18/02/2010 11:38:00

← Cultural is generally adaptive

• If it get cold outside, you adapt to it
← Cultural is diverse
← Cultural is also integrated
• Economics, technological, ethical, religion are intermingled
• Marcel Mauss: French anthropologist is known for the Gift idea of
receiving and giving
• Levi Struss: Argued against the early armchair anthropology. He
was the first to study groups personally and find that every cultural
has reason and rationality.
← Deconstruction of Race
• Race vs. Ethnic Group
• Race: genetic elements that makes one different
• Ethnic Group: is not genetic but determined by choice
• Reality of Race: people still believe in it
• Things that attribute to race: nutrition, maternity
← Raw Movement: Idea of eating raw food instead of cooked food
←
← Cultural Anthropology
• Studying cultural currently
• It’s an over simplified view of a society
← Archeology
• Looking at past cultural
 • Experts at material culture
← Linguistics
• Most effect on how we think and communicate
• Language is what constructs us and marks us
• Jargon (terminology) becomes the norm
• Structuring of Thought: the way a language is spoken affects the
thought
o ex: the Navaho always talk in active voice, so they are always
thinking about doing
o ex: Spanish distinguishes between nouns with male or female
aspect
← Biological Anthroplogy
• Always looking for origins through culture
← Critiques of Culture
• Makes you think culture as a static object
• Use as a convenience not as a study
• Politically dangerous: Culture can tie things to race, and ect.
← CHAPTER 3
← Fieldwork
• History of fieldwork
o First generation: Armchair researchers
o Manuel Kant
 Wrote a book from a pragmatic view 1978
 Sees a value to origin
 o Second Generation: Exotic observers
 Observer
 Radcliffe-Brown
• A functionalist
• Just observed
 Participant Observer
 B. Malinowski
• Functionalist
• Theory was to be a participant
o Third Generation:
• Every new piece of information is usually not synthetic
• As an anthropologist your first obligation is to who you study
• Approaches to Ethnography
• Research and Budgeting
• Things an anthropologist does in field:
o 1st Language Training
o 2nd Do background research
o 3rd Enter the native community and adaptive
 Physically
 Psychologically: Cultural Shock
o 4th Establish Rapport: A harmonious relationship
 o 5th Gather Report: Use an informant
• Role of Field Work
o Either you can be an observer or a participant observer
• Sample
o A sample of the population will be a representative of a whole
o Random sample: a sample method in which all members of a
population have a statistically equal chance of being chosen.
o Stratified Sample: A random sample with divisions into
categories such as age or socioeconomic level.
o Judgment Sample: A sample that is chosen based on the
judgment of the ethnographer.
• Informants: Native members of a society who give information
about their culture to an ethnographer.
• Key Informant: An ethnographic interview who has been selected
by judgment sample; someone who knows the topic
• Genealogical Method
o
• Life Histories
o
• Visual Anthropology
o Photography
• Analyzing Data and Preparing a Report
o
• Primeatology
o Looking at primates to relate to humans
o Actual fieldwork: Go out and look at primates in nature
 o Semi- free ranging: to study conditions that replicate nature
o Lab study: Controlled conditions
o Looks at origin
o Looks at society and societal structure
 Language
 Tool use
 Something used to make something else
 Warfare
← Roberta Linkeit
• She’s a Cultural Ecologist and a Functionalist.
• Functionalism: takes functions as an explanation
← CHAPTER 4
← Language
• Descriptive Linguistics
o Focuses on the mechanics and structure of language
o Phonology: A method for studying the details of speech sound
o Phoneme: smallest unit of sound that has meaning ex: I
o IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet (has all sounds humans
make)
o Morphology: study of the form of language
o Morpheme: is the smallest combination of sounds that carry a
meaning
o Syntax: is the manner that units of manner are put together
• Historical Linguistics
o Relationships of language to one another
o Reconstruct the language of past
o Counting on principals to recount languages
o Phonetic changes leads to dialect and the way things are
changed
o Proto-indo-European

• Ethnolinguistics
o Sapir-Whorf: theory: the way we think is affect by our
language
o Ex 1: Shona have three color choices
o Ex 2: Hopi do not have a past, present or future tense. They
have only present and future.
