Paul Stoller

Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology

In: L'Homme, 1984, tome 24 n3-4. pp. 91-114.

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Stoller Paul. Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology. In: L'Homme, 1984, tome 24 n3-4. pp. 91-114.

doi : 10.3406/hom.1984.368516

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 EYE, MIND AND WORD IN ANTHROPOLOGY

by
PAUL STOLLER*

La nature est l'intrieur.

CZANNE

To know nature is to know the texture of inner space, for

"Qualit, lumire, couleur, profondeur, qui sont l-bas devant nous, n'y
sont que parce qu'elles veillent un cho dans notre corps, parce qu'il leur
fait accueil" (Merleau-Ponty 1964a: 22).

Czanne and his admirer Merleau-Ponty are heretics. They dare to challenge
the Aristotelian premise that nature is on the outside. How can we know if we
cannot test experimentally that which we observe? How can we know if we do
not have a theoretical orientation which gives form and substance to brute
experiential data? Despite their intellectual heresy, Czanne and Merleau-
Ponty realize that the world consists of much more than observed objective
reality and the hypotheses, theorems and laws which scientists extract from their
observations. In his brilliant essay, L'il et l'esprit, Merleau-Ponty writes:

"La science manipule les choses et renonce les habiter [. . .] Elle est,

* Acknowledgements. Research upon which the present paper is based was made possible
through monies provided by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (GOO-
76-03659), a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (# 3175),
a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship in Science for the academic year 1979-80, two grants from
the American Philosophical Society (1981, 1982), and a series of faculty grants from West
Chester University of Pennsylvania. I thank these institutions for their generous support.
For their comments and advice, I thank Chris Soufas, a master of current literary theory,
and Jeanne Favret-Saada who has been a continuous source of support. I would also like
to thank Joan Koss who first encouraged me to write this paper. Research in Niger could
not have been accomplished without the aid of many people, including, first and foremost,
S. E. Col. Seyni Kountche, President of the Republic of Niger, who has granted me four
authorizations to conduct research in Niger, Dioulde Laya, a continuing source of support,
and the researchers and officials of the Institut de Recherche en Sciences Sociales of the
University of Niamey. Thanks are also due to Mrs. Lucille Mitchell who typed and retyped
this manuscript.

L'Homme, juil.-dc. 1984, XXIV (3-4), pp. 91-114.

92 PAUL STOLLER

elle a toujours t, cette pense admirablement active, ingnieuse, dsin

volte, ce parti pris de traiter tout tre comme 'objet en gnral', c'est--dire
la fois comme s'il ne nous tait rien et se trouvait cependant prdestin
nos artifices" {ibid.: 9).

Merleau-Ponty believes that we lose much of the substance of life-in-the-world

by thinking operationally, by denning rather than experiencing the reality of
things. Despite the hegemony of science in Western thought, Merleau-Ponty
does not despair, for he envisages the painter as the pathfinder on the road back
to what he calls the "there is". The painter, says Merleau-Ponty, appreciates
the life that resides in objects. The painter recognizes forces the "reverber
ations"of which can create sentiments in the eye and mind of the person who
experiences the world.1
But how can the painter lead us to a vantage from which we can appreciate
more profoundly the life which resides in objects or in other people? For Czanne,
Merleau-Ponty and others, painters are pathfinders back to the "there is" because
they give their bodies to the world. For the painter there is no Cartesian sepa
ration of mind and body, no Comtean distinction of subjective data-gathering
and objective data analysis.

"Et, en effet, on ne voit pas comment un Esprit pourrait peindre. C'est

en prtant son corps au monde que le peintre change le monde en peinture"
(ibid.: 16).

And so, in the act of painting we have a metaphor for seeing and thinking in
the world, a seeing- thinking from the inside. As Klee has written:

"Dans une fort, j'ai senti plusieurs reprises que ce n'tait pas moi qui
regardais la fort. J'ai senti, certains jours, que c'taient les arbres qui
me regardaient, qui me parlaient. Moi, j'tais l, coutant [. . .] Je crois
que le peintre doit tre transperc par l'univers et non vouloir le trans
percer [. . .] J'attends d'tre intrieurement submerg, enseveli. Je
peins peut-tre pour surgir" (Charbonnier 1959, cit par Merleau-Ponty
1964a: 31)-

In this article I shall suggest that anthropologists, like Klee, need to "break
out". Unlike the painter, we are not necessarily submerged under an avalanche
of brute data which penetrates our senses; rather, we are buried under the sed
iment of centuries of cultural empiricism our senses penetrate brute data.
Indeed, ours is the "gaze", to borrow the apt term of Michel Foucault, of empiri-
1. Bachelard uses the term "reverberations" in his discussion of poetics (1957). He
suggests that the impact of a poem, for example, lies not in its referential content but in how
this referential content carries a message which strikes a resonant chord ("reverberates")
in the reader.
 EYE, MIND, WORD 93

cism. "Gaze" is the act of seeing; it is an act of selective perception (Foucault

1963: ix). Much of what we see is shaped by our experience, and our "gaze" has
a direct bearing upon what we think. And what we see and think, to take the
process one step further, has a bearing upon what we say and what and how we
write.
Like all human beings, anthropologists engage in the act of seeing. What
differentiates anthropological seeing from other forms of seeing is that our "gaze"
is directed toward an ethnographic Other. We talk to ethnographic Others
during fieldwork and attempt to make sense of what they say and do. Due to the
centrality of fieldwork to the anthropological enterprise, most anthropologists
give their eyes and minds to the world of the Other. Although anthropologists,
like painters, lend their bodies to the world, we tend to allow our senses to pene
trate the Other's world rather than letting our senses be penetrated by the world
of the Other. The result of this tendency is that we represent the Other's world
from the outside in a generally turgid discourse which often bears little resemblence
to the worlds we are attempting to describe.
What then does anthropological discourse represent? The question is posed
infrequently, for the notions of representation and discourse are subjects left
generally to discussion among philosophers of language and aesthetics. Indeed,
few scholars have written about the epistemological gulf which separates (field)
experience from the representation of that experience. In many fields of anthro
pology inquiry, social theories whatever their ilk can and do give from and
substance to anthropological data. While social theories create systems of expla
nation, it is of some debate whether these systems of explanation interpretations
from the outside are adequate representations of the Other's social reality (see
Duvignaud 1969; Jaulin 1970; Owusu 1978; Stoller 1980, 1982a, 1982b, 1982c,
1984).
The adequacy of applying social theory to anthropological data meets its
greatest test, however, in studies of shamanism, magic, and sorcery. In these
kinds of studies social theories may be of little aid in our assessment of brute data
in which the "irrationalities" of, say, a magical vision play a major role. Anthrop
ologists engaged in the study of shamanism, for example, may observe or expe
rience something so extraordinary that they can find no reasonable explanation
for it. How do we represent these data? Should we include these data in our
discourse? What would the painter do?
Those anthropologists who have observed or experienced something which
is beyond the edge of rationality tend to discuss it in informal settings over
lunch, dinner, or a drink. Serious anthropological discussion of the extraordinary,
in fact, transcends the bar or restaurant only on rare occasions (see Favret-
Saada 1977; Peters 1981). In formal settings we are supposed to be dispassionate
analysts; we are not supposed to include in discourse our confrontations with the
94 PAUL STOLLER

