Evenkis: An Introduction to the People David G' Anderson

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Evenkis An Introduction to the PeopleDavid G.
Anderson

• Evenkis are one of the 28 officially-recognised
  "small peoples" who primarily inhabit the
  sub-Arctic forests of the Russian Federation.
  According to the most recent census (1989) there
  were over 27,000 Evenkis living in a wide band of
  eastern Russia from the Yenisei River watershed,
  to the Lake Baikal Region, to the northern edges
  of the Pacific Rim. Approximately another 14,000
  Evenkis also live in the northern districts of
  China (Heilongjang Province) and Mongolia
  (districts unknown). Within the Russian
  Federation, there is one political-administrative
  district reserved for Evenkis known as the

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• Your own mother,
• Your own sister,
• Your own pigs,
• Your own yams that you have piled up,
• You may not eat.
• Other peoples mothers,
• Other peoples sisters,
• Other peoples pigs,
• Other peoples yams that they have piled up,
• You may eat.
• M. Mead 1935. Sex and Temperament in Three
  Primitive Societies. New York Quill. P. 83.

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Nature and Culture

• What separates man from beast?
• (bad question)
• Where does nature end and culture begin?
• (bad question)
• What is the meaning of life?
• (bad question)

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Cultivating good questions

• What are these people up to?
• What sense does it make to them?
• How can I understand their sense of it?
• Not what is the meaning of life?
• What meanings to these people make out of their
  lives?

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Kinship structures

• What is a sister or a brother?
• (non-question)
• What is the relationship sister-brother,
  mother-daughter, wife-mother-in-law?
• (structuralism)

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Kinship is everything

• Kinship is the study of relatedness in a given
  society
• Studying kinship requires an understanding of
  what a person is.
• Provides us with an understanding of
• social structures (relationships among persons)
  and
• institutions (politics, economics, religion,
  kinship)

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Key concept in Anthropology
Socialization of patently natural
relations. British Social Anthropology, kinship
was more or less synonymous with anthropology
American cultural anthropology - personality
culture and kinship vied for most
important Lévi-Strauss took center-stage with
his Elementary Structures of Kinship Radcliffe-Br
own, Evens-Pritchard, Fortes, Leach, Geertz,
Murdock, White
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Kinship and social structureSome useful terms

• Kinship plays a critical role in all societies
• Relatedness is constructed
• Cognatic - cognates are related by blood
• Affinal - affines are related by marriage
• Patriliny - descent through the male line
• Matriliny - descent through the female line
• Virilocal - residence with husbands family
• Uxorilocal - residence with wifes family

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A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955 )

• One of the founders of Social Anthropology (along
  with Malinowski)
• Andaman Islanders (1922)
• Structure and Function in Primitive Society
  (1952)
• Structural-Functionalism

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Marcel Mauss (1872-1950)

• Nephew and greatest student of Durkheim
• Primitive Classification (1903)
• A General Theory of Magic
• Essay on the Gift (1925)
• Sociology and Psychology Essays
• Reciprocity - the obligation to give, to receive,
  and to return

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Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908 - )

• Followed Mausss theory of relations producing
  society
• The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949)
• Structural Anthropology (1958)
• Totemism (1962)
• The Savage Mind (1962)
• The Raw and the Cooked (1964, vol. 1 of 3)

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Radcliffe-Browns theory of Totemism

• Based primarily on data from Australia and using
  Durkheims theory of religion as a point of
  departure.
• Totemism is part of a larger social complex than
  just a symbol and its group
• It is a special development of general ritual
  relations between man and natural species.
• Requires
• 1) great dependence on natural productions for
  subsistence
• 2) Segmentary organisation into clans or similar
  social units

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Lévi-Strausss theory of totemism

• R-B and others are bogged down in the details
• Need to abstract to more general understanding

Clan1 gt Animal a Clan2gt Animal b Clan3gt
Animal c Clan4gt Animal d
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Abreviations of kin relations
Brian Schwimmer
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PatrilinealKin diagrams
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Ego
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21 - FBS
10 - FF
19 - MZD
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MatrilinealKin diagrams
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Ego
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Xaviers Ancestors
Earnie Faler
Carol Hawks
Walter King
Bruce
Roger
Paul
Maureen
David King
Karen
Lillis Jacobs King
Trevor King
Kirsten Benson King
Alex King
Christina Kincaid
Xavier King EGO
Joshua King
Zachary King