BLOOMSBURG STATE COLLEGE
Bloomsburg
Pennsylvania
Anthropology Newsletter
Vol. 3, No. 7
April 1979
Department of Philosophy/Anthropology
Book Review
While British anthropologists traditionally have allied themselves with
sociology, American anthropologists have always felt more comfortable with psychology.
In the formative years of American anthropology, Sapir, Radin, Goldenweiser and others
claimed that the study of anthropology was the study of cultural influences on personality. As a result, American anthropology turned to socialization, cross-cultural
psychotherapy, linguistics, and the psychological interpretation of art, religion and
myth. Another consequence was the anthropological biography or autobiography. That
is, an anthropologist would publish the life history of an individual as dictated to
the anthropologist; this might be seen as a natural outgrowth of the intense anthropologist-informant relationship. In this way, Radin's Crashing Thunder, Wallace's
Handsome Lake, Dyk's Left-Handed, and more recently Casteneda's Don Juan, became part
of the anthropological data bank. In this context we may view Ruth. Underhill's Papago
Woman. Originally published in 1936, this book has just been reissued by Holt, Rinehart & Winston with a new introduction by the author, a student of Boas and Benedict.
Her story of Chana, the Papago woman, bristles with enthusiasm for the Papagos, Arizona,
and anthropology. The book begins: "I was born there," breathed Chona reverently "on
the Land." This begins a section in which Underhill traces the nature of her relationship with Chona and her surroundings. The actual autobiography follows: "We lived at
Mesquite Root and my father was chief there. That was a good place, high up among the
hills, but flat, with a little wash where you could plant corn." Chona's story gives
the reader an appreciation of her times, the Indian attitude towards whites and reservations, and of Papago life. Quantitatively-oriented scientists probably wouldn't think
much of the information (Was she randomly selected? How typical was she? etc.) but the
anthropological autobiography is one of the best ways to get a feel for another culture.
Where's Our Speaker? Last December Dr. Minderhout came to an agreement with Myra BluebondLangner, a medical anthropologist at Rutgers University, that she would speak on campus
in April about her research into the private worlds of dying children. Dr. BluebondLangner signed a contract for her honorarium at that time, and the contract was sub.mitted to Harrisburg for approval before the statewide freeze on college spending. After
a two month wait, the anthropology faculty was informed that the state would not honor
the contract. Dr. Carlough made inquiries around campus to see if any organization would
be willing to part with $200 for her fee, but none wer~ as she failed to fit any of the
preconceived slots fo~ BSC speakers. As a result, anthropology has no speaker for 1979,
and BSC's reputation is tarnished at Rutgers for our failure to meet our commitments.
BSC History Conference The Twelfth Annual BSC History Conference will be April 19-20 in
the Kehr Union. The conference theme, The 60 1 s, 70's, and 80 1 s: Where is America Going?"
has led to several sessions which should interest anthropologists. A multi-media presentation by Barbara Marx Hubbard of the Committee on the Future focuses on the creation
from the beginning of the physical universe to the technological prowess of our times.
Timely questions such as "What is the purpose of these new powers?" will be addressed.
Then the keynote address by Tom Wicker, editor of the New York Times, will focus on
"Where is America Going?" Sessions on "The Future of the American Family" and "The
Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations" should be
especially interesting. There is no charge for the sessions for BSC students and faculty.
Dr. Minderhout has extra copies of the program if you're interested.

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Department Sharing. Now that the Anthropology Department is settled in the Philosophy
Department several shared projects have been initiated. The Philosophy/Anthropology
student journal is under way and the editorial board (members from Anthropology, Philosophy,
Sociology, and other departments) are waiting for papers to review for the first publication. Jointly, the two halves of the department had representatives at last week's
career fair, making material available for students who were interested in knowing what
types of jobs are possible with a degree in Anthropology or Philosophy. The Philosophy
Club sponsors monthly meetings where various topics are presented and discussed. Two
upcoming meetings will deal with nuclear power/pros and cons, and Durkheim's theory of
God. The Durkheim Presentation should be of interest to majors who have had Religion and
Magic while the topic of nuclear power concerns everyone.
In light of this academic sharing the Philosophy Club has extended an open invitation to
anthropology majors who might be interested in taking part in the club's activities. A
suggestion has even been made to change the name of the club to Philosophy/Anthropology
Club since both areas are housed in the same department. Your participation will determine the outcome. The club offers a good place to discuss topics of concern with
people of like minds. Keep your eyes open for meeting dates in the BSC Today or contact
Marjorie Clay, Bakeless 217.
