culture change 14

8/14/2019 Culture Change 14

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OverviewAllcultureschange through time. No culture is static. However, most cultures

are basically conservative in that they tend to resist change. Some resistmore than others by enacting laws for the preservation and protection oftraditional cultural patterns while putting up barriers to alien ideas and things.For example, the French government has forbidden the commercial use ofEnglish words for which there are French equivalencies. This is a reactionparticularly to the widespread use and popularity of terms such as "sandwich"and "computer" among young people. More recently, Starbucks has found itvery difficult to become established in France despite the fact that it isbecoming successful elsewhere in Europe. In contrast, some cultures areextremely open to some kinds of change. Over the last two decades, the

Peoples Republic of China has been rapidly adopting western technology andculture in everyday life. This can be seen in their wide acceptance ofeverything from cell phones to American television shows and fast food.McDonald's has already established 560 of their restaurants in China andsoon will be adding 100 more. KFC fried chicken franchises have been evenmore popular. There are 1000 KFC outlets throughout the country with morethan 100 in Beijing alone. Taco Bell, A & W, and Pizza Hut are not farbehind. In 2003, the Chinese government made the decision to require allchildren in their country, beginning with the 3rd grade of elementary school, tolearn English. This will very likely accelerate westernization.

China is far from being unique in experiencing a revolutionary rate ofchange. It is now abundantly clear that we are in an accelerating culturechange period all around the world regardless of whether we try to resist it ornot. It is driven by the expansion of international commerce and especiallymass media. Ultimately, what is driving it is our massive human populationexplosion. The number of people in the world now doubles in less than half acentury.

What Actually Changes When Cultures Change?
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When analyzing the transformation of aculture, it is clear that differentunderstandings are gained depending onthe focus. Anthropology began its study ofthis phenomenon, during the late 19thcentury, largely from the perspective oftrying to understand how manufacturedthings, such as tools, are invented and modified in design over time. Itbecame apparent that there rarely are entirely new inventions. Most often,only the function, form, or principle is new, but not all three. For instance, ourmodern jack, used for lifting up the side of a car, is usually based on theprinciples of the lever and/or the screw. Those principles were well known tothe ancient Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.By the 1940's, anthropologists began to realize thatideas, tools, and other artifacts generally are notinvented or changed in isolation. They are theproduct of particular cultural settings. Cultures areorganic wholes consisting of interdependentcomponents. Inventions often occur in response toother cultural changes.

Likewise, inventions potentially can affect all cultural institutions. Beginning inthe 1950's, for instance, televisions in American homes affected how andwhen members of families interacted with each other. Less time wasavailable for direct conversation. The size of houses in more affluent areas ofthe U.S. are now usually 2-3 times larger than they were in the 1950's. As aconsequence, family members often have their own rooms and become evenmore isolated from each other.

Similarly, the introduction of new, effective birth controlmeasures, mostly beginning in the early 1960's, allowedpeople to easily limit the number of children they had andto space their births. This affected the relationships ofchildren with their parents and siblings. When there arefewer children, parents can give more attention to eachone. Likewise, more money per child is available forclothes, entertainment, gifts, and education. Potentially,there is also more money and leisure time for parentswhen there are fewer children in their family.

21st century jack based on principlesof physics known to the ancient Greeks

Parents with few childrencan give more personalattention to each of them


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The interrelated nature of cultural institutions can also beseen in the effects of changing roles for American womensince the mid-20th century. As they have increasinglymoved into the work force outside of the home, it hasgiven them financial independence and has alteredtraditional roles within the family. Men are less essentialas bread winners and less accepted aspatriarchs. Theyhave begun to take on more child rearing and otherdomestic household responsibilities previously defined as"women's work." Divorce has become an economicallyviable alternative for women in unhappy marriages.There also has been a marked decrease in the frequency of mother-childinteraction. American children have increasingly been raised by non-familymembers in child care centers and schools.

By the early 1960's, it was evident to someanthropologists that cultures do not exist in isolation.When cultures change, they can have major impactson the environment. Similarly, when the environmentchanges, there are likely to be impacts on culture.For example, global warming at the end of the last iceage, 10,000 years ago, very likely was amajorcontributing factor leading to the invention ofagriculture. This technological innovation allowed for

such immense increases in human populations thatwe began to rapidly alter the environment by depleting resources. In thevicinity of ancient cities, forests often were cut down for construction materialsand fuel and wild animals were hunted to near extinction for food.Since 1985, the average number of people living together in a household hasbeen dropping in the 76 richest nations due to increased affluence and othersocial changes. Extended and joint family households are less popular.Divorce rates have gone up usually resulting in the establishment of newhouseholds by one or both former marriage partners. There also are larger

numbers of unmarried adults who establish their own households. For aquarter century there has been a demand for housing that is significantly overwhat would be expected from the population growth in these nations. As aresult, the need for lumber and other construction materials has caused adramatic increase in the exploitation of forests. This in turn makes itincreasingly more difficult to maintain global biological diversity.

