(LATE RE-) INTRODUCTION

   I've noticed lately that I missed some posts. And then, I realized that one could possibly not be taken into account! The introduction of myself.
   The first time I used this Blogger, I did not understand that the introduction was to be a post. So I will just do a copy/paste of what I have written for this introduction in the "About Me" section when I first opened this account.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caerulea3_crop.jpg 

   I'm Camille. I am exchange student from France. And I am studying English in my home university. So please be kind with my English and my perspective in Anthropology for these are not my specialties. The reason why I took this course? Because I am not given the opportunity to choose my courses back home. So being here is like being in a supermarket where you can pick "conventional" and "unconventional" classes right at the same place. I am hoping to make the most of my stay here by enjoying courses I would have never been allowed to attend or which do not exist in my home university.

FOOD & DEATH

http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E1%BA%ADp_tin:Po_Nagar-Thi%C3%AAn_Y_Na_Na.jpg 

   Well, as I said in a previous post, I have Vietnamese origins. I don't know much about the Vietnamese funerary customs as I've never attended one (but I did attend Vietnamese weddings). My parents' knowledge of them and the origins of these traditions are quite limited, even if they were born and grew up there. This is because practices have changed.


   When I compare the "modern" funerals to which they went lately, and the "traditional" funerals, there is a HUUUUGE gap! The funeral and mourning were to be divided into 5 CEREMONIES scattered on 2 to 3 YEARS! However, the more contemporary funerals became simpler as the number of ceremonies decreased according to the survivors. The rituals around this event reminded me of the ELFFs (Extremely Lavish Funeral Feasts). The more there are attendance, investment in time and money,and mourning, the more this proves how the dead were important.


CHANGE?
   Bryan Hayden and Suzanne Villeneuve rapidly explain this change in "A Century of Feasting Studies" by declaring that feasts have been banned for economic and religious reasons. This is true and not true. The Vietnamese government may have banned such practice. 
   However, based on what I could witness (in weddings) or hear or read, there are still those big gatherings and meals. 
   On the one hand, Tran Thi Hao seems to suggest that the 5 ceremonies are still practiced in some regions, some cities or some families. So this will also depend on space and one's free will.
   On the other hand, the notion of kinship is broader in the Vietnamese culture compared to the Western culture. How many "fake" uncles and aunts do I have? Those supposedly uncles or aunts are people my parents consider as "bosom" brothers and sisters. And I do call them "uncle" and "aunt". This notion is extendable to their children as my "cousins" or their parents as my "grandparents". This is to say how the sense of community/kinship goes far beyond biological bonds, to which I did not mention the friends and other acquaintances. So you can now imagine how many people can attend a funeral. 
   Plus, these are the kind of ceremonies you would never let your guests starve, because you don't want to bring dishonor either on your family nor on the dead.
   Besides, I remember my mother often putting food in front of the home altar: for a common day, the anniversary of someone's death or the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. So the link between the living and the dead is still maintained regularly and on the long term.


FLAWS OF HAYDEN'S APPROACH
   If Hayden mainly focus on the sociopolitical and economic aspects and benefits and on food as being limited to feasts in both  "A Century of Feasting Studies" and "Funerals as Feasts : Why Are They So Important", I may contradict him with other reasons. His arguments are not comprehensive enough about the motivations around feasting and especially FOOD.
   To begin, the first offering takes place when some grains of rice and coins are put in the deads' mouth. The latter will allow them to feed themselves during their trip from the world of the living to the world of the dead, and to pay boatman who will bring them to this other "new" world.
   The Vietnamese believe in the ancestors' cult. I mentioned it beforehand with the altar in the house and the food offered to the ancestors as part of religious and spiritual beliefs that the dead are still among us. We try to live in harmony with them, partly because  we fear that they come back to our world and/or threaten us. 
   But this is also for affectionate and traditional reasons. We try to take care of them; we show that we still respect them despite their "material" absence; and we feed them as we will repeatedly make offerings, and not only on special occasions. 
   Moreover, passing through all of these offerings have a psychological aspect as they help the living ones to mourn and process the idea of death.
   However, I admit that the living ones may ask for benefits such as the protection from the ancestors against dangers from other living persons or spirits. And I would not deny there is some showing off of the dead's importance (socially, politically, economically, emotionally and I may have forgotten some others) which is supposed to be proportionate to the grandeur of the ceremony(ies).
   Having such big gatherings are also an occasion to reinforce the bonds between people. And I insist! These are not only for social, political or economic aims. What about the emotional connexion? Their presence may be a proof of support, solidarity and respect for both the survivors and the dead during this painful time. 
   Heonik Kwon gives another reason why food is used in Vietnamese practice. The author says that a living person may offer food to a dead "as an act of charity". Indeed, I heard a few months ago why my mother would sometimes put food and burn incense in  the garden. Apparently, it was to take care of the orphan spirits who had no one to commemorate their memory. So all acts related to food and death are not interested.


