The Yanomami are an indigenous tribe (also called Yanamamo, Yanomam, and Sanuma) made up of four subdivisions of Indians who live in the tropical rainforest of Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil. Each subdivision has its own language. They include the Sanema who live in the Northern Sector, the Ninam who live in the southeastern sector, the Yanomam who live in the southeastern part and the Yanomamo who live in the southwestern part of the Yanomami area.
The Yanomami depend on the rain forest; they use “slash-and-burn” horticulture, grow bananas, gather fruit, and hunt animals and fish. Yanomami frequently move to avoid areas that become overused, a practice known as shifting cultivation when the soil becomes exhausted.
The Yanomami are known as hunters, fishers, and horticulturists. The women cultivate plantains and cassava in gardens as their main crops. Men do the heavy work of clearing areas of forest for the gardens. Another food source for the Yanomami is grubs. The practice of felling palms to facilitate the growth of grubs was the Yanomami’s closest approach to cultivation. The traditional Yanomami diet is very low in salt. Their blood pressure is characteristically among the lowest of any demographic group. For this reason, the Yanomami have been the subject of studies seeking to link hypertension to sodium consumption.
Today about 95% of the Yanomami live deep within the Amazon forest as compared to the 5% who live along the major rivers.
Compared to the “forest people,” the “river people” are much more sedentary and subsist by fishing and trading goods such as canoes and hooks with other villages. The “forest people” are horticulturists as well as hunters and gathers. They will spend up to two hours of their day “garden farming” which is quite a labor intensive process. Some of the crops grown include sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar cane and tobacco. However, as horticulturists the Yanomami do not get sufficient protein from their crops. Therefore, the Yanomami will spend as much as 60% of their time trekking.
YANOMAMI MYTH: THE ORIGIN OF EATING THE DEAD
Poreími was a talented, generous Yanomami with a magnificent intelligence. He is the one who gave the Indians stone axe blades. All the stone axe blades that are found at ancient sites are from Poreími. At that time, there was a terrible scarcity of food in the world and the Yanomami had to eat meat raw, as they did not possess fire yet. At that time, Poreími went to the jungle and built a magnificent house to live in with his wife Poreímiyoma. One day some Indians came to visit them, and as a gift, they left different kinds of plantains, including a very large variety called “pareamu”. That is what the one they were presented with is called. Later, Poreími received another visit from Wayaromi, who as a present left “wabu”, a fruit that is eaten when better foods are in short supply. As ‘wabu” is poisonous in its natural state, Wayaromiriwa (the spirit of Wayaromi) showed Poreími how it should be prepared, cutting it into small slices with a tortoise shell. Then Wayaromi turned himself into a bird.
Later, some other Yanomami arrived at Poreími’s house. Not with presents this time, but with… empty stomachs. They brought with them a frightful hunger. Poreími, moved by their plight, gave them abundant food to eat and on saying goodbye gave them several kinds of plantains, urging them to plant many, especially the “pareamu”. He also gave them the “wabu”. The vistors then returned to their village. In their gardens they planted many plantains, harvested them in great quantities and since then have not suffered hunger any more. Grateful for the precious presents they had received they sent a delegation to pass on their thanks to Poreími. Arriving at his house they found him very upset: his son had died. At that time the Yanomami used to bury their dead. Poreími told his guests how he had carried out his son’s funeral: he had burnt the body, collected the bones, ground them to ash and eaten the ashes in a soup of “pareamu” plantains. When he said goodbye, he urged them to do the same with their own dead. Since then, the Yanomami no longer bury the dead but burn them and consume their ashes mixed with plantain soup.
THEY EAT YOUR ASH TO SAVE YOUR SOUL – YANOMAMI DEATH CULTURE
Unless we are talking about bizarre rituals we are not able to accept and to understand. But, we are still interested to find out more about the controversial moments of one society and its own taboo practice. We are simply addicted to open the covered stories and to smell the burning of the human’s innocence for the sake of primitive and animal fears.
The cultural and religious conviction of the Yanomami rests on the belief that the soul needs to be protected after death, a belief that appeared in European antiquity as well. The soul could enter another life form. Due to this, the Yanomami do not hunt special kinds of birds, which are seen as a possible container for the souls of dead tribe members. Following the religious beliefs of the Indians, the soul is only able to achieve a full salvation if the dead body is burnt after death and if the ash is eaten up by the family and the relatives of the dead person. So, in contrast to the funeral rites which are practiced all around the world, the Yanomami do not bury the corpses. In a ceremony the dead body is burned down and the remaining ash and bones are collected by the remaining relatives. During this ceremony, they cry and sing sad songs, while their faces and bodies are blackened by grime. After the burning, the bones are crumbled and, together with the ash, the remains are put into some kind of pot, where they are kept until the second part of the funeral ceremony. Between these two phases there could be a long time span, because the Yanomami delay the second step until there is a festivity. As a part of this festivity, bananas, which comprise the most common dishes of the Indians, are cooked and the resultant banana mush will be mixed with the ash and bone of the dead tribe member. Then, all of the relatives gather to eat up the mush. The reason for that is the religious belief. The soul of the former tribe member is absorbed by the tribe again and freed by this procedure to be ready for salvation. If this ceremony was not carried out, the soul of the Indian would not be able to be freed and would be damned to remain in the world between life and death. As a consequence of this religious belief, the Yanomami care for their dead tribe members in a special way.
In times of war, the most humiliating and dangerous situation appears if a tribe member is killed in the forest and the others are not able to locate his corpse. This would be a burden for the remaining relatives as well, because they would not be able to save the soul of their loved one. In view of this fact, it does not seem strange that enemies threaten each other with remarks of not eating up their adversaries. This is a really dangerous threat, because the souls of the Yanomami warriors would become lost, caught in the world between life and death. This religious belief of an unsaved soul seems to be comparable to the catholic belief in purgatory, where Christians who have committed suicide are captured until they have served a sentence for their sins. In contrast to this Christian point of view, the Yanomami have no chance to get saved by a higher power. Only the ceremony of ash eating can save their soul. If one takes into consideration the fact that the Indians are not even willing to speak their real names in public because of the fear of losing their souls, one will understand that the meaning and importance of the soul forms the centre of the Yanomamis’ religious thoughts and beliefs. Even the sporadic contact with white settlers and gold-seekers and the fact that many Indians died as a consequence of the diseases the encounter with modern civilisation brought them did not make them change this strong belief in the irreplaceable importance of this death ceremony, which had been misunderstood by the first settlers who met the Indians as some weird kind of cannibalism. Only the more thorough research of anthropologists could explain this ritual and make this unknown exotic custom known, as well as understandable, for the common settlers, who lived on the boarders of the Yanomami territory. As a consequence, we are able to better understand the reasons for this uncommon ritual of ash eating and with a better insight into the daily life of the now well-known Indians, they have lost their horror. They are just small Indians, semi-nomadic hunters, who eat the ash of their dead comrades to render a service to these former members of their own community. Furthermore, the story of the Yanomami and their death ceremonies show us that religious misunderstandings could have hazardous consequences in relationships between people. Sometimes, it seems to be advisable to find out the reasons for religious practices and beliefs instead of establishing immediate and fast prejudices. It is better to learn about the cultural aspects of a new, and at first unfamiliar, environment. This would save people from conflicts over religion all around the globe. Who, for example, would have thought that some Indians in the rain forest were saving the souls of their dead loved ones by eating up their ashes and bones?
THE YANOMAMI TRIBE TODAY
Since most outsiders have invaded the Amazon via the large rivers, the Yanomami have been able to live in isolation until very recently. Because of this they have been able to retain their culture and their identity which many Indians of the Amazon have lost. Men usually make up the hunters and the women the gathers. Men will go on long distant hunts that may last up to a week. The fact that just about all of the Yanomami live deep within the forest has been quite significant for their survival.
In Yanomami society, marriage ceremonies are almost non-existent and are not celebrated in any way. Polygamous marriages are common, meaning husbands can have many wives. A girl can be promised to a man at an age as young as five or six, however cannot officially be married off until after her first menstrual period.
After a Yanomami girl receives her first menstrual period, she is literally handed off by one of her parents to another man, usually a relative. Cross-cousin marriages, which are marriages between the girl and the son of a maternal uncle or paternal aunt, are the most common form of marriage. Most prefer to marry within that Yanomamo tribe, for fear of violent breakouts between different tribes. The female goes to live with her spouse, and must perform the chores and duties she previously did for her mother.
Violence and abuse between couples in Yanomami culture is very common, and if a woman feels she can no longer bear to live with her husband, she may flee to live with her brothers.
