December 2019

VOL XXVII, Issue 12, Number 320

Editor: Klaus J. Gerken

Special Guest Editor: George F. MacDonald

European Editor: Mois Benarroch

Contributing Editor: Jack R. Wesdorp

Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena; Oswald Le Winter; Heather Ferguson;

Patrick White

ISSN 1480-6401

“Bridging The Gap.”

Introduction

George F. MacDonald

The First People's Hall at the Canadian Museum of

Civilization

George Macdonald

Klaus J. Gerken

Spirit Communication in the digital age: Ultimate Reality or Dream?

Contents

George F. MacDonald

Politics of the Image: Photography on the

Northwest Coast and in Australia

Klaus J. Gerken

Historical Photography: The Spirit in the Image – who owns it?

George F. MacDonald

Reality and Representation The Information Age

museum as mediator

Klaus J. Gerken

Between the Tightrope, the Audience and the Wind

Post Scriptum

John Sabol

The Archaeologist as 'Trickster'

George F. MacDonald

The First People's Hall at the Canadian Museum of

Civilization

George Macdonald

.

Raven perched high above the CMC.

Photo: Klaus J. Gerken

Klaus J. Gerken

Spirit Communication in the digital age: Ultimate Reality or Dream?

There is an old Tibetan saying: when two realties brush against each other, a dream occurs. How we interpret that dream is the beginning of a journey. And the journey will ultimately lead to your self – the true meaning of karma. In a way there is a lot of truth in that: while each journey does not lead home, as it does in Homer’s Odyssey, it does cumulate in one’s self. We are creatures of learning (whether we do so or not is a different matter)…our brain is the sponge of our abilities; our intellect is how we apply it. Each pathway leads to another – a huge generator. Each explosion between synapses is a universe. And these universes have a filing system. And this is what will concern us here. And, quite important in the context, this filing system is universal – it does not rely on our base knowledge of the case. And what is the case? An object that cannot be touched or felt, seen or heard – to cut to the chase: a riddle. No, not a riddle, but a solution yet unknown to a problem yet to be identified. – Namely the “how” of “why” - The ritual mirror that can only look into what? Its self. This conceptual reality forces us to confront the being-nonbeing paradox – is what is there really there, or is the perception of a reality a yin/yang cycle of reciprocity? Does nature give clues, or must we rely on Horatio’s philosophy? My take is that nature has no clues to give. Cultures leave behind clues – mostly refuse I am afraid. Useful only in so much that something was there… still is there - a ruin; an artifact; and if lucky, a thought – otherwise we have to extrapolate and even interpret a consequence of something being lost or abandoned - Was it due to war; famine; disease; seasonal migration, overpopulation; or any other factors that might come into play – both archeology and anthropology join to formulate an interpretation of the facts and modulate a hypothetic reconstruction from the evidence – sometimes even

plaster in a guess to keep it all together till the solution can be found. But even this is pure extrapolation of sometimes very flimsy evidence – a piece of an artifact found isolated and nowhere else – what is it; who owned it; what purpose did it serve in society, or was it something traded for; was it ornamental, utilitarian, just a curiosity? All factors have be given the same priority, until elimination focuses a rationale upon it. That is the “concrete” evidence; now what about then indirect evidence, the oral tradition, the legends, and also external observation – more likely than not from a conqueror; or someone least likely to understand what is being observed. , The dialogue starts with an imperceptible whisper – a murmur, then builds into a word; and the word is not god, but a dialog between ourselves and others, others and ourselves – a merging of two realities. Much is focused on our limitations - our cataract eyes – weltanschauung – our reach into reality. Self-induced spirit visions are prevalent in almost all cultures: from peyote to LSD, and in almost all instances there is a guide present- a shaman, a guru. The dream/vision is guided and then interpreted. The quest is usually invoked for self-actualization - in western culture - and practical guidance in hunter-gatherer societies. In indigenous societies it is not about the self but the group. In other words it is not used to “get high”. It is quite utilitarian. But we digress: we want to know how the past communicates with the future – and I suppose vice versa. As to the present it exists only insomuch as it observes the interaction – therefore creating the future, and in doing so changes the past. So yes, we are back to reciprocity: yin and yang and Horatio’s philosophy. It all interacts. We are the observer, and the observer is the custodian of what it observes. So toward an answer: spirit communication is a vital part of the equation – without it there would be no cohesive interaction – everything communicates, otherwise cohesion would be impossible, and neither could form, and without form, no objects… jn fact nothing… not even the Buddhist “no mind”, because it

all is mind, - a unity. Reality or dream: In this context both, and neither. The consequence of such a bold and unprecedented statement: can it be proven fact? It does not need to be proven because it is self-evident. What needs to be modified is our way of thinking. Indigenous societies bypassed the concrete for the spiritual; their flexibility was in adapting to their environment, not to adapt their environment to their philosophes – thus the split, and the loss of the [upward mobile] ladder in one and the loss of foundation in the other. Also, while both European and indigenous villages had much the same infrastructure, the differences are monumental: indigenous village life revolved around sharing and communal cohesiveness, while the European counterpart was more toward family land ownership, as in the domus in medieval Montaillu, - and nationalism. Even I keep asking myself where this is going. Different bandwidths – That’s it --where one is communal, the other is national. In other words: one simply overwhelms the other. So, what we are looking for is already there, we just have tune into it. But from what angle… where do we start? We start by observing. If we see residuals of the evidence then it must be there. But where, and how much has survived, and how does the case present itself… is it complete… if not, then how fragmented? Can we even understand it? And through all these factors, can we achieve a satisfactory translation others can understand? The museum obviously plays a large part in this – it is both the interpreter and the medium. We deal with this throughout the context of the issue. What we have also seen is that everything communicates: past-future-present – we can’t get away from it. It is the “reality” of our being/thought. The only difficulty is the frequency of the communication, both back and forth, exactly as we perceive light – some creatures see a wider band than others – the camera has made progress toward this – so with radio and sound: what we need now is the mind to expand its though – to transcend from which was to what already is in the past. It will take a while – can it be forced – I would say no. But then evolution is not a linear progression, but works by leaps and bounds – like a

series of springboards – and what seems like a downward regression can actually be a positive progression. And where are we now…progressing I should always hope.

George F. MacDonald

Politics of the Image: Photography on the

Northwest Coast and in Australia

George Macdonald The digital manipulation of historic images has particularly important implications for ethnography and ethno-history globally. As traditional societies and their material culture systems recede into the past, many historic photographs contain amazing details that were not recorded in the ethnographic literature. This is particularly true for settlement pattern studies and architecture, but also for communal economic practices and inter-group conflict and warfare. I have found many communities around the world which have left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of still photographs from the latter half of the 19th century that can yield many details of traditional lifestyles by careful examination of the contents of the photos.

https://www.academia.edu/36871467/Politics_of_the_Image_Photography_on_the_Northwest_Coast_and_in_Australia

Klaus J. Gerken Historical Photography: The Spirit in the Image – who owns it? Introduction George F. MacDonald presents an intriguing perspective on how native cultures chose to preserve their visual past. It can easily be extended to current privacy laws in our own societies - for instance, how do we justify protecting our own right to privacy, but not the right to privacy of other cultures, even through the use and manipulation of old "historical" photographs? Should the rights of these photographs revert to the aboriginal cultural groups or individual families? - all of vital importance. And then we are also confronted with the presence of the photographer - the observer changes the subject - people simply act different in front of a camera; either by being apprehensive or posing - you can either 'play' to the camera or ignore it, - even the act of ignoring is confronting an intrusion. Yet the object of a photograph is to preserve something - an image. Of course, what the image preserves is the main reason for the image in the first place. This, of course, sets up a conundrum: is the image public or private; is consent required; who owns the rights, not just to the photograph, but also, does it have artistic or cultural merit? Google Maps Street View is a good example of this - peoples’ facial features are blurred; but they can also ask to have the image of their house blurred, or an object on their lawn, or even in their hands; some countries do not allow Street View at all, while others leave it to individual communities to decide. In native cultures, there is an added conflict – their right to exist has been shattered to the core. While the long coil of cultural migration assimilated – more often than not, the conqueror, (this obviously did not happen obliquely – nor could it have – in the new world. What did eventually happen, grudgingly slow – tragically – was an acknowledgement of cultural extremes. But not in the art world, oddly enough, where it was exploited by the conqueror – if you can’t assimilate, at least make a buck from the tragedy. But the art was always regarded as cultural kraftwerk – art, but less than the “established” European art - something of a curiosity, to be kept in cultural museums and studied – not to be praised, - just a bit marveled at, - a fluke. The old European standard: if you don’t know the theory of art, you can’t be an artist (blatantly false), but we’ll get to that in another essay. The native situation was - and make no error here - the greatest genocide in human history. That it has been ignored is the apatite factor turned upside down, but only this time, it is they who are to blame…”we tried everything we could”, when, in reality it was a blatant falsehood meant to shift the blame and erase the battle scars, not of the victim, but the conqueror. Assimilation isn’t easy, as the Inquisition found. (The desperado of 1492 brought more people west than just Columbus, but that is outside the scope of this introduction, however an interesting examination, and still largely an anathema one).

But to return to topic, George F. MacDonald brings this to the forefront when he points out in : “Politics of the Image: Photography on the Northwest Coast and in Australia.”

This in itself says quite a lot – and in a way sets a dangerous precedent, whereby

we not just change the past, but obliterate completely those parts that do not fit

our moral, or – and Facebook uses this term a lot in regulating content –

community “standard”. But how do we define “community standard” - a

consensus, or a directive? And how is it achieved – democracy or dictatorship?

