Sunday, March 7, 2010
The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 04
_______________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 04". You Tube. Posted: September 14, 2009. Available online:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8QrxeKV-8
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 03
_____________________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 03". You Tube. Posted: September 14, 2009. Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI7SuZoNLAI
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 02
The journey continues. Part two.
___________________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 02". You Tube. Posted: September 13, 2009. Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oTzRxLdUNA
___________________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 02". You Tube. Posted: September 13, 2009. Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oTzRxLdUNA
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 01
I found another interesting series on You Tube. Enjoy.
How did we get here? Following a trail of clues from the latest scientific research, Dr Alice Roberts re-traces the greatest ever journey taken by our ancestors. Thousands of years ago one small group of our species, Homo sapiens, crossed out of Africa and into the unknown. Their descendants faced baking deserts, sweat-soaked jungles and frozen wildernesses and risked everything on the vast empty ocean.
Within 60,000 years they colonised the whole world... How did they do it? Why do we, their descendants all look so different? And what did we have that meant we were the only human species to survive?
Using the evidence from genetics, fossils, archaeology and climatology, Dr Alice Roberts uncovers five epic routes our ancestors took across the globe and the obstacles and brutal challenges they encountered along the way. It reveals how our family tree grew and spread out across the world, producing all the variety we see in the human species today - but despite all that diversity, Alice reveals how astonishingly closely related we all are.
Out of Africa.
Alice travels to Africa in search of the birthplace of the first people. They were so few in number and so vulnerable that today they would probably be considered an endangered species. So what allowed them to survive at all? The Bushmen of the Kalahari have some answers - the unique design of the human body made them efficient hunters and the ancient click language of the Bushmen points to an early ability to organise and plan.
Humans survived there, but Africa was to all intents and purposes a sealed continent. So how and by what route did humans make it out of Africa? Astonishing genetic evidence reveals that everyone alive today who is not African descends from just one successful, tiny group which left the continent in a single crossing, an event that may have happened around 70 thousand years ago. But how did they do it? Alice goes searching for clues in the remote Arabian Desert.
___________________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 01 HD". You Tube. Posted: September 13, 2009.Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mRa9ICp9oY
How did we get here? Following a trail of clues from the latest scientific research, Dr Alice Roberts re-traces the greatest ever journey taken by our ancestors. Thousands of years ago one small group of our species, Homo sapiens, crossed out of Africa and into the unknown. Their descendants faced baking deserts, sweat-soaked jungles and frozen wildernesses and risked everything on the vast empty ocean.
Within 60,000 years they colonised the whole world... How did they do it? Why do we, their descendants all look so different? And what did we have that meant we were the only human species to survive?
Using the evidence from genetics, fossils, archaeology and climatology, Dr Alice Roberts uncovers five epic routes our ancestors took across the globe and the obstacles and brutal challenges they encountered along the way. It reveals how our family tree grew and spread out across the world, producing all the variety we see in the human species today - but despite all that diversity, Alice reveals how astonishingly closely related we all are.
Out of Africa.
Alice travels to Africa in search of the birthplace of the first people. They were so few in number and so vulnerable that today they would probably be considered an endangered species. So what allowed them to survive at all? The Bushmen of the Kalahari have some answers - the unique design of the human body made them efficient hunters and the ancient click language of the Bushmen points to an early ability to organise and plan.
Humans survived there, but Africa was to all intents and purposes a sealed continent. So how and by what route did humans make it out of Africa? Astonishing genetic evidence reveals that everyone alive today who is not African descends from just one successful, tiny group which left the continent in a single crossing, an event that may have happened around 70 thousand years ago. But how did they do it? Alice goes searching for clues in the remote Arabian Desert.
___________________
References:
Mr. UnScientific. 2009. "The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - 01 HD". You Tube. Posted: September 13, 2009.Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mRa9ICp9oY
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Language Areas Of Brain Develop Without Hearing; Study of Deaf Yields Surprises
In most human beings, the capacity to understand, speak and read one's native language resides in specific regions of the left side of the brain. But what about deaf people who have grown up speaking sign language?
Researchers have wondered for years whether an infant's ability to hear sounds might play a role in determining which brain regions will assume responsibility for language functions. Are the classic "language areas" of the brain's left temporal, parietal and frontal lobes biologically hard-wired for the job? Or does sensory input from the ears program them for language tasks?
