Art as technology. The Arts of Africa, Oceania, Native America, Southern California.

Aus der Arbeitsbibliothek von Hans-Joachim Koloss, Kurator der Afrika-Abteilung des Museums f�r V�lkerkunde Berlin. / From the working library of Hans-Joachim Koloss, curator of the African department of the Berlin Ethnography Museum. - Cover lichtbedingt gebr�t, ansonsten tadelloser Zustand / Cover light browned, otherwise perfect condition - Table of Contents -- Preface -- Foreword Zena Pearlstone -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Environmental and Cultural Factors -- Utilitarian and Transactional Functions -- itinerant Hunters and Food Gatherers -- Australian Aborigines -- Herders -- Fulani -- Sedentary Hunters and Food Gatherers -- Asmat -- Non-Centralized Sedentary Cultivators -- Pueblos -- Senufo -- Senufo An Elisabeth I. Cameron -- Centralized Sedentary Cultivators -- Maya -- Maori -- Asante -- Goki and Power: Art and Politics of the Asante -- Raymond A. Silverman -- Confluence -- The North American Plains -- Traditional Societies in the Modern World -- Convergence: A Reconsideration of Some Aspects of Contemporary Western (Southern California) Art Zena Pearlstone -- Appendix -- The Return of Ritual -- Ted Kaptcbuk -- Bibliography -- Index -- Introduction -- Art historical scholarship began with the study of European antiquity, where relationships are dear, and has grown out of a system of shared political, religious, and economic values and ideas. Studies of non-Western art developed late, and have been characterized by a �wastebasket� approach - lumping into one field all the arts left over after the really significant artistic traditions have been parcelled out. -- The mind of the Western research-worker is accustomed, by his work on the classics, to a reasonable number of new fragments discovered annually by a select band of archaeologists. Sudden shocks are coldly received and the select few flee from an avalanche of facts. It is admitted that centuries of erudition have amassed materials about the Greeks from which vast edifices have been built. We are accustomed to see these ancient bits of masonry slowly rising against the background of our culture: the least stone found is transmitted by respectful hands to the workers on the roof. But let thousands of exotic cities suddenly spring up, let unusual, strange and shocking facades arise, and they depreciate in value through their very number. This excess -- repels us and, turning our backs resolutely on the deluge, we take refuge in our convenient cliches ( Griaule 1950:16 ) . -- A single course and concomitant textbook combining the arts of Africa, Oceania and Native America can only be viewed as a pedagogical convenience and a function of how little we know of the constituent areas. One way of dealing, in a ten-week course, with this mass of disparate material would be arbitrarily to devote, for example, one block of time to Africa, another to Oceania, etc. Instead, we start with a comparative examination of the structures within which art is produced and utilized, attempting to develop a valid framework for understanding how art operates within its cultural context. We then proceed to survey the arts of selected cultures, attempting to identify similarities and differences between them according to the types of social, political, and economic systems they embody. -- Anybody tends to react and relate to the arts of his/her own culture instinctively and more or less without reflection.