Problems in Collecting Data
Repeated and unhurried observations of the same process performed by many different informants, I believe, gave the most reliable information, and my serious reservations about ethnoarchaeological evidence based on interviews, questionnaires, or one or two observations are a direct result of this study. During my research I was told, and sometimes shown, many things that turned out to be inaccurate about artifact functions or manufacturing processes. Only by watching a process from beginning to end, performed by different people and in different villages, was I able to correct mistaken impressions. For instance, the time it took to make an artifact, which is an important factor in computing its relative cultural value, could be shortened by mentioning verbally but not performing one or more processes, or it could be lengthened considerably by the informant drawing out activities or descriptions as if explaining them to a two-year-old child. Things could be added, especially decorative touches, which were never seen on the artifact in question in an inventory of household items, or details could be omitted entirely.
People in the villages were always pleasant and hospitable. They would inevitably seek to please me in any way they could, which often included telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I had to be extremely careful not to influence their replies by asking questions in such a way as to suggest the answer or by showing through facial expression or gesture either approval or disapproval. I also had to ensure that my guide, Muhammad, did not prejudice the outcome. He, of course, had heard what others said on the same subject, so it was natural and easy for him to weight answers and discussions in accord with what he had previously heard or seen. Indeed the villagers sometimes asked him outright what it was I wanted them to say or just how I wanted them to carry out a process.
Interviewees telling us what they think we want to hear probably leads to less error than other ways that they may (and do) respond. Some try to create what they imagine is a good impression, others reply with their notion of how things should be rather than the way they are. If this can happen among people whom an interviewer has known for years and who are genuinely trying to help, think of the potential error in interviewing subjects who are strangers and who have no interest in you or the success of your project. No amount of textbook behavior modification can ever replace a relationship based on years of association and proven concern for the interviewees and demonstrated usefulness to them and their villages. We were the area’s largest employer, we tried to live within the constraints of local morality, and we actively aided those in need of medical attention. Few people in the area were eager to divulge technical secrets on which their livelihood depended, but they might acquiesce for those whom they saw as appreciative and reciprocative good neighbors.
Other misleading information comes about when the informants consider their behavior old fashioned or embarrassing. For example, while watching a local burial from some distance, I happened to notice that the deceased woman’s jewelry was modeled out of mud. Although Muhammad and I had been concentrating on collecting information about the use of mud for several weeks, this was one usage he had never mentioned to me. It turned out that some families replaced the real jewelry of the dead, which often comprised the entire material resources of the family, with imitations in mud before interment. As this would appear to be a very local and unique practice somewhat at odds with religious tenets and, as far as I know, practiced no where else in Iraq, Muhammad was reluctant to discuss it. He considered this custom by some of his neighbors old fashioned, mortifying, and too bound up with the aura of death to be wholly safe for discussion. When I later took pictures of substitute jewelry being made for the adornment of a corpse, some villagers were convinced that I would die within the year. Had I not actually seen the earlier interment, I would never have known about this usage, for no one would have told me.
After making horrendous language mistakes on my first visit to the area in 1968, I decided to bring along native speakers of Arabic. In a Bedouin tent, for instance, wanting to ask how often they milked the camel, I once tried to show off by using a more specific word than jamal (camel). The word baier leapt to my mind. No sooner was the word out of my mouth than I realized I had said “stud camel.” Before I could correct my error, I was tersely advised that Bedouin do not milk stud camels. Despite my protestations that I had merely made a mistake in the choice of words, I knew what would follow. I had just defined Americans in a new and interesting way, and I could almost hear them tell their neighbors around the hearth that night, “You will never believe what Americans drink.”
I hoped that native speakers could catch nuances of language that would expand my knowledge of a particular operation, but it did not turn out that way at all. Villagers who had been voluble in their explanation of, for example, the use of dung patties for baking pottery when I had spoken to them myself, the day before, might suddenly deny that they used them at all when I brought along a city-educated translator. And, if the translator was local they might try to impress him by increasing the number of dung patties they used to show that they were well off and were indifferent to the expense, or they might decrease the number to show how skilled they were in getting sufficient heat from fewer patties. In understanding the language these translators were infinitely superior, but they lacked the necessary relationship with the participants and they depended on language, rather than on observation, in seeking to understand a process. They were inevitably misled either intentionally by the subject or through their misunderstanding of the meaning of a word or phrase as it was used in a local dialect or in a craft context foreign to them. This can be a real problem for outsiders unaware of alternative terminology or methods of classification used in local crafts or occupations (see p.129–30, 213–4). Also, like most of us, they were acutely embarrassed when they found they did not know the details of what happened in their own backyard. They either invented a theory and made their observations fit, or they bought the first explanation from an “expert,” embracing it as their own understanding and holding to it with great tenacity, in spite of their ignorance. If the translator is closely associated with his subjects one must consider his ideas of cultural propriety and what he might hide or amend in the presentations he is helping to record.*
Some Problems of Relationships
Local curiosity about every aspect of my existence was flattering but also caused me minor problems. In the countryside the problems were small and were sorted out with no difficulty. Everyone wanted to know what America was like, what kind of work I did, and what my family was like. Good manners permitted these questions to be verbalized directly, and they could easily be answered. But simple answers could not always dispose of a question. Again and again they would approach, with incredulity, the question of my not being married. I could never find an answer that satisfied them. To marry and raise children was, after all, the duty of every able-bodied man, and it was inconceivable to them that a man my age remained unmarried. This question was one of the many disconnects between cultural expectations that arose in conversation, and at first I was concerned about how to handle them. Some suggested that I should avoid answering questions based on concepts of cultural relativity lest I offend local people. I found it far better to be open and candid as most people reacted to differences in my culture as I reacted to differences in theirs. They thought them sometimes strange and always interesting, and they wanted to know the reasons for differences in action or thought. It was my experience that forthrightness on any issue proved far better than deception.
The overwhelming impression I have of my excursions is the feeling of never being alone. Even a trip to answer the call of nature was accompanied by at least two people. If I was not feeling well, all my new friends swarmed to keep me company and cheer me up with stories, songs, and laughter. If I had a headache, I never dared to reveal it: the ensuing cacophony of support made the headache even worse. Sometimes an individual had heard some strange rumor or come up with an idea of his own invention concerning non-believers: if one stuck a pin into them or threw salt on them, or said a holy phrase, foreigners would turn red, explode, perhaps pray to Allah. From time to