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Culture, Mind, and Society

Series Editor
Yehuda C. Goodman
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The Society for Psychological Anthropology—a section of the American

Anthropology Association—and Palgrave Macmillan are dedicated to
publishing innovative research that illuminates the workings of the
human mind within the social, cultural, and political contexts that
shape thought, emotion, and experience. As anthropologists seek to
bridge gaps between ideation and emotion or agency and structure and
as psychologists, psychiatrists, and medical anthropologists search for
ways to engage with cultural meaning and difference, this
interdisciplinary terrain is more active than ever.

Editorial Board
Eileen Anderson-Fye, Department of Anthropology, Case Western
Reserve University
Jennifer Cole, Committee on Human Development, University of
Chicago
Linda Garro, Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Los Angeles
Daniel T. Linger, Department of Anthropology, University of
California, Santa Cruz
Rebecca Lester, Department of Anthropology, Washington
University in St. Louis
Tanya Luhrmann, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Catherine Lutz, Department of Anthropology, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill
 Peggy Miller, Departments of Psychology and Speech
Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Robert Paul, Department of Anthropology, Emory University
Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Department of Anthropology, Utrecht
University, Netherlands
Bradd Shore, Department of Anthropology, Emory University
Jason Throop, Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Los Angeles
Carol Worthman, Department of Anthropology, Emory University
More information about this series at http://​www.​palgrave.​com/​
gp/​series/​14947
Robert Lemelson and Annie Tucker

Widening the Frame with Visual

Psychological Anthropology
Perspectives on Trauma, Gendered Violence, and
Stigma in Indonesia
1st ed. 2021
Robert Lemelson
Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Annie Tucker
Elemental Productions, Pacific Palisades, CA, USA

Culture, Mind, and Society

ISBN 978-3-030-79882-6 e-ISBN 978-3-030-79883-3
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79883-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Robert Lemelson. Used with permission

