SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE NETHERLANDS VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE 9S SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE NETHERLANDS Edited by P.E. DE JOSSELIN DE JONG and ERIK SCHWIMMER THE HAGUE - MARTIN US NIJHOFF 1982 © Copyright i982 by Koninklijk instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, the Netherlands. All rights reserved, including the right to translaLe or to reproduce this book or parts thercof in any form. Printed in the Netherlands. ISBN 90.247.6175.1 CONTENTS Introduction Erik Schwimmer, Structural and Symbolic Anthropology in the Netherlands Today 1 Chapter I David S. Moyer, Myth and Law 12 Chapter II G. W. Locher, The Reactions of Franz Boas and Konrad Theodor Preuss to a Structural Interpretation of Kwakiutl Mythology in 1933 30 Chapter III Freerk C. Kamma, The Incorporation of Foreign Culture Elements and Complcxes by Ritual Enclosure Among the Biak-Numforese 43 Chapter IV M.L. Creyghton, The Open Body: Notes on Khroumirian Body Symbolism 85 Chapter V Leontien E. Visser, The Social Meaning of White, Red and Black Among the Ahouan of Ivory Coast (West Africa) 105 Chapter VI W.E.A. van Beek, "Eating Like a Blacksmith": Symbols in Kapsiki Ethno-Zoology 114 Chapter VII Reimar Schelold, The Efficacious Symbol 125 Chapter VIII ].D.M. Platenkamp, "The Cod and the Com Don't Mix" 143 Chapter IX A. de Ruijter, Lévi-Strauss and Symbolic Anthropology 156 Chapter X P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Deductive Anthropology and Minangkabau 171 VI Chapter XI A. van Loopik, Social Structure in Mangili. A Secondary Analysis on the Basis of Structural Principlcs 181 Chapter XII L.D. Mezjers and J. Tennekes, Spirit and Matter In the Cosmology of Chassidic J udaism 200 INTRODUCTION ERIK SCHWIMMER STRUCTURAL AND SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY INTHE NETHERLANDS TODAY 1 The collection published here was brought together to form an issue of the Ycarbook of Symbolic Anthropology. The Yearbook had embarked on what proved to be toa difficult a project - that of bringing to world attention a number of the peripheral tradi­ tions of structural and symbolic anthropology, namely those out­ side the major world schools domiciled in France and the United States. These smaller anthropological centres '1.ppeared to me to offer solutions whose importance was underestimated in the centres where the basic theories had been formulated. Apart from the Dutch collection, a Danish, Brazilian and Soviet collec­ tion had been planned. The fact that the Dutch collection now appears in the Nether­ lands, af ter years of delay, shows that the position of what 1 called the smaller centres is even more precarious than I had supposed. It was generous of the publishers of this series to permit me nonetheless to make the points I had in mind in the context of their series. The basic virtue of the smaller anthropological centres is that they have tended to counteract dangerous fissional tendencies within structural and symbolic anthropology. It is not my purpose here to discuss these fissional tendencies in general terms, but a good example of them, clearly evident in the con­ tributions of the present volume, is the polarizing of structural and symbolic anthropology into two supposedly opposed camps whose leading figures would be Claude Lévi-Strauss and Victor Turner. The inconvenience of such intra-clan feuds lies in the threat by powerful outside forces to destroy the whole tradition of social anthropology and thus finally dispose in one blow of the Turnerians and the Lévi-Straussians together. They should there­ fore be mindful of what unites them as weIl as what divides 2 Erik Schwimmer them. The value of the articles brought together here, quite apart from their particular ethnographic and semiotic virtues, is that they demonstrate this unity in their practice, even if not always in their theory. By and large, phenomenology and rationalism are here kept in equilibrium, as in deed they have been in Dutch thought over the centuries. When I first conceived this volume, I had hoped that van Baal and Pouwer would have been represented here, as their work exemplifies very clearly the kind of equilibrium I had in mind. Aware of the compelling force of both structuralism and phenomenology, they have used both as tools to bring in telligibil­ ity to the symbolic systems of their chosen culture area. The younger authors in the present volume have not always been fully conscious of the contradiction between these two ten den­ cies, nor of the methods by which it can be transcended, but if all contributions are taken together they point at the same message which, in any case, is made explicit in the contributions by de J osselin de Jong, Locher and Moyer. The present contribution wiII demonstrate the point made above with reference to the colIcction of articles presented here. In a further section, it wiII take up the crucial question posed in de Josselin de Jong's article, namely within what limits anthro­ pology can be and to what extent it should be deductive. For it seems that a balanced reply to that question would provide us with a viabIe working relationship between structuralism and phenomenology. It would also seem that the answer given by de J osselin de Jong is very much in the main stream of the Leiden tradition. FinaIly, we should like to examine the relevance of that answer for anthropology in genera!. 