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ETHNOGRAPHY 87

belongs to the lore of backwoodsmen who master a hostile environment by the
application of ingenuity and a few simple tools and pieces of equipment. Bruce
was the custodian of this kind of skill in the troop, and he took the largest part in
the gathering of wood in this ingenious manner. Soon he was climbing other
trees with an axe and raining branches down on the wooded glade below. The
manner of his involvement in these practical skills recalled the self-reliance of
Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys, with its hints on becoming a backwoods
artisan. He turned his knowledge to account by making a ‘commando’ rope
walk, tying parallel ropes, one above the other, between two trees—later even
crossing them over. An informal toy was thus created for the lads, one with
objective connotations of athletic physical mastery. For Bruce it seemed that the
role of backwoodsman and pioneer had a simple meaning, tied to self-expression
and practical mastery rather than to any overwhelming desire to organize.
Technical mastery was typically associated with the fraternalist style.
Pat represented a different aspect of the Scouter’s role—the capacity to manage
and direct, to organize the activities of the campers in a coordinated way. Pat
was willing to take on the responsibility that this task involved and carried it
through with few signs of an inability to cope. He had, however, none of the
calculated reserve which leads to accusations of stuffiness, formality and so on.
This command was reinforced by Pat’s bearing and appearance; a tall, strong
young man, he gave a powerful impression of the physical competence and
vigour which indeed characterized all of the leaders. As the tallest, Pat possessed
the ‘natural’ appearance of supreme leader in the situation. He had sometimes a
way of standing four-square to his audience with chin uplifted, feet planted apart
and hands behind the back, which seemed to be an attempt to endow his
authority with the stamp of physical superiority. This was the most ‘artificial’
aspect of his public persona, though it coincided with his stress on decisive
authority. Pat’s bearing had a self-awareness on occasions that was absent from
the bearing of the other leaders and, indeed, of the lads. Perhaps he learned that
repertoire of physical attitudes in his experience as a football referee, that
classical exponent of gestural dramaturgy! It turned out, in fact, that the entire
male membership of his family (father and three brothers) were trained football
referees. On the last night of the camp Pat organized a football competition on a
knock-out basis, in which the leaders took part. Pat created for the occasion, and
punctiliously enforced, a special rule: swearing meant that you could be sent off,
as at least one boy was. One could see that Pat was used to the position of
referee, and that he had taken the opportunity of the game to introduce, for the
occasion, a certain puritanism, without having shown a large amount of zeal in
that direction previously. One of the objective effects of the no-swearing rule
was to link performance at a play-oriented activity with observance of traditional
‘decent’ norms.
One of my first observations of Pat’s style of leadership came when I was
faced with a discipline problem of my own. I was with a group of boys,
attempting to show them how to construct a paper balloon. There was a noise; I