humanities research humanities humanities
research Vol XiV. No. 1. 2007 HistoricisingCross-CulturalResearch Historicizing
Cross Cultural Research
The journal of the Research School of Humanities 1, 2007 1, The Australian National University HUMANITIES RESEARCH
GUEST EDITOR Benjamin Penny
EDITORIAL ADVISORS Tony Bennett, Open University, UK; Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago; James K. Chandler, University of Chicago; W. Robert Connor, Teagle Foundation, New York; Michael Davis, University of Tasmania; Ian Donaldson, The Australian National University; Saul Dubow, University of Sussex; Valerie I. J. Flint, University of Hull; Christopher Forth, The Australian National University; Margaret R. Higonnet, University of Connecticut; Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge; Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles; Mary Jacobus, University of Cambridge; W. J. F. Jenner, The Australian National University; Peter Jones, University of Edinburgh; E. Ann Kaplan, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Dominick LaCapra, Cornell University; David MacDougall, The Australian National University; Iain McCalman, University of Sydney; Fergus Millar, University of Oxford; Anthony Milner, The Australian National University; Howard Morphy, The Australian National University; Meaghan Morris, Lingnan University, Hong Kong; Tessa Morris-Suzuki, The Australian National University; Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago; Paul Patton, University of New South Wales; Paul Pickering, The Australian National University; Monique Skidmore, The Australian National University; Mandy Thomas, The Australian National University; Caroline Turner, The Australian National University; James Walter, Monash University.
Humanities Research is published by the Research School of Humanities at The Australian National University. The Research School of Humanities came into existence in January 2007 and consists of the Humanities Research Centre, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, National Europe Centre and National Dictionary Centre. Comments and subscription enquiries: Editor, Research School of Humanities, Old Canberra House Building #73, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia. Research School of Humanities general enquiries T.: +61 2 6125 2434, Email: [email protected] URL http://rsh.anu.edu.au Published by ANU E Press Email: [email protected] :EG:HH Website: http://epress.anu.edu.au
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Printed in Australia
Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 ISSN: 1440-0669 (print), ISSN: 1834-8491 (Online) Contents
HistoriciZing Cross-Cultural Research
1 Benjamin Penny Historicizing “Cross-Cultural”
11 Bronwen Douglas The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis: Cross-Cultural History in a Post-Empirical World
31 Benjamin Penny More Than One Adam? Revelation and Philology in Nineteenth-Century China
51 Henrika Kuklick The Rise and Fall — and Potential Resurgence — of the Comparative Method, With Special Reference to Anthropology
67 Paul D. Barclay Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan: The Rhetorics of Vindicationism and Privation in Japan’s “Aboriginal Policy”
85 P. G. Toner The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research and the Birth of Ethnomusicology
Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 ISSN: 1440-0669
CONTRIBUTORS
PAUL D. BARCLAY is Associate Professor of History at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, USA. He is currently writing a social and cultural history of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan's highland territories. BRONWEN DOUGLAS is a Senior Fellow in Pacific and Asian History in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at The Australian National University. Her current research project is exploring the entanglements of the scientific idea of race with encounters in Oceania. She has also written extensively on the intersections of Christianity and gender in Melanesia and on the colonial history of New Caledonia. She is the author of Across the Great Divide: Journeys in History and Anthropology (Amsterdam; Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998) and has edited several collections, including Tattoo: Bodies, Art and Exchange in the Pacific and the West (London and Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), co-edited with Anna Cole and Nicholas Thomas. HENRIKA KUKLICK is a Professor in the Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania. A specialist in the history of the human sciences, her publications include The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 1992, 1993), an edited collection, A New History of Anthropology (forthcoming 2007, Blackwell Publishing), and articles in The American Ethnologist, The Annual Review of Sociology, The British Journal for the History of Science, History of Anthropology, The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Sociological Quarterly, and Theory and Society. BENJAMIN PENNY is a Research Fellow in the History of China in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at The Australian National University. He is the editor of Religion and Biography in China and Tibet (London: Curzon Press, 2002) and Daoism in History: Essays in Honour of Liu Ts’un-yan (London: Routledge, 2006). He is currently writing a monograph on the Falun Gong as well as
iii Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
undertaking projects on the cult of the South Sea God in southern China and the history of Sinology. PETER TONER is an anthropologist/ethnomusicologist at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He has conducted almost two years of research on Yolngu music, principally in Gapuwiyak, N.T., on issues relating to social identity, cultural change, and historical aspects of music research. His current research interests also include folk music and Irish cultural identity in Atlantic Canada.
iv HISTORICIZING “CROSS-CULTURAL”
BENJAMIN PENNY
In 2000, a few years into the 10-year his- in recent changes in the state of the world tory of the ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultur- and of academic disciplines, it is clear that al Research, a new field of research for the “transaction and translation between cul- Centre was announced: “Conceptualising tures” has been going on for as long as Cross-Cultural Research”, which in later there have been people, and the “tracing years became “Interrogating Concepts of of patterns” in this process is by no means the Cross-Cultural”.1 The 2007 iteration only a recent phenomenon. The essays in of the website summarizes it in this way: this volume are concerned with examining how such patterns were traced before the By "cross-cultural research" we middle of the twentieth century, when the mean scholarship that is oriented term “cross-cultural” was coined. They towards tracing patterns of trans- therefore involve studies both of particular action and translation between encounters between people of different cultures. Methodologically, such cultures and investigation of the disciplin- scholarship transcends convention- ary categories in which those studies took al national and area studies frames place. of reference by recognising the The literature of encounter between increasing porousness of cultural people from different cultural back- boundaries. This program exam- grounds is, of course, vast and the essays ines both the disciplinary and in- here only address a few examples of the terdisciplinary ramifications of the rich legacy of work left by generations of term "cross-cultural" in Humanit- explorers, traders, missionaries and consu- ies research. It does so by explor- lar officials, as well as people who thought ing the theoretical links between of themselves as scholars. Some small the notion of the "cross cultural" amount of this work is well known but as it has emerged in the disciplin- more of it is much less read than it should ary fields of anthropology, history, be and, in general, deserves rediscovery literary studies and linguistics, and and reassessment. The people who conduc- contemporary conceptualisations ted this research worked within the of "cultural difference" in the paradigms of their owns eras: the ways transdisciplinary fields of postco- they thought through what they saw and lonial, migration and globalisation heard may sound unfamiliar, if not simply studies.2 odd, to a contemporary ear, but such per- Although this description locates the par- plexity is all to the good, as it makes us ticular interest of “cross-cultural research” ponder the earlier forms — indeed, often
1 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 the foundations — of the disciplines that duped by surface similarities or currently hold sway. fictitious analogies, a great deal of labor may lead to incorrect conclu- However, just as the essays in this 3 volume seek to historicize “cross-cultural sions. research”, it is also possible, and illumin- There are two points that I want to focus ating, to historicize the word “cross-cultur- on from this passage. First, Malinowski al” itself, and the major part of this essay saw Frazer, Tylor and Westermarck — he will be concerned with the first significant was probably referring to Westermarck’s academic project to use the term “cross- The History of Human Marriage and The cultural” in its title. It is important to do Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas4 this to expose the difference in concep- — as using comparison to reveal “the es- tions between its use today and what it sential nature” of a particular phenomen- meant at the time of its coining, in order on, much as nineteenth-century classical to lay bare the foundations of the field. philologists sought the underlying Indo- The first citation the Oxford English European language by comparison of Dictionary gives for “cross-cultural” comes known tongues. In such projects, it is of- from Malinowski’s A Scientific Theory of ten the origin or source of a specific cultur- Culture (1941) in a chapter outlining al activity that is the primary goal. This “Concepts and Methods in Anthropology”. presumes, of course, that there is a shared Having discussed “evolutionism” and cultural substratum in humanity; indeed, “diffusionism”, and mentioning function- it may have been argued, that substratum alism in passing, Malinowski says: is made up of those essential characteristics that make us human. Secondly, comparis- Thus there is the comparative on, for Malinowski, meant “cross-cultural method, in which the student is documentations” — but it was imperative primarily interested in gathering that those comparisons be made between extensive cross-cultural document- “really comparable phenomena” specified ations, such as we see in Frazer’s by a “really scientific definition”. He was The Golden Bough, or in Tylor’s obviously reacting against some earlier Primitive Culture, or in the excesses of the comparative method here, volumes of Westermarck on mar- but nonetheless we might baulk, some 65 riage and morals. In such works years after Malinowski’s death, at the no- the authors are primarily inter- tion that cultural phenomena can be ested in laying bare the essential defined with such accuracy and precision, nature of animistic belief or magic- and at the tendency towards circularity al rite, of a phase in human culture in so reducing the set of items we might or a type of essential organization. compare to only such things that we define Obviously, this whole approach as being “really comparable” in the first presupposes a really scientific place. definition of the realities com- pared. Unless we list, in our ex- Even so, it is important to recognize haustive inventories, really com- that at its appearance in academic writing parable phenomena, and are never at least, “cross-cultural” collocated most
2 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural” comfortably with the idea that insights cent fields, were practically inac- into the nature of the human condition cessible to them. Working in the could best be drawn through comparing laboratory, the clinic, or the com- the various forms that particular features munity, the psychologists, sociolo- of people’s lives took in different places gists, and others made frequent and, as we shall see, at different times. The requests of the cultural anthropo- OED’s definition for “cross-cultural” indic- logists for comparative data on ates that it appeared before 1940 and, in- various aspects of behavior among deed, in 1937 Yale University launched a primitive peoples. Sometimes they major project under the name of “The wanted perspective, sometimes Cross-Cultural Survey”, later incorporated suggestions, sometimes a check on into the Human Relations Area Files.5 This their own scientific formulations. survey, headed up by George Peter Mur- In trying to assist them, the anthro- dock (1897–1985), produced both the pologists found that they could Outline of Cultural Materials, with its first usually cite a limited number of edition in 1938, and the supplementary cases from their own knowledge Outline of World Cultures, first published and give an impressionistic judg- in 1954. Both works continue to be revised ment as to the general status of and published and are now available elec- ethnography on the question. For tronically. Murdock explained the genesis scientists, however, this was often of the project in an article from 1940: not enough. What guarantee was there that the remembered cases For a number of years, the Insti- were representative, or the impres- tute of Human Relations at Yale sions valid? What was needed was University has been conducting a access to a dependable and object- general program of research in the ive sample of the ethnographic social sciences, with particular evidence. Only rarely was it pos- reference to the areas common to, sible to refer the seeker to an ad- and marginal between, the special equate summary of the evidence; sciences of sociology, anthropo- in the great majority of instances, logy, psychology, and psychiatry. he could satisfy his scientific curi- In 1937, as one of the specific re- osity only by resorting to the vast search projects on the anthropolo- descriptive literature itself and gical and sociological side of this embarking on a research task of program, the Cross-Cultural Sur- discouraging magnitude.6 vey was organized. A year of previous experience To overcome this problem, Murdock estab- in collaborating with other social lished the Cross-Cultural Survey, which scientists in research and discus- was designed to be “a representative sion had made it clear to the an- sample of the cultural materials on the thropologists associated with the various societies of the world…organized Institute that the rich resources of for ready accessibility on any subject”.7 ethnography, potentially of ines- This was an encyclopaedic project; one timable value to workers in adja- that sought an Olympian view of all hu-
3 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 manity, a kind of grand ethnographic will be a fair representation of the panopticon with each discrete unit of cul- historical civilizations of the past, ture defined and arranged for easy compar- of modern folk cultures, and of the ison. The foreword to the first edition of communities studied by contem- the Outline of Cultural Materials states that porary sociologists.10 it was “designed primarily for the organiz- The single-minded collection of data was ation of the available information on a not something that Murdock simply deleg- large and representative sample of known ated to his staff. An obituary by John cultures with the object of testing cross- W.M. Whiting, one of his former students, cultural generalizations, revealing deficien- in the American Anthropologist recalled cies in the descriptive literature, and dir- that, ecting corrective fieldwork”.8 By the third edition, the goal was significantly When I was a graduate student at more ambitious: the “large and represent- Yale in the 1930s, Pete [as he was ative sample of known cultures” had be- known to friends and family] come, by 1950, “a statistically representat- would spend nearly every week- ive sample of all known cultures, primit- day night from 8.00 p.m. to 5.00 ive, historical, and contemporary”.9 Thus, a.m. in the Yale library examining there were two processes necessary for every possible source of ethno- this project to be fulfilled. First, materials graphic information, identifying needed to be gathered; secondly, they the group described and listing all needed to be classified. Murdock ex- the references. As a consequence plained the progress in collection in 1940 he was able to publish a listing of in this way: all known cultures of the world — The Outlines of World Cultures. Since the publication of the This served as an approximation manual, in 1938, the staff of the of the universe of known peoples Cross-Cultural Survey has been of the world, which was necessary engaged in the actual assembling if the aim of the files was to pro- of materials. To date, the descript- duce a representative sample of ive data on nearly a hundred cul- this universe.11 tures have been abstracted, classi- fied, and filed. It is hoped ulti- The completeness of Murdock’s files is mately to assemble and organize indicated by his description of the meth- all the available cultural informa- ods of collection: tion on several hundred peoples, For each of the cultures analyzed, who will be adequately distributed the entire literature is covered, in- with regard to geography and cluding manuscript materials when fairly representative of all major available. In some instances, more types and levels of culture. Al- than a hundred books and articles though primitive cultures will have been combed for a single preponderate numerically, because tribe or historical period. All ma- they reveal the widest range of terial in foreign languages has human behavioral variations, there
4 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural”
been translated into English. The ilarly, there can be no special cat- information, if of any conceivable egory like “Christianity,” pertain- cultural relevance, is transcribed ing to only a limited number of in full — in verbatim quotations cultures, but only general categor- or exact translations. The object ies like 779 (Theological Sys- has been to record the data so tems).14 completely that, save in rare in- The editors remark that, “any element of stances, it will be entirely unneces- culture may have as many as seven major sary for a researcher using the files facets any one of which may be used as to consult the original sources.12 the primary basis of classification”, and Classification of the data was according to proceed to list these facets as being: two broad criteria. The first was geograph- 1. a “patterned activity” (travel, conver- ical: the world was divided into continents sation, crime), or their equivalent, then countries or large 2. only occurring under certain circum- portions of countries, then specific groups. stances (rest days and holidays, dis- Thus, Australia is found under Oceania, asters, menstruation), with the sub-classifications: “Australia [in 3. being associated with a particular general], Historical Australia, Norfolk Is- subject (division of labour by sex, land, Prehistoric Australia, Australian sibs, priesthood), Aborigines [in general], Andedja, Arabana, 4. being commonly directed towards Aranda, Barkindji, Dieri, Kabikabi, Kamil- some object (poultry raising, kin rela- aroi, Karadjeri, Kariera, Kawadji, Kurnai, tionships, child care), Murngin, Narrinyeri, Tasmanians, Tiwi, 5. being accomplished by some external Ualarai, Wikmunkan, Wogait, Worimi, means (telephone and telegraph, Yiryoront, Yungar”.13 The second cri- weapons, mutual aid, agency), terion was according to content and is 6. being normally performed with a much more complex. In a system reminis- purpose or goal (mnemonic device, cent of Roget’s Thesaurus, the entirety of sorcery, techniques of inculcation), human activity is broken down into 79 7. having a concrete result (shipbuild- sections and 619 subsections. The editors ing, sanctions).15 of Outline of Cultural Materials write: Systems of classification are, of course, The reader must expect to find challenging to develop but this one does classified under the same heading seem both arbitrary and, in the character such superficially divergent phe- of those examples thrust together in paren- nomena as the Indian medicine theses, to approach self-parody.16 How- man and the modern psychoana- ever, even if we discount the problems lyst under Category 756 (Psycho- associated with developing a taxonomy, therapists), and the primitive the subsequent process of classification of quarrying of flint and the contem- any given cultural phenomenon is itself porary activities of the Anaconda often complex, difficult and as arbitrary Copper Company under Category as the classificatory categories them- 316 (Mining and Quarrying). Sim- selves.17
5 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
However, for the present purposes the 1. Monotheism is positively related to details of the classification scheme that the presence of a hierarchy of three Murdock and his colleagues developed are or more sovereign groups in a soci- less important than the fact that he did ety. attempt to encompass “the universe of 2. There is no relationship between the known peoples of the world” and to pro- number of sovereign groups in such duce “a representative sample” of them a hierarchy, and the likelihood that for the purposes of making comparisons. the monotheistic deity will be seen This striving towards a rigorously defined as active in earthly affairs including taxonomy of the entirety of human exper- the support of human moral relation- ience was by no means a new goal. Mur- ships. High gods do tend to be active dock and his colleagues were clear meth- in societies having two or more sover- odological descendents of Edward Tylor, eign communal groups. whose “On a Method of Investigating the 3. A variety of other indices of social Development of Institutions; Applied to complexity are not related to the Laws of Marriage and Descent” provided presence of monotheistic beliefs in a the model for this variety of research. As society. George Stocking remarked, in relation to 4. The data seem to run counter to the Herbert Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology, expectation of certain anthropologists “Spencer may thus be regarded as the ulti- that a highly developed monotheism mate source of the later Human Relations would be likely to appear in the Area Files; Tylor, of the systematic compar- simplest and most isolated societies.20 ative cross-cultural study of the data they During the late 1930s and 1940s others contain.”18 The purpose of comparison used “cross-cultural” in this same sense, underlying the Cross-Cultural Survey was notably Margaret Mead,21 and after the to find systematic correlations between Second World War its use spread widely cultural variables, as Tylor had done. in Anthropology, Psychology, Education Thus, to take one example, for Guy E. and related fields. At some point in the Swanson to answer the question “From mid-1950s another sense of “cross-cultur- what experiences do the ideas of the super- al” started to appear. Rather than standing natural and its myriad forms arise?”, he for a type of work that surveyed a range analyzed data from a “randomly” selected of cultures for examples of a particular set of 50 societies from Murdock’s list, phenomenon, it focused on differences correlating various aspects of social organ- between the perceptions two particular ization with particular varieties of reli- peoples held of each other, or the percep- gious belief: monotheism, polytheism, an- tions two particular peoples had of some cestral spirit belief, reincarnation, the im- specific event, or set of circumstances, or manence of the soul, witchcraft and the object. Thus, for example, the two theses interaction of the supernatural and moral- “Military Government and the German ity.19 His conclusions — in the case of Press: an Experiment in Cross-Cultural monotheism — are indicative of the style Institutional Change” and “The Japanese of the whole: Student’s View of America: a Study in Cross-Cultural Perception” were both ac-
6 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural” cepted in 1954, the former from Columbia comprised works with a strong comparat- University and the latter from Ohio State ive and statistical bias, notably four University.22 volumes of Philip M. Parker’s Cross-Cul- This new meaning of “cross-cultural” tural Statistical Encyclopedia of the World, arguably marks the origin of its use in the or studies of cross-cultural communication context of the encounter between two — for instance, Cross-Cultural and Interdis- peoples of different cultures. In the post- ciplinary Aspects of Teaching Languages for war world that saw the start of long-term Professional Communication and Cross- Cultural Communication and Aging in the occupations of defeated countries by their 23 victors — and the continuing presence of United States. It is interesting, however, their military bases — the increasing that lurking amongst these titles, one book presence of foreign students and staff in undoubtedly hailing from the humanities the universities of the first world, the appears: Claudio Gorlier and Isabella Maria formation of initiatives such as the Peace Zoppi’s edited volume Cross-Cultural Corps and the burgeoning of disciplines Voices: Investigations into the Post-Colonial. like Social Psychology, discussions of how Despite its title, the essays in this book people of different cultures understood actually differ little from the traditional each other gained a new relevance. One study of “Commonwealth Literatures”; manifestation of this interest was the de- indeed, one of its editors disclaims any velopment of the field of “cross-cultural desire to enter “into the heart of the vital and multi-faceted debate concerning a training” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, 24 where people about to be posted to anoth- ‘post-colonial discourse’”. However, the er country were sensitized to the different mere juxtaposition of “cross-cultural” and ways their new hosts perceived the world “post-colonial” marks a shift to another and behaved. variety of “cross-cultural research” — the kind the Centre for Cross-Cultural Re- As the decades progressed, there were search pursued over the decade of its life- two fields in which the term “cross-cultur- time. One of its five “key programs” was, al” became preponderant in book titles: in fact, “Postcolonialism and Cultural one represented the stream concerned with History”.25 Another, as I noted at the be- cross-cultural comparison and the other ginning of this essay, was “Interrogating was represented by applied studies of en- Concepts of the Cross-Cultural”, the rubric counter situations. The first was found in under which the original series of seminars medical research where particular diseases on “Historicizing Cross-Cultural Research” or treatments or syndromes were studied, was given that led to this volume of es- often statistically, in different parts of the says. world for the purposes of comparison; the second is apparent in the field of “cross- cultural communication”. By 1997, the year the ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research was founded, the books with “cross-cultural” in their titles in the Lib- rary of Congress catalogue still largely
7 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
ENDNOTES 16 And, indeed, to echo Borges’s taxomony of anim- als from the “Celestial Emporium of Benevolent 1 Knowledge” (famously cited by Michel Foucault in I would like to thank Henrika Kuklick for her the preface to The Order of Things): “(a) those that helpful suggestions in the preparation of this essay. belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those 2 http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/research/interrog- that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) ating.php (accessed 7.4.07) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are in- 3 cluded in this classification, (i) those that tremble as Malinowski, B., A Scientific Theory of Culture and if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those Other Essays (Chapel Hill: The University of North drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) others, Carolina Press, 1944), p.18. (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) 4 Westermarck, E.A., The History of Human Marriage those that resemble flies from a distance.” (J.L. (London: Macmillan, 1891) and subsequent editions; Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (Lon- in Other Inquisitions 1937–1952, trans., Ruth L.C. don: Macmillan, 1906–08) and second edition. Simms (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), p.103.) 5 In 1971, when he was at the University of Pitts- 17 burgh, George Murdock and others founded the So- For a critique on these grounds, see Köbben, A.J., ciety for Cross-Cultural Research, under whose aegis “New Ways of Presenting an Old Idea: The Statistical the journal Cross-Cultural Research is published. The Method in Social Anthropology”, in Frank W. Moore website of the society says: “Whereas early members (ed.), Readings in Cross-Cultural Methodology (New were heavily involved in hologeistic research, often Haven: HRAF Press, 1966), 166–92. in conjunction with the Human Relations Area Files 18 Stocking, G.W. Jr., Victorian Anthropology (New (HRAF), the methodological perspectives of the York: The Free Press, 1987), p.316. membership have broadened over the years to in- 19 clude a wide range of cross-cultural interests and Swanson, G.E., The Birth of the Gods: The Origin approaches” (http://www.sccr.org/description.html, of Primitive Beliefs (Ann Arbor: The University of accessed 13.4.07). Hologeistic — “whole world” — Michigan Press, 1966, first ed. 1961), p.1. For detailed research is usefully discussed in Richard W. analysis of four other studies from this school — Thompson and Roy E. Roper, “Methods in Social Murdock’s own Social Structure (New York: Macmil- Anthropology: New Directions and Old Problems”, lan, 1949), D. Horton’s “The Functions of Alcohol in American Behavioral Scientist 23, 6 (July/August, Primitive Societies”, Quarterly Journal of Studies in 1980), 905–24, pp.907–11. Alcohol, 4 (1943), C.S. Ford’s A Comparative Study of 6 Human Reproduction (New Haven: Yale University Murdock, G.P., “The Cross-Cultural Survey”, Press, 1945) and L.W. Simmons’s The Role of the Aged American Sociological Review 5, 3 (June 1940), in Primitive Society (New Haven: Yale University 361–70, p.361. Press, 1945) — see Köbben, “New Ways of Presenting 7 Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey”, p.362. an Old Idea”, pp.180–91. 20 8 Murdock, G.P., et.al., Outline of Cultural Materials Swanson, The Birth of the Gods, p.81. Swanson’s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), p.v, re- “certain anthropologists” are Father Wilhelm Schmidt printing the foreword to the first edition of 1938. and his followers: the work Swanson refers to in 9 particular is Schmidt’s The Origin and Growth of Re- Murdock, G.P., et.al., Outline of Cultural Materials, ligion, Facts and Theories, translated by H.J. Rose 3rd revised ed.(New Haven: Human Relations Area (London: Methuen and Co., 1935). Files, Inc., 1950), p.xii. 21 10 Thus, for instance, “The importance of cross-cul- Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey,” pp.362–3. tural comparisons in helping to clarify, sharpen, 11 Whiting, John W.M., “George Peter Murdock limit, and enlarge the instrumental concepts which (1897–1985)”, American Anthropologist 88, 3 are being used in the analysis of our own society”, (September, 1986), 682–6, pp. 684–5; my emphasis. in Mead, M., “Public Opinion Mechanisms among 12 Primitive Peoples”, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 1, Murdock, “The Cross-Cultural Survey,” p.363. 3 (July 1937): 5–16, p.5. 13 Murdock, G.M., Outline of World Cultures, 3rd 22 Hurwitz, H.J., Military Government and the revised ed. (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files, German Press: an Experiment in Cross-Cultural Insti- Inc., 1963), pp.125–7. tutional Change, Masters Thesis, Columbia Univer- 14 Murdock, Cultural Materials, p.xviii. sity, 1954; H. A. Gould, The Japanese Student’s View of America: a Study in Cross-Cultural Perception, 15 See, Murdock, Cultural Materials, pp.xix–xx. Masters Thesis, Ohio State University, 1954.
8 Historicizing “Cross-Cultural”
23 Parker, Philip, M., Cross-Cultural Statistical En- cyclopedia of the World (vol.1, Religious Cultures, vol.2, Linguistic Cultures, vol.3, Ethnic Cultures, vol.4, National Cultures) (Westport: Greenwood Press,1997), Daniela Breveníková et al. (eds.), Cross- Cultural and Interdisciplinary Aspects of Teaching Languages for Professional Communication (Bratislava: Ústav jazykov Ekonomickej univerzity v Bratislave, 1997), Hana S. Noor Al-Deen (ed.), Cross-Cultural Communication and Aging in the United States (Mah- wah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1997). 24 Gorlier, Claudio and Isabella Maria Zoppi (eds.), Cross-Cultural Voices: Investigations into the Post- Colonial (Rome: Bulzoni, 1997), p.13. 25 http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/research.php (accessed 7.4.07)
9
THE LURE OF TEXTS AND THE DISCIPLINE OF PRAXIS
Cross-Cultural History in a Post-Empirical World
BRONWEN DOUGLAS
Textual analysis requires an historically PROLOGUE: NARRATIVE AND contextualized grasp of the ideologies, TEXTS discourses, language, protocols and exper- iences which informed authors’ percep- The main aim of this paper is to tell stories tions and thinking, but it can clot a narrat- about interactions between European ive and make it less readable. voyagers and Aboriginal people in New Second, “post-empirical world”. The Holland (mainland Australia) and Van discovery of the past by anthropologists Diemen's Land (Tasmania) at the end of and non-empirical “new historicists” in a the eighteenth century. I start, however, wide range of “studies” formats — liter- with the terms in the title. First, “texts” 1 ary, cultural, gender, media, colonial, and “discipline of praxis”. The discipline postcolonial, indigenous, and so forth5 — of praxis is, of course, history, which by has at once made history fashionable and professional convention is empirical and marginalized conventional practitioners objectivist. In the 1940s, R.G. Collingwood of the discipline as, at best, utilitarian outraged this orthodoxy with his “ideal- suppliers of historical background and, at ist” proposition that history is inseparable worst, boring empiricists devoid of flair from the historian and “the here-and-now” or theory. Historians in turn often lament and that “the past” is a creation of “the 2 the lack of detailed, particularistic archival historical imagination”. Since the further research by such interlopers and typecast outing of history as thoroughly text- them as dangerous postmodernists, ob- bound by Roland Barthes, Hayden White 3 sessed with texts at the expense of messy and other textual theorists, historians realities and often just plain wrong. with any claim to anti-positivism have been teased by the challenge of how to So much for insulting stereotypes. As juggle the tension between narrative and an historian of cross-cultural encounters texts: between their core brief to tell inter- in Oceania (including Australia) in the esting stories about the past and the need eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I to incorporate at least some textual analys- have a foot in both camps. I derive much is — because the past is only accessible of my theoretical and methodological mo- through texts of one sort or another.4 mentum from anthropology, feminism,
11 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 literary studies and Subaltern Studies: and ambiguity of actual encounters. By notably, the concept of culture itself; a this reasoning, the behaviour, appearance concern for the politics of language, rep- or lifestyle of particular indigenous people resentation and narrative construction; attracted, intimidated or repelled observ- and techniques of textual critique. Yet ers, affected their perceptions, challenged those techniques complement rather than or confirmed their predispositions, and supplant the principles for the collection left distorted countersigns in what they and rigorous comparative scrutiny of wrote and drew. Without empirical documents which I learned as an appren- grounding, history tends to be little more tice historian. I am committed to writing than a priori background noise. Yet about particular past human interactions weaving an imaginative, accessible, but and the gendered ambiguities of agency faithful narrative out of the fragmentary in actual encounters.6 That pragmatic gleanings of archives and memories is hard orientation privileges persons and actions work, especially if you care about indigen- over the teleology of imagined structures ous agency and therefore also need ethno- and outcomes but its inductive logic is graphic expertise and sensitivity — which analogous to the ethnographic inductivism is also useful in trying to decipher past of anthropologists — typically, our gener- Europeans. I, too, find it easier to stick to alizations depend on particularities, either texts, with their built-in limits to enquiry, past events or observed human behaviour. but writing stories about actual pasts re- Indeed, in cross-cultural research, the rel- mains a key goal. ative emphasis on inductive or deductive reasoning constitutes a major fault line. It CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION differentiates the empirical disciplines of history and anthropology from more tex- The final problematic term in the title is tualist or formalist approaches in cultural “cross-cultural”, which I overuse because studies, literary critique and art history it is a handy shorthand for encounters, which focus primarily on the objectified interactions and mutual (mis)conceptions representation of indigenous people in between indigenous people and foreigners. colonial texts, images and collections — Yet “cultural” is among the least transpar- on signifiers rather than referents, the in- ent of words and has at least three strikes digenous settings and the personal interac- against it in this context. First, it is ab- tions represented which are of special in- stract: “culture” is a concept, not a thing; terest to historians. and cultures don't meet or encounter each Furthermore, my theoretical perspect- other, people do. To reify such interactions ive proposes an intimate liaison between as cross-cultural assumes that dramatic indigenous actions or contexts and their differences in language, thinking, history representation by foreign observers — and way of life between two seemingly between referents and signifiers. Such homogeneous communities are what mat- representations should be read not merely ters when their members come together. as reflexes of dominant metropolitan dis- This distanced binary perspective has its courses and conventions but also as per- points, especially politically, but in prin- sonal productions generated in the stress ciple it essentializes each side as permanent
12 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis and monolithic and in practice privileges nounced the English translator of La élite male perspectives, taken as opposed. Pérouse’s narrative in 1798.10 However, By contrast, a close look at particular past a detailed search turned up few uses of situations may also reveal multiple alli- culture or its derivatives by Oceanic voy- ances between local inhabitants and for- agers before the 1830s and those always eigners whose respective unstable group- in the primary physical sense of hus- ings intersected ambiguously and frac- bandry. It is entirely absent from the En- tured internally along lines of gender, age, deavour journals of the Englishmen James vocation, place, and rank, class or status. Cook (1728–79) and Joseph Banks I still use “culture” strategically, but (1743–1820) and from the Investigator and pluralized to imply flux and diversity other journals by Matthew Flinders rather than fixity or uniformity.7 (1774–1814).11 In the published narrative Second, cultural is ethnocentric: in the of the Endeavour voyage, though, Cook’s social sciences and increasingly in popular editor John Hawkesworth (1715?–73) re- usage, culture has the naturalized anthro- placed Cook’s wording “rais'd with very pological connotation of a bounded, col- little labour”, said of the “produce” of lective pattern of belief, thought and beha- Tahiti, with the phrase “with so little cul- viour. Yet, so far as we can tell, Oceanian ture”. Culture also occurs in passing in the people did not usually objectify their total published narratives of the French voy- way of life in this fashion, even in con- agers Jean-François de Galaup de La frontation with Europeans, though indi- Pérouse (1741–88) and Antoine-Raymond- genous people these days often appropri- Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux ate the term in oppositional political rhet- (1737–93), with the same incorrect and oric. demeaning implication that the people in question — the Samoans and the Kanak The third problem with cultural is of New Caledonia, respectively — had no anachronism: in English, culture only ac- or little familiarity with “the art of cul- quired its naturalized modern anthropolo- ture”.12 gical meaning (Edward Burnett Tylor’s “complex whole”8 ) from the mid-to-late Embedded in these casual assertions nineteenth century. This usage emerged that Pacific Islanders ignored agriculture out of an ambiguous raft of earlier senses, is a tacit shift from purportedly empirical literal and metaphoric, substantive and fact to loaded judgement. This verbal abstract, as traced in Raymond Williams’s slippage betokens a universalist but pro- outline of the convoluted history of the foundly ethnocentric developmentalism word and its cognate term “civilization”.9 which was given detailed expression with Already multivocal at the end of the respect to Oceania by Johann Reinhold eighteenth century, culture denoted the Forster (1729–98), the German naturalist process of “cultivation”, both literally in who sailed on Cook’s second voyage of animal or crop husbandry and metaphor- 1772–75 and in 1778 published a treatise ically in development of the human intel- on natural philosophy. For Forster, the lect: “The mind is strengthened by the “cultivation” — or its synonym “culture” cultivation of the arts and sciences”, pro- — of crops and animals was a prerequisite for “progress” in “civilization”:
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…mankind, in a pastoral state, Kultur were synonymous whereas by the could never attain to that degree early-nineteenth century the English term of improvement and happiness, to culture was increasingly reserved for intel- which agriculture, and the cultiv- lectual, spiritual and aesthetic advance, in ation of vegetables, will easily and opposition to the perceived materialism of soon lead them. I do not, how- civilization. However, the anthropological ever,…insist that mankind should application of culture to mean a particular entirely neglect the culture, and way of life came via the German conflation domestication of animals;…it is the of civilization and culture as a general joint care of animals and agricul- human process: indeed, Tylor's celebrated ture, which leads mankind to the definition referred to “culture or civiliza- highest degree of content, and tion, taken in its wide ethnographic paves the way to perfect happi- sense”.16 13 ness. Men of their time, European travellers The presumption of a critical causal nexus undoubtedly regarded Oceanian people, between agriculture and civilization was as Roy Porter put it, “through eyes already a standard trope in developmentalist or trained in seeing stereotypes about the 17 social evolutionary theories from the En- savage and the civilised”. Yet the term lightenment onwards.14 Forster’s version “civilization” was not often used by Brit- 18 drew on the idea of a common stadial or ish voyagers before 1830, though from graded development of civil society from time to time they mentioned “civil” beha- savagery to civilization proposed by Scot- viour or “civility”, often connoting relief tish philosophers such as Henry Home, that nothing nasty had happened. Thus Lord Kames (1696–1782), whose treatise Sydney Parkinson (1745?–71), Banks’s on the “progress towards maturity of artist, commented that some Maori men knowledge and civilization…in different “behaved very civil to us” in New Zealand 19 nations” included an equally loaded alleg- (Aotearoa) in 1769. Banks, the well-bred ation about “Negroes”: “[T]hey live upon naturalist, often used the word “civil” and fruits and roots, which grow without cul- showed his concern for refinement of ture.”15 manners and social rank in frequent refer- ences to the exchange of “civilities”, usu- By the late-eighteenth century, the ab- ally with “the Better sort of people”.20 stract noun “civilization” denoted both On the other hand, a familiar ambivalence the Enlightenment idea of a general secular about the civilized state — “we process of human development from a Europeans” — was implicit in Banks’s primordial state of savagery and the ulti- well-known primitivist description of the mate outcome of that trajectory: a condi- inhabitants of eastern New Holland in tion of refinement or social order, of being 1770 as “these I had almost said happy “cultivated” or “civilized” — “civil soci- people, content with little nay almost ety” in English — which was supposedly nothing, Far enough removd from the realized in (European) modernity and was anxieties attending upon riches, or even set in binary opposition to “savagery” or the possession of what we Europeans call “barbarism”. In German, Zivilisation and common necessaries”.21 Cook, the farm
