Using the modules below, answer the following essay questions.docx

Using the modules below, answer the following essay questions:
Short Answer
Respond to 1of the following short answer questions. Your
response should be at least 1-2 paragraphs long and written in
full sentences. (10 points possible)
Option 3: Describe the role of religion in supporting people and
culture. Please provide specific examples to illustrate and
support your answer.
Essay Question
Answer 1of the following essay questions. Your response will
be graded in terms of
accuracy, completeness, and relevancy of the ideas expressed.
For full points, your answer should be written in complete
sentences and be at least 5 paragraphs long with a recognizable
introduction, and conclusion. Support your statements with
specific examples from the course material, cite your sources
both within the text of your essay and at the end of your essay.
(15 points possible)
Choose one of the forms, and and discuss the "emic" and etic
views of why this form of marriage "makes sense" (i.e., is
adaptive) using specific examples from the course or course
readings.
Use these modules:
1. What Is Anthropology?
The Subject Matter of Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of what it is to be human in the past
and present, the things about people that are the same, and the

things about them that are different. Anthropologists try to
understand and describe the way in which humans think and
behave and why we think and behave as we do. They help us
recognize that much of what we think and do has been learned
from the cultural worlds we walk in and that others do not
necessarily experience or understand the world in the same way
we do.
To understand humanity, anthropologists must study all of
humanity, not just the most familiar or convenient human
populations. Anthropology is cross-cultural. It seeks to
understand how life is lived, experienced, and interpreted in
different settings and at different times. It also seeks to
understand how different people's unique histories and positions
in larger contexts, such as the global economy, shape their
lives. By studying people in their own contexts, anthropologists
guard against conclusions that may be true for some, but not all.
Anthropologists resist assumptions that any particular behavior,
idea, or way of being is "natural" unless they are sure that no
others do it, think about it, experience it, or interpret it
differently. They challenge ethnocentrism wherever and
whenever they find it.
Think about it:
Ideas about where infants should sleep can reflect notions of the
"ideal" person a society is trying to develop. Many Americans,
for example, highly value independence, individualism, and
personal space and think, therefore, that infants "must" learn to
sleep in their own cribs, often in their own rooms. People from
other traditions, however, may find this practice cruel. Where
do you think infants should sleep? Why? What does your
opinion say about your values and traditions?
The Development of Anthropology

Historically, many have written about the ways of life of
"others." For example, Herodotus wrote about different groups
of people in the ancient world, Marco Polo wrote about the
people he encountered in his travels, and the early European
explorers and missionaries wrote about people in the Americas.
Despite this long tradition of "amateur" anthropology,
anthropology as an organized academic discipline is only about
130 years old. In Europe and the United States in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, the increasing ability to travel to
faraway places and the realization that, although there was
enormous diversity among peoples, we are all members of the
same species allowed the discipline to flourish.
Though anthropology first developed in this Euro-American
context and Western anthropologists studied "exotic" peoples in
faraway places or traditional peoples whose ways of life were
changing rapidly with modernity, anthropologists now come
from all over the world. They bring their different perspectives
to their research and often turn an "anthropological gaze" on
either their own cultures or on the Western cultures in which the
discipline originally arose. As one might expect, through its
attention to diversity, anthropology has also attracted diverse
scholars. Women, for example, have been among anthropology's
pioneers perhaps more than in other disciplines. Think of
Margaret Mead, an anthropologist who is famous for her studies
of culture and personality, particularly adolescence and gender
roles, as just one instance.
Think about it:
Leo Chavez, an American anthropologist whose family migrated
to the United States from Mexico generations ago, wrote an
ethnography about the lives of recent immigrants to California.
Do you think it is necessary for an anthropologist to come from
the "same" background as the people she or he studies? In your
opinion, how close in background do you think Dr. Chavez and

his informants were? To what extent would their common ethnic
origin help or hinder his study?
How Is Anthropology Organized?
The Four Fields and Two Dimensions of Anthropology
Anthropology is organized into four fields―archaeology,
cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical (or biological)
anthropology―though each makes use of the insights of the
others, and all are linked by common themes. Each of these
fields has two dimensions, theoretical and applied, though
again, this division is somewhat arbitrary because applied
anthropologists use and contribute to theory, and theoreticians
consider real-world data as they build theories to explain what
they observe.
Archaeology studies the "stuff" people leave behind as they live
and die. This "stuff" includes not only the remains of materials
people make and use, but also, for example, the traces of their
diets, diseases, and processes of living.
Think about it:
Archaeologists often study "garbage" such as food scraps,
bones, broken pottery, artistic "mistakes," discarded objects,
even bodily waste. What do you think a future archaeologist
would say about your way of life based on your garbage?
Cultural anthropology (also called social anthropology or
sociocultural anthropology) studies learned and shared ideas
and behaviors, how these come to be, how they change, and how
"culture" shapes what people think and do. (We will discuss in
more depth in topic 2 below the concept of culture as it is
variously understood by anthropologists.) The following list

compiled from the sections and interest groups of the American
Anthropological Association indicates some of the topics
cultural anthropologists are interested in. These include
feminism, law, politics, education, agriculture, psychology,
religion, work, development, urban and rural life, globalization,
media, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender issues, AIDS, alcohol
and drugs, bioethics, disabilities, and emerging diseases as well
as every geographic area of the world. Anthropologists
specialize in certain issues or geographic areas or both, but as
this list implies, whatever is part of the human experience is
grist for at least one cultural anthropologist's mill.
Linguistic anthropologists study human languages, both past
and present. They describe languages, study the ways in which
languages change and develop, and look at various forms of
communication among people. By studying their languages,
linguistic anthropologists help us understand what is important
to different groups of people and how they make sense of their
world.
Physical anthropologists (also called biological anthropologists)
study the interaction between culture and biology in human life,
primatologists study nonhuman primates (primatology),
paleoanthropologists study the evolution of primates including
humans, and molecular anthropologists study genetic
relationships among people. Forensic anthropologists are often
experts on human anatomy and biological structures and may
conduct research to solve crimes.
Medical anthropology cross-cuts all of the four fields of
anthropology. For example, consider research on infectious
diseases. Physical and cultural anthropologists try to understand
the relationship between culturally patterned beliefs and
behaviors and the transmission of HIV. For instance, an
anthropologist might ask, How do ideas about sexual
abstinence, fidelity, and condoms affect behaviors that in turn

affect whether an individual becomes infected with HIV (a
biological condition)? Archaeologists look for evidence of
infectious diseases and the ways people coped with them
through what they have left behind, and linguistic
anthropologists study the different terms different people use
for such diseases, their treatments, and outcomes, and the
discourse related to them.
Think about it:
In Uganda in the early 1990s, HIV was called the small insect
of SLIM (their term for AIDS), whereas in Western (and other)
cultures, we call the agent that causes AIDS a "virus." We
understand viruses differently than we do insects. Such different
terms can indicate different ways of thinking about and
understanding this pathological agent, and these ideas, in turn,
can influence what people do to avoid acquiring it.
Anthropological data from Uganda indicate that many people at
this time transferred to HIV their ideas about other insect-born
infections, such as malaria. Thus, some people believed they
would not get "the small insect" if they stayed indoors in the
evening.
Can you think of an example of when you applied ideas you
already had when you were trying to comprehend something
entirely new? How do you think this type of thinking affects the
"truth" of what you "know" about the new phenomenon?
Another example from medical anthropology illustrates both the
applied and theoretical dimensions of anthropology. "Critical
medical anthropologists" use ideas from world systems theory
to investigate the effects of the world capitalist system on
human health in various settings. Although their studies
increase our understanding of the political and economic factors
that lead to differential health outcomes and thus build theory,
their findings are also used to develop interventions designed to

improve health in specific populations.
Think about it:
Anthropologists reported that narcotic analgesics (painkillers)
are now commonly marketed in American inner cities and that
their use leads to serious health and psychiatric consequences.
They described those who use these drugs and the ways they are
marketed and sold. Why do you think knowing more about the
people who use certain drugs and how they obtain them could
help control the problem?
Unifying Threads
The four fields of anthropology are unified by their emphasis on
holism, a historical perspective, universalism, and a cross-
cultural comparative approach. All anthropologists are
committed to understanding human phenomena in context. That
is, anthropologists recognize that nothing occurs in a vacuum
and that a researcher must be familiar with the whole to
understand the particular. By the same token, anthropologists
know that the present is a product of the past and that the
yesterdays of a place and of a people must be known to
understand the todays and tomorrows. Anthropologists also
respect the universal humanity of all those they study as well as
the connections between humans and other primates. Finally, all
anthropologists are committed to studying all cultures,
subcultures, and microcultures and comparing them to document
and understand commonalities, differences, and changes.
The Position of Anthropology within Science and the
Humanities
Human beings are complex biological and cultural organisms,
and anthropologists integrate approaches from both science and
the humanities to understand them and to convey their ideas and

their lives to others. People, for example, must eat and drink to
survive, but think of the myriads of foods and drinks there are
and the countless different behaviors, ideas, and experiences
that accompany this biological necessity. For example, a
"scientific" anthropologist may quantify how food is
apportioned differently between men and women in diverse
settings. They may ask, Are men allotted more high-protein
food in certain cultures and if so, what are the health outcomes
of this difference? On the other hand, a more humanistically
oriented anthropologist may seek to understand and represent
the ways men and women feel about these differences. As
further evidence of anthropology's humanistic perspective,
anthropologists may be interested in the arts different people
make, the literature they write or speak, and the values that give
meaning to their lives.
The Relationship between Anthropology and Other Academic
Disciplines
Anthropology is unique in its holism; it considers every aspect
of what it is to be human. Therefore, every other discipline is
useful to anthropologists. They learn from political scientists,
molecular biologists, economists, physicians, historians,
lawyers, psychologists, physicists, writers, neuroanatomists—in
other words, from everyone. While anthropologists learn from
other disciplines, they also question whether the theories and
conclusions of other disciplines apply to all peoples or just to
certain people. Thus, by investigating diversity, anthropology
provides an essential corrective to the very human tendency of
so-called "objective" researchers to see the world through their
own inevitably biased lenses. Of course, anthropologists are
humans, too, so they must look at their own and each other's
work as well to identify and eliminate the ethnocentric biases
they find.
How Do Cultural Anthropologists Do Their Work?

Major Types of Studies in Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropologists produce different products according to
the requirements of their research questions and, importantly,
according to funders' needs. They write books, journal articles,
and reports and produce films, recordings, and television or
video programming. Traditionally, cultural anthropologists
lived for an extended time (sometimes years, off and on)
conducting fieldwork among an "exotic" people (at least to
Western eyes), participating in the daily life of the people as
they observed it. They learned and used the language, perhaps
focusing on specific aspects of the people's lives according to
the anthropologists' own interests, biases, or guiding theoretical
framework. Eventually they produced ethnographies that
described and analyzed the people's way of life.
As the need for anthropological input into public health and
international and domestic development projects has increased,
much ethnographic work has become even more issue-oriented,
focused, and brief. Sometimes "rapid assessments" are
conducted rather than extended fieldwork. Consequently,
anthropologists, although still producing comprehensive
ethnographies, also write relatively brief reports, articles, and
monographs and may even condense their findings into one-
page executive summaries that policymakers and program
officers can easily digest and use.
Finally, "new" ethnographies often examine what the
anthropologist brings to his or her research and explore the
ways the ideas, attitudes, or values of the anthropologist affect
the eventual product. Sometimes, instead of being set in only
one place, "new" ethnographies examine an issue in multiple
places and from multiple perspectives.
Think about it:

An example of a "new" ethnography is Anna Lowenhaupt
Tsing's Friction, which explores global connections and the
friction that results from different people's interests "bumping
up" against each other. Her ethnography of the timber industry,
indigenous resistance to the industry, and global
environmentalism is situated in the many sites necessary to tell
her story: villages in the rainforest, corporate offices, and
nonprofit agencies across the globe. Tsing also acknowledges
her own allegiances and understands that, rather than being an
objective observer, she is part of the story she tells.
Anthropologists also produce cross-cultural comparisons called
ethnologies. Ethnologies often focus on specific issues, looking
at how different groups of people approach and deal with
various living situations.
Think about it:
Brigitte Jordan compared birthing practices in the Yucatan,
Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States in her classic
work, Birth in Four Cultures. For example, she found that to
Mayan women, birth is "hard work" properly performed at
home. To many women in the United States (and often to
biomedical professionals) birth is a medical event fraught with
peril that must occur in a hospital to best secure the safety of
both mother and child. In her ethnology, Jordan did not attempt
to prove that one way is "better" than another. She tried only to
document variations and to understand the logics underlying
them.
What do you think of this approach? Do you think there is a
"right" way to give birth? If you were a health-care worker in a
different culture, do you think it would be helpful to understand
your patients' or clients' ideas and behaviors surrounding
childbirth?

The Methods Cultural Anthropologists Use in Their Work
Anthropologists have a varied tool kit available to them to
answer their research questions. They are well-known for their
qualitative research approach, though they use both qualitative
and quantitative research methods. Anthropologists often ask
open-ended questions that allow people to respond however they
wish and say as much as they want to say. Anthropologists call
the people they study informants or consultants to emphasize
the expertise of the people and the fact that the people are the
experts rather the "subjects" of experiments or "respondents" to
a survey with forced-choice questions.
Anthropologists, however, often use and help develop surveys
that are based on previous open-ended research conducted to
determine the range of answers appropriate in the particular
setting in which the survey will be used. They may also use
interview guides rather than preformatted questionnaires, and
they may allow an informant to venture into any subject that
may be illuminating.
Also, rather than questioning a fixed number of people,
anthropologists often follow "trails" wherever they lead,
interviewing people previous informants have suggested would
be helpful. On the other hand, unlike journalists,
anthropologists are often concerned with making sure they
interview enough informants to capture the range of variation in
responses, and they use scientific methods to obtain
representative samples when their research questions call for
this approach.
Think about it:
All anthropologists must "enter the field"—that is, they must
begin research in a new environment where they may be

strangers and may be subject to suspicion if not outright
hostility. Alternatively, they may enter the field "at home,"
where a new dynamic may be introduced into already
established relationships.
Elizabeth Fernea accompanied her anthropologist husband to a
remote conservative Shiite village in Iraq in the early 1960s.
She balked at wearing the traditional abaya, the black garment
that conceals women's entire bodies. To Fernea, the garment
symbolized what she considered to be the second-class status of
women in this culture. She quickly found, however, that she was
very uncomfortable without it. When she wore it to her first
social gathering with women in the village, her hostess
pronounced her "polite."
If you were to live in and study another culture, how do you
think you would handle expectations that you conform to
customs that conflict with your beliefs?
Anthropologists are often interested in uncovering both emic
and etic points of view―that is, they try to identify the point of
view of the people being studied as well as other "outside"
perspectives. For example, surveys often ask demographic
questions that divide people into groups according to age,
education, income, marital status, religion, and ethnic group or
race. These are standard etic categories, typically agreed upon
by Western researchers as important markers of difference. On
the other hand, people may or may not identify themselves
according to these categories, and they may also have other
(emic) categories for grouping people, such as clan, political
group, musical style, sports teams they follow, and so forth.
Indeed, they may not think in terms of differences among
people at all.
Anthropologists ask their informants to detail their life
histories, fill in blanks, draw pictures and maps, tell them which

things go together and which things don't, appear on videotape
and audiotape, participate in focus groups, todemonstrate how
they make their art and artifacts, perform their operations, cook
their food, and surf the Web. In other words, anthropologists
ask their informants to show and tell what it means to live their
particular lives. Depending on the data they have collected,
anthropologists may use statistical or qualitative data-analysis
software to analyze their data.
Think about it:
Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist and one of the most important
figures in medical anthropology, recounts why he became a
qualitative researcher. Early in his career, he administered a
survey to the parents of young adults with schizophrenia. The
last question asked parents to rate the impact of the illness on
their families on a five-point scale ranging from "Very Severe"
to "None."
One mother wrote at the bottom of her questionnaire something
like this: I will answer this question, but you will never
understand anything from my rating. This illness has not had a
"very severe" impact on my family; it has murdered my family.
What do you think is the difference between asking people to
rate or otherwise assign a number to their experiences or
feelings and asking them to explain or describe them? How
might asking open-ended questions contribute to our
understanding of phenomena?
How Does Cultural Anthropology Contribute to Solving Human
Problems?
Anthropology's Contributions to Health Care, Education, and
Business

Anthropologists conduct research and gather information that
contributes to many fields, including health care, education, and
business. In all these fields, anthropologists help professionals
understand and work successfully with people who do not
necessarily share their ideas or behaviors.
An enormous amount of work has been done in health care, for
example. Medical anthropologists conduct cross-cultural studies
of everything possibly related to health and illness and
behaviors related to them. They study health-care systems,
including Western medicine, and the relationships between
patients and healers in many different settings. They may act
directly as "brokers" between patients and biomedical health-
care professionals to help ensure that care is delivered in
appropriate ways to people whose ideas and behaviors may not
mesh well with biomedical ideas. They may help integrate
traditional healers into Western medical practices, and they may
study different treatments and health-care outcomes, comparing
ideas and behaviors around the world. Medical anthropologists
know that people come into health-care encounters with many
established ideas and behaviors and that interventions to
improve people's health will not be successful without
understanding the people practitioners hope to serve.
In education, anthropologists may help teachers understand
different learning styles and behaviors of those they are trying
to teach. For example, children in certain cultures may be
taught not to look at or speak to adults, but their American
teachers may not understand this cultural behavior.
In business, anthropologists may help marketers understand
consumers, they may help product developers understand
people's needs and how they actually use products, and they
may help managers understand their organization's culture and
help them implement beneficial changes.

Actual and Potential Contributions of Anthropology to Solving
Social Problems
Anthropology is concerned with life as it is actually lived.
Anthropologists want to find out what people actually do, rather
than what they say they do. They ask people why they behave as
they do. Anthropologists participate in the lives they observe
and allow what they observe and question to emerge naturally
rather than from preconceived assumptions. They talk to people
and allow them to bring up and elaborate on topics that a
conventional survey might not include.
Through embedded, holistic research, anthropologists deliver
reliable and valid findings that are firmly grounded in reality.
Policymakers use these findings to design programs to alleviate
social problems in both domestic and international settings.
Additionally, because anthropologists are uniquely trained, they
are particularly useful program evaluators who can understand
how a program is really operating. Furthermore, because they
are trained to "expect the unexpected," they are likely to
unearth programs' unintended consequences, both positive and
negative. The more such contributions are appreciated, the more
anthropologists will be able to contribute. Just as they are now
routinely included in planning and evaluating public health and
development projects, policymakers must include them when
they plan initiatives related to national security, war, and peace.
2. What Is Culture?
How do Anthropologists Understand Culture?
The Characteristics of Culture
There may be as many definitions of culture as there are
anthropologists, but all definitions incorporate certain ideas.
Culture is learned rather than instinctual. Sometimes people

deliberately teach the ideas and behaviors their group deems
appropriate, "normal," or commonsensical. Humans, however,
often absorb ideas and behaviors unconsciously and are unaware
that they are learned and that not all humans share them. This
fact implies another characteristic of culture: culture is shared,
whether by a few in a small subculture, such as an ethnic or
religious group, or a microculture, such as an organization, or
by members of an entire nation or other geographic entity.
Difference is another hallmark of culture. If everyone in the
world thought or behaved in one way, the idea or behavior could
be said to be "natural" rather than cultural. Additionally, culture
varies and is dynamic; it changes through time, though not all
members of a culture change in the same ways or at the same
times. Furthermore, the transmission of culture requires
language, including "primitive" forms such as simple signs and
vocalizations, to convey meaning.
The language requirement implies a final commonly accepted
characteristic: culture is expressed through symbols, which are
anything that stands for something else. Words, images,
artifacts, behaviors, and other symbols are culturally produced,
enacted, and interpreted in learned, shared, and varied ways.
Though other animals may also demonstrate learned, shared,
and varied behaviors, it is the highly elaborated, incredibly rich
symbolic aspect of human culture that makes it unique.
The History of the Concept of Culture
People have been aware that they learn, share, and transmit this
learning for a very long time, but an anthropological concept of
culture only began in the nineteenth century. Sir Edward Tylor
(1871, Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1966:81) defined culture as "…
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired
by man as a member of society" (1871." Since then, the concept

has changed from Tylor's "laundry list" of the elements of a
culture to an understanding that culture is deeper than behavior
we can observe.
Today, there are many concepts of culture arising from different
theoretical approaches, though as just noted, these concepts
incorporate some fundamental themes. For example, some
anthropologists understand culture as responses to the objective
material conditions in which a population lives, and others think
of culture in terms of the subjective ideas that direct people's
attempts to make sense of their worlds.
The following figure, through quotations from various noted
anthropologists, shows how the concept of culture has changed
over time.
Evolution of the Concept of Culture
· Benedict (1929): … that complex whole which includes all the
habits acquired by man as a member of society (1966, 81).
· Linton (1936): … the sum total of ideas, conditioned
emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior which
the members of that society have acquired through instruction
or imitation and which they share to a greater or lesser degree
(1966, 82).
· Mead (1937): Culture means the whole complex of traditional
behavior which has been developed by the human race and is
successively learned by each generation. A culture is less
precise. It can mean the forms of traditional behavior which are
characteristic of a given society, or of a group of societies, or of
a certain race, or of a certain area, or of a certain period of time
(1966, 90).
· White (1943): Culture is an organization of phenomena—
material objects, bodily acts, ideas, and sentiments—which

consists of or is dependent upon the use of symbols (1966, 137).
· Kroeber (1948): … culture might be defined as all the
activities and non-physiological products of human
personalities that are not automatically reflex or instinctive
(1966, 91).
· Herskovits (1948): … refers to that part of the total setting [of
human existence] which includes the material objects of human
manufacture, techniques, social orientations, points of view, and
sanctioned ends that are the immediate conditioning factors
underlying behavior (1966, 84).
· Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952): … Patterns, explicit and
implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by
symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human
groups, including their embodiments in artifacts (1966, 357).
· Geertz (1973): … set of control mechanisms—plans, recipes,
rules, constructions (what computer engineers call
"programs")—for the governing of behavior (1973, 44).
Source: All except Geertz, 1973, are quoted in Kroeber and
Kluckhohn, 1966.
How Do Anthropologists Study Culture?
Anthropological Studies of Various Cultures
In a traditional holistic study of a culture, anthropologists look
at features of the physical environment in which the group of
people lives. These features may include climate, natural
resources, and geologic features. They investigate the ways
people earn a living, the tools and other materials they use, and
the economic institutions they have developed to survive.
Anthropologists study the social structure—that is, the

relationships people are born into or form and the rules that
govern these relationships. These rules may concern the rights,
obligations, and expectations associated with each relationship.
Anthropologists also study political, educational, and religious
relationships and institutions as well. Finally, they study the
shared sense that holds the group together, their ways of
viewing, experiencing, and interpreting their world.
More anthropologists today are conducting focused studies to
understand specific cases. In these studies, anthropologists may
study only one aspect of a culture intensively, but they also
examine how this aspect fits into an integrated, contextualized
whole.
How Anthropologists Compare Cultures and the Usefulness of
this Approach
Anthropologists sometimes generate theories or explanations of
why people think and act as they do and the conditions under
which they think and act in particular ways. To build these
"grand" theories, it is important to look at ideas and behaviors
and the factors that affect them on a worldwide scale. Only then
can theorists generalize about humanity. For example, a theory
that explains how states developed cannot be based only on the
circumstances surrounding one state's development because the
factors may be very different for others.
To help anthropologists theorize, the Human Relations Area
Files (HRAF) are available on the Internet. These files contain
ethnographic and archaeological information on 400 different
societies, classified into over 700 categories. Anthropologists
can ask questions and test hypotheses about warfare, gender
inequalities, child abuse—nearly any human issue. Even if most
anthropologists today no longer try to make sweeping
generalizations about all humanity and instead focus on how
culture operates in local settings, they will include cross-

cultural comparisons in their work to highlight diverse human
responses to and interpretations of similar phenomena.
What Is the Role of Culture in Human Life?
The Role of Culture in Human Survival
Culture has allowed humans to live successfully in nearly every
possible environment. The ranges of many other species are
usually restricted by climate and the availability of specific
foods required for survival. Humans, on the other hand, have
learned to exploit nearly all available resources in an
environment and have invented ways to live in seemingly
hostile environments with few resources of their own. For
example, we do not have natural fur coats like other mammals
that live in the cold, but we do have coats, houses, and heating
systems. We are still subject to natural forces, however, and
some of our cultural adaptations may not work well in the long
run. History is full of examples of cultures that have not
survived.
Today, for example, human activity may be altering global
climate in ways that may not be conducive to our long-term
survival. There are five factors that may contribute to or prevent
environmental collapse:
1. environmental damage
2. climate change
3. hostile neighbors
4. friendly trade partners
5. the society's responses to its environmental problems

