OZA AND NDAGHIO INITIATION CEREMONIES: THE SIGNIFICANT NARRATIVES IN THE SHAMBAA COMMUNITY

Felistas Richard Mahonge

Abstract


The Shambaa continue to hold to their oral traditions. They use them to inculcate Shambaa values and morals to their children. However, there is a claim that narratives of oral traditions, particularly initiation ceremonies are no longer significant to a modern generation since Christianity, formal education and modernity have replaced them. Although these claims cannot be totally ignored, it is important to indicate that Shambaa oral traditions have been narrated by elders during family events such as dowry, wedding and burial ceremonies where Shambaa rituals are still practiced. This paper therefore, argues that narratives of Shambaa oral traditions still reign supreme among the Shambaa. It presents the narratives of Oza and Ndaghio initiation ceremonies as aspects of Shambaa traditions and culture. This paper examines their significance in upbringing Shambaa youth. The paper uses Victor Turner’s theory of “liminality” and Tzevan Todorov's narrative theory as theoretical framework to analyze how these initiation ceremonies transform a Shambaa girl or boy into adult woman and man and how the transformative process informs individuals’ personalities.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

DOI

Keywords


initiation ceremonies narratives, performance, dramatic representation, transformative process

Full Text:

PDF

References


Abdullah bin Hemedi ‘l Ajjemy. (1963). The Kilindi. Boston. University.

Bujo, B. (2003). Foundations of African Ethics: Beyond the Universal of Western Morality. Nairobi: Pauline Publications Africa.

Feireman, S. (1972). The Shambaa and Their Land. Illinois: Evanston.

Finnegan, R. (2007). The Oral and Beyond: Doing Things with Words in Africa. Chicago: The University of Chicago.

Gennep, V. A. (1960). The Rite of passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Huhn, P., Pier, J. and Schimid, W. (2009). Handbook of Narratology. Vol. 19. Berlin: Hubert and Co.

Huijzendveld, F.D. (2008), “Changes in Political Economy and Ecology in West-Usambara, Tanzania: Ca. 1850-1950.”, The international journal of African historical studies, 41(3), 383-410.

Johnstone, P. and Mandryk, J. (2001). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Dallas: SIL International.

Malpas, S. and Wake P. Eds. (2013). The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory. New York: Routledge.

Martin, K. (2014). Sambaa Stories: The Spread, Loss, and Value of Ethnic History in the West Usambara Mountains. University of Vermont.

Nkondokaya, G. (2003). Makabila ya Mkoa wa Tanga: Asili ya Waseuta. Dar es Salaam: TUKI.

Pelt, P.V. (1982). Bantu Customs in Mainland Tanzania. TMP Book Department: Tabora.

Riedel, K. (2009).The Syntax of Object Marking in Sambaa: A comparative Bantu perspective. Netherlands: LOT.

Rugemalira, Josephat M., and Henry T. Muzale. 2008. Researching and documenting the languages of Tanzania. Language Documentation and Conservation 1:68–108

Shemsanga, E. N. (2013). The culture of "silent sexuality" amongst the Shambala of Tanzania: towards an intercultural approach in the pastoral ministry. Thesis (PhD). Stellenbosch University.

Skinner, A. (2005). Tanzania and Zanzibar. Guilford: The Globe Pequot Press.

Todorov, T. (1990). Genre in Discourse. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Turner, V. (1995). ‘Liminality and Communitas’. In The Ritual Process. New York: Aldinede. 94-130.

__________,(1981). ‘Social Dramas and Stories about Them’. In On Narrative. W. J. T. Mitchell, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 137-164.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Felistas Richard Mahonge

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2017-2023. European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics Studies (ISSN 2559 - 7914 / ISSN-L 2559 - 7914). All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.