Cultural Anthropology

1. Cultural anthropology is a field of anthropology concerned with the behavioral aspects of society, i.e. the social, linguistic, and technological components underlying human behavior. It is studied by the anthropologist living within the culture to be studied for a period of time to observe these behaviors.

2. Margaret Mead lived on Samoa among the Polynesian people there for nine months and studied their behavior, particularly that of adolescent girls.

3. At dawn on Samoa, the people arise, fires are lit, fishermen plan to set traps, and young men head off to work on the plantations (Mead, 1939, 14-19). Women take their laundry to the sea, and older girls go fishing off the reef. Carpenters work on new houses, and the families who will cook that day prepare the vegetables and fruit which have already been brought from inland. There may be a pig to cook. The food gatherers return to the village with their collections. Everyone eats breakfast. People return to their tasks, and the others go to sleep. Children go swimming, some women work at weaving.

As the sun begins to set, people stir again, the fishermen return with their catch, and separate the "Taboo fish" which must be sent to the chief (Mead, 1939, 17). The men return from the plantations and gather at the guest house for kava drinking. As the sun finally sets, everyone straggles home for the evening meal with their family. First the head of the household, then the women and children, and lastly

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e ethnologists, so she thought she could find out more about young girls than her male counterparts. There is more knnwledge of primitive boys than of primitive girls and she hoped to bridge this gap. At age six or seven, the young girl associates with her contemporaries (Mead, 1939, 39-85). Older girls usually have two or three friends, or hang around with sisters. The community ignores children until they are about fifteen. When a girl is two or three years beyond puberty, an offering is sent to the chief princess in the village, asking that the girl be considered a member of her court, or she may go on a formal traveling party. Unmarried girls have no ceremonial role and are just one of the women of a household. 5. Two types of sexual relations are formally recognized outside marriage: love affairs between unmarried couples of the same age and adultery (Mead, 1939, 89). The dance is very individualistic in Samoa, and all ages take part. Sex relations are the same in the West, but dancing is usually segregated to adolescents who do not welcome young children joining in. 6. The Samoan attitude to personality is a mixture of fatalism and caution (Mead, 1939, 122). 7. A girl's first lover is often an older man, a wi

Category: Psychology - C