The Hall of Mirrors: Orientalism, Anthropology, and the Other

Author(s): William S. Sax

Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 2, (Jun., 1998), pp. 292-301
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/683111
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292 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 2 * JUNE 1998

Haraway,Donna Mannheim,Bruce, and Dennis Tedlock

1991 Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York: Rout- 1995 Introduction. In The Dialogic Emergence of Cul-
ledge. ture. D. Tedlock and B. Mannheim,eds. Pp. 1-32. Ur-
HuamantincoCisneros, Francisco bana:University of Illinois Press.
1990 Los refugiados intemos en el Peru. Lima:Ed. Pub- Rosaldo, Renato
licidad de Comercio Exterior. 1995 Foreword. In HybridCultures:Strategies for Enter-
Isbell, Billie Jean ing and Leaving Modernity.Nestor Garcia Canclini. Pp.
1985 To Defend Ourselves. 2nd edition. Prospect
i-xii. Minneapolis:University of MinnesotaPress.
Heights, IL:WavelandPress.
Theidon, Kimberly,and Ponciano Del Pino
1992 Shining Path and Peasant Responses in Rural
1997 Antropologiay salud mental:Un estudio en la recu-
Ayacucho. In Shining Path of Peru. David Scott Palmer,
ed. Pp. 59-82. New York:St. Martin'sPress. peracion comunal. Ayacucho, Peru:InformeFinal.
1994 Shining Path and Peasant Responses in Rural Thomas, Michael
Ayacucho. In Shining Path of Peru. 2nd edition. David N.d. Andean Peasants in the Labyrinth of Power: A
Scott Palmer, ed. Pp. 59-82. New York: St. Martin's MythicRepresentationof Nationaland RegionalHegem-
Press. ony in Cuzeo, Peru. UnpublishedMS.

andthe Other
TheHallof Mirrors:Orientalism,Anthropology,

WILLIAM S. SAX Geertz 1984 and Quine 1968), but merely a decent re-
University of Canterbury spect for human difference, a relativism of the cultur-
ally particular, with certain methodological implica-
ANTHROPOLOGISTS SPECIALIZEin human differ- tions (Marcusand Fischer 1986:180).
ence. As merchants of the exotic, we have confronted Anthropology is, then, the discipline par excel-
the problem of representing the Other since long be- lence that is immersed in the study of difference, of the
fore that word was spelled with a capital O. Both as Other. And yet, as is well known, studying Others has
scholars and as persons, we cannot escape from the been the object of a moral and epistemological attack
dialectics of sameness and difference (see Narayan in recent years, most notably by EdwardSaid, who led
1993), and this gives rise to an epistemological-cum- the charge in Orzentalism, first published in 1978. It is
moral problem: how should we represent exotic cul- difficult these days to find a book by a historian or an-
tures in our teaching and research? thropologist of non-"Western"culture that does not in-
The familiarstrategyis to make the exotic familiar, clude some gesture of obeisance to Said:his influence
and the familiar exotic. The initial object of study (a has been immense. Said argues that Western students
religious cult, a political movement, an Other kinship of oriental civilization (the Orientalists) did not study
system) is at Elrststrange and puzzling, but in the pro- an empirical Orient existing "out there" somewhere
cess of learning(and later teaching) about it in its own east of the Bosporus. It would be more accurate to say
context, it comes to seem less exotic and more familiar. that they studied an object that they themselves had
Conversely,when we look closely at more familiarcul- constructed. The Orient,along with its inhabitants,was
tures or at parts of those cultures that have previously not so much a place and a set of people as it was a state
been ignored, they begin to look rather exotic, less of mind, an artifact of the scholar's study. As Disraeli
natural,more conventional. put it, "TheOrientis a career."
Because anthropologists specialize in difference, So far, so good. We can only profit from being
we are heir to a double legacy of relativism. We are warned against reifying our objects of study, from the
powerfully attracted to human diversity, and for most "ReligionXof religious studies to the UPolitics"of politi-
of us the glitteringarrayof cultures and forms of life is cal science and the Culture" of culturalanthropology.
something to be treasured, proof of the vast range of But Said does not let the matter rest there. He goes on
human potential. And so we are enamored of cultural to say that the so-called Orientals were compelled to
particulars,suspicious of humanuniversals, and when- live in this constructed Orient,that Europe
ever a claim is advanced for the latter, the anthropolo- produced the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily,
gist leaps to her feet and says, Not among the Inuit!", ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the
UNotamong the Kwaio!",or, as we South Asianists say, post-Enlightenmentperiod.... In brief, because of Orien-
Not in the South!"This is not the ontological relativism talism the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of
that is the bogeyman of the philosophers (though see thought or action. [1978:3]
 FORUM 293

