ABSTRACT
The Salasacas' focus on weaving and writing as skills appeared not just in their responses to the author's direct questions but also in ritual supplications for both skills. Europeans and North Americans often assume that writing preserves information better than "oral memory"—hence the reliance on archives, as the true record of events—but this taken-for-granted view can be turned on its head by other cultural perspectives. The equation between writing and weaving, so intuitively comprehensible, actually tells us more about European/North American than Salasaca culture. Weaving's difficulty and exactitude make it a logical point of comparison with writing, especially for people who have only started gaining literacy skills in large numbers in recent decades. Anthropology classes watch films like Cannibal Tours a documentary about tourists traveling up the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea, still in pursuit of cannibal images and confirmation for their stereotypes. The pamphlet provides all tourists with a way to remember the meaning of each design.
