What Do People Do? Dani Auto-Ethnography

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Sixty Grand Valley Dani schoolchildren each gave 50 responses to the question, "What do people do?" This is called a Dani auto-ethnography, and it provides information about the Dani's own understanding of their world. The responses, which included a total of 106 common verbs with their range of meanings, gave some information on sex differences. The most significant result was the great emphasis on subsistence activities, compared with the much lesser importance of ritual and conflict activities, and an almost total absence of any interpersonal or positive emotional activity. These findings confirm and support previous descriptions of the Dani as having a low energy, nonemotional, nonclimactic culture.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: