Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Humanities
Volume 1 ▫ Number 1
(2009)
JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES
Chief Editor
Dr. A. Kipacha University of Dodoma, Tanzania
Assistant Editor
Ms. G. Mosha University of Dodoma, Tanzania
Editorial Board:
Caplan, P Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
Condy, J Cape Peninsula University, SA
Gromova, N Moscow State University, Russia
Kapinga, M University of Dodoma, Tanzania
Kiango, J University of Dares salaam, Tanzania
Larsen, K University of Oslo, Norway
Lodhi, A Uppsala University, Sweden
Madumulla, J University of Dodoma, Tanzania
Maniacky, J Royal Museum of Centre Africa, Belgium
Mapunda, B University of Dar es salaam, Tanzania
Marten, L SOAS, University of London, UK
Mutiti, Y Egerton University, Kenya
Mwenda, M University of Nairobi, Kenya
Rubagumya, C University of Dodoma, Tanzania
Wendo, N Vienna University, Austria
ISSN 1821-7079
Orders to:
The Editor
Journal of Humanities
The University of Dodoma
P.O. Box 259
Dodoma
TANZANIA
E-mail: editorjh@udom.ac.tz
Website: www.udom.ac.tz
ii
Editorial Note
This is the maiden issue of the international peer-reviewed trilingual Journal of Humanitie (JH). This bi-
annual broad-focused journal aims to promote the exchange of ideas and foster interdisciplinary research
in the human sciences. It publishes scholarly articles and reviews on cultures, history, anthropology,
indigenous knowledge, literatures and languages, art and music, and other fields of the humanities that
appeal to an international audience.
Our primary goal is to generate intellectual dialogues between the traditional boundaries of knowledge and
culture; we also seek to redefine, transform, and conflate such boundaries.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and our many contributors to
make this maiden volume a reality. We entrust that you will continue to support this forum for the
foreseeable future.
Ahmad Kipacha
Chief Editor
iii
JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES
CONTENTS
La culture dansée : un trait d’union entre deux mondes différents. Cas du Burundi 34
Sylvie Hatungimana
Early Childhood Cultural Development in Tanzania: Reflections from Key Government Documents 43
Lyambwene Mtahabwa
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye: A White Woman’s Afrocentric Approach to Gender Politics in Africa 73
Mike Kuria
Taswira za Mwanamume katika Fasihi Simulizi ya Kiafrika: Mfano wa Nyimbo za Tohara Miongoni 84
mwa Waigembe
Irene Mbaabu & John Kobia
Guideline to Authors 96
iv
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
Assibi A. Amidu
Assibi.amidu@hf.ntnu.no
Trondheim University
Abstract
This study looks at the bread culture of the Waswahili of Zanzibar on the East African coast. We will list the
types of bread found among the Waswahili of Zanzibar and where possible indicate briefly what they consist of and
how they are made. We will contrast Kiswahili traditional bread in Zanzibar with other kinds of bread that have
been introduced to Zanzibar. Our study argues that the bread culture of the Waswahili of Zanzibar not only tells
us about the types of bread that they make and consume but also about the history of bread making among its
people. The Kiswahili bread culture of Zanzibar also tells us about how global and local cultures have interacted
over many centuries, if not millennia, on the East African coast. We also attempt to confirm that globalization is
an on-going process that began far back in historical time and is intensifying in the 21st century. We will conclude
by noting that the Kiswahili bread culture of Zanzibar is a fine example of positive globalization at work. It is
indicative of the advantages of communication between people, the exchange of cultural artifacts and food culture,
which reveal that we share more in common in this world than we often think we do.
1.0 Introduction
The debate surrounding globalization and localization among scholars working on these areas, such as
geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, culturalists and historians, makes interesting reading. In a
recent paper, Lie and Lund (2003) take issue with the terms global and globalization as used by experts of
the field. They argue that the term global seems to be used at the expense of the term local. For this
reason, they propose a balanced approach that weighs both terms against each other. In this connection,
they state that,
"We shall argue that to understand what is global you have to start with the local. The experiences of the
global takes [sic] place in particular local places, and it does not make sense to isolate the local from the
global. People's practices always take place in a physical and social context, in which they create and
recreate their livelihoods. Hence, practise [sic] and context are integrated concepts, as are the local and the
global. To study processes of change in a particular place we need to situate our study in such a way that
we can study the relationships between the local and the global. The local place is the receiving end, but at
the same time the arena where social practices are situated and where the new realities of people are
created." (Lie and Lund 2003: 102).
What I like about this citation is its conclusion, which would seem to be at variance with the title of my
paper that speaks of a shared heritage. This is just fine for me, because my paper hopes to confirm that
the distinction 'global' versus 'local' is artificial in many instances in our present world. It would appear
that a neutral term that refers to the interrelationship between both global and local would be of great
advantage in today's world. For example, in this paper, I will attempt, briefly, to show how local cultural
practices often contain global elements confirming the views of specialists that globalization and
localization go hand in hand and influence each other through time. Globalization and localization are
therefore not phenomena of the recent technological age or of mere social or cultural traditions. To
illustrate and confirm this relationship, I am going to write about the types of bread found among the
Waswahili of Zanzibar, a Bantu speaking people living on an island off the East African coast, some of
whom have spread into the African mainland and across the world.
1
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
1 Except where indicated by double quotation marks, the translations are my work, and all shortcomings
are also my responsibility.
2
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
For example, Issak (1999: 169) describes it in Norwegian as "Et slags brød tilbredt med damp."2 In
English, it means 'A type of steamed bread.' No mention is made of its relation to mkate wa maji 'pancake.'
Lodhi (2000: 86), on the other hand refers to the gole bread as "a pancake containing minced meat, and
fried on the under side and steamed on the upper side by covering." He does not, however, say what kind
of spread is used with the pancake. For this reason, Shafi Adam Shafi's detail is very significant. Lodhi's
description is also different from that of Issak (1999). More importantly, however, since mkate wa maji is
another name for mkate wa gole, we would expect the same kinds of ingredient to be used in making the
pancakes. To clarify this point, I turned to Shafi Adam Shafi. In his communication dated 22/2/08, he
confirms that the pancakes may contain meat, but this is not obligatory. His explanation is as follows:
"Kuhusu mkate wa maji kutiwa nyama ni sawa. Mkate wa maji unaweza ukatiwa nyama ikitegemea
mapenzi ya mpikaji huo mkate."
'On whether the pancake mkate wa maji may contain meat, this is correct. The pancake may contain meat in
accordance with the taste of the baker.'
It is clear from the above information that mkate wa gole or mkate wa maji may be made in different ways by
bakers and eaten with different types of spread according to the taste of the consumer. It reveals just how
flexible and diverse the Waswahili of Zanzibar are in preparing and consuming their pancakes.
2. Mkate wa chila. 'Pancake of rice flour.' (see Lodhi 2000: 84)
Shafi's (1999) list recognizes it as a type of Zanzibar bread. Observe that it is another kind of pancake but
of Indian origin and so it is not related to the pancake mkate wa maji or mkate wa gole (p.c. from Shafi Adam
Shafi). Lodhi (2000: 84) is of the view that chila is a word from Cutchi in India. It is used to refer to any
kind of pancake in Cutchi. Among the Waswahili of Zanzibar, however, it is a specific type of pancake.
The word chila cannot be found in any past or current dictionary, to the best of my knowledge, and so
lexicographers might want to make a note of it.
3b. Mkate wa kibao. It is a variety of mkate wa boflo 'European bread', except that
the baking pan or tin called kibati is placed upside down in the
oven. The dough swells up and fills the pan or tin.
When the bread is baked, the pan is lifted and the bread has a block shape. It is wider at the base than at
the top and looks like a sitting stool. This is how it got the name kibao 'little stool, small bench'.
3c. Mkate wa peti. This is another variety of mkate wa boflo. This time, the pan
or tin is placed in the right position to allow the bread to expand
upwards and have a brown crust.
When it is baked, the bread has the shape of a wooden chest. The word peti 'chest, box' comes from
Cutchi, which in Kiswahili means sanduku 'box, chest.' The Waswahili of Zanzibar do not use the word
sanduku to describe this bread. They are content with the word peti, although, according to Abdulaziz Y.
Lodhi, today the words peti and kibao are not as widely used as in the past. Other kinds of bread named by
Shafi (1999) follow below:
3d. Mkate wa kisu. 'French loaf bread, thin long round thick bread introduced by
the French, lit. knife-like bread.'
Shafi Adam Shafi in his p.c. mentioned above also draws attention to the fact that mkate wa kisu is a variety
of mkate wa boflo in Kiswahili. He writes,
"Huu ni jamii ya mkate wa boflo ila tofauti ni kuwa boflo ni wa pembe nne na wa kisu una ncha pande
zake zote mbili."
'This is a variety of loaf bread, and the difference is that loaf bread has four corners (at both ends) whereas
the French type of loaf bread has a pointed end at each extremity.'
3e. Mkate wa ngumi. 'Round loaf bread, lit. fist bread.'
Information about this bread has come from Shafi Adam Shafi. In the email mentioned earlier he writes
that,
"Pia katika jamii ya mkate wa boflo kuna mkate wa ngumi ambao huu unakuwa duara."
'Among the varieties of loaf bread, there is 'fist (loaf) bread' which is round in shape.'
4
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
Kiswahili islands, whereas the term mkate wa chapati is used along the coastal belt of the Waswahili. Shafi
Adam Shafi writes,
"Mkate wa chapati: Huu ni ule ule mkate wa kusukuma ila mara nyingi jina la mkate wa kusukuma
hutumika Zanzibar wakati watu wa mwambao huuita mkate wa chapati."
'Chapati bread: This is the same as kusukuma bread (rolled flat bread), except that often times the term
mkate wa kusukuma is used in Zanzibar while the people along the coastal belt call it chapati bread (Indian
flat bread).'
Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, p.c., nevertheless believes that there is some difference between the two types of
bread. Namely, for him at least, mkate wa kusukuma is made from whole wheat, whereas original mkate wa
chapati 'Indian flat bread' is made from white wheat flour. Whatever it is, this study reveals that mkate wa
chapati is simply another name for the Kiswahili flat bread of Zanzibar called mkate wa kusukuma.
7. Mkate wa parapata. 'Bread made from wheat flour.'
This is another type of Kiswahili bread named by Shafi (1999). According to Saida Yahya-Othman, p.c., it
is like the type of bread called nan or naan or mkate wa nan or naan 'a type of Iranian or persian bread' (also
described as "sweet saffron bread" by Lodhi 2000: 195) except that it is larger and thinner. The dough is
kneaded and divided into balls. Each ball of dough is pressed into a flat round shape then spun around the
fingers and cast into the air to allow it to broaden out, after which it is fixed or plastered on the wall of the
kiln, usually one fired by wood or coal. It is eaten with soup or khebabs. Saida Yahya-Othman says that it
is baked almost exclusively in Malindi in Zanzibar. The inhabitants of Malindi also eat the bread with
banana of the type kipukusa 'a yellow ripe banana'. The banana is pounded with the bread, which has been
sliced into small pieces, to create a mash/hotchpotch, called mseto in Kiswahili, which is then eaten. The
word parapata is not found in any existing dictionary.
8. Mkate wa Ajmi. 'Persian bread.'
Shafi (1999) regards this bread as Zanzibar bread. Lodhi (2000: 84) also refers to it as mkate wa ajemi and
says it is of Arabian origin. Lodhi, on the same page, describes it as "the small round Middle Eastern and
North Indian bread commonly known in Indian restaurants around the world as 'tandoori' bread."
Tandoori is called in Kiswahili tanuri or tanuru or tanuu 'kiln, oven', a word of Persian origin, which came to
the Kiswahili coast via Arabic. Note however that the word Ajmi or Ajemi means 'Persian' and so the
bread must have been introduced from Persia into Arabia and India and then to East Africa and other
Indian Ocean states. In discussions with Lodhi, he says that this bread is like pita (or pitta) bread. It is
about 15 cm in diameter but it does not leaven and so it cannot be split open. One side is flattened against
the wall of the kiln so that only the other side gets the heat and becomes flat and roasted. He adds that it is
mkate mdogo na mnene, that is to say 'a small but thick bread.'
5
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
rice flour dough." One thing that is certain about this bread or cake is that the basic ingredients used in
making it are rice and coconut milk. Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, p.c., also adds that this cake can be up to 5 cm
thick. He further says that, today, poverty has put coconut milk beyond the reach of many Zanzibaris and
so milk from animals, whether in liquid or powder form, is used in the making of the cake.4
In Shafi (1999), Bwana Bashir is told by one of his guests, a Comorian, that he has left out one type of
Kiswahili bread found in Zanzibar from his list. The bread is named below:
4.0 The paradox of indigenous versus foreign bread among the Waswahili of Zanzibar
One of the characters in Shafi's novel, Bwana Mohammed, enquires as to whether all the types of bread
named by Bwana Bashir are original Zanzibar bread since some obviously bear foreign names. Bwana Bashir
agrees that some of what is called Zanzibar bread came from outside Zanzibar. He lists the non-Zanzibari
ones as follows:
a. "Mkate wa mofa na parapata, asili yake huko Ushihirini." (Shafi 1999: 80). Namely, 'the round
millet bread (or brown bread) and the flat bread called parapata have their origins in Sheher in South
Arabia.'5
b. Mkate wa Ajmi is Persian bread and comes originally from Persia.
c. Mkate wa Kingazija is Comorian bread, and comes originally from the Comoros.
Observe that mkate wa boflo, mkate wa kusukuma, and mkate wa chila are not included in the list of Zanzibar
bread of foreign or non-Zanzibari origin by Shafi's character Bwana Bashir. Thus although these three types
of bread originate in foreign local cultures, they have become so much a part of Zanzibar's food culture
that they are treated as indigenous foods, or, at least, integral parts of Zanzibar's culture and civilization
and are no longer seen as foreign foods in the strict sense of the term 'foreign.'
In Shafi's novel, Bwana Bashir concludes his comments on Zanzibar bread, by noting that the adoption of
bread of foreign origin is positive for Zanizibar's social life. In his own words, "Hii inaonyesha jinsi
Unguja ilivyo mkorogo wa mataifa." (Shafi 1999: 80-81). It translates as follows: 'This shows how
Zanzibar is a melting pot of nations.' The conclusion of Bwana Bashir fits Lodhi's general comments on
Kiswahili cuisine noted in § 2.0 above. Shafi's objective for introducing a discussion about bread into his
novel is to show how multicultural and multinational or multiethnic Zanzibar society has become over
4 Imported animal milk is available everywhere these days and it is cheaper compared with coconut milk.
This is killing the coconut milk industry. Besides, the production of coconut milk is traditionally labour
intensive and so with cheap alternatives on the market fewer and fewer people invest time in its
production and this has pushed up prices. This development may be described as evidence of the effects
of negative globalization on a local industry in East Africa (see below for additional comments).
5 Arabs call Sheher Ash-Shihr and it is recorded as such in Issak (1999: 181). South Arabia is part of today's
Yemen, and Ash-Shihr is in the south of the country. See Johnson (1939: 303) on Mshihiri "an Arab from
Sheher in South Arabia [...]" Ushihirini is Sheher country or the country of Sheher. Note that Sheher is,
strictly speaking, just the port city of Sheher. Ushihirini in Kiswahili however refers to the whole of South
Yemen, commonly known as Hadramaut. The poorer or lower class members of this group in East Africa,
who run small shops, do petty trading and menial jobs are called derogatorily Washihiri, plural (Mshihiri,
singular), whereas those of them with high social and/or religious status and/or wealth are called
Wahadrami, plural (Mhadrami, singular).
6
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
centuries of taking in visitors and settlers from the Indian Ocean regions, such as, the Middle East, the
Indian subcontinent, the Far East, as far as China, and people from Europe and America. It is curious that
each group of visitors came to the Kiswahili coast and islands armed with its type of bread. Bread has,
therefore, been an indispensable part of the diet of travellers to and settlers in East Africa from as early as
200 BC or the first or second century AD. Globalization began in those early days around the Indian
Ocean and has become an inseparable part of the cultures of the Waswahili of Zanzibar and those on the
coast of East Africa. There is no doubt that this kind of globalization is positive globalization because it
provides additional food sources that strengthen the existing ones and diversifies the ways in which they
could be prepared and eaten. It is also a food culture that is shared by many groups of people in Zanzibar
all of whom, whatever the origins of their ancestors, grandparents and even parents, agree that it is a vital
and useful defining piece of their food culture. This is a far cry from negative globalization, such as we
witness today. Negative globalization rather takes (some will say robs) resources from poorer areas and
sends them to richer countries. In return, these poor nations are forced to buy finished products at high
prices since their own traditional production methods cannot compete with the mass production
techniques of powerful rich countries (see Kaplinsky 1979, on effects of pineapple cultivation in Kenya).
Over time, the impoverished people cannot even afford traditional bread and food items on their tables,
not to speak of global bread, which increasingly depends on high priced imported cereals. Negative
globalization stands, therefore, in stark contrast to positive globalization in many parts of the world.6
6 It has been observed by several scholars that, over time, what starts off as positive globalization also has
negative consequences for the economy and the well-being of the inhabitants of some countries, especially
developing countries (see footnote 4 above). For example, Andrae and Beckman (1985) have noted that in
Nigeria, the importation of wheat from Canada and the United States has tended to replace local foods,
which are cheaper. High prices also accompany bread production in some parts of the developing world
thus impacting negatively on its population. This often happens when large commercial bakeries replace or
supplant small scale bakeries such as family bakeries, especially in cities, without necessarily improving the
diets of consumers. While the findings above are informative and timely, in general, I take the view here
that bread culture has had a positive effect on the population of many countries of the world, particularly
in countries where, outside of cities and large towns, bread production is still in the hands of small family
bakeries that serve small local markets in rural areas and in small towns. For example, in Lamu, Mahmoud
Ahmed Abdul-Kadir, alias Mau, has baked bread for most of his life for Lamu's people in addition to
writing poetry in his spare time (Amidu 1990: 73-76). He is one of the small-scale bakers who has
improved his economic condition through his profession, fed many, and has also become a modest
celebrity as a topical political poet in Lamu. Most of the types of Zanzibar bread I refer to in this study are
not produced commercially, as the evidence indicates. For this reason, it is important that we weigh the
positive aspects of the bread culture against its emerging negative impact, especially in developing
countries. Amongst the Waswahili of Zanzibar, indeed all the Waswahili for that matter, bread is eaten
with a rich variety of dishes, locally produced ones as well as imported ones. As a result, we can affirm that
Zanzibar's bread culture still has positive benefits for its people despite the inroads being made by
commerical bakeries. I believe also that nutritionists and healthcare workers ought to educate consumers
more and more about the dangers of uncontrolled commercialization of bread and other products, if the
negative effects of commercialization are to be checked and eliminated.
7
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
There is a variety of this bread called barai. It is described by Lodhi (2000: 139) as "bee-sting pudding, a
delicious rare dish prepared by steaming raw milk, or curd of cows."
7 According to one account, Fumo Liyongo was born at Siu, a town or city on Rasini Island, lived in Pate,
also on Rasini Island, and died on the mainland in a city founded by him called Kwa Mwana. This city was
located in the region of the lower part of the river Ozi (Knappert 1979: 67).
8
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
9
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Amidu. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 1-11
as a type of bread, e.g. "mkate mdogo kama kitumbua unaochomwa kwa mafuta" (TUKI 2004: 11). This
means in English 'a type of small bread like a fritter fried in oil/fat.' We find a similar description of andazi
'pastry' in Kiango, et al. (2007: 8). By logical extension, kaimati is a kind of bread in these definitions. I
turned to Shafi Adam Shafi for clarification of this point. In his electronic mail to me dated 2/7/2008, he
writes that,
"Kaimati si mkate. Ni aina ya chakula kama vile vitumbua. Kaimati hukaangwa ndani ya mafuta na baadaye
hurowekwa ndani ya shira. Ni chakula kitamu sana ambacho ni maarufu katika mwambao wa Afrika
Mashariki."
'Kaimati is not bread. It is food similar to kitumbua 'a fritter'. Kaimati is fried in oil and then soaked/dipped
into syrup. It is a very sweet dish that is popular along the coastal belt of East Africa.'
Johnson (1939: 211) defines kitumbua as "a small round fritter made of rice flour, fried in fat." It seems
that inhabitants of Zanzibar do not regard pastries of this kind as types of bread. Some scholars however
include them under the generic heading of mkate 'bread.' Another type of pastry introduced to Zanzibar by
the English not very long ago is as follows:
27. Donasi or donati 'Doughnut.'
Donasi is strictly speaking not bread but a pastry or cake, although some speakers classify it as a type of
bread (Kiango et al. 2007: 60). It has only recently been recorded in a Kiswahili dictionary (Kiango, et al.
2007: 60).
28. Mkate wa zabibu. 'Bread with raisins, a bun with raisins.'
Mkate wa zabibu in the sense of a bun is very popular among the Waswahili of Zanzibar today. According
to Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, p.c., buns are the only types of bread that the British introduced to Zanzibar and
East Africa around the middle of the 20th century. The term banzi derived from the English plural 'buns'
is widely used in the Kiswahili of Dar es Salaam as a synonym for mkate wa zabibu. Banzi has not yet found
its way into Kiswahili dictionaries. The extension of the term mkate to include buns is another illustration
of the semantic extension of the term mkate beyond its traditional domains.
from millet bread, bran bread, and so on, to wheat bread. In this way, mkate 'bread' has acquired a new
generic meaning for many Kiswahili speakers. It is identifiable first and foremost with the European bread
mkate wa boflo or bofulo, also known as mkate wa pau/pao.9
9.0 Conclusion
In this study, we have looked at the varieties of bread produced in Zanzibar, which also form the core of
the bread culture of the Waswahili. Mkate 'bread' encompasses all varieties of local and foreign bread made
from dough. The ingredient of the dough is commonly a cereal. In reality, however, the sense of dough is
extended to doughy or dough-like substances that are sliceable or breakable when baked or steamed or
cooked or fried. This has given the Kiswahili word mkate a large semantic field of reference that should
interest semanticists, anthropologists and culturalists. The Kiswahili bread is usually edible or chewable, or
both, but there may be other semantic extensions of the term in which the sense may not be related to
edible objects at all but merely to the shape of the object. A visitor to the Kiswahili coast would be
forgiven for claiming or believing that the term mkate implies primarily the European type of bread. Our
study shows that such a belief is superficial.
We conclude by noting that many of the varieties of bread described by Shafi (1999) as Zanzibar bread are
also found in different parts of the Kiswahili coast and islands and in different parts of the Indian Ocean
and the world. As a result, the Waswahili of Zanzibar share their bread culture in common with many of
their neighbours and peoples of the world.
References
9 Recall that researchers, such as Andrae and Beckman (1985) have found out that changes in comsurmer
choices have negative consequences for their diets and for the survival of indigenous crops in the long
run.
11
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
Ikisiri
Jitihada za ukusanyaji na uchambuzi wa data za kifoklo za launi za Kipemba si jambo geni (angalia Whiteley
(1958) na Mlacha (1995:21-25). Lakini kadri, muda unavyopita jitihada hizo zinaelekea kupungua kasi. Suala la
uhifadhi wa ‘bohari la hekima ya wahenga wetu kimaandishi’1 ni la wajibu na halipaswi kusita. Katika mradi huu
unaoendelea2, tumeonelea kufanya mambo mawili makuu (a) kuorodhesha na kujadili data za kifoklo zenye kuweka
wazi umahususi wa launi za Kipemba. (b) Kuorodhesha na kuchambua kiethnografia data hizo3 kwa mujibu wa
mtazamo wa uchambuzi wa data za kifoklo kimuktadha (Hymes (1962).
1.0 Utangulizi
Uhifadhi na uchambuzi wa mapokezi ya ’bohari la hekima’ katika jamii ya Waswahili na makabila ya
Kitanzania kimaandishi ni jitihada zinazojidhihirisha katika kazi mbalimbali kama vile Steere (1870),
Taylor (1891), Farsi (1958), Omari na wenzie (1975), Ifedha (1987), Petrenko (1988), Mlacha na
Hurskainen (1995), Madumulla (1995),Wamitila (1999, 2001), Mauya (2006)n.k. Kila jamii zina hazina za
kifoklo. Hazina hizo husawiri namna ya jamii hizo zinavyoutizama ulimwengu na hujiumbia njia za
kuelezea namna wanavyouelewa ulimwengu huo kupitia kazi mbalimbali za kifoklo kama vile ngano,
michezo, sanaa, nyimbo, akida, mapishi,uchoraji, uzalishaji mali, ada nk.( Palmer1996:113-114) Kazi za
kifoklo zinafanya kazi katika mzunguko mzima wa maisha ya mwanajamii kuanzia mazazi, makuzi, hadi
umauti na hata baada ya umauti4 ambapo mara kadhaa tunaona wanajamii mbalimbali wanavyowasiliana
na mizimu5 na hata mizuka.