14 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis labourer’s son, endorsed the sentiment but so close to nature…are good and trusting” added feelingly: “They live in a Tranquil- and provided “the most perfect image of lity which is not disturb'd by the Inequal- the first state of society, when men are not ity of Condition”, a reminder of the entan- yet troubled by the passions or corrupted glement of the ideas of civility and class. by the vices which civilization sometimes In the journal of his second voyage, Cook brings in its wake”. These infantilized explicitly referred to “our Shame [as] civ- people were at once “less advanced in ilized Christians” in venting an elegiac civilization” than the Maori of New Zeal- outburst against the negative impact on and (Aotearoa) but also less “fierce”.25 In the Maori, especially on their sexual mor- contrast, though Tongans were not “natur- ality, of “the commerce they had with ally ferocious”, the seemingly arbitrary Europeans”.22 brutality of chiefs towards ordinary Is- In contrast to the British, French voy- landers horrified d'Entrecasteaux and agers made far greater use of civilisation, produced the global assertions that “senti- in both its abstract senses.23 They expli- ments of humanity are unknown to them” and they “attach no value to human citly located particular Oceanian groups 26 along a universal trajectory bridging the life”. For their part, the Kanak of New opposed poles of savagery and civilization Caledonia so appalled him with a single — but always towards the savage end. “act of ferocity” — cannibalism — that However, the moral implications of that he denied them “the least degree of civiliz- ation” and deemed the Tongans “much opposition were fiercely contested, ran- 27 ging between triumphalist acclaim for more advanced”. Yet, in Tonga, advance civilization as unequivocal progress and was an equivocal blessing which had pro- nostalgic disgust for aspects seen as degen- duced a “feudal”-style government with erate and contrary to nature. Experience “weak”, “effeminate” chiefs whose “volup- of Oceanian people provided grist to both tuous” lifestyle and arbitrary “abuses” led rumour mills; indeed, both extremes were to a “state of anarchy” and forced the or- dinary people into dissimulation, theft and enunciated at different stages in the course 28 of a single narrative, that of Bruni d'En- “acts of cruelty”. Finally, his colleagues’ trecasteaux's voyage in search of La accounts of vivid insults exchanged Pérouse in 1791–93. between two warring parties in the Louisiade Archipelago (Papua New I have argued elsewhere that the rhet- Guinea) saw d'Entrecasteaux damn entire orical somersaults in d'Entrecasteaux's groups as “cannibals” and deplore “the evaluations of particular indigenous excesses in which the human species can people were at least in part a product of indulge when customs are not moderated their perceived behaviour towards the and softened by civilization”. Rhetorically, French — that the content and wording this was a long way from the natural of his narrative were infused with indigen- charms of the “simple and good” inhabit- ous countersigns, that referents could im- ants of Van Diemen’s Land.29 pinge on signifiers.24 Thus, in Van Die- men’s Land, the inhabitants’ “peaceable These fluid, late-eighteenth-century dispositions” showed him that “these men representations of particular Oceanian people were moulded by cumulative exper-
15 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 iences of indigenous reception of foreign- accompanied by Bungaree, a Broken Bay ers — local actions and demeanour — man who became the key protagonist in which the author tried to square with his what ensued. general values, preconceptions and de- The texts used are undoubtedly both sires, and with place-specific precedents ethnocentric and élitist. They comprise derived from reading voyage literature. contemporary journals and later, more The moral universalism of d'En- polished narratives: manuscript copies, trecasteaux's developmentalist discourse seemingly abridged, of Flinders’s journals remained intact across the spectrum of his of his two voyages;31 accounts of the same representations but the specific moral voyages “taken from” the journals of Bass valence of his words shifted dramatically and Flinders and published in volume two in response to particular indigenous ac- of An Account of the English Colony in New tions. However, his vocabulary did not South Wales by the Marine lieutenant- yet signify the racialization of observed colonel David Collins, who had been human differences and is inappropriately judge-advocate and colonial secretary at read in terms of the now familiar named Port Jackson and would be the founder racial phenotypes into which the people and lieutenant-governor of Hobart Town; of the region were shortly to be classified. Flinders's brief coastal Observations pub- In principle at least, eighteenth-century lished in 1801 to accompany the charts of humanism, both neoclassical and Christian, his early surveys; and, finally, the long allowed the potential for progress or salva- historical introduction to his Voyage to tion to all human beings while construing Terra Australis, on “Prior Discoveries”.32 both in thoroughly ethnocentric ways. The third voyage, mentioned only VOYAGERS AND TEXTS briefly for comparative purposes, is that of the Frenchman Nicolas Baudin I now turn to narrative history, to stories (1754–1803), who explored western and about encounters between particular Ab- southern New Holland on the Géographe original people and outsiders during three and the Naturaliste in 1801–03, in direct voyages. My main focus is the young competition with Flinders, who was then Englishman Matthew Flinders, then surveying the New Holland coast in HMS second lieutenant on HMS Reliance. In six Investigator. I refer to an episode during expeditions between 1795 and 1799, some the French visit to southeastern Van Die- in open boats, Flinders and his friend men’s Land in early 1802, drawing on George Bass (1771–1803?), the ship’s sur- Baudin’s shipboard journal (1974), a con- geon, between them explored half the east temporary official report by Baudin (1978), coast of New Holland, from Hervey Bay and the later published narrative of the voyage by the young naturalist François (Queensland) to Westernport (Victoria), 33 plus Van Diemen’s Land.30 I discuss Péron (1775–1810). episodes during their joint visit to Van Diemen’s Land in December 1798 and during Flinders’s fifteen-day stay at Moreton Bay (Queensland) in July 1799
16 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis
FIRST HISTORY: VAN DIEMEN’S Land — was loaded with considerable in- LAND, DECEMBER 1798 terpretive weight by Bass and Flinders, as indeed it is by this historian given the rel- Late in 1798, Flinders and Bass in the 25- atively few such meetings reported. In a ton colonial sloop Norfolk, with a volun- classic slippage, they made a single human teer crew of eight, sailed through Bass specimen stand for an entire group: the Strait and around Van Diemen’s Land, man’s “frank and open deportment” pro- thereby proving it to be an island. They duced a “favourable opinion of the dispos- saw signs of human presence at several ition” of the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s points but interacted with only one local Land.36 Their reportage is a prime sample inhabitant. At Port Dalrymple — the of a rhetorical trajectory I have previously Tamar estuary — they saw three or four identified in voyage texts:37 from relief people “at a great distance”, who accord- at approved conduct by indigenous people ing to Flinders walked away, “most prob- to positive depictions of their essential ably at our approach”, whereas Bass said character or appearance and explicit dis- that they “ran off into the woods” and tancing from a standard compendium of made the incident emblematic of the “ex- supposedly Negro traits. Such representa- treme shyness” of the inhabitants which tions are oblique reflexes of actual indigen- “prevented any communication”.34 But ous behaviour, processed by European in the upper Derwent they came face to travellers in the light of the profound in- face with two women and a man. The wo- security of sailing in unfamiliar waters and men “scampered off” (said Bass) “scream- their usual distaste for Negro ing” (said Flinders) but the man showed physiognomy. Consider these sequences no “signs of fear or distrust” and accepted in Flinders’s two extant reports of the a dead swan “with rapture”. Apparently meeting at the Derwent. In 1801: the man “ignorant of muskets”, his only interest “seemed to be devoid of fear”; “his coun- was the swan and the Englishmen’s red tenance was more expressive of benignity neckerchiefs. He did not know their and intelligence, than of ferocity or stupid- smattering of Port Jackson and Tahitian ity”; “his features were less negro-like words but seemed to understand their than is usual in New South Wales”. And signs and agreed to show them his habita- in 1814: “the quickness with which he tion. However, his “devious route and comprehended our signs spoke in favour frequent stoppages” convinced them that of his intelligence”; his hair “had not the he sought only “to amuse [himself] and appearance of being woolly” — code for tire them out” — Bass read caution in this “Negro”.38 It is difficult to say much strategy and “jealousy” about “his wo- about the actual encounter except that the men” — but they parted “in great friend- local man was evidently alert, wary and ship”.35 sought to control and profit from the Exegesis: This fleeting individual meeting on his own terms while the wo- contact — so typical of the serendipitous, men avoided it, possibly through fear of almost spectral quality of early voyagers’ the strangers, or the man, or all three. reports of meetings with the elusive and Flinders’s reference to New South enigmatic inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Wales exemplifies a persistent sub-text in
17 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 all these accounts: a comparative — what Bungaree conversed “by signs” with sev- would now be called ethnological — eral apparently unarmed local men. agenda which sought empirical evidence Bungaree went ashore, also unarmed, and of the relative “condition” of different engaged in the first of several exchanges groups, always pivoting on the authors’ — his yarn belt for a kangaroo fur band claim to expert knowledge of Port Jackson. — by which both parties presumably Thus, the young men in a party en- sought to establish, maintain or develop a countered at Twofold Bay en route to Van relationship. Bungaree was the key figure Diemen’s Land were “better made, and in these transactions. Flinders eventually cleaner in their person than the natives of landed, armed against “treachery” with a Port Jackson usually are”. Even the invis- musket, but his own efforts at exchange ible people of Port Dalrymple were de- failed when he refused to give up his cab- duced to be “much inferior in some essen- bage-tree hat on demand. As Flinders and tial points of convenience to…the despised Bungaree retreated to the boat, crowded inhabitants of the continent”, a judgement from behind by the men, one tried good- based on only three elements of material humouredly to take the hat by ruse but culture: the leakiness of their habitations, failed. The situation then deteriorated. their apparent lack of canoes and the Firewood was thrown at the boat, fell “roughness” of the marks they left on short, and was “treated as a joke” but one trees, suggesting a less “sharp-edged tool” man hurled a spear, which narrowly than that used on the mainland. “But”, missed. Alarmed, Flinders shot at “the of- added Bass, yoking pragmatic relativism fender” and continued to do so through to a tacit developmentalist philosophy, two misfires until he finally wounded him. “happiness…exists only by comparison Another man was reportedly shot in the with the stage above and the stage below arm by a seaman and the Aborigines our own”.39 fled.43 Although Flinders professed satisfac- SECOND HISTORY: MORETON tion at “the great influence which the awe BAY, JULY 1799 of a superior power has in savages”, his journal also tells another story, of ongoing Six months later, Flinders set out in the apprehension and jumbled emotions: in- Norfolk to examine the coast north of Port sult at the “impudent” and “very wanton Jackson, without Bass but accompanied 40 attack”; regret that he had been provoked by Bungaree, “whose good disposition into firing; hope that it would deter fur- and manly conduct” had attracted ther attacks by “the enemy”; anxiety Flinders’s “esteem” and who for the next nonetheless; and vulnerability because he 30 years would be among the best-known had to remain in the bay to do his survey and oft-portrayed Aborigines in the 41 and repair the sloop. For five days, he colony. cautiously avoided further contacts despite On 16 July, at a sandy point east of the repeated Aboriginal invitations. His mouth of Moreton Bay — Flinders’s Point prudence seemed justified on 18 July Skirmish, still so named, on the southern when the Norfolk was assailed by “a party tip of Bribie Island42 — Flinders and of natives…who appeared to be standing
18 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis up in their canoes, and pulling toward cing “not ungraceful”, especially in con- them, with all their strength, in very reg- trast to the “clumsy” efforts of three ular order…after the manner of the South Scottish sailors who had earlier been Sea islanders”. Then, as “about 20 of them ordered to dance a reel without “musick” were counted, and seemed to be coming and had not impressed the local audience. on with much resolution”, the decks were Their singing was “musical and pleasing” cleared, the men armed, and the sloop bore in contrast to Bungaree's reciprocal offer- away towards the attackers who had sur- ing, which “sounded barbarous and grat- prisingly come no closer. Flinders recoun- ing” and “annoyed his auditors” — but ted the denouement with wry retrospect- he was accounted “an indifferent songster, ive appreciation of its absurdity: “this even among his own countrymen”. These hostile array turned out to be a few “friendly interchanges” culminated in a peaceable fishermen” standing on a sand name exchange — they called Flinders flat and “driving fish into their nets”.44 “‘Mid-ger Plindah’” and he recorded three Yet dark imaginings about savage hordes of theirs — which he took for an import- were standard fare for sailors in a region ant “ceremony” on the analogy of Cook's offering notorious precedents in the real account of a similar practice at Endeavour or assumed fates of Cook, La Pérouse and River in 1770.46 numerous lesser figures. Flinders knew Exegesis: In a later brief history of his from personal experience as a midshipman 15-day visit to Moreton Bay, Flinders at- with William Bligh (1754–1817) in the tributed the eventual “friendly” relations Torres Strait Islands in 1792, when the to “a salutary change” induced in Abori- ships were twice attacked by men in ca- ginal attitudes by “the effect of our fire- noes and a seaman died, how lethally un- arms”. But the content and wording of his stable the equation between the “superior- own journal suggest that the most potent ity of our arms” and “great differences of 45 element in local responses to the strangers numbers” could be. and repeated expressions of eagerness to From 21 July, Flinders's tension communicate with them was Bungaree. gradually eased as Bungaree, “in his usual Though he “could not understand” the undaunted manner”, facilitated relations Moreton Bay language, the local people with the local people, who welcomed him persistently sought him out, while his enthusiastically but remained apprehens- mediatory skills were much valued by the ive of the white men, their muskets and, Europeans with whom he did share a lin- especially, Flinders. Hardly any women gua franca.47 Flinders represented him as were seen. During the last two days of the the key agent in three of the four exchange visit, with the sloop detained by bad situations which succeeded the initial viol- weather near Skirmish Point, the ex- ence. On 21 July, “about six miles” from changes expanded to include the Skirmish Point, two men signalled for Europeans and featured much singing and them to land but fled when Flinders ap- dancing, presumably an Aboriginal proached, only to return when they saw strategy to pacify or control the dangerous Bungaree. He “made a friendly exchange” strangers who thought they were being with them and went to the boat for addi- “entertained”. Flinders found their dan- tional items, “to make the exchange
19 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 equal”.48 There was a more elaborate Bungaree also served Flinders as a transaction four days later, with Bungaree datum point in the continuation and exten- again the main player: sion of the comparative agenda previously noted with respect to Van Diemen’s Land. Presents were made them of yarn At the mouth of the Clarence River, en caps, pork, and biscuit, all of route to Moreton Bay, they had seen three which they eagerly took, and large, well-built habitations which made signs for Bong-ree to go with Bungaree “readily admitted…were much them, and they would give him superior to any huts of the natives which girdles and fillets, to bind round he had before seen”. A fishing net taken his head and the upper parts of his from a house in Moreton Bay was “proof arms. So long as their visitors con- of the superior ingenuity of these over the sisted only of two, the natives natives of Port Jackson”. Their singing, were lively, dancing and singing too, was more complex: “not merely in the in concert in a pleasing manner; diatonic scale, descending by thirds, as at but the number of white men Port Jackson: the descent of this was having imperceptibly increased to waving, in rather a melancholy soothing eight, they became alarmed and strain”. On the other hand, Bungaree’s suspicious.49 weaponry was superior and, although the On 28 July, members of the crew chopped inhabitants of Moreton Bay bore a general down a tree and the noise of its fall greatly physical resemblance to those of Port “startled” several local men. Flinders, ever Jackson, there was none “whose counten- pragmatic, thought it “might probably ance had so little of the savage, or the assist in giving them a higher idea of the symmetry of whose limbs expressed power of their visitors”. Bungaree — strength and agility, so much, as those of “gallant and unsuspecting” according to their companion Bong-ree” — a classic Flinders but the second epithet is surely instance of a personal relationship tran- wrong — made amends for their fright by scending a demeaning stereotype.51 giving them a spear and a throwing-stick These piecemeal contrasts were specific and showing them the use of the latter, of 50 and empirical rather than systemic. How- which they appeared “wholly ignorant”. ever, at the end of the account of his stay I take this tutorial as a genuinely cross- in Moreton Bay, Flinders outlined an in- cultural act which symbolized a reciprocal ductive environmentalist theory of the rather than a hierarchical relationship and development of civil society which is per- belies the reified idea of the cross-cultural tinent to this paper. In his 1814 narrative, as a binary divide between opposed, ho- he summarized the situation thus: “They mogenized cultures. It is likely that the fish almost wholly with cast and setting Moreton Bay people took Bungaree for the nets, live more in society than the natives leader of the expedition and the white men to the southward, and are much better for his followers — which might explain lodged.”52 Here is his contemporary ex- why the modern town near Skirmish Point planation of why this should be so as is called Bongaree and not Flinders. rendered by Collins, but the ideas are clearly Flinders's:
20 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis
[T]he inhabitants of this bay ap- different mode of procuring fish peared to possess in general a very which had been adopted by the inhab- pointed difference from, if not a itants. He likewise supposed that superiority over, those of New the use of nets…arose from the form South Wales, particularly in their of the bay… 53 net-works…There was no doubt but they were provided with nets THIRD HISTORY: for catching very large fish, or an- SOUTHEASTERN VAN imals…[T]his mode of procuring DIEMEN’S LAND, their food would cause a character- JANUARY–FEBRUARY 1802 istic difference between the manners, and perhaps the dispositions, of I leave commentary on this passage to the these people, and of those who conclusion and turn to my brief third his- mostly depend upon the spear or tory of incidents during Baudin's six-week fiz-gig for a supply. In the one sojourn in southeastern Van Diemen’s case, there must necessarily be the Land in January–February 1802. Since I co-operation of two or more individu- have discussed the episode in some detail als; who there, from mutual neces- in other papers,54 I limit myself here to a sity, would associate together. It few relevant points. is fair to suppose, that this associ- Baudin arrived in Van Diemen’s Land ation would, in the course of a few with favourable preconceptions about the generations, if not much sooner, people he would meet, derived from the produce a favourable change in Cook and d'Entrecasteaux voyage reports, the manners and dispositions even and bound by both his instructions and of a savage. In the other case, the his inclinations to avoid violence against native who depends upon his fiz- them except in extreme self-defence. He gig or his spear for his support wrote at the outset that “the people of this depends upon his single arm, and, country do not appear to be savage, except requiring not the aid of society, is when provoked”.55 His contemporary indifferent about it, but prowls journal gives a dispassionate empirical ac- along, a gloomy, unsettled, and un- count of frequent, mostly amicable rela- social being [Bungaree?]… tions with local people, broken by two The net also appearing to be a sudden, unexplained assaults on shore more certain source of food than parties by men at Bruny Island who had the spear, change of place will be been amicably interacting with the French less necessary. The encumbrance and been “loaded with presents”: the first too of carrying large nets from one time, a single spear wounded a midship- place to another will require a man in the neck; the second time, a “hail more permanent residence; and of stones” wounded Baudin “fairly hence it would naturally follow, sharply” on the hip.56 Despite these that their houses would be of a contretemps, the tone of the journal is better construction…; this superi- matter-of-fact and even-handed about the ority Mr. Flinders attributed to the indigenous people, including the attackers.
21 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
In sharp contrast, in an official report culties faced by travellers in communicat- written later in the year, Baudin emphas- ing with savage peoples, and the impossib- ized the violence of the encounters and ility of overcoming the natural ferocity of deplored the “fickleness” of “primitive their character and their prejudices against men of nature…at the furthest degree us”.59 Péron’s ambivalence and outrage possible from civilization”, whose unpre- were epitomized in his reaction to the man dictable mood shifts back and forth from the French knew as Bara-Ourou, whom amity to aggression made it impossible to Péron praised as “the handsomest man in form “a clear idea of their character” and the band” but also damned as the most left sailors dangerously exposed.57 threatening (see Figure 1).60 However, even Baudin’s report is relat- ively restrained and empirical in compar- CONCLUSION ison to the exaggerated language of the official voyage narrative written by Péron, These particular histories of interactions the expedition’s zoologist and anthropolo- between shipborne strangers and Abori- gist. Before the voyage, he had professed ginal people in Van Diemen’s Land or New a qualified primitivist idealization of Holland at the end of the eighteenth cen- people “closer to nature”, contrasting tury both mirror and illuminate the prob- “degenerated and debased man of [civil- lematics of my title. My artificial and par- ized] society” to the “robust majesty of tial separation of stories from exegesis is natural man”.58 In the event, any residual a metonym for the tension between narrat- primitivism was rapidly dispelled in fears ive and texts that plagues anti-objectivist provoked by trying experience of so-called history. Narrative is necessary because “natural man” in Van Diemen’s Land. small histories speak to large issues. So too Within a few pages, the rhetoric of Péron’s is textual analysis but it must be contextu- narrative shifts from romantic approval of alized. In this paper, historicizing authors, the “affectionate” and “frank” demeanour their ideas and their experiences high- of “our good Diemenlanders” to vilifica- lights the ambiguity of the concept “cross- tion of “these fierce men”. Within the text, cultural” with reference to periods and this discursive shift is a direct response to contexts in which it was clearly anachron- the spear- and stone-throwing incidents istic or inappropriate. Close attention to and suggests a tortuous passage from ref- the words voyagers used to describe their erents to signifiers. “Men of nature” are experiences and the indigenous people no longer “good and simple” but they saw makes it clear that whatever they “wicked”. “After all we have seen”, he thought were doing, it was normally not proclaimed, “one cannot sufficiently mis- engaging in cross-cultural encounters. trust men whose character has not yet been Their key trope was not culture but civil- softened by civilization.” He wrote sub- isation (in the French case) and civility or sequently of the people of Maria Island, civil society (in the British case). with whom Baudin had found no fault, that “all their actions bore the stamp of treachery and ferocity”. These actions goaded him to a diatribe on “the diffi-
22 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis
Figure 1: Barthélémy Roger after Nicholas-Martin Petit, ‘Terre de Diémen. Bara-Ourou’, stipple engraving, 31.8 x 24.2 cm, in Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicholas-Martin Petit, Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes exécuté par ordre de S.M. l’Empereur et Roi. Partie Historique. Atlas (Paris : Imprimerie impériale, 1807): plate 8.
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That said, civilization is no more their attacks”.63 “Curb” is a key term transparent than culture. Its discursive which spoke to a paradox at the heart of instability, in conjunction with that of the Enlightenment humanism: that its moral idea of “race”, was nicely captured by universalism was at once inclusive, philan- George Stocking: “in the later eighteenth thropic, and optimistic about all human century, the idea of ‘civilization’ was seen beings, including so-called savages, but as the destined goal of all mankind, and also ethnocentric, hierarchical, paternalist, was in fact often used to account for appar- prescriptive and acquisitive. These latter ent racial differences. But in the 19th cen- strands, which would not accommodate tury more and more men saw civilization other people’s assessments and exercise of as the peculiar achievement of certain their rights, desires and autonomy, came ‘races’”.61 I have written elsewhere about steadily to dominate the discourse of broad discursive transitions at the end of civilization. Colonization was in the air the eighteenth century with particular and in September 1803, 18 months after reference to race.62 The texts considered Baudin’s visit, it became a grim fact in Van here are on the cusp of this shift in the Diemen’s Land. meaning of civilization which is exempli- The particular wording of these pas- fied in the similarity and contrast between sages also signals a semantic instability in d'Entrecasteaux's and Péron's narrativized the word “civilization”, noted by Willi- responses to volatile indigenous behaviour ams: a slippage from the idea of civilization in Oceania. It was the spectre of cannibal- as “refinement of manners and behaviour” ism — an offence against humanity — to its preferred modern connotation of which led d'Entrecasteaux (writing in 1793 “social order”.64 D'Entrecasteaux used but edited for posthumous publication in the term in the earlier sense, lyrically cel- 1808) to deplore “the excesses in which ebrating indigenous sociality in Van Die- the human species can indulge when cus- men’s Land as “evidence” of the “first toms are not moderated and softened by natural affection” and a “school of civilization”; it was particular insult at the nature”.65 Péron did so in the later sense: “violent aggression” directed against his these same people — “so close to the zero colleagues that saw Péron (publishing in point of civilization”,66 the “children of 1807 about events in 1802) use the same nature par excellence” — epitomized “non- trope: “[O]ne cannot sufficiently mistrust social man” who must be “curbed”. There men whose character has not yet been is, moreover, overt racialization in his as- softened by civilization.” Both envisaged sertion that they “differ essentially [and the need to respond with force but for perhaps originally?] from all other known d'Entrecasteaux it was a council of despair peoples” and in his conclusion that they rather than a prescription: compare his were “the most savage [people] of all”, lament that “we must renounce visiting consigned by physical deficiencies to the [Pacific Islanders]…, or we must inspire bottom of a hierarchy of races whose relat- respect in them by very great severity” ive “physical strength” he claimed to have with Péron's dogma that “one must only established “by direct experiments”. A approach these peoples armed with suffi- passionate advocate for “the progress of cient means to curb their ill will or repel civilization” and the superiority of “civil-
24 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis ized” over “savage man”, Péron argued more aesthetically and in the abstract, for a close causal nexus between “physical “superior power” — Flinders's phrase — constitution” and “social organization” or came to the fore when the always-lurking its purported “absence” — between race spectre of savagery materialized into real and civilization: the “peculiar conforma- or threatened action. In an ironic passage, tion” and the alleged physical “weakness” Flinders acknowledged the intimate link- he discerned in the inhabitants of Van age of power and refinement: having failed Diemen’s Land were products of inad- to impress the Moreton Bay people with equate diet and lifestyle which were in “the effect and certainty of his fire-arms” turn “an immediate and necessary result when he shot at a hawk and only broke of the savage state in which these unhappy its leg, he recalled wryly how: peoples vegetate”.67 …ineffectual had been some Williams, furthermore, suggested a former attempts…to impress them national difference in the usage of “civiliz- with an idea of the superior refine- ation”: “From e[arly] C19 the development ment of his followers. Bong-ree, of civilization towards its modern mean- his musician, had annoyed his ing…is on the whole earlier in French than auditors with his barbarous 68 in English.” The shift in French was sounds, and the clumsy exhibition presumably fuelled by the experience of of his Scotch dancers…had been revolution, whereas its later English viewed by them without wonder manifestation related more to colonialism. or gratification.70 My sample of voyage texts, though too small to be conclusive, partly bears out I approached these texts with the Williams’s observation. Civilization is only working hypothesis that they would dis- implicit in most of the British texts but for close a broad contrast between English Bass it meant relative “convenience” and pragmatism and French abstraction. It was “happiness”, in Forster's sense, which partly confirmed in the distinction were corollaries of refinement. Flinders's between explicit French and implied Eng- primary concern was to explain “a charac- lish usages. However, again the question teristic difference between the manners, is more complex and ambiguous. Class and and perhaps the dispositions” of the Port occupational differences were at least as Jackson and the Moreton Bay people — salient as national ones. In many respects, “manners” came first — and he did so in sailors like Cook and Baudin — an officier terms of a simple environmentalist devel- bleu, of non-noble birth, he had no real opmentalism which also reads like a distil- career in the French Marine until after the lation of Forster: it was ultimately “the Revolution — had far more in common form of the bay” which produced with each other, as their pragmatic, empir- “more…society” at Moreton Bay.69 ical language showed, than either did with their more sophisticated naturalists Banks Yet the distinction between refinement and Péron. Furthermore, if French sailors and social order was not simply linear but fulminated more about civilisation, they was also one of emphasis, degree and also fired less often on indigenous people pragmatic context: if manners mattered than did the British. Unlike Flinders at
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Moreton Bay, Baudin was “not obliged to 2 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford: fire” on his stone-throwing assailants in Clarendon Press, 1946), pp.242, 248. 3 Van Diemen’s Land because when he Roland Barthes, “Le discours de l’histoire”, Inform- ations sur les sciences sociales, vol. 6 (1967), 65-75; aimed his firearm at one man, they all Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultur- scattered — they had prior experience of al Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1978); Hayden White, The Content of the muskets whereas the Moreton Bay people Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representa- seemingly did not. But for Baudin, it was tion (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, also a matter of principle: “experience” 1987). had taught him that “superior force” was 4 In principle, I use the term “text” in the widest sense to mean any vehicle for representation — not always the only guarantee against “the written, drawn, photographed, made, performed, traps of the man of nature” and that spoken, remembered. In practice in this paper, the “prudence” could avert endless alarms.71 texts considered are all written and visual represent- ations are used mainly for illustration. As they made their way around the 5 See, for example, Aletta Biersack (ed.), Clio in New Holland coast, voyagers of both na- Oceania: Toward a Historical Anthropology (Washing- tions evinced a keen predatory interest in ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991); Fred- erick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (eds), Tensions of the resources offered by the land and its Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World potential for pasture and agriculture but (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); H. the British, already ensconced, did so more Aram Veeser (ed.) The New Historicism (New York: Routledge, 1989). systematically, persistently and, in the 6 72 The problematic concept of “agency”, particularly end, effectively. The initial British set- that of indigenous, female and other historically tlement in Van Diemen’s Land was placed suppressed categories of persons, here neither neces- at Risdon Cove on Bass’s recommendation sarily infers intention nor presumes a modernist no- tion of the individual as a bounded, autonomous and the definitive settlement at Hobart subject. Rather, I take it as given that there is a gen- Town that followed in February 1804 was eral human potential to desire, choose, and act stra- tegically which must be historicized within the limits led by Collins, the amanuensis of Bass and and possibilities of unstable assemblages of ideas, Flinders. I conclude by suggesting that systems, personalities and circumstances. whereas “cross-cultural” is in principle an 7 The anthropologist Francesca Merlan proposed the egalitarian, relativist concept which ac- term “intercultural” as the most effective way to conceptualize “difference-yet-relatedness within an knowledges the specificity and validity of increasingly expanding social field” in a “globalized particular ways of life, the idea of civiliza- world” (Francesca Merlan, "Explorations Towards tion, in all its manifestations, is hierarchic- Intercultural Accounts of Socio-Cultural Reproduc- tion and Change", Oceania, vol. 75 (2005), 167-82). al, universalist and assimilationist. From However, attentiveness to “complex articulations this perspective, the only named cross- within and across particular social groups” rather cultural actor in my histories was Bungar- than emphasis on “an ‘interface’ between separately conceived domains” is an equally apt strategy for ee. historians of early encounters between indigenous people and Europeans (Melinda Hinkson and Ben- jamin Smith, “Introduction: Conceptual Moves to- ENDNOTES wards an Intercultural analysis”, Oceania, vol. 75 (2005), 157–66, pp.157–8). 1 For aesthetic reasons, I make minimal use of inver- 8 “Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethno- ted commas: they are included on first mention of an English term in its contemporary sense and then graphic sense, is that complex whole which includes omitted, except for direct quotations; non-English knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any words are italicized; inverted commas are implied in other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a the case of now problematic terms such as “race”, member of society” (Edward B. Tylor, Primitive “civilization”, “savage”, “Negro”. Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
26 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis
Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. (Lon- 13 Johann Reinhold Forster (N. Thomas, H. Guest don: John Murray, 1871), vol. 1, p.1). and M. Dettelbach, eds), Observations Made During 9 Raymond Williams, Keywords: a Vocabulary of a Voyage Round the World (Honolulu: University of Culture and Society, Rev. ed. (New York: Oxford Hawaii Press, 1996 [1778]), pp.234–5, 238. University Press, 1983 [1976]), pp.57–60, 87–93; see 14 Thus, for example, the French comparative ana- also Claude Blanckaert, “La naturalisation de l'homme tomist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) discerned: “very de Linné à Darwin: archéologie du débat nature/cul- different degrees in man’s development…Man has ture”, in A. Ducros, J. Ducros, and F. Joulian (eds), really only succeeded in multiplying his species to La culture est-elle naturelle? Histoire, épistémologie et a high degree, and in advancing very far his know- applications récentes du concept de culture (Paris : ledge and his arts, since the invention of agricul- Editions Errance, 1998), 15–24, pp.19–23. ture…Mild climates, soils naturally watered, and 10 Anon., “The Translator’s Preface”, in J.-F. de rich in plants, are veritable cradles of agriculture and civilization” (Georges Cuvier Le règne animal distribué Galaup de La Pérouse (L.-A. Milet-Mureau, ed.), The d'après son organisation, pour servir de base à l'histoire Voyage of La Pérouse Round the World, in the Years naturelle des animaux et d'introduction à l'anatomie 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788 …, vol. 1 (London: John comparée, 4 vols (Paris: Deterville, 1817), vol.1, Stockdale, 1798), [1]–[7], p.[3]. pp.91–4); Charles Darwin (1809–82) applied similar 11 See the transcriptions of Cook's and Banks's logic to the particular case of Aboriginal Australians: journals by the Australian National Library's South “they appeared far from such utterly degraded beings Seas Project,
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19 Sydney Parkinson (Stanfield Parkinson, ed.), A 30 For a chart of Flinders' voyages, see: 'Matthew Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas in his Majesty’s Flinders, General chart of Terra Australis or Australia Ship, the Endeavour…Embellished with Views and showing the parts explored between 1798 and 1803 Designs, Delineated by the Author, and Engraved by by M. Flinders Commr. of H.M.S. Investigator', State Capital Artists (London: Stanfield Parkinson, 1773), Library of NSW, Sydney,
28 The Lure of Texts and the Discipline of Praxis in the Armed Vessel Porpoise and Cumberland 48 Flinders in Collins, Account, vol. 2, p.243. Schooner…, 2 vols. (London: G. and W. Nicol, 1814), 49 Ibid, p.245. vol.1, pp.clxxxvi–clxxxvii, cxcvi–cxcviii). 50 Ibid, p.249. 33 François Péron and Louis de Freycinet, Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes…sur les corvettes le 51 Ibid, pp.228, 238, 249, 250, 252. Géographe, le Naturaliste, et la goëlette le Casuarina, 52 Flinders, Voyage, vol.1, p.cxcviii. pendant les années 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804. Historique, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1807- 53 Flinders in Collins, Account, vol.2, pp.253–5; my 16). emphasis. 34 Bass in Collins, Account, vol. 2, p.168; Flinders, 54 Douglas, “Seaborne Ethnography”, pp.19-26; Narrative, p.[21]. Bronwen Douglas, “Slippery Word, Ambiguous Praxis: ‘Race’ and Late 18th-Century Voyagers in 35 Bass in Collins, Account, vol. 2, p.187; Flinders, Oceania”, Journal of Pacific History, vol. 41, 1-29, Observations, p.8; Flinders, Voyage, vol.1, pp.23-5, 27-9. p.clxxxvi–clxxxvii. 55 Baudin to Freycinet, 14 January 1802, in Nicolas 36 Bass in Collins, Account, vol. 2, p.188. Baudin (C. Cornell, tr.), The Journal of Post Captain 37 Douglas, “Art”, pp. 70-3; Bronwen Douglas, Nicolas Baudin Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes “Seaborne Ethnography and the Natural History of Géographe and Naturaliste Assigned by Order of the Man”, Journal of Pacific History, vol. 38 (2003), 3–27, Government to a Voyage of Discovery (Adelaide: Lib- pp.12, 17. raries Board of South Australia, 1974), p.302. 38 Flinders, Observations, p.8; Flinders, Voyage, vol.1, 56 Baudin, Journal, pp.300–50, 304–5, 321, 345–6. p.clxxxvii. 57 Nicolas Baudin, “Des naturels que nous trouvions 39 Bass in Collins, Account, vol.2, pp.169–70, my et de leur conduite envers nous [Baudin to Jussieu, emphasis; Flinders, Voyage, vol.1, p.cxl. 18 Nov. 1802]”, in J. Copans and J. Jamin (eds), Aux origines de l'anthropologie française: les mèmoires de 40 For a later portrait of Bungaree, see: Philip Parker la Société des Observateurs de l'Homme en l'an VIII King, 'Boong-gar-ree Aboriginal of New South Wales (Paris : Le Sycomore, 1978), 205–17, pp. 207–14. 1819 who accompanied me on my first voyage to the NW coast', watercolour, 16.2 x 10 cm., PXC 767 f.48, 58 Péron, François, “Observations sur l'anthropolo- State Library of NSW,
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66 François Péron, Île Maria: observations anthropo- logiques: entrevue avec les naturels de cette île et description d'un tombeau trouvé sur la côte nord de la Baie de l'Est. Ventose an Xe [February–March 1802], MS 18040, Collection Lesueur, Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, Le Havre, France, p.2. 67 Péron and Freycinet, Voyage, vol.1, pp.285, 446, 448, 452, 457, 458, 466, 471; vol.2, p.164; my emphas- is. 68 Williams, Keywords, p.58; original emphasis. 69 Bass in Collins, Account, vol.2, p.169; Flinders in Collins, Account, vol.2, pp.253–4, my emphasis; Flinders, Voyage, vol.1, p.cxcviii. 70 Flinders in Collins, Account, vol.2, pp.234, 252–3. 71 Baudin, Journal, pp.x–xi, 346; Baudin, “Des naturels”, pp.210–11. 72 For example, “The account of the Derwent river being now closed, and the whole of what was learned of Van Diemen’s land related, it may not be improper, says Mr Bass, to point out the manner in which this country and New South Wales appear to differ in their most essential quality, that of their soil” (Collins, Account, vol.2, p.189).
