An Anthropologist at the Funeral
My title pays homage to Margery Allingham whose fictional detective AlbertCampion, though born to the highest social rank, could pass happily in anystation of the class-stratified streets of fictional pre-2WW Britain.
I write this to present a context for some of my own fieldnotes, and theconclusions based thereon, which I am making available as part of the HEFCE ERAproject. The topic is death, and my presence at funerals has made me thinkrepeatedly about the moral, ethical and emotional problems that face ananthropological researcher, particularly one conducting research in a culturenot their own (however that may be understood).
Biographical background; Biography and fieldwork
Part of the context must include who I am. A white male from the privilegedclasses of late C20th Britain. For the purposes of this essay such willsuffice as an introduction. More important here is my experience ofbereavement and fieldwork in Cameroon, and the way the two are related.
My father died, aged 56, when I was at college aged 19. Among my peer group Iwas unusual at having had this loss. Even before I started to studyanthropology I realised this experience had changed me, and had made me grow upin ways at least as significant as reaching my majority and leaving home. Thisrebounded upon me later in the field. When I was talking to Boeboe Savie abouthis family history, during my first period of fieldwork he turned the tables onme, as people often do. So he asked the names and ages of my family. Iexplained that my father had died and mentioned something of the circumstancesof the accident. Then I asked him how old his father had been at death. Hesaid `old, a grey haired old man' and I made noises that basically said `wellthat's all right then'. At this Boeboe got angry. `How dare you say that. Don'tyou think that every day that passes I want to talk to my father.' I wasshocked by his vehemence, and realised my mistake. Boeboe died during one of myabsences in UK and I regret not having been at his funeral.
My brother died, aged 42, on 4 January 1995. I was in Somié doingfieldwork and I only just received the news in time to get back for thefuneral. I was actually on my way home and had already left the village, but Iremember feeling relieved that I was not there when I heard. By then I knewthe appropriate behaviour in those circumstances, and I did not want to do it.As I approach my fortieth birthday I continue to visit the same village where Ihave friends and a house to maintain. I know how I should behave even if I findit hard to act correctly. But I am ahead of myself.
Fieldwork and funerals
In 1985 when I first went to Somié village, the only funeral I had everattended was that of my father. By the time I returned after a year I had beento seven more and had heard of and avoided others. Each time I return the firstthing I am told is not who has married or had babies but which adults havedied. I now go more willingly to funerals but find them increasingly upsettingas I know as friends the people, either the dead or the bereaved.
The Phenomenology of Mambila funerals - a summary
In the accompanying text there is description of the timing and organisation ofMambila funerals. What I attempt here is a summary of my understanding of whypeople go to funerals and what funerals achieve at an emotive level. I shouldstress that I have not asked people explicitly about this, and I am not surethat doing so would produce meaningful answers. This is rather animpressionistic summary which is why some of my biography needs to be takeninto account when assessing it.
Company is important in Mambila society. To sit by oneself is a BAD thing. Acommon response to illness, and particularly for a serious illness, is forpeople to visit to sit with the sick person. As in sickness so in death. Thebereaved are to be comforted by the presence of their kin, friends andneighbours who come to support them, to bear witness to the dead. You sit, andoften in silence. As time goes on or if you are not closely related you chatwith those near to you. You drink and you eat cola nuts. There is pressure toparticipate, at the very least, by eating a piece of cola. Some people come tothe gathering, greet the bereaved, eat a piece of cola then leave. I havereceived the impression - though it is never recorded in my field notes - thatto refuse to eat the cola could be seen as either an accusation that thedeceased was a witch, or an admission that the person refusing had someinvolvement (typically through witchcraft) in the death. Commensality andwitchcraft are closely related.
Neighbours and classificatory sisters cook so those closely involved do nothave to. The community flexes its muscles: it sits together; it is together.The funeral is an object lesson in social consequences. The persistence andcontinuity of the community is demonstrated by the rituals, and just aspowerfully by the social action of being together. This is what makes aspectsof functionalism attractive to this day! By attending the funeral you make asocial statement that you want the social good. By eating the cola anddrinking the beer you implicitly deny any involvement in the death throughnefarious means.
Stranger at the feast
For a long time I attended funerals, if at all, reluctantly - feeling veryanglo saxon, full of English reserve, that `it wasn't my place', that I wasintruding on other people's grief and so on... My documentation and photographyof these events has suffered accordingly. Now I realise how inappropriate suchreactions are. By attending I am NOT intruding; rather than not being my place,the only place a decent human being can be at such a time is at the funeralgathering. By staying aloof, I mark my difference far more than by going to thefuneral and feeling uncomfortable.
And uncomfortable is how I feel (although the local maize beer helps). I haveknown far less bereavement than most of the locals attending the gatherings.Perhaps this is why I feel so upset (a luxury that I can indulge in?). Theclosing line of Dylan Thomas's poem `A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, ofa child in London' is `after the first death there are no others'. At the riskof sounding pretentious, that is how I feel. All the funerals I go to evoke myfather's death, and now my brother's too. I know that had the news of mybrother's death arrived when I was still in the village that what I should havedone was wail loudly so that everyone knew, so that everyone could come and sitwith me. I would have found that impossible to deal with. So much the worse forme as an anthropologist?
