Guinea Pigs, Protein, and Ritual
1979; University of Pittsburgh; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3773376
ISSN2160-3510
Autores Tópico(s)Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
ResumoIncreasingly, anthropologists have become aware of the importance of understanding relationships between nutrition and diet, on the one hand, and human behavior and culture, on the other. A classic monograph on this topic is Holmberg's (I950) analysis of the effects of food deprivation on the cultural and psychological development of the Siriono Indians of Bolivia. His theoretical conclusions, based on the observation of a single case, have not been systematically tested and many of them can be disputed. Nonetheless, his research stands as an early attempt to grapple with problems on the interface between nutrition and culture, albeit in broad and nonphysiological terms. Numerous reports dealing with behavioral and cultural consequences of specific dietary requirements and deficiencies have been published by anthropologists, many of them relating ritual behavior and ceremonial activities to subsistence needs. Suttles (I960, I962, I968), Vayda (I96I), and Piddocke (I969), for example, argue that the potlatch functioned to redistribute necessary foodstuffs in a region where local climatic Yariations could lead to temporary deficits for some groups. This explanation has been challenged by some scholars on empirical (Drucker and Heizer I967; Rosman and Rubel I97I) as well as logical (Orans I975) grounds. However, a recent investigation has provtded strong, additional support for the hypothesis. Donald and Mitchell (I975: 343344) showed that important territorial and annual variations in the number of salmon available in the Southern Kwakiutl area, and that there are very strong associations between one aspect of the Kwakiutl potlatch (a local group's ranked position in the system) and the resource base (median salmon runs) in a local group's territory. Thus, the potlatch may have helped to prevent dietary deprivations. In another well-known study, Rappaport (I967, I968) argues that rituals among the Tsembaga, a New Guinea people, have important functions, including the regulation of the pig population and the prevention of environmental degradation. More signiEcantly, Tsembaga rituals serve to distribute local surpluses of pork throughout a region and assure that people obtain high quality protein when they experiencing various forms of stress. In this paper we describe anoeher case in which protein needs and ritual cycles appear to be linked, though not precisely in the same manner as among the Tsembaga. The original purpose behind the research reported below was fundamentally
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