain mystery or ques
tioni ng. The idea of explaining to an animal conveys a sense of secrecy of the
worl d and of existence that appeals to the i magi nation . Then , as I have sai d ,
even a dead animal preserves more powers o f i n t u i t ion t h a n some human
beings with their stubborn ra tion a l i t y. ' 9
Social Sculpture
Once one has become sens i t ive to Beuys's frameworks , the melange of
forms that comprise his Actions , then he or she can apprehend the social
signi ficance of this sculpture . Beuys's theory of social sculpture is best
exemp l i fied in his work , Fat Corner. In Fat Corner, fat , generally margarine ,
is wedged into a corner of a room in the form of an equilateral triangle .
There i t is left to decompose . Eventually the fa t is absorbed by the walls
and the floor of the room ; i t has been transformed from a solid form with
extrinsic order to a liquid form without order.
1 50 The Senses in A nthropology
Some scholars have suggested that the fa t in Fat Corner is the best
substance to demons tra te Bueys's theory of sculpture . At warm tempera
tures , fa t is a mal leable sol id that can be molded i n to desired shapes; it is
an ordered sol i d . Fa t is therefore "a paradox when it is placed i n that mos t
ordered of forms, a right-angled corner or wedge ."20 In Western society the
corner symbolizes our space: bui ldings , rooms, c i ty plans. The righ t angle
is the cornerstone of our orientation to space . Indeed, the right angle
reaches the l i m i t of the continuum, Chaot ic-Ordered . Just as the shaman
manipulates a com bination of symbols to bring about healthful social
harmony, so Beuys's jux taposit ion of diverse elements i n Fat Corner demon
strates the l i n k of the chaotic to the ordered i n a world wi thout myths and
boundaries .
SHAMANISM IN A RT A N D PHILOSOPHY
In his various Actions , Joseph Beuys took the role of the shaman , a person
who a t tempts to cure i l l ness through rites that are designed to restore
soci a l balance . Through shamanistic performance the artist acts out his or
her art . In most artistic circles it is considered appropriate to let a piece of
sculpture , a pai nting, or a poem stand for i tself. Why act it ou t ? Why did
Beuys place his sculpture i n a dramatic con tex t ?
Some cri tics suggest t h a t individual ized drama constitutes t h e signifi
cant expressive form i n the contemporary worl d .
At first glance one wou ld expect that these individualized dramas are
grossly narcissistic; Beuys , after a l l , was the central character in all of his
Actions .
In the contemporary world , however, there is emerging a new defini
tion of self in aesthetic doma ins; i t is an opaque self, the catalyst for
expression . Along the route of performance art-theater, Beuys presen ted
his Actions in what Barthes cal led " the mi ddle voice ."
the middle voice corresponds exac t l y to the state of the verb to wri te: today to
write is to make oneself the center of the action of speech [parole] ; it is to effec t
Detours 151
wri t ing in being a ffected oneself; i t is to leave the wri ter [scripteur] i nside the
wri t i n g , not as a psychological subject . . . but as an agent of the action .23
Like certa in modern writers who let language speak for itself, Beuys used
hi mself as a tool to let his Act ions express themse lves . He became a modern
ritual special ist-an artistic shama n . " Beuys' exerc ise of the shaman 's
position , operating i n the middle voice , provides a frame w i t h i n which
phi losophy may be rethought ."24
Just as Beuys's shamanistic performances i n the m i ddle voice provide
a new detour for art , so Rorty 's new pragmatism yields new d i rections for
phi losophical inquiry. Both men fi t the category of edification . The purpose
of art-phi losophy for them is to educate, to restore balance (Beuys) and
sol idarity ( Rorty) i n a human communi ty. The work of both men seeks to
heal the world of its most pernicious malady: the totalizing terror the
absolutism of which threatens to destroy humankind . They say we need to
keep our conversat ions going; they show that we need to feel the threads
that connect the chaotic to the ordered .
ferred to poi nt to the dangers of contemporary " dogma tism , " and to the
l i berating effects of piercing through the world 's superficialities. While
high " modernism " rocked the world of the arts, i t had l i t tle impact on the
sciences , human or otherwise .
But the tradi tion of skepticism did not die with high modernism . In the
past twenty years a new skepticism has appeared on the i n tel lectual hori
zon . Such wri ters as Foucaul t , Derrida, and Lyotard have further exposed
the fai lures of i n tellectua l i s m , suggesting that it has not brough t us free
dom from ignorance-as promised by the likes of Socrates, Plato, Kant ,
and Hegel; rather, i t has brough t u s terror and total i tarianism P The
i mpact of Derridean " free play" or Lyotardian "gaming" has eroded as
never before the solid foundation of Reason . The certainty, determin is m,
a n d clarity of classical humanism h av e been replaced by t h e uncertainty,
indeterminacy, and ambiguity of the con temporary age . " Human scien
tists" have meandered on to the detour of Keats's aforementioned " negative
capabi l i ty."
