BLOOMSBURG STATE COLLEGE
Bloomsburg
Pennsylvania
Department of Philosophy/Anthropology
ANTHROPOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3, No. 6
March 1979

Summer School 1979 The Master Class Schedule Booklets for the Summer Sessions 1979
have just become available. Students currently enrolled may schedule sunnner courses
any time from March 1 until the end of the spring semester in the Office of Extended
Programs, WAB. Because all but one anthropology course is listed as TBA in the
schedule, we thought you'd like to know who is scheduled to teach each course.
46.100
46.100
46.200
46.320
46.440
46.480

General Anthropology - Session I - Solenberger
General Anthropology - Session V - Reeder
Cultural Anthropology - Session III - Minderhout
Contemporary World Cultures (SW Trip) - Reeder & Minderhout
Language & Culture - Session III - Minderhout
Religion & Magic - Session VII - Reeder

We hope this will help you plan your schedule and inform your friends.
Book Review At first glance, The Cult of the Wild by Boyce Rensberger (Doubleday 1978)
is just another animal book urging us to conserve our wildlife heritage. However,
once you begin reading, the book lives up to its cover advertising as "myth-shattering."
Why is this book being reviewed in an anthropology publication? Well, basically, there
are two reasons: (1) the book chronicles the long history of the interrelationships
between animals and man and (2) much of the book is based on E. 0. Wilson's Sociobiology.
There are, as we all know, good animals and bad animals: sly, crafty foxes, innocent
lambs, proud peacocks, scavenging hyenas, and proud, majestic lions. As Rensberger
points out, in reality animals don't have th~se qualities; humans impose their own
motives and evaluations on them. Not only does this affect the animal population
(scavenging hyenas are killed; proud lions are preserved), but it has affected scientific
appraisal of many of them. Rensberger looks at the work of recent ethologists and devotes individual chapters to some of the most prominent animals, including chapters on
baboons and gorillas, in order to set the story straight. As it turns out, for instance,
it's the hyenas who make the kills and then get driven away from their prey by scavenging
lions. Attacking the Lorenz-Ardrey position in his chapter on murder, Rensberger argues
that humans are no more inclined to murder than other mammals and that in fact some
mannnals, such as lions, have a higher murder rate than humans do. Man the hunter, yes;
man, the bloodthirsty, aggressive ape, no. I should point out that Rensberger is proconservation. But, he argues, what about the needs of the growing populations of Africa,
Asia, and Latin· America? What right do we have in the Western world, after having
destroyed most of our own wildlife in the name of progress, to say that land-starved
Africans have to preserve thousands of acres for elephants--for our pleasure as tourists?
A realistic balance must be struck between the needs of the animals and the needs of
humans. Furthermore, he argues, we should conserve not out of a naive sense of what we
think an animal is, but with a clear concept of what they're really like: not cute or
cuddly, but unique unto themselves. All in all, this controversial book is well worth
reading.
Information Please The anthropology faculty are constantly receiving notices of graduate programs, field schools, and archaeological opportunities. While some of these are
posted on the Anthropology Bulletin Board and in 219 Bakeless, there isn't room to post
them all, If you're interested, just ask. For instance, the faculty just received a

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brochure from Loyola University of Chicago. Loyola is offering a Master's Program in
what they call Public Anthropology. This degree is oriented towards the development
of skills directly applicable to opportunities in non-academic fields of employment.
The emphasis is on urban research and planning with cross-cultural opportunities in
Latin America. The application deadline is Apri.l 15, 1979. Dr. Minderhout has this
brochure if you're interested.
Anthropology Majors The following students have either declared the Sociology/Anthropology major to the Registrar or have announced their intentions to do so to the
faculty. Get to know your fellow majors. If you're not on this list, and you think
you should be, contact one of the faculty.
Lesly Barr
Susan Barron
Jeff Bohlin
Carl Borkland
Mark Bujno
Debbie Cardene
Al Casterline
Cathy Davis
Jim Davis
Mike Dinsmore
Jan Dunlevey