North American fatherin a non-traditional role:caring for his child whilehis wife works elsewhere

Culture and the naturalenvironment are interrelatedin complex ways
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The interrelationship between culture and environment also can be seen inour depletion of energy resources and forced adoption of new energysources. As wood became relatively scarce by the beginning of theIndustrialRevolutionin Europe, it was replaced by coal to fuel factories and heathomes. In turn, coal began to be replaced by oil and natural gas during theearly 20th century. The increasing costs associated with petroleum productshave now caused it to begin to be replaced by nuclear, solar, and otherenergy sources.Human economies change as necessity forces us to alter our relationship withthe environment. As our economies change, the rest of culture changes inresponse. We are now facing potential major global cultural changes over thenext century as a result of the greenhouse effect that is presumably beingcaused or aggravated by the accelerated burning of fossil fuels and forestproducts. The result likely will be progressive global warming, shiftingclimates, and flooded coastal regions. Entire island nations in the Pacific andIndian Oceans may disappear below the sea. Actually, this process of peoplechanging the global climate may have begun much earlier than the beginningof the Industrial Revolution as it has been commonly thought. WilliamRuddiman of the University of Virginia has evidence indicating that the rise ofglobal temperatures began about 8,000 years ago with the early spread ofagriculture. He suggests that the massive clearance of forests in Europe andAsia for farming beginning at that time released huge amounts of greenhousegases into the atmosphere. In his estimation, this was enough warming to put

off an impending ice age.

It is now clear that culture change is very complex. It has far ranging causesand effects. In order to understand all of the manifestations of change, we

must take aholistic approach to studying cultures and the environments inwhich they exist. In other words, we must assume that human existence canbe understood only as a multifaceted whole. Only then can we hope tounderstand the phenomena of culture change.

Processes of Change
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All Cultures are inherently predisposed to change and, at the same time, toresist change. There are dynamic processes operating that encourage theacceptance of new ideas and things while there are others that encouragechangeless stability. It is likely that social and psychological chaos would

result if there were not the conservative forces resisting change.There are three general sources of influence or pressure that are responsiblefor both change and resistance to it:

1. forces at work within a society2. contact between societies3. changes in the natural environment

Within a society, processes leading to change include invention and culture

loss. Inventions may be either technological or ideological. The latterincludes such things as the invention of algebra and calculus or the creation ofa representative parliament as a replacement for rule by royal decree.Technological inventions include new tools, energy sources, andtransportation methods as well as more frivolous and ephemeral things suchas style of dress and bodily adornment.Culture loss is an inevitable result of old cultural patterns being replaced bynew ones. For instance, not many Americans today know how to care for ahorse. A century ago, this was common knowledge, except in a few large

urban centers. Since then, vehicles with internal combustion engines havereplaced horses as our primary means of transportation and horse careknowledge lost its importance. As a result, children are rarely taught theseskills. Instead, they are trained in the use of the new technologies ofautomobiles, televisions, stereos, cellular phones, computers, and iPods.Within a society, processes that result in the resistance to change includehabit and the integration of culture traits. Older people, in particular, are oftenreticent to replace their comfortable, long familiar cultural patterns. Habitualbehavior provides emotional security in a threatening world of change.

Religion also often provides strong moral justification and support formaintaining traditional ways. In the early 21st century, this is especially trueof nations mostly guided by Islamic Law, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia,Afghanistan, and Pakistan.


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The fact that cultural institutions are integrated and ofteninterdependent is a major source of resistance tochange. For instance, in the second half of the 20thcentury, rapidly changing roles of North American andEuropean women were resisted by many men because itinevitably resulted in changes in their roles as well. Maleand female roles do not exist independent of each other.This sort of integration of cultural traits inevitably slowsdown and modifies cultural changes. Needless to say, itis a source of frustration for both those who want to change and those who donot.The processes leading to change that occur as a result of contact betweensocieties are

1. diffusion

2. acculturation3. transculturation

Diffusion is the movement of things and ideas from one culture to another.When diffusion occurs, the form of a trait may move from one society toanother but not its original cultural meaning. For instance, when McDonald'sfirst brought their American style hamburgers to Moscow and Beijing, theywere accepted as luxury foods for special occasions because they were

relatively expensive and exotic. In America, of course, they have a verydifferent meaning--they are ordinary every day fast food items.Acculturation is what happens to an entire culture when alien traits diffuse inon a large scale and substantially replace traditional cultural patterns. Afterseveral centuries of relentless pressure from European Americans to adopttheir ways, Native American cultures have been largely acculturated. As aresult, the vast majority of American Indians now speak English instead oftheir ancestral language, wear European style clothes, go to school to learnabout the world from a European perspective, and see themselves as being a

part of the broader American society. As Native American societies continueto acculturate, most are experiencing a corresponding loss of their traditionalcultures despite efforts of preservationists in their communities.

