Primal Religions 2022

 After watching the documentary about Chauvet Cave, I couldn't help but think what religion before the advent of systemized language would be like? We have focused so much this semester on the connection between oral traditions and primal religions, but what about before we know whether or not there was a strong oral culture. According to the documentary the cave paintings seem to have a narrative structure. This would suggest the presence of oral narratives in their culture. There is nothing that would tell us if the paintings were the subjects of oral narratives or if they were a communication method of all their own. If so, we are not even sure if the full extent of the meaning behind the paintings. It remains unclear if they served a ritualistic purpose or if they were a record-keeping method. If they were a mode of religious communication, perhaps like the dreamtime paintings of the Aboriginals, how were the beliefs or the rituals passed outside of communication. It would foll...

 Abram relates how the Hebrews are purportedly the first culture to understand time as linear because they connected non-repeating natural disasters with an idea of linear time. They also connected this with the will of YHWH. Abram quoted:  “[F]or the first time, we find affirmed, and increasingly accepted, the idea that historical events have a value in themselves, insofar as they are determined by the will of God.” Excerpt From: David Abram. “The Spell of the Sensuous.” Apple Books.  How does a non-linear understanding of time affect the conception of the will of God? Abrams connects the conception of non-linear time with writing because the Hebrews were able to write and record the history of their people because they were an early alphabetic culture. This allowed them to understand that the natural disasters are non-repeating. Would the Abrahamic God, then be considered more mythical and if it wasn't found that time is linear. Or would the style of writing be used les...

 Walter Ong names the new forms of communication that radio and television created after writing. He bases this off of the connection between television and radio with sound. So what would he think about silent movies? After reading Ong and Abram, I believe silent movies are indicative of another communicative direction that humankind could have explored further, a secondary pictographic communication. The lighting, visual cues, scenery, and music all combined to form dramatic explorations into the human ego, and fears of the unknown. This ended abruptly with the invention of movies with sound, but what would have happened if this had evolved further. Perhaps we would have transitioned into a new form of communication like texting with a series of gifs  or a heavier reliance on images in books than seen now. I think this also would have affected the way we communicate with others. Perhaps our actions during speech would have become more flamboyant, mimicking the silent movie a...

 2/14 I read a walk in the woods. This book was about a man named bill hiking the Appalachian trail with his friend. The book reminded me of the oral cultures we learn about in class. I was connecting the idea of an oral culture and hiking the Appalachian trail while reading this book. While people are on the trail they use speech as their primary method of communication, since they won't always have service in the woods or their phone could lose battery. I wonder if people's senses are heightened such as hearing after hiking long distance hikes for many months.  I did not really like this book to much. I thought it was interesting that it gave a lot of random information about the trail and history, but the story line was not great. Also the ending is very disappointing- I won't spoil it. 

 Music can act as a constraint to fix a verbatim oral narrative. Ong, Walter J.. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New Accents) (Kindle Location 1262). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.  Sitting and listening to Jewish Prayer being sung in Hebrew calls to mind a soulful and yearning song. Though the words themselves have no meaning for me, the way they are sung conveys a message that is beyond words. This made me think about the connection between sound in primary orality and how that is translated to written cultures. Specifically, other language that are not Semitic in origin have a similar musical quality. French, Italian, and Spanish seem to roll off of the tongue. There is nothing I can think of that would account for the musical quality these languages all share, so I can't help but to think that the connection might be the role that oral culture plays in forming these languages. Perhaps it is the close relation between these languages and orality...

 It appears that the structure of the Greek language, the fact that it was not based on a system like the Semitic that was hospitable to omission of vowels from writing, turned out to be a perhaps accidental but crucial intellectual advantage. Kerckhove (1981) has suggested that, more than other writing systems, the completely phonetic It appears that the structure of the Greek language, the fact that it was not based on a system like the Semitic that was hospitable to omission of vowels from writing, turned out to be a perhaps accidental but crucial intellectual advantage.  Ong, Walter J.. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New Accents) (Kindle Locations 1744-1746). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.  Here Ong states that the Hebrew alphabet is no phonetic because it allows for the omission of vowels. He also argues that more advanced systems of phonetic writing, meaning that they are less pictographic, are more removed from the things themselves. T...

