Tiv People Research Paper

The Tiv people are a group of individuals who reside in West Africa. With approximately 6 million people, the Tiv live in regions with significant populations in places such as Nigeria and Cameroon. “Tiv”, as the culture is called, is the name of the ancestor from which all Tiv people descended. The Tiv people believe that they all come from a single patrilineage, as they reckon patrilineal descent from their earliest ancestor (Fardon, 4; 1984). Both their social and political organization is founded on the lineage system (Fardon, 2; 1984). As subsistent farmers, the Tiv perceive their patrilineal genealogy as the foundation of their land-tenure structure. As such, the social organization of the Tiv culture is founded on kinship that is structured
The men primarily perform the heavy farm work in order to prepare the land for planting. Women, on the other hand, perform lighter work such as weeding. Women further perform tasks such as harvesting yams, as well as other crops. While women are also responsible for duties such as cooking and raising the children, traditionally, they receive help from either their own children or children borrowed from their kin. Tiv children are typically given to a nurse at six months old, whereas “children five or six years of age take charge of much of the parenting, particularly the habituating and educating” (Hsu, 60; 1971). The Tiv household is founded on successful parenting. If, for instance, parenting becomes unsuccessful, “the result is either the derangement or the breaking up of the household” (Hsu, 57; 1971). Men primarily have the authority over a large portion of the land in order to farm for their wife. This is similar to the Bedouin culture perhaps in regards to labor as the Tiv people and the Bedouin’s are both polygynous, leaving women with less work as a result of having multiple wives (Abu Laghod, 121; 2009). When there are multiple wives the labor can be divided between the wives, allowing women to do less work than if they were in a monogamous marriage. In the Tiv culture, all married women are able to farm in order to feed themselves and those that are dependent on her. As far as joint work, however, both men and
A Tiv woman obtains “a firm place in a household only as a mother of sons” (Hsu, 49; 1971). The value of sons in the Tiv culture is similar to one of the principles that are important to the Nepali patrilines. The Nepali Brahmans value continuity, for in order to continue the patriline, they too must have sons as well (Stone, 98; 2014). In the Tiv culture the mother’s role in procreation is to determine the sex of the child. After Tiv women give birth to a child, the mother is marked with a scar on her abdomen in order to represent womanhood. This practice reminded me of the right of passage with the Nuer. At puberty, the young Nuer men receive facial markings called ghar marks that scar a boy’s forehead (Class Film Clip: “Nuer”). Nuer women, on the other hand, celebrate a woman’s adulthood when a women gets married, yet they do not have a scarification for doing so. While scars symbolize a right of passage or represent distinctive tribal marks in some cultures, the Tiv scarify themselves for aesthetic purposes. Scarification among the Tiv “is revered not only for its beautiful results but also for its indication of a willingness to endure pain” (Favazza, 154; 2011). As part of the Tiv culture, boys are also circumcised. The Tiv culture does not have any taboos in relation to