mannoni, prospero & caliban (intro., ch1)

7/27/2019 Mannoni, Prospero & Caliban (Intro., Ch1)

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0 . MANNON !

Prosperoand Caliban

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLONIZATIO N

Translated byPAMELA POWESLAND

With a New Foreword byMAURICE BLOCH

Ann Arbor PaperbacksTHE UN IVERSITY O F MI CH IG AN PR ESS


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First edition as an Ann Arbor Paperback 1990New Foreword copyright by the University of Michigan 1990All rights reservedPublished in the United States ofAmerica by

The Universityof Michigan PressManufuctured in the United States of America1993 X992 1991 I990 4 3 2 I

First published in 1950 by Editions du Seuil, Paris,under the title Psychologie de la Colonisation

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Mannoni, Octave.[Psychologiede la colonisation. English]Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, 1990. - 1 s t ed. as

an Ann Arbor pbk.p. cm. - (Ann Arbor paperbacks)

Translation of : Psychologie de la colonisation.Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.ISBN 0-472-09430-0 (cloth). - ISBN 0-472-06430-4 (paper)1. Ethnology-Madagascar. 2. Ethnopsychology-Madagascar.3 France-Colonies-Africa. 4. Colonies-Psychological aspects.

5. Dependency (Psychology) I. Title. Il. Series.DT469. M276M3613 1990155.8'9691-< lao 90-11270

ClP

NEW FOREWORDbyMaurice Bloch

Prospero and Caliban is the translation of a book originally written in1948 in Madagascar, dur ing and immediately after a revolt that led toone of the bloodiest episodes of colonial repression on the African continent. The book is an attempt to account fur this anticolonial revolt andfur the brutal subsequent 'behavior of the French army, which resulted innearly lOo,ooo deaths.1 Mannoni's attitude toward these events is ambiguous. It is clear that the book is written by someone who is opposedto colonial exploitation and racism and who furesees and wishes fur theend of the colonial situation, but it is also dear that it is w ritten by aFrenchman who became the head of the information services of thecolony.

The original purpose of the book is often furgotten, especially inEnglish-speaking countries. This is not surprising, fur it seems that whileMannoni was writing the book, he became caught up in an irresistiblecurrent of thought that carried him further and further from his originalrather specific aims, and eventually plunged him headlong into a vasttheoretical enterprise. ~ ~ - find M ~ l l l l ? n i a t t e ~ ~ a i nand to account fur the mentality of coloruzanon aoo-racism in genera.t;-- ;rather than c o n f i n i . r r ~ s e l f to-Madagascar in the twentieth c e n t u i Y . ~On an even more ambitious scale, Mannoni attempts to sketch an evolu-'-.tionary theory intended to be applicable ro the who le of man.kind as well Sas a universal theory of individual psychological development.

It is one feature of these general theories that has made the bookfamous, since it is chiefly remembered fur the notion of the "dependencycomplex" which Mannoni constructs in it and which was subsequentlyextensively discussed in psychological and psychoanalytical writing. Thefame of the book in these disciplines is also linked to Mannoni's closeassociation with and subsequent influence on the famous French psychoanalyst Lacan.

The obvious enthusiasm, intellectual daring, and encyclop edic learn-


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INTRODUCTION

Tsihy be lambanana Try" ambanilanirraMen form one great mat

Mcrina P r o v c r ~

THE colonial problem is one of the most urgent of those con-. fronting the world to-day-and France in particular. Hut though it is .my intention to tr y to throw some light on its psycho-logical aspect, that is not because I hope or even wish to contributeeither directly. or indirectly to the search for a practical solution.On the contrary, I shall take pains to show how limited are theconclusions which may legitimately be drawn from a psychologicalstudy, and I shall explain why that is so.

My principal object, then, is rather different: it is to point out thehuman significance of colonial situations, because up to now it hasnot been sufficiently realized to what extent a study of them canenrich our general knowledge ofmankind.Such situations can, of course, be studied from very many differentpoints of view-the economic, the political, ethical, historical, andso on. There are, in fact, as many possible approaches as there aredisciplines among the moral sciences. Each is of interest in itself,and it would be wrong to suppose that I am attributing greaterimportance to the psychological than to other kinds of explanation.I f there is any merit in a psychological study it is because whereaswe are accustomed to seeing a colonial situation as a case of the richdominating the poor, the weak being under the guardianship of thestrong, of the systematic exploitation of a difference in standards ofliving and so forth, we are not in the habit ofseeing it also as a case ofthe meeting of two entirely different types of personality and theirreactions to each other, in consequence of which the native becomes'colonized' and the European becomes a colonial. These reactionsare no doubt familiar enough in themselves, but they have never beenproperly analysed.

17

old-style, genteelhumanism that Csairerightly mocks--with a verystrong dose of Catholicism

the so-called"contact" ofcivilizations talk wealso inherited thatCesaire also rightlymocked


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18 PROSPERO AN D CALIBANIt should not, therefore, be very difficult to distinguish between

my purpose and that of ethnographers and sociologists who seek topenetrate what used to be called-the expre.5sion is now ou t ofdate-the 'primitive mentality'. What they tr y to do is to act simply asobservers arid no t to overshadow, as it were, the .field of observationafter the manner of the natural sciences. But that, they soon find:is impossible, for many of the traits of behaviour they study can beunderstood only if they are seen as the reactions of the observed in thepresence of the observer. Once that is recognized, we are on. theway not only towards better methods of study but also towards aclearer perception of the essential unity ofmankind. The relationshipbetween the investigator and the subject of his investigation is likethat between a doctor and his patient-it is a special kind of socialrelationship, in which mutual influence and an exchange of views arepossible. No observation which fails to take account of this relationship can be considered valid. But that is not all: there is anotherand much more obscure factor to be reckoned with, and that is thefac t that the observer's description of the native's behaviour isnecessarily an interpretation, and that this interpretation is also areactilm, that of the observer to the native before him-though thenature of he reaction is no t immediately apparent. The reader willdiscover later on how and why it is that the presence of a man whomour unconscious takes to be a 'savage' can cause confused and disquieting feelings to be roused in us. He may even be able to guess thereasons from my analysis of dependent behaviour in Chapter I,which shows that it is in fact the observer's unconscious reactionwhich has prevented his understanding what he has chosen to callthe primitives' lack of gratitude, although in reality there is nothingvery difficult to understand in it.In short, then, what I want the reader to realize is that a colonialsituation is created, so to speak, the very instant a white man, evenifhe is alone, appears the midst of a tribe, even if t is independent,so long as he is thought to be rich or powerful or merely immune tothe local forces ofmagic, and so long as he derives from his position,even though only in his most secret self, a feeling of his own superiority. The man-in-the-street will say instinctively and withoutexperience that if the white man who goes among the negroes avoidsbeing eaten, he will become King. However consciously watchfulwe are, we can never entirely eradicate this assumption of superiorityfrom our unconscious, and it must be included among the data of he

INTROD UCTION 19blem if we are to avoid all risk of error. I f he reader has been

~ i ~ l i n g to go thus far with me, he w:ill be prepared to adroittheoretical importance I would attach to a study of the colonial

s i ~ a t i o n in its broader, human aspects.The rest of this introduction will be devoted t0 clearing ou t of they certain very common and widely-held ideas which, though no t

::great interest in themselves; might_ otherwise prevent the readerunderstanding questions I shall be taking up later on. .First, a word about human thought, and some reasons why JtSintelligibility has been doubted. . . .Baffled by the mixture of success and failure they have met Wlth mtheir efforts to understand the natives' behaviour, Europeans ha:Veesorted in their bewilderment, to one of two extreme and opposite

