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\u2019t 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 \u201csnipe hunt\u201d in so many different social settings across the world?<\/p>\n
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 \u201cacacia electrode\u201d 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\u2019s largest rivers. These practices are part of a cross-cultural set of practical jokes called the fool\u2019s errand or the snipe hunt.<\/p>\n
My favourite Wikipedia examples are:<\/p>\n
In construction, sending someone for a \u201cpipe-stretcher\u201d or \u201ccamouflage paint\u201d In offices, sending someone to buy \u201cverbal agreement forms\u201d In the navy, asking someone to get a visual on an incoming B1RD contact. In car repair, requesting someone to bring some diesel engine spark plugs In orchestras, requiring some members to find their \u201ctacet\u201d in their parts<\/p>\n
Another prank occurs in the Alps, Mexico, the Philippines and United States and many other places where na\u00efve individuals are coaxed into hunting non-existent animals with fantastical features. American Jackalopes are rabbits with antlers while their cousins, the Bavarian Wolpertingers, also have feathers and fangs. Folklorists have a long history of documenting the hunt for fantastical animals (see for instance here [1] and here [2]).<\/p>\n
I think that modern fool\u2019s errands and folkloric snipe hunts are basically the same prank which is based on an intentional exploitation of a recurrent failure of human communication. Let me unpack the prank into its components to demonstrate this. First of all, these pranks occur in a social interaction between non-equals. The party which is exploited is a na\u00efve participant. Na\u00efve not only in the sense that he (or she, but in the ethnographic examples I evoke, only men were involved) does not know that a practical joke is unfolding, but also na\u00efve in the sense of having little or no knowledge of the relevant domain. A fresh building apprentice does not know the names of most tools, a beginner sailor is unfamiliar with all the short codes used on deck and tourists are inexperienced in rural folk biology and taxonomy. The exploiter, on the other hand, is an expert in the domain: a master builder, a commanding officer or a local mountaineering guide. The success of the prank depends on the gullible party being convinced that the information transmitted is genuine and relevant. The fool must believe that the \u201cleft-handed screwdriver\u201d requested by the expert refers to a real artefact because the expert indicates his urgent need and uses technical jargon.<\/p>\n
If you are truly a novice, you do not know the object referred to as a \u201cleft-handed screwdriver\u201d, but nor do you most tools of the trade. Even if you do not a clear mental representation of the object, you defer to the master\u2019s authority, you believe \u201csemi-propositionally\u201d that he does need a left-handed screwdriver (whatever this may be) and, as a good apprentice, you go around looking for it. When you ask a second master for instructions, the goal of causing hilarity is achieved and, if the second master is also a skilled \u201csniper hunter\u201d, the joke may be kept alive by a new request.<\/p>\n
Why do we not only believe in this non-sense but also act upon such beliefs with most embarrassing consequences? The reason lies, I suggest, in the structure of the communicative act. The speaker is much more competent in the topic discussed than the target. The topic discussed is, moreover, filled with jargon and mental shortcuts. The jargon is almost never taught explicitly and participants learn many terms of the trade during practical tasks. [3] If the novice interprets the utterance as a genuine request, he also accepts the premise that the left-handed screwdriver refers to an actual object available nearby. When the novice accepts the assertion without further request for clarification, acts upon it and makes it known that he does so, he swallows the cognitive bait hook, line and sinker.<\/p>\n
Almost always, the artefact used in the prank seems genuine and needed but also surprising or even fantastical. The first requirement satisfies the condition of believability: you cannot trick someone with just any bizarre term. If I ask you to search for a bicycle carburettor, it might be too easy to for you to realise the absurdity of the request. On the other hand, the second requirement needs to be satisfied if the joke is to achieve its purpose. I can ask you to look for a (non-existent) green hammer, but that would hardly result in the outburst of laughter which accompanies a novice asking around for a glass hammer. The mastery of the prank is achieved by a maximisation of outlandishness within the limits of believability.<\/p>\n
The exploiters know, of course, that a beginner knows little but tries to be serviceable because of his subordinate position and desire to please. The joke is sometimes a collective enterprise in which the several \u201cinsiders\u201d play on the gullibility of a single(still) \u201coutsider\u201d and the greater the number of confederates or witnesses participating in the joke, the merrier it is.<\/p>\n
Here is a sketch of the causal mechanism which makes the \u201csnipe hunt\u201d a successful attempt to exploit an asymmetry of information and authority. The common features of cross-cultural practical jokes are:<\/p>\n
Actors:<\/p>\n