592
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
Let us try to determine the place of this new term in our system
of oppositions. In the technique of smoking, as in that of roasting, noth–
ing is interposed between meat and fire except air. But the difference
between the two techniques comes from the fact that in one the layer of
air is reduced to a minimum, whereas in the other it is brought to a
maximum. To smoke game, the American Indians (in whose culinary
system smoking occupies a particularly important place) construct a
wooden frame (a buccan) about five feet high, on top of which they place
the meat, while underneath they light a very small fire which is kept
burning for forty-eight hours or more. Hence for one constant-the
presence of a layer of air-we note two differentials which are expressed
by the oppositions
close/distant
and
rapid/slow.
A third differential is
created by the absence of a utensil in the case of roasting (any stick
doing the work of a spit), since the buccan is a constructed framework,
that is, a cultural object.
In this last respect, smoking is related to boiling, which also requires
a cultural means, the receptacle. But between these two utensils a
remarkable difference appears, or more accurately, is instituted by the
culture precisely in order, it seems, to create the opposition, which without
such a difference might have remained too ill-defined to take on mean–
ing. Pots and pans are carefully cared for and preserved utensils, which
one cleans and puts away after use in order to make them serve their
purpose as many times as possible; but the buccan
must be destroyed
immediately after use,
otherwise the animal will avenge itself, and come
in turn to smoke the huntsman. Such, at least, is the belief of those same
natives of Guiana whose other symmetrical belief we have already noted:
that a poorly-conducted boiling, during which the cauldron overflowed,
would bring the inverse punishment, flight of the quarry, which the
huntsman would no longer succeed in overtaking.
On
the other hand, as
we have already indicated, it is clear that the boiled is opposed both to
the smoked and the roasted in respect to the presence or absence of
water.
But let us come back for a moment to the opposition between a
perishable and a durable utensil which we found in Guiana in connection
with smoking and boiling.
It
will allow us to resolve an apparent difficulty
in our system, one which doubtless has not escaped the reader. At the start
we characterized one of the oppositions between the roasted and the boiled
as reflecting that between nature and culture. Later, however, we
proposed an affinity between the boiled and the rotted, the latter defined
as the elaboration of the raw by natural means. Is it not contradictory that
a cultural method should lead to a natural result? To put it in other
terms, what, philosophically, will be the value of the invention of pot-