 3/20  I recently read an article about climate change and how it is affecting beaches on the east coast. Sea level rising is an effect of climate change and it is currently taking place. The virginia beach community is experiencing more flooding every year due to sea level rising.  In the article it said that the individuals in VA beach are noticing the change in ocean levels. In the article it said that everyone in a poll conducted was worried about their house flooding, the water reaching hirer levels, and that the city needs to do more to protect from floods. An interesting statistic that was found stated that when the term climate change, or sea level rising was used 50% less people agreed to the problem. This is because when people hear these terms they associate them with political parties, which make people of the opposing party term away from their origional statement. 

 2/5 In this reading it talks about the human senses and how we can perceive different landscapes or objects in a landscape as symbolic. There can be symbolic things all around us, but some individuals will view things as symbolic and some will not.  The author attributes symbolism to being a spacial event between your human body and earth body. This was a little hard for me to understand. I think this means that your self that is connected to earth finds a connection with something and your human mind which is part of you rationalizes the connection you have identified. I think the two parts work together to conceptualize the symbol in a way that makes sense. 

 4/24 I read an article this week about how Elon Musk is buying twitter. Twitter is a very interesting platform because it is on the far opposite side of the scale in relation to oral cultures. In our secondary oral culture many people use it as source of information and communicating with others. In an oral culture people seem like they would be much less limited in their speech, since it is their primary way to communicate.  In our culture we can be limited in different ways such as social media. In the article I read Elon Musk wants to get rid of these restrictions on twitter that sometimes limit peoples freedom of speech. 

 4/27  Recently I have been playing tennis in my free time. When I first started playing this semester it was my first time playing in many years. At first I was not very good at it since it had been so long from my last time playing. This made me want to keep practicing. I started playing tennis everyday before my afternoon classes. It is really nice to go outside and get some fresh air before sitting in class, It really helps me to clear my head so I am ready to learn.  My face is always red when I get to this class because I typically had just walked over from the tennis courts. 

4/12 In the article I read it disscussed the importance of the cow for the people in India during the 1000BCE. T he cow was very important in the sacrificing rituals, since there was so much emphasis on the cow and the power it held.   The cow was very important because of the life style in india. Many people during the founding of hinduism had recently started settling in place and establishing permanent settlements for themselves. This caused them to rely more on animals that were able to be domesticated. The cow was one of the earliest domesticated animals. Furthermore, the cow was able to sustain farmers by allowing them to survive as well as their families.      Farmers depended on them for survival, and the cow provided them with milk, curd, and gee. The cow also provided manuewer for crops. Therefore the cow was and it still seen as a symbol of prosperity. Furthermore during this time the majority of people living in india were vegetarian, since many peop...

 4/25 In this reading it talked about how the ecology of India affected the formation of Hinduism. Ecology refers to the plants and animals that inhabit the area, as well as the ecosystems and their structure. It talked a lot about the Indus valley and abundant water sources, as well as the animals that inhabited the area. The article said that the cow became so important in hindu culture because of the major presence it had in india during the early years of the hindu tradition.  This is interesting to think about. I wonder if the Hindu religion would be different today if it originated in another continent or a geographical area different from the Indus valley? Furthermore this article really grew my interest in the history of hinduism. 

 4/27  In class we learned about how primal cultures have heightened senses. An oral culture is a culture that does not have an alphabet and relies on sound and vocal communication to talk to one another. By using their voices as a primary form of communication they have a heightened sense of hearing. Secondary oral culture are cultures like the one we have in the United States, where we learn how to communicate from a young age through reading, writing, and speaking. In secondary oral cultures, our senses are not heightened because we have so many different mediums for communication. Typically in an oral culture, their hearing would be better than an individual from a secondary oral culture.  This is very interesting because I don't usually think about how the culture in the US has affected my senses. The way our school systems are set up is a huge indicator of the differences in the societies.

  4/5/2022    In the video it started out with a group of men fighting a bear. They were trying to achieve a psychedelic effect from fear. One of the men successfully killed the bear and he was the new shaman. I thought it was interesting how he had to stay away from his tribe for a few days, because he had too much power. I think this is because he experienced trama so it was safer for him to isolate himself.  Later in the video a boy   who's  family was killed along with his entire tribe escaped and found this new tribe. After he finds the new group and he lives with the s haman .  This was very interesting to me because the two people who were different from the rest of the tribe lived together. 

 4/7      In class, we watched a video about spaniards who were captured by a tribe. The tribe was an oral culture. The shaman, a spiritually in touch person, leads the tribe. In the video, it followed the journey of a christian spaniard who learns how to fit into the oral society. He eventually learns how to be a good slave and follow the shaman.       The most interesting part of the video is when the man tries to run away and he experiences a moment of new birth. At this moment he became willing to be a slave. He went through hardship for so long and then when he was willing to conform he became equal to the shaman.

 1/15  Sacred: A place of important significance and value to a person or group.    Ritual: a planned series of actions that are to satisfy someone's spirituality.    Myth: a story passed on for generations through storytelling.    Nature/Creation: Nature is a place that has minimal interference from outside influences. A natural place with animals and plants. Creation is the forming of something.    Space/Place: An area with specific characteristics, a designated purpose.    Cosmos/Chaos: Chaos is destruction or things not in order.    Clan/Tribe: Group that relies on each other, as a form of communication, and has rules that help them navigate their way of living.

 2/4 This reading talked about when Helen Keller was learning the English language. She was deaf and blind from a very young age so it was very hard for her to learn how to communicate with people. I thought it was very interesting how Miss Sullivan would spell words into her hand and then give her the object she was spelling. Helen was unable to engage in the oral culture since she was unable to use her ears. The alphabet was very crucial to Helen learning the English language and being able to communicate with others. I wonder what would have happened if Helen grew up in an oral culture? I wonder if she would have found a way to communicate with the world without the alphabet. 

  Blog 1 Hellen Keller reading power of language (semiotics as in signs) in helping humans construct a world. In this reading, Hellen Keller shares her first experience with thought. She lost her hearing and sight from a fever at a young age. Her teacher used signs to spell words in Hellens's palm when attending school. Unfortunately, without phonics and external validation from sight and hearing, it was challenging for Helen to understand the true meaning of the spelled letters. However, when her teacher took her to the well and let the cold water flow over Helen's palm while signing the letters W AT E R, Hellen could clearly comprehend their connection. She had the sensation of the cold water, and the letters were spelled to give the sensation and object meaning. From then on, she realized "everything had a name, and every name gave birth to a new thought." Linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, suggests that language shapes a person's ...

   Blogger 2 David Abrams's Spell of the sensuous has become my favorite reading we have done in class thus far.  This blog will pertain to the intro because these pages are where I fell in love with his interweaving of ecology and philosophy.  A few quotes that hooked me from the get go:  For the largest part of our species' existence, humans have negotiated relationships with every aspect of the sensuous surroundings, exchanging possibilities with every flapping form, with each textured surface and shivering entity that we happened to focus on. All could speak, articulating in gesture and whistle and sigh a shifting web of meanings that we felt on our skin or inhaled through our nostrils or focused with our listening ears, and to which we replied—whether with sounds, or through movements or minute shifts of mood. The color of sky, the rush of waves—every aspect of the earthly sensuous could draw us into a relationship fed with curiosity and spiced with danger....

  Bloger 3 In truth, the human experience of magic – our ancestral, animistic awareness of the world as alive and expressive – was never really lost. Our senses simply shifted their animistic participation from the depths of the surrounding landscape toward the letters written on pages and, today, on screens. Only thus could the letters begin to come alive and to speak. As a Zuni elder focuses her eyes upon a cactus and abruptly hears the cactus begin to speak, so we focus our eyes upon these printed marks and immediately hear voices. We hear spoken words, witness strange scenes or visions, even experience other lives. As nonhuman animals, plants, and even “inanimate” rivers once spoke to our oral ancestors, so the ostensibly “inert” letters on the page now speak to us! This is a form of animism that we take for granted, but it is animism nonetheless – as mysterious as a talking stone. And indeed, it is only when a culture shifts its participation to these printed letters that the ...

  Blog 4 Homelessness Countering the Destruction of Home: a Return to Sensuous Communication This is a paper I used in my pilgrimage class. I think it does a great way of elucidating the human condition to see nature for its resources and how we can use them. With the emergence of advanced technology, our communities are becoming an online digital world, and we are losing the spark of real connection. We have alienated from our planet, our peers, and even ourselves.  Humans have lost touch with their essence; the digital world has dampened the senses, and we continue to try to bend nature to our will. "cultivating a mastered-centered environment." Ex: with email and text, we assume everyone should be accessible at all times of the day, and there are unrealistic pressures for people to answer and get back to people as fast as they reached out. Everything is fast forward, and if we slow down, there are embedded consequences that we will get left behind.

