CULTURAL ANALYSIS an Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture

CULTURAL ANALYSIS An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture

Volume 3:

Copies / Reproduction / Seriality

i iv Cultural Analysis is made possible by generous contributions from: The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, The Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley, & The University of California, Berkeley Graduate Assembly.

Cultural Analysis is not an official publication of the Associated Students of the University of California. The views expressed herein are the views of the writers and not necessarily the views of the ASUC or the views of the University of California, Berkeley

v Editorial Board

Ezekiel Alembi, Kenyatta University, Kenya Pertti J. Anttonen, University of Helsinki, Finland Haya Bar-Itshak, University of Haifa, Israel Hande Birkalan, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey Regina Bendix, Universität Göttingen, Germany Gillian Bennett, Manchester Metropolitan University, England Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Véronique Campion-Vincent, Maison Des Sciences De L’Homme, France Linda Dégh, Indiana University, U.S.A. Alan Dundes, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Jawaharlal Handoo, Central Institute of Indian Languages, India Galit Hasan-Rokem, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem Hiroyuki Hashimoto, Chiba University, Japan Frank J. Korom, Boston University, U.S.A. Kimberly Lau, University of Utah, U.S.A. John Lindow, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge, U.S.A. Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis, U.S.A. Ulrich Marzolph, Enzyklopädie des Märchens, Göttingen, Germany Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India Peter Shand, University of Auckland, New Zealand Francisco Vaz da Silva , University of Lisbon, Portugal Iveta Todorova-Pirgova, University of Sofia, Bulgaria Ülo Valk, University of Tartu, Estonia Fionnuala Carson Williams, Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, Åbo Academy, Finland

Staff Editor: JoAnn Conrad Editorial Collective: Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, Karen Miller, Tok Thompson Review Editor: Merrill Kaplan Editorial Staff: Kimberly Ball, Jessie Lawson Website Developer: Brooke Dykman Dockter

ii Cultural Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture Volume 3, 2002

Articles Philip Jenkins Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity...... 1

Carol Muller Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town...... 19

Peter Shand Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion ...... 47

Discussions Hillel Schwartz Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Comments on Cape Town Covers, Colonial Catwalks, and Getting Caught...... 88

Diarmuid Ó Giolláin Copy Wrong and Copyright: Serial Psychos, Coloured Covers, and Maori Marks...... 100

Reviews Timothy Tangherlini Forestillinger om "Den Andre"—Images of Otherness. (Ytrehus, ed.)...... R1 Sheri J. Tatsch On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment. (Maffi, ed.)...... R5 Sam Schrager On Holiday: A History of Vacationing. (Löfgren)...... R8 Barry Mauer Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction. (Noys)...... R14 Jessie Lawson The Telling. (Le Guin)...... R17

iii

Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

Philip Jenkins Pennsylvania State University USA

colleague of mine, lamenting My goal is to describe how and why the disasters of her personal the seemingly harmless mathematical Alife, which included several term “serial” so vastly (and suddenly) broken engagements over the previous expanded its rhetorical significance, to decade, said despairingly that she imply monstrous violence with a near- seemed destined to be nothing more spiritual dimension. How, in short, did than a “serial fiancée.” This phrase serial crime come to represent an ulti- evocatively suggests the power of the mate evil? What is so dreadful about the word “serial” in contemporary culture. mere act of repetition? I will place the Though “serial” can mean no more than development of the “serial” concept simple repetition, it has in recent years within a historical context, specifically come to carry a far richer significance, during the period of intense ideological suggesting behavior that is pathological, conflict and political redefinition that compulsive, and irresistible. These rhe- occurred in the United States during the torical layers were implicit in the title of 1980s. I stress this chronology since the John Waters’s 1994 film Serial Mom, a whole idea of serial violence has now story which self-evidently dealt with become so integral a part of social ideol- topics far more threatening than just re- ogy that it seems unthinkable that it was peated parenthood. In speaking of her- ever absent. To the contrary, the idea is self as a “serial fiancée,” my friend in- relatively new. tended to convey all these senses, In elucidating the term itself, in ex- though in a self-mocking way. More plaining its raw power, I argue that “se- commonly, discussion of “serial” activi- rial” murder enjoyed such an impact ties carries not the slightest hint of hu- because of its mythological connotations. mor or irony, and different types of se- To over-simplify, it was rhetorically and rial crime (particularly murder) are gen- politically necessary during the early erally regarded as the absolute worst 1980s to posit the existence of uniquely forms of depravity that a society must dangerous predatory villains, against confront. whom no counter-measures were too

extreme. By then our concepts of science and popular culture, to the extent that and the supernatural no longer accom- the nation experienced what I have de- modated a literal belief in archaic beings scribed elsewhere as a general panic like vampires and werewolves, however (Jenkins 1994; US House of Representa- often the media metaphorically com- tives 1996). pared actual criminals to these tradi- A whole new taxonomy of violence tional monsters. But the newly re-imag- now emerged. Multiple homicide was ined serial killer could be cited quite reclassified, depending on whether the freely, as an undoubtedly authentic be- acts occurred more or less in one time ing whose existence was vouchsafed by and place or were spread over a lengthy social and behavioral science, yet who period, of months or years. The first type fulfilled all the mythical roles of the su- of crime, designated as mass murder, can pernatural night-prowlers of old. It was be exemplified by the recent high school above all the fact of uncontrollable rep- shootings at Columbine. Crimes com- etition, the absolute lack of self-control, mitted over time and in many places, like that made serial killers less than human the killings attributed to Ted Bundy or and denoted them as monsters. John Wayne Gacy or (later) to Jeffrey Dahmer, were classified as “serial” mur- Panic der. The essence of serial crime was that The origins of “serial” terminology as the offender had a “cooling-off period” applied to crime and violence are much between acts, a chance to stop and think, debated, but the concept probably and yet returned to commit evil once emerged in criminological writing dur- again. ing the 1960s. Whoever first coined the Fundamental to the new concept was phrase, it was until the early 1980s largely the singular evil of seriality itself. If one confined to a handful of criminologists commits the same act two or three times, and psychologists who studied multiple we speak in terms of doubling or trebling homicide. As recently as 1982, a book on the credit or blame that should accrue. Jack the Ripper or Ted Bundy was ad- In the case of serial murder, though, one vertised as a case study of “mass mur- plus one equals a great deal more than der.” Matters changed very rapidly over two. Augmenting the horror of the indi- the next two years, as the concept of se- vidual crimes are the attributes of delay, rial murder entered popular thought. repeated premeditation, and One pivotal event was the hearings be- compulsivity. Though the killer “cools fore a US Senate committee in the sum- down” between crimes, he never really mer of 1983, “on patterns of murders has the option of desisting. I use the pro- committed by one person in large num- noun “he” intentionally because in ad- bers with no apparent rhyme, reason or dition to the fact of repetition, the “se- motivation” (US Senate 1984). Between rial” concept also contained a whole de- 1983 and 1985, serial murder became one mographic profile of both offenders and of the most intensely debated issues in victims, a package of ideas that could the media, both in serious news outlets ultimately be traced to the FBI’s Behav-

2 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

ioral Science Unit, the BSU. As conceived the country, striking now in Arizona, in the white-hot enthusiasm of the early now in Maryland, now in Oregon, and 1980s, the serial killer was not just an in- the totals of their “kills” ran into the hun- dividual of indiscriminate age and gen- dreds. Each year, perhaps a quarter of der, killing in more or less any fashion. all homicides in the United States were The term referred above all to “sex kill- the work of such serial offenders. The ers” or “rippers,” that is, specifically to grim concept is epitomized by a 1983 men, virtually all white, who kill repeat- article in Psychology Today, which like vir- edly for obviously sexual motives. More- tually all the apparently objective “ex- over, they often engage in extreme acts pert” analyses in these years, relied ex- of sexual violence and mutilation. The clusively on FBI-supplied publicity ma- segregation of mass murder into a dif- terials. The magazine asserted that “In ferent category of multiple homicide re- an increasingly large number of stranger inforced these images, by removing cases homicides, the killer seems driven to which lacked an obvious element of murder not by some ‘rational’ reason but sexualized victimization, of savage men by a serious psychological disorder. The hunting down defenseless women. FBI estimates that as many as 25 percent In this newer model, serial killers are of killings may now fall into this category viewed as predators, metaphorically as … overwhelmingly, the victims of bi- wolves, preying on weaker human be- zarre murder are women and children; ings who are represented in the histori- the killers are almost invariably men” cally familiar imagery of victims. These (Porter 1983, 2). are the “silent lambs” commemorated in Another point of the new officially- Thomas Harris’ celebrated book, and the inspired mythology of serial murder was even more influential 1991 film. Hunt- that the monstrous behavior was distinc- ing metaphors abounded in the congres- tive to the time and place, that it had sional hearings and news stories that never really occurred before the late proliferated through the 1980s. Hart 1970s, and was extremely rare outside Fisher, the creator of a comic book de- the United States. The American “mur- voted to the deeds of Jeffrey Dahmer, der wave” was both qualitatively and justified his project by claiming that “Se- quantitatively different from anything rial killers are the werewolves of the recorded in previous history, with vastly modern age. By day they walk around more victims, and much greater occur- unassuming, then boom! By night they rence of savage torture and mutilation. turn into monsters. People want to know And serial murder was not the only as- why.” By 1994, Time Magazine was draw- pect of the new problem: the FBI hoped ing attention to the national fascination to expand its efforts against other “se- with serial killers, with an article memorial” crimes, like rape, bombing, arson rably entitled “Dances with and child molestation. werewolves” (Toufexis 1994). In retrospect, the most amazing point Like wolves, serial killers roamed, or about these claims was that they perhaps prowled. They wandered across achieved such instant credibility, though

3 Philip Jenkins

they required such a complete rewriting during the 1980s, even in the most repu- of criminological theory, not to mention table and supposedly sober media out- history. The falsehoods involved in this lets. “Quality” newspapers like the New package can easily be enumerated, and York Times became primary channels for I have discussed them at length in my developing and promulgating the 1994 book Using Murder. To take an ob- emerging mythology. To understand this vious point, serial murder was neither lack of criticism, we must appreciate the new nor distinctively American. Mul- origins of the claims, and the reasons tiple homicide is the prerogative of no why they fitted so precisely with the particular society; serial murder has al- political and cultural mood of the times. ways existed in the United States, and There is no doubt that the whole se- has often been the subject of extensive rial murder idea derived exclusively writing and debate. Even so, it is a highly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, infrequent phenomenon, accounting for and specifically from the BSU that oper- at most one or two percent of all homi- ated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, cides—nothing like a quarter. Virginia, with the goal of investigating Offenders, too, are very diverse in violent crime – the same unit celebrated terms of gender, race and age. Some are in Silence of the Lambs. Understanding the indeed white men in their 40s, but oth- FBI role goes far towards elucidating the ers are black men in their teens, white particular image of the “serial killer,” women in their fifties, and so on. At least notably the claims about vast numbers, a quarter of serial killers are women. And and the “roaming” quality of the offense. perhaps the most prolific killers of all The FBI was in effect making a power never emerge in the traditional picture grab, claiming jurisdiction over crimes of “rippers,” because they are medical which were beyond its legal scope, and murderers who claim dozens or hun- this could only be achieved by present- dreds of victims over a period of many ing the offenders as itinerant, and there- years, killing discreetly in circumstances fore violating state boundaries. The vast that are difficult to investigate or prove. majority of serial killers are in fact home- One recent example is the notorious Brit- bodies, tending to kill within one city or ish doctor Harold Shipman, who might region, or even within a few city blocks, have claimed two hundred lives. The ste- but all the attention during the panic was reotype that emerged during the 1980s devoted to a few highly atypical cases of was nothing more than that, a stereotype, wandering killers. The gap between which owed everything to social ideol- myth and observed reality may explain ogy and bureaucratic necessity. (For the why, despite its global fame, the BSU and realities of multiple homicide, see for in- its successors have never yet caught an stance Fisher 1997; Egger 1998; Holmes actual serial killer, nor have its much and Holmes 1998; and esp. Hickey 2001). vaunted methods of “profiling” been Though the claims made in the serial particularly effective in criminal investi- murder panic were demonstrably false, gation. they were virtually never challenged The FBI had to make the menace suf-

4 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

ficiently frightening to demand public themes of external threat, national vul- attention, and the best way to do this was nerability, subversion, and internal deca- to present awe-inspiring statistics. This dence. These concerns focused on a num- was achieved by highlighting a few cases ber of “dangerous outsiders,” most ob- in which offenders boasted of two or viously the Soviet Union, which Reagan three hundred killings. As we have seen, famously characterized as “The Evil such a total is theoretically possible— Empire.” There were a number of other witness the recent Shipman case—but panics or waves of concern about these such intense activity is very rare for sex various external forces which appeared killers or “rippers,” and it is now gener- to represent grave threats to the Ameri- ally believed that most of the highly pro- can people. These included not only se- lific cases adduced by the FBI were ex- rial killers but also drug dealers and drug aggerated, or indeed fictitious. The most kingpins, terrorists both foreign and do- publicized case was that of Henry Lee mestic, and of course the child molest- Lucas, who claimed to be guilty of three ers and pornographers believed to pose or four hundred murders, but who may such a danger to American children in reality have killed at most three or four (Jenkins 1998). In the political context of victims. This case suggests that the quan- these years, all these apparently diverse titative basis of the national panic was groups served essentially similar social supported by the delusional claims of and rhetorical functions, by personify- psychotics such as Lucas, a serial con- ing the immorality and outright evil that fessor rather than a serial killer. had arisen in consequence of the moral American media are notorious for and political decadence of recent admin- their credulous, if not obsequious, atti- istrations. These outsiders were readily tude towards federal criminal justice portrayed as the product of the family agencies, especially the FBI, and it is not breakdown and sexual hedonism of the surprising that FBI pronouncements previous fifteen years. It was common about the new serial murder menace to personify these dangers by focusing should have been published respectfully. on a particularly notorious or unpopu- What is more curious is why the general lar individual, like Libya’s Muammar public would have believed them so Qaddafi or Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in immediately, and should within a few international affairs, Gacy and Bundy in months have erected a whole subset of domestic politics. Like the drug war and popular culture upon this very tenuous the child abuse panic of these same years, foundation. This response can only be the movement against serial killers can understood in connection with the poli- be seen as part of a generalized moral tics of the time, and the reaction against reconstruction, a kind of revenge against perceived national decay that was the the demonized era of the 1960s and centerpiece of the new Republican ad- 1970s. ministration elected in 1980. The moral and political reaction of Through the early 1980s, conservative these years goes far towards explaining political rhetoric was permeated by the “predatory” notion of serial violence,

5 Philip Jenkins

and especially the choice of targets. Dur- as the victims of lascivious hedonistic ing the 1960s and 1970s, libertarian rheto- males who pursued “anything goes” ric had enjoyed enormous success, so hedonism to an unacceptable logical con- that it was difficult to win public sup- clusion. And serial murder pushed this port with a traditionalist argument about logic to the point of violent death. He- the need to regulate moral behavior. donistic America had become a society Large sections of the public had accepted of wolves and lambs. the libertarian argument that consenting By about 1984, American media and adults should be permitted to pursue popular culture were more dominated their own individual paths, even if that by scare stories about lethal dangerous involved hitherto illegal behavior involv- outsiders than perhaps at any time in the ing drugs, pornography or homosexu- nation’s history, and serial killers joined ality. The libertarian view could, how- druglords, molesters and Satanists in the ever, be challenged by emphasizing the popular demonology. In keeping with threat to innocent parties, especially to the political circumstances of the time, it children, who could not give consent to was critical to stress not just outsiders’ deviant activities. Thus morality activ- harmfulness, but their special danger to ists of the late 1970s campaigned not children and women. In the Congres- against sexual vice in general, but spe- sional hearings of these years (and the cifically against child pornography and media reports that drew uncritically prostitution, and not against homosexu- upon them) serial murder becomes ality, but against child molestation. A purely a matter of male violence, to the movement against drugs in general extent that experts denied even the theo- would be futile at a time of pervasive retical existence of women serial killers. middle class usage of cocaine and mari- Since serial killers supposedly preyed on juana, but a vigorous assault could be the young, the chief vehicle for the serial mounted against the drug PCP, which murder mythology was the Senate Com- found its chief market among young mittee chaired by Arlen Specter on “ju- teenagers. In the religious area, similarly, venile justice” (US Senate 1982, 1984). the argument against cults and fringe People believed the serial murder idea religions was that their young adherents because it fitted so exactly with so many lacked real freedom either to join or re- other contemporary images about the main within the movements; contrary to nature of violence and social danger. appearances, recruits were not consenting adults. Also, the alleged danger to The Evil of Seriality children from homicidal Satanic gangs — and ritual abuse rings began to be for- Once the serial murderer was invented — mulated in the early 1980s, exactly at the as he was, suddenly and completely time of the serial murder nightmare. the concept developed its own momen- From the late 1970s, therefore, moralist tum, since it possessed a kind of internal campaigns emphasized threats to chil- logic. As presented during the 1980s, the dren and women, who were presented image of the serial killer involved sev-

6 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

eral critical elements, which more or less resistible” behavior. He wrote that the built upon each other. condition was characterized by “socially prohibited aggressiveness, by lack of re- i. Compulsive gard for the unwilling participant; by being compulsive and irresistible in char- The serial killer is compulsive, not only acter; and by being committed under the in the sense of killing repeatedly, but of influence of an exceptionally strong over- being unable to prevent himself from whelming urge, the tension of which is committing further crimes. A similar in- released by the particular behavior” ability characterizes the serial rapist or (Karpman 1954, 490). This language was molester. Logically, therefore, crimes will echoed in legislation and official inquir- recur ad infinitum, and a common theme ies into the “psychopath problem.” New in criminological writings is that the rate Hampshire’s 1949 investigation declared of offenses accelerates over time. This that “The sexual psychopath is interested idea makes it easier to accept claims only in the immediate satisfaction of his about the very high numbers of victims instinctive drive, irrespective of the man- claimed by fantasists like Henry Lee ner of attainment or of consequences. His Lucas. action is usually directed toward the in- Although it was freshly applied to the nocent and the unsuspecting or helpless serial killer, the notion of “compulsive” members of the opposite sex” violence has deep roots in American (Guttmacher 1951, 11-12). Though such thought. For much of the twentieth cen- ideas had fallen out of favor in psychiat- tury, a common demon figure in popu- ric circles by the 1970s and 1980s, they lar culture was the psychopath or sexual were still widely accepted in popular psychopath who wrought untold harm thought, and were easily revived during in response to internal mental conflicts. the serial killer scare. As imagined during the 1940s and 1950s, Helping to sustain the “compulsive” the main characteristic of the psychopath notion of deviancy from the mid-twen- was his inability to stop, to desist from tieth century onwards was the closely serial offending. The most famous illus- related idea of addiction. Its Latin root tration of this theory was William implies slavery, but the English word Heirens, arrested in 1946 for a number “addiction” means the inability to resist of sex crimes and murders. He left at one some kind of behavior. From the nine- murder scene a note reading “For teenth century onwards, the word was Heaven’s sake catch me before I kill chiefly applied to substance abuse, and more. I cannot control myself,” a phrase in this context, it expanded its meaning which entered the language, and which substantially. As used by politicians and was subject to endless parody. law enforcement agencies today, a drug Perhaps the best-known medical au- “addict” often becomes synonymous thority on sexual psychopathy was Ben- with a user, or even with a person who jamin Karpman, whose classic definition has had only one or two contacts with stressed the idea of “compulsive and ir- the substance in question, and is not ad-

7 Philip Jenkins

dicted by any medical criterion. As in the alties of the damned. In Greek myth, case of multiple homicide, “serial” devi- Sisyphus was doomed to the eternal rep- ant behavior is attributed to slavish com- etition of pushing a rock to the top of a pulsion, despite a good deal of evidence mountain, only to have it roll down again indicating that both types of offenders day after day. As a folk motif too, we are well able to exercise restraint when might think of the story of the Sorcerer’s they choose. The emphasis on drug ad- Apprentice, featured in Goethe’s Der diction as a social problem through the Zauberlehrling and Disney’s film Fanta- 1970s and 1980s helped prepare the way sia, in which an over-ambitious but un- for the new serial violence panic, which skilled magician mobilizes brooms and in turn erupted just as the Reagan ad- buckets to wash the house, but loses con- ministration was launching its notorious trol, so that the household implements “War on Drugs.” Though the individual begin endlessly repeating their assigned enemies to be confronted might be di- tasks, until he is threatened with apoca- verse—drugs, molestation, murder—all lyptic catastrophe. were united by the central theme of com- Similar ideas about the evil of repeti- pulsion. Serial killers were, in a sense, tion recur in Christian traditions. addicted to murder. Throughout Dante’s Inferno, sinners are condemned to suffer eternal repetition, ii. Obsession and Repetition often of the wrongs that brought them The core idea of seriality is repetition, and under judgment. Protestant Christians the inability to avoid repetition. By defi- emphasize Jesus’ words “Use not vain nition, serial killers repeat their acts, per- repetitions,” which they take as a con- haps not exactly, but in essence. They kill demnation of the rote prayers suppos- and kill again, and have no power to edly used by Catholics, like the Hail stop. This is what makes serial killing so Mary. Protestants traditionally claimed much more terrifying than mass murder. that vain repetition was a denial of the To some extent, we can understand how God-given reason, a subjection to slav- people might lose all restraint on a single ish and futile self-discipline. occasion, might “snap” and destroy There are many modern secular treat- those around them; but serial killing re- ments of the same idea. One of the most quires much more consistent behavior. frightening of modern films is Stanley The idea of uncontrollable repetition Kubrick’s The Shining, based on the book has proven deeply frightening to many by Stephen King, in which Jack Torrance cultures because it denies the ability to demands seclusion in order to write a choose that is essential to free will, and novel. In a climactic scene, his wife thus to full human-ness. It is also a com- plucks up the courage to see what Jack mon feature of insanity and psychiatric has been producing over the previous disease, and “obsessive-compulsive dis- weeks, and she is terrified to find that he order” has been recognized for centuries. has filled many reams of paper with The behavior appears in myth and leg- nothing more than the same banal end, for instance in concepts of the pen- phrase, typed countless thousands of

8 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

times: “All work and no play makes Jack iv. Irrational a dull boy.” The scene is so frightening Serial killers cannot prevent their actions, because such futile repetition suggests a and lack normal standards and re- total abandonment of reason. Jack has let straints. Nor do they even respond to the his mind become subject to automatic same stimuli that drive conventional of- forces, abandoning any form of self-con- fenders. trol. The discovery is all the worse be- The deliberations of the various Con- cause of Jack’s self-delusion that he has gressional committees of the 1980s are been writing a major and important fascinating for their almost theological work, so the repetition has also been con- quest for precision, and their handling cealing his failure of rational thought. In of marginal cases. For instance, could a The Shining, the discovery scene leads woman be a serial killer if she seemed to immediately to a ferocious outbreak of match the definition in every regard? violence by Jack, who tries to massacre Probably not. Could a man enjoy this sta- his family. Repetition is not only futile, tus, if he killed for financial motives, for “vain,” it is in itself obsessive, sub- or instance as part of an insurance racket? anti-rational, and perhaps symptomatic What about a professional contract of extreme violence. killer? Again, definitely not. A serial killer was not just a repeat killer; he was a man iii. Rootless who killed for no known motive. The prob- Serial killers lack the restraints that save lem concerned “patterns of murders “normal” individuals from succumbing committed by one person in large num- to compulsive repetition. Bureaucratic bers with no apparent rhyme, reason or self-interest demanded that the FBI stress motivation.” The contract killer and in- the wandering and rootless character of surance ring did not count because how- serial offenders, their tendency to stray ever perverse or sinister, these acts had between jurisdictions, but this idea also rational and comprehensible motives. meshed well with other key features of The essence of serial murder was that it the myth. Rootless killers lack any ties was irrational, “motiveless” at least in the that could keep them in one place, any sense of lacking any motive that could conventional sense of home or family. be understood by the normal run of hu- Their lives are defined by routes, not mans. As a television documentary roots, and they thus symbolize the fail- stated at the height of the 1984 panic, the ure of traditional ideals of community United States suffered “Four thousand in modern America (Hume 2000). As itin- a year—dead. Killed by total strangers. erant killers, their threat potential is It’s an epidemic of murder in America— vastly magnified because they can strike murder with no motive” (Horvath 1984). anywhere at any time. This is one type The act denied, defied reason. of danger that cannot be avoided by stay- ing away from “bad areas.” Itinerancy v. Lustful makes the serial killer a ubiquitous Insofar as serial killers act for motives, threat.

9 Philip Jenkins

these are purely individual, pathologi- vi. Violent cal, and above all, sexual. Offenders are By forfeiting the ability to choose, serial engaged in “lust-murder,” an eloquent killers have abandoned their full human- phrase suggesting the overwhelming ity. This dehumanization, this reversion sexual urge that drives them to kill, to to a subhuman or bestial state, is con- torture and mutilate. In fact, the term firmed by the extremely bloody nature lust-murder and its variants, like “lust- of their crimes. Again, the Congressional killer” are based on a simple mistransla- investigations debated the modes of kill- tion of the German phrase lustmörd, ing that characterized a true serial killer, murder for pleasure, or as it sometimes and expressed skepticism that the genu- translated, “recreational homicide.” ine article might employ less obviously Nevertheless, the sexually oriented violent methods like poisoning. Once phrase “lust-murder” proved invaluable again, this tended to exclude the bulk of in offering an explanation of the other- female candidates for the rank. The true wise inexplicable. Serial killers followed serial killer was a bloody creature, who the compulsion of lust, and specifically most often claimed victims with knives male lust, which explains why no or cutting instruments, and inflicted ex- woman could ever be a true serial killer. treme mutilations. The first publicly admitted exception was Florida multiple killer Aileen Monsters and Dark Dreams Wuornos, who was identified in 1991 as “America’s first female serial killer,” According to the myth, then, serial kill- even though cases of such multiply ho- ers are compulsive, irrational, rootless, micidal women had been appearing in driven by lust, obsessive, and ultra-vio- the American media for over a century. lent. If we take these elements together, Perhaps helping explain why she was then serial offenders are so fundamen- — now admitted to the select club of newly tally different from “normal” people — reimagined serial killers, Wuornos was even from most brutal criminals that a publicly identified lesbian, who (ac- it is scarcely adequate to describe them cording to the mythology) might be ex- as a new personality type. They seem pected to succumb to distinctively male instead to constitute a different and ut- behavior patterns. terly aberrant race. It is scarcely surprising, then, that their acts so often involve The “lustful” interpretation contrib- behaviors that violate every known so- uted mightily to the political implications cial taboo, especially the infliction of of the new formulation of serial murder. sexual violence upon the very young. If the offense was so closely identified Nor should we be surprised that ac- with uncontrollable lust, this further counts of serial murder have used this linked this apparently new and heinous model to explain the legendary figures crime to the hedonism of the previous of the vampire and werewolf: those were two decades, as the nation now agreed just terms that an unscientific age used to subject itself to a new regimen of self- to describe the depredations of what we control, of social and sexual purity.

10 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

today know to be serial killers. with “predators” became so widely ac- Serial killers were monsters, animals, cepted that states began passing espe- predators. This last word has an inter- cially punitive laws against “sexual esting and rather contorted history. Dur- predators” or “sexually violent preda- ing the 1980s, the word was used in a tors.” While no state has a law against sexual sense in the literature of serial monsters or werewolves, most now have murder, both crime fiction and true laws that use the closely related term crime, where it appeared in book titles “predators.” and blurbs, alongside phrases implying Serial offenders are also, explicitly, primitivism, animal savagery, stalking “monsters,” a word freely used in popu- and hunting. Particularly influential in lar culture accounts of the phenomenon. this regard were popular crime writers Former FBI investigator Robert Ressler like Andrew Vachss who regularly used has written memoirs entitled Whoever the word in his novels and newspaper Fights Monsters and I Have Lived in the columns, often in the context of reveal- Monster, and in 1993, CNN ran a major ing pseudo-scientific language. In a typi- documentary on serial murder under the cal passage, he argued that: title Monsters Like Us. Some recent popular culture treatments have included Chronic sexual predators have titles like Monstrum, Monster, Eye of the crossed an osmotic membrane. They Beast, and Shadows of Evil (James 1997; can’t step back to the other side—our Jackson 1998; Adams et al. 1999; Smith side. And they don’t want to. If we 2001; Ressler and Schachtman 1992, don’t kill them or release them, we have but one choice. Call them mon- 1997). Developing the notion of preda- sters and isolate them.... I’ve spoken tory wolves, the 1996 film Freeway to many predators over the years. overtly used the fairy tale “Little Red They always exhibit amazement that Riding Hood” as its plot framework, we do not hunt them. And that when with its itinerant killer named “Bob we capture them, we eventually let Wolverton.” Equally folkloric in its struc- them go. Our attitude is a deliberate ture is the whole sequence of Thomas interference with Darwinism—an Harris novels and films, in which the endangerment of our species. (Vachss relationship between FBI agent Clarice 1993) Starling and serial killer Hannibal Lecter is roughly that of Beauty to the Beast The word “predator” is of course a meta- (Warner 1994, 1999). phor. A predatory animal is one which In these treatments, the word “mon- survives by hunting and eating other ster” sometimes ceases to be a metaphor, animals, and only by analogy is this com- as serial killers acquire supernatural and pared with the pursuit and sexual exploi- demonic traits. This is apparent in films tation by humans of less powerful like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, in strangers. Since about 1990, though, it which the demon killer materializes in has entered serious debate as something dreams, or Candyman, where the homi- like a technical term. In the early 1990s, cidal ghost is summoned into the world the identification of serial sex offenders

11 Philip Jenkins

of the living through a mirror. Long-run- Hazelwood and Michaud 2001). ning franchises like Halloween and Fri- This Freudian analogy also makes day the Thirteenth likewise exist on the as- sense in terms of the concept of seriality, sumption that the killer who dies at the which is so often viewed as a feature of end of each episode can be resurrected childish behavior. Small children love for the next installment. At the end of the ceaseless repetition, and frequently act first Halloween movie, it is the psychia- in ways that in an adult would be re- trist who explains that the killer Michael garded as obsessive and compulsive, Myers was in fact the bogeyman. In the patterns that normally fade with grow- 1995 film Seven, the killer is a ing maturity. Especially in the Freudian Mephistophelean figure whose violent tradition, seriality and repetition are deeds are shaped by the traditional con- signs of immaturity that require suppres- cept of the Seven Deadly Sins. The young sion. Detectives and mind-hunters per- heroes of The Blair Witch Project (1999) form this function by ending what seem to fall victim to an undead killer would otherwise be an infinite sequence who survives through pagan and super- of crimes—by writing a conclusion to natural rituals. seriality. Such predatory beings must be The triumph of rationality and the “hunted down,” and we read of investi- discourse of science is at its clearest in gators being engaged in “mind-hunt- the case of Thomas Harris’ “mind-hunting.” One leading exponent of this idea ers,” who perform tasks that fit well into is former FBI agent, John Douglas, whose the roles traditionally assigned to heroes books include such potent titles as Mind and shamans. They are agents of justice Hunter, Journey into Darkness and Obses- and science, but they gain wisdom by sion (Douglas and Olshaker 1995, 1997, venturing into the prison cells of mul- 1998). With few exceptions, “serial mur- tiple killers, the hostile domain domi- der” books or films describe the track- nated by the rival forces of irrational vio- ing and capture or destruction of mon- lence and savagery. They do this in or- sters on their home territory, in their lairs, der to gain critical knowledge that will as reason and courage triumph over permit them to comprehend and defeat chaos and evil. The conflict, this “jour- the forces of chaos still at large. They con- ney into darkness,” fits naturally into a front seriality with rationality. Freudian interpretation, with serial kill- In Harris’ books and the related films, ers being portrayed in terms of the un- the boundaries between rationality and checked, lustful, and destructive quali- savagery are given literal form through ties of the id, while the heroes who chal- the glass walls or metal cages used to lenge and suppress them epitomize the restrain Hannibal Lecter, to prevent him controlled and rational forces of the su- attacking prison guards or hospital staff. perego. BSU “mind-hunter” Roy In television news reports on serial mur- Hazelwood describes the sinister region der, one of the most frequently employed that he explores as one of Dark Dreams visual images is the scene from Silence of (Michaud and Hazelwood 1998; the Lambs in which the caged Lecter talks

12 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

with Clarice Starling, the two being di- as any in the shamanic tradition: that vided by the impenetrable glass wall. sometimes the shaman will not be able Even so, Clarice succeeds in forming a to return home. Both in its subject mat- bond with Lecter, a link symbolized by ter and its appeal, serial murder fiction the single physical contact of their hands. is a deeply atavistic genre. Conversely, the two guards who venture into Lecter’s cell without the appropri- The Opposite of Serial Murder ate skill and preparation are killed and The deeper we delve into it, the more the mutilated. Mind-hunters can cross the social ideology represented by the serial boundaries dividing the worlds of good murder panic looks like a reversion to and evil, of right and wrong. To quote the most primeval instincts, ideas that the dustjacket of a book on the experts would have required little explanation of the BSU: “They think like a serial killer. in the barbaric Europe of a thousand They know his habits and his twisted years ago. But these ancient ideas were fantasies. They walk the edge between so influential in the 1980s because they good and evil, sanity and insanity” resonated precisely with social and po- (Jeffers 1992). litical conflicts of the modern age. Yet the voyage into the land of mon- To understand this appeal, we might sters is fraught with dangers. In the fa- ask a question that sounds like an im- miliar mythical model, detectives and possible riddle, a word game: what is the mind-hunters undertake real personal opposite of serial murder? If in fact the risk by undertaking such interviews, in crime just involved killing more than terms of physical violence, but more sub- once, then the “opposite” might be not tly in the contamination they might ac- killing at all, but as we have seen, the quire from the values and characters of concept of serial murder is far more ideo- such alien beings. A strikingly common logically complex than this. If we imag- theme in serial murder fiction is that of ine the “opposite” of serial murder, then the detective who somehow goes over we can see the values and mores that are to the enemy, who faces the temptation being held up for emulation, and which to become a serial killer him- or herself. the serial killers are so conspicuously In Harris’ novel Hannibal, Clarice accepts flouting, or actively inverting (Warner her destiny by becoming Lecter’s lover 1995). And these approved ideological and partner, a betrayal of the principle patterns are deeply conservative and tra- of order that proved unacceptable for the ditionalist, exactly in keeping with the 2001 film version. Such morally ambigu- reaction against the decadence attributed ous depictions emphasize the extremely to the 1960s and 1970s. dangerous quality of the “enemy realm” inhabited by the killers, and the iron re- According to the mythology, serial ality of the frontier dividing the two killers have certain prime characteristics worlds. Though dressed in the language or markers. Approved, regular citizens, — of behavioral science, the stories ulti- therefore those not subjected to the — mately tell of a fear as ancient perhaps curse of seriality have exactly opposite

13 Philip Jenkins

features. If serial killers are compulsive tism of the 1980s also extolled the ideas and addictive, normal people exercise stated in Canada’s founding document, choice and free will. They reject and con- namely “peace, order and good govern- demn substances and behaviors that can ment.” entrap them by leading them into slav- A serial killer is a monster, a word that ish repetition. They are drug-free, and in its origins suggested not just some- support the war on drugs. If they ever thing threatening, but also a figure that experimented with these substances, was a warning or sign, a monstrum. To then they reformed, broke with abuse or take a cognate word, a “monstrance” in addiction, perhaps through one of the Catholic liturgy is a richly ornamented twelve-step groups that became so im- object in which the sacred Host is dis- mensely popular during these years: as played, to be “shown” to the adoring a result, proper Americans are clean and faithful. A “monster” is just as much an sober. They exercise rational calculation; object for display, though in this case, they exemplify homo economicus. They observers are meant to draw negative have roots; they value home, family and messages—that the times are evil, that community. Crucially, they possess the we are suffering the wrath of supernatu- control that serial killers so egregiously ral forces, or (in secular terms) that some- lack. They have self-control, and they ac- thing has gone very wrong with our so- knowledge the need for control by the ciety. A monster is a warning that we state and by other social institutions. If must set things right, and the exact na- that control flags, they know what hor- ture of the monstrosity is a lesson in how rors wait to be unchained: the uncontrol- we must rectify our behavior. We must lable lusts, passions, and destructive be what the monster is not. If the mon- urges that stand on the other side of the ster exemplifies seriality, we must exer- boundary. If control weakens again—as cise choice and control, and respect those it did in the decade after 1965—then the forces when they are imposed upon us. serial killers offer fair warning of the fate that awaits us. The wolves are out there, Making Seriality waiting. Public panic over serial homicide peaked The opposite of serial murder, there- between about 1983 and 1994, and since fore, is control, in self and society. The that date, scholars have paid less atten- more luridly and improbably we portray tion to the phenomenon itself and more serial murder (or rape, or molestation), to the culture that it has provoked, the the more we are exalting the need for question of why serial killing should be control, restraint, and authority. The so endlessly interesting. This means package of ideas with which we are pre- above all studying the reactions of the sented is hence deeply conservative. To mass media to this uniquely perverse put the contrast in terms of official na- culture of celebrity. For all the scholarly tional ideologies, the United States is in- work devoted to this issue, some of the deed founded on life, liberty and the shrewdest comments are to be found in pursuit of happiness, but the conserva-

14 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

Oliver Stone’s 1994 film Natural Born Kill- postmodern way, so that some books and ers, in which serial murder becomes a media accounts present Hannibal Lecter symbol of moral pollution. For Stone, as an authentic criminal mastermind, public fascination with his fictional pair who is listed alongside Bundy and of killers Micky and Mallory indicates Dahmer. The makers of Natural Born Kill- the extent to which vulgar popular cul- ers were sued by the family of a murder ture has saturated American life, at once victim, who felt that the fictional por- shaping the deeds of the violent and per- trayal had directly incited the crime verted, while simultaneously preventing (Bischof 2001). It sometimes requires the masses from viewing these acts as genuine mental effort to recall which are anything other than entertainment. The the “real-life” killers: Lecter or Dahmer, vision of media irresponsibility produces Micky and Mallory or Bianchi and some memorable images, like the crowd Buono. greeting the captured pair with placards The irony of all this is that the popu- reading “Murder me, Micky!,” or the lar construction of serial murder has in- talking head shots of young aficionados volved some of the characteristics that I comparing the current “superstars” with identified earlier as key building blocks past demigods. Only Charles Manson, of the mythology of seriality itself. As we it seems, had anything approaching the see the constant creation and recycling same charisma, but Micky and Mallory of media accounts, the proliferation of are “way cooler.” texts and images, and above all the end- In this context, we recall the claim less repetition of claims, it is difficult not made by investigator Robert Ressler who to describe this process as compulsive, argued that he coined the term “serial irresistible, obsessive, lacking any natu- murder” about 1976 on the analogy of ral ending. It is stereotypically “serial” the movie “serials” he had enjoyed as a in its worst sense. And no matter how child, dramatic stories of crime and pur- parlous the offenses described, they are suit. I believe his claim is incorrect, since always presented in terms of prurient the term does appear before his time, but sexuality, of the vulnerability of “lovely his idea is fascinating because it explic- victims,” “beautiful victims.” Descrip- itly locates the origin of the serial mur- tions of serial murder, like the behavior der concept in popular culture. Scholars itself, are primarily motivated by lust. Se- like Philip Simpson, Richard Tithecott, riality, it seems, is the product of serial- and Christopher Sharrett have shown ity. how the concept of serial killing is formed by an elaborate process of interaction between the ostensibly “real” world of criminal justice and the “fictional” realm of popular culture (Jenkins 1994, 1998; Tithecott 1997; Sharrett 1999; Simpson 2000). Ideas and images travel freely between the two in a highly

15 Philip Jenkins

Works Cited Hume, Kathryn. 2000. American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction Since Adams, Terry, Mary Brooks-Mueller, 1960. Urbana, IL: University of Scott Shaw. 1999. Eye of the Beast. Illinois Press. New York: St Martins. Jackson, Steve. 1998. Monster. New York: Bischof, Dan. 2001. Incitement lawsuit Kensington Publishing Corpora- against Stone, ‘Natural Born Kill- tion. ers’ dismissed. News Media and James, Donald. 1997. Monstrum. London: the Law 25(2):22. Century. Douglas, John E., and Mark Olshaker. Jeffers, H. Paul. 1992. Who Killed Precious? 1995. Mind Hunter. New York: New York: St Martin’s Paper- Pocket Books. backs. Douglas, John E., and Mark Olshaker. Jenkins, Philip. 1994. Using Murder. 1997. Journey into Darkness. New Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de York: Scribner. Gruyter. Douglas, John E., and Mark Olshaker. Jenkins, Philip. 1998. Moral Panic. New 1998. Obsession. New York: Haven, CT: Yale University Scribner. Press. Egger, Steven A. 1998. The Killers Among Karpman, Benjamin. 1954. The Sexual Us. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Offender and His Offenses. New Prentice Hall. York: Julian. Fisher, Joseph C. 1997. Killer Among Us. Michaud, Stephen G., and Roy Westport, CT: Praeger. Hazelwood. 1998. The Evil That Guttmacher, Manfred S. 1951. Sex Of- Men Do. New York: St. Martin’s fenses. New York: Norton. Press. Hazelwood, Roy, and Stephen G. Porter, Bruce. 1983. Mind Hunters. Psy- Michaud. 2001. Dark Dreams: chology Today, April. Sexual Violence, Homicide, and the Ressler, Robert K., and Tom Shachtman. Criminal Mind. New York: St 1992. Whoever Fights Monsters. Martins Press. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hickey, Eric W. 2001. Serial Murderers and Ressler, Robert K., and Tom Shachtman. their Victims. Belmont, CA: 1997. I Have Lived in the Monster. Wadsworth. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Holmes, Ronald M., and Stephen T. Sharrett, Christopher, ed. 1999. Mytholo- Holmes, eds. 1998. Contemporary gies of Violence in Postmodern Me- Perspectives on Serial Murder. dia. Detroit: Wayne State Univer- Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Pub- sity Press. lications. Simpson, Philip L. 2000. Psycho Paths. Horvath, Imre. 1984. Murder: No Appar- Carbondale: Southern Illinois ent Motive. An HBO Presenta- University Press. tion. New York: The Cinema Smith, Carlton. 2001. Shadows of Evil. Guild. New York: St Martins.

16 Catch Me Before I Kill More: Seriality as Modern Monstrosity

Tithecott, Richard. 1997. Of Men and Mon- US Senate. 1984. Committee of the Judi- sters. Madison: University of ciary. Subcommittee on Juvenile Wisconsin Press. Justice. Serial Murders: Hearings Toufexis, Anastasia. 1994. Dances with before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Werewolves. Time, April 4. Justice of the Committee on the Ju- US House of Representatives. 1996. Se- diciary, US Senate, 98th Congress, rial Killers and Child Abductions: 1st Session, on Patterns of Murders Hearing before the Subcommittee on Committed by One Person in Large Crime of the Committee on the Ju- Numbers with No Apparent diciary, House of Representatives, Rhyme, Reason or Motivation. July 104th Congress, 1st session, Sep- 12, 1983. Washington: US Gov- tember 14, 1995. Washington: US ernment Printing Office. Government Printing Office. Vachss, Andrew. 1993. Sex Predators US Senate. 1982. Committee of the Judi- Can’t be Saved. New York Times, ciary. Subcommittee on Juvenile January 5. Justice. Exploited and Missing Warner, Marina. 1994. From the Beast to Children: Hearings before the Sub- the Blonde. London: Chatto and committee on Juvenile Justice of the Windus. Committee on the Judiciary, US Warner, Marina. 1995. Six Myths of Our Senate, 97th Congress, 2nd Session, Time. New York: Vintage Books. on S. 1701 . . . .April 1, 1982. Wash- Warner, Marina. 1999. No Go the Bogey- ington: US Government Printing man. New York: Farrar, Straus, Office. and Giroux.

Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness”1 in Postwar Cape Town

Carol Muller University of Pennsylvania USA

n January 25, 1959, a short but To copy [note] for [note], word for rather glowing review ap- word, image for image, is to make the peared in The Golden City Post, known world your own … It is within O an exuberant world of copies that we one of South Africa’s most popular news- 2 arrive at our experience of reality. papers targeted at a “non-white” audi- Hillel Schwartz 1996, 211-2 ence. It read:

Despite their prodigious use of There is no doubt about it, Beatrice recordings in formulating perspectives Benjamin is the mostest, the greatest on jazz history, historians have tended and the most appealing girl singer in to avoid theorizing the actual status the Cape, whispers Howard and function of these artifacts_the very Lawrence. What she did to the audi- artifacts that … would seem to consti- ence at Post’s show, “Just Jazz Meets tute primary evidence about jazz the Ballet” was wow. I got it bad when music. she sang “I Got It Bad.” Everybody Jed Rasula 1995, 134 else got it bad too and they kept shouting for more of that feeling. Most There was a time when radio was pure promising singer for 1959. Agreed. magic…the magic [came] from enter- [my emphasis] ing a world of sound, and from using that sound to make your own vision, Five decades later the performance of your own dream, your own world. Duke Ellington’s music in Cape Town, Susan Douglas 1999, 28 South Africa may not seem particularly noteworthy. In its historical moment, Just to sit in this dark place, and magic however, it was a remarkable achieve- takes place on the wall. For a moment, we forgot apartheid, we forgot there ment for a local singer of mixed race to was another world that wasn’t good; move her interracial audience emotion- we sat there, and were carried away by ally with a “foreign” repertory, i.e., a style the dream of these American movies. of song performance far removed from Actor John Kani to Peter Davis 1990, 23 the site of the music’s original production. It begs the question of how jazz had become both a naturalized discourse in Cape Town and part of the individual

and collective experiences of so many his community, travel to America was who lived through that period of South like travel to the moon. “The only expe- African cultural and political history. For rience I ever had with Americans was this Cape Town-born singer, “I Got It Bad through records.”5 Similarly, when and That Ain’t Good” has a certain aura. South Africans began to travel in Europe Sathima Bea Benjamin3 recalls that this in the 1960s and 1970s, they report that Duke Ellington tune created an imme- they rarely met anyone abroad who had diate and steadfast bond between her- any knowledge of South Africa’s vibrant self and internationally acclaimed South jazz communities.6 African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim In this paper, one of a series of medi- (aka. Dollar Brand).4 Benjamin and tations on postwar performance Ibrahim were each working separately amongst people classified as on the piece when they first met at the “Colo[u]red,” I examine the media jazz fundraiser mentioned above. Unbe- through which ordinary people like knownst to them in 1959, through an Sathima Bea Benjamim, Abdullah extraordinary sequence of events, they Ibrahim, and their peers learned Ameri- would come to meet and record with can popular music and jazz performance Duke Ellington and his musical partner, in the port city of Cape Town. The mate- composer-performer Billy Strayhorn in rials derive from a long-term research Switzerland four years later. Benjamin project I have been conducting with Ms. and Ibrahim memorialized that encoun- Benjamin since the early 1990s. While ter by performing “I Got It Bad” once much of that project is concerned with again, but this time in the presence of its the auto/biographical details of her life composer. and music, including a move into cul- Two records came out of the 1963 en- tural and later political exile initially in counter, one featuring Sathima Bea Ben- Europe and ultimately in New York City, jamin (A Morning in Paris, 1997) and the this paper takes a more generalized ap- other Dollar Brand, (Duke Ellington Pre- proach to musical practices in Cape sents the Dollar Brand Trio, 1963, reissued Town, South Africa from the end of 1997). These records signified a climac- World War II to the early 1960s. Although tic moment for South African jazz be- the musicians I have interviewed were cause while many South African musi- all somehow connected to Ms. Benjamin cians had performed the music of Duke at the time, I have integrated additional Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in primary sources, including discussion of Johannesburg and Cape Town, few archival film and newspaper material, to imagined they would ever have the op- enhance and enlarge upon the ethno- portunity to meet these musicians, or graphic particularity. witness them performing live, let alone Ms. Benjamin and her peers in 1940s record in the presence of such interna- and 1950s Cape Town initially honed tionally acclaimed artists. As the Cape their musical skills by taking cover in the Town jazz pianist Henry February com- imported sounds of American (and to mented to me, at that time for people in some extent British) popular music and

20 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

big band jazz performance. These styles Variety (changed to African Follies), Town- came to the port city through a range of ship Jazz, Golden City Dixies, and King personal contacts with visiting American Kong: An African Musical Opera. Even sailors, occasional tours by English and though they were heavily loaded to- American musicians,7 but more pro- wards white direction of “non-White” foundly through the importation of talent and there was, for example, little Anglo-American entertainment media “African” in African Jazz and Variety other and technology, specifically radio pro- than black bodies performing, such ini- grams and commercials, sound record- tiatives surely signaled a measure of ings, and Hollywood films. Without the hope in some for racial or at least cul- opportunities for formal musical train- tural integration in the future. For many ing, South Africans absorbed and lis- who participated in their performances, tened closely to the recordings, copying they also held the promise (though usu- and covering them live in local venues, ally not the realization) of international creating what some in South Africa have travel, particularly to England and Eu- called a culture of “carbon copies” of for- rope. On the other hand, for those of Af- eign music and musicians.8 Dovetailing rican and mixed racial descent like with the experiences of a small group of Abdullah Ibrahim and Sathima Bea Ben- men, who drew on their recent experi- jamin, it was an era of increasing state ence as wartime entertainers to train surveillance and exclusion in which the young musicians in the new repertory, scaffolding of apartheid was legislated many in Postwar South Africa had come if not yet fully enforced by the Afrikaner to believe in European classical and Nationalist government. The political American popular music as universal climate changed dramatically with the languages, languages that could be both Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960 in understood and mastered. which the National Security forces Postwar South Africa must also be opened fire on black protesters, killing characterized as a period of growing several. anomaly. On the one hand, there were In other words, in contrast to this pe- several “collaborative” musical projects riod in the USA, which may have started between English-speaking liberal whites, out completely segregated but was people of mixed race, and African de- slowly transformed, at least legally, scent. These included production of the through the Civil Rights Movement, by films The Magic Garden (1951) and Jim the early 1960s the outcome in South Comes to Joburg/African Jim (1949), Song Africa was legalized apartheid enforced of Africa (1951), Zonk! (1950) (see Davis with draconian measures. “Colo[u]red” 1996), the continued (state) support of the and other forms of African10 racial clas- Eoan Opera Company9 for “Colo[u]red” sification became increasingly problem- youth in Cape Town, and the organiza- atic especially in urban areas like Cape tion of traveling performance troupes Town and Johannesburg. The ideas and like The Arthur Klugman Show (or sounds of middle class respectability Coloured Jazz and Variety), African Jazz and expressed in “Colo[u]red” dance bands

21 Carol Muller

and those of political liberation sug- Town’s own” Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, gested in the racially mixed or ideologi- or Bing Crosby brought these traditions cally non-racial membership of the small to life. “Enlivening” distant voices on but progressive jazz avant garde con- stage by using local singers and instru- trasted with the expanding force of state mentalists was a common practice for control and the repression of individual white musicians in the South African and collective expression. For some the record industry i.e., studios produced response was to engage politically, to foreign music under license using the become more outspoken; some with- voices of locally known performers.11 drew in fear; yet others used jazz perfor- In the third part, I reflect on the mance to articulate ideals of political and metacultural practice of creating “carbon cultural freedom and racial integration. copies” of recordings of foreign musical The first part of this paper situates so- performances in postwar Cape Town by called “Colo[u]red” racial classification people labeled “Colo[u]red.” While the in the postwar era from the perspective “culture of the copy” is not peculiar to of the musicians I have interviewed. This the twentieth century or to South Afri- narrative of the complexity of cans in Cape Town (cf. Schwartz 1996), “Colo[u]red” identity in Cape Town in it assumes particular characteristics in this period suggests why at least some the postwar period depending first on people in that community opened them- the ways in which originals were heard selves up to the possibilities of new and through different media—film, radio, “modern” musical sounds and practices and sound recordings—and then re- not historically germane to the region or peated or re-presented in the Cape; sec- regarded as articulations of “South ond, on how fertile the musician’s imagi- Africanness.” The second part is largely nation was in determining his/her ca- ethnographic with a focus on the partici- pacity to take on and reshape the social pation of Ms. Benjamin and her peers in and musical self through copying the a Cape Town culture of “carbon copies” voices, gestures, and clothing of the ob- and covers from the 1940s through the jectified performances of “American” 1960s. This narrative, or series of narra- others; and third, how mediated origi- tives, is about the transplantation of for- nals were copied (transcribed/memo- eign mediated performance onto local rized, or performed) by local musicians. culture. It tells of the translation of In this context, Cape copies sustained “American” music into a form of perfor- two broad kinds of performances: exact mance that was more culturally coher- copies of foreign models with/without ent, and one that occurred largely some improvisation or “ad libbing,” and through live reenactments. In other the more intellectual and politically pro- words, this is a history in which objects gressive world of the Cape jazz avant more than people bring the sounds of garde that strove for creative, original jazz and popular music to communities expressions in a non-racial social milieu. far from the sites of first/original perfor- It was the latter performance that mance. People posturing as “Cape troubled the Afrikaner Nationalist gov-

22 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

ernment because it countered ideologies lematic. This complexity was poignantly of racial purity and separate cultural exemplified, for example, in the results development. of the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 when to the surprise of “Cape Colo[u]red” as Racial Classifica- many, the majority of people categorized tion as “Colo[u]red” voted the Afrikaner Nationalists back into power in the West- It would be a grave error not to provide ern Cape, defeating the bid of the more some understanding of the deeply em- politically progressive African National bedded sense of place that Cape Town’s Congress. “Colo[u]red” is thus a label residents, regardless of racial category, fraught with ambiguity because, like the historically attributed to that city. Cape notion of metissage elsewhere,12 to be la- Town is a place of exquisite beauty. Its beled “Colo[u]red” in South Africa has physical landscape, with Table Mountain never translated into a positive form of in the center, and the Indian and Atlan- identification. Though the label itself tic oceans surrounding it, has long pro- gained currency in the early 19th century vided for its residents a specific sense of in Cape Town the “Colo[u]red” label was locality. This was true for people of Afri- ascribed to those who were originally can and mixed racial heritage until about slaves but who had sexual relations with 1950. Within the space of about twelve Europeans in a period of greater freedom years, 1950-1962, the “Mother City” in interracial social relationships (Febru- changed from one which evoked a pro- ary 1983). It is worth noting in this con- found sense of place, home, and commu- text that slavery in the Cape was not lim- nity belonging, to a space of exclusion, ited to people of African descent because fragmentation, boundary marking, and many slaves were imported to Cape inevitable transgression. It was certainly Town from places along the 17th and 18th true for Ms. Benjamin and all the others century Dutch trade routes: Malaysia, In- who participated in Cape Town’s avant- donesia, Madagascar, Ceylon, and Ben- garde jazz community. These changes gal (Western 1996, 12-13). Unlike some were inflicted on those labeled “Cape of those of African descent in the US, Colo[u]reds” by a series of laws made many “Cape Colo[u]red” people had by the Afrikaner Nationalist government largely participated in European- rather in the early 1950s for the country at large. than African-derived cultural practices.13 They had a particular kind of impact in Under the apartheid government, how- Cape Town because this legislation in- ever, all people of mixed racial heritage tentionally sought to keep people catego- or married to someone who was mixed, rized as “Colo[u]red” out of white space. were legally required to identify them- State enforcement of these laws played selves as “Colo[u]red” regardless of their a critical role in the transformation and cultural orientation. In other words, the often destruction of these communities, category of “Colo[u]red” became an and of jazz performance itself. ideological and political rather than a To talk about “Colo[u]redness” in “natural” or cultural one. Cape Town is therefore extremely prob-

23 Carol Muller

Early twentieth century Cape Town istration Act (amended in 1966) created has been described by Ms. Benjamin as legal definitions for racial groups, defin- a period of “relaxed apartheid,” when ing “Colo[u]reds” as persons not native people of color mixed with those of Eu- or European, or persons married to a ropean descent though always in quite man or woman classified as “Colo[u]red” controlled frames. Social restraint not (Western 1996, 9). The Immorality Act only characterized social convention for (passed in 1927 and amended in 1950 to “Colo[u]red” people once the Afrikaner include a ban on interracial marriages) Nationalists came to power in 1948; it made all sexual relationships across what had also been an effective strategy un- was called the color bar illegal. The der British governance prior to that. For Group Areas Act (1950) required racial example, it was under the British that groups to live in specific areas, seeking “Cape Colo[u]reds” were removed from to separate out the “Colo[u]reds” from the Common Voters’ Roll in 1936. “Europeans” to preclude any further ra- Sathima recalls that two social principles cial mixing in Cape Town specifically were inculcated into her as a child of (though it had wider ramifications in the mixed race in that period: (a) know your rest of the country as well). The Sepa- place and (b) do not look for trouble. rate Amenities Act (1950) forced racial Culturally, the social rules were trans- segregation in all public venues.14 So the ferred into “Colo[u]red” dance band per- naming of “Colo[u]reds” legally became formance in which adventurous musi- a means to divide, rule, and marginalize cians were held to a stringent set of rules rather than to unite and empower. about permissible “deviations” from per- The racial category “Colo[u]red” is formance conventions. Jazz musicians therefore a label of ethnicity that has like Henry February and Abdullah never represented any kind of homoge- Ibrahim have provided humorous ac- neous group in South Africa, except in counts of their attempts to improvise the eyes of the apartheid regime. I have over set tunes and fixed rhythms in the specifically chosen not to use the word dance band contexts (see further Layne “identity” in the Cape Town context be- 1995 for discussion of these two styles of cause few of those classified as performance). “Colo[u]red” identify with the category. Without the right to vote equally with Some reluctantly accept it publicly but whites, the Afrikaner Nationalist govern- privately resent its application to them. ment proceeded to separate “Cape Some have rejected it entirely. A few have Colo[u]reds” socially from Europeans sought to “pass” for white. Many never (the label for “Whites”) through a series use the word “Colo[u]red” without the of legislative acts starting in 1950. This preface “so-called,” because this kind of was their strategy of “nation”-building: racial categorization underpinned the of forging a “nation” of European apartheid government’s policy of racial peoples at the center with all “others” purity, the denial of European participa- geographically, economically, and politi- tion in biological miscegenation, and ex- cally marginal. The 1950 Population Reg- clusion of people labeled “Colo[u]red”

24 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

from the larger nation-building project Sathima’s father’s generation kept them- of the Afrikaner Nationalists. selves apart from others of mixed race “Colo[u]red” intellectuals, some of who were called “Cape Colo[u]red.” whom were also members of the South Unlike some “Cape Colo[u]reds” who African Teachers’ League, completely spoke Afrikaans, who were part of the rejected social identification through ra- working class or variably employed, and cial categories, projecting instead ideals who danced to Afrikaans-derived live of a non-racial democracy (February band music (called “langarm,” the “long- 1983). In this instance, people prefer to arm” style of the tango) on weekends, be identified individually, and in terms St. Helenians aspired to participation in of categories other than race. Some use a milieu of English language middle class the label “Colo[u]red” to assert their dif- cosmopolitanism and “respectability.”18 ference from people of African descent. Some never took South African citizen- Others preferred to be identified as Afri- ship but remained British subjects, en- can.15 More recently “Colo[u]red” iden- gaging exclusively with the English- tification has also been re-appropriated speaking world. Certainly, most St. by some for political and economic mo- Helenians in South Africa were proud bilization and gain. that, prior to 1948, their birth certificates Sathima Bea Benjamin’s own family stated, of “mixed St. Helenian” rather heritage adds a new twist to the ques- than “Cape Colo[u]red” descent. On tion of being labeled “Cape Colo[u]red” weekends, this community gathered the because they were never “Cape extended family to play cards and sing Colo[u]reds” in the historical sense of the around the piano. Most were church- term. Half her family16 hailed from the going Christians. This would change remote Atlantic Ocean Island of St. Hel- with the next generation, which sought ena ruled by the British. Sathima’s father, to assimilate more into South African so- Edward Benjamin’s family, had immi- ciety, but they were forced to identify grated to Cape Town from St. Helena in themselves as “Cape Colo[u]red” from the late 19th century when his older sis- the late 1940s. ter, also named Beattie, was a young girl. In addition to policies of exclusion The Benjamin family arrived on boats in from South African citizenship and na- the Cape Town harbor and settled with tionhood, instituted by the Nationalist other St. Helenians. This group of immi- government from the early 1950s, “cul- grants lived in three places in the city: ture” was used to demarcate differences District Six before its destruction, the on the basis of race and class. The Euro- Rondebosch-Claremont suburbs (on the pean classical tradition signaled good “Colo[u]red” side of the railroad tracks), taste and middle class membership for where Sathima spent her early child- the “Colo[u]red” (and African) elite. hood, and Athlone, a more settled Nationally it was the standard by which “Colo[u]red” area where she lived in her musical talent and excellence were evalu- late teens and early twenties with her ated. The distaste for jazz amongst the mother.17 Many St. Helenians of “Colo[u]red” elite is expressed as follows:

25 Carol Muller

When the child has been allowed to themselves in the United States in the cultivate a soul we shall find a new 1940s and 50s. The increased availabil- illumination in the remaining cultural ity of sound recordings and films in the subjects, for he will be able to respond postwar period added to the more usual to the works of great masters of cre- sheet music, enabling individuals to ative spirits [i.e., European masters], music will not need to be rendered to learn the repertory by listening rather jazz nor the sensuous, and literature than reading the score, which corre- to vulgarity, before he can find genu- sponded more closely with the particu- ine pleasure in them.19 lar skills available to most in this community at the time. In this section, I shift Most of the musicians I have interviewed focus to Sathima, or Bea Benjamin as she who were situated on the proverbial was known in Cape Town, and her mu- fence between working class and an sical peers’ responses to foreign sounds emergent professional membership of in their home environment in these the middle class had little music educa- years. I shall discuss three mediated tion. Sathima went for some piano and sources: radio, sound recordings, and theory lessons, as did Henry February film, and round off the ethnographic and Jimmy Adams. Even if you could materials with selected examples of “en- afford the tuition, training in European livened” repetitions and representations classical music and syncopation were the of this music in Cape Town through the only two styles available, so it was more early 1960s. common for “Colo[u]red” musicians to be self-taught. Big band arranger Jimmy Radio Adams recalls borrowing tuition books When I asked veteran Cape musicians, from his teacher. On the back of one of Jimmy Adams and Harold Jephtah, these manuals he found there was the where they first heard American music, “United States School of Music” in Wash- they replied, “It was in the air.” Jimmy ington D.C. that offered training through qualified, “In the air, on the radio.”21 Ini- correspondence. By combining superior tially there was only the English lan- aural skills with a close listening to bor- guage station, then an Afrikaans lan- rowed recordings, Adams taught him- guage and culture station was devel- self jazz harmony and arrangement from oped, and a third, called the Klipheuwel 20 the books he ordered from America. Station, aired for several years and then Contrasting with the peculiarities of shut down. In 1950 the first semi-com- local experiences, it would seem from the mercial radio station, Springbok Radio, films shown in Cape Town cinemas and was made available through state con- sound recordings sold in the city’s stores trolled broadcasting. Henry February that jazz, particularly as dance band ac- explained that his move from English companiment but also as avant-garde style syncopation to American jazz on artistic performance, were the sites piano occurred after he heard the Benny through which people of color were ne- Goodman Trio with pianist Teddy Wil- gotiating a fair and respectable place for son on radio. The piano playing “hit

26 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

[him] like a thunderbolt.” In response, formed by artists like Duke Ellington, February who had had some piano les- Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Doris sons, purchased books that taught the Day, Joni James, Frank Sinatra, Billie Teddy Wilson style. Later he heard the Holiday, and many others.23 music of Nat King Cole. He taught himself how to play in the Cole style, and in Film the 1950s called his jazz ensemble the Nat While the radio broadcasts were an inte- King Cole Trio.22 gral aspect of the everyday chores in Bea Born a few years after Adams, Benjamin’s childhood, the cinema Sathima recalls that as a young girl she proved to be the social space that brought absorbed American popular music and the most complete package of the magic jazz through listening to her of faraway people and places close to grandmother’s radio, which played home. In contrast, Jimmy Adams rarely daily in their home. From the age of visited the “bioscope” (movie theater),24 about ten she used to keep a pen and and Henry February does not consider notebook hidden in her grandmother’s the movie fare influential on his devel- wind-up gramophone. The notebook opment as a jazz pianist—the audiences was hidden because her grandmother were looking for images, not good artis- did not think the young girl should be tic sounds.25 Harold Jephtah, however, wasting her time writing down the recalls attending the theater two or three words in order to perform them on stage, times a week in his youth.26 As diverse at intermission in the cinema, and later as the acts in the live variety shows that in clubs and at jazz gatherings. To hear preceded film screening in theaters, a the musical sounds as background mu- night at the local movie theater included sic was safe; to memorize the words, to two full-length feature films (usually transform them into your own texts, was “Wild Westerns,” action, or monster troublesome because the public nature films), a serial, the news, and a cartoon. of dance band and stage performance Jephtah’s favorite serial was “Terry and was not considered appropriate for re- the Pirates,” but the monster movies spectable young girls, especially not were his passion. It is to his avid view- those from the St. Helenian community. ing of those movies that Jephtah at- Nevertheless, because she could not af- tributes his desire to learn the European ford to buy the sheet music, sound re- orchestral repertory27 —prompting cordings, or fake-books, Bea Benjamin Jephtah to train as a classical clarinetist painstakingly copied the words of tunes and bassoon player in Sweden in the as they were broadcast repeatedly early 1960s. through the week. Once she heard a song In the 1940s, when the young Ms. at the movies or on the radio, she would Benjamin and her friends began view- take ownership of its melody by repeated ing American movies, the theater offered listening. Through this medium young more than mere consumption of audio- Bea listened to English and American visual images. For these young Cape popular music and big band jazz per- teenagers and aspiring performers, Hol-

27 Carol Muller

lywood films provided clearer models of (1989) and Jeppie (1990) both argue that popular performance, largely by people “going to the movies” was a ritualized, of European descent. There were, none- often boisterous, communal activity in theless, one or two films that stand out Cape Town’s “dream palaces” in the in South African film history because mid-1940s through to the late 1950s. they starred people of color. Cabin in the Nasson explains: Sky, starring Lena Horne as singer and Duke Ellington as band leader, and The local “bioscope” occupied a very Stormy Weather, featuring a range of Af- special niche in the recreational life rican American jazz performers and va- of the community, a place to which riety entertainers, were two of the most both adults and children went in order to be cocooned in the dream popular movies shown to “non-white” world of the flickering screen. Atten- audiences in South Africa in the mid- dance was regular and habitual, as 28 1940s. These two films were the cin- films continually widened their au- ematic models for the handful of local dience appeal and imaginative power productions, live and filmed, of the 1940s to transport people out of themselves, and 1950s in which largely black South and the humdrum confines of their African performers in Johannesburg work and domestic lives at least once starred. There were other films in which a week…While [cinemas] tended to performers like Billie Holiday, Cab be fairly small and unpretentious in Calloway, and the Ink Spots appeared appearance, their names_the Star, the West End, the Empire, the British (Davis 1996). Furthermore, in the increas- Bioscope_dripped with the promise ingly repressive public environment, the of glamour or old imperial splendor. “bioscope” theater was the only space (Nasson 1989, 286-7) that allowed a measure of freedom in social (and romantic) interaction be- Shamiel Jeppie summarizes the experi- tween young “Cape Colo[u]reds” in ences as follows: Cape Town in the 1940s and 1950s. There were no other contexts in which, for ex- Sitting in often-crowded cinemas and ample, “Colo[u]red” girls were permit- on hard benches was a common ex- ted to appear publicly without their par- perience for many of these cinema- ents. With its mix of reality and fictional goers. From these packed seats audi- material, the program at the theater, ences would frequently audibly en- much like television in the United States gage with the film; as one letter to a local newspaper put it: and Britain in the same period, kept the community in touch with the outside I refer mostly to the talking aloud and passing comments on the world. The darkness of the cinema al- players, besides reading aloud lowed audiences to sit back, open their subtitles … and the sympathy and eyes to an otherwise inaccessible world advise [sic] given out to players of glamor and enchantment, or to keep by some persons. Some ladies them closed and to dream. again, bring their babies to the South African historians Nasson show in the evening.29

28 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

Amorous couples, and sporadic tory. She reinvents these “straight” melo- fights in the plebeian cinemas added dies with a jazz sensibility that enables to the texture of the Cape Town her to reflect temporal displacement and bioscope. Moreover there were the imaginative play as musical attributes. scenes of the audience bringing their snacks with them_from smelly fish and chips to milk chocolates. (Jeppie Sound Recordings 1990, 120) Though Bea Benjamin could not afford to buy 78 discs of her favorite perform- Hollywood films with mostly white ac- ers, three of her jazz colleagues tell won- tors and stars provided the bulk of the derful stories of the impact of film and entertainment for these largely working sound recordings on local culture. Jimmy class communities: westerns, thrillers, Adams recalled the influence of sound and horror movies were the favorites for recordings on black South African mu- men and boys, while women preferred sicians from a trip he made to the musicals and “weepies” as they were Johannesburg with Sathima, after the called (Nasson 1989). It was the bioscope sponsor of the their show, Arthur that promised the fantasy and magical Klugman, abandoned the performers sounds that so many “Colo[u]red” while on a tour of Southern Africa in the people aspired to copy. Sathima recalls late 1950s. Adams and Benjamin ven- that every Saturday for seven or eight tured into the Bantu Men’s Social Cen- years, she would make the trip to the ter, a mission initiated community cen- weekly matinée to get her “big dollop of ter that sponsored musical training and American culture.”30 performances of jazz and classical mu- Retrospectively, Sathima Bea Ben- sic by African musicians in this period. jamin suggests there were three levels on Distributed around the walls of one of which American and British films the rooms at the center were “holes in shaped her individually and musically. the wall with phonograph players inside. She identified with child stars of the Musicians were sitting in front of the movies, and recalls that her aunt even holes, listening to the records and copy- braided her hair in the style of girl stars ing the sounds.”32 of the period. Film culture inculcated a Jazz musician and community librar- particular notion of romance and roman- ian, Vincent Kolbe, explained that in his tic love, that even if she was never to re- youth musicians did not just play exact ally find it in daily relationships, she renditions of the music they heard in the could express desire for in song. For the cinema or on these discs. They also drew young Benjamin, the emotional force of on the images on record covers to con- romantic love she witnessed in the real- struct hair and clothing styles. istic images of the cinema was enhanced by the rich sounds of film melodies.31 If you were “Cape Town’s Dizzy Many of these old tunes remain archived Gillespie,” you took the album cover in Sathima’s memory, and are an inte- of Gillespie to the barber and had the gral to her current performance reper- appropriate haircut, and then you

29 Carol Muller

went to the tailor who would cut you Are.” After listening very carefully, he an outfit that duplicated what you transcribed the music he heard, exactly. could see on the album cover.33 When he gave the arrangements to the musicians in his band, they told him the During the mid-1950s Kolbe worked at music sounded like Lee Konitz. In des- the public library in Kew Town, where peration, Adams responded, “But when Sathima was living with her mother. The are you going to hear Jimmy Adams?”35 community was largely a generation of In her late teens and early twenties it “Colo[u]red” men who had participated was through the record collections of the in World War II, and their children were local library and that of Swiss entrepre- aspiring artists, teachers, and musicians. neur and friend Paul Meyer that Bea At Kolbe’s initiative, this group of “bo- Benjamin listened closely to the world hemian” artists listened to recordings of of American blues and jazz in the late jazz and discussed African American lit- 1950s, though the cost of hearing was erature that emerged out of experiences high. Meyer lived in the elite, politically of segregation in the United States. liberal coastal suburb of Camps Bay in Harold Jephtah, one of Cape Town’s which Ms. Benjamin, now classified as best-known Charlie Parker soloists in the “Cape Colo[u]red,” was only allowed to late 1950s, recalls that he would use stay if she had a permit to work as a whatever means necessary to buy the housemaid. To her family’s chagrin, latest 78 record of his favorite musicians. Meyer would take the young woman on “I lived in the record shop!” laughed the back of his motorcycle from Athlone, Jephtah. He remembers as a young boy where Bea was living with her mother, telling his mother that he had a tooth- to Camps Bay to hear his records. Both ache. She provided money for a visit to feared being arrested for breaking laws the dentist. Scheming Harry proceeded pertaining to racial segregation, like the directly to the record store and returned Group Areas Act. But, Sathima recalls, 34 home with a Coleman Hawkins record. she was so desperate to hear this music In contrast to Kolbe and Jephtah, that she was willing to take the risk. Sev- Jimmy Adams refused to buy any re- eral years after she began singing in pub- cordings. He feared that if he owned the lic, it was Billie Holiday’s voice, heard records he would listen to them too on record in the backyard of one of Cape closely, and lose a sense of his own sound Town’s most elite neighborhoods, that and musical identity. This did not stop made this young woman realize her own him, however, from regularly borrowing sound held a place in the world of jazz. the recordings purchased by Jephtah in order to shape his sense of the American From Hearing to Performing jazz available in Cape Town. Anxiety about a loss of individual voice is exem- From the 1940s through 1960s, young plified in the following anecdote. Adams South Africans heard and performed live tells of having once borrowed a Lee music in Cape Town in several interre- Konitz recording of “All the Things You lated contexts. These included perfor-

30 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

mance at home, singing in the church “originals” in their cinematic represen- and at school, live music on the streets, tation, and then have live versions of the live and mediated musical performances models impersonated on stage at inter- in Bob36 parties and the cinema/ mission. ”bioscope,” and the live dance band sounds of teenage Bop clubs. In this Cape Cape Tonians are very good at imi- Town realm of popular culture, a song tating. Excellent. We always had the first heard in a movie on a Saturday af- Cape Town Jerry Lewis, the Cape ternoon, for example, was reinforced Town Bing Crosby. I think for a while I was either Doris Day or Joni James, through repeated hearing in the follow- before I went into the other thing [i.e., ing week. It could be heard over the air, jazz].37 on record, and performed live in a cover version by local dance bands or in sub- Bea Benjamin first appeared in public as sequent talent contests held at the cin- a singer when she was about eleven ema or at fundraising events organized years old. She entered a Talent Contest in various churches and community held one Saturday afternoon at intermis- halls. This community of aspiring musi- sion and won. The prize: 8 free tickets to cians thus absorbed the sounds and im- return her to the movies time and again. ages of the imported, largely American- In this more popular period of her life, mediated culture through what seemed Sathima sang the songs of white singers to be a completely natural process of to- Doris Day, Joni James, and others: “Mr. tal immersion, of secondary orality, and Wonderful” and “Somewhere over the then reproduced these performances as Rainbow” were her two signature tunes. an integral part of local culture in the Despite singing a cover version of the Cape. song, however, Bea’s close friend Ruth Cape Town’s “Colo[u]red” movie au- Fife recalls that when she heard her at diences supported a longstanding tradi- that first talent contest it was clear that tion of live and mediated experience in- even if she was using the words and side the walls of the theater. Audience melodies of others, Bea Benjamin already members recall singing along with popu- had her own distinctive style, a charac- lar songs that accompanied “Tom and teristic signaling the move towards jazz Jerry” cartoons, for example. At the time performance early on in her life.38 the words and music would appear on The musical content of the films pro- the screen, encouraging collective partici- vided models of performance in two pation (Nasson 1989). “Just a Song at other places: first, local bandleaders “bor- Twilight,” a tune Ms. Benjamin vividly rowed” movie melodies for Saturday remembers from her childhood, was one night dance band performances; and sec- of these songs. Many local theaters also ond, they were used for amateur perfor- staged elaborate live variety acts and mances at local hotels. In the first in- hosted talent competitions between stance, Bea’s friend Vincent Kolbe recalls movies. Sathima recalls those events as that he and a friend would be given ones in which one could watch the money by one of the local bandleaders

31 Carol Muller

to go and repeatedly watch the newest When the emcees would announce movie arrivals as soon as they came to Joey Gabriels, they had their way, the the local bioscope. They were instructed emcees, he would come on and they to memorize the words and melodies of would announce, he was Cape a song sung, for example, by Nat King Town’s Mario Lanza or Caruso or whatever, and he would walk. OK, Cole. Once they knew the song they we would all be back stage and just would give the information to the walk on the stage and go to the mi- bandleader. The next Saturday night, crophone (which probably wasn’t Cole’s latest melody would be played working or working and making live at social dances for the “Colo[u]red” squeaks)…and there comes Joey community.39 In the dance band context, Gabriels. He would not come from the tunes were played “straight” to sus- backstage. When they announced tain regular rhythms required of ball- him, he came from the back of the cin- room dance. It was through these live ema. You know, with a big chest and renditions of dance band performances everything, just so pompous and full of conceit. by musicians known in your neighbor- This was all part of the act. He’d hood, rather than through the imper- get to the stage and walk to the sonal objects of sound recordings, that middle and he would take the micro- the majority of Cape Town’s phone stand and walk over to the side “Colo[u]red” community remembers and put the stand down there, like I hearing the “sounds of Hollywood.” don’t need this. And he’d just stand Film melodies were also heard in lo- there, a gorgeous tenor, you know. It cal hotels and at fundraising events. was always the same thing; people al- Sathima’s mother was a self-taught rag- ways wanted the same thing. He would just get these ovations; he was time pianist.40 On occasion Sathima, her so flamboyant.42 mother, and her sister Joan would go to a nearby hotel where there was always a piano and a place to sing. While Eva Sathima’s recollections are remarkably Green could only play in the keys of C, vivid for the forty-year time gap between F, and G, she knew the melodies of old original performance and its re- songs like “Up the Lazy River,” “Chi- membering. They are remarkable be- cago,” “Come Back To Sorrento,” and cause through her words readers of the “Sweet Mystery of Life.” Ms. Green text can almost imagine the stage per- rarely accompanied Sathima but she sona of Mr. Gabriels. It echoes the image would willingly work with some of the one creates in the mind’s eye of a simi- local talent. There was one man, Joey larly self-possessed Caruso or Mario Gabriels, who sang “Come Back to Lanza. For Joey Gabriel’s audiences, it Sorrento” (Gabriels changed his name to was the power of his voice and the air of Giuseppe Gabriello when he left South self-confidence he exuded on stage that Africa to study opera in Italy).41 Sathima called for repeat performances. It was his described a typical performance by the capacity to refashion the self in perfor- young man at a talent contest: mance, but, in the eyes of his audiences,

