General winget poly technique

college
Anthropology of Ethiopian
Societies and Cultures to
first year students’ of
Higher Learning
Institutions
 CHAPTER ONE
. Introducing Anthropology and its Subjects
 Anthropology as an academic discipline was born
during the 19thc, out of the intellectual atmosphere
of Enlightenment which is the eighteenth century
social philosophical movement that emphasized
human progress and the poser of reason, and based
on Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
 CONTINUED
 By the late 1870s, anthropology was beginning to
emerge as a profession. A major motivation for its
growth was the expansion of western colonial powers
and their consequent desire to better understand the
peoples living under colonial domination.
 In USA, for example, the government sought
(required) information on Native American peoples
who were being passive and placed on reservations.
 CONTINUED
 Many anthropologists were motivated by the desire
to record local customs before they disappeared and
were forgotten.

 Anthropology became a profession primarily in

museums, During the 1870s and 1880s many
museums devoted to the study of humankind were
founded in Europe, N. America and South America.
 1.1. What Is Anthropology?
 The term anthropology is a combination of two
words derived from Greek language: anthropos and
logos.
 The term anthropos is equivalent to the word
mankind or human being, while logos means study
or science. So putting the two words together,
anthropology is the study or science of mankind or
humanity.
 CONTINUED
 Anthropology is a broad scientific discipline
dedicated to the comparative study of humans as a
group, from its first appearance on earth to its
present stage of development.

 Anthropology: The holistic, comparative and

relativistic study of humanity in its entirety.
 CONTINUED
In a more specific term, anthropology is science which:

 Investigates the strategies for living that are learned

and shared by people as members of human social
groups.

 Analyzes the products of social groups: material

objects (tools, cloths, houses, etc) and nonmaterial
creation (beliefs, values, practices, institutions, etc)
 CONTINUED
Further anthropology focuses on:
(1) The origin of humans,
(2) The evolutionary development of humans,
(3) Human physical, biochemical and cultural
variations and
(4) The material possessions and cultural
heritages of humans.
Subject Matter and Scope of Anthropology

 The subject matter of anthropology is very vast. The

subject covers all aspects of human ways of life and
culture, as humans live in a social group relationship.

 Discovering the meaning, nature, origin, and destiny

of humanity is one of the key concerns of
anthropology.
 Anthropology is interested in some of the
following questions and issues about humans:

 Where did human species come from (i.e. what are the
origins of mankind)?

 Were human beings created in the image and likeness

of God, or were they just the products of millions of
years of the natural, evolutionary process?

 In what ways does man differ from other animal

species?
 CONTINUED
 How did mankind arrive at the present stage of
biological, intellectual , cultural development?

 Is there a common human nature, and if so, what is it

like?

 In what ways do humans who live in various times and

places differ?

 How can we explain why cultures vary?

 FEATURES OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Several distinguishing characteristics that identify

anthropology from other discipline.

 Anthropology is unique in its scope, approach,

micro-focus and method of study.
 CONTINUED
1. Anthropology has a broad scope :
It is interested in all human beings

Contemporary or past, primitive or civilized

They are interested in many different aspects of

humans, including their:

phenotypic characteristics, family lives,

marriages, political systems, economic lives
 CONTINUED

Technology, belief, health care systems,

personality types, and languages.

2. approach:

is holistic

relativistic and

comparative
 CONTINUED
 Holistic :it considers culture, history, language and
biology essential to a complete understanding of
society.

 Relativistic: to explain a certain belief, practice or

institution of a group of people in its own context. It
does not make value judgment. i.e. declaring that
this belief or practice is „good‟ or „bad‟.
 CONTINUED
Comparative:

It studies certain aspects of the culture of a group

of people by comparing it across societies and
different times. i.e. the present with the past, the
modern with the traditional.
 Emphasis on Insiders' View
 Anthropologists focus on how the people
themselves understand about their world, how a
particular group of people explains about the world,
etc. This is what anthropologists call emic
perspective

 Emic the research strategy that focuses on local

explanations and criteria of significance.
 3. The Micro-focus
 This is another distinguishing mark of
anthropology

 Focuses on small-scale society or community

 They are in traditional or modern world, are

usually small scaled in their social organization,
economic and political structure, and tend to be
homogenous in their overall character.
 4.Method of Research
The guarantees of anthropology are qualitative
research methods such as:

 Fieldwork, focus- group discussion

 Participant observation

 In-depth and key informant interviews.

 Methods of research in anthropology:
ethnographic methods
Methods: are tools of data collection. Methods are
strategy, plans of action, process or design.
Research: means careful study that is done to find
and report new knowledge about something.
 The activity of getting information about a subject.
 The collection of information about a particular
subject, revise facts.
 Sub-fields of Anthropology
Anthropology has often categorized into four
major sub-fields:

A. Physical anthropology

B. Socio-cultural anthropology

C .Linguistic anthropology and

D. Historical or Archaeological anthropology

 A. Physical Anthropology
 Physical anthropology is the branch of
anthropology most closely related to the natural
sciences, particularly biology.

