193. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 12

Barry Hewlett's essay, Cultural Diversity Among African Pygmies, was published in 1996, in the book Cultural Diversity Among Twentieth Century Foragers (ed. Susan Kent, Cambridge U. Press). If my theory is going to be put to the test, this book will be a good place to begin, as chapter after chapter is devoted to the search for cultural differences within and among various hunter-gatherer groups worldwide, differences that, according to the editor and most of the contributors, have been for too long overlooked or minimized. Although the Great Kalahari Debate looms in the background, and cannot be completely ignored, all the articles appear grounded in solid evidence rather than ideology.

As Susan Kent's Introduction makes clear, past assumptions that all hunter-gatherer groups must share a common culture pattern cannot be maintained. Pointing specifically to superficial comparisons between, for example, Northwest Coast Indians and African "Basarwa" (her preferred term for Bushmen), she points out that "though they have similar food procurement strategies . . . these two groups differ in almost every other way possible -- from the environment they occupy to their stratification, hierarchies, and gender relations, as well as the organization of their economics" (p. 1). As I can attest, her position on this matter is fully consistent with the musical evidence. Despite past efforts to treat musical evolution as somehow moving in parallel with sociocultural "development," there is no evidence whatsoever for a typically hunter-gatherer musical style. I must add that I part company in this respect with Alan Lomax, who devoted a great deal of time and energy to promoting an evolutionary scheme of this sort, focused primarily on production type -- a theory that, in my view, makes little sense, in part because it assumes similarities in the music of hunter-gatherers worldwide that do not exist.

Narrowing her focus to Africa, Kent points with disapproval to the common tendency to treat all "Basarwa" groups as though they were identical with the much-studied Ju/'hoansi (aka !Kung). She strongly objects to the common tendency to lump all such groups "together as 'Bushmen' or 'Basarwa,' as if there were only one typical group that such a designation appropriately describes" (p. 3). Since my theory is not dependent on the uniformity of such groups, but focuses primarily on the Ju/'hoansi (the bushmen group whose culture and music I've been most consistently referencing in my discussions of this topic), and also because I have already dealt at length with some of the same issues elsewhere in this blog (see the Kalahari link, above), as well as in my paper, "New Perspectives on the Kalahari Debate," I won't get into this matter here.

Hewlett's chapter does require my attention, however, as he directly compares four pygmy groups, three of which have played an important role in my own research, and all four of which vocalize in Pygmy/Bushmen style: the Aka (aka BaAka) and Baka, representing the Western pygmies, and the Mbuti and Efe of the Eastern group. According to Hewlett, the cultural differences he has found, not only among these four, but the various pygmy groups generally, "are dramatic and striking" (p. 216).

He proceeds to discuss the various differences he's found under the following headings: Linguistic Diversity; Diversity in Subsistence and Settlement Patterns; Kinship, Marriage and Descent; Infant Care and Demography.
While I can't do justice to the full extent of his argument in this blog, I'll quote some of the points under each heading that seem most important, and respond briefly to each:

Linguistic Diversity:

The Efe are the most distinct linguistically as their language comes from a totally different language phylum than the other three. The Aka and Mbuti are the most similar, even though they are hundreds of miles apart, in that they both speak Bantu languages. . . The Baka, who live just across the Sangha River from the Bantu-speaking Aka, speak a language from a completely different linguistic family (i.e., Oubanguian) (pp. 217-219).

The linguistic differences among all pygmy groups reflect relatively recent contacts with various farming groups, with whom all pygmies have, since the Bantu expansion of roughly 3,000 years ago, formed more or less close bonds without losing their own cultural identity.

Diversity in Subsistence and Settlement Patterns:

The primary hunting techniques reflect important distinctions in the sexual division of labor between the foraging groups: men, women and children participate in the Mbuti and Aka net hunts, whereas generally only men participate in the Efe bow and Baka spear hunts.

It's difficult to assess the cultural significance of the different hunting methods employed by different pygmy groups, especially since the role of women is influenced by the hunting method employed, and the variation in hunting methods is probably due to outside influence. It is generally believed that Mbuti net hunting was introduced by Bantu neighbors. Given the universality of the use of poisoned arrows and spear tips among almost all pygmy groups, and bushmen groups as well, plus the discovery alluded to in an earlier blog post, of what appears to be a very similar type of bone arrow, dated ca. 60,000 years ago, it seems reasonable to assume that, despite present differences, the ancestral group also hunted with poisoned arrows and spears, and not nets. While this implies that women and children did not originally participate in hunting, as is now the case with net hunting, it has no bearing on the notion of a complementary relationship across sexual and generational borders, based on a fundamentally egalitarian outlook, as has been reported for all pygmy groups.

Efe and Baka camp closer to villages, spend more time in the village and eat more village food than Mbuti and Aka, but does this mean that they are more 'dependent' on villagers? . . . This propinquity and 'dependence' has lead to similarities between the villagers and Efe social-political organization: a lineage system, greater hierarchy, less egalitarianism and more formalized exchange relations (p. 223).

Hewlett himself recognizes that the differences he's found due to different settlement and dependency patterns are relatively superficial:

However, outward appearances of similarity [between pygmies and villagers] can be misleading and some confusion may have been compounded by a lack of data; . . . Actually, there is currently no evidence to suggest that Efe or Baka social life (e.g., egalitarianism, autonomy, leadership, dispute resolution, child rearing), forest life, or ethnic identity is closer to that of farmers than that of Mbuti or Aka. Efe and Baka have simply developed different strategies for dealing with their farming neighbors (p. 225 -- my emphasis).

During the course of this discussion, Hewlett makes a point well worth quoting here -- and emphasizing: "If cultural traits are not under selective pressures then they persist" (230). While Hewlett is referring in this instance to hunting practices, I'd like to think he'd agree that the same could be said of musical traditions, which, unlike hunting, don't seem to offer much in the way of selective advantage.

Kinship, Marriage and Descent: "These four groups are remarkably similar; all have Hawaiian kin terms, patrilineal descent and patrilocal post-marital residence." This is not as helpful to my cause as it might seem, since the Ju/'hoansi and other bushmen groups appear, at least on the surface, to have very different kinship systems. Moreover, Hewlett points out that the same general kinship terminology is common to most of their non-pygmy neighbors. However,

beyond the surface patterns the difference between foragers and farmers are striking. Foragers' versions of Hawaiian kinship terminologies are more classificatory or generalized than are farmers; adult foragers ideology about patrilineages is not strong and utilization of patrilineages is more flexible (e.g, mother's relatives are important often recognized with a specific term) and less precise than that of farmers (e.g., adult farmers often identify 5-6 generations of patrilineal links while foragers generally identify only 2-3 generations of patrilineal links); post-marital residence is more flexible among foragers than farmers as foragers frequently visit in-laws and distant relatives for long periods (pp. 231-232).

The above may be compared with the description of Bushmen kinship offered by Mathias Guenther in the same volume:

A number of social institutions are flexible sui generis, a result of . . . the 'organizational lability' of society. Neo-locality and highly classificatory (indeed universalistic) kinship systems are both social patterns that obscure genealogical detail . . . Absence of status differentiation and vaguely defined leadership and ritual specialization, unstable, tenuous marriages in early to mid-adulthood, and loose and informal child-rearing practices . . . allow for a wide margin of individual action as none is an institution or practice based on cut-and-dried jural rules but, instead, all are tentative and open-ended (p. 78).

The following from Hewlett in the same section is also worth quoting here, despite the mixed message conveyed, if we pay special attention to the passage I've highlighted:

The comparative data also indicate that several of the earlier characterizations (Turnbull 1965b) of forest forager descent as bilateral and post-marital pattern as bilocal are incorrect. The African forest forager bands are not organized for warfare nor do they have a strong patrilinal ideology as Service suggests. Nonetheless, though patterns are flexible, they do tend to practice patrilocal residence where related men hunt together (pp. 232-233).

Infant Care and Demography: While "Aka fathers do more infant caregiving than fathers in any known culture . . . Efe fathers do significantly less caregiving than Aka fathers . . . [and] Efe fathers do not appear to be intimately familiar or affectionate with their infants or be especially attached to them" (pp. 236 and 241). On the other hand, "While Efe multiple care is distinctive in some ways, multiple caregiving does appear to be a common feature of tropical forest forager socialization" (p. 238).

In sum, while Hewlett presents both similarities and differences, the differences he seems particularly interested in, and goes to the most trouble to analyze, are in almost every case due to interaction between the various pygmy groups and the Bantu villagers with whom they have formed relatively recent symbiotic relationships (and by "recent" I mean within no more than 3 or 4 thousand years). The similarities, on the other hand, in almost every case, appear to reflect deeper affinities associated with the sort of values he emphasized in the study of Aka pygmy culture I've already quoted in post 184:

no chief in the sense of a person commanding ultimate authority; fiercely egalitarian and independent; high value placed on sharing, cooperation, and autonomy; intergenerational equality; infancy lacking negation and violence; male-female relations extremely egalitarian by cross-cultural standards; physical violence in general infrequent and violence against women especially rare; probably as egalitarian as human societies get.

