User:Peachtree88

Bio

About me

I'm a student from Washington State studying Information Technology with a focus on Cybersecurity. I have a variety of different interests which include nature, travelling, learning about different cultures, making chocolate, art, and more. Whether it's the jungles of Hawaii or the temperate forests of the Pacific Northwest, I enjoy learning about the environment, it's inhabitants, and cultures of the places I go to, as well as places I have yet to visit. I'm particularly interested in indigenous art and lifestyles like South American weaving and how different tribes live and interact with their environment across the globe. One of my hobbies is making bean-to-bar, fine chocolate. Fine chocolate is made from ethically sourced single origin cacao beans, and is minimally processed. It's visually appealing, and offers the consumer with a sensory experience of smooth texture and a bouquet of complex flavors. I also like to make tie-dye.

My Wikipedia interests

I made this user page for college and will be using it in my English 101 class. I will be using it to complete assignments and to learn about how Wikipedia works. I'm interested in using Wikipedia as a source of information and to learn about the things I enjoy learning about. In the future I may edit some articles that could use correction and provide information to pages that may be lacking in depth.

Article evaluation

Indigenous peoples have been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. I'm particularly interested in indigenous religious belief systems and the role that shamanism plays in their cultures. I visited the Jivaroan peoples article on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: under-representation, clarification, and lack of citations.

Under-representation

The Wikipedia page emphasizes on the importance of souls in Jivaroan beliefs, however, it only mentions one type of soul, arutam. The page leaves out the other two types of souls, muisak and nëkás. In the section "beliefs and worldview" it only discusses the soul type, arutam, I think it would more appropriate to include the other types of souls to better represent their cultural belief system.

Clarification

I found the explanation of Tensak could use clarification. The page mentions that in their beliefs, Tensak is the first being and casts spiritual darts that curse or heal people, yet I'm only familiar with Tsentsak which are the magical darts itself. I understand this could be a translational nuance or an example of animism which is a belief that objects themselves have a spirit or can be alive, but I believe the article would benefit from clarifying this.

Citations

There is a lack of citations about the response to European colonization under the section "Confounding factors". The page itself mentions that a citation is needed about Jivaro forming nucleated settlements and political federations. Political groups tend to have an internet presence or are at least spoken about in local news articles. A quick google search showed me references of the four different federations mentioned on the Wikipedia page.

Conclusion

I enjoyed reading the article and think it was pretty informative. I understand that describing cultures can often leave out gaps of information and also may encounter problems with language translation. Belief systems can be complex and difficult to portray, especially with indigenous groups that have limited research about them. The page cites a good amount of the information it contains, although I believe it could use more references.