ANTH Exam #4

Ghost Dance Movement

a native american religious movement of the late 19th century. Directly related to the expansion of Euro American power. The prophets foresaw that the ancestors would return on an immense train and then a cataclysm would swallow up all the whites but leave their goods behind for the native americans who became their followers. The government attempted to stop the dance → battle ensued at Wounded Knee where about 350 Sioux were killed.

tribal confederation

a number of tribes who come together and agree to treat one another under certain treaties. --> allies --> if one attacked, all help -Iroqouis

Ritual

a patterned act that involves the manipulation of religious symbols; ceremonial act or repeated stylized gesture used for specific occasions. A religious ___ is one that involves the use of religious symbols.

Vision quest

a practice common among many native american groups in which individuals seek to achieve direct contact with the supernatural. In these cultures, people were expected to develop a special relationship with a particular spirit that would give the person power and knowledge. The spirit acted as a personal protector. People seeking visions used fasting, isolation, or self mutilation to move themselves to an ecstatic religious state in which such a vision was possible. → Crow Indians experience a type of this (obtained their spiritual blessing on the 4th night of their seculusion bc they consider 4 a mystical number).

Viktor Frankl

a psychologist who survived Nazi death camps and found that those whose lives retained meaning were more likely to retain their sanity and survive than those whose lives lost meaning. --> he came to believe that taking responsibility for finding meaning under all circumstances was a central task of life

Rastafari

a religion that began in Jamaica and is an example of the successful emergence of a new religion that resists the culture that surrounds it. They formed as a pool of landless unemployed people grew due to capitalism that undermined the peasant economy. They embodied the value of cooperative work efforts, respect for life, and unity of all peoples of African descent. They believed the Haile Selassie was their messiah. Central theme: return to Africa. They believe ganja allows them to see through the evils of the bourgeois world, understand the roots of their oppression, and verify Rasta lifestyle.

Law

a means of social control and dispute management through the systematic application of force by a politically constituted authority. ___ addresses conflict that would otherwise disrupt community life.

Wiccan (or neopagan)

a member of a new religion that claims descent from a pre christian nature worship → A modern day witch. Basic principle most of them believe is the threefold law, which proclaims that whatever good or ill people do in the world returns to them three more times.

God

a named spirit who is believed to have created or to control some aspect of the world. High gods (gods understood as the creator of the world and as the ultimate power in it) are present in only about half of all societies.

Monotheistic

belief in a single god.

Animatism

belief in an impersonal spiritual force that infuses the universe; R.R. Marett coined the term. → today probably best known as mana.

Polytheistic

belief in many gods.

NIAL class structure

bottom: savages then- barbarics top: civilized

Divination

a religious ritual performed to find hidden objects or information. It discovers the unknown or hidden. It may be used to predict the future, diagnose disease, find hidden objects, or discover something about the past. This practice makes people more confident in their choices when they do not have all the info needed or when several alternative courses of action appear equal.

Rites of intensification

a ritual structured to reinforce the values and norms of a community (not individual) and to strengthen group identity → most societies have this.

Sumptuary laws

laws limiting the consumption of certain goods to particular classes of people. States often had this to preserve and reinforce the social order.

Vitalism

looking toward the creation of a utopian future that does not resemble a past golden age → future is better than present.

Corvee labor

unpaid labor required by a governing authority. → one of the most direct ways that European governments tried to make their colonies profitable.

Industrialization

was under way in Europe and North America in the beginning of the 19th century → had 2 immediate consequences: it enabled europeans and americans to produce weapons in greater quantity and quality than any other people, and it created an enormous demand for raw material that could not be satisfied in Europe.

90

# of edible foods in NIAL

Fundamentalism

(religious) has increased over the past 2 decades. Tends to occur in times of rapid change. They view their religious beliefs as unchanging. Much of it is nativistic; it presents a call to purification, to a return to the society and values of an earlier time, a time that believers understand as better, more holy, than the current era.

