Tiv

Laura Bohannan Shakespeare in the Bush

Key Terms

• Age grade• Chiefdom• Cultural Relativism• Levirate• Polygyny• Socialization• Assignments on time• Quiz Friday

TIV

• Live in Nigeria and Cameron

• 4th Largest Group in Nigeria but only 2.5% of its population

• In total 5-6 million

TIV Social Structure• Before the British lived in stockaded villages of

perhaps 500 to 600 people.• After established smaller compounds spread

more or less evenly over the land containing from 12 to 120 people.

• Eighty three percent of the males in each compound were members of the patrilineage

• Reception huts, each identified by the name of a mature male member of the compound, are arranged in a circle or an oval, their entrances facing in toward the center

• Behind each reception hut is a sleeping hut for each of that man s wives.

• Granaries of several sorts are associated with sleeping huts.

Traditional Economy• Subsistence farmers

– Yams– Sweet potatoes; – Maize for Beer

• Peanuts, peppers, several types of cucurbit, tomatoes, okra, and cotton

• Greens, mushrooms, seeds, leaves, and plants to be used in sauces.

• Goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and guinea hens

Tiv Division of Labor• Men

– clear land – make mounds for planting yams– run the legal, political, and

religious systems– Inherit the land

• Women – weeding – Harvesting– carry crops to the granaries and

storehouses in the compound.– cook – child rearing but traditionally had

help from older children, either their own or those they "borrowed" from kin.

Traditional Kinship• Patrilineal• Polygyny • Every married woman has her

own hut • The husband's reception hut is

surrounded by the huts of his wives.

• Each married woman has her own store of food; she cooks and takes food to her husband every day, and he shares it with all the children present.

• What about the single men?