Ashanti Nedrick
ENGL 21002
Professor Joseph Furlong
Personal Artifact: Essay #1
February 25, 2021
When I hear the word “culture”, I instantly think of tradition. It’s gotta be something your family practices every day or use as a family tradition is what I describe it as. What about a “cultural artifact”? I think of an object that must be old and passed down for many years for families to learn and do every year. Cultural artifacts can be mostly objects that are made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest (Miner_pg124). They represent the culture of where it’s from and how they use it. It all depends on where you’re from and what kinds of traditions your family experience as well. My personal artifact from my family that I want to write about is 2 necklaces of mine from a country called Panama.
Panama is a country found in Central America where it’s known for its Spanish culture. It’s a tradition in my family to pass down gold to each generation, whether it’s a necklace, bracelet, a gold tooth, or rings and earrings too. I choose my necklace as a personal artifact because it has a great amount of meaning to me and it deals with a tradition within my family. The jewelry is a necklace that is made with real gold and is known as a nameplate that shows only my first name, written in cursive writing. Another necklace of mine is a ball-like chain that shows the initials of my first and last name, “AN”, and on the back shows the Panamanian flag. It symbolizes the power that Panamanians of the past had to acquire actual gold. I wear it as a necklace, and also earrings that show my initials and my name on it. The earrings also show the initials of my first name and last name as well. To me, it represents where I am from and the culture of where my family is from. I wear it because it gives meaning to me of where I come from and who I am and not only just for people to “know my name”. It shows the importance and value I have for my country. I would rarely take it off at all and it’s made with real gold so it’s worth a lot which shows people that gold is really valuable in my country. Usually, when others see my necklaces or earrings, they observe it closely and say “Wow that says your name?” or they ask if it’s real gold or not. They are normally surprised by it because they see a lot of jewelry like this and wonder if it’s real or not. They also ask what it says because the way the name is written is kind of cursive and immediately ask where I’m from because it’s known to most Spanish-speaking countries. Sometimes, they would even mistake me for Indian descent because of my appearance or other Caribbean countries of Central America too.
This artifact is connected to my family in a way because we all wear it as a tradition to occasions to show and appreciation we have for our family and the love from our country too. We wear it occasionally so that we have a sense of feeling that our family will never get too distant even when we have bad times and that we are connected when we come together as a family. It’s important in my family that we grow together and treat family equally, communicate, and explore our family tree. A time where I felt connected to this piece of jewelry was really when my family and I came together on Thanksgiving. We all had worn our jewelry that day and I honestly couldn’t feel any special. To just see your family together on such a day full of food of course, felt really special to me and I hope that there are many times like that too. I think there will be moments where I would feel like it’s the most important thing in the world to me. I don’t take off the jewelry for anything so if it ever goes missing, I would usually feel sad or worried.
To conclude, artifacts of any culture represent the history or bond between that country and its significance with you. It has meaning to anyone that they find the artifact important to others culture and how it developed or passed down over time. Cultures can be an artifact to them; they may mean the same as my necklace. Many subcultures have artifacts to keep the past around and remember traditions to young ones to keep the tradition alive but it’s something that people look up to and feel as if the family is really important to them. Many cultures are different but as insiders of our own culture, we learn what’s important to us so that family has meaning to us.
