Kirianu


 * 1) GROUP A

You live on a small island surrounded by ocean. In the middle of the island is an active volcano which almost continuously produces light ash and sometimes small lava flows. There are no rivers. The climate is mild because of warm ocean currents that come from the south and because of the geothermal heat. There are coral reefs to the south. Temperatures are 25-30C year-round.

Name your homeland: Kirianu Name your people(s): Kiriani Name the prominent geographic features of your homeland: Volcano and a tropical forest in the south Populate your homeland. There are two tribes: the bush tribe(The Kiri) and the shore tribe (The Ani [A-nee]) What biota exist in your homeland? What natural resources are available: Plenty of tropical fruit and geothermal energy from the volcano What natural resources are needed: Water


 * SUBSISTENCE**

1. What pattern(s) of subsistence will your culture follow?

foraging pastoralism horticulture  2. What resources does your territory have to support your subsistence pattern(s)? To support these subsistence patterns we have plenty of tropical fruit; bananas (musa), coconut trees (cocos nucifera), breadfruit (artocarpus altilis), and screw pine (pandanus tectorius). We also have boars, chickens, dogs, and domesticated rats. For horticulture we have two types of yams (discorea esculenta and discorea alata), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), “true” taro (colocasia esculenta), and arrowroot (tacca leontopetaloides).

3. How do the climate and seasons in your territory affect your subsistence pattern(s)? The weather doesn’t really affect the subsistence patterns, expect for the volcano. 

4. How will your subsistence pattern(s) relate to your population size and location?

5. How will the labour involved in subsistence be distributed among your people? Women are involved with horticulture and foraging. Men are involved with fishing and hunting. Seniors mostly live off their children and they also feed the animals. Children are taught all the patterns of subsistence and when they are 18 and get married they do the gender-specific roles. 

6. What technology do your people use for subsistence purposes?

7. What impact does your subsistence have on the environment? We try to leave a very small impact on the environment with our subsistence. We replant trees every time we cut one down and the same goes for all plants. Swidden horticulture is used in bush tribes. There is no regulation for fishing because the tribes are small and fish reproduce quickly.

 8. How do your people clothe themselves? Our people clothe themselves with fairly small pieces of leather made out of boar skin and also out of hemp. The bush tribe has shoes made out of plant fibers, the shore tribes do not need shoes.

> hmmmm, i wonder if pig skin can be tanned and made into leather. never heard of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen some where...

9. What type of shelter(s) do your people live in? Our people live in shelters made out of wood and plant fibres (screw pine). Housing units are large communal housing (5 or 6 very close together).  10. Do your people have material goods? What kinds? Where do they come from?  Our people don’t have much material wealth except for tools, clothing, canoes, and household items made of coconut.  11. What is your people’s diet? How do they prepare food? What is a typical meal? A typical meal includes yams or bananas and some type of meat (usually boar, chicken, dog, bird, or rat). 12. Are there any celebrations centered on subsistence issues e.g. a harvest celebration? Are there special ceremonial or ritual foods? Rat’s tails and boar blood are specialties (thus the strangling of boars, not stabbing). There is a harvest celebration when harvesting the taro root and yams. There is also the Festival of the Flashy, Fresh, Fish Feast for Friends and Family when all the lagoons are full.

> when the lusi slaughter a pig and remove its organs, the blood pools in the cavity and coagulates into a thick slab of blood which is eaten.

Note: depending on your choice of subsistence pattern(s), you may have to do some reseearch to fully answer these questions. For example, if you chose ‘horticulture,’ you should know something about how to grow food and/or raise animals. If you chose ‘foraging,’ you should know something about wild foods. And so on.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">A typical household unit is not just the nuclear family, it is also the extended. Includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Non-kin can also co-habit. Housing units are large communal housing (5 or 6 very close together).

2. What are the roles of the members of the family in the subsistence system you've chosen?
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The roles for the members of the family include younger siblings can’t hunt or gather for older siblings because it was a sign of weakness. Women usually do the horticulture and foraging. Men are the hunters and fishermen. Seniors live off their kids if they have enough of them and also feed the animals. Children take part in the horticulture and foraging until they are 13, whereupon they to learn hunt and fish. At 18 teens get married and start doing gender-specified tasks.

> in foraging societies, kids who are quite young often hunt and fish. perhaps it's large game or specific types of hunting/fishing that is required of an older child e.g. the use of nets instead of spears?

3. Is your descent system unilineal?
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Patrilineal is emphasized on shore, matrilineal emphasized in bush, but still traced through both – both valued. Patriarchal society on shore but matriarchal in bush.


 * If so, how many lineages are there? How many families in each lineage?
 * If so, what are the corporate powers of the lineage?
 * If so, is each lineage associated with a particular skill, occupation, or trait?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">We have clans, each clan has a totem. Kin group or lineage gets too big to be managed or traced to an ancestor. Once group gets too big, they divide up into more clans. Ani tribes more sedimentary.