 It studies human being from biological

perspectives.

 Physical anthropology is essentially concerned

with two broad areas of investigation:
 CONTINUED
These are: human evolution and genetics
 Human evolution: is the study of the gradual
processes of simple form into more differentiated
structures in hominid.

 It is interested in reconstructing the evolutionary

record of the human species using fossils or bones.
 Human evolution is further divided into three
specialties. These are:
 CONTINUED
A. Paleoanthropology B. Primatology and
C. Anthropometry

A. Paleoanthropology: (paleo meaning “old”) is the

study of human biological evolution through the
analysis of fossil remains from prehistoric times to
determine the missing link that connect modern
human with its biological ancestors.
 B. Primatology
 It studies about primates or recent human
ancestors to explain human evolution.

 It study the anatomy and social behavior of such

non-human primate species as gorillas and
chimpanzees in an effort to gain clues about our
own evolution as a species.
 C. Anthropometry
 It study of human variations within and different
populations in time and space, human ecology,
population genetics.

 These differences may be in terms of blood types,

skin colors, skull shape, facial shape, hair texture,
and the like.
 CONTINUED
 The investigation of human variations among
living populations has led to the application of the
knowledge in solving practical problems.

 The development of a specialty known as forensic

anthropology is one of the results of these
attempts.
 CONTINUED
 Forensic anthropology is the identification of human
skeletal remains for medical and legal purposes.

Forensic anthropology attempts to determine:

 sex, age at death, ancestral background.

 Identify crash victims, war causalities, homicide

victims, and skeletal remains in unmarked graves.
 Human genetics
 Concerns to investigate how and why the
physical traits of contemporary human populations
vary throughout the world.

 It focuses to examine the genetic materials of an

organism such as DNA and RNA.
 CONTINUED
 genetic studies are crucial in understanding –
how evolution works and plays important role
in identifying the genetic source of some
hereditary disease like sickle cell anemia and
cystic fibrosis.
 B. Socio-Cultural Anthropology
 It is also often called social anthropology or
cultural anthropology.
 It is the largest sub-fields of anthropology.
 It deals with human society and culture.
 Society is the group of people who have similar
ways of life, but culture is a way of life of a group of
people.
 Society and culture are two sides of the same coin.
 CONTINUED
 It describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains
social, cultural and material life of contemporary
human societies.
 It studies the social (human relations), symbolic
or non material (religious, language) and
 material (all man-made objects) lives of living
peoples.
 CONTINUED
 Socio-cultural anthropologists engage in two aspects of
study. These are: Ethnography and Ethnology.
Ethnography: is field work in a particular culture.
 It is the study of people in their natural or native
environment: where they live, where they work, where
they Shop and play.
 It provides a comprehensive account of a particular
community, society, or culture.
 CONTINUED
 It describes the features of specific cultures in as
much detail as possible including local behavior,
beliefs, customs, social life, economic activities,
politics, and religion.

 Ethnographer gathers data that he or she organizes,

describes, analyzes, and interprets to build and
present that account, which may be in the form of a
book, article, or film.
 Ethnology
 The comparative study of ethnographic data of
society and culture.

 It examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the

results of ethnography the data gathered in different
societies.

 It uses such data to compare and contrast and to

make generalizations about society and culture.
 CONTINUED
 To understand why people today and in the
recent past differ in terms of ideas and behavior
patterns and what all cultures in the world
have in common with one another.
 Specialized fields of study in social or
cultural anthropology
These are:  demographic anthropology
 anthropology of art  ecological anthropology
 political anthropology  psychological
 medical anthropology anthropology
 urban/rural/economic  Ethnomusicology
anthropology
 development anthropology
 anthropology of religion
 legal anthropology
 C. Linguistic Anthropology
Language is basically a system of information
transmission and reception.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

Linguists describe and analyze the sound

patterns.

 Combinations of sounds.
 CONTINUED
 Meanings and structure of sentence in human
languages.

 Studies human language as a cultural resource

and speaking as a cultural practice in its social and
cultural context, across universe and time.
 Reflect your views on the following
questions.

1.What is the d/c between human communication

and any other animal communication?

2.What distinguishes human communication from

any other animal communication?

 Answer

1.Humans communicate messages by sound

(speech), by gesture (body language), and in other
visual ways such as writing. Languages hand down
cultural traits from one generation to another. In fact,
some would argue that language is the most
distinctive feature of being human.
 Answer
2.Although animals could develop certain
behaviors through conditioning that simulator to
humans, they do not have a capacity to pass on their
own offspring. This is the boundary between human
beings and other animals including higher primates.
 Linguistic anthro. is divided into 4
branches
Structural or Descriptive Linguistics

Historical Linguistics

Ethno-Linguistics and

Socio-linguistics.
 CONTINUED
1.Structural or Descriptive Linguistics:

 It examines sound systems, grammatical

systems, and the meanings attached to words
in specific languages to understand the structure
and set of rules of given language.

 putting words and sounds together for the

purpose of communicating.
 CONTINUED
2.Historical Linguistics

 deals with the emergence of language in

general and how specific languages have
diverged over time.

