Towards Modernist Collecting: Some European Practices of the Long Term

NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 1993•2, S. 87-98 TOWARDS MODERNIST COLLECTING: SOME EUROPEAN PRACTICES OF THE LONG TERM Susan Pearce The beginning ofmodernist collecting, and, ofthe particular kinds ofknowledge and experience which it embodies are usually considered to begin within the fifteenth cen tury, where interests concentrates on the accumulations ofthe Medici, and upon the cabinets ofcuriosities, which begin to appear, as the century draws to a close. Howeve1; this early modern collecting practice did not crystalize out ofnothing. The standard procedures ofhistorical investigation can suggest some obvious predecessors: the collec tions ofrelics and treasures acquired by the great medieval churches and princes; the collections of Greek art acquired by first century and later Romans; and the material held in Greek temples, described for us by Pausanius. But underlying all this collecting activity it is perhaps possible to discern some characteristics ofthe European tradition which inform collecting, and make it likely that modernist collecting, when it finally comes into being with the rest ofmodernist practice, will take the shape and signifi cance which it has done. 1 This paper2 endeavours to single out some very important themes, which will be dis of these fundamental European characte cussed at befitting length elsewhere. ristics, and to suggest why they are signifi Meanwhile, this discussion of some long cant. There are many related issues which term European practices, in Braudel's sen cannot be addressed here, and these inclu se of the term (see, for example, Bintliff de a definition of collecting, a view of 1991), and their relationship to collecting what constitutes 'Europe' and its 'tradi practice, is offered here as a contribution tion', and the significance which this may to the debate. have in a broader context. These are all SUSAN PEARCE 88 OATHS AND ORDEALS cal, and so on. But what probative test is there to demonstrate that boars are brave and diamonds are The work of a number of linguists, and ethical? This is metaphorical thinking and a 'sym particularly of Thomas Markey, has given bolic' logic of equal but opposite (e.g. left vs. right, us a significant insight into the nature of male vs. female) that classifies by sentiment rather European society which has a bearing on than function. (1985: 181). the matter in hand, and this revolves around its fundamental orientation as an Markey goes on to draw attention to the oath/ordeal organisation rather than as a fact that totem/taboo organisation, regarded by a broad anthropological consensus as two Systemically totemism is normally, perhaps even basic socio-cultural types which are found naturally, correlated with tabu. Tabu confers cor in complementary distribution and sel rective significance on totemism; it is the police for dom overlap. Totemism has been the sub ce of totemism and its boundary condition. The ject of such intense anthropological specu correlation of totemism with tabu, an undeniable lation that the history of it as an idea is empirical fact for the vast majority of totemizing more-or-less the history of anthropology cultures, gives rise to what we here term the as such, and Markey gives a helpful sum totem/tabu or tit- paradigm (1985: 181) mary of this history in his 1985 paper. He suggests Clearly, it is the mystical/numinous cha racter of totem and tabu which provides A simple yet suitably broad and generally accepta its psychic energy and defines the kind of ble, working definition of totemism might well world outlook which such a society is like assume the following form. Totemism is the realisa ly to have. Bertrand Russell has defined tion of a particular, but generally mystical (or mysticism as possessed of four hallmark otherwise numinous), relationship between the properties: members of a given social (typically kinship) unit and a natural object or group of objects (e.g. heav 1) it invokes intuition alone and rejects discursive enly body, a plant, animal, or mineral or even logic; 2) it is holistic rather than atomistic and iso meteorological phenomena) with which that unit is morphically correlates all differences as integrated usually characteristically associated and from which parts of a larger whole, of a cosmology, of a it derives its name. [---) Weltanschattttng entitled the Universe; 3) it denies But perhaps the most significant attribute of Time and claims to play itself our in an all-embra totemism is that it consists in a projection of men cing synchronic present with no meaningful past tal attitudes on natural objects. However, that very and little predictive future (other than the dire con projection, that very bridging, which asserts a con sequences of breaking a tabu, hence the poli tinuity between culture on the one hand and nature cing/ governing nature of ta bu as a correlative