30 MORE THAN ONE ADAM?
Revelation and Philology in Nineteenth-Century China
BENJAMIN PENNY
From Marco Polo to Richard Nixon, narrat- as a response to a condition where recog- ives of the encounter between Chinese and nition and bafflement are mixed in equal Westerners have been defining texts of parts, where things are close enough to be European cultures and their descendants. familiar but far enough away to be bizarre. Successive but sporadic reports from This is psychically exciting but it is also travellers, missionaries, diplomats, traders discomforting and unstable, and one of and others have provided a model of an the effects of this has been to move the alternative way of arranging people, of Chinese to the discursive comfort of one organizing their lives, of thinking about extreme or the other; to find a way of the state of being human; one that de- welcoming them into the fold or to define scribed a government that was, or at least the conditions of their exclusion. Neither was represented as being, as authoritative move is unproblematic: if, fundamentally, as anything at home, with military power the Chinese are like us then their very that could challenge any other, and with obvious differences must be accounted for cultural achievements as profound. Tradi- or, less satisfactorily, elided; if they are tionally labelled “inscrutable”, China basically not like us, the reverse is the nonetheless possessed a written literature, case. What these two moves have in com- an esteemed bureaucracy, technological mon, however, is that they have sought achievements, complex financial systems, the fundamental similarity — or difference codes and courts of law, and religions that — between China and the West in features had texts, buildings and hierarchies of deemed to lie at the core of what it means, priests. In other words, though not like or meant, to be Chinese and whatever it us at all, they were exactly like us. is, or was, that we conceived ourselves to be at that moment in history: early on it The voluminous literature of the en- was religion; later, language came onto counter with China is above all, and con- centre stage; now perhaps it is in concep- sistently, a literature of comparison. From tions of the rights of individuals. eating manners, to the rigging on boats, from city design to imperial customs, re- This paper focuses on a largely forgot- ports of the Chinese exotic have been ten chapter in this history in the form of seized on by centuries of eager western a book that attempts to show, in the words readers and, latterly, viewers. But the of its subtitle, that the Languages of Europe thrill these stories generate is possible only and Asia have a Common Origin, and in
31 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 doing so that the people of China and illed as it was, and to a certain extent still Europe, too, share a common descent. The is, by people for whom conversion was book is China’s Place in Philology, written not just a phenomenon to be studied but by the Reverend Joseph Edkins, Doctor a goal to be prayed for. However, in of Divinity, who lived from 1823 until Chinese Studies at least, to ignore mission- 1905 and was resident in China from 1848 ary writings is to ignore a vast and valu- until his death.1 Edkins left an enormous able archive. And to understand the legacy of work across the whole range of nature of these writings, the particularities topics in the history, religions, literature, and specific contexts of each author have geography, philosophy, and economy of to be understood: to regard them all as China (as well as its language) in English, having the same ideologies, the same atti- apart from his copious translations into tudes to Chinese people, the same project, Chinese — not least of the Bible — and is much mistaken. From the 1950s to the original works in that language. Published 1980s, a standard textbook on modern in 1871, China’s Place in Philology did not Chinese history was Teng and Fairbanks’s meet with universal acclaim; indeed, in China’s Response to the West.3 This title some quarters it was derided, but his work reflected the commonly accepted totalizing in this field remained, in Edkins’s own binary of the time. Fortunately, however, opinion, his most valuable and far-reach- in more recent years a pluralizing tend- ing. ency has gained ground, with both of the Edkins was sent to China by the Lon- categories “China” and “the West” don Missionary Society or LMS, an evan- gradually becoming disaggregated in the gelical Protestant society based in London scholarly literature. In Edkins’s time, un- established in 1795 as The Missionary So- der the category “the West” there existed ciety, changing its name in 1818. This was a web of heterogenous possibilities of in- by no means the only mission society act- volvement with all sorts of different ive in China through the nineteenth cen- Chinese people. Europeans of many kinds, tury: there were representatives of most Americans, Australasians; missionaries as of the Christian denominations, Roman well as traders, customs officials, military Catholic and Orthodox as well as Protest- personnel and diplomats; and bureaucrats ant. Among the Protestants were mission- and scholars who worked on China based aries from across the English-speaking in western capitals — to aggregate all world, usually attached to their own na- these into a single entity that had a unified tional and denominational groups, and also project is to grant, perhaps, more credence from many European countries, each with to justifications emanating from the metro- their own goals and emphases. Even politan capitals for foreign adventurism amongst the British evangelical societies, of various kinds than the complex situ- there were clear demarcations: not only in ation on the ground might warrant. the region, or mission field, but in strategy Thus, it is important to place Joseph and theology as well.2 Edkins in his place and time, to grant him For many years, mission history was his individuality and idiosyncrasy, and to an unfashionable field of research, bedev- allow him his disputes with colleagues, fellow nationals and co-religionists.
32 More Than One Adam?
Edkins, along with most of his colleagues rivation, so Boerschmann’s case is complic- — with the major exception of James ated. The first clear case of a work by an Legge — has received only passing schol- English native speaker is Maurice Price’s arly attention.4 One of the goals of this Christian Missions and Oriental Civiliza- paper, and the larger project of which it tions, a Study in Culture Contact; the Reac- is a part, is to rescue Edkins and his tions of Non-Christian Peoples to Protestant scholarly colleagues from the academic Missions from the Standpoint of Individual obscurity into which they have fallen. It and Group Behaviour: Outline, Materials, is my contention that this notable group Problems, and Tentative Interpretations, of scholar-missionaries — not that they privately printed in Shanghai in 1924.6 would have seen themselves as a group — What word — what category — did laid down the analytical categories for Edkins and his colleagues use instead of understanding aspects of Chinese society “culture”? Or did they simply get by that stood for decades in the West and in without one? One candidate for this task various Chinese societies across the world, was “civilization”, but if culture is com- including the People’s Republic, and in- plicated, civilization is perhaps even more deed to some extent still stand. Before so, in this context at least. Raymond Wil- moving on to a detailed discussion of liams' Keywords proves a useful starting Edkins, his work and its reception, and point. Starting life as a term that described Edkins’s conception of his own position a process, originally “to make a criminal in relation to the Chinese people amongst matter into a civil matter, and thence, by whom he lived most of his adult life, it extension, to bring within a form of social may be useful to review and discuss some organization”, by the latter part of the of the vocabulary of encounter. eighteenth century “civilization” had ac- quired the sense of “a state of social order CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION and refinement, especially in conscious historical or cultural contrast with barbar- While we may judge that what Edkins was ism”.7 This sense of civilization places it doing in China’s Place in Philology — at one end of a unilinear scale against which was completed in 1870, the year which all societies, and activities, can be Tylor’s Primitive Culture appeared in placed and compared. The fact that this London — was what we would call “cross- unilinear scale was generally accepted at cultural research”, the word “culture” in the time did not mean that there was gen- its common usage does not appear in his eral acceptance of what societies occupied book. Indeed it was not until 1912 that the what positions on the scale. In the case of title of a book in English about China used China, it managed to occupy positions the word “culture” in this sense — in corresponding to both barbarism and to Ernst Boerschmann’s pamphlet Chinese civilization according to different people Architecture and its Relation to Chinese 5 at different times. Thus, while its criminal Culture. Boerschmann was a German justice system with its public executions, photographer resident in China who is not torture and physical punishments like the generally recognized as a writer in English cangue was deemed barbaric in the ex- and this sense of culture is of German de- treme by some outraged expatriates, its
33 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 court and ritual code could equally be held Barrow’s discussions of China’s position up at the same time as the epitome of civil in this scale of civilization begin by assert- human relations.8 The sense of civilization ing that “civilization” depends to a large as “an achieved condition of refinement extent on material progress: science, arts, and order” finds its way into discussion manufactures, the conveniences and lux- of China by at least the early-nineteenth uries of life, to use his measures. On this century. In 1804 Sir John Barrow, Secret- scale he judges China “greatly superior” ary to the Admiralty and founder of the to Europe “from the middle to the end of Royal Geographical Society, published his the sixteenth century”. Indeed, “when the account of Britain’s first embassy to China King of France introduced the luxury of of 1793, on which he accompanied Earl silk stockings, which, about eighteen years Macartney, the appointed envoy. This afterwards, was adopted by Elizabeth of book is called Travels in China: Containing England, the peasantry of China were Descriptions, Observations and Comparisons clothed in silks from head to foot.” Made and Collected in the Course of a Short However, “the Chinese were, at that Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen- period, pretty much in the same state in min-yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey from which they still are; and in which they are Pekin to Canton. In which it is Attempted likely to continue”; that is, they had not to Appreciate the Rank that this Extraordin- developed further in the previous two ary Empire may be Considered to Hold in centuries and had been overtaken by the Scale of Civilized Nations. In this book, Europe during that time.10 Barrow claims to show the Chinese as they really were, as opposed to the view of For Barrow, this civilization is a matter them commonly held on the basis of re- of social attainment rather than being ports from the Jesuit missionaries which defined or limited by descent. Thus, he had held sway for decades. Thus, he asserts that while the Chinese and those writes: he calls “Malays” were both “unquestion- ably descended from the ancient inhabit- The voluminous communications ants of Scythia or Tartary,” the Malays’ of the missionaries are by no conversion to Islam “first inspired, then means satisfactory; and some of rendered habitual, that cruel and sanguin- their defects will be noticed and ary disposition for which they are remark- accounted for in the course of this able”.11 Thus while the Chinese have work; the chief aim of which is to bettered themselves on the scale of civiliz- show this extraordinary people in ation, people of the same ancestry, the their proper colours, not as their Malays, have regressed.12 For Barrow, own moral maxims would repres- then, civilization is a state that societies ent them, but as they really achieve or lose, and on the basis of which are…and to endeavour to draw societies can be compared, like to like, fa- from such a sketch…as may enable vourably or unfavourably on a single the reader to settle, in his own scale, taking into account attributes such mind, the point of rank which as material progress or the propensity to China may be considered to hold spill blood.13 in the scale of civilized nations.9
34 More Than One Adam?
In 1840, some 36 years after Barrow’s well-defined civil rights, which are in book had appeared and, importantly, after great measure the effects of Christian- the first wave of British Protestant mission- ity.”15 aries had made their way to China, the With Medhurst, then, the categories Reverend W.H. Medhurst, who had ar- “civilization” and “barbarism” are over- rived in Malacca in 1817 to work on the layed with another set, namely “heathen” mission to the Chinese — moving to and “Christian”. That these categories do Shanghai after the First Opium War — and not necessarily map onto each other is who was, like Edkins, employed by the clear from the evaluation of China as both London Missionary Society, published his civilized and heathen — distinguishing it China: its State and Prospects, with Especial from much of the mission field where Reference to the Spread of the Gospel, Con- “heathen” and “barbarism” collocated taining Allusions to the Antiquity, Extent, comfortably. Indeed, China stood as the Population, Civilization, Literature, and 14 exemplum, if not the only case, of a civil- Religion of the Chinese. ized and heathen nation of the present Medhurst begins his chapter on “The though it had precursors in the ancient Civilization of China” in this way: world in pre-Christian Greece and Rome. “Christian” and “barbarism”, needless to In seeking to evangelize the hea- say, is not a possible combination. then world, two descriptions of people claim our attention: Williams notes, in his article on “civil- namely, the barbarous and the ization”, that “there was a critical moment civilized. China belongs to the lat- when civilization was used in the plural”, ter class. Instead of a savage and noting that the English use is later than 16 untutored people — without a the French. This use of “civilizations” settled government, or written approaches the contemporary meaning of laws, — roaming the desert, and “cultures”, at least insofar as it implies that living in caves, — dressed in different places have distinctive ways of skins, and sitting on the ground, life and thought that are organically — knowing nothing of fashion, whole. What distinguishes this meaning nor tasting luxuries; we behold in of “civilization” from the comparable the Chinese a quiet, orderly, well- meaning of “culture” — as in “Chinese behaved nation, exhibiting many civilization” and “Chinese culture” — is traces of civilization, and display- a question of register: discussions of ing them at a period when the rest “Chinese civilization” usually begin with of mankind were for the most part the ancient philosophical systems and in- sunk in barbarism. clude examples of artistic and technologic- al achievements arranged in historical se- We see here the same evaluation of China quence. “Chinese culture” on the other as a civilized nation, familiar from Barrow hand tends to be less historical and more but, unlike him, Medhurst tempers his concerned with the lives of ordinary enthusiasm with an explicit appeal to reli- people. Of course, there are no firm lines gion: “Of course we must not look for that of demarcation between civilization and high degree of improvement, and those
35 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 culture, as there equally are not between opment and in full activity, and is the senses of civilization in the singular being brought day by day into and the plural. It is worth stressing that closer contact with the West. This such changes in meaning are gradual and civilization, in so many respects uneven and single authors may shift al- so much misunderstood, is that of most imperceptibly from one sense to an- China.17 other; indeed, we should acknowledge In these lectures, Laffitte treats “Chinese that the use of the singular form “civiliza- civilization” as a discrete entity that pos- tion” and the plural “civilizations” some- sesses certain distinctive features, has times overlaps. specific traits and manifests a particular In writings on China in English the pattern of development. A civilization, for plural sense of civilization seems to appear Laffitte, is a kind of entity made up of se- in the latter part of the 1880s, well after lected elements of a nation’s lifeways, Edkins’s cogitations on the nature and rather than an attribute a nation has more origins of the Chinese language, and his or less of, as it was for Barrow and understanding of the meaning of civiliza- Medhurst. Civilizations, so conceived, can tion seems close to Medhurst’s. It is inter- still be judged against each other in terms esting, though, given Williams’s observa- of their attainments or levels, but Laffitte’s tion on the earlier French use of the plural approach also pointed to the possibility of form “civilizations”, that perhaps its first a model of human development that clear use in relation to China is in a trans- moved away, potentially at least, from an lation from that language: Pierre Laffitte’s uncompromising unilinearity. With this A General View of Chinese Civilization and model, the possibility is raised of the ways of the Relations of the West with China, of life and systems of thought of different published in French in 1861, and in Eng- places developing along their own tracks lish translation not until 1887. Laffitte, to equally civilized points but remaining who revelled in the wonderful title “Dir- thoroughly distinct. That such a possibil- ector of Positivism”, was Auguste Comte’s ity was conceived in the middle of the direct disciple but was no specialist on nineteenth century is, of course, no acci- China. This did not stop him in his ambi- dent, parallel as it is to the rise of national- tious undertaking, in three lectures: ist movements across Europe with their Gentlemen, We are to enter to-day conceptions of specific national essences upon a survey of the whole field and peculiarities. Aligned to this distinc- of Chinese civilization. In view of tion, though different from it, are discus- the importance of such a study, sions related to whether humankind — or both in itself and in its bearings particular features of people’s lives — had on the problems of the science of a single origin or multiple origins. Argu- society, we shall devote to it three ments about monogenetic and polygenetic lectures…At the base of the theories, as they are called, featured cru- farthest East is a noteworthy cially in the study of the origins of lan- civilization, which, say what we guage and the history of specific lan- may about it, is in constant devel- guages, as will be discussed below.
36 More Than One Adam?
Along with the two models of develop- ies and languages in the nineteenth cen- ment, leading respectively to “civilization” tury — Egyptian, Accadian, Sanskrit, and to “civilizations”, a third story should Chinese — was to try to recover those be considered. Specifically Christian, and, remnant parts of the original revelation in relation to studies of China, usually preserved in non-Semitic textual tradi- Protestant, this story is found most expli- tions. As Max Müller, Professor of Sanskrit citly in works of those highly educated at Oxford, editor of the Sacred Books of and thoroughly modern scholar-missionar- the East series and doyen of comparative ies (including Edkins) who we would now philology, wrote in 1878: “The more I see also refer to as scriptural literalists; that of the so-called heathen religions, the more is, people who took the words of the Bible I feel convinced that they contain germs as literally true. So with the book of Gen- of the highest truth.”19 esis in one hand and a knowledge of recent Yet the fact remained that European scientific advances in the other, these civilization was only made possible, in scholars set about to demonstrate as well some versions of this theory at least, by as they could that the ultimate monogenet- its Christian character. The revelation of ic hypothesis, namely that we all derive Jesus reversed the degenerative process from Adam and Eve, was not only compat- and not only granted salvation to human- ible with the state of knowledge of the ity but also a civilized character to society. time but could be proved with academic As Medhurst wrote: “Of course we must rigour. In Edkins’s words — about lan- not look for that high degree of improve- guage but it could equally apply in many ment, and those well-defined civil rights, other fields — this work was “for the which are in great measure the effects of vindication of Scripture and the progress Christianity.” of knowledge”.18 It was on this theoretical terrain that Positing Adam and Eve at the root of Edkins produced his work that attempted the tree of humanity, as this position did, to demonstrate that “the Languages of the process of change that produced hu- Europe and Asia have a Common Origin”. man diversity often became understood To understand this work — its motiva- as one of degeneration, as moving away, tions and its methodologies — we must step-by-step from the point of our common walk this ideological landscape with him, origin and God’s first revelation, both lit- following the same scholarly maps, ob- erally in geography and metaphorically in serving what lay at his horizon. Setting culture. From this point of view, however aside the arrogance of hindsight, we can savage or barbaric the people you might approach an understanding of how Edkins meet in your travels, their origins were and his colleagues saw themselves and the same as yours and, though subject to their work among Chinese people only by different conditions since the original allowing argument from a literal reading revelation, you and they were all part of of Genesis to stand as the unassailable a common brotherhood and their forebears foundation of theory. had, therefore, received the same revela- tion from God as had yours. One attrac- tion, then, for the study of ancient societ-
37 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
JOSEPH EDKINS Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of North China. In 1858 he left for England Edkins’s death at 81, in 1905, produced in order to marry his wife, Jane (nee four obituaries, one in each of the major Stobbs, 1838–61), a Presbyterian minister’s Chinese Studies journals of his day.20 The daughter from Orkney. Returning the fol- overriding impression from them is of an lowing year, in 1860 he made several old campaigner who had died in harness, famous visits to the leaders of the Taiping a figure notable a generation or two before Rebellion in Nanjing and Suzhou, not far who continued to plough his furrow with up the Yangtse from Shanghai. energy but whose best work had been After the opening of more treaty ports produced some time earlier. There is, in after the Second Opium War, in 1860 one at least, the snide tone of a younger Edkins moved to Yantai in Shandong, then competitor keen to prick the bubble of to Tianjin in 1861 and finally in May 1863 what he evidently saw as an overblown to live permanently in Beijing, where he reputation. spent nearly 30 years. Jane Edkins had Edkins was born in Nailsworth, near died of dysentery in 1861 at the age of 23 Stroud, in Gloucestershire, on December but some of her letters home were pub- 19, 1823. The son of a Congregational lished posthumously under the title minister who also ran the school where Chinese Scenes and People, with Notices of Edkins was first educated, he later entered Christian Missions and Missionary Life in Coward College for theological training. a Series of Letters from Various Parts of He graduated in arts from the University China. In one of her letters to Edkins’s of London and was ordained in 1847 at the brother she wrote endearingly: age of 24 in the Stepney Meeting House, You ask me to tell you about your London, a Congregational institution. On brother. He is very well indeed, gaining ordination, he left England for and is busy as a bee. We breakfast China under the auspices of the London every morning at eight, and have Missionary Society, arriving in Hong Kong prayers before. He spends the in July 1848 and proceeding to Shanghai morning at home studying, and in soon after. In his first correspondence with the after part of the day he is in the LMS in London in 1848 Edkins started the city preaching, and otherwise to plead for a Miss Phillips to join him in attending to the work of the Mis- China. These pleas continued for almost sion. I have got his study all in two years, and were evidently never ac- nice order, and there he is in his ceded to, as he finally had to let the Lon- glory. From nine till one each day don office know that his engagement had you might take a peep in and find terminated.21 His colleagues at Shanghai him excogitating, diving deeper included Medhurst, William Lockhart, a and deeper into the mysteries of notable medical missionary with whom he Buddhism and Confucianism. would later travel to Beijing, and Alexan- Seated thus by his study table he der Wylie. With Wylie, in 1857, he formed puts me in mind of that picture, the Shanghai Literary and Debating Soci- "As Happy as a King," for he looks ety that later became the North China
38 More Than One Adam?
quite that, with all his Chinese his life, head office of the LMS appears to books in notable confusion beside have refused Edkins’s request to get mar- him.22 ried — this time to an expatriate German missionary by the name of Miss Johanna In Beijing, Edkins spent much of his time Schmidt.25 After resigning from the LMS, preaching in the hospital Lockhart had Edkins married Miss Schmidt and began established and otherwise going about working for the Inspector-General of Im- mission business in Beijing and surrounds. perial Maritime Customs while still active In 1862 he requested that a Miss White be in the life of the church. About 1890 they sent to marry him and she arrived early moved to Shanghai, where they stayed the following year. They married on May until his death. Little is known about the 9, 1863.23 The second Mrs Edkins sub- third Mrs Edkins, including how long she sequently founded a school for girls and stayed in China, and when and where she gave birth to three daughters. The family died. Box relates Edkins’s passing in a su- went to England in 1873, when Edkins perb description of the “good death”: was honoured in 1875 with a doctorate in divinity from Edinburgh University. They As she [Johanna] sat by his bedside subsequently returned to Beijing in 1876, she saw his eyes fixed upward and his but his wife died the next year from breast face suffused with a strange light. His cancer — two of their children had lips moved, and presently she heard already died and, two years later, the third him murmur, “Wonderful! Wonder- girl was buried next to her mother and ful!” She asked him what he saw, and two sisters.24 he replied, “I cannot tell you, but you Relations between Edkins and some will know what it means tomorrow!” younger missionaries from the LMS sta- It was on the morrow he passed tioned in Beijing became strained by the through the gates of death into “the Glory Land”, of which he evidently late 1870s. In particular, it would appear 26 that Edkins was viewed as being too gen- had a vision. erous to Chinese converts with the mis- Throughout his time as a missionary, sion’s funds. His younger colleagues were Edkins was also writing. His scholarly rather more suspicious than Edkins of the output is extraordinary in its sheer motivations of new converts who were volume, its range and its quality. Henri given to “backsliding” as it was called. Cordier’s obituary is, in reality, a catalogue Ultimately, as Box wrote in his obituary: of Edkins’s works and incomplete though “In 1880 he resigned his connection with it is, it lists more than 140 books and the L.M.S., not through any lack of in- learned articles. His best-known work terest in mission work, for until his death today, though it is by no means as well- he was devoted to the cause of missions, known as it ought to be, is his Chinese but through difference of opinion with his Buddhism: a Volume of Sketches, Historical, colleagues as to methods of mission work.” Descriptive and Critical from 1880.27 There was, however, another side to However, it is clear that, as Bushell wrote this story revealed in his unpublished in his obituary, “China’s Place in Philology correspondence. For the second time in
39 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 was probably the book nearest the au- of the modern languages of thor’s heart”.28 But he continues: Europe, Dr Edkins was perhaps the foremost of his generation. The …the general consensus of opinion vast scope of his language studies is that it hardly suffices to prove made them all more or less superfi- his somewhat daring thesis of the cial, while at the same time it made common origin of the languages of it possible for him to make philolo- Europe and Asia. Dr Edkins was gical comparisons which would always original. His reading of have been impossible to anyone Chinese literature was most extens- else.29 ive, and the words of the other languages cited in the text were In these comments it is possible to see the actually taken down from the emergence of one style of scholarship, and mouths of Tibetans, Koreans, the concomitant decline in another, which Manchus, and Mongols, yet the has ruled much of humanities scholarship theme was almost too discursive to this day. Edkins was one of the last even for his power of concentra- generation, in Chinese Studies at least, of tion. the grand comparativists. Partly as a result of the decline in the kind of broad linguist- Others, too, marvelled at his proficiency ic training he received, and partly because in languages; thus Box: “His knowledge of the growth in university departments of languages was most extensive — Eng- concentrating on a single subject (the lish, German, French, Latin, Greek, Chairs in Chinese Studies at Oxford and Hebrew, Assyrian, Persian, Sanscrit, Cambridge date to 1876 and 1888 respect- Tamil, Chinese (in most of its dialects), the ively), scholars of later generations have Miao dialects (…), Japanese, Manchu, ploughed much narrower, but much Corean, Thibetan, Mongolian and others.” deeper. The anonymous obituarist in the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal CHINA’S PLACE IN PHILOLOGY Asiatic Society was more caustic: It is only fair to say that in his By Edkins’s time, the shared history of the philological theories Dr Edkins Indo-European languages had been stood almost alone, and that very demonstrated and accepted. The great im- little sympathy, sometimes even petus for this study had been the growth very little patience, was shown to of European scholarship on Sanskrit, and them by other scholars whose the major figure in the first half of the study of the Chinese language it- nineteenth century in this field had been self had perhaps been more thor- Franz Bopp (1791–1867). Bopp had shown ough than that of Dr Edkins. the relationship between Sanskrit, Persian, However, it must be said that in Greek, Latin and the Germanic languages combining a knowledge of Eastern (and later Old Slavonian, Lithuanian, and languages — of Hebrew, Persian Zend — the language of the Zoroastrian and Sanskrit — with a knowledge Avesta scriptures) through his comparative study of grammatical forms; thus his first
40 More Than One Adam? work was on verbal inflexions. He is best that all men once spoke a common known for his Comparative Grammar of language. The most revered and the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuani- most ancient of human books, in an, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Lan- making these statements, sheds a guages which appeared in German from bright and steady light on the ob- 1833 and in English translation beginning scurity of history, and at the same in 1845.30 time reveals the imperfection of Edkins’s comments on the Indo- those views held by some modern European project open his book: thinkers and writers who deny that the languages of the world To show that the languages of had one origin and that its races Europe and Asia may be conveni- came from one stock. ently referred to one origin in the Mesopotamian and Armenian re- Edkins was by no means the first to see gion, is the aim of the present links between Chinese and languages of work. Sanscrit philologists, en- peoples far to the west — such discussions tranced with admiration of the go back at least to John Webb’s An Histor- treasure they discovered south of ical Essay Endeavouring a Probability that the Language of the Empire of China is the the Himalayan chain, forgot to 31 look north of that mighty barrier. Primitive Language, published in 1669. Limiting their researches to the Most of these works refer to Biblical regions traversed by Alexander chronology, a detailed discussion of which the Great, they allowed themselves will occur below, as the crucial evidence to assume that there was no access- put forward for the truth of Edkins’s pro- ible path by which the linguistic position comes from the beginning of the investigator could legitimately eleventh chapter of Genesis: “And the reach the vast area existing bey- whole of earth was of one language, and ond their adopted boundary. The of one speech.” First, however, we should result of this abstinence on the note that Scripture was only the spur to part of Bopp and other scholars of Edkins’s work, and did not relieve the high fame has been that the idea scholar from further research, informed of comparing Chinese, Mongol, by the most advanced studies of his time. and Japanese with our own moth- Indeed, Edkins placed his work in a thor- er-tongue appears to some chimer- oughly modern linguistic context and in ical, hopeless, and uncalled for. this book was launching a serious critique of accepted linguistic wisdom. Thus, rely- “Yet,” he continues: ing on Max Müller’s hypothesis of “dia- …Scripture, speaking with an au- lectal regeneration” — first published in thoritative voice and from an im- Müller’s Lectures on the Science of Language mense antiquity, asserts the unity in 1864 — to bolster his argument, Edkins of the human race, traces the most contended that the Indo-European inflec- general features of the primeval ted languages and agglutinative languages planting of nations, and declares (such as those of Tartary, South India and Japan) were fundamentally related. This
41 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 flew in the face of contemporary ideas ment that worked towards a vindication about language taxonomy and was one of Scripture. He applies the same attitude reason, Edkins claimed, for the exclusion to another lively field in nineteenth-cen- of Asian languages from comparative tury scholarship: “After a careful sifting philology. of recent discoveries by the geologists on Another was the so-called isolating the antiquity of man, it will be the duty nature of some of these languages, Chinese of the Christian theologian to examine being the classic case. In Chinese most afresh the question of early Biblical chro- morphemes are free-floating and rely on nology. All new light brought upon this subject from unexpected quarters must be syntax to acquire grammatical function: 32 words neither inflect, as in most European cheerfully accepted…” languages, nor glue together — the etymo- And, similarly, Edkins adopted a model logical root of “agglutinative” — as in Ja- of linguistic evolution pioneered by Max panese. In the case of Chinese, it was obvi- Müller on the Darwinian model. The Origin ously impossible to compare its verb end- of Species had been published in 1859, and ings with those in, say, Sanskrit, because provided linguistics with the tools capable it didn’t have any. Thus, Edkins proposed of turning the study into a science, as it that the word roots of Chinese and similar was perceived, with linguistic laws being languages should be compared to bring the equivalent of the laws of the natural them into the comparative fold. This did sciences. Müller adopted a model of natur- not find favour with some reviewers but al selection in language with alacrity ar- it did represent an attempt to introduce guing, in the Lectures on the Science of into the discussion an original methodo- Language, that languages formed, changed logy designed to address a question that and died out through a series of processes had previously simply been ignored. corresponding to the biological model, Implicit in Edkins’s arguments is his except that: defence not only of Scripture in general …natural selection, if we could but, more specifically, for the position that but always see it, is invariably ra- the languages of humankind had a single tional selection. It is not any acci- origin. For Edkins, with his scientific cast dental variety that survives and of mind, finding the language of Adam perpetuates itself; it is the individu- himself was never going to be a viable al that comes nearest to the origin- scholarly project, though he did allow al intention of its creator, or what himself some speculations of the nature of is best calculated to accomplish the “the primeval language”. Rather, in ar- ends for which the type or species guing the monogenetic case on purely to which it belongs was called into philological grounds, Edkins, arguably, being, that conquers in the great sought to lay a scientific foundation for struggle for life. So it is in thought faith. In these debates it is worth stressing and language.33 once more that for Edkins, Scripture was not the proof; rather, it was philological Thus, the imperatives of religion and sci- — and other modern scientific — argu- ence were both met: the fundamentals of the faith were safe from being overthrown
42 More Than One Adam? by the discoveries of comparative philo- There is not the space here to give a com- logy and comparative philology would be plete summary of Edkins’s work, and in- able to take its place beside astronomy and deed much of it is complex and needs to geology in the scientific pantheon. be read closely to follow his arguments, This position, was, of course, more than so here I will concentrate on the underpin- acceptable to Edkins, providing him with nings of his research and give a broad a mechanism of linguistic change to apply outline of his views. to his grand model of the development of Edkins’s argument does not, in fact, the world’s languages. It should be noted, begin with language but with a comparis- however, that for Edkins language evolu- on between the civilizations of the ancient tion is not teleological. We are, perhaps, Chinese and the ancient inhabitants of the too accustomed to seeing the process of Middle East: “The resemblance existing biological evolution leading inexorably to between the old [that is, ancient] Chinese us; that is, from lesser to greater complex- civilization and that of the Hamite race ity up a developmental ladder. In fact, [that is, the descendants of Ham, the however, natural selection need not lead second son of Noah] long ago developed to greater complexity, simply to greater on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates suitability to the environment in which is very remarkable."34 the organism finds him or herself. Thus, There follows a catalogue of similarities for Bible-believing linguists, language in customs, agricultural methods, and ar- evolution could simply mean language chitecture, amongst other topics, and the change as the people who spoke each lan- basic proposition is raised: guage found themselves in new environ- ments. This is important from two points So close a similarity in genius of view: firstly, the original language was between the descendants of Cush given by God to Adam and it would be and Mizraim [two of the sons of inconceivable to believe that this first Ham], who founded the first arts language could be improved over time — of the west, and the Chinese, who if anything the reverse should be the case, on the east of the Indo-European as in the model of degeneration; secondly, area have always reigned supreme Edkins and his colleagues were linguistic- in intellect and manual ingenuity, ally very capable and would have appreci- argues a probable connexion of 35 ated that languages do not necessarily in- race. crease in complexity as time passes. An- Importantly, for Edkins, there were also cient languages like Latin, Greek and (as he saw them) close affinities between Hebrew were, after all, no less complex the worship, sacrifices and religious than modern English or modern Chinese. buildings in the ancient Holy Land and To return to the book itself: China’s those in China. For him this pointed to an Place in Philology reads as a linguistic and original monotheism in the Chinese, a cultural history, from prehistory up to the monotheism that derived from their shared development of European languages in ancestry with the Semitic peoples. This comparatively recent historical times. stance echoes throughout the history of
43 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 the Western encounter with China, most condemned, and with some other heathen particularly, of course, in missionary usages found to prevail long after in the circles where the possibility of conversion countries from which they came and was seen to be enhanced if, at the very through which they passed, need not be root of Chinese religion, lay a belief in a wondered at…”36 single all-powerful deity — especially if Thus, the people we know as Chinese that deity was actually, originally, Je- originated in the Mesopotamian region hovah. It also had direct consequences for and migrated slowly eastward, arriving in perhaps the longest-running and most China at “nearly 3,000 years B.C.”. They bitterly fought controversy amongst the entered that land, “by the usual highway missionary fraternity in nineteenth-cen- from Mohammedan Tartary, into Kansu tury China — the so-called term question. and Shensi, founding colonies along the The essence of the “term question” can be banks of the western tributaries of the easily stated: what is the best translation Yellow River, where we find the ancestors of the word “God” in Chinese? Which, if of the family,”37 then subsequently any, of the words found in Chinese texts spread out into those areas of early Chinese meant what Christians mean by God? Huge settlement we know from the ancient storehouses of human effort were expen- texts. ded on these questions, and acrimony was often not far from the surface, as, for These Chinese were not, however, the Protestants at least, translation of Scripture first to enter the territory of China. In was at the core of their vocation and it was Edkins’s scheme, the “migrations of races obviously imperative to get the word for have been in the direction of radii from a common centre where the first human pair “God” right. So, if the ancient Chinese 38 were truly the descendants of people who were created”. One route was into India had received the original revelation, the through the Punjab and was followed first mystery and nature of ancient Chinese re- by the Dravidians “and after them the ligion could be understood and the right Hindoos”. Another group — “the Eastern words could be identified. and Western Himalaic races” — crossed Tibet and followed the Brahmaputra, Now, as obvious for Edkins that the heading south and east into Indo-China Chinese were originally monotheistic was and north and east into south-western the fact, observable about him in Beijing China. The Chinese, meantime, went north as well as in the most ancient of texts, that and west along what became known, much Chinese religious practice also included later, as the Silk Route. The Himalaic features not found in ancient semitic reli- branch that entered China from the south gion. One of these clearly non-monotheist- constituted, according to Edkins, the ic practices was the role played by heav- “Miau, Lo lo, Nung, [and] Yau” ethnic enly bodies in astrology as well as in star groups known under the current dispens- cults. Edkins uses the term “Sabeanism” ation as “national minorities”. This south- to describe this style of worship, explain- erly branch met with the northerly branch ing: “That the early Chinese should, in in various regions across China. addition to their monotheism, have be- come infected with the Sabeanism that Job
