Staving off Hoodoo in the Workplace

So, on my current project, all personnel are required to meet at 6:00 every morning for a safety meeting. During this meeting, one victim is chosen to give a short talk about a safety topic near and dear to their heart. I was chosen to give tommorrow's (or today's, by the time this post drops). Below is the talk I have chosen to give.

*******************

Hello,

In these morning safety meetings, we have spoken alot about the dangers of working in oil fields: the chemical exposure, working around heavy equipment, the traffic dangers, the unique dangers posed by high tempuratures, and so on. There is a hazard that is often faced by archaeologists, but being as you are currently working in an archaeologically sensitive area, it is likely that other personnel on this project will face this hazard as well. What I am talking about is simply this: bad juju.

Now, I know what you are thinking, bad juju is usually associated with burial grounds and other such creepy places. This is a common misconception, and one that I hope to correct before someone loses an eye...or grows an extra one on their shoulder.

Bad juju can occur anywhere, at any time. All that is needed for this hazard is for a mystically powerful individual - say a shaman, a witch , a sorcerer, or a financial actuary - to take it in their mind to curse a place, object, or person. Sometimes the curse isn't even necessary, and the mystically powerful individual having a bad day is enough to pour the negative energies into the surroundings. So, if, for example, a sorcerer had been walking along a pleasant tree-lined street but pondering the fact that his wife had just left him for a fish-seller, well, the sorcerer's mood might infect the area and thus create a safety hazard for all who enter it.

Even if bad juju is unpredictable, it is not unavoidable. The most effective way to prevent bad juju from affecting you is to carry a gris-gris. Both OSHA and CalOSHA recommend a classic Mojo hand, although other effective gris-gris can be made by placing pieces of your hair and fingernails together with some dust from a graveyard into a handkerchief, placing the handkerchief into a leather pouch, and allowing the pouch to sit overnight on the grave of Marie Laveau, or, if a trip to New Orleans is not possible, the grave of Mary Ellen Pleasant. In a pinch, a St. Christopher's medallion might work, but you should be aware that most safety experts hold that St. Christopher's medallions are most effective if given to the user by a maternal aunt (not necessarilly your own) on the day of the second full moon of the lunar year.

By following these simple guidelines, we can prevent accidents or injuries that may result from crossing angry spirits. As it is the goal of everyone here to have zero reportable injuries, we should consider our gris-gris just as much a part of our safety equipment as our hard hats and orange vests.

Let's go out there and be safe. And remember, we are a nation on a war footing, so be ever vigilant.

Thank you for your time.

Why Choose This Guest?

Earlier today, I was listening to news on the radio, and one of the programs had two guests, both of whom were speaking about the nature of the public discussion regarding abortion in the wake of Dr. George Tiller's recent murder.

The pro-abortion rights guest was relatively eloquent, though given to alot of rhetoric. However, she made her points and made them well.

The anti-abortion rights guest was another matter, and I think that this reflects poorly on the news network. While the other guest had spoken of ethics in medicine as a balance between personal beliefs, best practice of medicine, and social responsibility, this guest immediately began rambling about supernatural origins of life and didn't seem capable of actually maintaining linear thought.

Now, here's the thing - in all honestly, I probably would have disagreed with the guy anyway. Like anyone who reads alot and listens to the news, I have heard a wide psectrum of views on abortion, and it's been a long time since I have heard anything actually new. However I have heard people who are opposed to legalized abortion speak intelligently and eloquently before. I have come away from hearing similar shows really having to think about where I stood on the subject (though, again, it's been a while since that last happened).

So, why did they get this guy? A part of me wants to say that they got him because they wanted an easy target, but this particular show tends to be very fair-minded, and they were very respectful to the guest even when he rambled aimlessly.

In truth, it was probably just luck of the draw, and this was a bad guest - it is bound to happen to any daily program. It was still frustrating to hear the guy ramble on, and it made the producers of the show look bad.

One of the Joys of Fieldwork...

...is finding strange and unexpected items while performing survey. For example, anyone who has performed survey in the deserts of the American southwest knows how often one comes across toilet parts and the remains of hair-care products. Why these, specifically, should be so common out there is open to debate, but they are far from the oddest things one is likely to encounter.

Case in point - some years back, I was the field director for an archaeological project at the Santa Barbara Airport. The airport is in an area considered to be highly sensitive for archaeological sites, and so I had a team of archaeologists accompanying the construction crews and looking for any sign of cultural deposits to prevent damage to any previously unrecorded sites.

