Trail of an Intellectual Nomad

Brian Morris

Description

Trail of an Intellectual Nomad To the memory of Meg and Ted Ayres © Brian Morris 2024 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publishers. Published by Luviri Press P/Bag 201 Luwinga, Mzuzu 2 Malawi ISBN eISBN 978-99960-80-30-2 978-99960-80-31-9 Luviri Press is represented outside Malawi by: African Books Collective Oxford (also for e-books) PSEFST!BGSJDBOCPPLTDPMMFDUJWF DPN www.africanbookscollective.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• General officer
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Luviri Press
• Date de parution: 20 février 2024
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789996080319
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Trail of an Intellectual Nomad

To the memory of Meg and Ted Ayres

© Brian Morris 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publishers.

Published by Luviri Press P/Bag 201 Luwinga, Mzuzu 2 Malawi

ISBN eISBN

978-99960-80-30-2 978-99960-80-31-9

Luviri Press is represented outside Malawi by: African Books Collective Oxford (also for e-books) [e-mail]

www.africanbookscollective.com

Index and Editorial assistance: Hope Kaombe

Trail of an Intellectual Nomad My Encounters with People and Wildlife in India and Malawi Brian Morris

Luviri Press

Mzuzu 2024

Contents Foreword Chapter One My Early Life Chapter Two Travels in South Central Africa Chapter Three Wildlife Adventures at Zoa Chapter Four Scouting Days and New Horizons Chapter Five Botanical Studies in the Shire Highlands Chapter Six Life as a Student Teacher Chapter Seven Becoming an Anthropologist Chapter Eight Anthropology at Goldsmiths College Chapter Nine My Sante Fe Journey Chapter Ten A Study of Herbalism Chapter Eleven An Eventful Decade Chapter Twelve My Indian Journey: Studies of Tribal Life Chapter Thirteen My Indian Journey: Studies in Medical Anthropology

7 11 55 69 104 128 164 185 207 230 249 277 306 344

Chapter Fourteen Anthropology, Anarchism and Andalucia Chapter Fifteen Adventures in Peru Chapter Sixteen People and Wildlife in the Shire Valley, Malawi Chapter Seventeen People and Wildlife in Northern Malawi Chapter Eighteen People and Wildlife in the Shire Highlands Chapter Nineteen A Decade of Publishing Chapter Twenty Becoming a Professor Chapter Twenty-One Insects and Human Life Chapter Twenty-Two The New Millennium Chapter Twenty-Three Further Travels and Adventures Chapter Twenty-Four Land and People of the Shire Highlands Chapter Twenty-Five Intellectual Nomad References Index of Places and Names

364 386 421 452 480 498 523 559 591 615 649 679 705 709

Table of Figures Figure 1: The Postmaster T.K. Ramachandran Nair and His Family, Achencoil, 1973 Figure 2: Muttaya with Recently Killed Monkey Achencoil 1973 Figure 3: Muttayya‘s Son with Giant Hornbill, Achencoil, 1973 Figure 4: With Efie Ncherawata, Village Herbalist, Nkunja Village near Domasi, 1995 Figure 5: Benson Zuwani and Nyalugwe Chibati, Mitepila Village, Zoa, 1980 Figure 6: Hindu Renouncer in Cave Near Sri Saalem, Andhra Pradesh, 1986 Figure 7: With My Tutor in Hinduism, A.B. Swami, Achencoil, 1986 Figure 8: Herbalist Robert Nkorongo, Rumphi Market, 1991 Figure 9: My Friends Davison Potani and Ganda Makalani, Migowi, 1991 Figure 10: My Close Friends John Kajalwiche and Herbalist Samson Waiti, Makwawa, 1991 Figure 11: The Author, 1995 at Makwakwa Figure 12: Botanist and Friend, Hassam Patel, Mulanje, 2008

195 200 202

265

269

319 338 478

488

495 497 653

Foreword This book is not a personal autobiography, though it may well be considered my memoirs. It is, as the subtitle indicates, a record of my intellectual life and adventures, specifically my encounters with people and wildlife in India and Malawi. It is essentially a story of how, by becoming an anthropologist, I was able to fulfil my boyhood dream of becoming a naturalist–like my youthful heroes Ernest Thompson Seton and Peter Scott.