Polygamy is commonly practiced in Yanomami culture, and women are expected to accept this. The elder wife in a marriage usually has precedence over the others, and can act as a boss or a superior over the other wives. She usually no longer has sexual relations with her husband, however she can give the most unpleasant chores to the wife she chooses. The husband is not supposed to show favorites, due to jealousy between the wives.
What is your say about this culture? DROP A COMMENT BELOW!
The Latuka people can be found in the South Easternmost corner of South Sudan, there are about 200,000 of them, and they’ve been living the same way for centuries. The people of Latuka, or Otuho as they’re commonly referred to, are predominantly farmers keeping large herds of cattle, sheep and goat. They practice subsistence farming, which means everyone farms for himself or his family. They grow crops like groundnuts, sorghum, maize and tubers like yam and potato. Each family has their own garden and house, but the tribe is very much a communal place. Certain village elders hold special positions of influence, but for the most part everyone shares equally. The Latuka have held onto their ethnic religion quite well, honoring elders and nature above all else. They’ve withstood the onslaught from Christian missionaries and the invasion of Islam into Africa better than other groups in the region. In fact, the only thing that’s change drastically is the technology they use and the clothes they wear—well, that they’re wearing clothes now when they hadn’t in the past.
The Latuka people are mostly traditionalists who believe in nature and ancestral worship. Over the years, they have stayed true to their belief. They have defied all forms of religious penetration from the white missionaries down to the breeze of Islam which is major in North Africa. Another thing that’s interesting to note about the Latuka people is the fact that they promote a communal lifestyle in the tribe. They share what they have with one another and there’s no single person in authority, rather a group of elders.
THE LATUKA MARRIAGE CEREMONIAL CULTURE
In the Sudanese Latuka tribe, when a man wants to marry a woman, he kidnaps her. Elderly members of his family go and ask the girl’s father for her hand in marriage, and if he agrees, the father beats the man as a sign of his acceptance of the union. If the father disagrees, the young man is at liberty to return the girl to her father’s house or marry her as he so wishes. however, the man usually forcefully marries the girl anyway.
Courting among the Latuka is both beautifully ritualized and (not so) frighteningly foreign. We use the word frightening, but only in the sense that it’s unique, and slightly different from western dating and courting traditions. It sounded drastically different and alien to us at Outward On, but only until we sat down and discussed it objectively.
To get to the point, when a young man wants to marry a girl, he kidnaps her from her home, at which point the young man and his elder male relatives approach the girl’s father to ask him for their blessing to marry. The father will either give his consent or not, with a “yes” resulting in the father physically beating the man he’s just permitted to marry his daughter. If the father responds “no”, the young man will return the father’s daughter, or he will refuse and marry her anyway.
Aside from the kidnapping, the beating and the level of involvement from the bachelor’s family, this ritualized practice isn’t that dissimilar to other cultures. Many Americans still undergo the same formalities, even if the eventual nuptials are considered a foregone conclusion by both families. Men have always sought a girl’s father’s permission to marry her. It’s taken different forms through the ages, but it has always been there.
People will point to the kidnapping and beating as signs of incivility and barbarism, but—if we speak loosely—the same thing happens in the English speaking world all the time. Modern couples often date for years, living together long before marrying, and to a father this probably seems like his daughter’s boyfriend has stolen her away already.
What about the beating? We ought to remind ourselves that there is often a very earnest and heartfelt discussion about what happens if the young man ever mistreats a father’s daughter. It’s not the physical pain that matters. What is important in the Latuka tradition, and similarly in the conversation between a girl’s father and her prospective fiancé, is the idea of responsibility passing from one male to another, and there being consequences for not assuming that responsibility. It’s part male dominance and part reminder that there is a price that has to be paid for the right to marry. Entering that commitment shouldn’t be easy; it should be difficult. A man should want to marry a woman enough that he’s willing to be beaten for her. It’s about the sacrifices he’s willing to make for the woman he loves.
You visually see this hand-off from father to son-in-law in “traditional” Western weddings when a father walks his daughter down the aisle, physically passing her from himself to her fiancé. Gender inequality conscious people will likely cringe at the way women are treated as a commodity, being given from one man to another, but this is a universality if ever there has been one in earth’s history. The Latuka tradition and Western practices aren’t as dissimilar as most people think.
For a people who’ve lived and carried on the same traditions for centuries, with little more changing than the clothing on their backs, the wedding traditions of the Latuka are remarkable modern in their primitiveness. The biggest distinctions between Latuka courting and Western engagements aren’t the kidnappings or beatings, but it’s the familial involvement on behalf of the young man that marks them as unique.
The BEST way to support us is by providing funding to enable us continue this good work:
Bank: Guarantee Trust Bank (GTBank)
Account Name: Johnson Okunade
Naira Account: 0802091793
Dollar Account: 0802091803
Pounds Account: 0802091810
Euro Account: 0802091827
Ankole is a traditional kingdom in Uganda. The kingdom is located in South-Western Uganda, east of Lake Edward. The people of Ankole are called Banyankole (singular: Munyankole) in Runyankole Language. The Banyankole consists of two major groups: The Bahima, who are majorly rear cattle, and the Bairu, who are agriculturists.
How much influence should aunties have on their nieces? In many African cultures, aunties provide counseling to their young nieces as they age from adolescence to adulthood. When it comes to marriage, these aunties prepare their nieces for the challenges that lie ahead.
But for the Banyankole people in Southwestern Uganda, the aunt had more than the above, especially during the marriage. The primary responsibility of the aunt was to confirm that the groom is potent and that the bride has defended her virginity before the marriage is consummated. As a potency test for the groom, the aunt was sometimes required to have sex with the groom for confirmation of his potency and virility. She also had to “test” if the bride is still a virgin before they are allowed to consummate their marriage.
In other traditions, the aunt is said to go as far as listening in or watching as the bride and groom have sex in order to prove the couple’s potency.
Marriage Arrangements
The common thread in the Ankole marriage like many African traditional marriages is to create closeness to the bridal family. This is done through a third party called the Kateraruume (literally meaning somebody who will remove the dew from the path).
Even today when couples go for the official introduction and marriage after they have been co-inhabiting, this go-between is key in initiating the marriage negotiations.
The Kateraruume is a highly respected person representing the groom’s interests and is charged with facing the bride’s family and ensuring that the bride’s family is willing to accept the groom’s family to formally discuss the marriage.
In case the proposal is endorsed, the man’s family approaches the girl’s family with the Kateraruume leading them there. At the home of the bride’s family, the go-between knocks at the gate and is invited in with the groom’s entourage after some teasing. The entourage usually comes with beer.
The Kateraruume then indicates to the girl’s marriage panel that he is on a marriage mission. The go-between then explains his mission and is asked many questions by the girl’s family. Later, they discuss the marriage payments, which can be picked any time after the two families have agreed, sometimes on that same day.
This is followed by preparations for marriage. In Ankole tradition, the marriage payment included cattle, which may go to over 10. These gifts are presented to the bride’s family symbolizing the ability of the groom to take care of his woman.
Banyankole Bride and Groom
During this ceremony, the bride and the groom are not parties to the discussions. The bride is usually hidden while the groom has to keep quiet throughout the discussions and wait for the outcome. In this case, however, the groom-to-be is ‘king’ because everything is done on his behalf.
In traditional Ankole society, a man marries a woman. A woman never marries a man. It is taboo if a woman seeks out a man’s hand in marriage. Also, it is the man who chooses not the woman. Therefore, the woman has to be ‘marry-able’.
Unlike today where men treasure small-sized women for marriage (I hope you have heard of words like portables and songs like obukazi obutono bulimu ekyama– “those small women last longer” or literally “those small women have years in them”), in the Ankole tradition, slim girls were unfit for marriage.
That is why among the Bahima (section of the Banyankole) girls who were about the age of marriage were forced to feed on milk until they were very heavy. “They could barely walk,” an Ankole elder once joked during an introduction ceremony.
The Giveaway (Okuhingira)
Unlike today where the men feel cheated by paying the bride price, in the typical Ankole tradition, a groom gains from the marriage.
Actually, the gifts (the emihingiro) that the bride comes with sometimes are more than those paid by the groom as bride price. For example, among the Bahima-Banyankole, the aunties and uncles give cows to the bride during the kuhingira.
Younger girls and boys called the enshagarizi then escort the bride to the groom’s place after the blessings from the elders. Today, the groom’s side has to organize the transport for these people because they are very important for any marriage ceremony in Ankole. Going back is not necessarily the role of the bridegroom.
After the kuhingira, the bride’s side is still being controlled though. The bride according to the culture is not supposed to do any work until the cultural initiation. This is done after about ten days from the giveaway day.
During this initiation, the bride is made to light fire in the kitchen in the tradition called okukozaomumuriro (helping the bride to start toughing fire).
Because of modernity, however, some brides have left the bridal room (orusika) the day after marriage to continue looking for a living in the competitive world where every minute lost contributes a lot to poverty in the homes.
