AMISH The Amish Culture Linda Mann ANT 101 Patricia Ryan September 2, 2012 AMISH The Amish are horticulturalists. The Amish society is a subculture. Their lifestyle is centered on agriculture. I am going to analyze how horticulture as the Amish’s primary mode of subsistence affects their beliefs and values, economic organization, social organization and kinship. The Amish ways of life are very distinct.
Child rearing, not economic competence, for example is considered the primary task of the parents (Fisher, 2002), and gender roles in the Amish community are considered to be traditional. The man works, the woman raises the children. However, the Amish family is non-traditional in the way that the man has the absolute say in any matter. As in most families, gender roles in Amish marriages vary by personality; there are shades of dominance from husband to wife across a wide spectrum with many variations. In non-farm families, typically the husband is the primary breadwinner, but in cases where a wife owns a business, she may provide most of the family income.
The article is written by Lauren Johnston, a doctor who studied different religions and the relation to medicine in that religion. He said that the biggest difference from Native American and conventional medicine concerns the role of spirit and connection. Spirituality is a key point to natives healing process, while conventional medicine eschews
Just like all other aspects of their culture, their religious beliefs guide their responses to life, death, health, and illness (Fisher, 2002). For the Amish the quality of a person’s life is far more important than its length. In fact, a “good” death is preferred to more days or months of pain and suffering (Fisher, 2002). The Amish community cares for the ill, elderly, feeble, mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, will have surgery and other forms of high tech treatment but will delay seeking medical treatment for minor problems (Fisher, 2002). For minor problems, they will generally rely on alternative or homeopathic remedies.
Amish America * Family * Communication (within micro and macro world) * Gender * Roles and Status * Conflict, cooperation and decision making * Power, authority and influence Researching the Amish Culture The Amish culture is a culture that involves many strict rules in which each person has to follow, these including what a family is like, communication within their micro and macro worlds, roles and status within a community, any conflict, cooperation, decision making made by a person and also the power, authority and influence that one has. Family The Amish live among non-Amish in modern rural America. While they are more isolated in some areas, other communities interact daily with the modern world, perhaps
Chapter 14 Oral Tradition For thousands of years, FN knowledge, traditions and cultures have been passed down from on generation to another in stories, narratives, songs, dances and ceremonies. Before the arrival of Europeans, FN relied on oral cultures as their languages had no written form. This oral tradition is included in many aspects of everyday life and is the basis of FN traditional education. Stories are used because they are easy to remember. The oral tradition passed on spiritual beliefs of the people and the lineage of families.
Doctors, Dentists, Farmers etc. While Mechanical solidarity is more of a shared society, where the individuals of that community have an equal share in responsibility and importance, they work together. While studying “The Harmless People,” a book written by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, we examine her experiences with the Bushmen: and how their society reflects organic or mechanical solidarity. Hunting is the framework of life for the Bushmen, which has a large connection to family relations, influences marriage, establishes social standings among the community, and directs rituals and taboos in a manner that would be more closely considered mechanical solidarity than organic. Family would have to be the basic structure for relationships of nearly everyone throughout the world, not just the Bushmen.
Our life as Native Americans before colonization and the arrival of Europeans was very simple way of life. We lived off the land and provided ourselves with food and clothing by planting, harvesting, and hunting. We turned wild plants such as corn, potatoes, pumpkin, yams, and lima beans into farm crops for our own consumption. More than half of current American farm goods were grown by Native Americans before British colonization. Also we used many natural herbs for medicinal reasons.
It works the same way if Americans were to try to join; they have to give up everything they know and be accepted into the Amish culture. The Amish are very practical people. Everything they eat is grown on their land, everything they wear is made in their society and they even build their own furniture and wagons. “This teaches the children self-reliance and self-preservation.” (Pros and cons of growing up Amish ) The men usually work on the farm, while the wife does the washing, cleaning, cooking, and other household chores. Because of this, the Amish are usually very fit and in great shape.
The intent of this paper is to focus on the Amish culture, their primary mode of subsistence, and to identify three aspects of it impacted by this mode. History The Amish are a peace-loving, upright, religious group of people, settled happily in different parts of the United States and Canada. They disregard the modern way of life and are content to live their lives preparing for death and heavenly rewards by going without modern conveniences, such as electricity. However, despite their simple way of life, the Amish have thrived since their founding (Foley, 2003). Although the Amish have been in America for over two hundred years, they remain one of the least known of America's Protestant groups (Wittmer, 1970, p. 1063).