Anthropology

Assignment
  *
  * Identify and describe the kinship system of one of the cultures listed below. These cultures are found in Chapters 3 and 4 of your text.
      * San
      * Australian Aborigines
      * Btsisi
      * Inuit of the Artic
      * Iroquois
      * Yanomamo
  * Briefly describe the culture and identify three specific examples of how the kinship system of the chosen culture impacts the way this culture behaves (i.e. thinks, acts, lives).
  * Compare this to your own society. Does kinship impact these same behaviors in your own life? Why or why not?

The San’s are considered to be the oldest culture in the world dating back over a hundred thousand years. Although this early advanced civilization has survived despite technological and culture developments. (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org) In the past two thousand years the San’s were slowly pushed to live in the hot arid sands of the Kalahari Dessert by the Bantu tribes and white farmers who took the more fertile land.
The term “San” was historically applied to Bushmen by their ethnic relatives and historic rivals, the Khoikhoi. This term means “outsider” in the Khoikhoi language and was derogatory. In South Africa the term San has become favored in official contexts. (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org)
Among the San’s, kinship is needed to be flexible to deal with the small constantly changing bands. In the San’s culture such a cultivating culture, social relationships are needed to cope with the more sedentary life. Kinship involves how people classify each other, the rules that affect people’s behavior and people’s actual behavior.
The San’s survived by hunting wild game and gathering roots and tubers. There are only about three thousand San that still follow a totally traditional lifestyle of hunting and gathering (out of a population of ninety five thousand people). The San’s stay in bands of ten or fifteen individuals and move around frequently. The bands are...