The Mystery of Bigfoot

Topic: Myth

Sources:

"Big Foot of North America"

http://www.unmuseum.org/bigfoot.htm

 

"The Big Foot Field Researchers Association"

http://www.bfro.net/

Relation:

As a child you are always open to the mysteries of the world, you are curious and you believe so easily.  When my sister and I were young, we were camping with our family in Humboldt County; we had been hearing stories of Big Foot, went to the museum, and were hoping to get a glimpse of him. One afternoon during the trip, we were playing in the forest when we heard a loud cracking noise we stopped in our tracks and looked around us. We were in a small clearing, and saw nothing, but the ground seemed to shake under our feet as something slowly walked through the woods. We didn’t wait to see anything, and jumped up and ran back to the campsite screaming “It’s bigfoot!! It’s bigfoot!!” Even today we both remember it, and aren’t quite sure what it was we heard, but we still like to joke that it was Big Foot. The myth of Big Foot is huge in Humboldt County, it’s a fun thing to joke about, whether or not he is real, I’m not sure, but it’s fun to pretend.

Discussion:

The myth of Big Foot, or Sasquatch, has been around for many years, and even Native American’s myths surrounding Sasquatch, or the “hairy giant” long before white settlement. Yet the first recorded sighting of Big Foot was in “1811 near what now is the town of Jasper, Alberta Canada. A trader named David Thompson found some strange footprints, fourteen inches long and eight inches wide, with four toes, in the snow” (Bigfoot of North America). The description of Big Foot is often that he is Huge, around 8-9ft and weighs about 500lbs, that he is very hairy, and walks bipedally. People have found footprints, taken castes of them, and put them in Big Foot museums, along with videos and photographs.

The legend of Big Foot is growing even larger due to contemporary culture and the rise of reality t.v., with shows such as “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet. This show has four researchers on the hunt to find Bigfoot, and find if this myth is true or just a hoax. Mysteries such as this are exciting for people, and they search to find the answer. Many scientists think that the Bigfoot myth is just a joke, but along with that, many other people have set up whole research teams such as the “Big Foot Field Researchers Association,” or the “Finding Bigfoot” team. Whether or not this myth is fact or fiction, I don’t know, but it is an interesting and entertaining mystery.

Becoming a Women

Topic: Rite of Passage

Sources:

"Cultural ANTHRO" Richard Robbins

"Apology. U by Kotex"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf35wCmzWw

"Period Piece"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pe1enOm9T8

Relation: 

From culture to culture there are various ‘rites of passage’ that “mark a person’s passage from one identity to another” (Robbins, 139). I was trying to think of rites of passage that I had gone through in my life. One I immediately thought of was that of ‘becoming a woman.’ It was the summer before eighth grade, and I was getting ready for a soccer game when I realized I had had my first period, I wasn’t excited. I remember sheepishly telling my Mom, and she got so excited and started clapping and singing ‘you’re a young lady now!’ I was still not excited, as I had soccer game to play, now with a huge wad of cotton in my shorts. That weekend a few family friends came to visit and my Mom was telling them how excited she was. My friend, a few years younger than me, asked to talk with me about it, and as I explained what it was like, she looked up to me as though I was so grown up. At the end of the weekend as her family left, her Mom came up to me and said to me “welcome to womanhood.” I didn’t really understand what the big fuss was about.

Discussion:

In many cultures the transition from being a girl to becoming a woman is a big deal. While in our culture it is something that is frustrating, feared, and even disgusting. I knew many girls that didn’t even know they were going to get a period, and when they did, they thought they were dying. It is often something we are taught to be very concerned about, and something that will inhibit our daily activities. As women we are bombarded with advertising about tampons or pads that will make our period “more comfortable” and to avoid “being embarrassed” by our own body functions. 

