ANTHROPOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

Culture as a Category of Analysis

Culture may be defined as: behavior patterns acquired by humans as members of society. Technology, means of subsistence, language, patterns of group organization--social and political, and ideology are all aspects of culture.

Culture is an integrated whole: kinship, politics, religion/ideology are all interconnected, supposedly to help the culture to function, but this is not always the case. People often have cultural practices and values that are ultimately dysfunctional, for example, reliance on limited natural resources such as fossil fuels.

Anthropologists generally classify cultures according to their economic, social, and political organizations as a way of drawing categories of analysis. Remember that these are arbitrary classifications and are not necessarily reflective of the actual experiences of the participants.

Manifest and latent meaning (or function) in culture:

 Manifest meaning is the meaning that the participants of the culture assign to their actions

An example of manifest function: The Navajo say that the Nine Night Ceremony is performed to restore the cosmic harmony of the universe in order to cure illness caused because the universe is out of order due to some violation of sacred laws that govern it.

Latent meaning is often found in the interpretation of the outside observer, the historian or anthropologist.

It usually explains how the given cultural trait functions to serve a specific purpose of the culture.

The observer looks at the larger picture of culture--often has data the individual does not

An example of manifest function: the Navajo Nine Night Ceremony 

This ceremony functions to create reciprocal obligations among members of the culture, to re-distribute goods & services, to prevent discord, and to re-enforce ties of kinship

The manifest perspective should never discount the native perspective, but rather complements it.

The emic and etic perspectives are also important anthropological concepts for analysis of different cultures

 The emic perspective is the viewpoint of the participant.

 The etic perspective is the viewpoint of the observer.

A useful way to analyze cultures is to break them down into their component parts—to look at their various “structures” that make up cultural configurations:

This may be broken down as: the economic/environmental (often called the material structure of culture); the social and political institutions by which people organize their lives; and the ideological systems by which people give their actions meaning.

Anthropologists tend to separate these parts for the purpose of analysis, but remember that this is simply a device for helping us sort out the variables of culture change and continuity, and there is, in reality, a lot of overlap between these parts of culture.

Economic structures-based on the subsistence system:

• Anthropologists tend to divide cultures into two types depending on how they obtain the majority of their food supplies and structure their material existence and whether or not they are sedentary:

hunting and gathering groups, which tend to be mobile, and

horticultural or agricultural groups, which tend to be more sedentary or semi-sedentary

• The “complexity” of the social & political organization is often tied to the culture's means of production

The more sedentary groups tend to have more “complex” (meaning complicated or elaborate) structures than do groups that have to move around a lot.

• The principle of reciprocity characterizes most cultures' subsistence structures:

Reciprocity is an exchange of goods & services between equals—it is not compelled or coerced. Thus, one person or group “gives” something to the other and expects goods or services in kind in return.

This principle cements ties of obligation between people and social or political groups

• In pre-state cultures, most persons participate in the food quest--there are few full-time specialists, meaning people who get food in return for activities not related to food production.

• More elaborate cultures have craft and religious specialists supported by the labor of the majority of people.  

• Gender is a central organizing principle in Native American economic structures

Men and women generally have distinct and separate tasks assigned by their gender. In most pre-state cultures these roles are equally valued because both roles are crucial to survival.  Separate can mean equal in these contexts.

Women do the interruptible tasks--child care, gathering, processing subsistence technology for the home—because of the demands of bearing and nurturing children.

Men do the tasks requiring long periods of uninterrupted concentration and the most dangerous tasks—hunting and warfare--because they are more expendable from a biological point of view.

Social structures refer to the way in which societies organize families based on principles of kinship: those one considers family

• The nuclear family is the most basic type of family. It consists of parents & the children. In nuclear families, descent is generally bilateral (meaning traced from both parents).   This type of family has NOT been the most common over time and across cultures.

• A descent group is bigger than the nuclear family. It consists of all the people who believe or who can demonstrate that they descend from a common ancestor.   
  
• Descent groups are often organized into clans: a clan is a  collection of as few as 3 and as many as 60 lineages 

A lineage is a group of extended families descended from common ancestors. 

• In most cases in indigenous cultures, descent is traced thru one parent, not through both.

Indian societies were usually matrilineal—meaning all people traced their descent through their mothers and were not, technically, related to their biological fathers (who are in their own mothers’ clans).

