The Book Spirit Of The Rainforest By Mark Ritchie

The Huichol Indians are an indigenous group that lives “in the Sierra Madre Mountains of northwestern Mexico” (Woolcott). The Huichol religion is an animistic religion. According to Dr. Pamela Lindell, animistic religions are “religions that believe that all of nature – humans, animals, plants, rocks, the ocean, etc. - is animated by spirits and souls” (“Professor’s Notes 2” 3). To better understand the Huichol Indians and their religion, this paper examines Huichol myth, symbolism, rituals, religious specialists, and deities from various anthropological perspectives.

The soul plays a central part in the spiritual world of the Yanomamo. The soul consists of two pieces the one that continues into the afterlife and the one that is freed upon cremation and lives in the jungle. The Yanomamo believe that after death on the way to topmost layer they come to a fork guarded by a spirit which directs them which way to go guided by the generosity shown by soul’s mortal owner. They believe that if directed to the underworld, they can lie out of it and go down the preferred route. The only type of leadership is that of the headman whose main purpose is to host visitors. In the Yanomamo culture, it is commonplace and expected behavior that women are physically disciplined by their husbands for almost any infraction ranging from being too slow with the preparation of food to suspected infidelity, such

“In the Forest of Gombe” by Jane Goodall, Goodall describes her own perspectives of the correlation between religions and science through her experiences in the forest at Gombe after she loses her husband to cancer. She comes up with several new concepts which she calls windows during her time in the forest. Goodall develops the idea of the coexistence of science and religion for her deeper understanding of life and the world. I agree with her which the windows that Goodall sees through have no drawbacks because the windows enrich her scientific and religious thinking, represent the combination of science and religion as well as inspires ideas about future development.

The perception of foreign cultures can at times be quite peculiar. The article “Eating Christmas in Kalahari” by Richard Borshay Lee, foretells a classic example of cross culture misunderstanding when people from different cultures operate in a culturally unfamiliar environment. Richard Lee, a social anthropologist, explains what he learned living with the !Kung Bushmen, a South African tribe, for three years. This Gemeinschaft community of hunters-gatherers worked together to teach the anthropologist something important to their people, even though he was unaware of their intentions in the beginning.

Before science is introduced to the human society, people always use religious beliefs to describe the mysterious phenomenon. However, as science becomes advanced, people gradually lost in the relationship between it and religious beliefs. In the essay “In the Forest of Gombe”, Jane Goodall spends long time with chimpanzees in the forests to recover from her husband’s death. During this period, she learns new ideas from the chimps and finds herself back, and understands the complicated relationship between scientific ideas and religious beliefs. Thus, to uncover peace, people have to understand themselves first instead of focusing on problems permanently.

In the City of Philadelphia, there are many places that qualify as Cosmopolitan Canopies. These Canopies are “settings that offer a respite from the lingering tensions of urban life and an opportunity for diverse peoples to come together” (Anderson, XIV). Although, as you walk through the city, you may see a vast amount of diversity, there are certain places where the diversity is signified as a canopy. A canopy must have certain characteristics that say whether it is one or not. Characteristics involve comfort, the best behavior, peaceful relations and an abundance of racially, ethnically, and socially diverse people (Anderson, XV). After reading the novel The Cosmopolitan Canopy by Elijah Anderson, these areas of acceptance become very clear to you and the reasons they exist stand out more than ever. Observing LOVE Park for myself, I found out the true meaning to a Cosmopolitan Canopy and could now understand it from personal experience.

“In the Forest of Gombe” by Jane Goodall describes her own perspective of the correlation between religions and science through her experiences in the forest at Gombe where she finds comforting to recover from the loss of her husband. Developed several new concepts regarding life, Goodall comes up with the idea of the coexistence of science and religion. Agreeing with Goodall, however, the windows that Goodall sees through have no drawbacks.