 It focuses on the comparison and classifications

of different languages to differentiate the
historical links between them.
 CONTINUED
3. Ethno-Linguistics
 Examines the relationship between language
and culture.
 It focus on how the richness of a given culture
is manifested in language.
 It reflects the culture of the people, vocabularies
of the people. E.g. Ato, reso, etc.
 CONTINUED
4. Socio-linguistics:
 It investigates linguistic variation within a given
language.
 No language is a homogeneous system in which
everyone speaks just like everyone else.
 It tries to understand languages variation in
their structures, units, and grammatical
formations.
 CONTINUED
 It gives special attention to the study of unwritten
languages. It studies the r/ship b/n language and
social relations. Example the dialogue b/n black
and white in America.
 CONTINUED
The relationship between anthropology and other
disciplines
Anthropology is similar with other social sciences
such as:
 Sociology
 Psychology
 Political sciences
 Economics
 History
 CONTINUED
 Anthropology greatly overlaps with these
disciplines that study human society.

 anthropology differs from other social

sciences and the humanities by its broad scope,
unique approach, perspective, unit of analysis and
methods used.
 CONTINUED
 In its scope: anthropology studies human kind in
its entirety.

 In its approach: anthropology studies and

analyzes human ways of life holistically,
comparatively and in a relativistic manner.
 CONTINUED
 In its perspective:anthropology locates dimensions
of people‟s and communal lived experiences.

Their thoughts and feelings in terms of how these

dimensions are interconnected and interrelated to
one another.

It also fundamentally empirical, naturalistic and

particularizing than universalizing one.
 CONTINUED
 In its method of research:

undertakes extended fieldwork among the studied

community and develops intimate knowledge of
the life and social worlds of its study group/society
through employing those ethnographic data
collection techniques such as Participant
observation, Key informant interview and FGD.
 CONTINUED

The Contributions of anthropology:

1.Being introduced to the general subject matter of

anthropology and the approaches and perspectives it
adheres, on what different ways could you be
benefitted from learning anthropology as a common
course?
 ANSWER

 The comparative study of cultures

 Should lead us to the conclusion that our

culture is just one way of life among many
found in the world.

 gain a fuller understanding of our culture and

others culture.
 CONTINUED
Anthropology gives us an insight into different
ways and modes of life of human society (social
and cultural diversity).

Knowledge about the rest of the world is particularly

important today because the world has become
increasingly interconnected.
 CHAPTER TWO
2. Human Culture and Ties that Connect
Definition of culture:
 The term culture is not used with consistent
meanings. It is used with various meanings in
common-sense.

 Anthropologists and sociologists define culture in

different ways.
 CONTINUED
British anthro Edward. Tylor:
 “a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Culture comprises countless material and non-material
aspects of human lives.
 “Culture is the complex whole that consists of
everything we think and do and have as members of
society.”(Robert Bierstedt ).
 CONTINUED
B. Malinowski has defined culture
“as cumulative creation of man".He regarded culture
as the handwork of man and the medium through
which he achieves his ends.

Culture as the common way of life shared by a

group of people.

Culture is a system of learned behavior shared by

and transmitted among the members of the group.
 CONTINUED
 Culture is a collective heritage learned by individuals
and passed from one generation to another.
Characteristic Features of Culture
1.Culture Is Learned:
Culture is learned through social interaction. The
learned behavior is communicated in the group
through forms of socialization such as observation,
instruction, reward, punishment and experience.
 CONTINUED
2. Culture Is Shared:

It is a possession of individuals as members of a

social group; observing, listening, talking and
interacting with other people learn it.

Without shared culture members of a society would

be unable to communicate and cooperates.
 CONTINUED
3. Culture Is Symbolic:

 Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans

and to culture.

 Symbols refer to anything to which people attach

meaning and which they use to communicate with
others.
 CONTINUED
 Symbols are words, objects, gestures, sounds or images
that represent something else rather than themselves

 A symbol‟s meaning is not always obvious. many

symbols are powerful and often activate behaviors or
emotional states. E.g. The designs and colors of the
flags of d/t countries represent symbolic associations
with abstract ideas and concepts.
 CONTINUED
4.Culture is all- encompassing:

Culture encompasses all aspects, which affect

people in their everyday lives.

 Culture comprises countless material and non-

material aspects of human lives.
 CONTINUED
 when we talk about a particular people‟s culture,
we are referring to all of its man- made objects,
ideas, activities whether those of traditional, old
time things of the past or those created lately.
 CONTINUED
5. Culture Is Integrated:
 Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs
and beliefs.
 Culture should be thought as of integrated wholes,
the parts of which, to some degree are
interconnected with one another.
 No one single cultural trait has its meaning outside
of its integrated context.
 CONTINUED
6. Culture is adaptive and maladaptive:
 People adapt themselves to the environment using
culture.

