Thursday, March 19, 2020

Yanomamo Tribe Essays - Yanomami, Hei T Bebi, Hedu K Misi, War

Yanomamo Tribe Essays - Yanomami, Hei T Bebi, Hedu K Misi, War Yanomamo Tribe The Yanomamo My name is Eric Dunning and this is my proposal to go and study the Yanomamo tribe in the rain forests of Brazil. I have compiled a historical outline of the Yanomamo tribe and some of their religion and culture, ranging from marital status to the type of food they eat. I have chosen this tribe because according to many anthropologists the Yanomamo are perhaps the last culture to have come in contact with the modern world. The Yanomamo people of Central Brazil are one of the oldest examples of the classic pre-Columbian forest footmen. The Yanomamo live in almost complete seclusion in the Amazon rain forests of South America. The Yanomamo live in small bands or tribes and live in round communal huts called shabonos, which are actually made up of individual living quarters. The Yanomamo language consists of a variety of dialect, but no real written language. Clothes are minimal, and much of their daily life revolves around gardening, hunting, gathering, making crafts and visiting with one another. These small tribes hold their men in high ranks. Chiefs are always men who are held responsible for the general knowledge and safety of the group's women. The men are able to beat their wives if they feel the need to and are able to marry more than one woman at a time. This loose form of polygamy is a way of increasing the population of the tribe. Yanomamo people rely heavily on a system of political alliances based upon relationship. As part of that system, they have incorporated a complex feasting and trading system into their culture. One of these methods of forming political alliances is feasting. Feasting is when one village invites another village for a feast or dinner. During the feast there is a lot of social activity. The Yanomamo dance and mingle with each other along with eating a different variety of foods. The only catch is the other village must reciprocate a feast by one village. This feast is more like an American dinner party in which members of family or social group invite others to attend. A feast however can be dangerous and or fatal for those who attend. The Yanomamo can be very conniving and deceiving. They pretend to be loyal friends and invite the other village for a feast. The other very village very trustfully attends the feast not knowing that this might be their last meal. After the feast when the guests are helplessly resting in their hammocks they are attack ed and brutally beaten to death. The Yanomamo live in a constant state of warfare with other tribes and even within their own groups. Marriages are often arranged according to performances of one's relatives in battles. Ideal marriages are thought to consist of cross cousin marriages and the males of the family and the religious leaders of the tribe perform all marriages. In addition to their strong kinship ties, political alliances and thirst for revenge, the Yanomamo have a detailed religion, based on the use of hallucinogenic drugs and the telling of mythical tales. The religious beliefs of the Yanomamo are quite complex. According to Yanomamo wise men, there are four levels of reality. Through them, the Yanomamo believe that things tend to fall or descend downward to a lower layer is demonstrated. The uppermost layer of the four is thought to be pristine and tender. It is called duku ka misi and the Yanomamo believe that many things originated in this area. This layer does not play much of a role in the everyday life of the Yanomamo. It is considered to be just there, once having some vague function. The next layer down is called hedu ka misi and is known as the sky layer. The top surface is supposedly invisible, but is believed to be similar to earth. It has trees, gardens, villages, animals, plants and most importantly, the souls of the deceased. These souls are said to be similar to mortals because they garden, eat and sleep. Everything that exists on earth is said to have a counterpart on this level. The bottom surface of the layer is said to be what the Yanomamo on earth actually see:

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Silk Production and Trade in Medieval Times

Silk Production and Trade in Medieval Times Silk was the most luxurious fabric available to medieval Europeans, and it was so costly that only the upper classes- and the Church- could attain it. While its beauty made it a highly-prized status symbol, silk has practical aspects that made it much sought-after (then and now): its lightweight yet strong, resists soil, has excellent dyeing properties and is cool and comfortable in warmer weather. The Lucrative Secret of Silk For millennia, the secret of how silk was made was jealously guarded by the Chinese. Silk was an important part of Chinas economy; entire villages would engage in the production of silk, or sericulture, and they could live off the profits of their labors for much of the year. Some of the luxurious fabric they produced would find its way along the Silk Road to Europe, where only the wealthiest could afford it. Eventually, the secret of silk leaked out of China. By the second century C.E., silk was being produced in India, and a few centuries later, in Japan. By the fifth century, silk production had found its way to the middle east. Still, it remained a mystery in the west, where artisans learned to dye it and weave it, but still didnt know how to make it. By the sixth century, the demand for silk was so strong in the Byzantine Empire that the emperor, Justinian, decided they should be privy to the secret, as well. According to Procopius, Justinian questioned a pair of monks from India who claimed to know the secret of sericulture. They promised the emperor they could acquire silk for him without having to procure it from the Persians, with whom the Byzantines were at war. When pressed, they, at last, shared the secret of how silk was made: worms spun it.1 Moreover, these worms fed primarily on the leaves of the mulberry tree. The worms themselves could not be transported away from India . . . but their eggs could be. As unlikely as the monks explanation may have sounded, Justinian was willing to take a chance. He sponsored them on a return trip to India with the objective of bringing back silkworm eggs. This they did by hiding the eggs in the hollow centers of their bamboo canes. The silkworms born from these eggs were the progenitors of all the silkworms used to produce silk in the west for the next 1,300 years. Medieval European Silk Producers Thanks to Justinians wily monk friends, Byzantines were the first to establish a silk production industry in the medieval west, and they maintained a monopoly on it for several hundred years. They set up silk factories, which were known as gynaecea because the workers were all women. Like serfs, silk workers were bound to these factories by law and could not leave to work or live elsewhere without the permission of the owners. Western Europeans imported silks from Byzantium, but they continued to import them from India and the Far East, as well. Wherever it came from, the fabric was so costly that its use was reserved for the church ceremony and cathedral decorations. The Byzantine monopoly was broken when Muslims, who had conquered Persia and acquired the secret of silk, brought the knowledge to Sicily and Spain; from there, it spread to Italy. In these European regions, workshops were established by local rulers, who retained control over the lucrative industry. Like the gynaecea, they employed mainly women who were bound to the workshops. By the 13th century, European silk was competing successfully with Byzantine products. For most of the Middle Ages, silk production spread no further in Europe, until a few factories were set up in France in the 15th century. Note 1The silkworm isnt really a worm but the pupa of the Bombyx mori moth. Sources Netherton, Robin, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Medieval Clothing and Textiles. Boydell Press, 2007, 221 pp. Compare prices Jenkins, D.T., editor, The Cambridge History of Western Textiles , vols. I and II. Cambridge University Press, 2003, 1191 pp. Compare prices Piponnier, Francoise, and Perrine Mane, Dress in the Middle Ages. Yale University Press, 1997, 167 pp. Compare Prices Burns, E. Jane, Sea of silk: a textile geography of womens work in medieval French literature. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2009, 272 pp. Compare Prices Amt, Emilie, Womens lives in medieval Europe: a sourcebook. Routledge, 1992, 360 pp. Compare prices Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R., Science and technology in medieval European life. Greenwood Press, 2006, 200 pp. Compare prices