tMooi weer, meneer'

$rhy do the Dutch speak so

Rujendra Pradhan@NewDelhi

often about the weather?*

The weather is one of the most common topics of conversation in the Netherlands.

Indeed, most conversations I heard (or overheard) had some reference to theweather. It could be said with some exaggeration that the Dutch are obsessed

with the weather. Collective obsessions are manifested in various ways: throughexaggeration and excess, as in the case of the tumultuous celebration by thewhole nation when the Netherlands won the European Championship Soccer

tournament in 1988; or through silence, as in the case of the taboos on speakingabout death or money; or through constant repetition, as in the case of cleanliness

or conversing about the weather. Why are the Dutch obsessed with the weather

and why is this manifested through frequent conversation about it? Is this typicalof Dutch societyr or is there something of a more generalised-,nature in thisweather obsession?

There are three types of explanations regarding the recurrent conversationsabout the weather which can be broadly classified as: a) physical or climaticexplanation; b) social explanation and c) cultural explanation. In the first, thebad, ever-changing, unpredictable weather is used to explain why the Dutchspeak so often about the weatherl the second explanation argues that the weatheris a neutral topic of conversation and that such conversations are often points ofcontact (aanknopingspunt). These explanations are often offered by the Dutchthemselves - the 'ordinary' Dutch as well as the anthropologists - and by theBritish I have spoken to. These explanations can be considered, to use Turner'sphrase, tnative exegesis'. In other words, these explanations are themselves datawhich the anthropologist has to consider in his explanation of the phenomenon

in question.In this paper I argue that to understand why the Dutch speak so often about

the weather we have to locate the weather and the conversations about theweather in the wider cultural context or, to use a more fashionable term, in thecollective mentality. Simply put, my explanation is that the Dutch are obsessed

with the weather precisely because it does not fit neatly into their scheme ofthings which is based on order, regularity and control. I shall begin with the

ETNOFOOR, II (1) 1989, pp. 3-1.4

'social' explanation and then move on to the 'physical/climatic' and the 'cultural'explanat ions respectively.

The 'social' explanation: etiquette, a neutral topic, a point of contact

When asked "Why do you speak so often about the weather?" some of my Dutchfriends reply, "Because it is a neutral topic (neutraal onderwetp)". If pressed

further, they add it is a point of contact or a starting-point for conversations(aanknopingspunt). These explanations refer to certain rules of conversationswhich my informants have never explicitly formulated but they may be statedas follows:1. In everyday conversations topics which are either controversial or personal

and intimate are to be avoided.2. The contents of conversations depend on a) the nature of social relations

between the conversationalists, i.e. whether they are strangers or friends,married couples or distant cousins, old enemies or new neighbours, etc.; andb) the contexts where the conversations occur, i.e., shops, offices, homes, etc..These two conditions determine the topics to be avoided or discussed.

3. On most occasions when two or more people come into contact, it is consid-ered polite to exchange at least a few words - whether it be a simple 'hello'or'good day', or some remarks about the weather or health. Other contextsmay allow for conversations, but respect for the rules of privacy may dis-courage starting up conversations, for example, in trains, buses of cafes. Inbars, those who sit at tables expect that their privacy be respected and thusthey exchange conversations only with the waiter or waitress. But those whochose to sit at the bar open themselves to conversations from the bartenderand their neighbours. Refusing to engage in conversations in this contexts isconsidered uncivil.

4. Silence between two or more persons between whom these minimal verbal ex-pressions are expected may be variously interpreted as a) uncivil behaviour,as in the above case, b) absence of social relations, as in the case with mem-bers of opposing churches, c) or its break, as between neighbours who havequarreled. It can also, on the other hand, signify a certain degree of intimacy

- as between long-married couples - which does away with the necessity ofsuch verbal exchanges.

Thus in numerous situations where, on the one hand, conversations are ex-

pected but, on the other hand, controversial, intimate or personal topics are

to be avoided, conversations centre on neutral topics such as the weather. Such

conversations perform what Leech terms the phatic function of language, u'hichhe defines as: '. . . the function of keeping communication lines open, and keeping

social relationships in good repair . . . it is not what one says? but the fact thatone says it at all, that matters' (Leech 1981:41). Thus what matters then is

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that something is said - as long as it is not controversial or personal - to fill theconversational hiatus at parties and other social occasions.