So, many people in Uganda may find it hard to understand the Ankole culture and language but many know the words okwanjura, okushwera and okuhingira irrespective of the language they speak.
The Hamar people of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia consist
of over 46,532 people. Omo Valley is a fertile part of the vast Southern
Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region of south-west Ethiopia, which is
bordered by Kenya and South Sudan. Most still live in traditional villages,
although growing numbers are migrating to the region’s cities and towns as well
as the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. These pastoral and polygamous people are
popular for their traditional ‘jumping of bulls’. This ceremony often attracts
neighbours and people foreign to their culture to witness it.
To reach manhood, Hamar boys must undergo two rituals:
circumcision and a leap over the bulls. This determines whether the young Hamar
male is ready to make the social jump from youth to adulthood.
After the ceremony held in the Omo River Valley, the boy becomes a man and is
now allowed to marry. As the name implies, Hamar men are made to jump over 15
to 30 bulls naked as a rite into becoming a Maza. Mazas are men who have
successfully passed through this rite and allowed to marry. The Ukuli the young initiated man, once he jumped the bulls,
he become Cherkari (a social stage that he stays only for eight days).
After eight days he transfer to the stage of Maza, and stay at this status
until he marries and become Danza, the name for married Hamar men.
THE HAMAR UKULI BULA
The women of this tribe engage in a tribal ceremony
during which they are flogged to show the sacrifices they make for their men. The tradition is known as Ukuli Bula and is done as part of a Rite of Passage
ceremony for boys.
Under Hamar rules, a man need not explain why he’s delivering a beating.
It is his prerogative to mete out as he sees fit
These whips, though painful, show that the women are
dedicated to the men. The newly initiated Maza relatives are not left out. The
number of scars on the back also shows the new Maza who loves him best. They
take in the beating on the condition that he remembers them when they face difficulties.
Some whipping appears to be tender,
others more aggressive. But once whipped, the girls proudly show off their
scars – as proof of their courage and integrity. Women entice the Maza to use whips and canes on their backs by
forcing them to beat them, sometimes against their wish. No screaming or pity
is permitted by the men wielding the canes but the women don’t care. Instead of
fleeing, they beg the men to do it again and again until blood flows, dripping
into the gritty red dust of the Omo River Valley. Members of the Hamar tribe in
Ethiopia believe the elaborate scars demonstrate a woman’s capacity for love,
and if they fall on hard times later in life it allows them to call on those
who whipped them for help. The women trumpet and sing, extolling the virtues of
the young man at the heart of the ceremony, declaring their love for him and
for their desire to be marked by the whip
After the whipping, tradition allows those women to
call on help from those who marked them if ever they are in need of help. Young
Hamar women sometimes coat their bodies with butter to lessen the effect of the
whipping.
When this is complete, they go into the Evangadi
(night dancing) before the families of the new Maza announce his first wife.
Their traditional clothes are made of goatskin. They
also adorn their bodies by cutting their skin and adding ash and charcoal to
the cuts. Hamar women are some of the most elaborately dressed of the region –
with goatskin skirts decorated with glass beads, whilst their hair is covered
with a mixture of grease and red ochre. Elaborate scarification of the body is
also the custom of the Hamar. Hamar women are some of the most elaborately
dressed of the region – with goatskin skirts decorated with glass beads, whilst
their hair is covered with a mixture of grease and red ochre. Elaborate
scarification of the body is also the custom of the Hamar
The men and the women do not have gender roles when
taking care of their cattle. These cattle are used to define their wealth
status and are used to also used to pay the woman’s bride price.
Photo Credits: Jeremy Hunter
Sources:
www.the-star.co.ke
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.adventureabyssinia.com
www.weddingdigestnaija.com
www.google.com
www.youtube.com
By Johnson Okunade
About Me
Passionate, Curious mind, young
blooded, writer, historian, computer scientist, blogger, culture activist,
proud Bowenite, and a friend-to-all,…
From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weapons, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. The Dahomey Machete remains a great weapon of reference.
A sub-Saharan band of female terminators who left their European colonizers shaking in their boots, foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers” in Fon, the language of the Fon people of Dahomey, now in present-day Benin.
Some European historians and observers called them the Dahomey Amazons as they reminded them of the mystical and powerful all-women’s army called Amazons in Greek mythology.
Fon Woman. Photo credit: Wikipedia
Protecting their king on the bloodiest of battlefields, they emerged as an elite fighting force in the Kingdom of Dahomey in, the present-day Republic of Benin. Described as untouchable, sworn in as virgins, swift decapitation was their trademark.
The Dahomey Amazons are the only documented all-female official front-line combat arms military unit in modern history. Tough, uber-intense ass-kicking women single-mindedly devoted to hardening themselves into ruthless instruments of battlefield destruction, this Dahomey Machete-wielding, musket-slinging lady terminators.
They were rightly feared throughout Western Africa for over 250 years, not only for their fanatical devotion to battle but for their utter refusal to back down or retreat from any fight unless expressly ordered to do so by their king.
If you were some poor conscript douchebag militia soldier hanging out around your barracks and you saw these scary-as-fuck kill-chicks suddenly start charging out of the woods in your direction, screaming their war chants with their muskets barking fire and their signature double-edged two-foot-long Dahomey Machetes brandished threateningly over their heads, you had one fleeting moment to overcome your crippling panic and defend yourself.
Because if you failed to kill them – and I mean if you failed to kill every single last one of them, some the murderous woman was going to club your unconscious with a musket butt, drag you back to her capital, chop off your head with one swing of her Dahomey Machete, boil the skin off of your decapitated face, and then use your skull to decorate the royal palace.
Created around 1645 by the Dahomey King Ada Honzoo, the Amazons weren’t initially designed to serve as frontal assault shock troops sent in to crush the enemy’s spirits (and skulls) in a frenzied wave of bloodlust fury.
Instead, they started out as a small team of women who specialized in bringing down elephants, and who would go out on organized, efficient pachyderm hunts while the men were out fighting in wars. Eventually, possibly due to a lack of manpower or possibly because of their ruthless efficiency, Ada Honzoo promoted them to his personal bodyguard unit, expanding the unit to 800 women warriors with spears, bows, and war clubs, which in turn grew in size to an elite military unit of over 4,000 warriors.
As a shout-out to their roots, the Amazons chose to honor their heritage by naming their first battalion the Elephant Destroyers. The second battalion, it should be noted, were known as the Reapers – women who ditched those pesky flintlock muskets and instead went to battle armed with a razor-sharp three-foot Dahomey Machete they wielded with two hands.
Theories suggest they started as a corps of elephant hunters who impressed the Dahomey King with their skills while their husbands were away fighting other tribes. A different theory suggests that because women were the only people permitted in the King’s palace with him after dark, they naturally became his bodyguards.
Whichever is true, only the strongest, healthiest, and most courageous women were recruited for the meticulous training that would turn them into battle-hungry killing machines, feared throughout African for more than two centuries.
A French delegation visiting Dahomey in the 1880s reported witnessing an Amazon girl of about sixteen during training. After beheading a prisoner, she wiped the blood from her Dahomey Machete and swallowed it, while her fellow Amazons screamed in frenzied approval.
Only the strongest and most courageous women were recruited into the group which bound the women legally to the king in a vow of chastity. As such, they were disallowed to marry or have children. Some women joined out of their own volition, but others were enrolled to become soldiers by husbands who complained that they were uncontrollable.
These women, called the Ahosi of Dahomey, Mino, or the Dahomey Amazons, were famous for their incredible ability to fight men. From the start, they were trained to be strong, fast, ruthless, and able to withstand great pain. Exercises that resembled a form of gymnastics included jumping over walls covered with thorny acacia branches.
Sent on long 10-day “Hunger Games” style expeditions in the jungle without supplies, only their Dahomey Machete, they became fanatical about battles.
To prove themselves, they had to be twice as tough as the men. Often seen as the last (wo)men standing in battle, unless expressly ordered to retreat by their King, the Dahomey women fought to the death– defeat was never an option.
Joining the group required mercilessness. One recruitment ceremony involved testing if potential soldiers were ruthless enough to throw bound human prisoners of war to their deaths from a fatal height.
COLONIZATION OF DAHOMEY AND THE END OF THE AMAZONS
The N’Nonmiton (our mothers), as they fondly called themselves, often fought to the death unless expressly ordered to retreat by the King. After the Franco-Dahomean Wars, in which many French soldiers died for underestimating the Amazons, the legionnaires wrote about the “incredible courage and audacity” of the Amazons.
Even after French expansion in Africa in the 1890s subdued the Dahomey people, their reign of fear continued. Uniformed French soldiers who took Dahomey women to bed were often found dead in the morning, their throats slit open.
