The Interpretation of Data: Puberty Rites<sup>1</sup>

Norbeck, Edward; Walker, Donald E.; Cohen, Mimi

doi:10.1525/aa.1962.64.3.02a00010

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…2. To the list of societies that Norbeck, Walker, and Cohen (1962) (1991), and also coeditors of a collection of articles on cross-cultural comparisons (1980).…”

Section: Authors' Notementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The hypothesis was tested using a selected sample of 56 traditional societies. This study was sharply criticized by Norbeck, Walker, and Cohen (1962) both on their coding of the ethnographic data 2 and on the psychoanalytic theory that underlay the hypothesis.…”

Section: Previous Comparative Studies Of Harsh Ritualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 2. To the list of societies that Norbeck, Walker, and Cohen (1962) maintain were miscoded, the first author adds the Hopis and the Chiricahua Apaches. (These societies are not in our sample).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Pain, Fear, and Circumcision in Boys’ Adolescent Initiation Ceremonies

Schlegel

Barry

2017

Cross-Cultural Research

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Rituals that induce pain or instill fear occur in the majority of boys' adolescent initiation ceremonies. They have been accounted for in several ways: as resolving a psychological conflict, as expressing dominance over juniors, as promoting male bonding, and as preparation for participation in war. This cross-cultural study examines these harsh rituals and concludes that they are a form of adult male control over adolescent boys and unmarried (subadult) youths. They occur in societies in which control over young males is an important social issue and other means of control are lacking. We also examine a subset of harsh rituals, those that include circumcision and other genital operations, and discuss the cultural features, particularly marriage practices, that are significantly associated with these operations.

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“…2. To the list of societies that Norbeck, Walker, and Cohen (1962) (1991), and also coeditors of a collection of articles on cross-cultural comparisons (1980).…”

Section: Authors' Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Comparative Studies Of Harsh Ritualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pain, Fear, and Circumcision in Boys’ Adolescent Initiation Ceremonies

Schlegel

Barry

2017

Cross-Cultural Research

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“…Rigorous male initiation ceremonies, those of the Australians or the Fuegians, for example, take on possible new meanings if they are perceived as a necessary means of inculcating the appropriate local culture in male youth who, until adolescence, had been primarily enculturated by "foreign" females. The initiatory rites, then, are a means of forcibly transmitting to the male inheritors of the locale the necessary symbol system for survival within it-"the dramatization of the sex role which occurs in societies with a high degree of male solidarity" (Young N. D. quoted in Norbeck et al 1962:482 ff . ; see also Burton and Whiting 1961).…”

Section: The Patrilocal Band 683mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Patrilocal Band: A Linguistically and Culturally Hybrid Social Unit¹

Owen

1965

American Anthropologist

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N ENDURING and usually unquestioned assumption underlying gen-A eral anthropological theory is that which suggests the "homogeneity" of very simple societies. For the purposes of the development of evolutionary theory, or for the generation of a descriptive ethnography, or for the discussion . of the validity of the "genetic" approach in historical linguistics, it is customarily assumed that "primitive,)' or "simple" or "folk" societies contain individuals who think, and act, and speak more or less alike.* Such a society is small, isolated, nonliterate, and homogeneous, with a strong sense of group solidarity. The ways of living are conventionalized into the coherent system which we call "a culture" (Redfield 1947:294). The concept of primitive or "tribal" culture is based on three fundamental aspects of the behavior of members of tribal societies. First, it is a construct that represents the ideal, norm, average, or expectable behavior of all members of a fairly small, simple, independent, self-contained, and homogeneous society (Steward 1955 :44).

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