tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post2147983766254229238..comments2024-03-28T07:58:41.643-04:00Comments on pancocojams: Descriptions Of Senegalese Baby Naming Ceremonies/Parties (Ngentes) Azizi Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-49837964845309885792016-02-10T11:55:04.724-05:002016-02-10T11:55:04.724-05:00Hey slam2011.
I'm so very glad you found thi...Hey slam2011. <br /><br />I'm so very glad you found this blog. You add such richness to these posts.<br /><br />I've decided to publish a post on abeng which will include the comments found in this comment thread- so that they don't get lost in discussions about Senegalese or African naming customs.<br /><br />I'll add that link in this comment thread when I've published it. Azizi Powellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-24900741796807159992016-02-10T09:19:41.903-05:002016-02-10T09:19:41.903-05:00Well, this explains a lot! I've also been read...Well, this explains a lot! I've also been reading a book called 'Untrodden Jamaica' in which a white Jamaican went into an unmapped part of the John Crow Mountains in 1890, guided by some locals who included Maroons. They used an abeng to signal and keep in touch with each other, and he said they had a code but wouldn't share it with him. At one high place overlooking a village he asked Peter Nelson (a Maroon) to sound a celebratory blast on the horn, but Nelson was very reluctant. He did, finally, but he got a drop of rum off another man first and poured it into the horn and onto the ground. (This is a libation, which Bosman also mentions being done in late 17th c. West Africa.)The white Jamaican guessed this was something to do with preventing bad luck, but as he could see Nelson didn't want to be asked about it he left it alone.<br /><br />And in 'Hamel, the Obeah Man' (1827) Hamel makes a libation too. So that's c.1690s in Africa; early 19th c. Jamaica; and even as late as 1890, all for the same African tradition surviving.slam2011https://www.blogger.com/profile/03112153426493772446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-53304624019258392072016-02-10T08:22:19.010-05:002016-02-10T08:22:19.010-05:00slam2011, I LOVE the information you find in your ...slam2011, I LOVE the information you find in your research. Thanks!!<br /><br />Here's the hyperlink to that book <a href="https://archive.org/details/newaccuratedescr00bosm" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/newaccuratedescr00bosm</a><br /><br />**<br />Regarding your theory about the reason why people might have pelted a mother-to-be with dirt as she walks to and then goes to the river- the reason why she enters the water might also be because the water has strengthening and protective powers because of the deity/deities associated with water and/or that particular body of water.<br /><br />Here's a website that provides a list of traditional African deities (with a blurb about each deity)<br /><a href="http://www.mythologydictionary.com/african-mythology.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mythologydictionary.com/african-mythology.html</a> Azizi Powellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-3317901255251991042016-02-10T08:11:23.411-05:002016-02-10T08:11:23.411-05:00slam2011, you probably know that "abeng"...slam2011, you probably know that "abeng" is also a musical instrument. Here's a long quote about Jamaica's Maroons' abeng:<br />From <a href="https://abengcentral.wordpress.com/jamaica/" rel="nofollow">https://abengcentral.wordpress.com/jamaica/</a><br />"The abeng, the side-blown horn, is a Maroon War Horn. It has been in use in Jamaica for over three centuries – originally was used to communicate messages between Maroon communities. It calls Maroons to assembly and to contribute to Maroon funerals. It played and still plays a major role in many other Maroon celebrations.<br /><br />The abeng is made from cow horn and at full blast can be heard clearly over a distance of approximately 15 kilometers. The top of the cow horn is cut off, leaving a small opening about 1½ inches from the top end. There is also another opening over which the blower placed his mouth. The sounds are controlled with the thumb, opening and closing the small hole at the top end of the horn.<br /><br />The organization Macpri describes the abeng as follows: “The abeng is believed to be an Akan word meaning “horn”. The abeng is the horn of an animal or a wind musical instrument, which is blown to produce a variety of sounds. The cow horn or the Abeng as it is called by the Maroons of Jamaica is a powerful symbol of African culture and tradition. The abeng and its blower are still very important in many communities across the African world. Before major events could begin in a community, the abeng would be blown to alert the villagers or town’s people. Depending on the sounds that came out of the instrument, the listener would be able to tell if a wedding, a birth, a death was being announced or a call to arm for an impending war. Today, ‘New World’ Africans see the symbolism of the abeng as a call to arm themselves – their minds – for them to stand up and defend their culture and traditions against extinction.”