Tim Eldredge
Janice Gitomer
Doug Gross
Chris Hagner
Steve James
Judi Johnson
Bruce Kelly
Dave Kowalewski
Brent Lees
Sue Lilly
Jeff Long

Debbie Martinez
Kim Osborne
Linda Price
Mary Ann Rubbo
Linda Scheier
Karen Schick
Jim Schriver
Cliff Tillman
Wally Yuslum
Keith Zoba
Trese Zoba

M.A.N. Club News The M.A.N. Club plans a meeting at 6:30 p.m., Monday, March 26, in
the Green Room, Kehr Union, to plan outdoor archaeological reconnaissance trips on
Saturdays during April and May. Indian artifacts should be 's urfacing in the fields
following spring plowing. The archaeological survey of the Danville-Riverside area,
mentioned last month, has been completed by Solenberger and Kowalewski and will be
reported on at this meeting. We now have map locations for over 15 nearby sites where
artifacts have been found and the routes of four important historic Indian trails.
Another promising place for investigation is a swamp area where present and prehistoric
ecology can be compared.
All students in Anthropology, Biology or Earth Science-Geology are invited to attend
and to suggest further indoor or outdoor activities.
Anthropology Satire by David M. Smith (Associate Professor of Anthropology & Education,
University of Pennsylvania). Bronislaw Malinowski got himself stranded in the Trobriand
Islands during World War I. This was a fateful event in the history of anthropology.
Not only did he keep a journal that revealed a struggle with lustful thoughts that
would exhaust even Jimmy Carter, but he set a standard for every anthropologist who
followed. He adopted a tribe. The Trobriand Islanders became his. It soon became
apparent that this was the only way to do anthropology. No one dared call himself an
anthropologist unless he could talk about "his" tribe--nor could he get tenure. The
scramble for tribes started. Anthropologists roamed the world over with a prospector's
zeal not even matched by Occidental Petroleum. (Malinowski created. another problem.
Since he had a lot of time to kill, he was able to analyze everything important to the
field of anthropology. Every anthropologist since has been reduced to studying trivia.)
This wasn't bad at first. The supply of tribes seemed almost inexhaustible. And so
things might have gone had not Margaret Mead come on the scene. She wrote about sex
and anthropology went public. Everybody wanted to get into the act. (There is no
evidence to suggest a statistical correlation between anthropology's hallowed tradition
of participant observation-based fieldwork and its curious interest in describing sexual
practices.) Many did. By 1960 at least one anthropologist had emerged from the closets

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of each sociology department in the country.
offices, and finally, whole departments.