The ability to adapt themselves to practically any

ecological condition, unlike other animals, makes
humans unique. This ability is attributed to human‟s
capacity for creating and using culture. Culture has
also maladaptive dimensions.
 CONTINUED
7. Culture Is Dynamic:

 There are no cultures that remain completely

static year after year

 Culture is changing constantly as new ideas

and new techniques are added as time passes
modifying or changing the old ways.
 CONTINUED

 Culture is stable when we consider what people

hold valuable and are handing over to the next
generation in order to maintain their norms and
values.

 Culture comes into contact with other cultures, it

can change.
 Aspects/Elements of Culture
There two of the most basic aspects of culture are
material and nonmaterial culture. These are:

Material and Non-material culture.

Material culture consist of man-made objects

such as tools, furniture, automobiles, buildings,
dams, roads, bridges, and in fact, the physical
substance which has been changed &used by man.
 Non – Material culture
 Non-material culture consists of the words the

people use or the language they speak, the beliefs

they hold, values and

 virtues they appreciate, habits they follow, rituals

and practices that they do and the ceremonies they

observe.
 CONTINUED

 Greeting, the custom of eating Injera, respect for

the elderly, treating patients, etc. (non material).
 In addition, values, beliefs and norms are some
aspects of non-material culture.
 values: are the standards by which member of a
society define what is good or bad, beautiful.
 CONTINUED
 Values are a central aspect of the non-material
culture of a society and are important because they
influence the behavior of the members of a society.

 Beliefs: are cultural conventions that concern true

or false assumptions.
Norms: are shared rules or guidelines that define
how people “ought” to behave under certain
circumstances.
 CONTINUED
 Norms are generally connected to the values,
beliefs, and ideologies of a society. Norms vary in
terms of their importance to a culture. These are:

A.Folkway

 Norms guiding ordinary usages and conventions

of everyday life are known as folkways.
 CONTINUED
 Folkways are norms that are not strictly enforced,
such as not leaving your seat for an elderly people
inside a bus/taxi. They may result in a person
getting a bad look.
b) Mores
 Mores (pronounced Mor-ays) are much stronger
norms than are folkways.
 CONTINUED
 Mores are norms that are believed to be essential
to core values and we insist on conformity. A
person who steals, rapes, and kills has violated some
of society‟s most important mores.

 People who violate mores are usually severely

punished, although punishment for the violation of
mores varies from society to society.
 CONTINUED
Levels of culture

 In studying human diversity in time and

space, anthropologists distinguish among
the universal, the generalized, and the
particular.
 CONTINUED
1) Universality:

 Anthropology assumes that all human beings are

fundamentally alike and they share the same basic
biological, psychological, social &other
characteristics.

 All people all over the world have certain common

obligations one to another.
 CONTINUED
 All people are members of a single community;
they all have the same root and destiny.
Biological universals:
 Long period of infant dependency; year round
sexuality; a complex brain that enables to use
symbols, languages, tools, etc. Whether “modern” or
“primitive” all people share these universal
biological features.
 CONTINUED
Psychological universals
 arise from human biology and from experiences
common to human development in all cases:
growth in the womb, birth, interaction with
parents, etc.
Social universals
 life in groups, family, food sharing, exogamy,
incest taboo, etc.
 CONTINUED
For example, all people prohibit sexual contact or
marriage between individuals with close blood
relations.

It is regarded as a taboo that is something

unmentionable or forbidden to touch or talk about.
 CONTINUED
2) Generality:

 Generalities are cultural traits that occur in many

societies but not all of them.

 Cultural generalities may be explained by

diffusion of cultures from one place to another. It
could be through contacts, trades, wars, etc.
Examples: – Nuclear family, Parents and children.
 CONTINUED
3) Particularity:

 Trait of a culture that is not widespread Cultural

borrowing–traits once limited are more
widespread Useful traits that don‟t clash with
current culture get borrowed.
 CONTINUED
 Examples:-Food dishes Particularities are
becoming rarer in some ways but also becoming
more obvious Borrowed cultural traits are
modified Marriage, parenthood, death, puberty,
birth all celebrated differently.
 Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism and
Human Rights

Ethnocentrism

 Ethnocentrism, is an attitude of taking one's own

culture and ways of life as the best and the center
of all and on the other hand, regarding other
ethnic groups and cultures as inferior, bad, full of
errors, etc.
 CONTINUED
 Viewing the rest of the world through a narrow
sense of our culture.

 Ethnocentrism results in prejudices about people

from other cultures.
 CONTINUED

 Ethnocentrism can prevent us from understanding

and appreciating another culture.

 When there is contact with people from other

cultures,ethnocentrism can prevent open
communication and result in misunderstanding
and mistrust.
 CONTINUED
Cultural Relativism:

 The concept of cultural relativism states that

cultures differ, so that a cultural trait, act, or
idea has no meaning but its meaning only within
its cultural setting.
 CONTINUED

 Cultural relativism suspends judgment and views

about the behavior of people from the perspective
of their own culture. Every society has its own
culture, which is more or less unique.
 CONTINUED
 Every culture contains its own unique pattern of
behavior which may seem alien to people from
other cultural backgrounds.

