and any continuations of it manage to speak to thepower of adoption and the relationships that itcreates (and continues to create) throughout one’slifetime. It is with the utmost gratitude that Iwould like to conclude this project, perhaps onlytemporarily.

References Cited

Barth, Richard P. 1994. “Adoption Research: BuildingBlocks for the Next Decade.” Child Welfare, 73(5):625–638.

Chandra, Anjani, Joyce Abma, Penelope Maza, and Chris-tine Bachrach. 1999. “Adoption, Adoption Seeking, andRelinquishment for Adoption in the United States.” AdvanceData from Vital and Health Statistics, 306:1–16.

Clifford, James. 1986. “Introduction: Partial Truths.” InWriting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography.J. Clifford and G. Marcus, eds. Pp. 1–26. Berkeley, CA:University of California Press.

Edwards, Diana S. 1999. “The Social Control of Illegitimacythrough Adoption.” Human Organization, 58(4):387–396.

Ellis, Carolyn, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2000. “Autoethnog-raphy, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher asSubject.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd edition.N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, eds. Pp. 733–768. ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.

Fravel, Deborah Lewis, Ruth G. McRoy, and Harold D.Grotevant. 2000. “Birthmother Perceptions of the Psycho-logically Present Adopted Child: Adoption Opennessand Boundary Ambiguity.” Family Relations, 49(4):425–433.

Gershon, Ilana. 2003. Knowing Adoption and AdoptingKnowledge. American Ethnologist, 30(3):439–446.

Haugaard, Jeffrey J., Alison M. Moed, and Natalie M. West.2001. “Outcomes of Open Adoptions.” Adoption Quarterly,4(3):63–73.

Henney, Susan M., Susan Ayers-Lopez, Ruth G. McRoy,and Harold D. Grotevant. 2007. “Evolution and resolution:Birthmothers’ Experience of Grief and Loss at DifferentLevels of Adoption Openness.” Journal of Social and PersonalRelationships, 24(6):875–889.

Modan, Gabriella Gahlia. 2007. Turf Wars: Discourse, Diver-sity, and the Politics of Place. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Modell, Judith. 1986. “In Search: The Purported BiologicalBasis of Parenthood.” American Ethnologist, 13(4):646–661.

Modell, Judith. 1994. Kinship with Strangers: Adoption andInterpretations of Kinship in American Culture. Berkeley:University of California Press.

Modell, Judith. 2002. A Sealed and Secret Kinship: The Cultureof Policies and Practices in American Adoption. New York:Berghahn Books.

Smith, Dorothy W., and Laurie N. Sherwen. 1988. Mothersand Their Adopted Children: The Bonding Process. New York:Tiresias Press.

Terrell, John, and Judith Modell. 1994. “Anthropology andAdoption.” American Anthropologist, 96(1):155–161.

Williams, Brett. 1994. “Babies and Banks: The ‘ReproductiveUnderclass’ and the Raced, Gendered Masking of Debt.” InRace. S. Gregory and R. Sanjek, eds. Pp. 348–365. New Brun-swick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Stephanie HarrisIUPUI Department of Anthropologyharris88@umail.iu.eduNorth American Dialogue 14.2, pp. 23–30, ISSN 1556-4819. © 2011 by the AmericanAnthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1556-4819.2011.01038.x

A Response to CattelinoSpeaking of Secrets and Mischief

By David Lowry

The anthropology of “secrets”: what wouldit entail? It must definitely entail a study ofsilences — particular silences. Michel Foucault(1990:27) writes about silence:

Silence itself — the things one declines to say, or isforbidden to name, the discretion that is requiredbetween different speakers — is less the absolute limitof discourse, the other side from which it is separatedby a strict boundary, than an element that functionsalongside the things said, with them and in relation tothem within over-all strategies. There is no binarydivision to be made between what one says and whatone does not say; we must try to determine the dif-ferent ways of not saying such things, how those whocan and those who cannot speak of them are distrib-uted, which type of discourse is authorized, or whichform of discretion is required in either case. There isnot one but many silences, and they are an integralpart of the strategies that underlie and permeatediscourses.

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As the majority of anthropologists look to explainthe institutions, structures, and ideologies thatpermeate our everyday lives, not much is saidabout secrets that permeate the “insider’s” per-spective within any society, community, tribe,church, et cetera. Not much is said about how thesesecrets are often materialized through the absenceof words — where words, explanations, conversa-tions, and narratives are often needed and desired.

If there were a pioneer of the “anthropologyof secrets,” it would probably be Zora NealeHurston. She understood the “encounter”between anthropologist and “insider” all too well.When speaking about the African American com-munity and the anthropologist, she articulates avery simple observation:

The Indian resists curiosity by a stony silence. TheNegro offers a feather-bed. That is, we let the probeenter, but it never comes out. It gets smothered undera lot of laughter and pleasantries (Hurston 1990:2).

It is upon secrets that legends and conundrumsare born. We do not know how “so and so” wasmurdered. The death becomes legend. As anthro-pologists, we are interested in what people do andwhat they say, but we must realize how peopleoften structure their lives in relation to secrets —and the silences that mark them. Such keeping ofsecrets — or the presence of secrets for those whodo not necessarily keep them — are copresent withmany of the social structures that are more recog-nizable within everyday life (Figure 1).

