ANTH 337 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Northwest Coast Art, Collective Unconscious
18 Jan 2020
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Document Summary
From greek sumbolos meaning to rejoin something separated. Peirce said there were three types of signs: index, symbol, icon. Symbol: the connection between image and idea is an arbitrary connection (ex: roses for love) Icon: a depiction that resembles what it represents (ex: signs for gender on bathroom doors) Index: smoke is an index of fire, something that is associated physically with what it"s indicating, (i. e. smoke to fire, pulse to life) Looks at northwest coast art, where it has roles in ceremony/religion but also status and families which have totems. Totem: an animal or symbol from nature, usually, which represents a group of people. Totems in northwest functioned like crests or trademarks, not necessarily supernaturally linked this varies among totemic systems. The art is both iconographic and symbolic because it at least somewhat represents what it"s depicting but also represents status.