They began by demanding desks, then

However, the world wasn't ready for anthropology. Nor were anthropologists ready for
the world. Chaos reigned. Those who could, the purists, beat a retreat to the
University of Pennsylvania and talked the trustees into building a fortress with a
wide moat around it. The annual meeting changed from decorous, intimate family gatherings where evenings were spent viewing lantern slides of the past year's field excursions to boisterous headaches for the country's major convention hotels. Not only
would thirteen blue-jeaned students and assistant professors crash into each room, but
they refused to use the hotel's valet service or to drink its booze. (My field observations indicate that anthropologists don't drink less, but they tend to bring their
own stuff from home. Contrary to popular opinion, this isn't because they are cheaper
than psychologists. It's a carry-over from their field experiences where the first
rule is "Never drink the local water.")
In the colleges and universities the professors who had failed to make the drawbridge
into Penn were forced to rethink the underlying philosophy of the discipline. Some of
the upstart, post-World War II students thought that their studies should prepare them
for a career. This challenged the time honored notion that "real anthropologists" only
teach other anthropologists so they can teach their students to be anthropologists in
turn. (Fortunately, we seem to have weathered this crisis. Anyone who can afford to
go to college today obviously doesn't have to worry about earning a living later.)
Most troubling, however, was the effect this upsurge in the popularity of the discipline
had on depleting the world's reserves of unclaimed tribes. By 1963 it was obvious that
there just weren't going to be enough to go around. Several· less than ingenious solutions were discussed. Some thought that college enrollment should be limited or even
that academic standards should be enacted to cut down on the number of students. However, this would have meant going back to the closets, and most anthropologists now had
offices so cluttered with field memorabilia that this was impractical.
Suggestions to divide up tribes, to send teams to a single tribe, to engage in extraterrestrial explorations or to create fictitious tribes were all met with similar objections. The problem was compounded by those few, like Colin Turnbull, who claimed more
than one tribe. He laid claim to both the Mouti Pygmies and the Ik. This was a particularly controversial case. Some thought he should be allowed two tribes since the
Pygmies weren't very big anyway. Others were skeptical of the authenticity of the Ik
study. They reasoned that if these people were so degenerate, how come they hadn't
left Turnbull to die of starvation on the mountainside. Charity prevailed. The anthropological establishment passed a belated code of professional ethics.
However, this attacked only an infinitesimal part of the problem. Besides the code had
about as many teeth as an old Eskimo woman after fifty years of chewing moccasins. The
only sanction of two-tribe anthropologists was to urge department chairmen to assign
them eight a.m. classes of male undergraduates.
The result has been a disturbing disintegration of the whole social order and an individual sense of anomie with bizarre manifestations. The rise in mushroom consumption
is only one. Some anthropologists have taken the unthinkable step of accepting government employment, of working for wages or even panhandling. A few have totally freaked
out and have "gone native." Marrying native women, they are content to pass their days
hoeing corn, telling stories, and raising naked children.
In the fall of 1976 I found myself an anthropologist without a job and without a tribe.
Being allergic to mushrooms and embarrassed by naked children, I chose to nurse my

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depression in a Philadelphia bar. Years before I found that gin and tonic was effective in staving off malaria. This was one peril I was determined to avoid in Philadelphia. My prudence paid off. By sheerest luck I discovered a virgin tribe right
under my nose, so to speak • • • (to be continued)
Ethnographic Facts While the U.S. and other industrialized countries find themselves
in an energy crunch because of petroleum supplies, it is hard to realize that in most
poorer nations, 90% of the people depend on firewood for cooking and heat. More wood
is cut each year in the world for firewood than for construction, paper, or other
products such as rayon. With each person needing firewood using roughly a ton a year,
and with the increasing world population, there is another energy crisis--firewood.
As one Indian official put it: "Even if we somehow grow enough food for our people
in the year 2000, how in the world will they cook it?" The firewood shortage is already
severe. In some countries in West Africa, villagers have to walk as far as 40 kilometers to find firewood. For those who cannot gather their own, firewood is for sale,
but at ever increasing prices: up to one-quarter of the budget of a family in Niger
can go to firewood. As the readily available wood disappears, people have taken to
poaching on national forest preserves. One of the innnediate consequences is erosion
as hillsides are denuded of vegetation. The Mexican government, for instance, has
forbidden woodcutting on hillsides; this forestalls erosion but aggravates the fuel
situation. Alternative fuel sources are not yet practical: oil and kerosene are too
expensive and solar and methane technology are still out-of-reach for a peasant family.
The basic alternative is to burn dried animal dung, a pattern already well established
in many countries, such as India. But burning the dung makes it unavailable as fertilizer for overworked agricultural land. The most successful solutions lie in reforestation
programs. The Chinese government has had one established fo~ 25 years, and the South
Korean government for 10. But these long-term solutions, while entirely desirable, do
little to alleviate the innnediate need.
Philosophy-Anthropology Journal Several students and faculty have been discussing an
interdisciplinary student-faculty journal for BSC. We would like to produce an issue
this spring, but we need papers. If you are interested in contributing research
papers, poetry, or original art work to a journal, please contact Steve James, Scott
Zinnnerman, Marjorie Clay, or Dave Minderhout.
Point-Counterpoint In the December issue, John McVeigh presented the case for using
animals in experiments. In this issue, Steve James presents the rebuttal to the McVeigh
article.
It is not my purpose in defending the rights of animals from the sometime cruel and
inhumane treatment experienced during experimentation to naively propose a ban on all
animal experimentation. The benefits derived from certain experiments undoubtedly outnumber the cost to those animals. What is important for those who must form an opinion
on the issue of animal rights is to be aware of the logic of both sides of the controversy. My goal then is to present the precepts of those supporting the doctrine of
animal equality and to show the need for qualifying restrictions on the use of animals
in the lab.
The philosophical doctrine of animal rights is essentially an extrapolation from the
notion of human rights. Equality is viewed as a state of mind, a means of moral reckoning. It is not, as most people believe, an assumption of fact. The principle of
equality is not a description of alleged actual equality of human beings; it is a prescription of how human beings should be treated. (Singer, 1975.) When justifying
racism, sexism or individual type superiority people have pointed to intelligence,
strength and might makes right to support their case. These hierarchial arrangers have