Of the 4,000 Dahomey Amazons under King Behanzin’s command, nearly all of them were killed hurling themselves fearlessly into battle. Only 50 women survived, and most of them, awesomely enough, went to the United States and joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
They fought bravely, nobody can deny that battling the French in 24 pitched battles between 1890 and 1894, but ultimately their sword-swinging mayhem was no match for a modern industrial world power with top-of-the-line weaponry.
Their charges were beaten off by intense gunfire, and in hand-to-hand combat, the twenty-inch French rifle bayonets had roughly twice the reach of the Dahomey knives and Dahomey Machetes.
The French conquered Dahomey in January 1894, driving King Behanzin into exile. The group was disbanded in the 20th century as part of the French colonial expansion. Nawi, the last surviving Dahomey Amazon, died in 1979 at the age of 100.
TRIBUTE TO THE AMAZONS
A Dahomean who grew up in Cotonou in the 1930s recalled that he regularly tormented an elderly woman, who used to be an Amazon he and his friends saw shuffling along the road, bent double by tiredness and age. He confided to the French writer Hélène Almeida-Topor that:
one day, one of us throws a stone that hits another stone. The noise resounds, a spark flies. We suddenly saw the old woman straighten up. Her face is transfigured. She begins to march proudly… Reaching a wall, she lies down on her belly and crawls on her elbows to get around it. She thinks she is holding a rifle because abruptly she shoulders and fires, then reloads her imaginary arm and fires again, imitating the sound of a salvo. Then she leaps, pounces on an imaginary enemy, rolls on the ground in furious hand-to-hand combat, flattens the foe. With one hand she seems to pin him to the ground, and with the other stabs him repeatedly. Her cries betray her effort. She makes the gesture of cutting to the quick and stands up brandishing her trophy…. She intones a song of victory and dances: The blood flows, You are dead. The blood flows, We have won. The blood flows, it flows, it flows. The blood flows, The enemy is no more. But suddenly she stops, dazed. Her body bends, hunches, how old she seems, older than before! She walks away with a hesitant step.
She is a former warrior; an adult explains…. The battles ended years ago, but she continues the war in her head.
In 2015, a French street artist, YZ, begun her own campaign to pay tribute to the fierce female fighters of the 19th century. Working in Senegal, south of Dakar, she pastes large-format photograph prints she found in local archives of the warrior women.
While they were also said to be the most feared women to walk the earth, they would also change how women were seen and respected in Africa and beyond.
Located in Ovia South LGA, the park which lies about 50km west of Benin City, Okomu National Park, formerly the Okomu Wildlife Sanctuary, is a forest block within the 1,082 km² Okomu Forest Reserve.
The park holds a small fragment of the rich forest that once covered the region, and is the last habitat for many endangered species.
The park holds a remnant of the Nigerian lowland forests that once formed a continuous 50–100 km wide belt from the Niger River west to the Dahomey Gap in Benin.
OKOMU NATIONAL PARK ECO-TOURISM
To the south and southeast the forest was separated from the coast by mangrove and swamp forests, while to the north it merged into the Guinean Forest-Savanna Mosaic eco-region.
Okomu National Park is about 200 km² of wildlife sanctuary, a rainforest ecosystem that is the habitat for many endangered species of flora and fauna.
The state government formally defined the sanctuary in 1986, with an area of just 66 km2 before the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) took over management of the sanctuary in 1987, and extended it to 114 km2 by adding a one-mile wide buffer zone.
The sanctuary was later taken over by the National Parks Service in 1999.
OKOMU NATIONAL PARK ECO-TOURISM
Okomu is a home of forest elephants, buffaloes, red river hogs, chimpanzees, leopards, bush baby, putty nosed guenon, porcupine, pangolins, duikers, antelopes etc.
The white throated monkey which is one of the rarest monkeys in the world today is found at the park as well. Butterflies and birds are abundant making it one of the best places for bird watching in Nigeria.
UDO AND ARAKHUAN VILLAGES
These are the villages within the location of Okomu National Park where visitors can learn and feel life in the rural communities. The villages provide visitors an insight into authentic African village life; meeting the locals and share their historical values.
SOME FEATURES:
THE NATURE RESERVE
The park is made up of Guinea–Congo lowland rain forest, which includes areas of swamp-forest, high forest, secondary forest, and open scrub.
Common trees are Kapok, Celtis zenkeri, Triplochiton scleroxylon, Antiaris africana, Pycnanthus angolensis, Alstonia congoensis etc.
The park is probably the best example of mature secondary forest in southwest Nigeria that is home to a number of forest elephant and buffalo, as well as a large variety of primates including a small (and very wary) troop of chimpanzees. It is also home to over 700 different butterfly species.
TREEHOUSE
The park has two treehouses, one 140 feet high in a silk-cotton tree, from which visitors can view the park from above and observe bird life.
The treehouse is the most intriguing feature anyone is likely to see in the park. The houses are additional pep to visitors gaining a vintage spot from where to relax and savour the beauties of nature that the park present.
The Treehouse has a base with some measure of space and platform to sit on while contemplating how to conquer the 140 feet height.
BIRD WATCHING
With over 200 species of birds recorded at the park, Okomu National Park is very rich in birdlife. These include Angolan Pitta, Grey Parrot, Wrinkled Hornbill, Fish Eagle, Hawks and woodpeckers.
You can also find Great Owl, Grey Hornbill, Cattle Egret, Black-casqued Hornbill, Yellow-casqued Hornbill, Sabine’s Spinetail, Cassin’s Spinetail and Black Spinetail.
Other species include White-breasted Negrofinch Chestnut-breasted Negrofinch, Pale-fronted Negrofinch and Yellow-throated Cuckoo etc. The bird hide enables avid bird watchers snipe at unaware avifauna that are wading through the pool overlooked by the hide or foraging within the vicinity.
NATURE TRAIL (SAFARI)
The park is accessible to tourists, and has well marked trails for visitors.
Visitors can stay at chalets built on stilts, just outside the park entrance, surrounded by big trees that are often occupied by Mona monkeys.
Guides are available for forest walks, and will point out such things as termite nests and the many medicinal plants that can be spotted all over the Okomu forest.
It is home to endangered forest Elephants and one of the rarest monkeys in the world, the White-throated monkey is one of the few remaining pristine rainforest areas in southern Nigeria.
OKOMU AND OSSE RIVERS AND ARAKHUAN STREAM
The Okomu River which flows across the length of the park as well as the Arakhuan stream provide visitors opportunity to engage in water sports such as fishing, boating / canoeing and other water related activities.
OKOMU ECOTOURIST RESORT
Located within the Okomu National Park, Okomu Ecotourist Resort is well appointed with comfortable chalets, high class catering and bar service and a swimming pool for visitors comfort.
Situated within the lush rainforest, visitors will be able to relax to the sounds of nature or if you feel adventurous, you can explore the National Park to look out for the many animals and birds that can be found here.
Swimming pool is located at the A.P Leventis Conservation Centre at Arakhuan and it also houses artifacts and other basic materials including information about the park numerous offerings. The resort services are provided through public private partnership with private investors.
The modern tourist facilities have 12 chalets and 3 family apartments cosy restaurant and a mini conference centre. The catering services are both continental and African cuisines.
What
is the best way to find a wife? There are a lot of variants. But one of the
most unusual is a naked fighting ritual in Ethiopia.
That’s one way to find a wife! Imagine the
tribesmen in Southern Ethiopia taking part in the dangerous naked fighting
ritual.
Members of the Suri tribe are involved in the
‘Donga,’ or naked stick fighting ritual to impress a mate.
It is very dangerous for fighters wearing little
or no clothing or protection. The naked fighting can result in bloodshed – and
even death.
The tribe’s way of life is under threat with new
pressures on the Omo river, especially following the completion of the Gibe III
dam – Africa’s third largest hydroelectric plants.
SURI LIFESTYLE
Suri villages range between 40 and 2,500 people.
Village decisions are made by an assembly of the men, though women make their
views known in advance of the debates. Village discussions are led by elders
and the komoru – a ritual chief. The korumus all come from the same clan and
are chosen by consensus.
Each household is run by a woman. The women have
their own fields and dispose of the proceeds as they wish. Money they make from
selling beer and grain can be used to buy goats, which they then trade for
cattle.
The men of the village are divided by ‘age-set’:
children, young men (tegay), junior elders (rora) and senior elders (bara).
Each set has its role. Children start helping with the cattle when they’re
about eight years old. The tegay age-set are unmarried and not yet known as
warriors. They do the herding and earn the right to become young elders by
their stick fighting and care of the cattle. Initiation ceremonies for those
moving into the next age-set only happen every 20 or 30 years. The initiation
ritual for the group becoming rora is particularly violent; the candidates are
insulted by the elders, given menial tasks, starved and sometimes even whipped
until they bleed.
