Wisdom Sits in Places

Opening Chapter 3, Basso describes the daunting task facing any ethnographer trying to navigate an unfamiliar landscape, language, or, as often happens, both at once. Over time, ethnographers can come to understand how features of the landscape, like acts of speech, are shaped by the ways in which the community perceives the world, and to understand that what appears to be an empty topography is in fact densely packed with cultural associations—in other words, with places. Ethnographers can therefore draw on observations of how people talk about landscapes to understand people’s relationships both to the material world and to their community.

Basso introduces Lola Machuse, a woman just over 60, mother of eight children, and according to other people in Cibecue, “practically a community unto herself,” given her knowledge of local happenings (77). Basso describes a hot July afternoon at Lola Machuse’s home. As he, Machuse, and other community members are silently observing the landscape, a woman named Louise begins talking about how her brother recently became ill, having stepped on a snakeskin some time before and failed to seek the appropriate ritual remedy. The response from Machuse and others, Basso says, is called “speaking with names,” a practice in which Western Apache speakers use the power of place-names to comment on the behavior or someone who is not present.