Cultural Anthropology Exam 2 Study Guide PDF

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This is the Exam 2 study guide from Dr. Leatham's class that I filled out after every single lecture....

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Cultural Anthropology Exam 2 Study Guide Adaptive Strategies (Subsistence)  

Relationship of subsistence to other cultural domains (kinship or religion) Adaptive advantages of: o Agriculture: domestication of plants  Industrialism  History  Developed in 10,000 ya in Mesopotamia  Domestication of plants by experimenting with grasses  Increased population  Sustains large populations  Allows for specialization, therefore creates a hierarchy in social status  Creates own ecosystem for humans to live in and facilitates an induced evolution o Horticulture (shifting cultivation)  Make use of resources provided by the environment  Small population numbers  Can sustain larger population than foraging but not close to agriculture  Reliable food getting way  Voluminous food choices o Pastoralism: herding of animals  Patrilineal kinship  Closed kinship  Decent from line of men  Pass down wealth (cows) through the patrilineal line  Labor division  Men do most of work (herd, protect, etc.)  Women raise sons  Also sew and do other economically valued things but primary used to make more men  Warrior societies  Based on protecting herds and property  Hierarchy development o Foraging  Primary selective pressure system of human evolution  The only thing that has changed since we stopped foraging is the immune system because next step in adaptation is proximity to animals that carry foreign disease o Compare horticulture and agriculture  Agriculture  Uses extensive cultivation  Clears away all/most of native ecology  Permanent fields and settlements  More reliable than horticulture

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 Sacrifices the ability of soil to self-fertilize; leading to the use of chemical fertilizers and all the consequences of such practice  Uses seeds  Can be widely dispersed and mass produces crops  Fewer crops produced  Population can specialize while few people can feed many people  More stratified social structure Horticulture  Sustainable cultivation  Makes use of the native ecosystem  Permanent settlements (mostly) but fields periodically shift  Makes use of self-fertilizing forest and soil; no use of fertilizers besides burning down organisms in the plot  Uses cuttings of plants  More crops produced  All people in the population work on gathering food  Practice a chiefdom social structure

Horticulture o History  7,000 BCE tropical forests expanded after the ice age and humans began moving into the forests and figured they could live in one place by selectively cutting trees and using natural ecology in small gardens o Characteristics  Patrilineal  Men participate in warfare and defend against raids  Sustain larger populations than foraging but not a lot bigger  Birth spacing rules  No sex within 5 years of having a child o Swidden: the gardens  Selectively cut down trees and burn the section  Plant cuttings of plants (NOT SEEDS) native to the area to not disrupt the ecosystem  Clearing in forest sustains surrounding forests and native vegetation around the clearing o Shifting cultivation  Most of the life in the forest is in the canopy of the trees, therefore the soil is very thin with sand beneath  Once a garden has been used 2 times the soil becomes too thin and malnourishing  Cuts and burns garden  Fallows for 10 years (self-fertilizes)  Will be reclaimed by the forest  More than 1 gardens are in use at one time o Major horticultural crops

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Starchy root crops Yam, sweet potato, banana, manioc (yuca)  Manioc has liquid toxin within it; people strain it to get all of liquid out and used dried substance as flour for baking  Liquid toxin is used to coat arrows and used in hunting Characteristics of band societies (foraging) o Band societies  15-40 people  Hearth group: central family unit  Negotiated and agreed upon ranges between bands during seasons o Nomadic peoples  Moving around without a fixed home  Except Hida and Cuaky  Low property position  “meager” property  No food production or storage o Division of labor  Women gather; men hunt  Dietary fiber – women  Dietary protein – Men  Women contribute more to the diet o Egalitarian society  Everybody gets food, everybody is equal  No specialization of working  Emphasis on individual is decreased o Generalized reciprocity: open invitation of exchange relationships  Open hospitality  No specificity of reciprocity in time or substance  Generalized trust and support between members  Helps when dealing with scarcity o Naturalistic religion  Religion focusing on nonhuman forces  Nature = spirit forces  Focus on controlling/appeasing the spirit forces to control the nature forces that directly affect humans  See themselves as blending into the ecosystem and humans are just another species on the planet Pastoral nomadism versus transhumance o Mobility patterns that depend on vegetation of the land o Pastoral nomad  Constantly moving with the herd  Common in areas with little to no vegetation o Transhuman pastoralism  Move on cyclic bases (seasonally or yearly)

