Anthropology Commons^™

Tairora - From The Greenwood Encyclopedia Of World Folklore And Folklife, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Encyclopedia entry regarding the geography, history, and culture of Tairora located in the Kainantu District of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papau New Guinea.

Folktales From Habi'ina, Katnantu District, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

The people of Habi'ina village live on the northern slopes of Mount Piora in the Dogara Census Division of the Kainantu District, Eastern Highlands Province. Like other Papua New Guineans, they possess a rich oral literature and tell each other stories for a wide variety of reasons. All stories are called huri, but several different types can be distinguished.

'Pigs Of The Forest' And Other Unwritten Papers, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Hays recounts his ethnographic observances while studying the peoples of the Papua New Guinea Highlands during a feast. During the feast, Hays plays the dutiful observer and note taker waiting off to one side. He notes that he and his wife, were the first "red people" both the children and adults have ever seen on a daily basis and finds himself the object of interest and stares. The children were excited whenever they received attention from he and his wife which Hays always found compelling. One of the children that was there that day was a young boy who Hays …

Kuku-"God Of The Motuites", Terence Hays

Terence Hays

When European colonists arrived in Papua New Guinea, tobacco and the custom of smoking already were widespread but not universal. The newcomers quickly filled this void by introducing trade tobacco, which nearly everywhere was rapidly adopted. A "passion" for smoking was especially evident among those to whom tobacco was previously unknown or very new. The chemical properties of nicotine combined with an absence of cultural rules regarding its use to create a new "god."

The Seven Spices: Pumpkins, Puritans, And Pathogens In Colonial New England, Michael Sharbaugh

Michael D Sharbaugh

Water sources in the United States' New England region are laden with arsenic. Particularly during North America's colonial period--prior to modern filtration processes--arsenic would make it into the colonists' drinking water. In this article, which evokes the biocultural evolution paradigm, it is argued that colonists offset health risks from the contaminant (arsenic poisoning) by ingesting copious amounts of seven spices--cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, vanilla, and ginger. The inclusion of these spices in fall and winter recipes that hail from New England would therefore explain why many Americans associate them not only with the region, but with Thanksgiving and Christmas, …

Classifications In Their Social Context / Book Review, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Since Durkheim and Mauss, the study of folk classification has developed along two main lines: the predominantly British and French "soocial constructionist" tradition, and the largely American "ethnoscience" approach, to use Roy Ellen's designations (p. 4). Ellen is referring to the continuing contrast in the anthropological literature between analyses of folk classification systems which view them as primarily reflecting structural, sociological, cosmological, or symbolic concerns, and those which concentrate on the more mundane orderings of nature which employ perceptual (usually morphological) criteria.

Vampire Island, Anastasia Tsaliki

Anastasia Tsaliki

Participation in this documentary directed by Julian Thomas and produced by Electric Sky for History Channel International.

"The legend of blood sucking vampires has captured peoples’ imagination for generations. Mysterious tales of the undead rising from their coffins to terrorise the living and drain their blood are the stuff of horror movies and novels. But a crack team of archaeologists and forensic scientists have uncovered hard evidence for the existence of the legend – a legend that continues to haunt communities in the present day…"