Its ultimate significallce is not llIoral bill methodo RENATO ROSALDO
logical. Catlin makes a plea for lhe salvation of the I\LlJldan; Goethe for the full appreciation of Heeting lllOl1lClltS of joy: Geertz fin her melleutics. III all three instances the cn:nls described ;ll'e suhverted by the transcending stories in which the\, are casi. Thev are sacrificed to From the Door of His Tent: their rhetorical function in a Iiterarv discoursc that is fa]' removed from tIlt' indigenous discourse of their occurrence. The sacrifice. the The Fieldworker subversion of the event descrihcd. is in the final <Inalysis masked nei ther by rhetoric. hvpolyposis, theatricality, awl interpreti\(: virtuosity
and the Inquisitor
lIor by their llletaphorization-salv<Jtion, life, society-but by the au
thority of the author, who, at least ill much ethnography, stands above
and behind those \""hose experience he purpo]'fs to describe. All
too often, the ethn()~rapher forgets that the nati\c, like Eduard in
Goethe's Efectiz!1' Allin!ties, cannot abide someone reading over his
This paper attel1lpts to develop an anatomy of
shoulder. If he does not dose his book, he will cast his shadow (H'er it. rhetoric by exploring modes of authority and representation in two Of course, the ethnographer will also cast his shadow oyer it. It is per deservedly classic books: E. E. E\ans-Pritchard's The NUl'r and Em haps for this rcason, if r may conclude with the conceit of my own tale Illalluel Le Roy Ladurie's i\101ltailfolJ. The former. published in ]940, of entry into this paper, that Zeus ulHlerstood whcn Hermes prom has long beell recognized. along with two other hooks and various ar ised to tell no lies but did not Drolllise to tell the whole truth. ticles on the same people, as an exemphu-y ethnographic work. The latter, published ill )~175 by a noted French social historian, has re ,~ ~ , ;1 ceived wide acclaim for its innovative use of an inquisition register to cOllstruct an "ethnographic" analysis of a fourteenth-century French t village. Le Roy Ladurie's intervention, among other experimental works of history and anthropology, has been hailed as opening the possibility of ,I more ethnographic history and a more historical ethnography. I Yet in certain I"espeets Le Roy Ladurie's experiment redeploys an artifact already old-fashioned in its homeland-as so often happens with borrowings both intercultural and interdisciplinary. An anthro pological work that aimed at SllCh a total ethllographic analysis as is fOllnd in lH ontairrou could be called classic ill 51 yle, but more ou t moded than innovative. From this perspective Le Roy Ladurie's work has a distinctive vallie. It provides a mirror for critical reflection Oil modes of authority and descriptive rhetorics in ethnography, particu larly in the influential writing of Evans-Pritchard. The latter's work should be understood in this colltext as a n:presentative example of the discipline's rhetorical conventions. A close reading of these two books, rather than a more superficial review of a wider range of cases, (1()UOllng of history and anthropologv has a Evans-Pritchard himself wrote on history and anthro a course at the College de Fran~:e called Eth of in ullin has recently been reviewed in cs
(](jH I),
7H RENA 1'0 ROSALDO Frolll the Door of His Tent 79
enables the developl!1ellt of a general argument that can be appraised to shepherd lite in the hills, epitomized in the person of Pierre Maury. by studying extended narrative passages ill circumstalltial detail. in an anomalous manner discussed below, receives both "Vhat the argulllent loses in scope, it gains in more extensive and more idealized treatment than the formeL) 'The By looking at Th(' Nun from the distinctive angle of vision otTered more loosely organized archeology begins with body langllage and Alontaiflou, we discover that the figure of the etbnographie field ends with myth. In between Le Roy Ladurie discllsses, often in titillat wOl'ker in tnmbling ways resembles the fourteenth-century inquisitor ing tones, sex, libido, the lite cycle (marriage, childhood, death), time who created the docllment lIsed by I.e Roy Ladurie. The historian's and space, magic, religion, morality, and the other world. Through work appropriates ways of establishing authority and construetlllg ob out, the narrator punctuates his text with italicized citations, the pur jective descriptions already developed ill the ethnographic literature. portedly free direct speech of the peasants, verbally presented as if lndeed, the historian at times llearly caricatures his ethnographic olle were eavesdropping in the village itself. models. Yet in the manner of an illuminating objectificatiolJ, preciselv Le Roy Ladurie begins by describing his documentary source III this element of exaggeration at once makes strange and reveals an ar these terms: rav of discursive practices that in their anthropological homeland have been taken for granted. They have appeared, not peculiar, but Though there are extellSive historical studies conccming peasant commu nities there is very little material available that call be considered the direct normative for writing in the discipline. In making a detour through testimony of the peasants themselves. It is tOt' this I'e,ISOfl that the llltjuisition Le Roy Ladurie's work, I hope to develop a critical perspective Oil eth Register of Jacques Fournier, Bishop of ['amiers in Ariege in the Com!!; de nography, both as fieldwork and as descriptive rhetoric. Foix (now southenl France) fnlm 13 t 8 to 1325, is of such exceptional inter reading of Evans-Pritchard's ethnographic writing is guided est. (vii) both by Santayana's dictum that those who J()rget their past are con denllled to repeat it and bv the notion that critical reappraisals, the This beginning makes it clear that the reader wi\llearn, ill a remark active reappropriation of past works, should plav a signific;mt role in ably evocative way, about the texture of fourteenth-century peasant shaping future analyses. Such historical critiques, as tales both in life. The rich, vivid descriptions, quite unlike those in other historical spirational and cautionary, can direct future changes in ethnographic works concerned with medieval villagers, do indeed make compelling discourse. "ethnographic" reading. The peasants have beell textualized in ways that characterize the speakers as articulate and insight rul about the conditions of their own existence. Yet the historian's trope of making The Use and Abuse of Ethnographic Authority late medieval peasant voices directly audible to readers in the present arouses more skepticism than appreciation among ethnographers ac Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's work borrows ethnography's dis customed to pondering difficulties in the translation of cultures. ciplinary authority to transfoml fourteenth-century peasants' "direct From the outset the historian's innocent tone gives reason to pause. testimony" (as recorded in the inquisition register of Janjues Four How can his data ("the direct testimony of the peasants themselves") nier) into a documentary account of village life in southem France at have remained untainted by the context of domination ("the Inquisi the time. The book is divided into two parts, an ecology and an arche tion Register")? After all, the inquisitor extracted the testimonies as ology. The former delineates structures that remain unchanged over confessions; he did not overhear them as cOllversatiolls in everyday the long times pan (longue duree) and the latter discusses cultural forms life. What could motivate the historian to separate the data from the (hat often show comparable longevitv. instrument through which they were collected? The ecology begins with the physical environment and structures Le Roy Ladurie goes on to buttress the authority of his document of domination (chapter I), moves on to the household as the founda through the strategy of novelistic realism carried to extremes.' He tion of village life (chapters :I and 3), and concludes with an extended names names, provides titles, cites specific places, and refers to exact portrait of transhumant pastoralism (chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7). l.e Roy dates, He even goes on to give an impressive sketch of Jacques Four Ladurie opposes village life in households, exemplified by the Clergues, 3. For characterizat.ion of realism, see Culler : 131 -60. For an re 2.The problem of ethnographic authority has been delineated in a fine essay by view of Monlail/()u that, amon~ other c011Venlions of see James Clifford (l983a), Clifford 1979.