A Women

A Women

  • Submitted By: smilton
  • Date Submitted: 10/25/2008 4:34 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 524
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 565

Two Types of Culture






A Woman’s Job is Never Done


After reading Jomo Kenyatta’s Facing Mt. Kenya’s and Achebe Things Fall Apart, I find that both cultures are similar in many of their beliefs. Both cultures are agricultural societies. Kikuyu is Bantu and he comes to Kenya during the Bantu migration. The Bantu include families from all the surrounding areas and can be identified with the Kamba, the Meru, the Embu and the Chuka. Gikuyu is the founder of the Kikuyu tribe. Mumbi and his wife Gikuyu have nine daughters. There is actually a tenth daughter but the Kikuyu considered it to be bad luck to say the number ten. It is from the nine daughters that the nine Kikuyu clans which are the Achera, Agachiku, Airimu, Ambui, Angare, Anjiru, Angui, Aithaga, and Aitherandu are formed. Both men believe in family structure and that family should live and dwell together. Okonkwo also has nine villages, and he is known throughout the villages. Like Kikuyu, Okonkwo also has great fortune and rest upon his personal achievements, both men are great farmers

In both cultures, harvesting time is the busiest season for the women in each culture. The women do the most of the work supplying food for their families. As Kenyatta describes the men and the women in Facing from Mt. Kenya do all the harvesting together, but he women does the actual harvesting and takes the harvest their homes. When the harvest, is done the women store enough harvest to last them until the next season. If there is ample enough of seeds left over, the women consult with their husbands to sell the seed at the marketplace for things that the family may need later. Kenyatta also says that a wife who efficiently holds down the economic affairs as well as other duties of her household, that she is highly respected by her group and by the entire community. (Kenyatta 61-62)
In Acheb’s, Things Fall Apart, he tells how the harvest yam festival is very important to Umuofia....

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