According to John Dewey, two major premises emerge from Keats's
ideas on " nega t i ve capabili ty." The first is that the origin of reasonings has
a spontaneous " i nstinctive" qua l i ty which makes reason i ngs i mmediate ,
sensuous, and poetic. The second is that " no ' reasoning' as reason ing, that
is, excluding i magination and sense, can reach t ru t h . "28
Experience , of course, is what Keats's " negative capabi l i t y " is all
abou t . As Dewey strongly suggested , experience is a radically empi rical
domain in which thoughts, feelings, and actions are inseparab le . Experi
ence is conti nuous for every human being; it is not only ethereal , but
fundamentally aestheti c . For Dewey, the aesthetic , an i ntrinsic component
of experience , " is no intruder in experience from withou t , whether by way
of idle luxury or transcendent idea l i ty, but . . . it is the clarified and in ten
sified development of traits that belong to every normally complete experi
ence ."29 For Dewey, then , there is no intel lectualist separat ion of ideal
expression , Art , from prosaic expression , art or folk art . Art is part of
experience and experience is part of art . There can be no ideal izat ion of
experience , aesthetic or otherwise. In the tradi t ion of Shakespeare , Mon
taigne, Kea ts, Nietzsche , Dewey, James , Foucaul t , Derrida, Rorty, and
Beuys-skeptics all -the notion of truth " never signifies correc tness of
intel lectual statements about thi ngs or truth as its mean ing is i nfluenced
by science . It denotes the wisdom by which men l ive ."30 The aesthetic
awareness of the senses, then , plays a foundat ional role in experience,
whic h , i n turn , is the heart of ethnographic fieldwork .
Ethnographic Film
Fi l m can be a powerfully evocative medium , projecting to an audience a
narra t i ve which may be infused with sensual sights and sounds . But sen
sual sights and sounds do not carry the burden of a fi l m : that is the job of
the narrative, whic h , if constructed with care and c reativi ty, can be mov
ing.
The master of evocative ethnographic film is unques tionably the
French fi l m m aker and anthropologist Jean Rouch . Rouch 's films of the
Songhay and Dogon peoples do not analyze the social phenomena that t hey
portray. Rather, they present i magery of such unforgettable power, as i n
the possession scenes o f the classic , Les Ma itres fous, that the viewer i s
affected . Some viewers are repel led b y the brutali ty o f the Hauka spirits
who chomp on the boiled mea t of a freshly slaughtered dog . O thers are
awed by the power of these spirits who put their bare hands into boi l i ng
cauldrons without i l l effect . The i mages also compel most viewers to re
spect Songhay and Dogon living in their own worlds. Rouch 's films are a
1 54 The Senses in A n thropology
Narrative Ethnography
An ethnography wi th a strong narrative presence can also be powerfully
evocative. Ethnograph ic narratives , like ethnographic fi l m s , are not sim
ply stories wi thout discip l inary consequence . Narrative ethnographies
usua l l y underscore , albeit i ndirec tly, themes of great theoretical i m por
tance . In fac t , narrative ethnographies can be more attuned to the senses
than ethnographic fi l m s ; they, after a l l , can focus on smells and tastes as
wel l as on sights and sounds. Narra t i ve ethnographers also have the luxury
of space to ponder at length the thoughts, feel ings , and actions of their
others-as wel l as their own .
In Tales of the Field John Van Maanen has placed what I call narrative
ethnographies i n to two categories : i m pressionistic tales and l i terary tales.
Just as i m pressionist painters l ike Monet used color, light, and form,
a mong other thi ngs, to shock their audiences , so, Van Maanen claims,
i mpression i s t ethnographers , few of whom have published book-length
works, try to awaken their audiences with startling stories . The l i terary
tools these i mpressionist ethnographers use include : " words , metaphors ,
phrasings, i magery, and most i mportant l y, the expansive recall of field
work experience ."33 These tales of recal led events are usually told in the
first person , and often have the feel of a fast-paced novel . " Impressionistic
writing tries to keep subject and object i n constant view. The epistemologi
cal aim is then to braid the knower wi th the known ."34 These " i mpres
sionistic tales" are radically empirica l , fusing though t , action , and sen ti
ment wi thout suffering the solipsism of many confessional texts.
Van Maanen disti nguishes impression ist from l i terary tales . Both
kinds of tex ts are much more l i kely to attract general audiences than the
ethnographic confessional or the rea list ethnography. Anthropologists , ac
cording to Van Maanen , generally don 't write l i terary tales , which others
cal l new journalism or cul tural journa l i s m . " Li terary tales combine a
reporter's sense of what is noteworthy (newsworthy) with a nove l i s t 's sense
of narration . Dense charac terization , dramatic plots, flashbacks (and flash
forwards), and al ternative poi nts of view are i l l ustrative techn iques ."35 A l l
these techn iques emotionally engage a broad audience, a n d t h e resul t is
brisk sales of works that are often ethnographically significant and may
encourage reticent professional ethnographers to i mprove their wri ting.36
Detours 1 55
they might not see it. And why not ? There may well be institutional rea
son s . One is today rewarded more for theoretical than for descriptive
contributions to the l iterature . My v iews about textual quality, which are
spelled out in my own narrat i ve ethnography, In Sorcery's Shadow, devolve
from the depth of participation in the other's world . Put simply, the narra
tive depth of an ethnography is related directly to the nature of the author's
participation in society. If a fieldworker a t tempts " participant observa
tion , " anthropology 's most famous oxymoron , his or her disinterested
stance will l i kely surface i n a l i feless text . Lifeless texts const i tute, I ' m
afra i d , the large majori ty o f anthropological works . They are often based
on a relatively superficial penetration of the other's world and reflect the
uncertainty of an author who a ttempts to participate and observe a phe
nomenon at the same t i m e . More disquieti n g , however, are those l i feless
texts written by anthropologists who have i mmersed themselves i n the
study of others . These men and women have compe l l i ng stories to tel l , but
recoun t them only i n informal set t ings where i t has been appropriate to
reconnect thought w i t h feel i ng and action .
