Folklore, Language and Ritual

We were treated to a fascinating look at cultural anthropology by Dr. Catharina Laporte. Catharina began as a student at Lone Star - CyFair College and is currently teaching cultural anthropology for Texas A&M's School of Military Science. We were so glad to welcome her back to help us think like anthropologists and give a glimpse of some of her times with different cultures.

Anthropology is the study of the whole human condition and pulls from many different disciplines to look at a group's biology, society, language and more. Anthropology is typically made up of four subfields:

• Archaeology- data based on artifacts
• Physical Anthropology- data based on human remains and primates to explore the evolution of humankind
• Linguistic Anthropology- data based on interviews and textual artifacts
• Cultural Anthropology- data based on ethnographic observation, interviews and surveys

Catharina specializes in cultural anthropology, and one of her first experiences in this field was studying immigrant women working as maids in Singapore. A key topic within the field is cultural relativism--how we react when we see people who do not look, think, or act like us. It is easy for people to be ethnocentric when encountering cultures different from their own, where they judge other cultures based on the standards of their own culture. However, in order for cultural anthropologists to to be successful in their field they must take on a cultural relativist perspective and reject the idea that any culture contains a set of ideal standards.

To exemplify this need to understand practices from the viewpoint of a culture's members, Catharina noted that Nepalese women often have multiple husbands. While this may seem strange to us, it is born out of the fact that land ownership in Nepal is passed through the male line, and in order to keep the land together, some brothers will marry the same woman. 

It can be especially difficult to maintain a relativist perspective when cultural practices challenge our value systems or are harmful to some members of society or the environment. This is something that cultural anthropologists struggle with on occasion when observing in the field. 

Here are some ethnographies that Catharina recommended for further reading:

Nisa, the Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Marjorie Shostak and Nisa. (1981)

Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. (1989)

Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper-Hughes. (1992)

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. (2003)

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead. (1943)

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her Amercian Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman. (1997)

Ya̦Nomamö, the Fierce People, Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Napoleon Chagnon. (1968)

Coffee Talk

We had an impromptu Coffee Talk for LIFE this Wednesday as our Ikebana program was cancelled due to weather. Claire Gunnels and Usha Dontharaju lead a discussion about LIFE lessons we have learned over the years. This is some planning we are doing to perhaps write a book with stories from our lives which teach an irreverent lesson. Claire wants to write a chapter called, "Don't Let Anyone Move in on You." She got this advice from her late father-in-law. Many of our thoughts were of mottos to live by. Here are a few:

• Clean your plate, there are starving children in Africa.
• Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.
• To have a friend, be a friend.
• What goes around comes around.
• If it doesn't belong to you, don't touch it. (When Sharon's husband said this in his jury voir dire, he was instantly excluded).
• Learn other customs when traveling.
• Find out social information about everyone you meet. IT will make you more charismatic and productive. "Social Investment"
• Keep letters and pictures since that is your heritage.
• If you lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
• What you keep is lost, what you give is forever yours.
• Tell me who you walk with and I'll tell you who you are.

We enjoyed coffee and banana bread (Claire's mother-in-law's fabulous recipe).

Claire Gunnels

Usha Dontharaju

Genealogy Birth of a Nation

Who would have thought that genealogy could be so much fun? Library Director Mick Stafford gave us a primer on how to find birth records (also called vital statistics or civil registration).

Why birth records? A birth certificate is an instant connection to the prior generation since the parents’ names are on a child’s certificate. As Mick said, you can “unlock another generation.”

One book is the best one-stop shop for vital records from around the world. It’s called the Vital Records Handbook. Its online equivalent is the free Mormon website, FamilySearch.org. Mick gave us some tips on how to search these huge databases. Don’t just jump right in and type a name in the search box, especially if the name is John Smith or James Johnson.

Click on the wiki button. A wiki is a website that anyone can add information to. In this wiki, you will find record by place (country, county, or state). If you can narrow your search on the front end, you won’t get so many false positives or bad searches.

Another source is the subscription database, Ancestry.com. This is available in the library for free, so unless you want to search in the comfort of your own home, don’t pay for this. Mick invited Sharon Samson up to search for her father, Wilhelm Frederich Schmidt. At first we didn't see him in the database. Mick explained that there can be a number of errors such as the date range could be wrong or the name has been transcribed inaccurately.

In Sharon’s case, since the name didn't come up with her father, we removed the middle name to see if we could find him. Still we could not. So, we removed the first and middle names, but added a birth date. Voila, to Sharon’s delight, we found her father. She now will write the proper county office to get a copy of his birth record.

One final word of wisdom: approach searching by having a goal as we did this morning in looking for the birth records of our forebears. Also, Mick has a favorite ancestor, a bar owner whose father was a policemen. Who could figure?

