Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:01:33.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Significance of Earth-Eating: Social and Cultural Aspects of Geophagy Among Luo Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

P. Wenzel Geissler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Earth‐eating is common among primary school children in Luoland, western Kenya. This article describes the social significance and meanings attributed to it. Earth‐eating is practised among children before puberty, irrespective of their sex, and among women of reproductive age, but not usually among adult men or old women. To eat earth signifies belonging to the female sphere within the household, which includes children up to adolescence. Through eating earth, or abandoning it, the children express their emerging gender identity. Discourses about earth‐eating, describing the practice as unhealthy and bad, draw on ‘modern’ notions of hygiene, which are imparted, for example, in school. They form part of the discursive strategies with which men especially maintain a dominant position in the community. Beyond the significance of earth‐eating in relation to age, gender and power, it relates to several larger cultural themes, namely fertility, belonging to a place, and the continuity of the lineage. Earth symbolises female, life‐bringing forces. Termite hills, earth from which is eaten by most of the children and women, can symbolise fertility, and represent the house and the home, and the graves of ancestors. Earth‐eating is a form of ‘communion’ with life‐giving forces and with the people with whom one shares land and origin. Earth‐eating is a social practice produced in complex interactions of body, mind and other people, through which children incorporate and embody social relations and cultural values.

Résumé

Manger de la terre est une pratique courante parmi les élèves de l'enseignement primaire de Luoland, dans l'ouest du Kenya. Cet article décrit la valeur sociale et les significations qu'on lui attribue. Cette pratique a été observée chez les enfants prépubères des deux sexes et chez les femmes nubiles mais pas, habituellement, chez les hommes adultes ni chez les femmes âgées. Le fait de manger de la terre est un signe d'appartenance au cercle féminin du foyer, qui comprend les enfants prépubères. A travers cette pratique, ou son abandon, les enfants expriment leur identité sexuelle naissante. Les discours sur la pratique de manger de la terre, la décrivant comme malsaine et mauvaise, s'inspirent de notions «modernes» de l'hygiène transmises, par exemple, à l'école. Ils font partie des stratégies discursives grâces auxquelles les hommes notamment maintiennent une position dominante dans la communauté. Outre sa signification par rapport à l'âge, au sexe et au pouvoir, cette pratique renvoie à plusieurs grands thèmes culturels qui sont la fécondité, l'appartenance à un lieu et la continuité du lignage. La terre symbolise les forces féminines génératrices de vie. Les termitières, dont la plupart des femmes et des enfants mangent la terre, peuvent symboliser la fécondité et représenter la maison, le foyer et les tombes des ancêtres. Manger de la terre est une forme de «communion» avec les forces vitales et avec les personnes dont on partage la terre et l'origine. C'est une pratique sociale qui s'inscrit dans des interactions complexes du corps, de l'esprit et d'autrui, à travers laquelle les enfants intègrent et incarnent les relations sociales et les valeurs culturelles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , November 2000 , pp. 653 - 682
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abasi, A. K. 1995. ‘Lua‐lia, the “fresh funeral”: founding a house for the deceased among the Kasena of north‐east Ghana’, Africa 65 (3), 448–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abe, T. 1981. ‘The concepts of Chira and Dhoch among the Luo of Kenya: transition, deviation and misfortune’, in Nagashima, N. (ed.), Themes in Socio‐cultural Ideas and Behaviour among the Six Ethnic Groups of Kenya, pp. 125–40. Tokyo: Hitotsubashi University.Google Scholar
Abrahams, P. W. 1997. ‘Geophagy (soil consumption) and iron supplementation in Uganda’, Tropical Medicine and International Health 2 (7), 617–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Abrahams, P. W. and Parsons, J. A. 1996. ‘Geophagy in the tropics: a literature review’, Geographical Journal 162, 63–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anell, B. and Lagercrantz, S. 1958. Geophagical Customs. Studia Ethnogra‐phica Upsaliensa 17. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Ardener, S. (ed.). 1975. Perceiving Women. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Aring;rhem, K. 1990. ‘Milk, meat and blood: diet as a cultural code among the pastoral Maasai’, in Jacobson‐Widding, A. and Beek, W. (eds), The Creative Communion: African folk models of fertility and the regeneration of life, pp. 201–34. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. 1993. Colonising the Body: state medicine and epidemic disease in nineteenth century India. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Beckerleg, S. 1990. ‘Maintaining Order, Creating Chaos: Swahili medicine in Kenya’. Unpublished PhD thesis, London: Department of Anthropology, University College London.Google Scholar
Berg‐ Schlosser, D. 1984. ‘The Luo’, in Berg‐Schlosser, D. (ed.), Tradition and Change in Kenya, pp. 115–29. Paderborn: Schöning.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. W. and Odhiambo, E. S. A. 1989. Siaya: the historical anthropology of an African landscape. Nairobi: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Edwards, CJohnson, A. A.Knight, E. M.Oyemade, U. J.Cole, O. J.Westney, O. E.Jones, S.Laryea, H. and Westney, L. S. 1994. ‘Pica in an urban environment’, Journal of Nutrition 124 supplement, 954s–962s.Google Scholar
Escobar, A. 1984. ‘Discourse and power in development: Michel Foucault and the relevance of his work to the Third World’, Alternatives 10, 377–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans‐ Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The Nuer. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Evans‐ Pritchard, E. E.— 1950. ‘Ghostly vengeance among the Luo of Kenya’, Man 50, 86–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans‐ Pritchard, E. E.— 1956. Nuer Religion. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
French, M. H. 1945. ‘Geophagia in animals’, East African Medical Journal 22, 103–10, 152–61.Google Scholar
Geissler, P. W. 1998a. ‘”Worms are our life”: understandings of worms and the body among the Luo of western Kenya’ I, Anthropology and Medicine 5, 63–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geissler, P. W. — 1998b. ‘”Worms are our life”: understandings of worms and the body among the Luo of western Kenya’ II, Anthropology and Medicine 5, 133–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geissler, P. W.Mwaniki, D.Thiong’o, F., and Friis, H. 1997. ‘Geophagy among primary school children in western Kenya’, Tropical Medicine and International Health 2, 624–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geissler, P. W.Mwaniki, D.Thiong’o, F., and Friis, H. — 1998a. ‘Geophagy as a risk factor for geohelminth infections: a longitudinal study among Kenyan primary school children’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 92, 7–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geissler, P. W.Mwaniki, D.Thiong’o, F., and Friis, H. — 1998b. ‘Geophagy, iron status, and anaemia among primary school children in western Kenya’, Tropical Medicine and International Health 3, 529–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geissler, P. W.Prince, R. J.Beckerleg, S.Levene, M. and Shulman, C. 1999. ‘Soil eating and anaemia among pregnant Giriama women and its perceived health impact’, Social Science and Medicine 48 (8), 1069–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geissler, P. W., Prince, R. J., Mutemi, W.,Lowe, B., Friis, H. and Shulman, C. 1998. ‘Geophagy and anaemia among pregnant women on the Kenyan coast’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 92 (5), 549–53.Google Scholar
Hartmann, H. 1928. ‘Some customs of the Luowo or Nilotic Kavirondo living in south Kavirondo’, Anthropos 23 (1, 2), 263–75.Google Scholar
Horner, R.Lackey, C. and Kolasa, K. 1991. ‘Pica practices of pregnant women’, Journal of the American Dietetic Association 91, 34–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunter, J. M. 1973. ‘Geophagy in Africa and in the United States’, Geographical Review 63, 170–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, J. M. — 1993. ‘Macrotermes geophagy and pregnancy clays in southern Africa’, Journal of Cultural Geography 14, 69–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson‐ Widding, A. 1979. Red‐White‐Black as a Mode of Thought. Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 1. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Jacobson‐ Widding, A. and Beek, W. 1990. The Creative Communion: African folk models of fertility and the regeneration of life. Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 15. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Johns, T. and Duquette, M. 1991. ‘Detoxification and mineral supplementation as functions of geophagy’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 53, 448–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Junod, H. A. 1912. The Life of a South African Tribe I, The Social Life. Neuchâtel: Attinger.Google Scholar
Kenya Institute of Education. 1992. Primary Education Syllabus. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Kenya Institute of Education — 1993a. Home Science: pupil’s book for Standard Six. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Kenya Institute of Education — 1993b. Home Science: pupil’s book for Standard Seven. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Kilbride, P. L. and Kilbride, J. C. 1993. Changing Family Life in East Africa: women and children at risk. Nairobi: Gideon S. Were Press.Google Scholar
Kreulen, D. A. 1985. ‘Lick use of large herbivores: a review of benefits and banes of soil consumption’, Mammal Review 15 (3), 107–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagercrantz, S. 1958. ‘Geophagical customs in Africa and among the negroes of America’, in Anell, B. and Lagercrantz, S. (eds), Geophagical Customs, pp. 24–84. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensa 17. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar
Laufer, B. 1930. Geophagy. Anthropological Series 18 (2). Chicago IL: Field Museum of Natural History.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lienhardt, G. 1961. Divinity and Experience: the religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lovell, N. (ed.) 1998. Locality and Belonging. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mahaney, W. C, Hancock, R. G. V., Aufreiter, S., and Huffman, M. A. 1996.‘Geochemistry and clay mineralogy of termite mound soil and the role of geophagy in chimpanzees of the Mahale mountains, Tanzania’, Primates 37, 121–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbiti, J. S. 1975. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
McComie, L. D. and Dhanarajan, G. 1993. ‘The physical and chemical composition of mounds of Macrotermes carbonarius (Hagen) (Termitidae, Macrotermitinae), in Penang, Malaysia’, Journal of Soil Science 44, 427–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, D. F. Jr. and Sears, D. A. 1994. ‘Pica, iron deficiency and the medical history’, American Journal of Medicine 97, 390–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, H. L. 1986. Space, Text and Gender: an anthropological study of the Marakwet of Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ndisi, J. W. 1974. A Study in the Economic and Social Life of the Luo of Kenya. Uppsala: Nordisk Afrikainstitut.Google Scholar
Ocholla‐ Ayayo, A. B. C. 1976. Traditional Ideology and Ethics among the Southern Luo. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.Google Scholar
Owen, W. E. 1933. ‘Food and kindred matters among the Luo’, Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society 49–50, 235–49.Google Scholar
Parkin, D. 1978. The Cultural Definition of Political Response: lineal destiny among the Luo. London and New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Prince, R. J. 1999. ‘The Legio Maria Church in western Kenya: healing with the Holy Spirit and the rejection of medicines’. Unpublished M.Sc. dissertation. London: Department of Anthropology, University College London.Google Scholar
Prince, R. J.Luoba, A.Adhiambo, P.Ng’Uono, J. and Geissler, P. W. 1999. ‘Soil‐eating is common among rural women in western Kenya’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 93, 515–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, R. 1992. ‘Cultural and medical perspectives on geophagia’, Medical Anthropology 13, 337–51.Google Scholar
Reynolds, P. 1991. Dance, Civet Cat, Dance: child labour in the Zambesi valley. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, A. 1956 (1995). Chisungu: a girl’s initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singhi, S.Singhi, P. and Adwani, G. 1981. ‘Role of psychosocial stress in the cause of pica’, Clinical Pediatrics 20, 783–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stafford, R. L. 1967. An Elementary Luo Grammar with Vocabulary. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stahl, G. 1932. ‘Die Geophagie’, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 63, 346–74.Google Scholar
Tessmann, G. 1934. Die Bafia und die Kultur der Mittelkamerun‐Bantu. Stuttgart: Strecker & Schröder.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. 1997. ‘Anaemia in pregnant women in eastern Caprivi, Namibia’, South African Medical Journal 87, 1544–7.Google ScholarPubMed
Turner, V. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: aspects of Ndembu ritual. Ithaca NY and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Vaughan, M. 1991. Curing their Ills: colonial power and African illness. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Vermeer, D. E. 1966. ‘Geophagy among the Tiv of Nigeria’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 56, 197–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeer, D. E. — 1971. ‘Geophagy among the Ewe of Ghana’, Ethnology 10, 56–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeer, D. E. and Farell, D. A. 1985. ‘Nigerian geophagical clay: a traditional antidiarrhoeal pharmaceutical’, Science 227 (4687), 634–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. R. P., Walker, B. F., Sookaria, F. I. and Cannan, R. J. 1997. ‘Pica’, Journal of the Royal Society of Health 117 (5), 280–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whyte, S. R. 1997. Questioning Misfortune: the pragmatics of uncertainty in eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zwernemann, J. 1990. ‘Ancestors, earth and fertility in the belief of some Voltaic peoples’,. in Jacob son‐Widding, A. and Beek, W. (eds), The Creative Communion: African folk models of fertility and the regeneration of life, pp. 93–110. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.Google Scholar