CHAPITRE DEUX : LA REVUE DE LA LITTERATURE

2.1 Le cadre conceptuel

THE CONCEPT AND MEANING OF CULTURE

Edward B. Taylor is reputed as the scholar who first defined culture in his work Primitive

Culture (1871) and reprinted in 1958. Taylor saw culture as that complex whole which includes

knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs or any other capabilities and habits acquired by man

as a member of society. This definition captures the exhaustive nature of culture. One would

have expected that this definition would be a univocal one − but this is not so. In fact, there are

as many definitions of culture as there are scholars who are interested in the phenomenon.

Culture embraces a wide range of human phenomena, material achievements and norms, beliefs,

feelings, manners, morals and so on. It is the patterned way of life shared by a particular group of

people that claim to share a single origin or descent. In an attempt to capture the exhaustive

nature of culture, Bello (1991: 189) sees it as “the totality of the way of life evolved by a people

in their attempts to meet the challenge of living in their environment, which gives order and

meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms thus distinguishing a

people from their neighbours”. Culture serves to distinguish a people from others, and Aziza

(2001: 31) asserts tha Culture...refers to the totality of the pattern of behaviour of a particular

group of people. It includes everything that makes them distinct from any other group of people

for instance, their greeting habits, dressing, social norms and taboos, food, songs and dance

patterns, rites of passages from birth, through marriage to death, traditional occupations,

religious as well as philosophical beliefs.

Culture is passed on from generation to generation. The acquisition of culture is a result of the

socialization process. Explaining how culture is passed on as a generational heritage, Fafunwa

(1974: 48) writes that:

The child just grows into and within the cultural heritage of his people. He imbibes it.

Culture, in traditional society, is not taught; it is caught. The child observes, imbibes and

mimics the action of his elders and siblings. He watches the naming ceremonies, religious

services, marriage rituals, funeral obsequies. He witnesses the coronation of a king or chief,

the annual yam festival, the annual dance and acrobatic displays of guilds and age groups or

his relations in the activities. The child in a traditional society cannot escape his cultural and

physical environments.

This shows that every human being who grows up in a particular society is likely to become

infused with the culture of that society, whether knowingly or unknowingly during the process of

social interaction. We do not need to have all the definitions of culture and its defining

characteristics for us to understand the concept and meaning of culture. Even though there are as

many definitions of culture as there are writers, there is an element of similarity that runs through

them all. This singular underlying characteristic is the attempt to portray and capture culture as

the entire or total way of life of a particular group of people. Etuk (2002: 13) is of the opinion

that “an entire way of life would embody, among other things, what the people think of

themselves and the universe in which they live − their world view − in other words, how they

organize their lives in order to ensure their survival”. It can be safely stated that there can be no

culture without a society. It can also be said that culture is uniquely human and shared with other

people in a society. Culture is selective in what it absorbs or accepts from other people who do

not belong to a particular cultural group.

 Culture is to be understood as the way of life of a people. This presupposes the fact that there

can be no people without a culture. To claim that there is no society without a culture would, by

implication, mean that such a society has continued to survive without any form of social

organization or institutions, norms, beliefs and taboos, and so on; and this kind of assertion is

quite untrue. That is why even some Western scholars who may be tempted to use their cultural

categories in judging other distinctively different people as “primitive”, often deny that such

people have history, religion and even philosophy; but cannot say that they have no culture.

In this paper, we shall be dealing with African culture and drawing examples from Nigerian

culture. It is true that based on the consideration of culture as that which marks a people out from

others, groups one can rightly say that there are many cultures in Africa. Africa is inhabited by

various ethnic nationalities with their different languages, modes of dressing, eating, dancing and

even greeting habits. But in spite of their various cultures, Africans do share some dominant

traits in their belief systems and have similar values that mark them out from other peoples of the

world. A Nigerian culture, for instance, would be closer to, say, a Ghanaian culture on certain

cultural parameters than it would be to the Oriental culture of the Eastern world, or the Western

culture of Europe. It is true that culture is universal and that each local or regional manifestation

of it is unique. This element of uniqueness in every culture is often described as cultural

variation. The cultures of traditional African societies, together with their value systems and

beliefs are close, even though they vary slightly from one another. These slight variations only

exist when we compare an African culture with others. Certainly, African cultures differ vastly

from the cultures of other regions or continents. And we believe there is no need to over-labor

this point since there are sufficient similarities to justify our usage of the term “African culture”.

Here we would be sure to find a world of differences and diversity in beliefs, values and culture
generally. Using Nigerian culture for instance, Antia (2005: 17) writes that “Nigerians always

behave differently from the French, or Chinese, or Americans or Hottentots, because Nigerian

beliefs, values and total thinking are different from those of the French, Chinese, Americans or

the Hottentots”.

Culture has been classified into its material and non-material aspects. While material culture

refers to the visible tactile objects which man is able to manufacture for the purposes of human

survival; non-material culture comprises of the norms and mores of the people. While material

culture is concrete and takes the form of artefacts and crafts, non-material culture is abstract but

has a very pervasive influence on the lives of the people of a particular culture. Hence beliefs

about what is good and what is bad, together with norms and taboos, are all good examples of

non-material culture. From the foregoing, it is obvious that culture is shared since it consists of

cherished values or beliefs that are shared by a group, lineage, and religious sect and so on. Apart

from this, culture is dynamic in the sense that it is continually changing. Culture is not static. We

are not alone in this observation as Antia (2005: 17) states that “culture is not fixed and

permanent. It is always changed and modified by man through contacts with and absorption of

other peoples’ cultures, a process known as assimilation”. Etuk (2002: 25) has also observed that

“cultures are not static, they change. Indeed, culture needs to change; which wants to remain

static and resistant to change would not be a living culture”. We can see that since culture is

carried by people and people do change their social patterns and institutions, beliefs and values

and even skills and tools of work, then culture cannot but be an adaptive system. Once an aspect

of culture adjusts or shifts in response to changes from within or outside the environment, then

other aspects of the culture are affected, whether directly or indirectly. It is necessary to know

that each element of a culture (such as material procedures, food processing or greeting patterns)
is related to the whole system. It is in this respect that we can see that even a people’s technology

is part of their culture.

Idiong (1994: 46) opines that “there are some misconceptions that are widely held about

‘culture’ as a word. Such misconceptions can and often lead some persons to have a negative

perception of ‘culture’ and all that it stands for. Such persons raise their eyebrows and suddenly

frown at the word ‘culture’ as they in their minds’ eyes visualize masquerades, idol worshipping,

traditional jamborees and other activities they consider bizarre that go with culture”. This

“misconception”, we believe, does not appear to be widespread but the posture may have arisen

from a partial understanding of the meaning of culture because as we shall see, culture generally,

and African culture in particular, is like a two-sided coin. It has soul-lifting, glamorous and

positive dimensions even though it is not completely immune from some negative outcomes.

African culture, as Ezedike (2009: 455) writes:

…refers to the sum total of shared attitudinal inclinations and capabilities, art, beliefs, moral

codes and practices that characterize Africans. It can be conceived as a continuous,

cumulative reservoir containing both material and non-material elements that are socially

transmitted from one generation to another. African culture, therefore, refers to the whole lot

of African heritage.

We could see that African culture embraces the totality of the African way of life in all its forms

and ramifications.

THE PLACE OF VALUES IN AFRICAN CULTURE

The value of a thing, be it an object or a belief, is normally defined as its worth. Just as an object

is seen to be of a high value that is treasured, our beliefs about what is right or wrong that are
worth being held are equally treasured. A value can be seen as some point of view or conviction

which we can live with, live by and can even die for. This is why it seems that values actually

permeate every aspect of human life. For instance, we can rightly speak of religious, political,

social, aesthetic, moral, cultural and even personal values. We have observed elsewhere that

there are many types and classifications of values. As people differ in their conception of reality,

then the values of one individual may be different from those of another. Life seems to force

people to make choices, or to rate things as better or worse as well as formulate some scale or

standard of values. Depending on the way we perceive things we can praise and blame, declare

actions right or wrong or even declare the scene or objects before us as either beautiful or ugly.

Each person, as we could see, has some sense of values and there is no society without some

value system (Idang 2007: 4).

Whether we are aware of it or not, the society we live in has ways of daily forcing its values on

us about what is good, right and acceptable. We go on in our daily lives trying to conform to

acceptable ways of behaviour and conduct. Persons who do not conform to their immediate

society’s values are somehow called to order by the members of that society. If a man, for

instance, did not think it wise to make honesty a personal value, and it is widely held by his

immediate society that truth telling is a non-negotiable virtue, it would not be long before such

an individual gets into trouble with other members of his society. This shows that values occupy

a central place in a people’s culture. It forms the major bulwark that sustains a people’s culture,

making it more down-to-earth and real. Elsewhere, we have seen African culture as “all the

material and spiritual values of the African people in the course of history and characterising the

historical stage attained by Africa in her developments” (Idang 2009: 142). This simply means

that there is a peculiar way of life, approach to issues, values and world views that are typically
African. Based on cultural considerations, some forms of behaviour, actions and conduct are

approved while others are widely disapproved of. To show the extent of disapproval that

followed the violation of values that should otherwise be held sacred, the penalty was sometimes

very shameful, sometimes extreme. African culture, with particular reference to the Ibibio people

in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, for instance, has zero tolerance for theft. The thief once caught in

the act or convicted, would be stripped naked, his or her body rubbed with charcoal from head to

toe and the object he or she stole would be given to him or her to carry around the village in

broad day light. The sense of personal shame and the disgrace the thief has brought on himself or

herself, family, relations and friends would be enough to discourage even the most daring thief.

Antia (2005: 17) writes that “what a people hold to be true, right or proper with regard to those

things explains much of the cultural traits by which they become identified”. What Antia calls

“traits” here can as well be called values; and Etuk (2002: 22) writes that “no group of people

can survive without a set of values which holds them together and guarantees their continued

existence”.

The concern with values, whether moral or aesthetic, occupies a very wide area in the discipline

of philosophy. To show the fundamental importance of values, it is regarded as a core area in

philosophy, together with knowledge and reality. When we are dealing with actions that a people

see as good or bad, right or wrong, praise-worthy or blame-worthy, we are dealing with the

aspect of value theory that rightly falls under ethics or moral philosophy. But when we are

dealing with an appraisal of beauty in the arts and crafts of a people, we are dealing with the

aspect of value theory called aesthetics. It does appear that while material culture can be studied

and evaluated under the aesthetic aspect of value theory, non-material culture can equally be

studied and evaluated under the ethical aspect of value theory. Just as ethics and aesthetics are
twin sisters that form or constitute value theory, the non-material and material dimensions of a

culture together constitute two related aspects that give a people their unique identity, hence the

relationship that exists between ethics and aesthetics. Having seen the centrality of values to

African culture and any culture for that matter, it can be stated that the values of culture are what

give it uniqueness and identity. Let us now look at African culture and values.

AFRICAN CULTURE AND VALUES

Having looked at the concept and meaning of culture and having established the place of values

in a culture, we want to bring this down to the African context. A culture is an embodiment of

different values with all of them closely related to each other. That is why one can meaningfully

talk about social, moral, religious, political, aesthetic and even economic values of a culture. Let

us now look at these values piece-meal, as this would give us an understanding how they

manifest in an African culture and the importance being attached to them SOCIAL VALUES

Social values can simply be seen as those beliefs and practices that are practised by any

particular society. The society has a way of dictating the beliefs and practices that are performed

either routinely by its members or performed whenever the occasion demands. Hence, we have

festivals, games, sports and dances that are peculiar to different societies. These activities are

carried out by the society because they are seen to be necessary. Some social values, especially in

African society, cannot exactly be separated from religious, moral, political values and so on.

This is why we can see that in a traditional African society like in Ibibio land (Nigeria), festivals

which were celebrated often had religious undertones − they ended with sacrifices that were

offered to certain deities on special days in order to attract their goodwill on the members of the
society. Social values are backed by customary laws. They comprise of those traditional carnivals

that a people see as necessary for their meaningful survival. Let us illustrate with an example: the

new yam festival as practised in Ibibio land has a way of encouraging hard work and checking

famine. It was a thing of shame for any man to buy yams for his family within the first two to

three weeks after the festival. Doing so would expose a man as being too lazy. These festivals

really discipline the society because nobody is to do anything when it is not time. For instance,

new yam could not be eaten until the new yam festival has been celebrated.

MORAL VALUES

African culture is embedded in strong moral considerations. It has a system of various beliefs

and customs which every individual ought to keep in order to live long and to avoid bringing

curses on them and others. Adultery, stealing and other forms of immoral behaviour are strongly

discouraged and whenever a suspected offender denies a charge brought against him, he would

be taken to a soothsayer or made to take an oath for proof of innocence. In Ibibio land for

instance, ukang (ordeal) is very popular as a method of crime detection. The soothsayer who

specialises in it sets a pot of boiling oil, drops a stone into it and asks the suspects to attempt to

retrieve the stone. The guiltless can reach to the bottom of the pot and retrieve the

stone without the hair on his arms getting burnt. But when the culprit approaches the pot, it rages

and boils over in a manner that even the most daring criminal would hesitate to make an attempt

at retrieving the stone. The fear of being made to go through such ordeal or to be stripped naked

and taken round the community as in the case of stealing, adequately checks crimes of some sort.
African proverbs and wise sayings have a rich repository of wisdom. The proverbs warn the

African against evil conduct and, according to Mbiti (1977: 8), are “therefore a major source of

African wisdom and a valuable part of African heritage”. African culture has a moral code that

forbids doing harm to a relative, a kinsman, an in-law, a foreigner and a stranger, except when

such a person is involved in an immoral act; and if that is the case, it is advisable to stay away

from such an individual and even at death, their corpses would not be dignified with a noble

burial in a coffin and grave. Mothers of twins were not welcome and were regarded as the

harbinger of evil, hence unacceptable

RELIGIOUS VALUES

Religion in African societies seems to be the fulcrum around which every activity revolves.

Hence religious values are not toyed with. African traditional religion, wherever it is practised,

has some defining characteristics. For instance, it possesses the concept of a Supreme Being

which is invisible and indigenous. It holds a belief in the existence of the human soul and the

soul does not die with the body. African traditional religion also has the belief that good and bad

spirits do exist and that these spirits are what make communication with the Supreme Being

possible. Above all, it holds a moral sense of justice and truth and the knowledge of the existence

of good and evil (Umoh 2005: 68). African religious values seem to permeate every facet of the

life of the African and the African believes that anything can be imbued with spiritual

significance. The worship of different deities on different days goes on to show that the African

people hold their religious values in high esteem. Sorcerers and diviners are seen to be mediating

between God and man and interpreting God’s wishes to the mortal. The diviners, sorcerers and

soothsayers help to streamline human behaviour in the society and people are afraid to commit

offences because of the fear of being exposed by the diviners and sorcerers.