494. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
injections of powerful drugs that can in some cases be dangerous even 
when administered by a trained doctor or technician. 
In many parts of the world, being sick confers prestige, because 
only those in a privileged position can afford the time to be sick, the 
time to think of their symptoms, and especially the money to buy medi- 
cines. This aspect of “conspicuous waste” is seized upon avidly by 
people in process of acculturation in La Gloria as elsewhere, who there- 
in find an easy way to achieve prestige. By discussing in public the 
symptoms of one’s ills, real or imaginary, one proves that he can afford 
to be sick. Guajiros recently arrived in La Gloria spend almost no 
time or money on doctors or medicines; the greater the degree of 
acculturation, the greater the amount of time and money spent on 
sicknesses. Further prestige can be achieved if one boasts of the 
amount of money he spends for medicines and the amount of time 
he spends in the hammock recovering from injections, usually admin- 
istered by himself or by a friend, without the advice of a doctor. 
A person suffering from amoebic dysentery may be receiving injec- 
tions of solutions of calcium, of penicillin, or of any one of the modern 
wonder drugs instead of the specific cure for his disease. A person 
who accidentally falls into a tankful of the insecticide used to dip ani- 
mals to rid them of their ticks will be given the “necessary” injections! 
A penicillin shot is better for a headache than aspirin, of course, 
because penicillin costs more and thus gives more prestige. 
CULTURE, EDUCATION, AND LITERACY 
Through culture—the body of material objects, traditions, and 
stereotyped mental processes—man is capable of developing a second- 
ary environment that makes it easier for him to adapt himself to the 
physical conditions—and them to himself—in the area in which he is 
born and reared. ‘The numerous human adjustments to the natural 
physical environment as well as to the artificial or cultural environ- 
ment have to be acquired by each generation. Education has in gen- 
eral taken place simply by the influence of the surrounding and 
all-pervading cultural environment on the ripening mind of each 
individual in any given society; for thousands of years all over the 
world the family has been the first and most important educational 
institution for all; the older generation simply passed on to the chil- 
dren the skills, religious concepts, and traditions of the culture. Such 
education was simply the inculcation of the established tradition, and 
as such had nothing to do with literacy. Since literacy as such was not 
necessary to the Guajiro for coping with his physical and social 
environments, the language is still unwritten. Many are the Guajiros 
today—even in La Gloria—who feel no compulsion to learn Spanish. 
The women especially, the traditional carriers of the cultural pattern, 
particularly in a matriliny, have no urge to learn Spanish. Many of 