Now not only is this silly, but it is profoundly dis- It is partly due to the influence of such ideas that
missive of those "Orientals"with whom Said self-con- anthropologists have increasingly become embar-
sciously identiEles.As Peter van der Veer (1993) and rassed by cultural difference. For example, Lila Abu-
others have argued, in order to show the power of Ori- Lughodhas in a thoughtfulessay (1991) arguedthat the
entalism, Said denies autonomy, agency, and even central concept of Americananthropology,the culture
thought to the Orientals.He even denies them the possi- concept, should be written "against."The culture con-
bility of resisting their colonial oppressors, which flies cept is problematic, says Abu-Lughod,because it fo-
in the face of historical fact. Morecruciallyfor my argu- cuses on difference, and in doing so it "operatesto en-
ment, Said sees the mere postulation of difference as force separations that inevitably carry a sense of
dangerous, ominous: hierarchy"(1991:137-138). Culture is thus "the essen-
tial tool for making other" (1991:143). According to
Can one divide human reality, as indeed human reality Said, Abu-Lughod,and others, focusing on difference
seems to be genuinely divided, into clearly different cul- "otherizes"the objects of our research, fetishizes their
tures, histories, traditions, societies, even races, and sur- exotic features, and inevitably creates a hierarchical
vive the consequences humanly?By surviving the conse- difference between aus"and "them."In the same vein,
quences humanly,I mean to ask whether there is any way ArjunAppaduraiwrites of "theunrulybody of the colo-
of avoiding the hostility expressed by the division, say, of nial subject (fasting, feasting, hook-swinging, abluting,
men into "us" (Westerners) and they" (Orientals). burning,and bleeding)"as a body that is created by the
[1978:45] "exoticizinggaze"of Orientalism(1993:333-334).
And yet, as Said himself acknowledges, significant
Said is right to call attention to the risks of study- differences among human beings appear to us as so
ing difference, and his rhetorical question is one with many self-evident facts, and it is neither possible (nor, I
which every anthropologist must eventually come to would argue, is it desirable) to abolish them. Whether
terms. It is a question that forces us to confront the explicitly or implicitly,they continue to be the primary
dark side of our methodological relativism, the danger data for anthropologists. Moreover, it is far from evi-
that lurks in our suspicion of universals.In my view, the dent that anthropological writing must necessarily in-
danger is that in celebrating the culturally particular, feriorize the Others that are its objects. On the con-
we may lose sight of the universally human. Under- trary, such writing often inverts regnant hierarchies,
standing other cultures would be impossible were there holding up the exotic Other as worthy of emulation
not, at some level, a shared humanityunderlyingdiffer- rather than scorn. Said is certainly correct when he
ences of religion, language, race, and so on. More im- says that human beings have a universal propensity to
portantly, to ignore or deny this shared humanity has distinguish themselves from others and to rank the dif-
horrific consequences, as the history of the 20th cen- ference. What he fails to note is the frequency with
tury so clearly illustrates. In the age of ethnic cleansing, which anthropologists,and even the dread Orientalists,
a concern for human universals looks more and more play this game in reverse, by valorizing the Other and
like a moral necessity. implicitly criticizing the Self. When Margaret Mead
Nevertheless, we do in practice make distinctions wrote that Samoan adolescence was trouble-free, she
among cultures, and this brings us back to the dialec- was holding up Samoan culture as a mirror to show
tics of sameness and difference. Accordingto Said, any Westerncultureits own warts. She was praisingthe Sa-
division of humanityinto "us"and athem"leads to "hos- moans, not disparaging them.2 When Mircea Eliade
tility,"and this hostility may be unavoidable,so that the wrote about the pervasiveness of the sacred in 'primor-
division of humanityinto different cultures is (perhaps dial" societies, he was praising them by appealing to
inevitably) a dehumanizingactivity. Later in the same Western primitivism (Eliade 1959). And the grand-
chapter, Said points to the universal propensity of hu- daddies of English Orientalismin India, WilliamJones
man groups to differentiate themselves from others: and WarrenHastings,were in many respects apologists
Westerner versus Oriental, civilized versus barbarian, and publicists in England for Indian civilization (Ro-
black versus white, and so on.l He says that all of these cher 1993).
divisions are synonyms, more or less value-laden, for I would not, however, wish to justify a scholarly in-
the fundamental difference between us" and "them," terest in exotic cultures simply by claiming that it often
and he persuasively argues that no matter how much inverts the hierarchy of Self and Other: this would
we increase our positive knowledge of oriental lan- merely be the substitution of one ideology for another.
guages, geography,and culture, our perceptions of Ori- Instead, I seek to defend anthropology's focus on the
entals will still be structuredby this fundamentallyhos- exotic by arguing,first of all, that focusing on human
tile dichotomy. Said thus resolves the dialectics of differences is itself a human universal, and for anthro-
sameness and difference into a transcendent hostility. pologists a methodological necessity; second, that
294 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 2 * JUNE 1998