While not every single one of the above characteristics necessarily appears on the "similarity" side of Hewlett's ledger, none appears on the "difference" side either. Which makes it difficult to accept his rather extreme conclusion:

While there are commonalities between African tropical forest foragers, this chapter has emphasized the patterns of diversity. In doing so, it has perhaps contributed to a better understanding of those diversities and also made it clear that it is difficult if not impossible to refer to an African "Pygmy" culture (p. 244 -- my emphasis).

Due perhaps to the prevailing "revisionist" ideology of the 90's (which in many ways continues to this day), Hewlett has concentrated almost exclusively on the current state of pygmy life, characterized by varying degrees of external influence, dependency and change, with little or no attention paid to those aspects of pygmy culture most likely to be survivals from a common past. Since any attempt to speculate on the forbidden topic of "survivals" or the hypothetical recreation of deep history, prior to the Bantu expansion, would certainly be met with howls of indignant derision, Hewlett's narrow focus is not necessarily surprising.

I'd like to conclude with some excerpts from another study, centering on the Jahai indigenes of Malaysia, published a few years later, "Gifts from Immortal Ancestors," by Cornelia M. I. van der Sluys:

During the last decades of hunter-gatherer studies, we witnessed the so-called "forager controversy debates," which center mainly on the genesis of the Bushman cultures. Both groups of protagonists focus almost exclusively on ecological-economic issues and pay little attention to the forces inside these cultures that tend to perpetuate their reproduction from generation to generation. . .

An instance demonstrating that long-time contacts with "outsiders" do not necessarily imply a profound change in a hunter-gatherer culture's core premises and embedded values can be found in Turnbull's (1965) description of the Mbutis, hunter-gatherers in Zaire. Despite relationships with their agriculturalist Bantu neighbors, the Mbutis safeguard the reproduction of the core of their own culture by adopting certain Bantu customs and taking part in Bantu rituals. Similar strategies are also used by other hunter-gatherers . . . (in Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World, ed. Biesele and Hitchcock, Berghahn Books, 2000, p. 427-428 -- my emphases).

Der Sluys continues, describing characteristics of the Jahai "observed also to be present in other 'non-complex society' hunter-gatherer cultures":

generalized sharing, trust in the environment, egalitarianism, individual autonomy, and dynamics that preserve peacefulness, such as the prevention of conflict escalation through processes of fission and fusion . . . (p. 429).

What der Sluys refers to as "core premises and embedded values," as exemplified in the above list (remarkably close to the list I've distilled from Hewlett's Aka article) are what we should be focusing on, as I see it, rather than the changes wrought by "long-time contacts with 'outsiders," as she puts it. In this light I do think it possible, despite Hewlett's verdict, to refer not only to "an African 'pygmy' culture," but an ancestral culture still alive in the core values of the pygmies and bushmen (and perhaps also the Jahai) of today.

192. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 11

“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

So, finally. On the basis of all the genetic and cultural evidence covered since post 163, plus all the musical evidence I've already covered, throughout this blog and in various publications, it would seem reasonable to conclude that both a musical style and a nexus of sociocultural attributes strongly associated with that style can be traced, as astonishing as that may seem, to the common ancestors, not only of the pygmies and bushmen, but the entire human race -- at a time prior to that of the split we see in the following phylogenetic map, between the two earliest branches of the homo sapiens mtDNA tree, Lo and L1:

And the most compelling version, for me personally, of the "overwhelming question" I've been returning to so tediously can be stated thus: is this actually possible -- can we actually know something that specific, not only about the music, but also the culture of our earliest ancestors?

My answer: I don't really know, but I believe that I have clearly formulated a reasonably convincing hypothesis that can -- and should -- be more fully explored and, of course, subject to rigorous testing.

With this in mind, I think it important to deal as soon as possible with two very different interpretations of the evidence, one musical and the other cultural, since both come from authoritative sources and either one, if taken at face value, might well cause many to reject my hypothesis out of hand.

I've already referred on this blog to an interpretation by two leading authorities, on pygmy and bushmen music respectively, Susanne Fürniss and Emmanuelle Olivier, which has unfortunately been widely quoted: “although many musical and extramusical features converge and though the acoustic results are very close, the conception that the Ju|’hoansi [a bushmen group] have of their music is radically opposite to the Aka’s [a pygmy group].” In other words, the strong similarities that so many have found between the music of certain pygmy and bushmen groups are, in their view, some sort of illusion based on a misunderstanding of the "basic concepts" behind two completely different traditions.

The gist of their thinking is that Aka pygmy music is basically polyphonic while that of the Ju|’hoansi bushmen is basically melodic. As far as I've been able to determine, however, they never actually present an argument in support of this theory, which is simply stated as a fact; nor do they ever, anywhere in the course of their treatment of the subject, present the comparative musical analysis promised at the outset of their essay. The distinction they raise is based on a genuine insight, but one that is, in my view, misapplied -- because, as can easily be demonstrated through the analysis of specific examples, both polyphonic and linear characteristics are conflated, and in very similar ways, in the music of both groups.

I cannot, of course, formulate a fully adequate response in a necessarily brief blog post. But I can refer you to my upcoming paper, written, at least in part, as a response to the challenge posed by their ideas, and scheduled for publication in the forthcoming issue of the journal, Ethnomusicology: "Concept, Style and Structure in the Music of the African Pygmies and Bushmen: A Study in Cross-Cultural Analysis." Since so many have been influenced by Fürniss and Olivier on this matter (I recently, to my horror, noticed their views quoted uncritically in the new Grove's Dictionary of Music), I am hoping my paper is not appearing too late to serve as a necessary corrective.

A research report that might appear to challenge my view of the cultural evidence has been presented by Professor Barry Hewlett, of the University of Washington in Vancouver, in the form of an essay titled Cultural Diversity Among African Pygmies. I am especially interested in Hewlett's views, first, because I have already quoted him on the Aka pygmies, and secondly because he's done research on the topic of cultural transmission that I find quite sensible and interesting. I've been corresponding with him on these matters recently, and am hoping he'll be reading here and offering his comments on what I'll be saying about his work. Unfortunately, I'm running out of time, so will have to continue with my discussion of his essay in the following post.

(to be continued . . .)

191. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 10

" . . . the conditions described above could not exist unless both the musical style and the cultural characteristics we've been considering, as evidenced so clearly among so many groups of contemporary pygmies and bushmen, were not also present in the culture of their (and our) mutual ancestors." Since this statement is both so succinct and so extreme that it may not yet seem fully justified to most reading here, I want to back up a bit to review the gist of my argument as clearly as I can.

First, as far as the musical evidence is concerned, I believe it has been amply demonstrated that P/B is a style that can indeed be traced back to the common ancestors of both the pygmies and bushmen. I am not the first to make such a claim. Gilbert Rouget and Alan Lomax preceded me, and ethnologist/ethnomusicologist Charlotte Frisbie, after an independent review, concluded that "[I]n view of the attributes of music which make it a valid tool in reconstructing culture history, these findings would present a serious problem to anyone who tried to deny an earlier historical connection between the two groups" ("Anthropological and Ethnomusicological Implications of a Comparative Analysis of Bushmen and African Pygmy Music." Ethnology 10 (3), 1971, p. 287).

What I have done, both here and in a series of essays devoted to various aspects of this issue, is to more fully develop the argument, subject the evidence to a more complete review, expand on its various implications, respond to various objections, and relate the musical evidence to recent findings in the fields of both archaeology and genetics pointing so strongly to the Out of Africa model. As a result of my research, I am confident that all objections to the hypothesis in question have been adequately refuted, and believe it reasonable to assume that their common ancestors did, in fact, vocalize in the same highly distinctive manner as so many pygmies and bushmen of our own time.

Second, since the great bulk of the genetic evidence points to the lineages of certain Pygmy and Bushmen groups as rooted in the most ancient branches of the human family tree, with an estimated date of divergence running well into the Old Stone Age,* it seems reasonable to conclude that 1. P/B is at least that old, and 2. that the ancestors of all humans now living may well have vocalized in essentially the same manner (which tells us that P/B may well represent the foundational musical style, from which all others are derived).

By far the greatest part of my own research with respect to the pygmies and bushmen, as reflected in all my published papers and almost everything written in this blog, has been limited to the musical implications of the above. Upon further reflection, however, based on the insights and research of people such as Alan Lomax, Colin Turnbull, Michelle Kisliuk and Simha Arom, I realized that

Third, P/B has certain truly remarkable characteristics that can take us from the realm of music to that of culture. It can indeed function, as I now see it, with a growing sense of wonder and possibility, as a kind of musical/cultural Rosetta Stone. There are two aspects to this association: 1. P/B is organized in such a way that it reflects certain important aspects of the way in which both pygmy and bushmen societies are organized; and 2. pygmy and bushmen societies are organized in such a way as to make some of the most remarkable and distinctive characteristics of P/B possible.