Inca

-culture in peru -state organization -ended in 1531 when cazarro killed them off -very agricultural --> llamas and alpacas were main animals --> had complex irrigation system -had to serve 2 years to the government --> all kinds of jobs (men --> soldiers, work in royal palace; women --> weavers)

NIAL film

-story about a kung woman (kung busmen of South Africa) -namibia/botswana -field anthropologist: Patricia Draper -john marshall does photography -shooting began in 1951 and lasted for 27 years -hunt giraffe with poison arrow -no boundaries -"female rain" fills land with water and is quiet and calm -mothers make marriage hut -mother encourage daughters about becoming women (puberty) -inner force: NUM--> spiritual force within the person -missionaries came in at end -SWAPO and guerilla fighting led them to have almost no land

6 characteristics of state

1. central government 2. political specialization: occupation, division of labor 3. taxation: fiscal power 4. territoriality 5. professional military: the ability to engage in total war 6. court system: recognizable number of individuals who have the authority to settle disputes among the people

Gerald gardner

19th and 20th century author who claimed to have rediscovered the ancient beliefs of an aboriginal fairy race --> most scholars believe that he composed his religion from a variety of modern sources.

Chiefdom

=monarchy (complex type of industrial state)i a society with social ranking in which political integration is achieved through an office of centralized leadership called the chief. Found mainly among cultivators and pastoralists→ relative abundance of food means that chiefs do not necessarily need to put excessive burdens on commoners to extract surpluses. -Organized through kinship → but also have centralized leadership (political office of the chief) -They are ranked societies → some lineages and some people in them have higher social status than others (statuses are inherited) -Internal violence within ____ is lower than in tribes because the chief has authority to make judgements, punish deviant individuals, and resolve disputes. -Many chiefs have power of magic -Social order is maintained through both fear and consensus -Uganda has this

Trickster

A supernatural entity that does not act in the best interests of humans. Ex: christian devil. They are powerful, but are often fooled themselves.

1978

N!al ethnographic present

Heeren XVII

The Lords Seventeen, members of the board of directors of the Dutch East India Company.

The Asante

a Tiwi speaking Akan people who have long occupied the tropical forest area of Ghana in West Africa. This state society emerged in 1701 through defeating a rival power. Resource bases were agricultural; substantial, accessible deposits of alluvial and shallow reef gold and participation in european slave trade. Agricultural productivity rests on yam, plantain, cocoyam, cassava. Highly productive economy was ruled by Asantehene, or king. -Composed of social classes: unfree, alien slaves; peasant commoners living in outlying villages; urban specialists offering their services to the elite; gov't officials; and at the top is the Asantehene and his royal family. -Ideology: wealth and power went hand in hand and accumulation of wealth by an individual was of benefit to the whole society. → legitimized the state, which maintained its power by redistributing wealth. -Accepts only gold for payment of fines, tributes, taxes → those who couldn't pay had to give land and laborers instead

Pharmacopoeia

a collection of preparations used as medications. → all cultures have this.

Tribe

a culturally distinct population whose members consider themselves descended from the same ancestor. Found primarily among pastoralists and horticulturalists. Characteristic economic institutions: reciprocity and redistribution (may participate in market systems in larger states). -Basically egalitarian → no important differences in wealth, power among members -Most do not have distinct or centralized political institutions or roles → power and social control are embedded in kinship, religion, or other cultural institutions. -Usually organized into unilineal kin groups

Joint stock company

a firm that is managed by a centralized board of directors but is owned by its shareholders → an innovation that allowed extremely rapid European expansion and led to enormous abuses of power. Simple idea that: to raise the capital necessary for large scale ventures, companies would sell shares.

Mediation

a form of managing disputes that uses the offices of a third party to achieve voluntary agreement between the disputing parties. Resolves disputes so that social relationships between the disputants are maintained and harmony is restored to the social order.

Fulani

a herding and farming society in Mali, West Africa in which women rarely give numeric answers when asked how many children they want or currently have. They do not count their children and seem to show a lack of regard for their children, describing them as "ugly" or "useless". → studied by Sarah Castle. They believe many aspects of the supernatural world are dangerous. There are sorcerers who inhabit human forms and those who are invisible or take animal shape → spirits attack anything present in excess → important not to count children bc this might get attention of spirits. -They believe in a code of honor called pulaaku → aspect of this is to appear self controlled and stoic at all times -High birth rate

State

a hierarchical, centralized form of political organization in which a central government has a legal monopoly over the use of force. → most complex form of political organization. Kinship ties in these societies do not extend throughout the whole society, and kinship does not regulate relations between the different social classes. They are more able to have diversity in ethnicity and religions. -More than any other form of political organization, the ___ can carry out military action for both defensive and offensive purposes. -Government emerges as a social institution specifically concerned with making and enforcing public policy.