perceived differences are often matters of sheer con- course, never completely) disinterested observer, he
vention, and the anthropologist from afar, himself an can more clearly see that difference is often a matterof
exotic Otherto those being studied, is particularlywell- convention. It is not that the anthropologist is purely
placed to perceive this; and third, that the recognition "objective"(in a relational ontology this would be an
of difference, whether by anthropologists or natives, empty term) but ratherthat in certainsituations such as
does not always or necessarily involve an inferioriza- the mutualstereotyping that is the subject of this essay,
tion of the Other. he is relatively neutral, "abovethe fray,"and thus able
I think it will be grantedthat difference makingis a to show that what is understood as a "natural"differ-
human universal, and the burden of the ethnography ence is in fact conventional.
below will be to illustrate how this works in a particular My final claim is that difference making does not
case. But why do I say that it is a methodological neces- always or necessarily involve the inferiorizationof the
sity? Because there is and always will be at least one Other. It could be argued that, in recent decades at
difference between the scholar and her object of study, least, anthropologists have been more guilty of roman-
and that is the difference between subject and object, ticizing than of denigratingthe Other. But my point is
the old dichotomy between thought and action, which more subtle than that. I contend that difference making
cannot be avoided in academic life, no matter how involves a double movement, where the Otheris simul-
much our political agenda or mystical inclinations taneously emulated and repudiated, admired and de-
might inspire us to try (Bell 1992:48).Now, a sophisti- spised, and that the source of this ambivalence is the
cated ontology may well requireus to see ourselves in recognition of Self in Other. That is to say, the Other
an interactive relationship with our objects of study: represents a kind of screen upon which both the de-
such a relational ontology is certainly encouraged by spised and the desired aspects of the Self can be pro-
the method of participant-observationthat is at the jected, so that the dialectics of sameness and differ-
heart of sociocultural anthropology,and recent experi- ence is resolved into a kind of difference in sameness,
ments with new forms of ethnographicwritingmightbe the culturallyparticular apprehendedonly against the
seen as attempts to better embody it. Still, it is difficult backgroundof the generically human.But in orderto il-
to imagine how academic anthropology could proceed lustrate these points, we must enter a veritable Hall of
without an object of study, however loosely defined, Mirrors.
because the dichotomy of subject and object is a condi-
tion of disciplinary knowledge. It is necessary for any
theoretical project whatsoever, in the humanas well as An Evil Empire?
in the physical sciences. Neither the physicist nor the
anthropologist nor the literary critic can pursue her Despite government promises to create India's
study without objectifying its object, and to make of newest state out of the erstwhile Hindu kingdoms of
this an ethical dilemmais like questioning the morality Garhwaland Kumaonin the centralHimalayasof north-
of gravity.Certainlyanthropologistshave their share of ern India,the two regions remainparts of UttarPradesh,
ethical dilemmas, but these stem from economic and which sits squarelyastride the Gangesand is the largest
political asymmetries, not from cultural difference and most populous Indianstate, the center of the Hindi-
(Keesing 1989). speaking heartland of India. The people of Garhwal
Whydo I claim a special anthropologicalability to have long been regarded as distinctive and backward
perceive the conventionalityof culturaldifference? Be- Others by Hindus from the Gangetic plain, which has
cause there are differences and differences, and the an- been a major center of Indic civilization for over 3,000
thropologist'sdisciplined analysis of difference is itself years. They think of the mountaindwellers as poverty-
differentthan the uncriticalperception of difference by stricken and backward hillbillies who violate the die-
one whose personal interests are at stake. If it is true tary rules of orthodox Hinduism by consuming meat
that human beings have a universal propensity to con- and liquor, the rules of caste endogamy by practicing
struct hierarchies based upon perceived differences intercaste marriage, and Hindu norms of marriage by
among themselves, then the scholar from afar, the stu- practicing bride-price and widow remarriage (Berre-
dent of the exotic, is especially well placed to under- man 1972). The classical lawbooks called them fallen
stand and describe those hierarchies,as well as the pre- Hindus,and the orthodox still regardthem as degener-
sumed differences from which they are constructed. ate and impure (Joshi 1990;Sax 1994).
Since he is from anotherculture (which may well be the But to catalogue these stereotypes is to enter a hall
culture of the university down the road), he can recog- of mirrors, because all of the customs for which the
nize the arbitrarinessof the locally salient differences Garhwalisare denigrated (meat eating, liquor drinking,
and hence grasp the aconstructedness"of the hierar- and unorthodox marriages) are practiced by at least
chies based upon them. As a relatively (though, of some Hindus in virtually every village and certainly in
 FORUM 295