Leech suggests that the phatic function oflanguage serves to maintain cohesionwithin social groups as opposed to expressive and directive functions which mayreflect their divisions and tensions (ibid.:52-53). While this may be the case inmany instances, he overlooks the other function of such conversation which is,as Professor Uberoi suggests, that of 'not-talking'. In other words, talking aboutthe weather may be seen as a means of not wanting to 'talk' - that is, to avoidtalking about things that matter, such as personal and intimate topics. Thuswhile discussing the weather may help maintain social cohesion, as Leech insists,it may do so through maintaining distance between the conversationalists.

Conversations about the weather are often used as aanknopingspunt, i.e., as astarting-point of contact for conversations about other topics. This is mainly so

between acquaintances who, as it were, spar with polite conveisations until theyfeel confident to discuss more personal topics. But remarks about the weatherare also made when the conversation gets too controversial or intimate and thetopic is sought to be changed. Let me cite some examples of conversations indifferent contexts to illustrate how the topic of weather is variously used.

A simple 'good day' (or 'good morning' or 'good evening') is exchanged be-tween the villagers and strangers, or a salesgirl and a client, or a clerk and aclient when they meet in the street, shops or offices. People who know eachother better may ask after each otherts health - 'How are you?' - and commenton the weather: 'Mooi weer, hd' (Good weather, eh), or '-Elet is koud vandaag, hd'(It is cold today, eh), or "t Is nat, hi'(It is wet, eh) and the adressee responds,

'Jar't is mooi weer' or'Ja, het is J<oudt, ot'Jar't is nat'. If they are waitingat a busstop or in a queue in a shop or in the doctor's office, the conversationproceeds further, usually about the weather. These conversations usually pro-ceed by the way of agreement - one person commenting on the weather whilethe other responds with 'ja ' (y".). In the middle of these conversations thebus arrives or it is his or her turn to pay the bill or visit the doctor and theperson departs with a hasty 'good day'. If there is time and a certain amount ofprivacy - and the conversationalists are well acquainted with each other - newsand gossip of the village are exchanged: who is ill or hospitalised, who boughta new car or house, what the new resident of the village is like, etc.. They mayexchange news about themselves and their families and common friends.

The conversations on social visits are usually as follows2:

The guest rings the doorbell and when the host or hostess opens the door:Guest: Goede morgen (Good Morning).Host: Goede motgen. Wat leuk dat je komt. Kom verder (Good morning. Horv

nice that you are here. Come in).Guest: Dank u wel. En hoe gaat het met u? (Thank you. How are you?).Host: Ptima, hoor. En met u? (I am fine. And you?).

Guest: 't Gaat goed (Everything is fine).Host: Zoek een plekje . .. Wilt u koffie of thee? (Please sit where you like . . .

Would you like coffee or tea?).Guest: Koffie, graag (Cofree please).Over coffee the host may ask:Host: Zo, heeft u het druk gehad? (Have you been busy?).Guest: Nee, ik heb niks bijzonders gedaa.n (No, I have not been doing anything

special).Host: Zeg, is het te watm voot u? (Is it too hot for you?).Guest: 't Is prima, hoor. Maar 't is erg koud buiten. Ik had dat niet verwacht

toen ik van huis ging (It is fine with me. But it is very cold outside. Ihad not expected it to be so cold when I left my house).

Host: Maar ja, beter koud dan nat, he? Ik l<an niet zo goed tegen nat weer(But it is better cold than wet, eh. I cannot stand wet weather).

Guest: Ik ook niet. Ik wil graag naar Spanja Bent u ooit naar Spanje geweest?(Neither can L I want to go to Spain. Have you ever been to Spain?).

Host: Nee hoor, alleen naar Frankrijk, naa,r Zuid-Frankrijk. Ik ben in juli vorigjaar geweest en 't was ontzettend warm. Ik kon niet naar buiten. Ikvind Nederland beter, aJs 't maar mooi weer is, hi? (No, only to France,southern Fra,nce. I was there last year in July and it was very hot. Icould not go out. I prefer the Netherlands when the weather is nice).