32 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

to do it better than the movie stars. His Expanding Political Consciousness flagrant disregard for the crutch of the In the late 1950s participation in this vi- voice, the technology of amplification, brant musical community began to be signaled to his audiences an improve- accompanied by individual reading ment on the original because Cape amongst a few of the more intellectually Town’s very own Joey Gabriels had no oriented musicians and artists. For ex- need for the mic: the unmediated ample, Sathima remembers that while strength of his voice was sufficient. In she was still teaching school, she would each reenactment Joey Gabriels’s perfor- spend her evenings in the local library mances served to articulate membership, where her friend and jazz performer for the young man and his audiences in Vincent Kolbe was librarian. She read Cape Town, in a larger tradition of popu- about “Negro”/colored experience and lar song in which they were now inex- listened to jazz recordings as part of a tricably entwined. Jazz Appreciation Club. Kolbe recalled Standing ovations were rather un- that the library was the hub of social and usual amongst Cape Town’s artistic activity_he described the commu- “Colo[u]red” audiences. Sathima recalls nity as “bohemian,” with several sensi- that the community that came to hear tive, artistic but politically conscious you sing was your harshest critic. Little schoolteachers in its midst.43 It was at this attention was paid to these sites of popu- library that Sathima and others began to lar performance by the largely white really listen to African Americans play- dominated media. Rather the real critics ing jazz, and to read the writings of Afri- were those of your own community. It can Americans in the United States. was only when “Colo[u]red” singers and Kolbe provided her with books by Rich- instrumentalists played in white or ard Wright, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. du mixed venues (such as the venue cited Bois, and others. She found the autobi- at the top of the paper) that anyone in ography of Billie Holiday, Lady Sings The the press paid attention. Instead, com- Blues: The Searing Autobiography of an munity audiences provided instant feed- American Musical Legend (1956), before back. If a performer was not able to mea- the book was banned in South Africa. sure up to their standards he or she As a woman now classified as would be booed off the stage immedi- “Colo[u]red” it is clear that Sathima read ately. For those deemed of adequate stan- the texts in particular ways. First, she dard, however, the audiences were recalls that in these books authors like warm, alive, and supportive. They had W.E.B. du Bois and Richard Wright clear aural and visual templates of the would use the racial categories of “Ne- sounds and sights they desired from gro” and “colored” interchangeably. other live renditions and recorded ver- With black South Africans and sions, and performers were expected to “Colo[u]reds” all lumped into the cat- meet them. egory of “non-European” this was not unusual for South African readers. What was peculiar however was the way in

33 Carol Muller

which Sathima recalls identifying with texts that contained eternal truths and the word “colored” though she did not might have application to your life. In necessarily sense a connection with the other words, these books on the African- word “Negro.” It does seem that, prior American experience were not read as to the Afrikaner Nationalist Population history so much as a kind of testimony Registration Act (1950) in which to experiences of racism elsewhere in the “Colo[u]red” became a separate racial world. As was the case elsewhere in category, there was a similar kind of South Africa, the introduction of literacy ambiguity in the minds of people of and mission activity are closely inter- mixed race in South Africa. This is dem- twined, and much “Colo[u]red” educa- onstrated in a newspaper article pub- tion lay in the hands of missionaries and lished in Cape Town in 1936 about the church schools. The consequence of this visit of Paul Robeson’s wife to the city. kind of approach to reading is that indi- Reporting on Ms. Robeson’s speech to a viduals may well identify with the ex- “non-white” audience it reads: periences articulated in the book, but not necessarily take note of the specific his- “Too often,” said Mrs. Robeson, “we torical period elsewhere in the world in have that inferiority complex, and al- which these books were written or con- though gifted in many ways, a sumed. Coloured man never feels quite certain of himself.” … She said that she felt In addition to reading, listening, and so at home that the meeting might meeting with this library-centered com- have been a Negro one anywhere in munity, Sathima was introduced to the the USA or in England. She said that small community of jazz musicians op- she had promised her husband that erating in the Cape. The late 1950s was she would not discuss politics on her the time when she began to question her present tour, but she would neverthe- identity, a process correlated with her less like to say something on the fault definitive move into the music produced of the Coloured race. “Too often we by people called “colored” in the United have that inferiority complex.” [my States. It was at this moment the young emphasis]44 woman began experimenting with the music of Ellington and met Dollar Brand. Presumably quoting Ms. Robeson di- By reading of the experience of a people rectly, the Cape journalist plays with the often called “colored” in the United same ambiguities in racial categories that States, Sathima concluded that she and one finds in the literature of Du Bois and her people were not alone in their expe- Wright, though the writer spells the riences of the harshness of racism, and word “Coloured” as it was spelled in that other “Colo[u]red” people were South Africa, localizing the identifica- making music in a similar style, i.e., hers tion. was both an ideological and musical/ Second, it seems to me that texts were aural identification. Jazz was the more read much like South Africans read the inclusive musical language that both Bible, not as historically situated, but as Sathima and Abdullah hoped would be

34 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

the passport to a transnational family of Pico Iyer’s quintessentially post-mod- like-minded musicians. It was in this ern text Video Night in Kathmandu (1989), period that she self-consciously moved a narrative on his travels in the tourist away from copying the voices of white zones of the “not-so-far-East,” provides women, like Joni James and Doris Day, a first site for refraction. Specifically, it is to the more emotionally evocative his tale of the culture of copies of Ameri- “blues” sounds of African-American can popular music in the Philippines that women like Billie Holiday. This was the suggests the most pertinent companion moment when the young woman began to the Cape story. Reading Iyer’s chap- to search for her own “voice” in her ter one is tempted to dismiss the Cape sound and as a composer. culture of copies as just that, only a copy, lacking originality, authenticity, and an Reflections on the Cape “Culture of emotional vocabulary of its own in the Carbon Copies” way that Iyer implies is the case with Fili- pinos in Manila. Iyer remains, however, In the last part of this paper I offer a se- a travel writer operating in the world of ries of reflections on taking cover in tourism.45 American music as a cultural practice amongst people classified as A more textured reading of the cul- “Colo[u]red” in postwar Cape Town. In ture of the copy comes in Michael the spirit of the improvising musicians I Taussig’s (1993) reflections on a cinematic am writing about, these reflections are scene invoking a moment at the end of shaped out of a playful treatment of sec- the Second World War. Taussig reads the ondary literature that suggests possibili- encounters of the “Third” world with ties for interfacing with the primary “First World” technologies of repetition materials presented. They come in three and its music by focusing on the ironies phases: first, by refracting the ethno- of such engagement. Critiquing the graphic material through other writings West’s loss of a cultural memory of its on the subject of covers and copies; sec- own initial intrigue with the mysteries ond, by honing in on the specific nature of mechanical reproduction through the of this culture metaphorized in the display of “frontier rituals of technologi- scribal image of “carbon copies,” and a cal supremacy,” Taussig reminds the culture shaped by ongoing practices of reader of one consequence of the Afri- oral transmission into which disembod- can “other” appropriating European ied musical products were inserted and sound recording specifically. He com- imaginatively reconstituted to cohere ments on a moment in Senegalese film- with local histories, characters, and sen- maker Ousamane Sembene’s 1988 film, sibilities; and third, by situating struggles The Camp at Thiaroye, in which a black for individual and group identity in the Senegalese soldier who has fought for tensions created by an increasingly re- the French in World War II awaits dis- pressive social environment with the charge. In the waiting period, Sembene sense of possibility conveyed by the portrays the soldier with his favorite popular media. possession: the phonograph playing

35 Carol Muller

European classical music. Taussig re- the consequences of ownership because marks: ownership always threatened a loss of the qualities of personal voice by trans- On the one hand, it is pleasing to the forming the bounded self into a body officers to see this man becoming like possessed by other voices. As the case of them through a machine whose job it Jimmy Adams suggests, if you listened is to reproduce likeness. On the other, without owning, you could still strive to it is profoundly disturbing to them because this man is using this ma- retain a sense of your own identity. Once chine to manufacture likeness. you owned the record through purchase, Thanks in part to this machine, he is however, you opened yourself to its not only too comfortable with Euro- power over your personal voice and pean culture, but he shows the way identity. for a “new man” who can be both In other words, hearing and possess- black and white, Senegalese and ing the recorded object differed from the French. (Taussig 1993, 206) possibilities of possession by listening to the radio as Sathima had done in her In Taussig’s reading, there are two issues, childhood. Supplementing the images one of technology and the other of race. and sounds absorbed in her weekly trips On the one hand, the Senegalese man’s to the “bioscope,” the radio played all imitations of European-ness reveal a hol- day long in the girl’s childhood home. low display of technological mastery, the Its words and music intermingled with African man equally able to play at pas- household chores, and was interspersed sive consumption albeit of a complex with other activities and sounds. Never musical culture: the recorded European allowed to sit down and listen to the ra- classical tradition. In so doing, he reveals dio, Sathima’s relationship to the radio and unravels the web of European was as daily companion. Through total power. On the other hand, it demon- immersion, the melodies she heard in the strates a one-up-manship as the black cinema or live performance were supple- man is able to code-switch culturally, per- mented with the visual images provided forming European-ness with the same fa- by the movies. She accumulated frag- cility as he performs African-ness. ments of the words to create a whole text. The process by which copies were She memorized the melodies and wrote made depended on the medium of trans- down the words in her secret little note- mission—radio, recording, or film—but book, out of her grandmother’s sight. also on access to financial resources, as This process of repeated listening, of par- well as on gender, and on what forms of tial inscription, and the accumulation of cultural production were permissible by textual fragments enabled her to listen the larger community. If you owned a with greater accuracy. The unpredictable sound recording, you could manipulate repetition of a song she loved enabled and control when and in what context her to capture a few more pieces, w/o/ you heard its contents, though as Jimmy r/d by w/o/r/d until the text was com- Adams suggests, one had to be wary of plete and she was ready to perform it in

36 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

public. This was a kind of additive hear- culture reproducing the original involves ing, a progressive habitation of the for- a relationship between human labor, in eign repertory through copying. the s/t/r/o/k/e by s/t/r/o/k/e or The Cape capacity to imitate stars w/o/r/d by w/o/r/d actions of typ- from afar by striving for faithful mime- ists and writers, and the technologies of sis, to looking and sounding alike, speaks inscription—the typewriter and sheets of of a particular kind of repetition in cul- carbon paper covered by individual leafs tures shaped by modern technology. of plain white paper. By analogy, the la- And it resonates with Iyer’s reading of bor-intensive process of musical tran- Filipino covers of American popular scription, of creating a text of words and music. In this frame the mediated “origi- possibly tunes: making scripts for live nal” is played and heard over and over performance is paralleled in a n/o/t/e again, relentlessly unchanging, so per- by n/o/t/e and w/o/r/d by w/o/r/d formers are able to present, and audi- practice. In this instance, it is the labor ences come to expect, the perfect like- entailed in producing the copy that car- ness. In the postwar era, Cape Town’s ries value. own Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Bing On the other hand, the “carbon copy” Crosby were measured by the exactness is enmeshed in another kind of “master” with which they could reproduce the narrative. Here, the original script, called “original” in body—how they dressed, a “master,” is transcribed as multiple their hairstyle, gesture; and voice. Per- copies are simultaneously [re]produced formers aspired to, and audiences al- under the cover of sheets of carbon, typi- ways demanded, “the same thing.” In cally in shades of black or blue. In this this version of the copy, performers and mode of production, copies are made out audiences sought membership of a white of the deep impression left by the pro- English language cosmopolitan moder- duction of a master. The master is val- nity, proving they qualified by being as ued as being the first, the original, while good as, or better than, their European the copies are simply lesser quality rep- and Euro-American models. licas. This would be the view of those In some respects, however, the Cape producing the master. From the perspec- Town culture of the copy presents a con- tive of the copies, however, the technol- trasting case suggested by the idea of the ogy of carbon sheets is an enabling and “carbon copy.” Here, the carbon copy more democratic one because it allows invokes Taussig’s two dimensions, tech- for a greater distribution of the contents nological mastery and ideological iden- of the master into multiple sites of rep- tifications with race, though the scrip- etition. And there is a possibly ironic tural analogy to a musical and twist in the choice of carbon color: black performative process requires further or blue. Regardless of the color of the discussion. On the one hand, Hillel master, the color of the copied scripts Schwartz’s reflections on the culture of may be produced or mediated through the carbon copy as a scribal practice are tones of blackness or even just the blues. insightful (1996). He suggests that in this The evidence suggests then that there

37 Carol Muller

were several ways in which the foreign “others” to imagine themselves as dis- repertory was translated into the Cape placed members of the audience of these Town community: first as human cop- great moments. In turn each enactment ies, exact renditions of the voice and rep- was localized. In a cultural practice I call ertory as the “original” represented, and “reel to real,” American voices and you could achieve the replication by sounds of the world’s greatest perform- owning the recording; second, as covers, ers could be heard, copied, and embod- you sang the words and music of oth- ied in the familiar spaces of home, club, ers, perhaps even wore clothes modeled community hall, or school. on the visual representation, but your The postwar era was, nevertheless, an “voice” was your own because you historical moment of growing contradic- learned the repertory by secondary oral- tion. While the state legislated to deny ity through the radio or live perfor- people of color citizenship in political mances; and third, as a springboard for terms, the media continued to embody your own creativity, you developed a a more democratic sensibility. This con- sense of your own style using the words tinued until 1960 when political and so- and music as the source for your own cial life changed dramatically with the musical renditions. Finally, a few highly Sharpeville Massacre, the invention of skilled individuals created musical tran- “Bantu Radio” by the Nationalist Gov- scriptions that people could perform ernment, and the pervasiveness of from. In order to create a written tran- “light” (read only European) music on scription or arrangement one had to have commercial and state-controlled radio. a finely tuned capacity to hear, and the Until the early 1960s, however, the skills to translate sound into visual signs. American popular music and jazz com- Because there were no institutions that modities of the free market economy set taught this kind of popular and jazz per- the “standard” of performance. For these formance in Cape Town, musicians largely working class communities with taught themselves about musical pro- a few emerging professionals, the mea- cesses while transcribing the music. sure of good performance was estab- Their value lay in the capacity to repro- lished by the imported musical objects duce the sound as written copy, flaw- on the one hand, and the very personal lessly. and immediate audience responses to Through these four processes, indi- exact copies in enlivened renditions of vidual musicians who could not read or this music on the other. The repertory write music inhabited the repertory worked in South Africa because its ap- through the techniques of primary and propriation drew on the qualities of sec- secondary orality: they taught each other, ondary orality that local musicians al- or they listened closely to the sounds on ready had: good listening ears, passion record and painstakingly made human for the music, and a willingness to get copies. Thus “original” performances out there and perform. Through its im- distributed into multiple sites of repeti- ages and objects, “America” was per- tion through recorded objects enabled ceived to hold out possibilities for, if not

38 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

the full achievement of, freedom, of ra- sound had a place in the transnational cial and cultural equality. Its representa- world of jazz. While she had probably tions in the Cape fueled the conscious- heard the music of Billie Holiday before, ness of many performers, even if they did it was when Sathima was in her early 20s, not consciously seek to engage politi- a time when she was self-consciously lis- cally. This was a kind of cultural democ- tening for a sound with which she could racy in action. identify, that she heard it in the distant Through the period of intense politi- voice and experience of America’s own cal turbulence from the late 1950s, inner Billie Holiday. This was the moment reflection, and encounters with the small when Sathima’s version of the copy be- community of avant garde jazz musi- came decidedly blue in tone and ideo- cians in Cape Town, all of whom were logical position. experimenting with new sonic possibili- Ultimately, I am arguing that the im- ties, Sathima and a few others finally ported music translated into the postwar moved over into the improvised and Cape Town functioned as either a model more spontaneous world of jazz perfor- for carbon copying or as an acoustical mance. It is in this moment that mirror. The first enabled Cape musicians Baudrillard’s discussion of the mirror as to fashion selves modeled on others. an object in the home provides a useful These selves were valued locally for the metaphor for Sathima’s relationship to ways in which they insisted on a kind of the technology and mediation of foreign cosmopolitan citizenship, a membership sounds in domestic space. Along with of a truly imagined community of En- Baudrillard, “[w]e may say that the mir- glish-speaking, modern people of color. ror is a symbolic object which not only The second created a dual sense of self, reflects the characteristics of the indi- you could look in/at the mirror (book vidual but also echoes in its expansion or recording) and see your own image of the historical expansion of individual from a distance, and use that mirror im- consciousness” (1996, 22-23). These two age to reshape yourself in a more self- elements—the capacity to reflect, to see conscious fashion. This is not the culture oneself and aspects of one’s environment of the copy so much as an ideological from a distance or from a different per- identification—through voice, instru- spective, and the possibility of the his- mental performance, and body ges- torical expansion of consciousness ture—with others elsewhere in the world through the mirror image—resonate who had had similar experiences of the with the way in which recordings of pain of institutional racism and the sense American jazz in particular operated for of internal exile. Sathima. They operated as “acoustic mirrors”46 rather than as the media of carbon copies. In particular, it was after she read the life story of Billie Holiday and had heard her voice repeatedly on record that this young woman from Cape Town, South Africa knew that her

39 Carol Muller

Notes ideological nature of the category. I have inserted the [u] to indicate that “Coloured” Portions of this research were conducted didn’t mean “black” but people of mixed while I was a Fellow at the National Hu- race in this period of South African history. manities Center, Research Triangle Park, Prior to the rise of Afrikaner nationalists, North Carolina (1999-2000), partially funded “coloured” was a more ambiguous label, by a grant from the National Endowment possibly parallel with its interchangeable use for the Humanities “Fellowship at Indepen- in writings of early 20th century African- dent Research Institutions.” I am grateful to American writers, e.g., Richard Wright and my colleagues at the University of Pennsyl- W.E.B. du Bois. However, after 1948 the state vania for the time given to pursue the project; imposed the label on all those who were of to Bob Connor and Kent Mullikin who mixed racial heritage or married to some- hosted my tenure at the NHC; and to fel- one who was, i.e., anyone insufficiently lows who responded so enthusiastically to white or sufficiently black African. This is an earlier version of this paper presented discussed further in the body of the article. there. Another version of the paper was pre- 2 sented at Penn’s Folklore Colloquium While “non-white” may seem to some to (March 2001), at the Department of Anthro- be a natural category, I have inserted the pology at the University of Pennsylvania, quotes to signify a rejection by many of Af- and at the Society for Ethnomusicology rican and mixed racial descent in South Af- meeting in Detroit, MI (2001). Additional rica of being defined in terms of an absence funding for research in South Africa was of whiteness. The quotes are intended to dis- provided for by a Junior Faculty grant from turb fixed categories. 3 the Music Department at Penn (1998-2000). Bea[trice] Benjamin changed her name to I am grateful to colleagues who read or com- Sathima Bea Benjamin while in exile. mented on the work as it progressed: Regina 4 “Dollar” was the nickname given to Brand Bendix, Jodi Billinkoff, Jeff Kallberg, Tim to reference his exchanges with American Taylor, and Greg Urban. Opinions expressed musicians and sailors who visited Cape here are my own, grounded in the material I Town in the postwar period. have gathered from so many willing indi- 5 viduals in Cape Town and New York City. Henry February, interview, September My deepest appreciation is expressed to 1996, Cape Town. 6 them. See other writing on South African jazz, 1 An explanation for the use of quotes and Allen (1997), Baines (1996), Ballantine (1999 the insertion of [u] in “Coloured” is neces- and 1993), Coplan (1985), Jeppie (1990), sary because it speaks to the processes of Layne (1995), and Molefe and Mzileni (1997). cultural [mis]translation of rhetorical prac- 7 Touring musicians were almost always tices in liberation struggles for people of white, and there was usually some discus- color in South Africa and the United States sion about whether “Colo[u]red” people in the twentieth century. Quotation marks would be included in the tour program. are used because “Colo[u]red” was an ideo- Audiences in this period were always seg- logical tactic by the state, to racialize and cre- regated. ate division amongst people of mixed racial 8 heritage. Many intellectuals prefaced the Jimmy Adams is the one who coined the term with “so-called,” continually remind- phrase “carbon copies” in my interviews ing their audiences of the constructed and with musicians. Chris Ballantine (1999) simi-

40 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

larly uses the phrase in his discussion of simi- cegenation positively through lan- lar practices amongst musicians of African guage. It is a serious blind spot of the descent largely in Johannesburg in about the English language which [sic] thus same period. implies that persons of indeterminate 9 The Eoan Opera Company became ex- “race” are freaks. It is another way of tremely controversial in the 1950s because it making invisible, of negating, the ex- was revealed that the Afrikaner Nationalist istence of nonwhites whose racial sta- government was financing its operations. tus remains ambiguous. (13-14) Such support was believed by the larger Lionnet suggests the use of the Greek community to constitute a sell-out to apart- word metis that refers to an art of trans- heid ideology. formation and transmutation, “an aes- 10 African here refers to Bantu-speaking thetics of the ruse that allows the weak peoples from the continent of Africa, and is to survive by escaping through duplici- contrasted with European peoples. In the tous means the very system of power current political climate it is more usual to intent on destroying them” (18). talk about people of European descent liv- 13 Eileen Southern (1999) argues for a simi- ing in South Africa as African as well. This lar distinction in African American cultural was not the case in the period under discus- history. According to her, differences sion, however. “African” might be substi- emerged between African slaves who as- tuted for “Black” South African. “Black” was similated more European-style culture and itself a contested racial category in this pe- those who retained African derived perfor- riod because it was argued that it reinforced mances. The differences depended on the apartheid government’s privileging of whether slaves worked inside the houses of racial category in social and political life (see their masters or out in the fields. February 1983). 14 11 Each of these laws is succinctly discussed In the early 1990s South African record in Barker et al. 1992, 374-381. company Gallo Records reissued white hits 15 One of the earliest political organizations from the period 1960-1990, claiming it was for “Colo[u]red” people called itself the Af- the time when “Local was Lekker” [Cool]. rican Political Organization (APO) and Ironically, few of the songs were locally com- founded the first newspaper aimed at a posed, what was local was the voice of the “Colo[u]red” readership in May 1909 singer, but not the song itself. (Adhikari 1996, 1). 12 Francoise Lionnet (1989, ch. 1) argues that 16 Little is known about Sathima’s mother’s the notion of metissage—cultural and/or ra- family heritage. Of mixed Filipino and cial mixing or hybridity—does not exist in Mauritian descent, Evelyn Henry was or- the English language in a positive sense. The phaned at a young age after her parents died word translates into “half-breed” or “mixed- in the Flu Epidemic of 1918. The young Ms. blood,” both of which carry negative asso- Henry was sent from her home in Kimberley ciations. While European languages like to live with her mother’s sister in Cape Town Spanish, Portuguese, and French do have where she met Edward Benjamin. Bea[trice] words for this kind of cultural identification, Benjamin was born to Edward Benjamin and she argues that each word has very specific Evelyn Henry in Johannesburg on October meanings. 17, 1936. The Anglo-American consciousness 17 John Samuels. Interview by author, Cape seems unable to accommodate mis- Town, September 1996.

41 Carol Muller

18 See Bickford-Smith, van Heyningen, and South Africans who delighted in recogniz- Worden 1999 (43) for a discussion of early ing the streets in which their own film he- efforts of the “Colo[u]red” elite to internal- roes were filmed. ize European middle class values. 29 This excerpt comes from a local newspa- 19 Walker, Evelyn. 1963. The Educational Jour- per, The Sun, January 2 1948. nal 35 (4). Cited in February 1983, 205. 30 Vincent Kolbe, who grew up in the more 20 Jimmy Adams. Interview by author, Cape culturally diverse District Six in Cape Town’s Town, September 1996 and December 1999. inner city, comments that in his community 21 Jimmy Adams and Harold Jephtah. Inter- Saturday night was the time for the movies. view by author, Cape Town, December 1999. Everyone in his family would dress for the 22 Henry February. Interview by author, occasion. He would attend with his mother Cape Town, September 1996. and grandmother. They would take sand- wiches and a thermos of coffee for the 23 Sathima Bea Benjamin. Interview by au- evening. The standard fare from 7:30 to 11:30 thor, New York City, April 1990. P.M. was a comic strip, the weekly serial (the 24 Jimmy Adams. Interview by author, Cape forerunner of the soap opera), a western, and Town, December 1999. a love story or musical (Vincent Kolbe. In- 25 Henry February. Interview by author, terview by author, Cape Town, September Cape Town, December 1999. 1996). 26 Harold Jephtah. Interview by author, Cape 31 Commenting on the relationship between Town, December 1999. music and emotional currency, Caryl Flinn 27 Caryl Flinn cites film composer George remarks: Antheil’s disdain for the gap between public taste and film music composition in which During the Hollywood studio era, Antheil scorns “Mr. Average Listener” for film music was assigned a remark- turning the radio dial to hear Benny ably stable set of functions. It was re- Goodman or Paul Whiteman rather than lis- peatedly and systematically used to tening to a symphony broadcast over the air. enhance emotional moments in the He continues by arguing that the best way story line, and to establish moods and to “emotionally condition” Mr. Average for maintain continuity between scenes better music is to insert orchestral perfor- (1992, 13). mance into his “favorite movie theatre for three hours a week” by using the style in the 32 film score. The viewer unwittingly becomes Jimmy Adams. Interview by author, Cape partial to the world of symphonic music Town, December 1999. (Flinn 1992, 29). 33 Vincent Kolbe. Interview by author, Cape 28 Peter Davis (1996, 26-7) remarks that even Town, September 1996. See also Ballantine though American movies were admired, the 1999 for a discussion on this practice very rare local productions featuring Afri- amongst Johannesburg musicians. can performers were extremely popular with 34 Harold Jephtah. Interview by author, Cape African audiences. One example is the film Town, September 1999. Jim Comes to Joburg, which featured 35 Jimmy Adams. Interview by author, Cape Johannesburg artists Dolly Rathebe and Town, December 1999. Daniel Adnewmah, and was shot in the 36 Bob parties were like rent parties in the streets of Johannesburg. The familiar loca- United States. Those who came were re- tion caused enormous excitement for black

42 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

quired to pay “one bob” (ten cents) to enter. 45 Iyer occupies a space that Bodley (1999) 37 Sathima Bea Benjamin. Interview by au- and Dennis O’Rourke (1987) remind us thor, New York City, October 1996. might appear to perform an “educational” 38 Ruth Fife. Interview by author, Cape function for the First World to learn about Town, September 1996. the Third, but more typically produces “experts” on others who are often more dan- 39 Vincent Kolbe. Interview by author, Cape gerous for the superficiality of information Town, September 1996. gained than valuable for their insights. In 40 Sathima’s mother came from Kimberley addition, Iyer fails to acknowledge that the in South Africa, the site of a global influx of tourist culture he operated in works on the fortune seeking diamond prospectors in the principles of supply and demand: where the latter part of the 19th century. This is clearly demand for the familiar in contexts of where ragtime and syncopated piano styles strangeness results in the supply of that kind were heard and copied. of “culture.” In the spirit of Barbara 41 Italians mixed freely in Cape Town’s Dis- Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) the process trict Six, the site of the most controversial might be expressed as follows: American/ form of mass removal by the apartheid gov- Western tourists want American/Western ernment in the 1960s. Remembered now as popular music but in an exotic context. Iyer a “Colo[u]red” community, its members was not a member of the communities of hailed from all parts of Europe, and on ar- performers, all he heard was the familiar rival in the Cape, intermarried with local sounds of American pop. He was unable, for residents. These were the people later labeled example, to distinguish local identities “Cape Coloured” by the state. Joey Gabriel’s through the grain or tone color of the indi- darker toned skin later enabled him to blend vidual voice as those in the Cape clearly in more easily in Italy than in South Africa. could do. The lack might perhaps not have Similarly, I have been told that when Frank been on the Filipino side as much as indica- Sinatra, also of Italian descent, appeared in tive of Iyer’s own cursory involvement with public in the USA, many thought him to be that performance culture. too dark, to be almost “colored” when com- 46 Before coming across Kaja Silverman’s pared with lighter skinned Europeans (Jodi work on The Acoustic Mirror (1988), I had Billinkoff, pers.comm., April 2000, National been using the idea of the mirror as an anal- Humanities Center, NC). ogy for the kinds of reflections facilitated by 42 Sathima Bea Benjamin. Interview by au- sound recordings and other imported objects thor, New York City, October 1996. like books. That insight drew on 43 Vincent Kolbe. Interview by author, Cape Baudrillard’s discussion in The System of Town, September 1996. Vernie A. February Objects of the mirror and the non-reflective (1983, 16) explains that the South African television screen in contemporary homes Teachers’ League played a critical role in (1996). While I use Silverman’s term (bor- shaping the political consciousness of rowed from Guy Rosolato) I am doing so “Colo[u]red” youth through the activist roles somewhat differently. She talks about the played by League members in the class- female voice as a kind of acoustic mirror, one rooms of three “Colo[u]red” high schools in that simultaneously exteriorizes and Cape Town: Trafalgar High School, Harold interiorizes in every utterance, and spills Cressy, and the Livingstone High School over into the boundaries between subject (which Sathima attended). and object (Silverman 1988, 80). 44 Cape Standard, June 23 1936, 4.

43 Carol Muller

Works cited Bickford-Smith, Vivian, Elizabeth van Heyningen, and Nigel Worden. Adhikari, Mohammed, ed. 1996. 1999. Cape Town in the Twentieth Straatpratijes: Language, Politics, Century. Claremont, South Af- and Popular Culture in Cape rica: David Philip. Town, 1909-1922. Cape Town: L. Bodley, John. 1999. Victims of Progress. Van Schaik. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings. Allen, Lara. 1997. Introduction: South Coplan, David B. 1985. In Township To- African Women of Song, Their night! South Africa's Black City Lives and Times. In A Common Music and Theatre. Johannesburg: Hunger to Sing: A Tribute to South Ravan Press. Africa’s Black Women of Song, Davis, Peter. 1996. In Darkest Hollywood: 1950-1990, edited by ZB Molefe Exploring the Jungles of Cinema’s and Mike Mzileni. Cape Town: South Africa. Athens: Ohio Uni- Kwela Books. versity Press. Baines, Greg. 1996. “The Little Jazz Douglas, Susan. 1999. Listening In: Radio Town:” The Social History and and the American Imagination from Musical Styles of Black Amos ‘n’ Andy and Edward R. Grahamstown in the 1950s and Murrow to Wolfman Jack and 1960s. In Proceedings of the Four- Howard Stern. New York: Times teenth Symposium on Books. Ethnomusicology. Grahamstown: Ellington, Duke. 1973. Music is My Mis- International Library of African tress. New York: Da Capo. Music. February, Vernie A., ed. and comp. 1983. Ballantine, Christopher. 1993. Marabi From the Arsenal :Articles from the Nights: Early South African Jazz Teachers’ League of South Africa and Vaudeville. Johannesburg: (1913-1980). Leiden: African Ravan. Studies Center. ______. 1999. Looking to the USA: The Feld, Steven. 2000. Sound Worlds. In Politics of Male Close-Harmony Sound, edited by Patricia Kuth Song Style in South Africa Dur- and Henry Stobart. New York: ing the 1940s and 1950s. Popular Cambridge University Press. Music 18 (1):1-17. Flinn, Caryl. 1992. Strains of Utopia: Gen- Barker, Brian et al. 1992. The Reader’s Di- der, Nostalgia, and Hollywood Film gest Illustrated History of South Music. Princeton: Princeton Uni- Africa: The Real Story. 3rd ed. Cape versity Press. Town: Reader’s Digest Associa- Hajdu, David. 1996. Lush Life: A Biogra- tion. phy of Billy Strayhorn. New York: Baudrillard, Jean. 1996. The System of Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. Objects. New York: Verso.

44 Covers, Copies, and “Colo[u]redness” in Postwar Cape Town

Holiday, Billie. 1956. Lady Sings The Blues: Copenhagen: The Booktrader: The Searing Autobiography of an 21-38. American Musical Legend. With ______. 2001. Capturing the “Spirit of William Dufty. New York: Africa” in the Jazz Singing of Doubleday & Company, Inc Sathima Bea Benjamin. Research Iyer, Pico. 1989. Video Night in Kathmandu, in African Literatures 32 (2):133- And Other Reports from the Not- 152. So-Far-East. New York: Vintage Nasson, Bill. 1989. “She preferred living Departures. in a cave with Harry the snake- Jeppie, Shamiel. 1990. Aspects of Popu- catcher:” Toward an Oral His- lar Culture and Class Expression tory of Popular Leisure and Class in Inner Cape Town, 1939-1959. Expression in District Six, Cape Master’s thesis, University of Town, ca. 1920-1950. In Holding Cape Town. Their Ground: Class, Locality, and Jeske, Lee. 2000. Cape Town Love. In Culture in 19th and 20th Century Sathima Bea Benjamin: Embracing South Africa, edited by Philip Jazz, compiled by Lars Bonner. Johannesburg: Ravan. Rasmussen. Copenhagen: The O’Rourke, Dennis. 1987. Cannibal Tours. Booktrader:103-105. Los Angeles: Direct Cinema. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Rasmussen, Lars, comp. 2000. Sathima Destination Culture: Tourism, Bea Benjamin: Embracing Jazz. Museums,and Heritage. Berkeley: Copenhagen: The Booktrader. University of California Press. Rasula, Jed. 1995. The Media of Memory: Layne, Valmont. 1995. A History of The Seductive Menace of Dance and Jazz Band Perfor- Records in Jazz History. In Jazz mance in the Western Cape in the Among the Discourses, edited by Post-1945 Era. Master’s thesis, Krin Gabbard. Durham: Duke University of Cape Town. University Press. Lionnet, Francoise. 1989. Autobiographi- Rosenzweig, Roy. 1983. Eight Hours for cal Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Por- What We Will: Workers and Leisure traiture. Ithaca: Cornell Univer- in an Industrial City, 1870-1920. sity Press. New York: Cambridge Univer- Molefe, ZB and Mike Mzileni, eds. 1997. sity Press. A Common Hunger to Sing: A Trib- Schwartz, Hillel. 1996. The Culture of the ute to South Africa’s Black Women Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unrea- of Song, 1950-1990. Cape Town: sonable Facsimiles. New York: Kwela Books. Zone Books. Muller, Carol. 2000. Sathima “Beattie” Silverman, Kaja. 1988. The Acoustic Mir- Benjamin Finds Cape Jazz to be ror: The Female Voice in Psycho- her Home Within. In Sathima Bea analysis and Cinema. Benjamin: Embracing Jazz, com- Bloomington: Indiana Univer- piled by Lars Rasmussen. sity Press.

45 Carol Muller

Southern, Eileen. 1999. Music of Black Americans. New York: Norton. Taussig, Michael. 1993. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge. Western, John. 1996. Outcast Cape Town. Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press.

