ETHNIKKA's mission is to share, divulge and promote the knowledge of the different cultural groups that inhabit our planet, from every continent, religion and origin, to better understand the treasure of human diversity.
ETHNIKKA: Keeping ethnic Knowledge alive
Tribal Perspectives is London’s only exhibition to focus on works of art from rapidly diminishing cultures.
This well-established group show has an international following, and was first launched in 2007. Tribal Perspectives features seven leading galleries from around the globe, each a specialist in the art and cultural artefacts of peoples from Africa to Oceania.
This multi-cultural event offers a unique selling exhibition of precious objects from rapidly diminishing cultures, combined with lectures by leading authorities.
Tribal Perspectives seeks to offer an insight in to and an understanding of the rituals and historic customs of tribal peoples, many of whose way of life is rapidly coming under threat, if not already subsumed in to a homogenized world of ‘development’.
Tribal influences are never far from mainstream fashion and contemporary art.Artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Modigliani were inspired by these cultures, whilst today they are appreciated and their artefacts collected by the likes of David Attenborough, the designer John Rocha and the well-travelled TV presenter and author Griff Rhys Jones.
Exhibitors at Tribal Perspectives will include:
•ALEX ARTHUR (Belgium) - Tribal art
•BRYAN REEVES (UK) - African tribal art
•CHARLES VERNON-HUNT BOOKS (UK) - Art books
•CHRIS BOYLAN (Australia) - Tribal art from PNG and Oceanic
•ADAM PROUT (UK) - Tribal art and objects from around the world
•LOUIS NIERIJNCK (Holland)- Asian, Oceanic and African tribal art
•CLIVE LOVELESS (UK) - Abstract tribal artefacts from Africa and Oceania
Tribal Perspectives is supported by Tribal Arts Magazine and HALI the specialist magazine that writes about the textile arts of all cultures and periods.
Chinese calligraphy has always been more than simply a tool for communication, incorporating as it does the element of artistry for which the practice is still valued in an age of ballpoint pens and computers. Indeed, calligraphy is no longer the basic tool of intellectuals and officials but has become the preserve of professional artisans and amateur enthusiasts. Whether they are recording information or simply creating beautiful forms, calligraphers’ brushes are used to ink five different styles of script, known as ‘seal’, ‘official’, ‘cursive’, ‘running’ and ‘regular’. The art may appear on any writing surface – even the rocky walls of cliffs – but it is especially common on letters, scrolls, works of literature and fan coverings. Today, in addition to traditional master-apprentice instruction, calligraphy is also taught at school. Many ceremonies that mark national celebrations and religious rituals incorporate the practice and calligraphy has itself proved influential on modern art, architecture and design. In its distinctive Chinese form, calligraphy offers an important channel for the appreciation of traditional culture and for arts education. It is also a source of pride and pleasure for the Chinese people and embodies important aspects of the country’s intellectual and artistic heritage.
Nias is a remote and rather small island off the northwest coast of the world’s sixth largest island, Sumatra. Yet as difficult as it is to get to, a Neolithic society with an extensive megalithic culture featuring ancestor worship and headhunting evolved an especially high artistic expression, possibly enhanced through contact with belief systems arriving from India in the second half of the First Millennium. European missionaries, active since the 19th Century, brought back the heathen idols of the pagans to show their congregations and solicit funds for further soul saving. However not everyone reacted in horror, as the works were greatly prized by ethnographic museums and collectors, including the Surrealists. Man Ray famously took a shot of an Adu Zatu ancestor figure now in the Musée du quai Branly.
Assembled here are a group of ten works of art from Nias, some showing special forms and stylizations, others featuring exotic materials, some figural, others abstract but unified by a common sense of indigenous aesthetic, a beauty intended for the eyes of the living and the dead.
Mead, the first of five children, was born in Philadelphia. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Emily Fogg Mead, was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Her family moved frequently, so her early education alternated between home-schooling and traditional schools. Born into a family of varying religious outlooks, she searched for a form of religion that gave an expression of the faith that she had been formally acquainted with, Christianity. In doing so, she found the rituals of the Episcopal Church to fit the expression of religion she was seeking. Margaret studied one year, 1919, at DePauw University, then transferred to Barnard College where she earned her Bachelor's degree in 1923.
She studied with Professor Franz Boas and Dr. Ruth Benedict at ColumbiaUniversity before earning her Master's in 1924. Mead set out in 1925 to do fieldwork in Polynesia. In 1926, she joined the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, as assistant curator. She received her Ph.D. from ColumbiaUniversity in 1929.
Mead's observation skills came from her grandmother and her mother. When Mead was a child they would observe and record her actions in a notebook. Mead realized the importance of observing and recording important findings.
Margaret Mead was married three times. Her first husband (1923–1928) was Luther Cressman, a theology student at the time who eventually became an anthropologist. Mead dismissively characterized their union as "my student marriage" in Blackberry Winter, a sobriquet with which Cressman took vigorous issue. Her second husband was New Zealander Reo Fortune, a Cambridge graduate (1928–1935). As an anthropologist, his Sorcerers of Dobu remains the locus classicus of eastern Papuan anthropology, but he is best known instead for his Fortunate number theory. She described her second marriage as more passionate than the first, embarked upon when she was told that she could not have children and abandoned when she was given hope by another physician that childbearing might indeed be possible.
Her third and longest-lasting marriage (1936–1950) was to Englishman Gregory Bateson, also a Cambridge graduate, with whom she had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, who would also become an anthropologist.
During World War II, Mead served as executive secretary of the National Research Council's Committee on Food Habits. She served as curator of ethnology at the AmericanMuseum of Natural History from 1946 to 1969. She was elected a Fellow of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences in 1948. She taught at The New School and Columbia University, where she was an adjunct professor from 1954 to 1978. She was a professor of anthropology and chair of the Division of Social Sciences at FordhamUniversity's LincolnCenter campus from 1968 to 1970, founding their anthropology department. Following the Ruth Benedict's example, Mead focused her research on problems of child rearing, personality, and culture. She served as President of the American Anthropological Association in 1960. She held various positions in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, notably president in 1975 and chair of the executive committee of the board of directors in 1976.
Mead was featured on two record albums published by Folkways Records. The first, released in 1959, An Interview With Margaret Mead, explored the topics of morals and anthropology. In 1971, she was included in a compilation of talks by prominent women, But the Women Rose, Vol.2: Voices of Women in American History.
She is credited with the pluralization of the term "semiotics."
Mead died of pancreatic cancer on November 15, 1978.
Her ideas
The most famous book of Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa, was published in 1928. The book launched Mead as a pioneering researcher and the most famous anthropologist in the world. Since its first publication, Coming of Age in Samoa is still the most widely read book in the field of anthropology. The book has sparked years of ongoing and intense debate and controversy on questions pertaining to society, culture and science. It is a key text in the nature vs nurture debate as well as issues relating to family, adolescence, gender, social norms and attitudes.
In the foreword to Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead's advisor, Franz Boas, wrote of its significance:
Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, very good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.
Boas went on to point out that at the time of publication, many Americans had begun to discuss the problems faced by young people (particularly women) as they pass through adolescence as "unavoidable periods of adjustment". Boas felt that a study of the problems faced by adolescents in another culture would be illuminating.
And so, as Mead herself described the goal of her research: "I have tried to answer the question which sent me to Samoa: Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?" To answer this question, she conducted her study among a small group of Samoans — a village of 600 people on the island of Ta‘u — in which she got to know, live with, observe, and interview through an interpreter 68 young women between the ages of 9 and 20.
She concluded that the passage from childhood to adulthood — adolescence — in Samoa was a smooth transition and not marked by the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion seen in the United States.
As Boas and Mead expected, this book upset many Westerners when it first appeared in 1928. Many American readers were shocked by her observation that incest was common in the Samoan culture and her claim that young Samoan women deferred marriage for many years while enjoying casual sex but eventually married, settled down, and successfully reared their own children.
Mead's findings suggested that the community ignores both boys and girls until they are about 15 or 16. Before then, children have no social standing within the community. Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement where wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration.
In 1983, five years after Mead had died, New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman, published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged Mead's major findings about sexuality in Samoan society, citing statements of her surviving informants' claiming that she had coaxed them into giving her the answers she wanted. Most anthropologists have been highly critical of Freeman's arguments, even if they are often skeptical of Mead's popular works, such as Coming of Age in Samoa. A frequent critique of Freeman is that he regularly misrepresented Mead's research and views.
Another influential book by Mead was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. This became a major cornerstone of the feminist movement, since it claimed that females are dominant in the Tchambuli (now spelled Chambri) Lake region of the Sepik basin of Papua New Guinea (in the western Pacific) without causing any special problems. The lack of male dominance may have been the result of the Australian administration's outlawing of warfare. According to contemporary research, males are dominant throughout Melanesia (although some believe that female witches have special powers). Others have argued that there is still much cultural variation throughout Melanesia, and especially in the large island of New Guinea. Moreover, anthropologists often overlook the significance of networks of political influence among females. The formal male dominated institutions typical of some areas of high population density were not, for example, present in the same way in Oksapmin, WestSepikProvince, a more sparsely populated area. Cultural patterns there were different from, say, Mt.Hagen. They were closer to those described by Mead.
