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VINCENT CRAPANZANO
Trus argument is logical, but, like so many logical arguments, it
does not necessarily hold when applied to the realities of social life.
Hunters - so ethnograpruc evidence demonstrates - do not necessarily
share in all the virtues Turnbull lists. He was fortunate to find in the
pygmies a people who held the values we cherish and he sought. It is
indeed rare that a sailor finds his port, and Turnbull was one of the
lucky ones. Still, if one reads
The Forest People
carefully, one discovers
a disjunction between the pygmies as Turnbull characterizes them and
the pygmies as they in fact behave. One need only consider how Turn–
bull's field assistant Kenge forced his sister Yambado to marry Taphu
so that he, Kenge, could marry Taphu's sister Maliamo.
One morning the village camp was awakened to the sound of ter–
rified screaming from the house directly opposite mine, where Yam–
bado was sleeping. I looked out my window and saw Kenge drag–
ging his sister out of the hut by one arm, pulling her over the
ground and shouting to the camp that she was no good and should
be killed. He pointed to her breasts and said she had enough milk
to feed a dozen cruldren, why did she refuse to marry? Yambado
was as strong as a buffalo, he continued, so why did she refuse to
work? He then gave what he considered could be the only reason,
which was extremely personal and uncomplimentary. Yambado tried
to get to her feet to hit him, but every time she began struggling
he simply thumped her on the back with his fist, still keeping a tight
hold of her with his other hand.
Kenge was soon surrounded by other villagers who encouraged him.
Kenge kicked Yambado. Yambado hit Kenge's leg. Kenge became so
enraged that "by the time he had finished with Yambado she was a
sorry sight, scratched and bleeding with one eye swollen." Finally after
further beatings from her mother she agreed to marry Taphu, retract–
ed once by covering herself with ashes, a sign of mourning, and was
finally married. Turnbull refers to all of this as "a little coercion."
Hopefully, he is being ironic.
I do not mean to disparage
The Forest People.
I want simply to
call attention to the role of the quest in the interpretation and evalua–
tion of the ethnographic experience. Written in 1961,
The Forest People
has already become a classic. It is a beautifully written, marvelously
sensitive portrayal of a people little known, less because of their isola–
tion than because, since Homer's time, they have been imprisoned within
the mythic discourse of the Western world. Unlike many popular ethnog–
raphies,
The Forest People
gives the reader a feel for the people both
