Description of the cultural practice of Storyknifing among Yup’ik Eskimo girls
The Yup’ik Eskimo girls had a culture of telling their stories at the river bank while using some smooth mud palettes which had been carefully prepared. This spot was the usual spot for telling their stories and had been used by several generations in the past for telling of stories. The Eskimo girls sat quietly at the river bank where the story telling is to take place. (DeMarrais, Nelson & Baker , 1992 p120) It was the role of the women to make cloths so as to fit their husbands and their children. The women also had to do all the cooking and gathering of non-game foods. Game foods were obtained by the husband. Once the husband arrived home with game food, it was the responsibility of the women to skin the animal and do all the necessary preparations of the skin to be used for making cloths.
Semi-nomadic cultural practices: the Eskimos also exercised a semi-nomadic culture. The knives that they were using in telling the stories were symbolic of their nomadic culture. The traditional homes that are being discussed depict their nomadic culture. The themes on the story about the economic activities that were being carried out in the story also showed that their culture was nomadic in nature.
Story knifing was the idea of the girls only. Their male counterparts did nit attend the story telling ssessions. However, small boys were also allowed in the place if their elder sisters were present so as to take care of them. The story knifing also distinguishes the roles of both men and women. It shows that in the Eskimo’s culture, women are meant to be separated from men, there has to be a clear cut between their activities andareas of interest.
Use of ethnographic methods for data collection
The narrators of the story used ethnographic methods for data collection purposes. The methods that were used include:
i. Data collection using questionnaires and interviews: this was done between 1986 and 1987. This was a period when Bennett deMarrais lived in the Kuskokwim area and was working directly with the Yup’ik women attending the University of Alaska. This study made her travel to too many Yup’ik villages. She engaged many women in oral interviews about the use of story knifing in those villages. The interaction with the locals helped the researchers to establish the areas where story telling was still being used by the young girls and areas where story knifing existed initially but was no longer being used. This type of data collection was basically participant observation and use of ethnographic interviewing. An extensive amount of data was collected during this time in form of field notes, informal interviews with children and adults, use of videotapes, photographs and audio media.
ii. Another method used by the researchers was the use of video tapes. They set time to discus with each other the materials they had collected but were now in form of video tapes and other media devices. The process of collecting information was done through the use of video tapes. However the use of video tapes was limited so as not to intrude extensively on the lives of the participants.
The present-day storyknifing continues teaching the young girls about the village’s kinship patterns. In the Eskimo culture, sense of family is very strong in the villages. In the traditional stories told by the girls, the men were charged with the responsibility of hunting and fishing while women were involved in food prepapration and child rearing. Oral tradition is also being continued and practised in the activity of story telling. The girls retell some of the traditionsl folktales while they also create some stories on their own.
Forms of cultural knowledge and forms of cultural skills developed through participation in this activity
The participants in this activity developed a lot of cultural knowledge in the process. They story telling was meant to train the young girls on some aspects of daily life. The stories were meant to have some moral lessons that were intended to be passed down to generations. The storytelling was then used as a means of bringing knowledge to the young population. The young girls who were being told the stories had an opportunity to learn about their responsibilities in the village. The young girls learnt how to perform gathering, cooking and skinning of the animals once their husbands were from hunting.
How the practice has undergone cultural change
The process of story telling has undergone a series of changes in the recent past. Traditionally the girls had to gather at the river banks at night so as to tell their stories. However, with the advent of new technology the stories are no longer told in the traditional ways using the storyknifing techniques. There are modern methods like the use of videotapes, audio devices and other modern means to portray their stories to the young ones. The stories being told are no longer limited to the traditional values which must be followed. They include modern values which must be held by both the young and the old women. It has also been improved to include young boys who can have their morals/values changed and become more responsible people of the society.
Explain why race as a biological concept is fiction and how the concept of race has been socially constructed throughout history.
The concept of race as a biological concept is fiction since race was introduced by the colonialists so as to identify different groups of people across the globe. There was no any form of internal connection/biological connection that could verify the concept of race as a biological process. There is usually a lot of overlapping genes and their physical expressions. This has not been brought about due to the similarity in races but because of interbreeding. The physical traits are usually inherited independently of one another. According to the scholars in the United States of America, race was understood to be invented by the colonialists who assigned different races to different parts of the globe. The physical resemblance of humans is believed to be having very little information about a person’s internal character or state. People were categorized as either blacks, whites, Indians and Asians. These classifications were based merely on physical appearance of different groups of people and not any biological classification. The racial identification has got no meaning, except the social ones which are laid on them. A person may be considered to be from one race simply by judging the color of the skin. The groups that initially introduced the concept of race, associated some races with poverty and thought that they could manage on their own.
Explain how the social construction of race and dominant racial ideology has come to bear on the perceived athletic and movement abilities of various individuals and groups
Race is merely a social idea. It has got nothing to do with any biological connection between two categories of people. Race was first introduced in the 18th century by the colonialists. They categorized people from different parts of the world into different racial groups. Africans got the worst identification as they have dark skins and had a very big number of illiterate people. People from different parts of the globe have different movement abilities which have impacted differently on the way the way they use their talents. The physical location and the geographical terrain contribute greatly towards people’s adaptations on how they move or adapted to athletic activities. African for instance are known to be good performers of long races while the Americans and other North American citizens are known to be very good at short races. Ethiopia and Rift-Valley province (Kenya) are known to produce the best marathoners in the world. This is because of the rugged and irregular land surfaces in the places where they practice. The environment trains them to become good runners which has helped them to perform better in Sports. The performance of the athletics from the same place is known to be similar. This is not because they inherited any gene from their parents but it is usually because of the training they get from both the environment and their colleagues. The blacks are usually black in complexion since they are found in tropical regions. This is due to the temperature in those places and not because of any kind of gene being passed downwards to the generations. Their black complexion on their skin is melanin which is meant to help them overcome the scorching effect of the sun.
References
DeMarrais, K. B. , Nelson, P.A., & Baker J.H. (1992) Meaning in Mud: Yup’ik Eskimo Girls at
Play
American Anthropological Association. (May,17, 19980Statement on Race
