The Myths of Modern Primitivism
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The myths of modern primitivism Article Accepted Version Lodder, M. (2011) The myths of modern primitivism. European Journal of American Culture, 30 (2). pp. 99-111. ISSN 1758- 9118 doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/ejac.30.2.99_1 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31753/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . Published version at: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Article,id=11548/ To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/ejac.30.2.99_1 Publisher: Intellect All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online EJAC 30 (2) pp. 99–111 Intellect Limited 2011 European Journal of American Culture Volume 30 Number 2 © 2011 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ejac.30.2.99_1 MATT LODDER University of Reading The myths of modern primitivism ABSTRACT KEYWORDS 1. RE/Search Publications’ Modern Primitives (Vale and Juno 1989) changed countless tattoos 2. lives, bringing what had been a localized and niche set of body modification prac- modern primitives 3. tices, aesthetics and philosophies out of San Francisco to a global audience, dominat- body art 4. ing scholarly and popular discourse around body modification subculture for more body modification 5. than a decade afterwards. The voice of Fakir Musafar dominates the book. Don Ed Hardy 6. This article argues that modern primitives as Musafar defines them never really Fakir Musafar 7. existed (and never could have existed) in the terms he suggests, and goes on to 8. address an important sub-strand within Modern Primitives almost entirely ignored 9. by critics and commentators, who have read the book as generally representative of 10. the body modification culture as a whole. With specific reference to contributors such 11. as infamous tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy who do not frame their practice in ‘primi- 12. tive’ terms, the article concludes with a study of an alternative account presented by 13. Vale and Juno’s book: body modification as artistic practice. 14. 15. 16. Christian Klesse defines ‘Modern Primitives’ as ‘a subcultural movement 17. in the intersection of the tattoo, piercing and sado-masochism scenes’. 18. This ‘movement’, he explains, ‘originated in the 1970s in California, USA, 19. growing in numbers and significance in the following decades’ (Klesse 20. 2000). Virginia Eubanks’ definition is broader: ‘Modern Primitives’, she says, 21. ‘are loosely defined as those who participate in contemporary rituals that 22. include extensive body piercing, constriction (binding), scarification, “tribal” 99 EJAC_30.2_Lodder_99_111.indd 99 9/7/11 8:53:53 AM Matt Lodder 1. In Modern Primitives, tattooing, and branding’ (Eubanks 1996). Michael Atkinson describes how 1. Musafar says he coined the term in the neo-primitives are considered ‘the most influential of the new groups of 2. 1967. In other writings, tattoo artists and enthusiasts’ (Atkinson 2003: 45). A report by The Institute of 3. elsewhere, he says 1978 Cultural Research floridly describes how 4. (Musafar 1996: 325). 5. Today’s ‘modern primitives’ use tattoos, piercings and other forms of 6. skin design to perform almost exactly the same functions as that of our 7. ancestors: they use them to forge ‘tribal’ affiliations – and within that 8. circle they have come to represent a collective common language and 9. set of aesthetic values. 10. (Institute for Cultural Research 2000) 11. 12. To take such critics at their word would be to assume that there exists or existed 13. a vast community of people coalescing around an organizing philosophy, self- 14. identifying as individuals or groups under the labels ‘modern primitive’, ‘neo- 15. primitive’ and ‘neo-tribalist’. The movement has dominated the sociological, 16. anthropological and cultural studies literature on contemporary body modi- 17. fication practices in the West and is so pervasive in academic discourse that 18. even works that devote themselves to body modification practices, philoso- 19. phies and frameworks beyond the ‘primitive’ paradigm (Atkinson 2003; 20. Fenske 2007; MacCormack 2006; Pitts 2003; Sanders 2008; Sullivan 2001) feel 21. compelled to at least make reference to the notion of modern primitivism, if 22. only to comprehensively reject its tenets. 