It is not enough for him to earn praise from all. It is not enough, even, for him to perform his function in a way he knows to be entrely creditable and in keeping with the teaching of his master and the ancient traditions. In addition to all this, if he is to feel full satisfaction at the moment when Time lifts his own severed head by the hair, he must add to the execution some feature however small that is entirely own and that he will never repeat. Only thus can he feel himself a free artist.

Then, on the other hand, there is “anthropology.net”:http://anthropology.net/, run by “Kambriz Kambrani”:http://kambiz.kamrani.net/. I first saw the sight when he added it as a useful sight on the anthropology page of wikipedia and have been checking out his three or four reinstalls of the software ever since, watching him add and re-add the ‘anthropology’ entry to the site. I think the idea is that it’s terrible that there is no anthropology-centric wiki around and so if he sets it up then it will Magically Fill With Content. I wonder, though, if he appreciates how work anthropologists have put into the wikipedia — including such gargantuan (indeed, _too_ gargantuan) efforts such as “the wikipedia entry on Franz Boas”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Boas which blows Sol Tax’s little entry in Britannica out of the water. Given the way anthropology.net has been handled so far, I’m not about to about to jump ship and start writing on it after having spent so much time hand-crafting hoppy, light and refreshing entries on “Henri Hubert”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Hubert, “Karl Polanyi”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Polanyi, and “A.M. Hocart”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Maurice_Hocart.

It’s this sort of thing that makes me think maybe I haven’t given Baudrillard the time he deserves.

Ka wa mamua and ka wa mahope are the Hawaiian terms for the past and future, respectively. But note that ka wa mamua (past) means the time before, in front, or forward. Ka wa mahope (future) means the time after or behind. These terms do not merely describe time, but the Hawaiians’ orientation to it. We face the past, confidently interpreting the present, cautiously backing into the future, guided by what our ancestors knew and did. -Jon Osorio, Dismembering Lahui p.7

But then I was also reading Native Land and Foreign Desires by Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, which was published a full decade before Osorio’s book, when I ran across this passage:

It is interesting to note that in Hawaiian, the past is referred to as ka wa mamua, or “the time in front or before.” Whereas the future, when thought of at all, is Ka wa mahope, or “the time which comes after or behind.” It is as if the Hawaiian stands firmly in the present, with his back to the future, and his eyes fixed upon the past, seeking historical answers for present-day dilemmas. Such an orientation is to the Hawaiian an eminently practical one, for the future is always unknown, whereas the past is rich in glory and knowledge. – Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, Native Land, Foreign Desires, p. 22-23

Ouch. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but if I were Osorio I would have quoted Kame’eleihiwa instead of more or less copying that passage. Since Osorio knows Kame’eleihiwa and her work quite well (they teach together), its particularly surprising to see this kind of slippage.