Franz Boas Potlatch

The Canadian Inuit were a domestic, tribal, egalitarian society in the 19th century. And some cultural changes occurred; making the Inuit adapt and become more aware of other resources they could get hold of, for gathering and hunting for food. In the 19th Century, the Europeans discovered the Inuit culture and this provided new resources for the Inuit to gain an easier way to gather and hunt for food. But because of the European influence, the Inuit’s culture changed to adapt with European Individuals living in their land, and European resources that had been made access to them. By this cultural change in the 19th century there was “an increased diversity in the social structure and material culture of the Labrador Inuit society” (Auger, 1993:27). The Labrador Inuit was a significant Inuit Society to have an ethnographical research made to understand a little bit more to; how the Inuit was affected and how the food process was changed. It will also be discussed the significant ideas and techniques that the Inuit used to gather and hunt for resources.

In 1956, Horace Miner took it upon himself to share what he had learned about the poorly understood Nacirema tribe living in North America through his paper titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” Initially shocking to many, it helped to provide an objective view of the Nacirema tribe and the unusual rituals and practices which they engaged in at the time. But, it has now been sixty-one years since the publication of that paper which has made it necessary to reexamine the practices and rituals of the Nacirema tribe.

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

This paper addresses the results of interviews, observations, and research of life in the Ottawa tribe, how they see themselves and others in society and in the tribe. I mainly focused on The Little River Band of Ottawa Indian tribe. I researched their languages, pecking order, and interviewed to discover the rituals, and traditions that they believe in. In this essay I revealed how they see themselves in society. How they see other people, how they see each other, what their values were, what a typical day was etc. I initially suspected that I would have got different responses from these questions but in reality the results in the questions were almost completely the same. I studied this topic because mostly all the people that are

Before the Europeans came to Canada, Natives had their own culture, traditions and norms. These differences were obvious to the Europeans who sailed to Canada, their interactions with the Native peoples proved these vast differences. One major difference noted was that the Iroquois organized their societies on different lines than did the patrilineal western Europeans. Iroquois women “by virtue of her functions as wife and mother, exercised an influence but little short of despotic, not only in the wigwam but also around the council fire.” “She indeed possessed and exercised all civil and political power and authority. The country, the land, the fields with their harvests and fruits belonged to her … her plans and wishes modeled the policy and inspired the decisions of council.” The Europeans were astounded by this way of life.

The people of Inuit, Yup’ik, Unangan, and other Native Americans Indians have lived in the harshest environment on Earth from Siberia, across Alaska and Canada, and to the East of Greenland along the coast of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. From Labrador to the interior of Alaska the Athapaskan, Cree, Innu, and other Native’s people lived in the subarctic region of the land. These people had the ability to depend on their years of knowledge of the sky, ice, ocean, land, and animal behaviors in order to survive. Living in the area that was vast and dealing with seasonal dynamic extremes these Native people of the Artic and Subarctic had a honorable endurance for an millennia of exchanged goods, ceremonies, and shared feasts with neighboring goods that has help them throughout the years.

This collecting of folkloric data opened Barbeau’s eyes to the need to salvage the cultures of Native and French Canadians alike. « Fortement inspiré par l’ethnologie de la

The traditional Athabascan potlatch has not change much since it was celebrated by their ancestors in the past. In this essay we will explore what the significance of the Athabascan potlatch and why it is so important to the communities where it is celebrated. We will also explore similar “gift giving” ceremonies by other indigenous people around the world.

Have you ever celebrated Christmas? Remember the feast, tree, friends, gifts, and prayers. These are all similar events or activities that occur in a potlach, the word potlach means'' gift giving ''. This tradition is derived from the Tlingit and American Indians, in fact, the potlach is a festival that is about '' giving more than taking ''. Located in the Alaskan coastal islands and Dakota, the Chilkat Tlingit's and Sioux Indians compare and contrast in characteristics such as religion, celebrations, and daily life.

Throughout history, many different cultures illustrate their history and their beliefs through various artistic objects that they create. These artifacts allow historians to better gage their lifestyle, their beliefs, and how their society operated. One example of this is the “Drum Beater” sculpting created by Karoo Ashevak that is especially famous for its illustrations of the shamans and the spirits. In this research paper, Karoo Ashevak’s “drum beater” will be dissected and analysed; from the Inuit culture itself, to the physical features of the sculpting, as well as the significance and symbolism of the sculpting as it relates to the Inuit culture.

For Miner, he was writing from his years of personal observation of American homes, but often the anthropologist is not already a member of the community to be studied and must develop a rapport within a community. This relationship must be created without being deceptive and creating a negative impression so that members of the community will act naturally and not suppress their habitual or instinctive reaction to life issues (Kawulich, 2005). This method collects data not only from personal observation but also includes interviews, natural conversations, checklists, and surveys. The effective use of this method includes having a nonjudgmental attitude, being aware of culture shock tendencies, wanting to learn more about others, and practicing good listening skills (Kawulich, 2005). When the anthropologist properly explores the organized routines and ritualistic behaviors of the group, they become becomes a part of the community and reports the information about how the group is operating from a holistic understanding of the viewed events.

While the Native Americans and the Africans inhabited two different continents, their belief system has a plethora of similarities pertaining to their core values. The basis of their religion also, in some ways, epitomizes modern day religion such as rites of passage. Their differences are shallow in context when it comes to what they view as sacred and holy and including religious rituals that are performed for a specific reason or transformation. Both Native American and African mythologies center around the ideology of harmony, balance, and cyclical nature of all beings through animistic symbolization. To a certain degree, all outsiders or nonnatives who study the belief systems of indigenous religions have found that indigenous religion is more than just a religion or belief system but rather an inherent way of living. To name or label indigenous beliefs as “religion” or any other is to have a bias based on our own views of transformation and ultimacy.

Every person on this planet has a set of beliefs and values that they implement into their daily lives, helping them understand the world, humanity, and themselves. This set of beliefs and values can be called a worldview. The worldviews and ways of knowing of Indigenous Peoples (in this paper, specifically Indigenous Peoples of North America) have existed for centuries, yet often they remain in juxtaposition with Western (in this paper, specifically Eurocentric) ways of knowing and Western worldviews. One way of knowing is reliant on science, order, and the

Anthropology, as a discipline in the field of human sciences, is based on certain ethical principles to guide its practitioners through their research. This creates a stable framework on which to start any research project. Avoiding deviation, however, can be complicated. Anthropologists have a responsibility to their field,

Bronislaw Malinowski is arguably the most influential anthropologist of the 20th century, certainly for British social anthropology. Malinowski saw himself as effecting a revolution in anthropology by rejecting the evolutionary paradigm of his predecessors and introducing functionalism, whereby institutions satisfied human biological need, as the way to understand other cultures. I argue that his lasting legacy, however, is methodological rather than theoretical. Although not the first to conduct fieldwork, his lengthy stay among the Trobriand islanders during World War 1 enabled him to study their culture and cover a wide range of topics, from economics to sexuality. He contributed to ethnography and fieldwork by living with the people he studied, getting to know them personally, participating in their activities, and conducting his research in the field has since become known as ‘participant observation’.