Chapter 10
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.
Jane Goodall
Introductory Anthropology Class:
University of Toronto
Mark was taking a double major in Anthropology and Primatology. His parents reluctantly approved of their Mennonite son going off to study in a large secular city like Toronto. Not that they had much of a choice, and not like they actually tracked his academic career, but he did keep them in the loop out of respect. He found the experience electric and was enjoying the time away from home, but especially, the nerd that he was, the excitement of learning. He had read everything the British paleoanthropologist and archeologist Louis Leakey had written about human evolution based on his pivotal discoveries of Australopithecus and Homo Habilis at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
The lecture hall hummed with anticipation, that particular energy associated with the first week of university, a raw blend of nerves, caffeine rush, fresh notebooks and file folders, textbooks cracked open with more hope than plan. Highlighters and pens at the ready, waiting for the arrival of the famous prof whose studies in Borneo and elsewhere had made him somewhat of a legend in academic circles and to the wider public. He was one of those people who had the uncanny ability to take complex science and break it down so ordinary people could not only understand but also enjoy and appreciate it.
The seats in the old lecture hall rose steeply in a crescent. Students slowly trickled in, in various stages of conversation; sounds echoed in the cavernous room as it filled with rustling backpacks, briefcases, and whispered introductions.
A man in his early forties stepped firmly onto the dais. He was tall, lean, hawk-eyed, and dressed not in the obligatory university blazer but in a more casual faded leather vest over a linen shirt, open at the collar, with no tie. He had the week-long unshaved look of stubble over a tanned face, as he had just returned from a dig. His eyes seemed to glint with the knowledge of untold stories that no textbook would ever contain. He moved to the dais like a man who had navigated more than academic hallways, more Indiana Jones than a typical University Professor.
Most students knew Mathias Gunther by reputation, his books, interviews and articles about his adventures in Borneo. Female students openly gushed in Gunther’s presence. Mark shook his head, as dictated by his Mennonite shyness and sensitivities, feeling completely awkward with their open forwardness towards their professor. Mark thought maybe I would never understand women in a truly anthropological sense. Mathias stood silently at the lectern, indulgently facing his audience of novice first-year students, his hands folded in front of him, as if patiently reading the room and assessing the challenges he would face as a future student.
“I’m sure you know me by reputation, or you wouldn’t be here. My name is Mathias Gunther, and I will escort you through the experience that we call Anthropology this semester. It is an exciting academic ride from which you will learn to appreciate our ancestral roots as a species, our cultural legacies and why we should, in today’s modern world, value diversity. If you now find yourself in the wrong room, stay anyway. You might learn something.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd of young students as they stared up at their professor.
He tossed his hat on the lectern, removed his coat with a rapid fluid motion revealing his rolled-up sleeves, a signal he was ready to work, and a leather band tightly wrapped around his right wrist. Then he leaned against the dais with his arms crossed and stared into his audience for a moment of complete silence. It was magical.
“This course,” he began quietly and slowly, “although this session is termed an Introduction to Anthropology, let me call it more a story of beginnings. It is about our beginnings as a species, and it is older than you have ever been taught to remember. Contrary to popular Biblical belief, the planet is not 6000 years old, as that would be roughly the time when Sumerians had just perfected the use of adhesives on another continent, where Native Americans had used animal collagen, tree resins and bitumen as adhesives 50,000 years before the present. The first fermented drinks were created from wild grapes, honey, and rice in Neolithic China. For some of you religious types,” now Mark thought his professor was talking directly to him. “As we touch on these issues and others such as evolution, your sensitivities and your world may be rocked.”
I will teach you with anecdotes- I have many- and with pictures. I will take you to the places I have been and let you see the things I have witnessed, so that, as young scientists, you can form your own insights, conduct your own analysis, and draw your own conclusions. Above all else, you will learn how to receive data, digest it, analyze it and make logical, intelligent conclusions, unlike what often happens in the world outside these rooms.”
With that, the lights began to gradually grow dim in the cavernous lecture hall, as a state-of-the-art Kodak Carousel slide projector whirred to life. On the large screen, to Gunther’s right, appeared an image of a weather-worn fossilized skull, a powerful, singular image.
“This,” he said, pointing with a well-used walking stick made from hardwood from the Belian or Borneo Ironwood, “Is Homo Erectus.” There were a few giggles from the audience. “He walked upright two million years ago on the Savanah grasslands of Africa. Had fire. Used tools. Buried their dead with care and ritual.”
He walked slowly across the stage as the next slide clicked into view. “Here, stone tools, rough and beautiful in their function.” He added, “Every one of you is carrying their legacy. You are their story written in bone and in their memory. Life is a continuum of thought, word and action.”
