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The Politics of Ecstatic Research
of “power” and the injured fisherman, I recall that community poli-
tics operate in domains other than that of spirit-powers. Tribal pol-
iticians rely on the support of their large families, develop strategies
for re-election, and curry the favor of followers, as in elections else-
where. One cannot overlook demographic factors and political pro-
cesses, the political economy and resource competition, while embrac-
ing the “ecstatic.” One might hope to find a balance between the sense
of mystery and the statistical in the understanding of the perception
and play of community power. On the other hand, if the ecstatic leads
away from an easy interpretation, then this is an achievement, as long
as the various sorts of knowledge and data remain in view.
Another issue is where one might take a relationship based on “ec-
static” experience. Within this mode of thinking, one assumes recipro-
cal obligations that are difficult for anthropologists from a “university
world” to fulfill. In fact, these obligations to humans and non-humans
alike are difficult for indigenous people to fulfill since they, too, live in
a capitalist, Western world. A notable example of the difficulties an-
thropologists face in engaging in moral and reciprocal relationships
is that of Wade Davis, an ethnobotanist who worked with Haitian
voodoo practitioners ( 1985 ). According to his own account, although
he had an initial interest in simply discovering the active ingredients
used to create the state of human zombification, he eventually discov-
ered that furthering this research required his direct participation in
a religious practice with important connections to political life of the
community. Voodoo is both a religion and the political act of creat-
ing conformity to community norms and creating a means of apply-
ing pressure on political opponents. Davis eventually withdrew from
the activities that might have prepared him for the priesthood, under-
standing that he could not fulfill the subsequent lifetime of mutual ob-
ligation with other practitioners. I suggest that his disengagement at
this point was the right choice since it did take seriously the epistemol-
ogy and its relationship to political affairs. Strangely, entry into the
priesthood, in this case, would not have taken indigenous epistemol-
ogy seriously. Similarly, Toelken ( 1996 ) has reported his own disen-
gagement from research into Navajo oral traditions regarding witch-
craft because of fear of danger to himself, his family, and his friends.
