-
4 main parts of anthropology
- biological
- cultural
- variation
- evolution
-
4 major subfields of anthropology
- archeology
- linguistics
- biological
- cultural
-
religion
the belief in the supernatural
-
supernatural
that which is beyond our normal experience
-
earliest religious behavior -- when, who, what
- neaderthals burial; indicated belief in afterlife
- 70,000 yrs ago
- extended burial: layed out flat in same direction
- flexed burial: like a womb
-
early religion of upper paleolithic -- when, evidence
- 28,000 - 21,000 years before present
- cave art & sculpture in the round
-
E.B. Taylor -- when, theory
- 1880s writer [20-30 yrs after Darwin's Natural Selection]
- unilineal cultural evolutionary theory
-
unilineal cultural evolutionary theory
all human cultures start out as savages, progress to barbarism and develop into civilization
-
Taylor said that all cultures start out in...
animism ==> polytheism ==> monotheism
-
animism
- belief in spirits
- belief that things have a soul
- the idea of a soul is the result of dreams... concept of a "ghost soul"
-
Callisto Myth
- Zeus is invited to dinner by princess's father
- King feeds Zues human flesh (abhored by Greeks)
- Zeus massacres family, except for one daughter he likes
- Hera decides to punish him... daughter will grow up, marry and have son... disguise as bear, hunted by own father
- Zues intervenes, tosses "bear" into the sky to become Ursa Major and daughter, Ursa Minor.... never allowed to rest
-
culture that believed that man contained the most # of souls and how many
Fang, 7
-
the Ga of Southern Africa believed everyone had two souls and needed them plus three more things to be an individual --- names of souls plus three things
- kla: life force
- susuma: conscious personality, subconscious
- a body
- good luck (gheshi)
- a name
-
4 basic elements that all religions have:
-
Dream Time
remote antiquity when ancestors lived on Earth in "the beginning" in toltemic clans... Yir Yoront
-
Yir Yorant
- Australian aboriginal group
- live close to water yet have no boats (want to live as ancestors did)
- believe in Dream Time - remote antiquity when ancestors lived on Earth in "the beginning" in toltemic clans
- stone axe head is most treasured tool, how men control women
-
soul
the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal
-
myth, three points
- acts as science; answers questions
- template for behavior
- way to convery cultural info
-
Zeus and Io
- Zeus tries to seduce Io
- worries Hera may be watching, creates a cloud to hide in and turns Io into heifer... says it's a gift to Hera
- Hera places heifer under the watchful eyes of Argus (100-eyed best friend)
- Zeus conspired with Hermes to kill Argus
- Hera plucks Argus' eyes and turns them into the eyes of peacock feathers
- Zeus finally consorts with Io and Herculese is born
- Hera creates gadfly to pester Io
-
why anthropologists dislike missionaries
- the organic-unity concept: an ideal society is in perfect equalibrium and change produced by outside contact is harmful
- the meaninglessness of religious beliefs: majority of anthropologists are agnostic or atheist
-
emic vs etic
insider's view vs outsider's view
-
taboo
- rules of behavior
- function is to set limits or boundries on behavior. narrow choices
-
Nyoro myth (Uganda)
- three sons myth created for socio/political order
- eldest: servant and cultivator [picks knife, food, headring, axe]
- 2nd: cattlemen [picks up thong]
- youngest: father's heir [picks up ox's head]
-
Levy-Strauss [1908-2009]
- "father of modern anthropology"
- binary oppositions: all choices are made into "yes or no"
- Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
-
Kin Jae festival Thailand
- theme of duality .... good and evil
- vegetarian
- example of syncretic religion... influenced by Hindu faiths
- Chinese taught ancient rites
- Yan Suag Tae -- pig butcher swore off meat, didn't want to step on ants, killed himself instead
- 9 gods comprise Ursa Major
-
syncretic
the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought
-
Norse creation myth
- beginning was a void
- cold north and hot south merge to form water and mist
- Ymir, first giant to appear (Odin's grandfather)
- Odin and brothers kill Ymir and make the heavens and Earth
- Midgard- where humans were placed, here first man and woman were created from trees, ash and elm
-
salvation cocktail
strychnine and lye poison drank by serpent-handlers of W. Virginia
-
Holiness Chruch
serpent-handlers of W. Virginia place of worship
-
rite of passage
a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another
-
Sunna
Norse; the sun, she is described as the sister of the personified moon, Máni
OR
in female genital mutilation, Type 1: the removal of the hood and/or tip of clitoris
-
van Gennep
- ethnographer
- wrote Rites of Passage; 1909.
- these rituals divided into 3 phases:
- separation ==> liminal (marginal) ==> aggregation
-
Menomini tribe, Wisconsin
- everyone has two souls, intellect and body
- intellect: hangs around after death; mischevious
- body: travels west over milky way
- 4 day journey; resists temptation [fountain,giant wild strawberry]
- soul reaches river, log as bridge to salvation, dog as guide
- spend eternity eating wild strawberries, playing lacross
-
Black Plague
- 1347-1350
- 25-30 million died
- began in Italy
- 3 types: bubonic, pneumonic, hemorragic
-
Flagellants
- Christian sect who whipped people to take away others sins
- 33.5 day campaigns (each day referred to a year of Jesus' earthly life) of penance
- Clement VI officially condemned them in a bull of October 20, 1349
-
holistic
"The tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution."
-
divination
- a set of rituals designed to answer a question
- the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.
- types often end in -omancy or -imancy
- soothsayer
-
King Isaza myth
- King Isaza came to the thrown a very young man
- drove away elders replaced with his young friends
- killed a zebra, stiched it to himself
- zebra skin dries and almost kills him, friends are no help
- elders come to his rescue by throwing him in pond
- "respect your elders"
-
Tsembaga
- from New Guinea
- Kaiko pig festival
- agriculturalists
-
Pythoness or Pythia
- the oracle at Dephi, Mt. Parnassus
- place of divination for 1200 years
- she spoke in tongues "glossolalia"
-
Cleopatra type of divination
margretomancy -- pearls in oil
|
|