44 More Than One Adam?
Following this explanation of how the Having established the essential charac- Chinese entered their destined territory, teristics of the primeval language, Edkins Edkins moves back to postulate on the addresses the important issue of combining origins of language itself. He proposes that Biblical chronology with his scheme of some elements and characteristics of “the language development. The downfall of primeval language” are retrievable by the primeval language was, of course, the philological comparison. Thus, “that it was Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Ba- monosyllabic is deducible from the fact, bel, an event Edkins dates to 400 years that in all the families, from the Indo- after Noah’s Flood, which itself took place European upwards, the roots are monosyl- 2,200 years after Creation.43 However, his lables”39 and “the structure of sentences position on Babel is, perhaps, surprising: in the primeval language, it may be reas- The Scriptural account of the De- onably concluded, was according to the luge and of the Confusion of order of nature. The nominative preceded Tongues I suppose to refer partic- the transitive verb, and the transitive verb ularly to the world according to preceded its object. The Chinese, the its dimensions as then understood, Hebrew, and the English here agree.”40 The other way of determining the nature the [pasa oikou- of the first language, of course, is by re- mene, all inhabited regions of the course to Scripture. The classic statement day]. Colonies that went beyond of language origin in the Bible is from the the limits of the Flood of Noah, if there were such, were lost from second chapter of Genesis: “And out of 44 the ground the Lord God formed every view. beast of the field; and every fowl of the What this enables, for him, is the possibil- air; and brought them unto Adam to see ity that in some specific cases the primeval what he would call them: and whatsoever language may have survived God’s inter- Adam called every living creature, that vention, if the speakers of the primeval 41 was the name thereof.” This, in Edkins’s language, or their descendents, no longer reading, meant that while “divine assist- lived in the world as known by the Baby- ance” was required to make language, it lonians. He cites two cases of this: first, in was not fully developed at that stage. This Genesis 4 it says that when Cain was ex- was so because the initial language act was pelled from the presence of the Lord, he simply the naming of animals — full lan- “dwelt in the land of Nod, to the east of guage competence was a gradual process Eden”.45 With his wife, he subsequently aided by divine assistance but not granted produced the line of succession that ran complete. Edkins quotes a Dr Magee ap- from Enoch to Lamech and beyond. Of provingly in this context: “It is sufficient this, Edkins says: if we suppose the use of language taught him [Adam] with respect to such things as The Cainites went…to the east. were necessary, and that he was left to the Whether any of them and the oth- exercise of his own faculties for further er descendents of Adam passed improvement upon this foundation.”42 into East Asia and America during those 2,000 years now so little
45 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007
known, we cannot tell. If they did, trated with copious linguistic examples they would have there been bey- displaying his remarkable breadth of ond the reach of the Deluge, which knowledge. The point of the whole enter- science has shown did not extend prise, however, remains a proof of the to the more distant parts of the fundamental unity of the world’s lan- continent.46 guages and of the world’s peoples, and especially the original revelation that all The second case is that of the Cushites, the peoples received in the beginning. In his descendants of Cush, the son of Ham, conclusion he writes, inter alia quoting grandson of Noah and father of Nimrod, the seventeenth chapter of Acts and a the mighty hunter. The Cushites were, famous passage from Max Müller’s Lec- then, Nimrod’s people who built the tures on the Science of Religion: Tower at Babel. Edkins proposes, on the basis of the shared culture of the Babyloni- “God hath made of one blood all ans and the Chinese that he observed nations of men for to dwell on all earlier, that the wave of emigration that the face of the earth.” When the produced the ancient Chinese left the European goes into the other con- Cushite region after the Flood — thereby tinents of the world, as traveller, acquiring Babylonian civilization — but colonist, missionary, and civilizer, before the Confusion of Tongues — to he meets everywhere with men of preserve the primeval language. Thus, the same race. “But what have we when these Chinese arrived in China from in common with the Turanians, the north they displaced the people they with Chinese, and Samoyedes? met there, the Eastern and Western Him- Very little it may seem: and yet it alaics who had arrived earlier from the is not very little, for it is our com- south, and who were the result of migra- mon humanity. It is not the yellow tions from before the Flood, and therefore skin, or the high cheek-bones, that less civilized. This accounts for why both make the man. Nay, if we look but groups in China spoke monosyllabic lan- steadily into those black Chinese guages like the primeval tongue as they eyes, we shall find that there, too, were not subjected to God’s punishment there is a soul that responds to a after the Tower of Babel. soul, and that the God whom they I have spent a good deal of space on mean is the same God whom we Edkins’s explanations of the origins of the mean, however hopeless their ut- Chinese people and their language. In the terance, however imperfect their worship.” Language proves them rest of the book, he proceeds to explain in 47 similar terms the Semitic, Himalaic, Tura- to be one with ourselves. nian, Malayo-Polynesian and Indo- Edkins’s radical monogenism is, thus, European language families, though I will buttressed on the one hand by his firm not cover that ground here. Let me add belief in the literal truth of Scripture, and that, while cataloguing those parts of his on the other by an ethic of the common work I have neglected in this paper, each brotherhood of all peoples; the savage, the step of his developmental edifice is illus- barbaric and the civilized. In a kind of
46 More Than One Adam? reply essay in The China Review to some Even stranger, perhaps, given that the harsh reviews of China’s Place in Philology, kind of philology Edkins practised Edkins describes the two schools of stressed seeking out the most ancient of thought relating to ancient China. The texts and reconstructing the early pronun- first, he claims, “looks upon its old civiliz- ciation of characters, is his lack of interest ation as self-grown, desiderates no connec- in what the classical Chinese texts said tion with the old Asiatic empires of the themselves about the origins of their lan- Old Testament, and detracts in many ways guage. They are certainly not silent on from the credit hitherto allowed to the matters of how writing was invented, how ancient Chinese”. “The other party”, of people communicated before writing, and which Edkins was a member, he suggests, how things came to be named. It must be “desires to harmonize the safe conclusions observed, however, that the Chinese liter- of modern geologists and ethnologists with ary tradition always stressed the written regard to the antiquity of man, both with over the oral, and speech itself appears to the historical traditions of Judea and have been taken as a given. With the only Babylon, and with those of the Chinese.” written language in their known world, The choice between them, he says, is the ancient Chinese do not seem to have between the proposition that “religion, been much interested in comparative lan- language and history are one in origin” guage studies and since Edkins’s project and the alternative that, “there was more relied on the twin pillars of spoken lan- than one Adam”.48 In his view, any guage and comparison, it may simply have polygenetic model was, by definition, been that the ancient Chinese texts were against science, against Scripture, and simply answering different questions from against common brotherhood. the ones he was asking. Comparative studies of all kinds on the CONCLUSION scale that Edkins undertook, especially the comparative study of languages, are Edkins’s book was ambitious in its scope, particularly notable for including in their taking in all the world’s peoples and their purview both the language (or mythology, languages. There is, however, a striking or religion, etc.) of the observed people, absence: the living, breathing, speaking or peoples, and the language (or whatever) Chinese he lived among. This is somewhat of the observer. Thus, in Edkins’s study strange as his other writings, on the Chinese language and the European Buddhism, on fengshui, on other aspects languages stand at each end of the scheme of folklore and religion, are full of anec- he sets out of the unrolling of linguistic dotes and the fruits of his day-to-day inter- history. To be sure, the European lan- actions. We also know from various guages are seen to be the last group to sources, including his correspondence, have evolved but they are not, as I ex- that he spent much of each day while at plained earlier, regarded as the most com- home preaching and circulating among the plex or most perfect of linguistic creations. Chinese who attended the mission hospital By including his own language and to which he was attached in Beijing. Chinese in the same scheme, Edkins’s model, and indeed comparative philology
47 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 as a discipline, can be seen both as relativ- ENDNOTES izing the language of the analyst and granting the language of study a degree 1 Edkins, Rev. J, China’s Place in Philology: An At- tempt to Show that the Languages of Europe and Asia of respect. On the other hand, with the have a Common Origin (London: Trubner, 1871). move to the study of single languages and 2 For an outline of the multitude of missions, see societies at the end of the nineteenth cen- Latourette, K.S., A History of Christian Missions in tury, and the decline of this kind of com- China (London: Society for Promoting Christian parative study, the scholar became re- Knowledge, 1929). 3 moved from the object of research. The Teng, Ssu-yü and J.K. Fairbank, with E-tu Zen Sun, Chaoying Fang and others, China's Response to Chinese became discursively disconnected, the West; a Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 (Cam- if not from the rest of the world, certainly bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954, re- from Europe and the West. printed until at least 1979). 4 On Legge, see Girardot, N., The Victorian Transla- With this kind of model — us here and tion of China: James Legge’s Oriental Progress them over there — there developed a sense (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), and numerous papers by Laurence Pfister. On Edkins, that we inhabited discrete worlds and see my “Meeting the Celestial Master”, East Asian ways of being. And from this, perhaps, History, 15/16, June/December pp.53–66. developed an anxiety that something 5 Boerschmann, Ernst, Chinese Architecture and its needed to be crossed to get from one to Relation to Chinese Culture (Washington: Govt. Print. Office, 1912). This was an offprint from the Smithso- the other; a psychic metaphor of the vast nian report for 1911. Eurasian steppe. Nineteenth-century mis- 6 Price, Maurice, Christian Missions and Oriental sionary writings on China in English cer- Civilizations, a Study in Culture Contact; the Reactions tainly display anxieties on the part of their of Non-Christian Peoples to Protestant Missions from the Standpoint of Individual and Group Behaviour: authors but those anxieties do not, in my Outline, Materials, Problems, and Tentative Interpret- reading, appear to include the sense that ations (Shanghai: privately printed, 1924). no matter how hard we try we will never 7 Williams, Raymond, Keywords (London: Fontana, truly understand the Chinese mind. “East 1983), pp.57–8, italics in the original. is east and west is west and never the 8 On Chinese punishments, see Mason, G.H., The twain will meet” is a notion surprisingly Punishments of China, illustrated by twenty-two en- gravings: with explanations in English and French absent in this context. It is absent, I would (London :W. Miller, 1801). Although he did not use suggest, because these were people of reli- the word “civilized” or its equivalents it is worth gion, something we must take seriously if noting that Leibniz ranked China in advance of Europe itself in areas of human relations at the very we are to approach an understanding of end of the seventeenth century. See, for instance, in the encounter between Chinese people and his “Preface to the NOVISSIMA SINICA” (trans. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemount, Jr.), in Cook Westerners before our times. Edkins and and Rosemount, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Writings others like him knew exactly what they on China (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), pp.46–7: were doing in China and why they were "…who would have believed that there is on earth a people who, though we are in our view so very there. We may not approve of what they advanced in every branch of behaviour, still surpass were trying to achieve but there is little us in comprehending the precepts of civil doubt that the only meaningful thing that life?…certainly they surpass us (though it is also shameful to confess this) in practical philosophy, that divided Europeans and Chinese was that is, in the precepts of ethics and politics adapted to we were Christian and, by and large, they the present life and use of morals. Indeed it is diffi- were not — yet. cult to describe how beautifully all the laws of the Chinese, in contrast to those of other peoples, are
48 More Than One Adam? directed to the achievement of public tranquillity West with China (London: Trübner and Co; Yoko- and the establishment of social order…" hama, Shanghai & Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh; Tokyo 9 Barrow, Sir John, Travels in China: Containing De- & Yokohama: Z.P. Maruya & Co., 1887). scriptions, Observations and Comparisons Made and 18 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.xii. Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Im- 19 Müller, M., Letter to A.P. Stanley, quoted in perial Palace of Yuen-min-yuen, and on a Subsequent Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China, p.245. Journey from Pekin to Canton. In which it is Attempted to Appreciate the Rank that this Extraordinary Empire 20 Bushell, S.W., “Obituary Rev Joseph Edkins, may be Considered to Hold in the Scale of Civilized D.D.”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (January, Nations (London: T. Cadell and W. Davis, 1804), 1906), pp.269–71, Box, Rev. E., “In Memorium, Rev. pp.3–4. Underlining in the original. Joseph Edkins, D.D.”, The Chinese Recorder, 36 (June, 1905), pp.282–9 (see also “Editorial Comment” in the 10 Ibid, pp.28–9. May 1905 issue, pp.261–2), Anon., “In Memorium 11 Ibid, pp.50–1. Rev. Joseph Edkins, D.D.”, Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 36 (1905), 12 Ibid, p.29. pp.157–9, Cordier, H., “Nécrologie Joseph Edkins”, 13 This is not to say that Barrow does not dabble in T’oung Pao, VI (July, 1905), pp.359–66. See also, racial theory of a more egregious sort. In a bizarre Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese: passage he cites his own Travels into the Interior of giving a list of their publication, and obituary notices South Africa of 1802 (a journey he made after return- of the deceased with copious indexes (Shanghai: ing from China) opining that the structure of the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867, reprinted upper lid of the eye of “a real Hottentot” was just Taibei: Ch’eng-wen Publishing Company, 1967), like that of a Chinese and, in general, “their physical pp.187–91. characters agree in almost every point”. Recalling “a 21 Edkins, letters to Rev J.J. Freeman (13.10.1848) Hottentot who attended me,” he claims this man was and to Rev. Arthur Tidman (14.1.1849, 13.7.1849, “so very like a Chinese servant I had in Canton, both 11.4.1850, 11.6.1850) in the Archives of the Council in person, features, manners, and tone of voice, that for World Mission: Central China, London Univer- almost always inadvertently I called him by the name sity, SOAS. of the latter”: Ibid, pp.48–9. 22 Edkins, Jane, Chinese Scenes and People, with No- 14 Medhurst, W.H., China: its State and Prospects, tices of Christian Missions and Missionary Life in a with Especial Reference to the Spread of the Gospel, Series of Letters from Various Parts of China, with a Containing Allusions to the Antiquity, Extent, Popula- Narrative of a Visit to Nanking by Her Husband the tion, Civilization, Literature, and Religion of the Rev. J. Edkins, also a Memoir by her Father, the Rev. Chinese (London: J. Snow, 1840). W. Stobbs (London: J. Nisbet, 1863). The excerpt is 15 Medhurst, W.H., China: Its State and Prospects, quoted in Box’s obituary of Joseph, p.284. pp.97–8. It is worth noting in this context that also 23 Edkins, letters to Tidman (6.9.1862, 11.4.1863, like Barrow, Medhurst points out that “China pos- 25.5.1863), Council for World Mission: North China, sesses as much civilization as Turkey now, or Eng- London University, SOAS. land a few centuries ago” and that the Chinese are exaggerated in their self-assessment: “They denom- 24 Edkins, letters to Tidman (12.9.1865) letters to inate China ‘the flowery nation,’ — ‘the region of Mullens (27.2.1866, 14.11.1867, 28.12.1877), Meech eternal summer,’ — ‘the land of the sages,’ — ‘the to Whitehouse (22.9.1879), Council for World Mis- celestial empire,’ — while they unscrupulously term sion: North China. all foreigners ‘barbarians,’ and sometimes load them 25 Edkins, letter to Whitehouse (13.12.1880), letters with epithets still more degrading and contemptuous, to Thompson (21.12.1880, 1.2.1881), Council for such as swine, monkeys, and devils.” (p.98) He con- World Mission: North China. cludes with a discussion of the advantages of attempt- ing evangelization in “civilized nations” rather than 26 Box, Obituary, p.289. See also the editorial com- in those “altogether barbarous”: in the latter case he ment from The Chinese Recorder: “We said it was with notes, “Instances have occurred of savage tribes mingled feelings that we write of his death. While falling upon the messengers of mercy; and, immedi- his place will be vacant here and his presence missed, ately on their arrival, proceeding to plunder, murder, yet when one, like this, is gathered in as a shock of and, even eat them. But this is not likely to occur corn, fully ripe, when the streets of toil are changed among a people, in a great measure, civilized” (p.120). for the streets of gold, when the mortal puts on im- mortality, one cannot refrain from a feeling of sym- 16 Williams, Keywords, p.59. pathy with the joy of one who has gone up higher, 17 Laffitte, Pierre (trans. John Carey Hall), A General who has stepped across the border and sees his View of Chinese Civilization and of the Relations of the Master face to face.”
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27 Edkins, J., Chinese Buddhism: a Volume of 43 Edkins seems generally to follow the chronology Sketches, Historical, Descriptive and Critical (London: of Dr. William Hales (1778–1821) found in his A New Trubner & Co., 1880). Analysis of Chronology; in which an Attempt is Made 28 Bushell, “Obituary,” p.270. to Explain the History and Antiquities of the Primitive Nations of the World, and the Prophecies Relating to 29 Anon, “In Memorium,” pp.158–9. It is probably them, on Principles Tending to Remove the Imperfection scholars such as the one that wrote this obituary that and Discordance of Preceding Systems, 3 vol. (London, Box was referring to when he wrote, “[Edkins’s] two 1809–12). Hales followed the Septuagint text, unlike pet aversions (and I believe his only aversions) were the more-famous chronology of Archbishop James the Higher Critics and those Philologists who de- Ussher (dating Creation to 4004 B.C) who based his clined to accept his theories on words, their origin work on the Masoretic text. and connection with each other. He rightly, I think, 44 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.67–8. applied the laws of evolution to language, but his methods, I must confess, went beyond the limits of 45 Genesis 4:16. my poor comprehension.” (“Obituary,” p. 288). 46 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.68. 30 Bopp, Franz (trans. Edward B. Eastwick), A Com- 47 Ibid, p.395. parative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Languages 48 Edkins, “Chinese Philology”, The China Review (London, Madden & Malcolm; James Malcolm: Lon- 1, 3 (1872), 181–90, 1, 5 (1873), 293–300, pp.181–2. don, 1845–50) 31 See, Rachel Ramsey, “China and the Ideal of Order in John Webb’s 'An Historical Essay…'” Journal of the History of Ideas 62, 3 (July 2001), 483–503. 32 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.xx. 33 Müller, M., Lectures on the Science of Language, quoted in Harris, R. and Taylor, T.J., Landmarks in Linguistic Thought: The Western Tradition from So- crates to Saussure (London: Routledge, 1989), p.166. 34 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.1 35 Ibid, p.2 36 Ibid, p.30. Job’s condemnation can be found at Job 31:26–28: “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.” 37 Ibid, p.31. 38 Ibid, p.34. 39 Ibid, p.51. 40 Ibid, p.55. 41 Genesis 2:19. 42 65, On the Atonement, Dissert. 53. This is likely to be William Magee, successively Bishop of Raphoe and Archbishop of Dublin, Discourses & Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement & Sacrifice: and on the Principal Arguments Advanced, and the Mode of Reasoning Employed, by the Opponents of those Doctrines as Held by the Established Church: with an Appendix Containing some Strictures on Mr. Belsham’s account of the Unitarian Scheme, in his Review of Mr. Wilberforce’s Treatise (London, 1801).
50 THE RISE AND FALL — AND POTENTIAL RESURGENCE — OF THE COMPARATIVE METHOD, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ANTHROPOLOGY
HENRIKA KUKLICK
to be critical in said national context may INTELLECTUAL RESISTANCE TO not be so. For example, historians of the COMPARISONS United States have of late devoted some attention to the baseline assumption of the Each of us has his or her standard academ- existence of “American exceptionalism”, ic questions, asked with tedious regularity which informs a good deal of American of the presenters of papers at scholarly scholarship.1 The ingredients of the meetings. No names need be mentioned, American exceptionalist argument that the but we all know a person whose usual United States has had a history unlike any ploy is to present a speaker with a sum- other nation-state have been few and mary of her paper, ask her if the summary straightforward: the United States has is correct, and then ask for clarification of been distinctive because it has had no a point or two after being praised for his hereditary aristocracy to impede upward accurate summary. We also all know a social mobility of individuals who earn person whose level of antisocial behaviour their leadership positions; the culture of is tolerated in few places outside the sem- the United States has been formed in a inar room, who will ask a speaker some “melting pot” (or sometimes, of late, in a variant of the question, “Why have I been “salad bowl”), in which diverse traits of obliged to listen to your stream of sen- a population of immigrants have been tences that make no evident sense?” My blended in a fortuitous mixture of a con- own standard question is, “Compared to geries of elements gathered from every- what?” where; and an abundance of land on which My point is that a comparative ap- the geographical frontier receded but proach is always an option for me and for (notwithstanding official pronouncements) others of like mind. The sorts of papers never really closed has provided recurrent most likely to provoke my question are opportunities for ambitious individuals those that consider a development (any and social innovation. At the moment, in development) in a specific national con- the popular version of the American excep- text, without any consideration of the tionalist argument, there is a fair amount possibility that the causal factors assumed of conversation that suggests that the
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United States is a nation uniquely guided generically designed to impart pride in and favoured by an interventionist Chris- unique national virtues, and efforts to tian deity. Indeed, as historians of the de- modify the moral lessons they convey in- velopment of the discipline of American variably provoke controversies.5 In the history have informed us, employment as versions of history taught to schoolchil- an academic historian was once contingent dren, if not also in writings of many pro- on professing this view.2 Perhaps interna- fessional historians, virtually every na- tional developments will cause this xeno- tion's history is an exceptionalist one. phobic line to moderate (if not disappear altogether) in popular discourse in the fu- THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE ture. What’s wrong with thinking that there By contrast, however, comparisons among is something exceptional about the thesis nations seem to have been relatively fre- of American exceptionalism? Never mind quent in the nineteenth century, when it its unwarranted message that the United was assumed that national histories fit States has been free from class-based social general patterns. In Britain, for example, strife. We also easily recognize that its contemporary Britons and ancient Phoeni- implicit assumption that the United Status cians were frequently equated. As Alexan- enjoys special status in the eye of God is der Wilmot wrote in 1896: found in other national histories. And [F]rom the fourteenth to the fourth comparison with the standard histories of century before Christ the Phoeni- other nation-states reveals many narrative cians…sent forth the most daring elements that are similar in their particu- and successful fleets and colonies lars. For example, for more than two cen- of antiquity…Their small territory turies Russians have argued (not without required outlets for a redundant some apparent justification) that they have population… In all history there had in Siberia a frontier conducive to is no greater analogy than that 3 freedom and innovation. Histories of between the Empire of Britain and other white-settler societies — such as that of Phoenicia at its culminating South Africa and Australia — have poin- point of glory…6 ted to factors very similar to those invoked in many histories of the United States (es- In his introduction to Wilmot’s book, the pecially those written for schoolchildren); novelist H. Rider Haggard wrote that the white-settler narratives commonly celeb- Phoenicians were “this crafty, heartless rate egalitarian styles of personal relation- and adventurous race…the English of the ancient world without the English hon- ships and unfettered opportunities for 7 upward mobility — although, of course, our”. Indeed, the British-Phoenician the populations to which these generaliza- analogy was a commonplace in continental tions apply have been implicitly under- Europe throughout the nineteenth cen- stood to be males of European extraction tury. Moreover, the Phoenicians were not — and Western (or at least Central) the only ancient peoples to whom Britons European extraction at that.4 Indeed, once compared themselves. Pondering the school textbook histories everywhere seem condition of their empire, they attempted
52 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method to explain why Rome fell, and wondered sphere. The greatest of nineteenth-century how to avoid replicating Rome’s errors. American anthropologists, Lewis Henry Considering ancient Greece, they weighed Morgan (1818–81), worked in a style that the merits of the social organizations of resembled nineteenth-century British an- Athens and Sparta.8 (It is of interest that thropologists, although he was not an some academics of British origin who have “armchair” scholar in the mould of his taken positions in the United States, such British contemporaries; they were able to as Paul Kennedy and Niall Ferguson, have achieve eminence in anthropological embraced a similarly moral approach to circles without leaving the comforts of historical analysis, preaching the lessons home, drawing on information collected to be learned from Britain’s imperial exper- by others to produce their generaliza- ience to the citizens of what is now an tions.10 Morgan was something of a field American empire in all but name.) naturalist, so that direct observation in- There is one obvious reason that Bri- formed his analysis of Native Americans tain's educated classes were once wont to (and of beavers); arguably, he also compare themselves with the classical an- reasoned with greater intellectual rigour cients: they were educated in the classics. and used more elaborate documentation But this explanation is only a partial one. than was employed by most British schol- If one can speak in the intellectually vague ars; the informants who imparted their term of the zeitgeist (and sometimes one knowledge of exotic peoples both to Mor- must), the nineteenth century was a histor- gan and to British armchair anthropolo- ically self-conscious age, aware that there gists were apt to be rather contemptuous of the generalizations produced by the was inevitably a “spirit of the age”, in 11 John Stuart Mill's phrase.9 And one can latter. And the greatest of late-nine- only understand the development of the teenth/early-twentieth century French comparative method in anthropology if social scientists, Émile Durkheim one sees it as the product of an age with (1858–1917) — an armchair scholar whose historicist sensibilities. Among the most works are still considered relevant to con- temporary disciplinary inquiries by anthro- important questions practitioners of this 12 method asked was: Was it possible to pologists, sociologists, and others — achieve better understanding of the clas- also practised a variant of the comparative sical ancients who were responsible for method. Certainly, differences obtained laying the basis of western civilization by among practitioners of this method in dif- examining then-contemporary non-west- ferent national contexts. But the case of ern peoples, who were presumed to be in British proto-anthropologists who used at least some particulars analogous to the the comparative method should serve as ancients? generally illustrative. I will discuss the comparative method THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF in anthropology largely with reference to COMPARATIVE RESEARCH its use by practitioners who fell within the British sphere of influence. This is not be- The comparative method in nineteenth- cause its practice was restricted to that century anthropology was born of four
53 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 elements, none of which was peculiar to he wished to catch them).15 On November anthropology: one, an approach to collect- 28, 1857, Notes and Queries published a ing information; two, an established style request for information about the career of dividing intellectual labour; three, a of a small child who had at some time been methodological orientation; four, an aes- exhibited in London, in the irises of whose thetic of generalization and explanation. eyes was said to be visible the name “Em- 16 Collecting information: There was a peror Napoleon”. And on February 1, standard way to collect information about 1862, it published readers’ responses to a any given specific object, creature, or question about the number of societies practice that was found in many places — past and present in which human corpses the questionnaire. The most important of were ceremonially buried in the foetal anthropologists’ questionnaires was the position. One of these responses came from volume jointly published by the British Sir John Lubbock (a baronet, later Lord Association for the Advancement of Sci- Avebury), a scientific polymath with spe- ence and the Royal Anthropological Insti- cial expertise in insects, who knew Charles tute at irregular intervals from 1874 to Darwin as a neighbour, family friend and 1951, Notes and Queries on Anthropology intellectual mentor, and who was a long- (it was originally entitled Notes and Quer- serving member of Parliament as well as a ies on Anthropology for the Use of Travellers wealthy banker. Lubbock’s many accom- and Residents in Uncivilized Lands).13 This plishments included being the first presid- was not the only anthropological question- ent of the Anthropological Institute of naire circulated; individuals such as J.G. Great Britain and Ireland (later the Royal Frazer, for example, drew up and distrib- Anthropological Institute), formed in 1871 uted their own questionnaires. But it is from the union of the previously warring Ethnological Society of London and the important to recognize that Notes and 17 Queries on Anthropology merely elaborated Anthropological Society of London. a general form. This had taken shape no That Lubbock was among the readers of later than the late seventeenth century, Notes and Queries, along with the incom- when some Fellows of the Royal Society petent mackerel fisherman, surely indic- printed and circulated a questionnaire to ates that this publication reached a broad elicit information about the natural and audience. built features of the environments of Eng- Then, there existed the informal ques- land and Wales.14 tionnaire, such as the letters of inquiry Consider the periodical entitled simply that Charles Darwin mailed to his global Notes and Queries, a vehicle for inquiring network of naturalist-informants, without minds who were curious about virtually whose assistance he could never have anything. On March 18, 1854, for example, gathered the wealth of data from which he produced such works as the On the it published a query from a reader who 18 seemed bent on acquiring confirmation of Origin of Species in 1859. Last, but his judgement that mackerel were blind hardly least, there were information- (his explanation for their lack of interest gathering kits, such as those for collecting in the flies he cast in the waters in which insects that would-be purchasers of speci- mens distributed to travellers to foreign
54 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method parts (such as naval officers and traders); basing them on their assessments of du these included operating instructions, as Chaillu’s character. Evidently, their high well as the materials necessary to kill, social status counted for more in scientific preserve and store insect specimens circles than du Chaillu’s research experi- without mutilating them.19 Of course, in- ence.20 dividual scholars supplemented the mater- I must emphasize that to report this ial they gleaned from systematic inquiries standard division of labour is not to sug- with information they happened upon in gest that we must identify with the view various ways, but it is the existence of a of the gentlemen-amateurs, or that we variety of routinized forms of deliberate must believe that the collectors who solicitation of information that is signific- served gentlemen-scientists regarded their ant. role as that of mere servants. As Anne Division of labour: There was a clear Secord has ingeniously documented, division of labour between collectors of working-class collectors who supplied information and analysts thereof, which nineteenth-century gentlemen-botanists represented a division along class lines — with specimens had considerable scientific roughly, the division between players and expertise, as well as genuine commitment gentlemen, respectively. Those who re- to scientific inquiry.21 But no matter what ceived compensation for their scientific were the satisfactions working-class col- activities, as collectors often did, were not lectors derived from their scientific la- considered capable of judging evidence bours, their voices were not audible in dispassionately — and also were not, in prestigious scientific circles. any event, “clubbable”, almost invariably Methodological orientation: The collec- being considered unfit for leadership roles tion of evidence from thither and yon in the societies of enthusiastic amateurs somehow had to be rationalized as a reas- who dominated many spheres of British onable procedure. Intellectual historians scientific life until the twentieth century. must begin with the working principle Consider the case of Paul du Chaillu, a that the figures we study were at least as French-born traveller to equatorial Africa smart as we are, and so we should not be in the middle of the nineteenth century surprised to learn that many nineteenth- (who had various financial supporters, century anthropologists were aware that including, for example, the Academy of their informants were not presenting them Natural Sciences in Philadelphia). When with what the philosopher of science calls he made public appearances in London, “brute facts” — as she customarily does, his descriptions were greeted with scepti- immediately prior to declaring that there cism and he himself was widely believed are no such things. At least some of anthro- to be something of a cad: his reports of pologists' disciplinary ancestors recognised African peoples and their natural environ- that, as the philosopher Mary Hesse has ment, which included the first eyewitness memorably stated, theories are always observations of the gorilla, were accepted “underdetermined by facts” — a point es- only after authentication by gentlemen- pecially relevant in accounts of paradigm scientists. The gentlemen-scientists had change (and to which we will return).22 no empirical basis for their judgements,
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In 1870, for example, John Lubbock ob- ment patterns of human heredity so that served that the particular perspectives of they could promulgate eugenic strategies individuals shaped their reports, saying, for improving the physical and mental “Whether any given writer praises or condition of the British population.26 But blames a particular race, depends at least Galton was surely aware of anthropolo- as much on the character of the writer as gists’ problem in reconciling disparate re- on that of the people.”23 Indeed, attention ports in order to formulate generalizations. to observer bias had a considerable lineage And if he did not say explicitly that he in science, dating at least to the astro- expected his statistical techniques to solve nomers’ definition of the so-called personal anthropologists’ methodological problem, equation in the 1820s, a phenomenon of another sometime president of the Anthro- which Sir John was surely aware, since pological Institute, E. W. Brabrook, did, his father was a distinguished astro- stating that anthropologists need not nomer.24 That is, by the end of the eight- trouble themselves with inconsistencies eenth century, astronomers had noted that in the reports they received from “every individual observers varied in their reac- direction”, but could trust “rather to the tion times to, say, the transit of a star, and general laws of numbers than to the skill astronomers subsequently undertook to of individuals to eliminate errors”.27 calculate patterns of variations among in- An aesthetic of generalization: The dividuals, specifying individuals’ differ- comparative method in anthropology was ences, so as to achieve inter-subjective born in an era in which it was assumed measures by which vital matters such as 25 that all satisfactory explanations were the setting of clocks could be resolved. historical ones. It was not merely the case It is no accident, to use historians’ that historical analogies were frequently once-canonical locution, that Francis made, and history examined for its moral Galton delivered descriptions of some of lessons, as I have already discussed. The his most important statistical innovations general idea of evolution, once called to the Anthropological Institute, of which “transformism”, antedated Darwin’s con- he was President from 1885 to 1888, as he ceptualization of it and was applied to de- did when he described the normal fre- scription of various natural phenomena. quency distribution (also known as the Consider the practice of embryology in the bell curve) which should be observable last quarter of the nineteenth century, for any variable, ranging from, say, height when it was a highly prestigious area of to life expectancy; he intended his statist- research in the biological sciences. Embry- ics to be useful in describing the phenom- ological research was animated by the re- ena anthropologists examined, including capitulation hypothesis, which could be cultural and biological traits. In his history applied more or less strictly. Compatible of the development of statistics in Britain, with Darwinism (although also reconcil- Donald MacKenzie emphasizes that Galton able with other developmental schemes), and others, most notably Karl Pearson, this was the idea that ontogeny recapitu- who developed such statistical measures lated phylogeny, that the development of still in use as the correlation coefficient, each individual recapitulated the history were motivated by their desire to docu- of the development of the species to which
56 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method it belonged. Thus, examination of em- ated by eugenic objectives, since their bryonic growth patterns was expected to statistics can be used in all manner of re- yield answers to the fundamental ques- search projects. At the same time, we can tions of species’ evolution. For example, also see that the historical antecedents of a development in an embryo that proved some present practices may be meaningful just a transient phase in the progress of an in contemporary contexts. And historical organism to its infant stage could indicate explanations are back in fashion. Regard- whether degeneration was just as important less, appeals to historical explanations are a feature of its evolutionary history as themselves historical phenomena; they progress — a possibility much debated at have seemed more plausible in some eras the end of the century. (In the develop- than in others. mental scheme so influentially promul- gated by Herbert Spencer in the late- THE COMPARATIVE nineteenth century, progress generally ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROJECT meant a movement from simplicity to complexity.)28 To give another example What kinds of questions did anthropolo- of the use of the recapitulation hypothesis, gists hope to answer with their comparat- Sigmund Freud's Lamarckian explanation ive method? They wanted to trace the de- of the structure of the individual psyche velopment of institutions, such as replace- conjured up real human experiences in the ment of the practice of tracing descent remote historical past that would be re- from the mother by the supposedly super- capitulated in childhood maturation — ior practice of tracing descent from the which could constitute degeneration (or father. Consider what was arguably the at least arrested development) if the full single most important article published by course of the species’ development was E.B. Tylor, whose appointment as Reader not followed.29 in Anthropology at Oxford in 1884 (the 30 In the first decades of the twentieth first such position in Britain) represen- century, all manner of varieties of historic- ted a decisive shift toward the profession- al explanations would be dismissed as alization of the subject. Published in 1888, such, as expressions of what philosophers Tylor’s article, “On a Method of Investig- termed the “genetic fallacy” — a pejorat- ating the Development of Institutions, ive phrase expressing the idea that the Applied to Laws of Marriage and Des- origins of any given institution in the past cent”, used information gathered about had no necessary relevance to understand- societies all over the world, to which soci- ing the operations of that institution in the eties Tylor assigned grades on a unilinear present. Nowadays, facile dismissals of scale of evolution, analyzing data with a assertions as expressions of the genetic method he called adhesions” (which we fallacy are rarely heard, although we can would call “correlations”). Tylor thought easily conjure up illustrations of argu- he could thus determine how transitions ments that might be dismissed as based on from one stage of evolution to another the genetic fallacy. For example, we were effected; his most notable finding should not devalue Galton and Pearson’s was that the practice of couvade — in statistics because the two men were motiv- which the father of a child apparently
57 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 suffers birth pangs during the course of Or, anthropologists wanted to use em- its birth, and is sympathetically attended pirical evidence to chart the emergence of — denoted progress toward creation of superior morality and spirituality — and family structures in which fathers assumed to compel recognition of “survivals” of their appropriate responsibilities.31 earlier, irrational and immoral times — Anthropologists also wanted to determ- “survivals” which could then be deliber- ine what relationship obtained between ately eliminated. Theirs was anthropology the biological and social development of as the “reformer’s science”, as E.B. Tylor the human species. Consider the resolution often spoke of it. And self-understanding of the problem first raised in 1858 by and consequent self-conscious reform was William Gladstone, the future prime min- J.G. Frazer’s objective when he dissemin- ister: How should one interpret the recur- ated his interpretation of Baldwin Spencer rent use of such descriptions as “wine- and F.J. Gillen’s 1899 classic Native Tribes dark sea” in Homer? Perhaps it was legit- of Central Australia — Australia’s pioneer- imate to analogize ancient Greeks to con- ing contribution to the development of temporary primitives — to assume that all anthropological field-research method — populations negotiated an identical course even though, as it happened, he disagreed of biological as well as social development, with Tylor in his interpretation of Spencer and that the ancient Greeks’ perceptual and Gillen’s findings. Understanding Ar- sensibilities had not yet matured to the rernte ignorance of the facts of procreation degree observed among modern peoples. and their totem ceremonies to be analogous Perhaps ancient Greeks really could not to Christian belief in the virgin birth of distinguish between the colours of the sea Jesus and the ceremony of the Eucharist, and of wine, a conjecture supposedly Frazer believed that he had exposed sur- vivals of truly primitive habits, persisting confirmed by babies’ apparent initial 34 preference for red over blue (remember in what was a supposedly rational age. that the development of babies’ sensibilit- I will shortly return to consideration of ies supposedly recapitulated the matura- the international anthropological contro- tion pattern of the entire human species). versy that Frazer’s views provoked. This argument was not discredited until Clearly, the unilinear evolutionist W.H.R. Rivers put it to empirical test model that relied on the comparative during the 1898 Cambridge Anthropologic- method was not really historical but histor- al Expedition to Torres Straits, which was icist — or, at least, historicist in the pejor- organized by the man who would occupy ative sense. Cross-cultural research was Cambridge University’s first position in used by anthropologists to document the sociocultural anthropology, A.C. Had- assumption that differences between soci- don.32 The Torres Straits expedition was eties were matters of degree rather than the first venture to take British scientists of kind; that some societies had simply into the field to do their own anthropolo- advanced further along the teleological gical research, and it afforded Rivers the trajectory of human progress than others. opportunity to observe that the islanders Why was this research mode abandoned? had no difficulty seeing blue — although It would be easy to say that anthropolo- it was not their favourite colour.33 gists dismissed their model and method
58 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method rationally because these were proven de- culture?36 The historian of nineteenth- fective. Reasoned judgement was not irrel- century anthropology feels weary as she evant to intellectual change, but we should watches intellectual history repeating itself briefly pause in our consideration of an- among primatologists. thropology’s paradigm shift to ask, “Compared to what?” THE DECLINE OF THE Consider the case of economists, polit- COMPARATIVE METHOD ical scientists and sociologists who have attempted to formulate guidelines for But I return to the history of anthropology modernizing non-western societies. within the British sphere of influence. It Among these, the recapitulation hypothes- reveals widespread dissatisfaction with is remained respectable for roughly half a the theory and method required for com- century longer than it did for anthropolo- parative analysis by the end of the nine- gists. In fact, one could say that anthropo- teenth century. In the 1892 edition of logy differentiated itself from other social Notes and Queries on Anthropology, for ex- science disciplines by being first on the ample, C.H. Read observed that the mark to reject this hypothesis — and that passing traveller could not obtain “even “modernization” theory ceased to be re- superficial answers” to the questions an- spectable as much in consequence of ri- thropologists wanted answered; only per- dicule animated by political concerns as sons with “long-continued residence 35 among a native race” were trustworthy anything else. Or consider the contem- 37 porary primatologists whose projects rep- informants. And when in 1902 A.C. resent a residue of the objective that an- Haddon described Spencer and Gillen’s thropologists abandoned when they jet- Native Tribes of Central Australia as “the tisoned the recapitulation hypothesis — best book of its kind about any people”, scientists who imagine that they can recon- he signalled the claims to authority of a struct the behaviour of earliest humankind new style of anthropologist, persons such on the basis of their observations, divided as Baldwin Spencer and himself, trained though they may be by certain disputes. scientists, whose specialized observational Which particular primate species consti- skills were more reliable (and more rapid) tutes the best prototype of humans’ ancest- means to collect accurate information than ors? What sorts of observations are reliable the intellectual habits formed during “long — in the laboratory or in the field? If the continued residence among a native race”, observer is in the field, should she make and whose primary task was to accumulate the ground her vantage point or can she detailed knowledge of delimited areas — which might be, but need not be, used in see natural behaviour while being an in- 38 trusive presence perched in a Land Rover? comparative analyses. Authoritative Where is the demarcation boundary judgements entailed personal experience between humans and other primates if the of field research among the peoples the latter can be taught to communicate in anthropologist wished to describe — some form of language? Likewise, what periods of research that became possible does it mean to be human if primates have with the development of academic careers, been tool-users and have even developed such as Haddon and Spencer enjoyed.
