| I | INTRODUCTION |
Culture, in anthropology, the patterns of behavior and
thinking that people living in social groups learn, create, and share. Culture
distinguishes one human group from others. It also distinguishes humans from
other animals. A people’s culture includes their beliefs, rules of behavior,
language, rituals, art, technology, styles of dress, ways of producing and
cooking food, religion, and political and economic systems.
Culture is the most important concept in
anthropology (the study of all aspects of human life, past and present).
Anthropologists commonly use the term culture to refer to a society or
group in which many or all people live and think in the same ways. Likewise, any
group of people who share a common culture—and in particular, common rules of
behavior and a basic form of social organization—constitutes a society. Thus,
the terms culture and society are somewhat interchangeable.
However, while many animals live in societies, such as herds of elk or packs of
wild dogs, only humans have culture.
Culture developed together with the evolution
of the human species, Homo sapiens, and is closely related to human
biology. The ability of people to have culture comes in large part from their
physical features: having big, complex brains; an upright posture; free hands
that can grasp and manipulate small objects; and a vocal tract that can produce
and articulate a wide range of sounds. These distinctively human physical
features began to develop in African ancestors of humans more than four million
years ago. The earliest physical evidence of culture is crude stone tools
produced in East Africa over two million years ago.
| II | THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE |
Culture has several distinguishing
characteristics. (1) It is based on symbols—abstract ways of referring to
and understanding ideas, objects, feelings, or behaviors—and the ability to
communicate with symbols using language. (2) Culture is shared. People in the
same society share common behaviors and ways of thinking through culture. (3)
Culture is learned. While people biologically inherit many physical traits and
behavioral instincts, culture is socially inherited. A person must learn culture
from other people in a society. (4) Culture is adaptive. People use culture to
flexibly and quickly adjust to changes in the world around them.
| A | Culture Is Symbolic |
People have culture primarily because
they can communicate with and understand symbols. Symbols allow people to
develop complex thoughts and to exchange those thoughts with others. Language
and other forms of symbolic communication, such as art, enable people to create,
explain, and record new ideas and information.
A symbol has either an indirect
connection or no connection at all with the object, idea, feeling, or behavior
to which it refers. For instance, most people in the United States find some
meaning in the combination of the colors red, white, and blue. But those colors
themselves have nothing to do with, for instance, the land that people call the
United States, the concept of patriotism, or the U.S. national anthem, The
Star Spangled Banner.
To convey new ideas, people constantly
invent new symbols, such as for mathematical formulas. In addition, people may
use one symbol, such as a single word, to represent many different ideas,
feelings, or values. Thus, symbols provide a flexible way for people to
communicate even very complex thoughts with each other. For example, only
through symbols can architects, engineers, and construction workers communicate
the information necessary to construct a skyscraper or bridge.
People have the capacity at birth to
construct, understand, and communicate through symbols, primarily by using
language. Research has shown, for example, that infants have a basic structure
of language—a sort of universal grammar—built into their minds. Infants are thus
predisposed to learn the languages spoken by the people around them.
Language provides a means to store,
process, and communicate amounts of information that vastly exceed the
capabilities of nonhuman animals. For instance, chimpanzees, the closest genetic
relatives of humans, use a few dozen calls and a variety of gestures to
communicate in the wild. People have taught some chimps to communicate using
American Sign Language and picture-based languages, and some have developed
vocabularies of a few hundred words. But an unabridged English dictionary might
contain more than half-a-million vocabulary entries. Chimpanzees have also not
clearly demonstrated the ability to use grammar, which is crucial for
communicating complex thoughts.
In addition, the human vocal tract,
unlike that of chimpanzees and other animals, can create and articulate a wide
enough variety of sounds to create millions of distinct words. In fact, each
human language uses only a fraction of the sounds humans can make. The human
brain also contains areas dedicated to the production and interpretation of
speech, which other animals lack. Thus, humans are predisposed in many ways to
use symbolic communication.
| B | Culture Is Learned |
People are not born with culture; they
have to learn it. For instance, people must learn to speak and understand a
language and to abide by the rules of a society. In many societies, all people
must learn to produce and prepare food and to construct shelters. In other
societies, people must learn a skill to earn money, which they then use to
provide for themselves. In all human societies, children learn culture from
adults. Anthropologists call this process enculturation, or cultural
transmission.
Enculturation is a long process. Just
learning the intricacies of a human language, a major part of enculturation,
takes many years. Families commonly protect and enculturate children in the
households of their birth for 15 years or more. Only at this point can children
leave and establish their own households. People also continue to learn
throughout their lifetimes. Thus, most societies respect their elders, who have
learned for an entire lifetime.
Humans are not alone in their ability to
learn behaviors, only in the amount and complexity of what they can learn. For
example, members of a group of chimpanzees may learn to use a unique source of
food or to fashion some simple tools, behaviors that might distinguish them from
other chimpanzee groups. But these unique ways of life are minor in comparison
to the rich cultures that distinguish different human societies. Lacking speech,
chimps are very limited in what they can learn, communicate to others, and pass
on from generation to generation.
| C | Culture Is Shared |
People living together in a society share
culture. For example, almost all people living in the United States share the
English language, dress in similar styles, eat many of the same foods, and
celebrate many of the same holidays.
All the people of a society collectively
create and maintain culture. Societies preserve culture for much longer than the
life of any one person. They preserve it in the form of knowledge, such as
scientific discoveries; objects, such as works of art; and traditions, such as
the observance of holidays.
| C1 | Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism |
Self-identity usually depends on
culture to such a great extent that immersion in a very different culture—with
which a person does not share common ways of life or beliefs—can cause a feeling
of confusion and disorientation. Anthropologists refer to this phenomenon as
culture shock. In multicultural societies—societies such as the United
States into which people come from a diversity of cultures—unshared forms of
culture can also lead to tension.
Members of a society who share culture
often also share some feelings of ethnocentrism, the notion that one’s
culture is more sensible than or superior to that of other societies.
Ethnocentrism contributes to the integrity of culture because it affirms
people’s shared beliefs and values in the face of other, often contradictory,
beliefs and values held by people of other cultural backgrounds. At its worst,
ethnocentrism has led people to commit ethnocide, the destruction of
cultures, and genocide, the destruction of entire populations. This happened,
for example, to Jews living in Nazi Germany in the 1940s (see Holocaust;
National Socialism).
Anthropologists, knowing the power of
ethnocentrism, advocate cross-cultural understanding through a concept known as
cultural relativism. Someone observing cultural relativism tries to
respect all cultures equally. Although only someone living within a group that
shares culture can fully understand that culture, cultural relativists believe
that outsiders can learn to respect beliefs and practices that they do not
share.
However, most anthropologists believe
that cultural relativism has its limits. In theory, an extreme relativist would
uncritically accept the practices of all cultures, even if those practices harm
people. For example, anthropologists have debated over whether they should
accept or approve of the practice of female circumcision, performed in many
African societies. Female circumcision involves removing part or all of a
woman’s labia and clitoris and is usually performed on girls entering
adolescence. This practice is painful, and often harmful, to the women of
societies that perform it, but many of those societies claim that the practice
is important and deeply rooted in their culture.
| C2 | Sharing Culture Across Societies |
Since no human society exists in
complete isolation, different societies also exchange and share culture. In
fact, all societies have some interactions with others, both out of curiosity
and because even highly self-sufficient societies sometimes need assistance from
their neighbors. Today, for instance, many people around the world use similar
kinds of technology, such as cars, telephones, and televisions. Commercial trade
and communication technologies, such as computer networks, have created a form
of global culture. Therefore, it has become increasingly difficult to find
culture that is shared within only a single society.
Cultural exchange can provide many
benefits for all societies. Different societies can exchange ideas, people,
manufactured goods, and natural resources. Such exchanges can also have
drawbacks, however. Often the introduction of aspects of another society’s
culture can disrupt the cohesive life of a people. For example, the introduction
of consumerism into many small societies has led to what anthropologists refer
to as cargo cults. In cargo cults, people focus much of their
religious energy and time on trying to magically acquire commercial goods.
Cross-cultural exchange often results
in what anthropologists call acculturation, when the members of one culture
adopt features of another. This has happened, for example, when indigenous
peoples in the western hemisphere adopted the language and many of the customs
of Spain, which colonized South and Central America beginning in the 1500s.
| C3 | Subcultures |
Some groups of people share a distinct
set of cultural traits within a larger society. Such groups are often referred
to as subcultures. For instance, the members of a subculture may share a
distinct language or dialect (variation based on the dominant language), unique
rituals, and a particular style of dress. In the United States and Canada, many
strongly integrated religious groups, such as rural Mennonite communities, have
the characteristics of subcultures.
| D | Culture Is Adaptive |
Culture helps human societies survive in
changing natural environments. For example, the end of the last Ice Age,
beginning about 15,000 years ago, posed an enormous challenge to which humans
had to adapt. Before this time, large portions of the northern hemisphere were
covered in great sheets of ice that contained much of the earth’s water. In
North America, large game animals that roamed the vast tundra provided people
with food and materials for clothing and simple shelters. When the earth warmed,
large Ice Age game animals disappeared, and many land areas were submerged by
rising sea levels from melting ice. But people survived. They developed new
technologies and learned how to subsist on new plant and animal species.
Eventually some people settled into villages of permanent, durable houses and
farms.
Cultural adaptation has made humans one
of the most successful species on the planet. Through history, major
developments in technology, medicine, and nutrition have allowed people to
reproduce and survive in ever-increasing numbers. The global population has
risen from 8 million during the Ice Age to almost 6 billion today (see
Population: World Population Growth and Distribution).
However, the successes of culture can also
create problems in the long run. Over the last 200 years, people have begun to
use large quantities of natural resources and energy and to produce a great
amount of material and chemical wastes. The global population now consumes some
crucial natural resources—such as petroleum, timber, and mineral ores—faster
than nature can produce them. Many scientists believe that in the process of
burning fuels and producing wastes, people may be altering the global climate in
unpredictable and possibly harmful ways (see Global Warming). Thus, the
adaptive success of the present-day global culture of production and commerce
may be temporary.
Culture must benefit people, at least in
the short term, in order for it to be passed on to new generations. But it can
clearly also harm some people. The number of people living in severe poverty
near the end of the 20th century was larger than the entire population of the
world in ad 1500.
| III | CATEGORIES OF CULTURE |
Anthropologists have described a number of
different categories of culture. For example, a simple distinction can be made
between cultural objects, such as types of clothing, and cultural beliefs, such
as forms of religion. Many early anthropological definitions of culture are
essentially descriptions of categories of culture or cultural items.
British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor
gave one of the first complete definitions of culture in his book Primitive
Culture (1871). His definition stated that culture includes socially
acquired knowledge, beliefs, art, law, morals, customs, and habits. In 1930
American anthropologist George P. Murdock went much further, listing 637 major
subdivisions of culture. Murdock developed an elaborate coding system, known as
the Human Relation Area Files. He used this system to identify and sort hundreds
of distinctive cultural variations that could be used to compare different
cultures.
Later anthropologists came up with simpler
categorizations of culture. A common practice is to divide all of culture into
three broad categories: material, social, and ideological. A fourth category,
the arts, has characteristics of both material and ideological culture.
Material culture includes products
of human manufacture, such as technology. Social culture pertains to
people’s forms of social organization—how people interact and organize
themselves in groups. Ideological culture relates to what people think,
value, believe, and hold as ideals. The arts include such activities and
areas of interest as music, sculpture, painting, pottery, theater, cooking,
writing, and fashion. Anthropologists often study how these categories of
culture differ across different types of societies that vary in scale
(size and complexity).
Anthropologists have identified several
distinct types of societies by scale. The smallest societies are known as bands.
Bands consist of nomadic (not settled) groups of fewer than a hundred, mostly
related people. A tribe, the next largest type of society, generally consists of
a few hundred people living in settled villages. A larger form of society,
called a chiefdom, binds together two or more villages or tribes under a leader
who is born into the position of rule. The largest societies, known as
civilizations, contain from several thousand to millions of mostly unrelated
people, many of whom live in large cities. Some anthropologists characterize the
world today as a single global-scale culture, in which people are linked
together by industrial technology and markets of commercial exchange.
| A | Material Culture |
All societies produce and exchange
material goods so that people can feed, clothe, shelter, and otherwise provide
for themselves. This system is commonly known as an economy. Anthropologists
look at several aspects of people’s material culture. These aspects include (1)
the methods by which people obtain or produce food, known as a pattern of
subsistence; (2) the ways in which people exchange goods and services; (3)
the kinds of technologies and other objects people make and use; and (4) the
effects of people’s economy on the natural environment.
| A1 | Patterns of Subsistence |
People in band societies live as
hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers), collecting plants and taking
animals from their environment. People living in tribes or chiefdoms commonly
practice horticulture (gardening) or pastoralism (animal herding). Many
horticultural societies, such as the Hanunóo of the Philippines, practice what
is known as swidden or the slash-and-burn method of gardening. This involves
cutting down a patch of forest, burning the plant matter to release nutrients
into the soil, and planting gardens. After about three years, the swidden
gardeners move to another patch of forest, allowing their old gardens to return
to forest. Pastoralists, such as the Masai of east Africa, may also grow food in
small gardens to supplement their diets of milk, meat, and blood.
Many peoples living in larger
societies, such the Han of northern China, practice manual (sometimes called
extensive) agriculture and produce surpluses of food and other goods. Some
surpluses create wealth, while surplus foods are commonly stored for use in
times of need. Because of this surplus production, some people work in
nonsubsistence (not food-producing) activities. People not involved in
food production may work, for example, as craftspeople, religious practitioners,
or political administrators. Manual agriculture also supported early
civilizations such as Sumer, which existed from about 3000 to about 1800 bc in what is now Iraq.
Agriculture in nonindustrialized
societies relies on systems of irrigation run from natural waterways,
animal-powered plowing, and natural methods of fertilization, such as the use of
rotted vegetation to add nutrients to soil. Animal-powered plow agriculture and
irrigation involve more time, energy, and material inputs than do swidden
gardening, pastoralism, or hunting and gathering.
The food production in large,
industrial and commerce-based societies—such as the United States and Western
Europe—depends on expensive machinery, vast supplies of fossil fuels to power
that machinery, automated irrigation systems, and great quantities of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides. This form of production, known as intensive
agriculture, is more costly than any other, but produces quantities of food vast
enough to allow most people to work in nonsubsistence activities.
| A2 | Forms of Exchange |
People in small societies commonly
exchange goods with each other and with people in other small societies through
systems of barter, ceremonies, and gifts. For example, the people of the
Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea, practice an elaborate form of
inter-island exchange known as the kula. Through the kula, people living
on different islands continually exchange prestige goods, such as beautiful
shell necklaces, as well as food, clothing, weapons, and other items. Such
systems of ongoing exchange of goods, common to all societies, create
long-lasting bonds between people.
Contemporary industrial societies have
organized markets for land, labor, and money, and virtually everything is a
commodity. People buy and sell goods and services using money. This form of
economy, known as capitalism, disconnects the value of goods and services from
the goods and services themselves and the people who produce or provide them.
Thus, the exchange of goods and services for currency is not particularly
important for creating social bonds. In industrialized and commerce-based
societies, people also exchange securities (such as the stocks of
corporations), which have value based on their representation of
ownership, and derivatives, whose value is based on that of underlying
securities.
| A3 | Technology and Manufacture |
In small societies people usually
build shelters and make clothing out of readily available plant and animal
materials. For example, in forest horticultural societies in the Amazon region
of South America, people make houses of wooden branches covered with layers of
palm leaves.
Band and tribal peoples also use fairly
simple technologies for work. People commonly use sticks to dig the ground for
planting or for getting at edible roots. They may use animal hides or plant
materials such as tree bark to make clothing and sacs or baskets for carrying
items. Hunters take their prey either with sharpened sticks or with arrowheads
of stone or bone attached to wooden shafts. Some coat the tips of their arrows
with poisons gathered from plants or animals. Poisoned weapons can quickly
disable prey. People who live by water commonly make boats of wood and animal
skins for travel, fishing, and the hunting of sea mammals such as seals and
whales. Most hunter-gatherers, horticulturists, and pastoralists cook over open
fires.
In primarily agricultural societies,
many of which still exist today in countries throughout Africa and Asia, the
people build sturdy houses of sun-dried mud brick and thatch, wooden beams, or
quarried stone. These people commonly produce beautiful and functional ceramic
storage containers and other pottery, finely woven textiles, and tools of forged
metal. People in agricultural societies also have many methods of cooking using
pots and ovens of mud brick or stone.
In large industrial and commerce-based
societies, most people live in wood-frame or brick houses and apartment
buildings with plumbing, supplies of electricity and natural gas, and telephone
service. Much of the material culture in these societies consists of
mass-produced goods created through industrial production. A great deal of food
and clothing are produced in this way. The variety of common household
technologies includes televisions, stereos, microwave ovens, and computers. Many
people work in giant skyscrapers built from metal girders and beams, concrete,
and high-strength glass. People and goods can travel great distances by
automobile, train, plane, and ship. Other significant technologies include
artificial satellites, enormously potent and complex weaponry systems, and
reactors for producing nuclear energy.
| A4 | Effects on the Environment |
Hunting and gathering, horticultural,
and pastoral ways of life generally make small demands on the natural
environment, because people tend to gather or grow only enough food and other
materials for their basic needs. These nomadic or seminomadic societies can also
move away from depleted areas, allowing plants to regrow and animals to
repopulate.
