Tag: culture
Culture
Culture can be defined in numerous ways. The Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is “the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time.” Terror management theory posits that culture is a series of activities and worldviews that provide humans with the basis for perceiving themselves as “person[s] of worth within the world of meaning”—raising themselves above the merely physical aspects of existence, in order to deny the animal insignificance and death that Homo sapiens became aware of when they acquired a larger brain.
As a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. The word is used in a general sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively.
It’s a bond that has endured over 5000 years, through epochal moments in history and eras of relative calm that lay between the seismic cultural faults that defined human civilization. In fact, Eric Scigliano, in his iconic tome on the ‘man-animal’ bond, has propounded the theory that elephants may have been ‘nursemaids’ to human evolution, […]
Tags: culture, Kabini, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Man and Elephant, Kabini | Posted in Culture, Kabini, Mammals | 14 Comments »
Long before Richard Bode’s bestseller on life’s little lessons, the boatmen of Kabini had learnt the selfsame ‘art of living’ in their little floating classroom: the Coracle! Living, as they did, on the banks of the Kabini, the Coracle was their friend, philosopher and guide: a constant companion as they went about the business of […]
Tags: culture, Kabini, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Coracle, Kabini | Posted in Culture, Kabini | 6 Comments »
The measure of a good coffee in South India is often a function of the ‘lengths’ to which the coffee maker is prepared to go to mix his concoction. The man seen here, nonchalantly drawing a meter-long string of decoction and milk, from one arm to the other, is a minor celebrity of sorts in […]
Tags: Coorg, culture, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Meter Coffee, Coorg | Posted in Coorg, Culture | 12 Comments »
When you wish to speak to a god, you need a language so elevated, it beseeches Him to listen. For the Kurubas, followers of the Hindu god Shiva and the original tribal inhabitants of Kabini, there can only be one medium of communication: dance! Shiva is the cosmic dancer of the Hindu pantheon, and while […]
Tags: culture, Kabini, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Kuruba Dance, Kabini | Posted in Culture, Kabini | 11 Comments »
How does one tell the men from the boys? The good from the bad? The villains from the heroes? Simple! A Coorg paddy farmer would tell you to just get them all together, and give them a good thrashing (or ‘threshing’ as the politically correct term goes). This will cause the straw to stalk off, […]
Tags: Coorg, culture, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Winnowing, Coorg | Posted in Coorg, Plantation | 42 Comments »
If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the way to his stomach has, for millennia, been a closely guarded secret. Throughout history, men and women who’ve sought to put the spice back in their lives, have depended on one rare ingredient. Pepper, that pungent and precious berry from the treasure chests […]
Tags: Coorg, culture, Lifescapes, Orange County Resorts
Pepper, Coorg | Posted in Coorg, Plantation | 13 Comments »
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A fortnightly photo-essay on Nature and Culture
