For the purposes of this discussion paper, I have chosen the film The Kiwai: Dugong Hunters of Daru to analyse. The film takes a look at the traditional rituals associated with dugong hunting among the Kiwai. Viewers also learn about the impact which new technologies have upon hunting methods and the scientist who are working to protect the dugong from extinction. Primarily I will be focusing on Claude Levi-Strauss’ chapter “The Science of the Concrete” in The Savage Mind. Levi-Strauss’ argues that there are two ways in which cultures order their world. Either as a bricoleur or an engineer. I will also be drawing on the James George Frazer’s theories about magic. From an analysis of the film, it becomes clear that the Kiwai order their world as the bricoleur. Through their dugong myth, the Kiwai create structure through events within their natural world (p.22), events referring to the plot of the myth. As explained by Lévi-Strauss, the bricoleur makes do with the information at hand. According to the Kiwai, the whiskers on …show more content…
According to the myth, a baby echidna was swept away from its mother during a flash flood. This baby became the first dugong. The Kiwai explain that to this day the dugong still has a mother-child bond with the echidna and so they are attracted to the spine as a child to its mother. This aspect of their rituals is an example of the law of contact or contagion. Even though the dugong and the echidna haven’t been in contact for a long time there is still the belief that they continue to act on each other (Frasier, 36). Even when hunters are using modern technology such as metal harpoons and outboard motors they still perform the rituals with the echidna spines. By studying the Kiwai, what becomes clear is the direct relationship between the myth and the ritual/magic. The structure of the ritual is created from the events of the
In the first chapter of Guns, Diamond establishes two main arguments that will become crucial to his thesis later on in the book. First, he goes in depth about mass extermination and further extinction of large mammals that occurred in New Guinea and Australia which were important for food and domestication, and secondly he argues that all the first civilized peoples in the world each had the ability to out develop one another, but were hindered or helped by their environment.
Further, prayer and medicine interplay to paint a classical image of the Native’s creed, yet, for many obsolete or preposterous existences of the shaman. To re-install beliefs present in the world for thousands of years, but have been disappearing, writers such as Neidhardt introduce the element of the
Further research although, allows us to understand more in depth the importance and history of the Tai-me Sun Dance doll. According to Kiowa Nation, the Tai-me is the most sacred possession of the tribe. The first Tai-me came from an Arapaho man who married into the tribe in the 1700’s. There once was three Tai-me figures which were, the “woman”, the “man”, and another figure, however Osgaes captured the figures but returned them in 1837 when the treaty was signed. Then the Utes captured two of the figures and they never returned. The Tai-me keeper has many important roles in the Sun Dance such as deciding whether the dance will be held and preparing for the dance. This historical context is important and connects with the chapter because it allows the reader to understand Tai-me’s past and importance to the
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
In his article The Modern Hunter-Gatherer, Michael Pollan recounts the events that took place during his first hunting trip. Both during and after the hunt, Pollan struggles with an array of emotions that he conveys directly with his audience. From this struggle, a moral complication is formed regarding the direct relationship of death between humans and animals. By not giving a direct answer regarding the question he introduces of whether animals and humans experience death in the same way, Pollan leaves his text open to interpretation which ultimately forces his audience to view hunting through a more challenging, introspective lens.
In the Great Basin culture area, lived a once great peoples, The Kawaiisu. This tribe lived along the Sierra Nevada, and nearby Piute and Tehachapi mountains, which sometimes causes them to be categorized as Californian, also due to their similarities. As there are no extensive accounts of archeology in the Kawaiisu area, neither excavated nor published, two types of remains can be found of this aboriginal past. Scattered through the region are pictographs and “bedrock mortar holes. A test site was home to 300-500 mortar holes as well as approximately 16 house rings and many artifacts. Numerous settlement sites have been exposed and the examination of the rock art has led to be part of the Kawaiisu mythology. Regarding their history, the earliest mention of the Kawaiisu people was found in the diary of Francisco Garces, then being referred to as “The Cobaji.” He wrote that they were a generous people and were declared as “not stingy like the people of the West.” In the mid 1800’s miners and travelers started flooding the area, which brought forth occasional clashes between the natives and newcomers. The physical penetration of the land was not usually a part of these dispute...
