Articles by lbb5432

From a Sweet Sixteen, to a Quinceanara, a Rumspringa, and a Bar-mitzvah, every culture has their own coming of age rituals that will bring their children into adulthood. Though not all of these rituals are easy going and consist of a party and having fun. Other coming of age rituals are meant to toughen children up to make sure they are worthy and prepare for them life that comes with being an adult. One of these rituals is the Bullet Ant tradition of the Sateré-Mawé, an indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazons. This tribe has little contact with the outside world and are mostly known because of their coming of age ritual.

In the Sateré-Mawé tribe when a boy turns thirteen it is decided that he will be initiated into manhood. So to begin the preparation for the ceremony, the boys collect bullet ants in the jungle and when caught the bullet ants are sedated by dropping them into a brew of the crushed leaves of a cashew tree. After the ants are sedated they are sowed into gloves. When the ants wake up, angry at being sowed into a glove (the ants are unharmed) the ceremony will begin. Each boy in the ceremony has to wear the gloves twenty times for ten minutes each while performing a dance. It is believed that this ritual will prepare boys for the suffering of manhood and make them better warriors.

To provide context about the bullet ants, they are officially known as the worlds most painful insect. That’s why they are called bullet ants, their sting is comparable to being shot by a bullet. The sting of a bullet ant can last for twenty four hours and It is said that their sting is thirty times worse than a bee sting. On the Schmidt Pain Index, which measures the sting of insects on people, it was given a four plus. On the index, stings can range from level one to a level four with four being the worst and most painful. Luckily, bullet ants are nonaggressive unless provoked but when you are stung by one it will release a chemical that signals other ants to sting multiple times.

This ritual of the Sateré-Mawé tribe was interesting to learn about. The first link that I posted was to a YouTube video by National Geographic documenting one of the ceremonies. In the video you can see the boys going through the ritual as well as an outsider who wanted to try the ritual out for himself. I noticed how the outsider reacted to wearing the gloves compared to how the boys from the tribe reacted to wearing the gloves. The world and its cultures are so intriguing and I love learning about different rituals around the world.

As archaeology is a sub-discipline within the field of Anthropology, archaeology has a few sub-disciplines itself. One of which is Maritime Archaeology, otherwise known as underwater archaeology or marine archaeology. Maritime Archaeology is the study and preservation of human interaction with the sea. Maritime archaeology isn’t restricted to just the sea and/or ocean, it can focus on either wet or dry sites. This archaeological field includes ships, shipwrecks, sunken cities, landscapes, indigenous fish traps, and human remains. Artifacts that have been submerged under water for hundreds of years are especially important and very fragile, so underwater archaeologists have to be extremely careful not to damage them during an excavation. When doing underwater excavations archaeologists also have to worry about things such as underwater earthquakes, volcanoes, and underwater animals such as sharks,  which could end up harming them and the artifacts in the excavations site. Underwater sites are also harder to get access to so maritime archaeologist have to be skilled swimmers and divers. It is not easy for underwater archaeologists as they must work and excavate in the deep sea instead of on land as usual.

Although the field of maritime archaeology is virtually unknown some its most famous sites are not. One of the most famous is the Titanic, the 1912 shipwreck that claimed over 1,500 lives. 
It was discovered in 1985 and from then on it became an archaeological site. In 2012, robot vehicles with sonar and cameras were to used to create a map of the shipwreck. a scientific mission to the Titanic used robotic vehicles equipped with sonar and cameras to create a detailed map of the wreck site, as well as high-resolution three-dimensional documentation of the fragmented ship’s various components. As a result of this excavation along with others it has been discovered that the Titanic is falling apart due to the rust, decay, and marine organisms such as mollusks and fungi eating away at the ship’s wood and the ship in general.

