Entry Twelve

Chapter 11

This chapter tells interesting stories of how Kenge and his sister Yambabo were married. The villagers wanted them to get married in the village. Because of the interesting relationship the Pygmies have with the villagers (with the villagers “owning” them, but with the Pygmies only playing along because it is convenient for them), we can observe many differences in cognition between the two groups.

Marriage  

·         The villager believes that having Pygmies marry according to village custom achieves two ends: (1) “subjects… married couple to the same supernatural authority that controls married villagers (the authority of village ancestors”), and (2) by matchmaking and manipulation, the villagers get a bigger “stock of Pygmies.”

·         The Pygmies play along with the village customs because it is a “good excuse for mild flirting and a great deal of feasting.” They go through village customs as “a formal betrothal” and then “sanctify the bond later in their own manner” in which the girls get married in their own time and the groom has to visit the bride’s parents and present the in-laws with a large antelope and some arrows and a bow.

The points above demonstrate the differences between Pygmies and the villagers, how the villagers have a more ritualistic mindset and the Pygmies do not. It also shows like the mindset of the Pygmies: though they are not ritualistic, they will play along with the ritual of the villagers to benefit themselves.

Compensation for loss of daughter

·         Villagers compensate families for the loss of their daughter by the payment of money of goods, but Pygmies arrange an “exchange, so that no group is ever depleted of its womenfolk”, and provide a sister for his bride’s brother to marry (202).

This shows a difference in values, and it shows the Pygmies value for community and family. For              the Pygmies, everyone is related and so this sister exchange just like strengthens relationships         and community.

Women

·         For the villagers, a woman is a laborer in the fields who can cultivate crops that can be sold for cash. The women enhances a villager’s prestige and gives him assurance that his in-laws will be on his side, because they will not want to have to “return so much wealth should their daughter change her mind.”

·          

      For the Pygmies a woman is “more than a mere producer of wealth; she is an essential partner in the economy. Without a wife a man cannot hunt; he has no hearth; he has nobody to build his house, gather fruits and vegetables to cook for him. So a group that loses a women looks for a woman in return.”

This shows the different forms of cognition of the Pygmies and the villagers. The villagers have a more economy-oriented mindset, so a woman becomes a way to gain more economically. For the Pygmies, a woman is a necessary part of their way of life, and is needed in order for the family to function. Thus, a woman is more valued as a person in Pygmy societies than in village societies.

Brief Paragraph: This chapter can be analyzed using the framework of both Particularism &Relativism and Interpretive Anthropology. With both theories, an individual culture is not compared with other cultures; Interpretive Anthropology, however, attempts to examine culture Independent of context. In order to understand the relationship and interactions between the villagers and the Pygmies in this chapter, it is important to take context into account. We need to know the historical background and the details of both adaptations, and how each culture interacts with the other.