Texts on Swahili cultural artefacts in Tanzania and the representation of women's voice (original) (raw)

Imaging the Woman through Tanzanian Women’s Maxims

Journal of international women's studies, 2018

Women’s maxims, as well as other forms of oral literature in Tanzania, are a popular genre. They are verbal arts that can be self-addressed or addressed to a fellow woman among womenfolk. This paper intends to examine the role of these maxims in imaging women in Tanzania. This study was prompted by the findings of previous studies regarding the portrayal of women in Kiswahili3 literature where, generally, women are depicted as inferior beings compared to men, partly due to the fact that most authors are men. Hence, we found it imperative to investigate women’s maxims that are created and uttered by women themselves. The study was also prompted by other studies worldwide on language and gender. The questions to be addressed in this paper are: What is generally portrayed in such maxims? Why do women create, use and perpetuate such maxims? How do women consider themselves in relation to men? The data of this study was collected in Dar es Salaam through interviews and observation techni...

Texts on textiles: proverbiality as characteristic of equivocal communication at the East African coast (Swahili)*

Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2005

This article argues that proverbiality may be understood to include more than abstract properties of short, poetically condensed texts. Rather, proverbiality is seen as a characteristic of a specific communicative strategy in which equivocation plays a major role. The proverb itself is perceived as its manifestation. The empirical material on which this hypothesis is based consists of case studies of interpersonal communication by means of the wrap cloth kanga from the East African coast (Swahili). The kanga has proverbial texts printed on it, whose topics are subject to speech prohibitions: love, conflict and exhortative sayings. The cloths are used to 'say' something while 'saying' nothing. On the background of studies on proverb performance Bavelas' (1990) model on equivocal communication is used to explain the 'how' of kanga-communication. In order to explain the 'why' it is combined with some aspects of Brown & Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. In the case of the kanga, equivocation reaches amazing dimensions, ambiguating not only the four elements of addressing person, content, addresee, and context (Bavelas), but also to the medium, the kanga, which is at the core of the ambiguation processes surrounding the kanga. A focus is set on how exactly the elements are ambiguated. As to the 'why', it 'works' only in close social relationships, crosses hierarchies (of age, descent, gender), and touches on socially sensitive topics, as is expected of avoidance-communication. Overall, it is a communicative genre which affirms and subverts rather than transforms and violates rules, expressing the arrangement of women in a patriarchal society.

The Messages Behind Carved Swahili Doors: Field Report on Pre-Dissertation Research in Tanzania, Kenya, and Ghana

2017

For the powerful merchants who established control along the Swahili coast of East Africa in the nineteenth century, doors held great meaning. Especially prevalent in the Stone Town district of Zanzibar are extant examples of massive, elaborately carved wooden doors that adorned the front entrances of grand buildings. These facades stood as direct messages of power, wealth, heritage, security, religious beliefs, and more. They delineated space in a myriad of ways. Who was the audience for their messages, what visual propaganda was at play, and how might this inform our understanding of cultural exchange and communications in the region today?

Feminist discourses on utu and heshima in selected works by Tanzanian women writers

2022

'My Honor' by Penina Muhando Mlama) and a novel (Mungu Hakopeshwi 'God Doesn't Borrow Time' by Zainab Alwi Baharoon). Applying feminist critical analysis, Izabela Romańczuk argues that the two works by Tanzanian women writers reconstruct the discourse on key moral concepts of Swahili ethics: utu (humanity, morality) and heshima (honor, respect, dignity). The Author shows how these concepts are intertwined with socio-cultural constructions of gender and patriarchal order, as well as with class hierarchies. The following text likewise touches upon literary issues, this time from the perspective of the lexicon characteristic of traditional Swahili poetry. Thomas J. Hinnebusch presents a report on a digitized, web-based project conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, devoted to documenting the vocabulary used in the canon of classical Swahili poetry. The database contains a glossary, textual citations, bibliographic notes on Swahili poets, information on Swahili poetry, including annotated references, and other useful data. The Author's discussion of this ongoing project provides not only its detailed description but also encouragement for anyone interested in continuing the work. The subsequent two articles focus on specific aspects of the Swahili language usage. Beata Wójtowicz looks at the recent problem of the coronavirus pandemic and the terminological challenges associated with it. A list of COVID-19-related terms proposed by the Tanzanian National Kiswahili Council (BAKITA) is discussed and contrasted with the lexicon used in Swahili-language Kenyan and Tanzanian journalistic texts. After analyzing selected keywords and collocations, the Author finds a number of discrepancies between the official recommendations and actual language usage.

Azizi: Gender, Relationality, and the Embodiment of Mawazo in Tanzania

Anthropology and Humanism, 2022

This piece traces the intercorporeal embodiment of an ailment in Tanzania called mawazo, the Swahili term for “ideas” or “thoughts.” As a condition, mawazo is somewhat akin to stress: a cumulative compounding of many problems (shida nyingi) that leads to confused, muddled, and tangled thoughts, as well as physical symptoms like painful, inflamed eyes. Over my three years of ethnographic fieldwork in Iringa, Tanzania, my female collocutors who suffered from mawazo would often trace its origin to familial and marital problems, including their husbands’ infidelity, abuse, alcoholism, or squandering of money. This fictionalized narrative presents the embodied intensities of mawazo and the ways it congeals diffuse pains, hardships, and injustices, past and present. At the same time, I also show how Tanzanian women empower and support one another across generations, natal and affinal relations, friendships, and communities. The story simultaneously attends to the bodily and affective injuries that gender inequality inflicts—as mawazo and in many other registers—and to the ways that women construct lives filled with joy, care, and love.

