Other Natures and the Mixis Epikoinos handout
I think that reading these two sources together helped me to understand each seperately. First, I read the the Mixis Epikoinos handout. It was very short but each description of the sexual and communal relationships of each of the groups was very to the point and easy to understand. When I was reading it, the one phrase that stood out to me the most was "they do not cohabitate but have intercourse like cattle". I think that this stood out to me as the most stark example of the general feel of the descriptions of each group: animalistic and separate. Each description seemed so to-the-point that it left out so much of the richness of all the cultures.
My understanding of the Mixis Epikoinos handout was really heightened by the Other Natures text. The idea of ethnographies. I had never heard of the concept before, but after reading about what they are (basically a short guidemap to a group of people) the Mixis Epikoinos handout made so much more sense. Also, my feelings that the Mixis Epikoinos handout had animalistic descriptions was proven correct. I thought it was interesting that the ancient ethnographies were more mixed with culture and their descriptions had more about what these people actually were like.