Agricultural societies can heavily
burden the environment, sometimes endangering their own survival. For example,
early Mediterranean civilizations deforested and overgrazed large areas of land.
These damages to the land prompted soil erosion, which made food production
increasingly costly over time.
Industrial societies put even larger
demands on the environment, and they may someday exhaust important supplies of
natural resources. The mass production of goods is often wasteful and polluting.
Thus, large societies must also put great effort into disposing of their wastes
and developing new sources of energy and material resources.
| B | Social Culture |
People in all types of societies
organize themselves in relation to each other for work and other duties, and to
structure their interactions. People commonly organize themselves according to
(1) bonds by kinship and marriage, (2) work duties and economic position, and
(3) political position. Important factors in family, work, and political
relations include age and gender (behaviors and roles associated with men and
women).
| B1 | Kinship and Family |
In smaller societies people organize
themselves primarily according to ties of kinship (blood relation) and marriage.
Kin generally give each other preferential treatment over nonkin. People who
share ties by blood and marriage commonly live together in families.
See also Kinship and Descent.
Small societies categorize kin in many
different ways and define appropriate types of behavior between kin, including
who can marry. In band societies, people know their relationships to others in
their band, which usually includes only a few families. People do not marry
within their immediate family, but often take spouses from other bands to create
ties that bond them together in times of need.
All people in bands generally respect
each other as equals, though children must show increased respect for their
elders. The eldest group members often earn special recognition for their
knowledge. Men and women in bands also commonly regard each other as
equals.
People living in tribes belong to
lineages or clans, which are large kin groups that trace their descent to a
common ancestor. Clans are somewhat larger than lineages and usually cover more
generations. Clans trace their descent to a fictitious ancestor
(ancestor whose true identity is not known), often identified as an animal
spirit or clan totem (see Totemism).
For instance, many Native American
societies (see Native Americans of North America: Social and Political
Organization), in both North and South America, live or once lived in
tribes. One Native American group, the Navajo, who have long lived primarily in
what is now Arizona, organized themselves in the past as matrilineal (descent
traced through women) clan-based tribes. Status and property passed to people
through their mother’s line.
Kinship and family relations are both
important in agricultural societies, as well as for many people in industrial
and commerce-based societies. But for many people today living in large
societies, kinship and family relations have become less important. Many people
live alone or in small families and also depend on organizations, workplaces,
and government institutions to provide support available in smaller societies
from family and kin.
| B2 | Work Life |
Anthropologists call the smallest unit
of economic production in any society a household. A household consists of a
group of people, usually a family, who work collectively to support each other
and often to raise children.
In small, independent band and tribal
societies, individual households produce their own food, clothing, and shelter.
Men and women commonly divide work duties; men hunting and building shelters and
women gardening, cooking, and caring for children. People in small societies
often live in extended families, in which several generations of kin and
relatives by marriage live in the same household. Sometimes, however, men and
women live in separate places, especially if they also often work and
participate in ceremonies apart from members of the opposite sex.
In chiefdoms and civilizations,
households have to produce enough to support themselves and their leaders. All
households do not always have equal access to needed materials, such as tools or
draft animals, or land. Thus, some families have higher status than others do.
On the whole, men in these societies have higher status than women and perform
fewer menial tasks.
In civilizations, many people
specialize in offering a variety of services and producing a variety of goods.
Each occupation is commonly associated with a different level of status, usually
referred to as an economic class. Hindus in India, by comparison, live according
to the caste system, in which a person’s status is fixed at birth and closely
tied to his or her occupation.
In industrial societies, few
households are self-sufficient. For instance, most people could not build their
own houses, grow and cook all of their own food, and make all of their clothes.
Most people also depend on technologies that no one could produce alone from raw
materials, such as cars, refrigerators, and computers.
In addition, most households in
industrial societies consist of nuclear families, which contain only parents and
their children. Nuclear families lack the support network and productive
capabilities of extended families. Fathers in nuclear families commonly work to
earn income, while mothers manage the household and care for children—often in
addition to working for income. These gender role patterns have changed somewhat
since the 1960s to more equal roles for men and women. People in most modern
industrial and commerce-based societies also identify strongly with groups of
people united by work, such as professional organizations and labor unions.
These groups are entirely separate from family and kinship ties.
| B3 | Leadership and Political Power |
Groups of people living in bands have
no formal leadership, and all people have input in making group decisions. Most
decision-making in tribes occurs within households. Occasionally, most or all
members of lineages or clans convene to make important village decisions, such
as about dealing with neighboring tribes. Descent groups may also regulate
access to crucial resources, such as favored hunting areas, and choose where
people will live.
Within most tribes, all groups
commonly have about equal status. Since every person belongs to a descent group,
no one person ranks too far above or below another. In some tribes, however,
people known as big men might earn a degree of higher status and respect
than others by demonstrating bravery or bravado.
Chiefdoms, larger than most tribes,
consist of at least two very large descent groups organized under rulers known
as chiefs, who are born into their positions of leadership. Chiefs must prove
that they are closest in descent to the founding ancestor of the highest ranked
clans within chiefdoms. They live as full-time rulers who may not have to work
at productive duties. Chiefs have the power to collect some of the goods people
produce, such as food, and redistribute them in times of need or use them in
ceremony.
In the past, chiefdoms existed in a
great number of Polynesian societies on Pacific Ocean islands, such as those
that make up what is now Hawaii. Chiefdoms were the first societies to have
positions of defined, permanent leadership. Chiefdoms still exist in some places
under national governments. For instance, chiefs of the Kpelle of Liberia are
political leaders for the country’s national districts.
