事实之后:从派尤特岩画谈“事后解释”

Issues on Cultural Interpretation in Paiute Rock Art

2000年人类学家理查德·斯托菲尔小组针对派尤特岩画做出了一套文化解释。2001年人类学家琳达·麦克尼尔与卡罗尔·帕特森亦针对此同一田野地点做出了另一套文化解释。因对同一阐释对象做出相互冲突的阐释结论,故此文化事件引发了人类学关于文化解释力的争论。通过此典型个案,人类学家旨在讨论关于'事后解释'问题。人类学家该如何对其田野事实进行文化表征与文化解释。文化是具体的,人类学家的任务是对不同类型的表征分布做出解释,从朴素平凡的情景中采取平易可亲的形式以呈现公共表征。人类学家理解文化与解释文化的过程也是追寻文化深藏内核的过程,解释的使命在于接近他者。事实是柔性的,我们即使'在这里'阐释,也依然具备'在那里'接近他者事实的可能。

In 2000, a group of anthropologists, Richard W. Stoffle and his colleagues,wrote an article on ghost dancing of the Grand Canyon in Southern Paiute Rock Art. They focused on ceremony and cultural landscape. In 2001, Lynda D. McNeil and Carol Patterson wrote another article on the same field site. The two groups of anthropologists did research on the same ghost dancing of the Grand Canyon. But they draw almost contradictory conclusions through different cultural interpretation approaches. This essay reviews key issues involved in the two ways of cultural interpretation, with an aim to discuss how anthropologists make their post-factual interpretive textual explanations through the case study on Paiute Rock Art.