The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 07 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
So among the Wanyamwezi, who are an essentially agricultural people, to
the south of Lake Victoria Nyanza, the men cut down the bush and hoe the
hard ground, but leave the rest of the labour of weeding, sowing, and
reaping to the women.(373) The Baganda of Central Africa subsist chiefly
on bananas, and among them “the garden and its cultivation have always
been the woman’s department. Princesses and peasant women alike looked
upon cultivation as their special work; the garden with its produce was
essentially the wife’s domain, and she would under no circumstances allow
her husband to do any digging or sowing in it. No woman would remain with
a man who did not give her a garden and a hoe to dig it with; if these
were denied her, she would seek an early opportunity to escape from her
husband and return to her relations to complain of her treatment, and to
obtain justice or a divorce. When a man married he sought a plot of land
for his wife in order that she might settle to work and provide food for
the household.... In initial clearing of the land it was customary for the
husband to take part; he cut down the tall grass and shrubs, and so left
the ground ready for his wife to begin her digging. The grass and the
trees she heaped up and burned, reserving only so much as she needed for
firewood. A hoe was the only implement used in cultivation; the blade was
heart-shaped with a prong at the base, by which it was fastened to the
handle. The hoe-handle was never more than two feet long, so that a woman
had to stoop when using it.”(374) In Kiziba, a district immediately to the
south of Uganda, the tilling of the soil is exclusively the work of the
women. They turn up the soil with hoes, make holes in the ground with
digging-sticks or their fingers, and drop a few seeds into each hole.(375)
Among the Niam-Niam of Central Africa “the men most studiously devote
themselves to their hunting, and leave the culture of the soil to be
carried on exclusively by the women”;(376) and among the Monbuttoo of the
same region in like manner, “whilst the women attend to the tillage of the
soil and the gathering of the harvest, the men, unless they are absent
either for war or hunting, spend the entire day in idleness.”(377) As to
the Bangala of the Upper Congo we read that “large farms were made around
the towns. The men did the clearing of the bush, felling the trees, and
cutting down the undergrowth; the women worked with them, heaping up the
grass and brushwood ready for burning, and helping generally. As a rule
the women did the hoeing, planting, and weeding, but the men did not so
despise this work as never to do it.” In this tribe “the food belonged to
the woman who cultivated the farm, and while she supplied her husband with
the vegetable food, he had to supply the fish and meat and share them with
his wife or wives.”(378) Amongst the Tofoke, a tribe of the Congo State on
the equator, all the field labour, except the clearing away of the forest,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account