Female over male or left over right Solving a classificatory puzzle among the OvaHimba
This article puts forward a resolution to a curious circumstance, namely, why the left, and not the right appears to be pre-eminent among the Himba. Himba arrange gendered, domestic and ritual space, their own bodies in ritual contexts and, to an extent, time strongly in favour of the left. The fact...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | Africa |
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| 1. Verfasser: | |
| Format: | UnknownFormat |
| Sprache: | eng |
| Veröffentlicht: |
1996
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Tag hinzufügen | Zusammenfassung: | This article puts forward a resolution to a curious circumstance, namely, why the left, and not the right appears to be pre-eminent among the Himba. Himba arrange gendered, domestic and ritual space, their own bodies in ritual contexts and, to an extent, time strongly in favour of the left. The fact that in their language 'left' connotes weakness while 'right' connotes strength adds to the puzzle. It is argued that, to understand this apparent contradiction of the near-universal classificatory ascendancy of right over left, one must assess the Himba dual symbolic system while drawing upon the principle of symbolic parallax which allows a single referent, in this case the sacred ancestral fire, to be viewed from differing spatial perspectives. By following this procedure the puzzle is resolved, as the human direction from which the primary referent is viewed is merely the mirror image of a transcendant view. (Africa/DÜI) |
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| Beschreibung: | 2 graph. Darst., 1 Kt., 1 Tab., Lit. S. 347-348, Lit.Hinw. S. 345-347 |
| ISSN: | 0001-9720 |