The Australian Aborigines: A Book Notice

Elkin, A. P.

doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1964.tb00842.x

Cited by 39 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Stories make you replace yourself." Although told at higher levels of abstraction than Ju/'hoansi night narratives, both genres of "storying" in firelit hours keep cultural institutions alive, explicate relations between people, create imaginary communities beyond the village, and trace networks for great distances (83)(84)(85)(86)(87).…”

Section: Isak Dinesen Shadows On the Grassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Wiessner

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

287

181

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Much attention has been focused on control of fire in human evolution and the impact of cooking on anatomy, social, and residential arrangements. However, little is known about what transpired when firelight extended the day, creating effective time for social activities that did not conflict with productive time for subsistence activities. Comparison of 174 day and nighttime conversations among the Ju/'hoan (!Kung) Bushmen of southern Africa, supplemented by 68 translated texts, suggests that day talk centers on economic matters and gossip to regulate social relations. Night activities steer away from tensions of the day to singing, dancing, religious ceremonies, and enthralling stories, often about known people. Such stories describe the workings of entire institutions in a small-scale society with little formal teaching. Night talk plays an important role in evoking higher orders of theory of mind via the imagination, conveying attributes of people in broad networks (virtual communities), and transmitting the "big picture" of cultural institutions that generate regularity of behavior, cooperation, and trust at the regional level. Findings from the Ju/'hoan are compared with other hunter-gatherer societies and related to the widespread human use of firelight for intimate conversation and our appetite for evening stories. The question is raised as to what happens when economically unproductive firelit time is turned to productive time by artificial lighting.Our old people long ago had a government, and it was an ember from the fire where we last lived which we used to light the fire at the new place we were going. . . Di//xao = Oma, 1998 (1) C ontrol of fire had an enormous impact on the life of our hominin ancestors. As Wrangham and Carmody have so cogently argued, the use of fire for cooking greatly increased the digestibility of food and effective provisioning of young, allowing for shorter birth intervals (2-4). Fire altered anatomy, particularly brain size and gut volume, and radically reduced chewing time. Fire protected early humans from predators and provided a new context for social interaction when food was brought to a central site for cooking. Modified landscapes after burning (5) and higher caloric returns from cooked foods lowered the costs of foraged foods, and thus the costs of sharing. Finally, artificial firelight altered circadian rhythms and extended the day (6), freeing time for social interaction that did not conflict with time for subsistence work.Current archaeological evidence indicates that our ancestors had sporadic control of fire by 1 million y ago or longer (7,8) and regular use after approximately 400,000 ka (9). With or following the control of fire, many developments were unfolding that rendered modern humans "unique" (10): extended cooperative breeding (11-13), higher orders of theory of mind (14, 15), religion (16), language (17, 18), social learning and cultural transmission (19,20), cultural institutions and their regulation (21,22), and intergroup cooperation and exchange (...

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Section: Isak Dinesen Shadows On the Grassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Wiessner

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

287

181

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“…Scarification is an Indigenous rite often linked with initiation ceremonies, or grieving, practiced both in rural and urban societies. 85 A reading of these cicatrisations as celestial suggests a paradigm which incorporates self-harm as a ritual practice. Therefore, a 'defined track' may signify a songline, a traditional and sacred path through a piece of land given to the processing of ritual grieving.…”

Section: Guarded Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Terra Nullius: Colonial Violence in Prynne’s <i>Acrylic Tips</i>

Hall

2016

Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry

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“…552-553). Elkin speaks of blood being used as a sacred, efficacious, ex opere operato substance in ceremonies of increase "not only to paint the totemic emblems on the actors' bodies or to decorate some symbol, but also to anoint the stone which is the permanent [totemic] symbol" ( [38], p. 225). Meaning attributed to particular bodily fluids will, of course, vary from place to place, but this is not the issue: it is the general fact of their being significant which is relevant here.…”

Section: An Ethnographic Reality-checkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hand Traces: Technical Aspects of Positive and Negative Hand-Marking in Rock Art

Dobrez

2014

Arts

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Affordances necessary for the making of hand traces in the form of stencils and prints-primarily the availability of pigment and a suitable surface-bear on our understanding of their emergence as early exograms. Matters relating to the question of how pigment was/is applied, the placement and embellishment of images, the procurement and preparation of ochre, and the selecting and priming of surfaces, are discussed here-as well as the intriguing occurrence of variant hands. Advantage is taken of Australia's position as a zone of ongoing hand-marking practice to suggest what can be learned from ethnography. Finally, avenues for future research are proposed with a view to opening out a discussion of external information storage possibilities in relation to hand traces.

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The Australian Aborigines: A Book Notice

Abstract: The Australian Aborigines: How to Understand Them. By A. P. Elkin. 4th Edition. Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd., Sydney and London. 1964. Pp. i‐xxii, 1–393 and 33 plates. Price A.45/‐.

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen

Terra Nullius: Colonial Violence in Prynne’s <i>Acrylic Tips</i>

Hand Traces: Technical Aspects of Positive and Negative Hand-Marking in Rock Art

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