Culture-Environment Integration: External References in Yokuts Life

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Abstract
The forces which lead to integration of patterns or of whole cultures are usually seen as social, psychological, and immaterial. In defining culture ureas and human ecology, environment has been related to material culture rather than to the thematic factors of social life. The Yokuts'' ceremonial cycle, social life, and trade as well as food collection were closely patterned on the cycle of the seasons. The physiographic setting led to antithesis of highland versus lowland in ceremonies and myths, peculiarities in terms for directions and for other tribes, and the appropriate earth-diver creation myth. Reverence for animals played a part in religious life and in the day-dreaming which underlay the people''s emotional security. The whole environment was much more immediate than to us since the Yokuts lacked almost all of our selective cultural barrier. Analyses of culture-environment articulation in many societies may offer clues to the relative persistence of the nuclear patterns.

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