Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	There is extensive evidence of pet keeping in Indigenous societies. In many hunter-gatherer societies, children keep numerous pets, most often birds, small rodents, and monkeys. These animals, often taken directly from the forest or wilderness area when they are still young, are considered valuable companions for children. Caring for the animals is thought to teach children to understand animals’ movements and personalities and help them develop a sense of stewardship for the natural world.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Animal ethicist James <OpenstaxTerm>Serpell</OpenstaxTerm> (1988) has found wide-ranging pet keeping throughout Indigenous societies in North and South America. The <OpenstaxTerm>Waraõ</OpenstaxTerm> in the Orinoco region of Venezuela keep birds, monkeys, sloths, rodents, ducks, dogs, and chickens as pets. The <OpenstaxTerm>Kalapalo</OpenstaxTerm> of central Brazil have a particular affection for birds and treat them as members of the family. The <OpenstaxTerm>Barasana</OpenstaxTerm> of eastern Colombia keep pet rodents, birds (especially parrots and macaws), peccaries (piglike mammals), and even young jaguars. And North American Indigenous groups are known to have tamed raccoons, moose, bison, wolves, bears, and especially dogs.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/1b4eecaefd43adc0cab564443b706b55e8eff810" alt="Three people with a small dog stand in an open field." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="533" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
	<strong>Figure 18.12</strong> A Guaraní family with their dog in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, in 2004. Pets are part of many human cultures. (credit: “Agrotoxico Ti Guarani Kaiova_Foto_Ana Mendes (23)” by Ana Mendes/Amazônia Real/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	While many Native Americans are very affectionate with their dogs, their style of “keeping” these dogs as pets differs a great deal from what most American are familiar with. In a 2020 article titled “What Rez Dogs Mean to the Lakota,” Lakota tribal members Richard <OpenstaxTerm>Meyers</OpenstaxTerm> and Ernest <OpenstaxTerm>Weston Jr.</OpenstaxTerm> explain:
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxBlockquote>
	 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		In our culture, people traditionally don’t own animals the way other cultures have pets; the animals are left wild, and may choose to go to a home to offer protection, companionship, or even to become a part of a community. People feed the dogs and care for them, but the dogs remain living outside and are free to be their own beings. This relationship differs from one where the human is the master or owner of an animal who is considered property. Instead, the dog and people provide service to one another in a mutual relationship of reciprocity and respect.
	</OpenstaxParagraph> 
</OpenstaxBlockquote>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The roles of pets in human societies are very complex and depend on specific cultural traditions and ways of relating to animals, both wild and domesticated. It is important to note that pets play different roles across different cultures and cannot be easily defined.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

18.4.2 Pet Keeping in Indigenous Societies

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods