Overview

All cultures change through time. No culture is static. However, most cultures
are basically conservative in that they tend to resist change. Some resist
more than others by enacting laws for the preservation and protection of
traditional cultural patterns while putting up barriers to alien ideas and things.
For example, the French government has forbidden the commercial use of
English words for which there are French equivalencies. This is a reaction
particularly to the widespread use and popularity of terms such as "sandwich"
and "computer" among young people. More recently, Starbucks has found it
very difficult to become established in France despite the fact that it is
becoming successful elsewhere in Europe. In contrast, some cultures are
extremely open to some kinds of change. Over the last two decades, the
Peoples Republic of China has been rapidly adopting western technology and
culture in everyday life. This can be seen in their wide acceptance of
everything from cell phones to American television shows and fast food.
McDonald's has already established 560 of their restaurants in China and
soon will be adding 100 more. KFC fried chicken franchises have been even
more popular. There are 1000 KFC outlets throughout the country with more
than 100 in Beijing alone. Taco Bell, A & W, and Pizza Hut are not far
behind. In 2003, the Chinese government made the decision to require all
children in their country, beginning with the 3rd grade of elementary school, to
learn English. This will very likely accelerate westernization.

China is far from being unique in experiencing a revolutionary rate of

change. It is now abundantly clear that we are in an accelerating culture
change period all around the world regardless of whether we try to resist it or
not. It is driven by the expansion of international commerce and especially
mass media. Ultimately, what is driving it is our massive human population
explosion. The number of people in the world now doubles in less than half a
century.

What Actually Changes When Cultures Change?

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When analyzing the transformation of a
culture, it is clear that different
understandings are gained depending on
the focus. Anthropology began its study of
this phenomenon, during the late 19th
century, largely from the perspective of 21st century jack based on principles
of physics known to the ancient Greeks
trying to understand how manufactured
things, such as tools, are invented and modified in design over time. It
became apparent that there rarely are entirely new inventions. Most often,
only the function, form, or principle is new, but not all three. For instance, our
modern jack, used for lifting up the side of a car, is usually based on the
principles of the lever and/or the screw. Those principles were well known to
the ancient Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.

By the 1940's, anthropologists began to realize that

ideas, tools, and other artifacts generally are not
invented or changed in isolation. They are the
product of particular cultural settings. Cultures are
organic wholes consisting of interdependent
components. Inventions often occur in response to
other cultural changes.

Likewise, inventions potentially can affect all cultural institutions. Beginning in

the 1950's, for instance, televisions in American homes affected how and
when members of families interacted with each other. Less time was
available for direct conversation. The size of houses in more affluent areas of
the U.S. are now usually 2-3 times larger than they were in the 1950's. As a
consequence, family members often have their own rooms and become even
more isolated from each other.

Similarly, the introduction of new, effective birth control

measures, mostly beginning in the early 1960's, allowed
people to easily limit the number of children they had and
to space their births. This affected the relationships of
children with their parents and siblings. When there are
fewer children, parents can give more attention to each
one. Likewise, more money per child is available for
clothes, entertainment, gifts, and education. Potentially,
there is also more money and leisure time for parents
Parents with few children
can give more personal when there are fewer children in their family.
attention to each of them

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The interrelated nature of cultural institutions can also be
seen in the effects of changing roles for American women
since the mid-20th century. As they have increasingly
moved into the work force outside of the home, it has
given them financial independence and has altered
traditional roles within the family. Men are less essential
as bread winners and less accepted as patriarchs. They
have begun to take on more child rearing and other North American father
domestic household responsibilities previously defined as in a non-traditional role:
caring for his child while
"women's work." Divorce has become an economically his wife works elsewhere
viable alternative for women in unhappy marriages.
There also has been a marked decrease in the frequency of mother-child
interaction. American children have increasingly been raised by non-family
members in child care centers and schools.

By the early 1960's, it was evident to some

anthropologists that cultures do not exist in isolation.
When cultures change, they can have major impacts
on the environment. Similarly, when the environment
changes, there are likely to be impacts on culture.
For example, global warming at the end of the last ice
Culture and the natural age, 10,000 years ago, very likely was amajor
environment are interrelated contributing factor leading to the invention of
in complex ways agriculture. This technological innovation allowed for
such immense increases in human populations that
we began to rapidly alter the environment by depleting resources. In the
vicinity of ancient cities, forests often were cut down for construction materials
and fuel and wild animals were hunted to near extinction for food.

Since 1985, the average number of people living together in a household has
been dropping in the 76 richest nations due to increased affluence and other
social changes. Extended and joint family households are less popular.
Divorce rates have gone up usually resulting in the establishment of new
households by one or both former marriage partners. There also are larger
numbers of unmarried adults who establish their own households. For a
quarter century there has been a demand for housing that is significantly over
what would be expected from the population growth in these nations. As a
result, the need for lumber and other construction materials has caused a
dramatic increase in the exploitation of forests. This in turn makes it
increasingly more difficult to maintain global biological diversity.

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The interrelationship between culture and environment also can be seen in
our depletion of energy resources and forced adoption of new energy
sources. As wood became relatively scarce by the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution in Europe, it was replaced by coal to fuel factories and heat
homes. In turn, coal began to be replaced by oil and natural gas during the
early 20th century. The increasing costs associated with petroleum products
have now caused it to begin to be replaced by nuclear, solar, and other
energy sources.

Human economies change as necessity forces us to alter our relationship with

the environment. As our economies change, the rest of culture changes in
response. We are now facing potential major global cultural changes over the
next century as a result of the greenhouse effect that is presumably being
caused or aggravated by the accelerated burning of fossil fuels and forest
products. The result likely will be progressive global warming, shifting
climates, and flooded coastal regions. Entire island nations in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans may disappear below the sea. Actually, this process of people
changing the global climate may have begun much earlier than the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution as it has been commonly thought. William
Ruddiman of the University of Virginia has evidence indicating that the rise of
global temperatures began about 8,000 years ago with the early spread of
agriculture. He suggests that the massive clearance of forests in Europe and
Asia for farming beginning at that time released huge amounts of greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere. In his estimation, this was enough warming to put
off an impending ice age.

It is now clear that culture change is very complex. It has far ranging causes
and effects. In order to understand all of the manifestations of change, we
must take a holistic approach to studying cultures and the environments in
which they exist. In other words, we must assume that human existence can
be understood only as a multifaceted whole. Only then can we hope to
understand the phenomena of culture change.

Processes of Change

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All Cultures are inherently predisposed to change and, at the same time, to
resist change. There are dynamic processes operating that encourage the
acceptance of new ideas and things while there are others that encourage
changeless stability. It is likely that social and psychological chaos would
result if there were not the conservative forces resisting change.

There are three general sources of influence or pressure that are responsible
for both change and resistance to it:

1. forces at work within a society

2. contact between societies
3. changes in the natural environment

Within a society, processes leading to change include invention and culture

loss. Inventions may be either technological or ideological. The latter
includes such things as the invention of algebra and calculus or the creation of
a representative parliament as a replacement for rule by royal decree.
Technological inventions include new tools, energy sources, and
transportation methods as well as more frivolous and ephemeral things such
as style of dress and bodily adornment.

Culture loss is an inevitable result of old cultural patterns being replaced by

new ones. For instance, not many Americans today know how to care for a
horse. A century ago, this was common knowledge, except in a few large
urban centers. Since then, vehicles with internal combustion engines have
replaced horses as our primary means of transportation and horse care
knowledge lost its importance. As a result, children are rarely taught these
skills. Instead, they are trained in the use of the new technologies of
automobiles, televisions, stereos, cellular phones, computers, and iPods.

Within a society, processes that result in the resistance to change include

habit and the integration of culture traits. Older people, in particular, are often
reticent to replace their comfortable, long familiar cultural patterns. Habitual
behavior provides emotional security in a threatening world of change.
Religion also often provides strong moral justification and support for
maintaining traditional ways. In the early 21st century, this is especially true
of nations mostly guided by Islamic Law, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

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The fact that cultural institutions are integrated and often
interdependent is a major source of resistance to
change. For instance, in the second half of the 20th
century, rapidly changing roles of North American and
European women were resisted by many men because it
inevitably resulted in changes in their roles as well. Male 21st century professional
and female roles do not exist independent of each other. woman working in a job
not open to women in her
This sort of integration of cultural traits inevitably slows grandmother's generation
down and modifies cultural changes. Needless to say, it
is a source of frustration for both those who want to change and those who do
not.

The processes leading to change that occur as a result of contact between

societies are

1. diffusion
2. acculturation
3. transculturation

Diffusion is the movement of things and ideas from one culture to another.
When diffusion occurs, the form of a trait may move from one society to
another but not its original cultural meaning. For instance, when McDonald's
first brought their American style hamburgers to Moscow and Beijing, they
were accepted as luxury foods for special occasions because they were
relatively expensive and exotic. In America, of course, they have a very
different meaning--they are ordinary every day fast food items.

Acculturation is what happens to an entire culture when alien traits diffuse in

on a large scale and substantially replace traditional cultural patterns. After
several centuries of relentless pressure from European Americans to adopt
their ways, Native American cultures have been largely acculturated. As a
result, the vast majority of American Indians now speak English instead of
their ancestral language, wear European style clothes, go to school to learn
about the world from a European perspective, and see themselves as being a
part of the broader American society. As Native American societies continue
to acculturate, most are experiencing a corresponding loss of their traditional
cultures despite efforts of preservationists in their communities.

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While acculturation is what happens to an entire
culture when alien traits overwhelm
it, transculturation is what happens to an individual
when he or she moves to another society and adopts
its culture. Immigrants who successfully learn the
language and accept as their own the cultural
patterns of their adopted country have
transculturated. In contrast, people who live as
socially isolated expatriates in a foreign land for years
without desiring or expecting to Sequoyah
become assimilated participants in the host (ca. 1767-1843)
culture are not transculturating.

There is one last process leading to change that occurs as an invention within
a society as a result of an idea that diffuses from another. This is stimulus
diffusion --a genuine invention that is sparked by an idea from another
culture. An example of this occurred about 1821 whena Cherokee Indian
named Sequoyah saw English writing which stimulated him to create a
unique writing system for his own people. Part of his syllable based system is
illustrated below. Note that some letters are similar to English while others
are not. To see the entire Cherokee syllabary, click here.

16 of the 77 Cherokee
alphabetical characters

It is also likely that ancient Egyptians around 3050 B.C. invented their
hieroglyphic writing system after learning about the cuneiform writing system
invented by Sumerians in what is today Southern Iraq.

There are processes operating in the contact between cultures as well that
result in resistance to change. These are due to "us versus them" competitive
feelings and perceptions. Ethnocentrism also leads people to reject alien
ideas and things as being unnatural and even immoral. These ingroup-
outgroup dynamics commonly result in resistance to acculturation and
assimilation.
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 Summation
In order to better grasp the relationship between all of
the different mechanisms of change operating within and between societies, it
is useful to see them again in summary:

We now understand that this holistic approach to understanding culture

change must also include consideration of changes in the environment in
which a society exists. For instance, environmental degradation of fresh
water supplies, arable land, and energy sources historically have resulted in
the creation of new inventions, migrations, and even war to
acquire essential resources.

NOTE: Human activities globally now move ten times as much earth and rock
as all natural processes. One of the side effects of this is soil erosion that is
causing the progressive loss of farmlands at the same time that the human
need for them is growing. Driving this has been our rapidly increasing human
population. Research done by Bruce Wilkinson of the University of Michigan
has shown that this human-caused erosion began to exceed nature's ability to
repair it nearly 1,000 years ago (Wilkinson Geology 28, 843-846, [2000]).

Acculturation: Part 1

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When alien culture traits diffuse into a society on a massive scale,
acculturation frequently is the result. The culture of the receiving society is
significantly changed. However, acculturation does not necessarily result in
new, alien culture traits completely replacing old indigenous ones. There
often is a syncretism , or an amalgamation of traditional and introduced
traits. The new traits may be blended with or worked into the indigenous
cultural patterns to make them more acceptable.

The Highland Maya Indians of Guatemala and

Chiapas State of Southern Mexico provide an
example of religious syncretism. Spanish colonial
authorities forced Christianity upon them beginning in
the 16th century. However, the Maya defined some
of the Christian saints as also being their ancient
Indian gods. As a result, their indigenous religious
belief system was essentially only added to and modified. The overt religious
practices seemed to be Christian to the Spanish authorities but they retained
dual meanings for the Maya. Their religion was
enriched by the syncretism.

Whether acculturation takes place often depends on

the relationship between the culture that is receiving
the new traits and the culture of their origin. If one
society is militarily dominant in the culture contact
and they perceive their own culture as being British culture-dominated
superior in terms of technology and quality of life, it Australian city (Perth)
is not likely that they will be acculturated. This was the case in the contact
between the British settlers of Australia and the Aborigines they
encountered. Visiting an Australian city today, you see European culture
almost exclusively. The English generally did not adopt Aborigine ways.
However, some minor traits, such as words for plants, animals, and
geographic locations, were accepted by the British. Since they were in control
of the contact situation, the Britishwere able to pick and choose the traits that
would be incorporated into their culture.

