Week 5: Anthropology 11--Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Lecture Notes for Chapter 14:

The Arts  (388-415)

basketweave line

 

Professor John Wolford
Department of Anthropology
University of Missouri-St. Louis

Email: wolfordj@msx.umsl.edu


 
Definitions for Chapter 14 Outline for Chapter 14 Anthro 11 homepage GO TO BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

Links to outside web pages: [Wolford's A11 Web Page] [My Gateway Page] [Reserves Page]


The important questions Haviland cites for you to consider while reading this chapter:
 

What is art?

Why do anthropologists study art?

What are the functions of the arts?

Notes for William A. Haviland, 

Cultural Anthropology, 10th edition: 

Chapter 14:  The Arts  (388-415)

The Anthropological Study of Art (392-394)
 
Key Concepts
Art: • product of specialized human behavior  
• the creative use of our imagination to help us interpret, understand, and enjoy life


Art as process: the aesthetic impulse

 
may very well be an innate need of people, as basic as the needs of food, clothing, and shelter
 
NOT IN HAVILAND aesthetics the rules by which beauty and pleasure is to be evaluated in a culture

 
NOT IN HAVILAND aesthetic experience the pleasure we feel when we recognize something as beautiful

 
NOT IN HAVILAND aesthetic locus the area of a culture to which a society devotes its aesthetic effort

    Exercise: think of a society, one you are familiar with, and identify the aesthetic locus  
• Appalachia or Ozarks: clog dancing, square dancing, quilting, whittling

• Spain: bullfighting, flamenco dancing

• Filipino Igorots: headhunting, canyao festivals

• Igbo of Nigeria: wrestling among the youth

• Sicilians: cooking

• Irish:  storytelling, abstract geometric design, doorways

• West Africa:  sculpture

• Navajo, Hopi, etc.:  turquoise jewelry, blankets, sand painting, pottery

• Northwest Native America, such as Kwakiutl, Tlingit, etc.:  Totem poles, potlatches
 


Major difference between art and craft

 
• art: where the function for pleasure predominates over the function for utility

• craft where the function for utility predominates over the function for pleasure
 
 
<----------------Art--------------------------------Craft------------->
Pleasure
Utility

 
ANTHROPOLOGY APPLIED:  (on p. 393)
PROTECTING CULTURAL HERITAGES
LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS STUDY IN ANTHROPOLOGY

UNDERSTAND WHY THIS STUDY IS PLACED UNDER THIS SECTION

• Maintaining the unique character of every society's culture is a difficult process, especially in the 20th-century and the homogenizing effect of westernization

• What was the issue at stake with the Pomo Indians and the dam project of the Corps of Engineers?

• How was it resolved?

• Why was the resolution important? or was it important?

• Why are Pomo crafts important in the grand scheme of things? or are they?
 
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Verbal Arts (394-400)
 
page 394 folklore a nineteenth century term first used to refer to the traditional oral stories and sayings of the European peasant, and later extended to those traditions preserved orally in all societies

 
BETTER DEFINITIONS folklore expressive culture; all the behavior and products of expressive culture

OR

artistic communication in small groups

 
page 394 folkloristics the study of folklore (as linguistics is the study of language)

 


 
 
NOTE WELL: 
 
THIS SECTION DISCUSSING FOLKLORE IS NOT IN YOUR HAVILAND TEXT. 

IT DERIVES FROM YOUR PROFESSOR'S KNOWLEDGE OF THIS ANTHROPOLOGICAL SUBFIELD. 

HE WILL DISCUSS THIS IN CLASS
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Folklore

• used to imply in academic circles unsophisticated, illiterate, oral

• has maintained these implications in popular usage

• nonetheless, no better term has come about

 
• verbal arts does not work: folklore is more than verbal ? e.g., folklife


• an entire discipline (that is, Folklore) has arisen studying people's artistic communications

• the importance of folklore as a discipline

 
• emphasizes the universality of human aesthetic expression

• emphasizes the centrality of aesthetic expression

• integrates and synthesizes material from otherwise disparate fields, such as anthropology and literature

• does not hierarchalize aesthetic expression:

 
• art is art

• fine art is no more fine than popular or folk or primitive or whatever

• art that is taught is no better intrinsically than untaught

• Western no better than Asian or African

• white no better than black, etc.


