Anthropology 2A Second Midterm

Front 1

Social Organization

Back 1

-How society is organized to get things done.
-includes institutions and social structure

Front 2

social structure

Back 2

-descriptions of groups that make up society and relationships between them
-is part of social organization

Front 3

Institutions

Back 3

-social relations organized around a particular theme/task
-part of social organization

Front 4

Kinship

Back 4

-Many practices, belief, social structure that pertain to family and family relations

Front 5

Kinship-diversity in terms

Back 5

-can differ between cultures depending on how cultures overlap
-spanish and english have different words for same definition because of cultural overlap
-yap have chit nag, which is different than mother because lack of cultural overlap

Front 6

Unilineal Descent

Back 6

Descent if traced through only one sex

Ie: Patrilineal & mattrilineal

Front 7

Patrilineal Descent

Back 7

Belong to group of my father

Front 8

Matrilineal Descent

Back 8

Belong to group of my mother

Front 9

Bilateral Descent

Back 9

Equal descent through mother and father

Front 10

Lineage

Back 10

-A group of people who can trace descent in a unilinear matter from a common ancestor.
-You can't marry someone in the same lineage as you
-Dala = people in your lineage

Front 11

matrilineage

Back 11

 You belong to the group of your mother
 Both men and women belong to a matrilineage, but only women pass it on.

Front 12

patrilineage

Back 12

 You belong to the group of your father
 Both men and women belong to patrilineage, but only men pass it on.
 In U.S., a vestigial piece is that when a couple marries, they inherit the male’s last name

Front 13

Clan

Back 13

o A group of people who believe themselves to be descended from a common ancestor in a unilinear matter, but they cannot demonstrate all the links
o Based on stipulated descent
o Clans contain lineages
 If two lineages both descendents from a common ancestor way way back (like you know you are somehow related to Abe Lincoln) but they don’t remember how, those lineages belong in the same clan.

Front 14

patriclan

Back 14

clan from father

Front 15

matriclan

Back 15

clan from mother

Front 16

Totemism

Back 16

-The belief that people are descended from animals, plants, and other natural objects. Symbols of these natural ancestors, known as totems, are often associated with clans (groups of families tracing common descent). By representing desirable individual qualities (such as the swiftness of a deer) and helping to explain the mythical origin of the clan, totems reinforce clan identity and solidarity.

 Example: Dolphin clan on Yap island.
 The people claim to be descendants of the “spirit sisters”, who were two sisters who were half dolphin and half human.
 The two sisters everyday would take off their tails to walk on the island and watch the men dance.
 One day a man discovered the tails and hid them. The sisters came back and discovered they were gone. They were crying.
 Man told the sisters to come and marry him because he could feed them and take care of them. So they married him and had children. AKA dolphin clan

Front 17

Kindred

Back 17

• Special collection of relatives you get
• An eco-centered network called bilateral kin
• A kindred is NOT a group
o Group is common identity that everyone in it shares
• In kindred, people don’t even know each other.
• No one has the same kindred as each other
• Each individual has their own friends & relatives- their own kindred.
• An individual’s kindred will last until he dies.

Front 18

Corporate groups )corporate functions)

Back 18

o Collectively controlling a resource
 Descent groups can be corporate groups and have corporate functions
 EX: land. I don’t individually own my land, but my entire lineage owns it.
 If someone wanted to buy my desk in my office, I can’t sell it because it belongs to the company
o Kindreds do not have corporate functions
 Just a network of people, not a group
 There is corporate behavior
 EX: Nuclear family house. It’s your parents’ house, but you have your own room. You eat the food your parents buy

Front 19

Functions of Marriage - Descent

Back 19

Produces descendants
 Socially legitimate heirs that are eligible for all the groups’ rights
 EX: King and Queen’s child becomes the prince. The child born from the King’s mistress is not prince.
 Establishes next generation of peeps

Front 20

Fuctions of Marriage- Alliance

Back 20

Establishes alliances
 When you get married, you get a whole new set of relatives
•Strangers now become allies

Front 21

Affines (affinal relatives)

Back 21

Affine = in-laws
- When people are married, there is creation of affinal relatives; strangers now become allies

Front 22

Incest Taboo

Back 22

-coined by Claude Levi-Strauss
• Incest= prohibition on sex, not marriage
• He believed that incest taboo divided world into two types
o People you can have sex with
o People you can’t have sex with
• This helps people meet strangers to build more alliances.
• Builds a social solidary.

