Anger and Anthropology

Feature article: Anger abstract emotions, but back into it. A persuasive
account of love or anger shows us—in terms
which respect the integrity of the experience—
Anger and Anthropology more about things we assumed we had
understood, filling in what had been shadows.
Andrew Beatty Seeing more, instead of seeing through.
In grasping the emotional life, once we admit
Department of Anthropology, Brunel University the possibility that other people have something
London like the complexity we take for granted in
andrew.beatty@brunel.ac.uk ourselves—with tangled biographies, criss-
crossing relationships, an interior life, a past and
a future, a certain place in the world—we begin
Tell me the truth about love, wrote the poet looking for reasons rather than causes, personal
W. H. Auden, in a poem that playfully circles its resonances rather than common denominators.
subject, deferring definition. Is the truth about The anthropologist with an interest in emotion
love to be found in an agony column or a history has, additionally, to balance particularities—the
of Romanticism, a Shakespeare sonnet or the sine qua non, there being no such thing as a
secretions of the endocrine glands? Well, love generic emotion—with broader historical and
without biology is certainly missing something. social factors.
But the sonneteer can, at least, claim to be truer One way of doing that is through narrative.
to the experience, body and soul. The Not fictional narrative, of course. We can’t make
endocrinologist can’t touch it. it up. Our accounts have to be empirically robust,
The truth about love—or anger, our theme— the dialogue and events real, not merely
is doubtless complicated. And if we recognize the plausible. Unlike the novelist, we don’t have
ontological complexity of emotions, their privileged access to the private doings and
distribution in words and gestures, social thoughts of our interlocutors. But we can listen to
patterns, predicaments, cultural values, faces, them, observe them, live among them; and after a
voices, bodies, brain functions, and histories, we year or two in the field we have a pretty good idea
have to make a strategic choice. It’s not about of what’s going on, how emotions operate in a
determining causal priority, much less of insanely given society, what stirs a particular individual.
trying to grasp the whole, but of deciding what Fieldwork has a way of painfully correcting
kind of account will satisfy our interests as misunderstandings.
psychologists, philosophers or social scientists. Lest this sound like a retreat from science into
That may mean keeping an open mind about what bad art, I should note that the goal of a narrative
should count as emotion—a matter of stipulation account is to achieve an enhanced realism, not
in any case—and a heuristic willingness to extend just a good story; to restore the significant factors
categorical boundaries. Where does an emotional in emotional episodes that neat case histories and
episode begin and end? With James’s ‘exciting typifying accounts leave out (an argument
fact’, the cognition that makes it so, the ego that pursued in Emotional Worlds); to rehumanise
feels its relevance, or the personal history of ethnography. Only narrative can reckon with
similar ego-focused vicissitudes? How far do we characters in the round, a time dimension,
need to go back (or forward, proleptically), to competing perspectives, unfolding situations,
make sense of an emotion, or to understand an reversals of fortune, dialogue, and the hidden
emotionally inflected episode? factors that make, say, a jealous man unaware of
As an anthropologist, I am less interested in his jealousy; in fact, everything that goes into a
the kind of explanation that sweeps away the living emotional episode. In contrast, approaches
existential reality—or reduces it to models—than that depend on synchronic analysis, the study of
one which places that reality, however fleeting, in discourse, word sorting tasks, and cultural
a new light. A good explanation, or (as might be) representations—exercises remote from the flow
a coherent interpretation, doesn’t lead away from of events—leave out most of what matters to
the ethnographic field to some higher plane of particular people, in other words whatever

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generates their emotions and gives those