The Hmong people, an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam and Laos, greatly value their culture and traditions. The film “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America” documents the seventeen year journey of the Hmong Shaman, Paja Thao and his family from the mountains of Laos to the heartland of America. This film shows the struggle of Paja Thao to maintain their 5000 year-old shamanic traditions as his children embrace the American culture. Moreover, the film shows that one of the major problems refugees like Paja Thao and his family face upon their arrival to the United States is conflict with the American medical system. Despite the dominant biomedical model of health, the film “The Split Horn” shows that
The Hopi have a highly developed belief system which contains many gods and spirits. Ceremonies, rituals, dances, songs, and prayers are celebrated in year-round. The Hopi believed they were led to the arid southwestern region of America by their creator, because he knew they had the power to evoke rain with power and prayer. Consequently, the Hopi are connected to their land, its agricultural cycles and the constant quest for rainfall, in a religious way. The religious center of the community is the kiva, which is an underground room with a ladder protruding above the roof. The kiva is very important for several reasons. From the kiva, a connection is made with the center of the earth. Also, the kiva is symbolic for the emergence to this world. The room would represent the underworld and the ladder would represent the way to the upper world. In fact, a room is kept in the house to store ceremonial objects. A sacred ear of corn protects the room and symbolizes the ancestry of the family members. Kachinas are also a focal point of the religion. For a Hopi, they signify spirits of ancestors, dieties of the natural world, or intermediaries between man and gods. The Hopi believe that they are the earth's caretakers, and with the successful performance of their ceremonial cycle, the world will remain in balance, the gods will be happy and rain will come. Because they think of their crops as gifts, the Hopi Indians live in harmony with the environment.
From its beginning, the literature of the 1960s valued man having a close relationship with nature. Jack Kerouac shows us the ideal form of this relationship in the story of Han Shan, the Chinese poet. At first, these concerns appear to have little relevance to Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth. However, by mentioning Gauguin, Roth gives us a view of man's ideal relationship to nature very similar to the one seen in the story of Han Shan. The stories of Han Shan and Gauguin offer an interesting commentary Neil and Brenda's relationship, as well as insight into its collapse.
...al. Our culture believes in ancestral spirits as well as deities, and it is something I am appreciative about. Outsiders find this strange and “Voodoo” like, but the nkisi nkondi is an important religious item to us Kongo people.
Durkheim asserts that emotions underlie society and portrays their ephemeral nature to emphasize that social gatherings must constantly be held to sustain society. By unpacking Durkheim’s study of the primitive Warramunga tribe, it can be seen that emotions lie at the root of the corroboree. On the fourth day of the religious ceremony honoring the Wollonqua snake, the participants “move their bodies…letting out an echoing scream in a high state of excitement” (219). Char...
Their Sundance ceremony surrounds the story of the tai-me, “The Kiowas were hungry and there was no food. There was a man who heard his children cry from hunger, and he went out to look for food. He walked four days and became weak. On the fourth day he came to a great canyon. Suddenly there was thunder and lightning. A voice spoke to him and said, ‘Why are you following me? What do you want?’ The man was afraid. The thing standing before him had the feet of a deer, and its body was covered in feathers. The man answered that the Kiowas were hungry. ‘Take me with you,’ the voice said, ‘and I will give you whatever you want.’ From that day Tai-me has belonged to the Kiowas”(36). This story is used to tell how the tai-me came to be a part of the Kiowa tribe and why they worship it as a part of the sun dance ceremony. Momaday describes that the “great central figure of the kado, or sun dance, ceremony is the taime”(37). It was a small image representation of the tai-me on a dark-green stone. As a symbolic part of this ceremony, it is kept preserved in a rawhide box of which it is never exposed to be viewed other than during this
Ember, Carol R., Melvin Ember, and Peter N. Peregrine. Anthropology. Thirteenth ed. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.
The IK embedded in the stories reveal how such knowledge is instrumental in ushering in and mitigating ecological catastrophe (Woollett, 2007). Cajete (2000) observes that “ultimately, the goal of Indigenous education is to perpetuate a way of life through the generations and through time. The purpose of all education is to instruct the next generation about what is valued and important to a society” (p. 184). In Canada, Native schools have begun to emerge where Native people (of particular tribal groups) conduct education for children in their own languages and develop a curriculum which is based on reclaiming traditional knowledges and worldviews, for example, the importance of land and environment and what land and environment means to Aboriginal