from without(exothen,as the Phaedrussays)—the Nambik-
wara, who do not know how to write, are good, we are told.”
(This is Derrida’s rendition of Lévi-Strauss’s point.) Parody-
ing Lévi-Strauss’s argument, Derrida adds, “The Jesuits, the
Protestant missionaries, the American anthropologists...
who believed they perceived violence or hatred among the
Nambikwara are not only mistaken, they have probably pro-
jected their own wickedness upon them” ( 116 ).
Derrida is especially perturbed by the idyllic picture that
Lévi-Strauss draws of the Nambikwara sleeping on the bare
earth at night, lying two by two beside their dwindling fires.
The philosopher quotes with disdain the anthropologist’s fond
description of the Nambikwara. Lévi-Strauss writes, “Their
embraces are those of couples possessed by a longing for a lost
oneness; their caresses are in no wise disturbed by the foot-
fall of a stranger. In one and all may be glimpsed a great sweet-
ness of nature, a profound nonchalance, an animal satisfaction
as ingenuous as it is charming, and, beneath all this, something
that can be recognized as one of the most moving and authen-
tic manifestations of human tenderness” ( 117 ). Derrida takes
great offense at the authentic fellow-feeling Lévi-Strauss claims
to see in his primitive tribe. “Never,” Derrida fumes, “would a
rigorous philosopher of consciousness have been so quickly
persuaded of the fundamental goodness and virginal inno-
cence of the Nambikwara merely on the strength of an empir-
ical account” ( 117 ).
Lévi-Strauss does seem over-insistent on the innocence
of the Nambikwara: he projects his desire for a “lost oneness”
onto them. Still, Derrida’s critique is peculiar. Instead of criti-
cizing Lévi-Strauss for projection, he attacks his reliance on an
“empirical account.” No matter how “rigorous” we are, we fre-
quently make judgments about the character of other people.
88 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology