In author circles, particularly those writing fantasy and science-fiction, there’s a lot of talk about “world building,” which I visualize as writing ad-hoc descriptions of physical and political structures. (I know world building is more than that; I can’t help what I visualize.)
So I now use the expression “culture building” knowing that “world building” encompasses that, but finding that gets more at what I would want to do in a work of speculative fiction, and because it gets more to the heart of the matter. How are these humans (or animals, or aliens) human, and what shape is their humanity? I came across this incredible list, written by the anthropologist George P. Murdock (via E.O. Wilson; you might have seen that coming), who sought to create a comprehensive list of all the human cultures he’d encountered. The list follows.
- age-grading
- athletic sports
- bodily adornment
- calendar
- cleanliness training
- community organization
- cooking
- cooperative labor
- cosmology
- courtship
- dancing
- decorative art
- divination
- division of labor
- dream interpretation
- education
- eschatology
- ethics
- ethnobotany*
- etiquette
- faith healing
- family feasting
- fire making
- folklore
- food taboos
- funeral rites
- games
- gestures
- gift giving
- government
- greetings
- hair styles
- hospitality
- housing
- hygiene**
- incest taboos
- inheritance rules
- joking
- kin groups
- kinship nomenclature
- language
- law
- luck superstitions
- magic
- marriage
- mealtimes
- medicine
- obstetrics
- penal sanctions
- personal names
- population policy
- postnatal care
- pregnancy usages
- property rights
- propitiation of supernatural beings
- puberty customs
- religious ritual
- residence rules
- sexual restrictions
- soul concepts
- status differentiation
- surgery
- tool making
- trade
- visiting
- weaving
- weather control
It’s meant to be descriptive, but I think it could be to creative writers — like Joseph Campbell’s work — prescriptive, a means of planning. Murdock’s list is a series of hints and suggestions to creators of imagined and imaginary cultures the many things they might consider working into their book. As I prepare myself to delve into a project that would require full-scale world/culture building, and wondering if I am up to the task, I find this list is extremely helpful. Each item is a question to answer, a challenge that leads me to fully develop my world… and some could lead to passages, with key plot points and character development, that might not have occurred to me otherwise. I don’t think I’ll need to plod people through ALL 67, but I know I would return to this list again and again for ideas. I also see those points that other authors covered, that made their books rich and wonderful, whether or not they actually read anthropology books: Rowling and 2, Jacques and 22, Richard Adams and 15. They might have had muses whispering in their ear, but for me this list will help me fake it.
* Because I had to look it up: the scientific study of the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, religious, and other uses.
** If, like me, much of your career has been charting the lives of middle-school-aged boys, this one is optional.
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