I mmersion or fuller participation in other worlds, however, can yield
striking resul t s . Take Jean Rouch 's forty-five years of association w i t h the
Songhay of N i ger. In h i s case , the spi rits-i n the bodies of mediums-told
the great magicians of Wanzerbe to teach Rouch about Songhay sorcery
and possession . In my case thirty years later, the spirits also paved the way
for my en try i n to the world of Songhay sorcery. These powerful experiences
steered Rouch onto the detour of fi l m and me onto the detour of narrative
ethnography. I n both cases , we became apprent ices-fu l l participants i n
Songhay l i fe . A s appren tices our first lesson was : one is ignorant ; one
knows nothing. From that t i me on we bui l t our knowledge ; we cont i nue to
! 56 The Senses in Anthropology
build i t . Apprenticeshi p demands respect . "Wi thout respect , " Adamu Jeni
tongo once told me, "one learns nothing. You must always show us your
respec t . " If there is one underlying theme in Rouch 's films and in my books ,
i t is that such a deep respect for other worlds and other ideas , ideas often
prepos terous to our own way of thinking, is central to the ethnographic
endeavor.
This kind of respect demands a different kind of text or fi l m ; it is a text
or film i n which the sensua l i t y of life is fused with the filmic or narrative
i mage ; the smell s , the tastes , the sounds , the colors-lyrical and unset
t l i ng-of the lan d . This kind of respect , born of deep i m mersion in other
worlds , demands that nameless informan ts be portrayed as recognizable
indi viduals who suffer defeats and win victories i n their social worlds . This
kind of respect d i rects wri ters and fi l mmakers onto a rad ically empirical
detour a long which we can achieve the most si mple ye t most al lusive goa l
of ethnography : to give our readers or vi ewers a sense of what it is l i ke to
l i ve in other worlds , a taste of ethnographic things.
When we veer off the highway, we take many risks , for detours often lead us
to dista n t , isolated places . And when we try to describe the wonders of
these faraway places , many people don 't want to listen. " Why did you go
there ? " ' ' I 've never heard of that place ? " " Why did you wander so far off the
path ? " By taking the detour leading us toward a radica lly empirical an
thropology, however, we will reach a destinat ion where we will no longer
have to write about writing ethnography; we w i l l simply write our tales
and sense that they are right .
Notes
N i ger River from as far north as Ti mbucktu, Mal i , to as far sou th as Sansane-Hausa
i n the Republic of N i ger. There are also some 2 .5 m i l l ion first-language Songhay
speakers l i ving i n Mal i , N i ger, and northern Ben i n . These Songhay speakers , how
ever, are members of other ethnic groups (Wogo, Kurtey, Zerma, Dendi) which have
distinct social histories . Djebo's fam i l y is from Say, a town on the west bank of the
N i ger some 200 ki lometers south o f T i l l aberi ; it was the center of Fu lan power i n the
n i neteenth century.
3. Seneca, [63-65 ACE] 1 962 , Book 2: 28 1 .
4 . V. Kah n , 1 980: 1 27 1 .
5 . Ibid. : 1 269.
6 . I. Kant, [ 1 790] 1 966: 3 2 .
7 . R . Wi l l iams, 1 976 .
8. Ibid. : 264.
9 . M. de Mon taigne, [ 1 580-88] 1 943: 320.
1 0. Ibid. : 345 .
I I . G. U l mer, 1 98 5 : 5 2 .
1 2 . J . Derrida, 1 974: 1 6 1 .
1 3 . J. Derrida, 1 974: 1 09 as ci ted in U l mer, 1 98 5 : 5 5 .
1 4 . G . U l mer, 1 98 5 : 5 5 .
I S . G . E . Marcus and D . Cush man , 1 98 2 : 29.
16. P. S toller 1 984c: 1 02-03 .
1 7 . G. E. Marcus and D. Cush man, 1 98 2 : 3 1 -36.
1 8 . Some of the wel l-known con tributions include J . C l i fford , 1 98 8 ; V. Crapan
zano, 1 980, 1 98 5 , 1 98 7 ; J-P. Dumon t , 1 97 8 ; K. Dwyer, 1 982; G. Marcus and M. Fis
cher, 1 98 5 ; P. Rabinow, 1 97 7 ; P. Stol ler, 1 984a, 1 984b , 1 986; P. Stoller and C . Olkes,
1 987; D . Rose, 1 987; S . Tyler, 1 984 , 1 98 8 .
1 9 . J. Fabian, 1 98 3 : 1 64 .
20. American Anthropological Association, 1 984.
2 1 . American Anthropological Association, 1 98 5 : 2 .
2 2 . I . C . Jarvie, 1 97 5 .
