Human Relations Area Files

Luck of the Irish: Folklore and fairies in Rural Ireland

If the month of March has you seeing shamrocks, it might be a good time to brush up on your knowledge of Irish culture. The Rural Irish collection in eHRAF World Cultures is a great…

Knowledge is power: anthropology of proverbs

Francine Barone Proverbs are a simple way of expressing a well-known truth or adage based on common sense or experience. They are usually considered to be imbued with ancestral wisdom, passed down from generation to…

Craving comfort: bonding with food across cultures

Food is a universal human experience. People everywhere must eat to survive, yet what foods are eaten and how they are enjoyed can vary widely across cultures and time. “Comfort foods” made a comeback in…

Unconditional Love: Is devotion to pets a cultural universal?

If the number of cute animal memes on the internet is a fair benchmark, then the human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. For many pet owners, their furry (or scaly) domestic…

Romantic or disgusting? Passionate kissing is not a human universal

From pop culture to evolutionary psychology, we have come to take kissing for granted as universally desirable among humans and inseparable from other aspects of affection and intimacy. However, a recent article in American Anthropologist…