Assignment 5

Assignment 5
Cultural adaptation is an important understanding in the field of anthropology. It is of the understanding that culture enables human societies to grow and survive in a given natural and social environment. Norms develop amongst different groups and because they suit the group, there is no need to change or disrupt the status quo. This idea of stability under the status quo is considered a common place in pre-modern cultures. An example of an unchanging society can be seen in Medieval Europe with the feudal system. There was no real change in living conditions for many people for long periods of time. Generations of people could live under the same circumstances as their predecessors. It is wild to think that a person who lived two or three hundred years apart could be living nearly identical lives in terms of standards of living. These basic elements of culture tended to last centuries and sometimes even thousands of years. Ideas of slow or non-disturbed change don’t apply the same to modern societies. Part of the reason societies tended to remain the same was because they were left alone or isolated from other outside cultures. The idea of modern societies, however, is more of a global intertwined network. Each society is in closer contact than ever before and tends to change more rapidly because of it.
Change happens many times through innovation. This is when a new invention or discovery leads to a profound difference for the society. One such innovation was the invention of pottery. Women probably invented pottery since they would have been the ones using them to cook, transport, and store things. However, it appears to be more out of necessity that societies used these heavy clay pots. For hunter/ gatherer societies, it would have been more of a burden to carry and transport these particular items, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t know how to make them. Meanwhile, horticultural societies may have had more of a need and use for pottery because of their sedentary lifestyle. In turn, they probably developed pottery to further their needs.
When innovations take off from one society to another, this external process is known as diffusion. One culture develops the innovation and it spreads to others. An example of diffusion can be seen in the diffusion of metal tools especially knives and axes. Cultures would have seen the advantages of these instruments in comparison to their simpler stone tools. Guns could also be seen as a prime example of diffusion. Europeans brought guns with them to the New World and Native Americans saw the advantages of these contraptions in aspects of hunting and protection. Therefore, guns were in high demand and adopted by the Native American societies. Another prime example of diffusion is through the development of maize. Because maize was developed by humans, it is easier to follow its journey through the world. Its beginnings were in Mexico and through cross pollination, wild grasses transformed into a main staple of indigenous peoples’ diets.
Interestingly enough, there are debates amongst anthropologists between the ideas of internal innovation and external diffusion. Their resolution to this debate is called parallel cultural evolution. This idea suggests similar societies with similar needs come up with similar inventions. For instance, societies in Egypt, Mexico, and the Eastern U.S. all formed pyramids at one point. Each of these societies may have had something in common because they individually invented similar things in order to meet their society’s needs.
There is also a third type of change called Acculturation. This external type of change happens when there is a massive disruptive change forced upon a society from an outside more powerful society. History has shown us this type of change time and time again. A prime example could be seen with the westward movement of the Americans across North America into Native American lands. There are four ways acculturation takes place: extermination; displacement; conquest; and commercialization. Normally there are components of one of more of these processes taking place at the same time.
Extermination or genocide is the reference to killing off great quantities of natives until the extinction or near extinction of that civilization. For example, scholars attribute as many as 80 to 90% of the native peoples in the Americas to have died because of disease and violence during the first few centuries of Columbus and other Europeans entering North America. Displacement, however, is the removal of the native people to another location. This movement allows the more dominant society room to take over the existing land. Many times this takes place by voluntary retreat like the Sioux who started out in Minnesota and eventually ended up in the Great Plains of Wyoming and South Dakota because of the westward encroachment of white settlers. On the other hand, conquest occurs when an outside society dominates another through violence and intimidation. There are several different versions of this through history, one being the British dominance over India beginning in the 1600s. By the late 1700s England had control over India through the East India Trading Company, but there was neither a massive extermination nor massive displacement. However, the same cannot be said for the British dominance of the US, which did involve extermination and displacement. Commercialization is the last form of acculturation, in which the needs and desires of the native people change as they become plugged into a new economy or buying, selling, and accumulating possessions. The Mundurucu people of the Amazon region, for example, had been in contact with Europeans since the late 1700s and had no significant change in culture until the 1860s when the world wide demand for rubber grew. A new demand for rubber meant more pressure for the people to be away from their villages as well as economic privileges and power to those who participated in the collection of rubber. This made the people want to provide more rubber and thus provided them with more modern amenities, but inevitably increased their dependence on the outside world.
As subordinate societies are being overtaken by more advanced/ more dominant cultures, there are many responses to this acculturation like assimilation. This is when the subordinate society gives in and accepts the dominant culture. Many times the subordinate societies don’t go out without a fight; however, they eventually melt into the dominant society. An example of this would be with Geronimo, who fought and was imprisoned several times for raiding white settlements, but by the end of his days he had converted to Christianity, farmed, and took the “white man’s road.” On the other hand, syncretism is like assimilation, only it is accepting the dominant culture and blending it with one’s own. For example, Santeria is a common religion in Cuba is a combination of Yoruba (West African tribe) religion and Roman Catholicism. Religious revitalization is another common response to acculturation. With the disruptive domination by the dominant society, the weaker one responds by creating new religious beliefs to help the people cope with the pressures. The Melanesian Cargo cults, for instance, blended aboriginal and Christian beliefs. Their infatuation with cargo goes back to big-man systems of their society in which the people worked for the big man and helped him achieve wealth and eventually he gave a feast and gave away all his wealth. The people were eventually very disappointed after working for many years and attending Christian missions, and the Europeans refused to distribute the wealth or to let them know the secrets of its production and distribution. Lastly, violent resistance is the most easily recognized and is usually met with the death and defeat of the pre-modern society. There are many examples of violent resistance including The Battle of Rosebud, The Sand Creek Massacre, and many more.