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered

company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,
Switzerland
To the memory of Dorothy Lemelson, with the deepest love, admiration,
and respect.
Blessed is the righteous judge.
Series Editor’s Preface
Robert Lemelson and Annie Tucker’s book is a textual ethnography of
ethnographic films. The films discussed inquire into central inter-
related issues in the anthropology of suffering—traumas and their
effects, gendered violence, and stigmatization. They were all produced
based on Lemelson’s long-term fieldwork in Indonesia. 40 Years of
Silence (2009) documents political and psychological traumas of the
mass killings in 1965–1966; Bitter Honey (2015) follows familial
violence that comes with polygamous marriages; and Standing on the
Edge of a Thorn (2012) presents family dynamics around poverty,
mental illness, and gendered ethics of marriage and sexuality. The films
—to be watched before and alongside reading the book—use various
cinematic techniques and genres. Yet, the topics selected and the
methods used underline core paradigmatic stances of psychological
anthropology—closely following individuals’ experiences and doing so
within their social contexts, cultural logics, and political milieus.
Indeed, the authors suggest that through making and watching them,
ethnographic films become crucial vehicles to reflect upon, inquire into
and teach about personal lives as experienced in their broader contexts.
By describing, interpreting, and analyzing the diverse contexts and
deliberations through which these films were produced and outlining
their theoretical significance, Visual Psychological Anthropology (VPA),
as the authors call this unique field, receives new depths. Hence, the
book offers fruitful paths for future collaborations between visual and
psychological anthropology beyond accompanying the films. In
particular, theorizing the process of visually translating human
intimacy is achieved by offering four layers: Interpreting the films’
contents, documenting the fieldwork, discussing the editorial work, and
deliberating epistemological and moral concerns.
First, interpreting the various personal and interpersonal
experiences documented in the films within the politics, social
dynamics, culture logics, and history of modern Indonesia. Violence,
traumas, stigmatization, and de-stigmatization, the authors argue, are
tied up with political oppression that echoes social discrimination. The
films’ broader context is thus linked with poverty and suffering within
families and their losses, conflicts, and the subjugation of women.
Individual emotional responses, like shame (malu) or anger (marah),
are deeply gendered forms. Further, local religiosities shape ethics of
surrender, patience, helping others, resilience and activism.
Second, introducing the complicated research and the in-depth,
person-centered interviews and conversations that allow the
production of such films. This aspect lies at the base of an ethnography
of ethnographic films—inviting readers to thorough visits behind the
scenes. The authors share how the research unfolded and how
longitudinal collaborations and relationships with participants and
advisors were evolving. They also discuss the personal interactions in
the field and local notions about sharing (or not) painful experiences in
public and the downplaying of conflicts and negative feelings.
Third, explaining the complicated process of choosing specific parts
of the fieldwork and footage and arranging them in particular ways and
timelines. The authors elaborate on their emotional, cognitive, and
narrative considerations and the “voice” of the narrator and how they
incorporated additional materials like archival contents, art, imagery,
and music. They also discuss how possible responses shape the
editorial process and the role of participants’ considerations about
their real-life and their exposed images (and their impacts) as
portrayed in the film, and how they tried to encourage participants’
agency in making the film.
Fourth, outlining epistemological and ethical deliberations that
determine the cinematic outcomes—reflecting on cultural gaps in
emotional expression and how to bridge such gaps or indicate them. In
particular, the authors reflect on moral concerns in filming human
suffering in Indonesia from a privileged subject position of Western
actors. Informed consent, they argue, should be rethought and
recalibrated when exposing individuals and trying to eliminate harm to
participants, families and communities throughout the entire process of
creating the films and distributing them.
Yehuda C. Goodman
Preface
This book is one outcome of long-term fieldwork engagements with
psychological and visual anthropology, Indonesia, and with making
psychologically oriented ethnographic films. The three films discussed
in the book were all shot over the course of many years. The
methodology used to make them was decades in development,
spanning back over a previous film series and prior monograph. The
collaborative relationships with colleagues and film participants reach
back just as long, and continue through the present day. These all are
united in a career-long endeavor to promote the power of visual
methods to investigate, illuminate, and communicate central areas of
inquiry in the field of psychological anthropology.
The book is written to complement three ethnographic films. 40
Years of Silence is scaffolded around the long-term effects of childhood
political trauma for four Indonesian families during and in the decades
after the mass killings of 1965. Bitter Honey addresses cultural
frameworks for gendered violence as experienced in three Balinese
polygamous marriages. Standing on the Edge of a Thorn considers the
intersectional vulnerabilities and processes of stigmatization that
render one rural Javanese girl vulnerable to sex trafficking. While
discussing the content of these films, the volume intends to “widen the
frame” for them in three significant ways.
We do this first by exploring the broader ethnography involved in
research, fieldwork, and filmmaking not included in the films proper.
What ends up in a film is a tiny fraction of fieldwork done and footage
recorded. Given the longitudinal nature of our work, we also have
maintained relationships with film participants long after the films are
released, following the course of their lives. This book gives a fuller
account of the range of fieldwork material—observations, interviews,
et cetera—that exceeds what was eventually incorporated into the final
films.
The book widens the frame again by mining the connections
between the films. Despite the disparate topics they cover and distinct
themes they explore, we see these projects as theoretically and
ethnographically linked. We delve into the issues in psychological
anthropology relevant to all and examine how they are interconnected
within Indonesian history, society, and culture—and further, how all of
these permeate participant subjectivity.
Thirdly and finally, we widen the frame to account for what goes on
outside the limits of the camera lens. Just as most film footage ends up
on the proverbial cutting room floor, any footage recorded is still just a
sliver of the encounter and the overarching project, which encompasses
evolving social relationships, production strategies, ethical
considerations, and more. Exploring filmmaking as process allows us to
reflect on the experience and its impact on our participants. It also
allows us to discuss the unique ways in which visual and psychological
anthropology are united in our methodology.
This methodology, which we call “visual psychological
anthropology” (VPA) adapts person-centered ethnography for film and
integrates it with visual anthropology and other cinematic elements of
more mainstream film genres. We first outlined VPA in our monograph,
Afflictions: Steps Towards a Visual Psychological Anthropology. That
book was based on the six case-study films of our Afflictions series,
which addressed interconnections between culture, mental illness, and
neuropsychiatric disorder in Bali and Java via various significant
aspects of the illness experience. This volume is fundamentally
connected to that book and can to a certain extent be considered an
extension of it in terms of concept, structure, theory, and method,
audience and goal. It is similarly designed to supplement a group of
ethnographic films shot according to VPA tenets. It equally champions
VPA as a way to go beyond given etic categories to reach a holistic
understanding of an issue via a subjectivity-oriented, person-centered
approach. Furthermore, the roots of the film projects discussed in this
book can be traced back to ethnographic research for Afflictions, and
the work and thought behind them overlap with Afflictions and with
each other. This is evident as all the films circle around similar issues at
stake, most notably stigmatization and trauma, but also family
dynamics, village life, presentation of self, life course development, and
more.
In VPA, longitudinality is central in determining how the
psychological experiences of participants come to be understood and
represented. It depends, then, on the long-term engagement of authors
and research collaborators. The origins of my interest in the variable
contexts and long-term outcomes of trauma, violence, and
stigmatization date back to my undergraduate thesis at Hampshire
College for which I conducted fieldwork with the newly-arrived
Cambodian refugee community in Seattle. Their stories of trauma and
survival brought home to me, as a young scholar, the importance of
understanding the multiple contexts for trauma, violence, and
oppression. After graduation, while pursuing a degree in clinical
psychology, I worked as a clinician in a variety of mental health settings.
Here I found the hegemonic clinical approach to mental health issues
meant the structural origins or contexts of familial and individual
suffering and “dysfunction”, such as poverty, anomie and alienation,
racism, and economic devolution, were rarely discussed or included in
treatment provider’s theoretical or clinical formulations. But it also
gave me experience in long term, compassionate interviewing, albeit in
a clinical setting with a focus on alleviating suffering, rather than an
ethnographic one focused on understanding individual experience in a
cultural context. My desire to find alternate ways of understanding
these challenges of linking these disparate domains brought me back to
anthropology to pursue graduate study at UCLA.
Given my long-term interest in the relationship of culture to mental
illness, after taking a seminar with esteemed psychological
anthropologist Robert Edgerton on schizophrenia and culture, for my
dissertation I settled on the “outcome paradox” in cultural psychiatry.
This research, highlighted in our Afflictions monograph, explored the
question of differential, and better, outcome for people living
with psychotic illness in the developing world. After several exploratory
field visits to Indonesia in the early 1990, I received a 1996–1997
Fulbright grant to study this issue in Bali, and while doing fieldwork
there, also received a WHO grant to investigate the Pediatric
Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders associated with
Streptococcus Infections (or PANDAS) hypothesis. During this research
I did case findings for individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders, such
as Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and
explored their lives in a clinical ethnography. It was during this
extended fieldwork that I began, in collaboration with an ethnographic
filmmaker colleague, filming some of my research. When I returned to
Los Angeles and began teaching at UCLA, I began to edit this footage; I
became captivated by the process and founded an ethnographic film
production company, Elemental Productions. Elemental has now made
over 15 films on a range of topics. Many of these films address concerns
that have endured throughout my career, including trauma, mental
illness, personal experience, and the sociocultural and structural
contexts of suffering.
This work was only made possible by deep collaborations with
Indonesian colleagues. An early and central collaboration was with the
cartoonist and essayist Wayan Sadha. As a Balinese man with a deep
understanding of local village life, he was a central informant about the
multiple domains that impacted the lives of my participants, and a dear
friend. When he became increasingly ill after about 2012, I began
working with his daughter, Ni Luh Gede Sri Pratiwi, and have continued
to collaborate with her after Sadha’s death in 2015.
I was introduced to psychiatrist Mahar Agusno and his wife
psychologist Ninik Supartini by a mutual acquaintance. Both joined my
WHO project on neuropsychiatric disorders in Indonesia, collecting
clinical, ethnographic, and visual data on individuals living with OCD
and related neuropsychiatric conditions. This initial project began a 20-
year collaboration that spans the length and breadth of almost all of my
subsequent visual psychological anthropology projects in Indonesia.
They have found and evaluated potential cases, organized and
produced aspects of ethnographic film shoots, transcribed and
translated interviews, maintained positive and productive relationships
with participants, and have been full and equal collaborators.
I first met Degung Santikarma when I invited him to speak at a
conference on culture, the brain, and posttraumatic stress disorder,
held at UCLA in 2002. Degung is an anthropologist and writer, who was
a research assistant for Hildred Geertz at Princeton. He is married to an
American anthropologist and lives much of the time in the USA but was
born in Bali and maintains deep and extensive connections there. Both
he and several members of his extended family were key collaborators
in a number of projects, most importantly 40 Years of Silence, where he
is also one of the four main participants. In addition, he was a
collaborating consultant on Bitter Honey, for which he also served as an
expert in the film itself commenting on different aspects of polygamy,
culture, and personal experience.
 I met psychologist Livia Iskandar in 2005 when I organized a
conference on trauma and social violence in Yogyakarta. Livia
established the first gender-based violence treatment program in
Jakarta, Pulih (meaning recovery). We have worked together on several
projects, including Bitter Honey. Livia has extensive experience
evaluating and treating women who have endured a range of violent
and abusive life circumstances, and so she was the most fitting
collaborator to explore aspects of this difficult domain.
Finally, I met Annie Tucker when she was in the early years of her
doctoral program in culture and performance at UCLA and she worked
as a research assistant for the 40 Years of Silence project. She had
completed an undergraduate capstone ethnography on ludruk waria,
transgender performers in the East Javanese comedic theater genre at
Barnard and was beginning her thesis research. This culminated in a
dissertation on the interpretation and treatment of autism in Java.
These projects familiarized her with Javanese habitus and dynamics of
stigmatization and resilience in Javanese contexts, which she has
applied for over a decade working as researcher and writer for
Elemental Productions. While she has contributed from Los Angeles
rather than joining me in the field, our collaboration in research and
writing, and our friendship, has made this work possible.
Given these fertile collaborations, the book alternates between the
use of “I” and “we” throughout. Here, “I” refers to my own personal
thoughts, ideas, and experiences, as founder of Elemental,
anthropologist, and film director. “We” refers to processes undertaken,
decisions made, experiences had, and insights reached by the team as a
collective, which includes the collaborators mentioned here and others,
as I have also worked with a fluctuating team of film professionals from
Los Angeles and Indonesia.
The book advocates for the value of ethnographic film for
psychological anthropology. As such, it is primarily oriented to those
who have a specialty or interest in the fields of visual and/or
psychological anthropology and are curious about how a VPA approach
might complement or extend their research. Many anthropologists
already incorporate some filmic elements into their ethnographic
research, perhaps as an addendum or insert, to provide local color or
context, as a pneumonic, or a way to gather data for later analysis.
Others may be approaching their footage with a plan to edit it into an
ethnographic film; this is a common but rarely actualized interest
among psychological anthropologists, but it is precisely what we
espouse and aim to encourage.
An edited film can be a powerful tool in translational realms. Much
of the thought in psychological anthropology has importance for a wide
swathe of contemporary concerns and current events, and yet
anthropologists are often just talking to each other. Our discipline, like
many others, uses dense, specialized, and even obscure written
discourse which creates numerous barriers to access and
understanding; this means we miss the opportunity to reach a larger
public, both here in the United States and in our field sites, and
demonstrate the relevance of our theory and methods. We believe the
emergent synthesis of psychological and visual anthropology modeled
in this project has the promise to extend the reach of anthropological
