Answers to the questions on "Shakespeare in the Bush "

     Pick from the past : Shakespeare In The Bush

                          

1) Select a quotation which (in your) view sums up the key point/s of the text. Copy it accurately and give the page reference. Explain, briefly, why this quote is so important for an understanding of the article/extract.

“Sometime,” concluded the old man, gathering his ragged toga about him,“you must tell us some more stories of your country. We, who are elder,  will instruct you in their true meaning, so that when you return to your own land your elders will see that you have not been sitting in the bush, but among those who know things and who have taught you wisdom.” (Page 12)

In this article written by Laura Bohannan , the quotation given above sums up the article and is important for understanding it. This is said by the village Elder , and it shows how the culture we came from affects the way we think , they started relating to their culture whilst listening to "hamlet" . Since Hamlet was written in the Shakesperean time the people had some confusion in understanding it , but they related the entire story to their cultural belief , and in the end it made sense. So here in the quote after listening to Bohannan's version of Hamlet they started relating it to their culture , changed the parts in the story and made it their own that is also why the village elder has told Bohannan to tell them more stories so that he can give the true meaning of the stories and Bohannan could go back and tell her people about it.

2) Summarize the basic argument of the article? (What is the author's point of writing this? What is their message?)

The main point that  Bohannan wanted the readers to know was the fact that a thing as simple as a book or a story could  be perceived in a totally different  way when taken to a different culture . Making it more simple ,  the elders started modified the story putting in their own cultural beliefs , yet in the end it made sense. What she thought was universal and would be accepted by these people wasn't true. In here cultural relativism comes in play . The same thing about marrying your dead brother's wife seems unaccepted in one culture while in the other culture it seems completely acceptable , and these types of situations were seen throughout the article .

3) Is there anything from your own experiences which can help you relate to this? Anytime something similar to this has happened to you?

For me , I have had no experience as such which I can relate, specially because the people with whom I normally get to meet and talk have similar cultural background  , but then its always a change when I tell people from different cultures , the stories and experiences I grew up with .

My review on "Cultural Relativism" by Mark Glazer.

            The document entitled "Cultural Relatisivism" that  we got to read was written by Mark Glazer & given to us by Mr.V (our anthropology teacher) . I would like to give my  review on the document  which is an excellent and very scientifically explained work by Glazer . Cultural Relativism is one of the most important words that an anthropology student or any other anthropologist would encounter.
          Glazer has provided us with an important perspective on cultural relativism. He shows how anthropology is also another form of science. With his complex use of words , he tells us and states one of the key factors of anthropology that all cultures all over the world are equal , no culture is is better that the other , all the cultures should be viewed without a sense of a biasness . Particularism is another word which pops up in the text which means that in other to study a culture properly we must go in depth. Glazer has also written and I have also mentioned in my previous blog that  culture can never be teemed "right" or "wrong". The main reason being that a thing which may seem right in a particular culture may seen wrong in the other culture and vice and versa.
         Franz Boas is also mentioned by Glazer since he was the first person who coined  the term "cultural relativism" hence he has a lot of points to say about it . The limitations of comparative method in anthropology is also wonderfully explained by Boas . Alfred Kroeber, who was a student of Boas has also put forward strong points about the relative study of cultures.
    Hence , this sums up my understanding of the text written by Glazer which got me thinking about culture and the way in which we study it , the different aprroches taken to study it and practice it .


~XXX~
       

A peak into some of the rituals among the Betinats.