of on the other hand, is never subjected to experimen totemism); and 4) it views evil as mere (personified) tal validation, nor could it be, and even if it were appearance: there are only problems and no coun attempted it would defy such validation. A certain ter-examples in a world of mysticism devoid of fish is, for example, equated with or classified as principled, propositional or analytic and experi moral, boars with/as brave, diamonds with/as ethi- mental logic. The probative basis of totemism is TOWARD S MODERNI S T COLLECTIN G necessarily experiential, not experimental, logic. There is abundant evidence for related 89 (Russell 1917: 1 - 31). ordeal practices in the European past, including medieval and later trials by fire Totem/tabu societies, therefore, will have or by water (in the 'floating' of witches), no interest in tests of validity, in the ratio the use of riddles as tests, and, of course, nal link between cause and effect or action trial by single combat. and consequence, or in the nature of his The oath/ordeal paradigm involves the torical sequence. They will see the world notion of individual rights and responsibi as an undivided unity in which each frac lities, since only a single person can per tion is part of the wholeness of things, form oaths and ordeals, and the corres perceiving no dualities, whether between ponding notion of the rest, who hear, see man and the natural world, between man and judge. It sets up a dichotomy between and matter, word and object, or right and word and object, between man and the wrong, other than as a matter of sacred material world which rejects the mystical transgression. unity of all things in favour of a sense of Markey, drawing on data embedded in separations which hinge on pairs like true: the Human Relations Area Files held at the false; supported by previous events : University of Michigan, suggests that the unsupported; proven by successful defen complementary paradigm to totem/tabu ce/ ordeal : unproven; genuine : deceitful; should be that of oath/ordeal, and that, as innocent : guilty, and so on. It carries the a matter of social and historical fact, it is seeds of a potential development of moral to this paradigm that European society, and social philosophy, logic and scientific past and present, seems to belong, some experiment, analytical history, and most cultural admixture not withstanding. Like significantly for our present purposes, a totem/tabu, oath/ordeal possesses its own particular relationship to the material kind of logic in the structure of oath, gua world, which is regarded as 'other' and ranteed by its own cosmological sanctions therefore as a fit arena for the exercise of embodied in ordeal. Here, oath is defined the analytic qualities just outlined. as 'a formal invocation to gods/men to witness the contested validity of acts or KINSHIP AND PROPERTY intentions'. Characteristically, oaths adopt a formula, which carries the legitimatizing In 1982 Leach wrote; 'When you read weight of precedent and is uttered in spe anything that any anthropologist has writ cial places and at special times, in relation ten on the topic of kinship be on your especially to the adjudication of guilt and guard. The argument may not mean what innocence. The total familiarity with you think; the author himself may not which we ourselves hear utterances like 'I have understood what he is saying' (1982: swear I am innocent', or 'I swear before 137 - 8). When this awful warning is lin almighty God that what I say shall be the ked with the difficulties of reconstructing truth, the whole truth and nothing but what kinship systems may have been like the truth' bear witness (sic.0 to the mind in the remote past and linking this with set of which these sayings are a part. more recent and contemporary situations, SUSAN PEARCE 90 and with the undoubted fact that non pean kinship in relation to immediate blood anthropologists usually find the whole relationships, the extended family and the subject arid and unhelpful, it will be seen relationships through marriage. that is a difficult subject with which to Friedrich suggests that across the grapple. However, in spite of all the European language family the words for thronging difficulties the fact remains that blood kin suggest a general and early how a society sees its pattern of marriage recognition of the relationship set out in and family relationships creates an essen fig 1. Similarly, the words for relations tial part of its social character, and there through marriage, that is affines or (as we are reasons for thinking that the broadly say) in-laws, suggest the broad existence of European system has, and for a long time eight special terms, of which five were has had, particular characteristics, especi normally used by a woman when speaking ally as these effect the property-owning of her husband's close blood relatives.

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