Ethnography Project - Tibet

The Environment and Human Adaptation

1. Environment

• The world's highest region, Tibet is located on the Tibetan plateau, which is north/north-east of the Himalayan mountains. It is west of the Central China plain, and within mainland China. The actual land mass was part of three that split the former continent Antarctic. The land moved north and raised the sediments of the sea of Thetys and hit 'Asia' to form India and the Tibetan highland. The crust buckled in several places to form mountains such as the Himalayas.
• Tibet's weather is moderate in the summer, but very cold in the winter. In the south, Lhasa, the second most inhabited city on the Tibetan plateau (after Xining in the Qinghai province northeast of Tibet), the temperature might go above 84 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but can drop to 0 degrees or more in the winter; heavy snow from December to February makes travel difficult and creates a horrible situation for tourism in the winter. Solar radiation is very present in Tibet, the blaring sunlight in Lhasa gave it the name Sunlight City - and the thin air at such a high altitude can't radiate or absorb the heat, creating temperature extremes.
• To survive where the soil is frozen up to eight months a year, they cultivate irrigable lowlands or patches of land of loose, unconsolidated soil for barley, which takes only four months to produce. Tibetan life is rural, with people growing their own crops for a subsistence agriculture.
• Yaks, goats, and sheep make up a great majority of the animals in Tibet, used for meat leather, wool, milk, yogurt, cheese or butter. Barley also holds a large majority with other basic crops and vegetables.
• Severe weather and altitude have some impact on the way Tibetans breathe and live. 

2. Adaptations

• One physical adaptation is that due to a high altitude, Tibetans have developed a low hemoglobin level (red blood cells carrying oxygen to your body) so they are not suffering from hypoxia (oxygen deprived). This may also be helped by having elevated nitric acid levels that may facilitate better blood flow to them. Another is the melanin in their skin helps against sun radiation when outside for prolonged periods. Much like the Native Americans they adapted to their sunny and grand landscape.
• A cultural adaptation is that common homes are made of a mixture of rocks, wood, cement and earth due to limited resources. Several windows are made to have as much light as possible and flat roofs with white walls to conserve heat. Due to earthquakes, the walls are sometimes sloped as a precaution. Also Tibetan medicine is one of the oldest forms of medicine in existence. It has applied thousands of plants and dozens of animals and minerals found around Tibet. Lastly, due to cold weather, common dress in Tibet are thick dresses, pants and skirts and 'poncho' like clothing that is decorated elaborately.

Language and Gender Roles

1. Language

• The languages of Tibet derive from the language family Sino-Tibetan, splitting into Tibeto-Burman, then Tibeto-Kanauri, then Bodish, then Tibetan. That is then split into four styles depending on location. First there is Ladakhi which is spoken mainly in Pakistan; then Khams Tibetan spoken in Qinghai, Chamdo, Sichuan and Yunnan; then Amdo Tibetan mixed into Qinghai and Sichuan, and Gansu; then central Tibetan which is the majority spoken language, that is also split in four styles - Western Innovative Tibetan (Ladakh and border), Dbus or Ü (standard Tibetan, Ngari, U-Tsang, Lhasa, Nepal), Northern Tibetan (Nagchu and border Qinghai), and Southern Tibetan (border U-Tsand, Sikkim and Bhutan).
• Some unique qualities to this language are that it is a syllabic language, like the alphabets of India and South East Aisa, each letter has an inherent vowel /a/ - other vowels are shown with diacritics above or below the main letter; and also, consonant clusters are written with special conjunct letters.
• The writing system used in Tibet for printing is known as u-chen, cursive is known as gyuk yig or 'flowing script.' It is a complete language with little flaws, which shows the Tibetans have first world intelligence.

