Language

                I found the experiment very hard when I was not allowed to talk! I did this experiment with my dad and brother and found it very hard because I am the most talkative and open with my family. It was hard to watch them partaking in the conversation and not being able to contribute my ideas, at least verbally, to the conversation. Even though I tried using hand signals and facial expression, nothing is the same as being able to use symbolic language.  The impressions of my dad and brother during this conversation were uncertainty and frustration because they did not really ever know what I was trying to say and because everything took longer! They definitely changed the way they talked to me because of the fact that I could not speak back. They started asking really simple questions because they knew it would be the easiest for me to answer without using symbolic language. My dad even started to “take advantage” of me not being able to talk and just kept talking and “assuming” he knew what I was saying even when that was completely opposite the truth! I believe that the culture that uses symbolic language has the advantage in communicating complex ideas over the culture that does not use symbolic language. I think the natural tendency of a culture that uses symbolic language toward a culture that does not use symbolic language is one of distain and probably frustration with them when they are not able to communicate with them.  The distain comes from the same thought that all anthropologists have to be careful of and that is the idea that “my culture is the best.” The individuals that I can think of that have difficulty communicating with spoken language are deaf people and babies/little children. Speaking people normally feel very awkward around those who are deaf and tend to have a proud attitude thinking that deaf people are less important that themselves or less human, but they are not! They just simply cannot hear. Babies and small children normally have a hard time communicating with spoken language because they have not fully developed yet. Adults will usually alter their words to speak in a language that they think their baby can understand better (baby talk) and they know that they cannot have full on conversations with their one year old.

                I did not last very long when I had to have a conversation without any hand signals or emotion showing! This was especially hard because I use my hands a lot when I talk! And I didn’t realize how much we use our eyebrows when we talk! Five seconds into the experiment, my dad my dad started teasing me because my eyebrows were moving and I didn’t even know it! My dad and brother again found it frustrating to talk to me when I could use not expression or hand signals. They also found it boring and said that it didn’t seem like I cared, almost like I wasn’t really present in the conversation but off in a world of my own. The use of signs in our language is very important! We use hand signals and emotions to illustrate what we are talking about and to add emphasis where it is needed. As in my experiment with my dad and brother, conversations become boring and the other party might not know exactly what you are trying to say if you are not using emphasis on certain worlds or hand signals to clarify exactly what you are talking about. A sentence could be taken completely the opposite of the way you intended just by the absence of emotion and hand signals. I think there are people who have hard time reading body language. This kind of people can be hard to have a conversation with. They do not realize when they have “over stayed their welcome” and need to let the other person talk. They could be viewed as selfish people because they are always doing the talking but maybe they just have a hard time reading other people’s body language and think it is ok for them to keep talking.  Having the ability to read body language is a huge benefit. Knowing how to read a person’s body language could be the difference between completely misreading someone and taking something the wrong way or understanding what the person is trying to communicate. Many times a person could be trying to “send” an important message to you but unless you are able to see and recognize their body language, you might completely miss the message. One situation where I think it would be beneficial to not read body language is when there is a speaker addressing group of people. This is when the communication is one way and the audience is simply listening to what the speaker has to say. The speaker should not look at the person falling asleep and assume that his speech is boring. The listener who is falling asleep might have pulled an all-nighter the night before doing homework. The audience is not giving feedback in this situation and speaker does not know the private lives of everyone listening so looking just at the body language of everyone listening might not be a good way to judge how his message is being received.   I also think that many times, and it seems like this happens more with women than it does with men, we read too far into someone’s body language and make it mean something we want it to mean or make it mean exactly the opposite of what it was intended to mean. We need to be careful to not take things too far and to make sure we truly understand what someone is intending to say and not put our own meanings on someone else’s body language.

                It would have been a lot easier in part one of the experiment where I wasn’t allowed to talk, if I had been able to write down what I wanted to say. This is because there would not have been any guessing involved, my dad and brother would have known exactly what I wanted to say. One down side to only being able to write though is that it takes time and even though I would have been able to communicate better, it would have taken me a lot longer to do it!  Written language provides an advantage to the culture that develops and uses it in that it is a way to pass on their unique language. In cultures where languages are not written down, that language might become extinct faster because there is no one studying it or learning it other than those who actually speak it. If a language is written down, people from other cultures can studying the language or even try and learn it even though they are not with those people who speak the language. The culture that has written language also has another way of communicating in that they can send messages and not depend solely on word of mouth. The written language has impacted globalization greatly because the written word has been able to travel around the world for a much longer time through letters, newspapers, books, etc… than the spoken word has. It has only been in the past few centuries through the use of the internet, television, and radio that the spoken word of one country has been able to reach another country that speaks a different language.  Because of written language, things can be written down and passed on from generation to generation and from culture to culture. The history of a people that is written down is less likely to be changed over time than it is if that same story was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth.

