Anthropology.net

Have you caught Kate Riley’s piece in the opinions column of the Seattle Times? It is dramatically titled, Anthropology: the great divide as if there’s some big dilemma happening within anthropology.

If you haven’t yet read it you may want to hold off on clicking to link.

Kate discusses the events and anthropologists behind the Kennewick Man issue. The Kennewick Man issue has become a classic of sorts. In the last 11 years or so, the remains of this prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington have increased the bureaucracy with archeology and Native American tribes, with scientists and the law. But not to the point that Kate’s making it out to be.

See it all started with Richard Jantz a plea of help via email. Julie Stein did not like what she read because she felt the excavation and analysis of the Kennewick remains were done with ulterior motives. And so began the “great divide.”

What I’m not too clear about is Kate Riley’s quote on how Stanford’s Anthropology Department split apart, which is now being merged back, was because of the Kennewick controversy. Riley writes,

“At Stanford University, the chasm was so insurmountable the anthropology department split into two.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but Stanford’s Anthropological Sciences department split from the department of Cultural and Social Anthropology in 1998 because of resource issues and major intellectual differences.

I’m not privy to the exact intellectual differences, I’ll disclaim that. Alls I know was that on one side were the socio-cultural anthropologists, who deal with understanding human behaviors, cultures, etc. and on the other side were the more bio-physical ones who study human evolution, bodies, population genetics form and function, etc. And they couldn’t get along. That’s fine… it happens in many departments. Nothing new. And these sorts of divisions have some tangents to the Kennwick Man feud, but I highly doubt that Kennewick was the cause of the division.

Again, I might be wrong, and please let me know if I am… but I think Riley is a bit misleading with her association of Stanford’s Anthropology department and Kennewick. It is one thing to describe an academic debate but another to tie what happened at an institution to what seems like a unrelated debate.

Just a quick reminder to everyone that the 25th edition is out this Wednesday, hosted by me at remote central, and as it marks the first anniversary of this blog carnival, the more entries received, the better; so far there is a grand total of 3 submissions, including one from me to myself, (and which is still under consideration), so if you’re thinking of sending something in, please feel free.

You can either send contributions to submit@fourstonehearth.net, or to me via my blog – thanks, Tim

Last Thursday I caught Discovery Channel’s new reality television show called Last One Standing. The premise of the show is that they take six men and place them in different ethnic groups around the world to learn the respective fighting style and compete on behalf of the ethnic group. It is macho and over produced.

But I actually saw some promise behind all the testosterone and dramatic camera angles.

Since the show targets male machismo, it has potential to educate people of other cultures, while being entertaining to the general public. I hate to break it to y’all, but this is very important in modern television. Unfortunately, not everyone is down to watch the run-of-the-mill anthropology documentary. The world still operates on the plebian mentality of ancient Rome. People like to see their gladiators fighting. That’s why the WWE is still around… and this is where I see Last One Standing occupy a unique niche.

You ask,”How so?” Well I was watching Last One Standing with two of my friends who are not anthropologists. They are far removed from thinking anthropology. In fact one works in information technology and the other is a mechanic. The closest they have gotten to understanding other cultures is to work out accents of their coworkers. Sounds harsh, but they really aren’t all too open to learn how other people live.

That all changed while watching Last One Standing where I observed their eyes spark up as they saw how other people live, how they fight, and the unique cultural practices the producers of Last One Standing showed in the first episode. Even more interesting, these friends of mine spent time after the show researching more about the ethnic group they just were introduced. While what my two friends did are in no way indicative of how the rest of the Discovery channel viewer-ship will act, I figure more two people just learned more about an ethnic group and they weren’t even forced to do so. And that’s a success to me.

Let me give you a run down. The first episode placed the men with the Kalapalo, which are one of the 16 subgroups of the Xingu Indians who occupy the upper run of the Río Xingú in the Brazilian Mato Grosso. The Kalapalo were first contacted in the 1920. They are small ethnic group, between 400-500 individuals. Their spoken language is classified under the Southern Guiana branch of the Karib language family, with their closest linguistic relatives being the Yekuana (Makiritare) and the Hixkaryana.

During the first episode, three of the six visiting men were selected to be representative warriors for the Kalapalo during one of their ceremonies where neighboring tribes come to wrestle. Richard, Brad and Rajko had to show their manhood by first enduring scratches from piranha teeth. Next, salt and chili powder was rubbed into their open wounds and they were not to show any signs of pain. You can read the personal accounts of Richard and Brad in the first entry of blog the Discovery Channel has set up for the show. You may think that this is some sort of masochistic initiation ritual that one would expect from a fraternity. And in part it is. The Kalapalo test all their warriors this very way.

After Richard, Brand, and Rajko passed the test the ceremonies commenced. This is were I saw my friends switch. They saw the Kalapalo bring spirit logs to the arena. The spirit logs represented loved ones who recently passed away. The Kalapalo mourned beside the logs and it brought a much more human feel to this otherwise brutal event.

The Kalapalo commenced the ceremonies with dances and songs. For the visiting men, I could see how this was a life altering event for them. Many of them commented on how as participant they had a unique opportunity to experience the effects of the being in a trance like state with the rest of the village.

During the last third of the show, was the transition into the fighting. And there was nothing all too culturally enlightening with that. The Kalapalo did have a unique fighting style and rules for the competition that could be someone’s doctoral dissertation in itself, but really who are we fooling? That was what the show is ultimately about; to see men wrestle and battle it out. But I stand by opinion that if people are gonna be educated at the same time entertained then that’s a win-win situation.

Now a good portion of you may think that’s a really ignorant thing to say. Shows like these over exotify, objectify, even take advantage of ethnic groups all to raise up their rankings and sell advertisement space.

That’s where you and I differ.

People will take advantage of others to sell something. But I see that if someone out there learns more about the Kalapalo, then its one of those lesser of two evils. Perhaps a show like this will influence a future anthropology student to go and write a dissertation of Kalapalo fighting rules… to document their lifestyle and preserve their heritage in some sort of written text. That’s wishful thinking. But as it stands, tribes like the Kalapalo, are being marginalized. If we don’t start educating people of how we all live, then they’ll all be lost to time.

Again, you may differ… and I’m down to hear your opinions. So please feel free to share them with me.

In case you wanna catch the next episode of Last One Standing here’s the information. It airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel. If you want to learn more about the Kalapalo click the read more link to see a bibliography of literature on them.

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