Category Archives: Cultural

Cultural

The Kikuyu Traditional Culture

The Kikuyu are the largest community in Kenya. They are Bantu speakers and are located mainly in the central part of the country. The founder of the tribe, according to the traditions was a man called Gikuyu. God who was known as Ngai took him to the top of Kirinyaga now Mount Kenya and told him to start the tribe. Ngai provided him with a wife Mumbi who together they sired nine daughters. From these daughters, different clans originated. These clans are the Achera, Agachiku, Airimu, Ambui, Angare, Anjiru, Angui, Aithaga, and Aitherandu.

A family unit was called nyumba. Several related families would form the homestead which was called mucii. A mucii was part of a subgroup ‘mbari’ which made up the nine clans. In Kikuyu traditional culture, people, livestock and children were not counted in total as it was thou8ght to be bad lack. The clans were arguably ten but they only counted nine.

The Kikuyu traditional culture allowed them to intermarry with the original inhabitants of the central province. They were farmers and the area was conducive for this activity. They would grow growing bananas, sugarcane, arum lily, yams, beans, millet, maize, black beans and a variety of vegetables. They also raised cattle for milk and hides. The hides were used to make the traditional wear, sandals, bedding and carrying straps. They learned barter trade and they would exchange their farm produce for arrowheads, spears and swords. The women were the ones involved in the trade. They would also make pots that were used in the barter trade.

Cultural

Survival of Subcultures and the Cyclic Cultural Transference

Like the major cultures, subcultures owe their existence to the cyclic cultural transference. It is the engine of every cultural continuum. Without new individuals entering to the subculture either through birth or later in life, the cultural continuum would seize to exist. Without transferring the components of the culture to new generations, the continuation of the culture would be impossible. Thus, one of the key elements for the survival of the subcultures is that the subculture’s traits, habits and beliefs are adopted by the new members of the subculture. Include the natural cultural development to them, and you have a subculture that can enter through the threshold of the emerging future and across the barriers of time generated by mortal existence.

At first, becoming a carrier and a member of a subculture is more like mimicry until the normal individualization has made the person through experience and increasing awareness a part of subculture. Asymmetric sub-modular brain areas and neurological connections have been made in relativity with the traits, values and beliefs of the subculture.

The adaptation of younger individuals to a subculture must never be mixed with the idea that the youth are without a mind of their own. It is the time of finding identity, entering to adulthood, increase of independence and especially, a strong curiosity for different experiences. Whoever mistakes to think youth in different ages to be without a free will has been blinded by the arrogance or sense of superiority gained through the increase of awareness from experimentation, experience, self-awareness and thousands of mistakes and successes of trial and error.

We can see the cyclic cultural transference in something as simple as youth beginning to smoke cigarettes or drinking alcohol as a part of their celebrations. Younger adults see that behavior in older adults and begin to mimic that behavior as a part of becoming an older adult. The younger youth seek their culture of the youth through hip hop, pop, metal music and so on, imitating the outfits, behavior and beliefs of their heroes. The older they get, the more deeply involved they become with the subculture. Their awareness has increased in the area of their choosing. Their experience of the music, habits and outlook increases as the awareness increases. Thus increasing the complexity of the development made into the post-innate neurophysiology.

Those who join into a religion in later life are also the carriers of the culture, enabling the culture to exceed through the threshold of the emerging future. Without cyclic cultural transference, there would be no cultural continuum. With cyclic cultural transference, the subcultures survive.