ANTH 1150 assignment 1-2 PDF

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Rahima Imran

Chapter 2 review: Maisin people use their environment to provide food, materials and support their livelihood, for example, the cultivation such as Taro and wuwusi, provide food and material to make cloth (Barker 2016:34). The Maisin use a technique called swiden horticulture which involves using a garden for around 3 years and deserting it (Barker 2016:42). The creation of Tapa is a strenuous process that requires high attention to procedure and requires muscle as the author elaborates (Barker 2016:37). The workload to sustain themselves takes most of the day and it is divided according to gender, Men typically do jobs which require heavy lifting and intense labor such as making anvil, hunting animals and houses as compared to women who use flexible materials to make cloth, collect shellfish and water (Barker 2016:35,40). Gardens are treated as spiritual areas and they are also known to be important for social and moral character development (Barker 2016: 44). Gardens also play a major role in both politics and economics (Barker 2016:44). Reciprocity is a prominent principle that expresses love and support to close people and having close family circles and connections to neighbors is very important. (Barker 2016: 48). Communities have different ways of obtaining food, the Maisin people forage for food, cultivate and hunt for their food. Women take on jobs such as foraging for shellfish, smaller foods and help with cultivating Taro (Barker 2016:40). Men typically hunt for wild animals and fishing (Barker 2016:40). The concept of gendered workloads concerning food is evaluated in Lens (Chapter 5) which describes food foraging to be the oldest form of collecting food (Tubelle de Gonzalez 2019:100). The hunter-gatherer complex has existed for millions of years, men and women have certain roles which also has cultural practices ingrained into them (Tubelle de

Gonzalez 2019:100). In the Maisin community, people have the principle of reciprocity, trust and love build up overtime through gifts, advice and other forms of showing respect (Barker 2019:48). The giving of gifts can help distinguish between a network of relationships between parents, elders and even children, but these gifts are not measured, they are given freely (Barker 2019: 49). Lens defines reciprocity as a “set of social rules that govern the specialized sharing of foods and other items.”(Tubelle de Gonzalez 2019:126). Sharing gifts is calculated and is strict rules prescribe how much should be given and when (Tubelle de Gonzalez 2019:126). Food foraging, hunting, and a modest amount of agriculture makes up most of the collective food supply of the Maisin people but what happens when natural disasters, droughts or food shortage occurs? (Barker 2016:34). The Maisin people can be considered very resourceful simply because they use their surroundings and their ancestral techniques to sustain themselves rather than completely change their way of living along with the modern era. Shortage of wild animals due to drought would lead to a decrease in food brought back by hunters, this could be compensated for by the agriculture of Taro and other food items by trading cloth for food supplies. If garden land is infertile it could lead to more devastating issues because most of their basic amenities such as clothes and food come from garden crops (Barker 2016:37). Many people would probably resort to earning cash and working outside of their villages which is done by a few Maisins now ( Barker 2016: 55).

Bibliography: Barker, John. 2016. Ancestral Lines: The Maisins of Papua New Guinea and the Fate of the Rainforest. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tubelles de Gonźalez, Laura. 2019. Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology Toronto: University of Toronto Press....