ABSTRACT
Fitz John Porter Poole has captured the essence of the psychological frameworks of the Bimin-Kuskusmin by richly detailing their own theoretical explanations. His exegeses during the Colloquium on psychoanalytic methods and questions in anthropological fieldwork demonstrate the difference between superficial observation and interpretation of behavior manifest in a foreign society versus obtaining an insider’s understanding of that behavior. According to Bimin-Kuskusmin ideology, uninitiated males are weak, vulnerable, irrational, and composed of female substance; they are appropriately called “people of the women’s houses.” In the case of the Bimin-Kuskusmin, the ritual polarities, seemingly representing more oedipal than preoedipal issues, may also be seen as serving defensive functions, just as their early presentation does in the treatment situation. This interpretation would be consistent with this group’s apparent borderline personality modal personality structure. In the Bimin-Kuskusmin rituals there also seems to be a sensitive awareness of balance between good and bad, masculine and feminine.