21st century professionalwoman working in a jobnot open to women in hergrandmother's generation
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While acculturation is what happens to an entireculture when alien traits overwhelmit, transculturation is what happens to an individualwhen he or she moves to another society and adoptsits culture. Immigrants who successfully learn thelanguage and accept as their own the culturalpatterns of their adopted country havetransculturated. In contrast, people who live associally isolated expatriates in a foreign land for yearswithout desiring or expecting to

becomeassimilated participants in the hostculture are not transculturating.There is one last process leading to change that occurs as an invention withina society as a result of an idea that diffuses from another. This is stimulus

diffusion --a genuine invention that is sparked by an idea from another

culture. An example of this occurred about 1821 whena Cherokee Indian

named Sequoyah saw English writing which stimulated him to create aunique writing system for his own people. Part of his syllable based system isillustrated below. Note that some letters are similar to English while othersare not. To see the entire Cherokee syllabary,click here.

16 of the 77 Cherokeealphabetical characters

It is also likely that ancient Egyptians around 3050 B.C. invented theirhieroglyphic writing system after learning about the cuneiform writing systeminvented by Sumerians in what is today Southern Iraq.There are processes operating in the contact between cultures as well thatresult in resistance to change. These are due to "us versus them" competitive

feelings and perceptions. Ethnocentrism also leads people to reject alienideas and things as being unnatural and even immoral. These ingroup-outgroup dynamics commonly result in resistance to acculturation andassimilation.

Sequoyah(ca. 1767-1843)
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SummationIn order to better grasp the relationship between all ofthe different mechanisms of change operating within and between societies, it

is useful to see them again in summary:

We now understand that thisholisticapproach to understanding culturechange must also include consideration of changes in the environment inwhich a society exists. For instance, environmental degradation of freshwater supplies, arable land, and energy sources historically have resulted inthe creation of new inventions, migrations, and even war toacquire essential resources.

NOTE: Human activities globally now move ten times as much earth and rockas all natural processes. One of the side effects of this is soil erosion that iscausing the progressive loss of farmlands at the same time that the humanneed for them is growing. Driving this has been our rapidly increasing humanpopulation. Research done by Bruce Wilkinson of the University of Michiganhas shown that this human-caused erosion began to exceed nature's ability torepair it nearly 1,000 years ago (Wilkinson Geology 28, 843-846, [2000]).

Acculturation: Part 1
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When alien culture traits diffuse into a society on a massive scale,acculturation frequently is the result. The culture of the receiving society issignificantly changed. However, acculturation does not necessarily result in

new, alien culture traits completely replacing oldindigenous ones. There

often is a syncretism , or an amalgamation of traditional and introducedtraits. The new traits may be blended with or worked into the indigenouscultural patterns to make them more acceptable.

The Highland Maya Indians of Guatemala and

Chiapas State of Southern Mexico provide anexample of religious syncretism. Spanish colonialauthorities forced Christianity upon them beginning inthe 16th century. However, the Maya defined someof the Christian saints as also being their ancientIndian gods. As a result, their indigenous religious

belief system was essentially only added to and modified. The overt religiouspractices seemed to be Christian to the Spanish authorities but they retaineddual meanings for the Maya. Their religion wasenriched by the syncretism.Whether acculturation takes place often depends onthe relationship between the culture that is receivingthe new traits and the culture of their origin. If onesociety is militarily dominant in the culture contactand they perceive their own culture as beingsuperior in terms of technology and quality of life, itis not likely that they will be acculturated. This was the case in the contact

between the British settlers of Australia and the Aborigines theyencountered. Visiting an Australian city today, you see European culturealmost exclusively. The English generally did not adopt Aborigine ways.However, some minor traits, such as words for plants, animals, andgeographic locations, were accepted by the British. Since they were in controlof the contact situation, the Britishwere able to pick and choose the traits that

would be incorporated into their culture.

