PART 3:
IN THE FIELD: The Chambri
Deborah Gewertz & Frederick Errington
In 1932-33, Mead and her second husband, Reo Fortune, did field work in
three different
New Guinea societies, the Arapesh, the Mundugomor, and the Tchambuli
(whose name has now been standardized as Chambri, which we will use
here). Still in the tradition of "salvage anthropology," which
emphasized the urgent need to record as much as possible of the cultures
of groups still relatively uninfluenced by Europeans, their stays in
each place were short and frenetic, trying to get as much on paper as
possible.
But what Mead wrote about Chambri became almost as famous as what she
wrote about Samoa, for she described it as a society in which familiar
male and female roles were partially reversed.
Research on the Chambri was resumed in 1974-75 by Deborah Gewertz, who
was able to show that the pattern of relationships between men and women
described by Mead had been produced by political events that preceded
Mead and Fortune's arrival: following a bitter war with their neighbors,
the Chambri had been driven into exile, and were only able to return to
the shores of Chambri Lake, their traditional fishing ground, after the
Pax Britannica ended intertribal warfare. In 1932, they had not yet been
able to resume their traditional way of life in full.
In effect, the pattern of relationships Mead observed was a systemic
adaptation rather than a long-term cultural pattern. As Gewertz points
out, Mead's insistence on human flexibility is sustained, but in this
case we have an example of flexibility over a period of decades. Mead
designated Gewertz as the person to have primary access to her Chambri
field notes.
Gewertz has returned repeatedly to Chambri with her husband and
colleague, Frederick Errington, but it is no longer her principle field site, as the couple
has become increasingly interested in processes of change and
urbanization and the emergence of a class system.
During the 80s, Chambri Lake was nearly suffocated by the invasion of a
water plant, Salvinia molesta, that threatened to clog it entirely, but
the invasion was brought under control by a carefully selected and
introduced weevil. At present, fishing in the lake is once again under
threat from water hyacinths, and nearly half of the population has moved
away to squatter settlements near the provincial capital. The two
anthropologists still visit and keep in touch. They returned last year
to join the village in mourning ceremonies for Alexis Gewertz, whom the
villagers had known as a child.
- Mary Catherine Bateson