research to a wider range of audiences than is typical.
We have discovered through our own work that often, the most
responsive audience to a film is one we hadn’t anticipated. The three
films in this book have been used in concert with human rights
advocacy, included in training for psychologists and psychiatrists, and
shared widely on Indonesian media platforms. This has been affirming
but has also come with some unanticipated outcomes, which we will
discuss.
At the same time visual psychological anthropology is an approach
to educate and engage more typical student and scholarly audiences
who are suddenly in great need of remote and asynchronous learning
options. As I sit here writing this, in January 2021, the coronavirus
pandemic is a wildfire ravaging the world. Even before learning was
forced to go mostly, if not entirely online, some educators were
increasingly positioning film as equivalent to texts to generate critical
discussion. Now the era of “Zoom classrooms” has introduced many
more faculty to the valuable instructional use of visual and multimodal
materials. During this time, I have received numerous requests for
assistance in recommending and incorporating visual materials and
approaches to teaching virtually. This pandemic has thus offered an
unexpected assist to the status and relevance a range of visual
approaches that, before the pandemic, were often seen as secondary to
the teaching of anthropology. Now instructors are hungry for visual
materials that go beyond the standard university classroom fare of
straight lecture and PowerPoint slides to keep their students engaged.
Why not take this opportunity to branch out creatively, to build our
skills as filmmakers, anthropologists, and educators, and to try new and
diverse forms of presentation and explanation?
Once discovered, this use of visual materials is likely to endure. Now
more than ever, visual and translational models point the way to a
future of psychological anthropology that extends its reach and brings
its illuminating and productive findings into a new era of learning—
that “widens the frame” for the field. There is a need for pedagogical
materials that integrate the theory and practice of anthropology with
visual, multimodal, and other novel approaches to research, teaching,
and presentation. Ultimately, we hope this book can contribute to the
development of a shared knowledge and practice that has the capacity
to extend the reach and impact of psychological anthropology for both
new and familiar audiences.
We assume that readers will be selecting this book or certain book
chapters because they have watched one or more of these films. While
watching the three films is not a firm prerequisite, many of the
references and discussions throughout the book will make the most
sense to the degree a reader can mentally reference particular scenes
and or people described. To this end we have released all three films on
YouTube to make them accessible to our readers (https://​tinyurl.​com/​
wideningtheframe​vpa).
Robert Lemelson
Pacific Palisades, USA
Acknowledgments
This book, and the filming and research underlying it, was decades in
the making and as such there were many friends, collaborators,
colleagues and most especially participants who contributed and made
this possible.
First and foremost, to my writing partner and friend Annie Tucker.
This book was a result of a multi-year, month by month and day by day
interactive process. I could not have asked for a more insightful, hard-
working, patient, smarter, and talented co-author.
I would like to thank the people who welcomed me into their homes
and shared the stories of their lives in hopes that others might learn or
benefit from them. From Standing on the Edge of a Thorn, I would like to
first and foremost thank Lisa’s family—Elvina Lisa Ariyani, Tri Suyari,
Imam Rochani. In addition, thanks go to Harjo Suwarno, Wijiyati, and
Thomas Imam Djuinaidi, Mimi, Suratman, Suindiyah, Dedeh, Suroto,
Lamsudin Sholihin Abror, and Uut.
From 40 Years of Silence, I would like to thank these four brave
families for breaking the silence about their experiences with 1965 and
its aftermath. I feel a deep affection for my friend Budi Santosa and his
family—Bu Sumini, Pak Mudakir, Alex Kristianto. I addition I would like
to thank Sister Thomasi, Suroso, Haryati, Yoan, Dr. Budiawan, and
Nurrachman. Lanny Anggawati has become a dear friend and
inspiration to me. I would also like to thank members of her family and
extended circle including Wena Cynthia, the dearly departed Tante Hok,
Djie Liong Hwie, Djie Kwie Hwa, Edy Sulistyanto, Harry Triyono,
Prasetyo, Eny Rachmawati, Megawati, Retno Widyastututi, Benaya Agus
Dwiharta, Aditya Harimurti Wardhana, Sean Indra Adipradana A,
Chandra Widya Kirana A, and Sujito. Thanks to Nyoman Kereta for a
long and insightful friendship. He has been supported by his lovely
family including his wife Made Ada, Komang, Wayan, Kari, brother
Made Rarad, and other community members including Raras, Pak
Narta, Dewa Gede Alit, Dewe Gede Suma, and Ardana. I would like to
thank I Gusti Made Degung Santikarma and his extended family and
community including his wife Leslie Dwyer, brother Agung Alit, sister
Anak Agung Mayun Karmadi, Ngurah Lengkonk Termana, Anak Agung
Gde Putra, and Indra Kusuma. Finally, much thanks to Geoffrey
Robinson, Baskara Wardaya, and John Roosa for all their insights and
contributions to the film.
From Bitter Honey, I would like to thank the families who let us into
their lives to explore polygamy in Bali: I Made Darma, Ni Wayan
Kamarenikiawati, Ni Wayan Sulasih, Ni Wayan Rasti, Gusti Ayu Suciati,
Ni Nyoman Purnawati, I Wayan Darkiawan Saputra, Ni Komang Sri
Darliskiawati Saputri, Ni Wayan Sri Adi Yuliantari, I Wayan Nik
Adiarista, Ni Wayan Eka Saputri, I Kadek Adi Yudha Negara, I Putu
Aristana Mahardika, Agus Dana Saputra, Tuaji Gus Candri, I Made
Nyandra, I Wayan Duana, I Ketut Muada, I Wayan Rijek, and Gungde
Prawitha. Ni Wayan Sadra, Ni Ketut Purniasih, Ni Ketut Murni Agung, Ni
Wayan Kartika, Ni Kadek Adnyani, Ni Ketut Trisna Ditya, I Komang
Artawan, Ni Luh Sri Tresna Asih, I Kadek Widi Satya, I Komang Angga
Widi Nata, I Ketut Tuda Adi Tirta, Ni Ketut Siring, Agung Alit, Hani
Duarsa, Ni Nyoman Senin, Ni Made Deni, I Wayan Damai, I Wayan
Sujana, I Wayan Muka, Ida Bagus Nyoman Arka, and I Gusti Ayu
Saraswati. Sang Putu Tuaji, Jero Ketut Gati, Sang Ayu Ketut Manis, Sayu
Nyoman Lanus, Sang Ayu Ketut Widiastituti, Sang Putu Kerta, Ibu Oka,
Dewa Ketut Darma, and Dewa Putu Taman. Thanks to the Joblar Tum
Bak Bayuh Troupe for their excellent performance.
I hold a deep debt of gratitude to my dear long-term collaborators in
Indonesia, Ninik Supartini and Dr. Mahar Agusno. Although dear Wayan
Sadha is no longer with us, thanks to his talented daughter Ni Luh Gede
Sri Pratiwi, his legacy lives on.
These three films were only made possible by long term
collaborations with a range of professionals, in both LA and in the field.
In particular I want to thank my editor Chisako Yokoyama for her deep
engagement on Bitter Honey and Thorn. In addition, thank you to my
long-term office manager and graphic artist Yee Ie. Alessandra
Pasquino was invaluable in helping organize Bitter Honey. Pietro Scalia
provided invaluable editorial advice. I thank Dag Yngvesson and Wing
Ko for their multiple contributions. Thanks also to Briana Young, Lichin
Rodger, Robin Wijaya, Kathy Huang, Emily Ng, Luis Lopez, Julia Zsolnay,
Ida Ayu Martiani, Riawaty Jap, Finn Yngvesson, Mike Mallen, Martha
Stroud, Masahiko Sunami, Michael Massey, Adia White, Handi Ilfat, Putu
Surmiasih, Carolyn Rouse, and my dearly departed Caitlin Mullin.
 For their aid in the productions, I also thank Degung Santikarma,
Leslie Dwyer, Agung Alit, Darwin Nugraha, Gus Indra, Anak Agung Gde
Putra, Luh Ketut Suryani, Dr. I Gusti Putu Panteri, Dr. Made Nyandra,
Livia Iskandar, Luh Putu Angrenni, Juliana Wijaya, Subandi, Rachmi
Diyah Larasati, Anak Agung Gede Putra, Agung Alit, Anak Agung Ngurah
Termana, Juliana Wijaya, Koes Yuliadi, Erna Dinata, Umar Hadi, and
Nyoman Asug. Great thanks to my dear friend and brave historian
Romo Baskara Wardaya.
Thanks also to my FPR colleagues Connie Cummings and Mamie
Wong, who helped with the edit of this book and for long-term
collaborations. Thanks especially to Irene Sukwandi for years of
friendship and service. Thanks also to the Board of the Foundation for
Psychocultural Research (the FPR): Beate Ritz, Marie Françoise
Chesselet, Douglas Hollan, Marvin Karno, Steve Ló pez, Carole Browner,
and Marjorie Kagawa-Singer. It’s been a wonderful 20 years!
To the composer Malcolm Cross, for his amazing scores, and to
music editor Richard Henderson; I thank both of you for years of
collaboration and friendship. Pak Nyoman Wenten, the phenomenal
Balinese gamelan teacher, thank you for all your help and assistance
over the years. Musical thanks also to Gestapu, Singgih Sanjaya,
Yohannes Subowo, Edward Herbst, Nyoman Cau, and Dengue Fever.
To my numerous colleagues and friends in the Department of
Anthropology at UCLA and beyond who have given me guidance and
feedback over the years on this emergent project, including Mary-Jo
DelVecchio Good, Byron Good, Cameron Hay-Rollins, Alex Hinton,
Devon Hinton, Alex Hinton, Janet Hoskins, Nancy Lutkehaus, Jenny Cool,
Laurence Kirmayer, Hildred Geertz, Abby Ruddick, Unni Wikan, Eileen
Anderson-Fye, Jill Korbin, Tom Weisner, Jason Throop, Aomar Boum,
Linda Garro, Carol Worthman, Jill Korbin, Mel Konner, Gilbert Herdt,
Rick Shweder, Deena Newman, Charles Stewart, Adrian Vickers, and
Emeran Mayer.
Thank you to Deborah Durham, our developmental editor for your
professional, friendly, insightful, and extraordinarily helpful assistance.
The following organizations for their assistance in getting the
research accomplished and guidance along the way: the American-
Indonesian Exchange Foundation, the Foundation for Psychocultural
Research, the Indonesian Consulate General, Los Angeles, the
Indonesian Department of Health, the JW Fulbright Foreign Scholarship
Board, Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, the National Institute of
Mental Health, Rumah Sakit Jiwa Bangli, Rumah Sakit Jiwa Magelang,
Rumah Sakit Umum Wangaya, the Society for Psychological
Anthropology, the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, the
UCLA Department of Anthropology, the UCLA Mind, Medicine, and
Culture Group, the UCLA International Studies Overseas Program,
Udayana University Department of Psychiatry, USC Center for Visual
Anthropology, and the World Health Organization.
To my friends in Los Angeles (and elsewhere), but especially to Sam
Nichols, Brian Maeda, Mark Shelton, David Yoshimaru, David and Laura
Hertz, Stewart Norman, Ed Stern, and Mike Massey for enduring
friendship.
My wonderful, talented and remarkable mother Dorothy Lemelson
passed away while this manuscript was under review, and this book is
dedicated to her memory. I also want to thank my brother Eric, nephew
Jeremiah and his mom Jennifer Bruml, Susan Morse, and the rest of my
large and supportive family.
To the memory of Myint Thein and Art Ellis. May their memory be a
blessing.
To my children Noah and Zoe, the treasures of my life. And to my
most loved new member of the family Bessy Liao.
To my wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, and always helpful and
supportive wife Seinenu Thein, without whom this book would not
have been written.
As always, to the memory of my father Jerome Hal Lemelson.
Annie Tucker would like to thank co-author Robert Lemelson for his
friendship, and for the opportunity to explore all these issues further—
after more than a decade working together, there are always new things
to think about and discuss! She would also like to thank colleagues
Chisako Yokoyama, Constance Cummings, Yee Ie, Mamie Wong, and
Briana Young for their invaluable assistance during the preparation of
this book. Finally, she would like to thank Tommy, Leona, and Joni for
their love and support.
Both authors would like to thank Janet Hoskins, whose insightful
comments helped clarify some key ideas, and Beth Farrow, Madison
Allums, Liam McLean, and the entire editorial team at Palgrave for
ushering the book to publication.
Abbreviations
AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
BH Bitter Honey
CAVR Timor-Leste’s Commission for Reception, Truth, and
Reconciliation
CIPDH International Center for the Promotion of Human Rights
DER Documentary Educational Resources
DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
G30S 30 September Movement
GBV Gender-Based Violence
HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome
ITN Independent Television News
LBH Apik Lemba Bantuan Hukum Asosiasi Perempuan Indonesia
untuk Keadilan (trans. Indonesian Women’s Association Legal Aid
Institute for Justice)—Balinese NGO working in the area of women’s
empowerment and protection
LGBTQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
OCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
PANDAS Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Associated with Streptococcal Infections
PCE Person-Centered Ethnography
PKI Partai Komunis Indonesia—Indonesian Communist Party
PNI Indonesian Nationalist Party
PTSD Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
STDs Sexually Transmitted Diseases
TGBVS Trauma, Gender-Based Violence, and Stigma
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
VPA Visual Psychological Anthropology
WHO World Health Organization
Contents
Part I Introduction
1 Filming Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigmatization
The Films Not Made
The Origins of a Visual Psychological Anthropology
Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigma Onscreen
Trauma
Gendered Violence
Stigma
Filming Human Suffering:​Questions Raised
What Visual Psychological Anthropology Can Contribute
Sensory, Aesthetic, Emotional Representation/​Experience
Longitudinal, Inductive, Person-Centered, Reflexive
Collaborative
Multimodal
Book Outline and Summary
References
Part II The Films
2 40 Years of Silence: Generational Effects of Political Violence and
Childhood Trauma in Indonesia
Baskara T. Wardaya, Robert Lemelson and Annie Tucker
Theorizing Trauma and PTSD
The Historical Context
The Film
Participants’ Histories
Budi and His Family
 Lanny
Degung
Kereta
Participants’ Experiences and Responses
Conclusion:​Diversity of Responses to Fear-Based Experiences
References
3 Bitter Honey: Culture, Polygamy, and Gendered Violence in Bali
An Ecological Perspective on Gendered Domestic Violence in
Bali
Context:​Polygamy and Marriage in Bali
Courtship, Marriage, and Patrilineal Descent
Economics, Marriage, and Polygamy
Marriage Law and Polygamy
The Film
Participant Histories
Tuaji’s Family
Sadra’s Family
Darma’s Family
Participant Experiences and Responses
Conclusion:​Social Change, Ambivalence, and Stigma
References
4 Standing on the Edge of a Thorn: Stigmatization, Social Violence,
and Sex Work in Central Java
Stigmatization
Local Ecological, Cultural, and Family Contexts
Regional Poverty and Limited Work Opportunities
 Gendered Norms for Sexual Behavior, Courtship, and
Marriage
Mental Illness
Vigilante Community Violence
The Film
Participant Histories
Imam Rohani
Tri
Lisa
Participant Experiences and Responses
Conclusion:​The “Violences of Everyday Life”
References
Part III Integrative Discussion
5 Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigmatization:​Tracing Themes
Throughout the Three Films
Trauma and Fear-Based Experience in Ethnographic Context
and Individual Subjectivity
Trauma in Indonesia
Trauma in the Films
Connecting Trauma and Gendered Violence
Gendered Violence in the Films
Stigmatization
Structural Violence
Family Loss, Separation, and Abandonment
Reactions to Loss
Widening the Frame:​Cultural Schemas and Psychocultural
Themes
 References
6 Additional Psychocultural Themes
Shame (Malu)
Gendered Malu; A Feminist Reading of Shame in Indonesia
Malu in Participant Experience
Anger (Marah)
Anger in Participant Experience
Resilience
Resilience in Participant Experience
Conclusion:​Film Participation and Participant Experience
References
Part IV A VPA Approach to Film as Process
7 Visual Psychological Anthropology in the Field
Adapted PCE Interviews as Primary Field Method
The Nature of “Truth” in VPA Interview Material
Indonesian Psychocultural Factors in PCE:​Minimizing
Conflict and Maintaining Harmony
Psychological Truth:​Memory, Self-Protection, and Paradox
Defense Mechanisms
Leaving, Returning, and the Benefits of Longitudinality
Emphasizing Shared Human Experience
Performative Disclosures
Considering the Interviewer
Narrative Templates
Curhat
Reflexive Considerations
 Anthropologist Subjectivity and Response
Relationship to the Camera and Staging the Interview
Depicting the Ethnographic Encounter
References
8 Crafting Stories Using a VPA Approach
Crafting Narratives
VPA Narratives:​Theorized but Inductive, Responsive, and
Emergent
Narrative Style and Structure
Editing for Emotion
Arguing for Emotion
Techniques for Emotion
The Artifice of Endings
References
9 Ethical Issues in Visual Psychological Anthropology
Consent
Danger to Safety and Well-Being
Representation
Screenings, Distribution, and Digital Media
Social and Psychocultural Dynamics of Consent
Amelioration of Harm
Psychological Protection and Amelioration of Harm for
Participants During Sensitive Interviews
Interventions
Screenings and Malu
Films as Advocacy, Participants as Advocates
References
10 Epilogue
References
Glossary
Index
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 The author and Kereta filming 40 Years of Silence

