essay
Dry meat and gender: the absence of Chipewyan ritual for the regulation of hunting and animal numbers
Hunters and gatherers : 2. property, power, and ideology • Oxford [oxfordshire] • Published In 1991 • Pages: 183-191
By: Sharp, Henry S..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Sharp takes issue with the conventional depiction of hunter-gatherers in which Chipewyans are singled out for their lack of ritual, i.e., hunting magic. Sharp immediately discounts as an explanation the legacy of Catholicism and the possible substitution of Catholic ritual for traditional practices. Rather he discusses Chipewyan ideas of causality, which are wrapped up in the notion of a common supernatural realm of man and beast. According to Sharp, the Chipewyan hunters have an intimate connection to animals on the supernatural level, one that does not entail any mediating ritualistic processes in order to achieve desired ends. This connection, or causality, in which an animal gives itself to the hunter is achieved through mental processes of knowing, understanding, and dreaming. As food processors, women have an outsider's relationship to this supernatural realm. The sharing of food in this context is mediated by gender identity itself and not by any ideas of ritualized exchange.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Hunting and trapping
- Division of labor by gender
- Gender status
- General character of religion
- Ritual
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Chipewyans
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Arctic and Subarctic
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- Not Specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1770-1980
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- north-central Canada
- NotesAdditional notes
- Henry S. Sharp
- Includes bibliographical references (p. )
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 87021216
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Chipewyan Indians