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Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits: Gossip and Scandal Author(S): Max Gluckman Source: Current Anthropology, Vol

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Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits: Gossip and Scandal Author(S): Max Gluckman Source: Current Anthropology, Vol Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits: Gossip and Scandal Author(s): Max Gluckman Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Jun., 1963), pp. 307-316 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2739613 . Accessed: 28/07/2011 12:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org Papersin Honor of MelvilleJ. Herskovits Gossipand Scandal byMax qluckman IT HAS TAKEN the developmentof anthropological individual... the same rightto indulgein slander, interestin the growthand break-upof small groups gossip,outbursts of conceit,jealously, etc., that he has to putgossip and scandalinto their proper perspective, to givevent to themore respectable emotions." Radin's as among the most importantsocietal and cultural theorywas thusmuch less acutethan his observations phenomenawe are called upon to analyse.Perceptive of gossip.He may have confusedthe maintenance of anthropologistsdealt withthese phenomena from the a surfaceof goodrelations between leaders with actual early days of field observation.Paul Radin, in his good relations,but he clearlydetected how theycom- PrimitiveMan as a Philosopher(1927:177-8), described peted throughgossip, without being able to weave theway in which this into a theory.This is partlyunderstandable in primitivepeople are indeed among the most persistent and termsof the backgroundof analyticalideas at the inveterateofgossips. Contestants for the same honours, pos- timehe wrote,though a yearearlier, Malinowski had sessorsof thesacred rites of thetribe, the authorized nar- presentedhis theoryof mythas a social charterfor ratorsof legends,all leaveyou in littledoubt as to the existingsocial arrangementson the basis of a man's characterand proficiency oftheir colleagues. "Ignoramus," boasts that he had theprivilege to tell a certainmyth "braggart,"and not infrequently "liar" are liberally bandied (Mythin about. PrimitivePsychology, 1926). Radin commentedthat therefore"some observers In his study of a Trinidad Village (1947:185), have drawn the conclusionthat not love, kindness, Herskovitsprobed much more deeply into gossipas and forbearance,but envy,slander and hate are the a culturalphenomenon. He discusseshow prosecutions dominantatmosphere of a primitivecommunity." He and jailingof a sectcalled the Shouters"give riseto arguedthat this was incorrect,because the "unkind gossip about the eventsthat led to the suppressed and slanderousremarks so frequentlybandied about meetings,tales that are told and retoldwith a mixture do not engenderfeuds and that oftenthe principals of relishand sympathy."He proceedsto show how concernedare on verygood terms."Radin dismissed popular attitudesand pointsof view influencethis the idea that this contradictionwas to be explained gossip,so that"fantasy supplements or evensupplants by "suppressionor sublimation";but he fellback on factin orderto weave moreclosely a new motifinto a meagrepsychological thesis, that tribal society has a the old patternof grievanceagainst discrimination." theoryof freedomof expressionwhich gives "every Thus oft-repeatedgossip blamed the local ministerfor a firstseries of arrestsof Shouters,for it was alleged that he was piqued becausethe Shoutershad drawn MAX GLUCKMAN is Professor of Social Anthropologyat the Victoria Universityof Manchester,England. Born in 1911, he away his own congregation.Prominent laymen of a was educated in Johannesburgand as a Rhodes Scholar at recognizedchurch were accusedin gossipof leading Oxford (D.Phil., 1936). He carried out lengthyfield research the police to a Shouters'meeting. Herskovits relates among the Zulu and the Barotse and shortersurveys in other this gossip to allegationsby those of lower socio- Rhodesian tribes. He was Director of the Rhodes-Livingstone economic Institute'of Social Studies in British Central Africa (1939- positionthat the discriminationof larger 1947), beforebecoming a UniversityLecturer at Oxford (1947- and wealthierdenominations had achievedthe passing 9), whence he established the Department of Social Anthro- of theordinance forbidding the Shoutersin order"to pology and Sociology at Manchester.He has been editor of the suppressa dangerousrival in the questfor souls." Rhodes-LivingstoneInstitute publications. In anotherstudy Herskovits connects with Gluckman's main publications are on politics and law, in- gossip cluding a series of books and essays on the Barotse and a the maintenanceof morals.In his Life in a Haitian number of essays on the Zulu, as well as collaborativework Valley (1937:74f) he analyses songs sung at the on the Rhodesian Tonga and Lamba. Also, he has published working-bees-thecombites: general theoretical work, including Custom and Conflict in Africa and Rule, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (in press), Atthe combite a man not only learns all thegossip of the with contributionsto Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations day,but enjoys learning and singing the songs which caus- and Closed Systemsand Open Minds: The Limits of Naivete ticallycomment on theshortcomings ofneighbours, or eval- in Social Anthropology(in press), both of which last he edited. uatethe hospitality of thosewho have called combites, or A collection of his essays has just been published under the detail title Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa. scandal,phrased with sufficient directness to allow Max Gluckman's paper is the third in a series, edited by thereference of thesong to remainctear, but warily, so as Francis L. K. Hsu and Alan P. Merriam specially prepared to notto givethe individual grounds for direct recrimination. honor Melville J. Herskovits.The entireseries, when completed, As we shallsee, all thelessons of successfulscandal- will constitutea new type of Festschrift(CA 4:92). mongeringare compressedin Herskovits'few words. Vol. 4 * No. 3 * June 1963 307 He goes on to explainhow thismakes the leaderof against the canons of the Church. Yet it is possible to thesongs feared, for as one Haitian expressedit, "The show that among relatively small groups, gossip, in simidor[leader] is a journalist,and everysimidor is all its very many varieties,is a culturallydetermined a Judas!"Herskovits-anticipating here the analysis on process, which has its own customaryrules, trespass whichI shallmainly depend-gives examples of these beyond which is heavily sanctioned. I propose to songsto showhow theyfind favour "among a people illustratethe social affiliationsof this process and to to whosenatural love of gossipis added a patterned suggestthat gossip, and even scandal, have important relishfor oblique public statement of individualshort- positive virtues. Clearly they maintain the unity, comings."He thencites songs which scorn inhospitality morals and values of social groups. Beyond this, they and meanness,a love affairbetween two firstcousins, enable these groups to control the competingcliques and an impendingquarrel where a suspicionof magic and aspiringindividuals of which all groups are com- practicesentered, and finallya song which was a posed. And finally, they make possible the selection challengein whichthe singerboasted of his equality of leaders without embarrassment. withanother. The one theme of my argumentwas clearly ex- The connectionof gossipwith the maintenanceof pressedin Jane Austen'snovel, Emma, that penetrating the unityof groupsand theirmorality was takena analysis of the small village of Highbury in Surrey. stepfurther by JamesWest in hisstudy of Plainsville, You may rememberthe passage when the elite of the U.S.A., (1945:99-107, 162), a Middle West town; village were to gather for Christmas dinner at Mr. and thisis the firstbeginning of an analysiswhich Weston's house. Among themwas Mr. JohnKnightly, demonstratesthe pervasiverole of gossip in com- who had left Highbury to practise law in London. munitylife.' West describesvividly the "loafingand As he was driven throughthe snow to Mr. Weston's, gossip"groups of Plainsville,and createsthe sugges- he grumbledto his companions: tive title"gossip cells." There are groupsof old men A man musthave a verygood opinionof himselfwhen and old women,and men can only enterthe store he asks people to leave theirown fireside,and encounter wherethe old womensit by indulgingin a joking-
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