Fig.​2.​1 Mini, Budi, and Mudakir

Fig.​2.​2 Lanny

Fig.​2.​3 Degung Santikarma

Fig.​2.​4 Nyoman Kereta

Fig.​2.​5 Budi’s growing strength

Fig.​2.​6 Kris and his friends singing “Destiny of My Nation”

Fig.​2.​7 Degung reacts to Ketut’s veiled threat

Fig.​2.​8 Budi’s hope for himself

Fig.​3.​1 Tuaji as money lender

Fig. 3.2 Wayang kulit puppetry as narration device

Fig.​3.​3 Sang Putu Tuaji

Fig.​3.​4 Sister-wives Manis and Giriastiti

Fig.​3.​5 Murni and her children

Fig.​3.​6 Darma and his sons

Fig. 3.7 Kiawati discussing nyentana marriage and divorce

Fig.​3.​8 Kiawati and her children

Fig.​4.​1 Tri, Imam, and Lisa

Fig.​4.​2 Lisa’s hopes for her future

Fig.​7.​1 Suciati being interviewed

Fig.​7.​2 Suciati asks how “truthful” she should be

Fig.​7.​3 Interviewing Sadra and Purniasih’s son Artawan

Fig.​9.​1 Made Darma and his children

Fig. 9.2 Darma attending screening of Bitter Honey

Fig. 9.3 First author, Robert, and collaborator, Ninik, watch a rough cut
of Standing on the Edge of a Thorn with Imam and Tri

Fig.​9.​4 Ketut

Fig. 9.5 “Women only” screening of Bitter Honey, attended by mothers

and daughters, and facilitated by psychologist Livia Iskandar

Fig.​9.​6 Ninik, Rob, and Budi answering questions after screening at

Lanny’s school

Photo 5.​1 Budi’s despair

Photo 5.​2 Lisa’s sadness over loss of family

Part I
Introduction
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Lemelson, A. Tucker, Widening the Frame with Visual Psychological Anthropology,
Culture, Mind, and Society
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79883-3_1

1. Filming Trauma, Gendered Violence,

and Stigmatization
Robert Lemelson1 and Annie Tucker2
(1) Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
(2) Elemental Productions, Pacific Palisades, CA, USA

Robert Lemelson (Corresponding author)

Email: roblemelson@ucla.edu

Annie Tucker
Email: annie@elementalproductions.org

The Films Not Made

In 2000, I1 found myself sitting in an orphanage in Central Java, on a
plastic chair under a weakly humming fan, conducting an interview –
or, attempting to conduct one. I was in Indonesia to initiate research
into the relationship between childhood exposure to traumatic
experience and state-sponsored terror, and its relation to a range of
individual and psychosocial outcomes, part of my enduring interest in
issues central to contemporary psychological anthropology in
Indonesia. Along with my Indonesian colleagues, psychiatrist Dr. Mahar
Agusno and community mental health researcher Ninik Supartini, I had
begun to visit Javanese orphanages for children impacted by the recent
conflicts in what was then East Timor, now Timor Leste. East Timorese
had recently voted for independence after twenty-five years of
Indonesian occupation. Before withdrawing, Indonesian military and
paramilitary troops had killed thousands, displaced thousands more,
and destroyed much of the infrastructure there (CAVR, 2006; Dobbins
et al., 2013).
“Mariana” (not her real name)2 was in her early teens and had come
to the orphanage via a refugee camp after her village had been set on
fire and razed to the ground. Dr. Mahar had already conducted several
exploratory interviews with the orphanage director, staff members, and
several children. But now Mariana seemed too uncomfortable to speak
at all, let alone answer questions about her experiences. In our halting
interview, she alternately stared blankly, broke into panicked laughter
that verged on tears, covered her face, and answered questions in as
few words as possible. After a number of excruciating attempts Dr.
Mahar paused his line of questioning to address her evident discomfort.
The transcript reads:

MAHAR: What are you afraid of? How are you feeling, sitting here,
being interviewed by myself and Mr. Rob?
MARIANA: I feel fine.
MAHAR: Really? You’re not feeling worried or anxious?
MARIANA: No.
MAHAR: It’s alright, you can be honest. How are you feeling being
filmed? Are you uncomfortable?
MARIANA: (Covers her face with her hands, then looks up) Yes. I’m
afraid, being recorded like this, the video is going to be sent to East
Timor.
ROB & MAHAR (In unison): It will not be sent there.
MARIANA: (Pausing, looking around doubtfully) If they hear what I
say, I will be forced to go back there.
ROB: This information will not be sent to East Timor.
MAHAR (to Rob, in English): When I interviewed her previously, she
spoke freely for two hours.
ROB (to Mahar, in English): Well there’s a good reason why she
wouldn’t want to talk to us, if she’s afraid it will hurt her. We have to
either find a way to reassure her, or not conduct the interview. If she’s
not comfortable, then it’s probably not the right thing to do.3
 Dr. Mahar then asked Mariana whether she was afraid of me. She
nodded. He asked how she was feeling at the moment and she said her
heart was pounding. When given the opportunity to switch seats to
move farther away from me, she eagerly took it.
At first, I was confused as to why I seemed to frighten her so
terribly. Later, I learned from Indonesian activists that some children
had been subject to violence at the hands of mercenaries, some of
whom came from Australia and New Zealand, and were white.
Presumably, she associated me with these men. We subsequently
learned that the situation was even more complicated, and the traumas
more layered; many of the children at this orphanage essentially had
been abducted from East Timor in order to be “integrated” into wider
Indonesian society (Murdoch, 2012). Furthermore, Mariana said, the
orphanage head occasionally subjected her to violence, hitting her
when she did something “wrong.” Given her evident strong discomfort,
I tried to end the interview as gracefully as possible. I conducted no
further ethnographic research with Mariana, nor did I shoot any more
film on the topic.
Yet this abbreviated interaction still stands out in my memory as a
formative moment for the projects I did go on to make on related topics
because it provided such insight: first, into the layered contexts of
violence many Indonesians are living in, and second, into the
complicated endeavor of making films with such participants. As Biehl
and Locke (2017, pp. 28–29) remind us, when conducting ethnography,
“People and the worlds they navigate and the outlooks they articulate
are more confounding, incomplete, and multiplying than dominant
analytical schemes tend to account for.” My own ethnographic interest
was in the intersection of political trauma and personal experience, but
Mariana was dealing with a more complex history – and still unfolding
present – of political violence, social violence, poverty, stigmatization,
displacement, and personal loss, which together had informed her
experience of the interview. My intentions for including Mariana in a
visual ethnography were, to my mind, good; yet I realized in the
interview that I had some fundamental gaps in understanding how the
film shoot, and indeed my very presence, might affect her comfort and
response. I also saw how my misunderstanding could move into a
deeper understanding with further questioning, and how that new
understanding could determine how to move forward with work on the
same issues, and with a new awareness of the multi-layered nature of
trauma – even though, in this case, I determined that the work should
not move forward at all.
Soon after this interview, we moved on to another child, in a
different Yogyakarta orphanage, who was being treated by Dr. Mahar: a
12-year-old boy, Budi Santosa. Budi was in a deep depression, suffering
from panic attacks, possible psychotic decompensation, and suicidal
ideation. In our interview, Budi was emotionally expressive, quite open
about his personal anguish, and exhibited a nascent understanding of
his suffering as rooted in the mass killing and political violence that
swept across Indonesia in 1965. His experience, and the questions it
raised about history, violence, and personal suffering, jumpstarted 40
Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy (Lemelson, 2009; 40 Years), the
first film discussed in this book. The production and post-production
on this film occurred from the years 2000–2009, when it was released.
After working on 40 Years, activist colleagues in Indonesia pressed
me to follow up on its themes of state-sponsored violence and look at
the civil disorder and violence in 1998 and 1999, at the end of Suharto’s
New Order regime. During this period, in the context of the Asian
economic crisis and Suharto’s downfall, there was widespread violence
and rapes of Indonesian women of Chinese descent in major Javanese
cities. (These rapes were almost certainly instigated by agent
provocateurs of Suharto’s regime and thus were directly connected to
the violence of 1965, the topic of 40 Years.) Jakarta’s Chinatown,
Glodok, saw some of the worst of that violence.
One of the main social service programs addressing the needs of
survivors, Pulih (which means “recovered” in the psychological sense in
Indonesian), arranged tours for me of their Jakarta program and
reached out to women who had been raped and assaulted during this
period. None of the women they contacted were willing to sit for an
interview, let alone be in a film and have their identities publicly
revealed. I learned that the fear, shame, and stigma associated with
being a survivor of these mass rapes was overwhelming for these
women, particularly in a context where anti-Chinese racism and
sentiment were still active and the potential consequences of giving
even basic testimony about this violence were severe. My colleagues
and I realized that the project was unfeasible.
This second film I didn’t make also pushed me into a deeper
understanding of the process of filming personal experiences of
violence, trauma, and stigmatization. I learned that perhaps, if I had
been able to spend several years living in Jakarta, getting to know these
women and the communities they came from, earning their trust and
developing an understanding about how to depict and narrate
their stories in a sensitive way, it might have worked. Given the
exigencies of my life, I was unable to do this. But it became clear to me
that the issue of gendered violence in Indonesia was important and
could be the focus of a socially impactful ethnographic film. I realized
that I could explore gendered violence in more local contexts or
intimate relationships, over a period of time, rather than the gendered
violence implicated in the episodic and historically situated case of the
mass rapes of Chinese women in Indonesian cities. Here, we would see
the multiple dimensions of social pressures, cultural assumptions,
economic conditions, and political and historical contexts, as they were
woven into personal psychological experience over time. We could
develop the kind of trust and understanding that allowed person-
centered ethnography on film. We could be attentive to the multiple
ethical considerations that such visual ethnography must entail. And
this was the origin of Bitter Honey (Lemelson, 2015), the second of the
films discussed in this book.
During this same period, we had been continuing our work on
neuropsychiatric disorders and culture in Java. One of the subjects was
a man, Imam Rohani, in his fifties, who lived with his young wife Tri,
and daughter, Lisa, in a rural area of central Java. Imam had a range of
neuropsychiatric symptoms that fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this
project. But it was only after repeated interviews and fieldwork,
conducted from 1999 to 2008, that a much wider range of issues
emerged in this family. These issues diverged widely from the rather
narrow focus on Imam’s neuropsychiatric symptoms and involved Tri’s
out of wedlock pregnancy, family involvement in sex work, structural
and sexual violence, and related village exclusion and stigma. These
issues and their effects on this family became the origin of Standing on
the Edge of a Thorn (Lemelson, 2012; Thorn), the third film discussed in
this book.

