SOC 407: Regional Ethnography SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHY?

Ethnography is a Greek word that has two main components namely;

· Ethnos; meaning people, folks, and nations. While

· Grapho; means a systematic study of people and culture. It is systematic because it follows
processes and procedure, in other word “grapho” means field of study.

Ethnography seeks to understand people’s culture from their own point of view; their own
prospective. It is a descriptive account of human society usually simple scale society. It provides
a first-hand account on culture and social life of human community from their own point of view
(firsthand account means to collect information from the subject of the study directly). Some are
of the view that as a field of study it studies two “2” major things, namely;

A. Seeks to provide the knowledge of a particular people.

b. It gives knowledge of the system of meaning which people attached to certain………..?

EMERGENCE OF ETHNOGRAPHY

Ethnography as a field of study started from the voyages of discovery.

Voyages of Discovery: This means a long journey involving travelling by sea or in a space.

Ø Herodotus: He started the field of ethnography because he was a traveler; he visited different
parts of the world and he was documenting the various culture and people he meet on the road;
he study their culture, customs, belief system and their languages and then he compares with his
own culture.
Ø Marcopolo: Also like Herodotus, he was a traveler and write about different culture, people he
meet on the road but he was interested in knowing especially the western culture. He wrote a
detailed account of people him meet and also analysis the culture of those people unlike
Herodotus who only document the people apart from the detailed account he gave.

Around 15th and 17th century, Europeans became very interested in other parts of the world
because;

a. They were interested in expanding their own colony: They wanted market where they can
sell their finished products because they produce more than they can consume due to the rise of
industries in the western world.

b. They were interested in conquering other parts of the world.

Ethnography studies the variation of the physical appearance of people and also their culture.

CONCEPTS ASSOCIATED WITH STUDY OF ETHNOGRAPHY

· Culture: Culture is one of the very important concepts in the study of ethnography. Culture
is central to the understanding of ethnography. Culture is something we learn as a member of an
ethnic or as a member of a particular society.

Culture can be defined as the configuration of land and shared pattern of behaviour and
understanding arising out of communication among social groups and helps individual to adopt
his environment and his biological nature. The culture of the people is defined by their
environment.

· Cultural Areas: Most cultural groups tend to defined geographical areas, such people share
the same thing i.e. ideas, belief system etc. the basis for demarcating is on religion, languages,
and also the basis on similarity with other culture.

· Cultural Relativism: That is you should not judge other people’s culture on the basis of our
own culture. We should judge them from their own culture; we should judge them from their
own point of view or from their own prospective. When we judges people culture on the basis of
our own culture is what is referred to as culture relativism.

· Cultural Pluralism: This is the social arrangement whereby different ethnic groups,
different culture will live with others in harmony and stills maintains their own culture and
tolerate them. Most of different groups always recognized that they are culturally or religion
different but they tolerate each other.

· Ethnic Group: This refers to a group of people sharing the same historical experience,
having the same cultural experience, speaking the same language and the same belief about the
future members must also share a conviction that they have a common ideology and a common
fate (of destiny).

· Tribe: This is a human social organization that is based on small groupings defined by
tradition of common descents; the group must have temporary or permanent political integration
above family level and share language.

Tribe traces their origins from descents, but they are larger than the family; Tribes and ethnic
groups are used inter-changeable; tribes are largely a colonial creation, it is created by the
colonialist.

· Ethnocentricism: People always belief that their culture is always better than the other
people’s culture. Ethnocentricism is the belief or feeling that one’s own culture is better than the
others. Also when a person judges other people’s culture based on his/her own culture is what is
referred to as Ethnocentricism or such a person is called ethnocentric in nature.

Advantages

i. It promotes social solidarity among people from the same culture.

ii. Ii. It re-enforces the tendency to conform.
iii. It ensures unity among members.
iv. Disadvantages
i. It can bring about hostility among members of different cultures.
ii. Ii. It brings disunity among people of different cultures or beliefs.
· Language: Conventionally (generally accepted), languages refers to human and non-
instinctive method of communication, ideas feelings and desires by means of a symbol of sound
and sounds.

Literally, it refers to spoken and writing in method of communication between people and such
spoken and written symbols needs to be distinct or different from peoples spoken and written
symbols in other to become a language.

· Kinship: This term refers to large network of people who are related by common ancestors.
The essence of kinship is to allow the identification within a group.

Classification of Kinship

i. Classificatory. And
ii. Ii. Descriptive kinship.

Classificatory kinship refers to links of lineal relative; the term can also be used for collateral
relative i.e. “dan riko a gida” in hausa.

Descriptive is used to describe the relationship within the kinship group.

· Society: Refers to a group of people who live together over an extended period of time,
occupied a known territory and organized themselves in social groups and also are distinct from
other people. In some cases, they evolve some culture within time.

· Family: This is a social unit which consists of the father, mother, children and other
relatives. Family is divided into;
 i. Conjugal Family: this is also referred to as extended family of procreation i.e. you,
your wife and just your children.
ii. Ii. Natal Family: this is also referred to as extended family whereby when you,
your brothers and sisters return to your father’s house.

PROCEDURES FOR CONDUCTING ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES

1. Determine whether ethnography is appropriate for your study or not.

2. Ethnography is about studying culture; locate a group that shares the same culture (not
unstable culture) we don’t conduct a study in a multi cultural society. Members of the same
culture must have live for a long period of time.

3. Pick a team or identify an issue and even develop theory i.e. do you want to study their
customs or traditions, do you want to study their economy or their belief, etc.

4. Once the team has been developed, an ethnographer must go to the settings (people) he
wants to study, he must go to that economy and stay with them (field work) and study their
culture in detailed in order to have a firsthand account of that particular issue you want to study,
from the date generated from the research, he sat down and analyze and then interpret the data
collected.

5. From the report written, you will be able to come out with findings and then generalized the
issues.

Ethnography can be a subject and also at the same time it can be a method. As a method, it
allows you to engage in face-to-face interaction. It is also multi-factoral because you can use
more than method of collecting your data. It is dialogic, it involves dialog; you have to dialogue
with the community. It is also holistic in nature.
IMPORTANCE OF ETHNOGRAPHY

1. Understanding cultural differences (cultural relativism).

2. It provide student with the skills and knowledge on how ethnographic study can be
conducted.

3. It dispels all the rumors that people have on a particular ethnic group.

4. It allows emotional behaviour of a community to be captured; because it goes beyond just

statistics it tells you the feelings of a particular community.

5. It is a kind of visual data that gives you the exact picture of what is happening; you see
images live.

6. A detailed understanding of any culture helps you to succeed in any industry you find
yourself in.
RECENT AFRICAN ORIGIN OF MODERN HUMAN

The Origin of Man

In recent years, scientist made the use of molecular biology [study of DNA, RNA, proteins and
lipids]. The DNA, RNA, proteins and lipids carries the characteristics of human across
generations. Scientist uses the above in discussing or explaining human origins. They came to
conclude that the origin of early man started from Africa for more than 200,000years ago. Based
on number of researches that was carried out, they came to conclude that all humans came from a
single person from east Africa and that the origin is an African woman who gave birth to so
many children; some went to Middle East about 100,000years ago. Others went to Asia and
Europe about 60,000years ago. As they were moving, anywhere they stay, they wipe out
aboriginals. As they were moving, they found Neanderthal man (Germany) and also parking man
(china).

They move along the Arabian coast to India and also from India they move to other parts
of Europe. They use raft to cross the sea.

The Critique to the African Origin of Man

The Chinese seems not to be happy and do not agree man came from Africa, because a
number of fossils are found in china. In 1965 for instance YUANMON MAN was discovered in
Yoanmon province and from their estimation, he live for over 1.7 million years ago, and at the
same layer where the man was dig out, a stone tools were also found in the layer carbon was
found (charcoal) indicated that they know how to use fire then.

After Yoanmon-man (1.7million years), a PEKING MAN was also discovered

(200,000 – 700,000 years) ago whose skull sizes 1,059ML of an average man. This shows that
the Peking man’s skull was smaller than an average man. He can think and he can speak and also
they can walk straight and engaged in productive labour (work that we do to drive some
benefits). 40 other peoples found both; men and females of different ages were also found as a
result of digging the Peking man. The tools found were not smooth, they were rough; they use
for the smashing, cutting and so on. 6M thick of accumulated ash was also found confirmed that
they also know how to use fire, also, it is said that born of some animals were also found there.

At the same place where the perking man was found, new caveman was also discovered
about 100,000years ago. Much later at the same place upper-cave man was found 18,000years
and Jalai Nurman (10,000) was found much in Zhokoudian. They were all found in china and the
discovery of the above men give raise to the argument whether, really a man started from Africa.
The flat ridge nose and spade-shape teeth make the conclusion that those men above mentioned
really have the feature of a modern Chinese man.

Regional Evolution of Man

Shu-ape (primate, baboon kingdom) was also discovered they believe that man evolve
from different primates found in different regions. Shu-ape was discovered in Middle Eocene
Epoch in about 4.5 million to 4million years ago. He is discovered by Qi Tao and Wang Tingwen
in Jiangsu kingdom and they give him a name “shu-ape” shu means new light (because he show
the light to further discovery of man). According to them also, they said that he was found in
china and others primate and apes where from that shu-ape.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF CHARLES DARWIN {1809-1882}

He is an English man born on 1809 and died on 1882. He was a naturalist/geology. (Naturalist;
studying things exactly what nature produce without man altering it). That man evolves from a
simple organic. He wrote a book titled “the origin of species (1859)”.

Natural Selection’s Principle

1. He established that all species of life have descended overtime from a common ancestor.

2. For him, evolution is a process by which organism changes overtime as a result of changes
in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

3. Changes that allow an organism to better adopt its environment will help it survive and have
more offspring.

Essentially, the theory has major points namely:

1. All life on earth is connected and related to each others.

2. The adversity of life is as a result of modification of population by natural selection.

The theory is also called survival of the fittest (the ability to reproduce and survive).

Natural selection can changes a specie in some small ways i.e. it makes them change in
terms of colors and sizes over several million years, the process is refers to micro-evolution.
Macro-evolution in other way is if the change is dramatic in nature

Knowledge about genetics which Darwin is not familiar with in his time was added to his theory
and now became modern evolutionary synthesis. The number of certain characteristics that an
organism exhibit is as a result of genetics; the process through which genetics changes the size,
colour, behaviour of a person is referred to as “MUTATION”. Basically, the raw material which
evolution takes place is mutation. Genes and DNA are the two dominant of natural selection
according to the modern evolutionary synthesis.
 In most occasions, mutations are either harmful or neutral and in rear cases, it can be
beneficiary to the organisms. In this way natural selection guides the……..?

Gene Flow: one gene that can be transferred from a given place to another, and when it happens,
it produces specie.

Mendel’s Principles of Genetics Selection

For thousands of years farmers and herders have been selectively breeding their plants and
animals to produce more useful hybrids. It was somewhat of a hit or miss process since the actual
mechanisms governing inheritance were unknown. Knowledge of these genetic mechanisms
finally came as a result of careful laboratory breeding experiments carried out over the last
century and a half.

By the 1890’s, the invention of better microscopes allowed biologists to discover the basic facts
of cell division and sexual reproduction. The focus of genetics research then shifted to
understanding what really happens in the transmission of hereditary traits from parents to
children. A number of hypotheses were suggested to explain heredity, but Gregor Mendel, a little
known Central European monk, was the only one who got it more or less right. His ideas had
been published in 1866 but largely went unrecognized until 1900, which was long after his death.
His early adult life was spent in relative obscurity doing basic genetics research and teaching
high school mathematics, physics, and Greek in Brno (now in the Czech Republic). In his later
years, he became the abbot of his monastery and put aside his scientific work.

While Mendel’s research was with plants, the basic underlying principles of heredity that he
discovered also apply to people and other animals because the mechanisms of heredity are
essentially the same for all complex life forms. Through the selective cross-breeding of common
pea plants (Pisum sativum) over many generations, Mendel discovered that certain traits show up
in offspring without any blending of parent characteristics. For instance, the pea flowers are
either purple or white—intermediate colors do not appear in the offspring of cross-pollinated pea
plants. Mendel observed seven traits that are easily recognized and apparently only occur in one
of two forms:

1. flower color is purple or white

2. flower position is axil or terminal

3. stem length is long or short green

4. Seed shape is round or wrinkled

5. seed color is yellow or green

6. pod shape is inflated or constricted

7. pod color is yellow

This observation that these traits do not show up in offspring plants with intermediate forms was
critically important because the leading theory in biology at the time was that inherited traits
blend from generation to generation. Most of the leading scientists in the 19 th century accepted
this “blending theory.” Charles Darwin proposed another equally wrong theory known as
“pangenesis”. This held that hereditary “particles” in our bodies are affected by the things we do
during our lifetime. These modified particles were thought to migrate via blood to the
reproductive cells and subsequently could be inherited by the next generation. This was
essentially a variation of Lamarck’s incorrect idea of the “inheritance of acquired
characteristics.”

This 3:1 ratio occurs in later generations as well. Mendel realized that this underlying regularity
was the key to understanding the basic mechanisms of inheritance.

He came to three Important conclusions from these experimental results:

1. That the inheritance of each trait is determined by “units” or “factors” that are passed on to
descendants unchanged (these units are now called genes )

2. That an individual inherits one such unit from each parent for each trait

3. That a trait may not show up in an individual but can still be passed on to the next
generation.

Note that each of the f1 generation plants (shown above) inherited a Y allele from one parent and
a G allele from the other. When the f1 plants breed, each has an equal chance of passing on either
Y or G alleles to each offspring.

With all of the seven pea plant traits that Mendel examined, one form appeared dominant over
the other, which is to say it masked the presence of the other allele. For example, when the
genotype for pea seed color is YG (heterozygous), the phenotype is yellow. However, the
dominant yellow allele does not alter the recessive green one in any way. Both alleles can be
passed on to the next generation unchanged.

Mendel’s observations from these experiments can be summarized in two principles:

1. The principle of segregation

2. The principle of independent assortment

According to the principle of segregation, for any particular trait, the pair of alleles of each
parent separate and only one allele passes from each parent on to an offspring. Which allele in a
parent’s pair of alleles is inherited is a matter of chance. We now know that this segregation of
alleles occurs during the process of sex cell formation (i.e., meiosis).
According to the principle of independent assortment, different pairs of alleles are passed to
offspring independently of each other. The result is that new combinations of genes present in
neither parent are possible.

STAGES OF MAN EVOLUTION

QUESTION: What are the stages of man evolution?

Any documentation identifying the stages of man evolution has to assume that man evolved
rather than having been created. We believe that evidence has failed to support the evolution
from ape to man or any other type of macroevolution.

The Cambrian explosion and the complete absence of transitional fossils testify against
evolution. The fossil record shows all life forms appearing fully formed and not changing during
their tenure on earth, except for extinctions. This information, and the recent finding that human
DNA is losing its vitality by developing genetic disorders supports devolution, the opposite of
evolution.

The story below represents how evolutionists describe the stages of man evolution. The
timeframe for the stages of man evolution from the ancestor of both man and the modern ape to
modern man is not known, but I will give you an abbreviated chronology of what has been
discovered from fossil remains over the years.

First of all, the word, hominidae, is used to describe the total member species of the human
family that have lived since the last common ancestor of both man and the apes. A hominid is an
individual species within that family, and the field of science that studies the human fossil record
is known as paleoanthropology. It is made up of two disciplines of paleontology, which is the
study of ancient life forms, and anthropology, which is the study of humans. Each hominid name
consists of a genus name (Australopithecus, Homo) which is always capitalized, and a species
name (africanus, erectus) which is always in lower case.

To begin our study of the stages of man evolution, the earliest fossil hominid, Ardipithecus
ramidus, is a recent discovery dating 4.4 million years ago. He was 4 feet tall and bipedal
(having two feet). It is thought this species lived as forest dwellers. Australopithecus anamensis,
a new species, was named in 1995 and was found in Kenya. This species lived between 4.2 and
3.9 million years ago, and its body showed advanced bipedal features, but the skull closely
resembled the ancient apes.

Australopithecus afarensis lived between 3.9 and 3.0 million years ago. He retained the apelike
face with a sloping forehead, a ridge over the eyes, flat nose, and a chinless lower jaw, and
height, 36 and 5 tall. He was fully bipedal, and the thickness of his bones showed he was quite
strong. His build was similar to a human, but the head and face were proportionately much
larger.

The Australopithecus africanus was similar to the afarensis, but lived between three and two
million years ago. He was also bipedal and slightly larger in body size. His brain was not
advanced for speech. The hominid was an herbivore and ate tough, hard to chew, plants. The
shape of the jaw was human-like. The Australopithecus robustus lived between two and 1.5
million years ago. His body was similar to that of the africanus, but had a larger and more
massive skull and teeth. His huge face was flat and had no forehead. He had no indication of
speech capabilities.
The Australopithecus boisei lived between 2.1 and 1.1 million years ago. He was smaller than the
robustus, but with a more massive face. He had huge molars, for which the largest measured 0.9
inches across. Some authorities believe the robustus and boisei are of the same species. Next is
the Homo habilis, or also called The Handy Man because tools were found with his fossil
remains. He existed between 2.4 and 1.5 million years ago. The brain shape shows evidence
some speech had developed. He was 5 tall and weighed about 100 pounds.Homo erectus lived
between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago. Toward the end, his brain was that of the size of
modern man, and definitely could speak.

Erectus developed tools, weapons, fire, and learned to cook his own food. He traveled out of
Africa into China and the Southeast Asia developing clothing for northern climates. He turned to
hunting for his food, and only his head and face differed from modern man.

Homo sapiens (archaic) lived during the period 200,000 to 500,000 years ago. He had speech
capabilities; his skull was rounded with smaller features. The skeleton shows a stronger build
than modern human, but well proportioned. Homo sapiens neandertalensis lived in Europe and
the Mideast between 150,000 and 35,000 years ago. Brain size averaged larger than modern man,
but the head was shaped differently, longer and lower. His nose was large and extremely different
from modern man in structure. He was a massive man, about 56 tall with a heavy skeleton that
showed attachments for massive muscles. He was far stronger than modern man, and his jaw was
massive with a receding forehead like erectus.

Homo sapiens first appeared about 120,000 years ago, which is our own species.