My Thoughts on Gender

                          Hijra from India. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)

Gender has been one of my favorite topics since my first introductory anthropology course where I learned that gender and sex did not mean the same thing.  Similar to our Anth 392 class last week, we had to discuss the difference between sex and gender, which seemed like an easy task until I realized...I didn't really know there was a difference between these two terms and I had been using the words interchangeably. Uh oh. Now that I am in my third year of anthropology I am happy to report that I understand the difference between these terms (I think...) and use them carefully.  So what is the difference between sex and gender?

Sex is a biological category and it does not vary between cultures.  People are generally born biologically male or biologically female.  On the other hand, gender is a cultural category that can actually change in an individual over time and it varies between societies.  This means that the number of genders recognized in a culture can vary.  I remember the day I learned this. I thought, "What?!?! No way, you are either masculine or feminine. There are no other available options."  Apparently I was wrong but I do not think I am the only person to make this ethnocentric assumption.  It is easy to do, especially growing up in my culture. From the day that babies are born, we start socializing our children in how they should behave in order to be masculine or feminine.  We dress little girls in pink, buy them barbies, and send them off to ballet class. Then we dress boys in blue or some earth tone, buy them GI Joes and put them on an ice hockey team.  (Yes I am severely generalizing but you get my point!)  What if children stray from the gender norms? Sure it is common and acceptable for girls to play sports like hockey and football and dress in t-shirts and jeans but at the same time they might get called a 'tomboy'.  And how might you react if you saw a young boy wearing a floral dress and make-up? You must admit, this would probably stand out to you as being 'wrong'.  Some people break the gender rules of how they are expected to act and what they are suppose to wear, eat, and do but when this happens it often stands out because it is breaking a social norm.

Since gender is ingrained in our minds from such a young age, it can be hard to separate ourselves from our assumptions of what is masculine and what is feminine.  Furthermore, it can make it near impossible for some people to be able to fully grasp the idea of a culture with more (or less) than two genders (I am guilty of this).  I love reading about cultures that recognize a third gender category because it astonishes me.  Some well-known third gender categories include the Two-spirited people among some First Nations groups and hijras in South Asia.  Two-spirited people are recognized as having both a male and a female spirit and they are often revered: "Being given the gift of two-spirits meant that this individual had the ability to see the world from two perspectives at the same time. This greater vision was a gift to be shared with all, and as such, Two-spirited beings were revered as leaders, mediators, teachers, artists, seers, and spiritual guides. They were treated with the greatest respect, and held important spiritual and ceremonial responsibilities"  (http://www.mcgill.ca/interaction/mission/twospirit/).  This perspective differs from that of the Hijra.  In South Asia, Hijras (see image at top of page) are people who are usually biological males but have feminine roles and identities, wear women's clothing, and tend to have low status in their community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)).  You can argue that we recognize more than two genders in our culture but I feel that these gender categories are not as well-defined as they are in some other cultures.

So how do archeologists interpret gender? Common ways include body positioning, grave goods, bodily adornment, and costume.  These can cause problems though, especially since it is other people who usually plan the funerary rituals.  In a specific culture, a body might be buried with a woven basket so maybe we assume the individual is female because baskets are associated with women. But was the basket a personal item or was it added to the burial by a family member or friend?  Are there other objects and practices associated with this body that are actually associated with men? Who is making these associations, inferences, and (perhaps) assumptions?  Is the deceased individual a member of a third gender that goes beyond masculine or feminine?  Identifying a third gender can be tricky, especially if this concept does not exist in your own culture.

For archeologists, it is important to not only understand the difference between sex and gender but also the cross-cultural differences between gender categories.  It can be hard to remove yourself from your cultural assumptions, especially when it comes to gender, but it is necessary to do so in order to make accurate interpretations (Ex: Maybe a body buried with a sword is a female who was a warrior or who was buried with her brother's sword).   As we talked about in class, you need to understand a person's  life-course before you try to interpret their gender because an individual's gender can change over time,  just to make things even more confusing.  For these reasons, it can be problematic when an archaeologist attempts to identify a skeleton as either male or female based on their interpretation of the deceased individual's gender because if the archaeologist's interpretations of gender are inaccurate in the context, then their conclusions on the skeleton's sex might be wrong too.

