The Spanish Bull-Fight: And Kindred Activities Author(s): Julian Pitt-Rivers Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Aug., 1993), pp. 11-15 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2783449 . Accessed: 15/09/2011 20:34

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http://www.jstor.org The Spanish bull-fight and kindredactivities JULIANPITT-RIVERS

of them pseudo-Mauresquein architecture,in keeping with the quite erroneous theory that the bullfight was 'of Moorish origin'. Bull-rings were built even in Gali- cia for the sake of summer visitors and state function- aries, though there they have mostly fallen into ruin or been converted, at least partially, to other uses. The N INTEGRAL feature corrida is often reviled by Catalan intellectuals as a of Spanish tradi- Castilian imposition (though other Catalan intellectuals tional life is the have maintained that it was Catalonian in origin and cult of the bull; it was imitated by the Castilians).3 In fact, bull festivals has taken in the are celebrated traditionally in a number of Catalan past, and still towns. In many they practice a variety of 'encierro', 4~~J takes today, a var- called the 'corre bou'. iety of forms, of The bull-fight, also called lidia (struggle) in Spanish, which the corrida is not really a fight at all; the bull cannot win, for even t/ gg N fi de toros is by far if he kills or disables the matador,one of the other ma- the best known, tadors (they are usually three) must replace him and the most expens- complete the rite. And if he cannot be killed by a bull- ive to attend and fighter he is killed by a butcher, the same evening. He the subject of can only survive if the public demands of the president most publications (whose principalfunction is to be the mouthpiece of the (three national pe- public) that the bull be 'pardoned' on account of his riodicals and a exceptional courage and 'nobility', that is to say be- page or two in cause he has embodied to perfection the values that the virtually all na- cult of the bull is intendedto promote. tional and re- The bull-fight, in brief, is not a fight (though it is a This article was gional newspapersduring the bull-fighting season and a kind of contest of courage); it is in no way a competi- originally writtenas a bibliography in Spanish and in French of hundredsof tive sport (for there is no competition);it is not a game report c ommissionedby thousands of It is also manifest in a the 'course la cocarde' in the European books). whole (though a Provence might so Parliamentin Strasbourg. numberof local popularfestivals throughoutthe Iberian be considered, and so might the 'capea' in Spain or The author is Peninsula with the exception of most of Galicia and the certain of the Portuguese bull festivals; so, probably, professor at the Ecole northernhalf of Portugal (which are somewhat similar was that representedin the famous mosaics of Knossos Pratique des Hautes in this regard).The cult of the bull in the forms both of dating from 1600 B.C. It is not a spectacle, a theatrical Etudes de la Sorbonne the corridaand of populartaurine festivals is today also show (though it is spectacular and can be most dra- Ve sec tion and Universite Paris X an element of the culture of three regions of southern matic), for it is not a representationof reality, but re- (Nanterre).He was France: the south-west corner (from Toulouse and the ality itself; those who are killed in the ring do not re- formerly professor of Landes to the Spanish frontier),of Provence (as far east turn five minutes later, smiling, to take a curtain-call, anthropologyat the LSE. as Frejus) and of the Auvergne. It has been so at least they are dead forever like the bull who is towed out of He is a leading since the Middle Ages and it is gaining in popularityin the ring by the mules and butchered on the spot. It is anthropologistof Hispanic societies. France at present: pefias (bull fight clubs) are being the custom of the corrida to honour a bull-fighter who founded in those areas and new forms of popularfestiv- has excelled in his performanceby giving him one or ity involving bulls have appeared within the last two of the bull's ears as a trophy, or, slightly less of an twenty-five years, notably the 'Toro-Piscine', which honour, to be granted a tour round the ring ('vuelta al consists in getting the local fire-brigade to create an ruedo') to receive applause from the public. The bull artificial piscine in the place where the bull is to be may be honouredin the same way. baited and into which he may be enticed to tumble. It is It is a ritual sacrifice and it is a part of Spanish popu- worth recalling in this connection that underthe Second lar Catholicism as indeed is the cult of the bull in Empire, in adulationof the Empress Eugenie, who was general. ProfessorRomero de Solfs has examined in de- of Spanish (Andalusian)origin, bull-rings were built all tail the religious aspect of the bull-fight in his book on over France (two in Paris and one even as far north as the corrida in Seville.4 I would point out thatjust about Dunkirk). half the bulls immolated in the corridas of Spain are The corrida was christened by a writer of the early sacrificed in honour of the Virgin Mary, as part of the years of the century (Conde de las Navas) 'the most celebration of a religious festival; the calendar of bull- national of Spanish fiestas' (La fiesta mas nacional) fights is the religious calendar. All the major religious and Spanish patriotismwas allied with it in that epoch festivals of Spain are celebrated in this way. The bull- almost as closely as with the Catholic faith, though fighting season in Spain started traditionallywith the there was and has been at least since the sixteenth cen- feast of St Joseph in Valencia and ends with the Virgin tury a minority of educated Spaniardswho disapproved of Pilar in Zaragoza. In Andalusia, it started tradi- of it and refused ever to attend.2 tionally with the corrida on Easter Sunday in Seville During that period many bull-rings were built, some and ends with St Michael, the end of the agricultural

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 9 No 4, August 1993 11 Decorationsfor this year, in Seville also. Every local community (pueblo), have stressed the erotic symbolism of the bull-fight, article are reprintedfrom except in Galicia, celebrates its patron-saintwith a bull- and in the sense of male honour, ancient carteles (an- the Gran Diccionario fight unless the municipality is broke, and if they can't nouncements of a corrida) often advertised a protagon- Taur6macoby J. Sdnchez de Neira (Madrid,1896). afford a properbull-fight they probablyhire some cow- ist as 'El pundonoroso diestro Fulano de tal' (Bull- The initial letter A shows calves for a capea (a bull-bait). Every barrio (quarter) fighter So-and-So, very meticulous with regard to his the matador's sword and of Soria has its own patron-saint - and therefore its honour) - in the sense of tenacious courage, refusal to hat, and the picador's own bull-fight and every separate social identity is ex- accept defeat. Hence the wounded matadorstruggles to lance. At thefoot of page pressed in some kind of taurine celebration. In the his feet, picks up his sword and kills his bull according 10 is a brandfrom - to the infirmary. C6rdoba: brandsare small town of Nules (Castellon) most of the main to the rite before being carriedoff traditionallyapplied to a streets are named after a saint and have an image of This is not the only dramatic scene that can be wit- bull's right hindquarters. that saint set into a shrine somewhere in the wall. On nessed in the bull-ring: the death of the bull is, all too the saints' day the inhabitantsof this street celebrate often, horrifying and tragic, as well as dramatic.If the their saint, having subscribed together to buy a young matadorfails in his ritual duty, shirking 'the moment of half-caste bull or failing that they have rented a young truth' (i.e. that which requires the greatest courage) by cow as surrogatein order to have a capea. running out to the side instead of going in over the The bull-fight takes place always after, never before, horns, he is said to have 'assassinated', not to have the Mass, in the afternoon. (In the 19th century in Ma- killed (that is to say immolated) the bull. If he stabs drid, it took place on Mondays.) After the purification without killing, if he punctures the bull's lung and the of the sacrifice of the Lamb the sacrifice of the bull poor beast tottersround the ring, blood pouring from its restores to grace the mores of everyday life, releasing mouth, before receiving the 'coup de grace', a dagger the faithful from an excess of sanctity, a too literal sub- in the vertebraebehind the horns, it is indeed tragic, as jection to the Beatitudes, which renders the practical tragic as the death of Hamlet, Joselito, Manolete or conduct of daily affairs somewhat difficult, for if all quite recently Paquirri5or Yiyo; the death of every bull were to be 'poor in spirit' and 'meek' and turn the is a tragedy in itself. Even a bad bull-fight is redeemed other cheek when struck, there could be no exercise of to some extent by its tragedy;even in a good bull-fight authority,no defence of one's rights, the wicked would the death of the bull is tragic. This beautiful animal have it all their own way and the social structurewould exists, has been created,only to be sacrificed. The bull- collapse. Therefore, after the sacrifice of the Mass, fight represents then a particularphilosophy of death6 which might be seen as the 'fiesta mansa' (the docile which is one of the fundamentalelements of Spanish festival), the celebration of the ideal of Christiancon- culture. One of the essential conditions of this philos- duct, there follows the 'fiesta brava', as the corrida is ophy is that the bull should be respected. If he were not called, to restore the worldly order, a counter-riteto the respected the rite would be quite ineffective or, at any first, dedicated to the Holy Virgin, to Corpus Christi or rate, pointless. If the Lamb of God were not the per- to some other festival of the Church or to the patron- sonification of the values of Christianity, then what saint of the community. Yet if the lesson of the fiesta would be the point of His sacrifice? The bull who has brava is a counter-weight to that of the Mass and re- demonstratedhis ability to personify the values he was calls, albeit quite unconsciously, the sacrifice of the created to represent- aggression, courage, straight-for- bull in Mithraism- the religion of the Roman legio- wardness, 'nobility', the ideal masculine virtues - is naries and the rival of Christianity until it was sup- thereforetreated with great respect:gentlemen stand out pressed after the Emperor Constantine had made the of respect to honour him when he is towed round the empire officially Christian - it is nevertheless in no ring to receive applause. way an attempt to annul the purifying message of the There is, then, a clear distinction between the bru- Mass, but ratherto complement it and integrate it into tality of some frustratedcretins who vent their frustra- the practical sphere of daily life. The symbolic alliance tions by whacking some miserable bovine on the back- between the Virgin Mary and the bull-fight has been side with a stave during a village capea (a practice that noted previously by Spanish anthropologists and in- has been prohibitedtoday by most municipalities - no deed, Spaniards see nothing anomalous in celebrating clubs are allowed!) and the respect that is shown to the the various festivals of the Virgin by a corrida, which bull in the corrida. But since this is also a fertility rite is, among its many other symbolic meanings, a fertility the bull representsthe indefatigablecapacity for copula- rite. Quite apart from the exegeses provided by the tion which is credited to animals - our animal nature is practicantsof a rite, rituals have many other symbolic opposed to our spiritual nature: the closer to God the meanings which are evident only to the outsider and furtherfrom the beasts and vice versa - which is why since symbols are 'polysemic' - that is to say they can vows of celibacy are taken by persons of sacred status have various quite different meanings simultaneously and also why the notion of lasciviousness is expressed (as is now generally recognized by anthropologists)- in the languages of Europe by the idiom of animals. each man is free to find in the rite he performs the The bull combines, as symbol, both the male moral vir- meaning of his choice. The remarkablepersistence of tues, but also, essential to a fertility rite, the animal vir- rituals throughoutperiods of social upheavals is due to tue necessary to ensure fertility. It is the combinationof this freedom: what is performed remains the same, moral human virtues and the physical capacity of ani- since what it means can be adaptedto the needs of the mals, placing both underthe aegis of the Virgin, Christ situation and the moment. or the saints, that gives the corrida its profound The bull-fight is, among many other things, it has meaning. been said, a ritual means of ensuring the stability of The history of the cult of the bull makes clear its society: that men be men and that social order be main- connection with religion, which does not come to an tained and for this reason it has been defined as 'the end with the decline of the Church's political nor its ritual revindicationof manliness' in the sense of sexual social power, for the Spanish church has gone along pre-eminence; an amusing chapter in Juan Belmonte's with the cult of the bull rather than supported it and memoirs is entitled 'Why women fall in love with bull- Rome has generally been hostile to the corrida except fighters'. Indeed, many writers,and even more convinc- when the Pope happenedto be a Spaniard.(The Borgia ingly, painters (Picasso, Andre M7assonand others) Popes, who were Aragonese, introducedthe bull-fight