46 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk

Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion

Peter Shand University of Auckland, New Zealand

INTRODUCTION

n 1907 the English manufacturer Walters; his style, in turn, was based on Royal Doulton introduced porcelain a geometric version of the koru. Cur- Ifeaturing a design called “Maori rently, numerous Government depart- Art”: cups, saucers and plates glazed ments have stylized koru or Maori weav- with red, black, and white to reproduce ing-derived patterns in their letterheads, a suite of interlocking patterns that are and tourists clamor for Maori art prod- generically known as “koru.” From the ucts made both in New Zealand and 1930s similar patterns have appeared on overseas. Fashion houses, both at home New Zealand postage stamps, and the and abroad, have appropriated Maori koru is currently employed in a decora- design as modish. It appears painted on tive border on the two-dollar coin. Since the faces of famous men adorning the the 1960s Air New Zealand has ferried covers of fashion magazines, or as part people around the country and the of a global advertising campaign for a globe, a koru design on its tail and until sporting goods manufacturer. It enters the late 1970s plastic tiki given to every the world of the pop music market passenger. In 1985 packets of New through a tattoo on Robbie Williams’ left Zealand butter included a small graphic shoulder by Maori tattooist Te Rangitu which told consumers a portion of the Netana. Maori intellectual property purchase price was going to support the would seem from this to be global—cer- America’s Cup Campaign in tainly it is more widely and more casu- Freemantle, Australia. That graphic was ally received than it has been in the past. a blue and yellow triangle containing a In this same year, 2002, Te Waka Toi series of alternating bar-stop figures de- (the Maori-funding arm of the national rived from the mature style of the mod- arts funding agency) launched “Toi Iho” ernist New Zealand painter Gordon a Maori-made mark, which is intended

to function as a mark indicating Maori lectual from cultural, taonga from authorship of products and as a quality Matauranga Maori, graphic from perfor- mark. In addition, the Waitangi Tribunal mance) is, in some sense, artificial, for (the national body established to hear Maori culture is informed and strength- claims arising out of New Zealand’s 1840 ened by the interaction of its many fac- Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi ets. I declare, at the outset, that I am not signed between the Crown and many Maori myself but claim pakeha iden- Maori iwi) is still hearing evidence in one tity—which, for me, is a specific identi- of the most complex claims likely to fying nomenclature given by Maori to come before it: the Wai.262 claim on people who, like myself, are of nominally Matauranga Maori (knowledge) and European, predominantly British de- Taonga Maori (treasures). Unlike previ- scent. I also register that the article is ous claims, which have focussed on real somewhat wide-ranging in its discus- property or specific resource rights, this sion. The intention of this is to try to re- claim focuses on the intellectual reflect the range and interrelatedness of the sources of Maori. The mark and the claim many issues that emerge in any discus- are indicative of the currency of the is- sion of the reproduction of indigenous sues raised in this article; they also reg- cultural heritage and issues surrounding ister the reality that contemporary indig- its reproducibility. enous peoples continue to engage with these issues and to develop new strate- THE KORU: A SEMIOLOGICAL gies in order to shape the manner of the ANALYSIS reproduction of indigenous cultural heri- In general terms, the koru is the design tage. form of a curvilinear element punctuated In the broadest sense, this article sits with a circular stoppage. It serves as the in a similar time and space inasmuch as central design feature of a number of it is a discussion of some of the ways in modes of traditional Maori artistic prac- which Maori design has been copied and tice; moko (tattooing), heke (rafter) paint- utilized by non-Maori. Its predominant ing, and hue (gourd) and hoe (paddle) focus is drawn from two fields of inquiry: decoration are the principal examples of cultural appropriation as this has been these. As one part of what is often a com- figured in art history and cultural stud- plex interaction of attenuated and tense ies, and the law pertaining to intellectual schemes, formally resolved within an property. These are, of course, enormous overall compositional scheme on skin or fields in themselves, so to try to come to wood, the koru is both clearly identifi- a closer focus, the article seeks to ana- able with Maori artistic practice and an lyze one part of Maori intellectual prop- indication of the formal sophistication of erty rights, those pertaining to graphic that practice. It speaks both of the generic works, and position this analysis in rela- identity of Maori art-makers as tangata tion to one aspect of their use, the fash- whenua (indigenous peoples) and of ei- ion industry. In doing so I register that ther the specific individual identities of such a division of cultural terms (intel- wearers of moko1 or, by its inclusion in

48 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk

the interior of whare runanga (meeting frond” or as banal as “stalk and bulb.” house; center for the community), of the The important factor in making this collective identities of specific iwi, hapu, distinction lies in that between or whanau (tribe, sub-tribe, extended denotational and connotational mean- family). ing. Roland Barthes writes of the char- W.J. Phillipps posited a definition of acter of connotation that it is “at once the koru in a 1938 article in Art in New general, global and diffuse; it is, if you Zealand. He described the design as or- like, a fragment of ideology” (Barthes ganic in origin, referring to the apparent 1967, 151). This fragment is of consider- morphological similarity of the single able relevance to any analysis of Maori koru to a curving stalk with a bulb at one art, a point pursued by Neich when he end (Phillipps 1938). This interpretation writes: linking the koru to unfolding plant growth is one which, as Roger Neich [it] has limited denotative meaning notes, “is now very strong in the Maori but a wide, rich field of connotative view” (Neich 1993, 39). This is, to some meaning, which finds its reference in extent, the result of apprehending an the total cultural ideology. Thus the apparent visual similarity between the signifieds of denotation are the few limited meanings that can be ob- design and flora, desiring, perhaps, some tained by direct questioning, while connection of human culture and the the signifieds of connotation require natural world and implying, positively, a familiarity with the cultural ideol- a sense of growth. An alternate natural ogy for their appreciation. form is claimed by Augustus Hamilton Connotation takes one away in The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race from the immediate context to the in New Zealand where he claims a con- general diffuse culture. This probably nection between the koru and the form explains why European investigators, of waves beating upon the shore lacking the conceptual tool kit for ask- (Hamilton 1896). Again, the assumption ing relevant questions about Maori seems to be based on a morphological art, could rarely penetrate below the superficial denoted meanings. (Neich analysis of the design and the known 1993, 36) natural world of the artists who used it. Nevertheless, this denotational reckon- A pertinent example of this may be ing of Maori iconography is inherently found in the rafters of the meeting house misleading. What is absent from such a and on some tombs and monuments— focus on the potential visual sources for many of which are painted with the form in the natural world is the rec- kowhaiwhai (a system of attenuated in- ognition of the important connotational terweaving koru elements). In the case significance that applies in the use of the of the meeting house, kowhaiwhai are koru. These are often complex semiologi- frequently painted along the tahu (ridge- cal constructs that afford deeper and pole) and down the heke (rafters). These broader patterns of meaning to emerge standard sites of kowhaiwhai significa- than something as defined as “fern

49 Peter Shand

tion are symbolically important to the was unique to place. In this rubric, mean- whakapapa (genealogy) of individual ing is made over from a specific connec- tribes. The tahu, for example, refers not tion to the implications of individuals or only to the ridgepole of the house but individual structures to a more broad- also to important tupuna (ancestors), based national identity. This strategy was starting with the original tupuna. The adopted by a number of New Zealand heke, regularly spaced rafters, symbol- pakeha artists in an attempt to develop ize the lines of descent from these tupuna a distinct strain of modernist practice. or to their migration (heke as a noun This was, to varying degrees, founded means rafters and as a verb can mean on a process of mutual racial assimila- both descend and migrate). In this re- tion with the notion of something new spect, the decorative scheme takes its and different emerging from the connec- place within the overall symbology of the tion. The koru, as a specific element of house, linking the eponymous ancestor Maori art, served that desire for novelty at the front apex of the house to the sub- and difference. This power of art to trans- sidiary tupuna lining the walls. Within form experience was given its most pow- this overall system, Anne Salmond “has erful and ambitious application in re- identified a series of associations through spect of the koru with the introduction Maori words relating images of hill of an education scheme in the 1950s. Ini- ridges, house ridges, lines and threads tiated by Gordon Tovey, this scheme saw through a broad concept of mediation the introduction of koru painting as a and linking, to express aspects of descent, part of the art curriculum—initially at el- authority and communication” (Neich ementary school but it now forms part 1993, 38; see Salmond 1978, 9). of the syllabus at high school as well. The Of course, the koru can communicate mode of expression was deliberately se- to other people and in other ways. In an lected to be something that was available impoverished semiological field, for ex- for those with elementary skill levels, ample, it can refer more generically to was capable of increasing complexity, Maori and Maori artistry. Beyond this, and, most importantly, spoke of local its increasing use by non-Maori design- content. ers and artists since the late 1920s can The incorporation of the koru into the refer to a new signification of the koru national art identity (in galleries and in as an important part or, indeed, basis of schools) also suggested for some the a nationalistic graphic enterprise. Its emergence of a bi-cultural nation. This emergence as an important feature of important connotational meaning has currency, postage stamps, national pam- been seized upon, increasingly over the phlets and magazines, or in the architec- past two decades, by tourist operators, ture of important institutions (the cor- by corporations, and by government in nices of the Auckland War Memorial an attempt to portray the divergent eth- Museum or of the Napier Bank of New nic make-up of the country. The prolif- Zealand, for example) suggests it was eration of Walters-inspired bar/stop utilized to forge a sense of design that derivations of the koru, in logos or on

50 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk

the covers of books addressing issues of critic of cultural appropriation, puts it: importance to Maori as well as books addressing Maori-pakeha relations, for [well, the koru] becomes a plastic example, is indicative of the suggestive symbol. And, admittedly, we look at power of a modernized, standardized the Air New Zealand tail and think formal version of the koru. In govern- “there is a koru,” and we can’t argue . . . (Te Awekotuku 1986, 52) ment it creates the appearance of a dual- istic principle (complemented by Maori Interestingly, when the company went transliterations of ministry names) but through a re-branding exercise in the which some would argue is a screen to mid-1990s a decision was made not to monocultural practices and policies. register the famous tail decoration as a Similarly, its use by corporations, smaller trademark. Rather, the company asserted companies, and/or tourist operators in- its trademark over what it calls “the Pa- volves the presentation of an outwardly cific wave,” a simple stylized serpentine New Zealand identity—a signification curve in two colors that adorns the fuse- carried by the association of the koru lage of the company’s aircrafts. This was with a specific geographical and socio- apparently a deliberate decision made in cultural location order to maintain the goodwill of the Perhaps the most resonant example airline’s prime consumer base (New of this was in the mind of the Crown Zealanders) and to avoid risk of engag- Counsel at the opening hui (meeting) of ing in any sort of conflict over asserted the Wai.262 claim (in Kaitaia, September interests that different Maori tribal 15, 1997) when he asked “who owns the groups might claim with respect to this koru?” in reference to the symbol of Air form of the koru. New Zealand. This reveals the complex In this way, the koru on the tail of an interplay of issues at stake here. The logo Air New Zealand plane, on the cover of uses an element of Maori design as if it its annual report, on the numerous pro- held no intrinsic meaning of its own; motional materials produced by the even so, it originally symbolized the company (whether sports sponsorship country. Its use on something as impres- or plastic give-aways), and as the name sive and romantic as an airliner might of the airline’s business class lounges is seem complimentary; yet, it remains just a figure of protracted ambivalence. On another corporate logo. At the same time, the one hand it is of considerable com- it is a logo that carries considerable mercial value to the airline. On the other weight as an evocation of the nation as a any attempt to capture the value of that whole—whether or not it is overlaid with symbol might well have proven alienat- images of native birds, smiling New ing for a company that wished to main- Zealanders of all creeds, the voice of a tain the aura of being the national car- great Maori opera singer, and the words rier but was, at the time, a private com- of an iconic Maori song as in the current pany.2 Indeed, the auratic value of the television advertising campaign. As koru as a logo for Air New Zealand is Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a trenchant

51 Peter Shand

writ large because it seems to connote lar, if bizarre, mises en scènes in nineteenth more than that of a generic corporate century anthropological museums (the logo (the Nike swoosh; the roar of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and the MGM lion; the Coke wave). In 2002 it upper level of the museum in Adelaide, seems to speak of a specific, though non- Australia, are excellent extant examples ethnocentric, collective identity, of con- of these) or in formal isolation in houses temporary nationhood for New Zealand. of modern art (of which Art of the South Ambivalence regarding this declaration Pacific curated by Rene d’Harnoncourt stems from the fact that it is a nation still at the Museum of Modern Art, New coming to terms with its violent colonial York, in 1946 is a watershed in the re- history and the on-going implications of classification of indigenous cultural heri- its past for its present citizens. tage from artifact to art-object). The ze- nith of this approach is, famously and THE APPROPRIATION OF CUL- controversially, the 1984 exhibition th TURAL HERITAGE “Primitivism” in 20 Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern at MoMA It is a dull fact that the initial phase of (Rubin 1984). Importantly, this seem- modern cultural heritage appropriation ingly hybrid language of the “primitive” was underscored by the twinned ages of or “tribal” and its putative other, “mod- Enlightenment and Empire, during ern,” represents one if not the key mo- which all the world was made over to fit ment of cultural production in the twen- the intellectual, economic, and cultural tieth century. It would seem, by indus- requirements of first Europe, then the trial liberals’ enthusiasm for “ethno-” United States. All manner of tangible and “eco-” tourism, “world music,” de- cultural heritage of indigenous peoples based forms of shamanism, pastiches of (from design patterns to artifacts to body ritualized body marking, “third-world parts, even the people themselves) were tat,” or mystical, New Age experiences, looted, stolen, traded, bought, and ex- that attraction for Otherness remains an changed by colonials of every status important feature of Euro-American cul- (from Governors General to itinerant tural values. Clearly there is the poten- sealers). These were studied, admired, tial for significant, indeed, world-chang- looked at, and forgotten; created manias ing benefits from this—witness the sig- of taste and connoisseurship or never nificance of indigenous peoples’ perspec- saw the light of day again, whether in tives, arguments and, to a much lesser the private houses, the palaces, or the degree, claims in environmental plan- museums of Empire. There many, many ning; or the rise of a new dialogue in remain. human rights, initiated by indigenous Because of their display, they became peoples of the world. Thus, in 2002, one available for appropriation into the cul- may observe that objects are being re- tural language of the very colonizers turned, ideologies are being respected, who had initially dislocated them. This permission is being sought—just not is equally true of their use in spectacu- enough and too infrequently. With these

52 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk

ideas in mind, there are three aspects of concerns of modernist artists squared the appropriation of visual arts that I with those asserted to be in the minds of want to note: modernist affinity, indigenous artmakers. The accompany- postmodernist quotation, and commer- ing advertising campaign put this in the cial exploitation. shape of a series of crude comparisons Modernist appropriation is seem- of indigenous and modernist objects ingly straightforward. Representative with the byline “Which is ‘primitive’? artists from Paul Gauguin forward were Which is modern?” as if this were some- attracted to the potential for their work how at issue, when very few of the they saw in indigenous cultural heri- “primitive” objects in the exhibition reg- tage.3 They both copied individual ex- istered what might be described as amples into their work and emulated overtly “modern” responses—whether styles; they even presented their work as in materials or subject-matter (the exhi- capturing the essences they asserted bition was the subject of intense criticism, were present in such indigenous objects. most notably reviews such as Clifford The re-statement of this position in the 1985; Foster 1985; McEvilley 1985; see “Primitivism” exhibition at MoMA posi- also Clifford 1988; Hiller 1991; Rhodes tioned examples of indigenous cultural 1994; Shand 1997). heritage in formal connection with mod- The marriage of a high-modernist ab- ernist artworks in order to pursue the straction with, in the present case, the principal theses of the exhibition: that koru is a complicated affair. On the one both “sets” of work revealed key expres- hand, with reference to a work such as, sive tendencies of humanity and that the say, Painting #1, 1965, by Gordon Walters

Figure 1: Gordon Walters, Painting #1, 1965, pva on board, Auckland Art Gallery.

53 Peter Shand

(fig. 1), the original is an example of de- pal design aspect (the bar and stop) crop sign surely at least as sophisticated as the up as logos for nationalist enterprises: original examples of kowhaiwhai with from government agencies to national- which he was familiar. Nevertheless, in ized corporations. The “affinity” here is his appropriation of the form Walters one of visual similarity overlain with at affects a dislocation of the source form least one layer of additional interpreta- from its initial cultural context. In so do- tion derived from the beholder. ing, specific meanings are erased and Of course, the certainty of signs and cultural significances shift and slide to signification is said no longer to be avail- the point that some have argued the ap- able—certainty itself is presented as an propriation to be an equivalent of colo- illusory commodity in much contempo- nial occupation of indigenous art and de- rary art. Post-modern quotation reflects sign, a silencing of the koru (see, e.g., Te a pervasive sense of contingency and Awekotuku 1986; Panoho 1992; Shand dislocation in which all forms, regard- 1997; and compare with Bell 1989; Pound less of their original cultural context, are 1994). Yet, when on the cover of a book available for re-inscription. New Zealand about cultural relations, images like this artist Dick Frizzell’s Grocer with Moko, one garner admiring or at least accept- 1992, shows an apparently humorous ing comment from many citizens, includ- juxtaposition of two feted local icons (fig. ing Maori academics, as it seems to them 2). One is the face of the “Four Square to signify a “bi-cultural” national style. Man,” a logo for a chain of convenience In a similar vein, versions of the princi- stores. The second is the ta moko (facial tattoo) of Maori warriors. This finds itself replicated in a variety of forms in the local and international context. It is still tattooed on the faces of Maori men, often as a symbol of political resistance and tribal pride as much as the personal mana of the carrier. It is drawn with marker pens or eyeliner on the faces of Maori and non-Maori performers of Maori dance and song. It is presented in the global market in pastiche on the face of the French footballer Eric Cantona on a cover of the men’s style magazine GQ or employed seriously in campaigns for Air New Zealand or Adidas, sponsors of the national rugby team, the All Blacks. The fusion of high and low cultures in this example is a useful illustra- Figure 2: Dick Frizzell, Grocer with Moko, 1992, 700mm x 600mm, oil on canvas, private collection. tion of the opportunities for cultural critique and revelation made possible

54 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk

through dislocation. There are meshes of ing, 175 ALR 193 [1998]) and industrially the authoritative and the quotidian, the manufactured woolen carpets “sacred” and the commercial, official and (Milpurrurru and Others v. Indofurn Pty. unofficial, culture and advertising, two Ltd. and Others, 30 IPR 209 [1994]). In forms of cultural specificity, and two sys- addition, there was a case that spoke to tems of meaning. Nevertheless, the ex- national identity and governmental re- hibition in which this and other appro- sponsibility issues when an artist sued priations of Maori forms appeared was in copyright for the unauthorized repro- a succès de scandale for Frizzell. He was duction of his work on the Australian vilified and championed, both. Impor- Bicentennial ten-dollar note (Yumbulul v. tantly, these positions did not simply Reserve Bank of Australia and Others, 21 split along racial lines, as the catalogue IPR 481 [1991]). While appropriating art- contained essays by Maori writers and a ists and the galleries that represent them few pakeha academics rose to the bite of might risk the opprobrium of some crit- the images (see Dick Frizzell “Tiki” 1992; ics, they have not, as yet, been sued for and compare with Te Awekotuku 1992). breach of copyright. Many commentators draw a distinc- In this context, an interesting legal tion between use of indigenous design skirmish that did not proceed to the in art and its use in commercial enter- courts occurred in New Zealand in 2000. prises. This is particularly true of the in- Auckland-resident Samoan artist Fatu stances where individuals or groups Feu’u threatened to bring an action have gone to court to try to affect some against New York-based pakeha artist protection of designs. In Australia, for Max Gimblett for infringement of a example, which has the richest case law “frangipani” design (Tangata Pasifika regarding cross-cultural appropriation, 2000). Feu’u states he uses it by permis- the instances that have occasioned liti- sion of his matai (chiefs),4 an authoriza- gation conspicuously have not involved tion that Gimblett lacks if, indeed, he is the appropriation of Aboriginal Austra- using the specific design as asserted. lian cultural heritage by non-Aboriginal There are important issues in this ex- artists for use in works of art, although ample of whether this represents a situ- this practice is widespread. There is, if ation of cross-cultural plundering or an you will, an invisible division that seems analysis based on pseudo-morphologi- to have separated a commercial use with cal analysis. It is noted here as a rare ex- high intellectual pretensions (the fine arts ample of the debate crossing what I sus- market) from more base and explicitly pect is a divide that characterizes core commercial exploitation. Hence, the assumptions about whether or not it is cases brought as a result of the unli- worth pursuing copyright infringement censed use of designs by contemporary cases in colonial-derived legal systems. Aboriginal artists include such items as Industrial and manufacturing sectors are tee-shirts (Bulun Bulun and Another v. R viable defendants, whereas cross-cul- & T Textiles Ltd.; Minister for Aboriginal tural appropriation based on Romantic and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, interven- notions of authorship is seldom litigated.

55 Peter Shand

That this (non-litigated) example is ex- end it is predicated on formalist assump- ceptional may be due to a number of rea- tions as to the recognition and meaning sons. For example, it could be a recogni- of cultural heritage. For example, the in- tion of the asymmetries of the relation- clusion of the koru as part of a general ship between intellectual property rights page in Owen Jones’ Grammar of Orna- and customary indigenous rights (the ment of 1868 betrays a reduction, isola- presumption that the case could not be tion, and re-designation of a culturally won or could only be won by adherence specific design. A more violent disloca- to Anglo-American codes discussed be- tion occurs in Immanuel Kant’s canoni- low). Alternatively, it may be because of cal text, The Critique of Judgement, from a specific though limited preparedness 1790. In the “Analytic of the Beautiful” not to intervene too strenuously in free he explicitly isolates the formal quality intellectual exchange and/or artistic de- of the koru, in moko (tattoo) in this case, velopment (an adoption, to an extent, of from its social and cultural significance Euro-American notions of authorship for Maori. He writes: “[a] figure might and creativity). be beautiful with all manner of flourishes At play behind many of these situa- and light but regular lines, as done by tions is the observation that responses the New Zealanders with their tattooing, vary according to political interpreta- were we dealing with anything but the tions of the images (and, perhaps, are figure of a human being” (Kant 1952, 73). unstable even then). What I might say is It is this association that prevents moko prescient criticism might seem censori- from assuming the status of pulchritudo ous forms of political correctness to you; vaga or free beauty in Kant’s scheme. The what you might regard as somewhat moko is considered because of what it naïve readings of cultural symbols I might mean if, and only if, it can be lifted might see as the potential of signs to off the person wearing it. The koru is in- overcome their original cultural contexts. teresting as a design feature but has no This is the direct consequence of a hy- meaning attached to it other than the bridizing of languages. The efficacy of declaration of its formal properties. these connections is important to the In New Zealand, some commentators claims of both appropriating non-indig- on appropriation have looked to Julia enous artists and designers and those Kristeva’s metaphor for language: “[ev- indigenous artists and designers who ery] text takes shape as a mosaic of cita- work in traditional or authentic meth- tions; every text is an absorption and ods—for these have as surely been af- transformation of other texts” (Kristeva fected by the contact of peoples as have 1969, 146; see, e.g., Bell 1989, 16). In do- their colonizing Others. ing so it seems to me that they ignore Appropriation as a mode of cultural two crucial issues. First, language is not engagement is dependent on an ability static (which is her point, in part) but is to separate a given object or design from also dependent on who is speaking and its cultural milieu for the purposes of its who is listening. In a dialogical system employment in a different one. To that such as authorized cultural appropria-

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tion this is extremely important. Sec- ngaro o te moa” (If the language is lost, ondly, the use of the mosaic metaphor is humanity will be lost, it will be as dead dependent upon the severing of lan- as the moa—an extinct large flightless guage from specific meaning. It is the bird) (Waitangi Tribunal 1986, ¶6.1.21 dominant assertion of the age that all and 3.1.4; from oral submissions made forms of cultural production occur by Sir James Henare). within a complex field of interaction, It is in light of this sense of the poten- quotation, and re-quotation. In respect tial for lost or erased meaning that an al- of this, to try to isolate the koru in any ternative position is sketched here. It way would stifle its ability to communi- looks to the retention of the philosophies, cate and participate in contemporary significations, knowledges, and strate- culture. This may be described as a post- gies of indigenous peoples as being the modern position, not least because of its key to any consideration of the cultural denial of truths or fixed meanings and expressions of their making. More im- its embracing of shifting and multiple portantly, the maintenance of control interpretations of all aspects of contem- over those expressions is presented as an porary culture. Whereas modernist ap- important site of resistance to colonial, propriation was essentially mimetic (at- imperial or, in recent years, global capi- tempting to represent physical and/or talist assaults. The principal reason for metaphysical truths distilled from non- this is founded on the idea that indig- Western practices), post-modern repro- enous peoples remain at risk to new and duction is semiotic, and so appropriation various forms of colonial violence— is argued to carry its own validity irre- physical, environmental, economic, and spective of the meanings of the original. epistemic. More importantly, cultural In this scheme, the koru is neither an resistance with respect to the arts is a original nor unique design but one means of retaining the strength and reso- caught within a complex series of tex- nance of original voices and avoiding co- tual relationships as in Kristeva’s mosaic option into a dominant cultural ethos. As metaphor. Frantz Fanon writes: The difficulty here is that it potentially risks the compromising of sure or pre- [every] colonized people—in other cise meaning within a specific linguistic words, every people in whose soul an and/or cultural milieu. While such an inferiority complex has been created experience may well square with that of by the death and burial of its local cultural originality—finds itself face Euro-American academics, it is not clear to face with the language of the civi- that the languages (linguistic, artistic, lizing nation; that is, with the culture symbolic) of indigenous peoples are so of the mother country. The colonized “cut loose.” To the contrary, language is is elevated above his jungle status in what sustains people. For Maori: “Ko te proportion to his adoption of the reo te mauri o te mana Maori” (The lan- mother country’s cultural standards. guage is the life force of mana Maori); (Fanon 1986, 18) “Ke ngaro te reo, ka ngaro taua, pera I ta

57 Peter Shand

In this way, the ongoing sense that colo- ity of languages which you will never nization is not an historical phase that get out of” (Derrida 1985, 122). Con- has passed, the effects of which are versely, Trinh Minh-Ha suggests that the known and finite, informs the arguments poorest translation is the one that tries mounted by proponents of this position. to erase from the original text its own This is a strategy of resistance founded resonances and makes the translation on the apprehension that the loss of spe- sound as if the original had been written cific cultural knowledge or means of ex- in the translator’s mother tongue.6 pression, or their being refigured in the At the heart of this is the question of dominant language of the colonizer, is whether the koru has anything to fear akin to a cultural death. In maintaining from its potential for translation into an essentialist position, advocates of this works of art or designs that are not those position often strike out against a form for which it had traditionally been used. of cultural genocide.5 The “formalist” and “quotational” posi- A resonant metaphor for the compet- tions noted here would suggest not, for ing claims sketched here is that of trans- its involvement in the works outside of lation. The central concepts that govern a customary frame allow it to speak of translations from one language to an- universal humanism, be appreciated for other are fidelity and license. These te- its own self, or reflect the shared cultural nets create an antagonistic but not irrec- dilemmas of the current age. The alter- oncilable tension. A translation too close native resists this sense of a collapsing to the individual meanings of words can view of everything necessarily being create a dull, pedestrian text, voided of available for translation. It focuses, in- any poetic significance or emotional reso- stead, on the specific social and political nance. Too liberal a translation and any climate of indigenous experiences, intended meanings can be obscured or which, although different, are founded lost. The genuine relationship of origi- on a shared experience of colonial vio- nal to translation, as Walter Benjamin lence. Lands, peoples, places, treasures, (1984a) sees it, is based on the transfor- and resources that have been looted dur- mation and renewal of the original rather ing the different phases of colonization than a replacement of it. Jacques Derrida suggest the need for a certain wariness develops this by responding to when confronted by a demand for intel- Benjamin’s notion that the original de- lectual freedom and for the availability mands to be translated, to be made over. of indigenous peoples’ knowledge to be Derrida argues that there is a necessary served up as the latest course in the glo- disassociation between the meaning and bal colonial banquet. Resistance to a the letter in an original text, a deconstructive model re-centers Maori “disschemination” named after the perspectives. This overcomes what Rose- Shems who constructed the Tower of mary Coombe gives the pertinent no- Babel: “[you] will not impose your mean- menclature “Representation without ing or your tongue, and I, God, there- Representation: Visibility Without Voice” fore oblige you to submit to the plural- (Coombe 1993, 272), the idea that with-

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out sufficient formal protection, indig- was assumed in this period of early capi- enous arts and cultures may be made talism and nascent industrialization that over in the mode of the dominant colo- society needed to move forward. Indi- nizing language and then made to speak viduals needed to be encouraged to as- in place of legitimate indigenous voices. sist in that development, and it was as- At the same time, it also centers indig- sumed that they would only act if they enous concepts in the discourse. In the were able to take the benefit of their in- case of Maori art, for example, it is cru- ventiveness and their creativity. This situ- cial that all work is a reflection of cul- ates early intellectual property legislation tural and spiritual values, all work is an and case law within the realm of an expression of human spirituality and emerging market economy. carries the essence of life or mauri. The historical timing of the development of intellectual property rights is a INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND IN- pertinent element of the gaps noted TELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS above. The first English legislation, for The fundamental concern of intellectual example, was in 1709 and granted rights property rights in an Anglo-American to the author of books in a move to cir- system at the present time is to protect cumscribe the indiscriminate printing of the proprietary interests of identifiable texts without the author’s consent, a authors and/or owners of identifiable practice that was rife at the time. Impor- material works. It serves as a partner tantly, then, it develops as a result of an protection to the interests in property attempt to retain the authority of the ex- that are protected with respect to real and pression of knowledge for the ex- personal property. It speaks, then, of presser—it reveals a Foucauldian con- ownership in a way that affects exclu- nection between knowledge and power. sive or semi-exclusive rights to particu- At the same time, the Enlightenment’s lar things. In this way, the overall sys- philosophical focus on individualism tem of the law of property reflects a Car- and humanity’s power over nature co- tesian dualism, which is to say it makes incides with the growth of this set of clear a split between the body and mind rights. It also coincides with the escala- in respect of one’s property. This is re- tion of colonial activities by the European flected in the fact that one person might superpowers of the time, through to the own a physical object but another the introduction of an imperial phase of colo- intellectual property interests in that ob- nization after the Battle of the Nile in ject. The specific contribution of intellec- 1798. Later formalization of these rights tual property rights is that they protect also reveals a co-incidence with the eco- the expression of one’s ideas, the prod- nomic and political drives of Europe. The ucts of the mind, as it were. Importantly, Paris Convention of 1883 (the base inter- the governing philosophy of its codifi- national document for trademark protec- cation in the eighteenth century was a tion), for example, was signed during the focus on the desirability of progress. It Paris Exposition of that year, a marker

59 Peter Shand

of economic and imperial might (Patel Statement [Suva Statement] 1995). The 1996, 311-313). principal concepts named here are the relationship to land and an holistic Foundations of indigenous peoples’ worldview. Together, these reflect and critique: what intellectual property shape indigenous peoples’ concerns. lacks Specific expressions of culture in narratives, fashioned objects, and performances are not easily divisible. In raising some consistent features of in- Whereas Anglo-American law, for digenous peoples’ customary rights in example, might treat tangible cultural cultural heritage it is beholden on me to heritage differently from knowledge, make certain interjections by way of dis- indigenous peoples resist this separation claimer. The key concepts noted derive of aspects of their cultural expression from both specific tribal concepts of cus- because it does not conform to their sense tomary law and those of broader racial of the interconnectedness of things. groups such as Aboriginal Australian, There is no taxonomic division of First Nations, or Maori. It is necessary to intellectual or other areas as is the case state that these generalizations are in no with Eurocentric systems since the way intended to attempt to define indig- Enlightenment. Law, science, enous cultural heritage for indigenous biotechnology, culture, government, peoples. As Article 1.1 of the 1993 medicine, knowledge of the natural Mataatua Declaration states, “[in] the de- world, religion, performing arts, all are velopment of policies and practices, in- part of a matrix of mutually re-enforcing digenous peoples should: Define for systems of knowledge and ways of themselves their own intellectual and living. As a result, to separate out any cultural property.” Nevertheless, the one area of concern for specific and/or ideas that are stated are, for the most part, divergent treatment is to create an assumptions broadly held by indigenous artificial distinction. This can be peoples. This may be witnessed in their witnessed in the growing acceptance of appearance in international documents the term “cultural heritage” in place of of declared understanding between in- “cultural and intellectual property” in digenous peoples and in the documents the international arena (Blake 2000; Daes issued after indigenous peoples’ fora 1997; Janke 1998). (e.g., UN’s Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1993; UN’s Draft Yet cultural heritage is split up into Principles and Guidelines for the Protection numerous different rights under a of the Heritage of Indigenous Peoples 1993; parallel number of different legislative Mataatua Declaration 1993; Julayinbul regimes. In New Zealand, for example, Statement on Indigenous Intellectual Prop- this can involve protective coverage erty Rights 1993; Final Statement of the Re- under the heads “cultural” and gional Consultation on Indigenous Peoples’ “intellectual” property. The former Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights category includes the Antiquities Act, 1975; the Conservation Act, 1987; the

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Plant Varieties Rights Act, 1987; and the the position of Maori cultural heritage Resource Management Acts, 1991 and in its very widest sense and represents 1993. The latter includes the Copyright an attempt to elicit formal recognition of Act, 1994; the Designs Act, 1953; the Fair self-determination over cultural heritage Trading Act, 1986; the Patents Act, 1953; from a government body. Both the bill and the Trade Marks Act, 1953. Such a and the claim represent resistance by an collection of enactments might create the indigenous people to the divisionist and appearance of adequate coverage, but disempowering nature of legislative they do not, by and large, reflect regulation of their cultural heritage. specifically Maori concerns for cultural While the response of Maori might show heritage. that legal systems may change in order This, perhaps, is why there are two to accommodate alternate needs significant changes on the table in New (although this has yet to be proven), it is Zealand. The first is the Taonga Maori noticeable that both endeavors reject or Protection Bill, a piece of proposed sui at least side-step traditional intellectual generis legislation that is currently being property classifications. This is a strategy strenuously revised. The proposal seeks of disordering that illustrates the depth to provide a protective scheme for of indigenous antipathy for the principal cultural heritage under one act. effects of cultural heritage regulation. Significantly, in its original form the Bill This antipathy finds a parallel in reflected, almost clause for clause, the outsiders’ criticisms of the failure of principles outlined in the Mataatua copyright to accommodate the Declaration and would result in a particulars of indigenous perspectives. significant shift in the form, objectives, Indeed, copyright is commonly rejected and philosophy of indigenous cultural as the most unpalatable form of heritage protection. The name, “Taonga protection of indigenous heritage rights Maori,” for example, reflects the Maori available. For example, Erica-Irene Daes, conceptualization of taonga (treasures) Chairperson of the United Nations’ for cultural heritage. This is an inclusive Working Group on Indigenous term for both tangible and intangible Populations, declares existing forms of aspects of Maori culture; it would, for legal protection of intellectual property example, bring legislative protection for such as copyright to be “not only a traditionally woven garment into the inadequate . . . but inherently unsuitable” same arena as the Maori language and (Daes 1997, ¶32) to indigenous peoples’ principles of environmental needs. A communality of analysis holds management. The second major that Eurocentric systems of intellectual development in New Zealand is the property regulation fail to accommodate awaited findings of the Waitangi the unique relationship between Tribunal on the Wai.262 Matauranga indigenous peoples and their knowledge Maori and Taonga Claim currently systems (e.g., Coombe 1997; Janke 1998; before it. This revolutionary claim Johnson 1996; McDonald 1997; Tunney brought by Maori seeks a declaration on 1998; Wright 1996). Importantly, too,

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there has been registration of this lack in owner and is used for the purpose of the courts. In the “Carpets Case,” for extracting economic benefit—but in example, Justice von Doussa stated: terms of community and individual “[the] statutory remedies do not responsibility. Possessing a song, recognise the infringement of ownership story or medicinal knowledge carries with it certain responsibilities to show rights of the kind which reside under respect to, and maintain a reciprocal Aboriginal law in that traditional owners relationship with, the human beings, of the dreaming stories and the imagery animals, plants and places with such as is used in the artworks of the which the song, story or medicine is present applicants” (Milpurrurru and connected. For indigenous peoples, Others v. Indofurn Pty. Ltd. and Others, 30 heritage is a bundle of relationships, IPR 209, 239 [1994]). Such a failure rather than a bundle of economic includes the refusal to recognize and rights. The “object” has no meaning endorse the central fact of indigenous outside of the relationship, whether cultural heritage: that in its many forms it is a physical object such as a sacred site or ceremonial tool, or an it articulates and contributes to intangible such as a song or story indigenous identity, heritage, and the (Daes 1997, ¶26). relationship of different tribal and linguistic groups with the world. Instead Setting aside any issues of essentialism of being commodities owned by strategically adopted in Daes’ report, individuals produced for potential there are two conclusions to be drawn economic benefits (as is the presumption from this. First, indigenous “property” of the Anglo-American model), is not part of a Cartesian proprietary indigenous heritage registers scheme—a subject does not possess an relationship, survival, struggle, and, object as a sign of the subject’s most importantly, identity. domination of the object world. Secondly, and as a result of this, Property indigenous “property” is inalienable, Property is arguably the dominant focus unlike Eurocentric views of property of Eurocentric legal systems. The Anglo- (Moustakas 1989). Given the importance American notion of protecting against of the proprietary scheme for Anglo- unauthorized infringement, for example, American copyright and its delineation is a metaphorical extension of the notion of economic rights over aspects of of trespass of real property. Yet the same intellectual property, it is not surprising concept does not necessarily exist in all that there is no match with indigenous indigenous systems; certainly it does not concepts of heritage. assume central importance. As Daes articulates the issue: Material form In a legal sense, materiality remains a indigenous peoples do not view their fundamental presumption of a quality heritage in terms of property at all— that is, something which has an essential to art, as two English cases

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indicate. Lord Justice Lawton in materiality, which is a physical presence Merchandising Corporation of America Inc. only, not a physical presence over any v. Harpbond Ltd., for example, responds specific period of time. By the same token to the idea that make-up could be and despite what Lawton LJ. declares, analogous to a painting: make-up is a material expression of an idea once it is applied (the very term for it seemed to me fantastic . . . a painting putting one’s face on charts its distance must be on a surface of some kind. from an “idea”). As a result, it would The surface upon which the startling seem that a copyright focus on material make-up was put was Mr. Goddard’s form implies more than a desire for face and, if there were a painting, it must be the marks plus Mr. fixedness as a purely materialist concern; Goddard’s face. If the marks were it implies fixedness in the sense of taken off the face there cannot be a stability or permanence. painting. A painting is not an idea: it Two major problems result for is an object; and paint without a indigenous peoples with respect to this. surface is not a painting. (FSR 32, 46 First there are forms of heritage that, by [1983]) these decisions, will not attract protection. Maori performers, for Similarly, in Creation Records Ltd. v. News example, will paint designs, sometimes Group Newspapers Ltd., Justice Lloyd with specific tribal and/or familial refused the designation “sculpture” for significance, on their faces. Aboriginal a collection of disparate objects arranged Australians will on occasion have for a photographic session with the band designs on their bodies as an important Oasis on the grounds of it being part of particular ceremonies. At these temporary. Having declared he did not and other times, impermanent works regard the claim that the object might in will be created, earth paintings for fact be sculpture as “seriously arguable,” example, which last only as long as a Lloyd J. continues: particular ceremony or performance. Moreover, songs, dances, temporary [this] composition was intrinsically artistic works such as body designs, and ephemeral, or indeed less than ephemeral in the original sense of that earth paintings and artifacts do not exist word of living only for one day. This in isolation from one another but form existed for a few hours on the ground. an holistic milieu of the performance.In Its continued existence was to be in terms of materiality, designs on the body, the form of a photographic image. the performance itself, and any (EMLR 444, 450 [1997]) associated impermanent works fail a copyright test of material form. For The idea that a temporary work is indigenous peoples, however, there is somehow less of a work than one nothing to separate these aspects of intended to last for more than a day cultural heritage from the paintings, (apparently Lloyd J.’s standard term) linocuts, or sculptures of the successful stretches the normal understanding of copyright infringement cases brought by

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Aboriginal Australian artists. Protection for indigenous notions of Although untenable from a authorship or creativity is not customary rights perspective, material considered. This is because of three basic form is the normative position of Anglo- dissimilarities with the dominant model, American copyright, a condition closely presented here as questions. First, are allied with the proprietary focus of Euro- there indigenous “artists” as such? American law in general. What it ignores Secondly, how do they conceptualize in terms of indigenous peoples’ interests themselves and does that square with the is that the “things” that most warrant demands of authorship? Finally, what protection are often not physically happens to the indigenous artist when manifested. The ideas behind the works she stands in court? The significance of (performances, narratives, principles of these dissimilarities is that they reveal a design, the meanings of these, the secret central asymmetry with respect to the and/or sacred nature of these place of indigenous artists in relation to interwoven concerns) can be of greater authorship. and more lasting “value” to peoples. In “Artist” (or “author”) is not painting, the narratives and styles of necessarily an indigenous conception of works remain unprotected, for example. the role played by creative individuals. In the case of performances of oral At the outset, there are etymological traditions, Janke records the alarming difficulties with the very term. As First prospect that although there are Nations artists Lou-Ann Neel and minimum standard performers’ rights in Dianne Biin state: Australia: [as] with many Indigenous groups [performance] of Indigenous music, throughout the world, our respective dances and stories are not eligible for languages [of the Mamalillkala, copyright protection unless they are Da’naxda’xw, Ma’amtagila and original and recorded in material Kwagiulth peoples for Neel; and of form. Thus, under existing copyright the Tsilqhot’in people for Biin] have legislation, traditional custodians of no one-word for “art.” We also do not an important sacred dance or have a singular word for “artist.” ceremony may not be able to stop Instead, we have words and unauthorised performances of the phrases that describe individuals or dance. (Janke 1998, 56) groups of individuals as being knowledgeable or skilled in a Authorship particular area of creative works— professionals who are, for example, The subject of Anglo-American “knowledgeable in the way of songs” copyright is the individual author. In the (composers, singers) or context of art making, this often squares “knowledgeable in the legends and with the naïve and Romantic image of histories” (storytellers, painters, the lone artist struggling away in a garret, carvers, etc.). wrestling with creative dæmons. . . .