An Ethnography of Communication of Semiotic Social Practices in South Wollo

Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences

Gufta with Kuta, direa and for males: Jelebya, Shirit, Timtam, Kalim, Gabi, Kufyit), hand shake (shake and kiss, abandoning opposite sex hand shake), nod (not allowed in religion but culturally required in mourn, greeting), sitting style, beard (length and thickness, colouring) meal (meat, exclusive meals (sambusa, ruz, shorba), drinks (bukri, shorba, absh, Kinito), sufra, Keriha, spitting, hand rubbing (for request to add chat), back and forth the tip of figures to receive blessings, curtain, incense, time, place, silence and so on. Out of these, only eight will be described. Objective of the study The general objective of this study is to explore the semiotic social practices of the multicultural society of South Wollo, Ethiopia. Specifically, the study aims at investigating the: A. Types of semiotic social practices, B. Meanings and symbols of the semiotic social practices and C. Functions of the signs used. Materials and methods Communication takes place through verbal and non-verbal signs. As mentioned elsewhere the study takes the perspective of the semiotics school that focuses on the whole code of communication in the given speech group. "A code is a meaning system consisting of signs,". 8 Any sort of sign that is used as a means of communication in the community is considered. In this study, the non-verbal signs of communication will be discussed. Signs The signs taken for the analysis of this study are traditional displays that are common for both literate and illiterate and that trespass the boundary of cultural groups. The approach of collecting data involved taking digital pictures of the displays in the public space.

An Ethno-Linguistics Perspective on Kingome Swahili Narrative Texts

Nordic Journal of African Studies, 2005

Recording and analysing a language in a natural setting provides ample sources of empirical materials to linguists and ethnographers. Yet, competing opinions arise as to the best method to undertake such endeavour without risking the inherited weakness of the direct elicitation. In this article, I provide three narrative texts of a previously unknown Swahili dialect of Kingome, as currently spoken in Mafia Island, Southern Tanzania, as evidence that ethnographic approach is suitable to record and document ethically sensitive themes that often preserve much sought language and culture heritages of the isolated communities.

When Shikamoo Mama/Baba replaces Tukuwoni Mawu/Dadi: An account of shifting access rituals among the Ngoni of Tanzania

2017

The current paper is an attempt at providing an ethnographic description of Tanzanian Ngoni access rituals (greetings) considering verbal and visual aspects of these communicative rou-tines. Three methods of data collection were used, namely: role-play, semi-structured inter-view, and observation. The role-plays were used in order to see how the Ngoni apply their knowledge of this kind of access ritual still acquired in the course of growing up in their communities. Role-plays were recorded with a digital camcorder after the interviews had tak-en place. Semi-structured interviews were meant to provide insights into diachronic develop-ments such as how the expression of politeness through greetings may have changed. Obser-vation method was meant to capture behavioural patterns shown during greeting exchanges and notes were taken immediately thereafter. The main findings are that due to pervasive con-tact between Ngoni and Swahili, greetings tend to be brief today and there is a wides...

“Form and Theme as Unifying Principles in Tanzanian Verbal Art: Elieshi Lema and Orchestra DDC Mlimani Park

Scholarship on African verbal art frequently exhibits a polarizing bias toward certain types of artistic expression. Scholars tend to focus on literary forms modeled on western counterparts, or, alternatively, “traditional” forms of verbal art. However, popular songs, widely distributed, consumed and discussed in their respective countries of origin, are accessible to Africans themselves in ways that literary and traditional verbal art are not. The song “Mnanionyesha Njia ya Kwetu” by Orchestra DDC Mlimani Park provides compelling evidence of the linkages between these forms of expression when compared with the novel The Parched Earth by Elieshi Lema. The use of narrative elements illuminate the techniques which invigorate both song and novel. The fact that the thematic content of the texts overlaps is further corroboration and substantiates the project of employing popular songs as analytic tools when examining verbal art from Tanzania and throughout the East African region.

Thematic Analysis of Utendi Wa Mwana Kupona: A Swahili/Islamic Perspective

International Journal for Innovation Education and Research, 2013

This paper has the objective to make a thematic analysis of a classic poem Utendi wa Mwana Kupona using a Swahili/Islamic approach. The poem is believed to have been written by Mwana Kupona binti Mshamu in 1858. The poem is intended to be a motherly advice to her daughter about her religious and marital duties in a Swahili society.As a background to this paper, it was found out that Swahili culture has been greatly influenced by Islam. Ever since Arab, Persian, Indian and other merchants from Asia and the Middle East visited the East African coast to trade or settle, the Waswahili people embraced Islam. The Islamic religion influenced Swahili culture greatly. One of the more direct influences was the adoption of the Arabic script which the Swahili used to write their poetry and used it for other communication.The Arabic language had a lot of impact on the Kiswahili language, enriching it with new vocabulary, and especially religious and literary terminology. This is why a majority o...