a kiss and a cuddle...

I came across this, by George Weber, recently about the Andamanese in the 1850's. They are a tribal society in the south eastern Indian Ocean:
"The Andamanese did not and still do not lightly show their social emotions. There were no special words for ordinary greetings like the English "hello" or "how-do-you-do." When two Andamanese met who had not seen each other for a while, they first stared wordlessly at each other for minutes. So long could this initial silent staring last that some outside observers who saw the beginning of the ceremony but not its continuation came away with the impression that the Andamanese had no speech."

Can one imagine? i know some socially awkward people but it runs gloriously counter to our sense of constant chatter.

"The deadlock was broken when the younger of the two made a casual remark. This opened the doors to an excited exchange of news and gossip. If the two were related, the older would sit down and the younger sit on his lap, then the two would cuddle and huddle while weeping profusely. If they had not seen each other for a long time, the weeping could go on for hours. In the eyes of outside observers, the embracing and caressing could seem amorous but in fact the ceremony had no erotic significance whatsoever. Kisses were not part of the repertoire of caresses; only children received kisses as a sign of affection."

From the gentle tactility of men to the lack of erotic kissing, how different!

"Greater Andamanese greeting ceremonies were loudly demonstrative, their weeping often turning into howls that could be heard, as was intended, far and wide. The Onge were less exuberant and were satisfied with the of a few quiet tears and with caressing each other. If there were many people, greeting returning hunters that had been absent longer than expected or meeting unusual visitors, etiquette required that the large mass of people should not cry until several hours after the arrival. When the howling started, it could go on all night. When more than a few people met, the initial staring was dispensed with. "

when the headhunting stops

Sometimes i think i like the anthropology of emotions more than the history of emotions. Perhaps this is just because within anthropology it is possibly easier to come across examples of exotic emotions, of responses that challenge perceptions and provide a thrill of the possibilities that we humans are capable of.

One such example comes from 'The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions', by William M. Reddy though in this case he is describing the work of an anthropologist.

Michelle Rosaldo wrote of the Ilongot people of the Philippines, formerly a tribe of headhunters (the headhunting was only done by the men) whose emotional lives prized the concept of liget which is a sense of anger, heat, energy and envy. This liget provided the motivation to do things like hunt, garden or protect the tribe from attack.

It also was central to young men becoming possessed of the desire to headhunt. This was then harnessed by the elders (also men) and they all went on raiding parties. If successful, the whole tribe (men and women) would break out in joyful celebration, not least in seeing liget fulfilled.

However when Rosaldo went back to the tribe for more fieldwork several years later, she discovered the headhunting had stopped, through a crackdown by the Philippino authorities. In that time, many of the tribe had converted to Christianity and the tribe's emotional norms were becoming much more placid in the absence of liget which could no longer be expressed or fulfilled. Ultimately they hoped the new religion would take away the pain of unrealised liget.

On the surface the tribe had made this massive emotional shift away from one of their core emotional states in a very short period of years. However, when she played a recording back to them of their celebrations of liget (at their request), the tribe became utterly disconsolate and asked her to stop as it grieved them too painfully to hear the joy of their old way of life.

In another incident, Rosaldo spoke of a group of Ilongot Christians playing volleyball during a child's funeral, saying they had no reason to feel grief.

As Reddy points out, the activity of the build up and release of liget was not just a ritual, it was something the Ilongot were fully emotionally engaged in.

These people were not monsters, but they genuinely felt decapitating neighbouring tribespeople's heads was a good thing. they felt good when that liget was fulfilled and released. And yet this was the same feeling they got when they tended their gardens.

That Christianity had helped them move on from headhunting which is a good thing but the loss of their liget had clearly left them bereft.

In their Christian states, they felt no grief, and yet nothing in Christianity tells them not to feel grief. And was their lack of grief unnatural? How could it be, it was what they felt.

But think of the reactions we have to an apparent lack of grief, for example with the Queen's apparent aloofness after the death of Princess Diana.

I am not arguing that Christianity or the authorities did wrong in moving the Ilongot away from headhunting, or that they should have been denied the choice to engage with aspects of the outside world to keep them in some prelapsarian noble savage role for us to study.