Kwa namna kila jamii inavyosawiri maisha yake ndipo tunapata umahususi au mfanano wa jamii hizo,
hivyo kazi za kifoklo si lazima zitofautiane kiutamaduni paweza kuwa na mfanano tunaoweza
kuulinganisha (Hatch and Brown 1995). Mpemba anapoamka asubuhi, mandhari yanayomzunguka,
shughuli zake za kiuchumi, namna anavyosafiri kutoka kijiji kimoja hadi kingine, namna anavyofurahi,
anavyohuzunika, anavyokabiliana na majanga, falsafa inayomwongoza, ibada, tekinolojia asili anayojiundia
na kurithishana, na mahusiano ya kijamii ndiyo huzua mazingira ya uibukaji wa data za kifoklo. Tuchukulia
kwa mfano Waswahili kwa ujumla wanavyoitazama dunia; Dunia kwao ni uwanja wa fujo au tambara bovu,
Kwa Mpemba huenda mbali zaidi na kufuatana na mazingira yake Dunia kwake ni kokwa ya furu/fuu. Furu
1 Jitihada hizi zinahimizwa katika kazi ya Omari C (na wenziwe)(1975) ya Misemo na Methali toka Tanzania
na Makala ya Semina ya Madumulla J yahusuyo ‘Kuchujuka na Kufifia kwa Fasihi Simulizi Chuo Kikuu cha
Dodoma, Januari 2009.
2 Makala haya ni sehemu ya mradi wa ukusanjaji wa amali za Kipemba ambazo hazipo katika maandishi
unaowashirikisha wenyeji wa Pemba, watafiti wa Chuo Kikuu cha Dodoma (Dkt Ahmad Kipacha Idara ya
Kiswahili na Dkt Ibun Kombo wa Idara ya Sosiolojia na mzaliwa wa Pemba Kusini). Mradi huu ni wa
kujitegemea na tunawashukuru wenyeji wa Pemba hususan Mzee Khamis Suleiman Bakar wa Pandani na
Dkt Ahmed Ame mzaliwa wa Kangani Pemba kwa michango yao. Kila mapungufu ya kazi hii ni yetu.
3 Finnegan (1970; 318) amezibainisha tafiti za data za kifoklo zikiwemo zile zilizopo kwenye hatari ya
kupotea. Ameaidhi pawepo na umakini wa kuchambua data hizo kwa kuzingatia mazingira
yaliyochimbukiza data hizo.
4 Angalia Marealle Petro (2002) Maisha ya Mchagga hapa Duniani na Ahera Mkuki na Nyota Publishers.
5 Angalia Giles Linda (1987:239)
12
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
ni tunda linalopendelewa na watoto na huliwa zaidi wakati wa njaa. Baada ya kuliwa na mwanadamu mara
nyingi kokwa yake hutupwa na hapo fungo, kuku, popo na wanyama wengine hujilia kokwa hiyo na si
lazima isagike tumboni, hivyo yaweza kutoka kwa njia ya kinyesi na kuendelea kugugunwa na vinyama vya
kila aina. Hii ndiyo dunia kwa mtazamo wa Mpemba. Kila mmoja anaitumia kivyake na kuiacha. Dunia si
tunda lenye thamani sana, kama ilivyo kokwa ya furu unalazimika kuila kutokana na njaa. Hakuna
aliyeomba kuja duniani kila mmoja anajistukizia amefika na hana budi kuondoka na kuiacha dunia.
Tunachoweza kufanya duniani kwa kila mmoja wetu ni ‘kuguguna’ kokwa ya furu. Maisha kwa ujumla kwa
Mpemba ni mbio za chumbani ziishiao ukutani yaani Dunia ni Duara! au Lomhlaba Unzima, Lohmhlaba ‘Dunia
ni fujo tu’ chembilecho Wazulu.
Msemo na nyimbo hiyo zinadokeza utabibu wa jadi kupitia taswira ya vigae na mafusho. Wapemba
hutumia tiba za jadi ya kuchoma mafusho ili kumpa mgonjwa afueni aondokane na homa au hata
kuondoa mkosi wa kukosa samaki baharini. Zipo data za Kifoklo zinazoambatana na michezo ya jadi kama
vile mchezo wa ng’ombe haswa sehemu za Chwale10 (Ingrams 1931 : 422), nyemi na kiumbizi michezo ya
sherehe za mwaka-kogwa, mashindano ya ngarawa, mchezo wa watoto uitwao kipalepale na hata mchezo
wa wanawake pekee sehemu za Kojani uitwao mwanda. Hayo ni maeneo ya chimbuko na uhifadhi wa data
za kifoklo.
10 Wapo wachezaji maarufu kama vile Omar Mbwana, Omar Haji Hamad, na Bakar Sharifu. Nyimbo
mbalimbali huimbwa katika shughuli hiyo.
11 Mara kadhaa semi zimekuwa na ugumu wa kufasiri kwa kule kuambatana na maneno yasiyo rasmi au
ya kilahaja na hata sarufi ‘mbovu’
14
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
methali za Kiyoruba zihusuzo malezi ya watoto ikiwemo ile methali mashuhuri ya ‘asiyefunzwa na mamaye
hufunzwa na ulimwengu’ ambapo wayoruba wao husema:
(2) ‘mtoto mtukutu na aliyekosa malezi basi atafunzwa na wasio wazazi’ (tafsiri ni yetu).
Tumekusudia kufuata mtindo12 wa Arewa na Dundes katika kuchambua amali ya misemo mahsusi ya
Kipemba kwa kuzingatia muktadha wa shughuli za Uvuvi na ule unaohusu Kilimo. Shughuli hizi mbili za
Kiuchumi ndizo zinazowashughulisha wenyeji zaidi kuliko shughuli nyengine yeyote kisiwani hapo.
Tutaangalia ni kwa namna gani taswira za uvuvi na kilimo zimeibusha misemo na hata leksimu mahsusi za
launi mbalimbali za Kipemba. Kwa mujibu wa Lakoff na Johnson (1980: 14-17) dhana zitokanazo na
mazingira na tamaduni zetu hujenga sitiari na fikra za kimetonimia tuzitumiazo kwenye kuunda misemo.
Mbali ya kuchambua misemo kwa kuzingatia muktadha, Evelyne Brouzeng (1984) ametushauri katika
"Stylistique comparée de la traduction de proverbes anglais et français" kwamba iko haja ya kufafanua
misemo kwa kulinganisha visawe vya misemo katika lugha mbalimbali kama njia ya kufasiri misemo bila
kujali utofauti wa miundo ya misemo hiyo katika lugha mbalimbali. Mfanano wa misemo katika lugha mbili
au zaidi hutoa picha ya uoni na fikra za mwanadamu.kwa ujumla. Tumezingatia hilo katika uchambuzi wa
baadhi ya misemo mahsusi ya Kipemba § 4.0.
12 Mtindo mwingine mashuhuri wa uchambuzi wa semi ni pale nathari au shairi linapotumika kufafanua
usemi mmoja tu. Mtindo kama huu ulitumika katika kazi ya Taylor (1827) Old English Sayings newly expounded
in Prose and Verse.
13 Makusanyo ya nyimbo za uvuvi yamefanywa na Bi Hadia Ali Said (2008) mkazi na mzaliwa wa
Chwale.Kaskazini Pemba.. Tunamshukuru Bi Hadia kwa msaada wake.
14 Wanawake aghalabu kuvua bahari kubwa au ‘mwambani’, shughuli zao haswa ni za uchokoaji pweza na
utandazaji dagaa kwenye maji madogo.
15
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
Hoja kuu hapa ni kuhakikisha kuwa ndege waharibifu kama njiwa au chechele hashambulii mazao kama ya
mpunga au mtama na kuisababishia jamii hiyo kuambulia kazi ya ‘kijungu meko’ au ‘bwaganchagase’.
Mpemba ‘halisi’ kapambwaje kimisemo?; mpemba akipata gogo! hanyi chini; mpemba hakimbii mvua ndogo. Hii
inamaanisha kuwa Mpemba halisi anahulka zake nazo si ajabu kujitokeza apatapo maisha mazuri na
huweza kujidhihirisha kwa hilo kwa namna ya mabadiliko ya tabia, hulka, migoko na hata vitimbwi.
Je, Pemba kunasifa gani? Kwa vile Pemba ni kisiwa kidogo, ujaji wa wageni haukwepeki haswa kutokana
na mahitaji ya wahudumiaji mikarafuu katika kipindi cha uchumaji wa karafuu (Gray 1962 :63). Baadhi ya
wageni mashuhuru tunaodokezwa kwenye nyimbo za bembezi za kinamama wa KiPemba walikuwa ni
Wanyamwezi15.
(5) Nilisafiri na bwana akanitupa malezi
Hashinda nchana kutwa nami njaa siiwezi
Hatamani kujiuza kwa Songoro mnyamwezi
Songoro16 Mnyamwezi imetumika kama taswira ya ‘jitu’ (la bara) lifanyalo kazi na lenye mafao ambalo
mlalamikaji hakustahili (mke wa mtu) kujiuza kwake ili ajikimu kwa chakula kutokana na mumewe
(mzawa) kutomuwajibikia.
Katika uga wa ngano za Kipemba nako kuna hazina kubwa inayohitajia kufanyiwa kazi za kitaaluma. Ni
sehemu ya mradi huu kulishughulikia hilo kwa siku za karibuni. Makusanyo yetu ya awali hususani sehemu
za Micheweni yamedhihirisha utajiri wa ngano za Kipemba. Hata namna ya ufunguzi wa vigano upo kwa
namna yake pale tunapoona fanani na hadhira (kwenye mabano) kuwasiliana kwa mtindo ufuatao:
(6) Paukwa (Pakawa)
Mwana wa kasa (Hutakasa)
Ukiwa nalo (Pasha)
Ukitakua nalo (Pashua)
Mwisho17 wa kigano huishia na ‘hadithi yangu insozea hapo’. Vipo vigano mashuhuri kama vile Kanlola na
Kinyangaa, Hamad na Hamad, Harudiki n.k ambavyo ndani yake kuna utajiri na maki ya misamiati mahsusi ya
Kipemba yenye faida kubwa katika taaluma ya Lahajia na Isimu-ethnografia.
Pengine mchango mkubwa wa data za kifoklo za Kipemba kimaandishi ni kazi ya kitoponimia au fumbo-
jina ya Mlacha (1995:21-25) yenye kubainisha etimolojia na usuli wa majina ya maeneo mbalimbali ya
kisiwa cha Pemba. Kuna mfanano wa mtindo wa uwasilishaji wake na ule wa kazi mashuhuri ya Webb
Garrison (2007) iitwayo Why you say it yenye kuonyesha vyanzo vya misemo ya Kiingereza inayotumika
kwa sasa. Tumeonelea ni vyema tuifupishe kazi ya Mlacha (1995) kwa njia ya jedwali la kimatriksi .kama
inavyoonyeshwa katika Jedwali 1.
Hili eneo la potonimia linahitaji kuendelezwa zaidi ili jamii ifaidike na hazina ya kihistoria iliyojifumbata
ndani ya majina hayo. Majina yaliyoorodheshwa katika Jedwali la 1 ni sehemu ndogo tu ya hazina
inayosubiri utafiti zaidi. Je, vyanzo vya majina ya Chakechake, Wete, Maziwa Ng’ombe, Micheweni,
Kivumoni, Mitundafumoni, Majimbuta, Mkilindini n.k ni vipi? Mpemba anaposema enzi za chochoni au mibie
ni matukio gani katika tarikhi za wenyeji yalizuka hadi kipindi hicho kuitwa enzi za mibie?18 Utafiti wa
aina hii unastahili pia kushughulikiwa kama sehemu ya Isimu-Jiografia hususani tawi linaloinukia la Isimu
Sura-Nchi (Linguistic Landscaping).
15 Yasemekana Wanyamwezi walihamia Pemba Kaskazini sehemu za Makangale katika karne ya 19 (angalia
Sherriff A 1990:57 Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House).
16 Jina la ‘Songoro’ limejitokeza kama mtwana katika masimulizi ya Kipemba katika Mlacha (1995:22).
17 Vigano vya Kimtang’ata huishia na ‘kigano na uongo kikeshilia hapo’ (Whiteley 1956:51).
18 Hiki ni kipindi maalumu cha njaa iliyowalazimu wenyeji kula chochoni au mibie ambazo ni ndizi pori zenye
sumu na madhara kwa baadhi ya wao. Chochoni au Mibie inatumika kama taswira ya shida au njaa.
16
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
Jedwali 1
Kwa namna tulivyoziangalia data za awali za kifoklo za Kipemba tunashawishika kuunga mkono usemi
maarafu wa mwanaisimu wa Kijerumani Hugo Schuchardt kwamba ‘kila neno lina historia yake’. Hivyo
kila hadhari tumeichukua kufuatilia etimolojia na usuli wa maneno mbalimbali ya Kipemba kama
yanavyojitokeza katika semi tunazozishughulikia katika makala haya.
19 Mauya (2006) ametumia mbinu ya kuchambua semi za Kiswahili kwa kulinganisha na visawe vilivyomo
ndani ya lugha hiyo hiyo ya Kiswahili. Tunakusudia kuboresha mbinu hiyo kwa kutanua mawanda na
kuhusisha jamii zaidi ya zile za Kiswahili ili kushadidia sifa ya dhima za kiubia.
17
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
Mauya (2006: 2) ameonyesha kuwa jamii ya waswahili wamemtumia ‘nguru’ kwani naye anayo harufu
isiyofichika sawa na ile ya pweza. Tunawasiwasi kuwa taswira ya nguru yaweza kupotea kwani kwa sasa
uvundikaji wa ‘nguru’ si biashara yenye umaarufu. Samaki wamekuwa hadimu kiasi kwamba ubanikaji
badala ya uvundikaji ndio mbinu ya haraka ya kuzalisha ng’onda badala ya nguru. Upo msemo wa Kirusi
unaoshadidia hali hiyo kwa kusema kuwa ‘kama umekubali kuwa mwenyeji wa mgeni wako basi na pia ukubali
kuwa mwenyeji wa mbwa wake’.
(ii) Papa akipea mafuta huwapa wanawe
Papa ni simba wa baharini. Hupendelea kukaa bahari kuu iitwayo mweza. Mbali ya kuwa ni samaki
aogopwaye lakini anafaida nyingi licha ya kuwa na uwezo wa kumjeruhi na hata kumuua mvuvi baharini.
Kila kiungo cha papa kinaliwa, kuanzia mapezi hadi utemba/chisha (utumbo). Hali hii inapelekea kuwepo
kwa msemo wa Kiswahili usemao avumaye baharini papa ingawa wengine wapo. Hivyo taswira ya ukubwa na
mabavu ya papa bado inaendelea pale inapotegemewa kuwa angalau wanadamu au viumbe wengine
wangefaidika na mafuta ya papa yanapomzidia haswa baada ya kuwala samaki wengine na hivyo
kujitengenezea ziada ya mafuta mwilini. Katika hali isiyotegemewa, papa anawagaiya wanawe mafuta hayo.
Ukweli juu ya usemi huu unadhihirishwa na vitendo vya wabadhirifu wa mali na ‘mafisadi’, ambao baada
ya kuwanyonya wanyonge faida ipatikanayo wanatumia kwa maslahi yao na watoto au ndugu zao. Usemi
huu unamaanisha kuwa ‘kwa kila mtafutaji manufaa basi hula na wakwao’ na pengine hata ‘ukichuma
janga basi utawaponzea nduguzo’. Usemi huu husemwa na wanyonge pale wanapokumbushana kwamba
wasijihangaishe kuwabembeleza walionacho kwani hawatakumbukwa kamwe.
(iii) Kuvua na kuvuvuga
Kuvuvuguka ni kuwatunga samaki hali yakuwa bado wapo chomboni huku ukiendelea na shughuli za
uvuvi. Wavuvi huko Pemba hupendelea kuwahifadhi hao samaki waliotungwa katika chombo maalumu
kiitwacho mkajasi. Usemi huu unatoa tahadhari kuwa unapowavua samaki hakikisha umewatunga kwani
dau laweza pigwa wimbi na chombo kikaenda mrama hadi kuparaganisha samaki chomboni na
kutumbukia majini ukawa umepata hasara kwani ulishawavua na hivyo kujikuta umeambulia patupu.
Iwapo umewadunga kwenye mtungo, basi inakuwa rahisi kuwadhibiti inapotokea mushkeli.Upo usemi
unaoendana na huo kwa Waswahili: ‘Usiache kunanua kwa kutega’. Iwapo umewakamata ndege usiache
kuwadhibiti kwa kutegemea mtego ambao haujanasa wengine. Msemo wa Kiswidishi unasema kuwa
‘Usitupe ndoo ya zamani kabla hujajua iwapo ndoo mpya inaweza kuzuia maji (haina tundu)’. Waairishi
nao wao wanausemi usemao kuwa ‘si samaki mpaka kafikishwa kwenye upwa’ sawa na ‘pesa iliyo kibindoni
ni ile iliyochumwa’ (msemo wa Kiskotishi) au kwa Waswahili tunakuta usemi wa Hamadi kibindoni silaha
iliyomkononi. Dhima ya ubia ya kudhibiti kile ulichokipata kwanza kabla ya kutoka kwenda kutafuta kingine
inajitokeza katka jamii mbalimbali na si Pemba peke yake. Tofauti iliyopo hapa ni ya kifani tu na muktadha
ulioibusha dhana ya kuelezea haja ya kudhibiti kile ulichokwisha kitia kibindoni.
(iv) Lishalo vuusha si dau?
Dau ni chombo kikuu kitumikacho kwa uvuvi katika ‘ukanda wa Waswahili’ (Swahili corridor). Wavuvi
wengi hawana uwezo wa kiuchumi kuwa na vyombo vikubwa kama vile majahazi na hata meli. Hivyo
madau hutumika kwa shughuli za uvuvi na hata usafiri. Ingawa kuna vyombo vingine kama vile mtumbwi
au mchoo ambavyo wavuvi wadogowadogo wanavimudu kuvimiliki. Katika mazingira ya ukanda huu wa
pwani, siajabu kusikia pia majina ya watu kama vile Mwandau au Dau yanayotokana na chombo hicho.
Mbali ya usemi huo kuna usemi mashuhuru katika ukanda wa uswahili usemao Dau la mnyonge haliendi joshi.
Jina la Dau linawakilisha vyombo mbalimbali vitembeavyo kama vile gari au jahazi.
Usemi wa lishalo vuusha si dau? Ni kauli-swali (rhetoric) inayokusudia kuonyesha kuwa dau likishakuvusha
basi faida yake haipo tena waliacha hapohapo na kuendelea na safari. Usemi huu una kisawe chake katika
Kiswahili sanifu nacho ni ‘pema si japo pema ukipema si pema tena’. Shauku ya jambo ni pale ambapo
hujalitambua au kulionja lakini ukifanikiwa huwi na shauku kama ile ya mwanzo. Hutokea katika jamii ya
zetu mwanaume akafanya jitihada kubwa kumgombea binti kigoli lakini anapomnasa na kumweka katika
himaya yake basi vitimbi vinaanza na sasa anamkalifu kwa vitendo vya kupunguza pendo kutokana na
kuchujuka kwa pendo. Wanawake wa Pemba huwaimbia watoto wao nyimbo ya bembezi ilalamikayo
kuhusu kupungua kwa thamani kwa waume zao:
(7) Ulipo ukinitaka habarí zefika Wete
Wepita ukitangaza madawani na nkote,
18
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
19
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
20
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
5.0 Hitimisho
Kazi hii imegusia kwa uchache misemo mahususi ya Kipemba. Si nia ya makala haya kuainisha misemo
yote tuliyokusanya katika makala haya. Tumekusudia kugusia maeneo muhimu ya kinadharia
yanayodhihirisha ufanano wa kidhima na uoni wa wanadamu kiubia duniani. Zipo tofauti za mazingira
yanayozua misemo hiyo na hivyo sitiari na metonomia zinatumika kifani tu lakini ujumbe unaokusudiwa
ukawa na malengo yaliyosawia. Kimsingi sitiari na misemo (au fani) hubeba historia ya jamii husika.
Tunaweza kuchora mazingira, mfumo wa uzalishaji mali, ibada na itikadi, na uoni na falsafa ya maisha ya
wanajamii kwa kuchambua na kuaninisha sitiari na metonomia zilizotumika. Mazingira ya bahari na Kilimo
huko Pemba yamechangia katika kuunda misemo na data mbalimbali za kifoklo. Uchambuzi wa semi za
Kipemba umepelekea kuonyesha ni kwa kiasi gani tunaweza kubainisha umahususi na ulinganifu wa
misemo ya Kipemba na ile ya jamii nyenginezo duniani. Matokeo awali ya uchambuzi wa misemo ya
Kipemba ni ushahidi wa ukweli na udhibati wa hoja za Evelyne Brouzeng (1984)na Hatch na Brown
(1995) katika uchambuzi wa data za kifoklo kimuktadha.
Marejeo
Arewa, E na A. Dundes. (1964) Proverbs and the Ethnography of Speaking Folklore katika Gumperz, J na
D. Hymes. (Wah) American Anthropologist: The ethnography of communication Vol 66(6) 70-85
CARE Tanzania and Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry (2005). Ngezi-Vumawimbi
Forest Reserves Biodiversity Inventory Report Zanzibar :.
Evelyne, B. (1984) Stylistique comparée de la traduction de proverbes anglais et français katika Richesse du
proverbe, études réunies par François Suard et Claude: Typologie et Fonctions Jarida la (2):162-275 Université de
Lille.
Farsi, S. (1958) Swahili Sayings from Zanzibar . Juzuu.1: Proverbs. Arusha: Eastern Africa Publications
Limited.
Finnegan, R. (1970) Oral literature in Africa Oxford at the Clanderon Press.
Ghassany.(2003) Kheri ya Ruhani kuliko Subiani Dira (Zanzibar), 26 (30 Mei – 5 Juni), uk. 4.
Giles, L. (1987) Possession Cults on the Swahili Coast: A reexamination of theories of marginality katika
Africa 57(2) 234-258
Gray, J. (1962) History of Zanzibar from the Middle Ages to 1856. London : Oxford University Press.
Gray, J. (1980) Bull-baiting in Pemba , Azania, 15, pp. 121-132
Hatch, E na Brown, Cl (1995). Vocabulary, Semantics and Language Education.
Hymes, D. (1972) The ethnography of speaking. Katika Anthropology and Human behavior, Gladwin T
na W Sturtevant (Wah) Washington, Anthropological Society of Washington Uk 13-53.
Ifedha, A. (1987) Semi za Kiswahili Maana na Matumizi. Oxford University Press Eastern Africa.
Ingrams, W. (1931) Zanzibar : Its History and People. London : H. F. & G. Witherby.
Lakoff, G na M. Turner. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, Georg and Turner, Mark. 1989. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor.Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
21
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
A. Kipacha and I. Kombo. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 12-22
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.London:
Whitman and Cramp.
Madumulla, J. (1995) Proverbs and Sayings: Theory and Practice TUKI
Manyo, A. (2006) Semi: Maana na Matumizi . Dar es salaam TUKI
Mlacha, S. (1995) Fasihi Simulizi na Usuli wa Historia ya Pemba katika Mlacha S na A Hurskainen (Wah)
Lugha , Utamaduni na Fasihi simulizi ya Kiswahili TUKI na Chuo Kikuu cha Helsinki 16-26.
Mlacha, S na A. Hurskainen (1995) (Wah) Lugha , Utamaduni na Fasihi simulizi ya Kiswahili TUKI na Chuo
Kikuu cha Helsinki
Mulokozi, M (1996) Fasihi ya Kiswahili OSW 105. Chuo Kikuu Huria cha Tanzania
Omari, C, E. Kezilahabi na W. Kamera (1975) Misemo na Methali Toka Tanzania. Arusha: Eastern Africa
Publications limited
Orbaneja, Y na E. Majada,. 1998. El saber del pueblo o ramillete. Madrid: Cie Inversiones Editoriales
Palmer, G. (1996) Toward a theory of Cultural Linguistics Austin: University of Texas Press.
Panati, C. (1999). Words to live by: The origins of conventional wisdom and
Petrenko, N. (1988) Nahau za Kiswahili Kiswahili Juzuu 53 : 21-32 Publishers.
Sheriff, A (1990) Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar,. Tanzania Publishing House.
Steere, E. (1870) Swahili Tales as Told by the Natives of Zanzibar. London: Bell and Daldy.
Taylor, J. (1827) Old English Sayings newly expounded in Prose and Verse
Taylor W 1891 African Aphorisms London
Wamitila, W. (1999) Kamusi ya Misemo na Nahau. Nairobi: Longhorn
Wamitila, W (2001) Kamusi ya Methali. Nairobi: Longhorn Publishers
Webb, G. (2007) Why You Say It. Grant Press.
Whiteley, W. (1958) The Dialects and Verse of Pemba. Kampala: An introduction East African Swahili
Committee.
Whiteley, W. (1959) Mtang’ata. Kampala: An introduction East African Swahili Committee.
22
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
Martin Walsh
mtw30@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge
Abstract
One of the most remarkable features of recent Zanzibar history has been the occurrence of periodic episodes of collective
panic associated with fear of a spiritual entity called Popobawa. The first and most widespread of the modern panics took
place in 1995, spreading from Pemba to Unguja and across to the mainland coast. This was in the months before
Tanzania’s first multiparty elections, and many Zanzibaris, in particular opponents of the ruling party, settled on a
political reading of Popobawa’s rude intrusion into their lives. Subsequent panics have been similarly interpreted, and
external observers have also been influenced by these politicised understandings of Popobawa. This paper examines the
development of the 1995 panic, and shows that different local explanations for the crisis were put forward before the
political interpretation came to the fore. But there is also evidence to suggest that political history and collective memory have
played an important part in shaping the content of Popobawa narratives, and the paper concludes by highlighting this.
