The Bamboo Fire: Field Work With the New Guinea Wape

Anthropology is primarily done in the field, unlike the laboratory oriented experimental sciences. Experimental sciences make their observations in constructed settings that permit variables influencing the outcome of the experiment to be known and controlled. In contrast, anthropology's object of inquiry, like the science of ethology is life experience in its natural setting. To understand how people organize their lives both in thought and in action, one must settle among them for a very long time.

The Wape of Papua New Guinea inhabit a mountainous rain forest and live in sedentary villages. They are slash and burn horticulturalists. marriage is by bride wealth and polygyny is permitted but rare. Male status is egalitarian and, although the society is hierarchical in terms of sex and age differences, both women and the young enjoy higher status than in many other New Guinea societies. While most Wape are nominal Christians, traditional religious beliefs and practices are of major importance.

This book concentrates on describing the field work process by giving the reader a feeling of the reflexive nature of this experience. It demonstrate not only how the anthropologist proceeds in her or his work, but describes the social and psychological context in which that work evolves and how anthropologists respond to it both within oneself and in communication with others. While it is a book about the Wape people it is also a book about how one anthropologist tried to understand them. It integrates the subjective and objective into a common research method. Related to the book, the author has published a film, Magical Curing, and a CD, The Living Dead and Dying: Music of the New Guinea Wape.

"[R]ich in ethnographic description and reflection . . . Mitchell's skill as a raconteur excites the reader's imagination. The Bamboo Fire is an ideal book for students in introductory anthropology classes, as well as ethnomedicine, social organization, and field methods."

--Marilyn Jean Schlitz, American Anthropologist

"[A] forthright account of the methodological difficulties, frustrations, and interpersonal problems that are an intrinsic part of fieldwork."

--Stephen C. Leavitt, Ethnologist

"Its lively, personal, and extremely accessible prose makes it an entertaining entree for the lay reader into the ethnographer's world, while its substantial ethnographic content and relevance to contemporary reflexive trends in anthropology make it an ideal text for general anthropology courses and undergraduate courses in Pacific ethnography."

--P. B. Roscoe, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

"[A] forthright account of the methodological difficulties, frustrations, and interpersonal problems that are an intrinsic part of fieldwork."

--Stephen C. Leavitt, Ethnologist

"[R]ich in ethnographic description and reflection . . . Mitchell's skill as a raconteur excites the reader's imagination. The Bamboo Fire is an ideal book for students in introductory anthropology classes, as well as ethnomedicine, social organization, and field methods."

--Marilyn Jean Schlitz, American Anthropologist

"Its lively, personal, and extremely accessible prose makes it an entertaining entrEe for the lay reader into the ethnographer's world, while its substantial ethnographic content and relevance to contemporary reflexive trends in anthropology make it an ideal text for general anthropology courses and undergraduate courses in Pacific ethnography."

--P. B. Roscoe, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

"[R]ich in ethnographic description and reflection . . . Mitchell's skill as a raconteur excites the reader's imagination. The Bamboo Fire is an ideal book for students in introductory anthropology classes, as well as ethnomedicine, social organization, and field methods."

--Marilyn Jean Schlitz, American Anthropologist

"[A] forthright account of the methodological difficulties, frustrations, and interpersonal problems that are an intrinsic part of fieldwork."

--Stephen C. Leavitt, Ethnologist

"Its lively, personal, and extremely accessible prose makes it an entertaining entrEe for the lay reader into the ethnographer's world, while its substantial ethnographic content and relevance to contemporary reflexive trends in anthropology make it an ideal text for general anthropology courses and undergraduate courses in Pacific ethnography."

--P. B. Roscoe, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

-[R]ich in ethnographic description and reflection . . . Mitchell's skill as a raconteur excites the reader's imagination. The Bamboo Fire is an ideal book for students in introductory anthropology classes, as well as ethnomedicine, social organization, and field methods.-

--Marilyn Jean Schlitz, American Anthropologist