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 Common in areas with more vegetation for the herd to eat  Sometimes practice agriculture through gardens Inka agropastoralism and cultural importance of Andean camelids o Agropastoralism: mixing agriculture and pastoralism  At lower elevations, the villagers are more agriculturally dependent and even have some small domesticated animals (ex: pigs)  At higher elevation, agriculture cannot be supported and people depend on herding of animals o Andean camelids  2,000 – 7,000 ya domesticated in North America  Llama and Alpacha  Llama came from Gimaco  Alpacha came from Vicima  Adapted to high-altitude  Non-milk producing lactose-intolerance in human population common Distinctive traits of Northwest Coast foragers (ex: Haida) o Haida (Northwest Coast of North America) o No bilateral kinship o Settled villages o Hereditary tribe leaders o Maritime diet and resources o Never produced food  Tropical forest provided all resources o Slavery o Pot latching: king has lots of artifacts made by his people and the villagers burn them in front of another king to show off their loyalty to the king and how wealthy they are “Cattle complex” (symbolic role of livestock) in pastoralist societies o Ex: Nuer, Dine, Masai, Saami (Lapps) o Nuer (Sudan and Etheopea)  Recent non-traditional cultural refugee group displaced to the U.S by the Sudan Civil War  Cattle herders  Transhumant pastoralists  Lineages own animals to keep cattle in patrilineal line  Ranking in society is based on cattle o Cattle complex: cattle is seen as the center of the universe  Don’t kill animals unless to sacrifice to gods  Cattle = proxy in society = happiness of people = center of universe  Cattle health represent you as a person  Cattle is part of the story of origin  “in the beginning we had cattle”

Kottack Ch.7/ Kinship, Descent, and Marriage 

Descent: the passing down of biological relationship

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o Can be nonbiological (with adoption and marriages) o Vertical decent line o The relationship of coming from o Basically what kinship was Ego: the consultant whom the kindred is based on Kindred: the map of family o Perspective of kinship and kinship points What roles does kinship play in non-industrial societies? o Kinship is how everything functions, it is the politics, the economics, and the religion o Everything revolves around relationships and who you have familial relationships with and who you don’t o Kinship is the society Nuclear family: father, mother, and child o The small basic unit of the family Affinals (or affines): relationships formed via marriage o Ex: mother-in-law and father-in-law Differences between bilateral/cognatic kinship and unilineal kinship forms o Bilateral/cognatic kinship: lineages come from relatives on both side of the family  Adaptation advantage: wide safety net of reliability; can depend on a wide range of people to help in times of need because they are relatives  Have a focus on the nuclear families being the subunits o Unilineal kinship: lineage comes from either the mother or father’s side, but not both  Adaptation advantage: things are passed down in one way that is defined by society  Ex: patrilineal, matrilineal Is nuclear family the primary focus of kinship organization in all societies? How do the unilineal kin groups (ex: Hmong and Navajo) behave toward each other? o The nuclear family is only the focus in the bilateral kinship system. They are a thing in unilineal kinship obviously (uterine family kind of), but not emphasized and are not legally acknowledged in the unilineal kinship system. Descent group: super groups of relatives formed by unilineal kinship systems o Lineage  Those with direct traceable ancestry relations o Clan  Usually has religious background  Those with stipulated ancestry relations Unilineal decent rules: o Matrilineal: lineage passes through the mother o Patrilineal: lineage passes through the father Kinship calculation: the process of figuring out how far a person is related to you o Using a kindrid can help in this process Kinship nomenclature: name given to a position based on relationship to another person o Ex: mom-brother = uncle