Guest: Jawel, jawel. Vorige zomer bijvoorbeeld was het ontzettend mooi weer.

Het was plezierig om in de tuin te werken en wat te fietsen. Maar ditjaar, het wil nog niet echt zomeren, hi? (Yes, yes. Last summer, forexample was very lovely. It was a pleasure to work in the garden and tocycle. But this year, it looks as though we will not have a good summer).

Host: Nou, maa.r toeh beter dan twee jaat terug, of wanneer was dat? (Yes,but it is better than two yea,rs ago - or when was it?).

Such conversations can go on for some time, each person adding details andrecounting what he (or she) did the previous summer or winter and so on. Ques-tions may be asked about the people mentioned in these anecdotes - brothersor parents they travelled with; children who fell ill because of the extreme coldweatherl aged parents confined to bed because ofthe extreme cold weather, etc..And these may lead to other topics of conversation - news and gossip, soccerT

harvest, traffic jams, etc..The weather is not always discussed at the beginning of conversations. I have

been at numerous parties, coffee sessions, and social visits where the villagersdiscussed the weather at various times during the occasion in question. It is

not only the villagers who discuss the weather. I was once at a lunch at an ex-ambassadorts house where my host and hostess were determined not to discussthe weather. But halfway through lunch, they began discussing the weather (Itwas a lovely day!).

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Conversations about the weather in these contexts may be used to fill theconversational hiatus, or to avoid talking about controversial or intimate topics,or mark time until one feels confident in venturing into other topics, or to shiftsuch topics of conversation.

If the conversation gets too controversial or personal, someone may walk tothe window and remark, 'Say, it looks like the sky is going to clear', and the hintis taken up - 'Really? I do hope so. I miss the sun ...'. This gambit does notalways succeed. I was present on one occasion when the hostess tried to stopher guests from talking about divorce, seperation and financial troubles ensuingfrom that. When she did not succeed she walked out of the room saying she didnot want to listen to such horrible (verveJend) talk.

The Dutch try to avoid discussing controversial topics and public display of

l)SfAmu> )ilrtb )ead to guare)s. Duityr the frrst few months of our stasr in

the Netherlands, our Dutch friends were often alarmed by the frequent heated

arguments between my two colleagues and I, regardless of where we were. tAre

yo"u still friends?' they often asked us, perhaps adding under their breath, 'after

rtt ttr"t arguing?'. Sometimes it is perhaps better to restrict one's conversation

to the weather, as I once wished I had'

I was in the village cafe late one evening with a friend. Present in the cafe were

the regular clients from the village who, I was later informed, usually discussed

,o"."rl the weather, their day's work, told each other stories and gossiped. After

a couple of rounds of drinks, I casually mentioned that I was interested in the

differences between the two rival churches (the Hervormde KerJ< and the Gere-

formeerd,e Kerk) in the village. In no time there was a lively argument between

three friends about the relative merits of these churches and whether it was worth

belonging to any church at all. The atmosphere was surcharged with emotion,

threalntg to break out any moment into verbal, or even physical, violence. As

we were l"a"ittg the cafe, the bartender cast a hostile eye at me and muttered,

perhaps with some exaggeration, that never in the twenty years that he ran the

"ur" ir"a his patrons so heatedly discussed religious affairs there. I had inadvert-

edly destroyed the normally cozy and relaxed (gezeilig) atmosphere of the cafe.

irinks loosen tongues. After a few rounds of drinks it is permissible, at least

between friends, to speak about more intimate and personal matters' I have

often heard many normally reticent and private Dutchmen discuss their personal

problems over drinks - problems about their wives or girlfriends, difficulties with

lh"ir "hildt"n

or jobs, and sometimes even financial problems. In such situations,

one is expected to share onets problems - a sort of exchange of confidences to

go along with the exchange of drinks.3 But these are marked occasions which

allow and even encourage personal and intimate conversations. Similarly' in the

privacy of their homes, women will exc.hange confidences over coffee. And on

lhes" oc".sions too, conversations about neutral topics, especially the weather,

may precede exchanges of confidences'