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While we would prefer to use a more relate the content of a work. Like St. suitable designation, for ease of Bonaventura in Woodmansee’s example, discussion we will use the terms “artist” neither Neel nor Biin acts alone. In a way, and “artistic” but offer a definition of our the process of authorization of own making to define artists as “Trained indigenous art-makers through practitioners and masters of the formal instruction and/or initiation is artistic and creative disciplines of our people.” analogous to the training of medieval In Kwakwala, we would say “Xa nax’wa artists through long periods of ni’nogad kotla’xees dlax-wa-tla-as” (“those apprenticeship in both methodologies of who are knowledgeable know where they art and the Word to which they were stand”). Many languages speak this same giving form. truth. (Neel and Biin 2000) This is not to say that individual By approaching the law as artists, indigenous artists are not granted and those who speak, sing, dance, make or have not found some satisfactory otherwise create indigenous cultural protection in copyright actions (the heritage are having to stand as Australian case law refutes such a translations of themselves. conclusion). Nevertheless, those Secondly, the assumption of self- appearances also see the interests of authorizing production underpins the those artists and the communities of Anglo-American conceptualization but which they are a part translated into indigenous artists manifestly do not interests that would exist were the share this experience. Their work may claimants non-indigenous. By this it may be subject to controls and they be that “equality before the law” results themselves are answerable to the people in an erasure of what may be a crucial for whom they speak. In parallel, Martha part of an artist’s identity and the reason Woodmansee contrasts individuated she might bring a claim: her indigeneity. authorial responsibility with a medieval European concept of authorship wherein Originality the author makes a contribution “as part Originality poses two difficulties for of an enterprise conceived collectively” indigenous peoples. The first relates to (Woodmansee 1994, 17). In the present whether or not indigenous cultural context, this suggests that for indigenous heritage, especially contemporary artists working with traditional content evocations of traditional narratives and/ and/or methodologies there is an or designs, for example, may be said to absence of what Michel Foucault terms be “original.” The second, significantly “the author function” (Foucault 1991). To more subtle problem, is more structural this end, the artist is not the determining in quality. It arises from affirmation of factor in the “value” or “significance” of the first issue. Rather than offer a positive a work nor in the way it is received. conclusion, I would contend that concern Rather, even artists of great skill may be regarding originality in indigenous appreciated for the way in which they cultural heritage illustrates a clear

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instance of the pervasive imbalance of whether works incorporating copyright in favor of the Euro-centric [traditional narratives] satisfied the conceptualization and the seductive ease requirement of originality so as to with which alternate systems or attract copyright protection. In the positions may be incorporated within it. present case that issue has not arisen, and by the end of the trial the For many years the single “originality” copyright ownership of the artists in difficulty for indigenous peoples’ each of the eight works was admitted. cultural practices arose with respect to Although the artworks follow the realization of known narratives or re- traditional Aboriginal form and are articulations of established designs— based on dreaming themes, each copying and reproduction sanctioned artwork is one of intricate detail and and moderated by a collective. It is complexity reflecting great skill and conceivable that any difficulty was based originality. (30 IPR 209, 216 [1994]) on one of two positions. One may have been the protectionist concern that Even in respect of traditional copyright regimes were so strict that they methodologies, works are found to be might not extend to “known” or original; it is enough that there has been “traditional” elements. An alternative some visible presence of the hand of an position is the fallacious notion that individual artist and the recognition by careful and exact repetition of images artist and community that she is (and histories, narratives, and responsible for a particular version of a performances, which remain narrative. In this respect, case law unprotected) was the result merely of appears to have accommodated slavish copying. This position conceives indigenous interests insofar as they are of indigenous cultures as synchronic, compatible with original artworks made with peoples doomed to repeat a by individual artists. Narratives do not diminishing range of known devices garner protection in and of themselves, (Talal Asad 1973; see also Freud 1913; only as “original” manifestations by Lévi-Strauss 1955). authors. Nevertheless, all appears well because “Aboriginal artworks,” by being The key decision dispelling the idea declared to satisfy an origination test of that the contemporary expression of originality, are not rendered ineligible for traditional Aboriginal Australian protection. cultural heritage might not be original is Milpurrurru and Others v. Indofurn Pty. Ltd.—the case of indigenous paintings Reproducibility copied onto industrially manufactured At this point, it is as well to identify what woolen carpets. In his decision von might be an ironic reflection of the status Doussa J. notes a series of texts such as of original and reproduction in the the Working Party Report that addressed context of non-indigenous legislation this concern and states that the problem pertaining to indigenous art and design. is: A number of commentators have focused on Walter Benjamin’s text “The

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Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical knowledge for exploitation will Reproduction” as a modern theoretical invariably register that normative rules source for a defense of the uniqueness, of copyright are inherently unable to the partiality of indigenous cultural respond to the requirements of that expressions. In the introduction to the authenticity. Indeed, these two points exhibition catalogue Copyrites: Aboriginal look as though they go hand in hand. Art in the Age of Reproductive Technologies, What is potentially ironic about such a for example, Vivien Johnson extends the link is that the security of the first point obvious reference to Benjamin in the title rests in large part on the notion of by opening with a quotation: “‘[the] originality, an issue that is, in fact, presence of the original is prerequisite to defended in particular forms by the very the concept of authenticity’” (Johnson system that is criticized in the second 1996, 3; see Benjamin 1984b, 220). The point. Originality in copyright is a quote is used to center a discussion about theoretical construct intended to the non-approved use of Aboriginal establish and defend the originating Australian art, how such practices author’s economic interest in the necessarily breach both intellectual products of her labor—it establishes an property and cultural integrity, and how original proprietary interest that the this relates to the distinct understanding author may then use to restrict copying. of authentic Aboriginal art. One of the “The presence of the original,” in this key observations raised in the essay is context original (indigenous) peoples that non-Aboriginal people do not and original (first) expressions linked to understand the particular auratic membership of that group, may, qualities of the things they copy and that likewise, presume a proprietary interest any reproduction should only progress and may well foreground that interest. from the position of informed consent. Coombe, usefully, has warned against To this end it repeats some of the the ease with which concepts such as conclusions reached in this article in the culture, authenticity, and identity may be articulation of interwoven concepts of posed as proprietary terms, wherein identity, authenticity, and the specific such arguments are “constructed upon attachment of indigenous the same philosophy of possessive epistemologies to particular forms of individualism that grounds our legal cultural expression. Johnson turns categories and historically supported Benjamin’s phrase to make her point: practices of colonial expropriation” “[the] presence of the Aboriginal is (Coombe 1997, 80). Both originality in prerequisite to the concept of copyright and (Ab)originality as authenticity” (Johnson 1996, 3). representative of indigenous interests in Interestingly, the same position that cultural heritage turn on the notion of defends the need for authenticity of origination—my right in my work stems expression as a means of dislodging the from the fact that the particular assumption that non-indigenous people expression of it originates with me as its may have access to certain objects or first author; indigenous rights in cultural

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systems and their expression stem from indigenous concepts has the potential to the fact that these expressions originate be inherently dislocating. with them as first peoples. At the same time, the inversion of this My concern in raising this is to position bolsters an a priori assumption register that there is at least a split in the of the superiority of indigenous heritage logic in how originality (as prerequisite when it is appropriated out of its cultural to authenticity and as a basis for refusing context. Translation in this instance reproducibility) operates in cultural-legal recognizes that, regardless of the terms. Those of us who do support the qualities of the derived work, it is notion that there ought to exist specific dependent on something that went sets of ethical and maybe legal criteria before it. Further, translation in copyright that inform and shape the ways in which terms can produce certain positive non-indigenous peoples encounter, outcomes. Indigenous authors will find research, and/or reproduce indigenous protection in that different legislative knowledge need to come to terms with systems state that originators retain what we think originality imputes. If by adaptation rights (of which translation originality we wish to invoke a sense of is one). Translation in the practical legal exclusiveness for some and exclusion for sense refers to cross-language others, then we must accept that this is a translation, and adaptation does not shared concept of that version of extend beyond literary, dramatic, or indigenous rights and copyright. This is musical works, which is a limited field not necessarily a bad thing in a practical admittedly. Nevertheless, the notion that sense, for it manages to speak the translations and adaptations require language of the colonizer in order to permission of copyright owners creates articulate an interest of the colonized and the inference that translations of cultural so may be heard. Yet herein lies a material do not take place in an open dilemma because, as Coombe goes on to environment without an interceding argue, this effects a normalizing of principle of authorization. Thus, the discourse, one, moreover, in the technical understanding of legal language of colonization. It repeats the translation rights may go some way to concern noted in this article about modifying the sense that translation is indigenous peoples (or in this context quite so free and open in broader cultural indigenous concepts) having to stand as terms. While translations may have their translations of themselves in order to be own originality or authenticity as heard, to be accepted, or to enter into translations (and this creates certain discourse. In the context of cultural intellectual property rights) they are expressions, the translated document, neither original nor authentic in the way artwork, or performance remains Johnson, say, uses Benjamin to enunciate dependent on a prior document, a conceptualizing of Aboriginality. artwork, or performance (hence it is I am not sure Benjamin on his own is unoriginal or inauthentic). This is why all that helpful, though. His discussion the very notion of translation of of the original’s aura’s dissipation by

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reproduction in the context of single as permissive—again, an author’s paintings is not necessarily borne out. prerogative in copyright). In this way it Indeed I may suggest that one is more looks to me increasingly less like a inclined to valorize the original when question of reproducibility framed encountering it because of prior exclusively by proprietary interests (legal familiarity with its look from territory) and more like one concerned reproductions—thousands of visitors a with articulation (ethical and behavioral day venerate the Mona Lisa, and cynics territory) (cf. Coombe 1997, 93). test their experience against its primacy in certain visual languages, but how Authenticity many actually see it? We perform its aura The notion of defining a specific set of by our recognition of it in any given conditions through which one might context—in the Louvre or on a chocolate define what is “authentic” Maori art or box lid. Moreover, Benjamin’s affirming language is the most serious discussion of film in his essay is, it should philosophical problem in this area. As an be noted, a discussion of a medium of example, the koru as a graphic is far from reproduction, what we see are projections a unique cultural phenomenon. A of prints. Is there no aura emanating from curvilinear form is widely used, and this projection, from this copy? I am spiral forms are present in the ancient unsure. When Johnson wittily interposes and contemporary art of many cultures: Aboriginality in a sentence on originality one can think of ancient Greek acanthus it looks like an affirmative gesture; it designs, decorative markings from the looks like a strategy whereby a form of Sepik, heraldic decorations surmounting primacy or prior claim is asserted. She’s shields, Lebanese iron work, Native fencing territory. My concern with this American spiral mounds, and is not that she looks to be staking Renaissance Italian voluté as an eclectic proprietary claims—Coombe’s concerns and random selection of the form in art.7 about the dominating logic of The artist, satirist, and theorist William proprietary analysis are certainly not a Hogarth’s treatise, Analysis of Beauty cunning means of dispossessing (1753), asserts (in chapter X) that most indigenous peoples of their heritage by elegant of lines is the serpentine line. His declaring property to be an ethically engraving of this involves a long gently bankrupt basis for analysis, thereby curving line with a twist at the end to rendering everything available for effect closure that has the same everybody, far from it. Rather, what fundamental features as the koru. In interests me is what is consequential specific cases of application and use, from the assertion of originality. This however, the particular demands of gambit can run from strategic makers, users, and materials render such essentialism (original as exclusive and generic forms dissimilar beyond any but exclusionary—like the original author’s the most casual of observations. rights) to a principle of respect, Moreover, confusion (or at least consultation, and authorization (original connection) of these forms based on

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morphological analysis does not of itself applications from leading to “the suggest protection is unwarranted. The production of un-Maori works of art” koru carries particular and specific (Page Rowe 1928, 60). connotations, which means it warrants More recently, Hirini Moko Mead has protection. As I see it, there is sufficient adopted an eight-point definitional distinction between the different graphic approach. Most of these are manifestations of the curvilinear pattern, unproblematic, but when first promoted and such a distinction is made plain at the Toioho ke Apiti Maori Art when the koru is used in connection with Conference at Massey University in 1996, associative or connotative meanings. three of the eight conditions elicited less The second problem of definition is than unanimous support. The idea that that it can seriously delimit notions of “[the] primary purpose of Maori art is art. The Maori Arts and Crafts Act of 1926 to give expression to the creative genius attempted to define Maori art. Sub- of Maori artists to satisfy Maori social, section 4.1 established learning political, cultural, and economic needs” institutions “for the study and practice (Mead 1997, 231) squares with an of the arts and crafts as known to and orthodox view of Maori art making but practised by the Maori people.” On the falls short of allowing for more face of it there is little problem with this, independent spirit within Maori visual but in relation to whakairo (carving), for artists. It runs the risk of introducing a example, there have been sweeping prescriptive element into Maori art. The changes in the way in which it has been succeeding condition was to note: articulated in the thousand years since “Maori art is social art that is created Maori first came to Aotearoa/New within a cultural and social environment, Zealand. Moreover, the principle of such that artists are in touch with their aesthetic faithfulness that is articulated tribal roots and with their people” (ibid.), in the Act is based on an analysis of one which is prescriptive. As with the recent house, Te Hau ki Turanga from 1842, bout of fisheries decisions, this approach made by Raharuhi Rukupo and others, of Mead’s effectively distinguishes which is now in Te Papa Tongarewa, The between urbanized Maori and rural Museum of New Zealand. The Maori and/or those who remain in implication is that the house is treated contact with their iwi or other tribally- as an idealized model of Maori artistry based group. The difficulty of this means rather than being a specific and excellent of identification is difficult to downplay, example of work made in the Poverty but it needs to be remembered that not Bay area in the middle of the nineteenth all urban and/or de-tribalized Maori century. The obvious problem with this have selected that state. For many it is is that it normalizes one institutional the result of decades of cultural style and determines it to be “authentic.” negativism and the drift to urban centers In the words of the Act, the purpose of for work which they and their families defining the content of a Maori School have engaged in. Mead’s point seems to of Art was to prevent new materials and try to avoid some of the painful

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sociological facts of twentieth century if indigenous systems, structures, and/ Maori experience. The next definitional or restrictions shape that dialogue), there moment suggests that “[changes] in is at least the first step in dislocating the Maori art are brought about by Maori assumed authority of the colonizer to artists who employ new technologies, exploit whatever she might choose in introduce new images, and recombine respect to her own, independent elements of Maori art in new and exciting intellectual creations. This discussion ways that are accepted by the Maori returns us to the question of people” (ibid.). The last clause of this is reproducibility and the attendant problematic, for just as a tourist public questions: Is the original diminished can endorse orthodoxies of style, so can through different forms of reproduction? a general Maori public. The risk here is Has the koru (in this example) anything of a mode of practice that is more often to fear from its potential for translation than not reactionary in quality. In terms into works of art or designs that are not of its application to a legislative those in which it had traditionally been approach, there is a very real danger of used? Is there something integral to it ensuring a regime that results in stasis that refuses the possibility of appropriate for Maori arts. reproduction?

THE COLONIAL CATWALK: Indigenous design and non-indigenous AUTHORITY, FREEDOM, AND fashion FASHION In lines marketed four years ago, the One of the general principles New Zealand swimwear manufacturer underpinning the Mataatua Declaration is Moontide included women’s suits made one of authorization. What it in part from material patterned with seeks to reverse is the sort of subject/ interlocking curvilinear koru designs object split that sees active colonizers (fig. 3). The managing director, Tony exploiting and utilizing the cultural Hart, and the firm’s designers developed heritage of passive colonizeds in a this swimwear line with a Maori manner that re-inscribes and thereby entrepreneur. Buddy Mikaere, a makes more powerful the speaking/ kaumatua (elder) in the local community, silencing, active/passive binarism of this negotiated the use of the koru motif. crude model. Active involvement, the According to Hart, two concerns seeking of permission, and, most governed the design element’s use: importantly, a desisting from any form commercial viability and cultural of involvement where permission is respect. In recognition of this dual aim, denied deflect the hegemonic privileges part of the royalty from sales goes to the of the singular speaking subject. In the Pirirakau hapu (sub-tribe) of the Ngati context of visual culture, where dialogue Ranginui people.8 Not surprisingly, between culturally divergent parties is when the line debuted at Sydney Fashion entered into and maintained (especially Week in 1998 it garnered considerable

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also been toppled as the prime determinants of exploitation and marketability. Not unlike the Air New Zealand marketers and designers during its re-branding, there is an interesting interplay between cultural sensitivity and commercial reality—indeed, I would argue it is more finely balanced in this case because the issues at stake have been openly and frankly addressed by the company. At any rate, the independent designer and manufacturer are supposedly held accountable for the manner in which the indigenous design module is employed. An obvious comparison may be made with the unauthorized use of indigenous Pacific and Maori graphic design in Paco Rabanne’s haute couture line from January 1998 and Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Spring/Summer 2000 lines and perfume bottling. In the former, the use of shiny black fabric cut in deliberate echo of koru design, high-cut at the hips, Figure 3: Moontide Swimwear, Jewel 3 piece and barely covering the breasts and coming Willow from promotional brochure 1999/2000. up to the face as a mask-like accouterment, plays with a close press interest for its apparently ethical alignment of exotic and erotic spectacle. handling of indigenous interests. The costume registers with some level What this example represents is a of equivalence two primary sources and discrete arrangement between two effects. First, the erotic allure for some parties: the manufacturer and the Europeans that moko holds—think of indigenous entrepreneur acting on the attraction of European seamen for behalf of a tribal group with direct tattooed Polynesian belles. Secondly, the responsibility to that group. At first appeal of sexually assured and/or glance it would seem that any absolute aggressive clothing such as that sense of intellectual or creative freedom associated with domination and/or in the manner that dominates Euro- sado-masochistic sexual practices— American discourse on art and design think dominatrices of sex clubs or of has been sublimated to some degree of popular culture such as Catwoman from duty or responsibility. More remarkably, Batman. In combination these suggest a perhaps, commercial imperatives have sexual frisson that interrogates and

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extends that commonly held to be This may typify the notion of the present in “the little black dress.” In this knowing Gaultier as a leading nominally example, the dense black of the garment post-modern designer. Not only does he oscillates with the flesh of the model in register the sort of pliant sexuality that an almost fort/da manner that can serve Euro-Americans continue to dream is the to heighten desire. Like the body of the condition of the Pacific but he does so Polynesian woman for non-travelers, the by utilizing the key high art formulation body of the model for fashion pundits of this presupposition—Gauguin’s Noa or magazine grazers is an exotic/erotic Noa woodcuts. The images and the fantasy figure. The “tattoo” marks journal of the same name are heighten the experience and potentially synonymous with the sexual and artistic suggest a libidinous puncturing of the freedom Gauguin maintained he found flesh in a manner of attraction and in the numerous islands of the Tahiti repulsion that has a strange echo of group where he lived between 1891 and Kant’s discussion. One may stand this 1903. They establish his sense of a rich interpretation of koru-derived design and magical Otherness to the “filthy next to Neich’s discussion of the Europe” he had escaped. In addition to originating form to chart the level of these woodcuts, Gaultier incorporated dissimilarity. At the same time, however, the profile self-portrait of Gauguin and there is not necessarily an attendant the “PGO” signature he developed. In sense of indecency or inappropriateness the lightness of the fabric and the sense on the part of every critic. Much as older of the fashion season to which they relate, and/or more conservative people might Gaultier imbues a sense of a similar shy from or actively regard as wrong the dreamy other-worldliness of the Tahiti body additionally sexualized by the use of popular European imagination. To be of the koru, younger and/or more fair, this is endorsed by the local tourist fashion-conscious or modish types might trade—soft, smiling bodies are more find humor or absurdity in the use. encouraging of potential tourist dollars The Gaultier lines and marketing than the nuclear test sites that strategies are somewhat differently characterize a crucial aspect of the French inflected. Like Rabanne, Gaultier has a colonization of Polynesia. reputation in both the fashion and pop To the Gauguin mix Gaultier culture industries for employing a introduces the image of a Maori warrior knowing and often humorous sexiness with ta moko—not unlike that of in his designs. To that extent, the Frizzell’s image. Clearly there is the sort diaphanous printed fabrics of his shirts of non-specific geography that and sarongs may play a similar peek-a- characterizes artistic appropriation of boo game. At the same time, the sources indigenous cultural heritage, wherein for his quotation are wider than the precise meanings are evaded in Rabanne’s; for these lines he search for a more generalized and appropriated images by Gauguin as well imagined locale. To an extent, this place as direct images of Maori use of the koru. is like to an imagined land, perhaps a

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nave nave fenua (fragrant land) to utilize Fashion in the field the term Gauguin coined. In this respect, There is, too, a local variant on this there is a shift from a specific (often problem. For many years the contested) location that one could align Christchurch-based sports apparel with a sense of the real to the realm of manufacturer Canterbury of New the imaginary as figured by the Zealand had a contract for supply with designer’s creative inventiveness and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. savoir faire. Certainly the moko in the Prior to the 1999 Rugby World Cup held marketing campaigns register some in Britain and France, however, that degree of “Maoriness” but, at the same contract was not renewed and the time, are entirely in keeping with what NZRFU entered into a deal with the “Gaultierness” has come to represent in global sporting goods manufacturer, fashion—the conflation of sexiness, Adidas. Importantly, both companies “bad-boyness,” and inventiveness that have subsequently used Maori design in are the hallmarks of his style are present order to further product visibility and/ in equal measure here. or desirability. Still, there are other problems. These Canterbury has produced a new are most notable in the men’s swimwear range of rugby boots, launched in of the Gaultier line, where, depending London in 2001 and released on the New on the cut of the fabric, the warrior’s face Zealand market in 2002. The promotion with ta moko is repeatedly situated on of these products suggests that there the ass. Whilst this might contain a sense have been important modifications to the of general insult to non-Maori it is of existing design, especially in relation to specific offense within Maori culture, the soles of the boots and the placement with an entirely inappropriate confusion of sprigs. Of more importance here is the of the relative states of tapu (the head, look that has been generated in and the head of a tattooed person of rank association with the new product and the and mana in this case) and noa (the nomenclatures associated with the bottom). Things tapu and things noa are different examples within the line. Three to be separated. One ought not to sit on of the eight new boot designs incorporate a table that will take food, for example. explicit koru-based designs in the form Hence, to place a representation of the of differently colored leather decoration part of a person that is most important, on the outside of the boot. These were most sacred if you will (and one that designed by a Maori designer and carver, shows the status of the person through Riki Manuel. The energy of the forms, the wearing of the moko), where it will perhaps even an intimation of wind or be sat on is, in Maori terms, a grave movement, has been carried over into the matter. It is a factor that does not seem cosmetic features of the boot (fig. 4). to even enter into the ken of a blithe spirit These come to function as positive of contemporary fashion. connotational meanings for rugby players. At the same time, there may be a direct appeal to a nationalistic spirit

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within the local market or an exoticness generic use. This is an important concern or recognition of the formal appeal of the in the face of global marketing, and motif internationally. The company’s several examples have already caused involvement with an indigenous consternation.11 Outside of the designer looks to bolster the trademarking issue (which Canterbury appropriateness of its use and, has stated it will not seek), there are furthermore, there is no intention by the residual concerns regarding the tapu/ company to assert any claim of noa disposition of having words such as ownership over the designs or words Rangatira, in particular, for a range of used (acc. to the Sunday Star Times, 4 Nov. footwear. The notion of stepping over or 2001). on someone of rank is culturally offensive. Hence there is a distinct tension in the naming of the product between a desire to capitalize on the positive attributes of status but, at the same time, significant questions as to the neutrality of doing so. Eighteen months prior to the Canterbury launch, during the latter stages of the 1999 Rugby World Cup, Adidas’ campaign included the image of a Maori warrior with moko filling up the billboard, page, or other site of Figure 4: Canterbury of New Zealand, Moko rugby advertisement, the company logo placed boot, 2001. discreetly underneath. Presumably the campaign sought to connect the New Zealand All Black’s reputation as rugby More problematic is the incorporation players of high caliber with general of words in the boot promotion. The associations of strength, energy, and eight names given to the range are as vitality that may be set alongside follows (the translations are the author’s Polynesian warriors. Implicit in this, too, own): Rangatira (chiefly person); Tane- may be a certain sexualization of the Toa (champion);9 kaha (strength); whetu powerful, aggressive indigene. In terms (star); moko (tattoo); toa (warrior); hiko of the issues raised in this section, the (flash, zigzag, shine; all qualities of the moko on the model pulls together good rugby player); and haka (fierce markers of reputation, exoticism, chanting dance)10 . There are two masculinity, physicality, and sexuality problems in this. One is the potential for and markets these as the associated the trademarking of Maori words— values of the brand. This may work well which could amount to a ring-fencing of internationally or locally, for that matter. the language when employed overseas Although, in the latter context, it is the where the words cannot be said to have habit of many rugby union and rugby

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league fans, both Maori and non-Maori, not mean this to be a question that results similarly to paint moko on their faces in in disenfranchisement or alienation of support of their local or representative decision-making from indigenous teams, the campaign’s “exoticism” peoples. Nevertheless, there remain indices might not be so strongly felt open questions as to the ability and/or outside of Europe. The others, however, advisability within Maori custom for remain, for the most part, intact. individuals to assume that they may The Moontide lines look to come out authorize the use of designs that may of these comparisons in a positive light, more properly be considered the cultural mostly due to the consultative process heritage of the collective. Te Rangitu that was used prior to and during the Netana working on Robbie Williams in manufacture of successive season’s lines. a tattoo studio in Amsterdam may carry Perhaps, too, there is a similar hint of with him the authorization of his allure and location in the use of the koru teachers and/or his relatives, but he will, designs, and this may also speak to the inevitably, have to make sole judgment development of a specific clientele—in calls on whether or not to work on this case New Zealand women who particular clients. The distance of enjoy supporting local industry and Amsterdam from Aotearoa/New wearing clothes that disport that Zealand (almost the very opposite end enjoyment. Canterbury would seem to of the earth) may suggest a sense of have the same market for rugby players isolation that is as much cultural as of either gender. Nevertheless, there geographical. In place of this gap, Netana remain questions regarding the may assume a self-authorizing position appropriateness of the authorization of that bears little or no connection to those this design for this purpose. In the case who trained him or, in a broader sense, of a scanty bathing costume, a similar whose designs he copies and interprets. divide between conservative and more Nor is there consensus regarding the modern morality may be imputed appropriateness of the tattoo Williams here—certainly not everyone who sees now sports. The designer may speak of these images is unconcerned by them. the specific story he designed for his The presumption of the consultative client using his stylistic signature, but this process, though, mitigates any potential becomes problematic in terms of the discomfort inasmuch as there is the relationship between his own authorial stated position that this use has been signature in the sense of an individual authorized. Thus the ability to question subject-author and the signature of the or interrogate that use with respect to people who would seek to control its some sort of indigenous moral disposition and dispersal. To this end, perspective is seemingly curtailed. some Maori question the What this introduces is a more serious appropriateness of Williams wearing problem at the heart of the authorization what is a mark of belonging and, issue. That is to ask: “who may authorize moreover, of status when he clearly lacks and to what end?” I should say that I do the former and, to some, lacks sufficient

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mana to boot. This becomes more what economic interests they have from complicated when the factor of unsanctioned exploitation or some other international recognition is added to the form of unfair competition. The irony discussion. The issue here is whether here is that this could conceivably result mere visibility (for those who are in a delineation of intellectual property skeptical of the moko’s appropriateness) rights, the determination of which is can offset what might be seen as dependent on the action of the courts.12 dislocation from or harm to the specific While it is certainly a positive example cultural construct in which moko holds in the immediate case at hand, and a a meaning other than mere fashion- useful model for artists and commercial credibility. interests, the negotiated agreement is At the same time authorization leaves certainly not a panacea for the difficulties open concerns that might be raised about of reconciling indigenous interests with the ability of groups such as tribes or sub- differing modes of cultural tribes independently to sanction the use appropriation and the potential of a motif or design module or to register intervention of intellectual property an interest in it as this might exclude both laws. indigenous and non-indigenous further use. In the case of Moontide, for example, Labels, authorization, and authenticity the exertion of an intellectual property Since February 2002, a bureaucratic interest in the fabric design, say, could mechanism is available that might be exercised against a “passing off” strengthen the elements of authorization, swimsuit by an unscrupulous, declaration of that condition, and any indigenous copier manufacturer; even if resultant positioning of products in the the manufacturer claimed a general right market that for the moment are covered to that use by customary practice, for by Moontide’s arrangement with the example. It may be that the quality of Ngati Ranginui sub-tribe. Artists and negotiation that initiated the Moontide manufacturers now have recourse to collaboration might prevail, but it is also apply a label of cultural authenticity to important that one registers current their works. Toi Iho, the “Maori Made economic realities and their relationship Mark,” parallels developments in with some indigenous peoples’ goals, Australia (the “Label of Authenticity” most notably self-determination. developed by Australia Council, the Economic exclusion and resultant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage are part of the colonial Commission, and the National experience for indigenous peoples. In the Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association), move to an assertion of rights of self- First Nations, Canadian Provinces, and determination, economics is an US States (the New Mexico Indian Arts important factor—so important as to and Crafts Protection Law, 1988, for raise the possibility that a capitalist mode example). of competition might be used by The drive for the Aboriginal different indigenous groups to protect

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Australian mark came from the as well as individual indigenous artists. considerable exploitation of indigenous Importantly, it would not, as Kathryn design within the tourist industry in Wells puts it, “be a measure for what is Australia. These examples of passing off ‘real’ in modern indigenous Australian (or rip-offs, to use the plain words of the culture” (Wells 1996, 38); rather, it is report into the matter) are largely focused on the commercial end of the art unregulated. Unsuspecting tourists may market. To this end it parallels assume the designs on consumer developments in North America. The products to have been knowingly made New Mexico Law, for example: for that purpose by indigenous artists, perhaps even a substantial economic makes it a duty of anyone who is benefit accruing to them, but there is no showing or selling Indian arts and guarantee of the veracity of such an crafts to inquire into the origin of assumption. To the casual eye, one tee- objects to determine a) if the maker was an Indian as defined by tribal shirt, for example, might look much like enrolment or certificate of Indian another, but to the indigenous producer blood, b) if the object is hand made there may well have been specific and or machine made, and c) if materials deliberate limitations placed on the are authentic (naturalness) or semi- iconography applied to any design, and processed. If the item can meet this profits may be serving indigenous test, then it can be labeled as an communities. Marianna Annas, one of authentic, Indian, hand made piece. the architects of the Australian proposal, (Greaves 1994, 47) sees it: The central focus of both examples given as a means of giving Indigenous here is the identity of the author. people a marketing advantage in an Although it may be focused on a environment where there is an collective or tribal identity (a sense of increasing number of cultural belonging to a group), the authorial focus products which are “Indigenous” in parallels the similar presumption of an appearance, but in fact of non- author-centric intellectual property Indigenous origin. The object of the regime. There are important flow-on Authenticity labeling system is to assist consumers in identifying benefits from the Australian mark, and authentic cultural products, and the New Mexico regulation includes thereby improve the economic additional conditions of process and benefits flowing to Indigenous people material, but these bolster the central from the commercial use of their concern of identification of “authentic” cultures. (Annas 1997, 4) makers. The New Zealand mark goes a step It has the additional advantage of further, even than the New Mexico Law, helping to regulate the type of imagery because it will serve two goals. First, it that is reproduced, which will be of serves what looks like the key objective importance to indigenous communities of authenticating marks because it is a

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mark denoting indigenous authenticity. hidden question as to what Maori To be eligible to utilize the mark, cultural products are—what they purveyors of goods will need to be able involve, how they may be recognized. to prove their ethnic identity as Maori. Mead’s analysis of this question, “What This will then result in one of three levels is Maori Art?” (1997), has been noted of demarcation: the Toi Iho Maori Made above and reminds one that a number Mark; the Toi Iho Mainly Maori Mark; of competing problems remain to be and the Toi Iho Maori Co-production addressed. It is questionable whether a Mark. These indicate that ethnic descent governmental bureaucracy is the is of central importance to eligibility but appropriate forum in which to answer is not exclusive—non-Maori may be part such questions, even if it is made up of a of an enterprise awarded the second two panel of indigenous experts. The specter of these three marks, but even here there of an overly deterministic approach must be a level of Maori involvement looms over the horizon, although it is too that imputes control or leadership. soon in the life of the Toi Iho Mark to be Secondly, it is a quality mark. A able to make any concrete observations regulating body of experts in different regarding its operation. fields will have the mandate to What is pertinent to the examples at determine whether or not an applicant’s hand is that the Maori Co-Production product is up to the mark, as it were. This Mark is available to enterprises where qualitative assessment factor has been Maori are working with non-Maori and one of the most controversial aspects of where the process has been significantly the consultative meetings that Te Waka guided by Maori concerns. On the face Toi engaged in to promote the idea of the of it, Moontide or Canterbury might be Maori Made Mark. The principal eligible for such a mark because of the problem with the quality aspect of the companies’ engagement of Maori mark is that it does not match the criteria designers. Moreover, if international that are more generally applicable to companies were to behave in a similar marks of quality. The International fashion, they too could meet the criteria Woolmark, for example, indicates that for having the mark attached. Success in products bearing the mark are 100% gaining it would give the product the wool—that is to say it is a mark advantage of a degree of official descriptive of material characteristics. To endorsement of the overall project. This place a quality mark on cultural would seem unlikely to result in short- expression, however, is not to avoid term competitive advantage in the imputations of value-judgements being international market and so looks to be made. Moreover, it seems to posit a more focused on the local and tourist markets. difficult and controversial question in Nevertheless, the mark is being that in this context it asks the members promoted at a time of increasing of the registration board to determine awareness of the complex issues of what is a quality Maori cultural product. intellectual property and at a time when Attached to the question of quality is a some would argue there is a new growth

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market in ethical products. It may be that visitors are told on their tickets “we don’t the confluence of indigenous marks and climb,” in reference to the conflict a possible increase in corporate between Anangu respectfulness of the awareness of the issues involved may sacred site and the tourist practice of create an environment for change. scrambling over it. They are further There remain stings to this tail, asked not to take stones of soil away with however. The effectiveness of such labels them. Both of these “requests” are in the market is dependent on their repeatedly ignored by visitors (although visibility to and recognition by target there is a curious new feature in the groups. The Aboriginal Label of information area with the display of Authenticity, although currently being letters from previous visitors apologizing used by some artists and manufacturers, for and returning stone and soil they had is all but absent in such centers of the removed). Australian Aboriginal art trade as Alice The second level is effectively one of Springs. Indeed, the first time I saw the self-education and a will to act ethically. mark myself was at a presentation given There is, for example, a thriving trade in by Terri Janke in July 2002—and this was didgeridoos in Alice Springs. Many of immediately upon my return from a trip these bear labels by the manufacturers to Alice Springs. Without take-up by stating the product to be “authentic.” In those engaged in the market there is little so doing, they refer to a list of criteria hope that the mark may sustain, let alone that pertain to the material develop, “ethical tourism.” Further, characteristics—that it is of native timber, tourists have to want to change and eaten-out by termites, has a bee’s-wax conflicting examples from the Australian mouthpiece, is hand-painted, and so desert make this want seem fitfully forth. These confirm the authenticity and observed, at best. quality of the instrument qua object but There are two levels to such take-up. elide other “authenticities” and One is to respond positively to stated “qualities.” Not only do the objects indigenous peoples’ positions. Uluru, the feature designs based on Aboriginal iconic red rock in the Central Desert, is models that are neither painted nor part of the Uluru – Kata Tjuta National sanctioned by Aboriginal people, but the Park, itself a World Heritage site listed didgeridoo is not an authentic cultural with UNESCO. Management of the Park item for the Alice Springs or Central is jointly the responsibility of the Uluru Desert areas, coming, as it does, from – Kata Tjuta Board of Management (on further north. Still, they are purchased which sit a majority of Aboriginal and may turn up as part of the student/ persons) and Parks Australia, both hippie/New Age milieux of Covent operating under methods governed by Garden, Haight-Ashbury, Toronto’s Tjukurpa, Anangu Law—Anangu being Queen Street, or the pedestrian mall in the traditional owners of the land. (Uluru Frankfurt-am-Main, played by blonde- – Kata Tjuta Board of Management 2000). dreadlocked “alternative lifestylers.” As part of that management process, Authentic objects, after a fashion

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perhaps, but authentic cultural objects? it’s not a quality garment), qualitative My concern here is not with a rigid assessment of design is fraught with prescription of who may or who may not difficulties. Even at this point there is an play the didgeridoo; rather, I simply assumption that any assessment of the want to register that assumed affinities form of the design may be separated or simplistic takes on cultural from its function—a tension that is of universalism seem mostly to square with long standing in the fine arts and design. one party—the one clutching the tourist Whilst the process of negotiation and dollar. authorization might be above reproach, Similar issues of take-up and it remains likely that some individuals manufacturers’ subtle evasions of may dismiss the scant costume on “authenticity” will, doubtless, present cultural and/or aesthetic grounds, themselves to the administrators of the whereas others will endorse it. Is a Maori Made Mark. At the same time, an swimsuit with this pattern on it additional issue emerges from the authentic? appropriate? customary? coverage of the mark. Even with a colonizing? debased? By taking the fabric population that is as urbanized and in design of the line out of a discrete some cases as estranged from their tribal arrangement (which, to an extent, roots as the Maori population, protects it from searching analysis and authentication of genetic ethnicity is scrutiny as to its relationship with relatively straight-forward. Individuals indigenous cultural heritage), large and can recite genealogy or, where they have complex questions concerning lost this knowledge, their right to be engagement, appropriation, creation, declared a Maori producer can be and regulation emerge to trouble those endorsed by individual kaumatua of us who consider the issues presented (elder) or by the Justice Department here. (through birth certificates). Quality, on the other hand, could well become an CONCLUSION extremely vexatious question. In the case As noted in the introduction, this article of the koru on swimwear, for example, is largely declaratory in intention. It is it is certainly plausible that individuals motivated by the observation that what on boards determining such matters will might already be a certain antipathy be able to find an equivalent of Kant’s between art (as a practice of creative pulchritudo vaga with respect to applied freedom) and its putative other, law designs. Similarly, the cultural mores of (with a focus on the establishment and individual iwi may be sufficiently maintenance of order), is rendered divergent to suggest an incipient form exponentially more complex by the of cultural relativism in an example such introduction of indigenous rights in as this one. Quality is inherently mutable, cultural heritage and any attempt to and although it may achieve levels of accommodate indigenous peoples’ certainty with respect to product finish worldviews. It does not propose any (if the swimsuit falls apart at the beach radical solution or program of action

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with respect to what I believe are assume priority? The position taken in fundamental asymmetries between this article is to affirm that indigenous intellectual property rights as they are peoples may wish to assert specific currently theorized and how they might interests and this ought to be respected be developed in order better to and supported. What is not quite so accommodate indigenous peoples’ certain, however, is whether that priority interests. This should not, however, be (first, preferred) derives from any sense taken as betraying any serious degree of of the prior (before, original) status of ambivalence or lack of enthusiasm for indigenes. The prioritization of large-scale solutions such as are indigenous interests in the context of this discussed at international governmental discussion looks increasingly like the (initiatives such as the UN Draft Principles adoption of a strategic position. It and Guidelines for the Protection of the registers that there may be different Heritage of Indigenous Peoples, 1993) and conceptions of art and law in terms of non-governmental (the Mataatua indigenous and non-indigenous systems Declaration, for example), municipal, and and posits some of the situations in local levels. Indeed, a comprehensive which and reasons why the indigenous revision of international intellectual ought to be preferred. Moreover, it is property agreements and/or a new suspicious of the capacity for one system convention specifically targeted at concerning reproducibility to be realizing indigenous peoples’ aspirations determinative in cross-cultural contexts, in the area may be the most profoundly especially when it is predicated on a significant long-term goal for intellectual dislocation of precepts of cultural property regulation. In nominally post- identification and expression. colonial nations, municipal programs of In light of this and without similar type are urgently needed in order repudiating any sense of long-term to redress the imbalances of the past and engagement with the issues raised, create an equitable platform from which discrete and specific examples, such as to move forward. Nevertheless, such that afforded by Moontide, offer goals are predominantly long-term glimpses into the possibilities and objectives and the vicissitudes of political problems of how to manage these issues power mean it is unlikely that there will in the present time. They are, be any comprehensive reform in the refreshingly, “real world” examples, short- to medium-term. ways in which essentially positivist There is a similar potential for attitudes to use and re-use can generate despondency with respect to behavioral working solutions. While the change. First, the question of the manufacturing industry is hardly an management of reproduction of innocent in the global economy, indigenous cultural heritage needs to be moments of resistance to or at least addressed. If there are competing (or at partial evasion of the dominant least divergent) interests and presumptions of that system are understandings, are there some that interesting. They are, moreover,

