Fritz Jennings, Poet Laureate of Ethnohistory

 

I had the privilege of meeting Francis Jennings - "Fritz" to his friends - at a party hosted by two of my doctoral advisors in 1996. Our conversation touched on such matters as Bernard Bailyn's late-career discovery that Native Americans existed (this counted as news among ethnohistorians) and Jennings's then-new book on Benjamin Franklin, which proved (IMHO) one of the better biographies of the man. I regret that I did not get to repeat the experience; Fritz entered managed care a year or two later and died in 2000.

Jennings was best known as a scholar and historical writer, but he made at least one foray into poetry. The advisors who hosted the aforementioned get-together, Mike Green and Theda Perdue, had previously co-directed with Jennings an ethnohistorical seminar at UNC Chapel Hill. The seminar seems to have generated some heated methodological arguments between historians and anthropologists, which Jennings finally commemorated in verse:

 

Of ages seminarish, I sing my plaintive lay

When the Anthros and the Histos went forth in great array

To battle fierce on issues large, resolved to clear the mystery:

"Historical anthropology," or merely "ethnohistory"?

 

As ever with each other, the Anthros' fight was bitter

Until the Histos hove in view and at the sight did titter;

Then closed the Anthro ranks, and soon against the foe

Their armament of jargon for bafflement did snow.

 

Upstreaming fast, they flanked the line. A fog enveloped all

While emic-etic bombadiers strafed hard the awful brawl.

"They're in the field!" howled Histos. "We cannot follow there."  

They ran and hid in archives deep -- dense darkness in their lair.

"The fight's not fair," the Histos growled, "we dare not come to grips."

"For if we do, the chronicheit will spread to cripple quips.

"We'll document with dates and data until they beg for ruth."

And so they fought until the field was littered with the truth.

It was a famous victory at the setting of the sun.

The only issue unresolved remained the rude, "Who won?"

It won't make the Norton Anthology, but it is a far better thing than I have managed for any of my own classes.