altar of fire - f. staal

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Comment: Altar of Fire

Author(s): Frits StaalSource: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Jun., 1979), pp. 346-347Published by: Wileyon behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/675672.

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346 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [81, 1979]responses on each of eight children. Five ofthese differences occurred in reaction to onechild's behavior. This was particularly signifi-cant, since this child displayed by far the mostintense verbal and physicallyactive behavior ofthe group. It became clear that in classroomsituations, the Navajo mothers have a lowertolerance for intense speech interactions andphysical activity on the part of the child. Thedata from the open-ended questions confirmedthis finding showing divergent cultural dif-ferences in the written comments.

While the application given here is of specialconcern to those interested in child develop-ment, the methodologyemployed could be usedin numerous other research contexts to elicitculturally divergent responsesto a wide varietyof behavior. Space does not permit a discussionof the known limitations of the technique.However, potential uses of this device suggestthat a continuing discussionof the strengthsandweaknessesof this and relatedtechniquesshouldbe initiated.

Acknowledgments. I wish to thank L. L.Langness, Ronald Gallimore, D. R. Price-Williams, K. T. Kernan, and P. Z. Snyder fortheir assistanceand encouragement during thepreparation of this manuscript. I also wish tothank R. B. Edgerton, Coordinator of theSocio-Behavioral Group, Mental Retardationand Child Psychiatry Research Program,Neuropsychiatric Institute, University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles, for making thisresearch possible. Finally, I want to thank theNational Institute of Child Health and HumanDevelopment for the Traineeship, U.S. PublicHealth Service Grant No. HD-04612 andHD-00345, which providedthe necessaryfinan-cial support.References CitedHammond, O. W.1973 Cultural Learning and ComplexBehavioral Stimuli, Ph.D. dissertation,

Psychology Department, University ofHawaii.Guilmet, George M.1976 The Nonverbal American Indian

Child in the Urban Classroom. Ph.D.dissertation, Anthropology Department,Universityof California, Los Angeles.Osgood, C. E.1964 Semantic Differential Technique inthe ComparativeStudyof Cultures.Ameri-can Anthropologist66:171-200.

Osgood, E. E., W. H. May, and M. S. Miron1975 Cross-CulturalUniversalsof AffectiveMeaning. Urbana: University of IllinoisPress.

Osgood, C. E., G. J. Suci, and P. H. Tannen-baum1964 The Measurement of Meaning.2nd ed. Urbana:Universityof IllinoisPress.

Submitted 30 August 1977Accepted 8 February 1978

Comment: Altar of FireFRITS STAAL

University of Calhfornia, BerkeleyWhen the reviewer of a work is simply igno-rant, no reply is necessary. But mind-bogglingignorance combined with allegations of dis-honesty and bad faith imposes a duty to reply.Robert A. Paul, in his reviewof our film Al-tar of Fire (AA 80:197-199, 1978), claims thatRobert Gardner and I staged the ritual- that it

was, in fact, a media event, a circumstance thatwe allegedly havegone to great lengths to trytodeny and disguise. Mr. Paul unearthed thatfact from certain passages in the brochurethat accompanies the film. Thus, the reader ofhis review is asked to believe that the three-pagebrochure we prepared to accompany the filmprovides precisely the information we tried sohard to hide. This curious contradiction willalert his readersthat he was on the wrongtrack,and should have alerted Mr. Paul himself.

Had he read all three pages of our brochure,he would have noted that his allegations arehopelessly wrong. I shall quote from the bro-chure, adding some information in brackets:Staal began studying Vedic recitation . . . inthe 1950s. Later he discovered that the Nam-budiri Brahmins... continued to performsome of the largerVedic rituals, the largestofwhich, the Agnicayana, had never been wit-nessed by outsiders. [In 1961, I published abook Nambudiri Veda Recitation, whichearned me the confidence of many Nambu-diri Brahmins, who then told me that theAgnicayana had been performedin 1955 and1956, and that there were plans to performitonce more.] . . . The tradition is rapidly dy-ing because young people no longer believe inthe efficacy of the ritual. As some Nambu-