extraordinary because they are unscientific. It is simply not appropriate to

expose to our colleagues the texture of our hearts and uncertainties of our "gaze".
Many French anthropologists have lambasted Jeanne Favret-Saada for her
published study of witchcraft in the Bocage of Western France in which she
reveals what means being personally enmeshed in a system of magic-sorcery. In
her first book, Les Mots, la mort, les sorts (1977), the same author questions the
Cartesian foundation of the epistemology of anthropology. In her second book
on magic-sorcery in the Bocage, Corps pour corps (1981), she journeys beyond
the boundary of criticism and becomes a "pathfinder", for in this work, a journal
of her fieldwork, she experiments with the form of anthropological discourse.
The painter sees

"ce qui manque au monde pour tre tableau et [. . .] il voit [. . .] le tableau

qui rpond tous ces manques. . ." (Merleau-Ponty 1964a: 25).

What of the inadequacies of anthropological discourse? In this article, by way

of an epistemological discussion of my own experience among the Songhay people
of the Republic of Niger, I shall suggest that we need to transform ourselves from
ethnographic "spectators into seers" (Lascault as cited in Cassou 1968: 73).
Although the account of my exposure to the mysteries of the world of Songhay
magic will be necessarily personal, I hope the reader will grasp, in the end, the
epistemological utility of so personal an account of a field experience. If we
learn to "read" and "write" in a manner similar to the way the painter paints,
I shall suggest, we may well be able to revivify works which represent anthropol
ogy so that they become the study of human being as well as that of human
behavior (Armstrong 1971).

Journey into Songhay Inner Space

My journey into Songhay inner space began innocently enough in 1976 in the
Songhay village of Mehanna, a cluster of mudbrick compounds divided into
seven neighborhoods, which hugs the West bank of the Niger River in the Republic
of Niger.2 I had been in Mehanna investigating how Songhay use symbolic

2. The Songhay are a people of some 800,000 who live along the banks of the Niger River
from as far north as Timbuktu, Mali, to as far south as Sanasane-Hausa in the Republic
of Niger. There are, in addition, some 2.5 million first-language Songhay speakers living
in Mali, Niger and Northern Benin. These Songhay speakers, however, are members of
other ethnic groups (Wogo, Kurtey, Zerma, Dendi) which have distinct social histories.
Songhay society is characterized by social asymmetry. There are the nobles who trace
their descent patrilineally to Askia Mohammed Toure, King of the Songhay Empire from
1493 to 1527. There are free commoners who trace their descent to either freed slaves or
to Songhay who have no patrilineal links to Askia Mohammed Toure. There are also the
 EYE, MIND, WORD 95

forms in local-level politics, the topic of my doctoral research. During my first

few months in Mehanna much of my time was spent tape-recording formal and
informal orations which occurred during public rituals or private discussion groups
(see Stoller 1978, 1981). Soon after I had moved into my house in Mehanna, a
two-room mudbrick house in the neighborhood of nobles, I noticed, between the
beams of my roof, a bird nest, made of dried mud. Two small birds, one white
and one black, would periodically enter and leave the nest, and I suspected that
soon there would be more than two in my house. My discovery became all the
more frightful when I observed that the birds had defecated on my dirt floor.
Despite the rather rustic nature of my mudbrick and dirt surroundings I did,
nevertheless, maintain my admittedly ethnocentric standards of cleanliness.
Disgusted with the slovenly habits of these birds, I knocked down their nest. The
birds decided to test my perseverence, however; they came back and built another
nest, only to be destroyed. They returned; I destroyed. They returned;
I destroyed, and so on. Finally, I surrendered and silently agreed to accept the
fact that the birds were going to remain in my house and that there was nothing
I could do to prevent them from defecating on my floor, my tables, my books,
and even on my plates, posts and pans! My view after six months of battle was:
Hell, if they defecate on my plates, I will simply wash them.
This attitude toward the filthy presence of the birds in my house was, I suppose,
part of my Songhayization. Soon, I simply regarded the two birds as permanent
fixtures in my house and I came to ignore them. One afternoon, however, while
I was typing my fieldnotes of the day in the presence of Seyni, a farmer from the
village, one, maybe both, of the birds defecated on my head. "Goddam country.
Goddam village. Goddam country", I screamed. Seyni, who had been observing
me as I typed, laughed loudly and proclaimed: "Alahaamdu Lilaahi (Praise be to
God!). What! I shrieked in Songhay. How can you say something like that
at a time like this? I am sick and tired of all you Songhay and your sick humor.
Just look at my head. Alahaamdu Lilaahi, Seyni repeated in almost gleeful
tones. I have seen something here. No kidding, I interjected. You
don't know it. . ., Seyni said, but I am a sorko (praise-singer to the spirits and a
healer), as is my father, as was my father's father. The birds have told me that
I should begin to teach you sorkotarey (the essence of being a sorko) . If you agree
to come to my house tomorrow at dusk, we shall begin to learn ritual texts. "
My immediate inclination was to think: But what would the members of the
dissertation committee think. . . I would like to study with you, but I really

(former) slaves who trace their descent patrilineally to prisoners of precolonial wars who were
incorporated in Songhay society. And there are the foreigners, the aforementioned Wogo,
Kurtey, Zerma and Dendi as well as such groups as the Hausa, Tuareg, and Fulani. These
peoples have migrated to and settled in Songhay country over the centuries.
96 PAUL STOLLER

must complete my dissertation work. My second inclination was to accept this

rare invitation because I knew that this kind of opportunity could not be deferred.