Civilizations have powerful autonomous
bodies of authority managed by formal bureaucracies. This political structure is
formally known as a state. Some of the first major state societies existed in
the area known as Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq, and in ancient Egypt (see
Egypt: History).
A state may claim ownership of all its
territory and resources and may wage wars against other nations. Important
families may rule states for several generations, though this happened more
commonly in the past. But all states have distinct social and economic
classes, and higher classes have greater political influence or power than do
lower classes.
Families still rule some states,
sometimes as royalty and sometimes as elected aristocracies (small groups, often
families, deemed by citizens as qualified to rule). But many states today
have elected governments not based on family lines. The citizens of these states
share a common identity based on language, ideals, shared rituals, and other
cultural bonds. This form of state is known as a nation.
Many national governments serve the
interests of business and commerce as much as they do individuals and families.
In many cases commercial corporations (businesses created through legal means)
have a great deal of political influence. Corporations and large economic market
exchanges control the production and distribution of goods and services, as well
as transfers of money. Access to employment, not family, often determines where
people live. People who cannot earn sufficient income may live in poverty, and
many of the poor depend on government welfare for economic support.
| C | Ideological Culture |
In every society, culturally unique ways
of thinking about the world unite people in their behavior. Anthropologists
often refer to the body of ideas that people share as ideology. Ideology can be
broken down into at least three specific categories: beliefs, values, and
ideals. People’s beliefs give them an understanding of how the world works and
how they should respond to the actions of others and their environments.
Particular beliefs often tie in closely with the daily concerns of domestic
life, such as making a living, health and sickness, happiness and sadness,
interpersonal relationships, and death. People’s values tell them the
differences between right and wrong or good and bad. Ideals serve as models for
what people hope to achieve in life.
Many people rely on religion,
systems of belief in the supernatural (things beyond the natural world), to
shape their values and ideals and to influence their behavior. Beliefs, values,
and ideals also come from observations of the natural world, a practice
anthropologists commonly refer to as secularism.
| C1 | Religion |
Religion allows people to know about and
communicate with supernatural beings—such as animal spirits, gods, and spirits
of the dead. Religion often serves to help people cope with the death of
relatives and friends, and it figures prominently in most funeral ceremonies
(see Funeral Rites and Customs).
Peoples of many small band and tribal
societies believe that plants and animals, as well as people, can have souls or
spirits that can take on different forms to help or harm people. Anthropologists
refer to this kind of religious belief as animism. In hunting societies, people
commonly believe that forest beings control the supply of game animals and may
punish people for irresponsible behavior by making animals outwit the hunt.
In many small societies, visionaries
and healers known as shamans receive stories from supernatural beings and later
recite them to others or act them out in dramatic rituals. As religious
specialists, shamans have special access to this spirit world as well as a rich
knowledge of medicinal plants. Shamans commonly assign special supernatural
roles to spirit animals and beings. For example, shamans in Amazon societies may
communicate with a spirit keeper of the game to insure hunting success. They may
also be assisted by spirit jaguars.
In larger, agricultural societies,
religion has long been a means of asking for bountiful harvests, a source of
power for rulers, and an inspiration to go to war. In early civilized societies,
religious visionaries became leaders because people believed those leaders could
communicate with the supernatural to control the fate of a civilization. This
became their greatest source of power, and people often regarded leaders as
actual gods.
For example, in the great civilization
of the Aztec, which flourished in what is now Mexico in the 15th and 16th
centuries, rulers claimed privileged association with the powerful god
Huitzilopochtli. They said that this god required human blood to ensure that the
sun would rise and set each day. Aztec rulers thus inspired great awe by
regularly conducting human sacrifices. They also conspicuously displayed their
vast power as wealth in luxury goods, such as fine jewels, clothing, and
palaces. Rulers obtained their wealth from the great numbers of craftspeople,
traders, and warriors under their control.
| C2 | Secularism |
Many societies today interpret the
natural world and form beliefs based on science and logic. Societies in which
many people do not practice any religion, such as the United States, may be
known as secular societies. However, no society is entirely secular.
During the period in 17th- and
18th-century Europe known as the Age of Enlightenment, science and logic became
new sources of belief for many people living in civilized societies. Scientific
studies of the natural world and rational philosophies both led people to
believe that they could explain natural and social phenomena without believing
in gods or spirits. Religion remained an influential system of belief,
however.
Both religion and science drove the
development of capitalism, the economic system of commerce-driven market
exchange. Capitalism itself influences people’s beliefs, values, and ideals in
many present-day, large, civilized societies. In these societies, such as in the
United States, many people view the world and shape their behavior based on a
belief that they can understand and control their environment and that work,
commerce, and the accumulation of wealth serve an ultimate good. The governments
of most large societies today also assert that human well-being derives from the
growth of economies and the development of technology.
In addition, many people have come to
believe in the fundamental nature of human rights and free will. These beliefs
grew out of people’s faith in their ability to control the natural world—a faith
promoted by science and rationalism. Religious beliefs continue to change to
affirm or accommodate these other dominant beliefs, but sometimes the two are at
odds with each other. For instance, many religious people have difficulty
reconciling their belief in a supreme spiritual force with the theory of natural
evolution, which requires no belief in the supernatural.
| D | Art |
Art is a distinctly human production, and
many people consider it the ultimate form of culture because it can have the
quality of pure expression, entirely separate from basic human needs. But some
anthropologists actually regard artistic expression as a basic human need, as
basic as food and water. Some art takes the form of material production, and
many utilitarian items have artistic qualities. Other forms of art, such as
music or acting, reside in the mind and body and take expression as performance.
The material arts include painting, pottery, sculpture, textiles and clothing,
and cookery. Nonmaterial arts include music, dance, drama and dramatic arts,
storytelling, and written narratives.
