By: Anuram Anton, Uthman Ali, and Tahir Mazhar Conclusion.

By: Anuram Anton, Uthman Ali, and Tahir Mazhar

Conclusion

The Power in Objects – UthmanThe Pathos in Object – TahirTradition and Change – Anuram

◦Anthropological Themes & Analyses Quiz

Table of Contents

The Power in Objects We all know the saying…

“A picture is worth a thousand words” But can we also say…

“An object is worth a thousand words”? Annette Weiner tells us about a scene from the book (Gulliver’s Travels)

where Gulliver describes two men who hold a conversation for about an hour, just by pulling out objects from their bagpacks

Swift reminds us how much we use objects to make statements of our identity, goals and even fantasies. As a result of this, it is learnt at an early age that what we wear may convey messages about who we are or seek to be.

Example…If a Boy is wearing a baseball uniform, one may infer he enjoys the super amazing sport

of baseball and that he plays baseball

The Power in Objects (Cont’d) We are exclusively involved with things we love, long for, and give to

others. Also, we mark relationships with things- a wedding band, a birthday present, or even a cemetery marker.

Through “things” we craft our self image, whilst we can also cultivate and enhance relationships. They also take us back in time but may also become the building blocks that link the past to the future.

-Example – Philanthropists, Monarchs and dictators, each construct monuments to themselves in an attempt to make their names a part of history

Trobrianders also give meanings to things that make them worth more than their cost in labour, for example…

The Power In Objects (Cont’d) Example – Long yams, bundles of dried banana leaves, and strings of

polished red shell discs all have a special place in the Trobriand society. These are things that cross boundaries between people, that connect one villager socially and politically with another.

Weiner wondered, why men give so much attention to yam displays…

  - In the Trobriand society, Yams create relatedness as they cross clan

boundaries, establishing long-term relationships between individuals that lead to other advantages such as land rights, protection, assistance and other kinds of wealth. Therefore, we can see the political implications of a chief’s standing yam house as well as the yams becoming weapons due to the fact men measure them against each other in a fight for dominance

The Power In Objects (Cont’d) Relationships in many societies bring emotions of love, generosity and caring but also can

expose one to rejection, anger and loss. Objects not only bring people together into a relationship but also mark off one person to another with explicit boundaries expressive of dominance, authority and fame.

In the Trobriand society, expanding outside the matrilineage pose eventual political consequences.

As we saw previously, food, earrings, beauty and magic are things given to children. They are significant as they are emblematic of how a person’s social life self undergoes enhancement. objects that pass between individuals and multiple matrilineages eventually serve to make one’s matrilineage’s identity strong.

 Success is attained through seductions, marriages, births, alliances, more yams, women’s wealth and kitomu shells. Even members with a ranking lineage may eventually fail, such as Vanoi

The loss of shells or seed yams for example are things that may subvert one from expansion. Consequently the act of expanding may lead one to be killed through sorcery …In response to death, the members of the matrilineage overturn their yams and women’s bundles and skirts.

The Power In Objects (Cont’d)

  Members of a matrilineage repay all “others” for their past care and they

have contributed to the social identity of the deceased.  Repaying and Regeneration in death is imperative to the Trobriand way

of life. Some Masssim Societies, repay and end relationships in death, whilst in Kiriwana all efforts are made to avert these breaks with the past. Even the bones are carried by “others” for up to twenty years.

Wealth is distributed to make a matrilineage look strong in the face of death and to continue the R&R processes.

  Example- In this Time Banana bundles, are given away in the masses to

“others” as they can be easily produced

The Power In Objects (Cont’d) Another Example- Among the Northwest Coast Tlingit Indians, blankets

circulated as wealth during mortuary distributions. (refer to the picture below)

Even another Example – In the Marquesas islands of Polynesia, during the ceremony of a newborn, the geneology was chanted over a 20 foot strip of barkcloth

The Power In Objects (Cont’d) It is evident the use of the cloths for bestowals carried an important

social impact Due to the fact many materials that make up an object (such as the

women’s valued skirts), it is easy to distribute. Thus, at deaths of high ranking peoples, chiefs are able to maintain the R&R process for the large amount of people.  

In Earlier chapters we learnt that even though women receive bundles from their husbands, they still must produce much of their wealth themselves. Men still keep their most sacred valuables, such as axe-blades and shell valuables which are somewhat important to mortuary exchanges.