CONCLUSION
   Thus, food and death cannot be limited to lavish feasts organized for sociopolitical and economic advantages. Even if my knowledge is restricted to my relatives' experience and the few sources I've read, I hope to bring a broader approach about the Vietnamese funerary practices, the relationship between the living and the dead, and the  value of food in those rituals.

• Deuzeune, C. E. 2003. La mort et ses rites pour tous. Copenhague : le plein des sens ed.

Available at : <http://books.google.fr/books?id=wLgE7HBhL2IC&pg=PA262&dq=vietnam+fun%C3%A9railles+or+bouche&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=bEtvT4PPHubdiAKz3dDRBQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=vietnam%20fun%C3%A9railles%20or%20bouche&f=false> [Accessed 25 March 2012]

• Hayden, B., and Villeneuve, S. 2011. A Century of Feasting Studies. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, pp.433-449.
• Hoang, D.-H. T. 2000. Death Rituals in Vietnamese Society. EthnoMed . [online]

Available at : <http://ethnomed.org/clinical/end-of-life/death-in-viet> [Accessed 25 March 2012]

• Kwon, H. 2007. "The dollarization of Vietnamese ghost money". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13(1), pp.73-90.
• Nguyen, H. T. 1983. La vie quotidienne dans le Viet-Nam d'autrefois. Bruxelles, Belgique, Thanh-Long. 

Available at : <http://books.google.ca/books?id=5g8-AAAAMAAJ&q=funeraille+vietnam+riz+bouche&dq=funeraille+vietnam+riz+bouche&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IzxvT8b3FOKTiQK1mfyxBQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBg> [Accessed 25 March 2012]  

• Nguyen, J. H. L. 1981. La tradition religieuse, spirituelle et sociale au Vietnam : sa confrontation avec le christianisme. Paris, Beauchesne.

Available at : <http://books.google.fr/books?id=I2r42gjsPQYC&pg=PA86&dq=vietnam+fun%C3%A9railles+or+bouche&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=k0xvT9OUI6n9iQKhu_ySBQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=vietnam%20fun%C3%A9railles%20or%20bouche&f=false> [Accessed 25 March 2012]  

• Tran, T. H. 2007. Une introduction a la connaissance du Vietnam. Paris, Harmattan.

Available at : <http://books.google.ca/books?id=aAzc1oMy5FsC&pg=RA4-PA91&dq=funerailles+vietnam&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xy1vT6yGKamqiQLz3vS7BQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=funerailles%20vietnam&f=false> [Accessed 25 March 2012]  

KINSHIP & DEATH

Pilloud, M. A. and Spencer Larsen, C., 2011. "Official" and "Practical" Kin : Inferring Social and Community Structure From Dental Phenotype at Neolithic Catalhoyuk, Turkey. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 145(4), pp.519-530.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CatalHoyukSouthArea.JPG 

   I chose this article because as Howell and Kintigh's article, it was trying to determine kinship based on dental traits and space (especially houses). 

   The study was about the site of Catalhoyuk, Turkey, in Neolithic time that's to say 7400-5600 cal BC. 

   The assumption was that people buried in the same house and cluster of houses should be blood related.

   The authors worked with archaeological, biological and statistical data.

   There are lots of confusing and complicated tables and dendrograms which highlight what we already said in class. This is not because people are buried within the same space or area that they are biologically related (or hopefully not), like a father and a mother. 

   Both Pilloud and Spencer Larsen put forward the advantages of their research as being more varied BUT limited to a small space and a small sample compared to the study of their predecessor, Molleson. We may also point at their unclear definition of groups of houses that they eventually recognize as being shaky.

   If Howell and Kintigh focused on nonmetric data AND the frequency of rare dental traits, this is not the case of this article. Instead, my article displays both metrical and nonmetrical data.

   In the end, the purpose of this article is not to demonstrate biological kinship. But on the contrary, to contradict this argument by extending the definition of kinship and the burials of this individuals who are not only linked by blood, but also by "social and cultural reasons".

   I must say that this article was very long and strenuous. Because just by reading the introduction, the conclusion of this article was far from being a surprise. 

GAY CAVEMAN

     Find some information on gay caveman. Here is the article I've found:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html


      I tried to read some others in English and even in French. They mostly say the same thing :
     _male remains
     _dating back to 2900-2500 BC (Copper Age)
     _location : Prague, Czech Republic
     _displayed in a position and with objects under female standards of that time period.
     In other words, the man burried as if he was a woman.


