If the recent Indiana Jones episode were shown to Carolinians in the 50s and the 60s, the students would have sensed something familiar not only in the scenes of lettermen and motorbike-riding beatniks hanging out with long-skirted girls in soda fountains, they would instantly recognize their own professors in the character of the romantic tomb raider.
No doubt, they would identify Indie Jones with their very own Rector, the late German ethnologist Fr. Rudolf Rahmann, SVD, and his protege, Marcelino Maceda, who would become the first Filipino to earn a doctorate in anthropology (from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland). Like the reel-life archaeologist, the USC professors would often leave their desks to conduct field tours studying tribal cultures deep in the jungle or excavating ancient burials in caves.
And when they were lucky, the students would be allowed to join these expeditions, trailing behind the Bannertraeger (standard bearer), as Rahmann and Maceda were called, dressed in khakis, pith helmets, and hi-cut Chucks.
They would love the change of atmosphere, taking their lessons under canopy of trees and among folks dressed in g-string or bra made of flattened bark and skirt made of coiled rattan. But more importantly, they would be excited to be part of groundbreaking research in archaeology and ethnology in the Philippines.
Today’s students can get a glimpse of how these adventures were like in the photos left behind by Fr. Rahmann and Dr. Maceda as they have recently been sorted and printed into a book titled Visual Fragments: The Rahmann-Maceda Photographic Collection, 1954-1964.
Authored by current USC anthropology professors, Jose Eleazar Bersales, Aloysius Cañete, Lilian dela Peña, and Marlene Socorro Samson, the book is a fitting tribute by the heirs of the University’s anthropology program to its founders on the occasion of the school’s 60th anniversary as a university when the book was launched.
Elsewhere in the book, we see Fr. Rahmann in his white frock posing with half-naked Negrito children or inspecting an Ati tent made of straw. But it was Maceda, his former student, who has the most number of action photos—by him and of him.
We see the young anthropologist resting in a clearing flanked by his Manobo carriers and soldiers armed with Garands and a light machine gun. In another, he is in a cave posing under low stalactites amidst a clutter of limestone burial urns whose lid covers feature human-like images carved in a crude geometric style.
This is how Maceda learned from his teacher, Fr. Rahmann—not so much from listening to theories in dingy classrooms but from the tedious labor of excavation in caves and in immersions with forest tribes.
Such “mentoring process” is rarely experienced today, as students and teachers rely more on the ease of getting their information from global sources, just a few clicks of the mouse away. Personalized instruction is giving way to distance learning.
As every ancient tomb has likely been looted and homes of tribal people now reached by television, it would be too much to ask the teacher for a field tour. Still, the pictures in “Visual Fragments” remind us that, as in the movies, learning can be an action-packed adventure not confined to the classroom.
Today’s students can get a glimpse of how these adventures were like in the photos left behind by Fr. Rahmann and Dr. Maceda as they have recently been sorted and printed into a book titled Visual Fragments: The Rahmann-Maceda Photographic Collection, 1954-1964.