Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
The age system of the Nilo-Hamitic peoples : a comparative analysis.
The aim of the present work is a comparative study of the age-systems of the Nilo-Hamites and of their functions in the whole setting of the Nilo-Hamitic social organisation. It was our original plan to cover the whole area of East Africa influenced by the Hamites, and study the age-systems of such...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
African Studies
2017
|
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | The aim of the present work is a comparative study of the age-systems of the Nilo-Hamites and of their functions in the whole setting of the Nilo-Hamitic social organisation. It was our original plan to cover the whole area of East Africa influenced by the Hamites, and study the age-systems of such peoples as the Hamitic, the Nilotic, the Nilo-Hamitic, and the Bantu-Hamitic peoples. The reason for such an ambitious plan was the still widely held opinion that the age-systems of all those peoples originated from the Galla. This opinion is voiced by Driberg under the issue "Age-grades" in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. He writes: "The Galla, with their very complex system (of age-grades), are the centre and source of this (Hamitic) culture; and from them it has permeated all the Nilo-Hamitic tribes which cluster round them, the Masai, the Nandi, the Topotha, the Turkana and the Didinga." A superficial comparative examination of the age-systems of all these peoples is sufficient to convince oneself of the essential di£ferentiations which make a borrowing of the systems from the Galla a rather improbable Hypothesis. |
|---|