11 The present volume appears to have affinities with the work of both Lévi-Strauss and Victor Turner, as weIl as having been influenced by various forms of phenomenologist thinking. Some influence of Marx is discernible only in the work of Schcfold. The contributions here take none of these schools for granted but abound in critical questions in re gard to all of them. Moyer sums up weIl this eclectici sm when he points out that the specific interest of "de Leidse richting" lies in the articulation of the lived-in and the conceived orders. Moreover, th is articulation is, as Moyer correctly argues, proposed not in a universal model but only on the level of a particular culture area or "studieveld ". Introduction 3 Vet a studieveld, in this sense, is by no means ta be equated to a single culture, nor exactly to a culture area. It has, for instance, been used in the context of making a comparison between In­ donesian and Proto-Indochinese agricultural rituals. The relation­ ship between the conceived and the lived-in order in a socio­ cultural unit of such range cannot therefore be established by a phenomenological inquiry, such as that by Victor Turner of the Ndembu. On the other hand, there are still important unifor­ mities within the studieveld, such th at structural relationships need never be justified by some blanket theory about universal mental structures, but rest - at the very least - on a broad history of communications within a given region. Moyer points out th at Lévi-Strauss' own work has a similar historical founda­ tion, even though the studieveld in this case extends from South America to the Northwest Coast. Thus the concept of studieveld is broadly consistent with the structuralist method. As such, it is apt to occupy an uncomfortable intermediate position between major schools outside the Netherlands. An excellent example of the discomfort of this position is furnished by Locher's description of how he was caught in the crossfire between Boas and Preuss in the 1930's. Locher, like his thesis director J.P .B. de J osselin de Jong, was opposed to Boas' particu­ larism, nor could he be identified with the theories of Preuss, even though the latter appears to have come to his rescue. The ancestry of Locher's methodology, as he explains in detail, was Dutch and French, hence focussed on the holistic analysis of specific systems of varying range. In the end, this approach won adherents also in the United States so that Irving Goldman 's recent standard work accorded Locher the international recogni­ tion he had deserved much earlier, for having pioneered the systematic study of Kwakiutl mythology. Another case of the same search for articulations between the conceptual and lived-in orders is given by Kamma's article, which should be read together with his well-known book on Koreri movements. While the earlier book describes the strictly religious content of these movements in historical context, the article published here articulates them with two action systems, namely the repertoire of rituals and the political, ritual and religious levels of the relationship between Biak and the Tidore sultanate. Some might argue with Kamma's assessment of the political relationship, as all State formations, even the most oppressive, may weIl have grown from such seemingly innocuous beginnings, but it remains a fact th at we have few descriptions as detailed as 4 Erik Schwimmer Kamma's of the rcligious and ritual transactions of this seminal phase. The feudal lord might never be able to become the oppressor he of ten turns out to be, if the early phases of his ascendancy did not give rise to the rcligious adulation, in fact to the love of participation in the State formation, so weIl evoked by Kamma. During the phase of culture when ritual closure is effective, it would appear that millennialism offers a solution to the contra­ diction between forced tribute payment and autonomy. Koreri offers a symbolic sultanate in opposition to the physical one. It is only when we learn about the magico-religious transactions with the Sultanate that the Biak Koreri movements become entirely clear in their articulations with the lived-in orders. Kamma's article lies thus entirely within the tradition Moyer attempted to interpret.