However, clans can also be patrilineal, although most anthropologists argue this was a post-contact phenomenon for most Indian peoples.  This means descent is traced through the fathers’ lines and one is not “related” to one’s mother ( who was also in her father’s clan.)

• Clans are usually given religious sanction in myths of family origins

Thus, they may be affiliated with an animal, i.e. a totem.

• Gender is a central organizing principle in Native American social structures.

Men and women have distinct and separate roles in society and the family

As in the economic realm, men’s and women's contribution are, generally, valued equally--one is not more important than the other

• Nonetheless, women's personal freedoms (esp. as relative to men's) vary from culture to culture.

Their individual autonomy and ability to make decisions for their lives may be equal to men's. For example both sexes may be able to divorce their spouses without much fuss.

On the other hand, they may be constrained by cultural practices from doing certain things or required by culture to do other things. For example, some cultures require sexual fidelity of women but not of men.

• Women's status and ability to participate in political decisions also varies from culture to culture

Often they have influence and sanction to act that is equal to men's

But other times they kept from certain political decisions because politics are not in the women's "sphere"

• Native Americans tend to classify their relatives by generation rather than by strict biological relationships

All female relatives of mother's generation are "mother"; ditto for father

 All female relatives of grandmother's generation are "grandmother"; ditto grandfather

 All children of one's mothers or fathers (broadly defined) are “brother” or “sister.”

Political Structures (i.e. the polity)  Among Native Americans this is tied to the managing the affairs of public policy or group activities

• These group activities include hunting/gathering; horticulture or agriculture; warfare or conflicts in the groups; and trade or inter-group relations
  

• Political activities are usually organized according to some type of kinship ties
  

• Or they may be based on religious societies or priesthoods

• Or on sodalities: i.e. groups of men and women gathered together for specific purposes such as harvest, curing, etc.

Religious Structures are crucial in understanding native cultures

• Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace defined religion as: "A kind of human behavior which can be classified as belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings"

• This behavior involves several things:

Acts and activities: rituals, ceremonies
Personnel: priests shaman, healers
Beliefs: Mythology, ethical standards, conceptions of the supernatural, religious ideologies about how the world is organized and supposed to function.

• Native American religion is very diverse, but it has three general characteristics:

1. It is animistic and thus it is linked with nature

Animism may be defined as a belief that the entire world—animate and inanimate—is inhabited by a supernatural power.

This power is linked to humans through reciprocal relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. This means that humans have certain obligations to the natural world just as they do to other “kin.”

2. It functions as an integrating force in Native American culture, linking together social, economic, and political systems

Religious rituals & ceremonies act as means of binding social groups together.  These things also act as diplomatic protocol between neighboring tribes.

Religious personnel often hold political office or have social & economic roles to play beyond their ceremonial duties.

Myths provide a blueprint for proper behavior and for social relationships of people to one another and to the natural world.

3. Native religion tends to be pragmatic rather than dogmatic and focused on absolute truth.

Thus, it is flexible & open to change. Some acculturation in which Indians blend Christianity with their indigenous religion (this is called syncretic religion) is freely chosen by Indian peoples, not coerced.

Native American cultures are organized on varying levels of “complexity”

These cultural configurations ranged from the band level to the village level to chieftainships/confederations and, finally, the state.

Most of Native North America was organized by bands or villages. 

There were confederacies in the Eastern Woodland region--the Powhatan Confederacy, was one. 

The state, however, occurred only in Central & South America. 

BANDS: Anthropologists assume that this was the world's social organization before 10,000 B.C. General characteristics include:

1. Bands are groups of families who travel together, hunting and gathering in a seasonal circuit of tasks, usually in a given territory, without fixed settlements

2. The organizing principles of the band are based on kinship; descent usually bi-lateral

3. Band leadership is informal & task specific, based on influence held by force of personality rather than on coercive power, such as a police force or system of courts.

4. Bands generally have no codified formal system of law.  Rather Band members use folkways to govern through informal social control: gossip, ridicule, ostracism.  Custom, myth, stories, etc. also provide blueprints for proper behavior.

5. "Justice" or redress of grievances left to offended party or his/her kin group not to any formal system of law enforcement.

6. The social, economic, and political structures of bands tend to be egalitarian—there is no differential access to goods & services.