Within anthropology there are two main schools of thought. These different views shape the philosophies of anthropologist who are classified as materialist, idealist, or falling in between. The materialist approach focuses on positivistic knowledge and empirical truths. Materialists’ use science and material elements within society to explain the basis for human culture and life; they consider anthropology one of the sciences. On the other hand, idealists consider anthropology one of the humanities. Idealists view culture and behavior as a pattern of interpretation of beliefs and ideas by the participants. This paper will discuss anthropologist Marvin Harris, a materialist, Clifford Geertz’s idealist point of view, and Eleanor Leacock’s approach

The representation of the individual in Karen Tei Yamashita’s “Through the Arc of the Rainforest” shows interactions between the characters with varying degrees of individuality, as well as generic “crowds” representing the population at large. The individuals represented are characters with both weak and strong personalities, as well as exploitative and exploited crowd interactions. Yamashita portrays the “individual” with basic cosmetic differences, evidenced by Kazumasa’s orbiting cranial satellite and Tweep’s third appendage. However, Yamashita also uses the ideological differences, specifically Chico Paco’s religious devotion and Mane Pena’s knowledge in the field of featherology. These distinctions serve to cast these characters from the homogenous “crowd,” elevating them from the nameless characters that occupy the background of the novel. The individualism these characters demonstrate is identified by their personalities, their interactions with other individuals, and their interaction with the crowd around them. This paper will use these actions to explain Yamashita’s portrayal of flawed individuals, and how they interact with the “crowd.”

The Forest People, by Colin Turnbull, a British anthropologist, focuses on a tribe of pygmies, called the BaMbuti. The setting of The Forest People is the Ituri Forest, located in northwestern Belgian Congo. Throughout the five trips to the Ituri Forest, Colin Turnbull created The Forest People with his anthropological observations of the time he spent living among the villagers. One of the most fascinating aspects of Turnbull’s observations is based on the religion of the BaMbuti pygmies.

Spirit of the Rainforest is a book written by Mark Andrew Ritchie about the Yanomamö people of the Amazon. However, the story is told from the perspective of “Jungleman” a shaman of the people. Jungleman is a powerful shaman who knows the realities of both the spirit world and the physical world. His narrative helps the reader understand how important the spirit world is for the Yanomamö people. Through his storytelling, he highlights the role of shamans in the culture, customs of his people, and how those customs were affected when the nabas came.

Being a component of society is an unavoidable status that every person falls into. To escape it would be impossible as society itself is the interweaving lives, systems, beliefs and ideas that every individual contributes to and experiences. Without a contextual perspective, comprehending one’s place in society while in the chaos of personal and widespread clashes is challenging. Sociology and, thus, the sociological perspective allows people to understand the threads that connect them to someone else or to the institutes that surround them.

Rainforests are being destroyed at a rate of 150 acres a minute. If this fact doesn’t astonish you then understand that that means a total of 78 Million acres a year. While this is in itself a horrible act it is also causing many species to go extinct thanks to loss of habitat. The main culprits of this are large corporations such as McDonald’s and Burger King. The greed of large corporations leads them to mistreat earth’s largest and most inhabited forests, leaving many species struggling for survival.

Rainforest destruction is becoming increasingly problematic as the Earth is losing more and more of these forests each year. We are not just losing a few trees either, as the article states, “Estimates indicate that over 10% of the world’s tropical rainforest were destroyed between 1990 and 2005”, which is a staggering number. The loss of rainforest is also releasing billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere, which can be linked to greenhouse gas content atmospherically, as well as global climate change.

Spirit of the Rainforest delivers an engaging tale of Yanomamo life through the eyes of Jungleman, a powerful shaman in Venezuela. The novel presents a disturbing sampling of spirit warfare scenes, detailing the transformation of some Yanomami people while initiating a transformation in the worldview of its readers. Members of the culture engage in an endless cycle of slaughtering each other in the name of hatred. The motif of Vengeance lingers throughout the novel. It’s motivated by the spirits of the rainforest and causes enormous chaos until it is thwarted by the peace given by Yai Pada (God). Spirit of the Rainforest and recent research demonstrate the necessity of forgiveness for personal growth and their relation to the spirit realm.