every town and city in the north.This is the hidden face cal spells and give it to me. He said that, if any local
of Hindu society, and so when fingers are pointed, one woman were to offer me food, I should sprinklethis salt
has to ask: are they pointing at the GarhwaliOtheror at on it, and if it turnedblood-red, I should not eat it. I as-
the repressed Self? Moreover,the mountainpeople are sured him that if the food turned red, I certainly would
renowned for their courage and god-fearing honesty not eat it! In fact, only one of my friends from the east
and are therefore in great demandas domestic servants had actually been to the Tons basin. He was a retired
in the plains and disproportionatelyrepresented in the government officer who had toured the area in the
Indian military. For Garhwalis, too, Hindus from the 1920s, and he told me that whenever he was offered
plains are Other, and in an equally ambivalentfashion. food it would first be tasted by a prepubescent girl, in
Onthe one hand, Garhwalisseek to emulate them by re- order to demonstratethat it was not poisoned.
forming their religious, dietary, and marriagecustoms Despite (or perhaps because of) these warnings,I
so as to conform more closely to those of the plains.3 was eager to journey to the Tons basin. And I had a defi-
On the other hand, both Garhwalisand Kumaonis re- nite goal: for many years I had heard rumors and read
gard these Hindus as political oppressors, and over the reports of a local cult in which the villains of India's
last several years a separatist movement has gathered great epic Mahdtharata,the Kauravas,were worshiped.6
momentum (Dhoundiyal et al. 1993) ultimately result- Since I had been workingfor some time on regionalver-
ing in promises to create the new state of Uttarakhand. sions of MahdDharata(Sax 1991b, 1994, n.d.), this was
So the first point to be made is that, although Garhwal clearly something that I should investigate. But I seri-
is geographically and culturally marginal,and its peo- ously doubted that there was an actual Kauravacult. I
ple are Otherto the mainstreamculture of the northern reasoned that because people from the Tons basin
Indian plains, this relationship is neither simple nor practiced polyandryand other unusual customs, there-
straightforward.The Other is also a reRection of the fore Garhwaliselsewhere were willing to believe that
Self, resented at times, at other times emulated. local women were sexually aggressive and that the lo-
WithinGarhwalas well, there is a mainstreamcul- cal culturewas invertedand strange.Andnothingseemed
ture and a peripheral,Otherculture.That Otherculture more implausible,to me or to my Indian friends, than
is in the far west of the old kingdom,in the remote dis- the outlandishsuggestion that these people worshiped
tricts borderingon HimachalPradesh,especially in the the Kauravas.
Tons River basin. According to one local historian, the But we were wrong. Soon after arrivingin the area
people of this region were notoriously "turbulentand for the first time in the winter of 1991, I was directed to
refractory"(Saklani 1987:44, 174 ff.), and this reputa- the large and imposing temple of King Karna,the pre-
tion persists to the present day. Local history is punctu- siding deity of Singtur,a traditional land division at the
ated with riots, rebellions, and resistance to the king, to confluence of the Rupin and Supin, where social and
the colonialists, and in fact to any external authority. religious life centers on the god. Here was a prime ex-
Pity the poor civil servant who is posted to these re- ample of Otherness:a temple devoted to Karnaof the
mote valleys, giving new meaning to the Indian term MaVabharata,the illegitimate elder brother of the Pan-
puntshrnent posting. davas who fought on the side of the villain Duryodhana
The people from the upper Tons basin are not con- and his allies the Kauravas,and was killed by Arjuna
sidered Other merely because they are a rough bunch. the Pandava at the urging of Arjuna's divine ally,
Moreimportantly,the area is associated with a number Krishna.Karnais strongly associated with death and
of unusual customs, especially the worship of demons defeat: he is such a dark and inauspicious figure that
and the practice of fraternalpolyandry.4Villagersin the elsewhere in Garhwal(and India) people do not even
eastern districts of Garhwalare virtuallyunanimous in read the "Bookof Karna"from the Mahdbharatawith-
their suspicion and distrust of those from the west. out first performinga goat sacrifice. They believe that,
When my village friends heard that I was planning to if they do so, catastrophe will strike. For my friends in
travel to the Tons basin, they did their best to dissuade eastern Garhwal,this cult devoted to the tragic figure
me. I was warned that men did not returnfrom valleys of Karnawas quintessentiallyOther.
of the Rupin and Supin Rivers:local women enslaved But as it turned out, the people of Singturdid not
them, turningthem into goats or frogs by day, and back regardKarnaas tragic or inauspicious at all. KingKarna
into men at night afor their pleasure."There were ru- (raja karan) is regarded by the local population as a
mors of poison cults, and once again it was the women ruler (Sax 1997). He is served by numerous lineages of
of the area who were to be feared: they worshiped su- priests, musicians, carpenters, and watchmen; he is
pernaturalbeings who demanded one human sacriElce the subject of a rich folklore; and he is often called
per year, and woe to the unfortunateguest who dark- upon to settle local disputes, which he does throughhis
ened the door on the designated day. A village healer oracle. Like other kings, he travels frequently, some-
went so far as to empower some salt with special magi- times in royalprocessions to the villages underhis rule,
296 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 2 JUNE 1 998

