Values here are to be understood as beliefs that are held about what is right and wrong and what is important in life. A fuller study of values rightly belongs to the discipline of philosophy. Axiology as a branch of philosophy deals with values embracing both ethics and aesthetics. This is why philosophical appraisal of African culture and values is not only apt and timely, but also appropriate.
Moreover, the centrality of the place of values in African culture as a heritage that is passed down from one generation to another, will be highlighted. We shall try to illustrate that African culture and values can be appraised from many dimensions in addition to examining the method of change and the problem of adjustment in culture. Here we hope to show that while positive dimensions of our culture ought to be practised and passed on to succeeding generations, negative dimensions of our culture have to be dropped in order to promote a more progressive and dynamic society.
Before we can have an appraisal of African culture and values, it is necessary for us to have an understanding of the concept of culture and its meaning. This will help us grapple with the issues we will be dealing with in this paper. Let us now look at the concept and meaning of culture, as this is fundamental to our understanding of what African culture is. Edward B. Taylor is reputed as the scholar who first coined and defined culture in his work Primitive Culture and reprinted in Taylor saw culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs or any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
This definition captures the exhaustive nature of culture. One would have expected that this definition would be a univocal one - but this is not so. In fact, there are as many definitions of culture as there are scholars who are interested in the phenomenon. Culture embraces a wide range of human phenomena, material achievements and norms, beliefs, feelings, manners, morals and so on.
It is the patterned way of life shared by a particular group of people that claim to share a single origin or descent. In an attempt to capture the exhaustive nature of culture, Bello sees it as "the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenge of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms thus distinguishing a people from their neighbours".
Culture serves to distinguish a people from others, and Aziza 31 asserts that:. It includes everything that makes them distinct from any other group of people for instance, their greeting habits, dressing, social norms and taboos, food, songs and dance patterns, rites of passages from birth, through marriage to death, traditional occupations, religious as well as philosophical beliefs.
Culture is passed on from generation to generation. The acquisition of culture is a result of the socialisation process. Explaining how culture is passed on as a generational heritage, Fafunwa 48 writes that:. The child just grows into and within the cultural heritage of his people. He imbibes it. Culture, in traditional society, is not taught; it is caught.
The child observes, imbibes and mimics the action of his elders and siblings. He watches the naming ceremonies, religious services, marriage rituals, funeral obsequies. He witnesses the coronation of a king or chief, the annual yam festival, the annual dance and acrobatic displays of guilds and age groups or his relations in the activities.
The child in a traditional society cannot escape his cultural and physical environments. This shows that every human being who grows up in a particular society is likely to become infused with the culture of that society, whether knowingly or unknowingly during the process of social interaction.
We do not need to have all the definitions of culture and its defining characteristics for us to understand the concept and meaning of culture. Even though there are as many definitions of culture as there are writers, there is an element of similarity that runs through them all. This singular underlying characteristic is the attempt to portray and capture culture as the entire or total way of life of a particular group of people.
Etuk 13 is of the opinion that "an entire way of life would embody, among other things, what the people think of themselves and the universe in which they live - their world view - in other words, how they organise their lives in order to ensure their survival". It can be safely stated that there can be no culture without a society.
It can also be said that culture is uniquely human and shared with other people in a society. Culture is selective in what it absorbs or accepts from other people who do not belong to a particular cultural group. Culture is to be understood as the way of life of a people. This presupposes the fact that there can be no people without a culture. To claim that there is no society without a culture would, by implication, mean that such a society has continued to survive without any form of social organisation or institutions, norms, beliefs and taboos, and so on; and this kind of assertion is quite untrue.
That is why even some Western scholars who may be tempted to use their cultural categories in judging other distinctively different people as "primitive", often deny that such people have history, religion and even philosophy; but cannot say that they have no culture.
In this paper, we shall be dealing with African culture and drawing examples from Nigerian culture. It is true that based on the consideration of culture as that which marks a people out from others, groups one can rightly say that there are many cultures in Africa. Africa is inhabited by various ethnic nationalities with their different languages, modes of dressing, eating, dancing and even greeting habits. But in spite of their various cultures, Africans do share some dominant traits in their belief systems and have similar values that mark them out from other peoples of the world.
