Obscurities are inevitable in the study of human lives. By obscurities, I refer here mainly to difficult to research phenomena that have left few and scattered traces in preserved materials, and not those that are difficult to research because it would require knowledge of a forgotten language or a skill that takes a long time to acquire. In actuality obscurities tend to become more central, as historical research progresses. Then as the research establishes what the source material does talk about in no uncertain terms, everything else–the unexplored gaps in our knowledge–becomes more glaringly apparent. In this paper, I will discuss methods for studying obscurities, and particularly how several disparate sources can be combined. I call the method “source pluralism.” Indeed this study thereby widens to the question of how very diverse sources can be, or rather have to be, combined into single interpretations. I thus also problematize what we normally understand as interdisciplinary research. Turning back to obscurities–the reasons a phenomenon is found but rarely in the source material are mainly either that it is too trivial to mention or that it is disgraceful and therefore secret. The trivial is so commonplace or taken for granted that people do not bother to mention it. The gestures that accompany our speech are a typical example. During a conversation or a lecture, we might throw out a hand in a sweeping gesture (“this is true”), hold up a palm (“that is not true”), or perhaps point upward with the index finger (“pay attention”), almost without noticing that we are doing it–and yet these gestures carry important information. The disgraceful and secret,