In the above sections I discussed the significance and functions of the conversa-tions about the weather - that it is a netttral topic, it is a point of contact, itkeeps the lines of communication open, it leads to social cohesion but may alsoIead to social distance. Do these fully exhaust the reasons why the Dutch spealiso often about the weather? Why is it that the weather is so often discussed, orat least remarked upon, by or between intimate couples during the course of aday? Why is the weather discussed at great length in letters between lovers whosurely have other things to write about? And why is it the weather and not someother topic - food, sex, money or death - which is considered neutral a topic andfrequently discussed? Is this because, as someone recently suggested to me, theweather affects everyone equally? Is there something special about the Dutchweather which makes it eminently suitable as a common topic of conversation?Let me discuss the last question first because it is an explanation offered by manyof my informants.

The physical or climatic explanation: bad, ever-changing and unpre-dictable weather

I have often been told by my Dutch friends and acquaintances that they speakso often about the weather because it is generally bad, ever-changing and un-predictable. And indeed the sky is usually overcast and it rains intermittentlybut frequently throughout the year, except perhaps, if luck holds out, for a fewweeks in spring and summer. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Dutchweather as follows:

The rainfall averages 31 inches (790 millimters), with only about 25 clear days peryear. The average rainfall is highest in summer (August) and autumn and lowest inspring time. The country is known - not the least through the magnificent landscapesof the Dutch painters - for its heavy clouds, and on an average day three-fifth ofthe sky is clouded (The New Encyclopedia Britannica (Macropa,edia), L2th vol.,1975:1059).

The weather changes frequently and unpredictably during the course of the day.A day may start out warm and bright but as soon as you decide to enjoy thesunshine, the sky quickly clouds over and it begins to rain. On other occasionsit rains the whole day so you wear a raincoat and a cap and perhaps carry anumbrella but just as you step out of the house, the sky clears up and the sunshines down on you - it can even get warm, making you feel overdressed! Butin general, as my co-villagers advised me, and I learnt to my cost, you shouldalways be prepared for rain for it is more likely to catch you off guard than thesun. It almost seems as though the weather enjoys surprising the weathermanwith his satellites a^nd computers and other means of predicting the weather, as

well as the ordinary Dutchman who loves order, regularity and predictability andintensely dislikes surprises.

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While the nature of the Dutch weather makes it amenable as a common topicof conversation - because one can always comment on the ever-changing weather

- this does not explain why it is the weather and not another topic which is com-

monly discussed. It is theoretically inadequate to explain social and cultural phe-

nomena only in terms of natural factors - a point Durkheim repeatedly stressed.4

Schama argues against those who explain the Dutch obsession for cleanliness onlyin terms of the Dutch climate. To quote him at length on this topic:

In fact their climate was actually no more sodden than many neighbouring lands inGermany, Flanders, or even northern France and England, where the people seemed

notoriously indifferent to the cleanliness cult . . . Something more than material con-

siderations, then, was at work in this mass devotion to purity . .. For the laws thatcommanded the Dutch to conspicuous observation of their washing rituals were moralrather than material. And they were deeply associated in the collective mentalitywith the polarities of pride and shame, solidarity and alieness (Schama 1987:378, myemphasis, RP).

Like Schama, I do not argue that the material considerations, in this case theclimate, are totally irrelevant - they may be necessary but surely not sufficientcause as to why the Dutch are obsessed with cleanliness, or with the weather.Similar weather conditions in other countries do not give rise to these obsessions.

Thus we have to look for social and cultural explanations as to why the Dutchspeak so often about the weather.

What I find interesting as an anthropologist from a very different cultural back-ground is the ease with which the Dutch, and perhaps Westerners in general,

offer material considerations - economy, biology or the climate, for example - as

explanations for social and cultural phenomena. For example, the Dutch claimthat the reason why they are not so sociable, why they do not visit each otherso often, is that it is often very cold and wet so people prefer to remain indoors.They contrast this with the warmer, drier countries (in southern Europe andAsia) where, as they put it, 'people live on the streets' and thus meet each othermore often. When I point out that the Tibetans and the Eskimos, for example,meet each other more often than the Dutch, despite the extremely cold climate,they remark that the Dutch meet each other more often in summer than in winter.