12 ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 9 No 4, August 1993 in Rome, but the custom did not survive them). The ericordia, a convent devoted to the poor, etc.). The or- only constant ally of the bullfight has been the Spanish ganization of the fiesta was a source of income and the people who cannot conceive of celebrating anything meat of the bull went to the inmates, probably the only without sacrificing bovines, any more than the Muslim beef they ate in the whole year. (or Judaeic) peoples can do so without sacrificing In a number of popular fiestas the bull's meat is ovines. eaten by the members of the community sometimes in a collective feast, sometimes distributedto take home to cook (Medinaceli, Soria). There is a restaurantin Ma- drid, and one in Barcelona also, which specialize in serving the meat of a fighting-bull whose name, weight :l and sacrificer's name and the corrida in which he was sacrificed are supplied to the aficionados among the clients. Bull's meat for the rich! N ADDITION TO the The Andalusiancountrymen among whom I lived for religious pretexts several years a long time ago8 distinguished between for sacrificing humans and animals on the basis of criteriaquite differ- bulls, royal bull- ent to that of the British public: humans had the name fights were given of a saint whom they celebrated on his day, together to celebrate wed- with all those who had the same Christian name, and dings, the birth of who were thus his tocayos (namesakes), a bond of little an heir, in thanks importance, for it involved no duties nor privileges for a victory, the other than that of drinking together on that day. But a arrival of visiting domestic pet could not be given the name of a saint, for royalty and in it could not be a Christian, since it had no soul. A ~~1366 ~~~ the King of friend of mine, who came of old anarchiststock, to the Granadagave one greatest public scandal, named his daughter 'Diana', to celebrate the which people said was the name for a dog, not for a circumcision of human being. The difficulty was overcome by adding his son. Munici- the diminutive, thus 'Dianita' which they promptly ab- palities gave a breviatedto 'Anita' which every little girl named 'Ana' corrida too on oc- was called. The fully human were called 'Christians'. casions which re- Hence in the customs concerning baptism, the god- quired to be cel- mother would collect the child from the mother's house ebrated, and pri- (the mother did not attend the ceremony in the church) vate individuals gave one to celebrate marriages and and bring it back afterwardssaying: 'you gave him to even on occasions bequeathedin their will the necess- me a Moor, and I returnhim to you a Christian'. ('Tu ary sums not only to assure the masses to be said for me lo diste Moro y te lo devuelvo Cristiano'). Such a their soul, but to give a corrida (presumably) to cel- distinction does not depend upon the religiosity of the ebrate their entry into Paradise. (They had to be spiri- speaker (and many of my neighbours were very tually rathersure of themselves to do so, but perhaps it anti-religious), but it is a part of their culture: animals was ratheras an act of piety that would ensure that they and humans are not the same thing and should not be would accede to Paradise). confused. Hence while they were not cruel to animals, A 'nuptial bull' was sacrificed in the middle ages on they saw nothing morally binding in their behaviourto- the occasion of a wedding and the groom was expected wards them, such as they felt with regard to humans to place darts embroideredby the hand of his bride in with whom they were morally involved. When, on the the bull's withers and use as a fighting cape ('capa de other hand, they learned from the newspapers about lidia') a piece of her raiment.This custom, declared to boxing, they were scandalized. How could civilized be defunct by the folklorists of the beginning of the people enjoy such a revolting spectacle as two men century, has enjoyed a revival in modem form within bashing each other and not rush in to stop them? And the last few decades. Road houses where wedding when they leamed that such spectacles were offered to feasts are celebrated have started to build on a small the public for money in Madrid, they were profoundly bull-ring so that the bridegroom can demonstrate his shocked. The big cities were centres of vice, they knew, masculinity in front of some cow-calf, on the occasion but such barbarousbehaviour could only be attributed of the bachelor stag-partybefore the wedding or at the to foreign influence. In brief, the Andalusians viewed wedding dinner itself. (Examples are to be found just boxing in much the same terms as much of the British outside St Agustin north of Madrid,Chinchon south of public views the bullfight. Madrid,or on the road east of Caceres.) Local taurine fiestas, the celebration of the patron One can also find square bull rings from before the saint of the place, when it is not a very importantplace, period when they became round in the 18th century7 appeal to a public ratherdifferent to that of the corrida. attached to chapels of the Virgin to which pilgrimages They do not draw the internationalnor even the na- tional tourists;they do not hit the headlines in the peri- odicals, must be content with a short mention in the local newspapers,unless they happen to numberamong 'the sons of the pueblo' an eminent matador who comes back to fight in his home village out of local patriotism. They are poorly advertised and it is quite Viaritudein SantaleCrund Tudeloain la Manca). l Ms difficult to know when they are going to take place, since the date may be changed two days before at a meeting of the municipal council. The public consists of the members of the community who are also attend-