1.0 Introduction
In the first half of 1995 an extraordinary collective panic swept across the Zanzibar archipelago. It started
on the island of Pemba and later spread from there to Unguja and Zanzibar town. Men, women and
children described being assaulted by a shape-shifting spirit, Popobawa, and on the larger island reports
were rife that adults of both sexes had been sodomised by this malevolent entity. In order to avert its
nocturnal attacks many people resorted to spending the night huddled together in anxious groups outside
of their homes. On both islands the panic produced incidents of collective violence, when strangers
suspected of being manifestations of Popobawa were attacked, beaten, and in some cases killed by the
angry mob. Government efforts to calm things down were largely ineffectual, not least because most
Pembans and supporters of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) believed that the ruling CCM
(Chama cha Mapinduzi) party was itself responsible for bringing Popobawa to the islands in order to
divert attention away from politics in the run-up to the country’s first multiparty elections in October
1995.
In this paper, based primarily on ethnographic research undertaken in Zanzibar, I will outline both the
evolution of the 1995 panic and the development of different local explanations for the spiritual assaults
which caused it. When these assaults proliferated on Pemba people struggled to understand why this was
happening, and initially a number of different explanations were put forward, none of them overtly
political. As local accounts make clear, the political interpretation of Popobawa’s brute intrusion into
island life took time to develop. It subsequently came to dominate, particularly on Pemba and among
CUF supporters. And although apolitical interpretations of Popobawa’s evil deeds can still be heard in
Zanzibar, especially on Unguja island, external commentators continue to reiterate the view that the 1995
panic and others like it are inextricably linked to the political process, reflecting the deep and enduring
divisions in Zanzibari society and the anxieties that they generate. This may be so, but a closer
examination of the events of 1995 suggests that this cannot simply be asserted on the basis of one set of
local interpretations and the coincidence of timing between some Popobawa panics and political elections.
23
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
Portuguese, Omani Arab, and British, and is now a semi-autonomous territory within the United Republic
of Tanzania. The British abolished slavery but retained the sultanate that had built its success on the back
of slave trading and slave labour. When the British departed they handed power over to an Arab-
dominated government which was overthrown the following month in a bloody revolution, the defining
event of Zanzibar’s modern history. Zanzibar became a quasi-socialist state ruled by President Abeid
Amani Karume and his Afro-Shirazi Party, originally named for the islands’ mixed indigenous and ex-
mainland (including ex-slave) population.
Shortly after the Revolution Karume agreed to the union of Zanzibar with Nyerere’s Tanganyika,
establishing what some Zanzibaris see as colonialism. But Karume and his immediate successors retained
a tight grip on the internal affairs of Zanzibar. The islands remained largely closed to outsiders (including
foreign researchers) until economic liberalisation began to take effect and the government started to
welcome significant numbers of western aid workers and tourists in the 1990s. Zanzibar’s economic and
political transition has, however, been a troubled one, and the islands remain deeply divided between
supporters of CCM, the “Revolutionary Party” that has ruled all of Tanzania since the one-party era, and
CUF, which dominates Pemban politics and is now the nation’s main opposition party.
Published sources make muddled reference to different episodes of diabolical terror and panic in post-
Revolutionary Zanzibar. There have been at least five Popobawa panics, the most widespread of which
was the 1995 episode described in this paper, others rather more localised. Table 1 shows these panics in
the context of other notable events in the recent political history of Zanzibar.
24
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
A typical assault involved someone waking in the night to find themselves being attacked by an
amorphous or shape-shifting intruder, which was most frequently described as “pressing” or “crushing”
their chest and ribs, and of suffocating them until they had difficulty in breathing and passed out. Other
unusual events might precede or accompany or perhaps replace this standard experience: including
strange sights, sounds, smells and other sensations. Sometimes the victims were children, subjected to the
kinds of abuse that westerners might associate with a poltergeist. In general all of the victims experienced
extreme terror, and were often frozen speechless when they were assaulted.
Their plight might be recognised by their sleeping partners, who might also be attacked in turn. This
happened to people who did not ordinarily have possessory spirits as well as those who did.1 However,
household members and neighbours who did have possessory spirits were liable to go into trance when
Popobawa was about, and when they did so their spirits would identify and challenge Popobawa and cry
out to alert others of the intruder’s presence. The general scene was often one of pandemonium breaking
out until Popobawa moved on. The spirit or spirits (pl. mapopobawa) might attack many homes
simultaneously, in the same or different parts of the town or countryside.
Pemba
2 February holy month of Ramadhan begins
First week of February Popobawa attacks in Mkoani
3 March Idd ul Fitr begins, fast ends
12 March night of crisis in Limbani, Wete
29 March only sporadic incidents
Unguja
3 April ‘Popobawa’ killed at night in Zanzibar town
4 April body of ‘Popobawa’ exhibited in town hospital
6 April mob takes ‘Popobawa’ to police in Mazizini
14 April Popobawa moves out of Zanzibar town
28 April another ‘Popobawa’ killed in Nungwi
2 May the last dated report (possibly relating to the Nungwi incident)
Dar es Salaam undated incidents following those on Unguja
Tanga, Mombasa unconfirmed reports of incidents
The attacks spread across Pemba and people began spending the nights outside of their houses, trying to
stay awake huddled around open fires. At first, because it was Ramadhan and association with unholy
practices was frowned upon, people were unable to resort to local doctors (waganga, sg. mganga), to divine
their troubles or help protect them. In some cases - and I am not sure whether this was during or after
Ramadhan - individual communities were believed to have successfully repelled Popobawa because they
possessed superior guardian spirits. Occasionally people took matters into their own hands, and local
mobs beat up suspected manifestations of Popobawa - often unkempt and inarticulate men with mental
health problems who were found wandering about at night.
After two months the panic was dying down on Pemba. By then it had spread to Zanzibar town on the
main island of Unguja. Here both the assaults and the popular response took a more violent turn.
Popobawa began to sodomise its male and female victims, and several alleged mapopobawa were killed by
angry mobs. The most notorious of these incidents took place in Zanzibar town. The body of the victim
was displayed for all to see in the government hospital and his parents were interviewed on state television
to verify that he was a mainlander who had come to Zanzibar to seek treatment for a mental health
1 For spirit possession in Zanzibar see Giles 1989; Goldman 1996; Nisula 1999; Larsen 2008. Zanzibar is
in the middle of a spirit possession ‘complex’ that spreads from Somalia in the north to northern
Madagascar in the south. Key references include Lewis 1966; Lienhardt 1968; Gray 1969; Gomm 1975;
Lambek 1981; 1993; Giles 1987; Sharp 1993; Caplan 1997.
25
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
problem. The crowds of people that filed past his body were generally unconvinced by this explanation:
the government had no doubt substituted Popobawa with a real corpse and persuaded the alleged parents
to say it was their son’s (Jansen 1996).
Within a couple of weeks of this incident Popobawa - or all 70 of them on some counts - had moved
north out of town, and eventually the attacks fizzled out without spreading to villages on the south and
east of the island. They did, however, spread to at least one quarter in Dar es Salaam (where many
Zanzibaris live), and perhaps also to Tanga and Mombasa, though I could not confirm this at the time.
On Pemba the episode lasted about two months, before ravaging Zanzibar town and north-west Unguja
for a third month. The terror ended on the islands almost six months before the October 1995 elections
took place.
2 I was employed as a social anthropologist on the ODA-funded Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems
Project (ZCCFSP), working with farmers’ groups and promoting participatory agricultural development
on both islands. I had already lived for some years on the East African coast and was a fluent speaker of
Swahili when I arrived in Zanzibar in August 1994. I have been a regular visitor to Unguja and Zanzibar
town since leaving Pemba in June 1996.
26
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
The Swahili name Popobawa (p’opo-bawa) translates literally as ‘wing-bat’ or ‘winged bat’, said to be a
reference to the ominous outline or dark shadow cast by this malevolent spirit at night. People trace the
name (and in some cases the spirit) back to an earlier episode of panic that took place in the south of
Pemba following the 1964 Revolution. This Popobawa sodomised both men and women, terrorising
Mkoani and its environs for a month or more, until, on some accounts, Karume himself came to the
island and challenged the spirit to come to him at night (it did not). I have yet to find contemporary
reports of these events and there is little agreement in recent published accounts regarding the details of
this episode including its dating during Karume’s rule.
Jamila gave the year as 1965. A neighbour told her that as many as ten people were then being assaulted
every night in Mkoani. Diviners attributed this to a sheitani but the placatory offerings that they
recommended had no effect. Then one diviner declared that the real culprit was not a kind of spirit (jini or
sheitani) but a person using ‘medicines’ to perform sorcery. Some people accepted this interpretation but
others ridiculed it. The government intervened and a group of elders appointed by the President
determined that the cause of the problem was a man of Makonde (Mozambican) origin who had resorted
to sorcery to take revenge on Pemba for being forced to divorce his estranged Pemban wife. He was
caught and brought before Karume before being paraded around Pemba on a lorry and then gaoled for
life.
To Jamila and another informant, the only significance of this first Popobawa panic was that it provided
an analogy and therefore a name for whatever it was that was assaulting the residents of Mkoani in 1995.
The two modes of assault were quite different: whereas the earlier Popobawa sodomised his male and
female victims, the Popobawa that attacked Pembans in 1995 merely crushed and frightened them,
penetrating their bedrooms but not their bodies. Some informants from Unguja doubted this asexual
account of Pembans’ recent suffering, suspecting that they were too coy to reveal that they had been anally
raped. The narratives recorded by Jamila’s made it clear that this was not the case, but provided a reason
for the switch to sexual violence on Unguja (see below).
This labelling of Popobawa in 1995 did not explain why it was happening and who or what was behind it.
According to Jamila people in southern Pemba considered a number of possibilities. The most alluring
explanation to emerge was that Popobawa was the work of a spurned witch-finder known as Tekelo.
Tekelo had plied his trade on the mainland since at least the early 1980s, moving from community to
community with a team of assistants and rooting out witches in classic fashion. In the early 1990s he
came across to Zanzibar and was invited to Pemba by the inhabitants of Chokocho, a village in the south.
However, his visit to the island, widely reputed to be a powerful centre of witchcraft and wizardry, was not
entirely successful. In Pemba alleged witches are generally not accused openly or subjected to any
sanctions: they are merely the subject of gossip and a mixture of fear and admiration for their powers (cf.
Goldman 1996). Seeing their grandmothers turned out of their homes and humiliated in public was too
much for some communities and they sent Tekelo packing without paying his fees. Others were dismayed
that when he left Pemba there was no apparent reduction in the total sum of illness and misfortune, and
they too branded him a charlatan. So when Popobawa went on the rampage people speculated that the
malevolent spirit had been sent from the mainland by Tekelo, either in revenge for his own humiliation or
as a ruse to create more work for himself on Pemba.
This explanation did not follow Popobawa as the panic travelled northwards. In the central town of
Chake Chake a different theory was revealed as follows. During a spiritual assault on a married couple
one of their neighbours went into a possession trance and her possessory spirit struggled violently with the
phantom intruder until it fled. The spirit then called for a local mganga and explained to him what the
cause of the island’s current miseries really was. A couple of years before a whale had been found beached
on the shore and people came from far and wide to cut out portions of its flesh and blubber. At the same
time a woman in Chake Chake had gone into trance and her possessory spirit declared that this whale was
in fact the child of a greater spirit, warning people not to eat it or else they would suffer the consequences.
Needless to say a lot of people took no notice. Returning now to the 1995: the possessory spirit that had
just repelled a spiritual intruder identified the earlier transgression against the whale’s mother as the cause
of contemporary attacks that people were labelling Popobawa. And it went on to suggest that people
should take special offerings of food down to the shore to placate the dead whale’s spirit-mother.
27
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
This revelation rejected any identification with the original Popobawa because the former had sodomised
its victims whereas the phantom of 1995 did not. But the whale’s revenge was never more than another
localised explanation.
28
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
with a larger than average penis and that women who slept with him (there were rumoured to be many of
them) would no longer desire other men.3
Despite the fact that Zanzibar town was the seat of government, the administration and other CCM
supporters there failed to counter the Popobawa narratives that worked against them, including the
widespread belief that they had spirited away the first Popobawa that people had killed. With the help of
religious leaders and the state-controlled media the government tried to curb the spread of the panic and
the outbreaks of mob violence that went with it. It is possible that this did play a part in shortening the
career and minimising the impact of Popobawa on Unguja. But neither the government nor conservative
Muslim clerics there came up with a counter-narrative that could match the power of the conspiracy
theory from Pemba.
In Wete and elsewhere on Pemba it was easy to believe that CCM’s campaign of spiritual assault had
ended because people and their companion spirits had recognised it for what it really was and taken
appropriate counter-steps. For some time afterwards I myself was beguiled by an agnostic version of the
same thesis, and suspected that the panic had indeed ended on Pemba once people came up with a
convincing and widely-agreed explanation for it - as though the conspiracy theory functioned like a kind of
scaled-up collective ‘talking cure’. But I am not so sure now, and find it equally possible that the panic
metaphorically burned itself out as it spread from community to community and quarter to quarter,
exhausting the pool of potential victims and witnesses in each one as it passed through (that is, the pool of
people susceptible, for whatever reasons, to experiencing or reporting the appropriate experiences).
The narratives of Popobawa were explained in terms of existing discourses that could be convincingly
related to them, that could swallow them up and be nourished by them in turn. Most of these
explanations were localised, restricted to and reflecting particular histories in particular areas: Popobawa
as a witch-finder’s trick or revenge; a spirit-whale’s revenge; or the anger of Karume’s neglected and
oversexed spirits. On Pemba and among Pembans everywhere it was ultimately folded up into the
political discourse that was then dominating Pemban life, one that could now explain their spiritual and
moral suffering as well as their economic and other woes.
Appropriately enough, this explanation seems to have emerged through the intended and unintended
participation of a large number of ordinary men and women: among them victims, witnesses, both male
and female spirits, local waganga and other interpreters and narrators, an apparently democratic genealogy
that underlay Jamila’s composite narrative and now informs mine. The role of women and their
possessory spirits is especially noticeable, though the gender of these spirits as well as of other actors in
the narratives recorded by Jamila is often erased by the lack of male/female gender markers in Swahili, the
language of their telling. As it first unfolded on Pemba this was a people’s panic which resisted official
attempts to control it and was not consciously engineered by opposition politicians, though CUF
supporters were later able to make good use of a conspiracy theory that stigmatised CCM and bolstered
their own political narrative.
This kind of manipulation was much more evident following the 1995 episode and especially in the run-up
to the general elections in 2000. By this time the idea that Popobawa was a political phenomenon linked
to election campaigns had become firmly established. It was widely rumoured that Tanzania’s President
Mkapa had been forced to abandon campaigning and flee Zanzibar after spending a painful night in the
company of a number of vengeful spirits. And photocopies of a newspaper cartoon that showed half-clad
CCM members in desperate flight from Popobawa were widely distributed at CUF rallies (Cameron
2002b). Otherwise the implicit prophecy that Popobawa would return during these elections was barely
fulfilled. A few incidents were reported from east-central Pemba, but that was about it. Likewise
Popobawa’s minor appearances in mid-2001 and early 2007, and failure to turn up immediately before or
after the troubled 2005 elections, cast doubt on the thesis that the periodic spiritual crises were necessarily
bound to the trials and tribulations of the political process in Zanzibar.
3 In October 2007, during production of the documentary film The Nightmare (Gray Brothers 2008), I
elicited a number of apolitical explanations for the past activities of Popobawa in Zanzibar town and
thereabouts. The presence of a government representative during filming evidently made many
interviewees reluctant to discuss well-known political interpretations of events.
29
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
4 As well as being a readymade subject for (often ethnocentric) political comment and quirky ‘human
interest’ stories, Popobawa was also admitted into the global pantheon of occult beings. Many of the
websites that have lists of strange and mythical creatures now include passages about this hybrid
Popobawa, sometimes fancifully depicted in an artist’s image (the first of these was based on McGreal’s
description of how Popobawa was drawn in a Zanzibar market). Perhaps not surprisingly, the sexual
content of Popobawa narratives has also excited widespread interest, while the phenomenology of the
nocturnal attacks has attracted the attention of students of sleep paralysis and its cultural manifestations
(see Nickell 1995; Gray Brothers 2008).
30
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
However, I do agree with Parkin’s argument that historical memories of suffering have infused
understandings of Popobawa, and would argue that this has happened both directly and indirectly as
different narrators have consciously or unconsciously made use of these earlier narratives in producing
their own. Parkin draws particular attention to the role of memories of slavery and the deep ethnic
divisions that stem from this period and continue to mark Zanzibaris’ different perceptions of themselves
and others. I think that an equal and perhaps stronger case can be made for the role of memories of the
Revolution of 1964, because this was the event which more than any other crystallised previous conflicts
and continues to dominate the political landscape of Zanzibar.
Indeed some Popobawa narratives seem to echo the terrors that the Revolution brought. I have already
mentioned that in Jamila’s account the violent Popobawa episode that followed shortly after the
Revolution was eventually blamed on a Makonde man. The Makonde were originally slaves and
immigrant labourers from Mozambique and to many Zanzibaris they are represented as archetypal
savages, non-believers traditionally marked by deep facial scarification and the wearing of large lip-plugs.
In the early days of the Revolution a number of Makonde were employed to do the dirty work of the
Revolution’s unexpected leader, the self-styled Field Marshal Okello. Okello’s Makonde henchmen spent
some time on Pemba, where they are said to have terrorised the inhabitants of Mkoani and the south in
particular. Is it a coincidence that the first Popobawa, a brutalising spirit that also ravaged Mkoani, was
blamed (in Jamila’s narrative) on a Makonde? There are too many ifs and buts here, but nonetheless a
possible link with the political terror, if not just everyday representations of savagery.
Another possible connection can be drawn with the widely reported story that during the 1995 panic the
inhabitants of the village of Vitongoji on Pemba were beaten with sticks by a phantom assailant despite
the fact that they were awake and sitting up outside their houses. The first few years of the Revolution are
known to Pembans as “siku za bakora”, “the days of the stick”, a reference to the frequent beatings that
they received and the public humiliations, imprisonment, torture and unexplained disappearances that
occurred at the time. Vitongoji was the location of an army camp that was established in 1964, one of
three designed to help quell opposition to the Revolution. Soldiers based there reported being beaten by
invisible sticks as well as suffering numerous other kinds of spiritual assault. These were blamed on the
fact that the camp had been built adjacent to a traditional witches’ meeting-place, where the local spirits
had already been angered by the construction of a new school. The caning and other unpleasant
experiences were their revenge (Arnold 2003). Were then the 1995 beatings themselves revenge for these
earlier phantom assaults on the military? Or did they represent a memory of the violence and beatings
that Pembans had really suffered in the 1960s? Again, we have no way of being certain, but the evidence
is suggestive.
8.0 Conclusion
Detailed consideration of these arguments is beyond the scope of this paper, whose purpose has been not
to explain the 1995 panic and its constituent narratives, but to outline the basic sequence of events and in
particular the way in which local explanations of these were politicised, subsequently influencing the
accounts of journalists and others, including Parkin’s anthropological thesis. Of course I am not arguing
for the depoliticisation of interpretation in this and other cases, but for careful analysis and especially an
understanding of when and where the political agendas and narratives of others have infected our own.
Contemporary anxieties may or may not help to generate experiences that lend themselves to ‘occult’
interpretation. But historical and other social memories, phobias, terrors, and related anxieties most likely
do and have influenced the content of narratives like those of Popobawa, and some of these narratives
seem to have prefigured their subsequent explanation in narrow political terms. Whatever imaginary
flapping or flickering shadow of a bat’s wing conjured up Popobawa in 1995, local accounts suggest that
the panic was not at first explained with reference to party politics. But it surely reflected and refracted
political and other discourses more generally as individual nightmares were converted – through the
memories and voices of victims, the spirits of the possessed and their various interpreters – into a
terrifying episode in Zanzibar’s collective political nightmare. At the same time I have no doubt that this
episode, like the history it contains, will never be repeated in quite the same way.
31
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
Acknowledgements
This paper could not have been written without the help of many Zanzibaris, including my research
assistant ‘Jamila’ and long-term collaborator Asha Fakhi Khamis. It is an edited version of a seminar
paper read to the University of Cambridge Department of Social Anthropology in February 2005 and
available until 2007 on the internet. I am grateful to a number of colleagues for their critical observations
and other inputs into my research on Popobawa: they include Ray Abrahams, Al Cheyne, Harri Englund,
Helle Goldman, Adam and Andrew Gray, Bethan Rees Jones, Nick Long, David Parkin, Amy Rowe (and
the editorial board of Cambridge Anthropology), Malcolm Ruel, Rob Spence, Marilyn Strathern, Adrian
Walsh, and Konstantinos Zorbas. I would also like to thank the editors of the Journal of Humanities for
inviting me to contribute to their inaugural issue, and the anonymous reviewers for their incisive
comments. None of them is of course responsible for the final result.
References
Anon .(1996). ‘Ouch Ouch Ouch! Buggered by Batman’, Fortean Times, May 1996.
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/086_batman.shtml (accessed 17 April 2007).
Anon. (2003). ‘Terror, Tourism and Odd Beliefs’, The Economist, 13 December 2003: 57.
Anon. (2004-08). ‘Popobawa’, Wikipedia, archived back to 18 September 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popo_Bawa (accessed 14 December 2008).
Anon. (2007). ‘Sex Attacks Blamed on Bat Demon’, BBC News, 21 Feb. 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6383833.stm (accessed 17 April 2007).
Arnold, N. (2003). Wazee Wakijua Mambo / Elders Used to Know Things!: Occult Powers and Revolutionary History
in Pemba, Zanzibar, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.
Cameron, G. (2002a). Protest and Cooperation in Post-Revolutionary Zanzibar, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Cameron, G. (2002b). ‘Zanzibar’s Turbulent Transition’, Review of African Political Economy, 92: 313-330.
Caplan, P. (1997). African Voices, African Lives: Personal Narratives from a Swahili Village. London and New
York: Routledge.
Giles, L. (1987). ‘Possession Cults on the Swahili Coast: A Re-examination of Theories of Marginality’,
Africa, 57 (2): 234-257.
Giles L. (1989). Spirit Possession on the Swahili Coast: Peripheral Cults or Primary Texts? Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
Goldman, H.V. 1996. A Comparative Study of Swahili in Two Rural Communities in Pemba, Zanzibar, Tanzania,
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.
Gomm, R. (1975). ‘Bargaining from Weakness: Spirit Possession on the South Kenya Coast’, Man, 10 (4):
530-543.
Gray, R. F. (1969). ‘The Shetani Cult among the Segeju’, in J. Beattie and J. Middleton (eds.) Spirit
Mediumship and Society in Africa. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 171-187.
Gray, B.(2008). The Nightmare, documentary film directed by Adam and Andrew Gray and produced by
Para Docs Productions (JS Feature Films Inc.) for the Enigma series, VisionTV, Toronto. First aired in
Canada on 5 March 2008.
Jansen, H. (1996). ‘Popobawa is Dead!’, Tanzanian Affairs, 53: 22-24.
Lambek, M. (1981). Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte. London and New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Lambek, M. (1993). Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery and Spirit Possession.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Larsen, K. (2008). Where Humans and Spirits Meet: The Politics of Rituals and Identified Spirits in Zanzibar. New
York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Lewis, I. M. (1966). ‘Spirit Possession and Deprivation Cults’, Man, 1 (3): 307-329.
Lienhardt, P. (1968). The Medicine Man: Swifa ya Nguvumali, by Hasani bin Ismail. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
McGreal, C. (1995). ‘Zanzibar Diary’, The Guardian, 2 October 1995: 11.
Maclean, W. (2005). ‘Belief in Sex-Mad Demon Tests Nerves’, Reuters, 16 May 2005.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=8503707 (accessed 8
June 2005).
32
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33
Nickell, J. (1995). ‘The Skeptic-raping Demon of Zanzibar’, Skeptical Briefs, December 1995.
http://www.csicop.org/sb/9512/i-files.html (accessed 17 April 2007).
Nisula, T. 1999. Everyday Spirits and Medical Interventions: Ethnographic and Historical Notes on Therapeutic
Conventions in Zanzibar Town. Saarijärvi: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy.
Parkin, D. (1996). ‘Landscaped Memories of Violence: Prelude to Political Elections in Zanzibar’,
unpublished paper, January 1996.
Parkin, D. (2004). ‘In the Nature of the Human Landscape: Provenances in the Making of Zanzibari
Politics’, in J. Clammer, S. Poirier and E. Schwimmer (eds.) Figured Worlds: Ontological Obstacles in
Intercultural Relations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 113-131.
Russell, D. (2001). ‘The Popobawa - A Zanzibari Incubus’, X-Project Paranormal Magazine, 26 July 2001.
http://www.xprojectmagazine.com/archives/paranormal/popobawa.html (accessed 17 April 2007).
Saleh, A. (2001). ‘Sex-mad 'Ghost' Scares Zanzibaris’, BBC News, 19 July 2001.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1446733.stm (accessed 17 April 2007).
Walsh, M. T. (2005). ‘Diabolical Delusions and Hysterical Narratives in a Postmodern State’, paper
presented to the Senior Seminar, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 4
February 2005.
33
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
La culture dansée : un trait d’union entre deux mondes différents. Cas du Burundi
Sylvie Hatungimana
hatungasy@yahoo.fr
Université du Burundi
Résumé
La pratique des danses est un fait très important au Burundi et pour le Burundais évoluant au pays. Elle constitue, non
seulement le miroir d’un pays et celui d’un peuple, mais également elle en est l’âme. Les chants et les danses font partie
intégrante de la vie quotidienne. Ils contribuent au rythme journalier et celui, plus singulier, des moments festifs. Les
danses revêtent des sens, des significations propres en fonction des contextes locaux et des objectifs précis
Avec la transposition en des lieux « autres », des questions surgissent. Les significations et les sens changent. Certains
codes propres au terroir ne sont plus valables en dehors de celui-ci. Beaucoup de divergences apparaissent mais des points de
convergences apparaissent également. Nous admettons que la danse burundaise se perpétue et que, dans les milieux
urbains, les membres de la communauté s’intéressent à leur culture et, en l’occurrence, aux rituels dansés. Concrètement,
les Burundais dansent hors de leur contexte culturel d’origine. Ils portent en eux les différentes expériences. Pour certains,
ces expériences correspondraient à une réalité oubliée ou qui sommeille dans leur subconscient. Pour d’autres.
