A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography

2. A Magic Speaking Object: Early Patterns of Response to the Phonograph

2 A MagicSpeaking Object Early Patterns of Response to the Phonograph Sound is a very special modality. We cannot handle it. We cannot push it away. We cannot turn our backsto it. We canclose our eyes, hold our noses, withdraw from touch, refuse to taste. We cannot close our ears, though we can partly muffle them. Sound isthe least controllable of all sense modalities, and it is this that is the medium of that most intricate of all evolutions, language. Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Edison knew he had a blockbuster invention on his hands—a machine with literally unheard-of potential. Nothing, however, in his technical notes or subsequent promotional writings suggests that he reflected deeply on the radical challenge the device would make on the expectationsand perceptionsof those first exposed to it, including himself—"I was never so taken aback in my life!"—and his dumbfounded staff. His grasp of the physical properties of sound and the potential for its inscription in soft wax was thorough, but his understanding of the complex nature of hearing as human sense modality was—like his own hearing—indistinct, and his understanding of the potential effect of a technologically recorded sound medium on a human audience, limited. Other great minds of Edison's era had taken up the deeper psychological and philosophical issues related to sense perception in general and hearing in particular. The German physicist and physiologist Hermann L. von Helmholtz (1821-1894), considered the founder of perceptual physiology, postulated "perception as hypothesis"—that 27 is, perception understood as a process both learned and empirical, which occurs not as an organism's mere passive receptivity to stimuli but rather asan active construction of experience, a perceptual image (Anschauungsbild) created from existing internal knowledge and reminiscence (Helmholtz [1866] 1968:181). The workings of thisso-called top-down processingof sense experience was further developed and refined by the brilliant Austrian physicist and experimental physiologist Ernst Mach ([1886] 1897).1 Accordingto these researchers, the "internal knowledge" that creates perception from sense experience includes social understandings of meaning and process, as well as understandings based on personal experience and observation—a conclusion providing the basis for relativistic examination of perception cross-culturally.2 The invention of the phonograph, then, coincided with the experimental investigations that form the basis for all subsequent scientific research in the area of cultural differences in sense perception. Taking place at the same time as this seminal research, the responses to the new machine represent a fascinating "laboratory" for assumptions concerning cross-cultural and culturespecific aspects of hearing implicit in their findings, yielding some unexpected results. First encounterswith the phonograph did not occur in laboratorypure settings, however, nor are the reports we have of these encounters necessarily objective accounts of the event, especially in cultural terms. Instead, we have anecdotal accounts: sensitive souls fainting with astonishment, savage tribal chiefs trembling in awe, countrified hicks fumbling for explanation. The major sources for such information are contemporary newspaper accounts, which were often reprinted later as filler for phonograph trade publications. Although these firstencounter narratives may initially have been more or less faithful to the outlines of a particular event in terms of content, their eventual reformulation of structure and style is in increasingly jocular terms. The reader, presumed to be in-the-know, was encouraged to view with complicit amusement and condescension those unfortunate, benighted souls still ignorant of Edison's amazing device. As the machine became increasingly familiar to the general American populace, these reports 28 Spiral Way became increasingly humorous and anecdotal, portraying individuals1 first responses asquaint, naive, or credulous, in the pattern of the formulaic "rube" story, such asthe following account, originally appearing in the Indianapolis Sun in 1902: "Yes, sir," said Uncle Reuben, as the Phonograph stopped, "that's mighty good—mighty good!" "Just wait awhile," said the youth, as he slipped on another record, "and I'll explain it to you." "Oh, I understand it all right," responded Reuben, "Understand it all except one thing." "What's that?" asked the youth. "Well," answeredReuben with an abashed grin, "I understand how these sleight-of-hand fellers pull big rabbits out o' little hats, but I'll be danged if I understand howyou git afull brass band in that box."3 Journalists dwelt on dramatic responses, copywriters emphasized aspects of the events that would sell phonographs, and ethnographers , by no...