1) Classification
 |
To break up the behavioral stream into defined and discrete
categories is a preliminary step in the production of
knowledge. It is a necessary step in order for humans to see
the world, communicate, and collectively engage the world. No
system of categories can ever faithfully represent the world.
Nevertheless humans must accept these categories as if their
lives depended on them and they do. The German philospher
Immanuel Kant's (1727-1804) idea of the categorical imperative
applies here: In order to act on nature humans must first
define it and once defined treat these classifications with
utmost seriousness. The anthropologist Gregory Bateson wrote
about (Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972) his ambivalence regarding
classificatory schemes, what he called outlines. On the one
hand, Bateson realized that outlines were necessary in order
to see and think clearly. On the other hand, because the world
never fits precisely into any one classificatory scheme,
outlines limit one's experience and understanding of the
world. For this reason, old classificatory schemes are often
jettisoned and replaced by new ones. The study of culture is a
study of how and why humans see the world the way they do. The
first step in this study is to appreciate the arbitrariness of
any 'world view'. In this exercise students should break up
into groups to classify ceramic styles, which is part of the
process in the archaeological production of knowledge. Form
groups and print out the pages of ceramic sherds from the Aymara
Kingdom (900 B.P.-530 B.P.) in Peru (page A,
page B, page C,
page D, page
E.) Cut out the individual sherds from each page. Study
the sherds and group them by style. Give a name to each style.
When finished compare results. What are your observations?
2) Ethnographic Encounter
|
Many people have a false notion that ethnographers are merely
observers faithfully writing down what they see in an effort
to understand the behavior of a foreign culture. In actuality,
no ethnographer has the luxury to assume such an objective and
distant view of a people. The ethnographer is not a
birdwatcher. Living with the people she studies, she
participates in the daily life of people, who have their own
agendas and intentions. The ethnographic encounter is a
two-way street, a form of cross-cultural communication in
which questioning goes both ways. The ethnographer and her
culture are as much a subject of curiosity and critical
evaluation as that of the people "under study." The
object of the informant is to educate and enlighten the
ethnographer about his culture and achieve a state of mutual
respect. Often
the ethnographer is treated as a child, because in terms of
her cultural understanding and linguistic competence she is a
child. The informant is also trying to establish a
bond. For a third-world people that bond can be critical for
how people are represented and regarded in the world, which
can have consequences for their well-being. Ideally
ethnography is a form of bridge building, creating the basis
for understanding and communication between cultures. In
this exercise read about the anthropologist Gracia
Clark's encounter with Asanti
traders in her study of the Central Market of Kumasi, Ghana.
Make an outline of the chapter to show the development of her
relationship with her informants
3) Kinship and Genealogies
Kinship matters. It constitutes a principal set of personal social
relationships that guide action. Kinship does not determine
action, but--to use the analogy of an electric circuit--it
constitutes a pattern of potential connections along which can
flow information, affection, and goods. Therefore, knowing who
is related to whom and how they are related is the first step
in understanding a community's social structure and patterns
of behavior. Other sets
of social relationships such as age grades, friendships, and
debt relationships cut across kin ties. Furthermore, some kin
ties are never actualized or used only infrequently. One of
the first tasks of an ethnographer is to gather information
about kinship and genealogical relationships. This societal
blueprint will form the basis for understanding behavior and
point the way for further investigation. This exercise is an
example of this initial ethnographic task. In this exercise read
one of the following list of kinship terms
from the Kanuri
of northern Nigeria and construct a kinship chart based on the
information provided.
4) Kinship Terminology
 |
One
of the earliest studies in anthropology was a classification
of kinship terminological systems by Rochester-native Lewis
Henry Morgan (1818-1881), who discovered that the Iroquois of
upstate New York used a different system of kin classification
than he did in his own culture. For example the Iroquois used
the terms of 'mother,' 'father,' 'sister,' and 'brother' not
only for their parents and siblings, but also for their
parallel cousins, i.e., their mother's sister and her family
and their father's brother and his family. Fascinated by this
discovery Morgan organized a research project to gather
information on kin terminology from around the world. With the
help of the Smithsonian Institute, he sent out questionnaires
to American outposts across the globe. Analyzing the material
that was returned, he discovered that there were six basic
types of kinship terminological systems, which he called
Eskimo, Omaha, Crow, Iroquois, Hawaiian, and Sudanese.
