Entry Seventeen

Bethany Armistead

Cultural Anthropology

Nick Corduan

June 5, 2013

Entry 17

            Reading The Forest People has been an enjoyable experience. I have enjoyed attempting to be an anthropologist. I am glad that I chose the specialty of Cognition and Expression. As I observed the Pygmies and how they viewed and interacted with the world, I found that I have learned more about human beings and why we live the way we do. I feel that I understand the world a little bit better than I did before. Looking at the Pygmies and how they find meaning, how their environment shapes their conceptions, and how that in turn shapes their values and worldview, I now see that these frameworks apply to all peoples and cultures. All humans live in a certain environment; from that environment they look around and form perceptions. Their brains then organize those perceptions for the sake of understanding, which forms their conceptions. These conceptions constitute the brain’s filter for everything else -- from the creation of meaning to expression. That is why people are the way they are. I have found the Pygmies conceptions center around the environment in which they live, and their lifestyle is dictated by their environment. Their meaning is found in being “people of the forest”, and their rituals, expressions and everything that makes up who they are is centered around this idea.

            I have also found that people’s culture arises from their need to adapt and survive in their environment. The Pygmies are a very community-oriented people; this has become a part of their culture and accepted way of life. The reason for this community oriented-ness is because it is the only way to survive in the forest. So culture basically originates from human beings adapting to their environment in order to eat, survive and propagate, which is basically the functionalist definition of culture. Functionalism posits that culture meets the needs of the individual, and its very purpose is is to facilitate human beings adapting in order to thrive in their environment.

            For this blog, I utilized a number of different theories that I thought were relevant to each individual chapter, as a number of them applied and each gave a greater understanding of the cognition and expression of the Pygmy people. The theories upon which I most heavily relied was Structuralism, and occasionally Interpretive and Symbolic anthropology. Symbolic anthropology was particularly useful when an event could be analyzed in order to find its meaning, which is the main focus of Symbolic anthropology.

The main framework that I utilized was the theory of Particularism and Relativism. The main advantage to using this theory was its emphasis on cultures being evaluated in their own cultural context, with the understanding that each culture has its own unique quirks and historical background. I thought this framework to be the most relevant because Pygmy culture is quite unique, and to really understand Pygmy culture, it must be analyzed within an understanding of their own cultural context. Were I to do this project again, I would want to have a greater understanding of the particulars of each theory. As it was, my primary understanding of the theories came from my notes, which did not give me enough understanding of the theories to confidently write an analysis of the theories. However, from my limited understanding of the theories, I felt that the ones I chose were relevant to my topic. Sometimes certain aspects of theories were relevant rather than the whole. If I were a professional anthropologist trying to understand the cognition and expression of the Pygmy people group, I would probably use the theories I chose.

Entry Sixteen

Chapter 15

Far from being “liberated” by the villagers, the Pygmies feel that in the model plantations they would be in great danger. In the forest they know they are safe, because the forest is theirs. Once out in the open, however, they are subject to all the evil influences of the villagers, particularly witchcraft. This reflects the Pygmy conception of the forest and their adaptation to the forest. Being in the forest is good; being out of it is not.

To claim a honey tree as their own, the pygmies tie a vine around the tree, and all Pygmies respect that symbol. To keep the villagers away from the honey trees, the Pygmies tell villagers stories about the “dreadful and dangerous” spirits they have to fight to get the honey. So “naturally enough, then, it is a time when the villagers prefer to leave the Pygmies, and the forest, well alone.” This reflects the conceptions of the villagers, who understand the forest as a scary place full of spirits. These conceptions have dictated how the villagers live to the point where they do not get honey because they are afraid.

Expression

The Pygmies dancing and acting out the honey gatherers and the bees shows their expression.

When Kenge dances alone, he tells Colin “I am not dancing alone… I am dancing with the forest, dancing with the moon…” he continues his dance of love and life… This shows the how much the Pygmy’s lives are centered around the forest.

Brief Paragraph:

This chapter is best analyzed using Evolutionary Anthropological theory. Evolutionary Anthropology focuses on the development of single, primitive cultures into complex, modern ones. On an Evolutionary Anthropological scale, the villagers would be considered more “developed” in comparison to the Pygmies, who are a hunter-gatherer tribal group. As pointed out in this chapter, the Pygmies would not survive if put into another adaptation. Their lives are centered around the forest, and to take them out of the forest would not be wise biologically or in terms of their worldview.

Entry Fifteen

Chapter 14

Context

·         Kenge kept muttering, “Not a tree. . . not a single tree . . . this is a very bad country.” This quote reflects how our context shapes what we value and how we interpret things. For Kenge his whole world was surrounded by trees, so naturally the absence of all he knows elicits a reaction. Also animals on reserves made no sense: because of the influence of his context, “Kenge could not understand this, because to his mind game is meant to be hunted.”

Influence of biology, experience and culture on visual perception

When Kenge saw buffalo he thought they were insects because he had no tree to give him a basis for comparison. To have accurate perception, one needs to change the conception. J

“This is a good place, though I don’t like it; it must be good, because there are so many animals. There is no noise of fighting. It is good because the sky is clear and the ground is clean. It is good because I feel good; I feel as though I and the whole world were sleeping and dreaming. Why do people always make so much noise?” And then he added, with infinite wistfulness, “If only there were more trees...”

This reflects many Pygmy values: animals, the peace of nature, and people making a lot of noise. This is like all the conceptions of what is good!

The fact that the Pygmies will just say “yes” to a villager and tell them what they want to hear even though they are not thinking that is an example of their expression and how it is different with villagers than amongst themselves.

“His entire code of behavior and thought is geared to his nomadic forest life: to bring him to a settled life in a village is to ask him overnight to abandon one way of life, a way he has lived for thousands of years, and adopt another.”

“The Forest is our home; when we leave the forest, or when the forest dies, we shall die. We are people of the forest.”

Brief Paragraph:

This chapter can be analyzed using the theoretical framework of Structuralism. The chapter gives a number of cultural categories, such as “good” and “bad” places, and “we are people of the forest”. These cultural categories make it easier for an outsider to understand the culture, and it is these categories that organize the world for the individual (in this case, for Kenge).

Entry Fourteen

Chapter 13

This chapter did not have much about cognition and expression. Basically, Mr. Colin and Kenge go on a trip and visit a number of villages and Pygmy camps.

But there is one thing that I learned from this chapter:

Both African villagers and Pygmies are very hospitable people. That relates to cognition and expression because both value people: because people are valued, one is expected to be hospitable. For this reason, when the chief of the village of BaLese is completely inhospitable, it comes as a complete shock.

Brief Paragraph:

The theoretical framework of Particularism and Relativism is relevant to an analysis of this chapter. This chapter gives a lot of information about other Pygmy tribes, all of which are different and have their own unique quirks. It is important to take into account the similarities of the Pygmies and the historical background of each tribe, in addition to the uniqueness of each tribe.