 * If so, what are the two moieties called?
 * If so, how does an individual inherit his/her moiety?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">. Bush tribes marry shore tribes – exogamy, therefore close ties and no fighting between tribes. Mixture of both exogamy and endogamy and by 18 will be married. Arranged marriages set up by the parents, but can be refused by the children if they have found a partner by the time they are 18. If the partner is in the same tribe then they can take it to the government and they will take into consideration the amount of inter-tribe marriages that have happened recently and decide from that.

> exogamous across tribes but the tribes have different descent systems. so how does that work?

No.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Arranged marriages set up by the parents, but can be refused by the children if they have found a partner by the time they are 18. If the partner is in the same tribe then they can take it to the government and they will take into consideration the amount of inter-tribe marriages that have happened recently and decide from that.

11. Does the marriage involve bride wealth or dowry or some other arrangement of gift-giving?
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Bride wealth is used in the bush and dowry on the shore, in relation to matriarchal and patriarchal societies.

12. Describe about the wedding ceremony/ritual/celebration.
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Weddings – Women get tattoos, men wear boar teeth around neck (he must strangle it before wedding ceremony). Ceremony – big feast where they eat the boar. Family of the newlyweds are given the blood of the boar that the new husband strangled. (Rituals – boys get tattoo of kinship/lineage at thirteen?)

13. Where do the married couple reside after they are married? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">When on shore will reside with man’s family. When in the bush will reside with woman’s family.

Economic System

1. Taking your subsistence into account, what resources are needed and how will they be allocated in your culture? e.g. land tenure, access to raw materials <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Resources: wildlife, forest, jungle. Trade system and redistribution. 2. What labour is involved in your subsistence? Who does what? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Men hunt, women forage, children do both until they reach their first initiation. Seniors are involved in pastoralism.

3. Are people compensated for their labour? If so, how? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Compensations are if you kill a boar (an any animal, but boars are the best), you get the best parts. Similar to the Lusi's redistribution: they give parts to whomever they want, most people get something. 4. What goods are produced in your culture? Is it through households or occupations? Small-scale handicrafts or large-scale industrialized products? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Small scale handicrafts: hemp baskets, axes with a stone heads, spears for hunting, fishing equip: fishing lures, nets from hemp. 5. What rituals or ceremonies are the basis for generalized reciprocity? balanced reciprocity? What gift giving is involved? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Children take part in the horticulture and foraging until they are 13, whereupon they to learn hunt and fish. At 18 teens get married and start doing gender-specified tasks. Weddings – Women get tattoos, men wear boar teeth around neck (he must strangle it before wedding ceremony). Ceremony – big feast <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Rituals –Boys become men when they kill their first animal. Their father will dip their fingers in the blood and touch their son on the head and shoulders with it. Then they drink the blood in celebration and the son gets tattoo of kinship/lineage – this animal is his “spirit guide.” When turn 18 the younger one not being able to hunt for the older one is disregarded. Girls – After their first period, they get facial scarification in patterns that can represent nature. There is a harvest celebration when harvesting the taro root and yams. There is also the Festival of the Flashy, Fresh, Fish Feast for Friends and Family when all the lagoons are full. Death – when a person dies, their next of kin, then their spouse, then a good friend will eat their heart, with the clan standing around them remembering the deceased and projecting positive thoughts into his Life Energy. After the heart is eaten, the deceased’s family will do an interpretive dance of his life with the person who ate the heart acting as the deceased. After this they throw the body into the volcano to symbolize the body is just a shell. 6. Is there trade within your culture? With another culture? What is the basis of the transaction? (i.e. barter? money? some other medium of exchange?) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Trade is within culture. Kiri trade ginger leaves, nuts, berries, and sago flour with the Ani for fish, seaweed, shells and weapons.

7. Is there any form of redistribution of goods and services? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Redistribution. Also, younger siblings can’t hunt for older siblings until 18. Everything is shared (who kills the animal gives it to whomever he wants, but must share it).

8. If you decide on a market-based economy, describe the allocation of labour, the means of production, the products, who are the consumers, etc. N/A 9. Does your group trade with another group? What is traded? How is trade incorporated into the economic system? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Trade is within culture, not with any other ones. Kiri trade ginger leaves, nuts, berries, and sago flour with the Ani for fish, seaweed, shells and weapons. <span style="font-family: Times,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">10. Is the distribution of wealth equitable in your culture or are there differences in social status, wealth, and prestige? How is wealth achieved? maintained? displayed? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Egalitarian, everything is equitable. Not communistic, but no one will go hungry.

POLITICAL SYSTEM

When considering these following questions, keep in mind the subsistence strategy/strategies and economic system you have developed so far. Population size is also a factor. Later, religion may also be a consideration.

