As an individual spawned out of Western Civilization, there are several things in my life that I take for granted. There is also a long list of values I believe in and model my goals after, such as environmentalism, scientific knowledge, family, and tradition. These are all things that I value deeply within my own life. They are precious seeds of hope and happiness for my past, present, and future. Similarly, the Yir Yoront, a forager group in Australia, as any group of civilization, has values worth protecting. Yet, upon reading “Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians,” written by Lauriston Sharp, I was appalled to discover that the Yir Yoront’s values were not protected in any sort of way, but rather terribly misunderstood and bleached by the …show more content…
During the first lecture of this course, I was intrigued by the concept of ethnocentrism and assumed that I was not really an ethnocentric type of person. However, I was dangerously wrong: I started reading the research paper with the premonition that the steel axe greatly helped the Yir Yoront positively progress in society and help lift them out of a “third-world status,” so to speak. I initially viewed the stone axe as insignificant and the Yir Yoront as a culture that needed help. I think that Sharp anticipated this idea, perhaps because he also felt similarly before conducting his research over the significance of the axe to the Yir Yoront people. With that notion in mind, that makes me no different than the white men who I silently ridiculed in my mind as I read the paper. Sharp’s rhetoric lies within this notion of ethnocentrism and emphasizes the point that we cannot apply our beliefs to those of another culture in a vastly different world and society than us. The Yir Yoront people’s belief system was sacred, passed down and explained by the creation of myths and stories, and much to its demise, immensely