Perhaps we will successfully adapt to new conditions—or
perhaps we will not. Anthropology, by highlighting the vast
diversity of human ideas and behaviors, teaches us that we are
not locked in by our "nature" to respond in potentially
maladaptive (or even annihilating) ways. We are creative,
flexible cultural beings; we have choice.
The Relationships among Culture, Society, and the Individual
It is a paradox that whereas individuals actively create culture
as they are exposed to, learn, and share new information,
individuals are also the products of culture because culture
shapes what they think and do. For example, even when
individuals "rebel," they rebel in culturally patterned ways. Any
society is a group of such individuals, and each society must
balance individual needs and the needs of the group. Groups
reward individuals who conform to cultural norms (and these
norms vary in different cultures), but the norms must not be so
onerous that individuals' needs are not met. For example,
sexuality strengthens cooperative bonds by cementing
relationships between families through marriage. It ensures that
society will continue. However, sexual competition can threaten
cooperation, and unrestricted sexual activity can result in
unsustainable population growth. Therefore, to promote the
beneficial consequences of sexual activity and control the
potentially destructive consequences, all societies make rules
about who may have sex with whom.
Too much restriction, however, can lead to individual pent-up
frustrations and societal stresses. To generalize from this
example, when individuals must subordinate all their needs to
the needs of the group, tension grows. When group needs are
ignored, problems arise and the group may dissolve. Different
groups of people strike different balances, and those balances
shift with time, but all cultures address this tension between
individual and group needs.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism and Their Place in
Anthropology
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to see one's own ways as the best
or the only ways. By making differences visible, anthropology
constantly strives to make ethnocentrism visible as well.
Anthropologists frequently point out that other disciplines ask
questions and draw conclusions based on ethnocentric biases
and assumptions, and they critique anthropology itself on the
same basis. For example, feminist and minority anthropologists
have accused many of their colleagues, both male and female,
majority and minority, pioneers and newcomers, of sexism,
ageism, heterosexism, racism, and other forms of communalism,
however unintentional they may be. To ignore the perspectives
of groups who may view and experience things differently is to
leave out significant parts of the human story.
Think about it:
Bronislaw Malinowski pioneered ethnographic fieldwork in his
studies of the Trobriand Islanders early in the twentieth century.
Much later, however, Annette Weiner also studied the
Trobrianders and found that Malinowski had ignored women in
his studies and, in so doing, missed their important economic
role. Can you think of any examples of biases affecting
scientific research?
The principle of cultural relativism, another hallmark of
anthropology, insists that one must suspend judgment of others
so that one can understand other cultures on their own terms.
Once anthropologists have achieved this understanding,
however, they may conclude that certain practices are
maladaptive or even morally repugnant. Cultural relativism does
not mean "anything goes." Anthropologists may ask this
question of any group: How well does your culture meet the

physical and psychological needs of its members, and how well
does your culture help its members respond to their obligations
as moral world citizens?
How Is Culture Created and How Does It Change?
Theories of How Humans Create Culture
Though people create culture, they do not just sit down and do
it. Anthropologists have struggled with how some ideas take
hold and become "common sense" and the "way we do it." Many
have stressed the adaptive nature of culture; cultures "grow" as
people try creatively to solve the problems of living. Others
maintain that culture exists outside of specific individuals or
ideas and that it generates itself. Still others emphasize that
although humans collectively create and change culture, these
humans are themselves immersed in culture because a culture-
free individual does not exist. The innovations any individual
creates emerge in a context and will be adopted if the context
and timing are "right" and discarded if they are not.
Theories of Cultural Change
This sense of "rightness" leads us to theories of cultural change.
As we have noted, cultures are dynamic, and they respond with
varying degrees of flexibility to movements and shifts within
and around them. New ideas or behaviors appear, and cultures
either accommodate them or reject them. (Today, this happens
much more rapidly than previously.) Culture change can be
positive or negative. Flexibility allows beneficial adaptations to
occur, but too much rapid change can be destabilizing.
Early in the history of the discipline, theorists thought that
cultures "progressed" from primitive forms to what they
considered the highest form of civilization, European societies.
(This way of thinking is often known as social evolution or

social Darwinism.) Anthropologists discarded this ethnocentric
approach by the 1920s, replacing it with theories of
diffusionism. According to this theory, cultural traits spread
from one society to others through proximity.
Cultural ecologists rejected this "accidental" approach to
change and maintained that cultures change predictably in
response to environmental conditions. More "culturally"
oriented anthropologists challenged this approach and held that
material conditions did not inevitably produce certain changes
but that people's ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs shape the
way cultures change. In other words, these scholars say that
people with different culturally constructed perceptions of the
world will respond to it in different ways.
Another view that has emerged is world system theory (see How
Is Anthropology Organized above). World system theorists
argue that cultural change in the world today is caused by the
effects of Western capitalism and its attempts to impose
ideological hegemony on the rest of the world. Not all
anthropologists accept world system theory as the major or only
explanation of the forces driving change in the world today.
Many believe that numerous factors contribute to social change.
Nonetheless, all anthropologists must now consider the
increasing economic, political, social, and cultural integration
of the world today and various peoples' responses to this
integration.
3. The Beginnings of Human Culture
Where Do We Place Homo sapiens among the Animals?
The Classification of H. sapiens within the Animal Kingdom
A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce fertile
offspring. For example, horses and donkeys can mate and

produce offspring (mules), but mules are sterile, indicating that
horses and donkeys are members of different species. Any
living human can mate with any other human and produce fertile
offspring (given that all is working well); therefore we are all
members of the same species.
Biologists have developed a system to classify all living
organisms into categories. The system is a hierarchical
arrangement based on the characteristics of organisms, and each
species belongs to progressively more inclusive groups. Each
species is given a name that includes the name of the species
and subspecies (if any) and the name of the genus to which it
belongs. The biological name for modern humans is Homo
sapiens sapiens.
Hierarchical Table of Categories
Category
Examples
You
Kingdom
Animalia
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Mammalia
Order
Carnivora
Primata
Family
Canidae
Hominidae
Genus
Canis (coyote, dog, wolf)

Felidae (lion, tiger, cougar)
Homo
Species
familiaris
sapiens
Some scientific names
Canis familiaris (domestic dog)
Felidae familiaris (house cat)
H. sapiens
Source: Abelard.Org. 2003. Human Classification Systems,
Using the Example of Classification of "Living Organisms"
(Taxonomy). Electronic document,
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/taxonomy.htm, accessed July
26, 2006.
How the Study of Primates Can Help Us Understand Our
Species
We are biologically very closely related to other primates,
particularly chimpanzees and bonobos, and studying their
anatomy and behavior can give us clues about our early
ancestors, how they evolved, and how they lived. Furthermore,
our closest primate relatives live as we do in social groups,
communicating with one another, cooperating with one another,
fighting and resolving conflicts with one another, and using
tools to accomplish tasks. Studies have shown that young
primates learn the "rules" of their group and that some of these
rules vary from group to group, indicating these cousins also
have rudimentary culture.
By studying primates, we can learn which of our behaviors may
be in our "nature" and which we "create" through culture. Many
culturally constructed behaviors are adaptive, but some are not.
If a maladaptive behavior is culturally determined rather than
part of our biological nature, we then can choose to replace it
with behaviors that enhance our species' well-being.

Think about it:
Robert Sapolsky reviewed studies in primatology that challenge,
among others, assumptions that primate species are "hard-
wired" to be either peaceful or violent. In one example,
aggressive adolescent male baboons newly moving into one
particular troop whose aggressive males had died of
tuberculosis years before soon learned and adopted the peaceful,
affiliative behavior of the nonaggressive males already there. In
other words, circumstances had created a new peaceful way of
life in this troop, which was then passed on to newcomers. The
male baboons' so-called aggressive "nature" had changed and
wasn't so natural after all.
How might this study be relevant to our understanding of
"human nature"? To what extent does it suggest alternatives to
some current human behaviors?
When and How Did Humans Evolve?
The Mechanisms of Evolution
Evolution is the scientific theory that explains the enormous
number of different species that now live and have lived on
Earth. The theory holds that all species arose from other species
through a long process of change. Darwin defined evolution as
"descent with modification." The first life forms on Earth were
single-celled organisms, and all other forms descended—with
modifications—from them. Several processes—mutations,
natural selection, random genetic drift, and gene flow—made
this happen. We describe these processes below.
· Mutations, or changes, occur by chance in DNA molecules and
produce an organism with a trait or traits that differ from those
of its parents. For example, a chance mutation in DNA may
increase a cell's sensitivity to movement.

· In the process of natural selection, nature, through direct
inheritance or mutations, selects traits that increase an
organism's ability to reproduce in specific environments from
traits that are already present in the population. Sensitivity to
movement may enable the organism with this capability to move
in the direction of other movement and thus find more food.
This organism would then be more likely than others of its kind
to reproduce successfully and pass this sensitivity to more
offspring. Over vast amounts of time, the population as a whole
will have this trait.
· In random genetic drift, the frequencies of genes change by
chance, which is most likely to happen in small populations. For
example, a single organism may have a mutation that makes it
green whereas others of its kind are blue. Being green confers
no reproductive advantage on its own—green beings are no
more likely to reproduce more offspring than blue beings—but
if for some reason the green organism is the only one that
reproduces (e.g., perhaps all others have been wiped out by a
disease), all the members of the population will eventually be
green.
· Finally, gene flow occurs when genetic material is exchanged
either directly or indirectly between different populations. For
example, when a member of Group A mates with a member of
Group B and one of their offspring mates with a member of
Group C, genetic material from Group A can combine with
genetic material from Group C, influencing the evolutionary
fate of that population. In other words, natural selection
chooses traits that increase reproductive success and pushes
evolution in the direction of greater adaptation to environments,
but traits that evolved through random genetic drift and gene
flow were not specifically selected for and just come along for
the ride.

The Major Trends in Human Evolution
Contrary to what many people think, evolutionary theory does
not maintain that humans evolved from today's apes. Instead,
humans and today's apes both evolved from early primates. We
are closely related because we share a common ape-like
ancestor who probably lived five–seven million years ago. The
mechanisms of evolution, primarily natural selection, operated
so that descendants of this ancestor evolved many species that
were adapted to various environments. The apes of today
represent one branch, and different species of apes evolved
according to their own paths (smaller branches). Modern
humans represent another branch that includes many different
species. Many of these species became extinct because of a
variety of factors, and today there is only one enormously
successful hominid—us.
Over millions of years, hominids lost many ape-like features
such as long, sharp canines, small skulls, and large differences
between sexes. The most important trend in the evolution of
modern humans was upright walking on two legs (bipedalism),
which allowed individuals to see and escape from predators and
freed hands so they could carry offspring, food, and eventually,
weapons and other tools. These abilities probably stimulated
increased brain development, which, in turn, endowed modern
humans and their more recent ancestors with the intelligence to
develop cultural solutions including language to the challenges
of survival so these solutions could be transmitted to others. It
is culture that has allowed modern humans to survive
worldwide.
The Hominid Genera in the Fossil Record and the General
Characteristics of the Species within Each
Paleoanthropologists disagree about how to classify the hominid
fossils that have been found, and they disagree on which fossils

are hominids. They make these determinations from finely tuned
analyses of skeletal remains such as teeth and bones, and many
times they must draw conclusions from mere fragments. Given
these limitations, however, many currently divide hominids into
four genera (the plural of genus): Ardipithecus,
Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo. Just which fossils
belong to Ardipithecus and the number of separate species they
belong to are extremely controversial issues in
paleoanthropology.
Hominids belonging to Ardipithecus are extremely ape-like
because they lived around six–to eight million years ago, which
is very close to the time it is thought that human and
chimpanzee lineages diverged from a common ancestor. Early
Australopithecines had many ape-like characteristics and
primarily ate vegetation, though they also hunted small animals
and scavenged the kills of other animals. Later
Australopithecines developed powerful chewing equipment to
take advantage of harder, very fibrous plants. Species in the
Paranthropus genus were especially "robust" (heavy and thick),
with very large teeth and chewing muscles and bones to which
they were attached, large-featured faces, and large bodies.
Paleoanthropologists think that it is most likely that some
Australopithecine species evolved into the first species in our
modern genus, Homo (perhaps Homo habilis), and that
Paranthropus species became extinct.
Compare the Evidence for the "Out of Africa" and
"Multiregional" Hypotheses Regarding the Evolution of Modern
Humans
Scientists agree that humans originated in Africa. They agree
that an advanced hominid species, Homo erectus, spread from
Africa into Europe and Asia. They agree that modern humans
evolved from archaic humans, but they disagree about whether
one, several, or all populations of archaic humans, such as the

famous Neanderthals, played a role in the evolution of modern
humans.
Proponents of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis argue that modern
humans descend directly from one population of archaic H.
sapiens in Africa and that these modern humans eventually
spread again throughout the world, replacing H. erectus because
of their superior capacity for culture. They base their case on
genetic and fossil evidence and on cultural remains such as art.
For example, in a famous study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA,
which is inherited only from one's mother), researchers
determined that all modern humans today share mtDNA with a
woman who lived in sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years
ago. (This does not mean she was our only ancestor; she is,
however, the only woman whose descendants included a woman
in every generation for these many, many years. Recent fossil
discoveries in Africa of anatomically modern humans dating
from 160,000 years ago also support the "Out of Africa"
hypothesis (e.g., H. sapiens idaltu).
Supporters of the "multiregional" hypothesis argue that fossil
evidence from China and Asia indicate that H. erectus
transitioned to H. sapiens simultaneously in certain areas of the
world where they coexisted. They argue that this was possible
because all populations were genetically connected by gene
flow, so any evolutionary advance would spread throughout
breeding populations. This hypothesis is also supported by
recent genetic evidence indicating that Africa was not the only
source of modern humans' DNA. Finally, some scientists argue
that certain geographical variations in traits that date from
around 750,000 years ago still exist (for example, the relatively
"flat" faces of many Asian peoples).
Think About It:
The National Geographic Genographic Project is collecting

DNA specimens from people all over the world to determine the
routes our ancestors took when they moved out of Africa
beginning about 60,000 years ago. Are you curious about your
earliest ancestors? New technologies can tell you where your
ancestors may have lived.
What Do We Know about the Beginnings of Culture?
The Fossil Evidence for Tool Making
Other primates modify natural objects to accomplish tasks, and
there is some evidence that one Australopithecine species, A.
garhi, made tools from stones about 2.5 million years ago,
though many experts disagree about this. Prior to this evidence,
experts attributed the first stone tools to the earliest known
species of the genus, Homo, Homo habilis, "handy man." Many
tools have been found at sites associated with "handy man."
Their brain cases were much larger than those of
Australopithecines, and the shape of their skulls was more
human-like. Additionally, the skulls show evidence that an area
of the brain associated with language, Broca's area, was
developed, so H. habilis could have used rudimentary
"language" to teach his or her techniques and skills to others
and pass traditions orally as well as by demonstration to
succeeding generations.
Think about it:
Antelope fossils found at the same site as A. garhi show cut
marks made by a stone tool, and the hominid fossils and
antelope fossils date from the same time period. The earliest
stone tools, dated to 2.6 million years ago, were found nearby.
Some experts think that A. garhi made sharp-edged tools by
chipping off small pieces from volcanic rocks. Is this evidence
strong enough to convince you that A. garhi made stone tools?

The Role of Language in Creating Culture
In the previous section, we asserted that some primitive
language capacity may have allowed ancestors of modern
humans to teach their tool-making techniques and skills to
others. Imagine the advantages of the capacities to convey the
nuances of tool manufacture and to verbally correct and guide
an apprentice rather than trying to teach only by demonstration.
Because we have language, we can assess a situation for danger
and specifically warn others of the direction and timing of the
danger even in the dark. With others, we can evaluate past
successes and failures and plan future endeavors to maximize
success. We can remember who is our friend, to whom we owe
favors and who owes us, and who is our enemy. In short, it is
impossible to imagine thought as we know it without language,
and without thought, we cannot share or teach in the way
humans do. Without language, we have no culture, and without
culture, our species would not have survived. The importance of
language to culture and thus human success cannot be
overemphasized. Without language, we are not human.
Is the Biological Concept of Race Useful?
Why "Race" Is a Cultural Construct
Clearly, there are differences among groups of people in skin
color, hair color and texture, amount of body hair, body shape
and size, and blood type, among many others. Studies of the
human genome indicate that after the dispersal of our ancestral
population from Africa, human populations continued to evolve
on different continents, which led to the differences we observe.
Studies have shown, however, that there is more variation
within groups than between groups. For example, Euro-
Americans and African Americans have wider variations in skin
color within each group than one would find if the groups were

compared to each other. Also, variations in characteristics occur
as gradations rather than as sharp breaks. For example, it is
impossible to draw a line demarcating where one "race" ends
and another begins according to skin color, hair texture, or
facial features.
Certainly, though many uninformed people assert that members
of certain races behave in certain ways, there is no scientific
evidence for behavioral differences based on "racial" biology.
People from all populations are capable of the complete range
of human behaviors. Additionally, human populations are
genetically "open," which means that genes flow back and forth
among them. Given the biologically constant sexual availability
of men and women, whenever different groups come in contact
with one another, they interbreed and have done so since our
beginnings. This interbreeding has produced a continuum of
genetic differences rather than sharp distinctions among us.
Skin Color as an Adaptation to Different Environments
Many people consider skin color an indicator of "race." Skin
color is complicated and depends on several factors including
skin thickness or transparency, a pigment called carotene,
reflected color from blood vessels, and most importantly, the
amount of another pigment, melanin, in the skin's outer layer.
Everyone, except albinos, has melanin, which protects against
the damaging effects of ultraviolet rays from the sun.
The distribution of skin color in the world indicates that natural
selection favored very dark-colored skin in areas that received
the most ultraviolet radiation. In areas with less sunlight, light-
colored skin allows enough sunlight to penetrate the skin to
help manufacture Vitamin D. Vitamin D is necessary to
maintain adequate levels of calcium in the body and thus, is
essential for healthy bones. It is likely that light skin color is a
relatively recent adaptation to environments with relatively

little sunlight. The critical lesson is that one skin color is no
better than another. Skin colors represent successful adaptations
to different environments.
Different "Racial" Classification Systems in Use Today
Though the biological nature of "race" is very controversial,
there is no argument that race is very meaningful culturally.
One's racial classification often determines one's chances in life
in the United States, for example in the health care one
receives. However, the systems people use to assign themselves
and others to races vary cross-culturally. For example, the
Japanese system is simple: people are either Japanese or not
Japanese. Americans (U.S.) usually follow the rule of
hypodescent: children of mixed-race parents are assigned to the
lower-status race. For example, a child with a Euro-American
parent and an African-American parent is often classified as
African American, which, sadly, still is often considered by
many as the lower-status racial category in the United States
today. Additionally, race is usually assumed to be unchangeable
in both the United States and Japan. In Brazil, however, the
racial classification system is much more fluid and is based on
many apparent physical characteristics. For example, when
people become suntanned their "race" may change.
REFERENCES
Conroy, Glenn C. 2005. Reconstructing Human Origins. 2nd ed.
New York: W. W. Norton.
Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail
or Succeed. New York: Penguin.
Fernea, Elizabeth W. 1965. Guests of the Sheik: An
Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York: Doubleday.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New
York: Basic Books.
Haviland, William A., Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and
Bunny McBride. 2005. Cultural Anthropology: The Human
Challenge. Instructor's Edition. 11th edition. Belmont, CA:
Thomson Wadsworth.
Kottak, Conrad P. 2006. Physical Anthropology and
Archaeology. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
———. 2004. Cultural Anthropology. 11th edition. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn. 1966. Culture: A
Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. New York:
Vintage Books. (Original work published 1952 as vol. 47, no. 1,
of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology
and Ethnology, Harvard University.)
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western
Pacific. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Murdock, George P. 1945. The Common Denominator of
Cultures. In The Science of Man in the World Crisis. Ralph
Linton, ed. P. 124. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sapolsky, Robert M. 2006. A Natural History of Peace. Foreign
Affairs 85(1):104–120.
Schumann, D. A., C. Rwabukwali, D. Hom, J. McGrath, J.
Pearson-Marks, G. Svilar, C. Carroll-Pankhurst, T. Ikwap, and
W. Kiriya. 1992. The Sociocultural Context of AIDS Prevention
in Uganda: Midterm Project Findings. Submitted to Family
Health International, subagreement #4021-9 under the NIAID
research program, "Behavioral Research in AIDS Prevention."

