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The Interpretation of Symbolism in Wan Female Initiation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Philip L. Ravenhill
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Extract

Anthropological analyses of cultural symbolism have often benefitted fron the commentary of gifted informants who have provided ethnographers with detailed symbolic exegeses of the rites and ceremonies of their societies. Ethnographers have usually signalled with enthusiasm such received help and offered profound thanks to their philosophically reflective friends, but at the same time few, if any, ethnographers have indicated a willingness to restrict their data to those offered by such exegetes. In part this reticence is perhaps due to the fact that reliance upon the knowledge or philosophical reflexions of ritual or religious virtuosi raises the question of a possible disparity between the explicit ‘theological’ or cosmological knowledge controlled by certain experts and the implicit working knowledge of practical religion as understood by the majority of its practitioners (cf. Leach 1968). Thus there arises the problem of the subject matter of investigation: should anthropological analyses of symbolism be directed toward explicit specialized knowledge or implicit common knowledge? Furthermore, is articulated knowledge part of the solution of symbolic analysis or is it more properly part of the data (Sperber 1975:x, passim)?

Résumé

INTERPRÉTATION DU SYMBOLISME DANS L'INITIATION DE LA FEMME CHEZ LES WAN

Cet article tente de mettre à jour les connaissances tacites qui servent de base à l'initiation des femmes chez les Wan de Côte d'Ivoire Centrale. Bien que cet article soit principalement d'ordre ethnographique, il touche aussi à l'examen de la méthodologie d'analyse des symboles ainsi qu'à l'étude des différences symboliques et culturelles qui distinguent les rôles sexuels de l'homme et de la femme ainsi que leurs aspirations. Après une esquisse des divers stades du processus d'initiation, on examine le symbolisme du rite de passage en s'attachant tout particulièrement à l'usage et à la signification des symboles représentatifs de la femme et de la nature; on considère ensuite, sur un plan général, la position de la femme au sein de la société Wan ainsi que les différences culturelles de base entre l'homme et la femme. Le contraste entre homme et femme se résume par l'équation suivante:

femme: naissance/nature: homme: mort/culture

On conclut enfin que, selon la perspective Wan, la femme crée l'homme mais ce dernier, par une transcendance rituelle de la mort, crée la société et la culture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 66 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1978

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