Arts & Culture
The Anthropology of Smell: How Olfactory Norms Shape Social Boundaries and Status
Quick fact
In his travels, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that the Bororo people of Brazil found the natural body odor of Europeans so repulsive that they would gag, while the Europeans were equally disgusted by the Bororo's smell. This mutual aversion had nothing to do with biological odor itself—it was a social marker of deep cultural difference, used to keep the groups apart.
Why this is interesting
You probably think your nose is just a reliable biological sensor—but the very same odor can be pleasant to one person and repulsive to another, and that difference is not just a matter of taste. Could the way we smell be secretly enforcing who belongs and who doesn't?