35 pages • 1 hour read
Keith H. BassoWisdom Sits in Places
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Speaking with Names”
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.
To understand this exchange, we must enter into the conceptual framework of the speakers, as Basso does when he asks Machuse to help interpret what took place. With Machuse’s help, Basso breaks down her response. First, he explains how Apache conventions around politeness and kindness prompted those speaking to offer place-names to guide Louise on a journey, without stymying her own imagination. Second, by speaking place-names, the speakers were inviting Louise to situate herself in a historical context and to apply the ancestral tale associated with that place-name to the challenge she was dealing with. Third, the use of place-names helped speakers comment on Louise’s brother’s behavior without appearing to criticize him. With this understanding, we can see how speaking place-names allowed those gathered at Lola Machuse’s home to comment on Louise’s brother’s behavior without compelling Louise to defend him, while also offering her sympathy and encouragement.
That speaking with names can accomplish such a diversity of functions, Basso says at the close of the section, shows how Western Apache language is uniquely well-suited to accomplishing many social acts with few linguistic means, and that despite the difficulties inherent in fully grasping the subtleties of this discourse, observers can still be moved by its genius.
Chapter 3 Analysis
In Chapter 3, Basso turns his examination to the reciprocal relationship between place-names and daily discourse. Accordingly, he structures the chapter around an exchange he observes between several Western Apache individuals; although he initially finds the conversation incomprehensible, his examination of the assumptions that shape place-names grants him insight of the complex messages being conveyed.
Echoing the discussion of past chapters, Basso points out that place-naming has been under-examined by scholars, an oversight he blames on the assumption that place-names are vehicles of reference rather than evocative symbols. In Basso’s case, the role of place-names as symbols becomes clear via the brief conversation he observes at the home of Lola Machuse, who serves as his guide throughout the chapter; in this exchange, place-names are not toponyms but evocations of a cultural framework.
The examination of this exchange, which is an example of “speaking with names,” provides Basso an opportunity to explore the Western Apache relationship between thought and language. Basso explains that, for Western Apache, speaking is an act of displaying the pictures in one’s mind for other people. However, following Apache codes against “speaking too much”—offering too many details—the picture offered is intentionally incomplete, allowing listeners the chance to exercise their own imagination. This is where place-names play a role. In an examination that builds on the discussion of previous chapters, Basso explains how, just as place-names invite people to picture the site of historical tales without requiring the storyteller to describe that site, the highly evocative nature of Western Apache place-names allows those speaking with names to invite a listener to travel to those places and learn from what happened there, providing comfort and moral edification in difficult times.
Having established this context, Basso applies it to the exchange he observed at Lola Machuse’s home. Examining every statement in the conversation through the lens of his new understanding of place-names—an understanding gained through Lola Machuse and other Western Apache—Basso shows how, far from a simple reference, a statement such as, “It happened at Line of White Rocks Extends Up and Out, at this very place!” is in fact accomplishing a set of tasks, ranging from creating a picture of a location to offering emotional support and advice (100).
The structure of Chapter 3—from bewilderment, with Basso standing in as the perplexed outsider, to enlightenment, thanks to the intervention of community members—underscores the importance of ethnographic work as a means of uncovering the complex worlds that lie beneath seemingly simple statements. Without attempts to uncover the shared understandings that give utterances meaning, it is impossible to understand a discourse, even when the phrases are clear from a grammatical perspective. Basso notes that it isn’t just outsiders who may struggle to grasp the meaning of utterances such as those used in the practice of speaking with names—younger Apache people, who are growing less familiar with place names and traditional stories, are sometimes unable to understand speaking with names as well.
Basso closes the chapter by arguing that Western Apache discourse is uniquely suited to express complex meanings “with a minimum of linguistic means” (103). This, too, advances an argument for why cultures like that of the Western Apache warrant close study: Without it, scholars like Basso would be unable to understand the full beauty and genius of the language.