For instance, one can hardly call a religious institution democratic; nor a political

party, or any small group with a view for that matter. Isn’t it always the lesser that

imposes itself upon the greater? Even a pure democracy must cater to the lowest

common denominator – it cannot exist otherwise.

Free-for-all

So, where do we go with “… people are restricting access because they are now

concerned that their ancestors are naked in the photos.”? Are they ashamed their

ancestors are naked and therefor perceived as “savages” and consequently, that

stigma has the effect of tarnishing their own reputation as “decent” members of

their present circumstance? Of course they are. This is really not about

“community standards”. But about shaming – being ashamed, as opposed to

protecting their ancestors, when in fact they are protecting themselves. How far

can this go? Dangerously far: genocide. Many countries (Yugoslavia comes to

mind); Horemheb (18 Dynasty Egypt); Nazi Germany, the indigenous

populations. some reduced to scattered artifact or ruins because the written

history was destroyed, not by time, but purposefully by conquerors or even

individuals – some meaning to preserve, but doing more damage than good –

animosity, prejudice, hate- all fuelled by ignorance. And it doesn’t stop there,

even museums, the preservation archives struggle with what to retain through

lack of funding. The digital age is the most vulnerable since it is the easiest to

erase and lose. Artifacts can always be sold, or transferred to other institution

(then it becomes their problem). Digital archives, on the other hand are very

much susceptible to the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” syndrome. And without

proper cataloguing a lot of it just ends up as junk in the basement corner.

But getting back to the “moral” side of the discussion, where does possession of

an image begin –who owns it? Not the photo itself – the photo is not the image, it

only holds the image – but… let’s get right to down it, - the question everyone has

been waiting for: who owns the past? Aye, there’s the rub! - Really eh? Who

owns you in the future? And I’m not talking a day after you die, but when your

past becomes public property – or the property of someone who is not your

ancestor – when you can’t decide how your image, or the context of your image

should be used? OK… when a new standard of morality declares your image…

your being, history, soul…your essence… your existence, immoral? And you

can’t respond? After that, no one will ever know you even existed. What do you

want to say to the person who makes that decision? You might say, well it

doesn’t much matter to me, I’m already dead. Perhaps so. but then it becomes

your family, your community – your society… your ”Race”? Like an alien being,

stranded alone on a planet, in A Star Trek NG episode once said, “I killed them

all.” And Picard responded, “Let him go. He has to live with his crime forever.”

So, whether a bureaucratic or moral decision, future generation will be shaped by

those decisions. The dilemma of the archivist then becomes - however delicate

you might want to put it - a balance between the tightrope, the audience and the

wind.

All very interesting you say, but… And there always is a - and has to be - an

opposing question… an opposing view. History is a give and take arena. What is

done tomorrow might not be my cup of tea. If I’m still there, then I still have a

voice… I can say something; voice my opinion; object or present an alternate

solution. If not there, I may have published something that is still relevant – but

don’t count on it – in an age where opinions are as quickly discarded as the latest

smart phone - as if that hasn’t been the case for each generation – and I have to

wonder, who really does the discarding, the younger generation or the elder?

There something to be said for asking that question. What the elders reject youth

will often embrace. Perhaps the nest syndrome – where the mother bird nudges

her young out of the nest to find their wings, so to say,- isn’t a voluntary action,

but a genetic one, only we use ideas rather than physical action, like rejecting

what youth admires, rather than accepting it, therefor nudging them into some

kind of advancement – a new adventure to advance into the future.

Coping is an environmental skill. If the environment does not change there will be

no need for change. A static environment is ripe for conquest.

That’s a lot to digest at once. I can already hear the opposition prepare for battle.

But it’s very simple really, as Tavy sings in Fiddler on the Roof: “Tradition!” but is

it a statement or a plea? “Tradition?” and at the end of the movie he resigns to it

with a sigh. What is tradition without change; what is change without tradition?

And this brings us back to my quote from George F. MacDonald. Indigenous

cultures have - how can I put it - from their earliest inception formed a symbiosis

with their natural environment – nature. The culture in which we exist has

pushed nature aside as a peripheral by-product of its claim to exist in continual

mechanical renewal, where the past is only seen as a repository of value.