Where Are They Now? December graduate John McVeigh has been accepted into law school at
the University of Nebraska and has been offered a fellowship to a program in Ecological
Psychology at Michigan State University; only 4 of 106 applicants were accepted. (You
see, BSC graduates can compete!) Congratulations John!
Society for Applied Anthropology By Lesly Barr. Does it seem that anthropologists are
often so involved in theory and trivia that they lack a means of applying their knowledge to the human social condition? On March 16 and 17 Dave Minderhout and four anthropology students; Lesly Barr, Steve James, Keith Zoba and Trese Zoba; visited Philadelphia
for the 1979 Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, · Through this convention a new outlook was formulated about the influence that anthropological theory and
its unique methods of collecting data can have in positions such as child welfare, psychiatric wards, and physical or mental health.
One of the workshops attended dealt with ethnographic futures research--an adaptation of
conventional ethnographic procedure. Informants were asked to reveal an optimistic,
pessimistic, and most probable scenario of how they believed their culture would function-politically, economically, etc.--in the year 2001.
A major portion of the convention dealt with child-focused anthropology, specifically the
relationships among anthropologist, foster child, and foster parents. Ethical issues in
the fieldwork of medical anthropology composed the subject matter of a symposium on
Saturday morning. A specific concern noted was the disclosure of information and management of trust between mentally ill informants and the anthropologist. Ethical role conflict
was created when an anthropologist was also a health professional, such as a nurse.
In a case study of out-patient programs from Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Philadelphia an
anthropologist hired to analyze the program became a culture broker between the community
at large and the stigmatized hospital. The emphasis of this mental health work was placed
on examining the incongruent behavior between patients in the hospital and in the community.
The final panel discussion attended on Saturday afternoon dealt with an anthropological
view of health, disease, and culture. One paper related menopausal symptoms to factors
i n the sociocultural environments of women such as negative status, self-esteem, and
expressed level of satisfaction. In a study of terminally ill leukemia patients, the
structure of social relationships and information transfer was revealed among the patients

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themselves, their families, and medical practitioners. An epidemic of anthrax in Haiti
provided the opportunity to examine the interaction between Western and traditional
medical treatments. A comparative study of the attitudes of two ethnic groups, Italian
and Jewish families, toward their own schizophrenic children provided indicators of how
ethnic attitudes and perceptions of life can affect prognosis, symptomology, and severity
of this illness.
All in all, we enjoyed this conference and came back to BSC refreshed and excited about
what we had learned. (Mr. Solenberger also attended these meetings; his own account has
been circulated to the anthropology faculty and the Information Office-DJM)
Magazine Review The Society for Applied Anthropology has recently begun a new publication
called Practicing Anthropology, a career-oriented publication designed for anthropologists
in non-academic employment. The February issue is devoted to what is called Public Interest
anthropology, dealing with anthropologists in government bureaucracy, and attempts by
anthropologists to affect public policy. If you would like to see copies of this journal,
the Multicultural Education Center (RSC 26) has copies of back issues. Six issues are
published each year, and a subscription costs $5.
M.A.N. Club Archaeology Field Survey. In response to a request by a local resident, Dr.
Harriet Parker, the M.A.N. Club plans an archaeological field survey trip to explore what
may prove to be an Indian burial mound. Although such burial mounds are sometimes found
in western Pennsylvania, an area influenced by "mound builder" cultures from prehistoric
Ohio, the substantiation of the presence of this type of mound would seem to be a "first"
for the valley of the North Branch of the Susquehanna. Careful excavation of a section,
or "slice", of this mound, with systematic surveying and recording of the layers found,
should enable Associate Professor Robert R. Solenberger and students working under his
direction to determine, after a few hours of work, whether the mound is natural or
artificial, and probably whether is was used as a burial place.
Participation in this expedition is open to any student or faculty member with a serious
interest in archaeology. Transportation to the site will be by car pool. Tools will be
provided. Report in old clothes outside the Boyer Building (Nursing Department and
Archaeology Lab) at 8 a.m., Saturday, April 21, 1979. The group plans to return to campus
about noon. For further information contact Ray Tribendis, President, M.A.N. (784-7421)
or Robert Solenberger, Faculty Sponsor, Department of Philosophy/Anthropology (389-2326/
2500).
Amateur archaeologists are also invited to contact Mr. Solenberger about the program of
the meetings of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology at Moravian College, Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, April 27, 28, and 29, 1979.
