Traditions

Once upon a time I sat in Emory Sekaquaptewa's office browsing through the Hopi dictionary. I saw a word, can't remember what it was, but what it referred to was traditions that could be discarded. That was interesting as the Hopi are one of the more traditional indigenous people in the US today. 

I define traditions as behavior that is transmitted from one generation of kin to the next over many generations. Didn't we talk about this before?  How does an idea or a belief get from one mind into another - it seems clear to me that is is via behavior - talk is a behavior by the way.

The traditions that I find interesting are those that we can find in the archaeological record and that we can continue to find in the historic or contemporary record. In other words, people have maintained the traditions over vast amounts of time. I was reading an article today that was written by Marie Sosressi. It is entitled From the origin of language to the diversification of languages: what archaeology and paleoanthropology say?

Language is interesting, as clearly language is a crucial requirement for storytelling.  Sosressi also looks at pigment use, burial practices, personal adornments, production of depictions and arving, musical traditions in the archaeological record and various anatomical features that would have made speech possible.  

The fact that humans continue to bury the dead, use personal adornments, paint, and make music indicates, at least to me, that these are - or at least once were - of vital importance to humans. The particular way we bury the dead or the uniqueness of the ornaments we use, while interesting (e.g., were the ornaments personal objects or were similar objects used by others, why do we wear ornaments - what is their function - and what prompts the persistence or the change),  what is more interesting is that we continue to do these things. Some of these behaviors - the behavior of using red ochre or wearing personal ornaments have been practiced for tens of thousands of years. It is not clear when language was necessary if, for nothing else, to teach the techniques to the next generation.  I always wonder about the acheulean handaxe which was produced for something like a million years. Some of these axes are beautiful. It always struck me that the producers must have had at least some rudimentary form of language. However, language is not my interest here, except as a behavior that has persisted, transmitted from one generation of kin to the next. What I find interesting are traditional behaviors. How were the techniques taught, which traditions were important (can we assume that if they persisted and are widespread that they were important and may continue to be important?),  what role did ancestors play (after all they were the ones who first created the traditions), what strategies helped promote their persistence across generations? We, in our own time, know how difficult it can be to get many of our children to comply with parental recommendations.  

It seems to me that biological anthropologists ignore traditions at their peril, as t fascinating information can be found in the study of traditions. Part of the problem is that despite the fact that evolution is about persistence - descent with modification - our theorists seem to be  focused on one generation and that generation's behavior.  Attention is paid to parental influence and sometimes people mention ancestors, while showing they know nothing about them. Some anthropologist even claim that traditions never existed, Given a focus on one generation or even one individual is would be a challenge to have to explain the careful transmission across generations of kin. Twenty generations down the line, why are the descendants continuing to replicate ancestral traditions?  Why rather than being self interest seving do they continue to practice traditions that can have high costs?  Do we either say traditions never existed, or that traditions don't have high costs, or should we say that we don't need to account for traditions, but should focus on now or on one period of time in the past?

Artes plasticas and emotion

Count Tolstoy wrote "The whole science of aesthetics fails to do what we might expect from it, being a mental activity calling itself a science; namely it does not define the qualities and laws of art. 

I carefully defined visual art following Dickie (1971:41), who wrote regarding classificatory definitions, that the definition needs to "specify the necessary and sufficient conditions needed for something to be a work of art. A necessary condition for being an X is a characteristic which any object must have in order to be an X. A sufficient condition of an X is a characteristic, which, if an object has that characteristic, it is an X."

As Socrates argued, if we examine a word's usage, we will find some element that is common to all examples of being, but not to other things, and then we will be able to isolate that element as the essence which the defines the category of things. 

I accept that art is human-made. I will discuss animal "art" at some point.Art arouses an emotion, referred to by some as the aesthetic emotion, meaning a unique emotion aroused only by making and viewing art. 

I carefully omitted the function of art when I defined it. As arouse emotion is a function I omitted it from my definition, writing that 

This definition, while appealing, has a number of problems. First, it fails to distinguish what art is from what art does (e.g., arouse an emotion). Further, it runs the risk of being tautological, inferring a mental state from the art and then using the mental state to explain art (Lewis-Williams 1982). In addition, although the emotion aroused by art is said to be pleasure, much of art is said to arouse grave feelings, or it may leave the viewer bewildered, confused, nonplussed, unsure of any emotional reaction (Anderson 1979). Indeed, art may not arouse any emotion; it may arouse “no aesthetic interest” (Brothwell 1976). Another issue, as McEvilley (1992: 161) noted, is that “one serous problem with a definition of art that stresses aesthetic or expressive qualities is that such a definition eliminates much of what has been called art for the last seventy years.”I recognize that the emotions associated with visual art and ritual can be profound. I also recognize, however, that not all viewers would have shared my response and that emotions are fleeting and difficult to articulate (Anderson 1979). Further, I don’t know what emotion the dancers were experiencing and I cannot tell you what thoughts or beliefs might have inspired their behavior. Are we really safe in assuming that all dancers share the same emotions, thoughts, and/or beliefs?

