Nur Yalman interviewed by Alan Macfarlane, 14th June 2004
0:00:05 Parentage; born in Istanbul; family with a strong commitment to political
liberty; went to Robert College, an American school, in Istanbul; at the school number
of Englishmen including Philip Ullyot, gifted biology teacher [see Picken interview],
and Hilary Sumner Boyd, both had a profound effect ; Ullyot and friend Laurence
Picken got him into Peterhouse, Cambridge despite difficulties of being Turkish
0:04:50 1950 Peterhouse; memory of Laurence Picken; wanted to understand Turkey
in the widest sense and would have liked to do wider social sciences and history, but
accepted to do archaeology and anthropology; at end of part 1 got a first and
scholarship so encouraged to continue
0:09:50 Jack Goody, Kathleen Gough and Ray Smith were all graduate students at
that time; met Kathleen Gough during first few days in Cambridge on a train to
London; she became first supervisor; very nice, enthusiastic person, but came from
Northern England and didn’t feel really comfortable in Cambridge; this may have
encouraged her interest in psychoanalytic theories which coincided with own interest
in the subject
0:14:33 Jack Goody, warm and decent human being, able to generate the best in
people; Meyer Fortes had just come as Professor; difficulties with Ethel Lindgren and
Reo Fortune; Raith?? Woolmer working with Ethel Lindgren; memory of Meyer
Fortes, hesitant lecturer, but good in seminars
0:19:10 Ran the anthropology club and a highlight was the visit of Evans-Pritchard;
odd lecture as he started in mid-sentence and finished in mid-paragraph; later LeviStrauss came; Derek Stenning, also graduate student gave seminar on Levi-Strauss’s
book on kinship which Meyer Fortes thought little of at the time
0:22:40 Got II:1 in part two of the tripos; Jean La Fontaine, another co-student, got a
first; Anthony Forge and Martin Southwold also there; in first year as a graduate
student Edmund Leach replaced Ethel Lindgren (1954); angered Leach by criticizing
‘Highland Burma’ in a seminar but then became good friends; both interested in LeviStrauss and the structure of consciousness and symbolic forms; Leach, a man of great
intelligence and perceptiveness, very challenging but irritated Meyer Fortes and
relations between them became difficult; Leach’s professorship and provostship of
King’s exacerbated tension with Fortes
0:30:00 Jack Goody and Leach got on well; Goody, by his fairness, managed to
control the seminars where Leach and Fortes argued; Stanley Tambiah not in the
department at that time but came later; had thought of studying Turkish speakers in
Central Asia but fieldwork not possible in such areas; Leach encouraged him to go to
Ceylon; Tambiah was a lecturer at the University of Ceylon, met and liked each other
and introduced Tambiah to Leach; Tambiah invited by Leach to apply for post in
Cambridge and came in early 1960’s
0:33:43 Memories of Tambiah; encouraged Tambiah to go to Chicago from
Cambridge
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0:37:22 For Ph.D. first worked with Meyer Fortes but had common interests in
Ceylon with Edmund Leach who invited him to work with him and who later
supervised him; voluminous correspondence with Leach; neither really aware of the
complexity of Sinhalese ritual
0:41:00 Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf ; considered rather a light-weight by Firth
and Leach
0:42:50 First impressions of fieldwork in Ceylon; Leach already in fieldwork village;
with the help of Mrs Fernando, a friend of Leach’s, bought a car and hired a cook, and
drove to Pul Eliya; found Leach had just moved into a cowshed he had whitewashed,
full of enthusiasm; great example of how one should do fieldwork
0:49:00 Fieldwork village very isolated in Kandyan highlands; made great friendships
and enjoyed it hugely; looking back, struck by our naivety that we were completely
unaware of Sinhalese Tamil tensions; Colonial experience so well managed that
tensions suppressed
0:55:10 Theme of Ph.D. thesis which was published as ‘Under the Bo Tree’
1:00:52 On return made by-fellow of Peterhouse; close friends Peter and Linda
Pauling; living in the house of John Kendrew; then aged about 28 and had not done
military service in Turkey which was necessary; returned to Turkey and spent two
years in the military which was anthropologically fascinating; because of doctorate
had high status; witnessed coup d’etat; after coup invited to set up planning board by
the President; not keen to become deeply involved in politics and decided to go back
into academia and Leach secured an invitation to Centre for Behavioural Studies in
California where he was also a visitor; Roman Jakobson also there; wonderful time;
offered post at Chicago and accepted it despite Leach’s desire that he return to
Cambridge; U.S. then very interested in Turkey
1:08:27 Interested in India and Sri Lanka and wider South-East Asia and Japan; was
director of Middle East Centre in Chicago for four years; also interested in Iran;
Mckim Marriott in Chicago at that time, also Barney Cohn, and Ron Inden; didn’t
much care for Chicago as a place and decided to accept an invitation to go to Harvard
1:13:20 Absorbed with the problems of rationality and irrationality
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