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Field trips of a year or more would become that Haddon solicited from afar to supple- the anthropological gold standard in the ment the information his team had twentieth century, when anthropologists gathered in the field. Moreover, while had better opportunities for financing teamwork remained common in natural them with the patronage of private philan- scientific practice (and one could say that thropies and government agencies, but in practitioners of the comparative method earlier times it became possible to do were members of informally constituted fieldwork for the simple reason that aca- teams), teamwork did not become anthro- demic lives were punctuated by long pology’s ideal method. Rather, Spencer breaks.39 Much of the research for Native and Gillen’s Native Tribes became an ex- Tribes was done during Spencer’s 1896–97 emplar. It represented an approximation summer vacation from his position as Pro- of the anthropological method that would fessor of Biology at the University of Mel- soon be conventional: a comprehensive bourne, when he was able to work with study of a delimited area, based on sus- Gillen in Central Australia. There, Gillen, tained fieldwork conducted by one or two a civil servant who was given leave to people (if the latter, often a husband and work with Spencer, was the effective ad- wife), portraying a population’s distinctive ministrator of the area’s Aborigines, and character. had accumulated a good deal of ethno- The significance of Native Tribes in the graphic knowledge during two decades’ era of its publication was rather different, residence. however. In 1913, for example, Bronislaw Haddon urged researchers to under- Malinowski said of Spencer and Gillen’s stand exotic peoples from the “native studies that “half the total production in point of view”, an injunction echoed by anthropological theory ha[d] been based Spencer and Gillen when they argued that upon their work, and nine-tenths affected anthropologists must enter “into the men- or modified by it”. Native Tribes inspired tal attitude of the native”. Though the an intense international debate, arguably “genealogical method” Rivers developed the most international of controversies in for the Torres Straits expedition proved anthropology’s history. As E. Sidney remarkably durable, however, Haddon’s Hartland had observed in 1900, so pervas- venture did not provide an imitable model. ive was the debate that the “quiet non- Taking seven men to spend roughly seven combatant student” was “astonished to months living for periods of variable find himself in the theatre of war”, assaul- length on one or another portion of an is- ted by “jarring theories and conflicting land cluster, dividing investigative labour claims”, and “searching in vain” for “a among themselves, the Torres Straits ex- bomb-proof burrow”. The debate was pedition constituted a hybrid genre of framed by J.G. Frazer (broker of the anthropology. The six volumes of Reports book’s publication by Macmillan). It was Haddon edited — five published before predicated on the assumption that indigen- World War I, and the last (Volume I) in ous Australians were the most primitive 1935 — received largely favourable re- of living peoples, whose totemism was views, but they were, in part, exercises in (somehow) at the base of civilization’s old-style research, relying on evidence highest achievements — monogamous
60 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method marriage and truly spiritual religion. Sus- disagree). In sum, concerted efforts to use tained with intensity through the mid- the comparative method to solve a problem 1920s, the debate proved irresolvable in that all participants in the debate over to- Frazer’s terms. Pondering conflicting inter- temism had initially agreed was important pretations of totemism, anthropologists had resulted in consensus that totemism rejected unilinear models of social evolu- was not a unitary phenomenon wherever tion like Frazer’s; if nothing else, they it was found, that evolution did not follow agreed that it was impossible to grade a standard course, and that the comparat- peoples according to the rate at which they ive method was impracticable.40 were making progress from savagery to Twentieth-century British anthropolo- civilization because evolution everywhere gists did not abandon their predecessors' did not fit a single pattern. aspirations to formulate scientific general- In the early twentieth century, izations. But they repudiated the notion bounded populations of professional an- that laws of development that obtained in thropologists emerged, developing various all societies. Instead, they attempted to theoretical schemes; international intellec- document the postulate that all societies tual exchanges were impeded by language were fundamentally identical, all of them barriers. Some (although certainly not all) sharing certain essential properties, all of these anthropologists insisted that the performing the same basic functions. And indigenous peoples of their countries — they reasoned that the point of studying such as those in North America and Aus- so-called simple (or technologically under- tralia — were quite distinctive, defying developed) societies was not that these comparison with groups elsewhere; it is societies were qualitatively different from interesting to note that these included technologically sophisticated ones but that Spencer and Gillen, who lamented the ab- they were relatively simple to study, a sence of a special term for the Australian point also made by Émile Durkheim variety of totemism, which they con- (among others).41 sidered unlike any other. Some anthropo- That is, the functionalists who domin- logists, particularly those in German- ated British anthropology from the late speaking areas, as well as those influenced 1920s to the 1960s dismissed efforts at in North America by the German-born and historical explanations as nonsensical — -trained Franz Boas, dedicated themselves as expressions of the genetic fallacy. Con- to varieties of historical analyses, but their sider the 1911 pronouncement of the understanding of historical change was young Malinowski, who would shortly informed by attention to particularities of become a protégé of Baldwin Spencer (al- time and place. In the United States, for though he would see Spencer as his enemy example, sociocultural anthropologists within a decade): chose a truly historical approach, emphas- izing the unique characteristics that distin- [T]he interest of an exact scientist guished peoples from one another; Boas should focus on understanding himself decried efforts to produce pro- and penetrating the mechanism found generalizations from cross-cultural and essence of social phenomena comparisons (his students would later as they exist at present and are
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accessible to observation, and not different forms in all human societies”.44 in order that these phenomena In short, the functionalists' position, as should serve as the riddle of a articulated with exceptional clarity by prehistoric past about which we Radcliffe-Brown, was to support cross- cannot know anything empiric- cultural research, but to suggest that ally.42 whatever insights might be gleaned through use of the comparative method Defining the fundamental principle of would not likely challenge the generaliza- functionalist anthropology as that “in tions the anthropologist could produce every type of civilisation, every custom, from a single case study, since all societies material object, idea and belief fulfills were fundamentally alike. some vital function…represent[ing] an in- dispensable part within a working whole”, But then, during the 1960s and 1970s, Malinowski said in 1926 that evolutionary the functionalist model became a target of progress “consist[ed] not in a sequence of ridicule, much as the evolutionist model different forms changing one into another, had been a target before it. Certainly, one but in a better adaptation of an institution might say that reports of functionalism’s to its function” [emphasis mine].43 death have been greatly exaggerated, or, at least, that functionalist analysis persists A quarter-century later, Haddon and in truncated form. No self-respecting an- Rivers’s most distinguished student, A.R. thropologist today would open herself to Radcliffe-Brown, who was Malinowski’s ridicule by postulating that any given so- (sometimes antagonistic) co-conspirator in ciety constitutes a bounded whole, in the establishment of functionalist para- which all component parts are integrated mountcy, was still making similar argu- in a mutually reinforcing system; but she ments, saying that there was no point in will, nevertheless, describe interdependent attempting to chronicle the histories of beliefs and practices (as, indeed, she non-literate societies because such societies should).45 One might also note that certain did not leave reliable written records. But of evolutionists’ assumptions were never even if accurate histories could be plotted thoroughly dispelled, either; not the least somehow, they would be irrelevant to the of these being that those societies which primary goal of social anthropology. As it is no longer politically correct to call he said: “History, in the proper sense of “primitive” are in some sense doomed, the term, as an authentic account of the bound to lose their idiosyncratic character- succession of events in a particular region istics as they are caught up in the whirl- over a particular period of time, cannot wind of globalization; my point is that it give us generalizations.” He endorsed should not be assumed that these societies cross-cultural comparisons, however, experience historical change in a distinct- saying that the comparative method was ive way. “one by which we pass from the particular to the general, from the general to the Regardless, contemporary anthropolo- more general, with the end in view that gists' definition of their purview has we may in this way arrive at the universal, changed, returning to one approximating at characteristics which may be found in that of the nineteenth century. Once again,
62 The Rise and Fall of the Comparative Method anthropologists study the entire world, cive to cross-cultural, comparative analys- not just technologically unsophisticated is. Disciplinary genres are blurring. From peoples — although the student who its text alone, a reader may not be able to writes his Ph.D. thesis on homelessness in judge whether any given article was New York City, say, or on the conditions written by a historian or an anthropologist of innovation in a biotechnology company, (or some other academic type), and practi- may find herself hard-pressed to find an tioners of different disciplines have appro- academic job as an anthropologist in the priated each other’s theories and methods. United States, since many anthropology Anthropology itself is becoming more in- departments continue to place high value ternational, although there are certainly on fieldwork in remote places. Interest- distinct cleavages; British anthropologists ingly, in Britain, unlike in the United who object to their colleagues’ increas- States, sociocultural anthropologists who ingly closer intellectual ties to Americans do their Ph.D. fieldwork in their own soci- (formed not least because there are now ety are as likely to find academic employ- many Americans employed in British de- ment as those who do research abroad.46 partments) have looked for like-minded But, then, our young, non-traditional an- associates in continental Europe.48 And thropologist may find herself non-academ- over the past decades there have been ic employment, as many anthropologists widespread intellectual trends. Anthropo- do nowadays, in which her anthropologic- logists — and others — have encouraged al skills may prove to have commercial attention to the peculiarities of the local, value. Not the least of her marketable while historians have been especially skills (and certainly not the only one) is concerned to establish patterns of every- her capacity to appreciate cross-cultural day lives among the ordinary folk of the variation, an important asset in the global past. Nowadays, it seems that the focus of marketplace: consider the anthropologist past decades on accumulating knowledge whose job it is to appreciate local differ- about the peculiarities of the local has ences in the use of ostensibly culture-free provoked a reaction; various types of technology, such as computers.47 In some scholars are now producing sweeping disciplines — say, economics, biology and surveys of times and places. They are physics — practical application has en- asking genuinely comparative questions hanced the discipline’s prestige in the eyes about differences and similarities. But of both practitioners and laypersons. Per- genuinely cross-cultural, comparative re- haps academic anthropology will now search poses technical difficulties. It re- abandon the haughty disdain for applied quires not only a wealth of accumulated work that it has sustained for more than knowledge about a range of places but also half a century. particular skills, such as the command of a number of languages and the ability to POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE decipher old styles of handwriting. The most promising way to do cross-cultural Returning to academe proper, however, research may be to form collaborating we observe that disciplinary boundaries teams. Thus, we may revive another are now being renegotiated in ways condu- structural feature of nineteenth-century
63 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 scholarship, albeit one in which the social thropology were not contingent on having had per- sonal contact with the subjects of scholarly analyses, stratification in the division of academic as would be the case in the twentieth century. labour will be based on the professional 11 For example, the Australian civil servant A.W. standards of the modern university, rather Howitt and his collaborator Lorimer Fison, a retired than on the general class structure. missionary, who provided information to both Mor- gan (whom they called “their chief”) and to a number of British armchair scholars, disparaged the work of ENDNOTES the latter. See, for example, George W. Stocking, Jr., Victorian Anthropology, New York: The Free Press, 1 See, for example, Dorothy Ross, The Origins of 1987, 236. American Social Science, New York: Cambridge Uni- 12 See Karen E. Fields's preface to her new translation versity Press, 1991, which argues that belief in of Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious American exceptionalism has been sustained by all Life, New York: Free Press, 1995 [originally 1912], varieties of social science practised in the United xvii-lxxiii. States. 13 For a discussion of Notes and Queries on Anthropo- 2 See Peter Novick, That Noble Dream, New York: logy, see Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, 258. Cambridge University Press, 1988. 14 See E.G.R. Taylor, “Robert Hooke and the Carto- 3 See Mark Bassin, Imperial Visions: Nationalist graphical Projects of the Late Seventeenth Century Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian (1666–1696)”, The Geographical Journal 90 (1937): Far East, 1840-1865, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- 529–40. sity Press, 1999. 15 Notes and Queries Vol.9, No. 229 (March 18, 1854), 4 See, for example, Richard White, Inventing Aus- 245. tralia, Sydney: George Allen and Unwin, 1981. 16 Ibid. Vol.4, 2nd ser., No. 100 (November 18, 5 See, for example, Felicity Barringer “Africa’s Claim 1857), 434. to Egypt's History Grows More Insistent”, The New 17 Ibid. Vol.1, 3rd ser., No. 5 (February 1, 1862), 99. York Times, “Week in Review”, February 4, 1990, 6; Clyde H. Farnsworth, “Aborigine Enters History 18 On Darwin’s information-gathering practices, see Books, 100 Years Late”, The New York Times, August Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, 15, 1997, A4; Ethan Bronner, “Israel’s History Text- New York: Random House, 2002, passim. books Replace Myths With Facts”, The New York 19 On the material culture and formalized instruc- Times, August 14, 1999, A1, A5; Joseph Kahn, tions for collecting natural specimens, see Anne “Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books”, The Larsen, 'Not Since Noah: The English Scientific Zoolo- New York Times, September 1, 2006, A1, A6; Hassan gists and the Craft of Collecting, 1800–1840', Ph.D. M. Fattah, “Beirut Memo: A Nation With a Long Dissertation, Princeton University, 1993. Memory, but a Truncated History”, The New York Times, January 10, 2007, A4. 20 Stuart McCook, “‘It may be the truth, but it is not evidence’: Paul du Chaillu and the Legitimation 6 Alexander Wilmot, Monomotapa (Rhodesia), Lon- of Evidence in the Field Sciences” in Henrika Kuklick don: Greenwood Press, 1969 (facsimile of the original and Robert Kohler, eds., Science in the Field, issue of 1896 edition), 118. Osiris n.s.11 (1996): 177–200. 7 H. Rider Haggard, in Ibid., xvii. 21 Anne Secord, “Science in the Pub: Artisan Botan- 8 For one exercise in documenting Britons’ tendency ists in Early Nineteenth-Century Lancashire”, History to analogize their society to classical ancient societies, of Science 32 (1994): 269–315. see Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient 22 I am, of course, referring to the dramatic changes Greece, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, that can occur in the theories and practices of scientif- 1980. ic enterprises that have been called “paradigm shifts” 9 He first used it in an article that appeared in seven ever since the publication of Thomas Kuhn, The parts in The Examiner between January and May Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University 1831. of Chicago Press, 1962. 10 Figures prominent in anthropological circles in 23 John Lubbock, On the Origin of Civilisation and the latter part of the nineteenth century, such as E.B. the Primitive Condition of Man, London: Longmans, Tylor, Francis Galton and T.H. Huxley, did under- Green, 1870, 296. take journeys to exotic parts when they were young 24 Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, 150. men. In their day, however, high reputations in an-
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25 In the received history of experimental psycho- 37 C.H. Read, “Prefatory Note” to Part II, “Ethno- logy, astronomers’ recognition and calculation of graphy”, John Garson and Charles Hercules Read, variation among individual observers marks the be- eds., Notes and Queries on Anthropology, Second Edi- ginning of their enterprise. See Edwin G. Boring, A tion, London: The Anthropological Institute, 1892, History of Experimental Psychology, Second Edition, 87. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1950, 31, 38 A.C. Haddon to Baldwin Spencer, 5 May, 1902, 134–5. in the Spencer Papers, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 26 See Donald MacKenzie, Statistics in Britain, Box 1. Near-contemporaries, Spencer and Haddon 1865–1930, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh were both trained as biologists, and were professional Press, 1981, 16–7. rivals as such before they became like-minded anthro- pologists. Haddon came second in the competition 27 E.W. Brabrook, “On the Organisation of Local for Spencer’s Melbourne chair. It is worth noting Anthropological Research”, Journal of the Anthropo- that when the natural history sciences (ranging from logical Institute 22 (1892): 271. anthropology to zoology) differentiated at the turn 28 See, for example, Adrian Desmond, Huxley: The of the twentieth century, they embraced a common Devil’s Disciple, London: Michael Joseph, 1994, 90, method — the detailed study of a delimited area. For 125–6, 184, 190–9. For a survey of various British Haddon’s rallying cry to embrace this method (as and European notions about degeneration in the late well as an account of the vicissitudes of his career), nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Daniel see my “Islands in the Pacific: Darwinian Biogeo- Pick, Faces of Degeneration, Cambridge: Cambridge graphy and British Anthropology”, American Ethno- University Press, 1989. logist 23 (1996): 611–38. On the field method em- 29 Freud wrote a number of implicitly Lamarckian braced by the natural history sciences, see my “After analyses of this sort. For one example, see his Totem Ishmael: The Fieldwork Tradition and its Future” in and Taboo: some points of agreement between the Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, eds., Anthropolo- mental lives of savages and neurotics, translated by gical Locations, Berkeley: University of California James Strachey, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Press, 1997, 47–65. For one statement of the claim 1950 [originally 1913]. that their training made anthropologists more accur- ate and efficient observers of native peoples than 30 In 1896, Tylor was given a personal professorship, such long-resident observers as colonial officials, see retiring in 1909; his successor, R.R, Marett, retired C.G. Seligman, quoted in Richard Temple, Anthropo- as a Reader. logy as a Practical Science, London: G. Bell and Sons, 31 E. B. Tylor, “On a Method of Investigating the Ltd., 1914, 44. Seligman participated in the Torres Development of Institutions, Applied to Laws of Straits expedition. Marriage and Descent”, Journal of the Anthropological 39 This is not to say that fieldworkers such as Had- Institute 18 (1888): 245–72. don did not require grants to finance their fieldwork, 32 He was appointed University Lecturer in Ethno- but their patrons were not very generous. They had logy in 1900; in 1909, he became a Reader, and re- to exercise considerable ingenuity in order to as- tired as such in 1926. At the time of the expedition, semble sufficient funds, and might supplement their he was Professor of Zoology at the Royal College of grants through personal efforts. Haddon, for ex- Science in Dublin. ample, collected ethnographic artefacts to sell to museums; see my “Islands in the Pacific”, op. cit. 33 See my The Savage Within, New York: Cambridge 40 University Press, 1991, esp.146–9. This discussion of the totemism controversy summarizes my “‘Humanity in the chrysalis stage’”, 34 For explication of Frazer’s views, see my “‘Human- op. cit., and all of the quotations in my discussion ity in the chrysalis stage’: Indigenous Australians in are used in this article. The most famous illustration the anthropological imagination, 1899–1926”, British of Boas’s students’ efforts to produce comparative Journal for the History of Science 39 (2006): 535–68. generalizations about societies is Ruth Benedict’s 35 See, for example, Michael E. Latham, Moderniza- Patterns of Culture, New York: Houghton Mifflin tion as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation Company, 1934. Building" in the Kennedy Era, Chapel Hill: University 41 For a succinct summary of the differences between of North Carolina Press, 2000. British and American anthropology, see George W. 36 The pioneering study is Donna Haraway’s Primate Stocking, Jr., “The Basic Assumptions of Boasian Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Anthropology” in his The Shaping of American An- Modern Science, New York: Routledge, 1989. For a thropology, New York: Basic Books, 1974, 1–20. recent survey that attends to these issues, see Robert 42 Bronislaw Malinowski, “Totemism and Exogamy” N. Proctor, “Three Roots of Human Recency”, Cur- in Robert Thornton and Peter Skalník, eds., The Early rent Anthropology 44 (2003): 213–29. Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski, translated by
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Ludwik Krzyzanowski, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1993 (from the portion of the essay originally published in 1911), 140. 43 Bronislaw Malinowski, “Anthropology”, The En- cyclopaedia Britannica, 13th Edition Supplement, London and New York: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, 1926, 133. 44 A.R. Radcliffe Brown, “The Comparative Method in Social Anthropology”, Journal of the Royal Anthro- pological Institute 81 (1951): 22. 45 See, for example, Kingsley Davis and Robert Merton’s definitions of functionalist analysis, by which any demonstration of association between one social element and another counts as functionalist analysis. By this token, of course, unilinear evolution- ist analyses were also functionalist, since they as- sumed the interdependence of the component parts of any stage of evolution. But consider Paul Rabinow, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1977. Recognized as a pion- eering example of a new anthropological genre, it purports to challenge all functionalist conventional wisdom, but nevertheless invokes some all-pervasive Moroccan cultural spirit, and accounts for the phe- nomena Rabinow observed in terms of an implicit whole. 46 Jonathan Spencer, Anne Jepson, and David Mills, “Career Paths and Training Needs of Social Anthro- pology Research Students. ESRC [Economic and Social Science Research Council] Research Grant RES-000- 23-0220. End of Award Report”, unpublished manu- script, 2005, 9. 47 See, for example, the work of Genevieve Bell, who earned her Ph.D. in anthropology at Stanford in 1997, who works for Intel Research. Observing 100 households in 19 cities in seven countries in Asia and the Pacific, she has observed differences in use of technology that Intel hopes to apply to future designs. See Michael Erard, “For Technology, No Small World After All”, The New York Times, May 6, 2004, “Circuits” section, G5. 48 See, for example, Adam Kuper, “Alternative his- tories of British social anthropology”, Social Anthro- pology 13 (2005): 47–64.
66 CONTENDING CENTRES OF CALCULATION IN COLONIAL TAIWAN
The Rhetorics of Vindicationism and Privation in Japan’s “Aboriginal Policy”
PAUL D. BARCLAY
However, survey anthropology’s aca- INTRODUCTION demically informed model of human di- versity did not enter Japanese colonial In the following analysis of Japanese sur- discourse uncontested. As it turned out, vey anthropology’s golden age in colonial 1 the cultural-pluralist framework was in- Taiwan, I argue that the enterprise’s commensurate with statist priorities of historical importance derives from its ex- economy and speed, institutionalized un- tra-scientific impact as a discursive inter- der the leadership of de facto viceroy Got vention. Soon after the colony was an- Shinpei (r.1898–1906).5 In fact, the ulti- nexed in 1895, Japan’s small contingent mate centre of calculation in Taiwan was of Tokyo-based anthropologists began located in the Governor General’s office, making their way south. Quite self-con- not on the anthropologist’s desk. In the sciously, they sought to replace “pre- final analysis, I argue, the government modern discourses” that accentuated the anthropologist in Taiwan was an “intellec- Other’s lack of civility with a cultural- tual middleman”,6 neither an author of pluralist framework that affirmed the policy nor a scholarly innovator. As inter- Other's intrinsic attributes. Within a dec- mediaries between field officers with day- ade, Japan’s survey anthropologists com- to-day contact with Taiwan Aborigines pleted a serviceable ethnic map of 2 and policy-makers who rarely ventured Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples. Positioning outside of Taipei, they formed the linchpin themselves in sub-bureaucratic “centers 3 in a multi-tiered sifting mechanism that of calculation”, their synoptic vision of produced the centre’s working-knowledge a complex and previously inchoate local of conditions in the highlands. In the end, situation provided the ground for more their energetic and sophisticated discurs- refined surveys and detailed censuses as ive interventions could not prevent the well as schema, images and terminologies northern tribes of central Taiwan from that proliferated in Japanese propaganda, becoming typecast as unreconstructed commercial writing and scholarly produc- savages who lacked the reason or cultural tion.4
67 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 capacity to respond to any policy but mired for their stamina, ingenuity and brute force. encyclopaedic knowledge of world ethno- logy, they also find themselves excluded BACKGROUND AND from the intellectual lineage of anthropo- DEFINITIONS logy’s exemplary scholars. At the same time, like the comparativists, they remain Before fieldwork became the sine qua interesting to historians as shapers and non of anthropological research, text-based emblems of intellectual life in colonies, scholars initiated cross-cultural comparis- metropoles and the places in-between on as a method of writing the universal during the period of high imperialism. history of human progress.7 Reflecting a Unlike the armchair anthropologist, how- non-conformist heritage of engagement ever, survey anthropologists physically with the abolitionist cause, champions of confronted cultural variation in its envir- the method postulated the “psychic unity onmental setting. They saw, heard, of man” as the ground for considering all touched and smelled material and non- peoples candidates for fruitful comparison. material artefacts in situ. Field experience, This “psychic unity” postulate pitted the according to some, allowed survey anthro- comparativists against polygeneticists, pologists to conceptualize practices and who argued for the existence of distinct objects as integrated ensembles, as compon- human races. As post-colonial critics have ents of particular cultures. In other words, been quick to point out, however, the their research methods lent themselves to comparativists, by ranking peoples on a a pluralist outlook. Their comparativist scale from savagery to civility, also contrib- predecessors, in contrast, regarded imple- uted an intellectual justification for ideolo- ments and institutions as decontextualized gies of difference and contempt for non- data from which to distil a speculative Europeans. According to the critical tradi- history of the whole human race, instead tion, the evolutionists defeated the poly- of subdivisions thereof. geneticists only to establish a more insidi- Because they ultimately relied upon ous paradigm for racism, substituting the existence of a Latourian “center of “culture” for “race” on the evolutionary calculation” to consolidate their findings, scale, eventually succumbing to a pessim- this essay considers survey anthropology istic belief that cultural divides could not as an extension and modification of the be bridged through the agencies of educa- 8 comparativist tradition, rather than as a tion and enlightenment. precursor to participant-observation. Un- Like their intellectual forebears and like their descendents, survey anthropolo- actual teachers, survey anthropologists gists never sought to view the world have left an ambiguous legacy, as champi- through the eyes of the peoples they ons of causes progressive for their time studied; empathy was never the goal. who also took part in a generalized appar- Rather, survey anthropologists divided atus of oppression. Survey anthropologists populations into intellectually and admin- form a sort of historical “missing link” istratively digestible numbers of sub-units between armchair theoreticians and post- (tribes, races, ethnic groups) to answer Malinowskian participant-observers. Ad- questions or solve problems generated in
68 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan colonial metropoles. For our purposes, the plurality of different races or colonial metropole, where “notes and peoples. The distinctively modern queries” are authored, sent out from and and anthropological imagining ultimately collated, are equivalent to La- projects natural differences among tour’s “center of calculation”, the priv- people that may be rendered at ileged place from which a totality of local one time as different ‘nations’, at situations can be viewed, abstracted and another as distinct ‘races’ or ‘cul- reduced to system. tures’. The underlying epistemic Lastly, a word on the term “pluralism”. operation — of partitioning the Nicholas Thomas argues that the modern human species — makes possible pluralistic view of culture/ethnicity that a variety of political and ethno- informed and was elaborated by survey graphic projects: particular popu- anthropology should be viewed as the lations may be visible as objects of successor of Christian and Enlightenment government; they may serve as world-views that considered “heathens”, ethnological illustrations or sub- “infidels” and “primitives” as fundament- versive counter-examples in com- ally incomplete human beings, either in parative social argument; and need of salvation/education or expendable these reified characters may be available for appropriation in anti- on the chopping block of history. Their 9 negative traits — ignorance, illiteracy, etc. colonialist, nationalist narratives. — defined the Other in the eyes of the This “distinctively modern and anthropo- observer. Building on the work of Jo- logical imagining” received much of its hannes Fabian, Thomas argues that the impetus, and exerted its influence, in the discursive construction of tribes, races and dialectical circulation of images, goods and ethnic groups as internally coherent col- people between colonial settings and met- lectivities which can be known, compared ropolitan publics. Fortuitously, Thomas’s and ranked by recourse to study of “ideal admittedly simplistic historical sketch, or types” ushered in the age of anthropologic- “analytical fiction”, well describes the al typification. His elegant formulation rupture in consciousness that Japanese bears quotation in full: survey ethnologists hoped to bring about What I seek to extrapolate from in Taiwan. For this essay, the term “plur- [Fabian] is an argument that in alism” is defined, following Thomas, as “a premodern European discourses, worldview that imagines a plurality of non-Western peoples tend to be different races or peoples” in contradistinc- characterized not in any anthropo- tion to a worldview that conceptualizes logically specific terms, but as a different peoples “as a lack or poorer form lack or poorer form of the values of the values of the centre”. of the centre…My analytical fic- tion, then, tells of a shift from an PARTITIONING THE HUMAN absence of ‘the Other’ (as a being SPECIES IN UPLAND TAIWAN accorded any singular character) to a worldview that imagines a The Qing empire ceded Taiwan to Ja- pan as part of the settlement to end the
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Sino-Japanese war of 1894–95. As the der the auspices of the Japanese Army, Taiwan Government-General began setting thereafter working in the documents sec- up its capital in the face of armed resist- tion of the Government-General and as an ance in June 1895, reports describing the administrator of the Japanese Language curious folkways of the empire’s new schools, pursuing his interest in Taiwan subjects began to circulate in Japan. Espe- anthropology between assignments.15 cially prominent in the early wave of In ’s most remarked-upon contribution “first-encounter” documents were travel to Taiwan anthropology was precisely the accounts of the hill tribes, collectively kind of “epistemic operation” described known as “banjin”, “seibanjin”, “yabanjin” 10 by Nicholas Thomas as quintessentially or “banzoku”. Even before the Govern- modern: an ethnic map cum taxonomy of ment-General could safely inhabit its cap- the Taiwan Aborigines. In sought to re- ital, Takigawa Miyotar published “Our place the casual observations of his ama- New Territory: The Island of Taiwan” to teur co-nationals and the pre-modern Qing popularize the quasi-ethnographic inform- descriptions of Taiwan Aborigines with a ation contained in Ueno Sen’ichi’s famous scientifically ascertained taxonomy based military intelligence report on conditions 11 on the investigation of racial-cultural di- among the Aborigines. Ueno’s report versity in upland Taiwan. In Kanori suc- was an amalgam of first-hand accounts and cinctly stated these goals in mid-1895: information collected by British light- house-keeper George Taylor.12 Well into The people of Taiwan are known the 1900s, the occupation inspired popular by three types: Chinese (shinajin), ethnography for Japanese consumption, cooked barbarians (jukuban), and in the form of newspaper, magazine and raw barbarians (seiban). As for the scholarly accounts of life in “Darkest Chinese, of course their descend- Taiwan’s” interior.13 ents will become obedient citizens (kika no min) — it should not For the small coterie of anthropologists present much difficulty to govern attached to Tokyo University, the ethnolo- them. However, the raw and gical bounty of the new colony proved ir- cooked barbarians need to be in- resistible. The intellectual backgrounds vestigated from the perspectives and institutional affiliations of the major of natural as well as conjectural players, In Kanori, Torii Ryūz and Mori science (keijikaj ). Thereafter, an Ushinosuke, have been well documented 14 administration and an educational elsewhere. For our purposes, it is policy can be structured. As for enough to say that In Kanori (1867–1925), “cooked” and “raw”, these are our major protagonist, set sail for Taiwan general terms formerly used to re- on November 3, 1895. At the time, In flect degrees of submission to supported himself as an editor of an edu- [Qing] government. If we look at cation journal while contributing notes on it from a scientific point of view, folklore to the Journal of the Tokyo Anthro- however, there are at least four or pological Society and attending the lectures five different tribes/races (shuzoku) of Japanese anthropology’s founding [of Aborigines], as we know from father, Tsuboi Sh gor . In embarked un-
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looking at the articles written by sent to Got Shinpei in early 1899 as a re- foreigners who have investigated port titled Taiwan Banjin jij (Conditions this area. But what about the in- among the Taiwan Aborigines).17 Con- trinsic, distinctive (koyū) sidered In ’s magnum opus, Banjin jij is physiologies, psychology and local a rich, descriptive and internally conflic- customs of the various tribes? ted document that speaks in multiple What about their connections to voices, reflecting In ’s intermediary posi- the Philippine islands and neigh- tion in the colonial order of things. Rely- boring islanders? To this day, ing on his own observations in the field these are unsettled issues. Today, (though never in any one spot for long), by the hands of our countrymen, archival research in Chinese records and the clarification of these questions interviews with Pacification-Reclamation will, it goes without saying, con- officers,18 In constructed a matrix of de- tribute to our political goals…And fining traits — physical features, everyday we shall also see results in regard usages and implements (dozoku), cultural to our scholarly aspirations.16 practices (kanshū), language and oral tradi- tions — to classify the inhabitants of In ’s manifesto (and subsequent writings) Taiwan’s interior into eight discrete ethnic called for Japanese survey anthropologists groups. to identify the unique features of each shuzoku (tribe/ethnos) on Taiwan in order The Janus-faced nature of this docu- to better understand the differences among ment, a testament to survey anthropo- the groups subsumed under the Qing logy’s ambiguous legacy, is illustrated by terms shengfan (raw barbarian) and shufan In ’s characterization of the Atayal (cooked barbarian). In also emphasized peoples. On the penultimate page of his that anthropology should render faithful 283-page report, In warned Japanese offi- service to the state as a form of intelligence cials against the temptation to caricature gathering. These two goals would come the Aborigines (banzoku) as savage 19 into conflict, I will argue, undermining headhunters. In In ’s taxonomic grid, In ’s ability to construct a coherent ac- “headhunting” comprised a single item count of Japanese relations with the up- out of six elements called “customs”, while landers, in effect forcing him to choose “customs” themselves stood beside other between loyalty to an emerging discipline bundles of defining traits, such as “phys- or obedience to his bureaucratic superiors. ical features”, “language”, “technology” and others. In emphasized that many On May 26, 1897, In formed an exped- Aboriginal groups had ceased headhunt- ition party to begin a 192-day ethnograph- ing, but even those who continued, like ic survey tour by order of the colony’s the Atayal, were also competent agricultur- Bureau of Education. The Government- ists and weavers. Moreover, continued General ordered In and his partner, In , the savage custom of headhunting was Awano Dennoj , to devise a portrait of perpetuated as a form of defence against Aboriginal society for the purpose of aggressive Han settlers. In finished by making recommendations on the subject asserting that the tribes of Australia and of Aboriginal schooling. The results were Africa were much more primitive than
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Taiwan’s headhunting Atayal, thereby Aborigines, identifies a persistent strain relativizing their backwardness by re- in Qing documents which demonizes the course to the accumulating world-wide Aborigines for their lack of civility. She database of “cultures” put into play by terms such discourse the “rhetoric of the armchair comparativists of yore.20 privation”, in contrast to the more roman- ticized rhetoric of primitivism (the “Noble Going completely against the grain of 23 his conclusion, In began the substantive Savage”). Though In equated distance sections of Banjin jij by fixing the Atayal from Chinese influence with savagery in peoples as Taiwan’s least-advanced tribe, much of his ethnology, he severely criti- describing them as preternaturally xeno- cized the rhetoric of privation as non-sci- phobic, bloodthirsty headhunters respons- entific in another venue, writing: ible for over a hundred beheadings annu- When the Chinese first learned of 21 ally. In ’s evolutionary ranking of the Taiwan’s location, they acknow- tribes, in what we might today call the ledged the existence of the island’s “bullet-points of the report”, attributed own people, or “the natives”. the Atayal’s bottom position to environ- There are many writings that attest mental factors: to this. But at the time, they only Taiwan’s most advanced Abori- recognized the natives as a differ- gines are the Peipo tribe (ping- ent people, with different language puzu), followed by the Parizarizao and customs, but did not give section of the Paiwan tribe, the them a particular name…In Ming Puyuma tribe, the Amis tribe and times, the name “Eastern Barbari- others who inhabit the plains. The ans” (dongfan) was used, probably lowest position is occupied by the meaning “the barbarians of the Atayal tribe, who all live deep in Eastern Seas…After the Qing occu- the valleys, whose steep mountain pied Taiwan, there were two major paths have obstructed intercourse divisions, based on the presence and made travel difficult…There or absence of political compliance is no doubt that this state of affairs [to the Qing], the seiban and the jukuban…They did not, [however,] is directly related to the degree of 24 intercourse with the Chinese. Espe- make observations about race. cially in those villages located In this passage, the term “political compli- among Chinese settlements, we see ance” is loaded. From the Sinocentric the most pronounced progress World Order perspective, the court of the 22 (shinpo). Chinese emperor is the metonymous Thus, In ’s evolutionary perspective repro- centre/apex of tradition, refinement, duced elements of the old Qing “Sino- power and learning. The source of human- centric World Order” ethos that equated ity-making benevolence is configured as “civilization” with proximity to China’s a geographical node of virtue, which radi- sacral-political centre. Emma Teng, in her ates outward and downward via the power analysis of Qing nomenclature, discourse of attraction, imitation and what we might and travel writing vis-à-vis the Taiwan today call acculturation. The boundaries