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY Vol 9 No 4, August 1993 13 ing the other spectacles offered by the town: the young are several who have made their careers in Spain, fighting mothers' bull, the small boys' bull, an eighteen-month- on foot. old cow-calf possessed of a savage fury not found in 2. Fray Juan de Mariana,a noted polemicist and thinkerof his the more maturemale animals, the little girls' calf, etc. day and confessor to King Philip II, inveighed against the bull-fight, but not for the same reasons as the modem critics The capeas where the young blades can show off, the of it; he thought it should be forbiddenon the grounds that Gigantes y Cabezudos (the Giants and Fatheads) the men should not be permittedto risk their lives unshriven. bull of the wine, in which a barrel of wine is placed in 3. It is believed in every town where the bull-fight has an the middle of the plaza and the tap is turned on for enthusiasticfollowing that it was originally an invention of people to help themselves, but at the same moment the that town. bull is let into the ring. Those who over-indulge in the 4. Romero de Solfs, Garcia Baqueroand Vazquez Parlade, hospitality of the fiesta are rather likely to get caught Sevilla y la fiesta de toros, Ayuntamientode Sevilla, 1985. by the bull. 5. On the occasion of the burialof Paquirriin Seville, the crowd took control of the procession and diverted it from The public, from neighbouring pueblos, come to the intendedroute between the church and the cemetery and criticize and maintain that this fiesta is clearly not as led it back to the Maestranza(the Seville bull-ring)to give good as their own, that the girls are not as pretty, the the coffin of their hero a last honour, a vuelta al ruedo (a boys not as courageous nor as well-behaved and so turn roundthe ring). The photos in the newspapersshowed forth. For the festival of the patron-saintis the occasion hands from the crowd stretchingup to touch the coffin and for expressing their collective identity and this, above make a final contact to receive his grace. Similarly, after the all, is a matterof opposition to the pueblo next door. In death of the banderilleroMontoliu in the ring in Seville in Spain the local community has a moral force unknown 1992 the coffin was removed from the church at 3 a.m. and taken to the Maestranzafor a last turn roundthe ring and in England. For this reason while few visitors come returnedto the church whence it was taken next day to his from any distance to the local celebrations,many 'sons native Valencia, where once more he was given a farewell of the pueblo' who have emigrated return to celebrate turn roundthe ring before going to the cemetery. The the patronsaint's day and reasserttheir identity as such, Spanish public's capacity for spontaneouslyinventing ritual for a Spaniardowes his naturaleza (nature)to his place has been observed on many other occasions. of birth. If he goes to live elsewhere, he is almost cer- 6. Spanish sick jokes about death are commonly recognized tain to receive as a nickname (and nobody is known by as partof this philosophy (see, for example, Berlanga's film anything else in a small Spanish pueblo) his place of El Verdugo, 'The Executioner'). But attitudesto death vary not only from one culture to anotherbut from one period to birth. Moreover his naturaleza is recorded in the mu- another.The Victorianssentimentalized death (as the nicipal census of the place where he resides. It is an monumentsof the period in churches show), but they could essential partof his identity. not abide any mention of sex. The modern British can't stop The cult of the bull is not disappearingtoday, either talking about sex but are shocked by any mention of death in popular Spanish culture nor in the bull-fight of the (see Geoffrey Gorer 'Death, grief and mourning'afid the national culture - despite the enormous cost of seats, Frenchhistorians Philippe Aries, Michel Vovelle, etc.) comparable to that of the opera in other countries, 7. Romero de Solis, Razon y Revolucion en el origen de la whereas attendanceat a local fiesta costs nothing, and Construccionde Plazas de Toros, lecture given in Granada, Centrode Estudios A. 12 1992. despite the prophecies of its disappearancein the near Etnol6gicos Ganivet, May 8. While doing the study for my doctorate:People of the future that have been issued over the last 500 years. For Sierra, University of Chicago Press, 1959, 2nd edition, it is inherentin the Spanish mentality. 