SimilarlS when I asked the Dutch from the Protestant regions, 'Why do youshut the cookie box (.koelcjestrcmmel) immediately after offering a cookie to each

of the guests?', they replied: 'It is so damp in this country that the cookies get

soggy unless the box is immediately shut'. When asked whether this is thecustom in the Catholic Netherlands as well, they replied, 'No, they are differentfrom us. They are more hospitable'. Thus from explanation in terms of theclimate we move to the notion of hospitality.5

From these examples, it could be suggested that the dominant way of ex-

periencing and conceptualising social and cultural life in the Netherlands (andperhaps the West) is in terms of material considerations - in this case: the

weather - as opposed to other societies where religious or other considerationsare dominant.6

I am not suggesting that the nature of the weather has no relevance what-soever in explaining why the Dutch speak so often about the weather. What Iam arguing against is the direct causal relation between the weather and con-versations about it. The nature of the weather is important but only when it ismediated by culture. What is important is how the weather is conceptualised,consciously or unconsciously by a given society.

6Culturalt explanation: the weather as a metaphor for disorder, irreg-ularity and lack of control

In the previous sections I discussed how the weather lends itself as a commontopic of conversation not only because a 'fresh' remark can always be madeabout it but also because it is considered a neutral topic which everyone can dis-cuss without raising controversies or exchanging confidences. But the weatheris discussed not only on public and other social occasions by strangers and ac-quaintances, it is also a topic of conversation between intimates at home as partof their everyday talk. A couple, for example, may comment on or discuss theweather at different times during the course of a day. These frequent commentsand conversations about the weather are a manifestation of the Dutch obsessionwith the weather. This obsession is not so much the result of their concern withthe effect of the weather on agriculture - as perhaps may be the case with inagrarian societies - rather, it is related to the weather being conceptualised as

anomalous in their scheme of things.

One of the central features of the Dutch collective mentality is the oppositionbetween regularity, order a"nd control on the one hand, and irregularity, disorderand lack of control on the other. The Dutch prefer everything to be regular,ordered and controlled. To take a.n example of nature first: an often heardsaying is 'God created the universe but the Dutch made Holland'. The Dutch areindeed proud of the polders which they reclaimed from the sea and marshy landsby draining water, harnessing the wind and controlling floods. Their attemptat imposing order on nature may be seen in the neat divisions of the poldersinto squares and rectangles; the meticulously pruned trees, all of which are ofa uniform height, which line the canals and roads; the forests which have beenconverted into well-tended parks; the ever so neat gardens kept as though theywere living rooms; and the indoor plants so lovingly displayed.T All these areexamples of the domestication of nature. Nature which is not domesticated isconceived as being 'wild' (It is not coincidental that whereas the knife and forkhave to be used when eating meat of the domesticated animals such as cows andpigs, one may eat 'wild' animals suctr as the hare and turkey with hands).

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Social life is similarly ordered, regulated and controlled. This is reflected, for:xample, in the rigid temporal and spatial frameworks within which social lifeoperates. Everything, but indeed everything, must be done at fixed, appointed:imes - time for work and for leisure; time for meals and for visiting; fixed days

:o t'ash clothes and to go to church; fixed dates to mark the change of seasons;

etc.. How many Dutch men or women drink their morning coffee at eleven a.m.

instead of ten a.m.; or wash their clothes on Sundays instead of Mondays; or visitjriends at six p.m. instead of eight p.m.? These various secular prescriptions and

prohibitions take on an almost sacred character, deviations from which, whilenot sacrilegious, are censured.s

SimilarlS to take only one aspect of the spatial framework, domestic space is

divided into sleeping and living spaces (bedroom, drawing-dining room, kitchen)on the one hand, and storage space (the attic, cellar or shed) on the other.e

Everything is to be kept in its proper place - the crocliery in the kitchen (and

better ones in the living room) in the shelves reserved for it, and not in thebedroom or the hall; clothes in the closets a^nd drawers in the bedroom, and notin the living room; dirty clothes in the laundry basket in the bathroom; etc..