Environmental Adaptations

The Zulu population in South Africa

The Zulu people live on the eastern coast of South Africa where they experience very warm temperatures most of the year with the average being 76 degrees Fahrenheit. The Indian ocean affects the range of temperatures the area experiences with a climate variation of 52 to 80 degrees. They receive about 18 inches of rain every year. The clothing worn by the Zulu people are examples of the cultural adaption’s of the Zulu people. Because of the warm climate in which they live, the Zulu people do not wear very much clothing at all. This is to help the body regulate its temperature as to not over heat. Boys do not wear anything and older men wear only a front apron and cow tails on their upper arms and below their knees. These are actually for the purpose of making themselves look bigger and are not even for the purpose of covering the body. Little girls are covered until puberty but then wear only a skirt until they are engaged and then they cover their chest. Married women probably wear the most clothing but that is only to show that they are not trying to attract attention from other men. Overall though, it is most common to wear less clothing therefore providing more comfort in the warm climate. Physical adaptations of this people can be seen in the dark color of their skin. Because of the climate in which they live and the amount of time spent in the sun, their skin has produced more eunelanin which protects the skin from the sun. This helps to ward off over heating under the hot temperatures in which they live.  I would choose to describe this race of people as black because of their dark skin color. 

The Andean Indians in the Andes Mountains

One of the tribes of Andean Indians in the Andes Mountains are the Quechua Indians. They live in the area once governed by the Incan empire in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. They live on the steep slopes in the Central Andes region where there is poor soil, strong wind, and cold weather.  The average temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit and the rainfall varies greatly depending on the location. A physical adaptation of the Quechua Indians is that they have larger chests than do the typical human. The air in the Andes Mountains is so thin because of the high altitude that they need bigger chests to give their lungs more room to take in oxygen. Their bodies have changed over time so as to make it easier for themselves to breath. One of the cultural adaptation of the Quechua Indians is the amount of clothing that they wear. Because of the cold climate in which they live, the Quechua people wear lots of clothing such as, sweaters, jackets, ponchos and shawls. All of this is to protect themselves from the strong wind and frigid temperatures of the Andes mountains. I would describe the race of these people based on their physical appearance as Latin American. This is based on the tan color of their skin and their dark facial features.  

Adaptation vs. Race

I think that adaptation has more explanatory power over race. When you describe a population by the way they adapt to their environment you find out a lot more about a specific people than if you just described the way they look. And, by just describing the way a people looks, you could be describing multiply groups of people. I described the Zulu culture as being black, but there are people of the black race who live all over the world just like there are white people who live all over the world. If you just describe a culture by the way they look, how is the group of people you are talking to supposed to know if that people live in South Africa or Southern California? I think that the most useful approach for anthropologists is to describe a population by adaptation and not by race.  

Sources

http://www.saexplorer.co.za/south-africa/map/south_africa_map.asp

http://www.southafrica.info/travel/advice/climate.htm

http://www.zulu.org.za/index.php?weather

http://goafrica.about.com/library/bl.weather.southafrica.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/27209/Modern.htm

http://www.warthog.co.za/dedt/tourism/culture/clothes/menu.htm

http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_4.htm

http://www.sharecare.com/question/why-have-different-skin-colors

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/204/18/3151.full.pdf

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Norway-to-Russia/Quechua.html

http://www.beachcomberpete.com/south_america/Andes/andes.php

http://peruperu.com/andes-mountains.htm

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/peru/places

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/102278/Central-Andes

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/204/18/3151.full.pdf

Five Descriptions of the Nacerima Culture

Desperate- This can be seen in the extreme lengths these people went to as part of their belief that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. They were willing to go to such lengths as scraping and lacerating the surface of their faces as part of a daily body ritual. They were so desperate to follow the rules and rituals of their culture and religion that they went to unhealthy and often unsafe lengths to achieve what they thought was right.

Fearful- This also seems to be a very fearful people. They were so worried about following the rituals that the holy-mouth-men or medicine man prescribed that they would pay money over and over again to make sure they did everything right.  They were fearful of teeth falling out and their mouths falling apart so they would pay money to the holy-mouth-man to make sure that did not happen. And not only did they pay money, they had to have an excruciating operation done to make sure their mouth remained “whole.” And this was all because they were afraid of what would happen if they did not. They even put a bundle of hog hairs in their mouths along with magical powders just to make sure they took care of their mouths. They were scared into action by what the medicine or mouth man told them to do.

Trapped- It does not appear that these people are at all able to “get out” of this way of living. They were born into it and they will stay in this culture until they die. The way of living is imbedded into the children’s minds even before they are old enough to know what they have been born into. It is even said that the mothers are suspected of putting curses upon their own children. If this people has been taught this way of life ever since they were born, it is very unlikely that they will ever see the need to break free  of it. Especially if this way of life is all they are ever taught and if everyone around them is following the same pattern of life.