Dutch East India Company (VOC)

a joint stock company chartered by the Dutch government to control all Dutch trade in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Also known by its Dutch initials VOC, for Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. In many ways, the company functioned as a government. Its main interest was in returning dividends to its shareholders. It acquired the right to control the production and trade of the most valuable spices of the area (cloves, nutmeg, and mace) and took brutal steps to maintain this monopoly. → formally dissolved in 1799. -developed in 1642 --> took over cape town as a weigh station (take it from the portugese)

Forced labor

a key element in European expansion. The massive transport of people had 2 economic effects: the use of slave labor was extremely profitable for both slave shippers and plantation owners, and slave labor created continuous warfare and impoverishment in the areas from which slaves were drawn.

Taxation

a key mechanism for accomplishing colonizers goals to produce the goods they desired. Taxing colonial subjects forced them into the market system → had to be paid in colonial money, which native subjects could only obtain by working for a colonist → this participation in the market and wage labor was viewed as an essential precondition for "civilizing" the natives. → ___ forced colonial subjects into a vicious cycle of dependency on the market system.

Rites of passage

a ritual that marks a person's transition from one status to another. They almost always mark birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Involves 3 phases: separation (in which the person or group is detached from a former status), transition (detached from older status, but not attached to a new one yet), reincorporation (passage from one status to another is symbolically completed; after this stage, the person takes on rights and obligations of new social status).

Bigman

a self made leader who gains power through personal achievements rather than through political office; found throughout Melanesia and Papua New Guinea. Begins his career as leader of a small kin group → attracts followers → builds up capital and increases number of wives → distributes wealth in ways that build up his reputation as a rich and generous man: sponsoring feasts, paying subsidies to military allies, paying bridewealth of young men. -To maintain prestige, he must give more to his competitors than they can give him -Excessive giving to competitors means he must begin to withhold gifts from followers → resulting discontent may lead to defection among followers or even murder of him. -Cannot pass status to others, everyone must start themselves

Band

a small group of people related by blood or marriage, who live together and are loosely associated with a territory in which they forage; 20 to 50 people. Generalized or balanced reciprocity dominates economic exchanges in these societies, which tend to be egalitarian. Minimal role specialization, few differences in wealth, prestige, power. Tend to be exogamous, with ties between them established mainly by marriage. Membership is flexible → people may change their residence easily. -All members have relatively equal access to resources→ formal leaders with power are rare -Many informal leaders → older men and women whose experience, knowledge, special skills or success in foraging are a source of prestige. -Sharing and generosity are important values and important source of respect -Social order: maintained informally by gossip, ridicule, and avoidance

Religion

a social institution characterized by sacred stories; symbols and symbolism; the proposed existence of immeasurable beings, powers, states, places, and qualities; rituals and means of addressing the supernatural; specific practitioners; and change.

Stratified society

a society characterized by formal, permanent social and economic inequality in which some people are denied access to basic resources. Wealth, prestige, and office are frequently inherited. These societies are characterized by permanent differences among groups and individuals in their standard of living, security, prestige, political power, and the opportunity to fulfill one's potential. Most of these are economically organized around market exchange, and are generally based on agriculture and industrialism. → most socially complex kinds of societies and associated with the form of pol. Organization called states.

Rank society

a society characterized by institutionalized differences in prestige but no important restrictions on access to basic resources. Usually based on highly productive horticulture or pastoralism, which permit sufficient accumulation of food so that a surplus can be appropriate by leaders and redistributed throughout the society. Both redistribution and balanced reciprocity are characteristic modes of exchange in these societies. Social ranking is associated with the form of political organization called chiefdoms.

Egalitarian society

a society in which no individual or group has more privileged access to resources than any other. There is no inheritance of prestige or material goods over generations. These societies usually operate on the principle of generalized or balanced reciprocity in the exchange of goods and services, and are associated with the forms of political organization called bands or tribes.

Nation state

a sovereign, geographically based state that identifies itself as having a distinctive national culture and historical experience. One way it constructs national identities is to draw boundaries between spatially defined insiders and outsiders → those who live within boundaries are encouraged through education, law, and ritual; those outside are viewed as different or other. Activities like coronations, inaugurations, pledging allegiance to the flag, national anthems are some tools that create and maintain the ___ ____.