sometimes to drive away other gods encroaching on his Garhwalas well, I had met many deities who had been
domains, and sometimes on pilgrimageto local sacred demons of one kind or another in their previous lives
places. He is perceived as a real king who acts for the and had only later been converted to the good side.9 In
good of his subjects, as is illustrated by the following fact, nearly all of the strange customs of these remote
chant that is recited morningand evening by his drum- valleys were echoed in the mainstreamculture of east-
mers: ern Garhwal. For example, when I translated the oral
epic of the goddess Nanda Devi in 1984, some of the
All the gods are awake, aIld the maiden from Nagarkot. words in it had puzzled me: in the end they could be ex-
The music is playing, the priest is worshiping with food, plained only by very old persons who remembered
with wealth. these things from their youth. The songs had mentioned
Hari Haridwar, Badri Kedar, the Ganges and the Bhagirathi, items of dress and adornment(golden earringswotn by
the five Pandavas, the sixty Kauravas, the great and powerful men, for example) that were nowhere to be seen. They
Parashurama: had also told of architecturaldetails like four- and five-
all worship the son of the sun, the piince of the sky,
story houses, but no one's house was taller than two
the king of three worlds, the son of Kunti.
They offer gold alld miLk-givingcows to the virtuous ldng.
stories: a lower one for the animals and an upper one
May your dominions grow, may your temple grow! for the people. Once again, it was the old people who
May your lion-skin throne be Iich!6 explained that multistory houses had disappearedlong
ago, when the population grew and the forest was cut
That Karnais a virtuous and progressive ruler is down, and peasant landholdingsshrunkto a fraction of
shown by his enthusiastic promotion of certain social what they had previously been. So these images from
and religious reforms. Nearly all of these have the ef- the old songs never came alive for me until I reached
fect of reducingthe culturaldistinctiveness of the local the Tons Riverbasin and found myself staying in a five-
population, by conformingmore closely to the customs story house: first floor for the cows, second floor for
of the northernIndianplains. For example, KingKarna the goats, third floor for the grain, fourth floor for the
and his priests are fierce prohibitionists, opposed to people, fifth floor for the family goddess and the visit-
drinking in general and especially on religious occa- ing anthropologist. Not only that, but I was surrounded
by men wearing golden earrings. And then I realized
sions. They are opposed to animal sacrifice within the
what was happening: the Uturbulentand refractory"
temple compound, and they seek to reform local mar-
people of the western valleys were feared and despised
riage customs. In fact, what I had heard about polyan-
by other Garhwalis,not because they were intrinsically
drous marriagewas incorrect, for it occurs but rarelyin
Other, but rather because their Otherness was itself a
the area.7But the locally prevalent form of marriage,by reflection of those other Garhwalis'own past. I had en-
bride-price, is also regarded by the orthodox as back- tered a few steps further into the hall of mirrors and
ward. As a reformer, King Karna also objects to this could not be sure whose reflection I was seeing.
form of marriageand will not allow his priests to accept Meanwhile, Karna'ssubjects from Singturassured
the bride-pricefor their daughters. His priests explain me that their customs were not different from those in
that Karnawas famous for his generosity;in fact, one of other parts of Garhwal.But they insisted that higher up
the most popularepithets for him is "thegenerous king" the valley dwelt a god and his subjects who were truly
(danz raja), and so they, like him, refuse to accept the Other: uneducated and barbaric. That god, they said,
bride-price and even give a dowry along with their was Duryodhana,archvillain of the Mahdtharata and,
daughters. In doing so, they conform to the orthodox for most Hindus,a symbol of evil. They insisted that, al-
form of marriageamong northernIndianHindus.8 though some people might deny it, the god really was
It was beginningto look as though the local culture Duryodhana.;'Justas people everywhere are changing
was not so radically Other as I had been told. Manyof their caste these days, so they are tryingto change their
the customs I was curious about (polyandry, poison deity from a demon (rAk$asyont) to a god (deva yoni)."
cults, and the like) were nowhere to be found. None of King Karna'ssubjects assured me that there were sev-
the women had tried to turn me into a sex slave. Nearly eral temples of Duryodhanahigher up the valley, and
everyone but the god's priests practiced bride-price;I they even whispered of a shrine to the most despicable
knew from previous research, however, that this cus- of the Kauravas, Duhsasana, who dragged the Pan-
tom was still practiced in eastern Garhwaland had in davas' wife Draupadiinto the assembly hall by her hair
some areas been normative as recently as the previous and attempted to strip her naked.l?They said that the
generation (Sax 1991a). The idea of worshiping the oracle of Duryodhana,whenever he was possessed, had
tragic antihero Karnahad shocked me at first, but he to lean on a crutch for support, since Duryodhana's
was actually a benevolent and rather orthodox god. thighs had been broken in his final combat with
And when I thought about it, I realized that, in eastern Bhima.ll I was told that Duryodhana went on royal
 Fo RUM 297

tours throughout the region and that, wherever he formers")insisted that their god was not Duryodhana
halted, the people of that village were obliged to offer but rather Someshvara,a form of the great Hindu god
their finest animals and grain, their milk and butter, to Shiva, and regardedthe appropriationof livestock as a
the god and his priests. So frightenedwere they of his kind of theft, unsuitable for a religious institution. As
curse that they would do so without complaint.Once, it the god's priest put it,
was said, villagers had not given the god his due, and he
had responded by orderingthat the breasts of a nursing Look,if we steal someone'ssheep and bnng it here,then
mother be hacked off. King Karna'ssubjects assured people will accuse us of all sorts of things.This is theft,
me that they had suffered a great deal at the hands of andthe god'snamewill be sullied;they'llsay he promotes
thievery.Now a god's works are these: do meritorious
Duryodhanaand his minions. For years their high-alti-
action,sponsorscripturalreadings,go on pilgrimage.It is
tude herdsmen were forced to offer the finest of their not a god's task to steal things from people and bring
flocks as annualtribute, until one year five brothers de- them,sacrificesheep andeat them,andput the blameon
feated Duryodhana'sfollowers, even though they were the god.Thegodisn'teatingthose sheep:menare.
vastly outnumbered,thereby endingthe custom.
Now I was well and truly puzzled. Was this cult of There was also a dispute over the way in which the
Duryodhanaa collective fantasy, as I had previously as- god makes his appearance during festivals. Tradition-
sumed? Was it an example of an "otherizing"discourse ally, he is carried out on a "chariot"(rath), actually a
based upon an arbitrarydifference?Wasit perhapstrue kind of palanquinmade of freshly cut pine saplings, and
that this exotic Himalayanvalley harbored an equally young men have great fun leaping on the saplings,
exotic religious cult, in which the most notorious vil- jumping up and down on them and trying to break
lains of Hindu mythology were adored by the local them. The reformersfelt that this custom demeaned the
population?I pondered these questions while trying to deity by failing to show him the proper respect; more-
arrangea visit to the god's cult center in the village of over, people were allowed to wear shoes when they ap-
Jakhol.This was not easy to do, as it was winter and the proached the chariot, another sign of disrespect; and fi-
mountaintrails were buried in snow and often impass- nally, low-caste persons could pollute the deity by
able. One evening I was explaining my interest in Du- coming in contact with him duringthe melee.
ryodhanato a fellow patron of the tiny inn where I took Several years ago the reformers managed to con-
my meals, when a small group of men sitting next to us vince their rivals to take Duryodhana/Someshvaraon a
fell silent. One of them angrily called out, uWhosays pilgrimageto the famous nearby temple of Kedarnath.
our god is Duryodhana?His name is Someshvara!"I re- They felt that, after completing such a virtuous act, he
alized that my opportunity had arrived. The situation would be likely to go along with their vegetarian and
was very delicate, and so I asked the man to come out- teetotalling reforms. But in the end he did not, and
side with me where we could not be overheard.I apolo- tensions continued. When I visited during the spring
gized to him for causing offense and said that I was only festival in 1991, there was an altercation between the
repeating what I had been told by the local people. Per- reformersand the traditionalists,and that evening,mem-
haps he would be willing to take me to Jakhol and show bers of the reformistfaction sought me out and begged
me the truth. The man, whose name was Kula Singh, me to bringmy camera the next day. They were certain
said that he would be willing to take me there, but not that their rivals were going to shoot them, and they
now; it was midwinter,and the paths were too danger- wanted me to document the massacre for posterity.
ous. But if I would come for the god's spring festival, I Even the god himself was ambivalent about his
could stay with him and he would help me in my re- identity. In 1994 during my visit to Jakhol, he returned
search. from a brief tour to some nearbyvillages and was ritual-
Later that spring I spent several days in Kula ly welcomed home, at which time he possessed his or-
Singh's house observing and participatingin the god's acle, as is customary. It was the beginning of winter,
festival, and three years later I returned again. During and there had been a prolonged dry spell, but as we
these two trips I began to lose my way in the hall of mir- stood in the flagstoned square before the temple, dark
rors. First of all, I discovered that within the god's vil- storm clouds whirled around us, and we were briefly
lage there was a dispute between two factions over the pelted with hail, while the slopes above the village were
identity of the god and the rituals appropriateto him. blanketed with fresh snow. Speaking through his or-
Each faction was, in effect, Otherto the other. One fac- acle, the god called upon the two factions to settle their
tion (let us call them the traditionalists") tacitly ac- dispute and unite. People were becoming educated, he
knowledged that their god was Duryodhanaand sup- said: times were changing, and he would change with
ported old customs such as demandingsheep and goats them. But he also commandedhis subjects to maintain
as tribute and sacrificing them in front of the deity. their old traditions. Duringthis speech, the oracle sup-
Meanwhile a second faction (I will call them the "re- ported himself by leaning on what looked rather like a
298 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST
* VOL. 100, NO. 2 * JUNE1998