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Post-marital residence rules o Neolocal (with bilateral kinship) o Patrilocal o Matrilocal Apical vs. Stipulated ancestor o Apical ancestor: earliest names ancestor who defines the lineage o Stipulated ancestor: Ancestors between two lineages that link the two together to have familial relations  Ex: Eagle ancestor linking lineage X to lineage Y Totem (relates to clan-level organization) o Mythical ancestors that connect two lineages together o Common among clans to bring them together to cooperate for the advantage of one or both o Intend to maximize the kinship net in times of need o Basically like a creation story  Ex: Eagle flew over here and out of him came three clans o Multiple lineages under one totem ancestor is called a clan Exogamy o Marrying out of the group (usually a clan) o Common of unilineal practices  Decent groups are only made by unilineal decent when one marries another outside of the decent group  If one marries within the group, it is considered too close and incest o Patrilocal: married woman’s relation to the groom’s family as a member of the household not a member of the family  Characteristic of patrilineal lineages o Adaptive functions  Prevents inbreeding between relatives Incest rules in unilineal kinship system vs. bilateral ones o Unilineal: one cannot marry their lineage brothers and sisters, but could marry their non-lineage brothers and sisters (biologically related)  Ex: patrilineal lineage with a broken marriage, son of the ex-husband could marry daughter of the new-husband and not be an incest marriage by lineage laws o Bilateral: any family that is related on both sides one cannot marry because it would be incest  Ex: cousin from mother-side marrying cousin from father-side is incest Dowry o Dowry: wife patrilineage pays the husbands patrilineage because women are a burden to their husbands  Exemplifies the symbolic asymmetry between men and women o Violence in India

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Bride burning: if the brides patrilineage does not pay off the set amount, they will burn the bride and cause harm to her family members for not paying off the husband’s patrilineal family properly  Social standing of a woman is lost when the husband dies, so she throws herself on her husband’s funeral fire and incinerates herself Progeny price (assoc. with unilineal systems) o Marriage establishes a lineage social monopoly and an inheritance line o Specific to patrilineal and patrilocal customs o The 2 lineages negotiate a compensation of material for the daughter of one lineage moving into the house of another lineage to produce offspring that will not carry her linage  Wealth moves from husband’s family to wife’s patrilineal elders o Women are valued mostly for child bearing  If she doesn’t produce, it is blamed on her Polyandry: a group of brothers marrying 1 woman o Occurrence in Tibet o All are sexual partners  All offspring are treated equally and as belonging to all of the brothers o Reasoning  Prevented division of family farm  Facilitates all brothers achieving higher standards of living  Produces one set of heirs per generation  Difficult to cultivate new land on the mountains o NOT reasons  Female infanticide leading to less women  High altitudes of Tibet that lead to less fertile women  Poor people peasant landowning practice o Discreet extramarital relationships are tolerated  Many single mothers in Tibet o Disadvantages of divorce  Reluctance and unwillingness to divide of inherited land  No house is given to the brother leaving the marriage  Receive minimum in terms of movable possessions  Limited farmland because most is virgin land that does not produce crops  Difficult to farm and manage animals all alone How does decent form, such as patrilineality, influence gender status and actors’ gendered strategizing? How are men situated differently status-wise in matrilineal groups compared to women in patrilineal ones? o Men in matrilineal groups  Can still come home and be supported by mom  Mommy will throw hands for them  Divorce is okay and common they still have somewhere to go back to  Men are treated fairly, they still have a say in government and what not  Just because it is matrilineal does not mean it’s a matriarchy

Women in patrilineal groups  Treated like crap  Nobody will throw hands for them until they are dead  Doors are shut behind them at their wedding so they cannot come back  Really don’t want them to come back unless something really bad happens  Have no say in government, or familial things  Have to speak through their sons and maybe even their husbands (but not their husbands because his mom is speaking through him, so it creates problems between women) Traditional Hmong courtship and marriage customs o Ball toss  Ethnic intensification rite  Girls and boys toss the ball to each other at the New Year ceremony in order to talk to each other o Negotiation of progeny price and accounting o Bride is preached to by the men of the family Hmong story cloth- development as ethnic marker o An adaptation of the flower cloth (Paj ntanb)  Dreams and abstract designs o Women embroider the pictorial representation into cloth  Usually depictions of rural Laos scenes and the story of the Hmong journey o A product of exposure to other cultures and experiences as a group  Ethnic marker for American Hmong; this will not be found in Hmong groups outside of the US o

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Conformity and Conflict Readings 