Alphabet

Diacritics

Numbers

Gyuk Yig

U-Chen

2. Gender Roles

• Men and women are the only prevalent genders in Tibet.
• Men are generally the moral and spiritual leaders in a family, and are in charge of gathering supplies, medicine, food and clothing. Most earn a living as farmers, craftsmen or yak herders. Women take care of home chores and, although it is improving every day, are generally perceived as less than a man. This is partially due to the Chinese Government military occupation of Tibet and their strict and invalid standards.
• These roles have been cemented by the past, but there are groups trying to raise awareness of inequality and making tremendous progress (i.e. Central Tibetan Administration), and also the Dalai Lama ("commander in chief" Buddhist of Tibet; Tenzin Gyatso) trying to raise compromises.
• Women generally in a sexist environment are only allowed to listen and not speak, which leads to potentially obvious physical repercussions, sadly, if they go against it, and also damage to their self esteem and self image.
• During birth it is considered negative karma if the baby is a girl, so instantly when you are born you are already shunned upon. It is deep rooted inside these females that they are inferior, so the terror lives on for more women do be brutally beaten, detained, raped or even murdered since it is so prevalent.
• More than likely she would have been treated the same as a women and despised, and most likely be cast into peasantry or be an untouchable.

Economy

1. Subsistence

• Tibet has a huge subsistence agriculture. Due to loose land livestock is primary, and lately the economy has started to become a multiple structure with agriculture and tertiary industry developing side by side.
• Sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks, donkeys and horses are the main livestock. Major crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes, oats, mustard seeds, cotton, fruits and vegetables. During winter it is way to cold for any crop to survive, so agriculture usually occurs in the spring and summer.
• Mostly all men tend their own fields and crops for either their family or the market. Women never farm, as it is only seen as a man's duty. 
• There is a dynamic variety of foods in Tibetan culture so the nutritional value should not be a problem unless a person is deprived of food. The market and diet both heavily depend upon barley - dough made from barley flour—called tsampa—is the staple food of Tibet. This is either rolled into noodles or made into steamed dumplings called momos. Meat dishes are likely to be yak, goat, or sheep, dried or cooked into a spicy stew with potatoes.
  

2. Economic Systems

• Again, Tibetans usually only farm enough for their own family or local market, but barley is a good candidate for interstate trading due to its immense growth. 
• Any surplus goes to the Chinese Central People's Government, which recently has been used for highways, mining, and conferences intended to improve rural Tibetan income and have free education for rural Tibetan children. 
• Mining, construction materials, handicrafts and Tibetan medicine are big industries for specialization, and power generation, processing of agricultural products, livestock and food production as an alternative. 
• The Chinese government has been trying to redistribute yuan for education and transportation within Tibet. 
• The Tibetans use the same currency as China, the Renminbi (¥).
• Tibet has increasingly become the subject of tourism due to Buddhism. It brings in the most income from the sale of crafts such as hats, silver and gold jewelry, wooden crafts, clothing, quilts, fabrics, rugs and carpets.

Marriage and Kinship

1. Marriage

• Monogamous arranged marriages are the norm in Tibet, with ceremonies involving both the bride and groom's families.
• A man will seek a woman's age, date of birth and her zodiac attribute if he wants to marry her. With all the information on hand, he will consult an astrologist to check if her attributes are compatible with his. If so and if his parents are pleased with the girl in question, they will get a matchmaker to propose to her family.
• The matchmaker will bring along a khatag (ceremonial scarf), chang (alcoholic rice drink), yak butter tea and other gifts when visiting the girl's family. Her family will accept the gifts if they agree. Also, on the wedding day, the girl's family will choose an auspicious day to send dowry to the man. The man's family, on the other hand, has to send a set of costumes to the girl on the wedding eve.
• Tibetan people generally look down on incest, with endogamy usually focused on.
• Usually more then just two generations live in a house or village and make up a residence.
• Tibet does not have a culture in which open expression of same-sex affection is common, but this might not be homophobia, maybe any public display of sexuality is generally frowned upon, partly due to Buddhism's glorification of celibacy.