A more serious issue here, however, is that emotions and mental processes probably exist because of the influence they have on behavior, particularly social behavior. An exclusive focus on art and emotion may lead us to ignore art’s social effects. The assumption that any emotions associated with a behavior implies that the behavior is necessarily adaptive can lead even scientific studies astray. Eating high fat foods can be pleasurable; eating many such meals could help promote an early death from chronic disease. While the scarcity of fat in our ancestors’ diet may have promoted our ancestors’ taste for fat, fats are no longer a dietary scarcity. Environments change, and behaviors that were once adaptive may no longer be adaptive. To turn to art, we may say art arouses emotions, but have to ask what art and in whom does it arouse emotion. We don't know whether or not emotion is universally experienced by viewing or making art. We cannot know if art evolved because of any possible emotions associated with it nor can we argue that even if emotions were associated with art in the ancestral past that such emotions are currently adaptive - could art lead us to behave in maladaptive ways?  

The point of this discussion is not that thoughts or emotion, or even the presumed aesthetic emotion, are irrelevant to visual art. In fact, we can assume that visual art attracts us because it interests us, presumably by provoking some emotion. However, even if we assume that art does arouse an emotion, we still do not know what elicits the emotion. Is it aroused by the color, pattern, form, technique, or the experiences associated with the art object? 

This said, today I was reading  a book entitled Ancient Art and Ritual, written by Jane Ellen Harrison (LL.D and D.lit). It was published in 1913. She wrote, in regard to music, that not everyone responds to music - that people can be tone deaf. However, if they do respond emotionally to the music it is a much more profound experience. I need to think about that a little bit. Any suggestions, please let me know. 

Other possible characteristics to possibly be discussed at another time are 

Symbols and meaning

creativity and individualism 

Food rituals

Today, I was reading an article  by Marin (2010) on ritual architecture in complex hunter-gatherer communities. I was surprised and pleased to find a section on food rituals that basically says food rituals - feasting activities - played a critical role in transegalitarian societies. food rituals typically involve the consumption of special or exotic foods. they often are done in special places and at special times and may also involve ceremonies - dance, music, etc. 

I have coauthored a paper on food rituals (see reference below) and have long thought that food rituals are of particular importance - they are ancient and practiced around the world. This led to me the question of what effect the loss of such rituals has had and whether or not that loss may play a role not only in the weakening of families but in our obesity epidemic.

We know that our ancestors began to ritualize behaviors associated with food procurement, preparation and consumption as far back as 20,000 years ago, around the time that our ancestors began to domesticate plants. It was at that time that they began making ground stone tools (e.g., mortars, pestles and milling stones). They also made pottery vessels that they used to prepare and to share food. The analysis of residues in vessels dating back to the Pleistocene, between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, in sites located in Japan suggests that these vessels were used for the preparation of marine products and terrestrial foods. By the Neolithic there is evidence that pottery was used to serve food and drinks to larger groups. Further, more attention was being paid to producing a better quality pottery. As Halstead points out, the care and skill lavished on Middle Neolithic pottery "underlines the social importance of hospitality." The use of finer pottery and the serving of food to larger groups also are strong suggestions that they were performing food rituals.

People around the world regularly perform food rituals. Some food rituals are simple - e.g., the evening meal - while others are more complex - e.g., a seder. They are characterized by the fact that they occur in special places (e.g., a dining room, a religious building) and at special times (which can include events like thanksgiving or an evening meal held at a certain time). They also can involve the use of special equipment in the preparation of the food (and remember the preparation was often a highly social event) and the use of special food serving items. Food rituals also include a predictable sequence, with some beginning with a prayer, and among the foods eaten (e.g., salad main course, desert). Finally, good manners are typically required. 

          In regard to obesity, the ritualization of any behavior not only results in the slowing down of the behavior, but food rituals help people restrain their consumption. Food rituals typically last longer and are more highly social than a non-ritualized meal. As Bossard and Boll argue, food rituals provide the mechanism through which important social ties are established and nurtured. Rituals also reinforce family identify, thus giving all family members a sense of belonging. Food rituals are powerful organizers of family life and they serve as strategies that promote the stability of the family in times of stress and change. In Africa, family rituals promote consensus building and assist in resolving conflict and rebuilding broken social relationships. In times of change, including migration, the continuation of family food rituals can help keep families strong.  

In China, family rituals are said to be key to Chinese culture. So important were family rituals that S. W. Williams would claim that family rituals had “an influence in the formation of Chinese character, in upholding good order, promoting industry, and cultivating habits of peace thrift…” In Aboriginal families in Australia, rituals have been found to strengthen family relationships and communication.The family, Demir writes is “the buffer institution in the society. During times of social change, family ensures the smooth functioning of this transformation process in the society. For this reason, the institution of family is of vital importance for every society.”

