Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache

Written by Keith H. Basso

Narrated by Steven Jay Cohen

This remarkable book introduces us to four unforgettable Apache people, each of whom offers a different take on the significance of places in their culture. Apache conceptions of wisdom, manners and morals, and of their own history are inextricably intertwined with place, and by allowing us to overhear his conversations with Apaches on these subjects Basso expands our awareness of what place can mean to people.

Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of nature or home or literature. Our senses of place, however, come not only from our individual experiences but also from our cultures. Wisdom Sits in Places, the first sustained study of places and place-names by an anthropologist, explores place, places, and what they mean to a particular group of people, the Western Apache in Arizona. For more than thirty years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names-where they come from and what they mean to Apaches.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Aug 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781977379092

Reviews for Wisdom Sits in Places

[Philip Reed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book years ago and appreciate how Basso's descriptions of Apache culture really capture the nuances of Apache language and communication. A true treasure in the dialogue between cultures.

[junipersun · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Specific to Western Apache, this relatively short book (152 pp.) shows us the way in which the lands of their traditional home nurture proper action and wisdom in those brought up in the traditional way.Basso has worked with this community for decades, and has won their trust in preserving a portion of their culture in writing. The elders with whom he speaks may be uneducated but they have given a lot of thought about how their culture works, the role of traditional teachings, and seeking inner wisdom. This book is an excellent combination of dense academic/theoretical introductions (which could be glided over for those non-academics), verbatim interactions between some Western Apache elders, followed by their explanations which bring meaning to what was intended. We get a sense of the distinction between places that might be individually important to a person, such as our own selves, versus the places that have a meaning in a social context, recognized by all in one's culture as having specific meanings and as being currently active in showing us how to act. It has caused me to ponder on places that white Americans have placed meaning to at different points in our history but which have faded in potency over time as we see history as a linear progression: e.g. Plymouth Rock, Alamo, Iwo Jima, and even the Twin Towers is losing its powerful imagery to the younger generations.In the 1st chapter, Charles takes him by horseback around 20 miles of their community, gives names for dozens of specific locations, and tells the story behind the names. Basso produces a map for the community but does not publish sensitive material.In the 2nd chapter, a relevant conversation illustrates how place names are used as pointed lessons for community members.In the 3rd chapted, Basso witnesses a conversation between Apaches which seems to consist solely of naming places yet they appear to have shared something substantive. He is later able to speak with each of those persons to understand what was going thru their minds when they said what they did. He elicits some Apache values: the basic courtesy of "refraining from 'speaking too much'...[taking] steps to 'open up thinking,' thereby encouraging his or her listeners to 'travel in their minds.'" (p.85) Using "delicacy and tact" in speaking about another's actions, in a manner which allows "ancestral knowledge" to show the way, and which encourages the person "to take remedial action on behalf of themselves." (p.91).In the 4th chapter, Basso asks Dudley Patterson to explain what he understands of the oft-repeated phrase "wisdom sits in places." First Dudley has to explain how he defines wisdom, and we see an almost zen-like attitude of mind: "You must make your mind smooth. You must make your mind steady. You must make your mind resilient" (p.126) and then he goes on to portray exactly what is mean by these qualities, how they help in life, and how they support each other. Wisdom is the development of "prescient thinking" which is key to survival(p.130-1) and is based on knowledge which can be swiftly recalled--which is why stories based on real places are so effective: they can be immediately pictured (p.124).

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“[A]nthropologists have paid scant attention to one of the most basic dimensions of human experience – that close companion of heart and mind, often subdued yet potentially overwhelming, that is known as sense of place.” [106] Keith Basso’s collection of essays addresses this blind spot in a highly imaginative examination of Western Apache philosophy and community. The result is rigorous but most of all, evocative both of civilization generally and the Apache outlook. After multiple readings, Wisdom Sits in Places remains one of my very favourite books, providing beautiful insight and proving fun to read.Basso’s four essays together propose that the use of stories, storytelling, and a strong sense of place establish the particular genius of the Western Apache. These elements are joined in such a way to conjure a sacred unity (the term is Bateson’s), and Basso’s accomplishment is not only to establish the peculiar Apache sense of the sacred, but to make intelligible how storytellers and even inanimate objects (i.e. features of the landscape) wield agency in this cultural framework. The opening three essays examine very specific stories and their use in everyday Apache life. The first provides an overview, retelling the author's personal introduction to storytelling by an Apache cowboy. The second and third focus on distinct types of storytelling. "Stalking with Stories" illustrates how individuals are given moral instruction by referring to relevant stories, but in such an indirect way that non-Apache are often left bewildered, wondering how (or even if) anything was said. "Speaking with Names" addresses situations in which moral imagination is used through reference to stories, but concerning individuals not present in the conversation.The final essay introduces a sketch of the Apache conception of wisdom, linking the concepts and situations raised in the preceding pieces. Wisdom is linked metaphorically to storytelling as a trail followed by the individual through life, running through the landscape described in the various stories sharing the name of the place they occurred. Traveling through this landscape, the person seeking wisdom is urged to "drink from places", with wisdom equated with water as requisite to life. When undertaking this journey, the individual is urged to "work on your mind" to make it smooth, resilient, and steady. These three characteristics of wisdom enable a person to think clearly and unhurriedly in times of threat or urgency, unhampered by what is going on around them or (emotionally) within them, in order to review stories and apply relevant lessons to the matter at hand. In effect, the wise person "forgets" personal needs and brings to bear knowledge from the community to the situation, thereby avoiding calamity to community and self. It is a beautifully concise and elegant outlook, tying together the strands introduced in the first three essays.Basso never uses the term magick, perhaps advisedly out of concern for his academic career. And his ethnography is solid and orthodox. Nevertheless, the picture which emerges makes clear that from a modern industrialized perspective, the effects Apache storytellers have upon their audience appear fabulist, and sites around the Apache community of Cibecue would seem to be haunted. The remarkable thing is that while these conclusions are true, to a point, the ‘mystery’ is solved not by finding materialist explanations for Apache distortions of reality, but by showing how the modern perspective is here extremely foreshortened and inadequate for understanding reality. The landscape really does reach out to Apache individuals, in a remarkably similar way as do family & neighbours. Indeed it is the modern industrial viewpoint which is distorted when insisting this is impossible.* Basso is at his best when relaying a story or incident, and then offering up an interpretation of that event which situates the story both in the immediate social interaction as well as in a broader cultural context. The attendant commentary is often dry and academic, but the central storytelling can be read alone to much profit.* I recognise the irony of a professor, within academia's walls, using a 'modern industrial' mode of argument to establish the limitations of that view; I take that to be a primary strength of reason to recognise and discuss its own limitations and constructions.