72 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan of the realm of civilization are extended rhetoric. Moreover, Torii’s interpreter, by bureaucracy, the repository of Con- Mori Ushinosuke, who would himself be- fucian learning and instrument of Chinese come a prominent government expert on statecraft. Thus, in the passage above “the Aboriginal languages, was an adamant absence or presence of political compli- vindicationist as well.27 Thus, it would ance” also denotes “cultural” submission be fair to characterize Taiwan survey an- to the Chinese centre.25 Thus, In ’s cri- thropology of the Meiji period (1895–1912) tique prefigures Thomas’s characterization more generally as a vindicationist enter- of pre-modern discourses about the Other; prise. they are distinguished from modern sci- Banjin jij was, however, only partly entific discourses by their fixation on lack an ethnological study. Primarily, it was or presence, their overbearing concern with edited and abbreviated for practical applic- the “values of the centre”. ation as a report submitted to Got Shin- There are, then, two major contradic- pei, Taiwan’s Minister of Civil Affairs from tions in In ’s ethnology of Taiwan Abori- 1898 to 1906. Analyzing the interplay gines. First, the relativizing rhetoric of the between Got the powerful administrative Taiwan Banjin jij ’s conclusion contra- superior and In the dutiful bureaucrat is dicts the rhetoric of privation that per- as important as it is difficult.28 As a self- meates the body of the report; and In ’s styled visionary and actor on the global explicitly modern-pluralist approach to stage, Got , an accomplished physician taxonomy is undermined by his ultimate and public-health administrator, fre- recourse to the Sinocentric preoccupation quently invoked the scientific method as with the Atayals’ physical and cultural a rationale for his policy proclamations. distance from the Middle Kingdom. These Got ’s avowed appetite for research on glaring contradictions call for explanation, colonized populations, is matched by In because In was, if anything, a deliberate Kanori’s reputation as a producer of such scholar, a man obsessed with establishing knowledge. In , the indefatigable, driven himself as a member of the Meiji-period and scrupulous editor, compiler, analyst bureaucratic-literary elite. and fieldworker, is commonly regarded as As an ethnologist in 1899 colonial the father of modern Taiwan Studies, and Taiwan, In was writing against a dis- was certainly the government’s acknow- course that put the human status of the ledged expert on Aboriginal country Atayal into question. Anthropologist around 1900. In addition, both men hailed David Scott uses the term vindicationism from the area of northeastern Japan’s for such narratives.26 In other words, if Iwate prefecture, giving them common the question is: “Are the Atayal beasts or cause as rising men from Japan’s rural human beings?” then In ’s reply, in the periphery. Considering these factors, one vindicationist mode, is “They are human would expect In ’s ethnological labours to have had a large impact on Got ’s view beings.” In ’s contemporary Torii Ryūz , of Aborigines in Taiwan. Paradoxically, it fellow survey anthropologist and veteran appears that Got influenced In ’s think- of Tsuboi Sh gor ’s seminars, also laced ing instead; though Got of course had his ethnological notes with vindicationist very little specific knowledge about the
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Aborigines themselves, and was ostensibly come as a stinging rebuke to In Kanori, being informed by In ’s work. Got applauded the efforts of government E. Patricia Tsurumi has aptly character- employees (like In ?) to submit their hard- ized Got ’s rough-and-ready sociology of earned local knowledge to the government Taiwan as garden-variety Spencerian in the form of reports. Got rejected, evolutionism.29 Tsurumi’s judgement however, the existing knowledge at hand finds evidence in a much-reproduced 1901 as too unsystematic and non-specialist. policy statement entitled “An Opinion on Got wrote that Western nations had suf- the Necessity of Conducting a Survey into ficiently developed scholarly communities Customary Law for the Governance of to let specialists compete among them- Taiwan”. Here, Got applied Spencerian selves to study native customs, laws and logic to assert that Taiwan’s Chinese pop- economy; in these advanced nations, the ulation was not ready for the sudden intro- government only had to convene these duction of fully civilized Japanese legal scholars and reap the harvest. For Got , codes, because it had become accustomed Japan’s civil society (kokumin/“national to a partially civilized legal regime during people”) was still too immature for its government to take such a laissez-faire 200 years of Qing rule. In other words, the 32 rights guaranteed to Japanese subjects approach. under the 1889 constitution would not be Matsuda Ky ko argues that In ’s re- granted to Taiwanese (though, of course, course to Social Darwinism stemmed from the obligations would) for fear that too- his visceral reaction to harsh research sudden a change would shock the “organ- conditions. Poor infrastructure, lack of ism” of Taiwanese society. And as for the security and forbidding terrain combined Aborigines, Got used the general marker to provoke In to project his “struggle to for savagery, yaban, to degrade them and conduct a survey” onto the Atayal peoples assert that they also could not be governed as a “struggle for survival”. In short, In through modern law codes.30 Got re- reasoned that the Atayal had been pushed ferred to the “savages who dwell in the to such extreme living conditions because undeveloped lands” as living fossils from they had been forced into the interior by antiquity in a classic example of what Jo- superior forces (the Chinese).33 This ana- hannes Fabian has called “allochronic” lysis is attractive, for it shows the survey discourse.31 anthropologist responding to the local en- On one important point only, it appears vironment, yet in such a way that his own that Got incorporated In ’s ethnology relationship to the culture-bearer is reified into his own thinking. His declaration that into an enduring characteristic of that so- the Aborigines and the Chinese were dis- ciety, exposing both the strengths and tinct populations was of a piece with In ’s weaknesses of the genre. At the same time, 1895 manifesto quoted above. We shall Matsuda’s analysis does not explain the return to the significance of this agreement grave contradiction between In ’s vindic- below. On the whole, however, it appears ationism and his rhetoric of privation. that Got was more hostile to than ignorant My alternative explanation is admit- of In ’s report of 1899. In what must have tedly speculative, but has the advantage
74 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan of clarifying the contradictions within an,37 shifting his purview from the map- In ’s corpus. I believe that In adopted ping of cultures in space to the identifica- elements of the rhetoric of privation and tion of meaningful segments of linear time. the language of Social Darwinism in the Banjin jij to anticipate or answer to A BROKEN NARRATIVE: IN Got ’s objections to his vindicationism. KANORI’S “10-YEAR HISTORY” In began and finished his field survey before Got came to Taiwan, concluding Like the 1900 Taiwan Banjin jij , In on December 1, 1897. During a 13-month Kanori’s 1905 Ry Tai jūnen shi (10-Year interval, In collated his data, read more History of the Occupation of Taiwan) was deeply in Qing documents and drew his compiled for the Government-General’s conclusions. He filed his report to Got on second-in-command, Got Shinpei.38 January 9, 1899, about eight months into Got ’s preface stressed that the history of Got ’s tenure. During his write-up period, Taiwan was testament to Japan’s achieve- he was fired as part of Got ’s and Gov- ments as a modern colonial power. In of ernor-General Kodama Gentar ’s adminis- course inscribed Got ’s progressive view trative house-cleaning of March 1898, only of history into this historical digest, to be re-hired soon after. He then quit though he stumbled in his short chapter again in December 1898 to return to Tokyo on indigenous Administration, the topic 34 for a year. Considering that Got ’s he knew best. As a government scribe, In fondness for evolutionary metaphors was imposed a linear, progressive narrative well-known to In during a period of inter- structure upon the confused history of mittent unemployment, it seems not un- Japanese-indigenous relations by making reasonable to expect that In would recast Japan’s “punitive policy” into the dynam- his survey ethnology to meet the expecta- ic element of the narrative. In thereby tions of powerful and sceptical readers. If de-emphasized the record of conflict In often portrayed himself as the centre within the administration and the complex of calculation vis-à-vis colonial policemen, story of frontier diplomacy in the earlier military officers and amateur ethnograph- period. This simplification, in turn, erased ers,35 he in turn answered to an even the pluralistic view of Taiwan’s internally more paramount centre of calculation in differentiated Aboriginal population from the person of Got Shinpei. the official narrative, while maintaining As we have seen, Got Shinpei did not the major distinction between Chinese and think In ’s survey worthy of the name Austronesian races. “science” in 1901. Nonetheless, he suffi- In its chapter on indigenous Adminis- ciently appreciated In ’s skills as an editor tration, the “10-Year History” ignores the and compliant underling to commission first eight months of martial law on him for several more projects, making In , Taiwan (August 1895–March 1896) to open in effect, the Government-General’s in- with the Government-General’s declaration house historian of indigenous Administra- of civilian rule on April 1, 1896. This tion, for both the Qing and Japanese peri- opening gambit is important, for it estab- ods.36 In this new role, In would begin lishes the Confucian subtext of In ’s pre- a second career in Taiwan as an histori- ferred and intended narrative structure:
75 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 civil government is normal, ideal and Perhaps anticipating Got ’s views on laudable, while martial law is a last resort, the subject, In posited headhunting as an expedient for failed policies. Again we the defining trait for “certain tribes in the can detect Got ’s hidden hand here, recall- northern half of the island” to introduce ing that the Minister of Civil Affairs in- the Aborigines in his “Ten-Year history”. sisted, upon taking the portfolio in 1898, This stereotype, based on a single trait of that he be paramount to all military men the population in question, was precisely in Taiwan, except for the Governor-Gener- the kind of demonizing In decried in his al, Kodama Gentar . To dramatize his vindicationist mode five years earlier. much-publicized belief that military rule Adding force to the “trope of the savage was ruining the colony, Got actually headhunter”, In used the contrasting struck a naval officer in front of a military term ry min to describe their victims. In audience to defend his own honour. Qing-period usage, ry min (Chinese: liang- Kodama, ever Got ’s protector, approved min) referred to tax-paying artisans, mer- of Got ’s brash action.39 chants and agriculturists: literally, the 41 The first event of In ’s history, then, “good people”. In attributed ry min is the establishment of the Pacification- victimhood to the atavistic Aboriginal Reclamation Office (bukonsho). The “custom” of headhunting, initially con- Bukonsho, wrote In , was chartered “solely structing a culturalist explanation redolent to enact ‘moral suasion’ (ky ka) among the with the rhetoric of privation. In the dis- Aborigines”. In then added, contradictor- cursive field of “moral suasion” (ky ka), ily as it turned out, that the Bukonsho was then, such “evil customs” would ideally also charged with overseeing the “econom- be reformed by the civilizing, edifying ic development” (kaihatsu) of the “Abori- influences of the centre, as transmitted by ginal territory” and “finding useful em- civil (Chinese: wen, Japanese: bun) institu- ployments for the Aborigines (banjin no tions like the Bukonsho. jusan)”. The tension between ky ka and In the first turning-point in his narrat- kaihatsu becomes clear if we comprehend ive, In recounted that the Bukonsho could “moral suasion” as a spatial metaphor not stop Aboriginal attacks on ry min rooted in the “Sinocentric” topographical through moral suasion alone. Therefore, political imagination,40 and conceive of the Government-General formulated a kaihatsu as a temporal metaphor more ap- system of punishments (ch batsu) directed propriate to Enlightenment theories of at Aboriginal headhunters in late 1897. progress. In the former model, the centre Despite this concession to expedience of calculation is the Imperial Centre itself, (force), In assured readers that Japanese eternal, patient and inevitably triumphant. policy remained organized on the principle In the latter model, the centre of calcula- of “reassurance through acts of kindness tion is the state’s political leadership, (suibu)”, to argue that the “civil” impulse which resolves conflicts and defines effi- was still ascendant around 1898. ciency in the context of national interest Quite abruptly, In then changes tack in a world of competing nation-states. to describe headhunting incidents as “acts of murder and assault” (ky k ) to explain
76 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan the government’s expansion of police thesis would explain why In switched forces (keisatsu) along the Aboriginal bor- back to the vindicationist mode in this der in 1898. The new intolerance of “as- narrative, now casting the northern Abori- sault and murder” can be read as gines as history’s victims. Halfway headhunting’s redefinition from “custom” through In ’s account, the Han are trans- to “crime”. This reconsideration was war- formed from “ry min” (good people) into ranted, according to In , by a “fear that “Chinamen”. Temporarily abandoning the headhunting would stop plans for Abori- rhetoric of privation that explained ginal-territory development dead in their headhunting in terms of “savagery”, In tracks”. Curiously, In neglects to mention implied that both Han and Aborigines any specific commodities or economic were to blame for the mayhem that was activities that might have been connected impeding Japanese development in the to headhunting at the time (though he highlands. Recalling an early staple of Ja- surely knew, as we shall see below). panese official rhetoric before the Kodama- As violence became unmanageable on Got era, In now claimed that Taiwan’s the Aboriginal frontier in 1898, the Gov- Chinese settlers provoked Aboriginal ernment-General lacked a unified plan. bloodlust by taking advantage of their ig- The argument over whether to consider norance and stupidity (gum ) to perpetrate headhunting as a custom in need of reform land swindles. or as crime in need of punishment fo- Ostensibly acting as an impartial broker mented a “clash of opinions” within the to stop the revenge cycle, the Govern- bureaucracy. Still maintaining the Con- ment-General decreed that all non-Abori- fucian perspective, In called the “moral gines (Chinese) obtain permits to reside in suasion” emphasis of Bukonsho civil ad- “Aboriginal territory” in February 1900. ministration the “positive policy” and re- At this point in the narrative, In ’s confu- ferred to “punishments” as the “negative sion and discomfort become palpable. policy”. Even after situating Aboriginal-initiated Then, in what In called a “Great Re- violence within a context of Han perfidy, volution”, in June 1898 the Government- In back-tracked to describe Aboriginal General dissolved the Bukonsho, for al- “assault and murder” as irrational beha- legedly leaning too far in the direction of viour. In a tortured locution that I read as leniency/attraction to the neglect of a concession to the preferences of the ad- force/punishment. Henceforth, Aboriginal ministrators above him, In wrote: “As the Affairs was put under the rubric “severity number of people entering the Aboriginal tempered with leniency” (on’i narabi districts increased, the ignorant Abori- okonawaru), a dignified locution for “car- gines harboured suspicions of invasion, rot and stick”. Subsequent narratives prompting the Aborigines to perpetrate characterized the dissolution of the outrages on an immeasurable/dispropor- Bukonsho as a necessary response to Ab- tionate scale.” original savagery. In , however, intimated Accordingly, from 1902 onward, that perhaps it might have been made ef- heavily armed and staffed guardlines (Ja- fective if given more time. Such a hypo- panese: aiyū; Chinese: aiyong) were exten-
77 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 ded to physically separate Aboriginal ter- into southern and northern halves. This ritory from the rest of Taiwan. In January division was, instead, political. While In ’s 1903, all of northern Aboriginal country survey anthropology of the late 1890s was placed under police jurisdiction, in a demonstrated internal diversity and a complete concession to the “expedient” of welter of varied political conditions in police rule. Bringing his narrative up to rural Taiwan, his narratology, like the old the present (1905), In wrote that the Ab- Qing paradigm he once tried to overturn, original population north of Puli in Nantou employed a typology that sorted Abori- prefecture was now governed solely under gines into “good” (southern) and “bad” the rubric of “force and intimidation” (northern) imperial subjects. In did not (iatsu ky sei), while the southern Abori- invent this Manichean nomenclature; he gines would be governed under the banner merely reappropriated it from the “ama- of “education and largesse” (keihatsu teurs” he once ridiculed as unfit to per- suibu). In this perplexing document, In form ethnological analysis. has the northern Aborigines commit atro- From as early as 1896, Japanese offi- cities because they are provoked by cun- cials, notably Nagano Yoshitora, found ning Chinese invaders who take advantage that Bunun warriors in the environs of of their ignorance. And yet the Japanese Puli could be persuaded to bear arms for government responds by ruling these his- the government in its skirmishes against torical victims under the banner of “force villages north of Puli, who fell under the and intimidation”. At the same time, broad rubric “Atayal”.42 From this time readers are to believe that by 1905 the forward, the “southern tribes” became “southern Aborigines” were willing ob- symbols of compliance in official docu- jects of non-coercive policies of tutelage ments, while the Atayal became stock vil- and guidance. In concluded this report lains in Japanese rhetoric. It is important with an unconvincing assurance that the to note here that Bunun were also known Government-General’s two-pronged ap- as headhunters and, in fact, could be in- proach would likely produce good results duced to take heads at the behest of the sometime in the future. Japanese state. We can thus conclude that For students of the Taiwan Banjin jij In ’s 1905 narrative located savagery not , as well as for Japanese administrators at in the act of murder, but in the act of non- the time, there could be little doubt that compliance with government demands. the choice of Puli, Nantou prefecture, as According to several contemporary a dividing line in In ’s narrative meant sources, the Atayal tribes clustered around that In was defining the “northern tribes” Wushe (“Musha” to the Japanese) made as the Atayal. In In ’s taxonomy of 1899, themselves odious to the Japanese when all tribes south of Puli, which is the geo- a few villagers murdered 14 Japanese road graphic centre of Taiwan, do not practise surveyors in February 1897, the ill-fated the art of facial tattooing (although limb Fukahori expedition. The long saga of in- tattoos were found throughout the island). vestigation, recovery of remains, and eco- Other than this single distinguishing fea- nomic blockades to punish those respons- ture, there was no ethnologic basis for bi- ible is indeed a central thread in the area’s furcating Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples
78 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan history under Japanese colonial rule.43 photographed doing so. Thus, by 1903, Probably more important, though, is the Japanese administrators began to define fact that many of the settlements just north all Aborigines north of Puli, who were of Puli abutted rich stands of camphor. distinctive because of their facial tattoos, Several “northern tribes” were active in as a problem population as a result of eco- the lumbering trade, charging outsiders nomic disputes over rights to camphor like the Japanese fees for access to the stands and local resistance to Japanese at- forests in the early years of colonial rule. tempts to survey remote areas. The empir- Disputes with a particularly powerful ical poverty of this conceptual apparatus Saisyatt entrepreneur-chief named Ri Agui is laid bare when we observe that Japanese erupted into a large-scale war in late 1902. army and police forces fought a number Like the Atayal, the Japanese subsumed of pitched battles with villages of “south- the Saisyatt under the term “northern ern tribesmen” (Paiwan and Bunun espe- tribes” in later discourse, again suggesting cially) well into the 1930s.46 that “northern tribes” was really short- hand for “non-compliant” villages. BIOPOWER AND NECROPOWER Mochiji Rokusabur is considered by IN COLONIAL TAIWAN many to have been the brains behind Got ’s Aboriginal policy. In his famous Public intellectual, journalist and parlia- position paper of late 1902, he proposed mentarian Takekoshi Yosabur visited that the Aboriginal Territory be divided Taiwan in 1904 to write a book celebrating into northern and southern sectors, with Japan’s colonial achievements. A commit- the former earmarked for military con- ted Whig historian, Takekoshi was the quest, the southern for “moral suasion”.44 embodiment of progressive thought in And thus, the rough-and-ready demarca- Meiji Japan.47 In his largely hagiographic tion of operational zones in the war to in- portrait of Got ’s reforming administra- crease the empire’s wealth obliterated fine tion, Takekoshi cited In Kanori as his au- distinctions made by survey anthropolo- thority on conditions in Aboriginal coun- gists like In Kanori, who wrote in 1899 try, while praising Got Shinpei’s broader that “the disparities in cultural attainment vision for developing the island. within tribal divisions is often just as var- Takekoshi’s ambivalent report on indigen- ied as the disparities between tribes ous administration, I believe, is evidence themselves”.45 that In was still articulating a vindication- The image of the north/south division ist rhetoric in his face-to-face dealings among Aborigines was cemented in a with other Japanese, even if his ethnolo- rather grisly affair on October 5, 1903. gical and historical writing under the Then, Japanese officials induced their auspices of the Government-General de- Bunun allies from Kantaban to entrap, ployed the “trope of the savage ambush and slaughter more than 100 headhunter” as an explanatory device. Atayal men (from Palaan and Hogo) in a Takekoshi’s view of the situation as it ex- single morning near Puli. These so-called isted around 1904 is more candid and less southern tribesmen actually redeemed the reticent than In ’s 1905 digest as to why heads at a Japanese outpost, and were the “northern tribes” had been singled out
79 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 for the policy of “intimidate and coerce” difficulty of local languages, the complex- after 1903: ity of the “late imperial frontier eco- nomy”49 in the borderlands, and the res- Almost everybody who has come istance of armed Taiwanese all revealed in contact with the savages de- that the enactment of “moral suasion” clares that they are all quite cap- would be a long-term approach. Japanese able of being raised from their officials, with few exceptions, did not un- present state of barbarism…But it derstand Aboriginal languages, and even is a question how much longer the lacked accurate information about the Japanese authorities will be will- location of many northern villages. To ing to pursue their present policy learn these languages, and map this ter- of moderation and goodwill, and rain, local alliances would be required, leave nearly half the island in their and these were always slow in the for- hands. If there were a prospect of ging.50 their becoming more manageable in ten or even in twenty years, the For officials in Taipei, however, the present policy might possibly be rhythms of compound interest on public continued for that length of time, bonds, Japanese election cycles and the but if the process should require challenges of international diplomacy set a century or so, it is quite out of the timetable for action. Despite protesta- the question, as we have not that tions that severity was required as a re- length of time spare. This does not sponse to “headhunting”, it is clear that mean that we have no sympathy the “metropolitan clock” indeed ticked at all for the savages. It simply loudly in Got ’s ears as the Japanese pub- means that we have to think more lic grew weary of colonial debts to the about our 45,000,000 sons and mother country and stories of rampant daughters than about the 104,000 corruption in the management of the is- savages [emphasis added].48 land. To solve the fiscal problems of em- pire, Got instituted a camphor monopoly In Takekoshi’s analysis, “the policy of in 1899, and it began to pay quite hand- moderation and goodwill” is none other somely by 1901. As the Government-Gen- than the Bukonsho ideal of ky ka, or eral became addicted to this new income “moral suasion”. The Bukonsho’s charter stream, policy indeed tipped away from stated that officers should learn Aboriginal the ky ka faction and towards the ch batsu languages, study their customs and enact faction. As Antonio C. Tavares has the policy of ky ka in accordance with this demonstrated, harvesting and processing hard-earned knowledge. In fact, the of camphor under the old system of tradi- wording of the Bukonsho’s charter (March tional fees to indigenous strongmen was 1896) resembles Got ’s 1901 rationale for too slow and complicated to accommodate a survey of customary law: good policy is the high-velocity commodity flows that based on accurate knowledge of local were now required to balance the colonial conditions. But as the Bukonsho project books. Thus, the Government-General was launched, the enormity of the task as began to support, rather than restrain, Ja- outlined became apparent. The variety and panese camphor companies who flouted
80 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan local conventions and thereby exacerbated poor infrastructure and unsettled political frontier skirmishing over access to re- conditions. How can we consider a regime sources.51 as the essence of “biopower” and “govern- Takekoshi’s blunt statement of an “us mentality” when it avoids surveying 60% or them” mentality indicates a way out of of its territory? The answer lies in a key dilemma posed by Japanese survey Takekoshi Yosabur ’s summary remarks anthropology under the Got regime. That on indigenous administration around 1904. is, it clarifies how Got and his chosen co- If the “biopolitical” body, the population terie could at once be the very emblems whose increase and health the government of Foucauldian “governmentality” in their seeks to further, is construed as the whole zeal for colonial research, infrastructure empire, the home islands of Japan (naichi) programmes and public health policy and all of Taiwan, then the government’s while, at the same time, remaining ignor- willingness to confine, embargo and ant and even hostile to survey anthropo- slaughter Atayal villagers is logical within logy, even if done in the name of the state. a governmental framework. That is to say, Yao Jen-to argues that post-colonial critics from Takekoshi’s perspective, the north- are off the track when they study literat- ern tribes were jeopardizing the increase, ure and fiction to understand colonialist wealth and survival of Japan’s “45 mil- discourse as a series of misreadings, errors lions”. and silences. Instead, Yao insists, the stat- From In ’s, Torii’s and Mori’s centre istical-bureaucratic-legal machine that was of calculation, Aboriginal territory loomed the Taiwan Government-General is better large; it was a treasure-house of ethnic understood in terms of what it did know abundance and a forbidding terrain that about the population it constituted might require decades to survey properly. through its statistical compendia, surveys For the survey anthropologist, space was and development projects. In this analysis, everything. For Got and Takekoshi, the Taiwan Government-General was the however, population was more important quintessential biopolitical regime, because than space; from their centre of calculation it “forced the Taiwanese to become in Tokyo, biopolitical considerations healthy”; not for humanitarian reasons, doomed the ethnologist’s vindicationist but to grow a large labour force of “docile rhetoric to the dustbin of history. And yet, bodies” as the engine of a colonial eco- as Kobayashi Gakuji has perceptively ar- nomy.52 gued, In ’s taxonomic work was not a Interestingly, Yao considers the 1905 completely innocent exercise. In Kobay- census of Taiwan to have been a preco- ashi’s analysis, it was In and the survey ciously detailed and fine-grained example anthropologists, with their modern theor- of surveillance, an example of how far the ies of race and ethnicity, who drew the sharp conceptual line between “Chinese” Japanese state reached into the lives of the 53 populace. However, Yao fails to mention and “Aborigine” in Taiwan. This epi- that 60% of Taiwan’s territory, the abode stemic operation, to use Nicholas Thomas’s of the Aborigines, was excluded from the language, indeed “partitioned the human census because of its sparse population, species” in such a way as to enable the Japanese officials analysed above to treat
81 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 camphor-related violence as a distinct 4 Matsuda Ky ko, “Ry tai Shoki no Taiwan Senjūmin category of trouble; namely, the “Abori- Ch sa: In Kanori o chūshin ni” (Taiwan Aborigine Surveys During the Early Period of Japanese Rule: ginal Problem”. A Focus on In Kanori), Taiwanshi kenkyū, no.14 (1997): 135–48; Kobayashi Gakuji, “Inô Kanori no ENDNOTES Taiwan Genjûminzoku Kenkyû”, Gakushuin shigaku 37 (1999): 71–87; Paul D. Barclay, Japanese and American Colonial Projects: Anthropological Typific- 1 For recent scholarship, see Liao Ping-Hui & David ation in Taiwan and the Philippines, (Ph.D. Thesis, Der-Wei Wang, eds., Taiwan under Japanese Colonial University of Minnesota, 1999). Rule, 1895–1945: History, Culture, Memory (Columbia 5 University Press, 2006), and the special colonial Descriptions of Got ’s career, thought and policies Taiwan issue of the Journal of Asian Studies 64,2 are well documented; see: Takekoshi Yosabur , Ja- (2005). Other exemplary monographs, dissertations panese Rule in Formosa, trans. George Braithwaite and articles include: Paul R. Katz, When Valleys (New York and London: Longmans, Green, and Co., Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial 1907. Reprint: Taibei: Southern Materials Center, Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005); 1996); E. Patricia Tsurumi, “Taiwan under Kodama Robert Tierney, Going Native: Imagining Savages in Gentaro and Goto Shimpei” in Papers on Japan, edited the Japanese Empire (Ph.D. Dissertation. Stanford: by Albert Craig (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asian Stanford University, 2005); Faye Yuan Kleeman, Un- Research Center, 1967); Hayase Yukiko, The Career der an Imperial Sun: Japanese Colonial Literature of of Got Shinpei: Japan’s Statesman of Research, Taiwan and the South (Honolulu: University of 1857–1929 (Ph.D. Dissertation, Florida State Univer- Hawai'i Press, 2003); Chang, Lung-chih, From Island sity, 1974); Edward I. Chen, “Goto Shimpei, Japan’s Frontier to Imperial Colony: Qing and Japanese Sov- Colonial Administrator in Taiwan: A Critical Reexam- ereignty Debates and Territorial Projects in Taiwan, ination”, American Asian Review 13, no.1 1874–1906 (Ph.D. Dissertation. Harvard University, (1995):29–59; Yao, Jen-to, Governing the Colonised: 2003); Ming-cheng M. Lo, Doctors within Borders: Governmentality in the Japanese Colonisation of Profession, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan, 1895–1945 (Ph.D. Dissertation, University Taiwan (Berkeley: University of California Press, of Essex, 2002). 2002); Leo T.S. Ching, Becoming ‘Japanese’: Colonial 6 This phrase taken from Bruce Kuklick, Blind Or- Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation (Berke- acles: Intellectuals from Kennan to Kissinger (Prin- ley: University of California Press, 2001); Wang Tay- ceton: Princeton University Press), p.40, who de- Sheng, Legal Reform in Taiwan under Japanese Colo- scribed George Kennan as “someone with an interest nial Rule, 1895–1945: The Reception of Western Law in ideas and with a knack for conveying them to a (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, less scholarly audience”. 2000); Michael Stainton, “The Politics of Taiwan 7 I base this following thumbnail sketch of anthro- Aboriginal Origins” in Taiwan: A New History, ed- pology’s early history on the following authorities: ited by Murray A. Rubinstein (Armonk, NY: M.E. Fredrik Barth, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin and Sharpe, 2000). Sydel Silverman, One Discipline, Four Ways: British, 2 “Taiwan Aborigines” is a translation of the Chinese German, French, and American Anthropology, The word Yuanzhumin, or Japanese Genjūmin. Others Halle lectures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, translate it as “Formosan Aborigines”. The proper 2005); Shimizu Akitoshi, “Colonialism and the Devel- noun Yuanzhumin was adopted as the official desig- opment of Modern Anthropology in Japan” in An- nation of Taiwan’s indigenous population in the third thropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania, edited revision of the Taiwan constitution (1994), in re- by Shimizu Akitoshi and Jan van Bremen (Richmond, sponse to organized efforts by indigenous rights Surrey: Curzon, 1999), pp.115–71; Henrika Kuklick, groups. The proper noun “Taiwan Aborigines” will The Savage Within: The Social History of British An- be used interchangeably with “Indigenous Peoples thropology, 1885–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- of Taiwan” throughout this essay. versity Press, 1991); Adam Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (London 3 This phrase was coined by Bruno Latour, Science and New York: Routledge, 1983); Curtis M. Hinsley, In Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers The Smithsonian and the American Indian: Making a Through Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Moral Anthropology in Victorian America (Washing- Press, 1987); in this essay, I am following Matthew ton, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981). G. Hannah, who applied the concept to population inventories in Governmentality and the Mastery of 8 George W. Stocking Jr., “The Dark-Skinned Sav- Territory in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge age: The Image of Primitive Man in Evolutionary University Press, 2000), pp.131–41. Anthropology” in Race, Culture, and Evolution: Es- says in the History of Anthropology (New York: The
82 Contending Centres of Calculation in Colonial Taiwan
Free Press, 1968); Johannes Fabian, Time and the written not too long after the Treaty of Shimonoseki Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York: (4/17/1895); the text is also reproduced in: Moriguchi Columbia University Press, 1983); Robert J.C. Young, Kazunari, ed., In Kanori no Taiwan t sa nikki (In Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race Kanori’s Taiwan Expedition Journals) (Taipei: Taiwan (London and New York: Routledge, 1995). fūbutsu zasshisha, 1992), p.306; In himself repro- 9 Nicholas Thomas, Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropo- duced this document as the preface his pioneering logy, Travel and Government (Princeton: Princeton political history of Taiwan: In Kanori, “Sh in” University Press, 1994), pp.71–2. (Preface) Taiwan Shi (Taiwan Chronicle) vol.1 (Tokyo: Bungakusha, 1902), pp.1–5. 10 These terms have extremely pejorative connota- 17 tions and have been replaced in official and popular In Kanori and Awano Dennoj , Taiwan Banjin discourse with the general term “Yuan- jij (Conditions among Taiwan’s Aborigines) (Taibei: Ministry of Civil Affairs, Records Division, 1900). zhumin/Genjūmin”, which I will translate as “Indigen- ous Peoples of Taiwan” or “Taiwan Aborigines”. 18 The men stationed along the border between the 11 Takigawa Miyotar , ed., Shinry chi Taiwant (Our hills and plains to facilitate diplomacy, gather inform- ation, regulate forestry and license trade. See Paul New Territory: The Island of Taiwan) (Tokyo: D. Barclay, “‘They Have for the Coast Dwellers a Kokond , June 12, 1895), pp.160–202. Traditional Hatred’: Governing Igorots in Northern 12 Ueno Sen'ichi, “Taiwant jissen roku (A Practical Luzon and Central Taiwan, 1895–1915” in The Guide to Taiwan)”, Tokyo chigaku ky kai h koku 13,11 American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global (February 1892): 21–48; Sanb honbu, ed., Taiwan Perspectives, edited by Julian Go and Anne Foster shi (Taiwan Gazetteer) (Tokyo: January 1895). (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 13 For examples, see Hashiguchi Bunz , “Taiwan jij pp.217–55. (Conditions on Taiwan)”, Tokyo chigaku ky kai h koku 19 Robert Tierney has argued that “at the height of (Journal of the Tokyo Geographic Society) 17, 3 aboriginal resistance to Japanese subjugation cam- (1895): 313–8; Tokyo Asahi Shinbun 9/29/1895; Iriye paigns, the aborigines came to be defined by the Takeshi and Hashimoto Shigeru, “Taiwan banchi single custom of headhunting”, precisely the type zatsuzoku”, Fuzoku gah 130 (1896): 29–30. of crude stereotyping In , at least in his pluralist 14 Terada Kazuo, Nihon no jinruigaku (Japanese An- voice, was trying to work against: Tierney, “Going thropology) (Tokyo: Shis sha, 1975); The Japanese Native”, p.36. Society of Ethnology, ed. Ethnology in Japan: Histor- 20 A classic example is Edward B. Tylor, “On a ical Review (Tokyo: K. Shibusawa Memorial Fund Method of Investigating the Development of Institu- for Ethnology, 1968); Oguma Eiji, A Genealogy of tions; Applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent”, ‘Japanese’ Self-Images, trans. David Askew (Mel- The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great bourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2002); Donald Hoon Ko, Britain and Ireland 18 (1889): 246, in which Tylor is The History of Japanese Anthropology from 1868 to able to draw on “roughly 350 peoples”, “ranging 1970s (Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington University, from insignificant savage hordes to great cultured St. Louis, 2003); Sakano T ru, Teikoku nihon to jin- nations” to conduct his analysis. ruigakusha: 1884–1952 (Imperial Japan and Anthro- 21 In , Taiwan Banjin jij , p.3. pology: 1884–1952) (Tokyo: Keis shob , 2005). 22 Ibid, p.112. 15 Kasahara Masaharu, “Inô Kanori no Jidai: Taiwan Genjûmin Shoki Kenkyûshi e no Sokuen (Inô Kanori 23 Emma Teng, “Taiwan as a Living Museum: Tropes and His Research Activities in Taiwan, 1895–1906)”, of Anachronism in Late-Imperial Chinese Travel Taiwan genjûmin kenkyû 3 (1998): 54–78. Writing”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59, no.2 16 All translations of Japanese sources are by the (1999): 448. author. In Kanori, “Yo no sekishi o nobete sendatsu 24 In Kanori, “Shinajin no Taiwan doban ni kansuru no kunshi ni uttau” (I Declare My Sincere Intentions jinshu teki kansatsu”, Taiwan kanshū kiji 5, 8 (Au- to the Honorable Gentlemen who Have Gone Before), gust 1905): 52. originally published in the November 3, 1895 issue 25 of the Ky iku h chi and the December 5, 1895 issue Douglas Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: of the Iwate gakuji ih , according to Ogino Kaoru, Geography and History at Empire's End, Asia-Pacific ed., In Kanori: Nenpu, shiry , shoshi (In Kanori: (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), p.13–5; Chronology, Materials, and Writings) (T no, Iwate: Thomas, Julia Adeney, Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology, T no Monogatari kenkyūjo, 1998), p.158; 224; the Twentieth-Century Japan, 12 (Berkeley: University document itself is reproduced on pp.115–7 of this of California Press, 2001), pp.4–42. volume. Moriguchi, also an Iwate-ken scholar who has worked with In ’s papers, thinks the paper was
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26 David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy Asian Studies 64, 2 (May 2005): 323–60 for details of Colonial Enlightenment (Durham, NC: Duke Univer- and sources. sity Press, 2004), p.79. The term “vindicationism” 44 Mochiji Rokusabur , Taiwan shokuminchi seisaku usefully avoids imputing a precocious “relativism” (Colonial Policy in Taiwan) (Tokyo: Fuzanb , 1912), to In and his compatriots. p.370 27 Barclay, “Japanese and American Colonial Pro- 45 In , Taiwan Banjin jij , p.112. jects”, chapter 4. 46 The Government-General’s Bureau of Police issued 28 In ’s voluminous correspondence has been pre- a map in 1912 that indicates clearly the island-wide served in the T no, Iwate-ken municipal library; intensity of anti-Japanese activity among Taiwan’s letters from famous men like Tsuboi and Yanagita Indigenous Peoples throughout the so-called Abori- Kunio are prominently displayed in several memorial gine territory, Taiwan s tokufu minseibu banmuhon- albums of In exhibits; a search of the registers in sho, ed. Riban gaiy (Taihoku, December 1912). T no and my study of these albums has turned up not one single surviving letter from Got Shinpei, a 47 Peter Duus, “Whig History, Japanese Style: The curious circumstance indeed. Minyûsha Historians and the Meiji Restoration”, Journal of Asian Studies 33, no.3 (1974): 415–36. 29 Tsurumi, “Taiwan”, pp.107–8. 48 30 Takekoshi Yosabur , Japanese Rule in Formosa, Got Shinpei, “Taiwan keieij kyūkan seido no George Braithwaite, trans. (London, New York, ch sa o hitsuy to suru iken”, (Tokyo: T a kenkyūjo Bombay & Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), dai roku ch sa iinkai, 1930) [Reproduced from Tokyo p.230. Nichinichi shinbun nos.8771–3, 1901] p.27. 49 31 Antonio C. Tavares, “The Japanese Colonial State Ibid, p.13; Fabian, Time and the Other. and the Dissolution of the Late Imperial Frontier 32 Got , “Taiwan keieij ”, pp.29–30. Economy in Taiwan, 1886–1909”, Journal of Asian 33 Studies 64, no.2 (2005): 361–85. Matsuda, “Ry tai shoki”. 50 34 Barclay, "Cultural Brokerage". Moriguchi Kazunari, ed., In Kanori no Taiwan 51 T sa Nikki (In Kanori’s Taiwan Expedition Journals) Tavares, “Japanese Colonial State”. (Taipei: Taiwan fūbutsu zasshisha, 1992), pp.138, 52 Yao, “Governing the Colonised”. 360–61; In , Taiwan Banjin jij , preface, p.3. 53 Kobayashi, “In Kanori”. 35 Barclay, “Japanese and American Colonial Pro- jects”. 36 Matsuda, “Ry tai Shoki no Taiwan”. 37 Matsuda Ky ko, “In Kanori’s ‘History’ of Taiwan: Colonial Ethnology, the Civilizing Mission and Struggles for Survival in East Asia”, History and Anthropology 14:2 (2003):179–96. 38 In Kanori, ed., Ry Tai jūnenshi (A Ten-Year His- tory of the Japanese Occupation), (Taibei: Shink d , 1905). 39 Hayase, “The Career of Got Shinpei”. 40 The concept is taken from Julia Adeney Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, p.38. 41 Susan Naquin & Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (Yale, 1987), p.117. 42 Fred Y.L. Chiu, “Nationalist Anthropology in Taiwan 1945–1996: A Reflexive Survey” in Anthro- pology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania, edited by Shimizu Akitoshi and Jan van Bremen (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999), p.95. 43 See my “Cultural Brokerage and Interethnic Marriage in Colonial Taiwan: Japanese Subalterns and Their Aborigine Wives, 1895–1930”, Journal of
84 THE GESTATION OF CROSS-CULTURAL MUSIC RESEARCH AND THE BIRTH OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
P. G. TONER
other disciplines, the development of eth- INTRODUCTION nomusicology has been closely tied to technological changes such as the inven- This article examines the development of tion of the phonograph. There are, then, cross-cultural music research, from its unique and distinctive lessons to be earliest days in the collection, notation and learned by historicizing cross-cultural analysis of "primitive music" and "folk music research. In this article, I will at- songs" to the first annual meeting of the tempt to take stock of these lessons, and Society for Ethnomusicology in 1956. The to consider the impact this field of research gestation period was long, and the birth, has had on cross-cultural research more like all births, was largely unheralded and broadly. I will also consider in some detail was most significant to the immediate how the development of ethnomusicology family. Now that ethnomusicology is en- has influenced Australian Aboriginal eth- tering middle age, its true significance can nography, specifically in northeast perhaps be better appreciated. Arnhem Land, and the early development The history of cross-cultural music re- of Australian Aboriginal studies. search parallels the history of cross-cultur- This article will also consider the place al research more generally, with some in- of two pioneering ethnomusicologists who teresting and significant differences. As were concerned with the study of Australi- in anthropology, the evolutionist perspect- an Aboriginal music, and whose research ive of early ethnomusicology gave way to represents the end-point of the trajectory functionalism and then to more interpret- to be described below. The American eth- ive approaches, but it has been suggested nomusicologist Richard Waterman was not that the discipline has dragged its feet the first to make field recordings of Abori- theoretically and theoretical change has ginal music in Arnhem Land, nor was he been slow.1 Ethnomusicology has been the first to analyze recordings of Aborigin- influenced throughout its history by its al music. He was, however, the first eth- two parent disciplines, anthropology and nomusicologist to conduct long-term, musicology,2 a process that has at times primary research in the region, and to been harmonious and, at other times, like make a substantial number of field record- a custody battle. And, more than many ings. Waterman was a student of Melville Herskovits, who was himself a student of
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Franz Boas, and so Waterman is firmly an music who began their research on that placed within the anthropological branch topic during the same formative period, of ethnomusicology. The Australian eth- each representing fairly clearly one of the nomusicologist Alice Moyle probably did two orientations which are still with us more in her distinguished career for the today — although I will demonstrate that discipline’s development in Australia than their complex research paths cannot be any other scholar. She was a prolific re- characterized in a simplistic way. In this cordist, although her periods in the field article I want to examine the intellectual were relatively brief. Moyle began her trajectory that led to that formative period, studies of Aboriginal music under Donald to examine an unusual and lengthy period Peart, the first professor of music at the of gestation which led to this peculiar and University of Sydney, and her research hybrid birth. reveals a firm grounding in the musicolo- gical branch of ethnomusicology. EXPLORERS AND These two scholars began their research PHILOSOPHERS on Australian Aboriginal music in the early- to-mid 1950s, roughly coinciding Attention to music in situations of cross- with the formation in the U.S. of the Soci- cultural contact occurred very early in the ety for Ethnomusicology. In late 1952 the record of European exploration. The music scholars David McAllester, Alan Calvinist missionary Jean de Léry visited Merriam, Willard Rhodes and Charles Brazil for 10 months in 1557-58, and his Seeger met to discuss how to facilitate book History of a journey made into the land communication between scholars with of Brazil, otherwise called America, first common interests; in 1953 they sent out a published in 1578, includes numerous de- letter to 66 people to solicit interest, which scriptions of musical performance, as well as music notations in the third edition of 10 people signed (including Waterman). 5 The first Ethno-Musicology Newsletter ap- 1585 — surely among the first studies of peared later that year. The first annual non-Western music. Léry describes native meeting of the Society occurred in Brazilian instruments, dancing that accom- 3 panied musical performances, and the September 1956. For the purposes of this 6 article, I take the foundation of this society singing style of the "savages", and his account was incorporated into Montaigne’s as formally marking the birth of the discip- 7 line known as “ethnomusicology”, even 1580 essay "Des cannibales". though the academic study of non-West- Another early work to consider non- ern musics is much older.4 Western music was Charles de Rochefort’s So what do we have? We have the The history of the Caribby-Islands. Trans- formation of a scholarly society from a lated in 1666 by the Englishman John number of diverse origins, whose member- Davies of Kidwelly, de Rochefort’s book ship is roughly split between anthropolo- includes a number of passages relating to gists and musicologists with a common the music of the Caribbean, including the interest in non-Western and/or folk mu- following: sics. And we have two scholars of Australi-
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To divert themselves they also by which the happiness of a Hot- make several Musical Instruments, tentot was to be tried, he would if they may be so called, on which be found among the most miser- they make a kind of harmony: able of all human beings.9 Among others they have certain Although amusing when examined retro- Tabours or Drums made of hollow spectively, passing references to music do Trees, over which they put a skin not make an important contribution to the only at one end…To this may be development of ethnomusicology as a field added a kind of Organ which they of study, any more than old maps with make of Gourds, upon which they "there be monsters here" attributed to place a cord made of the string of unknown regions made an important a reed which they call Pite; and contribution to the development of geo- this chord being touch’d makes a graphy. These passages merely give us a sound which they think delight- taste of the European mindset which was ful. The concerts of divers other present as the colonizing powers expanded Savages are no better than theirs, their grasp around the world. and no less immusical to their ears who understand Musick. In the One early thinker, however, does stand morning, as soon as they are up, out as having delineated at a very early they commonly play on the Flute stage some of the key orientations that or Pipe; of which Instrument they would come to define the field of eth- have several sorts, as well polish’d nomusicology, and that was Rousseau in and as handsom as ours, and some his A Complete Dictionary of Music of 1779. of those made of the bones of their The ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger Enemies: And many among them has interpreted Rousseau’s work as ad- can play with as much grace as can dressing some of the same questions that well be imagin’d for Savages.8 have occupied those working in the field ever since. One of these issues is that the John Barrow’s 1806 tome An account of transcription of musical sounds is a means travels into the interior of Southern Africa to understand the physical laws of music; in 1797 and 1798 includes the following as Seeger writes, "musical transcriptions passage: reveal certain similar sound processes 10 It has frequently been observed governed by laws of acoustics", and he that a savage who dances and sings points out that careful transcription has must be happy. With him these been a characteristic feature of most eth- operations can only be the effects nomusicological studies. Rousseau’s study of pleasurable sensations floating itself included transcriptions of Chinese, in his mind: in a civilized state, Persian, Native Canadian and Swiss 11 they are arts acquired by study, songs. followed by fashion, and practised A second pervasive ethnomusicological at appointed times, without having issue identified by Seeger in Rousseau’s any reference to the passions. If work is his emphasis on the cultural inter- dancing and singing were the tests pretation of music, exemplified by a cer-
87 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 tain Swiss air which provoked such a …is measured properly by the ra- strong reaction among Swiss troops that tio of the smaller pitch number to it was banned, although Rousseau states the larger, or by the fraction that the transcription itself reveals no formed by dividing the larger by musical structures which could be respons- the smaller. When these ratios are ible.12 known for each successive pair of In other words, Rousseau identified in notes, the scale itself is known, for his eighteenth-century writing the two means then exist for tuning the whole scale when one of its notes dominant orientations of ethnomusicology, 14 a discipline that did not begin to take form is given. for another century: the first geared As Jaap Kunst explains in a discussion of around careful transcription and musical Ellis’ paper, an octave is represented by a analysis as the basis for understanding the 2:1 ratio, a perfect fifth by a 3:2 ratio, and music of the Other; and the second geared a perfect fourth by a 4:3 ratio. When the around an interpretation of music based two pitches have no lowest common de- on its cultural context. These sometimes- nominator, the ratios become very un- opposed, but never entirely exclusive, wieldy and a logarithmic table is used.15 approaches have been a feature of eth- His long paper was originally a talk nomusicology down to the present day, given to the Society of Arts with many and are well exemplified by the work of accompanying illustrations on various in- Waterman and Moyle, of which more later. struments, including a dichord, a number COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY of English concertinas specially tuned to different scales, a sitar, a koto and a set of Chinese bells. The research on which the Ethnomusicology, as it is now known, was talk was based was done with instruments first manifested as an organized academic obtained privately or through museum field of study under the rubric "comparat- collections, some of which had fixed tun- ive musicology" in the late-nineteenth ing (and therefore which could be invest- century. A common view is that one of its igated independently), and others which founders was the tone-deaf13 British had to be played by native musicians; physicist A. J. Ellis, whose best-known these included the Arabic oud, the Scots work was his 1885 article "On the musical highland bagpipe, the Indian sitar and scales of various nations". As a physicist vina, Chinese flutes, mouth organs, gongs and musical enthusiast, Ellis’ interest was and stringed instruments, the Japanese in using the methods of acoustics to koto, and both slendro and pelog gamelan measure the characteristic pitches and in- orchestras. His treatise is full of tables and tervals of musical scales of different music- charts showing the exact frequency meas- al cultures with the aim of comparing urements and intervals of all of these in- them. Ellis’ starting point, however, was struments, as well as scales derived from his understanding (as a physicist) that the them. Ellis reveals an ethnomusicological interval between any two notes: sensibility that is somewhat ahead of his time when he writes that it is necessary to
88 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research be a native musician is to hear the real in the equal-tempered scale into one hun- pitch of a musical scale, that there might dred equal increments which he called be considerable variation of such a scale "cents"; although a difference of one cent from musician to musician, and that, at is impossible to discriminate, Ellis felt that any rate, there is a significant difference most sensitive ears could register a differ- between knowing the notes used in a piece ence of five cents.19 By freeing comparat- of music and the musical theory which ive musicology from the need to negotiate underpins it.16 complex logarithms, Ellis provided a In Ellis’ conclusions, he compares the methodological tool that not only facilit- principal intervals used in these different ated the comparison of different tonal scales from all over the world, proposing systems, but also maintained a strong ori- how particular intervals were altered to entation around tonality as a primary produce distinctive scales, and even sug- concern of the discipline. gesting how particular musical features A prominent influence on early schol- from one region of the world influenced ars of non-Western music like Ellis was another. For his final conclusion, however, psychological theory — the idea that the Ellis writes: "the Musical Scale is not one, study of various aspects of music, like not 'natural,' nor even founded necessarily rhythm or tonality, could reveal principles on the laws of the constitution of musical of the functioning of the human mind. In- sound, so beautifully worked out by deed, comparative musicology and psycho- Helmholtz, but very diverse, very artifi- logy were very closely integrated in the cial, and very capricious."17 late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centur- 20 So, even though Ellis’ starting point ies, and many early research problems and methodology were based on the were oriented around the investigation of the origins and development of music and Western conception of the physics of 21 sound, there is also an explicit recognition universal musical principles. Carl that the musical practices of different cul- Stumpf’s Tonpsychologie (1883 and 1890) tures might be based on quite different was particularly influential, developing a principles. Most importantly, it has been theory of tone sensation based on individu- observed that his work provided the em- al cognition: for instance, examining the pirical foundations for comparative musi- perception of similarity and difference in cology.18 tonal stimuli, which led to a major focus on tonal distance and scale formation ad- Perhaps the most important aspect of vanced by Ellis and many others.22 Ellis’ work was his development of a sys- tem of "cents" for the study of intervals As Dieter Christensen has pointed out, Stumpf "believed in the unity of the hu- between pitches. To measure non- 23 tempered intervals in terms of ratios of the man mind", and required musical data two pitches in question is cumbersome in from all cultures to substantiate his theor- the extreme, and to use a logarithmic scale ies. Toward this end, and under his direc- is only somewhat less so. Ellis’ most endur- tion, a large collection of phonograph re- ing contribution to ethnomusicology was cordings — which eventually became the to propose the division of each semitone famous Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv —
89 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 were amassed that would be analyzed for from the various scales and tone the purpose of psychological research.24 systems?28 The Phonogramm-Archiv also became the This emphasis on scales, melody, pitch, basis for the development of a unique form heterophony and polyphony — all aspects of evolutionary theory focusing on music of music associated with pitch or tone — and, in particular, on pitch and intervallic was prominent in much comparative musi- organization.25 As Eric Ames notes, cology, particularly in the work of Horn- Stumpf and his colleagues used recordings bostel. of non-Western music to emphasize music- al evolution. However, evolutionary A well-known example is his theory of thought at the turn of the twentieth cen- the cycle of blown fifths, discussed in de- tury took a variety of forms beyond a tail by Jaap Kunst. Hornbostel’s theory strict linear model, and Stumpf was able has it that an ancient Chinese tone-se- to construct an evolutionary discourse that quence or scale was developed as follows: accommodated notions of both develop- a tone of 366 Hz (the so-called huang chong, ment and geographical diffusion.26 or "yellow bell") was produced on a length of stopped bamboo 230 mm in length and Stumpf’s colleagues, notably Erich von 8.12 mm in diameter. When this tube is Hornbostel and Otto Abraham, continued overblown, it produces a tone a twelfth to investigate psychological aspects of above the fundamental, which is then music, based primarily upon the examina- transposed down an octave to give the tion of tonal systems, scales, intervals, and second tone of the sequence, a fifth above the like. Regardless of their commitment the fundamental; an overblown twelfth to the intricacies of psychological theory, above this second tone, transposed an other comparative musicologists certainly octave down, produces the third tone, a maintained a dominant interest in scales fifth above the second tone; and so on. A and melodies well into the twentieth cen- cycle produced in this way using pure tury. As Stephen Blum notes, for many fifths (702 Hz, a "Pythagorean" interval comparative musicologists "'musical sys- based on string-measurement) would ar- tem' was in effect synonymous with 'tone rive back at the same note from which it system'".27 Blum quotes Robert Lach as started after 12 jumps. However, Horn- an example: bostel noted, since the blown fifth is How does a scale originate? How roughly one-tenth of a tone flat, the cycle did the human spirit — in various is not completed until 23 jumps. Horn- lands, various times, among vari- bostel postulated that before the Chinese ous peoples and races — succeed began to construct scales based on Py- in constructing its musical system, thagorean principles, they must have de- i.e., the sequence of individual veloped their scale based on this cycle of scale degrees, according to various blown fifths. Hornbostel and others dis- specific schemata, or “systems of covered scales from around the world tonal crystallization”, so to speak, which could be derived from this prin- which differ so fundamentally ciple.29 Hornbostel’s complex theory has from one another — as is evident been criticized since its inception, but it
90 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research reveals two key concerns of the comparat- Hornbostel’s theoretical orientation is ive musicology of his day: first, a concern well-revealed in a 1933 article called "The with the origins of musical features; and Ethnology of African Sound-Instruments". second, a belief that such origins may be Hornbostel was an advocate of a form of revealed through the study of tones, scales evolutionism, but one which was com- and intervals. bined with the geographical diffusion of 35 Another example is Hornbostel’s ideas cultural traits. In fact, at certain points about the concept of pure melody. Unlike he seems to deny the validity of evolution- European music, which since roughly 1600 ary theory for the purpose of understand- has been based on harmony, all other mu- ing cultural phenomena. Of the idea that sic is based on pure melody. Hornbostel we might reconstruct the history of cultur- believed that harmony was superimposed al phenomena, such as musical instru- on "natural" traits rooted in the "psycho- ments, by arranging them according to physical constitution of man": a natural differential features which would reveal melodic movement downward ("like their relative ages, Hornbostel writes: breathing or striking, from tension to "Plausible as this reasoning sounds, its rest"); small melodic steps of at most a utility as a guide to method is doubtful, major third; a "melodic unity" with a dis- and theories of evolution, however ingeni- regard for fixed scale steps; and a concern ous, can contribute little to the classifica- with the "distance" between notes — "the tion of cultural phenomena in chronologic- size of steps" —rather than their conson- al order, which has always been accepted ance.30 as one of the most important problems of ethnology."36 As with Stumpf, there is an undercur- rent of evolutionism in Hornbostel’s spec- In support of this critique of evolution- ulation on melody.31 He states that short, ism, Hornbostel cites two instruments fa- repetitive melodies of a few notes less than miliar to the Australian ethnographic liter- a fourth apart are indicative of "an early ature: "the bull-roarer and the boomerang stage of development" and are due to "a impress us by the subtlety of their tech- 32 nique, yet they belong to the Australian narrow range of consciousness", and 37 that the natural evolution of melody is aborigines" - which certainly qualifies from this level to a larger number of notes, as a case of damning with faint praise. a greater range, and longer phrasing.33 And yet, a chronological or develop- Furthermore, in his study of African mu- mental approach, whether or not we call sic, Hornbostel believed that polyphony it evolutionism, is present throughout was a natural development from antiphony Hornbostel’s work. He states explicitly (the alternation of solo and chorus that if one phenomenon belongs exclus- singing), probably by accident when the ively to a "primitive" culture and a second two parts unintentionally overlapped. belongs exclusively to a "higher" culture, However, he is clear that this polyphony then the first phenomenon is chronologic- is the result of a melodic, rather than har- ally earlier38 — which seems like a case monic, principle.34 of circular reasoning. Hornbostel also gives cautious approval to Tylor’s concept of
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"survivals", but does not agree with the gin, have mixed, overlapped and de- full extent of Tylor’s reasoning. Horn- veloped, resulting in the current situation bostel writes that Tylor felt that "inorganic of cultural diversity.45 and uncomprehended phenomena belong 39 Another prominent figure in comparat- to an earlier stage of development", but ive musicology, Curt Sachs, betrayed a he is more cautious: "[I]norganic and un- more obvious evolutionist stance than comprehended phenomena are therefore Hornbostel. In his The Rise of Music in the merely an indication that we have to do Ancient World: East and West, Sachs with older cultural phenomena, but in writes from the outset of "the plain truth what connexion, and to what culture they that the singsong of Pygmies and Pyg- must be assigned, can only be decided on 40 moids stands infinitely closer to the begin- its merits in each individual case." nings of music than Beethoven’s symphon- On the subject of monogenesis vs. ies and Schubert’s lieder".46 He continues polygenesis, Hornbostel is unambiguously by stating that "the only working hypo- clear: it is highly unlikely that any special- thesis admissible is that the earliest music ized cultural phenomenon could develop must be found among the most primitive independently in two different locations:41 peoples".47 Later, Sachs writes that: "[T]here has never, so far as I know, been The songs of Patagonians, Pyg- an historically verified instance of polygen- mies, and Bushmen bring home the esis in different cultures."42 Instead, singing of our own prehistoric an- Hornbostel advocates what he calls "the cestors, and primitive tribes all despised 'diffusion theory'",43 arguing over the world still use types of that some cultural phenomena may survive instruments that the digger’s spade for a long time and may travel great dis- has excavated from the tombs of tances. Any specialized cultural phenomen- our Neolithic forefathers. The Ori- on, according to Hornbostel, must only ent has kept alive melodic styles have developed in one place at one time that medieval Europe choked to — as he famously tried to demonstrate death under the hold of harmony, through his theory of the "cycle of fifths". and the Middle East still plays the Subsequent distance of the phenomenon instruments that it gave to the from the central point of origin indicates West a thousand years ago…The relative age.44 primitive and Oriental branch of This leads us fairly directly to Kul- musicology has become the open- turkreise theory, of which Hornbostel was ing section in the history of our an advocate. The idea is that cultures may own music.48 be defined by a collection of individual characteristics (architectural, ritual, music- Some of Sachs’ writing seems almost com- al, social, etc.); complexes of characteristics ical in its evolutionism by today’s stand- shared by several cultures, called "culture- ards, but he was by no means alone in his circles" (Kulturkreise), must have a com- thinking among some scholars of his day. mon origin. These culture-circles have What is somewhat more remarkable is that moved outwards from their points of ori- this evolutionist line persisted into the 1940s, long after it had met a timely de-
92 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research mise in mainstream anthropology. How is range resulting from savage outbursts it that comparative musicology lagged leads to the octave and larger intervals like theoretically behind cultural anthropology fourths and fifths creating a skeleton for by at least two decades, when the two melodic development.55 disciplines dealt with such similar subject Between these two extremes is melogen- matter? ic music, which represents a kind of Sachs’ interpretive framework reveals middle ground characterized by elements not only an underlying evolutionist con- of both logogenic and pathogenic. At this ceptualisation of music and its develop- more developed melogenic level, where ment, but also how the evolution of music melodies tend to have a range greater than is revealed through particular musical a third, particular intervals tend to crystal- structures. As with Hornbostel, melody lize, "determined by simple proportions features prominently as one key to under- of vibration numbers":56 the 2:1 ratio of standing the contemporary music of so- the octave, the 3:2 ratio of the fifth, and called "primitive" people as representing the 4:3 ratio of the fourth. Sachs’ reasoning the precursors to European music. Al- is sometimes far from convincing, as when though, "[t]o the evolutionist, one-tone he writes: "The strongest magnetic power melodies as a first step before the rise of emanates from the fourth — for physiolo- two- and three-tone melodies would almost gical reasons it is here best to accept be too good to be true",49 Sachs acknow- without attempting discretionary explan- ledges that the best available information ations."57 suggested that two-note melodies are the 50 This "magnetic attraction" results in earliest that can be traced. the development of tetrachords and Sachs refers to these basic melodies pentachords, and ultimately the complex which alternate between two notes a short melodic structures of "highly civilized distance apart as logogenic, or word-born. peoples".58 He considers them to be "a mere vehicle 51 In a further extension of evolutionist for words", and they evolved in an ad- principles, Sachs asserts that the earliest ditive way; that is, certain other notes be- 52 stages of music, represented by contempor- came added to the central core. Opposed ary "primitive" people, also appears in the to logogenic melodies were pathogenic babbling songs of European toddlers. melodies, which are due to "an irresistible Sachs concludes: "Thus we cannot but ac- stimulus that releases the singer’s utmost 53 cept their babbling as an ontogenetic reit- possibilities"; these are characterized eration of man’s earliest music and, in- by great force and passion at the begin- versely, conclude that the music of today’s ning of a phrase, only to diminish and most primitive peoples is indeed the first weaken toward the end. "Descending music that ever existed."59 melodies", Sachs writes, "recall savage shouts of joy or rage, and may have come This was in 1943. It would be easier to from such unbridled outbursts".54 In dismiss such speculative thinking if Sachs pathogenic melodies, evolution proceeds was not so influential on others in compar- in a divisive way; that is, the larger vocal ative musicology — including, as will be
93 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 discussed below, the early thought of And if normal music, to us, is Alice Moyle. polyphonic, in the broad sense, Ellis, Hornbostel and Sachs are only the concept of polyphony was three, albeit quite influential, figures in used to show on the one hand that comparative musicology, and it would be the non-Western music was seriously misleading to suggest that their worthy of attention because it did views are completely representative of an have, one said rather defensively, entire emerging discipline. Like any discip- polyphony, with people perform- line, there was a great deal of internal di- ing together in incomprehensible versity, which is suggested by the diverse fashion, nevertheless knowing backgrounds of the early practitioners: what they were doing; but on the musicology, composition, physics, chem- other hand, most of this exotic istry, phonetics. And yet, in their thought music was worthy of study pre- we can see some of the broad outlines cisely because it was so different, which would come to characterize the had no polyphony…The idea of a "musicological" half of ethnomusicology. systematic polyphonic practice — I have already commented on an underly- and of systematic music making in ing evolutionist stance, although this was general — was high on the list of not equally prominent among all scholars. values among our forebears…early Another feature was a unitary approach, ethnomusicologists wanted to viewing "the world’s musics as a group of show that non-Western musics separate units, stylistically distinct and were systematically organized in internally homogenous",60 and therefore good part because they had learned their own music with this able to be characterized as wholes on the 63 basis of very small samples which reflect value in mind. 61 a single set of principles. Another feature of early comparative mu- The focus on melody, polyphony, sicology, also related to the "musicologic- scalar structures and other similar musical al" half of ethnomusicology, was an em- features has been interpreted by Bruno phasis on the transcription of non-Western Nettl as reflecting some of the dominant music as an end in itself. Transcribing values of Western music in the late-nine- music onto the Western staff, even after teenth century. In Germany and Central the invention of recording technology, Europe, where many of the early compar- was and still is an important aspect of ative musicologists were based, standard ethnomusicological training and prac- 64 musical training tended to stress intellec- tice, although the necessity and accur- tually difficult musical structures, such as acy of transcription has always been sub- melodic development and the simultaneous ject to questioning and debate. Exact interaction of various parts. When the notation was not even a feature of Western early scholars of non-Western music began compositional practice until the late- 65 their study, we see particular attention eighteenth century, and of course the paid to these same features.62 Nettl contin- compression of an entire musical system ues: onto five lines and four spaces represent- ing 12 semitones per octave tends to mould
94 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research non-Western music to our own image. only did this set the stage for an anthropo- Any understanding of a non-Western logical approach to the study of non- music which is based on a transcription in Western music, but it represents a schol- Western notation will necessarily encode arly effort almost as early as Ellis and our own musical values.66 Nevertheless, Stumpf in comparative musicology. In- if we think of the transcription of music deed, Boas and Stumpf worked together as itself an interpretive orientation, it must in collecting and analyzing Northwest be one of the most pervasive in comparat- Coast indigenous music, subsequently ive musicology through its first 50 years. published by Stumpf in 1886 in Vier- So, if early comparative musicology teljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, one of the earliest journals in comparative came substantially to inform the "musico- 69 logical" half of ethnomusicology, what was musicology. So it would be a mistake to the intellectual trajectory that led to the assume that comparative musicologists and sometimes-opposed, but always inter- anthropologists operated in isolation from twined, "anthropological" half? one another. Nevertheless, their overall approaches to the study of non-Western Two prominent features of comparative music were very different in many ways. musicology as it developed in late-nine- The comparative musicologists were mo- teenth-century Europe are an overall lack tivated by theories about the origins and of contextualization and a universalizing 67 structure of music, and analyzed their comparative perspective. This was im- materials accordingly. Boas’ work on mu- plicit in Ellis’ large-scale comparison of sic lacked a theory of this type,70 and in- scales, in Hornbostel’s meticulous analysis stead fitted into a framework of meticulous of recordings from around the world, and detail and ethnographic salvage work. certainly in Sachs’ assumption of a single developmental framework for all the In addition to the music contained in world’s musics. These two features also The Central Eskimo, Boas published articles proved to be a key rift within the schol- on Kwakiutl, Chinook, Eskimo and Sioux arly study of non-Western music, and led music between 1888 and 1925. Each of to the development of a distinctive per- them, while focusing on music, contains spective within American cultural anthro- the elements that have come to be associ- pology. ated with Boasian cultural anthropology. The article "On Certain Songs and Dances 71 THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF of the Kwakiutl of British Columbia" MUSIC contextualizes several musical transcrip- tions of songs (presumably done by Boas What must be one of the earliest substan- himself) by including accounts of ritual, tial references to music within anthropo- song texts, and a very lengthy version of mythology relevant to the songs. His art- logy appears in Franz Boas’ 1888 mono- 72 graph The Central Eskimo,68 which con- icle "Chinook Songs" contains three tained transcriptions and some analysis of brief notations along with 38 song texts two-dozen Eskimo songs, within the con- and a glossary of several dozen words. text of a comprehensive ethnography. Not Two articles, both entitled "Eskimo Tales and Songs",73 present song texts along
95 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 with explanations of dozens of words used cultural anthropological approaches to the in them. His article "Teton Sioux Music"74 study of non-Western music can be found addresses issues of musical form, including in a 1912 review Sapir wrote of a publica- rhythm, phrasing, and structure, and in- tion by Carl Stumpf (Die Anfänge der Mu- cludes 11 quite detailed musical transcrip- sik). Sapir offers a précis of Stumpf’s belief tions. Although he does not approach the that, in primitive music, notice was taken technical and analytical detail of the work of "the unified effect of tones sung at of some comparative musicologists, Boas consonant intervals", while other intervals was on par with many, and his work on "dissonant or relatively so, would in time music is under-recognized, probably due arise by giving the voice free play within to the enormous volume of work on other the fourth, fifth, and octave".81 Sapir cri- subjects. ticizes this approach as being difficult to prove or disprove, and as not being based Boas’ impact on the cross-cultural 82 study of music is felt most strongly not in on historical data. As Sapir writes: his own research and publications, but in In the nature of things any such those of his students and their students, a theory must be purely speculative, legacy which has led to a number of the as the use of musical tones is far most significant ethnomusicologists too ancient a heritage of humanity working today. Edward Sapir, the ethno- to yield its genesis to historical re- grapher, linguist and poet, was also a mu- construction. Failing historical sician and grew up in a musical family (his evidence, a theory of origin can be 75 father was a professional cantor). His fully convincing only when so first in-depth work on songs was in 1910, well grounded in psychology as when he transcribed over 200 Paiute necessarily to exclude all other (northern Arizona/southern Utah) song possible theories. This is hardly 76 texts and recorded 120 songs on wax the case here.83 cylinders.77 Along with this material, much of it unpublished, was copious con- Sapir is also critical of Stumpf’s over-em- textual information on the performances, phasis (which could be extended much people and places associated with the more broadly in the comparative musico- songs.78 Sapir’s recordings were tran- logy of the day) on "the purely intervalic scribed by his father, Jacob Sapir.79 This [sic] side of music": research led to Sapir’s article "Song Recit- Music is neither purely tone nor ative in Paiute Mythology",80 which in- purely rhythm. Would it not be cluded his own musical transcriptions and more suggestive to think of it in musical analysis focusing primarily on terms of an association of tone rhythm. This represents a notable differ- production, however it might ence, given the strong emphasis in compar- arise, with the rhythmic impulse ative musicology on matters of melody, manifested in all of man’s artistic scales and intervals. activities? Granted this impulse Some of the fundamental differences and the possession of vocal chords, between comparative musicological and adjustable for changes of pitch, various forms of musical expres-