  Blog5 Bruce Olson  This was a difficult read for me due to my Anthropological background. The idea of converting a culture through missionary work strikes me as ethnocentric and too close to colonialism as an 18-year-old American missionary sets off to a  motilone tribe in Venezuela area… However, his writing style is entertaining he isn't bogged down with methodology rather he tells a story through his experiences and argues that Christianity is not incompatible with indigenous culture and that his successful missionary work did not destroy the Motilone way of life. He had good intentions and the values he wishes to bring used Christianity as the vector to spark change.. The only dilemma with Christianity is the emphasis on “it being the only way” I liked how he built real relationships respected them and participated in their ceremonies.

  Blog 6 ​​Victor Turner Structure and Anti-structure The ritual process page 132 Comunitas This was a good read for me because it clearly depicted the shortcomings of rigid anthropological methodology and the necessary blend of humanities. Anthropology is often focused on dissecting culture and observing each social position insinuating a hierarchy and segmented roles apart from the whole.  Humanities tend to use a Martin Buber "I am thou" approach where there is communitas. Where things act together for one another and for good, it's not based on the existential but is unstructured without boundaries, there is no other

  Blog 7  Outside reading Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram This outside reading is one I used when writing my final paper because I fell in love with the Spell of the Sensuous. “Such reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world. Sensory perception is this ongoing interweavement: the terrain enters into us only to the extent that we allow ourselves to be taken up within that terrain.”  “To our indigenous ancestors, and to the many aboriginal peoples who still hold fast to their oral traditions, language is less a human possession than it is a property of the animate earth itself, an expressive, telluric power in which we, along with the coyotes and the crickets, all participate. Each creature enacts this expressive magic in its own manner, the honeybee with its waggle dance no less than a bellicose, harrumphing sea lion. These parts reminded me a lot of his sentime...

  Blog 8 Black Robe Video A good example of human-centered religions clashing against primordial nature-centered religions is cinematically depicted in the 1985 film Black Robe. The era of this film has its roots in colonialism set in present-day Canada. The plot consists of two Jesuits who are on a mission to relieve a dying priest in fever-stricken Huron settlements. They are guided by Algonquin natives who have superstitions about the presence of white Christian men. There is a lot of miscommunication, mistrust, and disagreements throughout the journey. The Algonquian had persisted for many years through passed down oral stories. Their practices and beliefs, such as the world of night and the power of dreams, clashed with their Christian counterparts, who believed water baptism through Christ was the only way to relieve suffering. Christianity was not a concept that could be understood through the natives, nor could the Christians accept and understand the natives fully. The way...

  Blog 9 The speaker who lives in Taos NM I loved this speaker because he explained the utter importance of water in mid-western cultures, especially indigenous communities. The Taos Pueblo is the oldest native American Nation because they were not pushed off their land. The importance of water and rivers in these cultures has linked to the flow of blood in veins it is a life force. I made a communitas correlation to the ways they irrigate water. They work with the land because they are one with the land and the earth and they never take more than what they need they do not exploit but rather live and foster harmonious relationships with the life force that cradles them.  It was interesting to see the stark difference in their experience compared to the fancy ski village miles away. Where people gather to use the land for sport and enjoyment..It’s expensive and exclusive. It is not in communitas because there is another there is separation.

  Blog 10  ONG reading Through passing on oral stories, a sense of belonging fills its listeners, who are sharing spaces close enough to feel the sound spread all around them. Sound fills spaces and is all around us at all times. As part of our living experience, our heart audibly beats. "The phenomenology of sound deeply enters human beings' feelings for existence affecting man's sense of cosmos. For these oral cultures who narrate the earth's landscapes, the cosmos is an ongoing event". ONG says: In contrast, the written word becomes permanent and stagnant the moment the pen hits the paper or is printed on the press. The stagnation of writing allows for little room for alteration once published, and unlike an oral tradition, it cannot adapt and communicate across the past and future. The written word ultimately alienates past, present, and future participants by closing the fully immersive experience, thus dampening the sensual self. 

