Harrell and Wolf

I found the Wolf article and the intricacies of the Ancestor Worship system very interesting. I thought it gave an excellent overview of the research in this area and gave a very dynamic look at the system. To quickly summarize, in Chinese culture individuals are required to worship their ancestors, parents and grandparents. It is a patrilineal system meaning that women who die before marriage are considered problematic and therefore a post-mortim marriage must sometimes be arraigned. Parents cannot worship their dead children, parents can infact get angry at children who die before them. Individuals while alive must look out to ensure that they will have descendants to worship them after they die, meaning that they require a male heir.

We however realistically know that not everyone will marry or have a male heir. Meaning that they have some very complex and non-universal rules about how these situations will work out. Some believe that unworshiped ancestors may cause harm in to living family members, this can be rectified with worship or a more honoured position for worship. Consultation with spiritual experts, Shamans, may occur. There was not universal beliefs about these religions or definitive codes of what to do in certain circumstances. There was no mention of an exact central authority of spiritual expertise (like a head priest).

The Harrell article was also rather interesting. It was an exploration of work ethic in Chinese culture. It was noted that not everyone does have the famously noted work-ethic, for example unmarried women. The unmarried women did not view themselves as economic members of their current families and did not feel as motivated to contribute. However sons and fathers felt strong needs to contribute, these values were instilled at young ages.  Economic and social mobility was often a possibility, but it was a competitive scenario, therefore people put in considerable effort. They did not see this as something that benefited just themselves, but something that could benefit their children.

Interestingly when the communist party came to power, individuals in the agriculture sector felt very motivated to contribute to collective work and not work that just contributed to the families economic well being. They saw general economic advantage to collective work.

Blog 2: Leach and Mabuchi

I highly doubt and really question the tone of the Leach 1950 article “Primitive Calendars.” Yes in the Torbrian islands the calendar year is measured differently but this is no reason to judge it so negatively. The writer, Leach, believes that to measure time in this way is primitive and inaccurate. What Leach fails to notice is how this calendar can adjust for agricultural and weather cycles. Naturally, yes the measurement systems will differ from group to group, which is fine not everyone needs to be on the same calendar. Exact timing certainly was never a necessary element of the Kula ring. The fact that they can extend months as needed is genius. They also have a much more accurate lunar system than we do here. Farmers today are always paying attention to nature to know how to farm; the exact calendar does not matter.

What I also question is that the methodology is never explained the comments on different calendars are stated, but there is nothing to put this information in context. Without knowledge of the methodology used it an examination of how Leach came to his conclusions that the individuals on the Botel Tobago Island did not understand what they were talking about when it came to their calendar makes me question the conclusion.

The Mabuchi article also lacks in an explanation of the methodology. I do question whether one anthropologist can give accurate information on so many cultures and as I read through it I noticed that the cultures named are all low-land groups and what I assume to be the Japanese administrative roups that were discussed in the last class? This makes me question the classifications or groups that are given. These were classifications of individuals for political purposes and these classifications were ultimately rather artificial. The classifications also refer to high-land groups, which from what I have read in the past, early colonizers did not have much contact or easy access to the highland groups due to the head-hunting.

I do agree with getting into the mindset and reading articles such as these, but they must be read with a grain of salt. 

Blog Post on this week’s readings: Barclay and Corcuff

I found the concept of liminality to be very useful and accurate way to describe Taiwan and it’s relationship with China. I especially enjoyed the quote, “Ultimately, it is a way to better understand the complexity of China’s feelings towards Taiwan, where self-proclaimed love and hidden hate, feelings of proximity and jealousy, appropriation, interdependency, fascination and contempt all mix.” There is a very long and complex history here between the relations between China and Taiwan. The relations cannot be easily summarized, that would be a naïve thing to do. The China and Taiwan relationship is vastly complex and this must be recognized.

It is hard to know the future of the Taiwan and China relationship from the Corcuff article. Barclay however, gives more insight.

In the Barclay article it is written that there are two narratives of Taiwan in the 1980s. One narrative is that of the Han history in Taiwan which speaks to a Han identity and is used to advocate for Han independence. Han identity is tied to the island, to the point where people want to identify as partially indigenous to assert their right to their independent land. The other speaks of an indigenous history of the island and of how all non-indigenous peoples are really invaders and do not have a true claim to the island. I think these two interpretations have a very interesting contrast. The first story can be seen as an appropriation of indigenous identity used for political purposes. I would consider the second interpretation more politically and factually correct, but from what I have read in the past about Taiwanese Aboriginal Peoples and that time period I would assume that the story of the colonizers was more likely to be heard.   

The take-away message I guess would be to understand that we cannot think of nationality and identity in binary terms. To understand Taiwan you have to understand a complex history. You must know that Taiwan is not China and China is not Taiwan. Indigenous peoples have lived in Taiwan for a long time, colonialism threatened their culture and still today we cannot be foolish and view Taiwan as a nation separate from China, we must understand the indigenous history and the colonial context.