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moments where we are forced to be self- more complex (more appropriate? more reflexive about our roles, not only as intellectual? more valid?) arguments that designers and/or academics but also as eschew the apparent certainty and fixed- consumers. ness of essential claims. While this may be so, it may also be the case that in crying “essentialist” one seeks to subordinate and render ineffective both the specific claims and the underlying position of the argument or assertion so labelled. Put this way, Notes it can come to look like a tactic of discount- I would like here to thank: Valdimar ing contrary positions—not, I hasten to Hafstein for his subtle and generous edit- add, counter-examples or alternative facing of this piece and for his forebearance; tual situations, but contrary positions that and Tara Winters for her technical support. might derive from a worldview that is ut- 1 The number of rangatira (chiefs) who terly different from the dominant, nomi- signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi by drawing their nally Euro-American one. It is plausible that in this clash of positions (assumptions? moko as their mark is indicative of this. presumptions?) the dismissal of alternative 2 Air New Zealand returned to 86% state (read “essentialist”) worldviews acts as a ownership in September 2001 following a screen to what is really going on—the re- government bailout. assertion of a dominant position that, pre- 3 Gauguin is simply the most significant sumably, is founded on core assumptions artist in this context. Naming him here is (presumptions? essential positions?) such not to claim that he was the first artist to as the neo-liberal intellectual tradition of engage in cross-cultural appropriation, as Euro-American academies. At the same this is a practice that can be noted between time, however, it is true that essentialism even ancient trading nations. What is dif- can also be a screen, a screen that freezes ferent about his enterprise, however, is that the multiple and changing worlds of those he characterized his successive flights from brought together under its label. Maori, civilized Europe as an attempt to get in with respect of this article, is a generic term touch with the primitive within. As a re- that cannot convey the range of positions sult of that he may well represent the first that best express the individuals who make systematic appropriation of non-European up different tribal and non-tribal groups. philosophies, narratives, and visual cul- It is impossible to state that Maori speak tural expressions to serve a specific Euro- as one, and, to an extent, it is difficult to pean aesthetic philosophy, in this case argue that there is such a thing as a Maori worldview (particularly for non-Maori). synthetism. Nevertheless, and this is significant even 4 Fatu Feu’u. Interview by author, if it is essentialist, Maori do in general claim Auckland, March 1992. an engagement with the world that is 5 If you would permit an observation re- sourced from a recognition, for them, of the garding essentialism, which for some has essential life-force of all living things, become something of a bête noir of cross- mauri. For many Maori, certainly all who cultural theory. There is an inherent risk in identify culturally as Maori, understand- the blanket critique of essentialist positions ings or beliefs such as this underpin what that they are, inevitably, estranged from the it means to be Maori, as much in the con-

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temporary world as in the past. To this end, this game. So far, the results have been very and as Leonie Pihama has asked, what is interesting indeed, with Lego now to be feared of such an essence that it committing itself to adopting an ethical should be decried and marginalized under stance with respect to such appropriation the negative label “essentialist”? (the point in its products. was raised in an address to the Indigenous 12 This has been the case in the disposition Art and Heritage Conference, July 2002, at of fishing assets among Maori, for example. Massey University, Palmerston North). In the cases that were litigated, the Privy 6 Trinh Minh-Ha, discussion following a Council in London (the final authority in showing of Shoot for the Contents, 21 Au- the New Zealand legal system) was gust 1993, at Auckland City Art Gallery required to define what an iwi was for the Auditorium. purposes of settlement. This, at the very 7 Leonard Bell (1989) lists examples of least, is a remarkably ironic situation where koru-type imagery in other cultures; his an establishment of a former colonial order intention, in part, is to de-center the is required and empowered to tell contemporary Maori what one of the key meaning of the koru for Walter’s work. determinants of Maori identity is. 8 Tony Hart. Interview by author, Auckland, November 1998; see also Works Cited Moontide press release, 1998. 9 Tane means male and toa warrior, which, Annas, Marianna. 1997. The Label of in this combination, is evocative of the Authenticity: A Certification champion as opposed to the warrior as Trade Mark for Goods and such. Services of Indigenous Origin. 10 Haka are performed by many sporting Aboriginal Law Bulletin 90:4-8 teams prior to a match or in celebration of Asad, Talal. 1973. Anthropology and the a win as well as in cultural life more generally. The most well-known Colonial Encounter. London: internationally is Te Rauparaha’s haka of Ithaca Press. the nineteenth century that precedes All Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia. 1986. Blacks games. Interview by Elizabeth 11 The most significant of these has been Eastmond and Priscilla Pitts. the settlement of a dispute over the use of Antic 1:44-55. words in the Maori lexicon by the Danish Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia. 1992. children’s toy manufacturer Lego. The Interview by Peter Shand. company had developed a computer game, Stamp Magazine 37:24. Bionicle, where characters with names such Barthes, Roland. 1967. Degree Zero and as Toa, Whenua (land), Pohatu (stone), and Elements of Semiology. London: Tohunga (learned person) were engaged in Jonathan Cape. a struggle over the island Mata Nui (which Bell, Leonard. 1989. Walters and Maori could mean big green [island] in this Art: The Nature of a context). Maori representatives met with Lego executives in 2001 and 2002 to voice Relationship. In Gordon Walters: their concerns at the inappropriate use of Order and Intuition. Edited by Maori language and Polynesian culture in James Ross and Laurence

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Simmons. Auckland: Private Derrida, Jacques. 1985. The Ear of the Press:12-23. Other. New York: Schocken. Benjamin, Walter. 1984a. The Task of Dick Frizzell: “Tiki.” 1992. Exhibition the Translator. In Illuminations: catalogue. Auckland: Gow Essays and Reflections. London: Langsford Gallery. Jonathan Cape:69-82. Draft Declaration on the Rights of Benjamin, Walter. 1984b. The Work of Indigenous Peoples. 1993. UN Art in the Age of Mechanical Doc E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/29. Reproduction. In Illuminations: Reproduced in Cultural Rights Essays and Reflections. London: and Wrongs. Edited by Halina Jonathan Cape:217-251. Nie_. Paris and Leicester: Blake, Janet. 2000. On Defining the UNESCO and Institute of Art Cultural Heritage. International and Law, 1998:191-197. and Comparative Law Quarterly Draft Principles and Guidelines for the 49:61-85. Protection of the Heritage of Clifford, James. 1985. Histories of the Indigenous Peoples. 1993. UN Tribal and the Modern. Art in Doc E/CN.4/Sub.2/1995/26. America 73:164-177. Reproduced in Cultural Rights Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament and Wrongs. Edited by Halina of Culture. Cambridge: Harvard Nie_. Paris and Leicester: University Press. UNESCO and Institute of Art Coombe, Rosemary J. 1993. The and Law, 1998:198-202. Properties of Culture and the Fanon, Frantz. 1986. Black Skin, White Politics of Possessing Identity: Masks. London: Pluto. Native Claims in the Cultural Final Statement of the Regional Appropriation Controversy. Consultation on Indigenous Canadian Journal of Law and Peoples’ Knowledge and Jurisprudence 6:249-285. Intellectual Property Rights (Suva Coombe, Rosemary J. 1997. The Statement). 1995. Postcolonial Struggle and the Foster, Hal. 1985. The “Primitive” Legal Imagination. In Borrowed Unconscious of Modern Art. Power: Essays on Cultural October 34:45-70. Appropriation. Edited by Bruce Foucault, Michel. 1991. What is an Ziff and Pratima V. Rao. New Author? In The Foucault Reader. Brunswick: Rutgers University Edited by Paul Rabinow. Press:71-96. London: Penguin:101-120. Daes, Erica-Irene. 1997. Protection of the Freud, Sigmund. 1913. Totem und Tabu. Heritage of Indigenous People. Leipzig: Hugo Heller. New York and Geneva: United Greaves, Tom, ed. 1994. Intellectual Nations. Property Rights for Indigenous

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Peoples: A Sourcebook. Kant, Immanuel. 1952. Critique of Oklahoma City: Society for Judgement. Oxford: Clarendon Applied Anthropology. Press. Hamilton, Augustus. 1896. The Art Kristeva, Julia. 1969. Semeiotikè: Workmanship of the Maori Race in recherches pour une sémanalyse. New Zealand. Dunedin: Paris: Seuil. Fergusson and Mitchell. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1955. Tristes Hiller, Susan, ed. 1991. The Myth of Tropiques. Paris: Plon. Primitivism: Perspectives on Art. Mataatua Declaration. 1993. Reproduced New York: Pantheon. in Our Culture, Our Future: Hogarth, William. 1753. The Analysis of Report on Indigenous Cultural Beauty. London: Hogarth. and Intellectual Property Rights. Janke, Terri. 1998. Our Culture, Our Written and researched by Terri Future: Report on Indigenous Janke. Sydney and Canberra: Cultural and Intellectual Property Michael Frankel and Company Rights. Sydney and Canberra: and the Australian Institute of Michael Frankel and Company Aboriginal and Torres Strait and the Australian Institute of Islander Affairs, 1998:306-310. Aboriginal and Torres Strait McDonald, Ian. 1997. Protecting Islander Affairs. Indigenous Intellectual Property: Johnson, Vivien. 1996. Copyrites: A Copyright Perspective. Sydney: Aboriginal Arts in the Age of Australian Copyright Council. Mechanical Reproductive McEvilley, Thomas. 1984. Doctor Technologies. Exhibition Lawyer Indian Chief. Artforum, catalogue. Sydney: National 32:54-61. Indigeneous Arts Advocacy Mead, Hirini Moko. 1997. Maori Art Association. Restructured, Reorganised, Re- Jones, Owen. 1868. The Grammar of examined and Reclaimed. In Ornament. London: B. Quaritch. Maori Art on the World Scene. Julayinbul Statement on Indigenous Wellington: Matau:228-237. Intellectual Property Rights. 1993. Moustakas, John. 1989. Group Rights Reproduced in Our Culture, in Cultural Property: Justifying Our Future: Report on Indigenous Strict Inalienability. Cornell Law Cultural and Intellectual Property Review 74:1179-1227. Rights. Written and researched Neel, Lou-Ann, and Dianne Biin. 2000. by Terri Janke. Sydney and By Design: The Protection of Canberra: Michael Frankel and Intellectual and Creative Company and the Australian Rights. Paper presented at the Institute of Aboriginal and conference, Protecting Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Knowledge: Traditional 1998:310-313. Resource Rights in the New

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Millennium, February 2000, Rubin, William, ed. 1984. “Primitivism” hosted by the Union of British in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Columbia Indian Chiefs and Tribal and the Modern. Exhibition University of British Columbia, catalogue. New York: Museum in Vancouver, BC. of Modern Art. Neich, Roger. 1993. Painted Histories: Salmond, Anne. 1978. Te Ao Tawhito: Early Maori Figurative Painting. A Semantic Approach to the Auckland: Auckland Traditional Maori Cosmos. New University Press. Zealand Journal of the Polynesian Nie_, Halina, ed. 1998. Cultural Rights Society 87:5-28. and Wrongs. Paris and Leicester: Shand, Peter. 1997. Adrift on an Ocean UNESCO and Institute of Art of Affinities: Modernist and Law. Primitivism and the Pacific Page Rowe, W. 1928. Maori Artistry. 1891-1984. Ph.D. diss., Wellington: Board of Maori University of Auckland. Ethnological Research. Tangata Pasifika. 2000. 18 June. Panoho, Rangihiroa. 1992. Maori: At Auckland: Television New the Centre, On the Margins. In Zealand. Headlands: Thinking Through Tunney, James. 1998. E.U., I.P., New Zealand Art. Sydney: Indigenous People and the Museum of Contemporary Digital Age: Intersecting Art:122-134. Circles? European Intellectual Patel, Surendra J. 1996. Can the Property Review 9:335-346. Intellectual Property Rights Uluru – Kata Tjuta Board of System Serve the Interests of Management and Parks Indigenous Knowledge? In Australia. 2000. Uluru – Kata Valuing Local Knowledge: Tjuta National Park Plan of Indigenous People and Intellectual Management. Canberra: Property Rights. Edited by Commonwealth of Australia. Stephen B. Brush and Doreen Waitangi Tribunal. 1986. Findings of the Stabinsky. Washington, DC: Waitangi Tribunal relating to Te Island Press:305-322. Reo Maori and a claim lodged by Phillips, W.J. 1938. He koru. Art in New Huirangi Waikerepuru and Nga Zealand 11:35-40. Kaiwhakapumau I te Reo Pound, Francis. 1994. The Space Between: Incorporated Society. Wellington: Pakeha Use of Maori Motifs in The Waitangi Tribunal. Modernist New Zealand Art. Wells, Kathryn. 1996. The Auckland: Workshop Press. Development of an Rhodes, Colin. 1994. Primitivism and Authenticity Trade Mark for Modern Art. London: Thames Indigenous Artists. Alternative and Hudson. Law Review 21:38-39.

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Woodmansee, Martha. 1994. On the Author Effect: Recovering Collectivity. In The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature. Edited by Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi. Durham: Duke University Press:15-28. Wright, Shelley. 1996. Intellectual Property and the “Imaginary Aboriginal.” In Majah: Indigenous Peoples and the Law. Edited by Greta Bird, Gary Martin, and Jennifer Nielsen. Sydney: Federation Press:129- 151.

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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: in primitive anthropologies.1 Comments on Cape Town Covers, Insinuated then insulated completely Colonial Catwalks, and Getting within the person, obsession could be Caught magnificent but it was also difficult to exorcise, since there were no longer any obvious handles, no demons to yank Hillel Schwartz away. Obsession was not a result of illu- Sixth College, UC San Diego sion but the consequence of a flat-out cultural investment in illusions, themselves chief and profitable products of ot the return of the repressed industrial modernity: technical feats of but the return of the ex stage magic, photography, motion pic- pressed: OCD, Obsessive- tures, cartoons, synthetics, television, N Walkmen (its disembodied voices fol- Compulsive Disorder. "Obsession" [

study, On Obsession: A Clinical and Meth- silence, and isolation of the murderers odological Study, was reprinted. Nonethe- made their crimes, once uncovered, loom less, the hyphenate disorder Obsessive- up out of a social nowhere, copycat mur- Compulsive became thoroughly conjoint der was covered by news media as a only in the 1980s while Calvin Klein was normal outcome of publicity itself, and introducing its own Obsession, "a blend an unavoidable outcome of the attempt of vanilla, amber, orange blossom, oak- to resituate the murders and the mur- moss, and other oriental spices" for derer along a scale of sociability.3 women in 1985 and a "refreshing, orien- One might explain the link between tal, woody fragrance . . . a blend of lav- serial murder and copycat crime in the ender, mandarin, clove, nutmeg, and context of a resurgent Cold War that cin- amber" for men in 1986, both "for roman- ematically consolidated binary patterns tic wear." Despite—or due to—the intro- of opposition and momentarily reestab- duction and success of the tricyclic anti- lished the eschatological tandem of two depressant clomipramine (Anafranil) in great matched powers, one good, one Europe around 1980 and the United evil, each declaring the other an atavism, States in 1990, OCD was soon epidemic, an artifact of history doomed to be sub- or so one might gather from Ian Osborn's sumed. Such an explanation, however, Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: is insufficient, since fears and images of The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compul- serial murderers and morbid curiosities sive Disorder (1998) or from taking a whiff about copycat criminals survived the end of the Cicara Company knock-off of Ob- of the Cold War, the crumbling of the Ber- session for men, called, oh yes, Compul- lin Wall, the end of Apartheid, the de- sion.2 cline of the Hoover FBI, and iterations Compulsion and obsession are both of political conservatism. To argue that engaged by Philip Jenkins, but the hy- "Once the serial murderer was invented phenate disorder that arose concurrently . . . the concept developed its own mo- with the specter of the serial murderer is mentum, since it possessed a kind of in- surprisingly absent from his essay, as is ternal logic," is to endow it with an in- also the idea of "copycat" crimes, a phrase ternal animating force (logic possesses it) new to the 20th century and more deeply and divorce the concept from its continu- etched in the 1990s in terms of copycat ing context. murder. If serial murder, "ultimate evil," We can better appreciate the context was conceived as an absolutely antiso- of serial murder and its complement, cial impulse, thoroughly unresponsive to copycat murder, through the more per- therapy and impossible to suppress, then vasive, persuasive cultural construct of copycat murder was its socialized twin, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, whose complexly mediated and dependent key symptoms echo behavior both serial upon acknowledgment of verisimilitude and copycat: a rigorous sequentiality of or upon blatant confusion with the origi- personal rituals; constant, exact, anxious nal. While serial murder has been terri- repetition; awkwardness with the Many; fying because the ostensible mediocrity, desires always to be in control and con-

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comitant fears of losing control, hence encourages what Jenkins neatly terms extreme discomfort, à la Jack Nicholson "serial confession." The social construc- in As Good As It Gets (1998), with the un- tion of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder predictable, the unscheduled, the animal, answers nicely to the social construction the spontaneous, the unique. of serial murder. I am reluctant to maintain that the Readers may see where I am going: relatively sudden conjoining of obsessive obsessive-compulsiveness is richly ex- and compulsive prompted the cultural pressive of our culture of the copy, where construction either of serial or of copy- to be in control is to be able freely to re- cat murder, but I do maintain that ob- peat (owning syndication rights or com- sessive-compulsiveness was sufficiently mitting copycat crimes ranging from pi- powerful a mythopoetic figure that it racy to murder); where to be out of con- could propel both well beyond Reagan's trol is to be compelled to repeat (assem- America. The hyphenate disorder ar- bly-line work, interrogation in emer- rived on the scene in sync with personal gency rooms, or serial murder) or to lose computers, laser copiers, satellite dishes, track of all pattern; and where unique- and compact disks, none of which has ness puts everything in quadruple jeop- left the stage or become senile, and all of ardy—isolation and exposure, absolute which make the world ever-more value and absolute insignificance. Con- quickly serial and irresponsibly repro- joining obsessive and compulsive, our ducible. The hyphenate disorder helps era has moved beyond Lacan's joking us understand how a serial murderer Freud and criticism's literary Lacan, be- could be seen to have an "absolute lack yond a core individual who, experienc- of self-control" yet conduct the "repeated ing alack a loss, must express itself in premeditation" crucial to committing order to make itself known per se and murders that sternly replicate format, viable extra se. Underlying the taxonomy victim, and situation. OCD may even by which there has come to be this hy- help us understand why the serial mur- phenate disorder is a revised psychologi- derer is supposed usually to be male: an cal anthropology grounded not in loss obsessive woman has more approved or but in plethora and indeterminatenessness. conventional gender-biased outlets in That last is no typo: for several de- arenas of finicky detail (housecleaning, cades we have been working ourselves hygiene, cosmetics, food/dieting rituals, into a stage of confusion about original- sewing) than does a man, whose obses- ity and causality in which indeterminate- sions may go unrewarded and unac- ness has become a subset of something knowledged until more drastic action is vaguely larger, like the Ness of Loch taken, but for such action to be Ness. Here I must move on from serial- sanctionable, the more stolid man must ity, murder, and monsters to obvious in- feel that he is yielding to a force not his tersections with a "Colonial Catwalk." own. Culturally integral to obsessiveness Peter Shand's essay, elegant, piercing, in men is therefore (?) a compulsiveness and Peircian, suffers—as perhaps we all that releases one from guilt even as it

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henceforth must—from indeterminate- theory of the power of symbols to trans- nessness. It seems that we are, as upright fer meaning that Peirce himself would human beings, obliged to honor the shudder at the untoward outcome, in wholeness and aesthetic integrity of a which communication is paralyzed be- culture out of which comes a visual de- cause no two exactly share life experi- vise (to be eventually confused with a ences; or barbed and barricaded, because device) that closely resembles devises no two want to share what they have characteristic of other distant, distinct seen or felt or learned, for fear of being cultures. At the same time, then, that exploited, abused, mistaken; or trade- commercial appropriation by foreigners marked and commercialized, because or estranged descendants may act as a each of us deserves to be rewarded for blood thinner, reducing and redistribut- any insight, invention, and cultural pro- ing the protein of the koru symbol more duction to which we are privy. A success- globally, it also paradoxically strength- ful defense of proprietary (notions of) ens the connection between koru and devises plays into the grasping hands of Maori culture by referring the devise multinational monopoly capitalism, regularly and exclusively to that origi- which prefers to localize, objectify, legal- nating context by which the koru "seems ize, brand, sterilize, and then market for to speak of a specific, though non-eth- profit. nocentric, collective identity, of contem- Indeterminateness is one tactic for porary nationhood for New Zealand" avoiding that subtly circular coercion and not to those in Egypt, Greece, China, through which self-defense tightens into or Peru who may have created and inte- self-definition, self-definition locks down grated a visually similar devise or motif. into proprietary restrictions, and propri- What is a "specific, though non-eth- etary restrictions sanction more secure nocentric, collective identity"? As Shand self-defense. An indigenous group may himself demonstrates, the koru is no iso- choose not to enter into this tightening lated or hegemonic visual element but noose by ignoring or denying the cul- something woven, with other devises, tural particularity or dominance of any through Maori language, architecture, and all devises others may happen upon, and habits of mind. It draws its power but this does not assure that it will es- from the weave, an open weave with cape all market devices, some of which room for many new maneuvers. To the are quite effective at restrictively defin- degree that the koru is woven deter- ing groups who want rather to be left minedly but indeterminately through alone and indeterminate. What, these the weave, to that degree it is Maori. days (would that Shand had posed this Is it useful to worry over "a disloca- question more explicitly), given the eco- tion of the source from its initial cultural nomic and legal systems under which we context" (Shand, on a painting by Gor- labor, is "self-determination"? What can don Walters)? Too much anxiety and we it possibly be? would be forced to entertain so weak a Indeterminatenessness is the atmo-

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sphere in which one no longer knows How can you resist? whether the diffusion (and consequent Paul Carter, in response, has intro- diffuseness) of an object, symbol, idea, duced and expanded upon the notion of or identity is morally and politically for The Sound In-Between (1992). His work is the better or worse. Is it better that Maori most relevant here because his inquiry institutions define and restrict the use of into the peculiar historical processes of the koru and other Maori devises, so that "first contact" and auditory transmission at least the Maori profit from their uses is equally attentive to aboriginal and and control their contexts, though in so European sound systems, aboriginal and doing they isolate and make proprietary European notions of landedness, causal- what before was woven through and ity, and time. Carter presumes that, at shared among them? Or is it better for least in the beginning, strangers are ea- the sake of human relations and global ger to communicate with each other. In intercourse that an international lan- their eagerness they listen hard and al- guage of shared symbols develops that ways mis-hear the sounds of the other. may eventually subvert its current ve- From these mishearings they build a hicle, multinational proprietary capital- soundscape and collaborate in the inven- ism? tion of sounds foreign to both sides, Art to be sure has an unusual if not words and pidgin tongues by which to unique role here. Once detached from make themselves intermittently know- other cultural activities either by the able to each other, however miscon- market or in defense against or exploita- strued. The misunderstandings are mu- tion of that market, artmaking shifts from tual and often mutually innovative as the obsessive to the obsessive-compul- they ravel themselves into new acoustic sive. That is, it moves from a paramount structures, names, phrases, lexicons, and concern with materials, craft tradition, songs. Indeterminateness need not lead intricate detail, and inherent mana (a to indeterminatenessness but to unantici- word long misappropriated from an- pated forms of expression that work im- other set of Pacific islanders), to a con- perfectly but impressively across many cern with forces beyond oneself that are levels (Carter 1992). disturbingly seductive. To be blunt, in a Carter's writings are curiously absent world that suddenly desires koru, why from Shand's bibliography, but Shand not make what you have always made, and the Maori do struggle with "in-be- with your individual flair, for a greater tweenness," mostly with regard to time. profit than you had ever expected, and Fundamental to Shand's legal discussion make it again and again, sometimes un- is the commonplace oxymoron of a "dy- der deadline, sometimes in entirely new namic tradition" and the battle to pro- environments? How can you not do this? tect what has been one's patrimony even How can you not see this as an opportu- as one continues to invent toward the nity to give others a sense of your own future. Modernism and capitalism are tradition, your own values? How can the grand at the latter, so long as the future request not also be taken as a command? is indeterminately short-term. How can

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moral beings, let alone "tradition" in its skill at doing it, or our need to continue wider senses, survive modern and doing it for the sake of our sense of our- postmodern worlds of highlights, di- selves or preservation of a vanishing way gests, episodes, and repeats? How can of life. time be reconfigured so that the future It occurs to me that the hyphenate is not discounted even as the past is disorder arose not only in conjunction burped and usurped? Can one arrange with a host of new duplicating devices a slow future to accommodate a thought- and electronic media but also in conjunc- ful past? Or is this notion of the past too tion with a host of newly elaborated romantic, given the violent changes, so- forms of investment banking, stock bro- cial upheavals, and power realignments kerage, accounting practices, and corpo- that have been elemental to Maori "tra- rate profit-taking. These latter were in- ditions" as to many others well before the extricably bound to the former, for their flood of Europeans and their entrepre- success depended upon rapid massive neurial economies? calculations, instant replication, and Admiring as I am of Shand's essay, I cheap distribution—of initial prospec- find it exemplary of other failed attempts tuses, of announcements of expected to fend off the obsessive-compulsiveness profits and future dividends, of repeated and indeterminatenessness of monopoly statements of confidence, of electronic (or oligopoly) capitalism by putting in encouragements to invest—all within a question various "asymmetries." Flip- more hectic, "noisy" market for which pantly, one might say that obsession with sets of new, nonlinear algorithms were profit-no-matter-what in no-time-at-all invoked. In economic, social, and psy- compels people and groups on all sides chological frames, obsessive-compul- of the global market to be obsessed with siveness produces at best a paradise of defending the proprietary nature of what fractal detail, obstinately repeating itself they do and who they are, to so great an at each scale. Its complement is extent that eventually human rights be- indeterminatenessness, for in extremis come intemperately fused with property there is no end and no out to obsessive- rights, including but not limited to so- compulsiveness; it demands constant called intellectual property rights. Less vigilance and invention. flippantly, one might observe that obses- How might one escape? Carol Muller sive-compulsiveness, though mayhap a would no doubt talk about playfulness, customary trait of the legal mind since about the many ways that "covering" the time of Sumer, has come to its cur- songs and performances in postwar rent hyphenated fore precisely because Cape Town facilitated a proximate sub- who we are and what we do is increas- version of White rules. The obsessiveness ingly defined by acts of repetition: con- with which Sathima Bea Benjamin, stantly re-representing ourselves, or hav- Abdullah Ibrahim, and their peers lis- ing ourselves willynilly re-presented, re- tened repeatedly to American pop and screened, re-recorded; doing over and jazz could have become what European over again what we do in order to dem- onstrate either our love of doing it, our

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explorers since the Greeks have seen as ally hold to their own voices after years the marvelous "apishness" of indigenous of obsessive imitation. How did this per- peoples, but instead (as usual in the haps contribute to resistance to Apart- Caribbean, in South America, in Oceania heid? Muller cites the work of Michael . . .), these acts of mime became transfor- Taussig and looks toward "code-switch- mative, helping the "Colo[u]red" popu- ing" as a significant form of alterity. It is lation handle the anomalies and aston- true, code-switching could empower, but ishing contradictions of Apartheid. it was widespread long before jazz, and Their learning and their transforma- was not necessarily transformed by the tion would have been impossible with- "covering" of jazz or pop. Cape musicians out the plethora of sound recordings and could become superb exemplars of the films to which they were avid audience, process, but Muller does not show that whether on phonographs or "in the air," the music or the obsessive imitation of on radio. Too often, acts of obsessive cul- the music did anything to change it. tural imitation have been explained so- I would suggest a more homeopathic, ciologically and psychologically by if still incomplete, explanation. The ob- pointing toward deprivation (lack), loss, sessiveness with which Cape musicians fear, and emptiness, or socio-historically imitated Western jazz and pop music and by the "understandable" desire to be- singers was simultaneously an obverse come modern and up-to-date. To her expression of and an excellent innoculant credit, Muller shows us how the enthu- against the increasing obsessiveness of siastic working-class response to Ameri- the Apartheid regime in the 1950s. As the can jazz and popular music was condi- regime became not only obsessive but tioned far less by poverty or fear than by compulsive, insistent on obedience to a the "mixed" backgrounds of so many set of illogical, incommensurate, and ad- Cape "Colo[u]reds," who came to the ministratively impossible categories of music from such rich pathways that they race and parentage, Cape musicians, had substantial recourse for recalling singers, and jazz lovers were exploring their own voice. the limits and consequences of obsessive- But Muller struggles to show us how ness.4 Managing to avoid compulsive- their obsessive musical and stylistic imi- ness and retrieve their own voices, they tation or the concomitant habits of had expertise in anticipating the mind—accuracy, patience, close listen- deathliness (and musical deadness) of ing—worked somehow to undermine obsessiveness become compulsive. Ex- Apartheid. Jimmy Adams and fellow perience with acts of obsessive copying jazz musicians were well aware, as across cultures and sounds enabled them Muller shows quite nicely, that they were to work their way around some of the working with "the sound in-between," traps of Apartheid and eventually, per- hearing jazz as Cape musicians would haps, to show up the regime's true dis- hear it, not as African-Americans or Hol- order behind its compulsiveness: the re- lywood heard it, so they would eventu- turn of the politically repressed by way of the obsessively expressed.

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At this point, I should be upbraided consider (and revamp?) the rhetoric of for having granted an elevated reality to likeness by which so much is made mon- a social construction of the 1980s, Obses- strous (see Jenkins), so much is belittled sive-Compulsive Disorder, which may (see Shand), and so much is lost only to not have had much more original be regained (see Muller). We will need grounding than the specter of serial to begin with sounds in-between (listen murder tracked over the same years by to Carter). From there, who knows—a Jenkins. Although laboratory evidence new poetics? a new pedagogy of simile for OCD as a neurobiological disorder and metaphor? a wildly impulsive dis/ was soon developed, the diagnosis was order? earlier invoked in other contexts that predetermined the fold of symptoms, the shape of treatment, and agreeable prog- noses. What then could justify my leap, first, from a social constructionist model Notes of the hyphenate disorder to a 1 All extrapolated from the 2nd revised edition mythopoeic mode, and next to claims for of the Oxford English Dictionary. OCD not only as analogical but explana- 2 For works on OCD, see Yaryura-Tobias tory? 1983; Jenike, Baer, and Minichiello 1986; I have, I admit, built this commentary Hendrix 1989; and Zohar, Insel, and on a house of bards, in part because the Rasmussen 1991. The OED lists earlier subjects of the essays themselves—serial uses of the phrase “obsessive-compul- murder in North America, the koru in sive” in psychiatric (1927) and political New Zealand, and jazz "covering" in contexts (1965 New Statesman, “Reagan Cape Town—all seem to beg for a has been associated with the obsessive- mythopoeic exploration generally ne- compulsive faction of the Republic glected by the three essayists, in part be- right”). However, the major monographs cause the academic tone and stylistics of cementing the hyphen do not appear each essay apparently led each of them until the 1980s—with Reagan and his away from the heart of the matter. The “obsessive-compulsive faction” in office. heart of the matter in each case is not Some readers with a more historical panic and complicity, copyright and co- bent may be surprised by my claim that optation, or performance and race, but Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was likeness and how it works in a world so fully constituted only in the 1980s, given accustomed by its media, legal systems, the work of German E. Berrios, who has economics, and technologies, to repeated claimed in two articles (1989, 1995) that instances of seriality, a plethora of knock- the current working definition was offs, and the indeterminatenessnesses of established a century earlier. The com- authenticity. prehensive nosology available for OCD That's our job, I suspect, for the next in 1880s Europe did not however lend decades of this new millennium: to re- itself to any larger cultural or popular notions; for example, obsession is never

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linked to compulsion in Poole’s index of esp. Copycat (1995) and Connelly (1995). periodical literature for the 19th century. Consider also “Murder by Numbers,” Instead, obsession was filtered through performed by Sting/Police for the Freudian lenses of neuroses for another soundtrack of the motion picture Copycat seventy-five years at least. Cultural (1995): expansions of OCD began only after Once that you’ve decided on a World War II as the spectra of symptoms killing, first you make a stone of and severity were themselves gradually your heart. extended. See, e.g., Skoog and Skoog And if you find that your hands (1999), with a somewhat defensive are still willing, then you can turn commentary by Lawrence H. Price et al. a murder into art. (1999). See also Dai (1957) and Regner There really isn’t any need for (1959). One index of the cultural expan- bloodshed, you just do it with a sion of OCD was the shift, not clear until little more finesse. the 1970s, from OCD as an “illness” or you can slip a tablet into “neurosis” to OCD as a more generic and someone’s coffee, then it avoids an more widely applicable “disorder.” awful lot of mess. Contrast Gutheil (1959) and Goeppert (1960) with Derogatis et al. (1974) and chorus: Moore (1974). We can observe the next It’s murder by numbers 1, 2, 3. stage, in which OCD, now fully cultur- It’s as easy to learn as your ABC. ally constituted, supports a popular Murder by numbers, 1, 2, 3. notion of daily behaviors that are nota- It’s as easy to learn as your ABCs. bly obsessive-compulsive but not necessarily malignant, in Searle (1981); If you have a taste for this experi- cf. O’Guinn and Faber (1989) and ence, and you’re flushed with Dulaney and Page (1994). Indeed, some your very first success, of the possible malignancies of OCD then you must try a twosome or a were transferred over to new disorders, threesome, and you’ll find your one of the 1980s (panic disorder) and one conscience bothers you much less. of the 1990s (stalking); see Angst (1998) Because murder is like anything and Lowney and Best (1995). you take to, it’s a habit-forming 3 Also surprisingly absent is reference to need for more and more. any of the works that use social construc- You can bump off every member tionist theory to address parallel devel- of your family, and anybody else opments, as in the sudden escalation of you find a bore. rhetoric over kidnapped children, for which see Joel Best (1990), who also led an NEH Summer Seminar on Social Constructionist theories. On the copycat’s history, see Freeman (1914) and Moran (1998). On copycat murder, see

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chorus, etc. Connelly, Michael. 1995. The Concrete 4 Here it would be helpful to consult Bowker Blond. New York: St. Martin's. and Star (1999) on classification issues under Copycat. 1995. Directed by Jon Amiel. Apartheid. Los Angeles: Warner Brothers. Works Cited Dai, Bingham. 1957. Obsessive- Compulsive Disorders in Chinese Culture. Social Prob- Angst, J. 1998. Panic Disorder: His- lems 4: 313-21. tory and Epidemiology. European Psychiatry 13 (suppl. Derogatis, L. R., et al. 1974. The 2, April):51s-55s. Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL): A Self Report Symp- As Good as it Gets. 1998. Directed by tom Inventory. Behavioral James L. Brooks. Culver City, Science 19 (1):1-15. CA: TriStar Home Video. Dulaney, Siri, and Alan Page. 1994. Berrios, German E. 1989. Obsessive- Cultural Rituals and Obses- Compulsive Disorder: Its sive-Compulsive Disorder: Is Conceptual History in France There a Common Psychologi- during the 19th Century. cal Mechanism? Ethos 22 Comprehensive Psychiatry 30 (3):243-83. (4):283-95. Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins. Berrios, German E. 1995. Obsessive- 1914. The Copy-Cat & Other Compulsive Disorder. In A Stories. New York: Harper & History of Clinical Psychiatry: Brothers. The Origin and History of Psychiatric Disorders, edited by Goeppert, H. 1960. Zur Roy Porter. New York: New Psychopathologie der York University Press. Zwangskrankheit (On the Psychopathology of Obses- Best, Joel. 1990. Threatened Children: sive-Compulsive Illness). Rhetoric and Concern about Zeitschrift f_r klinische Child-Victims. Chicago: Uni- Psychologie, Psychopathologie versity of Chicago. und Psychotherapie 7 (1-2):38- Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan 47. Leigh Star. 1999. Sorting Gutheil, Emil A. 1959. Problem of Things Out: Classification and Therapy in Obsessive-Com- Its Consequences. Cambridge, pulsive Neurosis. American MA: MIT. Journal of Psychotherapy Carter, Paul. 1992. The Sound In- 13:793-808. Between: Voice, Space, Perfor- Hendrix, Mary Lynn. 1989. Obsessive- mance. Kensington: New compulsive Obsessive-compul- South Wales Press. sive Obsessive-compulsive Disorder: Useful Information

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from the National Institute of Natural History of Obsessive- Mental Health. Washington: Compulsive Disorder. Ar- US Department of Health and chives of General Psychiatry 56 Human Services. (2):131-32. Jenike, Michael A., Lee Baer, and Regner, Ellis G. 1959. Obsessive- William E. Minichiello, eds. Compulsive Neuroses in 1986. Obsessive Compulsive Children. Acta Psychiatrica et Disorders: Theory and Manage- Neurologica 34:110-25. ment. Littleton, MA: PSG. Salzman, Leon. 1968. The Obsessive Lowney, Kathleen S., and Joel Best. Personality: Origins, Dynamics, 1995. Stalking Strangers and and Therapy. New York: Lovers: Changing Media Science House. Typifications of a New Crime Searle, Maureen. 1981. Obsessive- Problem. In Images of Issues: Compulsive Behavior in Typifying Contemporary Social American Medicine. Social Problems, edited by Joel Best. Science and Medicine 15E 2nd ed. Hawthorne, NY: (3):185-93. Aldine de Gruyter. Skoog, Gunnar, and Ingmar Skoog. Moore, Robert L. 1974. Justification 1999. A Forty-Year Follow-Up without Joy: Psychohistorical of Patients with Obsessive- Reflections on John Wesley's Compulsive Disorder. Ar- Childhood and Conversion. chives of General Psychiatry 56 History of Childhood Quarterly (2):121-27. 2 (1):31-52. Straus, Erwin W.M. 1968. On Obses- Moran, Albert. 1998. Copycat Televi- sion: A Clinical and Method- sion: Globalisation, Program ological Study. New York: Formats and Cultural Identity. Nervous and Mental Disease Luton, Bedfordshire: Univer- Monographs, 1948. Reprint, sity of Luton Press. New York: Johnson Reprint. O'Guinn, Thomas C., and Ronald J. Yaryura-Tobias, Jose A. 1983. Obses- Faber. 1989. Compulsive sive-Compulsive Disorders: Buying: A Phenomenological Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, Treat- Exploration. Journal of Con- ment. New York: Dekker. sumer Research 16 (2):147-57. Zohar, Joseph, Thomas R. Insel, and Osborn, Ian. 1998. Tormenting Steven Rasmussen, eds. 1991. Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Psychobiology of Obsessive- The Hidden Epidemic of Obses- Compulsive Disorder. New sive-Compulsive Disorder. New York: Springer. York: Pantheon Books. Price, Lawrence H., et al. 1999. The

