ABSTRACT
Ethnographies discuss how actors come together and transmit information, but seldom give details of how the transmission of information is restricted. There is no comparative treatment or cross-cultural analysis of different systems of privacy. The rules of privacy may be closely associated with broad systems of behavior, which are not equally salient in contemporary American culture. This is certainly true in the privacy patterns of two societies in which the authors have conducted firsthand research: the Mehinacu of Brazil and the Zuni of the American Southwest. The Mehinacu turn out to be an extreme example of a society whose privacy pattern is radically different. Here spatial and physical barriers to penetration and surveillance are minimal. Among the Zuni there is a quite different pattern of privacy, but the restrictions on the flow of information are primarily a function of the religious system. This settlement encompasses an entire speech community, since the Zuni language is spoken nowhere else in the world.