Cattle are enormously important to the Suri. They
bring status; when two Suri meet they’ll ask each other how many cows they
have. Cows are a store of wealth to be traded, and a source of milk and blood.
Bleeding a cow is more efficient than slaughtering it for meat, and blood can
be drawn during the dry season when there’s less milk. An animal can be bled
once a month, from the jugular.
The animals aren’t generally sold or killed for
meat, though they are slaughtered for certain ceremonies. They are treated with
reverence. Fires are lit to keep them warm and to protect against insect bites,
they are covered with ash. Every boy is given a young bull to look after, and
his friends call him the name of his bull. The Suri sing songs in praise of
their cattle, and mourn them when they die.
The average man owns between 30 and 40 cows. In
order to marry, he needs about 60 cows to give to his wife’s family. Suri men
will fight to the death to protect their herd, and some risk their lives to
steal from other tribes.
As well as cattle, the Suri trade. In the 1980s
they smuggled automatic weapons from Sudan.
These days, the Suri are used to tourists visiting
their villages but they have a very low opinion of their behaviour. It’s
offensive, for instance, that people take pictures without asking permission
and the Suri insist on being paid a fee. ‘They must be people who don’t know
how to behave,’ one Suri told an anthropologist. ‘Do they want us to be their
children, or what? This photography business comes from your country. Give us a
car and we’ll go and take pictures of you.’
The Suri have some extremely painful rituals,
including lip plates, scarification and dangerous stickfighting. Some
anthropologists see these as a kind of controlled violence to get young Suris
used to feeling pain and seeing blood. These are, after all, people who live in
a volatile, hostile world, under constant threat from their enemies around them.
No one knows why lip plates were first used. One
theory goes that it was meant to discourage slavers from taking the women. It’s
undoubtedly painful. Once a girl reaches a certain age, her lower incisors are
knocked out and her bottom lip is pierced and stretched until it can hold the
clay plate.
‘We get a stick and make a hole’, explains
Nabala, the wife of Bruce’s host. ‘Then we gradually make the hole bigger….
My lip was cut a long time ago. My brothers and father made me get it done.
Without a lip plate I wouldn’t get married, and they’d get no cattle. My lip is
big, Dongaley’s is smaller. My lip plate is worth 60 cattle. Hers is worth 40.’
A few girls are beginning to refuse to have a lip plate.
As well as lip plates, the girls of the village
mark their bodies permanently by scarification. The skin is lifted with a thorn
then sliced with a razor blade, leaving a flap of skin which will eventually
scar. The men, meanwhile, scar their bodies to show they’ve killed someone from
an enemy tribe. There are particular meanings assigned to these scars. One
group, for instance, cuts a horseshoe shape on their right arm to indicate
they’ve killed a man, and on their left if for a woman.
When it comes to religious beliefs, the Suri have
a sky god, Tuma, an abstract divine force. There is no real veneration of the
earth or earth spirits.
THE STICK FIGHT COMPETITION (DONGA/ZAGNE)
A sport and ritual the Suri take extremely
seriously is stick fighting. It’s said to be one of the fiercest competitions
on the entire African continent. Here among Ethiopia’s Surma tribe,
the Donga, Stick Fight takes place in the name of love in most cases, stick fighting is
done so young men can prove their masculinity and to find wives. It is a way
for young men to prove themselves to the young women. This ritual is called
Donga or Zagne. Donga is both the name of the sport and the stick they use for
the fight. Stick fight is central in Suri culture. In most cases, stick fight
is a way for warriors to find girlfriends, it can also be a way to settle
conflicts. On these occasion men show their courage, their virility and their
resistance to pain, to the young women.
The fights are held between Suri villages, and
begin with 20 to 30 people on each side, and can end up with hundreds of
warriors involved. Suri are famous for stick fighting, but they are not the
only ones to respect such a custom, as the neighbor tribe, the Mursi were also
practicing these traditional fights. But Nowadays because of unknown reason the
Mursi stop the tradition of stick fight.
The day before the Zagnei, fighters have to pure
themselves. They do it by drinking a special preparation, called Dokai, which
is made of the bark of a special tree, which is mixed with water.
After taking it, warriors make themselves vomiting the drink. The water is
supposed to bring with it many of the body’s impurities. After this ritual they
don’t eat until the following morning. Warriors walk kilometers to come
fighting at Zagnei, which takes place in a clearing. They stop when crossing a
river in order to wash themselves, before decorating their bodies for the fight.
Some years ago the Ethiopian Federal government
tried to ban most of the ‘harmful customs’ all over the country in different
tribal people, such as cattle-raiding, lip plates and stick-fighting in Surma,
but effort ended without any result.
They decorate themselves by sliding the fingers
full of clay on the warrior’s bodies. This dressing up and decoration is meant
to show their beauty and virility and thus catch the women’s attention. The
phallic shape ending the sticks contributes to that virile demonstration.
Fighters arrive on the Donga field all together,
carrying the strongest man, dancing and singing. Some fighters wear colorful
headdresses sometimes with feathers on it, and also knee-protectors. But most
of them use no protection at all and fight completely naked in order to show
their bravery. They also wear strings of decorative colored beads around their
necks given by the girls and waist, but their genitals are most of the time
uncovered and they are barefoot.
All of them get a chance to fight one on one,
against someone from the other side. In the beginning each fighter looks for an
opponent of the same stature, and exchanges a few held back blows with him in
order to test him. If both fighters feel they have found a match, they suddenly
throw themselves into the fight, hitting ferocious fast strokes with their
sticks. If one of the warriors knocked out or puts paid to his opponent, he
immediately declares himself the winner. Zagne consists in qualifying rounds,
each winner fighting the winner of a previous fight, until two finalists are
left.
It is strictly forbidden to hit a man when he is
down on the ground. During these fighting competition, there are referees
present to make sure all rules are being followed. Many stick fights end within
the first couple of hits. Nevertheless, the fights are really violent, and it
is quite usual to see men bleeding. Stick fighting has proven to be dangerous
because people have died from being hit in the stomach. Losing an eye or a leg
during the fight is quite common, although it is strictly forbidden for a
fighter to kill his opponent, and if a fighter gets killed during the fight,
his opponent and all his family are banned from the village for life.
CONCLUSION
For the other locals, especially teenagers, Zagne
is a great outing. Girls watch the fights, but it is also the occasion to check
out the men, and to meet in order to chat or even gossip.
At the end of the fights, the winners point their
phallic sticks in direction of the girls they want to date with, if the girl
put a necklace around the stick, it means she is willing to date the champions.
Warriors are seen participating in the ‘Donga,’
or naked stick fight, which has traditionally been a way men impress women and
find a wife.
They fight with little or no clothing, and the violent
clashes sometimes result in death.
The clashes are usually between two villages,
with fighters taking it in turns to face each other.
Large crowds gather to watch as the Ethiopian
naked fighting.
They are usually held after the rains, and there
are often 20 to 30 fighters on each side, with tribesmen taking it in turns to
fight one-on-one.
Referees enforce a code of conduct – it is
against the rules to hit someone while they are on the floor.
References:
BBC Africa
answersafrica.com
By
Johnson Okunade
About Me
Passionate,
Curious mind, young blooded, writer, historian, computer scientist, blogger,
culture activist, proud Bowenite, and a friend-to-all, …
The name “Asmat” most probably comes from the words As
Akat, which according to the Asmat means: “the right man”. Others say
that that the word Asmat derives from the word Osamat meaning “man from
tree”. Asmat’s neighbors to the west, – the Mimika- , however, claim that
the name is derived from their word for the tribe – “manue”, meaning
“man eater”. The approximately 70,000 Asmat
people of the south-central alluvial swamps of Papua Province are of a Papuan
genetic heritage. They are scattered in 100 villages across a 27,000 square
kilometer area in one of the worlds’ largest and most remote alluvial mangrove
swamps— a wet, flat, and marshy place, much of it covered with dense lowland
tropical rain forests. Many of the rivers near the coast rise and fall with the
tides. The Asmat are muscular and tall by New Guinea standards. They average
five feet six inches tall.
Until the
1970s, the Asmat tribe did not have regular contact with the western world.
During this time, they were not living in the Stone Age [yet]. This is because
stone itself was highly unavailable. It wasn’t until the regular visit of the
missionaries [in the 1970s] that they were introduced to knives, axes, and
other metal items.
