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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the reading state success-based beliefs represent?
(a) Distribution of status.
(b) Distribution of purity and pollution.
(c) Distribution of wealth.
(d) Distribution of positive power.

2. Whose life is put at risk when a wife commits adultery in the Nuer society described?
(a) The wife's first son.
(b) The wife's lover.
(c) The wife.
(d) The wife's husband.

3. What did Vann Gennep associate danger with?
(a) Faith.
(b) Menstrual blood.
(c) Dancing.
(d) Transition.

4. Who do people at the margins of society represent danger to, according to Douglas' view?
(a) Society and themselves.
(b) Their tribe.
(c) Their children.
(d) Their family and themselves.

5. In what society described are elders with powers able to control juniors but not for personal gain?
(a) Maoris.
(b) Lugbara.
(c) Central Africa.
(d) Witchcraft covens.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Douglas claim is assured through collaboration?

2. What are kept and preserved to prevent from endangering others in the cultures Douglas describes?

3. To create order, what does Douglas believe one must acknowledge?

4. In South India, who can marry?

5. What does Douglas believe maintaining purity stems from in primitive cultures?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is dirt regarded as being a powerful part of a ritual, according to Douglas?

2. Describe the structure of witchcraft that Douglas explains.

3. How is dirt related to madness in the cultures described in the reading?

4. Describe the Israeli rejection of dirt. How is it destructive and creative at the same time, in Douglas' view?

5. Why does Douglas state that pollutions are dangerous?

6. Describe the treatment of ambiguities as described in Chapter 10.

7. Describe the structure of the Lugbara.

8. Describe the enforcements of harmony that Douglas introduces.

9. How is infidelity handled in a Nuer society?

10. Why does Douglas say that social consequences cannot be reversed?

(see the answer keys)

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