British culture-dominatedAustralian city (Perth)
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If a society is militarily dominated but still perceives itsculture to be superior, it also is not likely to beacculturated to the dominant society's culture. This sort of disdaining rejectionof acculturation occurred following the collapse of the Western Roman Empireduring the 5th century A.D. The end finally came as a result of repeatedinvasions by militarily superior Germanic tribes. The Romans did not adoptthe language or other cultural patterns of their conquerors. It was just the

opposite. The Goths and other Germanic tribes generally adopted RomanChristianity, the outward trappings of the Roman political system, and Latin asthe language of learning.A society that is militarily dominant in a culture contact situation but perceivesits culture as being inferior is a likely candidate for acculturation. This was the

case with the Mongols of North Central Asia under Genghis Khan after

they conquered China in the 13th century A.D. The Mongolian occupierslargely adopted Chinese culture within a generation. They were acculturatedby the people who they had defeated in war.

Contact between societies that are militarily andtechnologically equals rarely results in acculturation. This isespecially true if both societies believe themselves to beculturally superior to the other. Contemporary France andEngland are an example. Words, foods, and other relativelysuperficial cultural traits regularly diffuse back and forth

between them (especially in the upper social classes), butthere is no massive influx of cultural traits. As a result, theFrenchman (on the left) remains strongly French and the

Englishman (on the right) remains proudly English inculture.In contrast, rapid, psychologicallyoverwhelming acculturation usuallyoccurs in societies that are bothmilitarily dominated and believe

themselves to be culturally inferior interms of technology and quality of life. Many of theindigenous societies of Australia and North Americasuffered this fate. Not only were they ultimatelypowerless to prevent the occupation of their lands butthey could not effectively control the impact of the alien culture on their ownpeople. The consequence frequently was massive acculturation and the

Ancient Roman city

Frenchman

Englishman

Australian Aboriginein European clothes
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replacement of indigenous cultures with little syncretism with their owntraditional cultural patterns. The fact that the Australian Aborigine shown hereis wearing European clothes is an indication that his traditional culture is notintact.

Millenarian MovementsWhen a society is helpless to resist a massive cultural invasion and strongpressure to abandon traditional cultural patterns in favor of alien ones, there isusually considerable psychological stress. There is nearly constantcultureshockin response to the new reality and disorientation from the failure oftraditional skills and values in dealing with the rapidly changing situation.

Under these circumstances, it is common for millenarian movements tooccur. These are conscious, organized attempts to revive or perpetuate

selected aspects of the indigenous culture or to gain control of the directionand rate of culture change. These movements have also been referred to as

messianic , nativistic , and revitalization movements.Millenarian movements are started and led by prophetswho preach a religious-like belief in the coming of a

newmillennium , or period of great happiness,peace, and prosperity brought about by a new order ofthings. Some of the best known millenarian movements

were the Cargo Cults of New Guinea and neighboringislands of Melanesia . They first appeared in 1931 at

Buka in the Solomon Islands. Prophets predicted that a flood wouldsoon engulf all Europeans in the region. This flood would be followed by the

arrival of ships laden with European goods. Cult believers were toconstruct storehouses for the goods and to prepare to repulse colonial police.Because it was predicted that the cargo ships would arrive only after thebelievers used up their own supplies, they stoppedfarming.The 1931 Cargo Cult leaders were arrested and thecult quickly died. However, it cropped up again andagain in various forms throughout Melanesia,especially after World War II. Some of the latermovements blended Christian theology withindigenous cultural ideas. For instance, theresurrection of dead Melanesians was to coincide with the destruction and

Women in Papua New Guinea
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enslavement of Europeans. Later Cargo Cults also tended to focus more oncontrolling the ongoing acculturation rather than stopping it. Believers werepromised that they would soon get European material wealth and knowledgewithout being dominated by their colonial masters.A North American Indian equivalent of the Cargo Cult was the Ghost DanceMovement of the late 19th century. It began in Northwestern Nevada with a

prophet named Tvibo . He was a partially acculturated Paviotso

(Northern Paiute ) Indian who had worked enough as a ranch hand to geta superficial understanding of European American culture. In 1869, he beganpreaching his ideas about a new order of things that was coming. As a resultof visions, he claimed that all non-Indian Americans would be destroyed by acatastrophic earthquake and that the Indians would get all of their wealth andpower. Dead Indians would return to the living, food would be plentiful, and all

would live peacefully and happily together. These millenarian ideas spreadover the Sierra Nevada Mountains to North and Central California in 1870where they flourished. The Ghost Dance followers were instructed to purifythemselves, dance in a certain way, and sing special songs in order to hastenthese changes. By 1872, most of the followers lost faith and the movementbegan to die out. This was followed by even more rapid acculturation in Northand Central California.

