Word: holderness
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Anthropologists are fascinated by the Motilones, whose customs, language and origin are unknown. When the American Museum of Natural History offered Anthropologist Preston Holder the job of snooping on them, he accepted eagerly. Last week, back in New York, Holder told how he, too, had drawn a blank...
Taking along his attractive young wife and colleague, Joyce Wike, Holder set out for the tangled jungle where for 400 years the Motilones have defied all comers...
Guide Hunt. The standard anthropological procedure for making friends with offish primitives, Holder explains, is to skirt their territory looking for an "acultural individual"-i.e., a person from outside who has learned their primitive ways, or a primitive who has deserted to civilization. He can teach you the language, and is often eager to introduce you to his reluctant friends (it makes him look...
Deep in the jungle on the southern fringe of Motilon territory, Holder did find one Indian who lived with an old woman, presumably his mother. His house was of hardwood poles with attic loopholes for last-ditch defense. Around it were three concentric palisades. Holder crawled through small holes in the defenses and interviewed the Indian, who was friendly enough not to shoot...
Task Force. The Holders spent months in jungle villages and oil camps, picking up bits of information. All the neighbors of the Motilones, even the well-armed oilmen, suffered from Indian jitters. They told of fearsome raids, with 40 or 50 Indians bursting out of the jungle. The raids were real enough, and they happened constantly. But after studying the tracks of the raiders, Holder decided that the aver age party consisted of one adult Indian, one woman or adolescent and one small child. Such a primitive task force, he thinks, slips at night through a village or oil camp...