Year: 1995
Type: article
Abstract: Since their earliest contact with Europeans, the Kaluli people who live at the base of Mt.Bosavi in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea have viewed books as powerful and authoritative sources of information that white people use to shape and control the behavior of others.In a narrative told to Steve Feld and myself in 1990 about government contact in the early 1940s, an educated Kaluli man told us about his father who had been selected by white patrol officers as the first local counsellor.As he put it, "my father was given the black shirt with a red stripe, the belt, knife, stick and a book, that book, people thought that if you kill, the blood of a dead person will go inside in the book, and the white man will know straight away and come and shoot you with a gun; that .fear,everywhere so, everyone got frightened when my father got this."This book, which was kept by the counsellor as part of his responsibilities and taken out only during infrequent government patrols made by white officers, listed the names of villagers.While Kaluli people did not share an understanding of why their names were written down by government people, they did not miss the fact that this book and its meanings were created and owned by white people, who used it as an instrument of control, authority, and information.These early census and record keeping actMties, part of pacification efforts, were used to track and document Kaluli people in order to discourage their periodic relocation to new village sites, their solution to minimalizing the depletion of local resources.This was one of the earliest experiences for Kaluli people of what books could do, and what people did with books.In the mid 1960s two other changes occurred that would introduce additional ideas about books and literacy more generallythe first, which I would like to think was relatively benign though not inconsequential, was the arrival of anthropologists, first E. L. Schieffelin, followed by myself and Steve Feld, whose visitations of different durations would continue into the present.The second change which has had far reaching consequences for Kaluli social and ceremonial life, was the ' I would like to thank the National Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for funding fieldwork in 1984 and 1990.Thanks also go to Steve Feld and Elinor Ochs for their always helpful comments.Finally, I would like to thank Sue Gal and Kit Woolard for their cogent written comments, as well as the other members of the Center for Transcultural Studies Working Group on language and the participants in the School for Americn Research Seminar on language Ideologies for asking tough questions.This essay is dedicated to the late Kulu Fuale; his patience and assistance in helping me understand the Ikluli language for over fifteen years was enriched by his unique linguistic curiosity.
Author: Bambi B. Schieffelin
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4232482230