1991 No. 1 CONTENTS - Institute of Social and Cultural ...

62 David Zeitlyn
me before whether I thought a particu1ar people might have no fixed or sure
answer· to the question, I would have supposed it most unlikely. 'Do birds and
animals die?' does not seem a question that would be left unsettled in the general
knowledge provided in some cullUre. Two years passed muil chance revealed it
to me. Thirdly, the contrast between plants and animals which some people
sttessed led me to make clearer a distinction I was half aware of ... Goau men and
women see some wild creature, it moves, is gone, and who can tell the next time
whether it is the same one or another like it? Some say those creatures all must
die, some say not, others are not sure.
Any dead birds which may be found are explained as having been killed Death
has external causes and is adventitious.
Gell (1975) mentions the way shadows in the forest may be seen as spirits (he
thought he saw a knight in armour). A recent work of Sperber's (1982) considers
the existence of dragons with golden hearts. Liam Hudson (1972) reminds us that
if we accept the existence of the rhinoceros it is hard to be complacent in denying
the existence of the unicorn. I read in New Scientist that strange new creatures
have been found in the depths of the Atlantic. By accepting these reports I
incorporate these creatures as part of my knowledge, accepting it as knowledge by
authority. 1
Anthropologists have had a long-standing fascination with beliefs that they
deem to be peculiar or irrational. The whole notion of belief itself has been
discussed from a variety of different standpoints. Philosophers make two useful
distinctions when considering this subject: flfSt, the difference between the objects
of belief and 'what [native speakers] mean by the word that the [anthropologist]
translates as "belief" (Quine 1990: 116); second is the distinction between
believing in something, and believing that something (Price 1969). a These two
distinctions are particularly germane when we examine the literature discussing the
perplexities of religion. Abstract and abstruse notions have been exhaustively
examined, including such arcane matters as the putative identity of twins and birds
among the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1956) and the numerologically satisfying and
mythically complete account of the ~rigin of the world and its contents as given
by some Dogon (Griaule 1965). The question is, how should we analyse beliefs
that seem to us to be empirically false?
1. Russell (1991) used the phrase 'knowledge by description' to contrast with knowledge by
acquaintance. which is the results of our own experience. I prefer to use 'knowledge by
authority' since it emphasizes the social factors involved in accepting a description as being
authoritative, i.e. truel Anthropologists may still wonder if such a distinction tmderestimates the
extent that people learn (from within a culture) to understand their own experiences. I share this
unease but feel that at a crude level the distinction may be a helpful one.
2. This distinction is fmer than it may seem at fi!st sight (as Price illustrates). To believe thlll
Jesus Christ was the Son of God is little different from ~lieving in him.