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Aztec Indian Wood Carving from Lima Peru in the 1960's US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 15:11:15 PST

MEXICAN FOLK ART, AMATE BARK PAINTING, LATIN AMERICAN US $19.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 16:39:53 PST

GUAYACAN PRECIOUS WOOD TAINO CACIQUE DUHO ~~HAND CARVED US $11.95 (1 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 17:19:33 PST

GUAYACAN PRECIOUS WOOD TAINO SHARK FIGURE ~~HAND CARVED US $8.95 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 17:25:59 PST

GUAYACAN PRECIOUS WOOD TAINO CEMI FIGURE HAND CARVED US $10.95 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 17:32:56 PST

GUAYACAN PRECIOUS WOOD TAINO CRAB HAND CARVED US $6.95 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 17:40:11 PST

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VINTAGE Style BIG Carved Wood Colonial Cuzco Wall Shelf US $99.99 End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 18:09:31 PST

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Artisan Mate Gourd Unique Hand Made Yerba Mate US $10.87 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 18:26:00 PST

MOLA KUNA "KANTULE DOING RITUALS-FAMOUS KUNA CHAMAN " US $24.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 19:50:34 PST

Lot of 3 Handmade Clay Angel Bells - Peru US $9.99 End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 20:04:43 PST

Wood yerba mate cup lining in leather tall 3.5" NEW US $12.90 (1 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:10:04 PST

Bolas (Boleadoras) South America Hunting Weapon US $31.90 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:14:47 PST

MOLA KUNA "NICE DAVID STAR WITH 2 MOONS" US $24.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:17:52 PST

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MOLA KUNA "ABSTRACT MOLA - GEOMETRICAL CURVES" US $19.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:19:12 PST

MOLA KUNA "ABSTRACT-GEOMETRICAL CURVES AND TRIANGLES" US $24.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:19:40 PST

MOLA KUNA " BLOUSE WITH 2 SIDES CONDOR AND NICE BIRD " US $49.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Friday Nov-21-2008 21:21:04 PST

Aztec Mayan Glow in Dark Wall Clock Mexico Flag L@@K US $0.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 0:53:41 PST

Jacaranda Seed Pod Nativity Set Bolivia Fair Trade 10 US $7.99 (1 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 2:09:34 PST

HAND WOVEN RED STOLE ~ EMBROIDERED ANIMALS ~ 9" x 105" US $14.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 7:09:07 PST

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LARGE Andean Vintage Old Hat CHULLO~HAND WOVEN~k2 US $29.99 End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 8:20:16 PST

LARGE Andean Vintage Old Hat CHULLO~HAND WOVEN~k1 US $29.99 End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 8:20:20 PST

REFLECTIONS OF TWO PRETTY KUNA GIRLS ~ KUNA MOLA US $17.50 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 8:30:28 PST

2 CRESTED WATERFOWL FLOAT & SING THEIR SONG~ KUNA MOLA US $24.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 8:33:44 PST

WOODEN CRUCIFIX GUATEMALA MAYAN STANDING US $16.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 10:48:35 PST

Set of 6 Historical Bullfight Poster Glasses & Tray US $45.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 11:52:10 PST

Virgin Mary ~Cuzco Framed Religious Icon Oil Painting US $59.99 End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 13:15:29 PST

BRAZIL: Souvenir Wood Cup & Pestle CAIPIRINHA cocktail US $3.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 13:33:19 PST

2/Two Gourd Masks from Peru - Great Designs US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 14:52:07 PST

Mola red black yellow blue birds dogs design Cuna Kuna US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 15:21:53 PST

Mola red orange green Geometric design Cuna Kuna Small US $3.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 15:21:58 PST

Hand made Basket from Panama US $4.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:12:30 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Geometric Whorl US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:17:21 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Tropical Fish in Bubble US $10.49 (2 Bids) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:20:51 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Bird and Fish US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:23:50 PST

St Eligius~Silver RETABLO Icon Ex voto Cusco OLD Art US $74.00 End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:26:43 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - 2 Ferocious Tribal Masks US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:27:27 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Crab in Geometric Design US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:31:24 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola -Cat Face in Flower Design US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:35:57 PST

Angel Sealtiel~Cuzco VINTAGE Retablo Santos Painting US $49.99 End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:38:38 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Caribbean Lobster US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:40:50 PST

Handcrafted Kuna Indian Mola - Diamond Geometric Design US $9.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:44:11 PST

Artesenia Rinconada Silver Anniversary Toucan #761 US $28.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 16:55:27 PST

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Bombilla for mate or terere brand new Alpaca Paraguay US $6.00 (3 Bids) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 17:01:58 PST

Paraguay guampa for terere aluminum US $5.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 17:03:37 PST

Paraguay thermo for terere plastic and leather handmade US $20.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Nov-22-2008 17:06:23 PST

Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Stanley Fish. (41 minutes, 19 mb mp3)

Stanley Fish: Paradise Regained?