: t t i t u d ~ and these attitudes still prevail. Some simply give up theattempt 'to interpret and declare that thought is i n c o m r o u ~ i ~ a ? l e .They draw a ha rd-and-fast demarcation line between C 1 V l l i z ~and the non-civilized, and on the basis of some vague nonon of raoalinequality they conclude that the non-civilized are non-civilizable.The others, on the other band, assume that all men are equally endowed with reason and refuse to see differences which a less abstractpsychology wou ld immediately have brought light. This attitud_is undoubtedly more liberal at the outset, but Jt leads to an equal, tfnot greater misunderstanding in the end, fo r when at length thesepeople come up against the real differences, they see them. as offencesagainst reason and feel an indig nant urge to correct ~ e m m the nameof common sense. Though this urge may remain moderate andhumane enough in its expression,. it is fundamentally a product ofblindness and fanaticism. To use the language of psychology, thefirst group project upon the colonial peoples the obscurities of theirown unconscious-obscurities they would rather no t penetrate-and their interpretation of the natives' behaviour is repressed becauseit is associated with the dangers and temptations represented by the'instincts'. This can in fact be proved -without even leaving Europe;it is only necessary to remember how often the negro figures in thedreams of Europeans who have quite probably never even seen. anegro. The attitude of the other group c?mes to much the s ~ m e mthe end, for they try to subject all humaruty to the rule their ownsuper-ego. Th us these two attitudes, which at first s1gbt seemeddiametrically opposed to each other, finally coalesce in the single


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20 PRO S PERO AN D CALIBANbelief that the mentality of the native is incomprehensible, that thereis therefore no point in wasting any time on i.t, and that since our wayof thinking is the only right one we should impose it on the rest ofthe world in the interests of reason and morality.

I shall he referring later on to certain early sociological theoriesaccording to which there were mentalities not capable of assimilationone to the other-not that there is any point now in discussing theirvalidity, for their very originators came in the end to modify themto the point of abandoning them altogether, but they are the productof the colonial situations which the observers entered into; they arean example of the reactions I have been speaking of. The observer isrepelled by the thoughts he encounters in his own mind, and it seemsto him that they are the though ts of the people he is observing. Inany such act of projection the subject's purpose is to recover his owninnocence by accusing someone else of what he considers to be a faultin himself. Thus, in order to preserve our peace of mind, we arecompelled to bdieve that people whose though ts- as it seems to u s are the same as our own innermost thoughts, are inferior beings andhave nothing in common with ourselves at all. These processes, itshould be noted, were at work, not among the sociologists whopropounded the theories, for they were simply using the records oftravellers, but among the travellers themselves; they had not beentrained for the task of observation and so brought to it theirprojections all ready-made. This I shall illustrate with exampleslater on.

The theorists, in point of fact, began at length to see that they weremistaken. In a lecture on the primitive mentality which he deliveredin Oxford in 1931, Levy-Bruhl said that in the mind of every humanbeing, no matter what degree of intellectual development he hadattained, there subsisted an irreducible core of primitive mentali ty.I would only say in passing that although sociology failed to do so,psychoanalysis has suq;eeded in reaching this core. Furthermore,in his lecture Levy-Bruhl refers to it as if it were a sort of nonfunctional survival in civilized people--a blemish almost, a savageslumbering in every civilized person, dangerous if roused. We, ofcourse, are in a better position to appreciate its real nature. We alsoknow that 'intellectual development' actually plays little part in thematter. Nevertheless, Levy-Bruhl's comment goes a good dealfurther than the text of the observations of the travellers whoserecords he made use of at first.

INTRODUCTION 21.Another belief which in the past made study of colonial

1 So difficult and hindered our understanding them was that ofPe0p es f di th Here again there is no question o our scussmg epruntttvism. ' ' . . d dscientific value of the concept, for 1t has already been dtscar e. Itseffi et -was to make people look fo r data of an elementary and ~ 1 m a r y~ d - needless to say, they ran no risk of finding any. The belief hasnow' been abandoned and the word 'primitive' can be used onlyb een inverted commas as if to show that we no longer reallyetw ' d f th "fib 1ve in it. But it is not enough to banish a wor rom e saenn cere th m d language because 'experience has shown' that e mg oes not _exist;the real problem, surely, is to d i s c ~ v e r ho:' scholars.could m thefirst place have believed in something which dtd not eXtSt. _orderto be sure of the answer, we must find out how the concept ongmat:dand what were the deep-seated reasons which led men to form it .These reasons will become clearer to the reader after he has readP II in which I discuss Crusoe and Prospero. The savage, asart ' .th . . f thI have said, is identified in the unconscious W1 a certai:1 o _e cts-of the id in analytical terminology. And avihzed man ismsttn ' ' ' th ' ' f thainfully divided between the desire to correct : ei:rors o e;avages and the desire to identify himself with them m hts searchsome lost paradise (a desire which at once a s t ~ doubt upon the mentof the very civilization he is trying to transllllt to t h ~ m ) b e c a ~ s e ofhis unconscious and ambivalent attitude towards his memones ofhis own early childhood.1 Li terary critics h ~ v e wondered whyBaudelaire's 'green paradise of childhood loves was further a w a ~than India and China. The answer is that Yvonne Pen-Moor, h.tschildhood sweetheart, was a creole from R e u n ~ o n Island (:Your"nkly hair your dark mulatto's arms' he says m a sonnet m the

~ e m e s div:rs dedicated to her). But Baudelaire felt, as w_ethat savage countries and savage peoples were the nearest i m i t a t ~ o nhe could find in the real world of that of his childhood-of a r a d 1 s e .We may go even further and say, with but slight exaggeranon, thatthere would be no ethnographers, explorers, or colonials 'among thesavages' if it were not for this vocation. I shall ~ o ~ f i n e myself t? abrief reference to it at this stage, but shall explain its psychologicalimplications later on.2 It accounts for our daydreams about the

1 And this is also why the ethnographer is very often tempted to rum towards thepast in all bis studies, in spite of the barrenness of such an approach, and to neglecteverything 'rec1f '. d b uch more striking example taken from the naturals c i ~ ~ ~ t ~ ~ = ~ ~ e f!i1!-w'!1d hordes of gorillas-ata discreet distance, of course


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22 PROSPERO AND CALIBAN:pure', the 'primitive', and the 'primordial' . But the word 'primitive'is u.sed by. psychoanalysts to mean archaic, infantile, or instinctual.This, again, 1s a rather unfortunate use and one which gives rise tmisunderstandings, for we are inclined to superimpose the meanin;formerly a t t a c h e ~ .co the word in ethnography upon the meaningnow attached to it m psychology. The reader will realize that this a temptation which I believe should be resisted at all costs. Forif there are peoples ofwhom the ethnographers can say that they seemhardly to have been touched by the main currents of civilization a deven if, on the other hand, psychology can describe the le:t

l o p : d p s y c ~ c a l p h e n o m e ~ a , as they occur in infantile thinking,m e ~ o t t o n a l disturbance, or m psychological regression, there isnothing whatever to justify our equating the one condition with theother, in spite of our natural tendency to do so. This tendency may

t e a ~ us a good deal about ourselves but can tell us precious littleabout the 'primitives'!I shall, however, use the word 'primitive'-always between inverted commas-because the alternatives, such as 'isolated' 'unevolved', 'archaic', 'stationary', and 'backward' are in fact no betterthe idea of primitivism is still there, though veiled and hidden andconcealment simply increases the chances of error. In an; case

lt should be clear by now that the subject of this book is not 'primitive' thought -whatever meaning is attached to the word 'primitive'- bu t the phenomena which occur in a colonial situation and theway in which colonials as well as natives react to that situationThis is virtually an unexplored field of research. .

