topical essay #1

The dictionary definition of anthropology is “the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of humankind.” So pretty much they study people’s cultures. Many cultures are similar, but most are different. It doesn’t even have to a different country across the world. In America, people that live in the city are going to live a different life than someone that lives in a rural town in the middle of nowhere. Anthropologists study why this happens and how cultures evolve and change.
In the article Eating Christmas in the Kalahari, a man that is visiting the tribe feels really bad because he has bought a ox for Christmas feast that he believes is a very good fat ox. When a bunch of people from the tribe come and tell him it is a old, worthless ox he feels really bad because he thought it was a good ox. Later he comes to find that it is a good ox and that, in that tribe, when a man kills an animal everyone else tells the hunter that the animal isn’t very good so the hunter doesn’t become to full of himself. This man that wasn’t familiar with their customs was totally confused and kind of insulted by what happened. He sometimes thought he was somewhat superior to the other people because he had supplies and had leverage on some of the people in the tribe. When someone believes in the inherent superiority of their own ethnic group or culture it is called ethnocentrism. To everyone in the tribe it was just a normal thing to do. Like in our culture when we meet someone we shake hands. In other countries they don’t always do that. In Chinese culture they would bow whenever they met someone and depending on whom it was sometimes they would bow lower and sometimes it would just be a small bow if it was a younger person.
In an article called Shakespeare in the Bush, a man from England goes and lives with a tribe in West Africa. He tries to tell the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the tribal leaders of the tribe. The tribal leaders really don’t get the gist of the story. In their culture they don’t believe in ghosts, they keep insisting it was an omen that visited Prince Hamlet. Also, there are just some things that don’t directly translate into the other language. The cultures are just so different from each other. The tribal leaders just didn’t get why some people in the story Hamlet did what they did because in the story they had to do things a certain way because of the way things were in England. Cultural Relativity is a concept that cultural norms and values derive their meaning within a specific social context. In other words, you can only truly understand someone when you understand their culture.
Sometimes things people do seem weird or strange but to them it is perfectly normal. We just need not to judge people and we need to try to understand why they do something. Just because someone doesn’t do something like you do, that doesn’t make it wrong.

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