• Human versus Nonhuman systems of Communication
o Recursion: Features of language
 Ex: I don’t mean to be a jerk, but nobody likes you.
o Sociolinguistics
 Relationship between language and culture
 Socio Context
 AAVE: African American Vernacular Evaluation (ON
TEST) (look more up) used to show solidarity between
people. Is a combination of languages from white
southerners and creoles
 Production: creation, combination, modification
 Displacement: Communications of distance, time, place
o Human System: open system
 o Nonhuman System: closed system however the subconscious
part changes though the verbal doesn’t change
• Silent Languages
o READ UP ON EDWARD T. HALL- focuses on silent language
o 1st Kinesics: The study of the use of body in communication
(ex. Gestures, facial expressions,…ect.)
o 2nd Proxemics: how people perceive and use space (ex.
Space, body position and touch)
o Yggdrasil: Idea that there are three levels: hell, earth, and
heaven which are on a tree. There is something in the middle
(axis mundi.)
o 3rd Cultural Time: Concept that go early back in anthropology.
The concept of time are different amongst cultures. In
Australian culture that dream time is more meaningful than
real time. Circle time: everything comes back to same point.
There is spiral time, which is linear and cyclical.
o 4th Ritualized phrases: words or phrases that may be taken
literally
o 5th Silence: Time of silence has most meaning. For example in
the American culture, people with higher positions have a
more say. However, people from a lower a status tend to be
quiet.
o 6th Material Culture: Things in the context of society/ culture.
For example the Hippy Movement limited males with long hair
from getting jobs. (Religious Symbols can also fall into silence
language)
• “life span of theory in linguistic is about 17 minutes”
o It’s difficult to pin down language.
o We don’t make sentences we have heard before but, we do
make sentences that we haven’t heard before.
o Speech in continuous however the mind breaks it down to
words.
o Connotation
 A cellist got on the bus ahead of me.
 A cellist asked some interesting questions in our music
theory class today.
  In the two sentences above the term cellist varies and
arouses a different feeling.
o Language is a conceptual code. Speech is the actual
behavior.
 Because the boy had been talking to the old lady he
met at the laundry, he got home late and got scolded.
o The effort to formalize rules for language is path with
abandoned rules.
o Semantics: a problem that comes from word selection. The
meaning changes with word selection
o Folk taxonomy: words that tie to other things like the word
tree which is related to different types of tree.

o Arbitrarily: based on random choice or personal

whim, rather than any reason or system

o Language is not a short cut for looking at language
← CHAPTER 5
← Subsistence Strategies and Resource Allocation
• Theory
o Lenkeit Looks at following:
• The evolutionary Model
o Cultural Evolution
 Social Evolution (before cultural): Looking at decisions
that have consequences for people other than the
individual. Natural selection supports successful
societies.
 Evolution
 Natural selection
 Sexual selection
 Charles Darwin wrote a book called “On the
Decent of Man” and in a section of the book he
conflated race and culture. This lead to
determinism: every human future is determined
by what has happened in the past.
o Unilineal Evolution
  V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957) (Marxist): He is known
for the:
 Neolithic Revolution: Transition from hunter-
gather to farming. Rise is population and
diversification of labor goes up. This occurs in
Sumeria in 5,300 BC. (writing starts.) In
Melanesia this occurs 10,000 YA. In sub Saharan
Africa 2,500 B.C.
 Gordon divided the human society progress into: Band
(small family group), Tribe(larger group), Chiefdom
(has a group with leaders), State(Current
Organizations).
 This path ties into determinism.
o Neoevolution
 Disregards determinism and social progress ad instead
focuses on probability. People will grow by the amount
of energy they put out.
 Neoevolution: (pg 99)
o Multilinear evolution:
 Evolution pattern differ for different habitats.
o David Marshall Sahlin
 Deals with anthropology in terms of economics
 He is known for critiquing “homo economics” (concept
of economically rational man”
 He said humans are not rational, and are not
broadly self interested but just self interested,
and there is no subjective definite goal
 Broadly Self-interested: Doing things for other
people be better for you in the long run. Union
members are an example of self-interested
people.
 Self-interested: Purely selfish for yourself.
Businessmen were using the common people
during the industrial revolution.
 He is also know for Social evolution
  General evolution: Cultural or social system
increase in complexity to adapt
 Specific Evolution: Takes place of interaction and
diffusion from other cultures
 Both cover that societies tend to move from
savagery to barbarism to civilization
 Complexity is tied to technology
• The Ecological Model
o Ecology: Relationships between different organism and all
other features that have an impact. Holistic way.
o Leads to functionalism.
o Functionalism never explains contradictions and conflicts.
o Carl Marx (functionalist)
 History progresses throw certain types of stages.
 His theory that by the end economic will go from to
capitalism to communism through revolutionary.
