Active dead or alive: Some Kenyan views about the agency of Luo and Luyia women pre- and post-mortem
Paying attention to burial disputes can help us to understand better matters relating to gender, kinship, community, agency, and power. Since Luo and Luyia believe that life after death is a significant part of a person's life, paying attention to 'the hold death has' upon people is i...
| Published in: | Journal of religion in Africa |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2000
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| In: |
Journal of religion in Africa
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| Further subjects: | B
Luhya
B Manners and customs B Einflussgröße B Luo B People B Religion B Ethnology B Custom B Kenya B Teaching B Religious practice B Cult of the dead B Tree trunk Ethnology |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
Non-electronic |
| Summary: | Paying attention to burial disputes can help us to understand better matters relating to gender, kinship, community, agency, and power. Since Luo and Luyia believe that life after death is a significant part of a person's life, paying attention to 'the hold death has' upon people is important, as are the writing of 'land-and-death histories'. The paper presents three cases, one involving a Luyia woman and two involving Luo women in which the women involved have, in the views of community members, shown the ability to manipulate kinship structures and structures pre- and post-mortem. The paper seeks to challenge views that have depicted women in western Kenya as passive pawns of a particularly patriarchal form of patriliny. The paper dicusses the effect religion has on views about death and burial, and examines the influence of indigenous religion, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Legio Maria on these cases. (J Relig Afr/DÜI) |
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| ISSN: | 0022-4200 |
| Contains: | In: Journal of religion in Africa
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