I was sitting in my office one morning, working on a report for another project, when the phone rang. I answered and heard the voice of Timothy, one of my archaeologists, announcing that he had just found something rather important, and that I had better come check it out. With visions of a Chumash village in my head, I rushed over to the airport, located Tim, and asked him to show me what he found. He quickly ran off, and returned with an object in his hand that...well, at first I wasn't sure what to make of it. And then I realized what he was holding - an over sized silicon dildo. Apparently it, along with a few other sex toys, had been buried in a small hole on the airport grounds, and the excavator had uncovered them. Needless to say, this resulted in several weeks worth of jokes at Tim's expense.

On another occasion, I was performing survey in Tulare County when Randy, my field tech, and I climbed up a steep bank out of a riverbed only to find ourselves in a small area that had been cleared of brush in the center of which a series of horse skulls had been arranged into a circle. Whether this was the doing of wannabe Satanist teenagers or of a couple of bored "good ol' boys" we never did discover. However, the religious attitude of the town in which we were staying was such that a paranoid obsession with "evil cults" was common, and Randy and I derived a good deal of levity out of the silly notion that we had uncovered the headquarters of a world-wide Satanic conspiracy.

Speaking of skulls, on my current project we discovered this:


For no apparent reason, somebody thought it would be a good idea to place a cow's skull atop the remains of a child's playset.

While performing this project, we have also encountered refrigerators, stoves, pieces of furniture, etc. all int he most unlikely of places. However, the winner for "weird objects discovered" would have to be this:



Now, let me set the scene for you: this is an arid environment, there are no rivers, no permanent drainages, no water other than that which we bring with us. This was located far away from the nearest road, and there was no indication of how it got there. And yet, there it is, a boat.

Need another look?



Using my advanced archaeological talents, I can tell that safety was on the minds of the people who placed the boat here. After all, they brought safety vests.


So, there you have it. Become an archaeologist, you'll find weird-ass stuff.

Milk, it....mythologizes a bad hair day?

What the hell? I mean, really, what the hell is up with advertisers?



I have to wonder whether or not the milk commercials wil be succesful, or whether they will simply become an embarrasement to the advertising company. But Youtube, sweet Youtube, will make sure that they are always available to us.

Culture Porn

My friend Holly has a sister who was, in her early 20s, "looking for meaning in life" and, as tends to happen, ended up with a weird cult living in Oregon on a parcel of land that they call, appropriately enough, The Land.

Now, what separates this from the commonplace, run-of-the-mill "gee golly, my sister ran off to join a cult" story* is the fact that this is a "shamanic" cult. I use quotes because, frankly, as far as I can tell, this is just a bunch of suburban whiteys who've seen Dances With Wolves one too many times and who know as much about shamanism as Lindsay Lohan knows about organic chemistry. However, they have fun dancing about wearing mock animal heads and pretending to be in touch with nature spirits, when all they're really in touch with is their own pretentiousness**.

I live in Santa Cruz, which means that I have encountered these sorts of people before and will, no doubt, encounter them again. They're a dime a dozen**, and generally not that interesting. However, their obsession with attempting to create (or as so many of these people claim resurrect or continue) a shamanic religion is kind of interesting to me, though not for the reasons that most of them would hope.

Typically, the desire to have a shamanic religion seems to come not from an understanding of shamanism, but rather from a desire to "get in touch with the Earth, y'know, like the Native Americans!" (but, again, see the ** footnote). I have written about the social fetishization of Native American peoples before, the tendency to ignore who these people really are and instead focus on (and/or try to emulate) a stereotyped or oversimplified caricature.

We see similar patterns play out with many different cultures. For example, there are those who claim to be deeply interested in India and Hinduism, but know little more than that for Hindus there is a belief in both ascendance and reincarnation. these people are generally more interested in posing as "spiritually deep" than in actually finding out why some Indian mystics choose to leave the world or why Hindus generally hold certain animals sacred.

Odds are that you know at least one person who claims great knowledge of Japanese culture, but who has gained their...ahem..."extensive" knowledge from reading comic books and watching cartoons. And so many of these people have never even seen a Godzilla movie...they should be ashamed.

And then there are the wanna-be shamanists, who use the trappings of shamanism found in any low-grade 50's jungle movie and mix it with a heaping dose of new-age philosophy and claim that it's how the Native Americans/People of Africa/Australian Aborigines/insert-group-here view the universe.

I refer to this as Culture Porn: it's the creation of a sleek, sexy, but ultimately empty simulacrum of another culture, produced and packaged for easy availability to any consumer. Just like pornography, the simulacrum is airbrushed, free of the blemishes that real people and cultures have, often modified to suit the desires (or perceived desires) of the consumer. The consumer of culture porn is no more looking to understand the other culture (as it really is, warts and all) than the consumer of pornography is looking for real, messy sex. And like pornography, the consumer may forget that they are looking at a construct, and begin to think that this is not only what truly exists, but what they deserve to have.

Unlike pornography, however, the consumer of culture porn typically doesn't see himself/herself as a consumer, but instead manages to convince themselves that they are "culturally sensitive" or "coming to understand the superior spirituality of these others" or some such thing.