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Copy Wrong and Copyright: tion and in that sense the "tradition Serial Psychos, Coloured Covers, bearer" (a rather dubious term to say the and Maori Marks least) is someone who copies. Ritual can be linked both to seriality, referring to Diarmuid Ó Giolláin regular succession, as well as to repro- University of Notre Dame/ duction, since it should follow a pre- scribed form in its performance and of- University College, Cork ten imitates a myth or an aspect of a myth. But copying presupposes that the he three papers, in very differ- copy is as stable a form as the original. ent ways, deal with questions of The difficulty of the notion of the copy T reproduction, from the good and in folklore is that folklore itself—rather the bad, so to speak, to the ugly—the like language—is usually understood as assimilation of American popular music being anonymous, communal, and char- by "coloureds" in South Africa discussed acterized by variation, where the by Carol Ann Muller; the appropriation superorganic "original" exists only in the of indigenous cultures in New Zealand, virtual world of langue or competence or the subject of Peter Shand's paper; serial Aarne-Thompson type, and the "copy" murder in the USA, discussed by Philip alone—parole, performance, version— Jenkins. Each discusses the legitimacy of has an objective existence, even if only "copying," and shows how it can indi- in the moment of utterance. If variation cate both orthodoxy and deviance, self- characterizes an art form, then can the expression and lack of originality, conti- notion of ownership even exist, and if nuity and appropriation. It seems clear ownership, copyright? Copying, after all, that the context of the copying as much presupposes an original. Still, J.H. as and perhaps more than the object of Delargy has shown in "The Gaelic Sto- the copying is what raises the complex ryteller" that storytellers could have issues discussed by the three authors. some sense of ownership of tales. He tells Seriality, reproduction, and copying of a storyteller who was anxious that his are subjects that have been discussed in rival should not hear a tale he told and folkloristics mostly under other names. was particularly proud of. About to be- Hans Naumann's concept of "gesunkenes gin his tale in a house one night he asked Kulturgut" in the 1920s saw the reproduc- was his rival present. Satisfied that he tion of elements of high culture by the was not he told his favorite tale, where- lower social classes as characterizing upon the rival emerged from hiding call- much folklore materials. The passing of ing out "I have the tale now in spite of literary tales into oral tradition has been you!", immediately began to tell it, and studied in many contexts. The notion of finished as dawn was breaking (Delargy tradition, central to the discipline for 1945, 200). much of its history, has conventionally The jealous storyteller, of course, did been understood as a form of reproduc- not invent the tale, which he had ac-

quired in the same way that he acquired way that pre-copyright culture always the rest of his repertoire. But the fact that did. True folk music, for instance, is no the tale was not widely known gave him longer possible" (Lütticken 2002, 89). a certain advantage over his rival, and Capitalist society at least acknowledges the advantage depended on the rival re- this problem with time limitations on maining ignorant of it. This is still not copyright, after which the work of art the same as intellectual property, though falls into the public domain. At the time ownership of a kind may accrue from an of writing, a case in the US Supreme admired individual interpretation. An- Court is challenging the success of ma- thony McCann's work on the controver- jor players in the culture industries, such sial expansion of the Irish Music Rights as Disney, in repeatedly extending their Organization into the domain of tradi- copyright beyond the usual expiry date tional music shows how it led to an even- ("Larry Lessig vs. Hollywood," Chicago tual contractual agreement with the prin- Tribune, 9 October 2002). cipal traditional music organization un- Culture as an intellectual commons, der the terms of which "traditional mu- to which all members of a community sic in its original form" was free of copy- have access as a resource for building the right, whereas recognized individual in- future, is a metaphor widely used in the terpretation was not (McCann 2002, 70). context of the privatization of the world's This question of authorship and autho- cultural and natural heritage. While the rization is one of the issues discussed in medical and agronomic knowledge pro- depth in Peter Shand's complex and en- duced by non-Western cultures—re- lightening article on intellectual property ferred to as indigenous or traditional rights and indigenous arts. knowledge—has been treated as nature, Copyright can threaten as well as pro- and subjected to various forms of exploi- tect a community's cultural heritage. tation from patenting to genetic engi- Privatizing the cultural resources shared neering, the Romantic cult of the artist's by a community is a form of alienation originality and autonomy underlies the and—notionally, at least—breaks the copyrighting of cultural heritage in the chain of transmission by which cultural West (cf. Sheri J. Tatsch, review of On traditions span the past, present, and Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, future. According to Sven Lütticken, Knowledge, and the Environment, edited by "[w]e have reached a strangely archaic Luisa Maffi, in this volume). state of civilization, where the idea of emulation has given way to the taboos of copyright—as if Barbie and Harry (i) Potter were images of gods guarded by The intellectual commons is very differ- a caste of priests, and to make ent to the right to appropriate at will from unsanctified use of them were blasphe- other cultures. The concept suggests a mous" (Lütticken 2002, 90). The band reciprocity based above all on relative Negativland argue that "cultural evolu- equality, which is not a characteristic of tion is no longer allowed to unfold in the the relationships between indigenous

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peoples and settler peoples. But neither ating an authentic German literature. is it a characteristic of the relationships Indigenous groups, though incorpo- between the traditional arts and the for- rated into the wider society through state mal systems of commerce and law. In institutions and capitalism, have rarely practice it is often difficult to distinguish (the exceptions being Latin American) between notions of the indigenous, the provided a symbolic foundation for the traditional, and the popular, which are modern nation-state. Indigenous cul- modern notions and indeed are con- tures, like European traditional cultures, structed as the other of modernity. In have been idealized from the pre-Ro- some ways they coincide with Gramsci's mantic to the postmodern eras as implicit notion of the subaltern. Both the indig- or explicit challenges to modernity, but enous and the traditional may also rest their specificity, their authenticity, de- on ethnic distinctiveness, and the former pended on their distance from moder- nearly always so, but they are subject to nity. The "noble savage" to Rousseau and the control of the state and national soci- folk culture to the Romantics were meant ety. to relativize the universalist claims of The modern state wishes to integrate European high culture in the way that both "the traditional" and "the indig- "indigenous knowledge" today enous" into national life. The industrial relativizes the Western episteme (cf. era, contends Ernest Gellner, is the age Gupta 1998, 172, 179). European folk of a universal high culture (Gellner 1983, culture's symbolic value, though, unlike 35), and he argues that in the develop- that of indigenous culture, was above all ment of the modern European nation- in the national domain, and copyright of state the options for folk culture were the consequent folklore archives rested either "induced oblivion" or "created not so much with the contributors or memory" (Gellner 1996, 139). In the lat- their descendants as with national insti- ter case, where high culture was usually tutions. of foreign origin, traditional culture was It is dominant groups in society who appropriated to provide a symbolic un- determine which cultural elements are derpinning for the modern nation-state. superior and worthy of being preserved. Traditional cultures since the time of Subaltern groups may create cultural Herder have been appropriated as na- products of great aesthetic value, as tional culture: this is Gramsci's notion of Néstor García Canclini points out, but the "national-popular," exemplified in they have not the same possibilities to the creative ambiguity of the German accumulate these products over time, to word "Volk": nation, people, and plebs elaborate them through formal training (see Forgacs 1993, 187-188). The value of and institutionalization, and to gain rec- traditional culture to Herder was that it ognition for them as part of the general reproduced the Volksgeist. This did not cultural heritage (García Canclini 1995, preclude high culture from doing like- 137). Gramsci depicted folklore as "a con- wise, although in practice it did not; that ception of the world and life" that was was the reason for Herder's project of cre- not elaborated or systematic since these

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latter qualities are in fact characteristic "primitive art" and "folk art" in the twen- of hegemony (Gramsci 1985, 189). With- tieth century led both to their "promo- out this elaboration, it is more difficult tion" to high art, through institutions of to protect cultural products through patronage such as collectors, specialist copyright. journals, and galleries, which empha- Claude Grignon and Jean-Claude sized singularity, and to the place-spe- Passeron see cultural relativism as attrib- cific, "typical," qualities of tourist kitsch, uting autonomy to popular cultures, but which depended on mass production. to do so "it must . . . treat dominated cul- But these cases may not represent appro- tures as if they were not so." An alterna- priation as such since the indigenous or tive position they outline refuses to ig- folk producer may supply the market. It nore the relationships of force underly- is when the outsider enters the picture ing the various statuses of different that the accusation of appropriation groups constituting a legitimate social comes into play. Hence, looking at the order. Where "the populist marvels at appropriation of indigenous cultural discovering the symbolic treasures in a products, Peter Shand sees a divide in popular culture . . . the bourgeois like the practice between "a commercial use with misérabiliste sees only penury" (Grignon high intellectual pretensions (the fine arts and Passeron 1989). Néstor García market)" and a "more base and more ex- Canclini extends this argument. He ar- plicitly commercial exploitation." He gues that "the majority of the texts on defines appropriation "as a mode of cul- craftwork, festivals, and traditional mu- tural engagement [that] is dependent on sic catalogue and exalt popular products an ability to separate a given object or without situating them in the logic design from its cultural milieu for the present in social relations. They limit purposes of its employment in a differ- themselves . . . to listing and classifying ent one," pointing out that "it is predi- those pieces . . . which stand out by their cated on formalist assumptions as to the resistance or indifference to change" recognition and meaning of cultural heri- (García Canclini 1993b, 65-67, 71-73). The tage." process of identifying this "resistance or This definition is not that far removed indifference to change" is a form of elabo- from Lauri Honko's notion of "the sec- ration whereby popular artistic forms are ond life of folklore," referring to folklore "fixed" by the collector. As such they are material being used "in an environment more easily owned and copyrighted. that differs from its original cultural con- Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has text," and Honko makes a convincing pointed out that the process of collection case for the rejection of more negative creates scarcity, and turns serial ethno- notions in order "to try to restore the re- graphic objects into singular artifacts search value of events in the second life that, because of their singularity, acquire of folklore to something approaching the aura of the art object (Kirshenblatt- their indisputable cultural value" Gimblett 1991, 388-393). (Honko 1991, 43). Néstor García Canclini The development of markets for argues that what he calls "cultural recon-

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version" prolongs the existence of tradi- reason, though within limits, since tional cultural forms by articulating them indigeneity also points to prior owner- to modern processes: ship of and a continued moral claim to the land. Symbols of national identity or cultural reconversions, in addition to national qualities taken from nature in being strategies for social mobility, or settler societies—bald-headed eagles, for following the movement from the maple leaves, kiwi birds, kangaroos, traditional to the modern, are hybrid sabras (though let it be said that this is a transformations generated by the special case)—in part sidestep that prob- horizontal coexistence of a number of symbolic systems. . . . High, popular, lem. and mass art nourish each other re- Colonialism has decimated indig- ciprocally. (García Canclini 1992) enous communities. Every indigenous language in the Americas, Australia, and Still, Shand does not quite accept the New Zealand is endangered. Indigenous postmodern position that "all forms of peoples are alienated from their own eth- cultural production occur within a com- nic traditions and yet excluded from plex field of interaction, quotation, and equal membership in the dominant set- re-quotation." He supports the conten- tler society. Not unaware of modern po- tion that "to try to isolate the koru [a litical ideas, they have a variety of atti- much appropriated Maori pattern] in tudes towards their own heritage. Defin- any way would stifle its ability to coming a community is difficult in ethno- municate and participate in contempo- graphic practice, while legal definitions rary culture." Shand argues that "it is not are inevitably conservative and fossiliz- clear that the languages (linguistic, artis- ing. The community's own depiction of tic, symbolic) of indigenous peoples are itself may represent a traditional ideal of so 'cut loose,'" though his contention that cultural reproduction, while the state's "language is what sustains people," understanding of the community may be backed up by a Maori saying that when the product of the bleak statistics of its language is lost "humanity will be lost," own most interventionist agencies. The is a rather Herderian argument. ideal self-definition of the community In settler societies, settlers' culture is may be part of an attempt to "hold" his- often experienced as imitative and pro- tory when history has been experienced vincial, a copy lacking both the metro- as a succession of catastrophes, but it can politan sophistication and the sense of also silence voices within itself. Defini- place of its European source. "We Brazil- tions of the community essential to the ians and other Latin Americans con- legal protection of community-based stantly experience the artificial, inauthen- cultural products are thus fraught with tic and imitative nature of our cultural difficulty. life," as Roberto Schwarz has put it in a If indigenous culture has become celebrated essay (Schwarz 1992, 1). Ele- greatly weakened, it may be more diffi- ments of indigenous culture have often cult to distinguish its products from been subject to appropriation for that those of the rest of the population. Beate

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Sydhof has referred to such a problem position "looks to the retention of the in the case of European "folk art": "We philosophies, significations, have assigned it the role of a concept knowledges, and strategies of indig- from the old rural society and set it in enous peoples as being the key to any the mould of an antiquated relic." She consideration of the cultural expressions shows that after its alternate idealization of their making," showing how control and commercialization, it emerged "in over them is "an important site of resis- the shape of specific objects destined tance to colonial, imperial or, in recent mainly for the mass tourist market." The years, global capitalist assaults." More- problem is that "any connection with 'the over, "cultural resistance with respect to people' has long since disappeared," the the arts is a means of retaining the "people" "have gone on to create quite strength and resonance of original voices different things," and "a gulf has arisen and avoiding co-option into a dominant between the conception of folk art and cultural ethos." the reality of folk, or popular creativity" The question of indigenous rights to (Sydhof 1992, 185). cultural property is part of the general The colonizer and the colonized are question of the protection of folklore and not foreign to one another in the traditional culture, as considered in the postcolonial society. Gramsci's notions of UNESCO's 1989 "Recommendation on the hegemonic and the subaltern are use- the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture ful here since they are premised on par- and Folklore" (Seitel 2001, 8-12). The Rec- ticipation in a single social system, ommendation mentions intellectual though they may cut across colonial di- property rights in passing, though it does visions premised on race. The colonized not deal directly with issues of biopiracy. and the colonizer come to co-exist in the However, the participation of indig- one culture and indeed in the one indi- enous groups in the making of interna- vidual; this after all is the nature of he- tional legal frameworks is severely lim- gemony, and points to the problem of ited by the fact that such frameworks are defining an "authentic" indigenous cul- usually worked out between represen- ture in the absence of its complete and tatives of states. Indigenous groups were utter segregation. Discussing originality, thus refused admission to the decision- Shand argues that what matters is "what making sessions of various follow-up is consequential from the assertion of meetings to the Convention on Biologi- originality," with a gambit running from cal Diversity adopted at the 1992 Earth "strategic essentialism (original as exclu- Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where state sive and exclusionary . . . )" to "a prin- representatives monopolized the nego- ciple of respect, consultation, and autho- tiations. rization . . . ." The UNESCO Recommendation ac- He points out the continuous risk to knowledges that "[w]hile living folklore, indigenous peoples of different "forms owing to its evolving character, cannot of colonial violence—physical, environ- always be directly protected, folklore that mental, economic, and epistemic." His has been fixed in a tangible form should

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be effectively protected" (Seitel 2001, 9). tion, and an increasingly democratic sen- It does assert that member states should sibility. The "authentic" domains of high "design and introduce into both formal culture and folk culture recede before a and out-of-school curricula the teaching new popular culture that is a product of and study of folklore in an appropriate the new industrial and commercial manner" (Seitel 2001, 10), but the depen- worlds and owes much of its power— dence on member states to further the and its "inauthenticity"—to mechanical principles of the Recommendation re- reproduction (cf. de Carvalho 1992, 27, veals a key weakness when the tradi- 29). tional culture in question is that of state- The means of acquiring all cultural less peoples. forms is imitation. The traditional ap- Shand shows how these issues have prenticeship to a master was a process been explored in New Zealand and else- at the end of which the qualified practi- where. The thorny questions of author- tioner of a trade—and indeed, until the ship, ownership, copyright, authenticity, Romantic period, the artist—emerged. authorization, and identity involved Everyone who has learnt a new language may never be satisfactorily answered. will remember the laborious imitation of Still, the posing of these questions, and the teacher. Before one can compose the legal formulations that try to do jus- original sentences one must first imitate tice to them, are evidence of sincere at- those of others. A similar process is an tempts to move beyond Eurocentric important part of the history of the ac- models. quisition of American popular musical forms in South Africa, as in other coun- (ii) tries. If Hans Naumann could understand Carol Ann Muller's paper is an folklore as the copying of high culture in ethnomusicological study of the imita- a debased form, high culture in turn can tion of American music by the "coloured" "copy" folklore, as indeed it always has. inhabitants of Cape Town. European In any complex society high and popu- high culture provided a model for mem- lar cultures have always had a symbi- bers of the coloured and African elite, otic relationship with one another that whereas American popular culture ap- only extreme cultural relativist positions pealed to other social classes. "While the have sought to deny. Copying takes on state legislated to deny people of color a newer meaning in the modern age, citizenship in political terms, the media with the development of industrial capi- continued to embody a more democratic talism, increased competition in markets, sensibility." In Cape Town the copying growing commodification in ever wider and covering of the foreign music led to domains of life, improved methods of what was locally called a culture of "car- mechanical reproduction, tighter legal bon copies." The distinction Muller and commercial definitions of original- makes between the "carbon copy" and ity—and all against a backdrop of greater the "sonic mirror" is perhaps more ap- social mobility, wider access to educa- parent than real, more a question of early

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and later stages in the assimilation of the cal forms that initially were not theirs. new musical forms. American music was The much more draconian copyright learnt in very modern ways—through enforcement of today would probably radio, records, and films. This made it have precluded the "carbon copy" cul- accessible to people who by and large ture of South Africa that was possible a could not read or write music, though generation or two ago. The "[p]eople they could and did write down the posturing as 'Cape Town's own' Frank words of songs. The music reached a Sinatra, Doris Day, or Bing Crosby [who] wide audience through live cover per- brought these traditions to life" might formances. have a legal case to answer. Muller clearly explains why coloureds should so assiduously learn (iii) this music the dissemination of which Philip Jenkins looks at repetition as a paralleled the extension of the political pathological problem. He explains the and commercial power of the United ideas of seriality and uncontrollable rep- States. The music provided them with etition as obsessive pathologies in mod- representations of people like themselves ern society, examples of the irrationality and offered "a kind of cosmopolitan citi- that Protestants attributed to Catholicism zenship, a membership in a truly imag- or of the psychiatric diseases that are di- ined community of English-speaking, agnosed by modern science. Citing the modern people of color," and it sug- work of other scholars he shows how gested "possibilities for freedom, if not "the concept of serial killing is formed its full achievement, and for racial and by an elaborate process of interaction cultural equality." Another related rea- between the ostensibly 'real' world of son, which Muller does not directly criminal justice and the 'fictional' realm broach, is that modern urban society of popular culture." He sees an arche- probably invalidated many of the mod- typal figure given flesh and blood (in a els of folk culture while high culture was manner of speaking) by a combination neither accessible to the popular classes of sectional interests and a receptive pub- nor relevant to their modern urban ex- lic sphere (the latter largely articulated periences. American popular culture, by the culture industries today as by oral explicitly modern and with its seduc- tradition in the past). The interests in- tively "democratic sensibility" that volved were those of the FBI and par- seemed to transcend the notorious in- ticularly of its Behavioral Science Unit. equalities of American society, showed They were served by the spectre of itin- millions of ordinary people a way to live erant psychopaths at large who could not in the modern city that they could iden- be combatted within the jurisdictions of tify with (cf. Schou 1992, 146; García state police forces alone. Jenkins shows Canclini 1993a, 68-69). that the notion of the serial killer was Muller does not discuss the question popularized in the 1980s and he sees the of appropriation as such: the fact that consequent fear being used by conser- South Africans made their own of musi- vative political and moral agendas to

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row back on the liberal gains of the 1960s there has been a clearly political dimen- and 1970s. sion to it, as when a series of individu- Jenkins argues that repetition is at the als, often years apart, identified them- core of seriality, "and the inability to selves with a lost leader who represented avoid seriality." He contends that "the a heroic archetype. The most famous case idea of uncontrollable repetition has is that of the Portuguese king, Sebastian, proven deeply frightening to many cul- killed in battle with the Moors in 1578. tures because it denies the ability to Shortly after the battle, rumours of his choose that is central to free will." Still, survival came back to Portugal with the his reference to myth does not follow few boatloads of survivors. Over the next through on the meaning of myth as sa- twenty years four false Sebastians ap- cred narrative, closely related to ritual. peared, causing disturbances and stir- Repetition through ritual is at the core ring up rebellion. At the beginning of the of religious systems and of communal 19th century a sect of sebastianistas ap- identity. The relationship between myth peared and was opposed by the church. and history is a sometimes explosive one, The tradition of "o príncipe encuberto," "the both through the reproduction of mythi- hidden prince," remained and was re- cal archetypes over time—as in the shap- corded in Brazil in 1838 (Caro Baroja ing of historic lives by the heroic biogra- 1979, 132). phy (see de Vries 1963, Raglan 1965, and Jenkins argues that the opposite of Eliade 1971)—and through deliberate serial murder is "control, in self and so- political appeal to them—the mythical ciety," and he shows the inverse relation- reference in the name of Hitler's Opera- ship of the perversity of serial murder to tion Barbarossa gives chilling testimony the assertion of conservative values. But to that (see Iesi 1993). the notion of tradition itself, fundamen- If one can speak of an interaction be- tal to conservative, if not only to conser- tween the realms of criminal justice and vative group identity, rests on the idea of popular culture in the imagery of the of repetition. As the Irish proverb has it, serial killer, can one similarly speak of a "ná dein nós agus ná bris nós" ("don't make relationship between an individual and a custom and don't break a custom"). an archetype? Mircea Eliade writes of Repetition is also a form of control and what he calls "the mold of the archaic indeed of self-control—the following of mentality, which cannot accept what is rituals, the saying of prayers by the faith- individual and preserves only what is ful, the observing of the Sabbath, the exemplary." Thus events are reduced to marching up and down of soldiers—that categories and individuals to archetypes, helps to structure life. Repetition is also and he points out that this is done almost central to oral, if not only oral, narrative. to our own day (Eliade 1971, 43-44). The It is a central technique of the media, as influence of the heroic biography on the is seriality: the soap opera and TV series lives of historical figures is one such ex- were already prefigured in the nine- ample. In a number of celebrated cases teenth century publication of novels in from antiquity to the modern period serial form. The recent Washington

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sniper case shows how 24-hour cable From indigenous knowledge as the last news coverage of the case—putting other frontier of capitalist exploitation to the stories into the shade for the best part of Wild West-like criminal itineracy of the three weeks—played a major role in serial killer; from the appropriation of feeding public anxiety, despite the fact indigenous culture by dominant groups that the US crime rate is 26% lower than to the appropriation of American popu- a decade ago ("24-hour news stokes lar culture by oppressed groups; from nation's fear factor," Chicago Tribune, 11 imitation as compulsive pathology to November 2002). conscious self-identification through Jenkins contends that serial murder imitation; from the copy as the rip-off to made such an impact on public con- the copy as legitimate self-representa- sciousness because of its "mythological tion: reading the three papers raises a connotations," arguing that the killer "ful- number of common questions despite filled all the mythical roles of the super- the diversity of the perspectives. The natural night-prowlers of old." Straying authors of the three papers and the edi- from place to place, serial killers "lack any tors of Cultural Analysis are to be con- ties that could keep them in one place, gratulated for the wideness of scope and any conventional sense of home or fam- for the keenness of analysis. ily" and "thus symbolize the failure of traditional ideals of community in modern America." Still, the more positive role of another figure distinguished by root- lessness, individualism, and violence as a central American symbol—the cowboy—could profitably be related to the Works Cited question of the serial killer. According to Max Weber's sociological formulation, Caro Baroja, Julio. 1979. Sobre la charisma, a special quality of an formación y uso de arquetipos individual's personality setting him en Historia, Literatura y apart from others, was outside the do- Folklore. In Ensayos sobre la main of the everyday and opposed to cultura popular española. authority, but tended to recede with the Madrid: Editorial Dosbe. establishment of permanent institutional de Carvalho, José Jorge. 1992. O lugar structures (see Morris 1987, 72). Jenkins da Cultura Tradicional na suggests that the inadequacy of institu- Sociedade Moderna. In tional structures was behind the FBI's Seminário Folclore e Cultura promotion of the idea of serial killers. Is Popular. Série Encontros e the serial killer a sort of cowboy who has Estudos, 1. Rio de Janeiro: outlived the frontier? Ministério da Cultura, Instituto Brasileiro de Arte e * * * Cultura.

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Delargy, J.H. 1945. The Gaelic Storyte Gellner, Ernest. 1996. The Coming of ller. In Proceedings of the British Nationalism and Its Interpre- Academy 31:177-221. tation: The Myths of Nation Eliade, Mircea. 1971. The Myth of the and Class. In Mapping the Eternal Return; or Cosmos and Nation, edited by Gopal History. Princeton, N.J.: Balakrishnan. London and Princeton University Press. New York: Verso. Forgacs, David. 1993. National- Gramsci, Antonio. 1985. Selections popular; genealogy of a from Cultural Writings. Edited concept. In The Cultural by David Forgacs and Studies Reader, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Simon During. London and London: Lawrence and New York: Routledge. Wishart. García Canclini, Néstor. 1992. Cul- Grignon, Claude, and Jean-Claude tural Reconversion. In On Passeron. 1989. Le savant et le Edge. The Crisis of Contempo- populaire. Misérabilisme et rary Latin American Culture, populisme en sociologie et en edited by George Yúdice, Jean littérature. Paris: Seuil. Franco, and Juan Flores. Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Postcolonial Minneapolis and London: Developments. Agriculture in University of Minnesota the Making of Modern India. Press. Durham, NC and London: García Canclini, Néstor. 1993a. Trans- Duke University Press. forming Modernity. Popular Honko, Lauri. 1991. The Folklore Culture in Mexico. Austin: Process. Folklore Fellows' University of Texas Press. Summer School Programme. García Canclini, Néstor. 1993b. Turku: Folklore Fellows' Gramsci e as culturas Summer School. populares na América Latina. Iesi, Furio. 1993. Cultura di destra. In Gramsci e a América Latina, Milan: Garzanti. edited by Carlos Nelson Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1991. Coutinho and Marco Aurélio Objects of Ethnography. In Nogueira. São Paulo and Rio Exhibiting Cultures. The Poetics de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. and Politics of Museum Display, García Canclini, Néstor. 1995. Hybrid edited by Ivan Karp and Cultures. Strategies for Entering Stephen D. Lavine. Washing- and Leaving Modernity. Minne- ton and London: Smithsonian apolis and London: Univer- Institution Press. sity of Minnesota. Lütticken, Sven. 2002. The Art of Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Theft. In New Left Review Nationalism. Oxford and 13:89-106 Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

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McCann, Anthony. 2002. Beyond the Schwarz, Roberto. 1992. Brazilian Commons: The Expansion of Culture: Nationalism by the Irish Music Rights Elimination. In Misplaced Organisation, the Elimination Ideas. Essays on Brazilian of Uncertainty, and the Poli- Culture. London and New tics of Enclosure. Ph.D. diss., York: Verso. University of Limerick. Seitel, Peter, ed. 2001. Safeguarding (23 No- Center for Folklife and Cul- vember 2002). tural Heritage, Smithsonian Morris, Brian. 1987. Anthropological Institution. Studies of Religion. An Introduc- Sydhof, Beate. 1992. The Unknown tion. Cambridge: Cambridge Folk Art. In Folkkonsten—All University Press. tradition är forändring, edited Raglan, Lord. 1965. The Hero of by Beate Sydhof and Sissi Tradition. In The Study of Nilsson. Stockholm: Folklore, edited by Alan Kulturhuset. Dundes. Englewood Cliffs, de Vries, Jan. 1963. Heroic Song and N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Heroic Legend. London and Schou, Søren. 1992. Postwar New York: Oxford University Americanisation and the Press. Revitalisation of European Culture. In Media Cultures. Reappraising Transnational Media, edited by Michael Skovmand and Kim Christian Schrøder. London and New York: Routledge.

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Reviews

Forestillinger om "Den Andre"—Images explore the status of ethnic minorities in of Otherness. Edited by Line Alice the Nordic countries, the collection is Ytrehus. (Kristiansand, Norway: properly situated in the context of Høyskoleforlaget AS, 2001. Pp. 246.) European and global concerns surrounding the discursive construction he current volume is an of the "Other." ambitious effort by a group of Ytrehus's opening essay provides an Nordic scholars to address the excellent historical overview of the T construction of "Otherness" in Europe, discursive construction of and subsequent representations of the highlighting the frequent representation "Other" in Europe. The approaches of the in oral tradition and visual media of the essayists reflect a broad series of ethnic "Other" as unclean, childlike, disciplinary perspectives—linguistics, primitive, uncivilized, criminal, and a ethnography, cultural history, sociology, source of dangerous contagion. Using and folklore—and provide excellent the early nineteenth-century public insight into how an interdisciplinary displays of the African woman Saartjie approach to complex phenomena can Baartmann (the Hottentott-Venus) as a lead to an understanding that is more starting point, Ytrehus traces the than the sum of its parts. Although the development of the category of ethnic majority of the articles deal with the "Other" in modern European thought, Nordic countries, two articles move and emphasizes how "differentiation further afield to interrogate the impact and hierarchies in interpersonal of constructions of "Otherness" in relationships can have dramatic European political discourse and action. consequences for the practical The first of these articles engages Nazi- organization of everyday life" (13, my era Germany and the confluence of anti- translation). She links the emergent Semitism and anti-modernism in the category of ethnic "Other" to that of Third Reich's genocidal ideology. The burgeoning nationalism(s) in the second focuses on recent developments nineteenth century. This historical in Austria and Serbia. The volume is overview of the construction of the book-ended by two excellent critical "Other" lays the groundwork for the essays by the editor, Line Ytrehus, a ensuing articles. folklorist from the University of Bergen, In her lead-off article on the "Shifting that give analytical focus to what notions of 'Us' and 'Them' in Norway," otherwise may have been a highly Marianne Gullestad reveals how the competent—yet slightly disjointed— word innvandrer (immigrant) has, in series of articles. With Ytrehus's Norway, become a rhetorically primarily historical introductory essay charged—and overdetermined—word and her final theoretical essay revealing that carries significant political weight, the challenges confronting scholars who noting, "The meaning of the word

[innvandrer] seems to oscillate between study in the relationship between an implicit code based on 'race' (dark folklore and nation building), Anttonen skin) and social class, and a dictionary adds a significant dimension to our definition in which these categories are understanding of how, through the not relevant. This span of ambiguity Kalevala and its attendant scholarship, partly explains its rhetorical power" (49). "Sami" and "Karelians" were both Societal debate in Norway has shifted mobilized as conceptual categories in the away from issues of class to issues of process of defining a Finnish identity. He gender and cultural difference in recent reveals the ramifications of this decades, and these debates have "Othering" for the actual populations accordingly raised significant barriers for that were "Othered" in what turns out to immigrants' possibilities for being be significantly different manners. considered by non-immigrants as part of Whereas the "Sami" were "Othered" and the overarching imagined community of forced into a position where they were Norway. In large part, the innvandrere are represented as the primitive "Other" seen as a threat to the imagined (partly because of their nomadic life Norwegian community defined by a style), the Karelians became "Othered" master narrative of the welfare state. in a manner where they emerged as a Ultimately, because of the perceived window onto a lost, earlier Finnish differences—differences constructed by culture. majority discourse—that separate the Stein Mathisen picks up the thread of majority from the immigrants (this is an the "Othering" of the Sami in his essay exclusionary process), the innvandrere examining discursive constructions of emerge discursively as a threat to what the Sami in contemporary Norway. He it means to be Norwegian. Although the explores in turn three of the main particular importance of the social popular conceptions of the Sami: the welfare state in Norway—and in the magical Sami (often represented as a other Nordic countries—make potentially menacing outsider in folk Gullestad's argument immediately narrative), the primitive Sami (linked to applicable to the Nordic countries, she a nomadic lifestyle, and reflective of the correctly notes that a similar early anthropological notions of societal exclusionary process plays itself out to a development), and the contemporary large extent throughout Western Europe. notion of the ecological Sami (an Pertti Anttonen's study of the Othering akin to the process familiar in emergence of the modern nation Finland contemporary New Age practice where provides an excellent historical overview Indigenous peoples are seen as the of how folklore can be deployed in the guardians of ecological wisdom). As highly political environment of nation Ytrehus notes in her introduction, this building. While the role of Lönnrot's final construction of the Sami as Kalevala in the imagining of a Finnish ecological sentinels, and the subsequent nation has been explored by numerous attempts at "cultural preservation" other scholars (indeed, it is a classic case predicated on the need to safeguard this

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ecological wisdom, is equally limiting as from 1952, 1975, and the 1990s. She other, more deliberately exclusionary explores the structure of stereotypes, processes. offering a two-dimensional scheme for The subsequent two essays represent the classification of stereotypes, with the a marked shift in the direction of the positive-negative dichotomy defining volume and disrupt the primary focus the x-axis and the exclusive-inclusive on the Nordic countries. Although they dichotomy defining the y-axis. On the quite competently address significant basis of this model, Moldrheim is able to events in the history of ethnic relations show both historical continuities and in twentieth century Europe, indeed variation in the development of arguably the most significant, both stereotypes of the ikke-hvite (and essays seem oddly out of place. therefore not Norwegian) in the Christhard Hoffmann presents a influential popular media. One could commendably knowledgeable study of perhaps take issue with the underlying the confluence of anti-Semitism and anti- category, ikke-hvite, as Moldrheim's modernism as part of an emergent unsatisfactory explanation of her struggle over identity formation in pre- selection of the category (136-7) seems war Germany. This struggle laid the to fall prey to the exact phenomenon she foundations for the success of Nazi explores; to an extent her argument begs ideology and allowed the vicious the question. Despite this analytic lapse, genocidal policies of that regime to reach she is able to reveal how there is a clear fruition. Likewise, Martin Peterson construction of a category of people who provides an intriguing analysis of the rise are not Norwegian based on perceptions of anti-foreign sentiment and violent of skin color among, at the very least, the nationalism in Austria and Serbia. The magazine and ad-copy editors. The case of Jörg Haider's vituperative FPÖ extent to which popular reception aligns has a disturbing resonance with the with this construction of "Other" is open emergence of new ultra-nationalist to debate. parties throughout Scandinavia, such as Mette Andersson provides a the troubling emergence of Pia fascinating exploration of how young Kjærsgaard and her Dansk folkeparti as Norwegians of Pakistani heritage a major voice in Danish politics. negotiate identity in a society in which Peterson's admonition that in order to the negative stereotypes of South and combat these disquieting trends one West Asian immigrants are stacked must develop a deeper understanding against them. The manner in which these of the processes that lead to a build up stereotypes have coupled to an of nationalistic fervor and ethno-political intensification of anti-Muslim sentiment mobilization is one well heeded. in the wake of the events of September Solveig Moldrheim brings us back to 11 have made Andersson's research all the Nordic countries in her essay, the more important. She focuses her focusing on representations of ikke-hvite study on ambitious, young members of (non-whites) in Norwegian magazines the Pakistani Student Association in

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Norway. Through an analysis of her explores how informal spoken language interviews, she reveals how an can act as a marker of in-group or out- individual negotiates a series of identities group membership. Akin to the "valley on an on-going basis that, in the case of girl" talk of Frank Zappa fame, Ingrid her informants, are deliberately and Hasund explores in depth how small tactically deployed to undermine the word use in spoken Norwegian acts on narrative construction of Pakistani both an inclusive and an exclusive level Norwegians in majority discourse. as a linguistic marker of group Calling these young men and women membership. Given the broken language "ethnic entrepreneurs," she notes that that constitutes a significant element in "For these young people a central aim is the stereotypes of immigrants (see, for to contribute to the invalidation of the example, Mujaffah spillet on the website stereotypes about immigrants and of Danmarks Radio), it is clear how Pakistanis in Norway. They want to hold conceptions of the "Other" are not limited on to the minority traditions they solely to perceived differences in consider to be good, and quit with physical appearance or received notions traditions they view as oppressive and of differences in cultural practices. negative" (180). This development is The essays all stem from an consistent with the types of identity international conference held at the negotiation and cultural hybridity University of Bergen in 1999 entitled, recognized in numerous immigrant "Images of Otherness: Tradition and communities across the globe. Identity," which emerged from a larger In an essay describing SOSTRIS, research project focusing on "Det Nye" (Social Strategies in Risk Society), Birgitta [The New] at the Center for European Thorsell and Peterson combine an Cultural Studies and was funded in part overarching sociological methodology by the now defunct Nordic Network of with an ethnographic focus on Folklorists (a successor to the ill-fated individual life histories. SOSTRIS is a Nordic Institute of Folklore). Unlike project that looks at groups that have many conference volumes that are been locked out of the job market in marked by either far too much Sweden, Germany, England, France, uniformity or far too little central focus, Spain, Italy, and Greece. As such, the the current collection presents a series of project provides excellent comparative competent essays all focused on a materials across numerous European complex issue of considerable countries for our developing importance in contemporary society. understanding of the interplay between Since many of the essays are in English, structural phenomena such as the job the volume is accessible to audiences market and cultural phenomena such as outside of the Nordic countries. Of the classification of some people as course, it would have been advisable for "ethnic others" and the closely related the introduction with its essay stereotypes that purport to describe these summaries to appear in English. The "Others." The final essay in the volume volume would make an excellent

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addition to most classes focusing on On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Lan- contemporary Europe and will also be guage, Knowledge, and the Environment. of interest to researchers engaging topics Edited by Luisa Maffi. (Washington related to nationalism(s) and minority / and London: Smithsonian Institution post-colonial studies. Although some of Press, 2001. Pp. xxi + 578, introduction, the English is tinged by non-idiomatic notes, bibliography, index, illustra- expressions ("Swedish do-better" instead tions.) of "Swedish do-gooder" (191)), these minor gaffes—all of which could have n Biocultural Diversity been easily corrected by a native English approaches the dilemma of speaker—should be overlooked given language loss, the deficit of the volume's important contribution to O knowledge, and the devastation of the our understanding of the construction of environment on a global scale. Part of the the "Other" in the Nordic countries and problem is neatly summed up by D. Europe. Michael Warren: "The relationship Timothy Tangherlini between the viability of a language and University of California, Los Angeles the knowledge that has been created, preserved and maintained through that language is inextricable" (453). Biological loss is well recognized, but the loss of cultures, languages, and the knowledge contained within these human environments is ignored to a remarkable degree. The crisis now experienced by Indigenous peoples is far-reaching, possibly more so than many of these authors claim, and more so than what has been experienced ecologically. The thirty-nine contributions in this volume treat this crisis in Papua New Guinea, Botswana, Amazonia, Indone- sia, the Mayan lowlands, and the Sonoran Desert. The reader is exposed to topics including issues of globaliza- tion, the effects of ecotourism, human rights, language and politics, biological and ecological prospecting, intellectual property rights, and the domino effect of language death. The broader disciplines of the humanities, science, and law merge into an integrated approach to the

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growth of uniformity and the loss of di- Therefore, alarm at the prospect of "cul- versity taking place worldwide. tural homogenization" is unwarranted. These essays are predominantly As Harmon notes, the "biological extinc- Euro-western in perspective, but they are tions and cultural homogenization" are an excellent collection of strong compo- driven by "practical forces" (61). My sition by respected scholars. This one question is, what are these practical volume makes significant additions to forces? The forces that have that have led our base of knowledge. Among the con- to the loss of language, culture, knowl- tributors are anthropologists, linguists, edge, and the unprecedented loss of bio- sociologists, indigenous scholars, biolo- logical species can be attributed directly gists, psychologists, agriculturists, re- to colonialism of past and present. What source economists, botanists, environ- Harmon spells out clearly is that the mental researchers, and conservationists. logism biodiversity now "carries an ex- The diversity located in the interrelation- plicit, unprecedented sense of urgency, ships between the human environments of impending catastrophe" (62). of languages, cultures, and knowledge Along these same lines, Eric Smith within ecological environments is treated looks to the essential points of connec- here as an essential aspect of our very tion between biological, cultural, and lin- existence. guistic fields of study in his "On the Co- Both a utilitarian imperative and an evolution of Culture, Linguistic, and Bio- ethical imperative are enlisted here by a logical Diversity." For Smith, the impera- number of authors. In "Biodiversity and tive is that we must maintain and foster the Loss of Lineages," Brent D. Mishler an environment that enables the natural states that we as a species have no moral growth and expansion or decline of di- right to despoil a four-billion-year his- versity. Eugene Hunn makes the connec- tory of ecological development. Within tion among linguistic, cultural, and bio- the utilitarian framework, biological logical species, and then brings us E.O. losses are economic losses. He points to Wilson's words: "species extinction the evolutionary needs for maximal ge- equates to the burning of a library" (120). netic diversity. As this line of reasoning How do we know what knowledge has relates to the human species, Mishler been sacrificed due to the extinction of finds that we are witnessing the destruc- languages, cultures, and their environ- tion of the "cultural species," moving to- ments? Gary Nabhan's subject in "Cul- wards an intellectual monoculture and tural Perceptions of Ecological Interac- depleting our human resources for tions" is "traditional ecological knowl- sustainability. edge of plant-animal interactions" However, David Harmon asserts the among the world's Indigenous popula- existence of what he calls a "species prob- tions (146). This knowledge is being lost lem" in our notions of culture in "On the to the Western consortium of world Meaning and Moral Imperative of Diver- knowledge. Nabhan demonstrates the sity" (58). The notion of human cultures seriousness of this loss using a Western as "species" is not conceptually available. system of value, showing that Indig-

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enous knowledge does give insights to edge within the documentation process "ecological and evolutionary theory" by what he terms "a subject matters lan- (148). From my perspective, Euro-west- guage" (235). Grammars produce a list ern science is invoked here only to of words, while subject matters language prompt an attitude of respect and legiti- seeks the contextualization of language macy for Indigenous knowledge. We are in a culturally relevant process. faced, if we do not heed Nabhan's words Jeffrey Wollock demonstrates patois and the words of others in this volume, eloquence with his contribution when he with what Nabhan identifies as the "ex- writes, "Language is a motion of the soul" tinction of experience" (153), the results (257). He then takes the necessary step of which would be a loss of knowledge towards opening the discussion of colo- to all peoples, Indigenous and non-In- nization as "mono-mentality" (251). As digenous. imperialism and monoculture are "im- Jane Hill calls upon the reader in her ported and imposed, extrapolation oc- contribution, "Dimensions of Attrition in curs, societies destabilize" (252). Societ- Language Death," to see how the Euro- ies become disconnected from land, and West is victimized by its notions of race "cultures homogenize and no longer and class, a cultural and linguistic posi- uphold biodiversity" (252). According to tioning that she calls "ideological noise" Wollock, "The real cause of the environ- (177). The "noise" of ethnocentrism inter- mental crisis is a particular way of think- feres with the ability to look objectively ing" (248). The symptom of this can be at non-western cultures. This position- seen in the rapid decline we are witnessing results in a loss of languages, and that ing in linguistic and biological diversity reduction leads directly to the irretriev- worldwide. Bioprospecting has claimed able loss of knowledge. As Western no- that its endeavors to preserve the knowl- tions of superiority are forced upon non- edge of an Indigenous populace amount Western peoples, the damage occurs to to a form of reparation. From my posi- the human species as a whole. Phillip tion, it is more akin to assault, as multi- Wolff and Douglas Medin regard this national corporations strive to lay claim process as "devolution," and they present to traditional Indigenous knowledge in a hypothesis based within the Western the form of patents. What is experienced historical present in their essay, "Measur- next by many Indigenous peoples is cul- ing the Evolution and Devolution of tural death, language death, and physi- Folk-Biological Knowledge." cal death. What is knowledge? Andrew Pauley The protection of Indigenous peoples' contends that it is "a subjective thing, knowledge base—language, political encompassing 'perceptions,' 'beliefs,' and systems, ecological and biological analy- 'understandings'" (228). He calls to lin- sis, law, i.e., culture—has been ap- guists to inform all disciplines by repre- proached within the sphere of Intellec- senting the knowledge held within a lan- tual Property Rights (IPR). IPR is ad- guage community. Pawley suggests the dressed in this volume by Darrel Posey, illumination of a cosmology of knowl- Luisa Maffi, and Stephen Brush. The con-

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tinued existence and protection of intel- On Holiday: A History of Vacationing. By lectual property is understood to be an Orvar Löfgren. (Berkeley: University of integrated defense of culture(s) as a hu- California Press, 1999. Pp. 320, intro- man rights issue, determined by inter- duction, notes, bibliography, index, il- national bodies (WIPO, UNESCO, lustrations.) WCCD, WGIP) and are inclusive of "traditional obligations" (416) as established n Holiday, the sixth release in by Indigenous norms. the on-going series, California All of these pieces have been written Studies in Critical Human from the etic position. The salient issue O Geography, follows a generally linear for me is the threat to Indigenous episte- path in its discussion of vacationing, but mology. For an Indigenous perspective with a readable twist. Rather than on the historical and current conse- struggle to digest and explain all quences of Euro-western ideology and contributing elements in relation to a the exigency of retention, look to L. Frank stream of historic events or other Manriquez's contribution to this volume: emerging and interacting phenomena, "Silent No More: California Indians Re- the author prepares a sort of filet of the claim Their Culture—And They Invite subject and sets it in an appropriate You to Listen." All the contributors here context. Orvar Löfgren opts to string have attempted to view the together carefully chosen illustrative interconnectedness of separate and examples which link logically one with seemingly disparate disciplines. Finally, another. Drawing mostly from western Western minds find their way to an In- Europe, England, and the United States, digenous perception of equilibrium. the author creates a broad introduction to what we call holidaying or vacationing. Sheri J. Tatsch These particular choices in no way University of California, Davis preclude other workers with differing perspectives on analysis from grinding out some mighty tome or indeed from bringing into being another traditional social history. Löfgren leaves ground for other scholars of culture, leisure, and gender to till. Löfgren notes what he feels to be characteristic of class practice within the construction of the meaning of holiday. By necessity and design On Holiday is selective of its coverage, offering a representative sample of issues within a con- sumable scope. This approach is fairly

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standard. By way of comparison, John prudently chosen anecdotal material, A. Jakle heaps item on item in his The and just enough personal narrative to be Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century North warm while avoiding identity overexpo- America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska sure. The transparent prose may be off- Press, 1985), with little emphasis on putting to that tribe of reader sutured to analysis, and MacCannell creates a more the idea that obscurity suggests profun- or less compelling analytical argument dity. in his The Tourist: A New Theory of the Lei- The text is developed through the sure Class (New York: Schocken Books, presentation of details contemporary 1976) and offers only occasional neces- with the emergence of mass tourism, sary examples. On Holiday nestles at with obvious emphasis on the some point in between. In addition, the holidaymaker. These components, focus of Löfgren's book is in a real sense mostly dealing with the period from 1850 narrower than the basic topic of tourism. to 1950, are supported by earlier histori- Here is an examination, and close dis- cal matter. Ideas of the picturesque and cussion, of folks involved in leisure away the sublime are important in the later from home, but not necessarily in foreign growth of leisure travel, and while On or exotic settings. Holiday is not a discussion of changes in Orvar Löfgren is Professor of Euro- intellectual perspective across the 1700s, pean Ethnology at Sweden's University this period is usefully brought to bear on of Lund, and he has penned about a vacationing in the 19th and 20th centuries. dozen books. This current release, On Most readers will be familiar with this Holiday: A History of Vacationing, has a period of social fermentation, so Löfgren clear connection with what has been sug- limits himself to sketching the historical gested is his best-known publication context in brief, using short but apt ex- (with Jonas Frykman), Culture Builders: cerpts and quoted text from a number A Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class of sources. At the close of the book, the Life (New Brunswick: Rutgers University reader is brought through to the end of Press, 1987). While On Holiday does not the 1990s. contest the area chestnut that "travelers Löfgren paces his book along three are those who can travel" (implying that sections further divided into eight chap- as the proof of the pudding is in the eat- ters. Thus, the text moves from "Land- ing, the expenditure of resources is evi- scapes and Mindscapes," with its three dent in mere observation), it does raise chapters, to "Getaways," and its pair of the interesting observation that class is chapters, and finally "Between the Local often obscured on vacation, holiday, or and the Global" containing the closing in tourist events. three. This organizational scheme allows Löfgren writes tightly and parsimo- the scholar to follow threads—such as niously, but he frames the information changes in the way the viewer "views" with a winning amalgam of straight re- the natural world—across a terrain com- portage, occasional reference to rote data, posed of technical and social shifts. The

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more than thirty illustrations are well trial settings have been transmuted into chosen, and they include many examples revenue generators as sites of "Industrial of art (the generic term for graphic im- Tourism." agery used in commercial advertising) On Holiday makes a fine read for a as well as period and contemporary pho- motivated, curious consumer, even for tographs. Again, not only do these illus- those with little inclination to pursue the trations help tease out the meaning of minutiae of these issues. Serious schol- Löfgren's text, but the presentation as a ars on the topic may find themselves whole should suggest opportunities for wishing that adult themes would have other work to readers involved in the been more ardently and fully fleshed out. areas mentioned above. Happily, Löfgren does deal with the is- Especially useful is the coordination sue to some small degree—especially the of Löfgren's description of change in reality of adults seeking sex on vacation. holidaymakers' perception of the out- As a general rule, the text is more de- doors and wilderness with the examples scriptive than analytical, with short shrift of early advertising. One area which given to thick theory. It is far more rel- could certainly be extended and en- evant that the choices for inclusion were larged upon is the author's fairly brief made with clarity and cohesion and that discussion of the Mediterranean's manu- the book is useful to readers. facture of local "front" and "rear" stage areas (199). Do holiday participants seek to play out desired "roles," for which an Jon Donlon authentic backstage would be a handi- Independent Scholar cap, or do visitors want to gain insight into the daily life of "real folk"? MacCannell deals with this idea at some length, and Löfgren seems to confirm the theory that visitors stimulate the creation of complex double-voice social and political discourse. Obviously, part of the value of sur- vey projects such as Orvar Löfgren's On Holiday: A History of Vacationing is the emergence of connections and associations which bubble up while one reads chapter through chapter. Development of the means to move, the invention and eventual accessibility of steam power, for example, created the industrial warren while producing the mechanism for car- riage to a natural setting. Odious indus-

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When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line ues. Using Gerry Spence's masterful clos- between Law and Popular Culture. By ing statement in the murder trial of Idaho Richard K. Sherwin. Chicago: The Uni- militiaman Randy Weaver as an ex- versity of Chicago Press, 2000. Pp. xii ample, he depicts trial lawyers as story- + 325, introduction, notes, index. tellers who rely on myths to reach juries. He extends this analysis by considering ow trustworthy are American the notorious trials of John Brown for the juries? Can the courts be Harper's Ferry raid, Henry Ward Beecher counted on for justice? When for adultery, and Harry Thaw for the H murder of architect Stanford White. In Law Goes Pop examines these questions and offers some pessimistic answers. Ac- each instance, Sherwin explores how the cording to the author, current trends in events contested at trial symbolized cen- popular culture threaten to undermine tral tensions in contemporary society, public confidence in the legal system. repressed issues of guilt and desire that the opposing counsels addressed Richard Sherwin, a professor of law through their stories. The verdicts in at New York University, thinks that these trials, he suggests, turned on boundaries between law and pop are whether the public faced up to the issue rapidly disappearing. As a result, public or retreated into collective fantasy. No- belief in the law's legitimacy is eroding, torious trials are thus testing grounds of and so is the public's ability to distin- public sensibility. guish truth from fabrication. He locates the causes of this crisis in "an unprec- Against this backdrop of trial-as-cul- edented convergence" (4) of intellectual, tural-ritual, Sherwin pursues the second technological, and economic forces: part of his argument, a diagnosis of the present. He uses The Thin Blue Line, Errol Constructivist ("postmodern") theory, Morris's quasi-documentary film about communications technology, and the a botched murder case, to describe "the needs of the marketplace are coming postmodern challenge" (107). Morris cre- together with tremendous synergis- ates two frames for understanding the tic impact. As a consequence of this events. The main plot, "causal and lin- impact we are seeing a marked de- ear," is a straightforward exposé of the stabilization in our sense of self, and police and prosecutors' frame-up of the in our social and legal reality. Legal defendant. The shadow counterplot, meanings are flattening out as they yield to the compelling visual logic "acausal and nonlinear," raises troubling of film and TV images and the mar- doubts about the defendant's innocence ket forces that fuel their production and, indeed, the validity of "representa- (4). tional order" (126). Sherwin's point is that to be truthful to the real complexity of Sherwin's argument has two parts. In the human conduct, as Morris tries to be, first, he shows that American trials have "chance and necessity must also be reck- always enacted deeply held cultural val- oned with when assessing individual ac- countability" (116).

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This insight leads to the pivotal dis- feel that ordinary life is suffering a "leech- tinction in his argument between "affir- ing out of authenticity" (259) may easily mative" and "skeptical" postmodernism agree that the same process afflicts the (131). Sherwin believes that the public, legal system. But Sherwin does not sup- more aware than ever of the constructed port the two parts of his argument nature of meaning, may go in one direc- equally well. The first part, about narra- tion or the other, either towards renewed tive and symbolic dimensions of trials, belief or towards disenchanted cynicism. is convincing and at times compelling, The future of justice depends on the af- with interpretations well grounded in firmation of meaning through a sense of records of actual cases. When Sherwin "tragic wisdom" that "expressly takes turns to the effects of postmodernity, into account the contingencies, uncer- though, he uses movies far more than tainties, and limitations of human under- law. (Besides The Thin Blue Line, he does standing and the imbalances that exist illuminating readings of Lynch's Twin in particular linguistic interactions" (237). Peaks and Lost Highway, Kieslowski's Red This path represents a "fundamental and both versions of Cape Fear.) Maybe epistemological shift" away from "the he takes this tack in order to introduce rationalist ideals and repressive impulses postmodern theory to lawyers and law of the Enlightenment" (246). Skeptical students. Still, there's a paucity of evi- postmodernism, however, threatens to dence to back up his claim about image take society in the opposite direction. It eviscerating substance in the legal arena. is characterized by "the substitution of This problem becomes apparent virtual (electronically mass mediated, when the author tries to show how trial passively received) experience for real lawyers practice "in hyperreality" (23). life—and the ensuing inability to tell one His main example is an organized crime from the other" (260). Emblematic of this case in which attorney Jeremiah trend in the law is the Supreme Court's Donovan asserts that his client is not a 1981 ruling in Estes v. Texas, in which mafia boss (as the prosecution contends), Chief Justice Warren Burger justified the but a wannabe. By this strategy, televising of trials. According to "Donovan transformed his client into a Sherwin, Justice Berger's reasoning im- harmless cartoon character, just like Pulp plies that is not justice but "the appear- Fiction" (33). But just because Pulp Fic- ance of justice that counts most" (158). tion makes gangsters so appealing that Sherwin cites a number of instances of viewers laugh when they commit vio- "the jurisprudence of appearances" (141), lence doesn't mean that Donovan's story in particular of lawyers manipulating is indebted to that ironic sensibility. opinion through the media, which he Rather, Donovan is exploiting an old folk dubs "litigation public relations" (152). character type: the fool who pretends. To Does When Law Goes Pop prove its drive this persona home, the attorney case about the perilous conflation of le- relates a tale to the jury about an gal and popular realms? Readers who Irishman at a bar who gets himself

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beaten to a pulp by claiming to be Skilled trial lawyers, as I found out when O'Toole and then proudly announces, "I I did the fieldwork for my book The Trial sure pulled a fast one on that big fella'— Lawyer's Art, make the proceedings a I'm not O'Toole at all!" (32) Such use of a performance that will hold jurors' atten- stock figure to underpin one's version of tion for days or weeks on end. This sort events may be sleight-of-hand, but it's of storytelling is the antithesis of the mass hardly proof of a shift "to the hyperreal media's slam-bang techniques. True, world of free-floating signifiers" (24). It's most people get their notions of what a time-honored tactic in the trial lawyers' trials are like from the media; yet once craft. they become jurors they are inducted For another example of hyperreality, into another sphere with its own prac- Sherwin points to Johnnie Cochran's ex- tices and expectations. True, lawyers hortation to the jury in the O.J. Simpson may seize on the latest scandal in the trial to "do the right thing" and "keep news or the latest technological visual their eyes on the prize." Sherwin reminds aid if they think these will help their case; us that "these neatly packaged soundbite yet the main coordinates they work from phrases" (24) come from Spike Lee's film lie not in the media, but in a centuries' and PBS's documentary series on Dr. long, still vital craft tradition. Martin Luther King, Jr. What's hyperreal This tradition has evinced much in- about that? Smart lawyers recycle terest in the very matters of contingency phrases that are on people's lips and in that When Law Goes Pop regards as the their memories. key to affirmative postmodernism. Read At the root of what seems strained to Clarence Darrow's closing statements— me in Sherwin's approach is his view of the Leopold and Loeb case is a good the source of the stories that matter. "For place to start—and you can see the pres- most people," he says, "the source is not ence of a double frame of reference: one difficult to ascertain. It is the visual mass speaking in blunt certainties, the other media. . . . This vast electronic archive circling around painful mysteries of hu- provides us with the knowledge and in- man conduct. A lawyer, after all, has to terpretation skills we need to make sense get the jury to act decisively, but the jury of ordinary reality" (21). This statement may balk if the account ignores life's misses the influence of family and complexity. Affirmative postmodernism friends, of schools and other institutions, seems less of a break from past under- of books and other arts, of a person's own standings than a continuation. Dilemmas life experience. All are sources of mean- of necessity and freedom have been the ings different than the common currency most enduring of themes for artistic rep- of the mass media. Media stories affect resentation. us in important ways. But much of who The main threat to justice in the we are and what we know comes from United States is not, I think, that the pub- other contexts and traditions. lic will lose sight of the difference be- The trial court is one such context. tween image and reality. It is that the

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system will prove incapable of facing the Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction. reality of its failures to offer good legal By Benjamin Noys. (London: Pluto representation to the poor and otherwise Press, 2000. Pp. viii + 165, introduction, disadvantaged. If the law's direction is notes and references, bibliography, in- complacency rather than repair, cynicism dex.) will be well justified.

Sam Schrager "If we do not read Bataille as a thinker of freedom, then we do not read him The Evergreen State College at all" (5).

ost English language readers of Georges Bataille are familiar with Mhim as a peculiar litterateur, the author of The Story of the Eye, a sophisticated and disturbing novel about sexual de- viants on a rampage. But interest has been gaining steadily in Bataille's other work, a startling oeuvre that includes writing in philosophy, history, anthropology, religion, art, and economics. Benjamin Noys's book, George Bataille: A Critical Introduction, alerts readers to the complexities involved in reading Bataille. Noys writes that Bataille "is an irruptive force of violent excitation, and this accounts for the pleasure in reading him" (5). But despite the pleasure we may find in reading Bataille, Noys argues, "to cel- ebrate Bataille is to fail to read him" (4). This paradox is at the heart of Bataille's work. Bataille tried to position his work as an inassimilable "foreign body" that could be neither appropriated nor rejected in the domains of literature or philosophy. Rather, his work would force these domains to open themselves to dangerous forces beyond their control, to irrationality and to excess. Noys states that the key to Bataille's writings is the notion of waste or luxury. In his three-volume work, The Accursed Share, Bataille developed the argument that accumulation, which commands the attention of

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most economists, is the overwhelming prin- Bataille experimented with the creation ciple only of a "restricted economy" based of communities that desired freedom rather on profit. This restricted economy replaces than power, and to that end he and others intimacy, desire, and the life of the moment formed a group called Acéphale (Headless). with an interest in activities that have ends The group's goal was to release energies that outside of themselves, usually material could not be controlled by any leader. They wealth. Bataille contrasted this restricted planned a human sacrifice, but abandoned it economy with the "general economy" which because there were no willing executioners. has ultimate authority in the cosmos and is However, the idea of sacrifice, particularly governed by the principle of useless expen- Marcel Mauss's work on the subject, contin- diture. Seen from the perspective of general ued to drive their thoughts. economy, Bataille wrote, "a human sacrifice, Benjamin Noys set several difficult tasks the construction of a church or the gift of a for himself in his overview of Bataille: to jewel were no less interesting than the sale explain how Bataille's work refuses both re- of wheat" (qtd. in Noys, 13). jection and appropriation, the relationship Bataille attacked liberal democracies for between Bataille's life and work, the laby- their weakness, a weakness that created a rinthine structure of Bataille's thought, and vacuum for Nazism to fill. The justification the influence of Bataille's work on other writ- for liberal democracies had been reason and ers. He meets some of these goals, but falls utility, the great achievements of the Enlight- short of others. Part of the problem is Noys's enment. For Bataille, these achievements did convoluted style, which hurts his efforts to not address life's important problems. Instead, clarify Bataille's work. For example: they reduced human experience and human community to rational functions geared to- Bennington is very critical of the pa- wards material ends. Primitive societies, in thos that Bataille reads into this prob- contrast, employed elaborate rituals of sacri- lem of the limit, without perhaps rec- fice to expel waste luxuriously. Bataille noted ognizing that his own limitation of the problem of the limit to being a logical the need for these kinds of rituals: "A human problem is reductive of the subjective, society can have . . . an interest in consider- existential, ethical, and emotional ef- able losses, in catastrophes that, while con- fects that the limit can have (123). forming to well-defined needs, provoke tu- multuous depressions, crises of dread, and, When Noys cites the "irruptive force" of in the final analysis, a certain orgiastic state" Bataille's writing, it makes us long for more (qtd. in Noys, 105). of that force in his own writing. For Bataille, the expenditure of excess While Noys argues that Bataille "wrote energy could be either glorious or cata- with his blood" (5), Noys does not provide strophic. He perceived that European nations, many connections between Bataille's life and soon to begin a second world war, were pre- work, and there are few biographical details. paring a catastrophic expenditure of excess Noys states, "I do not intend to provide an energy. Bataille imagined instead a glorious exhaustive description or chronology of his expenditure that could avert the catastrophe. life but to select irruptive events from which

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it overflows into his work" (5). Yet, because boundaries, his exploration of intensities and Bataille's work is so difficult, readers might disruptive meaning, and his rejection of au- have appreciated more contextual informa- thorities who seek to control textual domains. tion than Noys provides. Noys contributes most significantly to Noys argues that Bataille was deeply af- cultural studies by elucidating Bataille's ideas fected by the Nazis' misappropriation of about community. Media consumers fre- Neitzsche's work and wanted to make his quently inaugurate their own experimental writing "unusable." He did not, of course, communities, such as those that make up succeed, for many people—most notably "fandom," and Bataille would have been fas- poststructuralist theorists from Lacan to cinated with those experiments. According Derrida—have appropriated Bataille to many to Noys, Bataille distinguished between open ends. While Noys defends Bataille's claim to and closed communities. The closed commu- "unusability," a book on the many uses of nity (read fascism) operates under the ideol- Bataille might have been more enlightening, ogy of the intact subject and seeks to purify even with the caveat that "use" is a problem- itself from outside contaminants. Bataille atic term in Bataille's vocabulary. Noys as- sought an alternative in the open community, sumes that Bataille's readers seek only to in- in which the individual "as subject . . . ruins terpret his work, and he fails to address why itself in an undefined throng of possible ex- work meant to be unusable has in fact been istences" (qtd. in Noys, 51). It is a commu- so generative for other writers. nity based on instability, laughter, failure, Noys's overview of Bataille and relevant danger, and a continual inquiry into the na- intellectual history is clearly organized and ture of community itself. may be quite helpful to the scholar wishing As communities form around interests in to put the various pieces of Bataille's work particular texts and textual practices, they into perspective. Though he argues forcefully must choose between open and closed forms that critics commonly misread Bataille, of community. Bataille was interested in re- Noys's goal is not to redeem him. He casti- defining community, something that cult au- gates Bataille for his weaknesses, errors, and diences do through their newly-formed iden- failures, and he is clear-eyed about the dan- tifications around chosen texts. Cult audi- gers inherent in Bataille's violently transgres- ences yearn for the intimacy that Bataille ar- sive ideas. gues has been lost under capitalism, but they George Bataille: A Critical Introduction risk reproducing the very forces that destroy offers some significant contributions to cul- intimacy. Noys's book on Bataille offers them tural studies. It describes Bataille's refusal of some hope of finding that elusive prize. all limits and his desire to unleash heteroge- neous forces in all domains of human knowl- Barry Mauer edge. Bataille's perverse interventions in nu- Central Florida University merous and disparate fields and his attacks on the boundaries of established textual domains have implications for every cultural institution. Cultural Analysis readers may find inspiration in Bataille's crossing of

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The Telling. By Ursula K. Le Guin. (New This extended world- or universe- York: Harcourt, Inc., 2000. Pp. 264) building puts Le Guin in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling's n the preface to her most recent Harry Potter novels, and Frank Herbert's book, The Birthday of the World and Dune novels, for several instances. Nor Other Stories (Harper Collins, 2002), is her authorship of two distinct series I particularly unusual. Marion Zimmer Ursula Le Guin discusses the imagined universe of her Hainish novels, in which Bradley, for instance, wrote science fic- The Telling is set. The Hainish novels con- tion set on her invented planet of stitute a family, albeit a loosely connected Darkover (like Le Guin, moving around rather than a closely knit one. In them, in time rather than writing her novels in Le Guin posits the existence of a parent chronological sequence) as well as a fan- culture, the Hain, which has seeded the tasy series based in terrestrial legends universe with interrelated (but not iden- (The Mists of Avalon being the most fa- tical) humanoid species, including the miliar example). Octavia Butler is an- people of Earth. In The Birthday of the other author of several series, using sci- World, the author asserts the hopeless- ence fiction to explore issues of gender ness of trying to discover an underlying and race, and the human proclivity to- implied history that ties together the ward violent competition and conse- novels in a coherent and consistent de- quent self-destruction. Before Butler's sign, pointing out that such a history novels came Doris Lessing's series of five (even if it were consistent) would con- "space fiction" novels, Canopus in Argus: sist mainly of gaps. While admitting the Archives, which examine the devastating factors of "authorial carelessness, forget- consequences of human activity from a fulness, and impatience," (vii) she also "deep" interstellar perspective. But affirms the logic of such incoherence, whether it's the social criticism of Lessing given the vastness of space and the elas- and Butler or the reproduction of "tradi- ticity of time under the conditions of near tional" (Euro-American) values in space light-speed time travel. operas such as Star Wars, science fiction and fantasy invite seriality. To place The Telling in this gap-ridden spatial/temporal/textual context, it may One reason for this is obvious: science be useful to consider further in a broad fiction and fantasy invite world/uni- way the gap-ridden seriality of much verse-building, and this activity takes science fiction (and fantasy) and ask how time and space. One might argue that the this characteristic might illuminate how activity also requires (or creates) a spe- we make and preserve our stories. Le cial commitment or responsibility. It cer- Guin is the author of two grand series— tainly invites collaboration. Bradley's the Hainish science fiction novels and the Darkover is a territory that has been vis- Earthsea fantasy novels—each series ited by other writers, much as the Land with its cosmology and/or geography, of Oz, after L. Frank Baum's discovery and each with its own rules of technol- and initial explorations, was visited first ogy or magic. by Baum's followers and then recently

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by Oz's revisionist historian Gregory derground, in secret places, and reminds Maguire in his novel Wicked. us how culture is not an abstraction, but Unlike Oz, or the single extraterres- is alive, vivid in its material forms, pow- trial human-settled cultures of Darkover erful in its retellings, precious in the or Dune, Le Guin's territory is hugely mind. vast. The Hain-originated humanoid In her comments on the origins of the species, despite their distance from one novel, Le Guin points out a connection another and their physiological differen- with Maoist China and its suppression tiation over time, are joined together in of Taoism, but certainly The Telling has an interstellar cultural confederacy called wider resonance than that. The powers the Ekumen. To locate and to connect of sight, sound, and smell operate more these scattered people, the Ekumen uses powerfully than sociopolitical critique or a device called the ansible that permits character development. The novel opens instantaneous communication, but inter- with these sensory evocations of a past stellar travel is still conducted at sub- that is like our own terrestrial past, so light-speed. This means that the that the narrative is immediately knitted Ekumen's traveling representatives are to the readers' universe as well as to the permanent exiles from their home space- Hainish. But because the terrestrial past time, doing their best to reestablish ex- thus evoked is Indian, it is India, rather tended family relationships with alien than a "progressive" Euro-Americanoid people and places, and occasionally "First World," that is constructed as achieving intimacy. home/"Cradle of Civilization": Le Guin's social and technical assumptions provide a common set of as- Yellow of brass, yellow of turmeric sumptions for most of her science fiction, paste and of rice cooked with saffron, orange of marigolds, dull orange haze occasional inconsistencies and gaps not- of sunset dust above the fields. . . . A withstanding. This larger fictional envi- whiff of asafetida. The brook-babble ronment also gives The Telling, a rather of Aunty gossiping. . . . Ganesh's little slight effort when considered on its own, piggy kindly eye. A match struck and value as a piece that fills in one of the the rich grey curl of incense smoke: holes in the vast interstellar Hainish map. pungent, vivid, gone. (1) Arguably, universe building transcends the particular merits of any individual As the paragraph closes we are context. ducted from that place of warmth into a In general terms, The Telling depicts colder, darker present in which Sutty, the how the unified national voice of the novel's main character, recalls these frag- state, using its human and technological ments of her childhood as she walks, or agents of control, promulgates decep- eats, or takes "a break from the sensory tion, drowning out the voices of indi- assault of the nearreals she had to partiss vidual people and seeking to rob them in" (2). Thus the narrative moves with of their past. But the narrative reveals as great economy from the rich sensory well the hidden culture that persists un- data of the "old world" of childhood and

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of an ancient terrestrial culture to a "new acterized as isolated and plagued with a world" characterized by technology, its sense of inadequacy, Sutty practices the jargon, its simulacra, and an ambiance receptiveness of the "farfetchers" and of sensory assault and compulsion. One thereby enters into a sustaining network version of that new world exists on Earth, of connections with the underground which (paradoxically) has fallen to the practitioners of the Telling, preservers of control of religious fundamentalists; an- the old texts. That network enables her other version exists on the planet Aka, a to slip through the boundaries of official corporate state dedicated to the pursuit control and travel to the sacred caves at of progress and the erasure of history. It the heart of the Mother-mountain Silong, is here that Sutty has been sent. which she first sees looming like an im- The novel's opening passages also mense white wall, "a wrinkled curtain prefigure the essential dilemma of Sutty of light halfway up the sky" (52) above as an individual, with a personal past, Okzat-Ozkat. and as an Observer, an official represen- The imagery of city, journey, and tative of the Ekumen. Sutty searches for mountain is striking in its details and lost language, its pictographic written intricately patterned. From the capital, forms, and its literature, which have dis- Dovza City, the voyage by boat to Okzat- appeared to be replaced by an official Ozkat is, Sutty reflects, "longer. . . than Newspeak, disseminated via propa- [her] journey from Earth to Aka" (39). ganda recordings. As Ekumenical repre- Her journey onward from there to Silong sentative, Sutty is required not to inter- is, predictably, longer and more arduous fere in the local culture, to retain her ob- than the mountain's dramatic visibility jectivity and to avoid opinion: "The old from the town would suggest. We have farfetchers' motto: Opinion ends recep- here a contrast between the technologi- tion" (55). But as her observations take cally-manipulated "future" temporality her from Aka's putatively progressive of interstellar travel, in which huge dis- capital to the "backward" provincial city tances are covered within humanly- of Okzat-Ozkat and into the mountains achievable durations, and the "past" tem- beyond, she learns that objectivity is not porality of mythic journeys, in which possible. Her journey also shows that time and effort are magnified by the op- through knowledge and compassion erations of the spirit. come insight—not only into familiar Sutty's pilgrimage takes place in com- principles of what we often term "company, but she remains singular and to mon humanity," but also, even if partially that extent isolated as she approaches and occasionally, into areas of blindness Silong. Silong also initially appears to caused by cultural difference. be a strikingly singular entity, but close Sutty's journey is rendered more pain- up is revealed to be one of a twosome, ful by her solitude; her lover, with whom paired with Zubuam, the thunderer: she was hoping to share her life's work, "Old maz mountains. Old lovers" (186). was killed in the bombing of a library in The same pattern is articulated in the their home city of Seattle. Initially char- pairing of the maz, who are Aka's under-

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ground professional Tellers. The maz, elaborated by the function of these cham- whose union is permanent beyond bers as a kind of Borgesian library; within death, and who do not always follow the them are housed innumerable books, heterosexual official norm, are in those manuscripts, and fragments of text con- regards similar to Sutty and her dead taining the accumulated culture of Aka: female lover Pao, so that we readers be- "the texts of blessings, the protocols of gin to see Sutty differently than she (as ceremonies, recipes, prescriptions for yet) sees herself. The maz's essential two- curing cold sores and for living to a great in-oneness is inscribed in the old prohib- age, stories, legends, annals. . . . herbals, ited grammar common to all the major bestiaries, anatomies, geometries both Akan languages, "a peculiar singular/ real and metaphysical, maps of Aka, dual pronoun" (112) that is ironically re- maps of imaginary worlds, histories of flected even in the "producer-consumer ancient lands, poems. All the poems in heroes of Corporation propaganda" the world were here" (197). (112). It is also reflected in the mirror- This library-as-microcosm is the trea- image names of maz partners and for sure at the end of the quest, but it is that matter would account for the name clearly not a treasure for the individual of the city Okzat-Ozkat. Thus the deep taking. There is simply too much mate- structure of a culture will surface in the rial, too randomly preserved. Its hous- face of all efforts to suppress it. ing in bubble-caves is conceptually ap- The power of the old culture to rise propriate, analogous to the gap-ridden to the surface is also illustrated by the Hainish universe itself, which Le Guin fate of Yara, an Akan Monitor (as such, compares to a partially unraveled piece the opposite number to Sutty in her offi- of knitting. cial role of Observer). Initially appearing Confronted with a treasure of such to be an emotionless extension of the magnitude, Sutty is confronted with a Corporate State, the Monitor follows dilemma: how to ensure its preservation Sutty to Silong for reasons that turn out without violating the Ekumen's non-in- to be personal. Their initial opposition terference policy. In the end she is able turns into another form of two-in-one- to do so because of her understanding ness, when at the caves they engage in of Akan culture; the novel concludes their own private Tellings, exchanging with a "tit for tat" (263) arrangement, their own unofficial, well-hidden stories. technology for texts, a solution that holds Yara thus for a brief time becomes a kind out a promise of continued openness. of shadow-partner for Sutty. One finds a similar combination of Silong's caves are strikingly envis- social problem-solving and personal aged as "endless bubble chambers inter- transformation in The Left Hand of Dark- connecting, interfacing, dark walls, ness as well as other, less widely-known floors, ceilings all curved into one an- Hainish fiction. The Left Hand of other seamlessly, so disorienting that Darkness's main characters are far more sometimes she felt she was floating complex, plausible, and engaging than weightless" (194). The womb imagery is The Telling's Sutty, and that novel is much

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richer on the level of narrative, inter- Sutty's memories and dreams of Earth weaving multiple strands of invented constitute another set of fragments, as we myth, legend, and folktale into a narra- see at the very beginning of the novel and tive of cultural thickness. Disappoint- repeatedly thereafter. She is in effect ac- ingly, The Telling tells us that important companied on her journey by her dead narrative material is being preserved, but partner, Pao. Le Guin completes the link- we do not get to read it for ourselves, as age by having Sutty narrate the circum- we do in The Left Hand of Darkness. None- stances of Pao's death in her conversa- theless, The Telling, for all its slightness, tion with the Observer Yara. Two-in-one exhibits Le Guin's characteristic interest thereby become three, and the grammati- in the fragments out of which we recon- cal-interpersonal formula expands to struct our visions of the past. include all who are linked in the Telling, The fragments in The Telling consist a cosmic tree of myriad branches, "the most obviously of Aka's languages and being that can be told" of which "the literature, found in Silong's caves and in mountain is the root" (96), as a maz tells other hidden places, in physical docu- her. ments and in the oral tales Sutty hears Turning again to the idea of the serial from the Tellers and the many other in- (or multiple-textual) nature of science fic- formal participants of the Telling, for the tion—the vehicle for Le Guin's ideas activity is not limited to the profession- about the many-in-one/one-in-many, it als. Early in her stay at Okzat-Ozkat, may be worth reexamining the ground while visiting an old shop, Sutty sees in which the novel itself is rooted. inscriptions on the wall that she recog- Outside the Hainish textual universe nizes from her offplanet study as the old and inside our own space/time, where, pictographs, and she receives in ex- or how, is The Telling rooted? There is, of change for her insider's knowledge a gift course, Le Guin's critique of Chinese from the shopkeeper. That early encoun- Communism, which to my mind is not ter proves to be one of her several points particularly effective, but neither is it in- of entry into the underground culture. trusive. More problematic, for all that it An even earlier encounter with the hid- is localized rather than widespread in the den culture comes by way of a few scraps narrative, is the heavy-handed allusion salvaged from a lost interplanetary trans- to Starbuck's Coffee. Sharing Starbrew, mission: the picture of a fisherman on a the Corporation brand of akakafi, "was humpbacked bridge, some bits of prose, one of the few rituals of social bonding a few lines of poetry. After arriving on the people of Dovza City allowed them- Aka, Sutty must delete her copies of selves" (66). This allusion, doubtless de- these prohibited materials, but she does signed to create a connection between the not forget them. Thus they change their narrative space/time and our own, has substance (original to physical copy to instead the unfortunate effect of disturb- mental copy) but they do not lose their ing the imaginative integrity of the form, and their contextual significance Hainish universe—a more serious prob- turns out to be retrievable in the caves of lem than the "incoherence" that Le Guin Silong.

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admits in The Birthday of the World. of the first book and continues after the Starbrew violates our sense of appropri- last page of the last book, and things hap- ate connection between there/then and pen between one text and the next, far here/now. too many for us ever to learn about all of Inside the Hainish textual universe— them. And we are also reminded that that is, viewed as one of a series—The people don't always want to remember, Telling is rooted in Hainish history, but so that even in this far future, the same that history overlaps with our own via terrible mistakes continue to be made. the conventions of historical-literary re- And here we might turn from the re- alism. That is, Sutty's Earth is consistent lationship between Hainish past and with our Earth as it might be in the fu- Hainish present to that between our own ture. (This is quite different from the il- almost-lost past and dimly haunted logical-to-make-a-point positioning of present. In her essay "World-Making" Starbuck's/Starbrew in Dovza City.) On (1981, reprinted in Dancing at the Edge of Sutty's Earth (as on ours), on Aka, and the World, Grove Press, 1989), Le Guin on the other Hainish planets reintro- calls us "the inhabitants of a Lost World" duced in The Birthday of the World, this is (47) annihilated by the European con- a history that is repeatedly forgotten, so querors, the ancestors of many of us, in- that the gaps in Le Guin's fiction exist cluding Le Guin herself: both narratively and metanarratively: The people who lived here, in this . . . . [Y]ou can ask the Hainish, who place, on these hills, for tens of thou- have been around for a long time, sands of years, are remembered and whose historians not only know (when they are remembered at all) in a lot of what happened, but also the language of the conquistadores: know that it keeps happening and the "Costanos," the "Santa Claras," the will happen again. . . . "San Franciscos," names taken from The people on all the other foreign demigods. . . . Here is one. . . worlds, who all descended from the fragment, a song. . . . The people sang: Hainish, naturally don't want to believe what the old folks say, so they I dream of you, start making history; and so it all I dream of you jumping, happens again. Rabbit, jackrabbit, and quail. I did not plan these worlds and (47-48) people. I found them, gradually piecemeal, while writing stories. I'm In the essay Le Guin talks about the rela- still finding them. (viii) tionship between fragments from the past and the invented worlds she has The very notions of forgetting—on the constructed from sometimes culturally part of characters--and of finding—on disparate pieces—bricolage: a bit here, a the part of the author—contribute to our bit there, "and so patch together a world sense of actuality: something has gone as best I can. But still there is a mystery" on before the beginning of the first page (48). So here we might stop and simply

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consider the fragmentary poem from our own Lost World, so like the fragments Sutty retrieves from the ruined transmission. The poem represents the "I" who dreams and the life going on within the dream, a story within a dream within a song, all framed by Le Guin's own Tell- ing—and then reframed, however mod- estly, by this essay you are reading now. Like the books stored within the bubble- caves of Silong, stories lie side by side and also within one another. Meditating on the writings of Ursula Le Guin and on their wider implications, we are likely to come away with a reinvigorated sense of our own participation in the great Tell- ing, an activity of more than personal and surely of more than academic interest.

Jessie Lawson University of Missouri, Columbia

R23 Cultural Analysis AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FORUM ON FOLKLORE AND POPULAR CULTURE

Cultural Analysis is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to investigating expressive and everyday culture. The journal features analytical research articles, but also includes notes, reviews, and responses. While based at the University of California, Berkeley, Cultural Analysis is global in scope, and includes an international editorial board. Cultural Analysis is made available free of charge through the Internet, in both .html and .pdf formats, ensuring that the journal can be cited, printed in fixed-page format, and easily accessed by the global community.

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