        The  Betinat's and I have been in close contact for the past five years . This  group of people is basically situated in the north-eastern part of India , in a small town called Jeedarling but people from this community are scattered all over the world in small groups . The Betinat culture is characterized by their immense faith in their deity also known as Ahddub or Yagnas .
        Every year in the month of February/March , this community celebrates their New year ,known as Rasol . This is one of the biggest festivals celebrated by this community beside" Akas Awad".  This festival continues for fifteen days , the first three days are the most important . On the first day the family goes to a Apmug near by and offers prayers and gifts to the Gods and Goddeses. From the second and third day family members scattered around the small town get together and are serve each other with different variety of food , the main delicacy being  Beef . There are different ways in which the meat is consumed . They start the meal by presenting some cold meat "shya"which is cut into thin slices , this is commonly taken by the elder people along with their home made drink "chyang". Then they serve another famous dish called "Lua" which is the lung of the beef cut into pieces and stuffed with powder ,but originally they say it would be stuffed with blood , then the"chimba" which is the tongue is served. They also serve "ghima" where they stuff the beef meat into the intestines .These are consumed by all the members of the community , from kids to elder people . Heavy discussions about God and politics  are found among the elderly  male members of the community , the females are normally helping out to serve the dishes and are found discussing about their long lost cousins and family affairs , the kids and the young adults are found joking around and playing games together . Beside meat another  meal they prepare are the "khapseyses" , these are big horn like   biscuits  made up of powder and sugar , the  miniature forms of these khapseyes are called "rhugrus" . The sole purpose of making these are to present it to the Gods on the first day of Rasol , where the members of the family get together and honor the Gods with khapseyes and many other gifts and these are also presented to the many guests coming to their household . The guests being their relatives come to their houses bringing gifts ,which is offered and kept in a separate room for the Gods. The sleeping pattern is jumbled during these fifteen days , family members circle around in groups going to different relatives houses .
       Another big event besides Rasol as said before is "Akas Awad" . This festival is a month long and it usually falls in the month of June/July. The main purpose of it being to honor the Deity and his life . The belief among the people are that the merit of any good deeds performed during this month is multiplied thousand times over . So the people go to different temples with gifts , restrain from eating meat , give gifts to the poor and light magical lamps . The Full moon and half moon have great affect on what they do during the entire month.
       So this review of the festivals celebrated by the Betinats has shown us that they are people who solely have faith in God .







Cultural relativism from what I understood means that there is no wrong and right , when we see different cultures we come to know that what may seem right in one culture may be wrong in the other , so we cannot judge a culture based on that .

Reflections ...

(1) How does our cultural worldview influence and inform our perception of people from other cultures ?

- Since world view means theory of the world what we are basically trying to say is we think of people as their cultures define them to be , their life styles , their traditions, language , taste and preferences , among many other things and it is due to this cultural world view that we already have a preconceived idea about what people from other cultures would be like without even knowing the reason why(stereo type). So we tend to incline to what we know without wanting to know more. for example , we have this idea that people from the hills are simple , without getting to know these people . but we tend to believe and think they are simple people because thats what our cultural worldview grants us with.

(2) How can we be aware of and change our assumption ?

- Since we will be viewing these cultures in a generalized form , we should be aware of the fact that these are pre-assumption that we make and all of it may not be the truth , it may apply to a certain mass of people but may not to the other . We can change our assumption in many ways , by looking through the eyes of the people there. Learning about their cultures and like in a way promoting anthropology itself , we can be well aware of what is done and practiced , and broadening our factually basis on which we make our assumptions . Also to be aware we have to learn , travel ,explore and study and carrying out fieldworks .

(3) How can we benefit from understanding our own cultural worldview and how it affects our relationships with other cultures?

-If we understand our own cultural worldview we will not have a prejudice or bias thought regarding other cultures around the world, we will not assume before hand &we wont have a blind foresight to what is actually seen or explored . Also , if we find out the holes in our world view we will know how not to judge/classify people .And if we understand this  in an appropriate manner then it'll also strengthen our knowledge .

Review ...

 "Cast Me Not Out in My Old Age but Let Me Live Each Day as a New Life"

The quote above has been used by Barbara Myerhoff  in her book " Number Our Days ", she had a life span of about 50 years , was an anthropologist, film maker and co-founder at the Centre for Visual Anthropology in the University of South California . Myerhoff is renowned for her work & study about the Elder Jewish community in Venice , California , This was first documented in the  1976 ethnographic film or documentary 'Number our Days ' which was later turned into a book and published in 1979.
                                   


Some of the publications by Myerhoff excluding "Number our Days" include :


~ Peyote Hunt (1974): The sacred journey of the Huichol indians.