long metal sword with an unusually short hilt. Was it sacrificed in front of KingKarna,and he, too, used to be
not the crutch about which I had already been told, re- taken out duringfestivals on a chariot of pine saplings,
quired by Duryodhanasince his thighs were broken by which the village youths would joyfully try to break.
Bhima in their Elnalcombat? His speech was punctu- Now, however, when he left the inner sanctum he was
ated by frequent interjections ("Ak!ak!");was this not placed on a tiger skin, symbol of royalty, and the fac-
an expression of pain from his broken thigh? After the tion of reformersin Jakhol wished to follow suit, just as
trance had ended, the oracle leaped up to a standingpo- they wished to adopt the vegetarian and teetotaling
sition, obviously relieved that the trance was complete; customs of KingKarnaand his priests. Even in Duryod-
was he also relieved of Duryodhana'spain? hana's cult center, elements of the Self could be de-
Now I had reached a place of radical Otherness at tected in characterizationsof the Other.The reformers
the center of the hall of mirrors.When I tell my north- themselves had previously practiced many of the cus-
ern Indianfriends about the possession and the crutch, toms for which they castigated the traditionalists,while
I invariablyelicit a shudderof dread.And yet in a funda- many of the traditionalists clearly felt that the reform-
mental sense, Duryodhana'ssubjects are not all that ers occupied the high moral ground.
different from people elsewhere in Garhwal. They do So, who exactly was this deity in the upperreaches
not worship Duryodhanabecause he is evil but because of the Tons Riverbasin? In one sense, the answer to this
he is powerful, like the other deities that are worshiped question was a matterof perspective, of social position.
throughoutthe area. Specifically, he has a power that is For King Karnaand his subjects, the god was clearly
characteristic of many local gods and goddesses, the and unambiguously Duryodhana, which showed that
power to bring rain or to withhold it, something that is the residents higherup the valley were barbaricdemon-
obviously of crucial importanceto local farmers.There worshipers. For reformers within the cult, the god was
are other reasons, too, for worshiping the Kauravas, just as clearly Someshvara, and those who called him
and these are hardly different than the reasons people Duryodhanawere ignorant and uneducated.
elsewhere in Garhwal give for worshiping the Pan- But in another sense, the issue of the god's identity
davas. Both sets of reasons have to do with people's can be clarified by employing an anthropological per-
ideas about who they are and how they came to be that spective. In my view, the tensions and inconsistencies
way. The belligerence of the Kauravas,their eagerness suxToundingthe god's identity stem from the fact that
to do battle, fit in well with local men's images of them- he and his cult are undergoing a profound transforma-
selves as courageous and warlike. People sometimes tion, one that is linked to wider socioeconomic pro-
say that their ancestors fought on the side of the cesses. These formerly isolated valleys are being inte-
Kauravas,so that Duryodhanais king of his subjects in grated with the rest of India as they never have before.
the Rupinand Supinvalleys, just as he was king of their A generationago, there were no roads into the area, few
ancestors. In worshiping him they are remaining loyal visitors from outside, and virtuallyno public education.
to their ancestral traditions;to do otherwise would be But now domestic and internationaltourism is rapidly
dishonorable. Throughoutthe region, gods have been expanding, government and private schools are every-
and still are amongthe most prominentpolitical actors, where, and the transportation network is burgeoning.
and the boundaries of their domains are the subject of The area has been declared a wildlife refuge, and there
continual and lively dispute.l2Devotion to the ancestral are alarmingplans to relocate the inhabitants.In 1991I
god is, therefore, a kind of protonationalism, in which had to walk over ten kilometers and ford a majortiver
loyalty to one's lineage, caste, and region are all mutu- to reach Jakhol from the trailhead at Sankari, but in
ally reinforced in the cult of the deity. To its neighbors 1994, I took the twice-daily taxi service. But these
Duryodhana'sdomain might look like an "evil empire," changes do not, in and of themselves, account for
but to those within it loyalty to the cult is an appropri- changes in the cult. The most importantissues in this
ate and honorable attitude. regardhave to do with how the people of Rawainrepre-
So in the end, the subjects of Duryodhanawere not sent themselves to each other and to the outside world,
so very different from Garhwaliselsewhere. And at all and how they in turn are represented. As communica-
levels, elements of the Self could be detected in stereo- tions with the northern Indian plains have expanded,
types of the Other.As noted above, all the very things reformershave become aware that other Hindusregard
that marked King Karna'ssubjects as different in the them as perverse and backward Others because they
eyes of eastern Garhwalis(their style of dress, their ar- worship Duryodhanathe notorious villain, and that is
chitecture, their marriagecustoms) were elements of the mainreason why they are in the process of reinvent-
those eastern Garhwalis'own past. Similarly, the as- ing their deity as Someshvara. One man obtained a law
pects of Duryodhana'scult to which Karna'speople de- degree in Delhi several years ago and returned to be-
risively pointed had been practiced within living mem- come an influential proponent of the view that the god
ory by Karna and his priests. Animals were formerly is Someshvara and not Duryodhana.A rule of thumb
 FORUM 299