The Origins of a Visual Psychological Anthropology

Each of these films had its own distinct topical and thematic focus at
the time of filming, although this book goes on to note their
commonalities in many dimensions. 40 Years investigates historic
political violence through the testimonies of four survivors and their
families, of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, on the islands of
Java and Bali. The film examines the enduring impact the violent mass
killings of 1965–1966, when Suharto took over the country, have had
on victims and on subsequent generations. Bitter Honey presents
multiple intimate perspectives on gendered violence through the
unfolding lives of three contemporary polygamous Balinese families. In
it, we hear from three husbands, 12 wives, their children, and other
community members, in revelations that unfold over time as trust and
intimacy develop with the filmmakers. Finally (in order of discussion),
Thorn parses how multiple vulnerabilities, including mental illness,
poverty, marital uncertainty, and sexual transgression, lead to
stigmatization for members of one rural Javanese family, witnessed by
their teenage daughter who finds herself in danger of being trafficked.
Separately, each film’s major theme is explored through specific,
situated, subjectivity-focused and intersectional accounts of
individuals. Together, the three films paint a broader picture, or present
a wider frame, of Indonesian experience. Our book traces the move
from the situated films to the broader shared historical and cultural
landscapes.
In Indonesia in 1965 and afterward, a complex interaction of
cultural, political, and historical forces has led to ongoing
manifestations of fear, violence, trauma, and stigmatization operating
on local and national levels (Suharnomo & Syahruramdhan, 2018). The
films explore these complex phenomena, as well as wellsprings of
resilience, on Java and Bali, two islands that have some common
cultural elements, while being quite distinct (Forshee 2006; Hannigan
2015). Both islands share a 60-odd years history of political terror
(Vltchek, 2012), culturally structured gender inequality (Clark, 2010),
and local or village-level forms of scapegoating, violence, and social
sanction – all of which, as we found, can overlap. By investigating the
similarities and differences across the experiences of participants from
the two Indonesian islands, the films provide insight into the ways in
which the phenomenology of, response to, and long-term impact of
trauma, gendered violence, and stigmatization is shaped by culture
(Good & Hinton, 2016; Kirmayer et al., 2007). The personal stories of
participants comprise nodes of attention to the relationships between
social violence, historical events, and individual experience. The films
portray varied possible outcomes for vulnerable individuals responding
to the shifting politics, social norms, and cultural beliefs of a nation
marked by historical violence.
Furthermore, by putting the three films in conversation with one
another, we discovered that each separate organizing theme for the
films is actually relevant to and operant in all three. Many of the
participants’ stories presented in this volume include incidents of an
initial fear exposure and their deep and structuring impact on aspects
of individual subjectivity, whether or not manifested through the
familiar symptomatology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Some film participants have been victims of political violence or have
experienced a traumatic event. Others have had their lives more subtly
shaped by fear-based experiences embedded in forms of structural
violence and oppression as embodied and enacted through social and
cultural practice, whether their fears are triggered by the extreme and
acute state terror of 1965 and subsequent histories of political stigma
and discrimination, the everyday fear of living in a family which
threatens to disintegrate or erupt, or the threat or experience of sexual
attack.
The films also paint a polyphonic portrait of gendered violence in
contemporary Indonesia in unexpected ways – unexpected because 40
Years and Thorn were not initially focused on gendered violence, yet as
the filming and editing progressed this issue emerged as a significant
influence on the participants. Indeed, structural and direct violence
against women have recently come to the forefront of popular
discourse in a moment of reckoning that marks it as an urgent and
defining global issue. As recent gripping news events and the popular
globalized #MeToo movements have shown, the dynamic of gendered
violence is pervasive, a formative issue even in spaces and relationships
where it might not be immediately apparent.
The experience of stigmatization is also interwoven throughout the
narratives in each film, as a precursor or vulnerability to discrete or
ongoing incidences of violence, a motivating factor for difficult and
painful decisions, and a process in its own right that shapes participant
self-image and constrains their behavior.
These experiences all have to be considered in the context of other
situated concerns in participants’ lives, which at times and in different
ways override a more singular focus on trauma, gendered violence, or
stigmatization; as conceptual tools, these frames are each too narrow to
contain the complexities of the participants’ lives and the multiple,
situated contexts that surround them. The challenge of the project, and
the tension of the book, is found in connecting these various domains,
elaborating on the layers within them, and ordering them in a way that
most accurately reflects our participants’ reality; all this while also
contributing to the ongoing discussion in psychological anthropology
regarding the thematic topics the films explore.
These three films are further connected through a shared
methodology, what we have termed visual psychological anthropology
(VPA). VPA adapts a form of person-centered ethnography that focuses
on the subjective experience of film participants, and crafts narratives
around that material as it emerges over the course of filming. This
methodology cohered over the two-decades plus work of filmmaking,
research, and writing that spans these films. We articulated the concept
and discussed the development of VPA in our first book (Lemelson &
Tucker, 2017). To briefly review here, VPA incorporates the topical,
theoretical, and methodological concerns of psychological
anthropology into visual practice. In other words, VPA uses visual
techniques to address disciplinary interests in experiences such as
mental illness and altered states; identity, difference, and notions of the
self; life-cycle development; sexuality; consciousness and other
domains central to contemporary psychological anthropology. This
research seeks a phenomenological understanding of the subjective and
intersubjective structuring of reality and experience, focusing on the
emotional meaning in an individual participant’s narratives and
embodied experience.
 To capture the emergent nature of “life as lived” for individual
subjectivities, VPA employs longitudinal research whenever possible,
with the anthropologist returning to the field at regular intervals over
the course of many years and maintaining ongoing relationships with
film participants via local research collaborators. As with all
longitudinal research, durational observation of changing life
circumstances for participants witnesses the long-term consequences
of events for them – their agency, suffering, and resilience. Key for
psychological anthropology, longitudinal, psychologically oriented
interviewing also allows the anthropologist to, with time and trust,
eventually get past responses that are socially expected or culturally
contained, into more pithy, textured content.
This book builds upon our first book on VPA. As we argued there,
visual approaches have generally been lacking in psychological
anthropology but are useful complementary methods that add much to
person-centered exploration. VPA is able to present material on
sensitive and emotionally resonant topics in ways that go beyond the
written and the analytical format of much psychological anthropology
(Lemelson & Tucker, 2017). In this book, we focus on three films, and
by exploring the methodology and making of them, and the theoretical
implications we derive concerning the subjects’ experiences, we show
that VPA can “widen the frame” for psychological anthropology
research in multiple, significant ways.
First, the incorporation of visual methodology allows for a more
visceral representation of lived experience that accounts for – and more
directly engages – embodied subjectivity, allowing the viewer to “be
there” (Worthman, 2020) with participants, who are “rendered more
knowable” (Das, 2015) by an intersubjective and intercorporeal
engagement with their onscreen presence. Second, this methodology
helps extend beyond the etic frameworks of inquiry brought by the
anthropologist/filmmaker to the subject, by celebrating the overflow of
meaning that comes from the participants themselves. This is especially
pronounced as VPA’s longitudinal, iterative praxis leads to new
theoretical connections on the part of filmmaker and participants, and
captures processes of participant “becoming” as they unfold (Biehl &
Locke, 2017). Third, by embracing a reflexive ethos, it presents what is
typically outside the literal and metaphorical frame of ethnographic
film, drawing attention to the interaction between filmmaker and
participant during the fieldwork endeavor and road to discovery – and
the broader complexity of human experience and its dynamic
interaction with social, political, economic, and historical forces.
The holistic framework of this methodology, accounting for the
dynamic and intimate context of participant and researcher
relationship to the broad context of history and culture, can be put to
use to explore any number of concerns in the field of psychological
anthropology. In this book, we apply it to address – and even hopefully
redress – some of the major areas of concern in representing
experiences of trauma, violence, stigmatization on film, representations
that inevitably raise an array of ethical questions.
A fundamental premise, which developed directly out of the
filmmaking method and the iterative and responsive process of
anthropological analysis it requires, is that the concepts we start with
to explore the life-worlds of others – “trauma” (40 Years), “gendered
violence” (Bitter Honey), “stigmatization” (Thorn) – are too
reductionistic. Using VPA, we found that what is “at stake” for
participants always overflows any initial theorized frame. Before
returning to what VPA adds to both psychological anthropology and
ethnographic filmmaking, and how it features in the three films that are
the subject of this book, we briefly review some visual accounts of
trauma, gendered violence, and stigmatized groups in ethnographic
film (Fig. 1.1).
Fig. 1.1 The author and Kereta filming 40 Years of Silence

Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigma Onscreen

Many anthropologists have depicted the lives of those contending with
economic and political vulnerability and have produced
groundbreaking and “heartbreaking” written ethnographies of people
contending with trauma, gendered violence, and stigmatization (Behar,
1996; Biehl, 2013; Goldstein, 2003; Pinto, 2014; Scheper-Hughes,
1993). What role does a visual approach, and film in particular, have to
play in the anthropological study of these subjects (Başci, 2017;
McLaughlin, 2010; Morag, 2013)? What problems does filming such
things raise for a psychological anthropologist? Here, we review
relevant ethnographic visual representations of trauma, gendered
violence, and stigmatization (Garcia, 2017). Then, based on
methodological, aesthetic, and ethical concerns, we suggest how our
approach of VPA might expand and contribute to this visual archive in
distinctive, wider frames, to address the multiple contexts and
meanings through which these experiences are shaped.
Trauma
Since trauma is a contingent concept and/or an internal state (Murphy,
2015), it is difficult to say that ethnographic films can capture “trauma”
(Friedman-Peleg, 2017). They can capture fear-inducing experiences
and the embodied expression of fear, long known in ethology (Darwin,
1872; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989; Ekman & Friesen, 2003), and their
sequelae, or aftermath for individuals or communities. Classic
ethnographic films have depicted frightening experiences in ritual
contexts involving initiation ceremonies, interpersonal conflicts, and
intertribal warfare. These include, respectively, Guardians of the Flutes
(Reddish, 1994; based on Gilbert Herdt’s [1994] book of the same
name), The Ax Fight (Asch, 1975), and Dead Birds (Gardner, 1963).
Striking recent examples of visceral and direct documentation of
frightening events unfolding in real time include Survivors (Pratt et al.,
2018), about Sierra Leoneans contending with the Ebola outbreak, and
A Dangerous Son (Garbus, 2018), which portrays the interventions and
treatments available to families of children with significant psychiatric
problems and aggressive outbursts. While not ethnographic per se,4
some documentary films have portrayed entrenched drug violence
(Borrmann & Luhnau, 2013) and the harrowing symptoms of PTSD
from military combat (Dennis, 2011). Others address the personal
impacts of witnessing or participating in terrifying events during the
Holocaust (Lanzmann, 1985). Still others address the “remainders of
violence,” if not clinical symptoms of trauma, after random acts of
violence (Blubaugh, 2007; Malmberg, 2010).