A crack in the mirror: Reflective  perspective in Anthropology (1982)-Barbara & Jay Ruby.                              ~ Life's Career-Aging: Cultural Variations on Growing Old (1978)- Barbara & Andrei SImic .In the ethnography  "Peyote Hunt" , Myerhoff studies  the culture of the Huichol Indians . Taking part in their daily rituals and so on .    Awards : ~ 1977: Academy Award for documentary short subject fro Number our Days.   Since Myerhoff was also a film-maker the films she contributed to were:~ 1976 : Number our Days with  Lynne Littman~ 1986 : In her own time with  Lynne Littman & Vikram Jayanti.Unfortunately , In her own Time was take up by  Lynne Littman& Vikram Jayanti because Myerhoff was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. She died in 1985.In the first few pages of Number our Days , Myerhoff's  popular ethnographic book about the elderly immigrant Jewish people living in Venice , California she  gives a standard view about the tough yet sober life of the people there . The subject throughout the book and the first few pages has been this small remaining community of Eastern European jews , who had migrated to the east coast of United states , worked and raised their children before moving to California for their later years . The neighborhood contained a large amount of survivors , soviet citizen & older immigrants and their children. In this section the anthropologist starts by talking to an Elderly woman "Basha" , she confesses and tells Myerhoff about her life . A strong fact affecting this book is that Myerhoff wanted  to study aging in an ethnic group , so she chose a community in mexico as she had been there before but she was given a chance to study her own community , the jews , which made it more interesting . In short , myerhoff potrays a group disadvantaged elderly jews sustaining their life although there is loneliness and poverty and many more problems affecting them .

The quote or sentence I found interesting is     "Cast Me Not Out in My Old Age but Let Me Live Each Day as a New Life" . The reason why I like this quote is because although this group of elderly people have a tough , neglected life , words like these give them the inner will power and strength . They have already sufferered the battles of life and their body is also worn out , they wake up each day thanking god for giving one more day into their lives . They know that these will be the very last days for them , so they make the best of it .

Another paragraph I found interesting is "The anthropologist engages in peculiar work.He or she tries to understand a different culture to the point of finding it to be intelligible, regardless of how strange it seems in comparison with ones own background . This is accomplished by attempting to experience the new culture from within, living in it for a time as a member, all the while maintaining sufficient detachment to observe and analyze it with some objectivity . This peculiar purpose - benign inside and out at the same time- is called participant observation "
Now this paragraph hit me quite well because of the strong and yet simple language in which myerhoff has explained " Participant Observation" . Being an anthropology student myself , this paragraph seems to give a more clear picture of what fieldwork in anthropology actually  includes . And how it helpls us to keep this in mind when we are in the same situation.
The section I read was basically the introduction , so I didn't go much deep into what really goes on in the book and what the book is actually about , but on the whole , i enjoyed reading the text , but being a beginner at anthropology myself , its a bit of a hard work to get the terms straight. Also because the introduction jumps straight into whats actually going on with no elaborate and distinct explanations which for me was a bit tough to catch up with .
    XXX










Me , myself & I

Hello fellow bloggers !!

 My name is Divina & this is my very first blogpost . This will be an introductory post ,where I basically tell you guys a  lil' bit about myself .

NAME : DIVINA LAMA

SCHOOL:ULLENS SCHOOL 

AGE:16

INTERESTS: TRAVELLING,MUSIC,FOOD,DOODLING & EXPLORING.

(North sikkim)

I was born on the 24th of June 1998 on a rainy day , in a place surrounded by tea gardens called Kurseong . Although I was born in India which is my maternal home , I was raised and brought  up in  Kathmandu Nepal . Born into the Tamang community , two major religions are practiced , Buddhism and Hinduism . 

(Meghma)

We are a nuclear family and at home we converse in our mother tongue , Nepali along with our second language English . Unfortunately since I was brought up in a diverse community and rarely got any opportunity to group up with Tamang speaking people , I cannot read , write or speak in Tamang language.

                                                           (nepali & english)

For the past five years I attended school in Mount Hermon School , Darjeeling and here I got to meet many  people from all over India and abroad , they spoke different languages and practiced different cultures . I also had the opportunity to learn a bit more about their culture . In class  I had friends  walk up to me offering octopus ,deer meat and rice cakes . Food I had never seen but only heard of , on Independence day everyone would dress up in their cultural attires and get together .On many occasions we also shared stories and experiences about our home and community.

   

                                 

                                                         (Independence day'12)

On the whole , the reason why I want to take up Social Cultural Anthropology is because I want to explore more about these cultures , know more about my own culture & compare the different culture over the world with mine .

                                                           (Blue air by Dring)

And oh yess !! I play the piano , my teacher Mrs . Veveca has supported me for the past 5 years and this September I'll be giving my Trinity Guildhall Grade eight examinations . Wish me luck !!

                                                                         ~xxx~