Re: Anthros -- Including Hucksters Who Malign

[jenyan1 <jenyan1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hunter,

The charges of canibalism against the victims of colonialism in the
Americas are as fraudulent as they are transparent in their motive.
One right-wing Australian politician recently unmasked herself by
repeating similar charges against Australian Aborigines. Nothing
more than an attempt to whitewash some of the most barbaric episodes
in human history by dehumanising the victims. Or as Cesaire put it,
"The conclusion is inescapable: compared to the cannibals, the
dismemberers, and other lesser breeds, Europe and the West are the
incarnation of respect for human dignity".

J.Enyang

On Sat, 21 Apr 2001, Hunter Gray wrote:

> I very much appreciate Louis' post regarding the opportunism and hucksterism
> of Michael Taussig.
>
> Of course, there are many bona fide things of wondrous and inexplicable
> nature in the Creation.  I am  certainly in the front rank of those
> [certainly in the very front rank of socialists!]  who will argue not only
> for the validity of William James' contention that it is a "pluralistic
> universe;" but also that humanity, individually and collectively, cannot be
> measured in purely materialistic terms -- and that there are some things
> that will never be neatly codified into blackboard formulae. Anyone, for
> example, who has seen the intricate  and thoroughly bona fide healing work
> of a trained Navajo medicine man -- training that involves about 17 rigorous
> years -- never scoffs, and always remembers.
>
> That prologue completed, my bone to pick at this moment, however, is with a
> handful of unscrupulous anthropologists who are vigorously engaged in trying
> to build reputations by defaming a great people now gone.  This is a letter
> of mine that was published a couple of years ago in the Idaho State Journal:
>
> "The mini AP story/review of Christy Turner's "Man Corn:  Cannibalism and
> Violence in the Pre-Historic American Southwest," appearing in ISJ Dec. 20,
> [1998] warrants comment.
>
> Headlined "Anasazi:  ancient American cannibals?" with a sub-dash head
> "Book makes a strong case tribe ate men," the story is heavily slanted
> toward Turner's extremely dubious -- in fact, downright defamatory --
> account and conclusions.
>
> His book takes the peaceful Anasazi of long ago [800-900 years], dwellers in
> a myriad of farming communities in Northeastern Arizona, Northwestern New
> Mexico, and Southwestern Colorado and transposes them, through his peculiar
> alchemic perversion of anthropology, into a veritable network of monster
> creatures epitomizing, to use his phrase, "the darker side of ourselves."
>
> I'm a recently retired professor of American Indian Studies and a
> northeastern Indian [Micmac, Abenaki, Mohawk] who, because of the vagaries
> of family migration, comes from Flagstaff, Arizona.
>
> In that region -- especially east and northeast of Flagstaff -- there are
> hundreds of ancient Anasazi ruins in the cedar and pinon country.  Many,
> many decades ago, honorable and distinguished "lone burro" researchers such
> as Harold Colton, founder of the Museum of Northern Arizona, mapped and
> studied them.
>
> He and his equally capable successors never drew anything remotely
> approaching the hideous Turner-type conclusions.  Even by this time, Anglo
> grave robbers seeking mythical treasures were digging up Anasazi burials --
> scattering bones, artifacts, and fine art to the four directions.
>
> As a young kid, I was often taken hunting by a much older Navajo friend of
> our family.  The late Ned Hatathli, who years later founded Navajo Community
> College [now Dine' College], was a traditional person, very well versed in
> oral history covering many epochs.
>
> He gave me the Navajo view of the Anasazi:  town people, farmers, artisans.
> Cognizant of the ancient Navajo animosities with them, he put it simply as a
> conflict between nomads and town dwellers, adding that the Anasazi
> monopolized some water resources.  He obviously knew nothing of a
> "cannibalistic" reputation.
>
> The Hopis -- among the descendants of the Anasazi, whose oral histories are
> very much intact, and to whose views Turner gives only transitory
> attention -- have certainly never held his perceptions [and, indeed, sharply
> dispute them!]
>
> I can recount a myriad of old-time Hopi accounts of their long-ago
> ancestors -- none of which carry a shred of cannibalism.  Turner's book
> defames a people and a positive way of life -- now long gone.  Perhaps in
> some strange way, he is seeking to reduce good people to his own view of
> himself.
>
>
> [Signed]  Hunter Gray      "
>
> But the efforts by Turner and a few other  opportunistic, Machiavellian
> anthropologists continue -- despite vigorous repudiation by many in the
> discipline itself and certainly by all Native Americans.  There are always
> people, apparently, who are willing to purchase and swim in nonsense -- even
> nonsense utterly vicious in motive, thrust, and effect.
>
> And other very sad things continue:  A very recent national [US] newspaper
> story carried the fact that Anasazi burials continue to be rampantly
> pillaged by Anglo graverobbers -- despite theoretically strong Federal [and
> some state] protective legislation.
>
> Hunter Gray [Hunterbear]
>
> Hunter Gray
> www.hunterbear.org
>