Learning to be a sorko

The sorko (plur.: sorkey) in Songhay society is a praise-singer to the spirits of

the Songhay pantheon and is a healer who treats cases of witchcraft (cerkotarey),
sorcery (bab'izey foutey), and spirit sickness (hole doro). Most sorkey are the
patrilineal descendants of Faran Maka Bote, the first sorko, the son of a fisherman,
Nisili Bote, and a river genie, Maka. How could I, a White European, fit into
the genealogy of the sorkey? Through my study of ritual texts, I soon learned
that there are two categories of sorkey: lineal descendants of Faran Maka, and
people like me who are trained and initiated because a practicing sorko sees a
sign. The latter category is called sorko benya (lit.: "slaves of the sorko").
People in this category learn almost as much as lineal descendants of sorkey, but
there are secrets that a master will impart only to consanguineal kin.
As I mentioned in a previous article (Stoller 1980), the novice sorko must
memorize scores of ritual texts, learn how to find special herbal ingredients and
then how to mix them correctly into potions. When the potion is prepared and
administered to a client, the apprentice must learn how to recite the appropriate
ritual text. Once a novice is selected, he is said to have "entered into sorko-
tarey". When I entered into sorkotarey, Seyni said: "You know nothing. Listen,
remember and learn." This I did until I was ready to be initiated by my friend's
father who, after more than fifty years of study and reflection, had become a
master sorko.
A person becomes a master sorko only when, after years of apprenticeship, he
hears from his dying father (or initiator) most powerful secrets. Armed with this
knowledge, the new master takes upon his shoulders the spiritual burden of his
community, so as to protect it from the forces of evil: witchcraft, sorcerers, and
the force of maliferous spirits. This short old man, with penetrating black eyes
and a quiet laugh, listened to my recitation of ritual texts and spirit praise-songs.
Satisfied, he consented to initiate me as a sorko benya. He prepared a special
food, called in Songhay kusu, and told me that when I meet other people along
the path (of sorkotarey) I should tell them that I am "full", or that I should push
my forefinger into my stomach. He also told me that the learning never stops.
"Your journey into the world of magic [what I am here calling Songhay inner
space] will end only with your death. "
Because I still knew "nothing" about sorkotarey, my initiator, the now deceased
sorko Koda Mounmouni, sent me to "sit" with a master healer of all the Songhay,
sohanci Adamu Jenitongo, a patrilineal descendant of the great "Magic King"
of the Songhay Empire, Sonni Ali Ber. During my stay with Adamu Jenitongo
 EYE, MIND, WORD 97

we would talk about the Songhay universe. He would never lecture me; rather
he insisted that I ask questions and if the questions were well formed, he might
provide an answer to them. If the questions, which were often about obscure
passages of ritual texts, were not well formed, he would ask me to think more
about the texts.
From this short frail old man I learned not a few ritual texts which were
designed to protect me from the forces of evil which I would confront on the path
of sorkotarey. "And if a witch or sorcerer should ever attack you", he always
told me, "you must recite the genji how", a text the power of which harmonizes
the forces of bush. My studies with sohanci Adamu Jenitongo capped my year
of doctoral fieldwork. I returned to the United States committed to completing
my study on the use of symbolic forms in Songhay local level politics. If any
thing, my incipient training as a sorko benya had convinced me of the depth of my
ignorance about Songhay cosmology, magic, sorcery and witchcraft.
And so, I completed my dissertation but was nonetheless determined to
continue along my path. I was by no means a believer, I simply wanted to
explore every opportunity to continue my studies with sohanci Adamu Jeni
tongo. My view of Songhay healing up to that point had been conditioned by
my scientific gaze. I sought explanations for the phenomena I had observed.
Many of the healings that I had witnessed and participated in could be explained,
or so I reasoned, through a detailed pharmacological study of the curative agents
in the various plants which the healer administered to his patients. I made
notes of the kinds of plants used in potions and categorized them scientifically.
I also analyzed the significance of the ritual texts I was learning from a structura
list perspective, teasing ouf of them meaningful oppositions. Adamu Jeni
tongo, my teacher, encouraged me to write down the incantations and the names of
plants but he cautioned me to never publish the incantations in the original Song
hay, for as he said: "It is in the sound of incantation that the power is carried."
I was unconvinced. How could words carry power? How could words have
an existence of their own a far cry from the Western conception that words
are neutral instruments of reference. Despite my commitment to learning about
Songhay magic from the Songhay perspective from the inside, to borrow Roger
Bastide's (i960) notion Adamu Jenitongo sensed my growing skepticism. "It is
time for you to travel", he told me. "Go to Wanzerbe and seek out a woman
called Kasey. She will teach you a great deal about the Songhay world of
magic."

Crossing the Threshold in Wanzerbe

The travel to Wanzerbe in January of 1980 was uneventful. I arrived in the
riverain town of Ayoru on Sunday, the day of the market, hoping to find someone
who was on his or her way to Wanzerbe, the magic city of the Songhay which
7
0,8 PAUL STOLLER

was some hundred kilometers West of the Niger River. I found a driver of a
Dodge troop carrier which had a crank starter. He told me to enjoy myself at
the market and to make sure I had crossed the river by 5:00 p.m. I did enjoy
the market that day, having had the opportunity to see old friends from Mehanna
and other neighboring villages. The day passed quickly, however, and it was
soon time to arrange for a dugout ride across the river. In January the level of
the Niger is at its zenith in the Republic of Niger. To arrive at our destination,
Dolsul, on the West bank of the river, we had to pole upstream for three kilo
meters, and then pole our way westward through the lush green of the rice paddies.
The river near Ayoru can be one mile wide at points, and so the crossing to Dolsul
took more than two hours to complete. We finally arrived only to wait more
than two hours for the driver. In the blackness of a moonless night, we all piled
into the troop carrier. Someone crank-started the engine and we trucked west
ward following tracks over the dunes. After having been stuck in the sand three
times we finally arrived in Wanzerbe at 1:00 a.m. My only friend in the town had
been waiting for me since dusk. He took my bag and led me to my lodgings,
in Karia, one of two neighborhoods of the town. My friend, Siidi, told me that
Kasey had left town the previous day, but that her associate whose knickname
was Dunguri ("beans") would see me.
In Karia, I slept soundly in a mudbrick hut which had a soft sand floor. The
next morning was cool and crisp no traces of clouds in the blue sky. Siidi, a
short man of thirty, who was quite slender and who had mark of the Songhay on
his face (a scar extending from just to the left of his nose to the rounded part of
his cheekbone), took me on a walking tour of Wanzerbe. We walked through the
dusty narrow paths of Karia, extending our necks over the mudbrick walls of
compounds to greet townspeople. Having finished our tour of Karia, we walked
down a sandy hill toward the North-South road which separates Karia from
Sohanci, the name of the other neighborhood of Wanzerbe. Siidi escorted me
into the compound of the absent Kasey and introduced me to her daughters and
sons.
It was time to meet Dunguri. Having had the experience of being greeted
warmly by the other townspeople of Wanzerbe, I was surprised by the rather
cool welcome of Dunguri. Although her greetings were unenthusiastic, she
nonetheless asked me to enter her house. She talked almost exclusively to Siidi.
Turning to me, this short plump woman with a smooth face said: "Where did you
buy your rings?" I was wearing four rings on the third finger of my left hand,
which among Songhay healers is known as the finger of power. Healers wear
these rings to protect themselves from the forces of evil and to give "strength"
to their hearts. I did not believe in their efficacy. I wore them only because
Adamu Jenitongo had told me to do so. At that moment, I remembered that
Adamu Jenitongo said: "Never tell another person that the rings are special,
 EYE, MIND, WORD 99

