I started thinking about the idea of trading languages a while back when I learned about Swahili. I had learned that Swahili is comprised of about 20% Arabic words and that it may have been because of its use in trading in east Africa, making trading across cultural groups more efficient. I noted that much like in trade, when working in project teams, having a common trade language can help make communication much more efficient
The ethnography is the staple of anthropological fieldwork, since it is the distillation of the anthropologist’s experience while carrying out participant observation within a culture. Ever since post-modernism, the value of the ethnography has come into question as an accurate – albeit static –representation of culture.
There are a great many things that can be said to be ritual. There are the native and tribal rituals that we so often read about in ethnological accounts, and the religious rituals that some of us participate in on weekends – sometimes on weekends for those more committed.
While this article is meant to highlight the topic of vampires as discussed in both academic and mainstream published media, it is by far not a complete overview of the topic, as the research databases are replete with all manner of entries on vampires, vampirism, and the ilk. I think that at this point it is also useful to present my operant definitions for academic and mainstream.
How ritual helps to shape the world in which we live through the ascribing of meaning to objects, roles and situations.
It is said that there is nothing certain in life, except death and taxes. In the western world, we seem to have a grim view of the concept of death. It is something that will happen to all of us, no one likes to discuss, and we all avoid it as much as possible – surely, the same could be said about taxes. But, this is not a paper about taxation in Ancient Egypt. Instead, this is a brief survey of the cosmology and material culture regarding death, and particularly mummification, in ancient Egypt. While the rule of Egypt spans well over 4,000 years, this article will narrow its focus to the time period of what is more commonly known as the Old Kingdom, circa 2750-2250 B.C.
