Elderly People Growing Tails: The Constitution of a Nonempirical Idea

• Autores: Gregory Forth
• Localización: Current anthropology: A world journal of the sciences of man, ISSN 0011-3204, Nº. 4, 2018, págs. 397-414
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Since the inception of the discipline, anthropologists have endeavored to explain why people the world over develop ideas that lack empirical support and how such ideas are accepted as true. This article deals with a claim found among the Nage people of eastern Indonesia, namely, that extremely elderly people grow tails. The idea is discussed in relation to local experiences of aging and the elderly and in relation to cosmological beliefs with which it appears consistent, and it is further analyzed in the context of Nage folk biology. By drawing on cognitivist theory, it is then demonstrated how the representation comprises a counterintuitive idea that readily combines with intuitive knowledge relating to observable processes of physical change in elderly humans. Also discussed are a notional taboo on looking at the putative tails that reinforces the belief, in part by adding to its counterintuitive appeal, and the idea’s potential for enabling younger people to distance themselves ontologically from senility.