emotions their peculiar quality, their tailor-made
fit. 1
So tell me the truth about anger! Not if you’re
seeking a quick anthropological fix, for what
could that singular truth be? Nothing that anyone
in any real society has ever experienced. What
would anger amount to, shorn of cultural context
and dramatis personae? Definitions and
prototypes might furnish a rough orientation; but
to penetrate other emotional worlds we need
more than the bare essentials. With emotion, the
devil is truly in the detail. Who is angry or
frustrated with whom? Why? How? To what end?
And with what consequences? The answers are
culturally and personally specific, resistant to
formula. And they call for a more compendious
approach, relaxed about definitions and
boundaries.
So let’s descend to particulars and see how an
anthropologist might tackle anger in what, for Professor Andrew Beatty
most readers, will be a very unfamiliar setting.
My aim is to sketch a distinctive emotional world: The Niha, inhabitants of Nias, a large
to show how anger-like emotions are performed forested island in Indonesia, have a wide
and exploited in the theatre of formal oratory; and vocabulary for states of the ‘heart’, some of
to follow that with a contrasting example of anger which refer to anger-like emotions. ‘Hot heart’ is
at its most raw and unambiguous. Surprisingly, in the commonest, the closest to a broad term for
both cases, considerations of what is natural or ‘anger’; but in the formal debates at weddings and
authentic and what is culturally constructed are feasts—Niha are avid orators—speakers are as
significantly blurred: fieldwork scrambles neat likely to declare their hearts ‘scorched’, ‘swollen’
theoretical distinctions. The first part is closer to or ‘spotted’, idioms which convey to their
standard ethnography, with a focus on emotion audience, that they are extremely unhappy about
idioms, meanings in action. The second is straight the situation and expect some redress—ideally
narrative. The intention here is to braid the promise of a pig or two—to soothe their
descriptive density with temporal depth, showing tender ventricles.
how narrative gives us both structure and history, In Nias, it’s no exaggeration to say that all
the warp and weft of the emotional life. Instead human relationships, especially those deriving
of simply reporting on ‘anger elsewhere’—a from marriage alliances, are conceived as debts—
pointless box-ticking exercise—I want to show best exemplified in brideprice; and debts, like
what makes these examples anthropologically relations between in-laws, are matters of fervent
interesting: what makes them revealing about interest. Oratory is a form of accounting in which
social processes and human experience. If they not only goods but the provision of labour (in a
move the reader, or merely intrigue a little, they wife) and life itself (which flows through women
will have achieved their purpose of enlarging our given in marriage) are reckoned, and debts
sense of what anger is. rebalanced, the aim of speeches being to exert
pressure on certain listeners to give more or
***

1
Very few anthropological accounts of emotion classic studies of emotional discourse, Levy (1973)
employ narrative as a method (Abu-Lughod 1993; of folk psychology and psychodynamics. For reviews
Beatty 2015; Briggs 1998, 1970; Epstein 1992; of diverse anthropological approaches to emotion, see
Wikan 1992). Lutz (1988) and Rosaldo (1980) are the Beatty (2019, 2014, 2013).

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accept less. The medium of debate, the register of relational themes (in Lazarus’s [1994] phrase). Its
progress or failure, is heart speech. In extremis— idioms are not symptoms of predicaments.
and a society of former headhunters and warriors Swollen, hairy, or clear hearts fit no specific
is not given to understatement—oratory spirals scenarios. Only a few idioms, like the ‘squeezed
into mutual emotional blackmail, with anger the heart’ (voiced by someone pressed between
biggest lever, the surest way to prise concessions competing demands), define a situation. Instead,
from an obdurate opponent or face down a cardiac distinctions express degrees of
grasping claim. displeasure, pegging dissatisfaction at a certain
Niha heart-speech, it transpires, is not a level in negotiation. The idioms are emotives (in
matter of self-report or introspection. Nor is there Reddy’s [2001] term) intended to change the
a folk psychology or anatomy that would explain posture of the opposing group, either to win or
the logic of the idioms (or still odder ones like deny a concession, to extract, mollify or evade.
‘having a hairy heart’ or feeling ‘as though What, then, of the speaker’s actual feelings?
you’ve swallowed a ball of cat’s fur’). The actual No one assumes or even cares what they are, or
physical organ is not in question. Unlike the gall whether his appraisal of the situation is genuinely
bladder of early modern Europe, the ‘hot heart’ conducive to a swollen heart, whatever that may
does not exude anger; nor does emotion connect be. At the end of a long passionate speech filled
to some wider spiritual or cosmic scheme, as it with sound and fury, I once asked a neighbour
does in other Asian civilizations, such as Java, ‘what was that all about?’ (I was still new to
where I have also worked. Nias.) ‘He’s asking for more,’ came the blunt
Given that emotional manipulations guide reply. In fact, speeches are made by designated
calculations of claims and debts—pressing an spokesmen who, despite the barnstorming
advantage here, conceding there—it’s curious manner, the foot stamping, finger-jabbing, and
that Niha heart speech expresses no core withering tone, may have no skin in the game.

