The following is a post written by a student, Aide Gonzalez. This
post highlights her work that she completed as part of her requirements
in Ant 411: Culture Areas of the World. Students have the opportunity
to explore material through their own research. Please show your
appreciation for her work through the comments.
by Aide Gonzalez
The reading this week and the video focused
on African hunter gathers on how they were able to survive during difficult
times. It focused on the help to African civilizations, and the
efforts to preserve their political and cultural identities in a continent besieged
by crisis. The reading focused more on hunter-gatherers in specific areas of
Africa. The video focused on Bruce Parry who spent time with the Akie people of
Tanzania. Akie people have their own language; they are known as one of the last people that
still practices hunter-gatherers.
My curiosity question is was hunting considered
just men’s work? On the video we watched in class, Bruce Parry built a close
relationship with the Akie. He was able to practice different things, such as
speak their language, hunt animals, collect and eat wild honey, and drink their
home-made beer. He was exposed to their life style and conflicts that the Akie
tribe faced; he was also able to practice their survival skills.
When I watched the video, Parry spent the
majority time with men and it made me curious about if hunting was just for men
or were women able to be part of it? I
did my research and found an article related to the hunter-gathers the name of
the article is “The Okiek of Kenya” This article provided the history of the
Okiek tribe, religion, and most important their way to survive in their
village.
This article answered my question. According to “The Okiek of Kenya” article,
“Making beehives, collecting honey, and hunting were all considered men's
work”. Men were responsible to provided food to the table. The Okiek traveled with dogs, they built
their own bows, arrows, spears to hunt, and they also set traps. As we watched
the video, hunting was not easy. The Akie people and Parry left early in the
morning to hunt, but they were unlucky and did not kill an animal. They stayed
up all night waiting to hunt something, but finally after days, they were able
to kill an animal. Hunting was not described as an easy job, and hunting would
usually take hours to up to days to hunt a big animal to feed a village. According
to the article Okiek tribe was roughly two dozen groups of hunters and
honey-gatherers, and the tribal members were located in the middle of Kenya
living in forested highlands.
The article also reported that women’s work
was to stay in the village and take care of other necessary things. According
to the article, “women's work included processing and cooking food, building
traditional houses, maintaining firewood and water supplies, most childcare,
and making leather bags, straps, and, at one time, clothing”. One thing that I
observed in the video was, man and women went together to look for water. This
was the only thing that the Akie tribe did together. Also, in the article
discussed that the Okiek tribe relied on a diet of meat and honey, supplemented
by traded grains.
In conclusion, this week’s
focus was hunter-gatherers, and I came up with a curiosity question. My
question focused on whether or not hunting was considered just men’s work? I
found an article, “The Okiek of Kenya,” which answered my question. According to the article men were the only ones to provide hunted
food. They were responsible to collect wild honey and hunt. They traveled in
groups and with dogs to hunt. The women’s job was to stay in the village to
process the meat, cook food, make leather clothing, building traditional houses
and take care of their children.
References
Kratz, Corinne A. (2013,
September) “The Okiek of Kenya”. Vol.46, 1-5.
