The Innocence of Falling A Part–A Book Review
Editor's Note -- As an anthropologist, I have always been fascinated in how we learn, view, and share our cultural perspective in the form of symbols and story telling. The personal or community narrative illustrates a moral lesson or has a reluctant hero go through a prophetic journey that results in an archetypal conclusion that benefits the observer. In my readings, for the past couple weeks, this perspective has become a bit clearer. As a student of anthropology, I realized, the words we use to express our ideas and views are often used to impress those inside and outside of our community. Anthropologists tries to demonstrates how smart we are, and, that we have some sort of insight that the rest of the world does not. It, anthropology, does not necessarily provide instruction to a “greater” meaning, but adds the aura of complexity of how life and culture are illusory.
I have had always a cursory understanding of the words etic and emic, not fully comprehending the theory or, intention of the words until I read The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley and Things Fall A Part by Chinua Achebe. In short, etic, means the outside perspective, not necessarily objective, of how one relates to a culture, or culture at large, while emic, means the inside perspective, and not necessarily a bias perspective of one’s view of their culture at large.
Upon the reading of these two books, the explanation became clear to me in deciding how to portray an ethnography that is palpable to a reader. For instance, both of these two authors use the form of narration to express and teach the ideas of how an insider or outsider view can interpret different elements, symbols, if you will, within a culture.
In the reading of Achebe’s book, Things Fall A Part, we see elements of the parable being used to teach not only the moral lessons, but the attitudes of traditions and respect of his culture. The lifeways, the culture’s patterns of subsistence and cultural taboos are taught as well. He asserts in his fiction, from the emic view, how the deeds of a person, reflect the honor of the family and the whole of the community at large. In one passage of the book, his main character, Okonkwo, is participating at funeral rites of a friend, elder, and mentor—Ezeudu. The author, Achebe, relays how his Ibo tribe participates in honoring Ezeudu’s stature within the community and how he is viewed by his family. As their performance of the ritual by the family and the community illustrates, the person’s stature (see the pages of 120-123) starts with the communication of Ezeudu (via drums) death, and then later at the funeral the “celebration” of his passing all the local villages are in attendance.
The performance of egwugwus, ancestral spirits that are portrayed by individuals in masks, aids in the transition from his earthly flesh to ancestral spirit for the man that has died. Drums, musical instruments, ritualized vocalization, and frenetic ritualized dancing are all part of the performative ritual:
Ezeudu! he called in guttural voice. If you had been poor in your last life I would asked you to be rich when you come again. But you were rich. If you had been a coward, I would have asked you to bring courage. But you were a fearless warrior. If you had died young, I would have asked you to get a life (ibid).
Achebe has shown an insider, an emic, view of how funeral practices were done within the Ibo community. He cleverly imparts bits of information of how the funeral crowd performance is building to a “tumultuous” frenzy, and that “shouting and the firing of guns…and the brandishing of machetes increased…” sets the stage for the later incident that is to occur at the funeral. Achebe’s draws in the reader, with his narrative, to reveal through analogy how the interaction of cultures can affect one another. In showing his insider’s view, he communicates the subtlety that sometimes might be missed from an individual viewing the incident or scene from an etic perspective (outside)—and failing to realize the cultural differences. But the emic view also has its drawbacks; in that, the insider view can be tainted with ethnocentrism, if they are not willing to, or fail to “objectively” dissect their culture’s flaws and warts. Achebe’s narrative, though a work of fiction, details the numerous levels of importance of how a culture learns to adapt within and without the multifarious culture sets that are outside of it through the eyes of an individual, members of a group, and the culture-at-large.
Achebe’s book displays the changes that may subvert, disarm, and destroy a culture’s ways of being. In other words, those items that are considered profane and sacred come under attack, if they are somehow perverted, or “disproved” as incorrect, they are seen as corrupted, may be somehow, destroyed by the individual certainly, and perhaps even destructive to the “fabric” of the society, if you will allow, things fall apart.
As example of this, there is passage in part two of the book, where missionaries comes to the village of Mbanta, (see pages 144-161), and they visit the elders and ask permission to build a church. They have to ask this through a translator, who communicates their wants and beliefs in how their god works. The elders view these ideas and belief as foreign—and mistaken, but does not begrudge their perspective. In the chapters to follow the narrative tells of how the missionaries defy the local gods and start to convert the local villagers into their way of believing.
On page 149, an elder Uchendu offers this piece of sage advice as away to appease the outsiders,
They want a piece of land to build their shrine, said Uchendu to his peers…We shall give them a piece of land…Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest
Uchendu is sure that the evil spirits will impart the justice deserved them for being disbelievers, or heretics, for treading on the sacred grounds, where bad things happen to disrespectful people. After “four days,” the disbelievers will surely die, and the gods will put them in their place. This did not happen. “Well, then that’s okay, our gods sometimes let disbelievers achieve a certain amount of ‘freedom’ surely they will be dead within ‘28 market days.’” This is did not happen. For a believer this is disconcerting, they begin to question whether their god is the true god. They begin to believe maybe, the others, the outsiders, may have some “powerful” magic and they see that based on what their myths and their legends tell them maybe incorrect. A chipping of their core beliefs begin to erode away. They, the believers, begin to start asking questions of the others and ideals, and the most important question—why? From the missionary’s perspective, the answer is obvious—and the process of conversion begins.