It need hardly be said that in practice a colonial situation bearslittle relation to what is known abstractly as contact between twocivilizations; it is an obvious over-simplification to think of two-in order s t u ~ y ~ h e m in their natural surroundings. They have brought back an~ c c . o u ; i ~ whicl: COUlCldes ren:arkably the idea psychoanalysis has formed of thep ~ n v e famil(. idea Wes a ~ " . e d at soldy from an exploration of the un-consaous the. CtVlhzed man. The comc1dence between what the naturalists obse rved~ o u g ~ their brnoculars and what the psychoanalysts have discovered in the unconscious 1s therefore ~ p e c t . It e n d s to suggest the observation is infiuenced by theobserver's ~ c o n S C t o u s and his complexes of infantile origin. (Otherwise shouldhave to admit that psychoanalysis is the best '


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PROSPERO AN D CALIBANforeman. The leaders are the refined specimens of the two cultures,bu t the value of their encounter is lost in the ceremonial nicetieswhich appeal to what might be called the political imagination hu t donot help to bring about an adjustment at the level of he little everyday affairs where the real work of mutual adaptation must take place.Th e native's opinion of European cultur.e usually rests on what hehas learned of it from some mediocre European colonial, and thatcan easily be something very different from what we imagine.European civilization and its best representatives are not, for instance,responsible for colonial racialism; that is the work of petty officials,small traders, and colonials wh o have toiled much withou t greatsuccess. An d it is well known that in South Africa the white labourersare quite as racialist as the empl oyers and managers and very often agood deal more so. Again, we must remember that it is no t a questionofmagic being in conflict with science, bu t of a superstitious peasantsizing up the scientific pretensions of an often ill-educated andno t particularly clever colonial, and drawing his own conclusions.Even when we educate native intellectuals and assimilate them completelyso that they become our equals-a feat which is no t impossibleand has indeed often been accomplished-we find in the end that weare no further on in the work of interpretation and understandingwhich we believe sh ould bring the two 'mentalities' closer together.We shall see why not later on. Fo r the moment all I will say is thatif such an intellectual becomes wholly assimilated to our culture, heis lost to his own people and can no longer ge t on with them,while i f his assimilation is no t quite complete, he will suffer painfulpsychological conflicts and will become subject to feelings ofhostilitywhich, paradoxically but understandably enough, will be ventedupon the Europeans.Th e undeniable fact that the psychological attitude of the nativehas long been in our favour has blinded us to its character as a re action. To-day that character is only too apparent and cannot heover!ooked.

Th e psychological phenomena which occur when two peoples atdifferent stages of civilization meet and mingle can probably best beexplained and understood if we see them as the reactions to each otherof two differently-constructed types of personality. Indeed, to talkof the interaction of groups or of the interaction of personalitieswhich may be considered typical ofeach group is to discuss the same

INTRODUCTION.th two different vocabularies from two different points.ofProblem WI aii . 'mply the sum total of beliefs, habits,. f, the person ty is Sl h' hview, or . . anized and linked one to another, w ic go toarid propens1.ues? ?lgal a member of his group. The true thinking

make up the md!Vl aiu as h logy should study is the individual,. horn so o psyc o . Isubject w in his Traiti de Sociologie (p. 398). But e .seGaston Bouthoul says k 75) he rejects the idea of a distincaonwhere in the same ( ; ~ J the individual: 'Certain sociologistsb e t w e ~ the e r s o n ~ s Z c t i o n between individuality and personality.have tried to r:aw a th th dilI'erence resides in the fact that thekheim believes at e m d. Dur . . 'd al l. d But this is a false istmct10n,i the mdivi u sooa 1se .persona ty JS . o man wh o is no t a social bemg.for the simple r e ~ s o n . that ?idereg1; unreal and misleading abstracTo think otherwise is to m utions.' h is not conclusive. Clearly we doThis simple r g u m e ~ t ~ ; v . : ~ : ~ ' in the pure state as the 'savage ofnot expect to find a rhe mha1VI been but the abstraction is still valid. i may per aps ve ' hAveyron . f h . . hecited in the chromosomes, t eThe individual consists o w at JS m lif. As an individual he. k "th which a ma n enters upon e. .genenc stoc WI h. eh he belongs and within that speoes,represents the s r _ e ~ ~ w t g Th e e r s o n ~ l i t y , too, is inheritedthe line from wh1c as ~ p r u ~ a social one and is preserved only. up to a point, bu t m h e r 1 t a ~ c latively stable. The personalityi f the human environment is th .al group and theth .es and line bu t e socirepresents, no t e speo . ~ e n t and not as genetic source.family-the latter as human environ always combined in a singleTh e fact that these two . e l e ~ e n t s are d ng them as one and the. . ay 1us tifies our regar Jhuman bemg m no w hild . mdividual bu t has not yetth . A w born c is ansame mg. ne - . h h . tears his play are attributes. d onality His unger, is ' d .a c q ~ t r ~ ~ ~ e r s Ii .d f the biological species. Later, his en unngof his md1v1dua ty an . c his father his love ofh . ther his respect ror 'attachment to is mo ' ill form the basis ofhis nascentJustice and his fear of abandonment wtht . d.Vl.dual becomes a. . d g at an m 1personality. There is nob enymmb of society and this is the moreali h learns to e a me er 'person ty as e . . . r th . l ideal. But even in a veryapparent the less mdiv1dua !St e soaa dscovered and caught a boy aged

1 Early in the i n e t e e ~ ~ c ~ ? 1 I Y s o m e j ~ ~ e ~ in1the forest of Aveyron. Heabout fifteen, who was hvmg in a sta% o Abbot de l'Epee. Since then 'wolf h i ! ~brought up, rather unsuccessfully, f,;'di e Anthropologists have occasionally speculathave been found in the same way m , a. Iman' thus taking up the question oras to what light such thr j Jn a P ~ m e t i c h u s the King of Phrygia (Hero orusless at the point at which it was t yII ).


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PROSPERO AN D CALIBANadvanced society, where the ideal personality was highly individualist, it would still be possible to point out a fundamental difference

b e ~ e e n that type of individualist personality-whose individualisttraits originate in the social background-and the individual pureand simple, whose psychological (and physiological) characteristicsderive solely from the biological species. Individualism might evenbe considered as a further development of the personality. Toclarify the point we might recall Comte's classification ofpsychologyinto the biological and the social. But Comte's idea was too simple;between the individual organism and the social being there is precisely .a . person, with his own unique experience and his own uniquehistory. He is distinct from his history as his memory records it.He cannot be explained in terms of the laws of habit or conditionedreflexes. 'But his personality has grown out of these habits andreflexes in the course of this history through his reactions to hisenvironment, and especially his social environment, and that meansfirst and foremost the family, the environment of the small child.

Thus we can pass from the structure of he group to the structure ofthe family, from that of the family to that of the personality: threeaspects of the same human reality. And it may be that the best way toapproach certain problems of collective psychology is, instead ofstudying the social group from the outside, to seek its inner reflectionin the structure ofpersonalities typical of the group.Just as there may be some divergence between the characteristics

of the species and those ofa given member of t, so a given personalitymay not. entirely coincide with what is thought of as the groupmentality. But there are types which represent accurately enough inthe one case the species and in the other the social group. Of coursethe more homogeneous the society, the easier it is to find memberstypical of it. If, then, we study the effects which two different typesof personality have on each other, we shall discover socio-psychological facts of he highest importance, and learn to understand certainsorts of xenophilia and xenophobia, racialism, nationalism, andclannishness and in a general way the reasons why there is friendshipor conflict between different human groups.