The findings of a study presented here last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience clearly show that the ability to hear sounds isn't necessary for the development of the brain's language areas. In a deaf person whose native language is American Sign Language ( ASL) , watching signed sentences activates nerve cells in the same left-sided brain regions that a hearing person uses while engaging in conversation.
But in addition to those left-brain regions, researchers found, to their surprise, that watching ASL also activated areas of the right side of the brain. The scientists speculated that this may occur because someone observing sign language must constantly use visual and spatial skills controlled by the right half of the brain to keep track of the position and direction of gestures. And the researchers found that when reading English, these deaf people used a different part of the brain than hearing people did.
"The processing needed to perceive a sign, with its movements of arms and hands, requires additional resources to those necessary in processing sound or the shapes of a letter," said David Corina, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington and one of the scientists on the study team. Researchers from the University of Oregon, Georgetown University, the National Institutes of Health and London's Institute of Neurology also participated.
The study compared brain activation patterns in three groups: eight hearing people, 16 people born deaf who had learned ASL as their native language (with English acquired later) and 13 hearing people born to deaf parents. The third group were bilingual: They had grown up using both ASL and English from early childhood. ( ASL is a formal, grammatical language that is distinct from both English and other sign languages.)
The deaf subjects were students at Gallaudet College in Washington. Corina said most of the hearing children of deaf parents were people working as sign language interpreters in the Washington area. The other hearing subjects were chosen from a pool of research volunteers.
All of the subjects underwent brain-imaging at the National Institutes of Health through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The technique detects differences in blood flow and oxygen supply to various regions of the cerebral cortex, the brain's outer layer. Thus it can show which regions are using the most energy during a mental task.
MRI imaging was performed while the subject watched a video showing a person alternately signing coherent ASL sentences and strings of nonsense signs.
In the hearing subjects who didn't know ASL, there was little activation. But in both the deaf subjects and the hearing children of deaf parents, watching the coherent ASL sentences activated the major language-processing regions of the left hemisphere, as well as portions of the right parietal and temporal lobes.
The researchers also tested the three groups' responses to reading English. MRI scans were performed while a subject read English sentences interspersed with strings of nonsense words.
In both groups of hearing subjects (for whom English was a "native language"), reading the sentences activated the same left-brain areas normally used in language processing. But in the deaf subjects who had acquired English late, "the pattern of activation is remarkably different," said Georgetown University neurologist Daphne Bavelier. "None of the classical [language] structures on the left" were activated. Instead, regions of the right parietal and temporal lobes lit up on the scans as the subjects read the English sentences.
The researchers aren't sure what that means. Corina said one possibility is that the deaf subjects were using their right-brain ASL skills to interpret written English words.
He said the team hopes to do additional studies comparing the subjects' responses to spoken language, as well as exploring further how the brains of bilingual or multilingual people handle different languages. "One wants to look at how much the established language areas [on the left side of the brain] participate in the acquisition of a new language," he said.
______________________
References:
Okie, Susan. 1996. "Language Areas Of Brain Develop Without Hearing; Study of Deaf Yields Surprises". Washington Post. Posted: November 26, 1996. Available online: http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/news/okie.html
Researchers have wondered for years whether an infant's ability to hear sounds might play a role in determining which brain regions will assume responsibility for language functions. Are the classic "language areas" of the brain's left temporal, parietal and frontal lobes biologically hard-wired for the job? Or does sensory input from the ears program them for language tasks?
The findings of a study presented here last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience clearly show that the ability to hear sounds isn't necessary for the development of the brain's language areas. In a deaf person whose native language is American Sign Language ( ASL) , watching signed sentences activates nerve cells in the same left-sided brain regions that a hearing person uses while engaging in conversation.
But in addition to those left-brain regions, researchers found, to their surprise, that watching ASL also activated areas of the right side of the brain. The scientists speculated that this may occur because someone observing sign language must constantly use visual and spatial skills controlled by the right half of the brain to keep track of the position and direction of gestures. And the researchers found that when reading English, these deaf people used a different part of the brain than hearing people did.
"The processing needed to perceive a sign, with its movements of arms and hands, requires additional resources to those necessary in processing sound or the shapes of a letter," said David Corina, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington and one of the scientists on the study team. Researchers from the University of Oregon, Georgetown University, the National Institutes of Health and London's Institute of Neurology also participated.