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If a society is militarily dominated but still perceives its Ancient Roman city
culture to be superior, it also is not likely to be
acculturated to the dominant society's culture. This sort of disdaining rejection
of acculturation occurred following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire
during the 5th century A.D. The end finally came as a result of repeated
invasions by militarily superior Germanic tribes. The Romans did not adopt
the language or other cultural patterns of their conquerors. It was just the
opposite. The Goths and other Germanic tribes generally adopted Roman
Christianity, the outward trappings of the Roman political system, and Latin as
the language of learning.

A society that is militarily dominant in a culture contact situation but perceives

its culture as being inferior is a likely candidate for acculturation. This was the
case with the Mongols of North Central Asia under Genghis Khan after
they conquered China in the 13th century A.D. The Mongolian occupiers
largely adopted Chinese culture within a generation. They were acculturated
by the people who they had defeated in war.

Contact between societies that are militarily and

technologically equals rarely results in acculturation. This is
especially true if both societies believe themselves to be
culturally superior to the other. Contemporary France and
England are an example. Words, foods, and other relatively
superficial cultural traits regularly diffuse back and forth
between them (especially in the upper social classes), but
there is no massive influx of cultural traits. As a result, the
Frenchman Frenchman (on the left) remains strongly French and the
Englishman (on the right) remains proudly English in
culture.

In contrast, rapid, psychologically

overwhelming acculturation usually
occurs in societies that are both
Englishman militarily dominated and believe
themselves to be culturally inferior in
terms of technology and quality of life. Many of the
indigenous societies of Australia and North America Australian Aborigine
suffered this fate. Not only were they ultimately in European clothes
powerless to prevent the occupation of their lands but
they could not effectively control the impact of the alien culture on their own
people. The consequence frequently was massive acculturation and the

10
replacement of indigenous cultures with little syncretism with their own
traditional cultural patterns. The fact that the Australian Aborigine shown here
is wearing European clothes is an indication that his traditional culture is not
intact.

Millenarian Movements
When a society is helpless to resist a massive cultural invasion and strong
pressure to abandon traditional cultural patterns in favor of alien ones, there is
usually considerable psychological stress. There is nearly constant culture
shock in response to the new reality and disorientation from the failure of
traditional skills and values in dealing with the rapidly changing situation.
Under these circumstances, it is common for millenarian movements to
occur. These are conscious, organized attempts to revive or perpetuate
selected aspects of the indigenous culture or to gain control of the direction
and rate of culture change. These movements have also been referred to as
messianic , nativistic , and revitalization movements.

Millenarian movements are started and led by prophets

who preach a religious-like belief in the coming of a
new millennium , or period of great happiness,
peace, and prosperity brought about by a new order of
things. Some of the best known millenarian movements
were the Cargo Cults of New Guinea and neighboring
islands of Melanesia . They first appeared in 1931 at
Buka in the Solomon Islands. Prophets predicted that a flood would
soon engulf all Europeans in the region. This flood would be followed by the
arrival of ships laden with European goods. Cult believers were to
construct storehouses for the goods and to prepare to repulse colonial police.
Because it was predicted that the cargo ships would arrive only after the
believers used up their own supplies, they stopped
farming.

The 1931 Cargo Cult leaders were arrested and the

cult quickly died. However, it cropped up again and
again in various forms throughout Melanesia,
especially after World War II. Some of the later
movements blended Christian theology with Women in Papua New Guinea
indigenous cultural ideas. For instance, the
resurrection of dead Melanesians was to coincide with the destruction and

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enslavement of Europeans. Later Cargo Cults also tended to focus more on
controlling the ongoing acculturation rather than stopping it. Believers were
promised that they would soon get European material wealth and knowledge
without being dominated by their colonial masters.

A North American Indian equivalent of the Cargo Cult was the Ghost Dance
Movement of the late 19th century. It began in Northwestern Nevada with a
prophet named Tävibo . He was a partially acculturated Paviotso
(Northern Paiute ) Indian who had worked enough as a ranch hand to get
a superficial understanding of European American culture. In 1869, he began
preaching his ideas about a new order of things that was coming. As a result
of visions, he claimed that all non-Indian Americans would be destroyed by a
catastrophic earthquake and that the Indians would get all of their wealth and
power. Dead Indians would return to the living, food would be plentiful, and all
would live peacefully and happily together. These millenarian ideas spread
over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to North and Central California in 1870
where they flourished. The Ghost Dance followers were instructed to purify
themselves, dance in a certain way, and sing special songs in order to hasten
these changes. By 1872, most of the followers lost faith and the movement
began to die out. This was followed by even more rapid acculturation in North
and Central California.