More slides showing various stone tools, axes, adzes, scrapers, blades, arrowheads and spearheads, mortars and pestles for grinding grain, and hammer-stones for construction and tool-making.
Then, another slide. This time, a shot of a Dayak longhouse stretched along a muddy riverbank situated in Borneo. Followed by the Penan, a wiry, short figure barefoot in the forest wearing a loincloth, blowing a dart from a long carved pipe.
“Fast forward a few millennia, just a few, and you’ll meet the Dayak and the Penan of Borneo, two of several tribes. One settled, practiced ritual agriculture. The other nomadic, foraging, forever navigating the forests without maps, compasses or fixed property.”
He paused during his introductory remarks on the first day of classes for a first-year group of students. He examined the rows of half-intrigued and half-overwhelmed faces. Some he knew through past experience would make excellent students, some would even major in Anthropology, but of the some 100 odd students present today in this auditorium, only a few would be intense enough to follow through, to live the life to publish, to add to the science. Knowing this he calmly proceeded knowing his words would not reach everyone.
“The Dayak share many myths, which are very real to them, in which the jungle is alive, with voices and ancestors and rules. Animism is an almost universal Indigenous belief system, with regional variations in its application, that confers a distinct spiritual essence on objects, creatures, and places in nature, and holds that these spirits can directly influence human affairs. Therefore, rocks, plants, animals, weather systems like the monsoons or El Niño, and trade winds are seen as animated, or personified and having agency. They have a soul. They have a spirit. They influence daily life by being benevolent or, in some cases, malevolent. It is not what you would consider a single unified religion, such as Catholicism or Islam.
Think of it more as a way of understanding the world and our place in it. Not much different from the Christian or Western interpretations of heaven and hell, and from our belief in prayer. In essence, animism offers a unique and, I will add, plausible explanation of the separation between humans and the rest of the natural world, suggesting a deep spiritual connection to all things. You may have heard stories of Indigenous hunters of North America who, after a successful hunt, thank the spirit of the animal. This, too, is a reflection of animism, showing deep respect and gratitude for the animals’ sacrifice, which provides sustenance for the hunter and his family. This practice is deeply rooted in the recognition of the interconnectedness of all living beings and the importance of reciprocity in nature. Sadly, I will underscore here that these are values not often present or replicated in Western culture. One might ask then who is civilized and who is Pagan?
“Further, the Penan have no word in their vocabulary for ownership; they believe in the concept of molong, which is to say, never take more than you need. How many of us can say that, in our society today, we live based on consumerism, greed, and the wealthy class? But enough of politics.”
A few pens scratched in notebooks, a few hands scratched foreheads in puzzlement and bewilderment. Some were uncertain if the man speaking before them was a professor, a prophet or just too radical for words. Everyone gazed forward in attentive silence as Gunther continued his introductory remarks.
Mark Penner, sitting somewhere about a third of the way to the back, was intently writing every word down that he could. To him, this man was God-sent. Never in his conservative Mennonite upbringing had he heard anyone speak with such candour in such a short space of time of basic belief systems, political implications, class structure and long-term historical legacy. To Mark, this was a new beginning.
Mark was shaken from his brief reverie as Professor Gunther began to speak again. “We’ll talk in this course about Borneo, of course, because that is the source of much of my own primary research and the basis of most of my publications. It is also the location of my research foundation in Kalimantan at Camp Fossey. But we will also broach topics from Africa, Australia, Siberia, and Toronto because Anthropology isn’t just about people far away. It’s about us. All of us. It’s about the bones in your body. The stories in your blood from eons past. It’s all about the constant lies your culture taught you to tell about human progress. Yes, we will get somewhat political, and that may scare some of you, so it will be an interesting ride for those who dare. Think of this as a pseudo-paleo-political study as well because for those who think this will be a bird course, I suggest you fly.”
Another nervous chuckle from the audience.
“You’ll read Leaky, Geertz, Jame Clifford, George Marcus, Benedict Anderson and many more, and of course, my books will be compulsory reading. You will also get stories that never made it into books. On my travels, I’ve eaten Monkey stew in Kalimantan, watched initiation rites in Papua and chased a bear in the Yukon Territory. I teach what I have lived. With that, he clicked the projector off. Lights up. God-like, there was light, and the formal presentation ended.
“I’ll see you all Wednesday,” he said, already pulling on his weathered leather jacket, his hat settled back onto his head with practiced ease. “Your first assignment is simple. “What does it mean to be human?”
And then he was gone, as if through a magician’s trap door.
A few students began to whisper and looked around as if waking from a trance.
“That was insane!”
“No,” said another, eyes still fixed on the empty stage. “That guy actually is Indiana Jones.”
Mark just smiled, thought about his intro to Anthropology, and was totally content. It was everything he had hoped it would be. He saw his future.
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