 Cultural relativism describes a situation where

there is an attitude of respect for cultural
differences rather than judging other people's
culture as uncivilized or backward.
 CONTINUED
Respect for cultural differences involves:

 Appreciating cultural diversity;

 Accepting and respecting other cultures;

 Recognizing that what is immoral, ethical,

acceptable, etc, in one culture may not be so in
another culture;
 CONTINUED
Human Rights:
 In today's world, human rights advocates
challenge many of the tenets of cultural relativism.

 Many anthropologists are uncomfortable with

the strong form of cultural relativism that
suggests that all patterns of culture are equally
valid.
 CONTINUED
 What if the people practice slavery, violence
against women, torture, or genocide.

 Human rights include the right to speak freely, to

hold religious beliefs without discrimination, and
to not be murdered, injured, or enslaved or
imprisoned without charge.
 CONTINUED
 Such rights are seen as inalienable (nations
cannot abridge or terminate them) and
international (larger than and superior to
individual nations and cultures). Anthropologists
respect human diversity.
 CONTINUED
Culture Change

 Culture change can occur as a result of the

following mechanisms diffusion, acculturation,
invention, globalization.

I. Diffusion: The source of new cultural elements

in a society may also be another society.
 CONTINUED
 The process by which cultural elements are
borrowed from another society and incorporated
into the culture of the recipient group is called
diffusion.

 Diffusion is borrowing of cultural traits b/n

societies either directly or through mediators.
 CONTINUED
 Diffusion is the process by which discrete culture
traits are transformed from one society to another
through migration, trade, war, or other contact.
 Diffusion is:
direct
 forced
 indirect
 CONTINUED
Direct: when two cultures trade with,
intermarry among, or wage war on one
another.

Forced: when one culture subjugates another

and imposes its customs on the dominated
group.
 CONTINUED

Indirect : when items or traits move from group A

to group C via group B without any first hand
contact between A and C. In this case, group B
might consist of traders or merchants who take
products from a variety of places to new markets.
 CONTINUED
ii. Acculturation

 The cultures of either or both groups may be

changed by contact. This usually happens in
situations of trade or colonialism.

 In situations of continuous contact, cultures have

also exchanged and mixed foods, recipes, music,
dances, clothing, tools, and technologies.
 CONTINUED
iii. Invention
 The process by which humans innovate, creatively
finding solutions to problems is a third mechanism
of cultural change.

 Faced with comparable problems and challenges,

people in different societies have innovated and
changed in similar ways, which is one reason
cultural generalities exist.
 CONTINUED
iv. Globalization
 The term globalization encompasses a series of
processes, including diffusion and acculturation,
working to promote change in a world in which
nations and people are increasingly interlinked
and mutually dependent.
 CONTINUED
 Promoting such linkages are economic and
political forces, as well as modern systems of
transportation and communication.

 Within nations and across their borders, the

media spread information about products, services,
rights, institutions, lifestyles, and the perceived
costs and benefits of globalization.
 CONTINUED
Ties That Connect: Marriage, Family and Kinship

 Almost all known societies recognize marriage.

The ritual of marriage marks a change in status
for a man and a woman and the acceptance by
society of the new family that is formed.
 CONTINUED
Defining Marriage

 A permanent legal union between a man and

a woman. It is an important institution without
which the society could never be sustained.

 The main purpose of marriage is to create new

social r/ships, rights and obligations b/n the
spouses and their families.
 CONTINUED
Rules of Marriage

There are two types of rules of marriage. The are:

endogamy and exogamy.

 Endogamy is a marriage rule, which requires that

people marry within their own social group (e.g.
their own tribe, religion, race, community, social
class, etc).
 CONTINUED
 Exogamy requires that people marry outside a
group to which they belong.

NUMBER OF SPOUSES

 Societies have rules regulating whom one

may/may not marry; they have rules specifying
how many mates a person may/should have.
 CONTINUED
 Monogamy: the marriage of one man to one
woman at a time. One-to- one marriage.

 Polygamy: marriage of a man or woman with

two or more mates. Polygamy can be of two
types.
 CONTINUED
Polygyny: the marriage of a man to marry two or
more women at a time.

Polyandry: one woman married to more than one

male at a time.

Fraternal polyandry: two or more brothers taking

one woman as their wife.
 CONTINUED
 Wife inheritance or levirate marriage: A man
entitled to marry his deceased brothers or close
relative‟s wife.

 Sororate marriage: a man entitled to marry the

sister or close relative of his deceased (dead) wife.
 CONTINUED
Economic consideration of Marriage
 Most societies view as a binding contract between
husband and wife and, between their respective
families as well.

 The transfer of certain rights between the parties

involved: rights of sexual access, legal rights to
children, and rights of the spouses to each other‟s
economic goods and services.
 CONTINUED
 Transfer of rights is accompanied by the transfer
of some type of economic consideration.

