Snipe hunters of preys with low epistemic vigilance

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Category: Radu Umbres' blog

Published on Saturday, 02 July 2011

What weapon would you use to hunt a dahu? Where would you start looking for a Volkswagen Beetle radiator hose? Does elbow grease come in cans or tubes? You shouldn’t even begin thinking about these questions because they are just introductions into elaborate hoaxes. Dahus are fictional deers said to be adapted to the terrain of the Alps by having the feet on mountain side shorter than the feet on the valley side. The Beetle has an air-cooled engine and does not have a radiator. Elbow grease is a metaphor for strenuous manual labour. What makes these ficticious items successful cultural replicators? How can we explain the occurrence of “snipe hunt” in so many different social settings across the world?

During my fieldwork in a Romanian village, I spent some time as an apprentice in a construction team.When one of our workmates accidentally broke a wooden plank, he was sent by the master builder to search for an “acacia electrode” to weld it back into one piece. One evening during after-work drinks, the team managed to convince a young villager that his skills as swimmer were needed early next morning, when the team was to build a dam on one of Romania’s largest rivers. These practices are part of a cross-cultural set of practical jokes called the fool’s errand or the snipe hunt.

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