ABSTRACT
The problem was that the Racing Tribe natives are not particularly interested in exact sciences. It seemed that they would rather base their costly business decisions on the mysterious and largely unverifiable results of anthropological enquiry than on the plodding certainties of market research surveys. The Racing Tribe, like many of the mud-hut societies studied by anthropologists, does not subscribe to modern Western beliefs about causality. The Racing Tribe has a well-established, traditional range of all-purpose explanations for failures and defeats, none of which involves blaming the individuals responsible. Some anthropologists have genuinely been officially 'adopted' by their tribal hosts, and talk proudly about the special ceremonies involved in this process, the feasts held in their honour, the ritual hair-washing or toe-painting. Very few anthropologists really do 'go native', in the sense of abandoning all the much-maligned trappings of modern civilization and taking up permanent residence in some remote mud-hut village.