23. The term ‘modern primitive’ was coined in the mid-1970s by a body 24. modification practitioner known as Fakir Musafar (Musafar 1996, 2002, 2003; 25. Vale and Juno 1989).1 According to Musafar, a ‘modern primitive’ is ‘a non- 26. tribal person who responds to primal urges and does something with the 27. body’ (Musafar in Vale and Juno 1989: 15), with ‘primal urges’ understood to 28. mean some aculturally innate drive to mark, decorate or otherwise alter one’s 29. own body. Inspired from childhood by photographs in the National Geographic 30. Magazine and by anthropology textbooks to ape and appropriate so-called 31. ‘primitive’ body modification practices including tattooing, piercing, scarifi- 32. cation, branding and flesh-hook suspension, Musafar and a small clique of 33. associates from southern California developed a philosophy and way of life 34. based on what they called ‘body play’, which they saw as directly oppositional 35. to and as spiritually, ethically and even psychologically preferable to the ‘civi- 36. lized’ culture of America and the West. 37. Musafar’s modern primitivism combines participation in a bewilderingly 38. disparate set of tribal body practices with an ill-defined and woolly conception 39. of spirituality. From the piercings of the Masai to the ecstatic dances of Indian 40. sadhus, from Maori tattoos to Native American flesh-hanging rituals and 41. from the penile implants of Japanese Yakuza gangs to the stretched necks 42. of the Padung women of Thailand, any form of body modification or bodily 43. orientated ritual with an appropriately ‘tribal’ lineage is deemed appropriate 44. for appropriation and redeployment in the pursuit of self-discovery. The 45. concept came to prominence following the publication in 1989 of Modern 46. Primitives – An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual by V. Vale 47. and Andrea Juno (Vale and Juno 1989, see Figure 1) and the book, as Nikki 48. Sullivan explains, ‘has now achieved something of a cult status’ (Sullivan 49. 2001: 36). It is the touchstone text for studies of contemporary Western body 50. modification practices. Every critical engagement with the ‘Modern Primitives’ 51. or ‘neo-tribal’ movement is grounded in discussions of it; it is treated by 52. 100 EJAC_30.2_Lodder_99_111.indd 100 9/7/11 8:53:53 AM The myths of modern primitivism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. Figure 1: Modern Primitives (San Fransisco : RE/Search, 1989). Cover. 38. 39. 40. commentators as a manifesto or the Bible of a defined movement (e.g. in 41. Rosenblatt 1997: 298) and the ideas expressed within it are often taken for the 42. purposes of criticism as representative of body modification more generally 43. (Turner 2000). 44. The problem is not only that nothing that could truly be called a movement 45. of self-identified ‘Modern Primitives’ ever existed either before the book was 46. published or afterwards, but also that the book itself has been repeatedly 47. misrepresented, with analysis of large swathes of the interviews within it almost 48. entirely absent from the literature. Almost every piece of writing I have cited 49. thus far is harshly and, I would argue, justifiably critical of Musafar’s ideas and 50. ideology. They are idealistic, idealizing and even potentially offensive. They 51. rely on some extraordinarily naïve and muddled conceptions of traditional 52. non-Western bodily practices. They pick and choose from practices from an 101 EJAC_30.2_Lodder_99_111.indd 101 9/7/11 8:53:53 AM Matt Lodder 2. A previous version enormous range of time-periods and geographical locations and attempt to 1. of Musafar’s article published elsewhere mash them together into a coherent set of beliefs and aims. In short, they 2. renders this as do not hold up to the sustained scrutiny to which they have been subjected. 3. ‘atavists’ (Favazza 1996: Nevertheless, I want to argue that although this criticism is for the most part 4. 327. Quotes in original). entirely correct, it is also almost universally quixotic. 5. 3. See also Siorat (2005) 6. 7. ‘MODERN PRIMITIVES’ IN MODERN PRIMITIVES 8. There are two distinct mistakes that saturate the discussions of Modern 9. Primitives: assuming everyone in the book subscribes to a philosophy informed 10. by primitivism, and that this philosophy is reflective of how a larger move- 11. ment of individuals relate to their bodies and the modification practices they 12. undergo. The first error is born out of a shallow reading of the book as a 13. whole: Musafar’s ideas do not make up the whole of Modern Primitives; they 14. occupy only 36 of its 200-plus pages, and Musafar cannot legitimately be said 15. to be ideologically representative of anything other than his own ideas. When 16. writers such as Eubanks and Klesse write about ‘Modern Primitives’, they 17. are writing only about Fakir Musafar and ‘a handful of other activists’ from 18. his immediate social circle (Musafar 2003: 28).2 Rosenblatt (1997) argues that 19.