Marriage ceremony

2. Kinship

• The most important functioning kin group is the extended family constituted as a household. Family names, which are carried by the males of some families, reflect the patrilineal inheritance pattern and are also used to demarcate the noble families. Other descent lines are not as important as patriarchal.
• Generally if you are a Lama or spiritual leader you are the leader of that household, otherwise if you are simply the father, you are the leader of the family.
• Inheritance is determined by gender, fathers to sons and mothers to daughters.
• For relatives of his or her own level, including cousins, the average Tibetan simply uses the words brother and sister. There is local and regional variation in terminology throughout the plateau. Formal kinship terminology in the southern region, among the peasant population, distinguishes between patri- and matrilaterals at the second ascending generation, is bifurcate-collateral at the first ascending generation, and shows a typical Hawaiian generational pattern at Ego's generation level. In practice, this system results in a strong bias toward distinguishing between one's matrilateral and one's patrilateral kin for the purposes of inheritance.

Tibetan Family

Social and Political Organization

1. Social Organization

• Stratified, classes are generally split into peasant, middle-class and high-class.
• The high-class are made up of noble families or government officials. The middle-class is split between taxpayers, householders, and peasants; the lower class is between slaves or untouchables. There is hardly any class mobility, it is very difficult to do.

2. Political Structure

• The People's Republic of China currently holds control to Tibet and it's politics. Like China, it has a dual party government system with two chairman - one for TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) and one for the regional people's Congress. Chairmen gain their power from being nominated then elected democratically. Sometimes even the Dalai Lama can hold power.
• The Tibetan constitution and Buddhist morals created the laws in Tibet. Chinese control is generally corrupt and is an issue, dealing with the freedom of religion, belief and association. Instances such as torture have been known, and with freedom of the press still absent, it is difficult to determine the scope of corruption under Chinese leadership.

Dalai Lama and Mao Zedong

3. The Role of Violence

• The 2008 Tibetan riots were a series of riots, protests and demonstrations that according to the Dalai Lama were cause by wide discontent in Tibet. It began as an annual observance of Tibetan Uprising Day when Tenzin Gyatso was exiled. It resulted in burning, looting, killing, and rioting. The effects of these riots gave forth to more violence and unrest by self-immolations where several monks and regular civilians protested the occupation of China by setting themselves on fire and burning to death similar to Thich Quang Duc. It is truly depressing that these people go to such extremes just to get a government to listen to their pleads.

Thich Quang Duc - June 10, 1963

Religion & Art

1. Religion

• Tibetan Buddhism is the major religion practiced, it is a branch of Buddhism.
• They do not follow a certain 'god,' rather they have a spiritual leader called the Dalai Lama (the rebirth of the bodhisattva (enlightened one) Avalokitesvara, who embodies all compassion of all Buddhas.
• Buddhist scriptures arrived from India in Tibet in 173 AD. Over the next 500 years it slowly spread through the entire region. In 641, King Songtsen Gampo had two buddhist wives, convincing him to make Buddhism the state religion and create Buddhist temples. In 774 the great tantric mystic Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet with invitation from King Trisong Detsen, and merged tantric (incorporates the major aspects of both the Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhist teachings. Hinayana and Mahayana are two schools of Buddhist practice that have basically similar goals and techniques but somewhat differing philosophies. It is basically an esoteric extension on these themes) with the local, indigenous Bon religion to form Tibetan Buddhism, and established the Nyingma school where it will be taught. It had a strong influence for hundreds of years, leading to Tibet being occupied by Britain then China, becoming independent in 1912, then liberated by China in 1951, to which the 14th Dalai Lama began his reign before retiring on March 14, 2011.
• The focus of Tibetan Buddhism is to have enlightenment of the Buddhahood, which will have all limitations on one's ability to help other living beings removed. There are some rituals that involve five yoga exercises that help move toward this state. They are forms of meditation that have physical and spiritual benefits. The exercise rituals are: spinning with your arms held out, laying on your stomach and lifting your legs, arching your back like a cat, stretching your legs while sitting, and arching your back like a bowl (reverse push up).
• Without Tibetan Buddhism I would imagine life in Tibet would be difficult with the Chinese reign they have over them. It has a strong influence towards every instance of their lives. It creates very positive characteristics within a population, with its teachings.