Given that it is not a personal autobiography no mention is made in this book of some of the most significant events in my life, nor of the warm and intimate relationships I have had and valued with my family and close friends. Nor do I mention my allotment in Hope- in-the-Valley, which I cultivated for over fifty years, nor of some interesting scholars that I met during the course of my life and with whom I had interesting discussions. I may note, for example, the biologist John Maynard Smith, one of the pioneers of Neo- Darwinian theory, and the philosopher Bryan Magee, an authority on Schopenhauer, who did much to introduce philosophy to ordinary mortals (like myself). I have fond memories of my chats with both men as well as with other scholars who are never mentioned in this present book.

Throughout my life I have had three essential interests–intellectual interests, that is. The first is an absorbing interest in ecology, or rather, in natural history, and I have been exploring and enjoying the natural landscape and its wildlife– especially birds, mammals, wild plants and fungi since I was a boy. My second interest has been anthropology, for I have always been fascinated by the diversity of human cultures and have been especially interested in philosophy and religion. My third interest has been anarchism, which I discovered at the age of twenty-nine. I have been an anarchist (or libertarian socialist) ever since, and from the 1960‘s I have been 7

actively involved in many protests and demonstrations which I hardly touch upon in these memoirs. I thus have wide intellectual interests and as a university teacher at Goldsmiths College, taught, over the years, a wide variety of courses on, for example, the anthropology of religion and symbolism, politics, psychology, the environment and health and medicine. I have published over twenty-five books and over three hundred articles and reviews– published in popular magazines, anarchist periodicals and scholarly journals. These books and articles cover a wide range of topics and issues in the fields of botany, ecology, ethnobiology, philosophy, history, religious studies, and anarchist politics, as well as anthropology. But although I studied anthropology as a postgraduate student at the London School of Economics and taught anthropology for over fifty years at Goldsmiths College, I have never considered myself a real anthropologist. I have always thought of myself as a naturalist, although this kind of scholar seems to have become extinct in the nineteenth century. Thus, my intellectual tendencies and aspirations have always been fundamentally realist, historical, and this-worldly. Although I have always been fascinated by religion as a human institution, I am not a religious person, and have long considered myself as standing in the philosophical tradition of Humboldt, Darwin, Kropotkin, Roy Wood Sellers, Mario Bunge and Murray Bookchin. I have, like Dewey and Foucault, always considered teaching as a vocation.

In his classic study of Tolstoy ―The Hedgehog and the Fox‖ Isaiah Berlin suggested that there were two kinds of scholar. The first kind, the foxes, know many things, in contrast to the hedgehogs who only know ―one big thing‖. The fox category includes scholars, Berlin notes, such as Aristotle and Goethe, as hedgehogs, Berlin notes, Plato, Hegel and Nietzsche. I am definitely, like Aristotle, a

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fox. I am also akin to Aristotle in other ways, for the Greek scholar was disparagingly described by his contemporaries as a ―jackdaw‖ as he had wide interests and was an indefatigable collector of facts. Throughout my life I have been an intellectual jackdaw, for I have spent most of my days enthusiastically gathering fragments of knowledge in the same way as I foraged for fungi in the woods. In a curious way I find poetry in fact, in all kinds of facts, from the habit of field miceto Hegel‘s ontology. Hence the wide range of my interests. It is hardly surprising then that my life-long friend and colleague, Pat Caplan, should describe me as a ―polymath‖. Another colleague, intending to rebuke me, described me asan ―intellectual nomad.‖ This I took as a compliment: hence the title of these memoirs.

But I must admit that I have little imagination, and read very little non-fiction, although I have always enjoyed poetry. When during my boyhood years my mates were getting so excited about Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I have to admit that I found them utterly boring. I preferred watching Walt Disney‘s other productions, the short films such as ―Bear Country‖ or ―Nature‘s Half Acre‖, or Arne Suckdorf‘s ―The Great Adventure‖.

There is an interesting legend about the founders of the ―three reli- gions of China‖, which suggests that they stood one day around a jar of vinegar, the symbol of life itself. In turn they tasted the substance. Confucius, it is said, pronounced it sour, the Buddha found it bitter, while Laozi considered it sweet. I have always agreed with the founder of Daoism, and thus have always felt that life is sweet and something to be enjoyed. Given my rather prosaic style of writing, I doubt if this enjoyment is fully conveyed in these memoirs, but I trust the reader will enjoy the record of my encounters with the people and wildlife of India and Malawi, and

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