A Nigerian culture, for instance, would be closer to, say, a Ghanaian culture on certain cultural parameters than it would be to the Oriental culture of the Eastern world, or the Western culture of Europe. It is true that culture is universal and that each local or regional manifestation of it is unique. This element of uniqueness in every culture is often described as cultural variation. The cultures of traditional African societies, together with their value systems and beliefs are close, even though they vary slightly from one another.
These slight variations only exist when we compare an African culture with others. Certainly African cultures differ vastly from the cultures of other regions or continents.
And we believe there is no need to over-labour this point since there are sufficient similarities to justify our usage of the term "African culture". Here we would be sure to find a world of differences and diversity in beliefs, values and culture generally. Using Nigerian culture for instance, Antia 17 writes that "Nigerians always behave differently from the French, or Chinese, or Americans or Hottentots, because Nigerian beliefs, values and total thinking are different from those of the French, Chinese, Americans or the Hottentots".
Culture has been classified into its material and non-material aspects. While material culture refers to the visible tactile objects which man is able to manufacture for the purposes of human survival; non-material culture comprises of the norms and mores of the people. While material culture is concrete and takes the form of artefacts and crafts, non-material culture is abstract but has a very pervasive influence on the lives of the people of a particular culture.
Hence beliefs about what is good and what is bad, together with norms and taboos, are all good examples of non-material culture. From the foregoing, it is obvious that culture is shared since it consists of cherished values or beliefs that are shared by a group, lineage, and religious sect and so on.
Apart from this, culture is dynamic in the sense that it is continually changing. Culture is not static. We are not alone in this observation as Antia 17 states that "culture is not fixed and permanent.
It is always changed and modified by man through contacts with and absorption of other peoples' cultures, a process known as assimilation". Etuk 25 has also observed that "cultures are not static, they change. Indeed culture needs to change; which wants to remain static and resistant to change would not be a living culture". We can see that since culture is carried by people and people do change their social patterns and institutions, beliefs and values and even skills and tools of work, then culture cannot but be an adaptive system.
Once an aspect of culture adjusts or shifts in response to changes from within or outside the environment, then other aspects of the culture are affected, whether directly or indirectly. It is necessary to know that each element of a culture such as material procedures, food processing or greeting patterns is related to the whole system. It is in this respect that we can see that even a people's technology is part of their culture.
Idiong 46 opines that "there are some misconceptions that are widely held about 'culture' as a word. Such misconceptions can and often lead some persons to have a negative perception of 'culture' and all that it stands for.
Such persons raise their eyebrows and suddenly frown at the word 'culture' as they in their minds' eyes visualise masquerades, idol worshipping, traditional jamborees and other activities they consider bizarre that go with culture".
This "misconception", we believe, does not appear to be widespread but the posture may have arisen from a partial understanding of the meaning of culture because as we shall see, culture generally, and African culture in particular, is like a two-sided coin.
It has soullifting, glamorous and positive dimensions even though it is not completely immune from some negative outcomes. African culture, as Ezedike writes:. It can be conceived as a continuous, cumulative reservoir containing both material and non-material elements that are socially transmitted from one generation to another. African culture, therefore, refers to the whole lot of African heritage. We could see that African culture embraces the totality of the African way of life in all its forms and ramifications.
The value of a thing, be it an object or a belief, is normally defined as its worth. Just as an object is seen to be of a high value that is treasured, our beliefs about what is right or wrong that are worth being held are equally treasured.
A value can be seen as some point of view or conviction which we can live with, live by and can even die for. This is why it seems that values actually permeate every aspect of human life.
For instance, we can rightly speak of religious, political, social, aesthetic, moral, cultural and even personal values. We have observed elsewhere that there are many types and classifications of values. As people differ in their conception of reality, then the values of one individual may be different from those of another.
Life seems to force people to make choices, or to rate things as better or worse as well as formulate some scale or standard of values. Depending on the way we perceive things we can praise and blame, declare actions right or wrong or even declare the scene or objects before us as either beautiful or ugly. Each person, as we could see, has some sense of values and there is no society without some value system Idang 4. Whether we are aware of it or not, the society we live in has ways of daily forcing its values on us about what is good, right and acceptable.
We go on in our daily lives trying to conform to acceptable ways of behaviour and conduct. Persons who do not conform to their immediate society's values are somehow called to order by the members of that society. If a man, for instance, did not think it wise to make honesty a personal value, and it is widely held by his immediate society that truth telling is a non-negotiable virtue, it would not be long before such an individual gets into trouble with other members of his society.
This shows that values occupy a central place in a people's culture. It forms the major bulwark that sustains a people's culture, making it more down-to-earth and real.
Elsewhere, we have seen African culture as "all the material and spiritual values of the African people in the course of history and characterising the historical stage attained by Africa in her developments" Idang This simply means that there is a peculiar way of life, approach to issues, values and world views that are typically African.
Based on cultural considerations, some forms of behaviour, actions and conduct are approved while others are widely disapproved of. To show the extent of disapproval that followed the violation of values that should otherwise be held sacred, the penalty was sometimes very shameful, sometimes extreme.
African culture, with particular reference to the Ibibio people in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, for instance, has zero tolerance for theft. The thief once caught in the act or convicted, would be stripped naked, his or her body rubbed with charcoal from head to toe and the object he or she stole would be given to him or her to carry around the village in broad day light. The sense of personal shame and the disgrace the thief has brought on himself or herself, family, relations and friends would be enough to discourage even the most daring thief.
Antia 17 writes that "what a people hold to be true, right or proper with regard to those things explains much of the cultural traits by which they become identified". What Antia calls "traits" here can as well be called values; and Etuk 22 writes that "no group of people can survive without a set of values which holds them together and guarantees their continued existence".
The concern with values, whether moral or aesthetic, occupies a very wide area in the discipline of philosophy. To show the fundamental importance of values, it is regarded as a core area in philosophy, together with knowledge and reality. When we are dealing with actions that a people see as good or bad, right or wrong, praiseworthy or blame-worthy, we are dealing with the aspect of value theory that rightly falls under ethics or moral philosophy.
But when we are dealing with an appraisal of beauty in the arts and crafts of a people, we are dealing with the aspect of value theory called aesthetics. It does appear that while material culture can be studied and evaluated under the aesthetic aspect of value theory, non-material culture can equally be studied and evaluated under the ethical aspect of value theory. Over the centuries, African culture has meshed with cultures from around the world, although much of traditional African customs have remained throughout.
Traditional African homestead Ndebele village in Zimbabwe. Ethnic groups and African tribes have customs that are unique to their culture. The customs and traditions of each group have been woven into a tapestry as colourful and diverse as the people of Africa themselves. African arts and craft include sculpture, weaving, beading, painting, pottery, jewellery, headgear and dress. Art from particular regions have distinct characteristics depending on beliefs, values and customs, but common themes found in art include women, couples, children, animals, man with a weapon, or a combination of these.
Masks are usually a representation of religious and spiritual beliefs. They are used for traditional ceremonies to honour deities or ancestors. Large woven Zulu basket. The type of clothing worn across Africa varies from north to south, and by religious beliefs and traditional customs. Some cultures wear colourful attire, while others wear less colour but include shiny threads in their dressing with minimal jewellery. The environment plays a huge part in what kinds of foods are consumed in different parts of the African continent.
Most cuisines include fruit, grain, vegetables, milk and meat products. Quite a number of cultural groups have very similar foods in their cuisines. The agropastoralist Wataita arrived from many different places, although four major groups settled on the slopes of the Sagalla, Taita, and Kasigau Hills; their identities remained distinct until the 20th century. Wataita oral traditions are dominated by narratives of how they dealt with numerous crises in their new homeland.
Tragic stories of droughts, famine, disease, slavery, alliance building, social conflicts, betrayal, and cannibalism are told repeatedly by informants.
Like other Tsavo groups, the Wataita claim to have participated in the coastal-hinterland trade as suppliers of ivory and skins to traders visiting the markets from the coast. They maintained inland markets in their areas by ensuring that they were accessible and secure. These inland markets, for example in Rukanga and Bungule, were located along permanent perennial streams and could have supplied fresh water, vegetables, fruits, and other services to long-distance caravan traders.