Another lesser known site is the lost city of Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt. Thought to be legend, this was a temple city dedicated to the Egyptian god Amun, the god of the sun and the air. It was also a port entry for Greek ships to come to Egypt. This lost city has also been mentioned in Greek myths by the Greek historian Herodotus, it is the city where Herakles (Hercules) first stepped foot into Egypt, and the city where Helen of Troy spent time with Paris before the Trojan War. It sunk around 8th century AD, but it was officially discovered in 2000 and the underwater archaeologist who discovered it, Franck Goddio, described it as a “civilization frozen in time”. The city was magnificent and was one of international trade, when it was excavated archaeologists found colossal statues, temples, gold, jewelry, ceramics, and coins. Over 70 wrecks and seven hundred various anchors were found at the site. Sites like this lost city and shipwrecks like the Titanic are still being discovered and preserved today.

The field of Maritime Archaeology is important in the understanding and preservation of the world’s underwater cultural heritage. When I first learned of this field I thought it was cool and I loved the underwater pictures of Thonis-Heracleion. This is a great example of how broad and amazing anthropology and its sub-disciplines are.

P.S.- There are so many amazing pictures from the Thonis-Heracleion excavation that it was hard to choose which ones would be put on here. If you are interested in seeing more pictures of the excavation click on the links under the pictures.

When people hear of marriage practices, all too often do they hear of monogamy, where a person has one partner, and polygyny, which are marriages where a man has multiple wives. Rarely, do you hear of polyandry, where a woman takes multiple husbands. Although, there are not many cultures who practice polyandry there are plenty that exist, and one those cultures is in Tibet. In Tibet there is a certain type of polyandry practiced called fraternal polyandry, meaning brothers will take the same wife. Like every other culture in this world nothing is done without a reason. There is an explanation for every practice, ritual, and belief a culture holds.

In this culture a woman would marry the brothers, go to live with them, and then the children made from this marriage would all inherit the land. In the Tibetan Himalayas polyandry was practiced for various reasons. The first being to control land and the second to control the population. In this area there is not much land that can be put to use to grow crops, so good tillable land is scarce. Next, men can have more children than women much more quickly, so polyandry prevents this and reduces the amount of heirs that the small land would have to be divided between and how many mouths that would have to be fed. The land would stay in the family and be undivided between the brothers and their children, thus preventing conflict and hunger. Polyandry also works in this society because it allows the brothers to divvy up the work, one brother could work in the home, another in the fields, and another could focus on the animals. If one brother were to leave the house another could stay behind to take care of it.

Even though this is practiced frequently the brothers are not forced into polyandry. A wife is chosen for the oldest brother and the younger brothers can choose to join the marriage if they want to. If later on in the marriage one of the brothers wants to leave they can. Once in the marriage all brothers take part in domestic duties, they do chores and they take care of the children. Whether or not they are the biological father of the children, all brothers see every child as their own, there is no favoritism. As for intercourse, they scheduled it, and the wife has to be sure to know each of her husbands and personalities to avoid conflict between them.

Today, the practice of polyandry is waning, even more so now that Tibet has made polyandry illegal. Despite this there are still some who practice polyandry. Due to the geography of Tibet, polyandry was used for survival. In our western culture this may be seen as weird but to the Tibetan people this practice was a way to make life easier and enhance their culture’s survival.

Anthropology allows us to get a better understanding of different cultures and how they work, and this understanding of different cultures can benefit us in many ways. Pertaining to the realm of medical anthropology, this had to be learned in an unfortunate way, with the story of Lia Lee, a Hmong girl diagnosed with epilepsy, who was not kept alive by western medicine, but by her parent’s love and their cultural remedies. Her story is used as an example in medical anthropology of how language and a lack of cultural understanding can create a barrier between people.

Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, a Hmong family, came from Laos to the United States as refugees fleeing the Vietnam War. They came to the U.S. in the 1980s and shortly after gave birth to a girl named Lia Lee. All throughout this time though, they had no knowledge of English or the U.S healthcare system. While at the same time the field of western medicine (U.S. healthcare system) had not given any thought or consideration towards non-western (alternative) medicine. Lia was three to four months old when she suffered her first seizure, and when her parents took her to a hospital the doctors could not understand them due to them not being able to speak English. Her parents could not explain her symptoms, and so Lia Lee was diagnosed with Pneumonia. Lia Lee’s seizures did not stop so they came back to the hospital where the doctor finally diagnosed her with epilepsy. Even though doctors saw Lia Lee’s condition as epilepsy, her Hmong parents thought otherwise.