2 3 . H . Dryfus a n d P . Rabi now, 1 98 2 : 1 07 .
24. J. Agee , 1 94 1 : 1 39-40.
25. J. M. Chernoff, 1 979: 39.
2 6 . C . Geertz , 1 97 3 : 347 .
2 7 . C. Levi-Strauss , [ 1 955] 1 974 : 362 .
2 8 . M . Merleau-Ponty, 1 964a : 1 59 .
who have no patri l i neal l inks to Askia Mohamm � � Toure . Ther� are also descenda � ts
of ( former) s laves who trace their descen t patnlmeall y to pnsoners of p_recolomal
wars who were incorporate d into Songhay society. And t here are the foreigners , the
aforementio ned Wogo , Kurtey, Zerma, and Dendi (see Chapter I , n. 2) as well as such
groups as the Hausa, Tuareg, and Fu lan i . These peoples have m igrated to and settled
in Songhay over the centuries .
I I . See P. Stoller, 1 97 8 , 1 98 1 .
1 2 . A fuller treatment of these incidents is rendered i n P. S tol ler and C . Olkes' In
Sorcery's Shadow ( 1 987).
1 3 . See P. Stoller, 1 980.
1 4 . Ibid.
I S . M . Foucaul t , 1 966 .
1 6 . G . E. Marcus and D. Cushman , 1 98 2 : 3 1 .
1 7 . M . L . Pra t t , 1 98 2 : 1 40 .
1 8 . A . Moravia, 1 97 2 : I . Consider t w o further examples o f t h e " monarch-of-all
I-survey " convention of representation. The first i s from Sir Richard Burton 's The
Lake Regions of Central Africa ( 1 97 1 ) : 307 .
Nothi n g , in sooth , could be more picturesque than this first v iew of the Tan
ganyika Lake , as it lay in the lap of the mountains, basking in the gorgeous
tropical sunsh i n e . Below and beyond a short foreground of rugged and pre
cipi tous h i l lfold , down which the footpath zigzags painful ly, a narrow strip of
emerald green, never sere and marvelously fertile, shelves towards a ribbon of
gl istening yel low sand, here bordered by sedgy rushes , t here cleanly and clearly
cut by the breaking wavelets.
The second example comes from Paul Theroux 's The Old Patagorzian Express ( 1 97 8 :
1 23:
Guatemala Ci ty, an extremely horizontal place, i s l i ke a c i t y o n i t s bac k . Its
ugliness, which has a threatened look (the low morose houses have earthquake
cracks in their facades; the buildings w ince at you w i t h bright l i nes), is ugl iest
on those streets where , just past the last topp l i ng house, a blue volcano cone
bulges . I could see the volcanoes from the window of my hotel room . I was on
the third floor, which was a l so the top floor.
In both cases , these excerpts, fol lowing Pra t t 's ( 1 98 2 : 1 49) arguments, use d i fferent
stylistic devices-generated by the historical periods i n which the works were
wri t ten-to produce the rhetorical effec t of seer over see n . Burton uses beauty and
wonder to express his conquest of the lake ; Moravia and Theroux use bizarre aes
thetic juxtapos i t ion to trivial i ze their descriptions.
1 9 . M . L . Pratt , 1 98 2 : 1 52 .
20. See pp. 25-26, and Chapter I , n . I S .
2 1 . A . N . Whi tehead , 1 969: 5 3 .
2 2 . R . Rorty, 1 98 3 .
2 3 . F . d e Saussure , [ 1 9 1 5] 1 959: 2 5 .
24. C . Levi-Strauss , 1 967a : 549 .
25 . C . Levi-Strauss as quoted in C . Geert z , 1 97 3 : 346.
26. G . E . Marcus and D. Cushman, 1 98 2 : 29.
2 7 . R . Fi rth , [ 1 936] 1 959: 3.
2 8 . S . Fel d , 1 98 2 : 3.
29. See J . Clifford , 1 98 8 .
3 0 . G . E . Marcus a n d D. Cushman , 1 98 2 : 4 7 .
3 1 . Ibid. : 48. See also P. Rabinow, 1 97 7 ; J-P. Dumont , 1 97 8 ; P. Riesman , 1 97 7 ;
V . Crapanzano, 1 980. 1 98 5 ; K . Dwyer, 1 98 2 ; D . Rose , 1 987 ; a n d P. Stoller and
C . O l kes , 1 987 .
3 2 . M . Foucaul t , 1 966: 7 2 .
3 3 . N . Goodman , 1 96 3 : 3 2 - 3 3 .
34. G . Hartma n n , 1 980: I SO .
3 5 . F. N ietzsche , [ 1 876] 1 95 6 : 93.
1 60 Notes
akin to
the complex i ties of Songhay social l i fe . I n this light , my analysis i s more
some of the earlier works of E . Goffman ( 1 97 1 , 1 974).
7. P. Riesman poi n ted this out to me.
8 . P. Ricoeur, 1 979: 79.
9 . " Saying " refers to metacomm unicative action. As G . Bateson ( 1 972), among
others. has poi nted out , the ut terance of a simple sentence may carry any number of
metacommun icative messages , some of which are deeper than others .
1 0 . G . Bachelard , [ 1 957] 1 964 .
I I . Ibid. : XV.
