ABSTRACT
Yet, with increasing knowledge of human behaviour across cultures, notions of universality and the idea of “basic human nature” became a source of fervent debate. From Alaska to Zanzibar, anthropological observations detailed surprising cultural differences in behaviours widely assumed to be instinctual, biological, and universal (e.g., gestures indicating “yes” and “no”, greeting customs; see Holt, 1931). Cogent examples include the masking of negative emotions with smiles and laughter in Japan (Hearn, 1894) and Africa (Gorer, 1935), or neutral facial expressions amongst the Utku (Utkuhikhalingmiut) Eskimos (Briggs, 1970). In contrast, the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma encourage the enthusiastic outward expression of emotion during specific events, even in the absence of an internal emotion (see observations of Mary Buffalo in Labarre, 1947, p. 55). Such observations mirror those of the explorer and historian John Turnbull who reported that Tahitians, after a long separation, greeted each other by “taking a shark’s tooth, [and] strik[ing] it into their head and temples with great violence, so as to produce a copious bleeding” (1805, pp. 301-302). Left with only incomprehension as to the origins or symbolic relevance of this ritual, Turnbull concluded that such behaviour was intended to “express the excess of their joy” (see also Darwin, 1872/1999, for detailed descriptions of culturespecific facial expressions).