especially if that person is on the path." So I told Dunguri that I had bought
the rings in Ayoru. "I like rings very much", I said. They are very pretty,
she remarked. Suddenly she stoop up. "Let me show you my animals and then
you must go. I have no more time for you today."
Again, I was shocked, for this kind of curt hospitality was atypical of the
Songhay. Dunguri led me on a short, perfunctory tour of her compound. After
seeing her full granary and her calves, she told me to leave the premises. Siidi
and I left and spent the afternoon and early evening in Karia. I was troubled
by Dunguri's behavior. Siidi was perplexed.
That evening Siidi and I shared a meal of rice and gumbo sauce. We ate
very little, as the sauce was thin and tasteless. There had been no salt in Wan-
zerbe for more than one week, and sauces had been for the most part meatless,
given the expense of buying beef or mutton at the weekly market. Having had
little sleep in the previous two days I told Siidi that I was going to lie down on
my straw mat. As Siidi left the hut I faded into sleep. My last conscious re
col ection was of the dim, flickering glow of our kerosene lantern.
Sometime later I was awakened by the sound of steps on the roof of my hut.
The sounds were a tattoo of thumps characteristic of a four-legged animal of
some size. I did not move, and the sound of whatever it was, went away. Then
I became frightened. I bolted upright and tried to move my legs. But I could
not budge them. I put my hands on my thighs, but I felt no sensation. My
heart raced. Too frightened to think, I acted impulsively like a sorko benya.
I began to recite the genji how, for Adamu Jenitongo had told me that if I ever
felt danger I should recite this text until I had conquered my fear. And so I
recited and recited it until I began to feel a slight tingling sensation in my upper
thighs. Encouraged, I continued the incantation and the tingling spread down
my thighs until I began to feel it in my legs. My voice cracked. Slowly, the
tingling spread from my legs to my feet. Eventually I was able to move my legs
and stand up. Intuition told me that the danger had passed. Exhausted, I laid
back on my straw mat and fell into a deep sleep. The next morning Siidi woke
me up. "You look like you had a bad night. Were you sick? Oh no, I said.
I just did not sleep as well as I might have. You should sleep some more. You
look terrible. I cannot go back to sleep, I told Siidi. I must leave the hut
now and see someone. I got up to leave. Wait. I will go with you. No,
Siidi, I must go alone."

I have no explanation why I felt the obligation to confront Dunguri, for I was
certain that it was she who had somehow precipitated the paralysis in my legs . The
previous night I had reacted to my crisis like a healer, and having weathered the
crisis, I had to continue to behave like a Songhay healer. And so I slowly walked
out of my compound in Karia. I trudged along the sandy paths which separated
100 PAUL STOLLER

one compound from another. The sun was still low in the eastern sky and the
air cool and dry. But I was tired and my heart pounded against my chest as I
continued, wondering what might happen to me when I confronted Dunguri.
I walked past the compound of Kasey and saw no one inside. I climbed up the
small dune upon which was situated the neighborhood of Sohanci. An old man
dressed in a tattered white robe greeted me in Songhay, but seeing my eyes, told
me to continue. As I neared the top of the dune I saw the compound of Dunguri
once again. The air was still, and I could not move forward. Then I remembered
what Adamu Jenitongo once told me: "When the healer reaches the fork in the
road he must make his choice of direction and continue forward. " And so I did.
With trembling arms and wobbly kness, I entered Dunguri's compound and pro
ceeded to center space. There I stood, waiting. After what seemed to me a very
long time, Dunguri emerged from her house. As she stared at me, my whole
body shook. But then she smiled at me and began to walk in my direction. Her
paced quickened. I was frozen to my spot. She came closer, her smooth face
now a patchwork of deep creases. Stopping a few feet from me, she said: "Now,
I know that you are a man with a pure heart. " She took my left hand and placed
it in hers. "You are ready. Come into my house and we shall begin to learn."

Representation and Ethnographic Realism

My encounter with Dunguri ends here even though I have seen her since that
meeting which thrust me for the first time into the magical dimension of the
Songhay world. This encounter, however, is more than a personal narrative;
it is an event-in-the-field which forces us to confront some serious epistemological
questions about the nature of anthropology and what it represents. Is it appro
priate to include in anthropological discourse so personal and so bizarre an
account? My first inclination was to answer this question with an emphatic
"No!"
Indeed, in my first article about some of my experiences in the world of
Songhay magic (Stoller 1980), I scrupulously avoided mentioning the fact that
I had learned much about Songhay magic from the "inside" as an initiated
apprentice. The only mention of my involvement in this text was relegated to a
footnote in which I described how a healer in the village of Mehanna came to
accept me as his student. Why did I edit myself out of this previously published
text? The answer is deceptively simple: we do not usually write what we want
to write. In my case, I had conformed to one of the conventions of ethnographic
realism according to which the author should be unintrusive in an ethnographic
text (Marcus & Cushman 1982: 31). As Foucault (1966) has powerfully demons
trated, all discourse is shaped by standards of acceptability the episteme which
govern the appropriateness of (ethnographic) content and style. These standards
 EYE, MIND, WORD IOI

of acceptability, moreover, determine both how an author will construct a text

and which kinds of texts are ultimately published.
Stylistic evidence of these standards of acceptability, these conventions of
representation, emerge from the most cursory examination of wide-ranging
varieties of discourse. In the 18th-century novel, for example, we have the
picaresque convention in which authors open their texts with statements concern
ing their family pedigree as well as their lust for travel (Pratt 1982: 140). The
important point here is that these conventions of representation are not limited
to a novelist like Swift, but permeate works of non-fiction as well. We see the
recurrent "monarch-of-all-I-survey" convention3 in such diverse works as Richard
F. Burton's (1971) account of his discovery of Lake Victoria, Alberto Moravia's
(1972) vision of the Ghanian capital of Accra and Paul Theroux's (1978) descrip
tion of Guatemala City. In all of these texts the authors describe scenes from a
masterly metaphoric balcony overlooking a vast panorama that they dominate
physically and metaphorically. Consider an example from Moravia:

