Eric Thai
February 23 2009
ANT 1001 TV24A / Gaunt
Richard Borshay Lee. "Eatting Christmas in the Kalahari"
"Eating Christmas in the Kalahari "by Richard Lee took a unique approach in describing the lifestyle of the Bushman. Richard Lee explains that the Bushman slaughters an ox in celebration for Christmas and he decided to thank them for their cooperation in his ethnography by slaughtering a huge ox (12). After finding a huge ox, he is ridiculed with remarks such as "do you expect us to eat that bag of bones?" (Lee 12) And "do you honestly think you can serve that meat like that and avoid a fight?" (Lee 14). Mr. Lee later learns it is their custom to criticize the kill (16). He learns an important lesson from this experience about his culture.
When you get down the core, humans are selfish creatures that only care for themselves. Thus we do not engage in act of generosity without intentions of self gain. We donate to charities not just to help the less fortunate but also to raise our self image. We help tutor a fellow student not just to help them improve but as well make ourselves feel superior. Although we might not show our selfish intentions we become arrogant and full of ourselves. The Bushman’s custom of bad mouthing is an attempt of enforcing humility that was successful on Mr. Lee.
"Eating Christmas in the Kalahari"was successful not only in teaching us about our culture but also vividly describing the way the Bushman think. They are a society that strongly holds onto humility. Even though they are thankful for Mr. Lee’s generosity they strive to hide their appreciation in order to keep him from feeling superior. They believe boasting leads to pride that lead to killing thus their badmouthing can "cool his heart and make him gentle" (Lee 17). "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari"proved to be a unique and successful attempt in teaching us about the Bushman’s culture and a little about our own.
Lee, Richard Borshay. "Eatting Christmas in the Kalahari." In Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 12 ed. Spraley and McCurdy. Allyn & Bacon. 2006. 11 - 18
Well written. Now let's get to the context of what you wrote and how it landed.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "humans are selfish creatures that only care for themselves. Thus we do not engage in act of generosity without intentions of self gain" and "The Bushman’s custom ... is an attempt of ENFORCING humility."
Consider that in one easily written expression you separated the !Kung from the rest of humanity. Humans are selfish but then what are the !Kung if not human too. And notice your use of the term "enforce". Enforce might work in a state economy or chiefdom, but it doesn't work in a band or tribe. There are no laws to enforce.
Try to distinguish now the differences according to the adaptive strategies.
See Blackboard for your grades
I also found the euphemism factor very interesting, its so true that humans manipulate bad things to seem good, otherwise we would have a guilty conscience about almost anything! I just justified eating a huge burger because i provided money to the store and hopefully help them somehow financially haha!
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