1 2 . J. Edie , 1 97 6 : l S I .
1 3 . J. D . Sapir, 1 97 7 : 6 .
1 4 . B . Beck, 1 97 8 : 8 3 .
I S . J. Fernandez, 1 97 7 : 1 00-02 .
1 6 . N . Good m a n , 1 963 : 80.
1 7 . M . Johnson and G. Lakoff, 1 980.
1 8 . M. Black, 1 962 .
1 9 . R . P. Armstrong, 1 980: 77-7 8 .
2 0 . P . Stol ler, 1 97 7 .
2 1 . I n t h e Songhay l anguage there e x i s t a s e t of expressions such as Ni manti
(ala ( l i terally, " You are not easy "), which means i n context " You are hard , " and hal
manti mosso ( l i t . , " u n t i l not a l i tt le"), which means "a whole lot" or " very much ." One
therefore finds a sentence such a A ga ba n i hal manti mosso ( l i t . , "I l i ke you u n t i l not a
l i ttle"), which in context means " I l i ke you a whole lot ."
2 2 . See R . F. Thompson , 1 974; J. Fernandez, 1 97 7 ; B. Beck, 1 97 8 .
2 3 . See P. S tol ler, 1 980b .
2 4 . See P. S tol ler, 1 98 1 .
2 5 . P. Ricoeur, 1 97 9 : 1 00 .
2 6 . See E . Albert , 1 97 2 ; D . Hymes. 1 974 .
2 7 . P. R i coeur, 1 967 : 7 1 .
doing ethnography. Feld ( 1 987: 1 9 1 ) has engaged in what he calls " � ialogic � d i t i n g , " '
which is " the impact of K a l u l i voices o n w h a t I tel l you about t h e m m m y voice; how
their take on my take on them requires reframing and refocusing on my part." And
yet ,
Whatever we wri te, whatever we speak, whatever we perform , whatever we
render through music, fi l m , poetry, holography, or some sort of compu ter lan
guage, precipitates a difference-a counter-rendi tion or its possibi l i ty at
least- that despite all our efforts to encompass will always ( i n both its contem
porary sense of escape and its etymological one of play) elude us . . . . The point
is that we and they-the transform of the I and you of the field encoun ter-can
never be ful l y speci fied (Crapanzano 1 98 7 : 1 88-89).
Crapanzano is correc t . We can no longer seriously seek to represent the Other's
rea l i tv i n our texts; rather we must attempt to describe as fai th fully as possible the
textures of their l i ves i n their worlds . Crapanzano is one of the few anthropologists
whose ethnographic works , i n which he takes considerable professional risks, reflect
this orientation to the world . More of us need to fol low his lead, risking v i l i ficat ion
for potentially bri l l iant failures of ethnographic description. Crapanzano's poi n t is
further rei n forced by V. Y. Mudi mbe ( 1 988) who discusses bri l l iantly how discourses
about (African) rea l i ty have been invented and rei nvented .
1 0. S. Scarr, 1 98 5 : 499 .
I I . See A. N . Kanya-Forstner, 1 969; I. Kimba, 1 98 1 ; J-P. Olivier de Sardan , 1 984.
1 2 . See J-P. Oiivier de Sardan, l 969, 1 976, 1 984; P. Stoller, l 98 1 , 1 984a .
1 3 . M. Klein and R. Roberts, 1 980: 393 .
1 4 . See I. Kimba, 1 98 1 ; J-P. Olivier de Sardan, 1 984.
I S . C. De Brosses, 1 760; J. Gobineau , [ 1 853-55] , 1 967.
1 6 . J. Bousset , 1 836; as ci ted and translated by C. M i l ler 1 98 5 : 4 2 .
1 7 . H . Cole, 1 98 1 .
1 8 . U . Beier, 1 964 .
1 9 . J. Rouch , 1 960: 74-75 .
20. I . Wal lerste i n , 1 984 ; J. Comaroff, 1 98 5 .
2 1 . S . Scarr, 1 98 5 : 499 .
2 2 . R . Wagner, 1 98 1 .
2 3 . See J . Dewey, [ 1 929] 1 980a, [ 1 934] 1 980b; W. James , [ 1 909] 1 978.
24. J-F. Lyotard , [ 1 979] 1 984 : 4.
2 5 . See I . Wal lerstein, 1 984.
2 6 . A particularly pernicious example of this kind of wri ting is J. W. Beu l 's
Heroes of the Dark Continent [ 1 889] 1 97 1 .
2 7 . Olson 's Travelworld , 1 986.
28. Edward Said's Orienta/ism ( 1 978) has i nspired a number of studies of the
imagery that western wri ters , Africanists , use to portray Africans . The most recent is
M i ller's Blank Darkness: A{ricanist Discourse in French ( 1 985).
29. V. S . Naipau l , 1 984: 530.
30. H i storical themes are expressed dramatically during Songhay possession
ceremonies. These themes are embedded i n the music, dance , ritual objects, and
words of possession ceremonies. History is also re-enacted during Islamic cere
monies-holidays, births, marriages, deaths-when bards reci te epic poetry and the
genealogies of local nobles, a l l of whom are descendants of Askia Mohammed Toure .
I . See M . Foucault, 1 97 5 .
