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Traditional African Society. =. 1000 different languages; 1000+ different tribes. Early African Societies. Early Farming Societies. Pastoralists in Sahara. During early phase of their history, Africans lived as hunter-gatherers About 9,000 years ago, some began to grow native crops
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Early Farming Societies Pastoralists in Sahara • During early phase of their history, Africans lived as hunter-gatherers • About 9,000 years ago, some began to grow native crops • In some parts, pastoralism, practice of raising herd animals, arose before farming • First farmers likely pastoralists of Sahara—wetter 8,000 years ago • 5,000 years ago climate changed, Sahara became drier • As land became desert, people migrated to Mediterranean coast, Nile Valley, parts of West Africa Early African Societies Anthropologists think that the first humans lived in East Africa. Over thousands of years, people spread out over the continent, forming distinct cultures and societies. By about 2500 BC many people in these regions practiced herding and mixed farming.
Stateless Societies • Function of mobile population, underpopulation, and land as resource • Even when dense population, there was no state • Hunters valued over warriors • Ideal was the large complex household with Big Man surrounded by 10-40 people • Control happened laterally, not hierarchically (secret societies, age-grade societies, ritual experts as mediators)
What are some characteristics of a stateless society? • Society divided into lineages – group traces its collective ancestry to a common ancestor • Authority is balanced among the various lineages – families. • No single group holds a majority of power. • Operate through sharing of ideas and possessions, and cooperation is how they assume that society will operate.
Stateless Societies HOME Lineages share power Elders negotiate conflict No centralized authority Age-set system continued . . .
Tribes • a political group that comprises several bands or lineage groups, each with similar language and lifestyle and occupying a distinct territory
Common Traits or Characteristics of Traditional African Tribal Life • The good of the group comes ahead of the good of the individual. • All land is owned by the group. • Strong feeling of loyalty to the group. • Important ceremonies at different parts of a person’s life. • Special age and work associations. • Deep respect for ancestors. • Religion is an important part of everyday life. • Government is in the hands of the chiefs [kings].
An African’s “Search for Identity” 1. Nuclear Family 2. Extended Family 3. Age-Set 4. Clan 5. Lineage (ancestry) TRIBE (communal living)
Social Structures • Common Features • Many societies developed village-based cultures • At heart, extended family living in one household • Families with common ancestors formed clans to which all members loyal • Age-Sets • In some areas, people took part in type of group called age-sets • Men who had been born within same two, three years formed special bonds • Men in same age-set had duty to help each other • Specific Duties • Loyalty to family, age-sets helped village members work together • Men hunted, farmed; women cared for children, farmed, did domestic chores • Even very old, very young had own tasks; elders often taught traditions to younger generations
On your Left Side: • Draw the following pyramid on the next slide and add the information to the diagram.
Definitions • Tribe- group of people that share language, customs, traditions, geographic location • Clan- group of related families • Extended family- parents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents (common in Africa) • Nuclear family- parents and children (not common in Africa )
How people are related in traditional African society? Kinship: means a relationship that binds two or more individuals • Blood relative • Marriage
What is kinship? • Sense of being related to another person(s) • Set by rules (sometimes laws) • Often taken for granted as being “natural” rather than cultural • Cultures define “blood” relative differently
Kinship Includes relationships through blood and through marriage. Functions: • Provides continuity between generations. • Defines a group on whom a person can rely for aid.
Farming and herding societies consisted of extended families Kinships created strong bonds and a sense of community Family Ties
Lineages • •Some societies group people in lineages—those with common ancestor • Members of a lineage have strong loyalties to one another • In some African societies, lineage groups take the place of rulers • These stateless societies balance power among lineages • Stateless societies—no centralized system of power
Lineage • Means line of descent or family tree
Patriarchal: Male-Dominated societyvery common in African tribes
Patrilineage • Descent is traced through male lineage. • Inheritance moves from father to son, as does succession to office. • Man’s position as father and husband is the most important source of male authority. • Example: Nuer or Sudan.
Found among 44% of all cultures • Kinship is traced through the male line • Males dominate position, power and property • Girls are raised for other families • Found in East and South Asia and Middle East Patrilineal Descent
Matrilineage • Descent is traced through the female line. • Children belong to the mother’s descent group. • The inclusion of a husband in the household is less important. • Women usually have higher status. • Example: Hopi.
Matrilineal Decent • Found among 15% of all cultures • Kinship is traced through the female line • Women control land and products • Found in the Pacific, Australia, small parts of Mediterranean coast • Declining though capitalism
Roles of Women • An African woman's roles are as life bearer, nurturer, and source of generations. • For an African woman in a traditional rural community, the chief measure of success in life is her ability to bear many children. • The very existence of the family and clan depends on women's ability to bear children, who will provide security for their parents in old age and who will continue to nourish the spirits of the ancestors through sacrificial offerings. • As a result, much African art is directed toward encouraging the fertility of women. • Many shrines are devoted to spirits that provide the blessings of fertility, and these frequently contain sculpture and other objects devoted to the concept of fertility.
Little Girl’s Dolls-Preparing for Role of Adult Woman • Like children everywhere, African children play with toys that help them visualize their roles as adults and teach them the skills of parenting, hunting, and farming. • At the end of a day of trading and shopping a parent may stop at the blacksmith's stall in the market to buy a small carved doll with which his daughter can play. • She may dress the doll in new clothes she has made, feed it, and tuck it to bed under a tiny blanket in the corner of her room at night. • The carved figure is called biiga ("child"), but it represents a mature women with developed breasts, an elaborate hairstyle, and the scarification patterns that mark passages in life. • The doll represents the child, as she hopes one day to be. • In the same way American girls play with dolls such as "Barbie" that represent an ideal or a stereotype to which the child hopes to conform.
Initiation into Adulthood • Both young men and young women pass through initiation. • For Mende women, this life passage prepares them for life as adult women in Mende society, teaching them the skills of child rearing, cooking, trading, sex education, and much more. • It is especially important as a means of communicating knowledge of healing medicines and the spirit world from one generation of women to the next. • At the end of the initiation period the young women are ritually bathed, their bodies are oiled with cosmetics, they are dressed in their best clothing and are presented to the community, ready to receive the gifts of potential suitors. • Their reintegration into community life is accompanied by the appearance of masks such as this one, worn by the middle aged women who supervise the initiation, and which represent the ideals of feminine beauty among the Mende. • The Mende are very conscious of personal appearance and value a glossy black skin, beautiful hairstyles, and a well-fed and prosperous physical condition.
Marriage customs • Many traditional African societies are polygamous • Polygamy: having more than one spouse • Men may only have multiple wives if he can support them Bridewealth- payment a man gives a woman’s family before marriage (land, cattle, cloth, tools) Dowry- payment a woman’s family before marriage (land, cattle, cloth, tools) Some tribes allow divorce, some do not
Marriage • Marriage is a key moment that follows immediately after initiation among many peoples because both events serve to break the bonds of the individual with childhood and the unmarried state and to reintegrate the individual into the adult community. • Among the Woyo people a young woman is given a set of carved pot lids by her mother when she marries and moves to her husband's home. • Each of the lids is carved with images that illustrate proverbs about relations between husband and wife. • If a husband abuses his wife in some way or if the wife is unhappy, she serves the husband's supper in a bowl that is covered with a lid decorated with the appropriate proverb. • She can make her complaints public by using such a lid when her husband brings his friends home for dinner. • The carved figure on this lid represents a cooking hearth with a pot on three stones. • Divorce requires only the scattering of the stones, and it takes three to support the pot.
Bride Wealth • It has been argued that such a system commodifies the bride and thus dehumanizes her, but others also make the argument that the system defines her value to the marriage in a concrete way and that it contributes to the stability of the marriage, because were the marriage to end in divorce the "bride-wealth" must be returned to the groom's family, and if it has already been invested in "bride-wealth" for the bride's own brothers this can be difficult indeed. • The "bride-wealth" creates a bond between the families which forces them to invest in the success of the marriage. • When there is trouble between husband and wife the relatives on both sides intervene to find a solution. • The male-female couple from the Dogon people of Mali represents the ideal of pairing that is necessary for procreation. • The linking of the male arm around the woman's neck emphasizes the bond that is created by marriage.
Becoming a Parent • For an adult in Africa success in a traditional community is measured by his or her ability to find a partner, raise a family, and provide for the children that guarantee that the family will survive through the generations. • Every adult is beset by concerns about the health of her children, his ability to secure and hold a means to earn a living, about his own health and that of his partner, and about the many uncertainties that we must confront throughout our lives. • For a Baule man or woman to fail to marry, bear numerous children, and provide for his family is considered a serious problem. • She may visit a diviner who may prescribe the carving of a figure that represents the spouse s/he had in the spirit world before birth. • The spirit spouse takes possession of the figure, and care and attention as well as prayers and offerings are lavished on it to please it, so that it will permit its real-world spouse to fulfill his gender role. • This figure pair represents the female larger than the male, and so it may have belonged to a Baule man.
On your Left Side: • What is the following primary source saying about women in traditional African society?
“No marry’d Women, after they are brought to Bed, lie with their Husbands till three Years are expired, if the Child lives so long, at which Time they wean their Children, and go to Bed to their Husbands. They say that if a Woman lies with her Husband during the Time she has a Child sucking at her Breast, it spoils the Child’s Milk, and makes it liable to a great many Distempers. Nevertheless, I believe, not one Woman in twenty stays till they wean their Children before they lie with a Man; and indeed I have very often seen Women much censur’d, and judged to be false to their Husbands Bed, upon Account only of their suckling Child being ill.”--F. Moore (European trader) on the River Gambia in the 1730s, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1738), pp. 132-3.
Becoming an Elder • The respect that is accorded both men and women who have attained positions of authority and honor is made visible among the Dan people (Liberia) by the large wooden ladles known as wunkirmian. • The spoon bears an idealized portrait of the owner as a young woman, at the moment she began her role as mother and wife. • The spoons are carved for women who are recognized by other women of a town as the most hospitable persons in a community. • The spoons serve as symbol of that status and are used as a kind of dance wand when the honored women dances through the town accompanied by her own entourage of women.
Most villagers were subsistence farmers – They produced only enough food for their own needs with little or no surplus Fallow – allowing the land to regenerate important minerals needed to grow crops Land was community property Economic Organization
Age Set • Group of boys or girls born in the same year • Go through rituals together • Transition into adulthood together • i.e. Manhood initiation • Circumcision ceremony for boys • Scarification- ritual markings for tribe