Front 23

monogamy

Back 23

o Marrying one spouse
o Serial monogamy
 Marry one spouse at a time
 Ex: hollywood

Front 24

polygamy (polyandry & polygyny)

Back 24

o Marrying more than one spouse

Front 25

polyandry

Back 25

 Practice of having more than one husband.

Front 26

polygyny

Back 26

 Practice of having more than one wife
Observations on polygyny
 There is going to be an inbalance in the sexes.
 This means is men have many wives, there are gonna be men who are not going to have any wives.
 A general pattern is that men marry later in life and woman marry earlier in life.
 Men may marry in the thirties
 Women may be married as children or teenage
 Having many wives can mean many things
• Prestige
• Heirs
• Larger labor force

Front 27

Himalayan agriculturists & polyandry

Back 27

 They have a kind of pre-industrial agriculture
 There is a scarcity of arable land
• Land that is suitable for agriculture
o The land is held corporately
 The land is not fragmented
 The oldest would be the leader
o Fraternal polyandry
 A woman marries a set of brothers.
 All the sons inherit the land from their fathers
 The land is not fragmented
o This makes sense in the context the material conditions of the Himalayas

Front 28

social organization and material conditions

Back 28

 demographic is a material condition
 within context, certain different cultures and practice may make sense
ex: himalyans and polyandry
o However, we must not think of material conditions as a cause and affect relationship
o Not every similar material condition has the same solution or the same marriage system

Front 29

primogeniture

Back 29

o An inheritance practice where the eldest son inherits everything
o The younger sons would not get anything, and they may not get married or have children
o 1,200 years ago, this was the solution to the lack of land in Scandinavia.
o The younger sons got glory by being Vikings
o In Ireland, the 19th century, there was a scarcity of land
 Solution was primogeniture
 The younger sons made a life by coming to the United States.

Front 30

land tenure

Back 30

 Ex. Some guy has twenty acres of land
• He has two sons and two daughters when he dies
o There is a rule land goes to the sons
 The land is divided equally between the sons
 For each following generation, the amount of land decreases.
 Ultimately the land parcels are fragmented and become eventually become too small to support a social unit
• All things governing the inheritance of land.

Front 31

exogamy

Back 31

o the practice of marrying outside of one’s group
o clans and lineages are exogamus
 exogamus are the groups
 you must marry someone outside of your clan or lineage
o This is a prohibition on marriage
o Incest is a prohibition on sex

Front 32

endogamy

Back 32

o the practice of marrying inside one’s own group
 doesn’t mean someone in your family
 can mean someone in your class or position
 like the Rockafellers marry someone of the same status
 Racial endogamy
 You don’t marry your brother or sister, but someone of the same race

Front 33

Caste system of India

Back 33

 Caste of Hindu India
 4 castes with subcastes
• you are born a member of a caste and die in that caste
• it determines your occupation
• you are expected to marry within your own caste

Front 34

post-marital residence

Back 34

Rules and practices that a bride and groom marry that determine where they go to live

Front 35

Virilocal residence

Back 35

o where the married couple relocates to the groom’s community.
 Could even live in the same house as his parents
o Keeps sons with their fathers

Front 36

Uxorilocal residence

Back 36

o where the married couple goes to live in brides community.
 Could live in a rigor compound home with the wife’s people
o Keeps the mothers and daughters together
o Example, the Iroquois long house hold all the women of many generations

Front 37

Neolocal Residence

Back 37

o the married couple establish a new house in a new communitry
o spreading the seed
o we seek better opportunities elsewhere