However, indigenous cultures see it quite differently: the past in itself has no

value, only the present has to be continually maintained – there no need to adapt

to new situation that do not exist. But what about war, you ask? Is not war a

shared experience? Well, yes and no. One must look at the causes of war and the

cultural catalyst for entering, or precipitating a conflict in the first place: the

western concept of warfare has developed into defence, a defence, not of land

primarily, but of ideas; the indigenous use of war is primarily rooted in the

territorial and sustenance – survival – the survival of ideas versus survival of

sustenance. Both communicate a strong sense of culture – one a sense of culture

maintaining a symbiotic relationship with, and the other use the land as a

resource - the difference is in the handling of resources – territorial expansion is

also handled differently. Aboriginal societies claim land only when resources run

out; western society claims land, not in of itself, but the propagation of ideologies

– lebesraum – breathing space. The aboriginal concept settles back down when a

goal – survival – is achieved; where-as an idea is always actively expanding –

peace is only there to prepare for war – the aboriginal has no such concept.

And then there is the sacred – the spiritual concept of regeneration – one comes

from the soil and returns to the soil – thus the land becomes the ancestor – an

open church that is present in every activity, and not just a Sunday outing to

worship a deity – indigenous cultures pay respect to the land every moment of

their human existence… and beyond: they are one with the land… an

appendage… as a tree is – every blade of grass. When indigenous peoples put in

a land claim they are not just asking for their land back, but their soul.

This brings us full circle… back to the photographs: when a photograph is taken,

several things happen to create the image – light is most important - not just

sufficient light to capture a clear image and to allow the lense to focus, but also

to capture the shadows that allow definition of substance – an illusion to form – a

special harmony. This is very important, since the camera captures things that

we cannot readily see. I do not know if anyone remembers, - in the movie Girl

With A Pearl Earring - what to me is the pivotal moment of the movie, when

Vermeer finds the servant girl Griet in his studio (which she had been cleaning}

looking at a new painting he has just begun. She is startled and, what I believe is

the most prophetic conversation ever filmed - so I ask the reader’s patience while

I quote it in full – the reader will soon understand the significance of the scene in

a cultural context - remember the 16th and 17th centuries were transitional in

western culture.

Vermeer: (Notices her looking at the new painting he had just begun) You're looking at it? Well... Griet: Nothing is the right color. Vermeer: This is the base color. It gives the tone... shadow in the light. And when it's dry... I glaze over it with blue, but... thinly, so that the black shows through. (Takes her to the window) Look, Griet. Look at the clouds. What color are they? Griet: White? (pause) No...

not white. Yellow. Blue... and grey. There are colors in the clouds. Vermeer: Now you understand. *

The reader will notice several very important factors in this dialogue that pertains

to the subject of photograph and perception. Griet here represents the new still

clinging to old ideals – afraid to break away from the old world where everything

has its place: even the heavens are fixed – and the clouds are either shades of

white and grey. Vermeer, represents the elder in a modern progressive world,

where colour is paramount to the understanding of everything in the cosmos –

but is it that simple? It’s not black and white – it’s transitional.

One of the factors in not understanding indigenous populations is that we do

tend to look at the difference in terms of black and white – far apart. No in-

between… no bridge.

“I don’t know how the river got so wide. I loved you baby, way back when.” L. Cohen

But the river was always wide… as Cohen points out, perception and reality are

the same until the future becomes the distance between two realities: A(infinity) ≠

A(pi) even though they describe the same events. We lose contact even with our

own realities – what I thought occurred didn’t really happen the way it is

remembered. Memory shapes the past into a palatable format so it will conform to

our own reality. It is quite obvious that the conqueror has different motives than

the conquered ln remembering events. – That brings us to the image – does it

capture actual events or is it a recreation? Can a recreation be more accurate if

the photographer just records the events and not the motives? Without reference

how much information do we gain, if any at all? Were the ancestors naked – yes,

as George MacDonald clarifies. Then what was the purpose – to belittle and

demean? Or to show them in the state that once was natural to them? If the

former, I agree, the photos should not be shown. If, on the other hand, the posing

was not extorted, and the subjects agreed to it, can we, should we now under new

moral guidelines overturn that decision? Do we have that right? It’s not an easy

question; nor should it be.

But what about, less obvious examples: that the photo captures and traps the

spirits of the ancestors - that the land is sacred? Do the indigenous people see

something we cannot – the elder Vermeer teaching the younger Griet to perceive

a world she is curious about but has little understanding of, to Leonard Cohen’s

“how did the river get so wide”? Is it perhaps a defence mechanism – i.e. One

who cannot walk, not because of any physical disability, but of a mental block – I

cannot walk because I do not want to cope with where my feet will lead me – an

avoidance of responsibility toward the unknown? But Griet is young and curious,

even though frightened at the prospect of severing the sacred cord. Tradition is

still the value she places on her territorial outing – safety first.