Mead stated that the Arapesh people, also in the Sepik, were pacifists, although she noted that they do on occasion engage in warfare. Her observations about the sharing of garden plots amongst the Arapesh, the egalitarian emphasis in child rearing, and her documentation of predominantly peaceful relations among relatives are very different from the "big man" displays of dominance that were documented in more stratified New Guinea cultures. They are a different cultural pattern.
On January 19, 1979, President Jimmy Carter announced that he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Mead. U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young presented the award to Mead's daughter at a special program honoring Mead's contributions, sponsored by the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, where she spent many years of her career. The citation read:
"Margaret Mead was both a student of civilization and an exemplar of it. To a public of millions, she brought the central insight of cultural anthropology: that varying cultural patterns express an underlying human unity. She mastered her discipline, but she also transcended it. Intrepid, independent, plain spoken, fearless, she remains a model for the young and a teacher from whom all may learn."
Pozole (from the Nahuatl word potzolli, which means "foamy") is a ritually significant, traditional pre-Columbian soup or stew from Mexico. Pozole was mentioned in Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's "General History of the Things of New Spain" circa 1500 CE. It is made from nixtamalized cacahuazintle corn, with meat, usually pork, chicken, turkey, pork rinds, chili pepper, and other seasonings and garnish. Vegetarian and vegan versions also exist. After colonization by the Spaniards, the ingredients of pozole changed, but the staple corn remained. It is a typical dish in various states such as Sinaloa, Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Morelos, México and Distrito Federal.
Since corn was a sacred plant for the Aztecs and other inhabitants of Mesoamerica, pozole was made to be consumed on special occasions. The conjunction of corn (usually whole hominy kernels) and meat in a single dish is of particular interest to scholars because the ancient Mexicans believed the gods made humans out of cornmeal dough. According to research by the National Institute of Anthropology and History and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, on these special occasions, the meat used in the pozole was human. After the prisoners were killed by having their hearts torn out in a ritual sacrifice, the rest of the body was chopped and cooked with corn. The meal was shared among the whole community as an act of religious communion. After the conquest, when cannibalism was banned, pork became the staple meat as it "tasted very similar", according to a Spanish priest.
Ingredients (serves 4 to 6 people)
FOR THE SOUP
Pork shoulder or roast -- 1 1/2 to 2 pounds
Canned or fresh hominy, rinsed -- 2 to 3 cups
Garlic -- 3 to 5 cloves
Ground cumin -- 2 teaspoons
Salt -- 2 teaspoons
Water or stock -- 6 cups
FOR THE GARNISHES
Cabbage or iceberg lettuce, shredded
Onion, finely diced
Radishes, thinly sliced
Limes, cut into wedges
Avocado, diced
Cilantro, chopped
Oregano, dried
Chile piquín, ground
How to prepare it:
Add the pork, hominy, garlic, cumin, salt and stock or water to a large pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and then reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the meat is very tender.
Remove the pot from heat. Take the pork from pot and set aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, remove the meat from its bones and shred it with your hands.
Add the meat back to the pot and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve with little bowls of your choice of garnishes so each dinner can garnish his or her own serving.
Variations
Pozole varies according to region, but the above recipe is the most basic and is known as pozole blanco, or white pozole. It is popular in Guadalajara.
Pozole Rojo (Red pozole): This variation is popular in Michoacán and JaliscoStates. It is the same as the above recipe, but dried chiles are added. Remove the stems and seeds from 3 to 5 ancho or guajillo chiles. Mix them with a little of the hot liquid from the stewpot and soak for 20 to 30 minutes until soft. Puree in a blender and strain through a sieve into the stew for the last 30 to 45 minutes of cooking.
Pozole Verde (Green pozole): Popular in GuerreroState. Follow the above recipe. Toast 1 cup of shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas), and then puree the seeds in a blender with 1 to 2 cups of canned or fresh cooked tomatillos, a chopped jalapeño, a couple of leaves of lettuce, a few sprigs of chopped cilantro and a little liquid from the stewpot. Strain through a sieve into a hot skillet and boil rapidly for about 5 minutes to cook down a little. Stir into the stew for the last 20 to 30 minutes of simmering.
Many recipes call for a mixture of chicken and pork. First simmer a whole chicken until the meat is tender. Remove the chicken, cool, remove the meat from its bones and shred. Set the chicken meat aside and continue with the above recipe, adding the pork to the chicken broth you just made. Add the shredded chicken back in to the pozole along with the shredded pork.
Large batches of pozole are often made for special occasions, and the addition of a pig's head and pig's feet add immeasurably to both the flavor and texture of the final dish.
Sometimes a raw egg is stirred into the stew just before serving.