A second Ghost Dance

Movement began a
generation later as a
result of prophesies
by Wovoka (also
known as Jack
Wilson). Wovoka may
Oglala Sioux dancing the Ghost Dance have been a young
(sketched by James P. Boyd in 1891)
relative of Tävibo. It
Wovoka (Jack Wilson)
was claimed (ca. 1856-1932)
1894 Sioux Reenactment of the that Wovokadied of a
Ghost Dance (length = 24 secs)
fever and returned to
the living after being
told by God to renew the Ghost Dance Movement.
Beginning in 1889, his preaching excited the Northern
Plains Indians. He said that a new messiah was
coming and that he would bring the ghosts of the
Indian dead to join the living. In preparation, men and
women had to purify themselves and give up alcohol

12
and violence. They also had to dance in a large circle appealing to their
ancestors for help. If this was done properly, the old Indian ways would be
restored and the Plains Indians would be independent and powerful once
again. This movement was taken on with great religious fervor in 1890 by
the Arapaho , Northern Cheyenne , and Oglala Sioux . All of these
peoples were then embittered by being forced to settle on reservations where
there was inadequate food supplies. Emboldened by "ghost shirts" with
painted symbols that supposedly would protect them from bullets, many left
their reservations and renewed hostility with the U.S. Army. This proved to be
a tragic decision. They were hunted down and many were killed at Wounded
Knee and other skirmishes. The Ghost Dance Movement failed to deliver its
promises and was abandoned.

All of these and other millenarian movements around the world have a
number of things in common. They typically develop in small, previously
isolated societies with low levels of technology. They are largely a response
to the psychological stresses resulting from oppressive culture contact
situations in which they are pressured to acculturate with little control over the
changes. Their old cultural ways no longer seem to work and the new, alien
culture is only partly understood. They also usually use supernatural means
to carry out their goal. This involves a leap of faith. In doing this, they are
acting rationally from their own culture's perspective. However, they are
using good logic based on false assumptions.

The goal of millenarian movements is usually one of two things--the

elimination or control of the alien people, customs, and values that are
threatening the native ones. These movements are deliberate, organized,
conscious efforts to construct or reconstruct a satisfying culture. While there
is a focus on particular aspects of culture, apparently there is always a
perception of the culture as a whole system in the minds of a movement's
participants.

Millenarian movements are, in a sense, healthy signs in that they occur only
as long as there is enough of the old culture surviving to be viable. These
movements are attempts to stem the tide of psychological disorientation by
constructing a meaningful culture from what is remembered of the past and
what is poorly understood of the alien culture that is dominating them. If
acculturation has proceeded to the point that there is little of the old culture left
and there is widespread anomie , a millenarian movement is much less
likely to occur.

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Millenarian movements are not just a phenomena of the past.
They still appear from time to time. A recent one
called Naparama (literally "irresistible force") developed in
Mozambique during the 1980's. This movement was
spawned in the chaos and destruction of a prolonged civil
war. Mass starvation and cultural disintegration were
rampant. Manuel Antonio was the prophet leader of
the Naparama "Spirit Army." He was a mysterious man in
his 20's who intentionally kept his tribal identity a secret. He attracted
followers by saying that he had died of measles and after 6 days had risen
from the grave to receive a message from God instructing him to liberate
people behind the lines of the Renamo Army faction that opposed the
central government forces.

A core Naparama belief was that warriors who were "vaccinated" would be
protected from bullets, spears, and knives. "Vaccination" was a rite in which
numerous cuts were made on the chest and neck of initiates with a razor
blade. Ashes and unidentified herbs were rubbed into the wounds. At the
conclusion, initiates were struck hard with the sharp edge of a panga to prove
their invulnerability. If the initiate flinched, the "vaccination" procedure
was considered to be a failure and was repeated. Twenty or more teenage
boys were usually initiated at a time. When at its peak,
the Naparama movement reportedly had about 3,000 dedicated followers.

When the Naparama warriors went into battle, each carried a short spear and
a red ribbon pinned on their clothing for protection from bullets. Antonio said
that this provided magical protection that would work as long as the young
men did not give in to fear. During the late 1980's, the Naparama Spirit Army
apparently overran at least 24 well armed Renamo rebel strongholds.
Reportedly, the Renamo defenders gave up without a fight when confronted
by the magic of Naparama. With the end of the Mozambique civil war in the
early 1990's, the Naparama Spirit Army seems to have faded away.