     Some elements make me SERIOUSLY doubt the plausibility of a gay caveman :
     1) Why "caveman" when it dates back to the Copper Age? Didn't they come out of their caves already???
     2) Haha. Is it me, or Kamila Remisova Vesinova is jumping a little too fast to conclusions when she declares 
"Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual"?
     How could one declare one's sexual orientations just by looking at a grave's content? Is there a method to identify it that I am not aware of?
     However, I can accept Katerina Semradova's statement that
"We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a 'transsexual' or 'third gender grave' in the Czech Republic" 
     3) Did they at least analyze the bones to make sure the remains were really those of a man?
     
     Semradova adds that
"archeologists had uncovered an earlier case dating from the Mesolithic period where a female warrior was buried as a man. Siberian shamans, or latter-day witch doctors, were also buried in this way but with richer funeral accessories to appropriate to their elevated position in society. But this later discovery was neither of those, leading us to believe the man was probably homosexual or transsexual" 
     So based on her statements, "he" cannot be an important figure like a shaman or a doctor. But what prevents us from assuming there might have been other important functions that we are unaware of? Maybe those functions were related to those goods. Perhaps he was a craftsman who made those kind of goods. 
     And if we have found a female warrior buried as a man in the Mesolithic period, we admit that there are exceptions where there is a reversal of "role". So what can prevent us from assuming that this presumably "man" was an exception too? What prevents us from thinking he had female functions like domestic chores for instance?


     This is impressive how such information was taken over from one website to another: newspapers, gay community forums, tabloids, etc. How weird it is that an article which dates back to almost 1 year did not pave the way to more articles giving more insights about this discovery! It sounds to me more like a tabloid news on which such star got married to that person, who is with who, who is again in rehab. That's flash news. It is ephemeral. It does not last. And it seems like it was meant to be sensational for that particular moment. Poor "caveman", may you rest in peace whether gay or not! 

Using Our Group's Rubric With Another Website

     For this exercise, I have chosen the website of Helgeland Museum in Norway. It is actually a collection of 17 museums scattered in the country. Those 17 museums are located in 16 different municipalities. Each one of them has a section where they introduce themselves; they also give historical and/or archaeological information about the local sites and/or artefacts, and/or the locals' "ancient" customs, habits, crafts or trades. So the contents and presentations will differ from one another.
     Here is the homepage of the website:
          http://helgelandmuseum.no/
     And here is the page which interest me:
          http://helgelandmuseum.no/archives/5220


     And here is our rubric:

     Basically, this webpage talks about 2 Viking graves at Herøy, Norway.


     The Introduction is a paragraph which explains in what circumstances the graves were found. It gives more context rather than arguments. Thus, we know that the graves were found in Spring 1983 on a construction yard, leading to its stop so as to allow archaelogical research.  The page gives no clear structure about this subject. I would say it is in-between the 'Fairly Competent' and 'Not Yet Competent'. 2/54


     The Quality of Writing is questionable, not on the writer's side but on mine. As I don't read Norwegian, I'd say that I trust him or her. But with a translator, it is fairly understandable and rightly organized. 12/54


     The Presentation is what I would criticize the most. The font size is really small. You need to scroll a lot as the webpage is presenting the graves in one page only. There is no colors. However, I appreciate the fact that the author made distinct parts by putting titles and by bolding them. I also appreciate the part in which he/she makes a clear listing of the contents and positions of the goods and skeletons, and the adding of pictures to illustrate the cases studied. It gives a break from the long (or seemingly long) reading of this unique page. 2/54


     The Quality of Evidence is also debatable. Firstly, the documents seem to be entirely in Norwegian. So trying to find them and trying to know if they are peer-reviewed is complicated. Moreover, if the website itself seems to be seriously led - especially since it is that of a museum -, I was surprised to see that some of the sources come from Wikipedia. Maybe I misunderstood it. But I found it weird that the name of one author in particular was followed by (Wik). However, because the documents seem to have been written in a Scandinavian language if not Norwegian, I would tend to believe that the authors have more various and up-to-date sources. Indeed, some of them are researchers at universities and/or have written for archaeological reviews. 8/54


     The Quality of Analysis seems to be good even if at times, it sounds more like a listing of facts. The analysis comes way after in what seems to be the conclusion part. However, I admit that I don't know how to be critical as I am not experienced in that field. I fear that I might be listing a lot myself for our project. 12/54


     So the total would be : 34/54 = 66.67%


     Wow! I am truly surprised. Maybe I marked too strictly. I think that the website may be interesting for this page only. I tried to find other articles about Viking graves, but this seems to be the only one available.

Analysis of a Website Using a Created Rubric

Analysis Of A Website Using A Created Rubric

Ok, this is the same problem here as the previous post. I will post something as soon as I can. Thank you for your understanding.

GAY CAVEMEN

Sorry if this post is short. I was sick last week and I tried to catch up some other assignments for other classes. As soon as I can, I will post something about that subject.