Gendered Violence
Many ethnographic and documentary films addressing gendered
violence seek at once to portray the experience of being a victim or
survivor and also to point to the structural factors behind such
violence. For example, Driving with Selvi (Paloschi 2015) follows South
India’s first female taxi driver as she works and tells her story of
escaping an abusive arranged marriage, simultaneously presenting a
fierce critique of women’s roles in India and a portrait of one woman’s
strength. Frederick Wiseman’s Domestic Violence (2001), set primarily
at a Tampa shelter, similarly presents both the shocking pain and
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 73. The Singing Bird. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Fine Waiting Boy.

Alfred Williams, Maroon Town.

A gentleman have him servant, and one day he said to de servant, “Collin, go an’ look about de horse
harness my buggy.” An’ Collin go an’ harness him master horse an’ put in de buggy. Well, him master
drive on an’ him drive on till him get to a well; an’ de master said, “I want some water.” An’ Collin said,
“Massa, der’s a well is down before.” An’ he an’ Collin come out de buggy against de well-side, an’
meanwhile de massa sit against de well-side, Collin pitch him master in de well. An’ Collin tu’n back an’
go on half way wid de buggy, an’ when he get home de missus ask him, “Where is de master?” an’
Collin said, “He goin’ pay a visit an’ comin’ to-morrow; de buggy goin’ meet him.” Collin go de day wid
de buggy. When he went back, de missus said, “Where is de master?” He said, “Go to pay a visit, won’t
be back till to-morrow.” When Collin gone, de nex’ servant in de yard say, [84]“Missus, hear what little
bird singing?” Missus come to de doorway an’ listen, an’ hear de little bird whistling, 1

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 84

Fine wait-in’ boy, fine wait-in’ boy, Throw his mas-ter in-to a well,
Col-lin, Col-lin, no ben see da lit-tle bird up-on tree so long?

When de missus hear de little bird singing so, couldn’t understand, called a sensible person
understand de bird. An’ go search de well, fin’ de master body, an’ go tak Collin hang him.

[Contents]

b. The Golden Cage.

William Harris, Maggotty.

A king had a daughter. He had two servants who did not like the daughter. One day the two servants
were going to the well for water and the daughter said she wanted to go with them. And they catch the
little girl and cast her in the well. Three days after, the little girl went home to her father an’ the father
catch the two servants and throw them in the well. And he get his child and thus end the story.

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 84

Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. I brought a news to tell you. Cheep, cheep, cheep,
cheep. I brought a news to tell you. Miss Chee Chee take you,
one dear love an’ cast her in-to a well. Be qui-et, be qui-et, I will
make a gold-en cage an’ put you in-to it. No, no, no, no.
Same me will do it to dear love too, you will do with me the same.

[85]

1 Sung by Mrs. Williams. ↑

[Contents]
 74. Two Sisters. [Note]

Margaret Morris, Maroon Town, Cock-pit country.

Two sister dey to house. One sister fe servant to a Busha 1 in one pen 2, an’ tell de Busha marry odder
sister. De sister name Miss Grace my fair lady, de older sister Lady Wheel. An’ Miss Wheel servant to
him sister. Busha gone to him work, never come back till midnight. Busha come, never hear not’ing stir.
Till one day him gone out, Miss Wheel call Miss Grace to let dem go pick peas. So dem went away an’
tek a basket pick de peas, an’ have a baby in de hand, Miss Grace my fair lady baby. An’ when dem
pickin’ de peas aroun’ sea-ball, Miss Wheel mek Miss Grace tek off dress an’ Miss Wheel shove Miss
Grace my fair lady in de hole. She pick up de peas an’ come home, tek water wash her breast, tek de
baby fe her own self; when night come, suckle de baby. So when de Busha come home midnight, she
give him de dinner, eat an’ drink dat time, no notice him wife at all. T’ree day after dat he keep on
coming but never notice. Till a day when he come, he ax fo’ de servant. Say, “No, my dear, I sen’ her
out to de common, soon come.” De husban’ fall in sleep an’ never hear if de servant come in. Till one
day when de husban’ coming back, one of de neighbor call to him, “Busha, you don’ hear what harm
done in your house?” He say no. Dem tell him he mustn’t even drink cold water into de house de night
an’ him hear what alarm done. So de Busha go, an’ what de lady gi’ him he never tek, never drink cold
water even. Him force him an’ he never touch it. An’ de Busha lay down midnight an’ seem to doze
asleep, but he no ’sleep.

Have a little dog an’ call de dog “Doggie.” Dog see when dead woman come. She call to de dog,

“Han’ me my baby, my little doggie.”

“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”

Gi’ him de baby.

“Gi’ me some water, my little doggie.”

“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”
“Han’ me my bowl, my little doggie.”
“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”
“Gi’ me some water, my little doggie.”
“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”
“Gi’ me my comb, my little doggie.”
“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”

[86]

“Gi’ me my baby, my little doggie.”

“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”

De gentleman hear ev’ry word. De lady say, “Oh, not’ing, my dear!” Don’ want de Busha fe hear
not’ing. An’ de las’ night come, de neighbor put him up to put a pail of milk an’ a pail of hot water at de
doorway an’ to cover it wid a sheet. De dead woman come an’ call out de same:

“Gi’ me my clo’es, my little doggie.”

“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”
“Take my baby, my little doggie.”
“O yes, Miss Grace, my fair lady.”

Tek de baby an’ put it to bed. An’ step in de hot water, pitch into de milk cover wid de white sheet. Take
him out of de cover an’ wrap her up, an’ she look up eyes fix up. De gentleman say, “What do you, me
dear?” An’ say, “My sister shove me down in de ball. Him call to me fe go an’ pick peas an’ shove me in
deh.” When de gentleman fin’ out wife dead, take Miss Wheel, build a lime-kiln an’ ship into a barrel an’
pitch down de hill-side roll it in de fire.

Jack man dory!

Dat’s de end of de story.

1 An overseer on an estate. ↑
2 An estate devoted to cattle-raising. ↑

[Contents]
 75. Asoonah. [Note]

Philipp Brown, Mandeville.

Asoonah is a big skin t’ing. When it come in you’ yard it will sink de whole place. One day, de lady have
t’ree chil’ren an’ leave dem out an’ him go to work. An’ den dis Asoonah comin’ in eb’ry day, an’ de
chil’ren know what time it comin’ an’ deh ’tart a singing—

“Hol’ up fe me ’coolmaster tail,

Limbo, Limbo, Limbo,
Hol’ up fe me ’coolmaster tail,
Limbo, Limbo, Limbo.”

An’ come again, he ax de small one, “Whar yo’ mudder?” An’ say, “Gone a washin’-day.” An’ ax, “Whar
de pretty little one?” Tell him, “Inside de room.” Ax, “Whar de house whar’s de guinea corn?” an’ holla
out, “Whar’s de mortar?” Tell him, “Inside de kitchen.” So one day now when de mudder come, de
chil’ren say, “Eb’ry day a big t’ing come in yeah an’ kyan’t tell what is what.” De mudder said to de
husban’, “Well, you better ’top an’ see a wha’ come yeah a daytime.” Got de gun an’ go off in de [87]loft
in de kitchen-top an’ sit. When him see Asoonah come, he was so big he get frightened an’ dodge
behin’ de door soon as Asoonah mount de hill.… As he reach de gully, he fire de gun and Asoonah fall
down in gully an’ break him neck.

An’ de king hear about dis Asoonah, but he couldn’t tell what it is. De king say anybody can come in
dere and tell what is dis, he give t’ree hundred pound. De little boy hear about it an’ he was so tear-up
about it. An’ de ol’ lady keeping a jooty at de king gate said, “What way Asoonah ’kin a go bring in yeah
t’-day?” When de king ax eb’rybody an’ couldn’t tell what is it, he went an’ call up de little boy. De boy
went to tek it up an’ de king ax him if he know what is it. An’ him hol’ it up like dis an’ say, “Eh! no
Asoonah ’kin?” Eb’rybody got frightened and come right out, an’ de king offer de boy t’ree hundred
pound and give a plenty ob clo’es an’ got de boy work again.

[Contents]
 76. The Greedy Child. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Crossing the River.

George Barrett, Maroon Town, Cock-pit country.

De chil’ren was gwine to school an’ ev’ry day de ol’ man tek de chil’ren dem ober de ribber. De ol’ man
ax dem fe some of ’em breakfas’. All de chil’ren gi’ him some but one don’ gi him some. Till he ’point a
day come, de ol’ man say he wan’ somet’ing from him, an’ he wouldn’t gi’ it. When he coming back, de
ribber come down. Tek ober de rest of de chil’ren an’ wouldn’t tek ober dat. Little boy sing,

“Mudder Galamo,
I gwine dead t’-day!”

De ol’ man says, “Stop singin’.” Eb’ry time sing, de water come up a little higher. Jus’ to heah, dat time
his mudder comin’. Ol’ man say, “I mus’ hev two pounds.” She say all right, an tek him ober. An’ dat
time, eb’ry day he offer de ol’ man breakfas’.

[Contents]

b. The Plantain.

Philipp Brown, Mandeville.

Eb’ry night de Debbil go out. An’ as him go out, come in an’ say, “Wife, I scent fresh blood!” De wife
said to him, “No, me husband, no fresh blood in heah!” Was de wife’s sisters come an’ look fe him. So
eb’ry night when de debbil coming in, de wife know when him coming in an’ put up de sister into a
barrel. [88]

Daylight a mo’ning, de Debbil gone back ober de ribber gone sit down. So gi’ de sister a plantain an’
tell her when she reach de hill, him will see her husband sit down right ober de hill, an’ de Debbil will
say, “Go s’y (go your way), madame?” An’ mus’ say, “No one go s’y, no two go s’y, no t’ree go s’y, but,
’im go s’y fe him mamma,” an’ de Debbil let him pass. Got a little small sister. Dis sister greedy. An’ de
Debbil come in de night say, “Me wife, eb’ry night I come, I smell fresh blood!” An’ de wife said, “No,
me husband!” An’ when de daylight, de Debbil go away ober to de hill an’ de sister send away de little
girl an’ gi’ him a plantain. An’ when de little girl go on de hill, him see de Debbil. De Debbil say, “Go
s’y?” De little girl say (him so greedy now), “No, go s’y fe mamma, no one go s’y, no two go s’y, no t’ree
go s’y, no go s’y fe mamma.” De Debbil ketch him ober de hill an carry him right ober to de ribber an’
kill him. An’ from dat day, de Debbil hair off him head at de sea-side; an’ from dat de sea got moss.
[Contents]
 77. Alimoty and Aliminty. [Note]

Julia Gentle, Santa Cruz Mountains.