Many charismatic leaders have founded millenarian movements in rapidly

changing modern industrialized nations as well. While they did not arise in
small isolated, technologically limited societies, as was the case with the
Cargo Cults and Ghost Dance Movements, they share many of the same
characteristics. The followers typically are disillusioned, alienated people who
are desperately searching for a more meaningful world view. Recent,
examples of these new movements in America include the People's Temple in
the 1970's (led by Reverend Jim Jones), the Branch Davidians in the late

14
1980's and early 1990's (led by David Koresh), and Heaven's Gate in the late
1980's and 1990's (led by Marshall "Do" Applewhite). All three movements
failed to achieve their prophesized rewards and came to an abrupt end
with murder and mass suicide.

There have been other similar religion focused millenarian movements that
have not failed. Examples of these include the Jehovah's Witnesses (founded
by Charles Russell in the 1870's), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints (founded by Joseph Smith in the 1830's). Likewise, some
indigenous millenarian movements elsewhere in the world have survived by
changing and adopting methods that do not require magic and leaps of faith.
For example, the Mau-Mau Movement in Kenya during the early 1950's
survived, after a bitter but successful war of independence against Britain, by
evolving into a national political movement.

Acculturation: Part 2
Not all isolated, small-scale foraging or horticultural societies developed
millenarian movements when they were put under great pressure to
acculturate by militarily powerful outsiders. However, rapid destructive
acculturation most often occurs. The dominant, controlling society in a culture
contact situation rarely takes the time and effort to find out ahead what the
impact of their technology and culture will be on the indigenous societies that
they are dominating.

The Purari Delta tribes of coastal Papua New Guinea

provide an example of unintended effects in such culture
contact situations. Prior to their first encounter with
Europeans, they lived as hunters, gatherers, and small-scale
farmers in the isolation of 500 square miles of densely
vegetated delta land, rivers, and swamps. The
8,000 Purari people were concentrated in 6
large villages which had institutionalized patterns of raiding each other to
obtain victims for ritual cannibalism. The large settlements provided personal
defense and the social benefits of a more exciting ceremonial life.

15
The Purari tribes all shared an elaborate religious
belief system in which all adult males participated.
To become a participant, boys had to go through an
initiation ceremony (pairama ) in which they ate
part of a dead enemy. By so doing, they acquired
the power (imunu ) of the victim. Only males
Papua New Guinea men
were cannibals and it was only done in connection
with this initiation ceremony. However, victims could be male, female, young,
or old. Without acquiring imunu, boys could not become men, get married, or
assume political and religious offices. They would remain children all of their
lives. As a result, it was inconceivable that they would not go through this
initiation.

The first European contact with Purari people was in 1907 when the London
Mission Society established an outpost near their territory. Beginning in
1913, the British government sporadically recruited men from the delta to work
in labor gangs at the Vailala oil fields and the Public Works Department of
Port Moresby. About this time, the Purari tribes made peace with the
European missionaries and allowed government patrols to pass through their
territory. The outsiders were no threat to the Purari food sources and stayed
out of their social life. Christianity did not appeal to them. The old religion and
ritual cannibalism continued.

Over the next several decades, government control over the Purari Delta
progressively tightened and intertribal warfare began to be suppressed, but
the old belief system remained intact and cannibalism continued.
Missionaries still made no progress in converting the people. World War II
accelerated contacts with Europeans since morePurari men were hired as
laborers. By the end of the war, intertribal warfare and cannibalism were
largely stopped by a strong police presence. This created a major problem for
the Purari people. They were not able to properly initiate boys. They tried to
substitute eating pig in place of human meat, but it was not satisfactory. They
did not question the validity of their beliefs, but they were prevented from
following them.

Most of Purari culture was left unaltered by the colonial authorities. They
were only interested in suppressing war and cannibalism, both of which were
at the core of thePurari religious system. By the early 1950's, life had become
dissatisfying. Ceremonies were now only family matters and, subsequently,
ineffective. The large villages dispersed into small, isolated settlements.
Traditional marriage practices generally ended because boys were not

16
becoming men and only men could get married. The kinship system and
codes of conduct became vague. There was a dramatic increase in incest,
murder, and suicide--boys were not responsible for adhering to the adult
moral code. Over the next 30 years, the population dropped by 1/3 and rapid
acculturation began.

An implication of the Purari Delta case is that when culture contact is so

overwhelming as to change important institutions that are cultural focal points,
it should be expected that it will set in motion far ranging impacts resulting in
the rapid destruction of the old way of life, widespread anomie, and even
depopulation. The elements of culture are interrelated in a way that makes
them interdependent, and some elements are more essential to a particular
culture than are others. Changes in these central elements will produce more
significant and far ranging effects. For the Purari people, it was
the pairama ceremony and associated cannibalism that proved to be central.