"From the balcony of my room I had a panoramic view over Accra,

capital of Ghana. Beneath a sky of hazy blue, filled with mists and ragged
yellow and grey clouds, the town looked like a thick, dark cabbage soup in
which numerous pieces of white pasta were on the boil. The cabbages
were tropical trees with rich, trailing, heavy foliage of dark green speckled
with black shadows; the pieces of pasta the brand new buildings of re
inforced concrete, the numbers of which were now rising all over the town"
(1972: 1).

Here, Moravia objectifies and perhaps trivializes the city of Accra using such
bizarre European imagery as "cabbage soup" and "pasta". In the end, Pratt
(1982: 152) warns us that scholars must be sensitive to the messages which are
3. Consider two further examples of the "monarch-of-all-I-survey" convention of repre
sentation. The first is from Richard F. Burton's, The Lake Regions of Central Africa:
"Nothing, in sooth, could be more picturesque than this first view of the Tanganyika Lake,
as it lay in the lap of the mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical sunshine. Below and
beyond a short foreground of rugged and precipitous hillfold, down which the footpath
zigzags painfully, a narrow strip of emerald green, never sere and marvelously fertile, shelves
towards a ribbon of glistening yellow sand, here bordered by sedgy rushes, there cleanly and
clearly cut by the breaking wavelets..." (1971: 307).
The second example comes from Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express: "Gua
temala City, an extremely horizontal place, is like a city on its back. Its ugliness, which
has a threatened look (the low morose houses have earthquake cracks in their faades; the
buildings wince at you with bright lines), is ugliest on those streets where, just past the last
toppling house, a blue volcano cone bulges. I could see the volcanoes from the window of
my hotel roon. I was on the third floor, which was also the top floor..." (1978: 123).
In both cases, these excerpts, following Pratt's (1982: 149) arguments, use different
stylistic devices generated by the historical periods in which the works were written to
produce the rhetorical effect of the dominance of the seer over the seen. Burton uses beauty
and wonder to express his conquest of the lake; Moravia and Theroux use bizarre aesthetic
juxtaposition to trivialize their descriptions.
102 PAUL STOLLER

hidden in our taken-for-granted conventions of representation, and criticizes

". . .discourses that implicitly or explicitly dehumanize, trivialize, or devalue other
realities in the name of Western superiority. . ." Anthropologists should espe
cially be cognizant of Pratt's warning, for, like other scholars, we, too, have a
tacit set of conventions (ethnographic realism) which govern what and how we
represent the Other.

Conventions of Representation in Ethnographic Realism

Marcus and Gushman describe with detail the impact of ethnographic realism
upon anthropological discourse. They suggest that realist ethnographic discourse
seeks the reality of the whole of a given society, and that "realist ethnographies
are written to allude to the whole by means of parts of foci of analytical attention
which constantly evoke a social and cultural totality" (1982: 29).
Contrary to these comments, however, the source of ethnographic realism
must be sought prior to the establishment of anthropology as an academic disci
pline and the establishment of fieldwork as the methodological foundation of
ethnographic works. Indeed, ethnographic realism flows nicely into the stream
of the Western epistemological tradition which Whitehead (1969: 53) characterizes
as a "series of footnotes to Plato".
Plato emerges at a time in Greek thinking, of course, when there was perceived
need for systematic reflection, a need to create patterned order from the chaos of
continous flux. From the fragments of flux, Plato devises the notion of the
search for Truth, to paraphrase Richard Rorty (1983), in which we turn away from
subjective involvement to objectivity. Plato's quest for Truth (or Forms)
through objectivity, was his solution to the puzzle of the infinite variability to be
found in the world of appearances. And so, Plato becomes the first thinker to
distinguish appearance from reality. Behind every appearance, Plato tells us,
there is a hidden immutable Form. These Forms become the archetype of
knowledge, which must be distinguished from opinion. Opinions, in Plato's
view, are as unstable as the flux of appearances. Knowledge, on the other hand,
is an immutable pillar of reality.
From these relatively simple distinctions, the epistemology of Western philo
sophic tradition is born. These metaphysical distinctions have not been disputed
by others; rather, thinkers since Plato have disputed the question of how we dis
cover the reality (The One) hidden behind appearances (The Many), how we arrive
at Truth.
As Whitehead suggests, the search for The One in The Many has been at the
heart of Western scholarly discourse. This search has directed the cogitations
of such diverse groups of thinkers as the scholastic philosophers, the romantics,
the structuralists, the linguists, and the Marxists. Saussure (1955: 25), for
 EYE, MIND, WORD 103

example, considers parole beyond his focus of study, for it is so heterogeneous

that "... [le langage] ne se laisse classer dans aucune catgorie des faits humains,
parce qu'on ne sait comment dgager son unit". In his monumental work, Les
Structures lmentaires de la parent, Lvi-Strauss demonstrates that to discover
the meaning of a given institution, like marriage, we must commit ourselves to an
analysis which uncovers the reality obscured by the haze of appearances. In the
end, Lvi-Strauss argues that "C'est l'change, toujours l'change, qui ressort
comme la base fondamentale et commune de toutes les modalits de l'institution
matrimoniale" (1967: 549). The tradition of search for The One in The Many
leads ultimately to the dissolution of man in which "ethnographic analysis tries
to arrive at invariants beyond the empirical diversity of societies. . ." (Lvi-
Strauss as quoted in Geertz 1973: 346). Ethnographic realism lends itself to this
aged tradition for it, too, seeks The One in The Many; from bits and pieces of data
realist ethnographies attempt to "evoke a social and cultural totality" (Marcus &
Cushman 1982: 29).
More specifically, ethnographic realism, as it is described by Marcus and
Cushman {ibid. : 31-36), manifests itself as a set of conventions:

1. a narrative structure which devolves from cultural, functionalist, or

structuralist analytical categories to achieve a total ethnography;
2. a third person narrative voice which distinguishes realist ethnography
from travel accounts;
3. a manner of presentation in which individuals among the people studied
remain nameless, characterless;
4. a section of text, usually a Preface or Afterword, which describes the
context of investigation;
5. a focus on everyday life contexts representing the Other's reality to
justify the fit of analytical framework to the ethnographic situation;
6. an assertion that the ethnography represents the native's point of
view;
7. a generalizing style in which events are rarely described idiosyncratical-
ly, but as typical manifestations of marriage, kinship, ritual, etc.;
8. a use of jargon which signals that the text is, indeed, an ethnography as
opposed to a travel account;
9. a reticence by authors to discuss their competence in the Other's
language.

These conventions of ethnographic realism have had a varied impact on

quality of the writing in ethnographies. Many of the early realist ethnographies
are magnificently written. Some of the passages in Firth's We, the Tikopia, are
poetic, especially at the beginning of the text:

"In the cool of the morning, just before sunrise, the bow of the Southern
Cross headed towards the eastern horizon, on which a tiny blue outline
was faintly visible. Slowly it grew into a rugged mountain mass, standing
104 PAUL STOLLER

up sheer from the ocean; then as we approached within a few miles it

revealed around its base a narrow ring of low, flat land, thick with vegetat
ion. The sullen grey day with its lowering clouds, strengthened my grim
impression
waters" (1959:
of a3)-solitary peak, wild and stormy, upthrust in a waste of

Since Firth's mission was to depict the total culture of Tikopia, he was blessed
with a descriptive license which few anthropologists or editors would tolerate
today. In today's climate the styles of ethnographic texts are much more
circumscribed. Take the beginning of Feld's excellent ethnography of sound in
Kaluli society: "This is an ethnographic study of sound as a cultural systems [. . .]
My intention is to show how an analysis of modes and codes of sound communicat
ion leads to an understanding of the ethos and quality of life in [. . .] society"
(1982: 3).4 Without too many exceptions anthropological writing has become as
flat, neutral and sludgy, as texts in the natural sciences, an attempt perhaps to
legitimize the scientific nature of our discipline.

Experiments in Anthropological Discourse

There are a growing number of anthropologists who worry about the philoso
phical and political implications of the conventions of representation associated
with ethnographic realism. Fabian writes of his concern about anthropology's
intellectual imperialism: ". . . Perhaps I failed to make it clear that I wanted
language and communication to be understood as a kind of praxis in which the
Knower cannot claim ascendency over the Known (nor, for that matter, one
Knower over another). As I see it now, the anthropologist and his interlocutors
only 'know' when they meet each other in one and the same contemporality"
(1983: 164). Recent concerns with the accurate representation of the native's
point of view and the relationship of anthropologist and Other, have resulted in the
publication of a number of experimental "reflexive" ethnographies. In these
experimental texts, the authors tend to focus upon differences between the anthro
pologist and the Other (see Clifford 1981, 1983). "So even if the writers of these
texts must rely on a culturally biased language of description, they strive to
make cultural difference a key goal of textual construction" (Marcus & Cushman

4. I have deliberately selected examples from the beginnings of texts for, with Edward
Said, I believe that beginnings are rhetorically and philosophically significant; they are
intentional. Beginnings are intentional because they are an "appetite at the beginning
intellectually to do something in a characteristic way either consciously or unconsciously,
but at any rate in a language that always (or nearly always) shows signs of the beginning
intention in some form and is always engaged purposefully in the production of meaning"
(1975: 12). Beyond this, "every writer knows that the choice of a beginning for what he
will write is crucial not only because it determines much of what follows, but also because a
work's beginning is, practically speaking, the main entrance to what it offers" (ibid.: 3).
 EYE, MIND, WORD 105

1982: 47). Moreover, the experimental author "offers an account of his intellec
tual and fieldwork experience with which readers can identify; through the writer's
self-reflection as a narrative vehicle, they slide into a receptivity for descriptions
that could otherwise appear implausible to them" {ibid.: 48). (See Rabinow 1977,
Dumont 1978, Crapanzano 1980; Dwyer 1982 to name some of the relevant
monographs.)
Despite the experimentality of the newer works, most of them consider typical
anthropological subjects of study albeit through altered conventions of repre
sentation. By contrast, Favret-Saada's Les Mots, la mort, les sorts, not only
experiments with some of the conventions of ethnographic realism, but also
challenges the major suppositions of the Western epistemological tradition.
Alone among the "reflexive" ethnographies, Favret-Saada's text considers exclu
sively the subject of magic-sorcery, a subject, which if considered from the
"inside" as does Favret-Saada forces us to assess critically the relationship
among anthropological discourse, Western metaphysics, and how we, as anthrop
ologists, orient ourselves to the world.
It is altogether certain that the pioneering and courageous efforts of the
"reflexive" ethnographers have forced anthropologists to ponder critically the
nature of both their scholarship and their being. But do these writers take us far
enough? Are there other dimensions of discourse, other conventions of repre
sentation which may carry anthropology yet deeper into the being of the Other?
Are there other modes of representation that better solve the problems of voice,
authority and authenticity?

Language, Painting and Anthropological Style

In anthropological discourse, the experimental ethnographies notwithstanding,

nature continues to be on the outside, and as a consequence, a (poetic) journey
such as mine into inner dimensions of space, sentiment or thought, for that
matter, is generally not considered anthropological discourse. The event which
I describe is perhaps too lyrical, or literary in style. If I presented the "event"
as part of a longer journal of my experience in the world of Songhay magic, both
the form and the content would today be deemed non-anthropological. In short,
the style, form and content of my text involve passions, sentiments, fears, and
doubts. This is the dense discourse of literature and not the opaque discourse of
anthropology.

