Summary Statement
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| Economic | |||
| Political | |||
| Kinship | |||
| Artistic | |||
| Religious | |||
| Educational | |||
| Recreation and Play |
Using large sheets of chart paper, construct a chart similar to
the one below on which to record the information you gather about the culture
your group has chosen to explore.
| Group Members | ||
| The culture we are learning about is | ||
| The culture lives in | ||
| This country is on the continent of | ||
| The geographic region in which this culture lives can be described as | ||
| Patterns | We found the following information about the patterns of this culture. | |
| Economics | ||
Yohana's stomach growls, and he knows he will be hungry in a while, but he is used to it. No one takes a second helping of the breakfast of millet porridge and milk. Even at feasts his people never over-eat. Anyone who does is ridiculed and looked down upon. Even when the harvest of maize and millet is good and the cattle are healthy and productive, nobody becomes fat.
The herdsman's main source of protein is a mixture of cattle blood and milk. Meat is a special treat, eaten only during community feasts, which often accompany special rites and rituals.
Africa's Pokot people live in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda. They are made up of two main groups: the "cattle people," herdsmen who live on the plains, and the "grain people," farmers who live on the mountainsides. The two groups are dependent on each other for more than just food. Besides their trade relationship, they have close kinship ties. They intermarry and often get together for special occasions or visits, or to work cooperatively.
The lives of the herdsmen are harsher than those of their farming neighbours, but they have more status and wealth, because cattle are considered to be valuable by both groups. In addition to cattle, both groups have some goats, sheep and a few donkeys or camels.
Yohana thinks of his friend, Chermit, one of the grain people. Chermit, like Yohana, works to help support his family. He does so by guarding the crops of maize and millet from birds. He scares them away by throwing clods of Earth from a high platform overlooking the field. Yohana is glad to be a herder even though he often has to sleep in the open, and he and his family sometimes have to travel to new areas to avoid having their cattle raided by others.
The Pokot are very proud of their culture. They belong to one of the last groups in Africa that have refused to be influenced to any extent by European or American ways. Yohana remembers his grandfather's stories of the attempts to convert them away from their religion and to show them how to farm and raise cattle "properly," and how the Pokot resisted. His grandfather taught him to believe in the ways of the Pokot people, not to envy anyone else and to believe that their god, Tororut, approves only of the Pokot ways.
Yohana lives in an extended family consisting of his paternal grandfather and his wives, an uncle and his wives, and his father and his wives. They all live in the same compound, but different groups sleep in separate huts.
Yohana watches the morning mist rise from the plains to cover the grain people's homes and farmland on the hillside. He sees his cousin with his uncle's cattle some distance away. His cousin is wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, an outfit that has made his grandfather very angry. Yohana is dressed in a long cloth tied over one shoulder. His sisters wear elaborate hair styles and jewelry and cowhide shirts and capes, but may soon be wearing cotton dresses.
He is almost old enough now to go through the ceremony that initiates a boy into manhood. After the initiation, he will leave the village for a year or two and work on a plantation or a large cattle ranch. When he returns, he will have acquired enough wealth to get married. He will be welcomed back as a man and given a special ceremonial feast.
The initiation ceremonies for both boys and girls always include village feasts. These feasts are given on any special occasion, or when certain rituals are being performed. Meat, usually beef, but sometimes mutton or goat meat, is eaten. The main drink is beer made of maize or millet. Intricate dances are performed. Often men and women dance separately, facing each other.
Yohana thinks of his girlfriend, Chesinen, and how she smiles whenever he gives her a present that pleases her. He admires her looks, her strength and her sense of humour, and he frowns as he thinks of her initiation ceremony, which will take place soon. Then she will be a marriageable woman and her family will certainly demand that a rich dowry be paid for her. Already he has heard that the first wife of Lomuria would like to have Chesinen in her household, and he knows that first wives often have the true power in any family.
Officially, the most respected people are the older men. However, each man takes such pride in himself that even the older community leaders have no power to command and no person's word is law. Disputes are settled at a Kokwo, a kind of open court where grievances are discussed and communal decisions are made. Every man is considered to be equal to every other man, but there are some differences in formal status according to age. The only people who are consistently respected above everyone else are the "chief diviners," those who can tell the future from their dreams.
Although the women are in a different category, they do not play an inferior role in their society. The farm women do much of the planting and harvesting, and the herdswomen herd cattle. The women of both groups haul water, grind grain and do the cooking, so they are often responsible for both food production and preparation.
Yohana thinks again of Chesinen and how she has suggested that they run away together at the beginning of the summer. The month of the summer solstice is the only time that young adult couples may elope without being severely punished. By then both of them would be initiated into adulthood.
Suddenly he shivers and turns around. He feels as if someone is watching him. Perhaps it is one of his ancestor's spirits coming to do him some harm or cause some mischief. Maybe running away with Chesinen is not such a good idea.
Although western ways have become common throughout Africa, it may be a long time before they fully penetrate the proud traditions of the Pokot people. Yohana watches the cattle and begins to sing a new song about a young steer his father has promised to give him. The tune is one that he has often heard on his cousin's transistor radio, but the words are his own.
The Iroquois family differed in other ways too. Where emphasis in our society is placed on the immediate or "nuclear" family, consisting of father, mother, and children, the emphasis in Iroquois society was placed on a family of many more people.
Each Iroquois family lived in a "long house" and was called a "long house family." The eldest woman was head of the family, and her relatives made up the family. Her sisters and all her sisters' daughters, in fact all female descendents, would live in that long house for the rest of their lives, with husbands who came from outside. All male descendents, although members of that long house would go to the long house of their wives when they married. Even though they lived in their wife's long house, they were always still members of their mother's long house, and that is where their loyalty always went first.
In each long house, immediate families or "fireside families" were not as important as the overall long house family structure.
Children in the long house family were much closer to the women living in the long house than to the men-mostly because the men would often be away hunting and trapping. They used the same kinship term for their mothers, and for all of their mother's "sisters". As a result, Iroquois children had a good deal of security with so many "mothers" around.
Iroquois children also had many "brothers" and "sisters." They not only referred to the children of their mother as brothers and sisters, but also to their mother's sisters. As well, they referred to the children of their father's brothers as "brothers" and "sisters"-even though they did not live in the same long house. The children of their mother's brothers were referred to only as cousins, as were the children of their father's sisters.
Beyond the long house, the Iroquois also had clans. Several long house families believed they were descendents of the same woman and, therefore, belonged to the same clan. Each clan would take a different name, such as Turtle or Bear. There were ten clan names. The clans then grouped themselves into larger divisions called "a group of brothers and sisters." From there, the kinship pattern formed nations-there were five Iroquois nations and each nation named its clans from the same ten clan names.
The diagram on the following page provides a graphic representation of traditional Iroquois kinship patterns.
Long house members _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Non long house members _______________
Islam
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Zoroastrianism
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Christianity
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Language is the most important factor in learning about, becoming part of, and maintaining a culture's way of life. |
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