Singer, M. 1993. Knowledge for Use: Anthropology and
Community-Centered Substance Abuse Research. Social Science
and Medicine 37(1):15–25.
Smedley, Brian D., Adrienne Y. Stith, and Alan R. Nelson, eds.
2003. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of
Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tylor, Edward B. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the
Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language,
Art and Customs. New York: Gordon Press.
Wallerstein, I. 1997. The Modern World System: Capitalist
Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in
the Sixteenth Century. San Diego: Academic Press.
Weiner, Annette. 1988. The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea.
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Return to top of Module 2: Culture and Survival—Subsistence,
Communication, and Child Rearing
Commentary
Topics
1. Language and Communication
2. Social Identity and Enculturation
3. Patterns of Subsistence: Making a Living
4. Economic Systems

1. Language and Communication
The ability to use language is one of the most distinctive
aspects of being human. People use symbols, whether by sound
or gesture, to communicate. All language has rules that are
followed so that meaning can be shared. Even though we are
born with the physiological capacity to communicate in any
language, we must actively learn each language.
We humans, of course, are not the only animals that
communicate. Birds communicate through calls, as do mammals
of all sorts. Dogs "talk" to you, as do cats. Their ways of
communicating are called call systems. Such systems use a few
sounds or gestures in response to specific events. These calls
are considered a closed system of communication because each
call is unique in its message. Chimpanzees, considered among
the closest relatives to humans, have a number of distinctive
gestures, hoots, moans, and screams that communicate. For
instance, a particular hoot alerts others to food, and a bark
indicates "danger." Each call has only one meaning.
Characteristics of Human Speech
In contrast to the "closed" systems of animal communication,
human speech is an open system because we can combine
sounds in all manner of ways to communicate in all manner of
situations. A chimp would be hard pressed to put together two
calls to indicate "food" and "danger," for example, "Someone is
putting bananas in my bin, and that someone is dangerous!"
Humans, however, can put together a whole range of meaningful
sounds (words) to express a complex array of past, present, and
future experiences and emotions.
Human speech is characterized by conventionality, meaning that
specific sounds (words) refer to specific things. In English, we
have specific sounds that mean chair. In Spanish, a different set
of sounds means chair (unasilla); similarly in French (une

chaise), and so on. The sounds are arbitrary, but they are set for
a given language. Conventionality enables us to communicate in
a given language.
Human speech is also characterized by productivity. That is,
you can constantly create new phrases and sentences from the
words you use. You can create new sentences each day for the
next 100 years and never run out of ways to combine words that
make sense.
Finally, human speech is characterized by displacement. That is,
we can talk about things that are not immediately in front of us.
We can talk about things in the past. We can talk about things
happening next door. We can talk about things we can only
imagine. We can talk about things so complex we can hardly
understand them, which is a remarkable quality of language. As
a result, we can communicate abstract concepts that we can
remember, think about, and apply later on.
Teaching our Nearest Primate Relatives to Communicate
What about chimpanzees and other primates who are taught to
communicate by humans? Because chimps do not have the
physical capacity to speak like humans, researchers have taught
a number of animals to communicate using American Sign
Language. A famous one is the chimpanzee, Washoe, who after
being taught 10 signs, spontaneously combined them in new
ways (Gardner and Gardner 1967:671) and even taught signs to
her son. Altogether, Washoe could use about 85 signs (Nanda
and Warms 2007:118). Kanzi, a bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee),
learned 150 signs and used them in strings (Savage-Rumbaugh,
Shanker, and Taylor 1998, cited in Nanda and Warms
2007:118).
Washoe and Kanzi show us that chimpanzees have a greater
linguistic ability than we previously thought. However, even

with careful instruction over many years, the highest level of
language that chimpanzees can acquire is that of a very young
human child. Humans have evolved language that is unique in
its complexities and possibilities. Humans need human language
to pass on their culture and for survival. Chimps do not (Nanda
and Warms 2007:118–119).
The Structure of Language (Descriptive Linguistics)
Linguists (those who study languages) identify four subsystems
of a language itself. At the base are the sounds. Sounds
identified by humans are called by their Latin name, phones.
The smallest unit of meaningful sound is a phoneme. The study
of phones is phonology. One way of writing these sounds so that
others will be able to pronounce them is through the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Each symbol in the IPA
represents one distinct sound.
How would you write your name so that anyone would know
how to pronounce it?
Linguistic Activity
Try writing your name and your mother's or father's name using
the International Phonetic Alphabet tables.
Note the two sets of symbols: one for consonants and one for
vowels.
Choose one symbol for each sound in your names.
Here are examples for Jason and Tiffany. To spell their names
phonetically, refer to the International Phonetic Alphabet charts
at the link above.
Consonants for Jason's name are: /j/ s/ n/. The vowels are: /ei
/a/.

For Tiffany's name, the consonants are: /t/ f/ n/. The vowels are:
/ I/ e/i:
/j ei /san/ / tI/fe/ni:/
Please note: even though in English you may spell a word with a
double letter (Tiffany), in IPA, only one symbol is given per
sound.
The set of sounds used in a given language are phonemes. A
phoneme is the smallest sound that makes a difference in
meaning in a language. For example in English, we distinguish
between the sound r (red) and the l (led). So these sounds are
phonemes in English. Someone whose first language is Japanese
may have a difficult time distinguishing these sounds, so she or
he may refer to "led beans and lice" (instead of "red beans and
rice"). English requires that we distinguish these phones.
Japanese does not.
For example:
Each human language uses only a subset of the possible human
sounds. Some languages include sounds that other languages
would not even consider or would use them in different ways.
Some African languages regularly use click sounds. The first
language of Nelson Mandela, the former president of South
Africa was Xhosa, one such language. The symbol "!" is used to
indicate a certain click sound. In these modules, you will see
references to "!Kung." The !Kung are an ethnic group in
southern Africa. The "!" tells you how to pronounce their name.
Many languages, including Chinese, rely on tones. A sound said
in a high pitch may have a different meaning when it is said in a
low pitch. Cantonese dialect has six tones. Mandarin has four.
Depending on your tone, for the sound "ma," you could be
talking about your mother or a horse (Haviland et al. 2005).
In English, we use ng at the end of words, as in sing, but have

difficulty placing it at the beginning of the word as is done in
some Polynesian and Asian languages.
When sounds are put together in a meaningful way, they form
morphemes. Morphemes can be words or parts of words. For
example, in English we have suffixes and prefixes that go at the
end and the beginning of words, but that are not words
themselves. For example, pre (as in prefix) means "before," and
the suffix ly makes an adverb from an adjective, as in quickly.
The study of words and the meaningful parts of words is called
morphology.
The way in which words are combined into sentences and
phrases is called syntax. Words must be structured and arranged
to make sense in a language. Each language has its own
syntactic rules. In English, the order of words in the sentence
makes a difference. In English, "The letter carrier bit the dog"
has a different meaning than "The dog bit the letter carrier."
Even though all the words are the same, the order conveys
meaning. In German, the parts of speech are indicated by case
markers. Thus, Der Hund biss den Briefträger ("The dog bit the
letter carrier") and Den Briefträger biss der Hund mean the
same thing regardless of the order. To say "The letter carrier bit
the dog," you would change the case markers to read Der
Briefträger biss den Hund.
The order of words and the regular ways words are changed
form the grammar of a language. The rules and patterns of
grammar enable us to coherently put sounds together and help
us recognize meaning in each new utterance. Both morphology
and syntax are part of the grammar of a language.
All of the words of a given language form its lexicon
(vocabulary). The relationship of language to culture can clearly
be seen in its words. We have hundreds of words for cars and
car parts in our lexicon. Members of hunting and gathering

groups have 500 to 1,000 words for different plants (Nanda and
Warms 2007:125). Clearly, the lexicon of a language reflects
what is important to the group and helps people distinguish
categories that make a difference.
Think about it:
Each subgroup in a society has its special words, or lexicon.
Think about your workplace or a special hobby, sport, or
interest of yours. In introducing total newcomers to your area,
what words would you teach them so they would understand
everything they needed to know?
Historical Linguistics
Languages change. Even from one generation to the next we can
see changes in vocabulary and word usage.
Think about it:
Language can change even within a short period of time.
Compare words you use with those your parents or grandparents
may have used. Listen to recordings of old radio shows, review
old movies, or chat with your older relatives.
What differences do you note in their vocabulary, compared to
the vocabulary you and your friends use?
Historical linguists look at how languages change and evolve.
Besides documenting changes in living languages, historical
linguists chart divergences in ancient languages. For example,
historical linguists study the relationship of Latin to the many
Romance (having to do with Rome, the home of Latin culture
and civilization) languages of Europe, e.g., Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, French, and Romanian.
English is one of 140 languages within the Indo-European
language family. Over a period of 6,000 years, protolanguage,
or original language, developed into many different groups and

subgroups. English is one of the languages within the Germanic
subgroup as illustrated in the following chart,
Source: Short, Daniel M. 2005. Indo-European Language Tree.
Electronic document,
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iecentum_c.shtml, accessed August
4, 2006.
Historical linguists use their knowledge of how languages
change over time to trace the migrations and movements of
people. For instance, linguists studying the many Polynesian
languages of the central Pacific have helped determine when the
island groups were originally settled. Linguists work with
archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and physical
anthropologists to help piece together the puzzle of ancient
peoples' migrations and settlements.
Language and Culture
Language and culture are intricately intertwined. Sociolinguists
study this relationship, looking at when and how people use
language and what it means. They look at a person's status and
how speech reflects that. They look at age and sex and the
different language patterns associated with them. They also look
at when informal talk and formal talk are used and how people
know when to use which type.
Many people are raised with two or more languages or two or
more dialects. A child may use one language in school and
another language at home. We may use Standard English at
work but other speech when interacting with friends in a
process called code switching. Learned cultural rules help us
understand when it's appropriate to use one way of speaking or
another.
Think about it:
Even monolinguists (those speaking one language) adapt their

speech to different situations. Consider how you might speak to
people at a religious service compared to how you might talk to
others Friday night at the club. How would it be to use
"religious service language" when playing pool? What changes
from one setting to the next?
Language and Thought
We learn important points about our culture through the study
of communication. Our culture influences our language.
However, anthropologists also wonder how language affects our
culture. Specifically, to what extent does language shape our
thoughts? Linguistic relativity, sometimes called the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis, is the idea that language molds thought and
action. Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf
maintained that language provides certain filters that affect the
way we see the world. We see it differently depending on the
language we speak. The structure of the language, as well as its
lexicon, guides speakers along certain paths. Thus, we think and
act the way we do partially because of the nature of the
language we speak.
For example:
Speakers of Swedish and Finnish (neighboring peoples speaking
radically different languages) working at similar jobs in similar
regions under similar laws and regulations show significantly
different rates of on-the-job accidents. The rates are
substantially lower among the Swedish speakers. The Swedish
language emphasizes movement in three-dimensional space. The
Finnish language emphasizes more static relations among
temporary entities. As a consequence, Finns organize the
workplace in a way that ignores the time factor in the
production process. This in turn leads to frequent production
disruptions, haste, and (ultimately) accidents (Haviland et al.
2005:107).
Gender Differences

Our sex makes a difference in how we speak. Distinct ways of
speaking for males and females are found in many languages. In
American society, sociolinguist Deborah Tannen (2001:132)
notes that men and women are socialized into to two different
cultures that result in two different ways of speaking. Tannen
observes that women seek relationships, and their type of
speaking is "rapport-talk." Men, on the other hand, seek
independence in a hierarchical world. Their language is "report-
talk." When men and women interact, their different styles
interfere with communication. A woman may be indirect in
expressing her wish and expects the other person to interpret.
The man, on the other hand, expects directness and may totally
misunderstand the woman's intent.
For example:
In Lakota society, in South Dakota, men and women have
distinct ways of speaking. For example, a woman and her
brother would each pose the same question differently. When
the movie Dances with Wolves was released, Lakota were eager
to see the movie that was filmed on their reservation. In the
theater, as the plot unfolded, the audience started to laugh
because the hero (Kevin Costner) spoke Lakota like a woman.
Because the actors had found Lakota difficult to learn, the
dialect coach had decided to teach everyone just one way to
speak (Haviland et al. 2005:109).
Nonverbal Communication
To fully understand and communicate in another culture, we
must know not only the language in its fullness, but also how
people communicate without words, i.e., nonverbally.
Nonverbal messages may carry up to 70 percent of
communication (Nanda and Warms 2007:135). Nonverbal
communication cues must be learned to be understood. Time,
space, gestures, all have meaning, depending on the culture.
Time talks: If your sweetheart is arriving later and later for
your dates, what does this tell you? If a candidate arrives a half-

hour before the interview time, what does this communicate?
Time has meaning, and we learn what that meaning is through
our culture.
Think about it:
In New Zealand, Maori (the indigenous peoples) and Pakeha
(those of European origin) people are still learning each others'
ways. Recent discussions on a land issue encountered
difficulties because Maori and Pakeha leaders had different
expectations regarding time. The Maori expected talks to
continue until a consensus was reached. The lawyers for the
Crown (the government), expected talks to finish by a certain
time because they had deadlines to attend to.
As a cultural anthropologist, how could you facilitate
communication between the two groups?
Space talks: What does it tell you when you see two people with
their faces very close together? What do a large office and a
large desk communicate to others? Proxemics is the study of the
social use of space. Edward Hall (1969), in his classic study,
observed that people in different cultures maintain different
amounts of space between themselves and others depending on
their relationships with the others and what kinds of
interactions they are conducting with them. He identified three
kinds of intimate space. The closest space is the "bubble"
surrounding a person. Only our very closest friends and
intimates are permitted here. The space extending a little further
from our bodies' space is for social and consultative
interactions. This is the distance we maintain when doing
routine business. The third-closest space is public space. In this
area, interactions are impersonal. Because the distance for each
of these spaces is determined by our culture, people in different
societies have different comfort zones. Arab, Latin-American,
French, Italian, and Turkish people, among others, have a
smaller "bubble" than Americans, Germans, English, or

Japanese and thus feel more comfortable with closer distances
in their personal space.
Think about it:
How do you feel in a crowded elevator? What happens to your
bubble? Consider how people react when their comfort zone is
intruded upon. What changes are made? Consider gaze of eyes
and movement of body.
Things talk: What does a diamond tiara tell you about the
person wearing it? What does a Ferrari tell you about the
driver? What does a body piercing tell you about the person
involved? We give meaning to the things we see, and we learn
this meaning from our culture.
Think about it:
In Polynesia tattooing is an important part of the indigenous
culture. Tattoos indicate high rank and status. They
communicate bravery and the ability to endure pain. They are an
indication of wealth. When Captain Cook's sailors came ashore
in the eighteenth century, they were intrigued with the custom,
and many got tattoos as well. Back home in England, tattoos
were a novelty and became associated with the sailors and lower
ranks of society. Who gets tattoos in our society? What does
tattooing communicate?
Gestures talk: Consider the ways people use gestures. We wave
good-bye, blow kisses, give thumbs up, show A-ok. These
gestures may mean something very different in another culture.
The A-ok sign is considered an obscene gesture in parts of
South America. The signal to "stop" with the palm out and the
fingers up can mean a challenge to fight in some Asian cultures.
2. Social Identity and Enculturation

How do people get to be members of society? How does an Inuit
child learn the ways of his Inuit people? How do Korean
children learn to be good Koreans? Anthropologists refer to the
process of passing one's culture from one generation to the next
as enculturation. Enculturation starts soon after birth as we
become oriented to both our physical and our social
environment. How we become oriented depends on the culture
in which we live. As we learn our culture and the ways of our
people, we develop self-awareness and the ability to determine
the accepted ways to think and act.
Human babies are not equipped to take care of themselves. They
are helpless and dependent on others for survival. Our
biological instincts help us only so far. We need our social
environment, those around us, to ensure that we live and thrive.
Our mother is the most important person when we are first born,
and we start to learn from her.
Soon, other members of the household are involved in teaching
us. Who these people are and what we are taught depends on the
culture in which we are born. Some households may be
composed of a mother and father and their children. In some
societies, fathers never live in the same house as the mothers of
their children. In other societies, grandparents, aunts, and
uncles all live together and are involved in the enculturation
process of each child, a subject covered in module 3.
Anthropologists see that not only what children learn is
important as they become members of society, but how they
learn is also significant. Childhood experiences influence adult
personalities. How we are raised makes a difference in who we
are as adults. We can identify two different patterns of child
rearing that help us explain some personality differences. These
patterns are dependence training and independence training.

1. Dependence training encourages children to think of
themselves as part of a larger group. This training creates
community members who see the group as more important than
the individual. This pattern is found in societies with extended
families, particularly in households that depend on subsistence
horticulture, pastoralism, or foraging (see topic 3 below) for
survival. Often a large group is needed as a source of labor to
till the soil, manage the herds, or help find food in the
wilderness. Individuals cannot survive alone.
In these groups, the possibilities of conflict are great because
decisions must be group ones. In-marrying spouses must
conform to the group. Various aspects of dependency training
help prevent conflicts. One aspect of the training is indulgence
towards children. Babies in such societies are often nursed for
several years. Infants are held, passed around, and constantly
tended. They are often with others. Young children are given
duties and activities that help the group and support the child's
sense of importance in contributing to the group.
A second aspect of the training is corrective. Children are
punished for disobedience or for being selfish or aggressive.
After punishment, a child may immediately be shown love
again. The group and its relationships with others are primary.
2. Independence training stresses self-reliance and personal
achievement (Haviland et al. 2005:129). Such training is
generally found where nuclear families (parents and children)
are on their own. Independence is important for survival. As
with dependence training, both discouragement and
encouragement are used. For instance, among many families in
North America, infants are fed on a schedule, and breast feeding
is stopped after a few months. Children are encouraged to feed
themselves. Soon after birth, babies are given their own private
space, with a crib away from the parents. Children are generally
not given responsibilities as contributions to the group's welfare

but as tasks that will benefit the child herself.
Assertiveness and even aggression may be encouraged.
Competition and winning are emphasized. In societies that
believe survival requires individuals to look out for their own
interests, independence training is important.
Anthropologists see that dependence and independence training
form a continuum, and one pattern is not considered better than
the other. If a society requires compliant people, then
independence training would undermine the society. In a society
where adults are asked to question authority and invent new
ways of doing things, dependency training would not work.
Sometimes a society will have both aspects at work with
resulting contradictions. For example, in the United States,
although individual independence is professed, a strong trend of
compliance also exists. This trend has become more evident in
the security requirements for air travelers where anything out of
the ordinary is seen as a threat. Whistle-blowers in government
and corporations may not only be ignored or seen as disloyal,
they may even be punished or fired rather than heralded for
their independent actions.
Gender Roles and Enculturation
Anthropologist Margaret Mead, in her cross-cultural studies,
found that differences between men and women varied from one
culture to the next. Biology is not destiny in the ways we
behave.
For example:
In the 1930s, Mead determined from her studies in Papua New
Guinea that in different ethnic groups, men and women had
different characteristic temperaments. Among the Arapesh, men
and women were cooperative and nurturing. Among the
Mundugamor, both sexes were aggressive, whereas among the

Tchambuli, women were dominant over men. Modern
researchers question some of Mead's findings, but her research
showed that different cultures may have different expectations
for male and female personality and behavior (Mead 1963).
Group Personality
Child rearing, personality, and culture are all intertwined. To
what extent is it possible to generalize about the personality of
people in a given group? To a certain extent, it may be possible.
Each individual develops certain characteristics that are like
those of others in their society, because of common experiences.
At the same time, all people also have distinctive personalities
based on their unique circumstances and genetic background.
Thus, any generalization about the modal personality of a group
must be qualified by the realization that individuals within any
group are unique. Furthermore, group boundaries may be
porous. However, modal personality is defined as those
characteristics that occur most frequently in a culturally
bounded group (Haviland 2005:132). Modal personalities are
determined through statistical measures and can reveal variation
and diversity within groups. Data on personalities can be
gathered through such psychological tests as Rorschach ("ink
blot") tests in which people are asked to explain what they see
in the random blot.
For example:
Anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, developed the idea that culture
was "personality writ large," that is, that culture reflected the
collective personality of those within it. In her classic work
Patterns of Culture (1959), she compared three cultures: (1) the
Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest of North America, (2) the
Zuni of the American Southwest, and (3) the people of the
island of Dobu near Papua New Guinea. Each group had a
pattern of culture: the Kwakiutl were individualistic and
exuberant, the Zunis aimed for the golden mean, and the

Dobuans were fearful and worried about magic.
During World War II, Benedict worked with the U.S. occupation
forces in Japan. She argued that Japanese culture, characterized
by a strong sense of "shame" and "honor," was more amenable
to change than U.S. culture, which was characterized by a sense
of "guilt" and a belief in absolute good and evil. She convinced
U.S. authorities not to eliminate the institution of the emperor,
but to maintain it. She argued that given the traditional
flexibility of the emperor, the emperor would reject militarism
(as shameful) and accept democracy (as honorable).
Her work, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), has sold
more than two million copies in Japan. Her understanding of
Japanese personality made a difference for the occupation of
Japan and its economic and political recovery since the war
(Ferraro 2006:64-65).
Alternative Gender Models
Anthropologists agree that gender roles vary from culture to
culture and that these roles affect personality. However, genders
themselves may be ambiguous, a fact that also affects
individuals' roles and personalities. Chromosomes that
determine a person's sex may vary, making someone who falls
outside distinct biological and culturally defined categories of
male or female.
Some cultures allow for a third sex, usually males who take the
role of females. For example, the Plains Indians of North
America had an intermediate category of male/female. By being
neither fully male nor female, these individuals held great
prestige in the community. They were viewed as having special
healing powers. Sometimes called by the French term Berdache,
such people today prefer to be known as Two Spirits, showing
both the male and female together in one person.
For example:

In Samoa in the South Pacific, fa'afafineare men who take on
the role and dress of women. Fa'afafine means "in the way of a
woman." Sometimes a family will select a boy and groom him to
be a fa'afafine. Other times, a boy or man will choose to become
a fa'afafine. Fa'afafine are beloved. They are useful around the
house because of their strength. Their gentleness helps make for
smooth relationships. In modern Samoa, fa'afafine work in many
fields including secretarial and administrative fields. They are
on athletic teams and teach Sunday school.
3. Patterns of Subsistence: Making a Living
How do humans survive? How is it that we can survive in
almost every climate on the globe? Naked, we have little to
protect us compared to other animals. What we have to our
advantage is culture and the ability to adapt.
As humans have adapted to the different environments of the
world, what basic subsistence strategies have they developed to
help them survive? Anthropologists identify four basic
strategies: foraging (also called hunting and gathering,
pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture. We discuss these
strategies in the next sections.
Foraging
Foraging is the subsistence strategy that humans have used for
most of their time as a species on Earth. It is the oldest and
most universal of our strategies for making a living. Foraging
relies on plants and animals that are wild. Foragers do not
produce food. They do not cultivate plants and do not raise
animals for food. Their food sources are those naturally
occurring plants and animals that reproduce on their own.
Foragers generally have a low population density. They live in

small mobile, family-based groups. Hunting and gathering
groups tend to be egalitarian (everyone is equal), with
leadership coming from those with knowledge and experience.
These groups can move from their camp when convenient. They
thus leave behind refuse that might cause diseases and conflicts
that might cause hardship or dissolution of the group. Their
material possessions are few. Most of what they have is shared.
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1972) has noted that foragers
were the original affluent society. Even in the harsh lands of the
Kalahari Desert, the !Kung are traditionally able to do all of
their subsistence work of hunting and gathering in less than 20
hours per week. The remaining time is spent in storytelling,
resting, and chatting, even though they're living in marginal
areas (Lee 2003).
It is sometimes hard for foragers to continue their lifestyle in
the modern world because of pressure on the land. The main
groups of foragers today are in marginal land, not desired by
more powerful neighbors. However, as demand for oil and
mineral resources grows, even those on marginal lands are being
forced to settle off their traditional territory. Modern
governments prefer that their citizens settle in one place so that
they can be counted and taxed and so are often unsympathetic to
the situation of nomadic foragers.
Modern groups that still maintain some foraging include the
Inuit of the Arctic Circle, some Australian aboriginal groups,
the Agta of the Philippines, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert of
southern Africa, and some Orang Asli of Malaysia, among
others.
Pastoralism
Pastoralism is a food-gathering strategy that depends on herd
animals such as cows, goats, or sheep. The animals eat the grass
or other natural vegetation, and the humans eat the animals.