So what have I learned about gender over the years? It's complicated.

Tombstones, Crosses, and Mausoleums...Oh My!

Image: http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb.htm

I must say, I really enjoyed doing the fieldwork for the monument analysis assignment. It was my first time going to the Ross Bay Cemetery and I found it to be very beautiful and peaceful.  It is the largest cemetery that I have ever been in and I was so amused by how the graves were divided into sections based on religion, ethnicity, war involvement, and wealth.  The section that surprised me the most was Potter's Field because I have never heard of such a thing.  This is the section where people who were destitute, people of unknown identity, still-born babies and convicts were buried.  According to the Ross Bay Cemetery Website (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_par.htm), "A Potter's Field is a place in a cemetery (or even a separate cemetery) where people are buried who have no one to take care of their funeral or no money to do so themselves. They are usually buried in plain coffins with no markers over their graves." At least they saved them a section in the cemetery I suppose. After seeing how the cemetery was partitioned, I started thinking about status. What if you fit into more than one of these categories? For example, where do we bury the Roman Catholic convicts? What about a poor Chinese man who has no family? Which section will provide space for an Anglican soldier who died in combat?  Since people can have multiple statuses at one time (religious, social, ethnicity etc), I guess people burying a body in Ross Bay Cemetery had to choose the status that they thought was the most appropriate when there were conflicting statuses.  Did they base their choice on which status was the most important? Most prominent? Most honorable? Or perhaps least honorable? 


Once I was in the Ross Bay Cemetery I wanted to look at all of the monuments because there was an enormous variety. I like to look at the dates of when people died, figure out how old they were, and try to imagine their cause of death. I like to read the inscriptions on the monuments to see if I can get a glimpse into their lives and get a sense of what the person meant to their family and friends. Who were they? What were their beliefs, hobbies, and dreams? Then there are all of the graves of the historical figures, such as Billy Barker, James Douglas, and Begbie to name a few.  I have spent a lot of time reading about the people that shaped British Columbia's history but it was truly a unique experience to see their graves and be so close to them. I felt like I was walking through a history book.


I look forward to going back to the cemetery when I have time to wander around and look at more monuments. Plus I still have to find Emily Carr's grave site!  Here is something to consider: you can go on a guided tour through the Ross Bay Cemetery! They have Sunday Cemetery History Tours for $5.00 or you can go on a topic-specific tour, such as the 'Chinese at Ross Bay' or 'Goldrush!'  Here is the tour schedule:  http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/tour.htm


I find cemeteries to be mysterious, exciting, eerie, and fascinating all at once.  I must say, it is amazing how a bunch of dead people can be so interesting!

Memorial Monument Analysis at Ross Bay Cemetery: Mausoleums

Fieldwork Team: Melanie Callas, Thea Lamoureux, Shannon Turner-Riley, and Alex Ashby


For our Memorial Monument Analysis, we studied mausoleums in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C.  This cemetery opened in 1873 and it is located at 1594 Farfield Rd. Our data set consisted of ten mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  The subset of monuments that we chose to study was based on the type of monument: mausoleums.  We chose to examine ten mausoleums because this number seemed like a good size sample to help us answer our research questions and the sample size seemed adequate based on the the number of mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  In this cemetery, there was a total of twelve mausoleums so our data set included 83% of the total mausoleum population.  The possible limitations for our project are that the mausoleums that we did not study may have been unique cases and they could have altered our overall findings. For example, the two mausoleums that we did not study might have been from an earlier or later time period than the mausoleums that we studied or the unstudied mausoleums might have contained people who had different kin relations compared to the mausoleums that we did study.  Also, our data set of ten might be considered small, even if it is large in relation to the total population of mausoleums in the Ross Bay Cemetery, so our findings might not be representative of all cemeteries in Victoria.  We went into the field with these two research questions:


1. What time period were mausoleums common in Ross Bay Cemetery?


2. Are the deceased in each mausoleum in Ross Bay Cemetery related and if so, how are they related in terms of kinship, marriage etc.?