1.0 Introduction
Pour les Africains en général, pour le peuple burundais en particulier, s’exprimer en chantant et en dansant
(gutamba et kuvyina), c’est tout simplement «vivre». On chante et on danse pour s’encourager au labeur ;
parfois, on dit « merci » ou « bonjour » en dansant ou en chantant. On exprime sa joie par un pas de danse
et on chante son bonheur comme son chagrin. Le passage des différentes étapes de la vie de l’individu est
ponctué par des danses. Le rituel religieux se fait en dansant ; les grands moments de la vie politique
nationale sont marqués par la danse, etc. L’adulte danse, l’enfant s’y exerce, le non scolarisé sait exécuter
ses pas de danse, le scolarisé aussi s’y met. Et pourtant, on pourrait se demander si le sens donné à la
culture dansée est le même chez des personnes appartenant à des générations différentes ou évoluant dans
des cadres contextuels culturels différents, et si les codes qui régissent cette culture dansée est restée la
même dans le temps et dans l’espace. Nous estimons ainsi que différents cadres culturels sont réels et que
l’acte dansé fait le pont.
2.0 Méthodologie
Pour produire cet article, nous nous sommes inspirée de notre travail de thèse de doctorat intitulé : « Les
danses rundi en terre étrangère. Une étude menée auprès des Barundi de Belgique » (Hatungimana 2005). La
problématique de l’identité des personnes déplacées d’une culture vers une autre se trouve au centre de
cette étude. Les résultats qui y sont présentés sont le fruit d’un long travail de terrain effectué au sein de la
communauté burundaise de Belgique, combinant observations, participations, participations observantes,
et entretiens semi-directifs.
Selon Laplantine (1987 : 13), aller sur le terrain suppose « faire l’expérience qui consiste à nous étonner de
ce qui nous est le plus familier, et à rendre familier ce qui nous paraissait étrange et étranger ». Pour cela,
nous avons dansé et chanté, participé à des manifestations culturelles que les Burundais de Belgique
organisaient. Cette intense « activité sur terrain » a constitué une étape importante de notre recherche. Ce
contact nous a permis d’établir des relations de confiance avec nos futurs interviewés. Nous avons bien dit
« participation observante ». En utilisant ce terme, nous nous plaçons personnellement du point de vue du
chercheur indigène qui est né, a grandi dans sa société et qui a participé tant consciemment
qu’inconsciemment à l’édification de sa culture (Camara et al 1996 : 49-56).
L’interview constitue le second outil méthodologique qui a guidé notre recherche. Avec l’observation sur
le terrain, menée selon les modèles de Mayer (2000) et Peretz (1980 : 84-85), bien des aspects du problème
(Où ? Qui ? Quoi ? Quand ? Comment ? Qu’en pense X en tant que participant ? Qu’en pense Y, en
34
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
l’occurrence moi, en tant qu’observateur), sont élucidés. Mais, pour celui qui veut découvrir les raisons
profondes, il reste sur sa soif malgré les recoupements. Ainsi, des tranches de vie de quelques sujets
apportent un nouvel éclairage. De tels récits, il faut les solliciter et les recueillir méthodiquement. La
démarche a été faite sur trente cinq sujets adultes triés sur le volet parmi « une population diversifiée et
non homogène » (Albarello et al 1997 : 47).
L’article que nous présentons au lecteur contient un des aspects de notre problématique à savoir : « La
culture dansée prise comme un trait d’union entre deux mondes différents ».
35
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
rythme des saisons structurait les activités de la vie rurale ; il a été remplacé par le rythme mécanique du
temps physique marqué par la montre et les sonneries diverses. Cependant, nous constatons que le «
temps ancien » est tellement incrusté, ancré dans la mentalité des gens que le contact avec une culture qui a
une gestion différente du temps ne suffit pas pour en modifier les habitudes. Dans le Burundi
contemporain, le principe de la demi-heure africaine est généralement admis et est couramment appliqué
au risque de contrarier les non avertis. L’école a donc bousculé ce temps social ancien mais ne l’a pas
occulté.
Tout comme le temps, « la notion d’espace » est culturellement vécue par les scolarisés dans des rapports
conflictuels. D’un côté, l’école lui offre un espace ouvert sur le monde par l’intermédiaire de la lecture et
de l’écriture ; de l’autre côté, il retrouve l’espace traditionnel d’accueil après la classe (pour l’élève du
primaire). Cet espace qui est celui de ses origines ne demande à l’individu que de s’y fondre pour ne faire
qu’un avec lui. Pour l’individu, le passage du premier milieu, plutôt « artificiel », « pré- fabriqué », au
second plus « habituel » et où il vit en symbiose avec l’élément naturel et « en convenance avec le monde »
(Robert 2004 : 114), ne peut pas se passer sans heurts. Cette évolution devient d’autant plus dramatique
que tous les membres de la société ne se situent pas, comme ce scolarisé, dans les deux espaces culturels.
Pendant que les uns vaquent par exemple dans les champs, un espace socio-économique où des buts
concrets sont poursuivis, le scolarisé, lui, explore un espace qui n’est rentable qu’à long terme ou pas du
tout (en tout cas dans le concret). Qu’on en soit conscient ou non, un conflit latent existe, dans ce cas
présent, entre cet individu qui évolue dans le nouvel « espace moderne » et les membres qui sont restés
dans leur espace socio-économique du monde rural. La continuité de la vie dans son harmonie avec les
hommes, la nature et les animaux, cette continuité qui inonde les pratiques sociales, s’est en quelque sorte
estompée. Naguère, les veillées nocturnes étaient animées par les danses et les chants, les contes et les
notes de la cithare. Aujourd’hui, ces veillées sont animées par la radio, la télévision (pour les citadins), la
lecture et autres loisirs nocturnes, issus de la technologie moderne.
Les relations humaines qui étaient basées sur l’échange de biens et de services ont été modifiées.
Dorénavant, elles sont liées à la circulation de la monnaie ; l’évolution des moyens de transports et de
télécommunications, et plus récemment encore, la vulgarisation du téléphone mobile et la communication
par Internet les a fait exploser. Les habitants des deux pôles du globe peuvent aujourd’hui établir des
contacts. Ce fait devient étrange, en l’occurrence pour le Burundais qui est habitué à voir les gens limiter
leurs relations à l’horizon de leur colline natale, lui qui ne connaît que « la marche à pied » comme moyen
de déplacement et la parole en face à face comme moyen de communication.
Face aux nouvelles valeurs que le mouvement de l’occidentalisation porte, les générations anciennes, celles
du monde rural en particulier, restent stupéfaites. Les plus jeunes s’en imprègnent avec un plus ou moins
grand enthousiasme.
36
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
Communauté Est Africaine en 2005, cette attitude est en phase de changement. En effet, l’introduction du
kiswahili et de l’anglais à l’école primaire au Burundi va assurément révolutionner les mentalités. Et
maintenant, quelle déception pour les parents dont l’enfant ne peut pas évoluer en umuzungu (le blanc)
accompli ! En effet, le scolarisé devenu fonctionnaire salarié devient l’espoir pour les membres de sa
famille restés en milieu rural. Ces derniers savent qu’ils peuvent compter sur lui pour satisfaire certains
besoins d’ordre financier. Il est craint et respecté pour ce rôle social qu’il joue.
Au niveau de la représentation du corps, « la tradition se vêt du moderne » : Avec l’habit importé, le corps
est passé de la situation de « non habillé » (ou à peine) à « couvert depuis les pieds jusqu’à la tête ». Cet état
de fait va se répercuter sur les activités corporelles artistiques. Si nous considérons le cas des danses, nous
réalisons que les danses du Burundi, celles des femmes essentiellement, ont perdu un peu de leur saveur à
cause des habits qui voilent tout le mouvement des pieds et des jambes. Le costume actuel, imvutano, fait à
base de pagnes en longs tissus (de coton ou de nylon), ne prend pas la forme du corps ; il s’en détache
plutôt. Toutefois, la manipulation de ces pagnes fait aussi partie du mouvement dansé pour certaines
évolutions. C’est sans doute cela qui constitue la dynamique de l’évolution des danses : le pouvoir de
s’adapter aux différentes périodes de la vie d’une société.
Les scolarisés ont payé un lourd tribut pour leur nouveau statut. Ils ont joué un rôle important dans la
dévalorisation des traditions au moment des indépendances. Mais, ce sont les mêmes scolarisés qui
procèdent à leur re-valorisation aujourd’hui. Ce n’est pas pour rien que lors des prestations de danses
traditionnelles, les petites filles qui font les danses féminines et les petits tambourinaires sont très
applaudis, comparés aux jeunes et aux adultes, même talentueux. Les petits « artistes-danseurs » sont
accueillis avec beaucoup d’émotion et d’enthousiasme, leurs erreurs de scènes deviennent « mignonnes ».
En fait, c’est pour le plaisir qu’éprouvent les parents de voir leur identité culturelle, l’identité burundaise
sauvegardée et leur mort culturelle évitée.
Le terrain de rencontre et d’entente entre la permanence et la continuité, la médiation des différents
conflits que vivent les générations différentes peut être assurée par les activités artistiques. La pratique
dansée peut, en particulier, jouer ce rôle de passerelle. En effet, au Burundi, la pratique dansée constitue
une des activités ludiques et de fête qui est acceptée dans les normes de pratique du monde adulte. Nous
savons que traditionnellement, la coutume interdit aux adultes le droit de jouer. « Le jeu est puérilité
tolérée pour l’enfant et futilité pour l’adulte » (Nahimana 1999 : 141-142). La pratique dansée se situe à la
fois dans le monde des adultes et celui des jeunes ; elle se trouve à la fois dans le monde de la tradition et
celui de la modernité ; elle est à cheval entre le temps passé et le temps présent.
La pratique dansée utilise un langage universel : le langage du corps comme outil. Cette caractéristique est
un atout qui en fait une activité de médiation valable et efficace entre les générations qui se suivent mais
qui ne se comprennent plus tellement. La pratique des danses pourrait transcender les situations
conflictuelles qui surviennent entre les générations, pourvu que son message soit livré dans un cadre
adéquat.
37
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
Chez les agriculteurs, la bénédiction et la redistribution des semences par le mwami (roi) servaient de cadre
contextuel à diverses danses agraires des semailles. Si, aujourd’hui, de telles danses sont exécutées par les
scolarisés, elles ne sont pas motivées « du dedans » : elles sont désormais situées en dehors de leur
contexte originel, elles sont devenues théâtrales : il s’agit plus de faire du spectacle que de produire ou de
métaphoriser du sens. Quel sens se dégage par exemple des chants et danses de mariage lorsqu’ils sont
faits pour un spectacle monté sur scène et payant ? Nul doute que de cette intégration presque forcée de la
modernité se dégagent des moments forts et positifs. Ce sont essentiellement les jeunes qui en tirent les
bénéfices. Ces moments sont liés à la gestion du corps de l’individu selon des nouveaux rythmes et dans
un nouvel espace social. Quels sont, dès lors, les différents moments qui font la force de rencontre entre
les danses à la base, en milieu rural et cette forme théâtrale des danses rundi ?
38
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
musculaire qu’exigent les sauts lors de la danse des tambours ingoma, la souplesse que nécessite
l’apprentissage des danses intoore. Quant aux figures acrobatiques de base de la danse agasimbo, elles exigent
une souplesse particulière du haut du corps pour leur réalisation effective. D’où découlent la joie et
l’intérêt que font naître l’apprentissage du geste dans toute sa pureté. Ces danses procurent également un
état de bien être général. Au cours de leurs exhibitions, certains danseurs (notamment ceux des tambours)
se rapprochent même de l’état de transe.
La notion de l’espace fait appel à celle du temps qui, elle aussi, a subi d’importantes mutations au cours de
l’histoire des Burundais.
39
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
connaître ou tout simplement pour le plaisir du contact, ce corps-là s’imprègne vite des rythmes
vibratoires. D’ailleurs, aussitôt que les muscles du cou arrivent à tenir la tête droite, l’enfant exécute « ses
premières danses ». On aime cajoler le bébé en lui faisant faire de petits sautillements « gusimbagiza ». La
maman ou toute autre personne de l’entourage de l’enfant fait sautiller ce dernier qui reprend appui sur les
cuisses de l’adulte. Dès le tout jeune âge, l’enfant est régulièrement initié aux rythmes par pulsation des
jambes, et à la musicalité.
Ainsi, ces éléments prennent naissance dans son corps, et non de l’extérieur ; toutefois, de temps en
temps, on l’accompagne aussi par un chant. Lentement mais sûrement, le petit intériorise tout. Dès que
l’enfant peut se tenir debout, on le verra monter le bras, faire des tentatives d’impulsion (flexion -
extension des jambes par les genoux et les chevilles) pour réclamer « sa danse ». C’est sans doute le résultat
de cette pratique de début d’enfance, et bien d’autres activités rythmées, qui font dire à certains théoriciens
et poètes que « les Africains ont le rythme dans le sang ». Ces activités à rythme constituent la vie même de
l’enfant. Tout ce qu’il voit, tout ce qu’il fait, tout ce qui passe par ses sens est rythme. Et ce rythme s’inscrit
dans sa mémoire corporelle depuis qu’il est dans le ventre de sa mère et quand il est porté sur le dos
durant la petite enfance. Plus tard, quand il sera plus autonome, les travaux des champs et d’élevage
auxquels l’enfant est appelé à participer ne feront que concrétiser cette notion de vie rythmée et rendre
indélébile son imprégnation.
Jusqu’ici, nous avons évoqué l’enfant qui est encore à l’âge des manipulations posturales et motrices. Leur
but indirect est celui d’acheminer l’enfant vers sa vie adulte. La transmission du mouvement artistique ne
sera effective que dans la mesure où l’on en prend conscience. Un danseur est reconnu comme tel grâce à
la conscience qu’il a de son corps lorsque celui-ci décrit des trajets ou figures, en statique ou en évolution.
Le corps constitue le siège de tous les éléments techniques utilisés par la danse. C’est le corps qui se
déploie dans l’espace (en totalité ou par segments) en dégageant une certaine énergie selon un certain
rythme ; c’est ce corps encore qui indique les références de la personnalité d’un danseur et de son style de
danse en lui assignant des caractéristiques spécifiques (jazz ou moderne, funk ou rap, classique ou
contemporaine, africaine ou indienne, etc.). C’est aussi à travers le corps que la danse exprimera les
notions de poids en rapport avec la qualité du mouvement dansé, les formes corporelles (ou volumes),
l’émotion dramatique ou toute autre forme d’émotion.
Le mouvement dansé du Burundais n’est pas encore arrivé à cette conscience, il est encore fonctionnel ou
imitation. Le corps est le siège de nos émotions. Les danses traditionnelles hors de leurs contextes
n’offrent plus au danseur la reconnaissance du corps dans toute sa sensualité, dans tous ses sens. Sur les
collines, le contact permanent avec la nature assure au corps une grande part de son équilibre relationnel.
Il contribue à affiner les sens. En milieu rural, l’odorat est aiguisé. Les ruraux reconnaissent ainsi l’odeur de
la terre, des plantes. Le contact se fait aussi par le toucher. Le sens kinesthésique est constamment mis à
rude épreuve par le relief accidenté des collines. Tandis que les danses constituent le prolongement de
cette vie dans la nature. Quand les filles ont glané suffisamment de bois mort ou d’herbe tendre, elles
cherchent un endroit assez bien aménagé et exécutent quelques pas de danse. Cet exercice tient lieu de
répétition des danses à exhiber éventuellement lors d’une fête.
Quand le corps est en fête, l’individu s’exprime par « ses tripes ». Il est vrai, comme le note bien à propos
Françoise Loux (1979 : 114), qu’on reproche souvent aux fêtes actuelles d’être des spectacles, de se donner
à voir plutôt qu’à participer. Les fêtes actuelles ont perdu une part de cette joie collective. Nous
comprenons que les contextes et les mobiles de fêtes ont changé. Une chose est sûre, c’est que la fête,
qu’elle soit rurale ou motivée par une représentation théâtrale, constitue un moment indispensable de
rupture de la routine de la quotidienneté, un temps de détente et d’évasion. Pour le danseur en spectacle, la
participation à une représentation publique constitue une grande motivation. Une occasion lui est offerte
pour communiquer son émotion au public. C’est cela aussi le rôle des danses : pouvoir exprimer par le
corps tout ce qu’on ne peut (veut) pas traduire par la parole.
6.0 Conclusion
L’activité dansée représente une partie de la vie culturelle des Burundais vivant en dehors de leur contexte
culturel d’origine. Le nouveau milieu devient comme un arbre à palabre sous lequel ils peuvent se
rencontrer et se ressourcer. Mais à l’intérieur du pays, dans les collines, ces manifestations étaient et restent
liées à une certaine philosophie et à une dynamique de la vie quotidienne partagée entre la permanence et
40
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
des ruptures sociales ; elles ont trait à des croyances et des architectures qui constituent des piliers de la
société dont les membres partagent un passé commun.
Est-ce que le sens des chants de danse change dans le contexte culturel autre que le contexte d’origine ?
Quel sens pouvons-nous donner aux différents rituels qui se passent en milieu urbain ?
Une confrontation de nos connaissances de la tradition avec les enregistrements déjà existants nous mène
à un constat. A l’écoute des chants issus de notre enregistrement sur terrain, nous constatons que les
mélodies ne changent pas dans le contexte culturel non originel. Néanmoins, nous constatons une
adaptation subtile des chants au contexte festif du moment. Mais également, la configuration acteurs-
public assis fait retomber l’enthousiasme lors de certaines représentations structurées. Ce n’est plus,
comme dirait Nkulikiyinka (2002 : 23), « le théâtre traditionnel de participation où le public est tout à la
fois spectateur et acteur, chanteur et danseur ».
Grâce à une participation active sur le terrain, nous avons pu étayer la formulation de notre hypothèse
forte. Cependant, il est clair que le seul outil d’observation s’est avéré réducteur. Un outil complémentaire
était donc nécessaire. Ainsi nous avons eu recours à l’entretien, outil qui nous a permis de tirer des
conclusions que nous estimons pertinentes. Ils concernent les problèmes identitaires que peut occasionner
le fait d’être déraciné de son milieu culturel d’origine. Et c’est à ce niveau que le sens et les significations de
la pratique des danses d’origine se sont révélés dans toute leur profondeur et leur importance.
A l’issu de l’approche descriptive du vécu des Burundais issus du fruit de la modernité, tel qu’ils le
racontent eux-mêmes, nous avons constaté qu’ils vivent une situation fort complexe selon les différentes
catégories d’acteurs et selon leurs motivations respectives. Le milieu associatif constitue un cadre où les
uns et les autres, en fonction des besoins ponctuels ou à long terme, trouvent l’expression adaptée à leur
situation. Pour les uns, l’urgence est à l’expression nostalgique des souvenirs dansés. D’autres y trouvent
un cadre d’apprentissage de l’élément symbolique dansé. Mais aussi, donner de son temps et de son
expérience aux autres, plus particulièrement aux plus jeunes que soi, devient un plaisir qui conduit vers
l’épanouissement.
Références
Albarello L. (1997). Pratiques et méthodes de recherche en sciences humaines, Paris, Armand Colin.
Camara, S. et B. Traimond. (1996). « Entretien avec Sory Camara » in : L’ethnologie indigène. Cahiers
ethnologiques, Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux II, 24ème année, n° 18, Presses Universitaires de
Bordeaux ; pp. 49-56.
Dumont, R. (1962). L’Afrique noire est mal partie, Paris, Edition du Seuil.
Feltz, G. (1987). « L’impact missionnaire : au carrefour des mentalités rurale et d’une modernité » in :
Université du Burundi/Centre des Recherches Africaines (C.R.A.), Questions sur la paysannerie au Burundi,
Actes des la Table Ronde sur ‘‘Sciences sociales et humaines et développement rural ’’ (Bujumbura, du 7 au 11 Mai
1985), Bujumbura, pp. 229-329.
Hall, E. T. (1984). La danse de la vie, Paris, Seuil.
Hatungimana, S. (2005). Les danses rundi en terre étrangère. Une étude menée auprès des Barundi de Belgique, Thèse
de Doctorat, Louvain-la-Neuve.
Kilani, M. (1992) (1ère Edition, 1989). Introduction à l’anthropologie, Lausanne, Editions Lausanne, 2ème édition
revue et corrigée/Payot.
Laplantine, F. (1987). Clefs pour l’anthropologie, Paris, Editions Seghers.
Loux, F. (1979). Pratiques et savoirs populaires. Le corps dans les sociétés traditionnelles, Paris, Berger-Levrault.
Mayer, R. (2000). Méthodes de recherche en intervention sociale, Montréal, Paris, Gaëtan Morin Editeur.
Mwila, M. (1994). « L’école en Afrique facteur de développement ou illusion ? » in : Institut de
Philosophie, Philosophie et vie. Actes des premières journées philosophiques de Boma, du 26 au 29 Mai 1993,
Boma, Grand Séminaire « Abbé Ngidi » de Boma / L’Institut.
Nahimana, S. (1999). Techniques du corps et développement. La pratique et les représentations sociales du sport au
Burundi, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Thèse à la carte, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Nkulikiyinka, J. (2002). Introduction à la danse rwandaise traditionnelle, Tervuren (Belgique), Musée Royal
d’Afrique Centrale, Vol. 166.
41
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
S. Hatungimana. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 34-42
Peretz, H. (1980). « Grille d’observation » in : La méthode sociologique, l’observation, Paris, la Découverte, pp.
84-85.
Robert, A. (2004). « En convenance avec le monde », in : L’Afrique au secours de l’Occident, Paris, Les
Editions de l’Atelier / Les Editions Ouvrières, pp. 114-116.
Rouget, G. (2004). « L’efficacité musicale : musiquer pour survivre. Le cas des pygmées » in : L’Homme,
Revue Française d’Anthropologie, n° 171-172, juillet - décembre, pp. 27-52.
Sirven, P. (1984). La sous urbanisation et les villes du Rwanda et du Burundi, Thèse, Université de Bordeaux III.
42
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
Lyabwene Mtahabwa
lrwr2003@udom.ac.tz
The University of Dodoma,
Abstract
This study examined the extent to which the Government of Tanzania was addressing cultural development in young
children. There is an abundance of literature in early childhood that provides evidence for the critical role early childhood
education plays in the development of specific cultural values in children. Despite this reality, analyses of the Cultural
Policy, Child Development Policy, Community Development Policy, Education and Training Policy and Tanzania
Development Vision 2025 as key Government documents revealed that early childhood in Tanzania has received little
cultural attention to the extent that specific cultural values and future image of the nation can hardly be predicted. The
article concludes that, left unchecked, such a situation could lead to disappearance of the nation’s cultural identity and
consequently disappearance of the cherished peace, stability and unity. The article recommends that delineation of specific
cultural values in key Government documents and their development in children’s early lives is crucial.
1.0 Introduction
The purpose of this article was to analyze Government policy documents in Tanzania so as to determine
the extent to which these documents envisaged cultural values and norms sought to be developed in the
early years of children’s lives. Such an analysis could make policy-makers, curriculum developers, early
childhood educators and caregivers aware of the quality of the current policy documents based on the
cultural dimension for early childhood. This awareness would ultimately inform policy and curriculum
development as well as provide directions in terms of child rearing and teaching for development of
specific cultural values in young children.
There is probably no greater function of education in society than one that seeks to perpetuate not only
social existence but also existence of a social group bearing specific cultural traits. These specific cultural
traits evolve as members of a social group engage in interactions and struggle to adjust to internal and
external stimuli thereby leading to development of a unique culture. Early childhood signifies the most
sensitive stage in the process of human development where the roots of certain personalities germinate
and grow eventually leading to creation of a nation with particular image. This being the case, it can safely
be argued that the propensity of the social group to continue its existence while maintaining particular
cultural traits relies on the education of young children.
There are several definitions of culture. The two definitions I find useful in this study are those by Schein
(1992) and Ratner (2002). Schein (1992, p. 12) defines culture as:
A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external
adaptation and internal integration that have worked well enough to be considered valid and,
therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation
to those problems.
Ratner (2002, p. 1) provides the following definition for culture:
Culture is a system of enduring behavioral and thinking patterns that are created, adopted, and
promulgated by a number of individuals jointly. These patterns are social (supraindividual) rather
than individual, and they are artifactual rather than natural.
From these two definitions of culture, the basic cultural elements or features can be outlined. In order for
any social group to claim existence of culture unique to it, it must have explicit set of enduring, shared,
43
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
basic assumptions developed over time in the entire process of day-to-day life struggles over nature and
nurture. In other words, a social group must have basic assumptions related to ways of interacting with
both nature and nurture and these assumptions must be basic, life-long and shared. The cultural life of any
specific society can be easily observed from what the societal members attach high value, consider or
believe to be the right way of doing certain things.
The prevalence of specific cultural values and norms in any particular country signifies its uniqueness and
facilitates creation of a national image. Such values serve as guide for citizens’ decisions and actions and at
the same time are used to judge people’s general ways of life. When these cultural values and norms are
clearly stated and included in Government documents such as social policies, curricula and other
important documents for instance strategic plans or action plans, citizens internalize them. People speak
of them as their own particularly when such values and norms are decided upon by people themselves.