 He was first to state the fact that social classes existed
(but it never addresses the morality)
o Feminist Archeology (functionalist)
 Females only served the purpose of sex
• Technology
o Technology: The knowledge, tools, and skills used by humans
to manipulate their environments.
• Teleological: the idea to that there is a purpose to an end of
something
• Agency: the ability to act
• Tradition: the passing down of customs and doesn’t have a sensible
explanation (legal a tradition must consistently made by society,
practiced generations to generation (at least 3 generations))
• Subsistence
o The Foraging Spectrum
 Foraging: hunting and gathering
 The Noble Savage: Life was simpler back in the past
(romanticizes past)
  Primitivism: Natives lived in harmony with nature.
Natives are generous. Natives are innocent and
unable to lie. Distain for luxury. Moral courage.
Innate natural wisdom. Natural intelligence.
 State of Nature: state of humans in the past
• Thomas Hobbes: In the state of nature life
is nasty, brutish and short (PEOPLE ARE
BAD)
• John Locke: Nature has the “Law of Nature”
(reason) (PEOPLE ARE GOOD)
• Rousseau: Man knew neither vice nor
virtue; bad habits were the result of
civilization. (PEOPLE ARE NEITHER GOOD
nor BAD)
• In the end there is no single state of nature
 Carrying Capacity: the maximum population can
sustain.
 “Because foragers are not food producers, they must be
regarded as just another species, and their population is
limited by the carrying capacity of their environments
page 111” not necessarily true. There are people who
were hunter gathers that had strategies that would
increase the capacity.
 For example controlled burning disputes this
statement. Yuka seeds for used instead of
otherwise.
 Use technology to eat foods that wouldn’t be
otherwise useful.
 Reciprocity: A form of exchange that involves the
mutual giving and receiving of food and other items.
(informal economic systems)
 Generalized Reciprocity: institutionalized gift
giving and exchange between close kin or friends;
accounts are not kept, and there is no expectation
of immediate return.
  Balanced Reciprocity: Exchange and gift giving
with expectation of a return of equal value within
a reasonable period of time. It falls into a liminal
(in between) state of trust and social distance.
Certain people (friends and family) can exert
pressure on you. Back in the day there were
social clans and tribes that exerted pressure.
However now days this does not work too well
because there are many people and places to go
on to. Conman can do this well.
 Negative Reciprocity: An economic exchange
aimed at receiving more than given. Haggling can
relate to social importance. Negative Reciprocity
also includes barter. Done more with strangers
and enemies.
 Nutritionally Balanced Diet
 Developmental
 Environment has impact on what the human body
can eat
 Idea of naturally balanced idea varies
 Nobody eats everything that’s available
 Optimal Foraging Theory
 Organisms forage to maximize energy intake per
time unit
 Low energy budget: The expenditure if minimum
energy to acquire the basic needs for survival.
 Not a system that can sustain over work.
 El Nino: Drought on Land
 EL Nina: Drought on Water
 Something that counters it is the example of
societies that gather Honey
 Economic Production Generalist
 Generalist: (Usually foragers are referred to this)
everyone knows just about everything associated
with survival. As society become more complex
the more this idea fails for us.
 o Egalitarian: Equally distributed
 Kinship and Division of Labor
 Division of Labor: (economic specialization) The
manner of dividing work based on criteria such as
age or gender. They exist to increase productivity
of labor. During industrial revolution this
increased.
 Guild: Association of people who share the same
type of work.
 Sexual Division: Tasks usually chosen by women
are more in relation with child rearing. The Biase
(Nigerian tribe) have men who are supposed to be
married by 20 so the woman can do the house
work for them.
 Age Division: Elders tend to be holders of
knowledge and tend to do more specialized tasks
rather than physical tasks. Young children: learn
how to socialize and watch elders. Prep
themselves for adulthood.