It's important to understand, at this juncture, that demonstrating a common origin for pygmy and bushmen music in a common ancestor does not, in itself, necessarily establish that any other cultural features certain groups of pygmies or bushmen might have in common were also shared by the same ancestor. There are, in fact, several differences among the various groups. Nor, in itself, does the list of cultural similarities I presented in post 184, with respect to egalitarianism, sharing, cooperation, precise coordination, individual autonomy, absence of coercion (i.e., violence avoidance), etc., even though the list in fact describes a great many pygmy and bushmen groups of today, establish that the same attributes were necessarily characteristic of their common ancestor, however suggestive that possibility might seem.

And here we must pause to think a bit about the profound difference between a musical style, especially one as intricate and distinctive as P/B, and a cultural attribute, such as egalitarian social structure or individual autonomy. A musical performance is a particular type of human behavior, with distinctive features that are explicit, precisely defined, easily demonstrated and easily represented (via recordings or music notation, for example), whereas a cultural attribute is fundamentally an abstraction, often vague, and easily misperceived and/or misunderstood. Since a typical P/B performance is so distinctive, the common presence of this style among so many different pygmy and bushmen groups is unmistakable -- thus in the words of Charlotte Frisbie, presenting "a serious problem to anyone who tried to deny an earlier historical connection." The presence of a common cultural attribute, on the other hand, however interesting and suggestive the similarity might seem, cannot in itself present anywhere near so convincing a case. However,

Fourth, the intimate association between the way the social structure of pygmy and bushmen groups are organized, in terms of precisely the set of shared traits already mentioned (egalitarianism, sharing, cooperation, precise coordination, individual autonomy, absence of coercion (i.e., violence avoidance), etc.), and the manner in which a typical P/B performance is constructed (as, in the words of Arom, "the image of all their social activities") strongly suggests that, if the ancestral group did indeed vocalize in P/B style (as I'm convinced I have been able to establish), such a mode of musical performance would have reflected their social structure in precisely the same manner. And if there should be any lingering doubts in that respect, then

Fifth, since the likelihood that a musical style so strongly characterized by all the aforementioned features could have developed in a cultural setting devoid of them would appear to be nil, it seems highly likely that the socio-cultural setting in which our common ancestors lived could not have been very different, with respect to that same set of features, from that of the pygmy and bushmen groups we've been considering.

(to be continued . . . )

*For reasons I don't completely understand, most Archaeologists have adopted the phrase "Old Stone Age" as the African equivalent to the European "Paleolithic."

190. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 9

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

Where do we come from?

We come from our ancestors.

Who were they?

Well, our ancestry goes all the way back to the beginning, I'd suppose, billions of years ago, to the first glimmers of life on Earth -- which might have gotten its start on some comet.

But the overwhelming question I have in mind doesn't take us back that far. The ancestors I'm concerned with aren't even the earliest humans or even the earliest "modern" humans, because as far as I can tell these ancestors will always remain a mystery. What interests me is the founding group from which the ancestors of the pygmies and bushmen diverged, anywhere from 40,000 to well over 100,000 years ago. Because, if the geneticists are right, the members of this group, which might well have been only a tiny band, are the common ancestors, not only of the pygmies and bushmen, but of everyone now living on this planet.

Were they the only "modern" humans alive in their day? Probably not, but the genetic evidence strongly suggests that they were the only such group whose lineage survived to the present era. Did all other humans alive at that time resemble them, sharing the same culture, the same traditions, the same music? We have no way of knowing, because whatever traditions they might have practiced probably died out with their lineage. Because their descendants would not have survived until the present, then, aside from very fragmentary and often misleading archaeological evidence, we have no basis for drawing inferences about what they were like. That is not necessarily the case, however, for those whose descendants have survived. (I realize, by the way, that for almost all contemporary anthropologists and archaeologists, the previous sentence would ordinarily be regarded as utter heresy. Which is why I've been taking so much time and trouble to deploy my evidence and develop my argument.)

I must emphasize that I'm speaking not only of the very deep musical heritage that has already, and, in my opinion, conclusively, been established for the pygmies and bushmen, but of the process I've been describing in the last several posts, through which the musical evidence can lead us, step by step, to certain insights regarding an equally deep cultural heritage. What are these steps? Let's review:

If we can accept that . . .

First, the mainstream population-genetic view is correct and that the lineage of certain pygmy and bushmen groups can be traced to the deepest clades of human ancestry, dating well into the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) . . .

Second, as I've argued so many times in this blog and elsewhere, the musical tradition (P/B) apparently linking contemporary* pygmies and bushmen is very likely to have already been established in the culture of their (and our) common ancestors . . .

Third, the social organization of most (though possibly not all) contemporary pygmy and bushmen groups is indeed, as has been generally attested: egalitarian; acephalous (no permanent leaders); non-hierarchical (i.e., collective); highly cooperative; non-authoritarian (autonomous with respect to individual freedom of action); roughly gender and generation-equal; strongly motivated to share; highly organized, with respect to implicit (but rarely explicit) rules; essentially pacifist, with, to quote Alan Lomax, "men and women, old and young, . . . linked in close interdependence by preference and not by force" . . . .

Fourth, the musical style in question, in the words of Simha Arom, "reflects perfectly the social organization of the pygmies," as described above.

Finally, and in my view the most telling point of all: it's very difficult to understand how a musical practice combining such a high degree of both group integration and individual freedom, could function with the degree of fluency and authority we find in so many pygmy and bushmen performances, unless it had been developed in a society so unusual as to actively foster both qualities . . .

To recapitulate and conclude:

If we can indeed, even provisionally, accept the argument that I've been presenting in so many of these posts, as summarized above, then we are forced to confront a question that is indeed overwhelming, because the conditions described above could not exist unless both the musical style and the cultural characteristics we've been considering, as evidenced so clearly among so many groups of contemporary pygmies and bushmen, were not also present in the culture of their (and our) mutual ancestors. The music has indeed led us to a point where we can, for the first time, seriously consider the question that has eluded so many for so long: what were our ancestors like? In other words: "where do we come from?"

* Since the culture of most pygmy and bushmen groups has changed drastically in recent years, the term "contemporary" must be understood with reference to conditions that prevailed throughout most of the Twentieth Century, but not necessarily persisting to the present time.

(to be continued . . . )

189. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 8

In the extensive notes accompanying his two-CD set, Musical Anthology of the Aka Pygmies, Simha Arom has more to say regarding the cultural relevance of pygmy music -- and is less tentative in drawing conclusions:

The social activity of a Pygmy encampment has no apparent hierarchy. Each person appears to enjoy total liberty; however, life is rigorously organized according to implicit plans, imperceptible to the uninitiated observer. As we shall see, Pygmy music, in the image of all their social activities, presents very similar characteristics, that is to say, relative autonomy of each participant within implied but strict structures [my emphases].

Having made the point (thanks to Kisliuk and Arom) that the musical tradition under consideration here (what I have been calling "Pygmy/Bushmen style" or P/B) can be understood as the "image" (to use Arom's term) of a particular type of culture -- or perhaps more accurately, cultural style -- I must call attention to yet another aspect of this very unusual musical-cultural association, even more telling with respect to the argument I've been so patiently developing over the last several posts. Not only does the music mirror some of the most basic elements of the culture, but a musical practice of this degree of complexity and precision requires a degree of highly synchronized interpersonal coordination and musical skill that only a certain type of culture can provide. Comparable results can be achieved in the Western classical tradition only through a significant period of preparation on the part of especially trained ensembles. Yet, according to Arom, his recordings

bear witness not only to the extraordinary variety of the musical patrimony common to all the Aka, but, also -- and this is particularly notable -- to the perfect knowledge of this patrimony by each of the members of the community.

Arom continues, describing in some detail the many aspects of musical invention, coordination and interaction that all members of the Pygmy community must master. The "highly elaborated vocal polyphony" is a "collective affair," in which the voice of the initiating leader "dissolves into the mass; and, unless there are precisely defined ritual reasons, all members of the community -- men, women and children -- take an equal part. . ."

Pygmy polyphonies can be understood formally "as ostinati with variations: cyclic music founded on a principle close to that of our passacaglia . . . [E]ach piece of music is based on the repetition of periods of constant duration, indefinitely repeated, but outfitted with multiple variations" in a manner that "calls to mind certain principles of composition of medieval art music, more precisely those of Ars Nova, of the 14th to 15th centuries. . ." and, like so much of the music of that period, is based on "a melodic line comparable to the medieval cantus firmus. . ."

