In the "circle" of Japanese linguists,
it is customary to choose a language
of your field while in your undergraduate
or graduate years and retain it all the way
through your academic life.
While that is still the case,
why did I quit going to my
Athabaskan field in Alaska?
There are several intricately
intertwined reasons for it.
Many of the circumstances
surrounding me had worked
nagatively for my mental
well being.
In my "last" years, although
I was in the nearby town
for three months, I could go
to the village, which is in about
1-hour distance from the town,
only once or twice.
I cannot list up all the
"nagative" factors, but
I will write down a few.
First, overwhelming
"anticipation" from the
villagers.
A villager (actually she is
from a nearby village and
a speaker of a separate
nearby language) told me thus:
"All the villagers say this:
we don't like strangers coming
to our villages just like for their
summer vacation and do a little
bit of research and go back home.
You should get married to a local
girl and live in the village and become
a villager and then it will be all okay."
There should be linguists willing to
obey such an offer, casting away their
job and status in Japan.
But I could not do it.
Secondly, an Athabaskanist,
a self-designated "Dean of
Athabaskan Linguistics"
continually interfered with
my works.
This person was mentally ill.
When I first visited Alaska in 1988,
he asked me, "What are your
credentials?" and said, "If you don't
have them pack right away and go
back to Japan" showing his fist in
my face.
About this incidence, another researcher at the
Alaska Native Language Center mediated
between us and he came back to me the
next morning and apologized.
But it seemed like he was not comfortable
with my being in Alaska during all the
following years.
Alaska Native Language Center
http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/
has an "archive."
When you hear "archive,"
you may imagine a strictly
guarded one, from which
you can pull out a material
after cumbersome paperwork.
This "archive," however, has a lot
of valuable materials, i.e. not only
published materials but also
xerox copies of fieldworks and other
things and it is really a treasure bin.
But it is not maintained and guarded
appropriately. Anybody can enter it
and take out anything they want.
(This may have changed by now. This may not.)
I had left xerox copies of my fieldnotes of
every summer and the final version and
several preceding versions of my master's
thesis, which had been red-penned by
Dr. Michael E. Krauss.
But what I have heard is that all or most
of "my" materials have been removed
from the "archive" by the "Dean of
Athabaskan Linguistics" and have been
gotten rid of by him.
Many people would probably say,
"It's not worth it to leave the
field of Athabaskan linguistics
only for 'him'."
But it is not good for my mental
well being to continue it this way.
In my last years, I could go to the
village only once or twice while
I stayed in the nearby town.
I already could not continue it
any longer.
It was a hard decision,
but I went to the field for the
last time in the summer of 1997
and decided to move on to a new
field.