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Forest Development (Reed) o The Guarani are a group of people who make a living by hunting and gardening. They obtain cash through trade to buy things to help them. They have small, widely scattered communities with only 30,500 people and emphasize sharing and cooperation for the betterment of the entire group not just the individual. o Because of the encroachment of the Paraguayan society:  Resources that previously allowed Guarani to be self-sufficient are going away and being cleared for pasture and farming, while they are becoming more dependent on the government and jobs from outside of their culture.  They had to begin planting cash crops and their production suffered due to insufficient time for recovery of soil. The people suffered from malnutrition which exacerbated health issues.  Foreigners brought disease with them to the forest.  Depression rates increased; alcoholism increased; suicide rates increased.  Disruption of social institutions as people moved away from the groups to find low wage jobs. Which contributed to a loss of cultural unity and identity. Uterine Family (Wolf)

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Women’s strategy for influence is different from the publicly-held descent system in the rural Taiwanese context in that women need the influence because they have no family. Women are isolated from their own male lineages and are pushed to live in a home with a different family where they are outsiders. They need to establish a connection with a group, which would be her uterine group which she makes.

The Navajo Ch. 1: Origins and Development of Navajo Society to 1868  

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What does Athapaskan refer to? o The groups derived from Dineh that spread through western North America Where do Dineh people originate? What does Dineh mean? o Asia o Nonagricultural cultures that came from Asia (the Navajo) o Dineh means the people Who are the Apache people? How were the Navajo Apache distinguished by the Spanish from other groups from the 1600s onward? o Apache people are descendants of the Athapaskan peoples o Navajo Apaches were distinguished by Spanish from other groups because they were farmers  Navajo: large cultivated fields  Abandoned homes of poles and skins; adopted semisubterranean houses  Polygny: one man marrying more than one woman  Possessed and defended specific territory  Not converted  Traded with pueblonians Of what type of society were the Dineh when they arrived in the Desert Southwest? o Not agriculturalists o Composite bow  Sinew-backed bow o Hard-soled moccasin o Raiding against the pueblo-dwellers o Pottery characterized by pointed bottom (maybe) o Nomadic people in search of game and plant foods o Basic unit was small bands of related people o Bilateral kinship  May have been in part matrilineal and matrilocal o Religious life centered around a shaman o Bear considered powerful and supernaturally dangerous creature What customs of the Pueblo peoples did the Dineh adopt? o Farming  Corn, squash, beans, watermelon o Weaving  Done by women

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o Clothing style o Some religious ceremonies o Matrilineal kinship List innovations in Dineh lifeways that resulted from Spanish and Mexican culture contact. o Domestic livestock  Sheep, goats, and horses Upon which activity was the Dineh male prestige system mostly based prior to 1863? o Raiding o Raiding parties were formed by a single man who called upon his friends and neighbors to join him o Goal was to capture livestock, sheep, and horses o Also sought slaves (young men and women of enemy tribes) o Also formed larger war parties to avenge a Navajo death at the hands of enemies What impacts did Dineh raiding have on Dineh culture? o Better defense than offense so houses blended into the landscape o Men went through an apprenticeship to become war people o Men had many wives, some in different areas which he frequently visited What event was the major turning point in Dineh relations with the US? o Campaign against the Navajo during the Civil War o Soldiers of the Union attacked the economic basis of the Navajo life, forcing them to retreat and eventually surrender because they were starving o 1863: surrendered Navajo were taken to Fort Sumner in New Mexico where they were attempted to be settled o 1868: US government set aside ~1 million acres on Canyon DeChelle as reservation for the Navajo and the people began to return  Aka: the long walk List the major cultural changes imposed on the Dineh after Bosque Redondo. o Clothing changes  Went from outfits influenced by the Pueblo and Spanish, to outfits influenced by the Anglo  Anglo: women- long wide skirts with a shirtwaist; men- shirtwaist and long muslin trousers  Retained moccasins o Old style saddles gave way to copies of cavalry saddles o Stopped Raiding o Traded with the Anglo-Americans Not the location and area of the Navajo Reservation/Nation today.

Ch 2: The Land and The Reservation 

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Locate the Navajo Reservation and Four Corners region of a map of the Southwest. Wi...