Pigs, Pearlshells, and Women Author(s): Roy Wagner Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 72, No.

3 (Jun., 1970), pp. 725-726 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/673092 Accessed: 30/11/2010 10:51
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ReviewCorrespondence
MAN AND AGGRESSION

A uthor's Comment

Communication appears to be the most difficult of the arts. After long years of experience I have been forced to the sad conclusion that no one ever understandsanyone else correctly, and that the best that can be hoped for are second and third ordersof approximation. The pages of virtually every learned journal testify to that lamentable fact. If authors of books would understand this elementary theorem, they would perhaps be more compassionate toward their unsympatheticreviewers. In this communication I am called upon to correct a sympathetic reviewerwho has, apparently,decided to remain amiably imperviousto what I actually said in the introductionto Man and
Aggression

quotes me as saying that the kind of thinking exhibited in the books of Ardrey, Lorenz, Morris& Co., is to be deploredas damaging, pessimistic, and fettering of the human spirit, and leaves the readerwith the distinct impression that this is the "tack"I have followed in criticizing the works of these writers. This is simply not so. The introduction constitutes a brief scientific examination of the principal scientific and methodological faults of Ardrey's and Lorenz's writings on the origins and nature of aggressionin man. The widespreadreactionary influence these books have had, especially on our college campuses, has exerted a most unfortunateeffect. I felt it necessary to allude to this in the final paragraphof my introduction.It was an afterthought,and by no means the main tack of my theme. Finally, I am saddened to discover that La Barre belongs with those who misattribute to me "a kind of defense-by-denialof the vexing fact of genetic racial differences among men." But as I have remarked,communication appears to be the most difficult of arts, perhaps because it is the art of addressinghumanity.
ASHLEY MONTAGU

(AA 71:912-915).

La Barre

that "Communication appears to be the most difficultof the arts."When I alluded to "a fugitive note in the introduction," I meant just that; for (to repeatwhat immediately followed), "I agree heartily with the scientific arguments and with the general conclusions of this fine book Ashley Montagu has edited." As to his further statement concerning "the widespread reactionaryinfluence these [Ardrey'sand Morris's]books have had," I agree thoroughlywith this too, which I hope the general tone of my review perhapsconveyed also--especially in the paragraph precedingwherein I deplore (with Kenneth Boulding) the vicious effect their dreadful nonsense may have on the politico-military establishment. I must acknowledgethat I lack the literary means to express any more complete agreement with the scientific arguments of the editor and the learnedessayiststhan was expressedin my review of the ill-considered absurditiesof Ardrey and Morris. If I could make my position any clearer or less ambiguous than I did, I would certainly wish to do so. But I still do deplore "the fugitive note."
WESTON LA BARRE

Duke University
PIGS, PEARLSHELLS, AND WOMEN

Author's Correction

Princeton, New Jersey Reviewer's Reply

Owing to an unfortunate set of circumstances, a serious, though small, typographic error has occurredin an article of mine in a recently published book on marriagein the New Guinea Highlands. Since the book is already availablefor distribution,the matter of bringing this error to the attention of its readers is one of urgent importance to me, especially in view of the fact that the error, slight as it may be, is part of a mathematical expression and renders that expression meaningless. Would you be so kind as to consider the following brief announcement for inclusion in your next issue?: In the article"Marriage Amongthe Daribi"
in Pigs, Pearlshells, and Women, edited by

R. M. Glasse and M. J. Meggitt(PrenticeI agree indeed with my respected friend Hall, 1969), on page 72, in all expressions 725

726

American Anthropologist

[72, 1970]

enclosed by square brackets, [ ], the diagonal slash (/) is to be read as a vertical slash (1). Many thanks for your attention. RoY WAGNER Northwestern University Now That the Buffalo's Gone AND The Exiles: A COMMENT After viewing Now That the Buffalo's Gone, (reviewed by Jay Ruby in AA 71:801-802) and The Exiles, (reviewed by Wax in AA Murray and Rosalie 67:1079-80), I am moved to express my sense of the vast difference between these two films on American Indian acculturation. The Buffalo film may be an ingenious example of expanded cinema, but it is a desperate case as far as ethnographic representation is concerned. The content appears more as a new kind of ethnocentrism, where a few images of Indians serve as a vehicle for the exhibition of new techniques in cinema. In competition for the viewer's attention and understanding, the medium wins and the Indians lose again. In marked contrast, The Exiles uses cinema as a vehicle for communicating something about Indians; we see their actions and hear them express their feelings about their actions. My students find the film both edifying and personally moving, and I find a challenge in trying to relate prereservation and reservation culture patterns adequately to the urban patterns portrayed. Buffalo, on the other hand, seems only to startle the sleepy with its sensory (not informational) impact. Others are bored, amused, or, like myself, bothered that so little ethnographic content survives the task of demonstrating a new technique.
RICHARD J. PRESTON

resist showing the photographers' and camera's ability to record certain scenes in certain ways. The continual pulling away via the zoom lens might be meant to indicate a

pictorial quality, (3) archeologicalinformation and instruction.I would rate the techniques as 50, the pictorial quality 60, and the informationand instruction70 on a scale of 100. My initial and still retainedobservationis that the photographers were unduly influenced by the gadgetry of their equipment and neither they nor the editors could

4-Butte-1 can be viewed in at least three ways: (1) photographic technique(s), (2)

Franklin and Marshall College 4-Butte-1: A COMMENT I have just twice screened 4-Butte-i and find that I disagree most strongly with some of Jay Ruby's impressions as they appeared I have no disagreement with Ruby's statement as to the general pictorial quality of the film, but I do feel that the film exhibited

in AA 71:380 (1969).

a lack of competent direction and editing, and in some cases also showed poor
choice(s) in camera operation.

For the length of the film, the hawk-following scenes were too long and the river valley meander shot was too short. In the case of the latter scene, the viewer has hardly enough time to register the general scene let alone try to locate himself in relation to it. The use of "natural voices" in the pseudocamera-verit6 technique really breaks down the instructional level, and I would rather have a narrator I can understand than real voices that convey only part of the message. The photographers obviously had been without water for some time, but why inflict on the viewer the added shots of a lawn sprinkler just because the shot is pretty and the photographers "needed a bath"? Then why drop into meaningless shadows that the viewer finally figures out are people, and people who mumble at that? The lab shots are well intended but I did not sit down to view only faces. I would also like to see what the people are doing and with one exception we are barred from joining their efforts. As an example, the dig director(?) reading is fine, but I felt surfeited by more and more shots of his face in the later parts of the film-views of his face while he was doing something that we were barred from seeing. The views of the maps are all too short and the area is not well explained in spite of all the pretty pictures provided. I also find wasted the pictures of individuals walking back and forth apparently without immediate purpose. There are many other items I

going back through time, but I and our classes felt that this pulled us away from the scene and disinvolved us. Another case of too much of a good thing.