Map of Ten Mausoleums at the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C.

View Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, B.C. in a larger map


Mausoleums are beautiful monuments that are built above ground and can contain multiple bodies.  We gathered data from ten mausoleums located in the Ross Bay Cemetery and this data - including photos, transcriptions, and descriptions - is presented in the map above.  We used this data to help us answer our research questions.  First, we examined what time period mausoleums were most common in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  The range of dates at death spanned 106 years.  The oldest date was in the Mackenzie mausoleum where Kenneth Mackenzie died in 1875, while the most recent year of death was in the Clark mausoleum where Edward Paterson Rithet died in 1981.  Overall, the mausoleums were most common in the first half of the twentieth century, with a peak between the 1910's and 1930's.  During these three decades, about 51% of all the people contained in the mausoleums died and were presumably added to the mausoleum at the time of death.  After the 1930's, the number of people placed in mausoleums decreased slightly and after 1981 the use of the mausoleums ceased even though there were empty spaces in a few mausoleums, such as the Hawkins and Rithet mausoleums.  These findings are consistent with the findings of Lee Decker (2009) who states that family mausoleums were common during the late 19th and early 20th century in North America (p.154).  Lee Decker (2009) suggests that by the late 19th century, family mausoleums were being used to show achievement and success in a period where there was a  clear connection between status and mortuary investment; however, by the 1920's and 1930's the construction of elaborate mausoleums peaked as people altered their mortuary behaviour (p.151). The mausoleums that we studied could also be interpreted as representing a group's high status during this time period based on the mausoleums' elaborate designs and sizes, such as the large Rithet mausoleum which was constructed with materials that include marble and an iron gate. 


Our second research question examined the relationship between the people that were buried in each mausoleum with the goal of learning if they were related and if so, how they were related.  We discovered that the most obvious relationship between people in a single mausoleum was husband and wife.  This was evident in some mausoleums because the inscriptions would make reference to this relationship. For example, in the Hawkins mausoleum, there is an inscription that says "In Loving Memory of Jessie/Wife of T.W.C. Hawkins" and inscribed below that is says, "In Loving Memory of Tom/ T.W.C. Hawkins". In these cases it is easy to infer the relationship.  In the majority of the mausoleums, the people buried inside shared the same last name, which suggests that most people found in a mausoleum are related either through blood or marriage, such as siblings, parents, or spouses.  However, some people have different last names and there is no reference to their relationship with the other people in the mausoleum. For example, in the Rithet mausoleum, everyone shares the surname of Rithet, except for a woman named Gertrude Alice Genge.  There is no mention of her relation to the other people in the mausoleum so it is unknown if or how she is related to the other occupants. We can rule out some possibilities based on the age of the occupants but this still leaves several possibilities.  In all of the mausoleums, the name that is inscribed on the outside of the mausoleum matches at least one person's surname inside, except for the Houston mausoleum where all three people share the last name of "Florence".  Based on their common last name, they are probably related through blood or marriage but I do not know how they are related to the "Houston" title.  Finally, it appears some people that share a mausoleum are related beyond the nuclear family.  For example, in the Clark mausoleum the two people inside share the same surname but one of them died in 1866 while the other person was not born until 1921.  It is possible that the person that was born later was a grandchild or other similar relative.  


Upon examining the inscriptions of the mausoleums, it appears that most of the people in each mausoleum are related either through blood or marriage. However, it is often unclear what their precise relationship is because the inscriptions often lack this information so we must make inferences based on the people's ages at birth and death and their surnames.  I believe the mausoleums that we studied at Ross Bay Cemetery were generally built for families and they allowed people to identitfy as a family unit.  In some cemteries during the Victoria era, family graves - including mausoleums - became more symbolically important to people and it appears that mausoleums were a way for people to cement the idea of family as the main social institution within a culture (Warpole 2003, p.158).  It was near this time period that the mausoleums in Ross Bay Cemetery began to appear.  Mytum (2004) suggests that in industrialized countries the upper middle class used family mausoleums to solidify their dynastic success (p.72).  This could be a reason why people in the mausoleums tend to be related and why the family name is on public display above or below the entrances to the mausoleums.  In conclusion, based on our data set, we found that mausoleums in Ross Bay Cemetery were most common in the early twentieth century although they started appearing in the late nineteenth-century and at least some of the people in a single mausoleum tend to be related through marriage and/or blood with the most evident relationship being marriage between husband and wife. This information provides an insight into the use and purpose of mausoleums in Victoria over the years.


