Week 8: Video Review

For this week’s videos I chose to watch African Art, African Art: Legacy of Oppression, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I chose the two African ones because in my Anthropology classes I have learned a lot about Africa and find it to be really interesting. Next I chose Buddhism because I did not know a lot about this religion and feel a lot of people don’t, and yet you see statues of Buddha everywhere. The last video I chose was Hinduism because none of the other videos seemed interesting by name so I just picked this one. In African Art, they discussed mainly dress, costume, rituals, and performances. I found it really interesting learning about some of the symbolism behind African art, like why they wear certain clothes and masks in their rituals. Most of the masks in the video were designed for evil. I learned a lot of interesting facts in the next video I watched, African Art: Legacy of Oppression. I thought it was weird that a museum in Belgium is home to the world’s largest collection of central African art. I also found it interesting that one had to bring back the right hand of the victim for every bullet that was fired. I always heard about heads or scalps, but I never heard of this. I really liked the video about Buddhism. Like the museum in the African video being located in Belgium I found it interesting that the largest Buddha in the Western Hemisphere is located in a monastery in New York. I was also amazed by the temples and building in the video. My favorite was the Borobudux temple shaped like a lotus flower. I don’t like flowers at all, but if I had to pick one I like this one the best (we wanted to use it at our wedding in October, but cannot find any florist who deals with it so we chose one that looks similar).   The last video I watched was Hinduism. This video focused a lot on the Ganges River. I found it interesting that the river could represent life, death, and rebirth. Also I learned that a devote Hindu cannot touch a deceased body. An outsider or a non- devoted Hindu must remove and care for the body after death. Overall I thought this was one of the better groups of videos we had to watch. I felt I could relate it more to the readings than some of the previous videos.