Some strains of culture porn have their roots in the past. The tendency for many to obsess over the religious and/or medicinal practices of Asian cultures without regard to the context in which these practices developed and exist bears more than a passing resemblance to the racist 19th century view of Asians as "celestial people" of the "mystic Orient." Likewise, the naive shamanism described above seems to be descended from the fascination of 18th and 19th century Europeans with the "mystical" practices of the native people of colonised regions - often espousing attitudes towards these people, such as that they were "closer to nature" or "part of a mythic past but irrelevant to the present and future", that were often used in justifying their subsequent second-class position within colonial and post-colonial societies. That these qualities are now viewed as admirable rather than detrimental doesn't change their origin or their falseness, nor does it change the bigotry inherent in them.

Other strains of culture porn seem to be rather more modern. The suburban kid obsessed with Japanese pop culture but possessing little real knowledge of Japanese culture or history often begins their interest because of an aesthetic or thematic interest in the material - and there is nothing wrong with this as long as it does not develop into a hubristic belief that the pop culture fan has become an expert on the nation that produces that pop culture.

And none of this is to discourage people from genuinely trying to learn about and understand other cultures. Hell, I'm an anthropologist by training - how would that have happened if I did not think that trying to understand others was an absolutely worthwhile pursuit. Likewise, there are those who truly do come to understand cultures other than their own, but they do so not by putting the culture up on a pedestal or treating it as a thing to be admired or aspired to, but rather by getting truly into it, working to understand the context of the culture, and knowing that it has both its positives and negatives.

However, this degree of effort and engagement is, in my experience, typically lacking. More common, we see people ignore the reality, brush aside the real people, and purchase the porn. And so, at this moment in Oregon, there is probably someone wearing a paper mache bull's head doing the cultural equivalent of masturbating.




Special link: I love the Onion.




*Holly and I have learned quite a bit about this group, and despite their weird, and frankly laughable, ways, they are quite harmless. Otherwise I wouldn't be making light of the situation like this.


**And these sorts of groups should not be confused with groups that do genuinely carry on an older shamanic tradition, or with groups who have actually bothered to learn about the nature and history of shamanism before attempting to create their own, new practices. Whatever else one may say about these groups, they generally are something other than a bunch of pretentious people who want to feel special.

Will the National Science Foundation Buy LSD for Me?

On the first day of the last seminar class that he ever taught, Brian Fagan waited for the archaeology graduate students, of whom I was one, to settle down before asking his first question.

"Who here has used peyote?"

All of us sat quiet in our seats, unsure whether Dr. Fagan was joking or serious.

"Well? Who here has used peyote?"

He was serious. Nobody raised their hands, instead we all shifted about and looked at each other uncomfortably.

"Hmph. Well, this is a sad state of affairs. Here you are, a room ful of people who study hunter-gatherer societies, and yet none of you have ever used the hallucinagenic drugs that the were a vital part of the religious practices of so many of these societies!"*

While Brian was arguably being overdramatic, and probably choosing halucenogenic drugs largely for shock value - graduate students like to act jaded, and sometimes need to be shocked - there is a valid underlying question: is it necessary for an archaeologist to engage in the behaviors of the people that they study in order to effectively study these people? If so, to what degree is this necessary?

On the surface, it seems like the answer to the first question should be an unequivocal "yes." After all, buy engaging int he practices of the people being studied - whether ritual, gathering, hunting, home-building, or anything else - may provide insights into the material record that we are studying. For example, if we understand how a stone tool was made, then we may be able to better comprehend what the debitage (the waste flakes left after the manufacture of a stone tool) means when we find it in a site. Or, to bring it back to Brian's example, if we understand how drugs impact the mind froma first-hand experience, then many elements of the archaeological record may make more sense. This line of thought formed the basis of the experimental archaeology movement, which peaked in the 70s and 80s, but is nonetheless still alive and well.

It seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Do what ancient humans were doing, and you'll have a better grasp on what their remains have to tell us.

But, of course, it's not that simple. While it is absolutely true that engaging in the activities that our ancestors engaged in will yield valuable information about the remains of these activities, it is also true that we can get alot of misinformation that causes us to mis-interpret what the material record represents.

The most obvious source of misinformation comes when we try to replicate past behaviors, but do so incorrectly. If we produce stone tools using even slightly different methods than those of the ancient people, then we may produce a debitage pile that looks different than they would have produced. If this is the case, then we may be thinking that a debitage collection from a site represents one set of tools when, in fact, it represents a completely different set.

Likewise, if someone chooses to use halucinagens in order to understand shamanic visions, they run the risk of mistaking their own individual experience for a universal one, and reaching conclusions about ancient ritual practices that are just plain wrong (I wonder if this example could be explained that way.