References:


LeeDecker, Charles H. 2009, 'Preparing for an afterlife on Earth: The transformation of mortuary behaviour in nineteenth-century North America' in International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, pp.141-157. 


Mytum, H.C. 2004, Mortuary monuments and burial grounds of the historic period, Plenum Publishers, New York.


Warpole, Ken. 2003, Lost Landscapes: the architecture of the cemetery in the west, Reaktion Books Ltd., London. 

What about us non-elites? Do we matter?

I never really thought about it until our discussion in class on Friday but archaeology does tend to focus on high status burials. These seem to be the ones that most people are interested in, probably because they can be filled with valuable grave goods, rare items, and the bodies of once powerful rulers or royalty.  Can you blame people to be intrigued by these finds? Personally, I would rather read about Tutankhamun's tomb filled with golden treasures or Qin Shi Huang's terra cotta statues than a simple grave filled with nothing but a pile of bones.  I did some online research to look for evidence of archaeology of the middle or low class and I was surprised to find little.  In the articles that did mention the graves of non-elites, it was usually in order to compare them to the graves of high status people because using a comparison can help identify social stratification through differences in the grave goods (material, amount, rarity), monument style and size, grave location, and health (evidence of diet, nutrition, obesity etc.).


However, I did find a few interesting articles about a group of people who have a very low status: slaves. These articles focused on archaeological findings related to slaves and their sociocultural lives in the New World.  In an article by Charles Orser entitled The Archaeology of African-American Religion in the Antebellum South, Orser (1994) says that American archaeologists have a growing interest in New World Slavery such as what slaves ate, what their houses were like, what types of material culture they used, and their religious beliefs (p.91).  Orser focuses on studying the religion of slaves on various plantations during the 1800's in the American South to find out what African traditions were carried with the slaves to the New World.


Another article of interest is called, An African-Type Healer/Diviner and His Grave Goods: A Burial from a Plantation Slave Cemetery in Barbados, West Indies by Jerome Handlers.  In the article, the author discusses a burial - called Burial 72 - that was excavated from a plantation slave cemetery in Barbados.  The deceased slave was buried in the 17th or 18th century and he is considered significant because he was buried with several grave goods that were not found in other graves in the cemetery. The grave goods included an iron knife, metal jewelry, a pipe, fish vertebrate, dog teeth, and European glass beads along with other items. Handlers (1997) believes that these unique and elaborate grave goods reflect the man's "exceptional or non-ordinary status within the slave community" (p.102) and suggests that he was important in his community and might have been a healer/diviner or a medicine man.  I found this article interesting because it considers status differences among slaves and shows that a person can have different statuses depending on the context.  In the context of this specific plantation cemetery, it appears that the man in Burial 72 had high status in comparison to the other slaves buried in the slave cemetery but the man also had low status in comparison with the high class people buried in other cemeteries. It is all relative.

I found these articles interesting because they focus on a different class of people than the ones I usually read about.  I think it is important to look at different groups of people in a society to allow us to get the big picture of the social organization, beliefs, politics, and life in general.  Low class and middle class people tend to make up the majority of a society's population so they must not be ignored just because they were not buried with shiny objects. 

References:

Handler, Jerome S. 1997.  'An African-Type Healer/Diviner and His Grave Goods: A Burial from a Plantation Slave Cemetery in Barbados, West Indies', International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 91-130. 

Orser, Charles E. 1994. 'The Archaeology of African-American Slave Religion in the Antebellum South.' Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Vol. 4, pp 33-45