Front 38

Avunculocal Residence

Back 38

o Bride and groom go to live with the groom’s mother’s brother or the maternal uncle
o Find only societies where they practices matrilineal descent
o Keeps the men of a matrilineage together while dispersing the women.
o This means that property are passed down only in one lineage

Front 39

bridewealth

Back 39

o A payment from the groom’s people to the bride’s people
o Not the purchase of a bride
 May be called “bride price” in older times
o May using very special forms of wealth
 More distinct than other forms of wealth in mundane everyday things
o Signifies new relationship between her people and his people
o Can also because it compensates for the loss of her labor
o In Southern Africa, u suto
 Cattle used to pay
 So big, require installments

Front 40

dowry

Back 40

o Payment from the bride’s group to the groom’s people
o Quite common in Europe, even today
o In America, bulk of the payment come from the bride’s family
o Think of Dowry as a form of inheritance for the daughter
 In most systems the assets of the father who died is usually split amongst the sons
 The dowry is an early inheritance for daughters
 Though daughter may not have control of it

Front 41

bride service

Back 41

o The husband goes and lives with his wife and wife’s people and he works for the wife’s people.
o For a set period of time, then completed
o In Sahara
 A bride’s man will hunt for the bride’s people

Front 42

marriage exchanges

Back 42

o Very common in pacific island and native Americans of Northwest
o Simultaneous exchange of wealth from Bride’s people to groom’s people and Groom to Brides
o The forms of wealth are gender
 There are wealths particular to each gender
 They each give something specific to their wealth
 Grooms provide male wealth to the bride’s people
 Brides provided female wealth to the Groom’s people
 This is rather competitive
 Each side wants to give more to the other side
• This is how you win
• Competitive gifting

Front 43

Ascending Generation (1st, 2ndm 3rd, etc)

Back 43

 The generation above
 Your ancestors and their siblings
 1st ascending generation
 Parents, aunts, uncle
 2nd ascending generation
 grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles
 3rd ascending generation
 great grandparents

Front 44

descending generation (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc)

Back 44

 1st descending generation
 children, nephews, niece
 2nd descending generation
 grandchildren
 3rd descending generation
 great grandchildren and such

Front 45

Ego's own generation

Back 45

 0
 self, cousin, siblings

Front 46

Matrilateral & patrilateral genealogical kin

Back 46

o 1. Matrilateral Biological Kin Type
 where for any kin type the first letter is an M
 through the mother
o 2. Patrilateral Biological King type
 where for any king type the first letter is F
 through the father

Front 47

Parallel cousins

Back 47

 biological kin type are children of same sex siblings
 Patrilateral Parallel cousins
 Cousins from dad’s side
 Materilateral parallel cousins
 Cousins from mom’s side

Front 48

Cross cousins

Back 48

 children of opposite sex siblings
 Patrilateral cross cousins
 Cousins from dad’s side
 Matrilateral cross cousin
 Cousins from dad’s side
o Cross cousins are always of a different lineage or clan.
-Cross cousins are marriagable partners

Front 49

"nature" and kinship
-cultural construction of ties of "blood"

Back 49

blood is thicker than water”
o we are connected to each other by the facts of biological reproduction
• A. Cultural construction of biological ties in US and Europe
o Special connection between mother and child through the womb
 The womb imparts feelings
 The baby can feel the physiological response of the mom like excitement, cravings, etc.
 Court case..Who gets the baby?
 Lesbian couple wanted a baby. They broke up after having one. Who gets it? The woman who genetically provided the child with her eggs, or the woman who supported the child in her uterus?
 The woman who carried the child in her womb got the child

Front 50

Kinship and Subjectivity

Back 50

 We are born into a place where things are already established and we have no control over it
 Doesn’t mean we are robots
• We act, think, manipulate, lie
• Don’t all travel at 65 mph, don’t all stop at the sign
 We have to make ourselves as a person
 Individual perspective
 Father, son who bought cattle, son who stayed at home.. everyone has their own perspective

Front 51

Nuer Marriage & "Descent"

Back 51

o 1. Intro
 Cattle ranchers
 Patrilinear
 Polygyny
 When the man and woman get married, there is a bride-wealth agreement. The men pay the women in cattle.
 People circulate between each other because cattle circulate
o 2. Getting Descendants
 Cattle give them descendants
 For a man, when you die, you don’t just die but you become an immortal ancestor.
• Immortality is only possible if you have descendants
 Find a wife and pay bride-wealth through cattle to her people
• It is not an official marriage if no bride-wealth was paid. The children wouldn’t be considered his until he pays bride-wealth.
o Doesn’t matter if it’s not the man’s own sperm, but as long as he pays bride-wealth.
 A husband is a person who pays bride-wealth to a woman and her kin-group
 Bride-wealth and husband and father
• A father is a person who has paid bride-wealth, and then the woman has children.
o “ghost marriage”
 A dead man can become a husband and a father
 If a man dies, his kin group can give his cattle to a woman as bride-wealth so the man won’t live a bad death.
• A woman can also become a father/husband
o If a woman can’t have children (she’s barren), she’ll be treated as a male
o She can get her own cattle and then pay bride-wealth
 She then has a “wife” but it’s not a lesbian relationship
 She overcomes gender with cattle
 If the “wife” is having sex with her lover and she has kids, the father is the woman who gave the bride-wealth
 If they want to get divorced, they have to pay back the bride-wealth.
• Hard because the kin group might want back the exact same cows that were initially given
o Ex: tom, dick, harry, matilda the cows.
 Once a woman has filled her obligation by having children, etc, she can become surly, talk back and leave the man and have an affair
• She has leverage
• But the children she has with the lover is still the husband’s kids

Front 52

Kinship & sociopolitical relations
-elders and sons

Back 52

 Cattle are corporate
 The elders (your father, father’s brother) control the corporate herd
 Fathers have power over sons
• If you are a son and want to get married, you better have a good relationship with your father.
 Many Nuer men would go to the capital of the Sudan to get wage jobs through construction, etc
 With the money they buy some cows
 The son then has his own cows apart from the corporate herd
• Threat to the old men’s authority
• Old men lose control of young men
• Now they have to negotiate
o Cattle of girls
 Cattle received as a bride-wealth payment
o Cattle of money
 Cattle purchased with wages
o Cattle can pass through both states many times

Front 53

Kinship & sociopolitical relations
-men and women

Back 53

 Wife
 In the beginning she can’t do what she wants (not much autonomy). But after she has a couple of kids she has tremendous autonomy (leverage)

Front 54

Sociopolitical organization

Back 54

• The order of social relations between groups and society
o This means even regulating people within those particular groups

Front 55

Band

Back 55

o Small kin based group
 May have 15-100 people in it
 Relations in the band are governed by the principles of kinship
 San of Kalahari
 There are permanent water holes in various places in the Kalahari desert that are miles apart
 There are groups of people that have hereditary ties to a water hole
 Each group at a water hole is a band
• There are personal ties between people of different bands
• However, there is no formal relationship between the entity of one band with another band
o There are only personal relationships amongst the people
o This is called band level society.

Front 56

Tribe

Back 56

o Larger than Band
o Is organized around principle of kingship.
o They have pan-tribal organization principle
 There is something that relates people of different groups

Front 57

Chiefdom

Back 57

o Large
o Kinship based structures
o Tied to centralized points of authority
 Chiefdom has a chief
 Tribes and bands don’t have chiefs
• If it had a chief it would be called a chiefdom.
o Trobrianders
 there are four clans
 matrilineal
 has many different lineages
 Each clan has lineages that is ranked differently
• There is a chief lineage
o The chief will come from this lineage
o The chief has control of the people in his clan only
o He is the oldest son of the eldest sister
 There is a clan that is higher than the other four
• There is a paramount chief from this clan
o But he can only command people from his own clan
o But has more duties and responsibilities than other chiefs

