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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 6 page report discusses the ways in which societal beliefs and prejudices are often echoed in the ostensibly “objective” view of the anthropologist commenting on the situation, individual, or other culturally-affected phenomenon. The works of Theodora Kroeber (“Ishi”), Barbara Myerhoff (“Number Our Days”) and Renato Rosaldo (“Culture and Truth”) are used as the definitive guides to such a new way of anthropological and ethnographic study. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_BWcult.doc
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are often echoed in the ostensibly "objective" view of the anthropologist commenting on the situation, individual, or other culturally-affected phenomenon. For example, cultural and political imperialism played a role
in the anthropological views presented throughout the 19th century as Western nations encountered cultures to which they felt enormously superior and obligated to re-align to a "modern" and "more appropriate"
way of viewing the world. One need only look to the European mindset as exhibited through colonialism of the New World or the attitudes of early Americans toward Native
Americans to understand that the importance of historical setting and timeframe. If one is to examine information presented by any anthropologist, one must also examine that essential framework in order
to understand the likely biases, beliefs, and motivations of their research. One example that could apply to an early 19th century American anthropologist is that their investigation and writing
of an American Indian culture may from a strongly Christian viewpoint that is convinced of the necessity to "save" the "savages." Clearly, observations about the customs and beliefs of
the Native Americans they encounter would be skewed toward that need to "christianize" and convert the "heathens." Often, the contemporary reader gains additional insight to the anthropological study through
a unclouded awareness of that specific anthropologists viewpoint and his or her own cultural indoctrination. The Last of the Yahi According to Theodora Kroeber, Ishi was the
last of the Yahi Indians, living in Northern California under a cloak of fear, secrecy, and evasion from white men, carrying on this lifestyle for the better part of four
decades. In the late 1840s, the end of the Yahi was set in motion by events that took place far from Yahi lands. The land grants by Mexico ended the
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