scenthropologie
smell | culture | identity

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scenthropologie (TM) 2009

research | smell = identity






smell = identity




Sense experience varies from one culture to the next in accordance with the meaning and emphasis attached to each of the modalities of perception.
Empire of the Senses. David Howes.


Odours are invested with cultural values and employed by societies as a means of and model for defining and interacting with the world. The intimate, emotionally charged nature of olfactory experience ensures that such value-coded odours are interiorized by the members of society in a deeply personal way. The study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, in a very real sense, an investigation into the essence of human culture.
Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. Constance Classen, David Howes, Anthony Synnott.


In many non-Western cultures, smell has been established as the ruler of the senses—the complexities of personal odour are the subject of social classification. Smell is a historical, biological, psychological, social and cultural phenomenon. Culture mediates the sensation of smell and the sensation of smell mediates culture.


amazonian desana communities
An individual's unique odour, 'omar seriri', is a combination of natural personal odour, odours acquired through the food one eats, odours caused by emotions and periodic odours related to fertility.


ongee of the andaman islands
The universe and everything in it is defined by smell; it is the fundamental principle. Smell is a source of personal identity and the reason for communal life, a system of medicine and communication, it determines temporal and spatial movements, producing life and causing death—by controlling odour, cosmos is controlled.


bororo of brazil
Body odour is associated with the life force of a person and breath-odour with the soul.


sererndut of senegal
Each individual is animated by 2 different scent-defined forces—one is physical {body & breath odour} and two is spiritual {scent is claimed to survive the death of an individual to be reincarnated in a descendant}.