As the book begins, Mariatu is a happy little girl growing up in Magborou, a village of 200 near Port Loko, Sierra Leone. The first chapter teaches the reader about life in extended families where children may grow up under the care of relatives, men may have two or more wives and several generations live and work together. Mariatu tells us about her friends, her attraction to a possible boyfriend, Musa, her hopes of going to school one day, and her scary dream of standing in palm oil, a signifier of bad things to come. We learn about village life from preparations for a funeral, rotating crops of cassava and rice, dances, secret societies, and a child's daily chores of carrying water and collecting firewood.…
Monique and the mango rains is a touching story about a peace corps volunteer and a Malian midwife. The story is set in the small village of Namposella and is narrated by the Peace Corps volunteer Kris Holloway. The book gives you an in depth perspective on the life of a woman in Mali and their culture as a whole. In this paper I will be discussing anthropological concepts including rite of passage, patriarchy, and religion and how they apply to Monique and the mango rains.…
How would one feel if one were violently taken from home to a backwards place one would never understand? Aminata experienced these events first hand, which she conveys in her memoir. In this story The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, she tells the story of her life. From how she was taken from her village of Bayo in Africa, where she enjoyed freedom, lived with dignity, and shipped across the 'big river’, as a slave, to the thirteen colonies now known as the United States America. Aminata experiences grief and hardship, Anger and joy, and a fiery determination to get back home. In this compelling story, Aminata grows in various ways as she deals with slavery, discrimination, and the loss of her family.…
Many different life stories (including Dettwyler’s own story) are portrayed analytically on the book. What all of them have in common is how childhood, motherhood and marriage are perceived and experienced by Malian women. This cultural understanding is deeply shaped by death, which is present in Malian’s everyday life. Indeed, Mali’s infant mortality rate is shocking: in 2011, there were 109.08 deaths per thousand live births[2]; almost twenty times as much as in the United States.…
Question #1. What is the primary cause of Calyx’s problem? What is the key actionable reason for the weak performance?…
Shaki, or Napoleon A. Chagnon’s 15 month enculturation with the Yanomamo tribe, Bisaasi-teri is characterized by fear, discomfort, loneliness, nosiness, and invaluable experiences through relationships and modesty about human culture. Chagnon documents the experience through the struggle and discovery surrounding his proposed research, as his lifestyle gradually comes in sync with the natural functions of his community. Much of his focus and time was consumed by identification of genealogical records, and the establishment of informants and methods of trustworthy divulgence. Marriage, sex, and often resulting violence are the foremost driving forces within Yanomamo, and everything that we consider part of daily routine is completely unknown and inconsequential to them. Traveling between neighboring tribes, he draws conclusions about intertribal relations, especially concerning marriage and raiding. Chagnon deals with cultural complexity that takes time to decipher, and in process, potential risk. Confronted with seemingly trivial situations, they often become unexpected phenomena and Chagnon’s adherence to documentation is amazing. He encounters personal epiphanies that I find intriguing, related to privacy and hygiene. This report becomes an inspiring document of an extreme anthropologic lifestyle as much as it is a cultural essay.…
The women in Djebar’s Children of the New World make a wide range of contributions to…
The story “Marigolds” is written by Eugenia Collier and is about a young girls childhood. In the depression era, a young girl named Lizabeth expresses her frustration and her fury among a flower bed. When she looks up to see the owner over her she sees with the eyes of adulthood, and she knows that her innocence of her childhood is gone forever. Anna the narrator, tells this story from her childhood. The leader of her group of friends, Lizabeth takes part in throwing some stones at Miss Lottie's flower bed of marigolds. Miss Lottie's seems to be the town's outcast, and frustrating her was a common pastime for the children of the town. Miss Lottie's marigolds are described as one of the only spots with amazing colors.…
