Culture and Biology
Contents
- Introduction
- Culture and the Satisfaction of Hunger
- Food Taboos and Rituals
- Patterns of Sexual Gratification
- Culture in Relation to Health and Sickness
- Culture and Sex Roles
- Culture and Race
Introduction
Animals and humans both experience basic biological urges like hunger, thirst, and sex that demand to be satisfied. The manner in which their basic biological needs are met and those of animals, however, differs significantly. The basic needs of animals are met through the mechanism of instinct, whereas in humans, they are met and controlled by culture.
Culture and the Satisfaction of Hunger
The way that different human groups and communities around the world satisfy the biological urge of hunger varies enormously. The Bushmen of Southern Africa's Kalahari Desert depend on wild plants, insects, locusts, scorpions, bustards, and ostriches for food. The meat and fat of the walrus are what the Eskimos, who inhabit the bitterly cold Arctic, eat to stay alive. The milk and meat of the reindeer are the only food sources for the Scandinavian Lapps. Living off of gathering fruits and roots, fishing, and hunting, the Andaman Islanders in the Bay of Bengal. Squirrels, monkeys, and lizards are added to the diet of the Semang hunters in Malaysia, who typically eat yams, berries, roots, and nuts. The kangaroo is hunted by Australian aboriginals, who enjoy its meat.
Food Taboos and Rituals
What foods are acceptable for a particular group of people to consume and which foods should be avoided are determined by culture. As a result, a particular food item that one person enjoys may be loathed by another. In a cultural sense, the adage "one man's food is another man's poison" is very true. Christians enjoy eating pork, which is off-limits to Jews and Muslims. The Baganda people of East Africa consider milk and milk products to be a delicacy, while West Africans and Chinese people find them repulsive and inedible. Fish is regarded as nauseating and unfit for human consumption by the Navahos and Apaches of New Guinea and Arizona. Dog meat is consumed with relish by some Naga tribal people in India and Mexican Indians, which would be disgusting to most modern people. Up until recently, the American Indians refused to eat tomatoes because they were thought to be poisonous. In Japan, certain varieties of fish are eaten raw and are regarded as delicacies. Numerous regions of Africa have a high prevalence of eating raw meat.
In Indian society, there are many different varieties of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism coexisting side by side. Thus, you can find some strict vegetarians who view meat, eggs, and fish as forbidden in Gujarat (Jain) and South India (Vira Saiva). Some strict Jains refuse to eat tubers. Older women and widows of all ages were forbidden from eating onions and garlic in many traditional families.
There are numerous cultural prohibitions against mixing certain food types. For instance, meat and dairy products are not consumed together at the same meal by Orthodox Jews. Dairy products shouldn't be consumed right after fish, according to traditional Muslims. The Eskimo keep foods obtained from land animals and foods from the sea apart. Food consumption is invariably linked to rituals. For instance, in India, taking a ritual bath and dressing in ceremonially clean clothing are required before eating. Then, the individual is to eat the food while sitting in a location that has been ritually cleaned. Only while wearing unstitched clothing are the Nepalese Brahmans allowed to eat.
In India, food is one area where the rules of ritual purity and pollution are particularly adhered to. While some foods, like milk, are thought to have inherent purity, other foods can be rendered pure through frying. Less contamination is likely in food that has been fried in ghee or oil. In contrast to kaccha food cooked in water, this fried food known as pukka food can be traded between various communities in North India. Cooking or eating in an earthenware container is regarded as ritually clean in North India. However, because eating from an earthenware dish is frowned upon in South India, a Brahman will never do so.
The practice of fasting and food abstinence is encouraged by many cultures. Devout Jews observe a 24-hour fast on Yom Kippur in addition to fasting every Thursday and Monday. For forty days, the early Christians observed Lent. Hinduism views fasting as a meritorious act that should be observed on auspicious occasions, while Muslims observe a full month of fasting during Ramzan (the ninth month of the Islamic calendar). It's important to remember that fasting signifies a transcendence of the biological urges to eat and drink.
Patterns of Sexual Gratification
Regarding how the sexual impulse is satisfied, there are countless variations among human groups. Marriage is the institution through which sexual mating is institutionalized in almost all cultures.
Furthermore, there are laws against incest in every culture that forbid marital relations between immediate family members. An invention of every culture, the incest taboo attempts to control sexual behavior. The laws governing incest vary greatly from one culture to the next and even within one society. Cross-cousin unions, for instance, are preferred in south India while being prohibited in north India. In some castes in southern India, an older sister is expected to ask her younger brother to wed her own daughter. In North India, such behavior would be regarded as incestuous. Additionally, endogamy laws that dictate that one should only marry members of one's own kin group are prevalent in many cultures.
On the other hand, exogamic laws demand that a person marry someone outside of their gotra. The village exogamy system, which restricts a person to only marrying a girl from another village, is prevalent in many regions of North India. There are significant differences between human groups in terms of potential marriage partners. In places like Africa, the Near East, China, Melanesia, Polynesia, and among the tribal populations of North and South America, polygyny (the union of one man and more than one woman) is a preferred method of marriage. There are estimates that Uganda's King Mtessa had 7000 wives. A chief may have as many as 60 wives among the largely monogamous Trobriand Islanders. The Todas in India, the Kandyans in Sri Lanka, the Da-la in Indo-China, and the Paviotso Indians of North America all practice polyandry, or the union of one woman and several men. A system of fraternal polyandry, in which a woman is married to two or more brothers at once, is practiced among the Khasas of Jaunsar-Bawar in Himachal Pradesh.
Certain religious traditions, including Roman Catholicism and asceticism from the ancient and medieval periods, encourage celibacy. Therefore, to a remarkable extent, cultural factors control how satisfied or purposefully suppressed the sexual urge is in humans.
Culture in Relation to Health and Sickness
Culture has a big impact on people's health and illness in society. The class, occupation, ethnicity, and eating habits of people are all strongly correlated with certain types of illnesses. Urban diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and ulcers are frequently linked to sedentary jobs. Today, it is known that one of the main reasons for the rising incidence of cancer is environmental pollution brought on by technological advancement.
Cardiovascular diseases have a strong relationship with dietary habits, particularly the consumption of fatty foods and high salt intake. A number of South Pacific island tribes, the Kirghiz of Turkey, some African tribes, Australian aborigines, and Inuits abstain from salt consumption. As a result, illnesses like high blood pressure are unknown to them. On the other hand, Eastern Finns consume one-fourth of their diet as animal fat, making them more susceptible to heart attacks.
Most of the time, a culture has specific rules about which illnesses should be treated and which should not. Among the Thonga of Africa and the Yap Islanders, intestinal worms are thought to be essential for digestion. The majority of prehistoric societies always link shamanic practices, magical rituals, and beliefs to the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. The breaking of taboos is connected to diseases in some cultures. The Ojibwa Indians believe that anyone who violates food taboos brings illness upon himself and his family.
Culture and Sex Roles
Not only do men and women have different anatomy and physical characteristics, but they also behave and play different roles and have different attitudes. It is generally accepted that men and women behave differently because nature has established distinct roles and behavioral patterns for each. This is a false perception.
Despite being influenced by certain anatomical and physical processes, men and women behave and play different roles that are not entirely determined by these processes. In other words, sexual roles and characteristics are conditioned by culture rather than being biologically predetermined.
Men are expected to be dominant, aggressive, and rational in India as well as many other cultures, whereas women are expected to be submissive, impulsive, emotional, and delicate. The eminent American anthropologist Margaret Mead conducted a comparison of the roles played by men and women in three primitive societies in New Guinea. She discovered that the sex roles in every one of these cultures were fundamentally different from those in Western culture. In terms of Western cultural norms, for instance, men and women in the Tehambuli tribe are regarded as masculine and feminine, respectively. Women are in charge, accountable, and active in gardening and fishing. Men, on the other hand, place more importance on appearance and charm. Both genders among the Arapesh exhibit feminine characteristics; aggressive behavior is not common among them. Male characteristics are present in both men and women among the Mundugumor. They act violently and aggressively. Mead came to the conclusion that cultural factors influence sex roles.
Culture and Race
People from various groups and countries have different physical traits and features, which are frequently mistaken for cultural and behavioral differences. For instance, one hears about the Jewish race, the Black race, the Aryan race, etc. When the term "race" is used in this way, it refers to a collection of unrelated traits that set one group of people apart from another, including physical traits, linguistic traits, religious beliefs, cultural practices, and behavioral traits. Furthermore, when the term "race" is used in this sense, there is invariably an implicit value judgment. It is believed that some races are superior to all others by nature and inborn qualities.
This viewpoint is completely false. Race, language, culture, and nationality are not necessarily related to one another. While culture and language are learned, acquired, and transmitted through training and education, racial characteristics are largely determined by genetic and biological factors. Racist prejudice is founded on erroneous and illogical presumptions.
Race prejudice has been responsible for the persecution and harassment of thousands of Negroes in the United States. The obnoxious phenomenon of apartheid in South Africa, whereby a small white minority had ruthlessly ruled over a vast black population, is an expression of the ideology of racism. In fact, racism has proved to be one of the most dangerous myths of modern times. Hitler’s belief in the superiority of the Nordic race led to the most inhuman massacre of six million Jews in Nazi Germany.
Summary
The relationship between culture and biological processes is profound. It controls how fundamental biological urges like sex, thirst, and hunger are satiated. As a result, there are huge differences in how these urges are satisfied. The state of health and illness in society is significantly influenced by cultural processes. Certain types of diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, and ulcers, are significantly correlated with factors like class, occupation, urbanization, and dietary habits.
Cultural norms define and have an impact on the roles that men and women play in society, rather than biological processes. Therefore, roles and activities that are appropriate for men and women to engage in are determined by culture.
Further Reading
- Honigmann, J.J., 1959. The World of Man, Harper and Brothers : New York.
- Kluchohn. C., 1940. Mirror for Man. McGraw-Hill : New York.
- Kluckhon, C. and Kelly W., 1945. The Concept of Culture. In Ralph Linton (ed.), The Sciene of Man in the World Crisis. Columbia University Press : New York.
- Thorpe W.H., 1974. Animal Nature and Human Nature, Methuen & Co. : London.
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