Front 58

State

Back 58

o Based on territory
 Everyone in the territory is in that state
 Everyone is bound to listen to the leaders of that state
o Not based on kinship
o Regulation
 by taxes, commerce, writing systems
o Coercive apparatus
 Police forces
 Army
 Court systems and prisons
 If you disobey, can lead to incarceration or worse
o All societies around the world are incorporated into states
o Tribes keep their cultural identities within the broader sense of the state

Front 59

4th world peoples

Back 59

 Peoples who have some other special form of political organization, but have been forcibly incorporated into a state
 Ex: the Nuer
 The Turks in Sudan forced them into slaves for Ottoman Empire
 Then the British invaded and the Nuer became part of the British colony
 There was a civil war, but after it ended they discovered that the Nuer were on oil so they violated the peace treaty
• Second revolt
• SPLA
• Some nuers were moved to Minnesota as political refugees

Front 60

Stratification

Back 60

o Different statuses and groups of people in a society
 Ranked in terms of prestige, privilege, power
o Systemized institutionalized inequality

Front 61

Strata (stratum)

Back 61

 In Hindu Indian the strata are the Castes and Jatis
 In the U.S. the strata are the classes
 In South Africa the strata are the Apartheid
 Whites, colors, blacks
 Whites = Europeans, colors = asian, Indian, etc.
 Strata is a general term
 Many ways it can be categorized
 No one specific form

Front 62

Egalitarianism

Back 62

o Opposite of stratification
o No high and low, king and subject
 Absence of stratification
 Ex. San of Kalahari
o All societies have some form of stratification
 Even in the San, a 3 year must listen to the parents

Front 63

Nuer Segmentary Lineage System

(See written notes for picture)

Back 63

 They have a big kinship structure
 have different patrilineages
 they recognize that groups at some time in the past had a common ancestor
 For example
• A-B C-D E-F G-H
• Then you realized that even farther past there is a common ancestor between all groups
• A-B_C-D_E-F_G-H
• Called a segmentary lineage structure
 The segmenatry lineage structure provides the structure for political
• If B had a war with A, the whole lineage would have a war with B, till a blood wealth
o All the other relations stay out of the problem
• But if someone from C killed someone from A, A and B will have a war with C and D
o E,F,G,H stay out of it
• If E killed someone from A
o Then the whole thing goes to war against each other
 A,B,C,D vs. E,F,G,H
• There are no formal leaders
o But there is a formal political organization
o This also creates alliances
• This structure allows a military forces to be created quickly among the alliances

Front 64

Masai: Age Grades & age sets

Back 64

 Live in Kenya
 Age grades and Age sets
 Age grades are categories in the life cycle
• U.S. has this too
o Infant, adult, child, toddler
• For Masai, these are categories people pass through
o Boy  warrior  elder
o These are marked by formal initiation ceremonies
 Age set is a cohort
• A group of similar aged people who passed through the age groups together
o This is similar to highschool
 Freshman, senior are similar to age grade
 Age set are the people in the same grade
 Like the class of 2006
 Elders determine when the boys will become a warrior
 Only one set per grade
• So when one moves up, another comes up to fill the gap
 Age sets have special roles
• There is a military arm
o Because the age sets comprise of many groups, this creates an alliance

Front 65

Status- Ascribed and achieved

Back 65

o A position occupied by an individual in a social structure
 Doctor, lawyer, custodian
 Father, mother, son, friend
 Male, female
 Middle class, blue collar
o Statuses are reciprocal
 To say you are a father is assumed you have a child. To say you are an employer is assumed you have employees

Front 66

ascribed status

Back 66

 Inherited. Not a whole lot you have to do to become it
 King of England
 Male/female

Front 67

achieved status

Back 67

 Things you must do in order to make it to the status
 Doctor, lawyer

Front 68

Role

Back 68

o Any behaviors, obligations, priviledges associated with a particular status
 President of U.S. = status
 Living in white house, signing laws = role
 Father = status
 Role = take care of kids, etc.
o We simultaneously have many statuses and roles
 I am a daughter, girlfriend, student, aunt
 Role conflict
 Sometimes the many statuses and roles come in conflict with each other
• You are a mother who has a big presentation for your company. But your child is really sick. How are you going to take care of both things at once?