5
missed the point. Equality does not disregard actual differences in ability or
intelligence; it questions the correlating of these differences with the amount of
consideration we give a person. In reply to assertions from whites that blacks and
women lacked intelligence, black feminist Sojourner Truth stated the idea quite well.
''What does this so-called intelligence have to do with women's or black's rights?
If my cup wouldn't hold but a pint and yours a full quart, wouldn't you be mean not to
let me have my little half measure?" While there are doubts about differences, the
question is, should these differences be paralleled with how we view or treat others.
Those supporting animal experimentation have used for the crux of their argument the
idea that experiments are justified because animals are less developed and thus
inferior to humans. Again, differences are being correlated with the consideration
one receives and thus treatment. Like those opposing women's an_d black' s rights,
the proponents of animal experimentation have missed the fundamental concept of
equality.
Looking at ethnographic data, one becomes aware of the varying cultural attitudes concerning man's place in nature. The Western world tends to consider man as dominant over
nature and sometimes over his fellow man. Tracing the development of Western thought,
the idea of speciesism (the bias of one towards one's own species) runs throughout. The
Romans delighted at the sight of animals being slain. Christian doctrine clearly
separates man from beast as can be seen in the early and later attacks of Darwin's evolution. Two thousand years of Western philosophical development produced at most ten
notables who saw injustice in the inhumane treatment of animals. Even Descarte, an
enlightened man of the Renaissance, saw no wrong in dissecting live dogs hung crucifix
style on a board to examine the circulatory system. (Lecky,. 1869.) Since history is
in some sense a formula of the present, it is not hard to put the attitudes concerning
animals today into context.
Philosophical arguments or an understanding of the history of speciesism is not enough
to verify the stand of those supporting animal rights but as one looks through the
literature on animal experiments one intuitively senses something is wrong. Dogs are
hung from hammocks and delivered shocks in sensitive areas to see what behavioral
patterns emerge i.n response to inescapable shock. Pigeons are starved to 60% or 70%
of their normal weight to insure the proper responses to behavior modification treatment. Monkeys are raised in total isolation to see if neurotic or anti-social .behavior
follows. It has been estimated that up to 60 million animals are used in experiments
in a year's time. (Ryder, 1972.) Even more inhumane than the actual experiments is
the fact that the majority of the experimental results cannot be extrapolated to human
beings because of behavioral and physiological differences of the subjects. More
telling is that in some of the experiments, laboratory procedures do not reveal natural
behavior, only forced behavior. Experiments carried out in natural settings, although
more difficult to carry out, are often more truthful in their results. Until recently
this type of experimentation has gone unused.
When I think of the word "researcher," I do not conjure up images of a Dr. Frankenstein
in a white lab jacket dealing Mephistopheles-like evil. I cannot reject the researcher's
desire to in some way aid the development of mankind. I see much to be commended in
the actions of certain researchers in trying to establish more ethical practices towards
animals. What is needed in the controversy is for those carrying out this type of
research to at all times consider the ethical implications of their work. It is only
fair to weigh the costs and benefits of their research in terms of human lives AND
animal suffering.