People may also use the animals for milk, cheese, or their
blood.
Pastoralists can be either nomadic or transhumant. Nomadic
pastoralists follow the herd from one grazing spot to another.
The whole family will move with the animals. Sometimes a
greater pattern of movement will be finely regulated among a
large group, with a chief directing when and where a given
family may herd its animals (Barth 1986).
Transhumant pastoralism is a strategy whereby most of the
family stays in one place while some members move the herd
animals to grazing areas. Transhumance is found in East Africa,
where the men and boys herd the animals to different pastures.
In Heidi, the classic children's story by Johanna Spyri, set in
Switzerland, the herding society was transhumant. Heidi's
friend, the goatherd, looked after the goats during the summer
months in the mountains while the family stayed back in the
village.
Pastoralism involves a complex relationship of animals, land,
and people. Because the animals are domesticated, they depend
on their keepers for food, water, and protection from predators
and weather. Pastoralists must know the capacities and
characteristics of the land and the needs of their animals. The
animals are essential for the livelihood and survival of the
people, but they are more than just commodities. Animals are
frequently named. They are admired and caressed. Individual
animals even inspire stories and songs.
For example:
Among the Nuer of East Africa, cattle are central to life. Each
man takes his name from one of his cows whose qualities
particularly please him. Nuer people chant poems and sing
songs about their cows. Here is an example of one of these
songs

....As my black-rumped white ox,
When I went to court the winsome lassies,
I am not a man whom girls refuse.
We court girls by stealth in night…
We brought the ox across the river….
Friend, great ox of the spreading horns,
Which ever bellows amid the herd,
Ox of the son of Bul Maloa.
In this song, transcribed by anthropologist E. E. Evans-
Pritchard, the poet, son of Bul Maloa, refers to his ox as his
friend and as one who helps him impress the ladies (Evans-
Pritchard 1940:47).
Pastoralists today are found in East Africa (cattle), North Africa
(camels), southwestern Asia, including Turkey and Iran (sheep
and goats), central Asia (yak), and the subarctic (caribou and
reindeer) (Nanda and Warms 2007:156). As is the case with
foragers, central governments do not much care for pastoralists,
particularly those who are nomadic. Governments find it hard to
count, tax, and control such folk. Furthermore, traditional
herding lands of pastoralists may lie in more than one country
so the families and their herds as they cross borders may get
caught in international conflicts and warfare.
Horticulture
Horticulture is the production of plants using simple tools.
Unlike foragers who gather wild plants for their subsistence,
horticulturalists grow their own domesticated varieties of
plants. Horticulturalists are found throughout the tropics and
temperate parts of the world where the growing season and
climate permit planting and harvesting. The primary crops vary
from region to region. The indigenous peoples of North and

South America cultivate maize (corn), beans, and squash. In the
Oceania region, the major crops include sweet potato, taro, and
manioc. Rice and millet are among the crops grown by
horticulturists in Asia and Southeast Asia.
Horticulturalists' technology is generally simple. They do not
use draft animals or plows but instead use digging sticks or
hoes. They do not have irrigation systems. Their yields are
generally low but enough to feed their families.
Horticulturalists generally do not aim to cultivate great
surpluses. Population densities among them are generally low,
usually no more than 150 people per square mile (Nanda and
Warms 2007:18) although villages may range from 100 people
to 1,000 people.
In the tropics, horticulturalists frequently practice swidden, or
slash-and-burn cultivation, in which fields are cleared by
cutting down the vegetation and then burning it. The resulting
ash fertilizes the fields and supports productivity for a few
years. As productivity declines, the fields are abandoned and
left to revert back to native vegetation and forest growth.
Fields are left fallow for up to 20 years before being cut and
burned again. This cycle enables the soils to be replenished
before being used again for cultivation. Horticulturalists require
about six times as much land in fallow as they do in production.
When land becomes scarce, whether through a rise in population
or appropriation by others, and the fallow period is shortened,
the soils can quickly deteriorate if they do not have the required
time for regeneration.
Most swidden farmers plant a multitude of crops on their small
plots. Some horticulturalists shift residences as they shift fields.
In other societies, the families stay in one place but rotate fields
for cultivation. Horticulturalists also hunt and fish to
supplement their diets.

Agriculture (Intensive Cultivation)
Most of us are familiar with agriculture. In this subsistence
strategy, land is used over and over again. Some plots are
allowed to lie fallow, but generally for shorter amounts of time
than with swidden practices. Fertilizing is required to keep the
land fertile. The farmer uses draft animals and plows or
complex machinery to till the fields. Agriculture frequently
relies on irrigation.
Agriculture also requires intensive inputs of labor. For example,
swidden farmers must put in 241 worker days/year for their rice
crop. In contrast, wet-rice agriculture, with its flooded plots,
requires 292 worker days/year (Nanda and Warms 2007:161–
162). Modern agriculturalists require great capital investments
for machinery. Although they have more control over
production, modern agriculturalists are in some ways more
vulnerable than horticulturalists. Monocropping—that is,
planting just one kind of plant—means that a single disease can
destroy the entire crop. Weather problems can also create
economic disaster for the farmer.
Agriculturalists generally are sedentary—that is, they live in
one location and do not move with the rotation of their crops.
Modern agriculture in the United States, however, frequently
relies on migrant laborers who follow the harvest.
If we look at the prehistory and history of the world, though
some people began to settle before they grew crops, agriculture
is associated with the rise of cities that began 5,000 years ago.
Agriculture also supports social stratification and complex
forms of social organization. Food production is used to support
specialists in society such as priests or ruling elites. Often
production is by rural cultivators, or peasants, whose labor
supports complex state societies (see the discussion of states in
module 4). Because agriculture supports large groups of people,

often in densely populated areas, disease and environmental
degradation are often consequences.
Nonindustrial Cities: The Aztecs' Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco
When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Mexico in the early
1500s, they found the Aztec Empire and its capital,
Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in full flower. Tenochtitlan,
along with its sister city, Tlatelolco, was a thriving metropolis
of about 200,000 people. Intensive agriculture supported the
cities. Crops included corn, beans, squash, gourds, peppers,
tomatoes, cotton, and tobacco.
Because of successful food production, skilled artisans,
including those who worked in silver, stone, clay, fabric,
feathers, and paint, were free to create their art. The society
also supported warriors, priests, and government bureaucrats.
The marketplace of Tlatelolco was so grand that the Spanish
compared it to the markets of Rome and Constantinople
(Haviland 2005:171–172).
Industrial Economy
The use of machinery and chemicals in agriculture has enabled
vast amounts of food to be produced by very few people. Our
industrial economy has led to a population boom, a great
increase in energy consumption, and growth in specialized
occupations. In industrial economies, people work for wages.
Unlike economies based on subsistence strategies, which limit
acquisition and consumption and put less strain on the
environment, industrial economies are based on the growth of
consumption and the acquisition of material possessions.
4. Economic Systems
Economics is the study of the ways in which we produce the

items needed to support or enhance our lives and the ways these
items are distributed and consumed. For many peoples of the
world, the economic system is simple: they grow or gather what
they need and distribute their produce to family members who
consume it. But in our own industrial society, this pattern is
complex. Few of us live solely on what we grow or raise
ourselves. We are part of a complex network of goods and
services that takes in the whole world.
Generally, economists have focused on production, distribution,
and consumption in industrialized countries and have assumed
certain values and behavioral patterns for those countries. For
instance, formal economic theory assumes that people have
unlimited wants but are limited in what they can afford.
Therefore, economists assume that people will make choices
that will provide the greatest material benefit to themselves.
Economic anthropologists take a larger view of human
motivation. Material benefit or profit may be one factor. But
consider your own life. You may wish to take a day off from
work to be with a friend who has come to town. Or you may
take time off to be with your family to celebrate a special
tradition. If you are selling something, you may take a loss in
order to offer a good deal to a relative. You may pay big bucks
for your daughter's wedding. You will make choices that benefit
you, but these may not be the ones that bring the most material
profit to you.
Anthropologists see that economic decisions are made within
the context of human relationships. Economies and economic
decisions are intertwined with culture and only make sense
within the context of a given culture.
In most nonindustrial societies, division of labor is by age and
sex, with some specialization for crafts. Groups of kinfolk and
not individuals control land and other valuable resources. No

one gets significantly more than anyone else. All members of
the group are provided for. Anthropologists study economics
cross-culturally by looking at production and systems of
exchange and distribution.
Production
Production starts with resources and their allocation. What
resources are available to people? Land and water are basic to
all. Tools, including the knowledge and materials to make them,
are resources.
Resource Allocation
Who has access to resources needed for survival? In general, as
societies become more industrial, access to resources becomes
more regulated and limited. In small-scale societies, most
people have access to most of the resources because such
economies have limited resources (Nanda and Warms
2007:178). In large-scale societies, access is often limited based
on numerous factors. For example, in North American society,
not everyone has equal access to a good education and hence to
the resources available to well-educated people. One's income
can also limit access to needed resources such as good-quality
health care. Family background, too, may make a difference in
access to wealth and social position.
As we discussed in topic 3, foragers generally have simple tools
and flexible boundaries. Freedom of movement enables people
to avoid conflict and to fully use resources.
For pastoralists, the most important resources are their livestock
and the land for grazing. Kin groups generally control access to
grasslands and water. Individuals or their close family members
generally own the animals themselves.
Horticulturalists farm and live on land controlled by extended
kin groups. Nuclear families may be given permission to work

particular plots. The family does not own the plot; members just
have rights to use that land (usufruct rights). When they are not
using the land, it reverts back to the extended kin group. The
same plot may be designated for another nuclear family's use at
a later time.
Intensive agriculture exists in North America and other parts of
the industrialized world where resources such as land and
machinery are generally privately held.
Units of Production
Households control production in most nonindustrial societies.
A household is a group of people who live together and share
production and distribution among themselves (Nanda and
Warms 2007, 182). Household members may be related by
kinship but not necessarily. A household is a basic economic
unit.
In industrial societies, the business firm is the basic unit of
production, and its main focus is to make a financial profit. The
firm may comprise kin or non-kin, but members are usually tied
to the firm because of their labor. The aim of the firm is not to
make products for its members but to sell goods for a profit.
Division of Labor
All societies have some division of labor by sex and by age. As
societies get more complex, division of labor becomes more
complex as well, resulting in specialized occupations.
Division of Labor by Sex
All societies divide labor on the basis of sex. Each society
considers certain work appropriate for women and other work
appropriate for men. However, not all societies divide this work
the same way. Anthropologists tend to explain the division of
labor among men and women in terms of historical and cultural
factors, rather than biology. They have found a continuum of

practices from societies where work is interchangeable between
men and women to those where activities are determined totally
by sex.
Generally hunters and gatherers and horticultural groups have
more flexible sex roles. This pattern is known as the
"flexible/integrated pattern." Boys and girls are enculturated in
much the same way and see adult men and women interacting on
an equal basis. In such societies, up to 35 percent of the work
may appropriately be performed by either sex (Haviland et al.
2005:180).
Among pastoralist and intensive agricultural and industrial
societies, sex roles are likely to be more rigid. In these
societies, men and women rarely work together, and neither sex
would consider doing the work of the other. Both boys and girls
are raised by their mothers, but at some point, a boy must
transfer to the men's world and prove his masculinity. Although
work is strictly segregated by sex in these societies, men are
considered superior to women and have authority over them.
A third pattern of division of labor by sex is called "dual-sex
configuration." In this pattern, men and women carry out their
tasks separately, but the division is balanced and equal rather
than unequal as in societies where the sexes are segregated.
Neither sex is considered the superior of the other. Such
patterns can be found among North American Indian groups
whose subsistence is based on horticulture and in West African
kingdoms.
Division of Labor by Age
All societies divide labor by age. People are often given tasks
that match their strength and ability to do things. Adults gain
specialized knowledge that enables them to do the work
required to keep society functioning. Some older folks, with
declining strength and physical abilities, may no longer

contribute in ways they did in their prime but may still
participate in significant ways.
Think about it:
In traditional Maori society in New Zealand, the older men had
important tasks to do. One of those tasks was to make sennit,
ropes made from the rolling, twisting, and plaiting of natural
fibers. Such rope was vital for constructing houses and canoes.
Sennit could be made in the household while seated, the thigh
bone being an excellent place to roll the fibers. A grandfather
could watch his grandkids at the same time.
In Samoa, older women continue to weave mats used for
sleeping and for ceremonial exchange. While weaving, usually
with other women, they can keep their eyes on the village.
In your family, what special tasks that contribute to the good of
the group can older people perform?
Craft Specialization
In some societies, technologies are simple, and everyone knows
more or less how to use everything. Among foragers, tool
making for hunting and gathering does not require specialized
equipment and can be done by most adults. Digging sticks for
excavating roots and spears for hunting may take some time to
make, but the knowledge of how to make them is shared among
the group. It is similar with horticulturalists. Simple tools are
used in planting and harvesting of their varied plants.
As societies become more complex, with intensive agriculture
and industry, tools and the accompanying division of labor
become more specialized as well. In these societies, because
surpluses enable people to consume food without producing it,
specialized roles are supported. In traditional India, the caste
system exemplifies occupational specialization. Thousands of
different activities, e.g., washing clothes, making music at

festivals, creating pottery, and conducting religious ceremonies,
are the prerogative of specific kin groups. In traditional India,
as well as in other societies, one's occupation may be
determined by the family one is born into or assigned according
to one's ethnic background.
In industrial societies such as our own, specialization is
essential. A quick scan of the Yellow Pages of the telephone
book reveals long lists of specializations. No individual or
family could make or do everything that is available in our
society. As we go through the day, earn our living, and provide
for our homes and families, we rely on others to make our lives
possible.
Distribution: Systems of Exchange
All peoples exchange goods and services. Anthropologists find
that exchange forms the basis of society. In fact, French
anthropologist Marcel Mauss maintained that gifts hold groups
together. Because gifts must be reciprocated it is through giving
and receiving that we are joined to one another (Mauss 1990).
Anthropologists identify three types of exchange: reciprocity,
redistribution, and market, all of which we describe below.
Reciprocity is the exchange between two parties of items having
approximately the same value. Three types of reciprocity are
recognized: generalized, balanced, and negative.
1. Generalized reciprocity is an exchange usually between close
kin or friends with no stated expectation of a return. Parents
give to their children out of love. Those involved do not view
such transactions as economic. The giving may be quite
altruistic, or the giver may expect gratitude and love in return.
Generalized reciprocity is important for foraging groups, for
example, with the distribution of meat. When a kill is made,

each person in the group is given a share. The hunter gives so
that all can live and gains respect and status in the process.
2. Balanced reciprocity involves an obligation to give in return.
It is generally found among people who are slightly more
distanced. We see this reciprocity in buying a round of drinks or
selecting a birthday present for a friend. We expect that others
will pick up the tab next time. As we present our gift, we expect
(underneath) that the receiver will buy a comparable gift for us
on our birthday. Balanced reciprocity is seen in trading
relationships among nonindustrial peoples.
3. Negative reciprocity is an unsociable exchange where one
person tries to get the better end of a deal. It is usually found
among strangers. It may involve hard bargaining or even what
some would call cheating and deception.
Redistribution
With redistribution, goods are collected in one place and then
sorted and given back to those who gave them. We see this form
of exchange in our tax system. We all give to the government,
which takes our money and uses it to provide services for
citizens. We don't get the same money back, but we do get
something back in the form of schools, parks, roads, police and
fire protection, and so forth.
Redistribution is important in horticultural societies where
chiefs collect goods from those beneath them. This show of
goods is important for the chief and the supporting families in
that it reflects their wealth and status. When goods are
exchanged in ceremonies, the goods received are then
distributed back to those who gave.
For example:
The potlatch of the Pacific Northwest is an example of
redistribution. The potlatch was a feast in which the hosting

chief would give away goods and food to the villagers, other
chiefs, and invited guests. The more that was given away, the
higher the prestige of the host. Sometimes, valuable items
would be destroyed or thrown away with a flourish.
The potlatch can be seen as an adaptive strategy in an
environment of both scarcity and abundance. When a chief and
his people are rich, the potlatch shares their abundance with
neighbors who are struggling. When the times are rough for the
first group, they will benefit from the grandiose generosity of
another's potlatch.
Reciprocity and redistribution are leveling mechanisms that
keep wealth and resources circulating in society and prevent
them from being accumulated beyond a certain point. The
philosophy is that greater wealth brings a greater obligation to
give. Sometimes, great prestige is awarded those who give
goods away, as in the potlatch. Leveling mechanisms help
reduce economic differences. Social obligations of people as
part of a community keep them from acquiring more than
others, help strengthen the community, and ensure that everyone
has what they need to survive.
Market Exchange
Market exchange is the primary means of economic distribution
in industrial societies. It involves buying and selling goods and
services at prices that obey the rules of supply and demand.
Whereas reciprocity and redistribution are nested in social and
personal relationships, financial goals are generally more
important than social ones in a market economy.
Traditionally, market exchange takes place in a marketplace, a
specific location. In many nonindustrial countries and in ancient
cities of Asia and Europe, the marketplace draws people from
the surrounding area, bringing their produce, animals, or crafts
to sell and buying needed items from others. Prices are set by

face-to-face bargaining with another person. Money or barter,
the direct exchange of goods, may also be used.
In industrial societies, market exchanges are increasingly
impersonal. We may or may not know the people who help us
with our purchases, but chances are we know little about them.
With electronic buying and selling, it is possible to buy and sell
without ever having contact with a human being, let alone with
someone you know personally. In today's economy, the
geographic location of the actual marketplace where things are
bought and sold may not even be known to those involved. Call
centers and warehouses can be located anywhere around the
world. Geographic boundaries for businesses are becoming less
and less important. This process of going across borders, known
as globalization, will be discussed further in module 5.
Capitalism, which began in Europe 300 years ago, has
transformed economies around the world. Ownership of capital
goods such as factories, farms, and so on is generally in the
hands of a small group of people (the elite). Under capitalism,
production is undertaken primarily to make a profit for the
owner, not to enhance the community or social relations. The
primary resource that the majority of people have is their labor.
Socialism takes many forms in the modern world and uses
market exchange in varying degrees. However, it also relies on
central governmental control for distribution of many goods and
services.
References
Barth, Frederik. 1986. Nomads of South Persia. Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland.
Benedict, Ruth. 1946. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
———. 1959. Patterns of Culture. New York: Mentor Books.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The Nuer: A Description of the
Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic
People. London: Oxford University Press.
Ferraro, Gary. 2006. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied
Perspective. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Gardner, R. Allen, and Beatrice T. Gardner. 1967. Teaching
Sign Language to a Chimpanzee. Science 165:664–672.
Hall, Edward T. 1969. The Hidden Dimension. Garden City,
NY: Doubleday.
Challenge. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Lee, Richard. 2003. The Dobe Ju/'hoansi. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth-Thomson Learning.
Mauss, Marcel. 1990 [1924]. The Gift: Form and Reason of
Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: W. W. Norton.
Mead, Margaret. 1963. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive
Societies. NY: William Morrow.
Nanda, Serena, and Richard L. Warms. 2007. Cultural
Anthropology. 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Chicago:
Aldine.

Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker, and Talbot J.
Taylor. 1998. Apes, Language and the Human Mind. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Tannen, Deborah. 2001. You Just Don't Understand: Women and
Men in Conversation. New York: HarperTrade.
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page.Copyright © by University of Maryland University
College.Module 3: Group Formation—Adapting through
Cooperation
Commentary
Topics
1. Sex and Marriage
2. Family and Household
3. Kinship and Descent
4. Grouping by Gender, Age, Common Interest, and Class
1. Sex and Marriage
Think about it:
A Nayar girl in Southwest India was expected to form at least
three relationships with men. The first was a temporary ritual
union shortly before her first menses that may or may not
include sexual relations. The second was a "visiting union" with
one or several men who were required to present her with gifts
in return for sexual privileges. The third occurred when the
woman eventually became pregnant. One of her partners
formally acknowledged paternity (though he may not be the
biological father) and presented gifts to the woman and the
midwife who attended the birth.

None of a woman's sexual partners lived in the same household
as the woman and none had additional economic or social
obligations to the woman or her child aside from these
occasional gifts. Women lived with their biologically related
kin, and these kin maintained the household economically
(Haviland et al. 2005:213).
The Control of Sexual Relations
The difference between humans and most other animals is
particularly apparent in our sexual behavior. Human females,
unlike most other primates except bonobos, and human males,
like most other animals, can engage in sexual activity at any
time. Because human sexuality is not regulated by instinct as it
is in other animals and because it can have serious
consequences (e.g., pregnancy or disruption of harmonious
social relations), humans create cultural rules to regulate when,
where, and with whom people can have sex. Anthropological
studies confirm that the range of variation in these rules is
enormous.
For example, in some societies homosexual activity may be
considered "sinful," unnatural," or "criminal," whereas in other
societies people are indifferent and those who engage in such
activities are left alone. Anthropologists have documented that
some people consider homosexual acts a natural and necessary
part of life. For example, the Etoro of Papua New Guinea
believe that homosexual acts give boys semen that turns them
into men (e.g., Herdt 1984).
Rules regarding premarital sex provide another example of
cultural variation. In the United States, premarital sex among
adolescents may be condemned as "dangerous" or "immoral,"
whereas in other societies, for example, the Trobriand Islands,
adolescent sexual activity is regarded as necessary preparation
for adulthood.

