article
Girls' puberty songs and their relation to fertility, health, morality, and religion among the Zulus
Africa • 38 • Published In 1968 • Pages: 173-198
By: Krige, Eileen Jensen.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This source is concerned with a discussion and analysis of songs used in girls' puberty and maturity ceremonies as well as on other occasions, particularly during ceremonies to the deity Inkosazana. Brief descriptions of maturity ceremonies and ceremonies to Inkosazana are given and the author provides the texts to 17 songs used in these ceremonies. The roles on unmarried girls as ceremonial actors and possible sources of evil befalling the community are featured in Krige's analysis. She concludes that the study of song content is important and that such a study '… has brought to light a very clear connection between girls' puberty rites and certain other rites associated with fertility, rain, and the prevention of seasonal disease in man and the crops' (p. 183). Krige also includes a brief critique of Gluckman's analysis of Zulu ritual.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Puberty and initiation
- Majority
- Music
- Literary texts
- Organized ceremonial
- Sexuality
- Spirits and gods
- Purification and atonement
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Zulu
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnographer
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Eleanor C. Swanson ; 1979
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- not specified
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- NotesAdditional notes
- Eileen Jensen Krige
- The texts of the songs have been indexed for Music (533) and Texts (539) and the researcher interested in puberty ceremonies should consult either of these subjects in addition to Puberty and Initiation (881) and Majority (884).
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 29010790
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Zulu (African people)