"In this profusion in which the most complete liberty seems to reign there is thus a rigorous organization. . ." As Arom points out, "this technique is the fruit of long apprenticeship. As soon as they are able to walk, the children take part in the life of the community and thus in one of its principal manifestations, music."

(to be continued . . . )

188. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 7

I'd like to return to Michelle Kisliuk at this point, because it is now necessary to focus our attention on an aspect of her research that I've passed over too quickly. Toward the beginning of her essay, Performance and Modernity Among BaAka Pygmies, Kisliuk both acknowledges and questions "a seductive vision of pygmy song as an 'emblem' for utopian human potentials . . ." that she sees in much of the literature on pygmy music. What especially intrigues her in this respect, and what she is determined to test, is the notion that the way in which their music is organized might indeed, as her quotation from Simha Arom suggests, reflect the organization of pygmy society generally. Thus, "[p]art of what attracted me to study among pygmies was the very suggestion that the structure and performance style of their singing might be consistent with an overall egalitarian lifestyle" [my emphasis]. As I've already noted, this is an issue that becomes especially problematic for Kisliuk, who seems eager to establish "revisionist" credentials, yet time after time, in spite of herself, bears witness to events and behavior consistent with the "seductive vision" of pygmy music and culture she is trying so earnestly to resist.

I've already pointed to Kisliuk's almost grudging assertion, made in passing, that the BaAka are, in fact, egalitarian, despite her earlier skepticism in this regard. What interests me now is an even more significant, though also somewhat offhand, observation that takes things one step further:

Like other BaAka songs, the texture of interlocked voices and rhythms in "Dumana" might also be seen as a performed example of BaAka egalitarianism [my emphasis] -- or at least nonauthoritarianism -- wherein each voice and body acts in semiautonomous interrelationship with the others ("Performance and Modernity . . .," p. 35).

If such songs are indeed performances of egalitarianism, then one of the principal questions motivating her research, ("Part of what attracted me to study among pygmies was the very suggestion that the structure and performance style of their singing might be consistent with an overall egalitarian lifestyle") has been answered. But this matter, apparently so important at the outset of her investigation, no longer seems to interest her, and she does not pursue it.

Let's return, at this point, to the extremely interesting statement by Simha Arom quoted at the outset of both her book and her essay:

the beauty of the songs, the characteristic timbre of pygmy voices, at once rough and warm. . . . this music is collective and everyone participates; there is no apparent hierarchy in the distribution of parts; each person seems to enjoy complete liberty; the voices swell out in all directions; solo lines alternate in the same piece without any preset order, while overall the piece remains in strict precision! It is this which is perhaps the most striking thing about this music, if one had to sum it up in a few words: a simultaneous dialectic between rigor and freedom, between a musical framework and a margin within which individuals can maneuver. This moreover reflects perfectly the social organization of the pygmies -- if only mentioned in passing -- and it does so perhaps not by chance [my emphases] (as quoted in "Performance and Modernity," p. 25).

Permit me to dwell on the passages I've highlighted, which I find particularly telling. In each case we find terminology that can equally be applied to both music and culture. "The music is collective," i.e., it is an expression of a group consciousness, which appears also to be the case with BaAka culture generally, where important decisions are made collectively. "Everyone participates" requires a bit of clarification, because this is true only of certain songs but not all. Some songs (and dances) are for women only, some for men, some for young boys or girls, etc., but there are, indeed, many cases where everyone, male and female, young and old, participates. And in all cases, there are no social distinctions, so every woman is equally welcome to participate in any women's performance, etc. Similarly, during the hunt, and in many other socially important occasions, the men may perform one function, the women another, but everyone has a role to play, including the children.

"There is no apparent hierarchy in the distribution of parts." This is an extremely important aspect of P/B style that is often overlooked. Whereas much Bantu music is based on solo-chorus interaction ("call and response") with the soloist choosing the song, setting the tempo, improvising, and generally playing a leadership role, solo-chorus antiphony among pygmies is relatively rare (and probably the result of Bantu influence). Most pygmy music is built around the interlocking or interweaving of essentially equal parts, and anyone can choose to sing any part at will, entering or dropping out as he or she pleases. While much Bantu singing is accompanied (and often dominated) by drumming, a highly specialized skill mastered by a relatively small number of specialists, pygmy music is traditionally* accompanied by an especially intricate type of polyrhythmic handclapping, with everyone participating according to his or her degree of skill. Non-hierarchical organization, both vocal and percussive, is the aspect of pygmy music most consistent with the egalitarian nature of pygmy society generally.

"Each person seems to enjoy complete liberty." In other words, there do not appear to be explicit rules that anyone has to follow when participating in any song (though dancing is another matter). While there are certainly implicit rules, these are so ingrained from childhood that they don't have the psychological effect of rules, just as the rules of grammar are not felt as conscious restraints when we speak. And, as I've already mentioned, anyone may choose to join in or drop out of the singing at will. From what we've already learned about pygmy society (see especially the remarks by Hewlett in post 184), this atmosphere of complete individual autonomy is instilled in BaAka children from an early age: "Seldom does one hear a parent tell an infant not to touch this or that or not to do something" (Hewlett, op. cit.).

"a simultaneous dialectic between rigor and freedom, between a musical framework and a margin within which individuals can maneuver." While such a dialectic can be found in many types of music, P/B style music-making tends to be simultaneously more highly organized, in a more intricate manner, than just about any other traditional music anywhere in the world, yet, almost paradoxically, far less regimented, with an astonishing degree of individual autonomy. Combining intricately coordinated group interaction and synchronization with a remarkably fluid social context, within which anyone can improvise his or her own part at will, at any time, pygmy music does indeed appear to reflect a social situation characterized on the one hand by "sharing and cooperation" and on the other by individual "autonomy" (see also Hewlett, op. cit.). Little wonder Arom can conclude that such music "reflects perfectly the social organization of the pygmies."

But he seems a bit uncertain: ". . . and it does so perhaps not by chance."

Are such striking parallels indeed meaningful? Could they be coincidental?

To learn more, please stay tuned.

(to be continued . . . )

*Drumming is now often heard in pygmy performances, with instruments introduced from farmer groups with whom the pygmies interact, but the drum is not generally considered a native pygmy instrument.

187. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 6

A three-part question:
Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?

Pretty basic. But overwhelming? We all ask ourselves more or less the same question, don't we? Isn't it one of those metaphysical questions that can't ever really be answered? And wasn't Gauguin one of those typically Western, colonialist romantics, whose idea of the "noble savage" stemmed more from his own romantic fantasies than the realities of Tahitian life?

I'd like to think we can give Gauguin credit for getting beyond such cliches. As I see it, his words should not be taken as the typical metaphysical questionings of Western philosophy -- as should be clear from his writings, he'd gotten far beyond that -- but as a reflection of the much more down to earth mode of thought we find, time and again, in the words of indigenous people. A typically idealistic Westerner might respond, for example, that we come from God; a typically scientific Westerner might be more matter of fact: we come from our mother's womb; but for literally all indigenous people, there is only one answer: we come from the ancestors. As for "who are we"? what the ancestors want us to be. "Where are we going?" Back to join the ancestors. (What suggests to me that this was Gauguin's intention, is the mysterious bird we see on the lower left, next to the old woman contemplating her death.)

So. Our question should not be understood as the usual Western, "metaphysical" question to which we have for so long become accustomed, but the fundamental historical question of the greatest interest to all humans: who were our ancestors and what were they like? And what makes this an overwhelming question is that, astonishingly enough, for the first time, thanks to recently developed research of a totally surprising and unexpected kind, we are actually in a position to meaningfully propose some likely answers.

But, again, I am getting ahead of myself. Despite all the many arguments, there may still be room for doubt. Is it really reasonable to assume that certain pygmy and bushmen groups of today are perpetuating age-old traditions going all the way back to those of their (and our) earliest common ancestors? Or is this some sort of illusion, based on wishful thinking backed up by the selective cherry-picking of data?

While it might seem unlikely that three different groups in three distant regions of Africa could have independently arrived at such similar lifestyles, convergent evolution has been known to occur and will always remain a possibility. The persistence of essentially the same lifestyle over tens of thousands of years might seem even more unlikely, so on what basis should we prefer one unlikely interpretation over another?

Moreover, while most anthropologists are willing to accept, or at least consider, the implications of the genetic evidence, this in itself does not necessarily imply cultural continuity, a position neatly summarized in the words of bushman specialist Alan Barnard, as quoted in my article on the Kalahari debate:

Recent interdisciplinary work among Darwinian anthropologists, evolutionary psychologists, archaeologists, linguists and geneticists hints that there really was an Urrasse, and there really was an Urkultur . . . Both are represented in the ‘anatomically modern’ Homo sapiens population that gave rise to the ‘Out of Africa’ migration about 80,000 years ago. This migration spread early symbolic culture; let us call it Urkultur. However, the relation between this Urkultur and the cultures of today’s so-called ‘indigenous peoples’ is no greater that that between this Urkultur and the cultures of all peoples ("Kalahari revisionism, Vienna and the ‘indigenous peoples’ debate." Social Anthropology 14 (1), p. 13).