NOTE: all references provided on request or are listed in the Coe article below. 

Coe, K., Benitez, T., Tasevska, N., et al. (2018). The use of family rituals in eating behaviors in Hispanic mothers. Family and Community Health, 41(1): 28.

Morin, J. (2020). Ritual architecture in prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities: A potential example from Keatley Creek on the Canadian Plateau. American Antiquity, 73(3) 599-625. 

Visual art: The replicable unit

I remember once, in the dark of night, wrestling with the idea of  the transmission of ideas, which everyone seems to talk about and accept. However, truth to tell, can ideas be transmitted? Do they leap with abandon - or caution - from head to head? Do we all share a great consciousness from which we draw ideas in the dark of night or light of day? Did our mothers lower their foreheads to ours, when we were wee children sitting on their laps, so we could absorb their thoughts?

I thought not. Now that that issue is settled, a second and related issue is persistence, not only transmission from one individual to another, but from one generation of kin to the next. I assume the transmission, for a great many years - millenia - was between kin because our ancestors lived in small groups of kin. Although we may see little cultural persistence these days, it certainly was characteristic of the past. 

To quote M. G. Houston (1920: 2), “we are confronted with an extraordinary conservation or persistence of style, not only through the centuries, but through millenniums [sic].”  Boas (1955: 144, 169) referred to this continuity in style as “fixed type” or “fixity” of design and form. Despite Alexander’s lament that he is “not optimistic about the usefulness of searches for unalterable or ‘basic’ human social behaviors as a method for solving our problems” (1987: 9), the millennia that traditions have lasted suggest that humans often had fairly stable social strategies.

So, I have argued that the replicable unit, a unit that persisted across vast swaths of time, was the use of color, pattern, and or form used solely to attract attention to a body, object or message. Art is not a meme, if a meme is an idea. Art is a behavior - painting, sculpting, dancing singing, making music.... 

A third related question is does visual art have a function? Replication, particularly across generations, seems to imply a function. Don't we tend to copy things we observe that "work" - that have an effect we want to create? 

Many scholars, some quite famous, do argue that art - any of the arts, has no function, that art merely exists or that it "exists for its own sake." One implication of Darwin’s theory is that behaviors we now regard as characteristic of our species, and that would include visual art, persisted precisely because they did have a function. As art is a universal and ancient cultural behavior, which has persisted despite costs that can be quite high, it quite possibly is an adaptation that, at least in the past, must have been important to humans.  As an aside, the cost of art involved not only learning the techniques and perfecting them, to the degree necessary, but also the actual time spend in the application of color or the modification of form. It also included the time spent acquiring the necessary resources, which could be quite arduous and which could involve facing danger. It is said that the Australians had to cross into enemy territory to get the pigments they needed.  

So, next time I will continue talking about art and make suggestions regarding its many functions. I really don't know why I am, after a hiatus of so many years, decades even, talking about art. For a long time it seemed that life held so many other challenges that needed to be addressed. 

Thinking of many  things:

This morning, at 3am when I woke up, many thoughts cluttered my mind when I tried to decide what to write. 

First, I thought about heroines - the strong women in tales of the past. I am perhaps one of the only woman in the US who mourns the loss of that work, the ownership of our own brand of heroism. That topic, however, would take a lot of time and research and I need to work on my book, work on the quilt I am making, and finish the mosaic I have done.

As an aside, making a quilt is a daunting activity. It is beyond my scope of comprension how they can make a quilt like a log cabin or whatever, and end up having enough fabric. If you go near to the end without enough what would  you do? They must be amazing planners with mathematical minds.

Second, the thought of writing about the origin of storytelling seemed intriguing - I am writing about it now for another project. We assume that humans could tell stories when, based on cranial volume, they had evolved a brain that was  big  and complex enough to do things like store vast amounts of information and had evolved other biological traits, like the hyoid bone, which would make made speech possible. What these probably mean is that we had language and there is no way to know for sure that stories were being told. It seems clear to me that the earliest evidence is found in cave art, which clearly seems to tell stories. Maybe someday. 

Third, I thought a bit about braces - straightening teeth. What is that communicating - affluence? meeting our own idea of what looks good? In many countries they are not as interesting in that expense and process. 

Fourth, though it doesn't seem like such a good idea in the light of day, i thought if might be interesting to write about recipes.  I was reading some messages about recipes for cooking game.  I thought of  

Recipes for Cooking Bambi and his Friends

Cooking Curious George with Carrots and Kale

Roasting Rudolph over an Open Fire, or 

Cooking with Jiminy Cricket 

Cooking Turtle in a Taurine: what to do with the turtle or won the race and collapsed from exhaustion. 

Or (because we now know trees communicate) Killing your tree's best friend: how to heal a broken heart.

Enough of this tomfoolery - hum, what word did we use for goofy girls?