The Culture Of Zimbabwe Essay, Research Paper
The Culture of Zimbabwe
In analyzing the civilization of Zimbabwe it is necessary to place the prevailing population group. The Shona people make up over 80 per centum of the population and historically have lived in the state longer than any other group. Because of both the comparative size and historical significance of this group, the civilization of the Shona best illustrates the true civilization of Zimbabwe. Culture is a obscure term and can be more specifically defined as the socially transmitted information that regulates a peculiar society. The civilization of Zimbabwe can be best identified by analyzing the mundane idiosyncrasies, rites, household relationships, art signifiers, and faith patterns of the Shona people.
The Shona possess an interesting assortment of idiosyncrasies. First and first, it is considered highly impolite to look another individual straight in the eyes. In add-on, one should ne’er stand looking down at and vibrating over another. It is polite to crouch or sit when speaking to other people, or to one s seniors. When having a gift, it is custom to first clap your custodies together in a gesture of thanks, and so continue to take the gift with both custodies to demo that it is excessively big for one manus merely. Besides, a gift is given with the right manus because the left manus is perceived to be dirty. When a adult male and his household are out together the adult male ever walks in forepart, with his custodies empty, so that he can protect his household if the demand arises. His married woman walks behind him, transporting everything and maintaining path of the kids. When nearing a small town in Zimbabwe, one must hesitate at its border and cry, Svikeyi? which means, May we arrive? When the answer comes back permitting entryway, so one may continue. If it is necessary to near another s hut, one must stand outside and either bang or cry, Gogogoyi, which means Knock, knock, knock ( Cheney, 1990, p.191 ) .
The alone matrimony imposts of the Shona further separate them from the other South African people. For the Shona, matrimony is a procedure ; there is no peculiar point when two people all of a sudden become married. The chief intent of matrimony, the Shona believe, is the reproduction of kids, so a adult male is permitted to prosecute in intercourse with his wife-to-be before they have become accepted as a married twosome. If she proves infertile, he is to the full within his rights to return her to her household and either be repaid his bride-price or be given another girl as a married woman. If it can be proven that a adult male is unfertile, it is black but non black and he can discreetly set up for person else to infuse the adult female. The kid that is so born is considered his ain ( p.197 ) .
The authorities has outlawed polygamy but it still occurs, although most work forces can afford merely one married woman. Divorce, nevertheless, is rather common. A adult male can disassociate his married woman if she is sterile or if she does non carry through her duties. Serious failure as a homemaker, repeated unfaithfulness, and the pattern of witchery can all take to a adult female being sent back to her household by her hubby. While it is more hard for a adult female to disassociate her hubby, it is possible if she can bring forth grounds of physical maltreatment or if he fails to maintain up his bride-price payments ( p.201 ) .
Bride-price is the payment to a adult female s household by the hubby that wishes to get married her ; it involves two payments. The first, the rutsambo, used to be a public-service corporation object like a hoe, but presents is normally a big hard currency payment. The 2nd payment, the roora, involves a 2nd big hard currency payment or, sometimes, the more traditional payment of cowss. The groom may take many old ages to complete paying the roora, partially because it might take him that long to raise it, and partially because he is frequently disinclined to manus over all the hard currency until he is to the full satisfied that his married woman will carry through all of her duties. Although many people believe nowadays that payment of the bride-price is take downing to adult females and a signifier of bondage, it was ne’er perceived as such by the Shona themselves. The hubby s household has rights and duties towards the adult female s household and may non go through her on to a 3rd party ( p.208 ) .
The construction and relationships of the Shona households play a cardinal function in the definition of the civilization of the people of Zimbabwe. Despite the altering nature of the Shona society, it still remains patrilineal, which means that affinity through males is stressed over affinity though females. A kid inherits his or her male parent s kin name and people distinguish members of their household merely by their coevals, age, and sex. For illustration, the term, baba, which means male parent, can use every bit to a male parent s brother, male cousin, or any other male of that coevals no affair how clearly they are related ( p.191 ) .
The person is non considered of import in Shona society. His or her position and behaviour are determined by the relationships that individual has with the other members of the community. The most of import relationship within the Shona household is between male parent and kid. This is a really formal relationship in which the kid ever shows the extreme regard for his or her male parent. Children can ne’er eat with their male parent, take autonomies with his belongings, or reference him in a familiar mode. In contrast, the relationship between female parent and kid is highly close. Most Shona kids spend the first few old ages of their lives tied firmly on their female parents dorsums with towels, and at her decease, a female parent s spirit is considered friendly and protective. Because of her good attention for them, non to advert the strivings of labour she went through, the female parent s spirit demands to be good remembered by her kids. If they fail to make this, the spirit is believed to recover the same absolute power over her kids that she had when they were in their babyhood ( p.193 ) .
Another facet of civilization that gives individuality to the people of Zimbabwe is the humanistic disciplines. Crafts, sculptures, music, and dance are all really of import to the history every bit good as the mundane life of the Shona people. The rural population of Zimb
abwe trades a broad assortment of articles for day-to-day usage. Carved wooden head restraints, ornamented knives and calabashs, baskets incorporating panels of carven wood, musical instruments, and a broad assortment of earthenware pots are made throughout the countryside. Roof thatching, possibly the most practical art signifier is still really common in the countryside and is completed in a really traditional mode. Once grass is carefully chosen for its length, adult females bundle and comb the selected grasses, and work forces are the Thatchers. They arrange the packages on a roof, get downing at the borders and edifice towards the centre. The Thatchers attach the grass to the roof by repeatedly weaving a harsh twine around the package onto the frame of the home until the package is firmly tied. Layer is placed upon bed until merely a little gap remains at the top, over which a cap of thatch is fastened ( O Toole, 1989, p.137 ) .
Other than utilizing this artistic endowment for endurance, the people of Zimbabwe besides create many signifiers of expressive art. Wooden masks are still created harmonizing to antique designs and play a great function in Shona tradition. The most common mask is egg-shaped and frequently has two horns lodging out from a to a great extent grooved brow. Narrow slits represent the eyes, and the wide, crisp olfactory organ has lines cut into it. Similar lines stretch across the zygomatic bones, and the oral cavity is unfastened, with pursed lips. Dancers in spiritual ceremonials one time used masks made of wood, straw, and other stuffs to heighten the rites. Stone sculptures are besides highly popular among the Shona, and have become internationally popular with art aggregators ( p.120 ) .
Music is enormously popular and is a changeless presence in Zimbabwe. When music is for dancing, its manner is showy, and the manyawi ( the spirit of look and exhilaration ) develops the gait of the melody. If, nevertheless, the music is for a grave juncture, instrumentalists hold back the pacing to make a serious temper. Many wordss merely express mundane events. For illustration, a baby-sitter sings a nurse s vocal to a babe when its female parent is off, or a adult female chants a presentation vocal when she gives a newborn babe to its male parent ( p.79 ) .
Native instruments frequently accompany this music, the most of import being the membranophone. Drums are made in a figure of sizes to supply a assortment of sounds and are normally carved from solid blocks of wood with designs cut or fire into them. Marimbas are besides really poplar instruments. Like the marimba, a xylophone is made of strips of wood that vary in length, which are attached to a sounding board. Musicians strike the strips with wooden cocks to bring forth the tune. These instruments can besides change well in size and a group of different sized xylophone are frequently used to organize a set ( p.87 ) .
In Zimbabwe, music is about ever accompanied by dancing as a agency of self-expression. Dancing is a critical portion of all societal assemblages, including parties, nuptialss, political meetings, and responses for sing functionaries. Even spiritual occasions, such as funerals, include dancing as portion of the rites.
Religion is really of import to the people of Zimbabwe and is centered on the liquors of asleep relations. The belief in the changeless presence of these hereditary liquors bases at the really nucleus of the Shona life. For the Shona, these beliefs bind the yesteryear and the present together, and pull the drawn-out household group into a complex form of common duties.
There are two types of spirit defenders: the spirit seniors for the household ( midzimu ) , and the king of beasts liquors who care for the chiefdom as a whole ( mhondoro ) . Each place has a shrine to the midzimu, the most of import of whom is the male parent or gramps of the oldest life coevals. Most households honor this spirit senior every twelvemonth with a ceremonial offering of home-brewed millet beer. Occasionally, when something goes incorrect for illustration, if person becomes really sick or looses his or her occupation a household will besides near the spirit senior. Normally another offering of millet beer and promises to make better are adequate to pacify him. While the liquors of dead female members of the household besides have functions to play in the personal businesss of the life, they seldom are official spirit defenders ( Cheney, 1990, p.186 ) .
The mhondoro or king of beasts liquors, the liquors of kin laminitiss, are more of import than the midzimu, and by and large concern themselves with affairs that affect communities instead than persons. They are consulted when locusts plague their Fieldss, when king of beastss are feeding on the community, when people are threatened by an epidemic, or when they are about to go involved in a war. Through a obsessed medium, an mhondoro may denote it has caused the job because the people are burying their ascendants, or possibly it will impeach members of the community of a specific offense like incest or quarreling at the spirit s shrine ( p.186 ) .
The Shona, like Christians, believe in an almighty God. He is normally known by the name Mwari. Unlike the Christian God, nevertheless, Mwari is non interested in the junior-grade lives of the persons, although he is finally responsible for everything that happens. The Shona seldom speak of him or seek to pass on with him, except in the Matopo Hills, where there is an organized cult of Mwari. The most influential shrine is at the Matonjeni. It is looked from the Ndebele and even from neighbouring white husbandmans who are interested in covering all their bases to guarantee regular rainfall. The shrine is a cave from which the voice of Mwari speaks its prophets. The voice is an aged adult female who speaks to sing deputations in a supposedly antediluvian idiom that must be translated into the linguistic communication of the visitants ( p.187 ) .
These spiritual patterns, compiled with the aforesaid mundane idiosyncrasies, exchange rites, household relationships, and art signifiers identify the true civilization of the Shona people and the state of Zimbabwe.
Cheney, Robert. ( 1990 ) . The Land and People of Zimbabwe. New York: Harper & A ; Row
O Toole, Thomas. ( 1989 ) . Zimbabwe. Minneapolis: Learner Publications Company