Wicked Cool Friendship Bracelets

Professor Jason Moulenbelt lead us in a group loom project creating the now pretty cool rubber band friendship bracelets. Jason’s sons, age 8 and 10, trade their creations for Pokeman cards. How nifty is that? We took plastic forks, broke the two inner tines, and made our own loom. With Jason’s colorful instructions, we all made these wonderful little bracelets. These are a bit less in demand, but at the peak of the craze, you couldn’t even find a loom for sale. That didn’t stop Jason from Googling how to make a friendship rubber band bracelet without a loom. And voila! Jason said that as a philosophy professor, he sometimes feels he doesn't create anything except confusion in his classroom. That’s why he likes to create actual things such as these bracelets. He also has an online store for his leather crafts including custom knife covers, belts, and knives. 

Get Healthy, Chinese Style

Dr. Mary Chen kicked off our new year's LIFE program this morning with knowledge and humor, while explaining the benefits of Chinese medicine in improving one's health. As Mary explained, Chinese medicine takes time and often multiple visits to see results, but those results are worth waiting for. Mary detailed the benefits of acupuncture, herbal medicine, cupping, and acupressure.

An acupuncture treatment lasts half an hour and uses small needles to stimulate the nervous system. Acupuncture can be effective in treating pain, improving circulation, reducing swelling or inflammation, treating women's issues like menopause or infertility, and even can be helpful in quitting smoking or drinking.

Mary noted that in the case of herbal medicine, it is always wise to consult with a doctor before beginning an herbal regimen. But the right combination of herbs can help to treat any number of conditions or problems.

Our audience had a ton of interesting questions, and we found out that both acupuncture and herbal medicine can be helpful in weight loss, and which pressure points help to alleviate nausea and headaches. Mary even demonstrated an acupressure technique on Claire to help relieve headache pain. Thanks to Dr. Mary Chen for getting our year off on the right start!

For more information on Chinese medicine, check out some books our library has on the subject.

Christmas in Curaçao

Eliza Priest, circulation assistant, is from Curaçao and did a fantastic job of giving us an insight into her world. The theme was Christmas in Curaçao and she made a brightly colored chicken and potato salad with mashed beets. Talk about pink salad. Curaçao is primarily a tourist economy with some agriculture. Cruise ships are a regular event in this island country off of Venezuela. It is primarily Roman Catholic because of the Spanish roots, but it is a Dutch island. Eliza made a spicy rice dish with tomato gravy sauce. She made little pastries of ground beef in a dough to be fried and a peanut butter cookie shaped like an “S” for Santa. The freshly fried plantains were a crowd favorite. There were smiles on everyone’s faces by the end of the hour. One of us even looked up the meaning of the yellow stripe on the Curaçao flag. It stands for the sun!

And later that day, her seventh grandchild was born, a young man named Liam! Congratulations, Eliza.

Giving Green

Reference Librarians Tracy Williams and Dorrie Scott showed us how to create upcycled gifts using household items. You won't be able to look at a glass bottle or a roll of duct tape without seeing the potential for a beautiful homemade item!

Here are some of the ideas they demonstrated and recommended:

Tracy made this by cutting wine corks in half and gluing them onto a wooden letter. You can dip the halves in red wine to give them all the same color scheme.	Dorrie made this by drilling a hole 3/4 of the way into a cork, filling with a tiny bit of soil, and then adding a small, live plant. She glued a magnet on the back, and adds a drop of water once a week.
Tracy created this jewelry holder with some sticks from her backyard, twine to tie the sticks together, and copper wire to hang the earrings. Be sure to sand the sticks to smooth them down.	Tracy made this by printing out a page of piano sheet music, painting it with tea to give it a yellowed look, and then using mod podge to glue it to a canvas. She printed and cut out the “W”, glued it to the canvas, and then painted over it when it dried.

• Dorrie recommended turning glass bottles or mason jars into beautiful decorations or organizers with paint or by wrapping them with rope. Make sure to run a strip of rope along the bottle first to give the rope coils something to grip onto.
• Ever got those advertisement magnets in the mail? Cover them in scrapbook paper to jazz them up, or tape two to a strip of patterned duct tape to make a magnetic bookmark.
• Paint natural wooden frames to freshen up the color. You can give them a distressed look by removing the glass and hitting them with a hammer before painting.
• Dorrie swears by chalkboard paint for any objects--flower pots, bottles, cans, mirrors...
• You can also mod podge a bunch of photos onto a canvas to create your own inexpensive photo collage.
• Create flowered pens by wrapping them in patterned duct tape.

Some of our audience members had some wonderfully crafty ideas, too!

• Create bracelets out of ribbon or tape spools, just wrap them in some pretty paper or fabric.
• Cover bottles in flat glass stones and put a small string of battery powered lights inside to make a beautiful light.

For more great ideas, check out the library's Pinterest page: http://www.pinterest.com/cyfairlibrary/