As I stated previously, indigenous societies set their cultural progression by their

immediate environment - If it doesn’t change they do not either – there is no

incentive to. With the intrusion of Europeans they were propelled into a crossfire

hurricane they were ill-prepared to handle. When trade didn’t appease the

newcomers, open distrust developed. Yet it was not until the Europeans began to

encroach upon the land of the native populations that the line between cultures

was drawn and open hostilities developed to the point of genocide. The rape of

native soil brought to the forefront the clash of cultures between the two

opponents – the Europeans, arrogant, out for gain and profit at any cost and the

natives, mostly peaceful, willing to trade and share (this is very important) their

resources as a kind of harmonious offering of friendship - their way of co-existing

with the Europeans without giving up their identities. When this offer was refused

it was no longer possible to co-exist… the dynamic shifted to a

conqueror/conquered one. The genocide had become a bulldozer that could not

be stopped.

Conclusion

We touched upon perception, land dynamics, cultural crosscurrents and a

plethora of other factors to gain an insight as to why indigenous cultures – not

all, mind you – object to allowing the general display of historical photographs

that contain images of their ancestors, sacred artifacts and lands. Upon

investigation we have found that native populations have formed a symbioses

with their environment where the maintenance of the environment is paramount

to their existence and wellbeing - maintain the environment, and the environment

sustains you. We have also found this is a weakness when the native lands were

encroached upon by European invaders and the native population sought to

coexist with the invaders rather than resorting to violent confrontation. From that

resolution we are made aware of the difference between the indigenous

population’s definition and use of the land, as opposed to the European

exploitation of natural resources. All of this factors into the equation of discord v.

harmony and the perception of the past as either sacred or refuse – hand over to

others or discard. It then becomes clear why even the past should be protected

from invasion – disrespect for the past cannot be tolerated when the land has

been passed on from generation to generation as a garden rather than garbage

dump. Today’s social infrastructure is mostly built on transportation – it is no

longer a leisurely Though frought with danger and intrigue, but a race track that

corporate giants maintain – no longer a chain of villages but a network of

highways controlled by the few to feed the labour force that maintains their

industry. Although we may talk about it a lot, we are farther away from a

traditional community than ever – can there really be a global community – what

would that entail – and how would it evolve? What would it look like? History has

taught us that evolution strives by leaps and bounds – it thrives on differences

rather homogeny – it thrives on the earthquake fault rather than the placidity of

the great plains – war and famine, rather than peace and plenty. The inevitable

question in all of this would be: how much of a culture would survive other than

entertainment – clones decay – and symmetry dissolves to chaos?

Klaus J. Gerken

8 Oct 2019

George F. MacDonald

Reality and Representation: The Information Age

museum as mediator

George Macdonald Based on my experience with 3d laser scanning technology and IMAX 3d movie production, I was asked to give the keynote speech to this conference outlining my thoughts on the impact of these impressive new technologies on the traditional museum goer.

:::

https://www.academia.edu/36801722/Reality_and_Representation_The_Information_Age_museum

_as_mediator

Klaus J. Gerken

Between the Tightrope, the Audience and the Wind

Museums always hold a fascination… so the old saying goes. Sort of like freak-shows: a curio-shop you go into when you are bored, but rarely buy anything, and when you do, it’s a gag-joke for a friend. At least that used to be the general consensus among the public - something to do on a boring Sunday afternoon. I used to describe museums as “a place where you can see the bottle but not taste the wine.” Watching others eat the meal, with running commentary on the side. With the advent of the information age however, things have drastically changed: it is now the in thing to do – a coffee table discussion of the latest exhibit. Whether or not anyone gains by it is as yet unknown… for the public anyway – perhaps for administrators too. For all its worth to save the past, the fact must be acknowledged that museums ultimately hasten its destruction – perhaps the indigenous peoples are right, what returns to the ground is sacred. I am both fascinated and at the same time very much saddened looking at the faces of ancient Egyptian mummies – the ghoulish Halloween/Hollywood aspect will always be there – much the same ambivalent fascination looking at the death masks of Beethoven or Browning - why am I doing this, what is the purpose... like taking a photograph of a dying person’s final indignity - if there is a final peaceful moment it is within…not a public display of decay. Bear with me…I really don’t know where I’m going with this. But it does have something to do with violating the sacred to achieve an “EPCOT” moment… a grand IMAX finale and then a theme park. Does it serve the past well? My guess is that it depends on the observer’s curiosity, knowledge and expectation… or what the observer sets out to find. I once wrote that people usually find what they are looking for - whether it’s there or not. That may sound strange upon first reading, but it’s really not. If you isolate something – an artifact – a quote – a section of a photograph – even a complete exhibit can be twisted to a theme: without a reference point it might look impressive but in reality imparts no information beyond the limit of its scope. A favourite example is dinosaurs – their existence spanned an enormous period in time, but inevitably they will all be portrayed together in a poster or film – even museums do this, giving the impression they all co-existed - which is hardly the case - t-rex and raptors did not co-exist as in the public’s perception – this presents a real dilemma for the museum and teacher – you obviously don’t want the visitors to feel like they are back in school

