that doesn’t like an anthropologist.
You go to a university
and get a bit of paper
that says you are
qualified.
Does it also say that you
have unlimited rights
to invade my space?
It seems that you believe your bit of paper
is both passport and visa to my place,
that henceforth you have the right
to scrutinise the bits and pieces
of me.
You have measured my head,
indeed, you preserved it in brine
so that future clones of your kind
can also measure and calculate my cognition.
You’ve counted my teeth and compared them with
the beasts of the forest,
you’ve delved into my uterus,
had a morbid fascination with my sacred practices of incision and concision,
with the secret expressions of my rites of passage.
On your bit of paper you record how I dress,
earn my money,
what I eat and drink,
with whom I mix and with whom I don’t,
where I go and don’t go,
what I spend my money on,
the physical, mental and moral state of my being,
my marriage habits,
my birthing rituals,
my funerary rites,
the position I hold
in my society.
You analyse to a fine point
my art and music,
dance and composition,
horticulture and agriculture,
pharmacology and technology.
Nothing escapes your keen eye
and your pen records it
so that other aspirants to your elevated state
may draw on your findings and further explore
the intricacies
of me …
and perpetuate the invasion.
Oh yes … something there is.
If I were to go to university
and get a bit of paper that says,
‘Wadi Wadi woman, you are an anthropologist’,
will that give me the right to invade your space,
to visit you
in your three-bedroom brick veneer,
note how many rice bubbles
go into your breakfast bowl,
what colour paper is on the roll
in your bathroom,
and see if the bathroom is clean?
Will I have the right to sit
on the end of your bed
and count every thrust
as you make love?
You will not complain
when I calculate your expenditure
on alcohol and yarndi,*
or count the cost when you visit McDonalds?
Remember, because I am an anthropologist,
my bit of paper gives me the right!
From now on I have carte blanche
to all of the above
in your society,
and I can invade your space,
and I can record my findings
so that for generations to come
my kin can pursue a relentless investigation
into the fabric of your existence,
into the bits and pieces
of you.
And resulting from my research
into the common cold and its effects
on you, a representative sample
of a cross section of the population
of Double Bay, Sydney, 1994,
an avalanche of vultures from the media,
the government
and the tourism industry
will descend on you
in ever increasing hordes
to see for themselves
if what I said
could really be true.
They will take over your lounge-room
and lay down laws for you to live by
—all for your own good of course;
they will point out to you
the necessity of changing your way of life
so that you will be better able to fit into
the prescriptive patterns of social behaviour
devised by them on your behalf.
I will be to you,
in the guise of humane academic inquiry,
as you have been to me, invader!
something there is …
From Urban Songlines
* yarndi: marijuana