A second Ghost DanceMovement began a

generation later as aresult of prophesies

by Wovoka (alsoknown as JackWilson). Wovokamayhave been a youngrelative of Tvibo. Itwas claimedthat Wovokadied of afever and returned to

the living after beingtold by God to renew the Ghost Dance Movement.Beginning in 1889, his preaching excited the NorthernPlains Indians. He said that a new messiah wascoming and that he would bring the ghosts of theIndian dead to join the living. In preparation, men andwomen had to purify themselves and give up alcohol

Oglala Sioux dancing the Ghost Dance(sketched by James P. Boyd in 1891)

1894 Sioux Reenactment of the

Ghost Dance(length = 24 secs)Wovoka (Jack Wilson)

(ca. 1856-1932)
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and violence. They also had to dance in a large circle appealing to theirancestors for help. If this was done properly, the old Indian ways would berestored and the Plains Indians would be independent and powerful onceagain. This movement was taken on with great religious fervor in 1890 by

the Arapaho , Northern Cheyenne , and Oglala Sioux . All of thesepeoples were then embittered by being forced to settle on reservations wherethere was inadequate food supplies. Emboldened by "ghost shirts" withpainted symbols that supposedly would protect them from bullets, many lefttheir reservations and renewed hostility with the U.S. Army. This proved to bea tragic decision. They were hunted down and many were killed at WoundedKnee and other skirmishes. The Ghost Dance Movement failed to deliver itspromises and was abandoned.All of these and other millenarian movements around the world have anumber of things in common. They typically develop in small, previouslyisolated societies with low levels of technology. They are largely a responseto the psychological stresses resulting from oppressive culture contactsituations in which they are pressured to acculturate with little control over thechanges. Their old cultural ways no longer seem to work and the new, alienculture is only partly understood. They also usually use supernatural meansto carry out their goal. This involves a leap of faith. In doing this, they areacting rationally from their own culture's perspective. However, they areusing good logic based on false assumptions.The goal of millenarian movements is usually one of two things--theelimination or control of the alien people, customs, and values that arethreatening the native ones. These movements are deliberate, organized,conscious efforts to construct or reconstruct a satisfying culture. While thereis a focus on particular aspects of culture, apparently there is always aperception of the culture as a whole system in the minds of a movement'sparticipants.Millenarian movements are, in a sense, healthy signs in that they occur onlyas long as there is enough of the old culture surviving to be viable. These

movements are attempts to stem the tide of psychological disorientation byconstructing a meaningful culture from what is remembered of the past andwhat is poorly understood of the alien culture that is dominating them. Ifacculturation has proceeded to the point that there is little of the old culture left

and there is widespreadanomie , a millenarian movement is much lesslikely to occur.
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Millenarian movements are not just a phenomena of the past.They still appear from time to time. A recent one

called Naparama (literally "irresistible force") developed inMozambique during the 1980's. This movement wasspawned in the chaos and destruction of a prolonged civilwar. Mass starvation and cultural disintegration wererampant. Manuel Antonio was the prophet leader ofthe Naparama"Spirit Army." He was a mysterious man inhis 20's who intentionally kept his tribal identity a secret. He attractedfollowers by saying that he had died of measles and after 6 days had risenfrom the grave to receive a message from God instructing him to liberate

people behind the lines of the Renamo Army faction that opposed thecentral government forces.A core Naparamabelief was that warriors who were "vaccinated" would beprotected from bullets, spears, and knives. "Vaccination" was a rite in whichnumerous cuts were made on the chest and neck of initiates with a razorblade. Ashes and unidentified herbs were rubbed into the wounds. At theconclusion, initiates were struck hard with the sharp edge of apangato provetheir invulnerability. If the initiate flinched, the "vaccination" procedurewas considered to be a failure and was repeated. Twenty or more teenageboys were usually initiated at a time. When at its peak,the Naparamamovement reportedly had about 3,000 dedicated followers.When the Naparamawarriors went into battle, each carried a short spear anda red ribbon pinned on their clothing for protection from bullets. Antonio saidthat this provided magical protection that would work as long as the youngmen did not give in to fear. During the late 1980's, the NaparamaSpirit Armyapparently overran at least 24 well armed Renamo rebel strongholds.Reportedly, the Renamo defenders gave up without a fight when confrontedby the magic of Naparama. With the end of the Mozambique civil war in theearly 1990's, the NaparamaSpirit Army seems to have faded away.Many charismatic leaders have founded millenarian movements in rapidly