Classificatory systems look nice on paper; however, on the
ground, they are more complex, often exhibiting features of
more than one of Morgan's types. In this exercise, analyze one
of the following kinship charts and classify it according to
Morgan's six classification schemes:
Central Thai,
Dogon, Hopi,
Warao, or Kurds.
Is there more than one system represented? What is the kinship
terminological system of the genealogical chart you worked out
in exercise #3?
5) Key Symbols
According
to the anthropologist Victor Turner, symbols can have
multiple, even contradictory meanings, especially 'key'
symbols, which form the core of ritual expression and hold
meaning for a whole society. Among the Ndembu, a group of
people Turner studied, a key symbol is the Milk, or Mu Tree.
The Mu Tree is a type of rubber tree, which exudes a milky
white latex fluid. For the Ndembu the fluid symbolizes milk,
the breast, womanhood, motherhood, the mother-daughter
relationship, the matrilineage, matrilineality, and matrilocal
residence. Some of these references contradict each other. For
example, the mother-daughter relationship referred to in one
instance is at odds with the recognition of the daughter's
womanhood, separate from her mother. Although men can identify
with their matrilineage, they do not identify with the
mother-daughter relationship, womanhood, and motherhood.
Key symbols index both a common identity and the
various social relationships that constitute the group. A key
symbol marks difference at the same time that it transcends
that difference. It represents both the one and many,
penetrating and connecting the various layers of a culture to
create meaning. Refer
to the anthropologist Reichal-Dolmatoff's
text titled "The Loom of Life:
A Kogi Principle of Integration"
on the symbolism of the Kogi
loom. To get familiar with the culture, each student should first
read the culture summary of the Kogi, then chapter I (pages 5-10),
and any one of the following five chapters. List all the things in
Kogi life that the loom refers to. Discuss each chapter. Compare notes. Does
your culture have an equivalent key symbol?
List of Symbolic Referents of the Kogi Loom by Chapter
6) Communal Property
One of the problems encountered by early ethnographers was
recognizing and understanding communal forms of property. Many
societies studied by anthropologists did not have the
institution of private property. Instead property was held in
common and its use was dictated by rules, customs, and status
associated with kinship. Therefore, to understand property one
had to understand kinship. This was a difficult concept to
grasp for 19th century Western ethnographers for
whom individual property rights were taken for granted and
part of their own conception of their self as individual
entities and of the world as constituted by discrete objects.
To understand communal forms of property in all its cultural
ramifications is a step towards understanding cultures in
which private property is not a privileged institution. This
requires a leap of imagination. For example, for the Tiv
of Nigeria, the word TAR means many things, including the land
on which they live, the lineage to which they belong, and the
ancestors from whom they are descended. The use of one word
to refer to these three different
important cultural items suggests that they are inextricably
linked in the Tiv imagination. We know that ancestors are a
key focal point of lineages and that some lineages act like
corporations holding property in common. We also know that
one's access to jointly held property is through membership in
a kin group such as a lineage. To get familiar with the Tiv first
read its culture summary. Read the following
passage describing the Tiv relationship
to the land. Be creative and
make up a ritual that will embody the different meanings and
relationships invoked by the word TAR, tying its different
meanings together.
7) Land Tenure
 |
Communal social arrangements were regarded as the antidote to social
conflict and tension. However, while ownership may be held in
common, problems still arise over its use. Land held in common
is still cultivated by individual households. The arrangements
for household use can be very complex and entail a great deal
of maneuvering and negotiation, and require the mediation of a
third party. The public recognition of a family's genealogical
connections becomes a particularly important step gaining
access to a piece of land. Among the Amhara
of Ethiopia descent is reckoned bilaterally which
permits various avenues for finding available land and then
making good on genealogical connections to claim that land.