As I argued in my paper, it is the musical evidence that finally, and decisively, tips the balance in favor of the "traditionalist" position in the Kalahari debate. But what I've been proposing here goes beyond the premises of that controversy, which was more about the status of the bushmen as legitimately indigenous than anything else. What I'll be discussing in subsequent posts is another aspect of the musical evidence that I haven't fully explored before, but which, as it seems to me, offers the most conclusive evidence yet that the culture of today's pygmies and bushmen is likely to be a survival from the deepest reaches of the past.

186. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 5

So, leaving aside the question of bows and arrows, let's ask a few questions that go more deeply into the nature of the human psyche. And let's start with something very simple: is it reasonable to characterize BaAka pygmy society as, in the words of Alan Lomax, "[sexually] complementary, chiefless, egalitarian, and pacifist, [with] men and women, old and young, . . . linked in close interdependence by preference and not by force. . . "? All the evidence, including the testimony of Kisliuk herself, in the face of her own deep-seated skepticism, as well as Barry Hewlett, who can hardly be dismissed as a "romantic," would seem to indicate that indeed they are. Next question: can the same be said of the Mbuti pygmies? Given Kisliuk's corroboration, in spite of herself, on almost every point, of Colin Turnbull's supposedly "romantic" view of Mbuti culture, our answer would, once again, have to be: yes.

Next question: can the same be said of the bushmen groups described by Richard Lee, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and William L. Ury, as referenced in my earlier post? While the history of such groups, and their identity as "authentic" indigenes, has been bitterly disputed by the revisionists of the "Great Kalahari Debate," there is no reason to dispute the testimony of so many independent observers who have thoroughly studied contemporary bushmen groups at first hand over a great many years. While their history and their identity may be in dispute, there is no dispute regarding their behavior over the last one hundred years or so. The answer, in this case too, must also be: yes.

So, therefore: on the basis of what we know about the striking commonalities in behavior and values of representatives of the three groups carrying what appear to be the oldest and deepest lineages of any contemporary populations, is it reasonable to conclude that their common ancestors (which, according to the Out of Africa model, would have been the common ancestors of every human now living) shared essentially the same culture? If the answer is yes, then, finally, we would be in a position to seek, with some degree of confidence, an answer to the most overwhelming question of all:

D'où venons-nous? / Qui sommes-nous? / Où allons-nous?

(to be continued . . .)

185. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 4

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument [my emphasis]
Of insidious intent [my emphasis]
To lead you to an overwhelming question …

T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

(. . . continued from previous post.)

And yes, in case you were wondering, pygmies from both regions of central Africa, East (Mbuti, etc.) and West (BaAka, etc.) also use poisoned arrows. It's worth dwelling on the significance of these arrows, because Ury's explanation hardly reflects what could be called an "idealistic" or "Romantic" view. No need to get sentimental over pygmy and bushmen altruism. With every adult male armed with an array of poisoned arrows, anyone who felt left out or cheated would be a potential threat to the entire group.

While such a motive for egalitarianism is hardly consistent with our usual notion of "Utopia," it would be a mistake to take too cynical a view. There is no evidence that either pygmies or bushmen live in fear of poisoned arrow ambush. On the contrary, everything we've learned about them speaks for the genuineness and spontaneity of their egalitarianism, generosity and mutual trust. On Darwinian grounds, one might hypothesize that, at some very early stage, those groups with violent tendencies -- and poisoned arrows -- may have simply killed themselves off; whereas the non-violent, egalitarian groups, better suited to manage conflict resolution, survived.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There are many questions to be answered before we can meaningfully attempt to assess the lifestyle and value system of our earliest ancestors -- before we are, in fact, ready to ask the "overwhelming question" I've been so tediously -- and teasingly -- leading up to. For example: does the fact that today's pygmies and bushmen hunted (until recently) with poisoned arrows tell us that such arrows were used, tens of thousands of years ago, by their common ancestors? Did the bow and arrow even exist at that time? These are the sort of questions answered all too readily by our scholarly "ancestors" of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who had no problem drawing the most far-reaching conclusions on the shakiest of grounds -- a habit that finally led, as we've seen, to the cynical over-reaction of their "revisionist" descendants, who have certainly gone off too far in the opposite direction.

So. If three hunter-gatherer populations hunting big game in three very different parts of Africa, east, west and south, now use bows and arrows, which moreover are, in all three areas, doped with poison, what are the chances that their mutual ancestors, from whom they diverged, by the best estimates of the geneticists, anywhere from 40,000 to over 100,000 years ago, also had such weapons? The question is not as simple as it might seem, because all three groups are now in contact with "Bantu" farmers, generally thought to have expanded from West Africa two to four thousand years ago. Such weapons could have been developed relatively recently by some ancestral Bantu group, and spread with the Bantu expansion to many parts of Africa. To answer our question, we would need to know first whether the bow and arrow is commonly found in Africa; second whether poisoned tips are also commonly used; and finally whether there is any archaeological evidence of bows and arrows, with or without poison, anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 years ago.

While this issue takes me well beyond my own area of expertise, I think it safe to assume that bows and arrows are fairly widespread throughout Africa at the present time. As far as I've been able to determine, however, poisoned arrows appear to be exclusively associated with hunter-gatherers, not only pygmies and bushmen, but other African foraging groups as well. As far as archaeological evidence is concerned, I'll refer you to an online report on Early Modern Human Arrow Points, concerning an exciting recent discovery at a place called Sibudu Cave, "an extremely important Middle Stone Age archaeological site located in South Africa."

Among the collection from the Howiesons Poort levels (ca 61,000 years ago) is what researchers are interpreting as a bone arrow point--that is, a bone tool fitted to an arrow and shot from a bow. No bow fragments have been discovered at Sibudu or any other MSA site, but ethnographic comparisons of the bone tool, and a similar tool recovered from the MSA Peers Cave, are comparable to ethnographic bone arrow points collected from Bushman (Khoisan) groups in the early 20th century. If this interpretation is correct, this sets the invention of the bow and arrow tens of thousands of years earlier than was suspected in the past.

All in all, the evidence seems pretty compelling. But you know how archaeologists are. In contrast with the the ethnomusicologists, who always seem in blissful agreement on all matters, musical and otherwise, the archaeologists never seem to be in agreement about anything and are constantly attempting to undercut each others work. There will be endless controversy for years over this finding, you can be sure.

But as for us, we have bigger fish to fry. Because the really important question, the overwhelming question, does not concern arrow points but human nature; the nature -- i.e., culture -- of our earliest common ancestors, how they lived, what they lived for and what we might be able to learn from their example -- assuming we can learn anything at all.

(to be continued . . . )

184. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 3

Just in case the point has not been made with sufficient force, I'd like to toss some direct quotes into the stew (with particularly apt passages highlighted in bold lettering). First, from Kisliuk's Performance and Modernity among BaAka Pygmies: A Closer Look at the Mystique of Egalitarian Foragers in the Rain Forest:

Ongoing, informal negotiation and disputed expectations are part of BaAka social dynamics and are highlighted in performance. An "egalitarian" sensibility, coupled with individual autonomy, makes for a cultural climate of constant negotiation (p. 30).

Like other BaAka songs, the texture of interlocked voices and rhythms in "Dumana" might also be seen as a performed example of BaAka egalitarianism -- or at least nonauthoritarianism -- wherein each voice and body acts in semiautonomous interrelationship with the others (p. 35).

Coming from a relatively competetive and sexist culture, I did not see that Motindo, a man, had good-naturedly made himself look silly so that a woman -- in this case me -- could follow and look good (pp. 39-40).

Dingboku and Elamba could be seen as subversive insofar as women performatively define and assert their gendered experience within a relatively egalitarian but still male-dominated environment. Nevertheless, BaAka also show a flexibility and malleability of gender roles and gender relationships . . . in response to changing circumstances . . . (p. 43).

From Kisliuk's book, Seize the Dance:

I was learning the hard way that the idea that a leader can "stand for" a group is in fact counter to the individualistic egalitarian social life that BaAka usually maintain (p. 73).

Hewlett . . . has observed that BaAka men participate in child rearing to an extent far greater than men in most societies (p. 141).

On another occasion I brought a tomato to the Bagandou camp . . . I gave a wedge to Bandit sitting beside me, expecting him to pop it in his mouth. Instead, he proceeded to call for a knife and cut the wedge into about sixteen tiny pieces, sharing it with everybody in sight (p. 132).

