Suchergebnisse

Opening -- Sources and questions -- Yorubaland, 1820-1893 -- Colonial Yorubaland, 1893-1960 -- Family and marriage -- Labor, property, and agriculture -- Income-generating activities in the nineteenth century -- New approaches to familiar roles during the colonial period -- Western skills and service careers -- Religion, cultural forms, and associations -- Regents and chiefs, economic organizations, and politics -- Patriarchy, colonialism, and women's agency

"Lorelle D. Semley explores the historical and political meanings of motherhood in West Africa and beyond, showing that the roles of women were far more complicated than previously thought. While in Kétou, Benin, Semley discovered that women were treasurers, advisors, ritual specialists, and colonial agents in addition to their more familiar roles as queens, wives, and sisters. These women with special influence made it difficult for the French and others to enforce an ideal of subordinate women. As she traces how women gained prominence, Semley makes clear why powerful mother figures still exist in the symbols and rituals of everyday practices"--Provided by publisher.

Indigenous festivals, which rely significantly on music and dance, often constitute the village public sphere and the social arena within which the structures of power are performed and negotiated in tradi- tional African communities. This article discusses two unique musical traditions which feature prominently at annual traditional festivals in Emure-Ekiti, a Yoruba town in Western Nigeria. The musical traditions are orin olori (songs of the king's wives) and a related ensemble, orin airegbe, a musical tradition associated with female chiefs. Exploring an ethnomusicological approach, this article argues that the complemen- tary relationship between these two all-female musical traditions and the scope of their performance practices draw attention to the ways in which public performance sp aks to the status and agency of women in traditional Yoruba societies.

Introduction / Lillian Ashcraft-Eason, Darnise Martin, and Oyeronke Olademo -- Women, family, environment -- "That girl is poison" : white supremacy, anxiety, and the conflation of women and food in the nation of Islam / Stephen C. Finley and Margarita L. Simon -- Receiving, embodying, and sharing "divine wisdom" : women in the nation of gods and earths / Felicia M. Miyakawa -- The living shrine : life and meaning in Oyotunji / Yeyefini Efunbolade -- Socioeconomics, politics, authority -- Vodou : a heritage of power / Susheel Bibbs -- Mind, body, spirit -- Serving the spirits, healing the person : women in Afro-Brazilian religions / Kelly E. Hayes -- Dance attributes of female Orishas in Yoruba-derived religions in the diaspora / Halifu Osumare -- Sexuality, power, vulnerability -- To have and to hold : possession performance in Afro-Cuban Regla de Ocha / Katherine Hagedorn -- African descendent women and religion : diaspora in Oriente Cuba / Jualynne E. Dodson -- Religion and women's sexuality in Africa : the intersection of power and vulnerability / Oyeronke Olademo -- Women, worldview, religious practice -- A religion of the interstices : Asian Pacific American women and multiple religious practices / Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier -- Diana's grove : an emergent, integrative spiritual movement / John K. Simmons, Susan E. Hill, and Cynthea Jones -- The good wife : the religious experience of women in scientology / Dawn L. Hutchinson -- Senses of place : women greening communities / Kimberly Whitney -- African women in traditional religions : illustrations from Kenya / Mary Nyangweso Wangila

SummaryThis was a hospital-based cross-sectional study of 224 randomly selected antenatal women receiving care at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. The study aimed to seek the attitude and preferences of respondents about social support during childbirth and also identify variables that may influence their decisions. Seventy-five per cent of respondents desired companionship in labour. Approximately 86% preferred their husband as companion while 7% and 5% wanted their mother and siblings as support person respectively. Reasons for their desire for social support were emotional (80·2%), spiritual (17·9%), errands (8·6%) and physical activity (6·8%). Socio-demographic variables found to be statistically significant on logistic regression analysis for the desire of a companion in labour were nulliparity (OR 3·57, 95% CI 1·49–8·52), professionals (OR 3·11, 95% CI 1·22–7·94) and women of other ethnic groups besides Yoruba (OR 2·90, 95% CI 1·02–8·26), which is the predominant ethnic group in the study area. Only those with post-secondary education were found to want their husbands as doula (OR 2·96, 95% CI 1·08–8·11). More than half of the respondents wanted information about labour prior to their experience. It is important that Nigerian women are allowed the benefit of social support during childbirth, particularly as there is a lack of one-to-one nursing care and other critical services, including epidural analgesia in labour, at many of the health care facilities in Nigeria. Men could play a pivotal role in the process of introducing support in labour so as to improve the outcome for both the mother and her newborn.

