Anthropology
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Tonowi Is to Buymi
It is interesting to find two political systems that are so distinctly different from one another while certain aspects of these systems are so incredibly alike. The tonowi of the Kapauku from western New Guinea is the title given to a political leader. He has considerable power and influence over the people, and though it…
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The Politics of Womanhood
Perhaps not surprisingly, our male-dominated world has often marginalized women when it came to positions of power. The reasons for this are almost always based in our cultural expectations of women, which has been tolerant at best and despicable more often than not. Women have been forced to be resourceful, and it has been proven…
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Nuclear Family Meltdown
For the past half century or more, the ideal of a family in the United States was the nuclear family. Though the definition has changed somewhat to be more inclusive, it has not changed the fundamental nature of it. Ideal though it may seem, there are drawbacks to this type of family, which has likely led…
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Romantic Influence on Us All
Since we are very young we are bombarded with images and ideas of romance. It is an important factor in our society that affects and reinforces specific ideas about how relationships are supposed to form. There are problems inherent in this method of choosing mates, however, and they go beyond the purely superficial. It could…
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Aggressive by Nature?
It was generally held for a long time that hunting, the act of stalking live prey and then killing it, contributed a great deal to our natural aggressive tendencies. After all, it seems perfectly natural to imagine how this ruthless ability to assault another living creature would serve our ancestors capture much-needed food. The problem…
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Out of Africa, Too
There are three pervading hypotheses about the emergence of modern humans. While I was reading the summaries of the three hypotheses, I began to I favor the so-called multiregional hypothesis, which states that our species evolved relatively simultaneously in several parts of the Old World. I understood the logic behind the “Eve†hypothesis, which supports…