2. See W . O n g , 1 967; J . Goody, 1 97 7 .
3. V . Zuckerka nd l , 1 95 6 .
4. Ibid. : 70.
5. M. Foucau l t , 1 97 5 : 3 .
Notes 1 63
I. In the Songhay view of the world , the human body consists of flesh (ga), l i fe
force (hundi), and the double (bia). The w i tch (cerkaw) has the capac i ty to steal a
person 's double. When this occurs , usual l y after a frightful confrontation during the
nigh t , the bewi tched person becomes i l l , suffering from chronic fat igue , nausea, and
diarrhea. The symptoms are the results of the bewitched person 's loss of bia. Typ
ical ly, the wi tch w i l l find a hiding place for a victim's double. The symptoms
associated w i t h w i tchcraft con t inue until a sorko i ntervenes and helps to return the
double to its human counterpart , or u n t i l the w i tch transforms the double into a
1 64 Notes
sacrificial animal and s l i ts the anima l 's throa t . When this sacrifice occurs, the
bewi tched person dies. See P. S toller and C . Olkes , 1 987.
2 . Sorko Djibo Mounmouni , Mehanna, Apri l , 1 977.
3 . See S . Freud, 1 9 1 3 ; S . Tambiah , 1 968.
4. See J. L. Aust i n , 1 96 2 ; J. Searle, 1 96 8 .
5 . S . Tambiah, 1 96 8 : 1 75 .
6 . Ibid. : 2 1 5 .
7. Ibid. : 1 85 .
8 . Ibid. : 202 .
9. M . Foucau l t , 1 970.
1 0 . W. Ong, 1 967: 1 1 3 .
I I . P. Riesman, 1 97 7 : 1 48 .
1 2 . G . Lienhard ! , 1 96 1 : 236.
1 3 . J. Favret-Saada, [ 1 977) 1 980: 9- 1 0.
1 4 . See C. Kei l , 1 979; J. M . Chernoff, 1 979.
1 5 . See J . Boulnois and B. Hama, 1 95 3 ; J . Rouch, 1 95 3 , 1 960; J . 0. Hunwick,
1 966, 1 972 , 1 98 5 .
1 6 . J. Rouc h , 1 960: 47 .
1 7 . See P. Stol ler, 1 989.
1 8 . See P. Stoller and C. O l kes , 1 98 7 ; P. Stol ler, 1 989.
1 9 . See P. Stoller and C . Olkes, 1 98 7 .
2 0 . V . Zuckerkandl , 1 95 6 : 364 .
2 1 . Ibid. : 364.
22. Ibid. : 364 .
2 3 . M. Merleau-Ponty, 1 968.
24 . V. Zuckerkandl , 1 95 6 : 364 .
2 5 . Ibid. : 366.
2 6 . See P. Riesman , 1 977; G . Lienhard ! , 1 96 1 ; J . Favret-Saada, 1 980; J . T. I rvine,
1 980.
27. See C. Kei l , 1 979.
28. Sorko Djibo Mounmouni , Mehanna, Apri l , 1 97 7 .
I . See P. Stoller and C. Olkes, 1 987 for a ful l description of the Songhay world
of eternal war.
2. C. Levi-Strauss , 1 96 7 : 1 6 1 -8 1 .
3 . D . Hume, [ l 777) 1 902 , vol . l , part 4 , sec . l .
4 . This chapter concerns the broad phi losophical underpinn ings (as opposed
to the strictly visual underp i n n i ngs discussed in Chapter 2) of anthropology as they
are reflected in anthropological discourse . A growing li terature-an excellent li tera
ture-discusses ethnographies as tex ts. The works of Marcus and Cushman ( 1 982)
Marcus and Fischer ( 1 985), and C l i fford 1 988), for example, discuss indirec tly the
anthropological episteme. They consider such topics as ethnograph ic realism, the
authori ty of ethnographic tex ts, the displaced authority of experi mental ethno
graphic texts, ethnographic rhetoric , and the relat ionship between the wri ters and
readers of ethnography. My focus here is s i m i lar but broader. Instead of consideri ng
style , form , or ethnographic rhetoric d i rectly, my i n terest lies i n the epistemological
constraints that govern insti tutional judgments of anthropological wri ting. More
exposi tions, especially historical ones , are needed . See also C. Geertz ( 1 984).
5. M. Foucau l t , 1 980: 1 97 .
6 . M . Foucau l t , 1 970: 399.
7 . Heracl i tus as translated in M. Heidegger, 1 97 5 : 7 5 .
8 . See R . Rorty, 1 979, 1 98 3 .
9 . F . d e Saussure, [ 1 9 1 5) 1 959: 9 .
Notes 1 65
1 0. Ibid. : 9 .
I I . Ibid. : 9 .
1 2 . Ibid. : 9 .
1 3 . C . Levi-Strauss , 1 969: 478-79 .
1 4 . C. Levi-Strauss as quoted in C . Geertz , 1 97 3 : 346 .
1 5 . See A. R. Radc l i ffe-Brown , 1 95 3 .
1 6 . D . Hymes , 1 974 : 3 5 .
1 7 . Ibid. : 4 3 .
1 8 . M . Agar a n d J . Hobbs . 1 98 3 : 3 3 .
1 9 . M . Agar, 1 98 2 : 7 7 9 .