Now, if there is one place where these h i ~ g s can be observed moreeasily than anywhere else, it is in the colonies. In a colonial situationthe difference between the two types of personality brought face toface is greater, probably, than in any other, assuming-though it isnot strictly true in every instance-that the colonizing peoples are

fNTRODUCTION 27among the most advanced in the world, while those which undergocolonization are among the most backward. The other characteristic. features ofa colonial situation-domination ofa mass by a minority,economic exploitation, paternalism, racialism, &c.-are either thedirect outcome of the relationship between the two peoples, as, forinstance, paternalism, or they are distinctly 'colonial' as a result ofthat relationship. Colonial exploitation is not the same as otherforms ofexploitation, colonial racialism is different from other kindsof acialism. . A policy of segregation, i t may be noted, is powerless to preventan interaction between the two types of personality once they havebeen brought together. Indeed, such a policy is itself a consequenceof this interaction; the barriers it sets up in the outer world have theircounterparts within the individual. From the purely psychologicalpoint of view it can be said that segregation is harmful both to thosewho impose i t and to those who submit to it. Fortunately there isvery little likelihood of its ever being introduced in the Frenchcolonies; the French, on the contrary, long held truly Utopianbeliefs about the possibilities of assimilation. But such beliefs werepossible only so long as colonial relations remained at the level ofcrude charity and blind pedantry. Assimilation can succeed if thepersonality of the native is .first destroyed through uprooting, enslavement, and the collapse of the social structure, and this is in factwhat happened-with debatable success, however-in the 'older'colonies.1 But we can hardly recommend the introduction ofslaveryon the grounds that it will reduce the colonial peoples to a moltenstate and so enable us to pour them into a new mould; assimilation isonly practicable where an individual has been isolated from hisgroup, wrenched from his environment and transplanted elsewhere.It is absurd, therefore, to suggest that what is possible for individualsmust also be possible for whole groups; too much hope has beenfounded on the success of isolated cases. When they have reached acertain number, of course (it is difficult to say how many; the figurehas perhaps already been passed), they are bound to have an effecton the situation as a whole, though what effect it is impossible toforecast: certainly something very different from what may beexpected by those who still ding to their faith in the virtue of apolicy of assimilation.

1 The French term vieiUes colonies refers to colonies which remained after theeighteenth century and had been based on slavery--such as the Antilles and Reunion.


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28 PROSPERO AN D CALIBANIn the past p ~ p l e have in : J 1 i ~ W:-Y failed to distinguish ~ ! e a r l ybetween :J1e quesnon of the assnrulanon of the single individual and

the q u ~ n o n of the mutual adaptation of two groups with differentmentaliaes. . Some regarded the isolated cases as exceptions whichproved nothing; others, on the other hand, saw them as conclusiveproof of assimilability and felt that they should serve as a model forthe masses. It was generally believed that an individual consisted ofwhat had inherited (from the race) and what he had learnt, whileeducation was naively thought of in purely academic terms. Th eproblem of assimilation then amounted to finding out whether thecultural_ graf t would take and bear in the hereditary stock: in otherwords, l t was felt to be a question of natural aptitudes. I shall onlsay a few words about this, in order to show why it is of no inter:rto us.. the question whether such and such a 'colonial' group is asmtelhgen t as the average European group there is, I think, no acceptable answer. If we were to judge solely by everyday experience weshould ?n_d ourselves confronted with a series of impressions, each

c o n t r a d 1 c t l n ~ the one before. For example, a typical Malagasy wouldbe able to pick his way intelligently through a maze of subtletieswhich would quite bewilder us, and then he would fall down on somesimple common-sense question in which we should see no difficultyat all. But we should not be justified. in drawing any conclusionsfrom these impressions, for we should not know how much toattribute to his acquired mental habits and how much to his innatecapacities.. W'! might perhaps try to overcome this difficulty by making use of

m t e ~ h g e ~ c e tests. We should then ge t a figure which would represent1 ~ t e l 1 1 g e n c e of the average Malagasy child as compared wit h themtelhgence of the average European child of the same age. This

would be a real indication of intelligence (always allowing for theaccuracy of he index),.but in fact we should not be very much furtherforward, for intelligence develops more or less as the social enviro nment ~ t s .. . !he tests measure intelligence by discountingsch.olastr.c acqws1ttons, bu t they do not discount social acquisitionsand so they are really valid only in the measurement of the naturalaptitudes o_f e r s o ~ s of h_e same social environment. Th e Europeangrows_ up a soetal e ~ v r r o n m e which is more intelligent, in thesense _m which I am usmg the word, than that of the Malagasy- forthere is undoubtedly a social intelligence which is neither the average

INTRODUCTION telligence nor a function of the natural aptitudes of each individual~ t h e group. And then there is always the chance that if the Mala

g a ~ i e s were to devise their own intelligence tests-which is notbeyond the bounds of possibility-the results would tu m ou t to bein their favour!

In any case, the measurement of natural intelligence is not veryuseful in itself, for experience tends to show that the difficulty is no tlack of ntelligence bu t the fact that there are psychological obstacles,deriving from the social environment, which hinder the development of the intelligence. Once they are removed, the intelligenceusually proves to be adequate.

Apart from obvious cases of mental deficiency, the idea of inbornintellectual aptitudes, which has never any very clear meaning, provesto have none at all in group psychology, fo r we have no means ofO"auging latent capacities except through observing manifest abilities,;n d these depend, at least for their development, on the socialenvironment.I have been referring in the main to intellectual capacities becauseit is these which in the past have attracted most attention. But thesame is no doubt true of all natural aptitudes. When an author statesthat observation has shown that such and such a race lacks an aptitudefor, say, attention, reasoning, &c., he is using faulty language. Lethim say if he likes that a native of a certain race lacks attention, thata certain type of education, though successful with Europeans, hasfailed to make him attentive. He will then be stating the results of hisobservation correctly-if he has observed accurately. But in usingthe word aptitude he is suggesting to the reader that it is a matter ofa fundamental incapacity, and we do not yet know enough to be ableto pronounce on such matters.

One fact which appears to me to be very significant is that thecrumbling of the old social structures in certain parts of Africa hasresulted in an unexpected burgeoning of intelligence among thenegroes. Consequently, an entirely . different estimate of theiralleged aptitudes is given to-day from that given fifty years ago.This should be enough to pu t us on our guard against the danger ofestimating latent aptitudes from manifest abilities, which are all thatwe can observe. These estimates are arrived at by comparing anative with a European of the same age and at the same scholasticlevel, on the-erroneous-assumption that we know all about thenatural aptitudes of the European! Aptitude-test ing is, of course,


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JO PROSPERO AND CALIBANstill of some use if t is undertaken with a definite end in view, as, forinstance, for the purpose of choosing from a group ofnative childrenthose who, at the time of the test, are most likely to derive benefitfrom a specific type of schooling.

In order to prevent any misunderstanding, I shall say a few wordsabout those isolated individuals who become assimilated into anenvironment different from the one into which they were born. Dothey raise the problem of the unity of the personality?

A logic more ve rbal than real would lead us to suppose that someone who has grown up in two very different environments runs therisk of acquiring a dual personality. In actual fact, of course, thatcannot happen. It might be said, in the manner of a Kantian axiomthat when the same individual participates in them, two d i f f e r e n ~environments are but the parts of one and the same environment.People adapt themselves to a double environment rather as they do tobilingualism; it is simply a matter of a change of attitude, which doesnot affect the essential unity of the personality beneath. Naturally,the personality is to some extent modified by this apparent dualitybut it continues nevertheless to follow the general law of d e v e l o p ~ment of the personality. According to this law,all elements which arein any way capable of coexisting are integrated into a single whole,while those which are incompatible with the rest are repressed. Thusevery personality is unified, but the unification is never complete,because there is always something repressed. Those who pass fromone environment to another and preserve their unity through aprocess of integration and repression are particular instances of thisgeneral law. When referring to them I shall use the expressions 'theirEuropean personality', and 'their native personality', but they are ofcourse simply two aspects of the same individual-two persona, wemight say, two parts played by the same actor. But that is perhaps notentirely accurate, for there is reason to believe that in a non-civilizedindividual it is not easy to distinguish thepersona from the inner personality. Only civilization makes it possible to distinguish betweenthem, and it is not yet clear how a personality originallyconstructed onthe 'non-civilized' model can later produce a second, 'civilized' personality. These, however, are mysteries which are best left till later.