changing modern industrialized nations as well. While they did not arise insmall isolated, technologically limited societies, as was the case with theCargo Cults and Ghost Dance Movements, they share many of the samecharacteristics. The followers typically are disillusioned, alienated people whoare desperately searching for a more meaningful world view. Recent,examples of these new movements in America include the People's Temple inthe 1970's (led by Reverend Jim Jones), the Branch Davidians in the late
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1980's and early 1990's (led by David Koresh), and Heaven's Gate in the late1980's and 1990's (led by Marshall "Do" Applewhite). All three movementsfailed to achieve their prophesized rewards and came to an abrupt endwith murder and mass suicide.There have been other similar religion focused millenarian movements thathave not failed. Examples of these include the Jehovah's Witnesses (foundedby Charles Russell in the 1870's), and the Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints (founded by Joseph Smith in the 1830's). Likewise, someindigenous millenarian movements elsewhere in the world have survived bychanging and adopting methods that do not require magic and leaps of faith.

For example, the Mau-Mau Movement in Kenya during the early 1950'ssurvived, after a bitter but successful war of independence against Britain, byevolving into a national political movement.

Acculturation: Part 2Not all isolated, small-scale foraging or horticultural societies developedmillenarian movements when they were put under great pressure toacculturate by militarily powerful outsiders. However, rapid destructive

acculturation most often occurs. The dominant, controlling society in a culturecontact situation rarely takes the time and effort to find out ahead what theimpact of their technology and culture will be on the indigenous societies thatthey are dominating.

The PurariDelta tribes of coastal Papua New Guineaprovide an example of unintended effects in such culturecontact situations. Prior to their first encounter withEuropeans, they lived as hunters, gatherers, and small-scalefarmers in the isolation of 500 square miles of densely

vegetated delta land, rivers, and swamps. The8,000 Puraripeople were concentrated in 6

large villages which had institutionalized patterns of raiding each other toobtain victims for ritual cannibalism. The large settlements provided personaldefense and the social benefits of a more exciting ceremonial life.
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The Puraritribes all shared an elaborate religiousbelief system in which all adult males participated.To become a participant, boys had to go through an

initiation ceremony (pairama ) in which they atepart of a dead enemy. By so doing, they acquired

the power (imunu ) of the victim. Only maleswere cannibals and it was only done in connectionwith this initiation ceremony. However, victims could be male, female, young,or old. Without acquiring imunu, boys could not become men, get married, orassume political and religious offices. They would remain children all of theirlives. As a result, it was inconceivable that they would not go through thisinitiation.The first European contact with Puraripeople was in 1907 when the London

Mission Society established an outpost near their territory. Beginning in1913, the British government sporadically recruited men from the delta to work

in labor gangs at the Vailala oil fields and the Public Works Department ofPort Moresby. About this time, the Puraritribes made peace with theEuropean missionaries and allowed government patrols to pass through theirterritory. The outsiders were no threat to the Purarifood sources and stayedout of their social life. Christianity did not appeal to them. The old religion andritual cannibalism continued.Over the next several decades, government control over the PurariDelta

progressively tightened and intertribal warfare began to be suppressed, butthe old belief system remained intact and cannibalism continued.Missionaries still made no progress in converting the people. World War IIaccelerated contacts with Europeans since morePurarimen were hired aslaborers. By the end of the war, intertribal warfare and cannibalism werelargely stopped by a strong police presence. This created a major problem forthe Puraripeople. They were not able to properly initiate boys. They tried tosubstitute eating pig in place of human meat, but it was not satisfactory. Theydid not question the validity of their beliefs, but they were prevented fromfollowing them.Most of Purariculture was left unaltered by the colonial authorities. Theywere only interested in suppressing war and cannibalism, both of which wereat the core of thePurarireligious system. By the early 1950's, life had becomedissatisfying. Ceremonies were now only family matters and, subsequently,ineffective. The large villages dispersed into small, isolated settlements.Traditional marriage practices generally ended because boys were not

Papua New Guinea men
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becoming men and only men could get married. The kinship system andcodes of conduct became vague. There was a dramatic increase in incest,murder, and suicide--boys were not responsible for adhering to the adultmoral code. Over the next 30 years, the population dropped by 1/3 and rapidacculturation began.An implication of the PurariDelta case is that when culture contact is sooverwhelming as to change important institutions that are cultural focal points,it should be expected that it will set in motion far ranging impacts resulting inthe rapid destruction of the old way of life, widespreadanomie, and evendepopulation. The elements of culture are interrelated in a way that makesthem interdependent, and some elements are more essential to a particularculture than are others. Changes in these central elements will produce moresignificant and far ranging effects. For the Puraripeople, it wasthe pairamaceremony and associated cannibalism that proved to be central.Despite the good intentions of the colonial authorities who stoppedcannibalism, the result was ultimately disastrous for the Puraripeople andtheir culture. Far more people died when this practice was eliminatedand Purariculture began to collapse. No doubt, other factors also were

involved in thisethnocide and neargenocide , but the destruction oftraditional Purarireligious practices in particular knocked out the crucialunderpinnings of their society, resulting in the confusion and disillusionmentthat led to the collapse of their traditional culture.