Stanley Fish made the campaign’s most audacious — also the most thoughtful — attribution of a certain aspect of divinity to Barack Obama. Fish was a Milton scholar before he became a culture warrior and, more recently, the New York Times’ “Think Again” blogger on the life of the mind, on campus and off. When Doctor Fish pictured the taunting John McCain and the imperturbable Barack Obama as a version of Satan’s contest with Jesus, he was drawing on Milton’s Paradise Regained — “a four-book poem in which a very busy and agitated Satan dances around a preternaturally still Jesus until, driven half-crazy by the response he’s not getting, the arch-rebel (i.e. maverick) loses it… The power Jesus generates,” in Fish’s reading “is the power of not moving from the still center of his being and refusing to step into an arena of action defined by his opponent. So it is with Obama, who barely exerts himself and absorbs attack after attack, each of which, rather than wounding him, leaves him stronger. It’s rope-a-dope on a grand scale… Jesus is usually the political model for Republicans, but this time his brand of passive, patient leadership is being channeled by a Democrat.”

We are talking in this election-day conversation about what feels already like a redemptive example and a profound turn in the civic culture. Are we ready for a touch of what could also be called a Gandhian model of doing the public business? I am asking Stanley Fish about the Obama challenge to public intellectuals, and about the Obama effect on the American “narrative.” Fish speaks as a Hillary Clinton Democrat who’s ready to make a considered and very large leap of faith.

SF: There will be, I believe, a three to six month period, which we can call a window of opportunity. By that I mean: countries around the world — some allies, some neutral, some our adversaries — will think there is a new opportunity for conversation and an opening up of old questions. So that is one part of the equation, the other part of the equation, if I’m right, is the response of the Obama administration is able to make.

In the Middle East, Latin America, Russia and Africa, there will be an opportunity for the United States, especially for the Obama administration, to start talking with people in ways that might lead to concrete resolutions, not tomorrow but down a road that has a discernable end.

I just heard this morning that Hugo Chavez, who is anticipating an Obama victory, said that he would be happy to sit down with the new American president and see what areas of compatibility and mutual self-interest we might identify so that we may no longer have to think of our two countries existing in an adversarial relationship.

CL: It’s remarkable. When Ahmadinejad calls then you know something has really happened.

SF: It is remarkable. If a bunch of things like that happen, and the administration has the savvy to take advantage of it, then I think we’ll see remarkable changes…

Stanley Fish in conversation with Chris Lydon, November 4, 2008

This episode sponsored by Audible.com. For a free audio bookplease visit audiblepodcast.com/podictionary

I always like it when I have a word to play with that does not have the standard French/Latin or Old English roots.  Pundit is one such word.

But it is a word that also presents a few angles of the challenge of etymology.

A pundit in this day and age is most often a commentator; some expert who is asked onto a news show to give his or her opinion.

The dictionaries give this definition but hidden within it is an earlier meaning: expert.

The word appeared first in English 1661 and the Oxford English Dictionary gives its source as Sanskrit.

The British began trading with India right at the beginning of the 1600s when Shakespeare was in his prime and the East India Company grew to be the defacto government of India over the following 250 years until the real British government took over officially in 1858.  To continue that little timeline it was 1947 when Britain finally handed India’s government back to Indians.

At the time that the British began their Indian adventures a pundit was someone who had studied Sanskrit history and tradition and was more or less considered a keeper of those traditions and pieces of traditional knowledge.

India was of tremendous value to England and so in trying to govern the place it didn’t just hammer down laws that had evolved over the centuries in England, since that wouldn’t have worked very well in India.

Instead the English government in India was forced to take into account the systems of laws and customs already on the ground.

To do this they needed local area experts.

In the local language these people were called pundits or pandita.

Hence the second meaning identified in the OED is an official court title appearing first in 1827, Pundit of the Supreme Court.  These were Indians who worked alongside the English and applied their specialized knowledge of the local legal landscape.

Even before this title was recognized however, in 1816, experts in this, that, and the other thing began being called pundits, at first satirically, and later seriously.

This word exposes for me how opaque our western understanding of other cultures is.

First in its etymology.  Here we have a word that clearly has a very long history but what do we know about it before some English guy wrote it down?

Almost nothing.

Somebody must know, but the information is beyond my reach, which means it’s beyond the reach of the vast majority of English speakers.

But pundit points to other tricky angles in crossing cultures.

Not only did those British legal experts find that their systems failed them in the new Indian environment, but the word pundit points to other stumbles and trip-ups.

The American Heritage Dictionary identifies the word pundit is by the as possibly of Dravidian origin.

Dravidian is a family of languages from India first identified to our western eyes as distinct by a guy named Robert Caldwell back about the time the British government officially got to running India.

To underline how complicated understanding the related cultures might be, I see that in Wikipedia it says there are 37 languages within the Dravidian group—most in southern India.

Dravidian as word itself was invented by Caldwell, based on the names of cultural groups that also gave us the word Tamil.

I’m skating on thin ice here because I of course don’t speak any of these languages and even for Caldwell who immersed himself and did speak several the subtleties were legion.

You have to be a true pundit to avoid getting into trouble.

And Caldwell did get into trouble.  He chose one unfortunate word to describe one cultural group he was writing about and it blew up in his face. People were writing angry letters not only to Caldwell’s boss but even to the Archbishop of Canterbury and he was never welcome in that part of India again.

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