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Definitions |
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Tricksters
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ex. southwestern societies - a lot of people believe coyote is trickster - don't like to see coyotes. Designed to teach norms of society. Black cats - don't cross their path**
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Shaman vs. Priest
(Supernatural Practitioners)
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Shaman - most common, part-time practitioners, supernaturally chosen mediator between the natural and supernatural realms, minister to physical and mental well-being of a community, do more healing, believed to be able to tap into supernatural world
Priests - other terms, chaplain, pastor, etc.; specialized full-time practitioners, must learn to be intermediary, help you communicate or interpret supernatural for you, chapels/churches-last rites
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Chiefdoms
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-hereditary office of the chief
(authority is held by the person who holds this office)
(chief also has prestige [ascribed] which is also associated with the chiefs family)
-2 level stratification
-not available to everyone, thus not egalitarian
-office demands tribute to be paid
(often in the form of surplus)
(surplus is redistributed [redistribution economic system])
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Stratified State Societies
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when focus is on equality and inequality:
-have institutions in which coercive power and authority are determined
-social stratification - inequity between groups based on wealth, power, and prestige
-class - group of people with similar relationship to these mechanisms
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how to study cultural change
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-study
~the archaeological records
~historical records
~life histories
~longitudinal ethnographic research studies (restudies)-go back
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Mana
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think of like the force in star wars - there is a power out there that you can tap into powers - good and black magic
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Social Control
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-disorder occurs when people deviate from accepted norms and rules of a society
-social control - social mechanisms for ensuring that people behave murder
-informal means - bands and tribes (ex social pressures, ridicule, gossip, ostracism)
-formal means - chiefdoms and states (laws - cultural rules backed up by sanctions; often found in religious value systems)
-war and peace (conflict between groups)*
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Magic
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not so much force but a manipulation of technique - actions by which you tap into powers - good and black magic
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Rituals
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-formalized behavior that brings people together. Structured, patterned
-regularly repeated
-symbolic content
-form social bonds (ring, white dress)
-have participants including audience
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Supernatural Belief
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any belief that transcends the observable, natural world
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Morton Fried
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Came up with a different approach to classifying societies based on their organization
Four types (focus is on equality and inequality)
-egalitarian
-rank societies
-stratified societies
-stratified state societies
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Post Modernism/Post Colonialism
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-contemporary global culture driven by flows of people, technology, finance, info, and ideology
-tribal peoples participate in the culture
-people live multi locally
-post modern-a breaking down of traditional standards, contrasts, groups, boundaries, and identities
-creating new
-affects the groups we study and how we study them
-migrations studies, multi-sited research
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art and cultural patterns
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-most artwork fashioned in the image of preexisting forms
-complete originality is not strived for in most cultures
-does not mean that expressions do not change
-western art establishment is unique
~emphasis on formal originality
~de-emphasis on tradition
~artists as lonely, struggle in pottery
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Compare with Film
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-some embrace change (streets, houses, etc.)
-others were not (discouraging people with Kayapo)
-different villages response to the contact
~1 organized circular with mens in center
~2nd had streets and brick houses - men didn't sleep in men's huts
-technologies both=firearms, motorboats, airplanes, cameras?
~traditional - use plane to see if people on land and guard posts
~other one - plans to visit cities and government
-chiefs son and nephew - put on westner garb to deal with brazilians inside village return to body paints
-traditional village - tape recorder
-wasn't until the 80s that they had identity of Kayapo (as opposed to brazilians)
-stress things they had in common (name ceremony)
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Witches
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humans that can move between 2 worlds and have ability
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Demons
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especially in monotheistic religions - if god is good - need to explain the bad
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Functions of Belief Systems
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create a community - belong to a group of others, social rules outside what raised. can be:
-integrative
~cohesive and supportive functions*
~revitalization and euphoria - makes feel good less anxious, gives us answers to things hard to answer, helps us cope in difficult times - something to fall back on
-validating
~education and discipline - if you can get people to accept that rules of social norms come from higher power, its hard to argue against them. also if you break them - bad things will happen (often make rules on things people agree with already - codify in the belief system and add power)
~ecological - ex in india make it a religious rule not to eat cows because cows are actually good for the environment. killing them for food is less beneficial to society than keeping them alive - so codify in belief to benefit
-explanatory
~big one - explain the unexplainable - what happens if we die - why do good things happen to bad people and bad to good, etc.
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Supernatural Forces
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most neutral - but can be harnessed for good or for evil (mana and magic)
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Souls
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inhabiting the body - first originated as a way to explain dreams - personification of self doing things
ex - latin america disease "susto" associated with the soul - believe that soul was scared out of them - anxious not themselves, treatment is to find a way to restore the soul to that person
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Cultural Change and Survival
Sources of Cultural Change
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-internal (10%)
~innovations
~inventions
-External (90%)
~diffusion (sushi at uconn)
~acculturation
+westernization
-in our society, change is seen as a good thing
~enculturated - taught culture as you grow up
~acculturation- change that occurs when 2 societies come in contact with one another
~assimilation - lose previous aspects
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Rites of Intensification
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-focus on group (football)
-reinforce
~group solidarity
~values of a culture
~social and political - relations within the group
-us = 2 groups - what team you want to win - who has the tv to watch on/competition
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Change
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-barriers to change - dogma/way of being linked to supernatural power
~structural barriers
~social and psychological barriers
-stimulants to change
~desire for economic gain
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Art and Religion
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-inseparable
-found at all levels
~individual - magic songs - great plains
~communal - gravestone, singing, dancing at funerals
~ecclesiastical - altars, temples, priestly vestments
-impose human meaning on an indifferent world
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Performative Art
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-storytelling
-music
~ethnomusicology*
-dance
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expressive beginnings
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-upper paleolithic (40,000-12,000 BP)
~areas of france and spain
~parietal art - executed on permanent features
~mobile art - can be moved or carried
~highly sophisticated technology
~do not know why they produced these art forms
~horse - voglehard cave (ger)
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expressive arts.