One day a lady have two daughter, but her sister have one. Sister daughter name Alimoty. An’
everybody love Alimoty, but nobody love him daughter. An’ him go to de Lion an’ say to de Lion he
mus’ kill Alimoty for him. Den de Lion say him mus’ put on red frock on Alimoty an’ blue frock on to him
daughter when him going to bed. An’ after him going to bed, de girl say, “Cousin Alimoty, yo’ red frock
don’ fit you; let us swap!” An’ deh swap. An’ de Lion kill de lady daughter, lef’ one. Den de lady tell de
Lion mus’ kill Alimoty whom everybody love an’ don’ love him daughter. Den he said, “To-night you
mus’ sew on de red frock on Alimoty an’ de blue frock on to you daughter, an’ I come an’ kill him to-
night.” And when deh go to bed, deh swap again, an’ de Lion kill de lady daughter,—have none now!
Den de Lion said, “Tomorrow sen’ Alimoty to me yard; I will kill him.” Den Alimoty was going t’ru de yard
an’ de dead mudder give him a bottle of milk, drop it an’ run off. Alimoty sing,—

“Poor me, Alimoty,

Poor Alimoty,
A me Dickie sahnie o-o,
See me go long a wid two.”

An’ Aliminty was a hunter and hear de singin’ an’ say, “Dat is Alimoty v’ice!” An’ he came to de Lion
yard an’ kill de Lion. [89]

[Contents]
 78. The Fish Lover. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Timbo Limbo.

Thomas White, Maroon Town.

A man had one daughter an’ de daughter was name’ Lydia. An’ him wife die an’ him married to
anudder woman. An’ she have some chil’ren fe de man, an’ she like fe him chil’ren more ’n de
daughter-in-law. Mostly it’s de daughter-in-law she impose upon to do de work. An’ she sen’ Lydia fe
water, give him a big jug fe go to de ribber; an’ de jug is mor’n Lydia weight, dat she alone can’t help up
de jug, an’ de mudder-in-law won’t sen’ none fe him pickney fe go an’ help up Lydia. When Lydia get to
de ribber-side, Lydia was crying dat de jug is too hebby an’ him kyan’t get no one to help him up. An’ a
Jack-fish was in de ribber hear de lament, an’ went up an’ said to de young woman if him wi’ be a wife
fe him he wi’ help him up when him come to de ribber-side. An’ Lydia consent to de Jack-fish to be a
wife to him, an’ Lydia fill him jar wid water an’ de Jack-fish help him up an’ ’he went to de yard.

De mudder-in-law ask him who ’he had a ribber-side to help him up wid de jar, an’ Lydia says dat ’he
has no one. De mudder-in-law says, “Yes, you mus’ have some one!” She says, “No, mudder-in-law, I
had no one to help me but me alone; it’s me alone helping up myself.” An’ one mo’ning Lydia tek up de
jug an’ went to de ribber-side. An’ what de mudder-in-law did, him sen’ one of him chil’ren to follow
Lydia an’ to watch him at de ribber-side to see who help him up wid de jar. An’ when Lydia go, him had
to sing to call de Jack-fish; when de Jack-fish hear de voice of Lydia, him will come up to help her. De
fish name is Timbo Limbo an’ de song is dis,

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 88

Timbo, Limbo, Timbo, Limbo, Timbo, Limbo,

Same gal, Lydia, Timbo, Limbo, Timbo Limbo,
Timbo Limbo, Timbo Limbo. Same gal, Lydia. Timbo Limbo.

A slight variation which sometimes appeared in the third measure, but without regularity was: [90]
An’ de little child do see de Jack-fish dat were helping up Lydia,
an’ went back home an’ tell him mamma, “Mamma, me sister
Lydia do have a man-fish at de ribber-side fe help him up.” At
night when de man come from work, him wife said to him dat
Lydia have a big Jack-fish fo help him up at ribber-side. So de
man tell him wife, “When daylight a mo’ning, you mus’ get Lydia
ready an’ sen’ him on to Montego Bay an’ buy black pepper an’
[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]
skelion.” In de mo’ning, mudder-in-law call de girl fe sen’ him on to
de Bay. Lydia start crying, for Lydia mistrus’ dat is somet’ing dey
gwine do in de day. When him gone, de fader load him gun an’ Timbo Limbo.
him call de little girl fe dem go to de ribber-side. De little girl gwine
sing, sing t’ree time, change him voice,—

“Timbo Limbo,
Same gal Lydia,
Timbo Limbo o-o-o!”

An’ de water go roun’ so, an’ de Jack-fish come out. An’ de fader shoot him eh-h-h-h, an’ de Jack-fish
tu’n right over; an’ de fader tek off him clo’es an’ jump in de water an’ swim an’ tek out de Jack-fish an’
carry to de yard.

An’ as him begun to scale de fish, one of de scale fly all de way some two miles an’ go an’ meet Lydia
an’ drop at Lydia breast. An’ when Lydia tek off de scale of de fish an’ notice de fish-scale, him fin’ it
was Timbo limbo scale. An’ she start crying an’ run on to de yard, an’ didn’t mek no delay, only tek up
him jar an’ went to de ribber an’ him ’tart him song,—

“Timbo Limbo,
Same gal Lydia,
Timbo Limbo o!”

De Jack-fish didn’t come up. An’ ’tart a-singin’ again,

“Timbo Limbo,
Same gal Lydia,
Timbo Limbo o-o!”

De water stay steady. An’ tek up de song again,

“Timbo Limbo,
Same gal Lydia,
Timbo Limbo o-o-o!”

An’ de water tu’n blood. An’ when him fin’ dat Timbo Limbo wasn’t in de water, Lydia tek up himself an’
drown himself right in de water.

Jack man dory, choose none! [91]

[Contents]
 b. Fish fish fish.

Florence Thomlinson, Lacovia.

It was mother and two daughters. One of the daughters go to river-side worship a little fish. She
commence to sing and the fish will come up to her,

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

Fish, fish, fish, fish, pengeleng, Come on the river, come pengeleng.

So the little fish come to her and she play play play, let go the fish and the fish go back in the river.

An’ when she go back home, her mother quarrel, say she wait back so long. Next day, wouldn’t send
her back to river, send the other daughter. So when the other daughter went, she sung the same song
she hear her sister sing,—

“Fish fish fish fish, pengeleng,

Come on the river, pengeleng.”

She catch the fish, bring it home, they cook the fish for dinner and save some for the other daughter.
When she came, she didn’t eat it for she knew it was the said fish. She begin to sing,

“Fish fish fish fish, pengeleng!”

The other sister said, “T’ank God, me no eat de fish!” The mother said, “T’ank God, me no eat de fish!”
She go on singing until all the fish come up and turn a big fish, and she take it put it back in the river.

[Contents]

c. Dear Old Juna.

Richard Pottinger, Claremont, St. Ann.

A man and a woman had but one daughter was their pet. The girl was engaged to a fish, to another
young man too. She generally at ten o’clock cook breakfas’ for the both. That man at home eat, then
she took a waiter wid the fish breakfas’ to the river. When she go to the river, she had to sing a song
that the fish might come out,—

“Dear old Juna, dear old Juna,

Oona a da vina sa,
Oona oona oona oona,
You’ mudder run you fader forsake you,
You don’ know you deh!”

Fish coming now, sing

“Kai, kai, Juna, me know you!”

The fish come out to have his breakfas’. [92]

Go on for several days, every day she sing the same; the fish give her the same reply. The young man
thought of it now. One morning, he went a little earlier wid his gun, sing the same tune. The fish come
out, sing the same tune as it generally do. The young man shot it, carry the fish home, dressed it,
everybody eat now, gal an’ ev’rybody. At the end of the eating, she found out it was the said fish. She
dropped dead at the instant.

[Contents]
 79. Juggin Straw Blue. [Note]

David Roach, Lacovia.

There was a woman have a daughter and a neice, and the neice was courting by one Juggin Straw
Blue. She love the daughter more than she love the neice and always want the neice to do more work
than what the daughter do. Well, the lady send the neice to a river one day with a big tub to bring water
in it. The girl went to the river and get the tub fill and she couldn’t help it up. An Old Witch man was by
the river-side, and he help her up and tol’ her not to tell nobody who help her up with the water. But
when she went home, the aunt pumped her to know who help her up and she told her. Therefore the
aunt know that the Old Witch man will come for her in the night, and she lock her up into an iron chest.
Part of the night, the Old Witch man comes in search of the girl. So the girl was crying into the iron
chest and the tears went through the keyhole and he wiped it and licked it and says, “After the fat is so
sweet, what says the flesh!” And he burst the door open and take her out.

And the Old Witch man travel with the girl and he have a knock knee and the sound of his knee was
like a music,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

Na koo-ma no year-ie de knee bang cri’ bang cri’ bang.

And the Old Witch man says to her, “Your head and your lights is for my dog, and your liver is for my
supper!” So the girl started a song,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

Why, why, why, my Jug-gin Straw Blue, No Mam-my don’ know, No

Dad-dy don’ know, This rot-ten stuff, this stink-in’ stuff, then
[93] car-ry me down to gul-ly True Blue, you’ll see me no more.

So as this girl was courting by Juggin Straw Blue, his mother was an Old Witch too. And the courtyer’s
mother waked him up and gave him eight eggs; for the Old Witch man has seven heads and seven
eggs, and each egg is for one of the Old Witch head. Well, the boy went after the Old Witch man and
overtake him and mash one of the egg, and day light. And he cut off one of the head. An’ the Old Witch
man mash one of his egg and night came back. An’ the boy mash the next one of his, and day light
again; an’ the Old Witch man mash one of his egg and night come back again. And so they went on
that way until the boy mash seven egg and cut off the Old Witch seven heads and take away his girl.
And he went home with his girl and marry.

[Contents]
 80. The Witch and the Grain of Peas. [Note]

Thomas White, Maroon Town.

It was a man were married to a woman first and he had one child wid de first woman he were married
to. An’ de first woman dat he married to dead an’ he go married to anodder one; an’ de girl has to call
her “mudder-in-law.” An’ de mudder-in-law doesn’t like de daughter-in-law. An’ one day de mudder-in-
law go to him field gone work. In de morning she wash some peas an’ put on de peas on fire an’ went
away to ground. An’ de daughter-in-law doesn’t live at dis house, live in house by herself. An’ de
daughter-in-law come deh, ketch de daughter, louse and comb him hair. At de same time de mudder-
in-law is Old Witch, know dat de daughter-in-law come to house. So as she was gwine away de
eb’ning, de daughter said, “Look yeah, sister, mamma put on some peas on de fire; why don’ you tek
one grain of de peas?” An’ she open de pot an’ tek out one grain of de peas. An’ when de Old Witch
woman know dat de daughter-in-law tek out one grain of de peas, shet put up de hoe an’ went from
ground an’ come back to house an’ tek down de pot an’ tu’n out all de peas in bowl, an’ she couple
eb’ry grain of de peas until she fin’ one don’ have a match. And said to child, “Look yeah! you’ sister
come to-day?”—“No, never come to-day!”—“Yes, don’ control me, for I see at de grain dat you’ sister
come an’ tek out one grain from de pot.” An’ gwine to swear him at de river to drown her because she
tek de peas. An’ she say, “If you don’ eat my peas [94]to-day you won’ drownded, but if you eat my peas
you will drownded.” So de girl took up de song,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 80

Oh, me dear-est ma-ma, me mu-ma, oh, Poor me one, oh, Peace,

rit.

oh, a ring down. Ah, me dear-est ma-ma,

ring down peace, oh, a ring down, Ah, ye ring down.

