Javier Sandoval Guzman

EDS 111: Social Anthropology

Article Summary: Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New Guinea People - Roy A. Rappaport.

The author uses scientific evidence from two fields, ecology and anthropology (or other anthropocentric fields). He begins with general definitions of religious behavior and their corresponding social units, distinguishing characteristics like place, size of the group and material exchange.

As religious behavior, the author describes what is considered to be a ritual and he presents the dominant definition of it. What is important of this definition is that it considers that ritual produce no practical results in the external world. It also states that some of its functions are: to dispel anxieties, to give confidence and to keep discipline among a group. In contrast, the case discussed by the author shows that the effects over the external and material world are many, including effects inside and outside the community, like the influence on the frequency of fighting and their organization according to the moment they are living. The rituals of the Tsembaga also define rules of land redistribution, population redistribution and war codes.

The author describes the Tsembaga, including their history, political structure, physiology, feeding habits and he introduces the view of the Tsembaga as part of an ecosystem. Starting from here he states how Tsembaga’s rituals interact or influence their ecosystem and how this ecosystem could be influencing, at the same time, the existence of these rituals. The rituals have effects like maintaining the biotic communities, redistribute land and food, and regulate the frequency of fights. He asserts that is convenient to regard the Tsembaga as a population in the ecological sense, being just one more of the components of an ecosystem, having a trophic exchange within their territory, and thus giving them non-protagonist role among the biota. This shows his cultural-ecological approach.

The article also gets into some discussions that can open other topics, when he mentions scientific data relating the stress in humans as a motive to eat meat. Up to certain point, the author gets deeply into scientific terms, like the nitrogen in human organisms and the influence of its level according to the protein diet humans have. In this way, the article could also suggest ideas for further discussions, like the consumption of meat (excessively or not) and its relation with stressed lifestyles in contemporary or civilized societies.

During the article, the author includes direct testimony of members of the Tsembaga, showing that during his research he established direct contact with them. The testimonies of the Tsembaga play an important role on the author's analysis. In this way it can be deduced that the author uses both emic and etic approaches.

Moreover, the author argues that the use of the concept ecosystem could be limiting, if we consider that an ecosystem studies interspecific exchanges exchange in a limited area. But the case of the Tsembaga is actually an intraspecific exchange in a broader territory. However, the author adds that they would present the same characteristics than

other animal aggregates which live in broader regions. He describes the Tsembaga as an aggregate which is part of what is called population by geneticists, being “ephemeral” while the whole specie (humans) would survive for longer periods of time.

The author describes the almost herbivorous diet of the Tsembaga people in order to emphasize the exceptionalness of the activities carried in their rituals and to explain the need (or the result) of a double approach in the study of this people. An ecological approach would explain that they eat meat because of biological reasons (high levels of stress imply high demand of proteins by the organism) and the cultural approach would consider the spiritual reasons that force them to perform rituals. The author provides evidence stating that the nutrition level of the Tsembaga is good, despite their normal herbivorous diet. They are above the international standards. But the author argues that these international standards don’t include stress levels on their analyses.

Another important analysis made by the author considers the interaction of pig herds and the Tsembaga people. The size of the pig herd fluctuates throughout cycles (between rituals). The quantity of pigs influences their food production, their cultivating and sanitary aspects, their human relations, and their allocation on territories (considering cases of people avoiding contact with pigs of other gardens). In this analysis, the author includes again the cultural-ecological approach, because the influence and interaction between the humans and pigs include ecological and cultural aspects. The influence between pigs and the Tsembaga is also noticed when examining the carrying capacity of pigs. According to the author, pig herds of the Tsembaga never reach their carrying capacity as it could happen with a population of pigs without human contact, because the quantity of pigs is dependent upon the population density of people and pigs, becoming intolerable for humans before reaching this capacity.

The article states that the behavior of the Tsembaga in reference to their “cognized environment” seems appropriate for their subsistence, resulting in a coincidence of their spiritual and their biological needs.

The author adds another example of cultural-ecological approach by describing the role of the ingestion of high quantities of salt before fighting. This habit is part of a ritual and, at the same time, a biological method of limiting the time spent on battle.

In conclusion the article describes the behavior of these people in analogy to the one detected in non-human animals, emphasizing again the idea of considering humans as just a part of a whole ecosystem.

Their rituals are therefore regulating two subsystems described at the beginning (the Tsembaga and their immediate non-human environment, and their exchange in a broader as part of a population of humans). The culmination of the ritual cycle (the kaiko) reverses changes in both subsystems maintaining a certain kind of equilibrium within each and between them. The author concludes that the ritual is a bind between the social unit and its environment.

References

1. Rappaport, R. A. (1967). "Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New Guinea People." Natural Science Models of Resource-Use: 11.