Despite the good intentions of the colonial authorities who stopped

cannibalism, the result was ultimately disastrous for the Purari people and
their culture. Far more people died when this practice was eliminated
and Purari culture began to collapse. No doubt, other factors also were
involved in this ethnocide and near genocide , but the destruction of
traditional Purari religious practices in particular knocked out the crucial
underpinnings of their society, resulting in the confusion and disillusionment
that led to the collapse of their traditional culture.

Postscript

Not all acculturation is as harmful for indigenous peoples. If their military

domination is more protective than exploitive, indigenous societies can be
selective in accepting which alien traits enter their cultures. For this to
happen, it is crucial that outsiders take the time to learn about the cultures of
the indigenous peoples they control. If the key cultural institutions are
recognized and left intact, healthy syncretism can occur. It is the job
of applied anthropologists to help in this transition. They study endangered
indigenous cultures in order to gain information needed to prevent disastrous
culture change. They provide this information to both the indigenous peoples
and to national governments who often are the sources of change.

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 Global Change
Most of the isolated peoples that anthropologists studied around the world in
past generations are now in dismal situations. Small indigenous societies
have suffered as a consequence of the spread of western culture over the last
century. Some of these peoples have died out, while most are in terminal
phases of the stressful process of rapid acculturation. This radical, often
painful culture change is occurring mostly in underdeveloped nations today.
These countries have persistent low levels of living that can be linked
historically to the manner of their integration into the world economic system.
They usually provide cheap raw materials and labor. Their natural and human
resources are bought cheaply by rich nations and transnational corporations.

It is quite clear that small indigenous societies have not been the only ones
experiencing rapid, dramatic culture change over the last century. People in
all societies have faced unprecedented changes in their lives. There has
been a globalization of economies so that the entire world is now
economically tied together by complex webs of interdependence. Most
manufactured items that we buy have components produced in several
countries on different continents. Fresh produce in our supermarkets often
was grown elsewhere, especially in the winter. Corporations regularly
outsource their tech support and other phone based services to India.
Manufacturing jobs also progressively move to China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
and other nations where labor is comparatively cheap. In a very real sense,
geographical barriers are things of the past. Distances do not matter any
more for communication and business. When there is a stock market collapse
in Asia, Europe, or North America, it reverberates throughout the rest of the
world within a day. Regional economic independence no longer exists.
Economic wealth also has progressively shifted from nations to transnational
corporations. At the present time, 51 of the 100 biggest economies in the
world are corporations. More than 20 million Americans now work
for majortransnational corporations, often in other countries.

The rate of globalization has been accelerating over the last

decade. Contributing factors in making the world a smaller place have been
the spread of Internet and email access as well as massive levels
of international travel. Every year, approximately 8 million Americans travel to
other countries on business trips and 19 million visit other parts of the world
as tourists. Frequent international travel is by no means limited to
Americans. It has become common for people in the industrialized regions of

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the world. However, the majority of those living in underdeveloped nations do
not travel internationally nor do they have Internet access. Over half of all
North Americans are using the Internet, but only 1% of the people in Africa
and the Middle East have it available to them. However, images, values, and
tastes from the Western World are now flooding virtually all nations via
television, movies, print advertising, and commercial products.

We are living in a time of a continuously accelerating knowledge revolution.

This has resulted in shorter time periods between major impacting
technological inventions. In less than a single lifetime, jet aircraft, televisions,
transistor radios, hand held calculators, cellular phones, computers, the
Internet, and iPods have appeared and radically changed our lives. Rapid,
inexpensive global communication and travel are a reality. On the down side,
information overdose is now a common problem. People in developed
nations have 24 hour access to news and entertainment in many forms and
vast databases of information are as close as the nearest computer with
Internet access.

Mentally demanding office work Crowded Japanese sidewalks at

has largely replaced physically rush hour resulting from workers
demanding factory and farm work being concentrated in cities

Driving all of these global changes has been a dramatic increase in the size of
the human population. Our numbers have doubled over the last 4 decades.
However, only 5% of that growth has occurred in the developed nations.
Because the underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are
generating nearly all of the population growth, we will have added the
equivalent of 3 more impoverished sub-Saharan Africas to the world within a
quarter of a century.

