1st Edition

Valenge Women Social and Economic Life of the Valenge Women of Portuguese East Africa

By E. Dora Earthy Copyright 1933
    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    When first published in 1933, this monograph shed new light on the life of the Valenge women of Portuguese East Africa. It discusses their social organisations, family relationships, education, tribal customs, and contains detailed information concerning initiation rites, religion, magic and sorcery. The volume collects a large number of native texts, rituals and formulae, thereby converting oral tradition into material of great value not only to students of Africcan ethnography but also to anthropologists more widely.

    1. Origin and History

    2. Social Organization and Kinship System

    3. Valenge Women: Their Homesteads

    4. The Agricultural Year 5. Material Culture 6. Birth Rites 7. Early Education 8. Games 9. String Figures 10. Tatuing, Scarification and Tribal Marks

    11. Puberty, Initiation

    12. Marriage, Relation Between the Sexes

    13. Death

    14. Dances

    15. Religion, Magic and Sorcery

    16. Folklore and Proverbs.

    Conclusion.

    Appendix: The Sibs of Gazaland

    Biography

    E. Dora Earthy

    The International African Institute might well authorize the publication of a book planned and executed in so scientific a spirit.' Times Literary Supplement