The Fishing Culture.

I thought that it would be good if I wrote something small about one specific culture. The first thing that sprung to mind was fishing, no I do not fish..., but it happens all over the world. Just this morning while I was rushing to school I saw a man catch a fish. It was a lovely sight.

This is a picture taken in my Christmas holiday to Luxor, Egypt. It is a photo of two fishermen on the river Nile at around 6pm local time. Their way of fishing is so different to the way people fish in the UK.

In Luxor the boats are made out of roughly cut wood with big, heavy, unshaped pieces of wood for oars. For some this would be a terrible way to row, but to them it is a great utensil. The men find a popular fishing spot in the river and remove their oars from their position. After this the stand on the edge of their boat and the water violently thrashing the surface. To an on looker they may be surprised to see this but if you know the reason behind this method then it all makes sense. You see, the hitting of the water means that the fish swim to the surface. The fishermen stretch out a huge net which sinks to the bottom and rows away so the fish get caught in the net. It was beautiful to watch and the men sang songs and shouted to the men in the other boats.

Compared to fishing in UK where fishing generally happens calmly down the side of the canal. People usually fish to become isolated and have some time alone. They use fishing rods which can be set up so they just wait for the fish to get attracted to the bait.

The difference in just one area shows the range of human behaviour. I think it is fantastic that humans have found so many alternative ways to do the same activity.

These are only two examples of fishing and there are plenty of other ways. If you know any please comment below. Or comment if you want me to talk about a certain topic. 

Have a lovely day.

Sorry...

Heyy sorry I haven't posted in such a long time, I've had a lot of school work to do, exams have already started... I'm nearly finished a post about fishing in different countries so I shall publish that tomorrow. I promise to post more frequently, it's just been a very busy year so far.
Night everyone.

Winter Traditions.

So today is the 6th of January...just to state the obvious. To many of us, it is the end of Christmas. The majority of us are back to school and work regretting not spending more time doing what we should have done over the holiday! In my family Christmas is very important. We put the Christmas tree up on the 1st December and take it down today. My mum collects a decoration every time we go on holiday so we have some interesting ones! However this is just one winter tradition out of many.

For example:

Chinese the New Year: is a large festival as only about 2% of the Chinese population celebrate Christmas. The main colours are gold and red. Red being known to be lucky and gold representing wealth. For them this is the time to celebrate with family and friends.



Chinese new year
(http://www.inkingrey.com/uploads/images/1271615960-chinesenewyearlightup.jpg)



Christmas: is celebrated differently throughout the world. In Ghana it is that that Santa come out of the jungle, in Australia he uses water skis and in Hawaii he uses a boat. The most exciting mode of transport he is known to use is a horse in Holland. This may not sound interesting, but the children have to leave out their shoes with presents for the horses and Santa will give them presents in return, which I still thought taught the children about giving back.

The Three Kings Day: This is the end of the twelfth night when the Kings arrive to give their gifts to Jesus. In Spain on January 5th the children put out a box of hay to receive the gifts and King Cake is baked with a present in it, ready for them to wake up to.



Eid Al Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice: this is celebrated by Muslims, remembering how Abraham sacrificed his son to God. Present day Muslims sacrifice an animal such as a goat on the tenth day of the month on the lunar calendar to commemorate it.





Eid Al Adha- sacrifice of the goat.
( http://nimg.sulekha.com/others/original700/philippines-eid-al-adha-festival-2010-11-15-23-41-57.jpg)

Hanukkah: Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah; this celebration remembers the Maccabees victory against King Antiochus, who forbid Jews to practice Judaism. For eight nights, Hanukkah is celebrated with prayer, the lighting of the menorah (9 candles), and lots of amazing food!

Kwanzaa: On the 26th December this day used to celebrate the African heritage. It lasts a week and a series of candles are lit to remind themselves of the African-American values of family life: self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith

The Kwanzaa Candles
(http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/images/Pic2_001.JPG)

Winter Solstice: 21st December is the shortest day of the year so all around the world bonfires and candles are lit to coax the sun back.

In nearly all these celebrations I have noticed how candles and light is used in all of them Light is such precious thing as has been ever since our ancestors discovered it. It brings light, comfort, warmth, cooked food and security. Wherever and whoever you are in the world everyone s linked through the dependency on light.





Love for the Amazon.

This'll be a short post as my previous one was rather long... I thought that now was a perfect time to explain a bit more about why I'm interested in anthropology. I admit that I am not an expert on the course (shock, horror) but I decided that if I just wrote what I thought was relevant then gradually I will learn and expand my knowledge on the subject.