Think about it:
Anthropologist Annette Weiner found that Trobriand Islanders
begin to play erotic games by age 7 or 8, and by age 11 or 12,
they are regularly engaging in sexual activities with a variety of
partners. Weiner argues that, "Sexual liaisons give adolescents
the time and occasion to experiment with all the possibilities
and problems that adults face in creating relationships with
those who are not relatives" (Weiner 1988:71).
Though all societies establish rules regarding sexual behavior,
only about 15 percent of societies restrict sexual activity to
marriage. Most other societies permit greater individual
freedom in premarital and extramarital sexual behavior, but
these societies vary in the degree of openness permitted
(Haviland et al. 2005:212).
Incest taboos are extremely common, but again, rules regarding
which relatives are considered inappropriate sexual partners
vary widely. In one society, individuals may not be permitted to
have sexual relations with certain categories of relatives
whereas in others, this category of relative is considered ideal.
Theorists have advanced different explanations for incest
taboos. Some have claimed that "human nature" includes an
inherent horror of incest. This explanation, however, fails to
account for the common occurrence of incestuous relations in
many societies, including the United States; for the cross-
cultural variation in relatives considered inappropriate or
appropriate sexual partners; or for institutionalized incest that
requires certain individuals to marry their relatives.
Think about it:
In the Iraqi tribe described by Elizabeth Fernea in Guests of the
Sheik, a boy's ideal marriage partner was his father's brother's
daughter. (She is called his bint-amm and he is called her ibn-

amm.) The boy had "first claim" to this cousin whom
anthropologists would refer to as a parallel cousin. (Parallel
cousins are children whose parents are the same-sex siblings of
Ego's parents. See Kinship Terminology below). If for some
reason she was to marry someone else, he had to relinquish his
claim before her marriage could take place (Fernea 1965:156).
In some Polynesian societies, people believed that members of
the royal family had the most mana, a supernatural force that
determined the group's living conditions. Because this force
could enhance the whole group's well-being, it was in the
group's interest to maximize the amount of mana in their royal
family. Therefore, a king's best marriage partner was his own
sister because she had more mana than any other woman.
How do these ideas compare to the "rules" you have learned?
What do you think are the advantages or disadvantages of these
various rules?
In his theory of the unconscious, Freud tried to account for
incest taboos by claiming that boys competed with their fathers
for their mothers, and girls competed with their mothers for
their fathers (the so-called "Oedipus" and "Electra" complexes).
He argued that society suppresses these desires to prevent the
disastrous conflicts such desires might cause, particularly in
adolescence before people direct their desires to others. Other
theories posit that incest taboos protect girls from early
pregnancy or psychological trauma by forbidding sexual
relations with those in closest contact with them.
Cross-cultural studies, however, contradict these theories. For
example, Bronislaw Malinowski (1927) revealed the
ethnocentrism of Freud's theories when he documented that in
the Trobriand Islands, a boy's primary adult male relationship
was with his maternal uncle, and no "Oedipal" competition for
the mother occurred between a boy and his father in this

society.
There is evidence that many animals avoid sexual contact with
their closest relatives. This evidence indicates there may be an
evolutionary advantage to avoiding sexual relationships with
close relatives because increasing genetic diversity among a
population usually works to a species' advantage. People
commonly believe that inbreeding produces defects, and
eventually, this is true. Inbreeding among domestic animals and
plants, however, produces desirable qualities as well.
In conclusion, given the enormous cross-cultural variation in
incest taboos, most anthropologists think sexual avoidance of
relatives is another example of the interaction of biology and
culture, as are most human behaviors. A functional explanation
of incest taboos is that such prohibitions force relations outside
a given group and therefore strengthen network ties to others.
The resulting social bonds may be the difference between a
group's survival and its end.
What Is Marriage?
The Distinction between Marriage and Mating
All animals mate in a biological sense―that is, they bond with
others through sexual activity. Such biological bonds may be
lifelong or they may be fleeting, lasting only a moment. Humans
"mate" as well, but they often form more permanent bonds
through legally, religiously, or economically sanctioned
arrangements known as marriage. These arrangements vary
widely from culture to culture.
An Anthropological Definition of Marriage
Anthropologists have studied unions among people all over the
world. Common features they observe have yielded the
following definition: marriage is "a culturally sanctioned union
between two or more people that establishes certain rights and
obligations between the people, between them and their

children, and between them and their in-laws" (Haviland et al.
2005:213). The rights and obligations inherent in marriage
usually involve sex, labor, property, child rearing, exchange of
goods and services, and status, though some forms of marriage
include other rights and obligations.
You will notice that an anthropological definition of marriage
restricts neither the gender nor the number of people involved.
Any definition with such restrictions is ethnocentric because it
fails to include the various forms marriage takes in different
societies such as multiple spouses (polygamy) or same-sex
marriage.
Endogamy and Exogamy
In addition to rules about appropriate sexual partners, societies
create rules about appropriate marriage partners. In some
societies, individuals must choose partners from within certain
groups or categories of individuals (endogamy), or they must go
outside of certain groups or categories of individuals to seek a
spouse. Forbidden or approved groups or categories vary
widely. For example, some people encourage (or force) their
children to marry within their ethnic group or religion, an
example of endogamy. Others may insist that individuals marry
outside their own village, an example of exogamy. These rules
may change over time, however, as people encounter new
cultural influences.
Think about it:
In the United States, it was common for people who grew up in
small towns to marry people from the same town (endogamy).
Even men and women who had been to far-off places during the
world wars often came home and married their hometown
sweethearts. As more and more of their children began to attend
college and find jobs away from home, they tended to marry or
partner with "strangers" (exogamy), and this pattern became the
new norm. Recently, however, there are many reports of

divorced or widowed people returning to high school reunions
and again practicing "within group" endogamy as they begin
romantic relationships with hometown partners.
Different Forms of Marriage
The most common form of marriage is monogamy, in which
each partner has one spouse. That monogamy is the most
common form is not because monogamy is inherently "natural"
or "moral" or even preferred by many people. Depending on the
obligations marriage entails in different societies, acquiring and
supporting more than one spouse may take more resources than
one can muster. Where more than one spouse (polygamy) is
culturally permitted, scarce resources rather than any moral
imperative restrict the number of spouses one has.
Polygamy can take various forms. Polygyny, in which a man has
more than one wife, is far more common than polyandry, in
which a woman has more than one husband, perhaps because
there are shortages of men. Such shortages may be caused by
the higher loss of male fetuses during pregnancy, shorter life
expectancies, more dangerous occupations, and social violence
such as warfare. These factors are much more common among
men than women. In some societies, men are expected to marry
their brothers' widows (levirate) or their dead wives' sisters
(sororate) regardless of whether they already have other
spouses.
Think about it:
In AIDS-ravaged Africa, the levirate can lead to the spread of
HIV and eventually, AIDS. How do you think this practice
contributes to HIV transmission? Why do you think people
continue it? If you were a policymaker, what would you do?
Though it is difficult for many Westerners to imagine not being
jealous if one had to share a sexual partner with others, many
living in polygamous relationships emphasize their benefits.

They claim co-wives (or co-husbands) reduce household or
agricultural work and loneliness and provide built-in child care
and friendship. To reduce potential friction, a sleeping rotation
may be established, and a "good" husband will give equal time
to each of his wives.
Think about it:
In Guests of the Sheik, Fernea writes that the Koran permits a
man to have up to four wives if he can support them equally and
give them equal affection. The women of the sheik's harem
challenge Fernea to defend Western monogamy by pointing out
that if a Western husband wants to marry another woman, he
must divorce his current wife, and she may be left alone. In a
polygynous system, however, he would continue to support and
care for his current wife as well. The Iraqi women asked,
"Which is better?"
Polyandry, as practiced in some parts of Tibet where several
brothers marry one wife, protects family land from division and,
unlike monogamy or polygyny, checks population growth
because only one husband can impregnate the wife at a time.
Think about it:
For some years, mainland China has had a "one-child" policy,
which has resulted in a shortage of women because of the
cultural preference for sons. What do you think are the options
for men seeking wives in these circumstances?
In Elizabeth Fernea's Guests of the Sheik (1965), cousin
marriages are preferred in certain societies, including Arabic
and ancient Israelite and Greek societies. Marriages between
cousins allow property to remain within the family and establish
and maintain solidarity between social groups.
Group marriages in which individuals have sexual rights to
anyone in the group occur rarely, but they do occur. For

instance, among people in northern Alaska, some men shared
their wives with colleagues and had sexual relations with
colleagues' wives in turn. These relationships entailed mutual-
aid obligations as well as sexual privileges, and children of the
men were also considered related. Other groups, such as those
known in the West as "hippies," have also experimented with
group marriage.
Another form of marriage, serial monogamy, is now quite
common in Western countries as marriages or relationships
dissolve and people form new monogamous partnerships. Serial
monogamy may occur because women have children early in life
either outside marriage or within a marriage that does not last.
The difficulties of maintaining a household on their own often
inspire these single women to seek marriages to new men who
will help them fulfill their economic and domestic
responsibilities to their (and possibly his) children.
Furthermore, because Western men are permitted only one wife
at a time, some men divorce current wives and marry women
who, in their view, are more desirable (famous examples of such
men include Henry VIII and Donald Trump).
Same-sex marriages also occur infrequently, but they occur in
various societies. Such marriages, including the same rights and
obligations adhering to heterosexual marriages, are legal in
Canada and the Netherlands. Woman-woman marriages not
involving sexual relations are sanctioned in some sub-Saharan
African societies. In the sub-Saharan Nandi, for example,
women who have not borne children may marry younger women.
The younger woman's children (usually fathered by a relative of
the older woman's husband) will inherit the older woman's
husband's property although he is not the biological father of
the younger woman's children.
Why Is Marriage So Common?
The Economic, Social, and Legal Functions of Marriage

As the previous section indicates, people marry for many
reasons, and marriages convey many benefits. Marriages
solidify alliances between individuals and family groups and
allow parties to the alliance to call upon each other for various
kinds of supports. These supports include social ties; assistance
with work; economic resources, including health care, Social
Security, and pensions in the United States; and defense against
threats.
Because marriage performs so many crucial functions, many
societies do not allow young individuals to make this important
decision themselves. Rather, families seek suitable partners for
their children and, if successful, arrange marriages that enhance
their children's and their families' prestige, wealth, and security.
Think about it:
Serena Nanda naively assumed it would be easy for her to help
arrange a marriage for an Indian friend's son. In fact, she found
she would not have considered all the factors necessary to a
good match, and if the son had followed her advice, he might
have found himself in a very unhappy situation. The wife Nanda
might have chosen might have thought herself superior to him
because of her slightly higher caste, been quarrelsome, or
inappropriately independent (Nanda 1992).
What qualities or characteristics would your family members
look for in a potential spouse if your marriage were in their
hands? Do you think their priorities would differ from yours?
Which system—arranged marriages or individual choice—do
you think leads to more stability or greater happiness in
marriages?
In many societies, gift exchanges must occur before a marriage
can take place. For example, some prospective husbands must
pay a bride-price (or bride-wealth) to their intended's family or

work for them for a time to compensate their in-laws for the
loss of a productive or otherwise valued family member, to
acquire rights to the children born of the marriage, and to
legitimize those children. Appropriate bride-wealth varies in
different societies. For example, in some African societies, men
must offer livestock, goods, or money, and in Papua New
Guinea, they must give pigs, shells, or stones. The bride-wealth
also legitimizes the children born of the union.
In other societies, prospective wives must bring a dowry of
money or gifts to the husband's family when they marry. In the
United States, for example, it is common for the bride's family
to pay for the wedding. This custom represents an indirect
transfer of wealth to the young couple because wedding guests
usually give the bridal couple gifts and money. The husband's
family reciprocates to some extent by hosting the rehearsal
dinner. Marriage also legitimizes children born within the
marriage, thus ensuring the child's claim on family resources
and support.
Divorce in Different Societies
Divorce may occur for a variety of reasons, through a variety of
mechanisms, and with varying difficulty in various societies.
Common justifications for divorce are infertility, cruelty, or
failure to provide the resources or privileges commonly
associated with marriage. In countries where monogamy is
prized and marriages are based on "love" relationships, such as
the United States, infidelity or loss of affection may also be
common reasons for divorce.
Mechanisms of divorce may include protracted and complicated
disputes that must proceed within a judicial system or much
easier, informal methods. For example, a Hopi woman in
Arizona could divorce her husband by removing his belongings
from her home and putting them outside to announce that he
was no longer welcome in her house (Haviland 2005:229).

2. Family and Household
What Is the Family?
An Anthropological Definition of Family
Humans are born into families. Though most of us know what
we mean by family, a nonethnocentric anthropological
definition must recognize that family means different things to
different people. There is no inherently "normal" or "natural"
family. Therefore, anthropologists use a broad definition of
family to encompass these different meanings.
One useful definition is: "two or more people related by blood,
marriage, or adoption" (Haviland 2005:235). According to this
definition, families differ from households in which members
live together, but there are no biological or legal marital or
adoptive relationships among them.
From this definition, we can see that all humans (so far) have a
family, at least at the moment of birth. At that moment, for
some, the first family may simply be oneself and the woman
who bore us, whereas others are born into a group of parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Whether we have a
family of two or a family of hundreds and no matter how family
is defined, families are the basic human social group.
Cross-Cultural Variation in Family Forms
Anthropologists distinguish between conjugal families (formed
through marriage) and the relatively uncommon solely
consanguineal families in which everyone is biologically
related. For example, a common North American conjugal
family form is the nuclear family consisting of a father, mother,
and their children. In contrast, the Na of China do not marry.
Their families consist of those related by blood only and
include women, their children, and their brothers (Hua 2001).

Their family is consanguineal only, not conjugal.
Although most North Americans think of the basic family form
as the nuclear family, just as in marriage, North Americans'
norms are not global norms. In fact, this form is no longer
"standard" in North America itself. Most North American
families do not include two parents, and many do not include
children because some couples opt neither to procreate nor to
adopt (Stacey 1990:5, 10).
In many societies, family forms may include a man or woman,
his or her multiple spouses, and their children (polygamous
families). Families may also include multiple generations of
parents and their children (extended families) or two spouses of
different or same sex. Families can include step-parents and
each parent's children (blended families); they can include
people who live together and people who do not live together;
they can include in-laws; they can include fictive kin—that is,
people who are considered and treated as family members.
New reproductive technologies, which allow conception without
intercourse and fertilized eggs implanted and carried to term in
surrogate mothers, are also creating new family forms. In short,
the number of family forms is limited only by the human
imagination necessary to create them.
The Historical and Social Contexts in which Various Family
Forms Arise
Family forms have not developed by accident, however.
Families are part of cultural systems that respond to particular
times, places, and situations. The surrounding historical and
social context in which family forms arise has limited and
directed their development. For example, the Roman Catholic
Church delegitimized many previously occurring family forms
after the fourth century. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was
Joseph's father's brother's daughter (in other words, Joseph's

"cousin" in common Western kinship terminology), and Joseph's
father married his mother after the death of her husband who
was his brother (levirate). The Roman Catholic Church
outlawed both these forms of marriage.
Think about it:
The Roman Catholic Church also eliminated polygamy,
concubinage, and divorce and remarriage, labeling these
behaviors "sinful." Some have argued the Church's true motive
was to decrease the number of potential heirs to a family's
wealth, which, in turn, would increase the possibility the
Church would inherit the wealth instead (Haviland 2005:237).
How would discouraging these behaviors limit the number of
potential heirs?
Industrialization in Europe and North America also encouraged
nuclear families and weakened extended family ties. Large
families offer many economic and social advantages in agrarian
societies because more people can divide the work, and one is
never lonely in a large family. It is much easier, however, to
move to a new job in a new location if one must move only a
nuclear family rather than many wives, children, in-laws,
parents, grandparents, and so forth.
Think about it:
In many societies, families expect those who have moved to
more industrialized countries such as the United States to return
home if a family member dies. Employers in such countries,
however, may have a much narrower definition of "important"
family members than other societies. Conflict or even job loss
can result if a worker honors his family obligations and returns
home for a cousin's funeral if a boss does not agree cousins are
close family members whose funeral requires an employee's
presence.

What do you think are the consequences of this difference in the
meaning of family forms?
What Do Families Do?
The Functions of Families
Human infants cannot care for themselves. Our long dependency
period demands that others meet not only our biological needs
for food and shelter, but also our social needs for attention.
Often, this task falls primarily to mothers or mother substitutes,
whereas the job of protecting a mother and child from dangers
often falls to men, although there is much cross-cultural
variation in this pattern.
Regardless of the division of labor, the presence of both sexes
enhances the offspring's survival, and natural selection has
operated to ensure that individuals would pass these behavioral
tendencies to their children. In turn, because both sexes are
present as role models, children learn behaviors considered
appropriate to each sex.
Families arose from the recognition that a group was necessary
to nurture children. Families cooperated to provide life's
necessities and, again, because group cooperation enhanced
survival, group formation and cooperation became part of
"human nature." Families provide a way to organize economic
production, consumption of resources, and inheritance of
resources, as well as child rearing.
Many of us think that, ideally, families should provide a
defense and refuge from the public world, enduring and
unconditional relationships, love, affection, cooperation,
nurturance, assistance, and resources. Realistically, families
have never performed all these functions perfectly, and, rather
than safe havens, families too often are arenas of violence
against their members.

Furthermore, families are not the only groups that can perform
these functions. For example, in some Israeli kibbutzim, child-
care specialists raise children in households rather than in
families. Finally, as mobility increases in industrialized or
industrializing societies, many of these functions are
increasingly fulfilled outside the family. For most of us,
however, families are still our most fundamental social group.
Think about it:
In Leo Chavez's ethnography of Latino immigrants to the United
States, Shadowed Lives, family members who established
themselves in the States provided resources, including jobs, to
recent immigrants.
Common Patterns of Residence
Just as there is variation in marriage and families, there is
variation as well in where people live after marriage in different
societies. Anthropologists have identified five basic residential
patterns: patrilocal, matrilocal, ambilocal, neolocal, and
avunculocal residence. Marital exogamy means that in many
societies, one marriage partner must move into the home of the
other, or the couple must move to a home of their own. Again,
context influences behavior.
For example, in patrilocal residence, a partner moves to the
household in which the husband grew up. This residence pattern
predominates in societies where men play a prominent role in
subsistence activities, e.g., if polygyny is customary, if frequent
warfare necessitates exceptional cooperation among men, or if a
well-developed political system exists in which men wield great
authority. Often these conditions are found in agricultural or
pastoral societies. Because the woman's family loses her
companionship and services, a man must often pay
compensation (e.g., bride-price) to his in-laws.
Matrilocal residence, in which a man moves to his wife's

household, usually occurs where women play a major role in
subsistence activities, such as in horticultural societies where
political authority is diffuse and women's cooperation is
critical. In such societies, often the man does not move very far
and therefore can help his family of origin. In such cases, no
compensation must be paid to the husband's family for the loss
of his services.
The ambilocal residential pattern allows a married couple to
choose either matrilocal or patrilocal residence. This pattern
usually occurs when the labor of more than a nuclear family is
needed to survive, but resources are limited. This pattern allows
the marriage partners and their families to decide where they
are most needed or where the resources are greatest.
Marriage partners who form a household separate from other
family members are following a neolocal residential pattern.
This pattern occurs when the society values the independence of
nuclear families, where economic activities occur outside of the
family rather than within it, and where subsistence requires
mobility.
Avunculocal residence is an uncommon pattern found in
societies with conditions similar to those fostering patrilocality
but where descent (and rights and inheritance) is reckoned
through the mother (matrilineal descent). In this pattern,
marriage partners live with the groom's mother's brother.
Because the groom is part of his mother's lineage, he is a
member of his maternal uncle's lineage as well and will inherit
property and rights from this uncle. (The uncle's own children
belong to their mother's lineage, not his, and are unable to
inherit important property such as land and beach access from
him.) Leaders in the Trobriand Islands follow this pattern, for
example.
In many foraging societies, if conflict arose in one household,

members would move their small store of belongings to another
household until tempers cooled. Margaret Mead found a similar
pattern among adolescents in Samoa. She argued that the
"stormy adolescence" Americans considered "normal" was not
an inevitable part of adolescent development, but rather derived
from culturally constructed nuclear-family living arrangements.
3. Kinship and Descent
What Is Kinship?
An Anthropological Definition of Kinship
All societies have concepts of human relatedness, but societies
differ in how they organize these relationships. Again, an
anthropological definition of kinship must have "room" for
many variations. The following definition meets this criterion:
"Kinship is a network of relatives within which individuals
possess certain mutual rights and obligations" (Haviland
2005:259). Kinship networks extend beyond family or
household groups and address challenges of living that are
beyond the capabilities of these smaller groups.
Why Kinship Is Important
Kinship is particularly important in meeting challenges in
nonindustrial societies that do not have elaborate political
systems. In these societies, kinship identifies individuals who
belong to one's own group and individuals a person should
consider outsiders. For example, families might band together
with other kin to defend against attack by non-kin outsiders.
Kin may be obligated to provide resources to other kin when
necessary and, in turn, can claim resources when they are in
need. Additionally, individuals may need to share ownership of
a means of production if dividing it would destroy its
usefulness. For example, in some horticultural societies, kin
groups rather than individuals own land. This arrangement
allows the group to hold the land for generations because

although individuals die, the kin group continues.
What Are Descent Groups?
Kindred and Descent Groups
Anthropologists distinguish between kindred and descent
groups. Criteria for membership in a kindred are usually not
explicitly defined, and an individual can consider members of
both his mother's and his father's kindred as his own. This type
of kinship is called bilateral kinship and is common in Western
and foraging societies. Kindred exist only in relation to an
individual. Only the siblings of this individual share exactly the
same kindred, and any particular kindred group ceases to exist
when the individual at its center dies.
In contrast, members of descent groups must descend directly
from a specific real or mythical distant ancestor. Membership
depends on the parent-child bond rather than marriage bonds,
for example, and descent groups may be many generations deep.
Many members of the same descent group share exactly the
same kin, and the descent group continues despite any
individual member's death.
Types of Descent Groups
There are two major forms of descent groups: lineages and
clans. A lineage is a set of consanguineal relatives who can
actually trace their connection to a common ancestor through
parent-child bonds. Lineages also include members who
associate with one another for shared purposes such as planting
and harvesting crops on lineage-owned land. A clan typically
consists of several lineages. Members assume descent from a
common ancestor, though they cannot trace precisely these
genealogical links. Again, descent groups are commonly found
in horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural societies rather than
in foraging or industrial societies.
In contrast to kindred, criteria for membership in a descent

group must be definite so individuals will know to which group
they owe loyalty. The most common means of assigning
membership is through gender. Individuals are either a member
of their father's lineage or their mother's, and membership is
automatic from birth. Unilineal descent through the father is
called patrilineal descent, and unilineal descent through the
mother is called matrilineal descent. In Samoa, there are
ambilineal descent groups where lineage is traced through male
or female lines or both. The kinship groupings are known as
cognitive descent groups.
Generally patrilineal descent occurs in societies in which male
labor in subsistence activities is assigned primary importance,
and males dominate women. Matrilineal descent is found where
female labor is especially important, for example in
horticultural societies in which female cooperation is critical to
subsistence. There are no known societies in which women
consistently have authority over men, however. In both types of
descent, the other parent's kin are also important in the social
structure, and all may play roles in child rearing and other
family functions.
Think about it:
Among the Ganda people of Uganda, children born to a couple
belong to their father's lineage. If a mother were to leave the
father, the children would remain with the father. What do you
think is the effect of this system on the stability of
partnerships?
Double descent is very rare in nonforaging, nonindustrial
societies. In this system, matrilineal descent is used for some
purposes, and patrilineal descent is used for others. For
example, among the Yako of Nigeria, the patrilineage owns
permanent resources such as land. The matrilineage owns
consumable property such as cattle and is more important in
certain religious matters.

