How Does Subsistence Relate to a Culture?

We look outside. The rolling mountains, the long stretches of smooth desert, birds fly overhead in a constant chatter of everyday news. All of this many years ago and today still in other countries and cultures, was the world of man. Not the tall skyscrapers, convenience stores, paved roads, and pre-built houses with two-square feet backyards. The region of man was wild, untamed, merciless, and home to many traditions and expressions not generated by today's western society.

The Tlingit Indians of Alaska for example, live in a harsh, freezing environment inhabited by more bears than the general human population. Yet, from this harshness comes their personal identity; they are strong like the bear and honorable like the eagle. And it is these things they value above all else. The icy land they inhabit is respected beyond measure, as it gives them the food they eat, clothes they wear, and the trees they carve into incredible totems. To the Tlingit, the land gives them life, to which they give praise and thanks to with ceremony. Grand festivals filled with generosity and equality are common practice, with the words of the elders filling the minds of both young and old with tradition, honor, family, and respect. These people continue to live this way everyday, because to the Tlingit, it is life.

Deep in the Amazon amidst the nearly impenetrable rainforest dwell the Korudo people. Most of their day is spent hunting and gathering food, caring for their young, and general household chores. However today, a young child lies ill. Their only defense against the disease: an aggressive dance with shouting and pounding of branches made to frighten away the spirit causing the affliction. The men gather from all over, other tribes of Korubo join to aid in the fight. They chant loudly and beat the ground with long, thick branches, in harmony with each other. Each and every member of the dance put their full effort into the act, knowing they must all be unfailing in their faith to be successful. This dance, a pure, unchanged part of their identity, is easily passes of as a ridiculous, primitive dance by a ridiculous, primitive people to those who cannot understand the importance of cultural identity and tradition to a people.

All this ceremony and dance stems directly from an indigenous people's reverence for the land they inhabit. From that land, people acquire exactly what they need to live, nothing more and nothing less. This marvelous act of balance is passed of as "poor" in our modern, western society, however is regarded as a "prized way of life" to those who live it and would not change it for any reason. In anthropology, that above mentioned "prized way of life" is known as subsistence. Subsistence teaches honor, respect, and responsibility.

Understandably, it takes a trained and unbiased mind to fully understand and appreciate the subsistence way of life. However, on a darker note, ignorance is indeed murder to people who live the above lifestyle. As is widely known and observed, sometimes another person's culture is so offense to another that the offended may wish to injure or destroy that culture or people involved in it. A terrible example of this is of a day that will live in infamy among the Tlingit people.

About 100 years ago, a Tlingit Indian Shaman worked for a company near his village, aboard a fishing boat. One fated day, an accidental discharge of one of the vessel's harpoons sent him to his untimely death. The Tlingit people were very distraught over this important loss to their society. Another accidental death occurred recently before the Shaman's, and as was tradition the Tlingit requested 100 blankets to benefit their people due to the great loss of their medicine man. Though the company knew of their traditions and had honored them in the past, they rejected their request. The people continued to request the compensation, despite continuously being ignored until a Navy ship arrived outside the coastal town of Angoon. The young commander taunted the Tlingit saying that if they could produce 200 blankets by tomorrow morning, he would not fire into their village. The Tribe could only produce a fraction of the demand by the next day, and the attack commenced. The cannons destroyed the most all of the people's culturally-identifiable creations, as well as their storehouses of food and nearly all of their shelter. As a result, when the winter set in soon after, the death toll was immense between starvation and exposure. Even to this day, the Tlingit people cannot get an apology from the U.S. Government.

Indeed the story of the Tlingit was a tragic one, and easy to agree that it was unjustified. However what of an issue that tends to unravel even the more open-minded; cannibalism? The Yali people of Africa are traditional cannibals, but not for the assumed reason for nutritional value, taste or psychosis. The Yali devour their enemies as they believe that such an act will fully destroy a person, so they will never live again, in any way or life. This is understandable because of their religion based around animism, which is the general belief that spirits inhabit all things. Due to their subsistence, they act under the belief that eating a man, they will destroy the spirit inside of him. Through this example you can clearly see how a people's subsistence influences what they believe, how they worship and praise, what they worship and praise, and how they act from day to day.

The last example is of a challenging group of people to comprehend: the Afar tribe of Africa. Their tradition is set in death. They use AK-47s and assault rifles to kill-and kill they do. In fact, to the Afar a man's fame is based on how often he has killed. It is said by these people, "to kill a man is indeed brave". Man hunting is quite a sport to these people. To add to their list of odd behaviors and rituals is the marriage and coming-of-age ceremonies. When a woman is to be married, whether or not she wishes to be, she is fully expected by the tribe to throw a horrible fit and refuse, as it is agreed for some unknown reason that it is to be viewed as a terrible thing. The women are dragged, literally kicking and screaming from their homes and beat to be wed. Some refuse to the point of suicide. The coming-of-age ritual is one of pain and silent agony for young ones. Both boys and girls are circumcised, and a burning powder is thrown into their eyes. They do not cry however, as it is seen as a weakness which is dishonorable. To be Afar is to be a strong warrior. One final note on the Afar-they are all devoted to the religion of Islam-ironic!

From studying a group of indigenous people's subsistence, you can see their day to day culture. Religion, socialization, and ritual all revolve around their land. These people are the last true people of the earth. To continue to objectively study the way groups of indigenous people live, we must suspend judgment and suppress bias to view the root of the tradition and personal identity of the entire group, which will lie in the way the people cherish the land they came from.

References

Haviland, 1999, Cultural Anthropology, 9th Edition/Chap.6 Patterns of Subsistence/Pgs156-188