Ch. 1: Doing Anthropology
Define the Discipline
In the Field
Saskatchewan, Canada
Meet a colony, 450 year old religious group called the Hutterian Brethren, or Hutterites. They were English speaking group of European Descent who practiced a form of Christianity that emphasized pacifism and tolerance. Wanted to take fingerprints, influenced by genes, and collect genealogical data to document genetic changes between populations and across generations.
For one month of fieldwork experience – taking fingerprints, recording family relationships, observing colony life, and befriending the Hutterites of this and a related Bruderhof in Alberta.
Was curious about the evolutionary change and how they operate in human populations. First, the group had to be fairly isolated, mates found from within group. The group had to be small, with large families. A group that had knowledge of their genealogy and in which family relationships reflected genetic as well as cultural categories. The individual units within the group were created through the splitting up of existing units.
The Hutterites
The Hutterian Brethren is a Christian religious sect found in Moravia in 1528 by peoples from southern Germany and Austria. They were part of the Anabaptist movement, whose doctrines shunned the idea of infant baptism and advocated a church free from the control of the state.
Disliked by mainstream Catholics and Protestants of their time.
Many Anabaptist sects formed during this period, but only 3 remain: the Hutterites, the Mennonites, the Amish.
They were communists in the economic sense of the word. They believed in nonconformity.
Jacob Hutter, was a martyr and died, thus named Hutterites. This general persecution resulted in the demise of most Anabaptist groups, but through continual migrations and sheer persistence, the Hutterites managed to survive.
Over next 300 yrs they lived in Slovakia, Romania, and Russia, and finally in the 1870s to the United States.
Due to taxes and military draft, forced them to move to Canada because they are pacifists.
Today there are 36,000 Hutterites in 481 colonies located in Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia; the rest in Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Washington.
The Sect is now divided into 3 subsects descended from the 3 original colonies founded by the Hutterite migrants to North America.
The difference between the 3 is there clothing styles.
An individuals belongings are all contained in a hope chest.
Decisions are made by elected officials headed by the colony boss.
The colony minister whos in charge of the groups religious welfare.
The Hutterite economy is basically agricultural, and the specific crops and animals raised depend on the geography and economy of the area occupied.
They shunned items like tvs, radio, but they will accept any tips from outsiders to aid them in becoming better farmers. Because some colonies are profitable, they have modern tractors, milking machines, fertilizers, antibiotics, telephones and computers. (members of a Bruderhof)
English school, use a state or provincial teacher until the legal age. But in German school, they use the colony teacher, which transmit the ways of Hutterite life and religion.
They also train the children in becoming a working member of the community.
They allow marriage from within or from other subsects. But wont allow marriage who are second cousins or more distant relations.
Men get married at 24, and woman get married are 22.
Average family has 10 children.
They have kept family records with great accuracy.
They practice in dividing their colonies, or branching out. After a colony size becomes to big., 100-150. They will split half of the families and purchase new land.
They determine a way to split things, to move to a new land as founders of the new Bruderhof.
They colony he was in, was a new colony, but enough time has elapsed so that a new