The area where the Asmat live encompasses some the
last unexplored regions of the world. The land is covered with bog forests and
mangrove and is serrated by many meandering rivers that empty into the Arafura
Sea. The tides submerge an area 100 miles inland. During high tide in the rainy
season, sea water penetrates some two kilometers inland and flows back out to
two kilometers to sea at low tide. During low tide the plains are muddy and
impassable. Here is the habitat of crocodiles, gray nurse sharks, sea snakes,
fresh water dolphins, shrimp, and crabs, while living along the banks are huge
lizards. The forests contain palms, ironwood, merak wood and mangroves and are
home to the crown pigeons, hornbills and cockatoos. There are grass meadows and
orchids. The Asmat have share the region with the Marind-Anim and the Mimika
tribes.
The Asmat have been described as a wood-age culture.
They traditionally have not used stone tools, simply because stones are hard to
find where they live. Up until white missionaries introduced steel fishing
hooks, knives and axes, the only metal or stone items they had were obtained by
trading with highland tribes, and these items were so precious that they were
usually reserved for ceremonial purposes.
The Asmat speak a language that belongs to the
Asmat-Kamoro Family of the Non-Austronesian languages. Bahasa Indonesian is
spoken by many. The population growth rate among the Asmat is estimated at
around 1 percent. There is little migration into and out of the area where the
Asmat live.
ASMAT HISTORY
First
contact with the Asmat was a sighting from the deck of a Dutch trading ship in
1623. Captain Cook later landed in Asmat territory on September 3, 1770, but
the fierce display by the Asmat so frightened the crew that they made a hasty
retreat.
The
Dutch controlled the Asmat territory from 1793-1949, but did not begin
explorations of the area until the early 1900s. The first explorers sent
zoological and artifact specimens back to Europe, where they were received with
curiosity and enthusiasm. The Dutch eventually established a colonial post in
1938. During World War II the post was temporarily closed.
In 1953,
Fr. Zegwaard, a Dutch missionary, reestablished the post at Agats, to serve as
both a government center and a base for missionaries. Agats became the
permanent post of the Catholic Crosier Brothers in 1958. The Crosier
missionaries, who often had anthropology degrees, discouraged the traditional
practices of headhunting and cannibalism, while encouraging the Asmat to retain
many other traditional rituals and festivals. Some of these were eventually
incorporated into the local Catholic practices.
Indonesia received its independence from the Dutch in 1949, but the Dutch
retained control of the western half of New Guinea, including the Asmat region,
until 1962. Then the Asmat area became part of Indonesia. In 1963, to end
headhunting, the Indonesian government burned down all ceremonial houses (jeu),
actively discouraged Asmat ritual and festivals, and severely limited dancing
and drumming. This crackdown lasted until 1968.
The
Crosier Brothers, with Bishop Sowada as their lead spokesperson, intervened to
stop the destructive policy of the Indonesian government. The bishop expressed
the importance of ceremony and ritual in Asmat life, declaring that “without
art and ritual the Asmat culture could not survive”.
To
aid in the resurgence of Asmat art and ritual, the United Nations underwrote a
project from 1968 to 1974 to encourage wood carving. Later, under the combined
efforts of Bishop Sowada, Tobias Schneebaum, Gunter and Ursula Konrad, the
Asmat Museum for Culture and Progress was opened in the early 1980s. Today, the
Museum hosts an annual woodcarving competition and auction that has stimulated
artistic creativity among the Asmat, and has become an economic boon to the
carvers, who are recognized throughout the world for the richness and quality
of their carvings.
In
2000, the Asmat founded the Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Asmat (LMAA) to work with
the Indonesian government on behalf of the interests of the Asmat people. In
2004, the Asmat region became a separate governmental administration, with its
own elected head
ASMAT AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF
MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER
One of the most famous missing person cases is the
1961 disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, the heir to the Rockefeller oil and
US Steel fortune and the son of Nelson Rockefeller, the American vice president
during the Ford administration. After graduating from Yale with a degree in
ethnology, the twenty-two-year-old Michael went on an expedition to the Asmat
area of New Guinea, where he traded tobacco and steel fishing hooks for carved
Asmat bis-poles to add to the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York.
Rockefeller disappeared on his second expedition to
New Guinea. One of the goals of the expedition to the Asmat region was to
purchase as many woodcarvings as possible. On his first visit Michael had been
deeply impressed by the Asmat sculptures, and planned to display these at an
exhibition in the United States. Today the Metropolitan Museum has an
outstanding collection of Asmat art, the majority of which was collected in
1961 by Michael C. Rockefeller. A group of 17 poles from the village of Otjanep
was delivered to the museum after his disappearance.
Michael Rockefeller was last seen on November 16, 1961
in a jerry-rigged catamaran bound for the village of Otjaneps. He had left the
town of Agats with two mission boys and the Dutch anthropologist Renee Wassing
when the boat’s 18-horsepower motor conked out in the mouth of the Sirets
river. The two boys immediately started swimming for shoreline to get help and
Rockefeller and Davis spent the night on the boat as it drifted out to sea. The
next morning Rockefeller could still see the shore. He tied his steel rimmed
glasses around his neck and attached himself to empty oil cans for buoyancy.
His last words were “I think I can make it.”
Rockefeller was never seen again. The Dutch navy,
various missionary boats, the Australian Air Force and an American aircraft
carrier participated in the search. Nelson Rockefeller and Michael’s twin
sister Mary arrived in a chartered plane and hired 12 Neptune aircraft to
search the sea and paid the Asmat large amounts of black tobacco in return for
participating in search parties. The search lasted for 10 days before it was
abandoned.
The Lawrence and Lorne Blair suggest that Rockefeller
was either eaten by sharks, drowned or was eaten by Asmat headhunters. To back
up the last hypothesis they suggest he might have been killed in revenge for
the murder of four Asmat warleaders by a Dutch government patrol in 1958. They
also point out that seems likely he made it to land because it is possible to
touch the sea bottom three kilometers from shore and wade in from a kilometers
and half out. Locals say there are few sharks in the water and the only thing
they worry about is stepping on a stingray.
An elder war leader in Otjanep told the Blairs that
after returning from fishing some of his friends found Rockefeller laying in
the mud, breathing heavily. Relatives of the friends had been killed by the
Dutch and they speared Rockefeller out of revenge and then dragged his body back
to the village where his head was cut off with a bamboo knife. The cuts were
cleaned out and the body was thrown on a fire. The meat was divided among the
people of the village and the most important men ate the brains.
ASMAT RELIGION
Many Asmat have converted to Christianity, although a
large number continue to practice the religion of their ancestors. For example,
many believe that all deaths—except those of the very old and very young—come
about through acts of malevolence, either by magic or actual physical force.
Ancestral spirits demand vengeance for these deaths. The ancestors to whom they
feel obligated are represented in shields, in large, spectacular wood carvings
of canoes, and in ancestor poles consisting of human figurines. Until the late
1980s, the preferred way for a young man to fulfill his obligations to his kin
and his ancestors and prove his sexual prowess was to take the head of an enemy
and offer the body for cannibalistic consumption by other members of the
village The Asmat have traditionally been animists who believed in a
pantheon of spirits that dwelled in trees, rivers or natural objects or were
spirits of deceased ancestors. The goal of religion was to bring about harmony
and balance with the cosmos. This was achieved through a variety rituals and
practices interwoven with daily life that traditionally included things like
woodcarving, warfare and headhunting. The spirits of ancestors are believed to
be the cause of many illnesses and some rituals are meant to appease them. Asmat
religious practitioners include sorcerers and shaman, whose primary duties are
to mediate between the human and spiritual world, often in the form of healing
and exorcisms. To become a shaman requires a long apprenticeship. Clan leaders
preside over rituals and ceremonies such as adult adoption, initiation and the
construction of men’s houses. Asmat rituals have traditionally been performed
in accordance with a two- or four-year cycle and included dancing, epic poem
singing and woodcarving. Revenge warfare and headhunting raids were often
performed in accordance with the ritual calendar. ~
The Asmat equate a human with a tree. The legs are the
roots, the torso is the trunk, the branches, arms, and the head, fruit. In the
old days in some parts of the Asmat world a freshly severed head—the fruit—was
needed for initiation rites in which a boy became a man by placing the head
between his thighs to draw its power
ASMAT CREATION MYTH
In the beginning, according to the Asmat creation
myth, a corpse of a man floating in the sea was brought to life by a great
bird. In a previous life the man had seduced his brother’s wife and was
banished from his community and drowned when his boat capsized during his
escape. On returning to life he floated to the land where the Asmat live today.
But there was on one there and he grew bored. He tried bring to life some
statues he carved but no luck, finally the spirit told him to go into the
jungle to seek out the “tree woman.”
The man was told to chop off the tree woman’s head and
return it to village where it would bring the statues he made to life. The man
did what he was told. The spirit was right and soon the statues were dancing
around to his delight. Then, one day a crocodile showed up and it and the man
engaged in a horrible battle. The man eventually emerged the winner but he was
so angry he chopped the crocodile in three pieces: one he hurled so far it lost
its color. This produced the white race. Another was tossed a little less hard
so it lost only part of its color. This produced man with brown skin. The third
was left where it was giving rise to black men.
