Gender In Ancient African Culture

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Gender is social construct used as a method of distinction among both living and non-living things. In many societies, gender is used metaphorically to categorize and explain all facets of human culture the phenomena of nature. This essay will examine the imagery of the male “creator” and the female “vessel” in both contemporary and ancient African culture as a method of understanding nature, technology, and religion. First the binary of creator and vessel will be examined in ancient Egyptian religious ideology on human creation as well as the Egyptian’s connection to the fertility and rebirth of Nile River’s flooding. Next this essay will look at contemporary African culture and the continued use of the vessel/creator binary in the practice of iron ore smelting technology. The ancient Egyptian ideology of the creator and vessel stems from the gendered metaphor of humankind’s creation. …show more content…

In the documentary “Blooms of Banjeli” Candice Gaucher and Eugenia Herbert traveled to Togo in the 1980s to witness the traditional process of iron-smelting technology and it’s relationship to African conception of gender. The furnace, which is housing the iron, is represented as a woman or a womb that delivers the iron after it has been smelted. The master smelter, always a male, is the creator and provides the furnace, the female vessel, the essentials for life and birth. Before the smelting commences there are many rituals that must be completed such as the use of furnace decoration, fertility medicines, and the exclusion of women who menstruating. It is important to note that men are the only ones engaging in the procreative symbolic practice of inciting the furnace to give iron, or rather birth. Human women are excluded from this practice because they may impede the birthing process of the metaphorically female iron

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