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The hearts that are swollen are usually ‘our limiting anger’s impact: it puts down a marker
hearts’, that is, those of the spokesman’s party, and allows for a response. Reference to the ‘hot
which, despite internal differences, usually shares heart’ might imply a follow-through, a dangled
a common interest. But ‘real feelings’ are not the threat, but listeners typically bend with a dodge
issue. As the target of a speech, auditors respond of their own (‘we are shrivel-hearted’), counter-
to the implied threat—of a lowered offer, a break attack, or pacify antagonists with a gift. The
in relations, or an ancestral curse—not to the naming of hearts is a game of diplomacy, with
unused currency of harboured feelings. notional emotions as counters in a debate whose
Here a striking aspect of the stagecraft needs ideal outcome is to bury differences in a state of
mention. As he struts the boards, building his ‘one heartedness’; or at least, to soften resentment
passion, the speaker never directly addresses his with a down payment—balm for the heart.
intended audience but hails a confederate across
***
the room who croons confirmatory cries of
Though it often feels otherwise, even Niha
‘Goooood sense!’ or ‘Truuuue!’, his voice
sometimes have to stop wrangling; the duelling
overlapping, sometimes drowning, the speaker.
ends and everyone goes home, whether satisfied
The effect can be electrifying; but seldom are
(with pig) or disgruntled (without). Away from
people actually frightened. Despite the vehement
the debating chamber, anger of a rather different
gestures and coruscating tone, the ‘hot heart’
kind, mostly unnamed and unmediated by
(let’s call it anger), is never discharged on its
discourse, occasionally breaks the peaceful
target. Instead the speaker offers a heart-on-
surface of everyday life. Here we find something
sleeve commentary (‘your words impale our
closer to that universal Anger dear to many
hearts’, ‘my heart tells me this’, ‘our scorched
emotion scientists, an apparently raw response,
hearts urge refusal’). The objects of the parade
prior to the work of culture. And for this a
listen quietly, unruffled, ruminating on quids of
different ethnographic approach is required.
betel, perhaps wagging their heads in
While a focus on language and subject positions
appreciation at a particular shaft, before their man
might do for the set-piece debates, a narrative
(it’s always a man) rises to reply. Correct
approach better brings out the complexity of what
procedure ensures that strong feelings, even great
might otherwise appear to be a straightforward
anger, can be expressed without risk of violence.
instance of a ‘basic emotion’.
Evidently, this is anger of a qualified kind,
A particular example is branded in memory.
more than pretended, but never less than
One dark rainy night, a year into our fieldwork in
performed: a skittish, sometimes dangerous
the gaunt hilltop village of Orahua, my wife and
horse, taken through its steps then put back in the
I were alerted by panicky voices carried by the
stable. It would be a mistake to see it simply as
wind across the square from one of the great clan
acting. The stakes are too high for mere pretence
longhouses. We joined the streams of people
to succeed; auditors could feel safe in ignoring it.
converging hurriedly on its feintly glowing
But the imprecision of reference, the careful
doorway, entry to the roar within. Inside the
staging, and the indirection of oratory—the
cavernous wooden hall, hazily lit by a pressure
separation of putatively angry sponsors from
lamp and crammed with more than hundred
visibly angry speakers—combine to create a
excitable villagers, a woman of thirty-five lay
dynamic quite unlike ordinary everyday
dead on the floorboards, her stricken family bent
emotions. Anger is co-opted, channelled, and
over the shrouded corpse. She had died in a
mercurially expressed in a score of vaguely-
fieldhut a mile downriver after falling ill. Her two
referring heart terms to achieve a certain end.
brothers had foolishly given her a herbal
If the angry words of the orator are chiefly
purgative which had killed her. They had carried
performative, a matter of persuasion not folk
the corpse home to Orahua and a posse was sent
psychology, it follows that they cannot serve as
out into the night to fetch her husband from a
neutral descriptors of behaviour. Nobody acts
hamlet upstream where he had gone to sell a pig.
‘scorched-hearted’ or is ever described as such in
Now, pressed and jostled by the noisy crowd, in
ordinary life. There is no way of being scorched-
postures of frozen fear, the guilty men—
hearted. Proclaiming anger is, in fact, a way of