SummaryThis was a cross-sectional study carried out on 462 pregnant women attending antenatal care in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study's aims were to assess the level of participation of Nigerian men in pregnancy and birth, the attitude of the women and likely targets for improved care delivery. Three hundred and forty-nine women (75.5%) were aware that husbands could participate in childbirth. Most women did not think it was their husbands' place to attend antenatal clinic (48.3%) or counselling sessions (56.7%). Nearly all husbands (97.4%) encouraged their wives to attend antenatal clinic – paying antenatal service bills (96.5%), paying for transport to the clinic (94.6%) and reminding them of their clinic visits (83.3%). Three hundred and thirty-five husbands (72.5%) accompanied their wives to the hospital for their last delivery, while 63.9% were present at last delivery. More-educated women were less likely to be accompanied to the antenatal clinic, while more-educated men were likely to accompany their wives. Yoruba husbands were less likely to accompany their wives, but Yoruba wives with non-Yoruba husbands were 12 times more likely to be accompanied. Women in the rural centre were less likely to receive help with household chores from their husbands during pregnancy, while educated women were more likely to benefit from this. Monogamous unions and increasing level of husbands' education were associated with spousal presence at delivery. It appears that male participation is satisfactory in some aspects, but increased attendance at antenatal services and delivery would be desirable.

Anthropology has long recognized the inadvertent polluting power of the male and female genitals. In his important discussion of Yoruba beliefs in female power and witchcraft, Raymond Prince (1961) recognized that African women know very well that they can direct the power that can emanate from their own genitals, and in some extreme situations their threats to loosen this power are strongly persuasive. Only a few others have recognized the aggressive use of female genital power. Further research in this area has important implications for understanding African ideas of sexuality.

The Yoruba presence in the Americas, particularly in Brazil and Cuba, has been the topic of much research in past years. The role of the individuals who molded and guided the new directions taken by these cultural manifestations, however, continues to be virgin terrain. In particular and without doubt, women were the most important contributors to these acculturative processes. The present article examines the influence of three African women and their contribution to the evolution and survival of Lukumi religion in Cuba. In so doing, it brings to the fore other important issues that cast light on the lives of Afro-Cuban women in nineteenth-century Cuba forced to live in a Eurocentric society in which they occupied the lowest rung of the ladder. These issues highlight the hardships and impediments that in many ways all Afro-Cubans had to overcome in their struggle for power and respect--even among members of their own ethnic groups. Eventually, this struggle played an important role in the contributions made by these groups to Cuban culture and society.

Pawnship in historical perspective / by Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy -- The business of slaving : pawnship in Western Africa, c. 1600-1810 / by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson -- On pawning and enslavement for debt in the precolonial Slave Coast / by Robin Law -- "Pawns will live when slaves is apt to dye" : credit, risk and trust at old Calabar in the era of the slave trade / by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson -- Pawnship in Nembe, Niger Delta / by Ebiegberi J. Alagoa and Atei M. Okorobia -- Slavery and pawnship in the Yoruba economy of the nineteenth century / by Toyin Falola -- Pawning in the Emirate of Ilorin / by Ann O'Hear -- Pawnship in Igbo society / by Felix Ekechi -- Human pawning in Asante, 1820-1950 : markets and coercion, gender and cocoa / by Gareth Austin -- Pawnship in Edo society : from Benin Kingdom to Benin Province under colonial rule / by Uyilawa Usuanlele -- Pawning and slavery on the Kenya coast : the Miji Kenda case / by Fred Morton -- Pawning, politics and matriliny in Northeastern Tanzania / by James Giblin -- Pawning in coastal Northwest Sierra Leone, 1870-1910 / by Allen M. Howard -- Indirect rule and the brief apogee of pawnship in Nimba, Liberia, 1918-30 / by Martin Ford -- Pawns, porters, and petty traders : women in the transition to cash-crop agriculture in colonial Ghana / by Beverly Grier -- Iwofa : an historical survey of the Yoruba institution of indenture / by E. Adeniyi Oroge -- Pawns and politics : the pawnship debate in Western Nigeria / by Judith Byfield -- Pawnship in colonial Southwestern Nigeria / by Toyin Falola -- The resurgence of pawning in French West Africa during the depression of the 1930s / by Martin Klein and Richard Roberts -- "What is and what is not the law" : imprisonment for debt and the institution of pawnship in the Gold Coast / by Kwabena Akurang-Parry