Menstruation is also often expressed in negative terms such as, “disintegration or shedding. According to one college textbook, “When fertilization fails to occur, the endometrium is shed, and a new cycle starts. This is why it used to be taught that ‘menstruation is the uterus crying for lack of a baby.’” (Robbins, 169) It is also negatively referred by women themselves as ‘on the rag,’ and is rarely ever referred to just as a ‘period’ or ‘menstruation’ and if it is, it often throws people off and makes them uncomfortable. Why is this? Often a woman’s reproductive system is also described as a sort of machine, with the main function of making babies, and if it is unable to do so, it ‘fails.’ Do these terms and attitudes help the continuation of sexism towards women?

Some young ladies experience positivity towards getting their period, as I did, but many aren’t so lucky, and instead feel scared or embarrassed. Many of these attitudes towards menstruation are taught to us since we were young, or weren't taught to us at all, yet were influenced by our surroundings. I don’t feel that there are really any rites of passage for this sort of thing in our culture, even though this is a very important part of a woman’s life. I do feel though that some advertisements are trying to make light on the subject, and make it more funny, rather than serious and something to be worried about. 

 

Church of the Last Testament

Topic: Beliefs

Sources:

"The Vissarian Christ: Inside Russia's End of Times Cults"

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/16/the-vissarion-christ-inside-russia-s-end-times-cults.html

"A Visit with Vissarionites"

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2013/01/davide-monteleones-photographs-of-the-vissarionites.html#slide_ss_0=16

"Jesus of Siberia"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Cv5hZfOmk

Relation:
The ways in which each of us views the world around us differs from person to person and culture to culture. These are our ‘beliefs,’ and they help govern our lives and direct us down the path that we wish to follow. People follow these paths through different ways, some of us are religious, some not, some of us follow a strong work ethic, and the list goes on. These are all a part of our beliefs, which in turn help to define our behaviors.

Discussion:
Personally, when it comes to beliefs I myself am not strongly religious, but I’m open to hear what others have to say. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I used to participate in meditation at an ashram. At the Ashram you have the spiritual guru, or Baba, and there is a small community of people who have chosen to devote their lives to him, their spiritual practice and hard work. Since I have first hand seen this type of lifestyle, I was very interested when I heard about a man in Siberia, named Vissarion.

Vissarion, declared himself to be Christ in 1991, a year after he had been fired from his job as a traffic cop, and right around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. “I am Jesus Christ,” said Vissarion, who at the time was a man named Sergei Torop, “It was prophesized that I would return and finish what I started.” Since the fall of the Soviet Union many cults have appeared, “sort of looking for a new belief after a whole system falls apart.” Since 1991, Vissarion’s followers have grown to be nearly 5,000.

Vissarion and his followers live the beautiful countryside of Siberia, in a small city named the Abode of Dawn City. Within the city you are not allowed to drink, smoke, curse, use make-up, shampoo, money, animal food, weapons or cars. All of the money made is put into a community fund, and every month each family is given a certain amount of food, and are encouraged to use their own vegetable gardens. Vissarion teaches that women are to serve their husbands as their husbands serve God, and to raise the birthrate within the Abode of Dawn City, Vissarion encourages men to have more than one wife in the hopes of having more 'true' Vissarionite children raised into the beliefs. The birth rate in the Abode of Dawn City is higher than mosncourat of Russia. There are also strict differences in gender roles; men are to do ‘manly’ activities, such as: build and paint houses, shovel snow, cut wood, etc., while women are to take care of the children and the home.

Vissarion teaches that he knows that the end of the world is coming, yet he does not give a date, but tells his followers that they are in the ‘ark’ and are safe from the madness of the world. People have left their lives behind to follow the teachings of Vissarion. One man says that his teachings “just make sense,” and that Vissarion “embraced and mixed up bits of everything people liked from the Bible, Carlos Castenada, Osho or Krishna’s teachings.” It seems the people of the Abode of Dawn City are happy, but some worry that if Vissarion instructed people to do something unethical that they would very likely follow his commands.