Honor Them

Last night I was trying to go to sleep. I was going through stations, after half-heartedly watching Crossing Jordan. Much to my surprise, I stumbled upon something wonderful on the Discovery Travel Channel. Tribal Odyssey: The Himba. It was about a 15 year old girl in southwest Africa who has an arranged marriage. If you go to the Travel Channel link, you will see that they describe this tribe as a people who allow witchcraft and superstition to govern community affairs. Bullshyt!! I hate when the Western World looks at someone else’s traditions and poo-poos them as witchcraft. It’s like they want to get a glimpse into cultures not like our own but only so they could passive-aggressively mock them.

Everything these people did was steeped in tradition and done for a reason. Boys went from being a child to starting to develop as a man at 8 years old when they were circumcized. Kids helped slaughter the animals so that they could learn to survive and contribute to their tribe. I don’t see anything wrong with that. They had very clear definitions and rights of passage to mark each stange. No ambiguity like we have here. Some would say our birthdays, graduations, and weddings are rights of passage but I disagree because those daon’t have the same value for everyone. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the entire show. I drifted to sleep. But I appreciated that these people took so much pride in their traditons and that they survived making due with so much less than what we have. When I look at people who are essentially living off of the land and things they learn from the land it makes me wonder if all of our fancy things were stripped away, could we survive? Would we be happy? Or would we dwell on our lost shoes, electronics, and fine cars? Then I think about Katrina and have my answer.

Another thing that sorta made my head spin was the whole arranged marriage thing. I am NOT opposed to arranged marriages. I figure it can’t be any worse than what happens when we make our own choices. Look at the divorce rates! In this tribe, the women pretty much chose the spouses for their sons. With this particular girl, her mother-in-law chose her before she was even born. Fifteen years ago when the girl’s mother was pregnant, the mother-in-law and her mother agreed that she would marry the son. And so it was. The boy’s father negotiated the terms. And when the boy was asked about his arranged marriage he said something like, “This is what my parents want for me. I would never disobey my parents. I can fall in love later.” When the girl was asked, she said she’d had a boyfriend in her home villiage but there was nothing she could do because she had to get married. All she hoped was that her new husband took care of her. The men were able to marry multiple women. So I guess that’s what the boy meant when he said love was for later. But the first wife will always have a special place above and beyond any others.

Their culture places such a high honor on parents that kids don’t even think about disobeying. Well my goodness!!! Isn’t it almost the complete opposite in the Western world?? I’m all for parents looking out for their kids. But it has to be a cultural norm. Otherwise, parents who weren’t mentally qualified to be parents will end up making piss-poor decisions about their child’s future mate. While I’m understanding of arranged marriages, unless I was born and raised in a culture who did that, I don’t believe I’d fair to well in an arranged marriage. Mainly because for all the chatting I do with my parents, hey don’t really know me. Maybe if I’d never left home they would. But if they don’t know me, how can they choose someone for me? Or would they just be choosing a good man–personalities aside? Plus, when your world view is a bit smaller, it’s easier to make life defininf choices for your kids. Then again, there are sub-cultures that on the surface seem infused into the Western World but manage to cling to their traditions.

I think studying other cultures would benefit us greatly. We can’t just focus our interests on those who’ve published their traditions in fancy leather covered books. But it seems like that’s what we do. We admire those who can package their ideas in the shineist wrapper. Ignoring that every culture is worthy of study and has ideas and ways of doing things that we could learn from.