 These may take place either before or after the

marriage can be divided into three categories.

1. Bride Price 2. Bride Service 3. Dowry

 CONTINUED
 1.Bride service: which is the labor service
provided for the parents of the bride (or the
would-be wife) by the bridegroom (or the would-
be husband).

 2.Bride price: which is marriage payment made

to the bride or her group, in terms of money and
material gifts by the bride groom (mentor, coach).
 CONTINUED
3.Dowry: which refers to marriage gifts made to
the bridegroom usually by the bride and her family.

 A dowry involves a transfer of goods or money in

the opposite direction, from the bride's family to the
groom‟s family.
 CONTINUED
Post-Marital Residence

 The newly married couple lives after the marriage

ritual is governed by cultural rules, which are
referred to as post-marital residence rule.

 Patrilocal Residence: the married couple lives

with or near the relatives of the husband‟s father.
 CONTINUED
 Matrilocal Residence: the married couple lives
with or near the relatives of the wife.

 Avunculocal Residence: The married couple lives

with or near the husband‟s mother‟s brother.

 Ambilocal/Bilocal Residence: The married couple

has a choice of living with relatives of the wife or
relatives of the husband.
 CONTINUED
 Neolocal Residence: the Married couple forms an
independent place of residence away from the
relatives of either spouse.

FAMILY

 The family is the most basic unit of all social

institutions; it is the building block of any society.
 CONTINUED
 Family is the basis of human society. It is the most
important primary group in society.

 The family, as an institution, is universal.

 Cultural anthropologists have identified two

fundamentally different types of family structure-
the nuclear family and the extended family.
 CONTINUED
1. The Nuclear Family: A dominant form of family
in today's modern society consists of a husband,
wife and their dependent child or children. This is
called nuclear family.

 Everyday needs of economic support

 Childcare, and social interaction are met within the

nuclear family.
 CONTINUED
2. The Extended Family: considers the family as
any social group of people who are united together
by:

ties of marriage

 ancestry and

 having the responsibility for rearing

children.
 CONTINUED
 A family in much small- scale, traditional societies
may a constitute:

 a husband, his wife, his wife‟s children and

 the wives and children of his sons. This form of

family is called extended family.
 CONTINUED
Functions Of Marriage and Family

 The family is the most basic unit of all social

institutions. It is the building block of any society.

 It is important to individuals and society,

because it responds to some of the fundamental
human needs, both individual and collective.
 CONTINUED
1.Biological Function

 Sexual and reproductive function

 Socially validates long term, sexual relations

between males and females.

 Society reproduces itself through family.

 CONTINUED
2.Economic Function

 Marriage brings economic co-operation between

men and women.

 Ensure survival of individuals in a society.

 In small scale societies, family is a self-contained

economic unit of production, consumption and
distribution.
 CONTINUED
3.Social Function

 Institution of marriage brings with it the creation

and perpetuation of the family.

 The form of person to person relations and

linking once kin group to another kin group.
 CONTINUED
4. Educational and Socialization Function

 Children learn an immense amount of knowledge,

culture, values prescribed by society.

 The task of educating and enculturating children is

distributed among parents.

 Family behaves as an effective agent in the

transmission of social heritage.
 CONTINUED
KINSHIP

 Is defined as the network in which people are

related to one another through blood, marriage and
other ties.

 Kinship is universally found in all societies.

 Kinship can be created through three ways:

 CONTINUED
1.Through blood 2. Through marriage and

3.Through adoption.

 Through blood: this is the principle of

consanguinity.

 A consanguine is a person who is related to

another person through blood.
 CONTINUED
Consanguines include kin, not friends. Examples of
consanguines are:

 a parent's (father/mother/grand-parent) relation to

a child; relation between siblings (brothers and
sisters); an individual‟s relation to his/ her uncle,
aunt, niece or nephew.
 CONTINUED
2. Through marriage

 This is the principle of affinity (kinship). E.g.

 kinship ties between husband and wife

 husband and his wife's group

 wife and her husbands group

 CONTINUED
3.Through adoption

 This is called the principle of fictitious kinship.

 Fictitious kinship is, in other words, a kind of

relationship in which two individuals create a kind
of parent-child relationship without any blood or
marriage ties.
 CONTINUED
 DESCENT: refers to the social recognition of the
biological relationship that exists between the
individuals.

 There are three important rules of decent. These

are: Patrilineal descent, Matrilineal descent &
Cognatic Descent.
 CONTINUED
1.Patrilineal descent: is traced solely through the
male line.

 A man‟s sons and daughters all belong to the

same descent group by birth, but it only the sons
who continue the affiliation.

 Succession and inheritance pass through the male

line.
 CONTINUED
2. Matrilineal descent

 descent is traced solely through the female line.

 At birth, children of both sexes belong to mother‟s

descent group, but later only females acquire the
succession and inheritance.

 daughters carry the tradition, generation after

generation.
 CONTINUED
3. Cognatic Descent

 In some society‟s individuals are free to show their

genealogical links either through men or women.