20. See S . Diamond , 1 974: 1 72-74.
2 1 . See J . Derrida, 1 97 6 .
2 2 . See S . Langer, 1 94 2 ; M . Merleau-Ponty, 1 964a.
2 3 . See D. Ted lock, 1 98 2 ; E. Said, 1 97 5 . My " sludge l i s t " of anthropological
wri ting is undoubtedly skewed or unrepresenta t i ve , since I selected from the begin
n ings of journal articles or books. I selected these beginnings del i berately; with Said ,
I bel ieve beginnings are rhetorically and philosophical l y significant . They are i nten
t ional . Lyrica l , revelatory beginni ngs reflect , generally, a humanistic or critical
i nterpretation to fol l ow. Beginnings w i th theoretical contentions or general assump
tions , by contras t , signal a more pos i t ivistic approac h . My own v iew, of course , is
pre l i m i nary.
24 . A. J. Osborn , 1 98 3 : 563 .
2 5 . D . White, M . Burton , and M . Dow, 1 98 1 : 824 .
2 6 . F. Kapla n , and D . M . Levine, 1 98 1 : 869.
27. G. White and C . Prachuabhmoh , 1 98 2 : 2 .
2 8 . D . 1 . Austi n , 1 98 3 : 2 2 3 .
29. G . Appe l l , 1 98 3 : 202 .
30. ]. T. Irvine, 1 98 2 : 3 1 .
3 1 . P. Stoller, 1 97 7 : 3 1 .
32 . S . Diamond , 1 97 4 : 93.
3 3 . R . Firth , [ 1 936] 1 959: 3.
34 . M . Lambek, 1 98 1 .
3 5 . J . M . Chernoff, 1 979 .
36. V. Crapanzano, 1 97 3 .
37. V . Crapanzano, 1 98 5 .
3 8 . J . Favret-Saada, 1 980 : 3-4 .
39. C . Levi-Strauss as ci ted in C . Geertz, 1 97 3 : 346 .
4 0 . Ibid. H . Ross, 1 98 2 : 5 .
4 1 . Ibid. : 6 .
42 . Plato as c ited i n S . Diamond , 1 974: 1 87 .
43 . M . Merleau-Ponty, 1 96 8 .
44 . M . Heidegger, 1 97 1 : 57-58 .
45 . J. Favret-Saada and J. Con t reras , 1 98 1 .
46. D . Hume, [ 1 777] 1 902 : vol . I , part 4 , sec . I .
47 . G . Spivak , 1 97 6 : x i x .
48 . M . Agar, 1 98 2 : 779 .
49 . Ibid. : 779.
50 . J. W. Fernandez, 1 98 2 : M. Jackson , 1 986; D . Rose , 1 98 7 .
CHAPTER 9 . DETOU RS
I . This is a term used by Mary Louise Pra t t ( 1 982) to denote a set of l i terary
convent ions used by wri ters during a variety of l i terary epochs. See also Chapter 2 .
2 . The surrealist assumpt ion that Leiris employed i n Afrique fant6me was to
wri te a journal as a firs t , i m mediate i mpression-automatic wri t i n g . As a conse
quence, the first draft and publ ished version of the book are vi rtually identica l .
166 Notes
3. J. Favret-Saada, 1 980.
4. See R. Bernstein , 1 976; see also Chap ters I and 2 .
5. E . Goffman, 1 98 1 : 74.
6. J. Dewey, [ 1 934] 1 980: 32.
7. Ibid. : 3 3 .
8. Ibid. : 3 3 .
9. R . Rorty, 1 979: I .
1 0. Ibid. : 2 .
II. Ibid. : 42-43 .
12. Ibid. : 269.
1 3. See M . Agar, 1 98 2 .
1 4. W. James, [ 1 909] 1 978: 1 00 .
I S . R . Rorty, 1 979: 36 1 .
1 6 . Ibid.: 370.
1 7 . See E . Said, 1 984.
1 8 . C . Tisdale, 1 979: 1 0 1 .
1 9. Ibid. : 1 04-05 .
20. Ibid. : 7 2 .
2 1 . Ibid. : 72 .
2 2 . J. Burnha m , 1 974: 1 39 .
2 3 . R . Barthes , 1 97 2 : 1 64-65 .
24. G . U l mer, 1 98 5 : 232 .
2 5 . See D. H i ley, 1 98 8 .
2 6 . See J . Berger, 1 96 5 ; H . Rich ter, 1 980; H . Read , 1 972; A . Breton , 1 969, 1 97 3 ;
L . Lippard , 1 970 .
2 7 . See M . Foucau l t , 1 970, 1 980; J. Derrida, 1 976; J-F. Lyotard , [ 1 979] 1 984,
1 986.
2 8 . J . Dewey, [ 1 934] 1 980: 3 3 .
29. Ibid. : 4 6 .
3 0 . Ibid. : 3 4 .
3 1 . See J . Dewey, [ 1 929] 1 980a ; see also G . Marcus a n d M . Fischer, 1 98 5 ;
J . C l i fford , 1 98 8 ; J . C l i fford and G . Marcus, 1 986; S . Tyler, 1 98 8 .
3 2 . See P. Stol ler, 1 98 8 .