ASMAT IS THE DESCENT OF THE GOD
In ancient times, a God
named Fumeripitsy came down to earth. He explored the earth and started his
adventure from the western horizon of the sunset. In his adventure, the God had
to confront a giant crocodile and defeat him. Despite the victory, the god was
badly wounded and washed up on a river bank.
Although felt hurt, the
God tried to survive until he met a flamingo bird that is noble. He helped the
Gods to recover from the wound. After recovering, the gods lived in that area
and built a house then carved two very beautiful statues. He also made a very
loud drum sound to keep him dancing endlessly. The dance movement of the God
was so powerful that it makes the two sculptures carved into life. Soon after,
the two statues joined in the dance and moved to follow the God. The two
statues were the first human couple to be the ancestors of the Asmat tribe.
THE REASON WHY ASMAT DECLARED THEMSELVES AS THE DESCENDANTS OF GOD
The mythological about
the descents of the God is a trust owned by the Asmat Tribe, one of the largest
tribes in Papua. This myth keeps the Asmat tribe believing that they are gods
until now. It is not excessive, because Asmat does have a culture that is highly
respected. In fact, this tribe has been known to foreign countries. That
is why it’s not surprised if there are many researchers from around the world
often visit the village of the tribe Asmat. They are generally interested in
studying the life of the Asmat, its belief system, and the unique customs of
the Asmat tribe.
ASMAT AND CHRISTIANITY
Many Asmat have converted to Christianity. There has
been a great effort to adapt Christianity to the needs of the Asmat. One
missionary said, “We can stretch our minds as far as possible and still we
can never see the world as the Asmat do.” In an effort to help the Asmat
“find God in the natural world,” Father Vince Cole wears and tooth
necklace and fur headband over his red shirt and cut-off blue jeans.
Attempting to rebuild the Asmat culture, which was nearly
destroyed in the 1960s by the Indonesian government, which tore down men’s
house, outlawed feasts and destroyed sacred objects, the Crosiers incorporated
Asmat rituals into their Catholic services. They also acted as mediators in
clan conflicts and as intermediary between the Asmat and the Indonesian
government. Some Catholic churches have been modeled after the traditional
men’s house with fire pits, ancestor poles and altars made from huge tree
trunks. Christ is depicted with a crown of feathers. Worshipers at one church
are called to prayer with a bell made from an old brake drum. At prayer
meetings held at the traditional men’s house men come with painted bodies,
egret feathers stuck in their headbands, and daggers made from cassowary
shinbones. The worshipers drum, dance, pass around roasted sago as a sign of
sharing, and read passages from a Bible translated into the Asmat language.
The Asmat believe that when they killed and ate a
person, they became that person and absorbed his skills. This is similar, of
course, to the Catholic belief that we eat the body of Christ to become Christ.
So missionaries say, ‘Look you don’t have to go out and kill. You now have
Christ’…What are Catholics after all, but ritualist cannibals?”
The Asmat have also done their bit to adapt to Christian
Western culture. In the village of Agats they are forbidden from appearing
naked. Some worked for several weeks to earn money for shorts.
ASMAT FUNERALS
Asmat funeral ceremonies feature ceremonial shields
which represent the revenge of the dead, ancestor poles (bis) and
ancestor figures (kawa). There is often intense grieving and physical
expressions of loss. To express their grief over the loss of a husband Asmat
women traditionally rolled in patches beside their house. The ritual was
intended not only as an expression of grief but also a way to mask the woman’s
scent from his ghost. Other mourners cover their head with red clay and stab
the earth with bone daggers.
Sometimes the Asmat begin mourning the dead before
they are dead. There was a story of a man who was dying when the villagers
rushed into his house to wail over him and “suffocated the poor
fellow.” Another time a woman collapsed in front of her house. Her family
gather around inside the house expressing their grief and received a terrible
shock when the “dead” woman walked in demanding to know what was
going on. Apparently she only fainted.
The purpose of an Asmat funeral is to placate the
spirits of the dead so they don’t bother the living. Those successfully
placated enter safon; “the other side.” The bodies of Asmat dead
used to be wrapped in pandanus leaves placed on platforms to rot after the head
had been removed and was worn as pendant or used as a pillow.
ASMAT HEADHUNTING AND CANNIBALISM
Until the 1950s, warfare, headhunting, and cannibalism
were constant features of Asmat social life. The people would build their
houses along river bends so that an enemy attack could be seen in advance. Many
Asmat believe that all deaths—except those of the very old and very young—come
about through acts of malevolence, either by magic or actual physical force.
Ancestral spirits demand vengeance for these deaths. The ancestors to whom they
feel obligated are represented in shields, in large, spectacular wood carvings
of canoes, and in ancestor poles consisting of human figurines. Until the late
1980s, the preferred way for a young man to fulfill his obligations to his kin
and his ancestors and prove his sexual prowess was to take the head of an enemy
and offer the body for cannibalistic consumption by other members of the
village.
The Asmat have traditionally practiced headhunting,
cannibalism as part of their ritualized warfare scheme which usually involved
revenge rectification of cosmic or clan imbalances. The heads from captured
enemies were baked and skinned; a hole was cut in the skull and the brain was
scraped out and eaten. The lower jaws were ripped off and worn as a pendant
advertising prowess in war, and the skull was used as a pillow. Asmat believe
they are related to praying mantises which also eat their own kind. Trophy skulls,
bone daggers, stone clubs are all associated with headhunting. As a symbol of their
headhunting skills men often wear bamboo and cassowary-quill pendants decorated
with human vertebrae. Women sometimes borrow the pendants during feasts and
wear them with dog-tooth necklaces and possum fur bonnets.
Officially headhunting ended the Indonesian part of
New Guinea in the 1960s. But it still seemed to be going on in the 1970s and
who knows perhaps it goes on from time to time even now in remote areas. Some
anthropologists have said prohibition of clan warfare and headhunting has left
a huge void in Asmat culture that the modern world has yet to replace.
ASMAT REVENGE WARS
The Asmat have traditionally believed that only the
very young and very old die from natural causes. Everybody else died as a
result of black magic or tribal fighting. Therefore, almost every death needs
to be avenged. In the old days this concept resulted in headhunting raids and
revenge wars. These day the power of the dead is still taken very seriously but
is dealt with ceremonial rituals but “avenging” still may occur.
Asmat warfare was traditionally in the form of raids,
ambushes and skirmishes. Head hunting raids were usually organized to avenge
the killing of a member of the raider’s tribe. Before the raid began the men
painted themselves and decorated their canoes while women prepared a victory
feast and exhorted their men to fight bravely. If you don’t fight, you can be
branded a coward, a traitor. The young people grow up hearing their leaders
talk about the great wars. Then they go out and fight too.
Another way for one tribe to make peace with another
is for a chief in one tribe to give a child to another, often to make amends
for a child killed in a previous raid. To ease tensions sometimes neighboring
villages adopt members of each other’s tribe. During the “adoption”
“children” paint their faces with ocher and cover their heads with
palm leaves. Men of the other tribe lay naked and face down and their women
stand above them. The “children” then climb over the men’s bodies and
through the women’s legs in an act meant to symbolize coming through the womb.
The woman moan as if they are in labor and the “children” keep their
eyes closed until they have emerged. When a child is through the woman’s legs
the “father” announces the successful birth. The “children” continue
playing their roll for several more days, acting childish and learning how to
fish and hunt.
ASMAT RAIDING PARTIES AND REVENGE
WARS
An Asmat raiding party typically took off in canoes
and parked them a couple of river bends before the village they planned to
attack. One of the chiefs got out to scout a good route. The raiding party then
broke into two groups: one heading through the forest and other advancing in
canoes. When groups were in position a handful of lime was thrown into the air
signaling the raid to begin. Surprise was important. The idea was to kill everybody
before they had a chance to get their weapons. As many as forty or fifty people
were killed in some raids, including women and children. While the bodies
of the dead were dragged to trenches for burial the headhunters sang: “We
have killed a man, we have killed a man, we are happy.” Dragging the
bodies through the trenches the warriors shouted, “There’s no need for you
to attack us again. We’ve revenged our dead now, so let’s live in peace.”
The heads were then cut off with bamboo knives and carried home. Once in the
villages the warriors went into their ceremonial house and displayed each head
and related the story of how it was captured.
Journalist Malcolm Kirk landed at a village in the
Asmat area in the 1970s. The atmosphere he said was disturbing. The town was
unnaturally quiet and the men who greeted them were armed with bows and arrows.