Avalokitesvara

2. Art

• Around 300 years old, it was said by a Tibetan Khenpo that this skull was carved long ago to take a curse off a family to guide the soul of a mislead human being on the right path. These types of relics are not common in modern times but provide interesting insight into what the culture was like in the past.

• Tibetan meditation is a crucial part of Buddhism, and with traditional music you can further move to that place of enlightenment and awakening. 

• Ceremony and chanting is a common practice to dispel demons - using masks to act as the old Bon gods and subdue the demons with Buddhism.

 

• Nomad teachers used thangka's as icons of personal devotion and to sanctify tents in which teachings of Buddhist doctrine are held, and also used as teaching aids. In most Tibetan homes the thangka, together with small bronze images, is a major part of the family altar.

• The elaborate colors and designs in Tibetan rugs are signs of complex artistry and rich culture, and are a traditional and ancient craft.

Conclusion: Cultural Change

• China, Nepal and India all had large influences on the way of life and culture of Tibetans. India created a positive relationship when introducing Buddhism in the 7th century. China and Nepal both brought goods as well as missionaries that taught Buddhism from China and India. However, lately China is corrupt in it's relationship with Tibet which spawns grudges.
• Protesting and awareness has given Tibet a fighting chance to finally gain it's sovereignty in the future where as decades ago there was basically null hope.
• In the modern world Tibet is a beacon for what independence is. Although the victim of constant corrupt leadership and censorship, they have shown that they are not surrendering and seeing that one day they will be split from China or have self-rule.

Bibliography

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4468783&page=1#.T8Yhu1Is2So

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/05/breathing-like-buddha-altitude-tibet/
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~greg.c/tibet.html

http://tibetmap.com

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/03/201236174017267366.html

http://www.asianart.com/phpforum/index.php?method=detailAll&Id=55265

http://www.buddhanet.net/tibart.htm

http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Tibetans-Kinship.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/14/tibet.china1

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tibetan.htm

http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/sects/tibetan.htm

http://www.slideshare.net/Teamtibet/team-tibet-group-1-presentation

http://www.tibettrip.com/features/marriage-customs.htm

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/tibet/climate.htm

Art as a Culture

1.a. The Lascaux cave artists are reflecting on the fauna in their habitat - such as horses, stags, aurochs, ibexes, bison, bears and felines.
b. Animals are very important in a cave dweller's life. It is their food as well as entertainment (when hunting or just watching). Art is to illustrate something that had a profound effect on you, animals are these people's livelihood, so it is only reasonable for them to want to.
c. These paintings tell us the painters were working with a limited use of colors and tools to paint with. As such with paleolithic art, warm colors are emphasized such as black, brown, yellow and red. These were made with handy materials like charcoal from wood or bone, or other minerals like manganese oxide.
d. The artists faced additional limitations such as calcite and disintegrating limestone causing some of the rock support to fail and cause damage to the art. Also in order to see what you are painting in a cave, many lamps using fat were used, with sometimes maybe having to use scaffolding to access a part of the wall.
e.  This art provided creativity for the dwellers so they can image their daily life, or it could have caused them to have more moral for the next hunt by having it on their minds, or it can be a sacred happening or ritual to the animals.
2. Art makes a world of its own. It can be created by you, and also convey what you want to reflect about your world. Art is held in high esteem in every culture, whether its worth millions of dollars in a museum or painted thousands of years ago, it was created by a being that wanted to show his thoughts, beliefs, feelings or creativity.
3. I play the piano and I have wanted to learn this completely.
 
a. For me classical piano is very cheerful and warming, it is a journey of emotion felt through the sound of the music.
b. Most people who perform classical piano are formal, the audience consists of a moderately vast demographic.
c. The benefits of this music is simple enjoyment, it is very enlightening and cleansing after listening and definitely after playing.