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However, the overall world growth rate is now
declining, especially in the developed nations. Birth
rates generally are down, but life spans are longer.
Consequentially, the elderly are the fastest growing
age group worldwide, even in many of the poorer
nations. Those 65 and older are likely to increase in
numbers twice as fast as the population as a whole at "Graying" populations in
the developed nations
least until 2020. One result of this change will be an
increasing financial burden on younger working people to pay for the pensions
and medical costs of the expanding elderly group. The graying of the
population is most pronounced now in Europe and Japan. Italy has the
unenviable record of being the first nation to reach the point at which there are
more people over 60 than under 20 years old. Spain, Germany, and Greece
will shortly achieve this ratio also. In the United States, similar trends are
being statistically masked by an enormous immigration of young people from
Latin America.

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In some regions, however, the trend is just the opposite. For instance,
Nigeria's continued high birth rate will likely result in a doubling of its
population over the next quarter century. While the highest projected growth
rates are in Africa, the biggest population increases will be in the developing
nations of Asia.

SHARE OF THE WORLD POPULATION

1970 2020
Less Developed Nations 72.9% 83.6%
More Developed Nations 27.1% 16.4%
Geographic Region:
--- Sub-Saharan Africa 7.8% 13.5%
--- Near East and North Africa 3.9% 6.4%
--- China (Mainland and Taiwan) 3.9% 6.4%
--- Other Asia 29.7% 35.0%
--- Latin America and the Caribbean 7.7% 8.5%
--- Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union 9.5% 5.8%
--- Western Europe, North America, Japan, and Oceania 18.9% 12.0%
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
Accompanying the dramatic growth in population has
been a massive immigration into the richer nations of
North America, Western Europe, and Australia by
people from the poorer ones. This primarily
economic driven migration has had a profound effect
on life in the receiving countries. The new diversity
has been felt particularly by public services. For Diverse ethnicity in Canada
instance, large school districts in California now must
cope with more than 75 different languages being spoken by their students.
Generally, these demographic changes have more profoundly affected cities
than rural areas. In Los Angeles, for example, only 9% of its residents were
foreign born in 1960. By 1990, that number had grown to 40% of the
population.

Within the industrialized nations, there has also been massive internal
migration over the last half century. Many middle class urbanites moved out
into suburbia and beyond. In addition, there have been extensive regional
migrations. For instance, many Southern Italians have moved to Northern
Italy for jobs. Many people from Ireland, Scotland, and the old industrialized
cities of Northern England have moved to Southern England for the same
reason. In the United States, millions of people from the old industrialized

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"Rust Belt" centers of the Northeast have migrated south and west to the "Sun
Belt."

Over the last two centuries, there has developed a progressive disparity in
wealth between nations and between major regions. Economic power has
become concentrated mostly in the industrialized nations of the northern
hemisphere. Their control of manufacturing and international trade resulted in
an unequal playing field. This disparity has provided people in the richer
nations with greater access to food, electricity, fossil fuels, education, and
medicine with the consequence that their lives are materially more
comfortable and their life spans are significantly longer. By comparison, 1.2
billion people in the third world live on less than one U.S. dollar per day.

The disproportionate amount of resources used by the rich nations has

exacted a high cost for our planet. There is increasingly burdensome
environmental decimation and pollution as well as depletion of key non-
renewable resources. This situation will likely become much worse over the
next few decades as China, with its enormous population, becomes highly
industrialized and the standard of living for its population increases
dramatically. They already consume more meat, grains, coal, steel, and
several other basic resources than the United States. Americans still use
more oil than any other nation, but consumption is increasing rapidly in
China. If the trend in growth of the Chinese economy and standard of living
continues at its current rate, by early in the 2030's they could be consuming
more oil and other key resources than the entire world currently produces.
The phenomenal growth in the Chinese economy comes at a high price for its
own people. Their cities are among the most polluted in the world. Not far
behind China in becoming an economic powerhouse in the 21st century will
likely be India, the second most populous nation. A consequence of this will
be a dramatic increase in the global competition to
acquire key resources.

One of the most far ranging social and cultural

changes that has occurred over the last century has
been the increase in economic and political power of
women in the developed nations, especially in the
Western ones. During the 19th century, women in
these countries generally could not vote, attend a Poor African women doing
university, become doctors, lawyers, politicians, hard hard farm work

government officials, or corporate leaders. They

were expected to only aspire to become housewives and mothers. When
married, their husbands often gained full legal rights to their property. This
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second class status of Western women has largely ended. Men gave up
some of their power due in part to the need for women to actively participate
inindustrial production during the great world wars of the first half of the 20th
century. It also has been due to the emergence in recent decades of post
industrial economies that require much less manual labor in factories. An
additional important factor has been the constant pressure by women to be
treated as equals. However, the significantly increased status and power of
Western women generally has not been matched by women elsewhere in the
world.

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