Ojibwa Taxonomy and Percept Ambiguity

Black, Mary B.

doi:10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00070

Cited by 31 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…4 For these 'social relations,' the 'fundamental differentiation of primary concern to the self is how other selves rank in order of power' (Hallowell, 1955, p. 181). Human beings do not differ from other-than-human persons 'in kind, but in power' (Hallowell, 1958, p. 76) with other-than-human persons occupying the 'top rank in the power hierarchy of animate being' (Hallowell, 1958, p. 76;1960, p. 377; see also Black, 1977aBlack, , 1977b). An earmark of power is metamorphosis, the ability to change external form.…”

Section: Hallowell On the Self In Its Behavioral Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Hallowell, 1955, p. 181;italics in original) In a behavioral milieu in which overt expressions of aggression are rare (Hallowell, 1955, p. 136), covert aggression by others is consistent with Hallowell's description of a general cognitive orientation towards the perceived world which is open to the possibility that appearances may deceive (1958; 1960, pp. 377-378; see also Black, 1977b):…”

Section: Hallowell On the Self In Its Behavioral Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Narrating Troubling Experiences

Garro¹

2003

transcult psychiatry

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This article presents a process-oriented perspective that relates to the broad question of how self-related experience comes to be endowed with meaning. The approach highlights the implications of 'living by' particular culturally based understandings in specific contexts and centers on how jointly cultural, social, and cognitive processes offer potentialities for orienting the experiential self without determining self-related experiences. This process-oriented perspective revolves around the interplay between the range of historically contingent cultural resources available for endowing experience with meaning and the socially and structurally grounded processes through which individuals learn about, orient towards and traffic in interpretive plausibilities -a socially situated experientially based process. This perspective is informed by, and provides an entree for exploring, variability within a cultural setting. The narrative accounts examined are from individuals who grew up speaking either Ojibwa or Cree (both Algonkian languages) in First Nations communities in Manitoba, Canada. Key words cross-cultural views of the self • cultural processes • illness narratives • intracultural variation • self-related experienceMuch of my work revolves around how troubling experiences with the potential to be seen as indicating the presence of an illness in need of some form of care or treatment, enter into and are dealt with in everyday life. In this article, with reference to accounts of troubling experiences told from the perspective of the sufferer, I present a process-oriented perspective that

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Section: Hallowell On the Self In Its Behavioral Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hallowell On the Self In Its Behavioral Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrating Troubling Experiences

Garro¹

2003

transcult psychiatry

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“…As the continuities between Sakha shamanic practice and that of the wider world imply, twentieth-century analyses of another northern, animist society, the Ojibwa people of south-central Canada, provide accounts of being, person and knowledge that are helpful in characterising the elements of pre-Soviet Sakha life and experience. Mary Black, examining A. Irving Hallowell's account of Ojibwa communities living in the 1920s and 1930s, noted that Ojibwa perception was fundamentally 'antitaxonomic;' i.e., objects were apprehended as inherently unstable and inconsistent, and therefore could never be classified according to a fixed set of features (Hallowell, 1955(Hallowell, , 1960Black, 1977, 101-104, in Ingold, 2000. The real nature of objects and events would come to light over long periods of time, or in the course of further events, just…”

Section: Systems and Persons In Sakha Shamanism And Soviet-era Governmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Post-Colonial Ecology of Siberian Shamanic Revivalism

Peers

Kolodeznikova

2015

Worldviews

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The Sakha national revival in Sakha (Yakutia), Siberia, aims to recover dying elements of Sakha culture, in order to preserve the Sakha people’s distinctive identity. And yet this revival is itself imbued with assumptions rooted in the European cultures that initiated modernist colonisation. Contemporary Sakha shamanism reflects the tensions within the nationalist revival, in the contrasting tendencies for activists, firstly, to recover what is seen as the old, genuine shamanic practice—and, secondly, to assimilate foreign spiritual techniques. But when these two strands of endeavour are examined with reference to the perceptions of person and environment that formed the basis of pre-Soviet Sakha life, it becomes apparent that they complement each other. Both facilitate the intersection of contrasting knots of relationship, predicated on differing ontologies. Sakha people currently live and work within institutions that have their roots in European modernism. However, older Sakha relationships with a live natural environment have not entirely disappeared. The authors suggest that the persistent presence of an environment imbued with spiritual agency differentiates the Sakha shamanic revival from the European traditions that shape its central motivations. This case reveals the importance of attending to place and environment, in the discussion of post-colonialist identity politics.

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“…While such individuals may on some occasions specifically be asked for herbal remedies, they are more often consulted because of their 'gift' for communicating with those whom Hallowell (1955Hallowell ( , 1960 referred to as 'other-than-human persons'. Within the Anishinaabe behavioral environment, human beings, both living and dead, and otherthan-human persons, are differentiated on the basis of 'power', with other-than-human persons occupying the 'top rank in the power hierarchy of animate being' (Hallowell, 1960: 377; see also Black, 1977aBlack, , 1977b. By bestowing a variety of 'gifts', 'blessings', 'knowledge', 'medicine', or 'powers' on human beings, other-than-human persons enable humans to accomplish things that would not otherwise be possible.…”

Section: Youngmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hallowell's challenge

Garro

2002

Anthropological Theory

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A. Irving Hallowell challenged those involved in cross-cultural research to establish the categories used for making comparisons through an examination of how experience is endowed with meaning within the context of culturally constituted behavioral environments. Here, published comparative frameworks for explanations of illness are considered in light of findings from research in two culturally distinctive settings. Adopting Hallowell's behavior-centered orientation, I suggest that following actual cases in a systematic manner is critical to understanding the range of explanatory frameworks in a cultural setting, as well as the relative importance of available explanatory frameworks as cultural resources when dealing with illness. Taking Hallowell's challenge seriously requires that anthropologists maintain an openness to change in the categorical abstractions used to reflect epistemological and ontological realities in diverse environments.

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Ojibwa Taxonomy and Percept Ambiguity

Cited by 31 publications

References 7 publications

Narrating Troubling Experiences

Narrating Troubling Experiences

The Post-Colonial Ecology of Siberian Shamanic Revivalism

Hallowell's challenge

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