Communitas

a state of perceived solidarity, equality, and unity among people sharing a religious ritual, often characterized by intense emotion. In _____, the wealthy and the poor, the powerful and powerless are, for a short time, all equals.

Cosmology

a system of beliefs that deals with fundamental questions in the religious and social order; set of principles or beliefs about nature of life and death, the creation of the universe, the origin of society, the relationship of individuals and groups to one another, and relation of humankind to nature. → give meaning to the lives of believers.

Colony

a territory under the immediate control of a nation state. → colonies were extremely profitable.

Hopi

agricultural people who live in arizona and new mexico. Blue corn is staple of their diet → more difficult to grow than most other varieties, but it's a strong, resistant strain. ___ life is difficult. According to their belief, they lived underground in earlier, imperfect creations → they were given choice of subsistence activities → chose blue corn and were given sooya (digging stick) to plant it. Farming techniques for blue corn were established by the god Maasaw, who taught them to treat the earth respectfully as a relative.

Netsilik Inuit

among them, the souls of bear, caribou, and seal are particularly important. They believed that if the soul of an animal they killed received the proper religious attention, it would be pleased → animal would reincarnate in another animal body and let the same hunter kill it again.

Monoculture plantation

an agricultural plantation specializing in the large scale production of a single crop to be sold on the market → this created the demand for slaves. Sugar was the most important crop in the 19th century.

Totem

an animal, plant, or other aspect of the natural world held to be ancestral or to have other intimate relationships with members of a group. In some groups, rites of intensification are connected with this.

Walter Cannon

an anthropologist who argued that an individual who was psychologically vulnerable to begin with and aware that he or she was being attacked by sorcery would exhibit an extreme stress reaction that would have profound physiological effects → may lose appetite and starve to death, persistent terror and loss of appetite→ vulnerable for infectious agents as well as stroke and heart attack.

Magic

an attempt to mechanically control supernatural forces. The belief that certain words, actions, and states of mind compel the supernatural to behave in predictable ways. Failure of a request is understood as resulting from incorrect performance of the ritual rather than the refusal of spirits to act.

Revolution

an attempt to overthrow an existing form of political organization and put another type of political structure in its place. (less common)

Azande

an east african group which believes that witches' bodies contain a substance called, mangu, which allows them to cause misfortune and death to others.

Shaman

an individual who is socially recognized as having the ability to mediate between the world of humanity and the world of gods or spirits but who is not a recognized official of any religious organization → part time practitioners; they believe they are chosen by the spirit world and are able to enter it. They are likely to be the only religious practitioners in band and tribal societies.

Government

an interrelated set of status roles that becomes separate from other aspects of social organization, such as kinship, in exercising control over a population.

Sacrifice

an offering made to increase the efficacy of a prayer or the religious purity of an individual.

George Gmelch

anthropologist and former minor-league ballplayer who notes that professional baseball players are likely to use magic for the least predictable aspects of the game (hitting and pitching), whereas fielding has little uncertainty and few magical practices are connected with it.

Sarah castle

anthropologist who argues that the idea that people do not count their children is often based on failure to understand that statements people make about fertility and family size are often based on religious ideas. --> she studied the Fulani --> saw that actions do not indicate an inability to count children or a lack of caring for them, but the reverse.

E. Durkheim

anthropologist who noted that all cultures regard something as holy and not holy -studied the Australian Aborigines and saw that their environment affected their religious thinking --> saw that in dance and worship, they achieved an ecstatic religious experience of shared identity. --> they have monsoons they view as mysterious forces -she saw totems as symbols of common identity--> in worshipping them, they are also worshipping the moral and social order of their society. --> she viewed this as idea of defining things that are sacred and not

Arnold Van Gennep

anthropologist who noted that cultures have 4 or 5 rites of passage : 1. celebration of birth 2.puberty (childhood --> adulthood) 3.marriage 4.death some put 5th as parenthood (becoming a mother or father)