These norms and values can be used to distinguish, not to segregate, natives from foreigners until
foreigners have undergone sufficient enculturation process. This refers to “the process of learning how to
be a competent member of a specific culture or group” (Masemann, 2003, p. 116). They permeate people’s
ways of perceiving, thinking and behaving (Schein, 1992). They govern people’s intentions to do certain
things in certain ways (Anscombe, 1957; Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005; Triandis, 1995).
Apart from cultural values and norms, existence of a clear educational philosophy has been seen by some
scholars as an expression of culture of a particular society. Basically, philosophy refers to belief systems of
a social group. Masemann (2003) cites educators such as Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Steiner,
Montesori and Dewey to exemplify the connectedness between educational philosophy and culture. In this
connection, it could be argued that any social group with well-established norms and values will essentially
have its educational philosophy clearly stated and implemented.
Cultural norms and values develop early in children’s life through a process known as socialization.
Socialization is “the intentional design of psychologically salient environments for children’s
development” (LeVine, 2003, p. 1). It has been described as “the most important influence on human
development” [and thus] “should be at the center of our attention in the study of human development”
(Weisner, 2003, p. xi). Some authorities view socialization as part and parcel of education because
“education has a cultural component and is not simply an information transfer” (Masemann, 2003, p. 116).
Therefore, at the core of the educational process is socialization and this starts in early childhood through
in the home setting and other socialization agents such as early childhood centers. This is why LeVine
(2003) observes that children meet cultural priorities during their preschool years. One of the main goals
of socialization is to develop in the child cultural competences to enable him or her participate
appropriately in a given culture according to set cultural values (LeVine, 2003).
If children meet cultural priorities during their preschool years and that the process through which they
meet these priorities is education or socialization, it is important to raise basic questions regarding the
education of young children in Tanzania. This study intended to answer the following questions: (1) What
specific cultural values exist in key Government documents? (2) How are these cultural values presented in
the documents subjected to analyses and what does that manner of presentation suggest in relation to
young children’s education?
44
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
I will use a guest pack I received from Concordia College, Minnesota, during my four-month exchange
programme from February to May 2005 to illustrate the issue at hand. This exchange programme involved
students and staff from university of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and those from Concordia College. In
that visit, I was given a guest pack. One of the materials in the guest pack contained a 3-page document on
which cultural norms were delineated. The cultural norms are appended (See Appendix 1).
One key message from this document is that Americans have a clear set of cultural norms. Whoever visits
America needs to understand them and make effort to live them through a process of enculturation.
These cultural norms are developed early in children’s lives both at home and school as exemplified in
social interactions between adults and children and among children themselves (See Holt, 2007).
China is perhaps the best example of how specific cultural tendencies can be delineated and developed in
children. The classic Four Great Books used in China are not only famous in the Chinese context but also
outside it. The Dream of the Red Chamber published in the 18th century by Cao Xueqin; the Romance of the
Three Kingdoms published in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong; the Journey to the West published in 1950s
by Wu Cheng’en and the Water Margin by Shi Nai’an (undated) have been used in China for centuries as
sources of important cultural values and norms. These books, prepared in form of novels, contain
different stories each intended to foster specific cultural traits in children. Each child is encouraged to read
these books to the extent that the four books have almost become obligatory.
This article does not intend to recite the content of the novels, but rather outline the key cultural values
and norms contained in each of these books. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, storytelling is used to
create a range of personalities reflecting the Confucius values. One key value in the Confucius philosophy
is loyalty to one’s superiors and family. Loyalty is used as yardstick to distinguish respectful from immoral
people. In the contemporary communist China, the phrase saving faces is still common. It is considered
disrespectful for a young people to rebuke or criticize an adult, one’s parents or leader in the open. One
has to find better ways to correct a superior figure. Loyalty is also a central theme in the Water Margin.
The Dream of the Red Chamber uses the Buddhist and Taoist religious perspectives to discuss, among other
things, the issue of enlightenment. It implicitly emphasizes the need for meditation for one to find
meaning in this world. More importantly, it encourages people to persevere in the search for truth and
good life. In the contemporary communist China, it is believed that a hardworking person never dies poor.
Hard working spirit could be one of the most important factors that have contributed to rapid socio-
economic development in China. Hardworking has become the culture of the Chinese. Preschool and
school children are taught to work hard in order to live good life in future. Similarly, in the Journey to the
West, the Buddhist and Taoist religious groups provide a spiritual approach to enlightenment. There is
also an emphasis on brevity. Brevity is viewed as an important cultural value for every person. It is
particularly critical when it comes to protecting masters or any person in power. Essentially, every child is
expected to develop brevity and have the courage to fight against any invader of the society.
45
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
uniqueness) and social embryo (internalisation of socio-cultural conventions). Basically, the absorbent
mind as the term suggests, is the developmental period characterised by massive “absorption” of
information from the environment as a result of the child’s innate curiosity (which Montessori termed
“horme”) to make sense of the world around him or her.
The unconscious absorbent mind involves children “absorbing indiscriminately from the environment that
surrounds them” while the conscious absorbent mind reflects the “child’s ability to organise and classify
information, experiences and concepts” (Isaacs, 2007, p. 11). Montessori saw that conscious absorbent
mind represents the critical periods associated with movement, language acquisition, acquaintance to
routines, small details awareness, sense refinement and internalisation of cultural norms, values and beliefs.
It is therefore in this stage where much of cultural development takes place in young children. The
practical implication of this theorization is that early childhood programmes have high potential for
learning and internalization of specific cultural values by children.
Montessori described the childhood stage as characterised by children’s keenness, eagerness and desire for
belonging. She maintained that this was the stage where children acquire the cultural aspects of life. In
adolescence, Montessori theorised that people’s behaviour becomes turbulent, unpredictable and volatile
(Isaacs, 2007). She further sub-divided this stage into puberty (12 to 13 years) and adolescence (15 to 18
years). Early childhood programmes in Tanzania cater for children from birth to eight. Hence, this article
is confined to this age cohort.
This study uses Montessori’s theoretical stance of children’s acquisition of cultural norms, values and
beliefs during the conscious absorbent mind in relation to what the Government policy documents state.
In other words, attempt is made to link policy-related statements to Montessori’s theorization of the need
to develop cultural values and norms during the conscious absorbent mind stage.
46
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
the education and care giving processes reflected in these documents are examined along the theoretical
view of internalization of specific cultural values. Hence, in the analyses, there is a focus on delineation,
presentation and emphasis given to early childhood cultural development.
In any society, aspects of life considered as normal (cultural norms) or valued (cultural values) help
develop in children attitudes towards the various aspects of life and general human conduct. The concept
of attitude is one of the three fundamentals of education; others being knowledge and skills. This concept
encompasses a number of dispositions such as interest, motivation, tolerance of ambiguity, confidence,
perseverance, honesty, love, collaboration and hardworking spirit (Fisher, 2001). As argued earlier in this
article, these cultural values develop early in children’s lives. Trying to develop them at a later stage other
than early childhood could be considered as less successful.
While development of knowledge and skills has been found to be the focus of most education systems
right from early childhood, the aspect of attitude has been rather peripheral. Enough literature exists to
substantiate this argument as learnt from several authors researching on Cognitive Affective Learning
(CAL) (See for example, Danaher et al., 2008; Hall, 2005; Hart, 2007; Owen-Smith, 2004; Zajonc, 2006).
While this trend seems persistent, it has been argued that an attitude and character development in general
is the most important element in the education reform (Danaher, 2008). Quoting President Bush’s
statement, Danaher (2008, p. 13) notes: “We’ve got to do more than just teach our children skills and
knowledge. We also want to make sure they’re kind and decent, compassionate and responsible, honest
and self-disciplined.” It is not clear yet how the key Government documents pertaining development of
human resource in Tanzania address the issue of character development at early childhood level.
3.2 Methods
Discourse analysis techniques were used to discern cultural values intended to develop citizens with good
characters as well as to learn any pitfalls, contradictions, disjunctions and discrepancies associated with the
delineation and manner of presentation of these values (Kress, 1989). Along with discourse analysis, content
analysis was deployed. Content analysis refers to “the collection and analysis of data based on close
observation of documents” (Gall, et al., 2005, pp. 135 – 136).
Five key documents were analyzed for this purpose: the Education and Training Policy (Ministry of Education
and Culture - MOEC, 1995); the Child Development Policy (Ministry of Community Development, Gender
and Children – MCDGC, 2008); the Cultural Policy (MOEC, 1997), Community Development Policy - CDP
(Ministry of Community Development, Women Affairs and Children – MCDWAC, 1996), and the
Tanzania Development Vision 2025 - TDV 2025 (URT, 2000). The selection of these documents was based
on the belief that such documents would provide cultural information deemed important by the
Government. A particular focus was on how the Government considered early childhood as a crucial
stage for cultural development.
Finally, the book Freedom and Socialism: A Selection from Writings & Speeches, 1965 – 1967 (Nyerere, 1968) was
examined to provide a link between earlier Tanzania’s (then Tanganyika) policy position vis-à-vis
contemporary policy statements. Essentially, the book establishes a philosophical grounding to the five
key documents subjected to analyses.
The analyses of these documents were solely done by the author. This would signify some kind of biasness
in data interpretation caused by subjectivity. However, the author bracketed all his previous
understandings, beliefs and assumptions in order to be as objective as possible. As is always the case with
qualitative data, objectivity is hard to achieve and only “justified subjectivity” can be claimed (Auerbach &
Silverstein, 2003). Justified subjectivity refers to researcher’s explicitness on making the text transparent,
communicable and coherent (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). However, notwithstanding this effort, the
author’s academic and professional backgrounds could still influence data interpretation.
Instead of using an analysis checklist containing the main issues (cultural values in this study) as guide for
analysis, the author decided to maintain an open mind so as to let specific cultural values unfold in the
course of analysis. Ideally, interpretive qualitative researchers do not attempt to predetermine variables
(Bogdan & Biklen, 2003).
47
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
4.0 Results
48
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
49
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
early years of life are critical for the development of a child’s mental and other potentials and, in particular
its personality development and formation“(MOEC, 1995, p. 3).
The current cultural and philosophical paths are grounded in the philosophy of education for self-reliance
whose attainment was to be accomplished within the broader framework of the socialist ideology (See
Nyerere, 1968). Socialism emphasized collective efforts for collective development. Education for self-
reliance stressed development of the people by people themselves through development of critical minds
and rational use of the resources available in the local context. In this regard, the cultural values included
cooperation, hardworking, honesty and ethics/moral uprightness.
Although several worthwhile cultural values can be learnt from the earlier policy documents, the main
pitfall could be absence of firm policy statements that emphasize early childhood cultural development. It
has to be remembered that early childhood education during this era held a lower position in most policy
documents. Much about early childhood education started in 1979 with the International Year of the Child
and subsequently, the Presidential Commission on Education popularly known as the Makweta Report
released in 1982 (Mtahabwa, 2007). The major similarity between the earlier policy statements and the
contemporary ones is based on the failure to specify cultural values to be developed in early childhood.
50
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
5.0 Discussion
It was evident from the analyses that Tanzania recognizes the crucial role played by cultural values and
norms for national development. This recognition, however, seemed to be “a property” of few individuals
or classes in society. There is also high possibility that this recognition is based on a wrong theoretical
understanding of the principles governing cultural development. More importantly, the haphazard
approach to cultural values and norms in these documents signifies problems associated with philosophy
of education. The general claim one would make regarding the state of affairs in the quest for cultural
development in Tanzania, is that the cognitive and the affective domains of learning are
compartmentalized and separated almost at the expense of the latter.
The first claim is built on the assumption that cultural values are widely shared. In a book titled Building
Community in Schools, Sergiovanni (1994) argues that core values are part and parcel of life of all members in
a community. The core values are owned by the entire community because such values are determined by
the community itself. They are not imposed by a few individuals. Otherwise, they become artificial, less
basic and less enduring. If the values mentioned in the documents analyzed in this article were widely
51
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
shared, one would expect insistence and consistence in the occurrence of these values across the
documents. Else, these values would appear differently in different documents but emphasis would be
made for society members to have the whole cultural package as in the case of the Four Great Books in
China. Currently, such books lack in Tanzania. Generally, it appears that Tanzania does not have a “smart
list” of cultural values.
Inadequate attention on cultural development in young children as observed from the ChDP and the ETP
(pre-primary and primary sections) substantiates the second claim. In essence, one would expect these
documents to be explicit on the values Tanzanians cherish so as to set a firm foundation for the education
and care of children and ultimately, national development. Based on the position held by Vygotsky
(Bodrova & Leong, 2007), Montessori (Isaacs, 2007), Steiner (Nicol, 2007) and Reggio Emilia experience
proponents (Thornton & Brunton, 2005), it becomes clear that the opportunities early childhood offers
for successful early cultural development is hardly utilized in Tanzania. In this article, neither the ChDP
nor the ETP (pre-primary and primary sections) had explicit values compared to the CP, CDP and the
TDV 2025.
Existence of particular values/norms in any country signifies existence of an articulate educational
philosophy. Educational philosophy and cultural values/norms are intricately interwoven. They both
reflect a set of beliefs about best methods of performing cultural activities and general modes of life
considered as best. These two cultural aspects relate to each other reciprocally: philosophy draws on
cultural values/norms and vice versa. Based on the findings in this study, there is high possibility that
Tanzania is facing a crisis on both educational philosophy and cultural values/norms.
Failure of the ChDP and the ETP (pre-primary and primary sections) to articulate the values considered
important, puts the focus on attitude building at jeopardy in favor of the focus on skills and knowledge.
Current researches in Tanzania indicate that most pre-primary teachers and parents emphasize acquisition
of skills and knowledge while marginalizing the attitude component of education (see Kissassi, 1994;
Mbise 1996, Mtahabwa, 2007). Where character development is viewed as important, most practitioners in
Tanzania tend to be too controlling to allow joyful and independent learning. In this case, the major focus
is on inculcation of discipline, obedience and respect for adults (See Mtahabwa, 2007). Basically, good
education and development in general are impossible in the absence of the “right” attitudes. This assertion
echoes back prophetic statement by Alexis de Tocqueville (Platt, 1989, p. 160; quoted in Danaher, 2008, p.
13) that “America is great because she is good, but if America ever ceases to be good America will cease to
be great.” What this statement means is that “good” character is the foundation for national development.
The increase in incidences of crimes and violence in America has since 1990s contributed to much
emphasis on character education (See Danaher, 2008). No wonder the social vices witnessed in the USA
could ravage Tanzania.
6.0 Conclusions
If Tanzania ever wants to remain a peaceful, unified and stable country, development of the right attitudes
early in children’s lives is of paramount importance. The foregoing sections revealed that attitude or
character development as reflected in a clear set of values that are basic, shared and enduring particularly
at the early childhood level has more potential for failure than for success. The article therefore, concludes
that, left unchecked, such a situation could lead to disappearance of the nation’s cultural identity and
consequently, disappearance of the cherished peace, stability and unity.
References
Danaher, A. C. (2008). Character Education and Student Connectedness: A Conceptual Analysis. Journal of
Cognitive-Affective Learning, 4(2), 13 – 25.
Xueqin, C. (18th C). Dream of the Red Chamber.
Guanzhong, L. (14th C.). Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Hall, M. P. (2005). Bridging the Heart and the Mind: Community as a Device for Linking Cognitive and
Affective Learning. Journal of Cognitive-Affective Learning, 1(Spring 2005), 6 – 12.
Hedegaard, M. & Chaiklin, S. (2005). A Cultural-Historical Approach: Radical-Local Teaching and Learning.
Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Hofstede, G. & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: MacGraw-
Hill.
Isaacs, B. (2007). Bringing the Montessori Approach to Your Early Years Practice. London & New York:
Routledge.
Fisher, R. (2001). Teaching Children to Think. Delta Place, Basil Blackwell.
Gall, J. P., Gall, M. D. & Borg, W. R. (2005). Applying Educational Research: A Practical Guide (5th ed.).
Boston: Pearson.
Göncü, A. (Ed.). (1999). Children’s Engagement in the World: Sociocultural Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hart, T. (2007). Reciprocal Revelation. Toward a Pedagogy of Interiority. Journal of Cognitive-Affective
Learning, 3(2), 1 – 10.
Holt, N. (2007). Bringing the High/Scope Approach to Your Early Years Practice. London & New York:
Routledge.
Kissassi, G. M. (1994). The Analysis of the Preschool Curriculum in Tanzania: Implications for a National
Curriculum. Unpublished M. A. Dissertation. University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Kress, G. (1989). Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2nd ed.).
Lema, E., Mbilinyi, M. & Rajani, R. (Eds.) (2004). Nyerere on Education [Nyerere Kuhusu Elimu]. Dar es
Salaam: HakiElimu.
LeVine, R. A. (2003). Childhood Socialization: Comparative Studies of Parenting, Learning and Educational Change.
Comparative Education Research Centre: The University of Hong Kong.
Nyerere, J. (1968). Freedom and Socialism: A Selection from Writings & Speeches, 1965– 1967. Dar es Salaam:
Oxford University Press.
Owen-Smith, P. (2004). What is Cognitive-Affective Learning? Journal of Cognitive-Affective Learning, 1 (Fall
2004), 11.
Masemann, V. L. (2003). Culture and Education. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds), Comparative
Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. (pp.115 –
132).
Mbise, A. S. (1996). Pre-primary Education versus Primary Education. Papers of Education and Development
(PED), 16 (39-51).
Ministry of Education and Culture. (1995). Education and Training Policy. Dar es Salaam. Retrieved
December 15, 2008, from http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/Educationandtrainingpolicy06.pdf
Ministry of Community Development, Women Affairs and Children. (1996). Community Development Policy.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Retrieved on August 25, 2008 from
http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/communitydevelopmentpolicy.pdf
Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Children. (2008). Child Development Policy in Tanzania (2nd ed.).
Dar es Salaam: MoEVT Press.
Ministry of Education and Culture. (1997). Cultural Policy. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Retrieved on August
25, 2008 from http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/culturalpolicy.pdf
Mtahabwa, L. (2007). Pre-primary Educational Policy and Practice in Tanzania: Observations from Urban and Rural
Pre-primary Schools. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.
Nai’an, S. (Undated). Water Margin.
Nicol, J. (2007). Bringing the Steiner Waldorf Approach to Your Early Years Practice. London & New York:
Routledge.
Nsamenang, A. B. (1992). Human Development in Cultural Context: A Third World Perspective. California: Sage
Publications.
Ratner, C. (2002). Cultural Psychology: Theory and Method. New York: Kluwer Academic.
Rogoff, B. (2003). The Cultural Nature of Human Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
53
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
L. Mtahabwa. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 43-54
Sandars, J. (2005). Practice and Policy Reviews: An Activity Theory Perspective. Work Based Learning in
Primary Care, 3, 191-201.
Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. (2nd ed.).
Sergiovanni, T. J. (1994). Building Community in Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Tanzania Development Vision 2025. Retrieved on August 25, 2008 from
http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/theTanzaniadevelopmentvision.pdf
Thorne, K. (2007). Essential Creativity in the Classroom: Inspiring Kids. London/New York: Routledge.
Thornton, L & Brunton, P. (2005). Understanding the Reggio Emilia Approach. London: David Fulton.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts Psychological Review,
96(3), 506-520.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Weisner, T. S. (2003). The Most Important Influences on Human Development. In R. A. LeVine (Ed.),
Childhood Socialization: Comparative Studies of Parenting and Educational Change. The University of Hong
Kong: Comparative Educational Research Centre. (pp. xi–xvi).
Zajonc, A. (2006). Cognitive-Affective Connections in Teaching and Learning: The Relationship between
Love and Knowledge. Journal of Cognitive-Affective Learning, 3(1), 1 – 9.
54
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
Justina Dugbazah
Tinaduzh2000@yahoo.co.uk
University of Birmingham
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed a growing research into migration as a component of development. However, in spite of the
increase in migration literature, there is a tendency to ignore gender as a critical issue. The situation in Ghana is no
exception. Most of the migration literature on Ghana tends to focus on different aspects of internal migration, as well as
on international migration. Thus, while migration has received considerable attention in Ghana, the gender dimensions
have been largely neglected. This article examines the interrelationship between gender and migration in Ghana.
Employing primary data from the Ho district and secondary data, the article examines the position of women in rural
migrant households. The findings demonstrate that rural women confront challenges in their daily activities. This
situation is compounded when men and/or women migrate, resulting in various consequences for rural households.
1.0 Introduction
Rural women are the backbone of the economy of most developing countries. Worldwide, rural women
play a major role in agriculture including farming, fisheries, forestry and livestock, producing more than 50
percent of food (Afshar, 1991). Yet rural women in developing countries are among the most
disadvantaged population groups. These women tend to have relatively lower positions with regard to
occupation, income, education, age, social class, culture or ethnicity (Oppong, 1987). Additionally, their
position within their households and community is considered lower than that of their male counterparts.
Rural women in Ghana are no exception. Abutia women, for eample, confront significant socio-cultural
and economic constraints such as lack of access to resources, limited decision-making, and relatively lower
socio-economic status within the household and community (Bukh, 1979). Their situation is worsened
when male members of the household migrate, resulting in an increase in women’s productive and
unproductive responsibilities. The research shows that Abutia women’s position in the household does
not improve, but rather remains the same, and in some instances, even deteriorates as a result if migration
(Addo & Kwegyir, 1990).1 The study suggests that effective development interventions should take into
consideration the position of women within rural households, because men and women experience the
impact of migration differently.
1 Having said that, it must be noted that rural women are not a homogenous group, and that they have
different needs and interests because they come from different backgrounds. For example, rural women’s
lifestyle, which is mainly geared towards farming, is influenced by variables that make their position
different from that of urban women.
2 The three Abutia villages tend to be referred to collectively as Abutia. Thus for the purposes of this
article, they will be referred to as such. This is particularly relevant because the study does not set out to
explore the differences or similarities between the villages.
55
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
however, is the fact that the villages have long established rural-urban migration patterns spanning two to
three generations in some households. The Abutia villages are located at the foot of the Abutia Hills
(Verdon, 1983). The predominant source of livelihood in the villages is farming.3 These villages,
however, have low soil fertility, and experience high variability of rainfall, which invariably impacts on
farm productivity. There is also low literacy and school enrolment levels, high infant and maternal
mortality rates, very poor nutrition status and limited access to capital (Dugbazah, 2008). As a result of
the lack of natural resources, unemployment and poverty, most people in the Abutia villages travel to
other parts of the country in search of better employment opportunities (Brydon & Chant, 1989).
However, only a limited number of studies have been undertaken to examine the impact of rural-urban
migration in the district (Brydon, 1987). Hence although the problem of out-migration in the district is
known to be high, its magnitude has not been fully explored. The Abutia villages, therefore, provides a
unique opportunity for researching the position of women in rural migrant households. By understanding
the conditions of these rural households, development practitioners will be in a better position to design
gender appropriate policies and projects.
3 The reduction of government subsidies on inputs such as fertilizers as a result of Structural Adjustment
Programs has significantly cut agricultural production and rural incomes.
4 It is generally accepted that early gender socialization is one of the most pertinent issues in early
childhood, affecting both boys and girls. The foundations for stereotypes in gender roles are laid through
early gender socialization. There are numerous examples from varied parts of the world confirming that
56
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
label on the child as either a “girl” or “boy”, they begin treating the child in a stereotypical fashion
(Oppong, 1987:72). This stereotyping follows the child throughout his or her life, and is reinforced by
socialization, the process of acquiring cultural values and norms, through the major socializing agents of
family, school, religion and the mass media (Gramsci, 1971). In Abutia this is achieved mainly through the
influence of family, especially grandparents who tell value-laden stories and adages to children. The study
found that the gender ideology prevalent in the Abutia villages is reflected abundantly in the division of
labour within households, and they are presented both as a legitimizing process, and also as a social reality
(Byerlee, 1974).5 Traditionally, Abutia women are defined physically and intellectually as the “weaker”
sex, and in all ways subordinate to male authority. In private life women are subject to fathers, husbands,
brothers and even adult sons. Publicly, men dominate all decision-making in political, legal and economic
affairs in the villages (Chant, 1998). In order to determine the societal perspectives on the prevailing
gender ideology, respondents were interviewed to obtain their view of the ideal woman and the ideal man.
The findings show that community members define the ideal woman as a hard worker who obeys her
parents in her early years, and later her husband. She is described as soft spoken, nurturing, compliant and
subordinate. The ideal woman is also seen as primarily responsible for domestic duties, and crucial to the
integrity of the family unit. The ideal Abutia man on the other hand, is described as a hard worker who
honors his parents, respects his wife and provides for the financial needs of his family. The research
findings further revealed that the reality of men and women in this regard is very different from what is
perceived as “ideal.” For example, due to unemployment and poverty in the villages, men are not able to
provide for the financial needs of their families. This situation is one evidence of the daily challenge, which
have become the lived reality of rural households in the Abutia villages.
gender socialization is intertwined with the ethnic, cultural, and religious values of a given society. And
gender socialization continues throughout the life cycle.
5 Gender ideology refers to attitudes and behaviors about what is appropriately feminine and masculine
according to the gender stereotypes of one’s society. For details see Barnett et al., 1993.
6 Land tenure refers to a collection of rights, only some of which are held at any one time by a particular
individual or social unit (Kotey & Tsikata. 1998). These range from those held by a society’s political
entities on down to individuals who may have their tenures secondarily from other individuals (such as
family heads).
