ABSTRACT
For the longest time, scholars largely acted as if emotions were beyond the reach of scientific investigation. According to Catherine Lutz, as in case of self and personhood, the United States and other Western societies operate with a culturally specific concept of emotions that tends to limit our ability to see their cultural qualities and effects. Clifford Geertz declared that culture was public because meaning is and behavior definitely is anthropologists were curious about emotions in different cultures. The idea of hyper-/hypocognition of emotions was introduced by Robert Levy in his study of Tahitians. It might be noticed that, in the Anglophone research on emotions, English emotion-words have tended to be the yardstick by which scholars measure emotion cross-culturally. Turning to specific emotion-words, Lutz identified what might be considered some basic Ifaluk emotions. Egyptian Bedouins may veil certain emotions in poetic quotations, but the peoples of the Pacific region are legendary for building impenetrable walls around their emotions.