Examine both the genealogical chart (Figure
3) and land map (Map
4) from Allan Hoben's monograph on Amhara cognatic
descent groups. The
brothers Demé and Gubeno hold the original grant to the Gra
Midir section of the Wendim estate. Notice
the pattern of land division. The section is divided into
sixteen fields, eight for each of the descendents of Demé and
Gubeno. Six of the Gubeno fields have been further divided
into four fields for each of the descendents of Gubeno's
four offspring. Assume that all 17 descendents of Welde Natan
want to farm in Gra Midir. How would you divide the land to
give each household one plot of land?
8) Households
 |
Households are not families. Households are the means by which a family
provides for itself and reproduces. In terms of labor, many
families are dependent on the services of others, living
within or outside the household. The most extreme cases are
royal households, which depend on a whole retinue of servants.
In feudal Europe, whole villages grew up to service the needs
of the aristocratic landowning families. However, the same is
found in more modest households.
Within the tributary state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
Austrian household, or ganzhaus,
was dependent on the unpaid labor of junior kin. In his Peasant
Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family
Relations under Early Hapsburg Absolutism, 1511-1636
(1983), the historian Hermann Rebel shows how under state
exactions, the ganzhaus
could not make a go of it without taking in the junior kin of
other families as servants. In order for households to be
viable in state societies, they must depend on poorly
remunerated or uncompensated labor. Women in China's
patrilineal society are another case in point. They work hard
to feed and raise a family but are not part of the patriline
and have no claim to property. The Slovenian peasant household
is an example of a household dependent on outside labor. This
dependency is acknowledged in the annual pigsticking ritual (fure),
in which outsiders are given a leading role and difference in
status is glossed over by the reference to a shared peasant
identity. One can treat the pigsticking ritual as a play with
a social commentary. Read the description of the pigsticking
ritual. Who are the players? What are their roles in the
ritual? What are their roles in real life? Is there a
difference in their relative status and power? What does it
mean to be a peasant in this Slovenian
community? What does it mean to be a family?
9) Feuding
 |
The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) argued that if
everybody pursued their natural rights to the end, there would
be anarchy, a state of continuous warfare of "Everyman
against everyman." According to Hobbes, in order to
preserve peace and maintain order people conceded their
natural rights to a higher authority, or sovereign, laying the
basis for the state. Hobbes insight underscores the basic
problem found in societies without sovereigns, in which groups
are compelled to protect their rights and interests through
the use of force. While this does not necessarily lead to a
Hobbesian state of total chaos it does create a situation of
controlled violence known as feuding. Feuding is not a state
of barbarism as Hobbes would have it, but is often used by
autonomous social groups of relatively equal power to address
perceived wrongs. Feuding underscores a basic paradox that two
different parties can be in the right. Feuding does threaten
to undermine internal cohesion of the tribe and make it
vulnerable to outside attack, which was the case for the
Montenegrins living on the fringe of the Ottoman state.
For that reason tribal leaders and the head of the
Montenegrin church interceded to end the escalation of feuds.
Read the following trial.
Who is right and who is wrong? Can they both be right? What
kind of authority does the bishop have in Montenegrin society?
10) Leadership
The study of leadership has taken a back seat in anthropology with
its emphasis on structure and culturally mediated human
action. Perhaps the explanation lies in the inherent bias of
democratic societies against strong leaders and group
behavior, and a mistrust of power and politics, in general.
And yet good leadership and collective action can be an
exercise of power to achieve goals beneficial to everyone in a
group. Power by itself is neither good nor bad. It is the
ability to act. Collective action is the most effective form
of action and is based on good leadership and group
cohesiveness. Marshall Sahlins' study of New Guinea big men is
a classic account of leadership. Unfortunately many textbooks
treat big men as a stage in the evolutionary development of
political organization and not a style of leadership that can
be found in many small or large societies. Entrepreneurs,
union organizers, community leaders are 'big men.' They serve
a vital function in activating and tightening the bonds of
social relationships that makes an organization a more
effective unit and better able to realize its interests. Big
men are found in times of historical change. For example, big
men served an important historical role among the Ashanti as
they lead followers to settle the forest region of south
central Ghana. Big men also played a role in Taiwan's frontier
society, consolidating power and dampening internicine
conflict. How big men go about their business varies with the
type of society in which they live. The anthropologist Emrys
Peters is particularly good in analyzing how Bedouin
chiefs, or shaikhs, go about building power. Read part of the chapter,
"The Power of Shaikhs," beginning on page 120 and
create a list of social, economic and political factors that
contribute to a shaikh's rise to power. If you had to chose
one or two of the most important criteria which would it be,
and why?
