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doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00040pmid: 19681215
Physical anthropology consists of two interdependent types of study: (1) the biological history of man and (2) general biological processes in man (such as mechanisms of evolution and growth). Popular interest may focus on the former, the fascinating story of the origin of man and of specific people, but the latter affords physical anthropology potential practical value in respect to medicine, dentistry, public health, and population policy. The study of general processes is the study of human beings in particular situations, not for what we can learn about these particular populations but for the sake of generalization about mankind anywhere in comparable situations. This is, of course, the purpose of experimental science in general, but in anthropology the method is usually comparative. Long ago the study of the growth of the two sexes and of children in different countries was started on a comparative basis as was the study of the so‐called secular change in adult stature. By 1911 Franz Boas had compared the changes in stature and head form of children of several different immigrant groups in the United States. There have since been comparative studies of the amount and distribution of body fat (but not yet adequate comparative measurements of the relation of tissue components to diet and to diseases). Demographic patterns, inbreeding, outbreeding, and their effects are other general problems. The Human Adaptability Project of the International Biological Program promises studies of human response to heat, cold, altitude, and other conditions on a wide international basis. If supported, these could turn physical anthropology's search in a useful direction. The functional biology of people of even out‐of‐the‐way communities will be compared with each other. These studies can yield general statements concerning human response to types of ecological situation including such sociocultural conditions as those of hunting‐gathering tribes and urban slums.
doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00050pmid: N/A
This paper is a report of research in visual (film) communication investigating questions in anthropology and communication. Six Navajos, aged 17–25, and one monolingual, aged 55, living on the reservation were taught only the technology of a 16mm movie camera and splicer and were asked to make films about “anything you want to.” We review the theoretical questions underlying the research, describe our method of teaching, and analyze the films they made and their verbalizations about them, relating their cultural, verbal grammar, and narrative style to their methods and social organization of learning filmmaking, choice of subjects and actors for their films, and their methods, both syntactic and semantic, of structuring the image events they photographed.
doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00060pmid: N/A
Urban migration creates many adjustment problems for those American Indians who find economic opportunities on their reservations inadequate. Their extremely high rate of arrest in comparison with other urban groups, almost all for drunkenness or drinking‐related offenses, is testimony to the extent of their difficulties and the inadequate resources that they possess for coping with them. A systematic investigation of 259 male Navajo Indian migrants to Denver over the last ten years reveals a number of economic, social, and psychological pressures and constraints bearing on them, which account in large part both for intragroup differences in adjustment among them, and for their high arrest rates in comparison with other minority groups. The interaction among these determinants, as well as feedback from the migrant's behavioral response, is analyzed as a system of mutually interlocking and reinforcing variables through time. Practical implications of this study are briefly explored, including the apparent primary role played by the migrant's marginal economic position in the city.
doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00070pmid: N/A
The concrete social system of the Navajo is ordered by the conceptual or symbolic system. The central symbol of Navajo social organization is motherhood. The symbolic meaning of motherhood is found in life, reproduction, and subsistence. It is expressed in affectionate care and in the giving or providing of food. The basic unit of the concrete social system of the Navajo, the subsistence residential unit, is organized, structured, and integrated by the symbols of motherhood.
doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00080pmid: 19681216
The Japanese “examination hell” phenomenon is viewed as a series of crisis rites through which the child passes from family‐centered to peer group‐centered values in a “particularistic” society. It is held that this model has greater explanatory power than the “minimization of competition” model proposed by others and that it also helps to explain the phenomenon of student radicalism and centrifugal relationships in middle‐class communities.
doi: 10.1525/aa.1970.72.1.02a00090pmid: 19681217
In this paper traditional medical beliefs and practices in a Mexican village are described and interpreted. The analysis focuses on the notion that health is a balance of hot and cold within the body. Several lines of evidence are used to reveal the metaphorical meanings of hot and cold, and these meanings are then seen to be related to structural features of peasant society.
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