Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T07:17:19.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Cognitive Rationality of Taboos on Production and Reproduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Quentin Gausset
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

All over sub-saharan Africa, menstruating women, pregnant women and sexual relations are seen as incompatible with productive activities (hunting, blacksmithing, cattle herding, agriculture, pottery, beer brewing, etc.). The article argues that there is a certain rationality or logic behind the prohibitions which is independent of the social contingencies found in the different societies, and which is linked with the fact that all these activities are metaphorically compared to human reproduction. The metaphors help us to understand mysterious and delicate biochemical processes, characterised by recurrent misfortune, but they also introduce a cognitive threat by creating similarity between things which are very different. The taboos then try to prevent the conjunction of the things metaphorically compared, in order to forestall the possibility of misfortune related to them.

Résumé

Dans toute l'Afrique sub-saharienne, les femmes menstruées, nceintes ou les relations sexuelles sont vues comme incompatibles avec les activités productrices (chasse, travail du fer, élevage, agriculture, potterie, brasserie, etc.) L'article défend l'idée qu'il existe une certaine rationalité derrière tous ces interdits, qui est indépendante des contingences sociales, et qui est dûe au fait que toutes ces activités sont métaphoriquement comparées à la reproduction humaine. Les métaphores aident à comprendre des processus bio-chimiques délicats et mystérieux, caractérisés par des malheurs récurrents, mais elles introduisent en même temps une menace cognitive en créant un lien de similarité entre des choses fort différentes. Les interdits essayent alors d'éviter la conjonction de ces choses métaphoriquement similaires, afin d'éviter tout malheur potentiel les concernant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , November 2002 , pp. 628 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2002