seems to be that the more contact a person has had ample, of those who hold up the Otheras a model to be
with the plains, the more likely he is to insist that the emulated, or as a mirrorof the shadow side of the Self.
god is Someshvara. Such contact will only increase in In fact the situation is always much more complex than
the coming years, and as it does so, the reformers'self- Said implies, with selfhood and otherness, virtue and
representationwill continue to gain groundagainstthat vice, subject to ceaseless negotiation and reinterpreta-
of the the traditionalists. Eventually, the god's meta- tion. To my students as well as to many others in New
morphosis from Duryodhana to Someshvara will be Zealandand America,Indiais a land of poverty and suf-
complete. fering but also of ancient wisdom, while to my friends
As an outsider with little personal stake in this con- in Garhwal,places like New Zealand and America are
troversy, I was to some extent able to situate myself lands of material wealth alongside spiritual degrada-
above the fray, from where I could see that while the tion. To the higher castes and upper classes of the
deity was probably called Duryodhanaby his subjects plains, the mountain dwellers of Garhwalare ignorant
in previous times, he is undergoinga process of trans- hillbillies, but also and at the same time they are ad-
formation. Such an anthropologicalexplanation-cob- mired for their courage and honesty. To the Garhwalis,
bled together from historical inference, ethnographic people from the plains are political oppressors, but si-
observation, and sociological analysis is not gener- multaneously they are the objects of envy and desire,
ally available to local persons. For them, the question and their customs are the model for the religious re-
of the god's identity is, in principle, a black-and-white forms I have described. To the subjects of King Karna,
issue. Religious belief cannot accomodate a shifting or Duryodhana's followers are barbaric but admirably
contextually based divine identity:either the god is Du- strong and warlike, while Duryodhana'sfollowers see
ryodhana, or he is Someshvara. He cannot be both at Karna'ssubjects as physically weak but morally supe-
once: his followers are not postmodernists. rior and worthy of emulation.In this hall of mirrors,the
Self and the Othercannot be neatly distinguished.

