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On Dancing and Fishing: Joy and the Celebration of Fertility Among the Punu of Congo-Brazzaville

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Carine Plancke
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Abstract

Among the Punu of Congo-Brazzaville ikoku dancing is perceived through the concept of joy. In line with the privileging of the emotional experience, this article intends to consider the dance as an emotive institution – that is, a socially organized activity that creates culturally meaningful forms of emotion within which an understanding of self, as well as social identities and relations, are shaped. In ikoku, a succession of dance sessions, embarked on with shame-banishing pride and performed individually or as a couple, awakens a shared joy. Through the dance patterns and idiom, this joyful dancing is connected to the fecundating sexual encounter and to the activity of fishing, linking the dance world to the life-bearing water spirit world. The joining of sexual differentiation and maternal containment that in this way is enacted and deeply experienced by the participants – if the event succeeds in awakening joy – supports basic structures of Punu rural society characterized by the tension between conjugal relations based on a patri-virilocal principle and matriclanic belonging. The emphasis that our analysis places on the dance form itself, and on the shared joy in dawning fertility it evokes, also proves to be fruitful in understanding how ikoku dancing persists in changing contexts – and even in urban ones.

Résumé

Chez les Punu du Congo-Brazzaville, la dance ikoku est perçue à travers le concept de joie. Cadrant avec le privilège d'expérience émotionnelle qu'offre la danse, cet article entend considérer la danse comme une institution émotionnante, autrement dit une activité socialement organisée qui crée des formes d'émotions culturellement significatives dans lesquelles se modèlent une compréhension du soi, ainsi que des identités et des relations sociales. Dans l'ikoku, on s'adonne seul ou en couple, sans complexe, à des séances de danse successives qui éveillent une joie partagée. À travers les schémas et l'idiome de la danse, cette danse joyeuse est liée à la relation sexuelle fécondante et à l'activité de pêche, reliant le monde de la danse au monde des esprits de l'eau porteuse de vie. L'alliage de différenciation sexuelle et de confinement maternel que les participants interprètent et ressentent profondément ce faisant, à condition que l'événement parvienne à éveiller la joie, soutient les structures de base de la société rurale punu caractérisée par la tension entre relations conjugales basées sur un principe patrivirilocal et appartenance matriclanique. L'accent mis par l'analyse sur la forme de danse elle-même, et sur la joie partagée de la fertilité naissante qu'elle évoque, s'avère également utile pour comprendre la persistance de la danse ikoku dans des contextes changeants, même urbains.

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 80 , Issue 4 , November 2010 , pp. 620 - 641
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2010

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