Politics & Violence

1. In general, Western societies have written laws that are extensively backed with credit from past politicians and leaders. There is a justice system with judges and lawyers that settle disputes and legal issues. The Yanomamo people have none of this, and must rely on themselves to settle fights between another individual or group. There is a general understanding to have proper behavior, but it is easy for some to not do so.
2. Revenge killings are raids in which a certain group of a village has separated from another and decides to attack that other due to a killing (there are over 200 individual different political groups in the Yanomamo population). It is most commonly due to women being abducted or killed; and it is advantageous to do these raids because if your group wins you gain a reputation of a fierce group, therefore other groups will be hesitant to attack you. It is also advantageous to the Yanomamo for higher marital and reproductive success.
3. If you kill someone you have to do the unokaimou ceremony, then you become a unokai. It is very beneficial to be one because it draws respect. People know who is unokai and who their victim(s) was/were. If you are not an unokai or have stepped away from doing a raid you can be considered a coward (tehe). People know who the cowards are as well, and it can even lead to other men trying to seduce their wife. If you become an unokai you gain power, it is impossible otherwise.
4. a. Politics is structured very simply. Patas or 'big ones' are the leaders of a village or group of a village. These leaders most of the time only act on selfish reasons. After a long and successful life of raids and killings a leader will usually be polygynous and have many children with several wives.
b. The only people who have say in villages are those who kill. The women and those who do not kill just run the village. Social structures are created when a killing separates a village into two new political groups.
c. Sometimes brothers and cousins and fathers can end up fighting each other due to political issues, but usually one's own kin is the majority of a group. The higher the kinship density, the higher possibility that a mutually supportive group will take life-threatening risks to help revenge raid or fight.
d. Judging by data, it seems those who are unokai have more reproductive success from non-unokai. This is either from forcibly taking them from others, or from marriage arrangements in which the unokai would suit as a better mate than a non-unokai.
5. The want for revenge is intercultural. Even with laws, people will still want some sort of revenge for the death of a close kin even if it was an accident. The Yanomamo is what can happen with a society without laws, people take it into themselves to do the revenge, rather than go through a case.

Kinship

1. For this assignment I talked to my dad. My dad is half Japanese and half Native American and was born is Kauai, Hawaii but grew up in Venice and Santa Monica California. His brother and him grew up in a very poor family, but was actually more well off than most due to very rich friends as he also hung out in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. He was always in the ocean or the sidewalk, as surfing and skateboarding were a passion for him (he grew up where the Dogtown Zypher Skateboard team first started, and was actually good friends with Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, Jeff Ho and the rest before moving to Santa Clarita when he met my mom to start a family).

2. I was very comfortable talking to him (as he has told me these things before). The thoroughness was the maximum as much as I knew, everything I asked him he had an answer to. I would imagine this would not be the case if I was interviewing someone unrelated. It would all be sort of basic information, and would take a lot longer to get in depth answers.

3. The entire family is Asian, so anyone who isn't is going to be the oddball at family reunions (usually my brother, my mom and I - who look predominately white). A portion of the family you see in the kinship chart actually live in the United States, and some of those are close enough for us to have contact. Kevin, Staci, Kathleen (Kathy), Aunt Helen, Uncle Ronald (Ronny), my uncle Craig and of coarse Rose are the only ones we keep a monthly contact with. There are also dozens and dozens of cousins in Hawaii whom I have never met nor does my Dad really know any of the names. Family reunions happen every other year, where most of all the US relatives attend, with one or two from Hawaii occasionally. Our elders pretty much have their own group since they were from a large family when at reunions, with us young adults and kids in another, which tend to have smaller families. There is no emphasis on maternal or paternal lines - and we all live in tight knit families, so all aged people live together.

4. My mother's side of the family is a very gloom situation, I don't know any of her family and she doesn't seem to know where her sisters are. I have a couple memories of my mom's dad when I visited them when I was 3 years old in Michigan, but nothing else. I have met and gotten to known most of my dad's uncles and aunts, at least the ones who don't live in Hawaii.

I would say in my four person family that my both my mom and dad have equal say in the decisions, if it were one person over the other that not be a worth-wile relationship. In bills, my brother and I, the house, and even decorations, they always run everything by each other.

My uncle has had one divorce and for his new relationship we were all just as supportive as we were in the previous, our family holds no grudges and is very close; and there is absolutely no attitudes towards different genders, they are all respectful people with good morals.

If anything this has confirmed my previous beliefs that I love my family and always will. They are all extremely kind people who would give a helping hand to anyone if they needed it. True role models.

Chart is a little sub-par, but I got all of the closely related to my dad.

Subsistence & Economy

Part 1

1. Having small group size in a hunter gatherer environment can be considered a benefit, there are less people to worry about and a less density of people to land. Also, food sharing keeps people from starving. A hunter's kill can feed others, and thus when the others have a kill, they can feed the hunter. "Today you, tomorrow me" is a simple way to put it. Domestication of plants and animals allows for transformed cultural systems (cities and industry), social structures, and ideological patterns. Letting people have food at their leisure allows for people to become more specific in what they specialize in, leading to prosperity in a culture.

2. The downfall to agriculture is that if it did fail for some reason and crops were not readily available, it would cause serious distress for people who don't know how to gather and prepare their own food. Hunting and gathering means you are moving from place to place, which proves to be dangerous in colder climates or in times of acute ecological disaster.

3. Hunter-gatherers were not free to determine their diet, rather, it was their predetermined biological requirements for particular nutrients that constrained their evolution. At the same time, these dietary needs apparently allowed for selection to favor increased brain size in the human lineage and the development of technology, social, and other abilities directed at securing these nutrients. However the proportions of the modern human gut appear to reflect the fact that many foods are 'predigested' by technology in one way or another before they ever enter the human digestive tract, but just because some hunter-gatherer societies obtained most of their diet from wild animal fat and protein does not imply that this is the ideal diet for modern humans, nor does it imply that modern humans have genetic adaptations to such diets. It does, however, indicate that humans can thrive on extreme diets as long as these diets contribute the full range of essential nutrients.

4.  With the development of agriculture, humans began to radically transform the environments in which they lived. A growing portion of humans became sedentary cultivators who cleared the lands around their settlements and controlled the plants that grew and the animals that grazed on them. The greater presence of humans was also apparent in the steadily growing size and numbers of settlements. These were found both in areas that they had long inhabited and in new regions that farming allowed them to settle. This great increase in the number of sedentary farmers is primarily responsible for the leap in human population during the Neolithic transition.

Part 2

1. This is known as the balance of trade. It is a nation's imports and exports. A positive balance is known as a trade surplus if it consists of exporting more than is imported; a negative balance is referred to as a trade deficit or a trade gap. The balance of trade is sometimes divided into a goods and a services balance.

2. Generalized reciprocity is a good practice, for it involves exchange in which the value of what is given is not calculated, nor is the time of repayment specified - such as gift giving, or giving to others in time of need. Such exchanges will couch them explicitly in terms of family and friendship social relations. Balanced reciprocity is also good because it has a direct obligation to reciprocate promptly in equal value in order for the relationship to continue. Events such as these are birthday parties or baby showers, it is obligatory to give, and to then expect something in return it is our turn, speaking simply.

3. The negative side to trade is when the two people trading do not have any sentimental feelings for each other and only trying to get a deal. This usually spawns hard bargaining, manipulation, or cheating. It may also lead to taking something by force, while realizing that one's victim may seek compensation or retribution for losses. Also sometimes elements of negative as well as balanced reciprocity are present. These are often the case with political fundraising in the US, where big contributors expect their generosity will buy influence with a candidate, resulting in benefits of equal value. The politician may do as little as possible in return, but not so little to not receive future donations.

4. Like agriculture, trade began as an individual thing, with one person trading with another, or one person sharing food with another. Then it gained mass leverage and soon extremely large trades were happening between nations. Agriculture also spawned due to people starting to group with each other extremely larger than just small little tribes and demanding the need for consistent flow of resources.