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OUR KIND: For Children
(In memory of Marvin Harris)
In the Beginning
There once was an ape on two feet
I thought it was really quite neat
Standing up makes it taller
Free hands, not a crawler
This makes our kind very unique
The Birth of a Chimera
There was a Dutch physician named Dubois
Who searched for fossils in Java
He called his finds Pithecanthropus erectus
But back in Europe, the experts he did not impress
The skull was nothing but an ape's
I guess this Dutchman made mistakes
The Rise and Fall of Dawson's Dawn Man
Items needed:
1. modern human skull with thick bones
2. a half modern orangutan's lover jaw without the canine
3. a chimpanzee canine
4. some real and fake fossils of extinct Pleistocene mammals
5. a file
6. fossil colored stain
What to do:
First break the skull into small pieces. Then break off the knobby
upper rear portion of orangutan's jaw so that no one can see that it won't
fit with the skull. Next file down the orangutan's molars to imitate
the
kind of wear that human chewing produces. Then partially file the
chimpanzee's canine. Now stain all of these pieces so that they look
like
real fossils. The last step is to burry them near each other and wait
for
them to be found by scientists.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
"Picture yourself in a boat on the river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone"
~The Beatles
The Tree Of Life
Evolution can be expressed as a tree of life. This tree has been
growing branching, and putting out twigs and buds for over three-billion
years. There is a thirty-million year old branch of apes, and on the
end of that branch is a little twig with a little bud. This little bud
represents all people like you and me.
The Enigma Of The
Little Handy Man
There once was a homo called habilis Whose brain
was quite fabulous.
Unlike Lucy he was handy.
He used tools that were dandy.
The Dawn Of Technology
In the beginning before the dawn of man, our
cousins the Chimps were developing their brains and hands.
These primates used tools for dipping and soaking.
This evolved into something so provoking.
They used their stones for feeding their bands,
And flung their feces for protection on their lands.
Tools For What
As we evolved throughout the ages, our being understood the need for new
wages
As we stood up straight and tall,
Our hands became free to do anything at all.
No longer are we like our past
We now have the tools and power to create a future that will last
Meat
Primates need to eat
So they hunt and gather meat
When hunting they will share
This method is quite fair
So don't be a selfish cheat
Kapper,
Butcher, Scavanger, Hunter
Australopithicus
was a bright little fellow
He found a
way to make tools who's edges weren't mellow
head bash
with his hammer
and
search with his eyes, for the sharpest edges he could find
Then along
came Mr. habilis
Still a
scavenger ... just with more wit
You should
have seen the size of HIS tool kit
Digging sticks,
skin bags, and sharpened flakes
made Mr.
habilis the coolest of apes
Now Erectus
came in to view
People
thought he was a hunter like me and you
His tool kit
was more refined
But not enough to hunt down another kind
jJst a super
smart scavenger he proved to be
Hunting came
along with you and me
Linguistic takeoff
When you get a bunch
of people who don't speak the same
You get a quite place ... the parties are lame
Just give them a chance, and they'll find their way
They'll find a way to talk all through the day
Take all of the languages and mix 'em up well
You'll have some fun, it will be real swell
You'll end up with something that's one of a kind
A language that lets people share all the time
And when it's all done you'll get what you're wishin'
A language to share ... and they call it pidgin
No not the kind that flies in the sky!
The kind that rolls off your tongue like hello or hi!
Then the people will laugh and embrace
For they can finally communicate with style and grace.
Primitive languages?
There once was a
group of people
whose language we thought was quite feeble
A mix of ape and a human we thought
We were'nt even willing to give it a shot
For it didn't make any sense to us
No tenses, no verbs to make a big fuss
It was a pretend language not Anglo at all
But when we looked closer we discovered our fall
This language is different!! we shouted with glee
These guys really get it just like you and me
They have different ways of saying our words
How could we have thought this was for birds?
Ape-signs
Monkeys can
learn sign language and communicate with people
Ancestors
Respect your elders
How Old Are The Races
These pesky genes that tell us apart, were not there in the start.