The study compared brain activation patterns in three groups: eight hearing people, 16 people born deaf who had learned ASL as their native language (with English acquired later) and 13 hearing people born to deaf parents. The third group were bilingual: They had grown up using both ASL and English from early childhood. ( ASL is a formal, grammatical language that is distinct from both English and other sign languages.)
The deaf subjects were students at Gallaudet College in Washington. Corina said most of the hearing children of deaf parents were people working as sign language interpreters in the Washington area. The other hearing subjects were chosen from a pool of research volunteers.
All of the subjects underwent brain-imaging at the National Institutes of Health through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The technique detects differences in blood flow and oxygen supply to various regions of the cerebral cortex, the brain's outer layer. Thus it can show which regions are using the most energy during a mental task.
MRI imaging was performed while the subject watched a video showing a person alternately signing coherent ASL sentences and strings of nonsense signs.
In the hearing subjects who didn't know ASL, there was little activation. But in both the deaf subjects and the hearing children of deaf parents, watching the coherent ASL sentences activated the major language-processing regions of the left hemisphere, as well as portions of the right parietal and temporal lobes.
The researchers also tested the three groups' responses to reading English. MRI scans were performed while a subject read English sentences interspersed with strings of nonsense words.
In both groups of hearing subjects (for whom English was a "native language"), reading the sentences activated the same left-brain areas normally used in language processing. But in the deaf subjects who had acquired English late, "the pattern of activation is remarkably different," said Georgetown University neurologist Daphne Bavelier. "None of the classical [language] structures on the left" were activated. Instead, regions of the right parietal and temporal lobes lit up on the scans as the subjects read the English sentences.
The researchers aren't sure what that means. Corina said one possibility is that the deaf subjects were using their right-brain ASL skills to interpret written English words.
He said the team hopes to do additional studies comparing the subjects' responses to spoken language, as well as exploring further how the brains of bilingual or multilingual people handle different languages. "One wants to look at how much the established language areas [on the left side of the brain] participate in the acquisition of a new language," he said.
______________________
References:
Okie, Susan. 1996. "Language Areas Of Brain Develop Without Hearing; Study of Deaf Yields Surprises". Washington Post. Posted: November 26, 1996. Available online: http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/news/okie.html
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Bones in Italy Reveal East Asian Ancestry
I've published a couple articles on the bones of ancient Europeans being discovered in Asia, so now its time for the other side. The following article is about the discovery of ancient Asian bones found in Europe.
Researchers excavating an ancient Roman cemetery made a surprising discovery when they extracted ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from one of the skeletons buried at the site: the 2,000-year-old bones revealed a maternal East Asian ancestry.
The results will be presented at the Roman Archeology Conference at Oxford, England, in March, and published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
According to Tracy Prowse, assistant professor of Anthropology, and the lead author on the study, the isotopic evidence indicates that about 20% of the sample analyzed to-date was not born in the area around Vagnari. The mtDNA is another line of evidence that indicates at least one individual was of East Asian descent.
"These preliminary isotopic and mtDNA data provide tantalizing evidence that some of the people who lived and died at Vagnari were foreigners, and that they may have come to Vagnari from beyond the borders of the Roman Empire," says Prowse. "This research addresses broader issues relating to globalization, human mobility, identity, and diversity in Roman Italy."
Based on her work in the region, she thinks the East Asian man, who lived sometime between the first to second centuries AD -- the early Roman Empire -- was a slave or worker on the site. His surviving grave goods consist of a single pot (which archaeologists used to date the burial). What's more, his burial was disturbed in antiquity and someone was buried on top of him.
Prowse's team cannot say how recently he, or his ancestors, left East Asia: he could have made the journey alone, or his East Asian genes might have come from a distant maternal ancestor. However, the oxygen isotope evidence indicates that he was definitely not born in Italy and likely came here from elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
During this era, Vagnari was an Imperial estate owned by the emperor in Rome and controlled by a local administrator. Workers were employed in industrial activities on the site, including iron smelting and tile production. These tiles were used for roofing buildings on the site and were also used as grave covers for the people buried in the cemetery. Fragmentary tiles found in and around Vagnari are marked "Gratus Caesaris," which translates into "slave of the emperor."