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sion might be expected to arise. ethnomusicology was George Herzog. Several paths seem possible, the Herzog is an interesting character in this actual course or courses traversed narrative, as he really stands with one foot lie beyond our ken.84 in each of the two camps that I am discuss- ing. He first studied at the Royal Conser- And in a similar vein, critiquing Stumpf’s vatory in Budapest, and was heavily influ- handling of melodic structure and musical enced by the folk music research of Béla form, Sapir writes: Bartók and Zoltán Kodály.86 From 1923 I am inclined to doubt whether a until 1925, Herzog worked under Horn- purely musical study of this prob- bostel at the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, lem would be as fruitful as when the most important archival institution for taken in connection with song- comparative musicology until the Second texts, dance forms, and other fea- World War, and thus was part of the so- tures as musical execution is wont called Berlin School of Comparative Musi- to be associated with in practice. cology.87 In 1925 he emigrated to the The peculiarities of melodic forms United States and studied anthropology are often due to factors that have under Boas.88 Thus, in one individual we no direct relation to musical prob- have the intellectual descendant of a vari- lems as such, as witness our ety of important approaches to the cross- masses, lullabies, and bugle calls. cultural study of music. Bruno Nettl, These remarks are meant to indic- Herzog’s most prominent student, wrote ate the necessity of studying the the following about Herzog’s letters, more complicated problems which give an interesting insight into his presented by primitive music in place in the development of ethnomusico- connection with associated cultur- logy: al features. Stumpf’s relative neg- Throughout the correspondence lect throughout the book of all one sees the hand of Hornbostel, features that are not strictly music- the comparativist and the archive- al in character is naturally to a builder, of Bartók the careful pro- large extent unavoidable, but we cessor and analyst concerned with must not fail to realize that such authenticity, of Boas the methodic- one-sidedness may lead us astray al fieldworker, of the confluence in our interpretations.85 of folkloristics, linguistics, and Overall, Sapir’s review is quite favourable; ethnography…The multidisciplin- these comments, however, indicate certain ary nature of American eth- matters of interpretation and emphasis that nomusicology is in part due to his differentiated comparative musicologists many-sided reach.89 from anthropologists, matters that still, to Another prominent student of Boas’ who some extent, characterize ethnomusico- was greatly influential in the development logy. of the anthropological approach to non- Another of Boas’ students who was Western music was Melville Herskovits, very influential in the development of whose interest in the relationship between
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African and African-American culture was Comparative Musicology and supervising stimulated by the role of music.90 Al- the doctoral research of Alan Merriam, though Herskovits did not publish extens- who was to become one of the leading ively on musical topics, he supervised the figures in ethnomusicology.93 Merriam doctoral dissertations of both Richard later wrote of Waterman’s work: "overrid- Waterman and Alan Merriam (who would ing all else is a basic orientation toward both be very prominent in the new field anthropology; [Waterman] was an anthro- of ethnomusicology), and he made field pologist first and foremost, and his eth- recordings of music in Dutch Guiana, nomusicological specialization was almost Haiti, Trinidad, Brazil, Dahomey, the Gold always handled within the anthropological Coast and Nigeria.91 frame of reference."94 This orientation is most clear in Water- WATERMAN AND MOYLE: man’s consistent theoretical interest in CONTRASTING SCHOLARS cultural dynamics, examining how cultural COMPARED patterns, especially musical ones, are re- tained, reinterpreted, or fused over time.95 In this section, I would like to examine the His best-known work in this regard ex- particular theoretical and methodological amined the degree to which African- approaches of two of the earliest scholars American musics maintained African mu- of Australian Aboriginal music, Richard sical elements. Waterman and Alice Moyle. As well as any two ethnomusicologists, their work Waterman was most interested in clearly represents the mixed parentage of rhythmic styles and their cultural context; the discipline, one anthropological and this in itself differentiates him from a great one musicological — although it is diffi- deal of comparative musicology which had cult to characterize their work in a a primary focus on tonality, melody and simplistic way. Their distinctive ap- harmony, and the analysis of music in its proaches to the study of music reveal own terms. His 1948 paper entitled "'Hot' much of the discipline’s past, and also the Rhythm in Negro Music" examined the directions it came to take in the sub- varying tenacity of West African rhythmic sequent five decades. patterns in a variety of African-American musics in the New World. Waterman de- Richard Waterman is best known as a scribes "hot" as "one of those subliminal scholar of African and African-American constellations of feelings, values, attitudes, music, and had a distinguished anthropo- and motor-behaviour patterns"96 which logical pedigree through Herskovits to manifests itself in mixed metres, percus- Boas. His doctoral research, completed in sion polyrhythms, off-beat melodic 1943, looked at African patterns in the phrasing, and an overall prominence of music of Trinidad, which he pursued percussion instruments.97 The degree to through a clearly anthropological frame- 92 which these West African musical charac- work. He later worked with Herskovits teristics were syncretised with musics in at Northwestern University in Chicago, the New World, and the particular nature becoming the founding director of the of the syncretism, depended on the music- Northwestern University Laboratory of
98 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research al styles to which they were exposed and, how the hypothesis came to be accepted crucially, on the cultural context. In North as fact and how it managed to persist to America, where whites discouraged and this day are less readily understood."101 disparaged African music and culture, In his work on Australian Aboriginal African-American music is largely music, Waterman retained his overriding European in nature, with significant but theoretical interest in cultural dynamics submerged African features. In contrast, and social context, even to the extent that in Central and South America, in which any focus on particular musical features there was a more accommodating cultural is limited. He made around 15 hours of context, African musical elements were recordings of Yolngu music during a year’s more evenly blended, or even dominantly 98 field research in Yirrkala in 1952/53. For West African. A place like Trinidad the most part, they were elicited record- exhibits the full range of possibilities, with ings of short sequences of songs, perhaps dominantly British and Protestant areas a half-dozen to a dozen, by single patrifili- featuring European-derived religious and al groups. There are several recordings of folk music with a more subtle African fla- oral narrative, and at least two sequences vour in some areas, and music of African of songs recorded in their ritual context. religious cults in others.99 From the out- set, then, Waterman’s work on music Waterman’s only published work pertained directly to understanding the dealing specifically with Yolngu music broader cultural patterns of which music was an article in 1955 entitled "Music in was a part. Australian Aboriginal Culture — Some Sociological and Psychological Implica- Waterman’s work on African and tions". Waterman’s primary focus was in African-American music was also critical examining Yolngu music as an enculturat- of some of the prevailing attitudes in the ive mechanism, and he drew upon func- academic study of non-Western music. He tionalist theory in his interpretations.102 took issue, for instance, with the notion Much of the article examines how music that Africans were not developed enough is learned in childhood, adolescence, early culturally to have harmony, and that any adulthood, and late adulthood, and the instances of harmony in recorded samples functions of music are described as were purely the accidental result of over- providing recreation, improving morale, lapping polyphony of different vocal increasing and relieving emotional ten- parts. He also lamented the methodology sion,103 strengthening kin-group solidar- that facilitated such an interpretation, ity, acting as textbooks of natural history, where analysts relied on poor-quality re- history and cosmology, and affirming ties cordings made by others, where true har- between social groups and totemic spe- monic features may have been masked, cies.104 rather than on recordings they made themselves.100 Waterman writes: "That a In terms of musical features, it is curi- hypothesis concerning the absence of ous that Waterman’s interest in rhythm, harmony in African music could have been as detailed in his African-American re- framed on the basis of early data presen- search, does not replicate itself in his ted, then, is completely understandable; Yolngu research (despite considerable
99 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 rhythmic complexity). Instead, Waterman new things.107 In support of this position, turns his attention to subject matter closer the Watermans point to Macassan-derived to the heart of comparative musicology: material culture and cosmology, and the melody, scales and intervals. Even here, discovery of "new" songs in the Yolngu though, his primary interest is to demon- musical repertoire.108 The authors con- strate the relationship between melody clude: and sociality, by demonstrating the patri- …that Australian Aboriginals, as filial identity of various melodic intervals. exemplified by the people of Thus, he can assert that: "[a] karma cycle Yirkalla [sic], have earned their of the ridajigo-speaking lineage uses the reputation for resisting change first, the flatted second, and the flatted only in connection with changes third of scale; a cycle of the komaitt-speak- whose motivations they do not ing lineage uses the natural second and understand, changes detrimental flatted third of scale, and one of the to their well-being, and changes magkalili-speaking lineage the flatted third that would involve behaviour in and the fourth."105 opposition to their values and to If the shift to a focus on melody over the principles of their world-view. rhythm is somewhat surprising, the focus Actually, in their own terms, on social context is not. At any rate, the the Aboriginals of Yirkalla are article as a whole does not deal with any people with open and questioning musical feature in great detail, concentrat- minds, continually making use of ing on matters of social function and encul- every source of good and valuable turation. suggestions for the modification Waterman’s interest in cultural dynam- of their behaviour and willing to ics is more obvious in a paper, co-written consider any innovation on its 109 with his wife, called "Directions of Culture own merits. 106 Change in Aboriginal Arnhem Land", In his only other publication on the sub- a chapter of a book co-edited by him on ject of Aboriginal music, Waterman again the subject of cultural change in Aborigin- adopts a stance reminiscent of comparative al Australia. The paper is a critique of the musicology in two senses: first, through view, widespread at the time, that Abori- a focus on melodic structures (although he ginal culture is essentially conservative does pay attention to melodic rhythm); and unchanging under conditions of cul- and second, by analyzing a collection of tural contact, leading to cultural break- music made by Mountford on Groote down instead of accommodation. The Eylandt. In both senses, Waterman would Watermans advance the position that, al- seem to contradict the interpretive stance though certain areas of Yolngu culture, which he took vis-à-vis African and such as their experience of missionary African-American music in the 1940s and education and religion, demonstrated 1950s. considerable resistance to change, in other areas of culture Yolngu people were re- Waterman’s focus is to draw some markably innovative and willing to accept tentative conclusions about Groote Eylandt music based on his melodic analyses of a
100 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research small sample of songs. The language which was written, nor the value of such an he uses and the style of analysis are analysis. What is surprising is that it strongly reminiscent of early-twentieth- comes from the pen of Waterman, whose century comparative musicology, and other published work is based so strongly mark something of a departure from his upon an anthropological method, copious other ethnomusicological work. There is cultural context, and a much broader ap- a general interpretive assumption that the proach to the analysis of musical features. analysis of melodic structure, in the sense Waterman himself comments on this in of counting notes and measuring the inter- the paper, noting that, although he is vals between them in terms of Western generally in the "anthropological" camp musical theory, can provide material for of ethnomusicology, one may follow the general conclusions about the music and lead of Kolinski — amongst the most its place amongst the musics of the world. "musicological" of ethnomusicologists — Thus, to give but one example, Waterman in using other people’s recordings, analyz- writes about one particular song in the ing musical structure, and ignoring the sample: cultural context111 — an approach which Its basic materials are two tone he had previously characterized as "unfor- levels, scored G and A. In the first tunate for the development of ethnomusico- measure the initial notes of the logy as a branch of cultural anthropo- 112 half-measure figures rise to B, but logy". I suspect that this is either a spe- Waterman’s conclusions in this paper cies of beginning formula or the also situate it within a well-established singer using a few notes to find his discourse of comparative musicology. best pitch. A peculiar feature Given that Groote Eylandt music (at least about this song is the “rise” in his small sample) uses a small number of measure 12, which is echoed by a notes, he suggests that melody is better high note at the beginning of understood in terms of pitch levels rather measures 13 and 14. This intrusive than scales. He writes: high note — intrusive because it is unique in this particular collec- …this is a way of making music tion, and because it breaks the somewhat different from the cre- consistent pattern of alternating ation of melodies using an array of and balancing figurations using G notes drawn from a series that can and A, of which the present song be arranged in a scale either by the is almost entirely composed — singer himself or at least by some reaches to a major seventh above musically trained investigator…I the low note, then slides down a should like to suggest that, with half-tone for its other two appear- regard to tonal materials, there ances.110 exists a hitherto unrecognised musical culture area to go with the What is surprising here is not the nature scale-type areas generally recog- of the analysis itself, which was common nized. To the South Asian-North enough in the mid-1960s when the paper African microtonal area, the
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European-African diatonic area, eye toward describing them in terms of and the Far Eastern-American Indi- developmental stages.115 an pentatonic area (which, incid- Moyle draws upon some of the most entally, should be divided and re- prominent figures in comparative musico- characterized), I should like to add logy, especially Curt Sachs, positing a rela- an area of Oceania characterized tionship between the number of notes used not by scales, but rather by the melodically and different stages of singing; technique of forming songs out of that is, fewer notes equals an earlier a very few established levels of 116 113 stage. She further uses Sachs’ frame- pitch. work of logogenic, pathogenic and melo- Thus, here we have one of the most genic singing, stating that Aboriginal song prominent "anthropological" ethnomusico- belongs in the last category due to the 117 logists, a student of Boas and Herskovits, presence of well-marked intervals. shunning the investigation of cultural Moyle also refers to Alain Danielou’s "In- context and addressing himself to the troduction to the Study of Musical Scales", kinds of questions which had dominated in which he states that intervals can either comparative musicology since the mid- be divided by numbers (like string 1880s. It is obvious that, despite being able lengths), or "by their psychological corres- to characterize different approaches to the pondence such as the feelings and images 118 study of non-Western music, some schol- they necessarily evoke in our minds", ars cannot be completely tarred with one extending such an idea to Aboriginal brush. singing. What, then, of Alice Moyle? In many Like so much comparative musicology ways, she was as good an exemplar of the in the first half of the twentieth century, "musicological" side of the discipline as Moyle devotes a significant portion of her Waterman was of the "anthropological" study to the subject of the pentatonic side. But, like Waterman, she cannot be scale, and refers to both Hornbostel and entirely tarred with one brush either. Sachs in her analysis. She notes that the sequence A-G-E-D-C is a "typically Aus- One of Alice Moyle’s first publications tralian" mode of descent,119 and examines was a book called Know Your Orchestra,114 a number of other possible pentatonic but her first excursion into Aboriginal modes.120 She writes, however: "while music was her 1957 M.A. thesis at the University of Sydney entitled "The Inter- the intention here is not to suggest regular vallic Structure of Australian Aboriginal or systematic pentatonism…— the reverse Singing". The subject matter, overall ap- is nearer the truth in Australian singing proach and theoretical inspiration place — the conglomerations of small 'motives' her squarely within the European tradition already described do frequently produce resemblances to the above pentatonic se- of comparative musicology. Moyle’s object- 121 ive was the comparative study of interval- quences." lic resemblances among different musical She continues: traditions in Aboriginal Australia, with an
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What remains to be said here on music. Moyle refers to Sachs’ belief that the subject of pentatonism is that there was an Asian cradle of music which in songs all over the continent could be demonstrated by attention to both pentatonic, diatonic (hep- melody, modes and scales.125 She writes: tatonic), chromatic, even microton- "Having traced — thanks to Sachs — the ic progressions are demonstrated. major-third-plus-semitone progression And it would seem that all of these right to Australia’s back door, we are now are purely vocal modes of singing able to follow it further into North East which can exist side by side. The- Arnhem Land to the popular Wadamiri ories of “evolution” or develop- [sic] song-series which features this inter- ment are probably no more than val group in a well-established and strik- theories of emphasis, certain instru- ing manner."126 ments emphasising certain scale And she continues: progressions more than others. The Australian situation in this regard …judging by the basic tones and would closely parallel that at the intervals aboriginal singers select, beginning of Western musical his- it might well be that here in Aus- tory, long before subsequent exper- tralia, and for contemporary ears iments in harmony gave to the to hear, is music which belongs to diatonics that "advanced" status the same deep strata as the sources that they had in Western musical of both Eastern and Western mu- theory.122 sic. In Australian aboriginal music we may be hearing the same ger- It is obvious that Moyle has not been minating cells from which have swept away by an inordinate focus on the come every known style of mu- pentatonic scale in so-called primitive sic.127 music, like some of her predecessors. However, her work is clearly marked by She then goes on to outline, based on a strong concern for scales and intervals melodic structure, a series of stages in the as holding the key to understanding uni- development of Aboriginal music, from a versal principles of musical development. small range with monotonous repetition all the way through to polyphonic rudi- Tonality — that is, the number of tones ments,128 and states that diffusion ac- used and the way they are used in partic- counts for similarities between musical ular intervallic sequences — is at the regions across the country.129 It seems to centre of Moyle’s theory of stages of devel- opment in Aboriginal singing;123 for, as me that the underlying evolutionist implic- ation of Moyle’s thesis was probably im- she writes, "the rise and fall of melody is ported into her thinking by her theoretical surely closer to the core of music than reliance on Sachs more than any other features derived from song-texts or from single scholar. dancing rhythms".124 This is combined with a corresponding theory of musical Moyle’s primary interest in the inter- diffusion in order to speculate on the ori- vallic features of Aboriginal music contin- gins and spread of Australian Aboriginal ued in subsequent publications. Her 1959
103 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 analysis of Baldwin Spencer’s wax cylin- rhythm or timbre, much less cultural con- der recordings, made in 1901 and 1912, text. concentrates almost entirely on which in- Moyle’s grounding in the theory of tervals may be heard and in which order. European comparative musicology also The universal significance of particular leads her to adopt an explicitly comparat- intervals is suggested through numerous ive approach to her material, as she details comparisons between the intervals sung similarities and differences between the on Spencer’s cylinders and the ancient Tasmanian material and songs from the modes of Western civilization: "the tones west coast of South Australia as well as of the “Arunji” corroboree…resemble Central Australia. These comparisons are those of the ancient Greek Hypophrygian, 130 based on scale tables, a method advocated or mediaeval Mixolydian mode" or "a by Hornbostel, which break down a piece structural interval of a fourth…is linked of music into its constituent notes and conjunctly to one of a fifth…after the their relative duration; the most frequently manner of the ancient Greek Hypomixoly- 131 occurring note is taken as the tonic of a dian and mediaeval Phrygian modes". scale used in the piece.134 Moyle con- In 1960, Moyle turned her analytical cludes that the Tasmanian songs have a ear to the earliest recordings of Aboriginal clear tonic and an emphasis given to a tri- music in existence, made in 1899 and 1903 ad with the tonic in the middle, whereas of the Tasmanian singer Fanny Cochrane the other Aboriginal songs emphasize the Smith. Once again, melodic structure fifth note above the triad. These and other provides the material for her interpretive melodic features lead Moyle to compare framework, as it had in her earlier work. the Tasmanian songs with Melanesian Comparing these songs with those of the styles of singing135 — which is obviously Vedda of what was then Ceylon — the drawing a very long bow. hands-down winner of the early comparat- So, early in her career Alice Moyle was ive musicological prize for "most primit- strongly informed by some of the charac- ive" music — Moyle contends that the teristic features of comparative musico- Tasmanian songs show a much higher level logy: an overriding interest in melodic and of organization, based on melodic struc- intervallic structures; a negligible interest ture, with "a compass of an octave and in rhythmic features; an interest in com- seven or eight appreciably different tones" parison, musical origins and development- and melodies which "proceed upwards as 132 al stages; a reliance on a "laboratory" well as downwards". And, within the method of analyzing field collections made sample itself, the legato-style "Birds and by others; an overall lack of focus on cul- Flowers" song is more musically advanced tural context; and a general belief in than the syllabic "corroboree" song, by notation and musical analysis as the virtue of melodic phrases which are "bal- 133 foundation of methodology. However, as anced above and below a tonal centre". her career progressed she became much In both cases, conclusions regarding mu- less easy to characterize in each of these sical development and sophistication are areas. A single example, an article from made solely on the basis of melody and 1968 which was a follow-up on the Tas- melodic features, with no consideration of
104 The Gestation of Cross-Cultural Music Research manian recordings, reveals some subtle However, despite these changes in her changes in her approach. approach, and new information thereby One notable change, which reflects an generated, her conclusions remain virtu- extra decade of thought on matters eth- ally the same. The innovative pitch/dura- nomusicological, as well as her first-hand tion graphs depicting melodic contour are research and recording, is a re-orientation used to compare Tasmanian singing not away from the scalar arrangement of only with mainland Aboriginal singing, pitches toward a focus on melodic contour, but also with singing in the Solomon Is- which may reveal "significant demarca- lands, again taking melodic features as the tions of musical style".136 To this end, sole basis for intercultural musical compar- Moyle’s standard transcriptions in West- ison. Examining these graphs, along with ern notation are accompanied by graphs the historical accounts, Moyle is able to outlining melodic contour, with pitch conclude: represented on the Y-axis and duration on Compared with songs recorded on the X-axis. Of this method Moyle writes: the mainland more differences …the tonal level (or levels) with than similarities have been found which the progression of vocal tones in the present study of Fanny most often coincides is seen to emerge Smith’s songs. Fanny Smith’s in the length and disposition of the Spring Song and Hymn Improvisa- horizontal lines. Western designations tion show some structural resemb- such as “tonic”, “dominant” etc. are lance to a style of singing hitherto thus avoided. Vertical lines indicate observed in parts of Melanesia. “broad” (as against “narrow”, or accur- And if early evidence for singing ately measured) melodic steps or inter- in “third parallels” be accepted, vals…Pitch/duration graphs have the further support is thus given to a advantage here of directing attention tentative theory of musical connec- tion between Tasmania and places to tonal movement, rather than to 139 precise pitch.137 in the South Pacific. Another notable change is Moyle’s So, up to this point in her career Moyle much greater emphasis on the historical continues to develop a speculative theory record to provide some relevant cultural of musical diffusion, reminiscent of Horn- context; in particular, in examining song bostel’s support of diffusion theory and the monogenesis of cultural phenom- texts and historical reports of polyphonic 140 singing in parallel thirds. Although she ena. Although her thought changed points out that, on the Australian main- over the many years of her work, it can land, polyphonic singing was produced be concluded that Moyle maintained a by accidental overlapping of vocal parts consistent grounding in the theoretical (the same interpretation criticized by Wa- framework of her early career, and there- terman with regard to African polyphony), fore is a good representative of the "musi- she gives some credence to early historical cological" side of ethnomusicology. accounts of Tasmanian singing in parallel thirds.138
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CONCLUSIONS It is also possible to characterize the anthropological study of music in the late- And so to return to my titular metaphor: nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries the gestation of the discipline of eth- as primarily concerned with the cultural nomusicology lasted for roughly seven context of musical performance, revealed decades, from Alexander Ellis’ treatise on through the process of salvage ethno- the musical scales of various nations in graphy. Scholars like Boas, Sapir and 1885 to the first annual meeting of the So- Herskovits lacked any grand theory of ciety for Ethnomusicology in 1956. There music, although they did undertake lim- was a courting period of at least 300 years, ited transcription and analysis to comple- beginning with some of the earliest ac- ment transcriptions of song texts and de- counts of non-Western music by travellers tailed accounts of rituals. When they did and missionaries. The period of labour focus on musical detail, they often singled seems to have started between the late out rhythmic structures for special consid- 1940s, with the formation of the Interna- eration. This approach to the study of tional Folk Music Council, and late 1952, music paved the way for Richard Water- when the "founding fathers" of the Society man’s work on both African-American and for Ethnomusicology first met at the Australian Aboriginal musics. American Anthropological Association This article has many weaknesses. In conference to discuss forming a new soci- order to cover much ground, I have had ety. to gloss over each of the scholars men- Using very broad strokes (and cogniz- tioned with undue haste, very likely ignor- ant of the dangers of doing so), it is pos- ing many of the subtleties of their work. sible to characterize some of the predomin- I have left out a great many significant ant concerns of comparative musicology early scholars of non-Western musics, as a focus on the transcription and analysis such as Helen Roberts, Frances Densmore, of musical structures, especially melodic, Jaap Kunst, Robert Lachmann and Hugh scalar and intervallic structures, as the key Tracey. I have had to ignore the entire to an understanding of non-Western music movement of scholars who studied the folk that allows for cross-cultural comparison, musics of Europe, including Percy generalization and speculation about the Grainger, Béla Bartók, Cecil Sharp, Marius origins and development of music. Al- Barbeau, Maude Karpeles and many oth- though there is considerable internal di- ers. Perhaps most grievously, I have left versity, most of the main figures in com- unexamined, except in a passing way, the parative musicology, such as Stumpf, impact of two major developments on Hornbostel and Sachs, dealt with these is- ethnomusicology: the invention of the sues in some detail. This intellectual traject- phonograph141 and the development of ory provided the theoretical and method- music archives based on phonographic ological foundation upon which Alice recordings. Both changed the course of Moyle built her early work on Australian ethnomusicology forever, and must wait Aboriginal music. for another article.
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This article has at least pointed back in less relevant now than it was in the past, although it still persists in a variety of ways. I maintain the time to some of the important factors distinction here only as a heuristic device for the which led to the intellectual situation of purpose of examining the development of the discip- both the founding of ethnomusicology as line from these initially distinct disciplinary bases. a discipline and of the earliest significant 3 Charlotte Frisbie, "Women and the Society for Ethnomusicology: Roles and Contributions from research on Australian Aboriginal music. Formation through Incorporation (1952/3–1961)" in The intellectual situation then, with a Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman (eds), Comparative smaller number of musically inclined an- Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology (Chicago and London: The thropologists and a larger number of eth- University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp.245–6. nically inclined musicologists, continues 4 The International Council for Traditional Music to characterize the discipline today. How- (ICTM) is the other major international society dedic- ever, as the cases of Richard Waterman ated to ethnomusicological scholarship. Founded in 1947 as the International Folk Music Council (Erich and Alice Moyle demonstrate, the intellec- Stockmann, "The International Folk Music Council/In- tual history of ethnomusicology is quite ternational Council for Traditional Music: Forty complex and no individual scholar’s devel- Years", Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol.20, 1988, p.1), the birth of this organization could also have opment can be analyzed in a simplistic been used in this article to mark the beginning of way. Waterman and Moyle each began organized ethnomusicology. In either case, the their work on Australian Aboriginal music founding of these organizations was merely a symbol- ic milestone marking the coalescence of a number of just as the scholarly study of non-Western scholarly trends that had been developing less music was in the process of becoming formally for decades. formalized as a discipline, and they were 5 Frank Harrison, Time, Place and Music: An Antho- subject to a wide range of theoretical and logy of Ethnomusicological Observation c.1550 to c.1800, (Amsterdam: Frits Knuf, 1973), p.6. methodological influences. Each went on 6 Ibid, pp.16–9. to become extremely influential on the 7 Philip Bohlman, "Representation and Cultural Cri- development of ethnomusicology in their tique in the History of Ethnomusicology", in Nettl respective countries as they trained future and Bohlman, Comparative Musicology and Anthropo- generations of researchers. As a pair, then, logy of Music, p.131. they shed some considerable light on the 8 Cited in Harrison, Time, Place and Music, p.56. origins of ethnomusicology and the ways 9 Cited in Harrison, Time, Place and Music, p.199. in which it has grown during the sub- 10 Anthony Seeger, "Styles of Musical Ethnography" sequent half-century. Now that the discip- in Nettl and Bohlman, Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, p.347. line is into late middle age, with grown- 11 up children of its own, its intellectual tra- Ibid. 12 jectory will no doubt continue on a robust Ibid, pp.347–8. 13 interdisciplinary path for generations to The claim of tone-deafness is made by Jaap Kunst, Musicologica: A Study of the Nature of Ethno-musico- come. logy, Its Problems, Methods and Representative Person- alities (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereeniging Indisch Instituut, 1950), p.9. In the published paper, Ellis ENDNOTES states: "I have been assisted throughout by the delic- ate ear of Mr. Alfred James Hipkins…without his 1 Timothy Rice, "Toward the Remodeling of Eth- remarkable power of discriminating small intervals nomusicology", Ethnomusicology, vol.31 no.3, 1987, between tones of very different qualities…this paper p. 471. could not have come into existence…The calcula- 2 The distinction in ethnomusicology between “an- tions, the arrangement, the illustrations, as well as thropological” and “musicological” approaches is the original conception, form my part. The judgment of ear, musical suggestions, and assistance in every
107 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 way form his.” (Alexander Ellis, "On the Musical 32 Hornbostel, African Negro Music, p.11. Scales of Various Nations", Journal of the Royal Society 33 Ibid. of the Arts, vol.33, pp.486). 34 Ibid, p.13. 14 Ellis, ‘On the Musical Scales of Various Nations", pp.486–7. 35 Ames, "The Sound of Evolution", p.316. 15 Kunst, Musicologica, p.10. 36 Erich M. von Hornbostel, "The Ethnology of African Sound-Instruments", Africa: Journal of the 16 Ellis, ‘On the Musical Scales of Various Nations", International African Institute, vol.6 no.2, 1933, pp.490–1. p.133. 17 Ibid, p.526. 37 Ibid. 18 Alexander L. Ringer, "One World or None? Un- 38 Ibid, pp.138–9. timely Reflections on a Timely Musicological Ques- tion" in Nettl and Bohlman, Comparative Musicology 39 Ibid, p.140. and Anthropology of Music, p.187. 40 Ibid, p.141. 19 Ellis, "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations", 41 Ibid, p.144. p.487. 42 Ibid, p.145. 20 In this sense, early ethnomusicology bears a re- semblance to the early anthropology of Franz Boas, 43 Ibid, p.146. whose doctoral dissertation in physics had a definite 44 Ibid, p.148. psychological angle, examining the psycho-physics of colour perception. 45 Ibid, p.150; also see Ames, "The Sound of Evolu- tion", ff.77. 21 Albrecht Schneider, "Psychological Theory and Comparative Musicology" in Nettl and Bohlman, 46 Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, East and West (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., p.293. 1943), p.20. 22 Schneider, "Psychological Theory and Comparat- 47 Ibid, p.21. ive Musicology", pp.294–5. 48 Ibid, p.29. 23 Dieter Christensen, "Erich von Hornbostel, Carl 49 Ibid, p.31. Stumpf, and the Institutionalization of Comparative 50 Musicology" in Nettl and Bohlman, Comparative Ibid, p.32. Musicology and Anthropology of Music, p.204. 51 Ibid, p.41. 24 Christensen, "The Institutionalization of Compar- 52 Ibid, p.52. ative Musicology", p.204. 53 Ibid, p.41. 25 Eric Ames, "The Sound of Evolution", MODERN- 54 ISM/modernity, vol.10 no.2, 2003, pp.303, 315 and Ibid, p.41. passim. 55 Ibid, p.52. 26 Ibid, p.316. 56 Ibid, p.42. 27 Stephen Blum, "European Musical Terminology 57 Ibid, pp.42–3. and the Music of Africa" in Nettl and Bohlman, 58 Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, Ibid, p.43. p.10. 59 Ibid, p. 44. 28 Cited in Blum, "European Musical Terminology 60 Bruno Nettl, "Western Musical Values and the and the Music of Africa", p.10. Character of Ethnomusicology", The World of Music, 29 Jaap Kunst, Around Von Hornbostel's Theory of the vol.24 no.1, 1984, p.31. Cycle of Blown Fifths (Amsterdam: Koninklijke 61 Ibid, p. 31. Vereeniging Indisch Instituut, 1948), pp.3–5. 62 30 Ibid. Erich M. von Hornbostel, African Negro Music 63 (London: International Institute of African Languages Ibid, pp.32–3. and Cultures, 1930), pp.7–8. 64 Ibid, p.35. 31 Also see Ames, "The Sound of Evolution", p.316 and passim.
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65 cf. Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical 86 Bruno Nettl, "The IFCM/ICTM and the Develop- Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: ment of Ethnomusicology in the United States", Clarendon Press, 1992). Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol.20, p.21. 66 Nettl, "Western Musical Values", p.36. 87 Christensen, "The Institutionalization of Compar- 67 Norma McLeod, "Ethnomusicological Research ative Musicology", p.206. and Anthropology", Annual Review of Anthropology, 88 Nettl, "The IFCM/ICTM and the Development of vol.3, 1974, p.102. Ethnomusicology in the United States", p.21. 68 Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo (Lincoln: Univer- 89 Bruno Nettl, "The Dual Nature of Ethnomusico- sity of Nebraska Press, 1964 (1888)). logy in North America: The Contributions of Charles Seeger and George Herzog", in Nettl and Bohlman, 69 Franz Boas, "On Certain Songs and Dances of the Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, Kwakiutl of British Columbia", Journal of American pp.271–2. Folklore, vol.1 no.1, 1888, p.52. 90 McLeod, "Ethnomusicological Research and An- 70 McLeod, "Ethnomusicological Research and An- thropology", p.102. thropology", p.102. 91 Richard A. Waterman, "“Hot” Rhythm in Negro 71 Franz Boas, "On Certain Songs and Dances of the Music", Journal of the American Musicological Society, Kwakiutl of British Columbia", p.52. vol.1 no.1, 1948, p.24. 72 Franz Boas, "Chinook Songs", Journal of American 92 Alan Merriam, "Richard Alan Waterman, Folklore, vol.1 no.3, 1888. 1914–1971", Ethnomusicology, vol.17 no.1, 1973, p.73. 73 Franz Boas, "Eskimo Tales and Songs", Journal of 93 Ibid, p.74. American Folklore, vol.7 no.24, 1894, and "Eskimo Tales and Songs", Journal of American Folklore, vol.10 94 Ibid. no.37, 1897. 95 Ibid. 74 Franz Boas, "Teton Sioux Music", Journal of 96 Waterman, "'Hot' Rhythm in Negro Music", p.24. American Folklore, vol.38 no.148, 1925. 97 Ibid, p.25. 75 Robert Franklin and Pamela Bunte, "Edward Sa- pir’s Unpublished Southern Paiute Song Texts", in 98 Ibid, pp.26–7. Regna Darnell and Judith Irvine (eds), Collected 99 Ibid, pp.33–6. Works of Edward Sapir, vol.4: Ethnology, (Berlin: Mouton, 1994), p.589. 100 Richard A. Waterman, "African Influence on the Music of the Americas", in Sol Tax (ed.), Accultura- 76 Franklin and Bunte, "Edward Sapir’s Unpublished tion in the Americas (Chicago: The University of Southern Paiute Song Texts", p.589. Chicago Press, 1952), p.208. 77 Thomas Vennum, "The Tony Tillohash Wax Cyl- 101 Ibid, p.209. inder Recordings and Jacob Sapir’s Musical Transcrip- tions", in Darnell and Irvine, Collected Works of Ed- 102 Richard A. Waterman, "Music in Australian ward Sapir, vol.4, p.663. Aboriginal Culture: Some Sociological and Psycholo- gical Implications", Journal of Music Therapy, vol.5, 78 Franklin and Bunte, "Edward Sapir’s Unpublished 1955, p.41. Southern Paiute Song Texts", p.594. 103 Ibid, p.45. 79 Ibid, p. 589. 104 Ibid, p.47. 80 Edward Sapir, "Song Recitative in Paiute Mytho- logy", Journal of American Folklore, vol.23 no.90, 105 Ibid, p.46. 1910. 106 Richard A. Waterman and Patricia Panyity Wa- 81 Edward Sapir, "Review of Carl Stumpf, Die Anf- terman, "Directions of Culture Change in Aboriginal dnge der Musik", in Darnell and Irvine, Collected Arnhem Land", in Arnold R. Pilling and Richard A. Works of Edward Sapir, vol.4, p.141. Waterman (eds), Diprotodon to Detribalization: Studies of Change among Australian Aborigines (East Lansing: 82 Ibid, p.141. Michigan State University Press, 1970), pp.101–109. 83 Ibid, pp.141–2. 107 Waterman and Waterman, pp.103–7. 84 Ibid, p.142. 108 Ibid, pp.107–8. 85 Ibid, pp.143–4. 109 Ibid, pp.108–9.
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110 Richard A. Waterman, "Aboriginal Songs from 138 Ibid, p.5. Groote Eylandt, Australia", in Peter Crossley-Holland 139 Ibid, p.6. (ed.), Proceedings of the Centennial Workshop on Eth- nomusicology (Victoria: Provincial Archives of British 140 von Hornbostel, "The Ethnology of African Columbia, 1975), p.105. Sound-Instruments", p.146. 111 Waterman, "Aboriginal Songs from Groote 141 cf. Erica Brady, A Spiral Way: How the Phono- Eylandt, Australia", p.111. graph Changed Ethnography (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999). 112 Waterman, "African Influence on the Music of the Americas", p.208. 113 Waterman, "Aboriginal Songs from Groote Eylandt, Australia", p.112. 114 Alice M. Moyle (as Alice Brown), Know Your Orchestra (Melbourne and London: F.W. Cheshire, 1948). 115 Alice M. Moyle, The Intervallic Structure of Australian Aboriginal Singing (M.A. Thesis, Depart- ment of Music, University of Sydney), 1957, p.6. 116 Ibid, p.27. 117 Ibid, p.29. 118 Ibid, p.37. 119 Ibid, p.54. 120 Ibid, p.55. 121 Ibid, p.55. 122 Ibid, p.58. 123 Ibid, p.60. 124 Ibid, pp.67–8. 125 Ibid, pp.61–2. 126 Ibid, p.62. 127 Ibid, p.63. 128 Ibid, p.64. 129 Ibid, p.81. 130 Alice M. Moyle, "Sir Baldwin Spencer’s Record- ings of Australian Aboriginal Singing", Memoirs of the National Museum, vol.24, 1959, p.20. 131 Ibid, p.21. 132 Alice M. Moyle, "Two Native Song-Styles Recor- ded in Tasmania", The Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, vol.94, 1960, p.73. 133 Ibid, p.73. 134 Ibid, p.74. 135 Ibid, p.75. 136 Alice M. Moyle, "Tasmanian Music, An Im- passe?", Records of the Queen Victoria Museum, vol.26, 1968, p.2. 137 Ibid, p.5.
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