In Sedaris’s remembering my Childhood on the Continent of Africa, and the Rachel Dolezal wikipedia page, both essays share a common lack of self identity in ones culture, resulting in a need to falsely synthesize an experience they never physicsally could. Sedaris’s essay establishes his arguement by providing anecdotal evidences of his partner, Hugh’s, unorthodox childhood experiences as a diplomat in Congo, to his dull suburban North Carolina upbringing. Through the use of the emotional appeal pathos and the juxtapositon of both childhoods, Sedaris allows the reader to envision the craving of a unconventional lifestyle he never got to encounter. The effectiveness of Sedaris’s comparison is noted by his humourous ironic tone, by providing…
“I am African by accident, not by birth. So while soul, heart, and the bent mind are African, my skin barely begs to differ and is resolutely white”(Fuller, 2001, Readers Guide). These are the words of a white settler who matured and found her identity on the dark continent. During the twentieth century, much of Africa was colonized by colonial powers, as a result, the land endured intense warfare and eventually the crucible of decolonization, or the freeing of a colony from dominance. From a young age, Alexandra Fuller, or Bobo, found herself experiencing these hardships by living on the outskirts of a war zone in Africa, or the land she knows as home. She writes about her experiences in the reading, Don't Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.…
Sara Beatriz Guardia , Susan Elizabeth Ramírez , Asunción Lavrin , John F. Chuchiak IV ,…
The Masai are cattle herders living in the East African rift valley they grow no crops and are proud of being a non-agricultural people. Cattle are the all important source of wealth and social status, and Masai love their cattle, composing long poetic songs in praise to their herds. However, it is the men who have exclusive control over rights to cattle, and women are dependent, throughout their lives, on a man father, husband or son for rights of access to property. A woman's status as daughter, wife or mother is therefore crucial. A Masai woman’s life starts with their circumcision ceremony that marks their transition from girlhood to womanhood.…
In the film Difret 2014 by Zeresenay Mehari and the reading “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, both the film and the reading portray either patriarchy or colonialism. This paper outlines that although individuals may think that there is a relationship between patriarchy and colonialism that there isn’t. Illustrations and meanings will be provided on to further explain this, as well as how colonialism has affected the indigenous world for worse, and lastly, the treatment of women. In the film Difret, patriarchy is depicted for the reason that Meza who is a female lawyer who is representing Hirut, is standing up to the man in power. In the system of the society the men hold the power and the women are excluded from it. In the reading,…
We often hear the phrase, “this country was built on the backs of slave labor”. Correction, this country was built off the exploitation of the black body, particularly the enslaved black woman’s body. For example, Saartjie Baartman1 was a twenty year old woman from Cape Town, South Africa who was kidnapped and sexually exploited all over Europe. She was naked and caged, put on display in an animalistic nature, whipped and forced to entertain white spectators who labelled her the Hottentot Venus. Baartman was objectified as a source of entertainment; her body carried the stereotypical perception of the overly sexualized black female because of her dissimilar shape and curves compared to those of white women. The corruption of the enslaved African woman and justification of sexual abuse can be connected to the exploitation of Baartman, and how it symbolizes easy access and the sexual marginalization of black women. In this paper I will argue that the bodies of enslaved women were sexually exploitable for the purpose of labor, reproduction, and pleasure under the institution of plantation slavery. I will analyze the ways in which black women’s bodies functioned as a part of the general labor force—within the fields and the house—as well as the ways that their bodies were used to repopulate the workforce. That said, this essay is meant to show how the bodies of black women functioned as both producers and reproducers. Moreover, the central purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which enslaved black women’s body became socially and economically exploitable.…
In Elizabethan times, garlands made of flowers were worn on special occasions such as weddings or celebrations, and Queen Elizabeth I was given bouquets of flowers from her admiring subjects. Just as red roses symbolize love, four-leaf clovers mean good luck, and mistletoe suggests holiday romance today, flowers also had meanings in the sixteenth century. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Ophelia mentions several kinds of flowers and herbs and their meanings: * Pansies represent "thoughts." The English name "pansy" comes from the French word, "pensées," meanings "thoughts." * Rosemary is for "remembrance." * Rue, a bitter-tasting herb, may symbolize disdain; Ophelia pretends to give rue to herself and her imaginary guests. Rue was also thought…