  Blog 11  Spiritual Rampling  My favorite concept and takeaway from this reading was how one enters the flow state, specifically on long-distance hiking or mindfulness walking. "my thoughts ran like a river of observations," and my thoughts came later through self-reflection. When hiking long distances, one offers encounter discomfort, whether physical pain or emotional loneliness. However, that suffering could be a form of kairos and a space where action falls upon action, and the individual can find awareness. When walking, you have to be mindful of where you're going to keep yourself safe. Putting one foot in front of the other becomes a unified flow to the next with little distance between the self and the environment around them.  When we are walking silently in nature we are engaging all senses and that is when we can fully engage in the world. This kairos emptying technique is conducted by shaking off the village, which allows the individual to recreate their...

 3/15  In Walter Ong's book, he talks about oral cultures and what sound means to them. The oral cultures that we have learned about from the reading and in class show that to them speech is the unifying force in their relationships and in their societies. In the reading, Ong says  "sound is a unifying  sense. " This quote really emphasizes the ability speech has in its ability to unify people.    I think it is interesting that we are able to be unified with people by our phones but also able to be separated and isolated. In the oral cultures, Ong describes it is clear that the use of speech and sound in their primarily oral cultures is an important tool and unifying force.

  Blog 12 speaking softly to themselves the environment shapes the culture and the culture shapes the environment  God, I'm in the stillness in the silence. In the peace in the meditation in between thoughts. the place participates. The place participates, the landscapes can be sacred spaces, not just churches but anywhere when we can connect and be in community with ourselves and the world we are all a part of. page 465, a world of spiritually charged places with their own agency and power native cultures are more concerned with where not when Constructionist cultural anthropologists, we as humans construct everything onto the world.  page 474 what they can contribute to their systems. study them for as they are not as types and theories to create dialogue  Querencia and fluid kinship. the place for future generations A cultural harvest from the land is an organic conception of what is the good life.

  Blog 13 Outside reading: Ishmael  “The gazelle and the lion are enemies only in the minds of the Takers. The lion that comes across a herd of gazelles doesn’t massacre them as an enemy would. It kills one, not to satisfy its hatred of gazelles but to satisfy its hunger, and once it has made it kill, the gazelles are perfectly content to go on grazing with the lion right in their midst.” This section of the book Ishmael made me think about how nature lives in communities. Even in the predator-prey relationship, nature doesn't take more than it needs. It lives in a harmonious. The human narrative sees it as evil or cruel through their perceptions. They assign language to nature that in their cosmos does not exist.

  Blog 14 Job 12:7-10 Job 12:7-10 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,     or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; 8  or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,     or let the fish in the sea inform you. 9  Which of all these does not know     that the hand of the Lord has done this? 10  In his hand is the life of every creature     and the breath of all mankind. We all exist in the same cosmos and if we are all divinely made we are divinely placed. Animals do not have the ego and that is what causes us humans complications because we see the self individual as the other this doesn't exist in primordial religions. In the aboriginal religion, we learned about dreaming and that was a fantastic lecture where the man says I am the octopus he is connected and there is no separation there is kinship tribalism, and communitas.

Blog 15, outside reading art piece The Garden of Earthly Delights I chose this painting because it reminds me a lot of class and the union of nature and humans without separation before man became self-centered separated and drifted from the “I am Thou” The third panel shows the damages of exploitation and darkness that come from a lack of true connection to the source and nature.  Nature is a difficult word to unpack. Aristotle defined it as a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself, and not accidentally." However, this use of nature in this context reminds me of the essence. Nature is a social construct and is often a word tossed around as areas separated from the world of human interaction. However, if most primal religious groups were involved in this discussion, they would not fully conceptualize separation because you can't separate from the grand life force. Nature is not a tiny fraction of the wh...

 1/27 This reading was about the differences in oral and non oral cultures. The Gutenberg Galaxy describes the western Europeans and how their culture relies on their eyes. The other group described is the African group, who lives in an oral culture. They were said to rely on their ears and their own voice significantly more than the Europeans. This reading focuses on the different senses that are stressed based on the type of culture and how the incorporation of the alphabet into society changes the way people use their senses.  This was very interesting to me because the author really encapsulates the major changes seen when cultures are oral. The members of the oral culture have a much better memory and are more creative than the European culture. 