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

Ashton, H. 1952/1967. The Basuto: a social study of traditional and modern Lesotho. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Barley, N. 1983. Symbolic Structures: an exploration of the culture of the Dowayos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barley, N. 1984. ‘Placing the West African potters’, in Picton, J. (ed.), Earthenware in Asia and Africa, pp. 93–104. London: University of London.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T. O. 1986. Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Berglund, A. I. 1976. Zulu Thought Patterns and Symbolism. Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXII. Uppsala: Swedish Institute of Missionary Research.Google Scholar
Bivar Segurado, J. 1986. ‘L’ordre cosmogonique et l’ordre social : grossesse et naissance chez les Cewa du Mozambique’, Civilisations 36, 237-50.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, 1956. Banyarwanda et Barundi III, Religion et magie. Brussels: Académie royale des sciences coloniales.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, 1957. Banyarwanda et Barundi I, Ethnographie. Brussels: Académie royale des sciences coloniales.Google Scholar
Buckley, T. and Gottlieb, A. 1988. ‘A critical appraisal of theories of menstrual symbolism’, in Buckley, T. and Gottlieb, A. (eds), Blood Magic: the anthropology of menstruation, pp. 3–53. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Célis and Nzikobanyanka. 1976. La Métallurgie traditionnelle au Burundi. Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique Centrale.Google Scholar
Childs, S. T. and Killick, D. 1993. ‘Indigenous African metallurgy: nature and culture’, Annual Review of Anthropology 22, 317-37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cline, W. 1937. Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa. Menasha: Banta.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 1967. Marriage and the Family among the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
David, N.Sterner, J. and Gavua, K. 1988. ‘Why pots are decorated’, Current Anthropology 29, 365-89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devisch, R. 1984. Se recréer femme : manipulation sémantique d’une situation d’infécondité chez les Yaka du Zaire. Collectanea Instituti Anthropos 31. Berlin: Reimer.Google Scholar
Devisch, R. 1990. ‘The human body as a vehicle for emotions among the Yaka of Zaire’, in Jackson, M. and Karp, I.(eds), Personhood and Agency: the experience of self and other in African cultures, pp. 115-33. Studies in Cultural Anthropology 14. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Dieterlen, G. 1973. ‘A contribution to the study of blacksmiths in West Africa’, in Alexandre, P.(ed.), French Perspectives in African Studies, pp. 40–61. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1955. ‘Social and religious symbolism of the Lele of the Kasai’, Zaïre 9, 385-102.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1957. ‘Animals in Lele religious symbolism’, Africa 27 (1), 46–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, M. 1954/1960. ‘The Lele of Kasai’, in Forde, D. (ed.), African Worlds: studies in the cosmológica! ideas and social values of African peoples, pp. 1–26. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1963. The Lele of the Kasai. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger : an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1975. Implicit Meanings: essays in anthropology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Evers, T., and Huffman, T. 1988. ‘On why pots are decorated the way they are’, Current Anthropology 29, 739-41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazer, J. G. 1922/1957. The Golden Bough: a study in magic and religion (abridged edition). London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, P. 1991. ‘Polytropy’, in Fernandez, J. W.(ed.), Beyond Metaphor: the theory of tropes in anthropology, pp. 17–55. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gausset, Q. 1997. ‘Les Avatars de l’identité chez les Wawa et les Kwanja du Cameroun’. Ph.D. thesis, Free University of Brussels.Google Scholar
Gausset, Q. 2001. ‘Masks and identity: the significance of masquerades in the symbolic cycle linking the living, the dead, and the bush spirits among the Wawa (Cameroon)’, Anthropos 96, 193–200.Google Scholar
Gausset, Q. and Mogensen, H. O. 1996. ‘Sida et pollutions sexuelles chez les Tonga de Zambie’, Cahiers d’études africaines 143, 455-76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelfand, M. 1956. Medicine and Magic of the Mashona. Cape Town: Juta.Google Scholar
Gosselain, O. 1992. ‘Technology and style: potters and pottery among Bafia of Cameroon’, Man 27, 559-86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, A. 1982. ‘Sex, fertility and menstruation among the Beng of the Ivory Coast: a symbolic analysis’, Africa 52 (1), 34–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottlieb, A. 1988. ‘Menstrual cosmology among the Beng of Ivory Coast’, in Buckley, T. and Gottlieb, A.(eds), Blood Magic: the anthropology of menstruation, pp. 55–74. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Herbert, E. 1984. Red Gold of Africa. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Héritier, F. 1979. ‘Symbolique de l’inceste et de sa prohibition’, in Izard, M. andSmith, P. (eds), La Fonction symbolique : essais d’anthropologie, pp. 209-43. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1956. ‘Le symbolisme du forgeron en Afrique Centrale’, Reflets du monde 10, 57–70.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1971.‘Introduction’, in Douglas, M.De la souillure. Paris: Maspéro.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1972. Le Roi ivre, ou, l’Origine de l’état. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1982. Rois nés d’un coeur de vache. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1986. Le Sacrifice dans les religions africaines. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Heusch, L. de. 1990. ‘Les vicissitudes de la notion d’interdit’, in Marx, J.(ed.), Problèmes d’histoire des religions : religion et tabous sexuels, pp. 9–16. Brussels: Editions de l’Université libre de Bruxelles.Google Scholar
Hunter, M. 1964. Reaction to Conquest: effects of contacts with Europeans on the Pondo of South Africa. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Jacobson- Widding, A. 1986. Beer for the Ancestors, Sun-hat for the Whyte Lady. Working Papers in African Studies 23. Uppsala: University of Uppsala.Google Scholar
Jacobson- Widding, A. 1989. ‘Notions of heat and fever among the Manyika of Zimbabwe’, in Jacobson-Widding, A. and Westerlund, D. (eds), Culture, Experience and Pluralism: essays on African ideas of illness and healing, pp. 27–44. Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 13. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsa-liensis.Google Scholar
