I Am tells the stories of 36 Sri Lankan elders, about their lives and work, and their connections to their hometown. ... With the movement of people away from their hometowns, particularly from Jaffna and Galle, I also spoke to the so called 'internal diaspora', about their longing for their hometowns and their sense of belonging to their adoptive homes."
posted by chunking express
on Jan 6, 2012 -
3 comments
From these various anthropological approaches,
a basic dichotomy has emerged between two types of societies from very different ecosystems: societies born in rain forests and those that thrive in deserts.... Begin with religious beliefs. A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods.... But desert dwellers... are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One. This division makes ecological sense.... Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism.... Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won’t be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion.... (
Previously,
previously,
previously)
posted by orthogonality
on Jul 12, 2009 -
73 comments
How We Evolve: "A growing number of scientists argue that human culture itself has become the foremost agent of biological change, making us — for the past 10,000 years or so — the inadvertent architects of our own future selves."
[more inside]
posted by homunculus
on Oct 9, 2008 -
49 comments
Narts! The Nart Sagas are arguably the most essential ingredient of Circassian Culture, to which they are what Greek mythology is to Western Civilization. Though much less known than their Greek counterparts, the Nart epic tales are no less developed. The heroism, sagacity, guile and ferocity of the Nart demi-gods are more than matches
to those of the Greek Pantheon. If this
selection of stories captures your interest, you might want John Colarusso's
Nart Sagas from the Caucasus; you can read the
introduction online ("A ship sailing across the Black Sea in the year 1780 eventually would have come upon a lush shore at the eastern end of the dark gray waters..."). Although they seem to have been brought by the
Ossetes (and J. Cassian is posting an Ossetian tale,
The Death of Soslan, on his
blog), they're
everywhere in the Northern Caucasus. And
some people say they were the source of the King Arthur stories.
posted by languagehat
on Dec 4, 2004 -
13 comments
Sapir/Whorf raises its head again in study of the Piraha tribe. I can't stop thinking about this
article which appeared in the Globe and Mail Friday.
A study appearing today in the journal Science reports that the hunter-gatherers seem to be the only group of humans known to have no concept of numbering and counting.
Not only that, but adult Piraha apparently can't learn to count or understand the concept of numbers or numerals, even when they asked anthropologists to teach them and have been given basic math lessons for months at a time ... the Piraha are the only people known to have no distinct words for colours.
They have no written language, and no collective memory going back more than two generations. They don't sleep for more than two hours at a time during the night or day.
Even when food is available, they frequently starve themselves and their children, Prof. Everett reports.
They communicate almost as much by singing, whistling and humming as by normal speech.
They frequently change their names, because they believe spirits regularly take them over and intrinsically change who they are.
They have no creation myths, tell no fictional stories and have no art.
Can any of our anthropologists or linguists comment? I had thought that narrative was the common link in all human cultures....
posted by jokeefe
on Aug 21, 2004 -
61 comments
Wade Davis , on
"Death and life in the Ethnosphere - The Naked Geography Of Hope" :
"In Haiti, a Vodoun priestess responds to the rhythm of drums and, taken by the spirit, handles burning embers with impunity. In the Amazon, a Waorani hunter detects the scent of animal urine at forty paces and identifies the species that deposited it....On an escarpment in the high Arctic, Inuit elders fuse myth with landscape, interpreting the past in the shadow of clouds cast upon ice.....Just to know that such cultures exist is to remember that the human imagination is vast, fluid, infinite in its capacity for social and spiritual invention." The death of the Ethnosphere was Margaret Meade's great concern up to her death, says Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis of
Serpent and the Rainbow fame and student of
Richard Evans Schultes, founder of
Ethnobotany : "The
surprising results obtained from treating psychoactive plants allowed their users to communicate more directly with the unseen world which they believed to exist." Davis coined the concept of the "Ethnosphere" and has worked for it's preservation through
Cultural Survival
posted by troutfishing
on Aug 5, 2004 -
16 comments
Sworn virgins. "A sworn virgin is called such because she swears—takes a vow under the law of the
Kanun—to become a man. From the day she takes this vow (which is sometimes at a very early age), she becomes a man: she dresses like one, acts like one, walks like one, works like one, talks like one, and her family and community treat her as one. She is referred to as he. He will never marry and will remain celibate all of his life." If you find this stuff intriguing, by all means read Alice Munro's great short story "The Albanian Virgin" (from
Open Secrets, 1994); you might also want to check out
A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture, where there's much more cultural weirdness, and Edith Durham's classic
High Albania (online
here), from which I first learned of these mannish gals. Oh, and there's a
movie!
posted by languagehat
on Jan 30, 2004 -
15 comments
The Quiet American provides glimpses of other cultures via phonographs: snapshots of sound. (The
field recordings in Vietnam are beautiful and evocative.)
Vagabonding also conveys the wonders of travel. What other sites allow non-travelers to experience other parts of the world?
posted by jdroth
on Mar 5, 2003 -
5 comments
Every* day, lately, I see more news showing
a tightening grasp** on the peoples of the world by agents of power and knowledge. Domestic affairs are more about foreignness than ever, it seems.
* Story about an expedition by Brazilian anthropologists to collect information on the size and number of uncontacted indigenous groups in the Amazon (without actually contacting them).
** Story about tensions between indigenes and commercial fisheries in the Torres Straits Islands. Australia gives broad protection of indigenous rights to land, but courts have not yet ruled on rights to the sea.
posted by rschram
on Mar 28, 2001 -
2 comments