People had begun making art by at least
30,000 years ago, painting stylized animal figures and abstract symbols on cave
walls (see Paleolithic Art). For thousands of years people have also
adorned their bodies with ornamentation, such as jewelry, pigments, and stylized
scars.
In most societies people establish their
personal and group identity through such forms of artistic expression as
patterns of dress and body adornment, ceremonial costumes and dances, or group
symbols. For example, many Native American groups in the Pacific Northwest carve
massive wooden totem poles as symbols of their group identity and history. The
stylized figures carved into totem poles represent important clan ancestors and
stories of important historical events.
Smaller societies also use art as a
primary form of storing and reproducing their culture. Ceremonial dances and
performances, for example, commonly tell legends of creation, stories about
ancestors, or moral tales containing instructive lessons.
Many people also use art as a vehicle
for spiritual expression or to ask for help from the spiritual world. For
instance, some archaeologists believe that one of the earliest known
sculptures—a voluptuously shaped female figure made in Willendorf, Austria, in
about 23,000 BC and known as the
Venus of Willendorf—might have been used to invoke supernatural powers to bring
its makers reproductive fertility.
In large societies, governments may hire
artisans to produce works that will support the political structure. For
example, in the Inca Empire—which dominated the Andean region of Peru, Ecuador,
Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina in the 15th and 16th centuries—the elite hired
metalworkers and textile makers to make exclusive gold and silver jewelry or
create special clothing and adornments for them. These royal items displayed
insignia that indicated high status. In contrast, non-elites wore coarse,
ordinary clothing, reflecting their low status.
In present-day large societies, many
people produce art for commercial and political purposes in addition to social,
personal, and spiritual reasons. A great number of artists make a living by
working for businesses that use art to advertise commercial products. Most large
societies today also have laws that protect the content of artworks such as
books, films, songs, dances, and paintings as intellectual property, which
people own and can sell.
| IV | HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE |
| A | Early Development |
People have long been aware of cultural
differences among societies. Some of the earliest accounts of culture come from
the Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 400s bc. Herodotus traveled through the
Persian Empire, which included much of the Middle East and surrounding parts of
Asia and Africa. He wrote at length about the cultural and racial diversity of
these places, much of which he linked to differences in people’s
environments.
For almost 2000 years following the time
of Herodotus, many people attributed cultural differences to racial inheritance.
The biblical account of the Tower of Babel, in which God caused people to speak
new languages, also provided an explanation for cultural diversity.
At the end of the Middle Ages (5th to
15th century ad), many countries
of Western Europe began sending explorers around the world to find new sources
of material goods and wealth. Prolonged contacts with new cultures during these
travels sparked Europeans’ interest in the sources and meaning of cultural
diversity.
The English term culture actually
came into use during the Middle Ages. It derived from the Latin word for
cultivation, as in the practice of nurturing domesticated plants in gardens.
Thus, the word originally referred to people’s role in controlling nature.
| B | Theories of Cultural Evolution |
By the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th
century, many European scientists and philosophers had come to believe that
culture had gone through progressive stages of improvement throughout human
existence. The first anthropologists, including Tylor, also promoted such
theories of cultural evolution.
Many people of the upper classes in
19th-century Victorian England used the term culture in a sense similar
to its original meaning. In the Victorian usage, culture referred to the
controlling of the unrefined behaviors and tastes associated with the lower
classes. Thus, the Victorian term culture referred to the refined tastes,
intellectual training, and mannerisms of the upper classes. However, many
anthropologists, sociologists, and historians of that same period used the term
civilization, from the Latin word for “citizen,” as a scientific
description of what the upper classes called culture. Civilization thus
also meant the pinnacle of cultural evolution.
| C | 19th Century Scientific Discoveries |
New scientific discoveries in the early
and middle 19th century demonstrated that the world and its people had existed
much longer than previously had been thought. These new ideas greatly influenced
how anthropologists thought about human biological, social, and cultural
development.
The accounts of the Bible had promoted
the idea of a divine creation of the world sometime between 10,000 and 6,000
years ago. In contrast, the observations of Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell
in the early 1800s led him to suggest that the earth was much older and had
changed gradually over time. Lyell’s geological theories and archaeological
discoveries of ancient stone tools, also in the early 1800s, influenced a number
of new theories of culture.
| C1 | Lubbock |
Based on both Lyell’s work and on
theories proposed in the early 1800s by Danish archaeologists Christian Thomsen
and J. J. Worsaae, in 1865 British naturalist Sir John Lubbock proposed that
human societies had gone through long stages of cultural development, each
marked by advancements in technology. Lubbock thought that the earlier stages
were represented in the present by so-called primitive societies. His stages
included the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), the Neolithic (New Stone
Age), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Lubbock argued that other forms of
cultural development, such as in morality and spirituality, accompanied each
stage of technological development.
| C2 | Spencer |
Coinciding with the groundbreaking
theory of biological evolution proposed by British naturalist Charles Darwin in
the 1860s, British social philosopher Herbert Spencer put forward his own theory
of biological and cultural evolution. Spencer argued that all worldly phenomena,
including human societies, changed over time, advancing toward perfection. He
argued that human evolution was characterized by a struggle he called the
“survival of the fittest,” in which weaker races and societies must eventually
be replaced by stronger, more advanced races and societies (see
Race).
Although the racist and ethnocentric
theory of cultural evolution promoted by Spencer did not agree with the theory
of Darwin, it became commonly known by the misapplied name of social Darwinism.
Social Darwinism helped European nations justify their domination of peoples
around the world through colonialism—the taking of new lands to gain
natural resources and human labor (see Colonies and Colonialism).
| C3 | Morgan |
American anthropologist Lewis Henry
Morgan introduced another theory of cultural evolution in the late 1800s.
