Culture
Canoes are a very important part of the Gogodala culture. "The Gogodala use of dugout canoes for everyday activities such as fishing, collecting firewood, carrying house posts, transporting sago and garden produce, people also characterize themselves as metaphorically 'being inside', or standing inside, their clan canoe." (Wilde 2004) Because they are located along a river, canoes are an important means of both transport and hunting. The fact that the tribe is located along a source of water means that they are able to get along easily as well as fish for a source of food. The network of rivers and water channels provide an excellent way of getting around and in fact the origins of the Gogodala are that their ancestors traveled to the area in large canoes. The Gogodala are able to trace their lineage back to these original clans and even more specifically, they trace their lineage back to the canoes that they used to travel there. (Wilde 2004)
Since the Gogodala use a clan based system to trace their descent, their origins are traced back to eight clans that originated from Ibali, the father of the Gogodala. It is said that he gave a powerful canoe to each of his eight sons, which later on went towards the formation of eight clans. "Within each of the eight clans, people are further divided into several sub-clans, or canoes, which trace their lineage back to the primary ancestor and clan canoe. The premise of this clan and canoe system is a marriage practice that continues to be organized along the lines of a prescribed clan exchange system, referred to elsewhere as 'sister-exchange'." (Wilde 2004)
For males in the Gogodala tribe, their lives are determined by their power or strength, which they call kamali. "An entity that resides in blood, kamali is the substance responsible for bodily efficacy and health." (Wilde 2004) From this notion the Gogodala derived that a persons kamali is seen through their work. Thus villagers are characterized by how they work in activities such as house-building, sago making, hunting and gardening.
Read more about this topic: Gogodala People
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
“As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like the culture of flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning. They give themselves a last wash and brush-up, their ocellated eyes roll, and they fall down the curtains.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)