When entering into a strange new environment, one often has a set of assumptions and expectations about what they will encounter. These assumptions can often affect or distort the image that a certain culture may display. When examining this at the scientific level, as ethnographers do, this can be a barrier that needs to be broken down before any real conclusions can be drawn about that culture or society. They are forced to repeatedly re-examine their method of thinking and method of study.One's surprise at the answer to the question, in other words, requires one to revise the question until lessening surprises or diminishing returns indicate a stopping point.(470)? Meaning that in order to reach a conclusion, you have to modify the process for each situation. To put this idea to a more modern day example, it would be impossible for someone who had spent all their lives in America, leaned American customs and ideals to go to Afghanistan and have all the customs and morals of the culture explained to them. They would have to live those customs to fully understand them. It would be foolish to think that someone from America could understand in a matter of days, even months, the full reason behind the recent terrorist attacks on Manhattan. .
The rage that the headhunters tried to explain to Rosaldo inGrief and a Headhunters Rage? is a perfect example of this concept. The Ilongots expressed their anger and grief in the form of extreme violence, i.e. cutting off the heads of others. In our culture, no one could comprehend the reasoning nor accept the concept of this brutal ritual. The immediate assumption from someone of our culture is that there is some religious or spiritual reasoning for this. We simply cannot imagine any simpler explanation for what we consider such extreme behavior. However, when questioned, the answer ofrage and bereavement? seemed to be too simple and uninteresting an answer.
