Two Cultures

Zulu: 

1. The Zulu tribe lives in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. They live in a subtropical climate that is the cause of sun and sometimes intense rain. They have sunny conditions most of the year round. Almost 330 days of sunlight which leaves little days without. 

2. The physical adaptation would be their skin color, the dark color of their skin would help them with their intense heat. With more color in their skin it helps block out UV rays, protecting them from the sun.

3. The cultural adaptation is their rondavels or their houses, they are made of mud, grass or iron sheets. They also provide protection from the sun’s heat and shelter. 

4. The Zulu tribe is of African race.

Andean Indians:
    1. The Andean Indians live in the Andes range in South America, stretching from Ecuador to Peru to Chile. Their weather is very tropical, hot and humid.
    2. A physical adaptation they developed is their lungs, they tend to be larger to better suit the high altitude in which they live.

    3. For the Andean Indians the cultural adaptation they created to help support their food source is irrigation systems, and even terraces. It would be hard to grow food in that area without the proper watering

    4. The race of the Andean Indians is Hispanic, since they come from South America.
                                        
Part 5.
It is much better to approach describing populations through their adaptations more than their race. Race does not tell you much, it just tells you the color of their skin. It would be more useful to anthropologists to look at adaptations to understand why culture look and do the things that they do. Race is not very explanatory, while adaptations can tell you why people have larger chests in the Adeas Mountains because they need the extra space for air, or that the people of Africa tend to have darker skin to help them against the harsh sun.       


References:
http://www.sa-venues.com/weather/kwazulunatal.htm
http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Zulu.aspx
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/102247/Central-American-and-northern-Andean-Indian

Part A:The five words I choose to describe the Nacerima

• Religious
• Obsessive
• Mutilating
• Conservative
• Economically Motivated

1. Religious- The Nacerima are highly religious people. Believing in magic, medicine men and having shrines they pray to at their own homes. Their religious beliefs have to be strong, their medicine men torture them for healing. It takes great faith to believe that mutilation is good for their well being and for their religion. They have rituals that they take great care to keep their sacredness.

2. Obsessive- While the Nacerima are religious they are also obsessive in their practices and beliefs. They have secretive religious practices that they perform daily. They also are obsessive about pregnancy prevention, bathing and excretory routines. Something that is natural for us as Americans is sacred to the Nacerima and is planned, not according to nature but to a schedule.

3. Mutilating- The healers of the Nacerima perform some of the most horrific procedures on their people. The Latipso ceremonies are one such mutilating afair. It is known to the childern as the place where one goes to die, but it is where the sick go to be "healed". The healers perform torturous acts as Miner describes them, he even stated it's amazing anyone comes out healed.

4. Conservative- It appears that the Nacerima are very conservative people. The only time they expose their bodies is when they go to to perform the latipso ceremonies where they are stripped of their clothing. Their excretory movements and bathing are private rituals and they do everything possible to keep their body clothed. One can only assume that it is because they believe their bodies ugly which is why they perform their rituals

5. Economically Motivated- Miner described the Nacerima as people that spend time in the economical pursuits, Miner also mentioned that the poor emulate the rich. It appears that economics plays a large role in their society, they need money in order to obtain healing, and they also need money to reenter society. Their religious is very economically based in that the rich have it easier and that the poor strive to be richer though the practices of the religion.

Part B:
1. As an American I would have to agree with my word choices, for the most part we are very driven economically base people.  We also "mutilate" out image though make-up, surgeries, dentists, the way we dress, we change our selves. I agree with my words as descriptions of Americans but it may also be a slightly biased view of parts of our culture.

2. I think my words that are unbiased would have to be economically motivated, conservative, and religious. Those words are more straight forward descriptions, that don't necessarily imply meaning. My more biased words would be mutilating and obsessive, they have a connotation of negativity mutilating is a degrading term that is harsh. Obsessive can be viewed in a negative manner as well, it could imply that they have a problem of doing something over and over.

3. For my biased words I could switch out obsessive with committed, committed is more dignified way of saying someone does something regularly. As for mutilating I could have put changing implying we change the way we look, we "remove" our old selves in order to be some thing else so we changed.

4. It's interesting how simple word choices being implied on ones self makes me see a little more clearly at how it would be best to avoid ethnocentric judgements. Judging a culture is not the objective, it is to learn from them to better understand, like the essay said "you can't understand what you don't understand". It is hard to avoid personal cultural bias when looking at a culture but it should be a goal to try and do so, so that you can better understand why certain groups do certain things. You can't learn if you don't ask questions.