THE SOCIAL AND ETHNO-CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY IN AFRICAN PROVERBS

Africa is a continent known for its rich oral arts. Proverbs are the most widely and commonly used in the continent's long-standing tradition of oral arts. Among such oral arts, the African proverbs have been facilitating the transmission of knowledge and conventions from generation to generation. This paper analyzes the role of African proverbs in creating and perpetuating gendered culture. The author analyzed the African sexist proverbs within the post-modern theory of power relationships between social groups, and the role of language to mediate this relationship, to explore the implications of gender stereotypes

A CULTURAL REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE OROMO SOCIETY

In a society, gender ideology is created and refl ected in multiple ways. Among the myriad ways, language and culture play great role in creating and refl ecting gendered culture in a society. This paper examines the representation of women in Oromo folk-proverbs and folk-religion, and analyses the position of women in the traditional Oromo cultural practices. Despite all the barriers of patriarchal power, Oromo women had an infl uential position in the past although this has now declined following the decline in the people's indigenous cultural practices. Oromo proverbs about womanhood were categorized into cultural stereotypes. Although the majority of the sample proverbs were basically disparaging, the semantics were shown to depend to a large extent on the complex whole of their context of use. The implications were also presented and discussed

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IN A SOCIAL TRANSITION: THE SOUTH AFRICAN SEARCH FOR RECONCILIATIO

Every African society south of the Sahara has a long history of transmitting knowledge and human experience through the medium of oral tradition. This paper is on the function of oral traditions among the Arsi-Oromo of Ethiopia. Before the coming of Islam and Christianity, the Arsi were followers of Waaqeffannaa (belief in Sky God), the Oromo version of the African traditional religion. In the Arsiland, the Oromo traditional religion existed side by side with Islam, as the latter was mostly tolerant in the past. The indigenous Oromo religious traditions offered Islam an African feature. The cult of Sheikh Hussein of Bale is one quasi-Islamic tradition that has survived. The Arsi oral traditions are good sources about the nature of Waaqeffannaa and the cult of Sheikh Hussein. Based on the oral traditions of the Arsi and other African societies, the writer concluded that in Africa the function of oral traditions is in constant flux. In addition to replicating the past experiences of the society, African oral traditions serve also as mediums to provide self-conscious commentary on the patterns of life in their societies. Another conclusion is that the homology or dialectical unity between oral art and its social function is contextually determined