Barry Hewlett, a professor of anthropology at Washington State University in Vancouver, has made extensive studies of the various forest peoples of Central Africa. Here are some quotations from the second chapter of his book, Intimate Fathers:The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care:

There are few Aka status positions. There is no chief in the sense of a person commanding ultimate authority, yet there is the kombeti, who is generally more influential in subsistence and camp movement discussions. He is often a liaison between Aka and Ngandu. The farmers show deference to the Aka kombeti (e.g., saying hello to him first, giving him more cigarettes) yet the Aka themselves do not show any such behavior toward him (intergenerational inequality is minimal).

The Aka are fiercely egalitarian and independent. No individual has the right to coerce or order another individual to perform an
activity against his/her will. Even when parents give instructions to their children to collect water or firewood, there are no sanctions if they do not do so. Aka have a number of informal noninstitutional methods for maintaining their egalitarianism. First, they practice prestige avoidance; one does not draw attention to his or her activities.
There are certainly exceptional hunters, dancers and drummers, but individuals do not brag to others about their abilities. Second, they practice the rough joking described by Lee (1986) among the !Kung San. For instance, if a man boasts about the amount of honey he collected, others will joke about the size and shape of his genitals. And third, they practice demand sharing. This simply means that whatever one has will be given up if requested.

Sharing, cooperation, and autonomy are but a few other of the Aka core values. The community cooperates daily in the net hunt, food hunted is shared with members of the camp, and decision making is the reserved prerogative of the individual; if one is not content with living conditions, for instance, one moves to another camp. As a result, camp composition changes daily.

. . . similar to Turnbull's (1961) portrayal of the Mbuti, the Aka view the village (mboka) as a dangerous place, whereas the forest (ndima) is perceived as comforting and protecting. Aka express their fears about bad spirits and aggressive farmers in the village, and their demeanor in the village clearly communicates this fear. In the forest, Aka sing, dance, play, and are very active and conversant. In the village, their demeanor changes dramatically-they walk slowly, say little, seldom smile, and try to avoid eye contact with others.

The great respect for autonomy is consistent with another Aka value -- intergenerational equality. This is a positive description of what villagers would call a lack of respect for elders.

Besides being indulgent and intimate, Aka infancy also lacksnegation and violence, which are relatively common in American infancy. Seldom does one hear a parent tell an infant not to touch this or that or not to do something. As already mentioned if an infant hits another child a parent will get up and move the infant to another area; the infant is not told no no! Violence or corporal punishmentfor an infant that misbehaves seldom occurs. In fact, if one parent hits an infant, this is reason enough for the other parent to ask for a divorce.

In summary, Aka infancy has the following characteristics: constant holding and skin-to-skin contact, high father involvement,
multiple caregiving, indulgent care, lack of negation, early training for autonomy and subsistence skills, parents as primary transmitters of culture, and precocious motor and cognitive development.

Aka male-female relations are extremely egalitarian by cross-culturalstandards. There is little agreement on how to determine gender equality/inequality (Mukhopadhay and Higgins 1988), but in all domains that are consistently mentioned in the literature, the Aka fall on the egalitarian side.

Physical violence in general is infrequent and violence againstwomen is especially rare. The lack of violence enhances female autonomy and encourages husband-wife cooperation and trust. It is rather remarkable that after working on and off for fifteen years with the Aka I have yet to witness a violent act against a woman. I have asked colleagues who have spent considerable time with Aka, and they are also unable to report a case of violence against a
woman. Husband-wife conflicts do of course occur but they are usually resolved through talking, rough joking, leaving camp for a while, or mediated assistance from other camp members.

In summary, Aka male-female relations have commonalities with male-female relations cross- culturally, but the Aka are probably as egalitarian
as human societies get.

For comparison with African Bushmen groups, I'd recommend the writings of anthropologist Richard Lee, or the well known book by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People. Somewhat less authoritative, but more readily accessible via the Internet, are the following observations, via Wikipedia:

Traditionally the San were an egalitarian society. Although they did have hereditary chiefs, the chiefs' authority was limited and the bushmen instead made decisions among themselves, by consensus, and the status of women was relatively equal.

In addition, the San economy was a gift economy, based on giving each other gifts on a regular basis rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services.

I'll add another set of quotations, also readily accessible via the Internet, from a summary of an article by William L. Ury, Conflict Resolution among the Bushmen: Lessons in Dispute Systems Design, as published in Negotiation Journal vol. 11, no. 4 (October 1995):

Bushmen children are taught to fear and avoid violence. They are also taught to avoid disputes. For instance, parents and elders emphasize sharing good fortune as a way of showing appreciation for that good fortune. Adults continue this practice of sharing through hxaro--the systematic practice of gift exchange.

The above techniques attempt to avert the use of power-based strategies for resolving disputes.

Bushman society is fairly egalitarian, with power being evenly and widely dispersed. This makes coercive bilateral power-plays (such as war) less likely to be effective, and so less appealing. A common unilateral power play is to simply walk away from a dispute which resists resolution. Travel among groups and extended visits to distant relatives are common. As Ury explains, Bushmen have a good unilateral BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). It is difficult to wage war on someone who can simply walk away. Trilateral power plays draw on the power of the community to force a settlement. The emphasis on consensual conflict resolution and egalitarian ethos means that Bushmen communities will not force a solution on disputing parties. However the community will employ social pressure, by for instance ostracizing an offender, to encourage dispute resolution.

All adult male Bushmen have a bow and poisoned arrows. The poison is deadly and agonizing, but is slow acting and so allows its victim time for retaliation. The Bushmen then have very good reason to contain violence, since it can easily escalate to deadly levels. . . War is unknown.

(to be continued . . . )

183. An Overwhelming Question -- Part 2

I feel a bit guilty about challenging Michelle Kisliuk, especially since I've learned so much from her very thorough and thoughtful research, profited from her valuable advice, and am personally grateful for her interest in my work and her encouragement. In my opinion, the great bulk of what she's written on BaAka music and dance in their sociocultural context represents ethnography at the highest level of both achievement and integrity.

Her theoretical assumptions are another matter, however, especially because what's at stake in this regard is so important. I find her intellectual position suspicious for two reasons. First, it represents what looks like a somewhat forced effort to place her fieldwork experiences within the straitjacket of the dominant academic ideology of the day, what could be characterized as "militant postmodernist revisionism"; second, it would appear to be in direct conflict with her own personal experiences, as recounted so eloquently in her descriptions of BaAka life, and especially her strong sympathy and even advocacy for a value system she clearly admires, but feels constrained to question, because correcting Colin Turnbull's "utopian narrative," based on an "idealized image of African pygmy life," and thereby challenging all such "reductive representations," was part of her stated project from the beginning (see Seize the Dance, pp. 5, 4, 13).

Surprisingly, every single reference to Turnbull in the body of her book (check the index if you don't believe me) registers her substantiation of his findings. It is in fact clear that she has come to share and approve, rather than question, Turnbull's view of pygmies as essentially egalitarian (pp. 131-133), yet individualistic (p. 73); complementary rather than male-dominant with respect to gender relations (p. 144); generous among themselves to a fault, with no expectation of repayment (p. 132); fundamentally independent of their Bantu "masters" (p. 145); and lacking in warlike or aggressive tendencies (entire book), though she is quick to note the occasional exception. While she makes some brave attempts to relate aspects of current BaAka life to the inroads of "modernity," it's clear that such influences (mostly regrettable if not disastrous, in her view as well as mine) are relatively recent, with no bearing on traditional views, held by "old school" anthropologists and pygmies alike, of pre-colonial BaAka (and Mbuti) as true "children of the forest."

I won't attempt here to defend Alan Lomax and Cantometrics from the attack she launches on a "scientistic" methodology based on the "reduction of worldwide music and dance to quintessential examples and simplistic analyses taken out of context," or Lomax's "binary opposition between 'pure' folk musics . . . and 'degraded' cultural environments . . . ," or the "net of reifications" she credits Steven Feld with revealing at the heart of Lomax's thinking (see "Performance and Modernity," p. 45). A defense of Lomax would take me too far afield and distract from my principal point, which is not dependent on either Lomax or Cantometrics (though I am certainly indebted to both). Suffice it to say that, as I see it, her criticisms, while not completely off-base, reflect unfair assumptions and irrational biases (not to mention narrow mindedness, small mindedness and sheer ignorance*) still all too common among her colleagues in both anthropology and ethnomusicology.

Lomax notwithstanding, what I find most significant in the work of Kisliuk is her affirmation and validation, in spite of herself, of the supposedly "utopian" and "idealized" lifestyle and value system she is at such pains to "deconstruct." Indeed, her revelations in this respect conform remarkably closely to those of predecessors such as Arom, Bahuchet, Turnbull, Lomax, Sarno, etc., not to mention strikingly similar accounts of Bushmen life by John Marshall, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Richard Lee, etc., or the extensive study of Bushmen music by Nicholas England.

