Professional Documents
Culture Documents
o In the Philippines
Manly thing to do was climb and get bird poop
Drinking
Eating Balut (fertilized duck egg)
o Several cultures there are more than 2 genders
o Cultures have an idea of cyclical system which allows space
for in between genders
o Eunuch: ability to reproduce has been removal (seen as third
gender in some cultures)
o Spandone: person who is unable to reproduce
• Gender and Kinship
o Females draw a dowry
o In Chinese Society Males enjoy a higher status
o Female is subservient to her new family
• Filial Piety: Child is supposed to take care of parents later in life.
However, in reality it does not work out like that.
• Read HINDU AND Yanamano Ideologies
• Gendering land (Fatherland and Motherland)
o Fatherland: aggressive and deals with conquering and ect.
o Motherland: nurturing land
• Ideology
o Nigerian Foreign Minister of Affairs stated that there were no
homosexual people
o China denied aids
← Belief System
• Supernaturalism: Belief in spiritual world
o Most religious work was done was by religious people
o Taylor defined religion as the belief in supernatural beings
o Geard (1973): defined religion in a more complex way and
drops spiritual belief
o Class (1955): defined religion as an institution
• Natural vs Supernatural
o Natural: things that can be demonstrated and tested and
proved
o Supernatural: things that can’t be proved
o However the things don’t change but the explanation change
• Page 240 functional definition of religion
o Religion is cohesive and supportive
o Educational aspect (books were held on to by monks and
priests)
o Morale
o Revitalize
o Explanatory
o Euphoric Element: enjoyable
o Ecological element: Religion can serve a function in the
ecology outside
• Supernatural Beings
o Gods and Goddesses
Pathologist: Many Gods
Monotheism: One God
Buddism
o Demon: Negative beings
Pazuzu: Deity common in Babylonia (controls bad
things)
Chinese have to types of demon
Animal Demon
Amphibian Demons
o Soul: supernatural component of human or animal
It varies from people
o Ghost: Souls might turn into ghosts
In the Navaho culture a hole is made in the back of the
house to make bad things go away for the malevolent
soul
o Ancestors
In Chinese culture there is the ancestral ghosts
(positive)
o Trickster
A being that plays tricks on people to reinforce cultural
ideals and teach audience how society works in specific
ways. Showcases through the wrong things how society
actually works.
Coyote: generalized as a trickster to show society
why it works the way it does
Loki: small person who relies on tricks to get
around the world
Prometheus: He steals fire from the Gods for the
human ‘’
In the long run tricksters are doing better for society
Briar Rabbit: Outsmarts others to get away
o Unicorns and trolls
o Gremlin
o Zombies and Vampires and ect.
• Supernatural Forces
o Mana: an impersonal supernatural force that flows in and out
of people and objects
Luck
Sports
Military
o Magic: The techniques used to manipulate supernatural forces
and beings
Witchcraft: use of sorcery or magic (associated with
negativity)
Evan Prichard: British guy who goes out to Africa and
does everything in a British way. He makes the
observation that witchcraft is used to explain
misfortune. Among the Azande everyone has an equal
chance of being a witch. Witchcraft explains misfortune
in a socially relevant context.
Shaman: A part-time practitioner of the supernatural
who has special powers to mediate between the
supernatural world and the community. The term comes
from Siberia (Tungus speaking people). Shamans are
chosen by supernatural power. They are often sought
after for advise. Often responsible for being healers.
(Navaho have both healers (physical) and singers
(spiritual)). Shamans had access to secret knowledge
which they gained through speaking to spirits. They had
a shamanic death. The shaman can contact the spiritual
world in many ways.
Fly Agaric: Very strong shroom (hallucinate)
Altered State: drug abuse, rhythmic driving
(through drumming and rhythm the mind is over
stimulated), dreams (Sigmound Freud used
dreams), fever and infection (Constantine had a
fever and saw a cross),
Religions tied to Shamans
• Animism: philosophical or religion idea that
souls in humans and plants and animals…
ect. exist. If things have spirits one has to
treat them differently. Gram Harvey wrote a
book :Animism Respecting the Living World
and found that in animism you can respect
other things than human.
• Totemism: a totem is an entity that watches
over or assists a group of people. Usually
it’s an animal or something more abstract.