They also could have served as collection centers for inland traders. In the later times, the Taita, like their neighbors, became victims of trade with the coast. Many were captured by Arab and Swahili traders and taken into slavery during the late 18th and 19th centuries.
Their oral traditions about this period as well as their relationships with other groups form an important corpus of information about the history of the Nyika landscape. I found that systematic inquiry into these local histories reveals many heretofore unknown features of inter-group cooperation and how local peoples coped with the depredations of slave traders—truly the uncovering of subaltern histories. Waata foragers, referred to pejoratively by their neighbors as Walyankuru those who eat pig , spoke a dialect of the Oromo language.
Waswahili, Mijikenda, and Waaita informants interviewed over the years have credited the ancestors of the Waata with possibly being the original inhabitants of Tsavo and the coast. Waata were adept in the use of bows and poisoned arrows for hunting. They have a reputation in East Africa for being great hunters and inventors of a poison so potent that it kills its victim by causing cardiac arrest, as opposed to destroying the nervous system.
Its advantage was to limit the time hunters spend tracking their prey. When used in traps, for example, in killing a nesting ostrich, the meat is palatable even long after the prey dies from the poison. Waata hunters became professional poison makers and were greatly feared and respected. Negotiated social relations also played an important role in regional interaction. For example, the Waata would enter into a fictive kinship with the Taita in which each would sign an oath in a blood ritual witnessed by a shaman.
The oath enabled the participants to become brothers or sisters and for their children to inherit those relationships. In this sense, blood brotherhoods enabled the exchange of ideas and knowledge, eased tensions arising from competition for resources, and provided access to technical and sacred knowledge Herlehy Wataita elders interviewed in and admitted freely that without the compliance and permission of the Waata, they never would have learned the secret knowledge of elephant hunting that enabled them to benefit from lucrative ivory trade with coastal Mijikenda and Swahili traders.
Historically, Tsavo groups pursued different economic strategies in different regions of the ecological mosaic. They maintained their distinctive identities in spite of a high degree of trade and movement of people across community boundaries. Wataita and Oromo pastoralist groups were organized into patrilineal corporate groups; although these societies lacked ranking, significant authority was held by elder males who sought to accumulate cattle and land, and control their distribution. Consequently, intergroup conflict over wealth-building resources, such as cattle, coexisted with alliances for exchange of goods, information, and ritual power.
Some forms of technical and practical knowledge, such as hunting techniques, poison making, and animal tracking were so prized that blood brotherhoods and secret societies controlled the spread of this sacred information—critical oral information for a better understanding of how alliance-building and information exchange occurred. Archaeological investigations reveal long-term earlier interaction between interior social groups and coastal traders.
Based on his surveys and excavations south of the Galana River in Tsavo East, Thorbahn — proposed that coast-Tsavo contact from CE involved Tsavo hunters, who downed elephants for the ivory trade in exchange for coastal shells and glass beads. The results of Dr. First, rockshelter habitations containing coastal shell, beads, and wild fauna indicate that as hunter-gatherers became more involved in coastal trade they also became more specialized in elephant hunting. Second, trade concentrated on animal products that were vulnerable to overexploitation.
Between and , there was a rapid increase in ivory and slave exports from East Africa. Elephant overhunting may also have led to tsetse fly infestation. In Tsavo, elephants are a keystone species. Their foraging controls the distribution of tsetse-infested bushland and maintains tracts of grassland that support a diversity of graze and game animals. As elephants were overhunted, habitats suitable for hunter-gatherers and food-producers alike would be replaced by tsetse fly—infested scrub.
Tsetse flies carry trypanosomiasis, a disease fatal to cattle and people. Tsetse-infested areas can only sustain small numbers of cattle. Aware that such subaltern histories hold many possibilities for enriching historical representations, he has carried out interviews with more than elders, including sages, poets, chiefs, blacksmiths, midwives, elders, and potters, among others.