7 Both formal and informal laws tend to discriminate against women across the Abutia villages, and the
rest of the country, thereby making it almost impossible for women to get equal access to land as men.
The land tenure issue is very pertinent to this study because it investigates the position of women in rural
Abutia agricultural households.
8 The research found that in the Abutia villages, males dominate in the interconnecting political, social and
economic domains, and they define the terms of access to land and control over it.
57
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
Most marriages and households in the Abutia villages are predominantly monogamous, with very few
polygamous households. However in the polygamous households, land allocation tends to depend on a
wife’s industriousness, her number in the line of other wives, or the number of male children she has
produced (Agarwal, 1990). Since her status may change at any time, she is not assured of the tenancy on a
plot from crop to crop. Thus regardless of the type of marriage practiced, women are essentially
temporary custodians of land, passing from father to male heir, even though they may be de-facto heads
of household (Goldstein & Udry, 2002). These gender inequalities in land tenure have implications for
both female-headed households and female members of male-headed households in Abutia. Constraints
relating to access, tenure security and sustainability impede the improvement of men’s and women’s
productivity (Manuh, 1984). This is because women cannot assume complete responsibility over their
livelihood until they have economic security. These socio-cultural norms and institutional arrangements
accentuate women’s lower socio-economic status, and indirectly encourages low agricultural productivity,
which subsequently leads to poverty and out-migration.
9 See Awumbila (2001) for an elaboration of issues of gender and resource allocation in Ghana.
58
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
avoid further deterioration of services to poor rural women (Goldstein & Udry, 2002). The Ghana
government has embarked on the National Health Insurance Scheme to address this problem. However,
the implementation of the Scheme has proven to be very problematic, and has not solved the problem by
a long shot. In the longer term, educating women is a better solution because increased education for
women results in reduced fertility and mortality rates. Women who are healthier and more educated will
be more productive members of the economy. Furthermore, improving the health and education of
women produces long-term benefits by improving the health and productivity of their children.
10 See Manuh (1984) for a discussion of the relationships between the law and women’s status in Ghana.
11 On the one hand, a husband is seen as having full control of his wife, including sexual monopoly and
the right to claim damages in the case of adultery (Goldstein & Udry, 2002). The wife, on the other hand,
does not have the same rights.
12 The increase in divorce however, is more common in urban areas among educated and economically
independent women.
59
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
Law, PNDC Law 111 (1985) has been in existence for more than two decades, there is limited knowledge
of its existence in Ghana (Tsikata, 2001). The result has been the continued application of customary
laws to property distribution of a spouse who dies intestate, with consequential injustices for women and
children. These adverse marital circumstances combine with livelihood insecurity to make women in rural
households highly vulnerable to economic stresses.
13 Access to credit in Ghana is difficult. It is even more difficult for women than men. Women tend to
finance their businesses from personal savings, which is often insufficient. Traditional sources of
borrowing include loans and credits from traders and relations. Women use these sources more because
of their inability to access loans from banking sources. Such formal sources demand guarantees such as
collateral, and proper book-keeping methods which women are unable to provide due to their lack of
access to property and their low educational level.
60
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
14Socio-cultural implications of rural-urban migration relate to its effect on the structure and cohesiveness
of the family, and these implications have gender perspectives.
61
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
community, are just as important (Afshar, 1998).15 Women and men in the Abutia villages have distinctly
different daily activities and social constraints, with women working longer hours than their male
counterparts (Boserup, 1970). The working day for women in Abutia often starts at about 4.30am and
continues until 8 or 9pm. The time covers different types of labour, such as time spent on family farm,
petty trading or any other economic activity. Additionally, women bear primary household responsibility
for child-rearing, cooking, washing, and collecting fuel-wood and water. We observed that the time spent
on household activities is longer in migrant households where the woman takes on an added responsibility
of work that used to be performed by a male or female migrant. This is because as the men in Abutia
households migrate to urban centers in search of work, women are often compelled to undertake
increased tasks in addition to other existing household responsibilities. These women are, therefore,
increasingly faced with a “double workday” of responsibility for household tasks as well as production
(Fernandez-Kelly, 1981). The migration of men and working-age youths from Abutia has resulted in the
transfer of workloads from adults to the elderly, and an increase in the labour burden of girl children
(Dugbazah, 2008). Older daughters, become responsible for caring for younger siblings and for helping
with domestic chores. These girls tend to be pulled out of school to assist their mothers, with important
repercussions on their educational attainment.
15 Rural women, with special reference to those in food production, engage in many “invisible” activities
that affect their productive lives (Murray, 1981; Oppong & Abu, 1987). According to Oppong (1987)
Ghanaian women tend to be more heavily burdened than their male counterparts across most socio-
economic groups. The drudgery that characterizes women’s daily activities was clearly seen during our
research.
16 See Brydon and Chant (1989) Chapt 4 for further discussion of the household.
62
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
household heads, a significant male member of the household, or the migrant, before making any major
decision. During the interviews, female participants argued that they have been put in a difficult position
of having to deal with the migrant as well as male members of the migrant’s family. Male migration,
therefore, conserves the traditional kinship relations and patriarchal values, thus reinforcing gender
asymmetries within the Abutia household.
5.0 Conclusion
Rural women continue to remain obscure and invisible in the process of economic development, although
they comprise the majority of the population in rural areas of Ghana. This study observed that gendered
rights and obligations are shaped in a large part by local gender ideologies and social norms. The
subservient position of women in the household is stronger in rural areas with its traditional beliefs in
submissiveness to the traditional family hierarchy. The lower social status of rural women is a reflection of
the prejudices that still exist against women. This already vulnerable position of women is worsened by
male out-migration, which tends to have gender differential implications for the position of women in the
household. The findings show that migration of men from Abutia results in greater on-farm and off-farm
responsibilities and worked longer hours for women. Despite recent gains in some areas, gender
inequalities continue to constrain women’s ability to participate in, and contribute to the economy. In
order to address fully these longstanding gender disparities, it is necessary to recognize that the supply side
of the market plays a critical role in contributing to rural-urban migration, with different outcomes for
men and women.
While rural-urban migration is important for increasing the incomes and living standards of households in
the Abutia villages and other rural areas in Ghana, it must not be viewed as a panacea. On the contrary,
male migration may simply serve to reinforce the subservient position of women, and its associated
household decision outcomes. In order to maintain the social fabric of rural communities and revitalize
local economies, the full involvement of women is important in the development process. This means that
equal opportunities must be systematically integrated in the design and implementation of rural
development programmes, to ensure that women and men can participate, and benefit on equal terms. All
these issues are critical to understanding the context of household production and decision-making,
especially in resource-poor communities undergoing rural-urban migration. The findings of this study
support the contention made by other scholars that gender must be treated as a theoretical basis of
differentiation, and not simply a control variable in the analysis of development concepts.
References
Achanfuo-Yeboah, D. (1990) “A Theoretical Model for the Study of Migration and Urbanization.”
Population Research Laboratory Discussion Paper No. 66, May 1990. University Of Alberta, Department Of
Sociology.
Adepoju, A. (1995a) “Emigration Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa” In International Migration, 33(3/4): 315-
91
Adepoju, A. (1995b) “Migration in Africa: An Overview” in J. Baker And T.A. Aina (Eds) The Migration
Experience In Africa. Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 87-108.
Addo, N.O. & Kwegyir, A. (1990) “Short-Term Circular Migration in The Context of Socio-Economic
Development In Rural Ghana: The Case Of Rice Farmers In Some Selected Rural Communities In
The North-Eastern Volta Region.” Working Paper No. 173. Geneva, International Labour Office.
Afshar, H. (1991) Women, Development and Survival in the Third World. New York: Longman.
Agarwal, B. (Ed) (1990) Structures of Patriarchy: The State, Community and the Household. London and New
Jersey: Zed Books.
Agbodeka, F. (1992) An Economic History of Ghana From the Earliest Times. Accra: Ghana University Press.
Agesa, R. & Kim, S. (2001) Rural to Urban Migration as Household Decision: Evidence From Kenya.
Review of Development Economics. (5) 60-75.
Ardayfio-Schandorf, E. (1993) “Household Energy Supply And Rural Women’s Work In Ghana” In J.H.
Momsen et al. (Eds) Different Places, Different Voices. London: Routledge.
Ardayfio-Schandorf, E. (Ed) (1994) Family And Development In Ghana. Legon: Ghana University Press.
63
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
Bloor, M., Frankland, J., Thomas, M., & Robson, K. (2001). Focus Groups in Social Research SAGE:
London. UK.
Boserup, E. (1970) Women’s Role in Economic Development. London, UK: George Allen Urwin.
Brydon, L. & Chant, S. (1989) Women in the Third World: Gender Issues in Rural and Urban Areas. Edward
Elgar Publishing.
Bukh, J. (1979) The Village Woman in Ghana. Upsalla: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
Byerlee D. (1974) “Rural-Urban Migration in Africa: Theory, Policy and Research Implications,”
International Migration Review, 8(1974)3:543-66.
Caldwell, J.C. (1969) African Rural-Urban Migration: The Movement to Ghana’s Towns. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Chant, S. (1998) “Households, Gender and Rural-urban Migration: Reflections on Linkages and
Considerations for Policy.” Environment and Urbanization 10(1): 5-21.
Dugbazah, J. (2008) Gender, Migration and Rural Livelihoods in Ghana: A Case of the Ho District. Unpublished
PhD Thesis. University of Birmingham, UK.
Dzobo, N.K. (1975) “Introduction to the Indigenous Ethic of the Ewe of West Africa.” The Oguaa
Educator. Cape Coast, 6, No. 1, 1975, p82-97.
Elson, D. (ed.) (1995) Male Bias in the Development Process. New York: Manchester University Press.
FAO (2000) “Women, Agriculture and Rural Development.” A Synthesis Report of the Africa Region.
Fernandez-Kelly, M. (1981) “The Sexual Division of Labour, Development, and Women’s Status.” Current
Anthropology 22 (4):414-419.
Findlay, S. (1995) “Migration and Family Interactions in Africa.” in A. Adepoju (Ed) The African Family in
the Development Process. London, Zed Books.
Francis, E. (2000) “Gender, Migration and Multiple Livelihoods: Cases from Eastern and Southern
Africa.” The Journal of Development Studies. Vol. 38, No. 5 June 2002.
Francis, E. (1995) “Migration and Changing Divisions of Labour: General Relations and Economic
Change in Koguta, Western Kenya” in Journal of International African Institute, Vol65, No. 2, 1995,
p.197-216.
Ghosh, B. (1992) “Migration-Development Linkages: Some Specific Issues And Practical Policy
Measures” In International Migration 30(3/4), 423-452.
Goldstein, M. & Udry, C. (2002) “Gender, Land Rights And Agriculture In Ghana” Mimeo, LSE:
London.
Gramsci, Antonio (1971): Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Gugler, J. (2002) “The Son of The Hawk Does Not Remain Abroad: The Rural-Urban Connection in
Africa.” African Studies Review 45(1):21-41.
Gugler, J. (1991) “Life In A Dual System Revisited: Urban-Rural Ties In Enugu, Nigeria, 1961-87.” World
Development. 19(5):399-409.
Gugler, J. & Ludwar-Ene (1995) Gender and Migration in Africa South of The Sahara. The Migration Experience
in Africa. J. Baker And T.A. Aina. Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Haddad, L. (1991) “Gender and Poverty in Ghana: A Descriptive Analysis of Selected Outcomes and
Processes.” IDS Bulletin, Vol. 22. No. 1, January, 5-16.
Hunger Project (1999) “The Status of Women is the Major Causative Factor” in The Persistence Of Hunger,
New York.
Hunger Project (2000) “The African Women Food Farmer Initiative: Exclusion From Development
Policy and Programming Equation”, New York. Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 4 #1
November 2002 91
Kabeer, N. (1991) Gender, Production and Well-Being: Rethinking the Household Economy. Discussion Paper.
Sussex: Institute of Development Studies (IDS).
Manuh, T. (1993) “Women, the State and Society Under The PNDC.” In Gyimah-Boadi, E. (ed) Ghana
Under PNDC Rule. CODESIA. Pp 176-195, London.
Manuh, T. (1992) “Methodologies for Gender Analysis: An African Perspective,” In Kumekpor, M.,
Manuh, T. and Adomako, A. (eds). Legon: University of Ghana, Development and Women’s Studies.
Manuh, T. (1984) Law and the Status of Women in Ghana. UN Economic Commission for Africa. Addis
Ababa.
Momsen, J. (1991) Women in Development in the Third World. NY: Routledge.
Moser, C. (1989) “Gender Planning in the Third World: Meeting Practical and Strategic Gender Needs.”
World Development, Vol. 17, No. 11, 1799-1828.
64
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
J. Dugbazah. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 55-65
Moser, C. (1993) Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. London: Routledge.
Oppong, C. (1983) (Ed). Female and Male in West Africa. London: Allen & Urwin.
Oppong, C. (Ed). (1987a) Sex, Roles, Population and Development in West Africa: Policy Related Studies
on Work and Demographic Issues. London: Heinemann.
Oucho, J.O & Gould, W. (1993) “Internal Migration, Urbanization and Population Distribution” In K.A.
Foote, K.H. Hill and L.G. Martin (Eds) Demographic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, Dc:
National Academy Press. Pp. 256-296.
Palys, T. (1992) Research Decisions: Qualitative and Quantitative Perspectives. Toronto: Harcourt Brace
Javanovich Canada Inc.
Panuccio, T. (1989) “Rural Women in Ghana: Their Workloads, Access and Organizations.” In W.P.
Linberry (Ed). (1989) Assessing Participatory Development: Rhetoric versus Reality. Westview Press/Ifad.
Parpart, J. (Ed). (1989) Women and Development in Africa: Comparative Perspectives. New York: University Press
of America.
Ritchie, J. et al. (2003). ‘Designing and Selecting Samples’, In Ritchie, J. and Lewis, J. (eds.) Qualitative
Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers. London: Sage Publications.
Silberschmidt, M. (1991) “Rethinking Men and Gender Relations: An Investigation of Men, Their
Changing Roles within the Household, and the Implications for Gender Relations in Kisii District,
Kenya.” Copenhagen: Center for Development Research. P91. Research Report/Cdr, No 16).
Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods of Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. London: Sage
Publications.
Skeldon, R. (1997) Migration and Development: A Global Perspective, Longman
Steady, F. (1985) “African Women at the End of the Decade.” Africa Report, 30 (March-April).
Todaro M., (1969) “A Model of Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed
Countries.” The American Economic Review 59(1969)1:138-148.
Tsikata, D. (Ed) (2001) Gender Training In Ghana: Politics, Issues and Tools. Accra: Woeli Publishing Services.
Twumasi-Ankrah, K. (1995) “Rural-Urban Migration and Socioeconomic Development in Ghana: Some
Discussions.” Journal of Social Development in Africa 10(2): 13-22.
Twum-Baah, K., Nabila, J. & Aryee, A. (1995) Migration Research Study in Ghana. (1). Internal Migration.
Ghana Statistical Service. Accra. Ghana.
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). (2000). Women And Economic
Empowerment, New York.
Verdon, M. (1983) The Abutia Ewe of West Africa. New York: Mouton Publishers.
Yeboah, I. (1998) “Geography of Gender Economic Status in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana, 1960-
1984.” The Canadian Geographer 42 (1998): 158-173.
Yogesh, A. (1984) Women in the Villages, Men in the Towns. Paris: Unesco.
Zacharia, K.C. & Conde, J. (1981) Migrations In West Africa: Demographic Aspects. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
65
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
Clara Momanyi
clamona@yahoo.com
Chuo Kikuu cha Kenyatta
Ikisiri
Tangu kuanzishwa kwa mapambano dhidi ya ubaguzi wa wanawake ulimwenguni, makundi mbalimbali ya
wanawake yamejitokeza na mitazamo tofauti tofauti kwa lengo la kuyatafutia mdodoso matatizo yao. Hata
hivyo, baadhi ya wataalamu, watafiti na wahakiki wanaoshughulikia masuala ya wanawake, wametoa rai
kwamba nadharia nyingi zinazovyazwa katika nchi za magharibi haziwezi kutumiwa kutatulia shida
zinazomzonga mwanamke wa Kiafrika. Matilaba ya makala hii ni kutathmini mitazamo na rai za baadhi ya
wataalamu wa masuala ya mtazamo - kike, ili kubainisha nafasi na mchango wa wanawake wa Kiafrika katika
kuvyaza nadharia muafaka za kushughulikia uhakiki wa fasihi zao. Makala inaiduhushi nadharia ya Freud,
na nafasi yake katika uchanganuzi wa masuala ya kike katika jamii ya leo.
1.0 Utangulizi
Wana harakati wa masuala ya mtazamo - kike barani Afrika wamo mbioni kutafakari njia muafaka za
kuwasilisha matatizo yanayowakumba wanawake wa Kiafrika, ukiwemo usawiri wao katika fasihi. Hii ni
kwa sababu Aidha, inajadili maoni yanayotolewa na wanawake wa Kiafrika, wakiwemo wahakiki wa
mtazamo - kike, kuhusu mazingo yanayowakabili katika kuisaka na kuitambua nadharia itakayoweza
kutumiwa kuhakikia matini za kifasihi.
Katika makala hii, masuala yahusuyo mtazamo - kike yanatambuliwa kwa dhana ya 'Unisai'. Neno hili
linatokana na neno 'nisai' linalomaanisha mwanamke au wanawake. Kwa sababu masuala haya yanahusisha
wanawake, neno 'unisai' linaweza kuafiki mada hii. Uundaji wa neno hili unatokana na mijadala
inayoendelezwa na wasomi wa fasihi ya Kiswahili, hususan katika kutafuta istilahi toshelezi za
kushughulikia dhana mpya zinazoibuka kila uchao katika ulimwengu wa fasihi. Unisai basi, ni matokeo ya
mijadala hiyo inayokita katika masuala ya kinadharia.
Fauka ya haya, katika makala hii neno 'uana' limetumiwa kama kitengo cha kijamii. Dhana hii imetumiwa ili
kubainisha zile tofauti za majukumu ya kijamii baina ya mwanamume na mwanamke. Baadhi ya wataalamu
wa fasihi ya Kiswahili awali walipendekeza neno 'Umenke' kutumiwa kubainisha tofauti hizi.
Hata hivyo, baadhi ya wataalamu wa maswala ya kike wameipigia maswali istilahi hii. Wengi hawakubaliani
na matumizi ya neno hili kwani wanahisi limesheheni taasubi ya kiume. Hii ni kwa sababu linahusisha
maneno mawili; ume-(kiume) na -nke(kike). Kama ilivyo kawaida katika jamii za mfumo wa kuumeni,
mwanamume ndiye anayetangulizwa kwanza kabla ya mwanamke. Kwa vile neno linaanza na jinsi ya
kiume ume-, basi neno 'umenke' limeghoshi taasubi ya kiume. Hata hivyo, neno 'unisai' limo katika
kujaribiwa, na mustakabali wake utategemea jinsi linavyopokewa, kukubalika, na kutumiwa katika jamii.
Kwa upande mwingine, neno 'jinsia' limetumiwa kumaanisha kitengo cha maumbile. Binadamu kaumbwa
mwanamke au mwanamume. Kadhalika, 'ujinsia' ni zile hisia zinazoandamana na jinsia ya mtu, na ambazo
huchangia kumdunisha mtu wa jinsia nyingine, au kumtwaza mtu dhidi ya mwingine kutokana na hali hiyo
ya kimaumbile.
Katika kuhitimisha, makala inatoa mapendekezo yatakayozingatiwa katika uteuzi wa nadharia
itakayotumiwa kama mhimili wa kuhakiki fasihi ya Kiafrika. Mapendekezo hayo yanazingatia hali halisi za
maisha ya mwanamke wa Kiafrika.
66
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
67
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
Freud haina nafasi katika masuala ya Kiafrika. Mwanamke wa Kiafrika huthamini zaidi wajibu wake katika
ujenzi wa jamii yake, malezi ya watoto, na majukumu yake katika familia. Hana nafasi ya kuangalia viungo
vya mwili wake kama hatima yake, wala kuuonea fahari uume kiasi cha kuuhusudu.
Hali hii ni tofauti miongoni mwa Wana-unisai wa Marekani, kwa mfano, ambao wameuvua madaraka
umama kwani waliuona kama kizuizi cha kuwafanya wanawake wasifanikiwe katika utekelezaji wa
majukumu ya umma, kama vile kuajiriwa. Barani Afrika, dhana ya umama ilishitadi kwenye miaka ya 1930,
na ililenga kuwafanya wanaume watambue kazi walizofanya wanawake nyumbani na kwingineko. Mwana-
unisai mtajika Filomena Steady alikuwa mmoja wa wale walioendeleza mtazamo huo ulioshamiri hadi
miaka ya 1980. Baadhi ya waandishi wa kike pia walibuni kazi za fasihi zenye mwelekeo huu (Taz. Penina
Muhando Nguzo Mama (1982). Baadaye, wakereketwa wa masuala ya Unisai walitambua kuwa kwa batini
yake, wanawake wa Kiafrika hawahitaji ukubalifu wa wanaume kufanya kile ambacho ni haki yao.
Aidha, ilibainika kuwa wanaume hawana nafasi katika harakati za ukombozi wa wanawake kwani wao ndio
hasa chanzo cha udunishwaji wao. Hii ndiyo maana waliipigia maswali dhana iliyoimarishwa na serikali
nyingi barani Afrika, 'Wanawake na Maendeleo'. Chini ya uvuli huu, serikali za Kiafrika zilianza
kuwatunukia baadhi ya wanawake nyadhifa mbalimbali katika sekta za umma. Wengine waliteuliwa hata
kuingia bungeni. Kule kuwazawadia wanawake kulionekana na baadhi ya wakereketwa wa kike kama
kuwachukua wanawake saw na watu wasioweza kupigania vyeo hivyo kutokana na tajriba, ujuzi na uwezo
wao.
Jambo muhimu linalobainika miongoni mwa wana-unisai wa Kiafrika ni kwamba hawazingatii mwili wa
kike kama chanzo cha maonevu, tofauti na walivyoona wale wa Kimagharibi. Wanashikilia kwamba
maonevu yao yanatokana na masuala nyeti yanayoukumba ulimwengu wa tatu. Kwa upande mwingine,
kuna wale waliopigia mbizi nadharia ya Freud na kuibuka na tafsiri mpya ya dhana ya 'utata wa Oedipus'.
Waliipa dhana hii sura mpya isiyofungamanishwa na mielekeo ya kuumeni. Aidha, ilibainika kwamba
mawazo ya Freud yanaweza kuwa chanzo cha ukombozi wa mwanamake au pia yakatumiwa kumtia
utumwani.
68
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
Aidha, maonevu kwa wanawake walemavu, wanawake tasa au hata sharuti za ukeketaji wa watoto wa kike,
na ukewenza, ni vikwazo vinavyodumaza maendeleo ya wanawake na watoto wa kike kwa jumla.
Maonevu, dhuluma na ubaguzi wa wanawake ni mambo yaliyosawiriwa katika kazi nyingi za fasihi barani
Afrika. Waandishi wa kike na kiume wamemsawiri mwanamke kwa njia tofauti zinazochora taswira halisi
ya maisha ya mwanamke wa Kiafrika, hata ingawa zingine zimepiga chuku majukumu yake.
Wanawake wa Kiafrika wakiwemo wale wa nchi zinazostawi, walichukua mwelekeo tofauti mnamo mwaka
wa 1976. Hatua hii ilichukuliwa katika kongamano la wanawake lililofanyika huko Wellesley college (Okeke
1996:226). Katika jumuiko hili, wanawake kutoka sehemu mbalimbali walitofautiana vikali na wanawake
wa kimagharibi. Walidai kwamba haina haja ya kushirikiana nao katika harakati za kuukomoa ubabe wa
mfumo wa kuumeni iwapo hisia za kibeberu na ukiritimba wa mataifa ya kimagharibi dhidi ya mataifa
yanayostawi bado unaendelea. Walishikilia kwamba unyanyasaji huo lazima ujadiliwe kwa kina kwenye
ajenda za mapambano hayo ya wanawake.
Tofauti hizi zilisababisha utasa katika uendelezaji wa harakati hizo, hali iliyodumu mpaka kwenye miaka ya
1980. Baadaye, wanawake wakereketwa barani Afrika walianza kujadili juu ya kuasisiwa kwa nadharia ya
unisai ili kushughulikia fasihi ya Kiafrika. Isitoshe, wanawake wasomi barani Afrika walianzisha mashirika
ya kiutafiti ili kuyatafutia mdodoso maswala haya nyeti. Ilibainika zaidi kwamba unisai wa Kiafrika ni
tofauti na ule wa kimagharibi tuliouzoea tangu miaka ya sitini. wana-unisai wa Kiafrika hujishughulisha na
masuala ya kuyamudu maisha ndani ya wavu wa mfumo wa ugandamizaji. Wanawake waafrika wanapigania
haki zao kama vile haki za kumiliki ardhi na mali, haki ya kuweza kudhibiti ugawaji wa chakula, ajira, na
hakikisho la usalama katika utekelezaji wa kazi zao. Haya ndiyo masuala yanayopaswa kushirikishwa katika
nadharia ya unisai wa Kiafrika.
