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Native Cultures Outline

Delve into the cultural ecological paradigm, emphasizing subsistence strategies like hunting and gathering, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture highlighted by religious beliefs and practices including rituals, myths, and the roles of shamans and priests.

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Native Cultures Outline

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  1. Native Cultures Outline Lecture I

  2. Elements of Culture • The Cultural Ecological Paradigm • “Culture is Man’s extrasomatic means of adaptation” – White 1951 • Culture is shared, learned, & integrated • Culture is influenced by environment

  3. Subsistence Strategies • Hunting and Gathering (Foraging) • Relies on natural plants and animals in environment • Small group size (20-50) • Low population density (1/50 sq miles to 5/1 sq mile) • Politically simple • Bands or tribes, almost always egalitarian • High mobility, usually seasonal • Housing tipis, wigwams, wickiups • Low amounts of wealth • Baskets, bladders, skins (parfleches) • Lack of food storage • May be technologically simple or surprisingly complex

  4. Subsistence Strategies • Pastoralism • Relies on domesticated animals and sometimes crops • Medium group size (up to several hundred) • Low to medium population density • Politically more complex • Tribes or Chiefdoms, but generally egalitarian • High mobility, often seasonal • Housing like yurts or tipis, but can be semi-permanent • Higher amounts of wealth due to draft animals • Products from animal parts common • Lack of food storage “on the hoof” • May be technologically simple or surprisingly complex) • Not seen in North America • Ducks, Turkeys, Dogs, Cavies, Llamas only domesticates

  5. Subsistence Strategies • Horticulture • Relies on simple cultigens, usually local in origin • Medium group size (several hundred people) • Medium to high population density (50/1sq mile & up) • Politically and socially complex • Tribes and Chiefdoms, but generally egalitarian • High kin importance • Sedentary • Housing Longhouses, Pueblos, Daub and Wattle • Higher amounts of wealth and status goods • Pottery, farming and processing tools • Pottery, baskets, or boxes for food storage • Often technologically complex in arts and subsistence items

  6. Subsistence Strategies • Agriculture • Relies on more developed, often imported, cultigens • High group size (hundreds to thousands of people) • High population density (500/1sq mile & up) • Politically and socially complex • Chiefdoms and States, always stratified • High kin importance and non-kin rulership • Sedentary • Housing Longhouses, Pueblos, Daub and Wattle, Earth Lodges • Higher amounts of wealth and status goods • Pottery, farming and processing tools • Pottery, baskets, or boxes for food storage • Often technologically complex in arts and subsistence items • Monumental Architecture, Sciences, Writing, Public Works

  7. Religious Beliefs • What is Religion? • A set of rituals, rationalized by myth, that mobilizes supernatural powers • Ritual – Patterns of behavior and timing with religious purpose • Myth – Sacred narrative with supernatural actors Occurred long ago Tells how things came to be

  8. More on Religion • Functionalist Explanations • Psychological • Social • Cognitive • Types of Religious Belief • Animism (supernatural spirits) • Animatism (Impersonal force) • Magic (pseudoscience) • Witchcraft (accidental? influence of Force)

  9. Religious Practitioners • Shamans • Priests • Medicine Men • Sorcerers

  10. Religious Rituals • Rites of Passage • Puberty Ceremonies • Vision Quests • Rites of Intensification • Funerals • Weddings • Revitalization Movements • Ghost Dance and Wovoka • Longhouse Religion and Handsome Lake

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