(to be continued . . . )

*Ah, the joys of blogging. No editor to tone me down or cool me out. Though I'll probably regret my words in the morning -- some of the people I most admire are anthropologists and ethnomusicologists. :-(

182. An Overwhelming Question

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Michelle Kisliuk, an ethnomusicologist/ethnographer who has devoted much of her life to studying the music and dance of the BaAka pygmies of central Africa, has written eloquently of the reasons initially prompting her to undertake such research. She cites the influence of Simha Arom, who has described BaAka music as "collective . . . [with] no apparent hierarchy in the distribution of the parts; [with] each person [appearing] to enjoy complete liberty; . . . [reflecting] perfectly the social organization of the pygmies."

Writing skeptically of "A seductive vision of pygmy song as an 'emblem' for utopian human potentials as well as for quintessential origins," Kisliuk quotes Alan Lomax, as a prime example of such hyperbole: "The Bushman and Pygmy peoples living close to the source of man's known beginnings have a music that might have come from the Garden of Eden. In their complementary, chiefless, egalitarian, and pacifist societies, men and women, old and young, are linked in close interdependence by preference and not by force. . . "

She is fascinated and incredulous, but also curious:

Part of what attracted me to study among pygmies was the very suggestion that the structure and performance style of their singing might be consistent with an overall egalitarian lifestyle. As I read about pygmies and their music, however, I wondered to what extent the real people embody the images that scholars, artists and journalists have enthusiastically claimed they do, and I designed my research to address this question (Michelle Kisliuk, Performance and Modernity among BaAka Pygmies: A Closer Look at the Mystique of Egalitarian Foragers in the Rain Forest, in Music and Gender, ed. Moisala and Diamond, U. of Illinois Press, 2000, pp. 25 - 26.)

Kisliuk very quickly and unexpectedly answers her own question, in the very same paragraph, albeit in passing: "Having read -- and then observed [my emphasis] -- that pygmies have a relatively egalitarian society, I wanted to know in detail whether and how such egalitarianism might take shape in performances controlled by women." She then goes on to highlight another question, that of "modernity," to "underline that BaAka and other forest peoples -- so often imagined as representing a mythical past -- are living as you or I within the modern world" (ibid., p. 26).

It soon becomes clear that the egalitarian nature of BaAka society has been so clearly manifested in her own field work that she feels no need to either question it or argue on its behalf, but simply takes it for granted. Indeed, this is the impression one gets from reading everything she's ever had to say on this topic, as affirmed on page after page of her major work, the excellent Seize the Dance, which I have studied in some detail. But there is a problem for her in this respect, since any assertion in line with the supposedly "romantic" and "idealistic" view of pygmies as "representing a mythical past," would challenge some of the most basic tenets of the "revisionist" ideology that has for so long dominated both anthropology and ethnomusicology -- as exemplified in the Kalahari debate, a topic on which I have already spilled a considerable amount of (virtual) ink.

She is quick to cite Chandra Jayawardena, who "suggests that egalitarianism is notably present among people who share a 'lower-class' status. He states that 'notions of human equality are dominant in a subgroup to the extent that it is denied social equality by the wider society or its dominant class.' If one were to view BaAka and Bagandou villagers [Bantu farmers who have established close ties with the BaAka] as subgroups of a single regional society . . . one might explain BaAka egalitarian values as having arisen in reaction to their oppression by their neighbors" (p. 28). In other words, although the BaAka are unquestionably egalitarian, to the extent that there is no need to even argue the point, their egalitarian behavior need not be attributed to "utopian" myths of "quintessential origin," so often associated with the typically romantic "Western" view of indigenous peoples, but to the sort of class distinctions so characteristic of "modernity." Kisliuk thus implicitly aligns herself with the fashionable revisionist view that has emerged so strongly in the Kalahari debate, where the very notion of an 'indigenous people' is dismissed as 'essentialist' and relying 'on obsolete anthropological notions and on a romantic and false ethnographic vision'" (Adam Kuper, as quoted by Alan Barnard in "Kalahari revisionism, Vienna and the ‘indigenous peoples’ debate," Social Anthropology 14 (1), 2006. p. 2 -- see my paper "New Perspectives on the Kalahari Debate" for more on this issue). Or, more to the point, in the words of leading revisionist Edwin Wilmsun, writing of the Kalahari Bushmen:

Their appearance as foragers is a function of their relegation to an underclass in the playing out of historical processes that began before the current millennium and culminated in the early decades of this century. The isolation in which they are said to be found is a creation of our view of them, not of their history as they lived it (Wilmsen, Land filled with flies. A political economy of the Kalahari. University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 3).

I won't get into the Kalahari debate again here (see post 64 et seq.), but I will comment on the view, expressed by Jayawardena and at least tentatively endorsed by Kisliuk, that egalitarian behavior can be regarded as a function of lower class status. It is on its face a completely tendentious and totally unsubstantiated, not to mention patently romantic and essentialist, assumption that has no basis in fact. While we have no reason to believe that many members of the "underclasses" don't behave decently toward one another much of the time, the very serious and pervasive social tensions and in many cases violence that's become so endemic in American inner-city communities makes a mockery of Jayawardena's theory. And if an African example is more to the point, we need go no farther than Turnbull's experiences among the underclass he referred to as the "Ik."

(to be continued . . . )

181. Music and Cultural Evolution -- Part 8

There's a lot more that could be said regarding what can happen to a society in the wake of the sort of disaster or dispute or adventure or misadventure that could lead to a population bottleneck and/or founder effect, leading in turn to a fresh branching of both the genetic and cultural phylogenetic trees. As I asserted earlier, a certain degree of loss would be almost inevitable. The loss of certain individuals most familiar with certain rituals could result in the loss, or simplification, of those rituals. The most gifted carvers might not have survived, or been left behind, in which case age-old artistic traditions might be lost. Similarly, certain musical or dance repertoires or styles could be lost if those responsible for the perpetuation of those traditions had not survived or been left behind.

A natural disaster such as a drought, hurricane, tsunami, earthquake or volcanic eruption might decimate a particular group to such a degree that only a few survivors remain. If several men but only a few women survive, competition between the men for the women could encourage aggressive, competitive and sexist behaviors -- and the establishment of traditions promoting such behaviors as desirable. On the other hand, a situation where several women but only a few men survive could lead to the establishment of polygyny as a new tradition.

As far as music is concerned, such a disaster might isolate only a small number of survivors, or, as in the case of the Ik, turn them against one another, to the extent that all but the most rudimentary forms of group vocalization might be lost forever. In the event that only a single family of relatively unmusical individuals were to survive, this could result in the loss or simplification of certain musical practices; drone polyphony might be substituted for P/B style counterpoint; or unison singing substituted for spontaneous harmonization. If the most talented performers on certain instruments are lost or left behind, those instrumental traditions might die out. If a family of gifted instrumentalists were to break away from the main group, instrumental traditions might flourish among their descendants at the expense of vocal music.

While losses of various kinds would be all but inevitable, a bottleneck of this sort might lead to certain gains as well. Those who survived might have done so due to special aptitudes or skills, not previously appreciated, skills that could be cultivated and passed down to their descendants. In classic Darwinian fashion, weaker or more inflexible individuals or those less well adapted to the new, harsher environment, might die off or fail to reproduce, while stronger, more adaptable and inventive individuals might flourish.

In my Echoes essay (p. 34 et seq.), I take this line of thinking even farther, arguing that a series of population bottlenecks caused by a single natural disaster provides the most likely explanation for much of the diversity we now see in the world, morphological (i.e. "racial") as well as cultural -- and certainly musical as well. (See also, post 17. The Bottleneck, et seq. on this blog.) While it might seem more reasonable to assume that all this diversity is simply the result of gradual evolutionary processes, the most compelling evidence as I see it, geological, genetic, morphological, cultural, and musical, points to sudden change as a much more likely fundamental catalyst of some of the most basic types of diversity, at a crucial moment in human history.

From this perspective, it would seem that evolutionary processes as we usually visualize them (i.e., as a series of incremental steps or stages) only come into play at a later stage of cultural "evolution," when, as we have seen in the case of the Bantu (see the last two posts), an increased emphasis on specialization, competition and incremental innovation emerges among certain groups.

180. Music and Cultural Evolution -- Part 7

There are important differences, both stylistic and cultural, between highly communal, relatively static, hunter-gatherer bands and more dynamic, individualized societies, such as the Bantu farmers, where a premium is placed on the mastery of specialized skills and creativity. Since literally all modern humans apparently lived as communal hunters and gatherers from roughly 150,000 to 10,000 years ago (closer to 3,000 years ago in Africa), the "principle of sociocultural inertia"* I asserted in my "Echoes" paper can serve as an effective guide through most of human history. However, this principle does, I must admit, break down when one is forced to explain the remarkable proliferation of highly specialized, sometimes virtuoso vocal and instrumental styles that appear to have arisen with the development of agriculture.