Waasisi wa mtazamo huu ni kama vile Filomena Steady, Olufemi Taiwo, na Ayesha Imam (Okeke
1996:226). Mwana harakati mashuhuri Ifi Amadiume (1987:8), kwa mfano, alikerwa na kule kuletewa
dhana, mapendekezo, na masuluhisho ya kisiasa kutoka katika mataifa nje ya bara hili. Alikaulisha kwamba
midodoso hiyo ya kimagharibi haina budi kupisha maarifa, juhudi, na mitazamo ya waafrika wenyewe
katika kutafuta njia za kujiopoa. Mijadala inayoendelezwa katika kipindi cha baada ya Usasa (Post-
Modernism) kama anavyokiri Parpat (1993:443), imewakabidhi wanawake wa ulimwengu wa tatu
wanaobaguliwa, silaha za kujihami. Wanawake hawa walijitosa katika mijadala hii kwani waliona matatizo
yanayowakabili ni tofauti kwa hali nyingi na yale yanayowakabili wanawake wa kimagharibi.
Ieleweke pia kwamba kwa muda mrefu sasa, wanawake wazungu wamemiliki ujuzi wa kusoma taaluma
zihusuzo wanawake wa Kiafrika. Ni jambo la kufadhaisha kuona kwamba vitabu vilivyoandikwa na
wazungu hao havikuvuviwa tajriba za waafrika wala kupata mchango wa kitaaluma wa waafrika wenyewe.
Aghalabu, baadhi ya vitabu hivyo vimesheheni upotovu na ukengeushi kuhusu maisha halisi ya wanawake
wa Kiafrika. Aidha, hawajaielewa nafsi ya mwanamke wa Kiafrika wala taabu zinazomkabili. Ni jambo la
kusikitisha kuona kwamba baadhi ya kauli zinazoendelezwa na wataalamu kutoka nje zina upotovu
mwingi.
Okeke (1996:231), kwa mfano, anasema hatuwezi kuanza kuzungumzia juu ya mitazamo ya kiuhakiki
wakati ambapo wingi wa tajriba zetu haujagunduliwa na kuhakikiwa. Bila kuchunguza tajriba halisi za
wanawake barani Afrika, hatuwezi kuzungumzia kikamilifu juu ya nafasi yetu katika safu za mijadala ya
masuala ya Unisai. Uchunguzi huo ni muhimu ili kujenga uhusiano na makundi mengine ya wanawake
ulimwenguni.
Katika muktadha wa fasihi ya Afrika, kuna mjadala unaoendelezwa na wataalamu wa kifasihi kuhusu
mhusika wa kike katika fasihi za Kiafrika. Kwa mfano, ni ukweli usiopingika kwamba sio waandishi wote
wanaowasawiri wanawake kama wapenzi, masuria, makahaba, au vitegemezi tu vya wanaume. Wapo wale
wanaowasawiri kama viumbe wenye umahiri mkubwa katika kutoa maamuzi bora, mashujaa, na watu
waliojitoa mhanga kwa manufaa ya wengine (Wafia dini), na kuipiga vita mifumo ya udhalimu.
Mwandishi Mariama Ba ananukuliwa akizungumzia juu ya mustakabali wa mwanamke wa Kiafrika katika
fasihi (Zell na wengine 1983:385). Anasema zile nyimbo za Kiafrika zilizoimbwa ili kuwakumbuka akina
mama wa Afrika, na ambazo zinaeleza matamanio ya watu kuhusu Mama Afrika, sasa hazitoshi
kumshughulikia mwanamke wa Kiafrika. Huyu lazima apewe fursa anayostahili katika fasihi, hususan
jukumu lake katika mapambano ya ukombozi akiwa sambamba na mwanamume. Aidha, apewe fursa
inayolingana na mchango wake katika maendeleo ya kiuchumi barani. Baadhi ya waandishi wamejaribu
kusawiri jinsi mwanamke huyo anavyojikakamua. Mwandishi Emecheta (1982) anamsawiri mwanamke wa
69
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
kisasa akiwa amekabiliwa na mivutano aina mbili. Kwanza, anakabiliwa na usasa unaomshawishi kuvua
baadhi ya hisia na mielekeo potovu ya jamii yake, na upande wa pili anakabiliwa na uasili wa Kiafrika
unaomhitaji anyenyekee mila na desturi za jamii yake.
Hali hii inabainika kupitia mhusika Nko katika Double Yoke anayeshindwa kujitanzua katika utata huo
unaomzonga. Lakini wahusika wanaoonyesha kufaulu kuvua nafsi hiyo bandia ya kike ni kupitia kazi za
Flora Nwapa kama vile wahusika Idu na Efuro (Davies na Graves 1990:176). Kwingineko katika fasihi ya
Kiswahili tunakumbana na kazi zinazosawiri mivutano ya kijamii na jinsi wahusika wa kike wanavyojizatiti
ili kujiopoa kutoka katika mikatale ya kiutamaduni na uhalisi wa maisha yanayowazunguka. Mazrui (1981)
katika Kilio cha Haki anamsawiri mhusika Lanina anayeendeleza mapambano dhidi ya athari za ukoloni,
mila na itikadi za jamii yake. Analipigia mbizi swala la siasa na nafasi ya mwanamke katika asasi hii.
Tunabainishiwa kwamba mwanamke ana uhuru wa kufanya kazi yoyote bila kuwekewa vikwazo. Naye
Mwachofi (1987) katika Mama Ee, anayasawiri mapambano dhidi ya mila zinazomdhalilisha mwanamke.
Mwandishi analijadili swala la ajira miongoni mwa wanawake, na kuonyesha kwamba mwanamke ana haki
ya kuajiriwa ili ajisimamie kiuchumi.
Kwingineko katika fasihi za Kiafrika Mariama Ba (1980) katika So Long A Letter anayasawiri mafunzo
anayopewa mhusika Nabou ili kumwezesha kuwa na hisia za upole, ukarimu, unyamavu, na utiifu ili aweze
kuishi vyema na mwanamume (Taz. Utenzi wa Mwanakupona). Fauka ya haya, wahariri wa Ngambika
wanauona umuhimu wa kurejelea kazi za fasihi ya Kiafrika, hususan zile zilizoandikwa, ili kutathmini upya
umbuji na itikadi za waandishi hao. (Davies na Graves 1990:vii). Wanatoa msisitizo wa kuhakiki nafasi ya
wahusika wa kike waliogubikwa na vivuli vya mifumo ya kuumeni, ili kuchunguza upya majukumu yao
katika kazi hizo.
Ipo haja ya kutumia nadharia ya Unisai wa Kiafrika kuhakiki kazi hizo kwa minajili ya kumtoa mwanamke
kutoka katika ukiritimba wa mifumo dhalimu na kumwezesha kujisimamia ili kutimiza shughuli zake
kikamilifu katika majukwaa ya fasihi sawa na mwanamume.
70
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
Miongoni mwao wamependekeza vigezo mahsusi vitakavyotumiwa katika tahakiki za fasihi ya Kiafrika,
hususan ile iliyoandikwa na waafrika wenyewe. Kwanza kabisa, nadharia hiyo ihusishe kipengele cha
ushirika kati ya wanaume na wanawake. Hii ni kwa sababu ni muhimu kutambua mapambano ya pamoja
yanayotekelezwa na jinsia hizi mbili ili kufifisha unyanyasaji wa kigeni. Kwa miaka mingi, wanawake
wameshirikiana sako kwa bako na wanaume ili kukomoa mifumo dhalimu ya kigeni. Udhalimu huo
ulioshitadi katika enzi ya ukoloni na ambao kimelea chake ni ukoloni mambo-leo, huwanyanyasa waafrika
wote kwa jumla.
Hata hivyo, mwanamke wa Kiafrika hunyanyaswa kuwili; mikatale na sharuti za kiutamaduni kwa upande
mmoja, na unyanyasaji wa kigeni unaojitokeza kwa njia nyingi ili kumdumaza zaidi. Ijapokuwa Unisai huo
huenda ukajikita katika malengo na mahitaji tofauti na ule wa kimagharibi, ipo haja ya kujenga ushirikiano
katika kutathmini vigezo vya nadharia za kimagharibi, ili kuteua vile vinavyoafiki hali na maisha ya
mwanamke wa Kiafrika. Nadharia kama hiyo, ikite katika uhalisi wa mazingira na maisha ya mwanamke
huyu. Historia ni kielelezo muhimu cha tajriba na maisha ya watu. Ngara (1985) anashadidia umuhimu huu
kwa kueleza kuwa kuondoa historia katika fasihi ya Kiafrika, ni sawa na kuzama katika utupu na uchapwa
wa kiusomi.
Kwa hivyo, nadharia hiyo irejelee historia kama vile fasihi za kale na matendo ya watu ili kuvumbua
mambo yaliyomthakilisha mwanamke. Hii ni pamoja na kubainisha mifano bora ya mashujaa wa kike
watakaokuwa vielelezo bora vya kumhakiki mwanamke wa Kiafrika. Mifano kama hiyo inaweza kushadidia
hoja kwamba mwanamke wa Kiafrika alikuwa huru zaidi na aliheshimiwa katika nyakati za kabla ya majilio
ya wakoloni. Aidha, nadharia hiyo haina budi kutambua uwezo wa mwanamke huyo wa kujitegemea na
kuzalisha mali bila kumtegemea mwanamume.
Kwa hivyo, nadharia ijihusishe na maisha halisi ya mwanamke wa Kiafrika, kadhia anazotekeleza, na
mabadiliko anayoleta katika jamii yake. Mtazamo huo, uweze kuhakiki asasi na taratibu za kijamii barani
Afrika zinazomthamini mwanamke kwa lengo la kuzitambua. Asasi kama hizo hazina budi kutambuliwa
kama kigezo muhimu cha nadharia hiyo. Kadhalika, nadharia iweze kutumiwa kutupilia mbali mielekeo
hasi na asasi zozote zinazomfukarisha, kumnyanyasa, na kumdhalilisha mwanamke huyo, hasa katika
matumizi ya lugha au sanaa ya aina yoyote.
Kwa mujibu wa vigezo hivi, wana-unisai wa Kiafrika wanahitajika kuzidhukuri nadharia za kimagharibi ili
kuona iwapo baadhi ya vigezo vya mitazamo hiyo vinaafiki na kutaalaki mahitaji ya mwanamke wa Kiafrika
katika fasihi. Ninaamini kwamba kuna vigezo vingine, hasa vile vinavyoshughulikia masuala ya kinafsia
ambavyo vinaweza kuafiki uhakiki wa fasihi za Kiafrika. Katika muktadha huu, masuala hayo yasihusishe
tu dhuluma dhidi ya wanawake bali pia dhuluma zinazoelekezwa kwao na wanawake wenzao walioshitadi
ushaufu na ubabe wa mielekeo ya kuumeni.
5.0 Hitimisho
Kulingana na hoja zilizojadiliwa, ipo haja ya kudahili mustakabali wa Unisai wa Kiafrika. Ipo haja ya
kushughulikia vigezo muafaka vya nadharia itakayotumiwa kuhakiki matini za fasihi ya Kiafrika. Yapo
masuala mengi yanayoibuka kila uchao kuhusu namna mwanamke wa Kiafrika anavyoweza
kushughulikiwa katika fasihi, na mitazamo ya kinisai itakayofaulisha uhakiki wa fasihi hii. Kutokana na
udurusu wa mapendekezo ya wakereketwa wa masuala ya kike barani Afrika na kwingineko, ni bayana
kwamba ipo haja ya kuunda nadharia itakayokifu tahakiki za fasihi hiyo.
Kwa mujibu wa mjadala wa makala hii, hatuna budi kuchunguza mila, desturi, na mikondo ya kijamii,
kiuchumi na kisiasa, inayomwathiri mwanamke wa Kiafrika, na jinsi hali hizi zinavyojibainisha katika fasihi.
Kujitegemea kwa mwanamke na ushirika wake na mwanamume ni baadhi ya vigezo vya kuzingatiwa.
Kadhalika, ipo haja ya kuchunguza kurasa za historia yetu kwani kumwelewa binadamu yeyote kunahitaji
kigezo cha historia. Mwanamke wa Kiafrika amepitia mikondo mbalimbali ya kihistoria, mikondo
iliyoshuhudia thamani yake, mbali na unyanyaswaji wake. Tajriba za mwanamke huyu basi, hazina budi
kuzingatiwa ili kubainisha uhalisi wa maisha yake.
Kwa upande mwingine, nadharia za kimagharibi zisichukuliwe moja kwa moja kama mitazamo muflisi
isiyoweza kumshughulikia mwanamke wa Kiafrika kwa kila hali. Ipo haja ya kuzitathmini kwa lengo la
kurutubisha Unisai wa Kiafrika. Mwisho bali si akali, wanawake wa Kiafrika, hasa waandishi na wahakiki
71
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
C. Momonyi. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 66-72
wa fasihi wanapaswa kusimama kidete, kuwa na ghera ya kuandika, kutathmini na kuhakiki fasihi za janibu
zetu. Jukumu hili litasaidia pia kurutubisha nadharia hiyo ya Unisai wa Kiafrika.
Marejeo
Amadiume, I. (1987): Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex In African Society, London, Zed Books.
Ba, M. (1980):So Long a Letter, London, Heinemann.
Davies, C.B. and A.A. Graves (eds.) (1990): Ngambika: Studies of Women In African Literature, Trenton, Africa
World Press.
De Beauvoir, S. (1974): The Second Sex, New York, vintage Books.
Emecheta, B. (1982): Double Yoke. London, Ogwagwa Afor Company.
Freud, S. (1977): On Sexuality, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Halliday, M.A. (1978): Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, London,
Edward Arnold.
Mazrui, A. (1981): Kilio cha Haki, Nairobi, Longman.
Mbiti, J.S. (1969): African Religions and Philosophy. Nairobi, Heinemann.
Millet, K. (1970): Sexual Politics, New York, Doubelday.
Momanyi, C. (1998): Usawiri wa Mwanamke Muislamu Katika jamii ya Waswahili Kama inavyobainika katika
Ushairi wa Kiswahili, Tasnifu ya Ph.D. Chuo Kikuu cha Kenyatta, Nairobi (Haijachapishwa).
— (2002): "Swala la Uana Katika Utafiti wa Fasihi ya Kiswahili", katika Utafiti wa Kiswahili CHAKITA,
Eldoret, Moi University Press.
Muhando, P. (1982): Nguzo Mama, Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam University Press.
Mwachofi, K.A. (1987): Mama Ee, Nairobi, Longman.
Ngara, E. (1985): Art and Ideology in the African Novels, London, Heinemann Educational Books.
Ogundipe-Leslie, O. (1984): "African Women, Culture and Another Dvelopment", Katika The Journal of
African Marxist.
— (1994): African Women and Critical Transformations, Treton, Africa World Press.
Okeke, P.E. (1996): "Post-Modern Feminism and Knowledge Productions: The African Context" In
Africa Today vol. 43 No. 3 July-September, 1996. Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Parpat, J. (1993): "Who is the Other? A Post-Modern Feminist Critique of Women and Development
Theory and Practice" Katika Development and Change, Vol. 24 No. 3, July, 1993.
Steady, F.C. (1981): Black Women Cross-Culturally, Cambridge, Mass Scherkman Publishing Co. Inc.
Sydie, R.A. (1987): Natural Women Cultured Men: A Sociological Perspective on Sociological Theory, New York,
New York University Press.
Tong, R. (1989): Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction, Colorado, Westview Press, Inc.
Wandera, S.P. (1996): "Usawiri wa Mwanamke Katika Ushairi wa Kiswahili 1800-1900: Uhalisi au
Ugandamizwaji?" Tasnifu ya M.A.; Chuo Kikuu cha Egerton, Njoro. (Haijachapishwa).
Zell, H.C. (et. al) (eds.) (1983): A New Readers' Guide to African Literature, New York, Holmes and Meier.
72
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye: A White Woman’s Afrocentric Approach to Gender Politics in Africa
Mike Kuria
mkuria@daystar.ac.ke
Dayster University
Abstract
Can an ‘outsider’ in Africa become so culturally assimilated as to qualify being seen as an insider? The debate about
how writers perceive and mirror the world through their own cultural prisms has created dichotomous concepts such as
“African” versus “European/American” or the “Afrocentric” as opposed to “Eurocentric”. This paper not only
concedes that it is possible for an African to be Eurocentric, as so well argued by Frantz Fanon (1965; 1967) in his
writings; but that it is also equally possible for a person of European descent to become so immersed in African culture
as to have their view of the world shaped more by Africa than by Europe and therefore qualify to be described as
Afrocentric. I hereby submit the case of Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye and her writings to interrogate what befits
“afrocentric approach to gender politics in Africa”.
1.0 Introduction
Marjorie was born white British in 1929 and travelled to Kenya as a Christian missionary and bookseller
in1954. She met and married the late Oludhe Macogye, a Luo physician, in 1957 and became a Kenyan
citizen in 1964. She has been living in Kenya since 1954 where she and her late husband raised three
children. It means she has lived through Kenya’s major political epochs namely the last stages of
colonialism, the Mau Mau resistance, and post-independence Kenya under the reigns of Kenyatta, Moi
and now Mwai Kibaki. During the so called second liberation struggle1 when Kenyans were struggling
against the one party rule and agitating for multiparty democracy it was young politicians such as James
Orengo, Paul Muite, Kiraitu Murungi, Raila Odinga and others, usually referred to as the “young turks”
because of their age, who spearheaded the struggle to have section 2A of the constitution repealed in
order to allow for the re-introduction of multiparty democracy in Kenya. In 1982 the constitution of
Kenya had been amended to make Kenya a one party state. The so called young turks were born around
the same time that Macgoye started living in Kenya. Current demographics which show that 56% of
Kenya’s population is below 35 years of age (Lwanga, 2007) indicate that Macgoye started living in Kenya
long before the majority of Kenyans were born. She, for example, became a citizen two years before I was
born. It is however not just the longevity of Macgoye’s stay in Kenya that interests me here but also the
way that she has managed to become so culturally integrated among the Luos as to warrant, in my
opinion, being considered an “insider” Luo rather than what Nnaemeka ( 1995, 85) calls an “inoutsider.”
By “inoutsider” Nnaemeka means one “…who pays equal attention to cultural contexts and critical
theory”. While I am in agreement with Nnaemeka that any non-African who wants to engage in African
literary/cultural criticism must at the very least cultivate a sense of “inoutsidership”, I am suggesting that
Macgoye should simply be considered an insider. I quite agree with Kurtz (2005) when he argues that
“[b]y the end of the twentieth century Macgoye, then in her seventies, had spent almost half of that
century living, working, raising a family, and writing in Kenya. By this time, clearly, she was no longer
Nyarloka, no longer an outsider. Rather, in the minds of her family, her community, and Kenyan readers at
large, she was a Min Gem-‘Mother of Gem’, a title acknowledging her role in the Luo community of
Western Kenya into which she had married” (Kurtz 2005, 3).
1 During the 1980s and early 1990s Kenyans regarded their struggle for the repeal of section 2A of the
constitution of Kenya, to allow for multiparty democracy as second liberation struggle, the first struggle
having been against British colonialism.
73
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
74
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
The point I am making here is that its not just Macgoyes’ works that suggest she is Kenya but that she also
constructs her own identity as Luo and therefore Kenyan. It is interesting that when I asked her if she
writes from a Kenya perspective, she replied that she actually had no alternative. In other words, being
Kenyan comes naturally to her. Indeed she declared that she could no longer write about modern Europe
unless she was to make a deliberate effort and research about it. In her own words:
I would be inept in writing about modern Europe because I have seen very little of it. Let me just
make one qualifier there; that does not mean to say that I may not write about it if I choose to
and if I do my homework. And perhaps that is one problem with African writers. We (emphasis
mine)are always being pushed to restrict ourselves to cultures…..one may write about anything so
long as he or she gathers material about his subject.
I believe this should put an end to arguments doubting Macgoye’s African identity. She does not even
seem to be conscious of herself as a migrant from Europe. She is simply Luo and Kenyan.
3.1 Afrocentricity.
In her fiction, and especially Coming to Birth; Homing In; and Victoria and Murder in Majengo, Macgoye
postulates what I would call an afrocentric interpretation of the African experience of history from a
female perspective. In applying the term “afrocentric” as an adjective to define interpretation, I am simply
combining the words Africa and centre to mean a way of understanding reality from an African
perspective. Africa becomes the centre and the position from which we view the world around us. I am
borrowing from Ngugi’s argument, in his book Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms, for the
need to move the centre because traditionally Europe and America have acted as if they were the centres
of the universe when it comes to knowledge. Afrocentricty so conceived suggests that we in Africa can
and should make the continent our centre of the universe. The term “afrocentric” here does not mean the
same thing as it does in the discourses of black African American intellectuals such as Asante (2001; 1993;
1988) where it denotes black consciousness. It means that Macgoye’s values and view of the world have
Africa as the springboard or the prism through which they are constructed. Macgoye’s afrocentricity is
evident in her questioning and reconstructing the Luo concept of home; her views about women and
careerism in Africa; her interpretation of motherhood and marriage; and her approach to cultural practices
such as polygamy, wife inheritance and female circumcision.
75
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
What becomes clear here is that for the Luo, the establishment of a home involves a husband, a wife, a
child, relatives and land, almost always ancestral land (Mboya, 1983). Macgoye examines this system of
constituting home(s) and interprets it as patriarchal and oppressive to women. She then suggests that
women’s concept of home needs to be redefined from their own perspective. This attempt to redefine the
concept of home, for women, involves confronting and coming to terms with their own narratives of
pain. This can in itself be seen as some kind of a homecoming that is evocative of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s
collection of essays titled Homecoming : Essays on African and Caribbean literature, Culture and Politics. Macgoye
seems to suggest that women’s method of homecoming involves shunning marriage or negotiating its
terms, seeking money, wealth and knowledge, and cultivating cultural as well as economic independence.
Coming to Birth (1986) and Homing In (1994) are the two novels in which Macgoye explores what home
means to Kenyan women. The two novels’ development centres on the main women characters’ process
of becoming and their search, not for a room they could call their own as in Virginia Wolf’s text, A Room
of one’s Own, but a place where they can find comfort and peace and call home. In Coming to Birth (1986)
when Paulina moves from her rural home to Nairobi, she is in search of her husband and therefore ready
to make a home. Nairobi for her is a land of promise, but it soon turns out to be a land of violence,
suffering, exploitation and deprivation. In this context, her life in Nairobi mirrors the state of the nation
under British colonialism. When she arrives in Nairobi in1956, the state of emergency has already been in
place for two years and has become an accepted fact. “Operation Anvil”3 has been instituted which means
that Kenyans, especially the Kikuyu, have no freedom of movement. When Martin, her husband, begins to
lock her in the house and restrict her movement she becomes his colony, existing for his pleasure, which
parallels Kenya’s relationship to Britain. She is his prisoner. Home for her as defined in cultural and
patriarchal terms is a prison and it is this concept that her narrative endeavours to reconstruct and cast
from a woman’s point of view.
Martin is a classic embodiment of what home means to men. Macgoye informs us that seven years after his
marriage, Martin was still a Luo boy “… whose whole world picture revolved around an idealised ‘home’
to which he would return in plenty and comfort after making his mark on the big world”( Macgoye 1986,
51). In other words, Martin was holding onto a traditional idea of making homes where marriage meant
men went into the world and made a mark and then returned to their wives back home. Macgoye is critical
of the traditional idea of marriage, and the related process of establishing the home, as the grand finale to
a woman’s life. Marriage is what old women, taken as the custodians of custom, paraded “…as so simple
and inevitable that after it there was nothing to tell” (137). Instead Macgoye portrays marriage as marking
the beginning of a tumultuous and painful life for the women. Home as a haven of peace is neither found
in the rural areas (cultural definition) nor in the urban areas (urban/modern construction). In the first
instance, Nairobi brutalises Paulina. In contrast, when she returns to the rural areas she manages to rise to
the level of a teacher and owner of a house. While in Nairobi she is virtually a sexual slave, her return to
the rural areas coincides with her discovery/establishment of sexual freedom. Although Kisumu is semi-
urban at this time, her relationship with people and the ethics within which she operates is rural. Simon,
for example, suggests that she is culturally ethically right in seeking to make a child with someone else if
her husband had failed in that obligation. However, it is also in the rural areas where her greatest loss
occurs, namely the death of her son Okeyo. On the other hand when she returns to Nairobi she finds
liberating comradeship with Mrs M and the urchins. It is also during this period in Nairobi that she finds
her “voice” and hence ability to articulate her ideas. We then realise, as she also does, that her whole life,
both in the village and in town, has been a long journey in terms of soul searching. When Martin and Mr
M react negatively to her having intervened in a fight between urchins in the city and having been
interviewed by the press in consequence of her action, she brushes aside their advice that she should think
before acting thus: “I reckon I have had a lot of time for thinking, years and years for it…And these kids
have more thinking-time than is good for them, too. It’s my business who I buy a cup of tea for, and who I give my
name to, if it comes to that (139) [emphasis mine]. This indicates that Paulina, as Mr M rightly notes, has
become a new woman. She wants to define herself as opposed to taking orders and instructions from the
men in her life. The emphasis here is that her growth is not a simple consequence of an urban experience
3 This was a code name for the operation to keep suspicious Africans and especially the Kikuyu out of
Nairobi.
76
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
but that this is the result of growth/development of consciousness in the course of living both in urban
and rural areas.