All the material used in this book is drawn from Madagascar. Myindirect knowledge of other colonial peoples leads m.e to believe that

I.NTRODUCTION 31some of my conclusions are of general applicability. My personalexperience of Malagasy customs and their psychological significancehas frequently made me feel that I understood what other observershave reported about other peoples. But it is for them judge, forthere is no substitute for personal experience: I have too often seenhow fatally easy it is to fall into error the moment one embarks onethnography by hearsay. Most of the general theories which havenow been discarded as purely hypothetical- to say no more-wereformulated by armchair ethnographers from the evidence of travellerswho, more often than not, had not set out as impartial witnesses.At the risk of offending, I must remind the reader that in spite of alltheir love and devotion the doctors, missionaries, and so on canhardly be called disinterested observers, if only because they camewith the idea of changing, converting, civilizing. In order to understand their testimony we need to bear this purpose in mind; we need,that is to say, to take into consideration the situation I have beencalling colonial. It is not absolutely essential to have experiencedsuch a situation in order to be able to comprehend it ; on the contrary,nothing is easier to imagine, as I shall show. But at the same timethese produets of the imagination are the source of all illusions, andthe rask of analysis consists primarily in sifting out the real from theimaginary.This statement must not be taken too literally, however. There isno hope of our arriving at an objective truth through describing afellow human as a distinct and separate being, for we can only bringhim to life through the stuff of our own consciousness, and to beobjective in these circumstances is to arrange as best we can, and tosome extent to organize our own feelings and fancies in the presenceof the other person. This is not an extension of scientific objectivitybut rather a kind of social relationship; hence the value of direct,personal experience. We may resist the relationship in an attempt toattain 'greater objectivity', but in so doing we may well be eliminatingsomething essential.

This book sets ou t to describe co lonial situations as primarily theresults of misunderstanding, of mutual incomprehension. It may beobjected that this is the case with all human situations, and that is ofcourse true: we could in fact approach the problem from this angle.It may be that this element is simply more pronounced and easier todetect in a colonial situation than elsewhere. European col.onizers


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have battled successfully against hunger, sickness, slavery, ignorance- f o r all these evils have recoiled somewh at before their attack-butin spite of their good works they have fruled to achieve friendlyrelations with the 'colonized' and we are now inclined to think thattheirs was the wrong way to go about it. .

The colonizers of the heroic age-the era of colonial expansion-were fully convinced of the superiority of the civilization theyrepresented. Their strength came from their knowledge that, thoughthey represented this civilization, they did no t embody it . They didno t set themselves up as models; they offered to others their ownideals, something greater than they.1 But the fact that they possessedsuperior power persuaded the natives of the overriding need toimitate and, like schoolchildren, to obey. Psychologically the resultwas at first beneficial. At that stage it was impossible even dimly toperceive the reciprocal misunderstanding on which the situation wasbased, nor could it have been foreseen what successes and failures theeffort at imitation was to meet. It would be pointless to pass judgement now on what happened then, especially as there was undoubtedly much goodwill on both sides at the outset, bu t we may besure that those early events were the cause of the present situation.

We should not, however, delude ourselves, as is commonl y done, bythinking that if only the colonizers could have been more generous,more charitable, less selfish, less greedy for wealth, then everythingwould have been very much better than it is now-for in that casethey would no t have been colonizers. We must not, of course, underestimate the importance of economic relations, which is paramount;indeed, i t is very likely that economic conditions will de termine thewhole future of the colonial peoples. And it cannot be denied thatthere have been and still are shocking abuses in this direction whichhave outraged public opinion. But they are no t to be explainedsolely in terms ofeconomicinterest and exploitation. North Americannegroes may be less well-treated than white workers, but it is no tbecause it is more profitable to treat them in this way, fo r that is no tthe case: in fact they are ill-treated because they are treatedas negroes,that is to say in a way which escapes definition in economic terms.Th e 'colonial' is no t looking for profit only; he is also greedy forcertain other-psychological-satisfactions, and that is much m o r ~dangerous. Accurate observation of the facts would no doubt showus that he very often sacrifices prof it for the sake of hese satisfactions.

l This is what gives the missionaries their strength to-day.

PROSPERO AN D CALIBANI NTRODUCT IO N 33

b difficult for a 's hrewd bus inessman' to make a_1oodIt would no t e . Euro e by more or less honest means, w i outdeal of money, as m . . p 'f he colonial. But you will rarely come. . the charactensttcs o th edacquiring h 1 . Why ;> Because ere is no neeh n t e co omes. . . across su a man i I ther words in a colonial situation. for him to l e a v e l E ~ r a l o p e . d the a d j e c t i ~ e , not the noun, whicheconomics are co 001 aninterests us. I been aware of the meaning ofThe colonial peoples have} ongd' tt'nction between the European. Th draw a c ear is fthis adjective. ey . . after all, they have had plenty oProper and the colonial European, 'nto the other. Malagasies. f ching the one turn 1opportumty o wat with the French very well on theliving in France along h h s spent any length of ome mthey carefully av_oid a n y o n ~ w o E:ropeanized native can live in aMadagascar. it a p p e a : ~ o u ~ \ 1 : i y 'situati on' necessarily arising, bu tEuropean environment wt hat might happen if Malagasies cameofcourse we cannot forecast wto Europe in greater ~ m b ~ ~ Icy is part of the situation-not toIt is difficult-and e th 1 which the encounter breedsI . cl nts on e iee mgs 1 . .pass mora JU g e m ~ th . dgements can to some extent egm-on either side. B e s i d e ~ , es_e of morality. But that is amately be passed preosely 1.l bel namth: vision and I shall avoid it. h'ch 11 too eas1y urs ' dstandpoint w i a . h ei'ther to excuse or to con emn;'b l for 1 do not wts . I . so far as poss1 e, d f the psycholog1ca s1tuaoon. 'f I how the see s osuffice tt I I exp am . . . b'tter fruit were sown right at the verywhich is only now beanng it s 1 ose to tr y to suggest waysf h d been my purpbeginning. Even t lt a . ' l . I pol icy' I could not have doned . the defects m co oma .of reme 't h th offer such an explanation.better to begm Wl an to

. book is no t to show ho w such problemsThe main object of this t of ideas borrowed fromd al h An assortmen ' .can in theory be e t w1 . has been applied quite u n s y s t e m a ~ c -various schools of s y c h o l o ~ , 11 versed in the theor y of analyncalally so that any reader who is we' fi d h mself puzzled.psychology may n t . cholo ical theory to one system, IIf one had to redu.ce the P?. ideas of Karl Abraham, andbelieve one could do it by app ymg 1 the cult of the dead, suchf I Klein For examp e, .especially o Me ante al . ould come near to bemg and g the M agas1es, w , d b' as is foun amon l . Klein's internalized goo o Jecti n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e ~ form M ~ m ~ d i v i d u a l preserves a 'good object'theory, according to which e


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34 PROSPERO AND CAL IBANto which tribute must he paid. This cult, in contrast to the sort ofmourning for stated periods we know in Europe, is continuous andacts as a protection against melancholia and as a cure for it, withouthaving the same effect against what Klein calls


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Part IDEPENDENCE


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CHAPTER I

DEPENDENCE ANDINFERIORITY

Dependence: .THE celebrated inferiority complex of the coloured peoples, which

is so often invoked to explain certain traits of their behaviour,is no different from the inferiority complex pure and simple asdescribed by Adler. I t springs from a physical difference taken to bea drawback-namely, the colour of the skin. But a difference of this kind gives rise to a complex only if it can in fact be accounted a

disadvantage; at any rate it must be perceptible as a difference. Inpractice, therefore, an inferiority complex connected with the colourof the skin is found only among those who form a minoricy within agroup of another colour. In a fairly homogeneous community likethat of the Malagasies, where the social framework is still fairlyStrong, an inferiority complex occurs only in very exceptional cases.Its rarity probably alters its effects, for a person suffering from it willnot find all around him those examples of compensation or sublimation which are usually of such comfort to an 'inferior' individual.But this difference is only superficial, and the fundamental nature ofthe Adlerian inferiority complex remains the same.Furthermore, these exceptional cases of inferiority occurring in ahomogeneous community obviously have nothing to do with skincolour, but are due to individual feelings of inferiority of variouskinds. As with Europeans, any difference can cause a feeling of inferiority, once certain psychological and sociological conditions arefulfilled. The extreme rarity of the complex among typical Malagasies (it is practically never found except in a Malagasy who isalready thoroughly Europeanized) therefore seemed to me to requireexplanation.