The interviews with elders show the complexity and fluidity of ethnic identities. These findings have implications for the interpretation of archaeological data such as social and symbolic use of spaces, local and regional exchange networks, and crisis management—a host of insights that are outside of the historical texts that draw a dominant focus in postcolonial studies.
For example, he is convinced that the elusive evidence of the collapse of precolonial trade would have been difficult to master without engaging the local histories. For example, discussing the uses of caves and fortified rockshelters, Gibson Mwanjala July 4, , Mwakwasinyi stated that in times of war, the elders, women and children, and livestock were secured in caves.
In certain caves like, Mbanga ya Mafumo, cave of the spears, and Mbanga ya Ngoma, cave of the drums, are captured Maasai spears, bows, and arrows. These caves are well hidden, difficult to see, and protected by black magic. Some of the caves were large enough to have served multiple functions Gibson Mwanjala, July 4, , Mwakwasinyi. Simeon Mwanjala July 4, , Mwakwasinyi was certain that some of the caves made better homes and were thus served as homes. Rockshelters with large overhangs were fortified and made into beautiful homes.
Wealthy people also built fortified houses in this rockshelters for their kept livestock up on the hills. Indeed, some informants recognize the multifunctional nature of the Kasigau cave and rockshelters S. Mwanjala July 2, , Mwakwasinyi. Ezeram Mdamu July 3, , Rukanga pointed out the multifunctional nature and functions of the caves by enumerating their many functions.
A number of caves served as places to leave the sick and dying. For example, members of the family who were dying from highly infectious diseases such as cholera or leprosy would be taken to special caves and left there until they died. We were not shown any such cave in Kasigau but we visited two such caves in Mwatate Division. They could accommodate many people. Only with these testimonies was Dr. Kusimba able to explain settlement shifts from the well-watered valleys and fertile flood plans to the infertile but secure hilltops, caves, and fortification of rockshelters.
Oral testimonies, then, provide key historical insights into a region of East Africa that has for too long been represented in the colonial metanarratives as void of settlement and interactions with the broader world. Thus, a postcolonial archaeology—by listening to and recognizing subaltern voices—provides a potent antidote to historical misrepresentations while also showing how reformation of practice contributes to local community welfare.
On the Swahili coast, the nature of relationships between the cities and their hinterlands prior to CE were more inclusive, accommodating, and less coercive than the period between CE and , which was characterized by warfare and the slave trade, combining to undercut the trading networks that had developed earlier Kusimba After the collapse of the city-states in the 15th century following the conquest by the Portuguese mariners, the coast was colonized by the Portuguese and the Omani Arabs.
Ivory and slave trade became the backbone for supporting the vast Portuguese dominion. Between and , more than , people were exported from the East Africa Martin and Ryan Slavery cruelly transformed the lives of those taken into bondage as well as those left behind. By the 18th century, many towns and cities were abandoned due to international competition and conquest.
The postth-century Eurafrasian encounter changed the course of history for Africa and Asia. There is little archaeological evidence in East Africa of new economic and infrastructural developments following the Portuguese arrival. In fact, the only major large-scale construction projects were the various fortresses built by the Portuguese and Arabs.
Thus postth-century East Africa was characterized by steady decline. Along the coast, towns and cities declined, with silting in many ports from under use and low maintenance. Trading networks established over the previous centuries declined. Towns and cities ceased to be attractive, houses were steadily abandoned, and some were cordoned off for lack of tenants. Poorly maintained wells dried up. People abandoned city life for other areas, only to be disappointed.
Both rural and urban economies were equally affected because of the interdependence developed over several millennia. Urban and rural decline characterized by abandonment and relocation in East Africa speaks to the chaos caused by disruptions following European entry into the Indian Ocean commerce. Evidence for this disruption is drawn from many sources, chief among them the narratives of African peoples.
I have suggested that African folklore, especially stories told to children, experienced a major shift from tales about happy-go-lucky animals that often outwitted people to those of cannibals, gnomes, trolls, and so forth. These stories instilled fear among the children and taught compliance; children learned to mistrust people from the other side of the hill—they ate children. This narrative shift speaks of declining security, which I link to the development of large-scale slave trade. What may have began as occasional disappearances because of low-level kidnapping developed into large-scale warfare that turned friends into foe Kusimba Before the 18th and 19th centuries CE, the people of Kasigau, including the Akamba, Oromo, Taita, and Waata, were active participants in trade networks with the coast.