Postscript

Not all acculturation is as harmful for indigenous peoples. If their militarydomination is more protective than exploitive, indigenous societies can beselective in accepting which alien traits enter their cultures. For this tohappen, it is crucial that outsiders take the time to learn about the cultures ofthe indigenous peoples they control. If the key cultural institutions arerecognized and left intact, healthysyncretismcan occur. It is the jobofapplied anthropologiststo help in this transition. They study endangered

indigenous cultures in order to gain information needed to prevent disastrousculture change. They provide this information to both the indigenous peoplesand to national governments who often are the sources of change.
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Global ChangeMost of the isolated peoples that anthropologists studied around the world in

past generations are now in dismal situations. Small indigenous societieshave suffered as a consequence of the spread of western culture over the lastcentury. Some of these peoples have died out, while most are in terminalphases of the stressful process of rapid acculturation. This radical, oftenpainful culture change is occurring mostly in underdeveloped nations today.These countries have persistent low levels of living that can be linkedhistorically to the manner of their integration into the world economic system.They usually provide cheap raw materials and labor. Their natural and humanresources are bought cheaply by rich nations andtransnational corporations.It is quite clear that small indigenous societies have not been the only onesexperiencing rapid, dramatic culture change over the last century. People inall societies have faced unprecedented changes in their lives. There hasbeen a globalization of economies so that the entire world is noweconomically tied together by complex webs of interdependence. Mostmanufactured items that we buy have components produced in severalcountries on different continents. Fresh produce in our supermarkets oftenwas grown elsewhere, especially in the winter. Corporations regularlyoutsource their tech support and other phone based services to India.Manufacturing jobs also progressively move to China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,

and other nations where labor is comparatively cheap. In a very real sense,geographical barriers are things of the past. Distances do not matter anymore for communication and business. When there is a stock market collapsein Asia, Europe, or North America, it reverberates throughout the rest of theworld within a day. Regional economic independence no longer exists.Economic wealth also has progressively shifted from nations to transnationalcorporations. At the present time, 51 of the 100 biggest economies in theworld are corporations. More than 20 million Americans now workfor majortransnational corporations, often in other countries.The rate of globalization has been accelerating over the lastdecade. Contributing factors in making the world a smaller place have beenthe spread of Internet and email access as well as massive levelsof international travel. Every year, approximately 8 million Americans travel toother countries on business trips and 19 million visit other parts of the worldas tourists. Frequent international travel is by no means limited toAmericans. It has become common for people in the industrialized regions of
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the world. However, the majority of those living inunderdeveloped nationsdonot travel internationally nor do they have Internet access. Over half of allNorth Americans are using the Internet, but only 1% of the people in Africaand the Middle East have it available to them. However, images, values, andtastes from the Western World are now flooding virtually all nations viatelevision, movies, print advertising, and commercial products.We are living in a time of a continuously accelerating knowledge revolution.This has resulted in shorter time periods between major impactingtechnological inventions. In less than a single lifetime, jet aircraft, televisions,transistor radios, hand held calculators, cellular phones, computers, theInternet, and iPods have appeared and radically changed our lives. Rapid,inexpensive global communication and travel are a reality. On the down side,information overdose is now a common problem. People in developednations have 24 hour access to news and entertainment in many forms andvast databases of information are as close as the nearest computer withInternet access.

Mentally demanding office work

has largely replaced physicallydemanding factory and farm work

Crowded Japanese sidewalks at

rush hour resulting from workersbeing concentrated in cities

Driving all of these global changes has been a dramatic increase in the size ofthe human population. Our numbers have doubled over the last 4 decades.However, only 5% of that growth has occurred in the developed nations.Because the underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America aregenerating nearly all of the population growth, we will have added theequivalent of 3 more impoverishedsub-Saharan Africasto the world within aquarter of a century.
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However, the overall world growth rate is nowdeclining, especially in the developed nations. Birth

rates generally are down, but life spans are longer.Consequentially, the elderly are the fastest growingage group worldwide, even in many of the poorernations. Those 65 and older are likely to increase innumbers twice as fast as the population as a whole atleast until 2020. One result of this change will be anincreasing financial burden on younger working people to pay for the pensionsand medical costs of the expanding elderly group. The graying of thepopulation is most pronounced now in Europe and Japan. Italy has theunenviable record of being the first nation to reach the point at which there aremore people over 60 than under 20 years old. Spain, Germany, and Greecewill shortly achieve this ratio also. In the United States, similar trends arebeing statistically masked by an enormous immigration of young people fromLatin America.

