AN200 Rita

Question 0

Mosko (1983)

Answer 0

• couples periods of openness and closeness during which they mix and unmix blood - woman open through conception period and most during birth - child contains both bloods and relations extended to all kin on bilTeral site- all one and same blood
• clash with need of intra-tribal marriage and patrilineal as one and same blood
• so clans also follow periods of opening and closing unmixing the blood the couple mixed through gift exchange - at marriage grooms family to brides gives valuables and pig and brides reciprocates in,y with pig - inequality unmixing blood
• de- conception of cognatic ties at death as blood returned to woman’s family in pig exchange

Question 1

Piaroa of Amazonia - Joanna Overing

Answer 1

Shaman’s performance combines sublime, pure power of Anemei with grotesque realism. Fertile powers body vs its true weakness, banality, permeability

• anemei comparable to an objective unit, idyllic - how to reconcile his forces with our nature of eating, fornicating human beings? Anemei is not a social being, doesn’t deal with others, nor does he fart, eat or excrete.
• through their orifices people’s bodies become infiltrated with ties with others and range of impurities - effort needed to make them part of an idyllic kinship chart

Question 2

Parry(1985)

Answer 2

India - mortuary rituals eliminate sins, leave pure essence( from ghost preta to ancestor pitr)
- cremation destroys outer body, new being built through pindas which are ‘like womb’ balls of rice, flour
1 set - chief mourner eats for preta
2nd - mahabrahmans receive daña which are said to contain sins
3rd- pinda to pure brahman priest and rice supply so he eats for the
New pitr during his journey to abode of ancestors

Question 3

Bloch mortuary

Answer 3

• mortuary rituals means to attain vitality from transcendental.
• famadihana, the second burial among zafimaniry involves a blessing from ancestors tsodrano
• woman with brief and sorrow during mourning period,assault during famadihana symbolic triumph over death and rebirth of society

Question 4

Goody (1959)

Answer 4

• LoDagaba - property inherited bilaterally - patriclan immovable, matriclan movable
• LoWii - property inherited only by the patriclan - joking relationship present
• specificity of ‘ritual transgression’ , among then lowii manifests itself as ZS snatches (pig?) leg - woman don’t inherit property so MB means of getting something from mothers side - proof of bilateral filiation reckoning

Question 5

bloch & sperber

Answer 5

• agree with goody’s explanation in terms of property but elaborate on the catchiness of the joking relationship phenomena in the epidemiological approach to culture - our predisposition to reckon kinship bilaterally makes it such a prevalent behaviour- not detrministic but more likely , an indirect relationship
• implications for anthropological methodology !
• methi

Question 6

Barash (2001) on Mb/ZS

Answer 6

• From the side of the MB : fully mother brother societies , where MB has better relations and seems to care more than his own children - where extramarital sex most likely ! - paternal ambivalence
• Truk or Dobu

Question 7

Gottlieb(2009) - Beng

Answer 7

• high sociality foundation in 3 factors
  A) womans labour, need babysitters
  B) religion - babies said to return from ancestral land, need to be welcome so that they don’t want to return
  C) history - reliance on trade and exchange
  Not just alloparenting, benefits from trade
• children socialised into being sociable - e.g blow in the face when child looks in the mothers face - so they wont become gbane, a difficult child - one that is too attached.

Question 8

kirk (1964)

Answer 8

76% of surveyed new yorkers reckoned a mother faced with choice of saving drowning adoptive or natural child would opt for later.