What we see is a Paulina increasingly more at home and comfortable with ideas as well as her environment
not because she is living in either the rural or urban areas but because she is in control. Although Martin
has come back into her life and is living with her, he is the one who has moved to her house and is
therefore obliged to tow her line rather than make demands. When Paulina gets pregnant with his baby
she, against custom, lets him know that she is pregnant and he too, contrary to custom, is delighted. It is
interesting and perhaps disappointing that she seems ready to be faithful to him without requiring him to
reciprocate. Careful examination, however, also suggests that she has divested herself of Martin’s influence
so much so that he is no longer the centre of her life. She has effectively reconstructed motherhood from
fulfilment of social demands by women, friends, community or even her husband to a self fulfilling
experience. She accepts adulation for her ability to mother but her self respect and worth is no longer
dependent on it. While she does not deny that motherhood is self-fulfilling and that it makes women feel
complete, she now constructs it as her own choice and she is ready to pursue the enterprise with or
without Martin’s support or that of society. She therefore asserts her right to construct home in her image,
retaining all the traditional elements but shifting the control of every one of them to women. Home
therefore becomes not a geographical or cultural location but a spatial-temporal location where women
find comfort and exercise control. She can therefore consider Nairobi as home and yet see that as simply
an extension rather than in opposition to Gem. In many ways this is a woman’s expression of the same
concept that Cohen and Odhiambo (Siaya) explore in terms of Luos establishing home away from home.
The two authors demonstrate how Luos have migrated to other lands outside Kisumu, as evidently
manifest in Ogot’s The Promised Land, and established extensions of their village homes. In Mombasa for
example one such area is known as Kisumu ndogo which simply translates as little Kisumu. When Paulina
therefore tells Martin, while they are in Nairobi:
This is your baby…I hope you will help me to take good care, so that even if one of your safari
wives gives you a dozen children still you need not be ashamed of your home in Gem ( Macgoye
1986, 147).
She is inviting him to a home away from home (Gem away from Gem) in which he is the one given the
choice of either rejecting or accepting the institution as she represents and concretises it as opposed to his
being the one to set the rules and requiring her to obey them. While one may justifiably feel that she ought
to have grown strong enough to demand mutual respect and not allow him the luxury of “safari wives”, it
has to be acknowledged that her concept of home is now significantly different from the patriarchal one.
4.0 Western Feminism as Fantasy: The Choice between Career and Home Making
In reference to African women and their careers, Macgoye demonstrates that for most women in Africa,
black or white, family and career are not necessarily or even primarily in opposition to each other. Women
do not have to choose between career and raising families. Careerism for them is more a matter of bread
and butter rather than self-esteem, self-actualisation, and freedom. Indeed the situation is much more
austere than that. This stance is most explicitly articulated by Ellen in Homing In. Writing to Lilly, a former
student of hers in England and who is planning to come to Kenya to see her as well as carry out some
interviews to assess the condition of women there, Ellen writes, “Probably most Kenyan women are
preoccupied with bread and not butter, without a thought of jam. Girls education had (sic) forged ahead,
but there isn’t much time to speculate on sexual equality, let alone fantasy” (Macgoye 1994, 164). This
suggests that to Africans, some of western feminism’s preoccupation is fantasy. It is interesting that when
I asked Macgoye whether she thought there were problems that were specific to women and which
women should be particularly concerned about she had this to say:
Well, there is a major problem; I mean this is so obvious. I am saying it all the time; the major problem is that we
obviously admit that two hundred children die of preventable causes every day. And that two hundred is probably a
very low estimate. It seems to me that any normal woman should wake up in the morning remembering this, any
woman who has undertaken that enormous enterprise of having children, and this essentially should be a matter of
deliberate choice, should be asking herself every morning, am I really able to do this and please God help. If I have
to be employed or in some other need, am I going to, in any way, diminish the childhood that these children have a
right to expect? Please show me what to do about it. This to me is completely overriding (Kuria 2003, 55).
77
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
This may seem to suggest that Macgoye is suggesting that children are women’s responsibility in Africa.
However, a careful reading of her novels suggests that in fact she thinks child rearing in Africa has been
very much a collective responsibility that extends across gender and society as a whole and that this is the
ideal. However, because men are nearly always away trying to earn money for the family, it is women who
bear the brunt of the responsibility for bringing up children and bear the blame when things go wrong. A
good example is Homing In where Martha and her husband Njogu, whose hazardous lorry driving job
leads to his early death at the hands of gangsters. Before his death, Njogu brings money and food to his
wife and considers his children well taken care of only to come home one day to find one of his sons with
dwindled legs and a protruding stomach suggesting kwashiorkor. He slaps Martha once in ignorance of
the fact that she would not have been able to merely feed her own children while “sunken eyes watched
everything that came in and pestered you for a share of what remained” (70). In other words Martha was
mother not only to her biological children but also other children in the village and therefore she found it
impossible not to share what her husband only intended for his biological children.
78
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
husband in order to improve her economic status, and the one woman who feels complete, Lilly Beach,
has to divorce twice to sustain her status as a free woman. I am not suggesting that Macgoye is calling for
the dismantling or even the rejection of marriage but that she suggests that the best form of marriage is
one in which man is not the centre of the universe.
79
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
80
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
Adhiambo and Justina as the co-wives, the conflicts in the marriage would have been much more
tumultuous. I am suggesting that in Evangeline, Justina and Adhiambo is a representation of the changing
nature and function of the institution of polygamy.
This changing nature is explained away in Victoria where Macgoye argues that polygamy was especially
undermined in the 1930s and 1940s when tables were turned so that Nyachira became the privileged one.
“The new wife was no longer taking her proper place in the household as Victoria had done when
Anyango sent for her all those years ago” (Macgoye 1993, 54). Instead:
[S]he would be the one who got new dresses and housekeeping money, she would be the one
whose children, belonging to a later and luckier generation, would get into high schools, and she
would be the one who appeared in Christmas staff dinner and had her photograph in the paper as
the sophisticated years rolled on (54).
This meant that the status of “the junior wife became a prize worth having and for this hundreds of little
girls hung around bars and offices of great men…” (54). In the same breadth, first wives began to feel that
their positions “needed to be guarded against intruders”. While polygamy traditionally helped the first
wives enhance their positions in the family, modernity means that a second wife threatens the position of
the first wife. It is in this context that Macgoye understands the modern woman’s opposition to polygamy
rather than that the institution was inherently oppressive to women. Victoria, for example, who is
Macgoye’s example of a progressive, independent minded and liberated woman, never ceases to inquire
about her daughter’s co-wife. Lois, her daughter and married as a second wife, becomes infuriated by her
mother’s inquiries. Her feeling is that her mother has failed to make a transition into the twentieth century
where marriage is for good and all and where there is no room for co-wives. The two women’s positions
in reference to polygamy can be understood in the context of changing roles of women in the institution.
Victoria, though the more independent minded and stronger of the two, finds nothing wrong with
polygamy because her mindset is traditional while her daughter feels threatened by the institution because
she knows that in modern times a second wife diminishes rather than enhances her powers . Polygamy has
ceased to be co-operative and has instead become competitive.
Macgoye’s criticism of African culture is especially appealing because one senses her awareness of the need
for what Nnaemeka (1997) calls a writer’s or critic’s cultural literacy of his/her target community. For
Macgoye, the target community is the Luo and she demonstrates in her fiction that she is aware and
mindful of “cultural imperatives and shifts” among the Luo. This makes it plain to see that she operates, at
the very least and to borrow from Nnaemeka (1995) once again, as an in/outsider vis-à-vis Luo culture.
To paraphrase my interpretation of the same concept in the beginning of this paper, Nnaemeka is
referring to someone who, though not indigenous to a particular community, has cultivated such cultural
literacy as to be incapable of being arrogantly dismissive of other people’s cultural values only on the basis
of his/her own cultural prisms/background. In my opinion, Macgoye has done much more than just
acquire Luo cultural literacy, she has become culturally assimilated. However, as she suggested in her
interview with me, her British background and missionary training and vocation also impact on her
writings. It is interesting, for example, that her fiction is without the cruel European masters and
colonialists or deceptive and hypocritical missionaries such as found in Ngugi’s novels. It is also to this
influence that I would ascribe her relative irreverence to the institution of marriage which is rather non-
afrocentric.
6.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, however, Macgoye’s view of gender politics in Africa does not posit women’s struggle for
freedom as pitting them against men. In her novels there are no tensions between men and women whose
genesis or foundation is primarily gender. There is no militancy or bitterness against men or a celebration
of men’s misfortunes as happens in Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. However there is an acute
awareness of women coming against oppressive social forces whose strength lies in the fact that they are
sanctioned by both men and women. I am not here suggesting that Macgoye does not hold men
responsible for some of the misfortunes or debilitations that befall women. I am rather suggesting that
she argues that there are ways in which African men and women face largely similar problems but that
being yoked with men militates against women’s capacity to make the best of those problematic situations.
She suggests that in order for women to find the fullest expression of their potential it is important that
81
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
they sever those relationships that bind them to men, of which marriage is the worst culprit. This view
becomes very pronounced if we pay attention to the state and condition of men in the lives of Macgoye’s
successful or powerful women. The men are conspicuous by their absence in the lives of those women. In
Homin In Jack is taken away from home to engage in the second world war and farm in Kitale in order that
Mrs Smith may learn the art of managing a farm and being head of her home. Mwangi also goes to war
before coming back only to be arrested and detained so that his wife gets to not only run the home but
also establish a successful family business. Victoria argues that her engagement or involvement with many
men, as opposed to being tied down to one of them gave her lee way to become independent. This is the
same argument that Macgoye seems to extend to polygamy but in reverse order. Polygamy seems to enable
women to focus more on themselves rather than on their men. It is disappointing that she does not zero
down on any one single polygamous family as she does with monogamy in Coming to Birth where marriage
becomes so oppressively confining that Paulina has to break free from the institution in order to find the
full expression of her humanity. What is not in doubt, however, is that Macgoye feels that unlike
motherhood, marriage imprisons and limits women’s potential. It seems her Christian ethics makes her
stop short of advocating the abolition of the institution. In spite of her radical approach to the institution
of marriage, I am convinced that in the whole her fiction is written from the perspective of an African and
specifically a Kenyan Luo. If the Luo perspective qualifies as African, and I think it does, then Macgoye’s
views, in spite of her being white, are Luo and therefore African.
References
Asante, M. K. (1988). Afrocentricity. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press
Asante, M. K. (1993). Afrocentricity and culture. In African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity, ed. Molefi Kete
Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante, 1-12. Greenwood Press, 1985; Reprint, Trenton, N.J.: Africa
World Press (page references are to reprint edition)
Asante,M.K.(2001) Afrocentricity: the theory of social change http://www.asante.net/articles/guadalupe-
asante.html (accessed 20 January 2001)
Cohen, D. W. and Adhiambo, E. S. A. (1989). Siaya: The historical Anthropology of an African Landscape.
London: James Currey.
Cohen, D. W. and Adhiambo, E. S. A. (1992). Burying S.M.: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power
in Africa. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.
Dangarembga T. (1988). Nervous Conditions. London: Women's Press.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skin White Masks. New York: Grove Press
Fanon, F.(1965). The Wretched of the Earth. Suffolk: The Chaucer Press
Kuria, M. (2003).Talking Gender: Conversations with Kenyan Women Writers. Nairobi: PJ-Kenya.
Kabira, W. (1991). My Co-wife, My Sister. In Our Secret Lives: An Anthology of Poems and Short Stories by
Kenyan Women Writers, eds. Kabira etal, 26-31. Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers.
Kurtz, R.(2005). Nyarloka’s Gift: The Writing of Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye. Nairobi: Mvule Africa
Publishers.
Lwanga, E. (2007). Remarks by Ms Elizabeth Lwanga, UNDP Resident Representative, on the occasion of
YES-MSE Certificate Awarding Ceremony on 25th January 2007, Kenya Institute of Education,
Nairobi. Retrieved 2/02/09 from
http://www.ke.undp.org/SpeechRR-yesMSE.pdf
Macgoye, M. (1993). Victoria, and Murder in Majengo. London : Macmillan,.
Macgoye, M. (1984). The story of Kenya: a nation in the making. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
Macgoye, M. (1986). Coming to Birth. Nairobi: East African Education Publishers.
Macgoye, M. (1994). Homing In. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.
Macgoye, M. (1997). Chira. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers
Macgoye , M. (1993). Victoria, and Murder in Majengo. London : Macmillan.
Mboya, P. (1983). Luo: kitgi gi timbegi: A Hand Book of Luo Customs. Kisumu, Kenya: Anyange Press.
Nnaemeka, O. (1997). Introduction: Ima(in)ing knowledge, power and subversion in the margins. In The
Politics of (M)Othering: Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in African Literature, ed. Obioma Naemeka,1-25.
London: Routledge,
Nnaemeka, O. (1995). Feminism, rebellious women and cultural boundaries: rereading Flora Nwapa and
the compatriots. In Research in African Literatures 26.2 (Summer): 80-113.
82
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
M. Kuria. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 72-83
Nnaemeka, O. (1997). Urban spaces, women’s spaces: Polygamy as sign in Mariama Ba’s novels. In The
politics of (m)othering: Womanhood, identity,and resistance in African literature, ed. Obioma Naemeka,1-25.
London: Routledge.
Thiong'o, N.(1965). The River Between. London: Heinemann,
Thiong'o, N. (1972). Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics. London:
Heinemann,
Thiong’o, N. (1993). Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Nairobi: East African Educational
Publishers
Walker, A. (1992). Possessing the Secret of Joy. London: Jonathan Cape
Walker, A. and P. Pratibha.(1993). Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women.
London: Harcourt Brace and Company
83
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
Ikisiri
Kwa muda mrefu, tafiti kuhusu masuala ya uana katika fasihi zimejikita zaidi katika jinsia ya kike na kupuuza
usawiri wa jinsia ya kiume katika tanzu mbalimbali za fasihi. Hata hivyo, kwa sasa, ulimwenguni kote kuna tafiti
nyingi kuhusu kusawiriwa kwa mwanamume katika taaluma mbalimbali. Makala hii inachunguza taswira za
mwanamume zinazojitokeza katika nyimbo za tohara za wanaume miongoni mwa Waigembe, nchini Kenya.
1.1 Utangulizi
Waigembe ni kundi mojawapo ya makundi tisa yanayoiunda jamii ya Wameru (Laughton, 1944; Nyaga,
1997; Kobia, 2004). Waigembe wanaishi katika tarafa tisa katika wilaya ya Igembe, Mkoa wa Mashariki
nchini Kenya. Ni wakulima wa mazao na wafugaji wa mifugo mbalimbali. Kama jamii yoyote ya Kiafrika,
Waigembe wana tanzu mbalimbali za fasihi simulizi kama vile ngano, methali, vitendawili na nyimbo.
Makala hii imezingatia zaidi utanzu wa nyimbo hasa zile za tohara na kuzihakiki ili kubainisha taswira za
mwanamume zinazojidhihirisha katika nyimbo hizo. Taswira hizi zinabainisha mwonoulimwengu wa jamii
ya Waigembe kuhusu matarajio, nafasi na majukumu ya mwanamume katika jamii hii.
84
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
85
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
hivyo, kwa Waigembe, tohara ya wanaume ilikuwa ndio njia ya kipekee ya kuondoa “uvundo” na kumfanya
mwanajamii aliyekamilika. Hii ni taswira ya mnuso yenye maana iliyojificha kupitia kwa nyimbo za tohara.
86
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
87
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
88
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
Mshororo, Kirimaara no makengi (Mlima Kenya una theluji), unaleta dhana ya kuona kwa umbali. Mlima
Kenya una umuhimu mkubwa kwa jamii zinazouzunguka. Ishara ya theluji ni baraka kwani kutokana na
theluji, maji hupatikana ambayo yana umuhimu kwa wanajamii katika shughuli zao za kiuchumi na kijamii.
Kwa mfano, ikumbukwe kuwa kabla ya wavulana kwenda kutahiriwa ni lazima waoge kwenye mto wenye
maji baridi asubuhi.
89
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
90
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
Wote: I mutani akathamba i na muruku mwiiji, Ngariba ataoga na damu yako ewe mwiiji
Katika wimbo huu, taswira ya ushujaa au ukali inajitokeza kwani ngariba anaoga kwa kutumia damu ya
mvulana ambaye amemtahiri. Huu ni ujasiri wa hali ya juu. Damu ni taswira ya kitendo cha kumpasha
mvulana tohara. Kazi ya ngariba inahitaji ushujaa na makini ya hali ya juu na si kila mtu angeweza kuwa
ngariba katika jamii hii.
Ngariba aliyezembea wakati wa shughuli ya tohara alionywa na nthaka na kushauriwa atekeleza wajibu
wake ipasavyo. Wakati mwingine ngariba mzembe alitishwa kwa kupigwa kama inavyobainika katika
wimbo wa Kionje kia Murimo (Hoi Hoi wa Ugonjwa) katika mshororo huu:
Ii Kang’entu kuunda muruki othioro Ii Kang’entu pata adabu ya kiboko.
91
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
92
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
93
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
1.5 Hitimisho
Uchunguzi wa taswira za mwanamume unabainisha kuwa zinapatikana katika nyimbo za tohara za
Waigembe. Taswira hizi husaidia katika kuwasilisha maudhui yanayopatikana katika nyimbo za tohara.
Kupitia uhakiki wa taswira hizi, usawiri wa mwanamume katika jamii unaweza kudhihirika. Uchanganuzi
wa taswira za mwanamume katika nyimbo za tohara miongoni mwa Waigembe unadhihirisha bayana kuwa
taswira chanya kuhusu mwanamume zinatiliwa mkazo huku taswira hasi zikiwa chache.
Kupitia uchanganuzi wa taswira za mwanamume katika nyimbo za tohara, tunaweza kuelewa hisia na
mielekeo ya Waigembe kuhusu wajibu wa mwanamume katika jamii hii. Aidha, falsafa na itikadi ya jamii hii
kuhusu dhana ya uana imewekwa bayana. Taswira zinazojitokeza katika nyimbo zinaashiria nafasi na
majukumu ya mwanamume katika jamii. Hii ni kwa sababu taswira katika nyimbo huchota maudhui yake
katika jamii na jamii hubainisha dhima na jukumu la kila jinsia. Kinachobainika wazi ni kuwa aina hizi za
taswira ni mihimili muhimu ya kuweka wazi nafasi na wajibu wa mwanamume katika jamii hii.
Marejeo
Bernardi, B. (1959). The Mugwe: A Blessing Prophet. London: Oxford University Press.
Bullock, A., Stallybrass, O. & Trombley, S. (Eds) (1988). The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought.
Glassgow: Harper Collins.
.Chege, J. (1993). The Politics of Gender and Fertility Regulation in Kenya: A Case Study of the Igembe.
Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Lancaster: Lancaster University.
Coates, J. (1986). Women, Men and Languages. Essex: Longman.
Crawford, M. (1995). Talking Difference on Gender and Language. London: Sage Publications.
Cuddon, J. (1991). Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
DelmarM.(2005). Imagery. Available online.
(http://www.delmar.edu/engl/wrtctr/handouts/imagery.htm, Accessed November 11, 2006.)
Fadiman, J. (1976). The Meru Peoples. In B.A. Ogot (Ed.) Kenya Before 1900. Nairobi: East African
Publishing House.
Fedders, A. (1979). Peoples and Culture of Kenya. Nairobi: Trans African Publishers.
Gitobu, K & Gitobu, L. (2000). Kimeru Folk Songs and Dances. Privately Printed., Nairobi.
Indangasi, H. (1997). Gender Socialisation in the Maragoli Circumcision Ceremony. In W. Kabira, M.
Masinjila and M. Obote (Eds.) Contesting Social Death: Essays on Gender and Culture. Nairobi: Kenya Oral
Literature Association.
Kabira, W. (1993). The Images of Women in Gikuyu Oral Narratives. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Nairobi:
University of Nairobi.
King’ei, K. (1992). Language, Culture and Communication: The Role of Taarab Songs in Kenya 1963-
1990. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Washington D.C.: Howard University.
Kobia, J. (2004). Taswira za Mwanamke katika Njuno (Methali) za Kimeru. Tasnifu ya Uzamili (M.Phil),
Eldoret:Chuo Kikuu cha Moi.
Laughton, W. (1944). The Meru. Meru: Ndia Kuu Press.
Matti, N. (1997). Sanaa za Maonyesho za Kiafrika za Jadi: Mfano wa Tohara ya Watharaka. Tasnifu ya
M.Phil, Eldoret: Chuo Kikuu cha Moi.
Mbae, N.P. (1992). A Political History of Meru 1750-1908. M.A. Thesis, Kenyatta University.
94
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
I. Mbaabu and J. Kobia. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1 (1) 2009, 84-95
Mbatiah, M. (2002). Kamusi ya Fasihi. Nairobi: Standard Textbooks Graphics and Publishing.
Momanyi, C. (2007). Patriarchal Symbolic Order: The Syllable of Power as Accentuated in Waswahili
Poetry. The Journal of Pan African Studies, pp 12-32, Vol.1, No.8.
Mulokozi, M. M. (1989). Tanzu za Fasihi Simulizi. Katika Mulika Na. 21, Dar es Salaam: TUKI.
Mwita, B.M. (2005) Usawiri wa Mwanamke katika Ichingero Za Wakuria. Tasnifu ya Uzamifu. Eldoret:
Chuo Kikuu cha Moi
Nandwa, J. & Bukenya, A. (1983). African Oral Literature for Schools. Nairobi: Longman.
Nang’oli , M. (2000). No More Lies About Africa. New Jersey: African Heritage Publishers.
Ndege, M (1997). Gender and Oral Narrative Among the Ameru. In W. Kabira, M. Masinjila and M.
Obote (Eds.) Contesting Social Death: Essays on Gender and Culture. Nairobi: Kenya Oral Literature
Association.
Ndungo, C. (1998). The Images of Women as Exemplified in the Gikuyu and Swahili Proverbs.
Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Nairobi: Kenyatta University.
Njiru, E. (1981). Indigenous Education as Practised by the Ameru with Special Reference to Circumcision
Ceremonies. M.A. Thesis, University of Nairobi.
Ntarangwi, M. (1998). Taarab Texts, Gender and Islam in an Urban East African Context: Social
Transformations Among the Waswahili of Mombasa, Kenya. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois.
Nyaga, D. (1997). Customs and Traditions of the Meru. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Nye, A.
(1988). Feminist Theory and Philosophies of Man. New York: Croom Helm.
Nyembembe, J. (1997). Jinsia Upeo wa Wanaume na Wanawake. Nairobi: Paulines Publications.
Okpewho, I. (1992). African Oral Literature: Background, Character and Continuity. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Ostergaard, L. (1992). Gender and Development. London: Routledge.
Reed, E. (1970). Problems of Women Liberation. New York :Pathfinder.
Republic of Kenya. (2002). Meru North District Development Plan 2002-2008. Nairobi: Ministry of Planning
and National Development.
Rimita, D. (1988). The Njuri Ncheke of Meru. Nairobi: Kolbe Press.
Senkoro, F.E.M.K. (1982). Fasihi. Dar es Salaam: Press and Publicity Centre.
— (2005). Understanding Gender Through Genre: Oral Literature as a Vehicle for Gender Studies in East
Africa. In Gender, Literature and Religion in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA Gender Series 4:5-24.
Tilak, R. (1993). History and Principles of Literary Criticism. New Delhi: Rama Brothers.
Tuttle, L. (1986). Encyclopedia of Feminism. London: Longman.
Ullman, J. (1966). Language and Style, Oxford: Oxford Basil and Blackwell.
Wamitila, K.W. (2002). Uhakiki wa Fasihi: Msingi na Vipengele Vyake. Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers.
— (2003a). Kichocheo cha Fasihi Simulizi na Andishi. Nairobi: Focus Publications.
— (2003b) Kamusi ya Fasihi: Istilahi na Nadharia. Nairobi: Focus Publications.
Wandera, S. (1996). Usawiri wa Mwanamke katika Ushairi wa Kiswahili: 1800-1900: Uhalisia au
Ugandamizwaji? Tasnifu ya Uzamili (M.A), Njoro: Chuo Kikuu cha Egerton.
Were, G. & Wandiba, S. (Eds) (1988). Meru District Socio-Cultural Profile. Nairobi: Kenya Government.
95
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
Guideline to Authors
All submissions that conform to the guidelines stipulated here and are deemed of acceptable quality are
blind-reviewed by specialists in the field. Every effort will be made to expedite the review process in a
timely and efficient manner.
All fonts to be standard Times New Roman on A4 or Letter size paper. The preferred maximum length
for a paper is up to 9000 words including notes, figures, appendices, tables and references with an abstract
of not more than 200 words. Authors may optionally include a version of the abstract in French, Swahili
and/or English. Spelling is British English.
Please limit to number of tables and figures to total no more than six. Use Italics for the titles of books,
journals, newspapers, plays, films, long poems, paintings, and ships. Extensive use of italics for emphasis
should be avoided.
The preferred style of reference is citation by the author and date, e.g. (Harries 1962: 3) with full reference
details as follows:
Harries, L. 1962. Swahili Poetry. London: Oxford University Press.
Upon publication, 3 copies of the journal will be supplied free of charge to the author (or contact author
for multi-authored manuscripts).
96
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079
Journal of
Humanities
Volume 1 ▫ Number 1
(2009)
Articles
A Note on a Shared Heritage: The Bread Culture of the Waswahili of Zanzibar 1
Assibi Amidu
La culture dansée : un trait d’union entre deux mondes différents. Cas du Burundi 34
Sylvie Hatungimana
Early Childhood Cultural Development in Tanzania: Reflections from Key Government Documents 43
Lyambwene Mtahabwa
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye: A White Woman’s Afrocentric Approach to Gender Politics in Africa 73
Mike Kuria
Taswira za Mwanamume katika Fasihi Simulizi ya Kiafrika: Mfano wa Nyimbo za Tohara Miongoni 84
mwa Waigembe
Irene Mbaabu & John Kobia
97
© JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079