Application Assignment 1: Greeting Differences

Greeting Differences & Yanomamö Tradition
Application Assignment #1
Juliana Pineros Chaucanas
Greenville Technical College
February 4, 2015

Greeting Differences & Yanomamö Tradition Remember that time when you travel to other country and noticed that people didn’t speak your language? Or when you were greeting someone and they greeted you differently. When you experience this, you are experiencing cultural shock. Cultural shock is when you are feeling disoriented, uncertain, out of place, fearful when immersed in an unfamiliar culture. I came to America when I was eighteen months and I have no memory of my native country which is Colombia. But the thing I most remember is my culture and that is because I grew up in the culture.
The biggest differences I remember about the different cultures were the greeting differences. The greeting difference was my first cultural shock.
When I started walking and talking, my parent’s immediately taught me how to greet people. They said it was the polite and respectful thing to do. How I got taught to greet people was to kiss them on the cheek while leaning in for a one-shoulder hug. At first, it took me a while to remember to kiss people’s cheek and not just walk in and say hello. But after a couple of birthday parties, I finally got the hang of it. I have never been so proud of myself.
By the time I enter head start academy, I had already master the skill of greeting people. When I came into to school on my first day, I was so happy because my teacher was going to teach us how to greet people. I already knew how to greet people, so I was so happy to actually know something important. When the teacher asked for a volunteer that knew how to greet people, I immediately raised my hand and she called on
me.
When I went up to the front and she put her hand out in front of me, I was confused. I shook my head and said no. I told her the “right way” of greeting someone and I showed my teacher. But she just shook her head and told me I was wrong. I was so confused. I didn’t how I could be wrong but then my teacher took me aside. She told me about the two different cultures I can relate to. The two different cultures were the Colombian culture and the American culture; they both have very different customs. When she was telling me, she mentioned that when Colombians greet, they greet very differently than Americans do, and I was just going to have to learn both ways to greet people. When I was learning to greet the American way, I kept getting confused therefor it was very hard for me.
I thought I had master the greeting skill but only to realize I had only master the Colombian way of greeting. But just like learning the Colombian way, I learned the American way, which was much simpler. I practiced and practices and after a couple of tries, I finally had master the American way of greeting. This experience was my cultural shock since I experience confusion and uncertainty about the way of greeting. This was also the first time I realize how different these two cultures are but also how similar they are too. Since learning the cultural shock at such a young age, I was already used to it when it came to other cultural differences, and grew to adapt to them in a faster way than
others. My weird cultural practice is a practice that is done by the Yanomamö tribe. They are found in the Amazon rainforest, located between Venezuela and Brazil. The tradition involves wrapping corpse in leaves and allowing insects to pick at it. Then after 30-45 days later, the bones are collected and pulverized and mixed into a banana soup to be consumed by all. After a year, the villagers consume the ashes mixed with plantain soup. According to the tradition, this ritual helps ensure the relatives find their way to paradise. This tradition and ritual was started by a man named Poreími, who was a talented, generous Yanomami with a magnificent intelligence. During this time, there was a terrible scarcity of food in the world and the Yanomami had to eat their food raw since they did not possess fire yet. Poreími went to the jungle and built a house to live in with his wife.
While living in the jungle, some Indians came by to visit and brought them gifts. The gifts bought were different kinds of plantains, including one called "pareamu". Afterwards, the couple received a visit from a friend who left a present called “wabu.” This was a fruit, that is poisonous in its natural state, when prepared properly it can be eaten when food supply is short. After a while, some Yanomami people arrived at Poreími's house. They did not come with presents like the other two times, but with hunger. Poreími gave them an abundancy of food to eat and when saying goodbye, he gave them several kinds of plantains. He urged them to plant the plantains, especially the "pareamu.”
The visitors returned to their village, and planted the plantains. They harvested the plantains in great quantities and did not suffer from any more hunger. The Yanomami were very grateful for the presents they received and wanted to thank Poreími. Once they arrived at his house, they found him upset because his son had died. Poreími told his guests how he did his son's funeral. He said he had burnt the body, collected the bones, grounded them to ash and eaten the ashes in a soup of "pareamu" plantains. When he said goodbye, he urged them to do the same with their own dead.Since then, the Yanomami no longer bury the dead but burn them and consume their ashes mixed with plantain soup.