Basis of a Bedouin Shaikh's Power
| Social
factors |
Economic
factors |
Political
factors |
| 1.
2.
3.
|
|
|
11) Medical Anthropology
Indigenous people understand that individual health is derived from the
health of the group and community. A breach of social
etiquette or moray, a conflict in social relationships can
invoke the ire of supernatural beings and result in sickness
for that individual. This interconnectedness of bodily health,
social relationships, and the supernatural realm is an
excellent example of the interconnectedness of culture. This
approach to medicine is not far off from modern Western
medical practices. Doctors take family histories of patients
to determine genetically transmitted susceptibility to disease
and the possibility of stress in family relationships, which
can weaken the body's resistance to disease. Doctors know that
stress can negatively impact on the immune system and make an
individual more susceptible to the countless pathogens that
exist within and outside the body, resulting in sickness. Read
the following discussion of shamanic
medicine of the Yakut
of Siberia, and construct a chart showing the relationships
among demons, ailments, and remedies (beginning at page 170).
What are some ailments you have had? How would you cure them
if you were a Yakut? Create
another chart for Garo
sickness
and cures (beginning
on page 49).
Shamanic
Cures of the Yakut
| Demon |
Ailment |
Sacrifices |
| 1.
2.
3.
|
|
|
12) Storytelling, Songs, and Performance
 |
Songs tell stories about a people's past, their values, and
experiences. They bring coherence to individual and collective
experiences and connect people to each other. Songs are means
of communication, weaving the contemporary experience of
individuals to a group's past history. Songs are also about
the future. By shaping a consensus on the past, storytellers
help unify the group and build a base for collective action in
the future. Also, they help shape a common attitude towards
the future, which could influence the direction of future
action. Singers are free to improvise and incorporate their
own experiences into the mythic or historical narrative of the
song. Such creativity enlivens a performance and makes more
effective communication. Singers use words, music, gestures,
exclamations, and movement to make an impact and in some cases
invite audience participation. To understand the meaning of a
song, it is necessary to understand the context in which it is
performed. What is the occasion? Who are the listeners?
Meaning also adheres to the performance itself.
Have students play roles and perform a Saramaccan
folktelling scene based on transcripts from Richard and
Sally Price's "Two Evenings in Saramaka "
(beginning
on page 60.)
13) Ethnopsychology
Psychology is the study of the human mind, the way it perceives the world
and how it influences behavior. As Sigmund Freud observed, our
behavior is as much influenced by how we imagine the world to
be than the 'real' world itself. Franz Boas (1858-1942)
discovered that accumulated knowledge, what he called
'culture,' comes between the environment and human action.
Culture is a product of the collective imagination. Although
it is difficult to get inside the mind of any one person much
less a person from another culture, ethnographers who have had
a long association with a culture, or study their own culture
have the unique opportunity to probe this psychic realm. Read Rupert
Ross's personal account of Ojibwa
thought processes based on his own experience as a fishing
guide on Lake Temagami in northwestern Ontario. For the
Ojibwa, knowledge is accumulative experience and thinking is
more than a rational thought process; It also includes one's
feelings and intuitions. Ojibwa hunters rely on their hunches
as much as anything else. This idea of embodied knowledge is
found in the Chipewyan
notion of supernatural power, or inkonze,
which translates as 'to know a little something.' Inkonze
expresses an underlying unity in all things, which connects
humans to the environment and mind to body. Read David Merrill
Smith's vivid first-hand account of inkonze.
