‘Explaining the Unknowable’: Accessibility of Meaning and the Exegesis of Mali Baining Songs

Abstract

Songs and other expressive forms of language may carry meaning at a range of levels. A variety of factors influence the accessibility of these different layers of meaning. This paper explores issues associated with explanation of the meaning (exegesis) of night and day dance songs of the Mali Baining people of Papua New Guinea. We draw a parallel between accessibility of meaning in relation to cultural practices such as dance complexes, and accessibility of linguistic meaning in relation to specific texts, to present a framework for explaining why aspects of meaning or knowledge may remain inaccessible to researchers in cross-cultural settings.

Re‐analysing the Baining: TheMytho‐Poeticsof Race, Gender and Art

“…Unlike other researchers (Rohatynskyj 2000, 2005; Stebbins and Planigale 2010), Fajans did not attribute ethnographers' fieldwork difficulties to Baining hostility and resistance towards outsiders. Yet, Bateson was aware of this.…”

“…32. Stebbins and Planigale (2010) have criticised Fajans' narrow interpretation of play. When Fajans' informants dismiss their rituals as 'just play', I interpret them as seeking to minimise their need to disclose further meanings, especially secret explanations.…”

“…Indeed, their irreligiousness offered a unique case study in how it was possible to organise society in total pragmatism and without the mediation of religion, ritual, myth and exegesis. This caricature of a flat or depthless existence required bloggers to remain unaware of the well-documented religious culture of the Baining (Corbin 1979(Corbin , 1982(Corbin , 1984Hesse and Aerts 1978;Laufer /49, 1959Laufer , 1970Stebbins and Planigale 2010;Whitehouse 1995Whitehouse , 1996aWhitehouse , 1996b, something I will later further document using primarily my own ethnography.…”

“…Bateson's fieldwork difficulties in the 1920s were cited by bloggers and even Bateson's questioning of whether the Baining had any ‘formulable culture’. There was little evidence any blogger – including the educated psychologists, teachers, social workers and journalists who participated in the debate – had read Bateson, let alone any other ethnographer of the Baining, such as Corbin (1976, 1979, 1982, 1984), Hesse and Aerts (1978), Laufer (1946/49, 1959, 1970), Gail Pool (2015), Jeremy Pool (1971, 1984, 2008), Poole (1943), Read (1931), Stebbins and Planigale (2010), or Whitehouse (1995, 1996a, 1996b, 2004). Instead, bloggers relied on Fajans' historical overview of Baining ethnography, which sidelines earlier studies by resident German Catholic priests.…”

Defending the Evidential Value of Epistemic Intuitions: A Reply to Stich

“…A collection of Zapotec memoirs, poems, folklore, speeches and political tracts shows ample overt discussion of states of knowing, thinking, wanting and feeling (Campbell, Binford, Barolome, & Barabas, ). Baining and Kaluli songs and poetry are also rich in mental state references, although Fajans’ report of an absence of folk psychology may be explained to some extent by evidence that members of both of these cultures show some reluctance to discuss their feelings with outsiders (Feld, ; Stebbins & Planigale, ). Reference to mental states cannot be completely uncommon with outsiders, however; Arthur Capell's early handwritten lexicon of the Baining language includes only a few dozen verbs, but the verb meaning ‘know’ is the 9 th on this list (Capell, ).…”