Dr. KIP REDICK
RSTD 337
LE, KIM-CHI
Date: September 27, 2007
AFRICAN RITUAL
According to “Original Visions The Religions of Oral People,” the BaMbuti people live in the forest because to take the special poignant at time of death.
They like to do every thing in the forest such as: sing, pray, etc… They feel happy all the time even at death they still remained optimistic. They celebrated a ritual called the “Elima” for the girl when she first began to be “blessed by the moon.” The Elima learns how to live like an adult and learn how to sing the songs of adult women. For the Pygmies, the Elima is the most joyful and happiest time in their life.
This seems to be a coming of age ritual that is forced on the girls by the tribe when they reach the age of puberty. They are taught how to be an adult by an old and respected relative. “It is a time of gladness and happiness, not for the women alone but for the whole people.” (62).
African peoples appreciate the way we do and what we want to do. African peoples hate evil, but they respect the good. If one person in their group did some things wrong, the whole group suffers.
African people’s rituals respect their foundation of holistic thinking.
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1 comment:
Joanna Andrusko
I read a book for an anthropology class called The Forest People. It was fascinating because it detailed the interaction of this African tribe, the Mbuti, with the Congo African tribes of present-day. An anthropologist spent years among them detailing the unique symbiosis between the modern and the primal. The Mbuti recognized that there were neighboring tribes but secretly thought of them as morally inferior. Of course the African tribes thought that the Mbuti were barbaric and backward. The Mbuti would turn to the tribe's modern technology if they especially needed food, and the African tribe would sometimes participate in the Mbuti customs if they needed more men or something to participate in the practice, or ceremony. Both were significantly intertwined in each other's lives and yet they both denied the significance of the interdependency. The Mbuti believed they could continue to live solely off the land (that was ever being developed) if they needed to and the Africans denied that they gained anything from participating and interacting with the Mbuti. I thought it was fascinating that even in the blatant face of their interdependency a modern and primal society denied any relation. As if merely relating to the modern would undermine the Mbuti's primal lifestyle. As if merely relating to the Mbuti would imply that they were savage, backward-minded natives. It made me think back to that discussion we had about how a literate culture and being demythologized and then I wondered if maybe the Mbuti were right. Would admitting their dependence on a literate culture rob them of their mythological lifestyle? Was it already spoiled? Or is mythological sense purely a matter of perspective? Can one choose to live a mythological lifestyle in a de-myhologized world?
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