• Traits of folklore

 
 
patterned, formulaic communal  ideological
oral, customary, or artifactual common, everyday marginal
informal, tending toward the unofficial aesthetic traditional


• Functions of folklore

 
entertainment social conformity
education cultural validation

• May serve ultimately to serve sociocultural stability

• May also serve to undermine sociocultural authority, and thus stability

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Myth (394-396)

 
page 394 myth a sacred narrative explaining how the world came to be in its present form

  Popular usage, which is wrong: something widely believed to be true, but probably is not

True Traits of Myths
 

• deals with ultimate realities

• a-historical time

• actions of divine or semi-divine personages


Abenaki myth of origins
 

• Tabaldak, the Owner, created all things but one (the Transformer, or Odziózo)  
• people he made first out of stone, then out of wood


• Odziózo then made himself out of dust

 
• he transformed the earth: made mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.

• he gave life to people


• Odziózo so enjoyed Lake Champlain that he turned himself into stone to sit and look at it throughout eternity
 

Explanation of the Abenaki myth above:
 

• All living things are connected, because all were made at the same time by the same creator  
• we thus live in a reciprocal relationship with one another


• All living things deserve equal respect

• People should not waste anything from the creation, since all is sacred

• Like Odziózo, people should appreciate nature and the ways things are, rather than try to change it all
 


• Myths often have common themes, or motifs, worldwide
 

• one common mythic motif is that of matriarchy (one-time rule by women)  
• women ruled

• men rose up to combat their tyranny or incompetence, overpowered them and took over

 
• no society is documented as being truly matriarchal

• some exist where men and women live in general equality

  
• some exist where women rule over some sectors of the society (economy, kinship ties, etc.)


• So why does the myth exist, and in such abundance?

 
• a tendency is for the myth to exist in societies where women have considerable autonomy in different societal sectors  
• thus the men's position, or authority, is weakened to some degree

• thus, the myth may serve to shore up the male sense of authority

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Legend (396-398)
page 396 legends stories told as true and set in the post-creation period
 
• serve an important function: they tend to make us negotiate our sense of reality  
• there's usually something in it that makes us question its veracity


• people see them as true, but they also recognize that it is an ideal culture they are describing

 
• that is, they understand the action taking place in terms of what might be expected in the normative social structure

• this ideal may be either extremely good or extremely bad


• Traits (From Oring, FGFG:I; NOT IN HAVILAND)

 
• use people, places, motifs, items, behavior, etc. that are very familiar to the audience  
• depicts the world as we know it, in a realistic way


• takes place in historical time

• tends to focus on a single episode

 
• can be uncanny, bizarre, miraculous, embarrassing


• reflects social anxieties or ideals

• reflects sociocultural attitudes


• American urban legend themes: Examples

  
anti-Big Business fear of death
sexual taboos/themes theft/crime
definition of gender roles cruelty to animals
hostility toward children anti-technology

 
Question: Why are these appropriate themes, given what American values are?
 
page 397 epics long oral narratives, sometimes in poetry or rhythmic prose, recounting the glorious events in the life of a real or legendary person
 
 
Question: How valid is Haviland's position that contemporary history is simply a modern form of legend-formation?
 