We are old and we know that.
Why can’t we find the gene that tells us that?
To Breathe
is to live
To Drink
is to quench thirst
To Eat
is to eat too much
Why We Eat Too Much
Put food in my belly
Some peanut butter and jelly
I want to eat a lot
Marshmallows and chocolate
These things taste good and such
That's why I eat too much
Why We Feast
Halloween, Christmas and Thanksgiving
And other holidays for the giving
Many dinners to be feeding
This is what we all are needing
All celebrations to say the least
Are all the reasons that we feast
Why We Get Fat
Count your calories
Go sparingly on the sweets
study the nutrition pyramid
and snack on healthy treats
Innate Tastes
In our mouths lives a powerful organism with thousands of taste buds
Melodies of flavors burst through our bodies.
Sour and sweet, spicy and cool
Just thinking about it can make us drool
Some flavors are rich and some are bland
This is why we favor foods from our land
Acquired Tastes
Are they acquired? It seems to me that people in the tropics do not raise
cows for meat
Because, the abundance fish is quite neat
The people in Antarctica do not eat just
beats.
That would not keep them in the comfort of their own heat
So is it location that keeps us tied down?
Or is it a gene that helps us munch down
One For The Genes
Milk, milk the magical drink. The more you ingest the more you think
The more you think the more it hurts
The more it hurts the more you wonder
Why do we have this gene of blunder?
Sexual Pleasure
C E N S O R E D
After all, this is for children
Why Women Have Perennially Enlarged Breasts
We must, we must
We must increase our bust
It's better , it's better
It's better for our sweater
We may, we may
We may get big some day
How Many Mates?
One mate
Two mate
Red Mate
Blue mate
The Need to Be Loved
I love you, you love me
We're a happy family
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too
Why Homosexuality?
When boys grow older they realize that girls don't have cooties
When girls grow older they realize that boys don't have cooties
Sometimes the realizations don't occur
Male with Male
Sometimes boys like boys
Female with Female
Sometimes girls like girls
Stolen Pleasures
Don't steal, keep it real
Female Warriors?
We are talking
about Xena and Gabrielle, Buffy, tank chick, and Mulan
Now these girls are tough
Where Women Rule the Roost
Somewhere over the rainbow there's a place where women have complete control
in their families. When a boy grows up, he leaves his family to live
with a wife and her family. When a girl grows up, she stays at home and
has a husband move in with her. This gives the women a greater sense of
family superiority and the men are always outsiders in their own homes.
Women Up, Women Down
Women up. women down
Women square, women round
Women right, women left
Women worst, women best
Coping with Freeloaders
Free loaders are
like leaches, they take and take and take
They never help with work,
they never help to bake
They think they are
deserving, this really isn't fair
They are lazy and annoying,
but I don't think they care
Why Yuppies?
Well, why not?
The Gods Who Would Not Eat People
Some gods would
not eat people
The Gods Who Ate People
And some gods
would
Will Our Kind
Survive?
It's the nuclear weapons which we gave birth
That have the capacity to
wipe out the earth
We must transcend the
state's insatiable demands for sovereignty
If we plan to last longer
than one more century
Global peace is such a
bore
We are doomed to global
war
The mass production of
weapons in transitional corporations
Does not help to save our
world nations
For preservation of mind
and culture on earth we strive
The question is "will
our kind survive?"
THE END
Contributors: Lauren Merry,
Katy Ball, and Jami Plummer
 The task of cultural materialism is
to create a pan-human science of society whose findings can be accepted on
logical and evidentiary grounds by the pan-human community. In view of
increasing national, ethnic, and class interests in subordinating science to
politics and to short-term sectarian benefits, I must confess that the prospects
for a pan-human science of society appear dimmer today than at any time since
the eighteenth century ... I make no utopian claims. I merely ask all those
who fear the onset of a new dark age to join together to strengthen the
barriers against mystification and obscurantism in contemporary social
science." (Harris 1979:xii)
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