At this, the 150-year anniversary of the U.S.Civil War, my great-great-great-great grandfa-ther, Henry Berry Lowrie, a very important figurewithin the Lumbee Indian community of NorthCarolina, must be considered. His history iswritten within the context of revolting, rebelling,killing, confiscating, and many other pejorativeactions that define civil war. He, at one time, hada bounty on his head that was larger than the oneon the head of the legendary Jesse James. As thestory goes, when told that he and other NorthCarolina Indians had to help rebuild Fort Fisher,toward the end of the U.S. Civil War, Henry fled.As a result, Confederate soldiers killed his father

and other family members. But Henry sworerevenge.

Henry was the prime perpetrator of manymurders. He eventually disappeared. Manypeople assumed that he was dead. During mycurrent research in the Lumbee community, Iinterviewed my uncle and father who told methat they grew up with Henry’s youngest daugh-ter. They said, during this interview, that she andher mother (Henry’s wife) would make semian-nual trips down to Alabama in the wake ofHenry’s disappearance. “Now where would theyhave been going?” my uncle asked with a smirk.

Figure 1. This image is a photograph of Lumbee artist Gene Lock-lear’s “Visionaries from the Past”, and it is used with permission ofthe artist. The painting includes small sketches of importantpeople in Lumbee past and present. A conversation with GeneLocklear (on 6/16/2011) revealed the artist’s intent for this to NOTbe Henry Berry Lowrie. Locklear explained that the man in thecenter of the painting represents “Lumbee past and present.” Nev-ertheless, conversations with other Lumbee artists and communitymembers, subsequent to my conversation with Mr.Locklear, sub-stantiates my initial reading of this center figure as Henry BerryLowrie. A sketch of Julian Pierce is in the lower left segment of thepainting.

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“I don’t know, but that’s a big secret to keep!” Ireplied.

Like Henry, Julian Pierce, another LumbeeIndian hero that the Lumbee community holdsdear, was defined within and by violence andthe secrets that follow violence. Having servedas an attorney, he was up for election for one ofthe judgeships in Robeson County, North Caro-lina (where most Lumbee people live). He wasmurdered just a short time before the election.His murder was always rumored as being linkedwith the secret and not-so-secret drug trade thatemerged as a big business in 1980s RobesonCounty. Like Henry, there is mystery aroundJulian’s demise and equally around his legacy.A local white leader supposedly killed him.Nobody proved it. It is hearsay. But the wholeordeal around his murder, to this day, as it isupheld by secrets that are possessed by someand coveted by others, helps illustrate the veryvital ground between personal experiences as“insiders” and the structural, theoretical tapestrythat we (anthropologists) tend to throw oversuch complicated, complex pasts and presents.It is not simply the settler state. It is not simplycolonialism. It is not simply poverty. It is notsimply racism. Secrets often hold within themthe magic of the interweaving of all theseelements.

Many people in the Lumbee community haveasked, “What would have become of Julian?” Yes,what would have become of the Lumbee commu-nity if he had not died and assumed the judgeshipwith his undeniable charisma and willingness totake the Lumbee community into a brighterfuture? Some of us probably also wonder whatwould have happened if Henry Berry would havestuck around or not disappeared. I think bothmen — in their demise or disappearance — knewtoo much about too many mischievous things thatwere very lucrative within the underbelly ofRobeson County, North Carolina, and the South:whether war or drugs. And the secrets of thoseindividuals rooted deeply in the Lumbee commu-nity, who knew and know what happened toeach of these heroes, who have suffered in silence,

burdened by this history of violence, serve asnuggets of truth that easily escape the anthropo-logical gaze.

Following the 2010 plenary talk by Jessica Cat-telino at the Society of the Anthropology of NorthAmerica meeting, I must ask: what do secrets sayabout the condition of subaltern conditionswithin the United States? Cattelino (2011:1)explains that by focusing on “settler colonialism,”we will be able to see how “forms of power ...organize American and American Indian lives inperhaps unexpected ways.” However, I ask, in thecontexts of secrets that speak to certain personspossessing the power of information, in ways thatindicate “many silences” that are “distributed,”where does the “settler state” exist? Might “thestate” be alienated from the power of thesesecrets? And how much can the context of asocially contentious American past — which isepitomized by intra-national fissures like the U.S.Civil War — be credited for creating the spaces,places, and relationships within which thesesecrets remain vital? “Can the subaltern speak?”(Spivak 1988:283). Why, yes! But be aware that thesubaltern may keep secrets — they may be subjectto secrets beyond their control — that demandsilence.

References Cited

Cattelino, Jessica. 2011. “Thoughts on the U.S. as a SettlerSociety.” North American Dialogue, 14(1):1–6.

Foucault, Michel. 1990. The History of Sexuality. New York:Vintage.

Hurston, Zora Neale. 1990. Mules and Men. New York:Perennial Library.

Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?.” In Canthe Subaltern Speak? Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture.C. Nelsonand L. Grossberg, eds. Pp. 271–313. Urbana, IL:University of Illinois.

David LowryUNC-Chapel Hilldavidshanelowry@gmail.comNorth American Dialogue 14.2, pp. 30–32, ISSN 1556-4819. © 2011 by the AmericanAnthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1556-4819.2011.01039.x

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