7. Bands have a reciprocal economy: goods & services exchanged among equals, forming bonds of obligation.

8. All people participate in the food quest—bands have no full time specialists

9. In most hunting and gathering bands gender roles are relatively egalitarian

a. Again, men & women have separate tasks but one is not valued more than the other

b. Men & women participate equally in religious activities:

10. Band ceremonial structure is ad hoc—whenever enough people are available, they hold rituals, which tend to be fairly simple.  There are no elaborate pantheons of deities or complex ceremonial systems.

a. Individuals seek spiritual power for personal reasons: success in life.

b. Some individuals are recognized as having special gifts or powers to cure sickness—these are the shaman.

c. Families have Rites of Passage that recognize spiritual dimensions of the life cycle: including separating women in menstrual huts at 1st menstruation and hunting rituals to make men good providers.

TRIBES:  Anthropologists have assumed that these appeared in early post-Pleistocene period

They were often found in bands that practiced intensive hunting and gathering in areas of abundant natural resources:

Like the Near East (about 7000 B.C. & coast of Peru (3000 B.C.)

In Mesoamerica, tribes don't appear until after the introduction of agriculture (about 1300 B.C.)

1. Tribes are larger groups of families with more formal kinship structures: such as clans.

2. Clans tend to be property holding groups and are often associated with horticultural or agricultural groups.

a. Clans own the land & its produce.

b. They perform political/religious duties: sometimes the clan "owns" the ceremonies its members perform.

3. Tribes have weak leadership so members may create elaborate ceremonial organizations in addition to clans, including sodalities or fraternal organizations that many different lineages join.

a. Some might be hunting associations for men, where the group performs rituals for hunting success and game fertility.

b. Some women's associations include organizations for the care of the enemy scalp shrine, or for fertility rituals, and good health.

c. There might also be priesthoods that one is born into or initiated into.

 4. Tribal ceremonies are usually associated with the agricultural calendar. These function to:

a. maintain an un-degraded environment

b. limit inter-group raiding

c. adjust human-land ratios

d. facilitate trade

e. redistribute goods

f. level differences in wealth thus preventing conflict among tribal members

5. Still, tribes are generally egalitarian and unranked—all members have equal access to goods & services

6. Tribes generally also have no codified formal system of law.

7. All tribal members participate in the food quest—there are no full-time specialists.

CHIEFDOMS: marked by hereditary inequality with some members holding access to the best lands, hunting grounds, etc.; they appear in Near East in about 5500 BCE and in MesoAmerica & Peru about 1000-800 BCE.

1. In a chiefdom, the office of chief exists apart from the man who holds the office.

a. It is not, then, ad-hoc & based on personality.

b. It must be filled by someone of the proper status—there are ranked groups who are eligible for the office and non-ranked ones who are not.

c. It is, therefore, still often linked with certain kinship groups

2. The subjects usually consider their chiefs to be divine—this legitimizes their rule.

3. Chiefs have an elaborate retinue of assistants—this is a precursor of the bureaucratic state.

4. Chiefs often have full time religious specialists supported by "commoners."

5. Chiefs are surrounded & marked in their status by sumptuary goods—elaborate treasures of precious metals and stones.

6. Thus, chiefdoms often have craft specialists who create these goods, but these artists are not always fulltime specialists—often they also participate in the food quest.

7.  Chiefdoms always have large populations.

THE STATE: a very strong, centralized government a professional ruling class largely divorced from the bonds of kinship

1. The state is highly stratified, has occupational specializations & full-time specialists; only a certain percentage of these are involved in the food quest.

2. The state attempts a monopoly of force—individual retribution for wrongs is discouraged.

3. The state has a formal system of laws, crimes against which are crimes against the state and, therefore, are punished by state.

4. States are built on powerful economies controlled by elites (usually hereditary) that include differential access to goods and services.

5. The state often has taxation, the right to conscript labor (especially for monumental architecture) and a military draft.

6. States usually have public buildings, works, and government services provided by full-time specialists.

7. States also have a public religion attended by full-time specialists.

a. There is usually a pantheon of gods whose elaborate ranked organization reflects the way society is organized.

b. Rulers may have an official style of art to depict these gods.

8. States always have very large populations that may run into hundreds of thousands and that may cover broad territories, including areas of different language or culture and linked to the state through tribute or military force.