Lia’s parents believed her condition was spiritual, and was called quag dab peg, meaning the “the spirit catches you and you fall down”. In Hmong culture this is just another name for epilepsy, and it is believed that when one has epilepsy a violent spirit has taken over their body. Lia’s parents thought her soul was wandering and it had to be called back to her body. Yet as Lia Lee was in the U.S. she was given treatment and medication which did not help the uncontrollable seizures. Her parents became angry with the doctors as the treatment and medication was not helping, so they stopped giving Lia her medicine took matters into their own hands. They called in shamans and sacrificed animals, they turned to their culture to try and help their daughter. Unfortunately, the doctors could not understand Hmong culture and thought that what they were doing was hurting Lia, so they called Child Protective Services and Lia was taken away from her parents for a year. Lia’s parent fought hard to get her back, and after they successfully did Lia had a grand mal seizure at the age of four, which put her into a vegetative state for the rest of her life. As a result, doctors said Lia did not have much time left, so her parents took her home where she could be in peace. Lia’s parents did not give up and continued to treat her using their culture’s medicine traditions. 

Lia Lee passed away in 2012 at the age of thirty, twenty-six years after she suffered her grand mal seizure. She was kept alive by Hmong traditional medicine. Some say it was her families love and cultural traditions that kept Lia Lee alive. Regardless, Lia Lee’s story is good, as it helped the U.S. healthcare system to consider culture when dealing with patents, but if there were simply a translator, or someone who was open to understanding Hmong culture and Lia’s parents, Lia Lee’s story would have never had to happen.

Anthropology is defined as the study of human societies, their cultures, and their development. Anthropologists study cultures of the past and present and, more specifically, why different cultures have certain beliefs and practices. Anthropologists study cultures from the macro level (how whole societies operate) to the micro level (the individual person’s role in a society). In anthropology it is important to know that every single culture is different, they each have something unique about them, and no one culture is better than any other. With this knowledge they can ethically study cultures in depth, from their languages, rituals, values, and even the way they deal with grief and honor their loved ones.  

One example of culture that deals with grief and honor their loved ones in a unique way is the Tana Torajan people of Indonesia. Unlike U.S. funeral ceremonies, which only take a couple of days, and at most a week, funerals in the Tana, Toraja could take months and even years to be held. This is because a person’s death is considered the most special day of their lives. (To note, because of this belief, even though they still try to maintain a healthy life, they do not believe in prolonging their life. They believe that a person has a set number of years to live.) Therefore, a funeral for a loved one calls for the most extravagant funeral ceremonies, so great that it can take years to save up for them and even put people in debt. Part of the reason for this debt, is that they are saving money to afford many animals, specifically, water buffalo, to sacrifice during the funeral to honor their loved ones. The bigger the funeral and the more animals you have to sacrifice play a part in determining the dead’s, as well as their families, status in society.   

Until enough resources are raised to hold the funeral, the deceased loved ones are seen as not dead, but sick or asleep. This means that they are still an active part of the family and are treated as such. They are embalmed, put in a special room in the house, and are routinely clothed and fed, and taken outside. A person is not considered dead until their funeral is held. When the funeral itself is had the family of the deceased do not just attend, but the whole village. The funeral begins with the slaughtering of the buffalos in honor of the loved one and doesn’t end until the eleventh day of the funeral which is when they are finally put to rest. After the funeral when they are acknowledged as deceased is when they are put into a special room called a tongkonan. The tongkonan is a traditional boat-shaped house that one is born in that will also be one’s ancestral resting place. 

This was very interesting to learn about and I learned about this culture from a TED Talks done by cultural anthropologist Kelli Swazey called “Life that doesn’t end with death“. It is an amazing lesson that is very fascinating and informational, if this blog post managed to interest you about this then you should definitely watch her TED Talks, as she goes more into depth on it and its symbolic meanings. To end, with this information about a culture and cultural practice you have most likely never heard of, I need to leave a reminder. No culture is better than any other. Every culture has its positives and its negatives, and just because something is different does not mean that it is bad or weird compared to your own culture.