Discovery of a Tribe By David M. Smith (continued from last month's Anthropology Satire)
My prudence paid off. By sheerest luck I discovered a virgin tribe right under my nose,
so to speak. The discovery was in the form of a studiously incoifed, slightly tipsy,
magenta-haired woman who asked me if I had seen either her Dorals or Marvin. Her name,
it turned out, was Wiwi, and she frequently misplacesher cigarettes and her lover when
she went to the ladies' room. {'Wiw:l.' is a pseudonym. Pseudonyms are time-honored traditions in anthropology designed to protect us from having to share royalties with our
tribespeople or from having students go to the field and second guess us. It also keeps
us from getting killed or sued.) Fortunately I had not seen Marvin, but I did have a
half a pack of Dorals which I had found on the subway. I ended up helping her get home.
This constituted my entry into the Jet Set tribe and the beginning of the first phrase
of my fieldwork.

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I had heard of the Jet Set but had assumed they were just people--the ones whose pictures
appear in society pages after beautiful Center City openings and whose names are found as
bylines in Philadelphia Magazine or are so gently slipped into the gossip columns. To my
delight they turned out to be a full-fledged tribe, an anthropologist's gourmet treat with
castes, a language, social organization, corporate identity, rites of passage, and last,
but not least, a kinship system. (Kinship systems are particularly dear to anthropologists.
No ethnography is complete without several pages of elaborate kinship diagrams. They lend
themselves nicely to making tests in introductory courses.)
Wiwi is the titular head of a clan. She adopted her name while very young, and there is
some question whether this predestined her to become a Jet Setter or vice versa. It certainly was a factor. In addition to its chic Gallic flavor, it is unforgettable and never
out of style.
It's easy to find a typical Jet Setter--provided you look in the late afternoon or evening.
They are all alike. They all work hard to be hippie chic in dress and adornment. They are
all thirty-three years old, live on caviar and publicity, and don't pay any attention to
sex di ff erences. None of the Jet Setters have children, and primary human relationships are
not expressed in nuclear families but in shifting dyads.
(This means that spouses or lovers
are taken and dropped. Occasionally one may be recycled.) The entire tribe is arranged
into interpenetrating clans organized around the titular heads. The relationship between
clan members and the titular head is either that of "backscratcher" or "lover" of not more
than two removes.
Clan membership is not marked by a clan name. It is articulated by starting each conversation
with the question, "Have you seen Wiwi (or the titual head of your clan) lately?" followed
by an appropriate response. Backscratchers, who have rich mothers or money from the practice
of law or construction, stand in a horizontal or lateral position to the titular head.
(By
contrast lovers stand in a vertical or subordinate relationship. These are structural relations, not the other kind.) They also tend to have long names like Cedric P. Tennyson-Browne.
In providing succor and support for the titular head, their major role, they perform yeoman
service. Being at the top is lonely and demanding. Hair color must be changed fortnightly.
Clan members must be stroked, quantities of champagne and caviar must be consumed, trips
planned, potential lovers screened, Dun and Bradstreets kept up to date, and the language
GOntinually relexified. In addition, back-scratchers provide most of the caviar and publicity. The caviar is simply purchased. Publicity is generated through a stream of schemes-opening restaurants, backing event spectaculars, getting engaged or married and holding
press conferences to talk about running for office. It doesn't matter if the schemes fail.
The authors get the publicity and aren't saddled with ongoing responsibilities. Titular
heads refer to backscratchers as "my best palsy-walsies."
The rest of the true clan members are lovers--real, aspiring or ex--of the titular head, or
at least lovers of his or her lovers. They too are thirty-three years old, hippie chic,
sexually indifferent and addicted to caviar. They don't have to have rich mothers or be
independently wealthy, but they can only work in the mornings or early afternoon. Their
only real filial responsibility is to begin every conversation with other clan members by
"Have you seen Wiwi lately?" Unless, of course, they are talking to her. Then they are
supposed to say something slightly depressing so she may say "everything's terrif!" They
are also expected, but not required, to appear at openings so they can smile and be
acknowledged.
While asking "Have you seen Wiwi lately?" is required of all clan members, it is not an
infallible mark of membership. There are lots of groupies who hang around but have never
been admitted to membership and who know the code. They tend to be very pretty, wear
polyester shirts or have dirty fingernails. True clan members always answer by saying,
"I think she's over at Stouffer's." (No true Jet Setter would ever be found at Stouffer's.)

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While admission to the Jet Set as a member in good standing is tightly controlled,
"courtesy" and "temporary" memberships are frequently granted. Courtesy affiliation
is conferred on those who have long names, rich mothers and who like opera or opening s ,
but who are too old or not witty enough to go all the way. They're expected to be unobstrusive. When they ask "Have you seen Wiwi lately?" the correct answer is, "She had
to go to the bank. They're threatening to repossess her emerald necklace. I'll tell her
you stopped by."