Bronislaw Malinowski

anthropologist who saw that in every group, living involves concerns (often in regard to food supply) - had idea of origin of religion --> he pointed out that there is an intimate connection between the sacred tales of a society and its ritual acts, moral deeds, and social organization. --> acts and beliefs are related. - he said function of myth is to strengthen tradition and endow it with a greater value and prestige by tracing it back to a higher, better, more supernatural reality of initial events. --> EX: Hopi and blue corn --> through growing it, they re-experience the creation of their world.

morton klass

anthropologist who studied the Trinidad --> they make sacrifices to the di and set aside a portion of the harvest to pay rent -he basically asserts that defining religion is surprisingly difficult because not all societies distinguish between the supernatural and natural. - he pointed out that the farmer may have never seen either a di or the landlord --> he knows people who have been evicted due to failure to pay rent and people who had bad harvests and didn't sacrifice to the di --> some say di do not really exist, others say landlord doesn't really exist and everyone has a right to the land they live and work on.

Prayer

any communication between people and spirits or gods in which people praise, plead, or request without assurance of results. It often involves making requests to the supernatural → failure of spirit to respond to a request is understood as resulting from disinclination rather than from improper human action → people believe its results depend on the will of the spirit world rather than on actions humans perform.

Virginius Island

area in West Virginia which experienced a series of entrepreneurs establishing cotton, flour, and paper mills in the 19th century. The paternalistic approach of the early mill owners created a system of mutual responsibilities, however it was based on the premise that workers would not demand too much → reinforced by racism and segregation → owners threatened to hire lower paid African American workers → contact between owners and workers declined over time and community's infrastructure decayed.

Yoruba of Nigeria

certain offices were reserved to represent women's interests.

Kpelle of Liberia

conflict between individuals is addressed by a moot, a form of mediation that takes place before an assembled group of kinsmen and neighbors. The mediator reminds the audience of its interests and unity. Both sides are heard and then the mediator proposes a solution to the conflict that expresses the consensus of the disputing parties and audience. The party found to be at fault apologizes to the other and a ritual distribution of food and drink reunites the group. Through the moot → minimum resentment achieved so conflicts do not continue and disrupt social order.

new world foods

corn/maiz, tomato, potato, beans, tobacco

Robert Caneiro

emphasizes the importance of ecology in state formation. He argues that states may emerge when agricultural land is limited and population is expanding

Millenarian

focusing on a coming catastrophe will signal the beginning of a new age and the eventual establishment of paradise.

Messianic

focusing on the coming of an individual who will usher in a utopian world.

Nativism

focusing on the return of society to an earlier time that believers understand as better, more holy, than the current era. Ex: The Ghost Dance.

Inuit

foraging society in which supernatural sanctions are an important means of social control. Violations are considered a form of sickness, and the offender is defined as a patient rather than a criminal. He or she may be cured through a ritual (public confession directed by shaman). Disputes are sometimes resolved through public contests that involve physical action (head butting, boxing, verbal contests like song duels); they practice shamanic curing

Cheyenne

formal social control mechanisms come into play during summer when the bands came together for communal buffalo hunts and tribal ceremonies. On the hunt, strict discipline was required so that an individual hunter doesn't alarm the animal and ruin it for everyone. Hunts and ceremonies were policed by members of military associations. The function of these police was to get the deviant to conform to tribal law in the interest of welfare of the tribe → punishments included ripping up of teepee, cut off horses ears; killed if they don't accept punishment -they celebrate rite of parenthood --> wont have sex for years after this - sex and war are strong themes

Tribal societies

have a high degree of warfare compared to band societies. Warfare is a way for societies to expand when they are experiencing a population increase or have reached the limits of expansion into unoccupied land.

Maasai

herding society of Kenya and Tanzania in which males follow an organized progression through a series of age grades. Entry into each grade requires a formalized rite of passage. A new age grade is opened for recruitment for groups of boys every 14 years. After childhood, boys are initiated as warriors (remain here for 15 years) → warriorhood involves training in social, political, and military skills, and traditionally geared to warfare and cattle raiding → warriors can then marry → retire to early elderhood status with great ceremony called Orngesherr.

Trinidad

in this society, before harvesting, farmers make sacrifices to the di, the spirits of the first owners of their fields. They believe failure to do so will lead to a poor harvest. → studied by Morton Klass

Aborigines

in this society, people are grouped into societies or lodges, each of which is linked with some species in their natural environment that is its totem. Under most circumstances, members are prohibited from eating the group's totem, and members of lodges come together to celebrate their totems in religious rituals, which explain the origin of the totem. Through dancing and singing, they are transported to an ecstatic state. -this culture experiences monsoons and believe that their 2 seasonal states (wet season from northeast and dry winds from southeast) have mysterious power

Liminal

objects, places, people, and statuses that are understood as existing in an indeterminate state, between clear cut categories. Ex: hair, doorways → often play important roles in religious ritual.

E.B. Tylor

one of the founders of anthropology who saw religion as beginning with animism --notion that all objects, living and nonliving, possess a spirit-- and evolving through polytheism to monotheism - he believed that evolution of religion was part of the more general human progression toward logic and rationality --> this view of religion has long been discredited --> no religion is any more of less logical or evolved than the other.

Priest

one who is formally elected or appointed to a full time religious office.

Refugees

people who have been uprooted from their native lands and forced to cross national boundaries into countries or regions that do not necessarily want them or that cannot provide for them. To be granted political asylum, they must prove a "well founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion".

Ethnicity

perceived differences in culture, national origin, and historical experience by which groups of people are distinguished from others in the same social environment. → social construction.

John marshall

photographer in NIAL -he would go on trips to other countries at a young age - he brought idea that people have a very intellectual grasp of their environment.

Shamanic curing

practice in which a shaman, usually in a trance, travels into the supernatural world to discover the source of illness and what might be done to cure it; practiced by Netsilik Inuit. It has therapeutic effects: shamans do generally treat their patients with drugs, it uses story, symbolism, and dramtic action to bring together cultural beliefs and religious practices in a way that enables patients to understand the source of their illness.

high gods

present in only about half of all societies. ex: igbo of nigeria --> have creator god who is remote and accessible only through prayer to lesser spirits.

hinduism

religion where one of the most popular representations of communion with god is the love between the divine Krishna, in the form of cowherd, and the gopis (milk maids) who are devoted to him.

Cargo cults

religions known for their focus on rituals that involve the use of magic to acquire consumer goods. Originally described on the islands of Melanesia. Islanders believed that welcoming missionaries and colonial governments would bring them cargo and riches → they actually grew poorer and were deeply oppressed. In this society, secret knowledge and ritual action were major sources of power. A local prophet would announce that the world was going to end in a horrible catastrophe, after which God would appear and a paradise on earth would begin → end of the world could be caused or hastened by the performance of ritual that copied what they had observed the whites do. → they did things in hopes that such ritual would cause planes to land or ships to dock and disgorge cargo (as they observed of the whites during WW2).

Mana

religious power or energy that is concentrated in individuals or objects. Gives one spiritual power but can also be dangerous and is therefore associated with an elaborate system of taboos, or prohibitions. It's like electricity → powerful force but can be dangerous when not approached with the proper caution. -Most often found in areas that are boundaries between clear-cut categories -Hair: symbol of the boundary between the self and not self, both part of a person and separable from the person.

Totemism

religious practices centered around animals, plants, or other aspects of the natural world held to be ancestral or to have other intimate relationships with members of a group. → prominent feature of the religions of the Australian Aborigines.

Symbolism

religious symbols are intrinsically multivalent (they have many different and sometimes contradictory meanings). Symbolic representation allows people to grasp the often complex and abstract ideas of religion without much concern for the specifics of the theology that underlie them.

Myths

sacred stories or narratives. We are likely to claim that our own religion is composed of history and sacred story, but other people have ___ because we use this word to denote a false belief or a religious belief we do not share.

Tirailleurs Sénégalais

senegalese rifleman. An army that existed from 1857 to 1960, composed largely of soldiers from French West African colonies led by officers from Metropolitan France. Their first task was the capture and control of colonies in sub-saharan Africa. → the french continued to enlist Africans in the _____ ______ and used them against natives fighting wars of independence in Indochina and Algeria in the 1950's.

Mende of Sierra Leone

society that had women paramount chiefs, who were seen as "mothers writ large" → they derived their authority and power from the reproductive and supportive roles of women as mothers. Their secret society, called Sande, was very powerful in reflecting the important economic roles of wives, who were authority figures and might even succeed a chief in office. One of the most powerful women in this society: Madam Yoko; she succeeded her husband in office and was recognized as a paramount chief.