Front 69

Class
-position within division of labor
-relation to means of production (Marx)

Back 69

Class
o A position within a division of labor in society
 A doctor & lawyer are in same class
o Karl Marx
 Class in terms of relations to the means of production
 Means of production are special workplaces like factories, that enable the production to occur
 Do you have control over the means of production or do you not?
 Two classes
• 1. Bourgeoisie/capitalists
o those who own the means of production
• 2. Prolateriat
o don’t own the means of production
o own our capacity to do work
 Are you an employer or employee?
• Question that defines your class for Marx
o Kobe Bryant is very high paid prolateriat
o The guy who owns the Lakers is the bourgeoisie

Front 70

Pierre Bourdieu

Back 70

Multi-dimensional approach
o We are going to use more than 1 dimension of criteria to figure out how people are situated in society
 Capital
• money that is invested in purpose of making more money
o We want more and more
o Money put in a hole is no capital
• Economic capital
o We invest
• Social capital
o Networks, who do you know?
o Friends in high places are useful
o We accumulate social capital
• Cultural capital
o Distinguish people through style and taste
o Concerns about knowledge governing consumption
 Music, clothes
• Can trade in one form of capital for another

Front 71

Authority

Back 71

Authority
o A relationship between persons where one person has a recognized legitimate right to tell other people what to do
 Ex: Boss, parents
o Not the same as simple coercive power
 A person who sticks a gun up to you and tell you to give you your money is not legitimate
o Authority is cheaper and more efficient than coercive power
 Coercive power requires mobilization of resources

Front 72

Headman

Back 72

o A kind of leader that is found in band-type societies like San of Kalahari
o It is an achieved status, not inherited
 You have demonstrated certain skills, wisdom, aptitude
 Holds his status through Personal attributes
 His son will not be next headman. You have to develop skills
o He has influence
 But cannot order/compel people to do things. Only convince/persuade people

Front 73

Bigman

Back 73

o An achieved status
o Personal attributes
 Most important is charisma
 He must develop followers so they will support him
o Cannot order people about, can only try to persuade
o Bigman doesn’t just get voted. He has to have a personal relationship with each follower

o The Big man is very involved in a certain institution that mediates relations between different political groups

Front 74

Moka in New Guinea Highlands

Back 74

• Type of competitive gifting
-example of what Bigman does
• Different clans, like Clan A and Clan B can, can compete by gifting each other
o If you receive a really good gift, you feel obligated and scared. To restore the order of symmetry, you give them something back in comparable value
o If you give more than what they gave you, there is asymmetry
o They aren’t fighting.
 They are allies through this institution of moka
o Bigman doesn’t just get voted. He has to have a personal relationship with each follower

Front 75

Chief

Back 75

o An ascribed status (inherited)
o In chiefdoms, not tribes
o Chief holds his/her position independent of personal qualities
 Office
o Has true authority
 Could banish people
 Unlike headman in that he steps into the authority
o Chief in title passes from a man to his sister’s son

Front 76

Political leaders in states

Back 76

o Wide diversity of different kinds of leaders
 King/monarch is ascribed status
 President is achieved status
o They have authority
 Generally it is an Office
 The authority extends to everyone in the territory
 If you don’t obey, the police and such can back him up

Front 77

Authority and mobilization of labor

Back 77

o Mobilization
 Getting people together to work on some sort of project

BIG MEN
Must build a group of followers
-puts a limit on how many followers you can have b/c/ must have personal relationships
CHIEF
Elaborated kinship system
-has authority over everyone in clan just by moving into the office
STATE
Authority is exercised over everyone in territory
-everyone in U.S. boundary must pay taxes or IRS will get you
-can mobilize the largest group of people