Jacobson- Widding, A. 1992. ‘Pits, pots and snakes: an anthropological approach to ancient African symbols’, Nordic Journal of African Studies 1, 5–27.Google Scholar
Jedrej, M. C. 1989. ‘A note on ash symbolism in Africa’, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 114, 111-23.Google Scholar
Junod, H. 1910. ‘Les conceptions physiologiques des Bantous Sud-Africains et leurs tabous’, Revue d’ethnographie et de sociologie 1, 126-69.Google Scholar
Junod, H. 1912. The Life of a South African Tribe. Neuchatel: Attinger.Google Scholar
Krige, J. D. and , Krige, E. J. 1954/1960. ‘The Lovedu of the Transvaal’, in Forde, D. (ed.), African Worlds: studies in the cosmological ideas and social values of African peoples, pp. 55–82. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute Reprinted 2000, Hamburg: Lit Verlag; Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Krige, J. D. and , Krige, E. J. 1943/1965. The Realm of a Rain-queen: a study of the pattern of Lovedu society. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Kuper, H. 1947/1965. An African Aristocracy: rank among the Swazi. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. 1964. ‘Anthropological aspects of language: animal categories and verbal abuse’, in Lennenberg, E. J.(ed.), New Directions in the Study of Language, pp. 23–63.. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Leakey, L. S. B. 1977. The Southern Kikuyu before 1903. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lestrade, A. 1972. Notes d’ethnographie du Rwanda. Archives d’anthropologie 17. Tervuren: Musée royal de l’Afrique Centrale.Google Scholar
Lévi- Strauss, C. 1962. La Pensee sauvage. Paris: Pion.Google Scholar
Makarius, L. 1968. ‘The blacksmith taboos. From the man of iron to the man of blood’, Diogenes 62, 25–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maret, P. de. 1980. ‘«Ceux qui jouent avec le feu» : la place du forgeron en Afrique Centrale’, Africa 50(3), 263-79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marwick, M. G. 1965. Sorcery in its Social Setting: a study of the Northern Rhodesian Cewa. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Marwick, M. G. 1968. ‘Notes on some Cewa rituals’, African Studies 27, 3–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merwe, N. J.vander and Avery, D. H. 1987. ‘Science and magic in African technology: traditional iron smelting in Malawi’, Africa 57 (2), 143-72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, C. 1980. ‘Sotho fertility symbolism’, African Studies 39, 65–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ngokwey, N. 1987. ‘Varieties of palm wine among the Lele of the Kasai’, in Douglas, M.(ed.), Constructive Drinking: perspectives on drink from anthropology, pp. 113-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ngubane, H. 1977. Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine: an ethnography of health and disease in Nyuswa-Zulu thought and practice. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Petit, P. 1993. Rites familaux, rites royaux : étude du système cérémoniel des Luba du Shaba (Zaire). Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles.Google Scholar
Petit, P. 2000. Les Sauniers de la savane orientale : approche ethnographique de l’industrie du sel chez les Luba, Bemba et populations apparentées. Brussels: Académie royale des sciences d’Outre-mer.Google Scholar
Price, D. 1987. ‘Descent, clans and territorial organisation in the Tikar chiefdom of Ngambé, Cameroon’, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 112, 85–103.Google Scholar
Radcliffe- Brown, A. R.1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. London: Cohen & West.Google Scholar
Reefe, T. 1981. The Rainbows and the Kings.Berkeley CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, A. I. 1956. Chisungu: a girl's initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia. London:Faber.Google Scholar
Roscoe, J. 1915/1965. The Baganda: an account of their native customs and beliefs. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Roscoe, J. 1966. The Northern Bantu. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Sapir, J. D. 1977. ‘The anatomy of metaphor’, in Sapir, J. D. and Crocker, J. C. (eds), The Social Use of Metaphor: essay on the anthropology of rhetoric,pp. 3–32.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schapera, I. 1940/1966. Married Life in an African Tribe. London: Faber.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. 1978. ‘Some Kgatla theories of procreation’, in Argyle, J. and Preston-Whyte, E.(eds), Social System and Tradition in Southern Africa, pp. 168-82. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, P. 1979. ‘L’efficacité des interdits’, L’Homme 29, 5–47.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. 1975. Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spring, A. 1976. ‘Women's Rituals and Natality among the Luvale of Zambia’. Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Stayt, H. A. 1931. The Bavenda.London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Stefaniszyn, B. 1964. Social and Ritual Lile of the Ambo of Northern Rhodesia. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Steiner, F. 1956/1999. Taboo, in Selected Writings I, Taboo, Truth and Religion, Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Swantz, M. L. 1995. Blood, Milk and Death: body symbols and the power of regeneration among the Zaramo of Tanzania. Westport CT: Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
Tardits, C. 1980. Le Royaume bamoum. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Testart, A. 1986. Essai sur les fondements de la division sexuelle du travail chez les chasseurs-cueilleurs. Cahiers de l’Homme, nouvelle série, 25.Google Scholar
Turner, V. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: aspects of Ndembu ritual. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Turner, V. 1962/1975. ‘Three symbols of passage in Ndembu circumcision ritual’, in Gluckman, M. (ed.), Essays on the Rituals of Social Relations, pp. 124-81. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Verdier, Y. 1981. Façons de dire, façons de f aire : la laveuse, la couturière, la cuisinière. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Wagner, G. 1949/1970. The Bantu of Western Kenya. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Westerdijk, H. 1975. Ijzenwerk van Centraal Afrika. Rotterdam: Museum voor Land en Volkerkunde.Google Scholar
Whyte, S. R. 1990. ‘The widow's dream: sex and death in western Kenya’, in Jackson, M. and Karp, I.(eds), Personhood and Agency: the experience of self and other in African cultures, pp. 95–114. Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 14. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1951. Good Company: a study ofNyakyusa age-villages. Boston MA: Beacon Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1957. Rituals of Kinship among the Nyakyusa. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1959. Communal Rituals of the Nyakyusa. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar