Sunday, December 7, 2008


How different is your modern culture from the Sawi tenants?

To be perfectly honest I think in ways our modern culture and the Sawi tenants aren’t that different. They hunt and kill their food, even though sometimes the food they are hunting is human meat, we do the same. There are a lot of people that hunt and kill to get food but in our modern world we hunt animals. We stand by our upbringings and they religion our parents showed us as children. The Sawi do the exact same, they have their roles in society, their culture, and their believes and they practice it from an early age till death.
But then you can look at it from a different point of view and notice that what they considered normal and just an everyday thing, is not only morally wrong but its also against the last. Like being head hunters, or cannibals, or the belief in treachery. All those things are so far from our modern cultures its hard to believe.
Even though this seems so far off it is very possible that somewhere out there, there is a small group, or maybe even a large group of people that still hold these beliefs to this day and have no problems morally with it. For example the Korowai tribe, the live in Indonesian New Guinea. They are one of the last people on earth to practice cannibalism.
So in many ways we can see how those cultures are “not normal” or “wrong” but when you think about it, if those cultures came and looked at the way our culture is. They probably will say the same thing about us. Its all a matter of where you grew up and how you live your life.

1 comment:

Lauren - Peace Child said...

I think perspective plays a big role in what is normal or not. I think that if the Korowai Tribe saw our ways of living, they would be making negative judgements about us too. People are naturally accustomed to rejecting things that are not of the norm. to them.

I guess we are the same in that we all hunt for food because we are all humans and need to eat to survive haha.