← CHAPTER 6
Subsistence II
• Horticulture
o Slash and Burn (swidden)
o Early beginning of domestication
o Crop Rotation
 Seasonal: (allow a piece of land to stay fallow (empty))
 Different types of plants are planted so that the soil is
used to its most
o Primary food comes from gardens
o Horticulture societies manipulate nature
 In Indian people used up the water for irrigation of rice
o Sedentary: they move less
o Kinship become important in social structure
o Property and Ownership
 Socially constructed
  Gypsies had a theory that you only own something that
you have control over (foragers)
 Yurok (Californian Tribe) had a system of elites who had
controls over certain minerals
o Poorer Nutrition
 Staple food: Something that is grown more of
o Higher Energy Budget
o Division of Labor
 Everything was divided in detail
o Distribution of Goods
 Potlatch: sites where reciprocity occur
• Pastoralism
o Food producing based on herding
o Nuer (African tribe) depend on cattle
o Aveny depend on lamps
o Pastoralist have trouble with State Level Society
o Transhumance: herds are moved seasonally
o Ongulates: animals with horns
o Ruminahts: animals that can digest cuds of grass
o Property Ownership
 Less than horticulture and more than forgagers
o Semi-Sedentary
• Horticulturalists and Pastoralists Today
o Majority of the old ways have changed for both by today
o Nuers went back to pastorlism after the government had
changed them to horticulture
o Very few foraging societies
o Pastorlism is declining due to lack of land
• Agriculture
o Based on intensive continuous use of land for the production
of plant food
 Cultivation of Soil
 Fertilizer
 Irrigation
 The plow
 Helps oxinate the land
  Allows for irrigation
 Prevents Anaerobic (lack of oxygen)
o Stratified society: has unequal access to resources within
groups of the same gender and status
o Peasant Society: Pre-industrial society, poor quality nutrition,
less varied diet, increase in population density, more and
more unsanitary systems
o Peasants: Most important for labor in agriculture
 Black Plague: Followed population density
o Lower Energy Budget: Highly intensive work for certain part
of the population and more free time for others
o Average farmer works 50 hrs per week
o Food: low cost per unit
o 3500 BC Mesopotamian society already had agriculture
o Serf: is bound to a given land
• Systems of Distribution
o Barter: goods and service
o Commodity Money
o Fiat Money (formally authorized)
← CHAPTER 7
← Kinship and Decent
• Know all the symbols
• Exogamy: Marriage to someone out site of group
• Endogamy: Cultural rule that dictates you should marry within
group
• In the U.S. we have a nuclear family where we have a mother and
father and their siblings
• Extended Family: two or more nuclear families
• Levirate Marriage: If a woman’s husband dies, she needs to marry
his brother
• Sororate: If a man’s wife dies, he needs to marry her sister
• Marriage: economic institution, vitally important for division of
labor, economic interdependency, legitimize off springs
• Marriage leads to change in: status and role
• Monogamy: the idea have only one sexual partner (20% of society
do monogamy)
• Polygamy: (70%)
o Polygynny: One man has many wives (79 % of polygamist)
o Polyandry: One woman has many husbands (.75% of
polygamist)
• HISTORY OF MARRIAGE
o In Medieval Times there was a Best Man who protected the
grooms family and the Maid of Honor was in charge for the
preparations
o However in current times the role has changed for both of
these actors
o The engagement ring was a sort of symbolism of commitment
and security for the woman
o In earlier times, marriages were decided by parents
o Then Renaissance Period brought about the idea of love
o Prenuptial Agreement: Agreement Before Marriage
• Sister exchange marriage
o Cross Cousin vs. Parallel Cousin
o Cross Cousin: mother’s brother’s child, father’s sister’s child
o Parallel Cousin: Mother’s sisters child, father’s brother’s child
o Allows you to marry your cross cousin
• Mate Choice
o Free choice of spouse
o Free choice of spouse with parental approval
o Arranged Marriage
• Marriage Finance
o Some body looses a family member
o Bridewealth (Bride Price): A form of marriage finance in which
valuable gifts are given by the groom’s kin to the bride’s kin.
o Dowry: Wealth brought with bride when she marries
o Half-marriage: Groom pays partial bridewealth and lives with
the bride’s family, and the couple’s children belong to the wife
and her family.
o Patrilocal: when you get married you move with father
• Family
 o Family of orientation: family in which you were a child
o Family of Procreation: Parents and children
o Consanguineal: Blood relationships
o Affinal Relationships: Marriage relations
o Kinship System: The complexity of a culture’s rules governing
the relationships between affinal and consanguineal kin.
o Household: A common residence based economic unit.
o Extended Family: anything bigger than nuclear family
o Blended Family: family result of divorce and remarriage
o Matrifocal Family: Family in that mother is dominant
• Residence Patterns
o Neolocal Residence: When an independent household live
away from parents
o Patrilocal Residence: When one lives with groom’s father
 Virilocal: Living with husband’s relative
o Matrilocal: Mother’s household
o Bilocal: Living in proximity of either the male or females
family
o Avunculocal: When couple resides by bride’s mother brother
o Matri-patrilocal residence: The groom moves to live the brides
family till the bride’s price is paid and then they move bad to
the father’s house
← CHAPTER 8
• Kingship Systems:
o Status: person’s position in society
 Ascribed Status: status given at birth and can’t be
changed
  Achieved Status: Status earned through skill
o Decent Group: A group of people who share identity from a
common ancestor.
