What do you think?
Rate this book
When the spider danced: Notes from an African Village
Text/ethnographic study of the Abron people.
227 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 8, 2022
Atypical Effort from Years Ago
Anthropologists and their books come in a huge variety of flavors. The research for this one was done in the early 1960s, when the author was doing his obligatory initiation into the subject—that is, field work in another culture. He didn’t seem to be well-prepared nor did he stay very long in his chosen spot—a corner of the Ivory Coast among a people known as Abron, whose language he did not speak, only beginning to learn upon arrival. He had to use interpreters—always a negative method. In addition, he was among the last generation to seek out some remote people who lived in isolation from the rest of the world, though he realized that they were hardly “untouched”. The Abron were certainly not isolated, but they carried on mostly as their ancestors had. Many years later, Alland returned for an emotional reunion with the many villagers he had befriended in his previous stays.
In contrast to the author, I did my field work on primary education in Indian villages near Lucknow. While many older aspects of life remained, the very word “traditional” was questionable, so much had changed over the course of centuries. I had already lived two years in the same area, learned to speak Hindustani by daily use and then followed it up by two years of language study at university before beginning my research. I was married to a North Indian woman too. So my field work was marked by a very different ambiance. I did not have to present a very detailed study of Indian village kinship, social organization, and beliefs, since that had been done by others long before. I found Alland’s experience fascinating because though we both became anthropologists, our roads differed greatly.
Alland, who passed away a few years ago, did not produce a book on the model of the classic anthropological study. There are virtually no references to the work of any other scholar, nor is there a bibliography. He covers various aspects of Abron life in a rather scatter-shot manner, interspersing his text with a lot of personal experiences and impressions. However, don’t take this as a critique. I liked the informal, personal way he wrote. He definitely describes how he got the information he did, putting himself into the picture long before that became de rigueur. I did not need an expert analysis of Abron society which I will never see. I do like a well-written book without jargon of any kind, with admissions of failure as well as descriptions of the interaction he had with the village people. Alland comes across as a man who could relate to people of a very different culture in a short period of time. He saw each person as an individual, not as “them”. If the book is incomplete, it still describes medical knowledge held by the Abron, as well as information on kinship, myths or folktales, and relations between the sexes. I particularly liked his take on mass tourism, one of the sure killers of local cultures the world over with its encouragement of tourist “art” as well. He mixed with some American Protestant missionaries and French traders, but did not support their views of Africans at all. If you want a book that shows anthropology at its highest theoretical level, this is definitely not it. It IS a book that is personal, kind, and honest, if, admittedly, youthful. It isn’t the professional model that they push onto you in graduate school (deserves only 3 stars there), but it’s worth reading for all that (five stars—averaged out to four). Or do I dare to say, because of that??!
Anthropologists and their books come in a huge variety of flavors. The research for this one was done in the early 1960s, when the author was doing his obligatory initiation into the subject—that is, field work in another culture. He didn’t seem to be well-prepared nor did he stay very long in his chosen spot—a corner of the Ivory Coast among a people known as Abron, whose language he did not speak, only beginning to learn upon arrival. He had to use interpreters—always a negative method. In addition, he was among the last generation to seek out some remote people who lived in isolation from the rest of the world, though he realized that they were hardly “untouched”. The Abron were certainly not isolated, but they carried on mostly as their ancestors had. Many years later, Alland returned for an emotional reunion with the many villagers he had befriended in his previous stays.
In contrast to the author, I did my field work on primary education in Indian villages near Lucknow. While many older aspects of life remained, the very word “traditional” was questionable, so much had changed over the course of centuries. I had already lived two years in the same area, learned to speak Hindustani by daily use and then followed it up by two years of language study at university before beginning my research. I was married to a North Indian woman too. So my field work was marked by a very different ambiance. I did not have to present a very detailed study of Indian village kinship, social organization, and beliefs, since that had been done by others long before. I found Alland’s experience fascinating because though we both became anthropologists, our roads differed greatly.
Alland, who passed away a few years ago, did not produce a book on the model of the classic anthropological study. There are virtually no references to the work of any other scholar, nor is there a bibliography. He covers various aspects of Abron life in a rather scatter-shot manner, interspersing his text with a lot of personal experiences and impressions. However, don’t take this as a critique. I liked the informal, personal way he wrote. He definitely describes how he got the information he did, putting himself into the picture long before that became de rigueur. I did not need an expert analysis of Abron society which I will never see. I do like a well-written book without jargon of any kind, with admissions of failure as well as descriptions of the interaction he had with the village people. Alland comes across as a man who could relate to people of a very different culture in a short period of time. He saw each person as an individual, not as “them”. If the book is incomplete, it still describes medical knowledge held by the Abron, as well as information on kinship, myths or folktales, and relations between the sexes. I particularly liked his take on mass tourism, one of the sure killers of local cultures the world over with its encouragement of tourist “art” as well. He mixed with some American Protestant missionaries and French traders, but did not support their views of Africans at all. If you want a book that shows anthropology at its highest theoretical level, this is definitely not it. It IS a book that is personal, kind, and honest, if, admittedly, youthful. It isn’t the professional model that they push onto you in graduate school (deserves only 3 stars there), but it’s worth reading for all that (five stars—averaged out to four). Or do I dare to say, because of that??!
May 11, 2012
I had to read this ethnography as an assignment for my Anthropology class and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Alland has a flair for words and I yearned for him to add more anecdotes because I found those to be the most interesting. In this ethnography he documents the life of the Abron, the culture of people he lived with for months over a range of 3 years and then a visit 10 years later. The only thing I really didn't like about the ethnography was how disorganized the chapters were. He often commented on the same issues in one chapter when he had already written about them in another.
Read
July 20, 2023my friend’s grandpa wrote this‼️
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews