Zhoa An African Visionaries Settlement

By Julius Nang Kum

Although this book examines the culture of the people of ZHOA, it begins by highlighting the origin of the concept culture, its various definitions and its various characteristics. The book further reminds us of Africa being the mother of cultures. Talking about the rural culture of Zhoa, it should be noted that Zhoa is a small village found in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Jan 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9789360496074

Book preview

Zhoa, An African Visionaries Settlement

A Discourse of an Ancient Intelligent Rural African Culture

Dr Julius Nang Kum

Ukiyoto Publishing

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Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2023

Content Copyright © Dr Julius Nang Kum

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To,

Late Pa Kum Fuh

Preface

This book describes the culture of the people of Zhoa. Zhoa village is the seat of Fungom sub division that comprises about 20 or more villages. Since Zhoa is at the heart of Fungom subdivision, it is necessary to have the culture of its people written down. This is so because as soon as the culture of Zhoa is well described, other cultures in the subdivision and even beyond would be handled with relative ease because charity begins at home.

The culture of a people is where the heart lies. No development, no appreciation, no acknowledgement, and no change, can be introduced or received from a people unless we know what that community needs, what it likes, what it wants, what it hates, what it does, what are found there, what is their belief, how does the community treat male and females, what about their leader, its and social classes. All these things that are common in a society make up its culture. As we will read in this book, culture is one of the most complicated concepts that exist on earth. It is very complicated because of many causes. For example, the geographical location of a people can shape their culture, the colour of the skin can permit a culture to embrace certain values and not the others, mixed marriages, religion, globalization etc., can change a culture from one level to another.

The culture of the Zhoa people in this study has been examined under five cultural components. These five cultural elements are invaluable for the study of a culture because they can exhaust or give a detailed picture of a culture. These five important elements are SYMBOLS, RITUALS, VALUES, HEROES and CULTURAL PARTICIPATIONS. However, before a detailed examination of these elements, this study starts with some basic concepts of culture such as the origin of culture, the definitions, some characteristics, races, and African countries.

We hope such an approach to the study of a culture will attract many intellectuals into this important aspect of mankind. It is an important aspect of humanity because a sound knowledge of a peoples’ culture can avoid conflicts, hatred or war on earth.

Contents

Some Basic Concepts Of Culture

Africa And The Spread Of Culture

Zhoa A Rural Culture In Africa

About the Author

Some Basic Concepts of Culture

Africa in general and Cameroon attach a lot of importance to culture. Many Cameroonians can fail other meetings or organizations, but when it comes to their cultural organizations or family meetings, the story is always different. In fact, many Cameroonians will be excited to attain their cultural meetings in which they will speak their mother tongue, they will wear their traditional clothes or caps, they will eat their traditional dishes, they will dance their traditional dances, they will sit on their traditional chairs, they will greet in their traditional styles, they will sit in their traditional ways, they will appreciate in their traditional ways, they will embrace in their traditional ways, they will eat and drink from their traditional dishes and traditional cups, they will bully and insult in their traditional styles. Despite this strong attachment to their culture, many of us do not know the meaning of culture and the origin of the word culture and even some common aspects of culture that make us unique from others. This chapter therefore focuses on some basic concepts of culture such as the origin of the word culture, the various definitions of culture, and some characteristics of culture.

1.1The Origin of the word culture

Many scholars and people in general use the word cultures without a background knowledge of how the word came about. In a way to solve this problem, Vesajoki (2002:9) narrates:

The word culture comes from the Latin, cultura or cultus. Cultus means to cultivate. The original meaning of cultus was closely linked to the cultivation of soil, agri cultura. The understanding of the word culture has changed from its root meaning as an activity to a condition, a state of being cultivated.  Though the meaning of culture was originally tied to activity, the question of the activity of what and to what end is inevitable. The Roman linked culture to humanitas; man vs. animal, urbanitas; city vs. rural and civilitas as in civil and good manners opposed to barbaric ways.

From the citation above, we learn that the word culture means to cultivate just as the soil can be cultivated to plant any crop of our choice. This might solve the problem of the meaning of ‘culture’ in the word ‘agriculture’ which deals with the raising of plants and animals. In fact, this is the original Latin meaning for culture which means to cultivate things. But the Romans looked at culture in terms of Man versus animals, urban versus rural and good manners versus cruel or barbaric manner. In this study, we examine culture in the domain of Urban versus rural, and the study focuses entirely on the rural culture, of which the Zhoa village, the headquarter of Fungom sub division in the Menchum division of the north west region in Cameroon is the typical case study.

1.2 Difficulties in defining Culture.

Section 1.1 of this study has only help to highlight the origin of the word culture but not the definition of culture. At the outset, we must know that the word culture has baffled many scholars for many years. A summary of these difficulties is illustrated in (Holden 2006:11)

No one would suggest that defining culture is easy. Raymond Williams in Keywords says that culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English Language, and government certainly struggles. The Department for culture, media and sports (Dcms’s) website admits There is no official government definition of culture. Efforts have begun at various levels from UNESCO, to the European Union, to DCMS itself – to tackle this issue of language and definition, and progress is being made, but as the Dcms’s. Evidence Toolkit insists, when it comes to culture, There are no shared definitions, systems and methodologies. Yet in practice definitions are used by policy –makers at national, regional and local levels.  The definitions flow from administrative convenience, and do not match people’s everyday understanding and experience of culture. Who on the high street would think that sport or tourism came under the heading culture, or that antique dealing was a creative industry? This illustrates the gap that exists between the public and politics when it comes to culture.

From the citation above, it can be imagined how the concept of culture has been a problem to many people or organizations. However, section 1.3 below dedicates itself to highlight some key definitions of culture given by many scholars and experts in the domain of culture.

1.3 Definitions of culture

So far, we have highlighted the origin of culture and the difficulties that many scholars and organizations have had in defining culture. The discussion below focuses on some definitions of culture summarized by Spencer – Oatey, H (2012:2)

In addition to the definitions above, we also learn that some scholars of the 19th century believed culture should be defined in terms of civilization. In this sense, there were supposed to be primitive cultures, outdated cultures, and modern cultures. Though many scholars have highlighted this way of looking at culture, Jandt, (2004 :5). narrates:

In the 19th century, the term culture was commonly used as a synonym for Western civilization. The British anthropologist Sir Edward B. Tylor (1871) popularized the idea that all societies pass through developmental stages, beginning with savagery, progressing to barbarism, and culminating in Western civilization. It is easy to see that such a definition assumes that Western cultures were considered superior. Both Western cultures, beginning with ancient Greece, and Eastern cultures, most notably imperial China, believed that their own way of life was superior. The study of multiple cultures without imposing the belief that Western culture was the goal was slow to develop.

From the citation above, we learn that The British Anthropologist Sir Edward B. Tylor (1871) introduced the idea that some cultures were too inferior to others. Sir Edward suggested three stages that culture exists: savagery, barbarism and western civilisations. This might sound very convincing but the origin of certain words might help us to situate ourselves with the above claim.

The Origin of the Word barbarian

One good characteristic of a language is that a language can borrow a word or words from other languages. This ability of a language to borrow from other languages falls under the topic of words formation processes. The word barbarism came from a Greek scholar and infiltrated into other languages. More on this idea can be read in Jandt, (2004 :6).

This can be seen in the evolution of the connotative meaning of the word barbarian from its initial use in the Greek of Herodotus to its meaning in contemporary English (Cole, 1996). To better understand the origins of hostilities between the Greeks and the Persians, Herodotus visited neighbouring non-Greek societies to learn their belief systems, arts, and everyday practices. He called these non-Greek societies barbarian, a word in Greek in his time that meant people whose language, religion, ways of life, and customs differed from those of the Greeks. Initially, barbarian meant different from what was Greek.

Later, the Greeks began to use the word to mean outlandish, rude, or brutal. When the word was incorporated into Latin, it came to mean uncivilized or uncultured. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the contemporary definition as a rude, wild, uncivilized person, but acknowledges the original meaning was one whose language and customs differ from the speaker’s.

From the quotation above, we observe that barbarian originally meant different from what was Greek. But with time it acquired the meaning of brutal, and rude. Herodotus aim was to study the languages, the beliefs which might now be given the one name culture of people different from Greek. The fact that these people who were different from the Greeks protected their own cultures with vigor does not mean that they were brutal. If the Americans are protecting their interests and fight bravery now on a battle field, we might not look upon them as brutal or barbaric. Therefore, cultures and civilizations are not the same because each culture is unique in one way or the other. In fact, the American civilization is made up of different cultures- Jews, Indians, Africans, Latin Americans and these different cultures can be further reduced to countries and even tribes. Therefore, culture and civilization should be studied with care.

In fact, we do not know from which discipline you intend to approach the definition of culture. However, we think that a keen reading of the various definitions of culture above, might inspire you in one way or the other. From the definitions above, we can observe how many scholars have defined culture. If we were to summarize the definitions above, one would have been tempted to embrace Hofstede point of view and then include the other scholars. In so doing, we might end up by saying that culture is the collective programming of the mind (attitudes, values, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, artefacts, language, policies, food, etc.) shared by a group of people which distinguish the members from another. For example, the culture of the Zhoa people is unique to them and distinguish the Zhoa people from other cultures in the area. However, with the notion of the world becoming a global village, some cultures are being extinguished as they adopt new cultures. In realities, the world is more interesting when varieties are tolerated. Thus, it is of great importance for us to protect many cultures to appreciate the beauty of the planet.

1.4 Some Characteristics of Culture

As already highlighted above, culture is a difficult concept, although the most used and practiced on the planet. We can only appreciate those who have done a lot of investigation into this domain by revealing their findings to areas that are ignorant about them. The twelve key characteristics of culture below are drawn from Spencer-Oatey, H. (2012:3-16):

1. Culture is manifested at different layers of depth

In analysing the culture of a group or organization it is desirable to distinguish three fundamental levels at which culture manifests itself :(a) observable artefacts, (b) values, and (c) basic underlying assumptions.

When one enters an organization, one observes and feels