3 3 . J . Van Maanen , 1 98 8 : 1 02 .
34 . Ibid. : 1 03 .
3 5 . Ibid. : 1 32 .
3 6 . Ibid. : 1 32 .
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Index
Nega t i ve capabi l i ty, 1 44 , ! 52 . See also Schutz, Alfred , 6 5 , 66. See also Bio
Keats graphica l l y determi ned situation ;
Neopragmatism, 1 52 . See also Rorty Multiple reali t ies
N ietzsche . F. W. , 5 1 , 52 Science , 32
N i s i le Bote , 4 1 . See also Sorko Scien tism , 8
N uer, 29 Seneca, 2 3 , 1 58 n . 3
Senses : a n d sensual i s m , 7-9; a return
Odor, 2 5 to, 3- 1 1 ; non-theore tical aspects of.
Odor of sanc t i ty, 7 24 ; of sight and sound , 29, 30; theo
O( Gramma tology, 24 . See also Derrida retical aspec ts of. 24, 30
Ong, Wal ter, 1 03 , 1 1 6 Sense data, 7
Sensual biases . 1 57 n .2 . See also Wober
Perce p t ion : delusion of. 57 Shamanism; in art and phi losophy,
Phenomenology, 64-68 1 50-5 1 . See also Beuys
Phi losophy: edi fying versions of, 1 47- Signs, 1 60n . l
48; of language , 77; post-Socra t i c va Sjoberg , G ideon , 63
rieties of. 64 ; systematic versions of, Social change, 6
1 47 ; Western tradi t ion of. 23 Social negotiat ion , 82
Plato, 48 , 1 30-3 2 , 1 45 . See also Forms Social theory, 8 , 39
Pos tmodern ism, 30, 1 57n . 1 0 Social scu lpture , 1 49-50
Pra t t , M . L . . 47-4 8 , 1 59nn . 1 7 , 1 9 , 1 65 n . Sohanci , 34, 1 1 8 . See also Sonn i Ali Ber
I . See also Convent ions o f representa Songhay, S , 6 , 1 5 , 2 9 , 40, 66 , 1 1 7 , 1 25 ,
t ion ! 53 ; colonialism i n , 93-94 ; history
Praise-poe t ry : sound of. 1 1 0- 1 2 . See of, 57 , 72-73, 1 1 7- 1 8 , 1 58 n . I O ; lan
also Bards guage of. 5; myths of, 1 1 7- 1 8 ; social
Pyrrhon ian skept ics , 1 5 1 organizlation of. 57-59; spatial orga
niza t ion of. 57-59, 60 , 6 1 , 62 ; spirit
Radical empiric i s m , 1 5 2-56 pantheon of. 4 1 , 1 04-05 ; spirit pos
Readi n g , 82. See also Ricoeur session in 1 0 1 . 1 04- 1 0
Rea l i s m , 25 Sonni A l i Ber, 42
Reflex i v i tv, 1 6 1 n .9 Sorcery, 39, 4 1 , 43, 47 . 54, 1 1 8- 1 9
Represen ta t ion : and anthropology, 39; Sorko , 4 1 -4 3 , 1 1 8
and ethnographic real i s m , 47-50; Sound: in Songhay possession , 1 08- 1 2 ;
and rea l i sm i n anthropology, 25-26 i n Songha y sorcery, I I 7- 1 9 . See also
Republic of Ben i n . 6 Zuckerkandl
Republic of Ghana, 32 Space : and anthropology, 67-6 8 ; i n
Republic of Mal i , 5 Songhay pol i tics, 57-67
Republic of N iger, I , 5 , 40 , 5 6 , 69 , 84 , Spirit possession : and spiri t medium
1 1 3, 1 25 ship, 1 0 5 ; ceremonies of. 1 05-06 , I I ,
Reverberat ions, 3 7 . 7 7 . See also Bache 1 62 n . 2 ; history of. 1 63n . 1 2 ; i n Song
lard hay, 1 04- 1 0; troupes , 1 06-08
R iesma n , Paul , 9 1 Spirit sickness , 4 1
Rortv, Richard , 48 , 1 3 1 . 1 45-48 , 1 52 . Structura l i s m , 6 3 , 1 30 . 1 33 , 1 44 . See
See also Neopragmat ism also Levi-Strauss
Rose , Dan , 1 40 Style, and anthropological wri t i n g , S0-
Rouch , Jean, 5 6 , 8 3 , 84-9 1 , 97 , 1 30, 55
! 53 , 1 55 ; books of, 8 5 ; fi l ms of. 85-
86; son of, 84-98 Tambiah , Stanley, 1 08 , 1 1 5
Taste : etymology of in English, 23-24;
Sah l ings , Marshal l , 62 in anthropology, 25-27. 29; Kan t 's
Sa i d , Edward , 1 36 , 1 65n .4 sense of. 24; of ethnographic t h i ngs ,
Santayana, George , 35 1 5-35
Saussure , Ferdinand de , 1 32-33 Tastefu l wri t i n g , 29-32
Scarr, Sandra, 93 , 9 5 . See also Con- Tedloc k , Denn i s , 1 34 , 1 65 n .23
structionism T i l laberi , I , I 5 , 1 7 . 32-35, 46 . 9 1
1 82 Index