In Machi ritual practices, wholeness or balance is associated with well-being and health, therefore the performative element of gender takes precedence over the concept of gender as associated with sex. In order to achieve wholeness, it is necessary to encompass male and female principles, as well as those of youth and old age. When performing healing rituals, a machi will “assume masculine, feminine and co-gendered identities”, moving between these identities or combining them (Bacigalupo, 2007, p. 45). These co-gendered identities are fundamental to machi ritual practices. Because of the performative aspects associated with the taking on co-gendered identities, male machi will dress in traditional women’s clothing. This allows them to perform and embody the feminine aspects associated with healing and fertility. Altered states of consciousness such as dreaming, visions and trance states are also considered feminine characteristic By the same token, female machi have the ability to on the masculine aspects associated with warfare, aggression and hunting, although they do not dress in male clothing.
Colonial ideas continue to shape perceptions regarding gender in modern day Chile and persist in influencing Chilean attitudes toward the machi. Because of the co-gendered identities associated with Mapuche shamanism, the machi are considered effeminate and deviant in a country where concepts of power and prestige are closely linked to ideas of masculinity. Therefore, machi are further marginalized and ostracized. These views are not solely applied to the male machi, but are extended to the female practitioners who are labeled witches. However, male machi are forced to struggle to legitimate themselves and validate their religious pra...
... middle of paper ...
...2: Cuadro 5.1 Poblacion Total, por Pertenencia Algun Pueblo
Indigena y Tipo de Pueblo… [Data File] Retrieved from http://www.censo.cl/tabulados.aspx
Jung, C.G.
1954. The Practical Use of Dream-Analysis. The Practice of Psychotherapy. Pantheon Books.
New York.
Selby, Jennifer
2013 Notes from the Field: An Interview with Ana Mariella Bacigalupo. Anthropology News.
Retrieved from http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/09/06/notes-from-the-field-an-interview-with-ana-mariella-bacigalupo/
Starr Sered, Susan
1994 Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women. Oxford University
Press. New York.
Tedlock, Barbara
2005 The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine.
Bantam Dell. New York.
Villalobos, Sergio R.
1992 Chile y Su Historia. Editorial Universitaria, S.A. Santiago de Chile.
Chandler Cook November 5th, 2015 HIST3417 Book Review Embodying agriculture in Gender Systems Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country gives readers a look into the federal government’s failed policy to preserve grazing lands by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of livestock with a particular focus on women. Centering around women because they are the primary owners and caretakers of livestock in Navajo reservations. Weisiger’s narrative explains the relationship of “livestock grazing, environmental change, cultural identity, gender, and memory during the New Deal era of the 1930s and its aftermath” (p xv). Weisiger relies on oral histories, environmental science, and government documents.
In the text “Seeing Red: American Indian Women Speaking about their Religious and Cultural Perspectives” by Inés Talamantez, the author discusses the role of ceremonies and ancestral spirituality in various Native American cultures, and elaborates on the injustices native women face because of their oppressors.
Transcendentalism were strong believers in the power of the individualism and self-exploration, which were closely related to the Romanticism, the artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe that revolted against the political and social “norms” of the Age of Enlightenment. This helped fuel the Early Women’s Rights Movement by questioning how society hides women and bringing up new thought on how women should start to be treated equally. Before the ‘civilization’ in the New World, the Zuni Tribe located in the Southwest, idolized women. When looking back at their family tress, the women are mentioned. Women in this tribe also go to pick whom they marry, and the husband had to move in with the wife’s family so her father, brothers, uncles, and cousins could protect her. The women also owned the property because if there were conflict between her and her spouse, she would not be left in the dark with nothing. The Zuni were not the only tribe who put women first. The Sioux Tribe raised their children equally. Both girls and boys went to school and trained together to h...
Susan Migden Socolow’s The Women of Colonial Latin America provides a comprehensive account of the varied roles of women in the colonial societies of Spanish and Portuguese America, spanning the three centuries between the conquests of the late-fifteenth century and the commencement of independence in the early-nineteenth century. Professor Socolow writes that “the goal of this book is to examine these [gender] roles and rules and thus understand the variety and limitations of the female experience in colonial Latin America” (1) and manages to carry this argument clearly and convincingly throughout the work. She argues that the patriarchy, Iberian patriarchy in particular, was encompassed in the church, laws, and traditions of colonial society
The Dreaming in Aboriginal Spirituality Dreaming is at the core of traditional Aboriginal religious beliefs. The term itself translates as various words in different languages of the Aboriginal people of the country. Groups each have their own words for this. concept: for example the Ngarinyin people of north-Western Australia. use the word Ungud, the Arrernte people of central Australia refer to as Aldjerinya and the Adnyamathanha use the word Nguthuna.