1971, 3rd edition forthcoming. A few years ago, a British Eurodeputy (who may well remain nameless since he was not re-elected) pro- posed a motion to the Parliamentof Strasbourgto the Appendix effect that the Spanish government should be required Around the turn of the century there was a vogue for to prohibit the bullfight in Spain under pain of seeing lady matadors in the same epoch when circus-like their country expelled from the EuropeanCommunity. shows were put on in the bull-rings such as a combat He did not apparentlyknow that France also celebrated between a fighting-bull and a tiger - which ran away the bullfight in identically the same form and with the terrified- or putting the banderillas from the back-seat same rules, and it would have been necessary to require of a motor-bike. But Spanish machismo won the day the French governmentto make a similar undertakingif and ladies were finally forbiddento fight in the ring. At France were not to be expelled from Europealso. this point a certain Teresa Bolsi, who had fought up till The incident was of small importance in itself; but then in a crinoline, declared she was a transvestiteand there is a lesson to be gleaned from it: that the moral continued to fight in male garb. Though the idea of unity of Europe, so essential to its political unity, de- lady matadorsoffended certainphallocratic sensibilities, pends not on attemptingto homogenize its legal provi- I have arguedthat it was not as anomalous as it appears sions and oblige the different peoples of Europe to at first sight, for as my symbolic analysis shows (see share the same values and become culturally uniform, my 'Sacrifice du Taureau', Le Temps de la Reflexion but on respecting their differences of culture and their IV, 1983), the matadorsymbolizes a female role in the right to be different. As all anthropologists know or first tercio (act), while in the third act (tercio de la should know, however they prefer to express it, cultural muerte) he achieves a super-masculineembodiment, as- variety is the only defence against the anomia and loss suming the phallic values of the bull which he then of identity that economic homogenization is thought, transfersto the public. The ritual in which this is done Equieerroneously, to entail. Europe will be polycultural includes distributingthe bull's ears which he has been c or bust. Fl awardedas a trophy, throwing them high into the stalls. 1. The word culture is used here in the sense it has for the It should be observed that the sexes may be either mu- social sciences, not in that which it has in Ministriesof tually exclusive as in daily life (the more feminine, the Culture.The corrida de toros is practisedin identical form in France as in Spain, and in a slightly modified form in less masculine, and vice versa) or they can be cumula- Portugal.(Out of regardfor the susceptibilitiesof their tive as a religious context - the Gods in Hinduismor in oldest allies, the Portuguesedo not kill the bull but simulate ancient Greece are only the more powerful for being the kill). Two of the most eminent 'rejoneadores' bisexual - hence Joan of Arc or Agostina de Aragon (bull-fighterson horseback)today are Portuguese,and there could lead frail men into the fray, precisely because

14 ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 9 No 4, August 1993 they were physical women. Hence the lady-matador, 'only a combination of male and female elements can who is not a transvestite in the first act, but a real give a worthy representationof divine perfection'. woman, displays the masculine Geist of Joan of Arc In the history of the theatre (and the corridaborrows when she comes to the 'estocada'. The male matador elements from theatre) male roles have been taken by symbolizes a woman in the first act in order, by con- women and female roles by boys in different cultures trast, to become the essence of maculinity for the im- and epoques. At the present moment a girl called Cris- molation; the female matadorbecomes Joan of Arc for tina Sanchez is having considerable success in Spain as the kill. Freudianswill rememberthe androgynousna- a matador, and there are several French girls who are ture of Freud's pharaohand, in his essay on Leonardo, aspiringto enter the bull-ringprofessionally. CL

Contextualizingalternative medicin The exotic, the marginal and the perfectly mundane

