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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Combining objects, actions, and meanings, <OpenstaxTerm>ritual</OpenstaxTerm> is a special kind of repeated, patterned action conventionally associated with a particular meaning. Rituals incorporate symbols and roles along with routinized activities such as gestures, music, and movement. Many rituals are performed by specialists in group settings to accomplish specific group or individual goals. Rituals bring together symbols, practices, and worldviews.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Consider this popular American ritual. On the first Sunday in February, many Americans gather in each other’s homes to watch the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL) on television. So widespread is this practice that stores are nearly empty and many Christian churches cancel afternoon and evening activities. As a whole, the ritual consists of many roles and relationships as well as patterned actions and conventional meanings. At the heart of the action are the two teams competing against one another in a chaotic game featuring an oddly shaped ball carried forward in campaigns of full-frontal assault across a carefully marked field. The players are surrounded by referees, coaches, camera people, and cheerleaders, each group having a strategic role in the action. Surrounding the field are commentators who interpret and contextualize, giving meaning to the actions of the game. At home, some people watch the game closely, exclaiming with joy or disappointment and commenting on the comments of the commentators. Other people socialize with one another, watching the game intermittently. Vast amounts of food and drink are consumed by Americans on Super Bowl Sunday. Typical foods include potato chips, dips, barbecued chicken wings, and pizza. Beer is the beverage of choice for this occasion. An event celebrating competition, spectatorship, and consumption, Super Bowl Sunday is an effective ritual for reinforcing dominant values in a society structured by corporate capitalism. Notions of gender, race, and class are threaded through the various levels of play and consumption as well.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	In the Akan communities of central and southern Ghana, in West Africa, leaders perform a ritual called <OpenstaxEm>Adae</OpenstaxEm> that uses important cultural symbols and reinforces cultural commitments to authority, ancestors, and shared prosperity. In the <OpenstaxTerm>Akan</OpenstaxTerm> society, people are given special wooden stools to mark certain stages in life, such as puberty and marriage. A person’s stool is said to contain the personal power of the owner, symbolizing the life essence of that person.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/43a7c4b5e462b5cbfe1bab4af2ed7875b68ef30b" alt="A color photograph of an ornately carved wooden stool on a base. It is connected to the base by four thick posts on each corner and a thicker carved post in the center. The seat is curved, higher on the outer edges. The overall look of the stool is solid and strong." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="532" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
	<strong>Figure 3.10</strong> This stool is more than just a place to sit down. In the Akan society which created it, it is understood to represent the personal power and life essence of the person it was given to. (credit: “Stool (Dwa)” by Museum Expedition 1922, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	When an eminent person dies, that person’s stool is enshrined in a special shed called a stool house, or <OpenstaxEm>nkonuafieso</OpenstaxEm>. Twice every 42 days (once on a Wednesday and once on a Sunday), a community leader makes a procession to the stool house of the ancestral leaders of the community. Entering the stool house, the leader must remove their sandals and lower the cloth worn draped around their shoulders, symbolizing their humility and respect for the ancestors. Then the leader greets the ancestral leaders one by one, making offerings of drink and food and asking for blessings and prosperity for the community.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Special rituals called <OpenstaxTerm>rites of passage</OpenstaxTerm> are used to mark the movement of a person from one social status to another. Naming ceremonies, puberty rites, weddings, and funerals are all common rites of passage. Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1960) identified three stages in rites of passage: separation, transition, and incorporation. In the first phase, separation, individuals, or groups are taken out of their everyday social context, leaving their original social status. In the second phase, transition, people exist in an in-between state outside of conventional norms of dress and action. In this phase, people are often dressed in special costume, made to engage in unusual behaviors, and taught special forms of secret knowledge. In the third phase, people are brought back into society in a formal ceremony and introduced as subjects in a new social category.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Initiation rituals are a common rite of passage in many societies. In many African societies that practice initiation, young people are gathered together in a group and taken to a special camp outside the town or village. This constitutes the separation phase. In the next phase, transition, members of the group are often dressed alike and made to follow a common set of rules and schedule of activities. They may be required to perform unusual feats, such as eating strange foods. Their bodies may be scarified or tattooed. Elders give them special knowledge essential to performing their future roles as women or men. For instance, girls may learn explicit lessons about conception and childbirth. Finally, when the transition is complete, initiates are returned to the town or village and presented as women or men. Often, the completion of initiation marks a young woman as formally eligible for courtship and marriage.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

3.4.2 Ritual

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

3.4.3 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

4.6.3 Making Sense of Fossils