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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Knowledge, Secrecy, and the Practice of Senior Womanhood among the Bamana of the Beledugu (Mali) |
Author: | Freeman, Julianne E. |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Mande Studies |
Volume: | 2 |
Pages: | 115-127 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Mali |
Subjects: | elderly women gender relations Bambara indigenous knowledge Women's Issues Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Cultural Roles Sex Roles |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/44078793 |
Abstract: | In Bamana society, formal secrets of women and formal secrets of men point to separate educational paths for boys and girls. As with gender, so too is age reinforced by modes of secrecy. This article investigates the nature of secrecy in the activities of senior Bamana women of the Bèlèdugu, an area north of the capital city of Mali, Bamako, and the implications of this secrecy for the salience of gender and age constructs in Bamana society. Attending to the observation of George Simmel that secrecy is structured primarily by its form rather than its content, the exploration of how senior Bamana women maintain secret knowledge and preserve domains of secret activity is the author's main interest. To this end, she examines how the modes and practice of secrecy reinforce categories of gender and age, and play into the social construction of senior womanhood. Since the work of elder women often involves domains of life and death (midwifery, healing, initiation), senior women struggle to maintain a public image of one who knows and protects. The capacity that elder women have for working in dangerous domains of activity establishes a social niche for them that cannot be filled by men or younger women. Bibligor., notes, ref. |