Representation-of and Representation-as

The discourse of anthropology has been characteristic of representation "as",

a mode of discourse in which "le signe cesse d'tre une figure du monde; et il cesse
IO PAUL STOLLER

d'tre li ce qu'il marque par les liens solides et secrets de la ressemblance ou de

l'affinit" (Foucault 1966: 72). In anthropological discourse we read analyses of
culture-s-a thermodynamic system, or of society-as-a system, or of religion-as-a
mechanism of social control. Representation-of, by contrast, is the act of describ
ing something, an act which is fundamentally creative:

"Representation or description is apt, effective, illuminating, subtle,

intriguing, to the extent that the artist or writer grasps fresh and significant
relationships and devises means for making them manifest. Discourse or
depiction that marks off familiar units and sorts them into standard sets
of well worn labels may sometimes be serviceable, even if humdrum. The
marking off of new elements or classes of familiar ones by labels of new
kinds, or by new combinations of old labels, may provide new insight.
Gombrich stresses Constable's metaphor: 'Painting is a science. . . of which
pictures are but the experiments'. In representation, the artist must
make use of old habits when he wants to elicit novel objects or connections. . .
In sum, effective representation and description require invention.
They are creative. They inform each other; and they form, relate, and
distinguish objects. That nature imitates art is too timid a dictum.
Nature is a product of art and discourse" (Goodman 1963: 32-33).

To extend ourselves more deeply into the realm of the Other, I would suggest,
anthropologists will need to describe evocatively the being of the people they
study, so that the reader will be carried into new and thought-invoking worlds.

Style and Meaning

One way which to carry the reader of anthropological works into new thought-
provoking worlds is not just to experiment with the representative conventions
of narrative structures, but to experiment with the language of ethnography
itself. This kind of experimentation has a long and provocative history. In the
19th-century the styles of Nietzsche and Carlyle challenged the discourse of the
classical episteme. "In Carlyle the link between language and terrorism becomes
itself a form of terrorism. Like many language-combatants of the era, he uses
the medium of style against classical humanism: its statuesque decorum" (Hart-
man 1980: 150). And what can we make of the arresting styles of Joyce, of
Heidegger, or of, alas, Derrida? What do these iconoclastic styles imply for
literature, for philosophy, for anthropology?
They imply a great deal. When an anthropologist is confronted with an
incident, like my paralysis in Wanzerbe, that he or she cannot explain, the pillars
of the aged metaphysic of the Western philosophic tradition begin to crumble;
the convention of representation that worked so beautifully in a previous study
are no longer adequate. Nietzsche writes that the mission of science
 EYE, MIND, WORD 107

"is to make existence intelligible and thereby justified. . . Socrates and

his successors, down to our day, have considered all moral and sentimental
accomplishments noble deeds, compassion, self-sacrifice, heroism. . . to be
ultimately derived from the dialectic of knowledge, and therefore teacha
ble. . . But science, spurred on by its energetic notions, approaches
irresistably those outer limits where the optimism of its logic must col
lapse. . . When the inquirer, having pushed to the circumference, realizes
how logic in that place curls about itself and bites its own tail, he is struck
with a new kind of perception: a tragic perception, which requires, to
make it tolerable, the remedy of art" (1956: 93).

Haj Ross, trained by Noam Chomsky, and an eminent generative linguist in

his own right, has reached that place in linguistic studies where "logic [. . .] curls
about itself and bites its own tail". In a recent article Ross experiments with
the style of linguistic discourse. He writes about "human linguistics":

"i want to show you some of my most recent work which

is not in any way to be viewed as an extension of generat
ive grammar however possibly a way can be found to
relate it to the broad and very important concerns which in
volve us tonight we need soon i think to have a round-
-table on the subject of linguistics and juggling. . .
i will be happy to teach any of you who would like to
learn during the course of this conference how to juggle
i know a way of teaching that is almost guaranteed to teach
anyone in 20 minutes and the record time is 4 minutes
you can learn how to do the basic juggle and it's lots of fun
one of the important things i think at least i've used
it as sort of a diagnostic in my own work is if i'm not
having fun in what i'm doing i think there must be some
thing seriously wrong someplace and i start to worry
about it" (1982: 1-2).

A statement on human linguistics as a poem; an author's direct confrontation

between metaphysics and art.

Style, Voice and the Indirect Language

In La Prose du monde Merleau-Ponty describes the power of language direct

and indirect to bring to life thoughts which have never been expressed before:

"le langage nous conduit aux choses mmes dans la mesure exacte o il est
signification avant d'avoir une signification."

The "gaze" of the painter who is penetrated by the universe:

"s'approprie des correspondances, des questions et des rponses qui ne

108 PAUL STOLLER

sont, dans le monde, qu'indiques sourdement et toujours touffes par la

stupeur des objets" (1969: 66).

The "gaze" of the writer is similar to that of the painter:

"tant donn une exprience qui peut tre banale mais se rsume pour
l'crivain en une certaine saveur trs prcise de la vie, tant donn par
ailleurs des mots, des formes, des tournures, une syntaxe et mme des
genres littraires, des manires de raconter qui sont, par l'usage, investis
dj d'une signification commune, la disposition de chacun, choisir,
assembler, manier, tourmenter ces instruments de telle manire qu'ils
induisent le mme sentiment de la vie qui habite l'crivain chaque ins
tant, mais dploy dsormais dans un monde imaginaire et dans le corps
transparent du langage" {ibid.: 67).

The inaudible nature of significance in both painting and writing constitutes, for
Merleau-Ponty, the "langage indirect", the representation of things themselves.
The "langage indirect" is expressed in the painter's style or in the writer's voice.
Style, voice, and the indirect language are created through the interaction of
painters with their worlds, or the interaction of writers with their Others:

"Les mots, les traits, les couleurs qui m'expriment sortent de moi comme
mes gestes par ce que je veux dire [. . .] Ls mots, dans l'art de la prose,
transportent celui qui parle et celui qui les entend dans un univers commun,
mais ils ne le font qu'en nous entranant avec eux vers une signification
nouvelle, par une puissance de dsignation qui dpasse leur dfinition ou
leur signification reue" (ibid.: 122-123).

And further:

"... l'immense nouveaut de l'expression est qu'elle fait enfin sortir la

culture tacite de son cercle mortel" (ibid.: 139).

Stressing the importance of language in representing the world, Merleau-Ponty

writes in Le Visible et l'invisible about the discourse of philosophy. His comments
are applicable to the discourse of anthropology:

". . . les paroles les plus charges de philosophie ne sont pas ncessairement
celles qui enferment ce quelles disent, ce sont plutt celles qui ouvrent le
plus nergiquement sur l'tre, parce qu'elles rendent plus troitement la
vie du tout et font vibrer jusqu' les disjoindre nos vidences habituelles.
C'est donc une question de savoir si la philosophie comme reconqute de
l'tre brut ou sauvage peut s'accomplir par les moyens du langageloquent,
ou s'il ne lui faudrait pas en faire un usage qui lui te sa puissance de signi
fication
dire" (1964b:
immdiate
139). ou directe pour l'galer ce qu'elle veut tout de mme
 EYE, MIND, WORD

Here Merleau-Ponty calls for "voice" in philosophical discourse, a new discourse

in which the indirect language of the author brings the reader into contact with
"brute and wild being". Let philosophers, he suggests, bring their readers into
the world of "brute and wild being" in the same manner that Stendhal uses
common words and events as emissaries from his world:

"Je cre Stendhal, je suis Stendhal en le lisant, mais c'est parce que d'abord
il a su rinstaller chez lui" (Merleau-Ponty 1969:20).

