Final Study Guide
ANTH 4302: Myth, Magic, and Religion
Some of the terms and concepts were in the midterm. All questions on the exam are derived
from this study guide. The exam is worth 10 points and will have multiple choice, matching,
short answer, and essay questions.
The Mermaid and the Lobster Diver - Terms to Know
Matrilineal - Trace ancestry through mother’s side
Matrilocal - Residence pattern after marriage, live with wife’s family
Matrifocal - When the mother is the head of the family or household
Exogamy - The custom of marrying outside a community, clan, or tribe
Kuka - Grandmother/ leader. Senior women make all household decisions
Liwa mairin - Mermaid
Miskitu - Are indigenous, ethnic people living in Honduras and Nicaragua. These so-called
Indians are a biologically mixed people originating during the colonial period from miscegenation
between indigenous women of eastern Nicaragua and British settlers, buccaneers, and
especially Negro freemen and slaves who sought the isolated shore as refugees from Spanish
and West Indian colonies or were brought to the coast as laborers by English planters.
The colonial Miskitu became known as Zambos y Mosquitos, Zambos-Mosquitoes, or just
Zambos. They expanded as a population group during the colonial era, while most other
Amerindian populations diminished in numbers and experienced significant culture and
language loss.
Buzos - Lobster divers, men. Deepwater lobster divers
Praidi saihka - A type of sihka, mainly made on Friday, that is used to control relationships and
feelings. Women originally used praidi saihka potions for love but now use them mainly to
garner resources from the lobster divers.
Liwa siknis - A variety of illnesses that the water spirits cause; most significantly, the bends
(decompression sickness) in divers.
, Veda - A four-month moratorium on lobster diving, from mid-April to mid-August
Terms and Identifications - Be able to identify or define
Culture - The integrated total of learned behavior that is characteristic of members of a society.
The learned and shared ideas, feelings, behaviors, and products of those behaviors
characteristic of any particular society.
Ethnocentrism - A tendency to evaluate foreign beliefs and behaviors according to one’s own
cultural traditions. Using your own society to interpret and judge other societies
Cultural Relativism - The concept that any given culture must be evaluated in terms of its own
belief system. Grasps that each culture has its own “standards” of understanding and judging.
Attempting to analyze and understand cultures other than one’s own without judging them in
terms of one’s own culture.
Agnosticism - The doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the
phenomena of their experience. Supernatural is unknowable. Existence of god unprovable.
Ethnography - A detailed anthropological description of a culture. Is an in-depth and up-close
account of the ways of thinking and feeling and behaving of the people we study.
Participant Observation - An anthropological field technique in which the ethnographer is
immersed in the day-to-day activities of the community being studied. Anthropologists live in a
community and participate in daily activities while also making objective observations.
Emic and Etic Perspectives -
Emic Perspective - Shared perceptions of phenomena and ideology by members of a society;
insiders’ views. The study of a society through the eyes of the people being studied.
Etic Perspective - An outside observer’s viewpoint of a society’s phenomena or ideology. The
study of a society using concepts that were developed outside of that culture (outsider or
observer)
Religion - Deals with the supernatural
Magic - Methods that use supernatural forces for particular outcomes
Law of Sympathy - Magic depends on the agreement or association of things. 1. Similarity: alike
are the same. 2. Contagion: once in contact always connected.
ANTH 4302: Myth, Magic, and Religion
Some of the terms and concepts were in the midterm. All questions on the exam are derived
from this study guide. The exam is worth 10 points and will have multiple choice, matching,
short answer, and essay questions.
The Mermaid and the Lobster Diver - Terms to Know
Matrilineal - Trace ancestry through mother’s side
Matrilocal - Residence pattern after marriage, live with wife’s family
Matrifocal - When the mother is the head of the family or household
Exogamy - The custom of marrying outside a community, clan, or tribe
Kuka - Grandmother/ leader. Senior women make all household decisions
Liwa mairin - Mermaid
Miskitu - Are indigenous, ethnic people living in Honduras and Nicaragua. These so-called
Indians are a biologically mixed people originating during the colonial period from miscegenation
between indigenous women of eastern Nicaragua and British settlers, buccaneers, and
especially Negro freemen and slaves who sought the isolated shore as refugees from Spanish
and West Indian colonies or were brought to the coast as laborers by English planters.
The colonial Miskitu became known as Zambos y Mosquitos, Zambos-Mosquitoes, or just
Zambos. They expanded as a population group during the colonial era, while most other
Amerindian populations diminished in numbers and experienced significant culture and
language loss.
Buzos - Lobster divers, men. Deepwater lobster divers
Praidi saihka - A type of sihka, mainly made on Friday, that is used to control relationships and
feelings. Women originally used praidi saihka potions for love but now use them mainly to
garner resources from the lobster divers.
Liwa siknis - A variety of illnesses that the water spirits cause; most significantly, the bends
(decompression sickness) in divers.
, Veda - A four-month moratorium on lobster diving, from mid-April to mid-August
Terms and Identifications - Be able to identify or define
Culture - The integrated total of learned behavior that is characteristic of members of a society.
The learned and shared ideas, feelings, behaviors, and products of those behaviors
characteristic of any particular society.
Ethnocentrism - A tendency to evaluate foreign beliefs and behaviors according to one’s own
cultural traditions. Using your own society to interpret and judge other societies
Cultural Relativism - The concept that any given culture must be evaluated in terms of its own
belief system. Grasps that each culture has its own “standards” of understanding and judging.
Attempting to analyze and understand cultures other than one’s own without judging them in
terms of one’s own culture.
Agnosticism - The doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the
phenomena of their experience. Supernatural is unknowable. Existence of god unprovable.
Ethnography - A detailed anthropological description of a culture. Is an in-depth and up-close
account of the ways of thinking and feeling and behaving of the people we study.
Participant Observation - An anthropological field technique in which the ethnographer is
immersed in the day-to-day activities of the community being studied. Anthropologists live in a
community and participate in daily activities while also making objective observations.
Emic and Etic Perspectives -
Emic Perspective - Shared perceptions of phenomena and ideology by members of a society;
insiders’ views. The study of a society through the eyes of the people being studied.
Etic Perspective - An outside observer’s viewpoint of a society’s phenomena or ideology. The
study of a society using concepts that were developed outside of that culture (outsider or
observer)
Religion - Deals with the supernatural
Magic - Methods that use supernatural forces for particular outcomes
Law of Sympathy - Magic depends on the agreement or association of things. 1. Similarity: alike
are the same. 2. Contagion: once in contact always connected.