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REPORTS AND COMMENTS 347diris became concerned about the disappear-ance of their tradition, Dr. Staal began tourge that the ceremony should be performedone last time so that it could be filmed andrecorded. After years of intermittent discus-sion, the Nambudiris agreed. They asked on-ly that in exchange for being given theprivilege of attending, filming and recordingthe performance, the scholarshelp defraythecost of the ritual . . . . The Agnicayana wasperformed from April 12 to 24, 1975. [TheAdhvaryu, the main priest, and several of theother priests who officiated in 1975 hadearlier officiated in 1955 or 1956, or both.]And now listen to Mr. Paul: The Nam-

budiris.. . had not performed it for a longtime for the simplereasonthat it is vastlytoo ex-pensive, and no one is interested any more.From which half-truth it is possible to infer (asdid Mr. Paul without the least compunction)that we staged the whole thing. But such an in-ference is not only unwarranted;it smacks of illwill. I cannot fathom the reason, but find thatMr. Paul's moral sensibilities are stimulatedeven more when he reportsthat the filmmakerswent so far as to try to keep out outsiders whoentered the sacrificial enclosure. He opines thatthese outsiders took the religious meaning ofthe ceremony seriously. Whence this sanc-timony, which merely betrays ignorance ofVedic ritual?I can outrage or bewilder him fur-ther: toward the end of the ceremonies, thechief Nambudiri ritualist asked me to enter theenclosure and urge some of the outsiders toleave, because they hindered the priests in theperformance of their tasks (I declined).At this point, Mr. Paul's ignorance hasbecome fully apparent. Vedic ritual is Brahminritual, and a Brahmin ritual is a casteritual-not, for example, a village or communi-ty ritual. This much is known to every begin-ning student of Indian anthropology. Mr. Paulsimply seems to have forgotten that there aresuch things as caste and hierarchy in India.Perhaps moral scruples have clouded his view.Whether he likes it or not, a Brahmin ritual isgenerally not to be heard or witnessed by non-Brahmins, and the sacrificial enclosure of aNambudiri ritual may not be entered by non-Nambudiris (in fact, not even by certain sub-castes of Nambudiris). The several Brahminvisitors from other parts of India expected (andweregiven) good spotsto sit in - but not permis-sion to enter the enclosure. Hence, when non-Brahminsentered, the riteswere considereden-dangered; for the same reason, all our films and

recordings had to be made from the outside.Under such circumstances,without two decadesof experience and severalyears of careful plan-ning, it would not have been possible to filmand record this event, which was quite possiblythe last performanceof the world'soldestsurviv-ing ritual (although Mr. Paul resents that sup-position, calling it romantic and melodra-matic ). Mr. Paul keepsthinkingof Vedic ritualas a village festival or a popular play, at anyrate, something common, pedestrian, and dull.All those who were presentrealized that this wasnot a humdrum affair, but a historical event.I am tempted to say more about Mr. Paul'splea for alternative films highlighting eithersocio-economic context or Vedic cos-mology. I desist because I think it is sad thathe is so oblivious to the extreme care that wentinto making this film an authentic document.Let me assure those who are interested that 80hours of tape are accessibleto scholarsthroughme, UCLA, or the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies, London. Twenty hours offootage are with the Smithsonian, andvideotape copies with me, the NetherlandsOrganizationfor Pure Research(Z.W.O.), andthe Government of India. Thousands of colorslides, taken by Adelaide de Menil, are withRobert Gardnerat Harvard(although I am us-ing them at present). Those who wish to knoweverything ( socio-economic context, Vediccosmology, and a great deal more) will beforelong be able to consult a two-volumeillustratedwork that I am preparingentitled: AGNI- TheVedic Ritual of the Fire Altar. A final irony: thepatronizingand neocolonialist attitude imputedto me is scarcely borne out by its title page,which indicates that the book is written in col-laboration with the chief Nambudiri ritualists,C. V. Somayajipad and M. Itti Ravi Nam-budiri.Submitted 5June 1978Accepted 9 August 1978Final revisionsubmitted 16 August 1978

Reply to Staal's CommentROBERT A. PAUL

Emory UniversityMy criticismof Altar of Fire (AA 80:97-199,1978) was motivated by neither ill-will nor ig-norance, but by concern about the ethical prob-

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