Title: World's Lost Tribes, The Adventures of Mark and Olly
Year: 2007
Running time: 50 minutes
Country: USA
Plot summary:
Join extreme travellers Mark Anstice and Olly Steeds as they embark on unique expeditions into some of the most remote places on Earth.
Explorer, Mark and journalist Olly have spent months with two remarkable indigenous tribes in West Papua - the Kombai and the Mek - trekking high into uncharted highlands, seeking total immersion in isolated cultures with histories of tribal war, sorcery and witchcraft.
In this hugely different world, Brits Mark and Olly attempt to live off the land, exactly like their hosts. It's a hardcore challenge because not only do they have to learn how to survive on a largely unusual (and often unpalatable) diet, they must also work alongside the tribes, learn new languages and understand each tribe's rituals.
Join Mark and Olly in their incredible adventures as they make friends, and enemies, and learn the secrets of these primal societies.
Mark Anstice and Olly Steeds have done more than their fair share of globetrotting.
With Mark's military experience and Olly's journalistic nous, they're a formidable team with the skills necessary to gain the trust, befriend and ultimately earn the respect of their tribesmen hosts.
Their expeditions in West Papau stretched them both mentally and physically in a new world where nothing could be taken for granted.
The pair had to dig deep at times, but did, and came out the other side with some unforgettable memories and unparalleled experiences.
Kombai Tribe
The Kombai tribe was discovered only 25 years ago, in the dense jungles of West Papua, New Guinea. The tribe's lifestyle - dubbed 'stone-age' - has remained unchanged for 15,000 years.
There are thought to be about 4,000 Kombai people. They are spread across approximately 250 small clans, each of which speaks a different language.
The Kombai are generally suspicious of outsiders, and few have shown interest in the missionaries who made contact with them. Anecdotal evidence suggests there has only been one convert to Christianity since 1982.
Living
The tribes usually live in treehouses 30 feet to 100 feet above the ground. These homes, which offer views above the dense jungle, are built as a means of defence against raiding parties. They also enable the Kombai to avoid sorcerers and insects, and to keep cool.
Eating
The Kombai are hunter-gatherers, moving from place to place during long treks in search of food. They eat cassowary birds, riflebirds, wild pigs, grasshoppers, tree kangaroos and snakes. However, their main protein comes from the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, also coined the 'sago grub'.
They also eat biscuit-like concoctions called sago, which are made from the pulp of the sago tree. The pulp is turned into flour and then baked or steamed. It is supplemented with green bananas, cucumbers, mushrooms, fruits and berries. Palm leaves and ferns make up their diet as well. The Kombai cook with hot stones.
Dress
Short and muscular in appearance, many of the male tribesmen wear a sago thorn pushed through the septum of their nose. They wear leaves or small penis gourds, both as adornment and to protect their genitals. These are worn particularly during feasts, although some groups of the Kombai wear a hornbill head instead of a gourd.
Kombai women wear the bones of the flying fox through their nose and dog-tooth necklaces. They paint their faces with chalk and berries mixed with soot from a fire. Their clothing includes skirts made from woven sago leaves or young palm frond leaves. To make their skirts, the women hold the leaves in their teeth and tear them into thin strips. After powdering their thighs with ash, they use their palms to tightly roll strips of material, which form a growing length of thread. The thread is then looped around their big toe, which anchors the macraméing of the skirts.
Customs
Cannibalism is still believed to take place, though rarely, among the Kombai and only ever in the context of kakhua - male witches, who in the Kombai's belief, are responsible for the deaths of many tribal members. Those accused of being witches are said to be killed, baked and eaten in the belief that the practice will free the spirit of the victim killed by the male witch.
Mek Tribe
In World's Lost Tribes: New Adventures of Mark and Olly, explorer Mark Anstice and journalist Ollie Steeds are on an extreme mission to contact and live with the legendary Mek tribe of West Papua whose way of life has barely changed in thousands of years.
On their last adventure Mark and Olly were adopted by the elusive Kombai tribe. Now they are trekking high into the uncharted central highlands, seeking total immersion in a culture with a history of tribal war, sorcery and witchcraft.
The Mek people are an ancient tribe that has survived for thousands of years in one of the most beautiful but hostile environments on Earth and Mark and Olly are the first white expedition to enter the Merengman village, located in a part of the jungle described as "hundreds of miles of dark and screaming".
After gaining their trust, Mark and Olly will live with the tribe for four months, totally immersing themselves in their way of life where they will experience weddings, witch hunts, and axe-wielding chiefs, while traversing deadly bridges, enduring sleepless nights with the tribesmen and eating local delicacies such as tadpole kebabs and frog heads.
In their incredible adventure, Mark and Olly will attempt to gain acceptance into the village with the reward of the Mek's traditional penis gourd, and experience the chance to document the wisdom of the ancestors that will soon be lost.
