Let’s start with the end: “It is terribly important that the
‘small thing forgotten’ be remembered. For in the seemingly little and
insignificant things that accumulate to create a lifetime, the essence of our
existence is captured.”[p. 259]
From the title of James Deetz’s book, In Small Things Forgotten, it would seem that the focus for good
history — archeology to be precise — is the small objects that are dug up from
the layers of the past. In one sense it is, both because an archeologist passes
most of his time in the field sifting through the dirt to find any small piece
of pottery or any other material that had been manipulated by man, and because
throughout the book Deetz masterly immerses the reader in the fascinating and
sometimes even touching world of the people that lived and experienced their
lives around these objects.
Yet Deetz in analyzing these objects takes serious care to
highlight patterns. Anything coming from the past has the dual nature of
evidence and narrative. From the smoke pipe to the house, but in a bigger sense
also events, writings, ideas and, as reported in the book, music, all
constitute the language that a world long gone uses to talk about itself; as with
words, objects possess a meaning by themselves, but together they don’t just describe
to an acute observer what they were meant for and how they were used, but they
paint a picture of the society around them, its culture and religion.
Deetz in almost a romantic way dwells in the cemeteries,
were his dialogue with Shakespeare’s Yorik does not bring an existential
question on the human life — a question on which, at least for compassion, any
historian should indulge in sometimes — but a very interesting description on
the stylistic changes of the decoration on the gravestones. Deetz handles the
dangerous argument with the efficient toolbox of archeology, double-checking
and cross-referencing, using statistics and analyzing the properties of the
materials.
The patterns pop out clearly from the carefully assembled
investigation. From the single objects, even the single fragment of pottery,
comes out the whole image. Clearly the past is lost, it is a memory with
blurred contours: something is lost forever, like the burned-down house were
Cato Howe, a freed slave that fought in the Revolution, lived from 1792 until
his death in 1823. Cato is now only a name, even his face is lost, yet this somewhat
depressing thought is counterbalanced by the present: we, the present, are his
heritage, and we can reconstruct the past thanks to his actions, such as the
structure of the foundations of the house that he built, the legal documents
that attest that the community granted him some land, and the meager list of
things that he left behind after his departure.
Two lessons are clear from In Small Things Forgotten: the power of the connection of objects,
its “Aura” —if we want to steal from Benjamin’s theories from the last week—,
and the strength of evidence, which comes only from research and accumulation
of data.
Nothing new perhaps, but reading such a pleasant work renews
again the passion for the lost little things of the past for us little Indiana
Jones: he was an archeologist too! The newspaper is perhaps not as “valuable”
as the Sacred Grail, but I bet that Indiana thrived for the action, not for the
money.
Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: [an Archaeology of Early American Life]. Expanded and rev. ed. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.
“What a fitting end to your life's pursuits. You're about to
become a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a
thousand years, even you may be worth something.” – Raiders of the Lost Ark
Let's not dig in the wrong place though.
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