Schneider on Schneider Schneider on Schneider The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropological 5 tories David M. Schneider as told to Richard Handler Edited, Transcribed, and with an Introduction by Richard Handler DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham and London 1995 © 1995 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper oc Typeset in Berkeley Medium by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. The field work tradition seems to have created a disciplinary bias toward oral history-as a group, anthropologists have a large stock of anecdotes about the elders of the tribe.-George W. Stocking, 'The History of Anthropology: Where, Whence, Whither?" Contents Editor's Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Origin of the Dog Richard Handler 1 One: The Work of the Gods in Tikopia, or, A Career in Anthropology 17 Two: Youth 39 Three: Addy 55 Four: Surveying the Army 61 Five: An Education in Anthropology 69 Six: Fieldwork on Yap 85 Seven: From Harvard to England 121 Eight: Mescalero Apache: The Romance and Politics of Fieldwork 135 Nine: From Berkeley to Chicago 171 Ten: Studying Kinship 193 Afterword David M. Schneider 219 Notes 225 Writings of David M. Schneider 231 Index 237 Editor's Acknowledgments Many people have taken an interest in the interviews with David Schneider that led to this book. James Boon, Claire Farrer, Lynne Gold stein, Mary Handler, Charles Kaut, Adria LaViolette, Susan McKinnon, David Sapir,lonathan Schneider, Michael Schneider, Daniel Segal, Eliza beth Stassinos, George Stocking, Pauline Turner Strong, Bonnie Ur ciuoli, Roy Wagner, and Marlie Wasserman have provided encourage ment and advice. At Duke University Press, Ken Wissoker guided the book through the review process and was always available to me as a sympathetic critic. Thanks are also due to the three reviewers, anony mous to me, whose advice I have followed in preparing the final version of the manuscript. George Stocking and Bonnie Urciuoli went out of their way to help with photographs, as did David Schneider. Finally, as David has assigned responsibility to the interviewer for any short comings this work may contain, so I must gratefully thank the inter viewee for its many virtues. 1 ___