Early Ethnography Research Articles

Words Melt Away Like Hills in Fog: Putting Inuit Legends Into Print

Words Melt Away Like Hills in Fog:Putting Inuit Legends Into Print Robin McGrath (bio) Inuit myths and legends, which explain everything from how the world was created to why the raven is black, are wonderful stories for children, incorporating as they do both the real and the fantastic, the natural and the spiritual. However, Inuit stories, like those translated into English from other cultures, vary greatly in both their quality and authenticity. An examination of the processes by which these legends make their way into print can help us to identify what is best and what is to be avoided in oral literature in the written tradition. Inuit myths and legends do not fall neatly into strictly defined categories, but can be loosely divided into the five classifications which Knud Rasmussen identified in the 1920's: creation myths or stories which embody religious belief; stories of fabulous beings such as trolls, giants or ghosts; tales of epic heroes; stories of murder and revenge; and beast fables (McGrath, Canadian Inuit Literature, Chapter VI). We can add one other type of story to this list: the personal memoir. An increased interest in Inuit art has made these memoirs more readily available to children and adults in both the north and the south than they have been in the past, and they are a substantial addition to the corpus. Inuit literature has been available to non-Inuit readers for many years, primarily through the published reports of ethnographers and anthropologists. Franz Boas's innovative The Central Eskimo (1888), Diamond Jenness's Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-1918), and Knud Rasmussen's Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1929-1932) have all been excavated again and again by writers and editors looking for good, sound (uncopyrighted) material for children's books. Old anthropological reports are often very dry reading, but as a source of legends they are far more reliable than many modern collections. The early ethnographers often immersed themselves in the Inuit culture for many years, they spoke the language, and they tended to publish the stories in a number of variants. Rasmussen, and Jenness, give the original text in Inuktitut using the International Phonetic Alphabet, as well as an interlinear translation into English. Rasmussen, who was part Inuk himself, also includes his own looser, more literary interpretations of the stories. The resulting popular publications can be excellent. I have dealt elsewhere with the problem of how dishonest collectors and ignorant editors change and damage Inuit stories (McGrath, "Editing Inuit Literature"); more profitable here is a consideration of the honest efforts made to produce books that correctly reflect the Inuit culture while retaining the interest of English speaking children. Inuit editors are at an advantage here not only because they can judge the quality of translations more accurately than non-Inuit editors, but because they are more willing to recognize that children reared on American television are not going to be distressed by a certain amount of blood and guts and are insatiably curious about monsters and frightening figures. Mark Kalluak's How Kabioonat Became and Other Inuit Legends contains 42 stories, 26 of which involve acts of considerable violence including murder, starvation, cannibalism, human-dismemberment, and incest. Non-Inuit collectors do not tolerate such a ratio of violence. A comparison of collections edited by Inuit with collections made by non-Inuit (McGrath, "Monster Figures") shows that non-Inuit choose far more stories about benign magic, and happy, talking animals than do their Inuit counterparts who prefer stories about murderous dwarfs and malevolent monsters. Laundered legends are often boring and children simply won't read them. Poor translation is the one element most often responsible for making Inuit legends inaccessible, and when a poor translation is teamed with a bowdlerizing editor, the results can be catatonic. Maurice Metayer's Tales From the Igloo is a rather tame book compared to his academic work Unipkat, from which Tales was taken; eighty of Unipkat's 109 stories contain monsters and violence. However Metayer was a careful and meticulous translator and Tales From the Igloo is an excellent example of oral literature in print. The same cannot be said for the follow-up...

Indigenous Curing Patterns in a Samoan Migrant Community

Although early ethnographies of non-literate peoples frequently contained data on medical beliefs and practices, physician-anthropologist, William Hallam Rivers (1864-1922), was the first to attempt to relate systematically native medicine to other aspects of culture and social organization (Wellin 1977:49). Rivers recognized a causal relationship between medical beliefs (independent variable) and practices (dependent variable). He argued that native medical patterns are 'not a medley of disconnected and meaningless customs, but rather inspired by definite ideas concerning the causation of disease' (1924:51). Further, native medical practices and beliefs, taken together, constitute a 'social institution' which can be studied in terms of principles and methods applied in the study of social institutions in general (Rivers 1926:61). In Rivers' scheme, the role and function of curers depend on the particular culture. Sorcerers play key roles in groups in which magic and sorcery predominate; priests in those in which religious and supernatural explanations rule; and in those in which the emphasis is on empirical techniques, it is the 'leech' (Rivers' term for empirical curers). A number of writers approached the problem of native curing practices in various cultural settings in terms of their functions (Ackerknecht 1942, 1946, Hallowell 1935, Field 1937, Rogers 1948). Others examined the process of becoming a curer, of recruitment to the role and the 'articulation' of the curer's role with the social system: most notably, Gillin's (1956) account of 'the making of a witch doctor', Handelman's (1967) 'Washo shaman', Spiro's (1967) analysis of Burmese medical-religious beliefs and practices, and Turner's ( 1964) work on the 'Ndembu doctor'. In recent years, studies began to indicate that healers and healing systems are responding in many parts of the world to the conditions of change in ways that are not always negative and destructive (Landy 1977: 467). The adaptive capacity of native medical systems to change is conceptualized in Paul's (1955) model of 'system and system change'. The approach has two fundamental propositions: (a) The responses of a given sociocul turai (and medical) system to the introduction of new elements are to be explained not solely by the nature of the system or the nature and mode of introduction of new elements but by the complex interaction of both; and (b) Reciprocal or feedback processes occur. That is, the introduction of new health related elements can be expected to affect the host sociocultural (and medical) system; in turn, the latter will also affect (change or reinterpret) the new elements. Empirical data from a number of studies validate Paul's propositions. Erasmus (1952) found that in Quito, Equador, illnesses thought to be caused by supernatural entities were referred to native curers, while those of non-supernatural origin (such as, appendicitis and tuberculosis) were treated by modern physicians. Similarly, in the village of Sherupur in North India, Gould (1957) reported the existence of two medical sys-