Morgan, along with Tylor, was one of the founders of modern anthropology. In his
work, he attempted to show how all aspects of culture changed together in the
evolution of societies. Thus, in Morgan’s view, diverse aspects of culture, such
as the structure of families, forms of marriage, categories of kinship,
ownership of property, forms of government, technology, and systems of food
production, all changed as societies evolved.
Morgan called his evolutionary stages
ethnical periods and labeled them Savagery (with three stages: Lower,
Middle, and Upper), Barbarism (also with three stages), and Civilization. Morgan
did not necessarily believe in the use of his theory to promote racism,
ethnocentrism, or exploitation. But like others of his time, he considered
Western civilization to be the highest form of culture. Morgan believed that
race, nationality, language, and culture were all related and that Europeans
were the most biologically and culturally advanced people.
| D | Uniqueness and Diffusionism |
Racist and ethnocentric theories of
cultural evolution fell out of favor with most anthropologists in the early 20th
century. In the early 1900s in North America, German-born American
anthropologist Franz Boas developed a new theory of culture known as
historical particularism. Historical particularism, which emphasized the
uniqueness of all cultures, gave new direction to anthropology. Other
anthropologists believed that cultural innovations, such as inventions, had a
single origin and passed from society to society. This theory was known as
diffusionism.
By the beginning of the 20th century,
anthropologists had developed research methods for studying the cultures of
individual small societies. Anthropologists would compare their findings with
those of other studies to develop universal theories of culture. This form of
study became known as ethnology, from the Greek word ethnos,
meaning “nation” or “race.”
Though he worked as an ethnologist, Boas
felt that the culture of any society must be understood as the result of a
unique history and not as one of many cultures belonging to a broader
evolutionary stage or type of culture. In order to study particular cultures as
completely as possible, Boas became skilled in linguistics, the study of
languages, and in physical anthropology, the study of human biology and
anatomy.
Historical particularism became a dominant
approach to the study of culture in American anthropology, largely through the
influence of many students of Boas. But a number of anthropologists in the early
1900s also rejected the particularist theory of culture in favor of
diffusionism. Some attributed virtually every important cultural achievement to
the inventions of a few, especially gifted peoples that, according to
diffusionists, then spread to other cultures. For example, British
anthropologists Grafton Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry incorrectly suggested, on
the basis of inadequate information, that farming, pottery making, and
metallurgy all originated in ancient Egypt and diffused throughout the world. In
fact, all of these cultural developments occurred separately at different times
in many parts of the world.
| E | Functionalism |
Also in the early 1900s, French
sociologist Émile Durkheim developed a theory of culture that would greatly
influence anthropology. Durkheim proposed that religious beliefs functioned to
reinforce social solidarity. An interest in the relationship between the
function of society and culture—known as functionalism—became a major theme in
European, and especially British, anthropology. Functionalists viewed culture as
a collection of integrated parts that work together to keep a society
functioning.
British functionalists, such as Bronislaw
Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, also became known as social
anthropologists because of their interest in the workings of
societies. They wrote detailed ethnographies that described every aspect
of a people’s culture and social structure. They also focused on important
rituals that appeared to preserve a people’s social structure, such as
initiation ceremonies that formally signify children’s entrance into
adulthood.
Critics of functionalism felt that it
provided a circular argument. Explaining culture by demonstrating that it allows
a society to function, they said, does not explain the meaning or origins of any
particular cultural traditions.
| F | Ecology and Economy |
Beginning in the 1930s several American
anthropologists developed a renewed interest in the material, or economic, and
ecological foundations of culture—interests that dated back to the writings of
Herodotus. These anthropologists emphasized the importance of discovering how
the natural environment, technology, and the ways in which people produced and
distributed their necessities, such as food, influence other parts of culture.
They proposed that material culture, and particularly those aspects related to
making a living, determines the shape of culture as a whole.
| F1 | Culture Areas |
American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber,
an early proponent of economic and ecological theories of culture, created a map
of Native American groups in North America that divided them according to what
he called culture areas. According to Kroeber, all groups included within
the same culture area shared similar ways of life because they occupied the same
ecological regions. They therefore relied on many of the same natural resources,
such as sources of food, and developed similar kinds of technology and social
organization.
For instance, the native peoples of the
Northwest Coast culture area, such as the Kwakiutl and Haida, have a number of
cultural similarities. Many of the peoples of this region relied heavily on
fishing and the hunting of marine mammals for food. They manufactured large
buildings, impressive boats, and clothing from the wood and bark of giant cedar
trees. Many groups lived in chiefdoms that relied on the collection and
redistribution of wealth in lavish ceremonies known as potlatch.
| F2 | Cultural Ecology |
In research done between the 1930s and
the 1960s, American anthropologist Julian Steward noticed that similar types of
cultures developed under similar environmental conditions, but in geographically
separate places. Steward attributed these cultural similarities to
correspondences in their culture core—those aspects of culture that might
be influenced by the similar ways in which different peoples adapt to similar
natural environments. For example, Steward argued that the similarities in
culture and social organization among foraging band societies around the world
had much to do with the similar ecologies of the places in which they lived. The
work of Steward and many of his students is known as cultural
ecology.
| F3 | Energy and Technology |
Beginning in the 1940s, American
anthropologist Leslie White promoted a unique perspective of culture and a new
concept of cultural evolution. He associated differences in culture with the
ways in which different human societies produce and use energy. White attempted
to calculate how much energy different societies use per person over a given
amount of time. He suggested that each step in the evolution of culture was
marked by an increase in the amount of energy used per person.
White noted that so-called advanced
societies, such as the United States in the 20th century, generated and used
massive amounts of energy. These societies had developed technologies to produce
large amounts of energy from such sources as fossil fuels and nuclear fission.
These societies also used large amounts of energy to power such complex forms of
technology as cars, lights, factories, and industrial farming machinery. On the
other hand, according to White, small societies were less evolved because they
only used small amounts of energy from the sun, wind, and water to grow food and
power simple technologies, such as boats.
