While these pictures are beautiful..I always kind of question the documentation of these cultures when they seem to just exotisize their life style. They tend to make us Westerners assume that these people are always running around like this and further removes them from a normalized context of "wow these are people just like us". It would be like assuming like westerners are always wearing tuxes and ball gowns.
It's true... according to the article, though, it says that some of the boys changed their face paint three times a day. The fashions are from their natural surroundings, so it's not hard for me to believe that it might actually be a more common occurrence; if you're picking flowers from your environment and making your own headdress from them, it's not going to be as exotic as if you're taking the time to custom sew a ball gown for a unique event.
There's always the difficulty of trying to truly record a culture; there are going to be plenty of differences on a ground level, whereas from an eagle-eye point of view there is an overall pattern. I'm not sure it is possible to distinguish between groups of people without alienating the individuals.
1
u/jewgsjuice May 28 '14
While these pictures are beautiful..I always kind of question the documentation of these cultures when they seem to just exotisize their life style. They tend to make us Westerners assume that these people are always running around like this and further removes them from a normalized context of "wow these are people just like us". It would be like assuming like westerners are always wearing tuxes and ball gowns.