Conclusion WllLIAM S. SAXis a seniorlecturerin the Department

of Philosophyand
ReligiousStudiesat the University
of Canterbury,Christchurch-l,
New
Wheredoes this leave us? In an importantsense, I Zealand.
think it leaves us strandedin the hall of mirrors,with no
way out. Paradoxically, our tendency to focus on that
which divides human beings from each other, to focus Notes
on difference, is something that all humans share. We Acknowledgments. An earlier version of this essay was
cannot help noticing that other people speak different originallyread as the third lecture in the MacMillanBrown
languages, observe different customs, and are, well, Lectures for 1995. I am grateful to the MacMillanBrown
different: Other.Yet these differences, though they are Centrefor Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury,Christ-
believed to be essential, are largely matters of perspec- church, New Zealand, for inviting me to present these lec-
tive.l3My own anthropologicaljourney provides an il- tures. I would also like to thank Jim Ockey, Paul Harrison,
lustration.I went to India because I was curious about Paul Morris, and Paul Titus for their helpful criticisms of
another culture, another form of life. But when I got earlierdrafts of this essay.
there, I discovered that as far as most northernIndians 1. Kakar(1990) provides an interesting discussion of the
universalityof otherizing processes from a psychoanalytic
were concerned, the truly Other form of life, one that
(mostly Kleinian)point of view.
was strange and backward, was in Garhwal. After 2. This theme, and especially the MargaretMeadexample,
spendingsome time there, I discovered that local peo- havebeen skillfully developed by Marcus and Fischer 1986.
ple thought of the residents of western Garhwal as For criticisms of Mead's findings, see Freeman 1983. For a
Otherin all sorts of ways: religious, cultural, and sex- recentcontributionto this debate, see Grant 1995.
ual. When I traveled to western Garhwal,I found that 3. This is an immediatelyrecognizable and fairly common
similar things were said of those Others who lived process in India, still best referred to by Srinivas's (1966)
higherup the valley. And when I Elnallyreached the end term Sanskrttizatzon, despite extensive debate over the
of the valley, the last human habitation, I found that usefulnessof this category (e.g., Staal 1963).
even within that village, there were two factions, each 4. Majumdar1963;Ravat 1991;Zoller 1988.
of which was Otherto its twin. 5. Nautiyal 1971:133-134;Ravat 1993; Sharma 1977:79;
Thukraland Thukral1987:41.
All of which clearly illustrates Said's first point:
6. jage saval sanja, nagarkotkanya
that people everywhere create distinctions between ragsanja,bhog sanJa,dhankIpuja
Selfand Other.But his second point that the Self is al- hariharidwar,badrikedar,gangabhagarathl
waysvalorized and the Otheralways vilified is simply pancpandav,sathkaura,badasaktipharasaram
nottrue, or at least not so simple. It is not true, for ex- siri sarjkaraX
kvamrsagalmam,
300 * VOL. 100,
AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST NO. 2 * JUNE 1 998

tIn talal ko ra,a surajga kuntlko jai FreemanXJohn Derek

savasanmanas,dhinallgamv,dhannlraiia 1983 MargaretMeadand Samoa:The Makingand Unmak-
rqbadhe,chatravasbadhe ing of an Anthropological Myth. Canberra:Australian
sinahasanko dhanl! National UniversityPress.
Fruzetti, LinaM.
7. Polyandryis found in the Jaunsarand Jaunpurregions,
1982 The Gift of a Virgin:Women,Marriage,and Ritual in
a few hours'journey away by bus; see Majumdar1963.
a Bengali Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univer-
8. For normative marriage associated with dowry, see
sity Press.
Fruzetti 1982 and Tambiah 1973. For a discussion of bride-
Geertz, Clifford
price in general, see Goody and Tambiah 1973; for bride-
1984 Anti-Anti-Relativism. American Anthropologist
price in the central Himalayanregion, see Berreman 1972,
86(2):263-278.
Fanger 1987, and Sax 1991a.
Goody, Jack, and Stanley J. Tambiah
9. Sax 1991a:47-49,52; cf. Hiltebeitel 1989.
1973 Bridewealth and Dowry. CambridgePapers in So-
10. According to one of Duryodhana'spriests in Jakhol,
cial Anthropology,7. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
there are a total of 14 temples dedicated to the god in the
Press.
immediate vicinity. I have not found evidence of any Duh-
Grant,Nicole J.
shasana temple.
1995 From MargaretMead's Field Notes: What Counted
11. There is a Duryodhanatemple in Keralawith a priest
as "Sex" in Samoa? American Anthropologist
who, when possessed by Duryodhana,dances on one leg for
97(4):678-682.
several hours (Tarabout 1986:223,483; cited in Hiltebeitel
Hiltebeitel, Alf
1991:178).
1991 The Cult of Draupadi,vol. 2. On Hindu Ritual and
12. Ibbetson and MacLagan1919;Raha 1979;Rosser 1955;
the Goddess. Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press.
Sax 1991a;Sutherlandn.d.
Hiltebeitel, Alf, ed.
13. As recent critiques and revisions of post-colonialist
1989 CriminalGods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the
approaches have pointed out, essentialist categories were
Guardians of Popular Hinduism.Albany: State Univer-
current in south Asia prior to colonialism, and Indian cate-
sity of New YorkPress.
gories were adapted and reified by Europeans in complex
Ibbetson, Sir Denzil, and Sir EdwardMacLagan
ways, not all of which were essentializingt (Titus 1998).
1919 A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab
and Northwest Frontier Province. Lahore,India:Super-
intendent, GovernmentPrinting,PunJab.
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MediatingNationalismandArchaeology:A Matterof Trust?

SANDRA A. SCHAM was more than that of roughlycontemporaneous news

Pontifical Biblical Institute Museum, Jerusalern stories. For the conclusion naturally ensues from this
episode that, whatever the political stance of the ar-
chaeologists who worked on this project, they became
IN THEFALLOF 1995, around the time of the assassi- supporters of the concept of a "Greater Israel" es-
nation of Prime MinisterYitzhakRabinby a vehement
poused by Jewish settlers. The historical presence of
opponent of Israel's peace treaty with Palestinians, an
Jews in the Land of Israel, a principle upon which the
Israeli archaeologist working in the West Bank widely
state was founded, has taken on a different aspect for
publicized the excavation of a centuries-oldJewish vil-
lage and one of the oldest synagogues yet found in the the settlers, many of whom claim to be willing to give
Levant (Biblical Archaeology Review 1995). The con- their lives to prevent the government from conceding
nection between the modern event and the ancient site any of the land on which they have made their homes.