Front 78

Holism

Back 78

1. holism is idea that socio-cultural practices need to be understood in the context of the whole they are a part of
a. A person is dressed in a fire suit and there’s smoke. He is a fireman
b. A person is dressed in a fire suit in a bar in October. He is wearing a costume
c. Integrated
d. Holistic approach is to connect things to their broader topics

Front 79

Ethnographic fieldwork

Back 79

i. Very time consuming
1. We go some place for a couple of years and live in a certain community
2. Participant Observation
a. Involve yourself in the daily activities so you can conceive many connections.
b. valuable method of research

Front 80

Survey research

Back 80

only gives distribution

Front 81

Matriliny vs. patriliny

Back 81

matriliny = values women. A lineage without daughters dies
ex: Trobriands

Patriliny = China
1. The boys carry on the lineage’s last name
2. China only allowed 1 child per family
3. If the one child is a girl, then abort her

Front 82

Geography
-Trobriand Islands
-Papua New Guinea
-Massim

Back 82

i. The island of New Guinea
1. Western half is part of Indonesia, eastern half is the country of Papua New Guinea
a. Region: Massim is within Papua New Guinea
b. Group of islands within the Massim = Trobriand Islands
c. It is tropical, sandy beaches, etc.

Front 83

Wealth and political relations

Back 83

2. Wealth as a cultural construction- role of wealth in creating sociopolitical relations
a. We accept something to be valuable
i. For Americans, the green pieces of paper are valuable
1. We spend a lot of money on things we think are valuable, like paintings
2. Political relations are underscored
a. People at the art auction are assigning values to things.
ii. Trobrianders view yams and banana leaves as wealth
1. they are important to them through their own sociopolitical relations

Front 84

Trobriand Men's wealth

Back 84

i. Yams
1. The men grow the yams
ii. Stone axe blades
1. Traded in from other places
iii. Clay pots
iv. Kula valuables
1. arm shells, shell necklaces
a. They are trophies of sorts

Front 85

Trobriand Women's wealth

Back 85

i. Grass skirts
1. intricately woven
ii. Banana leaf bundles
1. women make them and the skirts
c. Interdependence of men and women
i. Has very important political implications
ii. Men need women and women need men
1. Brothers need sisters, husbands need wives, etc.

Front 86

Trobriand chiefs

Back 86

1. Chiefdom
a. Stratification, not egalitarian
b. Within each clan, the lineages are ranked
i. There is one chiefly lineage who owns more land than the rest of the clans
ii. Chief clan also owns special magic
1. community of belief
a. a bunch of people believe it is there, so it works
iii. Eldest son of the eldest daughter of the chief lineage can become chief
1. women cannot be chief
a. Should be most generous of all
b. By being generous he gets prestige, power
i. Giving wealth away
1. This makes you powerful and influential because people are then indebted to you
2. Redistribution
a. Become a depot so wealth can come through you and you can then give it to others

Front 87

Sex and gender

Back 87

i. The words are not interchangeable
ii. Sex: biological differences between males and females
1. body hair, large breast, genitalia
iii. Gender: a cultural construction
1. How we invoke a male/female dichotomy and use it as symbols to discuss
2. Pink vs. blue
3. dog vs. cat

Front 88

Public & domestic domains

Back 88

i. Domestic Domain
1. Places, activities that are associated to the household
2. Gendered female
ii. Public domain
1. addresses relations between domestic units
a. governance, business
i. Places like village center, meeting houses, Congress, white house, business office
b. gendered male
iii. The domains are not equally valued
1. Public domain is viewed as greater
2. Evaluation of woman is that their roles are not as important
iv. The domains are considered natural
1. Natural differences between male and female
a. Women give birth, are more nurturing
b. Men are more aggressive
2. This model is universal

Front 89

Trobriand matrilineage and matriclan

Back 89

i. Matrilineal
1. 4 different matriclans on the main island
ii. Lineages are corporate
1. The lineage controls land
2. If you are part of the lineage you get to use the land
a. But it is not just yours, it belongs to the entire lineage
i. Can’t just go and sell it
i. Believed that men had nothing to do with conception
1. Baloma – spirit of the dead who has a waiwaia (spirit child). The spirit would put the waiwaia into a woman so she can give birth