Things which do not belong to one or the other of these rooms are to be storedin the attic or the shed - old carpets and furniture, garden and household tools,empty flower pots and boxes. The interesting point here is that even though these

things are neatly laid out, the host or hostess always politely apologizes for themess (rommel) precisely because the attic or the shed contains a heterogeneity ofthings which do not belong together. But without the shed or the attic, the rest

of the house would be cluttered up with things which do not belong together'Just as a place is reserved for things which would otherwise disturb the order

of the rest of the house, a few days of the year are marked for activities and

behaviour which are normally considered irregular, disorderly or uncontrolled.In Schoonrewoerd, for example, at New Year's Eve, the children boldly steal ofie-

bollen (a sweetmeat) from neighbours' houses and youths stealthily lift variousitems from other people's homes to display them on the churchyard - all withimpunity, and perhaps even encouragement, from the elders.ro Similarly, thoughdrinking in the cafe and especially getting drunk in public, are censured, the adult(male) villagers do so openly on the annual village market day (jaarma'rkt).

It is precisely because space and time for such disorder or irregular behaviourare marked and limited, and thus controlled, that they are tolerated and notconsidered threatening to their scheme of things. But this is not the case withthe weather. The Dutch weather - ever-changing, unpredictable, irregular - is ametaphor, however mundane and concealed, for all that is irregular, disorderlyand uncontrollable. And because the weather is not limited in time or space, it is

an insidious threat, not overtly recognised, to the established scheme of things.

It is because of this metaphor and threat that the Dutch are obsessed with theweather. This obsession is not so much because of the effects of the weather

on agriculture or the economy - this could be said for the farmers - but rather

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because of what it represents, just as cleanliness is not only a matter of removingdirt or a question of hygiene but, as schama (i98?) has shown, a moral question,associated with the polarities of pride and shame, solidarity and aJieness. Thusthere is perhaps much more to the frequent conversation about the weather thana question of politeness or neutra,l topic of conversation.

Concluding remarks

I suggested at the beginning of the paper that collective obsessions are manifestedin three ways: a) exaggeration and excess, b) silence or taboo and c) repetition.These could be seen as means of dealing with disorder. Excess and exaggerationare allowed in situations which are marked and limited, and thus controlled,for example, public drunkenness during the annual village fair or the Carnival;stealing sweetmeats or removing things at New Year's Eve, or nudity on thebeaches. All these are collective and open and are allowed to occur in limitedspace and time. What cannot be that limited or marked is repressed, silencedor hedged with taboos as, for example, with sex, death or bodily functions -yhich are, as Blok (1977) puts it, shoved behind the wings (achter de coulissen).Death, sex, other bodily functions, and we may add, money, though necessaxyand inevitable, represent, in different ways, a threat to the order of society.

The third manner of dealing with disorder is by repetition. Let me throwcaution to the wind and state my hypothesis: The frequent conversations aboutthe weather are attempts to domesticate the weather. By domestication I donot mean that the weather itself is mastered or brought under control, as inthe case of gardens or livestock, but that it becomes a familiar part of the so-cial and cultural landscape. This is done in such a way that while on the onehand it represents disorder, irregularity and lack of control and thus threatensthe accepted scheme of things, on the other hand the sting from this threat isremoved, precisely because the conversations and comments about the weatherare so frequent. We may compare this to the case of the tsavagest,

'barbarians'and the vagabonds (zwervers) who represent a threat to the established way oflife but have become so much a part of life - through books, comics, rad.io andTV programmes, and articles in the papers - that they represent only a symbolicand not a real threat to regular, ordered and controlled life. Is this the reasonwhy cats, which once represented witches and all that is fickle and evil, are nowkept as pets in numerous Dutch households?

By way of conclusion, let me end on a different note. I was once advised byan old man in Schoonrewoerd, noticing how miserable I felt by the bad weather:'If it is good weather, enjoy it. If it is bad weather, ignore it'. But the weatheris never ignored for it is a common and frequent topic of conversation. I am notreally sure as to why the Dutch speak so often about the weather - this articleis a first attempt to provide an answer.

