0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
On Puzzling Wavelengths
of drink. To his great dismay, I declined. I did so on the grounds of my
own culture-bound ideas: that our outing was now over, that it hap-
pened to be my customary meal time, and that I owed it to my family
to let them know I had returned from the bush in one piece. I had no
idea why my companion appeared injured by my insistence on going
home right away. Fortunately, he seemed to have strong commitment
to our association, and I believe he wrote off my walking out on him
as a simple function of my ignorance and innocence.
What I eventually came to see was that it was usual for partners
to hold their tongues over differences of opinion while at work, then
get intoxicated together when they came back to the settlement for a
break. I stumbled slowly into my appreciation of this technique. Alco-
hol relaxed them enough to overcome the restraint they had grown up
with, freeing them to express all that had been bothering them while
working together. Loud arguments and fights were a routine aspect
of these post-teamwork drinking bouts; injuries sometimes resulted.
But the sweet part of using intoxication in this way was that, the next
day, one was permitted to claim amnesia for all that had been said and
done. After they got disagreements and irritations off their chests, the
partners could, and did, walk off together once more with a smile. Co-
operating with other members of society, when one has been trained
from childhood to be a quiet and undemanding person, an indepen-
dent decision maker, and a self-reliant worker, calls for a high level
of restraint on everyone’s part. Suppressing one’s discontent for days
at a time has to be stressful. I came to see the practice of workmates
drinking alcohol together as allowing them important and licensed
moments of cathartic irresponsibility in a society that otherwise called
for an almost unbearable level of responsibility.
I watched one courting couple use the same technique. They put
aside everything else and staggered around in a totally drunken state
together for two days while they opened up toward each other and
began to negotiate formation of their relationship. I kept an eye on
them. They came to blows at one point and, because he was consid-
erably larger and stronger than she was, when she came to our door
for refuge, we let her sit down for a few minutes in our kitchen. When
her fiancé arrived at our place, close on her heels, we lied through our