After reading both Ross's and Smith's accounts, ask
yourself how valid is the ethnographer's use of his or her own
personal feelings and experience to explain that of other
peoples and cultures? What
is the underlying assumption one must make to accept such an
analytical approach? What forms of embodied knowledge do you
have in your own culture?
|
|
OCM 820 Ideas About Nature and People
|
14) Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is a way of looking at culture as a historical and complex
process of cultural and group formation. In spite of their own
mythmaking, ethnic groups are not immutable and pure, with
roots in a timeless past. Rather they represent the
convergence of people of disparate backgrounds, who forge a
common purpose and identity in order to survive. Italian
Americans, the Lakeshore Tonga, Early Han settlers of Taiwan,
and Quinault Indians are examples of ethnic groups formed by
different groups of people each with a distinct local,
regional, or tribal affiliation and identity. Circumstances
force people to broaden their affiliations and form a
pan-ethnic identity. Meyerowitz's
oral history of the Akan
provides a good account of the movements of the different
peoples who make up the Akan-speaking people of present day
Ghana. Read about the Etsi
people. What are the reasons for their migrations? Who did
they come into contact with? With whom did they fight; With
whom did they join up, and why? On a map (see image) of the
Niger and Volta region, plot the movement of the Etsi and
include the names and homes of the various peoples with whom
they came into contact.
15) Cosmology
The longstanding human
interest in astronomy and the wealth of astronomical knowledge
produced by early cultures indicates that people have long
been careful observers of the world around them. Astronomical
observations formed the foundation of cosmology and mythology
and were a source of their validation. The periodic movement
of the sun, moon, stars, and planets were a sign of constancy,
certainty, and predictability in a world otherwise beset by
the vicissitudes of life and the ultimate question of death.
Astronomy provided an anchor to thought systems. As societies
became more socially complex, the need for a stabilizing
ideology became more acute and cosmology took a more prominent
role in the creation of a self-referencing and authenticating
worldview. In this exercise read John Sosa's description of
the Mayan cosmos (pages 132-137.)
Referring to Sosa's cosmological
map, identify the terms used and add other corresponding
elements discussed in the section, such as gods and the site
plan of the village. Is cosmology a science? Argue both for
and against this question.
16) Witchcraft
Witchcraft is prevalent in small-scale egalitarian societies and marks a
profound ambivalence concerning authority and power. Although
strong leaders among the Saramacans of South America were
recognized as cultural heroes for mobilizing the population to
defend themselves against outsiders, at the same time they
were feared and regarded with suspicion. One cultural hero
saved the Saramacans against the Dutch, however he was a
ruthless murder and adulterer, preying on his own people. The
Tiv of West Africa consider all elders as witches, revealing
their ambivalence about the power elders hold over the rest of
society. Elders control both property and ritual through their
membership in secret cults. At Tiv funerals
autopsies are performed in which the deceased's
heart is cut out to determine whether or not that person had
been a witch (mbatsav.) The judgment has consequences
for the reconstitution of social and property relations that
occurs after each funeral. Funerals are an opportunity for
relatives to air their grievances and have them addressed in
some equitable fashion. Fear of witchcraft reflects a general
ambivalence regarding human intentions. Are a person's
actions self-serving or group serving? How can one tell? Can
they be both? Read the Bohannans' account of a Tiv
funeral and post-mortem from their field notes, beginning
on page 778. (Section 2. MbaKuhwa's Funeral.) Is the deceased
a witch? What is the decision based on? What are the
consequences of the decision?
Classification |
Ethnographic Encounter |
Kinship and Genealogies |
Kinship Terminology |
Key Symbols |
Communal Property |
Land Tenure |
Households |
Feuding |
Leadership |
Medical Anthropology |
Storytelling, Songs, & Performance |
Ethnopsychology |
Ethnogenesis
|
written by: Ian Skoggard, HRAF Analyst
|
|
|
*The illustrations
on this page are to be used only in conjunction with
eHRAF World Cultures/Archaeology and
cannot be reproduced for profit.
|
|
