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Anthropologist Clifford Geertz recounts a story from his field work in Java in which a large, oddly shaped, toadstool sprouted up in the home of a carpenter and his wife in the surprising space of only a few days. So strange was this event that people from the surrounding region traveled to the carpenter's home to see it, each pilgrim offering his or her own explanation for this uncanny occurrence. Whether discussion centered on the size, peculiar shape, color, height, or perceptible changes in appearance over the following days, one thing was certain, an account of its intrusion into the ordinary experience of the community had to be given. As Geertz relates: "One does not shrug off a toadstool which grows five times as fast as a toadstool has any right to grow" (1973:101). As one might expect, explanations for its sprouting multiplied as each visitor came to inspect the carpenter's fungal phenomenon, some perhaps comparing this experience to similar events in the community's collective memory. Could this mysterious occurrence mean something? As Geertz writes further: "In the broadest sense, the 'strange" toadstool did have implications, and critical ones, for those who heard about it. It threatened their most general ability to understand the world, raised the uncomfortable question of whether the beliefs which they held about nature were workable, the standards of truth they used valid" (1973:101).

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-63214-5_1

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