[PW] Fanatical adherence to reference works

[Paul Zimmerman]

All this talk about silly reference questions in the "Unusual/amusing 
reference questions" thread has reminded me of something else. Sometimes 
people will take a book to be the ultimate authority even against real world 
evidence. I recall reading something a long time ago in this regard. I think 
it was part of a non-fiction article, but it might have been a story.

There was some old Indian (as in Native American) answering questions about 
his culture, and every time he was asked a question he'd leave the people he 
was talking to and then come back and give them the information. Ultimately, 
it turned out he was going and looking at a reference work to avoid giving 
the 'wrong' answer and getting into a dispute. This was supposed to be an 
example of trying to deal with "the white man's" obsessive adherence to the 
written word over the real world. There could be plenty of local variation 
in aboriginal cultures, of course, but he apparently had enough experience 
with argumentative 'anthropologists' in the past that he would just use the 
reference to avoid unpleasant disputes.

Can anyone recall what I might be remembering? And, of course, can anyone 
recall other instances (funny or otherwise) of reference fanaticism? :)