Biological Diversity Essay
Furthermore the cultural aspect is evidenced in the cultural differences and similarities amongst various communities. The kind of settlements that was inhabited by various communities will be an indication of the kind of people they were. It is believed that bio-cultural diversity is highly influenced by the environment in which the people live in. Biological adaptations are spurred by the environmental differences which further influence their culture and way of life. For instance, a community whose habitat is within the proximity of large water bodies will have their environment influence their way of life. Pacha unlike the girls of her age who fancied playing around and hunting wild fruit, she had her own little game that she would lay when she was alone. Her age mates would view her not quite as normal as the rest as she did not participate in their activities.
Pacha devised her own memory game where she would take walks in the forest. In this walk she would collect all sorts of items, be it stones, pebbles, twigs and sticks. Pacha would begin this walks very early in the morning and as she collected this objects she would also burry them. Gradually she observed that this ‘magical’ phenomenon occurred in several other objects that she buried in the ground. Her keen eye noticed that given time, this little object found from the fruits and other plant would grow into a larger plant (Dilts, 2018). Owing to the cultural procedure at that time, she would also have to one day have to conjure up a tale to share around the family fire. Pacha would later on narrate to her community of how she buried stones, the hard pebbles coming from the earth and from the animals and others from the plants.
She would then explain that some of them would change to the plants that are observed whereas others did not. For instance the physical mountains were regarded as places of worship and only few members of the society were allowed to traverse in these areas. Furthermore, considering the story of the ‘Mother of Harvest’ the story refers to a plant with white hairs and green-leafed plants. This plant can be associated with the maize plant (Heath, 1989). According to the Portuguese and Spanish explorers of the 1500’s, the maize pant was a discovery from the Mesoamerican farms in their South American expedition. Agricultural experts have explained based on archaeological evidence that maize is native to the Mesoamerican areas. They also were an interaction between the young and the old, where the old would teach the young through story telling activities.
Children would also learn from the old folk of the community. In the modern Mexican culture, the old people in the community are held in high regard, they held positions as priests and purveyors of wisdom to the oncoming generation. Another cultural aspect that was emphasized by the phenomenon of the ‘The Mother of Fertility’ is the allocation of gender roles. Apparently, the men took the roles of hunting and gathering whereas the women took the responsibility. R. Jon McGee. American Anthropologist, 91(3), 831-831. Kassam, K. Diversity in Nature and Culture Matters: Bio-Cultural Diversity and Indigenous Peoples.
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