TY  - CHAP
AU  - Beek, W. E. A. van
PY  - 1992
DA  - 1992//
TI  - Becoming human in Dogon, Mali
BT  - Coming into existence : birth and metaphors of birth, edited with an introduction by Göran Aijmer
SP  - 47-70, 154-159
PB  - Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology
CY  - Goteborg, Sweden
KW  - Dogons (African people)
KW  - Dogon
KW  - Age stratification
KW  - Gender status
KW  - Mythology
KW  - Organized ceremonial
KW  - Ideas about nature and people
KW  - Reproduction
KW  - Puberty and initiation
AB  - In this article van Beek discusses women's fertility and Dogon ideas and practices surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and naming. He then discusses the SIGUI ceremony which happens once every sixty years. The sigui ceremony is a ritual of renewel and initiation in which only men participate. Men are reborn from the bush with a new personhood (INé) and minds (HAKILé), and with enhanced powers and fertility. According to van Beek, the sigui ceremony inverts the rituals associated with pregnancy and childbirth and endow men and the patrilineage with creative powers. The ceremony stresses ‘the fleeting male creation by man of himself against the continuing chain of life generated by the women' (p. 70).
SN  - 9163010410
UR  - https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fa16-028
LA  - English
N1  - Walter E. A. van Beek
ID  - fa16-028
Y1  - 2022-06-26
ER  -