They supplied ivory, iron bloom, animal skins, cow hides, dried meat, rock crystal, and cereals, the bulk of trading items without which the elite of the coast would not have accumulated the wealth to maintain their ostentatious lifestyles and international outlook.
In return, the Kasigau groups acquired cloth, beads, and other exotica. Caravans destined for the deeper interior often stopped to replenish their food and water stocks before heading on to Taveta and beyond. On the homeward voyage, Kasigau Hill signaled that home was not far away. We have found dry stone architectural remains, fortified rockshelters, cave dwellings, sacred and ritual sites, market centers, cairns and graves along traditional caravan trade routes between the East African coast and interior.
These provide material evidence for understanding the impact of slave trade on African societies and the responses taken by these societies to protect themselves from the scourge of slave trade.
Full-coverage surveys and excavations of ten sites at Kasigau Hill show rapid abandonment of settlements in the plains and reoccupation of rockshelters, which were then heavily fortified. Smaller rockshelters surrounding Kasigau Hill were fortified and used as look-out areas. A decline in quality of life is indicated by: 1 a decline in the size of cultivable land per family; 2 a shift in mortuary practices—where a local tradition of disinterring the skulls of dead ancestors develops—Jefferson Maloti of Sungululu village, Wundanyi, indicates that this mortuary pattern was developed as a means to lay claims to land that was becoming increasingly scarce; 3 the penning of animals in caves and rockshelters for long periods without cleaning the pens; and 4 food insecurity indicated by reliance on sub-size, nonmigratory fauna such as rock hyraxes, dik-dik, and seasonal mollusks including frogs and birds.
In , Dr. Kisio excavations revealed two occupational periods with dramatically different assemblages. Ina deposit dating to 1, years ago, we found quartz, obsidian, and chert stone tools, pottery, and a very diverse combination of extant mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians representing twenty-one families. The fauna was characteristic of a hunter-gatherer population.
We also recovered beads which showed contact with coastal traders. The second Waata deposit, dating to CE, told a surprisingly different story. The finds included animal bones, stone tools, pottery, iron arrowheads, and shell and glass beads indicative of trade contacts with local and coastal traders. Faunal data revealed that the residents of Kisio subsisted largely on small nonmigratory mammals and birds, especially hornbill, hyrax, duiker, snail and bullfrog.
These data conflicted with ethnographic data which portrayed the Waata as highly respected elephants hunters and makers of the coveted poison. Why had Kisio rockshelter residents turned to hyrax, frog, and snails at a time when they were highly respected partners in the ivory trade, providing the much needed poison for elephant hunting? Kisio is not the only site that displays changing patterns.
Elsewhere agriculturists had abandoning their well-watered hill slope homesteads for the rocky and inaccessible mountaintops. Pastoralists left the flood plains and luxurious tsetse fly—free grazing lands and disappeared altogether from the lower Tsavo landscape. Three excavated rockshelters provide clues as to what was occurring during the 18th and 19th centuries. These rockshelters are only a sample of fortified rockshelters and caves that surround Kasigau Hill.
Fortification of rockshelters and caves appears to have coincided with declining trade with the coast and abandonment of the village settlements in the plains. Radiocarbon dates place the construction of their dry stone wall architecture in the late 17th and early 18th centuries CE.
Excavations revealed comparatively few archaeological artifacts. First, all fortified rockshelters date to the last years, that is, they were constructed after the Portuguese conquest of the East African coast and the institutionalization of large-scale slavery and slave trade by Europeans and Arabs in Africa.
The building of dry wall enclosures in rockshelters signaled a departure from traditional practice of erecting wooden frame enclosures or using open rockshelters as temporary camps. Second, all the enclosures have partitioned areas: one section for livestock—containing large amounts of dung on often uneven ground, and the other for people—with few or no dung piles, and cultural materials such as a wooden bed, hearth, pottery, gourds, and calabashes.
Third, all three sites had an entrance and an exit.
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