 There is no fixed rule to trace the succession and

inheritance; any combination of lineal link is
possible in such societies.
 UNIT-THREE
3.Human Diversity, Culture Areas and Contact in
Ethiopia

 Human beings and being human: As a results of

Paleo-anthropologists are concerned with
understanding how cultural, noncultural, and bio-
cultural evolutionary factors shaped humanity
through time.
 CONTINUED
 Humanity is the most common term we to use
refer to human beings.

 Humanity stands for the human species, a group

of life forms with the following characteristics:

o Bipedalism (walking on two legs)

o Relatively small teeth for primates of our size

 CONTINUED
o Relatively large brains for primates of our size

o Using modern language to communicate ideas

o Using complex sets of ideas called culture to
survive.
Standing on two legs and having particularly
small teeth and large brains are all anatomical
characteristics.
 CONTINUED
 They‟re studied by anthropologists focusing on
human biological evolution.

 Surviving by using a wide array of cultural

information (including instructions for making a
pottery or farming tools in Ethiopia) is the use of
culture.
 CONTINUED
 Humanity is a general term that doesn‟t specify
whether you‟re talking about males, females, adults, or
children; it simply means our species- Homo sapiens
sapiens- at large.

 The term humanity can be applied to modern humans

(Homo sapiens sapiens) as well as some of our most
recent ancestors, placed more generally in Homo
sapiens
 CONTINUED

 Exactly when Homo sapiens evolved into Homo

sapiens sapiens is a complex question based on
when humans became anatomically modern and
when they became behaviorally modern.
 Origin of the Modern Human
Species: Homo sapiens sapiens
Cosmologies and Human Origins

 Cosmologies are conceptual frameworks that

present the universe (the cosmos) as an orderly
system.
 Cosmologies are conceptual frameworks that
present the universe (the cosmos) as an orderly
system.
 CONTINUED
 Cosmologies are conceptual frameworks that
present the universe (the cosmos) as an orderly
system.

 Cosmologies account for the ways in which

supernatural beings or forces formed human beings
and the planet we live on.
 CONTINUED
 These beliefs are transmitted from generation to
generation through ritual, education, laws, art, and
language.

Western Traditions of Origins

In Western cultural traditions, the ancient Greeks had

various mythological explanations for human origins.
 CONTINUED
 The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus
attempted to understand the origin and the
existence of the world without reference to
mythology. He argued that life originated in the sea
and that humans initially were fishlike, eventually
moving onto dry land and evolving in to mammals.
 CONTINUED
 The most important cosmological tradition
affecting Western views of creation is recounted in
the biblical Book of Genesis, which is found in
Greek texts dating back to the 3rd century BC.

 This Judaic tradition describes how God created

the cosmos.
 CONTINUED
 It begins with “In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth” and describes how creation took
six days during which light, heaven, Earth, vegetation,
Sun, Moon, stars, birds, fish, animals, and humans
originated.
 Christianity spread throughout Europe, this tradition
became the dominant cosmological explanation of
human origins.
 CONTINUED
 In Europe before the Renaissance, the Judeo-
Christian view of creation provided the only
framework for understanding humanity‟s position
in the universe.

 The biblical account of creation led to a static,

fixed view of plant and animal species and the age
of the Earth.
 CONTINUED
 God had created plant and animal species to fit
perfectly within specific environments and did not
intend for them to change.

Evolutionary and paleo-anthropological perspectives

on human origin
 CONTINUED
 Today anthropologist rely on scientific views of
evolution in order to explain human origins.

 Evolution refers to a process and gradual change

in specie over time.

 Evolution is used to describe the cumulative

effects of three independent facts.
 Attributes of evolution can be observed in nature
every day. They are:

 Replication: The fact that life forms have offspring

 Variation: The fact that each offspring is slightly

different from its parents, and its siblings; and

 Selection: The fact that not all offspring survive,

and those that do tend to be the ones best suited to
their environment.
 CONTINUED
 The scientific explanation of human origin and the
concept of evolution are attributed to a series of
discoveries of early modern period and the works
of handful of scientists in the physical/natural
sciences.
 CONTINUED
 One of the prominent persons in relation to this
development is Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

 Darwinian theory of evolution: The theory that

states that all livings develop through long, gradual
processes in the natural world without any
supernatural intervention.
 CONTINUED
 One of Charles Darwin‟s contributions to civilization
was to demonstrate that humanity was part of the
world of living things, not separate from it.

 One of Charles Darwin‟s contributions to civilization

was to demonstrate that humanity was part of the
world of living things, not separate from it.
 CONTINUED
 For thousands of years, Western civilization,
backed up by the biblical story of creation, held
humanity as a special creation fundamentally
different from all other living things.

 Anthropologists study humanity as a biological

phenomenon by raising questions such as:
 CONTINUED
 What species are we most and least like?

 Where and when did we fist appear?

 What were our ancestors like?

 Can we learn about human behavior from the

behavior of our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees
and gorillas?
 CONTINUED
 The answers to the above mentioned and

many other questions about our species in

the study of evolution, the change through

time of the properties of a living species.

