Asen Balikci interviewed by Mark Turin in Gangtok, Sikkim, India, 12^th January 2003 – Part 2

0:00:05  Arrived at Columbia University in 1957; felt lost and disorientated; competitive atmosphere in Columbia stimulating; a co-student was Sydel Silverman; professors included Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Julian Steward, Margaret Mead, Kroeber, Lowie, etc.; faculty tried to show that this was where anthropology was made in U.S. and not at Harvard; Marvin Harris, Morton Fried were young lecturers at that time; subject matter all new and unaware of anthropological theory; William Duncan Strong was supervisor; though an archaeologist, had started as an ethnographer in Labrador; took Margaret Mead’s course in field methods and techniques which was mainly concerned with audio-visual recording devises; very interesting though she was not a good teacher; she had many admirers, particularly young women; a household name by this time which professors at Columbia did not like

0:10:05 Columbia very stimulating and those who got PhD’s there wanted to stay; only prestigious university in New York; theoretical influences was not Europe; kinship lecturer had not heard of Levi-Strauss; did read Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski but the message was that anthropology was made at Columbia

0:14:00 In Ottawa in 1954 encouraged to become an eskimologist; during summers at Columbia did field trips to the arctic funded by National Museum of Canada; first field trip when aged twenty-seven; wanted to study trapping; had knowledge of classic works by Boas, Jenness and Rasmussen; found drastic changes caused by Hudson Bay Company posts and missionaries after the early accounts; John Honigmann had worked in Hudson Bay area and decided to restudy the area; found it had been deeply affected by the building of an air force base, so studied the intense culture contact that had resulted; following summer went further north to study trapping; an artist had been there the previous summer and had taught Eskimos to carve figurines so found community of sculptors and no trappers; however did manage to reconstruct the trap lines of the Inuit; third summer went to Pelly Bay as no Hudson Bay post had ever existed there, though there was a Catholic mission; they still trapped a little, but mainly hunted seals; after studies completed went back to Pelly Bay for a winter; Eskimo lived in igloos; the church was a small stone hut; the priest traded in ammunition, tea, sugar at Easter and Christmas, knives, etc., tobacco

0:27:40 By this time married though wife did not accompany him as had a child and very difficult to survive; got to Pelly Bay by flying to a military base 50 miles south and taken up by sled; missionary had radio contact

0:29:57 Relationship with missionary initially good but he was rather obsessive and suspicious because he had been there alone for some fifteen years; after a long winter tragic ending; Pelly Bay Eskimos, the Netsilik, numbered about a hundred; told that a plane was coming to take x-ray pictures of the Eskimos; doctor put x-ray machine in my igloo, took photos, and left; few days later everybody sick including the missionary, except me; offered to send a message to ask for help but missionary said it had happened before and all recovered; a week later crisis appeared to be over but a few days later everyone sick again and fourteen people died; people felt that questions on shamanism had provoked the anger of a recently dead man; possible that missionary also disliked my work and feared I would revive shamanistic practise

0:36:38 Learnt some language and was able to collect information on ecology following Julian Steward’s model; adaptive strategies; information on shamanism incidental; missionary spoke like a native; had a interpreter/guide from another Netsilik group who translated into English; lived in igloo on native food plus sugar, tea and tobacco; assistant lived with me

0:38:42 As had previously done work in another Hudson Bay area had a native name which translated as “the man who loves old things” which people understood; photographed from first field work onwards and also tape recorded; at Pelly Bay taped 50 reel to reel tapes; now being analysed by other academics as I did not study them as used own field notes; also was not really interested in shamanism but informants encouraged me to tape them; description of a great shaman

0:46:00 Illness in the field; greatest challenge was psychological; longest period in field was the 5-6 winter month in Pelly Bay; had letters from wife; when near the mission would visit missionary but travelled a lot, following migrating Eskimos; collected only a few artefacts

0:51:21 After dissertation went to Indian community in Yukon where the atmosphere was very different; oppressed by cold of Pelly Bay but happy in Yukon; lived in log cabin; local shaman brought salmon, others caribou, and could have fire; PhD on processes of ecological adaptation which was published by the Museum; wrote another monograph on Yukon, then went to Macedonia, then back to Pelly Bay to do filming work; family never went on field trips as wife not interested in anthropology

0:55:39 Didn’t find it difficult to change areas; in 1963 had moved to Montreal University from the Museum which ruined my professional life; should have stayed in the museum as an ethnographer; I didn’t get along with the chief ethnologist at the museum and offered very high salary at Montreal to establish a new department of anthropology; also wanted to move from Ottawa to a city of French culture; called by Douglas Oliver at Harvard to film among the Eskimo so I entered marginal field of visual ethnography; had filmed during early field work though that 16mm black and white, soundless, film lost