Week 7: The Culture of Art

1. I think the cave artists were trying to say many things with the cave paintings. I think they could have been trying to say practical things such as writing down information or a story. I also think they were trying to display beauty and while they might have been trying to say other things, I think they were doing art for the sake of art. The saw beauty or spiritualness in animals and so they drew the animals to show the beauty they saw. Underneath all of arts messages, there is a beauty to it and the purpose of capturing something beautiful.
2. I think the majority of paintings were animals because they were not egotistical as a culture. They  maybe saw more beauty in animals then they did in themselves. I think they saw something spiritual, magical, or mysterious in the animals. They saw something that they admired or were curious about is what I think. They is also the possibility that to be able to hunt the animal they needed to know the animal better, so they drew what they knew about the animal. It did say that when humans were drawn, they were simplistic and shown in hunting parties. 
3. The paintings tell us that they were hunters. They saw value in the paintings because it took hard work to paint them especially in some areas. It could have been a form of communication or written history. They were most likely a spiritual culture and they were smart. They used lamps, portable light sources, developed pigments, and used scaffolds to create these paintings. 
4. They encountered several difficulties. They needed light because the caves went deep and were not supplied by natural light. Some areas were too high and they needed scaffolds to reach the areas. The developing of the paint to paint the drawings. The rock formation was also a difficulty. Some areas of the rock were formed so that it was hard to paint on it or so that it was hard to engrave on it.
5. As the website discusses, they do have a seasonal pattern that is consistent in all of the paintings. The cave artists could also be trying to give their people something beautiful to look at or trying to tell a story. They could have also been trying to show something spiritual or magical. I think it is combination of all three reasons and there could also be other other reasons we have not discovered or  may never discover. 

2. I think all of the functions of art in early humans still exist today. They are still present in our art forms even if more functions have been added to modern art. Art is still used for story telling, recording of history, spiritual or magical purposes, and the capturing of beauty. Art still exist and is still being made that performs at least one of these functions. Every art form you can think of, dance, paintings, music, literature, all have been used for all of these functions. The Lascaux caves could have been used as a calendar or to copy information down. Modern art also has this is all art forms like poems and paintings. It could have been used for spiritual or magical purposes. This is even more common in modern art, think of poems or music. It could have also been for beauty. This is in every form of modern art, think of dance, literature, and paintings. 


3. 

1. This image displays two of my favorite art forms. This image is a painting by Degas. Degas is an impressionist and a realist painter. I love the art form of painting and impressionism and realism are my favorite types of paintings. The second art form is the form of dance called ballet. Degas has many paintings centered on ballerinas. Dance is another type of art form I love and ballet is my favorite type of dance. Paintings are trying to communicate a message. Degas is trying to communicate beauty and realism. Often his paintings try to show the loneliness, such as in this painting. Ballet has the function of displaying beauty as perfection and storytelling. Every ballet is a story through dance and not words.
   
2. There is a culture around every art form and there are subcultures in that culture. There is an art culture that is filled with artists, art enthusiast, museum curators, gallery owners, art collectors, and others. I would say they all behave more sophisticated and there are different dress between the different members of the culture. Mostly, the dress more sophisticated. Within that culture, there are subcultures surrounding different types of art. For example, abstract, impressionism, and surrealism. Ballet also has its own culture filled with ballerinas, artistic directors, choreographers, and people who go and see ballets on a regular schedule. They also behave sophisticated. The ballerinas want perfection. On stage, there is a certain type of costume the ballerinas wear and you dress formally when attending ballets. 
3. The art form does not have any detrimental affects. Art can please, shock, or repulse you and that is what it is supposed to do. It is supposed to give you a perspective on something and provoke thoughts. It is also to capture a moment in time and to capture beauty. Although all art forms may not appear beautiful, I think in all of their own ways each art form is beautiful. It has a certain magical element to it. It benefits society because it makes you think and gives you different perspectives. It opens your eyes to history and to new things. 

Week 6: Violence and Politics

1. If someone kills someone else in our society, they are suspected, arrested, and then put on trial by a jury to prove that they are guilty. This is much different from the way that the Yanomamo handle killings and consequences. In the Yanomamo culture, revenge is practiced. If it happens within the group, the two groups divide and begin raiding each other, where more killing occurs. When someone in our society kills someone, the society does not allow a family member of that person to begin raiding the killer's house or to go kill him. However, the two cultures can be seen as similar in some cases, where it is seen as acceptable to go after someone that is going to hurt you or your family. The most recent case that I can think of where this occurred is where the father found out a man was sexually assulating his five-year-old and attacked him. The man did not mean to kill him, but accidentally did. This is a case where a man killed another man in first degree murder by beating him to death and he was found not guilty. This is because it is acceptable in our society to do whatever you need to to protect your family and yourself.

2. The Yanomamo's revenge is called blood revenge. After someone is killed and there was a kinship obligation attached to the person killed, raids begin taking place. There is a raiding party in which 10-20 men participate. Some turn back because the village is too far away for other reasons, but what usually happens is that there are drop puts along the way that make excuses for why they cannot fight. Most are just frightened. If they drop out every time or almost every time, the man is labeled as a coward. The night before the raid they burn an effigy of the person they most want to kill. The next day at dawn when the raid occurs they usually kill the first person they see and then begin shooting arrows and then quickly retreat. If someone kills someone or shoots someone with an arrow, they can have the ceremony of unokaimou performed. These can continue back and forth. Men also have the option of declining to go if the village being raided has close kinship living there.