72

\ot es

This paper is a by-product of my fieldwork on the care of the aged in a villagecommunity, which I carried out in Schoonrewoerd, a small Calvinist village in theprovince of Zuid-Holland, from September 1987 to October 1988. The research issponsered by IDPAD, to which I am grateful for the financial and other support.I would like to thank the people of Schoonrewoerd, without whose hospitality andcooperation the fieldwork would not have been possible, I have benefited from thesuggestions made by Prof. J. P. S. Uberoi, Robert Boonzajer, and the editors ofEtnofoor.The British are well known for their conversations about the weather. The writerGeorge Miles wrote somewhere that whereas on the Continent one is thought to bea bore if one speaks about the weather, in Britain, on the contrary, one is thoughtto be a bore unless one can converse about the weather for at least half an hour.In India and Nepal people do talk about the weather but it is more in the nature ofpassing remarks than sustained conversations. And in Japan, as I am informed byJan van Bremen, letters, whether formal or personal, are always begun with somecomment about the weather. These comments are formulated as far as possible inpoetic language.This is not a record of an actual conversation but I have heard and engaged inmany similar conversations.On social exchange in a Dutch village, see my paper (Pradhan, 1988a).Mauss reiterates this argument in his essay on the seasonal variations of the Es-kimo. While discussing the concentration and the dispersion of the Eskimos duringwinter and summer respectively, Mauss argues that '.. . although biological andtechnological factors may have an important influence, they are insufrcient to ac-count for the total phenomenon' (Mauss 1979:56). Similarly, he writes that thestructure of the Eskimo twinter house cannot be accounted for exclusively in tech-nological terms ... [t] is, therefore, dependent on this entire culture' (ibid.:77).To take another example: When I asked the villagers why they did not have theiraged parents stay with them, they almost invariably replied that there was noroom (geen ruimte). I pointed out that they now have more living and sleepingspace than ever before and that there even were empty rooms. To this they gavevarious replies: that nowadays each person demands his or her own bedrooml thattheir children liked to use their old rooms when they visited; or that it was not thecustom for parents and married children to live in a single houshold. Here againmaterial considerations (lack of physical space) gives way to social and culturalexplanation - for it is not that there is a shortage of space (rooms) per se but thatit is thought that each individual needs his or her own room, which was not thecase formely. For further discussion on parents-children relations, see my paper(Pradhan, 1988b).

6. Sahlins writes, for example, 'Everything in capitalism conspires to conceal thesymbolic ordering of the system' (Sahlins 1976:220).My friend David Gellner was so struck by this that he remarked, 'The British keeptheir fields and gardens "natural" while the Dutch keep their's "controlled".'Punctuality is a well known trait of the Dutch. Nooteboom describes this well inhis book Rituals where he describes what happened when Inni and his aunt went tovisit her former lover. The latter states, tYou are ten minutes too early, Th6rbse'.He then shuts the door on their face (Nooteboom 1983:2-7). Later on, Nooteboom

1

)

3.4.

5.

7.

8.

13

writes: ,Time was the father of all things in Arnold Taad's life. He n"a afrriaea tn"empty, dangerous expanse of the day into a number of precisely measured parts,

"t d th" boundary posts at the beginning and end of each part determined his day

with relentless sternness . .. Someone arriving ten minutes early or late was notwelcome' (ibid:a7).

g. Domestic space is classified and divided in other ways - private and public, male

and female, back and front, etc. - but this is not my concern here'

10. See Irene Cieraad (1980) for another account of New Year's Eve in a different

village.

References cited

Blok, AntonLg77 Achter de coulissen. De Gids V0 @15)257-70.

Cieraad, Irene1gg0 Een kwestie van eer en schande. volkskundig Bulletin 6(2):93-127.

Leech, Geoffry1981 Semantics. The Study of Meanings. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Nooteboom, Cees

1983 Rituals. Louisiana:State University Press.

Mauss, Marcel1979 seasonal variations of the Eskimo. London: Routledge & I(egan Paul.

Pradhan, Rajendra1988a Language, Women, Goods and Services: Social Exchange in a Dutch Village.

Ms.- Paper read at the Departments of Anthropology at the University ofAmsterdam and the University of Leiden.

1g88b The care of the Aged in a Dutch village: The Family, community and the

State. Ms. Paper read at the Post-doctoral Institute, University of Amster-dam.

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