Another place where misinformation can creep in is through changes in the environment. For example, my friend Dustin has done extensive experimental work using replicas of prehistoric fishing tools in order to better understand why the Chumash of the Santa Barbara Channel area changed their equipment over time. One of the frequent frustrations that he encountered was the fact that California's fisheries are so overfished and depleted that he could not get good statistical data on what each type of hook and snare was likely to catch or the quantities in which the fish would be caught.

A related problems comes from the fact that, try as we might, we will never be the ancient people who we study. We were not indoctrinated into their rituals and beliefs as children; we did not learn from an early age to gather, hunt, and make tools of stone, wood, bone, and fiber; we are not mobile foragers who know nothing of the world outside of our foraging range save what the few strangers that we encounter tell us. In short, there are large swaths of the lives of these people that we do not know of simply because we are not, have not been, and will never be, them. And all of our actions are informed by aspects of our lives that on the surface seem only tangentially related to whatever activity we happen to be engaged in at the moment. This is true whether we are hunter gatherers or modern suburbanites - our beliefs about ourselves, our society, and the world around us influence us in ways that we are often not aware of.

Which should not be taken as me saying that this form of experimental archaeology is not valid. It is absolutely valid, and has provided alot of very useful and important information. However, as with any technique used to evaluate the archaeological record, all of the results that we gain should be taken with a grain of salt, and we should always keep in mind that we may be in error.





*Once, when relating this story to some fellow anthropologists, I was asked whether or not I would be willing to take Peyote, or a similar substance. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that, were it as part of a ritual and I was partaking as an anthropologists AND the preparation was done by someone who actually knew what they were doing (and therefore wouldn't poison me), then I might. For various personal reasons I might not, and I would certainly not use it recreationally, but as part of a ritual, I wouldn't discount the idea altogether.

Legal Principle Vs. Ethical Principle

A post over at Hemant Mehta's blog addresses an issue that I often see getting lost in discussions of any hot-button legal case: the separation of the legal matter from the ethical principle of the case.

As I wrote about last week, the California Supreme Court decided that Proposition 8 was legal, and that the amendment to the state constitution was passed in a manner consistent with California's amendment process. I have already made my problems with California's amendment process known, and it probably goes without saying at this point that I view Proposition 8 as a rather unnerving example of people pushing their own arbitrary religious beliefs onto everyone else*. However, as the case was presented, the court could not rule on whether the proposition was ethical (and given the court's past rulings, it is likely that there were those on the bench who considered it unethical), but only on whether or not it passed legal muster.

I am not an attorney, and I do not know the intricacies of past cases or what, precisely went into this decision. I am not going to be one of these people who pretends to have this knowledge when I do not, and therefore I will not comment on whether or not the decision is a legally sound one. But, the basic principle that the court can only rule on cases brought before it AS those cases are presented is not only correct, it is necessary, and this point seems to get lost in the noise surrounding any hot button case.

Of course, this sort of thinking is in no way limited to those who support gay rights. When the court ruling allowing gay marriage in California was released, and again now that similar things are happening in New Hampshire, I often heard naively simplistic statements such as "the constitution doesn't specifically mention gay marriage so it doesn't apply" or "this is just another case of those damn liberal judges legislating from the bench", but I rarely saw anyone actually discuss the actual ruling issued by the court in question. The reasons are varied - some folks may not have thought to look it up, others may not have known how to access the decision, but other people (especially many of the big media figures who have discussed it) may be aware that the realities of the legal case in question defy their simplistic denunciations. But the same principal applies - the courts must work with the law, and that means that sometimes some people won't like the results. You can work to change the law, but you should not blame a judge or a panel of judges for making rulings consistent with that law, and you should at least make yourself familiar witht he ruling before attacking the judges for making it.

Anyway, I'm not saying anything new or groundbreaking here. I am disappointed with the result, and I am disgusted with the voters in my state. However, when we discuss the law, we need to make sure that we understand the distinction between legal rulings and our moral/ethical stances.


On the lighter side: You know how, everytime the issue of gay marriage come sup, some irrational dolt starts making implausible slippery-slope arguments? Well, Pat Robertson and Bill O'Reilly had what are probably the king of stupid comments, claiming that laws protecting gays or legalizing gay marriage would lead inevitably to people having sex with ducks. So, I was greatly amused to see this:



*Kay has told me that someone said to her "Proposition 8 passed because people are tired of having other people try to tell them how to live!" The Hell? Proposition 8 is ABOUT telling other people how to live, telling people that if they don't fit into some pre-described little box that the mob approves of that they must be relegated to second-class citizenship, not about people bucking that. The thing is, I keep hearing this sort of rationale, and it is so bass-ackward that it's impossible to even bring the people spouting this bullshit back to reality.