The Culture Puzzle

INTRODUCTION

The Art of Giving and Getting

One rainy, sweltering morning in rural Brazil during the summer of 1975, a young anthropologist named Greg Urban sat on the dirt floor of a wooden hut in a village hundreds of miles from São Paulo. Across from him squatted an elder named Knowing One. Knowing One had come of age decades earlier, before his tribe had established peaceful contact with the Brazilian government. Greg had made the long journey through the jungle to learn all he could about Knowing One’s unique culture.

Greg began the conversation by asking about customs and beliefs that stretched back to a distant hunter-gatherer past. He was struck that a strong spirit of give-and-take permeated every aspect of life in this isolated community. ...