AHRM 1204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Potlatch, Homo Sapiens, Wodaabe

• School: Virginia Tech
• Department: Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management
• Course: AHRM 1204
• Professor: Lu Ann Gaskill

Document Summary

Commercial societies- most people work to earn money to buy goods and services. Tribal sociocultural systems- the outcome of sapienization, the co-evolution of human society, language, and the human physical type the produced modern homo sapiens. Individuals who settled in groups could easily transport material goods due to them being flat and how little they travelled. Social structure is usually egalitarian characterized by parity. Individuals were organized into kin-based groups along lines of marriage, bloodlines, and family. Political decisions were negotiated within networks of kin, no centralized authority to govern- this is called acephalous (or a tribe) Gerewol is a celebration by the wodaabe in west africa when several groups come together and congregate in a central area to celebrate important life rituals (marriage, death, etc. ) Animism- worship of powers that animate aspects of the universe important to group survival, so celestial bodies, geological features, and ancestors (plants, food sources, etc. )