Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African SocietiesEugenia W. Herbert presents African ironworking as an encapsulation of fundamental beliefs about transformation. With metallurgy as a model, the author extends these beliefs to other transformative activities such as the investiture of chiefs, hunting, and pottery making to propose a theory of power constructed along the twin axes of gender and age. Part 1 examines ironworking in a range of African societies in order to identify the core elements of belief as they are demonstrated in actual practice. Part 2 extends this model to chiefly investiture and hunting, both male-dominated. Herbert argues that these activities reveal the same underlying notions of power based on control of male and female reproductivity. In contrast, pottery making, usually a women's activity, is shown to be much less ritualized and to confer much less power on its practitioners. Generously illustrated and accessibly written, this book will have wide appeal to readers interested in questions of technology, gender, and culture. |
Contents
Techniques and Cosmology | 1 |
Those Who Play with Fire | 23 |
Rituals of Transformation and Procreation | 63 |
Copyright | |
9 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
analogy ancestors Angola animals antelope anvil areas Asante associated Babungo Bamana Banjeli Bassari belief bellows birth blacksmith bloom Burundi Cameroon Célis Central Africa charcoal Chewa chief child Chokwe clay comm cosmology cultures danger death Dieterlen Dogon Dowayo earth Echard Ekonda example fact fecundity fertility Fipa fire forge forgerons Fowler furnace Gbaya gender hammer Hausa Heusch human hunter hunting ibid initiation investiture invoke iron smelting ironworking king kingship Kongo Kwanyama Lopanzo Luba Lunda Mafa male and female Mande master smelter McNaughton medicines menstruating menstruating women metal metallurgy metalworking mother Moundang myths Nigeria northern Ogun paradigm political pots pottery pregnant procreativity region relationship reproduction rites role royal Rwanda sacrifices Senufo sexual activity sexual relations sexual taboos Shambaa slag smelter smelting smelting furnace smelting process smelting rituals smith social societies spirits symbolic tion Togo traditions transformation tuyere twins Vansina village wife woman Yoruba Zaïre