Asen Balikci

Part 1

0:00:05 Introduction; born in Istanbul, Turkey, 1929, parents were Bulgarian; father was a fish merchant; maternal grandfather had fishing rights in large lake north of Istanbul and father inherited fish business through marriage; surname means “fisherman” and father and he changed surname after Second World War to avoid persecution as Slavs

0:05:16 Spoke Bulgarian at home and Turkish in the street; at school (Lazarist Fathers) spoke French; both parents literate in Greek as both went to Greek schools, father also spoke French; at school most boys were Greek, Jewish, Armenian and a few Turks and Levantines; we were afraid of the Turks as much older than us as they stayed in school until mid-twenties to avoid going into the army; grew up surrounded by fear; no Turks visited our house although other nationalities did; all mixed in the Bazaar; we feared pogroms and massacres from the dominant group; this fear caused family to move to Bulgaria in 1939 and returned back three days before the arrival of the Red Army in Bulgaria

0:09:54 Cultural differences between rest and the Turks covered etiquette, language, ethics and world view; Muslims cannot change their religions although Bulgarian-Muslim Gipsies are today changing to American evangelical churches for the benefits offered them; stayed in Turkey until 1946 and then sent to Switzerland to study at school and university in Geneva

0:12:30 Wartime in Bulgaria brought bombardment of Sophia by the Americans in 1943 and apartment hit; ran away to a small town but troubled by partisan attacks; witnessed dead bodies of partisans in front of church in 1944; constant fear of bombardment; Bulgaria did not take an active part in war but did declare war against America in 1942 to show tacit support for Germany

0:15:58 Returned to Turkey 1944 to find it unaffected by war; at that time Istanbul had about 750,000 inhabitants and very traditional; as Christians, not allowed to travel in Anatolia but had to stay in Istanbul so knew very little about Turkey; first encounter with modernity was in Bulgaria in 1940 when taken to see the German army entering Sophia; second encounter in 1945 when saw American soldiers in Istanbul

0:21:57 At sixteen sent with sister to Geneva to become cultured; Geneva the traditional place to study for Eastern Europeans; sent to a private international school and felt that real culture was there and those from the Balkans and the East were not; possible to learn but only able to live at the margins of it; in North America never had the feeling that it was impossible to influence the culture as in Western Europe; most classmates felt at home in Geneva as they mainly came from Western Europe

0:28:25 Culture clash; always an outsider except for the brief time in Sophia; studied economics and sociology at university; then studied with Piaget but found him too dominating; family expected him to return and run the fish business in Istanbul; had a vague interest in ethnography and went with a friend to the Middle Atlas in Morocco and after looking round a Berber village decided to study traditional societies; sensed that this was real culture where everything produced by village; felt a similar sensation as when walking in Bulgarian villages as a child

0:36:56 Ethnography not anthropology as the latter was physical anthropology in Europe at the time; became an unpaid assistant at the museum in Geneva and given job of classifying African objects using Mauss’s manual of ethnography; most of the objects were weapons; no possibility of taking any classes in ethnography at university in Geneva; finished degree so went to Neuchatel and spent a year doing ethnography but without much possibility of a future career; went to Ottawa to study library science to become a librarian; went to Toronto after completing course in less than a year and lodged with a Bulgarian family and found a job in a meat packing factory; this possibly the most creative time in life; parents reconciled but expected self-sufficiency at the age of twenty-two; worked during the day but at night took notes on the Bulgarian-Macedonian community in Toronto; method was instinctive; got a job at National Museum of Canada to catalogue the French-Canadian collection; bought Ruth Benedict’s ‘Patterns of Culture’ and went to Ottawa

0:45:33 Time in meat packing factory creative as understood for the first time what it meant to make a living; arrived in Ottawa with Toronto field notes; during day catalogued French collection and during evening worked on the field notes which became first monograph; this gave some credence with director; although not trained in folklore was interested in folk texts; shared a room with Marius Barbeau who had retired but had been a very prolific writer; Diamond Jenness was still there and had written the classical ethnography of the Central Eskimos but not easy to communicate with; did not have a mentor

0:55:56 Went to study for a PhD; had married and had a child and needed higher degree to improve salary; initially thought of going back to Neuchatel but a student came from Columbia University to study copper used in West Coast and encouraged him to apply there; wrote application in French to Conrad Arensberg and was accepted.

Part 2

0:00:05 Arrived at Columbia University in 1957; felt lost and disorientated; competitive atmosphere in Columbia stimulating; a co-student was Sydel Silverman; professors included Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Julian Steward, Margaret Mead, Kroeber, Lowie, etc.; faculty tried to show that this was where anthropology was made in U.S. and not at Harvard; Marvin Harris, Morton Fried were young lecturers at that time; subject matter all new and unaware of anthropological theory; William Duncan Strong was supervisor; though an archaeologist, had started as an ethnographer in Labrador; took Margaret Mead’s course in field methods and techniques which was mainly concerned with audio-visual recording devises; very interesting though she was not a good teacher; she had many admirers, particularly young women; a household name by this time which professors at Columbia did not like

0:10:05 Columbia very stimulating and those who got PhD’s there wanted to stay; only prestigious university in New York; theoretical influences was not Europe; kinship lecturer had not heard of Levi-Strauss; did read Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski but the message was that anthropology was made at Columbia

0:14:00 In Ottawa in 1954 encouraged to become an eskimologist; during summers at Columbia did field trips to the arctic funded by National Museum of Canada; first field trip when aged twenty-seven; wanted to study trapping; had knowledge of classic works by Boas, Jenness and Rasmussen; found drastic changes caused by Hudson Bay Company posts and missionaries after the early accounts; John Honigmann had worked in Hudson Bay area and decided to restudy the area; found it had been deeply affected by the building of an air force base, so studied the intense culture contact that had resulted; following summer went further north to study trapping; an artist had been there the previous summer and had taught Eskimos to carve figurines so found community of sculptors and no trappers; however did manage to reconstruct the trap lines of the Inuit; third summer went to Pelly Bay as no Hudson Bay post had ever existed there, though there was a Catholic mission; they still trapped a little, but mainly hunted seals; after studies completed went back to Pelly Bay for a winter; Eskimo lived in igloos; the church was a small stone hut; the priest traded in ammunition, tea, sugar at Easter and Christmas, knives, etc., tobacco

0:27:40 By this time married though wife did not accompany him as had a child and very difficult to survive; got to Pelly Bay by flying to a military base 50 miles south and taken up by sled; missionary had radio contact

0:29:57 Relationship with missionary initially good but he was rather obsessive and suspicious because he had been there alone for some fifteen years; after a long winter tragic ending; Pelly Bay Eskimos, the Netsilik, numbered about a hundred; told that a plane was coming to take x-ray pictures of the Eskimos; doctor put x-ray machine in my igloo, took photos, and left; few days later everybody sick including the missionary, except me; offered to send a message to ask for help but missionary said it had happened before and all recovered; a week later crisis appeared to be over but a few days later everyone sick again and fourteen people died; people felt that questions on shamanism had provoked the anger of a recently dead man; possible that missionary also disliked my work and feared I would revive shamanistic practise

0:36:38 Learnt some language and was able to collect information on ecology following Julian Steward’s model; adaptive strategies; information on shamanism incidental; missionary spoke like a native; had a interpreter/guide from another Netsilik group who translated into English; lived in igloo on native food plus sugar, tea and tobacco; assistant lived with me

0:38:42 As had previously done work in another Hudson Bay area had a native name which translated as “the man who loves old things” which people understood; photographed from first field work onwards and also tape recorded; at Pelly Bay taped 50 reel to reel tapes; now being analysed by other academics as I did not study them as used own field notes; also was not really interested in shamanism but informants encouraged me to tape them; description of a great shaman

0:46:00 Illness in the field; greatest challenge was psychological; longest period in field was the 5-6 winter month in Pelly Bay; had letters from wife; when near the mission would visit missionary but travelled a lot, following migrating Eskimos; collected only a few artefacts

0:51:21 After dissertation went to Indian community in Yukon where the atmosphere was very different; oppressed by cold of Pelly Bay but happy in Yukon; lived in log cabin; local shaman brought salmon, others caribou, and could have fire; PhD on processes of ecological adaptation which was published by the Museum; wrote another monograph on Yukon, then went to Macedonia, then back to Pelly Bay to do filming work; family never went on field trips as wife not interested in anthropology

0:55:39 Didn’t find it difficult to change areas; in 1963 had moved to Montreal University from the Museum which ruined my professional life; should have stayed in the museum as an ethnographer; I didn’t get along with the chief ethnologist at the museum and offered very high salary at Montreal to establish a new department of anthropology; also wanted to move from Ottawa to a city of French culture; called by Douglas Oliver at Harvard to film among the Eskimo so I entered marginal field of visual ethnography; had filmed during early field work though that 16mm black and white, soundless, film lost.