It would seem that the appearance of the specialist set in motion a new type of cultural dynamic that permitted and indeed encouraged developmental forms of cultural evolution that would have been fiercely opposed by the more tradition-oriented societies of the past, for whom the perpetuation of ancestral links was all important. A Darwinian component enters society at this juncture, since specialists are often forced to compete with one another in a process that can richly reward the most creative, innovative and skillful at the expense of those less "fit" to compete. While music has been characterized as evolutionarily irrelevant since it confers no adaptive advantage to the community as a whole (Steven Pinker notoriously dismissed it as "aural cheesecake"), musical creativity and skill can certainly play a role in the success or failure of individual musicians, among whom a process akin to "survival of the fittest" is clearly at work.

Thus, with the advent of the specialist a new kind of cultural (and musical) evolution is set in motion, very different from what had previously been the norm, in which a gifted individual may succeed at the expense of others through the assertion of unusual, yet socially desirable, skills. It is in this atmosphere that we find the extraordinary development of virtuoso drumming among highly gifted individuals among the Bantu. Polyrhythmic percussion effects of great complexity can be found among all Pygmy and Bushmen groups, but they have traditionally been limited to handclaps, and mastered by all members of the community. While some Pygmies have gained renown as drummers, their drumming traditions have been borrowed from neighboring farming groups.

The very interesting question of exactly how and why the drum appears in Africa and how it eventually becomes so important as to stand almost as an emblem for African music generally, remains a fascinating mystery. The earliest African drums were probably slit drums and since the slit drum is almost universally used for signalling as well as music, it may indeed have begun as a signalling tool. And may, in fact, have played a role in the development of language -- even today, African drums often "speak" as they are played, through imitation of speech tones and rhythms. It's not clear when or where membranophones (drums with skin heads) were introduced, but they are now pervasive throughout Africa and play an essential role in both dance and ritual, though the slit drum has certainly not disappeared. Since drums of either kind appear to be absent from the most fundamental musical traditions of both Pygmies and Bushmen, and they are now commonly found almost everywhere among Bantu farmers, we can only conclude that their development must have begun some time after the proto-Bantu and proto-Pygmy groups diverged (see the splits from the clades labeled L1c and L1c1 in the Phylogenetic Tree from the previous post). And since African drumming comes most spectacularly into its own in the hands of the great virtuoso master drummers, the drumming tradition can certainly be associated with the advent of the specialist, signalling one of the most significant revolutions in human history, the introduction of competition and innovation, two very impressive though also dangerous aspects of culture that trouble us to this very day.

*A tendency on the part of any human group to retain the most deeply ingrained and highly valued elements of its lifestyle until acted upon by some outside force.

179. Music and Cultural Evolution -- Part 6

The deep genetic relationship between the western Pygmies and Bantu farmers of Africa is the topic of a recent paper by Lluis Quintana-Murcia et al, Maternal traces of deep common ancestry and asymmetric gene flow between Pygmy hunter– gatherers and Bantu-speaking farmers. From the abstract:

We investigated the origins of these two groups and the interactions between them, by analyzing mtDNA variation in 1,404 individuals from 20 farming populations and 9 Pygmy populations from Central Africa, with the aim of shedding light on one of the most fascinating cultural transitions in human evolution (the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture).

The paper relates the cultural divergence of the two groups to the spread of agriculture in Africa only about 3 to 5 thousand years ago, though the genetic divergences of their various lineages has to be much older. The picture is complicated by evidence of continual maternal gene flow from Pygmy to Bantu groups, due to occasional intermarriage between Pygmy women and Bantu men (p. 1600).

The paper is especially interesting for its "Phylogenetic tree of complete mtDNA sequences belonging to haplogroup L1c" (p. 1598):

(For a larger image, right click to "Open link in New Window".)

While the tree is complex and the relations between the Pygmy groups (highlighted in orange at the bottom) and the farmers (highlighted in blue) isn't obvious, note that all the rightmost groups but one are farmers and most of the leftmost groups are Pygmies. The capital letters encased in either yellow or blue at the bottom are abbreviations of tribal names, e.g., BAKO for Bakola Pygmies; BAK-CC for Baka Pygmies of Central Cameroon; TEK for Ateke; PUN for Punu; etc.

Note the deep genetic division at the top right, where L1c branches off into two subclades, L1c'1'2'4'6, to the left, and L1c3 (exclusively Bantu), to the right. Another important division can be seen just below, were L1c1 branches off into two subclades; the leftmost, L1c1a, representing mostly Pygmy groups, while the rightmost are mostly Bantu.

An important aspect of this tree is what it tells us about the difference between a lineage and a population. As you can see, some of the lineages are associated with more than one group, and a single group (such as, for example, BAK-CC) can be divided among two or more lineages. This situation represents a problem for population geneticists, who are continually being reminded that their trees represent relationships among lineages and not populations; and, consequently, that their attempts at reconstructing early migrations on the basis of genetic evidence alone will always be somewhat vague and indeterminate. This is where the musical evidence can be especially useful, since, like so many other cultural traditions, musical style can be much more easily associated with a given population and its history.

When we consider genetic divisions such as the branchings from L1c, and a bit later, L1c1, we must ask ourselves whether such divergences could have led to cultural, or, more specifically, musical divergences as well. As I see it, there is no law telling us that a genetic branching must also lead to a musical one, and there are no doubt many cases where a bottleneck and/or founder effect had no influence on any aspect of culture. However, it's not difficult to see how, under certain circumstances, the same forces that led to the creation of a new lineage could produce significant cultural changes -- or vice versa.

Since it developed in Africa many thousands of years after their genetic divergence, it seems unlikely that agriculture could have been directly produced by the same forces that divided Pygmies and proto-Bantu speakers tens of thousands of years ago. Yet it's very tempting to assume that two groups with such radically different "destinies" might well have gone their separate ways initially due to certain fundamental differences that might have led the one group down the path to radical change while the other remained, in so many ways, the same. Did the early ancestors of the Bantu farmers experience some sort of disaster, similar to what happened to the Ik, an experience that might have left them with more competitive, aggressive and individualistic tendencies? Did a drought or some other significant event deprive them of their normal sources of food, forcing them to invent alternative means of supporting themselves?

Or was there some sort of dispute, causing a family that might have been a bit more ambitious or naturally aggressive to question the egalitarian ideals of the group as a whole, to the point that it decided to take off on its own to begin a new lineage with a new set of socio-cultural standards more in line with its own. Such disputes might have been common among our earliest ancestors, why not? But in most cases the breakaway group, or its descendants, might not have survived, so we would lack any contemporary record, either genetic or musical, of its existence.

In any case, if a breakaway group (genetically, a founder group) were more individualistic and less egalitarian, it's not difficult to see how such a cultural ideal might be reflected in a vocal style more in line with what we now find so often among Bantu speakers, where a leader's part is distinguished from that of the supporting group. Individualism might easily lead, as well, to other forms of role playing and specialization, encouraging certain gifted individuals to develop their skills in the design and performance of certain instruments. Thus, single-pitched pipes, used previously as part of hocketing ensembles, might be turned into flutes with finger holes, and musical bows, with a single string, might be crafted into harps, lyres and zithers. The same sort of specialization, and related competition to excel in a particular craft or skill, might well have led to the development of metallurgy, independently invented among African Bantu speakers, and ultimately the array of technologies needed for the development of agriculture, also independently invented in Africa.

(to be continued . . . )

178. Music and Cultural Evolution -- Part 5

Because the Ik are an extreme case, their example gives us an especially clear idea of how relatively complex practices could be lost and replaced by simpler ones. And by the way, I am not claiming that things actually fell out exactly that way at any time in the past, because there are a great many other possible ways in which traditions such as music might change. What I outlined in the previous post was only a possibility, and what I wanted to demonstrate was that something of that sort could have happened -- not necessarily that it did, because we have no way of knowing that.

It's also important to understand that the loss or simplification of certain aspects of culture can be accompanied by the gain and/or development of other aspects. P/B is characterized by a particularly complex type of hocketed, yodeled, "contrapuntal" polyphony, of a sort found relatively rarely, and in a simplified form, just about everywhere else. If this was indeed the music of the "founding group" that existed prior to the separation of the Pygmy and Bushmen lineages, tens of thousands of years ago, then all other forms of group vocalization can be understood in terms of loss and/or simplification.

However, if we think, for example, in terms of the relation between P/B and the prevailing musical traditions of the many "Bantu" groups whose ancestors are thought to have branched off from the Western Pygmies roughly 18,000 years ago, we see not only loss/simplification in terms of vocal interaction (freely interlocking counterpoint vs. call and response antiphony) but also a considerable and very important gain when it comes to the development of instrumental music, which is hardly developed at all among the Pygmies and Bushmen.

What we see in such an "evolutionary" process appears to be not only a loss of spontaneous vocal intricacy but also a movement away from a cultural ideal based on group solidarity and egalitarianism toward one with more of an emphasis on individuality, leadership, specialization and, as far as music is concerned, instrumental virtuosity.

(to be continued . . . )