The Power of Animals by Brian Morris

Author:Brian Morris [Morris, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General
ISBN: 9781000181333
Google: OWkQEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-12-22T03:52:57+00:00

However, a structural analysis such as this tends to over-systemize the cultural reality (cf. Schoffeleers 1968: 231). The complementary opposition between the woodland and the human habitus reflects less the gender division than the opposition between affines and kin, for symbolically it is as affines that men are associated with the woodland and with the animals.

Although spirits of the dead/ancestors are also associated with the woodland, it would again be misleading to identify men specifically with these spirits. What essentially is expressed in Malawian culture with respect to the thengo/mudzi division is that whereas in the village environs a fundamental but complementary opposition is articulated between men an4 women, kin and affines, humans and wild animals, in the woodland there is a fundamental identity between these categories. In an important sense the spirits of the dead are collective ancestors, both men and women, kin and affines. In the woodland domain there is an essential identity between men and animals, and also between spirits and animals - and this is reflected in rituals. In the village, however, there is an opposition between humans and animals, which is also reflected in rituals.

In contrast to the village domain, the Brachystegia woodland is associated with medicines, wild animals and the spirits of the dead. Given a tradition of slash-and-bum agriculture and the essential nature of Brachystegia woodland itself, with its inherent ability to regenerate vegetatively, many areas of woodland represent old village sites. The site of a former village or an uninhabited area of woodland is referred to as dzinja, a term which also refers to the rainy season between December and March. Throughout Malawi, even in the heavily populated area of the Shire Highlands, areas of woodland are set aside as burial sites for the dead. These are known as manda, and the ancestors, or the dead, are collectively referred to as amanda (those of the woodland grave). In the Domasi district where I lived, almost every village had its own area of woodland where the dead were buried. These burial sites are in the nature of a sacred grove; no trapping or hunting of animals is allowed in them, and the area is protected from fire, for the site has to be kept ‘cool’. It is also an offence against the spirits of the dead to collect firewood, medicines or thatching grass from the manda. In times of acute pressure on resources due to population increase, people may in fact gather firewood or grass from the manda woodlands, but this is not approved of. When I was in Ntcheu in the Central Region, many Chewa people I spoke to were very critical of the recent refugees from Mozambique who had gathered firewood from the nearby hill forests, forests which were particularly associated with the rain deities. Other than to attend funerals and make ritual offerings to their dead, people do not normally enter the manda woodlands. It is in these woodlands that the initiation site of the Nyau dancers is to be found.

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