ritualsthe social life of the earliest human


Rituals:

The social life of  the earliest human groups or tribes revolved around food gathering. To begin with, they must have collected anything they could eat-seeds,  nuts, fruits, roots. honey and any small animals that could be caught with bare hands. The largest  food sharing unit tended to concenuate upon a certain food which was easily available  to them in plenty. Thus, human groups eating one type of  food came to consider themselves  as 'kins'  or fellow beings of the same community or clan. Other human groups who ate different foods were not in the kinship, and at first were not even considered human. As we have told you earlier, this special food item is called "totem". The  act of gathering the totem was associated with special  rituals   The  rituals sometimes involved sacrifices (including human sacrifice) to secure increased food supply. The  food gathering tribes were  entirely dependent on  nature  for  their survival. Therefore, in order to avoid scarcity, they also developed certain "taboos".  For instance, taboos were enforced on sexual intercourse in order to control their population for the limited supply of food. Attempts were also made to control the group  population by a taboo  on  cohabitation within the totem clan, and by the  practice of marriage outside the clan.  

 

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Biology: ritualsthe social life of the earliest human
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