In seeking it I have been led to attach considerable importance toa group of psychological and social conditions which together I shall39

40 PROSPERO AN D CALIBAN


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call 'dependence'. It is these conditi =show, which explain why th d 1 ons, as I shall endeavour t 1 e eve opment of h -r . oJS s owed down and indeed tifl d . e IJuenority comp]M 1 . ' s e ' in a tomm . 1k CJca agas1es. Dependence a d . r . . uruty I e that of th .1 n mrenonty fo 1 eone exc udes the other Th rm an a ternative. thd us over against h r . . ' ean more or less symmetricall o t .e mrenonty complCJc .pendence complex. And h y PP?sed to it, I shall se t the d ' ;h t ese two different h 1 ;serve to c aracterize two diLr psyc o og1ca1 clima1. . nerent types of pe al' tes menta iaes, rwo different civilizati rson ity, two different ,Th e fact that when an adult wons. . . .environment he ea be 'falagasy JS isolated in a diffie . . n come susceptibl th rentmfenority complex proves almost be o e to e classical type ofcomplex was latent in him fi h.ldyhnd doubt that the germ of he.C. h . . rom c I ood I far t er m this direction we sh ld . we were to proceedshall see later in connexion .othu d very probably-as, indeed we WI reams-e 'castration complex All I d ncounter the Freudian nee say at p es h~ e r ? 1 . remains inactive in no r .ent, owever, is that themd1v1dual feels himself secu r ; n a ~ ~ ~ n d 1 t 1 o n s - t h a t is, while thedependence. It could also be e. by the traditional bonds of

is a potential dependence c o m ~ ~ ~ ~ n : i ' s ~ l ! show, that therer e p r e s ~ d , however, and this makes . die m enor European. It isappre:1ate it in others. A Euro n1tw ffi:Ult for us to perceive andof an mferiority complex d pea /. ho is more or less the victimb. . n s to f i e -and t . 1an o 1ect1ve position of dep d . no sunp y to consider-be1 . . en ence as a sign of r . .re against 1t or react by dis la in ' .mienonty. He maythe other hand-and in thi J Y. g symptoms . Th e Malagasy ondiffer radically from others e r e . 1 ~ 1 ~ e a s o n to believe that he does noth non-ov1 ized pe l r e1 .w en the bonds of dependen . op es-re s inferior onlyd L r ce are m some thiuerence is probably the ke t th way reatened. Thispeoples'. It explains the lo y o e_ psychology of the 'backwardcounts for their belief n g s t a J n f t J ~ n of heir civilizations. I t acsightincomprehensiblein thei c, an ~ C J ~ a t e s what seems to us at firstwhich we have long cons'd r d p ~ y c o ogical reactions-thatmentality1 ere incapableof ' 1 ,At a later stage I shall be d .b. assuru anon to our ownhi escn mg the h l mena w eh are connected with s ' : o e corpus of pheno-should like to make a few Ji . P ychological dependence but 1It would be fa pre nunary observations now. '. r rom true to say th thsingle type. There are man cliff. at e ~ a l a g a s i e s conform to aand although in the present y erent ethruc groups among them,

give an exact figure with any t a t ~ J f our knowledge it is difficult tocon ence, nevertheless it is possible to

DEPENDENCE AND ' INFERIORITY 41:t1Lno-nish about twenty different groups at varying stages ofis e- h b k d ' . . . ' . thd 'elopment. T e most ac war are pnm1uve m e very vague' .,.' "'e in which the word is used at the present time. O thers have to

~ i ~ f ' . ; ~ i e a t or less extent undergone European influence, and i t is of;:+ urse these who interest us most. To be precise, then, we shall be :-::r.;-.:dying the dependence complex among Malagasies in course o f

~ ~ - 1 ' ' . ' c o l o n i z . a t i o n , and more particularly among th.e Merina.' _ ~ r , : ; ttowever, our knowledge of individual psychology among the: i 3 1 ~ :Malagasies will necessarily be less complete than it would be)..1;.'., 0 f Europeans. I have been able to obtain some descriptions of drea.IDS, and these I have analysed. I have also given my interpretation of the sustained relations I have had with certain Malagasies

But there is no hope of obtaining psychoanalyses of typical Mala.,. gasies; there never have been any, and it is extremely doubtful if there

could be any. Apart from the difficulty presented by a languagewhich, though broadly comprehensible, is capable of formidablesubtleties and equivocations, it would still be necessary for the

.. :Malagasy to grant the European a degree of confidence he would not', . accord even his best friend. Finally, we do no t find in him that disharmony, amounting almost to conflict, between the social being andthe inner personality which is so frequently met with among the

civilized and offers the analyst a means of access to the psyche. Th e oriental 'face' is different from the Jungian persona in being morefirmly welded to the whole being.

All this would seem to suggest that the ego is wanting in strength,and that is bome out by the fact that hallucinatory disturbances andpanic appear the moment the feeling of security is threatened. Th eindividual is held together by his collective shell, his social mask,much more than by his 'moral skeleton'. And this, with bu t slightmodifications, must be true of many other 'primitive' societies. Itcan be proved from the way these societies treat the sick, thepossessed, the bewitched-all those who in Europe would be classified as neurotics. They are usually dealt with by means of initiationdances, ceremonies, or sacrifices, all of which are intended in oneway or another to bring the sufferer back into the fold, with orwithout his evil spirit. Curative ceremonies of this kind have beenknown to exist in Madagascar, although to-day there are only distorted and barely recognizable traces of them left. (See for instancewhat the Reverend Father Cotte has to say about them in his Re-gardons Vivre une Tribu Malgache, Paris, 1947, pp. 225 -3 2.)


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42 Pl!.OSPERO AN D CA l I BA N

Dependent behaYiourThe ' dependent' behaviour of he M I .see, of other 'primitive' peoples-ha almagas1es-Iand also, as we shallto d b s a ost a ways been mi unds o ' ut Europeans have never f; 1 d . . s er-ished by it. Usually they first at e to ~ o t : J c e Jt and to be aston-

exchange of services and th encounter it on the occasion of anthing like this. A Malagasy::;::ci of events is generally somewhich he badly needs hu t would ohm a European some favoUrAft ' never ave dreamed of ki fierwards he comes ofhis own . as ng or.very well do wfrhout; he a p p e a r : c : r ~ e : ? ~ as: for favours he couldupon the European who did hi k. dn e as some sor t of clairn. d . m a m ess Furthenno e h hno grat1tu e--in our sense of th . . r ' e s owsreceived. Itisabsolutelyessential e_ w o r d - f o ~ the favours he hasi f we are to comprehend a ty in erprli:t this behaviour correctlyown. pe o menta ty so different from OUrh i:ere, by way of mustration- is an example of tbiaviour. ' s type of be-

