HRAF News Vol. 2019-6
Happy (Belated) Father's Day!
We have an eclectic mix of content for you! In honor of Father's Day, Fran Barone wrote a new post on the roles fathers fulfill cross-culturally. Jeffrey Vadala wrote an eHRAF -informed reflection on his ethnographic experiences with ritual drinks. And HRAF analyst Ian Skoggard dusted off a 1959 African Rift Valley cultures map by George Peter Murdock, analyzing the migrations the map likely represents.

Finally, we recently added to eHRAF World Cultures a large batch of fully-indexed documents that were previously available only on HRAF microfiche. See the list of additions here .
"While few would argue that  men  or  masculinity  are underrepresented in academic literature or the anthropological record, is it possible that fatherhood has been overlooked? Using global ethnographic examples found in eHRAF World Cultures , this post explores the concept of fatherhood – both biological and social, as well as parenting, father-child relationships, and what it means to be a dad around the world."

"I was first offered balché during a ritual event called a Chac Chaac ... During the Chac Chaac I attended, a shaman laid out offerings of masa (corn flour) in gourd bowls. A visually striking array of pink hibiscus flowers had also been collected and were arranged beautifully around the table. At each of the table’s four corners, the shaman placed a vintage glass bottle that had no label; it was filled with a golden-colored liquid. This liquid was balché, a sweet honey-based drink that had ties at least back to the ancient Maya."

"A few years ago, HRAF anthropologists were involved in a project to help develop an agent-based model of violent conflict in Eastern Africa. As part of the project they mapped the different ethnic groups in the region using George Peter Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas and Africa: Its People and Their Culture History . The ethnic map was revealing of the history of the region: the waves of migration that occurred from different parts of the continent over the course of several millennium; the ancestors of the various ethnic and cultural groups today..."

We recently added 265 documents (about 31,800 pages) to eHRAF World Cultures ! These subject-indexed ethnographic documents were formerly only available as part of our microfiche sets. They add to the online collections of 44 different cultures. Culture collections which gained the most documents (8 or more) include African Americans, Akan, Belau, Blackfoot, Central Thai, Innu, Javanese, Kpelle, Mescalero Apache, Ojibwa, Samoyed, Shilluk, Tamil, Tibetans, Ute, and Zapotec.

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