3. If you obtain the unokais status, you thought of as stronger and braver. The more unokais you obtain the fiercer and strong you look. This also gives you economic and reproductive benefits. Women are taken forcibly and also more attracted to men who are unokais. Unokais also are able to protect their family and dependents by deterring violence.  Unokais are very valued in their communities. The benefit of being a non-unokais is you have fewer mortal risks

4. Political structure, social status/social organization, kinship, marriage and reproduction, and behaviors are all interconnected and all influence each other. The political structure is set up that the head of the village is the male that is the leader of the largest descent group. Social status is set up that unokais are valued and you are thought to be a coward if you do not seek revenge or raid other villages with your raiding party. All headmen are unokais. They value strength and aggressives not timidness and cowardice. It seems like everyone is related to everyone. The kinship is very close, where in their lifetime the will know at least one relative that has died violently, if not more. People from other villages can also be closely related to people in other villages. The close kinship does not only extend to people within the same village. Marriage also adds the close kinship by acquiring more family through marriage. Many men, especially the headmen, have more than one wife and have on average around a dozen wives within their lifetime. This leads to a huge number of children in which they are all related. The behavior that is promoted is that men are aggressive, brave, and courageous. The way this is practiced is that it is encouraged to take revenge. It is normal to raid another village for a good reason, such as someone killing your family member. It is shameful to be a coward and not to take revenge into your hands. Men will forcibly take your wives, if you are thought to be a coward because they no nothing will be done. All of these elements go into making revenge killings acceptable and encouraged. All these elements: political structure, kinship, and marriage, fuel the fire, so to speak. They continue the cycle of killing and raiding for revenge of family members and other reasons.

Although cultures socialize people to not want to kill and to see it as socially unacceptable, people are still going to do it because of human nature. Laws are necessary because without laws people would kill take what they want or need. They would also kill to avenge and protect their family, just as the Yanomamo do. Human nature is selfish. Human nature also wants security. I think you can also see this in the Yanomamo. They value unokais and they value strength, aggressiveness, and being fierce. This can be seen that they value this because it provides the community with security. For example, the one Yanomamo village where 8 out of the 11 unokais who had unokaised more than 10 times lived. The village was seen as fierce and their chances of being attacked probably greatly deceased. It may also be seen in the women that are more attracted to a unokais man than a non-unokais, they know a unokais can protect them better from violent attacks.

Kinship chart

Week 5: Kinship

1. My relationship to my subject was she was my mother. She was born in South Philadelphia. She is half Italian and half Irish and grew up in the neighborhoods of South Philadelphia and the neighborhoods of the suburbs just outside of Philadelphia. Her whole life she has been somewhere in the middle class around lower and middle middle class. She grew up in a conservative, catholic family in the 1960s-1970s. 


2.  How I interviewed my subject, my mother, was to describe the basic goal of the interview and then to do question and answer. I was not comfortable throughout the entire interview process. For most of the interview I was uncomfortable and I also my mother was uncomfortable. This definitely did affect the thoroughness of the interview. It affected the thoroughness of the interview on both sides. There were some questions that I could tell my mother wanted to give as short an answer as possible because she did not want me to know some information because I'm her daughter. This in return or emphasized the fact that I did not want to ask some questions because I knew that she might not want to answer them or she might flat out not want me to ask them in the first place. I think interviewing someone that you were not related to or even someone you did not know at all would be much better. Even interviewing someone not so closely related to you such as an aunt, uncle, or cousin would be preferred, but the further you remove yourself the easier the interview would be. It is hard as an anthropologist to remove personal bias or your relationship with the subject, but I also think it is even hard for the subject to do the same. My mother could not remove the thought that she was being interviewed by her daughter, even though I asked her to not think of me as her daughter but someone she did not know who was interviewing her. 


3.  I do not think there is an emphasis on maternal or paternal lines, but there is definitely a difference in the attitude toward the older and younger individuals. When asked about closeness with older generations such as her grandparents, the attitude changed and she stated she was not close with them. The attitude held toward the older generations was much more formal. My mother also added the comment that the generation was different back then and you really did not have much of a relationship with your grandparents. She said you were not close with your grandparents even though you saw them every week. The closer to her generation and the younger generation was informal and the attitude changed. She was very close with her parents and one of her siblings. She is also close with her daughter. The attitude toward the younger generations while informal, there was still an attitude that certain things should not be discussed with younger generations especially your daughter. There was a trend of larger families, but there is now a trend of smaller families with mother and all mother's siblings having 1-2 children. The largest family is her eldest brother with 3 children. My mother mentioned that her mother's parents and her father's parents did not get along well and that her mother's parents never really liked my mother's father because one side of the family was Irish and the other side was Italian. Other than that there were no differences that affected social interactions. 


4. I know relatives on my mother's side very well. On my father's side I know the names of some of the relatives. The only relative I know a lot about is my great grandfather on my father's paternal side. I do not socialize equally with them. I have a certain degree of closeness with almost all of the relatives on my mother's side, but I have never met any of the members on my father's side. I am not exactly sure why this is, but from what I can infer there was a disagreement and the relatives on my father's side chose to no longer be involved in his life.  In my personal family of my mother and father, my mother and father have almost equal influence in decisions, but I would say my father has a little more influence in most decisions. I do not know about other family households of my family members. The family members who marry into the family are definitely treated equally with members who were born into the family. They are treated like there is no difference. I am not really sure if there are different attitudes towards family members based upon gender. Most of the time I would say no there are not different attitudes. Through this exercise the main thing I have learned that there is an attitude toward younger generations and that they should only be told so much because it is not proper to tell them certain things. I can now see this through the way my mother approached the interview and how I do not know about my father's side of the family. There are also other things that support this idea that are not evident to me. I can also see how it has been passed down generationally because my mother was very formal with her grandparents and sometimes even her parents.