  4/26/22 My research paper revolved around a comparative evaluation of traditional Hmong and Korean shamanism. One interesting aspect of these cultural folk religions which I came across over the course of my research was the dual-role of the shamans, as community and spiritual leaders. This is not exactly a unique point, as we might point to many modern religious institutions in the same light: church daycares, mosque-affiliated after-school programs, etc. When reading about the various rituals and ceremonies which the shamans presided over, however, it was interesting to see which of these involved the whole community, and often had the shaman alongside the local elders, and which were for a certain individual, and were often more involved on the part of the shaman. A good example of this could be seen in New Year’s observances. In the Hmong tradition, the New Year’s celebration involved a gathering of the entire community, where the shaman would direct the people in going about...

  4/26/22 Looking back through the discography of Yothu Yindi, and reading up a bit about their history, has me in a spirit of reminiscence. The significance of music in many oral cultures has been a recurring point throughout our time in this class, whether it be connected to ritual or storytelling. Yothu Yindi offers a shining example of traditional indigenous cultures being preserved through music, even when the very band that they’re in is a physical example of Western influences. The beauty of this example is that it goes both ways; traditional Aboriginal instruments feature prominently in several melodies, the Aboriginal members will, when duty calls, shred on electric guitar a la Jimi Hendrix in a pair of blue jeans, but in other songs, they will take center stage with traditional body paint. Furthermore, even when a more Western-style tempo takes over in a song, fitting into the alt-rock genre which they place themselves in, the lyrics detail elements of contemporary Aborig...

  4/16/22 “The purpose of the fish trap is to catch the fish. Once you have the fish, you can forget the trap. The purpose of the snare is to catch the rabbit. Once you have the rabbit, you can forget the snare. The purpose of words is to capture the meaning, once you have the meaning, you can forget the words. Where is the man who has forgotten words, that I might have a word with him?” This Zhuangzi line which Dr. Redick shared in class has settled cozily into my mind. It is one of those lines which presents an unfortunate conundrum, in that, as much as I love it, I would come off as infinitely pretentious if I went up to one of my boys and said, “Get a load of this,” followed by that quote. Even though Zhuangzi had the good sense to throw a little joke in there at the end, I simply cannot run that risk. And so I am left to confine it to my own mind, or to scrawl it on the wall like an asylum patient. Alas! It was, however, shared with the perfect crowd, when Dr. Redick presented...

 1/25 - The Medium is the Sign: was McLuhan a semiotician? This reading talked about semiotic theory, which is based on signs. It is how the mind interacts with the body based on the cultural domain being studied. This is especially important to oral cultures, since before the use of the alphabet people would communicate based on the knowledge they attained from hearing others. This reading discusses three different steps that created the world we know today, which is characterized as an oral culture. The three steps are the creation of the alphabet, the movable type, and the advancement of technology. These advancements are called representation in the semiotic theory.  This article was very interesting to me because I had not heard of "semiotic theory" before this point. It is interesting how technology has changed the world so much. I had never thought of the alphabet prior to this class as a technology but now I realize that it is a major technology. 

  3/29/22 Sartre’s namesake assertion addressed by “People Speaking Silently to Themselves” and propagated by Keith Basso, reveals some disheartening realities about prevalent mindsets in modern scholarship. It seems that either of these two would be unable to fathom the quote which we used to frame our experiences in this class early on in the semester, in that we try not to impose our views on the things we wish to learn about, but rather, hope to gain knowledge of a world before that which knowledge speaks of (I paraphrase clumsily, for though the wisdom of it sits solidly in my head, the words escape me). Increasingly absent is the Socratic maxim which links true wisdom to understanding one’s lack of understanding. Alas! Many, Sartre chief among them with assertions such as this, are quite confident they do understand, actually. They are so confident, in fact, that they are more than up to the task of explaining the opposing view, explaining why it is incorrect, explaining why ...

  3/24/22 The other day I watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau . I found that its contents, and the life of its titular figure, reflected some of the things we have discussed in this class relating to cultural contact, formation, and identity. Without delving too far into a summary, it detailed the life, career, and exploits of the Native Hawaiian surfing legend, Eddie Aikau. But within his life, and the culture which he grew up in, and eventually perished tragically while defending, so much can be seen and understood about broader trends, even the interactions between literate (dominating) and non-literate cultures. This manifested primarily through surfing in Aikau’s case, which stands to reason. The documentary detailed the origins of surfing among the Native Hawaiian people, the bewilderment expressed by the first Europeans to witness it as recorded in their journals and diaries, and its formation as a competitive sport. This final step cam...