Your mission, said the leader of the clan,
is to investigate without surprise.
Observe the people, notice all you can,
but do it from the depth of quiet eyes.
Inform yourself with their technology,
their politics, their ethics and their art.
Collect the threads of their mythology
and seek out evidence of mind and heart.

I send you out to watch and analyze
(I’ll hold your bias and apology).
Now fetch me information; make me wise;
but don’t forget that anthropology
is snapshot thin or else too broad to view –
The more you measure us, the less is true.