Greedy – This is seen mainly in the actions of the medicine men and the holy-mouth-men. One example is the charms and magical potions kept in chests that the people thought they needed to live. The Medicine men would prescribe them to the people but not without receiving a substantial gift.  Then after the medicine man told the people what they needed they then had to go to the herbalist who also needed to be paid before they gave them the charm. One has to wonder if these medicine men and herbalist really believed what they gave out was working or if they were just using their influence to scare the people and make money. Either way, the greediness of this people is clearly seen as payment is mentioned many times as something that was needed before the people got what they thought they needed.  

Discontent- Discontentment seems to be another characteristic that describes this culture. This is clearly seen in the way the women were dissatisfied with the size of their breasts and with the ritual fasts and feast they had to make people skinnier or fatter. They clearly were not ok with just being themselves but were always trying to change their bodies. Even the article states that, “The ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation.”  They knew that they could never reach the ideal and yet they kept trying to get there.

As an American I feel that the words I chose to describe my culture, other than the word trapped,  are very accurate. Even though I am an American, I have not let myself think that America is the perfect country with no issues or problems. Yes, America is a great place to live, but at the same time I believe that many Americans are desperate, discontent, greedy and fearful. They are desperate to be like everyone else and to fit in. They are fearful of not being able to fit in and of not being “perfect” on the outside. They are discontent with the money they have, and with the way they look and are always seeking ways to improve their status in life or appearance. This also leads into Americans being greedy. Many people will do whatever it takes to make more money, even if it means pushing other people out of the way or hurting relationships. Their greed completely takes over and nothing else matters.

I do believe though that a lot of the words I used to describe the “Nacirema” culture are biased.  First, desperate comes completely from the culture I live in. I saw this culture as desperate because of the way  I have been raised to be content with the body I have been given and not to just do things, because my culture tells me to do it. This also shows why the word discontent is also biased, because to these people, it is a way of life to change their bodies and the rituals to become fatter or skinnier is something they do because they are told to, not because they necessarily want to or need to change. I believe that trapped is also biased because of my view of the world today. Reading about the “Nacirema” people all I saw was a people who could not get out of the way of life they were born into, but why would they want to get out of it if it is the only thing they knew. Obviously, this word is biased.  I believe that greedy would not necessarily be seen as biased in this culture. The “medicine men” and “holy mouth men’s” greed is clearly seen by the way they make the people pay for each one of their services. I do not believe that fearful is unbiased because all culture in some way have fear involved. People are scared into doing things which will then feed the greediness of those doing the scaring. They will pay money or give of their bodies  or possessions to be rid of the “fear” put upon them.

Another word that might be able to be used in the place of desperate, is passionate. I feel that this is an unbiased word because anyone can be passionate about something they care about, weather that something is good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The “Nacirema” culture was so passionate about the way they looked on the outside that they went to great lengths to try and achieve a different look even if their passion for something different caused them to be unsafe. A word that could possibly be used in the place of discontent, is ritualistic. This word seems very different but the things that made me describe this culture as discontent were some of the things that they had rituals for. I’m specifically talking about trying to make a person skinnier or fatter. They did not necessarily try and change because they always wanted something different but because they were told they needed something different and the way they achieved the difference was many time through rituals. This is clearly a culture full of ritualism. I think that ritualistic and traditional are also words that could be used in place of trapped. Instead of thinking of the people as trapped inside a world they are not able to escape from, they are adhering to rituals and traditions they and their ancestors have held to for centuries. They do not mind being in this culture because that is all they have ever known and will ever know.  They are used to their traditions and they are comfortable there.

I believe it is very important to avoid as much cultural bias as possible when describing other cultures. Even though it seems I struggled in this assignment with using words that were biased, it has helped me to see the importance of keeping ones opinion out of the picture as much as possible when describing other cultures. I think it is important to try and keep your opinion out as much as possible when discussing other cultures. Just because you think something is wrong and most people in you culture see it as wrong, someone in another culture might see that same thing as completely ok. You also take the risk of hurting possible friendships and alliances with people from other cultures if you are not careful about the way you communicate with them. If you are careless and do not think about the fact not that everyone has the same opinion as you, you can cause massive problems that could have been avoided if you had simply removed your personal opinion and biases. I do not think that it is ever possible to completely remove your cultural bias as a Cultural Anthropologist. You may be able to remove most of it and try and be as unbiased as possible, but in the end, the culture you were raised in has formed and shaped you into the person you are today and try as you may, you can never fully remove your opinion of the way the world works. It is like having on glasses that you can never take off. You will forever see the world through the lens of your culture.