Hi Joanne,

It would have been more fun to respond to your original post to me, but sometimes discipline and censorship can be a good thing.

You wrote:

> > > This board is meant to be about
> evidence.
> >
> > And we are getting quite a lot of it,
> first-hand,
> > eye-witness accounts no less.
>
> The first-hand accounts can obviously only be
> given by Stephanie or her husband.

Obviously ... but they have been rich accounts, certainly worth hearing.

The rest of
> what we are getting here is known in legal circles
> as "hearsay," and that is what I challenge. We
> don't know who these "many people" or how many
> times constitutes "generally."

I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion of "hearsay" with you, because I recall a lengthy discussion we had some time ago of "evidence," and I can't go there just now. But given the general tenor of your responses on this thread, it seems you are confusing the prosecutorial conduct of a court of law with the information-gathering practices of anthropological fieldwork. I have not read Kluckhohn's book, but it appears he was willing to take the testimony of hitchhikers. I doubt he did a background check first or cross-examined his witnesses.

> Certainly not bad
> > to ask questions, but why shut off the stream
> with
> > anxious challenges that put the respondent
> on
> > edge? Not the best anthropological approach!
>
>
> What is "anxious" about posing questions on the
> discrepancies in the posts that have been made on
> this subject? Contradictory evidence,
> inconsistent statements can and should be
> challenged. That is the best anthropological
> approach.

I do realize this is a message board and therefore provides limited time for asking questions. All the more reason not to make the respondent feel defensive. I think my own hesitant speculations were probably premature.

I recently read an article at Simon's board that mentions the anthropologist Marta Hardman, who studied the Aymara of Peru for 50 years. Although the Aymara are a patient people, I doubt Hardman would have been welcomed back if in the first week she had begun talking about "contradictory evidence" and "inconsistent statements" on the part of her informants. It's an interesting article. Knowing your linguistic interests, I think you might enjoy it. Here's a link:

[forum.internalspace.co.uk]

Jane