Essentially, the missionary has told the “disbelievers” of the inferior god that his god is supreme and the evidence is all around them. They say to those to be converted (and the converted) just look at our superiority in our modernity. We have broughtcivilization to all of god’s children and will bring it to you as well.
In a sense, the missionary promise of great prosperity not only in wealth, but a promise in stature without the “pagan chains” of superstitions. (And, the converted will “multiply” and will be “fruitful” in their daily village lives). It, begins, the new ideology of the others, to replace, subvert, and modify their rituals of the villagers. The clash, as the author Achebe shows, is the critical flaw (his anger) within his primary character, Okonkwo, and the traditional values that are being replaced by the outsiders intensifies.
He uses Okonkwo as the instrument within his narrative ethnography to demonstrate both the positive and ill effects of change and modernity. What’s more, the author Achebe has wrapped his parable-narrative in a multifaceted emic and etic construction that is dynamic for the reader to absorb.
Achebe does this by constructing the first layer of his narrative as omniscient viewing. In other words, the story is narrated from the third person, where one is prescient to what the characters thinks and feels. In fact, this the compelling feature of the emic-narrative; in so being that, one is present for the insider’s “insider” perspective. If the author has done a good job in the telling of the story, one also has the etic narrative to a degree in the unfolding of the story within the conclusion of the emic-storyline. Thus, the story eventuates in looking at the culture from without (etic-emic construct) where ones perceive the story from the outside looking in.
In the book by Nigel Barley, The Innocent Anthropologist is told from the etic narrative perspective. He tells the story of fieldwork from outsider’s perspective. However, the primary difference between him and Achebe, besides the recounting of a non-fiction versus fiction material, is that the narrative from the first person narrative. Throughout Barley’s narration, he emotes (with his hat in his hand, if you will) his own culture. He does not hide these facts, in a sense, what we have is the reverse of Achebe’s narrative. Barley’s method of relaying the culture of the Dowayos (the people he studied for his fieldwork) is through the emic-etic perspective. He unfolds the events as they happen and then reflexively analyzes there meaning through later revelations or data gathered later. He begins with this:
Why not go fieldwork then? The question was posed at the end of bibulous review of the state of the art of anthropology, university teaching and academic life in general. The review had not been favourable (sic). Like Mrs. Hubbard we had taken stock and found the cupboard was bare (p 7).
One knows immediately that we, the reader, are not dealing with usual diatribe of technical-jargon riddled bombastic ethnography of five hundred dollar words, which can be found in E. E. Evans-Pritchard essay on the discourse of the Nuer and Nuerland.
Basically, Barley has taken the accountability and responsibility of the telling his ethnography (naturally), but from an autobiographic sense. Do not misunderstand this for an insider perspective, or emic methodology. On the contrary, although there are those elements within his telling, it is certainly etic, an outsider’s perspective of not only the Dowayos, but of his own field, anthropology, from within.
This is what I mean. In the beginning, he relates how he feels and expresses the sense of isolation of what it means to be anthropologist. He infers the unspoken rites of passage that all anthropologists must go through. He tells of the tolerance of his peers of those who have not gone out in the field and experienced the isolation, he says:
Whenever pressed in debate over some point of theory or metaphysics, they would shake their heads sadly, draw languidly on their pipes or stroke their beards and mutter about ‘real people’ not fitting the clear abstractions of those ‘who had not done fieldwork’ (p 8).
Barley, by a slight of hand, has not only recapitulated the belief within the culture set of anthropology of experience versus novice, he has in a sense communicated an insider’s view through an emic emotive moment. He cleverly laments later, “Like monastic life, academic research is really all about perfection of one’s own soul” (p 9).
It is not until later, in the telling of his ethnography, he finds the puffing of pipes and stroking of beards to be right. In that, theory, the abstraction, does not always fit. It is the everyday of “doing fieldwork” that is monotonous and revelations that are few and far between. On the whole, anthropology attracts those who view the world through the eyes of the exotic, he implies. Hoping to obtain and or observe a new quirk of how civilization reveals itself.
The beginning of this the realization for Barley is the transition from the old life of comfort to his new one with uncertainty. To paraphrase Nietzsche, to jump over the wall without looking and accepting the consequences to follow; this is what it means to do fieldwork for him. Fieldwork gives one perspective on how one is seen outside their own ethnic group. Take note of this passage on page 55, in the telling of the Dowayos see race from his “reluctant” assistant (informant):
Dowayos believed that all white men who lived for extended periods in Dowayoland were reincarnated spirits of Dowayo sorcerers. Underneath the white skins we had managed to cover ourselves with, were black. When I went to bed at night, I had been seen to take off my white skin and hang it up….Of course, he declared [Barley’s informant] declared somewhat sniffily, he did not believe this, looking me up and down as if afraid that I would revert to my black colour on the spot.
This is not the view one would see in the Western-American culture sense on race-relations, but what he later describes as his initial inability in learning and knowing their language and his “obsessive” behavior in regards to “privacy” (62).
In Barley’s book, throughout we see his observations and his analysis of the Dowayo’s and his journey in how he arrived at his perspectives of their rituals and why they do what they do. He discourses on their skull cults, the way they have conversations, owls and sorcery, and the bureaucracy of Cameroon
After all, one wonders, if I look through glass menagerie of my life, will I objectively ponder through the etic or emic view of how life truly is, or will I simply leave the innocence of falling a part to ethnocentrism and tainted biases to sturdy my heart?
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