URSULA Alternative medicine in Britain has grown rapidly in biomedicine: Philippine spiritual surgery (drawing out popularity and prominence since about 1970. Indeed, of foreign substances by means of the hands and spiri- SHARMA unless the currentrecession halts this trend, it will not tual force) and western spiritualism. Significantly, the be long before the term 'alternative'- with its connota- Hampshire clinic he studied, at which homoeopathy The author-is Course tions of a minority cultural taste or deviant activity - and other (mainly western) systems were practised,was Director at the Centre will no longer be appropriate.Quantitative studies and run by an medical Indian doctor and the description of for Medical Social opinion polls carried out in Britain during the 1980s this clinic is to be found in a chapter entitled 'Eastern Anthropology,University suggest a steadily increasing rate of usage and a wide- Healers'. It is as though he wants to be able to place of Keele. She has done ning range of patients. Research in Europeancountries homoeopathy, a healing system of decidedly western field r-esearchin nor-thwestIndia and in as well as in North America and Australiahas indicated origins, in an 'exotic' context. A similar uncertaintyis Staffor-dshire. that this is far from being an isolated pattern (Fulder found in McGuire's excellent study of ritual healing in 1988:27ff). The number of practitioners is increasing suburbanAmerica. McGuire includes both therapeutic rapidlytoo. ritual healing congregations, such as Christian Scien- Anthropologists, and indeed other social scientists, tists and occult healing groups, and what she calls the are beginning to take account of these developments. 'techniquepractitioners' - those who apply a technique, What qualifications do we as anthropologists have to 'typically in a client-adherentrelationship rather than in pronounce upon them, and what kind of research on a group setting', such as Shiatsu or chiropractic.But the alternativemedicine might we be particularlyequipped latter are included ratheruncertainly and as rathermar- to carry out? More specifically, do concepts developed ginal to her main interests. 'Technique' healing - in the course of anthropologists'study of medical plu- though widely used - is 'less interesting' because 'the ralism in 'Third World' countries have any relevance technique itself - and not the beliefs supporting it - here? seem to be the key attraction for most adherents' Anthropologists have a tradition of sympathetic and (McGuire 1988:29). serious attention to healing practices which exist out- Certainly practices such as chiropracticor acupunc- side the purview of modern biomedicine in the ex-colo- ture rely on the services of paid professional experts nial world. In an influentialarticle on medical pluralism much more than is the case with, say, spiritualhealing, published in 1980, Charles Leslie urged anthropologists and consumers of these services do not really constitute to distance themselves from the prevalent biomedical 'groups' except in the loosest of senses. The use of the view that such systems of healing involve only quac- term 'adherent'seems odd in this context: is the impli- kery and charlatanism,and to consider the role which cation that Shiatsu or chiropractic are cults really ap- alternative and traditional healers might play in total propriate? health care systems in 'Third World' countries (Leslie In part this ambivalancemay derive from a real diffi- 1980). Yet when we follow Leslie's call for com- culty in researching healing: namely that once we go parative research, contextualizing western alternative beyond that which is offered to the sick person by healing systems proves not to be an easy matter. Is al- biomedicine, the range of possibilities is highly diverse, ternative medicine the western equivalent of traditional and limiting a researchproject on healing becomes dif- ethno-herbalismor even shamanism(Graham 1990:20), ficult, even arbitrary.The users of alternative healing the heir to the wise women or witches of the western systems are themselves highly diverse in motivation. past? Or is it best seen as having its roots in essentially Clearly some consult healers or join healing groups to modern concerns with health and the perfectibility of resolve specific problems which orthodox medicine has the body (Coward 1989:43)? Social scientists in general not resolved to their satisfaction,whilst others do so out have shown collective uncertaintyhere. of conviction (Sharma 1992:52). The latter may be the A tradition of studying the politically marginal and minority at the present time in Britain, but there is no cultural 'underdogs', strong among qualitativesociolog- way of dividing the two categories sharply. As ists and some anthropologists, favours gravitation kto McGuire points out, the use of a 'technique' such as that end of the alternativespectrum which appearsmost Shiatsu frequently 'opens the door for an adherent's 'exotic'. Gary Easthope considers practices such as ho- subsequent journey into other alternative healing ap- moeopathy and acupuncturein his book Healers and proaches' (McGuire 1988:30). AlternativeMedicine (1986), but he devotes much more The contextualization of alternative medicine with space to those systems most distanced from modern the 'exotic' and the spiritual is something which some

ANTHROPOLOGYTODAY Vol 9 No 4, August 1993 15