 CONTINUED
 Many kinds of life forms have become extinct (like
the dinosaurs), but each of today‟s living species
(including humanity) has an evolutionary ancestry
that reaches far back in time.
 CONTINUED
Racial types- anthropological perspectives

 All living things with sensory input, humans have

to classify their perceptions into some kind of
order.

 Some people have darker skin, so they‟re in the

“darker skin” category. And the list goes on.
 CONTINUED
 Obviously, not all human beings look the same, so
humans have spent some time putting people of
different colors, body shapes, and so on into different
categories sometimes called races.

 Biologically speaking, a race is a group of organisms

of the same species that share similar physical (and
genetic) attributes and specific geographic regions.
 CONTINUED
 Human beings adapt to their environments
through an evolutionary process. human bodies
(human beings) have adapted to certain conditions
over time.

 Adaptation is can be understood as a process

(behavioural and/or biological) that increases the
likelihood of survival for an organism.
 What Anthropologists Can Say For Sure
About Human Races?

 Anthropologists say that race is a cultural or

social construct, they mean it is created socially by
people, not naturally or biologically existing.

 Differences don‟t mean a lot, biologically.

 CONTINUED
 Assigning people to a race based on skin color
becomes an exercise in holding up paint chips to
the skin.

 Race is both a cultural construct and a discredited

biological term.
 Human Races: the history of racial
typing
 Like all animals, humans have undoubtedly been
classifying their neighbors in various ways for a very
long time.

 Some of the first records of humans classifying others

as certain “types” come from ancient Egypt, where by
1350 BC you can see records of them classifying
humans by skin color:
 CONTINUED
 Egyptians were red-skinned, people south of Egypt
were black-skinned, those living north of the
Mediterranean Sea were white-skinned, and people
to the east were yellow-skinned.
 The Grand Illusion: Race, Turns Out, Is
Arbitrary

 various anthropologists have attempted to classify

the human species into various races, such as
Caucasian, Black African, Asian, and so on.
 The 1972 study by Harvard anthropologist
Lewontin concluded that “Human racial
classification is of no social value and is positively
destructive of social and human relations.
 CONTINUED
 Racial classification is now seen to be of virtually
no genetic or taxonomic [classifying] significance
either, no justification can be offered for its
continuance.”

 For most professional anthropologists today,

human “race” is an antiquated concept.
 Why is Everyone Different? Human Cultural
Diversity/Variation
 All humans are of the same species, they don‟t all
act the same; human behavior varies tremendously
worldwide.

 If race doesn‟t control a person‟s characteristics,

what does account for human behavioral variation?

 In short, the answer is culture.

 CONTINUED
 Cultures differ because people live in different
conditions, be they ecological, economic, social, or
what have you.

 Human cultures have been evolving for thousands of

years and in the modern age, with mass
communication and mass movement of peoples from
one environment and culture to another, culture has
changed very quickly.
 Culture area and cultural contact in Ethiopia
 The concept of culture is central to anthropology.

 The capacity for making culture differentiates

mankind from nonhumans.

 The term culture is not used with consistent

meanings.

 It is used with various meanings in commonsense.

 CONTINUED
 Culture refers to all the features of a society's ways
of life:

*Production *The architecture of houses

*Modes of dress *The layout of fields and farms

*Routine living habits *Systems of education

*Food preferences *Government, law, etc

 CONTINUED
 In anthropology the concept of culture area has
been used beginning from the 1920s where Afred
Kroeber and his contemporaries were interested in
examining the concentration of cultural trains in a
given geographic area

 In the context of Ethiopia:

 CONTINUED
 we may come up with different culture are in
relation to subsistence. These are:

plough culture

Enset culture area

pastoral societies culture area.

 A. Plough culture area

 Plough culture area represents those parts of the

country where agriculture is predominantly the
means by which subsistence is eked out.

 Most of highland and central parts of the country

serves as the backbone of the economy is
considered a plough culture.
 CONTINUED
 The area often called plough culture has been a
subject of anthropological inquires over the past
seven decades starting from the 1950s.

 Some of the ethnographers who studied the area

that we call plough culture are:
 Donald Levine, Fredrick Gamst

 Allen Hobben and Jack Bauer.

 B. Enset culture area
 Enset culture area, covers a vast region in the
southern part of country.

 Enset cultivating regions of the SNNPRS such as

the Guraghe, Sidama, Sheka, Kaffa and Gedeo
areas constitute enset culture area. In this region,
enset serves as a staple diet to who make use the
plant in a wide variety of forms for a living.
 C. Pastoral culture area
 Pastoral culture area is found in the low land areas
covering a large section of the Afar in the
northwest, Somali in the southeast and Borena of
southern of Ethiopia.

 Inhabitants of the pastoral culture area rely

significantly on their herds and cattle for a living.
 CONTINUED
 Mobility of people and herds is a major
characteristic feature of the people occupying the
pastoral culture area.