"Graying" populations inthe developed nations


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In some regions, however, the trend is just the opposite. For instance,Nigeria's continued high birth rate will likely result in a doubling of itspopulation over the next quarter century. While the highest projected growthrates are in Africa, the biggest population increases will be in the developingnations of Asia.

SHARE OF THE WORLD POPULATION1970 2020

Less Developed Nations 72.9% 83.6%More Developed Nations 27.1% 16.4%Geographic Region:--- Sub-Saharan Africa 7.8% 13.5%--- Near East and North Africa 3.9% 6.4%--- China (Mainland and Taiwan) 3.9% 6.4%--- Other Asia 29.7% 35.0%--- Latin America and the Caribbean 7.7% 8.5%--- Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union 9.5% 5.8%--- Western Europe, North America, Japan, and Oceania 18.9% 12.0%

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)Accompanying the dramatic growth in population hasbeen a massive immigration into the richer nations ofNorth America, Western Europe, and Australia bypeople from the poorer ones. This primarilyeconomic driven migration has had a profound effect

on life in the receiving countries. The new diversityhas been felt particularly by public services. Forinstance, large school districts in California now mustcope with more than 75 different languages being spoken by their students.Generally, these demographic changes have more profoundly affected citiesthan rural areas. In Los Angeles, for example, only 9% of its residents wereforeign born in 1960. By 1990, that number had grown to 40% of thepopulation.Within the industrialized nations, there has also been massive internal

migration over the last half century. Many middle class urbanites moved outinto suburbia and beyond. In addition, there have been extensive regionalmigrations. For instance, many Southern Italians have moved to NorthernItaly for jobs. Many people from Ireland, Scotland, and the old industrializedcities of Northern England have moved to Southern England for the samereason. In the United States, millions of people from the old industrialized

Diverse ethnicity in Canada


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"Rust Belt" centers of the Northeast have migrated south and west to the "SunBelt."Over the last two centuries, there has developed a progressive disparity inwealth between nations and between major regions. Economic power has

become concentrated mostly in the industrialized nations of the northernhemisphere. Their control of manufacturing and international trade resulted inan unequal playing field. This disparity has provided people in the richernations with greater access to food, electricity, fossil fuels, education, andmedicine with the consequence that their lives are materially morecomfortable and their life spans are significantly longer. By comparison, 1.2billion people in thethird worldlive on less than one U.S. dollar per day.

The disproportionate amount of resources used by the rich nations hasexacted a high cost for our planet. There is increasingly burdensome

environmental decimation and pollution as well as depletion of key non-renewable resources. This situation will likely become much worse over thenext few decades as China, with its enormous population, becomes highlyindustrialized and the standard of living for its population increasesdramatically. They already consume more meat, grains, coal, steel, andseveral other basic resources than the United States. Americans still usemore oil than any other nation, but consumption is increasing rapidly inChina. If the trend in growth of the Chinese economy and standard of livingcontinues at its current rate, by early in the 2030's they could be consumingmore oil and other key resources than the entire world currently produces.The phenomenal growth in the Chinese economy comes at a high price for itsown people. Their cities are among the most polluted in the world. Not farbehind China in becoming an economic powerhouse in the 21st century willlikely be India, the second most populous nation. A consequence of this willbe a dramatic increase in the global competition toacquire key resources.One of the most far ranging social and culturalchanges that has occurred over the last century hasbeen the increase in economic and political power ofwomen in the developed nations, especially in theWestern ones. During the 19th century, women inthese countries generally could not vote, attend auniversity, become doctors, lawyers, politicians,government officials, or corporate leaders. Theywere expected to only aspire to become housewives and mothers. Whenmarried, their husbands often gained full legal rights to their property. This

Poor African women doinghard hard farm work
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second class status of Western women has largely ended. Men gave upsome of their power due in part to the need for women to actively participateinindustrial production during the great world wars of the first half of the 20thcentury. It also has been due to the emergence in recent decades of postindustrial economies that require much less manual labor in factories. Anadditional important factor has been the constant pressure by women to betreated as equals. However, the significantly increased status and power ofWestern women generally has not been matched by women elsewhere in theworld.

culture change 14

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