Population structured by witchcraft beliefs
Population structured by witchcraft beliefs
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由巫术信仰构成的人口
DOI：
10.1038/s41562-017-0271-6
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发表时间：
2018-01-01
影响因子：
29.9
通讯作者：
Tao, Yi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mace, Ruth;Thomas, Matthew G.;Tao, Yi
人类学家长期以来一直认为，对巫术指控受害的恐惧促进了小规模社会的合作。其他人则认为，巫术信仰破坏了信任，因此降低了社会凝聚力。然而，很少有量化的经验性例子表明巫术标签如何在真实的人类社区中构建合作。在这里，我们展示了一个来自中国一个农业社区的案例，在那里，被标记为朱的人被认为能够进行超自然活动，特别是在食物中下毒。这一标签通常适用于成年女户主，而且往往是从母系遗传下来的。我们发现，那些在朱家的人不太可能向非朱家的人赠送或接受礼物或农场帮助;他们也没有与非朱家的人发生性关系或生孩子。然而，这些inzhuhouseholds确实优先帮助和繁殖彼此。虽然标签是共同的知识，其他村民和合作和生殖伙伴的选择，我们发现没有证据表明，这种分类是基于合作或质量。我们赞成这样的解释，即污名化最初是作为一种伤害女性竞争者的机制而出现的。一旦确立，对这种特征可传播的恐惧可能有助于解释这种根深蒂固的文化信念的持续存在。
Anthropologists have long argued that fear of victimization through witchcraft accusations promotes cooperation in small-scale societies. Others have argued that witchcraft beliefs undermine trust and therefore reduce social cohesion. However, there are very few, if any, quantified empirical examples demonstrating how witchcraft labels can structure cooperation in real human communities. Here we show a case from a farming community in China where people labelledzhuwere thought capable of supernatural activity, particularly poisoning food. The label was usually applied to adult women heads of household and often inherited down the female line. We found that those inzhuhouseholds were less likely to give or receive gifts or farm help to or from non-zhuhouseholds; nor did they have sexual partnerships or children with those in non-zhuhouseholds. However, those inzhuhouseholds did preferentially help and reproduce with each other. Although the tag is common knowledge to other villagers and used in cooperative and reproductive partner choice, we found no evidence that this assortment was based on cooperativeness or quality. We favour the explanation that stigmatization originally arose as a mechanism to harm female competitors. Once established, fear that the trait is transmissible may help explain the persistence of this deep-rooted cultural belief.