Blog - Chapter 12
This chapter has so much about cognition and expression that
I don’t know how I am going to write about it all…
From the Nkumbi festival, we learn the following things
about the villagers and the Pygmies
·
Coming of adulthood for boys, ancestors
connected to life, so it is to ensure a good death
Village Cognition
·
“The purpose of the ceremony is not only to fit
village boys for adult life, making them full members of the tribe, but also to
ensure the continuity between the past, present, and future life of the tribe;
between the living and the dead.” Since the boy who goes through the ceremony
will become part of the ancestors when he dies, the ceremony ensures the
continuation of the ancestors, who are basically like the living, but reside in
a different world. The quote above shows the worldview of the villagers, how
connected the spiritual world is to the physical, that they would have a
ceremony with the purpose of continuing the ancestor world.
·
“From the moment the boys enter the camp, they
are meant to stand on their own feet without any help from their relatives.”
This quote shows the villagers’ conception about what it means to be a man;
they prove themselves to be tough as they go through this ceremony.
·
In Sabani’s costume, the face is covered with a mask,
the body daubed with white clay, the arms and legs are bounded with raffia so
he looked like a bird/animal, and he is surrounded with intense beating
drummers. This illustrates the expression of the villagers, how they externalize
who they are and what they believe in.
·
“From the roof was hung a sacred banana… the
boys were forbidden to touch the banana, being told they would die if they did”
There were all sorts of other taboos, or restrictions. To get wet, particularly
by being outside when it rained, was sure to bring death. To eat certain foods
was prohibited… the sound of a bull-roarer, a piece of wood that makes a
strange whirring noise when spun… was meant to be the voice of a forest demon,
and the boys had to show due respect and terror when they heard it.” This sets
the context for the young village boys, so they fear spirits and believe in
them.
·
The villagers not only forbid candidates to get
wet, even by washing, but they smear them constantly with white clay, from head
to foot, as a sign of their death as children. This is a form of expression
that show, physically, the values of the villagers for symbols and rituals
illustrating the transition from childhood to adulthood.
·
Villagers live in fear of supernatural, with its
power to bring curses and diseases down on an offender, so they can’t conceive
of anyone daring to offend the ancestors. They believe Nkumbi gives them
ultimate control over the Pygmies. (224)
Pygmy cognition
·
The pygmies do all the things the villagers forbid
them to do when the villagers are not looking. “Both the boys and their fathers
enjoyed the chance to make fun, in a friendly way, of the villagers, but that
was not their sole reason… They behaved as they did because to them the
restrictions were not only meaningless but belonged to a hostile world. The
villagers hoped that the Nkumbi would place the Pygmies directly under the
supernatural authority of the village tribal ancestor; the Pygmies…. Took good
care that nothing of the sort should happen, proving it to themselves..” This
reflects the different conceptions of the villagers and the Pygmies, the
supernatural vs. the physical, and the good vs. the evil.
·
The Nkumbi is harsh and though the Pygmies don’t
put up with the unnecessary harshness, but they do understand the value of the
toughening up process of a boy becoming a man. Their very adaptation of hunting
and gathering provides that for children. This reflects the difference in
biology, experience and the culture of how children develop. For the village
people this kind of “toughening” ritual is necessary as “toughening” is not a
part of village life. To the pygmies, however, it is not necessary as their
experience already dictates that they be tough.
·
The only reason that the Pygmies go into that
Nkumbi willingly, as they do not need it to toughen their children and they
“openly deplore and frequently reject it’s severity” (226) is because they are
a proud people. They must live in contact with the villagers, and to go through
the Nkumbi is the only way that they can get respect and adult status from the
villagers. But just because they have adult status in the village does not
change their status in the forest, they are still children and cannot participate
in molimo. A Pygmy boy has a natural way of growing into a man, when he proves
himself capable of supporting a family when he kills his first real game. This
tells us a lot about the Pygmies and what they value and who they are. First of
all, we see that as it says, they are a proud people. They value who they are
and their customs, which is why they kind of make fun of and don’t really go
along with the village ones, and why they want to be treated as adults and
prove to the villagers that they are that. Second, we see the conception of the
Pygmies as to what really makes a man, someone who is able to provide for his
family and is able to hunt.
Brief Paragraph:
Symbolic
Anthropology is a useful framework to understand this chapter. The
Nkumbi ritual is hightly symbolic
and reflects how the villagers perceive meaning and life. The reactions of the Pygmies is also layered with meaning, Symbolic Anthropology helps to understand what
is valued in the two cultures through analyzing their symbols.
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