Haviland's Examples:
  • Aztecs

• the various histories of the world by historians of different nationalities

• revisionist history

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Tale (398-399)

 
page 398 tale a creative narrative recognized as fiction for entertainment
page 398 motif a story situation in a folktale
  • Traits of tales (From Elliott Oring, FGFG:I; NOT IN HAVILAND)  
• told and received as fiction or fantasy  
• not believed, like myth or legend

• does not challenge one's worldview, like legend


• very little character development: tends to be one-dimensional

 
• characters are flat, representational

• usually polar pairs

 
• good/bad pretty/ugly

• smart/dumb rich/poor

• obedient/disobedient hardworking/lazy


• interaction of characters tends to be simple

 
• usually only two acting characters in any scene


• plot tends to be sequential and logical

• tends to follow actions of a central character

• action tends to be stereotyped and repetitive

 
• three actions, e.g., are often taken (in Western society tales) Return to Top

Other Verbal Arts (399-400)

The Awlad 'Ali Bedouins of Egypt's western desert

  • Their aesthetic locus is in their poetry (known as ghinnáwas)

• The poetry is antistructural: that is, it opposes the structural values of society

• It celebrates illegitimate romance, etc., e.g., between non-cousins
 

It is nonetheless sanctioned by larger society, winked at
 

• much as rock music is an industry in the US where the lyrics and the actions of the performers are winked at by the status quo  
IMPORTANT SCHOLAR:  (on p. 401)
FREDERICA DE LAGUNA    (1906 -        )
LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS SCHOLAR IN ANTHROPOLOGY

UNDERSTAND WHY HER BIO BLURB IS PLACED UNDER THIS SECTION

• Who is she?

• What has she done of importance in anthropology?

• Why is knowing her important?
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The Art of Music (400-406)
 
page 400 ethnomusicology the study of a society’s music in terms of its cultural setting
page 402 tonality in music, scale systems and their modifications
 
Human music differs from natural music: that of birds, wolves, whales, the ocean, etc.
  • by having scales: fixed set of tones at fixed intervals from one another


Functions of Music (403-406)

  • religious usage--connection to the supernatural

• entertainment both during work and during play

• communicates shared beliefs/experiences

• expresses a shared sense of identity

• can express personal creativity
 
 
Question: How do these functions of music compare to the functions of folklore mentioned above?

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Pictoral Art (406-413)
 
NOT IN HAVILAND sculpture any three-dimensional artifact created or perceived through aesthetic imagination
Art can be of two kinds: representational or abstract  
• representational--imitating closely the forms of nature

• abstract--drawing from natural forms but representing only their basic patterns or arrangements


Southern African Rock Art (407-413)

  • one of the world's oldest traditions?over 27,000 years old

• all art can be assessed in three ways:
 

aesthetic: understanding how things are depicted?what materials are used, how they are applied, what effect they have on the observer, etc.

narrative: understanding what things are depicted?the particular forms (animals, humans, supernatural creatures, patterns, ethnographic details, etc.)

interpretive: understanding why things are depicted the way they are?involves understanding the various cultural and social structural norms and standards that are particular to the people

  
Questions to think about
  • How does Haviland apply these approaches to understanding art (aesthetic, narrative, intepretive) to the Bushman rock paintings?

• What do the rock paintings depict?

• Who made the rock paintings?

• Why?

• After what experiences?

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• What do the following terms have to do with the rock art?
 
page 410 entoptic phenomena bright, pulsating geometric forms the central nervous system generates and "seen" in trance states

 
page 410 construal in the second stage of trance, the process the brain uses when trying to "make sense" of entoptic images

 
page 411 iconic images hallucinations of people, animals, and monsters "seen" in the deepest trance stage
  Read this Original Study and examine the relationship of the art with political power, especially in the light of cultural adaptation.  
ORIGINAL STUDY:  (on pp. 412 - 413)
BUSHMAN ROCK ART AND POLITICAL POWER
LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS STUDY IN ANTHROPOLOGY

UNDERSTAND WHY THIS STUDY IS PLACED UNDER THIS SECTION

• Changing roles of the shamans with agropastoralists and then with colonists   • Supernatural effects of the art--tied to political effects   • Eventual result of colonial/Bushman interaction

  And, a review of some key concepts:  
Key Concepts


Return to A11 Page Go to Readings and Class Schedule Go to CourseInfo at mygateway.umsl.edu Return to Professor Wolford's Homepage Return to Top
created: January 28, 2001
previously revised: February 1, 2002
last revised: February 12, 2002