Existential Anxieties

All human life is involved in the sin of seeking security at the expense of other life. --theologian Reinhold Niebuhr

1, "Who Will Make the Beer?" -- the Chácobo of Bolivia

At some point in Chácobo history their ancestors grappled with the question: Who is going to make the beer or jënë? Their existence depended on it. First we must note that preparing jënë is female intensive labor. Manufacturing jënë involved all women in the household, both mothers and daughters...

2. "Who Will Provide the Meat?" --the Sharanahua of Peru

The existential question of the Sharanahua people of Peru was "Who will provide the meat for the household of five." According to anthropologist Janet Siskin, “The crucial reality of Sharanahua life is the necessity for insuring a secure food supply and this fact shapes the interactions between men and women, old and young, kinsmen and affinals.”

3. "Will My 'Brother' Kill Me"? --the Jívaro of Peru

The cultural script existing in the minds of the polygamous, head-shrinking Jívaro of the Peruvian Rainforest declared: "If you marry your fictive 'brother's' legal wife-to-be, beware! The offended fictive 'brother' will attempt to kill you. Be prepared!"

Among the Inupuit Eskimo, a person without multiple kin was considered to be “a social freak toward whom the other members of society had no acceptable way of behaving. ...The classic case being that of a seal hunter who accidentally went adrift on the sea as a result of wind and current action. ...He was in trouble. ...Unless he could identify himself --which to the Eskimo meant proving he was related to people known by the inquisitors --he was probably beaten to death in short order.”

4. "I Have No Kin to Protect Me" --The Inupuit of Alaska

5. "Help! I Need to be Cleansed"! --a Winnebago of Minnesota

When reading the Winnebago Trickster narrative of Chew Me And You Will Defecate, I was compelled to ask: What was the function of the narrative? Was the storyteller giving his audience a moral lesson regarding "what happens when one defies nature even in a minor fashion," as suggested by anthropologist Paul Radin, or, was the storyteller warning his hearers that we live in a moral universe and that eating forbidden fruit has consequences?