Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:37:43.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Symbolic Rebirth: The Mwali Rite among the Luguru of Eastern Tanzani1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

James L. Brain
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I shall describe the rites performed for Luguru girls at puberty, and attempt an interpretation of their symbolic significance and sociological functions. In a recent article (Brain 1977) I have re-examined the whole question of initiation rites, and I propose to treat the Luguru case in the light of the ideas developed therein.

Briefly, I see the rites as having both psychological and sociological importance. Psychologically, they compensate for male envy of female precreativity (Bettelheim 1954); affirm the culturally prescribed sex roles (Freud 1962 [1905] and Rank 1929); and provide a means of dealing with the threateningly anomalous nature of the transition from an asexual to a sexual world (Douglas 1966). Sociologically, they effect a transition from one status to another; clarify male and female roles and the nature of legitimate authority; and provide instruction in traditional lore and sexual conduct. It is plain that the psychological and sociological aspects overlap considerably. This is most evident in what I regard as the prime function of the rites: to correct any tendency on the part of women to assume a dominant role in a society where political and economic factors might permit them to do so.

Résumé

RENAISSANCE SYMBOLIQUE: LE RITE MWALI CHEZ LES LUGURU DE TANZANIE ORIENTALE

Les Luguru, peuplade matrilinéaire de Tanzanie Orientale, ont des rites initiatiques pour les jeunes garçons et les jeunes filles. Le rite destiné aux jeunes filles est un rite de longue durée. Dès le début du ménarche, le jeune fille est placée dans une hutte sombre où elle sera retenue de I à 6 ans. Le rite est décrit en détail et sa signification symbolique est examinée, ainsi que ses effets sociologiques et psychologiques. On suggère que le forme même du rite dérive d'un sentiment de jalousie de l'homme envers la procréativité de la femme et que les effets de ce rite sont destinés à faciliter le passage d'un monde asexuel à un monde sexuel; de clarifier les rôles dans leur rapport homme/femme; d'instruire; et surtout en premier lieu d'interdire aux femmes toute possibilité d'accès à un rôle dominant dans une société qui pour des raisons économiques ou autres risquerait de la permettre.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , April 1978 , pp. 176 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Beidelman, T. O. 1960 ‘A note on Luguru descent groups,’ Anthropos 55: 882–4.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1964 ‘Pig (guluwe): an essay on Ngulu sexual symbolism and ceremony,’ Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 20 (4): 359–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1966 ‘Utani: some Kaguru notions of death, sexuality and affinity,’ Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 22 (4): 354–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1967 The Matrilineal Peoples of Eastern Tanzania. (Ethnographic Survey of Africa Series.) London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Bettelheim, B. 1954 Symbolic Wounds. Glencoe: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Brain, J. L. 1962 ‘The Kwere of the Eastern Province,’ Tanganyika Notes and Records 58–9: 231–41.Google Scholar
Brain, J. L. 1969 ‘Matrilineal descent and marital stability: a Tanzanian case,’ Journal of Asian and African Studies 4 (2): 122–31.Google Scholar
Brain, J. L. 1971 ‘Kingalu: a myth of origin from eastern Tanzania,’ Anthropos 66 (5/6): 817–38.Google Scholar
Brain, J. L. 1973 ‘Ancestors as elders: further thoughts,’ Africa 43 (2): 122–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brain, J. L. 1977 ‘Sex, incest and death: initiation rites reconsidered,’ Current Anthropology 18 (2): 191–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brain, J. L. forthcoming ‘A Luguru cosmology,’ Journal of Ultimate Reality and Meaning. (Due to appear in 1978.)Google Scholar
Christensen, J. B. 1963 ‘Utani joking: sexual license and social obligations among the Luguru,’ American Anthropologist 65: 1314–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cory, H. 1956 Proposals for a reform of the Uluguru councils. Mimeo, Cory Collection, University of Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1966 Purity and Danger. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Fosbrooke, H. and Young, R. 1960 Land and Politics among the Luguru. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Foster, G. M. 1965 ‘Peasant society and the image of limited good,’ American Anthropologist 67 (2): 293–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, S. 1962 [1905] Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Translated and edited by Strachey, James. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hershman, P. 1974 ‘Hair, sex and dirt,’ Man (N.S.) 9 (2): 274–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimmenade, Rev. Fr (n.d.) Notes on the Luguru. Translated Hans Cory, mimeographed and undated, Cory Collection, University of Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
McVicar, T. 1935 ‘Sibs, privileged familiarity and cross-cousin marriage among the Waluguru,’ Primitive Man 8: 57–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McVicar, T. (n.d.) Notes on the Waluguru. MS at Morogoro District Office.Google Scholar
Murdock, G. P. 1959 Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Mzuanda, Rev. Fr 1958 Historia ya Uluguru. Dar es Salaam: privately published for Morogoro Native Authority.Google Scholar
Rank, O. 1929 The Trauma of Birth. New York; Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Richards, A. I. 1956 Chisungu: A Girls' Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia. London: Faber.Google Scholar
Scheerder, Rev. Fr and Tastevin, Rev. Fr 1950 ‘Les Waluguru,’ Anthropos 45: 241–86.Google Scholar
Southall, A. 1970 ‘The illusion of tribe,’ Journal of Asian and African Studies 5 (1/2): 28–50.Google Scholar
Swantz, L. W. 1965 The Zaramo of Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Nordic Project Tanganyika, mimeographed.Google Scholar
Swantz, M. L. 1966 The Religious and Magical Rites Connected with the Life Cycle of the Woman in Some Bantu Ethnic Groups of Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Nordic Tanganyika Project.Google Scholar
Turner, V. 1975 Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual. [A collection of previous papers.] Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uchendu, V. 1965 The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria. New York, Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Von Waldow, A. 1935 The Mwali custom of the Zaramo. Notes written at Maneromango for the Berlin Lutheran Mission, mimeographed, Cory Collection, University of Dar es Salaam. (Some of Von Waldow's texts have been edited and published in ‘Madchenzeihung bei den Zaramo,’ Afrika und Übersee 45: 292–306.)Google Scholar