The young Merina who acted as m fever. I visited him d h .y tenrus coach went down withan as e obviously had mal I dsmall supply of quinine to b . ana or ered ahave asked me fo r the m e d i ~ e n t to him. He would never himselfof it, and he had no t been i n ~ ~ ~ : : ~ ~ ~ : ! _ ! e was in g r e a t needI used to pay him after every less th g favour.,. &om me .eh . on, so at we were quea time. Off the courts he would b 'd . ite squarewhenever we met in the street, bu t th I me a r a ~ e r s?y good-dayAfter I had given him the . . ere our relaaonship ended.day, at the end ofa lesson he h ~ ; m ~ a ~ h a n g e came about. Oneshoes were worn out and' hat mine ~ { ~ ~ u ou t to me that his rubberwould suit him very well. I handed tli gh r a ~ e r shabby fo r me,bu t two or three days later he em ovler to him readily enough,. came to ook for m dcoaching time and told me . h e outs1 e mythat he was in need of i g a r ~ t t : 1 ou t ~ t r ~ c e of embarrassment,pa?ers could be bought only o : : 1 ~ ~ 1 a c k o w the time cigaretteneither scarce no r very de:aI and the ma: cc, bu t they wereeach l ~ s o n to buy several'packets ~ ~ : ; : e r ~ ~ earned enough atsomething incongruous in his e hi .ere was thereforeWhat exactly did it mean? r quest w eh required looking into.It meant this that wh 1 h. th. en sent im e quinine, my 'debtor' did

DEPEN:DENCE AN D INFERIORITY 43not see the action simply as a helpful gesture which I had extendedtowards a sk k man. He failed to appreciate it s objective and impeisonal nature. In fact he did no t see it as it really was, bu t strictlysubjectively ; he was aware only of the relationship of dependencewhich was thereby set up between himself and me-not between atennis-player and his coach, no t between a healthy man and an invalid,but between our two selves. It must no t be supposed that there wasany question of interested motives or of a desire to create such arelationship simply in order to exploit it: his psychology was no tthat far developed, or degraded. On the contrary: the relationshipitself was enough for him-it was itself reassuring. It was the relationship, ul timately, which took away his fever: he was cured, not somuch because quinine is an excelient remedy for malaria, as becausea Malagasy who has a protector he can count on need fear no danger;what means his protector may employ to safeguard him is of littleinterest to him.

Inact the gifts which the Malagasy first accepts, then asks for, andfinally, in certain ra re cases, even demands, are simply the outwardand visible signs of this reassuring relationship of dependence. Theyare essential to what might be called the life of he relationship. Therefore, the more he values it, the more he is driven to multiplying thevisible signs of it. In the case of my tennis-coach, I could not helpsmiling as I gave him the packet of cigarette papers he had asked for.After that smile he asked for nothing more; he was sensitive enoughto a hint to give up a relationship in which I was no t wholeheartedlyengaged. He knew well enough that he could easily have obtainedother favours from me, but that was no t his main interest. For mypart, I could have fostered and encouraged the relationship which acasual gesture of mine had launched. I could however, havebroken it off later except at the risk of making him feel abandoned,perhaps betrayed, and of rousing his enmity or even hatred-at anyrate some negative emotion which would have been directed eitheragainst me or agains t himse1

Only when it is thoroughly degraded does such a need for dependence change radically in nature and become menclicity. It maybe noted that the latter is found virtually only in certain tribes,or even families: a detailed study would no doubt reveal that itoriginated in certain family customs. Furthermore, most Malagasybeggars invariably appeal to the same persons-the same 'patrons',one might say. In other words, the bonds of dependence are no t


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44 PROSPERO AND CALIBANwholly depersonalized, even in these cases. In its uncontaminatedstate, however, the relationship is strictly personal. The Malagasdoes not seek dependence on any conditions, at any price, on ju:ranyone.

Lack ofgratitudeAs I have said, feelings of hostility, conscious or otherwise areliable to arise when the bonds of dependence have snapped-w'henthat is, the Malagasy feels he has been abandoned. This fact is atbottom of the belief widely held by Europeans in Madagascar thatthe Malagasies have no sense of gratitude.This ph_rase,. when used !n th : context of European psychologyand. morality, is wholly misleading, for by his failure to express

g ~ n t u d e the Malagasy proves in his way his nicety of feeling and hisdiscernment. His reaction is archaic; among the various layers whichgo to ~ e up what we c o n s the normal personality the fee linghe expenences would be found fairly low down, for in us it is infantile,repressed. Our repression of it is perhaps the main reason why weare unable to appreciate it in him. There are other reasons howeveras we shall see. ' '

We must also bear in mind certain moral prejudices ofours whichprevent us seeing things as they really are and but for which we shouldrealize that dependence excludes gratitude. That this is so is shownby the fact that we have to teach .European children to be g r a t e f u ~and even then there is an element of hypocrisy in it, for the childcannot really learn gratitude until he has attained a certain independence.1

That is one of the reasons why we tend to repress as 'bad' the infantile feelings which were associated with dependence, while theMalagasy does not. There is no need, I think, for me to point outthe grave and sometimes tragic misunderstandings to which thissituation is liable to give rise between Europeans and colonialinhabitants.

The reader will find almost the whole gamut of these misunders t a ~ d i n ~ s in the wri_tings of travellers who have been struck by the

n a a v ~ lack gratitude, not specially in Madagascar but in all thecountnes which used to be called 'primitive'. Levy-Bruh! quotes

~ o r d fo r 'thank you' (mislwaua) is spoken by the donor as well as by thereetptent m Madagascar; the same is true among European children.

DEP:ENDENCE AN D INFER I ORITY 45th freely in Chapter XIII of his book, Primitive Mentd.l.iry,from er Although there are differences which I am unable toPP 4 10 . I kn I d . . l that~ l a i n for lack of the necessary persona ow e ge, n is c earexp kinds of behaviour described are examples of dependent bethe. in the sense in which I have used the expression. Bu t thebaviour cl th . 'fith be quotes failed one and all, to understan e sigm cance. au ors ' hi!

of the behaviour they described, and it might be worth our w e toconsider why. Levy-Bruhl himself, in.spite of his customary pene-. was somewhat misled by the mistakes made by the travellers,: : : ~ a r t i c u l a r , as I shall show, h: was u n ~ l e to rid himselfof theidea of payment, which falsifies the ~ e r i : r e t a _ u ~ n . . . This chapter of Primitive Mentality is divided mto th:ee parts. The first part contains quotations from doctors. Bentley mterpretsthe reactions of his C o n g o l e s ~ patients as a dern:d for , c o ~ p ~ s a n and considers it a shocking reversal of the normal s i r u a u ~ nt!O ck . , . ta 0the patient asking for fees from d o c ~ o r t Ma enzie s mterpre t1 n

_is hardly better, but his descnptton is patently more a;curate thanthat of Bentley. The cured man says to the d?ctor : Y o ~ ~ e r b sred me. You are now my white man. Please to give me a knife, and~ adds, ' I shall always come to heg o f ou.' like Bentl:y,keniie sees it as 'a most wonderful t r a n s o s i u ~ relanonsh1p ,d after relating a discussion in which he tried m vam to make the:an see that he should be grateful, he sa.Ys, ' I,gave t h e . ~ up as avery wonderful specimen of j u m b l e ~ ideas. Williams, whoworked among the Fiji Islanders, describes how a sick man who wasreceiving treatment asked for food: 'The r e c e p ~ o n of food hesidered as giving him a claim on me for e n n ~ and, that bemgsecured he deemed himself at liberty to beg anything he wanted, andabuse ~ e if I refused his unreasonable request.' Here we find resentment (i.e. abandonment) also reported. Again, an injured man wastreated, but when he was refused something he had asked for.'showed his senseof obligation by burning down one of he captain sdrying-houses, containing fish of the value of three h u n ~ r e d dollars'.We may be perfectly sure that the behaviou: here described, tho:1ghless delicate in form, is exactly comparable :'1th the type ofbehaviourI have been describing among the Malagasies . .In the second part of the chapter Levy-Bruhl offers an explanauonbased on the assumpti0n that the native does not understand thetreatment given him. But the man who says, 'Your herhs cured me,'and who goes on to say, 'You are now my white man,' seems to have