– but what concessions are needed to bridge the gap between scholarship and outright entertainment? Here we usually end up using the word informative as a “bridge” but at what cost, and compromise? Does one half explain something when it requires a more complex hour-long introduction? Show and tell is one thing; but show, explain, explore requires a dynamic on the part of the reader – an involvement - many are not there for - after all, a fight to the death between a tyrannosaurus and a triceratops (though neither coexisted with the other) is much more engaging than explaining the evolution of each in its own epoch and environment. EPCOT and IMAX can do this… and it brings much needed funding, yet reduces the audience to little more than a consumer with little or no real scholarly benefit to them. But would they even want that? My guess is no. In the 50’s and 60’s supermarkets use to provide weekly cards for kids that one could collect into an album of all sort of things, from dinosaurs to the civil war… all very entertaining, fascinating to a young mind. I used to revel in these ‘educational’ devices – and they imparted a lot of good information. But what they did not impart was the painstakingly difficult dedication it requires to bring the story to the public – sometimes a whole lifetime of backbreaking obscurity – and sometimes for just a small part of the puzzle – for just one Indiana Jones there hundreds of bent shoulders to stand on. “I made it all up…” - A worthy conclusion to a worthy career. As someone wrote, I’m sure quite unintentionally, on Facebook the other day, “It’s all fake fiction” – an oxymoron at best, a profound revelation, in any event, for those who have never been stuck in quicksand, or the rapid panic-inducing incoming riptide on the mudflats of Cuxhaven… nothing – not a prayer in hell – can rescue you, except… “I made it all up.” That is survival. And only a lifetime of dedication and perseverance can lead to that. Museums are only shell. “I made it all up” produces the results. Amen. I titled this paper “Between the tightrope, the audience and the wind, because that is what a director does – take all the information and formulate a course of action, to deliver a meaningful, uncluttered version of what is perceived to be the truth, as ascertained by facts to a curious audience that wants to both entertained and informed while balancing on a tightrope to keep the ship afloat in what is more often than not, a storm. The trick is to present the illusion of calm – to present; or as the emperor Joseph said to Mozart in the movie Amadeus, “What you say is all very fine, Mozart... but you do not persuade.” A director persuades. And through all of that, is also a magician, a conjuror, an entertainer, and even a stagehand, when needs be. But there is still a great divide between scholarship and entertainment. I am primarily a philosopher, whose vehicle is poetry – to be quite honest, if I could string a decent sentence together I would probably write one of those novels that win all kinds of coveted prizes publishers love so much, and sell millions of copies no one reads. Every author’s dream is to write a shelf book – long on wind and short on meaning – in other words, Art. Poetry needs no pretense…it’s obscure from the beginning… mainly because most genuine poets haven’t got a clue what they are talking about in the first place – it’s always

handy to have an essay at the end of the book telling people how clever it is. I once left 6 pages blank because I simply didn’t know what write – everyone thought was clever or profound – there is no in-between. – and the publishers got their 160 pages. For what it’s worth, mostly I expound on the non-meaning of life… since, if ever did find a meaning it would be pretty boring, since no one would have anything to do anymore - There it is, the page is either white or black… take your pick…nothing left. Everyone go home and watch the white noise on the TV in high definition. Thank whatever entity there is for poetry and science – as Vladimir Holan writes in the most vindictive poem ever written, “ the scientist observes. Science crawls along inch by inch – poetry is in the parable… it flies.” So, what is the museum but a vessel; the scholar sifts through the rubble to explain; the administrator of the museum fills the ark with the revelation; and finally the poet writes a paean praising the whole shebang. The public oohs and haws, write their cheques for the next project and all’s well that ends well… or so it would seem – until after the hangover – there always has to be a hangover – you know, suffer for your sins and all that… until someone forgot to turn the lights on, and the only one there was an old shaman who made it all up in a dream. (I can see someone smiling – right, George?). But tricks aside, communicating the past to the present is a very important endeavor – yet as GFM said to me in one of our marathon discussions – read “HE” expounds and “i” listen and learn – for the past is the foundation of the future… the input and output so to say, where the “present”, is the processor… the observer ever changing the past, and therefore, the future through reinterpretation. If the director plays his part well, he nudges the audience in the right direction to evolve a dialogue where none was before and form, not so much a bridge but, a new link in the chain of evolution – an osmosis, a focus, a new sail unfurled into yet uncharted possibilities. EPCOT, IMAX , and theme parks… the output. How can they be – I don’t want to use the word manipulated – formed… molded into a pliable construct that will inspire new generations to build even greater cathedrals to a lesser god in the vast unscripted correlation of a unity. We are no longer in the garden, and there is no place for an exodus: our tombs will be built here, upon the battleground – sacred ground, hallowed ground, earth that must be cultivated and maintained, not plundered. And where are the spirits? How do the spirits communicate through the vessels we build. All vital questions if the past is to communicate with the future and join with the present. I don’t think we will ever, as Joni Mitchell sings, “get back to the garden.” but we can conquer the disease that brought us here… complacency. The past can teach us how to “get back”. Now we have the equation: audience, tightrope and wind. The solution can be either positive or negative: I opt for the positive.

