• Religion and relief aid in Haiti
BBC carried an article pointing to the low profile of voodoo in the aftermath of the earthquake. Some observers think that Christian organizations are dominating the scene and even denying benefits to Haitians who demonstrate adherence to voodoo (a blend of Christian and African beliefs and rituals) by wearing peasant clothing or a voodoo handkerchief. Although voodoo practitioners were included in the three days of prayer in February, voodoo leaders themselves have kept a low profile. Gerald Murray, professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, comments: “For a religion that’s supposedly the national religion of the Haitian people, it’s amazingly absent in the earthquake phenomena.” He points the role of theology. In the voodoo belief system, natural disasters are caused by bondye, a distant supreme being that cannot be influenced by humans. Humans can propitiate only loa, beings in charge of more everyday matters such as illness. Because the earthquake was not caused by loa, voodoo leaders are theologically framed out of the larger picture. They are, however, likely to be playing a major, if quiet, role helping people deal with the effects of the earthquake on their health and welfare.
•For her own good…
In Cameroon, and perhaps elsewhere in West and Central Africa, many mothers “iron” the emerging breasts of their young daughters in order to protect them from male sexual interests and possible pregnancy. The process varies but seems typically to involve pressing a hot stone or piece of wood onto a girl’s breasts. An article in the Washington Post quotes Flavien Ndonko, an anthropologist with the German Agency for Technical Cooperation: “It’s body mutilation and against women’s rights.” He noted that some of the consequences are abscesses, infection, deformation, lactation problems, cysts, possible links to breast cancer, and emotional stress. A survey he helped to conduct revealed that one-fourth of girls had experienced breast ironing.
• Freakanomics beware: here comes anthropology!
Robin Dunbar’s new book, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, is reviewed in the Scotsman. Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University who thinks widely, poses big questions, and brings science to them. In this book he addresses such issues as how the symmetry in Barack Obama’s face helped him win the election, why women gossip and men brag, why laughter is good for you, why morning sickness is good for babies, and the social consequences of the unbalanced sex ratio in China.
• The lost have been found, again
According to oral traditions of the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa, their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land 2,500 years ago. Many of the customs of this population of around 80,000, are exact parallels with Jewish tradition. British researchers have now established a genetic link to a common ancestor who lived about 3,000 years ago in north Arabia. This discovery confirms a longstanding argument about such a link by Tudor Parfitt, a professor in the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Parfitt has been studying the Lembas’ cultural practices and language for over a decade.
• The unregistered millions
The births of more than 45 million children worldwide are unregistered. Most of these are in South Asia and Africa. Many countries have not explained why it is important to have a birth certificate. Cultural and logistical constraints are also at play, as explained by Olungah Owuor, lecturer in anthropology at the University of Nairobi: “Birth certificates are a foreign concept to Africa, where celebrations and rituals were normally what would mark the birth of a child…The public must first be socialised to understand the importance of having the document before the Government issues ultimatums that would force people to get the certificate just for the sake of it.”
• She cooks for him
Harvard University’s Richard Wrangham, professor of human evolutionary biology, published the popular book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, last year. It is the subject of a new documentary from BBC Horizons. In the Sun Herald, Simon Webster quotes Wrangham’s understanding of the links among cooking, gender roles, and marriage: Marriage is a “protection racket in which a woman is required to feed a man because of the threat of having her food taken by other men.” This blogger hasn’t seen the documentary and wonders if Wrangham actually says that…if so, it raises basic questions about science and whereof one can and cannot speak.
• Read my eggshell
Lines etched into 60,000 year-old ostrich eggshells found in South Africa have the archaeologists debating whether they are evidence of the earliest art or the earliest written “language.” Excavations by archaeologist Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux and his colleagues have unearthed more than 270 fragments. The fragments span a period of over 5,000 years but show consistently similar designs. Long-term repetition is a hallmark of symbolic communication and modern human thinking. The eggshells were likely used as containers, and markings may have indicated the contents or the owner. Until recently, Texier says, Bushmen in the region carved geometric motifs on ostrich eggshells as a mark of ownership. Findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
• The flushing gene
Around half of all people of Asian descent have a genetic trait that causes the face to redden when a person drinks alcoholic beverages. New research suggests that the genetic mutation for alcohol-induced facial flushing emerged 10,000 years ago in southern China. As quoted in Time.com, Bing Su, one of the researchers involved in the study from the China Academy of Sciences, says: “This is one of the few cases reported demonstrating the genetic adaptation of human populations to the dramatic changes in agriculture and diet in Neolithic times.” The argument is that the red-face gene evolved as an alarm system warning the person to drink less. Findings will be published in BMC Evolutionary Biology.
• More on culture shaping genes
Related to the previous discussion of the flushing gene is Nicholas Wade’s article in the New York Times on lactose tolerance as the major example of cultural change affecting genetic change. The argument that culture and genes can co-evolve has been slow to catch on in mainstream science. According to Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, the selective pressure of culture is relatively recent, probably dating to 10,000-20,000 years ago.
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