Reflections on Customary Law and Post-Reform Peasant Russia

Professor Lewin's discussion of customary law and the functioning of Russian peasant society in the post-reform period is a welcome introduction to an important subject that has largely been ignored by modern scholars. Given the intensity of the debate that the subject fostered among nineteenthand early twentieth-century jurists, historians, and ethnographers, his discussion is long overdue.1 Lewin's contention that post-reform Russian peasant society was a coherent system with rhythms of its own is a valid one. Peasant societies, by definition, are built on relations that are firmly tied to the land. Land generally provides the means of existence, and various institutions, in turn, develop around that foundation to ensure the perpetuation of the community. The rhythms of peasant life are, however, at the mercy of external factors and shaped, in part, by them. It is difficult to ignore, for example, the effects of serf-landlord relations on pre-emancipation Russian peasant society. 2 The legacy of serfdom continued to shape the cultural pattern of Russian peasant life long after 1861; the peasantry remained a separate soslovie governed by traditional institutions, the functions of which were extended to compensate for the abolition of the landowners' authority. How does the historian come to an understanding of the mechanisms and customs of Russian peasant society? One can sympathize with the lament of N. Astyrev, a volost' scribe in Dem'ianovskaia

The Supreme Being, divinities and ancestors in Igbo traditional religion: evidence from Otanchara and Otanzu

Opening ParagraphThe subject of Igbo traditional religion has aroused a considerable amount of interest among scholars in the past few decades. The works of early ethnographers like Talbot (1926), Meek (1937) and Basden (1938) eloquently spelt out some of its principal themes. Among these are what we may refer to as the three major pillars of Igbo traditional religion, namely the Supreme Being, divinities and ancestors.One of the problems with most of the existing studies is the tendency to generalize for the whole of Igboland on the basis of evidence which is valid for some Igbo areas only. Given the Igbo type of political system which is characterized by the existence of a very large number of autonomous communities, it is not surprising that there is a greater amount of heterogeneity in the religious system than is the case in the centralized kingdoms of pre-colonial Africa. To understand the diversity of Igbo religious beliefs and practices there is an imperative need for the study of the religious systems of specific Igbo communities.

Some Correlates of Local Group Rank among the Southern Kwakiutl

The has long occupied a prominent place in Northwest Coast ethnological literature and, at least since Mauss' Essai sur le don, it has had a significance in anthropology beyond importance to the regional ethnology. Recently there has been particularly active interest in the potlatch, focusing primarily on the question of whether or not there is any connection between the and the nature of the Northwest Coast resource base. Some writers (Suttles I96o, I962, I968; Vayda I96i; Piddocke 1965) argue that the is, at least in part, a mechanism for adjusting to resource variation-particularly to unpredicted fluctuations in such resources as salmon. Others (Drucker and Heizer I967; Rosman and Rubel I97I) maintain that there are no important connections between such resources and the potlatch. The latter position perpetuates a picture of Northwest Coast environmental abundance offered by Boas and other early ethnographers who viewed the area as one with such overwhelming natural riches that there seemed little need to consider the possibility of resource fluctuation or scarcity. In this debate the has been considered a single, if complex, phenomenon that needs explanation. We hold that although it is possible to view the in a particular ethnic unit as a complex whole, analysis can be taken further if the is divided into variables capable of more precise definition. For this paper we have selected one such variable: local group precedence. Among several Northwest Coast tribes, groups who resided together in a common winter village and controlled access to the resources of a well defined territory regularly potlatched other such local groups within their tribal unit. All of the local groups within such a potlatch circle were ranked as to precedence. Potlatching was carried out between other types of social units in addition to local groups, and more than precedence was involved in the behavior; nevertheless, the idea of ranked units participating in regular, formalized encounters called potlatches is basic to the phenomenon. Northwest Coast resource variability is also complex, as Suttles (I960, 1962) has suggested. We chose to reduce the complexity initially by restricting attention to salmon (obviously the most important single food re-

Wastage Rates and Teacher Quality in Guatemalan Primary Schools

Previous articleNext article No AccessWastage Rates and Teacher Quality in Guatemalan Primary SchoolsT. David WilliamsT. David Williams Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 9, Number 1Feb., 1965 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/445108 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Helen Abadzi, Stavri Llambiri Selective teacher attention in lower-income countries: A phenomenon linked to dropout and illiteracy?, PROSPECTS 41, no.44 (Nov 2011): 491–506.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-011-9215-5 John D. Early Ethnography as an Interpreter of National Censuses: The Guatemalan Case, Journal of Anthropological Research 36, no.11 (Sep 2015): 71–86.https://doi.org/10.1086/jar.36.1.3629553John Early Education Via Radio Among Guatemalan Highland Maya, Human Organization 32, no.33 (Sep 1973): 221–229.https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.32.3.93541v1528v70810Stewart E. Fraser Chapter V: International and Comparative Education, Review of Educational Research 37, no.11 (Jun 2016): 57–73.https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543037001057