lecturer: dr. kodzovi akpabli-honu contact information: … · 2019. 2. 24. · cattle one commands...

College of Education

School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017

Lecturer: Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu Contact Information: [email protected]

Session Overview

This session is a continuation of the discussion on the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. The previous session discussed the basic cultural orientations of sub-Saharan Africa. In the discussions, we realized that the area under purview has similarities and differences in cultures. This notwithstanding, there have been concentrations of distinctive cultural elements associated with particular groups of people and relative to specific areas described as culture areas. This session discusses such variously identified culture areas of sub-Saharan African. The map showing the culture areas next

Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu, Dpt. of Sociology, Legon. Slide 2

The Culture Areas


Session Outline

This discussion under this session follows the following topics:

Topic One: The KhoiKhoi Cultural Area

Topic Two: The San

Topic Three: East Africa Cattle Area

Topic Four: Extension of East African Cattle Area


Objectives

At the end of this session, students should be able to:

• list the various cultural areas in sub-Saharan Africa

• describe the characteristics of each of the cultural areas under purview

• identify overlapping features (if any) between the cultural areas


Reading List

• Herskovits, M. J. (1924) American Anthropologist, Vol. 26 (1) pp 50-63

• Herskovits, M. J. (1930) Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 3 (1) retrievedfromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1155 124?seq=1


Introduction

• The issue of culture areas has been the brain child of American Anthropologists

• The idea was developed and applied to American Indian cultures

• In surveying a large area for cultural traits, the distribution of particularly associated traits owned by a people may be found to dominate an area with historical connection

• Such area is mapped as a culture area • Movement away from the traits concentrated area often

shows a waning influence of the mapped area until different traits are encountered


Introduction

• The area is also mapped out as a distinctive culture area

• Repeatedly, a whole continent may be mapped out as having different culture areas

• Having proved useful in mapping out the culture areas of the American Indians, anthropologists decided to apply the paradigm to Africa

• This led to the mapping out of the culture areas of sub-Saharan Africa


Topic One: The KhoiKhoi Culture Area

• This area lost its original cultural orientation as a result of encroachment by the whites

• A small population of the KhoiKhoi have held the once rich culture in high esteem

• As herders, cattle play a major role in their material culture

• Women played a major role in the cattle economy more particularly as they have to see to differentiate their own herds from those of neighbours


Topic One: The KhoiKhoi Culture Area cont.

• The people drink milk fresh and do not entertain sour milk

• The animals are both used as beasts of burden and for sustenance

• Their shelters are better than those of their neighbours, the San

• Cattle is given out as gifts in marriage to furnish wedding feast and not as bride price as done in most cattle rearing regions of Africa


Topic One: The KhoiKhoi Culture Area cont.

• They are similar to their neighbours, the San in terms of the ‘click’ language

• The Khoikhoi women have steatopygia – extreme accumulation of fat on and around the buttocks especially of women

• They are different in culture from the people of the surrounding regions

• Although they resemble the bushmen to a greater extent, they are not like them to allow incorporation into a single culture area


Topic Two: The San Cultural Area

• This culture area is easily differentiated from the rest

• There is extreme poverty of material culture, flowery art work and rich folk-lore (unsubstantiated beliefs of a people)

• The area represents very early stratum of African cultural life, yet because it has persisted, the area constitutes a cultural area

• Agriculture and herding are absent from the area


Topic Two: The San Cultural Area

• The dog is the only domesticated animal and the people have a high degree of hunting skills to date

• Social organization is very scanty as is the case with foragers

• They have the ‘click’ language

• Differences exist among San groups living in different portions of the region in culture, language and physical form


Topic Three: The East African Cattle Area

• This area is described as a cultural complex

• Although cattle is found in many regions in Africa, nowhere do they have a place in the life of the people in the manner which we find in East Africa

• Cattle determine a man’s position and prestige in society

• The animals are utilized in ceremonials of great importance like birth, marriage, puberty and death

• Their owner has the privilege of taking care of them Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu, Dpt. of Sociology, Legon. Slide 14


• The owner often knows the herds by their names

• The cattle complex is a superimposition on what appears to be an underlying agricultural culture which may have preceded it historically

• The people use the milk of the animals for food; they also extract blood from the animals in preparation of blood meal; may utilize the meat of the animal when dead

• Women cultivate the land for food crops Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu, Dpt. of Sociology, Legon. Slide 15


• The women, in most cases are forbidden from caring for cattle

• No cattle is reared in the central part of the area between the Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa due to the presence of tsetse flies

• Specialist in iron-works and wood works exist in the cultural area

• The area has more closely organized political life



• In the north, cattle chiefs are appointed as is exemplified among the Nuer of South Sudan

• While Radcliffe-Brown indicates that age sets or classes are common throughout the area, Herskovits disagrees by saying the age sets are found only among the Masai and Nandi

• Herskovits adds that Radcliffe-Brown considers the military organization of the Zulu as a phenomenon of the same sort



• The area is predominantly patrilineal in kinship although there is a matrilineal belt in the central portion

• Polygyny is common in the area with the number of wives a man marries a determinant of the number of cattle one commands because bride wealth is paid in cattle

• Land is held by the tribe leader in trust of the members who may cultivate portions but ownership is not vested in the individual



• Grazing land is free and people live in villages centred around cattle kraals in most cases

• Religion is based on ancestral spirits

• Shelter in the north consist of rectangular houses while the south has round plastered houses


Topic Four: The Extension of East African Cattle Area

• This is a small area occupied by the Ovaherero, Ovambo, the Ovimbundu and others

• The link between them and the main region is the Barotse (the home of the Lozi) a region bounded by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola and the Baila (Kenya and Zambia)

• Bear no semblance with those they are closest to such as the San, Khoikhoi and the Congo but rather resemble the East Africa Cattle Area


Topic Four: The Extension of East African Cattle Area

• They also have the cattle complex, circular kraal, and the taboos on women’s contact of cattle

• Herskovits acknowledged that there were some differences as in clothing, housing and religious and ceremonial customs

• But these differences between them and the East Cattle Complex area were too limited to be able to consider them separate culture areas


Summary

• We learned about the underlying principles of mapping out culture areas as it pertained in America

• This is applied to Africa where several culture areas have been mapped out

• Four cultural areas have been discussed where cattle is reared in three of them with the exception of the San area where cattle is not found but the dog for hunting

• Even in the regions where cattle is found, the people relate to them differently especially between the Khoikhoi and East Africa Cattle area


lecturer: dr. kodzovi akpabli-honu contact information: … · 2019. 2. 24. · cattle one commands...

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