His guide told him that they had better get out of there, “I’ll explain
why later.” When they were safely around a bend in their boat the guide
said, “We walked right into a head hunting raid. Everyone we saw was from
another village. The [villagers] heard them coming and fled.” Kirk then went to
another village, called to, and traded some tobacco and fishhooks for some bone
and crocodile jaw daggers. When they went back to their boat their guide told
them that 15 bowmen watched them from the jungle ready to kill on signal. But
why? “The Two people had recently gone head hunting and killed five
people. They thought we might have come to punish them,” the guide said
The Indonesian government no longer allows revenge
killing and the consumption of human brains. To end Asmat clan warfare, the
government banned Asmat festivals and burned their carvings. Attacks, ambushes
and skirmishes still occur from time to time. Missionaries complain that if the
Asmat were left to their own devises they would spend all their time drumming,
dancing and plotting wars.
THE GOVERNMENT STARTED TO PAY ATTENTION TO ASMAT
TRIBE
Although the Dutch
colonial government did not cover the territory of Asmat until 1938, and
Catholic missionaries also just started their mission in 1958, in fact major
changes occurred in the region after the 60s. In the early 90s, Asmat tribes
began to follow education programs from the government and began to embrace
Christianity.
As the wood and oil
processing industries began expanding into this region, fragile environmental
conditions and mangrove forests in their coastal areas are threatened with
destruction due to waste disposal and soil erosion. Although the Asmat have
succeeded in achieving national and international awards for their artwork,
this fame has not provided significant input to the Indonesian government in
making decisions affecting land use in the Asmat territory until the early 90s.
Those are the history of
Asmat Tribe Indonesia. Behind the admiration of Asmat’s art it might embedded
in the minds of the people that Asmat tribe is a primitive tribe and cannibal
humans who like to head enemies. Today Asmat tribe is more famous for its work
art in the field of sculpture and carving. No matter what cultures that Asmat
people have, it is one of the Indonesians culture that must be preserved.
Source: Peter and Kathleen Van
Arsdale, Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Oceania edited by
Terence Hays, (G.K. Hall & Company, 1991)
Source: Malcolm Kirk, National
Geographic, March 1972
Source: “Ring of Fire” by
Lawrence and Lorne Blair, Bantam Books, New York
The West African countries of Ghana and Nigeria have an
ongoing rivalry between them akin to that of siblings. From football, to
politics, to entertainment, citizens of each country always want to demonstrate
their superiority over the other, howbeit not in a hateful or biased manner. It
is always more bants than facts. There have been several episodes, of ‘social
media wars’ or ‘Twitter Fights’ between citizens of both countries that leaves
us all clutching our stomach with laughter. Through it all though, it is
obvious that it is all love and sport.
In this post, we attempt to give reasons why Nigerians,
despite the rivalry with their Ghanian counterparts, should visit the Gold
Coast. Just like Nigeria, Ghana is rich in history, mineral resources, culture,
tradition and places of interest to see and visit.
Many Nigerians do not even know that in Ghana you have Hausa
and Fulani speaking people like there are in Nigeria.
Cousins
Ghanians are like cousins to Nigerians. Visiting Ghana for a
Nigerian is like visiting your cousins for holiday. There are lots you share in
common, but somehow you all still do things differently. Case in point, the
jollof. When Nigerians visit Ghana there is an air of familiarity about the
place, some lingo and slangs are commonly used, but their pidgin is still very
confusing.
Food
Shitor. Banku. Waakye. Jollof. The list is endless really.
Ghanian cuisine can be a joy to experience and even though the eternal battle
over whose jollof is better still rages on, no Nigerian should visit Ghana
without tasting the jollof. Ghanaian food is actually so popular in Nigeria
that there are bukas and restaurants in Lagos dedicated to selling just
Ghanaian meals. The most popular among them is Ghana High.
Shatta Wale
Shatta Wale is Ghana’s biggest music sensation at the
moment. And only recently he has had a war of words with Nigerian pop artistes
on social media. As long as you are not one to take these things too seriously,
visiting Ghana to see a Shatta Wale show should be on your list of things to
do, at least that way you can see what the hype is about yourself and tell if
he is as great as he says he really is.
Beaches
Ghana is blessed with such an impressive stretch of beach
line. If you are tired of the Elegushi and Oniru beaches of Lagos, switch it up
by exploring the coastline of Labadi and Kobrobite. If you are enthusiastic
about wildlife, visit the Cocoloco beach where you would find turtles and a large
number of river birds. Beach Resorts in Ghana are beautiful and spending a
night or more in one of them would greatly enrich your Ghana experience.
Hospitality in Ghana is amazing with big establishments and accra hotels offering top notch service to travelers.
Charle Wote
We have Calabar Carnival. They have Charle Wote. This annual
street cum art festival does get bigger and better every year with amazing
exhibitions, musical performances, art installations, food, merchandise vendors
as well as live music and dance that goes on well into the night. For anyone
who enjoys having a good time, when in Ghana, Charle Wote is a must attend.
Nigerian Community
There is a perpetually growing Nigerian community in Ghana
and visiting Ghana would definitely feel like home. It won’t be long before you
notice the familiar accent of a Nigerian, no matter where he is from back home
and quickly tag them as your brother or your sister. Especially in Ghanian
Universities where many Nigerians turn to as an alternative to schooling in
Europe or right here at home.
Slim might be in elsewhere but for Ethiopia’s Bodi or Me’en people, bigger is always better
Ethiopia is a land of many cultures that have been preserved despite western civilization. Along the Lower Omo valley river in Southern Ethiopia resides one of these kinds: the Bodi Tribe. The Bodi people are neighbours to the Mursi Tribe. The Bodi people are agriculturalists who still engage in trade by barter system.
These pastoral people revere their cows. Their cows are so special to them that its blood together with fresh milk is a source of food for this people. Rather than kill the cows, they make a hole in one of its veins to get the blood out and close it back with clay.
These animals are also used in certain ceremonies. Among the ceremonies is the peculiar new year celebration. the tribe, which lives in a remote corner of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, is home to an unusual ritual which sees young men gorge on cow’s blood and milk in a bid to be crowned the fattest man. Six months after starting the regime, the men emerge to show off their newly engorged physiques and for a winner to be chosen. The champion fat man is then feted as a hero for the rest of his life.
THE KA’EL CEREMONIAL COMPETITION
At the start of each year [the month of June in the Gregorian calendar], they hold a “Ka’el ceremony” (ceremony of fat men) to mark the new year celebrations. The Ka’el ceremony is a competition for men who are not married which involves drinking the blood mixture. The 14 clans present a man who is single and they deem fit for the competition. Those who are contesting prepare for six months. During this period, he must not have sex and must not be seen outside his hut.
There is a procedure for drinking the first bowl of 2 litres at sunrise while the rest comes easy and is taken all day.
It is not unusual to see some of these contestants vomit the mixture because two litres was more than they can drink.
Sadly, the Ka’el ritual and the Bodi’s traditional way of life is under threat from the Ethiopian government who plan to resettle 300,000 people from all over the country on their lands. Despite this, the tribe continue as they always have, and still celebrate Ka’el in traditional style each June.
The contest begins six months before the ceremony. Every family is allowed to present an unmarried man for the challenge, who, after being chosen, retires to his hut and must not move or have sex for the duration.
Food comes in the form of a cow’s blood and milk mixture, served regularly to the men by women from the village. The cows are sacred to the Bodi tribe so they are not killed. The blood is taken by making a hole in a vein with a spear or an axe, and after that, they close it with clay.
Because of the scorching temperatures, the men have to drink the two-litre bowl of blood and milk quickly before it coagulates, but not everyone can handle drinking so much at speed. The fat men
drink milk and blood all day long. The first bowl of blood is drunk at
sunrise. The place is invaded by flies. The man must drink it quickly before it
coagulates but some cannot drink everything and vomit it. On the day itself,
the men cover their bodies with clay and ashes before emerging from their huts
for the walk to the spot where the ceremony will take place.
Decoration: The dress code for the ceremony also includes a selection of beautifully worked headdresses, in this case, one made from cowrie shells and ostrich plumes
Every part of the men’s bodies are daubed with the ash and clay mixture and the men also wear colourful beaded necklaces and bracelets
Thanks to the weight gain, many of them find covering the short distance tougher than the weeks spent fattening up. ‘Some fat men are so big that they cannot walk anymore,
On the day of the competition, they cover themselves with clay and ashes and display their acrobatic skills.
As part of the competition, they run around sacred trees for hours sometimes with the assistance of women. While at it, they are under the watchful eyes of their judges. After this, the people use a sacred stone on a cow before killing it. The intestines are then used to predict what the year holds. When a winner is chosen by the elderly judges, they crown him, “fat man of the year title.”
Just like other beauty pageants, there is a prize only this time, it is the lifelong admiration of the Bodi people.