1. What kind of political organization(s) will your culture have? Uncentralized tribes.

2. If your culture has a leader, how does a person acquire this status? What are his/her responsibilities to the community? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Bush (Kiri) Tribes – Whoever is most favoured is the leader – unspoken leader. Favour will drift between women easily. Beach (Ani) Tribes – Whoever is the best hunter is the leader. Right before fish celebration, men have to hunt and fish for 3 days. Whoever gets most game is the leader; whoever gets most fish is second in command. If they are a good leader they will be favoured by the Life Energy ie; very plentiful times, but if not then bad times and the Jalai could be taken out of power by the Yado. 3. If your culture has a centralized leader, what is his/her title? What social stratification is in place to support the political system? What bureaucracy and institutions are needed? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Kiri – no specific leader name. They lead the clan when moving around, choose where forage and keep track of when it`s time to slash-and-burn etc. Help settle disputes. Ani – Jalai. Must keep the force strong and nature happy – the Life Energy in favour so very plentiful. Help settle disputes.

4. How does a leader maintain influence/authority/power? Can the leader be replaced? If so, how? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Kiri – Natural leader, so no title and can lose influence and power very easily, simply by the people loosing favour or respect and transferring it to others. Ani – competition yearly before fish festival. People are very influential. If the times are not plentiful then “shaman” AKA the Yado may decide that the second in command is actually the more favoured one and that the Jalai must have cheated or somehow lost favour with the force. The second in command will become the Jalai. 5. How does your culture deal with conflict and disagreement among its people? (Consider how you answered this in the very first exercise we did). <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> The leaders have veto power to exile someone if it’s extremely bad and is given a tattoo to signify his crime so other clans will know. Murder is extremely rare and when it happens a blind eye is turned to it if it’s someone who is “meant to be dead” or that no one likes, then it is ignored. Otherwise, leader may exile person.

6. How does your culture make decisions that affect the whole community? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> When there is actually a big decision to be made (there are not usually) the clan comes together and the leader leads the discussion, but doesn’t force his decision or will on the people since he can always be overthrown.

7. How does your culture deal with inappropriate social behaviour and crime? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> The leaders have veto power to exile someone if it’s extremely bad and is given a tattoo to signify his crime so other clans will know. Murder is extremely rare and when it happens a shoulder is turned to it, if it’s someone who is “meant to be dead” or that no one likes it is ignored. Otherwise, leader may exile person. For smaller infractions, the leader decides. Usually it’s double the payment for the crime i.e.: if one steals a pig, then they must give two pigs back to the person they took it from.

8. What are typical negative social sanctions in your culture? Typical positive social sanctions? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> If you’ve fallen out of favour with the clan for a minor offense, the force has diminished in you, and so you are not allowed to take part in any decision making processes.

9. Is there internal strife within your culture? Describe how it occurs, why it occurs, and how it is resolved (if it is). <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> There is always conflict in a culture, ours are not complex enough to have very strong strives or anything too serious. With the little ones the leaders deal with it.

10. Is there external strife between your culture and another culture? Describe how/why it occurs. How is peace achieved/achievable? N/A


 * RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM**

1. Does your culture worship a deity or deities? No.

2. If your culture is monotheistic... No.

3. If your culture is polytheistic... No.

Do different gods have different responsibilities in the world? e.g. death, fertility, rain No.

4. Does your culture have ancestor veneration? Is it totemic? How does ancestral veneration work? No.

5. Does your culture believe in animism or animatism? How does it work? Yes, animatism.

6. Is there a belief in ghosts and demons? What role do they play? Can they be controlled or used? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">No ghosts per say, just the Life Energy living on the in the person who ate the deceased’s heart. Everyone is connected somehow to their ancestors since people eat the hearts of their dead kin. Death isn’t necessarily sad; it’s not like North American cultures.

7. What is the culture’s mythology?

<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">After people die, they live on in the person who eats their heart. The mythology is that the world has always been like this and will always be like this.

What moral lesson are taught?

8. How do people worship? <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">No formal worship, rituals are our form of worship (especially death rituals).

10. If there are religious specialists... <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">There is a shaman called the Yado who is the oldest person in the clan – many people get to become the Yado, so it’s a uniting force. They connect with the Life Energy because when the Yado dies, the next oldest person will eat their heart, not their next of kin. This way the Life Energy is carried on throughout the Yados therefore, they are the wisest and most respected people. Still egalitarian - same jobs as usual.

11. Is there a belief in magic used? How is it used for good or bad? How do people protect themselves from bad magic? No magic.

12. Are there rites of passage? If so, what rites are there? e.g. mortuary, marriage, birth Yes. See above.

13. Are there rites of intensification? If so, for what purposes? e.g. fertility, drought, epidemics No.

14. How are the rituals in 12 & 13 performed? e.g what offerings, sacrifices, symbols, actions, language, costumes, masks, performances, etc. are involved? By whom? See above.

15. Have there been changes in belief? Conflicts? Have these resulted in cults or movements? How have these been handled by the social structure? No.

GENDER QUESTIONS

1. How is gender identity reflected in differernces in clothing, behaviour, speech, etc.?

2. What are the gender roles of men and women, boys and girls in the domestic sphere and in subsistence labour?

3. What gender roles are apparent in economic activities, political organization, and religion?

4. What gender status differences are there between men and women?

5. What control do women have over divorcing their husbands?