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46 PROSPERO AN D CALIBANunderstood i t well enough. However, there is no need to embark 0a discu.ssion of this point, in the t h i : ~ part. of the chapter L e v y ~Bruhl is compelled to admit that these mexplicable' reactions occu.reven in situations where there is no question of medical treaonentall: a white man has only to perform some service fo r the native :telicit this behaviour from him, even if there is nothing which h0could have any difficulty in understanding. Fo r instance, a C o n ~golese native whose canoe had capsized asked the missionary.whorescued him to 'dress' him. When he refused, th e man becam'abusive' and had to be locked up in the store and fined two goats beway ofa 'lesson' to make him more grateful in th e furure. y

Th e explanation Levy-Bruhl offers is tha t the native thinks he hasa right to compensation because he has suffered some loss in themystical sphere. T he native, he believes, argl;leS thus: 'Hencefor~ d you (white man) are my refuge and my support, and I have theng h t to reckon on yo u to compensate me for what your interventionhas cost me with the mystic powers upon whom my social groupdepends, and upon whom I myself have depended till now.' Butbo w c o ~ l d it cost anything, mystically, to be saved from drowning?Why did no t the man who said, 'Your herbs cured me', make anyreference to loss?

Psychoanalysis helps us to discover what has happened: thev e l l e r ~ who report these incidents project upon the native their

ow n desire for reward, and it is this projection which prevents themunderstanding the psychology of dependent behaviour, and makesthem see i t as a reversal of th e proper order of things. Levy-Bruhl's analytical method did no t reveal this projection, and he himself was misled by it. He realized well enough, however, that thenative is in reality 'neither "ungrateful" no r "unreasonable", as he isbound to appear in the eyes of anyone who bas cared for and savedhim, and wh.o is conscious ofhaving rendered him signal service, ofen

f r ~ m purely. disinterested and humane motives. It is to be hoped thatthis humanity may not confine itself to dressing his ulcers, bu t thati t may strive towards sympathetic penetration of he obscure recessesof a consciousness which. cannot express itself' (the italics are mine).

. But in the light of analysis we can say that if these attentions had beeng i v ~ with. comple.te disinterest-that is , without any expectation,conscious or unconscious, ofgratitude-the observers would have runless risk of error and they would no t have hoped to find amonu themanifestations of dependence a consciousness of gratitude, the"'very

DEPENDENCE AN D INFERIORITY 47&ea of which is entirely lacking, at leas t .amo?g typical, un-degraded1 Furthermore th e misunderstanding 1s no t the result of thecases ' h. el f. 's inabif;rv to exnress hunself. He expresses 1ms extra-native -. / :r , h.ro rilywell when fo r instancebe says, You are now my w ue man.

always come to beg of you! In what way is this f o n n u ~ a lessd than any of the phrases we normally use to express graotude,a:owledgeroent, or thanks? w_hy should.it be odder .to ask t.ororoise? It is just a matter of a different atutude, an t n ~ d e which isp r .,.,;liar to us or rather which we have repressed m ourselves.un1a..... ' th . f;J I these phenomena, then, are to be e x p l ~ i n ~ d by e p . e r s 1 s t e ~ c ed endence as an essential part of the native s personality, which isep thi d.fli

Srructed along different lines from ou r own. I t is s 1 erencec0n f d structure which accounts for the absence of a sense o gramu e.in clearly, therefore, th e existence of a feeling of gratitude pre-upPoses a loosening of th e bonds of dependence. What, then, are

to conclude about the structure of ou r own personalities? Th ecommon idea that gratitude is primarily a matter of an exchange ofservices against expressions of thanks is unacceptable, for it wouldsoon lead to a feeling that there was no indebtedness where no realgratitude was felt . True gratitude seems to be an a.ttempt to preservea balance between tw o feelings which at first sight seem contradictory: on th e one band the feeling that on e is very much n ~ e b t :and on the other the feelincr that one is no t indebted at all. It imphesa rejection of dependence ye t at the same time the preservation ofan image ofdependence based on free will. It is e r ~ p ~ t;he p r o t o ~ eof the obligations assumed by the independent mdividual outsidethe framework of group behaviour.1 That is why gratitude cannotbe demanded, even though in a way it is o ~ l i g a t o r y . and why, inspite of appearances, it can exist only where ~ e r s ~ n s . are e q u ~ l .Dependence proper, at least in the form in which it 1s found mMadagascar, is incomp atible 'W-ith equality. .Before go ing on to look for the cause of this 'dependence complex'I should like to make clear the meaning of the term 'infantile' whichwe are inclined to apply to it . There is a certain amount of justification for ou r usincr the word because such behaviour would be

b 'infantile in us. Bu t if we allow ourselves to think that it is also1 This kind of bond, independent of group tradition, plays a part in.0e development of the personality and of civilization. It is a break-a"'.'ly from tradioonal b o ' ? d ~ ,

and prepares the way for the Christian idea of love thy neighbour . . .' But first it isnecessary for a God, a Jupiter, co protect the unknown guest, or for the Eternal Father_ to make all men brothers, before such a transition is possible.


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48 PROSPERO AN D CALIBANinfantile in the Malagasies, we are risking imitating the colo 1:Vhos: p a t ~ r n a l i ~ t attitude stems from the belief that 'negroes::JUSt big children . In fact, of course, these traits of behaviour in th

M ~ l a g a s y are i ~ ~ t i l e , for everything in the adult goes back toc h i l ~ o o ~ . . This 1s ~ o r n e out by the fact . hat the Malagasy regarcbthe mfenority behaviour of the typical European, with his tenden to o a s t of superiorities which are in part imaginary, as an i n f a n t i ~trait of character, for he sees this kind of behaviour in his own grouonly among children, before inferiority and dependence beco pdir r . d . merrerenaate , as it were.

CHAPTER I I

THE CULT OF THE DEADAND THE FAMILY

Ty olombelona hoatra ny ladimboatavo, ka raha fotorana, iray ihany.f:J} th e living are like the branchings of a pumpkin stem; at the base there

: ; ~ r but one stalk.-Proverb. .);,,f j i : V T faced with a serious difficulty, the typical European tends to[l.\W rely on his self-confidence or his technical skill. His main con' . J ~ ~ e r n i s no t to prove inferior either to his own idea of himself or to the;,:situation. But the main concern of the Malagasy, when his securityt s threatened, is no t to feel abandoned. He has practically no con,Jidbice in himself and very little in technique, but relies on certain!-.firotective powers without which he would feel utterly lost. The

o r i g i n of this attitude is to be found in the way in which the need for'.. security (the psychological need, of course) is satisfied during the,, Malagasy's earliest experiences, and these experiences are determined'.fl)y-the pattern of Malagasy family life.2 The most important factor in Malagasy family life is a body of,customs or beliefs, coherent, firm, and deep-rooted, generally known'. by the name of ancestor-worship, or the cult of the dead. A study of

t h e s e beliefs or customs- the two words are synonymous here--willi.reveal both the basic pattern of Ma lagasy social life and the funda_mental structure of the typical Malagasy personality.: .Ethnographers suggest that there once existed a whole 'civilization'' based on the cult of the dead and closely connected with the cultiva-tion of rice in irrigated paddy-fields. This civilization, they say,stretched from the Indian Ocean to Melanesia. At that time, itappears, the maternal uncle played an important part in familyclistoms. In Madagascar to-day there are only fafot traces of theseancient ways, for instance in the part still played by the maternaluncle at the time of circumcision, and in some old proverbs. Buthowever interesting it might be to try to reconstruct the past hypo' thetically from these relics, it must be realized that they are mere

49

mannoni, prospero & caliban (intro., ch1)

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