Like Morgan, White was interested in
the evolution of human culture as a whole, but White considered technology to be
the single most important cause of culture change. He also believed, however,
that specific cultural patterns could not be explained by economic or ecological
circumstances. Instead, he thought of culture as something superorganic,
or above human life—something beyond individual human control.
| F4 | Cultural Materialism |
In the 1960s and 1970s American
anthropologist Marvin Harris attempted to show through studies of specific
societies that many aspects of culture relate directly to a people’s economic
conditions. He argued that a culture’s technology shaped its economy, which in
turn shaped its beliefs and values. The theories of Harris and other
anthropologists that focus on the strictly economic basis of culture are known
as cultural materialism.
In one study, Harris gave an economic
explanation for the Hindu tradition in India of regarding cattle as sacred. He
viewed this tradition as a cultural response to the economic importance of
cattle as draught animals for farming, as scavengers of trash, and as providers
of a major source of fuel (dried cattle feces).
Many anthropologists continue to
examine the complex relationship among environment, economy, and culture. Some
have studied how people modify their environments and develop technology to
increase the number of people that the environment can support. For example,
industrialized societies continue to develop new technologies to increase food
and energy production. They also promote technologies, such as birth control
methods, and ways of thinking, such as the ideal of having small families, that
help to keep populations in check and to avoid running out of natural
resources.
| G | The Interpretation of Culture |
In the 1950s anthropologists began to
distinguish between two ways of interpreting culture: from an emic
perspective and from an etic perspective. The people native to a society
have an emic understanding of its culture. Someone who comes from outside a
society, such as an anthropologist, gains an etic understanding of its
culture.
Traditional ethnographies, written from an
etic perspective, describe and analyze each aspect of a society’s culture in
detail. Many early anthropological books, for example, discuss each aspect of
culture in its own chapter or section. On the other hand, the people within a
society can provide an emic description of their culture. Such a description
rarely resembles an anthropological interpretation.
People living within a particular culture
do not usually analyze its meaning. They do not think, for instance, about why
they perform one kind of ceremony rather than another, or why they produce food
one way rather than another. A native of the United States, for example, might
say that Americans commonly go to the movies on Friday and Saturday nights but
not discuss or even understand the significance of this behavior.
Anthropologists, on the other hand,
specialize in comparing and analyzing cultures. For this reason, anthropologists
have traditionally regarded immersion in a foreign culture as a fundamental part
of doing research. Still, they remain outsiders. But in the 1960s some
anthropologists began attempting to describe and analyze culture from an emic
perspective, as an insider experiences it.
| G1 | Lévi-Strauss |
French anthropologist Claude
Lévi-Strauss tried to gain an emic understanding of culture by looking for
consistent patterns in people’s myths, rituals, and habits. He proposed that
powerful systems of logic underlie these cultural patterns, even though the
people of a society are not consciously aware of the logic. He also felt that
the logic underlying cultural patterns was somehow rooted in the structure of
the human mind. Thus, he referred to his form of cultural analysis as
structuralism.
Lévi-Strauss noted that myths,
rituals, and habits in many cultures emphasize dichotomous (two-sided)
contrasts. For example, many people have myths that tell of a past
transformation of people from immortal to mortal beings. The dietary habits of
many cultures also emphasize the transformation of raw food through cooking. And
many cultures have rituals of transformation through purification. To
Lévi-Strauss, the common theme running through these different aspects of
culture was not accidental but the result of a fundamental system of logic,
common to all people.
| G2 | Symbolic Anthropology |
Beginning in the late 1960s, another
group of anthropologists began focusing their studies on important symbols
within particular cultures. This form of anthropology became known as
symbolic, or interpretive, anthropology. Symbolic anthropologists,
such as British anthropologist Victor Turner and American anthropologist
Clifford Geertz, have attempted to describe the specific meanings people assign
to objects, behaviors, and emotions. Instead of looking for the universal logic
underlying all culture, symbolic anthropologists have tried to discover the
specific internal logic that a people use to interpret their own culture.
| H | Postmodern Theories of Culture |
In the 1980s and 1990s some
anthropologists turned to an even more radical interpretive perspective on
culture, known generally as postmodernism. Postmodernism questions whether an
objective understanding of other cultures is at all possible. It developed as a
reaction to modernism, which was the scientific and rational approach to
understanding the world found in most ethnographies.
Postmodern anthropologists suggest that
all people construct culture through an ongoing process that resembles the
writing, reading, and interpretation of a text. From this view, people
continually create and debate with each other about the meaning of all aspects
of culture, such as words, rituals, and concepts. People in the United States,
for instance, have long debated over cultural issues such as what constitutes a
family, what women’s and men’s roles in society should be, and what functions
the federal government should perform. Many anthropologists now study and write
about these kinds of questions, even in their own societies.
| V | THE DEVELOPMENT OF GLOBAL CULTURE |
Rapid changes in technology in the last
several decades have changed the nature of culture and cultural exchange. People
around the world can make economic transactions and transmit information to each
other almost instantaneously through the use of computers and satellite
communications. Governments and corporations have gained vast amounts of
political power through military might and economic influence. Corporations have
also created a form of global culture based on worldwide commercial
markets.
Local culture and social structure are now
shaped by large and powerful commercial interests in ways that earlier
anthropologists could not have imagined. Early anthropologists thought of
societies and their cultures as fully independent systems. But today, many
nations are multicultural societies, composed of numerous smaller subcultures.
Cultures also cross national boundaries. For instance, people around the world
now know a variety of English words and have contact with American cultural
exports such as brand-name clothing and technological products, films and music,
and mass-produced foods.
Many anthropologists have become interested
in how dominant societies can shape the culture of less powerful societies, a
process some researchers call cultural hegemony. Today, many
anthropologists openly oppose efforts by dominant world powers, such as the U.S.
government and large corporations, to make unique smaller societies adopt
Western commercial culture.
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