Totemum pole is used to retell stories or to
specify debt. Polish people had their own
types of totempoles in preChristrian days.
Imitative Magic (sympathetic): a type of magic based
on the notion that working magic on an image of an
animal or person will cause the same effect on the
actual animal or person
Contagious magic: a type of magic based on the idea
that something that has contact with a person or animal
contains some essence of that being and that magic
performed on the item will have same effect as if the
performed in the being.
Priest: fulltime supernatural practitioner and is part of
bureaucracy
Part of agricultural society because allows
specialization
Time is important in agricultural society is
important for the sake of harvest
The lunar calendar is important for keeping track
of days
The solar calendar is important for keeping track
of season
Many leaders have a role connected to priesthood.
For example Egyptian Pheros were the son of Sun
God. In China the emperor was consider the son
of Heaven.
← Chapter 10 Political Order, disorder, and Social Control
• Politics: the way that human beings deal with power
• Community: An association of people who share a common identity,
including geographic boundaries, common language, and culture.
o Diaspora: A community that does not share a common
geographic boundary
• Power: The ability to influence or cause people or groups to do
certain things that they would not do otherwise.
o Two basic types: coercive and persuasive power
o Coercive power: involves use of force
o Persuasive power: involves use the of reason and argument
and ideology
• Authority: The exercise of legitimate power; the right to rule
invested by members of the community in its leader
o This definition comes from the idea of a Social Contract
(everyone has agreed to the role)
o Tacit approval: approval of contract by acceptance of benefits
• Forms of political organization and leadership
o Political System is broken up in four levels
Bands: Egalitarian society (equal power) and no single
authority. Leadership is based on individual skill.
Decisions are made by group. No separate identifiable
governments.
Tribe: Egalitarian Complexity. Based on horticultural or
pastoral societies. People are related to each other with
kinship, but more through common interests
(sodality).
Headmen/ Big Men: types of leaders found in
tribal and chiefdom societies who leadership is
based on persuasive power. ( he does not have
any coercive power)
Chiefdom: A society with an office of chief. Most
commonly hereditary. Social ranking and redistributive
society. The chief is ascribed and therefore, is not
egalitarian.
State: A type of society characterized by a political
structure with authority that is legally constituted.
Wealth is not equally spread. There is specialization at
every level.
• Rank and Stratification
o Class: A group of people who have a similar relationship to
wealth, power, and prestige.
o Caste: A rank group where status is determined at birth
• Disorder and Social Class
o Social Class: A process involving a structure and mechanisms
to ensure that people do not violate the society’s accepted
forms of behavior
o Deviance: The violation of an ideal pattern of behavior within
a society
• Informal Means of Social Control
o Small society makes it hard for one to make to mistakes and
escape
• Formal Means of Social Control
o Law: The cultural rules formulated by a society and backed up
by sanctions.
o U.S. system is very objective: applies to everyone
o In China law applied differently to individuals (subjective)
o Code of Hamarabi: (first law system) Mesopotamian system
of law.
o Laws are made when people break rules. Therefore, laws
represent the state of the culture in one way or another.
o Function of Government: organizes society and maintains law
• Other views on Politics
o Talal Asad: He studied Arabs and argued that a dominant
groups hold political power over the subservient because of
historical or economic resources have given them this
authority. In this case, legitimacy is not a social contract but
a social convention
Ex: the Samurai in Japan were allowed to kill anyone
under there class
Ex: the untouchables of India
• Religion Power and Politics
o Cultural traditions have supernatural connection
Ex: “In God We Trust”
o In actuality, every government changes over time
o Mystification: The way we deal with issues is through
ideology. However, in reality certain issues are not actually
connected to our ideology.
o Kpelle: A group Liberia. They are the largest ethinic group
and do horticulture. The men societies are the poro societies
and women are the sande societies. These societies are
referred to as the “bush school.” These society value land and
have the knowledge of family ownership in land. These
groups are sacred because they have the power to see what
happens on the land. Older people in society have more
control over younger society due to their knowledge. The
lower class people are tied in the closed system.
• Anthropology and Politics
o Job of anthropologist is to see the reality of power
• Functionalism (modern period): Government serves to organize
people, …, and that there is an implicit contract
• Tallal Asad (post modernist): He doesn’t look at government in an
implicit way. He argues that a dominant class holds power over
another because of historic or economic situation.
(ex) Sumptuary Law: Law that is meant to control people from
buying a certain product (this is compared in bottom table and
the product is tobacco)
Historical and Function
Economic
- Rich Poor -Stop Use
(E) -Healthcare
- Doctors -Lower Medical
stopped bill
advocating
them
← Chapter 12 Expression (subjective)
• Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and
imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,
producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or
emotional power (very subjective)
• Parietal Art: art executed on permanent features: such as cave
walls, rock shelters, and large blocks of rock.
• Mobile Art: Art forms that are not fixed to any place and can be
moved or carried.
• Tone: color, contrast and intensity, and the use of line (usually goes
with visual art)
o The Paleolethic people (France) (in Altermuera Caves) would
first outline and then mix the colors and fill the outlines.
Then there was washing and scraping for the shade. They
used protuberance (using shades to make the things look
more 3 dimensional.)
• Venus Figurines: The book looks at the function and states: art for
arts sake, sympathetic magic, used for rituals through analogy
(comparing other societies to strengthen argument)
o Ian Hodder: Looks at the feminism archaeology.
• Art’s Function: Symbol,
• Phenomenology: The premise that reality consists of objects and
events
•
←
• Music
o Tonality
We use the 8 octave scale
The Chinese have the 5 tone scale
Arabics have a 24 note scale
o Harmony: any simultaneous arrangement of notes
o Music tends to influence rhythmic driving
o Johnny Henry railroad song that demonstrates the peoples
attitude towards machines
o Bob Dillon: social commentator
o “The House of the Rising Sun”: a song that has a lot of history
o Music is integrated into worship
o It can also be used for political rallying “the national anthem”
• Storytelling
• Dance
• Folk Music
o Generally transferred with a word of mouth
o Usually included with the lower classes
o No Known composer
← Culture Change
• Functionalism
o There are two sources of change : internal and external.
Internal refers to innovation
External refers to diffusion (responsible for most change
according to the book)
Acculturation: the incorporation of knowledge, ideas,
behaviors, and material culture as a consequence of
prolonged contact with that culture.
Ex: The forbidden city in China did not allow for
outside influence. However, when a star bucks
opened there was opposition.
• How Change Studied
o Through archeology this is achieved
o George Armstrong Custard: A soldier in the United States
army during the Indian War period. He chose his own army
and got cocky and went to Little Big Horn where everyone
was killed. The archeology does not support that Americans
were more superior like it’s told in the story. Through
archeology it was found that the Indians had better weapons.
• A Culture Change: A Brief Historical Overview
o Historical Records: written records
Tend to be influenced by men, elites, and the victors
o Prehistoric Records: records before writing
o Life Histories: an overall picture of one’s life. However, this is
dependent on memory and honesty and personal bias.
o Ethnographic restudy: the study of change over time but does
not show the process of change.
o Impact Studies: ethnographic study of a situation to
document effects of change. May take place during and/ or
after a program of cultural restructuring.
Ex: In India the well allows people to get water
whenever they needed it. But with the tank a line
formed and people raced for the water.
• Economic/ Historical look at Cultural Change
o The history of history
Unilineal Evolution
Lewis Henry Morgan: Came up with the three
stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. He
looked at tools, subsistence and technology. He
felt that cultures would follow these stages to
civilization.
Diffusionism: It has a cultural center where things
diffuse from then center to the border.
Historicalism: Franz Boas is responsible for it. He
felt that data should be collected through
fieldwork. He felt that every culture had its own
history.
Applied Anthropology (Modern Anthropology):
George Foster came up with the idea
Project Camelot: In the early 1960s, the U.S.
Army and the U.S. Department of Defense
sponsored a program that focused on how to
bring about change and cause revolution. The
primarily work was done in Chile. Some
anthropologist agreed with this project while
others thought it was spying.
In 1971 the Principles of Professional
Responsibility stated that the knowledge should
be open to all and people that are observed
should be respected first.
There are anthropologists that are objective and
activist.
One of the biggest issues for Anthropologist is
how much they should get involved in the society
that is studied
Objectivist feel on should not get involved
politically
Activist feel you have a moral obligation to take
the side of the people that are studied
Directing Change Programs: are initiated at the
request of cultures and government tries to help.
However, they usually fail without anthropologist.
• Cultural Barriers to Change
o Culture is resistant to change
o Fatalistic Outlook: thinking that everyone dies
o Tradition is also a barrier
o Ethnocentrism: we have it right and you don’t
o Relative Values: Acknowledge benefits but still like doing it
your way
o Norms of Modesty: one will use his or her position in society
to reject change
o It’s hard to make Buddhists use pesticide (instead use
animals)
Social and Physiological Barriers to Change
Group barrier.
Ex: in India the oven was not used when it wasn’t in the
center
Perception
Ex: Spalding sold golf balls in packs of four. However
the Japanese think four is bad luck.
Ex: In the middle east to relieve hunger peanut butter
was dropped. The people fed it to the animals.
Ex: In Japan for Christmas in a mall someone messed
up and put Santa Clause on the cross
Stimulants to Change
Economic gain: if a group gains money, it changes fast.
Prestige: Vikings turned to Christians for sake of trade
Pride in Nationalism:
Intracommunity competition
• Case Studies
o Hybrid Corn
The reason that hybrid corn failed was because the
textured was not liked
o Economic Change Amongst Pastoralists
Camel milk is used to meet the economic
o Development with a Negative Outcome
The large farms do well off cash crops while everyone
else failed
← Globalization
• People are getting more connected and becoming more
homogeneous
• Imperialism: influence and authority of one nation over another,
often associated with exploitation of natural and human resources
• Colonialism: Influence and dominance of one nation over another
for the purpose of exploiting raw resources. The dominant nation-
state establishes a physical presence and a colonial government.
o The goals of homeland and motherland vary.
• Hegemony: Ideological domination by one cultural group over
another through institutions, bureaucracy, education, and
sometimes forces.
• Globalization: the rapid spread of economic
• The professor and his buddies went down to Baja California to go
fishing before a Fiesta Day. They went looking for a boat but the
people lied trying to tell them that they are not going to go. The
people of Baja California had a different perception of value. These
people have resisted imperialism.
• Technology, Mass communication, transportation are the three
primary stimulus for modern change
o Ex: In Australia the abarjeans are interested in kinship
relations and supernatural forces when watching media. For
example, The A Team is a mindless adventure. When
Abarajeans watch The A Team, however they don’t perceive
the show like us. They watch for kinship relationships and
look for supernatural reasons for peoples deaths and
disappearances. However, the rate of change is not as
significant. Traditional Abarajean films focus on the landscape
because landscape is significant to them. If we were to watch
the movie, we would just admire the beauty and nothing
more.
o For Hong Kong films care more about martial arts than the
plot.
o Egypt banned Dallas ( a soap opera that cover people treating
each other negatively) because they felt it gave a negative
view of capitalism.
o Not all values of film will be absorbed by the viewer.
• Marshall Shalins: Writes books on baseball culture
Urban Settings and Change
• In 2007 most of the World’s population became more urban than
rural
• Many different types of cities. Administrative (D.C), Industry
(Detroit), Colonial City (New York), Mercantile City (Portland), City-
State (Athen)
• Urbanization Studies: Studies of the adaptations made by rural
people as they move to cities.
• Urbanization first started to show how extended families broke
down
• Modern Studies show that when one moves from rural to urban,
there are a lot of problems. Social contacts are lost. However,
overtime these problems disappear.
• Mexican vs. Anglo. Mexican families lived closer.
18/02/2010 11:38:00
← Yanomami Article
• Activist
• Trying to give you enough information to make you take action
• Charges anthropologists
• Not very accurate
← Napoleon Chagnon
• First anthropologist to study the Chagnon
• He came back bare information (too simple)
• He was arrogant
•
← Second Article
• Accents vary even among the locals of the same country
• Older vs. Better
o We look at the past and romanticize it but it’s really not that
way
o The way we want to appear in society determines the type of
language we want to use
• Instead of race, use ethnicities
• Anecdotal study- more of an opinion study
• Language is variable even amongst in itself.
← Third Article
• Census: demographics, which cover population, income, occupation
• With interview schedule he’s taking a personal approach at
questioning the people instead of relying on questionnaires
• Total Sa
← Lost For Words
• Piraha have no story for creation
• Piraha have no notion of time
• Elaborate Spirit World
• Numbers are an abstract idea
• Don’t believe in quantification
• Recursive Quality of Language is not part of their language
•
← Article 13
• Focus of the diet of the Inuit
Article19
• The standard way of marriage in India is through arrange marriage
• Shows the other point of view
• Finding a mate is important for both the bride and groom and the
families
← Article 24
• Activist
• “Culturally Backward”
• even within itself it making an argument against statistics
←
← Yanamano Video
• Made 5 expeditions to Yanamama
• They use slash and burn techniques
• The headman has the most wives
• Their share crop was the banana
• The anthropologist (Napoleon Chaganon) entered as an Indian
visitor dressed in cultural clothing
• Hunting and gardening brings food to the Yanamano
• Non important crops: hallucinatives and tobacco
• Subsistence: Horticulture
• According to myth man started off dirt, and then raw insects, and
then cooked insects with fire, wild food, and crops
• They spend a lot of time grooming each others hair and taking out
the lice
• While adults are working, children play around with each other
• Cotton spinning is the many roles of woman
• Balls of cotton are trade items for neighbors but it was more for
social relationships
• each man has 3 or 4 arrows wit its own type of points for hunting
and trade
• adults take hallucinatives each day
• Shaman discards items to discard diseases and the shaman can get
other people neighboring sick
• There is much suspicion amongst yanamano groups
• therefore, some group make alliances by visiting each other and
trading
• During visits groups have dances for their hosts
• There is a ceremonious acceptance of the visitors
• The raiders take an omen before leaving the village for war and the
woman weep while the men leave
• When the men are away, the woman don’t mention their name
• If the men don’t come back, their name is not mentioned
• The ethnographers and anthropologist try to help the Yanamano
groups with measles
• The travelers also study the genes of villages
• The sweat bees were an issue for the travelers
• The dentist studies the morphifcation of the teeth
• The breading structure of the tribes is also studied
• The woman don't share their genealogy because they don’t mention
their names
• The yanamano birth and death rates are intermediate
• The missionary was brought because the church was willing to pay
for the vaccines
• They mention that they are looking at primitive people but there is
much change over time (they’re being explicit)
• 1/3 of all adult males dies from warfare
• Through the genetics test, they were looking for race
• The disciplines didn’t match up. Genetics and language didn’t match
up.
• The Yanamano people are small but they don’t live on islands;
further explanation is needed.
• Anthrophormic measurements: were used to keep track of
population
• Stool samples were used for analysis of stool samples
• The video was largely government funding
• Yanaomamo: human being
• They live in the Amazon Rain forest between Brazil and Venezuela
• Video is from 1960s
• Napoleon Chagnon
o Born in America and known for long term study with
Yanomamo
o The Fierce People is his most famous ethnography
o Visual anthropologist
o Did 20 ethnographic films
o He was caught in a scandal
A book gets written that accuses Chagnon and his team
for their work. He is blamed to use bias when giving
medical assistance and for bribing officials. The charges
were rejected by the AAA. It turned out that the people
that wrote the book, he had criticized heavily. He had
criticized the Church.
o
← Article 21
• Berdache: a male with female characteristics. They are a-sexual or
passive sex with other males.
• The berdache are not seen as derogatory beings, instead they are
sanctified
• Berdache act as mediators between men and women and spiritual
and physical world
• Dichotomy: a separation into two divisions that differ widely from,
or contradict each other (western view)
• Zuni people have a religious explanation for the berdache
• American Indians refer to a persons character as a spirit
← Article 25
• Colonialism: You’re look at all cultures and everything.
• This article looks at Shamanism as you would look at colonialism.
• Articles critiques the romanticized view on Shamanism
• Carlos Casteneda: He was a scholar and then he became participant
observer. He romanticized and made Shamanism seem exotic.
• Mircea Eliade: He did a lot of work on early Shamanism. He
advocated alternated states.
• Shamans use reciprocity with the spiritual world
• Winkelman suggested that shamanism is an option humans have
within them
• Shamanism is looked from a social point of a view in contrast to the
individual point of view.
• Three case studies where he shows of Shamisn has changed based
on different elements of society. Read this for next essays.
← Sick of Poverty Article 16
• Poorness itself makes one sick
• He uses the British Health care system to prove it’s not healthcare
that causes sickness
• He also shows distinction between classes by comparing Uruguay,
Camaroon, and United States
• The perception being poor affects the health
• Stresser: something that causes an acute affect
• When Professor Alvarez went to Philippines, there were houses that
wouldn’t be permitted here
• Sicile Farming: (in the book) the rich people benefited from the
cash product while the poor suffered
• Efficacy: The more efficacy one has to help the society, the better
the society is.
• Question “Do you think most people would try to take advantage of
you if they got a chance?” determines how societal members feel
about one another
← Article 7
• People can be hostile about language
• Many feel there is more informality and is related to language
• Others see language changing as thriving
• English is becoming the global language
• In the article there are two type of people: prescriptive ( those who
believe that all rules should be followed) and descriptivist (those
who are okay with the change of language and does not depend on
the elites)
• Labov is director of an effort to determine the boundaries of
different dialects with American Speech
• How authority of doctors varied with accents (Professor’s Example)
• To write voice recognition, the Midwest Standard is used
• Dialects imply all about a group
• Language is changing and there are stakes for both sides
•
18/02/2010 11:38:00
← Writing an essay in class
← Priority in Essay
• Lecture
• Articles
• Book
o Synthesize
o
← Get the Big Blue Book and 882 scantron
← Read chpter 13 reading for next time
←
← In tewara and Sararoa- mythology of the kula Chapter 3 may 27
←
←
← 29th April
←
← How people are supposed to be treated that are being studied
←
← Cover these topics
← Chapter 14
• Difference between different types of data and process are likely to
produce: quantitive and qualitive
• McCurdy Study- multinational studies
• Medical Anthropology: what do medical anthropologist study and
don’t
• Robert trotter: Know what he does and his study (he did and
conclusions) medical
• Design Anthropologist gogourt
• Murray heiti tree
← Chapter 13
• Understand why planned change programs fail
• Know what people think the role of Anthropologist in planned
programs
• The history, roots, of applied anthropologist (239)
• George Foster
• Know what these types of applied studies are called
• Know all the different types of applied anthro
← Chapter 12: Expression
• Explanation for upper patheolithic cave arts
• Take look at the specific of musical instruments
• Known what ethnomusic cologist do
• Body modification and examples
← Chapter 11
• Her specific examples of function of different things that apply to
anthropology
• Known the many types of magic
• Supernatural beings
• Practioners
• Supernatural forces
← Chapter 10
• Familiar with term for people
• How different social structures are organized
• Service
• Known what sort of organization every political structure has (not
too many questions)
• Know what’s different about the groups
← Chapter 9
• Basics on genetics
• Look at terms
• Difference between genders and sex
• Role of genders
• Statistics
• Nandi women husband
Chapter 8
• Know the kinship systems
• How different groups use different terms
• Know how different people trace their decents and terms
• How marriages work
• Families organized
← Chapter 7
• Know how people recon kinship with one another
• How anthropologiat have categorized them
• Know the symbols
• Marriage rules
← Chapter 6
• Video Yanamamo (couple of questions)
• Know different types of subsistence
• Different respricrosity
← Chapter 5
• Go through all subsistence of all humans
• Yanamamo video
• Social traits that are related to substinences
• Terms
← Chapter 4
• Indo European language
• Differences types of linguistics
• Familiar with Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
← Chapter 3
• Known what different types of field works there are
• Known all the terms that happen to anthropologist
• Tripple A code of ethics
• The things she mentions about it
• The goal of fieldworker
← Chapter 2
• Know some of the definition terms
• How culture is organized and how it works in society
← Chapter 1
• Know the basics
• What do anthropologist produce, what is their mindset,
• How scientific hypothesis work
←
← 1920
← 1080
←
←
18/02/2010 11:38:00
← Chapter 1
← The Basics
• Cultural Anthropology: the description and comparison of the
adaptations made by human groups to the diverse ecosystems of
the earth
• Ethnography: Study of one culture
• Ethnology: comparison study of cultures
•
← What do anthropologist produce and what is their mindset
• Ewd
← Scientific Hypthesis
• Wed
← Chapter 2
← Definition of Terms
• Ewf
How is culture organized and how does it works in society
• few
←
←