And at de said time, de young girl had a sweetheart outside name of William. An’ William mamma
heard de song ’pon de ribber-side and send away to carpenter-shop an’ tell William heard his girl
singing quite mournful on ribber-side. An’ him go up on lime-tree an’ pick four lime an’ gwine a fowl-
nest an’ tek four fowl-egg an’ gwine a turkey-nest an’ tek four turkey-egg an’ tek four marble, an’ call de
girl an’ put her before him. An’ William an’ de girl mudder-in-law come to a battle at de ribber-side an’
William kill de woman. An’ he put de girl before him an’ carry her home an’ marry her.

[Contents]
 81. Bosen Corner. [Note]

Martha Roe, Maroon Town, Cock-pit country.

A woman have two daughter; one was her own chil’ an’ one was her daughter-in-law. So she didn’t use
her daughter-in-law good. So de place whe’ dem go fe water a bad place, Ol’ Witch country. De place
name Bosen Corner. One day she sen’ de daughter-in-law fe water. So when she go long, she see so-
so 1 head in de road; she put her hand on belly mek kind howdy. Go on again, see two foot go one in
anudder so (crossed) in de road. An’ say, “Howdy, papa.” So-so foot say, “Gal, whe’ you gwine?” She
said, “Mamma sen’ me a Bosen Corner fe water.” He say, “Go on, gal; good befo’ an’ bad behin’.” She
go on till she ketch to a little hut, see one ol’ lady sit down deh. She say, “Howdy, nana.” De ol’ lady
say, “Whe’ you gwine?” Say, “Ma sen’ me a Bosen Corner fe water, ma’am.” De ol’ lady say, “Come in
here; late night goin’ tek you.” De Ol’ Witch go pick up one piece of bone out dungle-heap an’ choppy
up putty in pot, an’ [95]four grain of rice. Boil de pot full of meat an’ rice an’ get de gal dinner. De gal eat,
an’ eat done call her say, “Me gal, come here ’cratch me back.” When she run her han’ ’cratch her back
so, back pick all de gal han’ so it bleed. Ol’ Witch ask her, “What de matter you’ han’?” Say, “Not’ing,
ma’am.” Even when it cut up all bleed, never say not’ing. When she go sit down, ol’ lady go out of door
come in one ol’ cat. De ol’ cat come in de gal lap, an’ she hug it up an’ coax de cat an’ was so kin’ to
de cat. An’ de gal sleep an’ get up to go away in de mo’ning. De ol’ lady tell her say mus’ go roun’ de
house see some fowl-egg. She tell de gal say, de egg whe’ she hear say “Tek me! tek me!” dem are big
egg; she musn’t tek dem; small egg say, “No tek me!” she mus’ tek four. First cross-road ketch, she
mus’ mash one. Firs’ cross-road she mash one de egg, an’ see into a big pretty common. Second
cross-road she mash udder one; de common pack up wid cow an’ goat an’ sheep an’ ev’ryt’ing dat a
gentleman possess in property. De t’ird cross-road she mash anudder one; she saw a pretty young
gentleman come out into a buggy. De fourt’ cross-road she mash de las’ egg an’ fin’ de gentleman is a
prince an’ he marry her.

De daughter-in-law come, her an’ her husban’, drive into de yard see mudder-in-law. She expec’ de Ol’
Witch kill de gal didn’t know she was living. So she sen’ fe her own daughter, sen’ a Bosen Corner fe
water, say de udder one go get fe her riches, so she mus’ get riches too. De gal tek a gourd an’ going
now fe water too. Go long an’ see so-so head an’ say, “Ay-e-e! from me bo’n I nebber see so-so head
yet!” So-so head say, “Go long, gal! better day befo’.” An’ go long an’ meet upon so-so foot, an’ say,
“Eh! me mamma sen’ me fe water I buck up agains’ all kind of bugaboo, meet all kin’ of insect!” An’
say, “Go long, gal! better day befo’.” An’ go de ol’ lady house now. De ol’ lady go tek de ol’ bone go
putty on de fire again, an’ say, “Nana, you gwine tell me so-so bone bile t’-day fe me dinner?” An’ when
she see de four grain of rice she say, “Nebber see fo’ grain of rice go in a pot yet!” Till it boil de pot full
de same wid rice an’ meat. De ol’ lady share fe her dinner give her, an’ she go tu’n a puss an’ come
back in. When de puss beg fe little rice, de gal pick her up fling her out de door. Ol’ lady call her fe
come, ’cratch him back too, an’ put him han’ to ’cratch him back, draw it back say, “Nebber see such a
t’ing to ’cratch de back an’ cut han’!” Nex’ mo’ning, de ol’ lady tell her mus’ look in back of de house tek
egg. De big egg say, “Tek me! tek me!” mus’n’t tek dem; de little [96]egg say, “No tek me! no tek me!”
mus’ tek four. She don’ tek de small one, tek four of de big egg. De firs’ cross-road she break one an’
see a whole heap of snake. At de secon’ cross-road she break anudder an’ see a whole lot of insect.
At de las’ cross-road she massoo one, an’ see a big Ol’ Witch man tear her up kill her ’tiff dead in de
road.

1 “Only.” ↑
[Contents]
 82. The Three Dogs. [Note]

[Contents]

a. Boy and Witch Woman.

Thomas White, Maroon Town.

Olden time it was a young man an’ him brudder. Dem two of ’em was bred up on a property penning
cow. Eb’ry morning dat dey wan’ to pen, carry dem breakfas’ an’ carry dem fire. An’ one morning dat
dem going, ’em carry food but dey didn’ carry no fire. An’ dem pen cow until twelve o’clock in de day
an’ de smaller one feel hungry. He say, “Brar, me hungry! how we gwine to get fire?” An’ dey look ’pon
a hill-side,—jus’ as out deh, an’ see a smoke an’ de smaller one go look fe fire. An’ he go right up de
hill an’ see a big open house; lady in open kitchen. An’ she was Old Witch. An’ he frighten an’ come
back. So now de bigger brudder go, name of William. An’ as he go up, stop behin’ one big dry ’tump,
stan’ up deh an’ look what de Ol’ Witch do. An’ dis Ol’ Witch got on a pot on fire, an’ tek off de pot an’
him dish out all vessels right t’ru, de boy don’ see no pickney in kitchen, only de Ol’ Witch. An’ Ol’
Witch knock on side, pon pon pon, an’ all pickney come out, twenty big man and small children, women
and boy pickney. An’ dey all sit down deh an’ eat. When dey done, who fe smoke de pipe dem smoke.
An’ Ol’ Witch get up an’ knock, pon pon, an’ all de chil’ren go up in him back.

An’ den de boy call to him now, say, “Mawnin’, Nana!” She frightened and ask if he been deh long time
an’ he say, “No, jus’ come up to beg fe fire.” An’ she says, “Tek fire, but don’ tek me fire-stick;” an’ de
boy tu’n back an’ break a piece o’ rotten wood an’ hol’ it ’gainst de steam of de fire an’ ketch de rotten
wood. An’ Ol’ Witch say to him, “Boy, you jus’ a good as me!” Boy said, “No, Nana, I’m not so good!”
An’ de boy go down in cow-pen an’ when in de height of penning up de cow, tell de smaller brudder not
to mek up fire, pen de cow an’ go home quick quick. An’ dis bigger brudder was a witch himself an’
know all about what come after him, an’ when he go home, go inside de house, fawn sick. [97]

An’ in a quick time de Ol’ Witch was upon dem. An’ she go in de yard, say, anyone as would knock de
packey off ’im head she would tek for a husband. De smaller brudder fling an’ couldn’t knock off de
packey. De Ol’ Witch woman call to William mamma if she don’ have a bigger son. “Yes, but he have
fever in bed, kyan’t come out.” An’ de Ol’ Witch never cease till William have to come out. As he come
out, he pick up a little trash an’ knock off de packey. Ol’ Witch say, “Yes, you is my husban’!”

An’ him sleep at William house de night; nex’ mo’ning dem gwine to go ’way. In de night, when William
an’ de wife gone to bed, part of de night when William was in dead sleep, de Ol’ Witch tek one razor to
cut William t’roat. An’ William have t’ree dog, one name Blum-blum, one name Sinde, one name Dido.
An’ when de Ol’ Witch tek de razor, Blum-blum grumble an’ de razor mout’ tu’n over. William wake. He
drop asleep again, Ol’ Witch raise up,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

 ♩ = 72

Sharpen me razor, Sharpen me razor, shar come schwee, sho am schwee!

Sinde grumble an’ razor mout’ tu’n over. An’ drop asleep again, an’ when de Ol’ Witch raise up again,
Dido grumble an’ de razor mout’ tu’n over.

Daylight a mo’ning, get up William mamma, boil coffee, give dem chocolate. William an’ wife gwine
away now, an’ he tell him mudder chain dem t’ree dog dey got, Blum-blum, Sinde, Dido; an’ him get a
big white basin an’ he set de basin jus’ at de hall middle, an’ him tell de mudder dat as soon as see de
basin boil up in blood, him mus’ let go de t’ree dogs. An’ he tell good-by, gwine now in witch country.
Travel an’ travel till dem come to clean common. An’ he fling a marble so far, de place wha’ de marble
stop is one apple-tree grow, had one apple quite in de branch top. An’ ’he said, “My dear William, I ask
you kindly if you will climb dis tree an’ pick dis apple fo’ me.” When William go up in de apple-tree, Ol’
Witch says to William, “Hah! I tell you I got you t’-day! for de place wha’ you see me knock out pickney
out o’ me skin, you wi’ have to tell me t’-day.” William says, “Yes, I know about dat long time, for it will
be ‘iron cut iron’ to-day!” For oftentimes him an’ fader go to wood an’ him saw fader fall a green tree an’
leave a dry one. As Ol’ Witch got William on apple-tree, Ol’ Witch knock out ten axe an’ ten axe-men,
gwine fall de tree. Den William start song,— [98]

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

♩ = 168

Blum-blum, Sinde, Dido di-i-i-i-i-i. Blum-blum, Sinde, Dido.

Den de Ol’ Witch sing,—

[MP3 ↗️ | MusicXML ↗️]

Chin, fallah, fallah, Chin, fallah, fallah, Chin, fallah, fallah, Chin.

When de tree goin’ to fall, William said, “Bear me up, me good tree! Many time me fader fell green tree,
leave dry one.” De witch knock out twenty axe-men, t’irty axe-men.

“Blum-blum, Sinde, Dido,

Um um eh o,
Blum-blum, Sinde, Dido!”

Den de Ol’ Witch sing,

“Chin fallah fallah, chin fallah fallah.”