Ambilineal descent, found in some Pacific and Southeast Asian
societies, offers flexibility to individuals who may choose to
affiliate with either their mother's or their father's lineage
according to whichever group offers the greatest advantage.
These kinship groupings are known as cognitive descent groups.
In Samoa, for example, such groups hold land and chiefly titles.
Some groups require that an individual belong to only one group
at a time, whereas others allow multiple memberships.
Some Orthodox Jews in New York City provide an example of
ambilineal descent groups in a Western society. Some of these
descent groups hold assets in common. An individual can
choose to belong to either a mother's or a father's group, or he
or she can participate in both at the same time. This
arrangement represents a new adaptation to life in the United
States rather than a holdover from European ways.
Though clans and lineages are the most common kinds of
descent groups, there are larger groups of clans that form
descent groups known as phratries and moieties. A phratry is a
unilineal descent group of clans that believe they have a
common ancestor. If there are only two such groups in an entire
society, the group is known as a moiety. For example, in the
Amazon basin, Suyá men divide themselves into two groups, the
"Piranhas" and the "Parakeets." The Piranhas are associated
with the east or "upper" part of the basin, and the Parakeets are
associated with the west or "lower" part. Each moiety has
different responsibilities corresponding to these associations.
For example, the Piranhas always carry the top part of a log
used in races and the Parakeets, the bottom part. Because these
are larger groups than lineages or clans, often the feeling of
kinship among their members is not as strong as in the other
descent groups.
What Are the Functions of Kinship Groups?
How Kinship Helps Families Meet the Challenges of Living

Descent groups can provide a framework for social life. As with
other groups, membership in a descent group allows for mutual
instrumental and social support among members. In practical
terms, this means members may give or receive food, clothing,
shelter, or other resources; participate collectively in religious
or other ceremonies; own collective property; collectively
defend from attack or attack others; adjudicate disputes within
the group; and so forth.
Lineages, clans, phratries, and moieties are often exogamous.
(Members cannot marry each other but must marry outside the
group.) Therefore, these different groups may be bound by
marital ties, which further extend the network of support
individuals and smaller groups can call upon when needed.
Think about it:
Scottish clans survive worldwide even in industrial societies
because they still perform an important integrative function for
their members. Individuals identify with their clan, wear the
clan's tartan (plaid pattern and colors), and attend clan
gatherings.
What function do Scottish clans now serve beyond symbolic
identification? Why do you think these behaviors persist? What
is the difference between the ideas underlying these clans and
those underlying kindred groups?
Systems of Kinship Terminology
The names we use for different relatives indicate something
about their rights and obligations in relation to us. For example,
in many North American societies, people called grandmothers
have special bragging rights to their "grandchildren" (children's
offspring) and may be called upon to baby-sit (or raise) them
and give them presents and other support. In return, children
may be expected to respect their grandmothers for their age and

wisdom, call or visit them, and help them when needed.
In addition to implying rights and obligations, the term
grandmother includes information about a genealogical
relationship, sex, and age. In the North American system, a
grandmother is the mother of a parent, female, and two
generations removed from a child. The term grandmother
classifies this person into a group of similar relatives and
distinguishes her from other relatives such as grandfathers,
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, or cousins.
There is much cross-cultural variation in kinship terminologies.
This variation indicates different ways of thinking about
relationships in different societies. Anthropologists have
devoted much attention to documenting and understanding these
terminologies because of the valuable information they encode
regarding a society.
Kinship systems are explained by starting with a single
individual called Ego (designated by a square in kinship
diagrams). Ego's relatives are identified by their relationships to
Ego and by the names Ego calls them.
In many, if not most, societies, distinctions between types of
cousin relationships are important. For example, the Omaha,
Crow, and Iroquois systems all distinguish between parallel and
cross-cousins. Parallel cousins are children whose parents are
the same-sex siblings of Ego's parents. Cross-cousins are the
children of opposite-sex siblings of Ego's parents. In other
words, the children of Ego's mother's brother and father's sister
are cross-cousins to Ego, whereas the children of Ego's father's
brother and Ego's mother's sister are parallel cousins. The
distinction is meaningful because, for example, in some
societies cross-cousins are preferred marriage partners, and
parallel cousins are inappropriate marriage partners, and in
others, parallel cousins are the preferred marriage partners. In

contrast to systems that emphasize such distinctions, many
Americans classify all cousins in one category.
The source for kinship charts 1–6 is Kinship Terminology at
http://archnet.asu.edu/archives/educat/anth220/kinship/kinship.h
tm
Brief descriptions of some major kinship systems follow. Keep
in mind that these systems are used in societies other than the
ones that provide their names.
The Eskimo kinship system is based on bilateral kinship. Euro-
Americans follow this system in which the nuclear family
usually is independent economically and socially. All parents'
brothers and sisters are considered aunts and uncles of Ego. All
children of parents' siblings (aunts and uncles) are cousins.
The Omaha kinship system is usually found in societies in
which descent is reckoned patrilineally. The system
distinguishes between maternal and paternal kin. Male and
female parallel cousins are considered as Ego's brothers and
sisters, but cross-cousins have separate terms. Relatives on the
mother's side are merged generationally.
The Crow kinship system is similar to the Omaha system but is
the mirror opposite and is usually found in societies with
matrilineal descent. Relations on the father’s side are merged
into the same generational categories, whereas relations on the
mother's side note generational differences. For example, Ego's
father's sister and father's sister's daughter are called by the
same term. Mother's sister and mother's sister's daughter are
called by another term, and father and father's brother are called
by a third term. Parallel cousins are the same as brothers and

sisters.
The Iroquois kinship system is associated with double descent
and is found in societies with unilineal descent. This system
differentiates maternal and paternal kin, but same-sex siblings
of parents are called parents. Parallel cousins are equated with
Ego's siblings. Cross-cousins are all "cousins" and are often
preferred as spouses.
The Hawaiian kinship system distinguishes relatives at the
generational level. There is a generation of parents and a
generation of children. This form of kinship is most common in
societies where economic production and child rearing are
shared. In this system, Ego calls all mother's sisters mother and
all father's brothers father. Within Ego's own generation, all
males and females, including all those whom Euro-Americans
would call cousins, are considered brothers and sisters.
Think about it:
In the Hawaiian system, all of the relatives many Americans
call aunt are called mother, and all of the relatives many
Americans call uncle are called father. What do you think would
be the behavioral consequences of this system? Does this differ
from your experience and if so, how?
As new reproductive technologies emerge and different types of
families become more common, kinship terminologies change as
well. For example, a child may be conceived with a donor egg,
carried to term by a surrogate mother, and raised by another
woman. New kinship terms may be created to distinguish among
all these "mothers." Again, human creativity will fill these gaps,
providing yet another example of our cultural adaptability.

4. Grouping by Gender, Age, Common Interest, and Class
What Principles Do Societies Use to Organize Themselves?
In both simple and complex societies, people organize
themselves into groups according to other principles in addition
to kinship. One's identity and the groups one associates with
may depend on one's gender, age, ethnicity, rank in society
(including class or caste) or common ideas, behaviors, or
interests. Groups we belong to help us organize and address
problems or opportunities not addressed by marriage,
family/household, kindred, or descent groups.
How Do Societies Organize by Gender?
Organization of Life Tasks
All societies have a gender-based division of labor derived from
different biologies. Women, not men, become pregnant, carry
children, give birth, and breast-feed children. Different peoples,
however, interpret these facts differently. To some, they imply
women are forever responsible for child care and are unable to
work outside the home whether as hunters or executives. Others
view women as capable of many tasks and productive beyond
their roles as mothers.
Variation and Change
Societies organize differently around the principle of gender.
For example, in the Six Nations of the Iroquois, both
historically and today, women and men are divided into separate
groups. Historically, women who were related through "blood"
lived together and remained at home tending to domestic tasks,
whereas men spent most of their time away from home hunting,
fishing, making war, trading, and negotiating with other groups.
This pattern continues today as women tend to tasks at home
while men often work in construction jobs away from their
homes. Though people consider male activities more important,

women's contributions are also valued, particularly as
"sustainers of life" (Haviland 2005:284).
The Mundurucu people of the Amazon rainforest separate men
and women even more drastically than the Iroquois. From the
age of 13, men work, eat, and sleep separately from the women,
and relations between the two groups are inharmonious. Though
Westerners remarked on the Iroquois's relatively gentle
treatment of female captives, Mundurucu men use force to
control their women, as do men in many other societies today.
The degree of equality between men and women also varies
cross-culturally. Typically, though men and women sometimes
perform different tasks according to their gender in foraging
societies, each can perform the tasks normally assigned to the
other without being accused of improper behavior, and power
and resources are generally allocated equally to each. Males
dominate women, however, in most horticultural, pastoral,
agricultural, and industrial societies. In these societies, men
have more access to resources and exercise more authority than
women.
For example, though there are a few female senators and
representatives in the U.S. Congress, a woman has not yet been
president of the United States. Additionally, most women do not
earn as much as men. That there are any female American
members of Congress, however, represents an enormous change
in recent years in attitudes toward women's capabilities and
achievements.
How Do Societies Organize by Age?
Many consider age and sex grouping to be universal principles
determining a person's position in society. In the United States,
for example, people's first associations outside their kin are
with age mates met in school or in play. As children grow, they
acquire privileges, resources, responsibilities, and experiences

according to their age. Today, most Americans end employment
when they reach a certain age and enter a new age-related group
of retirees.
Americans may be labeled toddlers, children, teenagers, Gen-
Xers, 30-somethings, baby boomers, or senior citizens—each
with assumed rights, expectations, obligations, and
experiences—based on the number of years they have lived.
Each of these categories is an age grade. People move in and
out of these age grades together with others who are their same
age. Each of these groups is termed an age set. For example,
freshman and sophomore are common age grades in the United
States. The individuals who are designated freshmen or
sophomores at any one time constitute an age set. In the
American system, an age set will move into the next age grade
together in the next academic year as freshmen become
sophomores, and a new age set of individuals become freshmen.
In some societies, people move automatically through age
grades or go through initiation rituals. In others, people must
buy their way in. For example, in some Native-American
societies, boys could not become members of their appropriate
age grade unless they bought the costumes, dances, and songs
required for membership.
Think about it:
In traditional societies, once an individual reaches elder status,
he or she is respected for his or her life experience and wisdom.
This may be less true in industrialized societies in which the
"latest" research findings carry more weight than an elder's
advice. Ironically, in these societies elderly people may be
viewed as unproductive economic burdens, while medical
technology continues to extend their lives.
What do you think about spending society's scarce resources on
the elderly?

How Do Societies Organize by Common Interest?
Kinds of Common Interest Groupings
People form common interest groups because they share ideas
or activities. Such groups are common in complex industrialized
societies, but they can also operate in small traditional
societies. The list of organizations in the world formed for
various purposes is vast. Although they are often called
"voluntary" organizations, membership is not necessarily
voluntary. For example, the military is a "common interest"
group that can sometimes force certain people to join.
According to anthropologist Meredith Small, people who are
isolated from many of their kin confer fictive kinship on others
who share their ideas or interests so they can experience an
extended family (Small 2000).
Think about it:
You most likely belong to or are aware of many common
interest groups. What are they? How did they form? What
functions do they serve?
Postindustrial Factors Influencing Common Interest Groups
Some see a decline in participation in common interest groups
in postindustrial societies in which manufacturing is decreasing
in importance and research, information, and services are
increasing. People in these societies are apparently spending
more time enjoying home-entertainment systems, working
longer hours, commuting for greater distances, and moving
frequently, all of which decrease group participation.
The Internet and cellular telephone technology are other key
factors affecting group participation. People are forming groups
on the Internet and communicating with friends, kin, and other
associates via e-mail, instant messages, cell phones, video
conferencing, and so on. The urge to leave one's home to
interact with others may no longer be as compelling as it once

was.
How Do Societies Organize by Social Rank?
Distinctions between Stratified and Egalitarian Societies
Stratified societies institutionalize inequality. Individuals in
such societies are ranked in tiers, and the tier one occupies
determines one's share of resources, power, and prestige. If no
ranking occurs, the society is not stratified.
One example of an institutionalized tier is social class.
Individuals who belong to the same social class have nearly
equal prestige according to their society's evaluation system.
For example, in the United States, people often speak of three
classes (lower, middle, and upper), though others make more
distinctions within these three classes. Members of the lower
class share roughly the same amount of prestige, which is much
less than that shared by members of the upper class.
In some stratified societies, one is born into a tier and cannot
move into another. The well-known caste system of India is an
example of a closed system in which people cannot move among
tiers. Some also contend that caste systems occur in many other
countries as well, including the United States during and after
slavery before the civil rights revolution. For example, some
states passed laws during this time to prevent light-skinned
black people from moving into another tier by "passing" as
white. One result of closed class and caste systems is that a
cheap labor pool is readily available to perform services and
produce goods for members of higher classes or castes.
In the United States today, theoretically anyone can move from
a lower class to an upper class through personal effort and
achievement. It is becoming more and more difficult, however,
for most members of the lower classes to advance because
wealth becomes concentrated among fewer people, and
traditional pathways to upward mobility such as good-paying

manufacturing jobs and good-quality public education close.
Think about it:
In a televised interview, Warren Buffett, one of the world's
richest men, explained why he was giving his billions to charity
instead of his children. He said inherited dynastic wealth was
contrary to the American ideal of meritocracy, and his children
already had more advantages than 99.9 percent of the people in
the world.
What do you think of his actions and ideas? What would you do
if you had his billions?
Social class depends on role differentiation, formalized
evaluation of these roles and their worth (for example, unequal
compensation for different occupations), and restricted access
to the most highly valued roles (for example, strict educational
requirements to be a physician).
In contrast, in egalitarian societies, though there are differences
according to age and gender, roles are not as differentiated as in
stratified societies. People have roughly equal access to
prestige, resources, and power. For example, in a foraging
society, even if a person is an inept hunter, he or she will still
receive an equal share of the meat others bring back to camp.
He or she may be valued for other reasons and can still
participate equally in group decisions. Though others might
value superior hunters, people are not formally ranked and
differentiated according to these attributes.
In fact, as Richard Lee found, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert
in Africa make sure no one boasts of his hunting exploits. Even
following a big kill, the hunter must say, "It is nothing," and
others will reprimand him for "drag[ging] us all the way out
here …to make us cart home your pile of bones." In this way,
the !Kung "cool [a hunter's] heart and make him gentle" and

maintain their egalitarian society (Lee 1969:20–21).
Manifestations of Social Classes
An individual's social class becomes apparent to others in
several ways, though societies differ in the particular ways they
evaluate class. First is verbal evaluation—how do people talk
about others in their group? Evaluated characteristics can be
almost anything and may be commented upon favorably or
unfavorably. For example, in some societies, one's relatives
indicate one's social class and in another, attendance at a
particular school will indicate one's class.
Second, social class is also apparent through relationships an
individual has with others and the character of those
relationships. Are they equal, subordinate, or dominant? For
example, a janitor will interact with a corporate executive in
socially prescribed ways deriving from the differences in their
social classes.
Third, societies have symbolic indicators of social class. For
example, in the United States, occupation, education, wealth,
dress, possessions, and language all indicate social class. On a
deeper level, life chances are also symbolic indicators of social
class. Members of upper classes are usually healthier, and they
live longer than members of lower classes.
The Development of Social Stratification
Social stratification is rooted in the need for specialization and
in some people's desire for more prestige, resources, or power
than others have. For stratification to take root, however, others
must acquiesce to these desires. With the food-production
revolution, people began to acquire more personal property
because surpluses accumulated and were stored. Whereas
horticulturists could still live in relatively simple, egalitarian
societies, agriculture presented more complicated problems, and
specialized roles developed to resolve them.

For example, to farm land continuously and intensively,
laborers had to build irrigation systems, and supervisors had to
manage these projects. Religious figures arose to conduct rituals
that attempted to control nature and ensure good crops.
Hereditary ruling dynasties developed from the priesthood.
Certain lineages eventually dominated civic and religious
positions and were then ranked above other lineages. Thus an
upper class originated and was legitimized through ideologies
they themselves created and perpetuated. As anthropologist
Laura Nader wrote, "Systems of thought develop over time and
reflect the interests of certain classes or groups in the society
who manage to universalize their beliefs and values" (Nader
1997:271).
References
Chavez, Leo. 1998. Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants
in American Society. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College
Publishers.
Fernea, Elizabeth W. 1965. Guests of the Sheik: An
Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Challenge, Instructor's edition. 11th edition. Belmont, CA:
Thomson Wadsworth.
Herdt, Gilbert H., ed. 1984. Ritualized Homosexuality in
Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hua, Cia. 2001. A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na
of China. Asti Hustvedt, trans. New York: Zone Books.

Lee, Richard B. 1969. A Naturalist at Large: Eating Christmas
in the Kalahari. Natural History 78(10):14–22, 60–64.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1927. Sex and Repression in Savage
Society. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Nader, Laura. 1997. Controlling Processes: Tracing the
Dynamic Components of Power. Current Anthropology 38:271.
Nanda, Serena. 1992. Arranging a Marriage in India. In The
Naked Anthropologist. P. R. DeVita, ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Small, Meredith. 2000. Kinship Envy. Natural History
109(2):88.
Stacey, Judith. 1990. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic
Upheaval in Late Twentieth-Century America. New York: Basic
Books.
Weiner, Annette B. 1988. The Trobrianders of Papua New
Guinea. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
College.Module 4: Finding Order—Political, Supernatural, and
Artistic
Commentary
Topics
1. Politics and Power
2. Spirituality, Religion, and the Supernatural
3. The Arts

1. Politics and Power
All social relations contain an element of power. Power is the
ability to impose your will on other people and make them
behave in certain ways whether they want to or not. Authority is
the ability to get people to do things, based on their respect for
your knowledge or status. Sometimes a person has both power
and authority, such as police officers who have societies'
respect as well as the legal power to coerce. Sometimes a
person has power but no authority, such as dictators who can
make things happen because they will it. Then there are those
who have authority but no power. Leaders in some societies are
respected and their opinions hold weight, but they cannot force
people to do anything. Authority legitimizes power. In our
discussion, we include authority in the definition of power.
Societies as well as people have power. Societies impose order
and resolve conflict. Both internal order within society and
external relations with other societies are managed through
political organization. Political organization concerns power:
who has it, how it is gained, and how it is used in society.
Political organization may be informal and uncentralized, as in
bands and tribes, or more formal and centralized, as in
chiefdoms and states (Haviland et al. 2005:307).
Types of Political Organization
When North Americans think of politics, we think of such
things as election campaigns and government officials. But
when we take a broader, anthropological view, we see that
politics goes beyond this. Human organizations can be complex
with much variation from one group to the next.
Anthropologists delineate four basic types of political
structures: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. These types can
be viewed as a continuum because the distinctions between each

are not necessarily rigid.
Types of Political Organization
Band
Tribe
Chiefdom
State
Membership
Number of people
Dozens
Hundreds
Thousands
Tens of thousands
Settlement pattern
Mobile
Mobile or fixed
Fixed—in villages
Fixed—many villages and cities
Basis of relationship
Kin
Kin, descent groups
Kin, rank, residence
Class and residence
Government
Leadership
Egalitarian
Egalitarian or "Big Man"
Centralized, hereditary
Centralized
Bureaucracy
None
None
None, or little
Yes; many levels

Conflict resolution
Informal
Informal
Centralized
Laws, judges
Economy
Food production
No
Possibly
Yes
Yes; intensive
Labor specialization
No
No
Possibly
Yes
Exchanges
Reciprocal
Reciprocal
Redistributive (tribute)
Redistributive
Control of land
Band
Descent group
Chief
Various
Society
Stratified
No
No
Yes; ranked by kin
Yes; ranked by class or caste
Luxury goods for elite
No
No
Yes

Yes
Public architecture
No
No
Possible
Yes
Source: Adapted from Haviland et al. 2005:309.
Band Societies
The simplest form of political organization is the band. Bands
comprise relatively few people (20–50) who are related to each
other through kin ties (Nanda and Warms 2007:290). Bands
share a common territory, sometimes loosely defined, over
which they travel as they forage for food. The band is the oldest
form of political organization for human beings and is
characterized by egalitarian relationships. Decisions are made
through consensus by adult members of the band. Band society
is uncentralized—that is, power and authority are diffused
among group members. Reciprocity is the main form of
economic exchange among members.
Leadership is informal—that is, leaders are those with the
knowledge, skill, and ability to serve. Leadership emerges from
a given situation so it shifts as events change. Leaders have no
power to enforce their will: they lead as long as they have the
confidence of the people. Because bands are based on
cooperation, social control focuses on keeping people on good
terms and promoting goodwill among members. Informal
mechanisms of social control include gossip, ridicule, and
avoidance (Nanda and Warms 2007:291). Membership in a
given band is flexible, so if people are unhappy, they can easily
move to another group to which they have kin ties.
Tribal Societies
A second type of uncentralized political organization is the
tribe. In anthropology, the term tribe refers to groups who trace

their lineage back to an ancestor and who think of themselves as
"one people." Whereas bands are associated with hunting and
gathering, tribes make their living through food production, i.e.,
through horticulture or pastoralism. Like bands, tribes are
usually egalitarian, and leadership is informal, reflecting the
age, knowledge, and skills of the individual. Although most
tribes are independent, they may join with outside groups if
they are threatened.
Kinship is an important factor for integrating people in a tribe.
Tribes may be made up of clans comprising people who are
related to each other through an ancestor. Elders, either men or
women, may represent the clan in a tribal council. The clans
generally "own" local resources. Clan members usually do not
all reside in the same place so clan membership helps to
integrate the larger tribal group.
Another way that tribal groups may be integrated is through age
grades. Age grades are organized categories of people based on
age, as discussed in module 3. An age set is a group of people
of the same age and sex in tribal societies who are initiated at
the same time and move through life together. Age sets cross
kin boundaries and are an important factor in social bonding.
Tribes lacking age sets may have a segmentary lineage system.
In this system, kinship lineages are split into branches and then
divided further into smaller and smaller branches or lineages.
Should a dispute arise, lineages join together, depending on
their closeness to a common apical ancestor. Societies with age
grades are less likely to have feuding, because the age sets cut
across kin lines.
Leadership in tribes takes a number of forms. Native-American
societies had different leaders for different circumstances. For
instance, the Cheyenne had peace leaders and war leaders
(Nanda and Warms 2007:294).