 Weiner argues that a Man’s axe- blade remains more specifically and individually political, whilst a woman’s banana bundles and skirts reveal the political state of a Matrilineage  

Can someone explain why this is true ?

The Power In Objects (Last Slide, I swear)

Closing statement At birth, the baloma spirit re-creates life in a

woman, and at death, a woman re-create these beliefs through a materialistic

approach.

The Pathos in ObjectsFor Example: In ancient Hawaii, kings had many

advisors and had power over very large estates.

When he died, all his personal possessions, except for his chiefly regalia, were burned because they were all now polluted

But the feather cloaks that marked himwere never destroyed, instead the regalia would inaugurate his successor because the cloaks represented much more than anyone individual chief; they symbolized the dynasty itself.

Cont’d Yet this comparison also reveals how limited the banana

wealth is because it is a necessity in this society, yet it is NOT sacred

In Hawaii, age increases the value of the feather cloaks; however, it just makes the skirts decayed and dirty◦ Thus, the value of the banana bundles and skirts are seriously

circumscribed by the limits of time , just as in economic terms their accumulation is restrained by the frequency of death

Holding onto yams, bundles, and skirts as a Kula player does his shells, is physically impossible

Bundles and yam gardens must be remade every year as there is no way to make these objects into heirlooms like those in Hawaii

Only stone axes and Kula shells have the durability that enables them to last through generations , but they are scarce resources and only those of the highest value represent fame, and they only concern a few famous individuals and no the entire bloodline

Cont’d How societies culturally construct these themes shows us how far they succeed in

regenerating individual and group identities through time In small scale societies, where one group is ranked over another, the regeneration of

ancestral identities at death is essential◦ The Trobiranders sustain hierarchal relations between chiefs and commoners

Thus the objects in Trobriand exchange are far more economic in value and more than sociologic in content

The meanings embedded in these objects direct our attention to values that are both existential and the fuel of all society

Malinowski dismissed these existential aims of human behavior in his attempts to show that practical needs, like metabolism and reproduction, were at the root of individual behavior and extended to the way institutions, such as Kula, functioned

Even though he believed that emotions, magic, and the search for fame had pragmatic consequences, he never felt that these forces were directed toward such rational motivations as immortality and the control of time

For Trobiranders, it is important to achieve a degree of permanence against everything that trends towards destruction and is the driving force in the constitution of the social system

Tradition and Change -for the Trobiranders that have moved to the city spent there earned

money on cloth, transforming a village tradition into a heritage, geographical distance, and western beliefs

-chief Vanoi’s had died, but the documents that he had left made the Trobiranders continue their traditions for death

-we can see the many tools the Trobiranders used such as (yams, axes, skirts, and valuable shells) play an important in the villagers and gave them and identity

-the Trobiranders used money to infla-te women's bundles, which get the women more competitive with each other

- the many years the Trobrianders remain the westernized people try to fix their tradition by bringing in god, cash, country, and independence.

Cont’d today the Trobiranders have their first missionary and colonial officer,

they see themselves as very active and in control individuals -anthropologists have hoped that the government does not screw up or

tamper with the Trobiranders by making them very westernized -colonial period was good but it made the villagers passive people, so

the anthropologists decided to give the villagers their own rights and priorities to what they do

-till this day the Trobiranders have been more far with what they trade in comparisons the westernized people who found oil, gold, created technology benefited the discoverers not the local people

-every day the westernized culture is being altered - the Trobiranders stick to just a few traditions which makes them all on

the same page -to conclude through

• Individuals,Groups and Societies• Belief Systems and Practices

The Power in Objects

• The Limitations in Wealth• Cross Cultural Examinations

The Pathos in Objects

• Economic Organization• Environment

Tradition and Change

Terms:Matrilineage: A decent group traced through the maternal side of a kin

Mortuary Distribution : The distribution of items amongst a society upon a death

Ethnocentrism: the belief that all cultures are inferior to your own

Culture: the shared ideals, values and beliefs the people use to interpret and generate behavior and that are reflected by their behavior

Primitive: relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.

Economic System: the productions, distribution and consumption of goods

Wealth: an accumulation of financial resources, material possessions, wives and children, and the potential for future earnings

Stratified Societies: Societies in which ranking and inequality among members vary

Consumption: the ingestion and the exploitation of available resources

Anthropological Themes

QUIZLets see who was paying attention