In addition to the mystery the find uncovers, Prowse sees the broader scientific impact for archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and classicists: The grave goods from this individual's burial gave no indication that he was foreign-born or of East Asian descent.
"This multi-faceted research demonstrates that human skeletal remains can provide another layer of evidence in conjunction with archaeological and historical information," says Prowse.
For the last seven years, Prowse has been digging the cemetery at the site of Vagnari, just west of the city of Bari in southern Italy. The cemetery was first discovered in 2002 by her colleague, Alastair Small (University of Edinburgh), who directs the excavations at Vagnari and continues to excavate other areas of the site. Prowse's research focuses on the bioarchaeological analysis of the people buried in the cemetery, including isotopic, palaeopathological, and aDNA analysis. The ancient DNA analyses were conducted by her coauthors on the paper, Jodi Barta and Tanya vonHunnius, at McMaster University.
_______________________
References:
2010. "DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Bones in Italy Reveal East Asian Ancestry". Science Daily. Posted: February 2, 2010. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171756.htm
Researchers excavating an ancient Roman cemetery made a surprising discovery when they extracted ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from one of the skeletons buried at the site: the 2,000-year-old bones revealed a maternal East Asian ancestry.
The results will be presented at the Roman Archeology Conference at Oxford, England, in March, and published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
According to Tracy Prowse, assistant professor of Anthropology, and the lead author on the study, the isotopic evidence indicates that about 20% of the sample analyzed to-date was not born in the area around Vagnari. The mtDNA is another line of evidence that indicates at least one individual was of East Asian descent.
"These preliminary isotopic and mtDNA data provide tantalizing evidence that some of the people who lived and died at Vagnari were foreigners, and that they may have come to Vagnari from beyond the borders of the Roman Empire," says Prowse. "This research addresses broader issues relating to globalization, human mobility, identity, and diversity in Roman Italy."
Based on her work in the region, she thinks the East Asian man, who lived sometime between the first to second centuries AD -- the early Roman Empire -- was a slave or worker on the site. His surviving grave goods consist of a single pot (which archaeologists used to date the burial). What's more, his burial was disturbed in antiquity and someone was buried on top of him.
Prowse's team cannot say how recently he, or his ancestors, left East Asia: he could have made the journey alone, or his East Asian genes might have come from a distant maternal ancestor. However, the oxygen isotope evidence indicates that he was definitely not born in Italy and likely came here from elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
During this era, Vagnari was an Imperial estate owned by the emperor in Rome and controlled by a local administrator. Workers were employed in industrial activities on the site, including iron smelting and tile production. These tiles were used for roofing buildings on the site and were also used as grave covers for the people buried in the cemetery. Fragmentary tiles found in and around Vagnari are marked "Gratus Caesaris," which translates into "slave of the emperor."
In addition to the mystery the find uncovers, Prowse sees the broader scientific impact for archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and classicists: The grave goods from this individual's burial gave no indication that he was foreign-born or of East Asian descent.
"This multi-faceted research demonstrates that human skeletal remains can provide another layer of evidence in conjunction with archaeological and historical information," says Prowse.
For the last seven years, Prowse has been digging the cemetery at the site of Vagnari, just west of the city of Bari in southern Italy. The cemetery was first discovered in 2002 by her colleague, Alastair Small (University of Edinburgh), who directs the excavations at Vagnari and continues to excavate other areas of the site. Prowse's research focuses on the bioarchaeological analysis of the people buried in the cemetery, including isotopic, palaeopathological, and aDNA analysis. The ancient DNA analyses were conducted by her coauthors on the paper, Jodi Barta and Tanya vonHunnius, at McMaster University.
_______________________
References:
2010. "DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Bones in Italy Reveal East Asian Ancestry". Science Daily. Posted: February 2, 2010. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171756.htm
Monday, March 1, 2010
South Korean shamans fluidly absorb cultural change
A new book from an American Museum of Natural History anthropologist explores traditional spirituality in a rapidly developing world.