Think about it:
Among the Ojibwa of central North America, different leaders
were chosen for hunting, war, ceremonies, and clan business.
This style of leadership was confusing to Europeans wishing to
deal with the Ojibwa. To sort things out, the government of
Canada insisted on dealing with one chief. The Ojibwa labeled
that one leader as okmakkan, which translated means "fake
chief" (Nanda and Warms 2007:294).
Why would leadership be misinterpreted? What happens when
there is no leader who can speak for a whole group?
Groups in New Guinea and Melanesia have another kind of
leadership known as big man. A big man is a leader who gains
power by building his prestige through increasing wealth. By
distributing his wealth through feasts and other ways, he gains a
reputation for generosity. This generosity also creates a group
of people beholden to him, and who then become his followers.
A big man's leadership cannot be passed to others. All big men
must earn their own position, and each position is fragile. If
followers become discontented, they can go to other big men
who are building their wealth and power.
Chiefdoms
A chiefdom comprises a number of local groups that are led by
a single individual, a chief. A chiefdom is more complex than a
tribe or a band. It formally integrates a number of communities
into a larger group. In such a society, there may be a number of
chiefs, ranked in relationship to each other. A person's status
depends on how close genealogically that person is to the chief.
Chieftainships are usually hereditary, although there may be
other selection criteria as well. Chiefs usually hold office for
life. Unlike leaders in bands or tribes, chiefs usually have
authority to unite members at all times.
Think about it:

In the Polynesian society of Samoa, chiefs are elected by the
broad extended family unit that comes together for that purpose.
Candidates for the family chiefly title must show their
genealogical connections to the ancestor who created or held the
original title. The candidates must also show that they have
served the group and the previous title holder through
contributions of labor and goods, including money. "The path to
leadership is through serving" is a Samoan proverb. Once
selected, the chief serves for life and is removed from office
only for egregious behavior. The chief represents the family at
gatherings and in council meetings and commands the labor and
goods of those people who serve (and own) the title.
How do elections and inherited rank determine leadership in
your society?
Chiefs usually control the distribution of land and people's
livelihoods. They may control the labor force and can expect to
receive a portion of their people's produce or earnings for feasts
and other important events. Such contributions are then
redistributed throughout the group. (See the discussion of
redistribution in module 2.)
Depending on the society, chiefs may amass wealth that can be
passed to their children. In other societies, wealth simply passes
through the hands of the chief, as the representative of the
group. A chief may thus be very "poor" personally but able to
gather and "show off" the wealth contributed by the members of
his group.
States
The state is the most complex form of political organization.
States are characterized by hierarchical and centralized
government and include large numbers of people within their
territories. The state also has a legal monopoly over the use of

force (Nanda and Warms 2007:301). Unlike chiefdoms, which
are built on kin ties, states are based on citizenship that unites
members across political, class, and ethnic groups. States can
thus be more powerful and heterogeneous than chiefdoms,
tribes, or bands.
States are remarkable in that they enable large numbers of
people to live together. Feeding large populations requires
intensive use of the land through agriculture. Controlling large
groups of people requires central governments with access to
police or militaries. Integrating large groups into a cohesive
whole requires bureaucracies and often an official religion.
How did states arise? Anthropologists put forth a number of
theories. The voluntaristic theory of state formation, detailed by
V. Gordon Childe (1936), maintains that intensive agriculture
enabled surpluses, which supported specialists, such as artisans
and priests. The specialized occupations needed a larger
organizing structure to keep order and promote economic
exchange.
Another theory emphasizes the need to control water and
irrigation. The hydraulic theory of state formation advanced by
Karl Wittfogel (1957) stresses the need for cooperation among
farmers to control water in arid or semiarid conditions. Large-
scale irrigation required large-scale political organization to
coordinate water distribution to all.
The coercive theory of state formation proposed by Robert
Carneiro (1970) suggests that as populations grew and people
turned to agriculture, competition for the limited land increased.
As the populations continued to grow, conflicts with neighbors
arose, and through wars and skirmishes groups overtook their
neighbors and their territories, thus growing in size until one
group controlled an entire area.
Maintaining Political and Social Order

All societies must be able to control their members. This control
may be internalized or externalized. Internalized controls are
generally culturally controlled ways of doing things that are so
ingrained into the way people behave that they come
automatically. Such controls include our social norms and
religious beliefs. External controls are sanctions that come from
outside ourselves. Positive sanctions encourage approved
behaviors. Rewards and recognition are examples of positive
sanctions. Negative sanctions include threats and punishments.
Think about it:
Because of internalized controls we know we should give up our
seat on the bus to an older person or help a youngster to cross
the street. We are taught these things, and they seem natural and
right to us. Our controls are within ourselves. When we are
rewarded with an A for our hard work and study in our class,
this is a positive sanction to support right behavior and is an
externalized control because it comes from outside ourselves.
The threat of an F also hangs over us as a negative sanction if
we don't do the work we are supposed to do.
What internal and external controls influence your life?
Informal Means of Social Control
Social control may also be informal or formal. Informal
mechanisms include socialization and public opinion. Teaching
children how to behave involves socialization, or enculturation,
and is an important part of social control. We have to be taught
the right way to do things. Once we know the right way to do
things, we pass this knowledge on to others, including our own
children. Thus social control begins with upbringing and
education. The way in which we are socialized is so much a part
of us that we may not even think about it, until we meet
someone who violates those rules and assumptions.
Think about it:

Nancy and her family from Wisconsin always celebrated the
Fourth of July with fireworks and a picnic. It was a happy day
that brought friends and family together. When Nancy's family
moved to Germany, she was surprised to learn that July 4 was
no different from July 3. It was then she realized that the Fourth
of July was an American holiday, an important day in her
society, but not a particularly important day for people in other
countries.
From your own experience, what expectations have you had,
based on the way you were raised, that were different from
someone else's?
Public opinion is also an important informal means of social
control. Because we are social beings, we are concerned about
what others think of us. Some of those informal mechanisms
that help keep people in line are gossip, ostracism, and ridicule.
Think about it:
How would gossip be a form of social control? Think of an
example.
Supernatural beliefs can be strong informal mechanisms of
social control. Beliefs in supernatural beings such as gods,
witches, and sorcerers may restrain people from doing certain
things for fear of retribution or punishment from the
supernatural. Ancestor worship is important in those societies
where relatives who have died are considered to still play an
active role in daily life. Sacrifices and proper behavior,
necessary to keep the ancestors happy, bring rewards and
benefits to the group.
Belief in witchcraft is also a means of social control. Neighbors
will think twice about doing something nasty to another if they
think witchcraft will be practiced in retaliation.

Think about it:
For the Azande of East Africa, illness and bad fortune are the
result of witchcraft. Inside witches is an inherited substance
called mungu that causes damage to others. This substance
leaves the witch's body at night and eats away at the internal
organs of the victim. People are suspected of being a witch
when misfortune comes from those around them. The suspect
may be unaware of being a witch or of wishing ill on others.
Although witches cannot rid themselves of their power, they can
stop some bewitching by making sure they hold no jealousy,
envy, or other negative emotions towards others (Evans-
Pritchard 1958).
How might belief in witchcraft support personal relationships in
the group?
Religious control can also be important. For example, a belief
that experiences after death are a direct result of actions on
Earth may guide people's behavior. Thus, fear of hell and hope
for heaven may be powerful motives for conformity.
Formal Means of Social Control
In all societies, informal means of social control are the first
recourse in enforcing social norms and handling disputes.
However, when deviance is too great or disputes cannot be
peaceably resolved, formal means are used. Formal means can
take various forms.
Think about it:
Among the Inuit of Canada, disputes are resolved through song
duels where disputants throw derisive songs at each other rather
than weapons. In a public gathering, the plaintiff and the
defendant challenge each other with abusive songs. The person
who gets the most applause is the winner. Interestingly, guilt or
innocence is not the determining factor but whoever has the

better verbal skills.
What examples can you think of nonviolent actions that control
behavior in your own society?
In our own society, our formal means of social control include
arrest by police, trial by jury or judge, imprisonment, fines, and
execution. The base of our formal social control is the rule of
law. Anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel (Ferraro 2006:314)
delineates three qualities of law:
1. Laws imply the possible use of legitimate coercion.
Sometimes the very threat of force is enough to motivate correct
behavior.
2. Legal systems give authority to special people to use force.
3. Law is based on precedents: new laws are based on old ones
so there is regularity and predictability. Ties with tradition help
protect against arbitrary and capricious laws.
Warfare
Just as societies control disputes within their boundaries, so
they must control relationships outside. Warfare, which is
defined as organized and institutionalized fighting between
groups, is one such mechanism. Why do wars occur? Some say
human beings are naturally aggressive. However, others point
out that our nearest primate relatives have seldom been
observed in "warlike" behavior, and in fact, bonobos have ways
of peaceably resolving conflicts. Others believe aggression is
culturally based. Although in states and chiefdoms warfare is
sometimes used to achieve political objectives, not all societies
use violence, and some groups are able to avoid warfare
altogether.
There seems to be little doubt that aggression in human beings

became more marked with the advances in food production
10,000 years ago and the formation of centralized states 5,000
years ago. According to archaeologists, prior to the beginning
of food production, warfare was almost unknown. Hunters and
gatherers lived in small bands with in-marrying between the
groups. Hostilities against relatives were unlikely. In addition,
foragers had no food surpluses to support armies and no
centralized governments to coordinate large numbers of people
for military campaigns. Foraging groups also did not own
territory, one of the major sources of conflict.
However, with food production people became more sedentary
and began to claim exclusive rights to land. As populations
grew, land became scarce and conflicts more likely to emerge.
Because of advances in technology, warfare in the past 100
years has taken on ominous features such as the capacity to kill
large populations and even to annihilate the world.
The causes of modern-day warfare are complex, involving
political, economic, and ideological factors. Many of today's
wars are not between states but are fought within countries
where governments are corrupt or where the controlling
authorities have lost popular support. Some wars are fought by
quasi states operating within states. Some wars intentionally
target civilian populations and have little regard for political
boundaries. Today's wars remind us of the need to find
alternative ways to control conflict or face grim possibilities for
humankind.
2. Spirituality, Religion, and the Supernatural
Characteristics of Religion
Religion is an organized system of ideas about the supernatural
or spiritual realm. The beliefs and ceremonial practices that
accompany religion guide humans in finding meaning in the

world and in dealing with important problems. Religion is a
group or collective matter. In contrast, spirituality, or concern
with the sacred, is often individually focused and does not
require traditional organization.
Anthropologist, E. B. Tylor (1871) proposed three basic levels
of religion:
1. Animism, a belief system in which all objects (living and
nonliving) are thought to be filled with spirit. Rocks, trees,
buildings…everything is considered to have spirit.
2. Polytheism, which Tylor maintains grew out of animism, is
the belief in several gods.
3. Monotheism, which Tylor saw as the most advanced form of
religion, is the belief in one God.
Tylor and people of his time believed in unilineal progress—
that is, that human society is evolving positively towards logic
and rationality. This view of society is now discredited. Instead
of determining which religious forms are superior to others,
anthropologists are interested in understanding religious ideas
and behaviors, the ways in which religion is important to
people, and the role religion plays in society. Religions may
also combine different traditions in their practices.
For example:
Candomble is an Afro-Brazilian religion practiced in the north
of Brazil and is an example of religious syncretism, the fusion
of more than one tradition. In the 1500s, when the Portuguese
brought slaves to Brazil, they found a combination of
Catholicism and native Indian beliefs already there. The slaves'
beliefs in spirits and magic intertwined with similar Native-
American beliefs. Outwardly the slaves followed the Catholic
faith, but they secretly continued other religious practices.

In 1888, when the slaves were liberated, at least 15 generations
of slaves had grown up with a belief in the orishas, African
spirits masked as Catholic saints. Today, Candomble, also
called Macumba in some regions, still incorporates elements of
Catholicism, spiritualism, and African traditions (Stirling
1997).
Although religion may take different forms, anthropologists
identify six characteristics that all religions share (Nanda and
Warms 2007:375). Religions
1. have stories considered important by believers
2. use symbols and symbolism
3. venerate places, people, and qualities that cannot be verified
empirically
4. perform rituals to reach the supernatural
5. regard certain people as specialists
6. change
Sacred Stories and Myths
Every society has sacred narratives that, to that society, are
religious truths. Myths are narratives that explain the cosmos
and the way things came to be. They carry important messages
about life and validate values and customs. Anthropologists
note that sacred stories closely unite rituals and moral behavior
with social organization.
For example:
According to the Hopi of New Mexico, back when the world
was young, beings lived underground. Before they came to live

on Earth as people, they were given the choice of what to farm.
The beings chose blue corn, because even though it is difficult
to grow, it is a hardy strain of corn. The god Maasaw taught the
Hopi how to grow the corn and to treat the Earth respectfully.
Until the twentieth century, the members of different Hopi clans
worked cooperatively to raise the important blue corn. For the
Hopi, planting the corn recreated the spirit of harmony and
humility that the ancestors had when they chose blue corn.
Their creation story was a charter for their society.
Symbolism
Symbols are important to religious stories and to religions.
Symbols may take the form of physical objects such as a cross,
a Star of David, the Star of Islam, or the crescent moon. Verbal
symbols, for example the names of sacred people, songs, or
verses, may also be powerful.
Supernatural People and Power
Religions have special people, places, and qualities that exist
separately from the material world we ordinarily inhabit. There
is no way to measure these things. Most religions have spirits,
which take the form of people or animals or are associated with
nature. Spirits may have emotions like humans do and act in the
world among people. One type of spirit is the trickster.
Tricksters are generally interested only in themselves. They
may combine qualities of greed with a sense of humor.
Think about it:
The coyote is a common trickster among many Native North
American cultures. Coyote tries to trick other animals to get
what he wants. He is clever and daring and breaks rules.
Sometimes coyote gets caught, but he is incorrigible. One
legend tells of coyote stealing fire and giving it to humans.
Coyote makes mischief but is ultimately important to people.
What function do supernatural tricksters fulfill for those in the

real world?
In addition to beings or spirits, religions have states of mind.
Enlightenment is the goal for some traditions, including
Buddhism. Some religions believe there is a spirit that
permeates the universe. The term animatism refers to this
concept of spirit, which is also known today by the Polynesian
term, mana. Mana is a special spiritual power that is
concentrated in persons or things. Because it can be powerful,
mana is also associated with tapu, i.e., taboos or prohibitions.
For example:
Among the Maori of Polynesian New Zealand, certain trees
traditionally were set aside for making outrigger canoes. For the
trees to get to the needed size, a powerful chief with great mana
would place a taboo on the forest to prevent anyone from felling
the trees. Only after the taboo was lifted could the trees be
harvested and made into magnificent canoes. Thus mana and
tapu were used to conserve the forest and natural resources.
Communication, Rituals, and Rites of Passage
Rituals are ceremonial acts used for special occasions. Through
rituals, people enact their religion. Religious rituals use
religious symbols and draw upon sacred stories and acts and
often sacred music. Rituals are used to connect with the
supernatural or spirit world.
Prayer is a way of conversing with spirits or gods. Prayer may
be spoken or sung; it may be silent or spoken aloud. Prayer may
involve hoisting flags or spinning wheels with words inside
them (Nanda and Warms 2007:388). Sacrifice occurs when
people give offerings to the supernatural to help strengthen their
prayers.
Magic is an attempt to control supernatural forces. When people
do magic, they believe that their words and actions will

influence spirits and compel them to behave in certain ways.
Anthropologists identify two types of magic. Imitative magic,
sometimes called sympathetic magic, is based on the principle
that the desired results will imitate what you do. For example,
pricking pins into a voodoo doll is a form of imitative magic.
The idea is that by damaging the doll, the person the doll
represents will be damaged as well. Contagious magic is the
notion that objects that have been touched by a person maintain
a connection to that person. In voodoo, having a piece of cloth
or hair from the person the doll represents will make magic
more powerful.
Think about it:
In the United States, a ball signed by a famous baseball player
or a picture signed by a celebrity may become collector's items,
imbued with special importance.
What special things do you have in your life that once were
touched by, or belonged to, someone important to you?
Divination is a ritual practice used to find out information from
the supernatural. Divination can be used to predict the future,
diagnose disease, or determine who is guilty of a crime. It may
involve reading cracks in animal bones or examining chicken
entrails. It can be done by reading tea leaves or tarot cards.
Divination gives people confidence that they have the
information they need to make decisions.
Rites of passage are ceremonies that mark a person's transition
from one social status to another. Birth, puberty, marriage, and
death are among the landmarks in a person's life that may be
marked by such rites. Arnold van Gennep (1960) posited that
rites of passage always follow three stages:
1. separation, during which the person is detached from a
former status

2. liminality, during which a person, in a transitional phase, is
separated from the old ways but not yet attached to the new
3. reincorporation, during which the individual is reincorporated
into the group, and the change in status is complete
In the third stage, the person takes on the responsibilities and
privileges of the new social status.
Think about it:
What are the stages in your life that make a difference? How are
these stages marked? Identify the three phases that make up the
point of passage as you move from one part of your life to the
next.
Rites of intensification are rituals that bind people together.
These rites focus on a group, rather than the individual, and are
used when a group is threatened, whether by nature or by
enemies. Rites of intensification tie the group to the past and to
collective action, thus promoting a sense of unity and of
optimism.
Religious Specialists
All societies have individuals who are regarded as having a
special relationship with the supernatural world. These people
guide the religious practices of others. Some may have distinct
personality traits that support this link with the supernatural;
others have special training. Anthropologists recognize two
types of religious specialists or practitioners: shamans and
priests.
Shamans are those with special powers that enable them to
contact supernatural beings. By going into altered states of
consciousness, shamans search for a vision that will help heal
the sick, control the weather, or show the path ahead. In many

societies, shamans are average members of the group who make
their living as others do. Their exceptional powers are brought
into play during special ceremonies or at points of crisis or
illness.
Priests are found in societies that have the resources to support
a full-time religious specialist. Priests are formally elected or
initiated into their position. They are responsible for performing
specific rituals on behalf of the group or teaching the group.
Priests generally undergo special training to become priests.
The term priest includes all full-time religious leaders,
including ministers/pastors, rabbis, imams, monks, nuns, and so
forth.
Belief in witches and sorcery is not universal, but such beliefs
are found in many cultures of the world. Witches use psychic
powers alone to affect others, usually in a harmful way. They
may not even know they are witches and may have no control
over their power. Sorcerers consciously manipulate objects or
words to cause harm to others.
Religion and Change
For the most part, religion is a force that preserves order,
particularly in stratified societies where it may be called upon
to maintain class structures. However, religion can also be a
powerful force for change, especially where groups are
downtrodden or in upheaval.
A nativistic movement attempts to restore what is seen by
believers as the better life of the past. The message of nativistic
movements is that people have fallen from the ways of their
ancestors, and the goodness of the past ages may be restored if
certain practices are followed.
In contrast, vitalistic movements look to the future as the
golden age. The message is that the past is dark but through the

teachings of a prophet, goodness will be achieved. Sometimes
these movements for radical change are termed revitalization
movements. They help to quell fears and anxieties about
disruptions in the present.
Think about it:
The Seneca were once a powerful tribe that was a member of the
League of the Iroquois. But with the creation of the new state of
New York, disease and war decimated their numbers, and their
land was lost to land speculators and settlers. Seneca men
turned to alcohol; conflict and divisiveness tore the small group
apart. In 1799, a man named Handsome Lake received a
message from angels. The creator was saddened by the way the
Seneca were behaving. To avoid the coming apocalypse, he was
told the people should repent of their sins and return to
traditional rituals. Handsome Lake taught peace with the white
people. He brought the Seneca together with strict rules for
marriage and behavior. He brought order and relative prosperity
through new crops and a new division of labor (Haviland et al.
2005:373).
How would revitalizing old ways help people move into a new
age?
Functions of Religion
Religion serves several functions for society. A psychological
function is to provide a model that gives order to the universe
and to human behavior. It explains the unknown, helps reduce
anxieties, and provides a means for dealing with crises.
Religion plays a social function by prompting reflection on
right and wrong behavior and setting guidelines for acceptable
ways to behave.
Religion also serves a social function through education.
Religion, for both literate and nonliterate groups, teaches about
events in the past that are important to the group and may pass

along practical skills and information needed for survival.
Another social function of religion is maintenance of social
solidarity through support of group unity. Common beliefs,
rituals, and songs reinforce group identity. Religion may also be
used to justify war.
3. The Arts
What Is Art?
Art is the creative use of imagination to interpret and enjoy life.
Artistic expression is universal in the human experience. In
every society, once the need for physical survival has been met,
people turn to art, whether to decorate a container, embroider
clothing, or compose a song. Art symbolically expresses almost
every part of culture, including religious, kinship, and ethnic
identities (Haviland et al. 2005:367). In fact, almost everything
humans do or make can involve imagination and creativity.
Anthropologists use the term art to include the visual arts
(sometimes termed graphic or plastic arts) of painting,
sculpture, architecture, carving, and weaving. Art also includes
crafts, which apply aesthetics to utilitarian items. The verbal
arts of poetry, myth, and folklore as well as the musical arts of
singing and playing instruments are also included, as are the
movement arts of dance, sports, and games and the combination
of these art forms in performance (Nanda and Warms 2007:409).
Visual Arts
Every known society that has existed in history has created
some form of visual art, whether it is something etched in bone,
shell jewelry, clay pots, tattooing, or drawings on cave walls.
Visual arts may be representational, imitating closely something
in nature, or they may be abstract, representing natural forms
only by basic patterns. Anthropologists recognize a continuum
between representational and abstract art. In the visual art of

foragers and other small-scale traditional societies, symbolism
is shared by the community. Designs the Western eye may
regard as purely decorative may have symbolic meaning. When
decoded, such designs may show, for example, genealogical
relations.
Verbal Arts
Verbal arts take many forms including narratives, poetry,
dramas, riddles, proverbs, and even insults and compliments.
For example:
"Playing the dozens" is an African-American custom in which
two people compete in a comedic way, taking turns insulting
each other. They insult one another, the other's mother, or other
family members, until one opponent has no comeback. One of
the rules is that the insults must not be true. Because it is light-
hearted it can help to diffuse very real tensions.
The dozens requires a competitor to have verbal ability, wit,
mental agility, and self-control. The practice goes back to
slavery days when violence among slaves was severely
punished. Verbal sparring became a substitute for physical
fighting.
"Yo' mama," is a common beginning to a rejoinder, for example,
"Yo' mama's so fat, when she hauls ass she gotta take two
trips."
Narratives are usually divided into three categories—myth,
legend, and tale (Haviland et al. 2005:378)—which are
described below.
1. Myth—a sacred story that explains the fundamentals of
existence. Through myths, beliefs are justified and standards set
for correct behavior. Myths express the worldview of the people
involved as we have just described.

2. Legend—a narrative about a figure or event that is presented
as true but may not be historically accurate. Although they may
be plausible, legends cannot be attributed to a known author and
thus exist in multiple versions. A long legend, often in verse or
song, is an epic. Legends may have mythological details.
Anthropologists are interested in legends because they provide
clues regarding ideal expected behavior within a society.
For example:
Through metaphors, legends and myths speak to underlying
themes that guide people's lives. In his book, Hero with a
Thousand Faces (1968), Joseph Campbell maintains that certain
myths have similar themes but different contexts and characters,
depending on the culture. In our own society, the films in the
Star Wars series have the same motifs as many ancient
legends—that is, hero stories. Another common motif is the
importance of relying on one's own integrity and intuition to
save society from a peril it faces.
3. Tale—creative narrative told as entertainment. Tales are
generally pure fiction, although they may be told to relate a
moral or lesson or to inspire resistance to the dominant order.
Some tales are widespread geographically, with similar motifs
showing up in widely divergent cultures. Tales may be told in
musical form, as through folk songs. They may also be told
through the many forms of poetry. Contemporary forms include
rap and hip-hop. Like many tales, these poems talk of love, lust,
conflict, and resistance to the dominant social order.
For example:
Public presentation of poetry can take different forms, even
competitive forms. The poetry slam is a contemporary
competitive type of poetry performance. In poetry slams, the
poets must select not only the right words but the right actions
to convey their message. Members of the audience judge the

poets on the content of their poetry and their performance.
Musical Arts
The study of music in its cultural setting is known as
ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicologists work closely with
anthropologists to study the role and meaning of music in
different cultures. Music takes different forms in different
cultures, so what some people consider beautiful others may
find strange and cacophonous. The anthropologist tries to
decipher what is communicated in music and the ways listeners
experience it.
Performance Arts
Performance arts combine a number of art forms into a
presentation. Music, dance, and the visual and verbal arts may
all be brought together. Opera is an example of performance art
in Western culture. The gamelan of Indonesia, including the
music, dance, costuming, and retelling of the legends of the
Ramayana and other epic stories, is another example of rich
performance art.
Functions of Art
One reason anthropologists study art is that it reflects a
society's values and concerns. From these outward expressions,
whether it be stories, songs, pictures, or even films and
television, anthropologists can learn how people understand
themselves and perceive others.
Art Reflects the Social Structure
Particularly in a hierarchical society, art can be used to
reinforce the social order. Architecture, poetry, song, story, and
other art forms can legitimate the source of a ruler's or
government's power, and support the structure of society.
Think about it:
The totem poles of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest

are carved with symbols that reflect the hierarchy of their
society. These poles stand outside the homes of chiefs. What
artistic symbols in your life reflect and support the way your
society is structured?
Art Expresses Cultural Themes and Affirms Social Identity
Because art emerges from a shared culture, it presents themes
and values that group members recognize and respond to. The
arts make cultural themes visible. By reiterating the values of
the group, art can enhance the sense of belonging.
Think about it:
Music can powerfully draw people together, whether by age
groups, ethnicity, or religion. Think about the music you enjoy.
What does it say about who you are? How does this music differ
from the music your parents enjoyed? What music do you have
in common? What music binds you to others?
Although the arts are important for expressing the social
structure and people's identity, they can also give voice to the
views and needs of oppressed and marginalized peoples.
Folktales and legends may ridicule or challenge the existing
order and through allegory show possible solutions.
Think about it:
Br'er Rabbit was a trickster, a clever hero in African-American
stories from the South before and after the Civil War. Through
his cleverness, he could outthink and confuse the more powerful
folks around him. He would appear to be small and weak, but
his clever wit always saved the day. Br'er Rabbit stories showed
how to overcome an unjust system. As the American social
system has changed, with more open protest now possible, Br'er
Rabbit folk tales have faded.
What African-American stories have supplanted the trickster,
Br'er Rabbit? What message is conveyed?