I am a rather stereotypical starter of the subject, meaning that I'm mainly interested in the minority groups throughout the world. The place that I would most like to visit is South America or more specifically the Amazon. To me, the Amazon seems like the ultimate destination. There is such a wide variety of activity occurring the rainforest some good (conservation) some bad (deforestation). I watched the Bruce Parry series on the Amazon and my parents rather lovingly bought me the book, I poured over the pages annoying my whole family by making them look at every single picture and quoting what it said. This book was really the start of my education of tribes. From that moment on I have dreamt of going to the Amazon and seeing the tribes personally. Seeing tribes that live without technology and have their own system without other countries getting involved seemed impossible (I was a lot younger when the series was aired! I'm not as ignorant now...). When you're a British girl growing up you learn about the countries and what the world look likes, but to some of the Amazonians they didn't know what life was like outside their part of the forest. By no way am I condemning them or criticising them as if we were asked questions about their general knowledge we would fail miserably.

There are two parts of me. The first feels like we should educate them and teach them about technology while the other thinks we should leave them and their culture be. If everyone became the same, how boring would geography be?

So, the Amazon: the start of my tribal interest.

I know this post may seem juvenile to some, but I thought that it would be good to see where it all started.

The Kombai Tribe.

For Christmas I received a dvd from Santa. Instead of being the stereotypical chick flick it was a Discovery Channel dvd called ‘world’s lost tribes – living with the Kombai’

The Kombai are a tribe living in the jungles of west Papua New Guinea. The way the people live hasn’t changed in 15,000 years, which to us westerners is very different to our lifestyle. They are a very small group of about 4000 people spread across the forest in smaller groups of about 250 people. They all speak different languages so when their paths do cross they have to communicate with actions rather than words.



So far I have watched 5 episodes and they are definitely interesting tribe! The documentary is made in the normal American way with two people Mark and Olly aiming to submerge themselves in the culture.There are three main categories which I have learnt about are:



Clothing – the women wear short skirts made out of Sago leaves, the tree which they also get most of their food from. The women also wear dog teeth on a necklace. Dog teeth are like gold, taking years to collect enough for a full necklace, they are given to the new wife's family as a wedding gift by the husband. The men wear gourds on their penises and then they are held up to their waist, this is used to protect their genitals. The fathers decided when the sons are ready to wear this clothing. The Kombai also have piercings. This are of the sago thorns. They go through their noses in many different ways, sometimes in loops and sometimes just straight through. The Tribe paint their faces on occasions, usually for celebrations, in the colours of white, red and black. The tribes invite one another over to their villages so this is the time in which the tribes dress up in their best decorations.

Traditional clothing and the filtering of the sago.







Refafu - their god drinks the spilt blood of the pig so
 no one is allowed to  wash in the river for  2 days.



Food – The staple food is the pulp from the sago tree. The men cut down the tree then the women take hours filtering the fibres and forming the end product, flour, which can then be cooked on hot stones. Once they have used all the trees in area they then have to move to a new place in the forest. They are also a hunter gatherer tribe so they hunt with a bow and arrow. As soon as children can hold a bow they are practicing at every opportunity they have. They have spectacular aim and in the most recent episode ‘Giving Back’ shows a Kombai man shooting a bat and a fish at night. It was one of the most talented things I have ever seen. For the Kombai tribe life always depends on the weather. When it rains (and it does a lot.) everything goes on halt. They can’t fish, they can’t hunt,  they can’t do anything. When it rains for too long they have to sacrifice one of the family, their pet pigs. The sacred pigs can be used to pay someone back, as pets or two eat so they are always used as the last resort.



Kombai Tribe house



Housing – The Mek Tribe (The tribe Mark and Olly were staying with) live in wooden houses 30 feet to 100 feet up in trees. Being so high off the ground is their way of defending themselves against sorcerers, raids from other tribes and insects.

Their beliefs – The Kombai Tribes strongly believe in sorcery, this means that if someone is murdered and the culprit suspected of being a witch they are killed immediately. Sometime the witches are eaten as a way of releasing the spirit of the victim. The witches are known as the ‘Khakhua-Kumu’. 

The Kombai are a fascinating tribe with their own system to everything. They are practical, patient and are respectful to one another. They believe in their own god and make sure that he is pleased. They find logical ways of overcoming problems such as living amongst the trees so they won't get bitten by mosquitoes (and we all know how annoying those are!). I think the Kombai tribe are very impressive and  I look forward to watching the rest of the series. 

(None of the lovely photos above are mine.)

The beginning.

In my opinion anthropology is one of the greatest studies. It has a little bit of everything in it from biology to geography to history to sociology. It could be studying how we have evolved as a race to the culture of sport. The dictionary defines anthropology as 'The scientific study of the origin, the behaviour, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.' In my opinion this doesn't do this subject justice. It is an eye opening topic which engulfs you. Once you know anthropology is real there is no going back.

The way I heard about anthropology was through my mum. We were on a walk and we were discussing what I wanted to do at university and my life in general. All I could think of is learning and living with tribes so she told me anthropology sounded perfect and that was when my passion started. I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world and when you see the different beliefs, festivals, ways of work, you know that we are a fascinating species which needs to be studied.

So that's it. My dream future. Studying other people's lives and relating them to others. To some this may not sound like living your own life, but to me there isn't anything as wonderful.