Naskapi

society that hunts caribou on the labrador peninsula and uses a form of divination called scapulomancy → divination ritual in which the scapula of a caribou or other animal is scorched by fire → scorched bone is used as a map of the hunting area and the cracks in the bone are read as giving info about the best place to hunt.

NUM

spiritual force within the person --> inner force (of Bushmen/ NIAL)

Sacred narratives

stories held to be holy and true by members of a religious tradition. They may recall historic events, although these are often in poetic and esoteric language. → powerful ways of communicating religious ideas. → legitimize beliefs, values, customs.

SWAPO

the South-West Africa People's Organization --> political party and former independence movement of Namibia --> present in NIAL film -_____ and guerilla fighting (1978) reduced bushmen's land greatly --> bands squeezed down into small land area --> they had territories with no boundaries

Authority

the ability to cause others to act based on characteristics such as honor, status, knowledge, ability, respect, or the holding of formal public office.

Power

the ability to compel other individuals to do things that they would not choose to do of their own accord. Ultimately derives from the control of resources that people need or desire.

Leadership

the ability to direct an enterprise or action. It may be a function of political office, but can also be wielded through more informal means such as the manipulation of kinship networks, control over the distribution of wealth, or through movements based on personal charisma (ex: Gandhi, MLK).

Witchcraft

the ability to harm others by harboring malevolent thoughts about them; the practice of sorcery. People are suspected of having the _____ substance when evil befalls those around them, particularly family members → such are believed to be unable to prevent themselves from causing evil.

Colonialism

the active possession of a foreign territory and the maintenance of political domination over that territory.

Rebellion

the attempt of a group within society to force a redistribution of resources and power.

Imitative magic

the belief that imitating an action in a religious ritual will cause the action to happen in the material world. Ex: voodoo doll → mistreatment of doll like image of a person will cause injury to that person.

Contagious magic

the belief that things once in a contact with a person or object retain an invisible connection with that person or object. Ex: attempting to increase the effectiveness of a voodoo doll by attaching a piece of hair belonging to the person they wish to injure.

Sorcery

the conscious and intentional use of magic.

Hegemony

the dominance of a political elite based on a close identification between their own goals and those of the larger society.

Syncretism

the merging of elements of two or more religious traditions to produce a new religion → found among deeply oppressed people. Ex: Santeria; emerged from a slave society → they combined african religion, catholicism, and french spiritualism to create a new religion → they identified african deities (orichas) with catholic saints and used them for purposes such as cursing, casting spells.

Animism

the notion that all objects, living and nonliving, are imbued with spirits. This is how E.B. Tylor (one of the founders of anthropology) saw religion.

Civilizing mission

the notion that colonialism was a duty for Europeans and a benefit for the colonized. → the French population was told this as the government portrayed its colonial practices as "rayonnement", lighting the way for others.

Political organization

the patterned ways in which power and authority are used in a society to regulate behavior.

Political ideology

the shared beliefs and values that legitimize the distribution and use of power in a particular society.

Antistructure

the socially sanctioned use of behavior that radically violates social norms. Frequently found in religious ritual. → helps people to more fully realize the oneness of the self and the other.

Pillage

to strip an area of money, goods, or raw materials through the threat or use of physical violence → one of the most important means of wealth transfer.

James Frazer

wrote "golden bough" (mistletoe) --> -puts forth that magic is transition to religion --> magic is a belief system, a worldview, an ideology for how things work. -puts forth that in many cultures there is an idea of mysterious forces that can be manipulated - precursor for religion --> idea of magic -law of simmilarity : sublaw of contact/contagion; sublaw of imitation/similarity -if you break off mistletoe in winter, it turns golden/tan ----> viewed color transition as magical -liminal also involves transitions --> part of you, but also not because separate

Victor Turner

wrote that rituals frequently generate liminal states and statuses in which the structured and hierarchical classifications that normally separate people into groups like caste, class, or kinship categories are dissolved. → in ritual, people can behave in ways that would be clearly unacceptable under other circumstances. - argued that people in liminal states experienced a state of equality and oneness he called COMMUNITAS. --> he believed that ANTISTRUCTURE (temporary ritual dissolution of the established order) is important in helping people more fully realize the oneness of self and the other.