Performance art presentations also reflect the values and
concerns of society. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973)
coined the term deep play to refer to the messages that come
from performances such as sports or games where participants
join together. His classic work focused on the Balinese
cockfight, which reflected values of good and evil, beast versus
man. Betting and winning expressed social hierarchy.
Think about it:
In Spain, bullfighting is not seen as violent or cruel. Because
the bullfighter cannot show signs of anger or aggression,
bullfighting is considered a beautiful ritual. The killing of the
bull is done with grace, courage, and skill. When facing the
bull, the matador does not initiate violence. The bull is the one
who is angry and wild. The matador is calm and controlled. He
is the master of himself and of the situation. The bullfight is a
performance whereby man transcends the aggression of animal
nature to show the perfection of elegance, poise, and honor
(Nanda and Warms 2007:420).
What are the deep-play messages of performance events in your
culture?
Art adds beauty and pleasure to everyday living. However, it
serves additional functions that, when studied, help us
understand cultures. Art reveals a people's worldview and a
culture's standards for behavior. It reflects a culture's customs
and values. All arts can be created for religious purposes, to
honor a sacred being or an ancestral spirit. Any art form can
support the cohesiveness of the society from which it comes and
can also reveal political themes and influence social change.
The arts support cultural identity by linking people to each
other and with their past. Art helps us interpret real events.

References
Campbell, Joseph. 1968. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Carneiro, Robert. 1970. A Theory of the Origin of the State.
Science 169:733–738.
Childe, V. Gordon. 1936. Man Makes Himself. London: Watts.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1958 [1937]. Witchcraft, Oracles, and
Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ferraro, Gary. 2006. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied
Perspective. 6th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese
Cockfight. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Clifford Geertz ,
ed. Pp. 412–453. New York: Basic Books.
Anthropology. 9th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Stirling, Bruce. 1997. Macumba. Electronic document,
http://www.stirlinglaw.com/ea/macumba.htm, accessed August
8, 2006.
Tylor, Edward B. 1958 [1871]. Origins of Culture. Reprinted.
New York: Harper & Row.
Van Gennep, Arnold. 1960. The Rites of Passage. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Wittfogal, Karl. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative
Study of Total Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
College.Module 5: Culture Change and Globalization
Commentary
Topics
1. Cultural Change
2. Globalization
1. Cultural Change
Why Culture Changes
It is through culture that we humans are able to adapt to
changes in our environment. Our cultural institutions of
religion, kinship, and marriage and political and economic
organization come together in an integrated way that forms
stability for us.
Archaeologists have shown that some cultures have remained
stable, in much the same form, for a thousand years. Change
may come through the physical environment such as climate
changes or through changes in economics, politics, or religion.
In any case, it is our culture that enables us to adapt.
Cultures in fact, are constantly adapting and changing but not
necessarily at the same rate. Change may be gradual without
affecting a culture's foundation. Other times, change may be
sudden and so dramatic the society is destabilized and even

destroyed. Over the past centuries, the most important source of
cultural change has been the development of a world economic
system that has brought about invasions, revolutions, and
diseases.
How Cultures Change
The source of change, whether small or large, may come from
outside or inside a culture. Anthropologists identify three main
types of change: innovation, diffusion, and acculturation.
Innovation is something new that is developed within a culture.
With diffusion, change occurs when something is received from
another group. Acculturation happens when members of society
are exposed firsthand to another culture and adopt
characteristics of that culture. Change may result in cultural
loss whereby an existing practice is abandoned in the process.
However, change may also incorporate new ways in with the old
to create modified or hybrid customs.
Innovation occurs when group members invent or discover
something that others accept. A new object or a new way of
thinking or behaving may be invented. When innovations are
truly new, they are termed primary innovations. Primary
innovations may be something discovered or created. They may
be ideas or things. Secondary innovations are deliberate
applications or modifications of something previously known.
Think about it:
The making of pottery may have been a secondary innovation,
based upon the use of clay in ovens and in housing, which were
primary innovations. Before pottery, people used baskets, stone
bowls, and leather bags for containers, as in Southwest Asia,
nearly nine thousand years ago. The people of this region were
familiar with clay, having used it in their housing and ovens for
cooking. Building on this basic knowledge of clay, at some time
people began to mold clay into containers, and then to
specifically fire it in ovens. The earliest known pottery

resembled earlier containers of leather and stone. Only later did
potters start to develop shapes and decorations that were
particularly suited to the clay vessels themselves (Haviland et
al. 2005:397).
What innovations in your life are built upon, and resemble,
previous innovations?
Some innovations happen by chance. Many innovations call
upon creativity and ingenuity. All innovations, even primary
ones, arise in an existing cultural context of ideas, customs, and
practices.
The movement of ideas, customs, and practices from one culture
to the next is known as diffusion or cultural borrowing.
Diffusion can come about by trade, travel, and warfare. Cultures
are creative in their borrowing, picking and choosing what fits
and what they desire. Anthropologist Ralph Linton (1937)
suggested that most of any culture's content comes through
diffusion, including many aspects that Americans take for
granted in their daily life. Some examples of diffusion are
pajamas (of East Indian origins), beds (built following a pattern
from either Persia or Asia Minor), soap (invented by the ancient
Gauls), boots (from rubber discovered by the ancient Mexicans),
and umbrellas (invented in India) (Nanda and Warms 2007:108).
Even the most remote society has some network connections to
other societies, so throughout our human history there has been
constant interchange.
Think about it:
The Columbian Exchange refers to the diffusion of plants and
animals from the New World (North and South America) to
Europe and thence to Africa. Many of the foods we take for
granted in our life, come from crops domesticated (invented) by
the peoples of the New World before the arrival of Europeans in

1492. The Irish potato, on which the people of Ireland became
totally dependent, came originally from South America.
Tomatoes, so much a part of Italian cuisine, also came from the
New World.
Foods from avocados to zucchinis originated in the New World.
Other such foods included beans, cashews, chili peppers,
chocolate, corn, cassava (manioc), papaya, pecans, peanuts,
pineapples, pumpkins, sunflowers, sweet potatoes, and vanilla.
Tobacco also originated in the New World and was then spread
throughout the globe.
In the opposite direction came the horse, introduced by early
Spanish settlers. The horse spread throughout the North
American plains and was adopted by the Native Americans.
Cattle were also first introduced by the Spanish. Important
crops such as oranges, bananas, sugar cane, and wheat were
introduced by Europeans into the Americas.
Describe what your personal cuisine would be like without the
diffusion of foodstuffs around the world.
Borrowed items may undergo modification to fit with cultural
ideas. For example, American football had its origins in British
rugby. However, its rules were modified, and the game took on
a different meaning in its new context, becoming a central icon
of American culture.
The blending of borrowed items with traditional features to
form a new system, is known as syncretism. We encountered
religious syncretism in module 4 in the discussion of
Candomble, which incorporates elements of Catholicism and
African religions into the new form.
Cultures may also resist diffusion. Even though ideas coming
from outside may be beneficial, people may choose to stay with

old, familiar ways of doing things. For example, the United
States is one of the last nations to retain the old English system
of weights and measures. Even though using a base of 10 (rather
than 12) is easier to deal with mathematically, Americans prefer
to think in terms of miles, rather than kilometers, and pounds
and gallons, rather than kilograms and liters.
Acculturation is the process of cultural change that happens
with firsthand contact between a culture and a more powerful
group. Whereas diffusion usually involved changes in individual
items or groups of items, acculturation involves a widespread
reorganization of an entire culture over a short period of time.
The dominant culture may change because of the contact, but
the subordinate culture experiences much more dramatic
change, to the point it could even become extinct. Acculturation
is usually forced, at least to some degree, although
anthropologists debate the extent to which people are willing
participants in the process of change.
Repressive change occurs when people are forced to adapt,
rather than making changes voluntarily. Repressive change
occurs along a continuum from acculturation, where people are
expected to conform to the ways of the dominant group, all the
way to genocide, where whole groups of people are killed. In
the twentieth century, we have a number of horrific examples of
genocide. In Nazi Germany, in the 1940s, Jews, gypsies, and
other nonconformists were systematically killed. In the 1970s,
the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia slaughtered millions of citizens;
similarly government forces in Guatemala and factional parties
in Rwanda murdered masses of people.
Think about it:
Social scientists have discovered that when genocide occurs,
religion, economics, and politics work together. For example, in
nineteenth-century Tasmania, British wool growers wanted the
land for their sheep. The government supported these economic

interests through military action and offered bounties for the
capture of indigenous Tasmanians living on the land. Settlers
hunted and killed native people as sport. Atrocities were
committed against the Tasmanians who were seen, by the
Europeans, as little more than animals. Missionaries' attempts to
save souls further undermined the native culture by forcing
Tasmanians to adopt Western ways. The result was total
annihilation of the Tasmanian people and their culture. The last
Tasmanian died in 1876.
Consider genocide during your lifetime. What role did religion,
economics, and politics play in allowing it to happen?
Less extreme than repressive change is directed change, where
the dominant group intentionally disrupts traditional structures.
Colonial governments, wishing to control people and resources,
and sometimes with good intentions, may force indigenous
people into new practices.
Think about it:
The Ju/'hoansi, also known as the !Kung san, are a foraging
group in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa. Their life of
hunting and gathering has been well documented by
anthropologists. Richard B. Lee, who showed that even living in
the harsh, marginal lands of the desert, the !Kung made a
comfortable living, working only 20 hours/week. Efforts by the
Botswana government to encourage cattle grazing, land
privatization, and the establishment of schools, medical clinics,
and food distribution have all contributed to a radical change in
the lives of Ju/'hoansi. Health, nutrition, and family problems
have resulted.
In Namibia, forced settlement of Ju/'hoansi has led to deadly
alcoholism and increased homicides (Lee 2003).
Consider the changes in lifestyle that occur when cultures

change from nomadic hunting and gathering to a sedentary or
settled way of life based on herding and raising crops.
Reactions to change also cover a wide continuum and take many
forms. Some people respond by avoiding the stronger power by
moving away, possibly to inhospitable areas. Others have
assimilated the new ways into the old ways through syncretism.
Revitalization movements, discussed in module 4, are another
reaction to change coming from outside the culture.
Rebellion, or armed resistance to authority, may break out when
discontent reaches a high level. Rebellions generally have fairly
limited objectives, for example, expressing anger against unfair
taxes. Revolutions, on the other hand, make radical changes to
culture and society.
Modernization
Why have cultures changed to the point that there are now very
rich societies and very poor ones? Modernization is the concept
that wealth comes from being modernized and that if poor
people from underdeveloped nations can change to be like
people in Western societies, they will be wealthy and strong.
Modernity encompasses the technological and sociocultural
systems of industrialized nations. In this view, foreign aid from
wealthy countries will enable underdeveloped countries to
become more modern, less impoverished, and thus better off.
Modernization theory assumes that some groups are crippled by
their cultures, values, material possessions, and behaviors.
Outdated traditions are blamed for the disparity in wealth
between Western countries and others.
World systems theory (e.g., Wallerstein 1997) maintains that
disparities between rich and poor nations are not based on
cultural differences but on the relationship of peoples to the
world economic system. According to this theory, cultures do

not differ fundamentally, but rather they differ in wealth
depending on how they operate in the world system. Wealthy
nations are wealthy because they exploit poorer nations for their
material resources and cheap labor. The colonial nations of
Europe, beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
carved up the continents of Africa, South America, Asia, and
the islands of the Pacific and used the wealth of these regions to
enrich their own society.
Think about it:
Modernization theory assumes some cultures are "modern" and
some are not, and this accounts for disparities in wealth. World
systems theory holds that universal processes operate across all
cultures to create "haves" and "have nots."
Based on what you have learned about culture and
anthropology, what do you think anthropologists would say
about these two ways of understanding global economic
circumstances? To what extent is ethnocentrism a factor in these
two models?
Although colonialism per se has more or less ended, the
maintenance of the gap between rich and poor countries is
upheld by those multinational corporations that take advantage
of the less-developed countries for their natural resources and
inexpensive labor.
2. Globalization
Anthropologists and the Future
Culture is the main means by which people respond to and
change their environments. For most of human history,
however, people had to adapt only to their local environments.
Now what happens across the globe affects how we live and,
increasingly, even whether we live. In turn, what one does

locally affects others globally. Our "local" environment is now
global, and the consequences of many of our individual beliefs
and behaviors have global consequences.
Think about it:
Can you remember what life was like without computers, the
Internet, and cell phones? Since the Industrial Revolution, most
Westerners are accustomed to relatively rapid change, yet even
Westerners can sometimes feel their lives are "spinning out of
control" when coping with the enormous changes of the last 50
or 60 years and their speed.
What do you think are the effects of rapid change on others who
until recently led very traditional lives and used relatively
simple technologies?
As we have learned in previous modules, cultural responses and
changes may be adaptive or maladaptive. They may increase
people's "fitness" for their environments and promote well-
being, or they can doom them to failure.
It is the job of cultural anthropologists to document and make
sense of these changes and consequences. They spend hours
listening to people, looking at what they are doing, and learning
about their lives. Anthropology is the only discipline that draws
on historical, biological, linguistic, and cultural perspectives in
addressing human problems. It is the only discipline that deals
with the totality of what it is to be human. Most importantly,
anthropology asks, What does this phenomenon mean to
someone else? How do others experience and understand it?
Though anthropologists cannot precisely predict the directions
of cultural change, because of these disciplinary strengths, they
are able to see patterns and trends and predict likely
consequences if these patterns and trends continue. They can
detect interconnections that may not be apparent to scholars in

disciplines that are less holistic, less historical, and less
comparative. Anthropologists are thus particularly well-
positioned to help promote adaptive responses and warn others
of harmful trends.
Major Cultural Trends
Globalization
Three major trends operate in the world today. The first is
globalization, the process in which the world is becoming more
connected, integrated, and homogenized. Globalization began
500 years ago with Columbus's voyage. This voyage initiated a
global trade network connecting every person in the world
either directly or indirectly and bringing them under European
influence if not actual colonization.
The globalization process took a giant leap forward after World
War II as people were exposed to new places and ideas during
the war, transportation improved so people traveled in greater
numbers, corporations began to market their products globally,
and a global economy emerged.
This economy is based on production for sale rather than for
subsistence. The economic system is ruled by the profit motive
and neoliberal notions of "free trade" with no tariffs and no
restrictions on manufacturing. The system is characterized by
global corporations that are often outside the control of any
state or world entity. They can move their operations freely
around the globe seeking and creating conditions favorable to
maximizing profits. Individuals, in contrast, cannot move freely
around the globe seeking to maximize their own profits, but are
severely constricted by states through immigration laws and
policies.
Globalization has led to some cultural homogenization because
both Westerners and non-Westerners have adopted each other's
products, technologies, ideas, and behaviors. For example,

Asian Indians wear jeans and eat at McDonald's, but Americans
also practice yoga and devour curries. People everywhere also
are exposed to mass media, and they communicate with each
other and find information on the Internet. However, most of
this homogenization is Western-oriented because of the allure
of Western culture to many and the great wealth and power
wielded by Western nations and corporations. Western ideas,
values, and products are promoted through advertising and other
public relations activities that are often supported by Western
governments (Wolf 1999; Hertz 2001).
Think about it:
Find pictures of modern cities anywhere in the world on the
Web. What are the similarities among them? What are the
differences? Is it sometimes difficult to guess where each city is
located?
Resistance to Globalization
Many of the effects of globalization are beneficial (at least in
the short term) or enjoyable to many world citizens.
Additionally, multiple states are uniting through organizations
such as the European Union or initiatives such as the North
American Free Trade Agreement to better compete in the world
marketplace. Many predict that soon everyone will think and
behave in similar ways. A second major trend, however, is
resistance to globalization. Many groups of people resist
homogenization and unification by asserting their own
distinctive cultural identities, and many resist the capitalism
and the consumerism it stimulates and facilitates. Although the
Internet promotes homogenization, it is also a vehicle for
dissent and resistance. Sadly, one consequence of this resistance
can be increased violence, death, and destruction when some
groups see violence as their only viable resistance strategy.
Think about it:
Chechen rebels have fought Russia for many years. Though

Russian leaders characterize the rebels as Islamic terrorists,
most observers think their cause is rooted in nationalism and
ethnic identity rather than religion.
What is the advantage to Russia of portraying the Chechen
rebellion as "Islamic" terrorism rather than ethnic or
nationalistic terrorism? Why do you think many states are
breaking apart rather than coming together? Why do some
groups think they must use violence to achieve their ends and
why do others think they must counter violence with more
violence?
Perception of Environmental Degradation
A third trend is the perception shared by many that
globalization and the consumerism that accompanies it are
destroying our physical environment. According to these
people, we are consuming our natural resources at an
unsustainable rate, we are overwhelming our planet with waste,
and we are poisoning our environment with pollution. For
example, as the demand for products such as coffee and
chocolate increases, farmers who formerly grew crops for their
own family's use may be replaced by large-scale commercial
farming operations. These agribusinesses use industrial farming
methods such as toxic pesticides and fertilizers to increase
production and meet the demand for these products.
Some maintain that these practices and increasing
industrialization to meet other consumer demands are
irreversibly harming the earth. According to one botanist, Peter
Raven, if everyone consumed as much as Americans, it would
take three planet Earths to sustain the world's population
(quoted in Haviland 2005:450).
Think about it:
Often elites in less-developed countries or areas are enticed to
allow corporations to dump waste, including highly toxic or

radioactive waste, in areas populated by the powerless. How do
people justify these practices? What culturally constructed
assumptions and attitudes underlie these justifications?
The differential effects of waste disposal are just one example
of how globalization affects different people differently.
Although relatively few enjoy incredible wealth in the modern
world and even many middle-class Westerners have lifestyles of
comfort that would stun their grandparents, most of the world's
people live in dire poverty. Billions have little or no hope of
improving their material conditions. Even members of the
"comfortable" Western middle class may experience insecurity
as jobs are outsourced to other countries, and the "social safety
nets" and energy supplies that fuel our lives are threatened.
Many fear that their children or grandchildren will have much
more difficult lives and that personal control over the
conditions of life is decreasing. Additionally, all, rich and poor
alike, are vulnerable to the violence that so often results from
ethnic or religious tensions within and among nations and the
social injustice endemic to every country regardless of its
development.
In addition to differences in material well-being within affluent
countries, wide disparities exist between residents of wealthy
countries and residents of poor countries. According to the 2005
United Nations Human Development Report, "…the space
between countries is marked by deep and, in some cases,
widening inequalities in income and life chances. One-fifth of
humanity lives in countries where many people think nothing of
spending $2 a day on a cappuccino. Another fifth of humanity
survive on less than $1 a day and live in countries where
children die for want of a simple anti-mosquito bednet" (United
Nations Development Program 2005:3).
Workers justifiably fear that if they organize for better wages
and working conditions, corporations that value their

obligations to shareholders more highly than obligations to their
employees will move their operations to other countries.
Workers who can no longer support their families in traditional
ways are grateful for employment, are willing to work cheaply,
and will not demand humane conditions. Women and children
living in countries without protections against abuse may
particularly suffer from this practice. Some Western consumers,
lured by low prices, may be unaware of or fail to consider the
effects of their buying habits on the lives of the world's poor.
Think about it:
Multinational corporations are free to employ the cheapest labor
they can find nearly everywhere in the world. Workers, on the
other hand, are constrained from selling their labor at the
highest price by nations' immigration laws and policies. What
do you think would be the consequences if workers were able to
move freely about the world in the same way corporations move
freely?
Anthropology and a Viable Future for Humanity
The Challenges of Globalization
Although many enjoy foreign travel, exotic foods and other
products, communication with people from around the world,
and all the other blessings of an interconnected world,
globalization is a mixed blessing for most and a disaster for
many. Challenges we face include poverty, violence, disease,
emotional discontent, and environmental degradation.
Whereas some enjoy the best health and longest life spans in
human experience, others' lives are "brutish and short," to quote
Thomas Hobbes. Ironically, both hunger and obesity endanger
many, and both result at least in part from corporate power and
practices. Shifts from subsistence to cash economies have left
many malnourished. Climate change, desertification, and soil
erosion resulting from industrialization have turned much fertile
land into wasteland. Forests that provided well for people for

millennia now feed cattle whose meat is shipped to wealthy
nations. Populations have exploded, and many cannot feed
themselves.
If feeding the hungry masses of the world were profitable,
corporations would do it; because it is not, they do not. On the
other hand, "supersizing" portions, processing the nutrients out
of food, convincing people to buy these foods, and workers'
sedentary labor are all extremely profitable, and so Americans'
waistlines grow as do the health problems that accompany
obesity.
An interconnected world means that diseases once confined to
localities can spread across the globe and threaten billions.
AIDS is a prime example, but other threats are emerging as
well. For example, infectious disease specialists know that
sooner or later a strain of influenza—perhaps the strain of avian
flu we are seeing currently—will evolve the ability to pass from
human to human and ignite a global pandemic.
Another challenge we face is the loss of cultural and biological
diversity. For example, indigenous peoples possess accumulated
wisdom that humanity may one day need. We could learn from
those who have lived in sustainable ways for thousands of
years. We could learn about alternative crops, alternative
medicines, and simple yet effective technologies. We could
learn to think in other, perhaps more adaptive ways. We could
learn other ways to live meaningful and satisfying lives by
maintaining cultural diversity as well as the biological diversity
that sustains many people.
Think about it:
What do you think are some of the culturally constructed ideas
that underlie the consumption behaviors of Westerners and,
increasingly, others? What new ideas do you think people would
need to adopt to change these behaviors to sustainable

practices?
What Anthropology Offers
Understanding diversity, illuminating the ethnocentric ideas and
behaviors that divide people, and promoting understanding
among diverse peoples is what anthropologists do. We live with
difference in a culturally pluralistic world and culturally
pluralistic localities. Many in the United States have moved
from thinking of the country as a "melting pot" in which people
blend and lose their distinctive identities to a culturally
pluralistic "salad" model in which people retain their
distinctiveness.
Anthropologists, however, can help move humanity from
cultural pluralism to a multicultural model. Multiculturalism
implies more than mere co-existence and more than mere
tolerance; it implies understanding, respect, and enjoyment of
difference. By helping us to better understand ourselves and
each other, what we offer each other, and the consequences of
dangerous trends, anthropologists can encourage the cooperative
aspects of human nature. Humanity then has a better chance to
meet the challenges we face.
References
Hertz, Noreena. 2001. The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism
and the Death of Democracy. New York: Arrow Books.
Lee, Richard B. 2003. The Dobe Ju/'hoansi. 3rd edition.
Singapore: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Anthropology. 9th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
United Nations Development Program. 2005. Human
Development Report 2005.
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/, accessed August 28,
2006.
Wolf, Eric. 1999. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance
and Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
College.

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