What is art?
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-something not represented in its literal shape, sound, color, movement, or feeling
-communicates in metaphors or symbols
-found in every society
-provides emotional gratification and contributes to social well-being
-reflects and shapes values, beliefs, and ideological themes
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ethnic distinctions between art and non-art
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-not universal
-euro-american definition - art as opposed to non art -exclude designs, stories, artifacts that have a definite use in day to day subsistence activities and produced for practical purposes or for commercial use (ex. carpenters vs. wood sculptors) art establishment
~all cultures distinguish between satisfactory and less satisfactory aesthetic experiences
~anthropologists generally regard skilled wood carvers as artists
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Cultural Imperialism
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-the advancement of one culture at the expense of another
-modern technologies (the media)
~homogenizing effect
+homogenization among the elites (those who can afford what the west has
~means to retain old and create new communities
+Andersons idea of imagined communities**
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Egalitarian Societies
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if classifying societies based on organization:
-equal access to prestige, wealth and power
-Ex: foraging bands
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types of beliefs - supernatural beings.
Gods.
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Polytheistic - more than one god
Monotheistic souls - only one.
christian religion - says monotheistic but takes on some polytheistic forms (father, son, holy ghost)
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Rank Societies
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when focusing on equality and inequality:
-individuals gain wealth and prestige through persuasive power, thus, inequities
EX: most tribes and chiefdoms
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Ghosts
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ex - Navajo believe when you die your ghost/soul walks the earth, burn possessions of dead so they won't want to hold onto them and stay here - help move onto other world. Funerals etc. all to help ghosts pass - if they stay here, cause trouble
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BELIEF SYSTEMS
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use this term instead of religion (we think of institutionalized religion) - not same thing everywhere
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Four Basic Types Of Political Structure
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Bands
Tribes
Chiefdoms
States
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Revitalization Movement
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-arise during periods of perceived crisis (belief system change)
-charismatic leader - often has communicated with a deity or has had a personal encounter with the supernatural (ex - islam - mohammed/christianity - jesus/ghost dance - laboka/buds on trees don't just bloom -> ritual (white people go away, they didn't)
shirt - protect you from bullets -> invalidated
-social distress - seek to adjust current social and belief systems to accommodate changing circumstances
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rite of passage
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-focus on the individual (as opposed to groups) [kinalda]
-mark culturally defined biological and social phases
-mark changes in status and roles (child-woman in tribe; marriage can have sex/children)
-phases
~separation
~liminality (transition)
~(re)incorporation - accepted as new status
-in us adulthood = when we move out
-wedding - separation = engagement/fiance terms, liminality = ability to get gifts etc. expected to participate in family functions/(re)incorporation = couple presented with new status
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TRIBES
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Similar to bands in their forms of leadership
-egalitarian
-do not have a single leader with authority
-leaders generally do not have coercive power
- leaders rely on persuasive power
-headman or big man (leadership depends on ability to organize others, for example, a feast)
-political institutions are indistinct
-correlate to horticultural and pastoral food procurement strategies
-larger populations (what size?)
-property ownership in hands of lineages and clans
-kinship based societal relations
sodalities - group whose membership is based on common interest rather than on kinship affiliation or residence group
-age sets?
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Stratified Societies
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when the focus is on equality and inequality:
-unequal access to resources, societies based on inequity
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States
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-most recent form of organization to emerge
-constitute themselves legally
(laws that are administered by the states)
(specific people are authorized and empowered to enforce the laws)
-political and economic stratification
-wealth is not equally distributed
-specialization at every level
-food procurement strategies - intensive agriculture with large surplus
-merchant class part of extensive market system of distribution
-associated with the rise of cities
-nation-state (shares both)
(nation - group that has a symbolic identity based on geography, culture, history, religion, etc.)
(state - designates a type of political structure)
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Art and Politics
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-state sponsored art - politically conservative
-skills of artist used for political control
-church and state greatest patrons of the arts until the past few hundred years
-capitalism
~wealthy individuals replaced church and state as patrons of the arts
-display power of individual
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Bands
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-Egalitarian social structure - equal access within age and gender
-equal access to status mechanisms
-no single authority
-leadership is formal
-no separate identifiable political institution
-all aspects of social life are kin OR family based
-found among foraging societies
-Size 10-50
-foraging bands believe to be earliest form of societal organization
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Sacred Vs. Secular Rituals
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based in belief system/religion - wedding/mitzvah vs. thanksgiving/super bowl
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