As the Republic of Korea—spurred by the world's fastest-growing economy from the 1960s to the 1990s—has rapidly developed, shamans and the rituals they perform have adapted to their new hyper-modern landscape and transformed their work in the process. During this time, the South Korean countryside has almost completely disappeared, old shrines have been crowded out by urban development, clients turn to cell phones to connect to shamans, and most shamans now chant, sing, and mime their rituals in anonymous rented commercial space. While old village women once judged the competence of aspiring shamans, today's clients often do not know what to expect from a shamanic ritual. Decades ago, rituals redressed domestic conflicts or illness. Today, shamans are often hired to relieve business-related anxiety. After thirty years of fieldwork that began in a rural village and recently moved to cities, Laurel Kendall, curator and division chair of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, explores in a new book how shamans have absorbed the profound changes in their culture to remain relevant.
"The shamans manifest gods whose anger wreaks havoc but whose benevolence brings boundless fortune, an idea of volatile divine intervention that is suitable for both the 21st century's global economy and the business problems experienced by small entrepreneurs," says Kendall. "Skillful shamans deal with people's needs, fear, and anxiety about doing business in a risky environment."
Shamans are religious practitioners who engage the spirits on behalf of the community, either by journeying to other realms or by bringing them into the here and now by manifesting them in their own bodies, in the case of South Korean shamans. To Kendall, this is an inherently adaptable, creative domain of religious practice because spirits report from "out there."
"Korean shaman rituals are the opposite of Confucian ancestor veneration as practiced in many South Korean homes—the Emily Post of rituals," says Kendall. "Confucian ancestors are a mute presence. But in shaman ritual, gods, ancestors, and ghosts are anything but quiet. They act out the client family's own history and speak to the family's most immediate needs and concerns. A skilled Korean shaman, and the spirits she evokes, cause the client weep and laugh. It is a cathartic experience, a sacred theater that acts on people's lives, a religious psycho-drama."
Kendall first became interested in Korean shamans after watching a female shaman, fantastically dressed and possessed by a very angry deity, "grab the man of the house by the ear and give him a tongue lashing." She decided that she wanted to know "how the shaman got away with it." Kendall's first book, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits (1985), framed shamanism as it was at the time: as an integral part of village life. Interested in why people turned to shamans and how shamans helped their clients, Kendall found that women sought shamans to take care of the family's pantheon of gods and to gain blessings for the household. The ritual, or kut, helped members of a household work through their problems, deal with an illness, and less frequently relieve money worries. The kut were as surprising and varied as the individual households in which they took place.
Kendall's new book discusses the recent changes to the kut as a reflection of how South Koreans have engaged with their changing society. Many people have moved to cities and to apartment blocks with little residential space; rooms are too narrow to accommodate dancing shamans, and neighbors complain about the accompanying drum and cymbals. At the same time, urban South Koreans, like city people elsewhere, are less likely to know their neighbors than village people did, and prefer to not air their dirty linen in a public shamanic ritual. Consequently, clients, shamans, and others now pile into vans or SUVs with their costumes, equipment, and offering food—which sometimes includes an entire steamed pig—to drive to a commercial shrine for the kut.
The new lack of social and physical context in kut leads to a new set of worries among clients. Although they feel the need to engage the services of a shaman, few clients have seen shamans in action and are uncertain how to judge a shaman's competence and diagnosis. Another change brought by the fluid, developed country is that most kut are now held to address business failure, the quirkiness of the market, or anxiety about money in general. Kendall found that about two thirds of rituals currently performed address these concerns rather than more personal needs.
"In the 21st century, with a global economy, the complexity of international trade, and the need to work through middlemen, there is a huge dimension of unknown in the lives of small business people," says Kendall. "The kut gives these South Koreans an image of possible blessing to carry with them into their risky lives."
"A poetic imagery of contemporary aspirations emerges in a contemporary kut when the gods sing of 'raising tall buildings,' promise customers who 'pay with credit and not cash,' and evoke the sound of shop door constantly opening to admit more customers," Kendall continues. "Korean shamans (and their spirits) have much to tell us about hopes and anxieties of contemporary South Koreas. They underscore the creativity and adaptability of popular religious responses to an uncertain world."