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Niha villagers in front of a clan house preparing pigs for feasting.

outsiders, if not strangers—sat trembling on a In the enclosed rear apartment, lit only by
bench, awaiting their fate, hardly glancing at their firelight, a struggle ensued, punctuated by dull
sister. thuds and groans as bodies buffeted the wooden
Until the instant of his arrival, the messengers walls. It took half an hour before the desperate
had kept the truth from the husband. The grimy man could be led docilely out by his minders,
figure that now burst through the doorway, with their shirts torn and an expression of sour triumph
mud-spattered face and blazing eyes, was our first on their faces. For the next hour or so, he sat
sight of his first reaction. Not pausing to look stupified by the corpse until the whole episode
right or left for his wife, wading through the was repeated with the entrance of his younger
startled crowd, he dived into a rear apartment to brother, who ran to the body and threw himself
grab a weapon, pursued by his fellow clansmen. full length upon it. Then he too dashed to the rear
In the hall, above the clamour, we could hear for a weapon. Again the sounds of struggle as
muffled cries from within. ‘Where are they?’ he bodies bounced off the walls. After he had been
bellowed. As brothers-in-law, ‘wife-givers’ with brought under control (one thought of a wild
the exalted status of ‘Those who own us’—an horse broken), he emerged tearing his hair and
epithet shared with God—they could not be groaning piteously, which set up a general
attacked. Wife-givers are the source of life and commotion of wailing and keening. He lay down
prosperity: they bless your crops, provide you beside the body, peeled back the sheet and began
with heirs; their curse is lethal. Yet givers of life stroking his sister-in-law’s thin hair, pressing his
had become life-takers. The incalculable debt face to her grey cheek. ‘Ah sister, they’ve killed
betokened by brideprice now ran the other way. you. Ah, my sister! Where are you? Where are
A debt of blood. Collective anger, urging revenge you?’
(to ‘repay’, in Niha parlance) and embodied in the
***
raging husband, competed with everything that
One hesitates to turn such tragedy to any use
Niha held sacred: the reverence due to wife-
other than that of a plain record, an eye
givers, the decrees of the ancestors, life itself.

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witnessing of a great and terrible moment. I have elements that are woven into its texture and
written a fuller account in After the Ancestors, an realisation; indeed, into every moment of the
ethnographic narrative which is also a kind of sequence—from appraisal, affect, action,
memorial. I revisit the scene here, after a lapse of reverberations, management, through to the
thirty years, with a lump in my throat for people possibility of recovery and renewal, for which the
I had become close to, but also in the consoling whole episode must be depicted, the crisis placed
knowledge of how things later turned out. When within the larger scheme of interwoven lives. In
I returned in 2011 I found the bereaved man short, to take us beyond a painting-by-numbers
happily remarried with a second clutch of approach to emotions that can only confirm what
children, and eager to host me for a meal. We we already know, we need a narrative account,
stood side by side for a photo in the exact spot fleshed out with biographical and cultural detail,
where we had stood for a similar picture in 1987, a history of persons.
shortly before the tragedy. O Tell me the truth about anger! The truth, as
What can one distil from this recitation? Here ever, is in the telling.
was anger elicited, enacted, expressed, tamed,
and extinguished. At no stage was it named or References
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reparations still unthinkable in the volatile University of California Press.
atmosphere of the hall. My friend’s turbocharged Beatty, A. (2019). Emotional worlds: Beyond an
anger looks as close to raw unmediated passion anthropology of emotion. Cambridge, UK:
as you can get, a maximal response to a maximal Cambridge University Press.
offence. Yet what seemed like unstoppable, Beatty, A. (2015). After the ancestors: An
single-minded fury—a raging bull—did not anthropologist’s story. Cambridge, UK:
convert into a direct assault on the guilty men. As Cambridge University Press.
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disarmed, neutralised. Deflected from its true Journal of the Royal Anthropological
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struggle. And the same pattern was repeated with Beatty, A. (2013). Current work in anthropology:
his brother: anger diverted and drained of power, reporting the field. Emotion Review, 5, 414-
giving way to grief. In the days that followed I 422.
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mother of his five children. The dead woman had Press.
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meaning of the emotion in context, the cultural

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