This magic of discourse and communication, to summarize, is accomplished

through style, voice and the indirect language. There should be, in my view, an
"indirect language" in anthropology.

Texts, Writers and Readers

We can now return to the question of how to describe represents my confronta

tion with Dunguri in the Songhay village of Wanzerbe. Initially confronted with
the problem I edited myself out of the text and substituted an invisible third
person narrator. What to do now? Should I, rather, describe the confrontation
even more dispassionately, discussing it as one small part of Songhay witchcraft,
and place the data into the broader theoretical context of witchcraft studies?
Neither of these tacts is satisfactory to me, for, like it or not, there is a direct
relationship between the degree of the anthropologists' subjective involvement
and the form they choose for their discourse. Larry Peters (1981) describes his
apprenticeship as a Tamang shaman, admitting that he has only begun to under
stand the existential dynamics of trance states. But Peter's book is disjointed:
Part One is a representation-of'his experience which in Part Two he transforms into
a Freudian analysis (representation-as ) . As I have wondered elsewhere (Stoller
1982a), would the form of Peter's discourse be different if he had proceeded deeper
into inner dimensions of Tamang shamanism? Such a transformation of dis
course is evident in the works of Jeanne Favret-Saada. In Les Mots, la mort, les
sorts, she feels the need to justify her personal involvement in the system of
sorcery in the Bocage of Western France. In Corps pour corps, together with
Jose Contreras, she writes a journal of her own experience, a collage of her joys,
epistemological doubts, fears and disappointments in the field from January 1969
to December 1970. Through her "voice", Favret-Saada brings the reader into
the world of the Bocage. Informants become people with distinct personalities,
likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, thoughts and powers of observation.
The text of the Bocage the field and the sorcery within it opens itself up to
readers and sweeps them into a very special world. Hence, the widespread success
of the book among a diverse audience, ranging from intellectuals at the Sorbonne
IIO PAUL STOLLER

to the Bocage peasants about whom the book was written. And between the
beautifully written lines of Corps pour corps the anthropological reader is struck
by the theoretical importance of this work. But people will ask: Is Haj Ross'
article really linguistics? Or, is the work of Favret-Saada and Contreras really
anthropology?
Once the anthropological writer has experienced "the inside" or "the place
where logic bites its own tail", the discourse of the ethnographic realism is no
longer completely adequate. When I confronted first hand the powers of Dun-
guri in Wanzerbe and acted like a Songhay healer, all of my assumptions about the
world were uprooted from their foundation on the plain of Western metaphysics.
Nothing that I had learned or could learn within the parameters of anthropologi
cal theory could have prepared me for Dunguri. Having crossed the threshold
into the Songhay world of magic, and having felt the texture of fear and the exal
tation of repelling the force of a sorcerer, my view of Songhay culture could no
longer be one of a structuralist, a symbolist or a Marxist. Given my intense
experience -and all field experiences are intense whether they involve trance,
sorcery or kinship -I will need in future works to seek a different mode of express
ion,a mode in which the event becomes the author of the text and the writer
becomes the interpreter of the event who serves as an intermediary between the
event (author) and the readers.
Just as painters, according to Czanne and Klee, should allow the universe
to penetrate them, anthropological writers should allow the events of the field be
they extraordinary or mundane to penetrate them. In this way the world of
the field cries out silently for description and we, as anthropological writers, are
put to the task of representation which philosophers ranging from Goodman (1963,
1978) to Merleau-Ponty (1964, 1964b, 1969) suggest is a creative act, a search for
voice and "the indirect language". In this way the anthropological writer, using
evocative language, brings life to the field and beckons the reader to discover
something new a new theoretical insight, a new thought, a new feeling or
appreciation.
On their existential path in inner space magicians, in the end, create their own
magic; painters create their own styles. And just as writers need to spend many
years searching for their voices, so we anthropologists need to find a "voice" and
create works which bring readers to dwell within us as we walk along our solitary
paths in the field, exposing our hearts so full of excitement, fear, and doubt.

West Chester University of Pennsylvania, USA

 EYE, MIND, WORD III

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112 PAUL STOLLER

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114 PAUL STOLLER

Abstract

Paul Stoller, Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology. How do we represent

the extraordinary in anthropological discourse? In this paper it is argued
that the tacit assumptions of the anthropological epistetne embodied in the
conventions of ethnographic realism determine what is, from what is not,
anthropologically appropriate. These tacit assumptions are represented not
only in what we see and think, but also in what we say and write. Given the
epistemological foundation of our discipline, anthropologists tend to discuss
the "bizarre" over a drink, at lunch or at dinner rather than in the more fo
rmal context of published prose. Considering the epistemological dilemma
precipitated by "extraordinary" events during the author's fieldwork among
the Songhay of the Republic of Niger, it is suggested that anthropologists
need to expand the parameters of discourse such that expressions of the
nuances of human being become as acceptable as formal propositions which
attempt to explicate human behavior.

Rsum

Paul Stoller, L'il, l'esprit, le mot en anthropologie. Comment le discours

anthropologique rend-il compte de 1' "extraordinaire"? Cet article montre
que les postulats tacites que traduisent les conventions du ralisme ethno
graphique dterminent ce qui, anthropologiquement, est ou non admissible.
Ces postulats apparaissent non seulement dans ce que nous voyons et pensons,
mais aussi dans ce que nous disons et crivons. Compte tenu des fondements
pistmologiques de leur discipline, les anthropologues prfrent voquer
le "bizarre" devant un verre, au cours d'un djeuner ou d'un dner plutt
que dans le contexte plus formel d'une publication. Considrant le dilemme
pistmologique o l'ont plong des vnements extraordinaires survenus
durant son travail de terrain chez les Songhay de la Rpublique du Niger,
l'auteur suggre que les anthropologues devraient assouplir les paramtres
de leur discours afin que les manires de rendre les nuances de l'existence
humaine soient acceptes au mme titre que les propositions formelles qui
tentent d'expliquer le comportement humain.