<br />Azizi Powellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-19716899764900074062016-02-10T06:51:12.586-05:002016-02-10T06:51:12.586-05:00Don't spend time on it. I've decided he mu...Don't spend time on it. I've decided he must have misheard 'akonnua', a stool. (It may not be right but it stops me going crazy looking!)slam2011https://www.blogger.com/profile/03112153426493772446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-86234611600665832202016-02-10T06:16:45.387-05:002016-02-10T06:16:45.387-05:00Azizi, you haven't come across a word like ...Azizi, you haven't come across a word like 'gomba' in anything to do with West Africa have you? It must mean some small object no bigger than a footstool. I should explain I've been reading the novel 'Hamel, the Obeah Man' (1827). It was written by an Englishman who'd lived in Jamaica, and he occasionally uses words not in the Oxford English Dictionary. For example, he mentions an abeng, and also a 'musical instrument, the bonjaw' - I guessed he meant banjo - but he also describes a man wrapping himself in a 'contoo' before sleeping. I failed to find that in the OED, but felt pretty smart to find it in a Twi online dictionary as 'kuntu, a coverlet'. <br /><br />But 'gombah' has me stumped. First the man sits on it to eat a meal, and then uses it as a pillow... so it must be fairly small. But what is it???slam2011https://www.blogger.com/profile/03112153426493772446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-28994194029308470812016-02-10T05:38:28.790-05:002016-02-10T05:38:28.790-05:00It was from Willem Bosman's 'A new and acc...It was from Willem Bosman's 'A new and accurate description of the coast of Guinea, divided into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory coasts', published in Dutch in 1704 and translated into English in 1705.<br /> <br />Bosman was a Dutchman in the slave trade. He went to Africa at sixteen and lived on the West African coast for fourteen years. The book is based on long, descriptive letters he sent to an uncle back home. It's one I find hard to read but I have dipped into. I don't think Bosman spoke the local language - he says at one point he understands what's said to him mostly, but can't always express himself. Also he seems to have lived in a European compound, not among the people. And of course's not an ethnographer, he's basically telling traveller's tales. Still, to be fair I don't think he makes stuff up, but he doesn't always understand what he's seeing. <br /><br />His Christian prejudice against African religion is very strong, partly because he's a Protestant who's quite anti-Catholic. What I mean is, he already has a fixed idea that any religious ceremony is 'superstition' or 'priestcraft', done by an elite to rip off gullible worshippers. On the other hand, unlike a lot of Europeans of the time he knows Africans are not by any means 'devil-worshippers'. <br /><br />He describes a ceremony which is a regular annual celebration, maybe a bit like our Christmas, where villagers throw dung and dirt to drive the devil out of their village, and then have a holiday. It made me think, maybe the children who pelt the mother-to-be are doing the same for her? Any evil spirits hanging round her are driven to the sea, where she gets rid of them by washing herself, and so no bad spirits can affect the birth?...Yeah, that's me trying to be an ethnographer:)<br /><br />His book's online at: https://archive.org/details/newaccuratedescr00bosmslam2011https://www.blogger.com/profile/03112153426493772446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-81295992719839336822016-02-09T17:27:41.961-05:002016-02-09T17:27:41.961-05:00Thanks for sharing that quote, slam2011.
The dir...Thanks for sharing that quote, slam2011. <br /><br />The dirt thrown at the mother might symbolize the fact that the earth is our mother.<br /><br />And I think that you're probably right that men writing in the 18th century were more interested in men's lives then the lives of women.<br /><br />Would you please share the book that this quote comes from? Thanks again!Azizi Powellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-46171068273435715962016-02-09T04:52:46.061-05:002016-02-09T04:52:46.061-05:00This isn't strictly relevant to Senegal, but t...This isn't strictly relevant to Senegal, but the Dutch writer Bosman included some information about African naming practices in his 1704 book on the Guinea coast. I've left in all the rather annoying use of an 'f' to represent the old-fashioned long 's', so I hope it isn't hard to read. And Bosman isn't talking about an Islamic culture obviously, and probably Ghanaian custom not Senegalese. But it's interesting both cultures lay stress on giving the child the name of someone else in its kin: <br />"As foon as the Child is born and the Prieft has confecrated it, if above the common Rank, it hath three Names beftowed on it (though always called by one ;) the firft is that of the Day of the Week on which it is born ; the next, if a Son, is his Grand-fathers, if a Girl, her Grandmothers Name ; though this is not ftrictly obferved by the Negroes, fome of them giving their own or the Names of fome of their Relations to their Children : After which their Names increafe with their Years ; has any Perfon behav'd himfelf valiantly in the War, he obtains a Name derived from thence, as he doth by killing a Chieftain of the Enemies : Does he kill a wild Ravenous Beaft, he gets a new Name by it. But 'twould be a Days work to recite all their Names and the Occafions of them ; 'tis fufficient to tell you, that the number given to fome Men amounts to twenty : The chief of which, and by which he is moft honoured, is that given him when they are drinking Palm-Wine together in the Market-place. The common Name by which they are called, is one of thofe given them at their Birth. Some are called after the number of Children that their Mother has born, as the eighth, the ninth or tenth Child, but this is only when the Mother has born above fix or feven Children."<br />He also begins to describe a pre-birth purification ceremony perhaps meant to protect the mother, but he breaks off short. (I get the impression he's less interested in women's lives, I could be wrong.) It involves a procession to the sea-shore where the mother-to-be washes herself in the sea, but on the way children follow her throwing dirt at her until she reaches the waves and cleanses herself. I don't know what the meaning of that custom may be, or whether any part of it survives.slam2011https://www.blogger.com/profile/03112153426493772446noreply@blogger.com