o Unilineal: Cognatic
 Patrilineage (agnates) Decent(42%): The decent of the
males last name
 Matrilineal (Uterine) Decent(20%): All of the children of
female and their grandchildren
o Non-Unilineal: Mother and Father both play role in lineage
(Kindred)
 Parallel Decent: Follow a lineage with just females or
just males
o Other Decent Groups
 Double/ Bilineal Decent: Two different descents
(lineages) are recognized through same person
 Ambilineal: is a decent group that is acquired through
either the mother or father
o Second Level Decent Groups
 Clan: Two or more lineages
 Pharatry: 2 or more clans and 3 or more groups
 Moeity: divide society in half
 Segmentary Lineages: a decent group consists of
sublineage sets
o Voluntary Association Groups:
 Doesn’t depend on decent
 Iroquois had masks that were valued as soles but to
join the “False Faced” society you had to have a dream
and tryout
 Cooper Guild: barrel maker guild
 Sodality: Group that share common interests
o Terminology System
  Inuit (Eskimo) Terminology (7% people use it): A
system by which you refer to your relatives
 Focus on nuclear family
 Neolocal Residence
 Primo/a (cousin male/female)
 Specific Names within nuclear family but common
names for people outside of nuclear families
 Iroquois Terminology System ( 13 % people use it):
Typically a unileaneal system
 Specific Names for Nuclear Family
 Father and Father’s Brother have same name and
Mother and Mother’s Sister have same name
 Cousins share same term as brother and sister
(variation amongst gender)
 Hawaiian Terminology System(18% of people use it):
 Known for lumping relations with generations and
gender
 Makes it hard to keep track of unilineal system
 All of the males are referred with same term and
females with their own term
 Cousins are termed as brother and sister
CHAPTER 9
Gender and Sex
• Sex: Refers to biological state
• Gender: the task and behavior assigned by a culture to each sex
o Having Penis to be a male
o Clothing
o Occupation
 o Interest
o Consider what makes one male or female
• Nature vs. Nurture
o Epic of Gilgamesh

 Egyptions believed in “ma’at” (feather): Ancient
Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, law,
morality, and justice. Maat was also personified as
a goddess regulating the stars, seasons, and the
actions of both mortals and the deities, who set the
order of the universe from chaos at the moment of
creation.
o Innatism: philosophical doctrine:
 mind is born with knowledge and therefore it’s not
blank slate.
 Ex: Rene Decarte said that the knowledge of God
is innate.
o Nativism:
 Less strict than innatism
 Ex: Ethical trues: all people know from right and
wrong
 Ex: Avoidance of dangers
o Tabula Rosa
 Opposite of innatism
 All people start as blank slate
 Pistamalogy: Study of human knowledge
 Ex: John Locke, Sigman Freud,
o For this argument these things have been at stake
 Eugenics: Study and practice of selective breeding to
better the human race
 Homosexuality: If it is genetic (no choice), however if it
is a choice then there is the ability to change
  Twin Studies
• David Reimer was born a healthy boy but
raised as a girl after his penis was
destroyed during circumcision but decided
to live as man at 14 and committed suicide
at 38. THIS IS NOT A TWIN STUDY
• Twin share the same nature, however they
can be nurtured differently
• Sex
o Easier with gentic
o Genes XXY SDR SRY
o Humans have 23 genes, and last gene determines the gender
o Sexual Dimorphism: Biological and behavioral differences
between males and females (very tiny in humans)
o Intrasexual: intermediate or atypical combination of physical
features… (also can include sex reversal) (genital ambiguity)
o Transgender: divergence from gender role
o Estrus: a regular period of sexual excitement in many female
mammals during which the animal seeks to mate (it can be
visible)
o Menstrual Cycle: the process of ovulation and menstruation in
women and other female primates (there are no exact
apparent signs)
o Endocrine System: different hormones between males and
females
o Gonad System: the different organs that males and females
have for reproducing
o Muscle mass varies between sexes
o Woman have 30% more lung volume
o Woman have a 10% more red cell blood volume
• Gender
o Sociocultural concept of role of sex
o Gender role: a task or behavior assigned to each sex by
cultural (Behavioral, sociocultural,
o
 Male Fem Bot
ale h
Hunt Gath
ers ers

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
←
←