The Anthropology Report
The Anthropology Report
© John Sawyer – August 2008
Professor Margaret
Mead
Division of Social
Sciences
Fordham University
Lincoln Center
Manhattan
New York, NY
2nd
August 1970
Dear Professor Mead,
This is my monthly report
on the natives of Inner Melbourne. A very strange lot as you predicted.
This month, I think
I should record the ritual they refer to as the “Hard Rubbish Collection”. It
has many similar characteristics to some of the cargo cults in other parts of
the South Pacific.
During daylight
hours, the senior females of the tribe move certain artefacts onto the grass
verge that sits between the houses and the carriageway. Then at night, the
senior males in each family group move up and down the carriageway collecting
artefacts from the verge and taking them back to their caves to be stored until
the next collection season.
Towards the end of
the ritual, the local head men send a truck that collects the remaining
artefacts for their own use.
Although these
artefacts obviously have a powerful totemic value, they could generally be
categorised as useless and without any intrinsic value.
I’m still not sure
what signals the start of each collection season, but it is obviously some
significant external event as all the natives of a particular area participate
at once.
Next month I’ll report on the ritual burning of meat
that the senior males carry out each weekend of the summer season.
Yours truly,
Sally A. Dickinson
Post Grad. Student