I wa s a temporary member. This privilege is accorded thirty-three year old intellectuals
or jocks who blunder in. They are unkempt or too ethereal to be true Jet Setters. (The
diff e rence between "unkempt" and "hippie chic" is more a function of where you buy your
clothes t han the end result.) In exchange for the privilege of being able to ask, "Have
you seen Wiwi lately?", temporaries must pretend to like cats and know that Perigino is
not a Yugoslav cocktail. Temporary members are recruited to meet some exigency--to serve
as a s tand-in lover or a Halloween party conversation piece. When the exigency has passed
the y s hould silently fade from sight. You can tell when your membership has lapsed when
you'r e told "She's at Stouffer's." (to be continued)
Ethnographic Facts by Lesly Barr. In the last ten years experimental studies with electronic
bio f eedback systems in such laboratories as the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, have
shown that the human mind can do many things that Western science had previously regarded
as impossible. We can use our minds to regulate consciously many so-called automatic body
functions, including control of brain waves, blood pressure, and heart rate. Current
research suggests that the human mind can learn to control conception similarly. Two
specific anthropological observations appear to support this contention. More than fifty
years has passed since Bronislaw Malinowski released his book, The Sexual Life of the Savages.
Detailed study of the people inhabiting the Trobriand Islands near New Guinea uncovered
the belief that pregnancy only occurred when a woman invited the spirit of a child into
her body. Among the Trobrianders there was no taboo against premarital sexual intercourse,
and frequent sexual relations between unmarried people were common. There was, however,
a very strong taboo against pregnancy in unmarried girls; those finding themselves in this
predicament were considered unsuitable for a husband. The confusing element to Malinowski
was that pregnancy rarely occurred in premarital relationships even though no mechanical
f orms of contraception were discovered. Contraceptive measures such as withdrawal were
thought o f as unnatural and extremely repugnant. It appears that those girls who did not
want to get pregnant did not believe they could. Furthermore, those same girls who had not
conceived during premarital sex maintained a normal rate of fertility after marriage and had
no trouble becoming pregnant.
Another group who seem to practice mental contraception are the Muria people located south
o f New Delhi in the heart of India,· as described by the anthropologist Verrier Elwin in
his b ook Kingdom of the Young. Every Muria village has a ghotul or children's house. Only
inf ants remain with their parents. All other children live in the ghotul alone, without
s upe rvision, and totally in accord with their own laws. Traditionally the children enter
t he ghotul as soon as they understand what happens at night between their mother and father.
Laws of the ghotul forbid that any girl sleep with the same boy more than three consec utive
night s. The Murias believe that only when a girl mentally binds herself to a man a nd
rema i ns true to him physically will she become pregnant. The reality is that there are
only 4% pregnancies among the girls of the ghotul even with complete sexual freedom. Moreove r, a first child almost invariably appears within the first year of marriage. It has
been suggested that the diet of the Murias and the Trobrianders causes infertility due to
pro t e in deficiency, and yet this view is inconsistent with the occurrence of normal fertility
af t e r marriage.

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An Interview with Dean G. Alfred Forsyth by Jan Dunlevy & Steve James.
Dr. Forsyth's interest in anthropology is very encouraging. Although he feels there is
little possibility of a straight anthropology major at this time, he believes there are
alternate ways to enhance the program at the college.
He would like to see more contact between departments. He is concerned about the lack of
discussion between departments as well as the failure of students and faculty to see the
interrelationships among the departments. He feels that the different departments have much
to offer each other if only they would become aware of their common interests. Dr. Forsyth
also suggests that it is important for the students to see this interrelationship among
departments because people are becoming far too specialized in their knowledge. This
sharing among departments would also help ease the budget cuts the college periodically
receives.
Dr. Forsyth feels the development of senior seminars would be an important development for
faculty and students. The seminars would consist of research papers prepared and presented
by students in an area of their interest.
Also, because BSC is centrally located, Dr. Forsyth would like to see inter-college relations
with some of the other colleges in the area.
Another of Dr. Forsyth's ideas was internship opportunities for anthropology majors. One
suggestion was that anthropology majors try to get internships through other departments.
More importantly, he suggested breaking ground at places where internships did not exist
and putting together our own program5.
In addition Dr. Forsyth feels that a questionnaire to be sent to anthropology graduates
which would ask what was most helpful and what was most lacking in their undergraduate
education would be useful in program development in anthropology.
When asked about the hiring of a fourth anthropology professor, Dr. Forsyth said he couldn't
justify a fourth faculty member, but added that a part-time faculty member was possible.
Dr. Forsyth is very impressed with what the anthropology faculty has accomplished. We're
sure that any suggestions you might have about anthropology would be appreciated by him.