Untamed Amazonia

Abstract

I first received The new science of the enchanted universe as a digital archive, without texture or smell. When I was halfway through it, I received a freshly published hard copy. I started again, from the beginning. As I read it, I was transported to past encounters, both with Marshall the person and with Sahlins the author. A feeling of his presence took hold of me, and I dove headfirst into a silent conversation with his unique style, his ironies, biting reproaches, erudition, but also his critical love for anthropology—critical not only because of his polemical verve, but as his fundamental passion. Of all anthropologists I have met, Marshall was the most in love with anthropology—hence his bid to refound the discipline, over and over again. In my daily walks, I sought to find a suitably decent way of writing these comments with the metaperson of Marshall Sahlins as my interlocutor. I kept trying to imagine how he would take my comments. Would he act like a benevolent or a mean-spirited ancestor? As a ghost or a guardian spirit? As an author (Sahlins) or an old acquaintance (Marshall)? Unable to solve the dilemma, I decided to start my comments on the book with two anecdotes which I think Marshall would find amusing.