The article equips the reader with the tools needed to better understand other cultures, in terms of their own beliefs and rituals. Miner’s original approach does create a certain level of confusion that forces the reader to critically evaluate his purpose. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner ultimately brings people together, by illuminating the eccentricities present in all
Different cultures and religions have many different customs and rituals. In Islam it is common practice for women to be covered from head to toe. In Tibetan Buddhism it is common for devotees to practice asceticism. In Hopi culture and religious tradition food and sex play large and important roles, although in different situations the roles may be completely opposite.
This piece includes three movements. Each movement depicts a mythic or ritual relationship between women’s blood and sacrifice. I have adapted each of these myths/rituals in some of my own words to create a narrative.
Marianismo and machismo are the traditional gender roles in Latin America. Marianismo is the aspect of female gender roles while machismo is the aspect of male gender roles. The key belief of machismo is that men hold supremacy over women. For the most part these gender roles conform to traditional understanding of sexuality, masculinity, and femininity. There is only one key contradiction I found when it came to traditional understandings of sexuality, masculinity and femininity. Some people may confuse the meanings of gender, sex, and sexuality. Gender is what a person chooses to define themselves as: masculine or feminine. Sex is biological: male or female. Sexuality is then defined as the expression of sexual interest. These three words connect to one another.
In their publication, “Doing Gender, ” Candance West and Don H. Zimmerman put forward their theory of gender as an accomplishment; through, the daily social interactions of a man or woman which categorize them as either masculine or feminine. From a sociological perspective the hetero-normative categories of just sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, are blurred as a middle ground is embedded into these fundamental roots of nature or nurture.To further their ideology West and Zimmerman also draw upon an ethnomethodological case study of a transsexual person to show the embodiment of sex category and gender as learned behaviours which are socially constructed.Therefore, the focus of this essay will analyze three ideas: sex, sex
Prior to 15th century colonization, indigenous peoples of North America enjoyed a gender system that included not only women and men, but also a third gender known as Two-Spirit. In Native American culture, individuals who identified as Two-Spirit were revered by society and held important roles among tribes. In their article “The Way of the Two-Spirited Pe...
Examination of the female experience within indigenous culture advanced the previous perceptions of the native culture experience in different ways. This book's nineteen parts to a great extent comprise of stories from Pretty-Shield's
I began investigating gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) representations of the sacred during my late adolescence. In college, my knowledge of same-sex desiring and gender-variant deities evolved into a study of the spiritual roles and legacies of GLBTQ people. Such legacies are abundantly evident in parts of the world where indigenous and pluralist religion have remained unhindered, such as on the Indian subcontinent where hijra (male-bodied female-identified individuals) are seen as harbingers of good fortune and curses and perform ceremonies at weddings and births. Early written accounts of traditional same-sex desiring and gender-variant roles in the Western hemisphere can be found in the diaries of the first colonizers as well as an engraving memorializing Vasco Núňez de Balboa’s massacre of third-gender American Indians in what is now Panama. Pejoratively referred to as berdache by early anthropologists (from the Arabic, meaning ‘slave boy’), many modern GLBTQ First Nations people have adopted the term Two-Spirit as a pan-tribal identity that reclaims their traditional spiritual and social roles while transcending labels denoting mere sexual orientation. The term affirms them as unique whole human beings.
In the Maasai society, genital cutting is a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and both men and women go through the process of circumcision. As society ages, opinions on cultural norms change. This is true for the Maasai society, where the views on female circumcision have and are changing. Female circumcision is classified into three categories, and defined by the World Health Organization, Type I is the removal of the foreskin on the vagina, Type II is the removal of the clitoris, and Type III is the removal of all external genitalia with the stitching or narrowing of the vaginal opening (“New Study”). Traditionally in the Maasai society, women underwent Type II or Type III circumcision. Written in 1988, “The Initiation of a Maasai Warrior,” by Tepilit Ole Saitoi, and is an autobiographical story of Saitoti’s circumcision in his initiation to a warrior. Though his story mainly focuses on the male circumcision part of the Maasai society, women’s circumcision and other basic traditions are discussed. Throughout the short story, the topic of circumcision and the rite of passage, both long- standing traditions in the Maasai society, are central themes.
The author of the book Desert Flower, Waris Dirie, recalled her experience of “becoming a woman” based on the Somali’s culture beliefs. For this specific assignment, chapter four was read and she described her experience of becoming a woman. In the Somali culture, a girl enters into womanhood by circumcision. The circumcision involves the removal of the clitoris, labia minora, and most of the labia majora. The Somali ancestors believed that these parts of the woman’s body were unclean and needed to be “fixed” in order for the woman to be considered for marriage. The circumcision is done by a Somali gypsy woman, who Dirie referred to as “killer woman.” Dirie recalled the excitement that all the young girls have for this special day