* * * Chief Crawls along the shore: I don’t know, - harmony without a soul. Chief I made it all up: The soul is the people. Chief Crawls along the shore: Yet they don’t live there, and it is not sacred ground. Chief I made it all up: They come here to feel a sense of unity. Chief Crawls along the shore: Unity with what? Chief I made it all up: With each other; with their country. Chief Crawls along the shore: What is their country? Where are their ancestors? Chief I made it all up: (Silent) Chief Crawls along the shore: I am not comfortable in this place; let us return to the graves of my ancestors, that is all that is left for us. Chief I made it all up: What would you have me say?

Chief Crawls along the shore: Why do you feel a need to say anything? Chief I made it all up: (Silent).

Chief Crawls along the shore: If you return our land, what soul is left? You have plundered the very essence of our purpose. Your purpose is yourself. We have no such claim. Life to us is a sacred bond with the very essence that nurtures us – the earth itself. Look around. All this is for what? Chief I made it all up: It’s to teach the young their potential. Chief Crawls along the shore: To give them what you took from us?

Chief I made it all up: That’s hardly a fair assessment.

Chief Crawls along the shore: When the river is drained does the salmon pause to

consider a fair assessment?

Chief I made it all up: Of course not. But you should.

Chief Crawls along the shore: What is fair must be fair for all.

Chief I made it all up: And that entails accepting change.

Chief Crawls along the shore: Whose change?

Chief I made it all up: Why, yours of course?

Chief Crawls along the shore: And what about you? Will you change also?

Chief I made it all up: I don’t see a need for it. By accepting our ways you and

your people will benefit greatly.

Chief Crawls along the shore: My people…

Chief I made it all up: Yes. Admit it, you have not made any progress in

thousands of years.

Chief Crawls along the shore: What do you consider progress?

Chief I made it all up: Integration. By that I don’t mean give up your culture. I

mean, people love the festivals, costumes and drums. Great entertainment.

Chief Crawls along the shore: Great entertainment…

Chief I made it all up: Yes, it draws people to the exhibit so they can learn about

your culture…

Chief Crawls along the shore: But this not our culture…

Chief I made it all up: Then what about the festivals on the reservation?

Chief Crawls along the shore: (Shrugs) We put those on for the tourists. Brings in

money.

Chief I made it all up: But…

Chief Crawls along the shore: This is what you expect from us. It means nothing.

The real culture is in our hearts.

Chief I made it all up: You don’t say…

Chief Crawls along the shore: You get what you want… You made it all up..

Chief I made it all up: Fair enough, I guess, but when do we get see the real

thing?

Chief Crawls along the shore: When you crawl along the shore for thousands of

years…

Chief I made it all up: No instant gratification…

Chief Crawls along the shore: None whatsoever.

Chief I made it all up: Ain’t that a shame…

Chief Crawls along the shore: Don’t mention my name…

Chief I made it all up: By the way, what is your name?

Chief Crawls along the shore: You couldn’t pronounce it…

Chief I made it all up: I’ll make one up.

*

The conclusion might seem jocular, but the context is not.

Sometimes we treat the tragic with a sugar cube – like absinth –

to dilute the bitterness to make it palatable. Otherwise it is too

difficult to digest and might well be overlooked – a museum

director walks that thin tightrope every day with varying results,

but when a true balance is maintained something magical results

– the past emerges with new vibrant colours and understanding.

It is a continuing dialogue between the past and the observer.

How it evolves is up to us, and how the new discoveries are

interpreted and passed on to others. Let the past teach us, and

never allow our own current views be imposed on the past – that

would just broaden the great divide, - and no one wants that.

16 May 2019

The Archaeologist as 'Trickster'

John Sabol

The Archaeologist as ‘Trickster’

John G. Sabol

I.P.E. Research Center

How do we tell the story of the archaeological record? Does our craft of archaeological

enculturation sometimes trick us? Do we use the archaeological imagination to merely mold

our artifacts as assemblage ‘treats’, rather than extend our sensory horizons back past the

ground we dig, and etic-grounded ideas into which we excavate? The trickster in indigenous

ontologies is about death and time, something archaeologists are well acquainted with. In the

view of Pearson and Shanks (2001), archaeology is the science of ruins and the abandoned,

of fragments and death (cf. 2001:91-93). It is a time of present absences. But this time is not

somewhere ‘out there’. It lies “buried (even when excavated) and hidden in the landscape”

(Crang and Travlou 2001:170). It lies in exposed heterogeneous layers of contemporary

disassociation, masking movements between the levels of physicality and memory,

embedded and attached.

