Cutting the anthill :

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Cutting the anthill : "
Ahmadu, Fuambai Sia.

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Record Number	:	1095984
Doc. No	:	TLets420979
Main Entry	:	Ahmadu, Fuambai Sia.
Title & Author	:	Cutting the anthill :\ Ahmadu, Fuambai Sia.
College	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)
Date	:	2005
student score	:	2005
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Abstract	:	The main task of this thesis is to elucidate the historical and symbolic contexts of female andmale initiation rituals among the Mandinka as well as linkages to matricentric or motherfocused religious ideologies. The main argument of this thesis is that female and maleinitiation rituals correspond with ancient Mande creation mythology. I argue that, in Mandecosmology, excision and circumcision are "hidden" iconographic representations that refer tothe creation and transformation of the world from androgynous nature to sexuallydifferentiated culture marked by cross-sex relations of power. Female and male initiationrituals are re-enactments of this cosmology, particularly the third phase of creation, whichconcerns the symbolic reproduction of culture and the social world: female elders transformfemale initiates into "male" "seeds" and male elders transform male initiates into "female"vaginas". In marriage, female elders represent the "Phallus" that transplant the "male"seed" as "bride" or "foetus" through the groom's "vagina" and into the agnatic "Womb"which the male elders represent. I argue further that when women assert excision as"tradition" and "culture" they are claiming the power of their "grandmothers", or femaleelders, in passing on prehistoric "matriarchal" religious ideologies that buttress women's keyroles in ritual, as well as their socioeconomic and symbolic value as producers of "rice" andreproducers of humans. Chapters one to four of this thesis set the ethnographic andtheoretical stage for the analysis of ritual and mythical symbols. Chapters five to sevenunravel dominant initiation ritual symbols and their parallels with creation myths andconquer/settlement narratives. This thesis concludes that female and male initiation assert theinterdependence and complementarity of both "matriarchy" and "patriarchy" centred on theideological axis of mother and son, which was in the past embodied by the "circumcision"queen (ngansimbaa) and the "warrior" king (mansoo) or the custodians of "tradition" andland respectively.
Added Entry	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)