Front 90

Fathers, parenting, and child devlopment

Back 90

1. Love of the father shapes a child
2. A child will not develop as a healthy and functional person without the father’s love
a. The love is necessary
3. Fathers do a great deal of child care
4. Fathers provided lots of jewelry to children
a. Being beautiful helps influence other peoples’ minds
i. Political skill
b. Child without jewelry = incomplete, no father
5. Father makes yam gardens for daughters and gives land to sons
a. The son doesn’t get to keep the land unless they stay on it because they are from different lineage
i. Virilocal residence

Front 91

Trobriand views of conception

Back 91

i. Believed that men had nothing to do with conception
1. Baloma – spirit of the dead who has a waiwaia (spirit child). The spirit would put the waiwaia into a woman so she can give birth

Front 92

Yam gardens
-Who makes them and for whom

Back 92

a. Yams
i. Male wealth
ii. Each house has a household garden
1. Yams aren’t in this garden, they are in a special garden
iii. They symbolize sociopolitical relations to Trobriands
b. Men grow yams
i. A man does not use the yams he grows
1. Yams he grows he gives away
2. The yams a man uses are from someone else
a. Wife provides yams to husband
3. Who grows yams for a woman and her husband?
a. Woman’s father
b. Members of women’s matrilineage
i. Her brother
ii. Her adult sons
c. These people are the wife’s workers
4. If a man is a senior man of his lineage, then junior men of lineage give him yams
a. His younger brothers
b. His sisters’ sons
5. The wife is powerful because she gives the husband yams, so husband will be destroyed if he doesn’t treat her well
6. Each man will have many yam gardens
a. All the yams in one garden go to one person

Front 93

Trobriand Chiefs

Back 93

i. Chiefs need extra yams because they need to be the most generous
ii. Polygyny
1. Only chief is allowed to have more than one wife
a. Creates more yams for him to redistribute

Front 94

Kayasa

Back 94

i. Competition between clans
1. Clan invites another clan. Lavish a clan by giving tons of yams
2. Clan looks good with the more stuff it gives
ii. Organized by chiefs

Front 95

Brother-sister avoidance

Back 95

d. Brothers and sisters don’t really talk to each other and don’t want to be near to each other.
i. They don't say "I love you"
i. Giving her yams is showing affection

Front 96

Deaths, Funerals, and Trobriand Social reproduction

Back 96

i. Death is attributed to sorcery
1. The lineage itself is under attack by an enemy when one person dies
2. The lineage must show it is still strong
a. Does this by repaying the debt of the dead
b. Pays back with women’s wealth
i. Banana leaf bundles, grass skirts
3. The elder women compete about who can give away the most
4. Life = men’s wealth, death = women’s wealth by showing strength of lineage
IV. Trobriand Mortuary Ceremonies
a. Lineage is in shock when someone dies
i. The in-laws must come in and support them and do all the work
ii. “Owners” and “workers”
1. Owner = member of a dead person’s matrilineage
2. Workers = anybody else that comes to help
a. Friends, co-workers
b. They cry, carry the person’s things
c. Make themselves appear ugly to honor the person
d. The in-laws are the most important of all the workers because they help the most

Front 97

Sagali (mortuary exchanges)

Back 97

i. The women owners thank the workers by giving them women’s wealth
ii. Show that the matrilineage is strong
iii. All-day affair
1. Each worker is called one at a time, and then each woman dumps the wealth to the worker
2. A woman may need thousands of banana leaf bundles
c. Sources of women’s wealth
i. A woman makes woman’s wealth
ii. Stock-piled wealth received in an earlier sagali

Front 98

valova exchanges

Back 98

-bartering
1. She can trade for additional bundles
a. tobacco for bundles
b. Tobacco has to be purchased from a store
i. Woman’s husband provides money for tobacco