Question : How does customary law function in the tribal society? Discuss its different sources.
(2018)
Answer : When a custom is practiced over a period of time and found to be useful in maintaining harmony in a society, it becomes established as customary law. Customary law naturally appeals to many tribal courts, not only because it allows tribal justice to accord with tribal society as shown through traditions, but also because the use of customary law is thought to reinforce the very same traditions.
Three authors, namely, Elias, Pospisil and Chanock, have ....
Question : Mention the characteristic features of the band with suitable examples.
(2017)
Answer : In Anthropology, bands are the tiniest societies, consisting typically of 5-80 people, most or all of them close relatives by birth or by marriage. In effect, a band is an extended family or several related extended families.
Anthropologists like Meyer Fortes and Evans Pritchard have worked a lot in the field of understanding of various political organizations, especially the political systems prevalent in simple societies. Band is one such un-centralised political system defined as “a small ....
Question : Discuss different social control mechanisms in simple societies.
(2016)
Answer : Society is a collection of groups and individuals. It exists for the welfare and advancement of the whole. The mutuality, on which it depends, is possible to sustain by adjustment of varied and contradictory interests. The structure pattern continues to exist because of its inbuilt mechanism and sanction system. Social control is a part of our lives at every level, from the family, to the local community, to the nation, to our global civilization. Anthropologists ....
Question : Differentiate between state and Stateless societies.
(2014)
Answer : Anthropology has noteworthy contribution to the study of traditional societies, the tribes or peasant communities. The ethnographic contributions of anthropologists have helped us understand different aspects of social and cultural life and political system of these communities. Studies of tribes in India, Africa or in Australia have recorded the fact that every society has definite norms, values and recognised rules of conduct. According cultural anthropology, a state society denotes a more complex human community with ....
Question : Discuss the nature of law and justice in simple societies citing suitable examples.
(2014)
Answer : Law is needed to maintain order and stability in a society. It is a tool of social control that deals with deviant behaviour.
In every society there are institutions that encourage and emphasize conformity to social and customary rules or norms. These institutions are referred to as sanctions. According to Radcliffe Brown a sanction is a reaction on the part of a society or of a considerable number of its members to a mode of ....
Question : How does taboo serve as a means of social control?
(2013)
Answer : A taboo is a social or cultural prohibition. Disregarding taboo is generally considered a deviant act by society. Taboo is a Polynesian word, first encountered by Captain Cook, meaning literally ‘marked off’. Taboo is putting of a person or thing under temporary or permanent prohibition or interdict, especially as a social custom.
Taboo also means forbidden to general use or to a particular person or class of people. Taboo is a customary prohibition or interdict. Also, ....