Truly the well of human emotions is deep and diverse, and sometimes sits rather uncomfortably beside our notions of morality.

I do think it is worth remembering that our emotions are not always good and true guides in formulating any moral code, as they are capable of making the moral equivalent of black,white and white, black.

A reading list pt1

I have been fortunate recently to have been in email conversation with Keith Oatley, author "Emotions: A Brief History".

He has been patiently and kindly talking me through some of the parameters of the field and helping me see what's out there in the way of research. Whilst i knew a little of the broad themes upon which he elaborated, his years of experience and erudition leave me blushing at my ignorance - anyone who knows me knows this is not something i do often.

Here amongst others is a reading list by him of suggested works I should have a look at. It covers anthropology, psychology, literary criticism and other fields. Such is the nature of this nascent field of the History of the Emotions.

If anyone has read any of these works and cares to give an opinion I should be most grateful. I'll post thge full list over a couple of posts, it's quite long though there's some fascinating books there.

From anthropology:
A society apparently without emotions:
Howell, S. (1981). Rules not words. In P. H. A. Lock (Ed.), Indigenous psychologies: The anthropology of the self (pp. 133-143). London: Academic Press.

A society in which no-one gets angry:
Briggs, J. L. (1970). Never in anger: Portrait of an Eskimo family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

A society in which people are angry a lot of the time:
Chagnon, N. A. (1968). Yanomamö: The fierce people. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.

How societies, and their communal emotional qualities, can be destroyed by Western colonialism and modernization, e.g.
Turnbull, C. M. (1973). Human nature and primal man. Social Research, 40, 511-530.

A society living in the way in which it is thought that all our human ancestors mostly lived until urbanization began around 10,000 years ago:
Thomas, E. M. (1989). The harmless people (revised edition). New York: Random House.

Nowadays, with globalization we live in a world that is becoming more homogeneous. Some common emotional characteristic are satisfaction in relationships, even in the worst circumstances:
Biswas-Diener, R., & Diener, E. (2001). Making the best of a bad situation: satisfaction in the slums of Calcutta. Social Indicators Research, 55, 329-352.

pilgrimage to a better place

One of things i loved about the year of anthropology i did at university was that it taught about how institutions and social conventions can be stretched by practice and necessity to deal with the wonderfully wide range of human nature.

If one looks carefully you will see the same actions through a thousand social lenses. One activity that has always fascinated is that of pilgrimage, both religious and secular. It serves many purposes, social, personal and more besides. However, notwithstanding Catholic pilgrimages to Lourdes and the like, much of western society has lost the structure of a formalised pilgrimage and it is no surprise to find many of us filling in the gap with our own myriad forms.

These days any trip to any place that holds any degree of importance to any one can become a pilgrimage.... and yet aren't we missing something here? Pilgrimages were never just about the destination, they were about the journey and the difficulties faced along the way. These trials gave us questions and challenges to our selves and became in our own small way hero quests, when a person leaves their home and sets out through a series of trials to gain knowledge and wisdom to bring back for the benefit of the self and the community.

We have diluted the pilgrimage and lost some of the essence that was of such great benefit. Journeys are all too often too easy, involve no hardship and sacrifice that serve as such deep teachers. Even travelling to the four corners of the world does not necessarily represent a struggle. What matters is how the journey is done and what can be learnt along the way.

Can the pilgrimage be revived to serve our emotional needs? Amongst other things it can deal in part with emotions like loneliness, it can be used to teach compassion, something so sorely lacking in this world. It can teach almost anything if framed correctly. And we need not limit ourselves to one pilgrimage, but many to fulfill certain roles for the community and its individuals.

One caveat to a wider concept of pilgrimage would be scale - the nature of mass action means economies of scale both material and spiritual come into play. The Islamic Hajj is a prime example, though it still retains much force for Muslims. The pilgrimage has become an industry and it is a testament to Islam that some of the spirituality that can benefit pilgrims survives.

I think a pilgrimage should be a decentralised, localised affair, and dare one say it, but possibly one that requires the pilgrim to travel solely by foot... they are not meant to be easy, for no lessons would be learned. But they can be rooted in their communities and made relevant to the communities needs.