Great and Little Tradition

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

Caleb L. Fry and Lauren T. Rios Department of Anthropology Lake Tahoe Community College One College Drive South Lake Tahoe, California 96150 USA Faculty Advisor: Daryl G. Frazetti Abstract

It is clear that cultural tradition delivers set foundations into a person’s lifetime, giving identity and sense of belonging to a person and their social group. It allows individuals to feel part of something and understand their ancestral values and customs. Several people believe that it is very important to preserve cultural traditions because they feel as if tradition is the main enabler to a shared identity and to a construction of social consistency and unity. People also believe that conservancy of cultural traditions forms exclusive bonds within members of the community, holding people with the same background together to pass on cultural values, and excluding those who aren’t part of the culture. They think that the actual preservation of traditions means not to change the customs and traditions, to not grow from our culture, for example not learning another language because you already know your mother tongue. It is a way to group up and tag everyone in a form of an alliance, and to have better organization and awareness of where everyone comes from.

they perform the bulk of their work, and what it is they do in both problem

William Cronon states that “Kinship and personality rather than any alternative institutional structure organized power in Indian communities. Both within and between villages, elaborate kin networks endowed individuals with greater or lesser degrees of power” (Cronon, 59). Instead of working hard to make a profit on commodities by buying and selling to consumers, the Northeastern Indians would take

What is the difference between Ishi being in a vaudeville show and Ishi being on display at the Anthropology museum? Did Kroeber exploit Ishi? In a vaudeville show Ishi showed demonstrations of Native life. Kroeber

In the third grade, I remember bringing noodles to lunch, and all of my white classmates looking at me strangely. Little did I know, Americans did not bring noodles to lunch, but rather simpler things, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lunchables. Although my introduction to the western culture was nothing as close to the Ibo people’s introduction to the western culture, it is clear that different cultures often have a hard time understanding the customs of another culture. Okonkwo’s response to new western influences spreading through his clan depicts how the introduction of different cultures can lead to disagreement because of contrasting religious values and customs.

The people of the town were so unbendable when it came to their humble tradition that they did not even bother to question the reasoning behind the tradition. All they needed--perhaps all they wanted--was the comforting assurance that it had been around for a long time and would continue to be as long as they lived. People are far less willing to break traditions that have established themselves than traditions that have just begun. It is as if longevity is placed upon a golden pedestal, unable to be touched by the hands of human beings. It is a mandatory fact of human existence that the status quo must be questioned, for the majority of eminent men in centuries past have said or done things which no one will now justify. The villagers should have questioned the beliefs of their town in order to rectify the wrongs of years past.

How Native American people do reconnect with their Ancestral Past? The Native Americans are the economy of people who are the hunters and gathers in their ancestral past, but later the Native people developed a new agricultural technique to outline the religious in different perspectives. As the economy of people was a hunter of animals, which symbolize, particularly with creatures are regularly typical pieces of Native American religion. Creatures were utilized to speak to specific thoughts, qualities, and spirits. The Native American is the deep sense of being, that don't support their strange beliefs and practices as a religion. Native American religions contain various practices, services, and distinctive

Dressed as birds, the young men arrive at the longhouse of a neighboring clan for a highly anticipated event, the Gisaro ceremony. They perform elaborate dances and sing at length in the clan’s territory about dead members of their host’s community and days gone by. This can go on for hours, with the purpose of eliciting an intense emotional response of nostalgia, upset, loneliness, and sorrow from their hosts. Once this has been achieved, their hosts attack them with lighted torches, burning their shoulder in anger and sorrow. The dancers are not allowed to show any emotional reaction, but they continue to dance until the hosts are done attacking the dancers. When the ceremony draws to a close, the dancers retreat back to their hut for the night and bring their hosts food in the morning. While this elaborate and violent ceremony may seem bizarre to the outside world, it is extremely important and valuable in the context of Kaluli society. Far from being a rare or inexplicable incident, the Gisaro ceremony is a highly anticipated and appreciated ritual for the Kaluli people that can only be understood in the context of their beliefs about reciprocity, food, and the afterlife.

One can understand how traditions are easily lost through the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another. Traditions that lose their meaning due to human forgetfulness can cause dreadful consequences to occur. Although "the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original box, they still remembered to use stones" to kill the forgetful woman.

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,

As a general introduction, this textbook represents a highly instructive 'snapshot' of anthropology's own self-image as it views itself today. A primary text in anthropology education, it includes a distinguished editorial board of practicing anthropologists and academics who review the text and provide the author with substantive feedback. Though the book betrays its own biases and views (the author is a cultural anthropologist from the American Midwest), Professor Kottak is careful to outline the field of anthropology in as broadly useful and neutral manner as possible for American students. The book is truly global in its context, and it is careful to avoid any of anthropology's past failings relating to Eurocentric bias by including all countries within the scope of anthropology.

The chief concern of this paper is to explore the interconnectedness of cultural anthropology and folk literature. There are many essays that have already shown the interrelationship between folklore and anthropology1. Both these umbrella terms have many things in common but when it comes to folk literature and cultural anthropology, some distinctions become apparent. To say, hence, this paper is different in a sense that instead of dealing with the broad areas of folklore and anthropology, it looks at their branches and explores interconnectedness between them. Before moving further, one needs to understand the area of folklore and folk literature. American Folklore Society (AFS) defines folklore as “the traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practice that is disseminated largely through oral communication and behavioral example”. It clearly hints that folklore is a broad term which includes all the types of expressions whether oral, written, visual, or performative. This leads to an inference that folk literature is one of the branches of folklore which deals with verbal and written expressions. Similarly, anthropology is a jacket term which means a study of humanity including the prehistoric to contemporary, whereas the cultural anthropology is one of its four branches which aims to understand and define why a certain group behaves differently from the other group. These clarifications lead to another inference that though both anthropology and folklore study human

“Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies, which helps us understand ‘Human’ better. And you will have classes on different topics and fieldwork to learn about Anthropology.” the professor introduced the concept of Anthropology in my first class in my college life, which indicated the importance of combining course learning with the practice of field work. This first impression of Anthropology has greatly influenced my studies in the next three years. I tried to attend all kinds of research covering different topics that were important in this academic area and only after the process of practicing, failing, reflecting and learning can I get closer to this academic field.