_________________________
References:
Phillips, Kristin Elise. 2010. "South Korean shamans fluidly absorb cultural change". EurekAlert. Posted: Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/amon-sks022310.php
The Book:
Kendall, Laurel. Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (University of Hawaii Press; November 2009)
As the Republic of Korea—spurred by the world's fastest-growing economy from the 1960s to the 1990s—has rapidly developed, shamans and the rituals they perform have adapted to their new hyper-modern landscape and transformed their work in the process. During this time, the South Korean countryside has almost completely disappeared, old shrines have been crowded out by urban development, clients turn to cell phones to connect to shamans, and most shamans now chant, sing, and mime their rituals in anonymous rented commercial space. While old village women once judged the competence of aspiring shamans, today's clients often do not know what to expect from a shamanic ritual. Decades ago, rituals redressed domestic conflicts or illness. Today, shamans are often hired to relieve business-related anxiety. After thirty years of fieldwork that began in a rural village and recently moved to cities, Laurel Kendall, curator and division chair of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, explores in a new book how shamans have absorbed the profound changes in their culture to remain relevant.
"The shamans manifest gods whose anger wreaks havoc but whose benevolence brings boundless fortune, an idea of volatile divine intervention that is suitable for both the 21st century's global economy and the business problems experienced by small entrepreneurs," says Kendall. "Skillful shamans deal with people's needs, fear, and anxiety about doing business in a risky environment."
Shamans are religious practitioners who engage the spirits on behalf of the community, either by journeying to other realms or by bringing them into the here and now by manifesting them in their own bodies, in the case of South Korean shamans. To Kendall, this is an inherently adaptable, creative domain of religious practice because spirits report from "out there."
"Korean shaman rituals are the opposite of Confucian ancestor veneration as practiced in many South Korean homes—the Emily Post of rituals," says Kendall. "Confucian ancestors are a mute presence. But in shaman ritual, gods, ancestors, and ghosts are anything but quiet. They act out the client family's own history and speak to the family's most immediate needs and concerns. A skilled Korean shaman, and the spirits she evokes, cause the client weep and laugh. It is a cathartic experience, a sacred theater that acts on people's lives, a religious psycho-drama."
Kendall first became interested in Korean shamans after watching a female shaman, fantastically dressed and possessed by a very angry deity, "grab the man of the house by the ear and give him a tongue lashing." She decided that she wanted to know "how the shaman got away with it." Kendall's first book, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits (1985), framed shamanism as it was at the time: as an integral part of village life. Interested in why people turned to shamans and how shamans helped their clients, Kendall found that women sought shamans to take care of the family's pantheon of gods and to gain blessings for the household. The ritual, or kut, helped members of a household work through their problems, deal with an illness, and less frequently relieve money worries. The kut were as surprising and varied as the individual households in which they took place.
Kendall's new book discusses the recent changes to the kut as a reflection of how South Koreans have engaged with their changing society. Many people have moved to cities and to apartment blocks with little residential space; rooms are too narrow to accommodate dancing shamans, and neighbors complain about the accompanying drum and cymbals. At the same time, urban South Koreans, like city people elsewhere, are less likely to know their neighbors than village people did, and prefer to not air their dirty linen in a public shamanic ritual. Consequently, clients, shamans, and others now pile into vans or SUVs with their costumes, equipment, and offering food—which sometimes includes an entire steamed pig—to drive to a commercial shrine for the kut.
The new lack of social and physical context in kut leads to a new set of worries among clients. Although they feel the need to engage the services of a shaman, few clients have seen shamans in action and are uncertain how to judge a shaman's competence and diagnosis. Another change brought by the fluid, developed country is that most kut are now held to address business failure, the quirkiness of the market, or anxiety about money in general. Kendall found that about two thirds of rituals currently performed address these concerns rather than more personal needs.
"In the 21st century, with a global economy, the complexity of international trade, and the need to work through middlemen, there is a huge dimension of unknown in the lives of small business people," says Kendall. "The kut gives these South Koreans an image of possible blessing to carry with them into their risky lives."
"A poetic imagery of contemporary aspirations emerges in a contemporary kut when the gods sing of 'raising tall buildings,' promise customers who 'pay with credit and not cash,' and evoke the sound of shop door constantly opening to admit more customers," Kendall continues. "Korean shamans (and their spirits) have much to tell us about hopes and anxieties of contemporary South Koreas. They underscore the creativity and adaptability of popular religious responses to an uncertain world."
_________________________
References:
Phillips, Kristin Elise. 2010. "South Korean shamans fluidly absorb cultural change". EurekAlert. Posted: Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/amon-sks022310.php
The Book:
Kendall, Laurel. Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (University of Hawaii Press; November 2009)
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