The ruin becomes a way of publicly inscribing and distinguishing an ‘archaeological space’, a

space where archaeologiness, as a rite of passage, is performed and narrated, both through

the ruin itself, and the ‘ceremonies’ of ‘habit memory’ (in survey and excavation) that takes

place around it. But there is something more. The ruin and abandoned landscape carry a

deeper memory of the past within its present form. These layers of deeper memory are not

physically distant, but surfacing as becomings. They are surfaces of identity on the ground,

presences present without trowel help.

“If the postmodern archaeologist searches for unusual archaeological locations, liminal sites

which challenge the conventional distinctions between the surfaces and depths of the earth

and do not fit the traditional concept of grounded excavation” (Wallace 2004:196), then the

time is now to excavate without machinery, shovels, trowels….

What becomes of those stories edited from ‘official’ archaeological accounts of the past?

Rather than consider archaeologists as storytellers, might we not consider some as the

stories themselves: as a trickster belonging to, and part of, a ‘secret story’ that haunts the

emerging presence of the past during fieldwork? Archaeology’s story might be perceived, not

as a linear sequence of site events or historical episodes, but rather as affordances that

generate possibilities embedded in liminal, relational spaces of absence/presence that a

trickster characteristically inhabits.

Is there a boundary crossing in fieldwork, one that scrambles the conventional real of ‘habit

memory’, archaeologiness, and the unconventional unreal: the archaeologist ‘haunting’ the

presence of the past in the present? Does the exuberance and hubris of finding “small things

forgotten” in that archaeological act of discovery, foray into the shifting ground between

reality and the uncanny, the archaeological etic and the ethnographic emic?

Is there just a ‘trick of the trade’, the creative process espoused as ‘archaeologiness’,

tricking us with our relation to what remains of the past in the present? Is it all a ‘dead end’ in

present time, a confusion in the archaeological encounter with ‘working with’ what remains of

the past? Does excavation really open-up a renewal of past presence, or is this

‘archaeological imagination’ part of trickster personality?

Is the real story then to go beyond the contemporary storytelling directly out of the

dissolution of the archaeologically (in)-habit(ed) sense of archaeologiness, outside

accredited performance practices? Is it a movement toward something/someone else than a

trickster? Can we associate ourselves with some real presences of the past, as ephemeral

encounters with particular percolating past layers of memory? The 'trick' is to attempt this

particular type of excavation!

“We go on investigating….Go on examining so much scant evidence for its least, elusive

trace. Go on entering, in the ever narrowing field of a continuously expanding terminology,

our own impacted data. The data, however, do not seem to bring us any closer” (Sobin

1999:44).

Are we being ‘tricked’ by new technologies and the comfort zone of coverage and depth they

imply? There is still darkness out there. Can we in the field enter it, the ‘black holes’ of

survey, excavation, LIDAR scans, and interpretation, and move beyond and back? Can we

experience something meaningful beyond “our own sensorial ‘reading’ of so much extinct

human landscape” (Ibid: 43)?

One way, as an example (though dealing with the ethnographic present, not the ethnographic

past), is to imbricate two diachronic forms: indigenous oral narratives and archaeology (cf.

Gauvreau and McLaren 2016). This approach adds “chronology, spatial information, and

physical evidence of historical events” to indigenous oral narratives, as “a means of

understanding the results of certain archaeological investigation from a more emic

perspective” (Ibid: 304).

The material culture that we unearth, so removed from its sociocultural context that it

reaches us without continuing gesture and ritual, can we still sense – experience – those

traces? Is that part of the archaeological trade or do we trade it for conformity to what is

expected of us as archaeologists in the academic world? Have we arrived on the scene too

late to understand the performances? What if….?

These traces and fragments, are they divested of all transmissivity and contextual sensory

value? Can they be associated with more than someone else beyond something that merely

‘survives

time’? These same artifacts, assemblages, ruined structures, as we gaze at them through the

veil and contour of absence, can they become a real sense of memory? Is this memory any

different than its antecedent in the past? Is “here what’s eternally there?” (Sobin 1999:133).

Bibliography

Crang, M. and P.S. Travlou. 2001. The City and Topographies of Memory. Environment and

Planning D: Society and Space 19: 161-177.

Gauvreau, Alisha and Duncan McLaren. 2016. Stratigraphy and Storytelling: Imbricating

Indigenous Oral Narratives and Archaeology on the Northwest Coast of North America.

HunterGatherer Research. pp. 303-325.

Pearson, Mike and Michael Shanks. 2001. Theatre/Archaeology. London: Routledge.

Sobin, Gustaf. 1999. Luminous Debris. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wallace, Jennifer. 2004. Digging the Dirty: The Archaeological Imagination. London: Gerald

Duckworth & Company, Ltd.

Raven perched high above the CMC.

Photo: Klaus J. Gerken

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