Dance the Rocks Ashore by Lesley Choyce

Author:Lesley Choyce
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2014-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CONVENTIONAL EMOTIONS

It took me less than six months from the time I left Mulgrew to begin seeing things differently. I guess I had my moment of satori when I was sitting in MacDonough’s anthropology class. He was explaining something about the Achilpa tribe, who lived in the deserts of Australia. Up until then I hadn’t been all that concerned with anthro. In fact, at that exact moment I was hard at work studying the geography of Carolyn MacCormack’s sweater. That terrain was complex enough without moving off to parched landscapes in the Southern Hemisphere.

But I guess I must have been listening to the professor with half an ear. He was an arrogant intellectual, too young for the job. When I left Mulgrew, I expected all of my mentors at the university to be ancient. MacDonough looked more like an excuse for socialized medicine. Yet this thing about the Achilpas hit some strange chord. I turned my attention from Carolyn country to hear this: “You see, the Achilpas are nomads. They wander around in the desert, never remaining in one place for long. How do they figure out where to go?” (A we-could-care-less silence issued from the half-slumbering class.) “They place a sacred pole in the ground each time they stop. It’s a connecting rod between man and the heavens. They have a direct line to the guy upstairs.” (More silence.) “And then they wait for the pole to tilt. Whichever direction it tilts in is the direction they move toward their next destination. For them the system is perfect.”

Absolute belief in a direct line to God. No big decisions as to where to go next. The decision was always made for you. MacDonough went on to explain a variety of rituals that involved the pole. As usual, he never passed up his chance to explore the very phallic nature of this structure, “an instrument of man having veritable intercourse with the heavens.” I shot a quick glance over at Carolyn, squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

“Only one problem with the system. For one Achilpa tribe, there was a crisis. They went out one morning to find the pole broken in two, rotted away from years of use. No direction. No direct line to God. It was devastating for the village. No one knew which direction they should move in next. Without the heavenly mandate, they were inextricably lost. They wandered for years in quagmire of spiritual bankruptcy and finally destroyed themselves from within.

“I leave you to think about the obvious cultural parallels. And think on this as well: the role of the anthropologist is to see man as he really is, to skim away the surface trappings and understand man the primitive and man the civilized. Detached observer or willing ritual participant, the anthropologist must come to grips with all members of the human family.”

It could have seemed like some cornball religion in itself, but I was really taken. And for a guy hot out of the cultural myopia of Mulgrew, intellectual pursuit all of a sudden seemed like the most exciting thing in the world.

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